Cupcake Calendar: March and April 2012

I'm trying to keep myself busy while I make my way through the TiVo.

March

April

I sort of cheated on the April page by using a pre-made 5x7 "brag book" page and then "matting" it on background paper, but I'll have to work at things a LONG time to design something as nice as what the professionals come up with. When I try it, I always think my pages look busy and fussy, but of course when they do it, I think they look fantastic.

(Oh and also: those pictures on the April page are not from her birthday party, or even her birthday, but how perfect are they?)

Now if only I could get somewhere on the Cousins Calendar ... eesh.

12W12S11: Greek Stir-Fry

It's not really "Greek" and it's not exactly a stir-fry, but I didn't know what else to call this concoction besides "delicious." Possible substitutions are marked with asterisks.

Greek Stir-Fry
Makes 2 servings, about 550 calories each

• 3 ounces broad egg noodles
• chicken or vegetable bouillon cubes (optional)
• 2 tablespoons lemon vinaigrette*
• 1½ teaspoon olive oil
• 4 links (or about 12 ounces) chicken sausage with feta and spinach*
• 1 medium zucchini*
• 1 large yellow bell pepper*
• ¼ Vidalia onion
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary*

1. Cook egg noodles according to package directions, adding bouillon cubes to cooking water if desired. When done, drain and toss with vinaigrette. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Slice sausage into thin rounds. Add sausage slices to skillet and cook 1-2 minutes or until meat starts to brown slightly. Stir.
3. Slice zucchini into rings. Cut pepper and onion into strips. Season with salt and pepper. Add to skillet and cook 1-2 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir.
4. Add rosemary and continue cooking until desired level of doneness, making sure meat is fully cooked, stirring often. If necessary, reduce heat partway through cooking to prevent burning.
5. Divide noodle mixture between two bowls. Top with cooked sausage and vegetables. Serve immediately. Enjoy!

*Possible substitutions: Instead of "Greek" stir fry (which, BTW, is because of the feata-and-spinach sausage and the lemon vinaigrette), you can make this "Italian" by using Italian dressing or balsamic vinaigrette instead of lemon, and sweet or hot Italian sausage. If you want, you can swap out oregano for the rosemary, but I like rosemary and it will work fine. Also, I used zucchini and a yellow bell pepper (mostly for color), but you can use a yellow summer squash and any color peppers you want. You could also add a can of diced tomatoes if you wanted to and cook the liquid down by at least half (I often do that when I serve this with a heartier pasta instead of egg noodles), or serve Italian-style stewed tomatoes on the side.

Let me know if you like it!

Cupcake Calendar: August 2012

Sometimes, you see some pictures, and you KNOW.

(Dedicated especially to my sister who likes to look ahead in my Flickr photostream.)

Cupcake Calendar: July 2012

I have to rebuild my entire digital scrapbooking library because the Apple Geniuses are really not as smart as advertised and they couldn't "find" my all my scrapbooking stuff to bring it over to the new computer, and I have to re-learn how to use Gimp because some of the buttons and shortcuts work differently on the Mac vs. the old PC, but you know what?

When you have a great picture to start with, you're pretty much set.

12W12S11: Faked Beans

You know how sometimes in your darkest hour, when you didn't have a chance to go grocery shopping over the weekend and you don't really have two nickels to rub together anyway so you're eating out of the cupboard and the freezer until payday, sometimes you whip up something out of random ingredients and it turns out to be pretty darned tasty?

Yeah, me neither.

No, I'm kidding: I made up this sort-of BBQ beans dish out of stuff I found in the pantry, the freezer, and the cooler full of dry goods that I never fully unpacked from our beach vacation last year. And it's really pretty good. So here is the recipe:

Faked Beans
Makes about 4 cups

• 2 cans (15½ ounces each) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• ½ can Manwich sauce (about 1 cup)
• ½ cup barbecue sauce
• 2 tablespoons Heinz 57 sauce
• ½ pound Jenny-O turkey kielbasa, cut into chunks

Combine all ingredients in a crock pot and stir to combine well. Cook at high heat for 1 hour, stirring only as needed. Reduce heat to low and cook for an additional 1½-2 hours or until done, stirring only as needed. Add additional Heinz 57, ketcup, or barbecue sauce if needed. Reduce heat to warm and continue cooking until ready serve, or remove from heat, cover, and refrigerate over night. If necessary, reheat before serving.

Adjustments: Obviously this recipe can be doubled, since all my measurements are based on halves. I guess you can use any kind of beans you want. I used cannellini beans because they're light in color and pretty plain in flavor and I had about 5 cans of them in the cupboard. You can use any kind of barbecue sauce you like (our was store-brand brown sugar), or make your own. I don't know whether the Heinz 57 makes a difference, but I used it so I included it in my recipe. You could use ketchup or extra BBQ sauce instead. I used turkey kielbasa because we had it but you could use any kind of kielbasa here (or maybe even chorizo or andouille sausage, and definitely hot dogs would work).

My math is fuzzy because I didn't measure everything exactly, but this makes about 4 cups of the finished product. I counted 1⅓ cups as a serving, and there are about 350-400 calories per serving using this recipe. Using lower-sugar BBQ sauce, lower-fat kielbasa, and smaller quantities of everything can reduce the calorie count if you need to. Enjoy!

PS -- I called these "Faked Beans" because they aren't baked (even though most of the baked beans I eat aren't either) and also because I "faked" this recipe out of cupboard ingredients.

12W12S11: Um

Yeah. I have not been doing very well. I'll just 'fess up to that now and we'll figure out how to deal with the guilt later. I'm not completely off the rails crazy, but I have been having a hard time staying focused and committed -- mostly, when I know there are candies or cookies anywhere around me, I just can't will myself to stay away. So it's like starting over every day.

At least I'm not giving up. At least there is that.

===

Oh, hey, remember way back when I started this thing, and I said I was working toward the Wegman's "half-plate healthy" meal planning style? (See "Step/Week Eight.") Well, it turns out they might have been on to something, because the USDA recently changed the food pyramid to resemble that setup. Now it's "ChooseMyPlate" and, wouldn't you know it, half the plate is reserved for fruits and veggies. Even though I am not being 100% as careful and diligent as I should be, I still try to base on my meals on having plenty of fruits and veggies, so I am ahead of the curve here.

You know -- I know plenty of people don't care for the current President and First Lady, but I keep seeing Mrs. Obama on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel talking about eating healthier and making better dietary choices, and it's amazing how much of a difference this is already making in my house. Seriously. When I was a kid we had Nancy Reagan shouting at us to just say no to drugs, and I'm not entirely sure that it made a whole lot of difference. All it did for me was make me paranoid. But the Obama Administration's focus on positive reinforcement and good choices and activity and ownership of your diet is pretty refreshing, to me. Hopefully my kid will grow up with a better relationship to food than I had, with more of an emphasis on eating the right things and less of an emphasis on abstaining from everything. The concept of a "sometimes food" is pretty foreign to me, but it makes complete sense.

===

No weight change since the last time. I am taking this as a good sign -- the "no news is good news" approach. I have not been exercising and I already admitted that I haven't been  uber-careful and I have been eating my feelings more than I am comfortable with, but I will keep at this until I get it right.

12W12S11: Restart

So. Vacation #1 for the year is over. I'm up 11 lbs. from my lowest point, when I switched over to the 1½ lb.-per-week plan. I'm not blaming Lose It -- this one is all me. I have not been as diligent about tracking as I need to be to continue to lose weight. And I want to, because I felt good on vacation, but I didn't feel like I looked my best, and when you're walking around Southern California with all the beautiful people, you really want to look your best.

So. As of today I am back on the 2 lb.-per-week plan (using today's weight) until I get back into fighting form. I have some allies in this -- they know who they are -- and whatever our goals are, we're going to try to reach them together. I still have a long-term goal in mind, but my short-term goal is to have to buy a new bathing suit before we go on Vacation #2 over the week of Labor Day. I want to see pictures of myself and not go, "Eww."

So. Restart. It's on again, like Donkey Kong.

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Cobb Salad

I'm actually EXCITED about this salad, because I love me a good Cobb salad. Not that this one is going to be quite as good as the best, mind you, but it will be a pretty good approximation (assuming that you do not like avocados, which I don't, so you won't find them in this recipe).

