Marshmallow's Contest

So I completed my fourth day of recording food in-take, and I went over my calorie range. This time however it wasn’t snacking that done me in, but the French bread I had for lunch. Damn you, carb-based foods! But the good news is I completed it.

In other news, Marshmallow has issued a contest with prizes! It’s a similar contest to Dietgirl’s in that I will be gathering pictures in a scavenger hunt. Wish me luck.

1. Something Brown - Is this low-fat turkey burger vegetable soup that I’ve made that surprisingly my whole family loves!



2. Something Orange - My favorite color! For this one, I didn’t search past my own blog. Here is my profile picture of an orange flower.



3. Something Purple - In high school my basketball jersey was purple, although I never was THIS sexy wearing it or ever will be no matter how much weight I lose. Well, maybe in my imagination.



4. A Marshmallow - This is the marshmallow monster from the movie “Ghostbusters."



5. Someone Sleeping - Sleeping beauty. A fellow blogger had noticed that we put our lives on hold for when we reach our target weight like sleeping beauty waiting for the prince, but life is worth living NOW! Very insightful.



6. A Cat - Garfield. He's fat and lazy like me!



7. The Letter M - M is for Mardi Gras, which will be this Tuesday.



8. The Letter W - Umm… W is for watch. Sorry, I lost all my creativity. If only I knew how to make those talk and thought bubbles!

Recording in Small Doses

Today’s the last day of recording, and it’s strange to say but I think I might miss it. I had stopped recording early December after recording for 9 straight months, because I was tired of it and at that point it felt useless. I was going over calories constantly and just didn’t care. So I decided to take a break, resuming January 1st. Well January 1st came, and nothing changed. It was still a drag. I managed to record for a whole week before giving up. But now it feels different. I’m actually enjoying myself and seeing the results of the day is fascinating for me for the first time in a long time. I’m not making my calorie range, but I am learning something. So far, I discovered that currently I am snacking too much. Every day the past three days I managed to overdo it. Very interesting. Here’s hoping that I’ve learned my lesson for the fourth day.

Vaguely Victorious

I can’t believe that I am posting so soon after my last post! Every day I’m doing better and better. Which appears to be the way I operate. There are rare occasions when I get inspired and I’m operating at full tilt, but most of the time I acknowledge that I need to change and I work away at it like a sculptor chipping away at slab of stone. As for my goals I had set up, the limiting TV/Internet and high calorie foods, I’m doing okay. I’m not being rigorous with keeping track of everything, but I can only recall 3 instances this past week and a half when I had overate high calorie foods and I had actually lost weight this week. That has to account for something. As for limiting TV/Internet, I was able to pull myself away enough to get some filing done. It’s not the type of victory that I would make movies about, but it feels like I’m finally pulling away from failure. Now my next step would be to set up some recording/award system, so that I know for sure when I’m doing good. I had one set up, but it was largely dependent on my calorie intake. Now that I’m no longer caring about that, I should probably think of another system.

"How did you do it?"

Earlier this month my sister asked me how I lost the weight. It’s that time of year when most people are feeling extra motivated to lose weight, my sister included. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling it, so I wasn’t currently following a healthy lifestyle and had forgotten what I had done to lose all the weight. So when I answered, I wasn’t much help.

“…Ummm…I chose healthy whenever possible, but if I really feel like eating something than eat it…Ummm…When eating desserts I eat about this amount (form small dome with hands)…ummm…(long pause).”

Cousin chimes in to be helpful: “Do you eat small meals throughout the day?”

“…Uh…no… I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack.”

Sister says: “Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack? Eat whatever you want? So basically, I should keep on doing what I’ve been doing.”

“…uh…ummm…(shrugs).”

I’ve been waiting for the window to help my sister and I totally blew it! So, I’ve thought it over. This is what I ACTUALLY did to lose the weight…

1. Record food intake
2. Plan/schedule exercise
3. Reward myself
4. Find support
5. Try new things

Now, that’s the bare bones of it all of what I did, but I also know that what worked for me may not work for someone else. Heck, it may not work for me currently. What I should have done was help her make her own plan. I should have asked her what she was currently doing and helped come up with her next (or first) step. THAT’S what I’ll do if ever another window opens.

