I am not going to let little lemon pies get the best of me!

Aren't they adorable? Grr. So creamy and good too. I ate four yesterday (and another this morning before breakfast). I'm sure it's no coincidence that I also started my period yesterday (Wasn't I just on it? Why yes, I was. That's a whole other subject entirely.) I also ate some jalapeno chips, a couple tablespoons of cookie dough, and some random candy at work. Yes, I tracked it, and I did have the points for it. I also didn't eat myself sick again, so that is some progress.

I think I am in need of a new strategy though. I have noticed that I almost always want some sweets in the evening after dinner. This is not reduced if I have been eating sweets all day. It just means I wind up eating a lot MORE sweets over the course of the day. But what does sometimes happen is I am not hungry enough for all of the healthy food I am supposed to be eating, so it gets skipped, and the points just get replaced with junk food.

I'm not against junk food. If I try to avoid it completely then I just wind up eating unrestrained portions of it at some point in the future. But it should not be replacing my regular healthy food. I have struggled with this since I started my medication which caused appetite loss. I'd go entire days without eating a single serving of fruits or vegetables, but since I wasn't gaining any weight from it and sometimes even losing weight, I just let it continue.

Anyway, I know it's not good for me, and I need to stop. I think I can start with not letting myself have sweets unless I have already eaten whichever meals I should have eaten by then. If I still want it after that and have the points, fine. I am not working today and I can't believe how hard this is. I already caved once today and had a pudding cup while my lunch was cooking, but at least I ate my lunch right after. It's almost four now. If I want to snack on something before dinner, there is fruit. Anything else will have to wait till after dinner. I mean it this time!

I need to run to the grocery store shortly and pick up some things for dinner, plus the stuff I am low on or out of. For dinner I am planning on sauteeing the last two Tofurkey Italian sausages, some zucchini and the rest of the mushrooms, then mixing them with marinara sauce, covering it with mozzarella and some parmesan and baking it.

Back to work

Today was my first day back at work in five weeks. I hurt my back at the gym almost two months ago. I'm starting back at only four hours a day and will work my way up from there. I had no pain today, and everything went great.

I've been doing great with my eating too. Today I had a cranbran Vitatop with a pumpkin smoothie for breakfast. The pumpkin smoothie had a frozen banana, a cup of soy milk, a half cup of canned pumpkin, a packet of splenda, and a dash of pumpkin pie spice. For lunch I had a tuna sandwich on light whole wheat bread and some boiled baby white potatoes tossed with salt, pepper and olive oil. For dinner I cooked up some chicken, red peppers and mushrooms in a skillet and added Santa Fe Philly cooking cream and some frozen corn I had microwaved.



I also made the lemon pie from last week's WW weekly booklet. I couldn't find any fat free condensed milk so I just used the regular stuff. I also made ten individual servings in those little silicone muffin cups so I only used half as many graham crackers and half the butter. The points wound up the same. They turned out sooo good. Here's the exact recipe I used:

3 reduced fat graham crackers
1 T butter
11 oz can condensed sweetened milk
2 eggs
juice from one large lemon
zest from one large lemon

Pre-heat oven to 350. Mash up crackers into fine crumbs (I put them in a baggie and just broke them with my fingers). Put them in a bowl and add 1T melted butter. Mix well and pat into the bottom of each muffin cup. Place in fridge while mixing the filling.

Mix eggs into condensed milk until smooth. Add lemon juice and zest and mix until well incorporated. Spoon filling into each muffin cup (about 3 tablespoons per cup). Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and refrigerate. Serve chilled for best flavor.

Each serving is 4 points. The recipe says you can freeze the portions too. I'd like to try this again with limes and lime juice.

Denny's

The doctor appointment went well. I am cleared for work and going back tomorrow. Blood pressure is awesome. Weight is exactly as I expected.

Across from the hospital is a Denny's. It's not just any Denny's though, it's MY Denny's. Two years ago I lived a fifteen minute walk away and I ate there after work 3 to 4 times a week. Dining alone at Denny's was practically ritual for me. It's the only Denny's I ever happen to be around on occassion, and I decided to go today after my appointment.

This is not nearly as assinine as it sounds, given last night's horrible food fest. My all-time best favorite breakfast out meal is actually pretty points friendly. Depending on how hungry I am it ranges from one fried egg with hash browns (8 pts) to two fried eggs, hash browns, and a side of fruit (11 pts). I always cut the eggs up first thing and mash them together with the browns so the yolks make sort of a nice yellow gravy over everything.  After they started offering the build your own slam I added an English muffin because that made it cheaper than a la carte. Naturally I ate the muffin, as well as endless Cokes and a hot fudge brownie. But at it's base, it's a points friendly breakfast.

Today I got turkey bacon instead of the English muffin, figuring that way if I ate it it would be fairly harmless. I also got black tea, and was pretty damn certain that I'd have zero desire for a brownie. Taking a tip from Lyn, over at Escape from Obesity, I saved the bacon till last so I wouldn't have to over stuff myself to get the good stuff I had come for. I did decide to eat one strip of bacon, not because I wanted it, but because I worried that if I left it all my server would think there was something wrong with it. It's clear that I have a long way to go in terms of not eating so as not to make people feel bad.

The good thing is I don't feel nauseated any more. The bad thing is I am still kind of uncomfortably full. Probably should have stuck with one egg and hash browns.

Off the fricken deep end

So, yesterday was going fine until about 4 or 5 pm. Then all hell broke loose. Not entirely sure what happened. One huge downfall about living where I do is the fact that I have one convenience store less than a block from me and another in less than two blocks. I can control my environment all I like, but I still have to contend with the fact that it's way too easy to bypass that in one impulsive moment.

I wound up not even making dinner because I made myself sick on candy, ice cream, and cookie dough. I think I started to unravel when I decided to finish off a tub of pudding in the fridge, which put me over my weekly points by about five. I changed my weigh in day to Monday, so my points were going to reset after yesterday. It was a case of the usual faulty dieter's logic. Might as well do all the damage I can now.

My boyfriend was totally my partner in crime as well. We talked about it late last night and decided we really need to do a better job reigning each other in. He's diabetic and fighting a major foot infection, looking at a strong likelyhood of losing his toe now. It's one thing for me to do this and suffer a stomache ache for a while, but it's a BFD for him, and I should not be enabling him, ever. Luckily it's fairly rare for both of us to just blow it all off at the same time, but it's so hard when we do.

