smarties

i feel like im smart again.

i went to buy chocolate milk the other day, and this time instead of just picking one, i tried to read each label to find the calories per serving. a little hard b/c its all in korean, but i can see the numbers, and it still says "cal" for calories. for all of them, one serving = 100ml (half a cup?) and one was 75cal, another 80cal, another 110. i found one for 60. same amount of chocolate milk, just less calories.

i realized that that near daily treat of canned peaches i eat is 400 calories for the whole can. jeez. i can eat one large apple 10oz sliced up nice and snack-like, for 147 calories. it takes longer to eat and keeps me fuller way longer.

and rice... way too much rice. one serving of rice (according to jenny) should be around 80-100 calories, which is 2ounces cooked. yesterday i ate like one fat meal instead of many small during the day, and that 10 ounces of rice on my plate looked like my pre-smart life style serving. and that 10 oz is 5 servings of rice! the lesson here is not that you shouldnt eat 5 servings of rice, but rather, if youre eating 5 at one time, realize that it's 5 and therefore lay off the starch for the rest of the day. and it's ok. it's just for the day. i can have rice again tomorrow.

as jenny says, "it's not about checking up on yourself. it's about checking IN with yourself."

im in the zone. i've done cathe four out of the last 5 days. im tracking my food and staying between 1600-1700 a day. im feeling very positive and accomplished. i've not been doing the daily weigh in. im going to wait until the 1st of the month. update: on sept 1st i weighed in at 234!!! sonofabitch! :)

it depends on your personality, but i dont think there is anything wrong with weighing yourself everyday. at times, i really love seeing that 0.02 drop in the scale and it motivates me. but lately i had been playing a game with myself seeing how much i could eat/how much i could ignore without the number going up. no more of that silliness.

im reading through "half of me" a blog i havent paid much attention to, but so happy to read now. it's super awesome reading the blogs of the folks that did it, and are still doing it. this woman started at 360. she's at about 160 now. friggin awesome.

in her first entry, she writes reasons for her weight loss, one of them being clothes. Me too! i'm coming, magic sweater! maybe in 6 more months!! :( anyway, first entry she writes, "it's difficult to find proper fitting clothes. Lately I can't even find pants that fit. I wear the same pair of pants almost all the time because they are the only pair I have that fit." Jeez. me too. i wear one skirt for work, one pair of pants for non work, and that's it. i have an assortment of blouses... but i'll look forward to wearing new pants. damn. k, that's all. was just thinking.

hey whats up

guys, i feel so much better these days. i was gone for a while, but im feeling much better now. jeez, what a martyr i was. tho it's a lot of work for me, it's not nearly the same amount of effort my other sisters in the struggle do.

i dont know exactly what kenzi was eating, i think just using common sense eating. but she exercies a lot, like A LOT. same with meghan, she was really great at keeping her calories at 1200 a day, and exercised twice a day: once in the gym, and then another hour on the elipitical at home.

those are the only blogs i read regularly, actually. i used to read a couple others, but they've all stopped writing. maybe they're just on a break like i was. come back, ladies!

update on the gerber finger foods: i like to put like 10 in my mouth and then let them melt. it feels weird. i love it.

do what you want.

a while back i was on calorie-count.com, reading a forum about ideas for low-calorie snacks and someone mentioned the gerber baby finger foods. at first i thought that was insane and that person needed counseling, taking weight loss too far. but jeez, im so over my judgemental self, who do i think i am.. tho i've said "do what works for you" over and over, i forgot it for a while. i remember again now. i heard of a woman that used baby utensils for all her meals, and i take back the mean stuff i said about too. anyway... i bought these gerber snacks and they're pretty tasty. ive tried the apple/strawberry, the sweet potato, and the banana. you can eat 80 for 25 calories .

i have found a clearness. took me long enough.

<--this was me these last couple of months

i was reading kenzi's blog, and in a few entries she writes something about the idea that "life is not fair" and she just deals with it. i read that it was like my mind is now illuminated. ive been sitting around for weeks all sorry for myself, "boo hoo, poor me, i work so hard and i cant lose this weight" which is not true; i average, what, a pound a week? but i have to work so hard for that pound. and it'll take so soooo long to reach 170 (magic sweater size) let alone, 130. and it's not fair.

it felt like it'd been weeks and weeks that i was doing the kathy step dvd everyday, finishing and then rewinding to repeat the second combo TWO times or THREE times in a day, and i wasnt breaking 225. so i gave up for a while. i stopped exercising. i ate poorly.

i had been avoiding numbers. i hadnt been weighing daily b/c i was eating with no boundaries and hadnt been exercising . it's like a hamster wheel or that episode of buffy when she's stuck in a time loop. i start the day with 3 bowls of cereal, and so i dont want to weigh in, and so i say "bump it" and so i eat wild the rest of the day. then at night i think about what a waste of a day it was. then the next day comes and BOOM i eat lots of cereal again. lots of reasons i can use, im teaching extra classes right now, im having issues socializing, i hate all my clothes, blah blah blah.

i did tap once on the scale maybe a week or so ago, the number was 236.5 or something. granted, maybe a bit was time of day, water, etc, but still, 6.5 lb gain? nearly 10 actually, since 225.8 was my last official weigh in. i was about to sit down and eat some cereal over that! i didnt. but i wanted to.

i cant sit here and say what im doing isnt working, it IS. ive already proved it to myself. and it takes a little more from me that it does the people around me who lose without even trying. fuck it, life isnt fair. ok. i got it. i'll deal with it. bump others, this is about me.

ah, connected to another thing i'd said to myself a while back, when i was thinking about doing something that wasnt very nice. i declined to say/do it, and when asked why by the homegirl, i replied, "b/c it's not the kind of person i want to be." cue another light bulb. i get to choose who/what i want to be. and i want to be a thinner sha. and i will be. last 2 weeks have been back on track, and i feel much better about everything, and just now i stepped on the scale, it's after 10pm here, and the number was 230.6. im not mad at it. my toes are in the 220's.

i ALSO realized that staying off the computer wasnt good for me. im all alone otherwise, really. my support system is here, online. it's with the other folks who keep their weight blogs, it's with spark, it's the ability to search and read any kind of nutrition info i want. b/c dont all us in the struggle know that sometimes dealing with people face to face kind of sucks? everyone wants to give you advice, tell you what to do about your weight. or tell you you dont need to change. tell you you shouldn't obsess and insist that you must hate yourself if you want to lose weight. and face to face with those in the struggle are just as bad. it really bothers me sometimes to hear a homegirl constantly berate herself, saying how fat and how unattractive she is... first of all b/c she isnt of course. second, b/c it's self loathing which i hate (hypocritical b/c i am of course sometimes guilty of it too). 3rd ive got issues of my own without having to listen to yours. 4th, im 40lbs heavier than you, jerk.

im going to allow myself to be selfish. and im going to set aside computer time everyday. and im going to stop thinking about other people, and just worry about me. if youre reading, kenzi, have you any idea what an inspiration you are? i really appreciate you, more than you know.

this is me now: