cin2no

The only constant is “change”. Change in seasons, change in body, change in time. Changes in buddies. I was just looking through my list of buddies and realized that I’m a horrible buddy. I don’t check in as much as I should and when I’m not “watching what I eat” I feel extremely guilty reading that others are.  So I tend to stay away when I’m being bad. I do sign in a read blogs because I care from afar. <grin> As I looked at the list of names and realized that some haven’t been on here in a really long time. Makes you wonder why we gravitate or migrate here or there.  I have great intentions and I want to be a good friend but when others pull away, you can’t make them stay can you?

I’m hoping to read some blogs and see what the new kids are doing (I feel so uncool not knowing anyone well on here anymore)

And once again, I started WW. <grin> one day I will finish this game I keep starting. Or the game will finish me. I’d prefer to be the winner.

Welcome to all the new faces and I hope the familiar ones will come around again.

Have a fantastic Sunday.

I love the New Year on weight web sites! Everyone is so positive. (either positive they’re messing up or positive they’ll get it together). Which ever way it is, it’s blogged. Always lots of activity and it’s really cool to read about what we all want. You know how some only need to lose a few good pounds and are talking swimsuits? Then there’s the few of us that have such a long way to go that we can’t think beyond each meal or each day. We dream of swimsuits in the distance. We dream of being a certain size. We dream of how it might feel to put on skinny jeans or to have a hot man in his jeans, no shirt, fresh from a shower with blue eyes and wet, dark hair…wait…different kind of dream. Anyway..Dreams. Not something I’ve ever really said out loud. I’ve always been really practical and never believed in dreams. In fact, I thought that they were silly. I mean, how crazy to tell all of your “secrets” out loud just so others can know what a dork you are when they don’t come true. And your weight dreams that don’t come true usually only have one source as their failure..YOU.

 I was just one of those weird kids. I was raised by a single mother that worked two jobs. I had sisters but they had all left home by the time I was 7. I was my mothers companion, housekeeper, cook. I took care of her because she was always exhausted. I never liked cartoons. I thought believing in winning the lottery was foolish. I would never want to meet a “star”. I’m aging. I now realize that if you want something bad enough, you have to “dream” it to make it happen. I’ve read that for years and now I understand what they mean by it.  Weight being a prime example. If you don’t allow yourself to “see” yourself at a new place, I don’t know that you will allow yourself to get there. I mean, how can you go somewhere if you don’t know where you want to go? So..I’m going to allow myself a dream. I want to see myself healthier, mentally and physically. I want to see myself learn to control my food issues. I want to understand why everyone liked that movie “Finding Nemo” and I fell asleep 10 minutes into it. I want to know why everyone thinks Angelina Jolie is so attractive and why people faint at meeting celebrities. I want to explore outside of my comfort zone.

I restarted WW last Saturday after a nice size gain from the holidays. I am sad to think that I’m exploring a number higher than I’ve ever seen on the scale. (I do know I don’t like that and don’t want to stay there or visit there again)

Hopefully my dream will not be the “Impossible dream” that Elvis sang about but will be more of the Land of Disney ..where dreams do come true.  To anyone that might happen upon this blog..I challenge you to state your dream.

I have a confession. I think I’m a bad buddy in person. I’m not sure how to handle it.

