Moma, I Can Fly!

I went to pick up Aidan yesterday and spoke to the vet. The vet was gorgeous. He hadn’t brought out Aidan yet and was telling me things to watch for. He was looking me dead in the eyes. I looked away but then felt like he’d think I wasn’t paying attention so I looked back. We’re just staring at each other dead in the eyes. I tried to glance down to see if he had a ring. Nope. He brought Aidan in, who looked so spacey, and he held him forever. He could have put him right in his carrier but he held him and I was petting him and kept hitting his hands. Ah. I was trying to figure out who he looked like. I thought it was the prince from Sleeping Beauty, but he looks a lot like the teacher guy in Never Been Kissed.

Back in the receptionist area he came out with Aidan’s chart and I joked with him about leaving my credit card earlier in the day (I’m a flake, did I mention?) and I made him laugh joking that everyone had a nice lunch on my card. I think I’m in love.

Did I mention losing weight has awoken my libido? Scary stuff.

I get Aidan home and he’s stumbling around the room swaying side to side and walking into the walls. It was really sad but I laughed anyway. That kitty would not fall asleep. He wandered around for hours. Trying to jump up things and busting his ass. I actually caught him airborne in the bathroom. He would have hurt himself if I hadn’t caught him like a softball. Things I have to do while peeing.

I worked out and almost fell off the treadmill when Jimmy Fallon was imitating Eminem and Dave Matthews. Finally after my shower Aidan decided it was in fact ok to nap in my lap after he jumped up rustily, had paranoia episodes “Who are you man?” and made a U-y off the couch about 5 times. He sacked out and actually slept through the night on the bed. He’s never done that.

Weight Day

Another pound. Sigh.

Second Nature

Let’s see. Something diet related. Um. Well. I got nothing. I’m in (knock on wood) this rhythm and it’s flowing rather naturally. Saying no just seems second nature. Eating what I should eat, meaning staying within my calorie range, second nature. I think about eating this or that throughout the day but I always talk myself out of it. So I guess it’s still there. Sometimes I’ll go through like a 5 minute period where I feel weak, like it would be really easy to cheat. But I don’t. Somehow I make it through. It passes and I go on with my day. I should probably recognize these moments as stress, I’m only acting on stress, it’s not actual hunger, but I’m so quick to say no, you’re being ridiculous that it just passes in a dull whimper. I feel like I’m jinxing myself by even saying it. I still crave things. I’d love to have a pizza and watch the MTV music awards tonight. But I won’t. It’ll be Diet Mountain Dew and me. I’d say I’d have some Smart Pop but I know my calories will be long gone by 8 pm.

I took Aidan to the vet today to have his teeth cleaned. It seems rather vain to have your one year old cat put to sleep for a teeth cleaning. But I’m telling you, this cat has some serious teeth problems in the works. I’ve never even heard of a one year old cat who has bad teeth. They called around 2, I was at lunch with Boss Lady and Lunch Buddy, and said he was fine and to pick him up after work. I was worried they call me and tell me something went wrong and he was gone or that they needed to pull teeth and grotesque my little dude out. Aidan’s such a lover I don’t know what I’d do without him. But he’s cool. And sadly it’s an excuse not to work out, to nurse my baby back to good health, but that would mean giving up tomorrow’s free night and I’m hardly back in a rhythm since returning to NYC. Last night was the first time I worked out since I left, since I packed really. So hopefully I’ll work out.

Ah, it just seems so slow. I just want to be thin now. I feel like a little kid pulling on Dad’s shirt ad nauseam, “Are we there yet?”

Things I learned in NYC

Pilots of Spirit Airways like to make the plane nosedive because then all the passengers can view straight down the seats to the newly bolted pilot door without having to stretch their necks.

My mother’s one Bloody Mary cocktail voice will travel three rows and produce giggles as she remarks about said pilot, “Everyone’s got to learn to fly sometime.”

When turbulence makes you nervous look to the Flight attendants. If they’re ok, you’re ok too.

If you tell a pilot upon landing in NYC about a hard landing he will retort, “Well, we stopped didn’t we,” and you have to actually agree as you adjust your neck brace.

Grandmothers don’t get Ian Schrager Hotels. Low white beds and cone stainless steel sinks don’t have the same Isn’t-it-adorable effect that it does on my mother and myself.

My grandmother is about 50 times neater than me and does not need to spread toiletries around fancy cone sinks.

Eighties rock is cool again. At least at Ian Schrager Mezzanine hotel bars.

Our hotel is situated in such a way that cab drivers get an extra around the block drive that earns them about $1.20 that even when divided by 4 produces stress headaches. I learned to have us dropped off at the very crowded time square and walk a half block to the hotel. Then I realized that cab drivers get an extra around the block drive from Avenue of the Americas to Broadway that earns them $1.20 that even when divided by 4 produces stress headaches. I was tempted to be dropped off at said Ave only I’d find a shorter way and next thing you know we’d be walking 10 blocks a night to save $1.50.

“Thoroughly Modern Millie” is a great show.

Never order Spaghetti and Meat sauce from a down-home Italian restaurant unless it’s on the Specials board. Otherwise you’ll get something close to some old hotdog chili from the vendor on the corner.

My mother thinks it’s fine for me to hook up with a 19-year-old Italian/Cupid water boy in the restroom of said Italian restaurant as long as I’m ovulating. She’ll even call him over for me.

Any store with more than one floor is better than home even if they have the same stuff.

ABC Carpet and Home has changed man. I’m so depressed about it.

But Anthropologie is what ABC Carpet and Home used to be with lots of college kids shopping there.

I will pay $30 for a pair of underwear in NY without scoffing. I would have sulked and needed a milkshake under the same circumstances at home.

You will get worn out without even getting close to seeing all you want to see.

Howard Johnson’s on Broadway is a nasty place to eat. And their Belgian waffles are hard as bricks.

NYC gives my skin a greasiness reminiscent of my days working as a waitress only I don’t get lingering the french fry smell.

NYC when raining sucks but when it’s sunny it smells kind of icky.

