NS Day 10 (I know...days 5-9 are conspicuously missing)

At the risk of becoming mundane with the Lost references (mostly these occur in my other blog, but I know all my loyalest readers avidly follow both)...anyway, when Daniel Faraday explains time travel he talks about a record skipping (yes - this reference is only meaningful to readers over the age of 35...I realize I'm dating myself and sounding ridiculously unhip all at the same time!)...anyway, that record skipping thing describes my weightloss travails pretty well. It's like I'm moving along so nicely - the song is just getting to the chorus when --- all of a sudden --- I've jumped back a verse and I'm hearing (seeing, smelling, eating) some of those once-lost pounds all over again.
So I'm dusting off the record and hoping I can make it past that part of the song that I've already played.

I think I'm out of the diabetic coma...

I made it through the night-sweats and awoke from the Reese Peanut Butter Cup induced diabetic coma that was my Easter and I'm back on track. Not weighing in today for fear of a complete downward spiral when I realize that I lost all the good work of the past week in my one day of ridiculous over indulgence. Whatever - moving on, right?

OK - I'll bite the bullet and go weigh myself. Reporting back soon.

Do skinny people dread holidays?

So I find myself wondering, are all the skinny people out there ruing Easter and all the chocolate bunnies, Honey Baked Hams, cakes, pies, and candies that come with it as much as I am?
For many years, I have hosted a big Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt and spent days and days beforehand baking and planning and baking and baking and baking and baking and baking some more. AND I LOVE IT! I love to see the children's excited faces as they find their candy treasures. I love to hear the "uuummmmm, this is sooooo good" from my guests. I just love it all. And it's not even the food itself that I love so much (don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the food), but it's the whole experience around the food, if you get what I'm sayin.
So now, I realize that this love-love relationship I have had with baking and baked goods is perhaps not the best way to spend my time if I ever want to fit back into that wardrobe collecting dust in my closet. And I have to ask - do skinny people struggle with this, or is it just another day filled with temptation that they can casually ignore and go about their business like they do everyday when they encounter those donuts sitting in the break room or candy bowls at the doctor's office?

Quagmires...

This is what I've been doing:

This is what I WANT to be doing:




So I need to ask...does the fact that I ate 2 Nutrisystem bars (Chocolatey Nougat Bar with Peanuts and Caramel and Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar) along with 2 cups of popcorn at a movie (Allow me to clarify - it was homemade popcorn that I actually made and snuck it in so I wouldn't be tempted by the high-calorie-high-dollar crap they sell there), does that all mean that I'm still addicted?


And what if I am really a food addict? It's not like I can just go on some 12 step program, admit that I'm powerless to food and then never touch the stuff again, can I? It's not like other drugs of choice that you can just swear off of - we need this stuff to live. So I guess it's about finding a balance. I just am apparently not very good at that.

So now I find myself in this quagmire, which seems a totally appropriate word because not only does it mean a sticky/difficult situation, but a secondary definition is "something soft or flabby" and that, I am afraid, I find myself too!

I guess -- mentally -- today is not my best NS day.

OK, so maybe I was being a little too pie-in-sky

Well, I found something that I think it's safe to say is TERRIBLE. It was my lunch entree of Black Beans and Rice. Sounds harmless enough, but upon my first taste I immediately thought "this tastes like fish???" I checked the label and - sure enough - it contains dehydrated anchovy, sardines & tilapia. Now I realize that I can probably no longer separate the real from the imagined, but my second bite tasted exactly the way salmon eggs smell (the bait, not the delicacy). Suffice it to say that Roxy (my dog) didn't seem to mind, and I made myself a sandwich instead. The sandwich is good - I'm still eating it now...1 oz each of ham and turkey, mustard, lettuce, tomato & 1/4 avocado on a 100 calorie Orowheat Sandwich Roll. Unfortunately I have several more of those Black Beans & Rice cups in my cache...maybe I'll become more inured to it later in this saga, but for now that's going way to the back of the pantry.

