Ceres loses weight

The naughty June that was

2011-07-06T08:25:00.000-04:00

Well, June was a lot of fun and full of visits, but it was not a stellar eating month for me, let's put it that way. Not that I regret it, and I am actually impressed by some of my choices. My lowest for the month was 92.3kg (203.5lb), which I hit on the 11th, but it was uphill or steady after that.

First, I had my trip to Greece for my friend's wedding. That wasn't bad at all for me, and I think I might actually have lost some weight (it did help that many of my friends there were on a diet themselves, haha!). Then a good friend was graduating. That in itself is not fattening, but when her Greek mom comes for a visit and throws dinner parties full of yummy but greasy food, well, that's enough for the number on the scales to stop dropping. Add the graduation party where champagne was flowing and trays of canapes and sweets were served, and you get the picture. No regrets there; I don't get to taste such great food every day, and I won't beat myself up for having some of it when I find it. Then I had a trip to Cambridge, where I might have overeaten (and overdrunk), but what do you do when an Indian friend throws a party with home-cooked Indian food? Again, these circumstances don't arise every day.

A day after I got back from Cambridge, my parents came to visit, followed by lots of family from the US and Canada. The whole shenanigans lasted two weeks and my parents only left yesterday, so that was two weeks off plan, trying to make good food choices in the restaurants where we ate pretty much every day. It was much harder to limit my drinking, those people are serious drinkers!

In the aftermath of all this, I weighed 94kg this morning, which might be partly due to my period. July should be more quiet except for a couple of long weekends for a wedding and a conference, and I'm actually looking forward to going back to my daily eating routine. Hopefully I'll see a bigger drop in my weight in July, before I'm off to Greece for three weeks in August.

Okra, mmmm!!!

2011-06-10T08:33:00.001-04:00

I've been having some good eating days since I got back from Greece, and the scales have been rewarding. I weighed in this morning at 92.6kg (204.1lb), which is a "new new low". I will only get to "new lows" when I weigh below 83kg, which was the lowest I was back in October 2008, I've decided. Maybe I should be calling my lows this time "old new lows", but I said I'm keeping a positive attitude about the whole process, so there you go.

Generally speaking, the scales have been very easy to move downwards this time around, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm still in the beginning, or the food I eat is somehow different, or I drink more water, or I have more realistic expectations, or what. It's definitely not the exercise, because I haven't been to the gym in ages. I know, I know, I should get my ass moving, but right now I have the excuse that my eyes are healing from the operation, and that's my story! I do walk about 50min a day minimum, which covers a distance of about 3 miles, the distance from home to work and back. But that only exercises select muscles, and my upper body is not really getting any exercise. Either way, I vividly remember the frustration and disappointment at the scales back in 2008, and I'm getting none of this now. I'm bracing for tougher days once I get below 90kg, though, because I think that's the weight that my body has come to recognise as long-term. Think again, dear body, because you're not staying there this time. Ha, maybe that's the incentive that I need to hit the gym again, a nice, frustrating, nerve-wrecking plateau.

To change the subject completely, I found okra at my little neighbourhood supermarket the other day, and it got me so excited, that I bought two packs and cooked it the following day (yesterday). We eat lots of okra in Greece, and I remember it as a childhood food at my grandmother's house. We usually cook it in a tomato sauce with chicken, either in a pot or in the oven. From what I saw in the pack that I bought here, the cooking guidelines proposed to stir-fry it. And then it's a vegetable used in Indian cooking, so I'm sure they have yet more ways of preparing it. As for me, I'd already gotten two skinless chicken breasts, so two nights ago I had one of them stir-fried with vegetables (no noodles!) and last night I had the other one with okra, tomato sauce, onion and garlic as a one-pot dish (I'll put a recipe on soon, with all the details). Very yummy, but so filling that I couldn't finish the whole thing, so I'm having leftovers as lunch at work today.

Now, okra is a bit of an acquired taste, and lots of children hate it, because, admittedly, it's a bit slimy. It was not my favourite either, but I think I liked it more and more as I got older. It's a good thing that I like it, too, because it's really good for you! A very quick Google search told me that just a cup has 3.2gr of fibre, which is a l-o-t. That probably explained why a plate of it filled me up like that, too. It's got practically no fat, and it's loaded with calcium and various vitamins (A, B6, C) and other good stuff (magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, just to name a few). And it is, of course, very low in calories (just 30 calories per cup, which is about 100 grams). I'm hoping to find it in my supermarket more often, as this was the first time I spotted it!

My boyfriend is coming for the weekend tonight, and we're having steak with oven-roasted potatoes and salad. So I'm not expecting rewards from the scales tomorrow, but I'm so glad he's coming, that the scales are on the back-burner. I'll eat in moderation over the weekend, and next week I'll just go back to normal again.

May summary

2011-06-02T05:17:00.000-04:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in what seems like ages (not that I haven't done that before). I have been checking other blogs, though, and I'm still very much trying to eat sensibly and lose weight, so it has been more or less business as usual.

May was a pretty eventful month. I had all these friends visit (combined, they stayed for over a week), and I've already blogged about that. The weekend after my friends were gone, I went down to my boyfriend's town for three days and had my eyes lasered! So now no more glasses and eye contacts for me, and I'm ready to splash out on designer sunglasses! It has now been almost two weeks, and my eyes are healing very well. The optometrists tell me I have more than 20/20 vision on both eyes, and I am all around very happy with the procedure and the result, to the point that I'm wondering why I didn't do it all those years!

It was not easy to balance healthy and low-calorie eating with socialising and showing off Edinburgh's culinary delights to my friends (not to mention the alcohol), or being away from home and having my boyfriend cook me meals (delicious in many ways!), but I managed as well as I could. At the end of the day, the weight did go down. After my bad weigh-in on Monday the 9th (after the weekend's debauchery with my friend), I just went back to my usual eating habits, and the weight just kept falling, little by little.

My lowest weigh-in was last Thursday, the 26th, when the scales showed 93.2kg (205.5lb). I haven't seen that number since, but there are good reasons for that: a friend visiting town and taking me out on a big dinner (where I skipped dessert), my boyfriend coming to stay for a long weekend that involved some overeating and overdrinking (but also LOTS and LOTS of walking against some pretty crazy wind), and now this 6-day trip to Greece, where I'm inevitably eating more (and loving it). It's not like I'm binging on my own, and I am eating healthy foods (like wild mountain greens, or "horta") that I cannot find back in the UK. I'm still eating in moderation (yesterday I stopped eating lunch when I was still hungry, because I knew I was having some coffee cake later, and probably a bigger dinner than normal), but I'm afraid it's not little enough to lose any weight. I'll know I'll get back to my eating routine when I go back home, and for now I'm just enjoying myself, thank you very much.

