Worst dress fitting ever!

But not for the reason you'd think!  My seamstress, recommended to me by a friend after the boutique where I bought my dress went out of business, is awesome.  She's a peppy, down to earth lady who doesn't take any crap.  Good thing I didn't give her any.  

The wonderful fitting started with me putting my wedding dress on for the second time ever...and losing my earring.  It was a small diamond stud (that I wore to see how they looked with the dress).  The back of the earring was torn off and the earring flew somewhere in her room.  I spent the rest of the appointment looking for it while she kept telling me to keep still.

The problem with keeping still in her fitting room on a hot day led to me nearly passing out.  Although this is not a super common occurrence, it has happened enough that I recognize the symptoms and know that if I don't sit down I will blackout.  So I asked her if we could take a break.  

I then spent the next 20 minutes sitting in a chair, in my wedding dress, drinking ice water and downing jelly beans.  Needless to say, she told me that she wouldn't let me back in for alterations until I had seen a doctor to rule out anything.  This may seem like an extreme request to some, except that the last girl who passed out during a fitting with her found out shortly after that she had a serious heart condition that would affect her for life.  

So, in lieu of going to a doctor, I called my sister who is in medical school.  She diagnosed me with something that I can't remember.  The gist is that I have horrible blood circulation and when I stand still, blood doesn't get to my brain, which is why I never just pass out.  I always blackout before I eventually collapse.  Not being well-hydrated will only exasperate the problem.  So, maybe I'll have to put something on the wedding program that explains why I'll be shifting my weight and moving my feet around during the ceremony.  

On the bright side, the dress is already fitting me better.  I would not walk down the aisle at my current weight, but it is a definite improvement over what it looked like when I bought it.  Oh, and I eventually found my earring after crawling around on the floor and rubbing my hands all over the carpet, although it's back is gone forever (or at least living in her vacuum for the time being).  

So far so slow...

Well, it has been a really long time since I updated this.  Things have been crazy on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and I just haven't been able to tear myself away. 

Seriously though, things have been crazy and I have been dieting.  Along with the dieting I have been losing weight.  I didn't even gain during the holidays, I didn't lose, but I definitely didn't gain.  I tried to only eat things that I thought were really worth it, loaded up on vegetables and stayed away from the dessert table as much as possible.  That said, I was far from perfect with my meal planning and the idea of picking up food was much more appealing than trying to cook it in my father's kitchen.  If you saw it, you would understand.  That and I was super lazy.   

The bad thing is that my exercise routine is far from regular and is usually few and far between.  Even though I am losing, I still think I could be losing much faster than I am, and I want results because my fat pants are getting old.  I miss my skinny jeans. 

So I can attack the problem two-fold: first by scheduling in workouts on days when I have the time to do so, which is at least five days a week, and secondly by keeping my apartment spotless, which will require me to be on my feet scrubbing, sweeping, and straightening up. 

We shall see.  So far it's been a slow process.  On the bright side, I have yet to tire of measuring my food.  It's just become second nature.  So now I just have to start kicking my butt in the gym.  Where is Bob Harper when you need him, I mean really?

Oh Cupcake!

So I am measuring my food.

All of it.

All the time.

1/2 teaspoon of honey in my tea.

1 tablespoon peanut butter on my banana.

85 grams of oven baked fries.

On the bright side I can have an unlimited amount of mustard and red vinegar, yum yum.

So, considering that I am eating well 98.7 percent of the time, I do occasionally treat myself.   This week, for example, was Halloween.  Now, despite walking down aisle upon aisle filled with my favorite mini candies, I decided that the amount of calories in one stinking Kit-Kat were not worth the very small reward.  So I bought candy corn, which I don't like, and therefore didn't eat. 

Instead of chips I toasted the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkins Jim and I carved, mine was clearly better, and put those out for guests to eat.  They are high in calories, but because they're so difficult to eat, I could never have more than a teaspoon at a time. 

