Struggles with weight and happiness

whoops

2006-09-26T16:21:00.000-05:00

apparently, I suck at blogging.

Okay, so a quick update, I am now within 4.4 pounds of my goal.

Things I'm trying/doing differently:
I'm still sporadically doing the oil. The grapeseed oil makes me sooooo quesy that I can only manage it a couple times a week.
I'm also drastically limiting my carbs currently and will do so until the end of this week. From what I hear, this doesn't actually help you lose weight, but gets rid of a ton of retained water, which is fine, because assuming that all the weight I've lost in the past week was water weight, I had 3.8 pounds of it. I seem to retain a lot of water....so I feel like I'm at my *real* weight now.

My appetite reduction continues, and my meals now mostly consist of protein and veggies. For example, yesterday, I had a serving of sauteed shrimp and some roasted turkey breast.

I've already made a list of things I will eat once I can eat carbs again....

I really need to get a scale

2006-08-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

So I've been staying over at B's and there's NO scale. So no progress to report right now, but thursday I will have a number for you.

Food Journal:
everything I said yesterday plus some leftover chinese food. I had about a cup of noodles and three or four pieces of chicken and a half a cup of fried rice.

Today:
about a cup and a half of noodles and three or four pieces of chicken.
rotisserie style chicken for dinner.

The chicken is currently in the oven, and it smells soooo good. It's a chicken with a can up its butt with a sugar herb rub and some smart balance. I think I'm serving it with some herb parmesan breadsticks (white bread dough with some sugar herb mix and parmesan.)

The fiber cereal I ate yesterday is REALLY filling. It has 7 grams of fiber per 2/3 cup serving and it tastes okay....it tastes like sugared high fiber cereal. But I throw it in yogurt and I can seriously just have a yogurt and 2/3 cup cereal from breakfast and lunch, which will keep me full until dinner. I think it's a great find...for 380 calories, I'm full until dinner!

oh the laziness....

2006-08-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

I stopped blogging for a bit out of sheer laziness.

Alright, let's try to recap.

Wednesday:
What I had posted before plus
1 bbq chicken thigh
2 ears of corn
1 beef hot dog and bun
a bite of brownie
half a chocolate chip cookie

Thursday:
half a wheat pita with chicken breast (2 oz) and some cherry tomatoes
two ears of corn
a beef hot dog an bun
1 oz of rotisserie chicken
cup of cherries
12 oz orange juice

Friday:
half a wheat pita with chicken breast (3 oz) and some cherry tomatoes
1/4 bag of banana chips
2/3 cups of high fiber cereal
1.5 giant soft stuffed pretzels (jalepano cheese, pizza, and plain)
2 blue moons

Saturday:
1 shrimp tempura roll
1 american roll (shrimp tempura, eel, roe)
1/2 spicy tuna roll
2 pieces japanese shumai
2 pieces of veggie tempura
6 pieces of nigiri
2/3 cup cambell's new england clam chowder in a homemade bread bowl
5 jack and cokes (they are in 8 oz glasses and it was filled to the top with ice, so it wasn't actually that much)

Sunday:
1/2 a cup of soy sauce lomein noodles
1 egg roll
a couple bites of chicken fried rice
a couple botched egg foo youngs (which turned into egg, bbq pk and beansprout omlettes)
some apple juice

Today:
2 Dannon Light and Fit yogurts (200 calories total)
1 1/3 cups high fiber cereal (180 calories total)
1 chocolate with sprinkles donut (200 calories....crap.)

Dinner tonight: leftover soy sauce lo mein.

Tomorrow:
probably more lomein and a roasted chicken. It's set up so all the oil and fat will drip out.

I'm currently in love with rotisserie style chickens. Not only are they good to eat just outright, but they're great for chicken sandwiches and chicken pitas and lettuce wraps, stir fry, etc. But, they're actually kind of pricy. $6.99 for a 3 lb chicken! So, I'm making it myself! I bought my own chicken and I'm going to season it, stick a beer can up its butt and roast it in the electric oven. I'm super, super excited and I got a few recipes, so hopefully it turns out yummy. I'm a little worried about the chicken falling down, so I am thinking about using a wide soup can instead of the beer can. We'll see what I can do with it.