The Art of Limiting

I’m having an issue with time and the perception of time. I believe I have none and quite possibly I don’t. I was contemplating eliminating blogging and other activities out of my life, so that I can devote more time for job searching. “But which one?” I thought. So I wrote down all the things I do and would like to do during the week and all the time I actually have. And do you know what I discovered? I discovered that Ly was right. I have plenty of time to do all the things I want to do with time to spare for goofing off. My issue is that I have great difficulty limiting. Once I start daydreaming, it’s hard for me to snap out of it. It’s the same with TV watching and using the Internet. And it’s the same with eating food that I enjoy. All these things are similar to me in that way. At the same time, I can’t just eliminate these things from my life. I would like to go back to when I was living in moderation. I’ve done it before, and I’m sure I can do it again. I just need to practice.

Plan:
Limit TV watching and Internet 2 hours/day
Limit snacks and high-calorie snacks 1 serving/day

Review and Resolution

Thank you everyone for continuing to check in and comment on my blog despite my MIA status. Sorry about that. I have been out of town since the day after Christmas with full intention of blogging, but never doing it. I’ve also been home since the 3rd and haven’t gotten myself to blog until today. But today is the end of my silence and hopefully you’ll be hearing me more frequently this coming year, because that so happens to be one of my weight loss resolutions: to post at least once a week. But before I get to that, I would like to review 2007 year of weight loss.

I started off that year after what I termed as “The Quarter from Hell”. Even with a month off, I was in a pessimistic, depressive slump. During that whole quarter, I promised that I would get back on the exercise/diet wagon with full vigor as soon as vacation hit, but that didn’t happen. It was more of a small crawl. Making my new year’s resolution for last year just felt like routine and I had no optimism in the process. Luckily, the quarter that followed was a more manageable load. I was able to put attention to my weight loss and actually saw it as a welcome break from school work and internship. I joined SparksPeople and was able to successfully log in my food intake for which was quite a feat, considering the year before this was something I struggled at. As I predicted, weight loss became much easier after I started recording, and I lose the weight in an almost predictable manner. However, I struggled with the whole recording process. I had difficulty gauging the calories I was consuming and obsessed over what I ate. I felt guilty for going over the recommended range of weight loss, and I didn’t like feeling guilty. During the middle of the year, I worked on letting go of the guilt with the help of intuitive eating. I continued to record but I used the numbers instead as something to reflect on. However, a drawback of letting go of guilt has been my abandonment with sweets and chocolate. Especially chocolate. Before, I was eating chocolate in moderation, but come Halloween, all of that went out the window. A part was also because of winter blues. My numbers were off the roof, and I became indifferent to them. Come December, I became tired of recording food intake and decided to take a break. It seemed pointless since seeing the outrageous amount of calories I consumed per day did not discourage me from over eating.

For the year I lost around 30 pounds! 50 pounds since my highest. And I must admit. Life without the weight is so much sweeter. I feel prettier and confident, and Ly and I are having more sex. Despite my recent spiral into over-indulgence, I conclude that this has been a successful year of weight loss. Things that I did well this year was to maintain regular exercise, record food intake, weigh-in regularly, and blog.

Things I would like to work on for this year is to control over-indulging and to stretch everyday and of course to maintain the good habits I have obtained so far. My goal for this year would be to reach my target weight and maintain.

This year feels much more optimistic than last year, but this year weight loss is not my number one resolution. There is also the trouble of finding work, which would take priority. Seeing how weight loss fits in the coming year will be interesting.

Landslide

I’m sliding like how a snowball slides, picking up speed and getting bigger and bigger. Eventually the snowball is unstoppable and catastrophic. How do I stop something like that?

Every night I lie awake, full from eating too much, excited with the promise of tomorrow. Because tomorrow is when I will do better and I will have a perfect day. Eating within my calories. Eating in moderation. Then the next day is here, and I do something stupid like eat 12 servings of cookies, half a loaf of dessert bread, or four bars of chocolate. I’m eating so much and continuously that I can’t remember feeling hungry for weeks. I miss feeling hungry.

Oddly enough, I’m still feeling optimistic. I still lie awake and feel confident that I can do well the next day. This has to be good. This must mean there is still hope.

