Where Fat Cells Come to Die (30 lb loss)

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Stars and Seraph: Thank you! xp Yes, WW has been a terrific program so far, and I plan to stay on it during the entire weight loss duration.

Weight: 189.6 lbs
NO LOSS/GAIN

Exercise: 30 min. on treadmill

Points: 25/25

Lunch: 1 slice cheese pizza w/parmesan, salad w/ranch, water

Dinner: chicken and cheese w/salsa and enchilada sauce, veggies, lowfat ice cream bar, water

Snack: diet green tea  

[Euthanasia Phase]

Weight: 189.6 lbs
NO LOSS/GAIN

Exercise: none

Points: 25/25

Lunch: chicken wrap w/cheese, salsa and enchilada sauce, lowfat ice cream bar, diet green tea

Dinner: pasta w/marinara and parmesan, veggies, lowfat ice cream bar, water

Mostly things are going smoothly. A few cravings did return, but it's more associating certain situations with food than the food itself. For instance, at school I'd often eat while watching movies, so now at home if I watch a movie my mind instinctively thinks "where's the food?" Gradually it's adjusting though, and I haven't given into temptation recently.  

[Euthanasia Phase]

Weight: 189.0 lbs
LOSS: -0.6 lbs

Exercise: 30 min. on treadmill

Points: 25/25

Lunch: 6 inch chicken teriyaki sub w/cheese, veggies and sweet onion sauce, baked bbq chips, light lemonade

Dinner: chicken and cheese w/veggies, salsa and enchilada sauce, water

Snack: regular-sized fudge brownie ice from Rita's

At home, things have been going very smoothly, and I'm happy with the progress here, particularly all the support I get, both from my family and this guild! I really couldn't ask for a better weight-loss environment.
On Wednesday the environment will change, as I'm going to NM for a 4-week geophysics program. It's not exactly an internship, not exactly a class - I'm not sure what to call it. But basically a group of undergraduates (including recent college grads) and I will be learning about a variety of near-surface geophysical methods, both field procedures and data interpretation. Some methods I've had a lot of experience with from my thesis, but others will be new, so I'm looking forward to becoming a more well-rounded geophysicist. Also, the scenery should be fantastic!
I am a little worried about my fitness level though - it's better than at the beginning of weight loss, but not great. I'm almost at the weight I was at spring semester sophomore year (185 lbs), and I had trouble hiking uphill for long distances then. There may or may not be much hiking-related work, but it would be nice not to be the one wheezing in the back, while everyone walks on like it's nothing. The altitude is going to be high, something that doesn't work well with my cardiovascular fitness. As far as diet goes, there probably won't be accessible nutrition facts, but I'm bringing a copy of the WW Food Companion and my scale, so there will be no excuses not to continue weight loss or at least maintain.  

[Munkers]

Even if you're at the same weight as last time, you've been doing a great job of working out consistently so I'm sure your cardiovascular fitness is WAY better than it used to be.

Your program sounds really interesting. I hope it's as awesome of an experience as it sounds!  

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Munkers: Thanks! I'm definitely looking forward to it regardless.

Weight: 189.4 lbs
GAIN: +0.4 lbs

Exercise: 30 min. Curves workout

Points: 26/25 (damn ice cream bar cravings...)

Lunch: 1 slice cheese pizza w/parmesan, salad w/ranch, water

Dinner: pasta w/marinara and parmesan, veggies, lowfat ice cream bar, water

Despite the gain and the fact that I gave into temptation and ate an extra point, today went well. I had a doctor's appt. - followup on the so-called "allergy" that really was a result of my pants pinching nerves in my waist (result was a lot of pain and itching around the belt line...). Everything's cleared up now that my pants fit me much better than before. But that's not the good news - they took my pulse today and it was 60 bpm. The last time I attempted to give blood, my resting pulse was over 100 and they kicked me out. Now, thanks to increased exercise and maybe weight loss, it's in a reasonable range.
Also, my mom and I went shopping - it was going to be only for new sneakers, but I found some long black skirts I really liked, as well as some nicer shirts. I fit into a large for everything without problem, and it wasn't tight either. This is an improvement from the last time I went clothes shopping, which resulted in some obscenities and feelings of worthlessness. So it's good motivation to keep making progress.  

[Munkers]

That's awesome!! A drop in your resting heart rate is definitely cause for celebration. As are the new clothes. biggrin  

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Munkers: Thank you! It certainly is.

