Day 128

So close. For the last two weeks weight has finally started coming off and I am a mere three pounds from 60 pounds down. Wooohoo! And there is a reason. Lean Cuisine. Who knew about this???? For some unknown reason it never occurred to me that in the frozen section there are meals there within the 150 - 240 calorie range that will let me continue to diet but not trap me with freeze dried food that for the most part doesn't taste all that great. Yes, there are a few meals that are diet decent but not enough and I was really starting to resent dinners.
What's really great about LC's is that I can buy a week's worth, instead of having to stock up for a month's worth of food and have bags everywhere in our little kitchen.
And since I really never got into Nutrisystem breakfast I have 112 breakfast bars just sort of sitting there, staring at me which I really need to do something about before they take over.
So now that I've found LC and can buy enough for a week, the question is do I just give Nutrisystem the boot. And I think the answer is yes. I will cancel the monthly run of food but I will continue to purchase the few items that I want to have on hand like the fudge graham bars which are amazing.
I am now in my 5th month of dieting and still no one has said anything which is discouraging since I am down 4 sizes. I decided to measure to see if there is any real proof to my losing weight (I was dumb and didn't think about measuring when I started on 7/5/11 so the first time I measured was on 8/30/11 and since then) I have lost 7 inches in my waist, chest and thighs! Arms are still the same but since I played tennis for years the muscles in my right arm are still huge, which I guess is good.
In August/September when I started to think about the holidays, I gave myself a diet pass and realized that I probably won't lose any weight in the month of December and I need to be fine with that reality, so my current goal is to be angelic up till Thanksgiving and continue to be perfect unless there is a party or dinner that I have to attend, then be frugal on the cheating and hopefully I will end this year 70 pounds lighter.

Day 115

I wish that losing weight was constant. I wish that going to the gym guaranteed some kind of result but I have lost 6 ounces since October 5th. I have gone to the gym. I have made sure that I was in between 1600 - 1800 for all but two days this month and this morning the scale said that I was only 6 ounces down. Three weeks - 6 ounces. It makes no sense.
Tomorrow morning I will go to the gym. I will not eat Friday donuts. I will refrain from Halloween candy. I will be good and hope that somehow the scale starts to reflect this cause right now I feel like I'm on the precipice of just saying f' it.
But I wont
What I will do is go back to the basics. I haven't been faithfully writing down everything that I eat. I have been drinking diet coke which I shouldn't. I have been a little lazy at the gym and I have had treats that I don't always need. Late afternoons I have had an extra piece of cheese or a small piece of chicken to get me through to dinner. These are probably the causes for the stagnation on weight loss, but with the holidays dangerously close I can't become laissez faire and must rededicate myself to the diet.

Day 108 and the 3 W's

Haven't really written much and that's because since the last time I wrote there has only been 3.8 pounds down in 15 days. I had hoped that I would be near 60 pounds down by this point (8 pounds lighter than I am right now), but my body has adjusted to the diet and to the exercise and losing weight has become much more difficult. I feel like I'm clawing away at each pound and it's taking forever.
I also didn't realize that being on a diet will be a life long change. I had sort of thought that I would not eat as much and do a bit more walking then in a couple of months I'd be right where I wanted and life could go back to where it was. Not the case. What I have slowly discovered over the past three and a half months is that this will now be my life, or I will quickly climb back to my original weight. I will have to weigh myself every morning, watch what I eat and exercise every day and when I get to goal (the way that I'm losing now it will take a year to get to goal) I can't stop and assume that all will be fine, but will have to continue to weigh, watch what I eat and work out, the 3 W's is what I'm calling it.
Tomorrow is my 6th year wedding anniversary and tomorrow night I know I will be having a high calorie meal so we've already decided to do 4 miles on the elliptical in the morning and a 7 mile walk in the day to help counter the calories but I will be savoring each and every bite and be back on the diet first thing Saturday morning.

Day 93 or Three Months and 48 Pounds Lighter

I was a little disappointed this morning that the scale refused to go down the additional 2 pounds I wanted to make today officially 50 pounds, but if I had gotten up and gone to the gym like I had originally planned I probably would have hit goal again. Oh well.
Tomorrow I will get up early and do the dreaded elliptical for 40 minutes, and start focusing on my October goal: 11 - 12 pounds by November 5th. I think the days of early July are gone where in one day I lost 6 pounds due to a drastic diet change and now that my body is used to 1600 calories and the gym routine I will need to continue going and finding new ways to get exercise in so I can continue to lose. I know I'm on the precipice of someone actually noticing and that is highly motivating me to continue.

