Una ragazza magra

Well, things went fine today, but since it was the fifth day on MQ, I’m starting to get a bit bored and miss my morning cheese toast.  Oh well, soon it will be over, and I’m just hoping that nothing happens on Sunday to make me mess up my last day of it.  Unless something miraculous happens come Monday, then the MQ hasn’t been nearly as helpful this time as it was last.  I guess the weight loss isn’t really going that slow, but it feels like it for some reason.  I really think I need to add exercise in, but I just don’t know how I can swing that with my schedule for the next three weeks.  Once finals week gets here, I will try to add it in, but until then, I guess I’ll just have to be patient.

Breakfast and lunch– mq stuff

Dinner:  taco meat (decided to try some variety again since I’ve been stuck on the rotisserie chickens), cheese, 1/4 wrap, 3 melba toast, applesauce

snack:  soy choc. mini crisps

For some reason this afternoon/evening, I have just been HUNGRY.  I went to BWW for a baby shower, and while I avoided wings and, really, all food (I left early saying I already had dinner plans– plans with myself, ha!), it just triggered a craving, and I still am just hungry.  I haven’t caved yet, though, and I’m going to have another HNS to help with the hunger (I missed it at breakfast, anyhow), so hopefully tomorrow will be easier.  I’ve seriously been wanting some real food, though, and I think it’s due to the metaquick.  The problem is, I want real JUNK food or real bad-for-you food, not just real food like I normally eat on this diet.

Hopefully this feeling will pass soon because I feel myself slipping out of control day by day.  I’ve already stopped eating broccolli and have traded it for applesauce, which is not technically right.  I do eat spinach in my salad, though, so I guess I am still getting a veggie  here and there.  Breakfast has turned into a key meal of the day for me for the first time in my life.  I have to eat it, or I’m starving, and I actually enjoy it, plus it keeps me from being ravenous at lunch.  I think I’ve at least mastered that.

weight at home: 178.5– finally under the lowest point ever so far.  I keep bouncing around.

I had planned to go to weigh in on Friday, but I ended up going today.  The results weren’t quite as fabulous as last time I did metaquick, but not terrible, either, and I’ll have to wait until Monday to really see how the week went.

On a brighter note, yesterday I tried on a bunch of old clothes and am putting one of my big storage tubs full of clothes back into my closet.  That means I only have one more storage tub not quite full of clothes in my smallest sizes plus two milk crates left of clothes that should fit in five or ten pounds.  After that, I guess I’ll just have to go shopping!

I figured up my weight loss, and I’m right on track or even ahead of schedule, depending on when you estimate my end date.  Still, I’m hoping that exercise during Christmas break will help speed it up a bit so I can stay ahead or make up for the holiday slow down.  After break is over, I’ll probably be able to continue the exercise since things won’t be so busy at first, and perhaps later I’ll have it more integrated into my routine, so it won’t be so difficult to go– we’ll see!

Breakfast: shake, HNS

Lunch: bar, HNS

snack: chocolate soy mini crisps (150 cal)

Dinner:  2 oz. chicken, cheese toast, applesauce, HNS

weight at home:  179

MRC weight:  184.5 (down 1.5 lbs. since Monday)

Today went well once again.  Metaquick makes things easier for me because there are simply fewer choices, and it’s VERY obvious if I cheat, so it’s harder to fool myself into things.  I just weighed tonight, and it’s looking good– 180 at night is as low as it’s ever been, so I can’t wait till tomorrow morning to see how it looks.

Breakfast: shake, HNS

Lunch:  bar, HNS

Dinner:  chicken and spinach salad, cheese toast, HNS

snack:  hot chocolate HNS

weight at home:  179

I actually lost a pound since Thursday– even after the Chinese.  Pretty cool.  My belt would only go to the first notch instead of the second as it had been, though, so who knows what’s going on.  I can’t write much– I have a topic proposal breathing down my neck, and wouldn’t you know it, I don’t really have a topic to propose, so I will have to pull one out from somewhere, I guess. 

