Monday, the 4th - 136lbs.
Oh, I was a naughty gal on Wednesday. I went out for lunch with a friend, and we ended
up at a buffet at the local Indian restaurant. Tandoori chicken - good. Chicken in butter sauce - good. Plain green
salad - good. Gulab jamin - bad. For those unfamiliar with the latter,
it's essentially a ball of rice
flour that has been soaked in sugar syrup, baked, and soaked in more sugar syrup. It is indescribably scrumptious, and my
willpower broke utterly. At least I only had half a one. But still, that pretty much blew it for
Wednesday.
And I don't think this utterly scrumptious Carbolite chocolate is helping, either. I
picked up a few small bars, early in the week, and have been steadily nibbling at them ever since. However, I have also
encountered - via the joys of online forums - many people who complain of hitting a plateau once they started noshing the
stuff. Now, I have no idea how much of it those people are eating - but, how much of it can they be having, given the
warning on the label which states that too much of the stuff can have 'a laxative effect' - but I think I had better rein
back on it a bit, for now.
Similarly, I think I need to cut down on the pork rinds. I only just discovered that I can
have almost an unlimited amount of the things, and they fill my need for a
crispy munchie while reading a book. But maybe I shouldn't be going quite so (ahem) whole-hog on the things - or
else I may as well just spread lard on my hips. Yeah, yeah, Atkins doesn't care about fat, but I have a hard time believing
that I can scarf down these deep-fried goodies with no ill-effect, particularly given that I'm not trying to lose that
much weight. I suspect the fat content might matter more, the closer you get to
your final goal.
I'm writing this bit on Thursday night, and I know I'm facing some more tests, fairly soon. Tomorrow, Alex's office is going out for a drink-up, and it's going to be hard to resist the siren call of beer, or sugary mixed drinks. I've told myself that if I keep my carb count low all day leading up to the event, I can have one cosmopolitan, as those work out to about 20gms of carb - it's that little shot of cranberry that does it. Otherwise, it's going to be martinis and vodka-on-the-rocks all evening for me. An unfortunate side-effect of limiting one's boozing to hard liquor is that one tends to end up under the table far too quickly... Meanwhile, on Saturday, I'm going to be visiting some friends, and I'm sure the starchy snack-food will be ankle deep...
After doing some research about body-mass-indexes and measuring my "frame size",
I've revised my final goal to anything between 125 and 130lbs - instead of the
flat 130 I had initially envisioned. However, I think the doctors who are saying that a medium-framed
chickie at 5'3" should be between 110 and 130 are smoking crack. I'll aim for the upper range and be happy with that.
I mean, 110 for a small-framed woman of my height is reasonable, but not for those of us with child-bearing hips and
a chronic difficulty seeing our feet, even at the best of times! I'm hoping to hit the final goal by the end of March. That's
a loss of 5 - 10 more pounds in six weeks, plenty of time. But I'm allowing time to recover from whatever sins I commit at
DunDraCon next week!
When I'm madly fantasizing, I imagine being able to slip into my "masochism pants" - a
pair of jeans from my skinny college days - on my 30th birthday. That's five months from now, so you never know! Keep in mind
that I think I weighed about 120 and had a 26 inch waist when I last wore those pants...
I'm feeling pretty good about the progress so far. As I've said before, I would like to
see 135 on my scales by the end of next week, as I will consider that a 'tangible' achievement - even if it does feel like
my pants are still fitting the same! Apparently I was fooling myself all this time when I thought I had a 30 inch waist - although
when I sew garments made for a 30 inch waist, they seem to fit just fine, which rather baffles me. Anyways, the latest bout
of examining my jeans and measuring my waistline suggests that my waist was actually closer to 34 inches when I began
this diet - now it's down to 32. My waist is going to be the toughest area to whittle down, as that's my body's second-favorite
place to put weight (the first, it seems, being my chest, but my bod has had no
reluctance in taking weight off that area - I've lost three inches off
my bust already!)
