Damage

This morning I weighed 181.4!!  YIKES!!!  I know the chips, cookies, Icee, etc. did not have 12,600 calories in them so this weight is largely water, probably from the salt on the chips.  So, it should drop right off.  I am armed with lemon infused ice water for the day.  I have my meals planned and my mind committed to staying on track.  I'll be fine.

Thanks Sharon for the encouragement!  I really needed that.  It isn't the end of the world, just a bump in the road. 

I believe the whole episode was caused by the sugar in the drink.  I even woke up hungry which is a rare thing for me.  I'll have to be tough for a couple of days while I detox yet again.

I appreciate the support of all my readers.

I Stumbled & Fell

My doctor's appointment was at 11:00.  I didn't eat breakfast.  I often don't.  I know the prevailing wisdom about breakfast, but right now I'm not eating it.  Maybe once I get over getting off the artificial sweeteners I'll address that, but I can only do so much at once.  Back to my story...    I was probably finished with the visit with the doctor by 11:45, but then I had to get blood drawn that took another 20 minutes.  Then my allergist is in the same building so I stopped in for my weekly allergy shots.  The shots didn't take any time at all, but I have to wait 20 minutes afterwards to make sure that there was no reaction.  It was headed towards 1:00 by the time I got out of there.  I was famished.

I had been really wanting an Icee lately.  It is one of my favorite summer time treats.  Burger King sells Frozen Coke which is almost the same thing, and there is one very near the doctor's office.  I decided to have one for lunch.  The BK website says that they have 140 calories, so I thought that would be a nice trade off.  Sadly one cola did not quite fill the void.

Later in the afternoon, I began snooping around the office for a nice snack.  I don't keep anything in my desk anymore not even low carb snacks because I have trouble with absent minded eating.  I can pile in a lot of food while I'm working and not even notice.  There had been a shower for one of our co-workers that is getting married in August, and there were some left over strawberries.  Good choice!!  There was also some nice creamy fruit dip left.  Quite yummy on the strawberries.  Not a good choice.  I stopped at two.  That is nothing to applaud because even though there were strawberries left, they didn't look so good.  They were a little whitish at the top.


I was really quite hungry when I got home and J-boy wanted to go to Cinco's.  This is where I struggle the most.  He is so supportive and always asks if it will fit in my current eating plan.  I just hate saying no to him all the time.  It feels like I'm being a B****, so I agreed.  I knew that I could get fajitas and eat only the meat & veggies like a salad almost, no tortillas.  J-boy wanted fajitas too, so we got fajitas for two.  Great!  That way he eats all the stuff I don't and my frugal nature is spared.  I got a portion of the fajitas on my little plate and ate quite contentedly.  J-boy was sculpting his share using the 'sides' and we were both happy.  After we'd both eaten all we wanted there was still at least half of the meat part and a whole plate of extras virtually untouched.  Still no problem. We got a 'to go' box and J-boy has lunch for tomorrow.





When we got home J-boy went out to mow the grass, and I decided to catch up on facebook.  I was mentally preparing myself for the inevitable gain that I was   going to see tomorrow, and drinking lots of water with lemon, trying to abate some of the damage.  Suddenly, I had to have chocolate.  I had to have chocolate bad.  I knew that there had to be some chocolate in the house someplace and I was going to find it.  And find it, I did.  Deep in the recesses of the laundry room freezer I found it.  Tagalongs!  I had taken them out of the brightly colored box so that they would not taunt me every time I opened the freezer.  They were in a zipper bag and they were hard to see.  I grabbed four and ran back to the computer with Petey (the dog) on my heels.  I was not about to share and told him so.

I calmed down for a while, but then wanted more cookies.  I battled the urge for a while, drinking the lemon water.  I turned on the TV.  There was Jillian!  That didn't help.  In fact it sort of made me mad. Of course people can lose weight with her standing there yelling at them.  What about the rest of us, who have to battle with girl scout cookies on our own?!?!  I got four more cookies.  It occurred to me to eat the rest of the cookies to get them out of the house so they wouldn't tempt me anymore.  Luckily, I came to my senses before that happened.  I still didn't throw them away.  I just can't throw away perfectly good food.  I know it isn't actually food, but in my brain it is still wasteful.

I've had a bath now and have a better perspective.  I'm confessing on the blog to keep it real.  I lost the battle, but the war isn't over.  I'll post the damage in the morning.  I'm moving forward from here.

Doctor Visit

I saw my PCP today. He's encouraged me to lose weight for years, but hasn't gotten all strict about it, just gentle encouragement and support. Now that I am actually losing weight he is very, very pleased. I saw him in March and when he insisted on seeing me again so quickly, I knew he wanted to monitor my weight. Knowing that the appointment was on the horizon kept me on the straight and narrow over the weekend when things were so horrible, so it at least served that purpose.




