Swimming

Okay I know I said I wasn't going to try to rock a bikini for my 30th birthday Mexico trip in December, but man I really wish I could. I don't know what possessed me, but for some reason I started looking at swimsuits online this morning and I just couldn't stop.

Let me back up. The last swimsuit I purchased was at the illustrious Target, and while it has done quite well for me over the past two years, it was officially retirement time when the summer ended. I spent a lot of time at the pool when we were living in Singapore, and between that and occasional use this summer, it is just shot. It's a classic tankini and I really liked it, cute black and white flower pattern on top and solid black bottoms, and I guess I felt as good in that suit as I could possibly feel in a suit.  Which probably isn't saying a whole lot, but still. But now the elastic is gone, it's all stretched out, and you know, nobody's girls look good in a stretched out top.

I probably should have looked for a new suit at the end of the summer, but I guess I sort of had it in the back of my mind that I was going to lose! all! this! weight! so I should wait until I really needed one to do it. Man it kills me that I still do that all the time, put off buying things or doing things until I lose weight, because honestly, that is such a stupid thing to do. I am not putting anything on hold until I lose weigh anymore!

Sorry, tangent. Anyway, now I'm going to Mexico and while I don't leave until December 17, I want to find something that I feel really happy and comfortable in. I probably won't make a purchase until early December, but I want to have a plan of action so I don't start freaking out about it and then just end up going with my old stretched out suit. Typically I prefer a tankini because it's just easier to go to the bathroom, etc. but I've been looking and some of the one-pieces out there now are pretty cute.

What do you guys think? Have any good brands you recommend? Pissed off that I'm even mentioning swimsuits in November?

ETA: I had some pics of swimsuits up here but they disappeared! ARgh! Sorry about that.

DC Bound

Hi hi hi! I'm going to make this quick because I'm leaving for the airport in a few minutes, but I wanted to check in before I go. This week - think I should see a loss but I won't be able to weigh in officially on my scale tomorrow because I'll be in D.C. I did weigh in this morning and was down .4, which I know is not very much and still in line with my SLOW losses, but I think by tomorrow maybe it'll be more? Who knows?

Anyway, I'm not worrying too much about what the scale says because I know I have been on track and doing things right and I feel good. This weekend was a little higher calorie, but I've come to accept that is always going to happen because I just eat out more on the weekends and even when you make good choices, there is just always MORE and you can't control things the way you can when you're at home. So yes, even though I chose the grilled fish tacos at the Mexican restaurant, I still had some tortilla chips and a Corona Light. But that is what makes life enjoyable and I am not changing that!

So my trip: I leave for DC tonight! Hooray! I'm so excited to go see some of my old friends from grad school and see my husband, who I haven't seen in what feels like FOREVER. It's only been ten days but man, I miss that boy. My flight leaves at 5:53 so I have packed some homemade trail mix, a kashi pumpkin spice flax bar, and a single serving bag of Oogies popcorn. That will have to be my dinner. I know there are no vegetables anywhere to be found in that mix, but that's just too bad. I'll have to eat my veggies tomorrow.

I feel good about this trip even though traveling is usually a death knell in my weight loss efforts. I know I will have to eat out every meal and I know that will be difficult, but I'm confident that I'm going to make good decisions. Yes there will probably be drinks with friends multiple nights in a row, but I plan to run around the mall and monuments and hit the hotel gym while the boy is working so I think I will be fine. I've been really interested to see how food bloggers like Kath and Jenna do when they're traveling. They make it seem so easy to make good choices, so I'm going to do my best to follow in their footsteps.

I'll probably be tweeting a little about my trip, but if I don't holla at ya while I'm gone I'll see you next week. Have a good one! 

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Oh man. Again with the lack of posting. Sorry. I guess it just is what it is right now. Things are okay - kind of crazy because we are leaving for our trip to Ireland bright and early tomorrow morning and for some reason I just can't shake this feeling of exhaustion that is settling over me. It's been here for a week. I keep trying to chalk it up to PMS, but it just won't go away. And the thought of waking up at 4 in the morning tomorrow sort of makes me want to cry, but I know it's for a good cause. Because we are going on vacation!