I know what my problem is. My expectations are too high. I want perfection. I expect to eat like how I use to when my motivation is swelling over the brim. When this whole weight loss thing was interesting. I need to start over. But what should my first step be? Should I start recording food again? Should plan ahead? Should eat intuitively? Should I re-initiate the SP diet? I have tried them all and none of them are appealing at the moment.

What I Need to Do

I discovered that I gained two pounds! Yet, I’m not feeling a great urgency to do better. I’m bummed and my motivation is low.

I don’t want to gain the weight back. I came up with a list of things I need to do to get back on the wagon.

1. Stop eating impulsively.
2. Sit down and focus when I eat.
3. Keep myself from getting overly hungry.
4. Calm myself if do I let myself get too hungry.

Prioritizing

Our house has been chaotic and busy lately. Ly is working on the bathroom with the only bath. Additionally there are tools, construction materials, and debris in the hallway and by the entrance. The kids are leaving toys on the floor in every room. Ly isn’t bothering to put away his things, which seems to happen more frequently when the house is in disarray. Additionally, Ly’s good friend Trung’s wedding is right around the corner, and having Ly and Hunter a part of the wedding party has monopolize a lot of our time. On top of that, there is Teresa’s upcoming birthday party that needs my attention. With these things vying for our time, a lot of things that still needs to get done on a regular basis is not getting done. Right now, laundry is a pressing matter. We are at a point were we are sending Hunter to school with dirty pants. Ly was concerned regarding what others would think about us as parents. I felt we were in desperation mode, which means “others” can suck it.

Today I left Trung’s bachelor’s party early, since the kids were geared to destroy Trung’s sister’s museum-like home. Additionally, I didn’t want to be around when the strippers came. And, come on! Why the hell were the kids and I at a bachelor’s party in the first place?! I’ve really got to learn not to say yes to every invitation that comes my way.

As I was driving home, I was actually anxious and looking forward to starting the laundry, when I started to think about grocery shopping. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in TWO WEEKS! I had planned to do it this week, but I needed to use my kid-free days to work on the bathroom and complete my TB screen so that I can go to Hunter’s upcoming field trip. And I couldn’t get any errands done when Teresa was around, since the car left to me had no backseat to put the car seat in with Ly using it to store backer board. I could probably make it another week, but many essentials had already run out, and I longed for fresh ingredients. It was a tough decision, but I decided to go to the grocery store. We’re going to have to “wing” something, and I rather it be our clothing than our food.

Self-Medicating on Chocolate

I gained 0.9 lbs this week. Although I know I can shrug it off as “fluctuation”, I don’t think it is. I’ve been trying to weigh daily again after I discovered Google 15, which creates a trend line. It’s difficult making it a habit and I’m thinking of abandoning it again, but from what little I’ve gathered, the trend is definitely going up. Another thing that I know is that I’m definitely eating too much chocolate. I had hoped that abstaining for two weeks would help me get a handle on it, since it helped when I did it for Lent, but I was wrong. My difficulty could be because of the season. Lent leads to warmer weather. After my recent break from chocolate there was just more cold weather. I’m thinking that the colder weather could be making me depressed, and I may be using chocolate as an anti-depressant. My therapist back at school had suggested I was doing this, and she may have a point. She had suggested that I take a “real” anti-depressant. I thought she was making mountains out of molehills. I know I’m still green in the mental health field, but I’m almost certain that my “depression” is hardly enough for medication. My life is not disrupted enough by it, and since I’m not morbidly obese nor diabetic, tempering my chocolate addiction doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to get tied up in the system and all it’s troubles. So medication is out of the question, but I still need to figure out how to deal with it without falling off the wagon.

Adjusting to my New Exercise Regime

I’ve gained weight, which wasn’t surprising. None the less, it was disappointing. I was right at my target weight and it slipped away. No matter. I’m still within healthy BMI status, and I’m confident that I’ll get out of this recent binging bend. Another thing that also contributed to my recent gain was that I’ve been slacking with exercise. A part of it is because I had fallen out of it from my exercise hiatus due to illness. Then right after I recovered I had a bout of Achilles tendonitis, so I had to rearrange my routine to accommodate for that. The other part is because I’ve changed my exercise regime in general, and with every change there’s always that awkward adjustment period.

