#64 New month, new vigor (06/01/12)

I know everyone has heard and or said this before.  Let’s see if I can keep up the vim and vigor, instead of turning into piss and vinegar.  I’ve discussed with my wife regarding the gold star plan.  She is on board.  Let’s see if that keeps us going. 

As mentioned in previous blogs I’ve been waiting for a stress to be over, and today was the deadline.  It is now over, with a happy ending.  However that now means we are packing, cleaning, packing, moving, cleaning, renovating over the next couple months.  This will hopefully lose fat, and gain some muscle. 

The whole prospect is very overwhelming though.  It is a flood of feelings.  I had a point today where I wanted to eat in celebration, another point I wanted to eat in fear to comfort of what is happening. It is funny how food addiction can weasel its way back in if not watched.  Amy, my inner catalyst is getting sneaky. 

Goals for June

1.      Get as many gold stars as possible

2.      Lose 4 inches

3.      Get into the 200’s. 

4.      Lose 6 pounds

5.      Non weight related, get the house ready and up for sale

#63 Gold Stars (05/31/12)

Do you remember when you were little and used to get gold stars on a tracking devise for doing chores or homework or something?  Wasn’t that a great motivation?  I wonder if that would work for losing weight.  Something as simple as a gold star for making sure daily activities get done. To get one gold star my motivators would be all of the following:

1.      Drink at least 4 glasses of water in a day

2.      Take a 15 minute walk, for exercising only.  Not shopping, etc.  For exercising.

3.      Climb at least 5 flights of stairs in daily activity

4.      Take my vitamins

5.      Walk at least 5,000 steps in a day

6.      Come in under the calorie goal

June is a new month.  That starts tomorrow.  I haven’t had much progress in May so obviously I need to change something up, or manage consistency.  Maybe for a double gold star, if I work out, not chores, work out for 45 minutes in a day (on top of the 15 minute walk) then I get the extra gold star on my calendar.  For working out, due to the fact we might be hitting reno/moving mode, which will occupy a lot of our spare time, which is very physical and tiring I will count that as working out, but will need to be the time equivalent, or if the evening is slightly less vigorous double time equivalent. 

7.      Double gold = Working out for 45 additional minutes

May June be the month I reach the elusive 200’s, and walk a total of 50 Fitbit miles.  At the end of the month, hopefully my calendar will be full of gold stars that I can reflect on and see that I made a good effort for the full month.  I think I will do a non reported weigh in tomorrow morning to get my true June starting weight. 

Then maybe in a month or two, I won’t need the stars as a visual reminder.  I will be able to see it in the mirror more, and on the scale. 

#62 General thoughts (05/31/12)

One stress is down and out, one more to go.  As much as I try not to let stress affect me, I think it does a little.  The first place stress shows in my body is digestion.  When I’m stressing my stomach doesn’t work as well as it should.  I need to remember to drink more water when stressing.  That could be half the cause. 

Tomorrow is the biggie.  Damage control or all hands on deck to get moving.  It is going to be a weird day. 

We haven’t been on the Wii in the evenings to see if we are doing worse or better for the week so far.  I’m getting worried and curious.  We haven’t been sloths in the evenings, but have been doing other activities in general around the house.  Our late night snacking has been bad though, however it was to top up calories.  Let’s see which wins, bad snacking = weight gain or plateau or general activities countering to = weight loss. 

For the past week I’ve been walking at lunch around the parking lot.  Yesterday I was able to get my steps on that walk to over 1000.  It was actually closer to 1200.  I just thought, instead of just around the parking lot, maybe I should go down the block.  That should add about 200 steps.  It was actually 200 steps each way, so it added 400 steps.  Yay.  I think I will do that again today.  Weather permitting.  Rain clouds are looming overhead.  Even so, I may just grab an umbrella at the front door and nip out anyways. 

#61 My inner catalyst is back (05/29/12)

My previous post I Want Results was good in thought.  And I want to adhere to it, but today it seems my old demons are back. My head is saying, I want cookies, hmm Tim Horton’s sounds great too, one or two doughnuts or maybe a snack pack of Tim Bits. 

It seems I’ve eaten a lot today all ready.  I’ve had my usual snacks, then a bit more with cereal, and a few Lemon Poppy seed cookies.  They are about 25 calories each, but seem to be adding up with the other things.  Then to top it off, I would like to be able to have my cantaloupe this afternoon, and once again it is Tea Tuesday, and I’m not sure if I can resist having a cookie (or two, or three).  Eek, the tea cart is here...............  I was unable to resist.  Damn. 

