good news, bad news

i'll start with the bad news first: i think i'm getting sick. i did week 5 day 2 of c25k, then went to zumba. before class started i sneezed and thought, "uh oh." suddenly i felt SO tired. i was good for nothing in zumba after that. i went through the motions but i felt like a fish flopping around out of water. i met a friend after class and my throat started to hurt a little. more in the way of "i've been screaming my head off at a ballgame" than a "sore" feeling, but still not right. now i just feel tired and cruddy. super. i had been hoping all of the juice, veggies, exercise, etc would make me immune. i haven't been sick a day since feburary 4th.

i hope this is not sickness, because i can not lose a single day of training for the turkey trot. it is in exactly 2 weeks. as of today i can run for 16 minutes, but that's not even going to get me through half of the 5k. i know i will have to walk some, as i did last year. i just want to have the same or better time as last year. i will say that when i ran tonight i felt really good. my heart rate stayed in a reasonable place, and dropped quickly when i stopped running. i feel really physically fit from a cardio standpoint. but i know i can't jog 3 miles or anywhere near 3 miles. i wish i had started training a few weeks earlier.

so anyway, the good news. if you're a facebook rebooter, you already know because i couldn't contain myself this morning. on october 22nd i bought jeans at old navy in size 16. i could button and zip them, but they muffin topped me too much to actually wear. i hung them up where i could see them every day. today, not even 3 weeks later, i decided to try them on to see how close i was. they were perfect. buttoned, zipped, no muffin top, totally comfortable all day. when i walked into work wearing my new clothes, a co-worker said, "wow, you look like you belong on the cover of a magazine." i asked if the magazine was hustler. he said no, more like an avon catalog. hmm. odd choice, but i'll take it.

the other good news was that i weighed myself for the first time since monday morning--meaning the first time since my birthday meal at bravo. i was down 2 pounds. that means i lost the pound i gained in new york, plus one. whew. tomorrow, with a little luck, i will fall into a new "decade" on the scale. i REALLY want to lose 5 pounds before the turkey trot, to weigh 25 pounds less than i did last thanksgiving. that alone should help me have a faster time.

ok, i'm rambling. time for tea, then bed early. really hoping to wake up feeling normal.

foodstravaganza!

it started with cookies. 
every wednesday we have this horrid staff meeting that steals souls with its pointlessness and absurdity. today my boss attempted to make it nicer with gigantic, soft, chewy, chocolate chip cookies from the amish bakery. i was slightly concerned, but after the meeting i had my warm lemon water, then pounded 16oz of green juice. that filled up my belly and i thought, "i've totally got this." the cookies looked good, but i was satisfied by smelling and looking at them. but then the real trouble started.

brownies. 

with a cream cheese layer on top. 

with brownies crumbled on top of that. 

that's right folks. brownies topped with brownies.

these were courtesy of the same girl who brought in the white chocolate chip cheesecakes on monday. you may remember her as evil betty crocker devil woman.

that's when things started to fall apart in my head. this morning the scale stayed on the same number it has been on since monday morning. if i had been on a weight loss high, i think i would have been ok. but i was on a plateau low. it's pretty clear now that i will not hit 30 pounds by friday morning, and i'm pretty disappointed. i'm not pish-poshing the 27.7, but i just REALLY wanted to hit that 30 pound mark.

so i decided the only thing i could do was get out of the building. i invited a friend to lunch at subway. i figured i deserved to eat a meal after walking away from the baked goodness, and i knew i could have a big salad with red wine vinegar at subway for barely any calories. so i had a really nice, fun lunch, and came back to work feeling pretty good about things. i figured by that time they would have demolished the baked goods.

but they hadn't, for they had been distracted from the brownies and cookies....by....

pizza and chicken strips. along with dipping sauces of every flavor. and as i put it on the reboot facebook page, "i am a slut for condiments." it's not unusual for me to find tiny bottles of ketchup, mustard and mayo in my christmas stocking. so chicken strips alone would have been one thing. but chicken strips with buffalo sauce, honey mustard, bbq sauce, garlic sauce, cheese sauce and pizza sauce? oh HELL no! and i'm not a fan of pizza meats, but of course this happened to be a garden veggie works pizza. sigh.

after consulting the papa john's website, i found out i could have one chicken strip for 65 calories and 2.5g of fat. and so i had one. and then i had a 1" x 1" bite of brownie. it was divine.

and then i felt better.