I have learnt that the pounds do not accumulate because of these small deviations, they accumulate because of the mindless eating I do when I'm on my own. To be fair, these deviations make it hard to stick to goals and deadlines for losing a certain amount of weight within a certain amount of time. But I'm not doing that. I am trying to follow a sustainable plan which I can stick to for many years, if that's how long it takes to lose the weight. I might have to stick to this forever, if I am to maintain the lost weight, anyway. So I am taking a relaxed attitude, and I know that when I'm back home I'll just go back to business as usual.

When social life gets in the way

2011-05-10T13:41:00.001-04:00

On Friday morning (five days ago), I weighed in at 95.3kg, which was the lowest I've weighed in a long time. But on Friday a friend came to visit, and two more came on Sunday afternoon. My eating on Friday was alright, we went for sushi (and got served ice cream at the end, which was a mistake, but my friend wanted to keep it anyway, and I didn't refuse). I did have lots of beer though, so Saturday morning I weighed 95.5kg. On Saturday I had another ok eating day, but my drinking was out of control. So Sunday morning I weighed 95.9kg. And Sunday I both ate and drunk much more than usual. Verdict: on Monday, which is when my friend left (the other two friends are still here), the scales showed 96.4kg. Ouch!

Honestly, it's behind me. Situations such as these are bound to arise, and although they might temporarily disrupt a downwards trend in my weight, they will not stop my weight loss. I need to learn to live with them, and pick up where I left the next day. In this case, I did the best I could, and it could have been lots worse. To some extent, I could not avoid two big meals on Sunday, because it was a social affair. I also could not avoid staying in a pub for hours drinking beer. I did switch from pints to half-pints of beer, but it didn't feel right to go for diet coke when my friend was downing one beer after the next (damn Dutch drinkers!). I also switched to water after some point, when I felt full. This would not have happened in the past, so yay me!

Yesterday I had a good eating day, despite a business dinner, which usually means lots of food and drink. I had my regular breakfast, soup with bread for lunch (I skipped the butter), and fish with vegetables (and a slice of bread) for dinner at the restaurant. I skipped the wine, shared my appetiser with the group, and also skipped the dessert. It was really good behaviour, and it paid off, because today I weighed back down at 95.9kg. I've been doing equally well so far today, but there's a little question mark about dinner tonight (another business-type occasion), because I'm not sure what the menu will look like in the place we're going. Also, I anticipate some whisky drinking tonight, but I will try to keep it in check.

I've mentioned that I have bought one of those fancy TANITA scales that show all sorts of measurements (fat, water, muscle mass, etc), in addition to actual weight. I've recently started paying attention to those other numbers, although I'm not sure how accurate they actually are. Anyway, according to my scales, my fat percentage was 40.1% this morning, and this is the lowest number I've seen since I started paying attention to that measurement. This is in the obese category, and I would like to drop it to 30%, which would be in the normal range. I'm also a 7 in the visceral fat measurement, which apparently is "normal" (anything below 12 is normal). If this is accurate, and that's a big IF, then it's great, because visceral fat is really what's associated with the health risks of obesity. Visceral fat is the fat surrounding the vital organs and the stomach, so large amounts of it can be really dangerous. To be honest, I knew that I have a much slimmer upper body (except for my boobs, that's another story...) and most of my weight is below my stomach. So the good news is that my weight is probably not as great a danger to my health as its value alone might suggest. But that number is still going down, down, down!

Roadtrip update

2011-05-04T17:40:00.000-04:00

I feel pretty boring and bored these days, like I have nothing interesting to say, and not much interests me. I have all these disorganised thoughts that I would like to blog about, and I can't seem to put everything in my head into complete sentences that make sense. Work and private life are on my mind a lot too, it's not just the weight loss.

I came back from my roadtrip, satisfied that I'd done pretty well eating-wise overall, with a few slipups that are to be expected and forgiven on the spot. The following morning the scale showed 95.9kg, which was half a kilo less than my last weigh-in, so that felt really nice. Today I weighed in at 95.7kg, after a stellar eating day yesterday. This is, in theory, a new low since I started being mindful of my eating and counting calories again. It feels odd to call it that, though. This is still so much higher than my low of 83kg back in October 2008... I don't know how I let myself gain all this weight back, and it makes me really angry and sad to think about it; I wish I could just go back to that weight instantly and pick up where I left... Sadly, it doesn't work that way! Still, it could be worse, I suppose, and I just need to concentrate on the fact that I have control again, and the weight is going down and staying down this time around, no matter how long it takes.

So how come I lost half a kilo during a roadtrip? Well, I think it's safe to say that I didn't, and that my last weigh-in was a bit blown up by all the bloating and water retention. But still, I definitely didn't gain any weight. What did I do?

It's really simple, if I think about it. I stopped eating before I was completely full. I enjoyed every bite of food, but I didn't obsess over it. I didn't have much booze (although I suspect that was because the rest of the people I was with were not big drinkers). Did I mention that I stopped eating before I was completely full? I tried to go for healthy and fiber-rich options for breakfast (cereal and milk, which is what I have every day anyway). I did splurge on the last day and got some fruit salad and a croissant, some toast, and a little raisin thingy with it, so it's not like a was a saint the whole time. I avoided snacking in the car (which was hard, and I did give in a number of times, and had a few pieces of chocolate). I didn't finish my lunch on any occasion. That was easier than I would have thought, because on two occasions I had a huge baked potato with chilli, and I felt reasonably full half-way through it, at which point I simply put the fork down and stopped. On Sunday we had a huge lunch (Sunday roast), and by the time it was time for dinner, I wasn't hungry. So I insisted on not really eating a whole portion. My friends made some pasta, and I had a really small amount, mostly to taste it (it was pasta made by an Italian, after all!), be social and unoffending. It was just as much as I needed to go to sleep feeling comfortable, not hungry, not full. Also, during the trip I tried not to snack in-between meals, especially when the food offered was not fruit. Usually I snack quite a bit in-between lunch and dinner. It just works that way for me. I usually grab a sandwich for lunch and then have two pieces of fruit and a yogurt in-between lunch and dinner. But in the trip, I knew that the meals would be bigger than what I would be having at home, and the snacks were usually not particularly low-fat/healthy. And even though when I had dinner on my own at the airport I ate the chips that came with my sandwich (chips = french fries in this country) and I had a beer, the scale was forgiving the next day.

