PTA, First Day of School, and a hectic but frivolous lunch

162.2 -- nearly 10 pounds off!

Today was the first day of school, so I barely slept last night because my brain just would NOT shut UP about what I was forgetting (I don't know how I could though.... with it nagging me all night long) or what I needed to do and how I should explain my rules and what I did last year... ugh. Sleepless nights suck.

Anyway, so I get to school (at 7:30 mind you... Yours Truly has morning duty every single day, all year. Every morning will be an Amazing Race to get to work on time!) and once our assembly is over, I go to the lounge to get some water for my day. I walk in and see mass quantities of muffins, coffee, pastries, donuts, candy, and all sorts of other goodies I forced myself to believe were not real. I got my water and left the lounge without even pausing to examine the generous gift from the PTA. I kinda felt bad, cuz they spent all that money on things I could not in any way help them make disappear, but by lunch there wasn't much left, so I didn't feel SO bad.

Speaking of lunch, with all that stuff in the lounge you'd think a spare bowl would be somewhere. No. I had planned on having soup for lunch, and the cups were too small to make it work. I had to make a quick run to walmart. So I spent my actual lunch break racing through the aisles looking for a quick fix for the year, since I obviously couldn't rely on the teacher's lounge to support my new lifestyle, and found exactly what I was looking for in Correll. Yet again, basic is best. So I get my bowl, get back to school, drop off my purse, lock my room and head to the lounge. Once I get there, I realize "Where's my soup? ACK! I left it in the room." [long story short: katie runs back to classroom...realizes she left her keys in the lounge to save her place......yup, locked the door.... goes back to lounge, gets keys, goes back to room, unlocks door, grabs soup, relocks door and heads back (finally) for lunch. Yes, I washed the bowl before I used it.]

While sitting student-less in the lounge for a few minutes, another teacher walked in while I was eating my stupid diet-brand chicken noodle soup and opened up the donut box that was sitting RIGHT next to me.... I was ok seeing those delicious little bits of kryptonite but when she closed the box, that smell...... mmmh.

I didn't eat one though. And when another teacher came in and grabbed one (for both of us, hah. Dieting sucks, by the way.) I just smiled and took my bowl of murky not-really-chicken-broth and cleaned out the remainder of my lunch in the sink.

About an hour later, we passed in the hall again and she informed me that I should be proud of myself for not eating the donuts... "They weren't very good anyway." I told her she was just saying that to make me feel better, but she was pretty sincere when she said, "No. Really."

In about 5 seconds I went from being slightly bitter and envious to sympathetic and disappointed.


"Aw, she ate all those calories and they didn't even taste good. How sad."


Yesterday I was a rabbit, today I'm a diet snob. Tomorrow... well, at least I know I have a bowl to make my soup in.

Worn out

My classroom is almost done, and boy am I tired. I worked all day Friday (didn't get home till after 9PM) and yesterday I had rehearsal for 12 hours. The diet doesn't work so well when you get 2 hour meal breaks.... I fudged a little and had two salads, but I don't think extra veggies will hurt. Extra meat might, but not veggies. I weighed in this morning at 163.4 so I'm 8 pounds lighter than I started. Whew! It seems easier now... my weakness has always been friend chicken (in any form) and when we went out to eat yesterday I noticed someone else eating it and caught myself thinking, "Blegh. That doesn't EVEN seem appetizing."

I see it now. MediFast is slowly turning me into a rabbit.

(nom nom nom)

New Diet + in-service = crummy week

I'm not gonna lie to you. It's been rough. Tuesday was the worst by far. I had my first appointment and was all grouchy and unmotivated. I think I may have even scared my counselor, lol. BUT, I got my mint chocolate crunch bars and suddenly my world was awesome again. Yall know how much I like mint chocolate things.... and now, I can eat mint chocolate things (well, only the flavored diet bars) FIVE TIMES A DAY. Yummers. I'm a much happier girl.

That alone helped me get through a crummy meeting-filled Wednesday (where there were tiny "does this really count?" candy bar bites all over the tables waiting for me to just rip them all open and chow down...but I refrained.) and yesterday was a little harder cuz we had friends over who got to eat pizza....in front of me.....while I made my stupid weird hamburger patty without any bread and had to measure my ketchup.... Yeah, I felt pretty lame. But I didn't eat any pizza, and that's the important thing.

Today was surprisingly easy. I wasn't even interested in the in-service candy or going out to lunch, and I kept pretty busy finishing up my room at school that I don't even remember thinking about food until that 2.5 hour hunger pang came around. Someone once told me that it takes 21 days to make a habit and 7 to break it. Maybe I'm breaking my 3 meals a day habit WHILE I'm making the 6 meals a day habit... Anybody know if that's possible/probable?

