May!?

Wha happen'? How did I get here???

Bet you thought I was dead, right? If I've retained my reader, well, thank you for sticking it out.

See, what happened is that in November I was appointed to a task force at work. Everything after that is a blur. Well, that's not entirely true. But I was consumed here at work, with both my job and regular, lengthy and very intense meetings. I rarely logged into my computer at home, barely checked email, and essentially couldn't do anything too taxing at the risk of exploding my brain.

The task force completed its charge last week, so I've had a little time to think and reflect and feel normal.

One of the problems while doing the task force was the tremendous amount of stress. I don't say this lightly, amigos. I tend to handle stress well, not take things too seriously, put things into perspective. But this, this was different. I'm not going to go into details, the bottom line is this. We're going to be restructuring here, and it's up to the task force to plan it. May sound simple, but we are talking about evaluating the workflow and livelihood of over 20 people, some who have been doing the same thing (literally and figuratively) for over 25 years (the university is known for the longevity of its employees). I didn't want to be on this committee, I didn't volunteer. I was appointed and in no position to say no.

Anyway, it wasn't really a problem, just intense. Intense enough to invade my dreams (and if that happens, you KNOW you've got a problem).

How was my eating in all this, you ask? Not good. The meetings we had were fueled by caffeine and chocolate. I rarely made my own breakfast or lunch. I ate all the wrong things when I got home, in an effort to stuff all the stress and get it to shut the hell up, and in an effort to keep things simple.

Now, again, I didn't resort to my pre-WW behaviors in the area of drive through, or donuts. But that doesn't mean I ate well.

I did put on some weight. 25+ lbs or so. I can't lie. I WANT to lie, but I can't. But...I didn't stop going to my meetings. I faithfully attended, got on the scale (most weeks) and took my lumps.

Now that the TF is over, I've been able to evaluate, come down, calm myself. Last week I started to live like I normally would. First off, no meetings means no chocolate. It's not like I independently eat a ton of chocolate, but if you put it in front of me I'm going to eat it. AND, the TF was occurring during the BIG sweets times: Christmas, Valentine's and Easter. Lots of sales, lots of chocolate. AND, M and Ms are now available with pretzels. So...you figure it out.

But last week, I started to get real. And this week, I AM real. Brought breakfast, made my own coffee, at home. Have a thermos of water right here. I have leftovers for dinner, I have a grocery list. I'll get there amigos. It was a rough, rough patch, I won't lie. But it was a patch, it wasn't the rest of my life. THIS is the rest of my life. So hopefully, starting this week, I'll be able to start posting losses, and I'll let you know when I get to that big 3 digit number again.

See ya!

Long time, eh?

Hey Amigos,

I haven't blogged in forever. Don't worry, I'm still here and I haven't gained all the weight back or anything like that. Still attending WW weekly (coming up on my 2nd anniversary), made it through the holidays in one piece, finished riding lessons for the time being (too cold) but will pick up in spring.

Not too much going on. I watched the 450th episode of the Simpsons last night, as well as the commemorative show that came on afterward. Bless that program. Even if it's not as good as it used to be it's still the best thing on television.

I started a "Hyp Yoga" class which combines hynosis and yoga to promote weight loss. I love it and can hardly wait to go back.

I did gain some weight back over the holidays. 12 lbs give or take a few ounces. I'm not happy about it, but this is also real life, so...I have to get over myself and keep moving forward. I'm happy to say that I'm on my 5th straight day of tracking (I didn't track at all from about the week before Christmas until, well, 5 days ago) and being on program, and there's no sign of stopping. I'm hoping I can chip away at that 12 pounds and post a loss this week (I'm feeling pretty positive about that, BTW).

Lots, LOTS of stuff going down at work. Nothing bad, just more work.

I can't promise when I'll be back to blog. Depends if I get a bee in my bonnet or not. I only seem to want to blog when I have an axe to grind!

Anyway, I'm doing well kids. I wasn't for a while there, but that's passed.

Oh, one thing, 2010 has been a strictly vegetarian year so far. I'm going to see if I can take it all the way.

See ya.

Act II

Hey Amigos,

I've stopped and started this blog several times over the last couple weeks. I'm going for it right now, though, and I'm going to put this thing out there come hell or high water. My reader deserves it!