I also made low calorie drinks with apple cider and light beer so as not to set back my whole week by drinking alcohol (which some nutritionists refer to as liquid fat). 

So, in order to give myself something to look forward to, I decided that on Halloween day I would allow myself to eat a cupcake.  There is a bakery in Boulder that makes this delicious Oreo cookie cupcake and I have been craving one ever since my birthday in September. 

Now, despite having a test the next day, I made Jim come with me to the bakery to get my cupcake.  We walk downtown.  I can practically taste this cupcake and I just imagine peeling off the wrapper and smelling the dark chocolate and feel the soft, oh so light texture of the cake in my mouth.  Just as I'm imagining this I look up and see that the bakery is closed.

It's pitch black.

They aren't open on Monday.

Not even on Halloween.

Jim, always willing to offer a solution, suggests going to any number of other treat shops downtown.  We even walk into one, which is basically a store of all things chocolate.  They have macaroons and truffles and chocolate cannolis and all sorts of other chocolaty treats.  They even have a very nice cake spinning thingy, like they have in diners, showing off their baked desserts like pumpkin cheesecake and German chocolate cake and chocolate carrot cake. 

The problem is that they all looked like they had about 10 sticks of butter in them.  But the bigger problem was that they weren't my cupcake and therefore would not fulfill my cupcake craving.  If I ate anything from this place all I would do is go straight to the other bakery the next day and then I would have indulged twice!

So today I am going to get my beloved cupcake. 

Now, some people might read this and think, "Silly girl, you shouldn't eat any desserts when you're trying to lose weight."

But I disagree and here is my reason.  Sometimes eating healthy just means knowing when it is worth the amount of calories you're going to be taking in. 

Otherwise, at least in my case, I would eat a million other things to try and distract me from the thing I really wanted and then I've just eaten as many calories as the one thing I wanted would have been.  Also, as nearly everyone knows, making anything off limits just makes you obsess about it that much more.

Does this mean that if you want a hot fudge sundae every day you should eat one?  No.

But it does mean that if you really want something, eat it, but know that you're just going to have to be that much better the rest of the week and work out that much harder too. Which I do. 

I have lost weight.  Am I losing it Biggest Loser fast?  Uh, no.  But it took a while to put this weight on and the slower it comes off the better my chances of keeping it off.  But today, even with my cupcake, I am losing weight and that's a good thing.

Hey, even Tony Horton eats chocolate chip cookies!

But I'm on Vacation!!

I believe that when an addict relapses it is often referred to as falling off the wagon.  In my case I would say that I flung myself off, rolled three times, and landed spread-eagle in the middle of the street. 

Last week I went to visit my family in New England.  For all the people who don't live in Boulder, Colo., there is not a single donut shop within a 30 minute drive.  Seeing as it is often labeled, "The Healthiest Place in the Country," it seems logical that any donut shop out here would fail.  Miserably. 

Rhode Island, on the other hand, has one on every corner.  So, after walking four miles, I treated myself to a donut and ice coffee.  The second time I did the walk I had two donuts, because I mean, I never eat donuts.  To make up for the over-indulgence I didn't add any sugar to my coffee.  I still felt guilty though. 

During my trip I also ate cake, ice cream, apple fritters, ice cream, fish and chips, super fried calamari, and ice cream.  Oh! and a Dell's Lemonade.  So delicious!!

My punishment is that I gained back all the weight I lost....and then some.  Thing is, I am not addicted to food.  I will never be on the Discovery Health shows I find so fascinating.  I indulge just enough to be overweight, but not obese. 

I wouldn't even say my problem is food.  I think it's the horrible habits I've gotten into.  I never exercise.  Sometimes I'll go several hours, depending on what series I'm watching on Netflix, without ever getting off the couch (and by sometimes, I mean most days). 

My other horrible habit is procrastinating.  Why do today what you can leave until the absolute last possible second because then you get so much more down time beforehand? 
This theory usually works with my school projects.  I would even say that I work best under pressure.  For weight loss?  Not so much. 

