the brakes are on

I'm in for it now. I have hurt my back. Not at the gym, not while doing 100 sit ups, not while lifting progressively heavier weights for less reps (Body for Life people!). No, I threw out my back bending over to put snacks in the stupid snack bin.

Just got back from the grocery and I was unloading the groceries. Stupid teenage baggers think, because I didn't use plastic bags but brought my own, they could pack the sum total of the store into three bags. At least it seemed like it. They were heavy. And, instead of waiting for my dear hubby to get off the roof (where he was cleaning gutters- Sundays are so fun at our house), I dragged them in. I bend over and "OH" I'm gripping the wall, legs bent not able to stand up straight.

Somehow I managed to get onto the floor. My legs won't move. It's like I'm willing them to move, but they just don't listen. Kind of like my kids. I have pulled a muscle in my back or I'm having a spasm. I don't know, but I can't stand up and walking is painful with my legs periodically giving out underneath me. Makes for an interesting day.

My family and I went to our 4-H club meeting (since I'm the advisor, I kind of have to) and I proceeded to stay in one place. I hobbled back into the car and spent the better part of the evening on the couch with a heating pad and a big glass of wine. I'm out of muscle relaxants so wine had to do.

Sleeping was interesting. Nothing like waking up when you go to turn over and you can't. Kind of like a turtle stuck on its shell.

Today, I am about the same. I have a dr's appointment that my husband is coming home for. Not sure I can drive if my leg won't work to put the brakes on. Hopefully she'll give me a scrip for muscle relaxants. And I can slip into oblivion.

Did I mention that getting old sucks? So much for the weight loss train going full speed (or at least chugging along smoothly). I'm derailed for the moment. At least I can't walk around a lot so I'm not getting to the snackies. Walking is highly overrated.

Can someone come over here and make me snack?

Argument

I yelled at my scale this week.

"I hate you!" I said to the white scale, just lying there with a smug look on it's face.

"_" it said back.

"What is wrong with you?" I yelled, "I am working my butt off here. Can't you give me a little slack?"

"_" it murmured.

"What do you want from me? I'm exercising, doing what I'm supposed to. Sure, I had some chocolate...had a lot of chocolate...more than I should. Yes, I did have a glass of wine, but only once this week. I did extra sit ups! Doesn't that count for something" Arguing was getting me nowhere. I thought I'd try a different tactic.

"Look, seriously, can't we just be friends? You lie to me a little," I asked, hopefully, "and I'll try harder, K?"

"__"

"Well, now you're just being a hardass," I exploded. This was ticking me off. Up, down, up, down, this scale was all over the place. "Give me the number I want, or so help me God, I am chucking you out the window."

"___" it chuckled, just a little under it's breath. "____"

"I know, I know. I can't get the storm window off. And the screens don't come off on the other windows. I know!" I was getting annoyed. "The worst I could do would be to throw you in the trash. How about that?"

"^^^^" whimpering, the scale thought it through. "_"

"Fine. Be that way. I'm done with you. I'm not checking for at least three days. We'll see if you have straightened yourself out by then." That was it, no more crap from the scale.

"_" it blinked back, nonchalantly, mocking me.

"I'll be back tomorrow," caving, I picked it up and put it back in the closet.

"_" it answered.

Progress - slow and steady wins the race

I am the tortoise. I want, so desperately, to be the hare. But I am the tortoise. Slow, lumbering, crawling to the finish line. A careful plodding forward, eye on the finish. That's what weightloss is.

I was becoming frustrated by the ups and downs. I've been weighing myself almost every day. Oh, boo, you say, don't do that. Bad idea. Well, it works for me. It keeps me in check. It's too easy to say, 'oh, I have four days until I weigh in again, I can work it off.' This way I am constantly checking my progress, making adjustments and keeping myself honest. Which, honestly, isn't too hard these days.

I am not starving. Last night I was so full I didn't even want to finish my favorite apples - Honeycrisp. All I had for dinner was vegetable soup, some cut up peppers, and a one roll (crusty rolls I made from Cook's Illustrated, yum!) turkey and havarti sandwich. This roll was maybe 2 inches by 2 1/2. And the apples. It was almost too much. Crazy that I would be stuffed from that.

But, I digress. Back to progress. I have lost 16 1/2 pounds. I have two more pairs of pants I can fit into. I no longer have bra cleavage (you know, that annoying bump of flesh that hangs out of your bra where your cleavage should be if you have the right size bra on?). Hooray! And it seems to be a slow and steady decline.

