A MOMENT

I belive my coworker had a 'moment' yesterday. Another woman was in here working with me and she is back to weight watchers. Not going to meetings, but just doing it on her own. She was four pounds from goal last summer and then some doc probably put her on some unnecessary meds and the result was gaining all the weight back. Anyway she and I were yacking about it and I know coworker eavesdrops on everything and found out this other HUGE woman who works up here has last 40 pounds from being on weight watchers since January. I thought she looked better. I will have to compliment her next time I get a chance. Plus, this woman has a sister I don't like who works in the next building who must weigh like 400 pounds I lie not.
Anyway I asked coworker if she had heard about Kathy losing 40 pounds, which it took me since September to lose, and she asked if she was working out. Coworker joined a gym in January and hasn't lost an ounce. I think she is figuring this out. Told her I didn't know but maybe Kathy is walking or doing Curves or something. She looked a little sheepish. She must be realizing by now that working out three times a week is not resulting in any weight loss especially when you can not pass up every sweet roll and cookie that you see. There is ALWAYS food around here and she ALWAYS eats it.
Anyway I hope she had the moment. I had mine September 1st, 2005 and made a plan and moved forward NO MATTER WHAT. I did remark to the woman I was working with, loud enough for coworker to hear, that YOU HAVE TO WEIGH YOURSELF OR YOU ARE JUST IN DENIAL ABOUT YOUR WEIGHT. There is no way to know if you are losing. I don't go 100% by the scale but it is a weekly indication of something. If I gain, even .2 or whatever, I change something immediately and reevaluate what I am doing.
Also, I am sick of coworker prancing in here and telling me how much weight she is losing when it is so obvious that she is losing NOTHING. So pissed at her anyway for coming in and cranking on the air conditioner as I speak. If she lost some weight maybe she wouldn't be so hot all the time. I never acknowledge this pretend weight loss with her and just tell her that is good when she claims her clothes, which are all knits are baggy because not ONE TIME has she acknowledged my weight loss.
Maybe she had a moment. Maybe not. Will see what she brings in to eat today. I am glad for Kathy though. She is a nice lady and is very pretty. I know her whole family is heavy and that is a struggle because then every family occasion is like mine, full of crap and junky food which makes it harder. I doubt the 400 pound sister will be that supportive. I used to take the bus with her and she is extremeley patronizing and bossy for some reason.
I struggled with the idea of going raw and tried that last week and the experiment did not work. A lot of my Ediets friends are doing it successfully and that kind of bothered me that I didn't seem to have the same experience. Till I figured out why.
I realized I have no intention of making it a permanent way of life. It just isn't for me. While I strive and am successful at incorporating a lot of healthy fruits and veggies and organic foods in my diet, I don't feel like I want this as my lifestyle 100%. I talked to a friend that is a nutritionist and she agreed that while eating raw organic fruits and veggies in the diet is good, lightly steaming or sauteeing veggies is also healthy and aids in the digestion of fiber. So if I did do this over a period of time, I would really only be doing it with the intention of weight loss and would go back off it for sure and would probably gain weight back. I might lose faster, but in the long run, I do not want this lifestyle.
Today is a major busy day. The weekend is too. I have to buy my fiance his birthday presents and am buying new bedding and lamps for the bedroom so I can get more of that godawful country crap out his ex decorated with. Blech.

FOOD

What a profound subject.
For people like myself with eating disorders it is like a 24 hour a day chat in your head. What am I going to eat, what should I get at the store, memories of good meals. It is incessant and it never stops.
Anybody ever know of or hear someone who has been on drugs and ruined their lives and wondered why don't they just STOP doing the drugs.
I think the chatter is the same only accompanied by some strong physical stuff.
Why can't Whitney Houston just STOP the drugs and kick Bobby Brown OUTTADAHOUSE.
Why can't Robert Downey JR. just say no?
Remember Nancy Reagan just say no to drugs? She just said no to food too didn't she. Simplistic and easy approach.
That doesn't work for 99% of us.
I read a post on Weight Watchers about a woman who struggled and finally got to goal. Her best always thin never had a food issue friend had not much to say on her journey down. Didn't offer a lot of support. Wasn't passive aggressive though. Which is something I am experiencing now and dealing with with NICENESS and NEVER APPROACHING THE WEIGHT LOSS SUBJECT. Anyway when this woman got to goal she sat down and talked to her long and large about what a struggle this was and that she was an emotional eater and fueled her bad feelings, pain, loneliness, what have you with SUGAR or CHOCOLATE or CHIPS.
The woman stared at her blankly while she unloaded this on her. Then the realization came to the woman who lost.
Her best friend had never experienced eating food for emotional reasons. She had never binged. She ate when she was hungry. She stopped when she wasn't. Her whole life.
What a moment that must have been. Her friend had no comprehension of what this woman's life had been like. What a lot of our lives are like?
I had a room mate in college who dated a man who belonged to AA. Occasionally they had other AA people over and they would go through mass quantities of coffee and the living room would be smokey as hell. I figured they had transferred one habit for another. But they had to QUIT the juice.
We overeaters can't quit the juice. We have to eat so every mouthful has the potential to either make our bodies fatter or thinner. When do we stop eating? What do we do when our emotions lead us to the fridge.
Actually we do pretty much the same thing, only hopefully we don't smoke. We have to find new habits and new hobbies. The food obsession never leaves though I am quite sure. I should try to experiment with just one day of eating when hungry and stopping when not. I bet it wouldn't work. I would still overeat or undereat or choose the wrong things. It would take a long time to retrain myself to be like that. Years. A life time.