My motivation and inner catalyst seem to contradict each other.  Maybe I need bribe my catalyst over this the motivation side.  The down side to that is the usual bribe is “Come to our side, we have cookies.”  That does not quite work in this situation.  The catalyst is my inner fat demon I think she needs a name; Amy maybe?  Maybe it is my catalyst Amy bribing my motivation with cookies.  Now that I am trying to kick start the motivation my inner demon is kicking up a fuss. 

Maybe I’ll try and do some extra flights of stairs today to balance off the cookies.  Let’s see if I can get my next fitbit badge to have 25 flights in a day.  I’m only on 3 however; it might be a challenge.  It seems Amy is trying to tell me “No, No, you really don’t want to do that.”  I think I need to show her a thing or two. 

#60 I Want Results (05/29/12)

Isn’t that stating the obvious?  I used to be a very patient person, maybe I was just too passive to care.  But now I want to see results faster.  Why am I not seeing results; because I’m not focusing on what I want.  Life is getting in the way.  It happens. But at least I’m not technically sliding backwards, just losing focus.  Maybe I need some Focascine.  (The Simpsons reference.)

The past little while I’ve been having minor writer’s block, so today I’m going to try and work through it.  I’ve been posting little items to keep up with my blog and note various things crossing my mind, but nothing deep in thought.  This means, I haven’t been paying enough attention to my weight loss plan.  Some things have become habit and some have not. 

Logging my food has become second nature now, my water, not so much.  Eating out is still a challenge to find the best match but hopefully eating out is going to go back to lesser than more.  Eating healthy in general has become easier, however the cookie monster is still looming.

Daily steps counted average has gone up, I haven’t walked under 4000 steps in a while.  I think I need to curb that up a little farther though, to 4500-5000 on work days.  It has helped that I am taking a small walk around the parking lot at lunch.  It isn’t much but it is 800 steps, ish added to my day.  I think I need to double back somewhere and try and make it a 1000 step walk, or maybe try and go twice a day. 

What can I do today to hopefully gain results?  As much as I want to up everything at once, it makes thing hard to track, and see what is working.  So today I will be absent from my office once more, taking my walk around the lovely.....parking lot.

#59 Stress (05/28/12)

Today I’m feeling optimistic.  The past week and this week have been stressful ones.  Last weigh in I was up .9 pounds.  But being the TOM, I’m not stressing over that at this point.   Hopefully this week I will lose that and then some.  Stress is a funny thing though.  I do believe that stress is directly related to progress on weight loss.  Being stressed out for one reason or another your body can’t concentrate on losing the weight.  It falls back into storage mode and becomes efficient and puts all extra calories into fat.  Or at least doesn’t tap into the reserves you are trying to lose. 

This week I’m trying to lose a bit at least, but if I don’t gain this week we are doing well.  The news I’m waiting for is coming Friday.  It was supposed to come last Wednesday, then it was Friday, now the following Friday.  Once the news hits, it will either be damage control, or full hands on deck to get things done.  For the latter option, it will be at least a good weight loss plan, hopefully, as we will be very active in our evenings and weekends. 

#58 Am I losing my mind (05/25/12)

I’m eating my usual salad, and the cauliflower reminds me of peanuts. 

Today has been very stressful.  I was waiting for results on a purchase.  Surprise (sarcastic), it got delayed and added road blocks.  Because I used to turn to food during stress, I’m now trying to avoid it. 

Today I think I left eating too long.  The start of a migraine was peaking through, my stomach was growling and Snicker Joe was starting to rear his ugly head.  On top of that I’m a little extra emotional due to TOM.  By the time I started to have lunch I was boarder line crying, or wanted to throw my monitor across the room.  I didn’t think that would go to well, seeing my review is next week.  I was afraid to start the eating process to not have to fight stopping eating.  But I was so angry and sad with a headache; I decided to start to eat.  The emotions are just starting to fade, as I finish the salad, and surprisingly I do currently not want to eat more.  It is actually the opposite, I hate that I had to eat in the first place to feel less edgy. 

When did food go from a source of comfort to hatred?  I’m sure this will pass; it is just annoying at the moment.  Hopefully soon I will have balance towards food in general. 

#57 Pizza just isn’t the same anymore (05/24/12)

Last night my wife and I weren’t in the mood to cook, and were craving pizza.  So on the way home I stopped and got one Little Caesar’s.  I opted for a ham and pineapple pizza in lieu of pepperoni to save some calories.  I also got some Cinasticks.  Both of which were to share between us.  We each ate half the pizza and some of the cinasticks, then later finished the cinasticks.  At the time we felt full, but shortly after we felt hungry.  Not just peckish, but HUNGRY.  For the dinner this brought us to our calorie allotment, so we didn’t want to eat more.  We had a little room so we had some milk. 

