Gone to Burning Man!

No time to blog this week...struggling with plateau and watching DB keep losing...depressing. But now we're on vacation and will try not to worry about weight too much while gone.

Tonight we're dying our hair (I'm going for fire engine red, DB for purple). We'll see how that works!! It's MESSY.

Van and trailer are packed...leaving tomorrow morning before 7 am.

See you all after Labor Day!

Finally!

This morning I weighed 0.2 pound over the weight I was before we left for our vacation in St. John. :-) Just in time for the Burning Man vacation... ;-)

Speaking of which, here's a photo of me trying out one of my special day-time costumes for this year:
I'm also going to try to get my hair to go red (fire engine red, not natural red) with a temporary hair dye. Trial run yesterday didn't work so well...most of it washed out on the strip I dyed. I don't want to bleach my hair before dying...just want to fade back to my natural color gradually (as this brand is supposed to do). I love my real hair color!! :-)

Had a great day yesterday doing fun prep for the trip, including walking a lot on the boardwalk shopping. Also spent a while boogie-boarding which was a blast because the waves were big and strong. Last night we saw District 9 (liked it, didn't love it).

Tonight we're going on a bike ride after work... :-)

Deprivation vs. Abundance

First off...I am now hovering one pound above my pre-vacation weight. I might just get back down to the same place for my next vacation (Burning Man) in a week. It's going slowly now, but I'm not being perfect and not doing formal exercise (although biking, beach walking and Burning Man packing definitely count as exercise!). DB is now down about 24 pounds and is also longing for that "virgin territory" below the lowest he's been. We're both hovering. He's just hovering at 5 pounds more lost than me! ;-)

Last week we were at dinner on my carb-up night and DB said something that kind of made me go "aha!". Here's the idea: people approach life with a perspective on a continuum between abundance and deprivation. I immediately identified in my gut with deprivation even though my head knows abundance is mine. I have been thinking about this off and on...and how it impacts on my approach to food...and maybe everything else. DB said that about 15 or so years ago he switched his outlook from deprivation to abundance. I think it would help if I could do likewise.

Why do I feel deprived? Was I ever really physically deprived? NO. Food food food and more food was mine. As I've said before, in my family growing up, food was LOVE. "Here, have some ice cream" was pretty equivalent to "I love you, you have value". I've always said this in a joking way, but I've just realized that, at least on some level, this is no joke. I probably will need more therapy to figure out just where the feeling of emotional deprivation comes from. I truly have had so much love for so much of my life, it's hard to understand. But the place where my gut really identifies with feeling emotionally deprived is when it comes to romantic relationships. Until I met DB, I just wasn't too lucky with that. And I'm sure that being overweight and downright FAT a lot of my life probably added to that. Vicious cycle, eh?

So what do I do? If I have something delicious in my mouth, I want MORE. I want MORE because maybe there won't be any later. My tendency is to eat and drink like there is no tomorrow, like there will never be another tidbit like this again. I think I've acted like that in relationships too.

So much food for thought here...

A plug

So here's a little story:

Last Saturday night we were semi- (or full-out-) drunkenly strolling down the Venice boardwalk and I heard a singer. Unlike most of the people I see down there, she captured my attention. I listened to her for (what seemed to pretty-drunken me) a long time. I gave her some money. I hit up my companions to give me some more money to buy her cd.

Yesterday I popped in the cd just to see if I loved her as much while non-drunk. I do. Love her voice, love her lyrics. I'd pay to see her (and I don't do that for too many people -- went to see Elvis Costello & Lucinda Williams last night on ebay-bought cheapie tix). So I went to look to see when I could go. Boo hoo, no upcoming shows in CA, but maybe there might be some by you. Check out the list of shows here: http://www.myspace.com/sistaotisandthewhollyrollers

I'm sure her shows are cheap or free...and I'm pretty sure you'd like her. :-)

Elvis and Lucinda were great...two of my favorites who I had never seen live...classic voices. And our seat were great! :-)

Back in the saddle with The Macro. Hanging on tight. 12 days until Burning Man...

