In with the new.

The new year is upon me, and i have decided to make a fresh start. Holiday eating was time-consuming and resulted in the all-encompassing extra ten pounds of holiday weight that I had so painstakingly lost earlier in the year. Blast. So i have begun a-fresh. The incessant baking was fun while it lasted however, it left me craving cake at the oddest times e.g. one oclock in the morning, when it is seriously too late to bake a cake anyway. Something good did happen though with all the holiday baked goods. I realized something that I had forgotten. Why I am an excellent baker. To be sure, I concocted many a culinary delight including (but not limited to): a duchess spice cake (for my love for christmas, which he tells me was very good), two batches of homemade fudge, 3 kinds of cookies, rice krispie treats (well lets face it, these arent hard to make), and angel biscuits. So I have some left over ingredients with which I plan to make a homemade cheese cake and some banana bread tonight and on new years eve, but other than that I plan to put a stall on my baking at least for a while. Maybe I will make a special treat for myself and my love on valentines. It is amazing though how much weight you lose, however, when you stop eating cookies. I have lost about 2 pounds so far when I started watching my intake again. Right after Christmas I went out and bought some fruits and vegetables and salad fixings and I have been doing my best to partake of them everyday since Christmas. My roommate also baked us some delicious baked potatoes the other night, I have to do that soon as eating the skins are good for my cholesterol and that is just what I did. I am going to do my best to forget what has gone before, and forge ahead with what lies in front and begin my weight loss exhibition once again. I am glad that I am trying before the new year however, to begin with good habits that way I will feel like they are not as foreign to me to continue in the coming year. I really want to reach my goal this year. With my cholesterol problems and my age on the rise, it is more important than ever now for more reasons than just vanity that I get into that smaller size. I am hoping then to use this blog more than I have in the past as a means of holding myself accountable and actually reaching my goal. I have it in my head. I am in the 180s again with the onslaught of Christmas. But i would like to be in he 140s or 150s at the very least. If I could reach the 120s that would be amazing and I could model, for reals. That would be my ultimate goal if I could but I know that once I get to the 150s I am a healthy weight for my height and body type. I can pull off the 60s but the 50s are best. So really 30 pounds in the coming year would be great! People do it all the time. Especially on the biggest loser! I can too! I have to!

Christmastime is here....

You know the rest. But what they dont tell you in that song is, temptation to eat is here. I know I was complaining, probably alot. But the truth is I had kept off maybe on the whole about 10 pounds for almost a year. actually a bit more than that from the time i was at my heaviest. However, with christmas upon us, and goodies available freakin every where, not so. I am almost back to where I was damn it. I dont know how my boyfriend does it. He usually loses weight this time of year. I tend to subconsciously hibernate for the winter. The older I get the more I hate the cold. I guess the more I eat to compensate for this and then in turn the less my coat actually fits me well enough to keep the cold out. I keep telling myself if I can just get this paper done that is finally due in two days I will start working out again and focus more energy on eating. And to I will have more time for my boyfriend and friends (especially those of you I havent really seen all semester). The failing the comps hasnt actually given me insentive to lose, it just makes me want more food to wallow in. Alas. My ass. Oh well no time like the present. maybe next time you hear from me I will have good news. Until then, keep up the fight, try not to let Christmas depress you too much, and dont take any wooden nickels...or in the words of the immortal Edward R. Murrow,"Good night, and good luck."

Yes, Jillian.

I have picked up my Jillian Michaels book again and have started reading. I really want to make progress and she seems like perhaps the lady that can help me do it. I have done two days of her work out dvd called 30 day shred. She and Bob Harper (whom I also greatly admire) are both trainers on the show The Biggest Loser.




Well I was doing alright with this, 3 days in a row for her DVD but then yesterday I was stressing out over a paper that was due, and my muscles felt so sore that I watched Hamlet (that is what the paper is on) instead. So on Thursday I took a break from the DVD. But Friday I went right back to it. She is right that some of the moves in the workout get easier the more you do them, however, I still find myself doing the pushups on my knees and not my toes and my knees feel awful when doing certain exercises. But if I dont pass out after, then I do feel strong when I do the exercises.

I have been trying to read more of the book which is hard with school things to do, and with the first few chapters being focused on change from the inside out, they tend to be ones that you can only take a little at a time anyway, if you really are trying to absorb what she is saying.

I would recommend Jillian to anyone, she is tough, but she has helped alot of people lose a lot of weight. Maybe she will help me.

