I need to be committed...

Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.

By that definition, I am crazier than a bed bug!

Ever since I started WW, I have lost and gained the same 5 pounds. The first week I lost it, and I was so excited! I got my 5 lb star sticker and I was pumped. The next week I gained it back. Determined to make this work, I was really dilligent the next week...lost 5 lbs again, got another star sticker. Then I stopped eating all my points and stopped going to the gym and went on a cruise, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, I had one week were I was really good about the gym and another week where I had swine flu. 5 pounds lost again.

Obviously, I am not working the program. I had to do some serious soul searching to make sure this is really what I wanted to do and was ready to work at it. I know that many thin, atheletic people look at fat people like me and think, "Just stop eating already! Get off the couch and work out or something." Well, just like quitting smoking, losing weight is a real struggle. It isn't what goes in your mouth that makes you fat, it's what goes on in your head.

So, after some searching of the soul, I found that I really am ready to make this work. I'm tired of being fat and of having body parts ache all the time. I don't want to worry about being "old" before my time. I certainly don't want to entertain the idea of diabetes or a heart attack. So, what do I do now?

I get committed, and not to a mental institution...although, I really could use the rest. I need to get committed to myself. Many would look at this as a New Year's Resolution list, but I can't keep a resolution past noon on the 1st. So, I dedcided to just make a list of things I am committed to doing.

Here's my list:
· Go to the gym 6 days a week and ride the elliptical for at least 30 minutes.
· Record everything I eat.
· Drink 64 oz of water a day.
· Eat breakfast everyday.

But I also have a list of things I commit NOT to do:
· Drinking regular soda before my water is consumed.
· Sleeping...I work 9 hours at night and sleep is essential, but I don't always take advantage of the time to do it.

And, on a more personal note, I commit to:
· Read something uplifting a day
· Say my prayers on my knees every day. I can be more successful at anything if I invite God on the journey.

I have printed this list out and signed and dated it. I hung it up in my medicine cabinet where I will see it several times a day. So far, I have consumed 40 oz. of water and been to the gym and had 2 hard boiled eggs. Woo Hoo!

And now I am heading back to bed for a nice nap.

Soooo Looong...

Accountability has a tendency to suck. As soon as you let people know what's going on, they want to continue to be informed! Imagine that!


Anyway, I weighed in on October 14th at 265.8 which was a loss of 5.8 pounds. I made sure to eat all my points and let me tell ya, that's really hard. I don't know how I got to be so big because I don't eat that much. I'm trying to get into a better routine about eating at certain times every day. I'll let you know how that works out.

I also weighed in on October 21st at 265.4 which was a loss of another .2 pounds. I guess losing is losing no matter how big or small. As long as it's going in the right direction. Right?

To make matters interesting, I went on a cruise with my mom to the Bahamas for four days. I will comment more on the cruise itself in my other blog, http://ncdreamwriter.blogspot.com/, but for now I will tell you about the food.

It was kinda unexciting. I really don't think I ate massive proportions because the food wasn't really that good. It was ok, but not like people have said. I wasn't impressed. Also, I don't drink alcohol so I don't think I wasted a bunch of points on drinks...but if I did drink, one shot of rum has only 2 points in it. Big Whup. I don't think I ate all my points everyday, so there may be some weight gain from that.

The thing that may have sabotaged my recent weight loss is the fact that mom and I slept an average of 11 hours everyday! We did not get up to exercise, even though I brought my clothes and found the workout room before I even looked for our restaurant. We just slept and slept. When we got up, we laid by the pool. After that we ate something. Then, to really cap off the day, we went to bed between 9:30 and 10.

To be honest, it was the best vacation I ever had and it will be worth every pound I may possible gain from it.

Here We Go…

Well, it has been a difficult week. For some reason, I am finding it hard to stay out of bed. I get up at 7 and get the kids off to school and then go back to bed around 8:30 and I can sleep until noon if guilt doesn’t wake me up. Needless to say, it was very difficult to make it to the gym this week. I did go on Wednesday and rode the elliptical for 30 minutes. I was dreading going, but totally loved the feeling of sweat dripping down my face. I kept telling myself that I could stop after the current song ended, but after it ended I wanted to go one more song. Luckily, I don’t have any long songs on my MP3 player.

So, I missed Wednesday’s WW meeting because I was sleeping. But I went on Thursday. Not the best news…I weighed in at 271.4 which is up 1.6 pounds. Ugh. I talked to the meeting leader about why I keep going up. It appears that you have to eat ALL of your points. I thought that was more of a guideline…a limit you shouldn’t go over. Boy was I schooled. So, I started Friday with recording everything and even measuring what I was eating. We’ll see how that goes.

An interesting thing happened on the way to the WW meeting though. They guys on the radio where talking about a quote someone made in the news. The quote goes, “It is harder to be fat in America than black in America.” Of course, I have no idea what it’s like to be black in America, but I’m well versed in being fat in America. The guys on the radio asked listeners who are fat to call in and talk about their hardships. No fat people called. Skinny people called to express their stupidity about times they were mean to a fat person. One skinny guy, who had lost 260 pounds, talked about his former life. But no actual fat people called in. Doesn’t that scream what it’s like to be fat in America? Fat people are ashamed to even anonymously admit they are fat.

Let me give you an example of how people treat fat people. I was at the dollar store one day buying sand buckets for a trip to the beach with my kids. From the cash register line I had direct sight of a young man, probably in his early 20’s, trying to get his dog to stay in the truck bed while he went shopping. The dog wasn’t a puppy, but he wasn’t fully trained yet. Every time the guy walked away from the truck the dog would jump out and follow him. On the third time, the guy picked up the dog by his head and threw him in the truck bed and started screaming at him. By this time, I had paid and was about to go next door to the grocery store for some beach day yummies. I debated whether or not to say anything to the guy and decided to let it go.

I ran into the store and bought some strawberries and bottled water. It didn’t take much time at all before I was back in the cash register line and watching the moron and his dog. I saw this horrible excuse for a person ball up his fist and punch that poor dog in the face three times. Then he screamed something else and walked into the grocery store. By this time, I was fit to be tied. That idiot and his tits-on-a-stick girlfriend, who never once said or did anything to get her “man” to stop being cruel to the dog, walked right in front of me. Here’s what happened next…

“Hey! There are other more effective ways to train an animal without punching it and throwing it around.”

“What did you say to me?

“What I meant to say was, ‘If I ever see you be cruel to an innocent animal again, I will call the police and have charges brought up against you.”

“Why don’t you just mind your own damn business?”

“It is my business if you are abusing an animal that may someday have enough of it and attack another human being, possibly a kid..”

“Look, (insert nasty foul word here)! Why don’t you just go and eat another double cheeseburger and leave people alone?”

That’s what he came up with. A double cheeseburger. He is abusing an animal and I should go eat a cheeseburger. Like insulting my appearance and assuming he knows how I got this way outweighs the fact that he is a rotten human being. So I said to him,

“That’s really clever. You have just convinced everyone in this grocery store of what an imbecile you really are. If you can’t be kind to other people, at lease be kind to animals, or it will come back to bite you in the ass.”

And I left and went to the beach where several kind people tried to roll me back into the water before I dried out and died.

Look! It's Captain B. McCrea of the Axiom in the movie Wall*E