Daily Wahnsinn

Meh.

As feared yesterday, I actually went up in weight this week. It’s 1.8 lbs, which is obviously not the end of the world, but still I’d rather have lost or maintained. I’m assuming it’s a delayed result from the crazy holiday weekend of last week on top of me making a few wrong estimations during lunches/dinners and being less active. I would have liked to start this upcoming week (which is going to be tough) with a loss instead of a gain, but there’s nothing I can do about the past. So instead I’ll have to look ahead and try to make the best of this week.

BUT! I have NSVs:

1. I started the day with a pretty mean (and with mean, I mean AWESOME) discovery. I was shaving my legs in the shower and noticed that I’m developing some nice calf definition. My legs are still huge, but at least my calf muscle is about to come out nicely. All this running is paying off.
2. I also stopped by Macy’s last night (what was I thinking, the place is crazy, so many people) to try on a pair of jeans. During my last trip to New York prior to my relocation, I had a shocking revelation. Instead of being able to wear the size 12 I’d always worn, I had to go up to a size 14. It was one of the reasons why I then joined Weight Watchers and started doing something about my situation. I bought a bunch of boyfriend jeans at Macy’s and yesterday I went back to see which size I needed now. They’re still carrying exactly the same style, so I grabbed a 8 and a 6 to try both on. The 6 ended up fitting perfectly and I stood there in awe for a long time because I couldn’t believe that only a few months ago, I needed exactly the same jeans in 4 dress sizes bigger. Four dress sizes!!!
3. One of my former co-workers commented on my picture and asked “Who is that girl?” I told him it was some homeless stranger I picked up on the street to take her in and feed her.

Writing down my NSV actually made me feel a lot better about my gain. It’s the little things that count just as much, right?

For breakfast today, I made the Berrylicious Microwave Muffin. Loved it! I added oats and the egg as instructed. I sweetened with some honey and added some cinnamon and a teaspoon of unsweetened coconut milk. I threw in some blackberries and raspberries and microwaved for 2 minutes. The taste was great and it felt very filling. The consistency was a little mushy due to the berries, but overall it was a great, easy way to enjoy a treat for breakfast. It came out as 6 points in Weight Watchers, which is not too bad. This might also work very well with some semi-sweet chocolate chips thrown in there.

Yesterday I tweaked my Spinach Risotto recipe a little to bring it down in points value. Instead of the 12 points I had budgeted for, it came out as a 9 points. It allowed me to have the brownie after all, guilt-free. I then also had 3 small pieces of dark chocolate that I probably shouldn’t have had, but I had a weak moment and was just not thinking about it. It wasn’t a disaster, but unnecessary at the same time.

First, let me say: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. I think even at 11 AM, I’m still drunk. Or maybe just really, really badly hung over.

I went a little crazy with the alcohol yesterday and didn’t necessarily make the best food choices. But I had fun, so at least it was worth it. Today’s a new day and I plan on detoxing, going easy on my stomach and feeding my body with lots and lots of things that grew on a bush or tree or in the ground. And obviously, I will never ever in my life drink alcohol again. Or maybe just not until the next time.

Anyway. Today was weigh in day and I was a little scared to step on the scale. Not just because of yesterday, but because of the week in general since I also went a little alcohol happy on Saturday. So for this week, I was absolutely fine with just maintaining. However, I ended up quite surprised when I “lost” 1.4 lbs. I had not expected that! Now, I’m putting the lost in quotation marks because I believe that a big part of that is simply a result of dehydration after last night’s drinking. I guess the real weight change will show next week once my body has recovered from what I did to it this weekend. For now though, I’ll be happy with my 70 kg. Only a few more kilos to go.

