Week 2, Day 2 - The 90s called....

270.0 pounds
24.4 pounds lost, 135 pounds to go

So upon searching the grocery store shelves, I have found a plan. It's one of which I had used on and off between 1989 (yep in 6th grade!!! @@) and 1993. It's Slim Fast. It always worked when I was younger to help me get trim. I tried it a couple of years ago (totally wrong of course - eating too many carbs convincing myself I was doing it right).

Today I feel like the Diet Diva - TFC can take a step back!

I look good:

1. have a full face on
2. letting my cutely wavy hair dry naturally in a headband ala Blair Waldorf
3. am wearing a new skort and top

I feel good

1. Just finished my first shake - know that I have just nourished my body better than I have in ages
2. I feel the confidence rising

Today I have to confront someone. Someone who continues to be a pull - a nag in the side, a thorn, whatever...it's the woman who gave me life. A woman who cannot accept that her thirty two year old daughter has left the nest (in 2001, no less) and has a home (since 2005) and is no longer under her absolute control. Without getting into the nitty gritty details, there is a family situation that is my brother's responsiblity (AKA The Prince - TP from now on) and my mother (MM) has decided to take unto herself. One catch, TP's responsibility involves driving and MM is terrified of driving, so TP asked me three years ago if I would mind taking care of his responsibility for six months because his job wouldn't allow it. At the time I accepted it. Wouldn't you know within those 6 months, TP obtained a different job meaning that the responsibility then falls on my shoulders FOREVER?!?!?! No, no, no...so in the last few months I have finally stood up for myself and decided that I will not participate unless it fits in my plans. (As a newlywed I would ditch my hardworking 12 hour a day husband and make him fend for himself for dinner while I was at my parents' house once or twice a week - when I was never a homebody when I lived there to begin with).

So here we are....TP left me with a responsibility that is his...MM claims it's her responsibility but needs my help....and when I don't help things like this happen....

The responsibility is picking up TP's 8 year old daughter from his ex-girlfriend's house. We'll call her The Baby (TB).

MM informs me -

"TB asked where you were when your father and I picked her up last week. We told her you were relaxing in your air conditioned bedroom reading a book. Because that IS what you told me".

Seriously?!?! WTF?!?! So here we are a week later and MM thinks I am going to take her shopping and then deal with her crap. I don't know what to do...

Must run to an appointment but feel very angry right now...and confused....

Week 1, Day 7 - Life's a Beeeetch...

Didn't weigh this morning.


I don't know when this feeling will ever end. I feel like I'm always TFC even though I try, try, try to be The Diet Diva. I really do. But lately, I feel like everything I eat is being put up there for all to see and judge. I feel like I'm on this (huge) pedistal and everyone is laughing and pointing at me. There's got to be some better feeling than this. I feel like such a loser and not in the good way.

There are many reasons why I am as big as I am. The first reason being that I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) which can upon being, activated for lack of a better term right now, bring huge weight gain for no explicit reason. So while, always struggling with my weight, I was following weight watchers or atkins, going to the gym, working out, I was constantly putting weight now. What do you think this will do to a person who has always been watched for what they ate and put on diets (thanks, mom! @@). It makes them feel like a complete utter failure and that the whole system is a farce. That is how I feel right now.

Do I know what to do? YES.
Do I have the necessary tools to do it? YES
If not, do I have the means? YES
Do I do it? NO

And I honestly wish I had an answer for that NO. I wish I knew why my head and my mouth don't seem to connect. I am just never satisfied. Granted there are issues here. I don't stand up for myself, I get tossed around. I'm very intuitive and I can tell when someone is not being genuine (READ being used and manipulated by my mother for the last seven years) and yet I am feel incapable of saying NO, STOP IT! So what do I do - become a wet noodle (it just always comes back to food, doesn't it).

So here I sit, depressed, sad and feeling like a failure. Loneliness doesn't help either.

Could I be social? YES
Do I want to be social? NO

I don't know why that is. I guess it's the whole failure thing. I seriously have to turn this all around. I am due a change, I am due good things to happen!!!!!

SIGH,
Your favorite failure :(

Week 1, Day 6 Already Threw In the Towel (and it's a bath sheet at that!)

272.?
24 pounds lost, 137 to go....

Okay, so after a few days The Fat Chick (TFC) won. She got her way. She screamed, she cried, she whined, she's PMSing and she won. Ugh. And now I feel like a complete and utter failure. Tomorrow is Monday and we always re-start on a Monday, right?

Here's the deal. I did great for two days, craved pizza and caved. I'm a BIG fan of pizza. As a child, I told my family to expect pizza when they came to my house (of course I do Easter and I do the whole ham and trimmings thing - my poor inner child, hee hee!) but that's how much I love pizza. Everyday during high school - mine had an open campus- I had pizza and TCBY (ice cream is another great love!).

Then hubby surprised me with an overnight trip to Atlantic City. How does one who hasn't been on a vacation at all since 2007 say no? Obviously one doesn't, LOL! So off we went. Dreams of packing string cheese and eating pepperoni filled my head. Hearing on "Drop Dead Diva" that you can have a Mojito with vodka and splenda was in the works. And then I enter vacationland.

