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

Pray For Me`

I was over on Beachbody reading a thread I used to like. Actually it is the turbojam thread. I love turbojam though. I bought the initial package they put out last fall and did the cardio dvds all winter but now have recently opened the sculpt dvds and they are awesome. I highly recommend this series. I haven't bought the ones they recently put out though. I am going to do P90X this summer when I am closer to goal for sculpting and nothing is more effective than this. I have tried at least one dvd of almost everything out on the market. Tony Horton's products are the best and the X is the closest thing you can get to a workout that might come close to what you would get with a personal trainer for home workouts. Seriously. This is the real thing. Plus Tony is a cutie.
Anyway I go over and read that thread every day. There are some very motivated people on there but hardly anyone has lost any weight. They all love turbojam but no real turbo success stories have been a result of this new series from any beachbody members. They all get on and post now about personal problems and to pray for them. I just have no time for them. I do understand the need to vent your personal frustrations on the thread but it is getting ridiculous and this is a distraction from really working this program and dieting.
I read a good weight watchers thread too yesterday. Talk about controversial. This woman had a problem with her 14 year old boy and wanted some information on disciplining him. Most women who answered thought he sounded like a spoiled brat and that she should be tough and not let him get away with bs. Well then this one woman chimes in that she should let her husband do that since he is the head of the household. That turned out to be a long thread after that comment. Of course she was some christian extremist it turned out. My comment was show me a household where the man can run things better than the woman. Sometimes weight loss diversions are fun.
Reminded me of my own household and I figured out why I get so ANGRY about John's kids. I have no sympathy for turds "depression and ADHD" issues because I think his shrink is a quack and putting a kid who is 14 on amphetemines and sleeping pills should be done cautiously. She prescribed them immediately. Also I don't feel sorry for him for having divorced parents. They have been divorced over three years, probably a third of his class have divorced parents, and another third have parents with such bad marital problems that their home life is probably hell and they WISH they would divorce. My daughter was raised with no father and I had to work a lot and two jobs and she had to be home alone and she didn't act like a big baby about it. Suck it up already turd. Also, even though I like the oldest kid my problem is that I am just sick of having a kid in my face all the time. Last night we were making smoothies from a ww recipe and his dad offered him one and he made some comment about he wouldn't eat it if it is some healthy stuff that tastes like crap. I mean, I just get tired of this bs on a daily basis. John OWES me this vacation for putting up with his kids all the time. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.
Everyone around my work place freaks out about the shoes I wear. I have some high heeled harache sandals today. I love shoes and love girlie shoes. The women I work with wear like Rockports and I don't own anything like that. My 90 year old mother wears them. For some reason girlie shoes freak everyone out and everyone has to mention my shoes. I mean they are just normal shoes and the shoe stores have millions of them so I am not the only one who wears girlie shoes in the world. Cripes.

A Momentous Decision

One thing my weight loss journey has shown me is that no matter what you endeavor in life, it starts with a decision. Then you set up a plan. Then take action. Normally those easy steps will lead you to success. Things may get in your way and your plan may not always go as you thought, but it all starts with a decision.
I have been looking to the universe etc for a solution to figure out how to go to Bikram teacher training. This morning I woke up and there was the decision and now I have a plan. I will do this. My goal is to go in April 2008. That gives me two solid years to save the cash and sabbotical some vacation to take the 9 weeks off to go.
I have the plan down and now will take the action. I ran numbers. Have to talk to fiance. Guess the wedding is scaled back even further. We can get married in LA as Bikram training graduation.
The poor guy. He went to his son's therapist (Quack) to discuss the ADHD. The therapist put a huge guilt trip on poor John who does NOT deserve it. He is a doting parent to this little turd. Apparently little turd is whining, which I figured, to this therapist about John not paying attention to him 24/7. He feels he has to split him with me. I mean really. Turd is 14. I am almost never home and am either shopping or at yoga and leave him plenty of time. I was hoping the therapist would work with John and the mom on behavior but that didn't happen. It is easy to give the parents blame and the kids amphetemines. Why don't they give him some ideas on how to snap this kid out of his depression with a good kick in the hiney. Poor John doesn't discipline him the way he should because he is afraid of hurting the poor kids feelings. I told my daughter that and she laughed her butt off. Like I have ever been afraid of hurting her feelings. I was tough on her and she is tough now and can take it and dish it out. That's my girl. Like mom like daughter. Can't raise whimpy kids these days. The world is too hard and no one at school or at work cares about hurting someone's feelings.

Workin It This Week

I am doing a slim in six express diet and am doing well. I don't want to get complacent and wanted to lose a few more pounds before vacation although I feel comfortable with where I am. Plus, my clothes are all getting to be too big. I was going to go to yoga today but my back is still bothering me so will go home and do something else.
I am worried about the next few weeks. I am sure I won't lose on vacation and want to alleviate any gain. My plan is to stick with Core foods and eat a lot of protein and fruits and veggies and whatever healthy grains I can. I will have a few desserts and a lot of alcohol but we will be pretty active. I do want to enjoy myself. The week after I will have to miss weight watchers but will go back to the six day express diet or something similar.
Our weight watcher leader offered a scale challenge for the week. She wants us to weigh in on Saturday and not see the weight and then go to meeting and answer the question how did we do for the week. She is doing this challenge especially for the people who weigh in like three times a day and I will abstain. I only weigh myself at weight watchers and look forward to that every week. I already know how I am doing this week. I am sticking close to my plan and don't see myself falling off between now and Saturday. I already know that I gauge my life by the number on the scale and I am a long way from getting past the point where my weight doesn't dictate my mood and emotions. At least I am not in denial about that.
Some day I would like to go on the Core Plan when I am closer to goal, but am still at the point where "eat until you are satisfied" translates to "all you can eat". I do see a lot of people successful with that program though and feel it is healthier. However, my diet is already mostly healthy core foods. I do eat the smart ones and weight watcher desserts. Yumola. I try to stay away from processed foods for the most part. I have fresh steamed cauliflower and homemade meatloaf for lunch. My coworker has something in a box that won't satisfy her for long I am sure.
Time to eat yummy lunch.

In My Own Tribe?