Out of curiosity, I plotted my weight loss on a tracker online. I thought I would see wild fluctuations up and down. Actually, it looks like a steady line downward. A nice and even decent back into my healthy weight. Even with a one or (gasp) two pound gain (what the heck did I eat?) overnight, when seeing them all in a line, it's the picture of success. This feels good. I'm not struggling. I wish I could tell you it's been hard every day. But it's not. My biggest problem is resisting temptation and overcoming thoughts that I should be eating something when I'm not even hungry.

The hard part comes when it's time to maintain it. Talk to me then.

Addiction

I think I'm an addict. Not drugs or cigarettes or sex, although that would be pretty funny. My husband sure would appreciate that. No, I'm a food addict. I don't think I need pills for that. Do they make any? And I'm not morbidly obese, even though my BMI puts me right up there with the Pillsbury Doughboy. I just think about food all the time. How to make it, when to eat it, what to do with the leftovers, when I can have chocolate, what kinds of chocolate, snack foods, regular foods, fruits, bread...food.

I want to know when this obssession with food began. I don't think my mom was a pusher. She's skinny as a rail. She can eat anything. She also smokes a pack a day, in secret, when she thinks no one can tell even when she comes out of the bathroom reeking of smoke and purfume. She's not Italian or Jewish, so no pushy mother saying "Eat, Eat, you're so thin!" I'm guessing she set a good example for us. But, I'm thinking the vegetables we ate growing up (green beans, wax beans, peas, corn, potatoes, occasionally the salad when I was in my teens) didn't help much in my pursuit for eating well.

But I have always loved chocolate. I think even before I knew I loved chocolate, I had to have it. My mom likes to tell us how she hid chocolate in the house and ate it in private so she wouldn't have to share it with me or my brother. No matter where we were in the house, when we heard the tell tale crinkle of that Hershey bar wrapper, we were right there by her side, begging for a piece. Maybe it was her rationing of that chocolate that made me think, "when I get older, I'm going to have all the chocolate I want. So there!" And I do. Or did. And I even hide it from my kids, too. But I'm smart enough to not eat it when they're around!

Food makes me happy. There's nothing like fresh baked bread from the oven, slathered with a little butter. Just thinking about it makes me want to get my oven cranked up right now! Crusty brown, soft squishy insides...Enough! I wish playing outside made me happy, but mostly I don't like the bugs, or hot weather or when it's too cold. I don't mind gardening, but I would prefer to cook or bake. It's something I enjoy and I'm good at. Which, these days, mean a lot to me.

I am happy to report I am down 15 and a half pounds. I am more comfortable sitting and have noticed that my pants are looser. Very helpful. Still a long way to go, but I feel motivated. I feel like I am making progress. It was a good morning (even with a sick kid at home) and that always helps when the food dreams begin. Time to make some bread - banana bread that has been healthified. Yum!

Someone is lying

I'm having a good day. I got on the scale this morning and saw a good number. I'm down 14 1/2 pounds. That's not too shabby. I fit into my fat-fat jeans again. Things are looking up. So, forgive me for my cynicism, but someone is lying.

My mom sent me a shipment of her People magazines. A guilty pleasure, but I do enjoy reading about celebs to a point - who got married to early (Kourtney Kardashian, anyone?), who's getting separated (Avril Lavigne, who didn't see that coming?), who is no longer engaged (Katrina Smirnoff, Dancing with the Stars), and the lovely celeb baby pictures (how cute is that Shiloh, anyway?). And there are stories about real people, too, doing important, heroic things. But, really, it's about the celebs, right?

So, here's my dilemma. There is a starlet who has recently lost weight. She lost 14 pounds, just like me. She's eating healthier, leaving the Fritos behind. Working out, doing things right. She's down two dress sizes...HOLD on there, what? Two dress sizes? Are they kidding me? I wonder how that works. I'm not down two dress sizes. Does that only work if you're talking about sizes under a 10? Can you go from an 8 to a 6 by losing 14 pounds when you are barely over 100 pounds to begin with? I guess so. It's so frustrating.

It's like they stopped drinking soda and lost the "baby" bump the newspapers have been speculating about. I'll tell you what, my "baby" bump isn't going away that quickly and my baby is 7 years old. Even if I stop drinking diet soda, eating chocolate and most other foods, I will not lose my baby bump and go down two dress sizes by losing 14 pounds. It's unrealistic.

So, I'll wallow in my happiness about losing 14 pounds and wonder how much more I have to lose to go down one dress size. Or fit into my "just-a-bit-fat" jeans. Or move beyond the first foot of my closet where I relocated all the clothes I can fit into, leaving another 4 feet full of clothes that DON'T fit. Rock on, sister. Keep it up. It's working. Slowly, but surely.

And coming up, another diet book to read. I'll let you know how that goes.