I have a dr. appointment early this morning. I feel like utter hell. I am not sure if I'll be attending the meeting simply because I feel like I could puke at the moment. If I do, I am skipping the weigh in. It would be pointless, and I weighed in last Friday. I will just continue weighing in next week. What is most disappointing is that based on yesterday morning's weight taken upon waking I likely would have lost a bit more today. When I'm only losing half a poind a week on average, an overage of 1500-2000 calories has the potential to set me back quite a bit. Lesson learned.

I don't want to feel like this again. Regardless of how I came to lose most of this weight, the reality is that I was obese for about ten years, and I'm in a relationship with a guy who was morbidly obese for most of his life and is still suffering from health complications from that. Neither of us is out of the woods, so to speak. We both have a lot to be lost from going back to our previous eating patterns.

I owe it to him and myself to get back on track and to put more effort toward staying there. I am hoping that having Monday weigh ins will make me behave myself more, as weekends are a more difficult time for both of us. I have found that I can be on plan and still eat more than is comfortable or healthy for me. I need to listen to my body rather than just looking at it in terms of what I "am allowed" to do.

Holy Cow!

I did the weigh in at my meeting today and lost 0.8 lbs! Not bad for having been on vacation. Now I'm scared to weigh in on Monday because I don't want to have gained any of it back. Some day I will learn to trust the process and not freak out over stuff like that.

While I was at the meeting my ex boyfriend texted me with a question about some protein powder I had given him. It was really nice out and we hadn't hung out in a while so I suggested we go for a walk after my meeting. We walked from downtown up to Kerry Park which is about 2.5 miles and mostly uphill. I didn't take any pictures today because the scenery doesn't really change, but here's an old one I took a few years ago on a similarly nice day.



There's a nice Trader Joe's a couple of blocks from the park so we went there because I haven't fully stocked up on food yet since getting back from Alaska. We were planning to catch a bus back so I went ahead and bought two heavy bags full. Then I remembered I hadn't reloaded more money onto my bus card. Grumble grumble. So we walked the 2.5 miles downtown where I reloaded my card in the bus tunnel and then we took the bus back to his house because he had something in his Jeep he'd forgotten to give me.

Once we got there he wanted to go to the Grocery Outlet (they have overruns, re-packages, discontinueds, etc. for super cheap) and he asked if I wanted to go, to which I said, "Hell yeah!" They always have an interesting assortment of points-friendly desserts. This time I got sugar free cinnamon bun pudding cups, Smart Ones chocolate chip cookie sundaes, and lemonade flavored coconut water sorbet bars. I also found a great deal on light soy milk with one point (!!!) and stocked up. It's the 8th Continent Light variety. He needed to go to Trader Joe's too, and I had remembered a few things I forgot the first trip, so we went back a second time.

Now, by this time it was after 5:00pm. I had had a protein bar when I first woke up (after which I fell asleep until right before I had to leave for the meeting), a Cadbury Creme Egg while I waited for my ex downtown, and a diet Mountain Dew up until this point. When we hit Trader Joe's again I was starving. I bought much more than I had planned on, and texted my boyfriend with a list of options for dinner (he enthusiastically picked the fish tacos).

When I got home around six I started eating the stuff I had planned for my lunch and snacks. I didn't think I'd be able to get everything I'd planned in, but I managed to. I won't lie. It was sort of awesome. The walk had left me pretty hungry. I even used 3 of the activity points I earned today towards a second serving of frozen yogurt later this evening. I had bought a box of frozen breaded fish nuggets at Trader Joe's, and I baked them in the oven for the fish tacos. They are only five points for 4 nuggets, and two of them are just the right size for one soft taco. We used small low carb tortillas, lettuce, sour cream, and mild salsa. Man, were they good, and only 9 points total. I am just slightly uncomfortably full enough to not start in on the lemonade sorbet bars, which is just as well because that sounds really good.

I also had a bowl of strawberries with my dinner. They looked so pretty, I had to share.



I bought all kinds of tasty things while grocery shopping today and am having a grand old time planning out my meals for the next few days. Tomorrow it's tofu with mushrooms, red bell pepper, peanut sauce and brown rice. Sunday I will probably do Tofurkey Italian sausages (7 points each but so worth it) with more mushrooms, marinara (I found one at TJ with 1 pt per half cup!) and a little pasta. I also bought some of those tiny little fingerling type potatoes at Trader Joe's and I'm thinking about what I should do with them.

I have learned that I am not one of those people who merely eats to live. I need variety, interest and novelty in my food. If I am not looking forward to eating what I have planned for the day, then I'm sure not going to look forward to cooking it either, and the odds that I will just say "screw it" and go get fast food or a frozen pizza are greatly increased. I love food. That's probably not going to change. I can let it work for me or I can let it work against me. I'd rather let it work for me.

The rest of the day

There were only a few minor changes from my plan over the rest of the day. I actually managed to eat it all with no problem. It turned out we were out of canned chicken so I used canned tuna. I also forgot to put olive oil in with the canned tuna, so I had two points left over (one from the olive oil and one from the switch from chicken to tuna). I decided to have a low carb yogurt and get another dairy in since I only had one other serving. The only other change was I had a Skinny Cow Truffle bar after dinner since I had earned some activity points and wanted to use them.







I tried a new product today too. It's the True Raspberry Lemonade mix made with stevia. It was honestly pretty weak for my tastes. Next time I may add it to half as much water and see how I like it. It's 5 calories for 8 oz. as made per the directions, so that wouldn't be terrible even if you double it.

I'm planning to go to tomorrow's meeting, but I'm not sure yet if I will weigh in. I may just wait until Monday.

Out of it

I slept until almost 2pm today. I have no idea why. I went to sleep around midnight last night. I think my boyfriend is getting worried about me. Maybe I'm low on B-12. I can't absorb it from my food anymore, and it's been a little while since I've taken any supplements.

I had all my food planned out for today, 29 points worth, and it's 3pm and I've only had my breakfast. I made a frozen waffle and topped it with a cup of frozen peaches that I had microwaved until hot and mixed in a packet of Splenda and a dash of powdered ginger. I also blended a cup of soy milk with some ice and cappuccino flavored protein.



I also have planned for the day: 2 Wasa Light crackers with a wedge of Laughing Cow Cheese, half a can of white meat chicken mixed with dill relish and light mayo on a small low carb wrap with romaine lettuce, a clementine, a cup of shell pasta with 3 oz shrimp, 1 cup of broccoli and cauliflower, and 1/3 cup jarred alfredo sauce, and a half cup of frozen yogurt with a sliced banana and sugar free chocolate syrup.

