Less of Josephine.

I’m just having one of those moments of impatience! I want all this extra weight gone NOW! This INSTANT! Like, PRONTO! I swear, patience during the process of losing weight has got to be the hardest thing to master. It seems like the days crawl by while my skinny clothes taunt me from the closet. I realize that it’s not even been 2 full months yet since I made the commitment to a healthier me, but there are moments when I just can’t stand the flab on my body for even one more minute. Of course, that’s why I set out on this endeavor in the first place, because I felt like the Michelin Man all covered in spare tires. And I swear I’m in it for the long haul: FOR LIFE. But I’m ready for the rewards to begin now, RIGHT NOW!

Yes, yes, I know I’ve already experienced some rewards: I feel much better overall, I sleep better, my fitness (running/cycling/etc.) has greatly improved, and I’m in control (no binge eating). I’ve lost 17.4 pounds, and I’ll continue to lose, too. But there are moments of pure frustration when all I care about is wearing my size 7 jeans. Not world peace. Not the ozone layer. Not the election. Just my pants. Is that too much to ask?

I weighed-in this morning and I’m down to 190.4, which is a 3.4 pound loss this week and puts me at 17.4 pounds down for 6 weeks. Yippy Skippy! I’m so glad I was able to resist temptations (and there were many) this weekend, because it really paid off on the scale. Weekends are usually so much harder because my darling husband likes to tip a few cocktails and bring in high-fat, high-salt junk food. That used to be my modis operandi as well, so the urges are still there. The habits are so ingrained I can literally taste the martini and olives on the back of my tongue while I’m watching him mix the drink. But I’m trying to create new habits and prove that I can have perfectly fun, enjoyable Friday and Saturday nights and still stay completely ON PLAN. This definitely takes some serious effort and mental fortitude. But when every Monday morning roles around I feel an incredible sense of relief that I continue to be on plan and continue to lose weight. No martini could taste as good as this feels (but I’m not sure about olives, I really LOVE olives!). I’m now 47 days without a binge. FORTY-SEVEN! That’s mind-blowing for me, and I’m so proud of that accomplishment. I’m beginning to hope that there really is such a thing as total abstinence when it comes to binging. Instead of wondering WHEN I’ll binge, I can hope that maybe I’ll NEVER binge. A life without binges, that’s something worth striving for!

Not I. But this morning when I discovered that I had failed to wash my favorite running shorts (Nike with a built-in panty-style liner) I was forced to wear an untried, untested, unproven Adidas pair. And boy did I pay for it. For 5 miles, the shorts’ fabric constantly migrated up my thighs into my crotch area where it wadded up and caused me no end of discomfort.

My run went like this: stride, stride, YANK, stride, YANK, stride, stride, YANK, YANK, YANK. I seriously need to get me some more pairs of the Nikes.

Bugs: Apparently the entire world’s population of mosquitoes is currently camped out in my backyard just waiting for me to leave the house. I imagine them there, huddled in a sneaky, buzzing mob just around the corner, sharpening their teeth or their suckers or… or… their proboscises. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Sharp frickin’ little proboscises, the wee bastards. So doing anything outside in the yard is supremely unpleasant even though we are having wonderful weather. I hope the recent losses I’m seeing on the scale (unofficially down to 193.2 this morning!) aren’t simply due to blood loss, but it seems quite possible.

