Blogging?? what a crummy idea

Weight: 271

I'm pretty disgusted, I have to say. Three weeks into it, and 3 lbs.... what happened to losing tons of weight the first few weeks? When I started this blog, evidently it was a shot of inspiration for my friend and co-worker Jen, and she started a day after I did, and she's lost 11.5 lbs in 3 weeks!! Wow! Now she's doing something that I'm not, obviously.

She's following Weight Watchers... I was trying to count calories, but sometimes its hard to count calories-- like at Mexican restaurants, ya know? And at other times, I just don't wanna count them at all... Like when I want ice cream, ya with me? :-)

So, that is why Jen's lost 11.5 and I've lost 3. But, while I could just give up and go bury my face in a big bowl of ice cream, I'm not going to. Why? Well, because of this blog. Regardless of whether anyone reads it or not, it does seem to offer some sort of accountability for me. "I can't let my blog down".... I don't know. Nonetheless, I'm going to keep going.

And, guess what? I'm pretty sure that I'm going to join Weight Watchers. I have joined once or twice before-- many years ago, and never followed it. I think its because I'm a hopeless emotional eater. Whatever the reason, I guess I shall try it and see if I can have the same success that Jen has had.

Jen has already helped me figure out my points and I have borrowed her little points calculator, so I'm off and running. For my weight and height and age I get 40 points a day. So far I've eaten 27 of them.... I would have only had 24, but I just dumped 1/4 cup of shredded cheese down the hatch... What's with this??

Why does it feel so good to eat? Hurts so good...hey, someone should write a song about that, lol. I don't know why I'm such an emotional eater. The last two nights after work were very hard. One night I did okay, and last night I had a tiny piece of birthday cake and vegan ice cream (they were having a party where I picked up my boys), and so therefore, rather than being content that I blew it a little, I came home and ate a plate of nachos....

I'm confident that not even Weight Watchers can heal the inner part of me that longs for food for comfort. But, Weight Watchers is a tool that can help me learn normal portions. I'm pretty whacked out when it comes to my concept of normal. And for the emotional portion of my life.... well, I'll have to keep working on that too. Which makes me think I should start a separate blog on spiritual issues.... I do think I'll look up my old friends at Overeaters Anonymous when I get back to Chattanooga.

Meanwhile, its upward and onward. Its 3:15 and I still have 13 points left for the day!!

Success!!!!

Weight: 269.9


Wow!!! I really did it!! Thankyou God for getting me thru the weekend at the in-laws!! Twice I was super bummed and stressed about house hunting and craved ice-cream, and twice I didn't give in to the overwhelming temptation... I counted calories faithfully, never going over 1800 a day just so I could report to this silly blog....

And today it paid off..... I have lost 4.1 pounds.... I'll take it.
I'm happy.
I'm headed to work.

1600

Wow! I stayed at 1600 calories today. I can't believe it. I was at work and I just can hardly believe that I stayed within the 1600.... Wow. Thankyou, God. I think it was a miracle. :-)
Not feeling wordy tonight. So I'll just post my food.

Breakfast:
1 bagel
1 tbs peanut butter
1 banana
8 oz skim milk

Lunch:
Subway turkey sub-- no cheese and no may---
baked chips
Cottage Cheese-- 8 oz

Dinner
1 bagel
2 yogurts

I really have a desire to be a total vegetarian-- no meat or dairy. but its going to be tough. But that's my dream. For now, I just want to learn how to live on 1800 cal a day without dying. :-)

Ode to the Girl Scout Cookies

Well shoot. Wouldn't you know it, but I ordered 4 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies a month or two ago, and today they were delivered!! Now?? Not now, when I'm blogging and being gut-level honest about my quest to lose weight....

So I put them in my locker and posted on facebook about my love/hate relationship with those cookies... And I had tons of fb friends encourage me, and even so, I went and ate 4 cookies-- for a total of 280 calories... but okay, I've counted the calories and they'll go towards my 1800 for the day... (this was about 9am)

At 2pm I ate a very healthy lunch of 500 calories.... And then I decided to grab just 2 cookies. Somewhere, somehow, in between the many encouraging "don't eat em, Debbie" posts and texts I had gotten all day, somehow I managed to down oh gee-- maybe 12?? maybe 18? I lost count. Those Thin Mints go down really easily and fast, let me tell you.

