Big and Beautiful

So I stepped on the scale this morning, and it suggested that I may be able to record a loss on Monday… Here’s to hoping I don’t screw it up this weekend!

 Breakfast: Ok, honest, I made my breakfast and then had to go to campus to help someone finish an assignment that’s due today. Well, it got left in the car so it ended up not getting eaten.  I usually don’t skip breakfast, so I was a little surprised when lunch rolled around and that was actually when it first occured to me that I didn’t have my smoothie.

Lunch: My classmates and I went to the burger place that is in the building next door.  I ended up with a grilled chicken sandwhich and salad bar.

Dinner: I had left over Taco meat, so I ate two tacos (with lettuce, tomato, and cheese), then a bean burrito (with the same toppings) smothered in cheese sauce (Don’t worry! It was low fat cheese sauce.)

Tomorrow is going to be a little bit more difficult.  I have a meeting an hour away right at the time I usually eat dinner, and it’s at Braum’s.  If you’re not familiar with this chain, they have THE BEST icecream in the world… I think I’m going to pack a sandwhich and some fruit to take with me in the car, and eat it when I’m about halfway there so that I’m really not hungry by the time I arrive.  I’ll just keep telling myself that because there’s one within walking distance to my apartment (seriously, it’s less than a quarter of a mile from my apartment, I can see it out my front window), it’s nothing special therefore no excuses. 

Just a warning - you may learn a little bit more about me than you ever wanted to.

 I’ve always been a bit of a prude, and because of this I HATE lingerie shopping, though it be a necessary evil.  Fortunately, everyonce in a while my mom passes a Penny’s box my way and says, “here’s some underclothes I ordered for you.” (Ok, yes, I’m 24 I really should be doing that myself, but I’m just too cheap, and have I said I hate lingerie shopping?) I think part of this is a self-image issue…. a lot of people use panties and bras to make themselves look and feel sexy, and I can just hear people think as they walk past me, “What’s she looking at that for? Nothing she can wear will make her look good.”

Well, tonight I wanted to procrastinate writing a paper, so I go to Wal-Mart and where do I end up? The lingerie department.  Well… they had some nighties that were silky and felt really good (I’ve always been a sucker for silky things, my pillow cases all growing up were made of the stuff). They had them in pj’s (which is normally what I wear), long night gowns and short night gowns.  I’ve actually been feeling good about myself lately, noticing places where I think the fat is disappearing (like my waist and my butt [thank god!]) and I guess this helped possess me to buy one of the long nighties. Only I bought it in a size too small - on purpose.  I figured I could hang it in my closet, and that way when I finally get down to that weight, I could really feel good about myself.  LIke I said, this may seem a little silly, but I havn’t owned any sexy clothes ever in my life, period. I’ve never had a serious boyfriend (ok, I’ll admit the only boyfriend I’ve ever had lived four hours away and he asked me in a letter if I’d be his girlfriend… then I didn’t hear from him again for the next 2 or 3 years).

Well, where this is going is that I went ahead and put it on when I got home, ya know, just for kicks (since I wasn’t expecting it to fit). What dya know?  It actually didn’t look half bad.  It’s a little tighter than I normally wear my clothes, but I’m guilty of baggy clothes.  I still put it in the back of my closet, and am going to wait a little longer to actually wear it, since the whole purpose of buying it was for a little motivation. I figured I’d save it for my 180-goal reward. 

 I still need something for 200 though.

Breakfast:  scrambled egg, orange, toast, glass of milk

Activity: 40 minute low-impact cardio.  This is one of the routines on my step exercise DVD, and it actually just referred to it as “Low Impact Step,” so I decided I woudl do it for variety thinking it woudl be equivalent the normal but, but wow.  I was tired at the end of it. I was thinking that I would add an extra day, but I think this was worth two days of the other.

Lunch: Ham salad sandwhich

Dinner: Hamburger, greek salad.

Man, I hate my Tuesdays.  They’re already booked with class from 10:30-11:45, a meeting from 12:30 - 1:30, class again at 2:00 - 3:20, 3:30 - 5:20, then I teach 5:30-7:30.  By the time I get home, I just want to crash.  Good news though - even though I didn’t pack my lunch, I think I made some great lunch choices. 

Breakfast: Cereal, orange

Lunch: turkey wrap with pepper jack cheese

             strawberries, cantaloupe, and a muffin (it’s prepackaged by the snack shop this way).

Dinner: Left over steak (4 oz), cheesy mash potatoes, and mixed veggies.

There was somethign I was going to rant about, but in my current exhausted state (I actually woke up 2 hours early to try and get some work done. Didn’t work) I can’t seem to remember what it was though.  Maybe later.

