Weekly Weigh-In

So the results are in, and they aren’t looking too good. 283lbs this week.

I am really tired of coming here and posting about how horribly I am doing. And here is the thing, I don’t think I am doing horribly. I am maintaining weight at a time when I’m not really able to focus on my health at all. Honestly, I think I’m doing freaking amazing.

I came to this realization last night when I was talking to my mom. She weighs in every Thursday, and for the past few months she has been gaining and losing the same three pounds (sound familiar?). Anyway, I told her that she is doing great, because at least she isn’t gaining. And she is doing great. A 3lb fluctuation isn’t actually “gaining” weight. That is well within the boundaries of normal weight fluctuation for females who are overweight.

So here it is. I am happy with where I am right now. I was happy when I stepped on the scale and it was below 285lbs. I am happy with indulging with food occaisionally, because it is one of my few reprieves. But don’t get worried about me, I am not giving up. No no. I am being realistic. Any loss right now would be amazing, but as I’ve said before, it isn’t really my focus right now. I am still finding my groove in grad school, and earning my first master’s degree is a lot more important to me than losing weight. All that really matters is that I am being healthy, which I am, for the most part. I am still working on adding more exercise to my day, and I am still trying to watch my portions. I’m still in the game.

Mmmm… Oatmeal

I just finished some delicious oatmeal with a scoop of peanut butter and a couple scoops of light yogurt. This is probably the best 300 calorie breakfast out there. I get my fiber, protein (I seriously had no idea how superior oatmeal was in this dept. compared to cereal), and some dairy. Plust it is extremely delicious and keeps me going for a long time. I am taking a banana and granola bar to work since I will be there until 4, and I am going to have some decently healthy pot roast for dinner tonight.

It feels so good to have a healthy plan for my day, and to eat my standard breakfast instead of fast food.

Home again

I left Friday afternoon and just got back last night around 9:30. It was so nice to sleep in my own bed again. I did have a really great time while I was away though. On Friday I went to happy hour with some people from my old office. We had a good time catching up. I wish I still worked there! Seriously it was the best job I have ever had, and everyone there is awesome. After that I had dinner with the boy and a friend, and then I went to see Premium, which was written and produced by a very good friend for her senior honors project. I was extremely impressed.

I spent all of Saturday and Sunday with the boy (glorious).

Monday I woke up at 5:45 so I could get downtown to meet my boss at 7:00am. We drove to D.C., which ended up being about a 5 hour drive. After extensive meetings, I chilled in my hotel room (at the Hilton!) while writing a stupid paper for class. The following day I attended a meeting with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. I was really excited to be a part of the meeting, and I actually got to introduce myself to the Secretary and some of his senior staff. After a whirlwind of visiting several senators’ offices, we drove back to Pittsburgh and I made it to my 6:00pm class with 30 seconds to spare.

Needless to say, I haven’t made the healthiest food choices. Honestly, my boss chose where we would eat, so I tried to make the best choice at fast food places and a Chinese restaurant. I haven’t stepped on the scale. I’m kinda worried about what it will say. I worked until about an hour ago, and I am just about to head to class, so I’m busy as heck. I am going to continue to try to make the best choices I can, and we’ll see what the scale says on Friday.

I made it!

I made it through the weekend with few horrible food choices. On Friday, I even met the boy for an intense gym session reminiscent of ours from last year. Needless to say, my legs are still killing me. I may have gone overboard a little bit. For the rest of the weekend I managed to keep things under control. I didn’t get that dinner alone with the boy, because a bunch of my friends wanted to go to our favorite Mexican place. I ordered the taco salad only to find out that it isn’t primarily lettuce like most other salads. Oh well, it made a great dip for the tortilla chips.

I have a couple of travel opportunities coming up for my internship, and they might throw a wrench into my healthy plans. Tonight I am actually traveling to my home town for an advocacy training all day tomorrow. I’ll be getting in late, so no meals on the road tonight. Tomorrow I am having breakfast at Perkins with my mom, so I’ll just get eggs or something not too horrible. The only meal I’ll have to worry about is the lunch that they serve us, but I’m hoping it will be healthy, especially since my boss is a vegetarian and loves salads. Next week I get to travel to D.C. and I will be eating all three meals out both Monday and Tuesday. I am just going to have to be diligent, and I think I will bring some healthy snacks with me so I don’t get too tempted.

My guy called me at 8am to tell me some good news. It also woke me up early on the only day I get to sleep in this week. But can I just say waking up to a person I care about is way better than any alarm clock? I can’t help but feel that I am on to something really good here.

Weekly Weigh-In

280lbs. So that is 5lbs down from what I was earlier in the week. As with all weight fluctuations, I am guessing that my gain was mostly water due to my overeating and it almost being that time of the month. So now I am up 3 or 4lbs from my weight two weeks ago. I will continue to stay on track throughout this next week and hopefully pull off a 2lb loss next Friday.

I am spending the weekend with friends and my boy, and it tends to be difficult to eat healthy foods around them. So, today I am taking my own dinner because we are eating in. It is cheaper for me anyway, because my friends have a meal plan but I would have to pay ridiculous amounts to eat in their cafe. Tomorrow I am going to have brunch with the group, but I’ll make sure I pick a healthy omelette and stay away from the biscuits and gravy. Tomorrow for dinner is out with my guy, so I will let myself indulge a little bit, but definitely control my portions. No drinking. No fried food. Sunday I have to work so I’ll be home super early for a typical breakfast of oatmeal here.

