1 Step Forward...

This Week's Loss: ???
Total Loss: ???

And unfortunately 2 steps back. I sit and write this post this morning instead of getting ready to go weigh in. I DESTROYED this week.

I was doing really well up until Tuesday evening. I didn't gorge at home services like usual and at like 5:30 still had 40 points. I went to the grocery store to buy the making for my soup for Wednesday night since it was my turn to host. I hadn't spoken with Patrick all day and while I was in the soup aisle trying to decipher which chicken bouillon powder I should buy (ummm...is there a difference?), Patrick call me and the only words that I hear before the call drops (thanks AT&T) are "We have a problem..." A problem?? What the hell does that mean?? Being the incredibly, calm rational person you all know and love me to be, I IMMEDIATELY jumped to the conclusion that Patrick was fired.

I abandon ship (or cart) in the soup aisle in front of the previously mentioned chicken bouillon (Ihad chosen Wyler's?) and ran outside to call him back. The problem turned out to be that the line from the sink into the dishwasher had frozen and popped the coupling, thereby flooding the kitchen. For several minutes I attempt to call my mother to borrow mops and buckets and on every attempt am greeted by a busy signal. For those of you unfamiliar with the words "busy signal", it means my parents are still not enough into 2011 to get call waiting. I try the funeral home phone number and my brother across the street answers. A start, but still not who I wanted. My mother finally gets of the phone with either her friend Pat or my sister-in-law (the only two people she really talks to during the week) and answers the phone. I swing by for a bucket and head home. My brother was already there saving the day with a shop vac. Patrick vacs up all the water, but that is only part of the mess. There's dust everywhere from the shop vac AND my two wonderful puppies had gotten into a trash bag. Everything that had been on the floor in the kitchen was on the counters and very wet. A package of toilet paper had landed in a cake. The trash barrel was in the sink. Ugh.

Sooooooo cooking was out for the night and out for Wednesday night, too. Dinner = cancelled. So the answer for Tuesday is takeout. Dominos? Not healthy, but I did go with the thin crust so it deducts a point per slice. Trying a bit right?

Wednesday during the day is fine. Then what could have turned out to be my personal nightmare began. I went to the doctor Wednesday afternoon because I haven't been feeling very top-notch lately. Neauseas, crampy, just gross. Not to mention, WICKED emotional. There legit had not been a day in the past week and a half that I had not burst out into tears at least once. MLK Day? I cried at seven TV shows. Seven. But I digress. So I had all that fun stuff done to me that a woman gets to have done at the doctor and 4 options came to light.

1- ectopic pregnancy, which would mean a D&C because an ectopic pregnancy can't be carried to term. In other words, not awesome.

2- ovarian cysts, which could be nothing but could also mean no babies. Ever. Depending on if it's a one time thing or a larger disease. Also, not awesome.

3- ovarian/uterine cancer, which would mean chemo, radiation and all those other fun treatments and again, maybe no babies. Getting even further away from awesome.

4- chlymidia/some other weird infection, which could mean thousands of different things and also might be indicitive of a larger problem. Awesome-totally gone out the window.

I left the doctor relatively composed until I called Patrick. I melted into an emotional puddle right around Ski Ward. Guess what- when awesome flew out the window so did my points. Dinner was a comfort food fest. My stomach paid the price for my soul to be soothed.

Thursday was a snow day. Sweet. All day to sit at home and dwell on the possible medical complications my body was currently undergoing. Lunch at Papa Ginos? Sounds good to me. Dinner at Longhorn? If my mind couldn't be calm, I was at least going to eat what I wanted and make my belly happy. At this point, my body didn't know which way was up. Was I sick because my uterus was revolting or was I sick because I was pounding back 3 weeks worth of junk food in a matter of 2 days or was I sick because of my body's tendency to react to stress and anxiety very somatically, usually with neausea. Hmmmm...I don't like to make anything easy on myself.

So I suffer through work Friday in intense pain and head to an appointment with an ob/gyn and got to had more fun lady things done and got the verdict: NOTHING. He thinks that I had a GI virus that was thrown into chaos by my "lady" cycle. Isn't being a girl wicked fun? So after I left that appointment not feeling doomed or failed, how do Patrick and I celebrate? Moe's of course. Dinner last night? The Boynton. When I fail, I fail completely.

So I made the decision to skip the weigh in this morning and save myself the stress. I know if I see that number on the scale, I will only get supremely down and punish myself. I need to regain my composure and move forward. I let my emotions get the better of me this week and let them make my food decisions. I have to let my head start doing the work for me again. Here goes nothing.

I used to eat what??

Week 2 loss: 5.6 lbs
Total loss: 9.6 lbs

Suuuuuuper excited about this week's loss. A little disappointed that I couldn't hit 10 even, but I feel that something that minor is not something to get tripped up on.

I know I have only been doing this for a couple weeks now, but as I am making a conscience effort to eat less (and make better choices), I think back to what I would have eaten, even just 3 weeks ago. I also notice that things I ate on an almost daily basis are now bothering me and making me feel wiiiicked gross.

Since I weigh in on Saturday mornings, I kind of consider Saturday my "cheat" day. I still count my points, but I am not so diligent sticking to my daily allotment. So with this "freedom" on my mind after weigh in, I headed to Dunkin' Donuts. Instead of a plain bagel, I got what once was my favorite breakfast choice. Sausage and cheese (no egg, obviously) on a toasted french roll. For those of you who have never experienced a french roll, I suggest you locate the nearest Dunkin location near you that offers them. It's a rarity, but I <3 them. Crusty, crunchy, and carbolicious. Now here's the gross part...I ate a breakfast sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts (or another coffee joint) everyday for almost 2 years. I know, I know...they're fat sandwiches, but it's in the past so let's move on.