The Nutrisystem Series - Weightloss the Lazy Girl's Way (Day 3 - Minus 2.5 lbs)

Yes, I really need to stop the daily weigh-in, but for now it gives me something to report back on. Yesterday was fine. I had NS cereal for breakfast, this potato-bud style - cheesy mashed potato thing for lunch, and then "Mushroom Gravy with Salbury Steak and Rice" for dinner, and a chocolate macadamia nut biscotti for dessert. The cereal is cereal - it's good. I actually liked the mashed potato thing, but it doesn't feel like a particularly healthy meal. The salsbury steak thing was basically airplane food from the 70s. It's no wonder it's called gravy with steak instead of steak with gravy because it kind of feels like soup with a meat patty in there. But it tasted fine. You can see that I'm really in a different place about this whole NS thing because so far there hasn't been anything that I actively hated. I'm not going to be hosting any parades for myself yet, but it's a start!

Nutrisystem (Day 2 Minus 0.5 lbs)

I know I shouldn't weigh myself every day. It's just plain stupid and a good way to get frustrated, but the scale was just sitting there on the floor silently drawing me nearer as I brushed my teeth like some magnetic force from deep inside the Earth's core.
Fortunately I can report at least a minor victory after day one. Here's my little recap:
Breakfast we had planned to take Paul's Granny out. We went to IHOP (I know - high brow!) and I ordered off of their IHOP for Me menu...Egg Beaters, turkey bacon, dry wheat toast and fruit. It was actually really good. Maybe more calories than I should normally do for breakfast (like 360 or something) but it was fine and satisfying and actually tasted good.
Lunch I skipped and just had an orange because breakfast was really brunch.
Dinner I ate the NS Chicken with Almonds, Rice & Vegetables, and I am both pleased and surprised to report...It was actually pretty good! This whole new-mindset thing is already working out for me.
Then I had NS Hot Chocolate for my "dessert" and that was it. Actually quite simple and not a big deal at all.
And at the risk of sounding even more pathetic, I will do a gratuitous plug for the NS website, which tracks all your calories for you. You just put in what you ate and it does the rest. I like it!

The Nutrisystem Series - Weightloss the Lazy Girl's Way (Day 1 - Minus 0 lbs)

Ok, so I stole a before and after photo from the internet to start off my series, but I figure I need something to motivate me.
Last summer I had this great idea that I would do Nutrisystem to lose these unwanted pounds that have been creeping their way onto my ass (and thighs, arms, waist, boobs, fingers, chin, earlobes, calves and knees - if I'm being honest) over the past several years. I was motivated for all of about 15 minutes when I suddenly realized...I hate this shit! It's horrible.
So the back story of this is that I've been a yoyo dieter for years. I gain 20, lose 30, gain 35, lose 8, gain 12, lose 24, gain 26...well, you get the picture. Anyway, I've done low carb, no carb, all carb, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, South Beach, Bob Greene...you name it! The long and the short of it (or maybe I should say the thin and the fat of it) is that I'm going to be 40 in a couple of months, and I'm a good 60 pounds over where I should/want to be...and I think I've finally hit a wall.
And like I said, my most recent foray into the multi-billion dollar industry of weight loss products was last summer's attempt to do Nutrisystem.
You get a discount (and free shipping, I think) if you get on this auto-delivery program. So, of course (always the economical one), I think I'm going to save money by getting on that auto program.
Now you can see where this is going, right? What this means is that now I have at least 2 months (probably more like 3) of paid-for, boxed-up, freeze-dried food taking up space in my pantry and my basement.
I have a lot of "reasons" (that's code for excuses, if you didn't know) for not doing it last summer...we went to Australia for 3 weeks (yes, this could have been a hiatus and not the ultimate demise, I know that!), my kids were home all the time, we had a crazy travel schedule, blah blah blah...but the truth is that I really didn't enjoy the food and I wasn't in a mental place to suck it up and do it anyway!
ENJOY the food? you ask...
Let's face it, I don't care how you try to package it, weight loss is not about "enjoying" the food. "Enjoying the food" is what got me to this rotund place to begin with.
So with 40 out there pointing it's finger at me like Uncle Sam in those Army recruitment posters from the WWII, I have come to Jesus, so to speak...Nutrisystem - you are ON!
I haven't even weighed myself yet, and to be honest I think I'm too much of a coward to actually post the number here after I do, so at least for now, I'll be doing this as a "day ___ minus ___ lbs." Maybe someday I'll get the courage to admit out loud where I am, but I'm taking this one step at a time.
Wish me luck!!