Idyllic, I think not!

Well here we are back at Monday!   Why can’t the weekend be longer.  My treat of a three day weekend went by just as fast as a typical two day weekend!   The weekend was a good one on a lot of levels.  I was somewhat active.  I saw family. We relaxed and I even had some revelations about weight loss and how the first time around losing weight was so easy and well...idyllic!

Idyllic Memories

As I have gained weight and faught to restart and maintain this weight loss journey, I have sat back and wished for the picture perfect bubble that surrounded me when I lost weight the first time to reappear.  I look back and it just was easy!  I lost a bit...started my blog...joined weight watchers and then snapped my fingers and the weight was gone in a reasonable period of time.  I have lamented this fact over the years, not because it was so easy then....but because it’s SO HARD now! What changed?  

I figured out what changed and I figured it out quite by accident.  When I started my blog I wrote for me. It was my ‘journal’ and I didn’t label/tag ANYTHING!  As I write my posts now-a-days I remember posts that I wrote that go hand in hand with what I’m writing... but finding them amidst 12.5 years of writing and more than 2000 posts is a daunting task.   So my current mission is to reread and label much of what I wrote for ease in recall.   I started at the beginning.  It was truly just a journal back then...and some days were really ‘dry’.  I have found some awesome nuggets of information though. But more importantly, even though I have only made it through a very small segment thus far...I have seen a TRUE picture of my weight loss journey when I ‘did it the first time’.  Let me tell you, it wasn’t the idyllic experience that my apparently faulty memory had created.

A brief rundown.  In bullet point to make it easy.

**Before I began the blog I had weight somewhere between 315 and 330 pounds.   I gave up soda and dropped mad pounds immediately. I got down to around 250.   At that point I started writing on here.  (At least that’s my memory of that period!)

**the first few months of this blog, I battled my way down to 225 pounds...on my own, but then regained back to 250.

**I joined weight watchers.  My descent down the scales started again.  However my memory that told me that I lost consistently through my weight sojourn at weight watchers?   Faulty!  The first weeks were consistent losses, but in reality it was a crawl, brawl and a battle that lasted for more than two years before I reached my weight watcher goal.  I sat stalled and had to reset and restart myself while on weight watchers.  I had bad weeks amidst the good ones.   

My memory of that ‘idyllic weight loss’ were totally faulty!   Thank heavens I started writing my experiences!  The early posts may be somewhat dry...but they were just what I needed.  The idyllic myth has been busted!  Maybe now I can settle into the slow process of weight loss and stop lamenting that it isn’t as ‘easy’ as the first time around.

Panic

I was starting to really get worried.  My trusty Kitchen Aid mixer was starting to give me grief.  I have a tilt top/head and the bowl was not locking into place.  Therefore, if I used the mixer for anything other than an easy stir (meaning no fast and nothing ‘stiff’) the bowl would wobble and fly off the base.  NOT GOOD!   I’ve been struggling with it for a few weeks. But this weekend Jason walked into the kitchen while I was fighting with it.  He looked at it and said ‘It’s eaither the base of the mixer, which looks replaceable or your bowl.’  He lamented the fact that I don’t have another bowl to test it.  I just grinned and dig deep into the cabinet above the fridge and pulled out my second bowl.  What do you know?  The other bowl works perfectly and looks tightly into place!   What a relief!   But boo....I’m back down to one bowl!  Guess I’ll be shopping soon for another bowl.

The weekend

On Friday I did the grocery shopping, had lunch with some of my favorite people (my mom, my sister in law, my niece and my nephews).  And I spent some time editing and reworking a few things on my ‘year of online dating’ chronicles.    I am planning on publishing it.  My working title is ‘Frog or prince: Adventures in online dating”. I figure it is just sitting there completed in my files.  Why not publish!  (I have a few other things out there that I have worked on over the years that I will probably work on getting published in some form in the future after frog/prince.  That will clean up  up my files and I can share some of the stuff that I have worked on over the years.)

On Saturday, we ran to the zoo and walked for a few hours.

And then we went for a bike ride on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. 

It was hot and those two outdoor activities wiped us out...and filled our day!

On Sunday we chose to have a lazy day.  We did run to my mom's to pick up a few of the things that were still there.  The one thing was my headboard and my bed frame.  For numerous reasons, we decided to use my headboard.  I love it for one....but also because my brother made it (he is a professional woodworker) and I love him!   And my bed frame doesn't have a footboard and neither of us like footboards.....and the frame we have been using (Jason's) has a footbaord.   So we went and got mine and brought it to our new place.  I then took the other bed frame/headboard/footboard down and put it in storage and set up the new bed.  (same mattress and box springs). Other than that, we had a nice lazy day of hanging out and binging on movies!

overwhelmed and running two steps behind

Fruit and veggies are all prepped and I'm ready for the upcoming week!  I have a new roll of KT tape.   I have no reason to not make this upcoming week successful!!!!!

