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Gym   
01:56pm 10/09/2005
  I thought that, after going to the gym yesterday morning, I would feel more alert and upbeat all day long, making up for whatever sleep I missed. But I guess I have to do it more than once in order to feel those effects. I was yawning and just about passing out during class and at work, even though I did sleep about 8 hours. (I probably need more than that.)

Last night, I didn't get much sleep, but I'm thinking about going to the gym anyway, because I don't have much planned for tonight. Maybe I'll take a nap first.		  
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Food   
01:55pm 10/09/2005
  *Frosted Mini Wheats (5)
*milk (2)
*soup (6)
*1/2 pb&j (3)
*popcorn (4)
*Laughing Cow & Triscuits (4)		  
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Did it!   
09:52am 09/09/2005
  I went to the gym this morning. More on that later. Next goal: track points today. So far:

*activity (-4)
*2 eggs (4)
*2 pieces of bread (1)
*coffee w/ cream & sugar (2)
*1/2 pb&j sandwich (3)
*yogurt (3)
*skim mocha (3)
*pulled pork sandwich (8)
*broccoli (0)
*cornbread (3)

total=23		  
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Regain   
06:48pm 08/09/2005
  Having a life can be hell on your diet and exercise routine. Back when I didn't have a life, because the fat made me agoraphobic, I created a pseudo-life out of my weight-loss process. I went to the gym (sometimes twice a day), and always had time to pack my lunch, count points, write in this journal, etc. I didn't go anywhere that I might be tempted to eat something unplanned, which wasn't a huge sacrifice, because as I already mentioned, I wasn't getting out much to begin with.

And I lost weight. A lot of it. Quickly. But... then I got a life. Because that was the whole point of losing the weight--I didn't want to be a hermit anymore. So now I have a boyfriend and a hopping social life, in addition to my previous school, work, the whole kaboodle. With (so I keep telling myself) no time left to exercise, or plan healthy food choices. I don't have much of a routine anymore, except for stressing out. I do that religiously, every day.

So, starting in February (just after my last entry), I gained weight. 13 pounds in 7 months. Now I want to lose that, plus another ten pounds to reach my goal of 140. But it's funny, I feel as helpless now to turn this freight train of fat around as I did when I weighed 220 lbs. and was just starting out.

I have to start reinstituting my good habits. Number one, go to the gym. Tomorrow morning. No excuses. Get up at 7 am--that's plenty of time to work out for half an hour, get ready and go to school. I'll report back tomorrow.		  
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WW friend   
11:50am 09/02/2005
  I went to church for the first time in months last Sunday, and I saw my friend Emily. She was a WW for two years, and did amazingly (lost about 80 pounds and got truly skinny.) Then she got pregnant. So now her baby is 6 months old, and she told me that she finally "sucked it up" two weeks ago and went back to WW. She attends on Saturday mornings, the same meeting that I'm going to attend starting this week. I'm excited to have a friend at WW, for companionship and accountability as I try to get back on track. Em told me that she's having a rough time of it so far, but a "just do it" attitude is helping to combat her internal monologue of whining and excuses. That's what I need (the good attitude, not the whining.)

I talked to my WW leader at the last weigh in and told her that I want to lose more weight. I don't have to adjust my official goal and restart the paid program, though. She wrote an unofficial goal of 140 in my folder and I'm going back to weekly instead of monthly visits.		  
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Another Wedding   
11:40am 05/02/2005
  I went shopping yesterday with my friend Jess, a blushing bride-to-be, for possible bridesmaid dresses. All of us will wear the same color, but Jess is letting each girl pick a different dress--awesome idea, great way to endear your friends to you forever. I started off wanting to find a dress with maximum coverage, a bridesmaid burkha if possible. That's probably the lingering trauma of my sister's wedding pictures, when I had just lost 30 pounds, but I still weighed 40 more than I do now, and I thought I looked decent until I saw the album, when I immediately went on another diet. But as I say, I am now 40 pounds lighter, so I was flitting around the store trying on size 8 samples and having them fit perfectly, feeling much better about the whole thing this time around.

