Testing

For my main blog, head over to Sanaworld.

I'm just using The Lab for a bit of blog design testing at the moment.  My skill with templates is.... astoundingly absent.. but I'm working on it!

I'm hoping this will show up as a sort of post summary and you can click for the full post.

Breakthrough!

Ok, well it took .. about a year, but last week I finally cracked the 57kg barrier. I never said this was one of those fast fatloss blogs... ;)

I'm mostly blogging over at Sanaworld these days, mostly about my earthquake and everything that eventuated from that. Once life is a bit more normal, I will pop in now and then for a purely weight and food related rant.

No news is good news.

When last heard from, four and a half months ago, our heroine was vainly trying to squish 6 weeks worth of girly necessities into her overly-small trolley bag and feeling slight trepidation about the possibility of maintaining her weightloss in the land of apfelstrudel, kaiserfleish and (possibly) bridezilla ...

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Goal? Uh - not quite

This morning I finally got on the scales, knowing it will be the last time that I'll be able to do that for five weeks - 57.6kg. I was hoping to have been below 57, but don't feel disappointed.

I'm feeling good. I have been eating regularly and normally, have managed one party and several meals out (including one where the options were, pasta, rice or pasta and rice) and I'm only feeling mild anxiety about the uncertain food situations which will be the reality of every meal while I'm travelling. The next three or four days will be the toughest, with random sleep, jetlag and airport food. I have packed snacks for the first 10 hour flight, but as we stop in Korea for a day, I'm not too sure if I'll be able to keep what I don't eat on the plane.

I'm focusing, and will continue to focus on eating for the lifestyle that I want, and the body that I want - healthy, lean, fit. I'm eating as the person I want to be, rather than the person I currently am, physically. That seems to be working, so I'll stick with it. Tonight I looked at the pork I was about to cook and thought 'what would 52kg me choose as a portion?'. I chose the smaller piece, rather than the larger one I would usually have eaten, and I still feel full.

Ok, wish me luck and I'm on my way! 3.30am wakeup call, I'm all yours!

57 -6 Meeting the Challenges

Today has been one of those days which is great on one level (spending time with family, going to the movies) but desperately challenging when it comes to managing my food. It would have been easy to just give up.

For a start I am sleep deprived. I slept last night on the floor in my brothers lounge and, although comfortable enough, I didn't sleep that great. I'm not actually a great or deep sleeper even under ideal conditions, so this is nothing unusual. Except that, come morning, my niece (10 months) and nephew (3 years old yesterday) came in to open his belated presents and it was all over, rover, for the sleeping attempt.

I knew that we were in for the movies at 12 noon so had a bigger than usual breakfast (banana on toast), but even before the movie started I was super hungry. Telling myself that another couple of hours wouldn't make much difference, I stayed calm and got through fine. However, after the movie, there were things to pick up and groceries to get and it was about 2.30 by the time we finally found somewhere to have lunch. By then I was feeling really grumpy and a bit shaky. I was, by that point, just trying to prevent myself throwing a toddler-like tantrum and bursting into tears! (very unattractive in a grown woman). The selection at the only cafe near the supermarket was dire, from a Sara point of view. Everything seemed to have tomatoes, potatoes or peppers in it (all nightshades) so I settled for a chicken and cranberry panini, leaving about half the bread. I also ate an apple from the grocery haul. I gave my lara bar to my brother because, being completely gluten free, there was literally nothing that he could eat. Cafe food is always the hardest challenge for anyone on a 'special' diet. I had another apple once we got back home.

Now that I've regained sanity, I'm pretty much 'home and hosed' for the day. I offered to cook dinner, which takes care of the unknown factor (it will be fish and veges + bread for the bread-eaters). I focused on sticking to my schedule and keeping my head on. Panicking always makes me irrational. The thing is, a bit of bread won't actually make me fat, or cause my arthritis to flare. It's constant, or excessive, consumption that causes an issue. 'The dose makes the poison', as the wholehealth source guy likes to say. Sometimes, in the real world, realism means making the best choice possible and concentrating on enjoying the company, even if I'm not being 'perfect'. That's life. ;)

57 -9M

All good.. well, apart from the glass and half of wine that I had yesterday with dinner.. and today.

