Diet Week 4 Results: Whoo Hoo!

  Well, here it is, the beginning of week 5 of my diet. With all the up and down I've been having, I was pleasantly surprised, (Ok, THRILLED.), to see today that I have actually met my 4 week goal of 10 pounds! I lose about 2 and a half pounds a week normally when I'm on my diet,but this time I haven't been as strict with myself, so it took off slowly. Now I have caught up and I'm on schedule: 4 weeks = 10 pounds. Of course, 10 pounds is only, to paraphrase Jacob Marley in "A Christmas Carol", "a drop in the comprehensive ocean of my weight." It's a start though. It also means I am now officially only 20 pounds heavier than I was when I lost the last bunch of weight a few years ago. 20 more pounds and I'll at least be back where I should have started this time.
  It's funny, but, considering how long I have been a fat lady, I still have trouble thinking of myself that way. I still tend to think of myself the way I used to be, or at least, as not as big as I am. (You know you are fatter than you think when you accidentally knock things over with your butt when you didn't think you were anywhere near them...) At this point in my life I have been fat almost as long as I wasn't fat. I was a small person until a 'progesterone imbalance' at the age of 26 made the doctor prescribe pills full of progesterone for me that instantly sapped my strength and made me start putting weight on. I became so sluggish I could hardly move sometimes, (And this was when I was still thin.), and spent a lot of the time just wanting to sleep. I complained to my doctor that I thought the pills were making me gain weight. "Oh no." he said, "They won't do that." (I read years later that vegetarians shouldn't take certain kinds of birth control pills because they block the absorption of something and it messes with your metabolism. Great. I was right Doc!) I weighed 105 when I started on the pills in October of 1988. By the next fall I weighed 125 pounds. that was the fall I got married. I had gained weight so quickly at that point that my wedding dress fit fine when I bought it, and only a few months later when I got married it was getting tight. By the next fall I weighed 143 pounds and stopped taking the pills. At that point Emma got started and I gained 40 pounds with her. I lost little of that when she was born, and only slightly more as time went on, in spite of nursing her. I had two more kids, and gained 40 pounds with each one, losing a bit in between them, and after Ivy.(So I never got to 143 plus 40 X 3, in case you're wondering.) I have lost about 40 pounds twice in the last 9 years, but the first time it all came back. The last time I actually got lower than I had the first time, and I got back on my diet in less time, so only half had come back. If I had managed to keep it off both times I wouldn't be too bad now. I was doing so well the first time, but then my Dad got sick and was diagnosed with dementia and then came to live with us. I spent a lot of time at the nursing home with him and my eating habits got all messed up. When he lived with us I was very stressed and forgot all about trying. It took me years to get back to the diet.Hopefully this time I can be better behaved and keep more of an eye on it. I don't want to have to keep dieting.

Diet Week 3 Results: Better Than Nothing, Which is What I Will Now Be Eating at Red Lobster

  Well today is the first day of week 4 of my diet. I was really undisciplined last week. I went off the plan a bit, and then found I was going to be seeing my friend Lori for lunch the next day. Lunch out is hard to keep track of anyway. Lori chose where we ate, and it ended up being Red Lobster. Being a vegetarian I didn't mind doing Red Lobster because they have a delicious Bar Harbour Salad with dried cranberries,nuts, and blueberry vinaigrette dressing, plus those great Cheddar Bay Biscuits.(And for the record,vegetarians DO NOT just eat salad! I usually want something more...chewy than a salad, but I love the Bar Harbor salad.) Well, correction: Red Lobster HAD a Bar Harbor Salad! They got rid of it! I had to tell the employee who told me that that they needed to tell somebody in charge that they had just gotten rid of the only thing that brought me, as a vegetarian, into their restaurant. (The only other thing on the menu I can eat is the mozzarella sticks,which are good, but not a meal. Occasionally I have the cheese sticks and the salad if I'm really hungry.) That's not a big deal to them I'm sure, since they are a seafood restaurant and they don't cater  to vegetarians. But I eat out with friends and a husband who aren't  vegetarian, and we won't eat there if I can't actually eat. The only salad on the menu now is a Caesar salad, which has anchovies in the dressing. The waitress did offer me a salad at no charge, and it wasn't on the menu, (and it should be so people will know.), but they have three salad dressings besides the Caesar, and one of them is the blueberry vinaigrette. So I had a tiny plain salad which consisted of just iceberg lettuce,about three cherry tomatoes, and one circle of onion, as well as the biscuits and mozzarella sticks.I tried not to be too bad and took most of the cheese sticks home to Ivy.
  So anyway, I lapsed that day, but I tried not to be too bad. But still, last week I only managed to lose one pound. If I'm very strict I lose 2 and a half pounds a week. That means I should be at 7 and a half pounds so far. Instead, due to my back sliding my weight has gone down and up and down. I am at 5.4 pounds for three weeks instead of the 7 and a half. I need to be more disciplined, and get some exercise. Emma wants to start exercising with me, and maybe we can get Ivy to do it too. The problem is finding a time in her busy work schedule. I am horrible at making myself exercise. I just hate it. If I could jump outside on my bike I would be ok, but regular exercising is not my thing. (Of course, I need to get my flat fixed before I could do that too!) But that's where the diet is this week. Having to tell on myself here hasn't seemed to make me behave better. It just comes down to not wanting to be fat more than I want to eat...much of anything really! I was good today. One day at a time...