I'M RAVENOUS

All I want to do is eat right now. And not good stuff. PMS is kicking my ass.

I finally got my appetite back after being sick for a few days and I CANNOT STOP EATING. JUNK. For the past two days, I had chinese food. What the HELL am I thinking?? I haven't eaten a vegetable for a week now. I am so off-track and I need to do something about this ASAP.

First in order: find some kind of over-the-counter and/or alternative medication to help with PMS symptoms. It's really out of control. I've been severely depressed for a week now. I have absolutely nothing to be depresessed ABOUT, as my life is really good...I just AM and I can't control it because my hormones are out of whack. Add to that being sick, and then being hungry and eating uncontrollably - it's not pretty.

So today, I told PMS to fuck off. I went to the kitchen to find something disgusting to eat and I just stopped myself and talked myself through it. Then I grabbed a video tape, threw it in, and starting exercizing. And now, I feel AMAZING.

It's no lie. Endorphines rule. And I'm going to be self-medicating myself through PMS with exercize from now on. Fuck PMS. I'm going to win this battle if it kills me!

NO WEIGH-IN TONIGHT :(

So, I'm home sick today with a stomach thing. FABULOUS. Gah. It's not even at the full-blown stage yet, but I'm really weak and tired and I can't even muster the strength to take a shower.

Normally, this would probably result in a big loss next week since I'm not eating and my body is purging just about everything, but next week is week 4 and you know what that means:

PMS, BITCH.

Bleck.

WEIGH IN # 6 - HUH?!?

Ok, somewhere along the lines, I forgot how to count past 3. I screwed up my weigh in weeks. But tonight was my 6th weigh-in, and it kicked ass!

All week, I've been shooting for the .8 lb loss so I could get that stupid bookmark. Well, turns out you get the bookmark at FIVE lbs, and don't get anything for 10. GAH. No matter, because my weigh-in was reward enough:

I LOST -2.6 LBS!

That brings me to a total of -11.8 lbs, which averages out to just under 2 lbs a week. A nice, healthy and safe way to lose and MAINTAIN my weight. I'm really doing this. Hells yeah.

Also, I realized tonight when I was getting changed into my jammies that I can pull my jeans right off. No unzipping or unbuttoning. They slide right off. Granted I have no ass, but still. Yay!

THE RED SHIRT

A lot of you know that about 4 years ago, I did WW and lost 50 lbs. It was a HUGE accomplishment for me since I had never been able to lose weight before. I was at my heaviest then - a number that I'm too embarassed to even type out. Unfortunately, I quit the program and gained back about 39 lbs of it. That was also embarassing AND frustrating.

So when I started this time, I was down approx 11 lbs from my original weigh in. So naturally, I keep two tallies in my head:

-TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS *NOW*
-TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS FROM MY ORIGINAL HIGH POINT WEIGHT

Right now, I'm down a total of 9.2 lbs. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't seem like much, but this weekend I was reminded of the real way it's affecting me:

I was out to dinner over the weekend with my friend Kendra. We had some time to kill before we were seated, and I had a coupon to Lane Bryant, so I decided to poke around. I always do well with pants there, but because I'm so busty with a long torso and big belly, the tops are either too small or unflattering.

I found this top in red and brown - both on clearance for $9.99, so I figured I'd just give it a shot and try them on. They fit, but I've been wearing big, loose tops for so long now, I immediately thought it was too tight and form-fitting. Kendra made me show her, and when I came out of the dressing room, she gasped and told me how great the top looked on and that I HAD to buy them.

Once she said that, I took another look in the mirror and realized that this top WAS loose and that it DID look good and fit perfectly. It was like staring at my self-esteem in the mirror. And I always have trouble with their sizes, so I was surprised that only a 9.2 loss would have this fitting so well. But then I remembered, I may be down 9.2 now, but I'm down EXACTLY 20 LBS from when I first started WW a few years ago. And twenty lbs DOES make a difference in how my clothes fit. And it felt DAMN GOOD to realize that my body IS changing and it's ok for me to not wear big, baggy clothes all the time.

So, I wore the brown top with pride to my weigh-in Wednesday. I love how it looks, but I love even more how proud I feel that I'm taking the weight off again and that I'm really making changes physically.