The dress I ended up picking for my friend's wedding is strapless. I was surprised, because I'm hyper self-conscious about my underarm fat (or bra overhang, as some women know it) so I already knew I didn't want spaghetti straps. Those thin straps make everything else look gargantuan by comparison. But amazingly, the strapless style is very flattering to those of us with arm issues. Still, I think it's going to be a great diet motivator. Every time I want to eat something I probably shouldn't, I can picture myself standing in front of 200 people in that strapless gown, cheesecake-related fat squishing out of the bodice of the dress. "No dessert tonight thanks, just the check." And...by the time I actually order the gown, sometime during the summer, I want to be able to get a size 6 instead of an 8.		  
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Upcoming weigh-in   
09:19pm 27/01/2005
  I have my monthly weigh-in for lifetime membership tomorrow, and I'm a little worried at what I'm going to discover. I've been keeping track on my home scale, although I'm not obsessively checking my weight every day (probably because there's been no good news from it lately.) Two days ago it said 153, and that was naked. Very bad, because my WW max is 155. I had been binging for about 48 hours previous to getting that terrible number. Now that I've returned to more reasonable eating habits, my scale said 150.5 this morning.

I'm not sure what I can do to stop the periodic binging, besides retreating from my entire life--work, school, relationships--which of course, isn't a possibility. I have just two semesters left until I graduate (including this one) and things should be calmer after that. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to survive unscathed (thin) for even one more year. The stress is getting worse, the closer I get to graduation.		  
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Cautiously Optimistic   
09:15pm 27/01/2005
  I did my fourth strength training session yesterday afternoon. Sandwiched it between classes and work... that's dedication. I'm not sick of it yet. I did have to make one change, though. The trainer had me doing an exercise called "chop wood" for my abs, but it was making my back tremendously sore while doing nothing for my belly. So I went to physioball crunches, and that did the trick. I am sore today. I didn't get the chance to talk to her because she was busy, so I had to improvise my own thing. Next time, I'm hoping to ask her what she recommends for abwork on the ball. Everything else with my routine is great. Now I just have to find some time for cardio.  
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gym   
08:01pm 12/01/2005
  I went to the gym this morning, and it was great. It boosted my mood tremendously, gave me 3 activity points, and made it easier to resist temptation today.I did a respectable 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, but what I'm really excited about is my new strength training routine. I can't wait to go back. I just wish I could find my iPod to take some tunes with me, then it would be perfect.

When I got to the gym, I talked to the employee on duty about streamlining my routine. I find the machines boring and wanted something I could get out of the way as quickly as possible, twice a week. Like taking cod liver oil. But the woman who helped me happened to be one of the gym's personal trainers, and she basically gave me a free session, completely revamping my routine and showing me how to do a lot of new and interesting exercises. I am in love with the Bosu ball, which I had heard of, but never seen or used until today. It looks like half of a regular exercise ball, and you're supposed to balance on it while doing exercises in order to engage your core. I had a lot of fun trying not to fall off. It didn't hurt that the trainer was enthusiastic and low-key (not drill sergeant-like) and kept telling me how well I was doing. Unfortunately, I can't afford to see her every day, or even every week. But I'm going to schedule an appointment in about 8 weeks, to keep myself on track.		  
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Derailed   
04:17pm 05/01/2005
  This past week didn't go as well as I hoped. I started out strong, just before Christmas. And I wanted to use all of this spare time, without holiday stress or school worries, to work out more, cook better meals and get ready for the new semester. Instead, I got an eye infection. I developed a severe sensitivity to light, so I could only do things that can be done in the dark: sleeping (I'm all caught up on that, to look at the bright side), talking on the phone, thinking, and eating. A lot. No TV, computer, reading, DDR, driving...

I'm still recovering, but at least now I can entertain myself with something other than food. Today, I watched HGTV for several hours, read Fitness magazine and logged onto ww.com and this site to put myself back on track. I realize that my old habit of eating in response to any negative emotion hasn't been entirely banished (I was a little arrogant to think it would be so easy.) As soon as I experienced the pain and fear of having an eye infection, and the boredom of not having much that I could do, I wanted to soothe myself with food.

