Oz: The Great and Powerful

I've got big news to share!

I have a new boyfriend y'all. 

Yup. And I am not ashamed to admit it.....I just want to scream about this new relationship from a mountaintop.

We've been going on all kinds of dinner and lunch dates lately.   He's great: he's reliable, always available, and pretty easy on the eyes.  I mean, every once in a while our waiter suspects that he's into drugs, but I say we shouldn't judge a book by its cover.  

Ready to meet him?

(as if you haven't already guessed....)

Here goes:

Oz.  My new BFF.

Sigh..... I love Oz.  It started with just a simple glass of wine, but our relationship has steadily gotten more serious.  Foods that I used to shy away from simply because of the caloric uncertainty are now decidedly on the table.   Sure, I get some weird looks in restaurants when I start measuring the grams of my sushi rolls, or ounces of chicken breast, cheese, and salad dressing....but honestly, I don't care if my waiters think I am a complete nut job.  It allows me to confidently eat all sorts of things that used to make me nervous before.

 

My all time favorite date with Oz (so far) took me to a popular Vietnamese restaurant where I was able to determine, once and for all, exactly how many calories are in my favorite bowl of pho.   (An incredibly lean 290 calories were in my pho tai with 1.85 ounces of flank steak and 2.8 ounces of vermicelli noodles in case you were wondering).

Oz is life changing.

And the more I weigh things on this little food scale, the happier I am with my weigh-ins on the people-scale. 

Another 1/2 pound gone!

The one drawback (which I suppose I should have seen coming):  The H is not exactly fond of my new boyfriend.  In fact, I believe his exact words were, "Put that stupid thing away....you look absolutely ridiculous and the bartender is staring."

To that, I say this directly to you, my dear husband: 

No. Way.  Oz stays. Now run and tell that.

The Weekend of the World As We Know It

Something profoundly disturbing happened to me this weekend.  My husband who I will refer to as "The H" and I spent a day together on Saturday. (That's not the disturbing thing).  I had previously informed him that I was back to blogging and trying to lose weight.  Because he wants to lose a little weight too, we decided to walk from our house in uptown New Orleans down to the French Quarter and back. It's about a 5 mile round trip.  Of course, we would be making booze pit-stops the entire way....the idea being that the walking-calories would somewhat cancel out the boozing-calories and we'd both drunkenly stumble along our merry ways to weight-loss victory.  I am going to call this activity Schwalking....or schwasted-walking.

So anyway, we were about 4 cocktails and 3 miles into Schwalking when I glanced over at The H from my barstool.  And that's when I saw it.   At first I thought he was just innocuously playing with his phone: checking texts, checking us in on Facebook, perhaps playing a round of Words With Friends.  But, no.  Right there, gleaming back at me from the screen in all its luminous pink glory: my blog.

I must admit it never really dawned on me that The H might be reading my blog.  In fact, I recall while I was doing the Bridal Beauty Regimen blog getting angry at him for his lack of interest in this little hobby of mine.

But there he was. Following along as voraciously as a Harry Potter fan at a midnight book release.

Or maybe he was skimming.  Whatever.

Anyway, he looked over at me and said, "You know what I hate about this blog?  It puts way too much pressure on you to lose weight every single day.  You have to completely change your lifestyle to do it....and I think that's why we've both failed in our diets before.  We're way too focused on changing every. single. thing....and that doesn't work in the long run."

Mind.  Blown.

He was completely right.  It's so simple....but so brilliant.  

The key to success is not to stick to 1300 calories a day, every day, with almost frightening rigidity.  The key has to flexibility! Not spending every single moment worried about having 1 too many ounces of chicken!  Not, literally, hate-blogging myself when I have an upward fluctuation. Not hating life!  Not getting hysterical about a 0.5 pound fluctuation!

And at that moment, I put down the raw veggies I had been hate-munching all morning and decided to go enjoy some shrimp and filet hibachi   And, full disclosure, the next morning I did have an upward fluctuation. 

But then Sunday I jumped right back into the program  And today:

Success!!   An incredibly fun weekend including a day of indulgence and still a small loss.  Yay! 

This weekend's diet plan basically involved:

1) Stocking up on glorious healthy snacks to eat when the mood strikes

Lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, artichoke, hearts of palm, pepperocinis, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, heirloom tomato, cherry tomato, and Zatarain's (160 calories a cup!)

 2) Activities that don't involve just sitting around and eating:

Mine is the one on the right.  It deviated slightly from the photo....

 3) Schwalking

4) The terrifying thought that The H is reading this blog and could be fact-checking me for accuracy....

5) Winning.

Preparing for the Battle of the Bulge....Again

This morning was the first weigh-in of the, what, 90th 3rd time that I've used the blog as a method to lose weight.

We're off to a decent start with a 1.8 pound loss from yesterday's reality-check-inducing 160.6.  I'm pleased by this, but in my experience it's pretty normal to see a 1.5+ pound loss on the first day.  So while it is a loss and it does decidedly move me back into the 150's (phew!), I still can't help but be a bit, well, lackluster in my excitement.

"1.8 pounds. GREAT!"

Like any good soldier about to charge into battle, I began by taking inventory of the fat-busting weapons that I have at my disposal.

Of course there are the old standbys:  My Fitness Pal (cannot recommend that more highly) and Walkmeter apps for the iPhone.  I use My Fitness Pal to log foods, log calories consumed by walking, and to keep track of my progress.   Thankfully, My Fitness Pal has a short memory....

I use Walkmeter's GPS feature to track how far and fast I've walked and then I will input those calories burned into My Fitness Pal.   Yesterday I didn't get a chance to go for a walk, but hopefully this weekend will provide plenty of leisure time to get some exercise.