When I saw him today, he didn't weigh me. He only asked how much more weight had I lost. I was a little surprised. He didn't flinch when I confessed it was only 3 pounds. In fact, he was quite pleased that I lost weight at all with two trips between visits, one of which was a cruise. Of course, he checked all my vitals, bp, pulse, etc. Of course everything was fine.



Then he said he wanted to have blood drawn, which was quite surprising to me. Blood was drawn at the March visit and everything was fine. He said he was very concerned about gall bladder disease and gall stones, and this was necessary to check my lipids & liver enzymes. Apparently there is concern about such matters when individuals lose large amounts of weight. He is a good doctor and has taken care of me for lo these many years, so I agreed. I don't expect there to be any problems. I don't have any symptoms of gall bladder issues. I have heard of people losing lots of weight on a low fat diet and then splurging on pizza and having an attack because their gall bladders aren't used to producing enough bile to process that much fat. I had not, however, heard of a link between weight loss and gall bladder issues. I go back in October for another blood draw.



We also discussed realistic goals. He's been telling me 165. He has said he doesn't get "hung up on all that BMI stuff," and had given me that goal which would still place me in the overweight category. I secretly had a goal of 154.4, which is exactly 100 lbs gone. I wasn't going to tell him and just show up in his office all skinny. The closer I get to both goals, the more I believe that 145 is not only attainable but also desirable. He agreed, but cautioned me to take it one step at a time. He's right about that. I'm still obese, but oh so very close to overweight.



I'll get there. I just can't be in a hurry and frustrate myself.

Saturday Scale Report

This morning I weighed 177.8, up 0.2 lbs from last Saturday.  I was amazingly calm when I saw that.  I was even a little bit pleased.  That is practically maintaining for the week, and my goal for the week was shocking my body not weight loss. Although, yesterday's post indicated, I was expecting a bit of a loss.  That didn't happen.  Live and learn.  Right?


In the interest of full disclosure however, I must hasten to add that last night was awful.  I wanted ice cream so bad, I could almost taste it.  I kept thinking that if I was going to have a gain, I might has well have enjoyed it.  I didn't cheat.  I knew I'd feel even worse about myself if I caved. 

But, my real salvation was that J-boy and I had to pick my mother up from the airport during the worst of my cravings.  We'd just gone a short distance from our house when we saw the rain ahead.  We drove straight into one of the worst hailstorms ever.  The sane people were pulling over under overpasses until the worst of it passed.  Not J-boy & me, oh no, we forged ahead, with him insisting he could see.  I wasn't discouraging him because I'd learned that her flight was due to land early.  She's a bit of a nervous traveler so I had visions of her sitting at baggage claim like a little 5 year old wondering what to do.


This seemed to be a typical summer storm in the south.  I thought it would blow over in about 5 minutes.  It lasted much longer and the airport was impacted.  Her plane had landed 10 minutes early but no planes were taking off in the storm, thus there were no gates available for the passengers to deplane.  They sat on the tarmac for 20 or 30 minutes until the storm abated enough for it to be safe for planes to take off again.  Needless to say, J-boy & I got to baggage claim well ahead of her.  We didn't get home until well after 9:00 so it was much too late to eat anything.


I woke up this morning with a fresh perspective.  My next goal is to get below 175.5.  Then I'll merely be overweight, no longer obese!!  I'm focusing on the fresh food that is so readily available this time of year.  I spent my morning making dill pickles from fresh cucumbers from my back yard and dill from my herb garden.  I'll report again in about 6 weeks to say how absolutely delicious they are. 


I've had a good eating day so far today, no carbs and lots of water.  Soon, I'll no longer be obese!!

Not Feeling Good Between the Ears

I'm not feeling so good mentally today.  I know I said that the main purpose of this week's plan was to shake my body up and not worry about the weight, but I never anticipated gaining weight.  As of this morning I was up 0.4 lbs.  I know that isn't much, but it is so frustrating to stick 100% to plan and then see a gain no matter how small.  I feel so betrayed somehow.

Today I am drinking the water like crazy.  I hope that will literally flush out the excess weight.  It is back to low carb.  That works.  It is just slow and keeps getting slower.  Soon there will be lots of fresh food from my own back yard garden to enjoy.  Maybe that will help too.

I think maybe I was just eating too much fruit.  I had been limiting myself to two servings a day.  Even though those are the good carbs, I think my body just freaks out on any carbs.