::sigh::

2006-08-23T13:37:00.000-05:00

134.2

It's coming down, but I'm in a serious plateau.

I'm switching to grapeseed oil to see how that turns out.

Food Journal:
1/4 bag of banana chips
2 cups of coffee
leftover honey roasted chicken and some mashed potatoes (breast and wing only of half a small chicken)
3 pieces of candy
3 pieces of tortellini
one medium calzone with cheese and pasta sauce
1 whiskey and ginger ale

Big mistake on the calzone...tried it with swiss cheese melted inside with pasta sauce. BEYOND GROSS. EWW.

Today:
last small slice of bbq chicken pizza
2 ounces of leftover rotisserie chicken (breast)
1 full size kit kat bar
a half a cup of blueberries
a full cup of cherries

I'm going to a company softball game tonight, so I'm sure dinner tonight will consist of a hot dog or a hamburger and a few cups of beer....but at least I'm sort of exercising...right?

Less than 6 weeks away...

2006-08-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

Food Journal:
3 1"x1" brownies
2 cups of coffee (2 creams and 1 sugar each)
3 pieces of chocolate
5 pieces of salt water taffy
chicken casserole
4 slices of deli turkey

Not so good. And I'm already on 3 pieces of salt water taffy for today...

Lunch is leftover honey roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. I believe dinner will be some homemade breadsticks. I have some leftover dough from making pizza over the weekend, so I'm thinking Pizza-hut style breadsticks (yummm) made slightly more healthy. Like using Smart Balance.

Yesterday I bought a bread machine, cast iron skillet and pizza stone!! The bread machine is used, but it looks nice and easy to use. I paid $30 for it, so I decided that if I use it at least 30 times, then I've gotten my money's worth. My first project will be making some more pizza dough. I figured that pizza can't actually be that bad for me, as long as I control what goes in it. The recipe I have uses about 3.5 cups of flour (and I'll substitute in some whole wheat flour too) for 2 large pizzas and I brush the edges of the pizza with olive oil, and then top it. I'm thinking that I'll just keep topping it with healthier items...so no pepperoni (not my fav anyways) or sausage (I looove sausage. I bet some italian sausage sans casing will be really good on a pizza). I'll make sure to pick up some part skim cheese when I'm at the store today and stick to toppings like chicken or pineapple (yummm, pineapple) or mushrooms or spinach. I can even make a small deep dish pizza with my cast iron skillet!! I can see where the deep dish has a lot of grease because the cast iron skillet needs to be well oiled before the dough can go in, but I don't understand how oily regular pizza is from a restaurant....unless it has to do with the meats on the pizza...but I've definitely have had a cheese pizza with tons and tons of oil. I don't use any oil in my recipe, except to let the dough rise, which is less than a teaspoon of oil.

Maybe I'll have B host the superbowl this year and I'll make pizzas for everyone....I want to get the dough right. The one over the weekend had too much flour (kneading is freaking hard!)...but B said it was much better than the frozen CPK pizzas he loves so much. I don't think he'll go as far as to say my pizza was better than a pizzaria or the real CPK restaurant, but that's what I'm aiming towards...

I don't actually forsee myself making a lot of bread with the bread machine...just because I really don't eat that much bread and I currently have a package and a half of bread in my freezer, but I can definitely see myself making a lot of pizza dough, or sweet dessert breads (like cinnamon rolls, elephant ears, sticky buns...which is really bad for me, so maybe I won't....). I do want to try some potato bread (I didn't realize that mashed potatoes were actually IN potato bread) and some bread bowls.

Yes, I'm a freak. I know. Leave me alone to be excited about my bread machine.

Catch Up...