The latest on the Weightloss front

That title makes me feel important. as if I am a journalist from behind enemy lines talking about a war whose title ends in "storm" or "shield." but alas I have no such aspirations. I merely would like to put a stop to the extra poundage advancing across my ass. Things have been stressful for the past week or so. I have been studying for comps and taking them, and my baby hasn't been feeling too good health-wise, and money has been a little scarce. Actually the last one kind of works in my favor, as it forces me to eat at home and make conscious decisions about what I put into my body. Therefore, with the initial stressfulness my weight was starting to creep up, but with the onset of more stress, it has gone down again. Not the healthiest way to lose weight but then I dont think that the 4 pounds I lost the wrong way is going to make me need sally struthers or a sponsor. (Sorry, that was a horrible joke that half of you may not get because you are too young to remember). Anyway, as I was saying, so I have lost some. Oh and I have been trying to buy better things to eat at home, as I got my report back from the Dr. recently and I had only lowered my LDL cholesterol by a few points. He said to keep trying and to follow the diet handout that they had given me and exercise would help lower it too.
He also added as an after thought, "Oh and losing weight would help as well." Ha! You and me both want it then buddy.
I feel as though I am making progress. I am more conscious of what I am putting in my body. And I try to find healthier ways to prepare things, with my fat free milk and cheese and heart healthy spread and whole grains. I am trying. I still need a hormel shelf stable turkey dinner with gravy sometimes (so good!) but I am trying. I even bought a two liter of diet coke, that I actually drank. I need to watch my intake of baked goods and packaged foods, but I think I am making baby steps. With all the food allergies out there now I have been trying to eat more organic foods which makes be feel better. I think that my mom was surprised last night. As we were collaborating on Thanksgiving dinner on the phone, i was telling her that I could bring organic mashed potatoes and organic green beans. I also asked if beacause I want to make pumpkin pie this year if she cared if I substituted whole wheat flour and heart-healthy spread for regular flour and crisco. I think that she was surprised to say the least. But she had no problems with it. So I will do my best to find a good pumpkin pie recipe, and bon-apetit!

Breaking the string of Yo-yo dieting...or why the hell am i this fat?

Ok, so the weight loss was short-lived. I knew it would and could be but I hoped it wasnt. The simple fact is that I like to eat. I eat when I am happy I eat when I am sad, I eat when I am pissed off and i eat when I am sick. And frankly I have been sick for over a month now. I have had some kind of nagging throat pain and nasal post-drip shit for weeks and weeks. It is the kind of illness that doesnt make you feel bad enough to die, just to pray for death. So here I am on my second round of antibiotics a z-pak to be sure. I was taking some other cycline that was not doing anything, but now I am feeling a little better, I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in weeks yesterday. To offset my pity party Mcdonlds that I had because my paper for class is late and I have lost my train of thought and have no idea where the freak I am. If you are a praying person please pray for me and my paper. I only have tonight to finish it, so I best go. But if I have good news regarding this I will write. I am hoping to go to the gym again on Friday. But I must write seven pages tonight. So until later. adieu.

How did that happen?

It seems that just 3 days ago I was whiny and wondering if I would ever lose weight again, and now I have. I whined to my roommate and she suggested that we go to the gym. And so we did! we worked out hard and lifted. And as luck or providence would have it yesterday, I locked my keys in my car and instead of getting a ride to my boyfriend's for the 3 miles to get a spare, I walked it! yay me. (I did get a ride back however 6 miles was too ambitious for even me yesterday.) I was 3 pounds lighter this morning. it made me happy.

If I can just keep the momentum going maybe I can keep my idea of losing another 10 or 12 pounds by christmas, and maintaining it. Then I will think about more after the first of the year. I hope I can.

I have been on my poverty diet also, which means eating alot at home instead of eating out, and i think that is helping too!

You know, having high cholesterol really does the trick.

