Day 4

Thursday was such a clusterfuck that I am glad I didn't gain weight.  Jesus Christ!  What a circus!  The day started off early, with my having to get my ass out of bed and showered.  I hate showering.  It's a lot of work.  Am I gross?  Yes.  Am I lazy?  Yes.  These are well established facts.  So I hate showering.  It's a pain in the ass.  But I got up, showered, dressed, and got the kids clean clothes to wear out of the house instead of pajamas so we could all pile in and go to Holden and Nora's preschool evaluation.

For breakfast I had 3 eggs, 2 white + 1 whole, fried with cheddar cheese on 'em, 2 pieces of rye toast, and a cup of applesauce.  I was hungry, plus I remembered how full the eggs kept me at the beginning of the week so I wanted to be satisfied and not starving during our meeting.  I should have had a snack before leaving the house but everything was so crazy I forgot.

It was my plan to leave the meeting and take the kids to the McDonald's Play Place for the afternoon.  We were already skipping nap, so we might as well make the most of it and let them burn off some energy.  I was intending to have lunch at Mickey-D's, though I planned on a salad and a couple of waters instead of the #10 with a vanilla shake I would normally get.  What did I do?  I forgot my motherfucking wallet.  So none of us ate.  The kids were starving and so was I, but they didn't want to leave so we stayed until 4 o'clock.  Thankfully I had a bag of Cheerio's Cheddar Snack Mix in the diaper bag because it sustained all 5 of us all afternoon, well, as best it could.

Dinner was pizza.  Of course, the Digiorno's I put in the oven I forgot to time, so it came out black.  UGH!  I quick jumped into action and called in an order to a local pizza joint and had Tony pick it up on his way home.  By the time we ate at 6 o'clock the kids were STARVING and so was I.  I had a single slice of steak & cheese pizza, but it wasn't as yummy as I'd hoped.  Which I guess helped me not want to have 3 slices, LOL!

I did snack around 9:30, my difficult time, but it was minimal.  I had 3 packaged chocolate chip cookies and like 5 Triscuts.  Not the best, but not bad compared to the Mandie from two weeks ago.  I hit the hay around 10:30, and slept like a ROCK.

When I woke up this morning it was like I hadn't woken up all night.  I looked at the clock - 7:34.  I JUMPED out of bed and ran downstairs, only to realize that no, Tony didn't forget to wake me up, he'd just woken up himself.  LOL!  Again, I got off to a wacky start and forgot to weigh myself before breakfast and coffee.  Once I did, I got a 270 reading.  Which is FINE.  Yes, it's the same as yesterday's weight, which is NOT discouraging.  On the contrary.  If anything, it will make me rethink my choices from yesterday, which weren't the best, and what probably happened is that my metabolism was all fucked from missing lunch and two snacks.  So BECAUSE I weigh myself every day, I am able to see that what I ate (or didn't eat) yesterday, was not conducive to a healthier me.  Duh, right?  LOL!  But it just reitterates what I posted about yesterday with daily weigh-ins helping ME to stay on track and follow what I do from day-to-day.  So today I'm already intending to be better, eat smaller meals more often, and to make sure I don't load up on fatty pizza and cookies at night.  I'm just sayin'.

