Another Year Comes to a Close

I am probably one of an infinite number of would-be bloggers who starts having gut-wrenching reality checks about their blogging (and other) habits as they start to consider year-end and new year plans.

I'd really like to take up blogging again in the new year. I think it's therapeutic, and it would be good to be able to practice writing on a fairly regular basis. Even if the kind of writing I do on here isn't exactly what I would like to be doing.

Here is what has been happening to me lately. I have, largely, gotten rid of my headache, though strangely without the aid of any food plan or drugs. It just seems to have eased up, and my head has reset itself.

Of course, the corollary to this good news is that I've been eating. Badly. And without immediate consequence (read: splitting headache). The long-term consequence, of course, is weight gain. Not a lot of it. In fact, I'm not actually sure that I weigh more now than I did back in June. As of a week ago, I was almost exactly the same weight as I was in June. But I have more fat and less muscle, I think. My pants are tighter, and I just feel heavier and more flabby. And you know that roll of flab around your midsection that you get when you wear form-fitting clothing and tummy-squishing undergarments. Um, yeah...I have that. In spades.

The good news was a couple of long hikes while I was away for Christmas proved that I am, without a doubt, still in much better shape than I was a year ago (and still down 50 pounds, which is nice).

But now that 2009 is just around the corner, it's time to get serious about this healthy lifestyle thing again. I don't feel healthy at the moment. Don't feel sexy or confident. I don't even really feel very good about myself. And a huge part of that is my weight. It's funny how you can feel good and skinny and confident with some newly-minted weight loss, but as time goes on and you get used to the skinnier version of yourself, you forget how good you felt and readjust to the "new normal." So your "fat" days now occur at a much smaller size than before, but they still occur. And let's just say pretty much every day for the last several months has felt like a fat day.

So tomorrow is New Year's Eve. I know I'm going to a party (it will be low-key, but it will still have lots of not so healthy food). And then I have the rest of the week off. I'm going to take advantage of that and really sit down and try to figure out what I want with my life and healthy and body and mind. It's a tall order, but I need to do it. I normally don't set resolutions, but this year I think I will.

So expect to hear back from me soon. I have a feeling one of my resolutions will be to write here more.

Happy New Year!

Doctors' Scales Are Evil

Happy post-Thanksgiving to one and all. I hope you had as relaxing a holiday as I did. For those of us trying to lose weight, Thanksgiving can be a bit tough, but because of my super-fun headache problems, I did not have too much trouble with overeating this year, despite my required presence at no less than three separate Thanksgiving meals! I mostly ate turkey and carrots and probably had a bit too much of a headache safe apple crumble and a sweet potato casserole I made, but I did exercise all five days of the very long weekend and am still very sore today to prove it.

So I was feeling pretty smug about my success this long holiday weekend until I got on the scale at the doctor's office for my annual. Ugh. 192. I am guessing it is calibrated differently than my scale at home (which gave a glorious reading of 189 last Tuesday). And although it is undoubtedly more accurate than my scale at home, the doctor's office scale has not been recording the changes in my weight. So I shall try not to let that evil scale weigh me down (get it? bad pun) and will wait for the "official" results from my weigh-in tomorrow on my slightly faulty but hopefully much nicer home scale. I'll be sure to report. Is it bad that I've been dreaming of being 185? That would be 4.2 pounds in one week, which is not exactly realistic. But it would put me just into the "overweight" category and out of the "obese" category, which I've been in for so long.

In headache-related news, I'm still headache-free. Which is awesome. I'll say again (mostly for myself), I really do think it's all about the food for me - when I eat according to my diet, I don't get headaches. When I go off the diet, I do. Ugh. On the downside, it's hard to eat this way. On the plus side, it's much, much healthier! (Also, just a side note that I need to add - I keep calling this an anti-headache DIET. It is a diet in the strict sense of the word - in that my particular diet describes how I am eating right now. But I am summarily opposed to being on a traditional diet of cutting calories or certain foods etc. For me, it's about eating healthfully and to satiate. It's something I've been working on for a long, long time, but I don't diet anymore. I can't. It makes me crazy.

That's all for now. I'll report back in tomorrow after my weigh-in!

Back to Normal

Hello anyone and everyone! My headache is gone!!!!! I just had to report that. I will not be suffering the same fate as people who have headaches and can't get rid of them for months or years at a time. That just sounds awful.

Now I just have to keep eating healthfully and according to my anti-headache regimen. It's boring, but it's worth it!

Another Weigh-In

I haven't updated in a while, but I figure weigh-in day is a good day to try to get back into it. Plus, I get to report a happy weigh-in, which is always a good incentive to write. Would you believe that I finally, finally made it into the 180s??? As of this morning I was 189.4 pounds. I even got on the scale twice to make sure I wasn't imagining things. It said 198.4 both times. Yay!!! I wrote a little while ago about how much I wanted to break the 190 barrier, but despite trying for a couple weeks, I didn't seem to be able to do it. Apparently what I needed to do was stop trying!

Weight loss hasn't exactly been my top priority these last couple weeks. I've had a lot of school work (two tests in four days - totally my fault, though, as I'm a lazy ass who just didn't do any school work until the last minute), family drama, and just general business. The result has been fairly unhealthy eating and a spectacularly unhealthy dose of migraine medications to take care of the massive headaches I got from eating off-plan. The overall result was a gain of another 0.7 pounds to an even 194 last Tuesday. Then this weekend I got my comeuppance. Starting Thursday night I got a massive headache. I took the last of my medication (I can't get another refill for two weeks) but the headache came back the next day and stayed. It's now Tuesday, and the pain has subsided to one throbbing point on the righthand side of my head. Manageable, but still not fun. I think the medication probably caused a rebound effect. Bad medication!

But the result of all this is that starting Thursday night I recommitted to eating my non-headache food. And I'm being really h ard core about it. I'm pretty sure that's what caused the weight loss on the scale this morning. And I have every intention of keeping this up (it's easy to say that when your head still hurts), but it's going to be interesting. In the space of four days I will have three Thanksgiving dinners to go to (well, one was on Sunday, I have another tomorrow night that I'm cooking, and a third one on Thanksgiving itself).

