Well, after all this time....

...and all these holidays, I'm almost motivated to do something about where I am. This post is sort of like an AA meeting: "Hi, my name is Alyson, and I'm thinking about trying to lose weight again." Despite how OK I had been with my weight and how I look, I find I am not looking forward to going to the family after-Christmas party tonight. I don't feel as okay today as I did last month. It's probably because of all the really great sweets I've eaten these last few days, or weeks. I feel like I'm not my best.

One, two, three...

I'm on my second day of counting calories. I'm not going to weigh myself, because (1) I still don't care what I weigh, and (2) it always psyches me out (if I don't lose weight after counting calories, I eat more the next week and undo all the good work).

I don't want to obsess over what I eat; but neither do I want to feel out of control, like I'm eating the whole world every time I sit down to the table. Was feeling just a little powerless, and this is my way to get the power back.

Am a little hungry (because I left at least half the world unconsumed at lunchtime). But just a little. Retraining the body, retraining the mind.

Lookee! There's an entire world beyond the end of my nose.

Do you ever get tired of obsessing? Of fixating? Of having something be more important than almost everything else, all out of proportion.

I am.

I have no idea what I weigh. Haven't weighed myself in months.

And miracle of miracles, I like how I look, even though I'm guessing I'm 20 pounds more than my best weight (where I wasn't quite satisfied with how I looked). I accept the truth of me.

I got tired of thinking of how much I weigh.
I got tired of fixating on a number. "I could be happy, if only..."
I got tired of feeling guilt about eating.
I got tired of feeing out of control.
I got tired of looking at the clock and the portions and trying to fit everything together like a puzzle instead of a meal.

Food is fuel. No more, no less.

I'm lovin' it.

I know it makes for a boring blog, to say, "I'm still in the same place. I don't care if I lose a pound." But it feels great. And it's huge, really huge—for me to be larger than what I've always considered "ideal" and to be contented here...it's very freeing. And very healthy, I think.

Last week I spent an hour or so on the SparkPeople website reading blog entry after blog entry. These were written by fitness professionals who compared their post-pregnancy bellies to "rising bread dough" (boy, do I identify with that one!) and who, despite being a very good weight for their height, have cellulite that makes them not wear swimsuits in public. Entry after entry convinced me (again) that the current view of the female body is so unhealthy. We look at the stars on the magazine covers fully knowing that they are photoshopped, they have personal chefs, they have personal trainers, and they can literally devote their lives to having those bodies (which still need to be touched up when photographed) and while our brains say, "Not real!" our emotions say, "I want to look like that!" We set up a mental ideal that is impossible to achieve, but think that if we just exercise enough or cut out enough food we'll get there.

And then when we see the stars in their natural form—in swimsuits on vacation or whatever—and see that they really do have lumps, cellulite, and imperfections, the magazines mock them and rip them to shreds. This can only cement our notion that perfection is somehow (a) achievable by all, and (b) keep-up-able 100% of the time, can't it? We expect the stars to do it, we should be able to do it too.

(Here's a link to get you started, if you want to immerse yourself in these wonderful posts: http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=i_profess_that_i_love_to_confess)

Do we even remember what a real body looks like? There are websites full of pictures. If you've searched out and seen the real tummies and real thighs, tell the truth: were you grossed out by the dimples? Or did you feel camaraderie? Did you think, "Maybe I'm more okay this way than I thought I was?"

So what's new since I took a flying leap off the wagon?

1. I'm not weighing myself at all. I have long known what a mind job that weight on the scale is. If I've been working hard all week and it hasn't budged, I get depressed and start inhaling the doughnuts while saying, "Evidently eating less doesn't help! No matter how hard I try nothing makes a difference!" If I've lost weight that's encouragement in itself; if I haven't lost, it just bums me out and makes me overindulge. I may weigh once a month now, or something. But daily and weekly weighing is right out. I just don't need to drag myself into that game.
   
   
2. I'm keeping a paper food diary of what I eat. Not counting calories, not trying to meet any minimums or maximums, just tracking. Tracking has always worked for me. It helps me, somehow, to control my intake. If I don't want to write down that third cookie, I don't eat it. Tracking keeps me honest.
   
   
3. I'm eating less, genuinely. I guess I had turned into a mass of emotions and needs and I was trying to tame everything by eating it. Letting go of weight expectations, letting go of the emotion of what's on the scale, has enabled me to let go of trying to comfort myself with this or punish myself with skipping that. I don't have to overfeed, I don't have to overcompensate. I'm a lot closer to that zen relationship with food—that it is merely fuel for my engine, it is not best friend or social companion or crutch or comforter.
   
   
4. I'm eating less sugar. It goes hand in hand with #3, but it's still notable.

Those are all really positive changes. I'm so at peace with my body. Grateful to it, even, for being so healthy. My body has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to. How great is that?

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Now playing: Paramore - Misery Business
via FoxyTunes

Who are you, and what have you done with slightly neurotic Alyson?

Is this success, or failure? I don't even know, to be truthful.

I mentioned that my husband and I had spent hours and hours discussing the current societal view of beauty, the realities of me having borne seven children, and what clothes look good on my current body.

