Marigold’s Losing It!

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                Have any of you seen a news show or read a story about “Adult Picky Eaters”? Those crazy folks who have some crazy mental issues, and as such, never progressed beyond the 6-year-old phase of “I hate vegetables!”?

                I’m a borderline adult picky eater. I mean, I am a picky eater, but I have a considerably longer list than some of the hardcore picky eaters. Hardcore PEs typically only eat carbs, and crappy ones at that. White bread, pasta, potatos, fries. Usually dairy products such as cheese, milk, and ice cream. Fruit is rarely on the menu (usually just apples), veggies are typically off the menu completely. PEs have problems with texture, a tomato is the frequently cited least favorite food-the slimy center with the seeds-blech! Another weird thing is that PEs don’t like their food mixing…something yucky on the plate that touches a different food contaminates it. Many picky eaters fear going out to eat at restaurants, because many places serve no edible foods, and the eater is forced to order something not on the menu or not eat. One picky eater almost had to get divorced because his father in law took him to a fancy Italian restaurant, and the PE ordered a grilled cheese.

                I’m not quite so bad. I do eat meat, although I am somewhat choosy, the concept of meat isn’t a problem for me. I can tolerate several fruits: apples, oranges (and their cousins), bananas, coconut, some melons. However, my diet is still mainly carbs, and more or less completely lacking vegetables. “You’ve just never had well-prepared vegetables!” You say. “Try it, you may like it!” You say.  You think I’m just being juvenile because I only eat junk food and don’t want to eat an vegetables.

                I want to eat more food. I WISH I was just being juvenile, I WISH this were a phase I’ll grow out of (as so many obnoxious relatives continue to claim despite the fact that I’ve been in this “phase” for 22 years) .Eating carbs does not a thin woman make. I want to LOVE that vegetable sauté. I want to eat that crazy salad with crunchy noodles and sauce and whatever on it. But were I to eat those things now (if I could bring myself to), I probably couldn’t keep them down.

                So I’m considering my options. WW is a great program for picky eaters, because it lets me choose what I like to eat. However, studies recently have concluded that in some cases, picky eating might be a mild form of OCD. As such, some mental health counselors offer help to picky eaters. I don’t have much faith in the BS science of psychology, but I have to admit that it sounds appealing. If that’s an actual venue for helping me eat like a normal human…how can I not try it?

                One of the journals I’ve read here mentioned that people need to get over the “Oh, I don’t like vegetables” thing. For me, it’s not just something I say so I can skip the salad and eat more breadsticks. It’s not as though I like salad, I just like ice cream more. I don’t like salad, and can’t eat certain vegetables without pretty severe and humiliating reactions (ie. Gagging, spitting out the food, making faces). It’s very frustrating.

                I’m officially discouraged. I know I was pretty bad two nights ago-mmm, IHOP. However, yesterday at Weight Watchers, I was down .4 lbs. POINT FOUR! That’s not even a real number, that’s a tiny percentage that only ridiculous scales measure to reassure people, “Well, you didn’t lose a lot, but you lost .4!” My socks weigh .4 pounds. That’s not an accomplishment, that’s just using less hairspray in the morning.

                I tried to take it all in stride. My home scale is telling me I’ve lost more, and not just because it’s officially 7 pounds lighter than the Weight Watcher’s scale. On my home scale, I’ve gone from 183-ish to 176.5. Considerably more than the 3.6 I’ve officially lost with Weight Watchers. I’m not sure why the losses would be different, but I grow suspicious of the WW scale. I can only hope I’ll do better next week (even though I’m weighing in early).

                In other news, I’ve got a WW real-life buddy. The day I started, there was another girl there who was 27. Her and I are by far the youngest people at the meetings, and yesterday we sat together and compared results. She’s only down 2 lbs, which does console me somewhat. Our leader told us that lots of folks lose 5 lbs in their first weeks, and I admit I was hoping for that. .4 pounds a week doesn’t move me towards my goals at an acceptable rate.