Bitch Stared At My Shoes On Elevator AGAIN TODAY

I'm just saying......
She did glance to see what un-sensible shoes I was wearing.
Had a great day yesterday. I am glad I am unraw for now. Made a great chili last night to take with me during the rest of the week and the timing was good. It is cold here this morning. Hope this is our last real cold spell. Was very chilly at the bus stop. Also I did 45 minutes on the elliptical yesterday. I love cardio. I really do. I need to invest in a home cardio machine but there is so much that needs to be done at our house as far as painting and yard work for now that I can't rationalize buying an expensive piece of equipment right now.
I woke up hungry. That is always good when I am looking for a big weight loss week and I am this week. I have a bunch of mini-meals planned and am going for an elliptical session prior to yoga so am being a real warrior this week. Tomorrow I am doing two yoga classes in a row.
Have to scare this fat away.
I was becoming somewhat self-satisfied with this weight loss I have had, but all of a sudden, that went away and I am faced with not-good-enoughitis. I want to be better. I feel like I am hypercritical of everyone though and keep calling other heavier women fat bitches under my breathe. I know it isn't nice.
On an off note. I love HBO tv. There is so little on the networks that have the quality of HBO series.
Last night I watched the second part of Elizabeth I. I hope Helen Mirran gets an Emmy for that one. For sure she will be nominated. What a superb actor. I suppose she will get nominated against CSI botoxed type of leading actresses in that category? I find those shoes stiff and devoid of character. I never watch network series like those ever. I do watch Lost, but do not think they have anything special in the way of actresses. That Evangeline Lilly is overrated as far as hotness. She looks like a teenage boy. Men just like her because of the extreme low rides and the whole bikini wax fantasy thing they have. The show is good, but has moved slow this year. There have been intermittent bursts of information. My step son is into their stupid message boards. Those people don't know shit.
I also love Entourage. What a great show. The guys are all cute and Jeremy Pivens steals the show. I love Matt Dillons brother too. Hilarious show.
Sopranos of course. The best tv series ever.
Now I am hooked on Big Love. My fiance was saying this show could never be on network tv since they show Bill Paxton nude with all three wives, but I think the networks would never touch the religion viewpoint. I can't think of any series ever that has seriously approached the subject of a person practicing his faith and the struggles they have with it. That is what puts this series out there. Jean Tripplethorn is great. What a beautiful woman. They probably wouldn't put her on networks unless she got super thin either. She is normal and gorgeous. Great cast. I love this show.
Remind me to quit watching network tv, except for reality. I do love Idol and Survivor still but that is about it. Oh, and the Office. Hilarious.
I am creating new tv rules for our family room this summer so the Woad boys don't hog the tv all summer. They don't know about it yet and am sure they will hate it but too bad. Oh, that is another reason I love Big Love. I am trying to convince fiance that this polygamy thing is a great idea. He could get a couple other wives, let them live in separate houses. I would like one to do cleaning and the other, hopefully find a more maternal type, for the kids to all live with. This would be great and I could get rid of him two out of every three nights. Just me and the dog and my clean house without his kids around.
I am a genius. After I get to goal, I want to be Queen of England!

A Bit Agitated

Every last nerve is agitated today. My raw experiment did not pan out last week. I ended up with an unofficial .2 loss. I got on the weight watcher scale and the weigher was distracted and the scale showed a .2 loss and the minute she looked it jumped up to last weeks weight so officially I stayed the same. That does show how weird the scale is. What did I do? Breathe too deeply? I recorded my weight as .2 down though. I was starving all week and thought I would have a loss from changing to a diet of mainly raw food. It also made me constipated and I know I should realistically give it more time, but I felt very panicy all week so think I am just not ready for this at this point. I explained this on my Ediets support thread and someone sort of commented on sticking with something etc like I just said, and it just set off my mood for the weekend. I know she didn’t mean it that way but I just felt like I have accomplished nothing and felt very fat all weekend and still do.Thus the agitation. My coworker came in making a lot of noise and was bugged out about me setting the thermostat up again. We have two different body temps. She is fat and is hot all the time and I am always cold. People always come in our office and remark how cold it is but it pissed me off she set the thermostat down to 68. I turned it back up a bit but she might have turned it back down when I went out a bit ago. Playing games with this.
I also came into a bunch of work that is irritating me. I am leaving early and am looking forward to going to the gym for a change and doing some cardio. I have a feeling yoga would agitate me too. I am also probably agitated because we had a nice weekend alone and now kids will be there from now until September. Yikes. I should probably just be alone today and hope this passes.
Also I tried to link some other blogsites to mine and it didn't work. Excuse my retardation today.