The change in my psyche since that conversation has been, I have to say it, pretty profound. Suddenly I don't care about losing weight. I don't care if I ever do. My desire to be a tight, hard little size 8 or 6 is gone, gone as surely as if it never existed. It's only been a couple of weeks, but I see everyone very differently than I did just two weeks ago. I'm more accepting of personal variations. I think there is a flattering way to dress for every body type, and that if someone looks bad at their weight it is possibly/probably because they're not wearing the right sorts of clothes.

I have some cute clothes now, in the size I currently am. They look pretty good on me, and I look pretty good in them—I guess it's a symbiotic relationship. :) And for the moment I feel free from the pressure I put on myself to chase an ideal that is unreachable (except through plastic surgery and photoshop).

Does that mean I never want to lose another ounce? Nah. But it means I'm going to be happier with myself right where I am. And I'm going to be less focused on weigh-ins. And I'll be contented with small losses or losses that take a long time, rather than feeling like I'll only really be happy if I manage to lose 20 pounds this week. Even though I know that's impossible, I've felt that way before. It's dumb.

I know I could eat less and survive nicely. I know I consume more calories than a 120-pound body needs, or one that weighs 130 or even 140. So some days I'll eat less. I'll try to limit portions, and stop eating when I'm full—listen less to my tastebuds and more to my satisfied stomach. I'll try to limit empty calories, not eat so much sugar. And I'll weigh myself when I feel like it, and not worry about it when I don't. For the time being, I'm not a slave to public opinion. That's a good place to be.

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Now playing: Doves - Kingdom of Rust
via FoxyTunes

Shout-out to Angela

Having a conversation with Angela, who commented on my last post.

First could you explain a bit more when you mean you didn't touch your metabolism? As in you never felt a change etc?

I mean that it functioned the same before, during, and afterward. I didn't cause it damage, I didn't slow it down or speed it up. People are so afraid of "ruining" their metabolisms and entering starvation mode. I don't believe it. I believe they're not experiencing the quick loss they want, so they make up other excuses for it like starvation mode or slow metabolism or I lost three pounds of fat but gained two pounds of muscle.

I also can understand what you are saying about not believing in the whole idea of starvation mode but I can't get behind it 100% as i do agree we are resilient but at the same time we are primal and really not that far removed in the scale of life from our primitive ancestors.

We may have to agree to disagree on this one, because to me it sounds like more excuses. It's been millenia and millenia. If we believe that our bodies are adaptable and have evolved since then, why would we claim they haven't adapted or evolved after all, just because our pattern of losing changes?

Losing weight is undoubtedly a complex process, much less predictable than a table in a spreadsheet, I won't lie. I never have the results I predict or hope for. But I know if I eat less, I lose, even if I can't predict how much. And it has nothing to do with ancient history. It has to do with whether we're getting adequate food. Are we? Almost certainly. There are extreme cases under which people are starved, but I don't think any of us [I guess I speak of people without eating disorders] are in those conditions.

But what makes me think you may be right about starvation is I had gastric bypass almost a year and a half ago. I was 366 and am now 190-184 depending on scale, time of week, etc. I went from losing thirty lbs a month, twenty, lbs etc to just 1-3 a month in the last three months.

Congratulations on your fantastic loss!

though I have severly fallen off the wagon as far as excercise! I am trying to find my mojo again and really is there mojo?

There certainly is inspiration, motivation, and dedication.

On Brad Pilon's blog I just watched a video entry that applies here. He talks about the skewed message we're getting these days—that we need to increase our exercise to match our consumption. That's pretty backward. We should reduce our consumption to the level we need, rather than trying to meet some activity quota that brings our consumption into balance. Why?

1. We can never out-exercise our consumption. We are capable of consuming hundreds or even thousands of calories in minutes. (When I was a teen I could eat a half a pizza, probably 2000 calories, in 10 minutes or so. How long does a burger and fries take? Or a heaping helping of cake and ice cream?) Exercising at maximum intensity, we burn maybe 6 calories per minute. You can see how out of whack that is, when it takes less than 60 seconds to eat a 280-calorie candy bar. It would take hours and hours of exercise to balance a single too-big meal.


2. There does exist, for every person, an amount of food that can be consumed daily that will reduce us to or maintain us at our optimal body fat level, without exercise. If eating food is the problem, then eating food should be the solution. We don't weigh more than we'd like because we exercise too little, we weigh more because we eat too much.


3. There does exist, for every person, a minimal amount of exercise that gives them the muscle appearance and mass they want. Doing more exercise beyond this minimal amount doesn't necessarily increase the amount of muscle mass, and may possibly just be a waste of time. And once that mass is established, those developed muscles won't be visible if they're still covered with fat from eating too much. (My own example of this: I have abs of steel. I can mantain my strong abdominals with just a few ab exercises every week; exercising hours and hours more doesn't make them any stronger, I'd need steroids to do anything more than I've done with them. But no one can see them, because they're buried under at least ten pounds of abdominal fat. No one would know, by looking at my body, what a strong belly I have.)

Anyway all those times my body was starved and I kept loosing I did have one plateau though and I had to increase my protein so maybe that was due to starvation mode??

I have no idea. I know when I'm eating reduced calories, a caloric number smaller than the amount I need to sustain my current weight, if I hit a plateau it breaks much faster when I eat more for a week than when I eat less for a week. I think we just need to change things up, give the body something new to process, freak it out a little. Because it isn't a simple equation, or a machine that gives us predictable results.