Weight: 188.6 lbs
LOSS: -0.8 lbs

Exercise: none

Points: 25/25

Lunch: 6 inch turkey sub w/cheese, bacon, veggies and chipotle, cheetos, diet coke

Dinner: pasta w/marinara and parmesan, veggies, water

So tomorrow is the flight to NM, provided the weather cooperates. Hopefully there will be internet there, but I'm not sure as of now. If I don't journal for a long time, it's safe to assume that it's a technology-related issue and not a motivation-related one. Although, without nutrition facts it might be a little dicey at first. If I can make it through the next four weeks without gaining, then everything will be fine.  

[Munkers]

Even if you don't have exact calorie counts available, you can still continue to food journal. Maybe use the time as a test of what you've learned so far in terms of estimating what your best choices are. Right everything down now and then research some of our choices when you get home. It'd be a learning opportunity. 3nodding  

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Munkers: That's a terrific idea and I will do that now that the internet is working here.

I am REALLY enjoying the geophysics program here. The material isn't totally review, but it turns out I'm well prepared for it, which reduces my stress (and my tendency to stress-eat) considerably. The people are cool, the geophysics is cool, everything's cool here except the weather - that's typical dry, baking desert NM weather.

Adjusting my diet has been a challenge. The problem is that some of the food is high-calorie industrial cafeteria food, so even if I eat a very small portion and it doesn't look like it should be that bad, it is. What I've done since I can't count points right now is come up with a categorization and a limit to how much of it I can eat:

Category 1: 0-point veggies, diet soda/tea, fruit where you get a bulky amount for a point, etc. As much as I want.

Category 2: lowfat dairy/salad dressings, lean meat, normal bread/pasta/carbs/etc. Small portions - if the serving size looks slightly overboard, cut it in half.

Category 3: highfat dairy, junk food, pizza, oil, etc. Avoid unless it's a special occasion, then eat very minimal amounts.

I decided on that plan after I gained weight the first two days. The travel day was entirely my fault because I caved into eating nearly a day's worth of points at Subway for BREAKFAST. The next day I made an effort to just cut all portions in half, but some of the items still had lots of calories so I gained. Yesterday, I followed the category plan and lost a pound. My weights have been as follows:
6/17: 189.8 lbs
6/18: 190.8 lbs
6/19: 189.8 lbs
My exercise paid off - yesterday we went on a geology field trip and there were some hikes involved at an elevation range of 7000-9000 ft. There was one hill we had to climb that was pretty steep and a long ways, and I kept up with everyone without a problem. No running out of breath or anything. It was wonderful! The participants are staying in the dorms of a boarding school, and there's a track. I'd like to run some laps so my fitness is maintained or improved.

My roommate arrived today. She's a grad student and the grad students arrive later than the undergrads (even though I just graduated they consider me undergrad this summer). She seems like a really nice person so far, but the first thing she did after walking in the room was open the closet door where my scale was. Of course she's like "why is there a SCALE in here?" so I had to explain that I brought it which was embarrassing. I don't like going public with my weight loss, unless it's within a group of people trying to lose weight, like this guild. My main concern is that people will automatically assume I want to lose weight because I'm vain or because of bad self image or because I'm simply thin-obsessed. Maybe it's unfair to expect people to think that, I don't know.  

[Munkers]

Sounds like a good system and you've already seen some results in at least keeping the water weight at bay! Good job!  

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Munkers: Thanks! The system seems to be working so far, unfortunately I haven't been following it perfectly today (or yesterday, though today was worse).

Weight: 190.0 lbs
GAIN: +0.2 lbs

Exercise: none

Points: no ******** clue/26

Breakfast: cereal, slice of watermelon, lowfat chocolate milk

Lunch: a little potato salad, soup with pork and these grain things in them, part of a piece of fried bread of some sort, fruit punch

Dinner: a little pasta salad, veggies w/ranch, small baked potato with that fluffy stuff on top, roll w/butter spread, chocolate milk, fruit punch

[pissed off]UGH. So the system theoretically is sound, but then the cafeteria only has categories 1 and 3 available, pretty much. If I eat nothing but veggies, fruit and diet soda my metabolism will go to hell. If I eat even the tiniest, tiniest portion of something else, it'll end up being a bazillion calories and I'll gain. Yesterday there were better options, though I had an extra chocolate milk which is why I think my weight went up this morning. The food often looks like that the food on the lardfest known as America's Test Kitchen, so one bite is 30 points. Everyone else eats more of it than I do, and as far as I know they're getting away with it. I hope they blimp up and their pants burst.
My patience has been wearing thin today - we had three hours of lecture in the morning, lunch for an hour, then four more hours of nonstop lecture. The room was warm, the prof who talked the most was monotone, and because water fountains are scarce on this campus and I'm dehydrated, my head hurt like hell. That's another thing - it's so ******** difficult to find decent water. I'm about to just drink the damn tap water even though it tastes kind of funny. At home I'd always be drinking water and now I rarely do. I did buy some diet green tea, so maybe that will help.
Oh, and I'm always looking over my shoulder to see if my roommate will walk in and see this journal and think I'm a freak. I'm used to a decent amount of privacy, having been an only child and gone through college with no roomies. Now that's basically gone, and it's irritating me a lot.
I was going to run some laps, then went for my exercise capris and realized I needed to shave my legs. Well, guess who forgot to bring a razor. ********. I may just say to hell with it and run around, hairy legs and all. My progress is not going to be erased in goddamned four weeks. [/pissed off]  

