This statement from Jonathan Roche of No Excuses Workout Challege made me reflect on some things. He called it one of his tough love messages and I love all of his posts even those you he labels tough love. He has become one of the voices in my head. I prepare my gym bag in the evenings with him in mind. He has helped me allow myself to eat certain things without guilt and in moderation. I am also reading and using the Intuitive Eating lifestyle. The free tools of No Excuses Workouts Challenge (especially the 15 Secrets to Better Health tips which I have framed in my room) plus the intuitive eating has helped me do something I’ve never done. Change my relationship with food and my weight.

Since May 10, 2010, I have lost 83 pounds. For me, that should be discouraging considering my past journeys. I am still over 300 pounds. But what I realized is and I think Jonathan has said this: I didn’t gain the weight overnight. I shouldn’t lose it overnight. Even when I went through a period where the scale wouldn't move, I was reminded by one of Jonathan’s posts that asked had I lost more than 15 pounds. Or Are your clothes feeling loose/are you losing inches? More energy. Though I hadn’t lost weight, I had lost a size in clothes and I felt wonderful.

So instead of comparing my past weight loss efforts to my current one I am remember that is about more than weight loss. This is about changing my life in a way that I can live with for the rest of my life. I love food – all kinds. Cutting out breads and sugars, eating more protein than carbs and other restrictive diets does not work for me. I love the freedom of counting calories. I have realized with counting calories dining out does not work always but with my lifestyle if I go over one day it doesn’t create guilt in me world.

I talked about changing my relationship with food. There is no bad food. It’s all about moderation. Have a piece of cake, have a taco – well meatless in my case since I don’t eat beef – have whatever I want guilt free. Yes, it hasn’t taken me longer to lose weight but I am happy with my progress.

Weigh check in: Total 6 (1.4+4.6) pounds and the best news of all. I am officially in the 80 pound club with 83 pounds gone!!!!

I got excited when I saw the Endless Shrimp commercial. I love Red Lobster – love them. I haven't been in a long time but I still love them so. As you know I am basically a pescetarian. I say mainly because on occasion I still eat ribs – no other form of pork has to be ribs. That's another topic and I am blabbing. Back to Endless Shrimp. All week I have been planning to go to Red Lobster today. I stayed the course on my exercise and eating and intended endless shrimp to be my reward (yeah, I know food should never be a reward for weight loss). Well I have an excellent week, weighed in on Saturday and stayed on track yesterday thinking I needed be to be in good standing for Sunday.

 
Sunday morning rolls in and I wake up thinking – why do I really want to go the Red Lobster? Can a simple commercial have that much effect on me? Do I really want to spend the week backtracking to make up for stuffing my stomach today. No. The more I thought about it the more I decided against it. Of course, now I had a friend that was going along so I said if she wants to go I will but if not I will skip the all you can eat and go have a simple lunch somewhere. She canceled and I opted to forgo the endless shrimp and I feel good about it.

On the exercise track, I am feeling stronger everyday. My goal is four days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday after work and Saturday morning. I am up to 50 minutes. Not at the intensity of pre-surgery, but I am moving and that's the important thing.

I am back to work, back to the gym and back on track. Once I went to work, I started going to the gym on Saturday mornings to get my strength back. My first Saturday back I was so tired after only 35 minutes that I took off the next Saturday. After two Saturdays on working out for 40-45 minutes, I jumped back in with two feet renewing my gym membership. This week was my first full week back. I initially thought I could go Monday -Thursday as before but on Tuesday after working out Monday I was wore out after work. I decided to go every other day. Monday, Wednesday and Friday then Saturday morning. Each day I was able to stay longer and workout harder in the pool.

