ON VACATION!!!

WOOHOO!! I am SO excited... to see my family, to go to my most favorite place in the world, and to get out of the same old same old daily routine around here. I'm totally scared about staying onplan while I'm away, but I'm bound and determined to incorporate some healthy strategies while there. Usually I incorcorporate the *I'm on vacation, so let's eat and drink and not exercise* strategy.... I dont go in planning to do this, but it has always organically taken over basically as soon as I step foot on cottage soil!! So this time, I am going to:

1) walk - the cottage road is along the lake.... it's beautiful.... 'nuff said. NO excuse why this cant happen daily
2) eat well - my husband and I get there first and we're doing the big grocery shop, so no reason why there wont be healthy food in the house.
3) get out there in my new bathing suit and enjoy swimming every day with the kids and NOT let my self consciousness get a hold on me. I think the more active I am and the more fun I'm having, the more I wont want to quell negative thoughts ("I look awful in this bathing suit") with a food fest
4) eat tons of fruit and veggies for snacks
5) drink tons of water
6) limit the alcohol... I like a nice fruity alcoholic drink in the evening while sitting around watching the sunset, but I wont go overboard.
7) HAVE A BLAST!!!!

I hope everyone has a great 2 weeks and I look forward to catching up on all your blogs when I return!!!

WEEK 5 RESULTS!

Down ANOTHER .5. I have nothing to say about it today *SIGH*. Obviously glad the weight is going down, but I know I would be losing much more if I put my heart and soul into it. Something's still holding me back from reaching my full weight losing potential.... hoping to figure it out soon for my own sake.

Good luck this week to everyone else!

Yet ANOTHER reason to hate being fat!

So I got my hair done today. It was the 3rd time in 5 months. Before that it had been a year since I'd gotten it cut (luckily with long curly hair you can do that - sort of)! I decided back in February that getting my hair cut was a way to start taking care of myself and treat myself to a bit of pampering (GASP - imagine!).

So I LOVE LOVE LOVE my hairdresser. She is the first person that I have gone back to in MY LIFE for a repeat cut. I LOVE my hair these days and love going in to see her. She spends almost 2 hours on me and I come out feeling all swingy and sexy. Plus, she always straightens my hair, and if you have curly hair, you know how exciting that is!

HOWEVER..... I HATE sitting in front of that mirror looking at my face. It happens every time... I get my hair washed and sit down on that hydrolic chair (more on that in a minute), look up and BAM! I'm stunned at how I look. Hair wet and slicked back, the rolls that appear because I'm sitting (I mean, how often do you look at yourself in a mirror when you're sitting? Shocking - that's all I can say) and I just FEEL HUGE. And then I see the cape.... ahhhh the lovely 'fat-hiding' cape. Once that's on, I can almost pretend that there's a thin person under there. Except that I have no neck and my face still looks fat... but still - if it wasn't for the cape, I don't know that I could sit there making small talk.

And then she starts to pump the chair to raise me up. Does anyone else ever feel fear and trepidation when that chair starts rising? I'm sitting there wondering what the weight limit is on those hydrolics and how humiliating it would be if the poor things just couldn't take it. How everyone would hear the sad hissing noise they'd make as they slowly gave up and I slowly sunk down to the floor. There are no words.

I CANT WAIT to not think these ridiculous energy-robbing thoughts anymore. I imagine that when my weight is not such a big issue, that I may be able to just sit there and enjoy the hair cut (again, GASP!).

I won't even talk about catching myself in the windows/mirrors as I bounced out of the mall. I chose to avert my eyes to my hair and capitalize on the *straight sexy hair moment*. I'm glad I did, because I stepped out into torrential downpour. Bye bye sexy straight hair - guess it's time to go back to being a pony-tailed mommy :)

PS: Hair is already starting to curl in this picture
PPS: ** Picture Taking Tip: Take picture from above.... and voila - 50 pounds lighter :) **

WEEK 4 RESULTS!

Down .5

I actually feel pretty good about it. At least it's going in the right direction! I'm also going to give myself a little break since it's TOM... not sure if that really affects my weight loss or not, but it makes me feel better to think it does, so I'm gonna :)

I'm NOT going to be perfect this week - there's no such thing. I am, however, going to do everything in MY power to stay on plan. And I know I have the power - just have trouble summoning it up sometimes. But I'm going to do everything I can to kick the butt of that fat girl's voice inside me who has up to now being in control of my eating - how dare she not believe in me!!!