I think today I have been again reminded that all the encouraging words in the world, and all the honest blogging in the world is no match for a very strong and powerful addiction. Smokers don't just smoke occasionally, they either do or don't..... When they quit, they quit entirely.... Same with alcoholics. And truly, I am absolutely addicted to sugar and chocolate.
Its ok. Its just that I have to be accountable and responsible for it, and not in denial.

Life is weird, you know. I can pass narcotic drugs all day for 22 years and I've never ONCE been tempted to steal a pain pill or a xanax, etc... Put me in charge of the pharmacy, and I'm cool. Leave a case of Budweiser in the fridge and I'll never touch the stuff in my entire life.
But, WHATEVER YOU DO, do not leave me in a locker room at work with Girl Scout cookies, because I cannot be trusted.

Now, I'm going to go to bed and hope to do better tomorrow. :-)

blah

I went from 271.5 on Thursday to 272.5 today.... So that is what I get for eating at my mother-in-law's and also at the Mexican restaurant and such... Oh why was I born with a curse of loving to eat? I had to laugh at Glenn Beck this morning on the radio. Not that I'm an ardent follower of him, but today I was listening while driving to the dentist. Glenn has been on an all raw vegan diet for some time now, and he hates it. He said that if he was God, he would make ice cream healthy, and he would make candy-bars be vitamins... I had to agree, I found it an appealing idea. Of course the life expectancy would be nil, and Glenn admitted that too. But hey, you can't have it all. LOL.

So here I am today on Tuesday, feeling blah about life in general. My heart is with those in Japan and I almost feel guilty for moving on with my day to day life when their world has fallen apart. And I always have down days when I first come back from Chattanooga. I miss Tony and I do not, absolutely do not like living apart. So its always a day or two for me to get back in the swing of things up here without him. I actually look forward to going to work tomorrow.

I'm under 1800 calories, right at about 1200 for the day so far. Here's what I've had so far:
2 cups cooked Barley (yummy) 400 cal
1 cup soy milk on it 100

2 little Cottage cheese snack things 200
1 bagel 190
1 Tbs PB 100

Am I forgetting something? Hmm.. Maybe I'm only at 1,000. that would be great. Maybe I will eat some of the spaghetti I made for the boys... I know that I can eat 1800 a day and lose weight. I haven't exercised and I need to be better about that. Its hard to go outside and walk when its raining and nasty out.
For dinner: salad with lots of fresh greens, and spaghetti. 1 cup of cooked spaghetti is 200 cal. What a pain to squish those long noodles into a measuring cup, but I WILL DO IT!!! Because I'm very demented when it comes to appropriate portion sizes. I know that measuring food will be a secret to any success that might come my way.

Learning to not eat at night is going to take some time. Not so much tonight, because I'll eat here in a few minutes and will be fine later. But the days I work, I'm so tired and stressy and starving at 8pm, and its going to be tough to not pig out. I did however, load up on some yogurts and fruit today, and will have those ready tomorrow evening after work.

I hope I'm a pound lighter in the morning...

The Wagon-- falling off and getting back on....

Well, I just finished a really nice 4 days in Chattanooga with Tony. However, there is one small glitch. Tony is staying with his parents until we secure housing and move down there, so I was inundated with good ole fashioned cooking by my mother in law all weekend...

There were a couple of high points though. First of all, two houses that we were planning to look at on Friday fell thru, due to one having a contract on it, and the other decided not to show the house... I was so down and despairing and sure we would be homeless, that I wanted to stop by Brusters and drown my sorrow in a big bowl of ice cream. But, the good news is, I didn't!! I drove right by, and talked to myself, reminding myself that the ice cream wouldn't take away my sadness, and wouldn't change the fact that we couldn't get those homes... It just would add calories to my day. I was proud of that positive action. Thank God!

Overall, I didn't eat perfectly. I didn't count calories, because how do you know how many calories are in the meals at a mexican restaurant?? I mean really. So I did fall off the wagon. We celebrated Tony's 51st birthday at our dear friend Lauri's house, and boy can she serve the meals!! Steak, chicken, baked potatoes, fresh green salad, bread, and carrot cake and chocolate brownies. It was wonderful, and again-- I didn't think about the calories... Thanks Lauri!

Today I woke up and ate 300 calories of cottage cheese and am off and running again. I dread the scale tomorrow, but I suppose that life is a journey and I need to learn that there are good days and bad days... I mean geesh-- if it were easy for me to be self disciplined and eat perfectly, I would have lost this weight years and years ago.