Even though I know that weight loss is best achieved over a longer period of time,  I know that the longer it takes to lose, the longer I'll keep it off, and I also know that if I have to squeeze into my dress the way I look now I will be absolutely miserable on Jim's and my special day. 

And yet, I cannot seem to motivate myself.  I hate measuring my food (all those stupid measuring cups and counting, it only makes me more aware of how little I'm eating), I hate writing into a little notepad all the calories I'm eating (which I usually guesstimate anyway because I don't have a food scale and I'm horrible at math, let alone conversions), and I hate thinking about food ALL THE TIME. 

Which is what calorie counting usually results in. 

I want to skip all the hard stuff and go straight to the part where portion control comes naturally and I know the calories of foods off the top of my head. 

If anyone knows of a sensible, as in a no starvation, low-carb, high cow-fat, grapefruit binging, bacon frying, diet plan, I would love to hear about it. 

I actually think that might be part of my problem.  I read about health and nutrition... a lot.  I know that any diet where I cut out too much of anything will be a giant fail.  The problem with being on the up and up is that you're more confused than people in the dark. 

Let's take cereal. 

Cereal is usually high-carb, but it can also be high protein and fiber which is good.  It can also be paired with fruit and that's a plus, as is pouring in a cup of skim milk for extra protein and Calcium.  The problem with that is then I have digested a ton of sugar and it's not even 9 a.m. yet. 

This is how I analyze everything.  It's not all just about calories.  There should only be 3 grams of fat per 100 calories (heard that on NPR), it should be low in sodium (Women's Health Magazine), it should have as low a sugar count as possible (Discovery Health), whole foods are best, yet I'm on a diet so I shouldn't eat whole fat foods.  I follow so many rules I feel like I'm failing before I even begin. 

Tomorrow, I start simpler: not take-out or eating out.  No dessert.  Incorporate more healthy snacks to avoid hunger pangs that lead to bad cravings. 

Stupid Cat

So....I know that weighing myself in at this point would be too early.  Due to a lot of factors like water retention and just overall freaking your body out, your weight can fluctuate during the first two-three weeks.  To avoid getting discouraged, some weight loss experts advise checking your weight. 

Out of a combination of boredom and curiosity I decided I would.  I exercised all week, well four days out of the seven (which is a much better number than 0).  I even got myself to run on the treadmill for intervals, yay me!  I was also eating well about 80 percent of the time.  The other 20 we don't have to talk about.

My most accurate scale is on my Wii Fit, it also calculates my BMI (Body Mass Index) and tells me whether I am normal or overweight.  I have recently been in the normal category, but just barely. 

So I turn on the Wii. 

Let me mention here, Jim's cat, Mia, is extremely needy in the morning.  She lays in bed with her eyes open watching my face to see when I wake up.  Then I'm greeted with kitty breath (a perfectly blended combination of rotten tuna and butt) and chased all over the apartment as I get ready.

When I wash my face, Mia's on the sink.

When I make breakfast, Mia's at my feet.

When I eat breakfast, Mia forces herself between the plate and my lap. 

When I got on the Wii Fit board to weigh myself, Mia kept running around my feet and onto the board.  I bend to the right, feet still on the board, to push her off and get her to go away for the next 10 seconds this thing is taking my measurements.

The the weight is revealed.  I lost 6 pounds!!!! YAY ME!!

Just for good measure, I decide to take my measurement again...just to be sure, I was moving around, maybe I lost more.

Another 10 seconds and my weight is revealed.  I am the same 155 I was last week.  Turns out that the 6 pounds was Mia's husky butt being pushed off the board.

Stupid. Cat. 

Oh, well.  Now I just have to push that much harder to get my numbers down in the next two weeks.

The dangers of So You Think You Can Dance..Dance...Dance...Dance...

I love this show.  The problem?  It has a lot of commercials.  Unlike Biggest Loser commercials that feature products for people with Type II Diabetes and Cheerios, SYTYCD plays food commercials.  Lots of them. 