Day 91

GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLLLL! On Saturday morning for a brief moment after the gym and before I allowed myself a sip of water the scale hit goal. 50 pounds down! It was in a word glorious and I was convinced that it would just continue to go down, but atlas. No. This morning after the gym the scale was up 4.8 pounds from Saturday morning. I'm frustrated. My husband says I'm being too literal about the scale and what it's showing and that I need to relax, but how? I trust the scale numbers. That's what's validating my actual weight loss since I'm down (almost) 50 pounds and NO ONE is still saying anything about any physical changes and it's really starting to get to me.
I did notice one thing that might have a small influence as to why no one has noticed. While I'm buying smaller pants (down 3 sizes from July 5) so I don't walk around with diaper butt, I have not really bought anything fitted or smaller for my top half. Yesterday afternoon at my best friend's house warming party (where I was surrounded by gay men who have known me for years) again no one noticed. It wasn't until I was home and walked by a mirror that I noticed that there was a good 6 inches of extra material that I could easily gather up, and with the cut of the empire shirt that was I wearing didn't show off any weight loss, but looked like I filled it out like I used to. So a new goal is to start putting on shirts and if I can easily grab a handful of material when sitting the shirt is too big and needs to go into the pile to donate.
In two days it will be my three month anniversary of starting this diet. The first month if anyone had told me that I would not only be able to survive on 1600 calories a day but also be able to go to the gym almost every morning and do the elliptical for 30 - 50 minutes without dying, I would have thought they were crazy, but here I am on the verge of 100 days and even though no one has said anything I keep having hope that soon, someone, anyone will notice a change and comment on it.

Day 81 The Good, Bad and Ugly of Weightloss

The bad. One great, high calorie meal can kill weight loss for a week. After going to the gym four times this week I am three pounds heavier than I was Sunday, which sucks.
Now for the good.
This morning I was getting ready for work and the jeans that I put on were huge and for a minute I had just sort of felt that it was my lot to just spend the day wearing jeans up to my boobs and feeling like I was wearing waders all day. But then I thought I would poke around at the back of the closet where the clothes of years past loom and there I found a pair of jeans that I had not worn in years cause they didn't fit. Sure enough they fit and are even a bit loose on me and thanks to Old Navy being anal and labeling their tags I know that I bought them in the spring of 06 and probably have not worn them in at least 3 years.
And now for the ugly. Eczema. I don't know what to do about it. I'm using the special shampoo, Aveeno body lotion and moisturizer but I HAVE to go to the gym right now in order to see my goal of 50 pounds down by 10/5 and that requires that I sweat a lot. I need to look into other alternative and probably see a dermatologist too if this doesn't clear up soon. Bleck.

Day 77

There are good things to following through with a strenuous workout schedule, and there are bad. The good - I dropped 3 pounds over the weekend and now I'm less than 5 pounds to my first major goal. The bad. My legs are on fire, I'm exhausted and feel a little sick, and I have a bad case of eczema.
Today I am taking it easy and not even thinking about going to the gym today. I am supposed to do 3 miles on the elliptical tomorrow morning and I hope that I feel better than I do right now, cause right now all I want to do is curl up into a little ball and sleep for four hours.
I did discover the ratios this weekend for optimal weight loss. Water is 10%, eating healthy is 35% and exercise is 55% and with this formula and the success from weight loss I saw this weekend, this needs to become the daily goal.
So with that I'm going to bath myself in aveeno and hope for the eczema to go away quickly.

Day 74 and I Give Up

I give up on people needing to notice change for me to be happy with my weight loss. This week has been depressing as I have gone to the gym several times this week, maintained my goals for sticking to 1600 calories and for all of that work and willpower I lost a pound. One little pound. 3,800 calories less than last Friday. It truly sucks.
But the reality is that I have a long way to go. If I weighed 180 then losing 44 pounds would be a significant change to my body, but for me right now 44 pounds is not that noticeable to anyone other than myself. So I need to suck it up and realize that until my pants can literally fall off of me that no one will really notice any changes.
So my weekend goal is to work out. The best husband is excited about tomorrow morning when we do 5+ miles with the dogs and then hit the elliptical for an hour. This is something that I came up with in a moment of weakness when I got off the scale this morning. I am so close to my goal but I will not make 50 pound loss by October 5th at this rate so I really need to ramp up the exercise like crazy on the weekends. Sunday will be another long walk and probably another hour on the elliptical. If I can do it for two days in a row I am amazing and should be rewarded with a two pound weight loss by Monday morning.