2006-08-21T08:43:00.000-05:00

Friday's Food Journal:
2 bagels with a tablespoon of salmon cream cheese
2 cups of coffee
1 Coors Light
1 Miller High Life
2 Jack and Cokes
1 SoCo shot.
It was B's birthday. I wasn't hungry....but look!! NO CANDY!!! Yay!

Saturday's Food Journal:
1 slice of deep dish pepperoni and spinach pizza
1 cup of cherries
1 cup of coke
2 small slices of bbq chicken pizza (homemade!)
2 small crab cakes (homemade!)
1 molten chocolate cupcake (homemade!)
1.5 cups of soy milk
1 cup of apple juice
It was a continuation of B's birthday, where I made him dinner.

Sunday's Food Journal:
1 small slice of bbq chicken pizza
4 oz of leftover rotisserie chicken
1 cup apple juice
1 small crab cake, handful of fried shrimp, handful of fried calamari, a couple fried jalepano slices
1 honey roasted chicken thigh
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
This was another birthday dinner, this time hosted by his parents

Weight this morning: 135.8.

BAH. I guess this weekend was full of heavy eating, so we'll see how this week goes.

On another note, I went grocery shopping! First time in over two months. I spent about $76, but I should have enough food for a month or two. I bought some yogurt (yum, yum...fat free of course), pita bread (for low-carb pizzas and lunch sandwiches), a gallon of skim milk (which I separated into five portions and froze 4 of them. I don't drink enough milk to justify buying a gallon, but this way, I'll have milk for months...), smart balance spread (which is proven to lower cholesterol), some lean frozen dinners ($1 each, 4 packs for the days I'm too lazy to cook), Orange Juice, canned soup (I should stop buying this stuff and make my own, but this is for emergency lunch days where I stayed at B's and didn't have anything to bring to lunch), romaine lettuce (for the pitas...though I forgot to get some tomatoes...), blueberries (oh so good...I looove blueberries), pasta sauce (4 jars...on sale), stewed tomatoes and tomato paste (to try this recipe for marinara sauce...I haven't decided which is cheaper yet since I don't know how much the recipe will make. The stewed tomatoes and tomato paste costs about $2.14..I'll update later with the cost per serving), spicy italian sausage (for ziti, when I get lazy, this is an easy and cheap dish to make), rotisserie chicken, old bay seasoning, bbq sauce, red onion, and canned crab meat (for B's dinner), paper towels (again, on sale), and bay leaves (for chicken stock).

So really, after taking out the items for B's dinner, I really only spent about $58.

I do still need to pick up some small whole chickens at Jewel (0.78/lb) to make some easy roasted chicken recipes (and then use the bones for chicken stock), and some soda at CVS (free after rebate!), some english muffins (good for breakfast...hopefully they have a wheat variety), extra light olive oil (buy one get one free at jewel), and grapes.

I do get chicken breast, shrimp, and veggies from my parents (yay for wholesale prices), but I think I'll get some extra grapes and freeze them. The problem is that my freezer is SO full of stuff. I think I'll start expanding to B's freezer as well. Or maybe I'll buy a freezer for my garage....ooooooh. Oh and the other problem is that I don't use much in my freezer. I'm going to try to plan a bit more so I can empty out my freezer a bit.

Along with the goal of trying to eat healthier, I'm also trying to cut back on how much I spend on food. The Tightwad Gazette has been super useful in teaching me how to reduce my grocery bill, though I know I can do much more than what I have been doing. Like shopping in Cicero. I'm trying to factor in gas costs as well, and I'm too unmotivated to actually sit down and figure out the savings. I should probably make a spreadsheet that I can plug in gas prices and food costs into...

Anyways, I digress. Today I plan to eat: 2 cups coffee, 1" x 1" piece of brownie, leftover chicken casserole, and something else for dinner....

and the beat goes on...

2006-08-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

So no weigh in this morning (I have to get a scale for my bf's place...) but I will recap my food consumption yesterday (it wasn't that good...)