I have to walk down to work later, pick up my pay check, and deposit it at the bank. My boyfriend gets out of work at six, so I will walk down around five and then meet him at his building.

I was thinking about my Weight Watchers meetings, and it occurred to me that I go back to work next Tuesday, which means I won't be able to make the Friday meetings anymore. I am thinking I will go to the Monday meeting instead of going tomorrow. I may do both since they will be different meeting topics. Maybe I'll just go tomorrow but weigh in on Monday. Or weigh in tomorrow but wait until the following Monday to weigh in again. I don't know.

I can't believe how well the medication for over active bladder is working though. No more trouble getting to sleep or needing to go at least once an hour. I didn't expect it to work that well or that quickly.

Long few days

Sunday night we went to Humpy's in downtown Anchorage after spending two and a half hours at the museum of history and art. I got a fish soft taco with a side of chips and salsa. I ate about half of the chips. For dessert, me, my daughter and my boyfriend split a brownie topped with strawberry preserves, ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. It was quite awesome. After that we hung out with a friend of mine who lives downtown. She currently lives in the same apartment I lived in over three years ago. Not by coincidence. It's a really cheap apartment and I passed down to a friend of mine when I left. She got married and moved to Canada, and passed it on to her best friend, who I also knew. Anyway, it was fun.

Here's the remains of our dinner:


Monday we drove six hours to Fairbanks and then six hours back to Anchorage. I ate pretty terribly, used up most of my weekly points that day. Big cinnamon roll for breakfast, Taco Bell for lunch, split a pint of Haagen Dasz with my dad and my boyfriend... We saw lots of moose on the way, and four caribou hanging around near the road. I took a few pictures. There is one right in the center of this shot peeking out from behind a tree.



Yesterday we flew back to Seattle. We wound up getting McDonald's at the airport, but we didn't eat that much else that day so I wound up a little under on my daily points, but not a whole lot.

Today was a little tough because I had no fresh food in the house. Just protein bars, yogurt, and frozen dinners. I didn't go to the store until this evening. I have a weigh in on Friday and have been eating tons of sodium, so tomorrow needs to go well. I have my day planned out and need to stick to it. I didn't gain any weight on my trip, but I'd really like to have a loss this Friday, even if it's a small one.

Some good things

My boyfriend arrived yesterday afternoon. It's such a relief. Being away from him is hard. The medication for overactive bladder really kicked in yesterday too. It's making a huge difference. The literature that came with the sample said it could take weeks to see improvement, and since the nurse I saw said that my case seemed especially severe, I was not feeling super optimistic.

One possibly troubling thing is that I really wasn't hungry yesterday. I had a smoothie for breakfast, a cheeseburger and diet Coke for lunch, a couple bites of my daughter's cookie and a sugar free chocolate. I finished lunch by 4:00pm and didn't eat anything else last night. I don't feel sick. I'm just not interested in eating. I woke up after 11:00am this morning and I'm still not hungry. I was sure I would be. After I started on my full dose of lithium I barely ate for months. But I also felt sick on that.

Wow

Is it ever easy to overeat here. I woke up at like 2 am last night really hungry for some reason. My daughter had left a box of peanut butter Girl Scout Cookies in my room, and rather than banging around downstairs in the dark I just ate 4 of them. So that's 6 points right off the bat, and I hadn't even gotten up yet. My meals were fairly normal. Smoothie for breakfast, mac and cheese and grapefruit for lunch, pizza quesadilla for dinner. If I had left it at that I wouldn't have gone over my daily points by more than one. But nooooooo. I had two Thin Mints and a handful of cashews to the tune of 7 points total. We had grapes. I could have had grapes. But I didn't eat grapes.

I cannot wait to get back home, because I would never have multiple boxes of Girl Scout cookies or two pound bags of cashews lying around my apartment. If I want something sweet or snacky I generally have to get dressed, step outside, and walk to the store.

But I am super stressed as well. I have been having some minor health issues that have gotten worse since I got here, and while it presented no real danger I have been extremely uncomfortable. I basically feel like I have to go to the bathroom all the time. Even when I've just gone. It's bad enough during the day, but at night it's excruciating. I'd eventually just pass out from sheer exhaustion, and then wake up and start the cycle again in a few hours. I finally had my dad drive me to the urgent care clinic today. The NP confirmed that I don't have a UTI (I know. It never is.) and though she wants me to get a more complete work up when I get back she thinks it's probably just an overactive bladder. She gave me some medication samples. I'm hoping it helps because I don't know how much more of this I can take.

My boyfriend gets here tomorrow. I'm happy to see him, but at the same time I just want to get the hell out of this state. It has been far from a relaxing vacation.

Today was better

I'm entering the "acceptance" phase of the grief cycle re: not having email or internet on my phone or laptop. I was awake really late last night though. I slept until almost noon.

When I got up I had a smoothie with soymilk, banana and frozen strawberries. I also had a slice of bread with peanut butter and a little honey a couple hours later. My cousin wound up having to cancel so for dinner I had leftover spaghetti and made a St. Patrick's day fruit salad with kiwi, green grapes, blueberries and a lime juice and agave nectar dressing. Spaced out throughout the day I had a Cadbury Creme Egg and four Girl Scout cookies. I am right now having some protein hot cocoa because I started to get hungry and I'm not going to be able to sleep through that.

I picked up the new Weight Watchers magazine. There was some good stuff in there. I've always liked that magazine, even befre I started Weight Watchers.

Can't decide if today was an epic fail or just a near miss

So pretty much nothing wound up how I planned except for dinner. The bananas my dad had picked up were still horrifically green, and I had planned to use them in my smoothie. I woke up already pissed because my phone is still messed up (more on that later). I wasn't in the mood to think about it, so I just ate a protein bar.

Next, my dad said he had to go into town and asked if we wanted him to drop us off at the mall for a couple hours. From 11-2. I was desperate to get out of the house, so we had lunch there. Not a big deal. I got some chicken soft tacos at a taco place in the food court, and a diet lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick. The lemonade was awesome. No problem there. The chicken soft tacos had no seasoning and no taco sauce. The taco place did not have taco sauce either (wtf?). I ate one, and threw the other in my bag as it was wrapped in foil. I guess I'll eat it tomorrow with... oh, I don't know... taco sauce? The mall had wifi, and I tried using it on my phone, but even though it detected and connected to the signal I was still unable to use anything requiring a data connection. DAMMIT! So we're wandering around the mall, I'm tired and annoyed. I wind up buying and eating four honey straws, an ounce of sour balls, and six of those filled Twizzlers (god I love those). Doesn't sound like too much, but man was it a decent number of points.

