Weigh-In Wednesday: Dear Scale, You Suck

Ah, frustration. I just cannot seem to do this right, and I'm not sure why. On Saturday, 1/11, the three year anniversary of my weight loss surgery, I was feeling upbeat and happy about my progress. I took a picture of the scale, with hopeful confidence that this Wednesday's weigh in would win big on the scale:

You go, girl!

I've been back to weighing myself every day, because I decided these 20+ pounds I accumulated from my lowest weight did not magically appear overnight, but were instead a result of my head in the sand scale avoidance. So I knew that the numbers were creeping up, even though I do not consider it fair or accurate. Alright, I suppose it's accurate, at least, haha.

Dear Scale, You Suck.

Well, I am on my period, anyway. It's really not faaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrr. And I have to tell you, in a factual here's an effect of weight loss surgery that you may benefit from hearing about way, I continue to have a real problem with constipation. Is this from the sleeve? From my gallbladder removal (I don't think so as I believe the opposite problem is more common)? Just my lucky draw of old woman aging symptoms? I dunno. At any rate, I realize I have been saying for three years "I need to find a way to address this" and I really do. I eat gobs of fresh fruit and veggies. I am super well-hydrated. Ah well. I feel, in all honesty, this is contributory problem to the number on the scale this week.

Whatevs.

Big developments on the home front, as G and the kids and me have found a new home. We are all super excited. It's in the neighborhood: this will be my FOURTH address in a one mile radius following my divorce, haha. I tell you, when those kids grow up and throw in my face that I didn't do everything I could for them, I will throw back FOUR ADDRESSES IN A ONE MILE RADIUS SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CHANGE SCHOOLS!

So there.

Anyway, it's a fantastic home with a commensurate rental rate. We will have gobs more space and there are tons of man-cave features for G that have him practically singing with joy in anticipation. My daughter will have her own private luxury bathroom. My sons have a wooded ravine adjacent to the back yard to lose themselves in. The whole family is humming with anticipation and pleasure at the thought of our new home.

For me, it has kitchen cabinets. And counter space. Whoa. I never understood what a luxury this was until I lived the last four years without them (the teeny tiny condo we lived in had a worse kitchen than this one, but not by much).

The move date is a bit ambiguous right now, it will be as early as next weekend or as late as the end of February. We're just trying to hash things out between the two places, as they're doing a bit of work for us on the new place before we move in. It's all very exciting. And stressful. I have been up since 2:30 a.m., suddenly waking with moving organization thoughts and such that kept me up for the rest of the night. I was in good company, though, as when I woke up G said he was laying awake since 1:00 a.m. with the same thoughts, haha. We're both in peak form today, in other words.

Weigh-In Wednesday

Welllllllllll...it ain't setting the world on fire, but at least it's down-ish.

I will say I'm eating lots better, and lots of veggies. Recently, I have been eating baby spinach salads with only a few chopped strawberries, a diced hard-boiled egg and this, the yummiest non-dressing dressing ever:

Oh, it's so very, very good.

I'm (mostly) tracking my food, too. All in all, I would say I'm heading in a very good direction. And it's amazing how quickly my body responds to eating well: I have been feeling pretty darn good lately.

Which is good, since my personal life is a roller-coaster ride right now! Ups and downs, highs and lows. More on that later, but I wanted to get this posted while it was still Wednesday...

Weigh-In Wednesday, Ketchup Edition

The holidays and a bout with a very bad cold kept me from posting my Wednesday weigh-ins for the last couple weeks. But I did force myself onto the scale on Christmas morning...um, Merry F'ing Christmas to me, as I nearly picked up the scale and threw it out the window:

Oops, this is not going well.

Well, I did buckle down and clean up my eating quite a bit. It's all these sweets, I tell you. I don't honestly think my eating had been that bad in the week prior, I think that all the SUGAR I had been eating between Thanksgiving and Christmas finally translated on the scale as fat. 