Half a bag of banana chips (120 calories)
2 cups of coffee (2 creamers and 1 equal each, 60 calories or so)
Half a meatball sub (leftovers, and again, very filling)
6 pieces of candy (I fail! Again, they are mini kit kats. There's only one side of a 2 inch kit kat in each and I tried to only eat the dark chocolate ones)
3 small pieces of Tyson fried chicken fingers (one to one and a half inch pieces)
3 bites of ziti (I was checking if the ziti was warm enough...I was heating it up for my bf)
a small slice of chocolate cake (1/2 inch thick, 5 inches long and 3 inches wide)

Overall, not so hot. I wasn't even hungry for the cake, just wanted something sweet.

I almost think I should cut out carbs for 2 weeks to KILL my sweet tooth (it definitely worked before) but today, I have a casserole in the fridge with whole wheat pasta, and this weekend is the bf's birthday.

Okay, so it's time to re-focus and get some freakin' SELF CONTROL. I only have 6 weeks to lose 8.6 lbs....

no news is good news?

2006-08-17T09:03:00.000-05:00

Still at 133.6. I only have 6 more weeks before I'm suppose to hit my goal weight of 125 and I've been hanging around this just below/above 134 lbs for awhile now. I'm going to increase to 2 tablespoons of oil twice a day to see what that does. I did this in the very beginning and saw good results, and I only dropped to one because I thought that maybe the weight loss was too quick, but perhaps I have found my maintenance dose...Oh, and I'm going to switch to ELOO because 1) it's on sale this week, and 2) olive oil is suppose to be much better for you than canola oil. Plus canola oil is suppose to have some iffy results. I did have some good success on sugar water, so I'm thinking about going back to that, but I'm a bit worried about my blood sugar levels. Though truthfully, I've eaten enough candy in the last few days to erase that fear...

I'll play around with what types of oil/sugar I consume and update my results.

Food Journal:
one and a half homemade chocolate chip cookies
2 cups of coffee (with a pack of equal/splenda and 2 carnation non dairy creamers in each cup)
orange juice
half a regular size meatball sub from Quizno's, which filled me up WAY more than the whole regular subs that I had last week...I'm not sure why...perhaps the fattier content...but which is better? A lot of something semi healthy (how is the prime rib sandwich THAT healthy?) or a little of something not that healthy? (This excludes the healthy sandwich I got last week, as I would assume that the big healthy sub is much better for you than a small meatball sub) I would do an analysis, but Quizno's doesn't offer nutritional info on their website!
apple juice
3 pieces of candy (again, mini and mostly dark chocolate)
a quarter of a blueberry muffin from starbucks
one yogurt and dill chip from Trader Joe's. It tasted like Indian Food, so maybe I should get some just for those exotic flavors...but it's nothing I haven't eaten before.

Today:
Either a portion of the casserole I made over the weekend or the rest of the meatball sub
a cup (or two) of coffee
and probably some banana crisps. (Trader Joe's is back in stock, and my co-workers bought me a couple bags.....it's no good, but if I can eat the banana crisps instead of the candy, I'm good to go. A whole 6 oz bag only has 240 calories, 60 calories of fat, AND 6 grams of fiber. I'm sure that the candy bars are WAY worse than that...)

Just as an FYI, I won't be able to weigh myself everyday (my bf doesn't have a scale!) but I will try and blog my food journal everyday. It's something I'm trying to instill in my habits...accountability...with food and with other areas of my life...

133.6

2006-08-15T10:46:00.000-05:00

Woot.

Though the candy dish has returned, and it has dark chocolate kit kats in it.

Damn.

Well, trying to keep hydrated anyways....