*shrug*

Not sure why weight loss has slowed down to the speed of naught, but I'll keep on keepin' on. Have started exercising during lunchtime since I'm not eating anyway, and that is going marvelously well. Can't believe how great it feels, actually, so I'll stick with it while it works. And hopefully the weight will at least trickle off.

Husband and I went out to dinner last Saturday evening, to my favorite restaurant. I ate exactly what I wanted to, but I was moderate with the portions. Win! We had a long, long, hours long conversation about bodies—about the pressure I feel to have a certain body because that is all that is portrayed in the media. I'd really love to have a tight, flat little tummy. Will that happen, after bearing seven? I just don't foresee it. I could possibly lose that much weight, but at what sacrifice?

And why should I feel like I must? Why do I crave it so badly?

Interestingly, we ended up thinking I needed to go looking at new clothes, some that don't fit me quite so snugly. Some of my shirts, while they look okay when I'm standing, accentuate my rolls on my abdomen most unflatteringly when I sit. What if they were a little looser, and could drape over and camouflage the rolls? We went to Eddie Bauer and tried on a few shirts and pants in a bit larger size and found some things that actually look quite nice.

So I'm feeling, actually, okay[er] about myself. Why do I need to get down to a certain weight to be cute, to dress well, to feel happy about myself?

I'll continue. I'm doing well. But I'm also okay, right now, with me. I'll see where it leads.

For Angela, who recently found my blog: welcome! I'm glad you stumbled on it. I hope to see you around a lot. I wanted to address one thing in particular that you said: "Maybe your body doesn't like you skipping lunch and thinks you are starving it." For what it's worth, I don't believe in starvation mode. (That sounds funny, like it's Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.) All the latest research I can find indicates to me that starvation mode is a lot harder to enter than we're made to believe, and that if I am, for instance, lifting weights and actively building/maintaining muscle while cutting calories (even below the 1000-calorie level) then my body realizes it isn't starvation, and just behaves as it should: expending more calories than it takes in, and losing weight. I think there is ample research on this, and I'm doing my own personal experiment on it, I suppose you could say. :) In months and months of doing 24-hour fasts, I never touched my metabolism, it continued to function perfectly. We're pretty resilient creatures.

Onward! Now, with clothes that fit better! (That's a new feature, darling.)

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Now playing: Muse - Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1
via FoxyTunes

Statistics

Start	23 Aug:	159.0
	24 Aug:	158.0
	25 Aug:	158.0
	26 Aug:	157.2
	27 Aug:	156.4
	28 Aug:	156.8
	29 Aug:	156.2
1 Week	30 Aug:	156.0
	31 Aug:	155.8
	1 Sep:	156.0
	2 Sep:	154.4
	3 Sep:	154.4
	4 Sep:	155.4
2 weeks	5 Sep:	?	camping trip!
	6 Sep:	156.0
	8 Sep:	155.8
	10 Sep:	155.0

Knock me over with a feather.

I'm at a complete loss how I could possibly be the exact same weight as last week, how I could not continue to lose at least ounces every day. I have avoided six out of seven lunches this last week. I have regulated my portions morning and night; even a huge meal of 600 calories both times would have yielded me only 1200 calories per day, still certainly an amount that should cause loss. And I believe that my meals were lower than that amount probably every time.

So how my Friday weight was upward, and today up further yet, I do not quite comprehend. Still I shall press onward, and see what happens next.

Blergh.

Was hungrier than usual today, so I decided to make it an intentional indulgence day. The theory of an indulgence day is that the extra calories rev up my metabolism, help me to burn more calories, and freak out my body so it doesn't get too used to any one thing.

So I ate lunch today. Yummy.

And then I ate chocolate and nuts.

And now I feel like crap. Like crap. Was that particular indulgence worth it, it ask you? I think not. I'm no bulemic—oh my josh, I'd rather do anything than throw up—but at times like this I feel the tiniest twinge of sympathy with them. Where's my undo button?

Square one.

I'd moan and thrash about having to start over yet again, but I suppose instead I should rejoice. Right? Opportunities to do things we want to, even things we've done before (sigh) keep coming around. Yay. And right now I have an opportunity to turn my eating life around.

In addition to my renewed vigor for exercise, I've changed up what I'm doing with food. I agree with Brad Pilon that a really valid way to cut out calories is just not to eat sometimes. Food is merely fuel for my body, though I cling to it desperately for a number of other reasons (joy, celebration, socializing, comforting, etc.). Here are two short posts that underline what I'm trying to say:
Food is just fuel
Food is food, it's that simple
So right now I'm fasting one meal every single day: lunch.

• My blood sugar stays a little more stable if I'm eating every day.
  
• I don't get so desperately hungry, because I know I get dinner.
  
• (This might be the best part.) My daily weight loss graph line is a lot more stable than with full 24-hour fasts.

When I was doing full-day fasts with Eat Stop Eat, on a fast day I'd lose 4+ pounds, and then on my following eating day gain back 3.8. Weighing once a week the general weight trend was downward, but it sure went up and down and everywhere daily. This way I get to see a lot gentler but more constant feedback. I'm not losing 4 pounds in one day (shucks!) but I'm not gaining back, either.

(For four whole days now, let's see how it goes in the longer run.)

Here's to new beginnings! Again!

The comfortable, slippery slope

I really let my strength training go by the wayside. Truth is, I like cardio better. So I rebelled. And then I fell off a ladder painting the house and couldn't exercise for a while (but not as long as I didn't exercise, you know how it is). Meanwhile, I ate and ate and ate, lots more calories than I needed.

