A Rough Few Days

Weight: 259.8
BMI: 44.59

Yesterday:
Weight: 261.6
BMI: 44.90

Yesterday I went up (expected considering Friday), but today I got a very nice gift from the scale: 250s!

As the title might indicate, though, I've been having a tough time.

Dinner on Friday was bad, as predicted. I ended up not going to the gym after. I could try to blame exhaustion, but really I think it was more laziness. I avoided the pastries at breakfast on Saturday, but lunch was pretty bad. I went to the gym afterward, motivated to set things right with a long workout. Although I generally stick to the elliptical machine, on my way over I decided I'd try some new machines. First, I tried a stationary bike, figuring it would be a good idea to try considering I've been contemplating the cycling classes. I did it for 5 minutes, but everything felt wrong wrong wrong, so I hopped off. Then I decided to try one of the Precor crosstrainers. I'd loved the Precor ellipticals out in Chicago (in my last weight loss attempt slightly over a year ago) but this, just like the bike, felt all wrong. I stuck with it for 10 minutes, but then hopped off. Then I went over to the LifeFitness ellipticals, which I normally use, and got on one. It felt horrible too. Everything, just off. I stuck it out for 25 minutes, but it was just absolutely miserable. Generally, I get into the music and have at least a bit of fun while I'm working out. It's not like I'm having an excellent time yet, and there are definitely still streaks where I hate it, but generally for at least a bit of a workout I can zone out and enjoy the music. It didn't happen.

Today I hit up the gym again, doing 45 minutes on one of the LifeFitness ellipticals. While it didn't feel wrong per se, it was a terrible workout. Every minute was a battle. There were no songs I zoned out for, no adrenaline rushes, no fun parts, just badness. It was, needless to say, not a very fun workout.

I'm also having a really bad time in terms of temptation. While I haven't given in to anything yet, I am suffering through some insane cravings. I want a Five Guys little bacon burger with lettuce tomato and mayo and an order of fries. I want it badly. It feels like I've been thinking about it for so long. I had to walk by Five Guys yesterday on the way to the bank and it was all I could do not to turn in and order food. And I've been dreaming about French bread, and thinking about Chipotle burritos, and pizza, and these cheese enchiladas that this little Salvadorian restaurant by my apartment makes. Oh, and white wine and caramel frappachinos, and do you see the bad road this is going down?

My mind is in trouble. I'm not where I want to be. My head is just not in the game. And as the saying goes "90% of this game is half mental."

Still, I did all right today (and yesterday post conference) while not feeling things at all. Yes, for a portion of the day I do need to get up and get myself to the gym and work hard, but most of the rest of it is just having the fortitude to not screw up. And while I might not be truly motivated at this point, I'm not motivated enough in my desire to screw things up that I'm willing to break the status quo. Right now, weight loss is the status quo. As long as I keep on keeping on, hopefully things will be okay until I can jolt myself back to realizing just how badly I want this.

On Conferences and Free Food

Weight: 260.6
BMI: 45.73

(-.2 day to day, -17.4 overall, yada yada yada.)

One of the things I've always loved about my job is that I get to go to lots of events and conferences. Up until a month ago, "free food" was a wonderful, wonderful perk. These days, it's a bit closer to a nightmare.

For all of today, I've been at a conference. We had a continental breakfast where I was just able to grab a piece of fruit, but lunch was a sit-down, 3 course ordeal. Throughout this journey, my willpower's held relatively well, but lunch was just a disaster. I ate the whole salad, over half the lunch (of salmon, risotto, and asparagus in some unknown cream sauce), even a few bites of desert. There were pastries and other goodies provided throughout the day, but I was able to resist those relatively easily.

I wouldn't be despondent if I could, you know, just have something very light for dinner and stay within my calorie limits. But I'm not going to: I have to go to a dinner for the conference. And it's going to be a seated meal of at least three courses, lasting 90 minutes. In other words, it's going to be bad.

I've become excellent at resisting food temptations when left to my own devices. I'm even pretty good at not eating food when it's optional. But at a served meal in a social work situation, you can't really choose to just not eat. You have to eat something, to not do so would be some combination of weird and rude. Which isn't to say you have to eat the whole plate, but you have to have a decent bit.

And that's where the problem starts. I always, always, always end up eating more than I mean to at these events. It's like 90 straight minutes of sitting with food! Good, free food. That others are eating. It's badness.

So I'm probably going to overeat tonight. My gym stays open till 11, so I may try to go after dinner.

Oh, and bonus: the conference is a half day tomorrow, too. So, truncated weekend and a fattening lunch on Saturday. Oh joy. Grrr.

