Trick or Treat

Star Power
Good news! I got weighed at Weight Watchers tonight and I lost again last week! I have lost a total of 12.6 pounds since I started in mid/late August. I got a "5 pound" star at the meeting to put on my "5 pound" bookmark. I recorded my new weight on the WW website and discovered something - every 5 weeks I lose 5 or more pounds. I'd like my weight loss to be going faster, but its nice to see this pattern in order to make changes.


I'm Starting to Prune
Okay, so I've had three shallow water aerobics classes so far. I enjoy being in the water, but there are a few things I don't like about the classes. First, they are too easy. I was afraid to sign up for deep water because I wasn't sure if I could tread water the whole time. Now I'm regretting that decision. I think next time I'm going to try deep water. I'm a good swimmer, so I think I'll be okay. The other thing I don't like is the fact that a swim team practices in a pool right across the deck from our pool. Here are these perfectly fit 19 year old girls and guys and then there's me doing these exercises. I keep trying to tell myself not to be embarrassed. I'll be ready to start swimming laps again in a few months.

I hope you are all well. Happy Halloween my friends!

Take care,

Trixie

Bridget Jones & the "Singleton" Curse

Just Call Me Bridget
So, I didn't go out with my friends on Friday night. There were 6 of us girls that were planning to go out. Then someone had the bright idea to make it co-ed and invite all the husbands and boyfriends. The only problem with that idea is that I'm the only one who doesn't have a husband or a boyfriend. I didn't have the guts to say that I wanted it to stay all girls because I knew they wanted to invite the guys. I thought I could go through with it, but as the evening drew near I just couldn't bear the idea of hanging out with 5 couples. All I could imagine was Bridget Jones at the dinner party with all the couples trying to explain why she is still single. And I wouldn't have a Mark Darcy (or better yet, Colin Firth) in the group to come after me and tell me he liked me "just as I am". So, I lied and said I was feeling sick. It was a shame because I had been looking forward to night out with friends in the city.

Counting Points
I've been good about counting points all week - and all the good and the bad food choices. I have used up all my extra points. Actually, I am one over. But I am working hard to stay within my daily allotment of points.

Water Aerobics
I signed up for a water aerobics class. It's Tuesdays and Thursdays for 6 weeks. I may need to start going to the Wednesday Weight Watchers meeting because the class ends exactly 30 minutes before the meeting begins on Tuesdays and I don't think I can make it there that quickly. I'll let you know how the first class goes.

Campaign for Real Beauty
I went to an interesting lecture last week. It was by the Group Creative Director for Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. She was very interesting. She mentioned a cool short video on their website that shows the time-elapsed footage of a photo shoot, from the model sitting down with no makeup to the photo being massively revised with something like Photoshop. Go to http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/ and check it out and check out the Dove Self-Esteem Fund.

Set Backs and Setting Myself Straight

I just got back from my weekly Weight Watchers meeting ... I gained 1.2 pounds last week. I am obviously bummed out, but I can't be too surprised. I haven't been counting points and I had three really bad meals last week, along with all the other mindless eating I'm sure I'm forgetting.

So, to get myself back on the right track I went to the Weight Watchers website and recorded my points for the day, the points I earned from going to the gym today, and my past 6 weeks of weigh-ins. It made me feel better to see how many flex points I still have for the week. I'm nervous about Friday night. I'm going out with a big group of friends for drinks and dinner. I'm trying to plot what I'm going to order. Do you ever feel self-conscious when you order healthy food and you feel like people are expecting you to order something bad for you?

I wanted to share some helpful reminders I got from a bookmark I got at my WW meeting last week. It's called "Use the Tools" and its good thoughts to replace the negative ones we all have running through our minds:

• Winning Outcomes: "What do I want?"
• Empowering Beliefs: "I can and I'm worth it!"
• Anchoring: "Remember when!"
• Storyboarding: "What's my next step?"
• Mental Rehearsing: "Practice! Practice! Practice!"
• Motivating Strategy: "What's my reward?"
• Reframing: "What does that get me?"
• Positive Self-Talking: "I am what I repeat"
• Asserting: "I need you to ______ because ..."
• Switching: "I can see the new me!"

I hope everyone is having a great week. I also wanted to tell everyone that I'm having problems leaving messages on "non-beta" blogs. I switched to the beta version of Blogger and now I can't post to "non-beta" blogs. I wish Blogger would have told me this before I agreed to switch. So, I am thinking of you and hoping for the best for you!

Bouquet Toss Boycott

My cousin's wedding was Friday night. I expected to have a great time. I was miserable. But before we talk about that, here were the goals I wanted to achieve before the wedding (previously mentioned in my "Goin' to the Chapel" post):

1) Have some breathing room in the pants
2) Have the tank part of the sweater set cover more of my stomach
3) Be able to bend over and put nail polish on my own toes
4) Get a hair cut (I just put that one in there because I need one desperately. I think the last time I had my hair cut was January.)

I achieved 2 of the 4 goals. The pants were comfortable and I did get a haircut before the event. I didn't achieve #2 because I wore something different. (It ended up being a more casual wedding.) I didn't achieve #3 because I didn't try. I decided to wear closed toe shoes because it was going to be cold, so I didn't bother painting them a new color.

