Day 22: not actually day 22

hello. Guess what. I had a miniature failure. The morning of day 22, my world was turned up-side-down. Some really crazy stuff happened in my life, and I just took a break from weight watchers. I know that I recently learned that you can't take a break. I didn't binge though. But I was eating unhealthy. You see, when something really big and important and scary is happening in your life that requires your attention every minute that you're awake, weight watchers is not gonna happen. At least for me. Because my weight watchers is fueled by obsession. Some people can stay on weight watchers no matter what, but for me it takes so much energy and so much time on the internet that it completely dies when I got something big going on. This is not such a good thing because I should be able to have a low key version of weight watchers. I was trying to kind of watch it a little, and try to eat the same things I eat on weight watchers but just not count, but truly, I have to have some sort of numerical control over myself in order to have any control at all. And at first, I just ate what I wanted, but kept an eye on it, not to eat too much, but the last 2 days I kind of felt like I was sliding into the binge zone. Today things cooled down in my life a little, simultaneously as my stomach feeling like crap, so I decided to get back on track.

So let's see. I fell off of weight watchers for a week and a half. That's not so bad. I'm not mad at myself. Because once again for the millionth time, this is 100 times better than what I would have done in the past. If I would have done my blog every night for that week and a half though, I know I would have stayed on the diet. So tomorrow is Friday, so with 3 days left in that week, I will get 15 extras to distribute. (Another improvement on myself is that I'm starting on a Friday). And then I'll weigh myself on Monday, hopefully with minimal damage to report.

One helpful change that is happening in my life soon is that I'm moving out of my parent's house next week. So my days of brownie temptations are over. I will be living by myself, so the only food in the fridge will be low-point. (Another improvement on myself is that I'm getting back on the horse a week before a big change in my life). Worse comes to worse, I will find on monday that I gained weight, but will be able to get back to 65 by next week, so that the beginning of life on my own can start from where I left off.

day twenty one: restaurants are seriously bad

This is what I actually wrote on day 21, which was august 17th...

today i did alright. not great, but i did have 8 points left for dinner. Also, I got tons of excercise. I did laps in the pool, but I also was like really active all day. Then I went to famous daves. Just the cornbread muffin which was really small was 12 points!!! I was so pissed! Because It's not like i'm not trying really really hard. It's not really my fault either. My whole family got in the car and decided where to go while we were driving, so it's not like i could look up points on the internet before hand. And famous daves is 100% huge wads of meat. So my options were very slim. So I got this beef thing that looked pretty dry, like there wasn't ridiculous sauce on it, and it wasn't fried in grease. And I didn't eat the bread. And I ordered green beans with it. And I only ate 1/2 the meat. So I figured I'd go over a little, but it was ok because I was exercising all day. So I ate:

