Heather's Journal - It's Time for Tough Love

heatherdee said:
Had a weird craving today - beer! One of the things I decided when I started this was that I was going to absolutely not drink during the week. My husband and I had a habit of drinking quite frequently. Nothing over the top, but just a glass or so of wine with dinner. I discovered that by taking those out of my diet, I saved a TON of calories!! Then I allow myself to "splurge" during the weekend, but still keep within reason. But driving home from the chiropractor today, I just craved a beer for some reason. I used all of my BDS techniques and pulled through - if nothing else, the biggest thing I have been able to take away by using this book has been the ability to work through a craving. That and the "hunger is not an emergency" lesson. HUGE!!!

I'm starting to discover that I need less for my morning snack which is pretty interesting. The snack that used to barely last me until lunchtime now lasts until almost 1PM. I might cut back on it tomorrow. I've been eating fruit and yogurt for snack - might just cut back to fruit and save the yogurt for afternoon snack. Not sure, we'll see how it goes!
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I don't drink beer myself but I roughly calculated my Dad's calories from yesterday and found out that for the day, 700 of his calories were from beer alone! Coupling that with 300 calories of soda, even though he was getting the required calories for the day, around 1000 of them came from 4 beers and 2 sodas. O.O It's scary how much simply drinking can add to calories. Even juice adds a lot of calories if you're not careful.

I'm glad you were able to resist the craving. :D Congratulations!
 
Congrats on the 5 minute jog! I die after about 2 minutes still...(considering 30 seconds used to leave me flat!)

You are doing great....specially with alcohol.

Well done!
 
I rarely drink alcohol but sometimes I mix about a quarter of a glass of beer with a 7up type of drink that has no calories. It makes a really refreshing lo cal drink with a nice beery taste.
 
It's been a minute since I last posted. Feeling a verbose mood tonight - plus I haven't read the BDS in a few days and need to get back on it. I've been keeping up with exercise and eating for the most part. The eating has been slightly slackened, but not terribly so. I'm proud to say that I was 228.4 at my last weigh-in! Yay!

I also have to say that my husband has been watching what he is eating as well and I'm insanely jealous of his progress. I think he has lost something near 30lbs with minimal effort and change. Really?!?! UGH. He can exercise maybe 3 days a week and just stop eating complete crap and he loses weight. Me, I have to exercise 5 days and watch EXTREMELY strictly what I eat and I MIGHT lose 1lb a week. Severely frustrating.

Also have to say that work has been ABSOLUTE AND UTTER SHIT this week. I was actually so frustrated when I left work today and so stressed out that I almost cried. And it's only going to get worse next week. My associate director/admission manager AND the other team leader with me are both going to be on vacation next week until Wednesday. I also agreed to orient a new triage nurse this weekend which guarantees that I'll have no free time to do anything. So I'll basically have 12 non-stop days of work. Gag. I need to get my ass into a nurse practitioner program and get the hell out of management. This stuff is for the birds. I can't wait for my workout tomorrow - I'm dying to get on the treadmill again and just run off my frustration. I had four pieces of mini-chocolate today at my desk. I keep a basket of the stuff on my desk for coworkers as my sweet tooth is very very small and I never really have the craving. Today, though, I had a mini reese's, a mini snickers and two mini dark chocolate pieces in memory of a patient I once took care of as I sipped my afternoon coffee. (Even when his appetite was completely gone, his coffee and chocolate continued to be sacred to him) To be honest, it didn't help that much. The two dark chocolate pieces would have been more than enough. At least I know this for next time.

Sigh. I've just had it with work this week. At least this motivates me to further my career, but oh my gosh. I work my ass off every day. . . .and I just sit and wonder if I'm making any kind of a difference at all. Middle management is definitely a hard place to be.

Sorry, this is definitely a work rant. But I definitely feel that work is impacting my weight loss efforts this week. I'm having a lot of struggle with cravings and emotional eating. Luckily, my give-in has been minimal. I've had days where I order food but I've been ordering salads and veggie wraps instead of pizza and fries. I've come a long way and should congratulate myself on that; yet all I can focus on is that I only lost 0.5lbs between last week and this week and that I'll probably only lose another 0.5 (if that) next week.

Ugh. Just feeling crappy. Sorry for being Debbie Downer; but I'm glad I got this out here! Definitely has been impacting my weight loss journey.
 
Sorry you are having such a tough time at work Heather - I have a high pressured job too and I know there are times when you look ahead at the next week and think OMG even if I worked my ass of for every available hour in the day I still am not going to get it all done AND I'm going to be exhausted....The irony is that you end up having no time to work out and as a result feel even more tired....because you don't get the mental break and extra energy that comes from doing something physical as a rest.

Not much I can suggest to help apart from hope you get through it ok and that things get better! Rant away if it helps!!
 
It makes me really mad that some men seem to be able to lose weight without really trying. My husband just gives up coca cola and chocolate and drops a few kilos. His idea of a diet is 2 enormous plates of pasta instead of 3 and it works every time.
Sorry that you are going through so much stress at work.
 
I'm back!!! Two and a half weeks later, I'm finally back to only the baseline stress level at work and I feel like I have time to breathe again during the course of my day not only at home but at work as well. I actually got started on a few projects at work that have been on hold for the last three weeks. What a CONCEPT. I don't spend my entire day on the phone anymore because there isn't anyone in the office to answer it and there aren't any staff in the field because everyone is on %*#^ing vacation!!! YAY!!!!! :hurray:

Got back to the gym tonight and it felt so good to connect back with my body again. Tiny confession: I have sorta kinda been smoking a little bit over the past few weeks. After the gym today, I took the pack I had and threw it in the trash. I'm not going back to that again. I can physically feel the difference in my body when I do and don't. I feel a little bit sick when I smoke. Like I actually feel like I'm getting ill a little bit. So we're done with that. Not worth it. I just have to keep reminding myself that when I'm stressed and craving one. Bah. Why do these things addict us to the point that no matter how crappy they make us feel, we want them back?!!? Awful.

Today's food was also not *too* bad. I'm going to try to read BDS tomorrow. I haven't picked that up in 2 1/2 weeks either. I'm also going to start planning my food again. That was super helpful.

Good news in all this slacking is that I only gained 1.5lbs. I'm going to start using the scale at my gym to weigh myself as our scale is wildly inaccurate. You'll vary between like 3-4 lbs each time you step on it which is seriously annoying. SO, that being said, I am going to reset my ticker and it will look like I gained like 3.5lbs, but that's only because I will now be weighing myself with clothes on. So I'll plan to weigh in every Tuesday as that will be my normal first "weekday" there. Today's weight was 233.5. Last time I weighed there it was 232. All things considered with what I put into my body for the past two weeks. . . .not bad.

I'll get around to everyone in time. . .hope you are all doing well!:waving:
 
Good to hear that your stress levels are down without too much damage being done and well done on throwing the ciggies away.
How do you compare giving up smoking to losing weight? I have argued the point with friends that have given up smoking that losing weight is just as difficult and the only one that agrees with me is one that gave up cigarettes and is now struggling to lose weight.
 
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