Anyway, my second appointment went really well. I did another keytone test and I got a big "WOW! People would KILL to have a test result like that!" so I guess it was good? I'm not really sure what all of the stuff they test for means, but that one is supposed to test how much fat I'm burning and I guess it's a lot from what they told me.

One of my teacher friends put it perfectly: Dieting is lonely.
So true. But it will totally be worth it when I'm trim and fit and eating right. As a side note, I was getting my blood pressure taken and noticed a chart on the wall... it said for my height, 180 qualifies as obese. Insert mega eye-opener here. I was at 177 in May. Yikes. I knew I was heavier than I should be, but I didn't realize how close I was to that "classification." I'm glad I'm taking care of it now though, while I'm young and (mostly) healthy than after it causes more problems than I can control.

I weighed in this morning (Day 6) at 164.4. Over 6 and a half pounds down, 26 to go. They said the first week was the hardest... let's hope so cuz its OVER!

New discovery

Bobby made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (yum!) for lunch today and I didn't think it would hurt to have one for myself... Being the good husband he is, he made me call and find out if I'm allowed to have bread.

The verdict: ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Bummer. So I can't have a sandwich for 11 weeks. This makes me very, very sad. Subway is probably going to go out of business, and it will be all my fault!

I have my first appointment tonight at 6, so we'll see what they have to say. I'm not as hungry all the time as I have been, but I do get weird headaches between 5PM and 9PM. The past couple days, they've gone away after I had my next meal, but there's no telling why that's happening.

72 days left.

Day three, and already 5 pounds lighter!

Well, it's a good thing I had some results today. Yesterday was awful and I was having my doubts---"Can I really already want to quit two days in? I don't think I can manage this for 11 more weeks!"

I weighed this morning and am 5 pounds lighter than I was on Friday. This took a month to accomplish at the gym! I'm feeling better today too. I'm not AS hungry feeling, and I actually went up to school and worked on my room a bit. I could tell I was getting tired after a couple hours though, so I went to walmart and bought a new variety of "approved veggies" and meats for my lean and green meal. I got roughly 3 weeks of "dinner" ingredients for less than $50. Can't beat that budget!

I decided to do my green portion at lunch--best salad EVER. It filled me up and gave me the energy to do a boatload of house work. Yay for accomplishment!

I don't think I'm supposed to separate my "Leans" and my "Greens" but I'm supposed to have 3 servings of veggies each day and some of them include 1 cup of salad, 1/2 cup of green beans, 1/2 cup of tomatoes PLUS however many ounces of meat... Sorry, I really like to eat, but that's a LOT of food for one sitting. I think it'll be ok to spread out. I'll just have 7 meals a day for now.

Better get back to housework. I start in-service tomorrow morning, so there won't be any more free time for me to be productive. Sigh. I'm excited about seeing the kids though, and getting back into a routine. Here we come 2009-2010 school year! Hopefull there will be much less of me at the end than at the beginning!

Sluggish

The first week is the hardest. I'm on day two and I'm hungry. The bars are pretty good, I had a bowl of their chicken noodle soup yesterday after I posted and it wasn't bad. Being at rehearsal all day outside wasn't very helpful though.

I had my two bars in the morning with my vitamins, and by lunch I felt like I was starving, so I compromised my schedule a little and had a grilled chicken sandwich from Sonic. It counted as my meat and a third of my vegetable portion for the day. I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to have bread.... regardless, it was wheat so it wasn't that bad. I'll have to ask my counselor on Tuesday.

It was over 96 degrees the whole time and even though I drank MORE than enough water for my diet AND the heat, I felt pretty yucky by about 6:00. I came home and kept to my eating schedule, but I still don't feel great. Resting helped a LOT. I had to stand and walk and act at rehearsal and I kinda think I shouldn't have done so much. They encouraged me to avoid working out for the first 3 weeks because of the amount of protein that I'm consuming on the diet. Apparently it can damage my muscle tissue if I work out before my body is used to the new foods.

With all the work I put in making these muscles, I don't even want to think about risking deterioration.

I had some green beans (my other 2/3 of veggies for the day) about an hour ago and that helped settle my stomach a little.

I want to crawl into bed and sleep off this yucky, hungry feeling though... blegh.

MediFast

This blog is to serve as my accountability partner. Get ready to know more about me than ever.