[Lainauriel]

Dont give up!
Its hard:/ lack of privacy, horrible school food...tell me about it. Every time i go to the school restaurant and i have to choose between yummy pizzas and pasta and cooked stuff and the salad, i go crazy. Sometimes i just cant resist.
Almost no healthy food there, and everyone is eating same stuff!!!

Hold on!  

[Euthanasia Phase]

@Lainauriel: Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to know others have the same difficulty, though I'm not happy that others have to put up with it as well. That probably makes no sense...

Weight: 189.6 lbs (+1 lb from before program)
Diet: sucks. The food is mostly category 3. There are some days when the only available vegetables are pre-smothered in a VAT of ranch. I'm starting to resent, no, HATE the high-calorie foods I used to love. Also, now I like diet coke, and anything zero-point, because I feel safe eating/drinking it. Every time I see a bunch of junk food available, I get pissed off - and also, it makes me very angry to see blatantly unhealthy people who eat this stuff to excess - nobody should be in that predicament - it means most likely that they're miserable and eating their feelings to cope. I'm tired of seeing so many miserable people who don't deserve it.

Exercise: good. My roomie has turned out to be awesome, and very encouraging. We've been going to the track a few times a week. I've been doing a combination jog/walk for two miles, and my roomie showed me how to do some useful stomach exercises as well.

The program is going well - it's geophysics, of course it's going well. The people are nice and I'm trying to socialize more than I used to. But it's like running to catch up with people who are a hundred miles ahead of you - it's not going to completely work. I think I'm too far gone to relate to anybody anymore. But I'm still trying not to be the miserable, fat b***h who avoids people, sits in her room alone on the computer and EATS. Always eating. Ugh.

The rambling is in part due to the two giant diet cokes I had tonight (no caffeine for the past two weeks either). But things have changed. Whether the changes will be too little, too late, I don't know. But no Category 3 anymore. If I have to have diet green tea, so be it. I'm not going to let society shovel unhealthy, disgusting fat into my bloated bag of flesh anymore.  

[Euthanasia Phase]

*slinks back in...*
Good news and bad news.
The good news is that the geophysics program I participated in for almost a month completely ROCKED, in many ways. I learned about new geophysical methods and even gave a presentation on magnetotellurics, something I'd never even HEARD of before the program began. Turns out the data detected this interesting highly-conductive layer 20 km deep at our field site, which had been seen before, but the data collected this summer were sufficient for the layer's electrical properties to be constrained. There are a limited number of students who will receive funding to present their results at this December's AGU (American Geophysical Union) meeting, and the profs have guaranteed my project a spot, with my name as first author! It's largely due to the fact that the data I looked at detected something new, but I also put a lot of effort into really learning MT theory and incorporating the local geology into my interpretations. So, that was a success.
And the health side of everything - I lost 2.4 lbs over the 4 weeks, which is huge considering the food there was ridiculously high-calorie and high-fat and generally unhealthy. Also, I survived the fieldwork and hikes, keeping up with everybody with ease. Weight at end of program = 186.4 lbs

Bad news: my family went on vacation after the program ended, and I gained. My self-control was nonexistent. There really are no excuses. I could say that my parents weren't in great shape for many hikes that looked like fun, and that it made me angry and caused me to eat, but that's bullshit. My weight during the middle of vacation was 190.0 lbs, and my habits didn't improve afterward. I'll be checking in tomorrow morning, and the number is going to suck. It's a long way to new weight loss...

Anyhow, now that it's back to the land of nutrition facts and quantitative dieting, things will get back to normal. It'll just take some time. Time to catch up on everyone's journals - hopefully everybody else has been doing well!  

[ALLIGAT0R TEARS]

Aw it's ok. Everyone has that period when they give into temptation. I know it's disappointing but you can try even harder now. You have been really good with typing these things and keeping track. That alone takes dedication. Good luck, it's still looking good. 3nodding