#130 Simply Obese (190.0)

What a crazy week I just had. My apologies for being so neglectful of this blog and my fellow challenge bloggers, I wish that I had more time to be more active in the group and more supportive of my group members this month, but you know it goes. Life gets in the way.

I weighed in at 190 this week, a 1.6 pound loss, which I will happily accept. I did see a lower number earlier this week, but with my move my scale is now on a different surface and we all know that the position of the scale actually does make a difference. That being said this is still an awesome weigh in! At 190 I have reached my 5th mini-goal, I have lost 63 pound total, and, according to the BMI lords, I am no longer severely obese I am simply obese. Hooray!

Exercise has been...sparse. My elliptical has been packed away in storage with the rest of my belongings and I spent most of last week moving out the final boxes from my apartment and getting situated at my parent's house. I brought Paul the ball with my to my new temporary home, but have yet to get down on the floor and do some crunches.

I'm not going to lie, I miss the workout momentum I was once experiencing. There were a few months there were I worked out five days a week, regardless of life or anything that was going on, and now I'd be happy to get in one or two, just to say that I did something.

Luckily, tomorrow is the first of the month so I have a fresh start to look forward to. I've decided my May goal will be to start up the Couch to 5K program again. I think I'm going to pick it up around week 4 and see how that goes. If it's too easy I'll skip ahead to week five and if it's too hard I'll drop back to week three and start again from there. I think the structure of three workouts a week will be a good way to get me back into the gym routine while I try and get everything else sorted out.

I'm still looking for a job, and the lead I thought I had last week has fallen quiet so I don't really know what's going to happen with that. Everyone is after me to find a job now and I'm struggling to find something that will let me use my degree. My parents are urging me to not settle for a job that sort of applies to my field, but at the same time everyone is expecting me to land a great job right out of school and I don't see that happening.

I've got two weeks of school left, and only a few major projects left to complete. I managed to get out of one pretty huge project so that's one less thing to worry about while I job hunt. Despite all of this, I feel lazy and a little hopeless right now. I just need to keep plugging away and make sure that I take care of myself while taking care of everything else.

Hope everyone else is doing well, I'll be making the rounds this afternoon to try and catch up on everyone's progress. Best of luck to everyone in the May challenge! We're 1/3 of the way through the year!

#129 Look What I Can Do! (191.6)

Through some kind of miracle, I weighed in at 191.6 this week. I'm not sure where the 3.6 pound loss came from. I like to think that I burn an amazing amount of calories sitting on my butt, but my brains says that it was part my period finally passing and maybe a little bit of muscle loss from the lack of working out. Whatever it is, I'll take it. I'm half way to my end goal now, and if I lose 1.5 pounds a week I can be there by my 22nd birthday, which is completely do-able.

I didn't make it to the gym today for a number of reasons I don't care to bore you with just now. I did get on the elliptical at home though, so today wasn't a complete loss. I figure I'm getting in some good exercise going up and down all these stairs with boxes of my things. Moving counts as exercise right?

You guys...I've lost 61 pounds. I can't even comprehend that number. I know what 20 pounds looks like, but 60 pounds just blows my mind. I'm a little freaked out by my own body. Sometimes I wonder what's going on in there this time that wasn't all the other times I've tried to lose weight. I'll stand in front of the mirror, admiring how my boobs, for the first time in my life, stick out farther than my belly and wonder what's different this time.

Every time I do something new that I couldn't do before I feel this incredible sense of pride. When I crossed my legs tonight at dinner all I could do was look around and see if anyone noticed, like "Look! Look what I can do!" and then I realize that most people can cross their legs and not think twice. But for me every new NORMAL thing I can do is just...fascinating. Watch me go up and down the stairs with heavy boxes and not lose my breathe. Look at my collar bones which now stick out whether I hunch my shoulders or not. Look! Isn't it all just amazing?

Today I wore a tank top and shorts out in the sun and felt completely content. I feel more and more normal every single day and I can't believe how great it feels to be completely average.

#128 Ready For Next Week to Begin

Arg! I've typed and deleted five different entries in here tonight and I just can't seem to say anything worth saying.

So, in short.

I went on a job interview and I looked really good and left feeling totally awesome about it.

I haven't worked out in forever (bold AND italic for emphasis), but I'm going to the gym tomorrow I swear and I think I'm going to start the Cto5K over again and not pansy out this time.