It also doesn't help that I'm at work and J-boy is at home.  His class didn't make for next month, so he's doing independent study with those that signed up.  That means he doesn't have to go to work until mid-August!!  He'll have to show up for the odd meeting here and there, but he's not having to keep a schedule.  I'm so jealous of that I can hardly stand it.

OK...deep breath...drink water...hope for a better day tomorrow...

Day One

So, remember how I said that I was excited that J-boy was going to diet with me this week?  Hmm?  Yes??  Well...never mind!  I didn't mean it.

 

Yesterday was day one which is soup (or not) and fruit.  It was a great and glorious day for me.  I munched on icy cold watermelon, juicy, sweet pineapple, Rainier (white) cherries, and Bing (red) cherries all day long.  YUM!!  It was all I had imagined it to be.  Then I got home. 

 

The minute I walked in the door:

J-boy:  "Hey, you want to go to Cinco's tonight?"  (only my favorite Mexican restaurant)

me:  "Oh NO!  You aren't starting that!"

J-boy:  laughing "Just kidding."

J-boy & me - laughter

 

Very soon, thereafter:

J-boy ; "Can we have grape juice?"

me:  "No, I don't think so."

J-boy:  "Are you sure?  Grape juice is good for you.  It is made from grapes."

me:  "I'm pretty sure the list said cranberry juice.  We have some.  Why don't you get a glass of that?"

J-boy:  "I don't like cranberry juice.  I'm just going to drink some grape juice."

me: "Whatever."

 

Not much later:

J-boy:  "Did you know there was cake in the refrigerator?"

me:  "Yes."

J-boy:  "We can't have cake can we?"  (Let me point out at this juncture that I had told him to eat the cake or otherwise dispose of it over the weekend.)

me: "Nope.  Do you want me to throw it away?"  I was trying to be compassionate because I know how food starts talking the minute it is taboo.

J-boy:  "NO!"  with a bit of fear in his voice

me:  "Then you're just going to have to be strong.  Cake is not an option."

 

Soon thereafter:

J-boy:  "Can we have tea?"

me:  "Yes, but only unsweet."

J-boy:  "Well, if we can't have sweet tea, what can we drink?"

me:  "I feel your pain.  I've been struggling with that too.  Remember how I decided to give up artificial sweeteners?"

J-boy:  "Well, I'm having sweet tea anyway."

me:  "OK"

 

After a few minutes passed:

J-boy:  "So, the only thing we can eat today is fruit?"

me:  "Yes, and your soup."

J-boy:  "Does that mean no croutons in my soup?"

me:  beginning to lose my patience, opening the refrigerator  "See, what is in this drawer?"  pointing to the fruit "This is all you can have today."

J-boy:  "I like croutons in my soup."

me:  handing him the list of allowed foods  "Remember this?  This is our eating plan for the week."

J-boy:  "OK, but I don't like it."

me:  "I know this is hard.  Just think, you've almost made it through the first day.  Only 4 more to go.  You can do that."

J-boy:  intelligible muttering

 

 

After scanning the list:

J-boy:  "We get to eat baked potatoes tomorrow!"

me:  "Yes, that is something to look forward to."

J-boy:  "Do we get butter & sour cream?"

me:  pulling out large clumps of my own hair "Look at the list.  What does it say?"

J-boy:  "No bacon bits or cheese?"

me:  flailing myself on the floor and pounding my fists "Just eat, man, JUST EAT!!"

J-boy:  "What's wrong, sweetie?"

 

OK, so maybe I exaggerated just a wee bit, but we did have versions of every one of those conversations, and probably a few more that I have blocked from memory because it is just too painful to recall.  The man has never had a weight problem, and really only needs to lose about 20 lbs max.  He's developed a bit of a gut, and it is wise to get it under control now, before it becomes an issue.  He is a strong and intelligent man, so I was surprised by all his questions and concerns.  I had given him the food list, before he agreed to it.  Then all these questions, and complaints and wah, wah, wah!!!  I really was about to scream.

 

A Good Day

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts, prayers, good wishes, karma, etc. today.  I've been calm and serene today.  I've thought often of my dear Dad, and my grandfathers too, but it was with happiness and thankfulness for the legacy they left me.  I'll miss them until the day I die, but my mourning is turning in to appreciation. 


Of course I have a funny story for the day.  At church this morning there was a particularly emotional time, and I shed a tear or two.  They were happy tears.  I dabbed my eyes with a tissue and wiped my nose.  It was bleeding.  I had to scurry out to take care of that.  I slipped out as discreetly as I could, but still several people saw me.  Every single one thought it was because I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I had to dismiss myself.  So, I had to explain about the nosebleed several times after church.

I have such a loving group of friends.  I am truly blessed!