Another Day

I made it through another day following my meal plan exactly. I prepared my lunch and dinner this morning after I ate my oatmeal, then packed my meals and all of my books into my bag. I can’t help but think that this would be easier if I wasn’t out of the house for 13 or 14 hours in a row. I followed my plan, and wasn’t really feeling hungry at all throughout the day. My salad at lunch held me until I made it to campus for dinner, though my bus smelled like delicious amazing McDonald’s french fries and I almost caved in.

Now that I’m home I am craving something. My class got out early, so really I ate a serving of whole wheat pasta only about 3 hours ago. I’m trying to decide if I’m actually hungry or if I’m just in the habit of eating after class. As soon as the maintenance guy gets out of my kitchen (my sink is sad), I’m going to go grab a huge glass of water and reassess my hunger in a little bit. I think I would call this a successful day. Let’s hope that my string of successful days will show when I get on the scale tomorrow morning.

One Day at a Time

I made it through today. I ate oatmeal for breakfast. I had lunch out with my boss, and I didn’t eat my entire portion even though in the back of my mind I was thinking “How can I WASTE food when I am struggling to pay for groceries?!” Then when I came home from class I had a glass of milk and some leftover pot roast. I had two biscuits with it, but overall not an entirely unhealthy meal.

I really do just need to take everything one day at a time. Right now I am barely holding myself together without worrying about my health, that all I can do is get up each day and try my best. At the end of the day I’ll evaluate how I did, and hopefully do better the next day.

It’s tough going…

Okay, I knew that I wasn’t doing my best. I have still been trying to squeeze in exercise and I thought that I was making mostly healthy food choices. But today I stepped on the scale and it said 285lbs. Really? I mean, that’s almost a 10lb gain, and it puts me back up to my first 10% of weight that I was trying to lose. Come on, Bethany, really?

So like a trooper, after every setback I just need to keep on trucking. My meals are planned for the week. Absolutely no cheating and grabbing food from the cafeteria before class. I’m packing a lunch and a dinner everyday. Also, no alcohol this weekend. Not like I have been drinking a lot, but I had two restaurant frozen margaritas this past weekend, and I know that those are full of sugar and calories. I can stick to water.

I am still trying to figure out where I can add exercise to my schedule. I think that I am going to have to be intentionally extra active on the weekends because my schedule is a little bit more free then. Then I can do whatever fits during the week, but in the second half of the semester it seems like nothing really fits. I’ll figure it out.

What I’m Doing For Myself…

Due to some recent conversations I have finally come to the realization that I am absolutely crazy. Each week I am working about 20 hours at a part time job, interning for at least 16 hours, sitting in class for 20 hours, and riding the bus or sitting in traffic for about 15 hours. If I expect to get 8 hours of sleep a night (a laughable goal), that gives me an average of 5 hours a day to spend doing homework or relaxing. I think the general rule is that students should expect to spend 3 hours doing out-of-class work for every hour spent in-class, and I’m all out of hours.

I am not trying to make excuses for myself, but it is no surprise that I am stressed, overeating, unable to sleep, and not doing anything healthy for my body. This is a problem. This is a really big problem, of which I hadn’t realized the magnitude until now. Pursuing a healthy lifestyle is no longer something that I can do as a leisure activity or attempt to accomplish as a goal in the distant future. I need to take care of my physical, mental, and emotional health right now or I’m not going to be able to make it through the semester, let alone three years of this kind of schedule.

In light of this realization, I absolutely need to make some changes to my lifestyle. I’ve already started by planning my meals out. I am also going to make sure that these meals are healthy and will sustain me through my long days. If I remain hydrated and eat healthy natural foods, I hope that I will be able to resist sugary treats or fried foods, which will only make me crash later. I am also going to try to fit in three days of yoga a week. This is something that used to be daily, but I am trying to be realistic with my schedule. I am choosing to pick it back up because it is something that I can easily do at home and provides benefits to my physical health as well as attacking my stress.

I also have one other thing that I want to do for myself. Right now I am working on losing weight, but I haven’t really been giving myself any incentive. I’m very happy with my life, and apparently being skinny isn’t incentive enough for me to drop the pounds. So, when I reach my next 10% goal (255lbs) I would like to go on a wine tour with the fellow. This is something that we have talked about in the past and I really want to do it. It will be something I enjoy and it will also be a reward for losing the weight and surviving through all of the stressful experiences I’m putting myself through at the moment. It will also be another stress buster, because who wouldn’t kill for a day filled with wine and a complete hottie?

No Weigh-In Today…

I woke up and was ravenous, so I ran to my kitchen instead of my scale. Needless to say I am full of eggs, toast, and water, so I’m not going to weigh in until tomorrow. For this entire past week I have been hungry all of the time, and it is driving me crazy. Actually, I don’t even think that I’ve been hungry, I have just had a constant feeling of wanting to eat something. My internship has prevented me from sitting down and enjoying any meals, so by the end of the day (yesterday for example) I realized that I have had my oatmeal for breakfast, an apple with peanute butter, a granola bar, and a banana as snacks throughout the day, chik-fil-a sandwich and fries as I ran to class (there is a chik-fil-a in my building, probably not the best thing), a handful of halloween candy, and then macaroni and cheese when I came home at 10pm. Basically breakfast was a sane meal, then I had one too many snacks, and TWO DINNERS.

So I am trying to get a handle on why I have been eating so much. I think that one thing is stress – I have always ate away my stress and with so much going on it is no surprise that I did it all week. I also think that binging with the boy this past weekend stretched my stomach so that it wanted more to feel full, and I also might be a little dehydrated, which adds to the feeling of wanting to eat or drink something. In light of this, and with full realization that I have already dealt with these issues time and time again, I am going to be purposeful about my eating (and drinking water) this weekend and coming week. Definitely can’t eat two dinners, and I need to pack a real lunch instead of just snacks so that I don’t feel like grabbing fast food for dinner before class.