Back at it

Ok. So, nearly a month has passed. No, I did not totally stick with the program through the holidays, but I did not gain any weight. So, back to journaling, counting points and taking care of business. I guess if I were to say what caused the slacking on my resolve to hit my ten year anniversary better than ever I would just say this. My daughter. My oldest child is 20. She has taken all we have raised her with and tossed it away. She has made choices we would never support. It is painful. She came home to "make ammends". It turns out I just bent over backwards giving her the Christmas she wanted. I pulled out all the stops. The huge meals, the great gifts, all of it. She left anyway.

Through the sadness of it all and the overwhelming grief the counting of the points seemed so pointless. However, my resolve returned with the passage of time. My shiny flashing scale seems a bit more inviting and that Emeril turkey breast I made last night was incredible. What made the change you may ask?  Ok here it is. My husband had bad news with his latest diabetes numbers and triglycerides. So, he has to fix it. I cannot have him do better than me can I?  Lol!

The Weekend

Let's see....how was the weekend?  Well...hmmm....poor. The fact that I m sidestepping the scale as if it were a bomb that may suddenly go off if I even do so much as step within three feet of it may give m the hint that I overdid it. Saturday was my husband's birthday. So, we had lunch with friends. I carefully planned in my mind, ok, Mexican food. So, I will not eat chips. I will get fajitas and eat the meat and veggies only. Yes, best laid plans. No, that did not work out. I ate chips, guacamole, sour cream, retried beans, the whole deal. Then, later we had been working on the house all day, we ordered pizza. Yep, awful day of eating. Yesterday was better, actually much better, I think I was just stressed.  The realtor comes tomorrow to list the house and yesterday was my first day back to work after the adoption. Would I be able to get back into the computer?  The answer was no. Would I see enough patients, the answer was yes. How would the children do with me leaving them the first time?  They did fine. Would my husband be ok with them alone?  He is a wonderful dad, it is not that, it is just that I have spent seven weeks getting to know their every little idiosyncrasy. We communicate well.  He is just learning their ways now he was alone. I came home and found our 8 year old, adopted from Russia 7 years ago, plus our new 4 year old and two year old asleep in my bed with daddy. 

All in all, I guess I just did not realize how worried I actually was. When I got home I needed no snack. Just some water, a little TV, moving three children upstairs (that is exercise right?) and off to bed. So, will side step the scale today and work toward a better eating day. It occurs to me that I only have 9 days til the dreaded doctor appt!

Mad...at a pretzel

This morning was a busy one. Tomorrow is my husband's birthday. I conspired with his employees for a surprise birthday party. I ran out early with my little ones to pick up a Subway sandwich tray. I carefully ate breakfast first, whole grain bagel thin and low fat cream cheese. That took care of the hungry thing over the sandwiches. Then it was time for cake. He is on insulin, so we had gotten a sugar free cake from the bakery. It is always so good. I had a couple bites of my little man's cake. Yummy!  We wrapped things up and the kids and I left. 

On my way home I pulled through the drive through at Starbucks for my skinny latte. While I was waiting I found myself pouring over the menu. No, I will not order sweets. Ok.  How about a pretzel. A warmed up, mustard filled pretzel. Yep, low in fat, ok.....wait a minute. I am dieting. I am on weight watchers. It is loaded with white flour. It is huge. I am already spending four points on a latte. Must.  Have. Pretzel.  Damn pretzel. Wait, I did not lose any weight today. No, I will not lose a pound a day always, but still I cannot afford a pretzel. I already have flat iron steak marinating. Ugh. I hate the pretzel. Warm mustardy goodness. Evil pretzel. 

I nearly did not enjoy my latte. I poured over that stupid pretzel, well that and the potato chip on the floor in the back of the car. Gross I know, but the call of salt can be louder than a bullhorn some days. Although now, I have eaten lean leftover pork from last night, lettuce, cucumber and chick peas. I used the strongest balsamic I could find. Now full, I am no longer mad at a pretzel. One battle won today. 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring....

Dieting During the Holidays?!

The fact that I have started this journey at the pinnacle of the holiday season is not lost on me. People always say,"I will start after the holidays, I want to enjoy my food."  To be honest, there are really two reasons for starting now. The first reason is that I have a doctor's appointment in two weeks. I know it sounds silly. I have a fabulous doctor who struggles with his weight. He is sympathetic and encouraging. However, for me to have to stand on that scale, which by the way, always weighs heavier no matter what doctor's office you go to, face the doctor and have to say I gained weight is like torture for me. It is that moment in time I am completely vulnerable. No oversized sweatshirt, or full body spanx can cover this. In most other areas of my life I am a success. I have been a nurse practitioner for 12 years, I have completed 5 international adoptions and been married nearly 20 years. It is just this little thing, this weight thing I have battled and battled. Somehow in the fluorescent light of the exam room I can feel just like I did as a fat child standing at the bus stop being called "Jonah". 

The second reason for starting now has to do with the notion of the "last meal". Anyone who has been around the dieting world for any length of time has done this. One last cookie.  One last binge at the favorite restaurant, one last holiday season of tempting roll out cookies and fudge. Honestly, I did all that. As I said, my beloved sister-in-law had the surgery the day before me. We did the whole prep together. We ate many "last meals". I can remember sitting in a restaurant when the waitress asked us if we wanted onion rings with our meal. We looked at eachother, burst out laughing and said,"of course". For the most part I was very compliant before surgery with the occasional splurge as if I was bidding a fond fairwell to my beloved high calorie foods. The reality is, life does not work that way. I cannot think of a thing I haven't had at least a bite of since surgery. So, the point of having a "last meal" is really just to give myself an excuse to eat. So, starting at the holidays is more a safety mechanism to be sure I do not gain a ton of weight. Oh, I will have a high calorie item or two, but hoping I can build it in to my points the way I am supposed to. That, as they say, is the plan. Must be working...I lost another pound!  