I hate Mondays

Too much frickin' stuff going on in life (work is slammed, Mommy moving, Burning Man prep, etc.). While I had lots of fun, I feel like I had no weekend at all. :-( That, plus I ate rice last night...big mistake. I know what went wrong and I am DONE with it:

DB has decided to play fast-and-loose with the Macro. He's not eating the right number of meals a day ("I'm not hungry") or in the right combinations. It still seems to be working for him (he's down a teeny bit from pre-vacation weight...some days). Trying to do his way is NOT working for me. Yesterday is a perfect example. I had a salad (yes, a salad) for breakfast. He had an omelette (huge), hash browns and two pieces of rye toast. Later in the afternoon, I was so hungry that I had to get some turkey while out and about, then had an egg on Ezekiel bread. Here's where I screwed up: I waited and didn't eat dinner until 8:30 pm when DB finally was hungry. That's a total of two meals that I had before 8:30 pm...and was physically working a lot too. I was WAY too hungry. I had no desire to have control so I ate a lot of sushi with the rice. Bad plan. Scale was up today. :-(

So, I told DB that I am sticking with the program...if he doesn't want to eat breakfast or doesn't want to eat the required number of meals, that is fine, but I need to do it. My body is different than his and this program (when I stick to it...which I have not been all the time lately) works for ME.

Sigh...learning learning learning all the time...what works, what doesn't. And no time to blog much either...

French Fry Fiesta Lbs. Gone

Yay! :-)

Did the long beach walk with DB last night, then had dinner (carb-up night) at this place that has amazing smoked salmon salad. On the way home, we heard this cover band playing in a bar and walked in...fun surprise, they were great! Played songs you really like, but not cliches...kind of obscure covers. And the band was really tight. Fun!

Maybe will get down a bit more tomorrow...hope so! Biking tonight to concert at pier... :-)

I'm a moron

I "gained" 5+ pounds over the weekend due to corn-on-the-cob, tortilla chips, French fries (what was I thinking?) and rice. :-( Two plus are gone today, but I am very disappointed in myself. Eating around kids is hard and, in case I didn't mention, I am a moron.

We did have a whole huge lot of fun though. :-)

Saturday we went to the children's parade which was fantastic -- all these little kids in costume, floats that are pushed or pulled by parents, etc. Smiley said to me: "Helen, I really want to be in the parade.". :-) Maybe next year.

Then we went to the beach for about 3 hours. When we got there, Little Dude (formerly known as Crybaby) wailed "me no beach" and wouldn't go another step onto the sand so I picked him up and planted him on the coverlet on the ground...by the end of the afternoon, he was happily playing in the sand. I think he was just afraid of the ocean.

After the beach, we washed the kids off and went to the carnival and after that we barbecued burgers and they watched a video before sleep. Sunday we just played around the house in the morning, then left about 12:30. Did lunch and mani-pedis (for all six of us!) on the way home. Little Dude had been hearing "mani-pedi" so joyfully all weekend from all the girls that by the time we got there he was shouting "mani-pedi"!!! He had a ball and his little chubby hands are so cute with the nail polish that matches his Papa's.

Princess is a beauty...such a sweetheart...getting to be such a grown up girl...we keep trying to encourage her to still be a kid...she's a real "little mommy' to her younger siblings.

Our other granddaughter (from PD2's family...oy, what is her secret name here? I forget! I'll call her Sweetheart) is not as effusive as the rest...and I think it's hard for her a little because the other kids have been on many more adventures with us so know that it's going to be lots of fun. She misses her parents a lot too...oh well...she did have a fantastic time. :-)

Little Dude actually smiles at me and talks with me now. FINALLY. :-)

I may be a moron, but I love being a grandma. :-)

Finally off the plateau

It worked. No surprise. I ate my starches as and when I was supposed to and I'm finally out of the 3-5 pound UP that I was lingering in. Now I'm just two pounds over what I was when I went on vacation. I don't feel bad about this progress...even though I wish it was faster. My skinny clothes fit and some (like pants I have on today) are even a little too loose to look flattering. Nice. :-)

Last night we did our usual beach bike ride to the pier for the free concert there (every Thursday during the summer) and had so much fun as usual...last night was blues music and I'm a blues girl at heart. :-)

We're headed to Nearby Town this evening with four of the grandkids (ages 9, 6, 4 1/2 and 2 1/2). The PDs are getting a little break this weekend -- each of them will just have their youngest to contend with. For PD1 this will be huge since she's got the new baby plus three kids! ;-) I can't wait...we're gonna have a ball!

The next two weekends are going to be all about getting ready for Burning Man. We are running quite late this year, but we've done it all before so should be ok. I am getting VERY excited!! I have taken over as co-coordinator of the tours of our village (Alternative Energy Zone) this year because I had SO MUCH fun doing them last year. I always wanted to be a tour guide when I was a little girl...Burning Man lets us live our dreams! :-)

Back to weight loss blogging!