So I had to relearn the same lesson that helped me drop so much weight already: no matter how bad things are, eating too much will only make it worse. I felt overly full and slightly sick, jittery from too much sugar, guilty and miserable thinking of what I ate. Instead of overeating junk food, I decided to treat myself to whatever else I wanted, the stuff that I usually don't buy because I tell myself that it's too expensive. It turned out that I only wanted three magazines for a total of about $10. Not bad considering how much a restaurant dinner costs.		  
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The Second Day...   
01:03pm 23/12/2004
  wasn't too bad. I didn't earn any activity points, and I had a relatively high-point breakfast and lunch (Panera soup and salad combo), so I only had 4 points left by dinner time. Then my mom called and invited us out for pizza. I had to dip into my flex points again. I've used ten in two days. Not bad.

So far this morning, I've had seven points. Since I haven't been grocery shopping in weeks and I have no breakfast foods in the house, that's been tough. I have to get to the store today. We ended up going to Borders, and I had 1/2 a bagel with cream cheese and a skim mocha au lait(7). The good news is, it's after 1pm and I'm not hungry at all, so I will probably have just a small snack in place of lunch, or I may not even need that. Then I'll have enough points for dinner that I won't have to use any more flex today. Maybe I can even squeeze in a quick trip to the gym and earn a few AP.

I won't be able to weigh in on Friday because of the holiday. I'm hoping to have very good news when I go in sometime next week, as long as I stay on track over Christmas. Everyone seems to think that I'm crazy for starting to diet this time of year. But I think there's something in my personality that rises to the added challenge. I'm better prepared, because I know it's going to be hard. I did the same thing last year, started a few days before Christmas, and I lost 20-some pounds then. (Kept it off, too.)		  
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The First Day...   
01:28pm 21/12/2004
  is always the hardest. I had a big bowl of cereal for breakfast (Frosted Mini Wheats... probably about 7 points) and since I ate that at 6:30 am before I went to take my last final, I was starving by the time I got home at 11:00. I had a grilled cheese (3 points) and tomato soup (4 points) for lunch. Almost ate half a loaf of banana bread, but I decided to do something constructive instead, so I worked out (+2 activity points). So far, so good. I have 8 points left for dinner, plus flex points if I need them. And the disappearance of all school-related stress is palpable. I feel more in-control already.

Oh shoot, I haven't gotten any water yet. I'm going to go drink a couple glasses of Crystal Light. I'll probably post again today, since just writing out this little bit has made me feel more motivated and strong.		  
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Weigh-in   
10:43am 18/12/2004
  Up 1.2 at weigh-in this morning, to 148.6. That gives me a jumping off place for Tuesday, when I'll start counting points, and head back to the gym. Maybe it's silly, but I'm excited about reaching the 130s for the first time in my adult life (since sixth grade), because I've always thought of it as the realm of the truly skinny. The realization of how close I am to this once-impossible weight (I didn't even used to allow myself to dream that I could weigh less than 160) has replenished my motivation, which had been droopy since I made lifetime in September.

I also went to see myself on the "before and after" board. It was a pretty dramatic difference. I should enshrine those pictures on my refrigerator door, for days when I'm sick of counting and measuring and exercising, and I can't see the point of it all... 70 pounds ago I was a completely different person.		  
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Maintenance   
05:35am 10/12/2004
  Gain a few, lose a few is the real truth of maintenance. Not staying exactly the same weight every day for the rest of my life. Just learning when not to have a fit over a few (or four) pounds, and when to be firm with myself and draw the line, get back on "the diet." Yes, lifestyle, not diet--blah, blah, party line, blah. But as my leader says, nobody can be Weight Watcher Wendy (the mythical perfect WWer) all the time. Not even me--the real, flawed, chocolate-lovin' Wendy--regardless of the namesake. After so long, I become numb to the monotony and routine, and I drift away... but eventually, I drift back. WW is the only thing that's ever worked for me. Momentary lapses and a few pound or two-pound gains don't mean that it's stopped working, any more than the minute daily flucuations of a stock mean that it's worthless. If it's a good stock, it's headed back up sometime soon. And I am headed down soon, as of December 20th (last day of the semester), when I will recommence vigorously with the Weight Watching.

