Irish Dance Dance Revolution

That’s how many pounds down as of 11/07/08  SO close to 20lbs, but I consider it as good as!  I’ve lost 6.5″ in the waist, 3.5″ in the hips, 1″ in the arm, and 1.25″ in the leg. (right side measurements)  Since December 31, 2007!  (see the “pictures” tab for updates)

I have a Christmas goal of being 160.  Approximately 5lbs in 7 (ish) weeks  I’m very excited!  

I haven’t seen 165 in 2.5 years.  And I was thinking about my weight gain this morning– How, when I was a kid, I weighed 160, pretty much consistently.  It was from 6th grade-11th grade, and then once I started dating Evan, I ballooned…  (we ate out a lot!!) But then I lost 35lbs, and got down to 145.   Ah well–the past is the past.

The main thing is that I maintained that weight (around 150) for 2 years, and in one year, it crept up.  I tried a couple of times to “control” the gain, but they just slowed it down.  I’m working hard to keep expectations high enough so that I’m losing the weight, but low enough that I’m not setting myself up for failure… and it’s working so far  3FC has definitely helped me  

I’m pretty sure I’ve decided that I would like to be maintaining my ultimate goal weight by Christmas next year…  nothing would bring me more joy!  I’ve thought a lot about maintenance because I’ve yo-yoed so much.. I’ve been there a couple times, and, obviously, I’m doing something wrong each time…  

1. I’m not tracking unless I’m gaining weight — and sometimes I wait too long
2. I’m not eating healthy, I go back to old habits
3. I stop weighing myself, and let my clothes be the “indicator”
4. I take orders from cookies  (cookies are the ultimate weakness when I’m not “dieting”)
5. I convince myself I can “let loose and have a little fun, after all, I’ve earned it” when it comes to food
6. I don’t give myself rewards for maintaining milestones (something I DEFINITELY plan on doing!)
7. I don’t eat for pleasure or nutrients, I eat to “show I can”
8. I somehow convince myself I’m “gaining weight because I’m happy”
9. I mistake the guilty feeling of over-eating with the pleasurable feeling of spending time with friends
10. I suck in my stomach, arch my back, and turn to the side when I look in the mirror to see if I’m “fatter”… (hmm.. taking “how to look 10lbs skinnier” advice from internet weight loss ads?) 

I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I will be tracking my food in one form or another for the rest of my life.  As much as I love boundaries, I also love to rebel against said boundaries…  I don’t mind following the rules for a set period of time, but if it’s going to be indefinite… I get a little “captivity crazy”.  It’s helping, though, to know that I’m using the daily plate to track nutrients, as well as calories, so I know, as a vegetarian, that I’m getting enough daily vitamins, and I won’t get yelled at by the doctor

Oi.. Ok  I think I lost my train of thought.  Good for you, to everyone who got through this Novel!  And to all of you TL:DR’s, no worries, I don’t know that I would have read it either

I know what I want to do for the rest of my life…  EAT THIS FOR DINNER!! Every night  Or at least once a week!  447 calories of the MOST TASTY THING in the world

(Clockwise) Baby Carrots, Pumpkin custard, Vegetable Rolls, and Cucumber Rolls… 

I’m still sitting here.. just looking at it (while I write my post) it’s so yummy looking, I don’t want to make it go away! (Ah, so the reason for the picture comes out! lol)

Hope everyone else had an awesome dinner  I think..maybe..Just maybe.. This is what my thanksgiving will look like!

<3 Kat

So.. the night before the “dreaded halloween” potential for candy-bingeing! … and WHAT do I do????

EAT 2,014 CALORIES!!

But not in candy!

My goal is 1,580 (lol thedailyplate says so, at least..). I did dance today, as well as Wii Fit step for 20 minutes.. but..  I’m sure it didn’t help TOO much.

Worst part is that tomorrow is weigh-in. *sigh* I think I’m going to budge Weigh-In to Saturday instead. 

Just ranting, by the way 

Happy Halloween Everyone!!  And good luck!! 

ALRIGHT!!  I found an iron supplement that tastes like a garden!!  lol  So maybe the taste isn’t exactly something I would choose on my own, but it leaves a really FRESH feeling in my mouth  

I had a protein berry workout with soy protein, daily vitamin boost, and a wheatgrass shot, and it was REALLY good  I could BARELY taste the wheatgrass  So exciting.  I know it’s definitely an acquired taste.. but I can acquire it

So… I keep this silly phrase in my head “It’s all because I’m not thin” … And I honestly don’t know why.  There are people bigger than me who are AMAZING dancers because they work out, on their own, how to do it.  

I blame my knee problem, which is actually a pretty legitimate problem: I was out of dance for about 2-3 months?  So that’s time that my muscles had to deflate, my mind had to get fuzzy, and my body had to get out of shape.  

But, still, for some reason, I seem to think that all of my talent is buried underneath these layers of fat..

I HONESTLY think I would be able to jump higher if I weren’t so heavy– but there’s also the strength issue that goes with “holding” those jumps.  But– It seems so backward.  Maybe not.  lol  It’s just that, I know that as I’m losing weight, I’m working to GET stronger, so when I am at goal, I’ll have the strength I need to do the dancing at the caliber that I expect.  

But instead of thinking “I want the process to be done so that I can reap the benefits of my hard work”, I think, “I’ll be able to do that if I was thin”.  