• 2½ ounces Romaine lettuce (about 2 cups)
• 2½ cooked diced chicken
• 1 tablespoon bacon bits
• 1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
• 2 tablespoons crumbled reduced-fat blue cheese
• ½ cup grape or cherry tomatoes
• Choice of dressing (I used balsamic vinaigrette)

Like I said, this is an approximation, and to make it easily lunchbox-friendly, I used easy-to-find ingredients. Reduced-fat blue cheese crumbles might be the hardest thing to find on the list. If you want, you can probably use regular blue cheese, but of course I am trying to be careful of calories, even if I am only eating a salad for lunch. Note that  the "real" recipe calls for assorted lettuces including curly endive and watercress -- I went with Romaine here because it's easy, but you can just as easily substitute any number of pre-packaged fancy green blends. (I don't like weeds in my salad, so I try to keep it pretty simple.) It also calls for ½ an avocado, peeled, seeded, and cut into ½" chunks -- you can add that if you want to. (Blech.) Also, a real Cobb salad has fresh chopped chives -- I suppose you can use a small amount of dried chives if you want to, but I don't -- and you're supposed to chop the egg white and the egg yolk separately, and also seed and chop a whole tomato, but who wants to do that much work? You can always halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes if you're feeling fancy. And in a pinch, to make things even easier, you can substitute a reduced-fat blue cheese dressing for the blue cheese crumbles and the vinaigrette. (The recipe I linked to also uses Roquefort instead of blue cheese, and it puts the Roquefort in the dressing, which is homemade, and ... well, you can see how my version will work well enough to satisfy your Cobb salad cravings with like 75% less work.)

Blahblahblah calorie disclaimer: Lose It calculated this at about 255-275 calories per serving before dressing, which would depend of course on the calorie counts in your chicken, bacon, and blue cheese crumbles. My ingredients came in at 265 calories, which included 95 calories for the chicken, 25 calories for the bacon bits, and 40 calories for the blue cheese. And I went with Wish-Bone balsamic vinaigrette for the dressing, with 60 calories per 2 tablespoons, which comes out to 325 calories total. (It makes a great marinade for chicken and steak, too, BTW.)

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chef Salad Recipe

Okay, here is the "recipe" I used to recreate the Chef Salad from yesterday:

• 2½ ounces Leafy Romaine salad blend
• 1 ounce low-fat honey ham lunch meat, chopped
• 1 ounce low-fat roasted turkey lunch meat, chopped
• ½ ounce Swiss cheese, deli sliced, chopped
• 1 large hard-boiled egg, chopped
• ½ cup grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons shredded carrots
• 1½ tablespoons sunflower kernels
• 1½ tablespoons light honey dijon salad dressing

The flavors are pretty much the same as yesterday's store-bought salad, although obviously theirs was a little prettier. I really enjoyed the sunflower kernels yesterday, so I decided to use them for "crunch" this week instead of croutons. You can use croutons if you prefer. (I like croutons better with creamier dressings like ranch and blue cheese, myself.) Yes, I actually weighed out the lettuce -- this weight comes out to a little over 2 cups, even though the bag says 3 oz. = about 2 cups. With my ingredients by my math and an assist from Lose It, this salad has 330-350 calories per serving, including the sunflower kernels and dressing.

Side note: I always forget how tasty honey dijon dressing is -- I generally prefer vinaigrettes or creamy dressing, but this particular brand of dressing (and the Newman's Own that I'll be using later in the week when I run out of Ken's) is very tasty, and I might start using it instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches this summer, if I ever start packing sandwiches in my lunch again. It will be nice on a ham-and-Swiss or turkey-and-Swiss wrap.

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chef Salad

I was going to do a soft-of Cobb salad this week, but I didn't have the chance to get to the store over the weekend, and when I stopped in at the Wawa this morning to grab a salad from the cold case, they didn't have any Cobbs left, so I went with a chef salad. I will get a better "recipe" together for tomorrow, when I make the salad myself, but here is a picture of the label from today's salad so you can see what I am working with:

I went with fat-free honey mustard dressing, and since this one is pretty low in calories (210 for the salad plus 60 for the dressing), I will also be adding in some sunflower kernels from the vending machine to get closer to 350 calories. When I "replicate" this for the rest of the week, I'll be using lunchmeat ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese, plus croutons. Again, "recipe" to follow.

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chicken BLT

I'm not much of a salad person, but I really want to not have to buy Spanx for the wedding, so I've decided to try an experiment and have salads four days a week. I'm also interested in seeing if having fewer carbs at lunchtime does anything for me -- I am not really a low-carb kind of person (give me pasta or give me death!) but I'm not exactly cutting carbs out completely, either. Breakfasts and dinners will be the same, and on Fridays and the weekends I'll keep doing what I've been doing.

Because I don't want to spend a lot of time dithering around getting stuff together in the morning, I'll be eating the same salad every day, with a different "featured" salad each week. This way, I can make up a couple of sets of ingredients in advance and just grab 'em and go in the mornings. Today I started with my own version of one of my very favorite fast-food salads -- the Wendy's chicken BLT salad, which you can't even get any more. Here is what is going into this week's version:

• ¼ head iceberg lettuce (head cut into wedges, to make it easier to transport and store)
• ⅔ cup diced cooked chicken (from the lunch meat section)
• 1 tablespoon Hormel real bacon bits
• 2 tablespoons reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese
• ½ cup cherry tomatoes
• ¼ cucumber, diced
• 1 serving croutons (~30 calories or so)
• 1 tablespoon McCormick Salad Toppins
• 1½ tablespoons light ranch dressing

I am weird about crunchy stuff staying crunchy, and keeping my meats and veggies separate until I actually eat my salad, so I put everything into separate containers: lettuce in a ziploc bag; chicken, bacon bits and cheese in one container; tomatoes and cucumbers in another; croutons and crunchies in yet another; and I brought the whole bottle of dressing and keep it in the work fridge. This makes a really big salad, probably about 4 cups worth total, and I figure I got at least 2 full servings of veggies out of it (and probably 3, because it was at least 2 cups of lettuce). You could use whatever kind of dressing you like -- the light ranch I went with has 60 calories per 1½ tablespoons. I've gotten the Wendy's salad with light honey mustard and that was also very tasty. I've gotten used to not using a lot of dressing so this was perfectly fine, although if you like more you can always use more dressing or thin the ranch out a bit with a teaspoon of skim milk if you wanted to.

Next week I'm pretty sure we're going to have some hard-boiled eggs around, what with Sunday being Easter and all, so I think I'm going to do a version of a Cobb salad, with chicken, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and blue cheese crumbles. Not sure of the dressing yet -- hell, I'm not even sure I'm going to actually stick to this that long, but I'm going to try to, in the interest of science -- but I think I'll go with a light red wine vinaigrette, because it's easy and usually delicious.

(Yes, I know this is deathly boring. Sorry. But I use this space to keep myself honest and to try to psych myself up when I am getting down. Ignore me, just like usual.)

12W12S11: I Am Weary, Let Me Rest

The last two weeks have not been good for me. I've been physically and emotionally exhausted: my husband is working that crazy shift, I've been busting my butt at work, we're trying to raise a four-year-old without someone getting killed, it's been raining like the end of days, the basement has been flooding, the roof was leaking, etc. It's just been one big disaster after another, my life, and I let being careful and diligent fall by the wayside.

Plus, let's be honest: I've been on a diet for almost a whole year. I am only halfway done. I'm hungry and cranky and I have days when I just don't want to keep track of every single morsel of food that I put in my mouth. I don't want to exercise, even though I've been doing my "dance like you're drunk at a wedding" aerobics plan, which I actually do enjoy. I spent most of last week vegging out in front of the television, trying to catch up on my TiVo and cursing myself for indulging in entire bags of popcorn and big bowls of cereal for a bedtime snack.

Yes: self-sabotage. I know. I know. Nobody is more aware of this than I am. Another setback, after it took me so long to lose that extra half-pound last time. But it's water under the bridge this time.

OK. So now I've gotten that out of my system and I am getting back to business. Dieting isn't easy or else there would be no need to do it, right? But I have a vacation coming up that I need to buy a bathing suit for, and I know that when we leave I will not be anywhere near my goal weight, but I want to be closer to that number than I am to my starting weight, even if it is only two pounds closer. Solider on, and all that.

And if I can stay the course and lose ten more pounds before we leave in a little over six weeks, then I am going to allow myself a total vacation when we are away. No counting, no tracking, no denying. I'll be walking around Disneyland and dancing at a wedding and swimming in the pool, so it's not like I'm going to sit completely still on my butt eating bon-bons for a week.