Goodbye, 5% of my starting weight.

Weight: 263.6
BMI: 45.24

Let's start with the good news first: I'm more than half way to my mini goal! I'm 28 days in and I've now lost 14.4 pounds and 5.18% of my starting body weight. My deadline to hit 25--a 10% loss of my initial bodyweight--is 9/15/2009, which is 43 days away. No matter which way you slice it, I'm pretty darn happy with the 263.6 number.

Things, however, weren't looking so sunny immediately upon my return from San Diego. The first two days went relatively well. I perhaps ate a bit more than I would've if I'd been at home, but not by much. By mid week I'd succumbed to french fries and a glass of white wine. Thursday I went on an In-n-Out burger outing. Friday was pretty darn close to an unmitigated disaster. In the morning I ate a scoop of hash browns, two pieces of sausage, and berries and cream. On the flight from San Diego to Atlanta I ate both complimentary cookies and an $8 turkey, apple and brie Sandwich with honey mustard (delicious, by the way). Stuck in the Atlanta airport, I ate a grilled Chick-Fil-A sandwich and fries. Disaster. Delicious, delicious disaster.

And it showed. My weight on Friday evening was a super high 269.4. By Saturday morning I was down to the still insanely high 268.0.

I dropped quickly from there though. Yesterday, I joyfully hit a new low of 264.7, and today, an even lower 263.6. I feel like I might be in for a small gain tomorrow, but we shall see.

I'm on track. I'm more than halfway to my first goal. And I've lost an amazing 14.4 pounds in 28 days. Now if I can only stop dreaming about Chick-Fil-A's delicious, delicious waffle fries, we'll be in business.

Turbulence expected ahead

Thinking about it more, this was, really, a terrible time to decide to lose weight. I say that not as a way of turning back, or to indicate any plan to do so, but just to acknowledge the fact that, if I tried to come up with a list of suboptimal times to lose weight, this would probably be up there with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I've got a few specific schedule challenges ahead, which I'll talk about below:

Policy forum lunch on 7/15: Tomorrow, we're hosting a policy forum. I have to go to it. In some ways, this is good. The chairs in the auditorium are a little on the tight side, and sitting in them always reminds me that I want to shed some pounds. However, after the forum there's going to be lunch, and I'm going to have to eat it. The lunch will be calorific sandwiches. I'm just going to have to suck it up and eat one.

Coworker going away lunch on 7/17: One of my coworkers is leaving soon to move to another state and another job. I like her bunches, and it’s very sad to see her go. On Friday, a few people have scheduled a going away lunch for her. I'm going to have to go—I want to go—and I'm going to have to eat food. I'll skip breakfast, eat something light, etc, but it'll certainly be more calories than I planned.

Parents in town 7/17-7/20: My parents are going to be in town this weekend. This will make things extremely challenging, to say the least. A visit from them means lots of my favorite foods from New York, lots of meals out, and a gigantic trip to the grocery store. I'm not looking forward to it. On Sunday, when I decided this diet was something I really wanted to stick with, I asked if they could maybe reschedule for some point later on the pretext of having massive amounts of work. They couldn't change their hotel reservation, so here they will be. It'll be difficult, and I might even gain a few, but I can aim to be way better than I'd previously been.

Conference in San Diego 7/26-7/31: I'm going to a conference out in San Diego for the last week of July, and I'm expecting it to be a very, very challenging week. I won't be able to weigh myself at all. I'll have no idea of the calorie content of any of the food. And oh, the temptation that awaits. Every morning, a croissant and pastry laden continental breakfast. Then an hour and a half later, temptation again as far as the eye can see. Then an hour and half after that, I'll be served an extravagant lunch. A mere two hours later, there will be cookies and brownies and other snack food. And a few hours after that, a reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Then, a two hour dinner, with probably three or four courses. A ton, ton, ton of food. And it's going to be like that, every day, for five days. Yeep. I'll need all the strength in the world. The inability to weigh myself combined with the massive amounts of temptation is just going to be all sorts of trouble.

San Diego will be the worst, but it's luckily still a bit away. I have time to get some momentum going. The conference is at a very nice resort, and I'm sure they'll have a fitness club that I'll be able to patronize if I so choose. There will also be, at the very least, lots of space for me to go on walks in. And walks I can and will do.

Anyway, those are the challenges I've got in the upcoming days. Will I be able to meet them? To thrive even with them? Will I just muddle through with not too many gains? Or will I be blown horribly off course ne'er to recover? Only time and strength of will shall tell.