Yesterday's food consumption:
Chicken Casserole (The whole recipe produced 5 servings, and I used 3 ounces of chicken, a can of lite condensed cream of mushroom soup and lite condensed cream of celery, half a bag of stove top stuffing, whole wheat pasta (3 servings total), a head of broccoli, 4 slices of non fat cheddar cheese.) I know Chicken Casserole is not the most healthy thing to eat, but I split them into smaller portions and it's fairly filling...I think it's about 500 calories? The original recipe is 434 calories, but it's for 4 servings and no pasta. I think 500 is good? Plus I used low-fat stuff instead of the full fat stuff the recipe called for...I'll actually calculate it tonight...
1/4 cup almonds, 1/4 cup craisins (270 cal total)
90 cal Kellogg snack bites (i.e. crunchy flavored granola)
6 small bars of candy. (Damn it, again.)
10 small cheese ravioli + sauce

Today:
Probably the same as above, minus the ravioli and 4 candy bars.

I wasn't very hungry for dinner yesterday, but my cute (and hungry) bf made me ravioli, which was ready and waiting when I got to his place from work.

I'll see if I can forego the dinner tonight...8.6 lbs to lose by 10/1/06....so I need to average a weight loss of 1.3 lbs a week

Back on track...

2006-08-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

134.0

Back to the weight before my off week. Strangely enough, although I was trying to eat smaller portions, the monster inside of me ate 2 regular subs at Quizno's twice last week for lunch! I usually only get the small sub, but both times I ordered the regular size sub so I could have half for the next day, and both times I failed. Not only that, but both times, I was hungry for dinner!! I was on and off with the oil last week because I was feeling crummy and my stomach was killing me most of the time, but it's nice that I haven't really gained any weight. (The 0.2 pounds doesn't count, you have to take into account small weight fluctuations, BMs, water retention, etc.)

I am still feeling fairly dehydrated today, so I'm going to try and re-hydrate myself. I hate re-hydration days...I always have to use the facilities!

Food Journal for yesterday:
Regular size (eep!) Quizno's sub, Honey Bourbon Chicken (at least it was on the "Lite" menu...)
a snack bag of Munchos (residual salt cravings..140 cals)
Cup of rice and 3 eggs with hoisin sauce for dinner. (Oh, sooo good. It's like fried rice, but with less oil and less work.)
Handful of Swedish Fish. (I LOOVE Swedish Fish, but man, at 7 calories a fish, I have to stop.)

Today for Lunch:
Chicken fried rice (with leftovers from yesterday's rice, 1 egg and probably half an ounce of chicken)

I wonder if rice is a good idea. It fills me up, but man, do I get hungry later on. I'm currently munching on the rice now, and probably will munch on it until lunchtime. We'll see how the rest of this week goes...

Ohhhh....

2006-08-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

So I figured out why my weight suddenly jumped...and for that reason, I'm going to report back in a week my actual numbers. I'm not cheating, it's just that these times of the month are hard on weight loss...especially with the bloating.

Sorry for the TMI, but I'll be on hiatus until next week. I'll keep up with the oil regime, and see how this initial dose of 2 tbsps, once a day works. If my weight still is up, then I'll bump up to 2 tbsps, twice a day.

2 steps forward, 4 steps back

2006-07-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

136.2

I haven't really been eating much more than before, though a little bit more during the weekend due to some going away dinners and such. But I did exercise this weekend (some light elliptical action on Saturday, and moving furniture on Sunday...which though I guess it's not technically exercising, moving a sleeper sofa, a regular sofa, and all sorts of random shit is TIRING. I call it weight lifting.)

It has been really hot and humid outside though, so maybe it's water retention...or maybe it's because I haven't had a BM since Friday.

Lots of water today, so that tomorrow, I can see if it's water retention or if I need to increase my oil intake.

Recovery: Mission Accomplished

2006-07-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

So, after a day of partial re-hydrating (though, I probably should have drank more water), I step on the scale today, hoping that if anything, I was just the same weight as before the food and alcohol binge.

Imagine my surprise when my weight was 133.8.