Mom and Dean and Deluca don’t mix. Mom prefers restaurants with a menu and fountain sodas. She’s willing to catfight over it if the Dean and Deluca server is willing to come around the counter.

Felicity (nor anyone qualifying as a “nice person”) does not work at Dean and Deluca. They are haughty vile servers who should be nice to my mother who can’t tell upon sight that a chicken sandwich is a chicken sandwich without a menu that says, “Chicken Sandwich $20.49”.

Dean and Deluca makes a pretty fruit salad but I have no idea what it tastes like due to impending smack down.

Cab drivers with family mementos in their cabs are much nicer than quiet ones pretending not to know where your hotel is.

Tea at the Plaza is highly overrated.

A carriage ride in central park is highly overrated.

A long jaunt to the Strawberry Fields Park is a great way to spend a morning even if you’ve done it before.

New York waiters think Ranch dressing and Thousand Island are the same thing and call it Russian dressing.

Gigantic $50 Filet Mignons rock and are totally worth the price.

By the third trip to NYC you finally know where the fuck you are.

People in NYC think that crying babies deserve a cab more than a grandmother with a bad back and will remark about NYC niceties going to shit even when speaking to three southern belles.

Petite blonde aunts will always get the first taxi driving down the street no matter how many people are waiting on the block.

Sephora makeup people who look somewhere between a pretty delicate man and a plain tall girl make great makeup suggestions for mothers and aunts and will cause said ladies to spend $200 a pop for the US economy.

Women who divvy up taxi fares on Broadway are definitely tourists and is a miracle they never got mugged.

It’s the third night on a hard bed that it starts to kick in.

The purple elevator is my favorite though the orange one is probably best for the complexion.

I do heart NY.

Bring the umbrella. I don’t care if it seems heavy.

When you hear a loud boom late at night in a NYC hotel, take a look outside. If the citizens are ok, you’re ok too. Someone must have slammed the bathroom door in the room next door. The Marriott Marquis is fine, go back to bed.

Never tip the taxi guy 10% especially when he’s your last cab driver to the airport. He’ll get pissed at you and even once you rectify it with additional cash, he’s already pissed and you’re left sulking.

Planning extra time to get to airport and through security sounds fine in theory but waiting 2 hours for your plane is a terrible way to spend the morning.

If a plane can take off 15 minutes late and still arrive 5 minutes early why don’t they just make it that short a trip to begin with. I don’t need the scenic route.

Tired moms will easily pass over keys to the Mercedes convertible. And that thing will go.

This is Home

Sorry I didn't post my weight on Friday. I was running late. It's only a pound so it was nothing to hoot and holler about.

NYC was great. I'm trying to get together some sort of smart ass post about Things I Learned While in NY but I'm currently too tired to be a smart ass. Apologies.

But I have off work tomorrow so who knows. The kitties still remember me. I'm so glad.

I'm also weighing in tomorrow to see if I gained any weight. My grandmother did not diet during the trip and ate all the things I wanted to eat. Then she kept saying how guilty she felt. I couldn't feel sorry for her unfortunately because I tried to stay on my diet. I didn't count my calories but did a mental note and never ate more than half what I ordered. Unfortunately most of the food I encountered was not that good until the gigantic Filet Mignon I had last night. I ate about 2/3rds of it. I haven't had red meat in about a year. Worth $50 bucks for sure though us 4 girls could have certainly split 2 steaks and been fine.

More later...

NYC Baby!

This one’s for Jen:

Wendy’s Mandarin Chicken Salad has 620 calories (and worth every bite)
Wendy’s Big Bacon Classic has 570 calories

(But you’d have to get the fries and that’d put you way over for the day)

I myself will rearrange my entire day’s worth of calories at least once a week for a Mandarin Chicken Salad. It’s almost as good as Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad, which I’ve heard has over 1000 calories. Plus it takes forever to eat so you feel like you ate a lot. Unlike the hamburger which would be gone pretty quick.

I tell you my mind is on my trip. I have about 1000 things to do tonight to get ready. I’m extremely nervous about leaving the cats for so long. I haven’t been gone for more than one night since I brought Aidan home. I hope he remembers me.

I am going to post my weight on weigh day tomorrow morning at about 6 am (though weigh time is technically 7:30 am). I don’t plan on breaking the diet on my trip. I eat out a lot at home so it’s really no difference. The only break is I’m having Tea at the Plaza on Friday afternoon and I’ve never done the whole tea experience before and am going to do the full deal. How bad can a bunch of tiny sandwiches be? I hope there’s some cake. I could really dig some cake.

Edit: Oh Man, I was 168! Damn, tomorrow's going to suck. I thought it was more than that. Guess I'll HAVE to work out tonight.

Super Freak

Just when I thought I’d have nothing dietary to speak about there’s this, which is interesting, too bad it’s hidden and not exactly front page news, though it leaves out one very important thing, most people, especially overweight people aren’t trying to follow that damn pyramid anyway. It’s like the Richard Simmons diet without the cute little flippy tabs case. PS – Please keep your Atkin’s “I told you so” comments to yourselves, it’s still about calories [insert sound of me standing firm].

Before I found that I was going to say how I’m kinda running out of diet things to speak of. I’m in a groove that’s starting to feel rather natural, as scary a concept as that may be. You count your calories, take your vitamin, stop whining and get on the treadmill and it works itself out eventually. Slowly but surely.

It does leave me feeling vulnerable and exposed. I’m testing waters everyday trying to face things head on rather than swallowing them and chasing them with food.

I had a disturbance at work that caused me to think I’d never fall asleep and I got up and wrote it all out on a sheet of paper. Then I could sleep. I didn’t grab the first cookie.

So it goes.

I used fancy not-really-lying words to my brother’s belated birthday email “sorry I missed you while you were on your trip…” sort of thing. His reply email sounded about 500X more mature than I ever come across. Blows my mind.

