There's Hope For Me Yet...

For the past several days I have avoided the scale because I didn't want to see a gain and get discouraged.  I haven't counted calories very closely for the past few days and last weekend I know I ate more than I should have.  And in the past this behavior has always resulted in a gain of a few pounds.  But I decided it was time to face the music this morning and lo and behold, I had a 0.6 pound loss when I got on the scale!  I'm not 100% sure why this happened, but I *think* that I am finally learning to eat intuitively.  The thought 'hunger is not an emergency' continually runs through my head and I try to delay eating my next meal until I'm truly hungry.  I'm learning to not eat until I'm stuffed & sick, and when I do have a snack, it's not a candy bar - it's a few clementines and some nuts or a piece of cheese.  I'm savoring and enjoying my food a lot more, and - get this - I am actually satisfied with less!  There have been a few times over the past couple days where I've stopped myself from going into a binge with the thought "Do I really want to be that person?  Is it really worth it?  Or do I want to be someone who stops before they've gone too far?"  I know it's too premature to tell for sure, but I think I'm slowly redefining my eating habits and relying more on physical cues for hunger rather than emotional ones.

Overall, I'm pleased with my progress - not just on the scale but inside my head.  I'm definitely not ready to discontinue the daily calorie counting but it was exciting to see that some of those subconscious habits are starting to change.  There's hope for me yet...

Pat Pat Pat

The other day I realized that I have been doing 45-minute strength training workouts twice a week with Rena for about eight months.  Without question, that is the longest I have ever stuck with a fitness routine - normally I abandon my workouts as soon as my eating patterns slide.  But for the last eight months, regardless of whether I am eating 'on plan' or not, or whether I'm getting in any cardio, or really paying attention to any other health issues in my life, I have faithfully gone to my twice-weekly workouts.  As a result, I can feel firm muscle developing underneath my slowly disappearing fat, and in general I am just stronger, more flexible and more fit.  Not only am I proud of my new muscles and fitness - I am AMAZED that I have stuck with something for so long.  This gives me hope that I will ultimately attain my weight loss goals and also any other goals I may set for myself - I feel like anything is possible!  Woohoo!

My Inner Toddler

This past weekend two old friends came to visit for a few days.  It was great – we caught up on old times, had a few drinks, shopped and had some great food.   Calorie-wise I ate more than usual, but when I compared what I ate to what my Bodybugg said I burned, it was a break-even situation.  So even though I didn't lose weight over the weekend, I didn't gain.  The real damage was weakening my resistance muscle – several times I ate when I really wasn’t hungry (Karen brought Lindor Truffles and I am helpless around them) and Saturday night I had four pieces of pizza even though I was full after two.  The poor choices continued long after my friends left - last night I grazed my way through the kitchen and this morning I found myself eating a lot of unplanned food.   I finally recognized that my habit of saying no to unplanned food had been broken and needed to be repaired from the ground up.  This afternoon I've been trying to redirect myself every time the thought of food comes up, which means that every two minutes I have to deal with the automatic thought 'I'm hungry, time to eat!'

Basically, my subconscious is acting like a toddler in a room full of delicate glass figurines.   Oooh! Shiny!  Pretty!  Want to touch!   I have to be hyper-vigilant, watching her every move, or else she will pick one up and break it.  Put that down honey, it might break. No sweetie, put it down, that’s fragile! No! Put that down! I SAID NO!  Sigh.  My entire day has been like this.   I wish I could check myself into daycare so someone else could keep an eye on me for awhile.

What have I learned from this?  Never let my guard down - if I didn't plan to eat it, I should just say no.  It's too hard to relearn habits after a relapse.

I'll get to put my newly learned lesson to the test tomorrow, because I am flying to New Hampshire for the day, which means airports and eating out.  I'll bring some healthy snacks and keep reminding myself that  hunger is not an emergency, but I think tomorrow will mostly be me vs. myself, gutting it out against my subconscious.

In other news, I went to the gym this morning and swam 500 yards nonstop - a new training record!  Yay me!