133.8. That means I've lost a total of 15.2 lbs, and I'm only 3 lbs heavier than where I was before the summer started. AND I've lost a total of 1.4 lbs THIS WEEK....actually in 5 days. It also means that I only have 8.8 lbs to go for my initial goal (by October 1) and 13.8 lbs to my ultimate (and what I use to think was unachievable) goal.

Amazing. It's not really too much water weight, because I can still tell that I don't drink enough water and that I am still dehydrated (dehydrated + a little water + a TON of beer (and hangover to match) + 4 glasses of water does not equal full hydration)

A quick recap of yesterday's food consumption (after I woke up at least...I already counted my midnight beers in the post from the day before).
Coffee (with equal and creamer)
a small kit kat bar (this is something I really need to work on...)
half of a southwestern steak wrap (it was a tomato tortilla with steak, corn, beans, cheese, tomatoes...very excellent)
20 tator tots with the steak wrap.
1/4 of a giant jalepano cheese stuffed soft pretzel
a quarter of a sweet potato
2.5"x2.5"x1" piece of leftover steak
one serving of (almost) fat free, sugar free pudding (I had to use 1% milk...the store ran out of skim milk)

The one thing I didn't do? Take my oil. Eh, oh well...I'll just take it today and throughout this weekend.

Today I believe I will be running around the burbs for a bit and in the hot hot sun (UGH!). I guess an upside to that is the heat really just kills my appetite.

I didn't even want to look....

2006-07-28T09:35:00.000-05:00

So yesterday went as planned. I had my pasta for lunch, and I did sneak in one small candy bar (it's the mini stuff you give away at halloween) because Excel literally died on me and I lost a 2000 row spreadsheet I spent all day working on. (Note to self, check on the autosave feature.)

For dinner, it was one of my co-worker's last days before moving to a different firm, so we went to a goodbye dinner, and as planned I shared a huge chunk of meat with someone else. What I didn't really plan for was the rounds of appetizers (I had 1.5 empanadas and 2 rolls of bread with some antipasto) which led me to eat approximately a 3"x1"x1" piece of meat and a 2"x1"x2" piece of someone else's filet and call it a night. This is huge for me. This steakhouse is one of those places where it is so good, that I usually am full and continue eating because the food is amazing. The leftovers I took home were huge.

The other thing I did not expect was getting called out to drinks by senior officers and the endless rounds of drinks they kept buying me. Well, I had 4 beers, plus a couple glasses of wine at the BYOB.

So this morning, I just refused to step on the scale. I was so dehydrated from the drinking and I knew that the number just could not possibly be good. So the plan today is to re-hydrate myself and to eat healthy to make up for the bad night last night. I actually didn't eat that much food, but all the beer and wine really does not help with any diet.

134.8

2006-07-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Things I ate yesterday:
Soy Chips (from Trader Joe's...oh so good)
4 or 5 mini candy bars (the goal today is 0)
4 mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce
Nachos (maybe 10 chips total with some ground beef and cheese)
Cup of coffee
cup and a half of grapes
a cookie
a 1"x1" piece of coffee cake

I guess you can eat crap and still lose weight....

Today will be slightly healthier. I had about 2 cups of OJ for breakfast and a 1" x 1" piece of coffee cake. Lunch will be some pasta (not whole wheat, but the stuff in the middle...the Barilla plus stuff) with some semi-homemade pasta sauce (Ragu + ground pork + garlic + spices). Dinner will be at this AMAZING (and cheap) steakhouse in the city. I will most likely order 1 of 2 dishes (either share a huge chunk..literally a chunk, it's the size of a small ham...of steak with this amazing mushroom sauce or the filet with mashed spinach potatoes)

We'll see how much I can eat. Just looking at this sounds like a lot of food....it will all depend on how much I eat at the steakhouse I think...