Day 73

I am now six pounds to my first goal of 50 pounds down. There are real signs of change. My stomach is smaller, pants are loose, I'm wearing clothing that I haven't attempted to wear in years and yet... no one has noticed and it's starting to get irritating.
I want someone, anyone to make a comment that it is noticeable. That the changes that I see are real and tangible. Is it taboo to now comment on positive physical changes to a friend/co-worker, or am I so amazingly obtuse on societies codes of conduct that I notice when my boss gets his haircut or when someone is wearing the same damn skirt four days in a row?
Since I'm noticing and whining about my weight loss (sorry to anyone reading this diatribe) I'm going to reward myself for my first big milestone. Clothing seems wrong since the goal is to be 3 sizes smaller by New Years. I am planning on having Indian in a couple of weeks since I have been missing chicken tikka masala like crazy and should be working on 10 pound increments by then, but is it healthy to reward weight loss with food? But then I am on a diet that will probably last the rest of my life (will need to maintain 1,700 calories daily to make sure I don't gain again), with little bouts of freedom sprinkled throughout.
I could go for shoes and purses since they are always fun and will not be affected by weight loss. At this point I have a couple weeks to think about it.


SIDENOTE - just in the hallway with a co-worker talking about jewelry making when another co-worker walks by and comments on all the weight the person who I'm talking with has lost. Oof...

Day 67

Diets are a bitch. And being on a diet and female really is a bitch. It seems that no matter what I do physically or how good I am at watching my caloric intake there are certain times during the month that my body is holding onto calories like a fat kid holds onto a candy bar.
I decided last night instead of fixating on the scale that seems to be stuck, to attempt to try on things that I haven't worn in awhile to get a sense that the scale may not be moving but my body is changing. At first it was great. Three winters ago I bought a Ralph Lauren coat in their classic brown/white pattern that was too small across the bust and arms to wear. Now, it's a little big on me. Then I thought I would try on pants that were a size too big to start weeing out anything that was way too big. Out of the 15 pairs I put on, only three were too big to wear ever again. Those three are in what will hopefully become a very large pile in the next couple of weeks as I get close to the first major goal of 50 pounds gone.
Tomorrow morning we're going on a 5 mile walk and on Sunday either the gym or another long walk cause I am so close and I know that if I push it I will force my body out of this rut and into a new series of goals.

Two Months and 40 Pounds Lighter

Who knew that the secret to losing weight was watching your calories, drinking lots of water and exercise? Someone should really inform the masses.
It sounds so simple and I am doing it, but it's the fact that right now I have will power that is getting me out of bed in the morning to go to the gym before 6:00am almost every day, that is standing on the scale and taking precautions to make sure that the numbers continue to slide down and to write down what I eat almost immediately after I finish a meal so I can accurately watch my calories so I don't go over 1,600. Right now my greatest fear is that once I feel that I am in control and don't have to watch what I eat or go to the gym that the will power might slip away and I could find that the past two months were a brief sojourn to a potential thinner life.
The ultimate key is will power. I must continue to monitor my progress and realize that the rapid weight loss that I have seen over the past two months will get harder the longer I am actively trying to lose weight and when I hit plateaus to not get discouraged, but realize that it is my body adjusting to the changes in weight, and instead of a child and growth spurts I should be grateful for my shrinkage spurts.
For my third month my goal is to hit the 50 pound mark somewhere in the early part of the fourth week of September and to lose a total of 15 pounds this month.
Even though no one is mentioning that they notice any weight loss to me, I am having to constantly roll up the waist of my pants to prevent saggy ass and I know as I hit the 50 pound mark people will start commenting on my changes.