The first change actually occurred over a month ago. I decided to change aerobic exercise from 5 days to 3-5 days a week. Before, it HAD to be 5 days a week with NO excuses (except sickness or injury that is). I had decided this exercise regime in the beginning of my weight loss efforts, when losing weight was the ABSOLUTE priority. Now that I reached a healthy BMI, it doesn’t feel like such a priority anymore. The books have said that 3-5 days was what was necessary, so I decided to ABSOLUTELY do aerobic exercise 3 days a week with an optional two more days if time allowed. It felt uncomfortable doing this. I was afraid that allowing myself to exercise so little would cause me to fall out of it, but I don’t think it was the case.

The second change was my letting go of the weight machines. Much to my surprise, I recently discovered that they were NOT safer than free weights and bodyweight exercises. Go figure.

Letting go of these machines, however, has been a challenge. I found myself lost in the gym, when before I felt like an expert. I had mused to myself when personal trainers offered their services. I mean, come on, the instructions were right on the machines. Now, I’m not so sure. I went into the free weight room this weekend for the first time, and there were no instructions. Just a bunch of benches in different shapes, dumbbells, and barbells. I was stupid enough to go in there with no plan. I thought that I can make my own routine with the wealth of knowledge I had accumulated through different group exercise and DVD instructors. No such luck. For one, the lowest weight was 8 lbs. The most I’ve ever used and that all the instructors always recommended was 5-lb weights. There were barbells, but I’ve only ever tried them once before with guidance. I was concerned with hurting myself. I was also concerned with looking like a total idiot. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and I felt strangely watched. However, it could have also been because I was one of three girls in what I deem as No Woman’s Land. No matter I was determined to utilize what I believed was my right, so I ignored my feelings of intimidation and trudged on. I did two exercises in No Woman’s Land. The rest, I scurried back to Weight Machine Land. Not because of intimation, mind you, but because of plainly not knowing what to do. That evening I used Women's Strength Training Anatomy and exrx.net and I created a routine that I plan to use next time.

The last change I’ve made have been the hardest to implement simply because I'm having difficulty remembering to do it. I’ve decided to stretch my calves and hamstrings every day. Because my calves are extra tight, I’m prone to plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis. My recent bout of Achilles tendonitis had puzzled me because it came on when I wasn’t doing any high impact exercises at all. I realized later that I only stretch after a workout and being on exercise hiatus has also kept me from my stretching routine. This was when I decided to stretch my calves every day. I decided to also stretch my hamstrings while I’m at it. Even though they haven’t given me any problems, they are also extra tight and I’ve heard that extra tight hamstrings can result in back injures. The only problem now is figuring out a good time to do them.

Thank You, Friends

I don’t think I thank you all enough for your comments, encouragement, and knowledge. It is because of you I have gotten as far as I have. Although, I know that we’ve never met face to face, I consider you all my friends. Because of you I haven’t felt lonely since the birth of Teresa, and I have lost the urge to make new friends (which is probably not so good).

Earlier this week, I went jogging with Teresa in the jogging stroller around central park. As I stretched, I let Teresa play in the sand and another lady with a baby and stroller started talking to me and we got into a whole conversation. It was one of those talks were I felt that we connected at the get go. We said our good-byes and I then realized that she was hinting at maybe developing a friendship. Her baby was quite young and considering the time of day it was, she was probably a stay-at-home mom. I can relate to the loneliness that happens when there’s no work or school to go to, because I’ve been there. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a total recluse. There’s the occasional get-together and so forth, and they’re a lot of fun and all, but I really don’t have anyone to talk to except for Ly (which is not enough for me). I remember going to the park frequently with newborn (or kids) in tow; talking to every person I meet, hoping for a connection. Anything. And here was my connection with this lady in the park, and I didn’t care that I let the opportunity past. If it was the past me, I would have been drooling over this poor lady that she would have grabbed her baby and ran. I should probably make some real life friends eventually, but for now, I’m content. With everything.

