Tag Archives: weight loss surgery

The Talk About Surgery

Battle of the Butt, Motivation, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hot Mess Hubby and I had the talk a few weeks ago. We were talking about my struggles with food…and working out…and my weight. And he said the words that a lot of spouses are probably afraid to say.

“Babe, I’m not being mean…but at some point, don’t you have to think about surgery?”

Yowch. I’m not going to say it didn’t hurt to hear that – but after ten years of marriage, HMH knows how to take the sting out of his words. Pretty much.

He was speaking out of love, not malice. He’s watched me struggle with this for a long time now. Any normal person would be thinking “When is it going to be enough for you to just do it?” There is no pressure attached to his message, no impatience or intolerance. He loves me. He’s worried about me.

We’ve had this talk before. A few times. In the beginning, it was just my crazed ranting against surgery because I was watching a friend (or two or three) go through it without using it as a tool for healthy living. I know many people who’ve had weight loss surgery and gained it all back because they didn’t change what was really important: their thinking.

I’ve seriously considered surgery twice in my life. About five years ago I made an appointment with a local surgeon and then cancelled it the day before. Two years ago, I made an appointment with a different surgeon and kept it. I went through the entire screening process, passed the psych exam (shut up, I totally aced it), and was awaiting insurance approval when I stopped the process and decided not to go through with it. Why? Because I lost weight on my own.

worth it

Ever since the first of many of my friends had weight loss surgery, the option of doing it for myself has hung over me like a dark cloud. At one point in my life, all my closest girlfriends had done it. I lived in a world where they were so excited about their amazing weight loss that they couldn’t stop talking about it…and then they started giving me their clothes that were too big for them. As happy as I was for them, it was absolutely crushing.

There have been times when I’ve felt surgery was inevitable. There are moments when I think…what am I waiting for? How long am I going to struggle in vain before I realize that I’m just not strong enough or tough enough or smart enough to change myself?

And that’s when the answer comes. No. I’m not having surgery.

I admit it: there was a time in my life when I looked down at people who decided to have weight loss surgery. I haven’t felt that way about it for a long, long time. I understand it for what it is: a tool. I have nothing but love and support in my heart for those who choose surgery – because I’ll tell you what: unless you’ve been morbidly obese, you have no idea what this is like.

Surgery has a bad rep because there are many weight loss surgeons out there who are smarmy as hell. They get excited when they see a fat person just like a personal injury attorney gets excited when they see an accident victim. These surgeons don’t care how you gained it or why you want to lose it. They don’t care if you’re emotionally ready for it. They care about whether you have insurance or can qualify for easy financing. Weight loss surgery has become Ritalin for fat people – and that’s why it has a bad rep. I know women who have been told to gain 20 pounds in order to qualify. And I know someone who’s done exactly that.

I also know people who have had weight loss surgery and say it’s the best decision they’ve ever made in their lives. They’ve kept their weight off and they live healthy, active lives now. It’s a combination of being ready and finding a decent doctor that results in a positive, lasting experience. It’s just not for me.

yesican

I’ve pretty much fixed the inside of me. And I’m pretty damn confident that I’d be successful if I elected to have weight loss surgery. I still can’t do it. Not because I’m afraid, but because I have something to prove.

I think back to that ten year old little girl I was when I first learned what fat was. I think about the way I grew up: believing that I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t lovable enough, smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough. (Yes, I do realize I sound like that idiot from Saturday Night Live.)

I’m just not going to tell myself that I’m not tough enough to do this the way I feel I need to do it. I’m not going to think about that ten year old kid in that mirror and know that my rotten bastard of a dance teacher was right: that my best is not good enough.

I’m not going to say that to myself. I’m just not. I would rather hurt on the elliptical than hurt in a recovery room. So it’s for her that I’m doing this…that ten year old little girl who just needed someone to stand up for her. I can’t just fix her with surgery. I have to show her that she really was enough.