I absolutely love sharing stories of weight loss on here. I love the non scale victories, I love the scale victories, the exercise addicts, the clothes stories and I love all of you guys! I truly am here for anyone that needs support. I can compliment, kick your butt, be supportive..etc. However, I notice I’m not so giving to those that are in front of me every day. Could it be pure jealousy? I hope not but I don’t know. I have a co-worker and she’s done so great at losing. I blogged about it a while back, she talks non-stop about her losing. I want to enjoy it with her but she’s taking all the fun out of it. It’s like when someone is cute..once they know it, they lose the “cuteness”. It’s the fact that they are and don’t know it that make them attractive. I want that to be the lady at work. I want her to realize that she’s lost alot and I want her to enjoy her new body and life but I don’t neccessarily want to talk about it all day. Today, 3 separate conversations with her went like this…. The first one was “look how big this dress is on me. It’s huge”. To which I agreed and said, good excuse for some new clothes. Her next statement was, “did you see how many doughnuts Joan had? She must’ve ate 3 of them!.” I said, maybe she was hungry. Her last statement was, “do I look really thin today because all of a sudden people are noticing and asking if I’m trying to lose weight,. Steve in IS, Laurie in Customer Service and Gil just all said I looked really thin. Where have they been this year?  Steve said it looked like there was only half of me” To which I said, “well you look really good. Guess it’s paying off now”. Inside, all I could think of is “please don’t get so stuck on yourself.”. Is that really bad? I know why it bothers me, it makes me come to terms with the fact that she’s accomplishing something a) I want and b) I can’t seem to do. So I guess I’m jealous but mostly I just want her to not notice that she’s doing so great or maybe she can notice it but not bring it to my attention. So I think I’m a better long distance buddy. Does that make sense?

I am sure that in the dictionary, this word in all of it’s many forms has a picture of me beside it. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why that has become a life choice for me. It never was before. I used to work as a motel maid when I was in my teens in the summer because I was a great cleaner. I could clean a room faster than anyone and do it really good! These days though, I could care less.  I’m not busier so my only conclusions are that I’m depressed and I’m lazy. So I think I’m lazy because I’m depressed. I’m depressed because I have no energy and I hate myself right now (within context. I dont’ like being lazy, I don’t like being heavy, I don’t like being this out of shape..blah, blah, blah. I like ME. Just not all of me) . I’m not depressed enough for medication, I work and I’m greatly motivated there. In fact, I work really hard there.

I just can’t get organized. It’s like I have ADD all of a sudden. (I don’t have it but I have a huge focusing problem) Last Saturday, I woke up about 8am and decided to clean house. Told my husband I would be home cleaning. Bless his heart, a look of relief swept his face and he thought finally, I’ll be able to find the floor. So I get up and eat a bowl of cereal. I called a friend to check on her brother with cancer. An hour conversation. I get up, dress in my sweats, get a bottle of water and dust rags, vaccum, trash bag, head to the living room first. I turn the TV on for noise. I start cleaning off the coffee table, I find a bill that looks like I haven’t paid but I’m thinking I did so I go grab my check book to make sure I paid it, I find a chewing gum wrapper. Oh Lord, my purse has all these receipts and paper thrown in there so I decide that my purse needs cleaning out. I dump my purse on the table. I find my WW weigh in sheets. I agonize over how many times I can lose the same 10 pounds and gain them back. I’m so depressed. Why can’t I do this? Other people do. Why do I not have in me what others do? Where’s my fight, my desire?  My throat gets dry. I wonder if I have any gum left. I search through the odds and ends on the table. No gum. Maybe I need a drink of something. My water bottle is empty.  I go to the kitchen. I open the refrigerator. Hmmm…there’s some water. Oh look..there’s a chocolate ff pudding. I get the pudding. I go sit back in the living room to eat it. I look at the TV…it’s a show about getting organized on TLC.  They have all the baskets in the yard, keep, give away, throw away. I get interested. I need to do that. Why are they keeping that ugly lamp? I yawn. I look at my mess on the table. The mail from the last week sitting in that chair. All of those credit card offers that I need to shred. (what are they thinking, I have no money). I lean back and listen to the couple argue about keeping his beloved dart board. I close my eyes. Next thing I know it’s an hour later. I’ve napped. I go to the potty. I go back to the fridge for the water I never got. Hmm..I’m hungry. It’s lunch time. I put a Lean Cuisine in the microwave. Six minutes…so I stand in the kitchen. I need to find that recipe for chili for supper. I pull out all of my cookbooks and various papers from the bottom cabinet. My Lean Cuisine is ready. I throw all of the cookbooks back in the shelf in disarray just in case someone comes in my apartment and steals my lunch before I can stand up and get it. Still don’t have the recipe. Go into the bedroom and turn on that TV (closer to the kitchen). Sit on the bed…oh..a lifetime movie I’ve never seen. I like that actress..what’s her name. I lay on one arm. Each commercial I tell myself I’m going to go back to cleaning but then I stay. I watch the whole movie. Then Lifetime starts the next movie without a commercial in between…why do they do that. Now I’ve invested 4 minutes into another movie. I can’t do this. I have to clean. I turn off that TV, go to the living room and change the channel so that the movie is on that one. At least this way I’ll clean. There’s a good part, I put down my dust rag, I sit on the couch. I watch intently. The phone rings, the next 30 minutes is spent watching the movie and talking to my sister. I pay attention to my sister during the commercials and find time to get into a heated discussion. I get off the phone. Why is she so stubborn? I finish watching that movie and immediately get up. Ohh..Potty break. Now, I can’t find which room my water is in. OH there it is. It’s in the dining room. I set it there on the way to the potty. Wait..that chili recipe is in the cabinet in there I think I remember. I pull out all of those cookbooks. I spread them on top of the many bags that are already on the dining room table . Things I brought in last night and laid them there. I hear the postman in the hall. I go out, talk to him, get the mail. I see another neighbor, go chat with her. She has the cutest dog I’ve ever seen. I play with the dog. I go back in my apartment and read my mail. I got my WW magazine. I sit down and start reading it. I look up and there’s a new movie on. I’ve seen this one and I love this one part so I sit there. I pick up the trash bag and put some newspapers that I haven’t read from the week in it. I go through another stack of mail that needs the junk weeded out. Oh..I love the hair style of the lady on this new catalog I got this week. I’m wondering if I could wear mine like that.