Today after the gym I was starving so I stop to get my favorite Subway sandwich. When I logged the sandwich in my log, imagine my surprise when the sandwich had 1,155 calories. WOW!!!  I don't I can eat that sandwich again. The good thing is it was two meals (Breakfast and Lunch) and I did exercise today.  When dinnertime came around I started thinking of eating out. Everything I wanted had too many calories. So I decided to cook my own food. Tilapia with whole wheat spaghetti with light sour cream and salsa. It was quite good, filling and kept me under my calorie goal. Here's one thing I did learn this week. Fast food is the kind of food you just eat. You don't look up the nutrition facts to log. I'm posting my food log for accountability. Here is a link to my food diary: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/star0925 Password going_down 

So let's see my lowest was down 8 pounds from my lowest before surgery then I went up 20 pounds which was up 12 pounds from my lowest before surgery. All that to say it put me back to 62.1 pounds lost. This week of refocus gave me a lost of 5.5 pounds and a total of 67.5. I'm 6.2 from my lowest before surgery. That's my first goal. My second is my lowest after. After that it's Twoterville – that's the two hundreds. The good thing is all my clothes still fit so if I stay on track the weight I need to relose to continue to come off quickly.

I'm back and I will post once a week on  a regular basis again. It's all part of my refocus.  

I have been MIA but with good reasons. First I was on vacation shortly after my last post. Then busy trying to get back on track from vacation then the unthinkable – the hospital for 2 weeks. Let me go back – in the last 90's I have 4 surgeries between 96-99. Two were hernia repairs. The last hernia repair included the use of a mesh to repair it. Said mesh became infected and caused the 14 day hospital stay which included surgery. The mesh had to be removed and replaced with something new that should not be prone to infection.

Now to my subject of the day. My surgeon informed me that I needed to lost weight to keep from having complications with the hernia surgery. Lose weight? Yeah, I know I do. I have been working on that. He was of course happy to hear that I have lost weight but and I quote “losing weight on your own is hard. You need to lose another 100 pounds and that's hard to do”. You know I agree with him. It's hard to do. I have been working on it. I have done it in the past. It's not an easy thing to do BUT I told myself a long time ago WL surgery was not an option for me. I am not knocking it. I know people who have had it but as I have said I have had enough surgeries to last me a lifetime. An elective surgery is not for me. Besides as people who have had it will tell you WL surgery is a tool – not a magic potion. You still have to watch what you eat. You still have to exercise at some point. And if you don't change your lifestyle, the weight will come back. So NO I am not going to have surgery. I am going to continue to do what I am doing. Maybe I will go back to writing a food journal to be more focused but I will pass on the surgery especially after what I am going through with this one. As soon as I am released from the doctor, I will get back to the gym and back to it.

On a good note: I have lost some weight. I am down 82.1 pounds – 59% of my goal. I'm hoping it all sticks until I am able to get back to the gym.

Do you have more energy?
Are you generally in a better mood?
If weight loss is one of your goals, have you lost weight - ideally 15-30 pounds (1 to 2 pounds per week)?
Are you getting more tone?
Are your clothes feeling loose/are you losing inches?

I received this email as part of the No Excuses Workout Challenge. This is the time I have to remind myself that the scale is not the only factor in my journey. After losing 71 pounds from May to December, I have only lost 2.9 since December 18th. But I have lost inches. I am wearing a smaller size (bra and clothes), and my body is toning and gaining muscle. When I read the title of the email, I thought no I haven't and almost got upset about it until I remembered I had recently bought new smaller clothes. Then I started reading the email and realized that I am still on track. Though I want the number on the scale to move down faster, I am happy that I could answer yes to the other four questions. My thighs are still and probably always will be considered “thunder thighs”. Thunder thighs is term of endearment for me. In the same way I describe my hair as nappy with love when some people think it’s a negative word but that’s another topic for another time and blog. I am learning to embrace my thickness while I enhance it.

One of things I said I would do is burn the BMI charts. I also wanted to keep the scale from ruling me. This year has challenged me on that. I have worked as hard as I have since I started May 2010 and the scale is not moving but as you can see from the picture below the scale is not everything.

Weigh in for the past two weeks:  2.6 +  1.6 = for a total of 4.2 down and a total of 73.9 loss.

