Unhappiness Is A Bitch.

Me: God I feel like crap.
Unhappiness: Yep.  And you look like it too.
Me: Why can't I just stay on top of this?
Unhappiness: Because you suck and you're a failure.
Me: Why does it seem that normal people can manage their eating and weight just fine, while I fail miserably?
Unhappiness: Because you're abnormal.
Me: Ugh.
Unhappiness: You're fat and you can't do anything about it.  You're increasingly round and booths seem too small.  I will suck all the energy and life out of you.  And there is nothing you can do about it.

Unhappiness is a Bitch.  Seriously, this is what my inner dialogue sounds like, and I doubt I'm alone.  A friend once asked me, if the thoughts that go through your head came out of a real person, would you be friends with her?  Hell no, she's a bitch! 

I do struggle with my ass.  Not just the struggle of getting rid of it, I struggle with it's existence.  I struggle with my own existence.  I'm not suicidal or anything like that, but I see the appeal.  I wish I could just end here and start life over.  I wish I could do things differently.  I wish I had learned as a child the things I know now.  I struggle with my ass and it's not because I don't know how to get rid of it, in theory.  It's because I don't feel emotionally equipped to juggle everything.  I feel like I'm incapable of working full time, keeping my house clean, maintaining relationships, as well as eat healthy and exercise.  It's entirely overwhelming to me.  I'm exhausted as it is.  I struggle with working 40 hours a week and going home just to do my dishes.  I feel so alone in feeling this way.  How do people do it?

What Am I Eating This Week?

Not only to illustrate how I'm following my plan but also to help me stay on track, I'm going to start writing posts on What Am I Eating This Week. 

Now that you know the portions of protein, fat, starch, and veggies that should be consumed on my plan, wanna see how it translates to every day life?  It's really pretty awesome.

Coffee is probably my most consistent downfall because I'm still using CoffeeMate creamer.  I heart CoffeeMate creamer.  Especially in the winter when they have the peppermint flavor.  Yum.  So, I drink coffee daily with about 2 tablespoons of creamer and 1 spoonful of real sugar.

Breakfast

• Two whole eggs, one or two pieces of pre-cooked bacon, and 1-2 tablespoons of mexican style cheese.  I cook up my eggs in the microwave either in a mug or gladware bowl after I've gotten to work.
• A tangelo.  If you haven't tried tangelos, do it.  I don't usually have fruit in the morning though.  This is a special week because the tangelos looked particularly tempting at the store.  I eat the tangelo immediately after the eggs.  (Protein goes with fruit, it keeps your blood sugar from spiking!)
• Sugar snap peas.  I eat these straight out of the bag for about an hour.

Lunch

• A salad consisting of butter lettuce, 4 oz. pre-cooked steak strips, 1/2 cup black beans, 2 tablespoons full fat chipotle southwestern salad dressing.  This is an awesome salad.
• More sugar snap peas.  Basically the bag is on my desk all day and I'm munching off and on.

PM Snack

• 1/2 cup Greek Gods vanilla honey greek yogurt, mixed with mandarin oranges.

Dinner

• Greek chicken stew.  This covers my protein and veggies.  It contains carrots and artichoke hearts.
• 1/2 cup brown rice (mixed in with the stew)
• 1-2 tablespoons full fat sour cream (also with the stew. which makes it super yummy and decadent.)

And that's it!  I have also been snacking a bit on the cake batter puppy chow I made last weekend, but just here and there. :)  Seeing it laid out like this makes me feel like it's not much food, but it certainly keeps me full and satisfied!

Color key: protein, fat, starch, veggies, fruit.

More On My Plan

A had a request for more information on my diet, so I thought I would explain my plan in more detail.  Planning is essential to my own success, because when I don't plan, I don't do well.  I tend to write out my grocery list on Thursday or Friday, and I buy what I plan to cook or have for snacks for the following week.  So, what do I aim for when I'm planning my week?

Balanced meals should include 4 oz. protein, 1-2 tablespoons fat, 1/2 cup starch, and at least 1-2 cups veggies.  Snacks can be 2 oz protein with 1/2 cup fruit (greek yogurt + fruit), 1/2 cup fruit with a fat (berries + heavy cream), half a protein smoothie, veggies with 1-2 tablespoons fat (broccoli + ranch dip), etc.

Most people know what a good protein is.  Beef, chicken, pork, eggs, fish.  What do I mean by fat?  Full fat dressing.  Real butter.  Cream.  Olive oil.  Coconut oil.  Cheese.  Coconut milk.  You know, all that good stuff you thought you were supposed to cut out when on a diet.