Aidan, my gray kitty, with the smelly breath (see archives), had a traumatic experience at the vet and will have to go back next Thursday for a teeth cleaning. Teeth cleaning for kitties is surgery. Surgery = a shitload of money. Poor kitty’s only a year old and has teeth problems.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my extreme bug phobia combined with the east coast beaches’ most frightening creature, the Palmetto Bug. There are no Palmetto bugs where I grew up. I’m sad to say I was the type of kid that would call home crying if there was a bug at a slumber party and my mother would have to pick me up, embarrassed or not, I’m not sleeping over there. Well these gigantic creatures of the night, the 1 to 2 inch cockroach, whose natural habitat is supposedly trees but will still find there way into about every home in this town at some point or another, has been wrecking havoc and causing night sweats since I moved here. My mother has a great contract with Terminex and we’ll usually find about 2 a year and it’s always an experience to remember. Some fly. A two to three inch cockroach that flies. Not pleasant.

So for me to leave my garage apartment nestled among the trees to venture out on a steamy summer night takes a lot of guts on my part because they are indeed crawling around on my deck or at least watching me from the trees devising schemes and so forth. But I refuse to let this stop me from leaving the house after dark between the months of May and September. So I walk fast and try not to look around.

Last night I went over to watch American Idol at my mother’s house. It was a great night for the bugs. Humid and steamy and hot. I came home after and had some difficulty working the key into the lock but go in and exhale, shivering a bit. I picked up the lamp Aidan had knocked over, used the bathroom, and got ready to go into my bedroom. The cats are huddled on the floor of my bedroom, which takes me a second to realize, they found a bug, and it's not a nickel sized spider. It's long like a mini-post it note. Oh shit.

It was a relatively easy kill with a nearby walking shoe strategically place and smushed with great care to insure guts would smear (otherwise, whose to say he’s dead, I’ll be getting a tissue and he’ll be dusting off his shoulders scouting a new home in the box spring).

Then I call my mother (aka my landlord) who tells me she doesn’t want to bug the Terminex guy again since he just came out. I said, “Well he didn’t do a very good job!” And she said he did and I said my house doesn’t even smell like bug spray and she said it’s just one bug he could have come in as I was leaving or something.

It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps I gave this disgusting creature a piggy back ride home. Say it ain’t so. And then I’m in that paranoid freaky place with black and white swirls twirling before my eyes as I sit teetered on arm of the couch rocking gently with a can of Raid watching the cats for about an hour to make sure they haven’t spotted anything else. I sprayed the house (that still stinks really bad BTW) and slowly began turning off lights about one every 15 minutes till eventually I was in my bed with both cats and a nightlight.

Random Acts of Normalcy

I feel like I should post something really random and non-personal after yesterday. I feel like I say too much sometimes and then I think that’s what I want to do and then I think some things should just stay inside.

So I’ve been considering posting about how excited I am to leave for New York City on Friday and link to all the stuff I’m going to do. Or maybe post about how Aidan has a vet appointment tomorrow and I’m concerned about the bill. How I’m supposed to be delighted that I’m paying off one of my credit cards in September and will have only one card left that should be paid off in March. Until you think about the vet bill and the trip to NYC. How I haven’t even left yet and I’ve spent about $100 on preparations. Stocking up on kitty litter and buying a little bottle of mouthwash and stuff, yes a lavender mini-backpack. And how I have no idea how I’m going to pay off that credit card with my trip and ABC Carpet Store.

Oh and how I forgot my little brother’s birthday (Dad’s son) who turned 21 on the 10th. And how I feel like such a shit. And how I thought my dad would be pissed and call me selfish and heartless or vile and cruel or something but he told me to lie and say I called but they were out of town. Now I get to be a lying shit and my dad’s in on it.

Yeah so TOM’s here and the scale is playing mind games. Can’t blame it really. I get two days off from exercising when TOM’s around (even though one was technically a free day anyway). And yes, I had some Brie yesterday on my Roast Beef sandwich and should have only eaten half but it was so good. And I have no clue how many calories were in that sandwich. I figured around 600 but the bread was so good it was probably more.

And what if you ask for Diet Lemonade at Chic-fil-a and they give you regular and you can’t tell the difference. And you wonder if you’re cheating or if the 16 year old gave you the right drink. And you forget to ask your mom to taste it partially hoping to see her spray diet lemonade on her Mercedes upholstery but you don’t because you’re surprised she’s decided to go on the pre-NYC shopping experience and taking you by Bed Bath and Beyond to get $10 credited on your mean scale because it’s $10 cheaper on the website. And you see lots of things you want but you put blinders on and think more about the lemonade giving little mini-taste sips, still unsure, come home, judge the new chick on Road Rules, and go to bed.

Oh Master, Give me Chocolate, Me Love You Long Time

One of my favorite weight loss/self awareness sites posted an interesting post the other day. She’s reading a book she got from OA. Here’s what she said:

“In the book, he said FOOD IS YOUR SERVANT. NOT YOUR MASTER.”

“I'll be damned if that ever once occurred to me in my life. The sole purpose of food is to nourish you. boom. period. that's it. that's all. who knew? Food will NEVER supply all the things we want them to. Food won't make you less lonely. Just lonely and self loathing after the binge.”

I hear ya, sista.

This is the part I love the most:

“I would never in a million years put up with someone who is out to get me, lies to me constantly and makes me feel like shit in their presence. Food does that shit to me like daily.”

I love her self-awareness. And it’s not something you can hide. You have to walk around with it and everyone sees it and knows you’re weak. Knows you lack control. Knows you’re a prisoner to food, of all things. Knows you’re unhappy and struggle with it constantly. And other people are unhappy and struggle with their unhappiness but they don’t have to wear it when they walk into a room.

And How Are YOUR Eggs Feeling Today?

My mother started back in on me yesterday regarding the whole baby/biological clock nightmare. It starts simple enough:

Mom, “Did you tape Oprah on Friday?”

Me, “Yeah, I think so,” smearing SPF4, which totally blocks the sun on me but is better than peeling.

Mom, “It was about all these women who waited to have children and then found out they couldn’t because they had waited too long.”