The path you take to living a healthy life is a very personal one. Whatever road you choose, I wish you a safe journey…and fierce success.


Courage: Overcoming Fear and Igniting Self-Confidence

Failure

Battle of the Butt, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is going to be an incredibly difficult post for me to write & publish, but I have to do it. I want to do it. Because I promised myself long ago that I would always be real about my process – and if I don’t talk about it, then what the hell good is this blog anyway?

I’ve gained weight. Quite a bit.

If I don’t talk about the negative as well as the positive – and if I don’t keep pushing through it – there would be nothing to differentiate me from the hundreds of other bloggers who’ve come and gone before me, their blogs now forgotten. I’ve followed dozens and dozens of them – yet I can check them on my Feedly list right now and I know what I would see: dead, dark blogs. Blogs that were once active and full of motivation, now “dark”. No posts since 2012…or even longer. These countless bloggers stopped posting when they hit bumps in the road, perhaps because they thought no one was reading – or perhaps because they were afraid of who would say what if they admitted failure.

Well, I may be afraid in some ways – but I’ve got more courage than sense in others. Whenever I think of not posting, it’s not the readers I might lose because I fell flat on my ass that makes me persist. It’s the idea that there’s one person out there who needs to hear what I’m saying as much as I need to say what I’m saying. It’s that person, perhaps with their hand deep into a box of Little Debbies, who needs to know that they’re not alone in this – and that there are people with the same demons who are fighting the same fight…and that they’re not alone. That’s the person who sends me back to my laptop. Every time.

This is also going to be an incredibly long post. Sorry. I simply can’t break this down into digestible chunks. You may want to pace yourself. I hope you read the whole thing. It’s not my intention to overwhelm you with a giant blog post, but…I have to say it all.

I’m here to tell you that I’ve failed. I’ve fallen right on my ass…all over the internet, in front of a gazillion people and the NSA and everything. I am embarrassed and ashamed, afraid and dumbfounded at my inability to save myself from something that makes me feel like the dumbest person on the planet. Yet every time I get ready to mentally flog myself for being a moron, a tiny bit of inner strength comes over me and reminds me that there are much more horrible things in this world than the fact that I didn’t get it perfect this time. The Kardashians are reproducing, for fuck’s sake. Anything I do can’t possibly cause as much damage to the world. This realization is usually all it takes for me to remember to focus on the solution and stop beating myself up.

Looking back, of course, it’s perfectly clear to me where I went wrong. I stopped logging my food, convinced that I could depend upon my auto-pilot. Without logging, I lost sight of the little things that quickly add up to bigger things. I stopped weighing myself, trying instead to focus on the positive steps of making exercise a habit.

The simple truth is that, while others may be successful at living a healthy lifestyle without logging their food, I need it. Always. And, while others can’t step on the scale every day, I have to. My food log and my scale are the tools I use to successfully navigate these waters. I am not the kind of person who can be without them. I need them daily.

Motivation Marbles HMP

Without my tools, it’s far too easy for me to get distracted by daily life. I’ve become mired down with a million details. Things to do. Places to be. People to see. I’ve gone from being a fairly organized person to being a scatterbrained twit surrounded by a bunch of half-done tasks with no idea what to do next. Completely overwhelmed. I feel like the dumbest person on the planet for letting this happen. I fell back into the land of quick fixes and lazy thinking. And six months into 2013, I still haven’t made exercise a habit.

My monumental failure: I’ve gained back all but one pound of the weight I lost.

Living in a world of elastic waist pants makes it very hard to judge whether the weight is creeping back on – especially when most of your clothes are a 30/32. It takes a lot to move from the low end of the 30 to the high end of the 32.

43 pounds, to be exact.