I’m finally coming to grips with my weight loss and starting to feel confident that I will keep it off. I’m also having more sex with Ly without doubting his love or feeling uncomfortable. Sure, he wants to have sex a lot more now that I’m thinner, but I resolved that I should just enjoy it while I can. And believe me, sex works wonders on the relationship.

About my recent spiraling into chocolate hell. After I wrote my previous post, I looked at it before I hit published and I thought about the possible comments I would get when the solution hit me right there. Get the chocolate out of the house. Well, duh. My husband suggested it earlier, but he phrased it as him eating it all, throwing it away, or giving it away. Every single option was very unappealing. I mean these were MY chocolate, given to ME. (As you can tell, I’m extremely selfish when it comes to chocolate.) But then I thought of another solution. Have Ly bring my chocolates to his work and bring back after 2 weeks. When I told him what he would be doing he said, “to give out?” I said, “No! No! (waving hands vigorously) To GIVE BACK!” He laughed and agreed to it. Day three without them, and I’m doing extremely well calorie-wise.

Some of you may be wondering “What happened with intuitive eating?” Believe me, I’m still trying to practice it. This happened the last time I tried intuitive eating. I fooled myself into believing that I want to eat this stuff and that I’m not full, which can’t be true. How can my body be telling me that, when I feel so terrible afterwards? Something was lost in the connection and I couldn’t get my mind into what it was suppose to be into, which is why I’m glad I decided to continue recording food in-take regardless.

A Week of Intuitive Eating

I’ve been reading “Breaking Free From Compulsive Eating” by Geneen Roth, which I heard was an older edition of “Breaking Free From Emotional Eating”. Actually, I started a while ago but dropped it because of several reasons:

1) I had started reading it during my despair period when lost faith in myself, but I had gotten over it and no longer needed outside wisdom.

2) I had come across activities that the writer wanted me to complete. Because I tend to be exacting, I had wanted to do each activity before going on to the rest of the book. But I found the activities to be too demanding and overwhelming.

3) The new Harry Potter book came out, and I wanted to devote my reading time to that instead.

I continued reading “Breaking Free…” on Monday. Last week there were tons of family in town, therefore there were tons of get-togethers. I noticed that meal times together were scheduled later than regular times. Lunch at 2pm. Dinner at 8pm. This is probably because they were all waking up late from going out and staying up late every evening. As a highly regimented individual, this put me off, but I decided that I wanted to be more flexible and accommodating. Come Monday, after our last late-night get-together, I found myself eating breakfast at 10:30am! I had thrown myself off, but I couldn’t wait until an “appropriate” time. I told Ly of my dilemma and he said, “Why don’t you eat when you’re hungry?” What a concept, huh? And I started to think about Intuitive Eating and how Ly was a natural at it and how I wanted to live my life more like him and everyone else. So flexible and unrestricting. That was when I decided to continue reading “Breaking Free…”

That and because I had no idea how hunger felt like at its beginning stages and I was hoping that the book would describe it to me. Nope. She’s into the whole discover-things-for-yourself method. Which is not surprising coming from a be-in-touch-with-yourself technique like IE. She did, however, described methods of being more in tune with your hunger, which I tried to follow.

This time as I read the book, I decided to not follow it exactly. Instead I wrote down all the activities that I would someday like to do. Other than that, I was doing what I felt comfortable doing at the moment. I’m sure Geneen would have wanted it this way.

The most challenging concept was to remove distraction when eating. I found it easy to not watch TV or read when the family was in the house, because they were naturally distracting with their demands during meal times. And when they weren’t being distracting, it felt like a welcomed relief to not think of anything but my food. It was the day when the kids were at my in-laws did I found eating without distracting myself a challenge. It was lonely, and I couldn’t handle it. How pathetic, huh? There are others out there whom live alone, and I couldn’t handle one day of a quite house while I ate. So I sat myself down in front of the TV and watched until the loneliness went away. It was then that I was able to eat the rest of the meal in silence. Maybe someday, I will be more comfortable feeling the loneliness.

Last night, we had dinner at my in-laws’ and I discovered that practicing IE has helped me reach some kind of Zen-state when I ate. Things that made me react in the past didn’t this time. For one, I didn’t react to Linh noticing my eating habits. Normally, I would try to eat like everyone else when this occurs, but then I thought that she probably doesn’t think anything of it, because she has often embarked on her own eating habits. This was what was strange. I was able to think this all at the moment when usually I needed to reflect after the fact. It was as if time froze.