[I just want to interject here and say I dealt with this issue after many panic attacks when it originally came out and was reported all over the evening news to freak out thirty-something girls trying to accept their lives as is and how your chances of getting pregnant drop dramatically after age 35. After breathing into many brown paper bags and shouts of, “Rhett, Rhett, but what will I do,” I chilled and decided not to panic until the age of 35. I have 4 years and a month. Can I live them without hive medication, please?]

Me, nose crinkling, feeling sunburned all the sudden, flushed, exposed, “Mmm.”

Mom, “Tragic. You should really watch it.”

Me, holding my breath deciding to whether to get into this conversation or just letting it go with another ‘mmm’. Can’t let it go, cuts too deep, “Why would I want to watch that?”

Mom, “It could help you realize that you need to think about these things.”

Me, who’s thought of little else for about 10 years now, big white horse, prince in sexy blue jeans, deep voiced, small blue tiffany box, large flash of smile, “There’s nothing I can do. What can I do. I can’t DO anything.” Me, more self-aware that I’m one of those desperate [aging] girls I never wanted to be and probably always was. Me, imagining myself picking up some dude at a cowboy bar with nasty teeth and touching him with the tips of my fingers but somehow hoping maybe just maybe I’ll have a baby (and not Aids or Herpes as a consolation prize) and won’t be one of those TRAGIC women who goes through life without having a baby because all her good eggs were gone in her Roaring 20s and along came the Great Depression of the 30s and for god’s sake and I’m going to be reduce to this?

Mom, very mom-like, “You should lower your standards.”

Me looking at Mom thinking like a dude with a mustache or scrawny thin or a vegetarian (gasp!) and realizing she means like not marriage, not a nice person, not having a job, not having a car, not having all his limbs, not passing 3rd grade. Terrific. Can’t wait to do this guy’s laundry.

I know this shit scares the pants off (well, the opposite really) guys but this is reality of it. I deal with this shit regularly. I want a family. I WANT a family. Can I not have any more assholes who chugs his draft beer and gives me sexy eyes and says, “I don’t think I’ll ever get married,” on the first conversation of the first fucking date! The marrying dudes are already married. I missed that boat living with a fuckwit who decides in the 13th hour he doesn’t love me after 5 years after all. He’s married nine months later while I’m trying to like the guy at the bar who thinks he’s god’s gift.

Fucking wonderful.

Hope everyone else’s weekend was grand. There’s a brown paper bag with my name on it.

I'm in the Sixties

Yay me. I'm thinking my new scale may be the accurate one due to the fact as I was throwing out the old one last night I noticed an elastic hair-band wedged up underneath it. I'm just going to gladly accept this loss. It was well earned anyway, free or not.

I'm also wearing size 12 black chinos from the Gap that I found while rummaging through my closet this morning. And they aren't tight or anything. I've been bending under desks all day (not hiding, hooking up moved computers) and I can sit indian style, the works. There's also a pair of khakis but I'm a reborn Anti-Khaki (I've recently determined that khaki is the worst color an overweight person can wear) so I'll avoid wearing them. There's a couple dresses that fit me too. Yes, I was late for work today, but I'm a size 12 dammit. Sort of.

I believe I'm officially the same weight I was last summer. Which when you think about it, really sucks. I'm not even 1/2 way. But still going strong.

Tale of Two Scales

My scale has been acting funny, psychotic even. It all started when my mother came over to weigh herself a few weeks ago and it gave her a weight 10 pounds lower than her actual weight. She got on it again and it gave her the correct weight.

Yesterday I got on the scale and it gave the normal 171. Then in a flash it subtracted a half pound, and flashed 170.5, then immediately added two pounds, flashed 172.5. What makes this obviously very, very wrong is this is a digital scale and digital scales just pop out a number. There’s no Russian Roulette of watch me flash through some numbers and land on one. You just get one number. So I decided to go scale shopping last night.

I checked around on-line and determined the best place to go would be Bed Bath and Beyond. I was taken aback that their main bathroom scale brand was called “Thinner”, it just seems an atrocity to mankind to stick that subliminal message in your head every morning as you weigh yourself. Think of the poor recovering Anorexic girl back from the hospital and keeping track of her more normal meaty weight and staring at “Thinner” “Thinner” everyday. It would have to fuck with your head.

I couldn’t get the fat measurers to work and didn’t really care because I already know it’s not accurate once you are a fit person. It’s calibrated for a couch potato. I found one that calibrates according to your age and height but it just kept asking me my age and height over and over so I turned to the normal scales that are less pestering.

I settled on the Thinner scale with big numbers, .5 readings, cute little carrying handle in case I want to take it on overnight sleepovers (kidding, geez). There was a fancy glass scale that I liked that measured your weight with a .2 accuracy which was indeed enticing but I was nervous about slipping with wet feet and it’s so freaking modern it totally won’t go with my comfy farmhouse (ok, shabby chic) décor. All the scales gave me readings about 2 pounds less than my scale at home. And this was at night with flip-flops on. It difficult for me to get used to being 2 pounds thinner than I thought I was. My scale at home has always matched the doctor’s scale so I’m used to trusting it. I want an accurate reading, I don’t want to end up at the doctors office gasping for air when I get weighed, sniffling and moaning, “something must be wrong” and they have to drag me from the scale and give me some juice or something. I gotta know up front what I’m dealing with.

So I’ve deciding to keep both scales until I’m assured the new scale just isn’t trying to get in good with me. If they both go down the same rate then I’ll throw the old one out. I’m a total freak now, right, since I have two scales in the bathroom? It sounds a little odd to me. Hopefully my weight will change soon before someone comes over.

“Eat to Live, Don’t Live to Eat"

As I think I’ve mentioned before my mother (not to mention the rest of that side of my family) can eat whatever she chooses and is naturally thin. She’s been known to eat an entire pound of bacon. She takes her coffee with enough half and half to turn it the color of champagne not to mention the sugar. She does this without hesitation and wouldn’t have it any other way. My first car accident was on a short trip to get her some half and half for the next morning. And not one cup of coffee but cup after cup till she switches to very sweet sweet tea or regular cokes.