It would have been easy to spot had I not stopped getting on the scale every day, but I got the brilliant idea in my head that I should take a break from the scale in order to train my focus on exercise. Dumb. Really dumb. I understand what I thought I was doing, but I was failing to accept one undeniable truth: I fucking HATE exercise. I hate it. I could quit everything else in life in order to focus on exercise but I would still be focused on something I hate doing – and all that brings is negativity. I should have kept logging, kept weighing, and kept trying at the exercise.

I have one pair of jeans that fits (or used to). They’re a size 30. I don’t wear them a lot. Imagine my surprise when I went to put them on a couple of weeks ago and they weren’t even close to zipping or buttoning. I actually thought I’d mistakenly grabbed at the wrong pair of jeans. I had to look at the tag to see the size. Imagine my horror as reality sank in. I hadn’t been getting on the scale. I hadn’t been logging my food. Oh wow…HMH and I have been ordering pizza more often, haven’t we? Shit. How long had it been since I could wear these jeans? I had no idea.

It took weeks before I had the balls to get on the scale and face the music – and in that time, I still wasn’t eating as healthy as before and I certainly wasn’t working out consistently.

So here I am…facing the music and feeling like the biggest failure in the world. And the funny thing is that I didn’t feel this way at all when I gained back the 75 pounds I lost back in the 90’s. I’ve been having quite the internal dialogue about this since I got on the scale. It hasn’t been pretty. It’s been a weird combination of beating myself up and coming up with a plan to fix this – lately, more of the latter.

believe

What am I going to do about this? Pick myself up, dust myself off, and get moving. Although the thought did occur to me briefly, I am not pursuing weight loss surgery.

As of this morning, I’m back to logging my food. Logging is my safety net and I’m never living without it again. No more pizza, no more convenience foods. There’s a half gallon of ice cream in my freezer right now that’s going down the drain tonight. I don’t need the temptation…I have shit to do.

Mr. Scale is back in my life. I appreciate him for the information he gives me. I don’t get pissed when he tells me I weigh one or two pounds more than I did yesterday. I’m a woman. For some reason, weight fluctuation is all part of the majesty of owning a uterus…or having owned one in the past, whatever your situation may be. I don’t care about two or even three pounds. I care about five. I need to know where I stand.

The 7 Dwarfs of the Menstrual Apocalypse are just packing up and leaving, so I’m not headed to the gym today – but I am tomorrow. From now on, there will be no more trying to embrace the positive kittens-and-rainbows “exercise is good for me” mindset. I hate exercise. It’s painful and horrible and I hate it – and it’s dishonest for me to try and get all warm and fuzzy about it. From now on, I am going to the gym regularly – which will require me to force myself. Tough shit. I’m giving myself permission to hate it. I’m going to bitch and moan and scream bloody murder if that’s what I feel like doing, but I’m going to the gym whether I like it or not. Like a good parent with a stubborn child, I’m going to get this medicine down my throat one way or the other.

It nearly broke my heart to pull 43 marbles out of the “Pounds Lost” jar today, but I did it. They’re not my victories to claim anymore. They’re back in the “Pounds to Go” jar where they belong. For now. It hurt to do, but I know with a certainty I’ve never had before that they’ll be back in the “Pounds Lost” jar soon.

I lost my way. I’m not proud of it. Hopefully you’ll forgive me. I sure do feel stupid because of it, but I’m not going to let myself wallow in self-pity and self-hatred over this. This has happened. I caused it. I’ve picked myself up, brushed myself off, and put my feet back on the road. I’m really not proud of where I’m standing right now.

I’m just not going to be one of those bloggers who fades into the background to lick her wounds. Y’all know me. I have no compunction about licking myself in front of you. This blog is about embracing change and finding what works. This is all part of that process for me.

I reset the weight loss ticker on the top right of this page. Makes me sad just looking at it. So here I go. One marble in the jar…

Just Rewards

Battle of the Butt, Big Fat Crafts, Motivation, Tools, , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been at it again.  I’ve been busy at work making Big Fat Crafts!  Woohoo!!!

