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. 

How I became a chubby bride

I suppose it makes sense to actually write about how I got into my current predicament. 

You know how people say, "I have always had a weight problem!"  I never realized I did until my loving, and well-intentioned family members, said, "Wow, it looks like you've lost weight."  I was 12.

My chubby factor peaked when I went through a horribly awkward phase in middle school.  I went up almost 4 sizes in one summer.  This may or may not have been caused by eating entire brownies in two bites in the kitchen while everyone else was outside.  Don't take this as a sad thing, they were delicious!

After that it was up and down.  In high school I started to slim down around sophomore year,  at least in comparison to how big I was in 8th grade.

I should probably mention that I was never "fat."  I am pretty sure that no one ever looked at me and thought, "Wow, she must break a lot of benches."  But I just didn't feel comfortable at my weight.  It also didn't help that I had a sister who was ridiculously thin, naturally, despite eating bowlfuls of Double Fudge Brownie Ice Cream at night.

Standing next to Sarah, a lot of people looked "fat."

My junior year of high school I was going to dance rehearsal for a musical, would come home and do a step workout (yes there was a 75 year-old-woman in the video, and no, she was not better than me at the routine).  My mother was also in a salad phase, and I was so ravenous by the time I got home that I just ate whatever she put in front of me.  I dropped around 12 pounds.   

I maintained this weight into my freshmen year of college.  I kept working out every single day.  I was also not eating very much because my sister and I were given a very strict food budget by our father.   We made a pound of chicken tenderloins last three days between the two of us. 

I was 5  feet 6 inches tall and weighed 124 pounds. 

The problem started sophomore year with the required meal plan purchase by FSU.  That year I gained 10 pounds.  Then my weight stayed about the same until the summer before my senior year, when I lived with my mother.... for 13 weeks...it was not a good time.  I would watch Jon and Kate plus 8 and binge eat for hours because dealing with my mother or stepfather was far too stressful. I gained another 10 pounds. 

Which brings us to now.  I work at Panera, where my fiancee gets food for free.  I live in Colorado and have not worked out since November. 

I went to my friends wedding a month ago in South Florida and stayed with my mother, who touched my stomach and said, "This worries me.  That's what causes heart attacks." 

I'm 23. 

Now I am 155 pounds, don't tell my mother, I told her I was 140.  Point is, I am still a normal weight for my height, according to my Wii Fit.  Of course, the Wii also says my cat Mia hasn't gained weight and she's definitely got some pooch going on. 

Though, again, I am not horribly overweight, or obese, I am not happy....and at my wedding..I would like to be happy.  Jim's parent's are paying for a photographer and I don't want to look at the pictures and say, "Wow, my back looks like one of those wrinkly faced Asian dogs!" 

So, I'm doing this because weight loss, at least in my realm, is entertaining, and to help other ladies with sexy dress missions to accomplish their goals.

Mission Sexy Dress

     Mission sexy dress has been initiated.  Well, sort of. 
     Here's the deal:  I bought a dress, off the rack, for my wedding, which according to my website is in exactly 453 days from today.  The dress looks beautiful...from the front.  From the back, not so much.  Mostly because I have seven rolls of fat hanging over the back..which may be distracting for any visibly-abled person at my wedding. 
     So starting today, my plan is to get myself toned and tightened, or as I said at the dress store, "I just need to lock it up, slim it down, and get it on point." 
    My first day went pretty well, except for eating three Oreos and getting a small mocha latte.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make up for it in the gym today, which is where I'm headed now!