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: