actual weight loss!

-13 pounds in 15 days and counting….!!!!

8 pounds down

myfitnesspal!!! 8 pounds lost in 8 days… this app (you can use it via a computer too) has been helping me plus meetings!

hopey changey today

I stopped drinking 4 or 5 months ago to see if that helped with the food and it does. But I  also realize I have to exercise a lot as opposed to hardly ever because the portion control (I’ve been great and meh about this) is not enough for me at 35 and drastically overweight for 10 years. I am actually going to have to work out like every single day (gasp) AND really reign it in with any starches and with cheese. It’s great to not binge, amazing actually. But I have to really go at this like it’s a life and death errand, because it is. And I have to pretend I’m not sedentary and exercise and eat more veggies and fruits and protein and less starch and fat fests. The holidays aren’t terrible this year so far. And I went to New Orleans again and ate a lot of healthy seafood and salads and vegetables and amazing sweet potato small plates. And walked everywhere. But at home, I can be a sloth. I need to get on the elliptical each and every morning of each and every day. And use my juicer on a daily basis again. I’m about to hop on the elliptical now. Then I’ll make carrot and golden beet juice. Then I’ll clean the house rigorously for my Christmas party next week. Then I’ll buy some more veggies and fruits for the juicer. Then I’ll finish decorating for xmas and winter solstice. Then I’ll curl up with a good book and a little sparkling cider. Or watch The Godfather with my husband (a holiday tradition – which usually includes eating Teuscher chocolates from Switzerland – but not this year)! Maybe I’ll make salade nicoise? The smallest effort helps, something I have to remind my self-destructive, lazy self about every day when it comes to my health and my appearance!

Hey I’m not gone, I’ve just been on google plus

And I’ve been in and out of the food and I’ve gained/ maintained weight. I was stressed because of real life issues so I didn’t keep up with a food plan and didn’t exercise frequently. But *we* know better than this. There’s no amount of stress, fatigue, real life problems, loved one’s ailments, our health problems, crazy work schedules, in-law and family problems, funerals, work issues, financial issues, childhood traumas, insecurity, etc to justify not working the steps and working a food plan and an exercise plan AND finally actually getting that sponsor!

I HAVE been going to lots of meetings (and my work/study/life schedule is fuller and more tiring than it has been in years). And they’ve afforded me the luxury of no longer enjoying not working my program. I abandoned my philosophical and psychological and ‘spiritual’ practices a decade or so ago and I’ve risen to 245ish pounds because of this. I have hands and limbs going numb. My cholesterol is most likely frightening. Do I really want to get stomach cancer or have a stroke? Do I enjoy looking like I’m 19 months pregnant? Do I like bumping into EVERYTHING because I still move like I’m 135 pounds? Am I sick of it? Well, yes, I’ve been sick of it for years. But angry and resentful and walking about with pity for myself. Boo hoo, me. Wah wah. I don’t know about YOU but when I hold in anger (to cover the pain) I take it out on myself by not taking care of myself and by “comforting” myself with enough weight to kill me, it really sucks.

So I went to a meeting and SPOKE (a big book step study … literature based meeting) and I felt that natural euphoric high after a vocal realization about myself, my motives, and how fucking good I can be in life when I’m actually on the beam. And it’s stuck with me. So many things, people from the past, places, events, coincidences keep cropping up, leading me to the same thing. I want more of this.

I’ve been working out an hour or two every day. I’m dusting off the vegetable juicer. I’m going to call into the cea-how meeting tonight to hopefully hear somehow who clicks for me so I can get a goddamned food sponsor. I ALWAYS think I can do this on my own. I ALWAYS fail!

I had my aunt visit unexpectedly from 3000 miles away (I hadn’t seen her in 6 years)!!! She flew here to help my alcoholic aunt (her sister) who had a crying for help suicide episode last week. My aunt has been sober 4 years (amazing) and she said she wanted to focus on the food now. It was like YET ANOTHER MESSAGE sent to me- in front of my face, staying in my home, SHE has what I have, she’s reaching out, we want to help my other aunt, how can we do ANYTHING better if we aren’t sorting ourselves out WITH OUTSIDE help? We both put on weight, we both compromised our well being, we both are attending meetings and we want more now. The “okay” is not enough. We want fantastic. We want to at least try to reach our potential rather than doing nothing, be nothing. So what the hell more do I need? Another ten years of doing not enough, of not really trying?

Ok, unless everyone sounds insane or lives in Timbuktu on the phone bridge meeting, I’m going to fucking get a food sponsor to night if it kills me!