Talk: I’m glad I can be anonymous on the Interwebz right now because I’m going to talk about something scandalous. Well, not super scandalous, but more titillating than cooking at least. This month’s issue of Maxim had an article on the do’s and dont’s of Dirty Talk. I read the article aloud to my husband because it was pretty funny (lots of hilarious examples of what NOT to do). He laughed in all the appropriate places, but he also seemed mildly interested. So I asked him if he wished I would do more dirty talking in the sack. My current repertoire consists mainly of moans, sighs, and occasionally a faint “yes, yes, yes…”. But that’s it. Nothing that’s going to win me any awards, I assure you. Now I’m not adverse to hearing naughty talk, and my husband is pretty good at delivering a variety of raunchy, yet sexy, phrases in flagrante delicto. But every time I try I just get the giggles. Well, my darling husband answered that, yes indeed he’d love it if I could manage a few words here and there, perhaps even stringing some of them together into actual sentences. He even went so far as to make some suggestions, bless his little heart. He had me repeat his selected verbiage back to him and of course, I just couldn’t keep a straight face. I just can NOT do this and I’m a little surprised. I’m not uptight and I’m certainly not a prude, but I just feel plain silly saying that stuff. I guess it will take some practice to get this right. Practice, and maybe a half dozen shots of Cuervo.

Dreams: Dreams are weird. I had a dream last night that I was in love with Jim from the television show The Office (best sitcom ever), but of course he was completely, eternally in love with the wonderful Pam and so he totally ignored me. It was as if I didn’t even exist. In the dream, I moped around alot and the damn camera crew kept following me to capture every one of my devastated facial expressions whenever Jim and Pam laughed or smiled at each other. Man, was I rejected. I bet it’s because underneath those cute little sweaters and business-appropriate-length skirts, Pam is a real wild one and talks up a blue streak in bed, the little minx. It figures.

While I’m busy overhauling the parts of my lifestyle that affect my physical wellbeing, I thought it might also be time to make some positive changes to the parts of my lifestyle that affect my emotional wellbeing.

The first area I’ve decided to address is my transition from an ovo-lacto vegetarian to a vegan. The ethics of eating eggs and dairy has been weighing on my mind ever since I took the time to educate myself about the egg/dairy industries. Don’t let the Real California Cheese Board fool you, there are no happy cows (and I’ve always loved those commercials, too). And chickens don’t have it any better. Once I knew the full truth I should have transitioned right then and there. But I didn’t. I’m not sure why. Laziness perhaps? Resistance to change? Unwillingness to eat even more differently than my omnivore husband? I don’t know the answer, I just know it was wrong of me to ignore my own ethics. And the issue has been nagging me, even though I tried my best to stuff into the very back closet of my mind where I keep other junk I’d rather not acknowledge (such as the movie Battlefield Earth and Paris Hilton’s very existence). And yes, I am ashamed, because since I discovered the truth I’ve been a willing participant in actions I completely abhor.

But the best I can do now is go for it. Go Vegan. Now. Today. And I’m starting with the chick in the mirror, I’m asking her to change her ways — and no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself then make a change. Yes, yes, Mike is a total whack-job perv, but those are some poignant and relevant lyrics right at this moment.

So… Vegan or Bust. Or as my husband will say: Busty Vegan? Yay!

Weighed in this morning and I’m down to 193.8. So I’ve lost 14 pounds in 5 weeks bringing my weekly average loss to 2.8 pounds.

But I only lost ONE POUND this week. ONE POUND. I simply can’t believe it. I know that this is totally normal — I’ve never lost in a “straight line”. I have a weekly record of how I previously lost weight and there would occasionally be weeks when I would lose very little (or even gain — ack!) followed by weeks where I lost quite a bit. But logic aside, it is like a physical blow to see only a 1 pound loss when I’ve worked so hard this week. I’ve been PERFECTLY on-plan, followed my training schedule to a T, and counted every single calorie I put in my mouth. How can the scale cheat me out of a better number reflecting all that hard work? I don’t know. I really don’t.

My body (and that damn scale) is TRULY a mystery!

Since I started  making better food choices over the last month I have really enjoyed a variety of lovely fresh fruits. So much so that I’m amazed that I hadn’t been eating it before. I guess I had been so sugar-dazed by cakes, cookies and chocolaty junk that I’d forgotten how good a ripe strawberry tastes. How blackberries are tart and sweet at the same time. How cold watermelon is incredibly refreshing. How juicy a good quality orange can be. It is so nice to have simple, healthy go-to items for desserts and fruit really livens up oatmeal in the morning. And unlike cake or other processed items, I don’t naturally go overboard with fruit. A small serving is perfectly satisfying. How wonderful for there to be something easy about making a healthy choice. There is no internal struggle here: I love fruit!