My solution is to make headache-friendly food I can bring. Hopefully it will work. I'll try to report back afterward!

Anyway, for now, I'm just going to celebrate being in the 180s!

Weigh-In Day

I was back up today to 193.8. I had a pretty bad week foodwise, so it's not exactly shocking. I think a lot of that 3.8-lb gain is water weight and other stuff. I'm not too worried that I can lose it this week (and hopefully get below 190).

My sister came to visit, which I suppose could be to blame for a little bit of the bad eating, but mostly it was just emotional. For no reason that I can think of - just that I wanted to eat because I felt kind of down this past week. Hm.

I'm determined to make a fresh start today, though.

Onward and downward!

Feel Like a Blog

Alternative title: Ugh

I totally don't feel like posting today, bu t I think that's probably a good indicator that I NEED to post. After all, the purpose of this blog is to get my issues/thoughts/feelings out there.

Basically, I feel like a total fat blob (I keep typing blog instead of blob in there - hmmm...) today. Which is so bizarre given that I felt super slim and fabulous just two days ago. But two (ok, I think today is #3) days of eating poorly and I'm a psychological mess. Every time I looked in my reflection in the window on the way to work this morning, all I could see was my multiple chins, saggy boobs, and spare tire around my waist. Wearing a somewhat revealing shirt (as in it's a very thin material and really shows the spare tire), isn't helping. Ugh.

And of course all that I want to do when I feel this gross/bad is eat, and so far I haven't been able to stop myself.

I know logically I don't look any different than I did on Monday, and I probably don't weight any more (still sitting at 190), but it's psychologically rough.

I think I've also got a lot on the brain, and to be honest, I'm feeling kind of down. This is an annual problem for me, possibly related to weather, possibly to the holidays. As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I heard in the background a commercial for what I assume is some sort of holiday-themed product, because it was playing some Christmas carol. I didn't want to hear it, partly because it's too early, and partly because of what Christmas means. It means yet another holiday season when I'm not feeling joyous about where my life is, despite all the rest of the world apparently feeling joyous. It's the end of another year without me having real love in my life. And it will be another strained Christmas with the family. It's hard to even contemplate. The last couple Christmases, just to escape my family, I've either brought my boyfriend with me or gone to his family's Christams. That just isn't an option this year, in no small part because I can't keep up the charade of pretending he's the love of my life in front of his family. Obviously it means we need to break it off. But I can't bring myself to do that either. Ugh.

What's frustrating is that I have so much trouble stopping myself from eating poorly when I feel this bad, even though I know perfectly well what it's going to do to my body, my brain, and my headache-prone head! Ugh.

Sister is coming to visit this weekend. Not that she can keep me from eating (god knows she has her own food-related issues), but at least she'll provide a distraction from food so I can get back on (or at least near the) track.

A Historic Day

It would be hard to write anything at all today without mentioning the election yesterday. Barack Obama won a decisive victory yesterday, and it gives me new hope for the future. It would be nice to once again be able to say I'm proud to be an American (cue song lyrics...). I hope he is up for what will undoubtedly be a massive challenge to get this nation back on its feet.

I spent election night as any self-respecting denizen of our nation's capital should...drinking, eating crap, analyzing CNN's projections, and coloring my U.S. map as each state was called for Obama. It was a great night, and I'm thrilled.

Unfortunately, I am also sleep-deprived and coming off what can only be described as a sugar binge launched to ease my nerves.

Yes, I have a headache, and it's pissing me off. I've reached the point where I'm so sick of my head hurting that any kind of headache upsets me, which just makes me want to eat more crap. Ugh. This is starting to look like it might require a death medicine.

Anyway, I think it was worth it. Yesterday was a great day for America, and I hope it heralds more great days to come.

If You Squint Your Eyes Really Tightly You Can See It

If you squint your eyes and peer really closely, you can see my loss this past week. Yes, it was that tiny. 0.3 pounds, taking me down to an even 190.0. Ugh. I SO wanted to be in the 180s this week, finally! And I was convinced that I was. The two pairs of pants I bought two weeks ago are falling off of me (ok, I haven't washed them yet, but still!), and I felt like I behaved all week.

But looking back, I guess you could make a case for how I didn't eat 100% well. The fact is, I followed my anti-headache diet to a T, which previously has made for automatic weight-loss. However, I got a little more creative in my cooking endeavors within the restrictions of my anti-headache diet and made two loaves of bread and spare ribs. So I had bread at least once a day every day. I also had the ribs (which were delicious but very fatty) for two meals. And I ate half a box of rice krispies one day. I also think I might be too generous with my use of butter. Finally, I only exercised twice, and neither workout was very vigorous.

So altogether I guess it shouldn't be that surprising that I didn't have a huge loss.

I just need to deal with it better. Getting on the scale and seeing that this morning kind of bummed me out. Then I had to go vote (which is actually a good thing - this country needs serious change - but not the process). I had to wait in line for two hours in the cold, and by the time I got to work I was starving again, breakfast having been three hours previously. So after the disappointment on the scale, the stress of waiting in line, and the hunger, I broke down and got a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. And a donut.

THAT should help with a loss next Tuesday!

Hmph.

A Re-Do

I had started to write something today about how much one of my colleagues is driving me nuts (and in fact wrote a fairly long anecdote about how crazy she is), but realized that there is a remote chance she could read this blog someday and make the connection about who I was talking about. She herself is on a weight-loss endeavor, and if she stumbles across this in her quest for inspiration (which is how I have found all of my inspiration blogs), well, that would be bad.

So now that I'm on Post #2 for the day but no one gets to see the first one, I don't really feel like writing too much.

So I'll just put down for posterity that after 3 headache-free days, I ended up with a migraine yesterday after eating three bites (only three bites!) of an overripe avocado. That'll teach me to think I know better than my forbidden food list!

Feeling much better today, though.

So Close...

Good morning! I was thinking I should babble on about something topical and important for a while before getting to my weigh-in, but really that's all I want to talk about today. I lost again! 3.3 pounds to be exact, putting me at 190.3. I'm very happy with that. I know I said yesterday that I was ready to see an 8 in the middle decimal place (and believe me, I am!!), but I really cannot complain about a 3.3-pound loss. That's pretty awesome, especially given that I really only ate healthfully 5 of the 7 days this past week.

