water weight & new pants

Today I do not want to go to my meeting. Not.At.All.

I'm an obsessive weigher. Every morning. It keeps me accountable and I always know where I stand. [Yes, I am aware it's "bad" to weigh that often. I don't care.] This morning I gained 2lbs from yesterday and this afternoon when I got home from the gym & photographing an event I'd gained another. [I had to check to see if the gym changed anything. Obviously.]

Why do things things always have to happen on Tuesdays?

I am obviously retaining water. It's practically impossible for me to gain 3lbs overnight when all I do is drink water. But those numbers, man they're hard to take. :P

I'm sitting here trying to decide if I'm going to crazy-person-it-up and go run 4 miles before class tonight or sit here in the fresh from the dryer size 14 pants my sister just handed down... up? to me and just be ok.

I've been wearing size18/XL since practically 5th grade so to be sitting here at 26 in size 14 jeans is MORE than incredible. And of course I'm letting 3lbs of water weight rob me of that joy. I just wanted to let that sink in for a few minutes.

-30

Yesterday I reached the -30lb mark.

It's crazy.

But I think the more crazy thing is that I don't feel any different. On the program every week I see a doctor. Usually our visit goes something like: "Hi, how are you." "Good, how are you!" "Any changes?" "Nope." "Exercising and drinking water?" "Lots of exercise, lots of water." "Great see you next week."

Yesterday after congratulating me on reaching 30lbs my doctor asked me if I felt any different. I said... yes? I mean, there's no denying I have most definitely changed. When I walk into a room full of mirrors at the gym my body most definitely isn't as horrifying as it used to be. And I'm proud of that.

But, I'm still wearing the same clothes size. I went to Target this week and tried on a few tops... and my goodness there is nothing quite like losing 30lbs and feeling enormous when you go clothes shopping. Will I start to feel different when I go down a jeans size? Will I ever go down a jeans size? So right now how it actually makes me feel is maybe I was wearing clothes that were way too small for my actual body size and I was walking around for years in way-too-small clothes. 

I am a ridiculously huge fan of The Biggest Loser and almost every season when the contestants get to a certain point at their time on the ranch they have some kind of challenge that forces them to carry around the weight that they've lost. Whether it's in the form of actual weights or in tangible "everyday" items like a 10-lb bag of potatoes, so they can see how much those extra pounds actually slow them down... I wonder if that would make me "feel" any different. 

If I'm being honest and vulnerable I know that it won't.

In the emotional and tear-filled days I spent making the decision to start this program I told God I wanted to do this with Him. That every day I was going to wake up and give Him my day and my hunger and my want for coffee creamer and my tears and exhaustion, I wanted Him to hold my hand. But 10 weeks have gone and I can probably count the number of times I did that one one hand. So I guess right now what losing 30lbs feels like is success coming at the cost of failure. 

Hopefully the next 10 weeks will be a success on both counts. 

Out of the Box

It's Tuesday again! I'm sitting at the doctor's office waiting for my turn to weigh in. 

One of the things I hate about being on a "diet" is diet terminology. Every program has different terms you need to learn and HMR is no different, and 6 weeks done I'm still barely catching on to most of the terms. One of them though I am aquainted with: "out of the box" it means you've eaten real food instead of sticking to just the liquid diet. Last Thursday I went "out of the box". It was totally planned and I don't regret it one bit! I was at a conference/girls weekend and pretty much from day one of being on this program I have planned to eat one meal "out of the box" during the conference. I had a Chipotle salad. It was so worth it. 

But, of course I can't do something like that without my crazy showing up. I have been avoiding the scale from the moment I placed my order at Chipotle. Because, obviously one salad is going to make me gain 23.8 pounds back. Obviously. Subconsciously I'm still waiting for this to stop working like calorie counting, low carbing and every othe crazy thing I've done this year. To one day wake up and be like 5 bazillion pounds heavier even though I'm doing everything "right". 

I guess being overweight for 20ish years will do that to a person. 