Pizza used to be a satisfying meal.  I suppose we used to eat more of it, but not too much.  Now, the craving is gone, but we now have a realization that it just isn’t the same, for store bought ones anyways.  A home baked pizza with extra veggies and pineapple is much better, for the next time we get the craving.  Hopefully we remember the feeling and do something at home instead. 

#56 Waiting for milestones (05/23/12)

Onederland is still so far away.  What’s I’m striving for is getting back into the two hundreds.  It seems so close, yet so far away; 1.7 pounds before I see that number on the scale again, 299.9.  It seems so long ago that I was that weight, but in reality that was a little over a year ago, however that was a brief point.  I have been fluxing over 300 for a while, and before that I was fluxing 290-300.  I’m longing for the first 10 pound mark, but the major milestone for me will be 289.  I haven’t seen that number in years.  I don’t even remember when that was, maybe 5 years ago.  Maybe I’ll try and look at old journals and see if I can find it. 

#55 Post Mock Vegas (05/22/12)

I love my wife for having an imagination and creative side.  Mach Vegas was a lot of fun.  I got home and she had set up the house as a hotel, signs all around, welcome to Vegas, and pictures of slot machines etc, and with room numbers on the doors.  She met me in a fedora and big sunglasses as the “receptionist”.  I couldn’t stop smiling/giggling as she checked me in, gave me a room key, and a tour of the hotel.  We became tourists in our own city.  In the theme of Las Vegas we went to all the casinos, ate out a lot, did some sightseeing and shopping. 

Along with Vegas theme came eating out.  Friday and Saturday we came in under our calorie goals, not quite on really good clean foods but we kept it from being a total binge weekend.  Sunday however came the other Vegas ritual; buffet.  We had a Sunday brunch buffet and ate too much.  I would like to note though, we were fuller faster than normal.  But end result ate TOO MUCH.  Sunday evening was the bad icing on the cake so to speak; a BBQ dinner with family.  Sunday was an overall over eating binge day; buffet with, eggs, bacon, crab salad, noodle salad, fruit (some covered in chocolate), waffle with whip cream and strawberries, ½ croissant filled with chocolate and multiple desert tastes, dinner was an appetizer of cheese artichoke dip with crackers, and alcohol then the main was BBQ pork with roast potatoes, corn on the cob, bread, salad, alcohol and cheesecake for dessert.  The day end was about 1000 calories over at best estimate for the buffet and food cooked elsewhere.  It might have been more.  I tried to log everything though, even though it was a binge day. 

The other side of Vegas was lots of walking, which was good to help offset the extra calories a bit. 

Monday, even though it was a day off, it was back to reality.  We did our shopping, cleaning, cooking, cutting etc.  The weekend was a fantastic weekend, even though Sunday cost me a pound maybe a pound and a half. (Next day I did an extra weigh in to see the weight cost)  We will see when it all ends on Saturday, on the official weigh in.  I’m going to bust my but to hopefully battle the binge and lose more than the gain. 

#54 Viva Vegas (05/18/12)

Today is the day starting the long weekend.  For this long weekend my wife and I are having a Stacation.  I know vacations are usually doom to a diet.  Will a stacation be the same?  I’m letting my wife plan the whole weekend, and other than the theme of Viva Vegas, I don’t know what we will be doing.  She did say a LOT of walking to stay in tune with Vegas, as when we did go, we walked, and walked, and walked.  You get the idea.  It would have been neat to see how many steps we did with the fitbit in Vegas.  Alas let’s hope this isn’t too bad on the diet. 

Monday we will try and work off calories, as we will be doing some severe gardening to get rid of the Jiffi pot plants that are starting to take over our kitchen.  We are having to rework a garden patch that hasn’t been used in years and has been taken over by dandelions and some rhubarb. 

#53 I need a swift kick in the keester (05/17/12)

It has now been two months and what; I’m slowly falling back into old habits.  Not working out as much as I should, not drinking as much water as I should.  Eating fairly healthy though, but bad habits are still late night bad snacks that top off calories, instead of really healthy ones.  I’m losing my gumption.  I need to get back into gear.  Yes life has been keeping my evenings busy, but that is slowly becoming an excuse again.  I need to get back into gear.  New goals:

1.      Drink at least 6 glasses of water a day, and LOG them. 

2.      Try to average 4500 steps a “week” day.  I’ve been at around the 3500-4000 mark lately.  But seems to slowly be getting less.