What is a starch?  By this I mean a grain or a starchy veggie.  Rice, quinoa, potato, winter squash, corn, peas.

Non-starchy veggies are unlimited.  Try new stuff!  Kale, beets, asparagus, summer squash.  Of course there are the good old standbys like tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, sugar snap peas.  I'm not a huge veggie person, but I eat sugar snap peas like freaking candy.  Or instead of candy. (Yep, Sweet Tooth Sylvie has chosen a veggie over candy.)


Here are some major changes that I've made:

Switched from faux sugar to real sugar.  In an effort to save calories I started using Stevia in the Raw because it wasn't so fakey tasting.  When I met with the RD, she explained that stuff like that takes out all the good stuff and fills it up with extra carbs.  So I switched back to using real sugar.

Went from low fat/non fat foods to whole fat.  Again, same concept as the sugar.  All the good stuff is removed from the food and replaced with junk. 

Drink more water.  This isn't really a change for me because I've been a big water drinker for a long time now, but I've noticed that in order to lose weight I need to drink more water.

Another change that I've personally made (as recommended by the RD), is taking a probiotic and fish oil.  A probiotic is important to restore the "flora" in your digestive system.  The fish oil I take because I'm not a huge fish eater, so I opt to get in my fishy nutrition by fish pills.  Fish should be eaten about 2x per week and I like to eat fish like 3x per year.  It's not that I don't like fish, but I don't like preparing it and 2x per week is kind of a lot to me.  Fish is also best when dipped in beer batter, fried and served with lemons and chips.  Just sayin.

The moral of the story is to eat whole foods.  By default, my consumption of carbs is lowered, my sugar intake is lowered (even though I've incorporated real sugar vs. the fake stuff, in general I'm not eating sweets so I'm still eating way less than I was).  I get to eat the good stuff but my portions are controlled as determined by my plan.  By following this plan, my meals keep me comfortably full so that I'm not constantly looking for snacks.  When I tried calorie counting or other diets, I was starving all the time.  With this plan I have a hard time even thinking about eating anything after my meal.  This includes something sweet for my "dessert"!!  I'm just like meh, I'm full, I don't need to eat any more.  By following this plan, my cravings are controlled by default.  Also by default, my body will eventually settle into the weight that is appropriate for my body.  That's the perk I most look forward to! :-D

Have questions?  Let me know! 

**Please note I am not a dietitian and this post references information that was tailored for me.

When What You're Doing Doesn't Work

Hello!  Huge apologies for my silence.  Life has been fairly hectic around here, so I haven't had much room in my brain for extra thoughts.  I tend to go brain dead once I finally get a moment to sit down.

One of my problems has actually been blogger's block.  Usually I have lots on my mind that I want to talk about!  As I was cleaning the cat box (gross. this is my very least favorite chore ever. could stem from the fact that I've really never been a cat person. hmm.), I was thinking about how many times I've said, and how many times I've heard someone else say, why isn't this working?  Admittedly, I do not have a proven track record in this area.  But, I think there are some logical steps that we don't always think about.  Here are my thoughts:

1. Be honest with yourself.  How closely are you following your plan?  Are you logging or tracking everything you eat?  Are you measuring your food?  A lot of times we underestimate how much we eat and the size of our portions.  You've heard to use a smaller plate for your meals.  That works!  When you put a piece of chicken, some rice, and more veggies than you care to eat on a huge plate, you probably have a lone sad violin playing in your head.  Put all this stuff on a smaller plate and suddenly it looks like you're having a huge meal!  How are you possibly going to finish all this food!  It's awesome.  Try it!  Also, get a kitchen scale that you can put a plate and adjust to zero each time you put food on the plate.  This is the one I have.  I can adjust whether it measures by ounces, fluid ounces, grams, etc.  It taught me that I drink way, way more in a normal glass of wine than the 4 oz. serving you're supposed to have.  When there is about 100 calories in each 4 ounces, that's a lot of calories that I wasn't accounting for.  Don't forget to count your drinks and all those M&Ms you sneak in at work.  You'll find that you don't want to eat those three M&Ms because you don't want to log it.  You want to see that you're being awesome, not sneaky!

