The Tire

As you may have surmised from my lack of blogging lately, I haven't been the 200% dieter that I wanted to be lately. I'm not exactly sure why - probably a combination of being busy, being lazy when I'm not being busy, and liking food too much and exercise not enough. I haven't quite fallen off the wagon yet, but my leg is kind of dangling off...if you know what I mean.

I've been kinda exercising (thanks to marking my calendar when I exercised) and eating has been so so, but there have been more sweets than I care to admit. (Oh, and just because chocolate covered peppermint marshmallows are "not as bad" as cookies doesn't mean a dieter should make a double batch and leave them out in a clear container. Oy.)

Last week I weighed in at 141.5 which was higher than I wanted and after a small incident with come cake, whip cream, and marshmallows, I was starting to feel my "tire". It's getting a bit squishy and just more THERE than it was a few weeks ago. It's not very apparent, but I don't feel as comfortable in tight shirts.

So, I need to do something about this. I need to firm up on points (I keep cheating here and there) and exercise more. The problem is that work is ramping up again and I'm just not sure I have the energy to bother right now. I'll be graduating this semester, so these next few months are going to be really rough (paper writing, paper re-writing, finishing experiments, writing dissertation, giving talks, finding a post doc position, etc.). Often when I get home from school, I am totally zonked and feel lucky that I at least have healthy food around (um, except for those darn marshmallows and spice cake. sheeet.) Exercise is totally out of the question. And on weekends, I'm way more interested in spending time with the boy and my friends, and relaxing or fixing up the house.

So, help!!! What would you do if you thought life was about to get a whole lot busier, your waistline was getting a whole lot flabbier, and you're not sure you care enough to do something about it but care enough to try a little and feel guilty about it the rest of the time? I know I should put my foot down and declare war on my weight but I don't know if I have it in me right now.

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Saved by the toothbrush!!!

I hate getting ready for bed - the worst part about getting ready for bed is brushing my teeth. I hate hate hate hate it.

Last night I was in the middle of baking 3 recipes of truffle cookies (I figured you didn't need a picture...the name says it all) and was madly stuffing my face with ugly specimens, broken off chunks, the works. I knew I needed to stop.

I tried to make popcorn so I would munch on that instead, but burned it after walking away from the stove. So I brushed my teeth. BRILLIANT. Why did I forget about this dieting trick? I hate brushing my teeth more than I love truffle cookies...so after brushing my teeth I was not going to eat any more cookie bits. HORAYYY!!!

Weigh-in: Stan is gone! At least for today. He took some friends with him and I lost 2.5 pounds (am now 137.5) - I'll wait a bit before updating the sidebar. Somehow, I think Stan will be back...

image credit

Things I ate...and the one thing I didn't but should have

I just ate my way through Central Europe (well, just parts of the Czech Republic and Austria). I am baffled about how the people there are so skinny - all this stuff we hear over in America about how in other countries people eat healthier and restaurants serve smaller portions is a huge lie*. Veggies in the Czech Rep. looked terrible, so I don't blame them for just eating meat, gravy, and bread dumplings. And in Austria, it is all pastries all the time, with a side of very large wiener schnitzels and sausages. (I suppose people must eat like birds when they eat at home to compensate.) And I don't think the locals can walk all of these extra calories off - their public transportation is so good there (and stops seemingly every 10 feet). Like I said this morning, I was eating about 40 points per day, and said yes to just about everything I came across that looked tasty. Luckily, I hate beer and wine, so that gave me a few extra calories (and cash) to spend on coffee and pastries. On days that I didn't walk all day long (conference days) - I usually made up for the pastries by having just soup for dinner.

*may not be statistically significant

Things I didn't eat but should have (Meg, you'll kill me, but I didn't get back to the store):

(that's right, this list is very short.)

Things I ate and maybe shouldn't have (obviously, some of the plates are for the boy - you think I'm a pig or something? ahaha):

Um, this was really tasty - included gingerbread dumplings.