A BIG FUCKING RANT TODAY

Then I will figure out how to link to other blogspots.

I am tired of it for real. We are for the most part, a very sick, ill society. People are addicted to and killing themselves with crappy processed foods. We have an epidemic of fat, obesity, diabetes, etc, that is killing us and our children slowly.

For my whole life I have been fighting being fat and every time I go down the scale it is because I forego the crap I eat for healthy food. The truth is, I do prefer the healthier food. The reason I eat the crap, when I do, is usually because I am punishing myself or get lazy or just don't care about myself. It is due to something negative in my life, not because I like the crap better.

Yet, every damn time I lose weight I have to fight the people who think that healthy food is bad or it tastes bad. How ridiculous is this?

I have it at home. I love my fiance, but I HATE AND LOATHE his kids who eat NOTHING but crap and every time I am making my healthy food, which the little asswipes REFUSE to eat, they comment on how it looks like crap or probably tastes awful, because it is healthy. These boys NEVER eat a fruit or vegetable and haven't for years. Unless you count the occasional can of peas. I don't count that. The 19 year old lives on frozen chicken patties, frozen pizzas, and white bread. The younger one is worse. He is a sugar addict on ADD medicine. They both have personality disorders. The older one is antisocial and does nothing but watch tv. Has no friends. Is sarcastic ALL the time. The younger one is worse. He is arrogant and stupid. I hate them and I hate putting up with their attitude. Towards what I eat. I mean mind your own beeswax about food because I am NOT pushing any food down your throats boys and your mom looks like crap and is younger than me and talk to me 20 years from now when you look like crap and I look amazing still! A couple of weeks ago fiance or I was making dinner and fiance asked the older asswipe if he wanted some and he said "Not if it is healthy. It probably tastes like crap." I think he should have had his mouth slapped.

Then there is my family. My mom tells me I should cook for this family and not the healthy meals I eat but the kind of crappy cheesey shit she makes. My mom is a good cook, but is incapable of making a veggie not covered in goo and fat. If she makes a fruit salad, you can bet there are a couple of cups of sugar on. When I make something, she questions it, won't eat it, and if she does eat it, she makes a negative comment on the taste and that it is DIET food. She is a 50s mom, thinks I should take care of fiances kids like I am fucking June Cleaver. I should take care of kids I hate? And fix them food which they won't eat even if it is not MY TYPE OF FOOD? I think not.

I just went on a vacation and drank and ate what I wanted, which was almost all healthy and I lost weight during vacation and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Who the hell loses weight on vacation? You are supposed to gain weight right? Because you dieted to get in a swim suit but for a week who cares? You eat EVERYTHING you want and come back with the assumption of a weight gain?

I don't think this has to be. I enjoyed my vacation and chose healthy foods and exercised and drank water, but also had desserts and wine when I wanted. My sister however, who is jealous and did NOT want to hear about the vacation said, "You didn't stick to THAT diet did you?"
She said this very viciously. She also weighs 300 pounds.

Why is there always the assumption that healthy food, the good food that God, if ya believe, or that the earth gave us is not good food, as opposed to Apple Jacks? I would rather eat an apple than Apple Jacks. Just using that since there is always a box in our cupboard at home. Do people REALIZE how stupid they sound? Especially if they are fat and are stuffing some crap in their face and they are lazy and don't ever move their bodies except for from the fridge to the tv? And then they get health problems, whatever it may be, usually something like a bad back or sore feet or tummy problems which they attribute to everything under the sun EXCEPT for their lifestyles? I hear this at work every day.

There is a 300 pound woman who has problems with her feet which I heard her telling someone is probably hereditary. She had surgery. Takes her forever to walk to the bathroom. Of course her problems have nothing to do with her feet. The only time she can move it is when someone announces there is candy or cookies in the break room. She is first in line for that.

People need to change their attitudes. People think going to Whole Foods is FREAKY. You know what? I see a lot of FAT people there too! The health industry needs to change their attitudes. Doctors are the worst. They would rather prescribe a drug or cut you open with a knife than get real with you and tell you you are a mess. Plus, most of them don't know squat about nutrition.