Much love,

Keep On Keepin' On

Yes, I weigh myself every day.  EVERY DAY.  There are many reasons I do this... first off, I find that it helps me see what did and didn't work with what I ate the day or two before.  For instance, after the Great Brownie Disappointment of Tuesday, I weighed in yesterday morning only having lost 1 pound.  Makes sense, right?  Of course it does.  I ate two fucking brownies.  This morning, I weighed in having lost 2 pounds, at 270.  So obviously the brownies really slowed my weight loss.  Also, I find that if I start to notice myself in a slump, the scale shows it.  Before it gets too late to easily fix any gain with just a small diet change, I can see it immediately.  So if over the holidays I was weighing myself every day, I would have been able to say to myself, "Lay off the cordial cherries, fatty." before I gained 10+ pounds and would have had to have undergone a full-on diet, complete with self discouragement and disappointment for not having caught it sooner, and for letting myself eat like a pig.  My dad is a diabetic, and every single day he records his weight, blood sugar, and any other pertinent variable.  For 20 years I saw him maintain his weight and have complete control over his diabetes from this simple chart.  It makes sense, to me, to track your weight daily.  I always have.  In fact, the times when I gained the most weight in my adulthood, are the times I didn't have a scale at home.  A few years ago I saw a study done that said that people who weigh themselves daily are less likely to gain excessive weight, and are more likely to maintain a healthy weight, for the EXACT REASONS I had always thought was just common sense.  (After a quick Google search ((I love Google)) I found these two articles: Pub-Med and MSNBC.)  So it's what I do.  In my honest opinion, I don't think there is a wrong or a right way to track your weight loss, so long as you're tracking it.  What works for some may not work for others.  Kinda like just about everything else in life.  Do I appreciate other people's insight and advice?  You bet your ass.  It's how we learn.  As a mom I love to run around yelling at every other mom that they're doing whatever they're doing wrong, "Trust me!  There's an easier way!  I have triplets!  I know."  So if I can offer my advice to another mom, I will, but I don't push because really, if they wanted my advice or learned a lesson from the sage advice I offered them, they'd be doing it already.  No harm, no foul; I do not take it personally.  Every one is different.  So I DO appreciate advice, and knowledge, but PLEASE don't be upset if I don't take it.  As an opinionated bitch I'm not likely to anyway, LOL!!

All that said, yesterday was a fair day.  Just eh.  I was bored, and the kids were on my last nerve ALL. DAY. LONG.  So when Tony came home to plow, and the plow broke, and he ended up having to snow blow for hours, and I ended up spending my whole day yelling at the kids to leave me alone for two seconds because they were driving me to drown us all in a car in a lake.  At 8 pm I finally had the triplets to bed, put on some Dino Dan for Gwen and got to cleaning.  Which I needed a boost from a soda to do.  But an hour and a half later and I had everything at least sorted, and mostly put away, and I quit for the night when Tony came in.  I was bored and stressed all day, and it was snowing like a motherfucker, so the day was kind of wacky.

For breakfast I had more delicious Bear Naked Triple Berry granola, 3/4 of a cup, and three cups of coffee.  Yum.  Too bad the coffee should have been TWICE as strong.  I still would have needed three cups of it.  Ha!

Lunch was late, around 3 o'clock thanks to the kids' non-napping malarkey, and consisted of a WW Smart Ones Ricotta and Spinach pasta, which was really yummy.  I wish there was more veggies.  I understand that veggies are kind of expensive, and if they loaded all these frozen meals with veggies all the veggie haters wouldn't eat them, plus they'd be $3 a pop.  But the veggies would really help keep me fuller, longer.

I had 3 celery sticks with peanut butter with the meal, because honestly it was a little small for my head-sized stomach.  One of these days it will shrink and I'll be able to eat just the meal and be satisfied.  =)

I made the kids chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner as everything was hectic with the snow clean-up and me being all alone with them, and I managed to eat about 10 leftover fries.  Of course.  After they ate, and I didn't, I cleaned up, got them ready for bed, and took them up.  I came down and started to clean the family room and kitchen of toys, which took quite a bit more effort and time than I would have liked.  At 9 or so Tony came in and took Gwen to bed (she passed out on the couch at quarter past 8), then asked if I had eaten supper.  Shit.  I had totally forgotten.  I could have had another frozen meal, left over pasta, some eggs, anything.  But I totally forgot.  Man, old habits die HARD.  So instead of making a dinner and eating a full meal at 9:30, I did what any sensible person would do and had a Weight Watchers Ice Cream Candy Bar.  Which was gross, but of course I ate it.  By the end I had forgotten what a real Snickers Ice Cream bar tastes like and was actually enjoying the WW one.  I also had a banana, since I know an ice cream bar is not dinner.  Mom didn't teach me nothing!  I did decide to skip the photograph, since you all probably know what a fucking banana looks like, am I right?

