Northbound

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
I lost four pounds this week. Better than that, I drank a Dr Pepper and didn’t feel guilty about it.

What Has Been Done
So far (knock on wood) the “Don’t Break The Chain” thing works like all hell. I’ve recorded just about every morsel of food I’ve eaten in the last 10 days on Weight Watchers. (No breakfast this AM, two peanut-butter sandwiches for lunch just now). This gets you into mindful eating – you can’t just stick your hand in the cookie jar if you have to record said cookie-eating and if it counts against you – as well as more reasonable restaurant dining (a big problem for me). Got a good bit of exercise on Sunday and there you go.

Where I Have Failed
I fouled up cooking the prime rib for the babies’ birthday party but it turned out delicious anyway and nobody complained or even really noticed.

What I Have Accomplished
Now we’re headed in the right direction after three consecutive weeks of gaining. The weather is better now and it’ s more likely that I’ll be doing more walking. And I got through the celebratory stuff this weekend largely unscathed. So I’m feeling more positive, which is nice.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
Well, I have gained back in February almost all the weight I lost in January. How’s that for success? How’s that for achievement? How’s that for… well, it’s over now. Heck with it. Time to start over.

What Has Been Done
I have adopted a new approach. It is called “Don’t Break The Chain” and has some tenuous connection to Jerry Seinfeld. I am using it for recording what I eat on Weight Watchers. This had no effect on what I ate this weekend (homemade chocolate ice cream, and some M&Ms) but I hope that a) getting in the habit of recording points and b) trying to keep those points in check has some impact.

Where I Have Failed
I ate too much and didn’t exercise at all. That’s it in a nutshell.

What I Have Accomplished
I had a day off on Friday and played Madden 12. That was nice. Other than that, not a whole lot. This is depressing. Life is depressing–more depressing than anything except the known alternative.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
I forgot to post this yesterday, and I didn’t want to break the streak. It is my birthday and I will be going out to celebrate it with much feasting. Tomorrow is a new day.

What Has Been Done
I am still on the same treadmill where I lose five pounds over the course of the week and gain it back over the weekend. It is awfully frustrating, and it’s a pattern I need to break.

Where I Have Failed
The really big birthday dinner was a ribeye at Ruth’s Chris. I earned it.

What I Have Accomplished
I put together an IKEA kitchen set for my kids’ birthday in two weeks. If you don’t think that’s a huge accomplishment then you haven’t tried to put one together.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
Posting a day late because of President’s Day. Staying home today with a sick child, who is still asleep upstairs.

What Has Been Done
Lost the half pound that I gained last week. Whee.

Where I Have Failed
It is not that I have failed, it is that I have not succeeded. I didn’t do anything terribly bad – well, Sunday night, there was a big chunk of prime rib and half a slice of pecan pie at Houlihans. But it wasn’t a bad week – just a lazy week. I got nothing accomplished, diet-wise.

What I Have Accomplished
There’s still plenty of time to turn this thing around, and I got one major project accomplished with regard to home-related stuff – been working on a mosaic for the bathroom for what seems like months, just haven’t had free time to finish it. Now it’s hanging upstairs, and it makes me feel good every time I look at it. Now I want the scale to make me feel good every time I look at it.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
This is the first week in the year that I am sitting in my office every day and not going anywhere. It is a little strange. (Next week, there’s President’s Day.) I do better with a normal schedule, or I think I do. I am typing this very quickly and then going to the supermarket in Roebling Center and getting some bottled water and fruit.

What Has Been Done
Gained maybe half a pound, almost 100% of that due to a big meal on Sunday night at Delta’s in New Brunswick.

Where I Have Failed
Relapse. That’s a good word. And relapses are (thank you Josh Hamilton) somewhat inevitable. I went to the Chinese buffet – but I stayed away from the donuts and the ice cream and ate a ton of fruit and got the diet Coke. The two really big screw-ups were Cheesecake Factory and the chocolate pretzel ice cream at Thomas Sweet in Montgomery. Other than that, well, it wasn’t downright terrible.

What I Have Accomplished
Nothing. This week was a failure. But it didn’t cost me that much, just half a pound, and I can get that back easy enough. What I’ve lost so far this month is time, and I’ll never get that back. I can try to do better though. I haven’t quit, and I’m not about to.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
It’s been a really bad day. I had a court hearing for a client that was a disaster. I responded by getting a bottle of chocolate milk and some peanut butter cookies, and I had some sesame chicken for lunch, and then grabbed a couple of Reese’s cups on the way home. My throat is giving out, and I am seriously thinking about flaking out on the couch and taking a nap.

What Has Been Done
We went out to lunch in Flemington, ahead of some outlet-mall shopping, and I got the salad. That was pretty much the highlight. We went to Chili’s, I got a really mediocre salad instead of the chicken-fried steak I would normally get, and neither of my daughters threw up on me.