Over the past two months, I haven't gained more than one pound net, so I'm not worried about going over my WW goal and having to rejoin meetings. I just can't shake that feeling that I should lose ten more pounds. I still don't feel comfortable in a bathing suit, or shorts, for that matter. I imagine that some people will start to wonder if I'll ever be satisfied, no matter how much I lose. Do I have anorexia? That's a joke, once you've seen me pack away appetizers on a Friday night. And no, I don't "visit the bathroom" afterwards.

I still stand by my assertion of several months ago that maintenance is easier than losing weight. For me, anyway. (Anyone who wants to lose weight successfully has to make her own rules, so I will try to avoid blanket or judgemental statements.) It's not something I have to think about. My WW habits are so ingrained by now that I automatically reach for a breakfast of between 5 and 6 points, a 2-or-3 point snack, and a 7-ish point lunch nearly every day. Dinners are less routine, but I have latitude there because of what I'm not eating earlier in the day. It's become easy, provided that I don't try to get clever and talk myself into bending the rules. I exercise at least three days each week too, with virtually no angst.

But... when I'm actually counting points and activity points, weighing and measuring, it's a different mindset. I have fun at first, throwing myself into it wholeheartedly. Soon enough, it gets to be boring and I have to take a break. One little nugget of self-discovery that WW has brought me is that I have a short attention span. Another is that I eat when I'm under stress. So I've chosen the end of finals as a good time to recommit to WW (counting, journaling, weekly meetings instead of monthly weigh-ins), and May, the probable beginning of shorts/bathing suit weather, as my finish line for losing the last ten pounds.		  
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Compliments Keep Rolling In   
11:37am 20/11/2004
  One nugget of diet wisdom that I come across over and over again is that a dieter must find intrinsic motivation (the will to lose weight that comes from internal factors, such as health or well-being, rather than external pressure like clothing size, other people's opinions, etc.) The idea seems to be that, as much fun as it is to receive all those compliments, eventually the flood will dry up to a mere trickle, and a smart girl will have her back-up motivation at the ready when that day comes.

Nobody told my family, friends and acquaintences how it's supposed to work. They just keep lavishing me with compliments. Every time I wear a particularly flattering pair of jeans or a cute new sweater, it sets off a tidal wave of ego-stroking compliments. When I meet up with someone I haven't seen in awhile, I'm always asked, "Have you lost weight?" Even if the person has already seen me at my current weight at least one other time. This happens a lot at church, for some reason. And several of my friends are doing WW themselves, so of course they're consciencious about letting me know how far I've come, and I do the same for them. My boyfriend just randomly blurts out how hot he thinks I am, every so often (specifically, that he's proud of me for losing weight.) My mom and my grandma fill in the gaps, clucking about how skinny I've become every single time that I see them.

Okay, I know that it can't last forever. When it does finally quiet down, I think I'll have to pull out my yearbook and start "renewing old acquaintences"--or try to find another reason to maintain my weight loss.		  
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This Morning's Meeting   
02:51pm 06/11/2004
  I did manage to make it to a meeting this morning, although for awhile, the outlook was not good. Last night, I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 2am, and I woke up at 7:30. That's not enough sleep for me, so I was going to just bag the meeting and catch a few more zzzs, but I couldn't get back to sleep. So I dragged my carcass out of bed and schlepped to the WW center. For my troubles, I got two nice little surprises. One, my usual leader Lisa was leading this morning. (Hmm... I find myself contemplating a switch in meeting times.) And two, I had lost .4 lbs. Not bad. So I am in a very sunshine-y mood today, even with the lack of rest. I can make that up tonight, since I don't have any major plans. Which also leaves ample time for, what else, a workout. Finally! I'm recovered from my cold, and my schedule has miraculously cleared, so I'll be spending some quality time at the gym this afternoon.  
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Skipped Meeting   
12:02pm 05/11/2004
  I skipped my meeting this morning. It's the first time that I've missed a week since I started WW this last time, in May. My eye was swollen when I woke up, and honestly, it was just the vanity that I didn't want to be seen in public looking like that. I am so shallow. But... I still have a chance to redeem myself. There is a 6:00 pm meeting tonight, and one at 9:00 am tomorrow morning that I could just squeeze in before I start work at 10:00. I'm feeling strangely guilty about skipping, so I might have to go to one of the other meetings, to make sure I don't get off track.