                I followed plan all week. I only used half my extra points, didn’t eat my exercise points (except on Tuesday). I overestimated the points for anything I didn’t know for sure. It’s frustrating, but next week will be better. It’s got to be.

                I was a little bit bad yesterday.

                To be honest, I felt a LOT bit bad, but after counting up my exercise points, I figured I was doing well enough. My mom invited me out to dinner, and suggested a few places. She weighs in on Tuesdays, and she likes to splurge her points after that, so she can get rid of them by her next WI. This doesn’t work particularly well for me, since my weigh-in is normally today. But she invited me out, and out we went-to IHOP.

                Breakfast is a funny thing for me. Normally, I don’t eat anything, or I just grab a slice of toast on the way out the door. However, a full breakfast is a thing of beauty in my eyes. Yesterday, I had two slices of cinnamon bun French toast, two eggs, three strips of bacon, and three sausages. And it was glorious. It was also (at least) 26 points, against my allotted 25 for the day (and I had already eaten a lot for the day).

                Lucky for me, yesterday was also the day I work out. I had a different teacher than I normally do. My normal teacher, though I love her, is probably 50 lbs lighter than I am, and has a son close to my age. I feel rightly bad throwing her around the studio. My substitute teacher is about my weight and height, and can’t be more than 10 years older than me. I was throwing him around the studio, sweating, bright red for the whole hour. In the hour and fifteen minutes I was working out, I got back 10 points (my moderate estimate).

                Today, I’m getting back on track. I’m not visiting my boyfriend this weekend, so staying good for the rest of the week shouldn’t be an issue.  However, while tracking my delicious breakfast this morning (it was my dinner, but I don’t track at home, only the following day), I realized that I didn’t track last Thursday. Why didn’t I? It was the day after the meeting, I should have been totally pumped! My only thought it that I tracked breakfast, and then got confused the following day and merged the two. I need to straighten out this tracking nonsense.

                 Jogging. I would love to be able to jog. I mean, waking up in the morning, pulling on my running shoes and going out to enjoy the early-morning world would be amazing. I could exercise literally anywhere. All the blogs on here I read rave about their own jogging successes, and I am so envious of the women who can.

                Why can’t I, you ask? I’ve got two pretty big impediments to jogging. One on both sides of my chest. When I jog, it literally feels like there is someone in front of me, jogging backwards, punching me in the chest with every step. My breathing is punctuated by the air forcible pushing out of me.

                I’m not sure if there is a solution for this, or whether I need to give up on jogging and find an alternate activity, like roller-blading or biking. Sports bras don’t work-anything tight enough to limit the bouncing to a reasonable extent also limits my breathing worse than a corset. The only thing that appears to work is literally holding my breasts to my chest-and judging from the silly looks I get in the gym, that’s not an acceptable way to jog.

                I guess I’m lucky that I live close enough to the Cape Cod Rail Trail to make daily trips feasible, since running doesn’t appear to be in my future.

http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/southeast/ccrt.htm

                My worries this week: I’m a busy little bee this week, with something going on literally every day.  Being out of the house so often might allow the evil fast-food bug to tempt me.

                My worries last week: My mom cooked me much good (but unhealthy) food. I managed to control my portion size, and that, combined with healthy pasta instead of white, helped me keep my points within reasonable ranges. If only meatballs weren’t so damned delicious!

   I think I’ve got a pretty solid foundation for my diet. I’m looking at another weekend, but I did really well last weekend, so I think I’ll be solid this time too. However, my good foundation means that I’m looking anxiously at an upcoming hurdle: a week in Pheonix with my boyfriend.

His best friend is getting married, so he and I are flying out and partying down in the sun. However, by then I will totally have hit the diet stride, and I’m more than a little worried that I’ll totally blow it. His friend will be taking us out to dinner, we’ll be on planes, and driving for an insane amount of time (she wants a beach wedding…not too many beaches in Arizona). There will be ice cream, maybe cake. The help I’ll have is that I want to look totally awesome in the dress I (will) have for the wedding, and that will curb my eating for the first few days, at least.