Where I Have Failed
Super Bowl Sunday. Let’s just leave it at that. Dip was involved.

What I Have Accomplished
Up again for the second straight week, a pound and a half, only 6% of the way to the goal. I was down quite a bit before Sunday. (I am blaming a very salty pizza Saturday night and a big heaping pile of corn chips–I am thinking this is just me retaining a bunch of water from eating so much salt, but eating badly today isn’t doing me any good at all.)

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
I got sick. I had a dentist appointment on Monday afternoon, and came down with a cold right afterwards. (Not sure how; I sort of blame the children for not getting in the car in the rain and me getting drenched trying to buckle them in.) I went home Tuesday afternoon and missed work on Wednesday, and that screwed up the rest of the week pretty badly.

What Has Been Done
Like I said, I was sick most of the time, so that fouled up everything.

Where I Have Failed
When I get sick, I get orange juice. When I have the option, I eat Mexican food. This is a lot of carbs, so even though I did lose a little weight–down to where my goal was for the month, for the second straight week I got overconfident. Ice cream was involved, too.

Look, it could have been a lot worse–went to the movies and didn’t get popcorn, for one thing. But I was sick, and didn’t feel like cooking or going to the store, so that means I ate a lot of fast food–in fact, had three meals out on Saturday (french toast for breakfast, fast-food burger for lunch, Chinese for dinner). Nobody’s losing weight eating like that, no matter how careful you are, and I at least tried to be careful.

What I Have Accomplished
Up, but just a couple of ounces, enough to say that I’m still 8% of the way to the goal. And I did reach my goal for the month, I did–I just didn’t do it permanently. This will be a better week in that I’m going to be on my regular schedule every day but Wednesday, so I ought to be just fine. The only problem is that Super Bowl Sunday lurks, and that means seven-layer dip.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
The best Sunday of the year is over. I love Super Bowl Sunday, but the two conference championship games are better and there’s less hype and there’s more football. Plus the Niners lost. I hate the Niners beyond all reason and am jazzed that they lost, even though it means an NY/Boston matchup, which sucks.

I am going to the dentist today, other than that there’s not much going on. I am struggling with query letters, enough so that I’m getting neurotic about the manuscript and am going through and doing another line-by-line edit, not that it really needs it but I’ll feel better if I do something constructive.

What Has Been Done
I am not adding to the concentric Circles of Hell this week, because I didn’t do that well last week and I need to retrench.

Where I Have Failed
I got overconfident. Hey, it happens. On Thursday, I hit my goal weight for the month, and that meant that I felt that I could let down my guard for a bit. So when I underbought food for the week, I went to Taco Bell on Friday. Followed that up with another big Mexican meal that night. It snowed after that, and because of that I fixed myself a lot of hot cider for apres-shoveling time. So that was a bad idea. Had some chocolate milk at one point on Saturday, and ate a few more cookies than I needed to on Sunday. And now I’m not at my goal weight anymore.

My goal weight is not the same as my goal weight each month. When I’ve lost the weight I need to (this will be at least a two-year process) maybe then I can relax a little, amp up the carbs a bit. But not now. I am doing a lot of the right stuff; the key is to do it consistently.
What I Have Accomplished
Down a pound and a half anyway. I’m going to call that eight pounds, with a chance this week to lose that and get to ten pounds for the month. 8% of the way to the goal. (And I said last week that even if I broke even last week it would be a win, so it’s a win.)

I love chocolate chip cookies.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
I am pretty damned exhausted, if you want to know the truth, but it’s MLK day, which is one of the few free days that I get in the year. (I am a civil rights lawyer, so I don’t feel compelled to do a day of service or anything like that–I give at the office.) I had a short fiction piece about the Tylenol killer that I thought about the other day and decided to finish. I got a rejection note on an ill-considered piece about sparkly ponies I did in another even-more-desperate attempt to get noticed by The New Yorker – they didn’t like it, so I resent it to someone else, who wondered why I didn’t just send it there in the first place. Go figure. (It’s up on curtisedmonds.com, but I am far too lazy to link to it.)

I did a little touch-up painting upstairs. I moved the extension rails on the kid’s beds downstairs. I re-grouted the mosaic that I’ve been working on for awhile now, and I’m going to go downstairs and touch it up after the most recent layer dries. I did a book review for BookReporter.com – the new Bernard Cornwell book, which I finished while soaking in the tub. (Sweet!) Right now I am using the excuse of waiting for the grout to dry to write this and listen to Pat Green.

What Has Been Done
We continue adding to the concentric Circles of Hell. Last week I made two decisions:

One: Eat more nuts. I am trying a low-carb thing, and that means I need to eat more nuts. Almonds, cashews, macadamias (not peanuts). It’s the easiest decision ever. Perfect for snacking, and you don’t need to eat that many to feel satisfied. The problems with this are a) you can eat too much of them and b) I have to stay away from the Trader Joe’s honey-sesame almonds, which will fuck you up.