It all worked out alright though when I got on the scale this morning and saw that 270.  That was fucking awesome to see.  That's 6 pounds since Monday, 2 pounds a day on average.

Today is going to be kind of crazy; we actually have to leave the house for an appointment, and I plan on bringing the kids to McDonald's to work off some energy in the Play Place while I blast those smug-ass pigs in Angry Birds.  We'll be eating lunch there but it's my intention to eat a salad, and hopefully I can will myself away from a vanilla milkshake, which is just fucking sad.  All those poor, sad, undrunk milkshakes.

Much love,

272

No, that's not the price tag of my Not Your Daughter's Jeans.  It's not the amount of times we've seen Toy Story 3 (though it's probably close).  It's how much I weighed this morning.  272!!  That's 4 pounds in 2 days!  Now if that's not motivating, I don't know what is.  Go me!

Yesterday was good, but I was bored.  Which is disastrous.  I didn't have the motivation to do anything since my knee is all fucked up after painting the girls' room this weekend.  I had the job of cutting in on the baseboards, so there was a lot of kneeling involved, which is surprisingly something I don't do that often.  Anymore.  Heh.  I've heard that for every pound you lose, you take 4 pounds of pressure off your knees.  It makes sense, since the bulk of people's weight is going to be above the knee.  Like, there's only what?, two feet of body after the knees?  And it's typically not the size of a gut.  So it makes sense.  My knees have been fucked since the triplets were born, something I attribute to not only being way fat but also to 5 weeks of bedrest.  I lost a lot of muscle just lying around the house for 7 months while I cooked triplets, so it's no surprise that my muscles aren't strong enough to do regualr everyday tasks like keeping my miniscus in place.  I mean, I was never Joanna Thomas, so my muscle mass decreased fairly rapidly.  I was in physical therapy for a bit for my knee, and the therapist told me I was weaker than some of the old ladies he worked with.  Talk about a stab to the heart.  Working on gaining my muscle back is one of my goals, but I think it would be easier to exercise and work out once I lose a little weight, to save my knees.  Kinda like how WW will tell you not to exercise until you lose 10% of your original weight.  I think 10% is overly cautious; I can see 10 pounds, 15 pounds even.  But waiting until I lose 28 pounds seems silly.  I don't know... what do you think?

Onward...  I ate fairly well again yesterday, which is good since it's only day 2, LOL, but despite my boredom I stayed on track nicely.  I started the day with my cereal, which gave me loads of energy I did nothing with.  Pft.

Around 10, when I gave the kids their snack, I had one too.  It was yummy and filling though I wish Tess would have stopped asking me for some.  Celery sticks with regular Jif, which I tried to go light on.  I didn't measure, I don't want to measure everything, just get into the habit of THINKING about how much I'm using.  I think if most people were to LOOK at thier food before shoveling it in, they would know that there was too much/too little/the right amount without measuring.  When it comes to things like cereal where I have no idea what a cup looks like in a bowl, or how much a cup of mashed potatoes looks like on a giant plate, then I'll measure.  Peanut butter?  No fucking way I have time for that shit.  Half the pain in the ass of dieting is counting, watching, measuring, points-ing.  So I'm giving it up and instead using what I know in my heart to be a reasonable amount of anything.

