206, -5, 32 lbs total

This Tuesday's weigh-in was much better than last week's.

I should be happy but for some reason I have a huge case of the grumpys this week. OK there is a reason that I just found out this morning. The evil PMS has been rearing it's ugly head. I hate being a prisoner of my hormones. Nothing felt good enough and I wanted to punch things. I even tried using exercise to exorcise my demons, but it didn't really help. And then I felt even stupider for thinking that it would. So, last night I buried my anger in a plate full of nachos. grr.

I'm trying to be gentle with myself about it. I'm already feeling like such an abject idiot that I don't feel like heaping any more shit on my head is going to help. Instead I'm going to do extra stairstepper until I've worked off the extra 1200 calories I consumed last night. It's still punishment, but at least it's constructive. Hopefully I will still manage to lose at least 3 pounds next week. I have two long hikes planned for this weekend.

It's clear that I have a lot to learn about managing my anger and anxiety. It spirals ever downward with each mistake making me feel even more worthless. I need to find ways to let it go and stop the spiral.

Optifast Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar

It's pretty good except for a weird fishy undertaste.

211, -0, 27 lbs total

Weigh-in was last night. It was actually 210.5, but I round up the half pounds so I get a big goose egg for the week.

How could that happen? Well, there were a couple things going on. Last Tuesday I started in on the Optifast 800, and the trying to eat more while hiking. I overcompensated for the exercise with acceptable food (meat and salad), and then I cheated with supernachos on Sunday.

Looks like I'm back to my old tricks with the mexican food. It's like crack for me and I go for it when I'm worn out and tired, and I can't say no anymore. It's pathetic, and I'm disappointing myself when I do it. I was really tired on Sunday since I didn't sleep very well Saturday night either. It was a bit windy here at home as well, and it kept me up. When I'm tired I tend to feel really crappy about myself and so I just sort of let the bad feelings roll around in my head until I just don't care anymore. And then afterwards I get to beat myself up about how weak I am. Blar. It's such a horrible vicious circle of self-loathing.

At the end of the day it's just another excuse. In class last week we talked a little bit about what to do about cravings. I have to ask myself what do I really want? What is the food substituting for? Can I find a way to get what I need instead of using food? That can be a hard one.

I want to keep writing about this but I'm getting sleepy and therefore having difficulty making sense so I'm going to come back to this later. I think it's the key to keeping the weight off.

Good Night Moon!

The Windy Desert

I went out to the Anza Borrego desert this last weekend to do some hiking and check out the new tent I got for Whitney. Overall the trip was not particularly satisfactory except for a really excellent hike.

I got out there at about 9pm on Friday night because I couldn't pull my shit together enough to get packed up before I left for work Friday morning. It was pretty crowded at Agua Caliente campground. Lots of little kids were running around and screaming. It was more cute than annoying. I sat around and ate my dinner and then got to setting up the tent. It was pretty warm and seemed likely to be a bit windy so I left the rainfly off so it wouldn't flap around in the rain. This tiny tent is a bit bigger and higher than my old tiny tent, so there was definitely some flapping going on even without the fly. It's a nice size, maybe a little heavy. I like being able to sit up in it and it has a little gear nook that clips onto the inside top.

It was nice to be able to see all the stars. The wind got pretty bad that night. It wasn't just windy. You could hear the wind coming down from somewhere, whoooshhhhh and then it would hit the tent flappa flappa flappa, over and over all night long. I didn't sleep very well. The next morning while I was making my coffee the tent got blown over. NTS, bring rebar to the desert next time.

I went out for my big hike over around Bow Willow campground. I am totally camping there next time. It's a "primitive" campground but it has a composting toilet and non-potable water. Most of the sites have a big wooden shade built and it's not so crowded. Really nice. the hike was also very nice. I started out over at another campground that really was primitive and hiked through some beautiful palm groves. Then I headed generally towards where Bow Willow campground is. I couldn't find a trail so I just kinda made my own. After some minor bouldering I ended up on the desert floor not to far away from my goal. I found a trail and headed into the campground. I eventually found the trail that probably goes to Sombrero mountain and was about to head off when I realized that I had consumed more than half of my 3 liter water supply. It was also noonish, so I decided to head back, this time on the very nice trail back to the palm trees. I finished off the last of my water about 1/2 mile before I got back to my car, so that was a good call.

What was a gentle breeze over at Bow Willow was a heavy wind back at my campground. I made the best of it for the rest of the day, but when I realized that I was eating dinner in my car because I didn't want to be out there in the crazy wind so I probably wasn't going to want to try to sleep in it again. It was so much worse than it was on Friday. I threw all my gear in the car and headed home. That beautiful hike made up for most of the windy badness.

211, -2, 27 lbs total

Starting Weight: 238
Goal Weight: 150
Last Weigh in: 211
Lost in previous week: 2 lbs
Total weight loss: 27 lbs

I’ve been back in the Optifast now for six weeks. My first day back was Valentine’s day. What a romantic gift! I’ll only “eat” ass-flavored shakes for the next 30 weeks or so. Yay! OK, the shakes aren’t that bad. The chocolate ones are OK, and the vanilla ones are good if you mix them up with diet Snapple peach tea. But I digress. I’ve decided to revive the blog and share my weight loss experiences with whomever decides to come have a look. I didn’t want to at first because I’m ashamed that I have regained almost all the weight I lost last time. I also feel like I come across as a big whiner, and maybe I don’t want that on the internet. Also, I’m not the best blogger, or writer for that matter. I just decided that, since I’m doing things a little bit differently this time, maybe the blog will also be better. Hopefully my experiences will help someone else who is going through similar challenges.

