Lucky Shoes

Hey there! I'm back home after my trip to Vegas. Things have been crazy busy, as I know they are for all of you. I'm trying to balance homework, classes, exercise, job search, group projects, and a minor social life. I can't imagine how those of you with children manage to keep it all together! My hat is off to you!

I got weighed-in on Thursday last week. I'm up 1.6 pounds. I'm not too upset. I really wasn't making great choices and I'm embarrassed to admit that for the first time since I started journaling, I stopped recording what I ate and drank! I found if I don't do it every day, or every other day, I just don't do it. I'm going to go back in my WW etools and try to fill in the blanks, but I have accepted that I'm going to have two partially incomplete weeks. One thing I must admit, I want to lose those 1.6 pounds by Thursday at my next weigh-in. I think I'm crazy now that I write it. It's pretty impossible since I will only have time to exercise today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Okay, reality check enabled. It will take me 2 weeks to take off the 1.6 pounds, not 1. I think I can handle that.

I'm very excited. I realized today that graduation is in 56 days! That means classes end even sooner! I am really excited, but also a little sad. I will miss seeing my friends and taking water aerobics, and of course it has been a very interesting and challenging 2 years. And then there's the practical concern of finding a job since the money I get from student loans runs out around the end of July! Eeek!

And for those of you who were excited about my new shoes, I found a picture on the internet of one pair. They are cuter in person and look really good with dark jeans. I wore them to the casino twice and was lucky both nights! :)

Nobody's Perfect

Hey there! I'm writing this in Vegas at my parents' house. I've been here since Friday and it has been great! The weather has been awesome - mid 80's, sunny and breezy. I've been pretty busy visiting with them, doing school work and applying for jobs.

My exercise has been okay - I went hiking again with my mom and her 50+ hiking group on Saturday morning. It was challenging. The heat made it harder than I remember it being in January, but I made it. Those 60-year-olds kicked my ass on the hike! I got tan lines from my tank top :) Today I went to the gym and road the bike for 45 minutes. I didn't have it on high enough resistance so it wasn't too challenging, but I guess it was better than just sitting on my ass! :) Tomorrow I am trying my mom's pilates DVD because the wind is supposed to be bad and I shouldn't be walking outside. Bummer.

My eating and drinking haven't been great. But I haven't gone off the deep end. I've made basically good choices and my portions have been good, but I have been eating a little bit of everything, that's my problem. My mom has been really supportive and suggested that it is okay to not be so strict all the time. That in order for my eating habits to be sustainable I need to give myself a break every once in a while. (I type this as I am nursing a rum and Diet Coke.) I'd like to believe her, but I still feel guilty for not staying on plan. It is so much easier to manage my weight when I am living alone. But when I am eating with other people it is so tempting to make the wrong choice. I am starting to understand the challenges all of you living with spouses/boyfriends/roommates/families are dealing with. I have even more respect for you all than I did before! But I am still definitely going to Weight Watchers to get weighed-in on Thursday. I know I'll be up, I'm always up when I come to Vegas, but that's okay. It's one week in the course of a long journey.

On a separate note, my parents, as usual, have been super wonderful about my weight. They made nice comments about noticing my weight loss when I arrived. Otherwise they just treat me like they always have. Well, that's not totally true, my dad, who does most of the cooking, asks me considerate questions about what kinds of things I can/will eat and portion sizes. But there's no judging. And there was no judging when I was 38.6 lbs. heavier. They are wonderful. I don't think I will ever be a parent, but if I am, or have occasion to be around children, I hope I am as supportive as they have been to me! (If you're reading this, thanks mom!)

On a separate girlie note, I bought two pairs of kick-ass shoes this weekend. Think black satin peep-toe 4" pumps and gunmetal grey strappy sandals with about 3-1/2" heels. I need the first pair for interviews with creative luxury brand companies and the second pair were on sale and too cool for school! I guess you could call them my reward for my weight loss so far.

