Oh, hi.

Okay relax. I’m here. Don’t fret.

Sometimes life gets a little complex and rather than air my dirty laundry on the interweb, I needed to hide out for a bit. If I had allowed myself to express my frustrations over the past few days, I would have been short a job and probably a few friends. So. I actually used the filter (for once) and said nothing.

Its been hard the past several days. Really freaking hard. Like, from the second my toes touch the floor in the morning I’m on a battlefield hard. The kind of hard that I would wash down with a bottle of red and shut up with pizza and pasta and all kinds of delicious sugars. But instead I have refrained. Somehow. Many MANY times.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some wine. But probably have consumed a bottle over the course of 2 weeks, instead of 2 hours. Progress? You betcha! Perfect? No way. But more than enough progress to keep me satisfied.

And there is that concept again. Progress. Small wins. Baby steps. Its not realistic to ask for 0 to 60 while skipping over 1 to 59. I know that. But its so hard to be at a standstill and want to be flying down the highway with the wind blowing through your hair, and not want to slowly accelerate.

Like Veruca said, “its my bar of chocolate, give it to me NOW!”

I’d like to share a few examples of my personal progress with you right now:

I quite literally just an hour ago received a free meal from my most favorite restaurant. SECONDS away from ordering a succulent sounding pasta dish that was new to the menu, I opted instead for the burger. Which, I only ate one half of one half of the bun. So, I ate one quarter. Is that right? Math is not my forte. But yes that’s right. I had a burger and I ate one quarter of the bun. I mean I had to. I HAD TO. I did. I needed that bread and oh my was it delightful.

At a graduation party of the weekend, one where I would normally have consumed several adult beverages and many many carb filled delights, I settled for a brief grazing at the appetizer table and one single solitary glass of red wine. People thought I was sick because I wasn’t drinking.

I had to spend hours taking pictures of food at my most favorite local store. Snapping pics of fresh baked bread, pies, tortellini salad, prepared lasagnas, cookies, even toffee covered peanuts! (oh my) I walked out of there with a head of lettuce and some chicken.

I mean, come on guys, do you know me? Do you have ANY idea how hard all of that is? For the average bear yes, those are challenging scenarios.

But for me, ME, especially. My god, I have a tattoo of I <3 Bread right on my belly. I’m the Queen of Crackers, the Princess of Pasta, the Warrior of Wine. I run on that stuff like American Runs on Dunkin.

BUT. And there is a but.

I feel amazing. Okay alright I’m stressed out a little bit about work and life. But otherwise I feel incredible. I’m sleeping. I’m not hungry all the time. I’m not bloated. My face has thinned out. I FEEL thinner even if I don’t look it. I feel good about my self for the first time in a long time. A VERY long time.

I have a long way to go. But I’d say I’m off to a great running start. I meet with the trainer (for a real workout) this weekend, and will start doing my program on my own all next week. That’s kind of step 2 in this whole process. Step 1 being kick the carb habit.

Consider it kicked.

Boo.

Yeah.

I'm kinda like Doc Rivers

Small Wins

I've been saying this a lot lately, as it pertains to many areas of my life. Small wins at work like meaningful praise from a client. Small wins at home like being able to finally get to the bottom of that mountain of laundry. Even small wins here, in this thing that I’m doing. Yeah I set myself back a couple of days with my Saturday Shenanigans, but, I was right back on track after that indiscretion. Normally I would say something along the lines of “well F that” and just scrap the whole thing after a night like Saturday. So, not doing that? Small win.

Speaking of laundry. I was dreading getting ready for work this morning. Not because it’s Monday, or because it was June Gloom outside, but because I washed/dried all my jeans all at once, which meant, they were going to be tight. Which meant, feeling slightly like a sausage squeezing into a casing.

Wow. I can’t believe I just made that comparison, that’s disgusting. I apologize to my sister for that.

So after fully preparing myself for the normal lunge and squat routine to make some room, imagine my delight when that wasn’t necessary.

Small win.

I’m really beginning to apply this philosophy across the board, and why not! It makes complete sense. Its inspiring. It keeps you in the game.

Let’s be shamelessly timely and ask ourselves to examine Doc Rivers’s philosophy with his team. He always talks about playing one game at a time, about not worrying over winning the Championship, but rather just succeeding every time you get out on the court. Even if you don’t win the game, you can learn from it.