I think I really need this trip. I just need to get out of my house, away from my routine and my computer and my lack of a job. I have another prospect that looks interesting and of course they want me to come in next week and I can't because I'll be out of town, and we haven't been able to schedule anything yet and I've been worrying about getting it taken care of before we leave. I swear I will find anything to worry about. It is ridiculous. All of this anxiety and for what? A job I MIGHT get an interview for? I need to chill.

Food/working out is okay. I gained again this week, just .4, and I'm PMSing as I mentioned before, so basically I'm just maintaining right now. Which is what I've been doing for the past six months. I'm planning on letting a loose a little during our trip, although I must say I'm a little worried that I'm going to have to mainline fish and chips and I don't know what else, because from what I can tell Ireland is not exactly veggie-friendly. We'll see though. Maybe that's just a misconception.

That's about it for now, I'm hoping to recommit to this and hopefully be in a better mood when we're back from our trip. Take care and have a great week everyone.

Lots of things

Okay I think I've talked myself off of the ledge with the baby thing. I know I don't need to have a baby right this minute. If I want to work on myself for a while longer, be selfish and enjoy this time with my husband, that's okay. I've accepted that. Life is what you make it. And while I'm still thinking about starting a family pretty soon, I know whatever decision I ultimately make, this isn't the only thing that defines me. 

As far as the whole diet realm goes, I've been struggling a bit. I got back on the south beach bandwagon right after the new year, but it has definitely been harder sticking to it now that I'm faced with so many more temptations. This weekend I sort of lost my mind and had a crazy ridiculous day that included ordering pizza and Dairy Queen (WTF???). Anyway, this, along with numerous other indiscretions, led to a 1.8 lb gain this week. Boo. I totally deserve it, but it sucks. Once again I find myself wavering just over that 170 lb barrier. 

I don't know why but I just cannot seem to get past that number. It is driving me up the mother effing wall. It's like I get to this comfortable place, where I'm cozy and feeling on the thinner side and then all of the sudden I just hit a wall. And I gain. I realize I even talked about this in my last post, and then what did I go and do this week? I gained. Of course.

I have got to figure out some way to turn this around. I know what to do. But man it is hard. And this week is going to be a major test, because we are heading to Vegas for the weekend. Oh Vegas. Booze and food and no sleep. I'm going to try to combat those issues though and bring some healthy snacks, really watch my alcohol intake and stick to ordering the healthy basics I know will help get me toward my goals. 

In other news, I joined the big chain gym by my house, which is completely too crowded, but way less expensive than the gym I belonged to before I left for Singapore. I tried a pilates class this morning and absolutely hated it. I hated the instructor, all the people in there, everything about it. There was no direction on form, no fundamentals. We just flew through the exercises without a second thought. It sucked. If I hadn't had the basics of pilates down I would have had no clue what I was doing. And I probably would have injured myself. That is not good. I was really annoyed when the class was over, so I hopped on the elliptical and did 40 minutes to blow off some steam.  It ended up being an okay workout, but it still annoys me that they have crap classes like that at the gym. I did like kickboxing last week, so maybe I'll try that again next week. 

Tonight I'm making a delicious recipe that I found on Kalyn's Kitchen. It's baked chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomato pesto, basil and goat cheese. OMG this stuff is the bomb-diggity. I am on a big goat cheese kick now that I have access to it. I can hardly get enough. I'll probably pair this with a spinach salad (yes, with some goat cheese). On that note, I better get cooking!

Confusion

Hi. I'm back from Singapore. I've been back for a while but I haven't been blogging. I know I need to get back to it though. I need to have something to keep me accountable. I just feel a little lost right now. I don't know what to think. 

