Mark my words

Hey Amigos,

Confession time. Weight Watchers, brilliant marketers that they are, marked their one point bars down from $7.50 to $5.00. If I were in a grocery store, this is the type of thing I would NEVER buy. Never.

But somehow, in my WW meeting, I felt trapped in some vortex where $5.00 is a great bargain (thank GOD they don't sell things like bridges in New York and long term care insurance). Before I knew what was happening (and that's almost the straight truth...I was a woman possessed) I had 2 boxes in my backpack, one chocolate peanut butter and one chocolate mint. They're little bars, 1 point each.

Do I really need to tell you what happened? Really?

If you were thinking that it took me approximately 24 hours to finish both boxes, you'd be right. 24 mini bars, 24 hours. Of course I wasn't eating them every hour. I'd eat one, then a little while later another. Then I'd freeze them and have those. Then I'd have three at a time.

See, the trouble is (and any fellow food addicts can back me up on this one) if a trigger food is in my house, I'm almost completely powerless against it. I can hear my dad now talking about willpower and sucking it up etc., and my mom saying "Just don't eat it" and my sister saying both. I've tried. If it's there, I will eat it. Sad but true.

So we come to another weigh in day and I'm filled with trepidation. I've probably gained this week. Mostly because I ate too many points (I know this to be true because in spite of the embarassing quality of my binging, I DID record it all) and only got exercise 2 days this week.

In some of this weight loss stuff are definites. Things that can't be changed. Or, maybe they could be, but I'm so busy focusing on everything else in my life that I choose not to change them. Like my trigger foods. I simply cannot have them in my house. Absolutely positively not. And the thing is, if I stick to that rule, I'm fine. And sticking to it is easier than you think, once I've identified the problem. Another thing is, I know the exercise that suits me best. It's walking. And I don't mean walking indoors to one of those Leslie Sansone videos (even though she is pretty good and you get a good work out) or a treadmill. I mean walking and actually getting somewhere. It's something I like to do and something I know I will do and it's not a chore and I always seem to find time to do it (except when it's hotter than Hades as it is right now). It's also something I can do with my dog. I've tried other aerobic activity, and the only one that ever stuck, that I never got bored with, that I always did, was walking.

Those are my definites. Maybe some day, way in the future, I'll be ready to change them, but they're both good, positive things, so I'm not going to beat myself up for having what others may see as 'restrictions.' I see it as playing to my strengths.

It's amazing, but I feel better than I did when I started writing this post. Maybe it's the fact that I've made another promise to myself. I tend not to break promises to myself. I never promise myself anything unreasonable, but there are several promises that I keep. If I don't I'm actually disappointed in myself.

It's as if I made a promise to someone else and didn't keep it, but I'm both people, feeling bad for having a promise made to me broken, and for actually being the one breaking that promise.

A couple of the promises I've made to myself over the years

*make my bed every day
*always be in the process of reading something (currently I'm reading The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, never read anything by him before; great literature it ain't, but it's a good mystery)
*eat breakfast every day
*bring lunch to work during the week
*always clean the litter boxes at the minimum once daily
*ALWAYS ATTEND A WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETING

That last one is a biggie (hence the caps). The one promise I made when I started the program. I've told you about that before. I didn't promise myself I'd lose weight. I didn't promise myself anything other than I can bring myself to one lousy half hour meeting every week.

So now I've got another big promise to add. And putting it here makes me all the more accountable.

I will never buy another box of WW one point bars. I'm making a clean break. I wish them well and all the success in the world, but they can't be a part of my life.

Time to move on.

Take that, Take 5!

No, it's not really Take 5's fault...I'm not being fair. It's the fault of the powers that be who decide what goes into the vending machines around here!

No, it's not really their fault either. The fault lays on these chubby shoulders.

I powered through my food today and finished everything I brought before 2:00. That makes for one long afternoon. I got so hungry I couldn't take it and went into the lounge where the vending machine is.

Alas, that wasn't my first mistake. You know what was my first mistake? Grabbing two dollars out of my wallet instead of one. I know darn good and well that most things in there are under a dollar. So...did I think I'd lose a dollar during the short walk to the break room? Or that I'd somehow have an occasion to spend a dollar in the few seconds it takes me to get to and from the vending machine?

We know the answer. I brought 2 dollars because I wanted 2 things. What, I didn't know. I so rarely use the vending machine here that I can never predict what they're going to have.

So I get in there and I see, thankfully, a small bag of regular old pretzels. Hanover pretzels, 3 points for the whole bag. I got them.

I should have turned away then. But it was too late. I saw it. I saw the Take 5.