2. Give it time.  This is something I'm really bad at.  Changing your lifestyle and seeing the results takes time.  Yeah, I know it sucks.  But weight often piles on as a result of instant gratification, and you have to realize that weight loss doesn't really care how badly you want instant gratification.  It's going to do whatever it damn well pleases and you're just going to have to accept it.  Or keep eating that ice cream because you have to have it, and keep gaining weight.  I was watching the recent episode of The Biggest Loser where one of the contestants didn't lose any weight that week despite following a strict diet and working his butt off in the gym.  The trainers were flabbergasted.  If you've read my blog for a while, you know I've been through this too.  Sometimes your body doesn't cooperate in the time frame you want to give it.  Your body forces you to follow it's own time frame.  You just need to keep at your plan and let it work.

3. Plan.  One of the most convenient diets I was on was Nutrisystem.  The only groceries I had to get were my veggies and my dairy stuff.  Otherwise the food was grab, heat and eat.  However that can't be every day life for the rest of your life.  I like to plan things.  When I plan out my food, I am much more successful.  Hubs and I don't eat together 80% of the time, so I sit down on Thursday or Friday every week and plan what I will eat for the next week.  I like to make my grocery list according to what two or three meals I plan on cooking that week.  Then I can decide what meal sounds good first, and I'll eat that for four meals or however many servings it lasts.  I can eat the same breakfast almost every day so I pick what I want and go with that.  I like to have a variety of snacks, sides, and/or veggies.  So I'll put about three things on my list that I can rotate based on whatever sounds best to me in that moment.  I'm really good about sticking to a plan once I've made one.  However when I have to fly by the seat of my pants, that's when I give in to whatever sounds best at the time, even if it isn't the best choice.  In my humble opinion, this could be the best piece of advice I put on my blog.  Plan, plan, plan!

4. Change your plan!  My biggest success has come from the plan that completely blew my mind when I was given it.  For so long I've thought "I need to eat 1200-1400 calories to lose weight.  Eat low fat/non fat stuff.  Don't eat anything that tastes remotely yummy because it has too many calories.  You will probably feel starving for a while until your stomach shrinks to your new diet.  Don't eat less than 1200 calories because your body will go into starvation mode."  Now I'm following a plan that really doesn't follow any of those old beliefs I had.  I'm much happier than I've ever been on any diet before.  And I'm never starving!  It's miraculous!

5. Don't deprive yourself.  I don't think you can be successful if you say "Losing weight means I can never again have (((delicious food you love here)))"  What I DO think is that once you change the way you eat, you will naturally desire less of whatever crappy foods you ate before.  Over the summer I occasionally ate Taco Bell.  Out of the fast food options around my work, Taco Bell was one of the tastiest options to me.  The other day I thought about Taco Bell and it sounded revolting to me.  Taco Bell?  Gross!  I can feel my arteries clog up at the sound of it.  As you know, recently I made my favorite type of cake because I had a craving.  I licked the bowl, but then having a piece of cake once it was all frosted and ready to eat didn't seem appetizing to me.  This is a new feeling for me, and I 100% know it's because I've changed the way I eat overall, and now that amount of sugar just isn't appealing to me.  I NEVER imagined my sugar cravings would almost entirely fall off a cliff simply by changing the way I eat.  It's incredible.  I still eat sugar, but in moderation.  Which is exactly what I've been told, read, heard, is healthy!

Ultimately, I think the biggest thing is to find what works best for you.  Personally, I think I've finally found a lifestyle that does work for me, and I'm excited to see the changes that result!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Last week I admittedly did not so great following my food plan.  This week I did leaps and bounds better following it.  This shiznit works.  Last week I gained.  This week I lost.  It's like magic!  It's so nice following a plan that not only I enjoy, but also see an immediate effect.  The plan doesn't only effect my weight, it completely effects my body and mindset.  When I have a meal, I now think "Where is my protein?  Where is my fat?  Where is my starch?  Where are my veggies?"  I made my FAVORITE kind of cake the other night, funfetti, to bring to work on Friday.  Usually after licking the bowl I still can't resist taking the first generous sized piece of cake.  This time, after licking the bowl, I thought to myself "Oh wow, that cake smells way too sweet to eat.  Especially right before bed." 

WHAT!

Again, I impress myself with the change in my sugary ways.  In the morning I find myself wanting my protein to start my day off.  It's incredible!  It's glorious how the protein keeps me full so that I'm never completely famished and reaching for the first thing that looks yummy.  It's amazing how much I enjoy my afternoon snack of greek yogurt with fruit.  I love this!  I love every part of this!  If you've noticed, I've called this a food plan versus a diet.  Because this is completely not a diet.  This is a way to live.  This is a way that I can live my life and still get to enjoy food!!!!!!  I love it.