Remember Motivation Marbles? They’re great for keeping track of “the big picture” with my weight loss goals.  If I’m having a day that more craptastic than fantastic, just glancing at the “Pounds Lost” jar and seeing all those marbles (one for every pound) instantly makes me feel like a fat fight’in superstar.  I love taking marbles from the “Pounds to Go” jar and plinking them into the “Pounds Lost” jar almost as much as I love watching the numbers on the scale go down…down…down.

As much fun as that is for me (and for all of you who have created your own marble projects), I’ve been thinking lately that a little motivation of the more immediate kind might make things more interesting in the short term.  If you have a lot of weight to lose like me, it can be a real pain in the booty to stay focused and motivated.  I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get.

To help keep things interesting, I’ve decided to buy myself a lil sump’in sump’in for every 50 pounds I lose – and this new craft project is the perfect way for me to make sure I get my just rewards.  Now I can see the reward and save for it at the same time.  Check it out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I turned a shadow box into a savings bank with a twist!

This project is three of my favorite things:  fun, easy, and quick.  Here’s what you need to get your Just Rewards:

*  a shadow box of your choice

*  colored scrapbook paper or fabric

*  blingy alphabet stickers

*  a small power tool like a Dremmel…or a drill (this part is optional…read on)

*  a photo of the reward you’re saving for

I’m within weeks of hitting my first 50 pound weight loss (go, me!) and I’ve decided that I’m going to reward myself with a new Guess watch.  Those of you who’ve read this blog for a while and know me for the handbag ho that I am are probably shaking your heads in disbelief, right?  Would you believe there are no decent designer bags within my $150 budget?  None!

It’s okay, though, because I’m getting a little tired of yanking my phone out of my purse just to see what time it is.  I need a watch…and this one’s gorgeous!

A few tips:

*  I took a screenshot of the watch and printed it out at the photo kiosk at my neighborhood drug store.  My printer sucks…and this was cheaper than an ink refill!

*  I used tweezers to lightly place the blingy alphabet stickers. I didn’t press them against the glass until I was sure of the placement.

*  I used scrapbook paper for my background, but I’ll probably use fabric for my next one.  The paper kept slipping and it was hard to manipulate without creasing.

*  I had the Hot Mess Hubby cut a piggy bank style slot in the top of the shadow box frame so I could use it like a bank.  I assumed he had some super cool tool in his “woodshop” that would do it, but I found out later he just used a regular drill and made hole after hole after hole.  Then he used a file to even it out.  (I didn’t even ask why that was the chosen method…I was just happy he got it done!).

*  If you don’t have the means to cut a piggy bank slot and you don’t know anyone who can, don’t worry – you can always just pop the back off and put your money in there.  The main benefit you’ll reap from this project is seeing your reward and the money you’re paying yourself to get it.  🙂

Since I have a hard time motivating myself to exercise, I pay myself $5 for every 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I keep my Just Rewards bank on the wall above the treadmill so I can see it while I walk.  It reminds me of the pretty little bling thing I’ve got coming my way if I just stick with it.

One of the things I really love is that I can change out the background and the picture for each 50 pound goal.  I’m just about to hit the first 50 pound loss mark, but remember:  I have to turn around and do it 3 more times…and then some.  Having an incremental reward like this adds extra motivation and fun – not to mention it gives me something else to look at besides the bland, still not decorated walls in my bedroom!

I’ve put some links at the bottom in case you decide to start your own Just Rewards project.  If you make one, I’d love to see it – so feel free to contact me and let me know how you did!

That’s it for this edition of Big Fat Crafts, kids…now it’s time for me to get moving.  I have 8 pounds to go before I hit that first 50 pound goal and then this Princess is gett’in a new watch!

What blingy things would you reward yourself with?


