Bad Good Decisions

I've been trying to eat my 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and I've hit a horrible snag: I hate vegetables. Well, I don't really hate all vegetables, but I resent the fact that most of them take adding on salt or butter or cheese or dressing or oil before they taste good. I think there's a spectrum of vegetable value that ranges from carrots, at one end, to eggplant at the other. Carrots are great--full of vitamins, they're portable and not juicy, they store pretty well, and they taste fine, even if you don't put anything on them. You can even mix them with other vegetables to make them all go down better. Eggplants suck. They're a great color on the outside and they look like alien pods, but that's the only thing they have going for them because the best way to eat them is probably eggplant parmesan, which is probably the nutritional equivalent of sticking an eighth of a multivitamin inside the molten filling of a chocolate lava cake, sucking the whole thing down and then patting yourself on the back for eating a health food. AND, if you try to stick eggplant in with other vegetables to mask its horrible taste, all the others become tainted by its awfulness. 

The point is, if I'm going to eat vegetables, which I think I should, I can't take myself seriously if I dip them in fat. So I eat them plain. Even if it sort of kills my soul. As my cousin Jamee once said, "Pain is beauty." 

I've been trying to increase the amount of vegetables I eat relative to fruit. Ideally, I'd eat more vegetables than fruit each day. But that's gross, so for right now, I'm just trying to do the best I can and break even--which results in an overall higher amount of fruit/vegetable intake. 

Wednesday was a rough day for this plan. I ate carrots and celery and a banana and an apple, but I didn't want any more vegetables. I toyed with whether a tomato was a fruit or vegetable for a while, and I couldn't fathom trying to choke down radishes without any dressing. Finally, the answer came when my husband told me about work that day. I had packed him leftover chinese food with a big handful of green beans on top. I was hoping that in microwaving the food, the beans would get sort of steamed by virtue of being in there with the rice. (I was totally right, by the way). He said, though, that a co-worker saw him with his lunch and was adamant that my husband was doing it wrong--that uncooked green beans were poisonous. For some reason, this inspired me to eat the rest of the green beans. In fact, I ate one raw, but it was gross and awful. I'm pretty sure (well, now I'm really sure, because I didn't die) that raw green beans aren't poisonous, but they definitely taste like they are. 

As my husband watched my face contort in agony at the horrible flavor, he kindly volunteered to steam the beans for me. He's so nice. 

When they were done, I dumped them out onto a plate. There were so many. I looked on the bag to see what a serving size was because I thought it had to be fairly small--certainly less than was on the plate. To my horror, I learned that a full serving of green beans is 3/4 of a cup. I steeled myself for the painful process of crunching one bean after another, over and over, until green bean poisoning really did kick in and I died. But I found I couldn't hack it. There's no way I could eat all those beans one at a time. So I didn't....

they still tasted awful, but on the plus-side, I finally found my long-lost pearl earrings!

...and I made it to 5 servings after all!

Pre-Weigh in Jitters

Today my scale broke. Not in the sense that I was too big for it and it exploded, crushed to tiny smithereens by my immense bulk, which would have been moderately awesome, but instead I think it was resting on a tiny plastic ball from one of my dog's much abused toys. I moved it and things went back to where they should be. It was pleasant enough while it lasted though, because when I first stepped on, I had "lost" approximately 13lbs from last week. And because I was skeptical of that result, I stepped on again after it reset, and I had "lost" approximately 37lbs from last week. I was actually kind of bummed out by this point because I knew I hadn't really lost a leg and an arm over the past week, and it's important to me to at least have a reliable reading from week to week, even if it's not really accurate relative to all the other scales (I can't remember if I've said this before, but this scale displays your weight at about 5-7lbs heavier than doctor's office scales--the best scale is the wii fit, which shaves off 5-7lbs from doctor's office scales. I'm using the heavier-reading one this time around because it's the easiest of the three to set up and use. Despite being heavier, it has good test-retest reliability and, unlike the wii fit, will not zap my little cartoon mii with fatness and make it sad at the end of every weigh-in).
Oh, I want to mention at this point that I don't really think I have immense bulk or could smash scales or anything--though probably a kitchen scale wouldn't stand much of a chance (the ones I've shopped for only go up to about 12lbs).
So...the moral of the story is that the scale is back to reading approximately what it usually reads when I stand on it (actually, this week it weighs a little less but tomorrow's the final weigh-in so I'd better not jump the gun).
The bigger story this week is the failed cleanse. My husband and I decided to do this cleanse because we thought it would be a fun challenge. It's a 21-day challenge. The first week, you could eat fruit, vegetables and three 1/2 cup servings of brown rice, wild rice or lentils a day. The second, you added some lean protein, and the third, I can't remember what happened. Anyway, so day one we start--I'd done a lot of prep work the night before--but my husband ate a donut first thing in the morning . He did it again on day 2, and on day 3 he ate two donuts.
Ultimately, we abandoned the cleanse because I was sooo hungry all the time and I knew that I was losing weight too fast. I didn't want to go into starvation mode and pack on a ton of weight as soon as the cleanse was over. It was also the kind of restrictive diet that would make me fail. If I want to have ice cream, radishes are not a good substitute--I need to have a diet with some flexibility. Eat a little ice cream now, but make up for it by eating more vegetables and fewer calories later. It's one of the things I like so much about WW. There's nothing that's off-limits on WW, but the program trains you to work within the real world and make good choices despite all the pressures you normally face that would make you emotionally eat. For weight loss to be successful, you need to work within your regular life and make a fundamental lifestyle change. It's not just "be good for a couple of months and then do whatever you want when you're skinny," but maintaining a healthy and happy lifestyle.
But--the cleanse has brought a lot more vegetables into our diet, which is something to be grateful for.
Back to the title of the post: I get nervous before my weigh ins. I want to know NOW what I will weigh tomorrow. I usually have a rule that there can be only one weigh-in per week, but I've broken that a bit lately. I don't want to become obsessed with the number--so I need to get more firm about that. There's a lot more to life than worrying about the number, so I should let it go and concentrate on feeling better and better!

