I went shopping for my vacation, at Ross. I shopped in the upper range of the non-fat section, but everything really cute ended up being misplaced and was really a size 8. Most of the clothes in the upper range of the non-fat section are still fugly.

I bought a very cute rain jacket, a sweater that was probably a mistake, a cute shirt, a shirt that I am too fat for but hope it will look good 10 pounds from now, and another shirt that I didn't even try on so I hope it fits.

I had to restrain myself from buying a $50 jacket, the cutest jacket I have ever seen, denim with fur trim, because it was too small. I considered buying it as motivation to myself, but I don't think it is close enough to fitting me to justify the expense when I am already broke. And I also memorized the name of the company that makes it, which I promptly forgot. Shit.

Also on this day, I am feeling tremendously fat and am already out of points, and am so hungry I want to eat the entire world. (PMS, perchance?) It hasn't been much of an on-program week, and I am not optimistic about the 40 pound mark being achieved on Saturday.

Also, I am beginning to feel guilty about things I want to eat, even if I don't eat them. This is worrisome.
- posted by mo @ 6:09 PM

 
I got my nose pierced! That doesn't have anything to do with weight loss, but I thought I'd share. I'll tell the whole story in my journal when I come back from camping.

Just checking in briefly to say that I lost 1.6 pounds this week, for a grand total of 39.6! Almost at that 40-pound goal. I forget what I promised myself when I got there: highlights, maybe? That will be nice. I've never had highlights. I also want to go horseback riding. I have a childhood horseback riding trauma that I need to overcome. (When I was 10, my mother lied about my weight so I could go on a pony ride and the pony tried to buck me off! It was scary and totally humiliating, and I've been unwilling to get on a horse to this day. I have felt "too fat" for horses since I was 10 years old.)

Anyway! I hope I'll be able to have a good week and get that next .4 pounds off. It will be very exciting to be able to say I've lost 40 pounds. Those are a lot of pounds! I am in a new point range, officially, right now. I am hoping the transition won't be as hard as it was last time. (My weight did a yo-yo thing rather drastically.) Right now I am aiming for the upper end of the point range and not worrying about banking points. I hope that will work for me this week.

Okay! Keep your fingers crossed that I don't die out on the river!


- posted by mo @ 10:52 AM

 
The last three days I have managed a mere two servings of fruits and veggies per day, each day! This sucks. (The day before, I had seven fruits and veggies. Much better, but I really had to make an effort since I don't have a kitchen.)

I need to find a way to incorporate fruits and veggies more-- even if it's just having an orange juice at work every so often, or eating side salads. If only Jamba Juice came in smaller sizes! I would gladly have one of those per day, but as it is they are 8 points or something ridiculous.

I think it was two nights ago that the prospect of a salad was just utterly, wholly uninteresting and so I went for sushi instead. I'd love some suggestions for ways to make this fruit/veg thing happen.

I do have 12 points in the bank, though, and that's something. Unlike last week, I don't feel like I've lost a lot. I was finding some interesting new muscle definition, but I'm not sure if that's brand new or just relatively new. I guess we'll see; weigh-in is tomorrow morning.

Bruce is coming over today. I am sure tonight we will go eat something terribly fattening and then have popcorn at the horsie movie. (He has no idea that I'm dragging him to the horsie movie. But I am! He owes me for The Ring, which still scares me to think about.) But I have banked points, so I'm not too concerned. Then we will do the camping/rafting thing, and I am sure I will make up for tonight's debauchery (if there is any) with an active weekend.

Plus, camp food: bleh.
- posted by mo @ 1:29 PM

 
Yesterday at work was so stressful, I ate a bunch of crap and ended up going way over points. (However, I did have a big salad for dinner with some fruit for dessert and made my five fruits-and-veggies servings.) Today I have barely eaten anything because I am trying to make up for it. That's probably not "healthy" in the traditional sense. Especially since I am now going to go bike ride on this empty stomach.

If I pass out on the trail, I'll have only myself to blame.
- posted by mo @ 5:31 PM

 
Yesterday I ended up with four servings of fruits and veggies (alfalfa sprouts, apricots, cherries, and strawberries). I also had some high-fiber cereal, a turkey burger (for protein) and pudding (for dairy and chocolate). Also some biscotti, some bread, a vitamin, and two delicious coffee drinks, for a total of 29 points and a relatively healthy day.