I went to weigh in this morning, totally expecting to gain. It is Gain Week after all. (I used to gain/lose at a bi-weekly rhythm for whatever reason.) I was pleasantly surprised when I did not only lose, but I lost 1.4 lb! I’ve reached my 5% goal at Weight Watchers (again – after having to start over after my relocation to the US) and I nearly made it to my June goal:

• I’d love to lose another 5.5 lbs to reach 154.1lbs, my slimmest ever in adult life. I feel this goal might be too ambitious, so it’ll be “Getting as close to 154.1 lbs as possible. I think 156 lbs is potentially doable. – So I didn’t make it to 154.1 lbs, but I knew that the goal was very ambitious anyway. I made it to as close to 154.1 lb as possible though. I’m currently at 155.8 lbs, so even slightly under what I thought was potentially doable. Goal reached.
• Drink water. More water and then more water. I’d say my intake is about 70 fl oz per day. See whether I can get higher than that. – I must admit that I’ve been horrible with keeping track of my water intake. I know I continue to reach the minimum recommendation of Weight Watchers, 70 fl oz, but I haven’t kept track of how I’ve been doing beyond that. Oops.
• Break some kind of workout PR: farthest distance run, most minutes in one go, best pace/speed, most days worked out in a week. Something like this. – Saturday was kind of a bummer, however, I did manage to break a PR. I think I broke both a pace record and also the amount of total miles I ran in June. I really need to get Runkeeper Elite to keep better track of my progresses.

Overall, I’m extremely pleased with how the month went, despite the challenges I faced. Well done, self! I wore this Threadless shirt to work yesterday and it made me feel very skinny. I have it in a Large, but Threadless shirts tend to shrink, so it’s possibly more of a Medium(-Large) now. I remember the days when I couldn’t wear it anymore because it had become too small. It was big on me now! I had the same problem with this shirt. Must go find it and try it on at some point.

I weighed in this morning and was down another 2.6 lb. I’ve lost a total of 7.6 lbs since I re-joined Weight Watchers in the US and a total of 38.5 lbs since January. (That’s what? An average of 1.5 lb a week or something? Sounds healthy to me!) I’m very pleased with my weight loss. I know I “gained” last week, so even if I take that into account, it’s a good loss.

I’m only another 27 lbs away from my goal weight. The goal is to have lost that by the end of September. Some friends from home who were huge motivators and supporters during my weight loss journey are coming to NYC for Fashion Week (September) and I want to look stunning by the time they get here. Note: not that I don’t think I look stunning right now. I’ve changed so much during my journey and I feel good about myself and I’m LOVING myself. I have quite the healthy attitude toward my body and myself. BUT I want them to see me in person again the first time in months and be Whoa, Skinny Bitch, what happened to you?! ;o) I can do eeeeeeeeeet!

Another fun note: I’ve been doing really well last week in terms of food, alcohol and exercise. I met with a friend yesterday and I’d budgeted in some alcohol to enjoy myself. We took a stroll around the city and found a place to eat dessert. There were soooooo many yummy options on the menu. Tiramisu, chocolate tarte, panna cotta, anyone? I opted for the fruit salad with sorbet and I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. I skipped the glass of wine that I really wanted to go with it because I knew I’d been so good all week and I didn’t want to “ruin” my weigh in for the gratification of a moment. I ended up enjoying my sorbet enough as it was. I need to remind myself more often that you don’t have to indulge in everything to fully enjoy yourself.

I might take a rest day today. I’ve exercised for the last 6 days, so depending on when I got home tonight and how I feel, tonight might just be spent on the couch, watching crappy television. :)

Can I just take a moment to rant?

I go to Weight Watchers meetings on Tuesdays, which is also the only day during the week when I weigh in. I don’t have a scale anymore, so at first, weighing in only once a week was a little tough for me. My weight has been fluctuating a lot recently. I think I talked about it before. It’s been going up, then down, then up, then down, then up, etc. It’s almost a pattern I can rely on. It really stressed me out the first few times it happened because I thought I’d been eating well, exercising enough and I just didn’t understand why I suddenly gained. Had I had my own scale, I totally would’ve jumped on it the next day, seen that it was just a weird momentary fluctuation and then moved on. But alas, not having another way to reassure myself that it wasn’t a real gain, it freaked me out at first. I gained again this week, but I’m not bothered by it because my overall weight has been going down, I can see and feel my body changing, so the actual number on the scale doesn’t upset me all that much.