For lunch I had a Healthy Choice Chicken Pesto meal, follwed by 14 (the suggested serving size on the box) Triscut Parmeasen Garlic Thin Crisps to snack on while I watched Intervention.  See?  Now that I know what a serving of Thin Crisps looks like, next time I won't have to measure.  Yeah!  Another great bonus to this blog is that I will be able to rate and review frozen diet meals.  For isntance, look at the picture on the Healthy Choice box, then at the actual product.  ::snort:::  Not exactly even close to resembling the delicious gourmet meal they show on the cover.  The fruit compote was pretty good, as was the pesto sauce.  The veggies were dynamite, though I wished they'd have included about a cup more.  Like, there was 3 carrot sticks and 3 broccoli chunks.  LAME.  The chicken was dry and kinda gross, though edible.  All in all, I wouldn't reccomend this meal, and I probably won't eat it again myself.  The Triscuts were AMAZING!  I've never had these Thin Crisps because I thought they'd be more crispy than regualr Triscuts, and too crunchy for my weak ass teeth.  But they weren't.  They were awesome and flavorful and 14 was a nice snack.

In the afternoon I managed to skip snack, but did have a few of the kids' Cheez-Its while I was giving them snack.  It was like I didn't even know I was eating them.  How gross is that?  I ate a handful of Cheez-Its while doling them out just because.  When I figured out what I was doing I immediately jumped up and put the box away.  Yikes!

I made spaghetti for dinner, since I had hamburg turning brown in the fridge and spaghetti is pretty much a bath night staple.  I kicked it up a notch, browning the beef with about 6 cloves of fresh garlic, Italian herbs, onion powder (can you believe I didn't have a single onion anywhere in the house?!  WTF???), and pepper.  NO ADDED SALT!  I added a jar of Prego to the meat, plus a can each of tomato sauce and tomato paste to stretch the sauce a little.  I'm not a huge fan of chunky, meaty sauces so the extra tomato shit made it more suacey.  I baked a loaf of Pillsbury tube bread and Voilà!  Delicious dinner!  What you see here is a salad plate.  I am a pasta destroyer.  Tony is always amazed at how much pasta I can put away (I can also do this with popcorn).  It's a weakness.  I love it.  So I had a lot, but it was still HALF what I usually would have eaten.

What really surprised me though, was how hungry I was shortly after dinner.  I expected that plate of pasta to hold me over until bedtime, but it didn't.  What the fuck, man?!?!  I ended up splurging on brownies, I ate two, but I made them with half the eggs (only used 1) and half the oil (less than 1/4 cup).  To make up for the lack of oil in the brownies, I added applesauce.  They were totally yummy and I would have eaten 3 more but I stopped myself.  Heh.  And I already went for one this morning and managed to stop myself then too.  Nice.  So while I splurged on a shitty snack, I didn't feel so guilty about it because I knew I tried to make it a little better.  So it's not like I said, "Fuck it!  I'm eatin' brownies!"  Which is good.  And so were those super chewey brownies!

Much love,

Day 2

I have good news!  I am down 3 pounds today already, to 273.  Now, keeping in mind that I weighed myself yesterday at like, 2 PM, and today right after I woke up and took a shit, it's not as impressive.  But it's a start.

I feel really good about this.  I feel like it's not a diet, but more of a change.  And not even one I'm whining about.  Just a change that needs to happen.  Like how we had to move out of our tiny house into a bigger house.  Yeah, it was sad, it was a fucking hassle, but it was AWESOME, and SOOO worth it.  I don't mind making choices that aren't chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter & jellies.  It's like my brain knows that my body needs to eat healthy to be healthy, and the conscious decision to be healthy was all I needed to do it.  Sounds kinda cheesy, sounds kinda stupid, but I don't know how else to describe it.  Ready.  I am ready.  And still optimistic.  For now.  LOL!  I have a very bad habit of seeing new things through for a couple of months until I bore of it, and then look for something else to occupy my ADD.  Even diets.  Even though I can see the scale registering the new number, even though I can wear jeans after a meal without unbuttoning them, I still somehow lose interest.  So I'm really hoping to stay focused, and positive, and get there.

