I enjoy being a girl

Damn. Whenever I have no logical explanation for wanting to shovel food in my face, it's PMS. Because when I'm PMSing, I have no logic. I seem to be unable to tell myself to STOP EATING during those illogical times. Spock would never understand. So why did I eat slightly uncontrollably on Sunday night? And kind of a little bit Tuesday night? Cuz...I'm bleeding like a stuck pig on Wednesday morning. [That's me, Kathy Davis, queen of the delicate delivery.] As I age, and as I float my way through perimenopause (that's when you're not fully menopausal, but just leading up to it), my periods keep changing. My cycles have been very strange since having my right ovary taken out 3 years ago too. For a while I was bleeding at the end of the month. Then in the middle. Now it's in the beginning. At least I'm having a monthy cycle and not skipping any months. JAYSUS, am I one of those women who blog about their periods? I guess I am in this case as it has causal effect on my eating. OY, does it ever. Having awareness of it this morning gave me a moment of clarity and relief. YAY! I'm bleeding. YAY! That's why I have the Hand To Mouth Disease! [That's my affectionate nickname for a binge]. It's gonna keep happening every month until my other ovary completely dries up, so for now I'll just try to be hyper aware of the pattern in hopes of breaking it.

I don't own a scale, and only weigh myself when I'm at a Weight Watchers meeting. I usually go on Saturday mornings, and have been pretty diligent about it throughout the summer. These past 2 weekends, I've stayed away and haven't felt like scrambling to a meeting during the week. Excuses, yes, I have been busy busy, but there are 20 meetings a week or so and surely I'd have been able to find time to get to one of them. Just didn't feel like facing the music, good bad or ugly. That said, I'm left to cope with the feeling that I'm free-falling in my weight loss efforts. Without the measure of the scale, I feel a little untethered. I have learned not to use the scale as my ONLY measure of success-sure, I recognize that when I exercise I feel better, my clothes are still fitting fine. But right now, I have a goal. I want to weigh 199 pounds. I want to, for the first time in 20 some years, weigh under 200 pounds. In January, I wanted it to be by June. In June, I wanted to do it by my birthday. Currently, I want to do it by the time tour starts in September. I'm not certain that's realistic. I'm not sure I know what it's going to take over and above the desire to want to do it. Should I stop using my Flexpoints? Should I stop trading exercise activity points for food points? Should I switch to the Core plan where I just eat from a specific list of food and don't journal? These are all things I've considered. I've been treading water for 3 years fer cry eye!. I know slow and sure wins the race, and I'm to be commended for keeping my weight off and not gaining it back. But I'm TIRED of treading water. The sharks are circling, it's time to get busy. I'll head to the scale on Saturday, menstrual weight gain or no, and let the meeting topic help me judge.

I'm SO inspired by my visit with Kathleen over the weekend. She's undergoing her own personal desire for health changes, and having direct support and feedback from someone who's been there is gonna be incredible! We'll cheer each other on.

Alright. Off to put the rest of the stuff back under the kitchen sink. Miracle Man from the exterminator company we hired came and sprayed indoors and out yesterday...THE ANTS ARE GONE! I came home today antless and cat-poop free!!! It's a turning point!

Ants and cat poop and catching up from being sick

Been feeling stressed out lately. I'm super grateful it's been busy at work! Being off sick for 2 1/2 days put me behind, and I had a trip to Reno planned for the weekend so I just had to leave a big pile of stuff for myself to do for Monday morning, and it's never fun to come in to a bunch of leftover work that I wanted to have had done by the time I left on Friday. You play, you pay. Well, you get sick, you pay. So as I said, I'm extremely grateful for being busy, considering the alternative. I just wish after working until 6 or 7 every night last week, I didn't THEN have to come home to swarms of ants and a pile of cat poop in front of the water cooler. My 16-year-old Zaphod, feline wonder of the universe, is stressed out from the ants too as they keep attacking his food, so he has taken to leaving poop in front of the cooler. Okay, he's stressed out and old. So the latest ritual is I get home, and the first hour after I get home, I can't even relax since I have to clean up poop and kill ants. It's sure an appetite killer! I haven't been eating until late. This past weekend, I spent a really fun couple of days in Reno, starting the mini-break by enjoying a great visit and meal with dear friends Ken and Kathleen. I saved up all my Flexpoints (that's the 1750 calories I get to spend however I want during the week, if I want to indulge a little) for the Friday night meal, and enjoyed myself. We had a great visit. When I got there, the thunder storm was just dissipating, so the setting sun formed a beaming ark of rays shooting through the clouds in the sky above Ken and Kathleen's home. Walking out behind their acre of property to have a look at the sage and sandy dirt, there was a double rainbow, and it stayed there a LONG time. After dinner and a great chat with Kathleen, we went out to look at the night sky, and I looked up and immediately saw a shooting star. It was a great greeting from nature and enjoyable way to start the weekend. I felt blessed!