I weighed myself yesterday, looked at the number on the scale and thought "I guess this is what 'normal' people do, this is how they eat to maintain their weight, this is business as usual for them". For me, it's freaking hard to put the fork down when there's still food on the plate and I'm still not completely full. And it's really hard to resist food offered to me by someone else, even if I'm not hungry. But it's what I need to learn how to do. I need to teach myself to be comfortable when not completely full, and to not eat unless I'm hungry.

Last time around, it made me really nervous to not count calories, and I think that, subconsciously, not counting was an excuse to overeat. This time around, I want to train myself to not rely on a calorie counter. I want to learn how to eat from scratch, paying close attention to what my body is telling me. When my body is hungry, I need to feed it with wholesome food. When it's not hungry anymore, I should stop. I shouldn't let it have to tell me that it's full, because by then it's too late.

I won't stop counting calories or anything, it's a good benchmark for me, and I am not ready yet to go without the counter and the accountability that comes with it. But I will try to use the occasions on which it's hard to count calories as training ground for what will follow this stage of the weight loss process; I will use those occasions to form the habits that I will need to have for the rest of my life.

It will be really hard to make these habits second nature to me, but I am convinced that this is what I have to do in order for the weight to not come back again after some time or some trigger. I feel more mature this time around, and, having gone down this path once before, there are a few things I would like to change in my approach. This is number 1: eat when you're hungry, stop eating before you're full. This is probably the harderst part of losing the weight and keeping it off. But it's oh so worth it!

One month passed, and trip coming up

2011-04-28T07:03:00.000-04:00

I was planning to have a quiet night yesterday, but some friends called and arranged to go to Chinese Hot Pot with them. Hot Pot is a pretty fun experience, and I'm convinced you end up eating less, because it takes so much more time! Plus the food is all cooked in a broth, so it's not fatty or anything like that, as long as you go easy on the peanut sauce, of course. I had enough to feel not hungry, maybe even slightly full, but stopped right there. Then we went back to my place for cocktails. I had two champagne glasses of rum mixed with ice, strawberries and lime, which was delicious and very light. They got some really fatty-looking chocolate ice cream, but I only had a teaspoon of it, to taste. Overall, I'm happy with myself.

Unfortunately, I woke up this morning feeling dehydrated and bloated, and the scales showed 96.4kg. So this is only a 1kg loss for the first month. Actually, I *could* say that it's two kilos, because I weighed 98.4 on 29th March, but oh well. It's still a loss, and I'll take it. It feels good to manage to lose weight with all the social happenings this past month.

Tonight I'm leaving again for the long weekend; I'm going on a roadtrip to Bath and other places with some friends from my boyfriend's town! So I won't be able to have direct control or weigh myself for the next 4 days. I will try to be on good behaviour: go easy on the alcohol, avoid desserts, eat enough to not be hungry but not more. I hope the scale will be forgiving.

Have a good weekend everyone!

End of month update, and social life

2011-04-27T07:28:00.000-04:00

Since I started counting calories and losing weight (again), it seems like I'm always away from home doing stuff that makes it hard for me to keep tab of what I eat. I have decided to take a relaxed perspective, enjoy social life, without losing sight of the fact that I want the weight to come off. The reason I got to be the weight that I am is not social eating and drinking, I don't think. It's the mindless eating when I'm alone, it's the huge amounts of food that I consume when I'm not thinking, it's the wrong, fatty foods that taste so good and provide consolation after a hard day. So my plan is: I try to be really good about my eating on those routine weekdays, and then try to be careful on social occasions, without becoming obsessed with all my bites. So far, I think I'm doing quite well!

Right after I started counting calories, I left home (and my kitchen and bathroom scales) to go spend ten days with my boyfriend, who lives in another town. I think that I did really well while I was there, with a couple of slips which occurred when we were invited to BBQs or went on a picnic and then spent hours drinking beers. After I got back, I only spent five days at home, before I had to go to a conference in London. I also spent the weekend before the conference visiting friends in Oxford, which was also a social situation in which it would be easy to overeat. I think I did pretty well there as well: I ate enough to not be hungry, but not enough to be full, and I didn't drink much alcohol. I did less well in the conference. I think I was stressed and frustrated (as I often get with my work), and just ate without thinking. It didn't even taste that good. Thank god that only lasted for a couple of days, and I still displayed some good behaviour (didn't drink much at all, and skipped a really fatty, chocolaty dessert in the big conference dinner). Could have gone better, could have gone lots worse.

Then I got back home and continued my daily calorie-counting and planning. But the weekend came, and it was Greek Easter, and I was not about to ruin Greek Easter by measuring portions and all that. I am still proud of myself, because I didn't have any alcohol on Easter day, and I kept away from fatty stuff and starch. I skipped breakfast on Easter day, because I knew there was a feast coming. Later that day, I had a whole lot of grilled meat, which I thoroughly enjoyed (nobody grills like the Greeks!). I did also have dessert though, a big piece of a really tasty half-baked chocolate cake that I made (had that on Saturday night post-church late dinner, and a little more on Easter day), some Greek sweetbread that I also made (oh my god, it was so good!), and a traditional Greek syrupy dessert that a friend made and which I found hard to decline (more for social reasons than anything else; I would hate to insult her by not having a piece. But I politely declined a second serving, which most other people had). All things considered, I did rather well, although I know it might not sound that way, with all those desserts! I did eat more than I probably should if I want to lose weight, but I didn't eat to the point where I was uncomfortably full. I remember back in 2008, when I was counting calories again and celebrated Greek Easter in the US, I had gone completely overboard and was in physical pain after that feast. It was not like that this time, I stopped before that happened. So, in my book, this is a victory. A small one, but still a victory.

Greek Easter didn't even show in my scales. I weighed 95.9kg on Easter Monday, which is the lowest I've weighed this month (well, I weighed 95.5kg mid-day last week, but I'm forgetting about that, because I was probably low on water when I jumped on the scales). I weighed 96.5kg on Tuesday and 96.2kg today. Tomorrow it will be a month since I first weighed myself (after a looooong break). I guess it won't be a spectacular loss for the first month, but I don't really care. Even if I lose one kilo every month, it's better than the alternative. Fortunately May seems less socially intense, so that should help a bit too.