1/2 of the meat

green beans

corn on the cobb

corn bread

so I blew a million points for dinner probably, but I don't even know because it says it nowhere on the internet. Except of course that the cornbread was 12. Then when I found out how much it was, I was so upset that I walked over to the cookies to finish the night of bingeing off. But as I walked towards them, I got that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I used to get when I ate that first piece of chocolate that ruined my diet, or started eating something that would put me over my alloted points, but i was upset so i DIDN'T CARE. And I don't want to feel that, especially when I know It's gonna make me feel really bad, and lead to me completely ruining my week... so I walked away!!! and started writing this. I'm not happy that this is happening, but for the second day in a row, the theme of my blog entry is: i messed up, here's how I'm gonna look at it to make myself feel better/ this is how I am going to fix it. Once again, the amount I ate tonight was heroic compared to how much I always ate at Famous Dave's as a child. And as I learned earlier this year: If you do not count your points, and you just eat whatever you want, you will gain weight. If you count your points, but it end up being 45-65 extras per week, you will stay the same weight. If you count and use 35 extras per week, you will lose weight. So worst case: I won't lose anything this week. And I don't even think that. I think I will lose this week, because I've been adament- even though I didn't succeed so well, I was still pretty healthy, and today is the last day of my weight watchers week, so I haven't had that many extras this week, not that I even know the number at this point, but it feels the same as the weeks where I just stay the same. Plus this week I've been exercising a lot. And another subject.. For those of you that have seen "the secret" or follow esther and jerry hicks, weight loss, like everything else, is something that has to be manifested first by your mind, and it's the one subject in my life that I haven't successfully connected to the spiritual side of things. So from now on, I think that needs to be my biggest focus. And my goal for this week is to tell myself over and over that what I just ate is going to go right through me, just like all the lucky skinny people in the world. Because I am one of those people... And I'll be perfectly honest, when I say things like that, it gives me almost a nervous feeling in my heart because as I say it, I know I don't believe myself, and that's the most important part. I am a big believer in the law of attraction, and I'm good at using it -I've used it to create abundance in every area of my life, and I can do it for this area too. (Obviously "abundance" is not exactly what I'm looking for here, but you know what I mean). So I know I cannot do a quantum leap and go directly from seeing myself as a fatty that has to watch what she eats to a skinny person who can eat whatever she wants, so I have to slowly pivot towards it everyday. Today is day one in the quest to believe that I can be skinny and not have to worry about my weight anymore. And as much as being on weight watchers kind of goes against the law of attraction because you are "watching your weight," I personally feel it's a supplement because when I'm on weight watchers, I believe that I can lose weight. It would be too hard to just all of a sudden manifest a perfect body without also changing eating habits- even if the eating part of it is a placebo... Well I guess I don't completely mean that. I know that if you diet you lose weight, but I also believe that if you don't become skinny first in your mind, you will bounce back to being fat even if you do lose all the weight. Also I think that if you become skinny in your mind, the losing process will go faster and be easier. I know that you can't just go from black to white over night, so I'm going through this physical/spiritual journey simultaneously, making myself believe that I have an unbelievably speedy metabolism at the same time as losing weight. And they feed each other. Getting skinny makes me believe I'm skinny, and believing I'm skinny makes me get skinny. The worst thing I can do for my mind and body right now is feel remorse for what I ate. And that's what I felt. But I'm making myself feel better. And once again, there's really something to be proud of here. If you knew me, you would know what a miracle it is that I'm not drowning my sorrows in ice cream right now. Tomorrow is not only a new day -it's a new week. And you know how powerful I find a new week. So okay, I messed up 2 days in a row. Also, I kind of messed up 2 weeks in a row. Weight Watchers is harder than I think. But it is easier than any other diet. It is harder than not doing weight watchers. I think admitting that is important. Because I often think that it is so easy that there will never be even one moment of difficulty in it at all. And that isn't true. It's easy, but it's not that easy. It's a little bit hard. Sometime I have to hold back. Okay. It's admitted. Tomorrow I am not doing a weekly progress report because I am out of town and away from my scale. Also, I did so well all week only to ruin it the last hour of the last 2 days, so it's better if I don't even know, because if I weigh myself and am disappointed, I'll sabotage myself this week. So I'll just hope to see a huge loss next week when I weigh myself. Which will make me work that much harder this week to compensate for any damage I've done. On the subject of the Law of Attraction and Manifestation, the one thing that kind of magically worked last week is that I picked a weight and focused on it, hoping to weigh that the next time I weighed myself. I wanted to be 160 next week. I thought it was possible if I ate perfectly and did laps in the pool and jogging everyday, but now that I went over the last 2 days, I don't know if I believe that I'll be that. So I'll focus on 163. I'm gonna do really well this week. Tomorrow I'm gonna look up all restaurants that are my family's favorites and figure out what I'll eat at each one. And I will eat as little points as possible for breakfast (I've been eating like 7-10 points for breakfast lately, and it screws me over) and try to save like 15 points just for dinner. I will exercise like crazy. I will realize that it actually takes work. I will drink crazy amounts of water!!! And most of all, I will think positive, and believe that I am losing weight. I talked to a friend today about this law of attraction vs. weight watchers thing, and she was like, "actually, I think you have an incredible metabolism. Considering how much you eat, you are very thin," And I was like, "you know what? you're so right! and I always knew that, I just forgot." So I need to keep telling myself that. Because it is true. I actually think since I was so active this week, and I plan to be super weight watchers maniac this week, that 160 is possibly possible. And that's my short term goal. So if I can get to it by next week, I will be so very pleased. Because for every little triumph, my momentum collects speed like a snowball.

Day Twenty: Control, loss of

Ok, this is what I actually wrote on "day 20" which was actually august 16th. I was away from a computer for a while. So, to catch up, here was day 20....