3.      Try to average 2 Fitbit Miles per “week” day.  (Plus workout miles)

4.      Work out more.  Vigorous cleaning, like vacuuming yes that is a work out.  Doing dishes, not so much.  But on top of that I need to get back into working out time.  Walking and Wii.  I’m over half way through the month and I haven’t gotten very far on my goal of 15 treadmill miles this month. 

5.      Take my vitamins every day. 

For the next 10 days I will try and make these goals.  Let see how I do.

On a side note though; today my bum feels smaller.  I was just walking up the stairs and though my bum didn’t seem as heavy today.  Probably all in my head, but alas maybe I can make time tonight to take my monthly measurements. 

#52 Sixty Days...... (05/16/12)

Two months have gone by now.  Seven point something down to 302.6 ish.  Not quite where I wanted to be when I started this.  I feel torn.  I’m not losing rapidly, but I do feel I am losing solid pounds that will stay gone.  Had I not started, with my wife quitting and my monthly average of at least a pound a month up I think I would now be up 10 pounds from my current weight.  Depending on what scale I was listening to at the time, 312 something I have seen before.  However that number seemed to be the breaking point for starting this journey. 

Do I feel better?  Most of the time

Do I feel I’m accomplishing something?  Most of the time 

What do I know? 

               I know I am getting better habits, but some things seem to be sliding backwards.  I am not walking like I should be.  I know I need to bump that up again. 

               I know after a weekend of limited veggies, on Monday if I don’t have my big salad for lunch it seems my body is saying WTF.  I kept quite over the weekend, but now I want my payment. 

               I know I am still losing in general, just not as much as I had hoped. 

#51 Cookie Monster Eating Back Calories (05/15/12)

Overall in a day my wife and I are under on our fat content %.  Hard to believe I know.  We tried to eliminate all excess fat items, and switched to lower fat ones ie FF Yogurt, FF Dressing, Light Cottage Cheese, light cheddar some of the time, lean meats etc. But apparently that was a little too much.  Too little fat in your diet and one of the major issues is, you hair falls out.  We haven’t hit that point as we do have some fats in our diet, but I think we need to balance off the carbohydrates with a little more fat.  This for me is a hard pill to swallow, as most of my life “FAT is the enemy, cut out fat from your diet to lose weight, etc.” But we are trying to have a balance diet, so if we increase the fat, our carbs should go down, provided we keep to the calorie allotment. 

To help bring up our fat content we have introduced 2% cottage cheese, and OMG Homo Milk.  That is 3.25% creamy milk.  I grew up on homo, but in adulthood switched to 2% in an attempt to limit fat.  As why I’m here, that really was a drop in a bucket that didn’t help.  The down side to having yummy milk in the house, what goes well with milk?  COOKIES. 

This past week my wife and I have been under our net calories near the end of the day.  This is due to Fitbit adjustment and or exercise credits.  To top off the calorie balance we have been having milk and cookies.  So that is upping our carbs (sugars) along with the milk to bring up the fat, therefore not really increasing our fat %.  However, the cookies are also trying to sneak in other areas.  Today is tea Tuesday, which also has cookies available and because I have been having cookies, I’m almost craving them.  I don’t think I will be able to resist tea and cookie(s).  Another sneaky cookie, on the weekend morning, I had a cookie with my coffee.  A long time habit I had well into my adulthood, once again 2% milk to save fat, but having cookies for breakfast.  I know how I got here; not very good choices.  Don’t dwell on the past, just try and not have history repeat itself.

My challenge to myself this week was to be as close the net 0 calories as possible for eating, to try the “Eat more to lose weight” but what is another food that is good for topping off calories, that is mostly eek, FAT.  Plus eating in late evenings isn’t very good, but I don’t want to eat too much during the day and end up going over.  This is a delicate maneuver.....calorie balancing.  I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon enough. 

In general cooking I’m going to start to include olive oil to help increase a little, but that can be another slippery slope, literally.  Those fat calories add up quickly.  For every gram of fat it is 2.25 times the calories per gram of carb or protein. 

Today I’m starving.  Not too sure why.  I’m not very active, eaten a little less than usual, but not that much less.  Weird. 

#50 My 50th blog post in 57 days. (05/14/12)

When I started this blog I didn’t think I would stick to it.  It has been a good tool for me, especially reviewing old posts, what I was thinking at the time etc.  In those 57 days I have lost 7.6 pounds.  That is just about one pound per week.  I have kept a spreadsheet of my calorie intake, WW points, calories burned and weight loss.  In the past 3 weeks I think my calorie deficit has been too much, or maybe my exercise has been too little. 