I love Take 5. Take 5 starts with a pretzel. Then they add caramel, and peanut butter, and peanuts, and they cover it in chocolate. And they do it so well. All of the ingredients in perfect harmony with each other.

The first time I had a Take 5 was in New York City. They were new and reps were handing them out. I assume they were reps at least...

I'm not big on candy bars. I like certain ones, but could live without them. But seeing that Take 5 today, and knowing the taste explosion held within its red wrapper, I caved.

Having a Take 5 isn't going to derail me. It's not going to make me put back on 103 pounds. Actually, points wise, I could probably even afford it because I have barely touched my weekly points allowance.

I know it's not the end of the world.

But, it still makes me sad, because that's the sort of thinking that got me into the sorry situation I was a year and a half ago, and that I'd been struggling with for half of my life up to that point. I want it, so I eat it.

I hate knowing that lack of control is so close to the surface. It's damn scary.

I'd never say anyone who is addicted has it easy, but the whole eating thing has a different dimension that other addictions don't. A recovering alcoholic makes a commitment not to drink alcohol. A recovering drug addict makes a commitment not to use drugs. A recovering gambler makes a commitment not to gamble. A recovering food addict makes a commitment to choose the right food for every meal, every day, for the rest of their life. To abstain from unhealthy eating. Eating is a vital function, if we stop all together, we die. So every time I get hungry, every time I have a meal, every day, all day, I have to choose. And I can't just say no, I can't just not eat. I have to say yes to some things, and no to others. Each moment dealing with food is a choice.

It messes with you, I tell ya.

So, how many weight watchers points in a Take 5? Just guess.

5!!

She's back!

Oh, my amigos, I'm so sorry for my lengthy silence. I've been very occupied with various things. Yes, I know we're all busy, and I have a lot nerve using that as an excuse and I should be ashamed of myself for even saying it. But would you rather I post crappy things in multitude, as opposed to wonderful things occasionally? Well?

Of course, that makes it sound like this will be a wonderful post, and I can't promise that. Just let me say that I was away too long and I hope my reader has stuck around.

Right now I'm blogging at home. I woke up this morning like normal. Then things started to get a little ooky. When I realized that I was probably going to hurl, I sent an email to my boss and coworkers letting them know I'd be staying at home.

And what happened subsequently?

I didn't hurl. And now I'm sort of pissed because I used up a sick day. I never call in sick. I had a streak of 6 years with no sick days, then a subsequent streak of 5 years. I was knocked flat by a stomach virus in October, so that blew (literally) 2008. And now, I've blown 2009. I know that's kind of silly. But here I was today, sort of feeling icky, but probably workable. I guess I just didn't want to go to work worried that I was going to blow chunks. Better safe than sorry. But I am disappointed in myself.

There's been a lot of things going down, but I don't really know what I want to blog about today.

I did have sort of a stalled moment in my weight loss. I finally decided that I needed to recommit. I just became complacent and wasn't seeing a lot of loss. I was seeing a small loss, small gain, small loss... And when I looked at the graph that WW has set up, it was so obvious that I was stalling. I expect some of that, but the thing with this was, I was stalling, and I know that I was slacking off.

Here's how I slacked off:

1. I didn't track my food.
2. I wasn't exercising as much as I should have.
3. I wasn't measuring.
4. I was 'treating' myself too often, and not being really serious about acknowledging that (see number 1)

Here's how I remained committed:

1. I still went to my meeting.

I still kept up with the one promise I made myself. I can keep one lousy promise. And as I said when I joined, the only thing I absolutely committed to do, the one thing I'd never give up on, is going to the meetings. And sure enough, I got my mojo back. Something so funny, at our meeting two weeks ago, the topic was motivation. And I attended that meeting with a coworker who was in the same boat I was, and we sat next to my WW buddy who was in the same boat as us. When the meeting was over we just looked at each other and we all agreed it was fate. We were all touched by the topic and we were all willing to recommit. It was really awesome.

So, I recommitted, and the next week (last week) I lost .8 lbs. Then, this week, when I really hunkered down and applied myself, I lost 3 pounds. Wow!!!! So, amigos, I've lost 103 pounds! I'm firmly ensconced in the 100s now. Now I can make myself a new promise, so I'll have 2 promises that I will always keep.

I will always go to my meetings, and I will not let myself drift back below the 100s. Even if I didn't lose another pound after today (God forbid!), I would be happy because I am in such a better place that it hardly feels real.

Sort of makes sense, though, doesn't it? Even though I didn't plan it that way. I have one promise that got me to lose 100 pounds, and a second that will keep me there. Now I need to start focusing on a goal. THE goal. Not quite ready to commit to that, mostly because I haven't decided what it's going to be!!! I do know one thing. I know I'm going to get there.