Yesterday was one of the first times I've actually been able to see a change in my body. When I talked to my grandma on the phone for my birthday she asked if I would send family pictures for her to hang on her wall. So that meant we needed to actually take family pictures. I asked Alexis if she would push the button if I did the settings and then forced my family out into a field. When I got home to edit the images and place an order I was able to see a change that I don't necessarily see when I look in the mirror everyday. 

I thought I would post them here. Yesterday on the left and from my headshots shoot on the right. Ignore that my hair and makeup is way better on the right. ;] 

More than once over the last several years I've done Weight Watchers. One of the milestones in the program is losing 10% of your body weight. You got a special pen... or a bookmark or something. Of the 3 or 4 times I started and restarted the program I was never able to reach that milestone. Never. I always stopped losing after those initial water weight pounds. Just now when I weighed in I officially passed the 10% mark. I never really believed that was possible. 

-5.3

I'm waiting for my nutrition class to start and other than the fact that it's a thousand degrees in this room and I'm so congested I can't breathe I'm really happy with my week! 

I didn't make it to my calorie burning goal of 3500 calories, I'm waaaaaay off this week because I skipped the gym this morning due to being sick, so my calorie burning was at 2,255, but whatever happened with my body this week I'm happy with it! 

Yaaaaay week 5!

p.s. if I were on the biggest loser I would have immunity this week because I lost the most in my whole class. That is an amazing feeling. 

Birthdays & Goals

So, yesterday was my birthday.

After my first week on HMR [when I lost 9lbs!] I decided it was totally smart to set a goal of losing 25lbs in 36 days. Losing 25lbs by my 26th birthday sounded ah-mazing and if I'm being honest-- really, it's only fair. I had after-all given myself 6 months to work towards that goal... but nothing worked so I was forced into that time crunch.

I did not make it. But that's ok.

As of yesterday I've lost 19 lbs on HMR. I think that's pretty ok.

And now for new, public goals.

I have 3 more weigh-ins in the month of July and I'm going to set the bar high [again.] and aim to lose 10 more pounds by my July 30th weigh in.

How am I going to do that?

Stick with the program. 5-6 shakes per day. Try to pre-make puddings as much as possible. If my puddings are made and all I have to do is grab them from the fridge I spend less time in the kitchen and the less time I spend there the waaaaaay better.

I am still having egg whites in the morning and I also added black coffee into the mix. Day 3 of black coffee and it's nowhere near as good as coffee with creamer but hopefully I'll get accustomed to it. My mugs were so lonely. And I think I'm ready to just give up on salsa all together. In the last few weeks I've bought my favorite salsa twice, three times when you count yesterday, and I've made the "pizza" recipe that comes with the program and with every try it's more and more gross. I really miss salty foods but this fake chip/pizza crust idea is not working for me at.all.

I'm also going to try to up my work-outs. The goal in the program is to burn 2000 calories a week. With my current workout schedule with classes at the gym I'm burning WELL over that amount. Practically 2900 a week. I want to try and push myself to burn 3500 a week. 3500 calories is equal to 1lb so I just want to try and lose an "extra" pound a week through exercise alone. And that realistically just means going to the gym a little more than an extra hour a week.

My last goal is more mental/comfort based than it is related to an actual number on the scale. My ultimate ultimate goal is to be comfortable with where I end up, but in that comfort I want to be able to wear dresses when I photograph weddings. Instead of trying to cover myself in as much black to hide my body as possible I would love to be able to wear cute flats and a flowy dress instead of sweating to death in 115 degree summer weddings. Right now I own one dress. One. And I'm forcing myself to wear it once a week-- even out in public-- just to get used to wearing a dress period. The long term goal is to be comfortable wearing a *new* dress for Karen's wedding August 24th the short term goal is to possibly be comfortable enough to wear the dress I already own to my last July wedding on the 27th. I have 17 days to work up to that.

As a recap these are my goals:
1. Lose 10 lbs by July 30th
2. Up my exercise to 3500 calories a week
3. Possibly wear a dress to Jacy's wedding.

Week 4

I am officially halfway in to my 5th week on HMR. It's crazy to realize that. Last Tuesday felt like a milestone day when I completed my meeting and finished Week 4. Officially 1/3 of the way through what I committed to. 12 weeks.