Also: if I can mose ten more pounds, I might not need Spanx under my dress. Which is as big a bonus as we can expect at this point.

12W12S11: Ch-Ch-Changes

You know how, when you start working out, they tell you that sometimes your weight will fluctuate a little bit, because you're adding extra activity, and that makes your calorie needs change, and your body responds differently?

Yeah. Since I started my regimen (and then went and changed it), my weight has fluctuated by almost ten pounds. Like, I thought you were supposed to lose weight FASTER when you exercised? It took me until today to get back even to my old low, let alone lose any additional weight.

Three weeks. Eesh.

Whatever. No point in kicking my own ass over it, except when I'm working out. I lost another half-pound, and I will take it. I'm going to keep up with the vitamins and the arms and the cardio (what I am doing now is what I call my "dance like you're drunk at a wedding" exercise plan -- I make a 30-minute iTunes playlist, different every day, and just go crazy in the living room, incorporating as much as I can remember from the videos I've been using, but mostly just dancing my butt off and actually enjoying myself).

I also switched LoseIt! over to the 1½ lb. a week plan, because trying to lose 2 lb. a week was only allowing me 1,198 calories per day, and that just isn't enough. I am tired and cranky and hungry all the time -- I think the exercising has changed my metabolism a bit (for the better) and I don't want to starve. In trying to lose 1½ lb. a week, I get an extra 250 calories (1,448), which is doable. My plan to use up the extra calories is as follows:

• Breakfast -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding more fruit (i.e., large bananas, larger serving sizes) or extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Lunch -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding an additional serving of vegetables or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Snacks -- No change. Calorie limit remains at "float." Make up an extra calories by adding extra nuts or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Dinner -- No change. Calorie limit remains at 600.

I think this plan is going to be good, because I am getting extra calories, but I am also trying not to waste them. Right now I am getting half my daily calories from dinner, and I am trying to tilt that balance a little bit, get more calories earlier in the day. Not a whole lot -- I will get almost half my calories from dinner -- but I am hoping to make up the extra calories with smart servings of stuff. Fruits, veggies, nuts, milk.

Already I've changed a couple of little things. I switched over to unsalted pistachios instead of regular ones. I mixed the new nuts in with the old stash, so I am still getting a good mix. This won't change calories at all so it's kind of a weird thing to change, but I the lunches I eat (soups and Lean-Cuisine type meals) are salty and I am trying to watch that where I can.

Also, I went back to eating Chobani or some other Greek and/or organic brand when I have yogurt in the morning, instead of the light yogurt I was eating. I have no fundamental problem with light yogurts, and I might start adding mini-cups of light yogurt in to the after-exercise snack rotation, but I really think that the extra protein and fewer artificial things in the Greek yogurts are worth the extra calories. (Plus, they do taste really good.)

12W12S11: Suckitude

The last week and a half has sucked, and I have sucked at the last week and a half.

For starters, I went and put myself on that exercise regimen, which I absolutely did not adhere to for the entire week last week. I've been great about the vitamins, but I only actually managed to exercise three out of five days last week, and even then, I did not do everything I expected. I had an appointment with my chiropractor on Tuesday last week, and he recommended that I not exercise for 12 hours after my adjustment, so on Tuesday, following his advice, I took the night off. I did my scheduled workout on Monday and Wednesday, and on Thursday I did the cardio and arms, so I got at least 25 minutes of exercise on those three days.

On Friday, we went to out for fish fry (it being Lent and all -- I don't give anything up for Lent, really, but I do stick to the no-meat-on-Fridays rule, because I have intense Catholic guilt otherwise, which is comical because I don't go to church) and then met friends for ice cream. I had coconut custard ice cream, full fat and sugar, I'm sure, and it completely rocked my world. We came home and I pretty much went right to bed.

Over the weekend I did get in a lot of walking while we were clothes shopping and grocery shopping, so I fully met my "free exercise" quota (I was hoping to get in at least 60 minutes per weekend, and I did about 3 hours). But I also had PMS last week, and I overindulged on the little "treats" that I allow myself to "sneak" every day -- like, it is entirely unnecessary for anyone to eat an entire box of Triscuits in one sitting. On the other hand: fiber. I could do worse than Triscuits, I suppose.

I have also been very, very tired and very, very hungry, in part because of the PMS, but also in part because of the time change, in part I am just not getting enough sleep, and in part I think because of the exercising. I know it's not a whole lot of exercise that I am doing, but I'm sure the cardio in particular is doing things to my metabolism. Good things, no doubt, but I need to be better about controlling those urges to snack, especially after a workout.

Also: nobody needs to eat Reese's Pieces for breakfast, even if they are damned good.

So it probably goes without saying that I did not lose any weight last week, but I will not get discouraged. I think I might be over-extending my own abilities with the workout plan, but I'm going to try to stick to it as much as possible. Here are my revised goals for the week:

• I will do the cardio four days a week, and I will do the 8-minute arms. If I feel up to it, I will do an ab or leg routine, but I will accept that cardio and arms is a good start.
• I will prepare a post-exercise snack of either a protein bar or a granola bar and string cheese, and I will do everything in my power to have nothing else but water. No sense in doing all this hard work only to blow it all with late-night snacks.
• I will get myself to bed at a more reasonable time every night. There is no reason in the world why I should be up until 11:00, or even until 10:30. I do better when I get enough rest.
• I will continue to remember that I am making a whole hell of a lot of progress here, and I will try to remember that every potential setback is also a potential opportunity to do better. I should not hang myself up on what hasn't happened, but on what already has.

I know I sound a bit like Stuart Smalley here, but affirmations work, and I need reminding that I am doing good work here. So: enough with the suckitude. Back to the good work.

12W12SP2 Update: Regimen

Y'all aren't going to believe this, but I've gone and put myself on a regimen.

I barely believe it myself, but it's true.

I've been thinking a lot, almost obsessively sometimes, about how I've stopped losing weight at the expected pace, and how my body is changing, and how I am not happy about all of the changes, and how maybe I don't really need those 10 M&M's I treat myself to when I am feeling a little eleven-o'clock-ish, and how it looks like it's going to be maybe another year before I get to my goal weight, and how maybe I'll never get there, and how maybe I can still get pretty close, and how it turned into 1:00 already and I still haven't finished my breakfast, and how I really wish I could shut up my brain sometimes and just be still and stop stressing ...

... and there it is. STRESS.

My chiropractor helped me make the decision, really. I had to have an extra visit last month because I have this thing going on where my hip is being all wonky. Not sore, not exactly, but stiff sometimes. Difficult. Most of the time it's fine, but sometimes when I am doing my cardio Pilates I can't do the moves quite right because my hip won't cooperate. And my chiropractor told me: "It's stress. Every change you make to your body is stressful. Some stress is good, and some is bad, but it's all stress, and you need to deal with it."

So I am. I put together a target exercise plan for the next four weeks, exercise every weekday, even Fridays, which I will stick to if it kills me, and it just might, because when my husband sees me working out for the first time, he will start laughing and then I will start laughing and then I will end up hyperventilating, but anyway, here is my exercise schedule (click to embiggen):

And based on feedback from both my chiropractor and Dr. Oz (as reported in First for Women, which I can't link to, and I can't find a direct link to this info on Dr. Oz's website either, but here is a pretty good summation), as well as general common sense, I am also taking the following vitamins:

• VitaFusion Gummy Vites (multivitamin), 2 gummies in the morning
• VitaFusion Fiber Gummies, 2 gummies in the morning (I take the weight management kind)
• Emergen-C Tangerine, 1 packet in water at lunchtime (click the link! free samples!)
• Trader Joe's Omega-3 Fatty Acids, 1200 mg fish oil, odorless, 1 gelcap at lunchtime (can't find direct link, sorry)

I'll let you know how everything turns out. Or if I turn into a goldfish.

12W12S2P: Under

As of my weigh-in yesterday morning, I now weigh 199.5 lbs. This is the first time that I have weighed under 200 lbs. in at least 5 years, and possibly in ten. This is, to put it mildly, a Big Damn Deal.

And I'm still not particularly happy about it.

Right now I am just not keeping up the pace I think I should be -- the LoseIt! plan I am following is the 2-pound-a-week plan. It is telling me I should be eating 1,202 calories per day or less, and even on the days when I don't exercise, I am usually well under that number. Over the last 10 days (not counting today), I have averaged 1,069 calories a day. Twice I was under 1,000 calories. This is not very many calories. I should be losing weight at a good clip.

