157.5.  Still moving down.  Hooray!  We went to an ice cream factory tour yesterday with, of course, free servings of all their different flavors.  I actually manged to keep my helpings down to two servings.  360 calories, what do you know!  Mostly as I looked at the selections, I realized that at some point in the past I had already tried most of the flavors.  So I stuck with some I never ate and ordinarily would pass up in favor a favorite. 

     I'm not sure how I am able to keep doing this.  Right now, I just keep saying, "I'll have some later, some other time.  It will be around"  I try to work against this mindset that this may be my last chance to eat something forbidden forever.  Just wait until Sunday, wait until Sunday, wait until later.  I am sure I could lose a little faster if I did not take Sunday as a Free Day.  But as long as I can keep within this limit I am happy. 

     I think my "Good Busy" finally caught up with me.  I feel a bit blue and crabby today.  Time for a rest?  Not for a while.  This weekend: two festivals with my mom and my neice, a cookout, helped my mother make plum jelly this morning.  Next weekend is the Fourth and I'll have family calling to go out for lunch or coming by to visit.  This evening is the first group ride with the club I joined.  I'm not feeling too social, though.  Have to put on a happy face.  I'm sure I'll enjoy it once I get there.  But something inside me isn't really wanting to do anything except lay around and listen to kids playing outside (it finally cooled off about 10 degrees) and suburban lawnmowers.  Maybe that's good.  The new member won't be jumping around like an excited puppy. 

     "Sometimes I want to get you low..."  Cracker

     I feel used up by Friday.  My instinct is usually to stay home and rest between the work weeks.  This year I resolved to get out more, socialize more and see more, do something different at least once a month.  Well since April, I spent every weekend except three doing stuff.  In April I took my mother to two different herb fairs.  We even bought a lone little lavender and are trying our hand at potted gardening!  The Blue Dome district downtown held an art festival with a parade of art cars.  People had glued all kinds of outrageous stuff all over them; dental prosthetics on one, singing rubber fish and lobsters on another, one with colorful glass stones set in swirls of paint, another had old camaras all over it.  I didn't know it at the time, but some of the camaras were operational and took pictures of peoples expressions as they studied the van.  During May, I spent three weekends driving out to family cemetaries for decoration, visiting with rural relatives at picnics, cookouts and restaurants.  This month was the scooter rally.  That is always a full weekend.  As usual I was too chicken to participate in the obstacle course!  My team won the poker run, though:  Woo Hoo, $25 bucks each!  I sent in some dues to join a club and we are supposed to take a group ride out to Claremore next weekend.  Last year I had little to do on weekends except get ready for the work week, visit the library and maybe go out to eat with my cousin or a friend.  This year--busy!  I thought I might feel worn out or resentful that I had no time left to relax.  Nope.  I feel happier this month than I have in a long time.  Busy-fun is a better than busy-chores, I think.  I went to a psychic fair and had an aura picture taken.  Even my aura looked different.  Usually I am surrounded by blues and greens.  This time I had violet, white and an outer ring of strong blue.

     158 pounds.  Climbing on down.  Still staying with it.  When the year started, I hoped I could make it to my ultimate goal of 135 pounds with 22% body fat by my birthday, late in August.  I am not gonna make it.  Drat!  Nevertheless, I am finally back in the swing of dieting and exercising.  I stayed with it.  Not perfectly and probably not as severe as I could make it.  But I am finally avoiding overeating.  Yeah, that is it.  I have of late been able to eat an ice cream cone or a pastry without going back and getting another and another, and without obsessively repeating the experience several days in a row.  I can stop at two ounces of potato chips instead of munching down half a family size bag.  Not that it no longer takes effort!  No.  It still takes effort.  I still have to mentally step in and remind me, stop me, threaten, bribe and scold me.  It's getting more... normal, I could say.  It is not so sharp as before.  I am able to push things away somewhat better, with less trauma than the last couple of years.  Stay focused. Stay focused.  Stay focused.  Stay focused! 