On the headache front, things are going well! Much to my dismay I discovered yesterday that it is not possible to purchase wheat-free bread that does not have fresh yeast in it in the DC metropolitan area. Of course, I discovered this only after treking to Whole Foods during my lunch break in the rain and wind, buying some gluten-free bread, treking back, and THEN reading the label when I got back to my office. Brilliant :)

So I decided that if I was ever going to get a break from oatmeal for breakfast I was going to have to find a way to make my own bread. I found a recipe for yeast-free oat bread, and I already had all the ingredients necessary, so I made that last night. Once again my lack of baking/cooking prowess stymied a successful effort. Somehow the bread turned out very heavy, dense, and kind of gooey. I guess it didn't rise, despite the two tablespoons of baking powder I put in. Does anyone know if baking powder goes bad? I've had mine for about 7-8 years, so I'm blaming that. Not, of course, my lack of baking skills :)

I also made some zucchini fritters last night which were...meh...I didn't have the energy to defrost and cook a chicken breast or shrimp (peeling! Deveining! ugh!), so to satisfy my protein/vegetable/fat requirements for dinner, I just shredded some zucchini, added eggs, chopped onion, chopped parsley, garlic, and a bunch of spices and then fried them in patties. Not exactly spectacular, but I'm going to pretend they were because I have leftovers for lunch today :)

In totally unrelated news, tonight I'm going to watch the pre-Halloween drag race that takes place in Dupont Circle every year. I've lived or worked in the area for 8 years and yet I've never witnessed this sublimely sophisticated DC institution. I anticipate it being...bizarre. Of course, I forgot my camera so I won't be able to post personal photos, but here's a preview of what I'll be seeing tonight...among other things, I'm guessing! You know, watching runners compete in races like marathons and 5Ks is usually very inspiring for me. I wonder if watching a bunch of men in fishnets, feather boas and stilettos galumphing down a road will have the same effect?

DIY- How Not To Make Meringues

So I learned yesterday that in order to make meringues properly, you actually have to follow the recipe's directions. Well, some of them at least.

Over the weekend I was having some serious cravings for something sweet. Anything. It could have been a mince meat pie and I probably would have eaten it. But given that I had a spectacular 4 migraines last week (boo migraines - I'm blaming the wheat/flour I ate), I knew I couldn't go out and just have any random crap. I needed headache-safe crap. Which meant I needed to make it myself.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm not the most accomplished cook, and this whole anti-headache diet effort has been an ongoing lesson in How Not To Create Inedible Meals With Very Few Ingredients. I have an anti-headache cookbook, which has been pretty helpful. I'd say that half of the meals I've made from there have been edible (the other half, not so much). But to satisfy my sweet tooth, I decided to try to make lemon meringue cookies from the cookbook. They headache-safe and they're low-calorie! What more could I want?

A lot, it turns out. Apparently when making meringues, dumping an entire cup and a half of sugar at once into soft-peak" egg whites turns your mixture into a soupy mess. Apparently they weren't kidding about adding the sugar slowly. And no amount of additional beating will change that. I decided to try and salvage the effort by pouring the egg-sugar soup into lightly greased muffin tins and non-baking as instructed.

The result? 12 hours later I discovered I had egg-sugar muffins consisting of an incredibly sweet hard-sugar shell surrounding equally sweet white goo inside, layered over a pool of oily nastiness on the bottom. I'm pretty sure that's not how the recipe was supposed to turn out. Wish I'd taken a photo.

At any rate, I think I'm going to try again tonight. Maybe overnight I will have been transformed into a culinary genius.

On other fronts, tomorrow is my weigh-in. I'm not sure how this one will go since I didn't behave very well in the first part of the week but then behaved quite well after Wednesday. I'd love to see the scale go down. After 5 months in the 190s, it's time to see 180s, baby!

I'll be sure to report tomorrow.

Who Are These People Anyway?

I could have alternatively called this post Why Weight Watchers Isn't for Me, and I might still change it...

One of the pages I have bookmarked on my computer is the Weight Watchers page. I have tried the program no less than 5 times (which will comprise future entries, never fear!), the latest for exactly one meeting...the admin folks there must hate me. But I keep going back because the program is sensible, overall. So I keep the homepage bookmarked and every now and then visit the message boards for recipe and other inspirations.

So the other day I was browsing the web looking for weight-loss inspiration (yes, I should have been working but no, I didn't want to. I'm guessing that doesn't exactly commend me to the boss) and I decided to peek into the Core Weight Watchers message board. I am, in some respects, following a modified Core plan, just without counting any points at all.

As I was clicking around, trying to find some inspiration, I happened up on a message titled "Pesto Core?" Thinking, "hey, I like Pesto, and I like the Core plan," I clicked on it (I also had the smug feeling that I knew the answer - yes! It is!)

It read (and yes, I'm paraphrasing, but I swear I'm not making this up): "I know you're not supposed to eat processed foods on the Core plan, so I'm worried about pesto. All the ingredients I used -- basil, olive oil, parmesan, and pine nuts -- are Core, but then I put them in the food PROCESSOR. I tried not to process it too much and just kept it pretty chunky, but does the fact that I processed it make the pesto non-core?"

Oh my god, people. And my family wonders why I don't do Weight Watchers anymore...

Something Smells Fishy

Have any of you ever been to the eating disorder website Something Fishy? It is a resource site for all kinds of eating disorders, ranging from anorexia to binge eating disorder and bulimia.

In my darker days, when I was feeling consumed by feelings of loneliness and helplessness and all I could see was a bleak future filled with nights spent sprawled on the couch surrounded by krispy kreme boxes and half-eaten pints of Ben and Jerry's, I would sit on my creaky futon in the dark after work and scroll through the website. I spent a lot of time looking at the memorials for people (mostly women) who had lost their battles with eating disorders. It was incredibly morbid, and yet it seemed to legitimize some of my own feelings.

One of the parts of that website is a message board that is divided into specific eating disorders. I spent some time on the COE/Bulimia/BED board, reading what others have written about their own experiences. I never posted myself, partly because I didn't know what to say and partly because in a way I felt food issues were not as severe as theirs and I didn't need to post. But I read a lot.

