1. Cooking/eating more vegetarian, especially beans/legumes & veggies.
   
2. Paying more attention to portion sizes and my own satiety.
   
3. Drinking more coffee. (No milk. No sugar.)
   
4. Investigating things like a pressure cooker which will make cooking faster/easier.
   

And NOT doing…

1. So far, no exercise.
   

One thing at a time, I suppose. One good sign is that I’m hungrier, which means I’m eating a little less and waiting for hunger before eating.

It’s been kind of a crazy few days. My family is basically in the throes of a big ongoing serious financial discussion that promises to change the status quo, one way or another. And it’s very upsetting and stressful to me. I’m the kind of gal who loves a routine, and enjoys getting all familiar and sentimental and in a groove. Alas, my husband sees HIS current groove (employment-wise) as a rut, and he’s running around upsetting things, trying desperately to shake them up. My instinct is to just hope his feelings go away — I’ve been clinging to this hope for years now — but I’m pretty sure they won’t, and we’re headed for major change.

What does this have to do with diet, health and fitness? Well, it turns out I do pretty well, diet-wise, unless I’m stressed or lonely or….

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I wrote that a few weeks ago, and I was right… now we are looking at moving, yes… moving. This time it’s pretty major, involving changing jobs, changing states, selling major assets. It might as well be changing countries, our expected lifestyle will be so different. Hopefully we’ll also be less poor, we’ll have more room, and we’ll be closer to family. Fingers crossed.

I’ve always resisted affirmations. For one thing, they usually sound so cheesy and new-agey, and who really believes that saying something can make it so? (All of the fans of “The Secret,” that’s who.) Anyway, I just thought it wasn’t for me.

This time around, however, I’m finding myself naturally, spontaneously, looking for positive things to think, to replace the negative things that normally fill my mind. I hesitate to even give the negative things the brain space they’ll occupy as I get them onto paper, but I mean things like, “I’ve been on WW so many times and failed,” and “I’m so deprived, why can’t I eat like a normal person?” Instead, I’m trying to come up with positive ideas — not crazy out-there ideas, but realistic down-to-earth things to think. Things like, “I am eating things that help my body work better,” and “I’m progressing to a place where eating healthy will feel more natural,” and “I love fresh fruits and vegetables, when they’re prepared well.”

I’m consciously deciding not to focus on some fuzzy future in which I can wear size 10 clothes and do a triathlon. When I start thinking about stuff like that, I inevitably get discouraged by the distance between that future and today’s reality. But the idea that I love broccoli (true, by the way!) is an easy and good one to keep in mind. The idea that this is a process — “every day, in every way, it’s getting better and better” — is a useful one, too.

Whenever those icky “I am a failure” ideas — complete hooey, by the way — come into my mind, I want to have something positive to combat them. Mental jujitsu. I wonder how many activity points that will net me…

Here we are, almost at the end of January, so it’s time for a wee check-in to see how I’ve been doing regarding my resolution to write down all my food/drink intake. How have I been doing? Uh.. not so great. SparkPeople, however free, was just a pain to use. I feel pathetically lazy saying this, but I just wasn’t interested in logging in and picking foods from a list (and stressing out about whether they were on there or not, and whether my approximations were anywhere close to the mark). I also don’t really want to count calories at the moment. Instead, I’ve now come up with a dead easy way of keeping a food diary that I’m rather proud of.

I am a big fan of Google Docs, which is basically an online, shareable version of Microsoft Office. I’ve set up a spreadsheet with the date in the left column, and slots for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and general thoughts to the right. I’m pretty much always logged on, so there’ll be no need to type in a username and password. I can bookmark the actual document itself and go right there (and leave) anytime I want. And in my quest to be more accountable and reap the benefits of the community (you noticed my first-ever “before” picture on here, right?), I’ll share the actual document with you here. If it’s really easy, and it is, I figure I’ll be more likely to actually do it. We’re only 2 days in, but so far, so good.

Ah, the predictable New Year’s resolution entry. I guess I’m switching it up a little by making it in advance of January 1 (if I manage to publish). Or maybe I’m switching it up by NOT resolving to lose weight. Yes, you heard that right.

What I’m resolving, instead, to do, is to begin journaling — writing down what I’m eating. I’ve been casting about for a tool for which to do this — I want to keep it super simple, and I was planning to avoid any calorie counting. But I’ve settled on the free (always a plus!) SparkPeople site. It’s full of advertising and super cluttered, but it’s fairly full-featured and seems like it will work for my purposes.