Main Street Décor Showdowbox Photo Frame, White


Crystal Stickers Crystal Alphabet-Clear

Wardrobe Weary On a Road Well Traveled

Battle of the Butt, Weigh In Time, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My closet is a ghost town: a myriad of tops and faded jeans all neatly lined up and abandoned.  There are very few clothes in my closet that I can actually wear right now, thanks to my stubborn insistence that I not buy another piece of clothing until I drop a size.  I live in a world of elastic waistbands and frumpy, wide-width shoes. Fashion is not my friend.  Fashion is a word I can’t even relate to anymore.

I didn’t realize it until this week, but I have been avoiding my closet.  I’ve made a lot of big changes in my life in a relatively short amount of time:  I gave up sugar, diet soda, stopped thinking of healthy eating as a drag, and put an indefinite HOLD status on my plans to have lap band surgery.  It’s only been 6 weeks. These changes are still in their infancy – and, with over 20 years of yo-yo dieting under my belt, I guess it’s only natural for me to shy away from anything that might derail the motivation train.  My resolve is precious to me.  Who hasn’t given up on a “diet” within the first days and weeks of starting it?  I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve thrown my hands up and reached for the chips.  My resolve is something that must be protected and gently nurtured.  This is why I’ve been avoiding my closet and all those clothes I can’t wear.

My closet makes me feel like a failure – and yet I choose to stubbornly cling to a hundred hangers worth of memories.  I decided to stop avoiding it this week.  Time to grab the bull by the horns.  Just two steps in and I was surrounded by a half dozen different sizes.  All of them were judging me.

As I organized and sorted, my hands flipped past t-shirts and non-tunics galore.  I remembered the times I wore these clothes – times when the number on the scale was not nearly as shameful as it is now.  I weighed a lot less then, but I was never able to let myself be happy with where I was.  I may have been a lot smaller, but I remember I always felt just as huge as the day I hit my highest weight.

Then I saw it: the first leather jacket I ever bought myself.  It’s a size 22 – which is still plus sized, but 10 sizes smaller than where I am today.  I can’t part with it.  Every time I see it, I’m reminded of the first time I saw it in the store.  I had lost 75 pounds, but I was on the small end of a size 24 and wasn’t sure it would fit me.  I’ll never forget the triumphant feel of slipping that jacket on.  Perfect fit.

I stood in my closet, smiling at the memory of it, but the smile faded within just a few seconds.  I know all too well what happened next and my moment of joy was replaced with shame & disappointment.  Just a few months later, I started another downward spiral and I gave up on myself.  Again.

Having never been able to give myself credit for the accomplishment of losing 75 pounds, I was still berating myself for being 295 pounds (my top weight at the time) – even though I hadn’t weighed that much in months.  I call that kind of negative, automatic thinking my “auto-pilot”.  I didn’t even know I was doing it until my attitude hit the skids.  I tried to pick myself up with a pep talk.  “Hey!  I do NOT weigh 295 pounds!  I’m kicking ass!!”  I tried to believe in myself, but I never felt it in my heart.  It made me vulnerable in ways I couldn’t see.

While at my most vulnerable, I was unprepared for the jerk parade that ensued when I started dating again.  It only took a couple douche bags to break me down.  It wasn’t long before I started finding excuse after excuse not to work out.  Fast food was suddenly more convenient.  Ice cream was back in the freezer.  That bitch Little Debbie was back in my life.  It was easier to curl up on the couch with a plate full of pizza rolls and let the world outside go by than it was for me to look at what went wrong and try again.  By the time I stepped on the scale again, I was 299 pounds.  All the way back up to my top weight with 4 pounds extra.  Nice job.

The leather jacket in my closet is a symbol of the good times on the road to weight loss and the pitfalls that await me if I make the same mistakes.  In some ways, it might be better if I just gave it to charity.  I can’t.  Not until I can wear it again.  When I slip that jacket on my shoulders again and I feel in my heart that I am a Hot Mess Bad Ass, then I can let it go.  That’s the way it is with all the clothes in my ghost town closet.  There is peace to be made.  Retribution.