And one of the things I noticed was that it is verboten to mention specific foods, particularly when talking about a binge, because it might inspire others to binge on that food or trigger unhealthy behavior in other participants. I understood the concept but always thought they took it a bit too far.

But recently I have been wondering if they weren't correct in their thinking. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, mostly weight-loss related. Some I've read before and others are new. It's a great way to gain some inspiration, but in the last week I've noticed a problem related to reading them. When I am having an emotional eating episode and I am trying to figure out what I want to binge on, some of the first foods that come to mind are those mentioned in these blogs.

For example, I've been reading blogs by a number of British weight-loss bloggers, and several of them mention their love of hot buttered toast and how that is a big binge food for them. So what did I do the other night when I was trying to figure out what would make me feel better? I went out and bought a loaf of white bread with the intention of toasting it and slathering it with butter. This was something I'd never done before.

I actually didn't get very far into the loaf, and the bread was pretty low-quality, so I didn't enjoy the toast much. But still, it was worrisome behavior.

Then this morning when I was contemplating what to eat for breakfast to make me feel better about my car and having a migraine, it occurred to me that there was a Chik-Fil-A in the mall on my way to the metro. Normally it would NEVER occur to me to eat Chik-Fil-A...in fact, I wasn't even aware it was open for breakfast. But the other day I was watching a video on YouTube about someone with bulimia, and the video blogger mentioned having binged on Chik-Fil-A for breakfast - biscuits with gravy, specifically.

I really wanted biscuits with gravy this morning.

As I mentioned in my last post, I got through that craving and made my own breakfast, so all is ok for now. But again, worrisome behavior.

And as I was walking to the metro this morning, I actually passed a man carrying a bag of Chic-Fil-A. I didn't want it by that point at all, but it was a funny coincidence - and proof that the place really is open for breakfast!

I rarely go to Something Fishy these days. I'm not in as dark a place as I used to be, and for some reason that site always made me feel much, much sicker (in terms of food issues) than I do normally. Like I was absorbing these bad, psychotic vibes. And sometimes I felt like the people on there were almost enjoying wallowing in their behaviors. That's hardly fair, I know, but there it is.

From Compuslive Eating to Emotional Eating

I had a pseudo-revelation last night. I call it pseudo because it is something I've given a fair amount of thought to and acknowledged as being part of my life before, but never has it been so crystal clear.

Last night I went to a happy hour with some friends. It was at our local bar, it was really cozy and nice, and the company was great. In short, on a cold fall evening, it was a good way to spend some time. I even realized that at the time, looking around the warmly lit bar area. The atmosphere was great. But I wasn't drinking and I hadn't eaten yet. The first made it so that I eventually got sick of just sitting there while everyone else had a drink, and the second made me anxious. The fact that not having eaten yet made me anxious is probably a warning sign in and of itself, but when you're following as strict a diet as I am, the compulsion to stay on schedule and not having other plans "mess up" your eating is strong.

I was planning to make sushi, but for various reasons I knew it would be a while before after I left the bar before I could actually sit down and eat (to make a long story short, I needed to go back to my apartment, get the ingredients, drive over the the store, pick up one more ingredient, and then drive back to BF's place to make dinner for both of us - all starting at about 8 pm).

So I was annoyed/anxious when we started the trek but got to my place, picked up the ingredients and went out to my car.

And the battery was dead. Now under normal circumstances this would be annoying. As it was, since I was already anxious and annoyed and my battery had died multiple times in the previous year, I was furious. Possibly with my car but mostly with myself, because I was thinking I had done it myself - again! Maybe left a light on or something. I was so sick of just being disorganized and having crap like this happen that I was furious. Plus it meant we'd have to walk all the way to the grocery store and then all the way to BF's place (25 minutes total).

I was so angry I couldn't speak, and the poor bewildered BF had no idea what to do with me. As we were walking to the store, though, my immediate thought was, "screw it, I'm not going to make sushi, I deserver something fattening and good tasting and rich because my night just went to shit!" Then I realized I would look crazy in front of the BF (chances are he already knows I'm crazy, but still).

So long story short I stuck with the sushi but to make myself feel better used soy sauce and pickled ginger. I know, big splurge. The only trouble is, I ended up with a massive migraine afterward. Ugh.

So once again this morning I wanted to eat crap because of my headache and was sure that what would make me feel better was a big, greasy bacon egg and cheese and a blueberry muffin (that used to be my binge breakfast of choice). Instead, since I had to take migraine medication and I also knew that cheese and bacon would probably be bad for my head, I made simple fried eggs on toast...and even skipped the margerine in case it had bad stuff in it.

So my head mostly feels better now and I'm glad I ate a mostly healthy (and headache-avoiding) breakfast.

But it was interesting, both times in the last 24 hours, how strong and immediately the urge to eat crap hit me. As soon as something goes badly for me, wham! I want starches, sweets, carbs! Comfort food! I honestly don't know how to overcome that. But I have to try.

Let's just say I really identify with Erin, who writes over on Angry Fat Girlz. Her most recent post there really struck home.

That's all for now. Sorry for the rambly (and no so cheery) nature of this post. I just needed to write about this.

When Life Hands You a Loss, You Take It

Good morning! I'm feeling surprisingly good this morning, despite how last night turned out.

So first, the weigh-in. I was down almost 3 pounds to 193.6. Strange considering a) I ate pretty badly straight through until Friday and was 196.4 on Saturday b) It's TTOM, which usually adds some pounds and c) I ate badly last night (more on that in a moment). Is it a real loss? Who knows, but I'll take it, and that might have something to do with why I'm feeling pretty good.