But yet I am only averaging around a pound lost per week. This is still fine, I suppose, but it's not what I am hoping for. And I have been thinking recently that once I got under 1,200 calories allowed per day, I was going to switch over to the 1½-pound-a-week plan. It would allow me more calories, something closer to a "maintenance" plan -- gradually work my way back up to eating "normally" and take my time with the transition. It would have delayed my reaching my goal weight, but I figured it would make it easier for me to keep the weight off.

I'm not sure what to think about everything now. Part of me thinks that the reason why my weight loss has stalled out somewhat is because I am so restricted -- is my body going into "starvation" mode? If I switch over to the 1½-pound-plan, I'll get about 250 extra calories a day. Will that give me a boost, kickstart the weight loss again? I have heard of that working for other people. Will it work for me too?

I haven't decided yet, and I'm afraid to experiment just yet. For the time being -- or until I lose some more weight, I guess -- to stick with the plan I have in place, and see where it takes me. Obviously I'd still like to keep losing 2 lbs. a week, but I'll take what I can get.

12W12S11: Ash Wednesday

So. Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and the start of that time of year when people like me (i.e., Catholics, or at least hypothetical Catholics, or at least susceptible to Catholic guilt) generally make promises to themselves that they will change their wicked ways, make sacrifices, give up a particular vice, try to become better people, for just a little while at least.

Or, as I have been thinking about it lately: they're doing for the next six weeks what I've been doing for the last ten months.

I sound like I am bitter, but I'm not. Not really, anyway. I mean, I can tell you as well as anyone else how good it is to make changes in your life. Cut back on the caffeine, switch to diet soda, eat a healthy breakfast, get more fiber, drink more water, measure your portions, exercise regularly (or at least more often than "never"). This is basically what I've been doing since May -- and by the way, has it really been that long already? almost a year? yowza! -- and in that time I've dropped around 70 lbs. The cumulative result of any number of small positive changes really adds up over time.

But that's where I have my problem with Lent: it's just not enough time for the small positive changes to really amount to much. Lent is 46 days long if you start counting today and go through Easter Sunday, just 6½ weeks from now, and then almost everyone abandons their "resolutions."

(Yes, I know everybody thinks that it's 40 days long, but everybody is wrong -- it's actually 46 days, but Sundays don't count as "days" of Lent, and Lenten sacrifices need not apply because Sundays are not supposed to be days of fasting, but it's not like the calendar stops counting. [And if we're going to be all technical about it, I guess I should mention that Lent actually runs from Ash Wednesday through the Lord's Supper, exclusive, which means it doesn't actually start until tomorrow, and it runs until Holy Thursday -- so Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday themselves do not count as days of Lent, either, so ... minus four days, minus the six Sundays in there, carry the one, divide by the square root of seventeen ... that makes Lent itself actually 36 days long, although the Lenten Season is 46 days long. {And I bet nobody thought I paid attention in Catholic school, huh?}])

My point -- and yes, I do have one, shut up! -- is that I don't think 6½ weeks is long enough for anyone to make permanent lifestyle changes. It's a great place to start (I look back at what I was eating when I was 6½ weeks into the 12-Week 12-Step that turned into whatever the hell this has turned into, for me, and I can see that I was well on my way at that point, even though I bet I was eating about 1½ times as much food then as I am eating now), but it's just that: a start. You can't change everything in 6½ weeks, and since most people go right back to what they were doing in the first place as soon as they open up their chocolate marshmallow bunny heads first thing on Easter morning, I would argue that they don't actually change anything.

Lots of people put themselves on dietary restrictions for Lent: no soda, no chocolate, no caffeine, no whatever. I think this is fine on the whole, but why limit your self-improvement to just these 6½ weeks? Limiting my intake of stuff that got me into "trouble" has been a big help for me on this path. But I had to limit my intake of that stuff forever. And that wasn't all I did. I have always found positive activity, doing something, to be more helpful and ultimately more productive than not doing something else. Instead of just doing without things that are bad for you, perhaps it might be better to add in something that is more healthful.

So instead of giving something up for Lent -- I only eat 1,200 calories a day anyway, so it's not like I have a whole lot of room to cut much out without keeling over -- I'm going to work very hard on feeling more positively about what I am doing, and I am just going to keep on doing it. It's working. I look better, I feel better (most of the time). Maybe I am not well, not entirely, not yet, but I am better. And isn't that supposed to be the point?

12W12S11: Surrender

So you remember that I had this diet goal of being able to buy a pair of jeans at the Gap by March 1st, right? Well I'm going to come out and admit, right off the bat, that it doesn't look like I'm going to make it. I am disappointed but not devastated, which means that I am making progress on my multitude of issues. At this time last year -- hell, at this time six months ago -- this kind of setback might have thrown me way off kilter and possibly thrown me into some kind of emotional tailspin, but right now? It's not all that big of a deal. So it will take me another few weeks? So what?

Mommy's all right, Daddy's all right, we're all all right, we're all all right!

Believe me, this is HUGE for me. If you've been reading my blogs, you know I have BIG ISSUES, so acceptance of myself at any point in the game is an EPIC PERSONAL WIN.

So I've revised the plan and now I am hoping to buy that mythical magical pair of jeans at the Gap by April 1st. What's another month? By then I might even be down a whole additional size, and I'll be able to get 14's. Additionally, I have a pair of jeans and a pair of velveteen pants from Talbot's that I ordered online that are still too small -- I ordered 16's, which is what I wear in Lane Bryant pants, but either LB sizes run big or Talbot's sizes run small or both, because I can't get anywhere close to buttoning the Talbot's pants -- that I hope will fit by April 1st. New pants for everybody, yay!

Oh, are you looking for numbers? Apparently the combination of PMS last week and strep throat earlier this week has been good for me, because I lost 5½ lbs in 2 weeks. I continue to wish that my loss was more consistent -- I am still trying to lose 2 lbs. a week but I will settle for even ½ lb., as long as I lose SOMETHING every week -- but I am not about to beat myself up over it.

And, because it's been a while, a "recipe" for you, although I hesitate to call this one a recipe because it kind of isn't -- mostly it's a bunch of delicious things slapped in a bowl. But it was good, it was one of the best lunches I've had in weeks, and you should try it too.

Diet Loaded Baked Potato

• 1 medium baking potato (Russett, Idaho -- brown skin, about ½ lb.)
• 2 tablespoons shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon real bacon bits
• 2 tablespoons reduced- or non-fat sour cream
• 1 tablespoon dried chives

1. Wash potato. Wrap in aluminum foil and bake, or poke with holes, wrap in a paper towel, and cook in the microwave for 4-5 minutes or until done.
2. Remove potato from oven and allow to cool until it can be handled comfortably.
3. Split potato lengthwise and lightly "chop" or mash until slightly fluffy.
4. Sprinkle cheese and bacon over potato.
5. If necessary, microwave for 15-25 seconds or until cheese is melted.
6. Top with sour cream and chives.
7. Thoroughly enjoy.

Based on LoseIt!'s calculations, each loaded potato has between 250-275 calories, depending on the size of the potato and whether you use reduced-fat or fat-free sour cream (I used fat-free and mine came out to 265 calories). Worth every single calorie.

Cousins Calendar: January 2012

So. I got some work done.

I haven't started working on the Cupcake Calendar yet, but I think I'll be using a similar theme for that page as well (singular "angel" obviously). I might change the colors some, and the font, but I like the "Snow Angel" concept so I think I'll run with it.

Financial Alchemy

Thank you to TurboTax for sponsoring my writing about household finances. Learn more about how TurboTax can help you find every tax deduction you deserve. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

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I am probably the last person in the world who should ever give anybody any kind of financial advice. I run out of paycheck long before the next one comes in -- although, in this economy, that seems to be happening to more and more people.

"In this economy." Heh. Wish I had that excuse fifteen years ago, when I totally trashed my credit and had to borrow money from basically everybody I knew to keep myself from being sent to debtors' prison, when I was just a little naïve and a whole lot of stupid.

It's taken us a long time to get our money situation in order, and a lot of that is because of me. I admit this. And even now, we're not in the best shape, financially-speaking, but we're better off than a lot of people. Even when my husband was out of work, we managed to make ends meet, somehow. Primarily because he is good at managing his money, but also because I think that maybe I have finally, after all this time, learned to manage mine.

