olives

I chose this blog format because it reminds me of olives. I love olives. I love black olives, green olives, kalamata olives, stuffed olives, smoked olives, olive tapenade- you get the picture. I would eat olives for every meal of the day, and for snacks, too. When I was little, my father would put the canned black olives on my fingers for me to chomp on when he made the salad for dinner. Olives quite possibly could be my favorite food. Olives also have 6 calories per large black pearl. That means, if I slipped them on my fingers now, snacking thoughtlessly while I prepared my dinner, I would suck down 60 calories. Not too terrible, really... except that probably, knowing myself, I would down the whole can, rather than just the 10 covering my nailbeds.

So this blog is my way of documenting my journey to regain control of my eating and my body. I'm a good eater- in that I can chomp away with the best of them. I'm also a picky eater. I've been a vegetarian since I was 11, save for a small bite of chicken I tried in early January of this year. I'm not a veg b/c I care about the animals- really, I couldn't care less about them... I'm a veg b/c I think it's disgusting to eat flesh. When I see Red Lobster commercials where they crack into that Lobster leg (claw?), and the juice squirts about- I just imagine people cracking into their own arms or legs (maybe a funny SNL skit- however not so yummy to think about eating).

Back to my reasoning... About a year and a half ago, I lost 30 lbs. I had hit my all time high weight of 193, and saw a photo of myself both from the summer, and right then, and decided that it was time. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. I've never been slender- although in high school (before the boobs came), I could wear a size 8 with no problem. But then the boobs came, and the freedom of driving, and eating wherever I wanted, and spending the night at Michelle's and raiding Kroger of their powdered sugar donuts and doritos and anything else... and drive through Taco Bell, and birthday cakes for every single birthday in yearbook, and going to college and eating at the dining hall (which specialized in cookies and ice cream bars, and pasta bars, and nothing healthy what-so-ever) and any training my parents thought they had instilled in me went right out the window. I ate everything that didn't have meat- except tofu. B/C again, I'm odd, and picky. I used to take stacks of cookies back to the dorm room under the pretense that I would share them with Katie, or Amanda, or Val, or Siira, and then ate them all myself. My next door neighbor would drive home for a weekend, and come back with cookies her mom had made- I'd eat an entire tupperware of them. It was around that time that my love of fake cheese burgeoned.

Ah... fake cheese. At first I was disgusted... gelatinous orange gloop that would turn into a hard pile if left on your plate for too long... but soon I realized if you put it on your pasta right away, it became the most delicious mac and cheese... and then I found out that you could get Nachos at the movie theater!!!! When I grew up, my parents never stopped at the concession stand... I grew up thinking it was what "other" people did, you know, the less evolved people. But in college, when I found out that cheese was available- along with icees, ho boy, that was it. I remember heading home for a summer, and trying to hide my love of movie theater nachos. In fact, about a year ago I shamefully ordered them when going to see an opera at the movie theater with my mother and my then-boyfriend. I could see my mother's disgust and horror as I ordered them- but I did it loud and super proud (and painfully self-aware) and ate every last bite. And oh my god, when I learned you could get pretzel bites with cheese?! Game over.

So you might be able to see why my weight began to climb. I gained probably between 20-40 lbs in those 4 years. And when I got out, I joined Weight Watchers- and while I lost 15 lbs right away, I also lost my mind. I became the most angry dieter ever. It made me crazy to count points constantly... And the meetings were full of middle aged mothers who had nothing in common with a 21 year old recent college grad. I wanted to know point contents of jello shots, and they were busy figuring out meatloaf. There were barely any resources for vegetarians at that point in Weight Watchers... so I gave it up.

