A minor setback

Early Saturday morning -
I’ll just get it out in the open and get it over with. I weighed in at 168.5 at the end of the 5th week. Yup, back up 1.5 pounds, so a total loss of 4.5 since I started.

My BFF sent a Valentine’s Box of happies in the mail to us, so that was a good excuse to pack on the pounds pigging out on chocolate. Of course, eating half a bag of chocolate chips that I bought to make my daughter’s favorite pancakes seems to have sweetened my disposition as well as adding a little to the love handles. Ah! - A delicious moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips – dang it!

However, I’m not going to look at this as a failure. I’ve decided it’s not good to deprive one’s self of their favorite flavor/food. It’s just wrong to deny your own person’s innocent desires. Yes, eating half the bag is not innocent. If it makes me look any less guilty, I didn’t do it all in one sitting. I did it over 2 or 3 days time. Does that help? Not really. Ok. Not going to beat myself up over this.

Dieting, indeed, is one of the most difficult tasks we set for ourselves. We become so use to eating what we love, and when it tastes so mouthwateringly delicious, it’s definitely hard to not overeat. When the food tantalizes the taste buds, I admit, I overeat. It’s a party in my mouth!

Do you realize how small an actual portion is? I mean, a deck of cards? That’s teeny, compared to how much ALL of us prefer to consume three times a day, plus snacks in between meals. I mean, it is no wonder that the majority of us are overweight. The medical websites tell me I’m in a healthy range as far as my weight is concerned, since I’m 5’11”, but I believe that’s a bunch of BS. The healthiest I’ve ever felt in my life was when I was 124 lbs and a size 5. I felt great. I looked great and I had tons of energy. I want that back! It is not impossible to get back to that body size, just extremely hard.

I’m just so weak when it comes to food. It’s so easy to not try as hard as we know we should. We work all day and we’re tired. We come home to needing to cook supper, check our kid’s homework, help them study for a test or two, and maybe make an attempt to clean the kitchen afterwards (and I said “maybe”). Then, all we want to do and all we really have time to do after all that is to get in front of the tv with dessert or chips - whatever your taste buds are longing for (mine are usually longing for chocolate) - perhaps squeezing in one game night a week, with our treats on the side. Now, usually, we have an activity or two during the week, but not right now. We are taking a break from activities until May. We do have Girl Scouts but that’s on Saturday.

I do believe if I am going to be serious on this diet, I have to rid this house of anything I might pig out on, like chocolate. My daughter can have some treats, but I’ll have to ask her to only get those things she loves that I don’t. Oh my, I just realized Girl Scout cookies come in today, and I ordered like 9 boxes! What to do?! Let me tell you, I could lose 45 pounds and eat my way back up, just on those Dosidos and Thin Mints!!! I may just have the little one take all the sweets and tell her to hide them in her room.

Why is she so disciplined when it comes to food? She certainly did not get that from me. She must have received that gene from her dad. It could be that I’ve never denied her anything except having a rule that she must eat half of her healthy meal to get rewarded with dessert or junk food, such as chips or popcorn. I know, popcorn is not junk food but it is one of her favorite treats, so to me, that’s a reward. Growing up, I was deprived of many things. I was made to eat things I hated such as English peas and meat. I did not like meat, as a child. I ate like a bird but I loved milk, and I was only allowed one glass with a meal. I would have just been happy with the milk. Of course, being screamed and cussed at and thumped on the head while I ate by my biological father did not help me to enjoy my meal. Plus, we did not have much, if any, junk food in the house. We didn’t eat a lot of sweets. I remember shoplifting a pack of Bubble Yum bubblegum from our local supermarket, when I was 7 – the one time in my life I ever shoplifted, and I have felt guilty about that for 34 years. One day, I’m going back there, to Kingsville, Texas, and pay them the 25 cents I owe, with interest.

I remember getting home, going straight to my room and chewing every single piece of that gum, one after the other, as fast as I could, then burying the remnants of my chewing experience deep within the garbage, so no one would ever find it. Do you think I enjoyed that gum? I was scared to death someone was going to walk in and find me chewing, convict me of theft and lock me away forever. I mean, I was 7, and up to this point in my life, all I knew was that I’d get the @#$% beat of me for anything I did or didn’t do or anything my brother did. It was not a healthy home life. Let’s just leave it at that.

As I reached adulthood, I learned to cook foods that were healthy and I actually enjoyed eating. I cooked food the way I preferred them cooked, with as many sweets and junk food in my pantry as I could possibly ever consume. Then, I guess, psychologically, I ate the junk food as fast as I could, because I felt like it wasn’t going to last, as if someone was going to take it all away. So now, when I deprive myself of junk, like I have been doing mostly (but not consistently) during this diet, I go through this fit of “Aw, look at the chocolate. It beckons me. It taunts me. It calls to me. Maybe I’ll have just one taste. Ok, just a handful of Hershey’s kisses. Perhaps just half the bag.”

My daughter has never overdone it when it comes to eating, unless she’s going through a growth spurt, which she does quite frequently. She’s 10 and nearly as tall as my mother! The girl is thin and tall, and growing like a weed. I think she may even wind up being taller than me. She’s nearly five feet and 74 pounds. I wish I had her energy level! I wish I could just eat a little junk food and then put it back in the pantry like she does. I watch her and she doesn’t seem to have the need to overdo it on anything. I want to be like her when I grow up.

