I'm my own guinea pig...

Trying a few things right now.
1. Eliminating HFCS. Mostly packaged products that I don't eat a ton of...but I am watching for it now, and staying away from it.
2. Not counting calories. I am paying little attention to the number, but everything that goes in is (in my opinion) HEALTHY! Tons of fruit (probably more than I should eat). Lots of veggies. Homemade soups like always. I do find I am eating a lot though. Steady grazing. Not good.
3. Eliminating cheese and nuts for a bit. I miss you Cashew!
4. I have been a semi-vegetarian for 2 years. (for me, semi=NO land meat, but I still eat seafood and fish) I am reading a book called 'Eating Animals'. I am about half way through. With this, I am seriously considering increasing the scope to cover sea animals as well. I had to idea how many things ended up dying just to catch the one thing I end up eating. I also was unaware of the factory fish farming etc. Blissfully ignorant I guess. Just like my pre-veg days...being blind to where my food came from was convenient, so I chose not to seek further info. But now I know. This is a tough one though. I eat a lot of fish and shellfish now since I stopped eating landmeat. I really enjoy it. But I'm feel pretty strongly against eating things that have died, or against eating things that caused other things to die.Hm. I'll have to get back to you on this one. :(
5. Running a lot by default right now. Marathon is in a little over 2 weeks. Covering a lot of Kilometers.
6. Increasing intensity a bit at the gym on the workouts. More often, more weight. Not a ton, but definitley more. I can feel that I am a bit stronger in areas.

ALL this being said, I continue to gain weight efficiently and rapidly. This of course causes me to feel depressed and frustrated. Making me WANT to eat and making me NOT want to excercise. I'm feeling like I can't win! To be fair, I have not given myself or my body much time to settle in to this new system. I'll give it a bit more time. Even if I am gaining weight, I can feel a little (and I mean LITTLE) comfort in knowing I am fueling my body with lots of good and healthy food.

All this being said, I continue to put on weight.

Weekends are Impossible...period.

Every Friday I wake and say to myself...THIS weekend is giong to be different. By Saturday afternoon, I'm telling myself, yet again, that I will start fresh on Monday.
Seems that this 'thing' is stronger than me. I am watching the pounds creep back on, and as badly as I don't want it to happen, I feel powerless to stop it.
I am confident that there is no human on this earth that I could not 'out eat'. I seem to be able to start grazing at the point of waking, and continue to the point of sleeping 16 hours later, with intermittent feasting in between. I think I need miraculous intervention.

My response to Jack Sh*t's request for note cards...

Thought I would post my response to Jack Sh*t's blog request, since it took me a good portion of my work day to create! :)
to see the request, go here.....http://jackfit.blogspot.com/2010/05/taking-notes.html)

I'm Even Annoying Myself With This Obsession

Where the hell have I been? Well, in short...I fell off the wagon again. And fell quite hard. Again. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and continued on my merry way for a short while, only to fall off again. Food, health, weight, calories...they consume me. Honestly, it has come to a point where I even annoy myself. I want to just relax SO bad. I went to see my therapist. We talked a lot about this wee problem. In short, I'm nuts. Well, she was way too nice to say that, but I could tell that was what she was REALLY thinking. She said that if I could just relax about food, stop trying to 'diet' and deprive myself, my body and I would settle in to a happy place where we could simply be content and not constantly obsessing about what I am and am not eating, what I can and can not eat, when I can have what, who else is eating what...etc. I believe her. I believe that this issue is for sure about something else other than food. I try SO hard to figure out what that is. Every time I find myself craving something, or standing in front of the cupboard pouring corn syrup down my throat and hoping I don't get caught...I try and figure out what else is going on. But I can't figure it out. I have two GREAT super amazing sons that still love their Mom, I have a boyfriend that is so good to me and loves me very much, I am in good health (as in, I am not in poor health I don't think?), I have a job, I have an awesome dog, I have a good car and a small house. For sure, I have some crazy 'issues' too....but from the outside looking in...things don't look so bad? I have other issues for sure. But I can't connect them to the eating. I don't feel like I am connecting those dots when I am having food issues. I truly feel like my food issues are about the food! About the craving! About the desire to lose weight. About the desire to be fit and heathly. It just happens that I am a compulsive, all or nothning type personality. So everything I do, I do big or go home. I do want to just relax. I really do. But that is even scarier than the thought of going on like this. Just relax? If I do that, GAWD only knows what I will end up stuffing in my mouth, and how much I will weigh after a couple months. No way. Can't do it. Not gonna do it. But it's food for thought...or in my world, thought for food.

I noticed that while things were real bad...I didn't want to even see or think about my blog. I didn't want to end up on that dashboard page and see all the people I follow and their success. I didn't want to tell everyone (or all 3 people) that I failed again. I just wanted to, well, disappear I guess. I probably gained about 6 pounds over the past couple weeks (above and beyond my starting point!). Oh, and yes, I earned it. Making batches of toffee and not even sharing it with my family. Homemade ice cream. Pizza. DQ Blizzards (that's what started this whirlwind of eating actually) chip stand fries, Cadbury Minieggs...and the list goes on and on.

Today is a funny day. Yesterday was yet another 'start again' Monday. Today, I went to get on my scale. It was broken. Said I weighed 118, then 113, then 108, then 108 again. For a second I thought..wow, maybe I am one of those people who just THINKS I have an extra 15 pounds, but really I am super skinny! OMG, that would be AWESOME! Then I stepped of the scale and stood in front of the mirror. Nope. No such luck. Unless of course someone replaced my bathroom mirror with one of those circus mirrors...there is no way I am 108 pounds. Maybe if I chopped a leg off!

So I have no real idea how bad things are. I'm going to guestimate based on the past weighins...127-129. I'll confirm tomorrow if I get my scale fixed, or get a new one tonight. I just know that I deserve every ounce of extra weight I have gained in the past couple weeks. I know that it totally sucks to be starting over AGAIN from an even worse starting point then last time. And I know I need to get control of this obsession. I just don't know how.

That being said, I am now shopping for a new body fat/weight scale...anyone have the most super duper one ever that I should know about??