in situations like this, i like to think about what i would have done if i wasn't rebooting. i would have started the day with a giant chocolate chip cookie. 206 calories. then the brownies would have shown up, and i probably would have had 3 during the day. 470 calories. then i would have had at least 4 chicken strips (260 calories) dipped in honey mustard (75) and buffalo (30) and 2 slices of pizza. 560 calories.

i would have consumed 1,601 calories at work today. then i wouldn't have gone to the gym, i would have come home for dinner. and guess what my family had tonight....pizza. by day's end, i probably would have had around 3,000 calories and no exercise.

instead i had juice, a large salad with tons of veggies, a chicken strip and a bite of brownie, an apple, fresh homemade guacamole, peach mango salsa, kalamata olive hummus, cucumber slices and whole grain pita chips...for around a thousand calories. and that was after an hour long turbo kick class followed by 5k training that left my shirt completely soaking wet.

so while i felt like i failed on the scale this morning, and i felt like i failed by having such intense cravings, and i felt like i failed when i took a chicken strip and a brownie bite....i still succeeded. and if i haven't lost 30 pounds by friday, i will have lost it by next friday. then it's on to the next goal.

a big, special, amazing thank you to the rebooters who talked me off of my ledge today. tony reminded me that if i attacked the food counter in the style of cookie monster, i would have to write "i can't believe i..." on my blog tonight. i know i couldn't have walked away from it without those people on my side.

tomorrow i want to work out about 6 times, but i'll settle for 2. i have a lot of (healthy) food in my belly right now, so there's a chance the scale will be ugly in the morning. that means friday morning is my final hope. then it's off to NYC....

does running late count as exercise?

that was the quote on the marker board at the YMCA this morning, which was appropriate, because i was there almost 3 hours later than planned. but better late than never, right?

today i did w4d1 of c25k. today's routine was run 3 minutes, walk 90 seconds. run 5 minutes, walk 2 minutes. repeat. i KILLED those 5 minute runs. i took my kindle today and enlarged the font so i was able to read while jogging. i think that helped to distract me. next week there's a straight 20 minute run. ack!

came home and weighed myself....success! the scale finally moved down, and the dressing baby is gone! 1.8 pounds gone this morning, leaving me with only 2.3 to lose before friday. piece of cake.

or...piece of CHEESECAKE? accckkkk! i got to work feeling strong, confident, happy and full of willpower. then jessica, AKA evil betty crocker devilwoman, showed up with white chocolate chip cheesecakes. no one could shut up about how amazing they were, and i wanted to bash them all in the face. finally i took one small bite, and it WAS delish. in my previous life, i would have had at least 3 of these badboys today. but i was satisfied by my taste.

i stuck to juice the rest of the day, other than a little bit of hummus when i got home from the theater tonight. i saw "spamalot" which was very funny and a nice distraction from being hungry.

so tomorrow....i should go to the gym in the morning because i have band practice in the evening. however, i got my hair highlighted today, and she straightened my hair. as soon as it gets wet it will be curly again. i REALLY want to get a day's use out of the straightness. sooooo....i'll probably skip the gym in the morning and hope to be home from practice in time to still get into the Y before closing time.

and that's the news from panda nation today. time for some magic tea, then hopefully sweet dreams. i hope everyone stayed strong today with the oodles of candy and treats lurking about!

trick or treat, smell my feet!

do you guys get annoyed when i post pictures of things we're NOT supposed to have?

anyway, hi! let me just say that i'm glad i don't have kids coming home with bags of candy this weekend! but this giant bucket of goodness is in my kitchen ready to pass out tomorrow night. i stood next to it while i made my tea tonight, and i wasn't even slightly tempted. which made me think about how pre-reboot, i would have grabbed one of each candy bar and taken it back to my room to eat in bed while watching tv. i'm ashamed by how little thought i gave to the things i put into my mouth before.

in anticipation of halloween being difficult, i gave my mom several bags of smarties and asked her to pass those out this year. i knew i would never be tempted by smarties! she said, "we can't just hand out smarties, our house will be toilet papered!" i claimed that no one cares what kind of candy you give out, but tonight i found this online poll naming smarties the lamest of all halloween candies, so i guess it's good that she added the other stuff. as long as i keep not eating it, everything will be ok.

zumba was a lot of fun today. several people dressed up, so i didn't feel out of place in my panda costume. we got apples and cereal bars as treats, and she did a zumba cd giveaway. there was a lot of energy in the room, and i worked at 100% of my ability. the difference between what i can do on sunday afternoon vs. saturday morning is remarkable. i'll just never be a morning person.