Girl's Weekend

Got a couple of friends here for the weekend, enjoying some good relaxing girl time and chatter for a few days - promise to post soon!

Freecycle! Changing the World One Gift at a Time

No news on the fitness front today other than keeping my calories a bit below normal to compensate for dinner out last night (and 2 glasses of champagne, yum!).  All is going well in diet-land and I don't have any insights or other thoughts to offer today.

So, I thought instead I'd use this time to write about one of my favorite things, Freecycle.  For the uninitiated, Freecycle is world-wide network of local groups, the members of which give and receive 'gifts' that are actually items that the owner no longer needs (or in some cases is willing to loan out for a short period).  There are groups springing up all over the world, and to find a group near you just check www.Freecycle.org.  The whole thing is done through email and Yahoo groups, and honestly couldn't be any easier to use.

The purpose of the group is to keep otherwise useful items out of landfills - from furniture to egg cartons, almost everything we touch can have a second life with someone else!  It gives me great joy to pass along something that I'm no longer using, rather than letting it clutter up my house or even worse, a garbage dump. 

Here are a few things I have successfully Freecycled (the list is much longer but these are some fun examples):

• Old umbrellas, to a high school drama club staging a production of 'Singing in the Rain'
• Several almost new bottles of expensive shampoo, conditioner, etc. that I used once and didn't like
• Sparkly silver pumps (sadly, a size too small for me)
  
• A gift certificate to a local theater that I knew I wouldn't use
• A box of 3 dozen weight loss books that I've read over the years (yes, I finally admitted that they weren't really helping me)
• Several unopened cute travel toiletry kits from British Airways - these went to a local homeless shelter!
• A couple old cell phones

Freecycle is also a great way to save money - just keep an eye on things that are posted, and you might end up finding someone that is giving away exactly what you need...like the time I lost my car phone charger and someone serendipitously offered one up a few weeks later.  And here's the best part: I had the opportunity to Freecycle the same charger to someone else just this past weekend, so it's getting yet another chance at a useful life!

I could go on and on (and I guess I have) but this is such a great grassroots movement that I thought it deserved some airtime!  Now it's up to you - what do you have in your house that you can Freecycle?

Cookies in the House

We have cookies in the house.  Beautiful tiny shortbread hearts, dipped in chocolate.  Yum.  They joined us last Tuesday night, straight from Whole Foods, and they are flaky and buttery and pretty much perfection itself.  But strangely enough, there are still several left.  I'm not sure what to say about that...this is completely unprecedented territory for me.  Normally they would have been gone in at least 48 hours, and there is just NO WAY they ever would have survived a weekend with me at home.  But instead of eating the whole package as a snack, I've eaten just one cookie per day, right after dinner.  Three bites to savor, and that's it.  I am stunned, amazed and proud of myself beyond belief.

And did I mention the gourmet organic milk chocolate?  It remains on the counter, unopened and ignored since Tuesday night.  It's there for me when I'm ready.  Again, speechless but proud.

The hunger experiments went well this weekend - I managed to eat 3 meals and a snack on both Saturday and Sunday and went hungry in between.  I kept myself busy by organizing things around the house, cleaning, moving furniture, posting things on Freecycle, reading, blogging, watching movies, exercising...anything but eating.  I went to bed a little hungry last night, and woke up hungry this morning.  And strangely enough, I'm starting to like feeling a bit hungry - it reminds me that my body is actively seeking other sources of energy: FAT!

Of course, riding out the hunger at home which is essentially a stress-free zone is one thing, but trying this out at work will be a new challenge.  I'm glad I practiced for a few days before going pro.  I'll check back in tonight to let y'all know how things went today!

Weight Loss Tracker

I ditched the Traineo tracker on my blog because it only shows my progress towards my interim August goal...and I was tired of seeing something that said I'd only lost 4 pounds when I've actually lost 15.  So I decided to put up a ticker that shows my final weight loss goal instead.

Also, I'm now officially counting down the days til my Triathlon in August - less than 7 months to go!