Yesterday I was proud of myself because I went to 2 delicious restaurants and ordered soup and fruit. Yesterday i was in control. I can't explain why some days I'm in control and some days I am not, but today I was not in control. I ate oatmeal for breakfast. That was a good choice.Then I was still hungry so I had weight watchers yogurt which was 1 point. That was another good choice. Then a little while later I had a weight watchers ice cream which was 2 points. That wasn't that bad of a choice. I know it's ice cream before lunch, but some days it's after breakfast that I'm the most hungry. And I enjoyed it so much! Like I really savored that ice cream. So I won't say that was that bad of a choice. Then I had an oreo. That was a bad choice. Because it erased the delicious taste of mint ice cream from my mouth and replaced it with an oreo taste aka the taste of wanting more and not feeling at all in control. So I ate 2 more. So I hadn't even eaten lunch yet and I already had 10 points. So then I had focaccia with artichoke dip and greek salad. And I was so hungry that I just ate so much of it. And then I ate 2 more oreos. Then i counted up my points, and i already had 23. So I pondered not eating any more all day. Then friends brought over chinese food. And I didn't eat too much of that. But then they brought cookies and champagne, and i went crazy. And i didn't like how I was feeling and i didn't stop. And I didn't even keep track of what I was eating, so I don't even know how many extras to mark. After all of this, I felt horrible and guilty about exceeding my 35 extras so I went for a run. Only maybe a half a mile and then i grabbed my dog and walked him for another half a mile. Maybe later I'll take a long walk with my friend or something.

Here is the important gem from this mess-up:

*It's done. I ate it, and there's nothing I can do about it. So instead of beating myself up about it, I have to realize that: 1) The amount I ate today wasn't as much as I use to eat every single day. 2) Even in the past when I was on weight watchers and then had a day where I went crazy, the crazy binge day was like 12 million times worse than this. 3) One of the top secrets to staying on weight watchers for the long run and not failing is letting myself have a day like this, and then carrying on like it never happened, and also finding little ways to heal it a little- like running, or doing a little extra exercise everyday this week. Or switch days like I did last week so that throughout the 2 weeks, the points even out. I find that I'm getting better at this every time I mess up. Like as pissed I am at myself for totally going nuts, I am kind of proud of myself just cuz I keep comparing it to how I would have handled it in the past, In the past I would have considered it a diet fail, and then totally binged and then given up and then started the next monday. (And then binge so much between now and monday that by monday it would be too hard for me to get back on, so it would really be like another 6 months before I got back on.) In the more recent past I would have counted the extras, written like 60 or whatever for extras for this week, and then would feel free to eat 60 extras every week, and then never lose weight. But Now I'm gonna find a way to undo it. There are pros and cons to this strategy. The pros are that i will lose weight very fast this way, and also that It won't lead to giving myself more and more slack each week until i fail. The cons are that being this anal could possibly lead to me losing my mind and giving up sooner... But the thing is, I don't really think I lose my mind about this subject. It hasn't happened yet, and I've been on it for a long time.

I think it's not such a bad thing what I did, and I'm gonna just count it as 23 for the good of my chart, and like hard-core exercise for the next 2 weeks. I am upset enough to have learned my lesson though. Because what I ate wasn't fun enough to be worth feeling guilty or being fat. So tomorrow I'll have my control back. And I know I said this before, but having this blog makes such a difference. Because guess what! Today is the first day that I didn't start the blog in the morning. I didn't have access to a computer, so I ended up just writing a conclusion after all my eating was done. If I would have written before all those oreos, I would have done alright today.

...And anothier thing about how i used to do things. The fact that I used to give up and start over next week was probably my biggest mistake because it's not like I can tell my body to pause the game. While I was waiting for monday to roll around, i was gaining weight. So even if i did lose weight and then fall off and then start over again, its not like I was staying the same weight while taking a break, i was totally gaining weight and ruining all the progress from before. The fact that when i mess up now I don't binge, i just stop where i am and then make up for it the rest of the week -that is the most important change I've made in myself.

points eaten today:

23

plus:

5 mini cookies

2 fortune cookies

1/4 cup rice

2 peices chinneese chiucke

1/2 egg roll

a lot of ice cream ben and jerrys

Day Nineteen: Ordering Smart

I still find myself estimating a lot, just because I have no idea. I know it's against my rule, but here's what I ate today:

Fruit                       1

a tiny hot cocoa    2

pbj                          4

brownie                 3

ww icecream         2

potsticker             2

wonton soup        2

candy                     2

orange juice         3

ok, I just looked up the point value for a lot of those things, and it turns out I ate way less than I think. I'm SUPER proud of myself, because as everyone knows, eating at restaurants is by far the hardest part of weight watchers, and typically when I'm at a restaurant I temporarily stop caring and just order the most delicious thing. But I went to a pancake house this morning and ordered a fruit cup!!! And I went to a chineese restaurant and ordered soup!!! In the same day!!! And it's even more impressive because it's in a place where I haven't been in a long time and where all my favorite restaurants are.

