The Clean Plate Club

"Waste not, want not."

"Don't you know there are children starving all over the world?"

"If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding.  How can you have any pudding if you won't eat your meat??"

I don't know about you but I'm a card carrying member of The Clean Plate Club.  This is why buffets are so dangerous for me.  If I pay $8 for all I can eat, I'm going to eat all I can.  But sadly it applies to every single thing I eat.  Portion control?  I don't need no stinkin portion control.  I paid for it, I'm gonna eat it.

I've tried the tricks.  Use a smaller plate.  Take half the order home.  But the hardest thing I ever did was learn to walk away without cleaning the plate.  If I'm full, I need to stop eating.  I can leave some on the plate to "save room for dessert".  I never understood that term before - dessert was always the reward for a sparkly clean plate.

I remember my California days where we'd go to eat at the Sizzler known for their  great salad bar.  If only it were salad that were on it.  They had pasta and fried chicken wings and my favorite, deep fried corn fritters.  (Pardon me whilst I wipe the drool from my chin).  And my kids made a complete value of the price of admission by eating their weight in soft serve ice cream.  If I paid that $6.95, I was going to eat at least $15.50's worth.

And let's not even get me started on Vegas, the Buffet Capital of the World.  Picture it:  The Mirage, 2000.  My kids brought plate after plate stuffed high with shrimp and crab legs... so did I!  Where else can you eat all the seafood you want for about $15?  I nearly had to be rolled out of the Fremont Hotel's Seafood Buffet.  And one day I'll get into the Great Champagne Incident at the Sahara.  Needless to say if you put a bargain loving Clean Plate card carrying gal in a city of excess, you're bound to have problems.

So to all the starving children in the world, and to my mother, I hereby apologize for ripping up my Clean Plate Club card.   These extra pounds aren't alieviating world hunger, and I'd much rather see those numbers in the scale go down rather than find my reflection on the bottom of the plate.

Calories: 1911 / 29% fat
Sodium: 2537mg
Water: 72oz
Exercise: 1.5 mile walk, ab roller, Pilates

Foiling the Con Artist

See that girl there?  She's an excellent con artist.  If you give her enough time to figure out an excuse that can get her out of uncomfortable situations, she'll come up with some humdingers of cons to get her way.  Optimum comfort, that's her game.

Last week I didn't get in any exercise to speak of because I let too much time pass between thinking "I need to exercise" and getting out the door.  If I let those crucial minutes pass, I'll come up with tons of excuses to pass on doing what I least like to do.  This week I've made it a point to just do it.  (Thank you Nike)  If I think, "I should go on a walk today," I immediately start putting on my shoes and head toward the door.  If I think, "I need to do Pilates,"  I move that coffee table and press play on my Pilates tape.  If I don't, that con you see up there will do her level best to talk me out of it.

Well I showed her.  Today I went to GNC and weighed in at 290 lbs!!  That's another two pound loss since Friday.  We are doing it... I really believe drinking the water and watching the sodium is key - because it's the only thing I'm doing differently.  Thank you Fitday.com!

Now it's official.  I have 145lbs to get to 145.  I have to lose me to get to me. LOL  But I'm so excited that a few more ounces from now I can say that I have less to lose than I want to weigh.  A pretty big milestone if you ask me.

I just gotta keep that con woman under control.  One day she'll thank me.

Calories: 1770 / 21% fat
Sodium: 2734mg
Water: 68oz
Exercise: walked 1.5 miles, ab roller

Fat Unhappy Kids

One of my weight loss pals, Dave of The Big Fat Loser's Diet, talked about a study that had the surprising results that fat kids are unhappy.  Like Dave, my first response is "Duh!".  My second response is, as usual, this study has the cart before the horse.

Fat kids aren't unhappy because they're fat. 