Pina Colada - CHECK x 2
Amaretto Sour - CHECK x well, I felt soooo good it was too many to count - I remember ordering doubles at one point
Soft Pretzel - CHECK x 3 (of course after a very unfulfilling dinner of 2 baked potatoes, a biscuit and an ice cream cone - Miss Picky Eater America (also a symptom of TFC) can't eat at buffets without resorting to eating like a 6 year old who has no parental involvement whatsoever!
Fudge - CHECK
Salt Water Taffy - CHECK - I mean it IS Atlantic City, aren't they famous for it?!?

Well that leaves me here. Blood Glucose levels in the 200s, feeling like I could burst into tears at any moment, a pound heavier and still depressed because it's another step further I took to finally getting pregnant. Now I have to fax my blood glucose levels to my perinatal specialist who is going to bitch slap me over the phone and suggest for the fifth time that I make a follow up with the dietician. SIGH

Yes the woman who said pizza was legal - IF I only had one slice. Okay, now, who, other than five year olds at a birthday party only have ONE slice of pizza and stop?!? Generally I eat 2 and thought that was okay. But alas, it is not. I can't live like that.

So, here's the deal, I need to find a plan that

1. I can LIVE with -as in can go out to dinner with my husband, can go out to lunch with friends, can enjoy popcorn (OCCASIONALLY) at a movie, can have a soft pretzel at a park.
   
2. Makes me happy
3. Can also lower my glucose blood sugar. Sure, getting smaller will probably do that
4. Did I mention I can LIVE with?!?!
5. Doesn't make me STARVE!
6. Doesn't make me roam the cupboards/pantry at 9:00 PM
7. is REALISTIC

Basically that's what I am looking for. Weight Watchers advertises all of that and yes, I am an unsuccessful alumni about 100 times over. And now, adding insult to injury, my University best friend's mother is now the weigh in person. And did I mention she's a frenemy?!? How am I supposed to go there? Stalk Weight Watchers in a black outfit and ski cap waiting for her shift to end to go weigh in???? What to do...what to do...suggestions helpful :)

On a positive note:

1. I now know that I am absolutely a size 24
2. I wore a cute fitted pajama dress from Lane Bryant last night that was a 22/24 - I was terrified it wouldn't fit (I always buy 26/28 thinking it's always better too big than too small) and hadn't put it on since I bought it a month ago. Hubby actually said I looked cute - immediately went out and bought two more pairs today!
3. I discovered this thing today where you take your blood sugar every five minutes after taking your insulin to discover how long you should eat after you take it - when the number goes down 5 units it's time to mangia. For me it was 40 painstaking minutes!!!! But now I know, take insulin and wait forty minutes - lets see if my numbers get better.

Tomorrow is Monday and Monday is always a great time for a re-start - here's to us, kids!!!!!! Mwah!

Week 1, Day 2 - Putting the Cart Before the Horse???

269.6 pounds
25 pounds lost from highest - 134.6 pounds to lose

So I started Atkins yesterday after I took my blood sugar on Monday night and it was 273. 273! That's after eating Chinese food and eating one half of what I would normally eat! I was so upset and so disgusted. I know that that is one more step in path to get pregnant that I have to climb over. It's been almost two years of TTC with the help of a doctor and almost 3 years (not that we've ever tried to prevent it in almost eight years of marriage though).

My highest was 294.6 pounds in December of 2006 - ugh! What an awful time that was. 294.6 pounds and in complete denial about it. I didn't know or even want to know what size I was in clothing. I lived in elastic waistbands and thought I looked okay/presentable. Oh, it was awful!

Then in 2007, the week before Easter to be precise, I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes (shocker, huh?). At that point I was 260 pounds and by that August I weighed 217 pounds. Then came the infertility treatments plus quitting smoking - oh that did well for me. In the first week I gained ten pounds. Then just a steady gain with each month's disappointment. Who knew at the time that our reproductive endocrinologist (RE) was a hack and factory man who would lead us to 13 months of disappointments and crying???

So here we are. I am and always feel like "The Fat Chick". "The Fat Chick" (TFC)...

1. compares herself to everyone - always looks to see if she is the fattest one in the room, party or whatnot
2. avoids social situations with everyone except immediate family. She doesn't want anyone to see how far she's plummetted.
3. feels ashamed of how far she's fallen from grace. Although overweight all of her life, TFC can't come to terms with how much weight she's gained and makes herself feel like a second-class citizen
4. suffers from ailments: Diabetes, arthritis, psoriasis, fibromyalgia, insomnia, amongst others

That's just a little bit about being TFC...I'm sure you'll learn more as this blog progresses....

But, here comes, DIET DIVA...the Diet Diva is my alter ego - she's the one that feels confident and knows she's on the right track. She wants to be her old social self. She wants to go to the parties, have fun with friends and have her life be worth something....she knows there is something better out there and she can taste it...

I though have come to realization that I have been putting the cart before the horse all this time....I have worried and fretted about getting pregnant and not worried and fretted about losing weight. Actually that may not be entirely true - TFC always worries and frets about her weight. But I don't think I've been diligent enough about it to do anything to fix it. Now I want to change that. I want to fix it. I want to be healthy. I want to feel healthy. I want to look in a mirror and say "Damn, Girl, you look GOOD". It'll just take a while for me to get to that place. I am very impatient and want things done NOW, NOW, NOW and I have to realize that immediate gratification will not happen here. I need to wait, bide some time and it will.

So, now, it's onward and downward.....