Showing My Face & Philadelphia Highlights (Prisons! Signings!)

John and I just got back from our trip to Philadelphia. It was really fun - we basically just let Tripadvisor tell us what we should do and see, and went from there. After some research, we decided to stay in an Airbnb apartment instead of a hotel near the city center, and it was fantastic - saved at least $300, and that’s for more space and a kitchen! Will never stay in a hotel again if I can swing it.

Highlights included:

The Liberty Bell

• They also had a really thought-provoking exhibit on slavery, and how its continued existence was in awful and highly hypocritical parallel with the slave-owning founding fathers (like George Washington)

Independence Hall

• Birthplace of the US, where the Declaration of Independence was argued, drafted, and signed. (Tours are free!)
• Also the site of National Treasure, a movie I unironically love

Eastern State Penitentiary

• A prison that had running water before the White House, this place was fascinating and the exhibits were so well done. You get a set of headphones when you start, and it’s all a self-guided tour and you can just wander around and see the cells, tunnel from the 1945 escape attempt, death row, baseball diamond
• We learned about how the prison changed over the hundreds of years in which it operated and how it was abandoned/condemned in the 1970s, and finally turned into a museum after two decades of arguments and politics

Jewish Museum

• Lots of interesting information, but I was hoping for more artifacts and first person accounts (i.e. things you can’t get online or from a textbook)

Unlimited Bowling at Lucky Strike

• Not special to Philly, but I wanted to memorialize that we played five games in one evening. Don’t ask for our scores, though.

We also walked about 25 miles over the time there - that was essentially our mode of transportation. By the end my feet hurt a lot (John was fine, weirdo) but it was overall a great trip, and all just a couple of hours away.

So, the burning questions - food and weight. As of Wednesday, I weigh 183.2, which is actually about half a pound down from a month ago. That’s good. On the trip I got a picture of what will make a good "before" or "during" of being at 183 pounds.

Thus, presenting for the first time on this blog, my face. Huge moment, I know. I figured that anyone reading this who knows me would figure it out anyway pretty quickly, so why not? And yes, I wasn't exaggerating about how pale I am.

With John’s encouragement, I started tracking again on MyFitnessPal during the trip and have now kept it up for the whole week! Baby steps, I know. I’ve mostly abandoned the whole “small meals” thing in favor of this. I didn’t seem to be working for me, or maybe I didn’t give it a fair chance, I’m not sure. I do know that it felt odder than I thought it would to eat basically a snack with my colleagues eating their lunches, and then have 2-3 snacks during the day.

My goal for the trip was just to stay at maintenance level - which, in part thanks to all our walking, I am happy to say I did.

I’m still really, really struggling with believing in myself. That I can still do this where I’ve failed so many times, regained so much weight, and use food as a comfort, a reward, and a punishment. That all the little bits will add up to weight loss. I’m trying. I know that probably everyone who’s had weight to lose has felt this way, even the people who ultimately succeed. I so badly want to be one of them. For now, I’m working really hard to at least track my food and stay at maintenance level, but I really want to up my game and get back into the 170s.

Stuff and Things

Bullet Point Post because I’ve been distracted the last couple of days. I’m waiting to hear back about an amazing job and it feels like applying to college again - just tell me yes or no so I can move on.

• The Jewish holiday season is over. I know that for most people, the holiday season hasn’t even started, but for me it’s basically over and I am so, so glad. I would go into it more, but it seems strange to complain about too many days off and too much good food available.

• Looking back, I realized I only did the “small meals” plan for… five days. Then the holiday season started and I had a lot of trouble doing it for the short days in between.

• This morning I weighed in at 183. Some may be bloat or whatever, as it’s about five pounds up from two weeks ago, and there’s no way I was overeating to that degree

• Still, it was really shitty to see that on the scale, and I am feeling sort of desperate to get back to it, to not feeling so uncomfortable in my body

• My gym buddy has also been struggling with eating well the last couple of months. Holidays and other events have kept us from our beloved gym classes, so we’re determined to get back to our regular Sunday and Tuesday classes

• I hate waiting to hear back from things.

