Day 10

Yesterday I was going through a withdrawal from the Monday relapse into binging on food. Not sure what came over me but I just ate everything in my fridge even before the we went to the Rosh Hashana dinner at my Mom’s place.

So yesterday I held myself back but I’m afraid I still overate just  a little bit. Not much. It was hard to switch back to being conrolled. I then went to the gym in the evening and I did two days worth of five factor fitness and 35 minutes of cardio. So I’m back on track to day.

Whenever I relapse and have a binge day, I forget how terrible it makes me feel. I’m stuffed. I cannot sleep. At night I feel terribly dehydrated. And in the morning I almost felt nauseated and had a headache.  Not sure if the headache is related, but the overall feeling was just very lousy.

After work yesterday I came home and watched tv for a bit. I was tempted not to go to the gym since I had blown my food routine. But I knew that it was an important step in getting back on track. And it was. It really gave a boost to my morale and I felt really happy and proud of myself coming out of the gym.

So today, I need to stay on track.

I am eating small meals throughout the day with a 3 hour break in between meals. But in the evening, I am going to let myself have a nice dinner with my sister. My goal this evening is not to take food from my sister. Not to finish her food and not to take it from her plate. (Unless we share a desert).

Week 2, Day 8 of my 21 day challenge

Well, I finished day 7 of my 21 day challenge. For the past 7 days I have remained in control for most of the week with just a few moments of weekness. Last night I had a small binge on crackers and a couple of turkey burgers. But I almost fell like I had done so well for the whole week, and so I let myself have a few crackers with butter. About 30, but they were small.

I haven’t weighed myself during this challenge, cause I don’t want this process to be hindered by the desire to see those numbers change. Rather than focusing in the number, I’m focusing only on my habits. It never worked before when I focused on the number. So once I can manage my food habits better, I will step on the scale again.

Today, is Rosh Hashana at my Mom’s. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of food there. My goal for today is not to eat to excess. I cannot really say how much I will eat exatly. I think I just want to stop before I feel stuffed and eat in a way that I’ll feel comfortable going to bed at night.

Gym today

It felt really great at the gym today. I did 2 days of 5 factor fitness and 45 min of cardio. My feet started feeling too tingly at the end of the elypsys so I knew I had enough.

I’m still feeling like I’m addicted to food. Evidence of it is what happened at work today. Often when there’s food served at a meeting or a party, the leftovers are left at a desk in our office for everyone to take. It sits next to the printer. And I cannot pass that table without taking something again and again and again. Then I just had to get up and get some more and kept coming back till it was all gone. It was only fruit, but still. Its the fact that I wanted to keep eating it. Even if I could have stopped, I still had that compulsion to keep eating it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Its the same when I went out with my sister. She had no appetite. Well, she has reasons for no appetite. But I always want more. If she has stuff left over in her bowl, then I want it. She will keep talking but all I am thinking about is how gracefully and subtly can I lick off all the rest of the food off the plates.

Ok that was my small segue into the state of my mind about food. I don’t know why that is and I don’t know if I will ever feel differently about it. I was hoping that I would with hypnosis. But I have hope that I can control my urges with practice. Every day, I’m trying to recognize the behaviours around food that simply don’t serve me and that perhaps are not very healthy.

I had a taco bell wrap today. I could have eaten something smaller. But I am still on track. I went to the gym. I had the food that I had, and then I stopped.

It’s been a while….

Weight 198.2

Well its been a while since I wrote my blog. Seems sometimes like its a waste since I don’t have any readers besides my sister. And to be honest, I don’t have time to go out and find them.

Then I remembered what I started the blog for. To track my weight journey. And so I’m back here. Becuase for that reason its worth it.

Yesterday was a tired day for me. Because my daughter will not sleep in her bed unless someone sits with her until she falls asleep. In the evening, that’s not so bad, but then she wakes up in the middle of the night. So yesterday, she woke at 4:30 up and then she didn’t go back to bed till about six am. And I didn’t go back to bed at all. She woke up again today and today, I just had to let her sleep in my bed, because I’m just exhausted. Still exhausted as Nathan woke me up early in the morning.