Day 58

As of yesterday morning I am officially down 38 pounds and my waist is 5 inches smaller. Yay me! Now only I can see these changes but I think when I get to the first major goal of 50 pounds people will notice, or that's what I'm telling myself.
I haven't told many friends what I'm doing and I really am keeping this blog more for my own self motivation than any real expectation that anyone gives a rats ass about me losing weight. We all have at least one negative friend and since I know she will never read this (if it's not about her it doesn't exist) I am going to vent my frustrations out about her here.
She is big like me, and has been for most of her adult life and last week when I told her what I was doing about it, she came up with all the classic counter arguments that I did when I didn't really want to lose weight.
Nutrisystem costs money for the food, some of the food may not be to your liking, you will be hungry. All of this is to a certain point true. I do spend a couple hundred dollars a month on the food, but then so does anyone who eats every day of the month. If you don't love a food item you can return it (and here we went into a 5 minute discussion about how hard it is to get to the post office to return things and where I wanted to pull my hair out in frustration). And yes, going from 3,000+ calories a day to 1,600 will make you hungry. There is no denying it or getting around it. You are on a DIET. Diets take willpower and persistence in order to work and my first week on Nutrisystem was hard cause I was going from one lifestyle where the daily average was probably around 2,800 calories a day to 1,600 and it sucked! But after a few weeks my body has adjusted and I get the pleasure to see the scale go down little by little every day, letting me know that what I'm doing is working.
My friend then told me that she was going to do it the easy way and get the lap band. Now I don't really have anything against it if you have sincerely tried diets and all of them have failed (I have failed on weight watchers). But I doubt that she's aware that the lap band is anything but an easy fix. You have to go on a liquid diet before the surgery to lose weight, then continue to be on a liquid diet for up to 6 weeks after the surgery before you can eat solids and then for the rest of your life you are limited to what you can eat and how much. What I like about Nutrisystem is that if I want to cheat I can and will not be violently ill because of it, or threaten my body by over doing it by possibly stretching out my stomach.
Her final complaint to me was that Nutrisystem would tamper with her social life. Yes, it will. If your social life consists of going to out dinner 4 nights out of the week with family or friends where you consume 1,600 - 2,800 calories in one sitting, then any diet will hamper your social life. Since starting my diet I have turned down going out to dinner a few times cause the restaurants didn't have a diet selection and I am still too new to my diet to feel comfortable by splurging on calories/pounds that I just recently lost. So instead of torturing myself by sitting at a restaurant drinking water and craving all the food around me that I can't have, I stayed home, ate sensibly and asked that when my husband came home from dinner with our friends to stress how horrible the chicken tikka masala was and how I wasn't missing anything, and so far I haven't.

Day 51 and down 35 pounds

Since starting a diet on July 5th I am officially down 35 pounds. When I take myself out of the day to day drudgery of the diet I am shocked by how quickly I have lost so much weight. It did not take me 51 days to gain 35 pounds, but several years of eating too much every day to turn extra ounces into pounds, so the fact that I'm dropping so quickly is inspiring me to continue on happily.
Right now I am focusing my weight loss in terms of ten pound increments which will hopefully help me with the remaining 5 pounds in the series that I'm currently in.
A couple weeks ago I bought one new pair of pants a size smaller. Today I'm wearing those pants and they are a bit too big. This is great and I'm doing the happy dance. My goal tonight is to go home and start pulling pants that are the size that I was in July, try each on and depending on how big they are put them in a pile to donate, then find pants that I haven't been able to fit in and try those on. I am also trying not to look at fashion right now because I feel that it would be a waste of money to spend several hundred on clothing that will be too big come another 3 months.
And finally a year ago I bought a beautiful gray linen jacket from Macy's but could never wear it, even unbuttoned, that is till yesterday when I tried it on and it fit perfectly, and wore it buttoned all day comfortably. No one at work has said anything about any physical changes (I can barely tell changes and it's my body) but my mom thinks that that's because people are afraid to mention anything in case they're wrong and think that they might hurt my feelings, which I find funny cause I know I'm fat and I am fine with someone letting me know that I'm not as fat as I was almost 2 months ago.

A Before & After

A week ago we got a bee up our butts to redo the spare bedroom so here is a really messy before pic (to help show off how much nicer the room looks now):

And this one, not as messy

And after 11 hours of painting, curtains and a new hardwood lamenent floor installed, here are some pretty pics of the spare bedroom:

Day 44

Boy did I screw up last night. I don't know what came over me but I was cooking dinner for the husband and the thought of eating Nutrisystem made me so sad so I said screw it and ate a dinner without looking at the calories till afterwards. 900 calories were consumed. I feel guilty and I put myself back on Nutrisystem this morning and ready to go again, but I am afraid that the overwhelming depression I had when throwing the three cheese Buitoni pasta into the boiling water will happen again. For as decent as the Nutrisystem food is, there is simply no comparison to real pasta. Real cheese. Real meat.
This morning the scale had gone up a pound. I don't know if it's because I'm starting to retain water or last nights dinner, maybe a combination of the two. All I know that I need to rein myself in or there could be more nights like last night and the small amount of progress I've made over the past 6 weeks could vanish very quickly.