Food and exercise are probably the only things that I can control in my life right now, but honestly I feel like even with those I'm hanging on by a thread. Japan was amazing, but it was really hard on me emotionally to not spend Christmas and my birthday (two days after Christmas) with my family. And then on the 28th, when our plane finally pulled up to the gate in Denver and we were home, I was so happy. So happy to see my friends and my family and my dogger. But I think the initial high has worn off and now I'm starting to worry about my future. I've always been a worrier but now it's getting really bad.

We came home to a whirlwind of activity. New Year's eve parties, belated Christmas and birthday celebrations with both my family and the boy's family, a couple of days in the mountains snowboarding with friends. We ate so much and drank so much and got so little sleep that by the end of last week, we were both pretty much running on empty. The jet lag caught up with us big time and we were cranky and just wanting to settle into a routine. That routine started on Monday with the boy going into the office and me doing... well, doing nothing. 

This is the problem. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm back on track with food and exercise. I was so excited to go to an American grocery store and get all of the food products I've been missing. But other than that, I don't know what I'm doing. I've been thinking about going back to work. I updated my resume and started looking. But as you know, this is pretty much the worst possible time to be doing that. My prospects don't look good. And I don't even know if I want to go back to my current career. I wasn't that happy with it before I got laid off last year. But I also don't want to let all my aspirations go down the toilet. I don't want to become just someone's wife. Or just someone's mom. I'm more than that. Not that being a full-time mom isn't amazing, because I know it is. Please don't think I'm insulting anyone here. I'm just scared for me. Scared that I'll forget something about myself. That I won't know who I am anymore. 

Everyone says I should get pregnant. I'm 29. Tons of my friends are getting pregnant or have just had babies. The boy and I have talked about it and made a tentative plan to start trying later this year. But I'm scared. I want to have a baby. I think. I'm not sure. I mean I do, I want kids. But I don't know. It's scary. I think I could be ready. But I don't know if I'm ever going to have that magic moment where my ovaries start thumping and I just have to have one NOW. Do people have that? 

The other problem is my arthritis. My doc wants to put me on all these drugs. I'm worried about side effects. Especially if I do decide to get pregnant. I will go off of them before I start trying but still. Long term it just scares me to be on hardcore drugs. But I'm scared if I don't take them I will do long-term damage to my joints. I'm so confused. 

And this is the big secret, the one I haven't told anyone yet, because it seems so superficial and disgusting. I really wanted to be thin before I got pregnant. I wanted some time to enjoy it. I have tried so many effing diets. I have lost and gained so much weight over the years. 2008 was the first year I can remember where I actually lost weight and didn't regain any of it over the year. I started in January at 194 lbs. On Dec. 31 I weighed in at 174.4. And as of this past Wednesday I was back down to 170.8, which is after a couple of days being back on track and losing all of the water weight and carb bloat that I probably had. This is basically the same weight I was around the time of my wedding in October of 2006, and pretty much the lowest weight of my adult life. But unlike that time around my wedding, I don't plan on gaining it all back. Well I guess I didn't plan on it then, but I did. 

It's the start of a new year and I feel confident I can lose more weight. My initial goal is 160. But I think I could hit 150. That's 20 more pounds. And I really think I can do it. I want to do it. I want to get out of this rut of losing and gaining the same 20-something pounds and staying stuck between 170 and 190. I swear to you I will shout it from the rooftops once I get into the 160's, because I haven't seen scale numbers like that since I can't even remember. 

But yeah, what happens if I get pregnant? What happens to my awesome momentum and all that? What if I gain all my weight back and then some and then I can't get it off because of the baby? 

But what if I wait too long to start trying, and then I have problems? What if I can't get pregnant and then all this waxing about my weight is fucking useless and I should have tried sooner? Am I being selfish? Yeah, I guess I am. And how can I be a good mom if I'm this fucking selfish? What kind of person am I anyway?

I feel like a self-absorbed asshole. I don't know what to think.