She’s been going through some hard times since her marriage has fallen apart in the worst way possible and has been on anti-anxiety medication. At the height of these difficulties/adjustments one such medication caused her to gain weight. I think she was spilling into somewhere around 140+ pounds and size 10 and pretty much freaking out. She desperately tried to diet thinking of all the times she told me to simply eat less, eat to live don’t live to eat. And she couldn’t do it. The moment she told herself to cut back she found herself ravishing entire bags of chips (and not Wow chips either) and running off to Krispy Kreme after dark to get a box (yes, a box) of glazed donuts. She was truly petrified and it was rather rewarding to see her go through it (she was only a size 10 and looked good I thought) and it was nice to be able to share food stories about how hard it is not to eat this or that. At the time I was still in my Dreamery Peanut Butter Cup affliction (pint a day habit) and had lots of woes of my own.

Luckily, when all else had failed and she admitted to me there was no way for her to lose weight, she just can’t do it, her medication was switched and she quickly lost her weight back to around 130 and had all her new “fat” clothes altered to a size 6/8.

The moral is all is dandy regarding how you feel about food until you’re told you can’t have something and you really want it. It’s human nature to fulfill our drive. I know I’m a junk food junkie and love fast food and candy, etc but there’s really no way for me to be happy on a macrobiotic diet. I can adjust and make healthier choices but I’ll always like McDonalds, I’ll always want popcorn at the movie theater, I’ll always check out the dessert menu at any restaurant I go to eat. I just make choices on what to really put in my mouth. Good or bad it’s mine to make.

The book I’m reading Dieting for Dummies, says a lot of dumb ass things (like arranging flowers as an alternative to binge eating) but it did say the best thing to do in the case of a craving is to give into it. You’ll spend a lot of energy eating around it and eventually eat it anyway. If you just have a bite or small bit and satiate it then you can move forward with your day.

Well That Figures

I relayed my Glaceau experience (ew, melted jello) with Boss Lady and she reiterated that Clearly Canadian was the only flavored water she liked. So I made a special effort on Friday to locate the dreamy elixir in the grocery store. Well my first clue was it was not to be found on the water aisle, though against my better judgment I selected a Gatorade water for princess athletes who like a spritz of lemon in their sports drink. Over on the soda aisle, Clearly Canadian was all prettied up in a fancy bottle. It has 90 calories per serving, of course it’s delicious. I can back some sweet southern tea for that sort of figure. Large sigh.

For kicks this weekend I decided to try on my size 12 clothes. I only have 2 items, a pair of pants and a pair of shorts. I guess I wasn’t a size 12 for very long on the way up. I can zip both items and admire a seemingly flat tummy but sit down, fogetaboutit. I dig the pants, crispy Banana Republic summer black pants. Nice selection Diet Chick. Another couple weeks (read: month) I’ll be able to wear them. I’m very excited. Tangible physical evidence. Cool.

I seem to be coming across this same phrase from girls on a quest to lose weight, they are afraid of success. I don’t think I’m so much afraid of success as afraid of failure. That I’ll lose and regain it again. That I’m like a groundhog who’ll see his shadow and blurt, “oh hell no” and return to his tunnel. That everything I think will happen that I already know won’t, I’ll expect anyway, be disappointed, and turn to food to dull the disappointment. Isn’t this somehow related to fear of success? It’s success to lose and just because it won’t be what I think it should be doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, right? I hope to god I’ve made the turnaround. I hope I’ll be thankful for everything terrific about it. I hope when true pain does return in my life I can find better ways of dealing with it than food. Like giving someone a good talking to instead of swallowing it and turning to chocolate later. Oh god. The fear of the unknown. Life is so easy now. It’s so easy to be alone with yourself and your cocoon. It so easy not to have to deal with things head on.

The quest for a desirable mate, a blog for another time. For now the quest to lose weight. Getting there’s the easy part, right?

You Can Love Your Food, Just Don't Love-Love Your Food

Afraid to leave their name person said: Do you realize you're slowly becoming obsessed by food? It happens to dieters...I've been there done that. Be careful.

Diet Chick Obsessed With food?

Has there ever been a moment in my life where I haven’t been obsessed with food?

Food has turned on me in recent years. I think I’m trying to swing the pendulum the other way and really trying to enjoy food. I admit it’s a bit heightened, which I’ve been procuring on my part to help me resolve my issues, like a person afraid of elevators will remind themselves repeatedly they’ll be ok as they step into the small box, but I’m trying to not see food as an enemy. I feel the best way to do this is to really love food. I don’t have to eat mounds of it for this to happen but to enjoy food with all my senses.

I just don’t feel dieting means I have to hate my food. That I have to crunch aggressively on my celery sticks and gag on a dry chicken breast. This sort of mentality will make you fail. Sure you can do it for 10 pounds or maybe even 20 pounds but for 70 pounds it’s just not going to happen.

It’s a fact that I love food. Food insights heightened emotions for me. I think it does for most overweight people not to mention most anorexics (you hear stories all the time of anorexic people who meticulously cook dinners for their families and not touch a bite).

Most of my memories revolve around food. Remember that hotdog my dad bought me at the NC State Basketball game he took me to, the mini Pizza Hut pizza I shared with a boyfriend while waiting for the Sting concert to start, Thanksgiving dinners with lamb and turkey and homemade stuffing, Eating steamed shrimp with a sunburn tossing the shells off the side of a sailboat, bitter fights with my stepbrother who picked out the marshmallows from the Lucky Charms Cereal, the feel of the cardboard handle pop-outs on a Happy Meal, Ice Cream birthday cakes and blowing out all the candles with one breath, Fairground food like Elephant Ears and Grilled Corn, that first fancy restaurant meal where the sauce was artistically swirled around the plate and actually tasted as good as it looked, the first sushi experience and finding the right delicate balance of ginger and soy sauce to add to a California roll, watching Survivor sharing a pizza with Mom… on and on and on and on. This is what life is made of for me. It’s not going to change.