I'm still struggling to get the lbs from vacation all gone -- I'm fluctuating between 3 and 5 pounds up from when we left. Today it's 4. Today is up from yesterday even though I have been totally PERFECT since the Great-Wagon-Fall-Off of Sunday. Not to mention that we took a LONG beach bike ride on Monday night and a LONG beach-walk last night. I feel like I really SHOULD be losing....

BUT...until the past couple of days I have been playing fast and loose with The Plan. I have been on-Plan more or less, but have not always had every type of food I should be eating in the magic order/time of day, etc. that is The Plan. I know there is something to eating the starches as and when she says...I've been erring on the side of less starches and that is probably not good.

So, tonight I will eat my Wednesday "up" carb day starches. And I'll keep going.

DB is cheating a little more than me some days. Yesterday (supposedly a carb-down day) he had five pieces of bread and a bag of peanuts right before bed. If I would have done that, I would have "gained" five pounds! He "gained" a pound (and I "gained" a half pound being absolutely perfect). No fair! ;-) But he had digestive distress. Stinky digestive distress. ;-) That is something I don't miss...not a lot of stinky when we're eating clean. :-)

The Best Honeymoon I Never Had: Part IV

Friday (July 24) was our last full day in paradise...

We lazed around in the morning and then went for "brunch" to The Tourist Trap, a restaurant just at the bottom of our road. We had heard the lobster rolls and Bloody Marys were really good and they were...but seating was outside under a cheap canopy and it was HOT with no breeze so we didn't stay long. But it was a cute place!


We had a couple of ideas of things to do -- and agreed completely on one: we wanted to do a short hike to the ruins of a sugar plantation (Annenberg). It was a very beautiful hike up through the jungle to the top of a hill. Very interesting to learn a little about the sugar trade.



DB calls this one "Master and his Sugar":


Nearby was the famous Waterlemon Cay where snorkeling is supposedly really great...DB was into the idea of snorkeling there, but I had heard the currents around the Cay were bad and it made me a little nervous...so, after our Annenberg trip, we realized it wouldn't be fun for me to have stress on our last day so decided to go back to our favorite spot, Cinnamon Bay. :-)

We had a very great snorkel there...went way around the island and saw lots of very beautiful fish, including the fish I had seen there the day before that I think are little sharks. AND, as we were headed in, WE SAW A BIG SHARK!!! Wowza. I think it was between 3 and 5 feet long, DB thinks it was 7 feet long. However big it was, it was bigger than anything else out there by far. And, oddly, it was not THAT scary to me (I'm more scared of the rays although they are really pretty -- and we saw some there that day too -- this was "just" a nurse shark and I knew they are not dangerous to people), just really exciting...he was a very fast swimmer!!! After that, we figured we had hit the jackpot and that was a good way to end our snorkeling for the trip. So we went back up on the beach and lounged with a beer...enjoying the beautiful view.



It was time to go back to our favorite bar, Island Blues for a last round of LCs, then to shower and make our way to Sweet Plantains again that night (curry night, which we had heard was fantastic...it was!).

The next morning, we got up fairly early (8-ish) in order to enjoy our last morning at the villa. We had breakfast and just lounged around until it was time to go. I almost shed a tear, it was that perfect a vacation, that perfect a place.

We left the villa around 11 and raced to get the noon ferry over to St. Thomas. Then a long cab ride to the airport got us there around 1 (for our 3 pm flight). We had some greasy (but delicious) airport food and, as I realized our vacation was almost over and I had had ice cream a grand total of one time, had a Dove bar. DB tasted mine and decided he needed one too. ;-)

Our plane left pretty much on time and we started the looooong trek back home. Flights were pretty bumpy (which I really do not like), but we watched Duplicity on one leg of the journey and played games too (loved Delta). During the long layover in Atlanta, we talked with PD1 and made plans to come see her family and the new baby the next day. :-)

We got home at 11:40 pm LA time...just about 3 am our bodies' time...yawwwwwn. But such a great vacation that I still have the afterglow over a week later!

Here's the view of beautiful Coral Bay from Bordeaux Mountain....ahhhhhhh:

And when I go off plan...

I drank beer yesterday, slept a lot of the day (up until 4 am Saturday night) and the only exercise I got was wandering down the beach for coffee and festival soooo...I gained 2 pounds. I told DB last night, "if I'm going to gain 2 pounds from beer, it had better be a tasty one". It was. And I am back with a vengeance today.

Until I have time to write the final installment of my travelogue, here are a couple of links to some interesting stuff I heard on the radio this morning:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/3/former_fda_commissioner_david_kessler_the
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/3/arun_gupta_on_bacon_as_a

I particularly like the title of the bacon segment. ;-)