You know nothing makes you actively change your lifestyle and try to eat better and in turn lose weight like the threat of heart disease. I have lost about 5 pounds so far and I am hoping to do more. There are inches that I have on my waist that I need to lose in order to be in better shape physically (according to this little sheet they gave me at the doctor's office. I went to the Doctor recently for a physical because I had been feeling so crappy physically lately, and I found that my LDL cholesterol was high on top of everything else. It wouldnt surprise me at all if this was majorly attributing to my breathing problems and panic attacks. I do well with eating more healthily, until I have withdrawal and start eating something that is bad for me. But on the whole I have been eating as many whole grains and fruits as I can get my hands on, cutting out as much sugar as possible, and soft drinks, and fast food and eating more veggies. I should have brought some fruit today, but in turn I had to get something out of the vending machine (very bad for you)I had to get some shit called 'sweet and salty mix' because I was absolutely starving. I will not be caught like this again I assure you. The same thing happened yesterday and I was forced to get nutter bars and potato chips. Then it like a gateway drug influenced me to get a cookie from starbucks with a tall frapuccino and a nachos supreme from TB (none of which stayed with me for very long by the way). That kind of junk makes you feel awful and it doesnt give you energy. Especially if like me you have not been used to having it for several days. But I tried to make amends for it last night as I have at lunch today with a salad and fruit and whole wheat bread. I have even had egg whites with fat free cheddar on them today. Yay for me. so I will press on and keep you posted. I am hoping to get my cholesterol checked again relatively soon to see if i am making progress. So until next time, stay the course, don't take any wooden nickels, and remember me to the little woman.

Pure American water = glorified tap water

The other day, I was at my local neighborhood Wallgreens store. For those of you who have no Wallgreens in your town or city, it is a drugstore. And if you are up really late, sometimes it is the only place open. So I know that I needed to buy my requisite case of water the other day, but I was in a rush. I didnt want to pay alot for my water so I grabbed what seemed cheap. I was just going to pick up one bottle and then buy more later. (For those of you that are hyper concerned with the environment, I am too, it is just so hard for me to drink enough water unless i have a bottle in front of me. I am not trying to fill up landfills, I swear.) I also bought a washable bottle from Wild Oats but I don't use it enough, or maybe I dont wash it enough. Not sure which.

So I bought a bottle of Pure American. I thought: you know even cheap water is good most of the time. So I also I thought to myself: Oh I dont have to buy Ozarka, I will just get what's cheaper. And so I did.

You know that first couple of sips didn't taste so bad. Maybe I was just so thirsty that i didnt notice. Then there was a slight after taste. I did find however that I didnt really want to drink all of it. So I put the bottle in the fridge overnight and I would drink the rest later. Most bottled waters you can do this for like a day or so and they are still fine tasting. So I went to it the next day, and it was awful. It tasted like tap water, but tap water with something else in it. Real metallicy tasting. but not really good tap water. I mean I live in Memphis, supposedly we have really good tap water, and in my 31 years living here and then traveling to other locales, I have found that this is true.

But this bottel didnt even tast like memphis tap water, it was much worse. I think my worst experience with water was when I went to a Kenlake resort with my mom, I will never forget...We were eating in the hotel dining area, and I ordered a water, and they brought me back a liquid tinged with brown in a glass. I didnt realize how lucky I was until I saw that glass. Memphis may not have alot going for us, but we do have pretty good water. Oh well, needless to say I will not buy Pure American again. It wasn't very pure after all. Ozaka, kroger, or schnucks water from now on!

gaining and maintaining

Not much new to report. I have not really been making much effort to lose. I am trying to avoid the self deprecation which comes from believeing that I can never lose weight. I guess if I were to put on the extra 10 pounds that I lost a little over a year ago I would find it hard not to do that. I am currently hovering around 178-180 somtimes 181 on my moms scales, but I havent really been trying that hard either. Yesterday other people fed me, and I bought myself a frappuccino. I love frappuccinos, especially the caramel ones. I have been spending all ofmy time in fact in trying to find a new place to live, and in getting my financial aid settled for registering for my last MA credit that I didnt know until this semester that i needed to take. Also, if I do not graduate this semester, I will find myself losing the credits that I took in 2003 and all these loans will be for naught and I need to take the comprehensive exam instead of lollygagging with my thesis anylonger.

Therefore, I will begin concentrating on exercise again once I start my semester, and move to my new apt.

To eat or not to eat, that is the question.

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the outrageous fortune of weighing 180 pounds for 6 years, or to suffer the withdrawl from not emotionally eating....hmmm. what would shakespeare do?

I doubt he had a weight problem at all. There were no Starbucks, Wendy's, Taco Bell, or McDonalds on every street corner in Renaissance Stratford upon Avon. They were too busy "rebirthing" interesting things. Oh I would imagine they had tasty things to eat. But none so fattening I am sure as the Nachos Supreme, Chicken Mcnuggets, and Grande Caramel Frappucino with whipped cream.