I had a friend tell me once about this book about what happens when you leave your own tribe. Wish I knew the name of the book.
Basically your tribe is your family and people you grow up that are kind of always in your life. You share a system of beliefs with them and you share similar beliefs about each other and that is hard to give up when one person changes their values from the tribes. So when one person changes, the tribe will tend to try to pull you back. I am really experiencing this with my family. My family labeled me as youngest child who is a spoiled brat for years. Now, at age 49 having raised a child as a single mom, that label no longer applies, although my sister will try to drag me back into that with stories we have heard a bazillion times over and over about how I ripped her toy due to jealousy at age 7 blah blah blah. And I can sort of tolerate this, ignore it, or change the topic.
And of course, I spent all my life as the overweight child in a family of people with food issues and I never had a husband or boyfriend due to my weight issues and became a single mom. I mean, I was the family loser. Or one of them.
Then I broke out of that mold. I have a fiance who is the best of men. Honestly he is. I will never date again if something happend, I would not date again because NO ONE could measure up. And now I have lost weight.
And my mom and sister are panicking about this. I listen to this bs all the time, but after talking to both of them this weekend, I was just boiling. This sort of meltdown can cause me to gain. It has in the past.
It is always hard when your family is not on your side.
My mom acts supportive. She told my sister, who weighs 300 lbs, about my success with weight watchers and suggested she go too. Which I know she hates. So when I called her this weekend SHE brought it up first and then proceeded to tell me that she did join a few years ago and she had a med change and when the scale at ww meeting showed a quarter pound gain, the woman weighing her in said something about her not working very hard. So she quit. She was very rude to me about this and asked what I would have done. I said I would have reported her because I never experience this and they are trained to be positive no matter what. I know one thing I wouldn't have done. Quit. Because who is that hurting. I did not say this to her, but find it strange that this is her excuse to not go. Which I would not have suggested to her. I don't tell anyone what they SHOULD do. I just told her it worked for me and maybe the women there got clicquey. I don't know. She also did not want to hear about my vacation. She changed the subject to some vacation she might do with her girlfriend. Then she proceeded to tell me how she went out to a bar with a friend one night because a guy she used to date just bought it. But he wasn't there. As I remember it, she had sort of a bad experience with this guy. And it was like 30 years ago. My sister, who is the nicest person I know, obviously thinks she can go and re-establish a relationship with him at 300 pounds and with no teeth in her mouth. She does look really bad and my mom tells her this, but this whole denial thing with her is just huge. So she is going back to find him and am sure she will be very disappointed. But I would never tell her that. It is hard to talk to someone in that state of denial, about a thousand times worse than my coworker, because someone in denial is lying to themselves all the time and then they are lying to you. Plus she is NOT supportive or happy for me with my fiance. She is jealous.
I NEVER have been jealous of siblings. Ever. My oldest sister has three homes and one is practically a mansion in Palm Beach and I have NEVER been jealous of that. But my other sister is jealous of me. I went outside the bounds of her tribal beliefs. She can't accept this. But that is her problem.
Then my mom. She has some health issues and I have been totally supportive but she practically screams at me to not lose more weight. While on the other hand she tries to use my weight loss success against my sister. That is just out and out hateful. She has a huge problem with me getting thin and healthy. I told her I had a minor back strain so she told me I shouldn't do yoga. And I shouldn't do weights.
I wonder what she thinks I should be doing with my time? Things I HATE to do? Like sew and bake which are her hobbies? I am not sure. But usually whatever I am doing is bad. She told me that lifting weights is BAD. She actually used that word. She also made a remark about hoping nothing happens to split John and I up.
HUH? Like what. We live together and have been together since we met two and half years ago. I have a big engagement ring on my finger and he is taking me to Jamaica. Are there red flags she is seeing that I am not that this relationship is going to fail? Am I living in denial?
Again, she has the problem. One thing is she doesn't think I am good enough for him. Which is also ridiculous. I pull my weight in this relationship thank you very much Jean and mom and thanks for wishing me well on my vacation. I will send a postcard okay?
I always wish the best for my daughter and am ALWAYS happy and positive and supportive with her hopes and dreams.
I am NEVER jealous. How can a mom be jealous of her kid? That is a value from my tribe I never learned. I learned these things by learning to care for me first. Now that I don't loathe myself, it is easier to not be jealous, petty, and mean. And I hope my daughter has a happy life with the best of everything she can have.
Also neither of them thought my new yoga job was cool at all. Jealous bitches. I have to always ask about my sister's painting and always encourage her and compliment her.
Anyhoo....
I did not have a loss or gain this week. I stayed even. Which is ok. I am doing the slim in six six day express this week to take off a few pounds. One week from today I will be in Jamaica.

Great News

My yoga studio owner offered me a chance to get free yoga in exchange for working the front desk on Wednesday night and Sunday morning. Too good of an offer to turn down since I am a yoga freak. Told her I would think about it a day but think I will take her up on it.
I have a busy weekend planned. Lots of yoga and some errands for my vacation.
Hope I have a good weigh in tomorrow. Am already starving. I do a modified Wendy version of weight watchers and zig zag my points to confuse my sluggish metabolism. The day before weigh in is a very light point day. Tomorrow evening I am having a big steak dinner on the grill with spinach salad with roasted peppers, parmesan, artichokes and balsamic dressing.
Fortunately I like to cook and don't rely too much on restaurants and convenience types of foods. I do buy the weight watcher frozen desserts. Fiance has found his way into them now and likes them too so hope he stocks up next time he grocery shops.

Uneven Weight Loss

I was right. I was noticing in the Bikram mirror the past week, that my left side is toned up and my right mid waist still has a roll. It looks disproportional to me. I thought I was nuts but just checked in the bathroom mirror. There is like this weird lump of fat on my right side I don't have on the left. I don't think I have ever had this happen. Hope that is the next fat to leave. I started doing an extra ab dvd every day, but I have missed two days. It really is firming up my midsection but I think this is almost proof about that no spot loss thing I have heard trainers talk about.
I think if you do exercise one body part over another it will get smaller to some extent.

Getting Technical

When I was on my Ediets thread, we talked a lot about success. I saved some copies of my favorite posts from successful people and I believe the things I am applying from it are working for me. That is why I miss it. I wish I could access Ediets threads like you can on weight watchers without being a member.
One thing we talked about was having three point days. A long succession of three point days does guarantee success.
The three points are
Food-Eating within your calorie range and logging the food. I log food on the weight watcher tracker, which is way better than Fitday or any other one I have found. Of course, this translates into points rather than calories but occasionally I do log it in there so I can get a nutritional breakdown. I also write it down in my paper tracker I get at meeting every week. I am saving those for historical value and future reference.
Exercise is the second point-You can't do one without the other. Really. I tried the just exercise thing and turned into a fat-fit person. I was healthier and lost some inches but no real weight loss can ensue without proper nutrition. That is why you will even hear people lament that they trained for a marathon and didn't lose weight. I volunteer at the ironman every year and have seen super fat-fit women there. They are all muscle, with a layer of fat surrounding them. Bet they can eat a huge amount of food with the training they do.
Water is the third. This is a no brainer and non compromise thing. I have seen people put in negligible exercise with diet and get results. Seriously these people piss me off. I work out hard. But water is a given. You have to drink it. Weight watchers recommends a minimum of six glasses. I always drink more. I believe I have ranted before about weigh watcher whiners who claim to gag on it. Nuff said.
This time I decided to be patient with myself. I did not expect quick weight loss and did not set unreasonable goals. I didn't have a pending wedding or reunion to work towards. Something like that in the past has almost guaranteed me failure. I can't take the pressure of I only have three more months to lose 50 pounds. I gain under those circumstances. Seriously. This time I decided I do not care how long it takes. I have had some sloowww losses. It took me an eternity to get through the 190s.
You have to start and decide there is no finish line. If I hadn't started on September 1st and not looked back, I would not have lost 37 pounds. Am I where I want to be? No. Do I have a lot of work ahead? Yes, certainly.
Also I reward myself. I do almost every weigh in. I lost two pounds! I think I deserve new shoes! Last week I bought the most gorgeous, albeit unwarranted, Nine West sandals. Hot. I have two rewards for meeting my weight watcher goal and making lifetime. One is new Ugg boots and the other is jewelry. I told my fiance he has to do something for me. LOL He said he would take me out to eat. I said think MORE. This is big stuff.
He doesn't get it. There was a good news show about food addiction the other night and he commented that everyone has it since we have to eat. I also saw Wynonna on Larry King and she had been to a center for food addiction. She sounded great. She sounded like she got it. I know for her it is huge emotional issues and saw her on Oprah once with her sister and mom when she was a mess. They tried to be compassionate but of course they don't have a clue what it is like for her. She seems together now. It is also nice to see a celebrity not touting surgery or some gooey products but talking about real issues we all can relate to.
Anyway back to fiance He is just wrong. Told him he does not have an eating disorder and can not understand it. This is a man who can actually eat one Oreo at a time.
Well time to go over to weight watcher threads and see who is losing this week. Back later.