It’s going to be difficult for a while.  Auto-pilot is hard to fight when I have no physical reminder that I’ve lost weight.  An obese person can’t see or feel a loss of 5, 10, or even 20 pounds.  It doesn’t make much of a dent.  Pants don’t feel looser when they have elastic waists.  It makes it a lot harder to stay positive when you’re able to wear the same pair of pants through pounds and pounds of weight loss.  I don’t expect to be able to wear the next size down for at least another 10 or 15 pounds. The scale and the tape measure are my only real tools for measuring my success – at least for a while.

Just a few days ago, I caught myself on auto-pilot again.  I sat down in my chair at work and thought to myself “I can’t believe I weigh 381 pounds…”

Here I go again, right?  I don’t weigh 381 pounds.  I weigh 361 pounds.

That’s right, peeps:  I’ve lost more marbles since my last post!  I’ve lost 20 pounds since December 15th, 2011.  Why do I have such a problem acknowledging my own success?

That’s why I left myself this note on my monitor at work the other day:

 

 

Of course, now I’m going to have to put a new note up there:  361.  What a horrible inconvenience to have to keep rewriting these notes, right?  🙂

I was so excited to see 361 blinking back at me from the scale this morning.  I had to weigh myself three times before I would believe it, finally stepping back and muttering “shut UP!”  My groggy hubby, still in bed, rolled over and said “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to tell the scale to shut up, babe…”   Goober.

I’m two pounds away from the 350’s – which means I have two pounds more to lose before one of those little pink jewels go PLINK in the “Pounds Lost” jar.  It looks like I’m going to hit my next mini goal:  359 by Valentine’s day.

What’s my goal after that?  354.  Why?  Because I will no longer be able to say I have to lose over 200 pounds.  🙂  At 354 pounds, I will have 199 pounds more to lose.

Seems insurmountable, doesn’t it?  199 more pounds.  My God.  I’m here to tell ya:  I’m gonna do it.  I will kick every single pound squarely in the ass and send it packing.  Ten pounds at a time, they’re dust.  For me, success is no longer just hitting my goal weight.  Success is changing my life and earning my way.

So here I am:  a 361 pound success.  Proud and grateful.

 

 

Mojo-a-Gogo

Battle of the Butt, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My employer has a pretty cool program called “HealthMatters”.  Basically, employees earn a reduction on next year’s insurance deductible by doing certain healthy activities like taking preventive tests and quitting naughty behaviors like smoking, eating too much, and dating jerks.  Okay, I’m not sure about the jerk thing…but the rest is true.

Every two to three months, I get a call from my HealthMatters nurse, Monica.  Over the past year, she has endured assorted tales from me but there was nothing that could prepare poor Monica for the motivation train that has been plowing through the Hot Mess household lately.  We last spoke at the end of November – long before I fell back ON the wagon.  🙂

So Monica calls and asks me how I’ve been doing with my goal of quitting diet soda.  I proudly say “DONE!  Haven’t had one since Christmas day!!”

Monica congratulates me and then says “Okay, so the last time we talked you were considering lap band surgery and were going to be about ready to schedule a surgery date…how is that going?”

Poor Monica didn’t get a chance to say anything except the occasional “Oh my gosh!” for the next 15 minutes.  I told her about giving up sugar, about my imaginary lap band experiment, about the Motivation Marbles, and about getting back on the treadmill.  After every “Oh my gosh!” she offered, I countered with “I know, right!”  It was a good conversation.

I told her that I decided against having any kind of surgery – at least for the next 30 days – while I make sure my mojo is fully back.  She was quite proud of me.  I’m quite proud of me.

Two things that always trip me up, though, are getting too cocky too fast…and not working out on a consistent basis.  In all my previous attempts to get healthy, I’ve known this about myself and yet I’ve never done anything proactive to make sure it doesn’t trip me up again.  This is the first time I’ve ever actually thought “Oh yeah…I need to be sure I work out consistently and keep my focus” while I’m still motivated and doing well.  I may be the slowest learner on the planet.