The red one is being saved for a special event - to be worn with a kick-ass skirt and the tall, black boots I just ordered. :)

PHEW. WEIGH IN # 4 !

Ok, I had a good week and a bad week:

BAD: My online account where I store all my point tracking and progress got completely screwed up and WW online was NO help. After sending 10 emails, I got NO RESPONSE. I used that as an excuse to be lazy about tracking my point.

GOOD: I still was VERY good about staying in my points - even though I was keeping track in my head. And looks like I may need to track my PMS week differently, because I lost this week:]

-2.6 lbs

Yay! It's really good that I lost. I feel motivated again and back on track. But I'm pooped, so that's all your getting for an entry tonight. :)

UNIMPRESSED. WITH MY BODY.

Shit.

I gained 1.8 lbs this week. And it was unexpected for the most part.

I ate well this week. I exercized a LOT: lots of walking, Tae-Bo, a dance video, arm free weights, crunches and ab work. I ate more veggies and an ENTIRE DINNER of vegetables. So I ask you: WHAT THE F!?!

I had one night of "cheating" when I had chinese food at poker because I was literally going to pass out from hunger. That's it.

My hope is that THIS WEEK was the PMS / water bloat week, and that will result in a giant weight loss next week. If so, I can deal with the gain. If not, it doesn't leave me a hell of a lot of motivation to eat well and exercize.

But you know, regardless of the gain, I am still motivated to make this work and make this stick. I'm glad that I have C (who lost 2.8 lbs this week - rock it, girl!) and the other gals in my group to hang with and vent to.

In other news, looks like I'll be sleeping in later:

ARTICLE

I LIKE TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT

Yesterday, I went to Target with my 8 year old neice and she kept singing that song: "I like to move it (x3)...I like to...MOVE IT!!" It was cracking me up. Who is that? Sean Paul? I have no idea. I'm getting so old. Anyhow, today I moved it, moved it. This is my new at-home program and I did this ALL today:

-Walked Julip for 2 miles
-Did free-weights for my arms (10 mins)
-Did the treadmill (10 mins)
-Did a 10 minute ab workout video
-Did a 10 minute cardio dance workout

So overall, I did about 1 hour and 10 mins of exercize today. HOLY CRAP.

But I feel good. I always feel like I'm getting stronger if I'm working out and using my body. I'll try to do at least a combination of 3 of these things every day - although walking with Julip happens EVERY day.

I can't wait until I lose enough weight that I'm not working against my own weight. I want my body to move because I command it too, not because it just DOES. lol

Anyhow, it was a good workout day and I'm curious to see how it affects my weight loss now!

WEEKENDS

Weekends are beginning to get tough for me again. I always want to splurge and not cook on the weekends - just order out something yummy and fattening and be done with it. So, this weekend was tough, but not horrible:


Friday: I ate well for breakfast and lunch and was just not feeling well around dinner time, so I didn't eat anything. I felt a little sick to my stomach, so I just watched a movie and went to bed. I was way under on my points.

Saturday: Ate well for breakfast, didn't eat lunch, and then went to a poker game where I suddenly realized I was STARVING. I passed on the numerous bags of chips, but when they ordered chinese food, I dug in. I mixed white rice and fried rice and had about a cup of that (8 points), 3 chicken fingers, and 2 pieces of terriyaki.

Today: Took my aunt out to lunch at the 99. I chose a salad, but I chose the buffalo wing salad. I didn't eat the bread and used only 1/2 of the dressing, but still not the best choice. Got in lots of veggies, though, which is good. I also gave one of the wings to my aunt and another to my neice to lighten the point load.

Dinner: chicken and rice. Luckily, I got in a lot of walking today and also did strength training with the weights, so I was able to swap out activity points. I've never had to do that before because I usually don't go over my points, so I'm hoping it all works out in the end.

I didn't do horribly, but again, I could have made better choices. I need to become more structured on the weekends like I am during the week in order for me to stay on track. That's my goal for the next week thru weekend: to make better choices on the tougher days and to be prepared for that.

Also new this week: a new dance video for exercize! Whoo hoo!