Need For Support

Lately I miss my Ediets threads. It must be some need to be part of something and I am usually a very isolated person. I did not leave those boards because they were nonsupportive. I left them because I was using them to enable myself to lie and live in denial. Although there was some non-support issues. They treated me great while I was losing, but when I gained, I got treated kind of crappy, so I lied about being on plan. I was on plan maybe two hours a day. Every day was a start over. Plus, I was trying to practice elimination and practicing elimination meant giving up coke, so I drank like two gallons a day. It was a vicious cycle, so I quit and it took a long time for me to get back on board. This week I have had one coke. Because I didn't say no to myself and am not pretending I will never drink coke again, or that giving it up is the only way to get to goal. My Ediets thread would not support my new philosophy since those people are eliminationists so there is no point going back.
But I still miss it. I haven't found anything on weight watcher threads that I am interested in joining.
I am seven pounds from my lowest Ediets weight and some old crap is starting to try to sink in with me. I am having panic attacks again at night and am having weird dreams and not sleeping well. I feel gripped with fear. I am fearful I will get on the scale and will weight 221 again. That is my highest recorded weight although I know I was way higher before I joined Ediets. I have no clue how high. 250-260 I am thinking. I have seen pics of me at my highest. Lord! I won't even let my fiance see them although my mom seems to want to parade those out to him for some reason. I am also fearful of losing and not losing. Like I keep on plan, but I never lose any more weight.
I spend way too much time thinking about this but what is the alternative? I can't shut it out at all.
My coworker had to get weighed the other day at her doctor's appointment. She has lost 5 pounds since the last one six months ago. I encouraged her and told her a loss is a loss, but she felt bad and had hoped for more. I have been listening to her talk for three months about all this weight she thinks she is losing since joining a health club. I hope it doesn't discourage her but shows her that scale denial is a bad thing. I know that for sure. I was there for years. And years. Now I weigh in every week but spend most of Friday trying to talk myself out of it.
Two weeks from today I will be in Jamaica. Am glad as hell since it is so frigging cold here. The only place that is warm is yoga. I am not going today. My body is tired and I pulled a muscle in my back again. It will be better by tomorrow I am sure, but don't want to strain my back.
My back is realigning again. This is the second time since I have been back at Bikrams. It comes along with some muscle pain but once the muscles get repositioned with the spine I will feel great and will probably be taller again.

15 Pounds From Goal

I almost chickened out of weigh in again. It was Saturday morning and I was doing all I could to convince myself to not go. I dragged my butt in and was two pounds down.
Last week I stuck to my points and exercise plan but was not mentally obsessed with it so could not believe I could have a loss. I was wrong. I don't have to kick myself in the butt mentally. The program works itself. That is nice to know.
My major stress factor, my daughter, is back to school for eight weeks until summer so I can totally obsess and sink myself into yoga and weight loss oblivion where I am truely happy.
They had my favorite episode repeat last night of Wife Swap. They swap a fitness competitor mom with a fat slob mom. I realized I am trying to be like the fitness competitor mom with the perfect home and family. I don't think I was ever as bad as the slob mom. Who can possibly believe raising a bunch of unhealthy kids who eat nothing but crap and watch tv is a good way to parent.
Oh, that is right. That would be my fiance. The light bulb moment went on and I realized I am sort of living the wife swap life. I got thrown into a planet of three males who do nothing but live like slobs, watch tv, and eat cardboard food. I have trained fiance to work out and eat healthier but his boys are hopeless. They think normal food is frozen pizzas, hot dogs, and bologna. They won't even eat real potatos. The only potato they will eat is instant potatos.
I have finally reached the point where I don't care what they eat but I do hate living in a dirty house. We live in a huge house and I am the only person who cleans. They just....are dirty and messy.
Two weeks until Jamiaca and I would like to lose another three pounds. I am eating light the rest of this week. We went out for a birthday dinner for fiance's kid on Sunday and I had a burger and fries. I don't regret it one bit either. It was delicious but filled me up too much. I never overeat anymore. I really don't. I never get stuffed and I was stuffed for the whole night.

How Did Everyone Get So Fat!?

One morning on the bus this week there were like four HUGE women in the front where I sit. This is the Midwest but really I am noticing it more and more. There are just a lot of huge people out there. These women were basically in my age group. One had a cane. A cane at 50ish? Most of the women I work with are huge too and in my age group. I look above average and in a size 10-12 am probably one of the normal sized people. There is one woman here that is thin, but she looks like shit with a 80s hairstyle and orange makeup. Total trailor trash and I don't even talk to her.
Yesterday at the mall I was waiting for my daughter and spent a good hour people watching. At a busy mall late in the afternoon I did not see one woman that was healthy and in shape. Most of the young women in teenagers are sadly out of shape. I guess I do believe those articles and warnings now.
This country is sadly out of shape. A lot of these people were clutching Aunt Annie pretzels and high calorie Starbuck drinks too.
I spend a lot of time at the yoga studio and see a lot of scantily clothed women and men. Most of these people are in shape, especially the regulars. These people are not the norm in America. One thing I noticed is that there is a sharp difference between 40 and over and 40 and younger women. The fitness craze really hit in the 80s and a lot of the 40 and younger women are athletic looking while most of the 40 and over don't seem as fit looking and probably had spent quite some years in a sedentary lifestyle before they came over to the dark side of Bikram yoga and whatever else they do. Even Bikram says it is never too late to start.
No wonder I still look like crap at yoga, but at the mall, I looked better than most of the women I say, irregardless of age.
My scientific study of the week. LOL Evaluating who I look better than.
I did well eating this week with the stress I have been under with my daughter home. I think I am not going to weigh in this week. I have monitored my points but am just not up for the preweighin stress. I need a break. Not from eating healthy. Just a mental break. I have done three sculpt sessions, four Bikram yoga classes, and ab jam every day. I have a lot to do tomorrow too. I may change my mind though.
My daughter is going back on Sunday. Also Johns kid.
There will be no kids at my house next week. Damn that feels good to say that.

Sticking With It

I am sure at some point in anyone's life, especially when we get middle aged like myself here, we look back or are holding on to some regret and we think IF ONLY I WOULD HAVE STUCK WITH X, I COULD BE Y.
This applies beyond diet of course.
If I would have stayed in this relationship, things would be better because......
If I would not have quit piano lessons, by now I would be a concert pianist.......
If I would have stayed in college, by now I would be making 150,000 a year instead of......
Fill in the blanks. Of course we don't know these things.
If I apply that to dieting, I might still be at goal weight if I had stayed on the first diet I ever went on.
I was always considered to be one of the fat kids in class, from grade school on. I was not one of those flabby fat girls, just BIG. By today's standards I would be normal because if you go look at a fifth grade class, there are way more fat kids now and by middle school, there are tons of chunky kids compared to when I was in school. My first official diet was following the weight losers diet, some early ripoff of weight watchers, that I started with my sister the summer before my sophomore year. My sister, who has always been obese, actually went to the meetings, but I did the diet with her. These diets were very restrictive in those days. There were no cheat days or free meals or extra points to swap for stuff we liked. I stuck to the letter to this diet for the whole summer. I went from approximately 160 pounds down to about 140. Looking back at those pics, I looked amazing. I got a new wardrobe of neat clothes and when I went back to school I was sure I would have a perfect life. The boys would be all over me. I would be a popular girl. None of those things happened. I remember the day exactly in English class about a month in to the school year. The boy I liked was dating a girl who weighed about a hundred pounds. I had this cute dress on with sort of a full skirt. I stood up to get something and I heard a boy say, "An elephant in a little girl dress."
This was not how I pictured I looked. I was devastated. An elephant at 5'7" 140 pounds? That is how people saw me. I never wore the dress again. Within three months I was up to 165 pounds.
I had not equipped myself and was not emotionally mature enough to handle that. If someone said that to me now, I would flatten them in no time.
Kids were harsh. They still are.
The same thing with working out. At one time I really wanted to be a bodybuilder but I felt I could not handle the diet. If I had worked at it, now I realize, I could have acheived that if I chose, but I had too much self-doubt.
You can only work at where you are at now.
I want to be an ultimate yogini. I am on my way there. At 49, I am more advanced than a lot of kids half my age. I am not too old. I am not too fat. The only thing holding me back would be to quit and I am finally mature enough to not even give that an option.