That sounds weird, probably -- "his money" and "my money," but that's the arrangement that works for us. We've been married for almost 12 years, and we still have separate checking accounts. People tell us it's bizarre to do this, deranged even, but we have a standing agreement that we will not commingle our finances until we are done paying for the things for which we are individually responsible.

I don't want him paying my student loans. I don't want him paying for the long-lost crap that I bought in college that I am still on the hook for. That is my debt, not his, and I don't want him to be stuck with those burdens. What's his is his, and what's mine is mine, and what's ours is split as evenly as possible between us.

So the mortgage, the phone bills, the cable -- each of us pays a portion. Groceries and household stuff and things for Shae, we split. We take turns. But my car? I paid for that, and he pays for his. My gas? I pay for that too. My snacks and donations to the vending machine at work? I have to budget for these little luxuries, even if it means scrounging around in my ashtray and in the couch cushions if I want that stuff.

Sometimes it takes a bit of financial alchemy when there is a long time left before the next payday and I need to stretch the last $17 in my wallet over ten days. But we do manage to have enough money for the "big important stuff," like holidays and travel, because I believe very strongly in Christmas Club and Vacation Club. We've paid cash for about 90% of our gifts for the last three Christmases because of my Christmas Club.

Even when things were at their worst, during that 18-month stretch when my husband was unemployed, we never really had to worry about losing our house or losing our cars or anything, because our separate-but-equal strategy worked extremely well for us. Every extra couple of bucks got squirreled away for emergencies, so that when we had unexpected car repairs or a busted sink or whatever, we had a secret stash to get us through. We still have money left from our 2009 tax refund, which I think is pretty darned impressive.

So maybe I'm the last person in the world who should ever give anybody any kind of financial advice -- but believe me, whatever we are doing, it's working. And I am not about to muck about with a good thing.

12W12S11: Unfamiliar Territory

Bad news first: Didn't lose any weight this week. Actually gained between ½ pound and 3 pounds, which tells me that either my scale is broken (probably not, because it's new) or I am timing things wrong (probable culprit, because I seem to want to weigh myself before I go to the bathroom, for some reason, like duh). I am annoyed by this development, but trying to not get to heavy into the self-immolation. Like, eh, I was off routine for a few days because of funerals and cancelled swimming lessons and Galactically Huge Sporting Event Parties, and those mini éclairs were freaking delicious. Whatever.

Good news next: Um. There really isn't any. Oh! Wait! Yes! I finally figured out a way to indulge my kid's desire to exercise with me without wearing myself out too much. We picked up a kid's yoga video at the store over the weekend (you would be surprised by what they hide away in the natural and organic section at a Wegman's -- no, wait, maybe you wouldn't) and I plan to try it out tonight after dinner. It doesn't look like it will burn a whole lot of extra calories for me, but hopefully it will be a nice bonding opportunity, and also maybe now my kid will stop sitting at the top of the steps like some kind of creepy stalker to watch me do my Pilates.

Worse news last: People are starting to pay attention to how I look now, and it's kind of bothering me. (I know, shut up, right?) I went to a funeral last Thursday and at the luncheon afterwards I spent maybe a solid hour talking about how much weight I've lost, how I'm doing it, whether I can eat this-that-or-the-other thing, "oh my God I can't believe how skinny you look," etc., when I should have been, you know, remembering the dead or whatever. Skinny! Someone called me skinny! And it's weird, because I really am not. Yes, I have lost quite a bit of weight, but I still have to lose at least as much as I have already. In theory, I am glad that people notice, because for a long time I felt like I was on the periphery all the time, just the big girl with the quick quips and the loud laugh, but in reality, I don't know how I feel about the attention.

Yeah, yeah, "first-world white-girl problems." But the more people notice the physical changes, the more I feel like there need to be psychological changes, too, and that's when every nice thing that people have to say becomes a potential trigger. I'm supposed to still be me, only better, but ... I don't always feel better about myself. I mean, it's exhausting, really, to not know how to take a compliment, to question the motives of people who really do mean well, who want to be encouraging. Much as I love the schadenfreude, I should be relishing the envy in people's eyes, because I really have worked long and hard to get to this point.

I mean -- my God, I am exercising! At least three times a week! On purpose! It's like anarchy up in this mother!

So, yes, along with all the weight I still have to drop, I have a lot of issues I need to work on as well. Thanks for bearing with me as I continue to venture through this unfamiliar territory. (The being "skinny," not the being crazy, obviously, like duh).

12W12S11: Murder Was the Case

Part The First -- I have come to the realization that I make some damn good diet food. Take tonight's dinner, for example: meatballs with sauce, spaghetti with butter and Parmesan cheese, mixed vegetables. If I didn't tell you that everything was portion-controlled and carefully calorie-counted, you'd never know. I'm very proud of that. You can look at what I was eating back in July, when I was allowed close to 1,600 calories a day, and if you compare it now, when I am allowed just over 1,200 calories a day, and my evening meals don't look all that different, actually. Maybe a little smaller, sometimes, but not really all that different.

Part The Second -- I am pretty sure that Mari Winsor is trying to murder me, and I think it's a load of hooey. What the hell did I ever do to her? I've been trying to be a good little girl, doing my Pilates Bootcamp video every week like I'm supposed to, even adding some different workouts this week (which, bee-tee-dubs, I will review as soon as I get through all of them), and still she wants me dead or something.

HONEST TO GOD I HAVE NEVER HAD SUCH PAIN IN MY ABS IN MY WHOLE LIFE. It's murder, I tell you -- murder! But I shall keep on keepin' on, because I ordered new pants today and I want to be able to button them.

12W12S11: More Than Zero

This week I lost more than zero pounds: three, actually. I don't know how, because I wasn't particularly careful about what I was eating and I only worked out two days. But I didn't go completely buck-wild until yesterday, when I ate almost a whole box of crackers, and while I was mostly snowed in for two days, I did at least go outside and shovel some, and play in the snow with my kid. So I guess that counts for something, anyway.

And I don't even care all that much: those crackers (Archer Farm Cheddar & Scallion Sourdough Twists, actually) were DAMN GOOD. Worth every undocumented calorie.

I picked up a new exercise DVD yesterday -- another Mari Winsor-instructed, Pilates-based set of workouts. These are all targeting specific areas, and they're each 15 minutes long. I think I will be focusing on the "Flat-Ab Blast" and "Total Body Makeover" segments, but "Cardio Burn" and "Thigh Sculptor" also both sound promising. (Interestingly enough, there is no "Get Rid Of Your Flappy Chicken Arms!" workout, which is the one I would probably use the most, maybe even every day, because COME ON WHY AM I NOT SEEING A DIFFERENCE? I still feel like I have giant hams tucked in my sleeves, and I never felt insecure about my arms AT ALL until I lost weight. Getting older sucks, yo.)

Depending on how tough these workouts are, I may start doing them in addition to my regular Pilates bootcamp workout, but that remains to be seen -- I still have some trouble in the middle sections of the bootcamp workout because I can't get the choreography down. But I figure that I can do an extra 15 minutes two times a week without falling over dead. Hypothetically. Right?

So things are still going well, and it looks like I might still be on target to get regular retail jeans by March 1st. I am still hoping to be down to a size 14 by then, but we'll see where we are.

Fun Fab Five

Thanks to Trop 50 for sponsoring my writing about fabulous bloggers. This year Trop50 is granting 50 fabulous wishes. Click here to enter for a chance to win $1,000 to help grant a friend's wish!

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(Reprint of a post that originally appeared on the 'riffic.)

Today is a snow day for us -- ONCE AGAIN -- and so while Shae's sitting around watching movies and playing with noisy toys and taking a nap (a nice, looooooooooooong winter's nap, right? RIGHT?), I get to catch up on my blog reading. I read A LOT of blogs, some semi-regularly, some occasionally, some just once-and-done. If a link pops up in my twitter feed, I'm pretty likely to click it. But there are about a dozen or so blogs that I read ALL THE TIME, written by people that I would very much like to hang out with someday, have a drink and some appetizers and shoot the breeze, preferably in an undisclosed tropical location with access to absolute bucketfuls of margaritas and conch fritters. Five of these people are so fabulous that they took pity on my poor soul and have become Twitter or Facebook friends, and these are the top five blogs I will be reading today, to get caught up and keep from getting cabin fever while I wait for my husband to call and tell me that he is safely at work.