Back to reality

2006-07-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

So, I'm back into the swing of things. Finally. Well, not really back into the exercise, but I am back on the SLD diet religiously. I'm taking 2 tablespoons of oil once a day. (I will probably increase this to 2 tablespoons twice a day, but I figured I'll just start with one serving)

current weight: 135.2; about 4.4 lbs heavier than my lightest on the diet, and I attribute the weight gain to water weight (I drank sugar water in the beginning, which forced me to drink A LOT of water, and since I've switched to oil, I know I haven't actually been drinking what i need to drink) and the past two months of destructiveness. Still, I am 13.8 pounds lighter than the beginning of this year.

Things I've noticed since I started back up on Monday: a definite decrease in appetite. It's not that I can't eat (cause I can, and I usually do for dinner), but I'm conciously deciding to eat instead of being hungry. I don't actually eat lunch anymore, but instead, graze on snack food throughout the day (minus the two hours for the oil). I generally graze on soy chips (very healthy) and candy (not so healthy...and not that I crave it, it's just I really like candy). I'll stop this nonsense tomorrow, and actually get lunch. My hope is that I just eat a little bit and be so full that I can't contemplate munching on candy.

Anyways, I'm going to use this to track my daily weight, though I'm sure I won't be writing such long blogs. I've been reading other people's blogs on SLD and I really want to be able to make a graph since it seems so motivational, and I guess I have to start by recording my weight....

Oh, such a bad month

2006-07-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I spent all of June eating and drinking. Every weekend was either someone's birthday, someone's wedding or someone's graduation...and that means it was ALL sorts of food and liquor involved. I have to get back onto this diet thing, because I've been a huge slacker recently.

So, some news...my cholesterol is down! I'm at 170 now (which the doc said I only need to be less than 160 due to the family history of high cholesterol). She gave me a script for Zetia, but I really want to try and do this by myself...of course, I haven't been exercising lately, so maybe I should just take the meds...

I stopped the SLD for a little bit, mostly because work got SO busy that I didn't really have time to be on any sort of schedule with food and coffee and such. I'm actually going to pick that back up today....2 tablespoons of oil, twice a day.

Just to make my life a bit more complicated, my income is decreasing by about $300 a month from now on, and that's a lot of money....and I'm suppose to be saving up for law school and trying to payoff my student loans! I don't even know what to do...

I bought The Tightwad Gazette awhile ago and skimmed through it, but maybe I should seriously consider following a lot of the tips. I can't completely follow it (I live in the city...I can't grow a garden!), but I think I'll try a couple things just to see if that will help. It's just hard when you're trying to be healthy and eat whole wheat stuff and fresh veggies and your income takes a hit. :( We'll see how it goes I guess, but there are some expensive items I will need to purchase....such as some LSAT books. ::Sigh:: The last thing I need is something else to stress me out, since I seem to eat when stressed....

To cure my trader joe's addiction, I've just decided to remove the temptation. I just don't buy the chips there anymore. I guess it helps that they have been sold out of the chips for the past 3 weeks or so, but I realized that my self control is fine if the addiction item(s) are just not around. I won't go and buy them, or if I have them as "Guest Junk Food" (for when friends are visiting and need snacks), as long as they stay unopened, I won't eat them. It's just that once it IS open, I go all out. Eating the whole bag of banana crisps....or half a bag of doritos...and not the good baked kind. The artery clogging fried, oh-so yummy kind....mmmmmmnnnnn, so good.

I'm also going to try and make it a point to post more often. I just kind of assume no one is reading my posts, and that this is my own self absorbed way to talk about my issues, but I got a comment! So perhaps someone random is reading this. Yay!

Being Social while Dieting

2006-06-04T16:09:00.000-05:00

One of the things I HATE about being a diet is that I basically feel like I have to cut off social ties with my friends. Now, I understand I can be social without having to drink, but because I'm still fairly yound, and out of college for about a year now, most of my time socializing with my friends involve drinking.

Drinking is absolutely crap for any diet. Especially this month, because this weekend was alumni weekend at the U of C, next weekend, my high school friends are in town and there is a graduation party I have to attend, my cousin's wedding reception is the following weekend and then my birthday is later in the month.