In the last 4 weeks my weight loss hasn't been nearly as fast as that first 9lb week. But every day there is a steady loss of something and for that I am grateful. It definitely has not gotten easy, it's a very day to day challenge. Some days are better than others and some days are easier than others. 

Last Tuesday after my weigh-in I was doing the calculations to see how much weight I'd lost total and then multiplying it to see, at this rate, how long it would take me to reach my ultimate goal. [Yes, crazy person.] And, while I'd be way closer than I've ever been there's no way I'd be close enough to quit at 12 weeks and move in to Phase 2 of the program. So I was super confident that I'd be able to stick it out another 4 weeks-- just to see where that got me. 16 weeks [total] isn't so bad, right? 

And then it was 4th of July and I was right back in my weepy emotional about food place. Not knowing if I would make it through a day let alone another 12 weeks. Never in my life have I wanted a cheeseburger so badly. :P 

Next week is my birthday and it's important for 2 reasons. 1. Because I have a personal goal I want to meet by then and 2. Because I think it's going to be hard. I don't like my birthday to be a big deal, I don't want anyone to sing to me or get me presents or do anything crazy... but on HMR I can't even go out to dinner to "celebrate". As exciting as the loss part of this journey has been the social and emotional aspect has been absolutely grueling. 

Three more things. 

1. Today I am shooting my 4th wedding since being on the program and in complete honesty, wedding days are the easiest days on the program. They take a lot of preparation-- generally it takes me longer to get a days worth of food together than it does to get my camera equipment together. But it's very easy for me to be out of the house working for 10-12 hours grab a shake and not think about eating in the slightest. Probably because I'm already used to not eating at all on wedding days. Do I miss the wedding potatoes? Always. But it's so.much.easier. to say no on those days than on slow days at home when I'm in front of the computer all day. 

2. I've finally worked back up to my 4x a week gym routine. The crazy in me wants to push myself to 5 or 6x a week... because I'm crazy and because much like wedding times, it's so.much.easier. to not be at home. The hardest part of working out is definitely even though I'm up to the number of days I was working out before I am definitely not up to the caliber of working out that I was at before. The plantar fasciitis in my left foot hardly bothers me at all anymore [Thank GOD for Charlotta!!!] but I'm afraid to run on it and cause it to flair up again. So instead of running I walk on the treadmill slowly increasing my incline to 7.0 so I'm still burning the calories and walking 2.5 miles but I don't have the impact on my foot. And at Xtreme Strength I've gone back to my starting weights. That was hard. So instead of using 10lb+ weights for everything, I'm using 5lb weights only. I know that I'm still getting a great workout but it's a challenge to not talk down to myself for being weaker now than I was before. 

3. At my Week 3 meeting, Penny, our nutritionist, gave us a recipe packet for different ways we can mix our shakes into different puddings, mousses, cookies, brownies and random other things by varying the water added and mixing them differently or baking them. And, we've been able to add things in for flavoring or consistency like salsa or egg whites. I've had salsa twice since then, which has been seriously amazing, never have I been so thankful for salsa! And this last week I've started periodically scrambling some egg whites, it started because I did a photoshoot at the beach where the marine layer rolled in and got into my bones, I couldn't get warm and I needed something warm. Scrambled egg whites seemed like the easiest thing. Less than 30 calories and 5.5 more grams of protein seemed reasonable. Being able to chew has been amazing. 

I will update in a few days with how close to my goal I was. 

80 ounces of water later...

This year I made a lot of goals. Personally and professionally. One of my personal goals was to lose weight... lots of it. So in January I started a 5 month unsuccessful journey in the direction of weight loss.

I started by counting calories using My Fitness Pal and going to the gym 5x a week. I fell into a more love than hate relationship with a 5am alarm and took on the challenge of searching pinterest for healthy recipes to make at home. Being self employed and working from home made it fairly easy to cook every night or at the very least throw something into the crockpot.

Unfortunately with those changes... nothing in my body changed.

