Still Chugging Along

Hello again! Sorry for being crappy at blogging this week. I have 2 excuses - #1 it's been a crazy week with snow and going out of town for a gig, #2 I've been lazy. :) First - at my weigh-in last week I only lost 0.3 pounds. Or pound. I'd been working out really hard and felt like I was making good food decisions, so it was kind of a slap in the face. I think it might have been influenced by 2 factors - I overestimated my daily activity level (how many calories you burn from day to day), or I'm overestimating my portion sizes on things like . . . chips. I can burn through a bag of chips no problem. So, to counteract, this week I changed my daily points back to 28, when a couple weeks ago I upped it to 30 because I thought I'd be burning a few more calories at the restaurant. And I've tried to keep a better eye on how many chips I've been eating. Although my hope is that by lowering my daily points value, it will even itself out and allow me to lose more weight this week. We'll see tomorrow!

But I'm still dieting away! The snow this weekend left me homebound and threw off my workout schedule. I had a fit test scheduled for Saturday, but being that the roads were a bit icy I had to miss it. And since then I've just been lazy and unmotivated. Even though I've stuck to my points this week, I've been feeling kind of down about the whole diet situation. Maybe it's because I haven't had the high endorphins (I just had to spell check that, just so everyone knows) of working out, or maybe it's because I basically sat around all day Friday and Saturday since the city of Knoxville completely shut down. Either way I've just been feeling sort of bummed out. Even though I've made good choices, I've felt guilty. It's very bizarre.

Last night we went out for my stepdad's birthday to this fantastic pizza place (Big Ed's, for you Knoxvillians). ALL they serve is pizza. Well, and beer. Great combination for people on a diet. But I limited myself to 2 1/2 small pieces of plain cheese pizza, and 2 glasses of Michelob Ultra, which is almost the lightest beer you can get. And when we got home, I didn't have a piece of cake. But I was just sitting there watching all my family eating and drinking as much as they wanted, and it really frustrated me. My sister's always been naturally thinner than me (though not to discount her work ethic - she is better at going to the gym than I am, too), and my mom works out like a fiend so she's always been slim for her frame. Now, the rest of the table was full of boys, who can basically eat 3000 calories a day, and then lose 10 pounds in a week if they want to. So I'm not even going to go into how unfair THAT is. But just watching the women in my family, I started to feel guilty that I let myself get to this point. That I, somehow, was dealt the unfair gene which causes me to adore delicious but horrible-for-you foods and not really enjoy working out. That I got the short end of the stick, and didn't handle it well. And ended up the fat one. And this isn't limited to family members. I sang at a concert Sunday night and couldn't help thinking the same thing about all the other girls my age. I couldn't let a song go by without taking a second to think, "God, I wish I looked like her. What's wrong with me?" And usually music can carry me away to a place where things like weight or social status don't exist. But the diet and weight thing has been such a huge part of my life lately, that it seems to be on my mind constantly. Which can be frustrating. Some days I just want to have french fries without having to weigh out the pros and cons of eating them. Do I have time to go to the gym today? How many of my weekly points am I willing to spend? Goodness, that cupcake looks delicious. I wonder how many points it is . . . and so it continues, every hour of the day.

I've been on a diet enough times in my life to know that it has significant ups and downs. Some weeks I feel great, and only lose .5 pound(s), and some weeks I feel like I didn't do well and lose 2. But it sure would be nice if I could continue to feel great and motivated, even if I'm not losing as much weight as I'd like per week. There's a big difference between dieting while being happy about it and dieting while you dread the approach of every meal because you know that you're not going to eat what you'd really like to eat. Writing this helps - it's one of the reasons that I started blogging. I can say that I'm proud of myself this week for sticking to the diet even though I've felt icky and haven't been able to work out much. I am going to the gym tonight - it's Body Flow class day! That class always makes me feel better. Even though almost all the people in there are thinner than me, I'm totally keeping up with them. See? My competitive nature is good for something!!!

Thanks for stopping by and always holding me accountable! And a special thank you to people who ask me how the diet's going when I haven't posted in awhile!

A difficult Saturday

Sorry for not being able to post yesterday! It was a crazy day!
I started off my Saturday by having to be at a 9am alcohol serving class for my new waitressing job. Those of you that know me well know that I am NOT a morning person - but I've taken a class similar to this in Texas and it's SO boring that I preferred to get it out of the way early. It was at Abuelo's, which is like an upscale mexican restaurant. The website said to bring money for lunch, so I had fully intended to order a yummy salad they serve. But, the manager of this restaurant gives the class free lunch, which is nice for my wallet but not so nice for my diet. And of course, he brings out heaping plates of nachos and tacos. I had to eat something because there was 2 1/2 hours of the class left and I was starving! So I had one taco, like 2 nacho chips, and then ate the chips and salsa. Even limiting myself to that, I still ate WAY more calories than I would have. It pretty much ruined any hope of not using my weekly WW points that day. I can't tell you HOW FRUSTRATING it is to sit in front of one of your favorite foods and know you're not supposed to be eating it. And then have to eat it anyway. All kinds of emotions - guilt for eating it, more guilt for liking it, disappointment that I couldn't stick to the plan I had, a kind of anger that most Americans would see no problem that there were almost no vegetables on the table . . . and just general frustration. Basically, it sucked. And I know that this is not a normal situation, but it does happen sometimes in life. An office provides a box lunch or you go to a banquet with a set menu. I know that every day will not be easy and go according to plan, but man it sure does stink when you WANTED to be good and COULDN'T.

The rest of the day wasn't much better except I had more control over what I ate. My friend B was having a birthday dinner, where I got salad and soup, but there was also an appetizer sampler. And I just couldn't resist having a piece of garlic bread with spinach and artichoke dip on it. Then later my friend K and I went scoping out potential gig locations, and I had a couple glasses of wine at the first place. The second place we ended up having a few more drinks bought for us (sometimes it pays to be a girl, I guess) than either of us intended to drink. I could have turned them down, but I didn't. And then after getting home, I was hungry since I didn't have a big dinner, so I ate even MORE. Which just left me feeling guilty today, especially since I decided to take a nap this afternoon instead of going to the gym.

I've been trying to deal with my guilt in a healthier way - knowing that there wasn't much I could do about lunch yesterday. Telling myself that I'll go to the gym tomorrow and Tuesday. Reminding myself that (as I said in my last post), you can't be perfect everyday. But inevitably, I still end up thinking "I shouldn't have had that last drink" or "I shouldn't have eaten those cheez-its when I got home." In the moment, it's always delicious. But that feeling doesn't last long when you can see that you might have put a kink in your weight loss for the week. I do my best to only weigh myself once a week. Otherwise I just get depressed if I'm a little bloated that day or the scale goes up even .2 pounds. Weekly weighing is more accurate - your body fluctuates every day. So I won't really know if I messed up this week until Wednesday, my weigh-in day.

On a slightly lighter note, today has been better. Other than not going to the gym, I've been able to make good decisions today. Maybe it's the guilt driving me to try and undo the events of yesterday. But I know that every time I go to make a decision, I think of this blog and all of you faithful readers! Thanks again for being a fantastic addition to my conscious!