I'm tossing around the idea of Weight Watchers, but right now I think I'm ok with staying under 1800 calories a day.

On two separate notes-- we have found another house. We have yet to look inside. but we love the area and the yard, and the pictures... Tony will see it this week and I hope to see it next weekend when we go back down.

And finally, my heart is ever with the people of Japan. I can't imagine what they are going through. I can't help but believe that this catastrophe is just another sign that Jesus is coming soon. Lord, help me to keep my priorities straight.

Can I quit?

Weight 271.6

Ok, the fun is over... I never can eat right for very long.... oh, I'm still on track and staying within 1800 calories a day, but geesh.... Sometimes I have this overwhelming urge to bury my head in a big bowl of ice cream and homemade brownies...

Like last night. I love my job but I guess carrying around these 100 extra pounds exhausts me, because when I get home at 8pm, I'm soooo utterly exhausted, I'm almost paralyzed. I always eat.... Just like a smoker smokes to relieve stress, I have no doubt that I am the same with food. So last night, when I got home I just ate a handful of raisins... Shortly thereafter, I realized that I was not hungry, just tired. So I went to bed at 8:30 or so and slept perfectly till 4am...

I used to attend Overeaters Anonymous, and they taught me to never get to HALT..... Always remember HALT.... Never get to Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired..... Those are the times when the addiction or old bad habits want to surface.

I'm thankful for the small weight loss but of course wish I could go to sleep and wake up in 6 months 50 lbs lighter.
On tap for today-- a 4 mile walk and heading to Chattanooga at 3:30pm for a long weekend. That will be interesting. We always eat out when we go down there.... ugh. But I do plan to walk the nice long Greenway each day that I'm there. So for today, even though I'm not exactly thrilled to be hungry, I am hanging in there.

Weight: 272.4
Exercise: 4 mile walk

So I lost 1.6 lb the first day... I know, I know... Water weight. Whatever. It was enough to make me believe I can try this again for another day. Yesterday I ate 1650 calories, and today I'm hanging at 1,000 but I still have supper and I'm thinking a yogurt shortly too....

Tony is coming home tonight for an overnight trip home. I'm making stir fry with tofu, carrots, celery, red peppers, onions, and wild rice.... Now how in the world am I gonna figure out the calorie count in that? Geesh. This is gonna be tough sometimes.

I did go for a walk and I really enjoyed myself. I don't mind exercising at all. Its the portion control and giving up junk food that is gonna kill me.... Ironically, we all know it will save my life. But honestly, it feels otherwise at some moments.

And so it begins....

Monday, March 7, 2011
Weight: 274

Wow. I did it. I actually published my weight on the internet for any who care to read my blog, to see.... Yikes... the thought is that perhaps blogging my daily journey will provide a healthy dose of accountability for me. We shall see.

Why now? In the last 18 months, I have returned to college and completed my BS in Nursing, and then for over 2 months I put my nose in a book and studied for my critical care certification. Having achieved that goal last week, I'm proud and thankful to be an RN, BSN, CCRN.... But then I was realizing-- if only I felt as energetic as that title sounds.... Could I, Debbie Fine, apply the same focus, committment and discipline that I applied mentally, towards healthy eating and weight loss for the next 18 months?

And so, with the thought that I would begin today, of course, I had to have the "last supper" last night... I went to McDonalds, of course.... An Angus burger, large frie, and a caramel mocha since it was so cold outside... Funny thing is, I had never ordered an Angus burger before, so I was angry to find out it came with mayonnaise, which I despise... But of course, I managed to eat it anyways...

I slept like terribly, in fact couldn't sleep from 12:30-2:30 (most likely from the caffeine in the mocha) and developed a pounding frontal headache and a rather upset stomach... Geesh... So much for my big wonderful last day of eating crap food....

So this morning, I woke up, made a cup of berry-flavored green tea, and ate a yellow, golden delicious apple right before I took the boys to school. I even wrote it down in my new little food journal that I purchased for this venture....
Green Tea---- 0 cals
Apple--------100 cals

And then, with the remnants of the headache and upset stomach still on board, I promptly threw up on the way to school with the boys... As my son was yelling "open the door and throw up outside", I was yelling back, "I'm not gonna throw up in someone's yard" in between wretches.... As a woman who always has a cluttered car, I was able to quickly find an empty tupperware bowl and was able to throw up in that.

So my question is---- can I subtract those 100 calories from the apple, since I threw it up??