Now is when it gets hard...

...sticking with it when results are less than I hoped. I'm down another 1.6 pounds this week and I should be happy. Happy that I keep losing consistently every week for the past weeks since starting The Drastic. Happy that I weigh less than I did last year at this time (barely, but...). Happy that I am feeling stronger and more fit. Happy that people have actually noticed. But I feel disappointed. I was virtually perfect this week and this seems like a paltry loss for how good I was. I was hungrier than usual and, despite this, I did not eat more. I did my usual exercise and a little bit more. I stuck to it. At this rate I still MIGHT be able to lose a total of 20 pounds before we leave on May 24, but that is going to be probably close to as good as it gets (I've lost a total of 14.2 since Feb. 19...I was hoping to break 15 today).

Enough negativity for one post, sorry...

So tonight we're off for skiing weekend...it will be a whirlwind and probably not too relaxing...we get in to the condo tonight at midnight or after and the bus leaves for the slopes around 8 am tomorrow morning. Two full days of skiing, then back home around 11 pm on Sunday night. DB is feeling sickly this morning so I'm hoping he feels better by the time we leave or this will be much less fun. But I am still looking forward to getting away, getting into the snow and skiing!! :-) Lots of good exercise hopefully and I vow to be careful with food (we have packed healthy snacks and dinner for the bus).

OK...positivity: I've lost ALMOST 15 pounds in seven weeks. :-)

Finally, a non-poochy Wednesday!!

So maybe it's not Wednesday...I'm feeling not-too-poochy today. But I have been feeling a lot more hungry than usual yesterday and today. This is weird because I literally eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch every weekday and have been for weeks. Last night I was so hungry after work that I wished I had something to eat on the way to the gym -- I thought I was going to be sick, I was so hungry! I made it through my workout though and went home for a nice salad and my popsicle treat. :-) Maybe my muscles are needing more fuel? I was doing so well with not being hungry so this is kind of disconcerting...

Our ski bus trip was officially cancelled last night so from then until this morning I was madly looking for another bus trip to take us and, voila, I found one! It's more expensive than the one we had booked (by about $40/person), but we were really disappointed at the thought of not going when we had been looking forward to it so much. Taking the bus "tour" makes a weekend up to Mammoth (about 5-6 hour drive away) doable without missing work -- the bus leaves at 6 pm on Friday and gets back about 10 pm on Sunday. In the middle, we get two full days of skiing, get to stay in a nice condo and get to relax on the drive (rather than driving ourselves). I'm really happy that this worked out! Lots of fun exercise coming up for the weekend! :-)

Tonight I'm taking my mom to see the Joan Rivers show (it was that good) and a colleague and my assistant are also going...looking forward to laughing a lot again even though I have to JAM home to pick up my mom in order to get to the theatre by 7:30.

Tomorrow night I have yoga, then we have to JAM (again) to get our ski rentals for the weekend and pack.

In among this, there's no time to overeat...well...you know, there SHOULDN'T be time. We'll pack dinner for the bus on Friday night and will try to have something healthy for the drive home as well (they offer to order pizza...and beer...yikes!!).

I'm hopeful that the scale will continue down at my Friday weigh-in...I am happy that it feels like it is and that I'm being good on The Drastic, but I sure wish it was faster!!!!!!!! Can I get an AMEN to that? :-)

I love "inadvertent" exercise

Yesterday I had hoped to get in a bike ride or beach walk and some yoga...instead DB and I spend many many hours working on the house and that got substituted for the bike ride/beach walk (I still did 35 minutes of yoga afterwards) and that's not bad! My body is sore today in a good way. I remember this feeling back when I had my first house and worked a lot in the garden (we did a lot on our front and back yards yesterday including creating kind of a zen thing with a fountain on our back patio and I got to plant an herb garden in a planter -- I love having fresh herbs and haven't had an herb garden for about 3 years since I left my first house!!). Everything looks so great. DB outdid himself and we had a lot of fun doing it. :-)

I broke up with a very good friend (formerly a best friend) on Friday -- it's way too long a story to post here, but I reached the end of my rope and I had to make the break. Despite this, I was very sad because we had been close for many years...and I did have a glass of wine before the play on Friday night to relax. (I know this is an excuse, but it WAS a normal social situation...not like going home and drinking alone or other bad habits I used to have.) Joan Rivers was amazing and we absolutely loved the play...so much so that I'm taking my mom back to see it on Wednesday before it closes this weekend!