On the way home we stopped at the store. I picked up some some magazines, yellow bananas, a few grapefruit, and a container of cut up strawberries, pineapple, and blueberries, which I split with my daughter when we got home. I called Verizon, cancelled my mobile hotspot, and talked with tier two tech support who told me that unfortunately nothing could be done since we know it's for sure a problem with my phone.

We had spaghetti for dinner, as planned, and I ate the amount I had planned on eating. No surprises there. I decided against making cookies with my daughter because that would have just killed my day. Instead we made pudding from scratch. Only four servings, and four people. I ate two girl scout cookies while cooking it (WHY?!). I used the recipe for vanilla pudding, but adapted it a bit by using 1/4 cup of fresh tangerine juice and some tangerine zest from the seriously old tangerines in the fridge that I'm scared to eat. I thought it was good, but my daughter didn't like it. I asked her if she wanted some cookies instead. She did not. She wanted the rest of the garlic toast from dinner. Weirdo. I put her pudding in the fridge for my mom to take to work tomorrow. Possibly the best decision I made all day.

So, all said and done I used up every last weekly point I had. Tomorrow it resets, so no real issue there. But this is the week where it gets tricky, because tomorrow night we are going to my cousin's for St. Patrick's day and I have no idea what they will have there. I can't look things up on my phone either. Saturday, after my boyfriend gets here, we are meeting up with several of my friends at a local burger place. I'm pretty confident about that since my MO is to just get a normal sized cheeseburger and a diet soda. If I'm careful I can probably stay within my points that day, or close. Sunday we are going to Humpy's downtown. It's on the tour of places Adam Richman ate at on the Alaska episode of Man V. Food and my BF really wants to go. I need to look at their menu, but they have lots of fresh seafood, so I think it might not be too bad.

Monday is going to be killer though. We're driving my daughter six hours to Fairbanks, where she lives, and then six hours back, all in one day. And the second stop of the Man V. Food tour is the Talkeetna Roadhouse. Nothing they have is small or light. They have dinner plate sized cinnamon rolls. I'm planning to get one to share with my daughter, and let her take the rest home. It's going to be pointy but worth it. My dad also wants to have lunch at Chili's before we drive back. Seriously. And I promised my BF we'd hit up a Taco Bell before leaving since we don't live near one and thus never go. He hasn't been to one in years. I'm not taking a bus just to go to a Taco Bell, so we just haven't been. I think I can make this work if I really watch it every place that I can. Having the mobile app would be really nice though. Maybe I can downoad it to my boyfriend's phone since his should work fine.

SO. FREAKING. PISSED.

I set up the 3G mobile hotspot application on my phone right before I left so I could connect my internet while I am on vacation. Today it just suddenly stopped working. I spent all day on the phone with Verizon. Part of the problem is that they have no network up here, so they can't send my phone any updates. I may be out of luck until I get back. The whole entire reason I set that up was so I could get online while I am here. I have an entire week left. If they can't get it working tomorrow I am cancelling and insisting that I not have to pay for anything but the two days it worked. My dad has a computer but other people use it, it has Internet Exporer which I loathe, and I hate sitting in an uncomfortable chair when I'm online. At least I'll be able to use wifi at the airport. Small consolation.

But this also means no data on my phone at all. No facebook. No email. No Weight Watchers app. Can't download anything new on my Kindle app. And my dad is constantly recording shows on the Dish network which means I can't watch anything else while he is recording. There is nothing to do here, I don't have a vehicle and I couldn't drive it if I did, and I'm so. Bored. The Verizon people were like, "Well you can still use wifi." Um. No, I'm in Alaska and I am nowhere near a wifi connecton. I am really wishing I had not switched from ATT now. Or at least went with some other service for my mobile internet. I never had any issues using ATT internet while on vacation.

My frustration today was reflected in my eating. My meals were fine. Had a strawberry and yogurt smoothie for breakfast, a pizza quesadilla for lunch, and salmon, rice and salad for dinner. I also made strawberry sorbet in my dad's 500$ blender, and a couple of protein bars. But then I had a peanut butter cookie, a package of peanut butter cups and an orange flavored Airheads candy that my daughter didn't want. Tomorrow is the last day of my week and I still have 14 weekly points left, so yeah I stayed on plan, but when I have things like cookies and candy I feel more comfortable with it being a planned thing of something I really wanted, and not a ticked off and out of control thing where I'm just eating what's available. Part of the problem too is that they have very little by the way of fruits here, and almost all of it is frozen. I'm sort of running out of ideas as to how to prepare it in ways that are still zero or low in points. I don't like raw vegetables either. Salad is not my thing, but they make it for dinner often, and I can't do it without dressing.

Maybe it was because I was already upset too, but my boyfriend posted on Facebook that he went to bed at 8 last night and it was glorious. It kind of hurt my feelings. Nothing about missing me, just how great it is to sleep without interruption. And the fact that I keep him up when I'm there did not escape me. I told him how I felt and he said he didn't mean it that way. That he had only gotten 2 hrs the night before, and he gets more than that when I'm there. He also said that spending time with me is better than sleeping. Even as we were texting I sort of knew I was overreacting, but I couldn't stop feeling hurt somehow. The last text I got from him was at 7:41 his time. I just feel really alone after he goes to sleep. At least when I am there I can hold him and touch his hair while he's asleep. When I'm gone he may as well not exist when we aren't in communication. Being away from him is hard, and things feel really chaotic but stir-crazy at the same time right now, so not feeling like I have that emotional support from him makes things harder.

I'm going to try to do better tomorrow with my eating. I think we're having spaghetti. I don't even so much mind if I use up some or the rest of my weeklies. I just don't want to be using them just to use them, and I want it to be primarily healthy foods. I am planning to bake cookies with my daughter tomorrow, which may be stepping into a landmine because I have a hard time limiting those. But we need something to do. I especially need to keep my mind off the fact that I can't check my email and Facebook every ten minutes. I swear I am going through withdrawls. I am not a patient person. There are no chocolate chips at least, so I don't think wanting to eat half the dough will be a problem. We're just going to have to forage around and see what we can come up with. Cooking here is like an episode of Chopped. And your mystery basket ingredients are... It's just not stuff I normally cook and I don't know what to do with it, or else I just don't like it.

Really I've just felt uneasy since I have gotten here. I wonder if part of it is that my parents are preparing ot move out of state and everything is boxed up, lots of things are just gone. Things we've had since I was little, like furniture and stuff. There's new paint, new carpet, new appliances and light fixtures and flooring. It doesn't feel like hom anymore. And this will be the last time I am here. If I could go back right now. If I could just take my daughter back with me and send her home at the end of spring break, I would do it.