Especially after last night, which was a doozy. I mentioned yesterday I started to get a headache after lunch. I'm guessing it was a TTOM headache, because it turned into a full-fledged migraine with no provocation whatsoever that I could think of (again, possibly too many tomatoes or avocados, I guess, but I doubt it). I was so pissed off that I had a headache that just said, "screw it, if I'm going to have a headache anyway, I might as well eat the kind of crap that gives me a headache!" So I did - a Snickers bar, an M&M cookie, an apple streudel, a cinnamon scone, and a couple pieces of toast with butter or brie. All carbs, sugar, fat, and white bread. Mmmm...actually, it wasn't really that great. It didn't make my headache worse and it made me feel a bit more cheery, what with the cramps and everything. But I did have the presence of mind to make sure I have a non-headache-inducing lunch for both today and tomorrow (it involved cooking, which I totally didn't want to do but did anyway) and a good breakfast for both days too. (Muesli with fruit for breakfast - thank you Dietgirl - and brown rice pasta with white clam sauce and asparagus for lunch).

So here's to a headache-free and healthy day! We'll see how it goes!

Monotonous Monday

Does anyone really like Mondays? Ugh. I don't. I sometimes wonder if I liked my job a bit better if I wouldn't have as big a problem with Mondays, but I suspect that is not the case. I think most people prefer the weekend (and, by consequence, the latter half of the week because that means the weekend is approaching) to Monday or Tuesday.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Mostly just babbling. I don't have too much to say today for some reason. Maybe because even though I've eaten extremely healthfully the last three days and was feeling full of vim and vinegar this morning, I'm now feeling kind of lethargic and a bit headachy. It's possibly that TTOM is to blame...last time, before I started the anti-headache diet, I had one of the worst migraines of my life the first day and then smaller headaches the subsequent few days. This time I have not had a migraine and am only now experiencing a small headache. If that's hormonal and unrelated to food, fine. I'll take it, because it's much better than having a migraine and not knowing what else might be causing the headache. If it's that the anti-headache diet isn't working anymore...well, that's a bigger problem (I also had a lot of tomatoes and avocado for lunch today - possibly too much and headache is a result? I'm not supposed to have more than 1/2 a cup per day of either).

I really want to go to the gym this evening despite the headache...it might be a shorter workout, but at least I'll be going. Oh, and tomorrow morning is my weekly weigh-in (it's on Tuesday mornings, stark naked, after I pee but before I eat breakfast or shower - why Tuesdays is a holdover from when I was doing Weight Watchers the time before last and I weighed in on Tuesday evenings. Once I decided to strike out on my own, I decided to keep the Tuesday tradition). Where was I? Oh, tomorrow is the weekly weigh-in, but I don't expect it to be too fabulous for a couple reasons. One, until Friday (2.5 days ago) I was not eating very well and as of the last weigh-in had gone back up to 196 ish pounds. On Saturday I was still 196 ish, so it's possible I will have lost a pound or two of water weight from three days of healthy eating, but if I haven't I won't be surprised. This is partly because, as I mentioned, it's TTOM, and while I don't feel especially bloated, I'm always a pound or two heavier that weigh-in.

So we'll see. I'll report back tomorrow. I'm determined not to be too upset one way or another, though! The only thing I don't want at all is to see that needle creep back up over 200!!! That is my bottom line right now.

TTFN!

The Healthy Food Diet

So I'm slowly starting to realize that I might have reached a place in my life where I have to eat healthy food and only healthy food. For some that might sound like a good problem to have. But for someone who has devoted far too many nights to finding dinners at 7-Eleven or Rite Aid, having to feed myself entirely from wholesome, whole, non-preserved food presents a big and scary challenge.

Last night, I went to drinks after work with one of my (relatively new) friends. It was to celebrate or commiserate about how my interview went earlier in the day. It was a "drink no matter how it turns out" night. We went to a beautiful restaurant in Farragut Square with a bar that on Friday nights serves a bar menu devoted to autumn. It was such a cozy scene. All the drinks were made from apple cider and came with a tasting menu of autumnal food - venison chili, pumpkin puffs with maple cream, sweet potato samosas. Mixed with great conversation and a beautiful atmosphere, it was a good way to end the week.

Unfortunately, I ended up with a migraine this morning. I'm not sure how much of it was because I'd eaten crap for lunch (clam chowder, bread, and an apple turnover). I started getting a headache soon after lunch. Was it the milk in the chowder? The wheat bread? The sugar in the turnover? Who knows. But I'm guessing the food last night didn't help. Or the alcohol.

So this morning I had to get back on the anti-headache diet. But it's so frustrating...yesterday I basically ate good food - or at least well-prepared with wholesome ingredients, even if they were not low-fat. But they still gave me a headache. I don't know. Maybe I'm going to have to just adhere to the headache diet 90% of the time and then just splurge every now and then.

If only I could be more like this blogger: http://teach77.wordpress.com. She clearly has a love affair with good, wholesome food and is a darn good cook to boot. I love reading her entries. Plus, I secretly want to be Scottish :) You should check it out too.

You Can Always Tell a Compulsive Eater...

I read something yesterday that said you can always tell a weight loss blogger is a compulsive eater when she (or he, I guess, but let's be real - most weight loss bloggers are women) posts for a few days or even weeks, talking about how well their plan is going, and then disappears for a month, only to reappear for a couple more weeks, full of confessions about diet wrongdoing and ice cream snorfed. It made me wonder. Do I fall into that category? I hardly qualify as a blogger yet, having logged in very few entries so far. I do tend to post and then not post, as described. But most of the time I didn't post in the most recent non-posting episode I was actually eating quite well, and other things just made it hard for me to blog (job got busy, people in town, studying, etc).

That said, I think I probably am a compulsive eater...certainly an emotional one. And I have an unhealthy relationship with food. Take today, for example. I knew I had to get back on track from the weekend after suffering a migraine post-bad-food extravaganza; it was patently clear that my head problem, at least that day, was the result of poor eating. So I did well yesterday but then today I stumbled. Or fell flat on my face. After getting up really early to go to a job interview, I had a healthy (non-headache-inducing) bowl of oatmeal and strawberries. But then the interview didn't go too well (they're not supposed to have you out in less than 45 minutes, I don't think), and all I could think after was "man, food would make me feel better. I deserve to eat something delicious because I suck. And hell, the interview probably went badly because, let's be honest, who would want a fat person representing your company anyway? So I might as well eat and fulfill all their assumptions."

Hellloooo emotional eating. So I had a chocolate donut and a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. And now I have a bit of a headache. Figures.