What are my purposes? I want to simply become more aware of what I’m sticking in my mouth. Lately, it’s been like “why not?” is the answer whenever I contemplate eating something else, even when I’m not hungry. I just want to give myself a second thought — time to ponder why I shouldn’t (or should) have that next bite, that next serving, that next whatever. Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? I need to pay more attention, and expect a journal will help me attend to such things.

As I’ve been wallowing in the pit of “something has got to change, but what?” I’ve started checking out the Dietgirl.org archives. Like from the very very beginning, when she was 351 lbs and first stepped on the scale at Weight Watchers.

What’s inspiring to me there is that she has these entries that hint at (or state) the kind of self-pity and self-hate with which I’m so familiar. There are posts when she talks about low points and feeling down. And, yet, she triumphs. I mean, of course it must be a continual struggle — you really can imagine it in those early days — but she manages to stay positive more often than not. (I am guilty, I know, of writing here when I am more negative, and want to spill my guts, rather than keeping a “chin up” attitude.)

I’ve got a lot more challenges than she. Every single morning and evening are spoken for by a certain pair of boys. (Like right now I can hear one creeping up the stairs while the other sits here in his jumping chair.) So it’s not just a matter of, “I’ll go to the gym tonight.” Still, it isn’t impossible, either. And I’ve got my husband’s support — at least he says he will support me, though his actions may be a little different.

The couple of times I lost weight successfully, life was fairly low-pressure. It was my last semester of college, when I only had a couple of classes left to go before I graduated. (70 lbs gone, but not forever!) And, another time, things were a little more intense, but I just had my food delivered to my door every day, so I didn’t have to make any choices (about 40-50 lbs gone and back that time). As soon as the stress ratcheted up, so did my weight. I’m not going to be able to re-create those situations now, that’s for sure, but maybe I tailor my weight-loss efforts to these times. I try to exercise 1x a week, rather than signing up for a triathlon. I can watch portion sizes more, banish “seconds” and go easy on the butter, rather than going gung-ho into low-fat, no-calorie everything (since I need to cook stuff that’s palatable to the family). Honestly, I’ve been eating so badly, and so crazily, lately — and it’s been ME, not the family — that there is plenty of room for improvement.

The question is, do I join WW online so I have some kind of points guideline — and risk feeling like a failure if I go over? Or so I just start doing it on my own, saving money and possibliy sanity — and risk failing for lack of accountability? I’m leaning toward #2. Just in the last couple of days I’ve been more mindful, paying attention to what I put in my mouth and noticing when I’m satisfied, and I already feel better. Maybe it’s enough to start like this.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend from college — who I’ve largely lost touch with since — asked me to be her friend on Facebook. I accepted, and then spent a lot of time scruitinizing her photos. Why? Well, I know from Googling, and from another friend, that she had weight loss surgery. And I am jealous.

I have mostly been trying to be at peace with myself at my current weight, and thinking I merely need to start exercising and eating better for my health, not for my appearance. But seeing this friend’s pictures, and observing my reaction to them, makes me realize that there’s a part of me that really would like to just be in a normal weight range. To be able to buy clothes in a normal store, or feel that, occasionally, I looked nice. These are things I long for. But how to achieve them?

I have rambled around, seemingly endlessly, on this blog, going from potential solution to potential solution — Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, home-delivered meals, anti-fat pills, mindful eating. It’s kind of depressing to think about it, actually. And I’ve gone through steady periods — 2 nine-month pregnancies — of not worrying about it much at all. But nothing has really stuck.

And it scares me, to really TRY something, to embark upon a journey of hope, and potentially of failure. Again. But it’s also clear that something has got to change. I catch myself, during times of stress — which is almost always, nowadays — stuffing my face with sweets, or whatever’s at hand, really. I seem to always need to be extremely full, but I don’t pay much attention to whether I’m hungry, or satisfied. My portion sizes are really crazy. I am almost always, always eating. Needless to say, it’s bad news — both for my health (mental) and for my appearance.

So, I’ve been pondering joining Weight Watchers online again. They have a new mobile application that I could use on my phone. Maybe I just need a little shock to the system — something to get me back in tune with my body, eating more fruit and vegetables, and aware of proper portion sizes. Obviously, I also need some exercise. I’ve got a bit of a plan in that regard.