     158.5.  Stalled!  I did good all week this time but for yesterday.  I helped myself to some potato chips, frozen yogurt and ordered a couple of slices of pizza.  The bagel I had for breakfast turned out to be heavier that I thought:  280 calories when I could have had 150 calories in a serving of oatmeal!  Gotta watch all that restaurant and prepared food.  I am not sure what my weight would be is I hadn't eaten like that yesterday.  It didn't seem to budge all week.

     Over all though, I am doing OK.  Even on the days where I overeat or eat stuff out of bounds, I have kept conscious about it.  If I overeat, I write it down along with everything else so I remember what I did.  Later, I am not as surprised if my weight isn't moving.  And during the rest of the day, I remember that I expecially need to keep strictly to plan.  (That is the hard part.)  Taking a day off plan could spill into the next day as well or a day later in the week.  So for now, I am trying to keep to my six day regimine. 

     That having been said:  I still find myself undulging in something extra nearly half of the week.  Gotta get on top of that.  I have kept it to a small indulgence (when I am lucky!).  But it is the reason, I am sure, that I am taking off weight this time doubly slow.  Years ago when I did better with this, I avoided sugar during the week.  Now I am giving into the cravings often.  Probably I need to shake up my diet, try some different dishes, eat something unusual for breakfast.  It is just so much easier to shop, prepare and pack the same way everyday!

     Exercise is going very well.  My hips feel a little better, and my hamstrings seem ready enough on schedule for the next workout.  right now my lower body routine is a few sets of different squats and some calf raises from a step.  Not ready for a full routine or weights just yet.  But I have been able to add some reps.  Upper body, I jumped back into the old routine with reduced weights.  But after just three sessions, I can tell I am ready to add some weight to my chest, back and bicep routine!   

     158.5.  Yea!  Getting down.  Staying on plan (much better, that is!)  Early during the first part of the week, the weight would not budge.  I was about a pound and a half heavier after the weekend and it would not slip back off.  I was frustrated, obviously.  Every time that happens, I feel like throwing in the towel.  So I had to bring out the ZEN in me, take a deep breath, remind myself of past plateaus, past times where the weight loss inexplicably stalled for a while and just sort-of put my doubts and frustration on a shelf.  Sounds easy, doesn't it?  Just command your thoughts and emotions and *poof*!  Problems no more!  Well, I read something somewhere that said determination and will power were like muscles:  They can become exhausted and wear out on you.  They get weak from lack of use and have to be built back up.  You have to exercise them and it takes time and repeated use to build the strength of these traits.  When I step on the scale and it is moving down, I feel more like staying on my diet.  When I feel good, I feel more like exercising.  When I most need enthusiasm is when I am doing poorly and need incentive to stay on plan.  Instead I have to step in with pushing myself to stay at it.

     Well, at least this week I am getting somewhere.  Speaking of:  I believe my hips feel a little better.  The back of my legs still have good days and bad days.  But I still think the new exercise regimine is helping.  I worked in a whole upper body routine and abs routine, twice since last weekend.  I modified the legs.  Just doing a series of squats and then some calf raises off the steps, for now.  Stretching, of course.  I am actually getting excited about that.  I would like to get back to a mostly pain free existence and be able to strength-train.

     The bicycle races were pretty cool.  Quite a lot of people turned out to watch and to participate in the Tulsa Townie ride.  My niece seemed impressed at the time.  Since then she hasn't moved her bike, though.  The Tulsa scooter rally was this weekend.  I'm exhausted.  But man, it was fun!  It is hard to describe but I just enjoy riding with a group.  That is the part I look forward to the most.  It is always pleasurable to meet and talk to other like-minded people, too. 