But as far as food went, I tried to remember that food is not a substitute for sleep and tried to stick to my eating regime. I didn’t really succeed. I went to the vending machine at work at around  4pm and got a Jamaican Patty and chocolate bar. I had the chocolate with tea. I do love chocolate with tea. Something about it sweet and tea go so well together.

But i didn’t come home and pig out on carbs and all sorts of bad stuff. I had a couple of cheese strings, an egg and a couple of nectarines. That’s it. So I didn’t do so badly.

I don’t want to be presumptious here, I may have had a bit of a breakthrough in Vegas. First, I saw myself in their wide huge mirror as I was coming out of the shower. Boy what a shocker. And I thought about being single again and how if I wish to meet myself, I don’t think I can feel confident enough going out on dates feeling like this about my body. In Vegas for some reason I started thinking about what it will be like to be single again.

The second breakthrough was when my sister told me I should be having a much bigger breakfast. I can have 500 calories? Wow. I can really eat and enjoy myself for breakfast! She said that I can eat up to 1800 calories a day. That’s really more than I ever thought I could.

Since I came back, I’ve been having a bigger breakfast. I usually have a protein shake as big as i want. A cheese string or Ricotta cheese and a fruit. I mostly have protein since I know it will keep me more fuller during the day.

During the day, I dont’ count calories. I’ve been eating packaged soups from nutrisystem for lunch or similar soups from the superstore. For dinner I eat some protein or nutrisystem meal. And then a nutrisystem snack for snack. I don’t stick to that religiously, sometimes I eat whatever I find like a cheesie or a piece of chicken. But I try not to pig out at night uncontrollably. For the most part, I’ve been trying to cut out carbs and the white stuff. But occasionally, I’ll have a bite of my kid’s noodles or something else.

The important thing is not to get cocky and not lose my motivation. Every time, that I have thought oh I had had breakthrough, it lasted for no more than a week. So I have to stick with it. I have to remember that if I have that cream puff that I don’t need, I might not be able to get back on track right away. It really might take me down the wrong path again.

My sister and I have also been talking about Posh Spice who doesnt’ even occasionally indulge in a cookie? That’s just unreal. But why can she stay in such a great control and me barely have any control? Sure I don’t have my own jeans line, but my reason to lose weight I am sure are just as important to me as hers are to her. And if they are not, then they should be! Because my own health and feeling good about myself, should be more important to me than being a size zero to her.

The Weight is up.

Well, I’ve neglected my weight again. Actually, that’s not true. I never neglect my weight. I think about it all the time, and I really must care for it a lot cause I have managed to maintain it in the same state for about 5 years now. I feed it, I talk about it, I debate it, I pout over it and I suffer for it. So I would say the last thing I do is neglect it. Teeeeheee.

Today my sister and I talked about the existence of underlying psychological issues that cause me to eat. I think that the biggest culprit for me is stress. Yes, I’m just not convinced that had I managed stress better, I would not wish to eat as much. I just really want to eat. No, seriously. I just want to eat. Oh fuck.

I ‘ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m so sick of myself.

I had every intention to buy the iphone today. No, i’m not gadget crazy. I am just trying to learn to organize my life. Kind of like in my endless quest to gain control over what I put in my mouth, I’m also trying to get control over all the things I’m supposed to remember day to day to do, people to call, and money not spend.

I guess I did well, because instead of the iphone, my sister and I found a cheaper organizer. A little date book for 20 bucks. That means I saved 230 dollars.

Tomorrow I plan to weigh myself.

I plan to eat:

Breakfast: oatmeal. Cheese String. Green Tea.

On the way to work: coffee.

Lunch: Nutrisystem lunch and a yogurt. And tea.

Snack: cheese string and fruit. And green tea.

Dinner: nutrisystem dinner.

Dessert: nutrisystem dessert.

Chicken breast in my purse

So, I have had the opportunity to stay a day on nutrisystem. It wasn’t entirely successful. Let me see… After the macaroni and cheese I had for lunch (just add hot water to this paper cup and watch the dried macaroni gain a life), I was doing ok. It wasn’t exactly a great lunch or even close, but it was what it was. A diet plan that i commited to follow. I had the snack. By 5 pm I picked up my kids from daycare. I was hungry but determined to stick to the plan.