At the end of the day I get Fitbit credits, but my daily activity hasn’t really changed so I think I need to keep on working out and including weights.  The past week especially we haven’t been working out in the evenings; partially due to schedule, and partially because of lack of motivation.  We need get back on the exercise wagon.  Food intake has been fairly good, if not too little for our activity level.  The Fitbit adjustments take some getting used to. 

I think for one week, I will try very hard to have Wii or treadmill exercise 5 days of the week, and have as close to 0 calories balance as possible, average over the week.  See how that averages for the week in terms of weight loss.  Wish me luck.  Eat more to lose weight, hard concept to accept. 

I was just craving junk food, ultimate sugars.  Drinking two cups of water with my vitamins helped curb that craving.  I was hitting sleepy, munchy, sugar energy wanted.  My day is almost done, getting active tonight should help stop the boredom munchies. 

#49 Eating Healthy; Does it take more time? (05/11/12)

Well, I’m sitting here eating my air popped popcorn with a Kernels Sweet & Salty shaker on it.  It had been measured into a Ziploc baggie for me to take for lunch.  This made me think of a conversation I had last night with my mother in law.  She laughed at the comment I made in my blog about healthy cooking/eating not taking that much more time.  She doesn’t agree. 

That got me to thinking how much time does my wife and I use to cook/eat healthier.  Once a week we cut a lot of veggies and fruit.  It is usually my wife cutting as I’m cleaning the kitchen or something.  Or we share the cutting.  The man hours into cutting is about an hour and a half.  That does our veggies for our lunches for the week and any leftovers goes into a stir fry at the end of the week.  For other dinners we have some frozen mixed veggies for stir fry or whatever was on sale at the time.  We currently have a fairly stocked freezer of frozen veggies. Measuring when cooking meals to make sure portion sizes are correct does take a little extra time, let’s say 10-15 minutes per dinner meal to measure and log the recipe.  We re-use recipes so that adds up to about an hour and a half per week, including all logging of all food.  For snacks we are now making our own prepackaged popcorn to have under 100 calorie snacks on hand.  That will be about an additional 30 minutes per week. 

Overall I think the weekly total for added time would be around 3.5 hours, so an average of 30 minutes a day.  Not usually a constant 30 minutes, but here and there for logging and measuring.  Allowing an extra 5 minutes around meals isn’t that bad.  Planning is a big helper.  Doing healthy on the fly is a little harder, depending on what you have on hand for groceries. 

In the end, I think the extra 30 minutes a day is well worth the trade now, to gain the years at the end of your life later. 

#48 Boredom Munching (05/10/12)

This morning went by fairly quickly at work.  The afternoon however has seemed a lot slower.  I have been munching on this and that.  This is a slippery slope.  In my lunches, snacks are for the most part healthy, but eating all available snacks not a good idea.  This morning I had some honeydew melon, then some additional fruit and pretzels provided by work; standard snacking this morning.   This afternoon.......not so standard.  Lunch was usual, but I also had some yogurt with lunch, a small add on.  Then I finished my fruit and pretzels, not so bad.  Then for my afternoon coffee, I added sugar and cream.  Yes 18% coffee CREAM.  One table spoon anyways.  Usually I have it black to save on calories.  Then I was going to have some cantaloupe, but ended up snacking on air-popped popcorn with sweet and salty seasoning.  Homemade, 86 calories, but now that I’ve had that, I still want to continue to munch. 

I haven’t fallen victim to mindless munching for a while now.  Tonight is a bigger meal night, as it is a birthday party and I will be having lean steak, with baked potato, which had margarine added, then veggies.  For dessert, the delightful Puffed Wheat Squares.  As it stands, I’ve pre entered my dinner to see where I am at calorie wise and find that I am now 82 calories over my daily allowance, with only 1 PWS, I usually have two.  On average however at the end of the day, I get about 200+ calorie adjustment for Fitbit tracking activity.  I may be on target, but the urge to munch is still there.  I want to have some of that cantaloupe, which would be all I have with me (about 1.5 cups) and or prunes.  Surprisingly I don’t want the other options of sweet cereal or extra honey pretzels, or animal crackers.  Fruit sugars is where I’m craving at the moment.  Luckily the day is almost done and I can go home and have the delightful dinner.  I will try and get my full belly onto the treadmill afterwards though. Burn off some extra just in case there is no Fitbit adjustment to balance the extra off. 

Have a great night to anyone who’s reading, mostly my wife and Dharma.  :D

#47 I’m seeing it in my face (05/10/12)

Today I seem to be having a radiant day.  My hair is having a good day, my face seems softer, and most of all skinnier.  I am feeling beautiful today. 

