PROGRESS: Week 3, 100th Post!

Today I celebrate my 100th post with some positive progress and a little story about The Scale and I! Considering this is the week before Christmas and I've been making candy like crazy-- and only sampling tiny amounts-- it's a miracle I've gotten anywhere with it! But the period of time I'm calling "damage control" has yielded results:

Weight Last Week: 275.2
Weight This Week: 273.4

That's a difference of 1.8 pounds! With eating some of the candies for the babies of the peoples!

Good things I ate this week:

1. More turkey thin-bread sandwiches for lunch. Now I'm out of the bread, so I won't buy more.

2. Baked salmon for lunch once, breakfast a couple or three times. (Because the stink of it heating up for lunch that one time may have killed a few coworkers! :D So I made different lunches to replace those.) Pure protein goodness!

3. Power Foods Texas Hash from my recipes. With refried beans and melted Pepperjack cheese.

4. Stuffed peppers: cleared out my stock of frozen peppers so I didn't have to cook. Now will have to cook!

5. String cheese as snacks at work

6. A couple days of oatmeal with Sweet N Low and cinnamon. Meh. :)

Here are some things I did:


1. Avoided added salt.

2. Cooked Texas Hash and Salmon in advance.

3. Made sandwiches fresh each morning.

4. Measured portions for almost everything!

5. Snacked on candies in EXTREME moderation!

6. Kept busy with work or cleaning or creative pursuits. No time to idly eat!

Here are some things I plan to change this week:


1. Eat Christmas food on the day before, day of and day after, but not beyond. (No infinite leftovers!)

2. Pay more attention to the "full" feeling. Cut regular portion sizes accordingly.

3. A few rounds with an exercise video or two. Helps with health AND stress!

THE SCALE AND I-- TAMA SAYS:

Back in the day, in fifth grade, the teacher did weigh-ins in front of class. Not officially public, but may as well have been. My number (on the first digital scale I ever remember seeing) was 188. I looked at her and her assistant. They looked at me. Some kids snickered. Forget the fact that I was the tallest, strongest kid in class, an Amazon in comparison to the little boys. That was the first time I saw my weight as a health problem.

Sure, I got picked on before that day for being the poor kid, the smart kid, the shy kid, the tall kid AND the fat kid in class. But Mamaw always told me, "It's just baby fat. You'll grow up and it'll all be gone." In almost the same breath she'd comment on how so-and-so was "as big as you are, Tamara!" or "even bigger than you!" (A practice she continued-- among other unsavory ones-- until I just vacated her presence a couple years ago. Permanently. With little regret. And only the briefest meetings since.)

Regardless of the other things she said which I knew were instigating crap, I was gullible. I believed that bit about baby fat until I saw 188 on the scale. Then the struggle started. But when you're not paying the bills, you eat what you're given, which was sufficient. I hit a growth spurt after this, too. I outgrew my long hair, which "shrank" from my hips up to my bra strap. Big Macs went on sale around that time. I'd eat two in a sitting, with fries and a shake. I can't do that now! But I was literally a growing young girl.

By eight grade, I was fatter, but the weight was stretched out on a longer frame (I ended up at 6ft eventually). After a few diets-- the Grapefruit diet (blech!) and Atkins, to name a couple-- I was still overweight. Going into high school, I weighed 212 pounds. Going into college, I weighed 223-ish. (I didn't gain the Freshman 15 because I walked everywhere. I may have lost weight...) Coming out of 5 years on my butt in customer service, I weighed 275. And coming out of my one and only year of full time teaching, during which I was sick for most of it, I weighed 300 pounds. And by the time I started this blog... ummm Monday, December 27, 2010, to be exact... I was fully unemployed for the first time in my adult life and down to 291 lb. And I was finally ready to take control of at least one area of my crumbly future: my weight!

I get different comments now when people ask my weight. "You don't look like you weigh that much." "You carry it well." I don't mind these as much. And if people know you're on a diet, they'll comment on how much weight you've lost. :) Even when you haven't. It's an attempt at encouragement that I would never discourage. Most people KNOW how hard it is to lose weight.

I can't see a weight change yet. Even in ten pounds, I may not notice. But I finally remembered why owning a digital scale made me feel a grain of hesitation, why it was so ingrained in me to buy one. A digital scale is where it all started-- the downfall and the climb back up. The number 188. I think I'll set that as Major Goal Number 2 when I knock off this 100 pounds. If I do that, I'll have come full circle. :)