Greg and I both got very ill right after Christmas. My New Year's Day weigh in was a tad better, but was also tainted, I knew, by the cough syrup with codeine that I had been guzzling since Saturday. I hadn't pooped in days and days! I felt like a stuffed sausage, so constipated and miserable. 

I knew I had done better than this, I just need to give birth to that food baby.

Yesterday, I took steps to rectify the situation, so I allowed myself an updated weigh-in today, which I feel better reflects reality. 

Still up, but getting better.

I'll just post this now and get to work on my Why 2014 is FreeJulie's Year post that I'd rather talk about, haha. I am glad that I'm at least holding myself accountable by getting on that scale - I have to say, getting on a scale with a camera on Christmas morning, knowing it was going to be up, up, up...well, that takes grit.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Nothing too far one way or the other this week, I'd say. My eating wasn't great, nor terrible. I got a little exercise, but not much. I did do two miles on the treadmill during Reid's swim lesson on Monday. This was somewhat revolutionary in that I have always told myself I don't have time to work out during his lesson. But really, Reid went to the pool and I went to the cardio room. I was able to watch him, in little glimpses, from the windows overlooking the pool.

Side note: mostly what I saw him doing as he reached the end of the pool (the only part I could see from my vantage) was look around for me. Oops. This was a very spur of the moment work out, and I had dropped him off at the door with his sister before parking. She went up to work out and I thought, "Hey, I can do that!" Not the best parental communication. But, typical of my lone wolf youngest, he just swam his little heart out, got to the end of the pool, looked around for me, and kept swimming. My Alli would have gotten out of the pool and waited for me. My Blake would have gotten out of the pool, searched the building and called 911 when he didn't find me right away. But Reid? "Eh. She'll be back." And about a third of they way through his lesson, I saw him have a moment of "I'm sure she's not upstairs working out - she doesn't do THAT anymore - but I'll look up, anyway..." and he saw me furiously waving at him from the treadmill high above. The Case of the Disappearing Mother: solved.

Okay, so I did two miles in 24 minutes during lessons, a mixture of walking, brisk walking and running. Umm, I should have done more walking, as while the running felt GREAT, I pulled and overstretched all sorts of leg muscles that have been dormant since October or so. I have been paying the price since then, but my plan is to get back on that ole dreadmill tonight during his lesson again. (This time I'll tell him where I'm going.)

Because body image is all about the mental aspect of "if you are being good, you feel good, and if you are being bad, you feel bad..." I liked what I saw when I checked myself out in the locker room mirrors. Hey, good looking! You still got it!

The next day, yesterday, I skipped lunch with friends because my thighs were so fat, it would be a terrible embarrassment to take them out in public.

The lesson I am trying to take from this is that when I am exercising regularly, I feel ridiculously good about my body. It felt GREAT to run on the treadmill - really, much too fast for me, but really great, nonetheless. I was a rock star in my own mind. Immediately after, I saw X's aunt at the drug store - I haven't seen her since the divorce or my weight loss. She said all sorts of nice things about how I looked, and I felt them all.

Twenty-four minutes. That's all it took to make me feel so awesome. I wore the clothes I wore to work. No fancy running shoes, just my tennies. (Oops, don't do that again, I got a blister, too.) But the effects were short-lived! Barely eighteen hours later and I was fat-shaming myself and eating a brownie because I wanted to feel better and I had already destroyed my body, so what does one more brownie hurt?

Julieeeeeee, you are so smart...you know all the things about what you need to do here....you know what it feels like to feel good and bad, skinny and fat, healthy and sloth. You know how to eat and exercise. Doooooooooooooooooo iiiiitttttttt.

Oh, here's the scale. Well, I held my own, anyway.

I swear I hold the phone the same way every time,
but it's a mystery what orientation the photos will pop in here.

Wednesday Weigh - In: Breaking Point

Ugh, I am fighting depression, hard. What happens to me, physiologically, this time of year? The weather in Seattle has been very cold but sunny. I expect I'm not getting enough light, but it doesn't seem like I'm being shortchanged *that* much!

