Needing a boost

This is my third week on Weight Watchers and I'm down almost 10 pounds. The first two weeks were good, easy, no problems, I felt committed and motivated.

This week I'm only 3 days in and I'm falling apart. Of my 35 "flex points" for the week, I have 10 left. The last 2 days have not gone well.

So here is my plan for the next few days to get back on track:
Tonight - I will do a short arm workout.
Tomorrow - We will take the kids for a walk after dinner. I will stay within daily points by bringing my lunch and I will drink all 6 glasses of water. I will do a short ab workout.
Thursday - I will bring lunch and stay within daily points. I will do another short arm workout. I will drink all 6 glasses of water.

So here in front of all of you, I am saying I will get back on track and make this work. I am doing well and I can continue to do this. I want my cholesterol to come down. I want to be a healthy weight for my kids. A healthier weight is better for my knee, my asthma, my life.

Unsuccessful

I have lost the war of putting on 8 lbs. My belt tells me I might have lost even more, as it wants me to go in another loop. My pants are so bunched underneath, they cry all day. I can grab a handful of jeans on either side of my hips at any given time.

So, alas, it must be time to lose weight. Which is what I wanted, but then not. But it's becoming more okay, I guess, and I'm considering some new pants.

I tried on a Gap size 16 today and they fit. That's like a 14 in normal pants.

So I will have to purchase at least one new pair of pants for my business trip in early April. If I try to go in these, my pants will fall off when they ask me to remove my belt at the airport. As if security check wasn't invasive enough.

Desperately eating 8 lbs.

I've hit the stage where I am desperate to gain back the 8 lbs. I lost. And this, folks, is why I have trouble losing weight. In fact, if I succeed in getting the 8 back, I'll probably put on an extra 5 or 10, just for insurance.

So why do I need the weight, you ask? Good question. Time to head back to the journal and find out. Possible answers I have come up with already:

• Extra weight keeps me "safe" from being ogled, commented upon, or molested.
• Everyone plans all these great things for when they become thin again. Maybe I don't feel good enough to do the great things, and panic when I start to get thin. Maybe I don't feel good enough just to be thin. Thin people are cool, nice, helpful, and worthy.

Bear in mind, please, that these thoughts, while expressed here in actual words, tend to occur in my head as split-second emotions, and as such are completely devoid of logic. So no comments on how illogical they are - trust me, I know.

The unintentional diet

Now, I'm trying to make better decisions with eating and exercising, toe not withstanding. I really want to meet my goal of losing 20 lbs. this year.

I think I'm cheating, though.

The stomach virus gained me a hole in my belt. My current face-eating cold virus has gained me another one.

I haven't weighed myself yet, but you have to think that's a couple of pounds at least.

Biggest Loser?

I have never watched "The Biggest Loser" before. But there was nothing on tonight and I didn't feel good, so I turned it on.

First of all, I don't know if there is any way on this green earth that I would get up in front of the world in a sports bra and stretch shorts. On TV.

Second, I am horrified that some of those women are at or around my weight. ACK!! I'm FAT!! I'm Biggest Loser FAT!! I never think of myself as fat, at least not until I see pictures, but dear god, those women are fat. And they're ME.

Last year, AKJ said "Ass: you are on notice." And she kicked it.

Well, AKJ, you are now my inspiration. So here goes:

Stomach: you are on notice. I am tired of camouflaging you, excusing you, binding you in, and denying your existence like the elephant in the room. You are sapping my energy and making me ugly. So consider this your written notice - your days are numbered.

The search continues...

If you're bored hearing about my dress woes, you probably want to tune out and come back next week - I'm on a mission and I have a mental disease.

Per AKJ's suggestion, I tried Torrid and that other one, but didn't see anything specific that I liked. I also looked at Alight and Jessica London and found that I had been to both of them already and selected some favorites off them. I absolutely adore alight, but nothing seemed to be quite what I now have my heart set on. I might go back for other dresses, though, because there were so many I loved.

So here's what I'm looking for: a babydoll dress or tunic top that has a black base (not brown, my boots are black and I don't want to have to buy another pair). I want something with a large, colorful pattern. Paisleys are a plus (I just have a thing for them). I'm very drawn to the colors and design of traditional Pucci fabrics. I can't afford Pucci, but anything Pucci-inspired gets an A in my book.

I am going to try to get to Macy's tomorrow to see if they have my dress. I tried one on tonight at JC Penney's, but the cut and fabric were awful.

And thanks to Pusher for correcting my math - I feel so much taller now.

But I'll have to wait an see about the bustline. Bill and Ted are bad surfer-dude noises in disgust, but maybe they can be swayed to make an appearance.

Amazon women from hell

So, I found a print I like better on a Baby Phat dress but I have a couple of concerns.