tomorrow i'm going back to my mean green juice. i needed a break because it was impossible to get down after a month or so. but this week is the final push before i leave for NYC with the band friday morning, and i am so determined to leave ohio 30 pounds lighter than i was at our last gig on labor day. i had been at only 3.5 pounds left to goal on friday morning. but after "the dressing incident" i now have to take off 5 pounds in 5 days. crapola.

i know it's not like i FAILED if i "only" lost 28 pounds...but i set this goal and i want to make it happen. if that means two trips to the Y every day this week, then so be it. if it means shaving my head and cutting off my fingernails, then that's what i'll do. ok, that was a lie.

i saw a post on the facebook page today that really grabbed my attention:

Day 8. Nine pounds. I woke up this morning with a feeling I couldn't immediately identify. It's something pretty foreign to me. I have spent my adult life (I'll bet like most of you) on one diet or another. I am a diet expert. It's the results part that have eluded me. I can stick to a diet like nobody's business, but that's hard to justify when the weight loss just doesn't come. Today I realized I'm feeling........hope.

i could have written this post myself. for only the second time in my life that i can remember, i feel like i might really succeed at getting to a healthy weight. and the other time i felt that kind of hope i was on the complete opposite path, on the atkins diet. this time i feel like i've got a healthier plan, and that gives me even MORE hope. 

and now i've got to get some sleep. the Y opens in 5 hours and 15 minutes, so the crazies will probably start lining up in about an hour. i'm smiling as i visualize myself breaking up the fitness friends again tomorrow morning!

blood battle

my top four fears are spiders, ghosts, tornadoes and aliens. after that comes needles. i tried to face my fear by getting a small tattoo several years ago. i hated the way it felt and now i hate the way it looks. experiment failed. so today there was a blood battle (blood drive competition) leading into a rivalry football game tomorrow night. each year i try so hard to psyche myself up to do it. every year i fail. i mean, my mom still has to go with me when i need blood drawn, if that tells you anything.

this story doesn't have a feel-good ending where i overcome the odds. i decided not to do it. a big part of that was that i've just felt a little run down the past couple of days, and i really needed to be able to get through my workout tonight. but when i was making a list of pros and cons, one of the pros was, "it might make me weigh a few ounces less." and THAT is how you know you're a scale addict, folks!

speaking of addictions, i got an iphone today around 4pm. went to zumba at 6 with every intention of doing c25k after. but i couldn't wait to get back to my phone and practically ran out of zumba when it ended. technically it wasn't c25k day anyway since i did it yesterday. but i'm trying to take fewer resting days than scheduled so i can finish the whole plan before the turkey trot.

since i worked out, and since i've been feeling a little weak, i had a meal after the gym--a vegan bean "burrito" i found in the organic section at giant eagle, and some rice with peach mango salsa. tomorrow night, i'll just tell you now, i'm having white bread, chicken, eggs and i'm not sure what else is in there. my mom's dressing (you may call it stuffing) is the highlight of thanksgiving. this year however, circumstances dictate that we have to go out for our meal. so my mom made it for tomorrow night's pre-game party at our house, and i'm going to have some. there are some things that you just can't fight. i'm still winning the war against the mcrib, but this dressing...it's bigger than me. it is pre-made and in the fridge right now, and frankly i'm shocked that i'm not upstairs secretly baking a dish to eat tonight. THAT can be my victory. i honestly don't even care if i gain a pound. totally worth it.

oh..and please remind me that i said that when i'm crying on saturday because i gained a pound.

and it's not because i think my car is sweet....

well i've become one of those people. the type that park out at the end of the parking lot far away from everyone else. it's not because i'm protective of my car. rather it's because i've been abducted by aliens who probed my brain and sent me back to earth as the kind of girl who chooses to walk farther than necessary to burn off a few extra calories.

today i planned to go to the Y after work to do my 5k training. but throughout the day i lost motivation. i had trouble sleeping last night, only getting about 4 hours. i felt a little shaky and ick all day. i tried everything i could think of to talk myself out of going to the gym at the end of the day. but the next thing i knew, i was jogging on a treadmill.

tomorrow night i have band practice, which is normally one of my favorite places in the world to be. but this week i'm really annoyed that i have to miss zumba and yoga to be there.

what has happened to me? the balance of power has shifted. the fat used to control me, but now i am controlling the fat. i'm telling it where to go. remember the fat logs? i am less than a pound from having lost FIVE of them now.