Now here’s a thing that really bothers me: I go to a before-work Weight Watchers meeting on Tuesdays. It’s a fairly busy meeting, so there’s Steve, the meeting leader and two receptionists. Steve is great. He is very encouraging and very funny. I actually look forward to the meetings. And then there’s The Receptionist. She’s an elderly woman and I always seem to end up weighing in with her. She seems friendly and sweet at first, but boy, is this woman snotty and insensitive! She calls everybody “honey” and asks how your week was. I told her that my week was fairly well and that I was hoping it would show on the scale. I ended up “gaining” 0.2 lbs and she came across as really condescending. She told me how I needed to drink my water in a very patronizing voice and I was too dumbfounded to be able to respond to her. I know she was probably trying to help, but honey, not in that tone! The thing is, I only put on 0.2 lbs. That is nothing! And on top of that, she knows nothing about my week that gives her the right to talk to me like this. Maybe I did a bunch of killer workouts and gained muscle. Or maybe I simple had salty foods the night before. Or maybe it’s hormones/my period. There are so many reasons why my 0.2 lbs gain doesn’t have to be a gain.

Now here’s what really bothers me: I know these things! I know not to let this freak me out anymore. And I know that I’ll get annoyed with her but I won’t let her insensitive words beat me up. Someone else, however, might not. I feel like receptionists at Weight Watchers represent the company just as much as the meeting leaders do. They should be positive and encouraging, especially if someone gains. You never know what state of mind the person you’ve just weighed in is in. Someone else might’ve taken what she said (or more importantly the way she said it!) to heart and possibly beaten themselves up over it. I’m actually really alarmed and will try to avoid her in future meetings. I’ll see whether I can weigh in with the other receptionist next time.

I weighed in at Weight Watchers this morning and the success I’d hoped for last week finally came: I lost 1.2 lbs (which includes the 0.6 lbs gain + some actual loss). But most importantly, it means that I’m now officially under 160 lbs. This is something I’m ridiculously excited about. Thinking about how I weighed about 196 lbs when I started, I’ve come such a long way and I’m ridiculously proud of myself. I also received my first 5 lbs reward. (You receive stars at Weight Watchers for every 5 lbs you lose.) My total weight loss since the beginning of the year is now about 36 lbs, but ever since I relocated, I had to “start over”. My weight loss is going slower than it used to and I know exactly why. I’m more social during the weekends and if I cut out the alcohol and less-than-ideal foods on the weekends while keeping up the exercise, I’d probably get there faster. Maybe I’ll do that at one point. Maybe I won’t. Right now, I’m perfectly happy with living a little during the weekends and allowing myself to be social and celebrate the fact that I managed to move to one of the most exciting cities in the world after pursuing this dream so long and hard. For now, I’m keeping up the exercise, giving my best to eat as healthy and clean during the week and not going overboard too much during the weekends. I don’t think I’ve set myself goals for May, so this month I’m doing it. Official June goals:

• I’d love to lose another 5.5 lbs to reach 154.1lbs, my slimmest ever in adult life. I feel this goal might be too ambitious, so it’ll be “Getting as close to 154.1 lbs as possible. I think 156 lbs is potentially doable.
• Drink water. More water and then more water. I’d say my intake is about 70 fl oz per day. See whether I can get higher than that.
• Break some kind of workout PR: farthest distance run, most minutes in one go, best pace/speed, most days worked out in a week. Something like this.

Some of these will be tough. For next week, I have two Happy Hours/After Work Dinners scheduled and then some more the week after that. Part of my job is being social and it’ll be quite a challenge. So I guess, another goal for June will be to try my hardest within my limits. I feel like buying myself something nice. I never set myself official rewards for milestones and