And then there’s the part of me that just wants to SCREAM. I can’t believe I’m writing a post like this AGAIN! Haven’t I made ANY progress in all this time? *Sigh* I’m too hard on myself, I know. I’ve had two kids, nursing them both for quite a long time (9 months for #1, going on 7 for #2). I’ve moved across the country twice. I’ve settled into a marriage. I’ve held two pretty-demanding jobs. I just haven’t quite gotten the food and exercise thing right, and it’s festering.

I’ve been pretty much completely offline for a couple of weeks — visiting family in TX with the two boys — and I’m SO glad to be back. Loved catching up on the antics of my favorite diet/exercise bloggers tonight, and look forward to more updates of my own as I begin to return to a regular schedule (no more maternity leave) as of Monday. Yippee!

Hello!!! I’ve missed this blog, and anything else other than nursing and mothering, over the past couple of weeks. It’s good to be back!

A couple of snippets of news. I’d reached around 250 lbs with the pregnancy, but lost around 20 just with the delivery. Approx 7 lbs of baby, some placenta, amniotic fluid, etc. — gone, instantly. Now I’m breastfeeding like crazy and hoping to drop some more poundage. The great thing is that I’ve actually been craving HEALTHY things, unbelievably. Fruits, whole grains, etc. have all been high on my list post-partum, and I’m just totally going with it. Of course, I’ve been eating the odd ice cream (and an occasional frozen yogurt when I go out), so it’s not like I’m on the picture-perfect diet. Still, it’s generally been good and there’s been no real binging. Weighed myself this morning and I’m down another 4 lbs. I think perhaps the nursing has gotten me hyper-aware of the “food as fuel” concept — if I go too long without eating it’s scary the way my body reacts, and so I want to keep it fueled up as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The current fitness plan (to begin in the next couple of weeks) is to do the “Couch to 5K” program, and pick a target 5K to participate in. Was thinking of the Race for the Cure on Sept 14, and still may do that. But my potential training partner (yes! I have one of those now!) will be out of town that weekend — though she’s still up for training with me, anyway. So I need to either settle on that race, or find another that we can both run in. Must scour local race schedule.

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One of the biggest weights on my mind may soon be lightened. We (finally) got an offer on our house, and our counter-offer was accepted. So we are in contract and set to close around July 20. It wasn’t that close to our asking price, but it looks to be fair, given comparables in the area, so we are pleased. The house (and the uncertainty surrounding it) has been sort of draining us dry, what with expenses like trash pick-up, water, electricity, gas, etc. that we’ve been paying for, but not using. Not to mention the mortgage! Anyway, fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly in the next stages of the process, and that we actually close as expected. It’d be fantastic to get that behind us, as we ramp up to doubling our child care expenses when I go back to work.

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What else? Well, things with the little one are really nice, though demanding. He’s eating and gaining weight like a champ. We are also set to go on a big trip for a family wedding in Italy. (Not that we can afford it, but they came to our wedding despite difficult financial circumstances…) So, that’s exciting, but I have nothing to wear! Ok, baby crying so this is a good time to call this post quits. Until next time…

As my earlier-chronicled body woes have mounted, I’ve been giving serious thought to asking to work from home every day. It would save me from getting dressed in nicer-looking but fairly-constricting clothing. It would save me from tramping up and down stairs and sweating in crowded subways. And it would save me an hour to an hour-and-a-half of time wasted going back and forth to the office.

But… it would also mean I’d be at home alone all day — isolated and probably lonely. I might feel out of the loop at work, even more than I already do. I wouldn’t get the exercise of walking through my commute. I’d live in yoga pants and the like, which might get me down about my appearance. I’d also potentially feel like a bit of a failure, since my ever-expanding body would be keeping me confined to my home, essentially.

On the other hand, this is temporary. I’m 8 months pregnant, and I need to take it easy on myself. It’s cheaper to stay at home, too, as I’d save the commuting dollars and the expenses of eating out. I don’t interact much with the folks in my office, anyway — most of my work gets done over e-mail, or IM, or the phone.

Aargh. I really don’t know. I am already working from home 2x a week. Maybe I’ll just continue with this “wait and see” attitude until I get too miserable to continue the commute. As you can tell, I’m torn. I’m not ready to surrender to the pregnancy yet — though it will definitely happen, even if it’s at the moment I go into labor. I’m too invested in my job and I want to remain relevant as long as possible. Then again, why not go ahead and work from home, or take advantage of the opportunity and go out on (mostly-paid) maternity leave before the actual labor begins, so I’ll have a few days to relax? Hmmm…