Work has been very, very... stressful I guess. Tense? It's been busy and crazy and I have some responsibilities that are weighing heavily on me. Not bad, just that things are going to be tough for the next several months. I'll be fine amigos, not to worry. In the words of Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane," I guess I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Weight loss is actually going very well! I've sort of recommitted to the program. A WW friend and I even sat through a 'first meeting' talk and everything. And it's working! We've decided to call it Act II. Act I was great, and intermission was fun and snack-filled, but Act II promises to knock your socks off. :D

My appetite also had a bit of a boost (or the opposite, but in a good way) by a date I had last week. You know how it is, you're thinking about a boy (or a girl, depending on your persuasion) and you don't care about eating. I have no idea if it's going to go anywhere or not (as of this writing we haven't gone on date three yet...not sure if it's going to happen), but you know what? The mere fact that it was a fantastic date, he was a perfect gentleman, he treated me wonderfully, he's cute...it makes up for every single crappy date I had with my previous gentleman caller. And pretty much every date we had was crappy. So I've reset my weighing self and my dating self. All systems go.

The dating thing is interesting. It always kind of highlights what a mess I am inside. Self doubt, negative self-talk, dwelling on bad experiences. My skin is terribly thin, and I have no confidence. I keep up a good front, and I think I manage to fake it. But inside I'm coming up with every reason he could ever find to not like me. Wondering if he thinks I'm fat. Wondering how I could compete with other women.

Yeah, it's a mess.

Believe me, it's gotten monumentally better over the years. And it's something I work on all the time. But seeing a boy just brings it all to the surface. And frankly, this was quite a boy. Charming, sweet, funny, and in my humble opinion, hotter than hell. I have strange tastes admittedly, so I certainly don't imagine everyone would agree with me on that.

Anyway, who knows. The upside of it all is that I feel rejuvenated by it, happy, I had fun, and I deserved it. He treated me so well, and I deserve to be treated well. So, if it doesn't happen with him, it will happen with someone.

It's weird. My life is not what I imagined it would be. I always figured I'd get married and have kids. Actually, it wasn't until recent years that I realized that it's not going to happen. I'm not going to write about that here, I just can't. Way too much emotion behind it. Maybe some day.

What else... Well, Christmas shopping is going OK. Dogs are doing well! My health is good. No new music, per se. I've been listening to a lot of different things. Oh, riding lessons are killer. I'm riding a different horse for the most part, though Chompy the Ear Biter is still a lesson horse for me. I can't get over how much I have learned, how much fun I'm having, and how much I love horses.

Well, there's a crappy Lifetime Movie on right now (with Shannen Doherty and Tim Matheson...hah!), and I have an all day workshop tomorrow (all part of my new responsibilities...fun fun fun) so I'm going to go veg out for a while. Say a prayer to whoever the patron saint of these things is that I get to see the boy again, or that I'm at least lucky in love at some point.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (mine was fun, btw, and I still lost weight!), and that the Christmas season finds you all healthy and happy.

Starting at pound zero

Greetings Amigos,

SUCCESS in my weight loss! As you know, I've set the counter back to zero after hitting a significant milestone that I won't mention because I don't want to jinx myself.

So, as of yesterday, I've lost a pound! Down one pound, and I'm not sure how many to go. Really, I need to talk to my doctor about that. I don't believe what the government tells me is a healthy weight for me. I'm 5'5", but I have size 9 feet, so I'd say I qualify as a 'big boned' girl, and I'm sorry but that buys a person a little extra wiggle room.

I'm feeling wonderful about things today. There are a bunch of us doing WW here at work (6 or 7 at least) and most of us happened to be in the same place for a while this morning, and we shared success stories, experiences, had some laughs, gave out some hugs. These are women (and one man) whom I've worked with for at the least 15 years, so we're buddies from way back, and now we find ourselves serving each other as mentors, coaches, sympathetic ears. They're an amazing group of people, and I'm so very lucky to have them.

I've had a few things on my mind lately, but I haven't felt particularly confessional. But I think you all are due for another peek at my innards. So I'll get working on that.