Off to the races

Well it looks like all the goodbye brunches and lunches and dinners caught up with me this week - I gained a pound. I'm okay with it, I definitely deserve it. And in the grand scheme of things, I enjoyed myself, got to drink one last glass of wine with some amazing friends I've met here in Singapore, and I don't regret it at all. 

Things have been crazy the past couple of days. Since we'll be in Japan for nine days before we head back to the States, we're trying to figure out what gets packed away, what comes to Japan, etc. It's a process and I am a terrible packer, so I hate it. When we were packing to move to Singapore my sister basically came over and took control because I was pretty much a blithering idiot. Same situation here, but unfortunately no sister to help. One thing I'm nervous about is our lack of warm clothing for Japan. We both have jeans and a couple of sweatshirts, long sleeves, so we should be fine, but we didn't bring any coats or anything like that. Hopefully it'll just stay cool, but not freezing. I hear when we get back to Denver it's going to be a totally different story though. Luckily all are warm clothes are snug inside our little house there. 

Today is our last day in Singapore. I'm about to go hit the gym for a good workout, then spend the afternoon finishing packing and trying to get the boy to get his shit together. Tonight we'll go have one last local meal, beers with friends, and then tomorrow we're off to Japan. I'm looking forward to lots of sushi, Harajuku girls and hopefully purchasing some cool electronics. I probably won't post until I get back to the States, so happy holidays to everyone. Enjoy the season and don't forget to take care of YOU! 

Eek! A Mouse!

So, apparently mice have invaded my home. In Denver, that home. I guess it is cold now, mice want somewhere warm to go, and since my doggie is no longer living there, they decided my house would be a good place to go. This is stressing me out, even from thousands of miles away.

My girlfriend, who is living there while we are gone, is of course not happy. She has caught three of them in a humane trap (oh how I love the Internet) and set them free at a park a couple of miles away, but one looked like a baby and she thinks there might be more. Yuck. I'm sure they are cute little guys and I certainly don't want to poison them, but I hate the idea of little mice running around my beautiful little house. And I hate that I'm so far away there is virtually nothing I can do. Ugh. 

In other news, let's see. Things are fine here, if boring. It is amazing how I occupy my time, even without a job. That said, the only person I've actually spoken to all day is the girl behind the counter at Starbucks. Wow, that is sad. I enjoy the alone time though, it gives me a chance to think. I know I'll miss it when we're back home. 

I am working on a slide show of all of our pictures from our travels since we've been in Singapore. We've been to Bintan, Indonesia, Bali, Cambodia, Thailand, and will add Japan to that list before we go home. I'm making it in iDVD, which is a very cool program. Figure it will be a nice gift for our parents, etc. It feels a little narcissistic but I guess that's never been a problem for me given all the blog writing and what not. I've noticed I haven't written in my travel blog as much since I started writing here again. I guess I just can't get the juices flowing for both at the same time. 

Tonight I'm on my own because the boy has going-away drinks with his coworkers, so I'm making myself another omelet with laughing cow and spinach. I'm on an omelet kick right now. I need to keep it healthy and under control while I can, because this weekend is going to be a challenge. 

Tomorrow we're having going away drinks with friends from our building and then out to dinner, which I'm sure will be a calorie minefield. Saturday is the BBQ with the boy's coworkers and their families, who knows what we'll have there. Local food I'm sure.  Then Sunday we're going to a fancy bon voyage brunch with our Thanksgiving buddies. What does this mean? Lots and lots of food. And booze. Hopefully I can offset any damage with some good workouts and actually being mindful about my eating. I'm all about approaching these things with intention right now. :)

Here's a pic of the last spinach omelet I made. Doesn't look that appetizing, I know, but it is. And yes, I realize I suck at the food photography thing. Sorry. 

Pokes Head Up

Hello? Is anybody out there? I'm thinking some of you may have me in your feed readers still so if you do, hi! I'm back. Honestly I never really left, not totally. I've been reading tons of blogs the whole time I've been in Singapore. And I've been writing in a travel blog. And kind of wishing I was writing in this one.