Frustrated with myself

So this will be quick, cause I promised 'Morning Leslie' I would go to bed at 10pm.. and it's already 10:01pm.

So I weigh in tomorrow. I have been *good* all week - tracking what I've eaten, gotten out almost everyday for a walk (although walking with 2 kids under 3 doesn't really quantify as cardio as I seem to be stopping every 2 minutes or someone who walks 1km/hour decides she doesn't want to be in the stroller anymore), but hey, I got out there. Anyway I DIGRESS - god I get off track quickly.

I'm especially proud as my husband has been away since Sunday morning and usually I have used this as an excuse to go shopping for comfort food and junk and have a good ol' binge... under the guise of buying salad fixins and low-fat yogurt of course. I then hide all the proof and pretend it never happened... but i digress AGAIN.... this week I didn't do this, in fact I made sure that we did our grocery shopping TOGETHER before he left so I couldn't rationalize going to the store. Yay me.

And then today happened. I just had the hardest time keeping my eating controlled. I know it's me sabotaging myself. The day before weigh-in. WHY WHY WHY do I do this?? Maybe it's because I put so much pressure on myself. I woke up this morning saying "today I will be perfect" because I want to see a bigger loss tomorrow so badly! It seriously feels like there's someone else controlling my mind. I've had arguments in my head ALL day and I'm just exhausted. And sad cause I gave in to the destructive self-talk. And so now I'm scared for tomorrow. I really feel the need to see a loss or I'm afraid I will feel defeated and I know I will want to comfort myself with food.

Maybe tomorrow I'll see this in a new light... I'm just so angry and disappointed in myself for allowing today to happen. I'm going to have to work on some strategies to deal with this "sabotage the day before weigh-in" mentality I seem to have. There's something inside me that's out to prove to myself that I CANT do it.

So much for being short and sweet - as usual, a novel. And now it's 10:12pm. BED!

The Red Bull Fairy.....

.....snuck into this baby boy's room this morning at 5:15am and woke him up... that HAS to be it. Why else would a 9 month old wake up 2 hours early and decide to practice *talking*. However cute his gibberish babbling and giggling was, I was NOT ready to get up that early. He woke up Maya (grrrrrr) and to top it off, the following laws of my universe were in effect:

1) I stayed up til 1am to watch a rerun of SNL. I didn't even enjoy it, just sat there watching it. Blah.
2) My husband left on a business trip this morning, and so I am left alone with the consequences of a tired cranky baby who's off schedule and a 2 1/2 year old who lost an hour's sleep and who is currently full of beans- jumping around me singing the same line of twinkle twinkle little star over and over again VERY loudly (although she sings 'fwinkle fwinkle wittle stawrr' so it's kinda cute. Kinda).

I can only hope that this means they'll both be down for long afternoon naps!

I find that it's these types of days, when our daily schedule gets off track, that I also get sidetracked with my eating. I usually eat at specific times (breakfast when Matthew goes down for his morning nap and lunch when both of the kids are down for their afternoon naps). When these nap times are changed, I find it hard to stick to my eating plan and find myself grabbing something here and there. Oh well, I know that I still have control over what I put in my mouth, so today I WILL stick to healthy eating, and will try my hardest to be a happy mommy today and not let my crankiness show!!

On a weight-loss note, I *feel* lighter today. Do any of you know what I mean? It's like I can tell that I lost a few fat cells. I am going to resist weighing myself and wait for tomorrow morning when I do my mid-week reality check. But I'm pretty sure I lost something. I love the feeling though... hmmm I wonder what losing a HUGE chunk of weight will *feel* like?!

WEEK 3 RESULTS!

I stayed the same!! YAY!!! How exciting and inspiring!!! pfffftttt Can you sense my sarcasm?? Oh well, shake it off *shake shake shake*. My RESULTS match my effort and commitment this week, as they should. Hardly any exercise and 2 dinner dates with girlfriends where I went *all out*. I'm lucky I didn't gain!