Between Me and You

The only thing that matters in the long run is me.
I can't take care of or help anyone else unless I take care of myself first.
Today I am very agitated. My daughter is home on break and is annoying the heck out of me about wanting to buy a car. Which is ridiculous. She can't save two cents and all the while she is telling me this, she is ordering more shoes from the internet and buying something she doesn't need daily. I have no doubt she will not save enough money for this. She also has a suspended license until August due to speeding violations. Last night she wanted to take my car and this just ANNOYED me because I have made it clear, she won't be driving my car with no license.
Then my fiance's son came over for the week and he is on amphetemines for ADD and NEVER shuts up. He talked at me incessantly about nothing for 45 minutes before I excused myself and went to bed because I could not take it any more.
I am SICK of fiance having his hands all over me and the constant sexual innuendo, to be honest, is a total turn off.
Someone from our IT department annoyed me because he won't provide support for systems I am responsible for reporting on.
My coworker has been blathering about NOTHING for about 20 minutes. She, who claims to be losing weight, just went out and got a sub for lunch which she thinks is healthy and she showed it to me. It is not healthy and is LOADED with fat.
And I sort of feel like eating my shirt off today. But I am not. And that is getting easier because I can fit in my thin clothes. I am close to goal. I will not get complacent and self-satisfied with my efforts so far, which will ensue in a backslide.
I ate my fajita for lunch and am satisfied. I have south beach cookie for a snack. I am going to yoga tonight to soothe my frayed edges. They are trying to get in my way. But I WON'T let them.
Also, my Beachbody "friend" saw me Saturday and now that I am thinner than her, she is NOT providing me the support and positivity that I have given her. She said...nothing. That is okay though. It is hard when you got fatter and someone else got thinner. I HATE that when that happens.
It is lonely out here. I am not in a parade with people lining up waving, smiling, and clapping. This is a very lonely parade.

17 Pounds Until Goal

I lost 1.2 pounds and am now 17 pounds from goal. Something very strange happened in the last few pounds. All of a sudden all of my clothes got huge. I am fitting in all of the skinny clothes I had from before. So I don't need a new wardrobe. I have one sitting in my closet. The smaller you get, the bigger difference 1 pound makes. I have made some adjustments to my workouts and am seeing the results of the few sculpting workouts I have added a week.
My new challenge between now and vacation is to do my 20 minute ab workout every day. I did it yesterday. I know I won't get flat abs, but that is still where most of the loose flesh is. It is very loose too. I also think part of my recent success is partly due to the emotional evaluation I am making. Last week I thought a lot about what being a fat person means. I mean I have spent most of life living and defining myself as a fat person.
Being a fat person mentally or physically gave me a lot of excuses to screw up my life. Because I had visible proof I am a screw up right? So since I am fat, I can also make bad choices in career, relationships, etc. My failures were all compounded by the fat I carried around. See? I am a loser and I hate my life because I am FAT.
I truely do not like myself fat and I know all of the talk says, in Dr. Phil terms, to learn to like yourself. LOVE YOURSELF FIRST. But that didn't work for me. I don't like myself when I am fat. I treat me really bad when I am fat. I talk negative self-talk all the time. I feel sorry for myself.
Now I am losing all of that. And that was very consuming. It consumed my time, my health, my life. So what do I replace it with and how do I stop myself from going back to the type of self-loathing behavior that causes the yo yo dieting. I know the pitfalls.
One is my daughter.
Dealing with a stubborn 18 year old who knows everything is difficult. Yesterday I told her how I felt about a lot of things, mostly to do with, like, here you have created a problem. Like she has. What do you do? Her tendency is to create another problem to solve it. Which snowballs. Potentially into my problem. So I had to lay the groundrules again with her of what I will not accept as my problem and if her action A results in bad scenario Y, SHE has to solve that and that problem will be huge.
She calls me a hater over this because of course kids are convinced that we adults don't know what we are talking about and that we are just trying to make them unhappy. Or worse yet, ruin their fun. We are just there to rain on their parade.
This normally would send me on a tailspin of potential eating, but yesterday I didn't let it. I went upstairs and did my workout, watched tv, and she just let it go. Of course it is still eating at me that she is still leaning toward what I have absolutely no doubt is a bad decision, but the beauty of it is that at 18, I can't stop her but I don't have to pay the price.
At any rate, my mantra continues to be:
I will lose weight and get to goal no matter what it takes or how long or who or what will get in my way. I won't let that happen. I will be successful.

Everyone Is Driving Me Crazy

Don't even get me going about the home situation. I will say this. I am sick of those kids. I bargained for 50% kids living with us and it turned out to be 75%. I cleaned the floor Wednesday and it was filthy again last night and only one kid is there. My fiance has no personality himself. We never talk about anything unless it is about a tv show. I like some tv shows but need a life past that and that is enough for him. He is a loser. I don't want to get married. I am sick of coming home to a dirty floor.
I am sick of my coworkers. It has been noisy outside my office all day today and yesterday. These people are idiots. I hate them all.
My daughter is coming home for a week of spring break. Can you say high maintenance.
My coworker is the worst though. Very passive-aggressive. She joined a health club in January. Has talked for years about losing weight and never does a damn thing. She keeps talking about all of this weight she thinks she is losing but does not get on a damn scale. She will not acknowledge my weight loss. Which is too bad, because I could help her. She needs to find an eating plan and stick to it. I have watched what she has eaten here and I know, there is no way she could be losing weight.
A lot of people think a new exercise regime is enough, but it just isn't in the long term. When a sedentary person starts working out and makes that change, it is normal for them to lose a few inches, maybe a few pounds, but not much will happen past that. They will feel healthier, their blood pressure might lower, but they need to take the next step in order to really lose weight. They need to drink water and eat healthy and count calories. Period. Otherwise, they will reach a weight loss dead end and possibly give up on the working out. I mean, she only goes three times a week, which is great, but it has only been a couple of months and she is talking about how loose her clothes are. They really aren't. She is also yacking about her stomach not going down. Duh. She is eating pizza for lunch with coke. Not sure what her breakfast was, probably cereal or something, but she doesn't eat enough fruit and veggies and lean proteins. I feel bad for her, because I have been in her shoes.
I started working out to lose weight when my daughter was younger. I worked out hard. I did lose inches, but because I didn't change my eating habits, I just didn't get the results I wanted. Until I joined Ediets. I joined Ediets and got menu plans, shopping lists, and joined challenges. I started walking at lunch outside every day. I was the slowest walker on the path. Everyone passed me, young and old and fat and slim. My goal was to some day pass someone. That took a long time. Eventually I started running. I didn't even weigh in for my first 7 or so months on Ediets. I was about a size 22. I still have no idea how much I weighed. I got down to about a 14. I weighed in and was 208. Could not believe it. I thought for sure I was under 200. My scale denial.
I still hate weigh in day and am in my usual preday song and dance. This week I decided I am not going to go ballistic over a possible gain. My clothes are getting looser. This is a slow process. I am down about 34 pounds and potentially would like to lose 34 more. Those are going to be hard pounds to lose. I will have to dig down deep and do some hard work. I will have to exercise harder and eat cleaner than clean, but I am relentless about this and I am going to do this no matter what it takes. I don't care how long it takes or what or who tries to get in my way. I blammoed last September 1st at 221.5 pounds. There have been no start overs since then. Just straight forward. Move head.

2 Days B4 Weigh In

The festivities have started.
Drinking about nine gallons of water. Swearing off all sodium. I eat very light starting Thursday. I will have all my food eaten before yoga today, which is a necessity so I don't pass out during the class. That means I have all evening with no food. I will wake up hungry and tomorrow will be a light day. Will probably carb up a little late in the afternoon so I don't get too starving.
I am not having a good week as far as the bathroom goes. I have eaten a ton of fiber but am somewhat constipated. I do better on weeks where things are moving should we say.

18 Pounds Until Goal

I took off the unsubstantiated weight gain of 1.4 from the week before plus another. Gee, did I mention that gain enough last week? I love tracking that pounds until goal. Considering I am 34 down, 52 pounds until goal did not sound good. I hated that.
I am down into a firm size ten pant for the most part. It is still snug in the tummy, so I have to keep working at the ab-flab.
Four weeks from today I will be in Jamaica and am setting a goal of losing six pounds by then. I ate quite a bit of my flex points over the weekend and enjoyed 8 points worth of merlot yesterday thank you very much, so the rest of the week will be the chicken veggie soup I made in the crock, lots of veggies, and fish.