I guess I can drink, just in moderation, but I know that not drinking would help much more with the diet.

Trader Joe's, I hate you.

2006-05-28T19:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, I don't. I loovve Trader Joe's. But it doesn't seem to help too much with my diet. I bought some banana crisps, which are SOOO good. And while I do have a decreased appetite, I still need to stop eating out of boredom. Maybe the habit stems from growing up in a restaurant where I use to eat quickly and whenever I wanted. Or perhaps it is what my friend calls the "immigrant guilt." I would finish my plate and eat everything that I have because since I was little, I was constantly reminded how my parents were never that fortunate growing up.

Either way, I ate the entire bag of banana crisps. I wasn't even hungry. But they were soooo good. (Yeah, for anyone that hasn't tried them, be forewarned...you may eat the entire bag.) At least they weren't unhealthy for me...240 calories and 6 grams of fat.

For now, I'm going to stay away from Trader Joe's. But I will be back there once I can control my habit of eating when food is around.

Introduction

2006-05-26T19:14:00.000-05:00

I'm a twenty-something year old female who grew up in a restaurant. I was told constantly by my relatives (mostly my mother) that I needed to lose weight. At the same time, my mother would always give me too much food, tell me to eat more at dinner, and give me Hostess cupcakes for breakfast. Needless to say, my relationship with my mother is great...as long as we don't talk about my weight, and my relationship with food is screwed up.

Three years ago, I found out that I have PCOS, which usually means that I should be semi-diabetic. After some long blood tests, they found that my insulin levels were normal, but because I have every other symptom of PCOS, they put me on a type-2 diabetes medication. That effectively killed my appetite.

At the time, I thought it was a miracle drug. It helped me ovulate and lose weight. A year into the medication, I had lost twenty pounds, dropped to just below the healthy weight range for my height and...I stopped eating. It was just so easy with the medication.

That was a dark time for me. I was depressed, had no energy, and slept all day. After an intervention from a concerned friend, I stopped taking the medication and started eating again. I remember when I was recovering, I had a huge argument with my mother. I don't quite remember how it started or what I said, but I do distinctly remember her saying "I knew you were anorexic, but I didn't say anything because you needed to lose the weight." My heaviest weight up to that point was probably 125 pounds.

It hurts just typing that out, but from then on, my parents and I never talk at length about my weight. In fact, up until the beginning of this year, I was so hell-bent on being happy and not worry about my weight and not worry about what my parents thought that I gained about 45 pounds from when I was anorexic.

A reality check at the doctor's office. I was officially overweight. I have high cholesterol and I needed to change my life. I have been fighting so hard against the thought that I needed to be skinny to have self confidence that I now only fit into two pairs of jeans...out of twenty-five.

Since the beginning of this year, I have lost 18.2 pounds. The first 7 pounds were from exercising and e-diets. The next 6.4 were from the South Beach Diet. The last 4.8 were from the Shangri-La Diet, which I started a week ago. Yes, I am the Queen of Diets. I'm not going to explain the Shangri-La Diet, because other people can do it much better than I can. (Do a google search, or check out Calorie Lab's explanation). It sounds crazy and like some sort of fad diet, but it's definitely works. Those 4.8 pounds went somewhere. At first I thought my scale was broken. I actually weighed myself 5 times when I dropped the first four pounds...just in case I was imagining things. (For a few minutes, I thought the scale manufacturer programmed the scale to drop weight as I conspiracy.) Now, granted some of this is probably water weight. I don't particularly enjoy drinking water, and I was drinking more on this diet. I guess we'll see how it goes, but I have high hopes for this diet.

I'm not sure if losing weight will fix my weight issues or make them worse, but I've chosen to lose the weight first so that I can be healthier and lower my cholesterol. My goal weight is not far off...another 10.8-15.8 pounds to go. So here chronicles the rest of my weight loss and perhaps the elimination of the psychological baggage that comes with weight.