Small wins.

I mean, that’s basic stuff here guys!

And its so important to recognize this because its so easy to lose sight of the philosophy behind that quote-from-that-song-that–was-cool-when-I-was-like-15: life’s a journey, not a destination. And if you watch Glee, than this is really timely for you.

If I think about the Championship, if I focus only on “what I want it to be” and not on “how I’m going to get it to what I want it to be”, I might not win a single game, and might not even make it to the Championship, let alone win it.

So, the moral of my story here today is this: every non-failure is a small win. Think about that, and apply it.


Get I get an “Amen”?

An example of failure in the lesson of self control.

Let's get this out of the way.

Right now, this is how I feel.



So my second weekend into this thing, I slipped up a bit. Okay let's be honest, a lot. Ugh. I had good intentions though! I just, didn't follow through… Friday night wasn't too awful. I considered my "cheats" to be the delicious grilled corn on the cob and a couple s'mores by a campfire. If you're going to cheat, then, there are certainly worse ways to do it.

Saturday started off great. Had chicken sausage for breakfast and a salad and chicken for lunch. But i was so excited to be out of my house and not at work, so lunch turned into watching the soccer game, turned into stopping by a party, turned into getting a night cap out.

However.

I somehow managed to eat well through all of that.

Small wins, Corey. small wins.

So I got a little overzealous and had a few cocktails. A few. I'll tell you what though, I'm pissed at myself today. I feel gross, I look gross, my brain is trash and I have so much to do but absolutely zero motivation. So, I'm pissed because this is not how I wanted to end my weekend.

And! Oh, the best part. I meet with the trainer today at 5. Pretty much the last thing in the world that I want to do today. I'm going to consider that my punishment.

I've learned my lesson. I hope.

I will check in later after the trainer, hopefully. If my fingers still work.

Who knew????

All these years I have been doing it wrong....

Tastes like chicken

So everyone is freaking out about fish oil. Have you noticed this? Fish oil this capsules, prescription fish oil that, fish oil burps (wait what?). Yeah, it's another huge health and beauty commercial success.

And I get it. Its awesome, it makes your hair and nails and skin look delightful, annnnd does a whole bunch of other stuff that's good. That's really all you need to know. (Actually, there are some really great benefits so in all seriousness, if you want to know the real deal, you can definitely get info from a more credible source than me.)

So I have a nice free sample of fish oil from a client of mine. Lemon. Flavored. Fish. Oil. Which sounds disgusting, but how bad can lemon flavored anything really be, right?

Wrong.

Given my history with hiding healthy foods in stuffed animals, one should have already deduced that I don't like fish. At all. Or seafood. Or sushi. Or anything that swims, floats or wiggles in the ocean. Not sure what my prejudice is against the creatures of the sea, but its a pretty iron clad prejudice.

So why on earth would it make any sense that I could tolerate lemon. flavored. fish. oil?

Well, it doesn't make any sense, and I don't tolerate LFFO. Which is why, when I tried to take not even an entire spoonful, but simply an itty bitty drop of it the other day, I puked. In the kitchen sink. And guess what? It tasted like lemon... both times...

So needless to say, I need to find some other way to get the fish oil benefits without the fish oil. Which is pretty much not possible. So I guess I need to stop acting like a five year old and figure out how to take the stuff.

On another note, tomorrow will be my one week of this experiment, so I thought I would provide you with a few stats:

• I only cheated/effed up on Saturday/Sunday due to wedding/Armageddon weather challenges
• I am officially obsessed with drinking water with fresh squeezed lime juice
  
• I am sleeping better and waking up rested instead of feeling like I just emerged from a 7 year coma
• I find that I don't get that awful "oh my god I'm hungry" stomach implosion
  
• I'm down 3 pounds
• I feel pretty damn awesome
  

Yes okay the weight thing is great, but really, it's kind of a no-brainer and I'm not making that big of a deal out of it. I'm not eating garbage so no surprise there, weight comes off.

And the feeling pretty damn awesome thing is, well, pretty damn awesome. I don't feel like I'm on a diet because I'm not. I'm not hungry. I'm not cranky (if you exclude yesterday in its entirety...), I'm not sluggish, and I'm not drooling over everyone else's delicious, fluffy, salty, filling carbs. I had a mini-meltdown with a Friendly's commercial but come on, that was just unfair.