Did good today

I used 2 or 3 of my weekly points, ate well. My dad made chicken and shrimp stir fry tonight, which was reasonable points even with some rice. I made a smoothie for breakfast with yogurt, soy milk and frozen fruit, and I also had a protein bar. For lunch I had Annie's Peace Pasta and Parmesan and half a large apple. I had a peanut butter protein cookie and four Thin Mints as snacks. And after dinner I stewed some frozen berries with a couple teaspoons of sugar, a little corn starch and some ginger and shared with my mom and daughter. I put a bit of whipped cream on top too. I overdid it with the ginger and it was a little spicier than I'd have liked, but not too bad anyway. We watched the original True Grit on TV. My daughter loved it.

I haven't been away from m boyfriend for more than 3 days and I miss him. He is flying in on Saturday. I am worried about him because he is diabetic and has had an ulcer on the outside of his foot for months. He has been going to the doctor once or twice a week the whole time and has been on loads of antibiotics, but despite that he had a bone infection (it's now cleared up) which basically destroyed his little toe and it got fractured. They don't think it will be able to heal due to the past infection, and the ulcer isn't healing because of it. He will see an orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday, but right now they think his little toe and part of his foot will need to be removed.

He lost 60 pounds after being diagnosed and is now off the insulin, but he had had it for so long when it was discovered that there was already severe vascular damage. He is legally blind and has had seven eye surgeries to restore his vision as much as possible, but it's very poor. And now this. I feel so helpless. He's only 34 and I worry he's going to lose a foot or lose his sight completely, or die really young.

I don't know what I would do if I lost him. He's such an amazing person. He's kind and sweet, affectionate, level. Great sense of humor, good kisser. He works his butt off, and has been shouldering more of the bills while I'm out of work without complaint. He says that's just part of being in a relationship. He takes good care of himself (what is it about guys and refusing to go to the doctor?). Even my daughter loves him and he's taken her on with an open heart. I see the kinds of bullshit many other people put up with in their relationships, and I feel so lucky.

We've had some trials. Some major ones that I truly don't believe many relationships would survive. But we look at it as something we have to get through together, and that's the important thing. He's been firmly committed since pretty much the first day. I have always known where I stood with him. No games. No playing it cool. What you see is what you get. It's so refreshing. I've come to believe it's partly because he's from the South. I never understood the appeal of Southern guys, and now I think I get it. He's a Democrat too so I get the best of both worlds. :P I don;t know, there's just something so pure about his soul, so genuine. I have to admit, I still feel all mushy every time I get a text from him, even if it's just to ask me to pick him up something at the store or whatever. I can't wait for him to get here.

I'm participating in Friend Making Monday, which I just found out exists. But as my one follower (hi!) knows, I could use a few more. Can't we all?

If you have not done one yet, check out All The Weigh for rules and such.



1) What's your favorite brand of make-up? Are you loyal to one brand? I pretty much never wear it. But I have a ton. About half of it is from Mark. I think they have good quality for the price and cute packaging.

2) What is the last thing you drank? Lemonade Crystal Light


3) What's your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Samoas. I'm not really huge on them though. It's been years since I bought a box. The Samoas ice cream though?! Forgetaboutit. I can't buy that.

4) French Fries or Onion Rings? I hate onions, and thus onion rings. French fries aren't really my downfall either though. I will finish my daughter's fries at McDonald's once in a while. I've been known to order a small fry while downtown, eat four, and give the rest to the first homeless guy I see. I like them, but not that much. I'm more of a sugar fiend.

5) Share something you've done in the last week that makes you proud of yourself. I took my medication today. Sad.

6) What is your favorite inexpensive indulgence? Fitness magazines.

7) Are you currently reading a book? If so, which one? I have "You Don't Look Like Anyone I know" on the kindle app on my phone right now, but I have to be REALLY bored to read a few pages. I have the attention span of a hamster.

8) Do you prefer to text or talk? I avoid talking on the phone whenever possible. I have probably spoken on the phone with my BF five times in the course of our relationship and all involved medical emergencies. And there was the one time that I just got super paranoid that he wanted to break up with me, but I was wrong.

9) Have you ever performed on stage? I was in the chorus in Brigadoon in high school (I was the only person who tried out just for the chorus, and even then only got called when a few people dropped out) and it was the beginning and end of my showbiz career.

10) Are you more likely to pick truth or dare? Truth, because I will admit anything about myself, but the dares are usually disgusting and/or humiliating. At least when I was 10 they were.

This is why I'm fat

Got in to my mom and dad's this afternoon. I took a nap, and then we had dinner. It was homemade chili, cornbread and salad. Sounds not too terrible, right? 17 points. And that was with being very careful about portion sizes. One cup (half a bowl) of chili with a pinch of shredded cheese, one slice of cornbread, no butter, and one tablespoon of balsamic vinaigrette on the salad. Then I look over and my mom and dad are both on the second full bowl of chili and second or third piece of cornbread with butter. They put at least half a CUP of shredded cheese on each bowl of chili, and copious amounts of ranch dressing on the salad.

Of course my dad is thin as usual, and neither of them has ever been more than 15 lbs overweight. Same with my sister. So I clearly got my genetics from somewhere else. But this is what I grew up with as "normal" eating.

Before arriving at my parents' I just ate in small bits over the course of the day. I tend to get airsick, and though eating helps I have to do it a little bit at a time and see how it goes. In no particular order I had a protein bar, two clementines, a kiwi, two string cheeses, a Cadbury Creme Egg, a protein cookie, and a Weight Watchers two point lemon snack bar that I got as a sample at my last meeting. I also had some diet Coke on each flight.

I fix my own breakfasts and lunches while visiting, so I should be ok. I will just have to have my other meals be high in fruits and vegetables to make it work out.

My daughter is super excited to see me and we've been having fun. I picked up a make-your-own gummy candy set at the Asian market for her. We had to figure it out from the pictures on the box, but it was cute and fun. She said it tasted good. The textures kind of wierded me out though, so I took her word for it.

Food Pictures

This is the ten cheese macaroni I had last night.



And this is the Il Vulcano. It's a prosciutto wrapped dome of meatloaf with tomato sauce "lava" and parmesan "ash." My boyfriend said it was reaaaally good. It smelled like meat to me.



I'm in the Juneau airport now for a 3 hour layover. The Juneau airport sucks. It has a big room and 3 vending machines. But there is free wi-fi and automatic flushing toilets. I have the thing on my phone that turns it into a mobile hot spot anyway.