Down half a pound, and I’ve lost half an inch on my waist.  I should be happier about that, but for some reason I’m not.

Breakfast: 1/4 of a 6 inch Subway breakfast sub.

Lunch: Salad with a little bit of italian dressing, ham salad sandwhich

Dinner: Salad with peanut dressing, asian noodles with spicey peanut sauce, couple ounces of steak. 

Ok, the steak wasn’t originally in my menu for today, but after I finished making the noodle thing, it really didn’t taste all that good, so I ended up eating only a fourth of it.  I was still a little hungry, so I cut a small piece off of my left-over steak and ate it. 

I also did a half hour of step pilates after breakfast.  I’m always clueless about whether I should eat breakfast then do my exercise, or exercise first.  I usually end up eating breakfast first because I know if I wait I’ll just be hungrier and more likely to eat more. 

As for my 4 ounces of meat… According to http://www.mypyramid.com , a typical diet for someone of my height trying to lose weight should only have 5 ounces of meat and beans a day.  I reserve one ounce for an egg in the morning or sandwhich at lunch.    BTW: Thanks for the suggestions to freeze the steaks.  That didn’t even really occur to me that I could do that with cooked steak. 

 I really should be writing a paper about sustainability, but I don’t want to, so here’s my rant on Biggest Loser -

The people on that show are insane!  I only saw one episode, so maybe I shouldn’t be judging, but I saw the part where they were weighing in and I was flabbergasted at what I was hearing (and seeing).  The guys were down like 15-20 pounds from the previous week (or that was the impression I gotted) and the gals routinely down 10 or so. Comeon, how healthy can that be? I know they’re supposedly under the supervision of professionals, but how much are these “professionals” getting paid to say these people are safe?  And then, are they really learning anythign about real-world loss and maintenance?  There was this one gal who lost “only” 3 pounds, and she was in tears saying that that was really unexpected and she tried really hard ot lose more. And everyone else was talking about how disappointed they were.  I just wanted to hug her and tell her what a great job she’d done.  I’ve been stuck at the same weight for about two months - I woudl love to lose 3 pounds in a single week!

What also concerns me is the message that this show is sending to the rest of the world.  Sad as it is, there’s a lot of people out there who take these reality shows to be just that - real. So what must some of these people think who watch the show, see these people exercising, eating (do they? I didn’t see that much), and getting these incredible results?  It may really set people up for failure.  They may not realize until they go out to do it themselves how hard it is.  The idea of the show - getting people to lose weight and get healthy - in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad, but I don’t think they show the process in a reasonable light. 

Ok, so I know I havn’t been very good about posting my meals on here, but honest, I’ve written them down each day.  I was doing really good until yesterday.  See, my parents came to town so we could go to a Lettermen concert, and you all have heard about my eating habits when my parents are around.

 I really need to stop blaming my parents though. They don’t control what I put in my mouth - I do.  Yet, I feel so self-conscious when I don’t finish a meal or when I turn down the piece of cake.  One time (don’t remember when) when I didn’t eat a lot my mom made some comment about how I didn’t eat a lot - and it wasn’t a compliment. It was more of a “what’s wrong with you?” type tone that the comment was made in.  My dad, though, for the most part has been more cooperative and a time or two scolded my mom - for example, she found out that I really like the Mint 3 Musketeers, so she bought a bag of the miniatures for me. My dad, when he saw that made the comment, “She’s done so good at losing so much weight, and you’re going to tempt her by buying candy only she will eat?”  But at the same time, he doesn’t help. Like for breakfast this morning, he bought fried chicken for us to eat (we were actually camping in Wal-Mart’s parking lot).  Fried chicken! For breakfast!  I ate a banana and one leg, and when I didn’t eat a second leg my mom asked if I was sure I didn’t want a second, then asked if there was something wrong with the chicken. 

Last night, we went to a semi-local steak place (it’s local to the town it’s in which is about 20 minutes from where I live), and they serve 14 oz ribeyes and 8 oz filet’s for 15$, and 23 oz sirloins for 17$.  Well, I go ahead with the ribeye so that I would have a little left over for later this week, and my dad gets the ribeye as well and my mom the filet.  None of us finish (I eat about half of mine), and we all get to-go boxes.  Today, my parents insist on leaving theirs with me to finish.  I appreciate the thought and gesture, but I figured I have about 24 oz of steak now, and I’m trying to limit myself to 4 oz of meat per day… I’m going to be eating beef every day for the next week. Yikes! talk about a heart attack weighting to happen…

Exercise was a little lacking this week… I got 30 minutes in on Monday and Friday, but missed the third day.  I was going to try to add a fourth day this week, but I don’t know if I will. I may be doing good just to get the third in again.  I just ran out of time with trying to get my apartment really clean. 

