Friday, June 29, 2007

Yeah, beacuse the Special K starvation diet is better

Tricia who posts on Fatshionistas posted photos of a class assignment the other day. She doctored some Special K ads with some great lines about accepting yourself as you are. Worth a look.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Eat Well, Be Well. Baby Steps to Getting There.

Jack-Sprat.net had some interesting insights on eating well they other day. Not just eating healthily, but well.
Admittedly, I think it took me about a year of doing this for me to have that breakthrough. It was a long time before I realized that all of the alternatives and substitutes and strategies I was adopting were not about “dieting” but were about finding new ways to be completely happy.
He's pretty into calorie counting and low fat which I'm not, but the point is still the same. I post occasionally to a low-carb bb and most of the folks there are rather purist in their approach to eating. This is not just shunning chemical sweeteners, but also substitute foods. I admit that a lot of low-carb food is just plain bad tasting. But I didn't cut back on carbs because I didn't like them or the foods they're in. So why not find alternatives and substitutes? I don't want to structure my diet around them, but there's still a place for them.

* * *
This impulse control thing is awesome. Who knew? Yesterday on my way home late with not much to eat at home (yeah, need to get that organized) I stopped at the 7-11 to get something. I started thinking on the Metro on the way there what I might get. I rejected several ideas as yummy but totally inappropriate. In the past I wouldn't have gotten this far even. I finally settled on the idea of some sandwiches that I like there, and ditching the bread before I ate it. I ended up not getting that sandwich, but doing the same thing with a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. I ended up eating about half the biscuit, so no halo over my head. But at least I thought it through and tried, instead of "resigning" myself to the first thing that popped into my head: Ben & Jerry's.

* * *
And the mouse is still running around with impunity ignoring the trap with peanut butter.

Sleep still bad, but I did do my Pilates this morning. Baby steps.


Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Damn Mouse

I managed to do my Pilates yesterday, but no luck today. I fell asleep for over an hour around 9:30pm last night, so I decided to just go to bed. I was excited that I was going to get a full night's sleep. Unfortunately, the mouse that has invaded my apartment was also excited. It kept rustling things and irritating me. At two a.m. I was sweeping under my bed trying to get at whatever it was making noise with. And I shifted a big pile of books and magazines from next to my bed (throwing out a bunch of stuff in the process). I'm not normally an obsessive cleaner, so it was kinda funny for me to be hauling out the broom and dust rags in the middle of the night.

So, no sleep. Alarm went off this morning, and I couldn't budge. I can't get more sleep, if I can't get to sleep. If I can't wake up in the morning, I can't work out before I leave the house. If I work out when I get home (cardio, anyway), I will only be making my sleep problem worse since several days a week, I don't get home until after 10 pm. If this isn't fixed by the next time I see the Drug Doc, I'm getting sleeping pills.

On the food front, yesterday was okay, today has been okay. My plan for this week is to just stop eating all the obvious high carb stuff: Sweets, things with flour, rice, pasta, potatos, bread, etc. I had a flour tortilla yesterday though, now that I think of it. And some bread. If it weren't for Fitday I wouldn't remember this stuff at all. Anyway, that will get my carb intake down to a moderate level (probably under 60). Then I can make plans for real low carb for next week.

I set a trap for the mouse before I left for work. They like peanut butter, I hear.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

You Are Getting Sleepy...

I'm exhausted. No, not of trying to stick to a diet (mainly because I haven't started yet). Tired. My circadian rythym has been off for about six months. Saturday, I didn't even wake up until 5pm. I was out so cold, I slept through the phone ringing. Then last night, I couldn't get to sleep (big surprise), and had to get up by 10 this morning.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is a link between losing weight and sleep. I might be able to remember it is I weren't exhausted. Okay, here we go. Does Losing Sleep Mean Gaining Weight?

Researchers from the University of Chicago and Stanford University have completed two studies that show lack of sleep causes changes in hormones that result in increased appetite and weight gain.

Scientists were amazed to find that hormone levels can be affected after as few as two nights of poor sleep, triggering alterations in the brain's chemistry that increase appetite.
It's hard to be making a plan when I can't think clearly. I should be exercising six out of seven days. I have a great Pilates book with a modified beginner program. When I was losing weight before this was a great program for me, and I'd gotten into the regular beginner adding in some additional moves. The only kind of sustained cardio work I've ever been able to cope with is swimming, but it's too expensive to join a gym. I have been able to slog through HIIT, though, and I can do that in the gym in my apartment building. Since HIIT seems too tiring just thinking about it, I'm going to do Pilates tomorrow morning and then alternate the rest of the week. I have both Saturday and Sunday off next weekend because my schedule is shifting, so that will give me another week to decide if my one day of not working is my day off working out or not.