I'm trying to figure out how to make everything that I want to do, fit into my life.  Seriously.  I'm working on a Christmas Cross stitch. (next year if I start a large Christmas cross stitch in the month of October shoot me, I'm working like a demon and know that if I miss too many days that it won't be done in time).  I am working on getting rid of all my scrap yarn.  What better way than granny squares?  So I want to get that project underway.  I need to make some pot scrubbers (the one in my kitchen is absolutely horrible and I know that I should probably restock my supply at the market table that my mother runs).  I want to write.  Photography is another one...my camera feels neglected!  Ao many bioks to read.  quilts ti piece, quilts to piece.  I feel so far behind on reading blogs. I want to seriously start training again with my running.    So much to do, such little time.

I'm working on figuring out how to make the most of my time.  I WILL figure out how to make my life full, but not stressfully full.  I WILL figure out how to complete the things that I want to do without feeling overwhelmed and behind.  I WILL figure this out!  :-)

Weigh in results and further damage?

I went to my weigh in, stepped on the scales and low and behold I gained a pound. Quite disappointing. Everyone but ONE other person at my meeting posted losses. SO that was discouraging...especially when they mentioned that they imbibed in the desserts a few times. I ate really good and what did it get me???? Oh well. I will continue to plod along!

Yesterday morning I woke up and was in the throes of my morning exercise when I thought about a treat for Todd. He's been sick for a few days and was feeling better. I had been planning on dragging him around while I finished Christmas shopping. So what better way to treat him than at Panera bread for a breakfast bagel. I don't normally imbibe in their bagels as they are HIGH HIGH HIGH points. (much more than I normally use for breakfast). He jumped at that offer. I cautioned him that I would take a snack for us in case our shopping carried us past the lunch hour. That way we could hold off until we got home to eat our lunch. Well, I'm PROUD to say that I finished my Christmas shopping! WOO HOOO! Lunchtime rolled around and we were hungry. We still had a $10 comp coupon for Longhorn Steakhouse to use. Yep, we decided to go there and get salads and soup. (I actually got a sweet potato instead of soup). So there goes round two of eating out....not to mention about 20 of my daily points for the day (out of 24....dinner wasn't looking good.) Oh wait did I remember to mention that I was doing a mystery shop at a restaurant that evening at 7PM? NO.....well, the mystery shop had specific regulations about what we had to order. We had to order at least one non-alcoholic drink. No problem, Todd always gets iced tea and I always get water. We had to order two entrees. Once again...not to much of a problem....I rarely get an entree and instead chose a lighter dish...but the entree would still be manageable. BUT, we also had to order an appetizer to share. Yep....an appetizer. We ordered buffalo wings. Just 10...to split. So it wasn't THAT bad. For my entree I got a 10 spice chicken, with parsley butter on top, garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. It was all very yummy. But, with only 4 points left for the day...WAY over my allowance!

Oh yes, yesterday...while I did drink with every meal, (a bottle of water with breakfast, two glasses at lunch and three at dinner) I was still lacking in my water consumption.

I actually debated on the whole get on the scales thing this morning. But I did it. I was surprised to see that I was only up 1 pound!!! Not bad....especially since knowing that the water issue alone can cause me to retain a pound or so!!!!

We had to run to the store to pick up cat liter (bad me, I forget it when I went shopping the other day). I picked up three packs of gum! I plan on chewing it heavily here soon when I'm baking. Yes, we are attending a few parties this weekend. AND for two of them I'm taking desserts! So I'll be baking and all that! The gum will be in my mouth the whole time!!! That and I'll be praying to be able to refrain from trying each bite!!!

Did I mention that my Christmas shopping is DONE! Well...we got home yesterday afternoon and I pulled out the wrapping supplies. EVERYTHING is not only bought...but wrapped! I'm going to take it up to mom's house to store. She has the room and that's where it will be needed on Christmas morning!!! WOOOO HOOOO!

I picked up a few new books at the bookstore yesterday. The one is called Mindless Eating. I'm fascinated thus far. It is going into depth, using research data that shows how things in our society influences how much and what we eat. I also got one that talks about the mindset and the shift in mindset from being an overweight person to someone that is no longer over-weight. I know that I have a problem with this. I still find myself in the 'overweight' mindset. It freaks Todd out...because he's like "that's how anorexics and bulimics are created". I honestly don't think that will happen to me....but it is scary.

One thing...I get so disgusts about how long this weight is taking to come off.....well this morning I was reading and this is what I came across. The actual body of the book had this statement " It's estimated that over 95% of all people who lose weight on a diet gain it back." It had an end note, so I flipped back to see what else was there...and this is what was written as the end note. "The speed at which you gain weight after going off a diet is almost always directly related to the speed you lost the weight to begin with. If you miraculously lose 10 pounds in two days, with the new Celebrity Fad Diet, you're more likely to miraculously gain it back almost as fast". Yes, I know that I'm not on a diet...and this is more of a lifestyle change. But it's still the same premise for me if I would substitute the words 'after going off a diet' with "when I'm done losing"

The other thing that really hit me is that the author talked about volume versus calories. We as humans work on volume of food and not calories. The caloric count does not affect our hunger and relative satisfaction....the volume of food does! They actually talked about a making two smoothies. Beating/aerating the one so it looked bigger and leaving the other one looking smaller...even though it was the exact same portion size. EVERY TIME, the people that got the aerated one (the big looking one) said they were fuller and ate less at the following meal because of their 'big' smoothie! Crazy.....

It just reinforces my belief that this weight loss is a total mind game!!!!!