The fact is, for most of us trying to lose weight, live longer, live better, and be healthier have an uphill battle. Thus the rant. I take it all personally. I do. The only people truely supportive are at my yoga studio. Because they GET it. The teachers GET it. They know that yoga heals pain. They know people come in and take yoga and their lives always change for the better. My fiance sort of gets it, but only because I drill him and hold him down and force feed him. See if he doesn't get it, he can't be on my side. I can't be with someone not on my side and thinks I am nuts. It is a lot to take in for a guy with no weight problem who can eat one oreo a night. But this guy also had high blood pressure and was out of shape and now he exercises and eats healthy cause I do the cooking and he has no choice but to eat healthy now. He knows he is healthier and looks and feels better, yet we had this discussion last weekend and I said I am sick of people with this attitude, but ultimately, even though he drinks my medicine, he still has that attitude and allows his kids to have that attitude and be smart asses towards me.
Brats.

Day 3 Raw

Day two of the raw experiment was interesting. Although I find myself hungry a lot of the time, I am very energized and had an awesome yoga class last night. I did have a non-raw dinner beforehand because I would not have made it through class without food and fruit and veggies wouldn't cut it since the yoga room was extra hot last night. I know from the past two days I am not a candidate to go 100% raw now, if ever, but I do like the way I feel being raw until dinner.
My one biggest problem is trying to quit drinking diet soda. I know I know. I have read it all. I am trying to stick with one a day and did that Monday but had three yesterday. Last night I drank a ton of water though and the past two nights have been in the bathroom like once an hour.
Today my body looked really different though. My midsection seemed much thinner or less bloated looking than two days ago and I had a really low weigh in last Saturday. This weeks weigh in should be interesting. Also, my pants are super loose today.
Today is a long day though since I am working at the yoga studio this evening. I have to work then run home and eat some food and go back to sign in students for two classes. I will take the eight o'clock class and read my raw book during the six o'clock class.
I will eat a lot today and tomorrow and Friday will be low point days before weigh in.
If people asked me what diet I am on it would be a stretch to explain that I am weight watchers with a touch of raw-Perricone-low glycemic-Zone-bfl snuck in. I could just say I am on the new hybrid diet but then they would want to know what book I read or what the web site is for it. Last week I did two days of bfl and two of Perricone and the rest was whatever I wanted.
But that was one of the contingencies of weight loss for me this time. Last September 1st I had an agreement with myself that the word NO is left out of the nutrition library. I will eat chicken ass if I feel like it.
Which is funny, I mentioned to fiance that chicken mcnuggets have 38 ingredients and none of them is meat. That is the only thing turd will eat at McDs. I asked him if turd knew the ingredients and he said he wouldn't tell him since that is the only thing he will eat there. Chicken ass nuggets. I see that McDs is trying to clean up its act again but I personally don't think they have much to worry about or that anyone will stop eating there after the new book out by the guy who wrote Fast Food Nation since that book didn't stop anyone.
Mental note-Find a copy of Fast Food and make fiance read it.

Raw Truth

I have tooled with and experimented with going raw several times in the past, unsuccessfully. Normally I start out doing well but then get gripped by this strong fear and then quit.
I am doing a new experiment with it this week based on the The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. I just started reading the book, but she takes you slowly into a 100% raw diet in stages. This makes more sense to me. It is a real shock to the system. Also, she does not necessarily suggest going 100% raw is the best thing for everyone. Actually, I am quite sure I will never go 100% raw.
This week I am eating raw fruit until lunch and then a big salad for lunch. Yesterday I had that scared feeling, but it passed. Today I am feeling more energized and lighter. For dinner I had grilled chicken, whole wheat pasta, and spinach and will be having the same tonight as leftovers.
I will see how this pans out at weigh in. I logged the food into weight watchers and am coming up close to my point range and also logged it into fitday and came up with approximately 1400 calories for yesterday. I am also having some ezekial bread with peanut butter post yoga and milk. I also do not think I will give up dairy. I do not bloat from it and like it.
This book also has some good info on food combining but I just have skimmed these parts so far.
So this will be an interesting experiment and so far, I like it.

