HOLIDAY RECAP

Buffalo chicken dip, garlic-Parmesan dip, potato chips, baked ham, fried ham sandwiches, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni salad, potato salad, ham and bean soup, beef barbecue, spinach dip, cashew patties, peanut-butter rice krispie squares, chocolate-coated pretzels, Glogg, nogg, deviled eggs, cheese, crab dip, giant Reese's peanut butter cups, bagels with cream cheese, panettone French toast, spam, chili, cheddar-oregano bread, Christmas cookies, whoopie pies, Mike's Hard Lemonade, ring bologna, Christmas ale, apple dumplings, pasta salad, croissants, Brandy Swizzle's, truffles, chocolate mints, chocolate cherries, toffee, Poppycock popcorn, expensive Cognac...  This is everything, well almost everything (there is a space limit on this server) that I've been exposed to in the last 72 hours.  Talk about dodging bullets!  It is amazing that I am still intact!

I have eaten some things on the list, but I have also chosen to skip some stuff too.  It has been a non-stop food buffet since December 23rd.  Between the food I myself have prepared, the food that has been delivered by friends and neighbors, and the food shoved in my face at various holiday parties and family get-togethers, it is amazing that everything I've achieved in the last eight weeks hasn't been flushed down the commode.  For the most part, I have handled it well.  I have not gone "mad" with my eating and have continued with my workouts.  There has been a definite increase in calorie consumption this week, but I am worlds ahead of what took place last Christmas.  I suspect that I will have an extra pound or two to work off between now and New Year's Day, but nothing that I foresee as any kind of major setback.  I have out-of-town guests staying with me so the pressure to cook and keep a well-stocked fridge has definitely added to the burden.  Luckily my house guests are fitness gurus and pretty self-sufficient in the eating department.  If anything, I'm sure Santa's bakeshop has been more a hindrance to them, then their eating has been to me.  Nonetheless, I'm sure you can agree that the more people you have cooking and eating in your house, the higher the chances that you will overeat.

I realize I have been lax on the entries lately.  Please forgive me.  I'm sure once the holidays pass and my home is mine again to do with what I want, I will be back on schedule with my daily entries.  Until then, I wish all of you the Merriest Christmas and hope that you too can successfully navigate the onslaught of holiday calories headed your way!

"I am not a glutton--I am an explorer of food" -Erma Bombeck

PULLING AWAY FROM THREE-HUNDRED

Yesterday was "Weigh-In Tuesday" and I'm happy to report that I have lost 4 more pounds!  This makes a total of 18 pounds.  Yea!!  I am slowly pulling away from the dreaded three-hundred pound mark and I am almost a safe thirty pounds from that nightmare.  Thank God!  Can you hear me exhale a sigh of relief!?  aaahhhh.....  Who'd think a person would ever be happy just to weigh less than three-hundred pounds!  I guess everything is relative.  The next threshold to cross will be the big two-fifty and then maybe I can safely say that I no longer weigh as much as a black bear.  Even though a number like this is so far from my personal goal, I still think it is important to set mini-goals along the way and celebrate every win you can.  It definitely helps to keep a yard-stick as a reminder of how far you've come.  I successfully kept my head to the grindstone this week and it paid off, but now it's time to enter...THE HOLIDAY ZONE!!  >>Reek Reek<<  More on that later.

“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.” -Richard Bach 

BACK TO BASICS

Did you ever notice how good food tastes when you are on a diet??  Any kind of food!  Health food!  Fattening food!  Food you don't like!  I woke up this morning with a ferocious appetite.  I'm not sure why I was so hungry- maybe because for the last seven days I've really been towing the line.  I was starving!  My hunger has been insatiable all day and I find it pretty funny how most of what I ate I would find totally unappealing if I weren't on a diet.

I made myself a steak sandwich at around 10:30 this morning.  I wasn't playin'!  Waiting around for lunch or dinner was not an option and my usual morning meal of fiber cereal and fruit was not gonna cut it.  So I cooked up some steak with some bell peppers, added a bunch of hot peppers, then mixed in a little jack cheese.  I loaded this onto a lightly mayo-ed whole wheat roll and topped it with thinly sliced tomatoes that had been salted and sprinkled with oregano.  When I tell you it's the best damn thing I've ever eaten, believe that I am not lying!  What's funny is I HATE tomatoes.  I'm cool with tomato sauce and tomato products.  I can even handle diced tomatoes if they're firm and have been seeded, but the Earthy, slimy, seedy, make all your sandwiches soggy variety, will deter me from eating whatever they've been placed on.  Not today!  I'm also not a big fan of "hot" food.  I can take a little heat, but once it becomes a five alarm fire I usually walk.

