"Just Say No" to the Evil Apple

Ah, today is one of THOSE dieting days.  You all know the kind I mean...  It's not even 1:00 p.m., and though I've only consumed 360 of my daily allowance of 1100 calories, which would suggest that I'm squarely on-track to hit my goal, I have a sneaking suspicion that this particular day is going to suck some major ass.

I've been succeeding without too much trouble on the mornings when I stick to my fool-proof routine, which is a cup of tea at 8:00 a.m., one diet pop around 10:30, and NOTHING ELSE before noon.  I blew it today by drinking my tea too early (6:30 a.m.), and I ended up so friggin' hungry as a result that I broke down and ate an apple at 9:00.  HUGE mistake.

Most people would laugh right about here, and say, "What's wrong with eating a friggin' apple?!  Apples are good for you!!!"

Yes.  Apples ARE good for you.  But they're also 90 calories, and unfortunately, when you're only allowing yourself 1100 calories total all damn day, you can't "waste" 90 calories on a friggin' apple at 9:00 a.m., because you're in danger of blowing your 1100 limit if you do.  Not only that, but the sweetness in the apple totally spiked my insulin response, and I was STARVING to the point of stomach-twisting agony within an hour of the apple consumption.  WTF?!  That BLOWS.

So the following three hours were torture.  I suffered in silence and ate a stupid salad for lunch instead of the Ezekiel-bread-tuna sandwich I wanted to eat, because my early-morning apple ate up half of my available lunchtime tuna calories.  Damn.

I realize that this all sounds stupid and ridiculously-obsessive.  I won't deny that.  But I also know that this crazy-ass approach is working for me, when nothing else has worked in SEVEN months of effort.  Yes, I am at THAT point.  I'll do whatever it takes - even if it means skipping fruit in the morning in favor of something else equally as healthy later in the day.  I'm being careful to make sure that every calorie I consume is high-quality.  I do have moments of weakness, and I do cheat a little here and there.  The weekends are the hardest; I rarely hit my 1100 mark on Friday and Saturday, but I try to work out on those days to combat the indulgence.  I'm not eating white flour carbs.  I'm not eating sugar or salt.  I avoid butter.  I skip pasta.  No crap-food.  No junk food.  No fast food.  NO FUN FOOD.

All of this insanity is paying off, albeit S-LO-W-L-Y.  I am holding steady at 18.0 pounds lost, and will throw myself a little party when I hit the "-20" mark this week.  My eye is still on the -40-pound prize, and that prize is going to be a platter of food containing a gazillion calories - plus sangria - sometime during the first week of June. 

Easter Bunny FAIL

I am taking my kids on a trip to Washington DC this week and we aren't going to be home for Easter.  The kids were a little disappointed that they wouldn't be here Easter morning to search for their baskets.  Kira even wrote the Easter bunny a note telling him (her) that he (she) should reconsider his (her) schedule and leave her a basket anyway before we leave.  The bunny thought that was kind of cute so she went to Target and got candy and basket stuff.  After making up the baskets, the stupid bunny ate a HALF A BAG of jelly beans.  By herself.  Right now the roof of her mouth is gummy and she's incredibly thirsty from a shocking overdose of sugar.  The bunny's teeth aren't all that great either so I'm sure that there is probably been some tooth decay but does that stop the bunny?  NO!  The bunny is a pig and is helpless when it comes to any kind of sugar.  I wonder how many calories are in half a bag of jelly beans?  I'm guessing it is a lot.  I'm not going to look it up because I really don't want to know.

On the up side, I lost two pounds this week!  This was before the jelly beans though, so I'm not expecting the scale to say anything good in the near future.

Quarterly Resolution Update

Well, we are a quarter of the way through the year and how am I doing on my resolutions?  I'll tell you.  I have lost ten pounds which is good, nay, GREAT.  I feel better, I look better, and I smell better (just kidding.  I don't really smell better.)  I had an exercise goal for myself and it was originally that I would exercise 350 times this year, but then I did a little figuring, and discovered that if I did that, I would only have 14 non-exercising days the whole year.  No thanks!  So I changed it to 300 days of the year.  I was doing pretty good, and keeping track on my calendar, and I'm still doing good, but I stopped keeping track.  I feel like I don't have to keep track anymore because I am at the stage where I feel like I'm missing out if I don't exercise.  I feel so much better on the days that I exercise, and I don't hate it anymore.  I have gotten in good enough shape where there is really nothing (that I'm willing to do) that wipes me out anymore.  My abs are making their presence known again, and my pants are loose! (no, you shut up!)  I am now aiming at working out five times a week.  Sometimes I go to the Y and I exercise for 1.5 or 2 hours and when I do that I count it as three workouts because let's be real, that's a lot of working out, but I figure, I drove all the way there, I found a parking space, I changed my clothes in front of strangers, so I might as well make all that worth my while. 

The eating isn't all that hard.  I have been pretty good about sticking to my calorie budget (other than the last few weekends).  I'm used to it now, and although sometimes I feel like I'm starving to death in the afternoon, it's not all that hard.  I learned that I can't have any candy around or I will eat it, no matter what it is.  That's kind of a bummer, but it is what it is, I guess.  What I really hate the most about the eating is trying to plan meals.  God, I hate that so much.  There's only so many things you can make with rice, chicken, vegetables and olive oil.  I want tuna casserole or chicken kiev, but they aren't worth it. 