I have been determined to get a blog entry in this week. I have been exercising faithfully since I last posted. Food has been off and on but finally more on than off. I gave up Famous Daves for Lent. I had really developed a problem with that place.  I am determined after Lent to keep it to a minimum. The scale has been up as high as 12 pounds from my lowest but mainly I've been stuck at the 5 pounds up. This weekend's weigh in showed me at 1 pound up from my lowest. I have at least earned my way back to the 70 Pound Club. I do believe the scale is ready to move downward. We will see. I will continue to exercise and make good food choices.

Now to my topic of the day. As I have said, the scale has been up and down but I have not lost December 18th when I registered 71 pounds gone. My exercise has been on except for the 1.5  weeks I tried to save money and do home workouts. That was a fail attempt that I will try again but that's another topic and I am rambling. I have had people tell me I look smaller than I did in December but the scale say no. I am not tracking my inches and that is truly a shame because sometimes we lose inches and gain muscle. I have been buying clothes for an upcoming trip – clothes in smaller sizes. In December, I could not wear them. Today I can. I also had a new bra fitting. I am down another size. So although the scale does not show a loss my body is smaller.

New pictures to come. Now that is how to tell a story – through pictures.

I needed to come here and post. As my title says, I am struggling. I am up 5 pounds which doesn't bother me much. It's my head that's driving me crazy. I have some personal things that I am allowing to get in my way. Maybe if I post and admit I can move on. I read my horoscope yesterday and it spoke to me. I am not an astrology follower but I happened to read it while looking at the TV listings on My Yahoo homepage.

It can be very difficult to accept things as they are ... there is such a strong feeling deep inside of you that wishes things were different. But things are what they are, and you should not waste any more time trying to make someone else change they way they feel. If you can move past this today, you will feel freer faster. Your independence is of key importance right now, and you are going to want to be unencumbered by emotional dramas. Relish this imperfect situation. It is a gift.

It summed up much of what I am going through mentally right now and pretty much told me to suck it up and move on. That is what I am working on and that is what I need to do so I can continue to lose. I am managing to exercise 4-5 days a week but my eating is not what it needs to be to lose.

Okay I promised myself I would never go this long without posting. I can't believe it's been over a month. I have been up and down and fighting all the way through. I have been off track, sick, and fighting my way through. I guess I will start from the last post and go from there. Before Christmas I was struggling with potlucks, holiday get-togethers and night outs. Let's see I celebrated losing 70+ pounds then Christmas came. My family of three have a seafood tradition and I wanted to stick to it. Our menu this year: Seafood Melange, Seafood Pasta Casserole, Hot Crab/Shrimp Dip in a Bread Bowl, and two desserts – my son's usual chocolate peanut pie and my daughters caramel chocolate cheesecake. After Christmas, it was hard to get back on track. I was determined to keep my intuitive eating going but I struggled with the scale bouncing back and forth. At one time I decided I would go back to writing everything down again but I felt like that was a step back. So I went forth with trying to listen to the signals while snacking less on junk food. When I say once you start that mess on a regular basis it's hard getting back a sensible balance of it – I mean it's hard. The exercise was on track for the most – one week off because my knee was hurting so bad I thought I was having a relapse. After a week of rest, I was back to normal. Then another week off due to sick stomach, headaches, dizziness (the doctor still doesn't know what that was about). Some weeks of 3 days instead of my 4-5 days. All in all I think I am back on track without having to log my food again. This was a true lesson in intuitive eating – not obsessing over the scale bounces – it seems I have been playing with the same 5-8 pounds since Christmas.

Today I am one pound over my lowest and I am happy with that but now I am ready to start going_down again.

 In 2008 After injuring my knee, I threw a long pity party that did me more harm than good. Then I heard about water aerobics and I started but I wasn't ready to fully commit. I exercised but I didn't weigh. Due to circumstances and situations not of my doing, I encountered another road block that sent me into another pity party. I couldn't get to the gym and I wasn't strong enough to exercise at home. After the situation was cleared up, I ran back to the pool and I was even ready to weigh. That was 30 weeks ago. Today though my knee has been giving me problems this week (some say due to the cold weather) I feel good. I am happy. I am at peace with my relationship with food and my weight. Last week I talked about how much of a foodie I am. I LOVE FOOD! And I am so happy that we have made friends with each other. We had a potluck at work Monday and someone made this wonderful concoction of chocolate cake, coconut, nuts and something else I can't recall. It was definitely worth the calories. Someone mentioned guilt and I was quick to tell them – it was a no guilt dessert. I ate it, enjoyed it and moved on. This week has been full of eating rich foods that are not normally part of my daily eating. I'm sure it will be this way until after the holidays. I was calculating my results for the No Excuses Workout Challenge. It is changing formats and I wanted to report my progress thus far.