I wonder if she’ll always be this healthy. Hardly ever been sick, she was born at a healthy 9 lbs 13.5 ounces. She was nursed for the first 8 months - I’m positive this helped her in being a healthy kiddo. I was a sickly child, myself, having pneumonia twice and mononucleosis that I begged for death with. I had fevers of 106 degrees. She was a fat, healthy, happy, laughing baby. The happiest kid I’ve ever seen – probably because she knows how much she’s loved. She is my heart and she’s always known it. I’m sure that also helps her in being a healthy child. She’s never been deprived of food or love, so she doesn’t feel the need to overdo anything. I don’t really know why she is the way she is. I suppose God just made her that way.

She has indeed taught me many valuable lessons and I want to be more like her. Even when she gets disciplined or grounded, she takes it so well. She’s never been much of a pouter nor temper tantrum thrower, except for about 2 weeks when she was 3. I started by spanking her when she’d act out (a barbaric ritual I swore I’d never take part in) but she wouldn’t respond to physical pain. I’d even test pop myself to see how much it hurt before I popped her and OUCH! Quite a sting and I have a high threshold when it comes to pain. Well, hers is even higher than mine. So, she’d get in the floor, kicking and screaming, and I’d leave the room. I suppose she realized if no one was going to be in her audience, she had no need for a show, so 2 weeks of tantrums and she was done. She’s definitely not your typical kid. The girl is straight from Heaven, I tell you. I aspire to be more like her. Yes, I’m a proud Mama.

I wonder if any of you are trying to limit your food consumption. Are you trying to diet? Is anyone trying to increase your time in working out? I did spend some time on the treadmill. Not a lot and not every day. I start out the week feeling all gung ho, saying I’m going to increase my workouts daily and really, you are supposed to work out for 45 minutes without stopping to increase your metabolism and lose weight. It doesn’t work if you work out 20 minutes, take a break, and finish a few minutes later. You are supposed to keep your heart beating at a higher rate continuously for 45 minutes to attack the fat. This is what I’m reading in all the health and fitness journals - a minimum of 45 minutes. I don’t know about your schedule, but I know that if I got up early enough (and believe me, my sleep is important to me. One of my favorite hobbies is sleeping or maybe it is my all time favorite), I could squeeze 45 minutes of work out time into my daily schedule.

Sunday morning-
How’s the clutter freedom project going, you might ask? Well, the bathroom is still clean and clutter free. The kitchen was clean and clutter free and then Girl Scout cookies came in. Cases and cases of cookies everywhere! Now I get the joy of organizing them into bags and boxes and deliver them tomorrow. I will be happy to get the stacks of boxes out of my kitchen! I believe they’re reproducing. It’s amazing how much your mood can change from a clean and clutter free room to a cluttered up room. Sitting in the kitchen when it was clean was just a feeling of freedom and relaxation – joyful even. Now that all those boxes are stacked up in there just fill me with stress and anger. Got to get ‘em outta there!

Still not completely clutter free, though. Working on it in small amounts of time. Today will be a cleaning day. After the cookies are in the car tomorrow morning, the kitchen will be clean and clutter free again. I’ll be working in my bedroom today. The kiddo will be working in her room. Then, we’ll work together in the living room, if all goes according to plan. We do need to go over vacation plans with my mother some time today, after cooking some turkey bacon and Chocolate Ebelskivers for breakfast. Right now, the little one is sleeping in. I’m about to start working in the living room by myself until she wakes up.

So, today is Day 37 since I started this thing. Out of 7 rooms, 1 is finished, 2 will be sure to be clean and clutter-free tomorrow. 5 more to finish and the deadline is in 13 more days (started with 49).

I’ve lost a total of 4.5 lbs, so 173 to 168.5. Blegh! At least it’s not a gain from the original weight, so that’s how I’ll look at it. Trying to stay positive here. From 112 days in the beginning, I’m down to 76 days left or a little over 10 weeks. A loss of 4.5 lbs in 37 days is not great. Since I have a colonoscopy (YUCK!) appointment set for Friday and I have to start drinking nothing but this gallon of Blegh-Juice starting Thursday afternoon, I’ll have lost some more by Friday, for sure. Focusing on the positive, again. I’ve got to seek it out at times.

So, for this week, I’m not going to deprive myself but I’ve got to place daily portions of allowed treats in sandwich bags, so perhaps I won’t overdo. I need to up the work out regimen. I’ve truly failed in this department. I did work out some this past week, just not enough. I did not work out every single day and I need to. Hopefully, I’ll have better news next time. I’ll not say that I plan to, because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I’ll just say I’ll put forth more of an effort to complete these daily tasks I’ve set for myself.

Ya know what? Perhaps I should use the daily treat portions as my reward for getting something done. Oh, good idea. When I get a room completely clean and clutter free, I can have my treats. When I work out for 45 minutes straight, I’ll have earned my treat bag. Now, my treat bags will consist of 2-3 Girl Scout cookies or 3-5 Hershey’s kisses, depending on the calories and fat. For the GS Do-si-dos, 2 cookies are a serving – 110 calories – 5g total fat – 16g carbs (OUCH!). I’ll have to check out how much fat and calories I can burn off in 45 minutes running & walking on the treadmill. Maybe I should stick to the Nilla Wafers?