(Please note that I did not includes by anyone in my family or anyone who is family-adjacent because I don't want to forget anybody. Also, this list is in alphabetical order.)

Chibi Jeebs: Sometimes I think that Chibi is a long-lost twin or something, because we seem to have a lot in common. She turned me on to Lose It, so I guess I have her to thank for my losing 70 lbs. since May 2010, even though all she did was mention the app and I did all the heavy lifting. She is funny, neurotic, sarcastic, smart and smart-mouthed -- occasionally I will read something she wrote and slap myself in the forehead for not writing that line first. My very favorite story of hers is the one about the Car Accident. I want Chibi to have my back in a parking-lot slap-fight.

Dancing Lemur: Another blogger that I think is a long-lost twin (triplet)? She's from North Carolina and knows what a Moravian star is. She also plays Zynga games on Facebook with me, and one of these days she's going to convince me to actually attend a blogging conference. Hypothetically. For her, I might actually do it. I think she's at a blogging conference right now (hope she're having fun and keeping warm). She takes great pictures and we have a similar aesthetic regarding Christmas and you KNOW how seriously I take Christmas.

The Domestic Goddess: D-Gods (that's what I call her -- it is probably not her name for herself) is local to me and I might have to start stalking her, because she is made of awesome. She is a constant reminder that propriety is highly situational for parents of small children. Her "About" page is a thing of absolute beauty and staggering genius, but if I had to pick a favorite post, it would be the one about the Unmade Resolutions.

Jodifur: Jodifur reminds me of college, in all the best ways (and yes there actually were some). She and I are around the same age and have some similar things in common and she seems to react to stuff in the same kind of ways that I do, so again with the long-lost twin thing (are we up to quadruplets, now)? Also, she loves Sim City, and it's really, really hard for me to disagree with anyone who loves Sim City.

Temerity Jane: Sweet cracker sandwich. Sometimes, when I read this blog, I laugh so hard I need oxygen. That is about as ringing an endorsement as you're ever going to get from me. I love this blog for the same reason Jessica Rabbit loves Roger Rabbit: she makes me laugh. Literally LOL. Funny is fabulous. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

So go check these ladies out. I promise you won't be sorry.

(Oh, and also, blog authors? One of my New Year's resolutions was to comment more, so I promise to stop being a secret stalker soon!)

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Don't forget to enter the 50 Fabulous Wishes contest for a chance to win $1,000 to support a friend's wish. I was selected for this Tropicana Trop50 sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do. I received compensation to use and facilitate my post.

12W12S11: Weekly Wrap-Up

I guess the moral of the story for this week is: careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Because this week? I lost exactly zero pounds. But since I actually lost 4½ lbs. last week, I'll take it. Plus I had my period, and that tends to throw off the numbers, because I crave salty stuff, because apparently I turn into some kind of salt-licking woodland creature when I have PMS.

I only did my workout three times this week, instead of the four I intended to -- on Thursday my knee was really bothering me and I didn't want to mess with it. Mari Winsor's choreography tends to have me all of the place and my knees move in ways they're not supposed to, so I figured it was better to suck it up one night then be unable to move for a whole week. I think I made the right choice.

I also tried to cut myself a little slack, eating-wise, and instead of trying to be as far under my calorie limit as I could managed to get, what I did this time was try to be as close to the number without going over as I could stand, while still eating "regularly." I had red velvet cake twice -- TWICE! -- in two days -- TWO DAYS! -- and I feel pretty good about it, or at least not at all guilty.

Still on track to buy myself new jeans at a "regular" store by March 1st. In fact, I am hoping that I can drop 12 lbs. by Valentine's Day so I can get someone else to buy me $60 pants so I can spend the money on a new pair of boots, because it appears that EVERY.SINGLE.PAIR. of jeans in the Universe is boot cut. I don't understand why, and I probably never well, but I guess I need to go with the flow.

12W12S11: Zero

I mentioned yesterday that one of the things that I am currently worried about is that I might be developing some kind of eating disorder from all this dieting I've been doing. I'm sure that my saying that was either (1) overlooked in the long, fairly detailed list of all the not-actual-things that I think are wrong with me, or (2) a kind of a "Wait, what?" moment for at least couple of people. In either case, I want to explain myself, a little bit.

The reason why I worry that I might be developing an eating disorder is because I'm pretty sure I used to have one. Sometimes I think I still do.

I was never officially diagnosed with an eating disorder; to be honest, I'm not even 100% sure myself that I ever actually had one. But I think I did. Whatever I suffered from probably doesn't have a name, but essentially it was this: from the middle of my junior year through the end of my senior year in high school, I basically ate enough to not keel over dead, and to not tip anybody off to what I was doing.

Now, those of you who lived with me or went to school with me at the time and may not remember things exactly the way I do. That's because I was deliberately trying to keep you from noticing that I was only eating about 800 calories a day, and fewer if at all possible.

Most days, I did not eat breakfast. I was "running late" or "too tired" or "already ate" or "not hungry" or whatever else excuse I could come up with for not eating in front of people. Unless I told you I was "not hungry," I probably wasn't lying; I was always hungry, but I was also always running late and always tired and technically I had already eaten something. It just might have been 12 or 24 hours earlier. If I got cornered into actually ingesting something in the morning, I would have a cup of hot Lipton tea with half-and-half and four sugars. It was always hot Lipton tea, always half-and-half, and always four sugars. If any of those variables could not be satisfied, I would just beg off, saying it wasn't "just the way I liked it."

Most days, I ate almost nothing for lunch. If I was in the school cafeteria, I might have a few bites of my sandwich, two or three corn chips, a graham cracker, maybe an entire slice of cheese if I was having a bad day and I couldn't shut up the rumbling in my belly. If I didn't pack a lunch and someone forced my hand, I'd buy a granola bar or some snack cakes from the lunch line, take a couple of nibbles, and then complain that something tasted "off," or wrap it up to eat "later" and then "forget" it at the table. If I went off-campus for lunch with my friends, I'd order the smallest, cheapest thing on the menu, eat no more than six bites, and then "accidentally" drop it on the floor, or share almost everything I had with others. If I had lunch in the choir or the band room, I'd bring nothing, and nobody ever noticed.

Most days, I'd eat just enough at supper time to keep anyone from being suspicious. A few spoonfuls of rice, a couple of bites of chicken, a handful of broccoli. I was always doing some kind of extracurricular activity or another anyway, swimming or drama or choir or newspaper, and my parents and my sisters were always running around somewhere else, so in the constant flow of noise and traffic, it was pretty easy to not be caught. I'd complain about not getting the last piece of whatever, or make a stink about there not being any cookies, while all the while I was secretly hoping that nobody started thinking that I was protesting too much.

Many days I couldn't hide or deny how hungry I was, so I would eat a meal or two like a "normal" person, as small as I could possibly manage, all the while silently (and not so silently) cursing and disparaging myself for being so weak, for giving in to my "baser" urges, and then not eating for two days afterwards. I would have days, weeks, months where I would find myself thinking, "If only I didn't eat today." When I managed to successfully get through a day without eating what I thought was "too much," I would go to bed thinking, "If only I don't eat tomorrow." The longer I could pull off not eating, the better I felt about myself -- not that I ever felt that great, or even at all good, even on my best day.

I had headaches all the time, I was irritable, grouchy, emotionally unstable, manic and then morose. Just about always miserable, not matter how much I tried to pretend otherwise -- it was convenient, perhaps, that this happened when I was in my teens, what that sort of outward behavior was common, expected. At one stretch I managed to go for about 4½ days without putting anything in my body that wasn't water; at the end of it I ended up with the worst migraine I ever had, backstage on opening night of the fall play my senior year, seeing colors and hearing sounds that were most definitely not there, trying to not pass out or throw up and still remember my lines. I ended up drinking a milkshake so that everyone would leave me alone.

I've been in and out of therapy for the last twenty-odd years, since I was about sixteen, and this is something that I have never, not once, told any of my therapists. Somehow, and I still don't know how, I managed to keep myself disconnected from the disorder, whatever it was. I didn't binge and purge, so I wasn't bulimic, and I didn't completely not eat, so I wasn't really anorexic, so on some level I had myself convinced that nothing was really wrong, even though I knew it was. When my habits changed and I gained weight and got fat, I would complain about and analyze all the things I did wrong to end up like that. We talked about my overeating, my emotional connection to food, my dependency on carbohydrate-based endorphins, but I never, ever told a single therapist that I used to intentionally, voluntarily, purposefully let myself starve.

