Need. Water. Need. Dignity. Back.

152.0.  A mere 0.2 pounds away from the 10 pound benchmark!

Full disclosure: pretty hungover and dehydrated.

Yesterday marks the second day that I have gone over my calorie limit on this journey towards Christmas Skinniness.

Indeed, I indulged in more wine than I typically allow myself at a going-away party for one of my good friends.  It was an incredibly fun night and, given the happy weigh-in this morning, it appears to be worth it, but I have a feeling I will be singing a different tune when tomorrow's weigh-in rebounds back up. Boo.

The good news is that even if "every day were like yesterday" I would still be 2.7 pounds lighter 5 weeks from now.   I am encouraged by this because that seems to suggest that nights of glorious wine-induced debauchery will be allowed when I do finally reach my goal and shift into "maintenance mode."  

The Boringville Gazzette

 

 

This has literally been the most anticlimactic 10 days in the history of dieting.   I almost feel bad blogging about it.  I swear, this blog is starting to read like a daily newspaper in a town where nothing happens.  Front page:  "Gladys Weinstein Waters Her Lawn; Wonders Why Neighbors Haven't Brought In Trashcans"  "Wal-Mart Remains Popular Place to Purchase Household Goods"  "Chunky Bride: Weighs 152.4"



 

Seriously. You can even see in my Progress Tracker that I appear to have landed at "152-point-whatever" with a resounding thud.   It is not for lack of trying!  I haven't cheated at all.   But something is still not working.  That's why I've made a few tweaks to my routine in an effort to move things along.  I've begun eating a small breakfast every morning.  (That's the "preeeettty" at the top of the page).  All of the healthy people I know tend to swear by eating breakfast and jump starting the 'ole metabolism.   I hope they're on to something.   At this point, I'll try anything to break free from this because there's no way I'll make it to 130 by Christmas if nothing changes.

 

I've also increased my daily calories to 1350.  I know that it seems counterintuitive, but I just think that at this point the lack of progress is certainly not a result of overeating....my body might have just gotten used to getting by with fewer calories and my metabolism is slowing down accordingly.  I think eating more might actually help.   It's only been three days since I've made these changes so the jury is still out on whether they'll work.

 

The good news is I haven't bounced back up to 153.8 since the last blog post!  And 152.4 is a decrease from yesterday's 152.8.   So maybe things are beginning to look up!  Err.....down.  

 

 

However, in an effort to keep up the 1.9 pound-per-week pace needed to get to my goal by Christmas, I hereby make the following decree:

 

If I have not reached the 10 pound weight loss mark by next Tuesday's Weekly Weigh In, I hereby swear to the sweet baby Jesus that I will start doing the 30 Day Shred again.  

 

I have really, really tried to avoid it coming to this.  But at this point, I'll do anything to break the plateau.   Wish me luck. 



Preeeeetttttyyyyy Frustrated, My Precious.

Alright here's a fun game for the film buffs out there.  Who knows the significance of the above picture?

Bueller? 

Bueller?

It's Natalie Portman's breakfast in Black Swan.  In the film, Natalie Portman's character sits down to eat the above-photographed breakfast (which appears to be a crappy poached egg and half of a grapefruit) and channels her inner-Gollum saying "It's so piiiiinnnk. And preeeeeeeettty."   Like, she's actively trying to convince herself that this crap-on-a-plate is good and/or satisfying.   Like, the grapefruit/egg is her Precious.  And she can't share the Precious.

No one can share the precious.

What does any of this have to do with anything?

Well, basically, I am having a really hard time with this diet right now.  I have literally gone back and forth and back and forth and back and fucking forth again between 153.8 and 152.8 this entire week.  Well, actually 8 days. A Whole Hanukkah.   I have photographic proof.

This week has seen more "fins" than a Jimmy Buffet concert.

But the part that kills me, is that I am not cheating!! With the exception of Friday which I admit was a day of Diet Abandonment, I have been completely steadfast in my journey.  Even on Friday's Diet Abandoment Day, I would venture to guess that I only had about 1000 more calories than the 1200 limit...and 1000 calories does not equate to zero-pounds-lost for an entire week. This plateau is The Suck.