This was also tasty, though not worth the calories - thei big offender here was the ginormous fried potato pancakes that is wrapped around the meat. I didn't eat much of it. I kept thinking of that Simpsons episode when Dr. Nick tells Homer how to rub food in paper to see if its transparent...

Vienna was crazy delicious and chocolatey. I didn't the whole case, but I did get one of the chestnut chocolate confections, which were the in-season thing while I was there.

This sausage was the first of many. It would have been impossible, in term of time and money, to eat healthy while on the road like this. At least the sausage is tasty.

The famous Sacher torte with the Vienese "melange" coffee.

Hot chestnuts - sooo good.

I only ordered Wiener Schnitzel once...and they gave me two ENORMOUS pieces. I ate about 1/2 of one piece.

The Linzer torte.

That's right ladies - that whole pastry is covered in chocolate. Hello. The other has a poppyseed filling.

Our last desserts before coming home. The pic is not good, but the desserts were :)

Today: Ate 19 so far, exercised 2, flex left 10. I may use a few of the extra points for a hot chocolate. These pictures make me crave sweets. Whoops.

Victory!

i officially declare today as VICTORY OVER THE CRAFTY TABLE DAY!

for those who haven't been reading from day one...i work with my brother in the film industry (sometimes)...it's one of my several random "jobs"...anyway, this summer we filmed a movie over a period of about a month and i gained approx. 15 lbs from the craft services table (aka "the crafty"...as it's known in the biz). the crafty is usually stockpiled with insane quantities of snack food-- treats, bagels, candy, cookies, donuts, soda, juice, chips, crackers...basically anything to keep the movie crew and actors happy and caffeinated.

crafty tables and i have a bad history. the first movie we shot (2004) i gained about 10 lbs...then lost most of that. the second movie we shot (2005) i gained about 10 lbs which i've never been able to get rid of...and then this movie (#3) i gained another 15 lbs..which i'm now trying to get rid of.

typically, i just lose all self control in the face of crafty. when i think back to this summer and my bad bad swedish fish+bagels+red vines+cookies+donuts crafty-binges it seems like a miracle that i didn't gain 50 lbs. no seriously. if anyone has ever been on a movie set, you know how much waiting around you do...you scurry to get something done, and then you sit and wait, sometimes for 3, 4, 5, 6 hours...but you can't leave. there's nothing to do..you're stressed, tired and grouchy and bored. and everyone hangs out at the crafty and eats and gabs. and then lo and behold, you gained 25 lbs. without even trying. and you develop a nasty sugar habit that is really really hard to break.

WELL. anyway. today we had to shoot some stuff that we didn't get during the summer...so, i was confronted with my arch-nemesis again.

but this time i won!

i didn't eat any of the cookies, no crackers, i didn't eat the fries that came with lunch and i exercised incredible restraint and only had 1 (!) almond joy mini candy bar. 1 people. just one. i couldn't believe it. i have never had just one of anything candy-related. ever. i came prepared with my kashi granola bars for snacks and i just didn't eat everytime i got bored. miracle. it's like an out-of-body experience or something.

really, truthfully, i didn't think i had it in me. but, i'm glad i proved myself wrong.

so...all told i have 24 flex left for the week...not too shabby.

ok, enough bragging.

Confession

I have a confession to make. Yesterday I went over my flex points. You see, I am cleaning out the fridge, and we had these meatballs (Ikea, so yummy and fatty) in the freezer to eat up, so I had some. Then I went to TJ's to get snacks for the cat sitters. Then we decided we should sample some of the snacks, because the sitters will be more likely to eat from an open package. S-M-R-T. So, I kinda stopped counting.

Then today, I just kind of gave up. I didn't do anything horrible. But I did decide that I needed a caramel macchiato and an espresso brownie from Starbucks. bad bad Bri. Lesson? Don't ever allow myself to go over flex points, because I can't control it after that. Thankfully, I reset tomorrow. I was trying to decide if I should count while I'm in Europe or not, but I think I have my answer. MUST...ALWAYS...COUNT.