I don't know if anyone in my family or any of my friends ever knew. If they did, we never talked about it. Like a stereotypical addict, I tried to hide my behavior. And as it turned out, I was never super-skinny, not like any other anorectic I've seen before or since. The weight I was when I graduated from high school is actually a healthy weight: 135 pounds is totally fine for a person of my size. A five-foot tall woman who weighs 135 pounds could probably stand to lose a few, honestly, but it's definitely not anywhere approaching obese.

And 135 pounds is my goal weight. Because it is a perfectly healthy weight.

I mention all this because, as I said yesterday, I am worried that I am starting to fall back into bad habits again, habits that I need to work really hard to avoid. As I get closer to my goal, my daily calorie limit gets smaller, and I am getting more and more eager to drop more and more weight faster. Something I am doing, and I don't really know what it is, is triggering for me. I catch myself thinking: "If I just skip lunch today ..." or "If I just do this workout again ..." and I have to, literally sometimes, pinch myself. Stop myself. Remind myself.

These behaviors, these attitudes, are not healthy. I know this. Healthy people, physically and mentally and emotionally healthy people, do not hate themselves for having to eat. They do not find themselves negotiating with their own brains that it is perfectly okay to eat a banana for breakfast, that one banana will not lead to an endless loop of shame, that it will not start a downward spiral of doom and gloom and unending negative self-talk. A banana is not a "gateway drug," and it won't make you start eating constantly, all the time, never stopping except to sleep, like a shark.

Healthy people just see a banana. Bananas are good; they're full of B vitamins and potassium and fiber and vitamin C and all kinds of good things that help prevent cancer and hypertension. They're yellow and happy, the color of sunshine, and they taste of the tropics. Bananas are ... bananas. They are not the enemy. I have to almost force myself to see this, sometimes, instead of seeing 90 calories that maybe I don't really need to be eating.

Because I know this: I do need those calories. I also know this. After a lifetime of having a messed-up relationship with food and my body, I need to find "normal." I know that "normal" is different for everybody, and I need to find mine. Sometimes I think it is too late, that I waited too long, that I will never look like the image of the "perfect me" that I have in my head, that I will never stop looking like the "imperfect me" that I still feel that everyone sees. I don't really look at myself in the mirror much, and that is okay with me, because I am still at a point where I know I don't like what I see. I need to ease myself into liking myself again, or at least tolerating myself again. Perhaps tolerating myself for the first time.

This is why "the numbers" are such a fixation: calories, weight, pant sizes, bra sizes. Numbers are absolute. I just need to keep reminding myself that my absolute number is not going to be, cannot be, will not be, will not ever be, zero.

12W12S11: Bean and Ham Soup

I lost 4½ pounds last week. I don't get it either. Except for the exercising, I did exactly nothing different. I don't believe that 84-88 minutes of cardio-Pilates made that much of a difference, but who knows.

I also think that, unfortunately, I am going to have to change my goals soon, because when I lose more than 11 pounds, Lose It tells me that I will be eating under 1,200 calories per day, and that doesn't seem very reasonable to me. I've been doing okay with these gradual calorie drops, but I just think that fewer than 1,200 calories is not  healthy. It certainly won't be sustainable -- how am I going to keep from porking back up when I reach my goal and start eating "regular" again? But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Probably won't be for another few weeks or so. At that point I think I will change my weight-loss goals from 2 lbs. per week to 1½ lbs.

On the other hand: I am now closing in a weight that begins with a "1"! If you had told me back in May 2010 that I would be at this point right now, I would have laughed in your face. This might be the longest I have ever been on a continuous, sustained diet in maybe ever. So go me!

At this point in the proceedings, I'll come right out and tell you that I've been eating a lot of soup. I like soup, especially in the winter time, and it's pretty cheap and easy to make a relatively healthy lunch out of a can of soup. I try to watch my sodium as much as possible, and go with lower-sodium varieties, but one of the things that I like the most about soup is the saltiness. Don't know why, and I'm sure it's entirely psychosomatic, but I tend to feel more satisfied after I eat salty foods -- maybe it's all the extra water I drink afterwards, to try to compensate. Not sure.

I still like to make a nice family dinner on Sundays, so I've been going the soup route lately. It's pretty easy to make a soup that will satisfy the people in my house who are not on a diet and still make something that fits into my particular limitations. Last night, we had a wonderful bean and ham soup that took only 1½ hours to make, was totally delicious (I'd have brought the leftovers today if my husband hadn't snagged them), and was completely diet-friendly. I could still have a nice slab of bread with it, and everybody knows that broth-soaked bread is the best part of a family dinner. Here's the recipe (see asterisks at the end for possible adjustments).

Bean and Ham Soup
(This receipe makes 4-5 servings)

• 2 cans Great Northern beans, undrained*
• 12-ounce bag large-cut mirepoix*
• 1 clove garlic, minced*
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ teaspoon mustard powder
• 1 quart vegetable stock*
• 1 pound ham steak, chopped or diced*
• Pepper to taste

In a large stockpot, combine beans, mirepoix, garlic, bay leaf, mustard powder, and stock. Bring to boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add ham and pepper. Stir to combine well. Adjust seasonings as needed. Cover and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove cover and simmer for an additional 10-20 minutes or until soup is desired thickness. Serve with crusty bread, if desired.

*Adjustments*:

1. If you want to use a different kind of bean, go for it. The recipe I based this on called for Great Northern, so that's what I used, but navy beans would work well, and probably split peas. Also, I used canned beans, but of course you can use the equivalent of dried beans that have been soaked. In that case, you might want to add a ham bone and bay leaf to the soaking water, if you're into that kind of thing (discard the bone before finishing the soup). Also also, my husband said that he would actually like more beans, so next time I'm going to use three cans of beans. I thought this came out a little bit salty, so if I can't find reduced-sodium broth next time, I will rinse the beans and add extra water.
2. I buy already cut mirepoix at Wegman's because I am a lazy-ass, and also because celery tends to go limp before I use it all, so in this case, there is less waste. If you want to cut your own vegetables, the equivalent would be approximately 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, and 1 small or ½ large onion. You can obviously use more or less to taste (more veggies = better!). I will probably use 2 bags of veggies next time because I like veggies. And I use the large-cut instead of the standard small dice because my husband likes his vegetables chunky. In this particular case, I think the large cut was the way to go because nothing got super mushy.
3. Use more or less garlic to taste.
4. You use chicken stock instead, but I'm into vegetable stock right now, so that's what I used. I recommend using a lower-sodium stock if you can find one; otherwise, definitely rinse your beans. I did not have to add any salt at all to this soup, and as I mentioned, this was a little bit salty, even for me.
5. Use more or less ham to taste. We used a 1¼-lb. country ham steak and discarded the bone. It was perfect, just fell apart the right amount but still had a nice meaty texture and delicious flavor. I highly recommend using a bit of ham that has some marbling in it and some fat around the edges. You can trim this off if you want, but it gives an excellent flavor, and since there is almost no fat in the rest of the soup, you won't be overdoing it.

If you make it, let me know if you like it!

12W12S11: Roundup

Busy busy busy today, so here are a few quick thoughts on this past week before my weigh-in tomorrow.

• I actually managed to do my Pilates video four days in a row. It only gets slightly easier after the first day -- the exercises themselves are fine, but I absolutely cannot pick up the choreography.
• I can't believe that someone who eats as much fiber as I do somehow only manages to poop twice a week.
• I can't believe that someone who drinks as much water as I do still has skin like a lizard.
• I would really, really like a pizza. A whole pizza. With sausage, peppers, onions, and mushrooms. And a really big vat-sized Mountain Dew.
• I tried very hard to get video of Shae going along with my "exercise show," but she watched it for all of a minute and a half last night, declared it "stupid," and wandered off to play Hello Kitty bingo in her Barbie tent by herself.
• Can somebody please get me a pizza? And maybe some breadsticks?
• Apparently my sister left a "Biggest Loser" yoga video at my mom's, so I am going to look for that over the weekend and see how I can fit that in with my Pilates.
• Actually I should probably call it "Pilates" because what Mari Winsor teaches might be Pilates, but what I am doing in my living probably is most definitely NOT.
• I really have to focus on my form when I am exercising, otherwise I will forget to concentrate and I will spend the entire 21 minutes trying to work out what, exactly, is going on with the demonstration girl's abs. They move weird, like loose skin over tight muscles, kind of like a snake or something. It's profoundly weird.
• Not sure whether the exercise has made any difference yet. My clothes all feel the same. None of my muscles hurt or anything. I have had less trouble falling asleep lately, but I wake up more to go potty, because I am drinking a lot more water late in the day.
• WHERE THE HELL IS THAT PIZZA AND THOSE BREADSTICKS AND MY HOT FUDGE SUNDAE?