All in all, I'd venture to say that week 1 was satisfactorily completed.

Coming up?

In week two's episodes, Corey trains with trainer Keith for the first time and tries to walk, not crawl the next day, Corey completes the Acid Test, and Corey completes the second half of the 14 day carb detox without going completely mental (fingers crossed).

So don't touch that dial. Fun things to come.

Sure picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue…

Okay so maybe not sniffing glue, but, certainly this is a challenging time for me to not be inhaling carbs all day for quick energy and pounding wine at the end of the night for a quick pass-out. But then again, the lethal combination of those two things got me exactly where I am today, so I suppose I should be trying something new.

But boy, i gotta tell ya, meat, nuts and lettuce sure don't ease the pain like a bag of Pirate's Booty can! Yar!

But really, how do you cope when you are stressed out, irritated or upset? Deep breaths and meditation aren't that satisfying. Most likely because my version of deep breaths is me hyperventilating, and meditation is more like visualizing myself roundhouse-kicking a few select people.

Not exactly calming.

So what can I do? Really, I'm asking you people out there. If I'm going to make this work and not rely on Mark or Robert (West and Mondavi, respectively) to numb the pain, I'm going to need some suggestions.

There must be other ways that healthy, fit people deal with stress. One might argue that stress makes you skinny. Let me set the record straight for you right here.

That is false.

Take me, for example. I've been stressed out since, oh, somewhere around 2003. And I'm not skinny. I also lost a massive chunk of hair thanks to that stress, but that's over on my Alopecia Anonymous blog.

And though a swift roundhouse kick to the head would be immediately gratifying, it isn't going to get me anywhere other than to jail. Or sued. And I'm pretty sure they aren't going to care that i need to eat lean protein and a green veggie every three hours in jail.

30 Second Update

Regarding Me vs. Wedding Cake: we broke even, but the real winner was the Champagne. I did dance a lot though, so, maybe I'll keep telling myself that I burned off those booze calories on the dance floor... yeah, that sounds good to me.

I wish I could say otherwise but, yesterday was a complete failure. Between being somewhat hungover and tired and dealing with Armageddon that basically blew through our town and the repercussions (terrified dog that almost gave herself a heart attack, downed trees blocking roads, power outages), I didn't get to the store to buy approved food, so I had to make do with what I had. Which was leftover pizza. Pretty sure that falls outside of the meat, nuts and green veggies category. Though, it did have green peppers and meatball on it. So, there's that.

Fortunately, today is a new day. And my lunchbox is full of meat, nuts and greens! Yum-diddily-ummy. Can't wait for my next feeding...

I will post later. I'm too busy to be funny right now.

Me vs. Wedding Cake

Today is my first very big challenge. A very dear friend of mine is tying the knot. And lots of other "very dear friends of mine" will be there to witness. Which means.... Well... We're getting drunk.

Or I guess, they're getting drunk. I haven't decided what my plan is yet. I would like to somehow find a way to "party", but without completely derailing my efforts here.

Because let's be honest: weddings make me want to get wasted.

There, I said it.

I think its a combination of celebration and of mourning. Celebrating the obvious, of course - the love of the couple, the life they will share, the toast to the future. All that happy sappy good stuff.

The mourning half is a little more challenging to define. But I'll venture to say that a part of me believes I will never find the person that I want to stand up in front of everyone I love and swear I will love them forever. That concept is foreign to me.

Annnnd just like that I've turned this joyous, happy occasion into a pity party. So I will stop there. It must be the carb withdrawl.

I obviously have my work cut out for me tonight, so please, send good vibes my way.

I just really hope, really really hope there isn't a cheese platter.

Carbohydrate Dreamin'

It would be a lie if I said I wasn't sitting here thinking about all the delicious garbage that I want to eat right this very second. Because that's exactly what I'm doing.

I've gone this whole day literally eating ONLY nuts, turkey, chicken, lean ground beef and lettuce. That's gotta be some kind of personal record for me. Oh and I've had about a pool-size amount of water today. With lime, thank you very much. The trainer says "lime your water". I forget why, but, I'm obeying regardless.

Wait, one second...




24 hours without carbs.


Okay. Just needed to see that in big bold letters.