I've made my peace with moving in with the parents and have commenced the packing.

I've regained control of my food and feel really good about it. That freak out from earlier this week feels so insignificant and far away that I feel kind of stupid for freaking out in the first place.

I turned down brownies, ice cream, cheese, crackers, chocolate, trail mix, excess booze, a third slice of pizza, and many other things in the past few days. And I feel no regret or yearning for any of them.

It's finally warming up around here and I am so excited to wear tank tops and skirts and not feel like I should be ashamed of my body.

I got maybe two hours of sleep last night and am going to bed right now so that I can get up early and go to the gym before class. Because I'm going to the gym tomorrow. I am. I am I am I am.

#127 Life is Hard

Thank you all for your comments on my last frantic sob-story of a post. I've calmed down some since then and am trying to get a grip. Food was much better today and I'm trying to find better ways to deal with the current stress I'm under.

So, here's the deal.

Last week my apartment building was sold. The building had been owned by my family for about a billion years and when my great-grandmother died her kids (my grandmother included) decided they didn't want to deal with tenants and put the building up for sale. Then, without telling the tenants anything, the building changed ownership and the next thing I know my rent has been quadrupled and I have about 3 weeks to come up with a security deposite and next month's rent which is now more weekly then I was paying monthly. So, I've been trying to find a new apartment and it's becoming more and more clear to me that I just can't afford to live on my own anymore. With no roommate prospects in the very near future, my only option is to move back home. Which I will be doing some time in the next two weeks.

I have three weeks of school left before I graduate. With the end of the semester comes finals and all the big gross projects and it's really the last thing I have on my mind right now since I have to pack up my life and move with barely any notice. A professor of mine had asked me to take on this pretty huge project and now I'm feeling guilty about having to tell him I just don't have the time to take it on right now. I wish that I could do the project because it would be so awesome to have it for my portfolio, but I just can't wrap my head around something extra when I'm barely finishing up the normal curriculum.

I need a job. Desperately. My parents don't seem very stressed or worried about the face that I'm unemployed and basically living off of them, but it really doesn't sit well with me to be so dependent on them. The only thing I want in my life right now is some independence and now I have to move back into their house - the exact opposite of being independent as far as I'm concerned.

My sister and her husband are in the same boat I'm in. Strapped for cash and now looking for a new place to live with not nearly enough time to do it properly. They're looking for a house and while I wish them the very best and hope they find an awesome home, I am so incredibly sad that my sister is moving away from me. She is the person I call when I'm freaking out, the only person who will drop everything for me and show up with a bottle of wine and some laughs if it's what I need. I'm really having a hard time dealing with the thought of being so far away from her.

The plan right now is to take things one day at a time. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the gym in the morning, then I'm going to come home and email my resume all over the damn place. After that I'm going to start going through my stuff and throwing out as much excess as possible.

I promise this is the last whiney post I'm going to throw up here for awhile. Life kind of smacked me in the face this past week, but I'm trying to deal as best I can.

#126 How The Mighty Fall (195.2)

I'm so upset right now. This week I'm house-sitting for my grandparents while they're out of town and I've been really really bad about food. It's strange how being alone and out of your element can really throw you for a loop. I thought I'd be able to handle myself amongst the cookies and brownies and pastas and every other delicious morsel that is tucked away at my grandparents but I'm doing about as bad as a person can do. How bad? Eating tacos like I'm some kind of speed eating champ, eating giant bowls of pasta with tons of meatballs, more ice cream then I think I've ever consumed, too many brownies to count, little pieces of chocolate here and there, and a whole mess of cheese and crackers.

When I weighed myself Saturday morning I was 191 pounds which would have marked this as a really amazing 4+ pound loss week, but no. I had to go to my grandmother's house and in the span of less than 2 days I was back up to 195. I feel like such a failure. Who gains four pounds in less than two days!?

I guess I can get over only losing .2 pounds this week, but I'm pretty terrified that I've lost whatever I had that was making me do so well. You know - motivation & will-power. I left my grandmother's this morning and came back to my apartment - just to get away from the food for awhile. As soon as I got home I sat down on my couch and just burst out sobbing. I feel awful. Just when I thought I was winning this battle I realize that when faced with a real challenge I might not do as well as I wish I could.