So now I'm blogging about eating badly. I'm not sure if that makes me a compulsive-eater-weight-loss-blogger or not. It definitely makes me a guilt-ridden one. And one prone to despair about my future. Ugh.

That said, there is a bright note here. I have a couple of new friends for whom I am extremely grateful. One texted me to wish me good luck before the interview, and another inquired about it immediately after. And they're taking me out to drinks tonight (whether it goes well or not). They're so sweet and good for me. I can't help but wonder why they like hanging out with me. I'm kind of a downer right now. How's that for self-confidence, huh? But I guess that's a topic (a long one) for another day.

Still Kickin'

Helllooo! On the off chance that anyone is reading this, I thought I'd start with a proper greeting and pretend that all my loyal readers missed me...that sounded a bit cynical, didn't it? It isn't, really. I just know that the chance of anyone finding my blog randomly is very small :)

So anyway, I have news! I think I solved my headache problem!!!!! It's amazing and exciting and I'm cautiously optimistic that I will pull through. You see, my friends, it really does seem to all come down to diet (seriously, is there any part of my life that doesn't revolve around food? Ugh). But no, really. To recap, I started following the headache prevention diet using recipes from the Headache Prevention Cookbook (I'm sure there's some official credit I'm supposed to give here, but I'm kind of lazy). I also eliminated dairy and wheat, on the off chance that I have developed some kind of allergy to those products in the last couple of years.

This restrictive diet has done four things for me: It has given me the chance to explore the vast and heretofore untapped world of rice milk, rice pasta and natural thickeners such as arrowroot powder; it has made me a better cook (seriously, you have to make things taste good just with meat, vegetables, and herbs and spices - not easy for this culinarily-impaired person); it has made me healthier - I actually have energy! And I lost weight; and, most importantly, it has gotten rid of my headaches. I should also note that I've stopped taking any medications, including Excedrin, and am treating any pain with ginger (a natural anti-inflammatory) and am taking Migrelief, which is a mix of B vitamins, and tumeric (another natural anti-inflammatory). HOWEVER, while these natural herbs are likely helping, they are not the source of the pain relief because a couple times when I have eaten things that are not in the anti-headache diet, I have developed a headache (interesting, no? Oh, it's not? Well, it is to me!)

At any rate, it's good news all around. The first week on the diet I lost 4 pounds to go down to 192. Then the Boy's parents came to town and it involved a lot of stress (marriage questions, blah) and eating out. So this Tuesday's weigh-in was not good. I was back up the 4 pounds I'd lost the week before (and had more headaches). So as of this morning I'm back on the anti-headache regimen. I think I'm going to have to try to do this regimen most of the time and then allow the occasional slip-up. We'll see. It's a tough prospect for someone who has so many Issues with food as it is.

Friday, Part 2

Apart from headache stuff, this should be a nice weekend. Relaxing, anyway. We're having beautiful fall weather here right now (I live in northern Virginia) and it's supposed to be in the low- to mid-seventies and sunny all weekend. Crisp mornings, just-changing trees, sunny weather! I definitely want to go for a walk this weekend!

Other than that, tonight I'm just going to take it easy. Cook a headache-free (hopefully) meal, watch The Office, which I missed last night because I was at the debate party, and possibly watch Elizabeth, which I have never seen but got on Netflix. I'm seeing a movie on Saturday night with a couple people at the theater about a block away from where I live, so I'm glad we're still staying close to home. Like I said, a relaxing weekend. I think we're also going to dinner beforehand, so we'll see what I can eat. Sunday I'm volunteering at a 10-mile race, which is fun, but I'm not so excited about working the early shift! I'm supposed to be there at 6 a.m.!

Other than that, I've got some class work to do for the Biomedical Ethics class I'm taking at the local community college. It's interesting stuff, but I think the professor is a bit nuts. I really do need to take the first test sometime soon, though. I think a trip to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's will also be on the agenda to get some preservative-free food and pick up a fryer chicken to make chicken stock with (I'll let you know how that goes! Never done it before!). I love going to stores like that in fall. They really get me in the fall mood! Browsing around colorful leaf displays, fat pumpkins, sunflowers, hay bales. It makes me want to go on a hay ride!

Anyway, that's the plan and all for now. Maybe next time I write I won't have a headache!

Bye for now.

Fabulous Friday

I'm going with the mind over matter concept with my title on this one. Not that it's a bad Friday...but it will involve a lot of work when I have a headache, which doesn't sound too appealing.

So first things first. Yes, I still have a headache. It's not too bad but has been here pretty much consistently since yesterday morning (I had about a two-hour break around lunchtime yesterday when I seemed pain-free). But I'm continuing on with the anti-headache diet and just trying to pretend I don't have one. Went to the gym yesterday and then to watch the VP debate. Others at the debate party got silly drunk, but since I'm on a no-alcohol regimen, I had to stick to carrots. Woohoo! Crazy stuff, I tell ya.

Anyway, foodwise, I had the same thing for dinner last night that I had at lunch - more of the asparagus-beef stir fry - and I have leftovers again for today at lunch. That's a lot of beef (well, two lunches and two dinners over three days) but it was a lot of steak I had thawed! And I had my raspberries and plain oatmeal with rice milk (without sugar today) plus coffee with rice milk for breakfast today. Headache might be slightly better with the caffeine but not significantly.

Yay for NSVs

Today has been a good day so far. I woke up with only a small headache (which was a big improvement over last night, when I had a migraine - yes, the small headache after lunch just kept getting worse). I'm wearing a wrap dress I really like, which apparently is very slimming. When I dropped off my rent check, it was like it was "let's make Mags feel good day" and no one had told me. My apartment manager exclaimed, "whoa, you've lost a ton of weight!" And some random lady who I hadn't even noticed when I walked in because she was hiding behind the door added, "And that dress is so flattering on you - you look wonderful!"

It was a very nice way to start the day (having to fork over $1,000+ notwithstanding), and I felt great walking outside. Until the brisk fall breeze blew my skirt up. Stupid wrap design. But still...it's a gorgeous fall day out! And having these random women compliment me made me realize "hey, yeah, I have lost a lot of weight, and I'm looking pretty good!" I might not be done (in fact, only about half way done), but 50 pounds is a lot of weight to have lost, and I should be proud of myself, recent struggles notwithstanding.