Yoga Obsession

I am not an obsessive person normally and never get too excited about much, but I am nutso over Bikram yoga. Although it is the major part of my fitness regime right now and very time consuming, that is not why I do it. I do realize weights and cardio are essential too. I get great results from that combo and am fitting them in even though it is hard when you practice yoga 90 minutes a day.
Last January I injured my miniscus cartilage in my right knee. I had previously torn my left one years ago and never had surgery on that one but this time I was really taken down with it. It was very painful and swollen. My right knee was twice as big as the other one. I had lost mobility and spent weeks with my knee up. Getting up and down was hard. Steps were impossible. I had an MRI and then had a call about the surgery. Instead of wanting to repair it they wanted to cut out the whole thing. They told me to go ahead and schedule surgery at my convenience.
WHAAA???
I mean I had a ton of questions and they had someone from pt call me. Basically when I asked the outcome and future etc, they basically didn't know. Would I be able to do yoga? Maybe, to some extent. Can I walk? Maybe. Run? Maybe.
I did not immediately schedule surgery. No way. I saw this is an easy way out for them and I was not comfortable with it. I wanted better answers. I knew Bikrams had helped me out with my back before, but knew I was nowhere close to being up to a yoga class. After the MRI, I decided to try to self-rehab my knee like I had my other one. I started by walking over to the gym at lunch that is a couple of blocks away. At the time, the walk over there was difficult and I had to walk up two flights of steps to get to a cardio room. I didn't go on the treadmill. That is where I got injured while I was walking on an incline. I had been running on the damn thing for years, but the day I walked was the day I got hurt. I tried the elliptical but that was no go, so I opted for the stationary bike. I think I went about ten minutes the first day and hurt afterwards. But I went back. In a couple of months I had worked my way up to going back for 30-40 on the elliptical. The pain was going away, the swelling still came and went, and the mobility was slowly coming back. Then I added back light weights. After a period of time I was getting better and then I plateaued. I still had pain, had about 50 % of the mobility back, and some swelling. I was beginning to think I wouldn't get better.
So I did research. Seems most people have the frigging surgery. Then I found a web site saying the reason cartilage can't heal is because there is no blood flow. So basically you tear it and it is like that forever. Then I remembered something that a yoga instructor had said about the tourniquet effect of the Bikram poses being about blood flow and several poses are knee specific. So I thought, I know with all of this swelling that there is a lot of injured tissue in this knee and any blood I can get flowing around it might further the healing process. So back to yoga I went.
I remember the first class, because it was the same day as my blammo weigh in at 221. I had gained a lot of weight during this injury period. Lots, so here I am trying to stand on one leg and have all this extra weight and am trying to self-rehab an injury. I was not in denial enough at that point to not realize the weight was a huge factor and contributed to the injury.
The first day back I was able to do quite a bit. I had a couple of poses, fixed firm and awkward pose which were impossible. I mean, my knee only would bend to about 90%. I decided to give it a six month try and signed up for a six month plan.
I went almost every day. I was being very careful and tentative to not injure it worse. I had doubts that first month because it was very swollen again. I thought maybe I had been wrong.
But slowly the mobility came back. Right now it is six months later. My mobility is back to about98%. I can do all the poses. I have lost weight. The swelling is gone.
There is no way I would consider surgery.
Knock on wood that I don't injure the knee again. It was the Bikrams though that spared me losing all the cartilage in my knee and am convinced if I had done that I would be looking at a knee replacement in 15 years. I also lost 33 pounds or so.
A lot of other good things happened. About two months ago I was experiencing back pain again and then my spine shifted, and my pelvic area reshifted. There was a lot of pain associated with it and now, no pain.
Now I am able to train with heavier weights again, but probably will not ever try to run again. I guess Bikram has a saying that goes something like you can swear at the gods but don't mess with your knees. Amen.

The Shroud of Self-Doubt

I promise I will bloglite tomorrow.
So here you are, at a heavy weight and you have the moment of this is it! I think for the most successful weight loss people they have a moment or they hit rock bottom and they make a huge DECISION to leave this place they are at. They make a COMMITMENT. The commitment to a program and to themselves and then they work at it.
So there you are standing on your own wearing a fat suit, a coak of denial, and a shroud of self-doubt. That is a lot of baggage. And you start out. You are successful almost right away. The first thing to go is the fat suit. Really, that is almost the easiest. The worst part about starting out on a weight loss journey is that you lose really fast right away normally and you have some good consistent losses. You are slowly convincing yourself that you can do this, but no one really knows. Unless you are lucky to have your own cheerleader along and that is rare. I do not have any cheerleaders. That is why they often tell you to find a weight loss buddy. I just read an article on why that is a good idea. Here is why I don't think it works.
1. Undoubtedly you won't both have the same level of commitment.
2. Statistically one is likely to drop out. So either you or your buddy won't last a month.
3. Jealousy. That is right. One person loses more than the other. It will be hard for the other person to be supportive.
Probably my best cheerleaders right now are the women at weight watchers who do the weighins. They applaud even the smallest loss and point out that I have been losing now for months consistently and am definitely doing good. They don't get made when I practically rip their heads off over a gain, like last week's unsubstantiated one.
So, if you have a buddy or a cheerleader that is good for you. I have had a hard time because I am a loner at heart. I already wrote a post why support threads don't work for me except I noticed there is finally a good one on Beachbody where people are posting their daily food intake. Some of them are doing weight watchers and counting points too. I don't normally see that on their threads. There are small "clicques" over there that kind of have a leader, who has usually been successful and has acheived an idolatrous status among their groupies, and the majority of the people who phone it in or whine about how their personal problems are holding them back. I think menu threads are usefull. They show some accountability and are good for menu/recipe ideas.
Anyway, the beginning of the journey is usually wonderful because SUCCESS is important. You have to have a reward for your hard work. Losing weight feels great. It just does.
Then the hard part, you are losing the weight and then something happens, like a personal problem or the holidays or an unsubstantiated gain like last week, then all of a sudden it is HARD.
There you are with a little less fat suit to protect you and maybe some of the cloak of denial, but you are still covered with the shroud of self-doubt. What to do.
I find at this point you can only continue if you face that too. You have to evaluate something about yourself. You have to dredge up old memories and do some emotional work, because if you want to get rid of all this PROTECTION you have had, guess what is left under it. Your real self.

Cloak of Denial

The appropriate coat to wear over your fat suit is the cloak of denial. I was reading some motivational stuff I have from some successful people. Old posts from Ediets mostly from some people who did it right and were successful. I was reading a particularly good one about denial. This sent me into a tailspin about the denial I lived in for years. Now unwrapping the cloak is sometimes painful. I think my gain last week was my body's resistance. To my own self doubt. I doubted I was in the 180s so I went back to 190, but I know I didn't do it through eating. The 190s were about fear. The 180s are about self doubt. I am trying to use visualization to tell myself it is okay to believe I can have a small waist.
That is part of the denial that is really strange. I used to tell myself there is no point dieting, because I will never be a small person, wear small clothes, or have a small waist. So there was no point really. The self-sabotage is my only choice as I get smaller because I have spent years denying it could happen or was possible. Now, I have to allow myself to do it.
The worst denial I lived in was scale denial. I would diet down to lesser weight and then quit weighing in because I was FEARFUL it wasn't real. So I would convince myself I was whatever the last weight was, refuse to get on the scale, and then end up gaining 30 plus pounds. There were periods when I stayed off the scale for year. Everyone says it is just a number, but seeing my reaction to the imaginary glom on last Saturday shows me it is more than that to me and I have to pay attention to it. I mean I literally ran out of the weight watchers meeting crying and upset, ran home, sat on the couch, had a hissy fit with df. Today I thought about getting on the scale but could not do it. Because it could have ruined my day again. I decided to stick with my plan for the week and then go to ww on Saturay and hopefully it will be better. I know last winter at this time, I weighted 15-20 pounds heavier and stuffed myself every day into two pairs of size 12 pants. I hated washing them. They were stretch denim too. I was not happy last year. This year my size 10s are getting loose, and I am still not happy. Remembering last winter is painful.
My other big denial problem is that when I am fat, I pretend I am not. I have seen pictures of myself when my daughter was small and family reunions and I was frigging HUGE. But I had myself convinced I was fit, because I exercised. I had myself convinced I looked good because I was fit and because I was fit and strong, I didn't really looked fat.
That was a lie I told myself though. I would even brag about this to people. How fit I was. Now, I think that is just sad, but it is also painful to think about. Those pics don't lie though and I seldom let anyone take pics of me. But they are there. I don't even want df to see them.
So taking the cloak of old denial off means going back, examining what I did, feeling the pain, and then letting it go. I know I probably still live in some denial about things, but I think I am honest about the weight thing. (I am just not honest about the I don't care that my daughter is not playing basketball thing though. LOL)
This week I am doing the 6 day express diet. It is low calorie, but I am not starving. If I am starving tonight, I will eat something.