My results: 30  weeks, 134 workouts (an average of 4.46 workouts each week) and  71.1 pounds for 51.1% of my goal for weight loss.

Two weeks check in: 5 workout days  1 week and 4 the next. Weigh in 3.4 pounds gone (3.2 and .2) for a total of 71.1  pounds. 7 very happy bouncy smilies for my 70 pounds gone gone gone!!!

ETA: I finally updated my homepage with new pictures.

It seems my blogs have been playing off each other lately. I made this statement and knew I needed to talk more about it. Food has always been a source of comfort for me. To some degree it still is. The difference is how I deal I seek it out. Since I have started on this “more than weight loss” journey one of my goals was to stop misusing food to stop abusing myself with food. It's an emotional thing and always will be. I have learned that it is okay to be comforted by food. Just as it is okay to be comforted by a smell, scent, song and any other thing that brings us comfort. Like a security blanket. What is not okay is to use food to dull the pain – it is not okay to binge on food in an attempt to make the feelings go away. Many of us know it doesn't work that way.  We cry, we binge, we guilt and the cycle continues. We have to allow ourselves to cry and cry and cry somewhere. Workout through it to keep guilt away. Guilt has NO place in our lives when it comes to food. When I read the principles of Intuitive Eating , it was like a light bulb starting blinking above my head, a real DUH moment. I was already in the “Rejecting Diet Mentality” stage. I was fed up with plans that I can't live on for the rest of my life. Cutting certain things from my daily eating is not something a gal like me can do – I like food. I like bread, I like sweets. I like junk food. I do and I am admitting to it. And you know I can have it when I want it. And you know what else, it's not as often as you would think. Because giving myself free rein takes away the constant craving for it. Go figure. The one that was initially the hardest for me was “Challenge the Food Police”. Because it was ingrained in me. It I had been programmed by all the plans I have ever followed in my lifetime, people around me and even myself that there are bad foods and good foods. That voice has been muted. It no longer screams at me. And I think that is number one when it comes to getting it right this time. My sister baked me a carrot cake for my birthday. I had a friend that used to make them for me and I wanted one. I had dinner with a group of friends and I had cake. I enjoyed my cake. I loved every single bite of it. It was guilt free cake. Now I made sure everyone else had a piece and I didn't want to bring any home other than the slice for me son. It is amazing how this works. Now the other thing, I had to come to grips with is rate of loss with this WOL. It is much slower but when I think about I wonder “who I am racing?”, “what's the big hurry?”. I have decided that the slower weight loss is worth the enjoyment I have in life. I am still losing weight. My knees are becoming stronger and I AM HAPPY!!!

Thinking of my knees, I have to report this. It's a NSV. Friday and Saturday this week I tried something new. The stationary bike and the treadmill. 10/20 minutes on the stationary bike and 20 on the treadmill (weight loss cycle though some of the paces were too fast and I had to slow it down) before my usual 1 hour pool workout. Now that's progress.

On to the scale. Two week report (I had it when I skip a week):

 Week 1 - 3 days exercise , .2 pounds, I haven't had one of those weeks in a long time. My gym was closed Thursday-Saturday. I promised myself I would try some home exercises. Didn't happen. I have got to work on that. Week 1 weigh in was a loss of .2  and I was happy with that considering the holiday and the exercise.

Week 2 – 4 days, 1.6 pound loss. Much better this week. I think the loss would have been better but I had a day of really off eating. There will be other days like it. I am just thankful that they are just one day occurrences – not days, weeks or months. All part of life. I had some very down days. I always do around this time of the year.

I am very close to 70 pounds and even better the ½ mark. Maybe this will be the week for both.