They're fat because they're unhappy.  Eating is how they cope with it.   When you deal with an overweight child/teen, you're dealing with so much more than developing a healthy lifestyle.  You gotta find out what is the root of that symptom of weight.  If you don't, your overweight child/teen is going to become an overweight adult.  I know of what I speak.

Fat kids do not corner the market on ridicule either.  I think everyone gets made fun of for something or the other.  They're either too tall, too short, too thin, too fat, too rich, too poor, too ugly, too pretty.  That's how kids relate to each other.  (and some "adults" too).

I actually quit school because of a weight related issue.  I was a 210lb freshman in high school in my first co-ed P.E. class, and we were required to wear shorts.  If that wasn't bad enough, the coach was someone who used to coach football at my old junior high, and now he was demoted to a general PE class. 

I was not able to do what the other average weight students could do, and the coach was unyeilding.  If I couldn't run the entire mile and started walking half way through, he'd make the whole class run it over again.  I went to school a total of 26 days between September and November (my 16th birthday).  I tried to convince the coach to give me a break, but he thought I should "want" to be healthier and pushed me hard.  I even told the associate principal.  He didn't have any sympathy either.  So I quit. 

I went back and got my GED when I was 17 with no real remorse for missing the experience that is high school.   At the rate I was going, my prom would have made Carrie's experience look totally pre-school.

It's not what our kids are eating.  It's what's eating our kids.  (thank you Dr. Phil)  Figure that out and you'll have a healthier, happier child.

Calories: 1903 / 24% fat
Sodium: 2667mg
Water: 89oz
Exercise: Walked 3 miles, ab toner, Pilates

Human Being in Progress

It was an eye opener to realize that I wasn't the same person I was a mere few months ago, directly due to the fact I've lost 58lbs.  That person is not the same person that Steven met or even married.  And it won't be the same person I'll be when I lose 50 more lbs or even meet my weight loss goal. 

I think what I have found most is by taking away the weight I'm taking away the numbness that armor provided.  When I get hurt now I feel it and I have to address it.  This is my biggest growing pain, because it hasn't quite gelled yet that I'm worth more than that.  Bottom line, I was afraid to take risks.  I used being fat as an excuse to skate by without having to do the work that could make my life what I always knew it could be.

In fact I've sheltered myself away for so long to minimize the damage social contact could cause and what I've done is imprisoned not just me, but my family.  It's no wonder they're acting out the way they have.

So I need to make a conscious effort to embrace these risks.  Life is not truly living without it.  And that's one of the big reasons I decided to get serious and lose the weight anyway.  As much as I'd like to pass on the responsibility for things that have gone on recently, I have to realize I do have a part to play.  It all takes work. 

We fall in love by chance, but we keep in love by action.  I have to make life a verb.

Calories: 1913 / 13% fat
Sodium: 2656mg
Water: 69oz
Exercise: ab toner

The Price of Being Honest, Pt 2.

Quite honestly I was proud of him for doing it, even though I suspected he could get pretty beat up for it.  Unfortunately most of Steven's reponses tend to come when he admits a goofup, and they are very stern.  Again it comes back to the price of opening up your life to the world.  I guess I'm more afraid that he's going to find his journal to be a place he goes to get consistantly beat up rather than built up and he will abandon the effort entirely.  Which I think would be a sad thing.  Especially since he's using his journal mostly to deal with the issues he needs to change, and not the day to day grind like I do.

I appreciate the support I get from this journal and all the people who have let me into their lives.  When I fall down, I get support.  In fact there were times I admitted my own goofups here and I knew for sure I was going to get beat down myself, only to hear positive reinforcement that encouraged me to pick myself up and brush myself off and try again.  The first negative comment I did get was months into it, after I was over the initial fear of being condemned or judged or ridiculed - and I'm so glad that's the way it worked out.  Otherwise I too might have abandoned this journal and ultimately abandoned the weight loss journey altogether. 