I am really trying to make sure I eat all my points, because I'm paranoid about my metabolism. And I'm really trying to be a little more healthful about it. Good going so far, body! Don't fail me now!
- posted by mo @ 9:20 AM

 
Weigh-in was today! I wrote all about it in the journal.
- posted by mo @ 3:10 PM

 
It's amazing the way we sabotage ourselves. I bought a pair of jeans last week (14 stretch but in a different style) and they didn't fit me. Tonight I tried them on again, and they fit! But my first thought was, "I'm sure I just wasn't trying hard enough last week. They would have fit then, too. They run big."

No matter what evidence is presented, I persist in thinking of myself as too-fat-for-size-14s. But I guess I can stop that now, considering I'm wearing them.

I might be too fat for this shirt, though.
- posted by mo @ 8:01 PM

 
Random Thoughts and Embarassing Revelations:

I've been trying to re-start my whole weights/crunches/leg lifts thing. Now that my thigh muscles are starting to triumphantly emerge, I want to target the fat on certain other parts of my body. I am so half-ass about everything, though. Twenty tricep curls, twenty five crunches, ten leg lifts. That's all I ever bring myself to do, and I don't even remember to do them half the time! It's a miracle I've done as well as I have.

I mean, do you know what I eat? Let's take yesterday. I had coffee with whipped cream (2), a cookie (1), a shot of wheatgrass (0), a PRIA bar (2), a small caramel macchiatto (3), a bagel with cream cheese (7) because I was nauseous as hell from the wheatgrass and needed to eat something bland before I puked, some nasty-ass ginger ale for the same reason (1), a madeline (2), a soy chai (3), another cookie (3), coffee with whipped cream again (1), a rum and coke (4), and some Kashi snack crackers (2).

That's 31 points. I ate my maximum points and pretty much no nutrients at all. (Normally when I spend an entire night at work eating snacks, I make a point of having a huge salad for dinner and some fruit for dessert. I hit the grocery store on my lunch break. But yesterday was whack-ass at work.)

Today was better. I had a small caramel macchiatto again (3), some sweetened iced tea (2), a six inch turkey sandwich from Subway with honey mustard (4), and a shitload of sushi (12). I was way under for the day, but maybe that helps balance out yesterday.

I have started putting four random points in my journal at the beginning of the day and pre-banking them. Yesterday it didn't work (I ended up needing the points for a rum and coke) and today it worked a little too well-- I am three points under my minimum for the day and done eating. I saved up all my points for the sushi and then pigged out-- but sushi pigouts only add up to twelve points, as it turns out. I love that.

I am only four pounds away from the new point range. I am afraid I am going to get to a range where I can't do it anymore. Every time I get to 18 points (which is sometimes shockingly early in the day) I think, "Crap, this is the points range for the skinny people." It's actually really obvious: if I give up drinking crappy coffee drinks, I will be fine! I am trying to find alternatives to my favorite drinks, but it's hard. Especially when they're free, unlimited, and right in front of you ALL DAY LONG.

Thank god I don't like Frappuccinos. That's all I can say.
- posted by mo @ 1:12 AM

 
I went on a redwoods ride that kicked my ass, absolutely. It wasn't even long-- only six miles, but it took me more than an hour.

I realized halfway through the ride that I wasn't going to make it to the waterfall. I had already fallen twice, hurt my knees, lost my water bottle, and run out of energy. It wasn't safe for me to continue; so, although I debated it for quite a while, I turned back. (I still got to see redwoods and a creek and horses and the ocean and all sorts of things. It was a good ride, just truncated.)

I didn't want to bike deeper and deeper into the forest (I had two miles to go) and then have to hike to the waterfall, and then be faced with the ride back. Riding back, I told Britney (my bike), "It's not you, it's me." She could have made it, I've no doubt. She made it over some serious potholes, obstacles, streams of water, and bumps in the road.

I got back to my car and my nose was sunburned, and I was so tired. I am not nearly butch enough for mountain biking.
- posted by mo @ 1:07 AM

 
Yawn. I can't believe I managed to get up early this morning to go to a WW meeting. I must be dedicated or something.