I was so convinced that I just had to shake this diabolical back-and-forth by today that I even skipped posting for the Three Week Weigh-In because I thought that by today I'd be in the clear.

I don't know what I am doing wrong!  I don't really think I am doing anything wrong which is what is so frustrating.  I mean, I could try eating smaller portions throughout the day to see if that keeps the metabolism up and running--this morning I had breakfast in an attempt to get into the habit and see if that helps.  I have been watching sodium like crazy so I don't think that's a problem either.  I just want to know that all the sacrificing, and counting, and abstaining, and everything is worth it.  It's easy to get excited about a salad while everyone else is having pizza when you can see it paying off.  It's a much harder sell when you can't.

Which brings me to Natalie Portman in Black Swan.  For the next few days I am really going to try to hang in there and hopefully push past this 152.8 pound barrier.  Even if it's hard, I will suck it up and call my food "prreeeeetttty" in the hopes of getting past this.  I will look at Natalie Portman (and, for that matter, Gollum) in their emaciated glory and I will troll Pinterest for bordering-on-dangerous "Thinspo" pictures and I WILL OVERCOME!!!!!

Thinpso = "Thin-spiration Photo" = Shame Inducer

I am also going to begin doing the weekly weigh ins on Tuesdays now that we're exactly 12 weeks from Christmas.

Week 3 Weigh In:


Weeks Until Christmas: 12
Goal Weight By Christmas: 130
Today's Weight:  152.8
Starting Weight: 161.8
Total Weight Loss: 9 lbs.
Current Trajectory: 1.9 pounds per week to reach goal

If Every Day Were Like Today.....

When I was writing the Gown Blog, I did a post about tools that I recommend for anyone trying to lose weight.  Some were so indispensable to me, that I continue to use them this time around.  My Fitness Pal is one of them. 

It has a plethora of great features: a huge database of foods and their nutritional information, a progress tracker, options to add foods that are missing from the database, a diary to keep track of calories burned through exercise and calories consumed, and a fun feature that tells you what you'd weigh in 5 weeks if "every day were like today" based on the exercise and foods entered into the diary.

But that's not to say the product isn't without its flaws.  For instance, underneath the place where it says what you'd weigh in 5 weeks, it gives a little spiel about whether or not you're eating enough or too few calories (and by "too few" if the goal is 1200 and you eat 1199, it says you're eating "too few").   The problem is, the tool spits out the same, clinical, boring message no matter how much sodium or alcohol, or fat you consume.   

If I were the folks at My Fitness Pal Headquarters, I would add a couple additional messages. 

For instance, this morning I weighed in at 152.6 again (yay!), but that was with a pretty spectacular hangover from going out to celebrate Double Agent's birthday last night. We also celebrated with pasta. =/

It should have said, "If every day were like today, you'd be dead in 5 weeks because you'd be severely dehydrated and probably go into liver failure. Oh, and by the way, you had way too many calories yesterday so don't make a habit of this or else your whole 'lifestyle change' is completely blown."

If I ate a crapload of Ramen or something, it should say "If every day were like today, you should look forward to the end stage renal failure that inevitably awaits you!  Bonus: You'd qualify for Medicare early!" 

If I ate nothing but water and rice cakes it could say, "If every day were like today, it's likely that you are anorexic and ought to get thyself into some sort of counseling. For realsies."

You get the idea. 

Anyway, today's weigh in was good, but I am living on borrowed time because if every day were like yesterday, this would cease to be a blog about a lifestyle change.  It would be a blog about an endearing chubby girl who enjoys herself some vino and pasta.  

So.   We pick up and move forward.   Tomorrow is the week 3 weigh-in.  Wish me luck!

Accessories to Flabicide

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was so hoping today would be the day I reached 151.8 marking the 10 Pound Weightloss Mark.  Even if I didn't quite get there, yesterday's 152.6 had me feeling pretty good about this whole thing.