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK

So...I decided to take about 10 months off and regain all the weight I'd previously lost on WW. Ouch.
BUT--Now I'm back. I'm ready, and I'm committed, because in recent memory, I've experienced having lost weight and I felt a lot better about myself, my life and everything. I had a friend in high school who liked to conclude every day with, "Well, I'd like to think we made a difference today," in homage to every ridiculous movie ever made. When I eat right, I feel my own sense of self-righteousness that helps take the bitter sting out of not eating everything I want whenever I want it.
So...after my first week, I lost 2 pounds!! Go me!! (people also said I looked like I had lost weight)--who knew that losing 1/100th of your weight could be so rewarding?!
Right now I have an ingrown toenail. When I was little, I feel like I always heard about people dying from their ingrown toenails. And now I understand exactly how that could happen.
My husband and I worked out our budget last night. I also understand how people could die from that, too. But, we have our goals clearly in line now, and despite the terror I feel about my jobless situation and everything, it's better to have control over what little you have then just have your mind go blank in sheer terror when you think about it.
Anyway, with my ingrown toenail--I soaked a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol and then shoved a bunch of it between the offending toenail and my super-sensitive toe skin. I hope that will ease the drama a little bit, though it's still surprisingly painful.
I talked to a friend today about how growing up is the pits. At some point, the problems that result from your own lack of self control are just your own problems, and can't be blamed on anyone else. When we would go on trips I would think how I never wanted to grow up because my parents would do all the packing and cleaning up before and after the trip--with a little bit of our "help" of course, even when we were all so worn out from traveling and having fun. Some lingering vestige of that feeling might explain why it took me a week to clean up after Christmas dinner.
Anyway, today I've done the dishes, worked on cleaning up the house a bit, have been looking at jobs to apply to, have made decisions to improve our financial stability, tracked everything I've eaten so far, had three servings of fruits and vegetables by lunch and crudely attempted to treat my own ingrown toenail. And now I'm taking the dog for a walk. Well, I'd like to think I made a difference today...

Carrot Poisoning

I miss my husband today
to while the time away
i am eating and eating, carrots galore
when I want to eat candy, then i eat some more

Back

Yesterday, I decided to re-commit to WW and losing weight. I've been freaking out over the stresses of law school lately, which has led me to cookies, cupcakes, cake cake, ice cream, chocolate, wendy's, french fries of all denominations, chips, etc. It's time to start eating less and better. I think it will make a difference for me. People keep telling me I look like I've lost weight, and I'm hoping anxiety has helped me worry away some of the nascent pounds, but I am too scared to weigh myself until I get a solid week of WW under my belt--or out from under my belt as the case may be.

Yesterday went well. I have a hard time on the way down to school, so I just accept that I will be eating a lot and need to allocate the rest of the day appropriately. I did this with different levels of success yesterday, but ended up resorting to salmon and veggie (no cream cheese) sushi for a low cal dinner. Tragically, it seems that the salmon was made of some sort of fish powder, like the milk we use in our food storage. It was so gross. But that means fewer calories. I ate two nectarines yesterday and a banana. I got some veggies from the sushi before I gave up on it, but I'm trying to start small and ensure that I get at least 3 servings of fruits and veggies a day.