My starting weight this go-round was a pretty embarrassing 238 pounds. In the six weeks I’ve been on the program I’ve lost 27 pounds. Go me! I started out on the Optifast 70. It is very effective if you don’t cheat, and I was determined to not cheat like I did last time. Of course, I can’t just do the program like everybody else. No, I have to do things the hard way. My “problem” is that I’m also planning on hiking up Mt. Whitney this summer with my friend Michael. I’m super excited to go, and we just got our permit confirmed for June 21. The trouble lies in the amount of exercise I have to do in order to be in proper shape to summit the mountain without requiring an airlift back out again. I need more calories than the Optifast can give me even when I’m on training hikes.

I had already decided that I needed to be on full food during the hike, but after trying to do even short hikes I was getting really exhausted. I went in early on Tuesday, which is my weigh-in and class day, to talk to the Exercise Physiologist and the Nurse about what I should be doing in order to stay on the diet AND climb the big mountain. The EP was very helpful and supportive. He told me that I would need to switch to the Optifast 800 and also supplement that with extra calories on hikes longer than one hour so that I have enough to get by without falling over and so that my body can recover. This is going to make the Optifast plan a little harder for me since I will be on partial food also. I have to be smart about what I eat so that I will still have the weight loss that I want.

Talking to the nurse was a very different experience. She kinda freaked out on me. I appreciate that she has my best interests at heart, but she was very alarmist and sounded pretty certain that I was going to kill myself or something. I almost walked out of her office, but she calmed down a little and I was able to get her to switch me to the Optifast 800.

Am I really the only person who has come into the Optifast program and then had an athletic event come up? Maybe. It seems surprising to me. I know that most people come for the product. What I learned from gaining the weight back is that the counseling is just as important. I really need the weekly check-ins and the group sessions. It’s comforting to be going through the weight loss with other people who are having the same hardships. I thought it would be good to have an exercise goal at the same time. My mistake was choosing one that was a little too hardcore. I didn’t realize when I decided on Mt. Whitney how much I would have to put into it. Maybe it would be better to go on hiatus from Optifast until after climbing the mountain. I don’t think they would let me but I’ll ask about it next week so I know what my options are.

camping

the fire has died down. the coals are still providing warmth. because the flames have died down the number of stars in the sky has exploded. it's hard to believe there can be so many, especially if you spend most of your time in the city.

I lucked out. I made a reservation for this spot two days ago. it's a good one. the fire ring is down away from the road so it's easy to pretend I'm out here by myself. I can hear the coyotes yipping and the owls hooting. it's easy to ignore the people sounds.

I lit a nice little fire. there is only one little piece of wood left to burn. I've been drinking tequila, and it became very important to me that all the wood should burn, to the point that I've been removing my shoe and pushing the last bits of wood around until they could burn. i've been very successful in that regard but I hope I have not melted the sole of my shoe. that will be a discovery for tomorrow.

I have the most beautiful view, a bowl of stars framed by mountains, trees and an old wood power pole.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

179, -2, 62 pounds total

It's been a weird couple of weeks. All the weirdness is in my own head of course. Externally it's been pretty much business as usual.

A couple of weeks ago my diet counselor was talking about how Happiness is a Choice. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Happiness is a choice. I still don't know how I feel about that. I think that it can be to a degree.

I was so fed up with how things were going in my life that I decided I was going to do a crazy bicycle tour over my five day 4th of July holiday just to shake things up a little. My plan was to take the train to Monterey and then bike down to San Luis Obispo, where I would take the train home. Immediately I felt much better. Something different to think about and do, yay! Well, I went on a little test ride on July 1. I rode from my house to Solana Beach, over the Torrey Pines Road hill. That ride was only about 35 miles or so according to my cyclometer but it totally kicked my ass. As bad as Torrey Pines hill is, the hills on my tour would be 5 times worse. Ack.

But, instead of giving up entirely I decided to do the miles of my tour, but here at home, where I could rest up in my own bed. It worked out pretty well. I rode up and down the North County coast for those 5 days and logged 158 miles total, partly loaded. One day I rode to a picnic with a bunch of chicken salad in my panniers. It was just like old times. Two miles short of my goal, but hell, it was close. I have fallen back in love with cycling. It's great! I had forgotten how fun it is, and the North County coast is so lovely. I would kinda like to live there for a while. Who knows... Also, I've managed to get myself in better shape. Even though I've only lost a few pounds I have toned up a bit. Feels good.

I guess if I'm not happy, I can find ways to be happy. There are things I can't control, like the way I look, but I can deal better with how I react to it.

181, -3, 60 pounds total

This has been a really shitty week for me overall. There wasn't anything in particular going on, I just feel crappy and discouraged.

OK, maybe some things did go on. I've been trying to take a picture of myself. All of them look bad. I look bad. Being a photo retoucher I can make the pictures look better, but out in the world I still look like a horrorshow. I can't believe I'm allowed to walk down the street looking like that. Even I think there should be a law against looking that scary. Maybe I should get a hat with a net. I do like the vintage look. Am I busting my ass trying to lose weight for nothing? The truth is, even if I do lose 20-30 more pounds I'll still have a face that makes small children cry. I will never be attractive.

Bleh.