On Friday when I did my daily weigh-in, the scale gave me a 201.5, but this morning it was back up to 203. We’ll see what it says tomorrow when I do my “official” weekly weigh-in.

Watched an episode of The Biggest Loser…. you’ll get that rant later in the week.  For now it’s back to homework.

I was doing so well (IMO) and then Friday night, something just…snappped.

Friday: Breakfast and Lunch: I really don’t remember…. I felt good about my choices at the time, so they couldn’t have been too bad.

Dinner: I was out with friends at a bar and some of them wanted to eat there because of really good hamburgers.  Well, I had just had a hamburger the day before, so I went for the chicken cesar salad, dressing on the side.  I avoided the shared cheese fries, however drank a shirley temple and a corona.  Overall, not great, but not terrible.

But then, when I was heading home around 12:30 after playing some Apples to Apples, I got this craving for Mexican. What do I happen to pass but Taco Bueno. I order a beef “Nachos muchos” and ate about half of it before going to bed.  If you’re not familiar, these are tortilla chips covered in nacho cheese, beef, beans, tomatoes, and lettuce.  Definately NOT a good bedtime snack.

Saturday: feeling incredibly guilty about Friday night, I eat only a cereal bar for breakfast on my way down to the city for a meeting.  I take an apple for a snack, in case the cereal bar didn’t cut it.  I get to my meeting at 0900, with the plan of leaving at 1200.  well, at 1130 the host goes for pizza and gets back right at 1200, perfect time to avoid the calories.  Well, I  hadn’t taught my chapter yet, and since my instructor certification has lapse, I need to teach 2 hours in the presence of other instructors to be current. So, I agreed I would stay and teach my chapter so I woudl get one of those hours in.  I manage to still avoid the pizza, but don’t get out of there until 1330ish.  I head home to my parents, and eat the apple on the way to my first stop where i woudl get lunch and buy cheap gas.  So, that puts my actual “lunch” at 1530.  When I’m traveling, I hate stopping, so I choose a gas station that has a restaurant built in - Wendy’s, which isn’t know for developing healthy menus. I end up with a 1/4 pund cheeseburger and fries, which I eat all of.   I get home at 1800, and at 1900 my dad brings home Long John Silver’s - fried, of course.  I manage to get away with just 1 piece of fish, 1 piece of chicken, cole slaw and corn.  Not great, but at least I didn’t eat a ton of it.

Sunday: We drive down to check out my parents lake home, which has been under renovation since June.  Breakfast had to be half a PB and J because they had nothing for a decent breakfast.  My dad wanted to go to Montana Mikes, which I like but was dreading since they were saying that we were having roast for dinner - two beef meals in a day?  Then he suggested Red Lobster and let me choose, so I chose red lobster knowing I could order the shrimp scampi.  Well, I end up with Shrimp scampi and fried fish, but make up for the fried stuff by ordering broccoli instead of buttery baked potato.  We go grocery shopping before heading home, and my parents decide on steaks instead of roast (the only roast they had was huge and they thought the steaks looked better).  I make a point of telling my dad to get the smallest one in the case for me.  So dinner was the steak (I’m going to guess 8 oz), mashed potatoes, and garlic steamed veggies.

Then today…. My mom and I went to Lone Star for lunch, and we both ordered the all-you-can-eat ribs with steamed veggies and salad.  I got the dressing on the salad (and they didn’t have a vinegarette) and I ate ALL my ribs.  My mom only ate a couple of hers (her taste buds are changing with the treatments, and she’s having a hard time keeping food down  - is it bad that I’m a little envious of that?) and she insisted that I bring her left overs back with me so I wouldn’t have to cook tonight.  I try telling her that I’ll probably just eat a sandwhich that I don’t need ribs twice in one day, but she wouldn’t let me leave without them.   I still ended up just having a cup of ramen and some crackers with cheese (I made a cheese ball, but all the cheese was fat free).  Then, even though it was getting kinda late I went ahead and did my 1/2 step pilates since this week is going to be nuts.  (I’m having health insurance issues, my computer isn’t working properly, I have to get my scooter into the shop, and then I have makeup labs from today because of no classes. Oh, and I need to try to get my kayak registered again. But that may just have to wait.)

Oh, I almost forgot. On the drive back here from my parents, I had a mint Musketeers and a Reese’s Crunch bar.  Ay ay ay.