So I spent 5 months trying to change everything I was eating to find *something* that would work. Lower calories, higher calories, various attempts to force myself to love fruits and vegetables that I've always hated, dabbling with low carbs after a doctor said I might have PCOS. Everything would give me a momentary exciting budge on the scale and then absolutely nothing. Resulting in less than 5lbs of weight loss after 5 months of hard, frustrating work.

This past Tuesday I went to my first meeting at the doctors office to start the HMR Diet. Basically it is a VLCD [Very Low Calorie Diet] where I drink 5 protein shakes a day and am limited to 500 calories a day-- found in those protein shakes. No food. Just shakes.

When I first went to the information meeting I cried on the way home. And for several days after. I've been overweight my entire life and I feel like I'm out of options and if this doesn't work there's just no hope. Period.

A few weeks ago I had a photoshoot in Cambria and because no one was able to ride along with me I had 8 hours in the car by myself to think. The pressure of feeling like this was my only option was heavy on my mind as was the fear of making this commitment and drastic life change only to gain all of the weight back [and more!] as soon as I stopped drinking the shakes.

Day 3 on this diet and it's been harder than I ever imagined. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Hard.

The funny part is 3 days of 500 calories a day and I'm not hungry.

Physically by the end of day 2 and 3 my head has been throbbing. Last night I was photographing 2 back to back graduations and after 5 hours of carrying the 70-200 paired with my throbbing head I thought I was going to pass out or vomit or both. It was awful and lots of tear inducing.

Mentally after all of these years having a terrible relationship with food I don't think I ever realized how much food revolves around being social. Even if I never ate in social situations it wasn't like I *couldn't* eat. Now, I can't sit at the dinner table, or go to the grocery store, or accept a DumDum that Jack offers me.

Emotionally tonight I'm a mess. I haven't gone to the gym in 2 days because I'm afraid if I wake up too early I won't be able to make it through the day without being paralyzed with headache pain and it seems like the only solution to making it through the next 12+ weeks is to sleep them away. I know I made this decision but it's depressing. Depressing because I feel like I needed to make it and because I don't know if I'm going to make it through and because aside from food I already feel like my life has been drastically limited. And what if I go through all of this and it still fails? What if I don't lose any weight? What if I can't keep going and my last hope slips from my reach?

What if it's too hard for me to get through a 10 hour wedding day?

I just needed somewhere to spill all of this. So it wasn't floating around in my mind anymore.

want want want....

i've been taking lots of pictures lately. and every time i take pictures i have the strongest violence towards my camera only because it is an autofocus point and shoot.. i reeeeeeeally want a manual focus camera. reeeeeeeally badly. my extreme desire is for a canon 5d but... thats $2,000 without a lens! so ill basically settle for anything that lets me focus myself. so ive been looking around on ebay and i found this. a canon rebel xti kit that comes with the camera body, 3 lenses, 2 tripods, a memory card... and all kinds of good stuff for $700. about an hour ago i was ready to buy it to use part of my savings and a credit card to pay for it just so that i could have it. but then i decided not to.

instead i am waiting. i used some of the money in my savings acct. to pay off both of my credit cards. so i now offically have no debt. and now i will just start saving little by little... and hopefully i'll have my camera in a few months. i'm going to try to put in extra hours at MML to try and save more so soon i will have what i reeeally want!

in other news today is "monday" meaning... i need to start eating good again. and it is not as easy as it used to be! lol. darn holidays! but i am wearing a size smaller jeans than normal, i bought them on vacation and am wearing them for the first time... yay?

a little reflection....

after photoshooting yesterday i made myself a photography myspace and in doing so i have been looking at SO so sooooo many old pictures that i have saved on my computer. and i came across a few that were like oh gosh! in both bad and good ways... like oh gosh how did i ever let myself be photographed that way!? and oh gosh! you can actually tell i have lost weight this past year. and while its a little awkward to "blog" about my weight i thought i would post these just because its basically amazing. =]

the first picture was taken almost 1 year go on january 16, 2007 on the way home from palm springs with ambers family, the second was taken tonight january 03, 2008... i tried to mock the pose from the first but i couldnt make my head turn the right way lol.





it makes me feel like i need to pluck my eyebrows! LOL!