Setback

I came in 1.4 gain at weight watchers. Impossible. I went back and scoured over my points and there was no way I went over the 4900 calories for the gain. So now I am re-evaluting. I am almost wondering if I am eating enough. This week I am scaling back and need to get under where I was. I am eating healthy though. Had tuna and salad for lunch and am having steak and broccoli for dinner. I have fiber one and milk for a snack this afternoon. Then yoga tonight
Of course the gain pissed me off and made me despondent and made me feel fat. In the past, I might have given up at this point but because I am relentless I am moving forward. I almost think I thought this was too easy. But it isn't. It is hard. We went to a movie on Saturday afternoon and I got pissy because there was nothing for me to eat at the theatre. I got pissier watching people, fat and thin, waltz in with buckets of popcorn and pretzels and cheese. By the end of the movie I didn't care though. I thought I had to have something, but I really didn't. I did go home and grilled out a delicious steak and ate a nice salad and a little wine and truely enjoyed it.
There is nothing easy about this though. It is hard as hell.

Taking Off the Fat Suit

Since September 1st of last year I have slowly been taking the fat suit off. It is because I made a very conscious decision to not want to wear it any more. Wearing a fat suit took a lot of decisions in itself. No one decides to wear a fat suit merely because they like to eat. I think the whole idea of the merry, fat person is a myth. Kind of like Santa. Who wears a fat suit.
I don't know how it is for men, but for women I think a lot of the decision to wear one has to do with sexuality. It might be a fear of it. Or a fear of unwanted attention. Although when you are heavy you feel like you desperately want the attention of men and you HATE thin women. Because they get it every day. How often does a fat woman get a man to open the door for her? I have noticed more attention in the past week just in the form of men who talk to me. Yesterday a man in the grocery line talked to me. Not in a come-on or hit-on me way, but just a friendly way. When I am heavy that never happens. A man spoke to me in the gym the other day. That never happened when I was heavier. I think normal sized men must hold some type of fear from a past heavy woman who was obsessed with them and just thought if he only just KNEW me and realized what a NICE PERSON I am, he would love me. I know I have been that woman, but now I understand it from the man's perspective. Of course, my fiance was always nice to me, even when I gained weight, but he treats me slightly different now, because in the male world, they all know that someone out there is better than them and you might leave them.
Losing the fat suit can destroy relationships and not just between a man and woman. My mom is scared I will get thin. She calls me on this every time I tell her I am losing weight. Last time, she practically screamed at me to not lose more weight. She questioned me why I want to lose more. I don't think this is the question she should be asking. She should be asking herself why it is so threatening to her.
I have thin women friends who refuse to acknowledge my weight loss. I can't talk to it about them. And these are very thin women. I have a fat coworker in my office that will not acknowledge it even though everyone else here notices it. In her mind, she still puts the fat suit back on me when I come in to work.
I also still have the fat suit on in my head some days. Some days I take off the part I haven't even lost yet. It is so mental. I tried on swim suits last week and saw the fat suit in the mirror. I put on jeans today that were looser and probably feel thinner than I look today.
I am at the point where sometimes I am fearful and almost feel like putting it back on because it is after all, much safer for me. It is a suit I have taken on and off for almost 50 years and I am at a crucial point now. I am getting the attention, am getting noticed for my efforts and some days I would just like to be invisible. The owner of my yoga studio emailed me some info and told me I looked great. Now for some reason, I am almost embarrassed to go back. They have seen me lose the fat suit over the months and it is almost as though I want to be unnoticed. I don't want the recognition in a way of ever having worn the fat suit.
There is also the stress factor. My daughter stressed me out last night in a major huge way. Usually that kind of stress just sits here in my huge body and just makes me feel awful. It makes me feel sorry for myself because not only does this person I dearly love just constantly dump her crap on me but I am FAT to boot. Now I don't feel that. I didn't feel that huge body full of stress. I was able to forget that and think about today and how I am going to get rid of more of my fat suit.
In a former post I wrote about a friend who had disappeared from emailing me about her weight loss. Today she sent this huge accountability email detailing how she was going to start over AGAIN. So I was right, she did fail, but she is going to get back on TODAY. Day 1. I will email her but am carefully thinking of how I can be supportive and yet helpful too. She really wants to do this but has one big weight albatross, literally. Her husband weighs about 350 pounds and is a walking heart attack about to happen. He gets on the wagon with her and then gets off and it derails her every time. She does realize this but of course wants to get him on board. Hard situation. It really is.

What Are Your Hobbies

There was a woman in the weigh in line lamenting to me and another woman at last week's meeting how she hates to cook. The other woman and I were sharing recipe ideas. It has to be hard if you hate to cook and this woman had children so the extent of her cooking is probably mac and cheese and frozen pizzas and other such fare. I know you can eat what you want on ww with the flex points, within the 8 healthy guildelines of course, but I am thinking she might be faced with prepared frozen dinners as her option most of the time. I like those in a pinch and usually have a couple for emergencies, but in the long run, this is not a solution. She later complained in the meeting to the group that she didn't like to cook and others joined in. The Weekly Whinefest at Weight Watchers.
I am lucky. I like to cook. Another friend of mine on weight watchers said she feels like she is doing nothing but cooking and running to the grocery store all the time. I know my weekends are partially consumed by what to make to have for leftovers for the following week and what to put in the crock on Sunday. I do feel the same way but I love grocery shopping and grocery stores. I love being surrounded by food. I am lucky in my town because we have a kind of grocery store war going on. They are all getting bigger and better. We do have a medium sized Whole Foods which they are tearing down and building a new mega Whole Foods which I am fantasizing as being the Walmart megastore version. In addition Trader Joes is moving is, which is probably the reason for the Whole Foods store expansion. Also our biggest and cheapest grocery store has totally renovated with a double layer parking lot and they have expanded their organic food lines and every time I go they seem to be adding more Whole Foods types of lines of food. They also attached the biggest liquor store in the Midwest and I do need my quota of healthy wine each week. This is a grocery shopper's paradise or will be soon. I will be the biggest grocery store whore around and will not affiliate with any one but will shop at all of them. Crowds be damned at the big grocery store. I go the off hours line early Sunday morning before Bikram yoga. For some reason middle aged single men shop there at that time. That is never why I went to "meet" a guy. Yeah right, but I also voyeur other people's shopping cart and know bachelor food when I see it. It is exactly the food my fiance had in his house before I moved in. Frozen pizzas, orange juice, sugary cereal, soda, chips, bolongna, white bread, ketchup.
Anyway the reason I titled this hobbies is because a friend of mine with three daughters in college who used to go to yoga came back last night. I ran into her at the mall last week and told her to come back and she said she missed it and it is expensive but she came back. She is a superhealthy person who taught aerobics for years and this is the only exercise that alleviates some of her back pain from overtraining for years. Nice to have a friend there again and we do share similar hobbies. Mine are typical empty nest symdrome hobbies, shopping, yoga, and now my meal planning gig but hey I find this all very fulfilling. If I had a housekeeper I would consider myself a whole woman.