This is an area where I consistently trip myself up. Going out to restaurants. I have that *I'm at a restaurant, and I need to indulge myself* mentality. Realize that I have always had it - maybe cause we never got to go to restaurants much when I was a kid and it was always such a *treat* when we did?? Regardless of why I do it I have to be accountable to the fact that only I have control over what I eat, and that even though I went in with a carefully thought out strategy of what I was going to eat, the fact that it all went to hell as soon as I saw the menu (and the other girls started debating on whether to get hot spinach/artichoke dip or the chicken wings to start - damn them anyway!!!), can only be blamed on myself. I have to get over this mentality that just because I'm paying for the food, doesn't mean I have to treat myself. I mean I pay for the food I eat at home too!! And there are always healthy choices that taste as good as the nachos. Ok, who am I kidding.. it's rare a green salad tastes as good as nachos (or FEELS as good as nachos :P), but the bottom line is that I HAVE to change how I behave when eating out if I want to be successfull at losing weight. PERIOD. Otherwise I'm going to have to just abstain from going out til I lose the weight.. which is ridiculous - I have to be able to do this while living my life and having fun. How else will I learn to sustain it?

Anyway, blah blah blah. I'm not going to beat myself up over not losing, however disappointed I feel. I'm not a failure - I'm not a bad person - I don't *deserve* to binge because I feel badly. It's just an accurate result of my actions. Which I was in total control of. Learn from it!!!

I read an article a while back about people who had been successful at losing weight and it said that one of the reasons these people were successful was because when they faltered or made a *bad* food decision, they did not give themselves permission to throw the whole day away and stuff themselves, but immediately moved on - ready to make a good decision the next time they ate. This really resonated with me, as I definitely have the *I've already failed, so the day is shot - let's eat!* mentality. But if I could lose that and take that one decision for what it is - ONE BAD DECISION - and just move on to make better decisions for the rest of that day, I think I could definitely be successful. I think this journey will be all about the THOUSANDS of decisions I will have to make. I have to acknowledge that every decision is an opportunity to either propel myself forward or push myself back. I think it scares me that I have so much control!!!

My mission this week is to stay on plan. I did it my first week and I was successful so I know that it can be done and that I am capable of doing it. One decision, one day at a time!

Crazy Food Mind Games

OK - I was just writing a comment on someone else's blog and as I was writing it I felt like laughing hysterically (and not necessarily in a good way). I thought I'd post what I was writing (and more!) here for the world to see. My version of *dirty food laundry*

I'm a food hider... hate hate hate that I do it. I'm sure my husband sometimes wonders WHY I'm overweight cause it sure doesn't LOOK like I eat junk.. but I do/did - he just didn't see it - cause I'm a professional. I would buy chocolate or something and tell myself i was buying it to share. HA... like I'm fooling anyone as I hid it under the grapes... the only one I'd be fooling is myself, as I wouldn't say it out loud....wouldn't want to confuse the 2 1/2 year old who might ask for it later and I'd have to scramble to make up someting to explain why she thought I'd bought chocolate!

If I have it in the house, I panic and HAVE to eat it now so that it's gone. So that I can start *fresh* tomorrow... I give myself the old *this will be my LAST chocolate until i'm skinny* promise :P Such a ridiculous thing to do as I would inevitably just buy something else the next day anyway cause of course my sugar addiction would kick in and I'd conveniently forget the promise I made to myself the day before. I have great selective memory when it comes to food. Anyway, I just can NOT have it in the house. It (and it could be anything - as long as it's not healthy!) calls to me - I can't rest til I have it. Sounds like an addiction to me!!!

I just read this over and feel that I sound like a crazy woman. *SIGH* I do feel like that sometimes. I've tried to explain it to my husband and although he's as supportive as a husband can be, I know he just can't understand it. My mission in life is that my daughter doesn't learn this behavior from me (I know I learned at least some of it from my mom).

The only thing that makes me feel better is that I know from reading other people's blogs that I'm not the only crazy woman out there. I also know from those who HAVE been successful at losing their fat that this is a life-long battle and not something that I will one day wake up not thinking about. I just hope that maybe one day I'll be able to have a bag of cookies in the house for my kids and not lie awake at night hearing them call my name (or worse eat too many of them and have to replace what I ate so that no one knows - Ok cant believe I just shared THAT dirty secret!!).

Ok - I'm done revealing for today. There's lots more, and maybe it IS good to write it all down for the world to see. maybe?

Darn 100 calorie chocolate bars!

