Moving my blog

After much thought and a lot of research, I have moved my blog to Wordpress.

You can view my blog here: aspoundsgobye.wordpress.com/

Come follow along there!

Thug Kitchen!

My favorite sister (never mind that she's my only sister) just sent me this!! I AM SO EXCITED ON SO MANY LEVELS! Expect many posts about it.

Also, my sweet rat, Edgar, is quite intrigued by what's inside. He can't wait to eat. But that's his normal state of being.

More soon!

Points Fail

I have already broken one of my bullet points from yesterday. My food yesterday:

• Breakfast: Instant grits with a cup of coffee with creamer - 7 points
• Lunch: Big ol' salad with cauliflower, grape tomatoes, cut-up chicken, sunflower seeds, pepperoncinis and ranch dressing - 15 points
• Dinner: (pictured below) 4 oz steak, Heinz 57 sauce, small potato with butter AND sour cream, and a roasted zucchini - 10 points

I had FOURTEEN POINTS left over at the end of the day! OUTRAGEOUS! And I kept thinking that I should find something else to eat...but I wasn't hungry. And the only thing readily available was a bag of Doritos, and I wasn't going there.

And, of course, I woke up STARVING.

I think I'm going to have something more for lunch today than my usual salad.

I'm disappointed in myself.

Butter Motivation

Today was weigh-in day! I lost another 2.8 pounds this week, which brings my total to 6.4 pounds GONE! Huzzah!

A very good friend of mine is also losing weight, and she mentioned that she likes to figure out how much she's lost so far in things like sticks of butter. How many sticks of butter have I lost?

Just over 25 1/2 sticks of butter! That's a lot of damn butter. Melted away, never to be seen again.

Things I need to work on in the next week:

• Drink more water! Some days, I do really well. Most days, I only manage to get in about half of what I need. I have cut myself down to one cup of coffee per day, but I need to drink more H2O. I have a water buddy co-worker, so hopefully that will help. I have not had any soda in 12 days, and I don't really miss it yet.
• Use all of my points! I really need to bring some healthy snacks to work with me, because most days, I am not consuming enough to use up all of my points. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing to have as a problem, the points are there for a reason and they need to be used. Also, if I don't use up all of my points in a day, I wake up the next morning STARVING.
• Work on not being so lazy. I am still not able to get out and go for walks (stupid swollen ankle), but I want to work on doing more things for myself. Having two little kids in the house tends to make me ask one of them to get something for me. I need to stop that. I can get it myself. I'm fully capable.
• Create a meal plan. The last thing I want to do after a day at work is go home and figure out what's for dinner. Especially when I sometimes have to cook something for me and something different for the rest of the family. So I want to plan things out and possibly take away some of that stress.

I think those are all doable. I also bought my bracelet and the bauble I will add to it when I've lost my first ten pounds. I'm super excited to put that puppy on my wrist! Right now, I'm wearing the bare bracelet as a reminder that I WANT to put something on it. I rather like it. Which is good, because I'll be wearing it for a long time.

I think I'm going to print this out and put it above my computer monitor at work:

And with that, I'm off to hydrate.

Confessions of a Food Addict

Let me start this post by saying that I did NOT eat all of the junk food in my house this weekend. I just had this epiphany about prior habits that I did not see until I became aware of what I was doing. Saturday was, by far, the hardest day I've had so far. The work week is easy because I am around other people who see what I'm doing, and that helps keep me on the right path. I'm accountable to myself because I know that they see what I'm doing. When I'm at home, my kids could not care less about what I'm doing in the kitchen, as long as I'm feeding them. When I walk back and forth from the living room, through the kitchen, to the bathroom, no one sees me when I grab something off the counter and shove it in my face. I didn't even KNOW I did stuff like that until I stopped myself mid-reach this weekend. It was just habit. It was so difficult staying on plan just because I was the only one who knew what was going on with me.

BUT I DID IT!

And then, Saturday evening came around and we were all going to go visit my father-in-law, who is now in the rehabilitation center, working back from his stroke that happened two weeks ago. The kids and I met up with my husband after he got off work, and he wanted to go to Chicago Dawg House for dinner. Where there is absolutely nothing healthy. They threw a "Grilled Chicken Salad" on the menu, but the more I thought about getting that, the more resentful I became, knowing that everyone else would be sitting around me, eating deep fried this or that with everything that goes along with it. And I'd be pecking at my salad, while (in my mind), the whole restaurant would be looking over, thinking, "Oh, the fat girl must be trying to lose weight". Plus, this lifestyle change isn't supposed to be a study in how to deny myself. It's supposed to be learning how to be able to function in real life without going crazy with food, right? So I ordered the chili dog (no cheese!) and the bun turned out to be thicker than the hot dog, so I tore off the top part (half the bun points!). I drank my iced tea (no soda!), and I ate a few fries (not the whole basket!). I was pretty damn proud of myself.