POINTS EATEN TODAY 21

Day 18

Dude, 1 poptart is 5 points! Like not one package, just 1. Luckily I only ate one. But, if I would have checked the label first, I wouldn't have eaten it. Cuz it wasn't even that fun. So now I only have 4 points left. I can eat a meal that's only 4 points, but it's gonna be hard to not snack. I have been swimming all day. I did laps, but I also literally spent the entire day playing in the pool, so I think I got a good amount of excercise today. But I don't want to ruin all that excercise with food. So I have to find something to do for the rest of the day so I won't eat. I really need new clothes really bad-especially jeans, but I don't want to spend money on clothes until I hit my goal and can wear those clothes for a long time. But i am a genius and just remembered this place called Plato's Closet which is like a Thrift store, but for designer clothes that are in good condition. So I'm gonna find like really cheap jeans, and maybe buy some the next size down for when the time comes. So if I go do that now, that will take my mind off of eating for a while.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 23

Day 15, 16, and 17

I spent sunday and monday in the car driving across the county, and let me tell you-it is seriously hard to stay in your points on a road trip. I did miraculously well the first day. I had salad for lunch and a subway sandwich for dinner, and I ended up having about 26 points. And then the second day got totally messed up, and I ate a stupid little sandwich that ended up being 17 points. So I ended up having like 40 points. Its hard for me to be exact cuz I'm eating weird things, but I think I'm pretty close. And here's a lying to yourself moment. You see I weighed myself on sunday morning instead of monday because I was going to be gone, and I had lost 2.2 pounds so I was all happy, but that day I ate 40 points even though I was already out of extras. So I decided to eat perfectly the next day with no extras even though it was the first day of the week, and then switch the information, so that it would say that I had 23 on sunday and 40 on monday. But on monday I had 26 and on tuesday I had 40. Today I had 23, so I can switch that day out, but if I do, that would mean that on paper I would have eaten: 26, 40, 40 so far this week. Which= 37 extras so far this week... Ok, we'll go with that. I know I'm on crack. But technically this is...kinda smart I guess. Because instead of being like, thats all in the past, I'll just do better from now on, I will make it all even out so that I have the correct amount of points per fortnight. Tomorrow, and every day for the next week, I will wake up and do laps in the pool, eat some low-point oatmeal, have a low-point sandwich for lunch, eat sugar free puddings when I'm jonesing, and go jogging occasionally at night. So that will even out the overflow, and hopefully make kick start my metabolism and lose even more weight this week. And important part of dieting... VERY IMPORTANT, especially for me, is not doing damage when I'm partying. Like all year, I would work really hard, lose weight, and then let myself have a little fun and gain it all back. It's one thing to take it easy and just stay at the same for a week, but to totally undo hard work -it's bad. Plus the fact that I have access to a pool while I'm here, I need to really keep working hard, because I'll totally kick myself if I don't do well this week. Like in the beginning of the summer, I went to New Hanpshire and thought I was gonna lose a lot of weight because I kayaked and climbed a mountain for 6 hours (so hard core), but I didn't watch my points very well and I ended up gaining weight, and I was SO pissed. So I can't let this happen to me. Vacationing is a part of life, so it's important for me to figure out how to stay within my points. 

POINTS EATEN THESE DAYS (ACCORDING TO ME)

SUNDAY: 23

MONDAY: 26

TUESDAY: 40

WEDNESDAY: 40

Day Fourteen: Early Weekly Progress

I won't be near a scale or camera tomorrow, so I'm doing my weekly progress early... The pictures don't look any better I don't think, but my weight's a lot lower. Its amazing how when you stay within your points you lose weight, and when you go over you don't lose weight. I think there's a part of me that still doesn't believe that this diet works. I think it's all that wishing all week that you'll lose a pound plus the memory of all the times you didn't that makes me totally shocked when I see that I've lost weight. This week I was really afraid that I wouldn't lose anything -you know I felt fat, and I kind of didn't think I estimated my points very well yesterday, but it's only been 6 days since last time I weighed myself, and I lost 2.2 pounds. This week I'm gonna be by a pool (which I've been waiting for forever cuz I REALLY wanna do laps every morning), plus it's a really good area to run, plus I can't weigh myself next week, so I'm very ambitiously hoping to be 160 by the time I get back (aug.17). That's only 2.5 pounds a week, so if I continue doing what I'm doing, plus add exercise, I think I can do it..

MY WEEKLY PROGRESS

WEIGHT: 165

EXTRAS USED LAST WEEK: 35 (so far)

POINTS EATEN TODAY:

Day Thirteen: A Tricky Balance

Today is definitely one of those days that if I didn't have this blog, I would be totally sabotaging myself. It is just after lunch right now, and after eating 2 points of chocolate chips (which is a surprising large amount of chocolate), I decided it was time for my daily dose of obsessing at the computer.