I woke up early Saturday morning and went for a nice 45 minute jog/walk- early enough to beat the Reno heat. That was my first run after being sick, so I could only get in about 16 minutes of actual running as my stamina needs rebuilding, but it was a great time anyway. I tell you, Beck's Guero is THE best exercise CD for me of late!. I have a fancy new Sony Sports CD walkman that also has a radio that plays TV stations! It locks closed, you hold it over your hand with a strap and it absolutely does NOT skip! It makes it so easy to just take off and work up a nice rhythm. I got back to Fitzgeralds, showered, and then spent a few hours playing penny and nickel slots. Around 3 I had lunch....I ordered pancakes and hash browns and had the waiter bring a "To Go" container with the meal and packed up most of the food before I even ate my lunch. So I only ate one pancake and 1/2 a cup of hash browns and packed the other 2 pancakes and hash browns and had them for dinner. Only went 4 points over my allotment for the day, which isn't bad for a vacation day! Before going back to gamble more, I took a walk to Walgreen's for some beauty supplies and cash back to avoid the $4.00 ATM fee. Kicked it at the hotel then headed out and had a blast till 1.30 am! I got up Sunday morning and did my Pilates, too! I bought a Pilates For Dummies DVD a while back, and I LOVE it...I don't have my laptop yet, so I don't have a way to play the DVD on the road, so I just brought the list of chapter selections, and since I know all the poses from the DVD I just did them on my own. I was so proud of myself. You'd think that would motivate me to continue to eat well....but I kind of took the cork out of the dam and shoveled it in on Sunday on the way home with Shannon, and more after I got home. The Baked Lays Cheddar Sour Cream chips were TOO damned good. Damn you Shannon for turning me on to them! We bought them to share, but I had to apologize to Shan since I got kind of carried away with them! I don't buy things with which I cannot control the volume of intake. I mean, if I know I'm going to get in trouble with something, I don't buy it. If I do, I make sure the I have enough points in my daily or weekly eating to cover eating the whole bag, because that's what is going to happen. So as a result, rarely do I buy chips! I mean, I can make ANYTHING into a red light food. I can overindulge on good stuff just like I used to on bad. I KNOW, I KNOW, 1 indulgent day doesn't ruin 6 good ones... but WHY do I do that? Why do I work so hard and just let it all go sometimes? Shan and I stopped at a convenience store in Davis and I was looking at the baked goods and cookies near the counter. Not to buy of course, just once in a while I pick up a food that I used to just buy and eat without thinking, just to see what I was doing to myself. One large chocolate chip cookie I looked at, it had to be 7 or 8" across. Salad plate size...it was 640 calories and 32 grams of fat. Isn't that CRAZY???? Oh MAN I saw a guy in the casino that weighed at least 500 pounds or so. It made me feel so sad, but it also made me feel sleek and lithe...when he lit up a cigarette, I wanted to cry. I feel so far away from that kind of self-abuse. And I'm glad it's in the rearview mirror. I'm sorry for his state of health, but grateful to the universe for reminding me how far I've come.

Needless to say, I got right back up the horse today...came home to another steaming pile from Zaphod and scout ants everywhere, including in the brand new batch of dry cat food we bought Zaphod after the other one got infested. I didn't tell Rob to leave it in the original bag that ziplocks closed, and he thought he was being nice by putting it in the cat food storage bin. Sweet, but....the bastard ants got in there again. We have an exterminator coming tomorrow morning at 8 to spray finally, so the stress now is packing a bunch of stuff up under all the sinks, taking up throw rugs and getting the pets ready so I can take them with me to work in the morning. They have to be out of the house for a couple hours after the dude sprays, but I'm gonna keep them out until I'm done with work. It'll be a fun adventure.