For now, the journey begins anew! :)

The list gets longer

Hola Amigos,

I'm not being a very good blogger, and I don't want to run the risk of losing my reader, and I do have a funny story to tell you, so here I am.

I also think I need to get some stuff out here, mostly about my weight loss journey. Thankfully, we are at ground zero now. I had a very good loss last week and it put me at 100 lbs lost even, so we're starting the counter over, folks. So, at my weigh in tomorrow, it's back to square one.

Now, about my weigh in tomorrow. I did a little celebrating after my weigh in last week. Oh, the irony is not lost on me friends. I went to a wonderful French restaurant called Le Reve with 3 of my dearest friends, and we had a long, leisurely meal. I honestly didn't do too badly. I had a nicoise salad, and we all shared some frites, and we also shared dessert. But I was so wound up when I got home that I ended up staying up too late and getting hungry again.

Then I started this thing of putting Jello mousse (this stuff is fantastic) in between graham crackers and freezing it and have subsequently come to learn that graham crackers are yet another thing I cannot have in my house, because I will eat them until they're gone. Not that it stopped me from buying more over the weekend. But now that those are gone I can assure you that graham crackers will no longer darken my door.

So, I've got the schpilkes that I won't have a loss tomorrow, or at the worst, I'll have a gain. I can't stop beating myself up. For some reason I'm being especially hard on myself about it. I just know this half-assed approach needs to stop, or I'm not going to go anywhere, and that's just unnacceptable.

One of my motivators has been that, frankly, I don't want to flipping pay anymore! WW monthly pass is $40/mo and if you think I couldn't be using that money for something else, then you've got some nerve mister. But seriously, do I want to keep paying $40 so that I can shirk my duties as a Weight Watcher? No!

I've been motivating myself by looking for success stories. I spent a goodly amount of time checking out the blog of a woman who has lost 270 lbs through WW. Jesus H. Christ. I saw another one who lost well over 200 lbs. These are women who started out heavier than I (not an easy thing to do) and managed to take the weight off via WW, and I need to see those stories to remind myself that it's possible.

I just can't believe, still, that the urge to overeat is so strong. When I had those graham crackers in the house, they were all I could think about, and eating them all was my way of making those thoughts go away (God forbid I actually throw them out or anything like that).

Oh, cereal too. Over the course of 2 days I ate an entire box of frosted mini wheats. So, cereal, which was always on my list, is now on my list in CAPITAL LETTERS. But I still do it. This was just a few days ago! In spite of my success, in spite of the plan that is great and it works, in spite of all that I STILL fall into bad habits. The fight is never over amigos.

So, the funny story I was going to tell you, I went to my riding lesson on Saturday. When I got there the horse I ride was still out in the pen area, so I figured I'd go out there and get him. It is a scary prospect, but I've done it a couple times and it's something I should be doing. So out I go with a harness to bring him in. It had been raining all week. One of my friends there loaned me her rubber boots because the mud was ankle deep, and I started slogging through the mud and manure. I did what you were supposed to, which is make noise, announce your presence etc. He and the other horses were gathered around a bale of hay, so I was able to walk right up. Of course, walking wasn't exactly easy. It was one of those things where you lift your foot up but your shoe stays put, you know? But after a while, and a few near falls and a couple nearly lost shoes, I made it next to my horse. I gave him a pat and put part of the rope over his neck, just to let him know what was coming. He looked at me, and then lifted his head up, and it was then that I noticed his ears flat against his head. This is a bad, bad sign. Sort of the 'baring teeth' of the dog world, or the hiss of a cat. I knew he was going to do something but before I could even form the thought of what that might be, he clamped his mighty teeth down on my ear. OUCH! I gasped and put my elbow up to get him to back off, which he proceeded to bite. Then I said "NO" firmly and he backed off, and there I stood, completely stunned. I had no idea how bad the damage was to my ear, so I put my hand up to it. There was indeed blood, but the ear itself was all there.