Waterworld

Things have been crazy this week! Life has been so much easier in grad school than in the real world that I had almost forgotten what stress feels like. Well it came back in full force on Wednesday! (I better get used to it because that's what life is going to be like all the time once I graduate.) The day started with me waking up at 9:14am and needing to be at school for a class at 9:30am! The good thing was that I had water aerobics at the end of the day. It was so wonderful. A great recovery of my mental and physical energy. And I did the whole class without the buoyancy belt. We all, including the instructor, wear these floatation belts to help keep us treading water in depths of about 9-10 feet. I forgot to put mine on and couldn't understand why after 6 weeks the exercises seemed harder. Then I remembered the belt, but decided to just give it a shot and do the class without it. I felt more tired at the end, but it was a great feeling. The next 6 week set of classes start after spring break and I am going to do that entire set without the belt. I'm psyched!

I was pretty successful at adding more water to my daily diet. I'd say I drank about 40 oz. of water every other day. Now I just need to get in the habit of doing it every day. I find I like drinking water out of those overpriced plastic bottles instead of a cup or a glass, even at home. So I've been refilling those plastic bottles and carrying them with me. It's working so far.

Today was my weigh-in and I'm down 1.2 lbs. this week. I checked my long-term goals chart and it looks like I'm still on track for all my milestones ("1/2-way to goal", "no longer obese by graduation", etc.). That makes me happy, but as you know I'm trying to concentrate more on how I feel than on what the scale or the clothes say. And I've been feeling really good, even though my total amount of exercise this week was pretty low and I ate fried eggplant today (yum-eee)! I'm a little nervous that I'm not going to get in any exercise when I'm in Las Vegas next week for spring break (at my parents). I'm planning on taking a 45 minute walk each day. The weather should be beautiful so I won't have any excuses.

I hope you are all doing well and in a good place. I haven't been to many blogs this week because of a ton of school work, so I'll be checking out what you've been up to this weekend. Take care! Trixie

Half Empty or Half Full?

Hey there, how's it going today? I had a lovely day. I slept in super late (I'm too embarrassed to tell you when I got out of bed), I checked email and did a little research for class, did low-impact aerobics DVD (only had time for 25 minutes of it), showered and did my hair and put on decent clothes and then left for class. We had a guest lecturer who had worked at a start-up. She was very interesting and taught a pretty good class. Afterwards I approached her and asked if she'd be willing to meet me for coffee sometime and discuss her career. She said yes, yeah! Then I left for Weight Watchers. I got to the meeting late, it had already started when I was waiting in line to weigh-in. I hate that, but what are you going to do. I'm down 2.8 lbs. this week - yeah! So I am squarely in the 180's. I'm excited because I am only 4.1 lbs. away from my halfway point to goal weight of losing 83 lbs. In some ways it makes this process seem really daunting, like "I have another 41.5 lbs. to lose, ugh!" But in other ways it is really inspiring, like "Look what I did!" I guess it's just deciding whether the glass is half-empty or half-full.

After talking with my friend this week and having a long conversation with my mom last night, I have decided that I am going to actively work to spend less time thinking about what I look like and spend more time on what I think and feel. That doesn't mean I am going to exercise any less, or eat worse (in fact, my meeting leader challenged us to work on the area we aren't very good at this week and mine is water consumption, so I am going to get healthier!), or spend less time doing my hair and making sure I look nice. I'm just going to stop trying on all my old clothes at night and dreaming of when I'm going to fit into them and what I'm going to look like. Instead I am going to spend more of my free time working on assignments for school and applying for jobs. There is this really interesting position at a company in New York I'm interested in. It has all the elements I'm looking for: management of a team, strategic work and the opportunity to be creative. I spent about an hour with a career counselor at school tailoring my resume and a cover letter to the position. I'm going to finish it up tomorrow and send it off. Then I'm going to reach out to the people in my network to see if they know anyone at that company. Wish me luck!

How was your day today?

How Did I Get So Screwed Up?

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend today. She is very wise and I value her thoughts and opinions.

I told her that in the past I had avoided losing weight because I didn't want to turn my back on the "sisterhood". I didn't want to say, I don't want to belong to that group any more, I want to be on the thin side of the playground. Until my conversation with her today, I haven't worried that I was doing that with this weight loss journey. By losing weight, am I saying that I'm not attractive at the weight I am today? at the weight I was 3 months ago? at 223.8 pounds? Am I saying that today I don't deserve success, love, affection, attention, friendship, a good parking space, the door opened for me, a free drink at a bar, but that I will deserve them when I reach my goal weight? I don't want to be saying that. I don't want to believe that, but part of me, I HATE to admit it, does believe all that. I haven't cried in months, but as I type this my eyes are welling up with tears. I'm a terrible person.