But when it turns on you and you’re hiding it and eating without thinking about it only thinking MORE, MORE, MORE and the ever present pang of guilt that funnily enough sort of feels like hunger and sends you back in the kitchen to eat until there’s nothing left, that’s when it’s an obsession.

I’m Too Sexy For My Legs

Ok, Lunch Buddy and Boss Lady noticed today. I think that covers all the girls except the receptionist who likes my new hair cut so that’s enough. Lunch Buddy in particular keeps talking about it and how beautiful I look and being really nice using words like “true love” and "nice boy" and “babies” that kind of make me sad really. I wore my $9.99 Gap Gotta-Have-Something-To-Beat-NYC-Heat shorts today (vacation in 2 weeks, oh yeah) and apparently my feet are not the only thing that have shrunk. I was not aware that my legs were noticeably smaller. Makes me wonder how large they actually were. They still rub together darn it. But anyway my secret’s out and I have Victorian flushed cheeks to prove it.

Weigh In

After much distress this week on a roller coaster scale it settled lower than I was expecting. I'm very happy about that because I was already making plans to cut back on my calories (I've been eating out a lot this week) but then again I haven't been on the couch all that much either so maybe it's balanced itself out. Who knows these intricacies of the human body.

In any case I'm determined as ever to get my life on track.

Ode to Joy of Italian Eating

We went to dinner on Tuesday night to a local Italian restaurant. It’s a great restaurant that has mahogany interior with large roomy booths and uses freshly squeezed fruit in their cocktails. They have a house salad to die for. They use almond shavings, eggs, and real bacon bits. They don’t overload it to make you guilty about it either. It’s just enough for taste.

Ever since reading a good 3/4ths of Restaurant Confidential ,which I’ve since determined that I like Dining Lean much better, I’ve been craving Italian food like a crazy person. All that talk of cheese and meat sauce and whopping portion size makes my mouth water. So it was actually my suggestion after Friday’s was determined a no-go (they have great mashed potatoes). Then we’re in our comfy booth with our nice new and rather sweaty waiter and I’m staring down the super large use-to-lay-out-at-the-beach-later menu and it dawns on me this probably wasn’t the best idea.

I really really wanted Chicken Parmesan but once I saw it was fried chicken I knew that was out of the question. Why couldn’t they grill it? I was willing to forgo the cheese. So since this was really what I wanted I asked if I could get the salmon special grilled with a side of pasta and marinara. I was shocked when he accepted that as a viable order. Cool.

My dinner guest (don’t get excited, it wasn’t a boy) ordered the lasagna, which I knew was bad news from Restaurant Confidential but was dying to get a look at it. She ordered mashed potatoes as her side. They have mashed potatoes? Yum. I ordered a side of mashed potatoes too. I wanted them for the next day. I wasn’t going to mix my starches. I’m not that nuts. The waiter looked at me like I broke some sacrament. My dinner guest mixed starches and not even a peep. It’s like he knew I had started off good and then decided to ruin it. But I told him, “It’s for tomorrow. I love mashed potatoes.” I had just explained myself to a waiter. I can’t believe it. My mother got soup and salad. Humpf. Then it turned out they ran out of soup so she got chicken fingers instead (homemade delicately battered chicken fingers). Double Humpf. No really, they were quite pretty but I was fine not tasting them. The lasagna, oh my god, it was huge, looked like a Science Fair Volcano project. Mine looked really healthy. I ate half, saved the potatoes, enjoyed the salad, even with the extras, dipping my fork in the ranch and then forking the salad. Splendid. I ended up consuming 1500 calories on Tuesday but the scale pulled some magical figure out of its hat that made me pick it up and look underneath for some trap door or white rabbit or something. You just know that thing’s messing with my head. And sure enough a more reasonable (relatively speaking) figure today.

I was starving for some odd reason when I got home yesterday and really considering freebasing chocolate or something but was out of tin foil and really like my Crate and Barrel spoons so I decided not to wait until 6 for my dinner and ate it right away. After my workout I determined that I had enough calories left in the day to consume the remaining 1 cup of mashed potatoes. Yum.

Shrinking feet

I have this theory that my feet have shrunk. This is why I think this. Exhibit A – My size 8 J Crew Wedge Thongs that I’ve worn since the beginning of time always the same size but a new pair ever year. They were going fine until about a week ago the rubber straps all the sudden are trying to give my blisters rubbing against the tops of my feet. I don’t think I’ve dropped a shoe size but I think my larger feet stretched out the rubber and now that they’ve shrunken the loose rubber is agitating my feet. And I would admit that’s pushing it except, ah, Exhibit B – I use those little foamy spacers when I paint my toenails. Usually it feels like a torture device and I call “Uncle” about 10 minutes into it. Last night I was painting away and chillin watching some Big Brother 3. About 20 minutes of drying time had passed and I realized the foamy things weren’t bothering me. Weird. So in my little unscientific experiment I’ve determined that I do believe my feet have lost some weight. Wow.

Jello Shot Flashbacks From Hell ::Shivers::

I really know it would be imperatively important for me to drink more water. Bathtubs full. I know this is a good thing when dieting. You stop yourself at 2 Skinny Cows a day even if technically you could theoretically have all 6 (2 for breakfast, 2 for lunch, and 2 for dinner, think of all the calcium!); You walk on the treadmill even though you curse every body part from your Blonde Afro to your big ass hairy Big Toe for being as they are so you must suffer through 30 minutes of torture, pure torture, nothing worse, nothing, than this, except maybe your waistline; and you drink bathtub full loads of water a day. This is simply how one diets.

And lately I’ve been nonchalantly leaving a trail of enough ½ empty (yes, half EMPTY, not full dammit, EMPTY, EMPTY) diet coke cans floating around my apartment to put my stepfather in garbled I-wish-I-was-Dennis-Miller rant frenzy. Thank god I live alone and no one’s here to bitch at me and tell me how much I’m wasting. I know this isn’t right. I know it’s pure metallic residue water I should be drinking not the fresh crispness of a diet coke in a can frosty, right out of the refrigerator.