• It’s getting colder here, which is wonderful for two main reasons. 1) I can wear long sleeves and pants without feeling like I’m dying of sweat inhalation; and 2) I don’t have to look at women wearing rompers, which I think is one of the dumbest trends in recent history 
• Seriously, with the rompers. “Here is an outfit that flatters only the thinnest of people, and forces those who do wear it to sit on the toilet topless because they have to pull the whole thing off.” “Perfect! Make sure they’re all just shy of showing off the butt.”

Any trends you just do not understand?

Weigh In and a Leaner, Meaner Leah

Life has been a bit busier around here. In terms of food, I would say I'm doing okay. That's the best I can describe. Not feeling out of control, not being tempted to eat a burrito for a second breakfast, but probably not doing as well as I can.

My most recent weigh-in:

	Start	6/8	8/19	10/29	12/31	1/28	3/31	4/21	5/5	5/12	6/7	6/18
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181.4	177.2	174.6	168.4	170.4	172.4	171.8	174.4	169.8
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.8	67.1	65.3	60.3	61.3	63.4	60.9	65	60.5
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	67.3	63.9	64.4	61.5	65	64	64.2	65.1	62.5

Woot! Back in the 160s - barely, but it counts. Now to just keep that trend going. Also, holy shit on apparently gaining and losing five solid pounds of fat. I'm assuming that's not quite accurate, but at the very least it shows how much I backtracked over those few weeks.

Some other highlights:

- At my Total Body Conditioning Class this week, the instructor told me that he saw a great difference in my body, and that it was inspiring for him to see someone doing that. I gotta say, that made my night. Since I've started taking his class, I've lost maybe a few pounds at most, but it seems that I'm still getting leaner!

- I've been the worst at bringing lunch. Not so terrible for calories, actually, since in midtown Manhattan, by law every third lunch place must be exclusively salads. However, it's very bad for my wallet.

- Next weekend John and I are going to an out-of-town wedding of a friend of his from high school. I've been to maybe 10 weddings in my adult life, but this will be the first one where I don't know the bride or the groom, let alone any of the guests. Should be interesting.

Guess which one I am?

        Number One Goal for this week: TRACK my food. My weight is down, so I must be doing something right, but I know that I'm not in a sustainable weight loss mode - plus, I'd like to lose a little faster. I need accountability, I need numbers and statistics so that I can make graphs.

Weigh-In: Strategies for Not Gaining Weight Over the Holidays Or When Visiting Parents

This is a weird week - I was off yesterday since we flew back from Michigan, and I’ll be off again on Friday for the end of Passover. Three day weeks are the best.

Our time in Michigan, where John and I stayed with his mother, stepfather, sister, brother, and stepfather’s kids, was lovely. We ended up doing some puzzles together, which I always forget how much I enjoy until I do them.

Food wise, I made mostly good choices and some not so great, but overall I think it averaged out to “okay.” There were definitely a few places where I took a portion that was larger than necessary, or had a bit of wine even though I didn’t really want it. On the flip side, I was mindful of snacking, never had seconds of anything, and tried to make the focus on family and not food. My mother-in-law happened to have bought mostly cake and cookie mixes and not actual sweets, and in the end nobody bothered to make them. For someone like me, who’s a lot more tempted by a cookie than some chips, that was good.

This week’s weigh-in happened this morning like normal:

	Start	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	12/31	1/28	2/25	3/4	3/10	3/17	3/24	3/31	4/7
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.2	174.6	177	175	173.6	172.4	172	168.4	170
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	67.1	65.3	66.5	64.6	65.1	62.7	62.7	60.3	60.8
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.9	64.4	68.2	64.1	66.2	65.3	62.7	61.5	61.5

I am, actually, quite okay with that weight. That burst of fat loss is still holding. The weight itself feels like a backswing that’s balancing out the insane four-pound loss from the previous week. Thirty pounds down from my highest. However long that took doesn’t matter, the gains and losses don’t matter. What matter is that five years ago a weighed thirty pounds more, and now, not only do I weigh less, I actually have a better relationship with food, am fitter, and happier. I really, really, hope it doesn’t take me another five years to lose the next thirty pounds, but even if it does, I think I’ll be just as proud. Losing weight is hard, so no matter how slowly it happens, it’s still an accomplishment.