She said that if I'm losing weight to be healthy, that I am not saying any of those things, but if I am losing weight to be a certain size, or to fit into a certain dress, I am saying those things. Last night I tried on a dress that hasn't fit in years and dreamed of the day that it will. I even tried it on with two different pairs of heels to see which one looked better. I am going through this weight loss journey because I want to change my life and I want to be healthy, but DAMN IT!, I am also doing this to fit into clothes I haven't been able to wear in years.

How did I get so screwed up? How did I become one of the bad guys? I want people to respect me and care about me now, at the weight I am today, but in actuality I don't even think I deserve their respect and affection. If I heard anyone else say these things I'd want to take them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them. I'd tell them about all the wonderful women (and men) out there that make the world a better place and their weight has NOTHING to do with their value. I'd say that you can't say that only certain kinds of people deserve to enjoy life and not be discriminated against. But why can't I believe it for me? Why can't I shake some sense into myself?

Rituals

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about this wonderful book I've been reading for school - The Power of Full Engagement. Well, I finished it this week and the book ends talking about rituals. I hadn't given much thought to the role of rituals in my life, it sounded at first like church to me. But then I realized through the reading that rituals are all around me - they are part of my daily life. The rituals of taking a shower, of always attending classes, of sitting in the same seat, of calling my parents at least once a week, of attending my Weight Watchers meetings on Thursday nights, of always having a tall skim no-whip mocha at Starbucks after the meeting. These rituals are outside my conscious awareness and that's where they are supposed to be, because rituals "provide a level of comfort, continuity and security that frees us to improvise and to take risks." Doesn't that sound empowering? So I am sharing with you some of the summary points the chapter on rituals ends with. I hope you enjoy them.

* All great performers rely on positive rituals to manage their energy and regulate their behavior.

* The more exacting the challenge and the greater the pressure, the more rigorous our rituals need to be.

* Precision and specificity are critical dimensions of building rituals during the 30 to 60 day acquisition period.

* Trying not to do something rapidly depletes our limited stores of will and discipline.

* To make lasting change, we must build serial rituals, focusing on one significant change at a time.

I'm going to start two new rituals. I've decided I need to pay attention to what is good in my life for a change. First, I am going to keep a small notebook on my bedside table. Each night I am going to write the first 5 things I can think of that I am thankful for in this world. I did this many years ago and it was wonderful. I felt blessed every night. Some days it was harder to come up with 5 than others, and some days I wanted to write 20. But, it's the ritual of doing it every day that reminds me how great my life really is. Second, each morning when I get up I am going to read the passage for the day in the book Simple Abundance. It's a book that came out I think in the '90s and it is all about stopping and enjoying your world around you. Taking a breather and looking at things differently. It's also about creativity, which is currently lacking in my world at the present moment.

What rituals are you going to start?

Lost Motivation

I don't know where to begin. I haven't been very motivated this week. I guess that's why I only lost 0.6 lbs. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about it. I've lost weight for 5 weeks in a row, albeit in decreasing amounts each week. I'm just losing my oomph, my excitement, the thrill of losing weight. It is starting to feel like a job. If I stay on track I'll be at my halfway to goal point in about 6 weeks. I would have expected to feel this way then, not now. But I guess you don't get to decide when you get burnt out on weight loss. I've already tried on all the smaller clothes in my closet to see if they fit (some do and some don't, regardless of the size on the label). I've already don't tons of online window shopping, dreaming of my new wardrobe once I hit goal. What is there left to do but wait until I lose the rest of the weight?

I know I should build in little rewards for myself once I hit certain benchmarks, but I have a hard time justifying that on a grad student's budget. And don't get me wrong, I do nice things for myself all the time - I take baths and read for pleasure and I have no problem making time for myself seeing as I live alone. I go out to dinner once a week usually. So there aren't too many things that I could reward myself with that I can afford that I don't already do.

So what do you do when losing weight just isn't as fun as it used to be? Am I being selfish? Am I being ridiculous? Shouldn't seeing the scale go down be a reward in itself? What's wrong with me?