Day 42

I was really getting discouraged by yesterday afternoon as my weight had stayed the same for 9 days and was thinking why put myself through this since it isn't doing anything, but this morning there was a change and I had dropped two pounds by 6:00am (since I couldn't sleep I weighed myself every two hours starting at midnight to watch the slow drop).
What has me a bit nervous right now is the amount of exercise I had to do to get the pounds off and how they might creep back by tomorrow morning.
My wonderful husband and I painted our spare bedroom which I use as my office for etsy. What I didn't know was that prepping and painting would take 11 hours to complete. I know we're not natural painters and we're both perfectionists but by 5:00pm I really didn't care if there were two small smudges of the blue paint on the white ceiling, but the great man that I married knew that once I had taken a shower and had a bit of energy, I would care, so we trudged on for another hour. The final result is wonderful and I will be showing before and after pics once the new flooring comes in on Sat (there is no way we're handy enough to attempt that so we've hired people to install).
According to Nutrisystem's exercise counter I spent over 5,000 calories painting. I don't believe that for a second, so I imputed 2,000, with my food intake for Sat near 1400 calories.
As of this morning I am 17 pounds from my first major goal. Two weeks ago I thought that it would be simple to be at this goal by the end of the month, but as my body has adjusted to the reduced amount of calories I'm taking in, I don't think that this is now feasible, so I have moved this goal date to 10/5, which will be the three month anniversary of me starting Nutrisystem.
I am hoping to reach my goal before that but I fear that I will need to drastically up working out and physical exercise in order to continue to lose weight.

Day 39

Discouraged. I have been the same weight for one week now. I have been exceptional on my calorie intake and have not gone above 1600. I worked out by moving all of the furniture out of the spare bedroom so we can paint tomorrow as well as did laps twice this week in our pool. If anything I should be down another 2, even 3 pounds, but nothing??? How is that possible?
I can only assume that I am at my first plateau and in a week or so will continue to lose more weight, but it's not fair when I have been true to a diet to see it do nothing, especially when the first 5 weeks had constant stellar results.
The only good that I can see is that I measured and I have lost three inches from my waist since I started. A few close friends that know what I'm doing are telling me that my face is thinner and while I appreciate the encouragement, I can't see any change and really think that they're just being good friends rather than truth tellers.
I can't quit and I won't but I can't imagine that the easy part is over already when there is a lot more to lose.

Day 35

I was shocked. Shocked! On Saturday we had our annual movie night at our house and I knew that I was not going to be good. I made amends with the fact that I would be drinking and eating whatever I wanted. What I didn't expect was that my stomach in the past 5 weeks would shrink so I was only able to eat half of my cheeseburger and pasta before I was too sick to continue.
I know I was near 2,700 calories for the day (3 sangrias + 6 ounces of chicken appetizer + my sister's dessert + 12" turkey subway sandwich for lunch), but we busted butt to clean, hose, sweep and in general make the backyard as pretty as we could for the party, which totalled near 1,800 calories of cleaning.
And what was even more surprising to me was what happened yesterday. 1480 calories and that was me making myself to eat. While there are minuscule changes happening to my body that only I can see, today my pants are lose and I know that in a matter of weeks I will have to start shopping for a smaller size or risk having pants pooling around my ankles as I walk. Ah, champagne problems...

One Month and 32 Pounds Lighter

I started Nutrisystem July 5th and as of this morning the scale is saying that I am down 32 pounds. What's more important is that I am seeing little signs of loss.
Yesterday a pair of house shorts (cause no one needs to see me in public in shorts) that I normally wear have a snap front. Before the snap would pop open all the time and yesterday I didn't have that problem at all, in fact they were lose enough that in a few weeks I doubt I will be able to wear them at all (yeah!!!).
I am also noticing that my stomach is getting a little smaller. I realize that only I can see the changes right now and that no one will notice anything for another month at least but I am pleased that for one month I have mainly been able to stick with my goals and I am shocked by how quickly 32 pounds went.
Since losing another 32 pounds in a month is not possible unless I go extreme (and that will never happen), my goal for the next month will be to continue doing what I'm doing. Throw the gym in more and hopefully in the next few weeks lose another 20 pounds.
Starting Sept 1 I hope to be at a personal goal (19 pounds will get me there) and from then on I will be focusing on ten pound increments which should get me to my goal by my 40th birthday in April.