Even though I’m seeing it in my face, I’m worried that I won’t see it on the scale this weekend.  At my last evening weight it wasn’t kind, due to the Chinese food over the weekend.  Yesterday we didn’t get much of a workout because I was out on my motorcycle, then we cleaned/tidied the office.  Motorcycle riding though does give a slight workout, as you squeeze your thighs like holding onto the thigh master, and manoeuvring the bike is upper body strength.  I hope that helps with my workout goals in the back end of things so to speak. 

Yesterday was a bit of a weird day.  For most of the afternoon it seemed like my old demons were popping up; under eating, over eating, drugs, smoking, and alcohol.  My body was craving something to fill the void that usually is filled with food in general.  The emotional things that food has been hiding might be ready to surface now that I’m not feeding the demon any more.  I’ve warned my wife an emotional breakdown or two might be on their way.  Alas today I’m feeling good, overall good.  That must be a good sign that this change is going to be permanent. 

#46 Why is My Stomach Angry? (05/09/12)

It seems yesterday I didn’t snack as much as I usually do, but we had a large dinner.  With working out I was 616 calories under my goal, I had eaten 1795 calories through the day though but then the workout took 569 from my net.  Today, I had my usual breakfast, of toast, yogurt and strawberries.  Mid morning, my stomach was feeling empty.  Fair enough, it is now used to snacking every couple hours kind of thing.  I just had 1.5 cups of honeydew melon.  My stomach is now yelling.  I’m not sure if it didn’t like the melon, or is trying to say it is still hungry.  It doesn’t feel as though I ate the melon at all.  Overall I feel content that I had some melon, but my stomach seems to disagree.  It is audibly growling. 

Is my stomach relapsing to eating more because I had a large dinner, or is my body trying to say more calories because I had such a deficit yesterday? 

#45 Bad Diet History (05/08/12)

Today I read a small blog about bulimia.  It got me thinking about my dieting past, when I was much younger.  There was one point I can remember, I can’t remember how old I was, but I don’t think I was much older than 11-12.  Easter chocolate had been my overindulgence, and I figured, “Why not just throw it up, other people do.”  So I did.  Once I was done my thoughts were “What a waste of food.”  Also with it being a first time, it wasn’t that easy so I didn’t really feel any better than I had before. 

Near the end of high school, I tried “anorexia”.  That didn’t go well either.  Going from over eating to starving constantly, I immediately turned into insta-bitch.  Even I noticed, and the “empty” feeling didn’t quite give me any satisfaction at the time, so that didn’t last. 

One day in college, I wasn’t feeling well.  To the point that I figured throwing up was the best option.  I was in the ladies room and someone overheard me having difficulties evacuating my stomach.  Through the stall wall she offhandedly said “Have a glass of water, it makes it easier,” then left the washroom.  That person recognized what I was doing and instead of saying “Are you ok?” or something like that; she instead tried to tell me how to make a bad habit easier.  To this day I don’t know who that was, but I imagine she was a person who was fully bulimic and didn’t see it as abnormal. 

Where would I be today if there had been someone listening to my Easter incident and given me the tips then?  At that age I would have been easily coerced and thought that was okay.   I can pinpoint a few times in my life where if the college incident had happened at that time, I could have easily gone into a downward spiral.  Throughout high school I watched many MOW’s about anorexia and bulimia as if to pinpoint the payoff.  Try and figure out why people did it.  Try and give myself an excuse to say, “Okay, I think I should do that.”  However, the MOW’s did do their job and educated me against going down that road. 

In my adulthood, I learned that one of my friends in high school struggled with bulimia.  Had I known I don’t know if I would have been talking her out of it, or joining her. 

From the MOW’s many of them said anorexia/bulimia are a lot about control.  A lot in the exterior of their life is out of their control.  Food is the one thing they can and everything spirals from there.  Maybe some people that are overweight are getting there because of control issues too.  Not in consciousness did I realize, it is just now that I am analyzing things that I am maybe making this connection.  My BIG weight gain happened during my first marriage.  Was I subconsciously trying to gain weight so he would leave me?  Early on in dating my second spouse, was I so happy that I was trying to get my wife to gain weight with me so she didn’t trade me in? 

Now that I have balance in the rest of my life, I am taking control of my hidden control issues.  I am tackling weight loss in a healthy way.  I have tried to research most aspects and will continue to do so as I go along this journey.  Never again will I starve myself, consider bulimia, or constantly stuff myself to full at each dinner.  The right way (hopefully) is right down the middle, enjoy food in small quantity, but not so small my body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs.  Get Healthy, both in body and mind. 