I even bought some Watermelon flavored water. Even packaged beautifully with it’s metallic pink paper faux-foil wrap and fancy name Glaceau (French for “there’s no sugar in my Kool-Aid”) Fruitwater, it does nothing for me. And I know it cost me a bundle, more than Diet Mountain Dew was ever tempted to charge.

And still I’m willing to wander next door though this psuedo-tropical depression (no pun intended) for a Diet Mountain Dew fresh from the Pepsi machine.

So I’ve been bargaining with myself. I make myself do things I would rather not do. I prefer naps and WE Network and Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad (Large) and Chocolate Shakes (also Large). So to be so hard on myself all the time doesn’t somehow seem fair. I don’t want to wage war upon myself. So I feel as long as I’m willing to savor a diet soda and not drink it mindlessly and be conscious that it’s a splurge, it’s a special indulgence, and I get so few of these things, then it’s ok to drink diet drinks.

And just when you think food must be the only thing on my mind and my subconscious must certainly take advantage of this anomaly and make me dream of chocolate and sweet tea but you’d be wrong. I spent most of last night dreaming heavily of shopping in New York City. Only it looked a lot like a mall. The whole city, one big mall.

As it warms to room temperature, Watermelon Glaceau starts to take on the distinct flavor of runny warm Jello. No wonder it asks you to, “Enjoy Cold. Drink Better Water.” I’m thinking Culligan. Baaaaakkkk. I’m having horrible Christmas Party Jello Shot Flashbacks.

Hummus Be Talking to Me, I Don’t See Anyone Else Here!

Although one person at work has noticed my weight loss it really cracks me up some of the things people tell me.

Like yesterday.

Lunch buddy, who has lunch with me everyday and hasn’t noticed how I forlornly turn down sweet iced tea and has no clue that I’ve lost 25 pounds, comes in yesterday wide eyed grinning. I figured it was a put on a nice face for Diet Chick’s fucked up Carrot Top Hair-Do (or Hair-Don’t rather) but she exclaims, “Oh that top looks SOOOOO slimming on you!”

My face turns perplexed, which I’m sure translates as confused bitchiness, and I offer back a small, “thanks” wondering since when is a tank top considered flattering. I’ve lost 25 pounds, hello. Can’t you tell? Aren’t I smaller? It’s not more flattering it’s more roomy. Tell. Please. Ok, maybe later.

Not to mention the tan. The tan helps too despite the havoc it’s wrecked on my once soft subtle skin now apparently eternally peeling in odd places like my forearms and front of my calves. Weird.

Then back from lunch today Lunch Buddy is talking about her hummus pita and how she’s working hard to lose weight when a coworker says something about Atkins.

“You should try Atkins,” he offers to her.

To which I reply my standard Atkins come back , “Atkins Sucks,” sans fingers in a cross.

To which I got the same reply I always get, “Well my cousin Bruster knows some feller down the creek and his sister Samatha’s ex-boyfriend Troy has a three legged dog who used to belong to this good ole boy Jimmy Jo who’s father lost 40 pounds from Atkins.”

To which I reply my standard now defensive, “Yeah but it’s only 40 pounds. I’ve never known anyone to lose more than 40 pounds… And did they keep it off...They never keep it off. You become a Carb-Hore the minute you decide to go off. Who wants to deal with that?” Now pushing back my sleeves ready to duke it out.

But we were interjected by your standard, “What’s the Atkins diet?”

To which everyone in the room all 8 of us reply in chorus, “no carbs, no pasta, no bread.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m an energetic man.”

And we all chorus, “Shut up Energetic Man.”

Then my coworker who noticed I lost weight exclaims to what I swear was over the office intercom, “Diet Chick, how are you losing weight?”

I give a sideward nervous glance and whisper, “lowing my calories,” and I look around and thankfully no one has noticed or cared.

Whew, taking my unsweet tea to my desk now, thanks.

BTW – Thanks guys for all your kind words yesterday. You're all very sweet.

Gimme Some Truth

I came across a missed comment way back. At the time I it cut me like glass but I responded with humor thinking that was all I needed to do and it would go away. Yet here it is eating at me. “You know you will fail! You know you will gain it back.” In my mind like a broken record, “Why am I doing this? What’s different now that I won’t go back? Have I really changed? Am I really stronger?”

All I can do is I struggle through all these mini bittersweet victories. Victories because I did it. Victories because I’m doing it. After all the months that turned to years that I felt I couldn’t do it, that something was wrong because I tried with all my might and it didn’t work, and here I am and it is working. The weight is coming off slow but it is coming off.

And it feels sweet.

And bitter because as I labor off each pound and I do the little calculations you can’t help but do you realize how terribly long you have to go. It’ll be Thanksgiving before I can wear the majority of my size 8 clothes and Christmas (or later dammit) before I reach goal.

174. 1 fucking 74. So incredibly large.

And how could I do it? How? How? Why? I don’t understand it.

And it feels bitter. I feel bitter.

My mind torments me. I realize how terribly afraid I am. Because I’ve been here before. I’ve done this before. Every bit of it. And I’ve been at goal weight. I know what it feels like. I totally know. And everything that was great about it wasn’t enough for me to stay there. Why is it different now? It’s difficult to think of much else. It makes me want to turn to food. But instead I continue on.

So thanks anonymous poster. Whatever you were trying to do. Living in spite, putting your spite off on others. Speaking the “truth” or whatever. Thanks for making life just a little harder for me. Glad I could make you feel better.

It's Friday, Do You Know What Your Weight Is?

It’s that time again. A time for renewed hope, for fireworks in the bathroom, for little fairy dances through the kitchen, for wanting to try to pee some more and trying again. Um, what's that?

Yes, on Wednesday I was in fact 173 pounds. Today 174. It's no biggie, well ok it is, but I just have a schedule of 2 pounds a week and this one pound a week crap will make it take twice as long. Big long woe-is-me sigh.

Epiphany of Eating Out aka How to Boil Down Restaurant Confidentialin One Sentence
When you go out to eat you can pretty much get whatever you want but only eat half of it and eat very little for the rest of the day. Lesson Over.