Food. I don't really have a plan. In the past my routine has been to make dinner and double up so I have lunch for the next day. But now that I've been working a few nights, I'll probably want something ready to go for those nights AND the next day's lunch. Crockpot, rotisserie chicken, and some doubled up Saving Dinner recipes?

Oh, and serendipitously, The Divine Low Carb has a bit of a rant on my quandry of yesterday: Can you be Fat Accepting and on a diet at the same time?

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Can I be self-accepting and on a diet at the same time?

I was reading The Rotund who was writing about bad days and being bombarded by bad news. And she said:
So the rebellion becomes two-fold. 1) You have to make the initial choice to embrace your body as it is. 2) You have to continue to believe in your own conviction, despite constant messages from others that you are wrong.
I want to learn to embrace my body and also not be fat. The reality is, even if I lose a lot of weight, that my body will still have flaws. It will be too lumpy in one place or too flat in another. My nose will still be too wide and my head too small. I want to learn to love myself. And this one of the great lessons of the fat acceptance movement. But I also don't want to be fat.

Can I love myself and be committed to changing at the same time? And this flows over into other aspects of myself, not just my body. Can I love myself, my disordered brain and the personality that comes with it, while still trying to funtion more "normally"?

In other news, the Tanita tells me I only weigh 224, but still have the same body fat percentage that I've been getting based on height/weight/measurements with an online calculator. So I'm fatter than I thought, but I weigh less. I think this means that I'm even more out of shape than previously imagined. With the emphasis on imagined. Nearly half of me is solid fat. Which I find kind of gross to think about.

These photos I took last August, but I'm about the same right now:


Though I rarely look this good when I look in the mirror. Especially without clothes on.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Being Fat Isn't My Only Problem

I have a problem with depression. I've had it since childhood. But better living through chemistry and all that. I'm pumped full of Prozac and will need to take a maintenance dose for life. If someone wants me to stop, they're going to have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

I also have a problem with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). My main problems are with executive function, impulse control, and hyper-focus. That is being managed less well, but the Drug Doc and I are trying to find something that works. The current attempt is 450 mg of Wellbutrin. I'm not really thinking that it's working.

I've recently begun to admit to myself that I have a problem with binge eating. Great. As if my brain isn't eff'ed up enough already, now I've got another disorder. Brill.

I started doing some research into binge eating today. And I kept thinking, Jesus, these people have issues. I mean I have issues, but I'm on enough "issues" drugs to keep a water buffalo well-balanced and in a good mood. It's more like a really bad habit that I have absolutely no control over. I kept reading. No that really didn't sound like me. I do binge eat, but there's nothing emotional tied up in it. It's just an impulse I can't control.

Huh? Impulse control? Haven't I heard that somewhere recently? Oh, right, just a couple of paragraphs back! And then the penny drops. In the last week or so, as my new, higher dose of Wellbutrin has been kicking in, I'm not having as many problems. Maybe it is working, just not on the things I expected. Wellbutrin is actually prescribed for people with addictions (most commonly heroin, meth and nicotine), so apparently it does effect this area of the brain.

I'm also underemployed, underpaid, single, childless, over 40, and in debt. But I've gone on enough for today.

New stats in the side bar. And the scale came, it just needs to be programmed.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

So I've been reading diet blogs

I'm not any thinner yet. Well, I could be. I haven't actually gotten on the scale in weeks, so maybe just reading has caused some sort of miracle shift. Yeah, right.

I did order a new scale from Tarjay which should be here soon. I have a scale, and it's not all that old, but it's one of those mechanical scales which will drop a few pounds off of you if you standing the right place. If I'm going to get serious, I need serious tools.

Since you're making me guess, I'm thinking I clock in at about 240, maybe a tad less. I'm 5'9" and I should probably weigh about 145. I know that sounds low, but when I last weighed 150 (more than a decade ago), I remember thinking I needed to lose about 15 or 20 pounds. Of course I've never been friends with exercise, so I could end up weighing more and looking better if I start working out. I guess if PastaQueen could do it at 370, I need to get off my lard butt, and stop whining.

I promise that I'll collect some stats and tell the truth. Tune in tomorrow.