Later in the day I thought I was going to pass out from sensory overload when I had some Melba Toast and cheese with some grapes as a snack.  You heard me...MELBA TOAST!!  Are you kidding me?!?  That's like getting excited over a rice cake!  I found the whole situation pretty amusing and it got me to thinking about how Americans overindulge on everything to the point where most things aren't enjoyable anymore.  I think our quality of life suffers a great deal as a result of this.  Think about it.  We overeat, overspend, over-text, we overdo the holidays, we drive cars that are ten times bigger than what we need, we hoard, we over-watch TV, we drink too much, smoke too much, work too much!  When did the American dream become all about excess...??  The only thing we don't overdo are things that are actually good for us!

I remember a time when driving was enjoyable- when it was fun to go cruising, take a road trip, or a Sunday drive.  Not anymore!  I understand a lot has to do with the change in traffic patterns, but I also think it is because we drive ten times more than we once did.  I love to watch people move their cars two blocks.  I think, "really, you live less than three blocks away and you can't just walk to the store for your newspaper?!"  And when did everybody start driving their kids to the bus stop!?!  Jesus!  No wonder we are overweight in this country!  We're giving our kids a ride, to their ride!

We have ruined for ourselves just about every good experience there is in life and I'm the first to admit that I've done it with food.  Absolute, unnecessary, total excess!  I can tell you that food hasn't tasted anywhere near as good as it has in the last few weeks, and I KNOW it's because I took it for granted and ate and ate and ate as mindlessly as I could.  What a lesson learned!  If you truly are a foodie then you should care enough to respect the experience.  Someone who truly values food will not overindulge to the point of being unhealthy.  Learn to limit yourself and I promise all things will become more enjoyable.

My husband and I recently went two years without television.  What an experiment!  The whole time all we heard from others was, "you're not missing much because the programming stinks!"  There most definitely has been a decline in programing, but I'm sure that's because we now have an excessive 150 stations on average, instead of the 6 or 8 channels we once did.  But I have to tell you, I really enjoy the few hours of television I watch per week.  Notice I said, a few hours per week, not a few hours per day!  Going without the Telly taught me to focus on more meaningful things.  I read more, exercise more, clean more.  As a couple, my husband and I were talk more and have actual sit-down meals in our dining room- not just balancing a plate of food on our laps in front of the boob tube.  Not only did other things in my life become more meaningful, but so did the act of watching TV.

Excess is everywhere but it is up to you to pick and chose how much you will indulge on things.  Think about your life today.  What things are you abusing?  What is it that you might be overindulging on, and has that overindulgence caused you to appreciate the experience less??  I appreciate food a whole lot more now that I make more conservative choices.  Perhaps we all just need to consider getting back to basics.

"The proximity of a desirable thing temps one to overindulge.  On that path lies danger." -Frank Herbert

THE VISION BOARD

If I'm going to keep Katie Fantastic on top and Barbells on the bottom I best get with the motivation.  It is for this reason that I pulled out of the closet my "Vision Board."  Time to give this thing an update!  For those of you unfamiliar, a vision board is a visualization tool used to help manifest one's hopes and dreams into real-life accomplishments.  It reached the peak of popularity when the DVD "The Secret" was released.  Soon everyone from Oprah to my dental hygienist was doing vision boards.

You create a vision board by pasting some collected images (could be from periodicals, the web, etc.) that best represent your hopes and desires to some poster board (or other suitable canvas) in a collage-like form along with lettering, phrases, and other inspirational details.  The belief is, if you keep this reminder at the forefront of your space, your life will begin to manifest what is on the board.  The physical supplies include poster board or foam board, some scissors, magazine clippings, photos, glue, and some other scrap-booking materials.  The mental supplies are a little harder to come by.  The project requires you to tap into your innermost desires and convictions, and then creatively express them on your board.

