Get Down With The Sickness

Happy Easter weekend! I've joined all of you out there in Blogland in the illnesses that are knocking people out left and right. I went home early from work on Thursday and stayed home yesterday. Today I'm feeling significantly better but still unable to leave the house without a big wad of tissues on my person. It's so, so gross to be blowing your nose everywhere, but better than being that adult who wipes her snot on her sleeve like a two year old.

I've also realized how much I HATE being sick. It's just so boring. You're not at work, but yet you can't do any of the fun things that you want to do when you're at home. No workouts either. That's the worst I think because I rely so much on working out to keep me levelheaded and happy. Instead I laid on the couch, ate whatever crap I could find (not much since I don't buy really bad stuff, but I did spend quite a bit of time with peanut butter and a spoon. Blech) and bitched at my husband about how bored I was. The worst part is that we're finally, FINALLY having some spring weather here in Seattle. Vitamin D all over the place! Seattle is the most beautiful city ever - but only when it's sunny! Which has probably been a total of two months in the last two years. Anyway, yesterday was gorgeous, and I was on forced bedrest. Lucky for me, today is even better! So hubby and I have been out running errands on foot. Save a little money in gas and get a bit of light exercise.

I also waxed my eyebrows for the very first time today! I wax other bits, but I've never done my brows because they don't really need it that much. But they did need some trimming, so I thought I'd do the whole shebang. I'm loving it, but right now I look lobster-esque around the brow. Hopefully it will fade shortly.

I've also decided to buckle down and do the final push to my goal weight. I'm going to start meeting with my trainer again and really refocus to get myself to 135. I'm happy with where I am, but I really want to do this. I've proven to myself in the last few months that I can maintain where I'm at, and I can see what I'll need to do to get myself to goal. It's doable. I wasn't sure if it would be, but it definitely is. I feel so good when I'm really sticking to my eating and working out plan, and just being really dedicated to it will get me there.

The paleo thing has been pretty incredible actually. I'm not able to do the full blown plan, but even just cutting out processed grains has been huge. It makes maintenence really easy, and it's done wonders for my skin. I have rosacea on my face, and when I'm sticking to plan it fades significantly.

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday and is lucky enough to get a bit of sun!

Recognition

This past weekend I headed down to Portland for my close girlfriend's baby shower. I'm at the stage of live where practically everyone I know is pregnant. No, really. It's insane. There was another extremely pregnant friend there, and then another friend made her announcement as well. And there's 3 pregnant women on my floor at work. And one of my sister's-in-law is pregnant. I'm sure there's shortly more to be announced.

Anyway, that's not actually what this post is about. At the shower there was a woman that I apparently hadn't seen since just after college at my friend's wedding, around 8 years ago. At that time I'd started losing some weight, but I was still in the early stages and right around 200 or so. I was chatting with her a bit during the shower (she'd brought her 6 month old. See? Everyone!) and she seemed a bit cool, which I just figured was due to her focus on the baby and so many of our old friends being around to talk to.

As the party was winding down, I went to say goodbye to the guest of honor, and she and this other woman were chatting. When I was saying my goodbyes, the other woman admitted that she actually hadn't recognized me because I'd lost so much weight. I was kind of taken aback. I was REALLY heavy so long ago that I just can't imagine that I really look all that different than I ever did. I guess the whole thing made me feel really awkward, when I was supposed to be flattered?

I'm sure there are those of you with big weight losses that have experienced this type of thing. For me, I'm almost always left with that feeling of "Boy, was I really just so hideous before?" People mean well, and it IS flattering to hear that you look nice. But knowing that I was always the same person on the inside makes it hard to hear what people REALLY thought of your outside. It's kind of painful in a way. I keep waiting for this feeling to fade, but it seems to happen almost every time. I'm trying to just be flattered. It's really my own issues that make it hard to hear the compliments.

Hiatus

I just needed a break. I felt like I was getting to the point where weight loss and what I was eating was all I could think about. It was getting to be too much. Just a little burn out.

But I'm here and all is well. I've been maintaining my loss without too much trouble. I've been doing sort of a lazy person's paleo program and it's working really well for me. Sticking to lots of fruit, veggies, and protein. Weekends are still bumpy, but as usual, I'm working on it.