Day 27

Tomorrow will be my fourth week of me being on nutrisystem. During this month there are several things that I have done differently from previous weight loss attempts (besides eating most of the nutrisystem food). I have logged everything that I eat, instead of just guessing like I used to do. This month I actually looked up every item so I was fully aware of each calorie I was intaking. I also have not exceeded 2,000 calories on any day (I did come dangerously close one day) . I have maintained my water intake which I usually near a half gallon a day. I have greatly reduced my diet coke addiction to one small can a day and have even skipped a day or two.
One thing that I have been failing on is exercise. Every weekend we still go on walks with the dogs or gardening in the backyard or cleaning up the house. Besides basic house maintenance during the week (dishes, laundry, etc.) we really don't exercise anymore and that has to change. Since starting to lose weight I have created a few goals and I hope to hit my first significant milestone by September 1, which means that if I want to insure that make it, I will need to start going to the gym at least two days a week.
Areas of my body are sort of like mirages, like is this area of my stomach smaller or am I just imaging that it is. It's hard to be certain if what feels like change really is. It could just be wishful thinking. Today I am wearing a shirt that I haven't worn to work in almost a year because it's a button up and puckers, but as I sit here typing this there is minimal puckering happening.
So for this next month, my goal is to not be as obsessive about the scale (yesterday I think I weighed myself at least 6 times; not good) and weigh once a day. To stick with 1,600 calories a day, to actually go into the gym and work out at least once a week plus weekends, and to try to forget that I'm actually dieting and just start thinking about other things like designs for jewelry and new techniques that I want to work on and put in my shop.

Day 21

It has been three weeks since I started and according to my lying scale, (it's lying cause I can't believe I've lost that much) I have lost 21 pounds; a pound a day.
I have also tallied up my daily food intake and the mean is 1644 calories a day so far, which has been the goal so I'm proud of actually having the willpower to stick with it. Of course there is no real physical sign of me losing 21 pounds which is depressing since I keep expecting my pants to fall off.
Since I started writing the above my mother called to let me know that my godmother died last night. This has been an expected death (cancer in her liver and kidney), but it still shocks and I will miss her so much.
Carol was the thin and pretty one in my parents group of friends. She would smoke and drink with the men and tell dirty jokes, while wearing pencil skirts and really high heels. I would spend the night sometimes at their house since their oldest, Carla was a year younger than me. They had a giant house in Arcadia on two acres of land and the backyard was huge that we would run around in.
It has been years since I've seen Carla. When she was 20 she disowned her family because the man she married was in a cult. She has no idea how much her selfishness hurt Carol. Carol didn't even know she had grand kids till the oldest was 5. I often had lunch with Carol and her seething as she talked about Carla and what she put them through to see her grand kids. Carol was nothing but a sweet woman who wanted to spoil her grandchildren and what upsets me the most is how a 'religious' woman, like Carla claims to be, has no guilt over ruining so many years of her mother's life due to her ridiculous beliefs. Carla's 'religion' wouldn't even allow her to attend her brother's wedding, but by then she had caused so much damage to the family that she wasn't invited. But how stupid to believe in anything that forbids you from celebrating events with your family.
My favorite quote is from Anne Lamott who said 'you know you've created god in your own image when it turns out he hates the same people that you do'. Since I don't believe in any religion, it further confounds me how myopic people are who build these rules that do nothing but hurt others. How could a daughter abandon her family for almost 20 years? Apparently 6 months ago Carla started coming by the house to take care of Carol. We're sure it was so that she could be put back into the will since it will be significant, which makes her pious religious stance even more pathetic to me.
When my mother called she told me that Carol will be taken to a crematorium today and requested no ceremony since she was agnostic, which does make the fact that she was my godmother a funny title. Last Friday, my parents went to see Carol for the last time, where Carla mentioned at some point that she would be having a service for her mother at their church but since we're not members we would not be invited. I can only hope that this was out of earshot from her mother, but since I have no respect for Carla I tend to think the worse.