So in my last week of blog entries, I had a few different little tricks that I shared, one being the 'lie to yourself' idea of recounting so that you make sure to get within your points even if you slip a little bit. It was a good idea, but like everything else in my life, I have to watch it carefully because it has the potential to slip. For instance, lets say I eat 1 more point than I say I do each day. That's 7 extra a week, and that does actually make a difference for some odd reason. The good thing is that I don't actually do that everyday. Here is a typical week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I end up eating all my extras. In those days, I count perfectly -maybe even too generously (meaning I round everything way up).. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I try to stay within 23 points, but sometimes have to do that "lying to myself" thing, where I can't help myself, and go one or two points over, then go back and recount, trying to squeeze them all into 23 points using the magic of estimation. And my reason for doing this was that otherwise, I would have to write 36 extras or 40 extras or whatever at the end of the week, which would lead to letting myself eat 60 extras a week like I did before, but I realized that the trick I'm using now can also be a slippery slope. That's because lying to myself about 2 points can lead to myself lying about 5 or 6 a day (I doubt that I could re-estimate 6 points away, but still I have to be careful). And lets say I squeeze in 3 extra points from thursday till the end of the week. I'll end up with 47 points. I still think that if I do eat a little too many points at the end of the week, I should still try and make it look like 35, but this is something that should happen totally by accident every 6 weeks. And it should be 2 extra extras at the end of the week -not each day... I actually thought that I messed up yesterday because I for some reason thought my dinner was 10 points, but then I remembered it was actually 6 points, so I ended up eating exactly 23 points without "re-estimating." Seriously, I was really anal with my counting yesterday. So that's the only reason this was on my mind -I didn't cheat, I just thought I was cheating. Cuz like I thought I only had 3 points left to make a shake, and I used really big scoops so I knew deep down it was probably like 5 points... But then after I finished I was like, "oh duh!! I had 5 points to spare!!!" ... So I had bad intentions, but I didn't actually do anything wrong.

It's a tricky balance between being so uptight about it that I drive myself crazy and quit, and being so casual about it that I never make any progress. Since up-tight people are usually skinny, I guess maybe I should lean towards that side of the spectrum. And I'm not actually driving myself nuts. I'm so addicted to my computer, that I'm more than happy to blog about every stupid thing each day. This is another reason why this blog is really good for me. If it was a notebook, I wouldn't feel like it half the time. Turning an unhealthy addiction into a healthy one. I'm a genius.

POINTS EATEN TODDAY: 23

Day Twelve: Order in your life (random sit-ups)

Today is one of those days where I'm really lazy, so I am not doing any of the millions of things I should be doing, but at the same time I'm really bored, so I'm not even enjoying not doing anything. Slash I'm feeling really guilty about not doing any of the things I should be doing. I've been getting like this a lot lately because I am in the process of moving, and I don't even know where-to. It might be a 20 minute drive, and it might be a 2 day drive. And it's happening within the week. My life has been absolutely crazier than you can even imagine for a couples years now because of housing market problems. And it's really hard to accomplish anything when my life's like that. I can never get a job because I never know where I'm gonna be living next month, or I think I'm gonna be doing one thing, and then I end up doing something completely different. Basically I have NO control over my life.

There was an episode of Oprah that talked about how women have a really hard time dieting when they aren't in total control of their life. And it is so true. Like I always say, it's all psychological. For me, I always gave myself all these conditions before I had to go on a diet. First of all, if there was anything in the near future involving yummy food (and by near future, I mean the next 2 months!), I would wait until after that to start a diet. It always had to be a monday. Sometimes it would even have to be the first of a month. Men are not like that. The brain of a women (or maybe just mine), must have complete order in all areas of their life before they can diet. They don't know how to calculate that a little each day makes a difference. Let me give you an example. If every time in my life that I thought of doing sit-ups, I actually did them, I would be so ripped by now. But even if I'm in the mood to do sit-ups, I think about how one day of sit-ups isn't gonna make a difference, and instead of just doing them, I go to a notebook and make a chart so that I can check off doing sit-ups everyday (of course starting next monday)... then by the time that monday comes (plus most days after that), I don't feel like doing sit-ups, or I forget or something. Number of times in my life I wanted to do sit-ups right then and there: 8,000... Number of times I actually did sit-ups: 5. This of course applies to jogging, dieting... pretty much anything that is good for me.