DANG I didn't expect to be writing this much! It's such a thrill to have this forum to let it all out. At the very least, it makes me accountable to ME. Alright. I'm going to go unpack from the weekend, tidy, clean up more ants and get ready for The Mighty Bug Killer tomorrow. Breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly. August is National Katherine A. Davis Appreciation month...so I'm happy it's here. Alright, it's just my birthday month, and the month before the big September Pearl Jam tour and the NINE count 'em NINE shows I'm get to see. I'm going to have a busy busy month staying on top of things at work so I can feel free to enjoy my shows! Hell, I'm going to enjoy them no matter what, it's just the days I'm home in September, I'm gonna have to work my ass off. The more I stay on top of it in August, the less opportunity for my brain to turn to a mess of gelatinous goo at work the following month. Damn, is that me worrying about things in advance? No, it couldn't be. I'm just planning ahead for the work ahead of me, yeah, that's it.

Breathe in deeply, breathe out slowly.

I fear social situations... I'm going to Reno this weekend and I usually bring Luna bars with me when I travel as "go to" food. They have many vitamins, soy protein and they are very yummy. But I can't live on them. I'm not worried about the notorious Reno buffet scene...there are always fruits and vegetables and I want to stay on program SO BADLY this weekend that I am planning my food in advance by blogging about it! Like they say in my Weight Watcher meetings, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". Harsh but true! Friday hangin' out with my sistah/pal Kathleen is my biggest unknown. She has already asked me in advance what I can eat, is planning a Mediterranean style hummusy feast...I e-mailed her to request Trader Joe's Eggplant Hummus since it's way lower in points for me...I'm saving up flex points during the week and planning a morning walk or jog on Saturday and Sunday. I checked the Fitzgerald's site and they don't have fitness facilities from what I can see...I'm just gonna have to get up early to beat the heat since weather.com says 95 degrees every day! I've been really busy catching up at work since I was off sick last week, and I've been slightly stressed with all the backlog of billing, computer dying on me, etc. But I've stayed on program throughout. I'm a pretty strong-willed woman. 2 whole days worth!

Late night Eating

What is up with me waking up at 3 am or 4 am and just wanting to head to the kitchen and eat? I'm not hungry. I'm not bored. I'm not celebrating anything. Why do I feel the need to comfort myself in the middle of the night with needless eating? I laid in bed Saturday night and thought of going to the cupboard and grabbing some cookies. I stared at the ceiling for half an hour talking myself out of it, and I did NOT succumb. But I have "sleep eaten" plenty of times in the past, and may do so again. WHY, god, WHY? I don't understand. I used to be afraid of the dark when I was little...[HELL, I had a night light into my teens, what am I saying?] Is food taking place of the night light? Is that my comfort? Rob and I have incompatible sleeping styles, and often sleep in separate quarters...could it be loneliness? It's a strange phenomenon. I'm stoked that I was able to talk myself out of it , and hope I continue to do so. I mean, if I have the food points coming, fine, whatever I'll have a snack once in a while and not flog myself over it. But I'd like to figure out what triggers that and how I can change the need to comfort myself with food in the wee small hours of the morning.

I googled "eating in the middle of the night" and found that there's a name for my late night food dilemma- it's actually called Night Eating Syndrome. This is a great article about it!



I eat too little during the day and too much in the evening. I know Oprah swears by her rule to not eat after 7:30 p.m. or somesuch...Should I gradually start gearing my food intake toward that goal?

I have a looooooooooong way to go spiritually and emotionally in many areas of my existence. As I wrote before, the mechanics of not eating or taking drugs or drinking and working exercise into my day has been rather easy. It's not difficult for me to just say no. Having lost weight first, it was that much easier to get sober. Behavior modification? Not a problem. But I have done very little in regard to developing my spirituality. I haven't worked at deeply examining my emotions and trying to heal. I know it doesn't make me a bad person, I just feel the desire to take myself, my evolution to another, deeper level. I guess I'll just stay open.

Now and Then
I'm so excited by this forum. Thanks for all the good wishes both public and private! We're all in this boat together. I'm just ready to trade the tugboat for a yacht at this point. The inspired ideas and thoughts of what to share and how to proceed make my head spin, and it's a good feeling to feel jump started again!

Just in case I forget how I used to was:

Then: weighed 346.8 Now: 213 and dropping
Then: Size 32 pants 4X top Now: Size 18 pants/ Medium top!
Then: Average normal food intake: 60 points a day (3,000 calories plus)
Now: 26 points a day 1300 calories
Then: Frequent stops at 7-11 for candy without looking at Nutritional Labels
Now: I can't remember the last time I ate anything without looking at the Nutritional Label first, and NEVER buy anything with more than 9 grams of fat in it.
Then: Couldn't walk to the corner without getting winded
Now: I get between 30 and 60 minutes of exercise at least 5 days a week

The next time my Inner Bitch chastizes me for being stagnant or treading water...I'm gonna have to beat her down. Or at least take her outside and give her a good talking to.

