Day 32: Work Week Blues

Oh, how I hate the “day job” thing. I really do. I am working hard to get out of it, but those are plans which will take time and energy to come to fruition. Meantime I’m stuck as a day laborer in the florescent halls of mediocrity. The only bonus to being a working stiff is that it forces (nay, ensnares!) me to a schedule. Weekends are all about flux; weekdays are all about regimen.

Which is to say, today I am back on track again with SLD. Last night I slugged a few tablespoons of oil in the late afternoon (after racquetball) and that kept my hunger down all evening. Here is another peculiar advantage to SLD that you may have missed: the avoidance of food poisoning! Husband ate the movie theater popcorn laden in that fake-butter-oil, and said it tasted rather odd. Now, oil can go bad and at the local IMAX theater I do believe that could happen (never been to impressed with the management of the place, although the kids who work there are nice). Anyway he ate about half the bag before deciding something really was wrong with the popcorn, and and not him, and for the rest of the night he was bordering on bad-news food poisoning reaction. Me, full and lacking any appetite, had not even a nibble of the popcorn, so I was spared! Just remember that next time you go out to eat and everyone else wants to buy the 100 pc. hot wings tray!

Today is a “down” day of mostly juice. A long day — work, then class until well after 9pm — and then bed. I did get up this morning (and on both Saturday and Sunday too!) to jog, so that part of the plan is going beautifully. I do think I’m going to have to figure out how to cram some yoga in, though; between jogging, racquetball, and sitting at a damn desk all day and night, I’m becoming very, very stiff. Limber is good. I miss limber.

Weighing in tomorrow. Stay tuned! (although my TOM is due, so I’m apprehensive…)

Day 30: Killer Lasagna!

Today, in keeping with most weekends, my schedule got totally FUBAR’d. By the time I was making my SW, Husband was up and cooking breakfast (he IS the Egg Man! breakitondown). Then we were out running errands and then playing racquetball and then eating a big plate of lasagna while watching to rest of the awesome old Britcom, Spaced. So ya, I ate two helpings of pasta and had two beers. Very little bread, though; and honestly, I wasn’t able to finish breakfast that morning anyway, and it was just two MiKE MackMuffins (Husband’s version of egg-on-english-muffin). I did get hungry by dinner and while I ate two helpings, they were smaller sized portions. I don’t think it has to do with “lingering” AS from doing SLD, I suspect it has more to do with a stomach that has actually shrunk in size.

Overall, and okay day. Nothing especial to report. Up early tomorrow for my jog and to get the laundry done (we have to go to a laundrymat to do it. UGH!). And more racquetball! Yeaaaa!

Day Sixteen: Wherein I Really Do Try to Overeat

This morning I got up and went for a short run, then fixed one of my everything-but-the-kitchen-sink protein shakes. After that, I promptly went back to bed. Well c’mon, it’s Saturday! Anyway I did get up in time to drink my SW at the appointed time. Thirty minutes later, husband came in bearing breakfast (okay, peanut butter on bread…we are confirmed bachelors, despite being married for many years, so our pantry is usually quite bare). How can you say no to an adorable husband bearing peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast? I at least said, “later” so had to sit around with my sandwich next to me for 30+ minutes. Hell.

Well I ate the sandwiches even though the AS was in high gear. I’m a people pleaser, I will not say “no” if I think it will hurt your feelings. Harumph.

Later we went to our favorite Mexican joint for dinner and I did feel hungry by then, so I really really tried to stuff myself. No, really, I did! But I could not finish the plate. In what is becoming routine, I ordered half of what I used to order before SLD, and I still could not finish it. My “I’m stuffed!” meter has changed and it throws me off considerably. All for the better, of course.

I do not plan on weighing this weekend as weekends are my “free” time, where I get to have a beer or some wine and OH GHODS YES chocolate! Mmm. I don’t purposefully plan to overeat on the weekends, I just allow myself to have the goodies I really want all week but don’t let myself have. So with the PB sandwiches and the chocolate and two glasses of wine, I’ve definately gone over my ideal caloric intake.

Aw, WTH. Life without wine and chocolate isn’t really living, after all.

Day Thirteen: Meet the Husband

My husband was and is incredibly supportive of me and my weight loss attempts. We are celebrating 12 years together and during that time he has seen my weight bounce around 60 pounds, up and down. He always calls me beautiful and our standing joke is for him to ask how I am, and when I say “I’m fine” he replies: “I know you look good, I’m asking about how your day went.” He loves me and thinks I am beautiful and does not understand at all my obsession with “being thin.” He likes thick women and in the past has been known to sabotage diets with well timed offers of chocolate and beer for fear that I will end up like Kate Moss: you know, all thin and ugly. (No accounting for tastes, and I really should just be grateful and shut up!)

He has watched me go on exercise binges (no other word for it), Atkins, lo-fat diets, the Master Cleanse, and liquid diets. Sometimes he has half-heartedly joined me because he does need to lose weight himself (about 50 pounds); but he hates diets and he loves cheese and doesn’t like being told what to eat or when. As a latch-key baby he grew up making his own food choices based on what he wanted, rather than what he needed, and is averse to changing that lifestyle at 37. Boys will be boys, I guess!

For such a large man (6’7”, 360#) he doesn’t eat a lot. Everyone makes jokes about what a gargantuan appetite he must have but no, looks are deceiving. By the book, he needs to consume 3300 calories a day to maintain his weight. I think most days he just hits 3000 calories by eating nothing but a really large, calorie-dense dinner (pizza, or eggs and cheese, or cheese and cheese, or some-form-of-cheese…). He gets headaches when he doesn’t eat so I am always forcing him to eat something, anything, for lunch. Unfortunately, like me he is sedentary by nature so the weight gain creeped up on him.

Still, it would be easy for him to be sarcastic about my new SLD enthusiasm. Hell I probably would be if I were him. He knows I’m doing it and might even be secretly reading this blog. He’s made a few jokes about my slugging oil but otherwise has not asked for specifics. I think he is just waiting for success or failure. I am honestly not sure if this would work for him anyway, or that he’d be willing to try it even if it works for me. I don’t know. It is hard to talk to him about stuff like this because of all we’ve been through together concerning my weight issues…no pun intended, but there is a lot of extra baggage here. I think he has justifiably built up a mental wall because he knows he cannot stop me from trying to lose weight and he cannot stop me from being unhappy about being overweight, and of course he cannot lose the weight for me. There is no way for him to solve this problem so he steps back and lets me do my thing, good or bad.

Maybe if/when I lose about 30 pounds, I can talk to him about how different I feel doing SLD. Until then he just has to marvel at the fact that I leave half my food on the plate these days.