However, Ly’s incessantly offering me food did eventually bother me. There’s only so much Zen I can maintain. But I think I still did well, and I was more understanding of Ly’s behavior when in the past I would get angry with him. I was sitting and doing nothing for long periods of time, because the conversations at hand did not include me. It felt uncomfortable, and I would have been eating to fill it up but I was practicing IE. Ly probably felt uncomfortable at my discomfort, which was probably why he kept bothering me with food. This I was able to see, and I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t tapped into a different plane of eating.

Control

Last year, after Ly and I had the heart-to-heart about me needing to lose weight, he gave me his support through and through. Unfortunately, that meant policing what I ate and telling me how to go about my losing the weight. Being a naturally defiant person, I rebelled and we had another heart-to-heart.

It’s impossible to lose weight without support, but what happens when the support you get is not working? When Ly and I sat down for heart-to-heart part 2, I outlined to him how he can help me, and you know what? He disregarded it. Well not exactly. He said he would try, and the policing died down but did not totally disappear. He still occasionally tells me not to eat so-and-so and when I can treat myself. So annoying, but I’m learning to ignore him and others like him. Before I tried desperately to control my environment to ensure my success, and when I failed I would get angry with everyone around me. I too am a controlling person and get irritated when my environment is sabotaging my efforts. Now, I think I’ve changed. I decided a while ago that I would stop trying to control everything and work on controlling myself. It’s a struggle, but I think I’m getting pretty good at it.

One thing I use to do was force low-fat food on the family, now I buy food for myself and food for them. On a recent trip to the grocery store, Hunter asked for me to buy Cheetos, which I have a tendency to binge on when it’s around. I thought, “Here we go again.” I didn’t even think that I wouldn’t get the Cheetos that is how much I have changed in mentality. If it were me last year, I would have said “no” right away, because I knew it was a “trigger” food. Then I thought, why struggle? So I did ended up saying “no”. He can get Cheetos another time. Controlling the situation when I can is also a good idea.

Paradigm is a Shifting

I don’t want to deprive myself and I don’t want to starve, but I also want to lose weight. How do I do this? I’ve decided to look into diet and weight loss books again. I’ve had a run of not so good experiences from these books, but I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything from them. I just have to learn to not follow them to a T. I mean, a lot of these books are written by experts, right? But they don’t know me personally, so there’s no way they can modify their program to tailor to my personality and lifestyle. That’s up to me.

These are books on my wish list:
“The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan” by Barbara Rolls and Robert A. Barnett
“Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” by Geneen Roth
“The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” by Judith S. Beck

I will probably buy them as a way to reward myself (if I ever earn any anymore). For the month of June I only earned $1 and that was from turning down a tempting offer. I didn’t have a good run of with-in calorie range eating for the whole month! It could be because of my lack of motivation in the beginning of the month or it could be because of my little paradigm shift. Nonetheless, I’ve been doing poorly.

Yesterday, I had a baby shower to go to, and the food was all so good. It was at an odd time (2pm) and I ate poorly beforehand (chocolate covered almonds and a banana), so I was definitely hungry before the party. I went over 2,000 calories, and I felt guilty. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that chicken when I was already full. Maybe I shouldn’t have had 4 servings of tortilla chips. Maybe I should have eaten something less calorie dense before the party. This guilt is another thing I don’t want to live with, but what else will keep me on track?

On a good note, I found an older version of “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” on BookMooch. That should arrive shortly. I’m feeling confident that intuitive eating will help me accomplish my goals. I did some more researching, and I found a study that demonstrated its superiority over traditional methods (AKA behavior modification). It was only one study and I was only able to get the abstract, but it demonstrated its effectiveness after 2 years. Very promising.

I also did a little researching on CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) towards weight loss, and I found a lot of studies demonstrating its ineffectiveness. One study even demonstrated behavioral modification to be more effective in the short term and no difference between the two in the long term. However, there was one article that talked about a modified CBT approach that was effective. I was able to get the full article, and I’ll look into it later.