#44 Non Scale Motivations (05/08/12)

This past weekend my wife and I went to the ballet.  We didn’t have good seats but it was a lot of fun.....for the most part.  The downside was, the seats were too small.  Let me rephrase, our bottoms were too big, especially mine.  So now for the next week or two or three I will be sporting, fall colours of Purple and Blue on my hips.  It is so out of season being spring an all, lol.  The bruise on my right hip is the worst.  It is about 4” wide and about 1” tall.  When I bruise is doesn’t heal quickly, so it will be a reminder for a while now. 

I guess I’m still waiting for my NSV, but will use my NSM as a reminder to one of the reasons I am doing this.  

#43 Diet Derailment or Caloric Intake Realignment (05/07/12)

Over the weekend eating right kind of went out the window.  We didn’t eat when we should, for lunch, and then had mostly bad food for dinners.  Over the three days, however, I did stay under my calories overall; Friday under, Saturday under, Sunday over.  The big diet derailment was going for Chinese buffet.  It was what I saw as a treat after a hectic weekend.  I didn’t even hesitate to suggest it when I had thought about it. 

On most of my days, my proteins are about where they should be, but carbs are high and fats are a lot lower than they should be for a balance caloric intake.  Was this a diet bump, or a realignment of caloric balance?  

Alas the weekend is done, and I’m mostly back into healthier foods.  With the weekend being so hectic, we didn’t get a chance to cut our fruits and veggies, so that is happening tonight.  Thus, today’s lunch was a microwave meal, but a low calorie one. 

I hope this weekend, didn’t do too much damage, we will see come this Saturday.  I lost another 0.9 pounds as of this past Saturday.  Still going down which is what I want it to do.  Not quite the two pounds I was hoping for, but a loss is a loss, and that is good news. 

#42 Double check your facts (05/04/12)

There are a lot of resources on MFP.  Some of which may not be necessarily of reputable sources.  Most information starts with a grain of truth though, but then through the “telephone game” of he said, then she said, then so and so said facts can get a little twisted. 

Yesterday my mother in law commented on where we got the fact of carb, protein, fat percentages that should make up a daily allowance.  For the most part because that is part of the software I assumed it was correct.  However I couldn’t back up the source other than the software says so.  Note though, I have seen this before, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen it with conviction to say so.  Today I looked at a few other websites and confirmed the default percentages on MFP are average.  My main reference is from the Mayo clinic.  Of course there is always a variable percent, but what our goals are, are part of a balanced diet.

Another thing that I have found on here that I had to confirm was my BMR and knowing what that means. From some slight additional research the BMR is what this body needs to keep organs, etc, functioning, if I were to stay in bed all day. There is debate on how to calculate that though, because of two used formulas.  I have decided to follow using the Katch-McArdle formula, but that is my choice on this diet adventure. 

Sometimes, just because so and so said this is true, you might want to look it up to double check.  Think about what you read and if it is something you want to follow then double check the information.  This is your health you are playing with.  Make sure what you are doing to/with your body is healthy.  When in serious doubt, consult your doctor, or maybe a dietitian.  I think my knowledge of why I am doing what I am doing will help me stay on track.  Hopefully it will help you too. 

#41 The Fitbits are here!!!! (05/03/12)

My wife and I are excited that the Fitbits have finally arrived.  The biggest appeal to those was the fact they are small and discrete, you don’t need to have it around your arm or wrist, so you can wear them all day.  I’m very curious as to what they tell us.  I’ve been on a slow loss, but my wife had trouble starting any loss.  We are a month in, and surprisingly still committed to losing weight.  It has been a struggle to get to this point, but I feel the momentum continuing to keep going. 

Last night we didn’t get a workout in, but for the past week we have been pretty good.  Going back seven days, we worked out 5 of them, in one form or another.  Tonight we have a meeting at 7 so it is going to be a rush, get home, have dinner, leave to meeting, get home, set up Fitbits, and work out.  But we are looking forward to it. 

#40 Excuse #4 Food Weaknesses Continued (05/02/12)

I fell victim to a food weakness I had forgotten about; Licorice/Nibs.  Nibs haven’t crossed my lips in so long; I had forgotten what a forbidden fruit these were.  In the lunch room at my work was some candy bowls.  In these candy bowls were fun size nib packets.  I was doing well for calories today and figured I would be ok just having one.  Wrong.  This ignited my sweet tooth into a bonfire.  More nibs, I wanted.  My sweet tooth was screaming at me “Go get more, it’s only 45 calories. Get more.” It seemed I almost went into a panic for more, for a moment. 