You have to start somewhere. I'm hemming and hawing, teetering and tottering, playing with the same 10 pounds for the past three years. I'm a 42, almost 43- years-young woman defined by many wonderful qualities...but for this blog, however, I am an in process of being a reformed Fat Girl. I started my serious life-changing weight loss journey in September of 2000 at 346.8 pounds. I am currently at about 213, having lost nearly 135 pounds. That is, in tangible terms, 27 5 pound bags of sugar. Put that in your shopping cart and push it around.

Now, I don't discount that removing the 135 pound person who used to be attached to my body is a huge accomplishment. I've done it through the sensible Weight Watchers plan which suits my mind and personality, coupled with exercise. Since joining in 2000, I've gone from being unable to walk to the corner to walking 1-2 miles several times a week, working out with weight resistance/Pilates for 5 days a week. I lost most of the weight in 18 months-2 years. I hit a roadblock to loss when I had a cancer scare in 2002 and had an ovary removed (it was blessedly benign), lost a very dear friend in 2003 to a viciously aggressive bout of Breast Cancer, kicked a pot habit & stopped drinking in 2004 (clean and sober for almost 16 months now!) and became a vegetarian in 2005. So the reformation of my life has been moving right along thankyouverymuch. Still, harshly severe self-critic that I am, I can't help but feel stagnant in my weight loss efforts.

So as they say in my favorite episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer...Where do we go from here?

I am not without ideas. I have said it out loud many a time, but still haven't taken it quite to heart yet...the more weight you lose, the less you get to eat and the more you have to exercise. As many changes as I have made, I have to stop pussyfooting around. I haven't even talked about my relationship with food yet! The mechanics of eating and weight loss are easy to discuss. What can I say about my old buddy, my old pal who has been there for me for the ups, downs, ins and outs of my life? Food has been my comfort, my go-to guy, my friend, my party favor, my refuge...as far as I've come, I STILL find myself using food for all those things. I'm not entirely sure I know how to stop that behavior. I know I have it IN ME to stop, I just need to learn it.

It's not as though my life is lacking love and friendship. I have rich personal relationships...an incredibly suppportive husband of nearly 19 years, dear friends known for various lengths of time who have become my Family Of Choice who have seen me through all the changes I've made. I run my own business. I love music (rather obsessively, actually) and travel extensively to see the band I love (that would be Pearl Jam...97 shows since 1992,and counting). I am organized, fun-loving, silly, a decent writer and a pretty good singer. I have the foundation of a great life.

So WHY do I abuse food? And why is it so freaking hard to stop? How will I get off the hamster wheel and start getting somewhere?

I guess I'll use this forum to figure it all out. It's Saturday night, I'm just battling the last of a small bug (fever, sore throat, congestion) that I allowed to play havoc with my eating behavior. At first I was STOKED because my fever was so high and I was so wiped out I couldn't get out of bed to eat. That's kinda twisted that I was happy I had no appetite. Then, dear hubby came home wanting to be the fantastic human being that he is and went and bought me coconut sorbet bars (DAMN those were soothing comforting goodness) and soy chips (DAMN those...well, ditto)...and I was just too tired to fix food so I've been grazing since Wednesday. Finally spent my first whole day sitting up and semi-active, and just feel too lazy to do anything other than eat raisins, almonds, cereal with soy milk, and popcorn. Orville Redenbachers Mini Bags of Kettle Corn to be exact. And it's not as good unless it has a whole mess of Smart Spray Soy butter substitute on it. Buttery goodness. I mean HEY, none of those foods are too damaging in and of themselves, it's just the quantities I find myself consuming. I can binge on just about anything given the chance, and I was over my points for the day a few pags of Kettle Corn ago. I know over-indulging doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It is what it is. I just wish it wasn't, and not so often.

Oh yeah, and about the title of my blog....I have a twisted sense of humor, and I like it that way. When sharing my 135 pound weight loss, I usually say I'm a big loser...I've lost XXX pounds (varies between 130-135 for the past couple of years)...and I just saw 3 Beck shows, so it seemed appropriate. Soy Un Perdedor. And the url....well, Soundgarden fans will get it. Alright. Thus endeth Weight Loss Mind Spew #1.