I was stunned. I really didn't know what to do. I stood there for a minute, and then my instructor saw me and came out to get us. She hadn't meant for me to go get him, she meant for her husband to have brought him in, and she was most apologetic. She was just really nice about it. But I didn't want her to feel too badly about it. It wasn't like I wasn't in some way responsible, at least in hindsight. I did a fool stupid thing, and should have waited for help. And now, I am admittedly a little afraid of him! I'd never actually been afraid of him before. We did proceed with the lesson, and I had a great ride, and I'm so glad for that, because if we hadn't it would have fed into my fears and reinforced him. But wow...when you really think about it, it's pretty damned hazardous. but this is what you do when you work with horses.

Another thing about it that amazes me, is his precision. It wasn't like he was just looking to bite me and happened to catch my ear. He went for my ear and bit it on purpose. I cannot figure out how an animal so massive, with such a huge blind spot, could be so dead on accurate. I should take a picture of it, so you can see.

Ironically, or something like that, I'd just gotten my haircut that morning. So unbeknownst to me, I'd made my ear particularly accessible. Drat!

Anyway, that's my funny story. And it really is funny. You can't say that a horse bit you on your ear and remain completely serious.

Well, tomorrow I weigh in, and I'll post here, just like in the beginning. Now, how much can I lose in 24 hours?

I dismember that...

Hey Amigos,

Remember back when I used to post how much I lost every week? That was fun. Why haven't I posted anything recently? Because I've been screwing around with the same, oh, 8 pounds for, oh, 6 months now.

Not to worry, reader, I'm not throwing in the towel, no way, no how. Actually, I've stepped up my meeting attendance to 2 meetings per week. My usual Thursday night meeting with my leader who I swear is an angel sent straight from heaven (hello? Raising Arizona??), and I've added a Saturday morning meeting with another fanstastic leader. This woman is a star, I swear. The place is packed because of her, and she's just got it together. She says all the right things and really is just genuinely, wholeheartedly enthused. AND she's a 35 year member.

So, I have stepped up that effort. And I've started writing about what the heck is holding me back and what I stand to lose. I'm doing more journaling. And I'm paying very close attention to subtle changes that could spell big trouble.

I have had a couple scary things happen in the past month or so that put the fear of God in me. One thing was me removing what I planned to wear to work and replacing it with something more comfortable (aka: roomy). Not good. Also, I've been relying more on wearing tennis shoes. That may not seem related to my weight, but it is, in ways I can't explain. Both of these things are "Fat me" behaviors, and they cause me to stop and think about just what the heck it is I'm doing.

Just so much going on in my brain regarding weight loss and my whole life. But I do feel like it's sorting itself out. I'm not necessarily in complete control right now, but my awareness is running high. Make sense? It's almost like the pieces are slowly going back into place. Maybe the whole pattern changed, and the pieces got jumbled, and now I'm putting them back in their new places. Honestly, that's what it feels like! I need to change the way I look at the world.

Anyway, don't worry about me. Actually, how about this. I'm going to start posting losses soon, I'm sure of it. And I'm going to start my count over.

So when I post my next loss, we're starting at pound 1. I've already lost 100, that's over and done and floating somewhere in the atmosphere. What I need to lose now is an additional 80. Now don't go giving me any grief about how that's too much and whatnot. You all have no idea how much I weighed when I started. If I were a braver person, more self-assured, I'd tell you. But I just can't tell you. What I can tell you is that I really, truly and medically need to lose 80 pounds. I can do it.

OK, another random rambling post. I'm writing over my lunch hour and am a bit rushed for time. Here's to new beginnings.

Plans to make

Hey Amigos,

And again, I've been woefully silent for a couple weeks. Or has it been 3? Don't worry, nothing catastrophic. I haven't ballooned up to Nell Carter size or anything like that. Just incredibly busy with things that would make for very boring blog posts.

I had a session with my therapist yesterday and we did some deep discussion about my weight loss journey. I guess at this point you could say I'm struggling a bit. I keep gaining and losing the same 4 or 5 pounds. I know darned good and well why, but what I don't know is why I'm exhibiting those behaviors.

So after some discussion J and I came up with a game plan. I'll write about it here when I have it all figure out. Not ready to commit anything just yet. but trust me, it's a good plan, and I think it's going to work. No, I KNOW it's going to work.

So, don't worry about me or any of that jazz. I'm alive and well, just trying to wrap my mind around a few things and get my act together.

Adios, will post when my plan is in place!