In other news, losing weight is feeling totally friggen fantastic. Starting a new diet (like, really starting) is like getting a new boyfriend. You’re suddenly more self-confident, maybe out buying some new clothes. You feel like you’re making a change for the better. I probably haven’t lost too much weight, but I still was confident enough to break out the shorts for some off-season sunbathing yesterday. I do so well during the honeymoon period of dieting, but then, after a few months, the happy feeling wears off and the hungry feeling seems to get bigger.

Right now, though, I’m just so psyched these pants are loose that I’m happy to eat (admittedly tasty) Weight Watchers bars instead of the cookies in the break room. Yay, loose pants!

    Yesterday was Weigh-In Day, and woo-hoo! I lost weight. I lost 3.2 lbs, to be exact, however, the shirt I was wearing weighed two pounds (seriously, I weighed it at home). I think I did really, really well. Yesterday, my scale at home told me I weighed 180 lbs…this morning it told me I weighed 178.5. Oh, how fickle they are.

I wasn’t thrilled with the meeting, because the median age seemed to be about 50. I understand that the meetings are for everyone, but I find it hard to relate to someone who has gained weight because they hit menopause or they had double hip replacements and could no longer play golf. I know that healthy eating applies to everyone, regardless of weight or age, but I really feel like I don’t belong with that group. I might talk to the team leader and see if she has any suggestions about a younger-aged meeting time.

I learned about Moving More this week, but was dismayed to find that since I’m already mildly active, I need to “Ramp it Up” to highly active. That’s totally not fair! Had I been a sedentary couch potato, 1 point of exercise would be my goal. If I walked around a bit, took the stairs instead of the elevator and such, 7 points of exercise would be my goal. Since I’m active and do martial arts twice a week, 28 points is my goal. TWENTY EIGHT! Bah.

The reason I’m so active is because of Poekoelan (pu-koo-lahn) Tjimindie Tulen. It’s a martial art class that they offer at my gym. I joined up, figuring it could be fun, and now I’m completely hooked. I have class for 2 and 1/2 hours a week, and then I also help teach a kids class for another hour. That’s not to mention practicing at home. Counting just Poekoelan, I’m getting about 10 or more exercise points a week.

One of the major reasons I joined Weight Watchers is because of Poekoelan. I’m just about ready to move to the advanced class, and TWICE during my beginner class, I have felt so dizzy and nauseous that I had to leave early. It’s the first time my physical out-of-shapeness has hindered me doing something I want to do (aside from wearing a size 4 and fitting into tight places). It was unacceptable to me that my size would hold me back from anything.

Tonight, I teach the kids and then have my class. It should be interesting, since last week was the 2nd time I almost passed out (and my first day on Weight Watchers). Also-I’ve got a bit of a cold, bad enough that I almost want to go home from work and snooze for the rest of the day. I’m still going to Poekoelan, though, despite being half-dead and barely able to breath. I guess I’m lucky to have an exercise that I’m so devoted to, I’m a step ahead of everyone still trying to find one that works for them!

Today is my very first weigh-in day, and I’m not nervous. No, in fact, I am feeling awesome! I weighed myself this morning, and saw a 7 on that scale for the first time in a long time. Granted, the Weight Watchers scale is a bit higher, but I’m still estimating my weight loss this week at at least three lbs, probably 4!

It doesn’t seem like much, especially considering my goal to get to a healthy BMI seems a very long way off, but I feel like I’ve been trying to get past 184.5 forever. For the past two months, I’ve been working out like crazy, going to the gym at least twice a week every single week. I’ve been eating (kinda) healthy (okay, not really. But I had deluded myself that I was). Yet, I was stuck hovering between 186 and 183 probably since December.

Hooray!

I’m also going to coordinate how different the three scales in my life are. The one at home read 179.5 this morning, the Weight Watchers one should read between 185-189, and the one at the gym is probably going to be about 193. It’s confusing…and I’m not sure which is more accurate. I suspect the Weight Watchers one is it. However, any of the scales will allow me to track how much I’ve lost, and that’s more important to me than a definite number.