So where am I today? Horrified. I'd have to lose ten pounds before I could even tell you how much I weigh. I've only weighed this much once before in my non-pregnant life, after the birth of my third baby. I don't know why I struggled so to lose weight after she was born, but I know that the pictures of me holding her as a baby don't even look like me.

If I took pictures of me now, I'd probably think the same.

This was truly a case of letting myself go, of eating whatever I want and damn the consequences. Which only works for so long, then I look in the mirror and the consequences damn me.

Exercised this morning, did strength training on my legs and my abs. I don't know how I got so wimpy, but at least I made the first fledgling steps.

So busy, no posting

Things are going pretty well. I'm painting the exterior of my house* so exercise has gone by the wayside for a couple of weeks now, but I honestly think that I'll probably be done with that [SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE] today, and I'll pick up where I left off. Doing better with intermittent fasting, it isn't the mindgame it had been. And I'm loving the calorie cycling, in that twice a week I have enough calories to eat pretty much anything I want. That, so far, is making all the difference.

Yesterday and today I weighed 150.0. I suspect on Saturday morning's weigh in I'll be below 150. I'm excited about that, because 150 is my threshold above which I do not want to go. So that means that I'm really just starting the rest of the work I need to do right now.

But at least I've begun!

__________________________
*The painting project has sucked all my time. I haven't blogged in the longest time. But I still have to eat, right? So I'm still plugging away.

All sorts of detours

I've been all over the map lately with diet. I tried my own slim fast diet, in which I was going to eat fresh fruits/vegs for two meals (approx 250 calories/meal), and then a "sensible dinner". That lasted about a week.

Then I was going to eat exactly 1200 calories per day. That lasted probably two days. I upped it to 1500 calories per day. That one, though easier, didn't even get off the ground; I was too busy eating everything in sight. I haven't done a serious fast in a mighty long time, longer than two months. My periodic fasts just became mind games, in which my mind tried to convince me to eat after only one missed meal, or two missed meals. My mind always won. As I was consuming an entire day of calories in that make-up meal, I kept mentally chanting, "Food isn't bad! It's not wrong to eat!"

My problem is that I want to lose weight fast. Don't we all? I was 140 pounds once. I want to weigh 130, but I want to be starting from 140, not from where I am. So I'll "hurry up" and lose the first ten, and then keep going. Or something stupid like that.

I clicked a SparkPeople.com link over on Facebook, which took me to a blog post entitled My Top 10 Weight Loss Mistakes: What are Yours? She mentioned wanting to lose the weight too fast, and it was like a lightbulb went off for me. While it's true I want to be 140 today, or tomorrow, or next week, I can't do it that way. I have to do it sensibly. The time will pass anyway; I just have to make the most of the passing time.

So I began exercising again. I'd dropped cardio (which I love) in favor of weight training (which I believe has many more benefits, but I don't enjoy it nearly so well). So when I dropped weight training because of schedule difficulties, I wasn't doing anything at all. Now I'm doing both again.

And after my failed attempts at self-slim-fast, I began researching diets again. The diets that will work for me are somewhat limited with my mostly-vegan lifestyle, but I checked out a number of them anyway. Most were gimmicks or required supplements or wanted me to eat more times a day than I can, etc.

And then I paused. I'd just finished running and was stretching, and I had a moment of quiet to just ponder me.

And I realized, the only two diets that have ever worked for me are counting calories at SparkPeople.com, and Eat Stop Eat with the periodic fasting. Both are about eating fewer calories, because I'm obviously consuming more calories than I need. There is no way to out-exercise a bad diet, when it is so easy to consume calories and so hard to burn them off. I can eat 1000 calories in 20 minutes. I can burn about 60 calories in the same amount of time if I'm running uphill (which, needless to say, I don't).

Reality checks are good, right?

I've decided to count calories again, with the fun twist of calorie-cycling. This is where my calories average out to 1500/day over a week, but individual days vary. Yesterday I got 1700 calories, which seemed like a full out indulgence day. I ate literally everything I wanted to and barely got all those calories in. (Mind you, I didn't go to P.F. Chang's. That would have made it a bit easier.) Today I get 1300 and I have to be a little more careful. But eating everything yesterday makes it easier to leave out the really fun stuff today, and I know I get another 1700 day this week.

But when I stepped on the scale Monday morning I got a bad case of sticker shock. I weighed the second most I've ever weighed in my life non-pregnant. 157 pounds. I swear, just two weeks ago I was 149? Which is still way too much, but 157?!?!

So I began my Monday with an unexpected Eat Stop Eat fast. I exercised, I drank, and I didn't eat. And wonder of wonders, I made it through beautifully. No mind games.

So now I'm doing a combination, I guess, of the only two methods (which are branches of the same thing) which have ever worked for me.

I'm happy. I've already seen a 4-pound drop on the scale, and it's just two days later. With a few higher-calorie days per week, it feels very doable. SparkPeople is my old friend.

It won't be tomorrow, but I'll see 140 again. And hopefully after that, I'll keep going to 130.

My brain is hungrier than my stomach is.

Fascinating article about how our brains sabotage our efforts to lose weight.

