Bad Mood

Today's Weight: 252.4
Spanx Size: E
End of Phase 1: 9 days

Maybe the raise in my weight from yesterday was a sign; a bad omen from the digital world of scales: Today is going to suck. That's a bit melodramatic. It didn't suck all the way around. I watched 500 Days of Summer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had some really yummy veggies at dinner. I got a couple loads of laundry done and almost all of the dishes are clean. So, yea for productivity.

But I was supposed to help someone with something tomorrow night. I was really looking forward to it and was really excited about it. I was supposed to help last weekend, but got sick. I told them I was off tomorrow night from work, so they told me to plan on helping and they would email me the plan. I never got the plan. So I called today and they didn't remember last week's conversation and said they'd use me again in a couple of weeks. For some reason, this really upset me. I mean, my attitude went from really chipper to really bummed.

And my weight went up. So that sucks. Granted it wasn't by a huge amount, but, all the same. I'd like for it to just stay down, please. I have realized there is no reason for me to pay for my SBD website subscription when I have all of the info in my books at home. I tried to cancel my subscription tonight since my free trial ends Sunday and I get charged for the next 13 weeks Monday. Apparently, the SBD web people are only in office Monday - Friday 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST, so they had left when I started trying to cancel my membership. The best part, they won't be back until after my bank account has been charged. Freaking fantastic.

And I got my library work schedule and it conflicts with my class schedule so I have to get that all figured out (which really only sucks because I hate having to make my supervisor do any more work on the schedule; I adore her and the library and hate to complicate things there). Then I got my volunteer schedule for MLK Day and it conflicts with work and class so that sucks. And my phone won't charge and turn on, so people think I am just being rude and inconsiderate and that's not the case at all. And now I am just in this funk. And I dislike it.

For the diet portion of my day, though, everything went lovely. I ate only what I was supposed to eat. Drank eight glasses of water and a can of V8 today. I was more active around the house today, but I still didn't exercise. I'll work on improving that tomorrow, though. My new open schedule will allow for it. **hmph.**

Long December... Uh, January

Today's Starting Weight: 251.8
Spanx Size: E
End of Phase 1: 10 days

It's so cold! Four degrees? Really. I am freezing. And what do I love when it is this cold? Hot chocolate with marshmallows. What can I not have? Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Suck.

Another problem I have with the cold is the limitations it has placed on me in regards to activity. I do not want to take my kids out in this crap. The roads aren't bad, but it's just cold enough that our crappy car would probably break down somewhere. I refuse to take that chance with my kids. I mean, right now it is 4 degrees with a windchill of -15! What the heck??? That means we have spent a lot of time this week snuggling under blankets, watching movies. Great moments with the kids; however, diet fall backs.

I have not been active. I have not been exercising. Mostly, I've been laying around under massive blankets trying to get warm. So I kinda feel like I am only doing half of my diet. I'm eating all the right things, just not doing anything to work off those good calories. Good calories can be bad if they're not used properly.

And I also realized I am not drinking enough water. Before bed last night I realized I was really thirsty. Thinking back over my day, I counted only two glasses of water and a 6 oz. can of V8. So I need to increase my water intake. Today I managed a glass of low-fat milk and three glasses of water. That's a little bit better, but not anywhere near what I should be drinking per day.

Today's diet meltdown was over Velveeta shells & cheese. I made some for the kids and I thought I was totally going to cave. When I started squeezing the cheese into the pan, some of it landed on my finger. I stood there, staring at it like I was a model trying to walk away from a free line of coke. Finally, I ran, literally, to the sink and washed my hands.

The problem with this diet is not that it is making me eat crap I don't like. It's simply walking away from the things I do. Like blueberries and raspberries in the produce aisle at Dillon's yesterday. OMG they looked so good. Blueberries and raspberries are possibly my favorite foods in the entire food world, which makes it difficult to abstain from them when they are at their prettiest right now.

An unexpected bonus, though, **TMI disclaimer** has been the extra boost in my sex drive. It's been pretty low for some time, well, since around the same time I started gaining the weight. Not that the act of has happened more than usual, just that I am a little bit more interested in it than ten pounds ago. I don't even know if Matt has noticed, but I have. And I guess right now that is all that matters.

Pressing forward to tomorrow...

Not Possible!

Today's Starting Weight: 255.4 or 257.2... Either way, seems very debatable.
Spanx Size: E
Days Left of Phase 1: 12

Last night I went to bed with a mighty plan in mind: I would wake at 7, eat breakfast, fix snack 1 & lunch, hop in the shower, get ready, & go to work where I would consume said snack and lunch. The mighty plan would allow me three hours to do everything I needed to do and get to work. I was very excited about this plan. As I began falling asleep, a brilliant fiction plot tingling at the edges of my mind, I thought to myself, I'm so lucky to have a husband that wakes me every morning. And then I fell into a deep sleep.

You can see where this is going, I am sure.