And also? It's Friday night, and I haven't had even a splash of alcohol. My liver is pumped that it actually gets to start breaking down and kicking out some of this junk in the trunk.

Caveman food

I will give a huge "thumbs up" to whoever can make this meat and nuts "breakfast" feel more like a breakfast....

Only one quarter fat.

So I'll be honest. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that no, my body is not 50% fat. Thank god because, really? That would have been devastating.

That being said, I'm at 25% body fat, which translates roughly to about 38 pounds of fat. On my body. Just, sitting there. Being fat. Doing nothing. Taking up space in my clothes. Being gross.

For those of you who blacked out during 8th grade health class, the basic principle is this: muscle does weigh more than fat, but muscle also contributes to the metabolic process. Simply stated, muscle burns calories, just by being there. Its not an extraordinary amount, but, muscle works. Fat jiggles. So obviously, we want our body compositions to be more muscle than fat.

Concept #1: Mastered!

The second thing of many I learned tonight is that my hormones are a total disaster. And I'm not talking about being premenstrual. I'm talking about all those other really important-but-no-one-really-knows-exactly-what-they-do hormones, like insulin, and gluco-something-in. (side note: I'm not even going to attempt to be scientific here. I don't have the education, knowledge or training to even come close to getting things accurate so, if I overgeneralize and say something wrong, then, my bad). All those really important hormones that make the processes of the body run and run correctly? Well, mine are a mess. Nothing is working right. My liver hates me (which we knew), I can't detoxify estrogen, and my insulin is on a never-ending roller coaster. So I have to corral these bad boys back in order and get things working the right way.

How?

For starters, I have to understand the following: everything I have ever consumed or exposed my body to has caused this hormone chaos. But, and this is important - it's not my fault. Because I didn't know. Did I know that eating a steak and cheese sub with extra mayo was going to make me gain weight? Yeah, okay fine that's a no-brainer. But did I know that dumping all that processed garbage into my body year after year was going to eventually completely derail the digestive, metabolic, and all sorts of other processes? No. I guess I didn't think that far in advance. So Concept #2 is this: retrain these processes to work correctly and re-balance the hormones.

The first step is to food detox by eating only protein (from meat and nuts) and green vegetables for the next 14 days. Aside from the blatant lack of my beloved carbs, the scariest part about this is the green vegetable. The last time I had something green that came from the earth unprocessed was a lime. In my Corona.

And a word about broccoli: for as long as I can recall, I have loathed broccoli. At a very young age, I insisted that I be allowed to bring my Popple (stuffed animal) to the dinner table. I only recently told my mother that it was because I wanted to stuff my broccoli (or any veggie really) into the pocket of the Popple so I could pretend I ate it, and throw it away later. Pretty genius, thank you. Needless to say, there isn't any stuffed animal in the world that is going to get my ass out of this one. But this step is so important, and oh so hard for me. The nutritional component of this whole thing is going to be the hardest for me to master.

Concept #3 is perhaps the most important: no matter what size, weight, shape, age or color, you gotta love yourself enough to be good to yourself, in every way possible. And I do. Which is why I can sit here and make fun of myself. It's my way of kicking my own ass into gear and making this positive change in my life.

Gag. Enough of that. Self love is too serious. But that was for you, mom.

Day 1 of ?

Here's the deal: I'm 26, and yes, I consider myself "fat". If you look at my height and weight on a BMI index, I'm well into the "overweight" category.

Depressing.

I wasn't always like this, though. As a competitive gymnast for 15 years, I was able to eat what I wanted, when I wanted and however much of it I wanted because, well, I was in the gym using muscles you'd never know where there for up to 30 hours a week, every week. For. Fifteen. Years. My nickname was "mouse", not because I was quiet and meek, but because I was tiny.

And now, well, I'm a house. Or at least I feel that way.

Don't get me wrong. I know I'm hard on myself. But I have to be. I need to change. So here I am.

Tonight, I meet my trainer for the first time. He's going to bust out the calipers and take my true body fat percentage. And I'm going to beg that he not tell me the result, because, well, who really wants to hear that half of your body is composed of fat? I certainly don't.

So here goes nothing... or, hopefully, here goes a lot of excess fat, weight, inches, stress, mental and emotional garbage.

Bye bye, muffin top!