But last night I knew something was wrong. As I was turning down the sheets to go to bed, I started to realize that my wedding ring was feeling pretty snug around my finger...which is weird because it had been getting gradually looser since beginning this diet.  I tried to tell myself that maybe it was the heat and my fingers were just swollen....

But this morning....it was undeniable.   I'm retaining water. I have to be. It's the only way to explain the following sequence of events short of Diet Abandonment, and I have been very steadfast in my adherence.

Step 1:  Wake up.  Prepare for weigh-in.  10 pounds is just within reach.

Step 2:  Step on scale.

Step 3: Plummet to Earth at an unexplainable 154.8.    WTF, mate!?!?!  

Alright, alright, alright. It's okay. It's okay.  I am going to shake this off, eat less salt, pray this was a fluke (afterall, we almost had another 153.8 Half Hanukkah before getting down to 152.6 so I think that today is the fluke rather than the last 5 days combined), and move forward.

On to today's blog topic: Accessories to Flabicide!

Having done the weightloss-blog thing once already, I am always mentally comparing and contrasting this slim-down journey with the last one.   One thing that has definitely changed and made life a million times easier this time around, is that I am not doing it alone.   This time, I have two partners in crime: Double Agent and Lil' Libby.

I've referenced them before, but today I would like to dedicate an entire post to The Work Besties.  To protect their identities, I asked them to come up with blog aliases.  Double Agent chose her psuedonym because during the week she is a total lawyer-hotty who rocks the sky high heels and sexy pencil skirts and enjoys a boozy lunch as well as the entire cast of Mad Men, but during the weekend she is a self-described "frumpy" Army Wife who spends most of her time potty training Little Miss Double Agent.

Lil' Libby actually didn't choose that name; she asked me to refer to her as The Losin' It Liberal--which is pretty self-explanatory being that she's trying to lose weight and is a liberal.*  While I love that name, it is cumbersome to type, and Lil' Libby sounds better in the running commentary in my brain.  Plus when I imagine her reading this for the first time and realizing what her new bastardized alias will be, I know I'll be able to hear her laugh from across the office. And I like her laugh.

So anyway, I owe a great deal of any success I may have on this journey to both of them.  It's, like, a scientific fact that close friends tend to gain and lose weight in circles. Even without having seen the research, I can attest that friends can make or break you.  It's a lot easier to pick a lunch spot with healthy options when everyone is in search of healthy options. It's a lot harder to have the willpower to avoid fattening things when everyone around you is enjoying their third slice of cheesy pizza.

The Work Besties actually started their diets before I did.  I can't remember which one started it all, but weeks and weeks (maybe even months) before I began this blog I started to grow envious of both of their ever-shrinking waistlines.  At one point I realized that I was the problem child in this group of lunchtime pals. I was the asshole pizza-eater while both of them were being good.  I was the one who kept suggesting we go to "greasy spoon" type restaurants. I will never know how they continued to successfully lose weight with me hanging around.

But aside from the obvious fact that being around fellow dieters makes it easier to stick to the program, I have also really enjoyed seeing how all three of us are losing weight all the while having very unique approaches to weight loss. It's truly a testament to the fact that there are as many different ways to successfully lose weight as there are people on this planet.  It's all about finding what works for you.

My method is obvious by now: 1) do very little exercise; 2) strictly adhere to a set number of calories with near total disregard for where the calories come from--be it whole grains or grain alcohol; 3) weigh self daily at the exact same time wearing the exact same thing to ensure as much accuracy as possible; 4)blog about it so the fear of public humiliation keeps me accountable.

Double Agent's methods are far more fluid.  She doesn't even own a scale--although I swear to you that I saw her steal the scale from the mail sorting room the other day so she could weigh herself in her office.  She doesn't count calories.  She just makes healthier choices than she would make if the sky were the limit.  It works for her.  She is visibly thinner after several weeks of ordering mostly shrimp in various forms when we go out to eat.  She creates her own sandwich combinations cutting back on fattening things where she can. She also swears that she hardly eats when she's at home--attributing it to the fact that she's completely busy running after Little Miss.  She gets her exercise from dancing and work out videos.  And, man, I'll be damned, but whatever she is doing works. 

