Wednesday, November 30, 2005

I Wanna Be Loved By You

I have this song stuck in my head. I have absolutely no reason why and it's kind of driving me insane.

It could be worse, this morning The Boyfriend had "Boogie Wonderland" stuck in his head thanks to an ill-timed Target commercial. He's nice about it when he has a song stuck in his head, he just quietly sits there and tells you he has a song stuck in his head.

Me, I sing it as loud and often as possible so that He will get it stuck in his head, and then I have some company in my misery.

Shit! I just got "Boogie Wonderland" now stuck in my head just by typing this.
Now I have to resort to getting "If I Could Turn Back Time" stuck in my head. It is a little known fact that any Cher song will get any other song out of your head. Unfortunately, it is a fact I know all to well.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Update Week 2

I thought I would do this weeks update a day early, since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and The Boyfriend and I have given ourselves the "day off' from our diet, so there will be no weighing in for me tomorrow!

As of today, I have lost a total of 9 pounds. I weigh 190. I have lost 4 inches off of my waist line. Results like this are definitely helping with the motivation for sticking with it. On top of the weight loss, my skin is looking better than it has in quite awhile, and I just FEEL better, not like I am going to burst at the seams. I have also noticed that I don't crave sweets anymore and my tastebuds have been sharpened. I was bad and had a fortune cookie last week, good lord those things are sweet! I had never noticed. I used to think my allergies affected my sense of taste, but it was my shoving everything down my throat as fast as possible that was causing me to not taste anything.

I have actually eaten salad with no dressing. You have no idea how big that is.

Since most of you know my dirty little secret of loving some reality T.V. shows, it should come as no surprise that I am an avid fan of "The Biggest Loser". Especially this season, I just really like most of the people who are on the show and I feel a sort of kinship with them as I struggle to get my own weight off.

I watched last night, fascinated by the amount of crying the contestants do on this show. I don't know why this was so interesting to me, as I myself fully admit to friends that I have cried trying to pick out clothes.

I have not cried during this diet, but I HAVE had to get through the realization that I was a lot bigger than I thought I was. It's very easy to just not look at yourself, not admit to yourself that the pants don't fit because YOU got bigger. As a friend once told me, "You can hate your hair or getting your pictures taken all you want, because you think they make you look fat. But at some point, you have to realize that YOU are making you look fat. And that's about the point where you decide to do something about it." This has really been driven home since my clothes have started fitting better. Clothes that I thought looked good on me before are WAY more comfortable. I have not dropped any sizes, yet.

I am nervous for the next part of this. I get to start adding things back in to my diet. This scares me. I am so happy with the amount of weight I lost, I don't want to gain anything back or stop losing.

On a final note -
Last night Andrea was voted off Biggest Loser, and may I say I was so happy to see her go. She admitted to sneaking like 9 or 12 brownies because she was stressed out before a weigh-in, has ASKED people to send her home and then stated for the camera that she HAD to be in the final 3 because she had worked so hard to get there. I know this is really mean, but good lord, SHE SNUCK FOOD. Of course she deserves to be there more than the other 3 who had never snuck food at all.
Also, I may just hate her because she looks like an ex-friend from college. But I'm pretty sure it's the brownies.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am counting down the hours until I get to eat until I am sick. Which should take about 5 minutes.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Update Week 1

So, today's the day, I give you my weight update for the week. So far, the diet has been really easy to adjust to, almost too easy (except for yesterday, which was really hard. I just wanted to eat all day, and not the things on my list to eat either). My only real problem with it is that I am SO SICK of eggs for breakfast I just want to cry. But the first stage is almost over and then I can have Bran Cereal, which makes me want to vomit, so I guess the eggs aren't too bad.

My official weight as of this morning:

191 ½ pounds!

I lost 7 ½ pounds this week.

I have to tell you, this really makes it easier to start week 2. I was even bad last night and had 1½ glasses of wine with dinner, which is a no-no, since you are not supposed to have any alcohol during the first 2 weeks. That's better than The Boyfriend who cheated on the first day and had an apple, which is at the top of the list of things we ARE NOT supposed to eat! (That was mean, we are supposed to be supportive. Just giggle and then forget I said that.*)

In other news, I brought home a singing snowman from Hallmark for The Boyfriend yesterday, since I conveniently had 3 birthday cards to buy. I think it's the best $13 I have ever spent on a gift for him. Check out the pictures.

I guess that's all for today. I am very excited about Thanksgiving, because I just realized this morning that it falls on the same day as we start Phase 2 of the South Beach! And also, we have already decided we get to eat whatever we want that day anyway. But this just means we wouldn't be cheating nearly as much, so it's a good thing.

*I just read that he thinks he only had 1 glass of wine, but he is a liar! He had 1 ½ glasses of wine with dinner, and apparently several "pulls" off the bottle while cooking!!!! So, I don't feel bad for making fun of him. Okay, I never really feel bad for that anyway.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Things That Are Annoying Me

In list form, for you reading pleasure:

1. The weather. It's November 16th, why in the hell is it 90 degrees outside?

2. The weatherman who thinks that telling me it's going to be a great week JUST because the weather is so hot. Really. It's November you moron, I don't care where you live in the U.S., you expect it to be a little colder than it was this summer.

I just know at some point I am going to have to chase down all the weatherpeople in L.A. and kick them in the teeth. It's for their own good.