13 Pounds Until Goal

Back to business after all the vacation hoo-ha.
I went back to my weight watcher meeting on Saturday after two weeks and lost 1.8. I was worried about a small gain, but I lost over the two weeks that included my vacation and was extremeley pleased.
I am getting a lot of negative feedback from family members and it is really pissing me off. I told my mom I lost over vacation and that I am in my size 8 jeans and she said she didn't want to talk about it. She was snippy with me in general so I called my sister to see if she had been feeling poorly lately and she asked about my vacation. When I mentioned the food was so good, she said, "You didn't stick to your diet the whole time did you?!" This was said very viciously as was my mom's comment. My daughter also said something snippy about how white women, including me, have a screwed up ideal of the female form.
I mean, I am hardly too thin and there is should be no real worry about me venturing into anorexic territory. I still have a substantial amount of fat on my body believe me. So why the viciousness?
I was also greeted with a vicious remark first thing this morning about my shoes. If you don't wear frumpy shoes around here, apparently you are hated.
As far as my mom and sister are concerned I have decided to not say anything again about weight. I will shock and awe them in Augst when I see them. I told my daughter it is okay to not agree with me on things, but as my daughter I expect her to be on my side, as I am with her, period. When good things happen to either of us, there should be no envy involved as there is with my mom.
My coworkers can talk all the jealous bitches want to about my shoes. I will wear what I want, including stylish shoes and do not have any intention of dressing down to suit them as I continue to lose more weight. Bitches.

I DID IT AGAIN

I swear I am clairvoyant. I knew this would happen.
My fiance’s youngest son, age 14, has more issues than Sports Illustrated. My daughter were onto him from day one though. He is a conniving, attention getting baby. Very immature. He is tall and weighs about a hundred and minus ten and has horrible eating habits. He is basically a sugar addict who NEVER puts anything healthy in his mouth. He used to play sports and now has foregone his activities in order to spend his time in front of the tv watching idiot movies or playing video games. He hangs on his dad like an albatross around his neck and is extremely needy. His hyperactivity caused his parents to take him to a therapist recently who prescribed him with amphetamines and sleeping pills for ADD in order to help him focus and improve his behavior.So far, he has gotten worse. He makes noises, like someone with Touret’s syndrome, all the time and talks incessantly about nothing. He can’t sit still. He annoys the crap out of me so much that I can not stand to be in the same room with him for more than five minutes.He is a sweet kid but needs a big kick in the ass. My fiancé worries about hurting his feelings, which my daughter and I laugh hilariously over. She knows her feelings have never been spared by me. I tell it like it is and don’t care if she doesn’t like it when I am honest with her. Anyway, for the past year or so he has gotten in this habit of exaggerating/making up injuries to get out of his activities, which he only signs up for to please his dad, who wants him to be in sports so badly since he does have some athletic talent, but doesn’t have any drive or desire to make him succeed. I know this because my daughter was a top athlete all through school and I know what it takes. Anyway, he used to be in three sports and has given them up one by one. He refused to play basketball this year, even after his dad spent big bucks on him last summer to help him improve his skills. He did agree to sign up for track.I told my daughter that I would give him a 50% chance of not evening starting the sport, but that if he did, it would not be long before he came up with a new imaginary/exaggerated illness to get out of practice/meets, like he has done before with various excuses such as headaches, muscle pain, or stomach aches. Every time he whines about something, his parents haul him off to the doctor and they always find that is was nothing. There is never anything wrong with him.
Last night my fiancé informed me that he has not attended practice this week and that he had him in to the doctor for side pain, which to me, obviously from the explanation, is just a side stitch. Anyway, the little retard claims he has appendicitis, which his brother had last year and had them removed, so he is insisting he is in a lot of pain. Sure. Today he was back in the doctor and fiancé said he appeared fine since last night until they started driving to the doctor’s office and then he starts acting like he is pain. They are giving him a CT scan today. For a side stitch.
How can they not see through this? I mean, I will eat my words a thousand times over if he gets rushed into surgery, but am just in awe and disbelief over this. I am not a perfect parent by any means, but this kid is a piece of work. He is lucky he isn’t my kid. I would make him go to practice and if he informed me then that he wanted to quit, which is what this is all about, I would take the tv out of his room and limit his usage in the family room.But that is me, and I am not his mom. Would love to kick his little ass though and ream him out like he needs to be reamed. Glad we didn’t procreate together, me and fiancé. We would divorce for sure over kid issues, being at extreme opposite ends of the spectrum.