Ok, so I've come to the sad realization that I just cant have these in my house. Darn it anyway!! One of the things I was looking forward to on this program was being able to have chocolate as it's my downfall, and is how I've always *failed* at all my other attempts at eating well. So I bought a box of them with the plan of eating ONE A DAY as a treat. HA! I just cant seem to do it. I had one and it started a binge fest and I ended up eating them all. It was one of those 'I cant remember how much I ate or what it even tasted like' binges - unconscious eating - so needless and useless!

I am going to wait until I feel more of a momentum with my weight loss and feel a bit more in control before I buy these again. If I do want one, then I will get ONE when we go grocery shopping. One I can handle - obviously 6 I cant!!

Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who didn't like chocolate... imagine!!!!

MIDNIGHT SELF-REFLECTIONS!

I felt compelled to write this tonight at 12:50AM... a completely ridiculous time since I told M he could sleep in tomorrow - which means I'll be up with the kids at 7am LATEST. I'm such a night owl - I get a second wind around 11pm and all of a sudden lil miss lazy feels the need to tidy, clean, read blogs, and watch inane sitcom reruns. Morning Leslie HATES night Leslie. hates her.

Oh well, the reason I felt compelled to write is because I opened my blog tonight and looked at the ticker I placed at the top of my last post. As I read it left to right as any normal english speaking person would (i say this because you read right to left in Hebrew which is just craziness) I first see *41 pounds lost* and I think WOOHOO!!!! But then as I read further it says *119 to go* and the woohoo quickly loses its ooomph. That ticker just seems so smug and taunting and it just seems so impossible - that's a lot of weight girlfriend!

Which brings me to a related topic...I'm always so incredulous when I hear that someone wants to lose 20 or 30 pounds and is lamenting at how hard that is, and all I can think of is that I need to lose that in just my left butt cheek.. I would sell said left butt cheek to only have to lose 20 or 30 pounds. I'm not saying it's not a lot of weight to lose for that person, but it seems so piddly compared to my huge amount. I can't even imagine how I will feel to see the balance tip on the side of amount lost... I will have had to have lost 80 pounds or something (I'm not willing to do the math at this hour). *SIGH* seems so insurmountable. However, thanks to WW and all the gals out there blogging their weight loss, I know it IS possible, and so I pledge to keep plugging away. One day I will be able to celebrate with my smokin' 40-pound less butt - that's both cheeks :) - on our weight loss.

Ok time to sleep - at least it's M's turn to get up with the baby for his feeding tonight! OK OK, morning leslie - I'M GOING!!!

WEEK 2 RESULTS!

I hesitated to put an exclamation mark on the title of this post, cause I don't really think a .5 loss is *all that and a bag of chips*....

Disappointing, but not that surprising.. knew I wouldnt have another big loss like last week and I wasn't able to exercise this week at all, plus I sort of lost the oomph to track points these past 3 days.... I've proved that guestimating WILL NOT WORK!!! At night in bed, I'd start counting up my points, and it's amazing how much more you eat when you're not tracking. Lesson learned. I'm getting on that treadclimber tomorrow regardless of this darn toe - I'd love to see a bigger loss next week!

Oh well, onward and downward!

time for a challenge

I joined my first WW challenge today!! I'm very excited... not sure why so much, but I am.. maybe because it gives me one more thing to strive for and keep me accountable.

My goal by September 29th (12 weeks) is to lose 25 pounds. Hopefully that will put me about 255. My anticipated hurdles will be my 2 week vacation in Ontario at the end of the month and our 3 week trip to Israel in September. Hubby's parents never stop cooking.. and I'm going to have to definitely avoid the all-you-can-eat falafel place we went to every couple of days last time we went!! mmm falafel :)

frustrated

argg.... my toe is still killing me.. it's so stupid, but it's driving me crazy not to be able to do any walking or get on the treadclimber. It's 95% healed, but it kills when i put any pressure on the end of my big toe - which, I found out, you do EVERYTIME you take a step... if i dont put pressure on it, then i'm basically limping, and at my weight, I really feel the extra weight being placed on that other leg.

Not good - BLAH. I weighed myself today (my mid-week checkin) and I'm up a pound. I was so hoping to have another big loss due to working out. I dont think it's going to happen. Regardless, I've been eating well, so I'm still hoping for a loss on Thursday.

Over and out.