I am still trying, but it is painfully slower going than it was before. I havent been walking in about a week. I feel as though this is becoming my confessional rather than my weight loss journal. Forgive me father, its been a week and a half since my last walk.

oh well. In a kind of generalized way I have been trying to keep track of calories but I have only been able to do this in a very general and really kind of succeeding in a kind of damage control and not really losing at all. I should plan better and not eat out so much. maybe I will walk today, but all this stress at home with trying to plan to move and organizing and cleaning and packing and staying at my mom's has not helped. I have no real motivation except when things are tight and I need new clothes and I get frustrated with things not fitting. And then I may have to end up taking a comprehensive exam this fall to finish my degree instead my thesis whick I have agonized over emotionally for years. This is lots of change for a Jenny that likes things warm and cozy. Argh.

fried blackberry pie and full circle organic fat free milk

Can there be any felicity superior to that? surely losing the weight I want, would be. I just keep on with it though. I dont know whats wrong with me. I am now at the weight I was before starting my vacation 182. I hate myself sometimes. I worry that this is going to keep on and on and on, in spite of my Jillian Michaels book I bought and all the fresh veggies in my fridge. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I am going to watch a Jane Austen movie and go to bed. In the words of Scarlett: "I will think about that tomorrow."

"After all....After all, tomorrow is another day."

Time for an update

sometimes I feel like I have so far to go that what is the point of an update anyway. But I did have some interesting progress on my vacation. I walked over 41 miles to be exact. That was from Wednesday to Wednesday. I had spent the first two days doing some work at my mom's house for which I was grossly over-paid. lets face it, it was probably charity on her part. when I wanted to do something good for someone else and not expect any remuneration. Oh well. The money came in handy in a pinch anyways. Thanks mama.

ok so those first days although I worked and sweated, it was to no avail as we ate so much why I was there. Taco Bell the first day and Sonic and cracker Barrel the next. Come on...cracker barrel, you know who can resist it? And you know that I am not going to get one of those shady kind of salads. You know the ones that are only pretending. With tons of iceberg lettuce and some tomatoes and carrot shreds and a few rounds of cucumber. When I go to Cracker Barrel, or "the crack house" as my friend used to call it when working there years ago, I am going to get chicken and dumplins' or mashed potatoes and gravy, or vegetables that are cooked in so much butter that they lose all sense of proportion and healthiness.

7/18/09
several days have passed since this proposed update. I have lost and gained back 3 pounds. Maybe I will go upstairs at work and weigh on the scales to see exactly how much I have gained and lost. but I hope that my hope is not over. Since returning to work it has not been as easy to exercise my brains out like I was on vacation. I only did 2.5 miles yesterday. And today I might not get to any walking if I go to this concert that I am supposed to have free tickets to. Oh well. I did buy fresh vegetables and fruit at a local market (called Easy Way for those of you locals that know it) yesterday in hopes of renewing my resolve in eating better, and I bought the Jillian Michaels book Winning by Losing in hopes that I might lose big like all the the people on the biggest loser. I mean if they can do it, wouldnt it follow that I could too? At 179 though, I have my doubts.

walking off with the pounds

for the past 3 days, I have walked 5 miles a day.

progress

well I just walked 5 miles. I hope that helps. Also I will try my damnedest to stay in my calorie limit today.

Today the first day of the rest of your life.

I am home on vacation. I want to make the most of it, I want to lose weight. my goal is 125 it would be nice to be at that goal by next year. I would settle for 140 or 150, but my ultimate goal is 125. just to see what it feels like. One problem. I have and eating fixation. I eat when I am happy, I eat when I am sad. I eat when I am scared, I eat when I cant breathe good, I eat when I am breathing fine. I eat for many reasons, exept very rarely for the most obvious reason that I should...that I am hungry. I have gained and lost the same 5-10 pounds for the past year and I am sick of it. I think I need a digital camera so I can track my progress or lack there of. when I get to where I want to be then I can wear what I want to wear and I it will help me to be motivated to be who I want to be. I am going to go for a walk this afternoon. in the heat. I want to sweat, and I want to suffer this weight to get off my body. when I take jeremy to work, that is what I am going to do. I am going to walk a long ass way. Also when I get home from that I may even confront my chain smoking neighbor to stop chain smoking and using so many allergy prducing plug ins in the apt building. she is making me crazy and I will seriously have to consider moving.