Free food week, day 2

This week is free food week at the lab. We have a huge grant due (and I have a paper and a talk to finish up), so we're having free dinner every night this week. A friend in lab also gave a "pizza talk" in the department, so of course I had to go for moral support. And eat the free pizza (lunch). For dinner, we had Indian food brought in. I love Indian food and was hungry, so I had a plate of food. Bad bad Bri. Oh well. At least I controlled my portions and when I got home I actually got on the treadmill!!! (This is shocking, really.) I'm not used to watching TV (the only TV we have is tiny and in front of my treadmill), but watching a little has made me want to watch more, so hopefully that can help me up my exercise a little bit, especially at night.

I wasted so much time a work today and regret it now (isn't that how it always is?) - I'm going to a good friend's wedding this weekend but it's outside and it's cold. I'm looking for shoes with a something a little more than my normal dressy sandals. I spent a lot of time looking online for shoes (too lazy to go to the store). I want some black d'orsays with a shortish heel. I found cute ones (but a 3" heel - I don't think so) at endless, but they sold out already. And I found these ones at payless.com but they don't have them yet in the store. What's up with that? And why are there so many ugly shoes? What can't the cute ones be, um, under 100? I'm sorry, but dress shoes are just not worth that much money to me. Anyway, the girl said they would probably be in this week if they are up on the web. Hmmm...is risky - should I just overnight them? Oh yeah, I'm wearing this dress (which I notice now that I looked for a picture that the model is wearing them with similar shoes!) with a black pashmina with yellow/gold/orange/red embroidery from my India trip.

Anyway: ate 26, exercised 3, flex left 7.

i couldn't help it either!

yea...it has been one of those weekends!

i decided to reset my flex on fridays instead of mondays...so we'll see how it goes. so, far so good, i think.

yesterday...i was better than a lot of saturdays, but i still need to make some huge changes in my weekends. honestly, what is the deal?! why does the "shovel food in mouth button" get pushed every saturday morning? well, anyway, i ended up with 36 points eaten, no exercise.

sunday...well, today i had dinner at my grandparents. enough said, right? yes, it was a full-tilt all-out food fest: homemade rolls, roast beef, potatoes, homemade poppy seed dressing, real ice cream and the bowl of dove chocolates that kept getting pushed at me by my chocoholic grandpa. did i mention the rolls? well, i really was trying to be good---my gma even said, "meg, you aren't eating very much!"...but i still ended up with 38 points today. (yikes!!!) so, i've got 7 points left for the rest of the week--which i'm totally ok with. for some reason week days are sooo much easier.

this is the first weekend ive actually kept track of everything i've eaten though--which is a major victory. even though i am absolutely horrified by the numbers..it does really explain why i've been gaining and not losing though. hello! i felt like i was being good and still ended up with 36 and 38!?

goals for tomorrow:
60 min walking
best behavior! count everything.

I couldn't help it

Really, I couldn't. This weekend was a constant stream of food. Delicious, rich evil foods. It went something like this:

1. high tea at the Boston Park Plaza

2. cheese platters. mmm.

3. Korean bbq

4. "clubbing" - um, yeah, I'm just not that type of girl. I felt very lucky that clubs in Boston are only open for 3 hours. (No cals consumed here though, in fact, that was apparently 6 APs)

5. Return on the cheese platters. Add in chips and other evils.

Total: 45 points consumed (Wowzers!), 7 points burned, 13 flex left. (Sunday was better: 20 points consumed, 2 points burned, 13 flex left) The scary thing is that I really was being good. I promise!

But really, I couldn't help it. Look! (I forgot to get a pic of the Korean bbq. also beautiful.) Don't be fooled by the tea goodies platter - there was more - that pic doesn't show the scones and the tea-infused creme brulee.