A very tough week at home, and a very overwhelming couple of weeks at work as I've filled in for my boss. For the first time in the longest time at work, I was utterly stymied with how to complete a project. What a bad feeling that was! My eight year old, Reid, has been very uber-challenging lately, while at the same time making huge strides at school. Greg's mom went into the hospital unexpectedly with heart problems and he has been down in Oregon with her all week. He and I are not doing great right now. Well, he and I are fine, but he continues to struggle with some aspects of living with kids, and I am torn between the realities of there being some improvements we can make, but mostly, kids are kids. These are very, very good kids, but they are definitely kids. It's a take or leave situation. (I assured him, though, that if he leaves, I will never take his call again. There will be no Greg v3.0, haha.)

2014 looms ahead, and I wonder what the New Year will bring us?

I had a bad episode of binge eating on Monday night. It was the weirdest thing, although not anything I haven't experienced before. I took a muscle relaxant before bed as I was having a rare occurrence of back pain. The pill kicked in and in a semi-sleeping state, I chowed down on nearly a whole bag of potato chips and I don't remember what else. I used to take ambien and especially back last January when I hurt my jaw, I was taking these muscle relaxants regularly. For whatever reason, both medications (if taken around bed time, in the case of the muscle relaxants) trigger binge eating in me. Night time eating has always been my biggest downfall. It's interesting that with Greg in the house, I rarely, if ever, munch at night. And as soon as he left the house, the beast was unleashed, hahaha.

It's been a very bad eating week, actually. I started off strong, but a night out with the girls to dinner and a movie on Friday, followed by a very bad Sunday at home, followed by Greg being out of town...well, things fell apart quickly. Wheat thins, potato chips (which I *never* crave), Lindt truffles, and pepperoni sticks were my nemeses of choice.

Okay. What needs to be done here is a pulling oneself up by one's boot straps. Soldier on. While I am feeling very whiny about my life, there's not actually much to whine about. It's a combination of my struggles with this time of year, my generally melodramatic ways and overly active imagination, and life. Not a bad life, just life.

Today, I wore fake Uggs (thank you Grocery Outlet for your $9.99 fake Uggs that my daughter was begging me to give her, haha) with my yoga pants and hoodie. Sabrina, whom you may remember is in charge of my regirlification, saw the Uggs and said, "I'm giving you to the end of the year to turn this around. No more yoga pants, no more bedroom slippers. I want to see Pretty Julie again. I have been very patient." Haha, she is right. I have been slumming it more and more. My hair is a mess (growing out those damn bangs, remember). My clothes don't fit. All my beautiful tall boots - won't fit over my fat calves.

Pulling myself out of the slump - without hard work and concentrated effort, I know it only gets worse from here, not better. This isn't something I can just wait for it to pass, unfortunately.

So, all this a long prelude to here's a picture from the ufcking scale this morning:

Puke.

And just to end things on a positive note, here's a picture of the sunrise out my office window this morning. It was glorious!

You could hear the angels playing their harps, I swear.

Accountability - Food Tracking

Making myself get on the scale and post my weight here each week will do worlds for my accountability. Already, even though I have not seen good results on the scale, haha, I am thinking about that scale photo often during the week.

I've taken another small step toward accountability and hopefully weight loss success. I re-installed that darn MyFitnessPal app on my phone, and I logged in online. Updated my weight, logged my breakfast this morning. Deleted all my "friends" - this was a big part of why I didn't like the app. I hated getting the notifications "so and so hasn't logged in for three days - they might need encouragement." I hated my notifications going out to everyone else. It was NOT motivating for me. Somehow, I was sure I could turn these off, but I never bothered to look. :) I changed my own settings, and by deleting my friend list (none of whom had logged in for months, anyway), I think I've gotten it down to the bare bones "track my food, exercise and weight" that I need it to be.