Emotional Eaters Forum

I need to deal with my emotional eating before it derails me, so I decided to join an emotional eaters forum. I feel strange in this forum, because I don’t feel I’m enough of an emotional eater to be a part of it. Many of the major participants’ situations are extreme, battling with a mental disorder and/or an eating disorder. Additionally, the fact that I’m a social worker is bound to come up, and I might be expected to be an expert (which I’m not). Never the less, here I am. And if I’m ever going to figure this thing out, it’ll probably be from this forum.

Jonestown Incident

Friday night, we returned home late when we started to watch a really good documentary about the Jonestown incident. Although it was really good, the images and implications kept me awake most of the night. I woke up early the next day, and I was truly dysfunctional. We painted this weekend, so our house was in utter chaos. In addition, we spent two nights at my parents’ house because of the chaos and paint fumes. It was disorienting for the kids and myself, and needless to say my sleep continued to suffer. Then every evening since then, Ly has been dragging myself and the kids to different places to get new window treatments, keeping us awake longer than usual. It is only this morning when I finally felt well rested. But because of everything, I have lost the urge to eat right and record it. And even though, I have no real cravings at the moment, I’ve been eating way over in calories. It’s depressing but understandable.

Since the Jonestown incident (not the actual one, but the one when I stayed up all night because I couldn’t stop thinking about the documentary incident), I have decided to reintroduce not watching TV or be on the computer one hour before bedtime.

Last Day of School

Monday was the last day of school. I walked through campus, doing my familiar things and missing them because it was the last time. The last time I was going to the library, the social work building, the admin building. The last time I was going to eat in the campus café. And the last time I was going to use the campus gym. I’m going to miss the familiarity of the machines that faced the mirrors, giving me the perfect view of my belly, reminding me that I still had a ways to go. That day, I noticed that my belly was smaller. I also noticed that I could see my biceps as I did lat pulls and flys, when I couldn’t before. This made me very happy.

Monday also marked the end of my routine as I’ve known it. It may sound strange, but trying to fit exercise without school will be more challenging. With school the kids were mostly with my mother-in-law, and I went to the gym while I was on campus or after internship. Now that I’ll be home for the time being, I will have to jockey for exercise time. The kids will still be seeing my mother-in-law, but for now it will only be twice a week. My kids are wild and they stressed her out. Asking her to watch them for two days seemed too much as it is. But I need time to organize and clean the house. It really fell to the way side while I was in school. Then I need the time to look for work. It would be too challenging to do these things with the kids around (they are wild).

Fooled by the Greenery

These past two weeks, staff meeting at my internship had been extended. To compensate they bought us lunch. Last week it was Chinese food and I was excellent. This week it was Panera, and I ate too much. I ate a huge salad with vinaigrette. In my mind, I thought that salad with vinaigrette would be inherently low in calories so I eat a lot, but when I looked it up it was 200 calories! In addition to that, I also ate a large sandwich. It was later on when I was feeling extremely full and drowsy that I realized the sandwich was too big to be considered ordinary portions. It must have been two ordinary sized sandwiches posing as one. I had fooled myself into thinking that I can eat a lot because it was a vegetarian sandwich, but I should have known by it’s creamy filling that it wouldn’t be low calorie. In fact it was 470 calories! And the large cookie, even when I only ate half of it was still 200 calories! (And here I was feeling proud of myself that I only ate half). So the total calories for lunch was 870! Whew! For being a “sandwich” place, they sure pack in the calories. But at least now I know. Next time I eat from Panera, I will only eat half of their sandwiches.

My Award System

Each day I will pay myself money, depending on how many days I was able to stay within my calorie range in the last 10 days, including the day of.
<8 out of 10 days $0.00
8 out of 10 days $0.50
9 out of 10 days $0.75
10 out of 10 days $1.00

Each 10 days I stay within my recommended calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein range I give myself a dollar.

Each time I turn down food despite peer pressure, I will pay myself $1.00

At the end of the month I will use the money to buy myself a weight loss related prize. If I didn’t earn any money, but I tracked food for 80% of the month, I will still award myself a prize that I do not pay for.

I will award myself every 100 days I am actively trying to lose weight (weighing myself weekly and recording intake).