I have to go back there tonight, to a dark house that's full of nothing but trigger foods. If I don't write again before Friday, you should assume that I have drowned in a gallon of cranberry cheesecake ice cream.

#125 God Bless You, Mr.Vonnegut

A sad day. My favorite author Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday at the age of 84. It's hard to really say how sad I feel about this. His books inspired me, his writing made me laugh and cry and his ideas made me think and explore my own beliefs about everything - politics, art, love, science, war, death, and human nature. He just seemed like the coolest, crankiest, goofiest old guy in the world and I'm so sad that he's gone.




THURSDAY THIRTEEN #2
Thirteen Stories by Vonnegut You Should Read

1. Slaughterhouse-Five - my all time favorite. I've read it maybe six times and wrote a paper on it in high school. About the bombing of Dresden, a boy named Billy Pilgrim who wanders unwillingly and aimlessly through time, and many other satirical themes.

2. Cat's Cradle - the most popular Vonnegut novel that just about every college student has read. About religion, the atomic bomb, an a substance called ice-nine that solidifies at room temperature.

3. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - A book about Eliot Rosewater, a drunk heir who is too kind-hearted for his own good and may or may not be insane.

4. Breakfast of Champions - The book that made Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter-ego, famous. Trout is an aging science fiction writer with very limited success and only one fan and in this book he encounters a car salesman and hilarity ensures.

5. Mother Night - "In Mother Night Vonnegut makes fun of sex, and motherhood; of war and peace, of the FBI and Communists; and the Nazi's too."

6. God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian - Vonnegut, with the help of Kevorkian, is made almost dead and spends his time in-between life and death interviewing dead folks. Some of the interviewees include William Shakespeare, Eugene Victor Deb, Sir Isaac Newton, James Earl Ray (Martin Luther King's assassin), and Mary Shelley.

7. Bagombo Snuff Box - A collection of short stories. Meet George Hemholtz, the kind band director who lives for music in "The No-Talent Kid" and "The Boy Who Hates Girls" and experience a story that is pure Vonnegut in "2BR02B".

8. Welcome to the Monkey House - Another collection of short stories. While all the stories in this collection are wonderful the story "Harrison Bergeron" is most striking as it explores a "Utopian" society where everyone - whether they like it or not - is created equal.

9. Player Piano - Vonnegut's first novel about a world run by machine. Published in 1952 its an interesting look into the possibilities of new technology and a scary glimpse into a world ruled by machines. When you think about how much of our lives are automated this book is almost chilling.

10. Jailbird - A story about Walter Starbuck, who is simultaneously in and out of control of his own life. Written in an autobiographical style, we watch Walter from the sidelines as he goes through the ebbs and flows of his life jumping - in true Vonnegut fashion - from the past the present the future.

11. Galapagos - The passengers on the Bahia de Darwin become the Adam and Eves when the boat sinks while cruising to the Galapagos Islands. Probably the most difficult Vonnegut book to work through, but if you dig hard enough you will find the wry charm buried beneth the ecological devices that make this book what it is.

12. Hocus Pocus - A book that is not for first time Vonnegut readers, but more for those who are use to his style and prepared for his mockery. Some of the themes in this book include racism, crime, education, socialism, alcoholism, and many more. A complicated little novel.

13. Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons - A collection of opinions from the man himself. This is a rare direct opening into Vonnegut's mind, where his ideas aren't cloaked under his Kilgore Trout's disguise. Includes reviews, essays, and speeches.

As if that isn't evidence enough of my love for this man, here's a look at my Vonnegut collection:

#124 Trusting The Machine (195.4)

Is time flying by at an increased rate or is that just me? I feel like I just posted a weigh-in a day or two ago, but no, it's been a whole week. Crazy. This morning I weighed in at 195.4, down .6 pounds for the week. Hey, it's a loss so I'll take it.

I've been wondering lately how accurate my caloric calculations are. I'm pretty precise about everything I eat, but there are some things that never seem to make it into the calculations, mostly because I'm usually too lazy to figure out how many calories are in a few sips of something, or a tiny nibble, or one single cracker. Coffee, for example, is something that I drink on occasion but never bother to calculate the creamer because I don't use very much.

As it turns out, my occasional coffee is probably racking up 100-300 (if I have more then one cup) calories because of the creamer.

