Trackin', like the doo-dah man

Hey Amigos,

Just had to tell you, I took on a little challenge with my dear friend, co-worker and WW buddy D. We found that we both have stalled. I weigh now what I weighed at the beginning of summer. If I were in maintenance, then bully for me. But maintenance is NOT where I am, so I had to get cracking here. I can't afford to be on WW my entire life (in the literal and figurative senses of the word).

So D and I have made a commitment to tracking. I'm tracking everything, so is he, and then we're emailing our daily reports to each other the next morning.

They're not joking when they say, tracking = weight loss. I stopped tracking consistently probably around when I went on vacation, and in that time I've probably put on 5 or 6 pounds. NOT GOOD. So as of Sunday, I've tracked everything. Now, I don't know if that will translate into a weight loss when I weigh in tomorrow, because I had a doozy of a binge between Thursday and Friday. It was someone's last day here, and there was a lengthy celebration with tons of sweets, and she had brought in donuts, which I never eat, but my donut demon came out of the dark and that was that. So I had some major, I mean MAJOR making up to do. So I may or may not post a loss tomorrow (most likely not), and I'll live with that.

The fact of the matter is, I'm tracking again, and the process reminds me how very important it is. Probably the thing I notice most of all is that I really put a lot more thought into what I'm eating. I remind myself that whatever I eat has a number, and I have to write that number down and I have to be held accountable for it. It just makes me stop and think, which is a big part of eating right.

Another motivator for me is that I really want to be able to tell you, my amigos, that I've got losses coming. I've had a few, but I erased them. Essentially the summer was a wash, and I need to make up for that.

I told my friend D, it's as if we are having a renaissance, almost like we've discovered the program all over again.

On another note, I feel really sad about the loss of Ted Kennedy. Of course, I feel a bit conflicted, given his past. But his influence is undeniable, and we probably won't see the likes of him again. A sad day indeed.

OK, that's enough out of me. Just wanted to tell you what I'm doing, and hopefully I'll be able to start giving you NUMBERS, baby, NUMBERS.

For cryin' out glavin!

Argh. I knew I was going to gain weight this week. I wasn't even surprised at the number on the scale. Know what pisses me off? The fact that I'm 7 pounds heavier than I was at the end of June! I've lost in there, but I've also gained, and the gains are winning. Drat! Drat drat drat!

Know what though? I'm glad I looked at my weight tracker. It's one thing to look at each individual week, but when you see something that has affected you for the last month and a half, it's a bit more...persuasive!

So, I've broken a promise to myself, to not fall back under 100 lbs lost. Poop. Am I defeated? No. Just pissed. Being pissed is a great motivator. Maybe I'll make myself too angry to eat.

I've found a couple new addictions. These aren't too bad, along the lines of caramel flavored rice cakes and Skinny Cow ice cream. I had my first taste of a Famous Dave's pickle. No, I wasn't at Famous Dave's. Not interested, thank you very much. I was at Sam's Club of all places, and it was 'sample day' and the pickle seemed like a safe bet. They're fabulous. They're like bread and butter pickles with a little kick. I tried to buy a jar there, but, being Sam's, I couldn't actually only buy one, I would have had to buy six. No lie. Considering the only other products they had were barbecue sauces and meaty things, I wasn't interested in anything other than pickles, and I wasn't going to buy six jars of pickles. So I picked a jar up while grocery shopping yesterday.

Unfortunately, after I opened them and started eating them, I looked at the ingredients, and the second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Before vinegar even. But, pickles are a good snack, and when I'm finished with this jar I'll just find another bread and butter pickle with better ingredients and add my own spices.

My other good addiction is olives. The best thing about them is that it's hard to OD on them. I love them, and can eat a lot of them, but even for me I find them satisfying in a relatively short time.

So, anyway...your slightly pudgier angry friend is recommitting and getting this flipping weight off. For God's sake, I don't want summer to be a complete wash!!!

Challenges!

Hey Amigos,

Margin Walker checked out for a few weeks here, apologies all around. There are some major changes going on at my job and I have been tied up nearly every minute of every day. So, when I do have some free time, I have to decompress for several hours.

My eating has been lousy for the past week. It all started with my birthday, which happened to be the first day of the state fair. So, I was at the fair all day, ate all day, then got home and ate some more. Then I had a party at a friend's house. It's not even like I ate that much when I was there, it's that I continued to eat when I got home.

Then the next day was my work picnic. It really doesn't help that I work with some of the best cooks and bakers in town. And, I made a kick-ass dish myself, rhubarb dream bars (they were gone in a nanosecond after I set them down). Then, that evening, I went to dinner with my sis and mom to celebrate my birthday.

That was Sunday. So you'd think that would be the end and I'd pick up where I left off. But that's not what happened. There was a luncheon Wednesday. And the fact that a coworker brought in brownies on Monday. Then I had plans this Thursday to attend the fair again. See, my mom and sis and I always pick a day during the week to go. So I knew all week I had another visit to the fair in the works. I know that shouldn't have made a difference, but it messed with me. It made it hard for me to take my eating seriously.

I know that's messed up.

I have to weigh in tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it, but i have to do it. I find myself beginning to talk myself out of attending at all, and that is so scary. I've already pushed it from Thursday until tomorrow. In my defense, I didn't have much choice. I always attend Thursday evenings. Well, this Thursday I was back at the fair. My mom and sis and I went early and were home by 3:30; then I and 3 friends went back (it was a totally different experience, on many levels!). There was no time for me to go, not without messing up some plans.

So I'm going tomorrow, which is the 11th hour in WW world (points reset on Sunday). Honestly, I don't want to go. I wish I could just live my life and have none of this be an issue. But it doesn't work that way. And if I don't go tomorrow, I will have broken my one promise to myself, and I absolutely flat-out refuse to do that. So, I'll go, and step on the scale, and I'll see the toll that a week of free falling has on my weight. Maybe I can be a cautionary tale. "This is what happens when you eat a cream puff, deep fried snickers, deep fried PB and J, pancakes, apple sundae, blue moon ice cream, pizza, cherry float, corn on the cob, cheese curds, etc. in the course of a week."

I'm not happy about this week, but I do have to admit that the temptations were beyond extraordinary. I mean, come ON.

I hope to gain some inspiration from my meeting. I'm going at 7:00 am. Then I'm taking my friend who is in town from New York out to breakfast. It's a long standing tradition.

I believe this to be my last commitment involving food for a couple weeks. Harder than Christmas, I tell ya.