I can honestly say that when I used this board in the past, it worked.  My husband and I were shopping for a new home.  It was one of the most stressful things we've ever had to do and the criteria in order for the home purchase to work was very finite.  It could be said that our house might have come along without use of the board, but if you knew how perfectly this home fit our expectations, and how lucky we are to be the couple who purchased it, you would be in your car heading to the craft store right now.  In fact, in looking at this board today, I can honestly say everything on it has been achieved.  Even if you think all this talk about vision boards is hooey, I think participating in such a project is a great way to clarify your goals and define your direction in life.  We brainstorm, create outlines, and use project tools for work.  Why wouldn't we do the same for our personal life??

As I've mentioned before, I think celebrities and successful people in general, reach stardom because they believe in themselves.  Having positive images and ideals to focus on is a good way to keep that belief strong.  I will be working on this project in the next few days and will share with you the end result when my board is complete.  I implore you to do the same.  It doesn't have to be a weight or health related challenge.  It can be anything you want to change or improve in your life, or maybe something new that you'd like to welcome into your life.  My completed board will appear in a future post.

"A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more." -Rosabeth Moss Kanter

DIETING IS REAL-LIFE "SURVIVOR"

So I'm watching the CBS show "Survivor" last night and they, the cast, are participating in a "rewards" challenge.  After completing a mission that includes a dip in the pool and the solving of a puzzle that is easier than something you'd see on "Wheel of Fortune," they get whisked away on a cruise with some family members to a delicious meal on the water.  I'm watching them chow down on a feast of sandwiches, cookies, chips, and champagne, all the time drooling as I watch them dig in.  I think to myself, "now wait a minute... they are stuck in the woods of Nicaragua eating a meal I would kill for, and I'm all comfy on my sofa in Pennsylvania with a stocked refrigerator upstairs, a giant can of Christmas cookies in my dining room, and my choice of grocery stores within a mile's drive, and I'm the one who's starving...?!?  What's wrong with this picture?!?  That's when it occurred to me.  Dieting is like playing a real-life game of Survivor!  You have to outwit, outplay, and outlast all your desires!  I'm not sure what it's like to be stuck in the jungle for thirty-nine days, but I know what a lifetime of deprivation feels like!  Sign me up!  I could probably kick all their asses!  LOL.

Aside from the Survivor talk, I am happy to report that I am back on track and having a much better day(s) then what I had at the beginning of the week.  I'm not sure what drove me to the dark side of macaroni and cheese eating and visits to the drive-up window, but if I had to guess I'd say a week of baking cookies with my mother.  Let's just say that some experiences and some people can tap you out even when things are going smoothly.  But I seem to be good for now- relieved that it's over and happy to be re-focused on my health.  I am going to try really hard to tow the line for the next eight days because I would like to take part in at least some holiday eating and not have a guilty conscious about it.  I will need to think up some ways to keep my motivation strong this week.

"I choose not to think of my life as surviving, but coping." -Lorna Luft

HIGHS, LOWS, AND BAD ALTAR-EGO'S

The last two days haven't been the greatest for me.  I have broken open a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and consumed a Baconator sandwich within the same forty-eight hours.  Let me provide you some further details.  The Mac n' cheese is no surprise.  I think by now we're all fully aware of my persistent desire to consume macaroni and cheese in every available form, but the Baconator is a bit of an upset.  For those who are unfamiliar, the Baconator is the 900+ calorie, double-decker, bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's that just spits in the face of all whom are demanding healthier menu items.  What's really sick about it is I don't even eat fast-food, not even when I'm not dieting!  I don't really have a good explanation for this other than to say my highs are very high, but my lows can be equally as extreme.  I wish I could tell you that I didn't enjoy eating this and that it made me sick, but in keeping with the honesty of this blog, I have to tell you that I enjoyed every overly salty moment of it.  A bliss that has a cost.

