well hello again!

Two months.  8 weeks.  56 days.  

That's how long it's been since I felt like blogging.  

That's how long it's been since I let myself slide off track.  

That's how long it's taken me to gain 4.8 pounds.  

That's how long it's been since I think I gave a damn.  

Well I'm giving a damn again.  

Not because of the new year's resolutions, because those things are junk and I know it.  

Not because the holidays are over, although I did manage to give myself free reign and it got ugly.  

Not because of anything anyone else said to me.  

I'm giving a damn again because I need to.  

I need to because I miss the way it felt to be getting in better shape.  

I need to because I miss the way people smiled at me when they hadn't seen me for a few months.  

I need to because I miss the way that old clothes became new again.  

I need to because I have invested quite a bit of money in a new bicycle, loads of new workout clothing, and some home exercise gear throughout 2012 and I cannot let that go to waste.  

I need to because I don't feel right without taking care of myself.  

I need to because I need to be in control of something, even if some days I can only control the amount of water I drink or that I ate fruit with every bite of a guilt laden snack option.  

I cannot wait for January 1st to come back and begin taking care of myself.  I especially cannot wait until my meetings resume on January 8th to start acting like a Weight Watcher again.  I cannot delay signing up for my beloved spin classes until after the supposed "New Year's Resolution" rush dies down.  

So I've made a few small changes, but I hope they have a large impact.  Here's where I'm starting:

1.  I logged in to the Weight Watchers main site and I changed my weigh in day to Friday.  

This was completely personal, and I'm not saying everyone has to do it.  I only did it because for the past 14 months I've had my weigh in day on Tuesday which means that I would fall into the following bad habit: I would track on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but on Friday and Saturday I would consume so much junk that I'd give up tracking on Sunday and Monday and just tell myself I'd start over on the following Tuesday.  This did not work well.  Let me rephrase that, this did not work at all.  

2.  I updated my Weight Watchers application on my phone.  

If you haven't done this yet, go do it.  Don't pass go, don't collect two hundred dollars.  Go update your app.  Now.  There are so many more features now on the program and I want to take advantage of every single one of them.  I want you to take advantage of it too!  The points program hasn't changed and neither have the good health guidelines, but the good people of WW have added a ton of new mental diversions and though process changing tools that I am really optimistic about.  I want to see if they work, because I know the points plus already does and anything on top of that is simply a bonus!  

3.  I logged on to my favorite spin studio's website and I signed up for 5 classes in the next three weeks.  

Back to the good old days.  I was cycling outdoors quite a bit over the summer and into the fall, but when the clocks changed and the weather got cooler I found excuse after excuse not to exercise outdoors anymore.  I've removed my excuse for the next three weeks because my beloved Pedal Spin studio is climate controlled and the rain doesn't change the ride at all.  After I signed up for the classes, I put them all on my calendar so I wouldn't have an excuse to forget...again.  

4.  I made sure that all of my exercise clothes are ready to go at a moment's notice in an easily accessible drawer.  

It sounds stupid, but because I'm putting my house back together after an unexpected and lengthy remodel (which I'll explain later, with pictures!) I had clothes all over my bedroom and in piles of disarray.  Just getting all of the necessary items in one place is going to help me, even just a teeny tiny bit.  Another small part of this equation is going to be getting the residual junk food out of my house, but I'm not going to try to tackle that all at once.  I find that getting rid of all the junk food makes me feel deprived, then I just rebel and eat like crap anyway.  It defeats the purpose.  

5.  Last, but not least, I'm back to my good old grocery shopping list.  

For a long time I had a routine of what foods I would buy and the good thing was that I got really comfortable with knowing the points plus values of my usual goodies.  The last couple of months have been a disaster of me grabbing whatever I could find at my local Target and eating junk food and fast food like it was the end of the world.  By adding my old grocery list to the knowledge that my beloved Trader Joe's has partnered with Weight Watchers to add over 1,000 of their food items into the Weight Watchers points plus database and I feel like I'm setting myself up for some baby steps back to success.  

So there you go, I'm going to coming around again.  I appreciate the "are you alive" emails, text messages, and tweets.  In fact, if you're not connected to me online somehow then I really hope you'll take a second to do so.  The easiest way is on Twitter, since I try to keep the health related stuff there.  I'm not shy though, feel free to get in touch with me in other ways such as Facebook.  I can always use another friendly person that is willing to share some accountability and support, and I hope I can provide the same to all you lovely people as well!  

i CAN'T eat that, i'm on a DIET

Just telling you this story is going to make me angry and sick to my stomach, but I'm going to share it anyway. 

Back on Fat Tuesday (the day before Lent starts) I was eating lunch in the breakroom of my lab.  Seated next to me were several people from another department, one of them had brought in a very large Oreo cake from the grocery store around the corner.  

It looked sort of like this:

Okay, maybe it was a little less frosted around the outside and more Oreo's, but you get my drift.  