1. The information says the dress hits mid-though, which is perfect, but it also says the dress is 36" from the neckline. That's 3 feet. I am 5'3". That's 15 inches left over, which has to include my head. Who the hell does this dress hit mid-thigh on? Is it reasonable to think I could hem this dress if it hits mid-calf instead of mid-thigh? Is it reasonable to think I actually would?

2. I have two triple-D buddies, Bill and Ted, who are terrified of the neckline on this dress. Suggestions?


I'm being a bit obsessive here, but I get one dress for Pants's Christmas party and this wedding, I want to be comfortable, and I don't want to look fat. Last year at the Christmas party, I not only felt fat, but I felt like I was 65. I want to feel at least sorta young and hip. Maybe I can try it on at Macy's. The problem is, they never have this stuff in the store - only online. Like fat chicks can't shop in public, we just sit on our couches in mumus with bags over our heads and order more mumus, hoping they come wrapped in brown paper with the size obscured.

I'm a Loser, baby

I am finally done with it all. I have joined The Biggest Loser at work, where those who want to join pay an entry fee and the women compete against the women and the men against the men. Each month, June through August, the person of each sex who has lost the most weight wins a portion of the ante. Each month is its own competition, so if you don't win in June, you can still win July or August. There is also a total percentage competition for the whole three months.

I weighed in on Friday for my initial weight. Egad. I'm just going to come clean with it right here: 202.4. So my goal is 70 pounds total. Not this summer, but total loss. I want to weigh 132 pounds. It popped into my head one day and seems like a reasonable number. Not too thin, not overweight.

I don't know when that will happen, but I will work toward it. I am doing alright over the weekend. But I am on vacation this week (daycare is closed) and we will see. I don't know what's harder - eating well when you're off all day, or eating well when you are running in from work and have to feed the kids and decide what to eat and cook for everyone and get baths and jammies and brush teeth and it's a race from 5-7:30 every night.

But I want to be thin. I am tired of being fat. I don't know what will happen if I lose all the weight, particularly with my skin, which is NOT cooperating in any way, shape, or form. But so be it. I just want to be thin again.

Holy clothes, Batman!

Went to a clothing exchange last night and OMG! Got rid of some of the stuff I didn't wear (or shouldn't have been wearing). I got sweater cardigans, tops, t-shirts, jeans, skirts! And it was all FREE! FREE, I TELL YOU!

Egad, I am excited.

Plus, a bonus inspiration - a girl showed up with 4 bags of clothes, size 20 down to 12, because she had lost 80 pounds. She woke up one day and her fat pants didn't fit and she decided to fix it. And she took up running and started eating right. I'm hoping for that moment to come, but in the meantime I'm considering taking up running, too. It started with an article in People about people who have lost over 100 pounds, and one said she had done this program to start running and got hooked. I'm still mulling it over, but I'm getting closer.

Just really oddly shaped

So here's why I don't want to buy any new clothes:

If any of you have had your gall bladder removed (and okay, so you probably haven't, but if you know someone), you know the gastronomical effect it can have. The gall bladder stores bile and injects it into your intestines to assist in processing fat. When you don't have one, you have no injection of bile to help you process fat, the bile just sort of leaks into your intestine all the time instead of only at the right time. So you don't process fat correctly. You do the math.

So now I can't really eat fast food. Or anything greasy, like pizza, etc. And this, as you can imagine, is having a positive effect on my weight issues. It's going slowly, which is fine and it's how it's supposed to be. But I'm sort of in between sizes right now, the fat clothes are too big and the thin clothes are too small. I don't know what to do about it. But I can't buy anything else because it will be a huge waste. I will (hopefully) only be able to wear it for a couple of weeks before it's useless.

The problem is this - everything is headed south. In a hurry. I don't think my skin is going to bounce back from this. I don't know if I will ever be able to wear cute clothes again, or look good in anything. Disheartening. It kinda takes the excitement out of losing weight. Damn.

Well crap, now I'm screwed

So, awhile back, I kinda said that I would not worry about my weight problem until both children were sleeping through the night in their own beds.

As much as I have been looking foward to this time, it now appears that I have something I was going to do. And perhaps this is why my mood has been so funky lately. Or maybe the funky mood just made me feel worse about being so damn fat. Whatever.

So I'm considering my options. Weight Watchers has appealed in the past and I might consider that again. Maybe I'll just go it alone for awhile and see what happens. It doesn't help that it's suddenly Arctic here again. I would really love to get outside and the girls would like it too. And maybe I could walk off some of this fat. I'm afraid to get on the scale because I think I might have cracked 2 bills. Ack. No wonder I'm depressed.

I'm fat as hell

And I have decided I can't care right now. I tried, I just can't. Not until both kids are sleeping all night, alone, in their own beds. We have taken several steps back this month, amid a couple of steps forward.