Yes! Woo hoo!

seeing what calories go into the weight loss portion of some popular items in my food plan

39 calories for 8OZ mixed salad

78 calories for 16 oz mixed salad

132 calories for 4 oz of tuna (canned in water)

72 calories for 1 cup cooked asparagus

130 calories for plain nonfat yogurt (1 cup)

86 calories for a cup of skim milk

172 calories for 2 cups of skim milk

491 calories in 1 cup of mung bean noodles (chinese cellophane)

70 calories in Raos marinara sauce (1/2 cup)

40 calories in 8 oz of chopped raw tomatoes

70 calories in a 1/2 cup of yukon gold potatoes

150 calories in 1 ezekial sprouted grain no flour tortillas

140 calories in 2 oz of chevre

70 calories in 1 cup of light vanilla soy milk

140 calories in 2 cups of light vanilla soy milk

160 calories (& 17 grams of fat)! in 2 tbsps of Brianna’s New American Dressing

mind body soul

I have to run to get ready, run to a new dentist in an unfamiliar part of town, run to the cleaners, run to the store, run to the in laws, would love to slide into the lovely plant and pottery garden centre in Quincy I’ve always wanted to poke about in even though it’s raining and gray. Drive everywhere back and forth, do errands, get a coffee, exercise, prepare and eat my abstinent and measured meals, hit a meeting, get over this cold, run run run oh and finish the housework after a weekend of house guests, an impromptu dinner party and mounds of laundry calling my name from upstairs. Get it all done, for you will be working and commuting for the next three days.

Saw two great plays in Boston yesterday; The Merchant of Venice with F. Murray Abraham and The Grand Inquisitor – Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky-esque entertainments in one day – not bad at all.

Eating out several times this unexpectedly but I refrained from flour, friend, sugar, chocolate, etc. Eyeballed portions, at home, weighed and measures, with nothing in between. I need to live this way to save myself from a death from obesity of mind, body and soul.

A slight spring in the step

The face to face meeting last night was on step six and shows to me there are so many meetings at my disposal I have absolutely no excuses not to become a member of a handful of local groups. Between phone bridges, email lists, myriad in person meetings, the global fellowships, social networking and the like, recovery in the 21st century can be found and actively experienced nearly everywhere.

•A latte and organic carrots and organic no oil hummus and organic sesame ezekial.
•16 oz mixed salad (organic) & 1 oz dressing 4 oz edamame & skim latte decaf
•8 oz yogurt 1 oz wheatgerm 1/2 oz Irish butter 8 oz rainbow Swiss chard 8 oz blackberries

Attending a nephew’s birthday dinner tonight – told the hostess (a sister in law) I’d make my own arrangements and I wasn’t eating flour or sugar or drinking the usual champagne we tend to “delicately swill”.

Today

•Coffee and milk and fruit with spirulina, ezekial sprouted toast, 2oz cheese
•16 oz mixed salad, dressing, 1 oz cheese 8 oz skim milk latte w/ decaf espresso , splenda
•2 0z goat cheese 4 oz yogurt, 16 oz mixed salad, 1 oz dressing, 1 very small sweet potato, ezekial sprouted flourless toast, 1 cup blackberries, 1/2 oz raw walnuts

Listened to a CEA HOW phone bridge meeting (7 AM) whilst driving to work and watched a couple overeaters anonymous public service
Anouncements on YouTube on my phone. Who knew, right?

Going to hit a face to face regular OA meeting on the way home from work tonight. Then read some related literature, do 15 minutes on the elliptical, prepare and eat my abstinent dinner and make something for hubby, watch tv or read with him and then collapse into bed.

(EDIT) Face to face meeting 7PM-8PM was FABULOUS. Step 6.

fake it till I make it

I made all of the family calls, went shopping for abstinent groceries (now I have to prepare the things!!!), foraged for forgotten overdue bills and new bills, wrote out checks, used greeting card envelopes, went to the post office, mailed taxes & bills with checks, searched for and emailed potential therapists in the area within my health insurance network, didn’t buy wine or champagne, cleaned the bathrooms and dusted (but I have a lot more housework to do on Friday), did some laundry, showered and greeted my husband with some clarity and positive experience tonight instead of the usual foggy thinking excuses.

Such mundane tasks that are easy when one’s life is together – and how funny and looming they appear when I am not on the ball. I did it. I have much more to do. But I did a lot and I’m happy to report it.

I had a major feeling of depression preparing for the day and leading up to doing the right things. I had a realization. I’m addicted to feeling bad. I thought I was addicted to feeling good by trying to feel “great” all the time, eating, drinking, pretending, performing for everyone, putting on a charming face for others. However those feelings of avoiding pain are temporary and I always feel bad about myself and about “failing” again. So ultimately I am addicted to feeling bad about myself.

 

So anything I can do to treat myself better – to fake it till I make it – is a good thing.

heart

photo found from a google search