I NEVER EVER EVER THOUGHT

I would go on a vacation like I just did.For many years I had given up on myself and sold myself short. To be honest, this is the first real relationship I have ever had that was even remotely healthy. I have had men in my life, but they were usually half relationships that I worked at the other person did not. Like with my daughter's father.Thus I turned into a single mom at 30. And became a huge, fat single mom. All the pain, loneliness, etc I felt showed itself to the world as FAT. I have always had weight issues and have yo yo dieted my whole life, since age 15, when I went on my first DIET.I am not stupid enough to not think I could gain weight again. That is one lesson I learned.But, as a fat, single mom in my 30s I did not do much more than fantasized about finding the right guy and having the kind of life I deserved and most of the time I didn't feel I deserved it. I felt I was meant to suffer for my bad choices.I had a moment where I kind of woke up from this denial when my daughter was in 3rd grade. Part of my denial was convincing myself that I was actually fit, even though I was kind of fat. This was due to the mad fitness craze I experienced in college, when I gave up drugs and alchohol for running and eating healthy. I did get to a moderately good weight and I was healthy, but really was still fat. Fatter than I am now. Anyway at age 38, I believed I was fit, for some reason because of my semi-athletic past. I even talked about this openly to people who must have thought I was nuts. Or in HUGE DENIAl. Which I was.I decided to take my daughter hiking at a local state park. When we got there I chose the hardest, expert trail, to climb, because I was fit after all.I almost died. Literally. I climbed this trail, but had to stop every two steps. My heart pounded and I was dizzy and felt nauseated. I could have had a heart attack right there in front of my 8 year old daughter.This did wake me up somewhat and I did start exercising but did not really change my eating habits. I did become a fitter fat person. Finally about four years later I joined Ediets and started losing. I don't know how much I lost the first year. I would not weight myself and had not weighed myself in about 12 years. I put in fake numbers for the weigh in. I started out at a size 24 and about a year later, at size 12-14, I weighed in. I thought I weighed about 175.I weighed 208. That was a kick in the butt. How much did I weight when I started? Who knows? 270? Maybe. Maybe more.To make a long boring story short, I lost more, gained, and lost and gained again and now I am at the losing end and at the point where I normally start avoiding the scale for about six months and then find I gained 40 pounds. Denial and yo yo dieting.I am a professional.My self-esteem has taken years to get to where it is.I never thought I would go on a dream vacation with the greatest guy in the world, my John. If John and I broke up, I would never date again, because I know I would never find someone who measures up. Because I did date, in my early 40s before I met him. A lot. I dated a lot of asswipes and had semi-relationships with men who were not worth 2 cents.Because that was all I felt I deserved. I think a lot of people don't believe I deserve him, like my mother and sister. My mom thinks we will break up and I will screw it up, because I had a life of being a total loser. She has defined me as a loser and she can't really accept I changed. That is why she screams at me to not lose more weight. It is intimidating to her. My sister, who weighs 300 pounds and is a nice person, blurted out at xmas that I didn't deserve the nice jewelry that John gave me. That is her denial. She thinks I am a BITCH and that she is nicer and worthier of a great guy even though she HUGE, and I do love her, but she is jealous. And I have lived the denial she is in. If only xyz guy KNEW how nice and wonderful I am, he could overlook the fact that I am HUGE and a SLOB. I lived that denial for years.But I made a lot of changes and it has taken a long time. Am I at where I want to be yet? No. Do I believe I can get there? Yup. Will I get there? Yup. I am pretty sure of that most of the time.I am at a dangerous point right now where I could get complacent and stay off the scale, but I can't do that this time. I have to make myself do the things I don't want to do. I have to believe I deserve this and that I have what I have because of actions I took. I changed. I can get even better and can have nice vacations and a good guy. I can.

WINDING IT UP

The last two days went pretty quickly and we did not do too much more than we already had that was illegal or immoral. On Thursday we had our last excursion into the mountains for some horseback riding. We went up to the mountains, took some pics, and came back. After that we went back to the resort and sort of chilled. Had a magnificent last dinner on the patio that had shrimp, ocra, and papaya. There might have been other foods, but I could not get enough of those other items. Besides some wine. Then we danced for a while to some live music. I also attended a Nia class that afternoon. That was really fun. It was fun to just let my body dance the way it wanted since I am so use to the 26 Bikram poses. I worked out in the gym daily too. They did not have an elliptical, so I did the stair stepper. That was an awesome machine that really worked my thighs and butt. I need butt shaping since I am generally shapeless there no matter what I do. My daughter has a ghetto booty and always makes fun of my butt.
The next day I got up early to go on the stepper and watched the sun rise over the ocean. That was awesome. Then I went to my last Pilates class and ate a huge breakfast. Was sooo good, had an omelette and pastries. That was really my only pigout when I was there. We got ready to go and I sat in the porch area and watched the rain come in and the breeze. It was a light rain, the only rain we had while we were there. I was very high and it was very soothing. Poor John. He is even more JOHN than he normally is on pot. He is already laid back, confused, and paranoid all the time, so the effect of pot makes him more HIM than he already is. LOL He sat and watched our luggage in the lobby for about an hour after they took it out there. Have no clue what he was worried about. The lobby people were standing there. LOL Poor guy. I sure do love him though.
It was a quiet trip to the airport, always more fun arriving and felt kind of sad. We had an airport delay waiting for another plane that had passengers for our flight. I was really exhausted. Slept a little on the plane and we didn't arrive in Chicago until 11:30. Had a lot of turbulence since we flew over those horrible tornados in Tennessee. Then we drove home and got home about three. It was so cold in Chicago. Was about 30. What a shock
I still have vacation brain but am getting better. John is talking about our next getaway, maybe Hawaii? I do like the idea of a resort vacation that is all inclusive with NO KIDS around. Am sure they have those in Hawaii.
I haven't weighed in yet. I am going to weight watchers this weekend. Hope the damage wasn't too bad, but I did break down and went back to Ediets and am doing the Perricone plan and am sticking to it. All my old Ediets buddies are raw though and feel myself getting sucked in. Last time I tried it I was much heavier and felt panicky but think I will do a raw until dinner thing. I ordered the raw detox book they are going by and put a bid on a juicer on Ebay. I would like the juicer anyways. All those guys are doing Bikrams. I am the one who started that addiction. Speaking of addictions, almost felt like forgoing the weight watcher/diet thing after vacation and going to NA and AA meetings. 12 step started Saturday. I haven't had a drink since that last rum punch before we left on Friday.
I have replaced it with green tea so have a total caffeine buzz going right now.