Well. I have more to comment on, but I have a ton of homework since I didn’t do any this weekend. In the meantime, read this article about infants who are obsessed about their look:

http://lifestyle.msn.com/familyandparenting/raisingkids/articleoprah.aspx?cp-documentid=5980998&GT1=10822

A so-so day.

Breakfast: Cereal in milk and a banana

Lunch: I left my PB&J at home, so I ended up at an on-campus burger shop with a couple other grad students.  2 NSV’s from this: Instead of ordering fries I got the salad bar, and even though I could have gotten soda at no extra cost, I filled my glass with water.

Snack: Some goldfish crackers (I really don’t know how many… it was actually more like mindless eating while I looked over some data, but I didn’t eat all of the crackers that I packed for lunch so it couldn’t have been too many).

Dinner: Chicken kabobs, it was actually more veggies than chicken (which is good) and I used light salad dressing for the marinade.

Snack: Airpopped popcorn (an airpopper was one of my christmas gifts) with artificial butter.

Took a day off from exercise.

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I last posted.  I really need to get better at this.

I really can’t remember what all I’ve eaten in the past week….. I think the biggest no-no was that on Monday some friends of mine and I went to a new Thai place in town and I had Pad Woodson.  I ate half of it at the restaurant, totally intending to bring the rest home and eat it Tuesday for dinner.  However, by the end of the night I ended up heating and eating the rest of it.  Oops. 

I have been more active.  I’ve been out to “play tennis” a couple of times (and when I say play tennis, I really mean chasing the balls around the tennis court [and even outside] because I am incapable of hitting the ball and sending it where it should go) and I sprung for a pilates step.  Really shouldn’t have, financially, but this way I really have NO EXCUSES for not doing something. Like today, it would have been easy enough to be like, “Oh, it’s too dark, it’s called, it’s raining” and not go out walking, but with the step the weather was a non-issue.  I’ve gone through the 40 minutes workout DVD that came with it three times already.  Definiately is a workout.

I watched “Queen Sized” the other night on Lifetime.  I really had issues with the movie.  For one, Nikki Blonsky’s character was so rude to everyone but her friend.  There was one scene where a guy who she hadn’t really gotten along with in the past tried talking to her at a party and all she said was, “Look, we’ve never been friends. Let’s not act like it now.”  How much would it have hurt her to keep up some friendly small-talk?  She had such low self-esteem that she was projecting that on everyone, assuming that no one would ever try to be nice, and used that as an excuse to be mean and rude.  It’s almost like what the girl at that party last week was saying.  And she was absolutely horrible to her mother.  sure, maybe her mom was being a little pushy about her needing to eat better and such, but it was always well-intentioned and never crossed the line into derrogatory.  

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, here is my log for today:

Breakfast: Omelet with mushrooms, glass of milk

Lunch: Ramen noodles

Snack: Grapes, strawberries, and a muffin

Dinner: It was like a sloppy joe, only made with BBQ sauce instead of ketchup and brown-sugar, mixed veggies, and hot chocolate.

Activity: 40 minutes on the step.

Yesterday wasn’t too bad.  For breakfast I had an omelet with a little bit of cheese and onions.  Lunch was on-campus, and the healthiest option I could find was grilled veggies, with sesame oil and thai sauce.  Finally, dinner was some leftover roasted chicken and “Greek Salad”  The greek salad was really good.  Here’s what it was:

Half a cucumber, sliced first lenghtwise then thinly sliced normal-like

Tomato, cut into bite size pieces

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 table spoons feta cheese.

Oregano

It was REALLY delicious.  It was supposed to have lettuce in it, but I forgot to add it in.

A couple of days ago (Monday, maybe?), I was at a football party and a comment was made that has been making feel really self-conscious.  One of the people at the party is a flight attendant, and someone asked her if it was true that they make “obscenely obese” people buy two seats.  She said that she really hasn’t seen anyone big enough to be in that situation, but that there was this one woman one time who was big enough that she hanged over into the aisle.  The big deal about this person was that she was apparently extremely rude when it came to order her drink and the attendant made the comment, “Just because they have no self-control, they think they can be rude to us.”   I didn’t make any comment, but it bothered me that #1: She linked obesity to rudity and #2: She linked obesity to self-control.  I don’t know why that’s bothered me so much, but it does.  There’s so many reasons why someone can be obese without it boiling down to self-control.  For me, it was the way I grew up.  I have always been overweight and while yes, it does take some control not to stick that brownie in my mouth, it’s not that simple.  There’s so many psychological cues and triggers.  I don’t know… Is that how all extremely skinny people view overweight/obese people?  If so, then it’s no wonder teenage kids are afraid to eat.