The phone rings, it’s my husband, he’s coming home. He wants to know if I’ve cleaned the house.  I  look around and answered no and he wants to know what I did all day. Hmmm…what did I do today. Oh stuff, you know. He’s on his way home, what’s for supper?. I get off the phone, I look around. My purse stuff is still in the living room, my cookbooks are thrown about on the dining room table. I have a trash bag half filled and now I have empty water bottles sitting around too. I’ve half dusted one room.  SO now I’m depressed because I haven’t done anything. I work M-F, I leave before 7am and I get home about 7:30 and by the time I get home, cook supper, wash dishes, get the mail, check on my sister next door (who’s chronically sick and I do her trash and dishes and stuff) come home take a bath, it’s time for bed and to start again. So fast forward…it’s Saturday again. This morning I woke up and told my husband that TODAY I was cleaning. He laughed and ran out the door. I’ve had my cereal. I have my cleaning sweats on and my dust rag in my hand and I was on my way to the living room when I thought maybe I’d come check my mail online. I had to come see what my peeps here are doing. I’ve read some blogs. I’m so proud of so many of you doing so well! I know what a high that is. Been there done that but way, way too long ago. Now I’ve decided that I needed to get up and do something. Right after I blog about my problem and see if anyone has any suggestions. <grin>

I promise, I’m going to get up right after this last line and after I check in with a few Buddy slimmers and start cleaning. REALLY.

Hey…anyone out there have any good food/snack ideas for a Halloween potluck at work? It’s an all day thing so I can do a crockpot dish or a snack something. It’s just getting harder and harder to come up with ideas past the normal veggie plate or fruit. We actually have about 7 people on WW and they’ve all put down every celery, broccoli, fruit item you can bring. Of course I got the list last. I hate it when that happens!