And I KNOW it’s wrong, and backwards, and not ALL true– but…  grr.  lol

There’s really no point to this post, I’m just venting.

So I went pumpkin picking with Joanna and Aleyna (sp??) yesterday, and we carved pumpkins

Once again, I blamed my bad eating, not on the copious amounts of candy corn I shoved in my mouth, but on the last tiny tiny slice of pizza I ate.  (lol healthy day.. healthy day..)

Anyways– I carved Raul the Destroyer and Henry the Eaten yesterday- I’m so stoked with how it turned out!!!

However, ripe pumpkin seeds do not grow in green pumpkins, and that’s what I was looking forward to most  A nice healthy snack, and a fun bit of “art” for my living room.. *sigh* c’est la vie!

I’m so ubar amused right now…

I like how I blame my overage of calories on the last thing I ate, not on the poor choices I made earlier that day… Like today– I’m thinking of having a fruit cup (probably about 140 cals) but that would put me 100 over for my day… :P 

And what would I blame for putting me over?

You guessed it! My uber healthy fruit cup *sigh* So it goes

So my brakes gave out on me on Thursday night after a HIGHLY stressful day….  (I got lost going to the simplest of places, and ended up in SODO somehow…)

Friday was JUST as stressful–driving my boyfriends car home from work: It broke down on me on the I-405/I-5 interchange…  so there I am on the freeway (LESS than a mile from home!!)  sitting.. waiting for his car to restart.  *sigh*

Anyways– So I decided to take my car into Les Schwab to get my brakes and tires fixed.. and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet–but I’m 23, living with my boyfriend and cat, and we have minimal money to spend on every-day expenses, let alone brakes and new tires.  But the ugly cycle continues: Need to work to pay for the car, need the car to get to work….  GRRR… So I fronted the *gulp* $1,000+ to get everything fixed… I got there at 12:45p… and didn’t LEAVE until 7:15.  

WITHOUT MY CAR!!

The calipers weren’t right for my car, and they couldn’t run to the store to get the right ones, since the stores were closed.  So now I’m out a grand, and a car.  *sigh*  

ALSO they’re not open tomorrow….  So I have to wait until MONDAY to get my car back!  …  They open at 8am, I work at 10am….  I need to leave no later than 9:30 in order to get to work on time.. so– the manager SAID it would be ready for me by 8:30-9:00…  We shall see.  So help me god, if I have to drive my boyfriend’s car again, I’m going to scream.  *sigh*  I just hope this works.  

To top it all off… I didn’t make the WISEST of choices today–so I’ve got terrible heartburn, which I know a smoothie would fix…  but… I’m 6 calories over my daily goal *GASP* lol I know.. 6 CALORIES! (earth shattering..)  And PROBABLY 100 or so calories for a decent smoothie wouldn’t kill me… but.. *sigh* We’ll see.  It’s 10p and I’d like to get to sleep soon.

I just hope this week continues on a better note than last week ended.  I swear, and did since January– This year is NOT my year.  And I don’t mean to be negative about it–but a lot of terrible things have been happening this year… and not really world-ending bad, but annoying and “trying on my patience”…  Money, Cars, Trips, Illness, Injuries.. and the list continues. (but not here.)

I’ve been trying to make the best of all of the situations: I changed doctors when my cat became ill from negligence from her last vet; I’ve kept up on my dance classes and students have been fantastic despite my knee injury; I’ve found ways to pay for things that we need.. even though we don’t have the money.  *sigh*

I promise one day soon I’ll have a positive post  Maybe Jan 1, 2009.

So… I know I shouldn’t complain.  After all, I’ve “broken” the plateau.  (I guess..)  Week 2 of 169.8.  *sigh* New plateau, perchance?  I mean–REALLY I’m ok with it, because I’m out of the 170’s… But I’m just afraid the same thing is going to happen with Christmas that will happen with Halloween– I set this (pretty minor) goal, and I can’t reach it because I’m STUCK!!!

I WANT to say that the reason I’m stuck is because I’m not exercising enough… half of me thinks this is true.. the other half– not so much.  (at least I’m split evenly, right?)

So–I dance.  a lot.  I put a lot of effort into my classes… But since my knee is injured (and my other one is starting to feel funny from a previous injury.. *sigh*), I’m having a lot of trouble moving.  Elliptical Machines are out of the question because I get light-headed and “faint-y”.  I can’t run, because it’s too much pressure on my knees.  I can’t do stairs.. again, the knee thing.  

I am going to venture into the Aerobics world– but almost every video I’ve encountered (tae-bo, Richard Simmons, Exercise TV) has some sort of “twisting” motion in it–which messes with my injury.  It’s like the only thing I’m able to do are the full-speed Irish Dances!  

Anyhoo– So the other half of me KNOWS how much I “dance” during my classes (that I teach)–and mostly, I’m trying to conserve energy (since it’s 5 hours straight) so that I can get through my last class.  And, yes, I have my leg-energy conserved so that I CAN dance with my last class… but I’m SO mentally exhausted, that just teaching seems to suffice.  

I feel like if I added in more cardio and yoga or pilates, that I would be able to break this plateau… because there’s REALLY only so far healthy eating will take you.

P.S.– I’ve done SO GOOD on eating lately!! This week– I’m 20 calories under my daily goal (average based on 1 weeks worth of eating)  I’m SO excited