I have to say though, maintenence is so boring. It's a challenge, no doubt, but with none of the glory of weight loss. It's the red-headed stepchild of the weight loss world. It gets to be habit and routine - it has to if I'm going to be successful - but there are those days where you just think of all the years you have ahead of you to spend watching what you eat. And they feel loooooonnnnnnggggg. Although I have reached that point where when I make a poor choice, I feel it right away. I ate pizza for lunch last week and really thought I might have to take a nap under my desk for the afternoon. And french fries sit like a ten pound rock in my stomach.
I guess it's good that my body is telling me what it needs and keeping me in check. But I still weigh about 3 to 4 pounds more on a Monday than I do on a Friday, so there's still lots of work to do.

Break These Rusty Chains

Can I just give some mad props to those of you out there who post pretty much every day!? I seriously don't know how you manage to come up with something interesting to say every day. I'm so impressed. More so now that I actually have my own blog and am realizing how challenging it is.

Tracking - glorious, boring, effective tracking. It has once again done the trick! I haven't been freaky about being on top of it, but every other day seems to be a good balance. The weight is feeling comfortable again and the eating (and drinking!) are where they should be. Thank goodness!

I had a nice NSV over the weekend. Hubby and I went down to Portland to visit some of my college friends. My good girlfriend is getting to be very pregnant, and Hubby didn't bring his workout gear, so on Saturday I went for a run with my girlfriend's husband. I was fully expecting for him to either have to slow way, way down for me or just leave me in the dust. Neither one happened! It was amazing! We were both shocked. I have to say that interval training is a creator of miracles. Losing weight has definitely helped, but switching up my training has made the biggest difference.

I'm not one for following the newest diet craze, but I was curious about whether any of you out there have ventured into trying the Paleo diet? First time I heard about it I totally scoffed! Why follow a diet from a time period where everyone pretty much died by the time they're 30? But a friend of mine is trying it out, and the more she's told me about it, the more it seems to line up with eating changes I'm following almost naturally. Lots of it seems to be kind of a no-brainer - ie: eat protein, fruits, veggies, nuts. Avoid processed foods. Some of it I find sort of so so: no beans? (can't live without my hummus!) I'm still learning more about it, so as I fill things in I'll share a bit. I think what really got me interested was a few posts from Barbara about how they've done studies about the addictive properties of sugar and processed foods. Your brain builds pleasure pathways from the emotional boost you get from sugar, and that creates cravings for more and more of those foods. I feel like I should've known this because it makes perfect sense, but maybe I just needed to be in the right frame of mind to accept it. Now I've just felt ready to kick the habit (okay, not the cocktail habit, but pretty much the rest of it). Some of you out there just have no intention of giving up some of your favorite foods entirely, and frankly, more power to you! If you can eat that stuff and still lose weight, you're made of sterner stuff than I. However, the more I've cut out sugar and processed foods, the fewer cravings I've had for them. And I think the knowledge that giving in and eating them makes it worse has really helped me stick with it in my weaker moments. I AM stronger than those food companies seeking to manipulate me with additives and chemicals. I DO feel better when I feed myself with quality natural foods. Proof is in the pudding - well, if pudding wasn't made with a bunch of chemicals and added sugar. But you catch my drift.

Coming Apart at the Seams

Why is it so hard to blog about this weight loss stuff when you really need it the most? I'm slacking something terrible and I just can't get it together. This is what I get for all my arrogance a couple of months ago when I felt like I could do no wrong on the weight loss front. It always catches up with me!

Back to the same old problems. Not entirely of course, but the cracks are really showing. I'm back to having a few drinks on the weekend nights and a drink a night or two during the week. I'm still fine when I'm at work, but the weekends are just getting worse and worse. It's nothing horrible, but when I consider that I want to lose another 12lbs (okay, okay it's like 15 since I stepped on the scale this morning) it's just not going to work! And I'm so close! I can totally do this. But I think I'm feeling burned out. Just like everyone else in Blogland I've been coming down with something, which doesn't really help. It's pretty mild, but even that makes you tired and unmotivated.

I got an email from my trainer checking in with me and I'm considering going back to working with her again soon. I just feel like I'm using her as a crutch a little bit and I want to be sure it's something I can do on my own. I just really have to buckle down and focus on doing what I know will work. It just feels so hard right now!

Jenga!