Affirmations aside, I had a great day eating well yesterday.  I started the morning with 3 fried eggs, but only one yolk, a piece of rye toast, and coffee.  Granted, I had 2 really sugary, creamy cups of coffee, but you gotta start somewhere, right?  And I'm not ready to give up my coffee.  Maybe not ever.  LOL  Breakfast wasn't as early as I wanted it to be.  Danielle told me you're supposed to eat within two hours of waking up, which I technically did, but 10 o'clock is still kinda late for your metabolism to jump start.  I do realize that I'm in not in the habit of eating breakfast, or if I do it's not until later, like when I get the low-blood-sugar-shakes and need to stuff a pop tart in my pie hole to stop shaking long enough to make the kids lunch.  SO yeah... I'm working on that too.

Around 11 I had a banana for snack.  I also had a soda while the kids were napping, to get me over the 2 o'clock slump.  With the exception of the HFCS, the caffeine and points are the same no matter if it's coffee or soda, and I wanted something sweet and fizzy.  So a creme soda it was.  I got busy working on the blog while the kids napped and I drank my soda, and I forgot lunch.  So typical of me.  At almost 4 o'clock I had a Smart Ones Artisan Creations flatbread sandwich, of the steak and ranch variety.  Holy shit, it was DELICIOUS.  It tasted like a real steak and cheese, which surprised the shit out of me.  I don't like cooked bell peppers and even the peppers were tasty.  Hm... maybe I was just really hungry.  Ha!  Anyway, 300 calories and 8g of fat, 6 WW points.  Totally worth it for lunch if you're craving steak and cheese.  Or even if you're not.

Not surprisingly, that tided me over until dinner, which - don't fall on the floor - I made.  Oven roasted pork tenderloin marinated in lemon pepper from The Meat House, about a cup of Betty Crocker boxed mashed potatoes, and about a cup of sugar snap peas.  OMG, it was so good.  And it was really weird seeing normal portions on my plate.  Like, there was a HUGE amount of dead space.  I blame the obesity epidemic on the stoneware industry.

The best part about dinner was that I was FULL, full full, not grossly stuffed, just really full until at least 9 o'clock.  It was around then I started having the hankering for a snack.  Damn it.  Or course, if you know me, and you know how I roll, you know I get the munchies on occasion for reasons I can not name.  Dummy.  I held off as long as I could, but my belly started grumbling around 9:40 and I caved.  BUT, I chose wisely.  Two apple-cinnamon rice cakes with a thin coating of peanut butter.  YUMMY!!!!  And I snacked s-l-o-w-l-y while I watched The Wonder Years.  It was just enough to make me feel cozy, good about my choice, end the tummy grumbles, and to give my hands an occupation while watching TV.  Of course, like a true pig, I picked all the crumbs out of the afghan and ate those too.  Hey, I'm dieting.  Every morsel counts.

So it appears that my choices yesterday really paid off!!  That's a good boost to the ol' morale.

This morning after pooping, weighing myself, and taking my probiotics (which you have to take on an empty stomach), I had a half cup of Bear Naked Triple Berry Crunch granola, with milk and coffee.  The recommended serving size is 1/4 cup, but I don't want to starve myself either.  If anything is going to make me pissy, it's being hungry.  So because last week I would have had a whole cup, I decided a half was better than what I'm used to, plus would be enough to not freak my body out, and be a whole lot better than a full cup.  Maybe when I'm 200 pounds I'll eat a 1/4 cup, but not now, that's for damn sure.  Plus, if I haven't told you before, I am a granola WHORE.  I LOVE it.  Love.  Like, pink puffy hearts and fireworks.  So yeah, I splurged.

I ate about a half hour ago and I can ALREADY feel a difference in my body.  My legs are jumpy like I have excess energy, which is good since I have a lot to do today with the storm coming tomorrow and all.  I'm full, and while a little nauseous (eating breakfast does, and always has, made me feel like yakking), I think I can forget about that and focus on all this energy!  Huzzah!  Pair that with a cup of coffee and I'm ready to do great things!  Like laundry.  And dishes.  Yee haw.

I'm off now for another cup of coffee, but may be back later, maybe not until tomorrow.  We shall see.  I have a lot to do!!

Much love,