Further bulletins as events warrant. Have a nice weekend!

12W12S11: In Which I Attempt Pilates

As threatened (or promised), the End Times are definitely upon us, because I actually busted out my new exercise video last night -- and used it.

The good news, as I tweeted at the time:

As of this morning, nothing appears to be missing, broken, or otherwise nonfunctional. So that's a good thing. And I did get all the way through the entire workout without stopping once for a nap or a cigarette. BONUS!

But the bad news is that I never, not once, felt so uncoordinated IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. And remember that I am a white girl from the suburbs who has, on more than one occasion, compared her own dancing to Elaine Benes's.

My sister warned me in the comments that I would have a hard time -- "impossible to do on the first day" were her exact words -- but I thought that meant, you know, that she didn't expect me to actually remain vertical the whole time. I honestly didn't realize that she meant that the moves were going to be basically indecipherable.

Don't get me wrong: they're not so incomprehensible as to turn me off completely. But you watch this DVD and you think, "How hard can it be to do a full-body stretch?" And then you try it and you discover ... pretty damn hard, especially when you are thinking about proper form and remembering to breathe and trying to figure out just what in the hell I'm supposed to be doing with my hands there.

But as far as exercise videos go, this one was okay, and I can honestly say that it's something I can do. It was only about 22 minutes, and I was so confused the whole time that it was over before I had a chance to think about it too much. Of course my sister was right and it was "impossible" to do entirely correctly on the first try, but I will keep working on it. It's short enough that I can fit it in right before bed and not stress too much about it.

And, except for the fact that I felt like a complete goon, I actually kind of enjoyed it. So I'll be doing it again.

Right now my plan is to do this workout 4x a week -- Mondays through Thursdays, the nights my husband works -- for the next six weeks. For the first two weeks, while I am still learning the positions and the working on getting my form correct, I will be doing it without the provided hand weights. No sense in holding dumbbells until I know I won't accidentally fling them through the television. For the two weeks after that, I will use the 1-lb. weights that came with the kit, and for the two weeks after that, I will "upgrade" to 2-lb. weights. (This is an off-label upgrade, but I am concerned about my flappy chicken arms, still and always.) We'll see where we are at that point.

I don't expect miraculous results, and in fact I expect that at the end of this, I will probably have to switch to something a little "harder-core," or at least something targeted for Pilates beginners and not complete nitwits like me. But I picked Pilates on purpose because it is low-intensity but still targeted at the "core," the abs and back. These are the areas that I most want to work on, especially if I want to buy regular jeans in a regular store. Gotta get looking a little less like Mrs. Potato Head in the midsection for that to happen.

This video had a nice cardio component as well, which I like. Start small, sure, but START. It was 22 minutes of elevated heart rate and heavy breathing, but without all the nasty sweat that I dislike so much. I'm sure that will come in time, as I figure out what I'm doing, but for now I am pleased with the start. I'm not going to look like Jillian Michaels after six weeks -- and honestly, I don't really want to -- but if my muffin has a little less top, I'll be happy with that.

12W12S11: Resolved

I don't really make New Year's resolutions any more because I tend not to keep them, which is why you haven't seen much about them this year. But just because I am not making resolutions, that does not mean that I can't keep setting goals for myself. (Yes, I know that sentence structure is nothing short of tortured, but since I didn't make any resolutions, you can't ding me for my failure to stop mangling the English language.)

I weighed myself this morning and I am officially back down to my pre-Christmas weight, plus I lost an additional ½ pound, so I'm going to go ahead and say that cutting myself some slack over the holiday weight gain was probably a good idea. I've had bigger things to deal with, anyway. But I need to get focused again, because I really, really want this trendline to get a lot steeper.

It's a good line so far; definitely movement in a downward direction. But when I originally started tracking my weight loss on Lose It, it said it was going to hit my goal weight of 135 lbs. around Labor Day, and now it's been adjusted to mid-October, and I don't want to drag it out any longer. Because we've scheduled our family vacation at the beach for the week of Labor Day, and I really want to be within 5 lbs. of that goal weight by then.

That's kind of a long-term goal, though, so I've given myself another one: I want to buy new jeans at the beginning of March, and when I do, I want to buy them at a regular store. And not just any store, either, but The Gap. This is my benchmark, my target, my personal Nirvana. I want to be able to walk into The Gap at the King of Prussia Mall and actually walk out with a pair of jeans.

I'm so serious about this that I actually bought an exercise video today. It might be a sign of the End Times, but I'm choosing to look at it as a sign of the New World Order. The one where I can shop at The Gap again. It's been a long time. I'm getting tired of waiting. I'm ready.

12W12S11: Sleepytime Snack

I don't know why "full-time" "professional" diet bloggers say you should regularly post pictures of what you're eating. I know only like three people read this particular sub-blog anyway, but I also eat a lot of the same stuff day after day -- e.g., for breakfast I either have yogurt-and-a-carb, oatmeal-with-dried-fruit, bread-product-with-cheese-and-meat, Egg Beaters, or cereal (plus additional fruit later in the morning) -- and I can't imagine anyone would want to look at pictures of the basic boring crap I eat all the time. I don't even want to look at it half the time. I just want to eat it.

But just in case you're interested, here's a picture of my bedtime snack for today:

(Not actual size.)

If you're keeping score at home, that's a cup of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Vanilla herbal tea (made with a splash of fat-free half-and-half and two packets of Splenda, because I am out of Equal, which I usually use) and a Stella D'oro Breakfast Treat (yes! they still make those! and they are still awesome!).

The reason why I am having this particular snack/dessert is because I am having a hard time getting on a regular "new" sleep schedule with my husband on his new shift, and ... well, let's be completely honest. My SAD is back and I really probably ought to take something for the standard garden-variety depression that I have all the time anyway but I don't like what some SSRI's do to me (flat affect, weight gain, restful but not restorative sleep, diminished libido) and I'm scared of herbal remedies because with my luck I'll end up taking valerian root pills that have been tainted with lead and PCP and rat poison and tapeworm larvae and crystal meth or something, and then where would I be?

So I'm going the herbal tea-and-crumpet route. Because even if it doesn't work at helping me sleep, at least it's a nice little treat. I highly recommend the vanilla Sleepytime Tea -- it's lovely with that little bit of milk in there, but I like most of my tea with milk anyway.

I understand the Benadryl I took should help, too.

(Incidentally ... I am also going to try the Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea tomorrow at work, to see if it helps me handle work stress any better. Worst case scenario is that it will do nothing, and I'm out $2.29, but I see that the blend has catnip in it, so if drinking it doesn't work at first, I might try smoking it. I mean, seriously, we give our cats 'nip all the time, and they are the least-stressed beings on the planet.)

12W12S11: In the Night Kitchen

My husband is working nights four days a week now, so we've switched up our schedule and now I'm the one who picks up Shae at school and makes dinner. And even though I probably shouldn't admit this out loud due to the principle of "careful what you wish for" -- I kind of prefer it this way.

He's a perfectly respectable cook -- he makes some of the best Tuna Helper I've ever eaten -- but he's an engineer, which kind of means that he can't really make a meal without directions. This is not always a problem, because a lot of what we eat for dinner is simple enough, but I'm the one who likes to whip up concoctions in the kitchen.

I will not claim that I am a chef by any stretch of the imagination -- my skills are barely passable on my very best day, and my knife work is atrocious -- but if you've seen any of the recipes I've posted before, what I lack in a traditional culinary background, I more than make up for with cleverness.

And, let's face it, a decent palate. I didn't get to looking like I do without enjoying food, you know?

The point of all this is, when I whip up something I am particularly proud or fond of, I'll tell you here. And tonight was one of those nights. For dinner we had:

• chicken sausage, flavored with spinach and feta cheese
• "super pasta," made with whole grains, extra protein, and omega-3 acids
• sauce made from canned diced tomatoes with sautéed spinach and minced onion
• sautéed zucchini and onion with balsamic vinaigrette glaze

Not too shabby for someone who thinks Tom Colicchio is kind of a tool, no?