Yikes! Having a tough moment

So I'm working all night on Elections coverage. I don't mind that, but it's wrecking havoc on my diet. Today has been my worst eating day so far. I had Liberte yogurt this morning, which is practically a dessert. I have schwarma pita for lunch, plenty of calories there. Then I had a small salad with a tbsp of caesar dressing, and a pretty small slice of pepperoni pizza. That's all fine, but I also had two high-calorie piece of chocolate and macadamia nut candy. That's about 280 calories in just a few tiny bites. I'm at about 1430 calories. But I haven't even gotten to the hard part. There's cannoli here. Cannoli! I want it bad! I'm still pretty hungry. A part of me just want to give, who likes self-punishment? I never said I was ascetic.

But y'all, I gotta get this weight off, pronto! This is no joke. If not now, when? All my skinny friends are pairing off, and I want that too. I would LOVE to be a fats with a husband, but that doesn't seem to be working out for me. Ugh. Back to work.

ETA: I resisted the cannoli! I feel like Jennifer Connely at the end of Labrynth when she looks at the Goblin King and defiantly says, "You have no power over me."

Morning check-in

I'm under the 240s. That feels good. The 240s were my highest weight ever. I'm glad that I didn't stay in them for long. I was around 225 for many months, and then hovered around 235 for months until I exercised my ass back down to 225. That took almost a year! Not a big diet change, but lots and lots of spin class. The 240s were a shocker. I weighed 242 on 10/1 at my doctor's office. I have to go back at the beginning of December and it's be nice to be about 10 pounds less. That means losing about 7 more pounds this month -- including Thanksgiving. It's going to be tough.

What I ate today

Liberte Medditerean Greek Yogurt is shockingly delicious. It tastes like a decadent dessert. To my surprise it is. It's made with cream. Did you hear that? Cream! I can't be eating too much of yummy yummy tastiness. Looks like it's back to Siggi's for me. Ha! Yeah, right. As if I have the money for Siggi's. Perhaps I can scrape a few pennies for some Dannon Light and Fit.

I'm remembering those little high school tips I mentioned earlier. Tonight I bought a can of veggie chili for dinner. I poured about a third of it over a baked potato. Lots of fiber, protein, and carbs but few calories. I get the satiety and warmth of comfort food from an extremely healthy low-calorie meal.

I had a chicken schwarma pita for lunch. I'm guessing that's about 550 calories? Maybe 4 ozs of chicken, and smallish pita, a spoonful of hummus, lettuce and cucumber. The warm chicken and bread feels indulgent, but it's really not too bad.

That's about 1330 calories for me according to SparkPeople. I also had once slice of Wasa crispbread and tbsp on hummus. I tried to be honest as I can, but I can't help but feels that's a low-ball figure. Still, this really hasn't been that hard. There have been moments of hunger and craving, but nothing overwhelming. Nothing to make me give in.  I did have a fun-size Butterfinger on Halloween, but that's been about it. So far this is working.

A New Scale

Hi! So my trusty scale that I've had for the past several years conked out on me a few days ago. I just ran to K-Mart to upgrade. I'm apparently at 240.4 pounds. I was nervous that my old scale had been under-reporting my weight since it broke, but the new scale numbers seems to be right in line with numbers I had been getting. A 4 pound loss in a week. That's probably more than I have ever lost in a week in my life. If I can keep that up I'll be thrilled.

In the prime mental and physical space known as the zone

Finishing out the day at about 1350 calories as far as I can tell. I'm pretty sure that's close to the actual number. This week really hasn't been that hard. Sure, I've been hungry, but it's not been that bad. And I've certainly haven't felt a bit of light headedness or tiredness. I'm not starving myself. I hope I can keep this up. I hope I don't slip.

I'm not doing anything crazy tonight, but tomorrow is Halloween and we're going out big. Lots of drinking I bet. I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow and stick with low-calorie cocktails, but at about 100 calories per drink I have to be careful.

Don't Call it a Step Back!

I'm a half pound heavier today. I'm not stressed about it. Could have been that bowl of Kashi cereal last night after my light dinner of not-so-good sushi. Or it could be nothing but water weight. I still feel lighter in my body, and I'm still shocked by my results this week.

I had the most amazing lunch today. The cafe called it turkey-chili potpie, but it was better than it sounds. The chili was delicious, and the topping wasn't a pie pastry, but a sweet cornbread. So good! SparkPeople guessed it to be about 600 calories. That's about all I've had to eat today, and I still have to figure out dinner. I suppose I'll run to grocery store and pick-up some chicken or fish and roast some brocolli. Have you ever had roasted brocolli? No lie: it's a revelation. Try Ina Garten's recipe (pictured above). Eat it now, thank me later!

Measuring calories: Why is it so damn hard?

I'm using SparkPeople to keep a food journal. I'm wondering how accurate it is. The product information is correct as far as I can tell, but I'm nervous about unpackaged food portion size. Did I eat 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinaigrette dressing? How many red beans were in my salad, a fourth of a cup or a half a cup? I'm not sure. I actually feel like it was less than that, but I don't want to under report. Anyway, I don't want to get to obsessive about this. Journaling should just be used as a guideline. It's best to be used as a tool for conscious eating--awareness. I've always found it to be necessary for me to lose weight, and experts do point to it as a necessity.

Let's be honest. It's joyless and tedious. It takes out a lot of the joy of eating. At best it appeals to the geekier side of me. I can never keep it up for longer than a month. I'm determined this time around to be more consistent.