Which by the way…I’m trying to find a way to redeem myself. There’s a lady at work that’s in her late 50’s. She’s a nice lady but has a military background and is very rigid with her speech and her physical moves. She’s a character all her own. I find her very refreshing..well..until today when she outed me in a comment taken out of context. We were in a meeting of about 25 people. She’s going to be our Mrs. Claus for the children’s Christmas party. She says out loud as she’s pointing at me, that Cindy said she was a scary Mrs. Claus and that maybe she ought not be! I screamed her name across the room and said..that’s not what I said but by then everyone was looking at me like I killed kittens for fun. I got really red so then everyone started laughing. (HA HA) That statement was from a conversation after last year’s party when I commented to her on what a terrific job she had done as Mrs. Claus. She then stated that she hated children (she has 6 of her own) and that she’d done the Mrs. Claus job several times in her life not knowing why because some children could be quite a pain to put up with. I then jokingly said…it’s scary that she’s  our Mrs. Claus and she hates children. Out of that she took that I called her scary. Guess I did but I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. So now I’m getting all this grief from all these people at the meeting about how mean I was to this poor, older lady. LOL…it’s bad enough to be the biggest person in the room without adding the embarrassment of being the meanest.

Crow is not that tasty! (heehee) This too shall pass…(yikes..me and my mouth)

Does anyone else have a wish list for this site? Probably Dr. Marc. (Wishing everyone would just be happy) AND I AM! Thank you Dr. Marc. However, I wish there was a way you could link into comments on other blogs after you’ve  made them . Like..say you post a reply to a blog and then you go about your day. If the blogger happens to answer or elaborate their blog by posting a reply, there’s no way you know it’s been updated. Does that make sense? How does everyone else deal with this? I mean, if I reply to someone and they have something they answer to me, unless they write it to my mail, I wouldn’t ever see it. I’m not sure what the solution is but I was just reading some blogs and I noticed that some bloggers had went back and thanked some of the previous people that had replied and unless those people go back to that particular blog, they’ll never know. OR is there a secret that I don’t know about?

As I’ve said before, I’ve lost alot of weight, only to regain it back and I’m starting all over again. I’m actually struggling with staying motivated. The first time I did this (about 7 years ago) I lost some friends with the weight. This isn’t unusual I’ve been told, because people close to you still expect you to stay the same and because of the dynamics of relationships, the dropping of weight sometimes causes a change of personality. We’ve all seen it. It really does come with the weight loss.  It’s because to lose weight, you have to focus on yourself.  So we choose to center on the “me” factor. People close to you probably haven’t seen that part of you because you have to be more rigid with that inner child. I was just pondering all of this and it occured to me that I  had always assumed it wasn’t me that changed “really” it was just that my friends didn’t want me to share attention. They liked being the thinner, prettier one. I always thought with the loss before that I was still the same on the inside. However, I’m beginning to  think we do change inside too with  a large weight loss. I’m not talking about 10 or 20 pounds. I’m talking about major weight loss .I got more vocal and I knew I looked “better”. When I’m not on “plan”, I don’t really care about details to how I look. (that’s what I call the “frumpy girl”) As long as I feel comfortable and I’m clean, I’m good to go. Let me go on plan and my lipstick suddenly has to be on all the time. I’m all jewelry’d up,  I suddenly have an opinion on where I want to go.  All of a sudden my gray world goes black and white. I become rigid in my food morals..”Oh..she shouldn’t be eating that if she’s trying to lose weight”. Like I’m an expert? It’s like the control of food, makes me want to organize and control other areas.  Wonder why we do that? I say we, because I have a co-worker that’s lost 45 pounds this past year. People have started noticing and now she’s getting tons of attention. Being on the outside, I see how people treat her different and oddly enough, how she responds. She’s an older lady and she’s usually very quiet. Now she talks to everyone. She always talks about how her clothes fit, how her hair looks.  She’s the food police to everyone. You’d think she had a PHD in nutrition. (I know we feel that way after analyzing so much food that we eat) She wonders why every man seems to be talking to her differently. (some do) SO her change is very evident and it’s not particularly for the better. My co-worker was a much more interesting person before her transformation. I find myself constantly reassurring her that she really does look great and yes her clothes fit her better now. Our conversations before were on work and interest in other things. Now they center on her. Now, on one hand, one could say I was jealous. I’m sure I am at some level but not consciously because I applaud women getting empowerment. I only question it when we get more needy. I happen to know that she doesn’t think she’s changed . (she often talks about another girl in the office that changed with her weight loss so she said she didn’t think hers had made her different. ahh..but it did)  I wonder if that’s what scares so me when I think about losing? I know before, I couldn’t handle the attention. I hated being stared at. It’s like a woman’s pregnancy starting to show, everyone feels like it’s a topic of conversation. I guess I’m fearful that I’ll believe the hype. When you think of yourself as one thing and then people start telling you you’re something else, maybe there’s a fine line between liking yourself a little too much???? I don’t know, I wonder.