For some reason I had a horrible time. The wedding should have been fun. Nothing seemed to go wrong and everyone seemed laid back and in a good mood. I, however, was in a foul mood and basically tried to sit in the corner the entire time. For some reason I was overwhelmed with all my relatives being there. I also didn't know where I fit in. I didn't have a date, I didn't have any kids to look after, I wasn't friends with anyone. I tried to hang out outside with the smokers, but that didn't work so well because it was cold.

Basically I felt very obviously fat and single. I am always hyper-aware of my appearance at weddings, but this was different. Usually I am enjoying myself, so I forget about what I look like. That night all I could think of was what I looked like. I suppose I should say something like, "It doesn't matter what I looked like. All that matters is how the bride looked." But that wasn't true. My relatives told my sister how good she looked, but no one said anything to me. I was also hyper-aware of not eating the hors d'oeuvres and not taking too much from the buffet. The good thing about my bad mood was that it made me stop drinking. I figured I didn't need a lot of alcohol to make me feel worse, or do something I'd be embarrassed about later. (It wasn't much to give up though. I was drinking Miller Lite instead of the Yuengling I wanted.)

All I can say is that I am glad that night is over. I learned at my weigh-in last Tuesday that I gained 0.4 pounds. So all in all, last week wasn't a great week. Maybe I'll have some good news at my weigh-in on Tuesday. I'll let you know.

You Talking to Me?

Okay, so I'm not sure how to tell this story to maximize the "Oh my God!" factor, but I'm going to give it a shot.

I was talking with a group of fellow students this afternoon about popular culture. We were talking about how babies get the best features from their parents and celebrity babies are a perfect example of that - Liv Tyler is beautiful, but looks exactly like her father Steven Tyler who has, to put it politely, not aged well. This one guy in the conversation then says that Steven Tyler's other daughter looks like him too, but she "has a weight problem". (She also happens to be a model, but I'm not sure if that really matters to the story.) I came close to saying, "but there's nothing wrong with having a weight problem", but I chickened out.

Not two seconds later, the guy who made the comment asked me to talk to go talk with him in private (well, off to the side of everyone else, out of earshot). To set the scene, this guy is extremely blunt, bordering on rude because he has absolutely no filter. He is incredibly smart, and moderately funny, so he isn't ostracized for his rude comments. I wouldn't call him a friend, but I'd say I am on more friendly terms with him than some other people.

He proceeds to ask me if I was offended by the comment he made about the girl with the weight problem. He then admits there's no polite way to ask that question because he is basically saying I have a ... He doesn't actually say that I have a weight problem, but its implied. He then says he knows he's made comments like this in front of me two other times (He can remember the exact conversations, I can't.) and keeps wondering if he's offending me. I am exceptionally bad at telling people they have offended me. I said something like, yes, what you're saying is awkward, but I actually appreciate the fact that you even think about my feelings since people say insenstive things about weight in front of me all the time and never think twice about my feelings. I was being honest, but not completely honest.

We ended up getting into a larger discussion about whether or not I think I have a weight problem and if I even want to lose weight. (He kept asking me questions and I just couldn't manage to stop giving answers.) I told him I was trying to lose weight, but asked him to not mention it to anyone or in front of anyone because I wanted to keep it private because I don't want anyone to know I think there's something wrong with me.

It was one of the most awkward and bizarre conversations I've ever had. I certainly do not want to repeat it. On one hand I'm offended that he had the audacity to tell me to my face he thinks I'm overweight. But on the other hand I am overweight, and I know it, and at least he apologized for being insensitve, but by apologizing he was being insensitive. It's a vicious circle.

I just had to share and find out if anyone else has had a similiar experience.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

So I'm innocently sitting in my Weight Watchers meeting tonight. I happen to be facing the door, which I don't normally. (To set the scene for you, the weigh-in room is the first room you walk in from the street. There's a doorway, and abra cadabra, there's the meeting room.) So, towards the end of the meeting, who walks in but two people I worked with this summer at my internship - my former supervisor and another woman! The meeting is near where I worked, so when I first started going I excepted to recognize people. (My internship was only for 3 months, it wasn't I walked out of there with millions of BFFs, but I did the networking thing.) The three of us had a nice exchange. They were only getting weighed, which might explain why I have NEVER seen them before at this meeting. (Okay, so I've only been going to this meeting for 4 weeks, but I saw it first.) I felt nearly naked even though the only thing I had removed in the last half hour were my flip flops! I consider my Weight Watchers experience to be a very vunerable moment in my week. Most of my friends don't even know I joined! I don't like to admit to potentially non-sympathetic, or mildly insensitive, people that I'm on Weight Watchers because it means I'm admitting there's something wrong with me. Somehow I have this insane notion that if I don't admit to people I think I'm fat they won't notice. Hah! Why, oh why, I ask do there have to be people I know at my WW meeting?! I fear that my best case scenario is a future of awkwardly sitting three in a row with these two women at meetings each week. So, I ask you, my friends, the ultimate question ... should I find a new meeting?