Meimei will now not sleep at night in her crib. While she was sick, she would wake up after about 10 minutes in there, and because I was sick, I just brought her into bed with me after the second or third time each night. Now, although she sleeps alone for naps both at daycare and here, she will not sleep alone at night. Oh, how quickly we backslide.

Kitten has continued to have fits, and the one the night after my last post was worse and much longer than the one I wrote about. It nearly lasted the entire two hours she is home and awake at night. Tonight she was on the verge for awhile but only had one where she really just laid down and kicked. It doesn't help that Pants and I can't get on the same page on how to handle them. I say we absolutely stop dealing with her when she gets that far, stop looking at her even, but he thinks he can get her out of it. Tonight he did, but he hasn't been terribly successful the last couple of nights.

On the better news front, Kitten did not wake up tonight half an hour after we put her down. Oh crap, can she hear me typing? She just started crying, I'm am NOT kidding. Ok, it sounds like it was just in passing. Anyway, she hasn't gotten up tonight, although last night she was crying down there for almost 15 minutes after I went down to hug her and put her back down. Maybe she has gotten the point.

Now if only Meimei would get it.

On second thought, I might start caring about my weight if my hair grows back in.

Progress

Yesterday I had two fruits and one bottle of water. We went grocery shopping and I got fruit to sit on the counter (thanks for the idea, Ms. Huis! it even got Pants to eat fruit last night).

This morning I ate instant oatmeal for breakfast. Yay! I was going to go to the mall this afternoon, and may still, but my fridge problem might kill that plan. Anyway, I'm doing better on the goals.

Update on goals

Yeah, so the goals were a bit ambitious. I have not yet eaten breakfast. Not once. The TV went off the first day at 11 but came back on as soon as Kitten went down for a nap. I think Kitten's getting her fruits and vegetables, but it's hard to tell because of the amounts of them that end up on her face and bib now that she's eating by herself. We haven't been to the mall yet, maybe tomorrow. I did buy the water, but have yet to drink two in a day. They are currently frozen into single-serving ice blocks out in the garage.

So, today is another day. TV will go off soon. Kitten is eating a fruit, although much of it is on her bib. I will go to the grocery store today and get some fruit. I will go out to the garage now and get some water started on the thaw. We will go to the mall tomorrow afternoon, although whether it's for Santa or Underwater Adventures is up in the air. I will eat breakfast tomorrow while I blog (during Sesame Street).

I knew that I would not complete all of these things daily. I knew that I would fail. And there is something actually a bit liberating about failing the whole first week. Now I don't have to be perfect, I can miss an item here or there and it's okay. The intention is good.

It's too damn early

Kitten got up at 7:00 today and Meimei was up at 6:00 wanting to eat. I have been staying up too late recently, as it seems like that's the only time I get to myself. Because it is the only time I get to myself.

Also, I neglected to come up with alternate plans for my ambitious goals, as I can't go grocery shopping until after the new fridge is delivered. We are putting the old fridge in the garage to replace the REALLY old fridge (whose freezer broke recently, which I discovered when I went for a rather less-than-frozen pizza). So we have a place to put the food, but I don't want to stuff the fridge, only to have it all taken back out and put on the counter while we move it to the garage and plug it in. So the fruit and veggie thing, that will have to wait until next week. But Kitten can get hers and I will try to get as many as possible. Do you think Jello counts?

We're all getting fat

Except Kitten, she's dropped some weight since the walking took off. I also took the RealAge test and took the test for Kitten's future RealAge and saw immediately some room for improvement. And Kitten is getting much more interested in the TV now, so it's time to start controlling that monster.

So, ala Ms. Huis, I am setting some goals for the month of December:

• TV goes off at 11:00 a.m. and stays off until at least 5:30 p.m., unless Kitten is napping. This will reduce my stress, I think, and generally keep the TV off even during naps due to my usual laziness.
• Kitten will eat at least 3 fruits and vegetables daily, and so will I. I have recently found frozen, microwavable single servings of corn and broccoli with cheese, and these are actually kind of nice as a snack. Kitten still gets most of her vegetables from Gerber, as she won't eat formed vegetables, and certainly won't let anything green pass her lips. That does leave us with all of the orange vegetables, however, and that should be alright.
• I will eat breakfast daily, and that does not consist of Caribou Coffee bars. I have cereal, for crying out loud. Kitten already eats breakfast daily, she would not have it any other way. Aren't kids amazing, eating when they're hungry and stopping when they're not?
• I will pick up a case of water tomorrow and drink at least two bottles per day. Kitten will only drink water from the bottles now, so this will help her water intake too.
• We will go to an actual mall twice in December where I can put her on the leash and let her roam and walk a little bit more than normal - she is usually strapped in a cart. We will also go to Underwater World at MOA this month, as I have been meaning to because she is so thrilled by fish and my time at home is running out.
  

A little too ambitious? Probably. We'll see how it goes.