I ate it and I noticed it didn't taste how I remembered it. It is kind of slimy and had an odd texture. The french roll was as aaaahmazing as I remember, but the rest of the sandwich was not pleasant. And later, I felt like I ate a grease rock. Ugh. I am glad I felt this way since the next time I get a hint of a hankering for one I can remind myself of just how way my body reacted the last time I crammed this nastiness down my throat.

As for how much I used to eat...it's quite frankly, downright scary. Patrick and I went to Boston Market for lunch and I had half a sandwich and a small side of macaroni and cheese. Ever had the mac and cheese there?? Delicious. Heavenly. Ooey, gooey, and carb-y. Three of my favorite food adjectives. I digress, but today, I ate my food and left the restaurant feeling actually full. I wasn't hungry and I didn't want more. From half a sandwich and a small side! Now to those of you with normal human appetites you might be thinking that this seems like quite a normal amount of food. For me, this was a snack. I would go to Boston Market and get a full sandwich, a large side of mac and cheese, AND a corn bread. Literally like triple the amount of food I ate today. And I would often follow it up with a cookie. A rather large, rather chocolate-y (read: rather fattening) cookie.

Now as I sit and write this I know I can't get too ahead of myself. This is only the start of the my third week and I can't pretend that I have made permanent changes or that I won't slip and make a TERRIBLE choice in the upcoming week. Recent history tells us otherwise. BUT I do have to revel in my minor victories. Did I order french fries at dinner Thursday? Sure, but I ate maybe 10 in total. Did I go to Dairy Queen last night? Yup...but I didn't get the cookie laden Blizzard I wanted. (Though, my Orange Julius was creamy, orange-y, and yuuuummmyyyy)

Anyway, for right now I am pretty happy with my progress, but with only two weeks under my belt there is still serious potential for a MAJOR screw up. Hopefully, though, I can keep making some substitutions to minimize the damage done to my efforts.

I maybe crazy...

So as much fun as I had doing this whole blog thing last April, once I threw my diet attempt out with reckless abandon, I really didn't see much of a point in continuing on with filling you all in with my (lack?) of healthy eating attempts. I suppose I could have blogged just how badly I was eating, but I didn't want to admit it to myself, let alone the world wide web (or the family/friend wide web.) It's funny how after weeks of admitting by bad habits here and dicussing attempts to rectify them, I fell right into my old tricks one weekend. I went to the Boynton one night for dinner with my girlfriends and said "You know what? I am gonna enjoy my weekend and start fresh on Monday." Guess what? I DIDN'T START FRESH. SHOCKER!!!! Never once have I uttered those words and have them come true. Those words generally signal the death of whatever health trend I am currently undertaking and this case was no exception. I continued on to Monday and never looked back. Patrick and I tried WW in August for a week, but then we went on vacation and a Patriots preseason game so the meetings fell by the wayside. I think I weighed in once.

S000000...here I sit. 9 months later and 20 el-be's heavier than I was when I first blogged for all (who are my friends on facebook) to read. Ugh. I had a great summer and an even greater vacation/honeymoon in Las Vegas, but now I am paying DEARLY for the greatness. I put on a shirt that was fitting pretty nicely before Thanksgiving and almost suffocated. Not pretty. If it had had buttons, it would have been like those Subway commercials where the pressure from the stomach of the person eating the burger is just too much for one shirt to handle.

So again I made the decision to get back on to this merry-go-round from Hell and join WW again. Now I know what you're all thinking..."Now Caiti, isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results??" To which my reply is "Why yes, yes it is." Raise you're hand if you know how this story ends. I do great for about 40 or 50 pounds or so and then BAM! Failure. And while I can't guarantee that this time is going to be any different, I truly have to believe that it will. For my sake, for Patrick's sake, for everyone's sake.

WW mixed it up a little and changed some things on me. Points used to be based on fat, calories, and fiber. Now those little soul suckers are based on protein, carbs, fat, and fiber. Carbs? CARBS?! Nooooooooooooooo!!!!! Not carbs!!!!!!!!!! If any of you remember anything from the first time it surely must be my supreme, undying looooooooove of carbs. I couldn't believe they did this to me. My friendly neighborhood cult, I mean meeting leader, Marlene, explained the new system and how it is "better science", but all I heard was "blah, blah, kiss carbs goodbye, blah." Devastating. Soul sucking. How could the WW nerds do this to me?????

Now there are advantages to this new system. I get more points a day than previously. I can have a little bit of Promise Light on my bread now instead of spray butter, which let's face it, is liquid cancer in a bottle. Fruits are zero points, which is super exciting. My hands are smelling permanently liek clementines from all the little oranges I have been putting back. It isn't all bad. (Happy there, WW nerds?? You aren't totally evil incarnate.)

What I don't like is that all my little one and two point filler have gone up to three or four points. Italian bread gained a point per slice. Now that may not seem like much, but it's the principle. I NEVER paid attention to carbs before and now that little number glares at me from the nutrition label. I can't even begin to IMAGINE what this system does to my Panera loves and quite frankly, I'm afraid to find out.

Now here is my biggest and best idea yet. Instead of stopping every 2 feet in the grocery store to look up point values, I think Hannaford should be organized by the points system. Start at 1 on one side and work up as you move through the store. I sent an email...we'll see the response I get.

I lost four pounds my first week following the new plan. Not amazing, but it's a start.

So here I am, back again to regail you all with my highs and lows and ups and downs and ice creams and veggies. I have to believe that this isn't insanity, but rather a fresh perspective. I have a lot to lose, in many different ways and if I start thinking I will just end the same way as all the other times I am only setting myself up for failure. So bear with me. Sit down and buckle up...it could be a bumpy ride.