     159!  Finally.  On one hand it is back where I started.  I lost some weight down to about 159 after Christmas.  Then fell off the wagon repeatedly across 6 or 8 weeks and had to lose it all again.  On the other hand, I feel like I am back in the better habits and looking forward.  I am keeping in an obsessed frame of mind.  Constantly keeping my focus on which is a better choice, watching my weight every day, planning ahead for events and preparing my food ahead of time.  Not to say I haven't messed up.  One day, I bought a skimpy amount of food to work with me on a day where I wasn't going to be as busy as usual.  I ended up buying a package of cookies out of the vending machine.  At least I could say I stuck with only one package instead of buying another which I really wanted to do.  I told myself to forget it for now and found myself something to do and a large glass of water.  Sometimes the water helps to bulk up the food after you eat so you don't have that "I could eat a few more bites of that," feeling. 

     The best news is exercise.  You probably remember the trouble I had for a long time because of the chronic hamstring strain I developed.  I dropped one exercise after another, one activity after another over the last two years.  When my job changed, an occasional hip pain started becaming constant, and on both sides.  Recently, I found a web site that indicated having aches and pains while doing standing and walking jobs for years could be due to weaknesses in the muscles not used as heavily so that muscles and joints were having to compensate and were getting overworked and strained.  Aha!  So I started working back in some strength training exercises every since my last post.  Building up an abs routine pretty quickly.  I started doing a few squats half way through my work day, almost twice a week.   Every time I return to my desk after running around the factory for any length of time I do a series of leg stretches.  My hips are feeling better, though I still have some achey days.  I worked my way up doing some rowing with handled stretchy tubes at a cardio pace for over 20 minutes 3 or more times a week.  I finally started my arms, chest and back weight lifts, pulling my workout bench out of storage.  As soon as the squats don't make me as sore, I intend to start peddaling again. 

    Speaking of...Tulsa is hosting the Tulsa Tough Festival this weekend, a collection of screaming-fast bicycle races through downtown streets.  Think of all those sharp turns!  There are even a couple of non-race, family rides.  I'm going to take my neice to see a few.  I hope she will find cycling more interesting.  Maybe we can enter the non-race rides together next year.  Besides she needs something to do.  She just sits in her room all day on the computer and phone, drinking pop.  Am I entitled to gripe, having behaved similarly?  Heck, yeah!  Priveledge of being an adult.  It's my turn to say, "When I was your age...!"

       Watching the Biggest Loser again, at the last of the season this time.  Ten pounds in a week?  After already being on a diet for months, already long ago drained away any excess water weight?  How is that physically possible?    One  woman lost that much and she already is down to a size 8, down to 160 pounds.  If she ate nothing, she could lose about 4 pounds a week.  The other 6 had to have come from exercise which would be nearly 3000 calories worth every day.  Like walking or running 30 miles every day.

      160.  Going places again.  I did pretty good this week.  I stuck with my plan.  Though I had three days where I missed either breakfast or a break-time meal at work due to being really busy and then ate chocolates later that night, making up for it.  I stayed within caloric bounds but...what bad nutritional choices and habits!  About once a week, I visit that pizzeria.  I keep my order at two slices, drink no pop with it and stay extra vigilent and careful about what I eat the rest of that day.   Frankly, I am amazed I have been able to keep from (a). ordering more pieces and more pieces, and (b.) blowing off the whole day and just eating everything in sight. 

Staying obsessively focused on what I am doing and what I am trying to do seems to be the key, along with planning and staying prepared.  When I feel a hunger pain for example, I think about my plan and the fact that I may be releasing some fat from a cell rather than what I might want to eat, or what sounds good.  Pathetic, no?  But I guess that is La Vida Loca when dealing with changeing your lifestyle. 