Body Blobs

I love the Biggest Loser and last time they had the individual loser show I noticed something I thought I was nuts for believing before. I have always noticed during weight loss that there are times when it looks as though your body is distorted and there are weird lumps in your waist and belly area. Sometimes they are just on one side. Then you lose a few pounds and poof they are frigging gone. It seems to be that way when you are about halfway to goal, or may be the last 20 to 25 pounds. I know they say weight comes off somewhat evenly or at least the part you gained first, usually stomach hips thighs, for women, goes last, but to me there seems to be this weird point in the journey where there are these weird lumps.
I have noticed that a lot lately, but thought maybe it was just myself being overanalytical since I spend an hour and a half a day looking at my sweaty body in the Bikrams mirror. I did notice with the last group of women on loser though that they had the same thing happen and maybe it was so noticeable due to the dramatic weight loss. I noticed that little blonde girl with the weird glasses who is dating the guy who won, (I am so bad at names) was very pear shaped and a couple of weeks I noticed she had these weird rolls appear in some odd place and then they would be gone. I will have to look this up on weight watchers science of weight loss area on the site or maybe can ask an expert there, but they will probably think I am nuts.
I am finally getting to the point of looking proportioned I noticed last night at yoga, but still have some lumpy lard around my waist area. I will bet that is the next fat to go.
Lumpy lard lump be gone!
On a good note, when I was watching the Olympics last night I realized I am as limber as those girls are. I can't do a split on a quarter inch blade with a tuu tuu on, but I can do the split as well as any of them. Told my fiance those are poses we do in Bikrams.
I bonked in Bikrams about 3/4 through last night. I thought I had enough food in me but was wrong. It is almost worse when I eat too much but brought in some tabbouli and tuna for a small snack before class, but the class today is an hour earlier so may not need it. I have shrimp sauteed in wine and garlice with peppers and onions served over brown rice for lunch.
I am also experimenting with eating 10 fresh veggies and fruits over the 6 or 8 weight watcher requires. I read this in one of those Oxygen special editions. I bought a bunch of raw veggies precut and brought them in to work and load up this bowl for the day and munch on it. I am sure that is 4-5 right there.
Today I am going to add a sculpt after Bikrams if I have the energy. That will give me more activity points to have some salty sticks or 94% free popcorn while watching the males perform on Idol tonight. I know there is at least one really hot guy, Ace, which is our dogs name. See I do remember some names. If they are attached to hot guys or animals.

Its Only A Pound

Well, I am down a pound and 19 pounds from goal. I only lost a pound this week. I love it when people say that. Especially at weight watcher meetings. One reason that this is working for me is that I think only a pound is huge. It is a step in the right direction. I didn't stay the same, I didn't gain, and that pound of fat was hard earned. I have to thank myself for my efforts. Thank you Joan.
I also hear the braggers at meetings. Two women behind me lost over two pounds. That does not make me feel bad, because they are huge and if they get within 20 pounds of their goal, they will also have experienced plateaus, gains, tiny losses, and feeling like they are getting nowhere. But those small losses add up. One week I lost .2. One week I gained .8 and I would have given anything for that .2 loss. I have had two small gains since I joined ww and those were not true gains, because I worked the program, but I think the body doesn't always recognize my efforts. It is like a delayed scale effect. Then all of a sudden. Bam.
I have also had to give my body permission to lose. It took a long time to get through the 190s. I think the fat I lost was filled with pent up fear and anger and tension because that what my life was like when I gained those pounds. So I had to let go of those emotions with the fat. I remember a couple of times laying in savasana in yoga and thinking body, yes you can get rid of THAT fat.
I also noticed that when I feel stress now, there is a lot less tissue and fat to hold it in, so I don't feel it as much. My daughter has a problem right now, which of course I have to help solve, that caused me a lot of stress, but I am just not feeling it in my body. I am also not using food to soothe it. I am using yoga and shopping and cooking healthy meals.
Anyway on a lighter note, I tried on swimming suits for my pending Ochos Rios vacation. Not good, but not horrible. I pulled out some sculpt dvds and am working on those now too. I will be fine by vacation and can definitely find two swim suits that will look decent by then I am sure.

Failed Again

A friend of mine started emailing me every day a couple of weeks ago about recommitting to her new lifestyle. She was emailing a list of people from Beachbody about what she was doing daily, what her goals were, and what she was eating. For the past week I haven’t heard from her and she hasn’t been posting on Beachbody. I already know the reason. She has already failed. She had been losing and gaining on Beachbody programs for two years. Her stats are the same as they were when she started.She failed. I knew right away she was setting herself up for failure. I was supportive during her emailing frenzy and did not point this out to her. If I knew her better I would have called her on this, but did not want to hurt her or not be supportive. It is a fine line to cross between honesty and negativity. I did not want to cross it although I would have been doing her a favor if I had.I just had seen her do this too many times and had made the same mistakes over and over myself. Thus, the yo yo dieting. Here are some key signs you are yet on another yo of yo yo dieting:
1. You are recommitting as of day one. This doesn’t really work just like dieting doesn’t work because there is an end implicit in it. You have to look at this as a continuation of a journey that doesn’t end. This friend was counting days. It was as though everything prior had not counted, but they do.
2. You double up on exercise or start an unrealistic program. This friend had decided to do two workouts a day. This is a set up for failure for most of us because we have busy lives. It isn’t realistic to be able to do this day to day if you have a job, kids, relationships, friends, etc. It is okay to plan two workouts a day here and there, but working out too much can lead to injuries. Injuries can take you out of the exercise game.
3. Setting up an unrealistic food plan, whether it is a drastic cut back in calories all of a sudden, or food elimination, this is a set up for failure. I personally had to take the word no out of my eating vocabulary. Now I know a few people can do this, but most of us can’t. For instance I can’t hear the word no in front of the coke. I have them occasionally and they are planned for. This friend started out with no in front of certain words and within a week she was confessing to cheating on this, thus another set up for failure.
4. Committing to a single program. Variety works. If you get a new program, whether it is diet, exercise, or a combination you feel you have to marry the program. Thus, when you do one thing wrong, you fail. A new program is almost always too regimented. You need to tweak and see what works for you over time. One size does not fit all. You have to have a plan for when the program is over whether you are on maintenance or what.
There are other things I could mention, but these are a few things I know for sure from my own experience. If she emails me maybe I will be honest with her. I did email her once that she was overdoing the workouts and she got defensive. At least I can read people.

20 Pounds Til Goal

I almost can't believe it. I only lost .6 but got in the 180s. That is huge for me. I spent months trying to get back on track and now I am doing it.
It all comes down to believing in yourself. If you don't really think it is going to happen and you constantly doubt yourself, you won't accomplish anything. You are just marking time to self-sabotage. I have done that. I move in that direction, all the while never thinking I will accomplish my goal and then I get close and panic. I am not supposed to be there. I have spent almost 50 years defining myself as a fat person. I will probably do it at goal too. I have the fat chick mentality. That is hard to rewire. It might be impossible no matter what the scale says. Now, I believe it. I believe I will get to 169. I am not looking past that right now. Well, I am thinking about it, but right now I am thinking in terms of short term goals. My short term goal is ten pounds, or 170s by my vacation in April.
I know the work will be harder now. I am constantly re-evaluating my food plan and exercise. Although I love yoga, I am trying to add more cardio and weights. Hate to give up any yoga though.
I went to a party and sort of sabotaged my week. I mean, it is my birthday and we are going out for vd tomorrow and I nibbled on a few things that cut into my flex points. Sucks royal. Will really have to watch it at dinner, but I can make it up Wednesday through Friday. I hate weigh in though. I almost frigging passed out in yoga on Saturday morning. Kind of feels good though too in a way. Yesterday I was hungry, so carbed up a little and felt better.
I do believe in carbs.

I Hate Friday

Only because it is the day before weigh-in.
Weigh-ins are traumatic for me. I have to force myself on the scale every week. That is why I go to Weight watches. I can't get around it. It is required. Last week I was thrilled to get to 190 on the scale so this week I am scared it will go up. Last week I dreamed before weigh in that I got on and it said 255. The other night I dreamed it was 187. I know it won't be that. I cut back on points a couple of days before weigh in so am usually starved by then, but like my glycogen stores low. I also go there immediately after a Bikram yoga session so am also severally dehydrated. So obviously this has gotten to be quite a game for me, but it will be a relief when it is over tomorrow. I might not go to yoga tonight because last night I bonked severally so might just go home and work out and sit and watch tv but if I do that I will regret since John and Adam will be sitting around on their duffs eating potato chips. So I guess I will go.
I am the only person who hates Friday. I am thinking of changing meetings and going on Thursday instead.