Ice cream trucks

Bad: Another day of not so much exercise (2 pts)

Good: I didn't eat THAT much (25, flex left 22) though I was faced with "family day lunch" which included 2 ice cream trucks where you could get any ice cream you wanted, for free. I relied heavily on yesterday's realization that eating yucky food makes me feel yucky and I didn't partake in free ice cream. Even though I wanted one of those bullet pops from elementary school, just because. Ignoring thr truck was a huge step for me. You see, my parents never let me get ice cream from the truck or from school, but I was so desperate to get junk food that I helped the school nurse distribute fluoride weekly to get a free ice cream coupon, which I would spend on the biggest, longest lasting "ice cream": the bullet pop. Or that's what I thought it was called, though google images seems to think I'm wrong - you know, the really big popsicle with the red bottom and red in the middle and orange on the sides. Alrighty, I'm rambling. Sorry 'bout that.

Another purple box

Due to the wealth of Annie's blogging lately, I had a HUGE craving for mac and cheese tonight. But, alas, there was no box of that stuff in my house - I have a serious weakness for it. I "think" a box has 3.5 servings. But I can eat one whole box by myself. in one sitting. I know. I'm terrible. So, I don't keep it (or spicy seafood or kimchi flavored Korean ramen noodles for that matter) in the house.



Instead, I had a nice bunch of cilantro come in my box so I made "quesadillas" with leftover grilled chicken, cheddar, red pepper, and cilantro on whole wheat TJ's tortillas. It was tasty, and surprisingly, ended my temporary "I NEED THE MAC N CHEESE" feeling:



Today was another fake exercise today - 5 points for tiling after eating 23 leaving 12 flex for tomorrow. It worked my legs pretty well, but I wondered: if I were wearing moon boots (see Meg's shocking post below), would I have gotten a better work out?

Arm toning?

Tonight, I've been working on toning my arms...by shoveling food in my mouth. This is the first time in the month or so I've been back "on track" that I've felt out of control. AND, I had to go to whole foods. In the middle of my toning exercise. I lingered for a bit in the cookie aisle (I really really wish I knew where the boy hid the cookies!) but ended up with cat food (not for me!), annie's whole wheat bunnies, and wasa crackers. Then I got home, and proceeded to shove annie's crackers in my big ole mouth (have you tried these crackers? they are sooo good - 50 per serving - wowzers).



But I still wanted a cookie. So I reached in the back of the pantry and took out the no pudge brownies (I'm sure these things have made the rounds of the ww blogs, yes?) YUM. I made a single serving (add yogurt, nuke for 1 min, 2 pts) in a ramekin and it felt all dessert-like - more like an overcooked molten chocolate cake. Anyway, in combo with some tea, I think I am finally satiated. I'm blogging on my points now, to make me stop eating for tonight.

When I'm not so sleepy, I need to figure out what caused my eating fest tonight!

Today: ate 29, worked off 5, flex left 7

New Career

OK folks. I think I'm really on to something here. I need to quit my current (very low paying) "job" to become....

an inventor. a diet inventor.

Remember Meg's post about what to do about people in your life who eat whatever they want and don't gain weight? Well, I've just encountered the same problem out here.

Before I reveal my brilliant idea, let me back up.

My husband is really skinny (BMI 18.5). He likes to eat cookies. And I like to bake them for him (call me old fashioned, whatever). So I finally cave and bake in 75 cookies. They are very tasty (oatmeal, made with real butter, of course, chocolate chips, cranberries, pecans, and a dash of cinnamon). And the deal has always been that he is supposed to TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME. You know, take them to work or hide them from me.

This time, he wasn't being very nice. He leaves them on the counter. When I asked him to hide them he says "why don't you just not eat them".

????? because I can't not eat them. Its impossible.