Prior to watching the show I did great on Diet: Day 2. 

I ate my egg whites and blueberries (a super food I might add, according to Women's Health Magazine) and even packed pistachios in my bag when I went to the office.  Then I can home and made an uber healthy tuna salad. 

Then I saw it.  Chicken, fried, goodness.  I only even watched the stupid commercial because they had all these pretty outdoor lights set up that looked like what I want at my wedding.  That's when they started eating. 

They looked so happy, smiling and dunking the little nuggets of gold into a variety of sweet and savory sauces.  Eating them made the family love each other again and realize that life was worth living. 

By this time, I was hungry, and the idea of standing in the kitchen and cooking my chicken for 30 minutes did not seem appealing.  I wanted a variety of sweet and savory sauces, dammit. 

"Hey, maybe we should go out for dinner!" I eagerly suggested to my fiancee, Jim, AKA "The enabler."

"Yeah, I could go for some Olive Garden.  Ooh! Or Outback, yum," he replied. 

I made a frowny face. 

I know that the OG packs tons of fat, sugar, and salt into everything (even their salad is fattening).  I thought chicken nuggets would be the lesser of two evils.  At least it's a small serving and doesn't come with previously mentioned fatty salad and bread sticks. 

My only redeeming decision was to avoid french fries and soda.  I just ate the meat, deep-fried delicious meat.  And it was white meat! 

Of course that didn't stop me from eating five of Jim's french fries which earned me a, "Hey.  You better not be eating all my fries.  You said you didn't want any, those are mine."

Jim, let me say here, thanks for your support in my endeavor to avoid eating an entire container of french fries.  Love you, so much.

Lesson learned:  make dinner before sitting down to watch TV.  Thereby avoid insatiable hunger and need to stuff bad food into mouth. 

The Plan

Technically?  I don't have one. 

Not a set one anyway.  I have no desire to do one of those Jenny Craig, eDiet deals because I want to establish healthy eating habits for life.  I don't want to lose all this weight for the wedding and then gain it all back during the honeymoon. 

As a journalist who covers a lot of nutrition and health stories, the idea of what goes into a lot of those frozen meals freaks me out. 

Don't get me wrong.  Some people have lost tons of weight using these programs and have been very successful.  I just know it's not for me.  Plus, I don't have a lot extra income to spend on these programs.

I'm going to have to do it the good old-fashioned cheap way. 

Basically, after reading tons of health magazines and nutrition books I know that I should include a lot more protein in my diet.  That also means avoiding processed sugars and white carbs.  My eating plan is  this:

Breakfast: two egg whites and 1/2c. of fruit (whatever floats my boat that morning)

Snack: yogurt/a small handful or pistachios/ a low-fat cheese stick

Lunch: A big leafy salad with fish

Snack: smoothie (post-workout)

Dinner: a 3 oz. portion of protein, a small serving of carbs (i.e. whole grain rice, sweet potato, whole grain pasta) and a 1/2 plate of veggies (either steamed, frozen or fresh). 

If I need a dessert I can have a 1/4c. of sorbet.

The trick, at least I hope, to sticking with this diet is to allow myself to splurge one day a week. 

The catch is that whatever I want to splurge with has to be homemade.  So, if I really want a cookie, I have to whip up a batch from scratch.  These are still not healthy, but at least I can control  what goes into them and avoid eating a lot of extra chemicals. 

If this seems like a difficult diet to stick with for life, that's because it is.  I can't eat cheese sticks every single day for the rest of my life.  I'm considering this my Phase 1.  This is how I'm going to jump start my weight loss plan. 

Then as I get sick of eating the same thing everyday I can experiment with different recipes and tricks, like those listed on my brilliant friend Stephanie's blog: http://protectingdinner.blogspot.com/. 

For now this is my hope-it-works, see-if-I-stick-with-it, might-need-tweaking-plan.