The change in my behaviour though showed.  I stopped myself because I knew if I had one more that would lead to one more and one more etc.  To help calm my urge I ended up having a caramel rice cake which is a little more substance behind the 50 calories.  I have to watch though, my sweet tooth tried to get me to add sugar to my afternoon coffee.  That is a habit I haven’t really been doing for a long time now, yet it seemed so natural to grab a sugar packet to add.  I stopped myself however before picking up the packet. 

#39 Body Dysmorphia in Reverse – Fat Me Not Seeing My Obesity (05/02/12)

Last night we finally did the “Before Pictures”.  I haven’t posted them yet.  We did one set in standard clothes, and one set in bra and underwear.  Seeing the latter of the two, took away any denial in my head that I wasn’t that bad.  Yes I had to lose weight, but in my head I didn’t look much different than when I was smaller, just proportionally bigger. Don’t get me wrong, I was never “skinny” just smaller in high school.  In one way my body did just get bigger, it didn’t just grow the extra 100 pounds as a growth out the side of my leg, however, my hips and backside took the brunt of it.  Seeing the pictures was a slap into reality, seeing HOW much bigger my body is.  It showed that I NEED to be doing this, to be losing weight to be able to keep it off. 

I think I had body dysmorphia in reverse, not seeing how bad it had gotten.   Full length mirrors in my house are few and far between, so far the most part I only see myself from the front, waist up. I had never had much pride in my appearance, mostly my clothes, if they fit well enough then I would wear them, whether they looked good or not, fashion sense was lost in my gene pool.  When I was smaller, I dressed in oversized clothes, some of which (100 pounds later) I still fit comfortably.  So when I was smaller, I thought I was worse, now that I’m worse, I think I’m better than I really am.   

 In the back of my head, I knew the photos would be a kick in the pants, but I knew I needed to do them.  Seeing the 360 degree view of myself was shocking.  It brought my head into perspective though.  My fat is here, and my body AND brain need to do something about it. 

Right now I am in mode to lose weight, I have a plan, and I am actually doing it. So I am trying not to let the photos rattle me too much.  Slowly, but surely the pounds are coming off, and I’m fairly confident they are gone for good.  I am also confident that I am on the path to lose a lot more weight and never fall into the path I once was on. The path of not seeing me and what my food and lack of activity had done to my body. 

In the past, I have been too comfortable in my skin, mostly because I tried not to see it in detail.  However, just because I see it a little different now doesn’t mean I have to change that and start hating my size.  Now I need to work on making it better.  My life is good now, and is getting better.  My self esteem seems to be recovering from a lifetime of battery. Fashion sense seems to also be installing a program in my brain. Now it is time to work on my body, have it recover from a lifetime of misuse. 

Even though I am the size I am, I am trying to take pride in my appearance and look better for me and my wife.  This is a new feat for me in itself.  Along with taking pride in my appearance come body changes.  This pride (not vanity) will help me achieve my goals of losing weight and feeling great, and staying that way. 

#38 Cooking Disaster (05/01/12)

Last night as mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I was going to cook a lovely stir fry (No oil in the cooking though).  We have been getting fairly good at them.  HOWEVER, last night turned out horrible.  I wanted to make a curry stir fry, and thought we had some curry seasoning to create this piece.  We didn’t.  What we did have was this Thai Red Curry packet; just add chicken, kind of thing.  I’m not sure if it was just past expiry or just bad to begin with.  When opening I smelled it and it wasn’t bad per say, but the smell didn’t woo me.  I should have stopped there.  Into the pot went the sauce, and then I added some stuff to make the sauce go further.  Then I added all of our last week’s cut vegetables; continued cooking. 

Once it started cooking, the smell seemed to be getting worse.  We tried the sauce taste, it wasn’t the best taste, it was a little flat, so we added some more seasoning, trying to liven it up.  I fried (no oil, just some soya sauce) up some tofu to keep it firm then added to mix; tasted the sauce again.  It was a little better, but no woo factor.  The smell didn’t seem to be getting any better either.  We left it be though.  By this time my wife and I were getting fairly hungry, so we figured we would just deal with it, it couldn’t be that bad.  I cooked up some noodles to have with this mix.  To have dinner, we put the mix overtop of the noodles.  We sat down to eat, had a bite of the cauliflower that was in the mix, and the aftertaste from the sauce was BAD.  Horrible. Terrible.

Alas, we threw out the meal.  We were very disappointed.  We hadn’t had veggies for lunch, and now our veggies for dinner were ruined.  We were very hungry by this point, so we cooked the fasted almost balanced meal we could; KD, Tuna, Peas, and Corn, with cheese sprinkled on top.  Yesterday was a very disappointing food day.