..But! This past week, I ran once and did sit-ups twice. Just randomly. No rhyme or reason. And I may never do it again. But my new thing is always doing situps whenever I think of it and feel like it/always running when I think of it and feel like it. And I won't keep track of how many times a week, and I won't force myself to do it, but in the end, I will end up having done way more sit-ups and having way flatter abs, and losing weight more quickly than if I continued being the nut-case that I was.

Now. I need to do something about my happiness. I think I'm just gonna go into robot mode today and get everything done that needs to get done. Here I go.

...ok, I went to Pizza Uno for dinner, but before I went, I looked online to see what I could eat. I got the chicken with mango salsa. It was only 4 points, and it was the most delicious thing ever! Seriously, it was soooo good!!! So I have 3 points left. I'm gonna make myself a chocolate shake with low carb icecream. That will be 3 points, and therefore..........

POINTS EATEN TODAY:23

Day Eleven: Green Tea and Water

For the next 4 days, I have no extras. So I have to eat exactly 23 points a day.

...which means now would be a good time to start a few things I've been meaning to do for a while: Drinking 3 cups of green tea per day, and 8 glasses of water per day. Both these things really help weight loss for 2 reasons:

1) They fill you up, so you're less hungry and thus eat less. Probably everyone knows that most of the time you're hungry, you're actually just thirsty. I'm the best person to tell you that, too, because I drink the least water out of anyone in the world. And sometimes, (a lot of the time actually), I feel so hungry that no matter how much I eat, I don't feel satisfied- but strangely feel full at the same time. Then I figured out that that feeling is actually extreme thirst, and so now when I feel like that and then drink, I swallow a gallon in like one sip cuz I'm so dehydrated. And sometimes (I know this is weird), it's kind of unpleasant to drink when I'm that thirsty. Like it hurts. I don't know, I'm totally weird. But anyway, I think I really need to add hard core water drinking to my life.

2) The second reason is that both green tea and water literally do something to your body that makes you lose weight even if you do eat the same amount. With green tea, it speeds up the metabolism, and I don't know what it is with water, but I know it's true from personal experience. I know that water has nutrients in it that your body needs obviously, but I don't know how it helps weight loss. But this I do know: A while ago, I did perfectly with my points one week, but I still didn't lose any weight. So the next week, I ate the same amount of points, but added a lot of water, and I lost weight.

So! Since I don't have any extras left this week, it would be a good time to start drinking green tea and water, just for the purpose of filling me up so I don't eat too much.

AND: Now would also be a good time to start doing these things because guess what. I just realized how long it would take to get to my goal weight depending on different conditions. Check this out:

Losing 1 pound/week: April 19th

Losing 1.5 pounds/week: January 18th

Losing 2 pounds/week: December 7th

...Being realistic, I'm probably not gonna lose much faster than that. At least not at first. But I really don't want to have to wait till April. January 18th isn't so bad. But I need to speed this process up. And I'm moving soon to a house with a pool, so I'll do laps every morning. And I'm gonna get a job, so I'll have money, so I'l join a yoga class. So once I start exercising, Maybe I can even lose 3 or 4 pounds a week. And I feel more in control of how much I'm losing now that I have complete control over how many points I eat each week, so now I have to start losing 1.5-2 pounds a week. I'll start off just adding water and green tea, and a little exercise, and see how far that gets me.

By the way: I got the green tea from a friend who started drinking 3 cups of green tea a day, and lost a lot of weight.

Advice for the day: Drink a lot of water no matter what. It's way harder than it sounds. Not many people like to drink water all day long. I know it sounds like nothing, but it's been easier for me to go on a diet than to actually drink as much water as I should. But it really makes an eerie difference. Try keeping a hip water bottle with you wherever you go. Look for the really awesome aluminum bottles at Target. (Plus they're good for the environment!)...

...okay, it's now the end of the day. I am on my 3rd cup of tea, but I barely drank any water. I will do better tomorrow.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 23

Day Ten: Going Out

Today was one of those "out" days. You know. Where I was out. And once again, I ended up eating way too much, even though it was only out of politeness almost. This is an area I think all people can improve on. Many people claim that it's hard for them to go out because they get so tempted by all the great food at the party or restaurant or whatever. But honestly for me, leaving my house is the one thing that makes me stop thinking about food. As I said before, I live in the Wonka factory, so the moment I leave my house I am free from the sugar addiction. Kind of. So because of this, I always think that I'm gonna do so well on those days, but it always turns out that on those days there is a whole different kind of problem. And this is an area I personally should be quick to fix since it would be really easy for me to fix since it's not where my temptation lies. The 2 types of food issues that go along with going out are 1. RESTAURANTS (as I complain about each and every day), and 2. The feeling that you're "on vacation." You know, for me it's kind of a social habit. Sitting there munching on chips and salsa. And it's not like I enjoy it that much. It's definitely not the kind of thing I would want to save up my extras for. So if I resolve that problem, it will free up a lot of my extras each week, thus leaving more room for the things I really do enjoy.