Saturday I did the gym, got a mani/pedi (it's been a LONG time and that was a treat), did errands and, ta da!, DB came home -- yay! We had a walk to the beach and a nice dinner out...I ate great all day (just one slice of toast and two salads with a little protein) until I had TWO glasses of wine with dinner -- bad Helen! :-( Went home and ate us out of house and home pretty much (it was all good stuff -- popcorn, low-fat meringues, turkey jerky, but THIS is the major reason why I can't drink -- I lose self-control). And two glasses of wine is way too much for me in my current pure state. I felt like a bottomless pit and didn't feel too great the next morning either. Must remember this...

We are supposed to go skiing this weekend, but it may be cancelled because the tour group who handles bus and lodging doesn't yet have enough people signed up. We are disappointed since we were really looking forward to this...and MORE inadvertent exercise! Crossing fingers that we can figure something out...

Thoughts on Weigh-In Day

It's funny how I am really looking forward to Friday mornings lately -- that's when I weigh myself in and since starting The Drastic facing the scale has been a lot more about "oooh, let's see how much I've lost this week" than "urgh, let's see if some miracle happened this week that made the scale go down". I also have been keeping a running record of my weight over the past year and a half and I am now actually looking forward on Fridays to updating that (even today when it's the scheduled day one of my period and I know things won't be stellar).

Soooo...today I'm down 1.2 pounds from last week. I was really good with food and exercise this week (even including a few little "splurges" which were nothing next to the ones I have been having over the past year and a half) so this probably would have been better if it weren't for the aforementioned period situation and the fact that I ate non-"regular" lunches three days this week -- two of which, while healthy Asian food, involved soy sauce. I think that soy sauce (which I had on Monday and Tuesday) contributed to my poochy feeling on Wednesday too. Yesterday's lunch was a veggie sandwich, salad (with non-good dressing) and some fruit. I ate salads every night for dinner this week since DB is out of town.

Bottom line here is that as long as I really REALLY watch what I'm eating (which, I admit, I was doing pretty poorly at over the past year +) I will lose...slowly maybe, but still lose. I am now less than 5 pounds over my lowest weight since Oct. 2006 so, barring something unforeseen, I will definitely weigh my lowest by the time we go on vacation in about 8 weeks. Since Feb. 19 I have lost 12.6 pounds and I think that's pretty good. But I am not at my lowest since I started this verrrrrrrylong trip so I can't get complacent. I am still in the range that I've been inhabiting for way too long...I want to find a new range in which to roam! :-)

Tonight I'm going with some friends to see Joan Rivers in a play about her life that has gotten really good reviews. Somehow I'm going to have to grab a healthy dinner while rushing from work to home to theatre. I'll do it! DB comes home tomorrow (yay! we had a little earthquake practically right under our house the other morning and I do not like to be alone when that happens...among other things!) Tomorrow I'll hit the gym and do lots of errands including, hopefully, getting a manicure/pedicure (which I haven't had in a LONG time). Sunday, hopefully, I won't have anything I absolutely HAVE to do so I can either take a bike ride or walk Doglet and get some yoga in too. :-)

Here's to another week of The Drastic!

Nothing new or different, but...

...feeling poochy on this Hump Day. I am straight-up doing The Drastic (and a trainer at my gym last night even said "looking good"), but today I feel poochy. :-( Maybe it's a Wednesday thing...I think I felt that same way last week. Or maybe it's what I have on. Or maybe it's because my period is due (if it comes at all) at the end of the week. Who knows? When I feel this way, though, I have to be very vigilant and not say to myself "well, you're eating and exercising perfectly and you're still not losing, why not eat/drink something to make you feel better?". Oy, I have such an addictive personality. As if eating/drinking actually makes me feel better. I know better.