So now I'm back.

In a way I regret taking a hiatus from fatblogland. There are so many new awesome blogs out there and so many relationships that I have let fall by the wayside. And I'm sorry for that. But I do know that it was the right decision for me to take a step back from writing about weight loss, specifically my weight loss (or lack thereof at times). When the boy and I moved to Singapore at the beginning of July I thought maybe it would be best to try to put some of my issues and obsessions with my weight aside for a while, and I thought stopping writing here might help that a bit.

And you know what, Singapore has been good for me in that regard in a way. When we first got here I didn't want to worry about food. I didn't want to worry about carb counts and calorie counts and fat and all of that crap. I just wanted to try new things. Living here, and going to Indonesia and Cambodia and Thailand, I've gotten to try tons of new food. Chicken rice and banana cakes and black sesame ice cream and greasy fried noodles and durian and dragonfruit and the list goes on and on. Some of it I loved, some of it I hated. Some of it was good for me, some of it was terrible for me.

I did gain a couple of pounds when we got to Singapore, and I was probably wavering back and forth in about a five pound range for the first four months. It depended on whether or not we were traveling (traveling always means lots of booze and eating out and you know how that can be).

Sometime in October though, I realized that just because I was halfway around the world didn't mean I could use that as an excuse to gain weight. Or more importantly, to not lose the weight. I've been hovering with being 25-50 lbs overweight for my entire adult life. There have been times when I've been gung-ho about getting it all off. There have been times when I'm resigned to just being "a big girl." There have been times when I'm eating or drinking without any restraint because I just don't give a fuck anymore. There have been times when I say "I'm going to lose it this time" but then I continue to maintain or just half-ass it.

The past couple of years I've fallen into a really bad pattern of losing weight at the beginning of the year - 10, 15, even 20 lbs. The for some reason the fall comes and I slowly gain. Gain all or most of it back during the holidays, and then I start over again the next year. In the fall of 2006, the year I got married, I was at the lowest weight I'd been at in a long time. But I gained back almost 25 lbs over the next year. Wow that is crazy to write it out here. But it's true.

At the beginning of 2008 I set out to lose that weight, again. And as of July, when we moved to Singapore, I was down about 15 lbs. Then I gained the five or so I just mentioned. Which brings us to October, at which point I started with a fresh resolve. Part of it was the thought of coming back to the U.S. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have daydreams about losing all the weight while I'm out here and coming home and shocking everyone with my new hot bod. And while I know that's not really realistic, I do know that I have an amazing opportunity. This year I won't be with my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I won't have the food pushers and the pressures and the environmental factors that have caused me to gain weight every single holiday season I can remember.

Instead, I have myself. I have the boy, and I have about a month left in Singapore and then I have ten days in Japan, where I'll celebrate Christmas and my 29th birthday (on December 27). I know I can choose how to spend this time. And I choose to spend it losing weight, not gaining weight. I will not deprive myself from the sensory experiences here that I may not get for the rest of my life. But I will not let them take over my other needs either.

So what does that mean for me? That means I want to be conscious about my weight loss, and I want to participate. I want to take my blog back. I want to build relationships with other bloggers and tell the people I've let down I'm sorry. I want to steal some of the awesome ideas I've seen on a few blogs, like photographing my food more often and posting recipes. I want to talk about all of the things I'm loving right now and how living as an overweight person in Asia has changed my perspective a bit.

So I'm back. I'm going to be working on updating the links to the right and adding all of the new bloggers I've been reading. I'm going to be stopping by to say hi more often. And I'm going to be writing about my weight loss, my workouts, what I'm eating. And probably some non-weight loss things too. I'm going to go back to doing a weekly weigh-in on Wednesdays. I feel good today, I feel positive. Things aren't always going to be sunshine and lollipops I know. But I'm going to write about the good times and the bad times. I think getting started was the hardest part.