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.

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.

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!

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.