Lil' Libby uses a method that a lot of Americans are familiar with: Weight Watchers. She loves the point system; prefering to keep track of points instead of counting calories like I do. She is really into working out.  She has a gym membership and she runs marathons in her spare time.  I consider that a form of personal torture, but she seems to like it.   She also believes very strongly in a "carrot and stick" approach to weight loss:

Lil' Libby saw a Coach purse a few weeks ago that she simply loves.  It's pretty pricey--nearly $400  She promised herself that if she sticks to her work out plan and Weight Watchers until Election Night, she will buy the purse for herself.  That's her carrot.

Now the stick: if Lil' Libby fails to adhere to her diet and work out plan until Election night, she is going to take the same $400 that should have gone towards her fabulous new bag and donate it to Mitt Romney's Presidential Campain.  And that really would chap her ass because as liberal as I believe that I tend to be, she makes me look like a Tea Partier.   She mailed the check to her mother with instructions to send it if she gets caught cheating.  I thought that was pretty hilarious.

Her method is working too.  She is visibly thinner than she was even a couple weeks ago.

So that's what we've been doing.  We're just a bunch of busy attorneys trying to lose weight and still live a fun and fantastic lifestyle.  I gotta say, the journey is a lot more fun with company.





*I should note that she, too, is a  total lawyer-hotty who rocks the sky high heels and sexy pencil skirts and enjoys a boozy lunch as well as the entire cast of Mad Men.

Old McDonald's Got Some Flak...

Eee-Ay-Eee-Ay -O.

That's right!  I hereby dedicate today's post to the most ubiquitous of American dining establishments: The Fast Food Joint.

But before completely delving into this morning's post topic, let's get the part where I update everyone on my progress out of the way:

*Insert Trumpet Flare*

Yay!!  152.6!  I am so close to reaching the 10-pounds-lost benchmark that I can practically taste it!  I can already start to see the results on my body and definitely can feel the results in my clothing.  The jeans that I haven't been able to wear since March?  They fit!   The skirts I wear to work used to ride up around my waist, but they are now riding much lower on my hips.  Shirts and dresses that I couldn't button or zip a few months ago are starting to fit again.  I forgot how much I love this part of losing weight; it's like going shopping every couple weeks except without spending money. Double win.

I couldn't be happier with this morning's weigh-in (particularly since the last few days have all been 153.8 without any movement; I was starting to worry about having another Half-Hanukkah on my hands).

What I am perhaps even more pleased about than my progress so far is the way that I've still been able to go out to eat.  Like, all the time.

Now that I am a working girl, I have very little time to go grocery shopping and prepare foods at home.  I also go out to eat with my Work Besties every day--it's our one solid hour of respite from the incredibly hectic world of being plaintiff attorneys.  It's crucial that if this is going to be a lifestyle change that I still be able to go out to eat for lunch and do little-to-no cooking at home in the evenings.

But I've quickly learned that it's a lot harder to eat healthy and track calories when I'm eating at restaurants constantly.  I never know if that steamed broccoli I order on the side of my chicken is going to come out dribbling in butter, or if my salad's dressing contains more oil that the Gulf of Mexico post-BP, or how much mayo is in the "spicy" part of the spicy tuna roll, or if the the waiter thinks I am jackass for ordering the salad "with no bacon, and the dressing on the side, and the cheese on the side, and no croutons, etc. etc. etc."

I'm managing it.   But it's hard.

Do you know what's not hard?  Tracking calories and losing weight while eating at fast food establishments. 

Fast food is awesome.   Just about every single place posts their nutritional information so there's no guesswork. And just about every single place has literally dozens of combinations of menu items that make a very tasty and very calorically friendly meal.