I also got a rather disturbing email about the war tonight (I think it was the pictures that did it to me).  The person who sent it had good intentions, to show respect or something to my husband who is in Iraq, but I did NOT need to see those pictures.  I’m trying NOT to think of stuff like that, and the email definitely bothered me.  I haven’t cried since he left (and I thought I would be super depressed), but that did it to me.  I literally got nauseous and started shivering.  The person just wasn’t thinking, I guess.  Anyway, I talked to my mom and calmed down a bit.  So, getting to how this relates to food (I did have a point for posting this in my diet blog):

I am still using food as reward/emotional comfort.  I thought I wasn’t that bad about it, but I reached for the hot cocoa to make me feel better.  I didn’t have it until a couple hours after the fact, and I had planned to have it anyway (it’s an HNS), but as I was in the kitchen, I saw it and knew I was allowe to have it, and I instantly felt a bit better.  I even felt better while drinking it– I literally got comfort from it.  That’s a bit scary, to be honest.  Of course, it’s not like I went on a pizza binge (now that would have REALLY made me feel better, at least in the moment until I crashed and burned after the last bite), but it still shows that I am an emotional eater, even if it’s not always obvious to me.

Also, I started Metaquick today, and I feel pretty good about it.  It worked well last time (6.5 lbs. in a week), so hopefully it works as well this time.  That would put me in the 170s– wow.  Haven’t seen those numbers in a while.  i have realized though that while I want to lose more weight (I’m a comfy size 12 now), I am at least comfortable with myself.  I can look in the mirror and think “wow, I look pretty good.”  I don’t feel nearly as self conscious as I used to. 

So, anyhow, I’m hoping that MQ will help me get back to the straight and narrow since I’ve been straying little by little lately.  It’s not been anything too big (with the exception of the two big cheats i couldn’t very well avoid), but it’s been little stuff like trading my veggies for applesauce or sneaking in a 1% sugar free cappuccino when it’s not really on my plan.  Apparently it throws the “chemical balance” off– which I’m not sure I believe, but I do slow down in weight loss when I eat more carbs, so maybe there’s something to it.

Breakfast:  shake, HNS

Lunch:  bar, HNS

Dinner: spinach and chicken salad, cheese toast, 1 melba toast (extra), HNS

snack:  creamy HNS (hot cocoa)

water:  nonexistent, for the most part

weight at home: 181 (up 1.5 lbs. from yesterday, possibly water from the Chinese)

MRC weight:  186– back to where I was before the pizza

So, I ate chinese, and I totally spaced on the carb blockers.  They probably don’t do anything anyway, but it helps me mentally… oh well.  I did not get a workout in because friends came over to play guitar hero, so instead I had two cappuccinos…yikes.  Also, I am totally not on my eating plan.  I’m in check calorie-wise for the most part (chinese excepted), but we’ll see how it shakes out tomorrow.  I drank a ton of water today, so hopefully I won’t be holding as much tomorrow.

To get myself back on track, I’ve decided to do metaquick again since you can do it once a month.  I was planning to save it until after Thanksgiving and then again after Christmas, but I think now is as good a time as any.  If I wait until after Thanksgiving, I’ll be late getting started for the month, and the same goes for Christmas.  Besides, I think I could use a jolt right about now since I’ve started to deviate so much.  The espresso pot is going in the cabinet so I’m not tempted with the milk.  I’m much stricter with myself when I’m on MQ just because there are so many fewer options.  Plus, I think it will be easier to be able to eat somewhat normally (as opposed to being on MQ) after Thanksgiving because I’ll still be at my parents’ house and dealing with eating out and just not having quite as much control.  At least my mom is on the same diet, so we’re eating similar stuff, but it’s always a bit of struggle when the go-to foods that I like aren’t always readily available at someone else’s house.