Do we center on ourselves so much that we forget who we are and what’s really important?Is this why losing is so hard and feels so isolated? Just pondering.  I’m desperately trying to figure out why I struggle with trying to lose this time. I’m older, it’s harder but it’s a constant battle with myself. I loved being in smaller sizes and I loved knowing when I put my clothes on, they’d fit, and I loved knowing I was healthy and powerful so why am I fighting it so much? I have to be scared of something and I can’t figure it out.

(I’m not referring to us here, talking about the changes we all experience and what we eat is expected. Its’ a site devoted to what’s going on with all of that. Just in general outside of here)

Today I had a run in with the vending machine. I made a horrible, horrible choice. A slice of pizza that was 18 points that was really bad. It was that or oatmeal and I’ve had oatmeal for breakfast all week so I just couldn’t do it for lunch. I had a 3pm deadline and no time to go anywhere. I frantically searched the office freezer and it was full of Lean Cuisines but no one was around to ask if I could “borrow ” one or not. It was a moral dilema. Normally, I’d have borrowed and put back tomorrow but we’ve had some conflicts on people borrowing and not putting back and it’s causing freezer police to be watching. For a split second I thought of someone catching me, throwing me to the floor and announcing to everyone that they had “gotten the dirty bastard that was stealing the Lean Cuisines”. That led me to the vending machine. I thought about it this evening though…I bet you we have about 24 people in my office. With at least 16 of those being women. Every woman in there eats Lean Cuisine or Smart ones for lunch. 2/3rds of those women are overweight. If we’re all watching what we eat, what would we be like if we didn’t? There we are, all struggling to stay with that 300 calorie lunch but yet, none of us have lost substantial weight. Just an observance.  It was not a good day as I had to have a Kit Kat to get the bad pizza out of my mouth. Yes, it was all due to my ill planned day and the fact that I overslept this morning . Planning is essential.  I will never have success until I focus and make this a number one priority. I’m not like some of you that can teeter and do 80% on plan and lose. I have the metabolism of a 20 year old cat with liver disease. UGH. Tomorrow’s a new day and I have my lunch packed already