Anyway, when I got to work, a couple girls at work complimented me on my new haircut (It's curly and a little sassy!) and my dress.

So I'm feeling good! The headache I woke up with seems to be easing a bit. I decided to have coffee with rice milk today because, historically, caffeine has helped my head, and I'd like to not get another migraine today. So we'll see. I'm still on the crazy strict diet (but I've lost 1.4 pounds in two days because of it - maybe water weight, but still!). Last night I had steak and broccoli stir fry over brown rice, which was actually quite good. I'm having it again for lunch today. And this morning I had plain oatmeal again with raspberries, rice milk, and a pinch of natural, organic cane sugar. Oh, and the rice milk coffee.

Not sure what dinner will be, but since I have steak still thawed, it will probably involve that. I'm thinking about looking into making some curries...I think I can have coconut milk!

That's all for now. Yay for feeling good!

Yeah, Still Have a Headache

So I had a headache (though a minor one) for most of yesterday afternoon, despite the supposedly trigger-free lunch. I was able to work out, though, after taking some Alleve. Headache stayed away mostly for the rest of the day and I had a trigger-free dinner. Chicken thighs baked with garlic cloves, fresh tarragon, and canola oil. Accompanied by zucchini sauteed in garlic, canola oil, cilantro and white rice with some kind of oil and cardamom (that could have been a problem- it was leftover from an Indian meal and I'm not sure what all was in there).

Was doing fine today until after lunch. Now I have a bit of a headache. So far today I've eaten an egg cooked with butter, some plain instant oatmeal made with rice milk and topped with raspberries, and some leftovers from dinner last night. Oh, and grapes.

I wonder if the headache I have now is somehow a blood sugar reaction to eating, period? Perhaps it's lack of caffeine? Either way, it's annoying. I suppose it could be psychological. But it's way too early to say that. If this is only day 1 (well, first FULL day on the no-headache diet), I can't really say it's not a food trigger.

Anyway, I imagine eating all this pure food will be good for my weight loss efforts regardless!

Um, I'm still here...

Ok, so it's been a while. I don't know exactly whether that's good news or bad news. Mostly bad, I guess, if you're looking at this as a weight-loss blog. I'm still about the same as I have been all summer. 195.4 as of this morning at 7 a.m. I've been hovering between 192 and 199 since June. The good news is I haven't gained weight. The bad news is? Well, that's obvious, I guess.

I think life has gotten in the way the last few months, and unfortunately for me that life includes headaches. Bad ones - almost daily, punctuated every few days with a migraine. I've gone off the medication I was taking to prevent them, partly because I hate taking drugs and partly because one of them, Topamax, was making my hair fall out and causing other, even less savory, problems.

So now I'm taking some herbs and trying to eat an anti-headache diet. As far as I can tell at the moment, that means eliminating pretty much all food. No, I'm kidding. But it kind of feels like it. I'm exploring the wide world of gluten-free products, no dairy, and basically no condiments. It's awesome. But I'm going to try to keep a headache/food diary here to see if anything seems to set me off and record how I'm doing. So this blog might seem more like a headache blog than anything else for now. Sorry.

So, here's my last few days:

Sunday I ate 2% greek yogurt with pumpkin seeds and brown sugar; greek salad (includes feta in dressing, I think), bread, and pumpkin spice latte; quesadilla with cheddar cheese and sour cream. I had developed a slight headache by bedtime. Triggers? Possibly the yogurt, seeds, feta, coffee (caffeine), cheese, and sour cream.

Monday I woke up with a headache from the night before and took Excedrin. Had Total (contains wheat) and a banana for breakfast, plus coffee with 2% milk once at work. Lunch was another greek salad, also with feta in the dressing, as well as bread and a pumpkin spice latte. Headache returned within a couple hours of having lunch and got progressively worse. By dinner it was a migraine. Felt sorry for myself and took an imitrex before having whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce, spinach, and turkey kielbasa - and then a lot of chocolate and peanuts (heck, I took an imitrex, might as well eat the triggers). Triggers? Wheat in Total, banana, feta, bread).

Tuesday woke up without a headache. Had Total and 2% milk for breakfast. Minor headache returned by lunch. Had a salad with supposedly headache-free dressing but was too gross so ended up just eating cucumbers, boiled chx, a few tomatoes, egg, apple, wheat Wasa crackers. Took Alleve to address headache. Triggers? Wheat in Total, wheat in wasa crackers. Am determined to have a headache-trigger-free dinner!

Addendum

By the way, the wedding was beautiful. Gorgeous venue, gorgeous bride, wonderful friends, good weather (though a bit hot for my taste). Of course, I'm not exactly thrilled with the photos, since they show exactly what I look like in the dress, but I always knew that would be the case.

Must...get...back...on...track!

I'm not gonna lie, I'm struggling, foodwise, right now. It's been The Summer Without a Measurable Loss for me. Unless you count the 5 pounds I've been losing and then regaining all summer. Right now I'm on the recent-gain end of the spectrum, weight in this morning (it being Tuesday, my weigh-in day) at 196 lbs. It's not tragic. I still weigh 45 pounds less than I did in January, I know exactly how the 5 lbs came on (helllooo, pasta and sugar!), and I know how to take it off. It's just getting myself to buckle down and do it already that seems to have me stymied at the moment.

It's easy to say that you will eat a healthy meal in the next go-round, especially when your stomach is bloated and still groaning from pesto pasta and these amazing apple pouches I discovered at Trader Joe's last night. (They're like mini apple pies, only with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar on top. I'm drooling just thinking about them). But then it comes down to it and you really, really want something unhealthy for lunch. Whether that's from boredom at work (does anyone find correcting grammar fun?), anxiety over something (hello, bridesmaid dress plus photos!), or sadness about something (hello, relationship troubles). I've been dealing with all of the above categories for a while now...hence the stress eating.

I guess I just have to try to take it a meal at a time. For now, I've got a big cobb salad for lunch. We'll see how full I am after.

