Update!

Some good news and some bad news.

The good? Down 1.2....wooooo, strong pull in a very good direction.

The bad? They are closing my meeting location. It was perfect...on the way to work, at 9 am, able to stay for the whole meeting before I have to be at work, and able to weigh in on an empty stomach (which is my own personal ritual).

I found out last week, but kinda thought a Christmas miracle or something would happen and the closure wouldn't happen. No such luck. It really bummed me out. I don't understand their mentality for doing it right now. For a company that supposedly cares about the people, I find it really difficult to understand why they would take something away from people who need it so much right at the time of year when we're likely at our most vulnerable. Let's cause emotion for those who emotionally eat. Doesn't sit right with me. They could have waited until the holidays are over. It's really really bad timing.

This has thrown me for a loop. Perhaps the first real challenge of my current WW initiative. I am attached to that meeting. To the people and the leader. To lose that is extremely difficult. It will take everything I have to get through it.

Today after my meeting was a prime example of how this change could affect me if I let it. I had already decided to have pizza for lunch. But I was going to have a slice. 10 maybe 13 pp with a coke zero and I will have splurged but not gone overboard. Instead, after my meeting, the thought of having a small pizza versus a slice came into my head and never really left. So for lunch I had a small pizza with garlic dip and coke zero. And not just 2 or 3 slices of that pizza. The entire damn thing. Now, it was a small pizza...quite small actually (for the $10 I paid for it...but beside the point)...so umm, 6 small slices I think? Likely 4 slices of a regular medium pizza.

Then for dinner, I get Chinese food. Chicken fried rice and stir fried shrimp. Then Christmas cookies.

This was not my plan. I am having Jack Astors tomorrow night for a date with the bf. I had every intention of having my slice of pizza and then reasonable dinner because I knew I was having a huge dinner tomorrow.

But what's important is what I take away from this and how I handle it. Christmas is going to be insane. But for the first year I don't want to say "eff it, it's only once a year." I don't want to slip back. I am 2.6 away from getting my 10%. That's 16 lbs. That puts me over halfway to my goal. I am in the 140s now and it feels great. I don't want to lose that. But what I do from this point forward is going to dictate whether I lose that or not. I can say here that I don't want to lose that feeling or my progress, but actions speak louder than words. Without the action to back it up, the words mean nothing.

My plan for this week is:

1) Regular work out routine on Sunday
2) Work out on Monday...I get off work at 3:30. Why do I have so much difficulty working out on a day when I get off so early?? It's weird.
3) Tuesday is spin...always great
4) Wednesday - Jillian Michaels something or other
5) Thursday I pick my mom up from the airport, but I am also going to try and get to the 9:30 am meeting one subway stop from my school. I won't be able to stay for the meeting, but since weigh in happens 30 minutes before, I'll still get that. Then that evening I'll go to the same location to actually attend the meeting.

And through all of this I will keep up with my good eating habits that I've been developing (and doing pretty darn good at if I do say so myself).

Let's see if I can tackle this head on so it doesn't bury me.

Have a great weekend.

Christmas plans?

Who has a plan to lose? What about maintain? What about saying to hell with it and letting the chips (oooh and dip!) fall where they may? This is a dangerous dangerous time of year. I don't have a specific plan of action as of yet. I have a basic outline, but nothing concrete. First, let me tally up the food events for me this season:

1) dinner with a good girlfriend of mine to do present swap for both of our respective birthdays plus Christmas

2) My mom gets into town next week: 1 Indian buffet; 1 movie outing; 1 birthday dinner (my mom's)  - this all within about 2-3 days

3) Christmas Eve - traditionally an appetizer evening with all the good (read: bad) foods I don't eat throughout the rest of the year

4) Christmas Day - need I say more?

5) Mandarin Buffet (my birthday, my choice)

6) Birthday #2 - party thrown by a friend of mine.

Holy cow.

My plan this holiday season, honestly, is just to maintain. Because it looks like food is kinda out of control, my action plan is to be as active as possible. I've already checked out the spin classes that will be running during that holiday week, plus with the gym in my building it's not that hard to get to.

I am also going to enjoy myself. I do not eat like this throughout the year, and I have been truly living this plan for over 2 months now. This includes splurge meals. I'm going to treat my days as I normally would and see what happens.

Besides, I have a whole week before the craziness starts in. Let's see what I can accomplish in that time.

WI tomorrow, so I'm excited to see how this week went. Otherwise, time to finish marking for my last IELTS class on Saturday and prepare for my holiday next week!

Updates 'R Us

This has been a rough rough week. In a follow up to my previous post, I lost again, this time at the tail end of my TOM. Down 4.4 through my TOM. Not too shabby. So down another 2lb this week. That officially put me back in the 140s! 149.8, but whatever :) That was my Christmas goal to myself. To lose basically 13lbs before Christmas. I have 0.8 to hit the actual 13, but I am stoked nonetheless.

So weight loss good. I didn't use any WPs over the week (considering I had used basically all of them at Red Lobster last weekend, this was a good thing). I only got about half of spin class....my regular instructor was away and there was a sub. Oh god was she awful. I was bored in spin class. That's not normal. The songs were slow and boring, and so was the instructor. I don't waste time doing things I don't enjoy, especially since I knew I had marking etc. to do, so I left. Then I didn't work out Wednesday or Thursday.