The Scale

Well, I have lost a pound. That seems so minuscule at this point, but I will take it. Yesterday was a fairly good day for eating. I tracked my points, saved my incredibly dry popcorn snack for my late night carb loading phase. To be honest, it holds so little flavor in comparison to the bucket of oil and salt I normally use I found myself eating a cutie when it was over just for a hint of moisture and flavor. Yes, old carb addict me had to resort to fruit. I do not have a personal vendetta against fruit, I just prefer fat and salt. I mean really, who doesn't?  Even Richard Simmons made the news years ago as he was caught ordering pizza. Love that!

Nonetheless this is a post about the scale. As I eluded to yesterday, I bought a shiny new scale complete with glass platform, bells and whistles. It displays my goal weight, my original weight, yesterday's weight and today's weight. Today the news was good. So, I enjoyed the show. I have had many days in my lifetime where I feel like Nell Carter. Yes, my age is showing. I remember the show,"Gimme a Break". Nell gets on the scale and chokes it screaming,"LIAR!"  I later learned that was the first time the actress had been on the scale in some time and had not realized what she really weighed. Admittedly, I do that too. I avoid the scale as if it will somehow jump off the floor and attack me. I carefully will sidestep it in the morning, then justify my bad habits with,"OH well, I do not have to get on the scale". 

I do understand the standpoint of, "it is just a number, you cannot live by that". To those folks I will say only this.  No, I do not have to live by it. I can avoid it, place myself into stretchy clothes, continue my bad habits and slowly but surely work my way to the "LIAR" scale choking state of being. However, forty years of being fat has taught me that even the stretchiest of clothes have a tensile limit, and there are not enough layers of Spanx to fix things at the "LIAR" phase. 

So, I will take my one pound and pray today is a good day. I must admit, I have to do something about these carbs. Reviewing my food diary tells me this....bagel thin, goldfish crackers (as a side note, yes, I really only had one serving, the kids were eating them), popcorn, Dr. Kracker pumpkin crackers....yes, well within my points, but this poly cystic ovary syndrome girl with terrible insulin resistance needs less carbs. OK...that is today's challenge. Here I go!

Ten Years

Ten years. Hard to imagine it has almost been ten years. In August I will celebrate the ten year anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows I have battled my weight for my entire life. In fact, the name of this blog seems a bit strange, Jonah is Not the Whale?  Well, when I was a child there was a kid in the neighborhood who called me Jonah. So much for his biblical knowledge. Jonah was not the whale. However, I suppose I can draw a parallel between being trapped in the belly of a whale and being trapped in the vortex that is a lifelong battle of obesity. A parallel between being tossed through the ocean waves inside a whale like being cast through life through varying thicknesses of fat.

So, why now?  It must be the ten year thing. Ten years ago, I walked the earth at nearly 300 pounds. I had tried every diet known to God and man. To be quite truthful I remember being on weight watchers at the ripe old age of 13. No friends, there were not points back then. There was the weekly liver meal my mom and I would choke back. There was baked cod that came as a frozen dinner, there was the ever popular vegetable soup we would make vats of and consume in the hopes it would somehow fill the void originally occupied by cookies and potato chips. There was the Mayo Clinic diet which was a strange concoction of food including hot dogs.  To be fair, this diet came to us on a xeroxed piece of paper and really looking back, I am not convinced this was really a Mayo Clinic thing, probably more a cruel joke. There was the rice diet, Atkins, South Beach, on and on....  I think my favorite was Richard Simmons' Deal a Meal.  I was ready to roll with my food mover.  I sweat religiously to the oldies...for a time.  I took diet drugs which likely led to my current mitral valve prolapse. Finally my dieting life came to a head on Aug 19, 2004. I had a roux en y gastric bypass. I finally lost the weight. I even became a local celebrity and made a commercial.

However, in the years that passed so many things happened. My sister-in-law, who had the surgery the day before me, passed away. My right arm in this process was gone. I had a hysterectomy, yes, hormonal nightmare.  My oldest child made choices that I cannot divulge at this point, then tragically left our home. We pursued an adoption from Haiti that  spanned two and a half years.  We moved to a different state, and are moving again in a few months. No, none of these things caused my weight gain, however the are the things that bring me back to my old friend, food. I went from very few carbs to carb loading (as I like to call it). No, this is not a training for a marathon carb loading, this is a sit in font of the TV after a long day eating crunchy snacks sort of thing. Ugh. My dirty little secret.

Anyway, I have made the decision to start a nine month journey. On Aug 19, 2014 I wish to be the weight my doctor prescribed. I guess I am not ready to share what that is, or how much I have to lose.  However, take heart my friends, I am nowhere near 300 pounds.  Thankfully!  I do not even qualify for weight loss surgery at this point as my BMI is 31. However, I am not ready to be back to that point. So, here I sit, Weight Watcher app in hand, points tracked and ready to roll. Yes, WeighT is my favorite. I even went out and bought a new scale yesterday. I guess I thought the shiny glass platform and fance green lights with a digital read out would help me to hate the scale less.  No such luck. Nonetheless....here I go. Again.