3. The fact that we are having such bizarre weather across the U.S. and no one wants to talk about Global Warming. It's getting seriously close to the time where we round up all the SUV's and burn them. I don't care if Bush wants to recognize what's happening or not, we have screwed up this Earth and we need to fix it.

4. I went to the mall at lunch today, but I forgot to bring the watch that I needed to get repaired. So my going to the mall was pretty useless, except I bought some birthday cards and a singing snowman which will make The Boyfriend very happy*.

*I'm not kidding. He really wants the singing snowman. This guy really likes Christmas.

5. That somehow the phrase "I can't afford that" doesn't seem to register with people anymore. I have made a practice of not running up my credit card bills so high I can't pay them off every month. This seems to baffle people who are usually trying to sell me something. Sometimes I think there are only 5 people in the world that understand the right way to use credit. The rest are part of that percentage who are over $10,000 in debt and can't figure out how it happened.

For example, I got my teeth cleaned this morning. They of course tried to tell me I NEED to get my teeth whitened and one veneer over a tooth that had a root canal performed on when I was a child. I said I don't, and also I can't afford it. They implied I could charge it to a credit card if I needed to. I had to then re-state that I DON"T HAVE TO HAVE MY TEETH WHITENED. It's not covered by insurance because IT IS ELECTIVE! Also, I don't need a freakin' veneer either. I refuse to give into this obsession that everyone's teeth need to be as white as possible. I like white teeth, but I will not go into debt for them.

6. The fact that going home for Christmas has become a complete nightmare. Traveling is expensive, especially when The Boyfriend and I get the distinct pleasure of being completely across the U.S. from each other for the holidays.

Family is all too willing to guilt you mercilessly until you give in to going home, but then doesn't want to hear it when buying the plane tickets means you are broke for the next 6 months. This also feeds back into #5.

I guess that's my list for now. Tomorrow, the great weekly weight update! I am happy with how the South Beach Diet is going, so it will not be as traumatic a post as last week was for me.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

I Really Have No Title for This

Since The Boyfriend has actually linked to me in his post today, I feel compelled to write something, so I guess it should be about our new diet.

So, I am starting the South Beach Diet today, and so far, it's going okay. I don't really enjoy an extremely low carb diet, as I have tried the no-carb thing before and really ended up gaining a lot of weight afterwards, I keep telling myself that this part only lasts 2 weeks.

I tried Weight Watchers, but I found it tiresome. It was too easy to cheat, although I did get quite a few good recipes off of their website.

I have also tried counting calories. Last year I lost almost 20 pounds in 2 months, but then we went away for Thanksgiving and allowed ourselves to eat whatever we wanted. We never got back to counting those calories.

I feel a brief history of my weight will help you make sense of myself and why this is such a big deal for me. Or not. But it fills up space on the page.

Up until the age of 25, I never really worried about my weight. I never watched what I ate, and I didn’t worry about exercise. I am now realizing that this was mostly because I naturally ate small portions several times a day. Also, I lead a busy life so exercise was never on my mind.

Then, I met The Boyfriend. And I fell in love. (Ok, it was really painful for me to write that because it just sounds so cheesy, but you know, they have proven people in love gain weight, so there). The Boyfriend wasn't so appreciative of my eating habits, because he would always end up eating my leftovers which of course led to him gaining weight. And since I hate leftovers, and was sick of the teasing about how I never eat anything, I began to finish my meals.

That comes across as blaming The Boyfriend, which I am not. I am the one who decided that finishing my food faster than he, while insisting I needed the same portion of food he did, was a great way to not get teased about my eating habits anymore. Good lord, I am brilliant!

So anyhoo, when I turned 25 it all just stopped working. I started gaining weight places I had never gained weight before. I now eat way too much in portion size and have no problems eating foods that I know are bad for me.

I actually get a lot of exercise, but my eating is just all screwed up. Also, I have like the biggest sweet tooth you have ever seen which doesn't lend itself to dieting much.

In the past few years I have stopped having jobs where I am on my feet all day. I can't believe how much this messes with your metabolism, but it does. Working in an office where I don't have far to go to get snacks makes saying "No" way too hard. Not that I am actually saying no to anyone, I just don't seem to be able to say no to myself. (That sounds really dirty)

So, now the really painful part.

I am 5'6". I weight 199 pounds as of this morning.

I am trying not to get all depressed as I write this because I am at the heaviest weight I have ever been in my life. But I have a goal, which is 60 pounds (I would like to lose more but we will see how that goes). I have a time frame, before my 30 birthday which is March 2007. I know I can do this.

My biggest reason, other than acting and such, is that I am watching everyone in my family have huge health issues that all boil down to one thing, they are all fat. I know that is mean, but it's true and they all have the same problems: High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Blockage in their Arteries, Sleep Apnea, Snoring so loud it shakes the earth. None of them will discuss with me that fact that it's mostly because of their weight that these things are happening, especially when I get told, 'well it runs in the family' and I say 'the whole family is overweight, of COURSE it runs in the family'. I mean, I have already inherited Migraines that are so bad they induce vomiting AND being allergic to everything in the air, how much more fun stuff could the possibly give me?

I refuse to be someone who relies on medication for things that could be fixed with weight-loss. I refuse to sit around and just use "it runs in the family" as an excuse for bad health. I refuse to be depressed all the time because I feel fat and none of my clothes fit.

I refuse to make excuses for myself anymore.

I did this to myself. I am going to fix it.