Feeling nervous

2011-04-14T03:48:00.000-04:00

I weighed in today at 96.5kg, so that's a nice steady loss. I must have eaten less than I thought last week at my boyfriend's place, and now the scales are cooperating, I guess.

I'm less happy about how I feel overall, though. I felt quite weak yesterday. I think I let myself go hungry because I spent more time than I thought at work, and as I walked home at night I felt a bit frail. It is clear to me that I should make sure I get enough exercise to prevent muscle loss.

What worries me more is that my bowel movement is still not good. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong; I'm eating very similarly to how I ate back in 2008, when I had no such issues. I'm sure the trip didn't help, I'm just wondering whether I'm adjusting slowly or whether I should go pay a visit to my doctor. I hope that the exercise will help here as well.

Well, I'm off to my Pilates class soon! I'm very curious how sore I will be afterwards! :-p

A good day

2011-04-13T06:08:00.001-04:00

Yes! After more than two weeks, I looked at something more substantial than 100gr worth of loss today. I weighed in at 96.7kg, so that's 700gr less than at the end of March. Given that I got my period today too, I think that's pretty good.

Yesterday I had a very good eating day, starting with milk and cereal for breakfast, ham sandwich and a yogurt for lunch, an orange and an apple later, and pan-fried salmon on a bed of spinach for dinner.Today will probably be similar, except that I'll probably cook chicken for dinner.

I've also booked myself for a Pilates class at the gym for tomorrow morning! I haven't gone to a Pilates class in years (since I was in the US), so I am really curious to see if it's any different on this side of the pond, and whether my body remembers the positions. I do anticipate lots of pain, though, but it's all for the best!

Back home and readjusting

2011-04-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

I came back home last night, and jumped on the scales today very eager, after 11 days in waiting. The result: 97.3kg. So not exactly a big change. Two weeks ago I weighed 97.4kg, although I weighed more than that in the three days that followed.

I was actually pretty satisfied with the number I saw. My eating days during the visit with my boyfriend were mostly quite good, and I made a lot of small changes by greatly decreasing my alcohol intake, the mindless snacking and the odd dessert. I only had two "bad" eating days, and those were in the past weekend. On Saturday we spent most of the day in a barbecue at a friend's place, and I stuffed myself with meat, but also potato salad, potato chips (or crisps, as they call them here), a banana with melt chocolate (oh-my-god-it-was-so-delicious), and, unfortunately, some doughnut holes, a little cake and about half of a doughnut. Oh, and three large beers. And a gin tonic later that night. So it was definitely not a great weight-losing day, but I enjoyed every minute of it, and, to be honest, I could have had at least a couple more beers, and much more food.

Then on Sunday we went on a little day-trip and packed a picnic which included sandwiches, prosecco and some olives. We bought some fruit and, unfortunately, some lime-flavoured Doritos. This all would still have been fine, but then we also had a few beers (three pints of Weissbier, to be exact) and dinner there. I think I did ok in terms of food, except for the Doritos; I calculated the next day that I ate about 500 calories in Doritos, which was stupid on my part, and could have been avoided (except that it's really hard when the bag is at arm's length and you're hungry). Worse than that, though, I had A LOT to drink. The prosecco and the beers combined were just short of 1000 calories! So that day was a caloric disaster. But, still: I didn't eat half of my sandwich because I realised I was full. Our dessert was fresh fruit, which was great. And I left about two thirds of my dinner untouched, because I felt full already (and the chicken pie I ordered had about a pound of chicken in it). Even counting in the Doritos, if I hadn't drunk any alcohol, it would have been a fine eating day. But I don't have any regrets. I had an amazing Sunday, it will be a day that I'll remember very fondly! Also, being away from home and my scales for 11 days and managing so well (except for the last weekend) is pretty good, I think!

There is one thing I am worried about, and it has to do with my intestinal function, which seems to have gone out of whack, and I'm not clear why. It might have been the change in eating, combined with the trip, but I'm not used to such issues. I will try to increase my fiber intake this week and see what happens.

I have to say that it was nice spending time with my boyfriend, but I am also glad to be back to my old routine (and my own house, and my own bed and bathroom). I'll be sad to have my dinner alone in the evening, but I'll be glad to have more control over it.

I'm toying with the idea of hitting the gym sometime soon, maybe even tomorrow morning. Honestly, I don't know why I'm writing about it and not doing something about it! I haven't been to the gym since November, and I'm feeling a little... I don't know, a little embarrassed about going again. It's really stupid, and I know that once I get the routine back, it will be really easy to just add it to my daily schedule again. But right now it is one of those things that seem really hard from a distance (and then you try them and they're not so bad at all). So I should just go, I reckon.

That's me starting my third week of calorie-counting, and I'm feeling great about it!

Away from home: day 6

2011-04-06T05:57:00.000-04:00

I've been doing alright, and I think that overall I am satisfied with myself on the eating front.

Yesterday I had some leftover pasta for lunch, a cappuccino, and then two half-pints of delicious beer in a pub where we went after my boyfriend left work, followed by two delicious fajitas with homemade guacamole. I could have swapped the beer for diet coke at the pub, I guess, but I really felt like a beer, and it was within my caloric budget. If I could change something, I probably would have had less guacamole, and probably skip the cream entirely. But the thing is that I haven't had proper guacamole since I moved to this country, and I made it myself, so I knew exactly what had gone into it. I'm feeling well because even though there was chocolate eclair for dessert, I didn't have any, and I didn't follow the others (my boyfriend and his flatmate) into having a glass of wine with dinner. I had water and had some tea after dinner.

Today I had cereal and milk for breakfast, and this is shaping up to be a nice, warm spring day, so I think I nice long walk to the stores and the town is in order!

My goals this time

2011-04-05T08:05:00.000-04:00

Do I have a target weight? A dream weight? I guess I do. I still want to reach 65 kg at some point, but I don't care about when. My target for the time being is to reach 75 kg, but in my head there is an even more immediate target, which is to go to 83kg, which was my all-time low back in 2008. I don't know how long it will take me to get there, and I don't really care. Yes, it's a target, but I won't allow it to put any pressure on me. What I want to make sure is that any weight that comes off me, is off for damn good.