my intent has been to go all-juice for the next 10 days. but for a variety of reasons, i haven't made that happen. i've been drinking organic juice (lakewood) and eating healthy foods. tonight i made the best dinner. kashi tlc pita crisps (click here for a $1.00 coupon), my new healthy snack addiction. then peach mango salsa, cucumber, and ah-maz-ing guacamole that i made. it's incredible how good something like this tastes, and what a treat it seems to be, compared with the way i used to eat. let's be honest, if i wasn't rebooting, odds are 10:10 that i would have had a mcrib, fries, pumpkin pie and peppermint mocha for my dinner tonight-- 1420 calories.

i have really been overwhelmed by the comments i've received from people this week telling me that i've inspired them. i'll touch on that a bit more tomorrow. tonight i just want to stress again that if i can do this, you can do this. i'm not even doing 100% juice anymore, and i'm still seeing great results. so if you ARE still fasting, you'll see even better results even faster. however you are reaching your goals, the important thing is to stay in control, and not to let losing a battle keep you from winning the war.

this one's for scratch (and anyone on a budget)

a reader posted this comment on yesterday's blog entry: I immediately began seeing results and was so motivated. Then the reality of the cost of this made me stop. I found it to be very expensive! Would you mind sharing any tips on keeping the costs reasonable? 

i think i spent nearly $100 in my first few days of juicing, plus the cost of the juicer itself. i was really worried about how i would afford to keep doing this. but i learned and adapted along the way.

1. i bought too much produce starting out. i thought i would want to be uber-creative and have 3-4 different juices every day to keep things interesting. eventually i learned that i was fine with the same juice all day every day for a few days in a row. so much of what i bought the first week went bad before i could juice it because the produced netted more juice than i expected, and i dank less than i expected. when you stick to one or two recipes at a time, you tend not to over-buy.

2. watch for sales. i will go to 2 and sometimes 3 different stores to get what i need, depending on what i plan to drink. if aldi has a sale on lemons and carrots, i go there, and then hit giant eagle for kale and cucumbers. check the sale ads on sunday and then determine what you can juice that week for the lowest cost.

3. freeze it. if you get a great deal on something, make extra juice and freeze it for later. sure it's ideal if you can drink it right away. but the reboot nutritionist said it's fine to freeze it for up to a month. this can be a time saver, too. make a huge batch over the weekend and you don't have to touch your juicer again for a week!

4. i have a great farmer's market in my town. unfortunately, this will be the final week for that. i was also blessed to have many friends with gardens who gave me lots of overstock. i also read somewhere about someone who talks to the produce managers at her local stores, and they will sell her boxes of produce that are not fit for the shelves anymore. she juices them right away and freezes the juice--and gets a HUGE box of produce for $5.

5. i cheat. i have purchased a LOT of bottled juice at my local health food store. in place of "mean green," i drank bottles of lakewood juice's "lean green." i purchase a case at a time (6 bottles) to get a 10% discount, which makes them about $4 a bottle. a bottle plus some edamame or an apple, seeds and nuts will get me through my day, and i can't make a batch of mean green for $4. i also love the r.w. knudsen low sodium very veggie juice. i gently warm it in the microwave and eat it with a spoon like tomato soup. i could never make a juice this good, this easily for $4-$5. buying these bottled juices made my life so much easier. but be careful...i am so sick of "lean green" right now that i can't even force it down. use these to supplement, not as 100% of your juice.

6. i eat. if you've been following along at home, you know that i juiced for 18 days, then went to new york and ate the big apple. and the big thai meal. and the big cupcake. after that i never completely went back to long periods of juice only. but i have learned how to use healthy foods to supplement what i do with juice. except for the 2 weekends when i have completely let myself go, i have lost weight every single week on this modified plan. eating some simple raw foods like edamame, hummus or unsalted roasted sunflower seeds helps to fill me up, meaning i need less juice. sometimes i'll chop up an entire head of iceberg lettuce or a whole bag of baby spinach and mix it with a little bit of olive oil, then drench with red wine vinegar and top with the sunflower seeds. this is a huge meal that contains under 150 calories and costs under $2 to make.

7. i keep in mind what i used to spend on food. it was nothing for me to pick up a fast food lunch 5 days a week. subway cost $8 for a sandwich, sun chips and drink. wendy's was nearly $7 for the salad i loved. taco bell was $5 for the big beefy box. so that was $25-$40 a week just for lunch. not to mention snacks from the machine at work, a mid-afternoon run to mcdonald's for a $3 frappe or mocha. then the weekend would hit and i'd routinely be at dinner with friends, easily spending $30 on a meal, drinks and tip. i really think that on this plan i am probably saving money compared to the way i used to eat.