Email to Brooke Who is Curious About Why I'm Don't Seem to Be Watching My Fat Grams or Carbs or Keeping a Good Eye Out For Mold (Just Kidding on That Last Part)
If you really delve behind the secret to *any* diet be it Atkins, Low Fat Diet, Slim Fast, or any of the others it all comes down to reducing calories. People think because they are on Atkins and eating lots of cheese and meat that they have "beat" the system. Actually because they have cut out carbs they have in fact reduced their calories. I was on the Atkins diet for about a month or two. I lost a lot of weight at first and then it plateaued off. This was because I had figured out great ways to not eat carbs (I was zero carbs due to what the book said I needed in order for it to work with my desperately slow metabolism). I can actually eat a whole chicken. I had a recipe for hot wings that was zero carbs and I would eat tons of wings. I was making wings just about everyday. The non-Atkins people in my family (not to mention some co-workers) were losing their minds over my hot wings and begging for me constantly to make them some. But my calories were still too high. It was at this point that the book said if you've become zero carbs and you are not losing weight then you need to cut back your calories. I had totally cut out breads and pastas (both that I loved) and now I was told to only eat meats and cheeses and cut back! So I went of the diet and scourged every piece of carb I could get my hands on.

Lowering your fat grams is a great idea for the following reason (besides the fact that it's healthy for you): Fat calories weigh more than carb and protein calories. Therefore if you are eating less fat laden foods you get more bulk in your food, which supposedly fills you up. It is important to not cut your fat grams severely. Stay within the guidelines of 20-30% (I think this is right). Your body needs some fat to help it metabolize food. It also is good for your muscles. I used to know way more about this stuff but it's been years since I researched nutrition.

I also don't believe in depriving myself, which is why I'm not really looking at fats or carbs or whatever. I do to a certain degree by avoiding trigger foods but even then I'm slowing trying to find a way to fit them back in my life. I'll eat pretty much anything I want, asking myself first if I really really want it, and then being extremely careful about portion control and staying within my calories. Sometimes you think you really want something and you can really do without. Other times you feel like someone is severely punishing you because you aren't eating something you really want. Eat it!

Besides losing weight, which is vitally important to me to help me with my self-esteem, I also want to help my relationship with food. I had/have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I don't mean so much nutritionally, which was bad, but psychologically. I was eating rampantly for reasons completely unrelated to being hungry. I'm hungry for so much out of life and I try to fill it with food. I also punish myself by thinking I'm so unworthy of things so I eat to make myself ugly and to hide from things. Food around mid-May was an evil thing in my life. There was nothing good about food. I wrote an entry somewhere that because I was eating so much and had become so overweight it must mean that I love food. People must think that food tastes unbelievably terrific to me and is everything good about life and that's why I eat so much. But this was so not the case. Food was the enemy. Food made me scared of what I could do with it. Food made me hate myself. Food made me lose control.

This is not the relationship I want with food. I don't want to be a health freak that drinks wheatgrass and eats a macrobiotic diet. I love food. Food can taste really really good. When I eat food it's a special experience for me most of the time, or at least I'm trying to get there. I don't eat very much but what I do eat I want it to be exactly what I want to eat. The choices I make make me give up certain things but it's worth it to me.

For example, I love full-fat dressings. Low fat just doesn't cut it for me. It tastes really bad and loses the entire point of eating a salad. When I eat a salad I use very little dressing and/or eat very small meals for the rest of the day. I don't consider a salad a diet food. I eat them because I don't like veggies very much and it's one way for me to get some veggies in my diet. However when it comes to a sandwich it doesn't bother me to eat it dry. I don't have to have mayo on a sandwich for it to fulfill the experience. So I eat sandwiches dry. For other people they feel the reverse. They like this or that certain nonfat dressing but must have mayo on their sandwich. So they have to adjust their strategy accordingly and get mayo on the side and use it sparingly.

Gastronomic Odysseys of Flabby Americans aka Restaurant Confidential

I’m reading this book, Restaurant Confidential, that I both really like and am annoyed with at the same time. I like it because if you can delve through the extraneous information (and you know you can because you are not a lazy fat American type person they portray you to be) you can actually find out how many calories are in the daily restaurant foods we eat. Now I say this though I’m only on Chinese food. I eat at a lot of quick places for lunch during the week and most of those places like McDonalds, Subway, etc has their calories posted on the net. What I need and hope to get from this book is food from when I go out with the family to a nicer type place or the one or two times a week I go to a nicer lunch restaurant, a girlie soup and sandwich place. I haven’t actually gotten that far to see if I can find things like She Crab Soup or whatever that I may order out. Crab dip and such (Big Grin).

But anyway I’m digressing terribly. What annoys me about this book is how they assume you aren’t watching your weight and are actually ordering a large Chinese takeout and eating the whole damn thing and the entire order of rice too. Now I was pushing 200 pounds and at my worst inner darkness I would attempt to consume all that food and couldn’t force myself too as much as I wanted too and as nauseous as I became. So telling me the calories in a gigantic impossible portion doesn’t really tell me anything. If I’m attempting to eat that much, I’m not concerned with my calories.

What I need is to know what CAN I eat. If I order a small order of Chinese food, oh say like Sweet and Sour chicken, because I want to eat like a normal person, and will not be gagging down stir fried veggies while my family (thin folks that they are) are downing egg roll after egg roll. So how much Sweet and Sour chicken can I eat? If I have a cup of chicken and a cup of rice how many calories is that? I’m not above pulling out a measuring cup either. It totally doesn’t bother me. So when they say 3 ½ cups as the calorie amount they’re telling you, which is starting to feel “for effect” I have to divide it out like a good Important Accounting Type Person and get my result myself. Then they’ll do something funky like tell you 1 ½ cups of rice is included in the sweet and sour caloric tub of love but not tell you the breakdown for the rice alone so you can work it out arithmetically. But whatever, with some conscious effort and some note taking I CAN get the information I’m looking for.