Moving on from my obsessing over my new love, I've decided to take part in another DietBet game.  I first talked about DietBet in this post.  I didn't succeed in my first game, but that's totally okay.  Since my food plan is proving success, I took a look to see what games were currently going on or starting soon.  I found this game, Run Your A$$ Off.  Funny enough, I had already read about this game on another blog, Onederland or Bust!  The game is only a $10 bet, but the pot is huge.  Another blogger is putting this game on, and she has added prize incentives.  Who doesn't like prizes?!  The game starts on Monday and I am so excited to play!  Check out the game here, and further details here.  Another added bonus for me is if I lose my 4%, this will get me back into "onederland" which is my first mini goal.  I feel very positive about this and I highly encourage you to check it out!


Also, if you haven't done so already, follow me on Facebook!

The Past Year: 2012

 
This morning my friend and I were discussing the fact that we've been friends for just over a year now.  This prompted me to reflect on my progress, or lack thereof, over the last year.  A year ago in November, I was on the Nutrisystem plan.  A year ago I was 199 pounds.  I remember this because I blogged about it on the Nutrisystem website.  Presently I am almost 10 pounds heavier than I was a year ago.  I've been counting calories or on some other plan for almost the entire time.  What is wrong with this picture?  Have I not made any changes significant enough to lose any amount of weight simply by default?  Then I check out one of the blogs that I follow, of Bailey from Onederland or Bust!, and see the progress she's made since January.  It's not about the number she's lost, it's looking at her history and seeing a loss most weeks of the year.  Whereas mine has ever so slowly crept upward.  I think now that I have a new food plan in place, I'm on the right track.  My body already feels significantly better, even with the holiday season when I haven't exactly been the most consistent with it.

Now, I have had moments through the year when I've given up hope entirely.  I binged until I could binge no more.  These moments probably contributed to my ever increasing weight.  I've tried so hard to get out of the mindset that I just don't care.  I think I'm finally there.  I do care.  I finally notice the negative effect that junk food has on my body, and now that my body is functioning properly for the first time in years, I'm not so inclined to go back to where I was.  Looking forward to the next year, I plan to focus on my new food plan and really commit to it.  I plan on starting a new work out regimen.  These two goals are plenty enough to focus on and will also, by default, get me to where I want to be.  Maybe next year at this time I'll be remembering this moment and will be pleased with my own progress.

What goals do you plan on focusing on for the next year?

Total Gym Brain Fart

This weekend I was at the gym to attend my usual Zumba class.  However, the usual Zumba instructor wasn't there and the sub was a spastic gerbil.  So, I decided to swim instead.  I changed out of my barely sweaty gym clothes into my bathing suit, attached my key to my strap per my usual procedure, then went into the gloriously warm and wonderful pool.  I swam in my pathetic attempt to keep myself afloat (I'm a very new swimmer, within the last year or so, and still deathly afraid of water) until I was tired.  On my way back to the locker room I was focused on covering my new bright red hair, which I forgot that I had colored that morning, and was trying desperately to cover my pinky orange drippyness with their pristine and tiny white towels.  Suddenly I discovered that my key was missing.  Good thing I bring my googles (which I never use because I'm scared of my face in the water!)  I get myself back into the pool and proceed to look for my key on the pool floor.  There are two other half-swimmers watching me.  I go back and forth.  Back and forth.  Nada.  I retrace my steps in the locker room.  Check my locker just in case I actually forgot to lock it.  Still nothing.  I finally resign to needing to ask an employee for assistance, still in my wet bathing suit and towel, one turban wrapped around my pink leaking hair, and spikey non-shaved legs exposed to raw air.  No employee to be seen.  Usually they are often lurking in the locker rooms.  Today, no such luck.  None to be found.  I ponder asking a stranger to get someone for me.  Then I decide to waste time in the steam room.  Too anxious to relax, so I wander around the locker room some more, trying to look casual.  I decide to rinse the chlorine from my hair and bathing suit to waste more time.  Shower.  Dry off in the sauna.  Look for employee.  STILL, none to be found.  Clueless as to what to do with myself now, I walk back to my locker and look forlornly at it, willing it to just open please to spare me the embarrassment of asking someone to open it for me while standing wet and half naked.  Suddenly I see myself in the mirror from the side.  I notice something weird on my back.

What. The. Dude.

Found my key.  It had traveled my strap and settled it's merry self on the opposite side I had left it.

Wow.  Now entirely glad I didn't find an employee to ask, suffer the embarrassment of asking, only to find my key stuck to me.  Awesome.  Genius.  Welcome to my life.

On a happy note, I lost 2.2 lbs!  Well look at that!  Dietitian knows her stuff. :)