However, everything else has been on schedule. I did my cardio yesterday and my weights today. I find exercise to be essential, not just for my body, but for my mind. In fact, more for my mind than my body. There is something about training that just puts me in an 'I can cope' mood. The annoying thing is that when I'm in an 'arrrrrgh, I can't cope' moment, it's hard to motivate myself to exercise. That's why I'm trying to do it as soon as I get up. When I look back on times when I did successfully lose weight there are two things that are consistent. 1. I was exercising on a schedule and 2. I was on some sort of relatively sane eating plan. And, by 'plan', I don't necessarily mean anything really difficult. I did the zone diet for ages before I read the book. I just skimmed through it at the library, got the idea and started combining protein and carbs at each meal without much thought to quantity or quality. That worked. I did Body for Life, that worked, I did Atkins, that worked. I did calorie counting, that really worked, except I took it too far and wigged out into starve-binge land. So now I'm kind of on the Sara plan, which is a bit of everything I've learned. Lots of veges and fruit, proteins and fats, some nuts and beans, a little sheeps milk cheese (really my only dairy) and .. everything else in extreme moderation, when I feel like it, with control. I've de-caffed down to a sane level (although I did go a bit woo-hoo on the mate tea today - then Googled and found it is packed with caffeine and theobromine.. oops) and my alcohol consumption is pretty average. I'd say I'm 90% where I want to be, just working through the last of the stress and distress eating.

As part of my studies I am reading through tens of binge eating studies, to decide on which ones to include in my report. It's been distinctly helpful. The thing I'm onto now is mindfulness. That is centering myself. Dealing with what is right in front of me, realising I do have choices, right here, right now, realising that my automatic thoughts are not necessarily true and that I can choose to think and act in a different way to usual. I used it tonight. It was an hour or so from dinner and I was a little bit hungry. My first reaction to hunger is always a bit of panic - I have to eat, now. Instead I took stock. I told myself that I wasn't really super hungry. That dinner was just an hour away and that I'd enjoy it much more if I didn't spoil my appetite with a snack. I relaxed my mind and decided to get a bit of work done while dinner cooked. And, look! I didn't even starve to death between that moment and dinner time. Amazing.

The weekend is coming. I'm looking forward greatly to seeing my brother and family,but also mildly daunted by the prospect of managing my eating in an out-of-home situation. Good practice for the upcoming trip around Europe. At least since I started eating more fruit and got less anal about having to eat protein six times a day, it's all gotten a lot easier... I'll be fine.. breathe.. breathe...

57 -11

Today has been one of those very borderline days. It was an 'almost binge' day. A good chance to look at those things that make me want to stuff my face. Now what could it have been?

1. Well, there was the having a sudden rush on WPC, right before I'm going away and running out of stock.

2. Then there was the mad calling around trying to get some more in quickly, even more than I already had on order.

3. And finding out that my usual supplier won't have any more until October.

4. Then paying out over $1000 for it.

5. Then organising things with the new manufacturer

6. Then getting an email from the NZFSA asking for some last minute amendments on some documents I thought were finished.

7. And having a real problem locating suitable articles for my Health Psych assignment.

8. And, just, TIME PRESSURE because I'm flying out in a fortnight and I'm not at my goal weight and I've got so much to do and I don't know if I can get it all done and I'm freaking out.

And, so, what happens? Mid afternoon I got an outrageous urge to snack, and did. I also got the urge to have a big glass of wine, but didn't. In retrospect, that may have been the better choice ;-/ Considering the outrageous eating behaviour that followed, I could hardly have done worse with a glass of vino in me.

Obviously, if I'm going to get to my goal weight, random attacks of overeating are not going to help. I need to find a better way to manage those icky things like stress, tiredness, pressure and, did I mention stress? I also need to not skip my training like I did today and yesterday. I'm not sure what this would have done to my now 11 day goal, but will see on .. well, 11 days from now. Still heaps of time, at least for THAT.

Ironically, the final straw which sent me to the icecream today was researching binge eating disorder. I'm having issues finding the studies that cover the issues I want to cover and I was getting really, really antsy. I know what THIS is. It's perfectionism, and my studies at least have taught me that perfectionism is a personality trait that predisposes one to binge eating. I've got heaps of studies to chose from. If I only used the ones I've already printed, I'd at least get a 'B', but no, I have to find the perfect ones, and because I can't, I lost it.

Losing it meant some icecream, some chocolate. a banana and some marshmallows (all in a bowl together.. that was delish). Then a larger than normal dinner, including a bread roll, and a muesli bar for dessert. I could definitely eat more, but I'm not going to. I'm using this blog post as catharsis and getting back to myself. A splurge on Friday and a splurge on Monday is not going to get me where I want to be. My goal now is to get through the next 11 days without incident. I'm also resetting my goal to 57.3, which is equal to the lowest I've been in the last 6 months and somehow, seems achievable.