TA TA FOR NOW!

The Evil Muffin Top

Whatever moron came up with the term "muffin top" to describe what's going on around my waist is the most vile brand of sadist.  

Howdy girls, Kristin here.  I've been doing OK-to-pretty-good most days, for the past three weeks or so.  I have found that the ultimate motivation, at least for me, is a little taste of success.  (WHO KNEW?!)  I've decided to treat every teeny-tiny milestone throughout the remainder of my weight-loss journey as a HUGE accomplishment, complete with non-food rewards such as: Mommy-movie time, Mommy-reading time, Mommy soaking in the tub time, Mommy computer time, etc.  These are all activities that I rarely have the pleasure of indulging much (if any) time in most days, so I'm excited to "earn" some of these, and somehow squish them into my days.

I'm officially 17.0 pounds down today, since February 7th, so I'm starting to get psyched.  My progress still feels like it's going at a S-N-A-I-L's pace, but I'll seriously take whatever I can get.  My little mini-"rule" for myself is, the scale can't go back up.  As long as it's going down, (or on some days, staying the same...), I consider myself to be succeeding.  But gaining pounds back is NOT an option.

I can't seem to shed the hated muffin top, though.  I am surprised that 17.0 missing pounds haven't affected the way my stomach looks in the mirror, AT ALL.  Is this some kind of cruel joke?  I mean, yeah, the baby was almost 9 pounds (2 1/2 YEARS ago, sheesh!) and yeah, my skin is less stretchy at 42 than when I was in my 20s.  I expected that it would take more work for it to "snap" back.  But this is effing ridiculous.  When I bend over at the waist and look in the mirror, it's like a big, empty bag is just hanging there - there's hardly anything there but skin.  DISGUSTING, BLECCCCCHHHHH!  It just hangs there.  And because it's still there, I can't wear any of my old shirts - they're too tight around my flaccid gut.  I guess it's time to finally break out the crunches every day, instead of randomly.  DUH.

Today, I took the VERY drastic step of reducing my diet pop intake, from 3-4 cans per day down to 1-2 cans.  This will be HARD for me.  Cherry Coke Zero, mmmmmmmmmm!  But even more drastic for me (my family would recoil in shock at this...) is that I started drinking water.  I left the house with a big 32 oz. jug full of ice water, and by 10:30 a.m. I had finished the whole thing!!!  I HATE DRINKING WATER!  I don't even know why.  Well, I guess I do; it's never cold enough.  Thanks to my hubby for replacing the old fridge with the broken ice-maker with a new one, which fills up my water jug with perfect little cubes in 3 seconds.  No more excuses for me to skip the water, nope nope nope.  

I've realized that I used to make SO many excuses when it came to eating and dieting.  I'm trying to stop that.  The quality of the food I'm eating now has improved drastically, in addition to not eating even one calorie over 1100 each day.  I'm now consuming loads of green and fruit teas, yummy soups, Greek yogurt, legumes, whole grain stuff I'd never heard of before (Ezekiel bread and Finn Crisp Rye crackers, etc.), fat-free cheeses, big salads, and raw veggies with fat-free dip.  All of this makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something more than just losing pounds.  I am starting to feel like even after I hit my goal the first week of June, I might just have my eating habits re-trained to the point that maybe, just MAYBE, I won't go back to my old ways and gain a bunch of it back.  I CAN'T let that happen.  That would be a total WASTE of my past 7 months of dieting misery.  I don't want to just lose the weight for summer; I want to NOT BE DOING THIS ever again!!!  

Losing this weight has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life.  It makes giving birth to two big babies seem like a walk in the park, and I'm not joking even a little bit.  

I've got my eye on my half-way mark...I'm going to hit it next week.  !!!!!!!

Hope you're all forging ahead out there, ladies!  Would love to hear how you're all doing!  Swapping stories will always be the best free motivation around, right?    :o)   

This is a 17-pound baby in Russia.  I have lost one giant baby's worth of flab, but I can't see where it's coming off of...

This is a 17-pound carp.  How can losing this much weight not affect my muffin top?  AT ALL?

Six Cupcake Saturday!

Hi, Sarah here!  I have been doing okay.  I usually stick pretty close to my 1,100 calorie goal on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, but I start to unravel on Thursday, Friday is pizza night, and then on the weekend, why bother, I'll start again on Monday.  I've managed to maintain 10 pounds lost, and now I have to get motivated again because I want to lose another ten pounds.  That's my next goal.

That being said, Kira had some friends over on Saturday and they wanted to make cupcakes so I got all the ingredients, and they made some different kinds.  I was thinking that it would be fine because I'd just send the cupcakes home with the girls, but before they went home I managed to eat SIX cupcakes!  This is why I can't have anything good in the house.  The girls had fun making them and I felt like mother of the year until I heard Kira ask one of her friends what her dad does for work and the friend said, "He's a stay-at-home dad" and Kira said, "OH!  I'm so jealous!"  SURE!  THANKS A LOT!