Naked Wednesday

Yeah it does get worse. We went to the naked beach on Wednesday. I got up and did our normal breakfast routine and went to the pilates/yoga class and then shopped at the resort gift shop. We ate lunch, went to the beach and decided this was the day. The couples resort has a private nude beach on a little island you take a boat out to. The rules are you have to take your clothes off and men can’t go there alone. John didn’t seem to understand that one. Duh, like every guy wouldn’t want to be out there as soon as the wife is out shopping or at a class or getting her nails done. Then the women wouldn’t go.
There was this joke going around on the message boards that the bartender on the island is blind. Sure. There is a bar there in a swim up pool. Anyway we got in the little row boat and I said something about the humiliation boat. LOL We got there and found a little shaded area and took our clothes off. I am really surprised at John. He is somewhat conservative and so far I am really leading him down the wrong road with this vacation. I think our talk about going to Naked Beach was initially a joke, then we thought why the heck not? At least we can say we did it. I wasn’t worried about how I looked really. My philosophy is there is always a woman or two that looks worse and I just go sit next to them. That was the case here. Some of the people were gross and some looked good. We went down and got a couple of beers at the Blind Mans Bar and sat in the water. Getting out of the pool was somewhat humiliating. The steps were steep if you know what I mean. Anyway we went up and got back to where our clothes were and kind of paraded around on the point, which can be seen from the resort beach. When you are at the resort beach, you can tell the people are naked out there but you can’t see the details at all. We had a couple of beers and came back. Later that day we went on the catamaran booze cruise. I got high, didn’t drink, and we had a blast on that. The Jamaicans got us all dancing and singing. Totally a blast. That night we ate at the Bayside restaurant. This is an Italian restaurant and the food was great. I had salmon and pasta and salad and wine. It is kind of a little hut type restaurant and is right on the water with a beautiful view of the resort. Really a romantic restaurant.
That was day 3.