To successfully lose weight and maintain weight loss, I will probably have to consistently track my eating. I almost wrote "forever," but that gave me an instantly very depressing feeling. :( I hate food tracking with a purple passion. And yet, therein lies success, doesn't it?? Honesty. Acknowledgement of what I'm eating. The pounds slip back on when I allow myself to think "oh, I mostly eat very well." Lies! Damnable lies! :)

I eat tootsie rolls. Peppermint patties. Hershey's Kisses. These are all what's available in my coworker friend's candy jar right now, haha. Mini pretzels. When in my life did I ever eat mini pretzels, and now they are like food from the gods. Deep sigh.

Since Greg and I have been back together, I have gotten into his practical and frugal habit of bringing my lunch nearly every day. The problem? I think I am hungry in the morning, and usually find myself eating my lunch before 10 a.m.! Then I buy lunch! Ack! Counter-productive!! I am eating and spending much more than I otherwise would.

Yesterday, I had the brilliant idea that I cannot bring lunch from home anymore. If the food is not available, I won't eat it, right? And because it takes me a little while to get there, my later thoughts were, "Wait, I could bring lunch and not eat it before lunch time..." which was followed by the argument, "But it's right there, and I am hungry..." to which I countered, "You could put your lunch in the break room fridge and not allow yourself to eat it before lunch." Checkmate. I am soooo smart, sometimes even I am astounded, haha. Yes, usually I keep my lunch right at my desk so anytime my tummy says, "grumble," I am ready and able to stuff my gob.

Today's lunch is in the break room fridge. :) I will not starve to death, even though my tummy has already said I will.

As part of my reacquaintance with MyFitnessPal, I updated my profile picture there. Well, sort of updated. I used a cropped version of this picture, from when I felt great about my weight and body. Not about my saggy tummy skin, haha, but I felt great at this size. Everything worked. Incidentally, I also felt great about Greg's weight at that time, hahaha. I emailed him the picture this morning and maybe he will be inspired to remember that weight. I'd say we're both up 20 pounds from this time back in April 2012.

Motivating picture.

This is the other photo I'm using to motivate myself. It's not a great picture of either of us (as you can't tell who it is, haha), but look how TINY I am. It's also from April 2012, I was about 140 pounds.

I reached my goal weight on 7/31/12...here's a pic. Here's also one from what I want the scale to say again. :)

Goal weight day! 

Alright, I see where I ufcked up. Let's just get this train back on the rails and get moving again. This wasn't that long ago, I can get back here again!

Wednesday Weigh-in: Week Three

When I first got on the scale this morning, I thought my weight held steady this week, but I see that is not the case. Regardless, we're going to call it a win "not loss" because a) it was Thanksgiving Week and I did have two full Thanksgiving dinners, b) the very last thing in the world I wanted to do this morning was get on the scale post a picture of my weight here, but I did it anyway, and c) I have been under a tremendous amount of stress at home with my children and my X (admittedly, some of this stress is self-imposed, haha. Oh, and d) due to this stress and Kim's birthday, I sort of fell into a bottle of wine on Sunday night and drank more than I have in a very long time while we sat on the phone for over an hour laughing and talking. I drank enough that every time I open the fridge and see the remaining wine, my lip spontaneously curls into a sneer, like my old dog Harley did every time you showed him a bottle of Bitter Apple spray. As Greg says, "little people can't drink big bottles of wine." Duly noted, sir.

This is how wine makes me feel. And the scale, too.

Alright, let's just be done with it. Here's my weight for the week:

Apparently, we will always have to turn our heads sideways to see my weight on the blog.
No matter which way I rotate the picture, this is the way it posts, haha.

Wednesday Weigh-In (Urgh. Blech. Retch.)

Oh fine, whatever. Whatever. Jeez.

In my defense My excuses for the week are that we had early Thanksgiving at my parents' on Sunday. I made three pies. Last night I drank way too much wine and maybe I was bloaty.