I had promised my kids that I would take them to the Superstore to exchange the shoes I had bought them the day before. So we went. We spent a while looking and I was starving by that time. Still I was determined to wait until I got home to get the proper nutrisystem dinner. Having finally picked out the shoes, and gotten the kids home, I was ready to pick out my dinner for the evening. I don’t know if it was starvation or more than that, but I remember that i just had to go home and eat. I was getting very frustrated.

Oh what exciting, delicious and nutritious meal would it be? I ruled out the chicken and the burger, cause I didn’t have buns handy (you need to add those).  I settled on a pizza. It looked so satisfying on the picture and… well.. you can’t go wrong with pizza.

Ok to say that I was dissappointed, would be a huge understatement. It was a crust packaged in a plastic wrapper. The crust resembled not quite a cracker, not really crust. About 4 by 6 inches of very thin thin crust like it was almost a cracker. Then there was the second packet which was the size of those refreshment wipes you get on the plane and that contained the red sauce artificially flavoured in attempt for it to taste like pizza sauce. And then there was a tiny package containing the shredded cheese. Well, I believe you could call it cheese. I think it deserved the name cheese more than the crust deserved to be called crust in this case.

For a fe moments there I considered returning the whole program. Based on what I read I could still get a refund minus the shipping charges and what I already ate. The pizza just was a poor excuse for pizza and a poor excuse for a dinner entre and almost a poor excuse for food. Still, i’m desparate to lose weight so I kept with it.

I ate the pizza at around 7 and didn’t feel like desert. At 9 I put the kids to bed and was really not up to desert. I felt really full and kind of bloated even though I stuck to the plan and didn’t overeat all day. Though I had planned to do some work work, i just climbed into bed to watch “So you think you can dance”. I felt cold and turned off the air. Then I got a second blanket. I was still cold. Though i was tired, I couldn’t sleep. I felt kind of nauseated. I realized that I had a fever. By about 1 am I felt so bad, that I made myself throw up. (sorry). After a while I fell asleep.

The next morning, I still felt pretty bad. Head pounding and felt like the force of gravity had trippled overnight. I wrote to work that I was going to be off and spent the day in bed recovering my strength.

So I was perplexed. Here I started a new program and on the first day I get so ill. On the other hand, even if my stomach did react adversly to some ingredients, would I have a fever? It seems that every couple of years I get stricken with this flue that makes me puke and lasts no more than 24 hours. Is it a virus? Is it food poisoning, no idea.

I don’t really believe that its the Nutrisystem that’s at fault for me getting sick. Still, I have to say that for me this food, perhaps is not the right option. And another program bites the dust.

I think that I’m going to steal the plan though and substitute the foods from nutrisystem with my own. Today on the way home from sauble beach, we compared the price of nutrysystem for a day with foods we felt were similar from the supermarket. It turned out that we could have the same and even better food for half the cost or at least 2/3 the cost of nutrisystem.

More importantly, I know that I’m not the pickiest eater. But even to me a chicken breast that could be carried in your purse indefinitely doesn’t sound good. And if a dehydrated burger is better than your Mom’s cooking then perhaps you should try eating out a little. 

Sleepless in Toronto

To lose weight and to be fit, you need to have enough sleep. I hear that a lot! Unfortunately between my job, my kids and sometimes even my tv, I got without enough sleep a lot.

For example, this week I am on call at work. For some reason most of the calls I have been getting, have been coming in at 4 or 5 am. On Thursday, I worked till midnight preparing for a project. Got up at 5 am for a call on Friday. The project failed and I worked till 4 am Saturday fixing the problems. Got up at 8 am. So today, my biggest challenge is to not overeat while I am very tired.

On the plus side, I am trying to get recognition at work and more importantly, more money. I need money. Sure every time I get a dollar more, it has already been spent. You know on silly luxury items, like getting the breaks on the car fixed. But at least with overtime, I don’t have go into debt to repair those cars. I hope to make enough to build a little deck in our backyard, so that the kids can play out there without always wanting to go to the big park. Meanwhile I can cook and watch them through our big windows.

Today I have only one goal:

1. Stick to weight watchers points.

I bought a lot of veggies so hopefully when I run out of points, that will keep me going.

Bye.

Birthday and Passover.

Today as I logged on I found my first comment. Thank you!