This time, I want to focus on behavioural change, because I am fully convinced that if I don't manage to do that, any success in numbers will be short-lived. Behavioural change has to do with day-to-day small changes which amount to big and permanent results. These little goals are easier to keep track of than some far-away target weight to be reached by some target date in the far-off future. When I say behavioural change, I mean:

Stop eating before being full. Not even comfortably full. I want to be able to stop eating when I still feel just a little bit hungry, when I still have the urge to keep eating. That's because it takes time for your brain to realise that you are full, so you could be eating and think that you are still hungry, even though you are not really. This is extremely hard, I know; everything in our minds and bodies pushes us to eat until we are full, if not too full. But this is what needs to change for me to make sure that I keep any weight off.
Limit alcohol consumption. Since I moved to the UK, I have definitely increased how much I drink. It's amazing how much more socially acceptable it is to get absolutely s***-faced in this country, compared to the US (and Greece, even). Not that I get s***-faced very often, I can hold my drink remarkably well, but I am definitely drinking more than I used to. So my goal is to drink about one glass of wine with meals (that's when I eat with others who ask for wine. I don't drink on my own, usually.), and when I have cocktails, limit them to a couple (per day, on the days that I drink, which tend to be the weekends).
Avoid desserts like the plague, except if it's raw fruit. Seriously, by the time dessert comes on the table, I am usually pretty full anyway. And desserts are usually full of stupid calories. There will be cases, of course, when I will have dessert, I know that. And when I do, it will be because the dessert is mouth-watering and it's something that I will remember in a long time, something that I would really hate giving up. On those (rare) occasions, I will enjoy every bite and not feel bad for having it. A great dessert is not the reason why my whole effort will go to waste, as long as I don't have it very often. Again, this is a non-issue when I eat alone, but it might require some effort when I dine with friends.
Never have seconds, unless they are veggies. In general, I usually don't count the veggies that I consume, because the effort to figure out the calories is just not worth it. The calories are negligible, and I give myself incentive to eat more veggies. I count any oil/butter/fat that goes in them, obviously.
Eat really slowly. I find that this has really big payoffs, and it's not emphasised enough in all the weight-loss sites and resources. I want to take my time with every single meal, appreciate every bite, and not think about other things, or the seconds that I am not allowed to have. I want to be the last one on the table to finish their meal.
Treat this behaviour as permanent, not something that I will give up on anytime soon. Which means that I need to be realistic. I was very good about this last time around, so it should not be too hard to repeat what I did back then, in terms of daily caloric consumption.
Not focus on the tree and lose sight of the forest. I count calories because it helps me to stay on track, but I need to learn how to eat healthily and on-plan without a calorie-counting application. Never should I avoid eating a healthy meal just because it will be hard to find caloric information about it. I should eat it and enjoy it! Nor should I beat myself up about having eaten something that's not easy to log in my calorie counter. I should try to be honest and give approximate information about the calories that I consume, but I should remember to give myself a break whenever I feel that I am becoming obsessed with the counting. Ten calories more or less will not make a difference in the long-run.This is obvious to me now, but it's not so obvious when you are really "in the zone" and focussed on the scales and your calorie log. This change should help with feelings of exhaustion and frustration further down the road, and also with the boredom of consuming the same foods all the time.
Focus on achievements, not setbacks. I will pay attention and be proud of every little change that I make. Last night, for example, I had one glass of wine with dinner. My boyfriend had three over the course of the night. I easily could have followed him, but I didn't. Yay me! I will also be forgiving of setbacks, or "unexpected deviations" from plan. I will not reject a dinner invitation because I'm afraid it will involve too much food. I will deal with it, the way any normal weight person would. This is necessary for this to be a long-term effort.
Keep moving. I don't want to set any more exercise goals at this time, although I might do that later down the road. For now, I just want to make sure I take a decent walk at least once a day.

This is a rough roadplan for the future. I am learning (again) how to eat less than I consume, and be able to keep it up for a while. Hopefully I will succeed this time. Even if I decide to settle at a higher weight, whatever I lose this time will never come back.

Weight loss gets both easier and harder over time

2011-04-05T07:04:00.000-04:00

When I tried to lose weight back in 2008, I learnt some important lessons. Now I can also see that I went about it the wrong way in some respects, and the right way in many others. I hope that these lessons will make my efforts more successful (long-term) this time around.

First of all, and this is the good news, I found out that losing weight, or at least maintaining a lifestyle which will result in weight loss sooner or later, can be surprisingly easy after some time. The beginning is hard, either way you cut it. Planning ahead is challenging and calorie counting takes up a lot of time and energy. You are initially hungry because you have to eat less than you are used to, and sometimes your eating plan interferes with social life. For me, it meant that I had to cut down on alcohol consumption (in the weekends, because I was never a big drinker in the week) and eating out. But once I got into "the zone" and developed a sort of routine, at least for the weekdays, I was not really hungry. I remember that I was very content after my weeknight dinners, and the foods that I consumed were quite standard, so that even in terms of organisation, it became much easier with time. I educated myself, found out which foods worked for me, cooked and prepared healthy meals, and, all things considered, it was much easier than I initially thought, and it got less time-consuming as time passed.

Nevertheless, losing weight is really hard, and aspects of it do not get easier with time. In fact, losing weight might become harder as time passes, for a number of reasons. This is first of all because as you become smaller, your body requires less energy, and so, if you eat the same amount as before, you should expect the pounds to fall more slowly. So I guess you should adjust your caloric intake or the amount you exercise, which might have a psychological effect, if you're used to a certain amount of food or a certain portion size (or exercise regime). But I don't think that this is the main reason that weight loss becomes harder with time; sure, thinner people need fewer calories to get by compared to overweight people, but I don't think that difference is very big, at least not for the weight range that I am looking at.