Why may you ask? Well...it could have something to do with the fact that bf and I put an offer on a bigger condo in our same building. It was accepted and we entered into the hell of negotiations and getting financing.

Now here's the situation....we could have gotten it. Realistically, between what we both make in our salaries and contract/freelance work, we would have been approved to carry both the mortgage of our current place (we wanted to rent it out, not sell), and the mortgage of the new place. That's about 600K...but we would have been approved. However, and this is our mistake...I take full responsibility for what happened. After the offer was accepted, we had 24 hours to come up with the $18,000 down payment. This was not going to be a problem since my bf had about 25K in his bank account from freelance work. The plan was for him to pay for the deposit, closing fees etc., and I would pay him back monthly. However, when we started looking at it, a) his money is in USD because most of his clients are American, and therefore with the exchange rate right now he would lose a lot of $$ if he were to convert it right now, and b) when it came right down to it, I couldn't afford the increased mortgage on top of paying him a loan fee. It would put my personal debt ratio up crazy high.

So on Friday morning (after my WI, which I think was helped by the like 1/4 of my dinner I was able to stomach the night before), I called the realtor and told him that we couldn't put together the deposit. He started freaking out, and got me freaking out because when you accept an offer to purchase a property, that's a legally binding document. We were contractually obligated, at that point, to purchase the property. This went on for a couple hours (and being told that the sellers could take us to court if they wanted to)...finally, I called my mortgage broker and told him to strip our incomes...take out the contract/freelance work. Would we still qualify? No? Problem solved. Got him to talk to the realtor and this whole mess was over. Property purchases are usually conditional on financing...It was such a hellish day. I can only imagine what the sellers felt like. I never in a million years wanted to cause that hardship to them. We truly, 100% wanted that condo. It was wonderfully upgraded, 2 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, parking, locker, quiet etc., good price (which in downtown Toronto is saying something). I truly feel bad for accepting something and then going back on it less than 24 hours away. I know how stressful it must be to be selling in this market. But when we looked at the brass tacks of it all, it just isn't doable at this time. We were too hasty. We're outgrowing our current place, and that frustration has led us to jump ahead of ourselves.

I had a stress ear/headache all day yesterday and just felt sick to my stomach. Apparently the realtor also called bf and was almost threatening like...I kinda had to laugh at that...you try to take the hard line with the Moroccan and he'll go in the opposite direction just to spite you. He could 100% agree with you, but if you try to pressure him, he'll go the opposite way just cause.

So it's not been a good time lately. But did I go to food? Nope. I was tempted at Starbucks yesterday morning eyeing those chocolate caramel muffins they have. It was one of the few times I actually consciously said "no, this isn't going to solve your problems," and left with my 2 pp skinny peppermint mocha.

I did indulge in a grilled cheese and clam chowder for lunch today, but I'd been thinking about it for awhile, so I'm ok with it.

Now I'm Christmas baking (I give cookie packages to co-workers) and watching the BLTs!

Here's hoping next week is better!

Myth of the TOM?

Ok girls, this one's for you. This post is not for guys. Reader beware and all that. So, every girl knows about TOM a.k.a. "Time of the Month". The dreaded week where all hell breaks loose in our bodies and those around us take cover and hide. It has been notorious for screwing up one's weight loss efforts due to bloating and water retention. We gain on a weekly weigh in, and all of a sudden it's "oh, it's TOM", or "oh, it's close to TOM, so I understand it". But is this in fact a valid reason for gaining? Is it impossible to have a loss during TOM?

It's not like I have scientific proof or anything, so hold back on the torches and pitchforks here, but I honestly think that the TOM phenomenon is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We give ourselves more liberties because of it. We "crave" bad food. We feel gross so we don't work out. Well, then is it really TOM's fault that we gain? No. I think that by leaning on that excuse we're giving ourselves a cushion if we gain. Rather than look at the true bottom line, we drag out the scapegoat TOM as proof of our lack of success that particular week. Not the poutine one ate, but rather TOM.

However, in my most current resurrection of WW fidelity, I have had losses on both TOMs I've had. Why? Well, likely because just like the week before that, and the week before that, I worked out, ate right, and drank a ton of water. Was it a huge loss? Not sure. Well, this week, I had just started and I lost 2.4 lbs. That's pretty good. I think the other time it was like 0.6 or 0.8 or something. Not huge, but still a loss.

Sure, our bodies do weird and wonderful things...so I'm not saying that TOM doesn't have an effect, and maybe during that time because of the hormones and crap, we are more likely to STS or gain, but blaming TOM after one spends a week lounging on the couch eating high carb, high sodium food (the typical "craving" foods) then one can't blame TOM. If you still eat right (for reals here), and keep to your activity, and drink A TON of water and you still gain? Well, then maybe TOM is the culprit. But don't give in to eating crap and not working out and then blame TOM. That's not fair to you or your body (or your mind for that matter, cause then you're not being truthful to yourself).

This has been posted lately by another WW'er (or similar anyway) about being On Plan and Off Plan...she argued that there's no such thing. You make decisions. Good and bad. If you make a bad decision then acknowledge it and move on. Don't pull the "woe is me" mentality. That's not helping anyone, least of all yourself. It's the same thing with TOM. Be realistic with yourself and don't rest on justifications of poor choices during a rough time of month.

/rant :) Some things to think about. Like my decisions today...cheese pizza for dinner. 2 slices for 10 pp...plus 2 pieces of garlic bread. Tracked and moving forward :)