Wish me luck on my very first Weight Watchers weigh-in day!!

I was so good this weekend! True, I dipped into my extra 35 points, but I had expected to use all of them, and wound up not using too many.

One of my biggest hurdles-my boyfriend-turned out to actually be a huge help. Because my boyfriend and I only see each other on weekends, we frequently go out to eat and make poor eating choices. I only get to see him once a week; why not indulge? The problem was that I would eat healthy all week, then eat horribly during the weekend and was stuck simply maintaining my weight.

However, my boyfriend is my real-life Weight Watchers confidant (since all you folks are my online confidants!) I’m not telling my mother I’m joining, nor my sister (because she can’t keep a secret), so my boyfriend got passed the torch. I share my little accomplishments with him, will celebrate the big ones (10%, here I come!) So, imagine my surprise this weekend when he and I go to the grocery store and he wants to buy healthy food! He encouraged me to buy fruit, to skip the really bad (though delicious) stuff. I made it through a three-day weekend and only used 20 extra points.

My scale at home appears to be about 6 lbs less than the Weight Watchers’ scale, but I rang in this morning at 180! I almost got to see a 7 on there! I’m totally digging this diet.

My worries this week: My mom appears to be inadvertently trying to sabotage me. She cooked tons of food this weekend for the week, including my arch-enemy-Spaghetti.

                So, I’ve chronicled my past diet mis-adventures, now for the present one.

                I joined Weight Watchers. I’ve heard many people tell me how well it works. My cousin probably weighed as much as I do now. For her wedding, she lost at least fifty pounds. That was in September. I saw her a few weeks ago, and not only had she kept the weight off, it appeared she had lost considerably more. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was down 75 lbs.

                My mom is also on Weight Watchers. Although she has reached her 10%, she’s also been on the diet for about 6 months and has only lost maybe 16 lbs. She’s proof it works, but not particularly inspiring. She also poses a big problem to my diet success-she is a constant nag. At the moment, I live with her. She criticizes everything that I put into my mouth, whether it be diet food, beverages, anything. If I’m eating too little, if I’m eating too much of one thing or too little of another, and most particularly when I eat something indulgent. Of course, all of her bitching is under the guise of “helpfully pointing out my poor menu choices”. However, it makes me want to eat bad stuff just to annoy her. If she knew I was on Weight Watchers also, she would start criticizing OUT OF CONTROL. I’ve spoken with her about her criticizing, and she has laid off –somewhat. However, she still manages to give me the evil eye if I eat anything she doesn’t consider to be healthy.

                Yesterday was my first day on the diet, and I think I did alright, given the circumstances. I chose the Flex Point system (because I don’t eat normal type foods), and I get 25 points a day to eat.

                My first step to success was hitting the grocery store. I bought myself several lunches for work, fruit, 1 point pastry twists, 5 point bagels, and 1 point (for 2 servings!) cream cheese. Everything was going great, and I was only at 10 points when I left for the day. And then I went to martial arts.

                Thursday is a long day for me at Martial arts. I’m there from 3:45 until 7, working out pretty much the entire time. I was feeling great until about 6…then I started feeling overheated, dizzy, and nauseous. I felt so bad that I had to stop class, and my teacher berated me for going as far as I did feeling as bad as I did. I barely managed to drive home, and then passed out at about 7:30. I woke again at midnight. I miscalculated my remaining points (15) and ate only 9. I think eating too little isn’t really that bad for you, especially considering I was feeling really crappy.

                Today, I’m doing just as well, although I ate a bigger lunch as a precaution (in case too little food was the problem yesterday). I had a 100 calorie (2 point) packet of cookies for breakfast (mm…cookies for breakfast), an orange (0), another 1 point pastry twist, and a Lean Cuisine Macaroni and cheese for lunch (6 points). So far, all I gotta say is YUM!

                Hopefully, this weekend will be just as good as I’ve been during the week. Another big diet challenge is coming to visit me-my boyfriend.