In the airport

Dinner was great last night! The best ten cheeses I have ever had at once. We're boarding in just under an hour. I slept an hour. Maybe an hour. I hate daylight savings time. At least I didn't have to stay at the airport all night. I brought some protein bars, string cheese, and fruit with me. I had planned to make a peanut butter sandwich but didn't remember until I got up that I was out of bread. I probably won't be hungry for a while anyway.

I totally lied

I have a strawberry protein bar and a kiwi fruit down for today's snacks. I also got my check from Aflac in the mail, so wooooo!

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

So yesterday. I stuck with my plan. Almost. I ate the bulk of it a bit too late and wasn't able to get it all in. The salmon wrap would have been too much. I ate everything else on my menu, but I did decide later in the evening to have a protein bar just to bump my calories and protein up a bit more. I still came in three short on my points, but all my Good Health Guidelines were accounted for.

Today I have to do a bunch of laundry and get all the dishes done. I also need to run down to the Asian dollar store and get some tiny bottles for my hair product and stuff. I am using up the rest of the produce today for breakfast and lunch, and then tonight we are planning to use a Groupon I bought months ago for an Italian bistro. I'm planning to get 10 cheese macaroni and maybe a glass of wine. For breakfast I'm going to make a smoothie with the rest of the plain yogurt from last night's fish, soy milk, the rest of the mango and a banana, and for lunch I'll have the salmon I was going to have yesterday for lunch and a salad with lettuce, tomato, and balsamic vinaigrette. I don't have any snacks planned since tonight's dinner will be a points-a-palooza, but if I get hungry and do a protein hot cocoa and use a couple of weeklies, so be it. There's also clementines.

Tomorrow I fly to Alaska butt-early in the morning. I recently found out the light rail to the airport does not run early enough on Sundays for me to make my flight. I am also hoping against hope my check from Aflac gets here today. Supposedly they mailed it Tuesday, so WTH? If not I will have two choices. I can take three buses starting at 3:30 am which will take THREE HOURS to get me to the airport, or I can take the last light rail tonight which gets me there at 1:20am and then wait around there all night. My flight boards around 7:20. If I do get my check I will take a taxi for around 50$. I need to figure out what to take with me food-wise since I only have 10-20$ left on the gift card I got for doing the focus group,and I don't want to pay airport prices for food. I get in at 2:30pm and Mom said we'd go straight to the store before heading home, so I just need enough to last until then. But that may include hanging out at the airport for 6 hours tonight. protein bars are great for this kind of thing. And I'll have one more kiwi fruit left. Also some yogurts and clementines. My boyfriend eats those so I don't need to worry about using them up.

Some good news

I did go to the meeting today (my appointment was only a half hour this time) and I did weigh in. I'm not going to say I didn't do everything I could without doing anything crazy or unhealthy to swing things in my favor a bit (lots of fiber Wednesday and yesterday, no more water than was strictly necessary, and I wore a tank top instead of my usual t-shirt. woo. I briefly considered skipping underwear and then I decided that was just ridiculous.) but I wound up exactly the same weight as last week, so SCORE! I need to make peace with the fact that there will sometimes be gains, but... not this week. I took my string cheese and clementine to the meeting and ate them the moment I sat down, like half of the rest of the attendees do every week. lol

I have also been sticking to my goal for today and eating what I have planned out, though I did have the breakfast smoothie after the meeting, for obvious reasons. Feeling pretty good about myself right now.

Girls

I was reading an older post by another blogger about what we teach our children about food/weight/dieting. And it made me think about my own daughter. She's 11. Lately she's said some things that have really made me think.

I have tried to never make weight a moral issue with her, if an issue at all. My mom never actively dieted around me, but my dad did, and both of them commented on my weight often. I'm sure they never thought of it as harmful, at all, but all I heard from them was "You'd be better to me if you lost five pounds." I started dieting in the 6th grade. I had horribly disordered eating habits between the ages of 14 and 19. At 19 I lost a pregnancy, my second one, while I was still actively starving myself and binging/purging. I stopped. I had tried to stop many times before that, but this time I really stopped. And I gained 50 lbs in just a few months. My weight fluctuated by about 40 lbs for the next decade, but it didn't go under 165 until less than a year ago.

My parents, mostly my dad, continued to bug me about my weight until I was 25 and newly divorced. I was at their house eating lunch and my dad looked at what I was eating and started saying how much happier I would be if I just lost some weight. I just looked him dead in the eye and said, "Why can't you just love me the way I am? Why am I not good enough for you?" He sputtered some stuff about wanting me to be happy, but he never brought it up again.

So all of that background is my way of explaining why I am VERY uncomfortable with diet/weight talk around my daughter. She is a very healthy weight, and she has a very good handle on eating normally. I do my utmost to not interfere with that. When I say "eating normally" I mean that she eats when she's hungry and stops when she's full. I can keep some junk food around and she eats it a little bit at a time. She fixes her own breakfast and lunch during the summer and winter breaks that she stays with me, except on the days I'm off work. Sometimes she makes things that are utterly bizarre (peanut butter, maple syrup and Captain Crunch sandwich anyone?) but mostly it's good healthy food. She'll happily dig into cold leftovers from dinner when we have a drawer with cookies and goldfish crackers available. So, no. Not worried about her at all right now.

But last Christmas she said something that made me pause. My boyfriend was telling me about what Paula Deen had made on her show that day and my daughter said, "Jeremy, I have a question. If you want to lose weight then why do you like Paula Deen so much?" Yes, it was quite funny, but I had several thoughts shortly after she said it.

1) She has evidently picked up that my BF would like to lose weight (not too hard to do, since he talks about it constantly, but pretty much just loses and re-gains the same 20 lbs).
2) She knows who Paula Deen is and what kind of food she makes.
3) She recognizes that that's not the kind of stuff you should be eating if you want to lose weight.

At another time we were having dinner at a restaurant for her birthday. After we were finished and about to leave she patted her stomach and said "It's a good thing we're walking home because I need to burn off some calories!"

Oh. Boy.

She has a far better understanding of how this works than I did at 11. She may be getting it from her dad or someone else, but she has picked up quite a bit. She also once told my boyfriend that her dad had lost a whole lot of weight eating nothing but canned soup. I had to bite my tongue from telling her that her dad is a ----ing moron. She was 5 and not living with him at the time this happened, so somebody had to have told her this, and I'm betting it was him.

