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.