Not that I needed to be told; any time I've given in and ended a fast before I had planned to, any time I've gone off my calorie-calculated food plan for the day when I thought I had it under control, it was my brain talking me into it, not my stomach. My brain wants the pleasure of eating even more than my body does.

Have not had a good week with the calories, with the sugar-free, with the portion control, nor anything else; but I have managed my first real fast in weeks today. Let's hope I can turn it around and find myself some control.

Honey, oh sugar sugar

So I ate more than a bite of dessert at the headmaster's dinner Saturday night. I ate, let's see, three or four cookies at the family tea party we dropped by for a few minutes on our way to the dinner. And then I ate half a [huge] piece of the richest chocolate cake at the dinner.

Woke up Sunday with a sugar hangover, a horrid headache.

Now I'm so glad I didn't eat sugar yesterday. It's so stupid how much self-control it took, but I'm so glad I didn't use this week's sugar day yesterday. I weighed 147.0 on Saturday morning and (despite my efforts, because of the cookies and cake probably) I weighed 147.8 this morning for the official weigh-in. But despite the little jump (which I know is carb-related water retention or something, onward and downward) I feel like I accomplished something. First, I lost 2+ pounds from the previous Monday. Second, I didn't eat sugar yesterday. I was stronger than I thought was. Which is self-reinforcing, now I feel strong because I was strong.

Mixed feelings

Made chocolatey cookies and coconut pudding for the fam for dessert.

OMgosh, it was so hard not to lick spoons or take nibbles. Because today isn't a sugar day. But I did it.

Just tracked my calories for today.

And now I'm so glad that I didn't do a sugar day and don't have to record those calories.

So *WAH* about not eating tasty dessert, but *YAY* about today's calories consumed and not eating sugar today! :)

Brand New

I don't know what that magical switch is that gets flipped, the one that gives me the strength mentally to say, "No REALLY, I'm going to do this." I've tried to flip the switch manually before; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But last week I noticed my clothes were getting a little tight. I weighed myself and found I was 150 again. And the switch flipped.

This is my new beginning. I know, both from experience and from research that I have twelve weeks to see what changes I can bring about. Twelve weeks, maybe a few more, before the fire dies out and I slide into maintenance mode.

I've had a great week! Tracking calories was a big success for me. I started the week at 150.something (didn't pay attention to the .something, I was having sticker shock over the 150) and this morning I was 147.0. I haven't done a fast all week. I've been so weak, so indulgent, for so many weeks now that I figured portion reduction and cutting out sugar were enough to work on for one week.

Also that thing they say? About not changing too many behaviors at once? Yes, I've borne it out: I was able to cut out sugar and track my calories and revamp my eating, but I was not able to also work in faithful workouts. Baby steps, right?

At sparkpeople.com I've set up a "streak" regarding sugar. If I can not eat sugary treats six days out of seven, I'll call that a wild success. If I can do that week after week, I'll call it an addiction broken! I've made it through week one. I've been sugar-free for six days. Tonight is a dinner in SLC for my daughter's head of school, and I suspect I'll have a bite of dessert. And I won't have to feel guilty about it, because I've already met my goal. :)

I've also realized that having my official weigh-in on Saturday morning, and knowing I have another entire week before the next Saturday morning, gives me a mental excuse to splurge all weekend with bigger portions and treats here and there. And I don't want to splurge all weekend; I want to maximize my efforts since 12 weeks is a pretty tight window. So I've moved my official weigh-in, the weight that gets recorded here, to Monday mornings. I just decided two days ago to do this, and it strikes me as a mighty fine idea. Looking forward to Monday!

“It's a fallacy that all it takes is willpower to reshape your body. If you can't learn to speak French in a month, it doesn't mean you're weak-willed; it means you've set an impossible goal. Weight loss does take effort, but as with any project, it also takes a plan. You can set yourself up for success.”

That's what I'm trying to do. Tally ho!

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Now playing: Elefant - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
via FoxyTunes

Had to cut back portions...

...in order to tone down my appetite. I was just starving all the time, but a few days of tracking calories/intake at sparkpeople.com (and trying to cut back) has brought it back within manageable levels. It's 12:30. I'm not intentionally fasting today, I just thought I'd go without eating until I got hungry. I'm still not hungry.

Also: 4.5 days without sugar, and surviving. :)

True confessions.

1. I ate sugar again. Drat. One little bit gave way to one bigger bit, until I was eating sugar every day. Not in the quantities I had been before, so that's good. Sugar wasn't the only thing that was important to me. But I had to start over again cutting it out. I'm on day three. It isn't as difficult this time.
   
   
2. I'm finding it almost impossible right now to fast. I don't know why; lack of willpower? I just get horrifically starving, and then I think, "But food isn't bad!" and I eat and then I make up all the calories I'd so far skipped that day, breakfast or breakfast plus lunch. Oh yeah, I can totally eat an entire day's calories in one sitting. :(
   
   
3. So I'm actively back at sparkpeople.com for the moment, tracking my caloric intake. It is easier for me, right now, to limit my portions than to fast. And I figured since I was just eating like crazy, I had to do something.
   
   
4. I'm also trying to be more faithful with exercise, especially strength training. Spring weather is here and is supposed to stay all week long (SQUEE) and what I really want to do is get out and jog and walk. Though I'm definitely not in the cardiovascular shape I was in last spring when I had been doing cardio faithfully. My shift of focus to strength training, and then my total laziness in not doing it, has made me a little bit winded in places where I used to not be. Sigh. I really enjoy cardio so much more than strength training. Really. But I need the strength training more.