Swirl back to Jan. 2008. I stood up in front of the entire Lower School of where I work, and told everyone that my resolution was to eat better and exercise more. And I did it. I joined an online website called myfooddiary.com and began tracking what I was eating. I started exercising more, and the weight started dropping off like magic. Once I lost 15 lbs, I realized I could actually run- so I began jogging with my dog in the morning and at night. Then I started jogging on the treadmill at school. Like I said before, I ended up losing 3o lbs in just under a year. I got into the 150's and was beside myself. I fit into all new clothes, I felt good about what I looked like, I felt amazing in terms of my health, and eating didn't make me want to vomit all the time (so it goes when you stuff yourself past your limit- I coined the phrase "puke level" in college to explain just how full I was). My family was super supportive and encouraging, the parents and teachers at school all chimed in on how great I looked- it was fantastic!

And then I stopped. I had given up myfooddiary.com when school began, and just counted calories in my head. Somehow, even though I began eating more, the weight stayed off. I accounted that to running on the treadmill every day. I had gotten to the point where I was running 3 miles almost every day. And then school got busy, and I got tired of not getting home til after 7, and I quit going to the gym every day. And I started dating my then-boyfriend (now-fiancee) and wanted to spend my time with him, and eat out or cook with him, and sit on the couch with him, and etc. It's hard to work from 8:15-5:30, then go to the gym, then come home to walk the dog, then eat a healthy small dinner and then go to bed. Esp when there's someone else you want to see, and there are other things you want to do. So that's when the weight started glomming back on. Just a lb here and there at first... but over that year I gained back over 14 lbs of what I had lost. And at first it didn't bother me, b/c I figured it was my body telling me I was more comfortable at a higher weight. That being in the 170's was just fine.

And then I hit a slight depression- and had the wherewithall to realize that part of it was my diet and my lack of exercise. Thanks therapy! Thanks for giving me the skills to pull myself out of depressions and work towards making myself feel better! So I started eating slightly better, and exercising more. And then promptly quit again once I wasn't depressed.

That brings me to last October. My friend Jennifer was getting married, and I was a bridesmaid. Which meant getting a bridesmaid dress. Which meant trying on fitted dresses. Which meant not being able to layer shirts over each other so the rolls of fat were less apparent (at least to my eyes). In the mirror itself, I wasn't horribly concerned- but once I saw the photos of myself, I knew it was time to start over. Of course it took me until Jan '10 to really start.

So here we are. I started back on myfooddiary.com exactly one week ago, and have lost 2 lbs so far. I'm relearning how to eat, and what to eat, and when to eat. And this blog is going to help me remember all of it, so I don't have to continue to relearn it when I forget.

My plan is to write every day- to remind myself how I'm feeling, eating, thinking... and here's my first daily entry:

Today sucked. I was hungry all day long... and ate the majority of my calories at lunch just b/c I didn't want to get up and leave the fac room during a conversation. I had eaten my slice of pizza on the walk back to the Lower School. Once I got into the fac room, I had my yogurt and my 100 calorie oreo pack, and some water... and then, just b/c I haven't figure out how to sit there and not eat, I ate my 100 calorie cheese nips pack that I was going to eat after school. So then after school I had my Special K pretzel and choc. bar (90 calories) b/c I was starving. And then I got home at 6:20 and had a slice of pizza (homemade, 278 calories per slice) b/c I couldn't think straight. And then went online and input all my food from the day into the website and found that if I wanted to lose 1.6 lbs a week, I had 51 calories left. Argh. I looked in the freezer and found out that even a single serving of frozen peas has 70 calories in it. And hell, if I was going to waste 70 calories on a stupid bag of peas, I should just eat the freakin' other slice of pizza. So I did. So yeah, you heard me, I had pizza for lunch AND for dinner. And I loved it. So there. Here's my final info:

Maintain Weight	573
Lose 1 lbs. per week	73
Lose 1.6 lbs. per week (maximum safe)	over by 227

And here's my favorite part of the website... I find this really encouraging, b/c I need endpoints.

If every day were like today ...

You would lose 1.1 lbs per week. You would reach your goal weight of 135 lbs on 9/2/2010. In one month, you would weigh 167.1 lbs. In three months, you would weigh 157.3 lbs.

So that's today. And my history. And I'm sure there will be a whole new story tomorrow.