Mostly, though, I am not exercising and my eating sucks.

The First Step is the Hardest

Ugh, I made myself get on the scale this morning. With a camera in my hand, even! I have been avoiding the scale for weeks now...months, even. I had weighed myself probably three weeks ago and told myself I would weigh myself again "after I've been eating well for a few days."

Well, you know how that goes. My clothes get more and more uncomfortable, I get more and more sad and frustrated, and wah-lah, the scale grows dusty in the bathroom corner.

I'm also calling to make an appointment with my GYN. I was complaining to a friend that I think I'm pre-menopausal (at 43??). I have been getting my damn period (or "flowers," as I have been thinking of it, since I've been reading a fictional book about the life of Josephine Bonaparte, and that's how they refer to it) every two weeks for months now. Blech. My smart friend suggested that perhaps this was worth checking out with a doctor. I will, but I hope it doesn't rob me of my excuse for sitting at her desk scarfing tootsie rolls out of her candy bowl all afternoon! Mmmm, chocolate... 

You may recall that quite some time ago, I had a uterine ablation to deliver a cease and desist order to my overactive uterine lining. It failed, apparently. :) My periods are quite light, but still there, and ever so frequent.

I'm stalling. Who wants to pull up that nasty a$$ picture and look at that ugly number again, bah.

Okay, here goes. Ufck. Pardon my French.

No amount of file manipulation will let me rotate this picture. 

Shake it off. I'm confronting the problem, and the hardest part was getting back on that damn scale. I'll post weekly weigh-in pictures moving forward. I got this.

Tomorrow I'll write a bit about my plan to turn this around. It goes beyond bitching and moaning, haha.

Accountability - Putting it out there

Ack! Things are falling apart here, and I am facing my own demons, realizing the path I am on is a familiar one when it comes to stress, laziness, boredom, and the onset of winter. :)

Thank you, Sheila at This One Body for checking in on me. I have probably a half dozen "draft" blog entries written that I never finished and thus, never posted. I should just start writing shorter blog entries, haha.

Let's see. I have been gaining a lot of weight. Who would have thought this would be possible for me to allow myself to do this, after going through weight loss surgery and very expensive tummy tuck plastic surgery? I am very disappointed in myself.

Excuses:
- G is a phenomenal cook who has been home from work for awhile, following knee surgery. Every dinner is on par with Thanksgiving dinner, it seems like.
- Have I ever, ever, ever told you how much I hate winter? Cold and wet are insufferable to me. And lady, we're just getting started!
- X and I have been battling a fair amount over joint custody issues. We're not really *battling,* I suppose, but we are both struggling and it is really hard and stressful. This is the first time in the four years since we split that I have consulted an attorney.
- I am lazy. I need to find a winter pasttime, because I do not want to do anything outside (unless it is sunny and I am guaranteed not to get cold).
- I realize, and accept, that for me to be really engaged in activity, I need a "spark plug." When I was with Mr. W, I would have toughed out bike riding in the crummy weather. I have always been sure that if I had a local running buddy, I would get more running done.
- I have all but given up on pushing my daughter to work out. She is busy with her first year in high school, her first regular babysitting gig, her debate club practices, volunteering, etc. And, like me, she doesn't prioritize exercise all that high. She needs a spark plug, too, but I am not that spark plug.

Meh. It will all work out. I am trying to work up the courage to do like one of my other favorite blogs, Runs for Cookies, and post a weekly weigh-in photo. It appears to be the only way I'll get myself on that friggin' scale. I haven't been on it in probably three weeks, and now I am too skeered. My clothes are all so damn tight, too. Bah.

Whine, whine, whine. I am struggling right now, that's not unusual for me this time of year. I will figure it out. :)

On a positive note, a woman in my office is having WLS (bypass) from my surgeon right before Christmas. I like to think that my success has been a big motivator for her, and I am feeling a certain sense of "responsibility" to be a good WLS veteran by working through my struggles.