I know that I will get bored and discouraged if I don’t keep this interesting, so I spent a little money on myself today.  I’ve had one of these before but I lost it somewhere in this house.  (Most likely Sarah the cat decided she didn’t like all that noise coming from the treadmill, so she batted it under a huge piece of furniture somewhere.)  At any rate, I’ve bought myself a second S2H Step pedometer.  Ever heard of these?

Basically, the pedometer counts your steps like any other pedometer does…but this one gives you a code after you take 10,000 steps.  You register online for a free account and log each code you get.  Each code is worth 60 points.  Rack up enough points and you can spend them on whatever prizes you want.  Prizes vary and availability varies, so you have to keep an eye on the website.  Last year, they offered a Nintendo Wii system for a while.

There are lots of prizes to chose from including discounts on spa weekend getaways, gift cards to stores like Walmart and Target, and music downloads.  If you’re a parent and you’re trying to get your kids to be more active, there are stickers and other kid things available as prizes.  If the pedometer won’t work for your kids, there’s also a wristband.  So…this was my first little splurge today:

S2H STEP

Of course, I got mine in pink.  🙂

As much as I love walking, I’m afraid I’ll get bored if that’s all I do.  I would love to get an elliptical trainer, but like most families in this economy, we just can’t afford a purchase like that right now – and I hate gyms.  I like to exercise in privacy and solitude.  I also like to dance.  So…this weekend, I plan to shake it like a polaroid picture.  Check it out:

Dance on Broadway

I do have “The Michael Jackson Experience” for PS3, having four asses makes dancing like the King of Pop more frustrating than fun.  So little Michael will have to keep his moonwalk’in ass in the bottom of the perfectly matched decorator basket that holds our collection of PS3 games.  I’ll have to lose some pounds before I can convincingly grab my crotch and shriek “WooHOOOO!” in my living room.  Too much of a challenge for me right now!

Speaking of challenges, I passed the temptation test today.  I’ll give you the short version:  Office Party.  Cake.  Me. Bad Ass.  🙂  Didn’t eat any.  Wasn’t worth it.  WooHOOO!  (No, I’m not grabbing my crotch like Michael…promise.)

Another challenge tomorrow:  lunch with a couple of my girlfriends at my absolutely favorite restaurant.  Let’s just say that if you ask a server for nutritional information at this place, they smile and giggle.  LOL.  Here’s the deal, though:  my favorite entree is actually not bad at all because of the way I order it.  It’s basically a piece of heavenly seasoned, grilled chicken on a french roll.  Okay, sure…it’s served with fries.  But I don’t get an emotional high from french fries.  I do get a hell of a reaction from their cheesecake.  It’s almost like I need a cigarette when I’m done, ok?  (Except I don’t smoke…but you know what I mean.)

So tomorrow I’m going to my favorite restaurant with my friends.  I’m ordering my favorite chicken sammie and I’m eating the fries.  I am not drinking diet soda.  I am NOT ordering cheesecake.  I’ve already informed my girlfriends that I am perfectly fine if they order dessert – in fact, I would appreciate the opportunity to flex my mojo a little.  Bring it.

Abstaining from cheesecake but eating french fries may not make sense to some of you, but I’m reigning in my emotional reaction to food.  That’s what this is.  I can control the french fry monster.  I can’t control the cheesecake monster.  And I’ve just celebrated 30 days of being free of diet soda, which I’ve tried to do for years, so I definitely don’t want to break that record.

Thankfully, although Mother Nature is still visiting, the 7 dwarfs of the apocalypse are gone:  Bloaty, Crampy, Bitchy, Painful, Queasy, Achy, and Pissy.  I feel normal again.  I’m highly motivated to get moving again.  And I’m looking forward to losing a few marbles on Wednesday when I get on the scale.

Bring it.