I'm exercising every other day. It began with helping Jennifer pack up her house last week -
several days of very aerobic activity! Now that's done, I'm looking for excuses to walk around, rather than take the bus
when I'm going from A to B. The local BART station - my springing off point for most of my excursions - is two miles away,
so I've taken to walking down there when I have plans to go gallivanting (or when meeting people in downtown Concord, as I
did Ryan for lunch). It takes about forty minutes to walk at a nice brisk pace, so that's got to be good, right? And I figure
it's telling my body to burn a bit of fat off my hips and tuckus... Now, if only the weather wasn't so foul. On rainy days, I
think I'll have to substitute enthusiastically playing with the dog for half an hour. If you know my dog, you'll understand why
that's a workout!
Sunday
Annoyingly enough, I've discovered my slightly-dressy day shoes are no good for walking in.
I made it about a half-mile on Friday, and then stopped for the bus. However, I have since bought myself a new pair of honest-to-gosh
sneakers and I look forward to trotting about a bit every other day, this week. Fortunately, I think the vigorous housecleaning
I did on Saturday counted for something...
I resisted temptation on Saturday - which makes up for Friday, I think. On Friday, I had two cocktails
that I thought wouldn't be too carbo laden (my calculations worked them out to 7gms each, and I had been very good all
day leading up to that) but once I got 'em on the table, I had my doubts. The cosmo had too much cranberry juice in it, methinks,
and the 'lime squeeze' was more lime juice than vodka and Cointreau - and I had a devil of a time wiping the sugar rim off the
glass! So I think I blew it on Friday, but I have no idea by how much - not too much, I think.
So, Saturday, a friend came to visit, and we went to the grocery store to get snacks
with which to watch movies. I managed to make it through the chip aisle, but a bottle of dry champagne made it into my
basket somehow - I love champagne, you see. I did some fast research, and discovered that dry champagne generally has 2.5gms
of carb per 3oz (a measly measure, imho). I thought What the heck, I've been good today - and I had, with sushi
for dinner, and no-frills chicken salad at lunch. But I didn't open the bottle. It would have been a waste, because, at most,
I would have had one glass and had to call it quits. So I'm going to take it with me to the convention next weekend, and
have some friends help me drink it... That way I can have my one glass and get rid of the rest!
Okay, Monday the 11th, time to jump on the
scales... 137lbs. Hm. Not
quite what I was hoping to see. Actually up a pound from the beginning of the
week, darnit!
Then I looked in the mirror. My face was a bit puffy, and now that I thought about it, my
breasts were a bit sore and I was feeling a twinge or two from Down Below. Oh great, my period is coming on, just when I
didn't want it to - because of the aforementioned upcoming convention. Nor will I even bother to weigh myself again
until it's all over (about 2 weeks, I have a long ramp-up time and a six day period, usually) because I've always had a
fabulous talent for retaining up to five pounds of water during my period. With luck, I'll step on the scales on the 24th or
so and think I've suddenly got cancer or something - whoosh! At least, that's the theory.
I've also been going a bit heavy on the higher-fat foods this week. I might have actually
been taking in more calories than I burned - particularly since I discovered pork rinds. They satisfy my need for
something salty and crunchy, but I think I've got a bit overboard with them - like putting away at least one two-ounce bag
every day for three days running. I'm going to try to cut those way
down for the next few days - all that sodium isn't so hot right now, anyways, given that I don't need help retaining
water. And my lunch for the past week has been cheese-and-salami, rather than
the tuna-and-mayo I usually have, so that might not have helped much either.
I'm going to try to vary my lunch a bit more - besides, routine gets boring
after a while. As for dinners, I love
Alex's blue cheese topped steak, but I think I had better slow down and perhaps not have one
every night... I'll go to the
grocery store and get some more chicken, and such. It can't hurt, right? I know
we're not supposed to care about calories or fat on the Atkins thing, but I'm
shooting myself in the foot if I'm taking in more calories than I burn every
day...
Final note: check out www.fitday.com
- it's a pretty neat site. You can track all the food you eat, your goals,
even keep an online journal about your progress - and the site is designed so
that it can accommodate any diet.