What this might consist of is. And my advice for the day:

1. Learning how to say no thanks.

2. No subconscious munching while having a conversation

3. Realize you're not on vacation, and find a way to still count your points even if you don't have the resources. Even if that means estimating.

...Cuz seriously, it is such a waste to get to the end of a day like today, not really feeling like you had anything especially special, and counting 44 points.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 44

Day Nine: The Magic of Blogging

Having this blog is really helpful to me. I don't even know if anyone even reads this and if they don't, that's ok because this can just be a journal. Cuz a subject I talked about earlier was how sometimes I really care about weight watchers and do really well, but most of the time I don't give a crap and end up sabotaging myself. Having this blog is awesome because I keep my excitement up about this. Everyday I wake up and after breakfast I feel myself slowly sinking back into old thinking habits (wanting a brownie), so I go up to my room and start my blog entry for the day, and get myself psyched all over again. The truth is, when I get all pumped up about weight watchers, it usually lasts me like 2 days at the most. I do really well in those 2 days, but it gets completely ruined by wednesday. Ever since I started this blog, I've been psyched everyday, and I've done well for the first week in a long time. I think starting this blog was one of the best ideas I've had yet.

I highly recommend doing something liKe this. And I don't necessarily mean a blog. I mean any sort of art project. I actually read about this lady who's an artist, and finally accomplished the weight loss she wanted to when she figured out to turn her weight loss journey into an art project. She has a book called "Our Lady of Weight Loss" ...I haven't read it. I want to soon though. It seems like a really good book. And you know why? Because it was on Oprah's summer reading list, and everything Oprah says is true.

...oh god. I just went to mcdonalds. I was gonna get a vanilla cone cuz its only 3 points, but i got a mcflurry instead cuz i thought it was made out of the same stuff. It turned out to be 14 points. So I've had 24 points so far today. I'll try to eat soup for dinner or something. So once again, warning: restaurants are bad. except for the vanilla cone. which is good.

Advice of the day: Turn your weight loss journey into an art project

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 30

Day Eight: Little Goals

I weighed myself this morning. 167.2 I was a little disappointed because a couple weeks ago I was 165, and then I gained 3 pounds 1 week because I was being stupid, so I was kind of hoping that the 168 I saw on the scale last week was just because there was still cake in my stomach or something. I don't know. I guess I thought that if I gained it really fast, it would also come off really fast. I guess that will teach me to mess up. Cuz not only does it make me not lose weight one week, but it sends me back 3 weeks. And in my case -2 months since I've been hovering around 165 for a long time now.

well, my pictures do look better but I don't know if that's just a fluke. There's a possibility that I did lose a lot of weight this week but it will show up on the scale next week. The human body is weird like that. You'll do a lot of work one week and see no change, and then do nothing the next week and you lose 2 pounds. I guess sometimes it takes a little while for your body to catch up.

I think once I hit 163, I will be past this little hump. And I never set little goals for myself. I say I want to be 130, but when it's so far away, it's not something that I look forward to any time soon, and it's not something I'm gonna reward myself about anytime soon. So my next goal is 163. Just because that will put me in the next category. I've never been 163. I think I've been 164, but when I'm 163, I'll feel like I'm 160, and I'll be able to get past this stupid plateau.

About last night. The truth is, this is what I ate

donuts.......................6

chocolate chips........1

pb&j...........................5

soup...........................1

3 saltines.....................1

licorice........................4.5

m&ms...........................2

chocolate chips..........2

w.w. icecream.............2

w.w. icecream.............2

total.........................26.5

...Yeah, I was craving mad sugar all day long. And I wasn't really counting very well, I was just assuming that I was doing ok because I had soup for dinner, and I was taking really small m&m portions and stuff. But then I decided to try and count it up. And yeah, so I went for a jog at midnight. And I haven't done that in a really long time, and it kind of felt really good. Which was of course very surprising to me. I might try and do more of it this week. Because I know that the people that are actually losing weight are exercising. I'm just way lazy. I like to sit on my butt. But... maybe I'll start jogging again.

About today: Congratulations to me! Cuz guess what! It's monday, the first day of the week. My Extras start over, and usually I eat almost all of them (if not more) in the first day. And guess what! I'm still in yesterday's mind set, and I'm being extra careful to not even go over my 23. You know what that means?!? That means that my theory about developing a little perfection makes you never want to mess up was correct! Because I'm so being anal about this now. And that is a really good thing. Cuz what if I can manage to not eat ANY extras this week. I'm not pressuring myself, but if it happens, that could mean losing a lot more weight!