Day 14

As of today I have been on nutrisystem for two weeks. While I have not cheated by downing a gallon of ice cream or hunting up a cow to devour, or even having a meal over 400 calories during this time, I have not seen any changes that this is working.
Today I will be returning the scale we bought that died tragically after the second use and will be buying a more expensive and higher rated scale and maybe there I will see something telling me that what I'm doing is not in vain.
The one thing that I can be proud of is my willpower. On Friday some of my best friends hosted a movie night at their house with so many tempting treats (who makes kettle corn from scratch and, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and a cookie cake???) not to mention the smorgasbord of different grill meats and chicken skewers available and I said no to all. The only thing that I did have that night were two bottle waters. I have somehow successfully blocked the temptations and surprisingly it wasn't as difficult as I first thought it would be. I told myself 'not for me' and that was it. I also sat as far away from the temptations as I could and didn't even sit with some friends cause there were a few appetizers on the table, but instead ran interference between the kitchen and the grill, helping out instead.
The other thing I am noticing is how difficult it is to go to restaurants and Gold Class without knowing the calories in their products. On Sunday we saw HP7.2 at Gold Class cause it's the best theater in the area and the only one where the seats do not hurt my back and before we would order the calamari, a flatbread pizza, couple of drinks and some kind of dessert without thinking of the calories we were taking in. On Sunday we stuck with one flat bread pizza, the popcorn provided and diet coke. I guessed 500 calories for three pieces of pizza (each smaller than your fist) and the popcorn but I have no idea if I greatly underestimated, which is irritating.
Since day 9 I have slipped a few times and gone into the 1800 calorie range. It's discouraging when I do so well in the morning and afternoon but then at 5:00 something clicks and I become ravenous and devour anything not moving, and even though everything I eat is now on a diet list it still adds up and yesterday after eating 835 till 5:00 I lost it and ended up going to 1864 for the day.
For the next week or two my goal (beside trying to stay at 1600 calories) is to start to add exercise in every other day. I used to be a gym rat and would workout for 3.5 hours a day 10 years ago, but then I was working through pain and anger from a divorce and now I'm happy and my motivation is not the same. The other issue I have is how popular our gym is and there is no way that I'm fine with waiting 20 minutes to get on an elliptical for 30 minutes so the most obvious solution is to start going again in the morning at 5:30 where there are only a handful of people there and I can have my pick of the equipment.

Day 9

On Tuesday, July 5th I started nutrisystem and so far I have not really cheated on this diet, but I'm maintaining 1600 calories, or somewhere near that, everyday and the one thing I can say is that IT BLOWS.
Wow. I have no idea how many calories I was cramming into my gullet every day, but 1600 really isn't a lot of food some days. Even being 'good', my current breakfast is 385 calories and that's mainly good things like blueberries, fat free yogurt, cantaloupe and a breakfast bar.
Since I started really paying attention to the calorie count in everything that I shovel in, my husband (the amazing man that he is) started looking into our favorite restaurants to see what I could have outside our house. It's just depressing. Our Saturday routine after the gym has been to go to Starbucks and order our breakfast there. Even though the reduced fat turkey bacon is healthier, it is still 380 calories. And my blessed Venti iced vanilla latte is over 400. So almost 800 calories and that's not including the raw sugar packet that I add either. And now that 1600 is the hard line that I dare not cross, I can't waste half of it at Starbucks.
I am a bit shocked at how my brain went from one way of thinking to this sudden calorie counting accountant. Since last Tuesday, the one page on nutrisystem that has been constantly up is my daily food intake. I look at it, modify it and stare at it hourly, making sure that my water intake is current and that my next meal won't tip the number towards 1700.
I'm sure everyone has weaker times during the day, when willpower slips and you could lose control. For me it's when I get home from work. No husband. No place to go. Just food and me. Alone. I normally work on orders or make jewelry to put into my shop but I am finding that I really need to do something else to get my mind off of food.
Now that I have a week of progress I do hope that it gets easier. I'm still miffed that my pants are staying on me when I walk around and no one can see any progress. My mom chastised me for not having a scale so this weekend we bought one which broke after two uses (and even though I am big, I made sure the limit was way over what I weigh) so I have no idea if this diet is working or not. I just have to hope and continue and hopefully sooner, rather than later, I will see some kind of difference.

Woohoo!

Not much time to post but this morning I got into the office and did my normal routine and checked craftopolis and discovered that I had 90 views at 8:00am, well as of 11:15am I have almost a 1,000 and four sales from being featured in etsy blog.

Very excited about this since I really haven't been featured much since fall of 09. Here's to hoping for more exposure and to 3 more sales which will get me to my first milestone, 1,000 sales on etsy.