8. making other sacrifices to afford this diet will save me money in the long run. consider this paragraph from usnews.com: The annual cost of being obese is $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man, according to George Washington University researchers. Being overweight, meanwhile, costs $524 for women and $432 for men. Driving up the price-tag are employee sick days, lost productivity, short-term disability, emergency room care, and even the need for extra gasoline. One reason the costs are higher for a woman? Past research suggests larger women earn less than skinnier women, while men's wages don't vary based on their weight, the study authors say. The report also averages in the economic value of lost life, since obesity can lead to earlier death—which brings the annual costs up further to $8,365 for women and $6,518 for men. 

did you hear that, ladies? our fatness is reflected in our wages! fat dudes can still get good jobs and hot chicks if they are smart and have decent personalities (or decent bank accounts). but fat chicks, no matter how smart or personable, just have a tougher time getting ahead. 


9. juice in-season. different fruits and vegetables fluctuate in cost depending on your geographic location. find out what's nearby and in season, then plan your juices around that quarterly. when i started juicing i could get cantaloupes bigger than my head for $1.50. now if i can find them at all they are small, hard, and $3-$4.

10. i don't have another tip, but who could leave a list at only 9 items? i guess i'd just say to try making a list of the things you spend money on, and see where you can cut back for awhile. if you smoke, now is a great time to quit and use that money for your health. if you buy coffee every day, pick up a box of herbal tea and drink that instead. as for me, i make my warm lemon water my morning beverage. if you drink alcohol, cut that out while juicing for obvious reasons. manis? pedis? unplanned shopping trips? top of the line shampoos and perfumes? food, clothes and shelter for your kids? ok, you can't skimp on that stuff. but just keep in mind that your life is worth splurging on.

i have read that the cost of juicing runs most people an average of $14 per day. that amounts to $840 in 60 days. i'd say i'm doing it for closer to $10 a day. which would be a lot of extra expense if i was still buying all of those lunches and frappes. but for me, it has not really been a hardship. if you can't afford the cost, try doing all juice just 3 days a week, and eating as healthy as possible the other days. this should still give you results.

if anyone has any other tips or questions, please leave a comment below, or feel free to email me at cheeserbeezer@gmail.com. good luck, scratch. hope this helps!

STEP#5: "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

this leftover pizza (not mine) is in the refrigerator, and it's all i can think about. what the hell is my problem? it's SIX days old. it can't even be good anymore! but there's a little demon in my brain saying, "go eat it...eat it all, eat it in the darkness while everyone is sleeping and it will be our secret. say you threw it away and they will never know." i swear i need an AA type sponsor, i'm a fricking addict. so this blog post is my step #5, admitting to God, to myself and to my blog readers that i am a big fat idiot. i want this nasty, dried up, grease-laden pizza in my belly. and i want to wash it down with ice cream and doritos. and then to be entirely honest, i want to stick my finger down my throat and throw it all up, because i want to eat it but i don't want it to count. sigh.

but i won't do any of that. i just had a few pistachios to shut my stomach up. i had some tomato juice today and some carrot juice. some soybeans and some black beans. a few pita chips, an apple. it's a mixed bag for me right now. i really want to do a week of all juice, but it just got so....gross. and it's a LOT of work to make juice, as most of you know. but my original reason for starting this, the trip to NYC, is only 2 weeks away. if i could juice for a straight week i could probably drop another 7 pounds. but...ugh.

many asked if i had any effects today from last night's pepper disaster. my face and eyes were fine. i opened up new contacts, because i was afraid the pepper would never come off of the ones i had in last night, and i wasn't about to find out the hard way. although based on what i've read tonight, saline would have taken care of it because salt is one of the few things that the oil can bond to. live and learn. i do think i suffered what amounts to a chemical burn on my thumb. whenever i touched something warm today, it felt like it had been burned on a hot stove. when i took a hot bath tonight (sore muscles from last night's training session), it KILLED. at least i hope it's from the pepper because webMD says it could be anything from thyroid disease to rabies. wonderful.

i do have to say that even though i'm still about 40-50 pounds from my ultimate goal, i am happy with my progress. tonight i told my mom that since january 2010 i have lost 60 pounds. unfortunately it has been the same 20 pounds 3 different times. this time i HAVE to keep going instead of gaining it back and starting over. this weekend an old friend i haven't seen in almost a year is coming to town and wants to get together. while i wish i was going to be a surprise knockout and a size 8, i'm glad i know that i weigh 7 pounds less than the last time i saw him. hopefully the next time i'll be that size 8. so hear you me, demon. six day old leftover pizza is not the way to get into tiny pants. let's just go to sleep instead.