I’ve lost weight before…it’s been about 7 or 8 years now but I lost 110 pounds. Gained it back. Lots of personal issues (had to give up me time to take care of my mom, had severe issues with the extra skin, hard to take people treating me different…etc.) Anyway..I really need to do it this time for health reasons. The first time around, I’ll be honest, I CHOSE to not participate in alot of social activities. Yes I could have but it was easier not to. I told myself that when I got where I wanted to be, I’d manage things then. Truth is, I never learned to manage things in social situations. I know what people always say, eat before you go, drink lots of water, nibble on lo-cal treats but if you’re really honest, it’s hard to be on any program and go “out” with others. Not saying it can’t be done, just saying it requires the desire to want to stay on plan. Since trying to get and stay on track again, I’ve found that every time I get to a certain point, social situations come up that pull me back into bad routines. Take work. I usually work through lunch (except for a couple of days that I ate fast food). Last week, I turned down 3 lunch invitations, I ate my Lean Cuisines and was happy about it. I missed out on all of the office gossip, I missed out on seeing two old friends that went that I hadn’t seen in months and I missed the relaxation of getting away from the office. The places they went, Mexican and chinese are places that I struggle to find things low cal that I like. I guess this blog is about the desire to find balance. Some people do it so much better than I do. There was a new girl at work that admitted she didn’t have any friends, she all but begged me to go out for a girls night out so we could celebrate her getting her degree. I really wanted to go but i knew that I would have to count calories and with two of us, I didn’t trust myself. She had an over the top personality and was one of those “live for the minute” wonderful people. There would be no one lite beer and a stalk of celery for the night.  Lunches, if you can choose the place, can be manageable. If you can’t, you have to do the best you can. This is why I lost so many friends the first time I lost weight. They never wanted to be with someone that had to watch everything put in front of them. It’s like going to a bar with a recovering alcoholic. Yes you can go, but how much fun is it to drink with someone that can’t? So you choose not to go to bars at all with those people. People that eat, still have to eat. I can say I’ll only go to certain places but I hate to do that every time. I just miss my social eating times. I know in the long run, I have to put me first but it’s all a vicious circle. I exclude myself (not them doing it to me, me doing it to me) and then I feel sorry for myself because I don’t have friends. I’ve tried making new friends but I have so much more weight to lose than most that it’s hard to find someone in the same position. Dear me…could someone get me some cheese with this whine….? LOL

It’s all good. 

There’s been so much introspection lately on the blogs that I’ve just been thinking way too much.  Today something occured to me. I’m really twisted and I don’t think I ever knew to what degree. I worked 12 hours today, count an hour drive and I was just beat this evening. I decided the chicken for dinner would take too long to prepare so I’d just pick up something. Oddly enough, there’s this sub place my husband loves. I only get them for rare occassions. Reason being is that they have a ton of calories. I had to stop at the grocery store so I thought, I could just make us subs like those. Then it hit me that I wouldn’t make them the same way. I never cook like restaurants because of the fat and the calories, yet I still stay this big. I like to cook at home to keep track of what we’re eating better but it dawned on me that the reason I like eating out is not because it’s better but it’s because normal people do it too. People in a healthy weight range. Even though you hear about the portions being so large, you look around in restaurants and there are those thin people in there, eating the same amount that I am. I have ruled this as being “okay” in my head. How twisted is that? I wouldn’t make nor eat a sandwich that big and filled but I will eat it out because “someone else” thought it was alright to eat that much.  Just like, I’ll go to the Olive Garden and get Fettucine Alfredo which is my all time favorite. I have a fantastic recipe for it but I won’t fix it because I know the ingredients and I know it’s a heart attack waiting to happen. HOWEVER, if I order it there, I convince myself that they use powdered products that aren’t as fattening, when in reality, there’s noway to make that stuff taste really good without alot of calories. Oh how twisted the mind is. I don’t think I need a diet, I think I need one of those mind washing exercises that people do to people in cults? A mental detox if you will. Wonder how many other “food” ideas I have subconsciously that’s keeping me weighted down? I read once that in larger cities they have psychiatrists that specialize in weight control..anyone ever been to one? I read this in one of those women’s magazines and they mentioned that these doctors have the “special” mirrors that make you look smaller so that you can mentally adjust to seeing yourself differently. I need to find one of those mirrors. (sort of like when those stores like Nordstrom’s uses special light bulbs in the ladies’ fitting rooms during bathing suit season so that your skin will look really good when you look in the mirror) . I’d like to have a thin, young mirror to show me what I could look like with weight loss and surgery..LOL. Okay, throw in a hot guy next to me and then I’d know what it looked like to have money too!

If this is reading like psycho blubber, it could be a smoke induced confusion on my part. Serves me right but I was asked to bake a cake for a function tomorrow at work and my stove decided to go as high as it could and wouldn’t shut off. Needless to say..the cake is not going to be ate and now we have black lung.