Now, I am going to stop short of saying that fast food is "healthy."  It's probably not.  Or maybe it is.  Really, I don't care.  I never promised anyone that my weight loss journey was about being healthy.  This is vanity, pure and simple.   Anyone who is even slightly familiar with this blog knows that.   Let's face it: I advocated drunkenness and dehydration as a way to break a diet plateau--that's not healthy.

As an experiment, I decided to see what kinds of delicious fast food combinations I could make while staying under 500 calories.

I'd like to say right off the bat that it is incredibly difficult to find as-is menu items at sit-down restaurants for under 500 calories; they almost all require significant modification (dressing on the side, no cheese, etc. etc.)  This makes waiters hate you. And makes your dining companions realize you're a psycho control freak.   Meanwhile at fast food places, I can just order items exactly the way they come (or with a normal modification--"I said plain cheeseburger! plain!") and stay well within the 500 calories allotted.

Taco Bell:
One soft chicken taco, one soft beef taco, and an order of Mexican rice: 490 calories.
Steak gordita supreme and black beans and rice: 470 calories.
Doritos Loco taco and Double Decker Taco: 490 calories

I'll just stop now. There are literally dozens and dozens of options at the TB that fit the bill.  They even have a "fresco" menu for the severely diet-conscious, but I don't like my TB watered down.

Wendys:
Junior Cheeseburger and Apple Slices: 330
Ultimate Chicken Grill and Apple Slices: 430
Spicy Chicken Go Wrap and Apple Slices: 380
Small Chili, Small Fry, Side of Shredded Cheese: 510 (alright, not technically 500 or under, but I triple-dog-dare you to find chili cheese fries anywhere for only 510 calories).

I must say though, Wendy's has plenty of solitary items under 500, but it's pretty difficult to have more than 1 thing and stay within the limit...unless you get apple slices. But, I'm sorry, at a fast food place, who actually wants apple slices??

Arbys:
Turkey Classic and Jr. Roast Beef (two sandwiches!!): 500
Jr. Roast Beef and 2 Potato Cakes: 440
Jr. Roast Beef and Children's Curly Fries: 450
Jr. Roast Beef and 2 Piece Chicken Tenders: 440

Be not afraid of the children's options at Arby's; they allow for plenty of mix-and-matching.   There are also lots of adult options under 500, but again, you'd only get 1 thing...unless you want apple slices (Arby's has 'em too).  Fuck apple slices.

I'll stop now because I am running out of time (and I am sure I'll do a Fast Food Part II post later).  But see my point?  Fast food gets a lot of flak and a lot of blame for America's weight problem.  But it's actually a lot easier to "think thin" (I won't say "be healthy") at fast food places than at just about any sit-down restaurant, ever. 

By the way, in case anyone was curious, every one of these fast-food combinations falls well under the calorie limits imposed on school lunches under the new federal guidelines.  And I bet kids would actually eat this stuff.


 

Lesson Learned: Cheating Pays

Holy cow.

So last time I posted, I broke The 156.2 Half-Hanukkah by overly indulging in birthday vino.  This caused me to become dehydrated and ultimately weigh-in at 154.8.

I began mentally preparing myself for the inevitable fallout. I even prepared to re-enter the Half-Hanukkah.  Who knew, maybe I would just stay at 156.2 forever and ever and I'd have to donate my body to science to figure out what made me such a special snowflake.  They'd do studies on me.  They might even name some sort of syndrome after me.

In any event, I steadied my nerves and prepared to be disappointed because, well, I cheated. And cheating rarely works. 

Except when it does.

Mwahhahahahaha!  A completely hydrated 153.8.

This has got to be how shoplifters feel when they get away with stealing a M.A.C. lipgloss or something.  The exhilaration that comes from doing something so, so wrong, but suffering no consequences--shit, even benefitting from it--is pretty awesome.

But I got to thinking about it--and, yes, this is the part where I start to justify the cheating to myself--and I remembered that this is supposed to be a lifestyle change, right?   Well, if that's the case, then there are definitely going to be special occasions where imbibing will inevitably happen.  And at least now I know that those nights won't completely derail my weight loss (and, eventually, weight maintenance). 

And that's pretty cool.  Amiright?!