So, now you have my plan for the week, and here’s what happened today:

Breakfast: cheese toast, 1 egg white, HNS

Lunch:  chicken lo mein (about 4 oz. of pasta, I would guess– it’s very hard to estimate calories.  I found anywhere from 400-1500 on calorie king, but the portion was small, and there wasn’t a ton of sauce, so I’m guessing about 800), 1 egg roll (guessing 150), few bites of egg flower soup (negligible calories), so maybe around 1000 calories for the whole meal– high, but not outlandish, I suppose.

Dinner:  2 cappuccinos (probably 3/4 c. milk total), cheese toast, applesauce 

I’m probably going to wimp out on exercise tomorrow since I’m on a super time crunch for some homework.  So, we’ll see what happens, but my expectations are not high.

weight at home: 179.5 (up a bit)

Well, I did work out again, but it was quite shortened.  My knee is popping like mad.  I’ve always had bad knees, since I was a kid, but I was never active enough to really make them bad enough to do something about, lol.  Anyway, they don’t bother me often, but since I started to do so much walking so fast, I think it’s getting to them.  They weren’t really hurting, but had I done much more, they would have been, so I stopped at 25 minutes and 200 calories, which is still something.  I plan to work out again tomorrow and Monday, even if I only get 25 minutes or so in.  It will still help.

Also, I have dodged another eating bullet– I was supposed to go out tonight with a friend from class to Red Seven, which is either a bar or a restaurant, I don’t know, but the other girls cancelled, so now I don’t have to go!  I was a bit worried because I was sure there would be something there that I shouldn’t eat/drink, and I don’t know the other girls at all and would rather not announce I’m on a diet.  Still, now that that’s out of the way and there’s just the chinese left tomorrow, I do feel a bit better about the whole situation. 

My muscles are pretty sore today as well.  I’m not dying or anything, but I can definitely tell if I try to lift my legs.  So, I guess that means I am doing something.  I’m looking forward to Christmas break when I can recommit to an exercise program– a serious program like I started a couple summers ago when I was on WW.  For that one month where I went 5 days a week, I was losing about 3 lbs. per week on WW– that’s a lot for me on WW.  That summer I lost 20 lbs. or so, but then I of course put it right back on, hence the situation in which I now find myself.  Even now I’m much smaller than  I was then.  I never broke 200 on WW.  Still, if exercise helped that much on WW, it will on this diet, too, I’m sure.  So, that should help counteract the holidays as well as make up for any slower progress as I get closer to my goal. 

Breakfast: cheese toast, 1 egg white, HNS

Lunch:  spinach and chicken salad (2 oz. chicken, 1 oz. parmesan) with spray dressing, HNS (just realized I forgot my applesauce– darn!)

Dinner: cheese toast, 2 oz. chicken, applesauce, HNS

exercise: fast walking, 25 minutes, 200 calories

weight at home: 178– down another pound from yesterday!

So, I did it again!  I’m so proud of myself because once again, I really didn’t want to work out.  Technology was conspiring against me, and I still did it.  First, I couldn’t get my (junky) mp3 player to turn on.  Then, I watched one episode of Friends, and the TV died on me.  At that point, I just got mad, so I stepped it up into a jog for a couple of minutes, and finally I realized that I did have a radio, so I turned that on. 

I shortened the workout slightly from yesterday, and I didn’t walk as fast, either.  I got a really bad stitch in my side toward the end, so I only worked out for 50 minutes instead of an hour.  In the end, here’s what the workout earned me:

300 calories, 50 minutes, at around 2.9-3 mph, 2.5 miles on anincline (not sure exactly what it is)

Here’s my menu for the day, technically “off” plan in that I didn’t eat the specified items, but nothing too terrible:

Breakfast: cheese toast, 1 egg  white, HNS

“Lunch” (had it at 7 pm):  2 oz. chicken, 1 oz. pepperjack, 1 piece bread, applesauce, HNS

“Dinner” (not super hungry now, but the workout did make me want something:  homemade capuccino (1/2 cup 1% milk plus the espresso, plus splenda, so I’m thinking about 50 calories), soy chocolate mini crisps (MRC’s yummy knockoff of nestle crunch, 150 calories, counts as an HNS)

So, obviously I’m not technically on plan and had more carbs than I’m supposed to.  However, the calories are still in check.  I’m curious about my intake for today.  I’m also a bit worried about my new espresso addiction since I don’t really care for it without some sort of milk component, and I’m not supposed to have that at all.  I’ve had it twice today now (I usually only do it once), but that’s 50 extra calories a day, so it could slow it down a bit.   I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, but the next weigh in won’t be a fair comparison because I’ll have just had the Chinese food.