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Now playing: Adam Lambert - Mad World (American Idol Studio Version)
via FoxyTunes

Going, going, gone

It took almost two excruciating weeks, but I've really knocked out my sugar cravings. Sugar cravings are my one and only pre-menstrual symptom; so I was craving sugar all the time, but the week before my period those cravings are much more powerful, almost irresistible. And the week before my period was, not through good planning but because the stars just freakily aligned that way, the first week I went sugar-free. Which made it a very difficult week indeed.

But though I still craved sugar every single day all day long, each day the craving was a bit more manageable. And finally I came through it unscathed, and now sugar is resistible. This is a major, major victory for me. Three examples:

• We spent Friday night and Saturday morning with my sister and her family. I purchased Krispy Kremes for them as a gift, plenty for two Kremes per person, and didn't eat any.
  
  
• Went to a party with friends on Saturday night. The dessert table was full, and there were two of my favorites—homemade oreos (huge, almost as big as my hand) and almond sheet cake. These are things my friends regularly bring and I crave them all the time. But I stuck with food and left the desserts alone, though I wanted that almond cake something fierce.
  
  
• This might sound like falling off the wagon, but I also count it a victory. We went to a cub scout dinner last night with our 9YO son. I drank a root beer with my vegetarian sloppy joe, and ate a piece of apple pie afterward. OH NOES! SUGAR!! But we have to eat like real people, right? The occasional piece of birthday cake or whatever? I could feel I was sufficiently past my cravings that it wouldn't be dangerous, and I was right. It hasn't triggered a sugar binge in me at all. I had an egg with toast for breakfast, am going to have vegetable soup, carrots, and hummus for lunch, and I have zero sugar cravings now. I just frosted a cake to give away, and I didn't even lick the frosting spreader when I was done.

So I am feeling great about that. A little sugar every now and then I don't see as a problem. No sweets makes Jack a very dull boy. Variety is the spice of life, and nothing should ever be forbidden or off-limits, because that just creates an artificial (irrational) mental need. At least, for me it does.

But my sugar cravings went to the next level, very akin to addiction. That needed to be broken. I've taken the first steps. Now I will eat sugar consciously and not mindlessly, choose it and limit it but not freak out about it.

So happy with myself.

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Kicking it to the curb

For all my big talk before, I'm actually detoxing from sugar now. Haven't had anything purposefully sugary since Thursday. There are times when it is still really hard. Every time I eat anything, I want a sugary dessert chaser. When I get hungry, sugary is the first thing I think of.

Which is all the more reason I must conquer the sugar addiction, no? Day three and counting.

Screw it.

Do I want to be a certain size? Look a certain way? YES.

But it's just not worth giving up food to do it.

Bring on the night

When it's been a long time since I did a decent fast, it's always much more difficult to get into the groove again. My stomach is protesting the emptiness today. :-/ It's not even noon and I'm ready for the day—the food day, at least—to wind up.

Just have to keep remembering that this is what I want.

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Now playing: The Police - Bring On The Night
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How Alyson lost her groove.

I didn't even weigh myself last Saturday; usually I wake up with a sense of anticipation, or occasionally dread ;) knowing my weigh-in is the first thing I'll do, but last week I woke up with an overwhelming sense of I-don't-care. I'd been sick for a week, too sick to fast, and I just didn't care what I weighed. I'd been trying for a couple of weeks to talk myself into caring, but it hadn't worked.

I've been thinking about "starting over" for a little bit now. I'm so happy that I'm not in the 150s anymore, that was a good beginning way back then and a good result achieved, but I act like someone at the tail end of a diet, someone who has ten more pounds to lose but just isn't feeling it anymore. My clothes all fit again; the urgency, the inspiration to continue had waned.

I read this article many months ago—a very interesting article on weight loss, if you're interested—but the part that really stuck out at me was this:

“Weight loss happens in two stages that require two different approaches. First, there's the losing stage. That's all about food restriction. There's no particular diet that seems to be more effective than another one; it has more to do with individual preference — what you can stick with long-term. The weight-loss stage lasts an average of three to six months. …After six months, if you get there, you're a success story. If you haven't lost all the weight you want to lose in that time, you're probably not going to do it. If you still have a lot of weight to lose at that point, it's best to take several months to maintain the weight you've shed, then try another six-month diet.”

I feel like this is pretty much all over the news at present, the fact that it boils down to calories in vs. calories expended, and that low fat isn't superior to low carb isn't superior to raw food only, etc. (Now, I do think that intermittent fasting fires up the body in a different way than plain old calorie restriction, I'll say that. But it is still a form of calorie restriction, which means it is a viable means of losing weight but the studies haven't given it the crown for being superior to the others.)

Anyway, I have gotten to that point. It's not new anymore in week 20 or 21, you know? It sounded great to lose 12 pounds in 10 weeks, but the same 12 pounds 8 weeks later after 20 weeks of effort starts to sound old. I'm no longer motivated by my initial starting point, and by what I've achieved thus far. My original drive has waned, and I've been coasting for quite a while now.

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Now playing: Muse - Apocalypse Please
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This is getting old.