The other good news is it's raining. Which would normally sound like bad news, but it's actually a very big exciting storm, which I enjoy :)

The Dress Dilemma

I don't know how many of you out there have been in this situation (no, not exactly dire), but I had a dress dilemma yesterday. In fact, I'm still having it. For the wedding rehearsal/rehearsal dinner I'm going to tomorrow, I have a couple different dresses I could wear. One is kind of a crazy jungle print that is VERY low cut and more formal but shows off my back fat, arm fat and the largeness of my butt (and lest anyone think I am exaggerating, I am 5'6" and 190-something at the moment, so yes, I have back fat etc). The other, which I bought yesterday, is cotton, black, and a style that I have seen people wear around town. I.e., not too dressy. I bought some fun costume jewelry to go with it and dress it up, but it doesn't take away the fact that it is made out of cotton. And I'm going to a wedding in Napa. And the bride works in fashion. So not exactly a low-key affair.

The dilemma? I feel so much more comfortable in the black dress because it hides my various flaws and is actually flattering.(And it's a size 14, which is nice, because at this time eight months ago I was wearing a 20). I actually feel pretty in it, which doesn't happen that often, let me tell you. Since I'm going to be spending all of the next day wearing a dress that I don't feel comfortable in at all (the bridesmaid dress of my last post), I figure I might as well wear a dress that makes me feel confident the day/night before.

Does all this make me sound crazy? Probably. Sigh...I'll probably bring both and decide at the last minute.

On a different note, I actually feel like being healthy today for the first time in a while. A trip to visit the parents and the stress over this wedding has resulted in some serious emotional eating in the last couple of weeks. But today I seem to be a bit more zen about it and actually am looking forward to a salad at Cosi. That and getting my hair ripped out by a lady wielding a baton full of hot wax. Sounds like a fun lunchtime, no?

If anyone out there is reading this, just wanted to say hello. And thanks for reading. And if you've ever had a dress dilemma like mine, I'd love to hear your experiences!

Woe is the Bridesmaid

I have to wear a bridesmaid dress in four days and counting. For most people, a bridesmaid dress is something to be worn at a friend/family member's behest and represents little more than (frequently) poor fashion sense or (possibly) a desire to make everyone else look worse than the bride.

I'm not sure which category my dress falls into, since the bride actually works in the fashion industry and will automatically look better than her bridesmaids in all of our couture gowns because she's about 110 pounds and 5'8". That said, she still managed to pick out a horrible bridesmaid dress. It's a babydoll dress that flares out in brown pleats from just below the bust. It probably looks bad on everyone (including all of the 5'2", 100-pound bridemaids), but on me it looks ridiculous. At 5'6" and 192 pounds, let's just say it doesn't exactly flatter.

And the thing with this dress is, it actually means a lot more to me than just being an ugly dress. Back in December when my friend first asked me to be her bridesmaid, I had just gotten off a drug that had made me gain a whopping 40 pounds in a year. I was an exceedingly uncomfortable and hefty 242 pounds and closing in on size 22 (US) clothes. And I desperately wanted to lose weight. I'd been through many attempts in the past (the most recent only a few months before - more on that later), but I could never get myself to stick with anything.

A bout of cluster headaches and an increasingly pressing migraine problem had convinced me that I needed to do "something," but for some reason, despite nearly chronic pain, I couldn't find the extra push I needed to get started. When the friend asked me to be in her wedding, the prospect of 250 people watching me lumber down the aisle in a size-22 Vera Wang gown (does she even make gowns that big?) was enough to prompt me to put down the chips and ice cream and start a gym routine.

That was about 7 months ago, and I've lost 50 pounds so far using a modified South Beach-based diet of my own creation. But I've only lost about 10 pounds since June, and while I know that's not bad, I can't deny I haven't been trying very hard. It's like, once I got back under the 200-pound mark, I lost my drive. And that's part of why I'm here. Hoping to find it again.

I say this having just gone to get my bridesmaid dress fitted and been so traumatized by the experience that I immediately went to the grocery store and bought a huge brownie (with sushi! It's healthy!) Honestly, the way the dress is designed, I feel like it looks like I haven't lost any weight at all. Obviously that's not true, but it's hard when this thing that served as the spark for this journey I've been on since the end of January turns out to be so disappointing. Ugh. Even the BF admitted it wasn't the most flattering cut, and he's alway the first to tell me I look great when I don't think I do.

Ok, enough of the whining for now. Not much I can do about it at this point. I just need to try and eat healthy for the next few days (but not starve!), enjoy the fact that the dress fits and is three sizes smaller than it would have been in January, enjoy what I'm sure will be a lovely wedding with wonderful friends, and get back into the swing of things next week.

If anyone out there is reading this, I promise not all the posts will be this whiny.

And then there was a blog

I've tried this blogging thing before without much success; my downfall every time seems to be a) my inherent laziness, which means I never post again after the first missive and b) every time I've tried blogging it's been about diet and weight-loss, and I've had so many spectacular (or not so spectacular, depending on your point of view) failures at that that the blog just ends up being one of the many hopes abandoned in the attempt.

I'd like this time to be different. For one thing, I've always had a desire to write, in some form or other. Ideally I'd write the next great Harry Potter series and become a zillionare like JK Rowling in the process, but I figure I need to start small.

Also, there's so much going on in my head right now that I think writing it out could be good for me. How smart this is when the world will be able to access my thoughts via this blog, I don't know. We'll have to see how it goes (also, I'm pretty skeptical that anyone will want to read my thoughts, so I'm probably pretty safe).

So what do I want this blog to be about? As I mentioned before, I've tried several times to blog about dieting. What I eat and how I feel about it will be a large component of this blog as well, simply because it's a large component of my life. But there are other things that I want to talk about too, simply because they are also a huge part of my life and getting it all "out there" will be important, I think. I'm keeping the blog anonymous, though, so only pseudonyms will be used.

Most importantly, I think the overall theme of this blog will be me just trying to figure it all out. I turned 30 a couple months ago, and my life isn't exactly what I always thought it would be at this stage. It's not all bad, but it's not all good, either. And, as the saying goes you have to go after what you want. So here goes with exactly that. It's time to figure out what I want, how to get it, and how to be happy in the process.

If there is anyone out there who will read this and you've made it this far, you rock. Seriously. Look for more very soon.