The thing is, losing weight is a very slow process, and it requires a lot of patience and a taste for working hard with no noticeable immediate result, sometimes over a prolonged period of time. I think that this is what makes it harder over time. If you start with a certain stock of patience and you don't renew it, you are in trouble, sooner or later. During your weight loss journey, your weight might go up and the scales will be stubborn for no obvious reason. It might just be your body adjusting to the new weight, or retaining water, or whatever. Sometimes my weight went slightly up before I hit a new low. It doesn't matter! I found that in the beginning, I wasn't expecting much, so I took these temporary setbacks really well. As I progressed, I became more and more eager to lose weight, and I progressively lost patience with the scales. It was a bit like I became "addicted" to seeing new lows on the scale, and when they didn't come when I expected them to, it would just ruin my mood. Sure, I had lost a lot of weight and people left and right were noticing, but it was not enough. Instead of focusing on achievements, I focused on how it was becoming less and less likely that I would reach my target goal within a target date. Targets are good, but they should provide a general plan, not rule your spirit or define your effort. Focusing on targets might be bad if not meeting them makes you feel like a failure, because feeling like a failure is not a good companion to losing weight. It is very easy to lift your arms in the air and say "screw this, I don't need this extra source of frustration in my life", when you feel like a failure, especially when other aspects of your life are not going very well either. So it is very important to remind yourself of all your achievements, your little and big successes, and all the way you've come from the first day you stepped on the scales and decided that it was time to do something about that number you saw.

Related to that, and another aspect of weight loss that definitely does not get easier over time, is social eating. I felt it was becoming harder and harder for me, as time progressed, to bother with calorie counting when people invited me over for dinner, or when I was out dining. I lost patience over time, it was just too hard and too frustrating. It felt a bit like I was a special needs citizen, like I was sick and needed special treatment. I was simply really tired of it. I think that the mistake here is to agonise over being exact when you count calories, and losing the main goal, which is to eat a reasonable portion, avoid extras and super fatty stuff, and limit alcohol. Also, to a certain extent, to be forgiving to yourself for occasionally eating more than you normally would. It doesn't mean that you are a failure, or that your eating plan is out of the window, and it is not inevitable to go back to your old ways (and your old weight). You are not a failure if you eat more than you planned or more than you usually do when you are in a social setting. It is only normal. Everybody has an extra pound or two after Christmas and New Year's, for god's sake! Enjoy the food without a hint of bad feelings, try to avoid too many excesses, and then go back to your plan with your next meal.

This time around, I have set a few goals for myself, based on these lessons. But I am writing another post on that, this post is already too long.

Away from home: day 5

2011-04-05T06:32:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update: I had a very good eating day yesterday: had porridge and coffee for breakfast, leftover roast chicken for lunch, a banana and an orange, afternoon tea, some strawberries, and sea-bass fillet with roast potatoes and salad for dinner. I cooked this recipe from Epicurious, and it was a big success. I will definitely repeat it. It was simple, quick and easy, and very-very healthy! My boyfriend loved it too! :-)

I also wanted to say that it is sort of liberating, in a strange sense, to not have access to a scale. I hope that, when I am back home in a week, the scale won't be unforgiving. But for now, I am just doing the best that I can, and that feels pretty good!

Away from home: weekend update

2011-04-04T08:20:00.001-04:00

It is not easy to not plan or cook my meals myself, but I need to know how to live and lose weight like that, so I am not beating myself up about it, or about being less than perfectly exact when it comes to calorie counting while I am far from home.

The rest of Friday was very good, both eating- and exercise-wise. After lunch, I went to Starbucks and had tea. In the evening, I had one mojito before dinner. My boyfriend had two of them, but I paced myself. We ordered some focaccia bread at the bar, because we had to wait until our table was ready, and we were both quite hungry. They brought four small rolls, and I had just one (my boyfriend ate happily the other three), without dipping them in olive oil. In the seafood restaurant where we ended up going, I stayed away from the "hearty" dishes (such as fish pie or clam chowder) and had mussles in tomato and oregano instead. I've had better meals, but at least it was quite healthy. Breaking from habit, we did not order a bottle of wine, but had one glass each instead.

In terms of exercise, I walked a l-o-t on Friday. I counted around 8 miles minimum, which is much more than I normally walk. Most of it was brisk, too.

Saturday was another day with lots of walking, probably somewhere around 5-6 miles. We had a very late breakfast/lunch in a pub, where I ordered a small steak sandwich made with ciabatta bread, accompanied by a couple of salad leaves. My boyfriend had a pint of beer, I had coffee. Then we went shopping and walked for quite a bit before sitting down for a coffee break (well, he had coffee and a piece of shortbread, I had a cup of tea). In the late afternoon I met a friend of mine for a cocktail. I was really hungry by that time, so in addition to a cocktail I had a little bowl of cashews. Those were very rich, obviously, but I was really hungry and needed the energy after all the walking. After a long walk home, my boyfriend cooked dinner for me, which was three jumbo shrimps oven-roasted with a breadcrumb-lemon mix, followed by a pan-fried sea bass fillet on a bed of spinach, tomatoes and capers, served with potatoes which were oven-roasted with oil and milk. We had some prosecco (I had three glasses of that, ouch! :-)). The summary of the day was that I let myself go too long without a meal, so that attacking the cashews was inevitable, and that I also had more alcohol than normal. But, still, it could have been much worse, and I still behaved differently than I would have just a couple of weeks ago. For example, I did not have a drink after dinner (my boyfriend had three gin tonics while I collapsed on the couch fast asleep and very tired from all the walking), nor did I share a late-night snack with my boyfriend (who had cheese and crackers at some point while I was asleep). Dinner felt quite light, and when I dragged myself to bed (after the sleeping session on the couch), my stomach felt quasi-empty, which is always a good feeling when one goes to bed.

I did less well yesterday. The plan was to go have brunch in this really nice restaurant, but that went out of the window when they told us that they no longer did brunch. But we were already out of the house and hungry, so we went to this other place and ordered a full English breakfast. It was so greasy that I could feel my arteries clogging as I ate! I ended up only eating half of it, so I had two eggs, two slices of bacon with roasted tomatoes and mushrooms, and half a slice of toast. I left behind one and a half slices of toast (buttered, obviously), and two big sausages with beans and sauce on top. I was pretty full even after only eating half of what was in front of me.

We didn't really eat for the rest of the day, until dinner time, but didn't really move much either, so we were not very hungry. We expected people to come dine with us, and prepared a feast of roast chicken with roast vegetables (carrots and parsnips) and potatoes (oh my god, they were delicious!), stuffing, boiled broccoli and, of course, gravy. I had a regular portion and stayed away from seconds (well, maybe I grabbed a little more chicken). Also, I skipped dessert, while the others had rhubarb crumble. I had some white wine, I think around two to three glasses. I also had two gin tonics, one before and one after dinner. So, overall, I think I ate more than I should if I want to lose weight within a reasonable amount of time. But then, it was Sunday, I was with friends, and I did make an effort by skipping dessert, not taking seconds, and probably drinking less wine than I could have. I was full, but not stuffed, which is one level more (on the hunger scale) than I aim to be when I finish eating, but definitely not as bad as it could have been. I guess if I had to do it again, I would do away with the last gin tonic, probably have one less glass of wine, but, other than that, I wouldn't change anything else. I think I did my best given the circumstances, and I am allowing for this sort of social eating every once in a while.