I'm not saying you can't speak your mind in regards to events that are posted here.  That would also defeat the purpose of these journals as accountability tools.  I guess what I'd like to see more of is the understanding you've extended to me here be given to Steven as well, and to realize it's far easier to sit in judgment of someone else's actions than it is to muster the courage to post your failings to the world. 

And I believe that anyone who earnestly wants to change should be given the room to grow (and fall) with encouragement and support.  Otherwise love is conditional and not really love at all.  That's the kind of love I'm attempting to build with Steven.  A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.  A love that never ends.

The Price of Being Honest, Pt. 1

Whenever you put your life out there for mass consumption you run the risk of being criticized or judged for how you conduct yourself.  Growing up in an intensely critical household, this was a big step for me to come and share my life, my journal and in particular all the disappointments or times I fell short with the world.  There were times I second guessed sharing so much, but then I have to remind myself that the reason this journal is such an asset to my journey is that I'm unflinchingly honest.  Not just when I break down and eat a Whataburger, but anything and everything that affects an emotional overeater like myself to conquer her addictive behavior.

My husband Steven has a lot of the same issues that I have, and hasn't quite embraced journaling as the tool it could be - but he has made some huge strides.  No one is more shocked than I am about his brutal honest approach to his own failings.  I have to be honest here and tell you that I'm not sure I could do what he's done.  He's laid all of his faults on the line without really pointing out what he's done that's good.  He struggles with some issues, it's true.  It's why he is in therapy, it's why we're doing a lot of work behind the scenes of these journals to renegotiate our relationship in such a way that neither one of us has to lose who we are for the other person.  Because I don't believe that's what love is about.  And it may end up we won't even stay together even though we do love each other and want it to work.  Right now it's a work in progress.  But then again, so are both of us.

We had a breakthrough the other night that as this journey continues, I'm not the same person that I was and that directly affects my relationship and how Steven reacts to the relationship.  These are things that I haven't brought to the table because I am working them out with Steven directly.  As was the whole poker/gambling thing - which is why I never brought it up even though I knew about it before he posted his journal entry about it.  That entry wasn't to appease me, but to deal with the issue he felt he needed to address in his journal that day.  It took a great deal of courage to post it when he didn't have to, and to me it showed he really is making the effort to live a more honest life - not just for me but for himself.

How do you say no to a face like this??

Well today Winston's prayers were answered and we finally went to the park.   He was so good and obedient too, as though he thought if he misbehaved it would be another long stretch between walks.  He understands the "stay" command, and in fact anticipates the command whenever we approach a situation I normally use it (like when we hit the curb, he'll wait for me without me having to tell him to stay).  I decided today to teach him "left" and "right", since it's a delicate choreograph routine to walk amidst all the joggers, the other people with dogs, people on skates, people on bikes - etc.  So I'd pull him to the left and say "to the left, to the left" or keep him tight to the right and say, "to the right, to the right".  Pretty soon I told him "to the right" and he crossed over from my left to walk on my right side.  He's so smart!!!! 

I measured today and I'm down another three inches for the week.  The girth, she be shrinking.  I'm pretty excited about that.  I also got the contraption you see in the pics above to help matters a bit.  My nephew swears by it, and he has my sister and his girlfriend using it for five reps a day.  I can totally tell the difference in the girlfriend, so I thought, why not?  I can do five reps.  And the upper body could use some... liftin and tonin.  Let's just say my 18 hour bra requires a ten minute smoke break every half hour. 

It was tough to get out and walk today.  Not necessarily bad once I got out to the alley and on my way, but gathering up the initiative to get to the alley - that wasn't easy.  My Pilates ball glares from me from its dusty perch over in the corner.  Ah, hell.  It's not as guilt rendering as a couple of brown Pug eyes that seem to scream, "Why don't you love me anymore, Mommy?", but it's time to remind myself there is no try.  There is do or do not.

I'm gonna do it.

Calories: 1475 / 18% fat
Sodium: 2314mg
Water: 81oz
Exercise: walked 3 miles, ab toner, Pilates