I’ve also finally figured out some of the strategies that I think work for me during holidays, or just generally when I'm in unfamiliar or junk-food-filled environments: 

Don’t Snack

• This is actually something that happened naturally during the last year or so. I’ve stopped snacking. Sometimes I’ll get a bit hungry at noon or so, but then I just figure I’ll have lunch soon.
• My goal is to get each meal to take me to the next meal. Sometimes I’ll have some fruit if I really want something, or if I just happen to bring it, but overall the snacks are pretty much non-existent.
• This no-snacking custom is easier to maintain in an office setting than a “home” setting, since the second one gives much easier access. However, I’m really aiming to just cut out the snacking when I’m home. Looking back, that’s definitely one of the things that takes me over the edge from an “okay, pretty good” day to a “crap, oh well that was not great” kind of day.

No Seconds

• Again, probably another no-brainer for most people, but avoiding seconds is something I only just started to realize on my own
• Seconds are overrated - I’ve already had a portion of the things, and I’m usually full by that point. Seconds usually comes out of boredom or just because the food is right in front of me, and rarely because I’m actually still hungry

I figure if I can really focus on these two rules, I will be able to have a successful rest of the holiday. Those rules mean that the only food I eat is during meals, and during firsts and not seconds. Of course if I’m actually really hungry between meals I’ll have a snack, but it’s not something that comes up often.

We’ll be at my parents from Thursday through Sunday this week. My goal is to just be mindful and not gain, basically. It’s only a few days. I've been on a good roll lately, and want to keep it going.

In other news, I’ve been crap lately about getting to the gym in the morning. I’m still working out 4-5 times a week, but now it’s been during lunch or after work. This is just due to plain old not getting to bed on time. I know all the advantages of going in the morning, I need to start doing this.

Overall, I'm feeling good, I'm feeling confident about this. Now I just need to bottle and save this feeling for the next time I feel like crap. Positive thinking!

Complimenting Weight Loss and Weekly Weigh-In

This has been a pretty good week - I went to the gym almost every day, and pushed myself in the workouts. My Zumba friend and I had a blast at our class, and I’m thinking of trying another one during the week. I’ll say for the last time - I am so happy to be back to regularly schedule programming. The holidays were hard, and I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, but they’re over now so I’m focusing on what I can actually influence.

This week’s weight, and last week's that I didn't get around to posting:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/17/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	180.4	181	181.6	181.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	72.1	70.3	70.8	71.3
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	64.4	65.2	67	65.4

Quite frankly, I’m thrilled. I think the not-so-good holidays managed to be balanced out by really successful in-between days. Normally I would have said “screw it, why bother to get back on track for four days when it’s just going to be another holiday?” This time, though, I realized it was worth it. Weight loss is really all about the long term, so if in the long term I gain a pound or two over a holiday period (because really, that’s all it is) and then back on track the rest of the time, it doesn’t have to have such an effect. Maybe October will be 170s month? Probably not, but considering that it was about 1/3 holiday, I think it's good.

Speaking of weight loss (which in this space, is most of the time) - a while back, when I was heating up my breakfast in the office kitchen, one of the managers politely asked me if I had lost weight. I may have hugged her. She is the first person who doesn’t know that I’m trying to lose weight to notice. I still don’t see a huge difference, but this shows that something is changing.

Complimenting weight loss can be a tricky business. For a while there in 2012, I was steadily losing weight. Thus for people who only saw me every so often, like my gap year abroad friends, I was smaller each time we would get together. They would usually notice and make a comment about it. Some people do not like to be complimented on their weight loss, but I’m not one of them. I like when my hard work is noticed, and it validates that I’m actually accomplishing something tangible, a good reminder for harder days.

I got a little uncomfortable when I started gaining weight, and not just because my pants were too tight. Rather, I would see the same people, and it would be clear to all that I had definitely not lost weight since we’d last seen each other. One memorable time, I saw some friends and when we were greeting each other, one of them said how great I looked, almost in a habitual way. This was unfortunately at a point where I had regained about twenty pounds since the last time I saw them, and was rocking out at about 175. It was a little awkward because I said “Thanks,” but was thinking “No, I don’t, and we both know it."