So she seems to be very aware of the concepts of gaining and losing weight, and even knows that her dad had done it at one point. But here's the part that's sort of weird to me. She's never seemed to notice any changes in my size. Even though she doesn't see me for several months at a time, and I look VERY different. She seems totally oblivious. Last summer she was laughing at me because the shorts I haad had for years and often wore to bed kept falling down. "Why did you even buy those shorts mom?! They're way too big for you!"

When she was maybe 6 she pointed at a little red dot on my skin and asked me what it was. I told her it was a cherry angioma and that sometimes fat people get them (I'm not even sure where I read that. It may not even be true.) I told her my (now ex)BF, who was there, had some too, and he showed her one on his head. She was utterly incensed. She said "You're NOT fat! I don't think you're fat either, Joel!" I was close to, if not, 200 lbs. Joel is around 300. I really honestly had no idea how to respond to that. But because of that I have to believe that she has just never seen me as being fat.

It really has made me wonder when I watch weight loss shows on TV, and some of the people have young kids, I wonder if their kids even notice the weight change, let alone care. They always seem so coached when they talk about it to the camera. The parents say things about how they want their kids to be proud of who they are, but I've never gotten the sense that they weren't proud of them already. I think it's more of they weren't proud of who they were so they didn't see how anyone else could be either.

No more screwing around

Ok, I woke up for the second time today with cramps. It's rarely more than one day in a row anyway, so tomorrow I'm getting back on track, but I need to stop using that as an excuse anyway, because truthfully it wasn't THAT bad today (yesterday it was).

I used about 10 weeklies, partly on candy and I got a smoothie for lunch instead of making food at home. I also got an order of protein bars and stuff in today and I just HAD to try a couple of them. Sigh. I had enough weeklies to cover it, but the point is that for the last two days I have been veering way off of my plans and I need to knock it off. I haven't gotten in all of my good health guidelines for the last two days, I'm eating way too much sugar, not enough dairy, lean protein, or healthy oils, and the bare minimum of fruits and vegetables. The other reason I need to get back on track is because I am leaving on Sunday and I want to use up the rest of the perishable food. My BF won't be joining me for a week, but I know he's not going to eat it. He lives off of protein shakes and take-out when I'm not around.

I didn't go to the weigh in this morning. Partly because of the cramps, partly because I figured out I can do it tomorrow, and partly because I knew I was going to show a gain. After today though, I know there's going to be a gain anyway. I should be done with physical therapy at noon and the meeting starts at 12:15. I think I can get out of there a few minutes early, but even if not I can at least go weigh in.

I have contemplated skipping the weigh in and just going to the meeting. But I think I should do it. I normally weigh myself every day anyway, but it's one thing for me to know I gained, and another for someone else to know that. It's only my third weigh in. But deep down I know I haven't eaten enough for it to be a fat gain, and I know I've just been bloated from the TOM plus some extra sodium. Eventually I will show a gain anyway. I should just get it over with and move on.

So tomorrow I am setting a goal for myself. I have planned out my food for tomorrow as I always do. It's 29 points altogether. It's delicious, healthy, and more than enough food. I'm sticking to it. I won't have as much control over the food choices in Alaska, so I can't blow through all of my weeklies before I even get there. Here's what I have planned:

Breakfast:
two turkey sausage links
protein pancakes from a mix with 1/4 cup thawed frozen berries on top
smoothie made with yogurt, soy milk, and 3/4 cup frozen berries

Lunch:
whole wheat wrap with salmon, lettuce, tomato, olive oil, and dressing

Dinner:
baked flounder with dill yogurt sauce, mashed cauliflower with goat cheese

Snacks:
clementine
string cheese
cappuccino protein shake blended with 1/2 cup frozen yogurt and 2 T whipped topping


On the subject of using things up, I made something pretty great for dinner tonight. I made a cauliflower pizza crust last weekend, and we still had lots of pizza stuff left over. But we didn't have anything crust-like to use with it. All we had were some whole wheat tortillas. So I heated a tsp of olive oil in the skillet then threw a tortilla in there. I sprinkled it with 1.5 oz mozzarella, dropped a little pizza sauce around it evenly, put chopped tomatoes and a few pieces of pepperoni on one side, then folded it over and cooked it on each side until the tortilla was golden brown and crispy. Then I just cut it into wedges, and ate it. So awesome! If I had thought about it I'd have heated up a little pizza sauce on the side for dipping, but it was great on it's own. I can't wait to try it out on my daughter. She's very un-picky anyway, but when I get something right she makes me feel like the best cook in the world.

So, I will go forth as planned tomorrow and I will report back with how it went. Still not sure if I'm going to weigh in or not. I'm not going to lie. It sort of depends on what my weight is before I leave the house (I know the exact difference between my scale at home and the one at WW).

Today was not fun

I woke up with bad cramps and have had them all day. I took Aleve and pretty much stayed on the heating pad. I wound up sleeping a lot since I couldn't do much else. I didn't eat great either because it was too painful to do much food preparation, and all I really want right now is carbs and sweets anyway.

I had mango sorbet with strawberries, 2 peanut butter granola bars, a cup of frozen peaches and a cup of frozen mixed berries microwaved with a packet of splenda, 5 chocolate candies, a Jell-O lemon meringue cup, a shrimp Caesar wrap made with a low carb tortilla, lettuce, shrimp, a tablespoon of dressing and half a tablespoon of parmesan, a cup of light soy milk with SF chocolate syrup, a light yogurt, a cup of low fat frozen yogurt with SF chocolate syrup and lite Reddi Whip, and a Skinny Cow truffle bar. I only wound up going about 5 or 6 over my points, and I had plenty of weeklies to cover it, but UGH.

Then I got a call from my physical therapist office saying they had a cancellation on Friday and could I come in? I said sure, but then realized as I was hanging up that it was during my Weight Watchers meeting. I am leaving for Alaska on Sunday so that means the only meeting I can get to is tomorrow morning. I am SO bloated right now, both from the TOM and from my eating today. I'll just be lucky if I haven't regained the two pounds I have lost so far.

I am trying to think of things to make to use up perishables before I leave. I have all this pizza stuff but nothing crust-like to put it on. What I do have is low carb tortillas. So I thought, maybe a pizza quesadilla. I'll just use mozzarella, a tablespoon of pizza sauce, some chopped tomatoes and a few slices of pepperoni. I can't really see it being bad anyway. I guess I'll find out.

What a fiasco

I am posting from my phone outside at the bus stop and it's cold. First, I forgot my granola bars. They had sandwiches, soda, and chips at the focus group, so that was ok. I used up the rest of my points for today, but I'm not at all hungry so that is fine.