Arrested for NonSupport

I do use online support in dieting. At first I used Ediets, then Beachbody, and now Weight Watchers although I do not really post very much. I used to be a frequent poster on Ediets and Beachbody but found that that type of support wasn't helping.
For one thing there are a lot of people on there not as committed as I am and it is easy to get dragged into their excuse making and rationalizing not eating right. On Beachbody, a lot of them are committed to exercise but don't eat right. On Ediets I was just there too long. I did find one group of motivated people who preach the total elimination of a lot of foods. This worked for me for a while. Then I quit weighing in and gained like 40 pounds. I don't have any problem with that philosophy but it didn't work for me long term although I know a lot of people there who got to goal and stay there and never eat anything sweet or crappy.
I didn't join weight watchers in order to eat healthy foods though. I joined to learn new patterns of controlling what I eat. I could not hear the word no any more. Whether that meant no candy, no coke, no bread, no carrots. A lot of good diets have those types of restrictions. I know I don't want to do that.
At any rate, I at ww I use the boards for finding recipe and menu ideas and some motivation or information on the plan or exercise I might try. I don't post because I don't want to get bogged down in the cult of personality thing that goes along with that. It is bad enough to sit through weight watcher meetings week after week and listen to the same people who aren't losing whine about gagging on water and not liking exercise. I just shut that stuff out and take away what I need from the meeting. I don't try to convince them they are wrong or try to help them change their behavior. They will do it when they want it. If they wanted it bad enough they would do the program the way it is set up.

If She Has Said It Once......

I have worked in this office with this overweight woman for four years. As I have said before, as I have yo-yoed, she has stayed the same or gained. In the time I have known her she has barely bought herself new clothes. Every time a season is ending she says the same thing. That she will buy clothes when she loses more weight. She said that today. The sad thing is she hasn't lost any weight since I have known her. She is wearing the same clothes she has on every day for the four years I have known her. She recently bought a gym membership and does go regularly, albeit whining about being sore from the equipment.
The thing that isn't working for her is her diet. She eats the wrong things. She eats lots of sugar and processed foods all the time. Or fast food. She thinks picking up something from a Chinese takeout is healthy.
I think losing weight is 90% about the food. I think drinking water and exercising are essential components to weight loss success but if you just do those two things without monitoring evey bite, you won't be successful. I used to do that. After my climbing Devil's Lake trail incident I did initially work at getting in shape. I bought home exercise vidoes and did those. I got very fit, but I stayed fat for a long time, because I didn't really change my eating habits.
Now I spend about 99% of my day thinking about food. That hasn't changed a bit. I constantly plan what to eat, when to eat, and what I can change to keep my weight loss up.
My fiance is taking up exercise due to our upcoming trip. He must be intimidated by the nude beach. I know I am. But what a whiner. Between him, my coworker and the women at the weight watcher's meetings, I feel like I am at a 24/7 whinefest 2006.
Last week the ww women were whining about drinking water. I mean I am sorry, but I don't belive that many people actually gag from drinking water. I mean, do it and shut the hell up already.

Scarey Territory

My size 10 black pants fit perfectly now. They were very snug around xmas time. I look great and lean today. Feel like I am getting in deep territory. I feel scared. I look in the mirror and there is definitely a different person there. I fear I will look again and the weight will be back.
Seems like I would be getting more feedback from people at work but I have to remember. They are all fat, retarded white trailor trash jealous bitches. They already hate me because I am an arrogant bitch who thinks I am better than they are. So I guess we can call it even.

I Am Working For Me

Inevitably on a weight loss journey, you get to a point where people start "noticing". Inevitabley, they will start asking you questions. At first, you feel very flattered and you feel that your hard work has paid off. Even though they just noticed, it is probably not until you are somewhere between 20-30 pounds that people notice, even though you have noticed many physical changes already yourself, such as the loose pants or the thinner face. On my journey as a yo-yo dieter, I have reached the point many times where people noticed and they want to know how you did. They want to know what is working for you.
This part used to excite me because usually these people want to shed some weight themselves and I always felt I had the magic key. I had the experience to help them. I was eager to tell them how. Even though they probably know themselves. I am certainly not the only yo yo dieter in the world. Most others, who have tried and failed, are looking for something else. Because whatever they had done previously didn't work. If it had, they wouldn't have gained the weight back. A lot of times they will tell you, I did Jenny Craig, but it got too expensive. Or I did Weight Watchers, but I quit going to meetings and stopped exercising. So they want to know what is working for you because they think maybe something else will work for them. At this point I do tell them what I am doing, because I myself am normally convinced it is better and it works better than whatever xyz diet I have tried in the past or they have tried. Or maybe it is the different workout I am doing that is making the difference. At this point, as I have learned in the past, you do get a response but it is normally disappointing.
You see, these people don't want to hear what your program is because at this point I normally hear of some excuse of why my magic pill won't work. It usually sounds something like this:

I hate to exercise.
I can't drink water.
I don't like eating all of those fruits and veggies.
I can't give up potato chips, candy, ice cream, cheeseburgers......

You get the idea. They want to know what you are doing so they can find their excuse and back down in denial. I imagine if they are relating your current weight loss saga to someone else, it would sound something like this: You know I saw so and so and she did lose weight, but....... fill in the excuse. Or fill in the reason they will explain why you won't make it.
I no longer divulge too much of what I am doing. I know Star Jones is receiving a lot of flack for not admitting and advocating her bypass surgery but I understand it. I do tell people when they remark on my weight loss, very succinctly, that I am a weight watcher member, and I do a lot of yoga and cardio. Then I leave it at that.
When I reached my 10% goal at weight watchers the leader asked me if I wanted to share what is working for me. My response is that I am working for me. I don't think it matters what you are doing. I think any program works for anyone at any moment, but only if they are working the program and are making a commitment to it.
Right now, 21 pounds from goal, I am not focusing on what I am doing that much. I know what I am doing is working. I am focusing on maintenance and what I am going to do to make that work.

Sandy Beaches Drinking Rum Every Night

I am officially going to Jamaica.
I am grateful grateful grateful to myself for starting my weight loss journey last September 1st at 221.5 pounds. Now I am about 191. I can lose at least ten pounds by vacation but if I hadn't started I don't think I would be happy at all about going weighing in over 200. Hey I might even get a bikini. Or at least a tankini.

More Excuses

I work with an overweight woman and have for several years all the while my weight has gone up and down. Every time I lose, she gets very deep in denial and won't acknowledge my weight loss and that is really fine by mean. I don't really mind. I have been in her place. I always hated the person who is losing the weight. Because that person is a reminder that it can be done and in my denial of why I can not or am not losing, subconsciously, there is proof out there that something works. It is hard to be in that place.
Before I joined Ediets, I had an epiphany when my daughter was 8. Since I had been very active in my youth and atheltic, I thought I was still that way. Even though I probably weighed 250 or more and was a size 24 dress. I thought under it all is muscle and health and the old me, who was never really thin or at goal weight and that was a whole other level of denial.
I decided I was going to make sure my daughter was active so decided to take up , as a family, one of my old activities, hiking. We went to a popular state park I had never been to but was local. It was a Saturday. We got a map and proceeded up the hill. The hill was actually a deep incline stairway with stones. It was considered an advanced climb. It would be very easy to twist an ankle on this trail. We started up. It wasn't very long before I was struggling, had a loss of breath and a tightness in my lungs. My impatient daughter chided me to climb and I did, but I was struggling. We weren't even half up and I had to stop every few steps and sit down. I was only 38 years old and realized at that point that I was not in shape and I could have a heart attack doing something that silly and leave my daughter parentless. I climbed though and made it.
I decided at that point to change. The changes took a long time to get me to where I am now. But that was the point I could no longer use the excuses. That was a huge change.