Have been sick for a week now, with the flu—aches, congestion (snot like glue, TMI?), and generally feeling poorly. I'm functional, I can get up and make meals for the peeps in the house and I'm ambulatory, but I just feel wiped out all the time. After a shower I feel like I need to rest an hour or two. :-/ I'm getting tired of not feeling well, and I'm getting tired of being well enough that I can't just take a day off in bed.

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Sugar + Alyson = OTP*

Last Saturday the 21st I decided not to even weigh myself. It's been an insane few weeks since my father-in-law died—very busy schedule for me, lots of running around and doing; and worst of all, my husband is gone very, very long hours trying to settle the estate. I've missed him, I've stressed out, I've consoled myself with all manner of Valentine's treats. And I decided, rather than let a weigh-in make me feel bad, I'd skip it for one week.

I haven't exercised in several weeks—much of it is the same schedule problems, lots of late nights and early mornings. But I finally decided last week that my current method isn't working. I need to get up a bit earlier, a half hour or so, and exercise before the kids get up. Yes, theoretically, I can carve a half hour out of my daytime schedule. And for a few months I was great at that. But now mostly I don't. And what's more, I use, "Haven't exercised yet!" as an excuse to hang around indecently long in my pajamas or workout clothes with my hair all over the place, embarrassed to open the door if someone knocks.

So today was the day. I hopped out of bed at 5:15 and was done working out by 6:00, in time to make lunches and breakfasts and all the things I usually do in the morning. While the kids ate breakfast I showered, and by school time I was already all dressed with hair done, ready for the day. Much, much better. I'm crossing my fingers for a better week this week.

I really need to kick my sugar addiction to the curb. I love sugar, and I eat way too much of it. And then, because I've already eaten some, I eat more. And I crave it. And I don't feel full from good, healthy food until I've had something sugary as a chaser. And I can easily eat as many calories of sugar as I do of food, ack. So I'm trying to cut out refined sugars this week. I'm not cutting out fruits or breads or any of the healthy things that contain sugar-like molecules, that would be unmanageable; but I 'm trying to get the treat consumption under control so I'm not always thinking about and looking for sugary treats.

It'll be tough, I'm not going to lie. This week I'm pre-menstrual (TMI!) and my one and only symptom of PMS is that I crave sugar. Like, exclusively. Hell if I want to even eat anything else. I'm dying for a cookie right now, thank heavens I don't have any. (Ate 'em all yesterday. :-/ )

*OTP in internet lingo means one true pairing, like when you think that actually Jo March should have married Laurie instead of Professor Bhaer in Little Women then you think Jo + Laurie = OTP. Like me 'n' sugar.

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Now playing: Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
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Statistics

11 October 2008 was the day I was brave enough to step on the scale again, after a failed experiment in not weighing myself. My pants were getting tighter. It served as a kick in the butt, and revived my flatlining self control. The following week I did much better with portions, and with cutting out treats.

17 October I found eatstopeat.com and ravenously read all I could about it. So excited to start. (And so excited that the previous week's efforts paid off!)

8 November I'm worrying about whether the Eat Stop Eat program is actually working for me. I'm starting to feel like I'm doing something wrong.

29 November I'm not worried at all. Had a fabulous Thanksgiving two days ago, best vegetarian spread *evah*. Not surprised I gained a little, it won't be permanent, I'm already well into my first post-Thanksgiving Stop. Life is for enjoying, right? I'm losing weight for my own satisfaction, but the Thanksgiving meal was also for my own satisfaction and happiness. So I'm wildly contented. :)

6 December: Ten pounds! But it isn't "real". I weighed myself first thing in the morning after 36 hours of fasting, so a lot of it is water weight. I had a crazy food week and if I hadn't been fasting I'd have been contented with just hanging on to last week's 149!

17 January: The number is going in the wrong direction, and I absolutely know why. I'm eat eat eating instead of eat stop eating. :-/

Start	11 Oct:	156.4
1 week	18 Oct:	154.0
2 weeks	22 Oct:	152.0
3 weeks	25 Oct:	150.2
4 weeks	1 Nov:	150.6
5 weeks	8 Nov:	150.6
6 weeks	15 Nov:	148.6
7 weeks	22 Nov:	147.0
8 weeks	29 Nov:	149.6
9 weeks	6 Dec:	146.4
10 weeks	13 Dec:	144.4
11 weeks	20 Dec:	144.2
12 weeks	27 Dec:	away on vacation :)
13 weeks	3 Jan:	146.8
14 weeks	10 Jan:	away visiting family
15 weeks	17 Jan:	147.4
16 weeks	24 Jan:	143.8
17 weeks	31 Jan:	145.4
18 weeks	7 Feb:	143.6
19 weeks	14 Feb:	143.4
20 weeks	21 Feb:	pass

Why not be happy?

Two weeks ago: 143.8

Last week: 145.4
Not a surprise. Death in the family, almost no sleep, lots of emotional eating though I kept up my scheduled fasts.

This week: 143.4
Had a great week. Have been really struggling to catch up on sleep still, but all in all I'm very happy and upbeat. It's funny, when I did this weight loss thing in preparation for my 20-year high school reunion in 2007, I was contented with 140. Mentally I wanted to get to 130, but my effort slowed down with my complacency. I did have a single weigh in back then of 139.6 or something, but I never pushed the envelope. No such mental barrier this time; I'm definitely in the mindset of someone who wants to get to 130. But it's nice to have all my 140 pound clothes fit well again! :)

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Now playing: Radiohead - Reckoner
via FoxyTunes (am totally on a Radiohead kick right now)

I know it's almost redundant to keep hammering the Happy...