Yesterday was "Weigh-in Tuesday" and it was not exactly a celebratory moment when I stepped on the scale.  I did not lose any weight, in fact, I gained a pound.  Not losing weight this week is really not a surprise.  I've mentioned before that the pattern seems to be a week of weight-loss followed by a week of no weight-loss, but gaining a pound sorta unnerved me.  I'm sure the pound is temporary and has everything to do with the indulgence that took place the night before, but that didn't stop me from sulking and skipping my workout.  You've met Katie Fantastic, my super-duper strong and healthy altar-ego.  Now I feel it is only fair to acknowledge the hedonistic side of me, the bad-altar ego that resides inside the same being.  I thought long and hard for what I should call her, that evil, glutinous, b*tch!  I tapped in to a childhood memory that will serve me well in this case- the first time someone called attention to me being fat.  It still stands out in my mind.  I was in Elementary school and a boy in my third grade class called me "Barbells!"  He was the younger brother, of my brother's best friend.  My brother, who is ten years older than me, never usually had access to such information because of our age difference.  This age difference, however, never stopped him from teasing me relentlessly.  Thanks to the fact that his friend had a brother the same age as me, he became privy to this information and so the torture began.  Luckily, I had shaken this name by junior high as my popularity with both the cool kids and the not so cool kids began to grow, but I will still never forget it!  It is for this reason that my bad altar-ego shall go by the name...Barbells!  Let's pray Katie Fantastic knows how to kick her ass!

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” -Truman Capote

THE SMARTEST THING I'VE NEVER DONE!

Today marks the week long baking extravaganza I have agreed to with my mother.  That's right folks- it's Christmas cookie mania!  We are baking up a storm and hopefully giving the large majority of them away!  Here is the Christmas cookie line-up: 

"Weighing in at 180 calories per cookie......with 9 grams of fat and 23 grams of carbs......we have...Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies!

Followed by:

2.) Death By White Chocolate
3.) Cherry Cheesecake
4.) Butter Cut-Outs (a must to appease my mother)
5.) Raspberry Linzer
6.) Spumoni Bars (new this year!)

I'm not gonna lie, I could go for a good cookie right about now.  While there are no low-cal versions being baked this week, I did take all necessary precautions.  Observe that there is no peanut butter on the list.  I simply can not control myself when there is peanut butter anything in the house, much less MY peanut butter cookies, which I'm proud to say are not the bland, dry, sugary, absent of all peanut butter flavor, cookies that you generally see out there.  Put peanut butter right up there with macaroni and cheese for me!  I'm sure there will be a poem about my love of peanut butter in an upcoming entry, but for now let's talk about the smartest thing I've done thus far!  It is...(drum roll please)...starting a diet BEFORE Christmas!!  (cheering!)  Yes, you heard me!  I should win a prize for this ground-breaking decision!  Year after year I do the same thing, and get the same results, and then wonder why I'm fat and miserable.  Every frickin' year I make the decision to start a diet AFTER the holidays.  I cram as much food as I possibly can into my mouth before the January deadline, with the understanding that come January, this need for overindulgence will all magically cease as I embark on the diet of a lifetime.  I end up gaining some obscene amount of weight over the holidays and then throw myself into an extreme diet and exercise mode that begins January first and is over by February second.  What is not over is the 15+ pounds I put on over the holidays.  I would be better off to do nothing, and have no plan whatsoever, then to set myself up for this kind of failure!  Why??  Because if I didn't have the notion of a severe January diet looming like a cloud of death above my head, I wouldn't overkill my eating the month before to the point where I kick off the New Year with at least a fifteen pound deficit.  Yes, I would still overeat (I think we all do at the holidays) but I literally have this mentality of, "I got to get it in," before January, which causes me to over indulge on my overindulging!

I have done this soooo many times without success, yet it never discourages me from doing it once more!  Well not this year sister!  I am pleased as punch that I am starting off this holiday season having already lost 13 pounds.  I don't feel the pressure to perform a miracle next month.  I don't feel as though I CAN'T have some holiday eats, especially having gotten a handle on this so early on.  I may just start out this New Year weighing less than I did last New Year's.  WOW!  If I can share only one message with you this week, let this be it!!  Anyone who is listening, pleeze, do NOT waste one more second of your life on this falsely promised notion of redemption!  There is nothing magical about January first!  REPEAT...JANUARY FIRST HAS NO SPECIAL POWERS!!  We do not suddenly wake up as transformed human beings, with superhero will-power.  All you are doing is putting off until tomorrow, what you could be doing today!  I beg thee...try something different this time!  Join me in this fight TODAY!

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -Albert Einstein