So, I know it’s just water weight, but when I woke up this morning to weigh, i was down 2.5 lbs.  Yea!  So, I’m going to attribute it to the workout just because I can and because that will give me some motivation to do it again tonight.

I have a few minutes before I have to leave, so I think I’m going to poke around online and see if I can come up with a month-long walking routine for Christmas break.  You know, it really wasn’t all that torturous last night.  I hate giving up an hour of my free time, but if it prevents negative results from my two cheat days this week, then it’s worth it.  I’m not killing myself on it, just keeping my breathing hard and my heart rate on the upper end of the target zone. 

weight at home:  180– this is almost back down to 179.5, which is what I weighed that freaky morning when I had “lost” 7.5 lbs. overnight.

So, my grand plan for today through Monday was to work out for an hour each day, and today I actually did it.  I’m really kind of surprised with myself.  I didn’t do it this afternoon as planned (I took a nap instead), but once I got home around 9, I forced myself to go put on workout clothes before it got too late, and I just started.  I did go dig out the mp3 player, and it gave me quite a bit of extra motivation– that and when my best friend called for the last half of the workout, it made the time go much faster.  Unfortunately, I probably worked less hard because of it, but oh well.  Here are the stats of my workout:

time: 60 minutes (a few more for cool down)

calories burned: 420, according to the machine, but probably more

distance: 3.25 miles, average speed about 3.1 mph

So, I’ve probably almost negated the Papa John’s (if you take off the calories I would have eaten for lunch anyway), but if I do this again tomorrow, I will definitely have covered the PJ debacle.  I need to work out the other two days to offset the effects of the chinese food I’ll be eating on Sunday.  Chinese isn’t really even my thing, but that’s where they’re taking me, so I’ll have to get something.  The other problem is that the only thing I really like is chicken lo mein– fried in oil, of course, so totally bad for me.  Still, if I work out, I suppose that’s okay.

Here’s today’s food:

Breakfast: cheese toast, 1 egg white, HNS

Lunch: chicken and spinach salad (2oz. chicken, 1 oz. parmesan), applesauce (50), HNS

Dinner: cheese toast, applesauce, HNS

water: 64 oz. (I’ll try for more tomorrow since I’m working out.)

When I was in Spain for study abroad, the lady I lived with made the best coffee ever– in this little miniature percolator pot on the stove, and it was nice and strong, and a little thicker than normal coffee.  Well, I was talking to a couple of the other Italian TAs yesterday, and we were talking about coffee in Italy, and I said I never really tried any there but that my Senora made this fantastic, etc. etc. coffee, and turns out it was Italian espresso the whole time.

Long story short, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and buy myself an espresso pot tonight, some half and half and some finely ground coffee to test it out……I won’t be making any other coffee again.  It’s totally the same as what I remember, and it’s better than the kind you get out of an espresso/cappuccino machine and, dare I say, better even than Starbuck’s.  I made decaf so as to stick to my diet, but it was still fabulous.  I think this might become a nightly treat, even though I’m not supposed to have half and half.  Since that is the case, my next purchase will be a fancy coffee grinder so I can grind my own beans.  I’m thinking that will be my reward if I meet my Thanksgiving goal, but considering the issues I’m having this week, I’m not so sure anymore that it will happen. :(  This diet, while it works fast, is pretty touchy, and eating off plan can really set me back a few days.

Oh well, the espresso is gone, so time for bed.