(I have ONE bottle of Dublin Dr Pepper that I am saving for if I get an agent, otherwise, no Cokes or Dr Peppers or sweet tea until the end of the year, and if I drink one I will say so here.)

Two: Make smarter decisions when eating out. This means getting salad instead of appetizers. We went out Friday night like we usually do, and I was dying to go to our local BBQ/Mexican place, but I said Ruby Tuesday instead, and I got a huge salad. (Which I shared with the one child who will eat salad.) It’s, okay, not the absolute best thing to eat, but it is a vegetable and I don’t eat a lot of vegetables and don’t judge me.

Where I Have Failed
I screwed up in buying groceries–I thought I had some leftover yogurt and oranges so that I didn’t need to buy five days worth of lunch. I ran out on Thursday, so I decided to go out on Friday and got Taco Bell. That wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did. And–out of nowhere–I suggested that my wife might want to make chocolate chip cookies to keep the twins occupied on Saturday morning, and I ate a bunch of them. (I fixed a very healthy dinner that night to recompense.)

What I Have Accomplished
Down four and a half pounds. If you don’t count the half pound (why should you?) that’s six pounds in two weeks, and that’s not shabby at all. 6% of the way to the goal if you want to look at it that way. But I kind of think that I’m going to take a step back next week–it doesn’t seem like a sustainable loss. If I can just hold steady this week it’ll be a win.

Where We Are (Or More Accurately, Where I Am)
I lost fifty pounds about three years ago – this would have been right after we moved into the new house but before the children were born. And they’re back. Almost all of them, that is. Blame the stress of having twins in the house, blame genetics and sloth, blame the tasty goodness that is a Dr Pepper. Blame whatever you want so long as you blame me. I got off my plan. I stopped actively trying to lose weight and tried to maintain the weight I had. (I switched from a regular scale to an electronic scale a year and a half ago and discovered that I had been fooling myself greatly about how well I was doing with this.) I actually didn’t to too terribly but every time I went on vacation I’d gain weight and wouldn’t work hard to take it off.

What Has Been Done
I am (in this installment of things) trying to follow what I might call a concentric approach – starting from the center and adding on a new Circle of Hell every week or so. Last week I made two decisions:

One: Don’t drink liquid calories. Last year, my great weight-loss idea was to stop drinking Coca-Cola Zero and diet iced tea to cut it out with all the artificial sweetener. This led to me drinking nothing but water for a month, then ditching that, until I was basically back to drinking Cokes and Dr Peppers and sweet tea. I had a whole 44-ounce cherry limeade at Sonic when I was in Texas. Lesson: I like sweet drinks. Another lesson: sweet drinks make you gain weight. So I am back on Coke Zero, but I’m treating it like methadone – only a little, only in situations where I’d otherwise be tempted (i.e., Chipotle or anyplace else with unlimited free sugar-water refills.) And yes, I went to Chipotle on Saturday – got the tacos instead of the high-calorie burrito, thank you very much. I didn’t have anything that was liquid and had sugar in it except for one glass of orange juice on Jan 1 and that didn’t count because the alternative was chocolate milk – oh, sweet delicious chocolate milk, how I love you, how you go so well with delicious mini chocolate donuts.

(I have ONE bottle of Dublin Dr Pepper that I am saving for if I get an agent, otherwise, no Cokes or Dr Peppers or sweet tea until the end of the year, and if I drink one I will say so here.)

Two: Stop Eating Lunch Out. This is a bit easier than you might think because downtown Trenton is not awash in lunch options – but that hasn’t stopped me from schlepping to Taco Bell and Five Guys, and (worst of all) haunting the Chinese buffet by Roebling Market. Lunch is going to be in my office and is going to consist of Greek yogurt, fruit, and almonds or cashews or something like that, and bottled water. This has worked OK for the days I was in the office, but I was out Monday for the holiday, out Tuesday for a hearing (had Indian buffet in the boro) and Friday traveling (had chicken tenders at Burger King in South Brunswick – no sauce, no fries, diet Coke). This could go a lot better.

Where I Have Failed
I was going to start exercising but I have not yet (except for a vigorous effort to de-Christmastize the house yesterday.). That could start next week. The problem I had was that I’d planned to do it in the morning and I’ve been drop-dead exhausted all week, enough so that I almost couldn’t drag myself out of bed a couple of days. I blame the low blood sugar. Maybe that’ll be on the agenda for this week.

What I Have Accomplished
I’ve lost two pounds, which is 2% of my goal for this year. I wish it were more – I thought it would be more after I weighed myself Saturday. And that’s not bad (considering I was traveling a lot and eating at restaurants more than I normally would). But it’s largely a rebound from a week of gorging myself in Texas, so I’m not that hopeful for what it means. Still, it’s a start, and that’s what this week was.