Despite that, I’m still for weight loss compliments. Almost any accomplishment can be undone, so to speak - weight can be gained, jobs can be lost, medals can be rescinded, governments can fall - either by the person who accomplished it or outside forces. Maybe I'll gain back the weight, but I still enjoy someone noticing on the way down.

Weigh-In After Holidays & What All Those Jewish Holidays Are

Sunday was the end of another holiday period, this time at my parents’ house. It did not go well. There will be another holiday/the tail end of this holiday starting in two days.

To back up slightly, I guess it’s time to explain what all of these vague holidays are to which I’m constantly referring. Feel free to skip the next two paragraphs, obviously. So I’m Jewish, and we have numerous holidays in general, but three that fall close together in the fall. We recently celebrated the Jewish New Year, followed ten days later by a day of repentance called Yom Kippur, in which we believe we are judged for our deeds, good and bad throughout the year. Despite the solemnity, it’s actually considered a happy holy day, one in which we get to “start over,” really reflect on our actions the past year, and think of what to do better in the future.

Currently, we are celebrating the holiday of Sukkot (Soo-kote), an eight-day festivity that culminates with a separate but related holiday in which we celebrate when God gave the Jews the Bible after having led them out of Egypt. Sukkot is two-fold: it is a celebration of the harvest, and also when we remember our ancestors wandering the desert for forty years and only living in temporary huts. Why were we wandering? The excellent joke answer is that the Jews wandered for so long because Moses wouldn’t stop and ask for some damn directions, but the religious answer is that the Jewish people had make a huge boo-boo right after they got the Bible and were being punished. The holiday is eight days, on which additional restrictions (no electricity, no work, no driving/trains/planes, no writing) are in place during the first two and last two days. 

We just had the first two days, now we’re in the middle where it’s business as usual with a few traditions thrown in, and starting on Wednesday night, we’ll celebrate the rest of holiday and have the restrictions again.

What do we do during this time? Pray, eat, sleep, play board games, take walks, take naps, have long discussions, read, learn, unplug from life. It’s actually a great deal, except when you’re me and trying so hard to stay healthy.

So that’s that. If you skipped the above, basically it’s like having Thanksgiving in your house - lots of food, family, and friends. But for two meals a day, for three days. And you can’t go to the gym, write down/track your food intake, or buy anything.

I just ended one of those periods, and it didn’t go how I’d hoped. I had been planning to leave work early on Wednesday, but it got unexpectedly stressful, I left later than I intended, and didn’t get to break for lunch (or at all). Then my train home got delayed, so I got out late, stressed, hungry, and a little hormonal. Not a good combination or start to the holiday. So I overindulged on Wednesday, ending the day annoyed at myself but trying to look ahead to the rest of the holiday. 

But I didn’t have a plan, couldn’t track, hadn’t had the chance to exercise on Wednesday - I don’t even know what happened, but I’m pretty sure I gained. There were some times when I picked and chose alright, like having bread at a meal, but no rice or potatoes, or just splitting a cookie with J. But mostly I got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food in front of me. My family is pretty healthy, and desserts were saved for weekends and special occasions. But this WAS the special occasion, and I went in knowing that there would be a huge amount of food available, all the time, with no thought as to how I might avoid partaking too much.

Over the Jewish New Year, which we celebrated with J’s family in Michigan, I spent so much time and energy worrying about food, and after all that I only managed to essentially maintain my weight. I didn’t want to repeat that this time, but rejecting that plan and not coming up with a new plan left me with zero plans. If I had had a plan, I might have eaten it.

There is, of course, a giant ‘but’ to all this. A lovely ‘but’ with a bright side and a silver lining. And that is, it was only a couple of days. Even if I do equally as crappy during the next (and final!) days of holy this week, it’s still only a few days. I won’t gain back twenty pounds over a week, even though I might gain one or two. Therefore, as long as I can immediately and completely forgive myself from any overindulging over these holidays, and get right back to tracking, exercising, and healthy eating, I’ll be fine.

Yesterday I went to my Zumba class, tracked my food, and today was equally successful. And I’ll do my best over the holiday (come up with a new plan?) - but no matter what, next Sunday I will get back into the groove again, accept whatever gain, maintain, or lose I get, and keep working. I will get to the 170s.

As of yesterday, I am at 182.5 - up, but not as badly as I thought it would be.