Sunday, we decided to go fishing for part of the day, and my husband bought some picnic-y stuff we could eat for lunch. The morning was really chaotic, and I wound up not being able to fit in breakfast. We ate lunch at the lake at around 12:30, and I'm really realizing just how much I am not a fan of sandwiches anymore. I had turkey lunch meat with a bit of Miracle Whip and a serving of Bugles. I just kept thinking about what a waste of points it all was, because it really didn't taste all that good. Bread is, actually, pretty tasteless. So I didn't eat all that much.

We got home, and my husband (bless his heart!) made dinner. Pork chops, roasted mushrooms and Brussels sprouts and some white rice. My plate was heaping with food and it was just delicious. However, I ended my day with 15 points left to spare, which is a huge no-no. I was planning to have a snack if I got hungry, but I never did. Instead, I woke up starving.

So...I learned a lot about myself this weekend. And I realized that I have more to learn than I had anticipated. I also learned that I am the one holding myself accountable and no one else really matters.

#igotthis

Empathy & Television

I can't stop watching "My 600 Pound Life" on TLC. It started, oddly, on the day I started Weight Watchers (which was also the day I fell down a few basement stairs and twisted my ankle and was confined to the bed for a bit with ice on said ankle). I had been browsing through the channels and came across the show, so I watched it.

And now I don't know if I should be. I'm a pretty empathetic person. If I watch a movie or read a book, I tend to find a character I relate to and form a connection with them. After the entertainment is over, it sometimes takes a bit before I can shake that connection.

The same thing is happening with this show. And it's not all positive. Sometimes, an episode leaves me bursting to continue on my journey, filled to the brim with hope and drive. I just KNOW I can do this and it's going to be okay.

But sometimes, especially that first episode I watched while I was stuck in bed with my twisted ankle, I take on the negative. I watched as Charity walked so painfully because of the extra weight, and when I finally got out of bed to test my tender ankle, I felt like I was walking the same way. And my brain went a bit haywire, and in that moment, I *was* the 600 pound person. My body felt so much heavier and I wanted to cry. I was disgusted with myself.

Let me also say that this lasted maybe 10 minutes after the episode was over. I snapped back to reality and saw that while I am severely overweight, I am not even remotely close to 600 pounds. My weight does not make me waddle when I walk (but the stupid ankle does), and I am not dependent on others to take care of my basic needs.

I am SO lucky.

Without going into too much detail yet, my greatest fear in life is being like my mother. I look a lot like her, and when I see myself in the mirror, especially weighing as much as I do, I see her looking back. She does waddle when she walks (or at least she did the last time I saw her), so when I was waddling, my brain picked it up as another trait we had in common. It's a paralyzing fear, and yet it has not kept me from staying at this weight for far too long. It was like I was trapped in that fear and punishing myself by staying the way I was so that I would have to see her.

Can I just tell you also how amazing Zoloft has been for me? I have struggled with anxiety and depression for most of my life. I remember having anxiety attacks in second grade, and nothing was ever done about it. They just thought I was too sensitive and weak. I finally broke down, thanks to the support of an amazing friend and co-worker, and saw a doctor in February of this year. My anxiety was just getting worse and worse, and I had an upcoming business trip that would require a plane ride that was causing me ALL kinds of angst. So I talked to a doctor, who is now MY doctor, and he just listened to me describe what I deal with on a regular basis. When I was done, he sat back, crossed his arms, smiled, and said, "Well, you have a definite anxiety disorder. But I can help you."

Since then, I have been on Zoloft and also have a bottle of Xanax for emergencies (like that plane ride!). And it's been life-changing. I am not overwhelmed by the fear anymore. It's still there, but I can see it, and define it, and know that it doesn't control me. But sometimes, my brain fritzes a bit, and I imagine I'm 600 pounds. I'm an oddity, I know. But that's what makes me ME.

So now I'm going to go drink my morning water and look forward to not being afraid of what the future holds. Because that future is going to hold a lot less of me.

Flowery Dreams

Since nothing has really changed since yesterday (still ate grits for breakfast...still ate salad for lunch...still drinking my water), I thought I'd go into a bit of a dream for when I reach my goal.

I am (essentially) half Czech and half Irish. I grew up with a very Czech older woman who was my babysitter and 2nd mother. I am very proud of my Czech heritage, and I'm drawn to the wooden plates that hang in the local Czech restaurant. Many of the plates feature flowers done in a very Czech style. My dream is to one day get an upper arm tattoo done in the style of these flowers with five large flowers predominantly displayed (because I have four kids and a husband, and also because 5 is my lucky, OCD number).

Before any of this happens, though, I would like my arm to be a straight line when it's at my side, rather than an arm with a lump of fat at the elbow.

So....GOAL!