Cut to 8:45 this morning, just an hour and fifteen minutes until I have to be at work when I woke from said sleep, my wonderful husband sleeping in for the first time in... maybe ever. I didn't just wake. My eyes peeled open like the skin of a banana, the sunlight gazed my cornea, and I felt a warm body next to me. I made a bit of a commotion then, jumping up and climbing, an act better described as scrambling, over my still sleeping husband. I ran into the hallway and realized my kids were still asleep. At least, they had been before my outburst. Matt made my breakfast, I made the snack and lunch, got clean and dressed and headed out the door six minutes before I had to be at the store.

Yes, it is true I live very close to my work. No, it is not true that I can make it there in six minutes without breaking a few laws. So, laws were broken while I shoveled scrambled Southwestern Egg-Whites into my mouth. I arrived without breaking anything or anyone, save a few speeding restrictions. At work, I tried to eat my snack, but the cilantro mayo was too much for my feeble taste buds. I ended up eating my salad when I got home.

These trivial moments are not really important, though. Before I stepped into the shower, I stepped onto the scale. Now, please remember, Dear Readers, that just yesterday the same scale scowled at me from under the weight of 261.2 pounds. This morning, standing in my pajamas - same pajamas I took the previous shameful weight in - the scale read 255.4 pounds. Now, I am a realist. And a pessimist. There is no way in... well, in all of the scalding flames of hell that I lost almost 6 pounds in one day. There just isn't. So, I got cleaned, dressed, and stood on the scale again.

I stood very still, watching the lines blink in the reflection of the bathroom tile while the scale computed. I am always so afraid to move when I check my weight; what if a simple movement, such as looking down, causes the scale to read incorrectly? When I check my weight, I stand on the scale, my head straight, my eyes peering down like those movie librarians peering over their glasses, waiting to see a jumbled reflection of numbers, rather than lines. Once I see the numbers, I finally allow myself to move.

So the numbers arrived. I glanced down to read... and the scale read... 257.2. Clearly there was an error. So, I weighed myself three more times. Each time, the numbers read 257.2. What??? Even after seeing the numbers, my mind refused to accept it. I told the scale, "We'll just see tomorrow," like I was threatening it with punishment, or something.

So here is my new rule. Every morning, I will perform my weigh-ins in nothing but my skivvies. This will help to rule out any unintentional mis-weighs. I think that is only right.

But, just in case you are like me and every other child that ever peeled the wrapping paper back trying to get a glimpse at the present underneath (Come on - I know you did it, too.), let me leave you with this unbelievable truth. Tonight, after dinner, I went to the bathroom. I stepped on the scale, fully clothed. It read 261.2. I checked it many times. I stripped to my skivvies, stepped on the scale, and it read 257.0. I called Matt in, made him stand on the scale. Then I made him stand on the scale holding my pile of clothes. What did we find? A 4.2 pound difference. Lesson? Weigh without your clothes, Ladies. The truth is much more pleasant than the lie.

Day 1, and Counting

Today's Starting Weight: 261.2 pounds. Yech.
Starting Spanx Size: E
End of Phase 1: 13 Days

Day one of my diet, and I feel... **gasp** full. Surprising, right?

A few years ago, I took South Beach lunchables to work and dropped ten pounds - from my belly. Without even trying. So when I decided to go on a diet last year, I went with what I knew would work. I started the diet, ignorantly, right before a long list of celebratory events that included cake and ice cream and pie and yumminess and I fell off the wagon before I ever began. The South Beach Diet Super Charged Handbook ($25.95 hardback) and The South Beach Diet Cookbook ($27.95 hardback) became nice shiny paper weights.

Having spent the aforementioned $54 and change on the required reading, I pulled the handbook and cookbook off the shelf yesterday and began creating my diet meal plan and shopping list. To further commit myself to the plan, I spent $65 of my hard earned cash on a subscription to the South Beach Diet webguide. (I rationalized spending the money like so: committing even more cash to this diet in such a trashed economy will guarantee my attentions; and, the first week is a free trial of which I can pull out at any time.)

The website is not as user friendly as Dr. Agatston's team probably believes. However, it does offer some great tools. I set my beginning date and it created a full menu for the week. I then went through the menu, and switched out whatever meals I did not want (mostly egg-based breakfast items). I clicked on the menu items for recipes and the shopping list basically wrote itself.

Cooking for the fam was easy. For breakfast, they scrambled to finish off the Cinnamon Life Cereal, possibly the greatest temptation living in my house today. For lunch, the kids had grilled cheese sandwiches, grapes, and chips with Daddy. Daddy cooked. For dinner, everyone ate what Mommy ate. Neither kids ate the steamed green beans; Grace ate the "mashed potatoes," David did not. Matt said, "Are these potatoes?" I asked him what he thought they were. "Potatoes." I told him it was mashed cauliflower. His response? "Wow. I'd take this over mashed potatoes any day." Hmmm... I don't know that I'd go that far, but they were pretty good.

You may be wondering why I am putting myself through this humiliation, admitting my weight and Spanx size on a world wide mass communication format. By creating for myself an assignment, I have created a source of accountability. I had a dream last night that I woke up and had five followers to this feed, just overnight. I remember thinking in my dream, Wow. Now I really have to stick to this. Look at these people that really want to know if this works or not. Cheesy, I know. But I can't control the cheese in my dreams. It just flows.