She proceeded to tell the group that because she was giving up sweets for Lent, that she was going to have cake for lunch and something like an ice cream sundae for dinner as well.  

I tried to pretend like I wasn't listening, but it really got my goat!  

Let's run down a few facts: 

1. This same woman is a vegetarian, and has shot me the evil "I can't believe you're eating meat" eye while I eat my turkey sandwich or left over tri tip salad in the lunch room.  
2. The lady has mentioned to me before that she's an atheist.  
3. I've overheard this woman tell everyone how she doesn't put processed foods or harmful substances into her body, but proceeds to talk about wine, beer, and gigantic cookie cakes!  

I am irritated.  

I am irate.  

I am exhausted.  

Why is it that some people can eat an entire cake, but not gain an ounce or have a stomach ache?  

Why is it that I cheat just a smidge and eat a handful of chocolate covered pretzels, and the scale jumps four mutha fuggggggin pounds? 

Why does it never fail that after an evening of two alcoholic beverages, I wake up bloated with the most massive hangover known to man?  

I'd like my body to start cooperating with me!  I'd like it to hear me begging, asking it 

"Please!  I just want to have some wine with dinner!  Don't make me balloon up to a size 16 and hit me over the head with an Acme sledge hammer while I sleep!"  

But alas, I am not that girl.  I have never been that girl.  I wasn't mad at the atheist vegetarian for eating a cake before she gave up sweets for lent, I was mad because I couldn't do the same.  Well, I wouldn't have chosen the cake, but you know what I mean.  

At my most physically fit point in life, I could never run a mile.  

That's me on the left.  Age 17.  I was training at least 5 days a week, doing cheer and tumbling practice.  

In my skinniest jeans, I was hungry and deprived.  

That's me on the right.  Age 18.  I had just started college and wasn't eating very often.  I may have had some skinny jeans on, but I was far from healthy.  

In the past, the ways that I attained the size that I wanted were not good ways.  So here I am, doing things the right way this time.  

I am doing things on my terms.  This doesn't mean eating an entire cake in one sitting, that to me screams I HAVE NO WILL POWER!  It means that I will celebrate successes without food, I will spend free time planning new meals or working off old ones, and I will love myself during the process.  No blame.  No judgement.  No excuses.  The past is the past, I'm moving on.

Author's note: 
Yes, I have bruises on both arms in the pictures above.  No, it isn't a camera malfunction.  I was and will always be a huge klutz.  In the first photo it was because of cheer practices and always smacking my arm into the elbow of the same girl, over and over.  The second photo was during my days working at Chili's Bar & Grill.  There was a small wall that popped out on one of the corners, and every single shift that I worked I managed to bang my arm into that wall.  I worked at that location for nearly 4 years, which means I had what I called my "perma bruise" for that long as well.  

my first #7daychip

So in early February, I read all about a man named Brad Gansberg and a tool he's added to motivate people online: it's called the "7 day chip" and you can read all about it here.  

Well as soon as I read about it, I had to try it!  It sounded like a great non-scale goal to achieve.  You set your own daily goals, something attainable, and you complete them every day for seven days.  At the end of the week, you shout it out on Twitter or Facebook, or even tell Brad himself so he can recognize you on his blog and Twitter!  Or just congratulate yourself and enjoy it.

Just make sure you are using the hashtag #7daychip so that other people can find you on Twitter and reply to you.  It's a really positive community!  

Then I sat around and thought about it for about four days, talk about procrastination!  What would I set my goals to be?  What if I failed?  What if I forgot completely about my goals and the chip altogether?  

I'm such a worry wort.  

Finally, the day before my Weight Watchers weigh in, I sat down and picked three very simple goals for myself:  

1. I will only use my daily Points Plus target and any activity Points Plus that I earn throughout the week.  
Another way of saying this would be to say that I will not use my 49 weekly Points Plus, but that sounded too negative!  

2.  I will drink eight full glasses (eight ounces each) of water each day for a total of 64 ounces.  
I had been seeing people setting 100 ounce goals each day, but after trying it for a day I decided it was a bit too ambitious for me.

3.  I will eat a minimum of six servings of fruits and vegetables each day.  
I have to admit, number three is a total breeze for me.  I usually eat about eight servings of fruits and veggies each day, so it was a no brainer to put it on my list.  

And then, I started my first 7 day chip.

It was so great!  I had people on Twitter that would see my tag and congratulate me or ask me how my day was going.  I checked in with myself and the Twitter folks at the end of each day and the support was outstanding.  People I didn't know that were on a weight loss journey would throw me the most positive and outstanding messages or notes.  I felt so great.

So great in fact that I ate way more fruits and vegetables and added an addition day of activity to my week, all of this for no reason other than I felt like it.  I would eat four or five pieces of fruit because they sounded good.  I grabbed the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD one morning and did it because I felt like doing it.