Before I start though, I do want to include a disclaimer: this whole thing is for me and my body type. I will not say anything with the intent to insult or offend anyone else. I am not going to judge anyone, and I expect you, my readers, NOT to compare yourselves to me. This is MY journey to feeling better about myself and getting healthy. You do what you gotta do to be happy and if that's nothing, then by all means, mega kudos to you! =)

Ok, down to business.

Today I started a new diet to lose 32 pounds by November. Now, before you freak out, let me explain the background story to this decision.

I am 5'4" tall and currently weigh 171 pounds. Most people say they can't tell from looking because *somehow* I carry it "well." For my own sake, I don't want to carry the extra baggage at all. It makes me tired, and it makes me feel bad about myself and by any means, we cannot have that. Not over something silly and fixable like being overweight. So here's my story and how I'm going to reverse it:

When I was in high school, I ended my sophomore year weighing 165 pounds. At that point, it was the heaviest I had ever been. So, over the summer I joined swim team and literally worked off 20 pounds over 2 months. I was so proud of myself for sticking to it and showing up to practice for 2 hours every morning before work! I even had to buy a new swimsuit because the original one was almost hanging off of me---talk about encouraging! In mid-July, I developed bronchitis (because at that point no-one had any idea that I had asthma), which turned into pneumonia and I was basically bedridden for 3 weeks. My illness dropped my weight to 128, and just in time for school to start back up.

I went back for my junior year nearly 40 pounds lighter expecting to hear "Wow, you look great!" and instead got, "Wow... are you sick? You look really skinny..." Ouch. Ok, I thought, 128 is too thin. The weird part was that I felt better than I had ever felt in my life. I was energetic, excited about being active (rather than dreading marching band rehearsals), confident, and overall positive about most things in my life.

By my senior year I had gradually gained back 12 pounds. This was a comfortable weight. 140. I wasn't AS peppy as before, but I think I looked better. My collar bone didn't stick out but I could still find my hip bones...and wear clothes from the Junior section, rather than the grown-up misses section.

Since then, I've gained over 40 pounds. I'm 24 years old and I have back fat. There's no logical reason for this.

I wanted to buy shorts for the summer... went to Kohl's and realized (rather rudely) that the only size that sort of fit me was an 18. Ridiculous. For someone who apparently looks smaller than she is, it sure is hard to find clothes that not only fit by size, but also by style.

So, in May (at 177 pounds) I joined a gym. I thought, "I'll just start working out again, get back into shape, and work off the extra weight the hard way." I even hired a trainer and met with him twice a week. I will admit, my thighs aren't AS chunky looking, but in 3 months I worked my butt off and somehow it's still there. My clothes are still tight, my scale hasn't changed since the beginning of June, and I'm just tired all the time. Working out has helped me with my activity level--I can honestly say I am capable of doing 30 straight minutes of cardio--but I want to see and feel physical results and it's just not happening.

So, now we're up to date. I started a program called MediFast today and I'm kind of excited about it. It's a medical diet program (kind of like nutrisystem) designed to boost your metabolism and help you burn off the extra fat in your body quickly, followed by a stabilization phase where they gradually introduce you back to your regular food, which is then followed by a year-long maintenance phase to be sure you'll keep the weight you lost off. They made me do lab work to make sure there isn't anything wrong with me (thyroid, glucose, diabetes, etc.) and I'll find out on Tuesday what the results were. I also have to meet with my counselor twice a week to go over my body's changes and my food journal (yes, I have to write down EVERYTHING I consume) and they will help me track my progress and keep me motivated.

They tested my body's "composition" and I found out that I have 97.7 pounds of lean body mass (that's good--probably from working out so much), 73.8 pounds of body fat mass, and included in some of both of those are 44.8 pounds of intercellular water (inside organs) and 26.6 pounds of extracellular water (skin and such).

My BMI is 29.4 and 43% of me is fat. Nearly half of me is unnecessary. So here's the plan:

I am to eat 6 meals a day--5 of them are MediFast meals, and one is a "Lean Green" meal where I can have meat and veggies. I've already had three--the Lemon Merangue bar (not so good), the Parmesean Cheese Puffs (absolutely disgusting), and a caramel nut bar (not bad compared to the first two!). I'm supposed to eat every 2-3 hours and drink 8 glasses of water each day. Eeek. I am not a big water-drinker. But, if it will help me lose this weight, I'm up for the challenge.

I have 77 days to reach my goal. I promise not to post any more novels. The first one is always the longest.

I'll leave you with a quote from my counselor:

"We look forward to seeing less of you!"