Barter Tuesday

I made a mistake the first afternoon, going back to yesterdays Rum Coma title. We had been up at 3:30 for our 6:30 flight out of Chicago and I hadn’t eaten much. They serve tiny portions on the plane. They are smaller than Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones. We got there about 1:30 and grabbed lunch on the patio and then went to the beach and I started drinking rum punches. I thought they would taste too sweet but they weren’t and they were stronger than they tasted. Very deceiving drink. I don’t know how many I had in a couple of hours but went back to the room and passed out until nine. John had to go to the beach party by himself and it sounded like a lot of fun. I thought I was going to die at one point but got up at nine at night and ate something but no more drinking. We went to bed semi-early since we had to get up for the eight o’clock bus to Dunn’s River Falls the next morning.We got up and ate breakfast and then went to the water falls. I love this country but it is so touristy. Every thing we did had about five guides and videotapers. We had one guide to videotape in case we wanted to buy a dvd and two guides to go up this falls. This was in a national park and there were tons of tourists there from the various resorts and cruise ships that dock in Ochos Rios daily. You basically walk down to the beach and then walk up the falls holding hands. It was fun and they took some fun pictures of us as couples individually dancing or sliding in the falls and John actually bought it. It is quite cute and I don’t look too awful in it.
As an aside, I didn’t hate myself in many of the pics we took and some were actually good but I really see the areas that need work. One problem is my legs. My legs have skin hanging off them and look shapeless. My waist and stomach look fine depending on the angle but still need a lot of work. Again I am glad I dieted all winter or I would have been miserable on this trip and hated looking at the pics but I don’t hate them so while I am not where I want to be, I can see the huge improvement.
After the rum incident of the night before, I decided I wanted to buy some pot, so I wouldn’t drink myself to death here and to save some calories. Dunns river was not to be the place. I told John I wanted to go in town in the afternoon for the shopping trip because I figured my chances were better there. I am sure no one on the staff would hook me up. Am sure they are threatened with their jobs and I wouldn’t want that to happen and doubt they would help me.
We got back and ate lunch and then got ready to shop. Another shuttle bus with about 20 of us. Our first stop was this scurvy looking craft mall. These are all over the place and they sell souveneer types of items, tshirts, jewelry, some local crafts, straw hats and whatever. After you have been through a few, you feel you are looking at the same merchandise over and over. The vendors are very pushy and a lot of tourists find it intimidating. I found it annoying. I wanted to look at stuff without one of them yacking at me the entire time. I went to a booth this man dragged us in and saw a Bob Marley mahogany head I liked and asked him how much. His first price was 175 then he kept talking it down to 100. I knew I wouldn’t pay that. He asked me how much I would pay and I said 20 and he said no he would go to 50 so I walked away. Then he dragged me back, stuck the head in the bag and took my 20. He asked me for a tip but I said no way. So that was a good deal. It will look, although odd, in my dining room. John thought this was hilarious. Anyway once you get the knack of bartering, it is easy. All they can say is no. I think this particular craft market was somewhat desperate and on the fringes of town. I would doubt they get a ton of business but who knows.
After that we went downtown and there were basically stores with the same shit in with prices on them, that you also barter for and another huge craft market. John must look like a druggie because he got approached twice for drugs. The second was when we were downtown so I butted in and paid 25 for some pot. John took a pic of the drug deal site. My second good deal of the day. I was pretty excited about that. I wish you could buy drugs that easy here. I love pot and have a hard time getting it. John had never smoked before. Anyway we bought some gifts and then went back and got high. Pretty good stuff, but I had to leave a bunch of it there because John was worried about getting it through customs. This is the one disappointment in my trip. Sucked, but wouldn’t have been worth it I guess.
That night we went to the French restaurant at the resort. Very good food. I had some steak and John had some duck shit. I don’t know why he orders duck. It is never good. Steak is usually a no brainer. Even I can cook steak really well. I don’t know what was French about this restaurant. I thought French food was normally pigeon brains or gerbil chops. The food was good though and the wine. Food taste better when you are high though, but everything we had was good. I know I had a dessert but can’t remember for the life of me what it was.
I did well with eating this trip though. I didn’t really pig out and drank my water and exercised daily and ate lots of fruits and veggies. More later.

RUM COMA

I am back from vacation and still have vacation brain. It is getting better, or should I say worse. I am sort of getting back to the reality I don't want to be in but what choice do I have. You can't be in paradise every day. Or can you.
I did have a lot of anticipation for this vacation, but didn't really have any expectations. I was busy dieting, had a lot going on at home and with kids, so didn't really think about it much besides shopping for the clothes, which for me, is a paradise in itself, being a shopaholic.
We drove down to Chicago on Sunday and stayed in a hotel overnight since we had to be at O'Hare at 4:30 for our 6:30 flight. The hotel had a gym and I was able to score 50 minutes on the elliptical. I love the elliptical. Wish I had one at home.
The next morning we got off on the plane just fine and landed in Montego Bay about 11:30. From there, we had a two hour shuttle ride to the Couples Resort in Ochos Rios. There were about five other couples going too.
I have to say the one thing I really looked forward to was the fact we were staying somewhere with no children. We don't have small children and our big children get on my nerves, but lately I just get bugged out by small children crying everywhere and I don't mean to be a bitch about it, but I hate whining children in stores and restaurants. It is a huge distraction and ruins my meal or shopping or whatever I am doing. I know it can't be helped but still I am sick of it.
They drive on the wrong side of the road there and they drive like lunatics. Everyone passes and we barely missed a car coming at us several times that was passing. I didn't see any accidents but would think they have a lot of them. The roads are kind of crappy but they were expanding the road to four lanes, which IMHO could just add two more lanes of lunacy but who knows right.
There is a lot of poverty there but it is interesting to drive around. A lot of businesses and homes look like they have been frigging deserted. Like someone just up and left. It is beautiful though and the ocean drive was magnificent. I hadn't seen ocean for some time.
Our resort was impressive driving in. Of course it had perfectly manicured landscaping. Huge palm trees and flowering plants everywhere. It is somewhat colonial looking, as is a lot of buildings there, since they were controlled by the Brits for a while. This resort was built in the 50s and was restored when it was bought by couples. We were greeted by the front desk people, some women who are greeters and men in white suits that take your luggage. There was music in the lobby to greet us and the Jamaicans were just impressive. The women are so beautiful and stately. The men are funny and really supernice too. The staff at this place were all amazing, from the restaurant people to the cleaning people. They work hard and they do all they can to make you feel at home in their country.
More later