When I woke this morning, I had no new followers. (My husband scoped it out last night, if that counts for anything.) I don't know if anyone will ever read this, but the accountability worked today. Because if I am going to slip up and dig my hand in the Cinnamon Life box, I may not be the only one who will know. As a girl who hates to lie, I'd feel guilty about pretending I had a perfect day when I didn't. And I'd have to sign on to my blogspot and write about how I didn't even have the willpower to last the day. And since the good opinion of those around me means that much to me, peer pressure will win out and I will persevere through this diet.

Day one: complete.

Day two: I'm staring you down, and I will be the victor.

Yet Again, A.K.A.: Another Start

So, tomorrow begins another start at a better life. Please note: this is not an attempt at a New Year's resolution, though this could fall under such category despite my greatest intentions, as it is a new year and a new resolution. I chose tomorrow for this simple reason: I have exactly two weeks before spring semester picks up at my university. That gives me two weeks to get into the swing of things before college life picks and pulls at my schedule, to get my cravings under control before I am faced by candy-filled snack machines in every building. Two weeks before I begin long days of low activity, locked away in classrooms for the greater part of every day. Two weeks before I begin a race of time that makes fast food so convenient.

I've always struggled with diets. They make me eat things I'd never think to eat and do things with my body I'd rather not do. It's not laziness. I simply dislike them. I've tried very hard on several diets; legitimately saw them through with no great results. With two-hundred and sixty pounds screaming at me that no diet has ever worked before and no diet will probably ever be successful, it's no wonder I leer in the general direction of tomorrow's new diet regimen.

Probably the only program that has ever worked for me has been pregnancy. Yes, you read correctly. When I was pregnant with my first child, I lost thirty pounds. No, not after - during. The doctor was bumfuzzled, constantly questioned whether I was eating the things I needed to eat. Honestly, I ate all the time! And, despite what you might be thinking, my baby was not huge. She was a healthy 7.1 pounds. I kept all of this weight off for a while. But after losing two babies during pregnancy in less than a year, I fell into bed and barely got out for anything but to eat. The result? I was roughly the size of a small boat.

In early 2007, we realized I was pregnant again. And, just as before, the pounds began to melt away. I lost a whopping forty pounds with my fourth pregnancy. I looked fantastic when my baby boy was delivered (or, at least fantastic in comparison to how I was used to looking; I was still overweight). However, as soon as I stopped breastfeeding, the pounds began to hop back on board. Apparently my stomach is the highest rated cruise ship for all things fatty, while my butt is the vacation destination for all the cool fat cells. The only problem is the vacation season never seems to end.

Over the last two years of my son's life, I have managed to find all of those original forfeit pounds, and then some. In fact, this last fall semester, I gained another ten, bringing my new horrific, shameful weight to 260 pounds.

It takes me nearly fifteen minutes to put on my clothes every morning, and not because I can't decide what to wear. Every day I get up, put on my "Higher Power" Spanx, a body shaper that reminds me of a suction cup disguised as bike shorts that ride all the way up to my bra. Once I've shimmied my way into these and tucked them under my bra band (so as to keep it from rolling down), I begin wiggling into my "Slim Cognito Body Shaping Cami" by Spanx. This is a tank-top contraption that, as directed by Spanx, I step into, rather than pull over my head. I believe this is because the people at Spanx are afraid of the possibility of death via strangling of their customers. After all, a dead customer is no customer at all.

Getting into my Spanx feels like I am trying to slide into a second skin, like the reverse action of a snake removing its outer layer. As a reward for my hard work, the "cami" rolls up from my waist under my clothes for the entirety of the day. I make several escapes to the bathroom throughout the day, not to use the restroom, as I am too afraid to take it all off, but rather to unroll the Spanx "cami" back to its original hiding place. My classmates must think I have a weak bladder, and I am sure one of my coworkers thinks I am stealing, as I duck into dressing rooms several times throughout my shift to fix my Spanx. I mean no disrespect to Sarah Blakely and her lovely Spanx; her products are marvelous. I only wear them because I understand their worth. However, as a fat girl, they have become the part of my day that I dread most.

Once I have finally dressed and I start to put on my makeup, I stare at my face, marveling at the beginning of what can only be described as jowls, and consider for quite a while how much faster my makeup must run out than the makeup of all my skinny friends. This then reminds me of how much body wash it took to get my entire body clean, and, subsequently, how I've been avoiding shaving my legs simply for the time and product it takes to get the job done. Thus, the act of getting ready in the morning is a much longer and more dismal act than that of the average girl, I am sure. It's a wonder I walk out the door at all.

It is, therefore, with all natural health fears also regarded, that I take another stab at this diet thing tomorrow. I have begun planning out my menu, which is proving to be quite the duty as my inability to eat eggs is causing a huge problem in my breakfast menu. Keeping in mind the three other people that will eat whatever I fix is creating another huge hurdle in my otherwise clear race track. But, I strive forward, hoping this time will take and I can close the doors to the famed five-star Fat Spa that resides in my gut, throwing out my Spanx for good, or, at least, a smaller size.