And what about exercise equipment? Does the calorie counter on the machine have any credibility?

I assume the machines that ask for your weight are more accurate, but even then what do those machines know other then some formula that gives you an approximation. When I do an hour on the elliptical at the gym it says I burn about 850 calories, at home it's 825, on FitDay it's worth 601, and here 1001.

That difference between 1001 calories and 601 is 2 cups of coffee with creamer!

I guess it doesn't really matter in the end, so long as you're doing it and putting in the effort. But for a person who works out those numbers every single day, I'm certainly interested in how accurate those calculations are.

Do you trust your equipment?

#123 In Which Life Gets Interesting

First, a happy Easter holiday to all out in blog land. I hope you all had the chance to spend time with your family and eat delicious holiday food and avoid your cousin who smells a little strange. I know I did! I wore the cutest outfit ever to my family's festivities, my favorite part of it being the size 16 jeans that make my butt look fabulous. Hurrah!

The past couple of days have just been a whirlwind. Just as things are coming to a close at school I've been informed that the building I live in is being sold and there's a good chance once the papers are signed I'll have 30 days to vacate. So between pulling together all of my academic stuff, feeling the pressure of needing to find a job pronto, and now apartment hunting I've just been all over the place.

Because of the hectic pace at which things seem to be happening right now my eating hasn't been nearly as strict as it once was. I'm cooking some fish right now which will be the first meal I've cooked at home in over three days. I'm certainly applying the portion size rules and saying a polite no thanks to things I know I shouldn't be eating, but it's hard to accomplish perfection when you're on the run.

I also haven't been working out as feverishly as I once did, for the same reasons. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get my act together and return to the gym and if I'm feeling up to it tonight I hope to get on the elliptical for at least 30 minutes, just to keep up the momentum of working out. I did get in three solid workouts during this past week, and one day I shoveled snow for over an hour which I counted as my exercise for the day since I was soaked with sweat afterwards.

I guess all of this sounds a little like a disclaimer, just in case I don't happen to lose any weight this week. For some reason I'm suddenly not very concerned about the number and I'm more concerned about making sure I get everything done that's planned for the day and trying to get some sleep. Basically, I'm accomplishing my April goal of hanging in there. Things get a little crazy some times so I guess this will be good practice for keeping my weight/health in check in times of mayhem.

Hope everyone's weekend went well!

#122 Thursday Thirteen #1

Holy crap it really snowed last night. Snow day!

---

Saw this over at Cory'sblog and thought it might be a good thing to start doing each week. I'd like to try and take this blog a little beyond the fat and fitness at it's core and make it a little more personal. Without further ado:

THURSDAY THIRTEEN #1
Last Thirteen Movies I Watched

1. Phenomenon - Caught this movie on Bravo one night when they were doing a John Travolta marathon. I don't usually go for this kind of movie but it was cute and sort of sad so I got sucked in. I'll admit it, I got a little teary towards the end.

2. Fear - A young Reese Witherspoon dates basically the worst guy in the world who eventually ends up threatening her entire family. After watching the roller coaster scene I'll never be able to see the Witherspoon the same again.

3. Overnight Delivery - I'm a sucker for anything Paul Rudd (who pretty much embodies, physically, everything I want in a man) so I had to watch this when I spotted it on tv. Funny, but dated. A good fluff movie to kill some boredom.

4. 300 - 10% romance 10% story of bravery 80% partial nudity. A truly beautiful movie, not only for the hot men, but for the entire tone of the film. Marketed as a guy movie, but my girl friends and I really liked it.

5. Black Snake Moan - Crazy Indie flicks are my passion, so I was really excited to see this film. It was nice to see Morgan Freeman in something that wasn't completely lame (Snakes on a Plane anyone?) and Christina Ricci did a really great job with her role.

6. Clerks - I watched this movie a long time ago and thought it was really dumb and poorly made. Watching it now, a little older, a little wiser, I actually thought it was funny and could appreciate the sort of low budget dialog driven awesomeness of the movie.

7. Pan's Labyrinth - So pretty, so sad, so magical. A really wonderful movie that everyone should see.

8. What The #$*! Do We Know!? - One night in Spain, after four bottles of wine, my friends and I got into a really interesting discussion about quantum uncertainty and this film was recommended to me. It certainly makes you think about life and how much of what we do is up to us.