I did weigh myself on my home scale this morning. No loss, no gain.		  
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Weigh-in   
06:55pm 03/11/2004
  Wow. I'm not sure what I did to deserve it, but I had a 3.2 pound loss when I weighed in last week. It felt great mentally, and it put me below 150 pounds for the first time since roughly ninth grade. Practically, it didn't make a lot of difference in how my Halloween costume fit--still a little too snug and short. But it was fine, since I was going for a slightly trashy look anyway.

I didn't expect a loss because I wasn't doing well at all. I got sick, so I could only exercise one day. Being miserable and stressed, I automatically soothed myself in the habitual way--with food. Granted, it wasn't to the extent that I used to gorge, so I have improved my bad habit, even if I haven't banished it.

I did have one dark thought: maybe that 3.2 pounds was muscle saying, "Buh-bye," since I haven't gotten much exercise recently. But I guess it wouldn't have happened so quickly. And now that I'm feeling better, I can get back to the gym and fix it before I backslide any further.		  
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Weigh-In   
10:01am 23/10/2004
  On Friday I was down .6 lbs. A tad disappointing, but it was to be expected since I didn't stick to the plan very strictly. Besides, I also ate some not-so-great food late Thursday night, so I bet it was still lurking 8 hours later when I hit the scale. However, a loss is a loss, and I cannot expect my body to drop weight as quickly as it did when I was severly overweight (or even overweight at all... I keep forgetting that I'm solidly within the healthy BMI range for my height now.) What I am very proud of is my activity level this week. I hit the gym three times and did DDR as well, making for six straight days of activity. I woke up early this morning and was actually going to do another quick gym session, but I looked at my calendar and realized that this week was completely filled with stickers (one for every day with at least 1/2 hour of exercise), so I thought it would be healthier to take a day off.

I've made a great positive change in the amount of activity I'm getting, and I'm really pleased with that. I think that living closer to the gym is making it easier for me to get there. The trip is a whole five minutes less than it used to be. Not much, but it makes a difference mentally--it's hard to make excuses when I can drive to the gym, get a decent workout and drive home in under 45 minutes. I have already noticed a corresponding upswing in my mood since I've been back in the gym.		  
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Mucho Actividad   
03:04pm 21/10/2004
  I'm very proud of myself. I had just a few hours between classes and work, and I got so much done. I did an hour of DDR plus half an hour at the gym, on the elliptical trainer. That's 4 activity points. Thursdays are DDR nights at my friend's house, so I may be going over there after work for even more DDR (if her fiance is recovering from his cold and up to having noisy visitors.)

I also made chocolate chip cookies. WW, of course--just 1/2 point per mini cookie. Here's the recipe (I have it memorized, since I've made it so many times):

2 tbsp butter, softened
2 tsp canola oil
1/2 dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 large egg white
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup semi-sweet morsels (the mini ones work well)

Preheat oven to 375. Cream together butter, oil and sugar in medium mixing bowl (I use a fork instead of a mixer, since it's such a small amount of material at this point in the recipe.) Add vanilla, salt, egg and mix well. Sift together the flour and baking soda, mix into dough. Add in chocolate chips. Drop rounded 1/2 tsps onto a nonstick cookie sheet and bake for 4-6 minutes.

Enjoy!		  
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