Today is a new day and a new week, second week of counting calories. I started the day with some oatmeal with milk and some coffee. Now it's lunchtime and I'm quite hungry, so I think I will eat some of last night's chicken leftovers, and then get out of the house and go for a little walk and some grocery shopping. More tomorrow.

Away from home: day 1

2011-04-01T06:45:00.004-04:00

I arrived at my boyfriend's place yesterday evening, and it's been going well so far!

This is the summary of my eating behaviour yesterday:
I had my regular breakfast, and then had soup for lunch. It was Moroccan chicken soup this time, which is very tasty, and it was served with about a quarter of a baguette and lots of butter. I forgot about the butter again, and ate about two thirds of the bread with my soup. I think I did pretty well!

Later on, when I got a little peckish again, I ate a banana. Not bad for a healthy snack.

I was on the plane when hunger hit again, and this time I was fully prepared with an orange and a largish whole wheat cream cracker (leftover pack from some trip to Greece, and they are really good for snacking, except one can easily get carried away and have one cracker too many. Each one is 50 calories, so a little can go a long way with these crackers). Another brownie point for staying away from calorie-rich snacks at the airport and on board.

Then I arrived at my destination, and by the time my boyfriend and I sat down to eat, I was pretty hungry. I knew that this would be the trickiest part of the day. We went to a pub that serves really good Thai food, and I had green chicken curry with rice. We also ordered some prawn crackers. The whole dinner was delicious! I think I did pretty well! First, I paced myself with the crackers, and let my boyfriend have the bulk of what we had on the table. Second, as I had planned, I didn't have a pint of beer, I got a diet coke instead. Finally, I did not finish what was on my plate, and that was by far the hardest part, because the food was really good, I was really hungry when I started eating, and I totally could have finished my meal. I didn't leave much behind, just a small piece of chicken and a couple of tablespoons of rice, but I still think that it was a pretty important behavioural change on my part. Sure, I don't think I saved a whole lot of calories by doing that, but combine that with the fact that I didn't get a beer, didn't snack at the airport (although I was peckish), and my snacks were just fruit and a cracker, and I think that I did pretty well!

Today we had oatmeal (porridge) for breakfast, which is pretty much as healthy as it gets, and now I'm about to go grab a sandwich from Pret-a-manger, with a cup of miso soup, for lunch. Dinner will be tricky again, because we are going for cocktails and then a brasserie dinner. My goal for tonight is to stay away from fries and dessert, and avoid any dish which is a calorie bomb (e.g. anything with tons of cream or cheese).

Let's see how it goes!

Keeping it up during a trip

2011-03-31T07:17:00.000-04:00

Weighed myself today: 98kg. It will go down eventually, I'm sure!

I'm leaving town for ten days, visiting my boyfriend. I'm a little nervous, because we always drink too much when we're together, and alcohol has so many calories! He's also one of those lucky people who's always hungry, can eat three big meals a day plus snacks and still be slim. So I don't know how to keep up the good work of the past three days without a scale (to measure food), and with temptation around.

But, on the other hand, I will not always have a scale around, will I? And if this is to be sustainable, I need to learn how to live without it, sooner rather than later.

The goals for the next ten days are:

Minimise the amount of alcohol I drink, without becoming unsociable. Some wine with food is surely not catastrophic, but I have to limit it to one glass, which will be a serious challenge for me. After dinner, I can have tea instead of more vino. I can swap beer for diet coke at pubs, and it will be ok to have the odd cocktail (vodka or gin with diet tonic) every now and then.
Aim to stop eating BEFORE I GET FULL.This is the most important and by far the hardest thing to do, especially when I don't measure my portion.
Make a point of getting salad and having it as part of dinner every night. My boyfriend is English and I don't think he does that regularly. But I think I can prevail on that one. Besides, if he doesn't want it, nobody will force him to have it.
Avoid stupid calories at all costs. These include: french fries (or chips, as they call them here), sweets, desserts, etc. My boyfriend is not a dessert person, so that won't be too hard when we eat together, but it might be an issue when I'm alone (and hungry) or with a good friend who lives there and whom I'll see for coffee from time to time.
Try to move around. Regularly, I walk quite a bit every day, because my office is a 20-25min brisk walk from my house, and I do that twice a day. But I will not have an office for the next ten days, so I know that it will be tempting to just stay at home all day and do work from there. That's ok, but I should try to get out for a good walk daily, maybe during lunch break. The perfect thing would be if I could convince my boyfriend to go for a walk after dinner, but I think that will be too much to ask.

OK, well, this sounds like a plan! I will try to have fun and not have my whole life spin around this "new eating plan" thingy, and hopefully the scales won't be completely unforgiving when I come back.

Quick update

2011-03-30T14:52:00.000-04:00

This is mostly a quick note to myself:

Weight today: 98 kg. Better than yesterday (but I've already forgotten about that, right?), but I am waiting for better times.

Today's brownie point: I was in a cafe grading student essays, and I decided to have my lunch there. I really like their soups, so I had a large bowl of "Red Thai Chicken", which is my favourite. They gave me three half slices of bread and lots of butter. I didn't eat the butter, and only had one full slice of bread with my soup. For me, this is a little victory. And I am writing this because I have decided to focus on the little victories.

This is for two reasons: first, I love highlighting my achievements, and I should have done more of it the last time around (when I was counting calories, I mean). Instead of focusing on the errors, why not celebrate the victories? It makes for such a better frame of mind! This doesn't mean that I won't pay attention to mistakes and learn from them, it just means that I will not let mistakes define how I think about myself and my progress. I am conjecturing that this positive thinking will make it easier to get back on plan fast after a minor (or major) detour. So GO ME!

Second, little victories make a big difference. I am convinced of that too. Maybe they don't amount to much on their own, in terms of calories (or maybe they do!), but they change one's mindset, especially when properly acknowledged and celebrated. As I've heard (read) other people say, it's like exercising the good muscle, and thus making it stronger. So GO ME again!