9. Leaving Las Vegas - I'm not much of a Nick Cage fan (except for the Weather Man, which I really liked) but I was surprised at how much I liked this movie. It was abrasive and upsetting, which, in my opinion, is usually a good quality in this kind of movie.

10. This Film is Not Yet Rated - A documentary about the rating systems set up by the MPAA and the secrecy surrounding the process of getting a film rated. Very interesting and made a lot of really great points about the faults in the rating system.

11. Enduring Love - I saw a preview for this somewhere and added it to my Netflix. It made it to the top of my queue without being bumped somehow and I was really surprised at how good it was. It's about fate and love and relationships and disasters and responsibility. Excellent acting, and a really intriguing story.

12. Valley of the Dolls - I'm told this movie and the book it's based on were a pretty big deal back in the day. The movie was campy and dramatic and good retro-pill-popping fun.

13. Half Nelson - Watched this late last night when I couldn't fall asleep. Ryan Gosling was nominated for - and won - the Best Actor Independent Spirit Award for his work in this and it was definitely deserved. His character is interesting to watch and his interactions with his co-star Shareeka Epps were hopeful and heartbreaking all at once. A great movie.

#121 A Cold, Blustery Day

Things are pretty quiet (translation: boring) around here lately. I haven't really been busy with anything specific, but I feel like I'm constantly on the go. At the same time I feel completely bored with everything right now. I'm suffering from an ennui that I can't pinpoint. It's a combination of senioritis and my basic human needs not being met.

It started snowing this afternoon, the last snow of the season according to my grandfather the human almanac, which derailed any plans for going to the gym today. I didn't really mind since I was hesitant to go anyhow due to a blister a bit bigger than a quarter on the instep of my right foot that has basically progressed into a hole of sensitive, sore, new skin. It is gigantic. I had to use one of those massive band-aids that are usually saved for road rash just to cover it up.

Food was kind of weird for me today. I'm not sure if it was the gross weather or just a blah day, but I wasn't hungry at all for the first half of the day and then once 4:00 hit I was completely famished. I ended up going to the grocery store and picking up some beer and a rotisserie turkey breast (because I'm a fraternity brother? I'm not sure.) and picked at that this evening. Not exactly the most nutritiously concious day of eating, but what are you gonna do? I guess the plus side is that when you're dieting you can totally get buzzed off of one beer. Excellent.

Right now I'm going to do my best to fight off the impending tryptophan coma and strap on my sneakers to do some work on the old elliptical (which my dad fixed for me yesterday! The joy! The rapture!). I know I said in the paragraph above that I had a beer buzz, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to operate the equipment without doing too much damage. Hopefully.

Shout out to my April partners: Amber, Christy, and Cory!

#120 Baby Got Back (196)

Weigh-In Monday and the scale is bouncing all over the place. I got several different numbers and after averaging them out landed on 196lbs for the week, which makes a 1.2 pound loss for the week. Not too shabby considering my spark has been a little dull these past few days.

My parents recently gave me some of my baby stuff. My first haircut hair, a few pieces of jewelry, and a calendar that my mom filled out during my first year. Most of it isn't that interest, things like "Rolled over!" or "Went to the beach with cousins!", but there was one that caught my eye. July 24th, 1986 I had a doctor's appointment and written under the doctor's name and time of appointment is one little word: "overweight".

Ironically, my mom also recorded a lot of what I was eating that year. The week before I was determined to be "overweight" I had beef, ice cream, and french toast with maple syrup for the first time. I guess it was all down hill from there.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of being overweight at five months old. When I pointed it out to my parents they laugh and then my dad said "If we'd known what was going to happen we would have put you on a diet right then." Would that have been the appropriate thing to do? Probably not. But that one word, right there in my baby calendar, pretty much summed up my physical state for the next twenty one years.

It also makes me realize what I'm up against. In trying to lose weight I'm working against everything my body has ever known. It sounds sort of strange, but it's like trying to start all over again from scratch. A physical re-birth if you will. I've got this blog and Fitday as my calendar this time around, and all over it are metaphorical stickers and notes: "First 1 mile run", "First time under the 200s", "First blister", "First muscle pain from lifting weights", "First attempt to eat responsibly". I can't wait to look back on this years from now and say "Yea, that was a good year."