Since I've stopped working with my trainer, I've been having kind of a tough time. I was only working with her once a week, but I think even that limited amount of accountability was enough. I haven't gone hog wild or anything, but it's just been that little bit here, little bit there. Without the overall goal of the challenge to work towards, it's been harder to stay motivated.

I'm still working out consistently, and I'm going to try a new class at my gym - Maximum Sculpt. It's an hour long weight training class. I've been doing my own made up circuit training combined with interval cardio, and I think that I'm just getting to the point where I'm a bit bored and my body is adjusting to the level of activity. I need something new.

My eating has been the real culprit here. A couple times a week I've been eating to the point of discomfort. It's almost been on accident, but the "accidents" are adding up. Last week was our second wedding anniversary and we went out for a really nice dinner. At the time I didn't really feel like I'd overdone it, but the food was really rich. Around one in the morning I woke up just beyond miserable. For the rest of the week I felt like I was recovering from this one meal. Then this weekend I did it again on Saturday when we went out with some friends and I had late night beer and pizza. Last night I had my in-laws over for dinner and I had an unplanned cocktail, lots of appetizers, spagetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and cookies for desert. Blech. Again, my stomach is still in recovery.

It's just unacceptable, but you fall into that slip sliding pattern. It just builds on itself. It's kind of like that game Jenga. Anyone ever play that? Where you stack up all the little pieces of wood, piece by piece, for a nice stable tower. Then you start pulling pieces out of the tower and stacking them on top. The goal is to not be the person unlucky or unskilled enough to pull out the piece that knocks the whole thing over. You spend a lot of time hunting for the pieces that are a bit loose, the one's that aren't the weight bearing pieces, so they're easy to pull out. They don't really seem to affect the stability of the whole thing. But over time, all those easily pulled out pieces are still adding to the instability of the whole. They don't seem like it at first, but with each one pulled over time, the tower becomes like swiss cheese.

That's the stage I feel like I'm at right now. I'm not doing anything to REALLY compromise how far I've come, but I'm cutting corners. I'm taking those easy ways out. I'm indulging for a day or two, and trying to make up for it the rest of the week. It makes for instability. That's not the journey that I want.

So, what's the plan? Back to tracking. Aaaauuughhhhhh! I keep thinking I can escape tracking what I eat. The truth is that if I want to keep my weight down I will be doing this on and off for the rest of my life. It's frustrating, but comforting too. I already know that it works. I try to avoid it, but it does the job. And that's exactly what I need.

Pushers

Here's the hard truth people - I've been slacking. A little extra here, a little snack there. I'm feeling it already. I was really terrible this weekend and completely overdid at dinner both Friday and Saturday nights. I will say that overdoing it now is much different than overdoing it before, but it still doesn't feel good.

Workplace temptations are getting to me. My workplace is very social, so it's expected that you will participate in every birthday, baby shower, team lunch, etc. Don't get me wrong - it's wonderful to have such a great group of people who really care about spending time together. The problem is the food. It adds up quick and it's constant. Everyone means well, but they just refuse to accept that I don't want to eat treats or desserts every day, or twice a week, or at all. It's such a part of that group culture that it's really, really hard to say no and still get to be part of the team. I appreciate that they want me to be a part of the group, but it seems like there should be other options rather than eating dessert. Some groups drink together, my group eats baked desserts together. The hard part is that all of them are pretty thin and have always been that way. They can get away with it. I can't. Sometimes, yes. But not this steady stream of processed sugar. Frankly, I don't WANT to eat it. Desserts just aren't really my thing. I know, I know - how is that possible? Well, it is. I feel resentful that in order to participate I'm expected to do something I don't want to. It sounds like we're going around bullying or stealing, doesn't it? Sometimes I really do feel silly about being so bothered by this, but I haven't felt group pressure like this in a really long time. It's so weird and frustrating. So I'm trying to balance. I'm making concessions here and there, but mitigating the damage by having very small portions. I also wonder if I'm just rebelling. Saying no just to say no. If I have some, even just a little bit, they seem satisfied. It's so strange. I guess I know how uncomfortable it makes me when other people bother me about what I eat, so I try not to do it to others. But there's a couple people in this group that are just total food pushers. I don't know, I'm still figuring out what to do with this. Maybe they worry about me too. I'm pretty regulated in what I eat and I think that's really foreign to them.

But I AM making progress. I told them that for my birthday I want a salad party. They actually thought it was a perfect idea.