Weekend Update (and not the SNL kind)

DB took me to a fantastic dinner on Friday night to celebrate my "birthday"...the restaurant is at a small airport near our house and has great Asian food. We got a table overlooking the runways so it was fun to watch the little planes come and go in the sunset. I had two glasses of wine (which made me super-tipsy...my tolerance is WAY down) and some healthy food (no rice). After dinner we went out to watch the planes and the stars, then home to watch Dan in Real Life on DVD (cute, sweet movie that we really liked).

Saturday DB left for Nearby Town. I opened and emptied the last 4 boxes in our extra bedroom (only 6 months after moving in!), went to the gym, organized closets (sent stuff to Goodwill), got some great under-the-bed storage bags and filled 'em up, got an oil change and did my weekly grocery shopping. After that I walked Doglet a little at the beach, then home to sit on our deck with a magazine and watch sunset. I started to watch Atonement then early to bed (P.S. YUCK, hated Atonement...no idea why it was nominated for Best Picture Oscar...Keira Knightley is so skinny she looks half-dead...she has NO breasts and I don't think that's natural for a girl in her 20s...I just couldn't stand to look at her.)

Sunday I got up early to go have Easter breakfast with my mom then took her for a drive down to look at the ocean (it was a GORGEOUS day...hot). After that I went for a long hike in the mountains with a friend and her two big dogs...I felt very intrepid learning to cross creeks on rocks with my bad knees and toe! I'm definitely not Wilderness Girl, but the views are so beautiful and you get exercise while having fun! :-) Got home in time for another walk at the beach with Doglet.

I started to watch No Country for Old Men last night...will finish tonight after Dancing With the Stars...so far, so good.

I'll be working hard on The Drastic with DB gone this week -- I'll be having salad every night!! Hopefully this will make up for some business lunches I have to go to. :-)

My Fifth Birthday is TODAY!

Yes, today is five years since I had my very last smoke...I celebrate March 21 as my new "birthday" every year and it ROCKS. My sweetie sent me a gorgeous bunch of flowers this morning and he's taking me out to a special dinner tonight. :-) And I'll be able to splurge a little bit - I am down 2.8 pounds this week, making a grand total since February 15 of over 11.5 pounds and erasing the temporary NYC gain and going even lower! :-)

Well, I guess it's true: cutting out the drinking and watching what I'm eating more really is working. I'm also exercising 4 instead of 3 days a week. That's The Drastic people. Yup, that's it. Doesn't seem too complicated or too hard (although some days it is -- this week I wanted a drink BAD so I had ONE glass of wine after dinner instead of my usual frozen fruit bar -- had my "treat" and PAID ATTENTION to the calories). For me, it's a lot about just paying attention to what I put in my mouth.

DB is also losing well -- I think he may have lost 5 pounds or more this week -- it sucks that he can do this so much easier than me and without exercising, but I know it's a challenge for him to really pay attention to what he eats so it's not easy!

I got an e-mail this morning offering some free exercise class every Mon., Wed. and Fri. for 8 weeks starting on April 1 for an infomercial. While I'm in the weight range they are looking for (8-25 pounds to lose), I'm reluctant to commit to being at a class at 7:30 AM three days a week. But it's only for 8 weeks and that would take me right up to our trip to Mexico. I think I'll send in my info and see what it's about...if it's a yoga class, it will be hard for me to pass up the opportunity.

Work continues to be so busy and stressful...I haven't had much time to read or post at blogs this week...hopefully next week will be calmer.

Happy Easter to those of you so inclined and Happy Spring Solstice to those inclined like me!

P.S. I'm so happy that sweets aren't my downfall...Easter poses no threat to me...as long as those Reeses eggs don't find their way into my house!