I missed the bus by five minutes and the next one was almost an hour out. I tried walking to my transfer point, but I just got lost and had to walk back to the last bus stop I had seen. It should be here in ten minutes, but I won't get home untilafter 11 now. Argh.

So tired today

All I've been able to do is sleep it seems like. I know I was up late last night, but I didn't think it was quite that late. For breakfast I made myself organic multigrain oat square cereal with soy milk, and vanilla yogurt topped with strawberries and mango. It was pretty fantastic.



I didn't get a picture of my lunch. I had some macaroni with soy burger crumbles, cheese, corn, tomatoes, avocado, and sour cream. Also not too bad.

My schedule is kind of messed up today because I ma going to do a focus group at 7. It's in another city so I have to leave by 5:45 to get there by bus. I'm having a late lunch, and even later dinner (I won't get home until after ten) and I am taking some crunchy granola bars with me for the bus. I had my dessert early because I figured I'd bee too full to have it tonight after dinner. I had some chocolate vanilla swirl frozen yogurt with sugar free chocolate syrup and litw whipped topping. Yum!

The focus group is two hours and pays 75$ which will help immensely since I'm not working right now, and disability doesn't pay much. I am leaving this Sunday to go to Alaska to visit my parents and my daughter. The trip was set up and paid for before I hurt myself so I've been kind of stressed about finances.

Ugh

I've been feeling pretty nauseated since after lunch from my medication, which happens sometimes. I finally had a skinny cow ice cream sandwich which only helped for an hour or so. Good thing for the weekly points.

Today's food

I decided to take pictures of my food for the day. For breakfast I made a smoothie with kefir, almond milk, mixed frozen berries and vanilla protein. I had my gummy vitamins, some diet ginger ale. For lunch I had a cup of penne with a cup of asparagus, some alfredo sauce from a jar, black pepper and olive oil, Then I had a cup of Good Earth tea, a string cheese, and later a chocolate mint candy. For dinner I made cauliflower, red pepper, chicken with peanut sauce, canola oil a bit of salt and brown rice. Dessert was a protein chocolate cake from a mix with two tablespoons of marshmallow creme. Not pictured is a sugar free orange Jell-O snack cup with 2 T of light whipped topping.

About me

Hello. I am 32 years old and as the blog title suggests I am doing Weight Watchers. I started about two and a half weeks ago. My blog may not be super inspiring or exciting, as I only have 15.6 lbs total to lose (13.6 as of now) but I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I live in Seattle with my boyfriend of just over a year and two cats. I am currently on disability from work after a back injury. I should be going back at the end of March. I have lots of time right now and get pretty bored.

So far I love the program. I like the changes they have made to it (higher target points, zero points fruit, and higher points for most processed things) and I am eating healthier than I ever have in my life, I'm sure. I have lost two pounds as of my last weigh in.

I started out at around 205 lbs a year and a half ago. This is not going to be a typical weight loss "success" story though. I had been fine with my size for years. I was active and healthy. My diet was pretty terrible, but it didn't bother me. I wouldn't classify myself as a binge eater. I just ate lots of junk food, regular sodas, fast foods, restaurant meals and convenience foods, and in large portions on a regular basis. I ate almost no produce too. I was also a believer in Fat Acceptance/Size Acceptance and I guess I still am. Even when I was 18 and did dumb things to stay at a very low weight I was a believer in SA for others. I think obesity is treated unfairly in the media, and a lot of what is put out there is downright misleading. I don't think being overweight or obese is de facto unhealthy, though I think the associated lifestyles can be (and are just as unhealthy for thin people).

So what changed? It was a case of bad timing. I had been doing a long term drug study for antidepressants. I gained about 25 lbs while on the study, just as an aside. Then it ended early. A couple of months early. I didn't have a psychiatrist here, as I had been on the study for most of the time I lived here, and my daughter was here for the summer, so I was low on money. I am usually fine for a while after going off ADs so long as nothing happens. So I decided to wait. But something happened.

A week or two after my daughter flew back to her dad's I was finishing up at work and went to check my texts. There was just one, a long one from my boyfriend of five months. He said he didn't love me, knew that he never could, and felt guilty about leading me on. I rushed out of work and walked home, crying. Normally when I had suicidal feelings in the past I knew if I just waited it out it would go away in a few hours. I knew this time that it wouldn't. I knew I would wake up and feel the same. I knew it would go on for a while. I just didn't want to feel it. I took and handful of pills. After an hour or two I hadn't thrown up. I started to worry. I texted him back and told him that maybe he should call 911. He asked what I had done. I wouldn't tell him. 20 minutes later he knocked on my door. I wouldn't talk to him. The last time I saw him I was sitting in the back of the ambulance as he walked out the door to my building and to his car.

The end of the story is that I wound up in the hospital for 5 days. After I was released I followed up with a psychiatrist and was re-diagnosed as bipolar. I was put on lithium. At first I didn't notice a difference in my eating or weight. But after a while I noticed I was eating less at lunch. I figured I just wasn't hungry, but then it happened more and more. And I'd get home from work and often not have dinner either. As my dose increased my appetite got smaller. At the same time I was having money issues and didn't have much to eat anyway. Since I didn't really want to eat I had no real incentive to do anything about it. I lost 30 lbs in about two months. I never thought that it would continue. I figured after a while the side effects would diminish and I'd eventually gain it back, at least most of it. Eventually I did start eating more, but by last August I weighed 155. 20lbs less from 7 months ago.

What was weird was while I wasn't really critical of my body at 205 I became so more and more as I lost weight. I didn't lose it evenly, and I had parts that were fatter and saggier. I especially hated my arms. I was and still am self conscious in short sleeves. I started going to the gym and lifting weights, hoping to tone them up, but it didn't make much visible difference. There was still a lot of fat in there. I decided that regaining weight was unlikely I'd have to lose some more.

I had been maintaining my weight for a few months so I started dieting and got to the high 140's. Then it stalled out for a few weeks, and I wasn't eating healthy, just less. I was using lots of protein shakes and other protein fortified "space food" but not much real food or produce. I had looked into Weight Watchers a few times and decided to try it out. So far I like it, and am excited about the program. I still like my junk food and use plenty of my weekly points on it. One thing I like about the program is the weeklies which I can use on eating out and things like Hostess fried pies without derailing myself or eating too much. I have to sort of spread them out, but even though I may have more one day and none the next, it all evens out in the course of a week. I think it's the key behind my success. Being able to indulge while still being on plan is working out great.