...but I am in such a good mood right now. Exercise this morning was good, breakfast was delicious. Weigh in was good. :)

Brad Pilon posted yesterday about how unhealthy it is to limit a diet to certain foods, even if they're "superfoods". Variety is the key, and he emphasized there are no bad foods.

No bad foods.

This morning I had some healthy roasted potatoes, carrots, and soyburger for breakfast. And I also had one of those Costco muffins that might as well be birthday cake. In the past I've felt guilty about eating those muffins, but not today. In fact I feel perfectly satisfied. It was just the right touch of sweet and satisfying (and probably fatty) to make me feel absolutely contented. Breakfast and indulgent treat all in one.

Does life get better than this?

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OMgosh I'm so PSYCHED

I can't believe it. 143.8!

My fasting week went much better after the very difficult Monday I had to push through. I also fasted Wednesday and yesterday on Friday, and both were more or less effortless. I got a little hungry once or twice, but it wasn't the all-day-long gnawing hunger I couldn't ignore, at all. It was very ignorable. I feel like I'm back on track with fasting.

But it's today's weight that really floors me. If I weren't already a believer in Eat Stop Eat, this week would be my ultimate convincer. Last week I was feeling so blah and out of control; this week I have my lowest official weigh-in yet. This one week wiped out all the excesses of Christmas and put my results back on track. I was hoping to be around 145; to have my lowest weigh-in yet is more encouraging and bolstering than I can say.

SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE

I'm still very excited to eat today and tomorrow. After a fast, it feels like a treat just to eat good, healthy foods. I've already got today's meals planned and I'm looking forward to all of them! And I'm already looking forward to my fasts this week and next Saturday's weigh in. Bring it on. I can do this.

Not traumatic today

Given how hard it has been to fast, I decided I just had to power through Monday. I'm not going to lie, it was hard. I was thinking about food and imagining meals, and my stomach growled the entire day.

But I made it—from after dinner on Sunday to breakfast Tuesday morning. And yesterday, after a fast that was difficult for me, I made sure to eat three meals that made me smile and tasted delicious. It's a good thing when eating healthy food feels like treating yourself, right? That was me, yesterday.

I'm fasting again today, and it's not nearly as difficult as Monday was. I don't feel hungry at all. I guess I just had to get over that fasting hump again, maybe. Here's hoping my line will start slanting back downward by my Saturday morning weigh-in.

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Now playing: Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest
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But I like food! I *want* to eat!

I suppose I've had a hard time since our Christmas road trip getting back into the swing of things. I don't know why; why is it that sometimes I lack the personal strength and motivation to do what I really want? Because I do want to lose weight. But instead of fasting twice a week and exercising as often as I needed to, I made excuses not to exercise in the morning ("I'll do it a bit later!" which I never do) and I wimped out on my fasts.

I think I may have rediscovered my motivation this morning though. My weigh in: 147.4.

I think it isn't the Christmas eating that derails me. (And maybe I'm not alone in this?) It isn't the indulgences at Christmas parties or on Christmas day, it's all the other stuff that I rationalize because of the indulgences at parties and on Christmas day. "Well I ate chocolate then, another few pieces now won't kill me. I didn't gain that much then, I probably won't gain that much now." I didn't mind the little bit of weight gain from Christmas. But I'm not nearly so sanguine about the fact that I'm still slowly increasing now, three weeks after Christmas.

Back in the saddle—giddyup!

Christmas was fantastic, vacation was fantastic, New Years was fantastic.

Ate like it was a contest and I had to win. :-/ So much delicious food! And I have just about no resistance to yummy Christmas treats. Am having the hardest time with chocolate minty cookies and Almond Roca.

And so it was with trepidation and fear that I stepped on the scale this morning, and with great satisfaction that I noted I'd only gained two-point-something pounds. That's survivable. In fact, I'm proud of my body for handling the onslaught of calories and sugar that well.

Just before Christmas I was having difficulty staying warm, maintaining my own body temperature. I just was chilly all the time. I live in a drafty, old 115-year-old house so that is definitely part of the problem, but I also wondered if it was metabolic. Though I'll add I wasn't worried (as I would have been before Eat Stop Eat) that I'd "destroyed my metabolism" or ruined my capability to burn fat or anything like that; I just figured that it was a natural effect of a cycle of intermittent fasting.

Then once we got to our Christmas vacation destination and I ate meals daily and treats here and there, my body cranked up like a furnace. I was warm enough by the end of day one and too warm by day three, with no adjustment of ambient cabin temperature. I don't know what it all means, but I found it interesting. The heat generation and ability to maintain my own warmth has continued since coming home.

But I have had the hardest time getting back into the swing of fasting. There is still so much good food around, and I want it. I've settled this week for adopting a pattern of abbreviated fasts (two meals) here and there and smaller portions at meals, coupled with eating some Christmas treats. I hasn't made me lose weight, but as I said I'm happy with only a 2+ pound gain.

And today is a new day, a new week, a new year. Today I can look at that box of treats and not be desperate, because I've had my fill. I haven't denied myself anything, and all that is in there is more of the same. Today I do a real 24-hour fast again. I've already done my strength training. Today I find my strength to do what I really want to do. :)

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