In addition to the reliable old apps of my past, I've also gotten some new gear that I hope will allow me to stick to this for a longer term.   Most notably, I invested in a digital food scale that's sleek enough to fit in my purse.   I've named it Oz after its brand name, Ozeri.

Behold Oz, the great and powerful, in all its glory.

Unlike some of my dieting comrades who have a lot of success simply cutting back on foods or trying to "eat better," I find that I only have success when I am borderline psychopathic about tracking calories.

Hopefully having Oz around will make it a lot easier for me to enjoy dining out and cooking at home while tracking calories consumed.   In the past I think I relied too much on prepackaged, processed, and fast foods for the sake of caloric certainty.   Those foods get gross---and boring---pretty quick.   Having Oz will, in theory, make it easier to stick to this by broadening my options.

In summary: I've got the best gear that technology can supply. I am decidedly battle-weary from doing this twice already, but with experience comes wisdom....so hopefully I'll be better equipped going into this lifestyle change than I was before.

Wish me luck!

Hear ye! Hear ye! The annual public shaming has commenced!

Hi.

It's me.  

Again.

Well, last time I checked in I had finally reached the 140's for the first time in a long time.  And I was stoked.  I was well on the way to "130 pounds as long as it takes."  I thought I was ready to fly solo: be healthy and skinny without need of the blog.

That was a cute thought.

We'll skip the greasy details, but long story short my weight has slowly been creeping up since the last blog post.  And while I haven't completely rebounded to the heaviest I've ever been (163.8), this morning was the first time back in the 160s (at 160.6 specifically) since beginning the blog last time.   Needless to say, that was a milestone I was hoping to never have reached again, and it was enough of a reality check that I was inspired to introspectively get to the root of my problem.

So after some self-reflection, I've confirmed what I have long suspected....

I am an attention whore. 

There, I said it. 

It's the ONLY thing that explains why the blog works so well.   This is embarrassing.  Shameful.  Pathetic, even.    (It really is).

But yet, here I am.  Airing out my plus-sized dirty laundry once again.

The only force in my life more powerful than the desire to eat whatever-the-hell-I-want is the desire to win approval from others.  Hence the magic of the blog.  The thought that somebody--anybody--might be reading this and rooting for me gives me the willpower to resist temptation (at least most of the time).

Heck, I am such a profoundly big attention whore that I even enjoy the idea that 90% of the (12) people who read this are probably doing it out of a Schadenfreude-motived desire to take pleasure in my pitfalls.  And that's okay.  We all do it.  Nothing is better than quietly watching your skinny friend get fatter.

And nothing is better than harnessing man's tendency to enjoy the suffering of our fellow men and transforming it into the power to do good.  And that's what this blog is for.

The bitch is back.   Again.

Lagniappe

Okay, I know this doesn't technically "count" because it's almost noon and I haven't eaten yet, but I haven't seen the 140's at all in 2012 so I am pretty psyched to see that.

Even if it is gone tomorrow. =(

The Rocky Horror Chunky Show

Alright. So the theme for this blog is going to be The Time Warp.   Because I am going to just pretend that the last week didn't happen.  (Notice the absence of weekly weigh-in on Tuesday).

First the good news:  today is a new low point in the diet journey!  Yes, at 150.4  I have now lost a total of 11.4 pounds.  Not too shabby!

But now the bad news: I should have reached this point a week ago if I am going to stick to the plan to get to 130 by Christmas.

I blame the lack of progress slowness of this progress (and hence, the need to pretend that last week did not happen) on a shocking display of Diet Abandonment when I went on vacation last weekend.   The Husbands and I spent the weekend in St. Louis and indulged in a lot of the local cuisine (read: fried ravioli, Imo's Pizza, and, of course, Bud Light).   I did stick to my goal to workout (or get some sort of physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day), but I was decidedly off the diet wagon.*  

I reached a high point of 153.2 by the end of the weekend.   I guess that's another slight bit of good news: my "highs" have consistently been getting lower even after a day or two of Diet Abandonment.

Maybe this is what a lifestyle change is all about after all.   Maybe it's not a matter of "cheating" or "being bad" or "falling off the wagon," but rather, learning to indulge sometimes and then reign it back in afterwards.   I think I've been successful at that so far.

I am tempted to even lift the arbitrary goal of "130 pounds by Christmas" and just make the goal "120....as long as it takes to get there."    That seems more sustainable over time, AmIright?    It certainly seems like it would be a more enjoyable journey getting there.

This weekend I am committed to getting plenty of exercise, staying on the wagon (sorry, I can't shake the phrase!) and hopefully reaching the 140s for the first time since 2011 for next Tuesday's weigh-in.

Fair warning in advance:  things at work are absolutely nuts right now so I might be blogging less in the coming weeks, but I am not giving up!  I am still diligently adding crap to the Fitness Pal every day and weighing in.   I just don't really have as much time to write....particularly while also trying to find time to exercise.

And you know what the most fun exercise of all is???

You know it's true.


*I have decided that to be more realistic, I want to do an average of 30 minutes a day because the reality is, some days I have plenty of time to get a good 2-3 hours of physical activity and other days I simply do not have the time.    Plus, I make the rules on this blog, so I can change them whenever I want.

BOOM!

I don't even really have time to blog today, so I'll just keep it brief:

10.8 Pounds lost!

Why, oh why couldn't this have been yesterday??    Then I wouldn't have had to do the Shred and I wouldn't have completely injured my elbow (more on that later).

I guess this is the universe's way of saying "Keep exercising. See what it does for you?!"