Then it occurred to me: I need to invent a discrete internal locking device for kitchen cabinets. That way, he can have his own kitchen cabinet filled with his cookies and other evils. And even if I really really really wanted one, and would somehow justify to myself how I should have one, I wouldn't be able to get to it.

I first envisioned some sort of bar/grate system with a lock. But that's no good, cause I'd open the bag by sticking my evil little fingers between the bars. Then I'd probably pull a "classic Bri": breaking off smallish bits of cookie over and over again and eating them - because surely, many bits of cookies is the same as actually eating a cookie, and is calorie-less.

So it'll have to be some sort of solid tungsten steel type panel covering a shelf with a lock in front. We wouldn't the company to see the lock, so the fantastic anti-cookie-locking-device needs to be hidden behind the cabinet door.

For the time being, maybe I should try this:(Um, I don't know why this image suddenly became blue, but you get the idea, right?)

FJ: ouchy. hosted dinner party tonight. the damage is pretty bad. plus that ^&*%&$ cookie. 36 points. 14 flex left. no exercise (it was brutally hot here today - "felt like 104" according to the weather lady. and we don't have a/c). I know I'm not supposed to make excuse for lack of exercise, but I think today I'm quite justified.

Erm, do nap points count?

OK, I had total blog-withdrawl this weekend, being away from everyone. But I did have lots of fun and was v. proud of myself for not toally stuffing my face in the presence of pate, bread, cheese, chocolate, fig cake, chips, and dried cherries. Though I thought it was very annoying to be counting points as I ate them, I am a bit of a control freak, so it was kind of fun to be in portion and point control. I can really be a cheapo (right Meg?), and I find that I treat my points like money. Unless its on third markdown, I'd better really really like it to take it home with me...I mean eat it. Whatever. Its late. You know what I mean.

Portion control aside, I'm still failing miserably at exercise. Saturday (otherwise knows as the day I ate 36 points without moving a single muscle in my body), I took a 3 hour nap. I think of it as 3 nap points. Do I have an allowance for that? I tried to justify it by telling myself that I need sleep to lose weight, but I've never heard anyone talk about nap points so I doubt it counts. Everyone else went swimming (e.g. exercise). But I was asleep, and didn''t notice my 5 friends wake up and take off. Sigh. Maybe this is why I'm the one how needs to count what I am eating in the first place.

So points recap from evil-food-filled weekend was actually not so bad! I'm still hoarding points for eating out 3 times later in the weekend when an in-law arrives for a visit:
Sat: 36 eaten, 0 worked off, 3 nap points
Sun: 26 eaten, 6 worked off

flex left: 19.

Bri's weigh-in #1

So I weighted myself first thing this morning, before breakfast...since my coffee alone should weigh a pound or two, ha ha. According to Mr. Scale I've lost 3 lbs in 2 days, but I think it must be water weight. I've barely exercised...its been really hot and humid out here. I really need to put a window a/c unit in so I can workout in August. (New England doesn't do central air, its insane.)

Anyway, so my goal for the next week is to amp up my exercising. I'm going to aim for 90 min pilates+weights and 120 min cardio. And I'm not allowed to count riding my bike to the T.

I'm afraid I won't be able to fit in exercise today, which is making me grumpy. But we will be doing a few hours of rapid water kayaking on Sunday, so hopefully that will make up for it.

I have a lot of packing/cooking/shopping to do for Tanglewood trip and am trying to plan my meals so that I won't go over my flex points for the week. Sat night and Sunday lunch are lost causes - bread, cheese, pate, chocolate, fruit and veggies (obviosuly, I'll be hitting the F+V pretty hard and practice this new portion control concept again). For lunch on Saturday I'm thinking about making a quinoa bean salad or jicama/orange/avocado salad, salmon and light cream cheese on rye crackers (have to fuel the hubby - he's very skinny), and fruit of course. Do you have any good ideas on how I should avoid gorging myself this weekend? Because I'm sure all my foodie buddies are going to bring many many point heavy delights.