Scale-athon #2

239.0 pounds (+2 lbs)

I wish I could say I was surprised by this gain, but I'm not really. I've been sick for the past 5 days, hence the complete lack of posts, and have been completely off my plan, eating mostly toast and drinking 7-UP.

I've been finding it hard to keep other things down, including water, which I tried to drink a number of times with discouraging results.

On a positive note, I did manage to almost meet one of my goals for last week, which was going to the gym 3 times. I made it there twice before I got sick. This week I will definitely get there 3 times... I'm going right after I finish posting this.

So while this gain could be disappointing, I'm just going to shrug it off to the fact that I was sick and couldn't eat all the food I was supposed to.

Time to move on.

The Social Network

A friend of mine has a friend who has a job promoting movies (how cool is that?). So I was able to go to a free advanced screening of The Social Network tonight.

For those of you that don't know, The Social Network is the story of how the extremely popular social networking site Facebook was created. The movie is an adaptation of Ben Mezrich's novel: "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal."

Jesse Eisenburg plays Mark Zuckerburg, the creator of Facebook. I have to say this, he was fantastic in the movie. There's a scene at the beginning of Zuckerburg with his then-girlfriend Erica having a conversation in a bar. After this scene I was astonished by how much of a complete jerk Zuckerburg seemed to be. Very believable performance.

The plot is one of controversy. Who really created Facebook? Was the idea stolen or was it stolen from fellow Harvard students who had hired Zuckerburg to create a website for them. I really wonder at how valid this movie is, as it is a tale of two sides. Also discussed is the relationship between Zuckerburg and his friend Eduardo Saverin, the co-creator of Facebook.

Overall, I thought the movie was great. Very entertaining and well acted. The vuzz is that it's Oscar-worthy. It left me wanting to know more about the whole subject, which is a great feeling. I'm tempted to purchase the novel and see if there is any additional information in it.

Scale-athon

The last week went by really fast. I can't believe it's weigh in time already.

Losing weight really is a marathon, and definitely not a sprint, not that I could sprint at the moment, but anyway.

Current weight: 237 lbs (-3 lbs)

3lbs! Yay!

I now feel pretty guilty about having popcorn at the movie I went to tonight (The Social Network - advanced screening).

Goals for the week: eat all my food (yes, I do see the irony that an overweight person has to set a goal to eat more food) and go to the gym 3 times (a major increase from my current 0 visits a week).

An All Time Low

A couple days ago I woke up, and like every day, immediately strolled up to my scale and hopped up. 236.5 lbs! I was ecstatic. Then, the next morning, back up to 240 lbs. What?!?!

I'm so sick of these random fluctuations.

The program I'm doing is LA Weight Loss. Every two weeks you have to do "Take Off" where you eat a limited amount of protein and drink their juice for 2 day. These fluctuations happened while I was doing take off, so I think I'm going to skip the next one and just do it once a month instead of twice a month and see if that helps.

Tomorrow I'm committed to actually starting a gym routine.

Updateatron

Well - I was sick all weekend. It's amazing how quickly you forget about your diet when your nose plugs up. I lost 1 pound this week, which is extremely disappointing, though I spent 4 days off my diet, not really eating much. I tend not to eat when I'm sick, other than toast. I'm back on plan, hopefully this week will yield better results.

Push Push Fall Fall

I went in to see my counselor today. Bad news, I've only lost half of the weight I should have by week 8 in my program. Bah!! I should be at 16 lbs lost but I'm only at 8 lbs. My counselors (yup, it's kind of random which one you get when you go there) keep telling me to be positive. Just stick to the program and the weight will come off.


They say my biggest problems are I've been eating too late in the evening, I agree - I've been having a snack at 9pm, way too late! And my other problem is I haven't been mixing up my food enough. Not enough variety apparently. This poses a problem for me... I've only taken up cooking recently and am not exactly an expert at it. I prefer to make things that don't take very long, and don't have much clean up at the end. So I've pretty much been eating the same things everyday. I was actually ok with this until they told me I need to mix it up.



They also told me about this one client they have who lost 100 lbs since January! January! That's 8 months! Holy! Insert jealousy here.



Oh well - I guess it's just baby steps for me.. I think I need to baby step my way to the gym and try exercise on for size.

Over and Over ... I Never Learn

In January of 2009 my best friend told me she got engaged. Naturally I was thrilled for her, and horrified for me. Not because I'm single and have no romantic prospects ... but because all I could envision was me standing next to her at the alter, with skin hanging out of my bridesmaid dress.

She scheduled her wedding for August of 2010.. and I thought, "great, this gives me tonnes of time to lose some weight and look good in a dress." So what did I do? I gained 10lbs. The wedding was creeping closer and closer ... and every day I'd stand on the scale and think, "what am I going to do? The dress I ordered fit, but was snug, it's not going to fit my new weight."

With the stress of not fitting into my dress, added to the stress of teaching summer school.. I ate pretty much anything I saw... this, obviously, did not help the problem. Near the end of July I finally really realized "Stephanie... you will not fit in the dress," and really did something about it.

Limited foods, increased water, walking, and by wedding time I was down to the weight I was when I tried on the sample dress. Our dresses came in 4 days before the wedding (talk about last minute) and... moment of truth... the dress fit. It was extremely snug, clearly the sample had been stretched a bit.

I had them let the dress out half an inch (the most it could be let out) and this helped. On the day of her wedding, we got all dolled up and prepared for the most important day of her life. I pasted a smile on my face, sprayed sparkles in my hair... and masked my broken heart. Here we were, the day I had set a goal on. I had given myself a year and a half to lose weight, and I was still the same, down to the ounce.

And while a lot of people came up to me and expressed how great I looked, all I saw was a big girl squeezed into a purple strapless dress. And after all that disappointment, all I can do now is look forward, and finally do what I had intended to do. I have to lose the weight, all 107lbs.

It seems like such a long way to go, and it is. It was so easy to put on. But, it's so ridiculously hard to lose.

Freedom Revoked

Well - it was short and sweet, and I miss it already. I had the house to myself for a week while my parents moved my brother back to Manitoba for his second year of Medical School. Yes - it's true, I'm 27, living in my parents basement. I am a cliche of epic proportions.

While I do love my parents, I need to get out of this house. So since my "career" isn't really taking off, it may be time to start looking for alternatives. I'm thinking Government Job. *fingers crossed*