February Project

It seems sad and rather narcissistic of me to do a post on my new front porch with Japan's earthquake and tsunami happening yesterday. There so much damage and chaos in the world but I know that if I didn't post the pics I would quickly forget and lose the photos that I took this morning.

Before:

And after:

I would love to claim that I spent a few weeks measuring and cutting but really my friend Anthony made our new porch railing and did an amazing job and all that I had to do was write a check.

And finally a picture of our tabebuia tree and the first bloom of the year:

Things that I have learned by living with a 10 year old boy for 5 days. Penises are magical and must be handled all the time. Noses are magical and must be rummaged around frequently to find trinkets of gold to rub on couches. Peeing in the toilet is for amateurs. What passed for good three minutes ago is now rubbish and should not be tolerated. The mirror is the perfect place to stare at your awesomeness.

Fun at a Funeral

Let me stress that I love my friend J. We have been friends for over 20 years, I have been by her side during her 4, yes 4 weddings and divorces. I love her children and think the world of her, and I was sad that my friend was in pain with the death of her mother. A woman who often reminded me of Hogatha from the smurfs but was a chain smoker who wasn't mobile.

She had an ability to make you feel like you had just done something really rotten and only she knew it but just couldn't prove it. I often felt uncomfortable around her and always made sure to never piss her off.

J for some reason doesn't have a lot of friends - which I never understood why, so on facebook she sent an email to the 6 of her closest friends letting us know of the funeral. Everyone sent their condolences but 4 of her friends were out of state and wouldn't be able to make it, so Chris and I said that we would be there and like friends we dressed for the occasion.

We were the only ones not in jeans, baseball caps or ill fitting tight dresses. We arrived and were asked if we wanted to pay our final respects to Mrs. C. In my family we hide the dead and the thought of her solid state just sort of lying there would really make me think of the horror films where the corpse jumps out to get you so. So we declined and waited outside as J kept taking her four year old back to go look at dead grandma.

Finally it was time for the cars to line up and proceed to the burial spot. Chris and I not being family or really anything more than moral support for J were the last in the lineup. We arrived, got out of our cars and then realized with the 20 people there they would need every able man to help move the coffin out of the car and onto the metal pipes that were across from the empty hole in the ground.

Now J's family... well pain seems to be a good word for it. Each member always looks like you stepped on their toes, and the two oldest look a good 15 years older than they are. The oldest sibling B has a short haircut, not a fashionable, stylish cut, but the I gave up so just by a flowbee knockoff and be done with it. Her teeth are a mess and she was wearing a weird white lace dress with Grannie booties. C, the oldest of two brothers just looks like he was in Nam and never got over killing Charlie. He's lived alone in Alaska and the only person he seemed to be happy around was J's 4 year old. Then J's other sister G who was the most normal of the family and then the little brother A who decided to really piss off his dying mother by marrying a homeless girl and then expecting to move in to his parents house with her and her homeless family. Apparently they're all homeless right now.

The service starts. The preacher is preaching and I'm already fidgeting, standing there wondering when this will be over with. Then an airplane flies over. A minute later another one does. All taking off from Burbank airport. Every 2 minutes the service stops so that people can hear the sermon on what the Shepard's pray really means.

Finally it's time for people to come up and say a few words about the deceased. I figure no one wants to hear from me talk about how scary their mother was so I keep shut. The oldest sister gets up and starts to talk. Stops. Then collapses. I look to Chris and the other 20 people trying to figure if this was expected since no one is getting up to check for a pulse. After almost a minute someone decided to dial her husband for advice and I'm thinking that if she's dead... the grounds already dug up and she seemed to like her mom... maybe the could share a coffin since most of the family is already here.

Some random relative gets up and starts shaking her while J suggests just throwing water at her and gets a water bottle. Chris leans towards me and tell me that B's faint was fake. I have never seen anyone go down but apparently they don't do it gracefully, bending their knees first and putting their arm out to support their head before collapsing.

We wait while B's brother C hauls her up and puts her in her seat. Then G's youngest daughter who was wearing jeans and a loose shirt and looked like a boy starts singing Let it Be. It's a nice song and she has a good voice but after 4 minutes of her singing we were getting done and did the only thing to stop her. Clapped. She was not pleased and told her mother that she had two more verses to go. G did the right thing and told her to stop.

At the end we made the rounds to say good by where G and J both said that B often fainted to get attention, which really made me wonder why since she was the one talking at the time and all eyes were on her. Oh well, not my family.