I’m still trying to get the hang of using this site. It was my daughter’s birthday on Thursday. She is now 5. On Friday we celebrated the birthday at my Mom’s and then she wanted us to come over for Passover on Saturday. At first I protested but then felt guilty that I was skipping out on the traditional dinner and depriving my kids of the traditional celebration and a feeling of their traditional roots. Anyway of course I went. And of course I ate too much. Somehow I just forgot that I was on weight watchers. I just simply forgot the whole night that I was supposed to be watching my weight.

I am a complete idiot when it comes to repeating my mistakes. I know that I can’t stick to weight watchers yet, I keep trying it over and over again. So I know that it doesn’t work for me but I keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that something will change.

Today, Cinderella is coming for Ar’s b-day party. She is very excited. I don’t know if more than 3 girls will come but I don’t care. The less work there’s for me to do. I have a cold today and feeling quite lousy.

Yesterday I was on a mission to make my house get some curb appeal. I looked so terrible before. I tried to diguise it with rocks but that just made it look even worse. So I bought some edge bricks and dug out a small trench to put the bricks in. Then I mixed up the ground with some soil and now I have to plant the shrubs. I got a very good workout!

So little did I know that the hole for the shrubs has to be 3 times as deep and as wide as the container holding the shrubs. That I don’t think I can do. Since Sean is usually so busy, I think I will hire someone to help me with that. Sean is normally too busy either with the kids or with work. I usually find that if I can’t do something myself, its just easier to hire someone.

 

The non-loser

My sister yesterday went on and on about how much she was motivated by the biggest loser. Every Wednesday we go out in the evening away from the kids. We walk around the mall. Buy make up, eat something bad for us and top the night off with Indigo and a cappuccino.

So she went on and on about how she was motivated. I felt like a bit of a non-person listening to all of that. Since seems like I’m the only one who has stayed at the same weight for 5 years now. I got more and more down as I sat in the mall waiting for her to look through clothes that i can’t fit into.

As I walked through the mall with her then, I said: I will lose the weight and then I will teach others how to  do it. I hoped that saying outloud would make it true. Of course I have a lot of work ahead of me.  Here are my new goals for the next week.

1. Eat 5 meals a day.

2. Drink green tea.

3. Stick to weight watchers points.

4. Listen to the motivational cd’s once a day.

5. Stick to an exercise program.

These are not refined goals but I will work on them.

My aunt is a saint

I am a lazy person. I will admit it. I am not one for whom picking up after myself is just an ingrained habit. I was never very good at keeping my home very clean. But now that I have kids that gives me just more of an excuse. I can’t find the time. But its true. It’s hard to find the time. So my aunt comes over and does the things that we both know need to be done. Today she helped me organize the basement. I feel a little embarrassed that she did it all for me. But whenever I went down there I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t get my thoughts together well enough to get it done, to figure out how to do it. She did it all in like an hour.

I really have never thanked her enough for all that she has done for me. I don’t normally ask for these things. She just comes over and does them. She has been coming over every Saturday for the past couple of months. She has been cooking up a storm and today she showed me how to cook several things.

I’ve decided to thank her by painting a nice picture for her. I think it will turn out nice cause I picked a very smiple type of subject. I don’t know how else to thank her. But I will keep trying to think of things.

But time is tight when you are a working Mom. By the time I put the kids to bed, I really don’t have the energy to clean the kitchen or reorganize a closet. I need that one or two hours to watch tv and relax before the marathon the next day. The next day: wake up at 6. Make my daughter a lunch, eat breakfast, make me a lunch and make Sean a lunch. Take a shower. Wake up the kids. Get them dressed. Drive Arianna to school, drive Nathan to daycare and then drive to work. Come home from work, make dinner. Read with the kids. Get them to bed. So time is busy.

Ok Back to my goals. Today is day 2 of not eating late at night. To be honest, I don’t know if I really stopped eating at 7 but the point was that I didn’t binge in the evening. I had that oatmeal cake that I had made for the kids. I know that I didn’t eat great, but at least I wasn’t binging in the evening.

I know. Oatmeal cake. I found the recepie and thought its a good way to make a semi healthy cake while using up the oatmeal. I’m happy to say that the kids loved it. I had some with milk. Not the flavour I would think of if I were to think of cake.