...ok, it's the end of the day (I keep adding on all day if that wasn't already obvious), and I ended up eating 30 points and not jogging. It's that freakin candy. I couldn't keep my hands off it. You must understand that if I lived on my own I simply wouldn't have the candy in my house. But seriously people, I AM NOT kidding, I live in the willy wonka factory. Seriously. Anyway, still not too bad. In fact, I'm proud of myself because I had 6 points left for dinner, and my family went out to a restaurant, and I did what I said I would do, and I ordered vegetable soup and a side salad with low fat dressing. But guess what! I went home and looked it up just in case. And I was right about the soup -it was 1 point... The salad: 7 points!!!! (it was tiny)... There was gorgonzola on it which I mostly pushed to the side, so I think I probably had about 4 points there, but man! I'm telling you, you gotta be really careful with restaurants. They manage to pack 600 points into every little thing. Plus they put an addictive chemical in their chicken to make you crave it fortnightly.

WEEKLY PROGRESS

Weight: 167.2

Points eaten today: 30

Day Seven: My Sneaky Trick

11:40 a.m... Today I have to be careful because I have no extras left. I'm not off to the best start because I went downstairs and found powdered mini donuts. And that's just delicious! So I ate 4 which is 6 points. I think I'm having soup for lunch though and that's like 2, so i should be ok.

There's a trick I use, and it might be a bad idea for some people, but because of the way my brain works, it's very useful. basically what's more important than anything else at this point for me is always staying within my points exactly. And since I eat weird portions of stuff (you know, like 1/3 of a pretzel here, 3 chocolate chips there), I end up doing a little bit of estimating. Now, as much as it is important to count correctly, at this point in my life, if I do count up my points at the end of the day and I've gone 1 point over my 35 extras or something, I go back, and try to re-estimate to squeeze it into the correct number of points. Totally cheating, I know. But again, my brain is weird, and if I find a way to convince myself that I really do eat only 35 extra a week, and not 1 more, I won't slowly inch towards eating 65 extra a week. And it's better this way, because even if I AM lying to myself, probably I end up eating 38 extra at the end of the week at the most. And physically that doesn't make any difference at all, but mentally it keeps me from slipping like I did before. Of course this doesn't happen every day. Most of the time I'm completely honest with my counting, but if it comes to the end of the week and I'm like "oh CRAP!!!" -that's when I "recount" a little. Now if you're going to try this strategy, really make sure you use it for 1 or 2 points, not 10. Because when I recount, it's on the stuff I'm not that sure about anyway, so there's a very good chance I'm not lying to myself at all. Plus also... be careful, because I might be the only person in the world this works for.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 23

Day Six

I woke up today really really wanting to weigh myself, but I didn't. Sometimes weighing yourself early can mess things up. Cuz you see you haven't lost anything yet, and then you give up, and then the next 2 days you do really poorly because you're discouraged, then you end up really not losing anything. But I really feel like I lost weight, and I still have 2 more days before I weigh myself. I'm really excited because I have faith in myself again

I really want to join a weight watchers group, but I can't afford it. It would be so helpful to have something weekly to string myself along. Plus they give you all kinds of cool toys and stuff. And good advice. And inspiration. And you see other people succeeding so you want to do the same. I know that once you reach your goal you don't have to pay anymore, so maybe I'll join when I'm closer to my goal.

This really gets easier as the days go by. And this whole not eating more extras than I'm supposed to thing was hard the first couple days. Even though I've been on weight watchers forever, it was an adjustment to start doing it right. And now it's starting to get a lot easier.

...I did of course cut it really close. I only have 3 extras left. Potentially 23 points could be more than enough. But when you live with your mother, you eat what is served, and what is served is usually really high in points... So maybe I'll have yogurt for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a pb&j for dinner. And that's only 7 points, so the rest can be on whatever I want. It's seriously that simple. It's amazing how it can be SO easy or SO hard depending on what kinds of foods you eat. I think weight watchers has a new program called the momentum program that's all about eating filling foods that are low in points. And its so smart because you could totally stuff yourself with vegetables until you're barfing and still have 23 points left for the day. Wow!! When I move out, I will be SOOO healthy, and this will be SOO much easier.

Advice of the day: Try the "No Pudge" brownies. You use non fat yogurt instead of eggs and stuff. One large brownie is only 2 points, and they taste EXACTLY like regular brownies. They're SO goooooood!!!

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 26