I lost 1.6 pounds this week. Not spectacular, but better than a kick in the head. I guess I was expecting more, because I had such a bank-tastic week (ended up with somthing like 10 points in the bank). But that could still show up in next week's loss. If I have another good week, I could hit that 35-pound mark. I hope to be at 40 pounds lost before I go on vacation next month. Twenty-nine days to go for that goal.

I am impatient.

- posted by mo @ 11:05 AM

 
Part of it is that my haircut is magical. (Every day it does something different, and on most days, it's doing something cute. With no effort on my part. Now that is a haircut.) Part of it is that I feel like I'm moving forward again and in losing-weight mode, and that makes me happy. Part of it is that I've always been sort of conceited.

But sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and think, "Self? You're the cutest thing I've ever seen. You are almost unbearably cute."

It doesn't (thank god) happen very often. But it's nice that it does happen once in a while.


- posted by mo @ 4:24 PM

 
I did some research and found, oh, say, A MILLION riding groups in the area with riding events. I think I am going to begin by aiming for a half-century (50 miles) probably sometime in the fall. I really find my eye drawn to all the wine country rides-- then I could go drink wine afterwards! I am sure I'll be able to find a suitable 50-mile wine country ride. Exciting!

I am going to go out tomorrow and do a five or six mile ride (no sense overdoing it) and then do a longer ride on Saturday. It's been a while since I've done anything over ten miles; I used to break ten miles all the time! I'm going to do a double-loop of my bike trail, which I think is twelve miles or so. I might bring a book and take a nice long break in the middle of it.

I need to come up with a training schedule so that when I come back from my vacation at the end of August, I will have some kind of Training Plan. I will gradually work my way up to the 50-mile mark and then in, say, November, I will be ready to do my ride.

Of course, I am also pondering the whole issue of a road bike, or at least road bike tires. If I'm going to train for a big fancy ride, I need fancy tires. The one thing I really really need to do is that redwood ride, while I still have the mountain tires for it. That's been the big holdup with changing out the tires, more so than the $60 cost. Maybe-- since I will be getting up early anyway on Saturday to go to my WW meeting and I have no other plans-- I can finally do it! That is an excellent plan.

Now I just have to find a copy of the book that lists this particular bike trail. "Easy Biking in Northern California" is the name of the book. I hope Barnes & Noble still has it. I remember it is relatively flat, something like 7.5 miles (I can do it twice for a nice 15 mile ride), and there are THREE WATERFALLS involved.

I do live in one gorgeous state. May as well take advantage of it.
- posted by mo @ 12:59 AM

 
I just typed a long post and it disappeared. Now I have to go to work! I will recap the post:

This is day five of a string of good, under-points days. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good rest-of-the-week and a two pound loss on Saturday!

Oprah visualizes the hunger pains as her body consuming its own fat. It's hard for me to be inspired by anyone who can afford a personal trainer and a personal chef, but I am currently visualizing my arm flab going away. I love you, arm flab, now begone! (Sending it away with love, remember? My god, weight loss stuff can be so damn hokey.)

My back and shoulders, I have noticed, are skinnier. I don't know if this is new, or if I've just not noticed it before. But it's always nice to discover shrinking body parts.

Inspired by Erin's triathalon, I want to train to do a century, a 100-mile bike ride. I am sure there are groups around here somewhere that will help train and organize, I just have to find them! I need something to get me back on track with exercising.

I don't count my job as exercise, but I am on my feet for eight hours at a time. I think that's part of my safety net for when I slip up. At least I don't have a desk job.

I haven't yet figured out how I feel about Colin Farrell.
- posted by mo @ 1:12 PM

 
Well, Tim was in town this week(end). I think I did fine eating-wise... maybe not the most sane choices in the world, but we had a tendency to eat one big meal per day and then nothing the rest of the day. I think my points were okay, even if I did have pizza and popcorn and a lot of alcohol. Okay, maybe I should worry about the alcohol.

I went to my meeting on Friday and found that I had exactly maintained my weight. I am getting frustrated with this plateau (although it is a plateau of my own making) and ready to lose some weight next week. Today I stayed under points and had a big salad for dinner, plus a whole bag of cherries for dessert. I wrote down every single bite that passed my lips. I am going to lose weight this week, by god!
- posted by mo @ 1:01 AM