Today was crazy. I feel really uncomfortable on an ice rink, and when the whole world is covered in a half-inch layer of ice, i get really crazy. Today is day 10 of my 10 day no-skipping challenge, so I was determined to make it to school in time for my first class. It took me a half hour to excavate my car from the ice. I tried to scrape it away, but my feet didn't have any traction on the icy road. (Even the grass that showed was covered in ice, so it was really slippery, too!). I'd try to grab onto the car to get a little stability, but that was covered in ice, too! The scariest part was going down stairs outside today. The stairs were covered in a cascade of invisible ice, but so were the railings. I ended up going down the stairs backwards like toddlers are taught to do so they don't get hurt if they fall. There were 3 very very near misses with falling down, and many other near misses. The scariest part was trying to scrape my car as a huge garbage truck comes down the street which is clogged with cars on both sides--the garbage truck literally passed about a foot and a half away from me and I was praying "please don't slip and fall under it, please don't slip and fall under it" the whole time.I especially wanted to get to school on time because I was on-call in my first class today, and everybody who's been on call this week has flaked out--either not shown up or just not been prepared. I didn't want to look like I was skipping out, too. I was a couple minutes late, but so was the professor, so everything went down okay. I was nervous about the case, since it dealt with a class action by preferred stockholders following a cash-out merger of a company--and despite reading it twice, taking notes, and reviewing it, I still didn't really understand what happened. I realized during the course of the class, that it was just a really small contractual issue--the meaning of "liquidation"--that was at issue in the case, so when I got called on I didn't look like a total idiot. All of that gasping around in the cold ice this morning did leave me a little asthmatic, and I sit on the front row, so I'm not sure that anyone behind me was able to appreciate my success on that case. They probably think I'm *gasp* shy!

I don't know if this is normal, but at night before I go to bed I fantasize about what I would be eating if calories didn't matter. Last night it was a huge chocolate-frosted glazed donut...

RED 'DO

last week I was happy...

then I started law school...
I needed a change...
so I made one! I'm a red-head!!

even though I missed a spot...or two...and my scalp is incredibly shiny!

But this still leaves the whole "having-to-finish-law-school" thing.
How is that going to happen?

Finals Week(s) or My Personal Hell

I had my last day of school yesterday. It was deeply meaningful. Actually, it wasn't--but I did get to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, so that was something to do. I have my first final on Friday. It's on Regulation of Securities Distribution. I am nervous becasue I don't know the subject as well as I would like. Then I don't have another final for a week--next Friday I have Sales--an easier topic for me, but the professor has a rep for giving awful finals. Finally, commercial paper on Monday, December 21st. Give me strength...

I'm having a bit of a rough time, to be honest. I recently learned that I have a depth perception issue that surfaces both long distance and close up. I'm getting new glasses to help me deal with it, but in the mean time, I'm facing some unfortunate issues--like...when I read for any length of time, I get incredibly tired. I had been thinking it was because I was lazy--but it's actually a symptom of my eye problem. My eyes get super tired because they have to strain to make me not see double. The eye doc told me to look out the window for a while after each 20 minutes of reading. Unfortunately, since I have a perception issue there, it doesn't seem to be helping me much, either. But this new diagnosis is changing a lot. It helps explain why my eyes make me feel like I need a nap a lot, even when my body isn't really that tired. Right now, my eyes feel so tired, even though I had a really long night's sleep.

I read an article about my problem--it made me a little sleepy, too, as a matter of fact :). It was about a girl who, though she had always been bright, tested at a 1st grade reading level in 5th grade. Her teachers' perception of her as "slow," marred her self-esteem and academic progress until she was finally diagnosed with the problem. Now I'm wondering if the fact that it is so much harder for me to read has hampered me academically, too. Certainly, I've found that I can't read for very long periods of time without really really needing to go take a nap. When I drive and stare out at nothing for a long time, I find myself getting horribly sleepy. Now I wonder if that's why I like to take a book to bed--it helps me fall asleep.

Anyway, help is hopefully on the way in the form of prism lenses in my new glasses. they refract the light in a way that counteracts my eyes' discrepancy so my muscles don't have to strain to read things clearly. My eye doctor gave me a demonstration during my visit, forming a prism out of two lenses and placing them in front of my eye. It made seeing so much easier! It made both long distance and up close images appear much sharper, but I didn't have to squint to achieve that effect. This sounds stupid to say, but it was really a life changing moment, when I realized how much strain my eye muscles felt when they had to go back to fending for themselves. No wonder I nap so much!

Anyway, I feel frustrated that I have to keep studying without my prism lenses for a while. They're due in just in time for my final final exam. We'll see if they have the impact I hope they will. I feel so cranky that I feel so tired--again, just in my eyes. My husband often gets after me for taking naps so much, but I wish he knew what it felt like so he could understand why I do do it so much.

There are a limited number of things you can do without seeing. Studying for an exam by reviewing all of the slides shown in your class is not one of them.
Dang.