     I did much better after I started keeping up the paper journal throughout the day instead of summing up everything at night.  160.5.  That way I don't kid myself about how little I am eating or forget how much until too late.  Most days I stick to my old Body For Life plan with one less serving of protein since I have not yet taken up my weights.  Some days, I give in to temptation for a couple of pieces of pizza-by-the-slice at a local New York style pizzeria near the house or some chocolate.  A couple of times, I missed breakfast and added a package of almonds or peanuts in to the day.  So I am doing better, much better.  Also, I keep Free Day only Moderately Free Days.  No going hog-wild and eating everything I ever daydreamed through the week that I wanted.  I try not to eat past being pleasantly full, and I remind myself that I don't have to eat all three favorite flavors of Danish just because it is my last chance of the week to do so.  It can wait.

     No lecture from Dr. K.    Hooray!  I dreaded that.  Namely my weight wasn't much different from the last visit and my blood pressure measured ok:  128/78.  The diastolic number (on the bottom) was a relief to me.  That has been the tough one to bring down.  I told her my hamstring muscles still hurt, still felt like they were strained and never seemed to get truly well.  She thought it might be my shoes and wrote me a prescription (!) to visit the New Balance store and get fitted.  Well, I bought a pair with some supportive insoles this weekend.  I hope it works.  I noticed that when I tried them on, walking felt like a lighter effort than before.  I get a lot of aching pains in my hips so I hope this fixes it and that I haven't done any permanant damage.

     162.5.  I don't know quite why.  I weighed less than that all week.  Then yesterday I was up a bit then today, up again.  I still have the doctor appointment coming up.  Have to face the music Wednesday and explain why I didn't do what I said I would do. 

     I suspect it is because I am getting ready to start my cycle, and I had to take Advil for a muscle strain.  Still it seems like more weight than it should be. 

     I did ok this week, doing a better job of keeping my diet journal.  And I found some surprises.  I keep forgetting that I eat something until the end of the day when I sit down to review and scribble in my consumption.  Yesterday, after I did this for the umpteenth time, I told myself I will have to keep it current meat by meal and snack by snack.  Write everything down right when I eat it, maybe even before so that I stay to plan.  That way, I can skip something or use a substitute later if I ate too much earlier.  Where I otherwise didn't do good was eating too much at home while I am fixing dinner or even eating something after dinner.  It is still hard to deal with all the junk food my mother keeps around the house.  It is hard to explain to her that it would help me if she kept these items out or in her room or something.  Like many people, she seems to see it as a character flaw on my part that I don't resist the food or that I don't seem to stop eating once I start.  Maybe.  But I know that I had an easier time of it if I kept food like that out of my apartment.  It is easier if you have to say no to temptation less often....Isn't it? 

     I did better this week although there have still been some potato chips involved.  One day, I thought my weight should have weighed at least a little lower considering that I only ate three of my 5 small meals.  I hoped that missing those two meals may have boosted the weight loss showing up on the scales.  But as I backtracked what I had eaten, I remembered that a friend had given me some chocolate that he wanted me to try and then I had eaten a handful of potato chips while fixing dinner.  Lastly, as I got in the car I glanced over and saw the empty, fast-food bag of a small burrito I had purchased on the way to work that same day in lieu of breakfast.  Some time last year I said that I needed to start keeping a paper journal with me and write down everything that I eat and everything I am thinking about food and eating.  If this doesn't prove it, what does. 

     Oddly enough, I am feeling a little better about the weight-loss effort.  More interested.  I am starting to look again in trying little tips and tricks, reading articles, finding out what weight loss methods work and how and why certain foods affect your body and your moods or health.  I feel like I am looking forward again instead of at what I am missing. 

     Not to mention:  Last week, while shopping for shoes, I caught a glimpse of myself unexpectedly in a mirror.  I was trying on shoes, seated and leaning over, my fat seemed layered like a stack of pancakes around my mid-drift.  Wondering, too, about the effects of going up and down the scales, not unlike some accordian.  When I lost weight before I recieved a lot of compliments that I had not aged in the face much.  Now after fattening back up and trying to take it off again, I doubt that is going to be true this time.