Still Crazy After All These Months...

It Was My Birthday.....

Hey All!

Wow, it is actually April, where does the time go?!?

Lessee , last time I talked to you, the diet went south, my heart was soaring heavenward, and the butt was spreading over the horizon. Since then, Mr. Marvelous turned out to be not so marvelous. Well, he was still nice, just not as.....single as I would have liked him to be. So I bid him adieu and spent the next couple of months plotting a messy and painful revenge for the jerk - I mean, contemplating and meditating on what was next for my life. Oh hell, I spent the next couple of months eating. Screw Dr. Phil, Betty Crocker was my shrink!


Anyhoo, we are starting over yet again - I lost a total of 25 lbs for the diet contest which ended in January....and I gained a total of 25 pounds and counting as of today. Soooo, getting back with my diet buddies both on and offline to see what we can do about this old friend that won't go away! Because I am a diabetic, the Atkins diet was perfect for me and I did lose weight - but life without carbs was kinda wearing on me and Christmas really put the Kibosh on the whole thing. It is a lifestyle, but life without Chocolate Cake was just too hard to bear. So I think that I will join Weight Watchers and get back on my walking/running/almost dying exercise regimen.

I have a new motivation - on May 6th, I will be going to Yosemite in California! Hiking, fresh air, camping out, possibly falling off a mountain, getting mauled by bears on the way to the bathroom which by the way is about 100 yards from the tent - oh yeah can't wait! So I am going to have to get in at least a little shape for all of the exercise and good times that are to come! Can't Wait!


It's the getting started part that is hard - but, I CAN DO IT!!



The pics above were from February 21 of this year - my birthday. I wanted to blog this on that day, but life got in the way, so now that things have calmed down a bit I think I will share now.

I turned 42 that day. Walked into the office to good friends , great food (Bob made these pumpkin muffins that were to die for) and a surprise bouquet from a special buddy of mine. It didn't matter that I had loved and lost, or that I had gained a few pounds. That day I felt really special and loved , and as I do every birthday, I found and counted my blessings to match my age.

.......Then I went out and got blasted out of my mind!! Great day all around!!

Talk at ya later folks! Next post - facing the dreaded scale once again!

April Showers Bring.....

me back to do some serious catchin' up - if Ms. Johnson hasn't fired me yet!!

Hey all!! Tax season, audits and the usual first quarter b.s. is just about finished, so I will make my return on April 1st! Bigger (yep) and better than ever!

What was that Dolly Parton song "Starting Over Again"? .......

Cya!

Speaking of Compulsive Eating....

Hey All!

It's been like a rollercoaster these past few days! Yes, I fell off of the wagon, but I am back on and holding on to the reigns!

"Oh goodness, Tracy, how ever did that happen?" I can truthfully say that it was not my fault....It was my Uncle's fault....He died. The wake was last Friday and the funeral was on Saturday. All weekend long I was up to my ass in fried chicken, sweet potato pie (I ate a whole one by myself), greens, dressssinng, and every kind of cake you can imagine.

Ladies, it was not pretty. Now I know how drug addicts feel when they relapse - I totally lost control. And I kept telling myself "Okay, just have one more piece of this pie, then stop. You can cheat a little, it won't hurt". Next thing you know, Sunday morning I'm at the all you can eat breakfast buffet with two plates full of french toast sticks and a bowl of maple syrup. The maple syrup was my beverage...

What stopped me dead in my tracks was two things - I started to feel dizzy and lightheaded from all of the sugar and carbs that I was eating, and I totally forgot about a certain purple sequined dress that I had to squeeze in THAT NEXT SATURDAY!!

Soooo, I put that weekend behind me, and started fresh last Monday - four pounds heavier!! have managed to shed two of those pounds so far, and my goal before the next weigh in is 10 lbs. I want to be in the 2-teens by the end of the month. I can do it....but for right now, I gotta get in that dress!

It's a cute little number...I was going to post pics this time, but the dress wasn't fitting as smoothly as I would have liked. But no problem!! I came up with a solution tonite as I was retrying the dress on.

Now, ladies, Moi is a firm believer in foundations - ya know, girdles! Put one on, drop a size and smooth out the love handles, plus they help your posture. You won't be able to exhale, and you are probably crushing some major organs, but who really needs a liver and a pancreas anyway? You are looking good, that's all that matters!

The dress is a little snug around my problem area - the middle! I swear, I look like an apple on two sticks. I am doing 50 crunches a night and it is helping some, but I gotta look good by Saturday, so I needed a quick fix. Now, the girdles that I have are pretty much for support, so if you have a belly and no waist line, they kind of meld into one round like shape. For this dress, I needed some hips and a waistline, so I went to the tried and true method for fakin' the funk.....

That's right, I reached for the Saran Wrap! Laff if you want to, that stuff is better than Spanx! And cheaper too! Five or six go rounds around my middle and WALA! - instant waistline! And as an added bonus, once you are wrapped like a mummy, you don't want to eat as much because you are scared of the whole thing rolling into a big tourniquet and cutting you in half!

HAHAHA! Don't ya love being a girl? I'm not even going to mention the purple suede matching shoes that deform my feet as I walk! By Sunday morning, I'm going to have hoofs (hooves?) but Saturday nite, I'm gonna look great!

Well, I think the lesson we all can learn from this is :

a. When you are dieting, try not to have relatives die. If they can't help it, don't go to any funerals til after you have reached your goal.

b. When you fall, get right back up, forgive yourself, and carry on. No one is perfect, and the road to success is paved with little slip ups.

c. French Toast sticks RULE!!

d. Saran Wrap is a girl's best friend.

Til next time, keep up the good fight ladies! YOU CAN DO IT!

Emotional Eating

My name is T.S. Johnson and I am an emotional eater.

LOL.

Seriously, I eat for many reasons that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with hunger.

I eat because I am sad, lonely, bored, depressed, angry, horny (yeah I said it) and for a host of other reasons that have nothing to do with satisfying a biological need. I wish I could sit here and tell you that I have conquered this issue and that's why I'm currently losing weight but I'd be lying.

I don't have any good answers for it. For me my emotional eating is usually not a problem. Since I turned 18 I have worked out regularly. So worst case scenario I wouldn't lose any weight but I wouldn't gain any either.

The problem would come when I wouldn't be exercising as often or as hard as I should be then I would gain weight. Lots of it. This is basically what happened after I had my daughter. I was 130lbs right after and within a year I was 160lbs. SMH.

While I still passed what I call the "jeans test" ( I still looked good in a pair of jeans and plenty of people let me know it. LOL) I went form a size 4 to a size 10 and just thought I was the size of a cow. And much of the weight stemmed from a mix of depression, frustrations, stress and much more sedentary lifestyle then I was use to.

So what do I do now? Well I still eat for various non-hunger reasons but I made a deal with myself that if I eat most of the right things during the day (fruit, vegetables, whole grains, etc.) then I can indulge in a little ice cream.

I also decided I wouldn't have any guilt about what I was eating anymore. If I had a bad day and indulged a little more then I should have then I'd say okay and I'd do better the next day. My system isn't perfect but it works for me.

So my question for those of you who fall in the emotional eating category is: what do you do? What are your strategies for dealing with it? What are the reasons behind why you eat?

For those of you who read this and are thinking, "I have no idea what she is talking about it. I just don't get it," feel free to play armchair psychiatrist and offer your insight.