This morning I weighed in and I’m down to 194.8, so I’ve lost 2.4 pounds this week and have lost 13 pounds for this last 4 week period.

I’m happy with that. At least the sane, numbers-crunching, somewhat logical and grownup part of me is happy with that. The incredibly impatient, childish, tending-to-tantrum, I-want-it-all-NOW demon inside of me is, of course, lusting after faster loss and stamping its feet on my cerebellum.

That insane, obnoxious, know-nothing demon in my brain whispers: “Yes, 13 pounds is great, but honestly it just doesn’t make an impact in the way I look and I certainly can’t fit into anything today that I couldn’t fit into 4 weeks ago. When you want to lose 67.8 pounds overall, 13 pounds is just a wee drop in the bucket.” And all of that is true. But the hard fact of the matter is, you can’t lose 67.8 pounds until you’ve lost 13 pounds. You can’t lose 67.8 pounds in 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month. So let’s duct tape the demon’s mouth and beat it back with optimism and positivity, shall we?

If the next 4 week period can be about as productive as this one was, at my 8 week weigh-in I WILL be able to fit into some of my smaller clothes. I WILL see an impact. I WILL feel good about what I’ve accomplished and I WILL look towards the next 4 week period with a sense of hope and a feeling that YES I CAN DO THIS. Because I can.

I don’t cook. Well, I do cook, but I don’t COOK in the way that most people talk about when the word takes on the meaning of a natural Emeril-like talent in the kitchen. I regularly assemble sandwiches, fry eggs, mix up tuna salad, heat soup in the microwave, and throw together salads. Those things I can do and that is what usually passes for cooking at my house. Which is why I’ve been surprised to find myself experimenting a bit more in the kitchen recently.

Last week I whipped up homemade tzatziki sauce (to go with the falafel) from fat free plain yogurt, cucumber, and garlic. This endeavor required the purchase and use of a cheesecloth. Does anything make you feel more chefly than using a cheesecloth? In my admittedly limited experience, the answer is no. A whisk has always made me feel as if I suddenly possessed some amount of culinary talent (even if I was only whisking water into a can of Campbell’s tomato soup), but that feeling was far surpassed by the cheesecloth (all hail the cheesecloth!). I was so enchanted that once I finished making the tzatziki sauce I looked desperately around for something else to do with the darn thing. I couldn’t think of anything. But I bet it will be great as general decor when Halloween rolls around. Oh and the sauce turned out delicious. Maybe not quite as good as the full-fat, olive oil-enhanced version of the recipe, but plenty good slathered on top of all sorts of stuff.

I also made homemade baba ganoush, which required me to locate then assemble the food processor parts of my two-in-one blender for the very first time ever after owning the thing for 4 years. It was fun to make. It was not fun to eat, however. I think I over-cooked the eggplant and I was unwilling to add the amount of tahini and/or olive oil required for me to lust after it the way I’ve lusted after restaurant versions. I just can’t afford a gazillion-calorie-packed version of baba ganoush and the low-fat version just tasted funky. Still, I learned out to use my processor so the effort wasn’t a total waste.

Today’s dish (which unfortunately required neither whisk nor cheesecloth) was teriyaki tempeh with zucchini and asparagus. Since I didn’t get to use my two favorite cooking implements during the preparation, I treated myself and used chopsticks to eat it. Yum.

This morning I weighed in at 197.2. So I lost 5.6 pounds this week and I’m now down 10.6 pounds for three weeks worth of effort. Not bad, not bad. I’ll take it over a sharp stick in the eye, that’s for sure. This last week has been particularly groovy as I stopped drinking diet soda and started paying attention to sodium. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that I drastically reduced sodium, but I took a stab at it. And I probably tripled my green and other colored vegetable consumption versus noshing on just starchy potatoes and bread. My doctor and me mum would be so proud.