For dinner tonight I've bought a nice sole fillet, which I'm probably making pan-fried with very little oil, lemon, white wine, and capers! Yum!

... aaaand the fun begins

2011-03-29T11:02:00.000-04:00

After a really good eating day yesterday, I weighed myself this morning, and I'm actually one kilo heavier, compared to yesterday. I'll call it water retention. And then I'll forget about it. I will. I will. I will.

Things to be proud of:

I counted calories yesterday, and ate around 1,250. I know I need to eat more than that, if this is to become a sustainable eating plan. I'm aiming for anything between 1,600 and 1,800 a day. I sort of didn't plan right yesterday, I didn't mean to eat that little. I was also not in a good mood, so food wasn't very appealing (never thought I would say that).
I had bought some Easter chocolate mini-eggs, plus some other chocolates, and had them lying at home. I wasn't binging or anything like that, but, still, they would most likely end up in my mouth sooner or later. So I just packed them and brought them to work, left them in the coffee room, and forgot about them. Farewell, chocolate eggs.
I made a kick-ass tomato sauce for dinner, which I then had with 100gr of penne pasta (weight when dry). I made myself eat no more than one piece of penne at a time, and chewed at least 15 times (this is bordering compulsive obsessive, but I swear it worked). It took me a while to finish my dinner, and when it was done, I felt like I could eat more if there was more food on the plate, but I was definitely no longer hungry. I want to learn how to be comfortable with this exact feeling. I want to be able to stop eating when I'm no longer hungry, even if I know that my stomach could handle some extra food.

Things to work on:

I need to get myself back to the gym. I almost went this weekend, then stayed home instead and watched tv while agonising internally about the future of my relationship (yes, I have a boyfriend now, and he's wonderful except that he lives far away. But more on that some other time). That was bad for the body and bad for the soul, and is to be avoided when I can help it.
I need to remember my 2008 routines, when I managed to lose weight, not go hungry, and generally figure out what works for me. Then, I need to modify them and establish new dinner favourites and easy-to-pack lunches. This is another country and supermarkets are quite different (in a bad way), so it's not obvious that I can just replicate what I did back then. Still, it's not rocket science, I know I can do it.
Need to be conscious about my water consumption (need more of it) and my use of salt (I think I use way too much of it when I cook).

Right, second day on plan, and so far so good (except for the weigh-in today, but I'm forgetting about that, I swear I am).

Full system restart

2011-03-28T06:21:00.000-04:00

Here I am, almost two years later.

It's been almost two years since I moved from the US, where I spent six years completing a PhD, to the UK, where I now live the life of a young, early-career university Assistant Professor (or Lecturer, as they call them here). I've experienced many changes, some of them for the better, and others for the worse.

The move and subsequent adaptation to new surroundings has taken its toll on my weight and lifestyle. I knew it would be really hard to start afresh without putting some weight back on. Call it stress, call it mindless snacking, call it consolation eating and drinking... Last year was really rough for me in many aspects, and there are still problems that are weighing on me and that I'll need to tackle eventually, my physique just being one of them.

One of the first things I bought when I moved to the UK was a fancy scale. I'm talking about a *really* fancy scale, measuring body fat and water and bone mass, the whole lot. It also shows you how much you weigh! This must have been October 2009. Today, March 28th 2011, was the first time I ever used it. It read 97.4kg (that's almost 215lb). When I saw the number, I sighed with relief. I'm not sure what I was expecting. I mean, how much worse could it have been? I pretty much took back all the weight I'd lost back in 2008. Maybe it was relief that I was finally facing it; the imaginary number, whatever it was, was not to terrify me any longer. I know my enemy now, I just need to stand back up and fight it.

I know that it will be damn hard, and there will be setbacks and frustrations, and the scale will go in the wrong direction. But then I will make it go back down again. It's in my control to do so. I'm ready to pick up the fight again. (Insert angry lion sound here.)

May 1st update

2009-05-02T11:11:00.004-04:00

I weighed in yesterday at 89 kg (196.2 lb). I'm not particularly happy about that, especially since some time ago my weight was in the 88s, and I have definitely not eaten enough to gain weight since then. But, if that's what the scale says, that's what it says. After a dinner out in a restaurant yesterday, I actually weighed 89.4 kg (197.09 lb) today. I'm hoping for a bigger loss in May, but I think it's safe to say that there is no way I will weigh 83kg by Commencement. It's ok, even if I get down to 87kg, it's still a nice loss. I'm not sure why I can't seem to lose weight. I have been really good in April, and only had a few bigger dinners here and there, and that has been the extent of my overeating. Oh well...

I am having my thyroid checked next Tuesday, together with a full blood test and a visit to the gynecologist (I had scheduled it for past Monday, but with my period arriving late I had to cancel).

I'm still walking on clouds after submitting my thesis and all supporting materials (I did that on Thursday). There are more dinners and parties organized this weekend, and I know I'll have an even better time than last weekend, because I'm much more rested and relaxed.

I did it!!

2009-04-30T11:10:00.003-04:00

Hold the press! I am now a Ph.D. :-) I successfully defended my dissertation past Friday, so now I am Dr. Ceres! I had a fun weekend packed with parties, lobster-eating in Northern Massachusetts, and just taking it all in, and relaxing like I haven't relaxed in six years. It feels strange to be finally done, I still haven't quite wrapped my head around it. Now I need to start planning events for graduation weekend, when my parents and extended family are coming to see me, and then of course organize the move back to Europe. It's all good fun, though a little scary. An old chapter ends for good, and a new one is about to begin, and I am so curious what my life will be like a few months from now.

My weight is doing its own thing, of course. I got my period, but it came late and only lasted about two days, which is very strange. And then my body retained water like it was going out of style. For a couple of days or more, my feet were as if I had been sitting in a tight seat on an airplane for, like, 48 hours or something. Weird. it might have been the lack of sleep. My feet are not swollen now, but my weight is still up at 89.4kg. I'm still stoic about it. The truth is that I didn't pay attention to what I was eating this past weekend, but no regrets there. I'm back on track now, and I'll just wait and see what happens to the scales.

Gotta keep faith that your path will change, tomorrow!

2009-04-23T09:55:00.006-04:00

Quick update:

-I have missed cardio kickboxing and Pilates this week because I was in the middle of working or had gone to bed so late the night before (because of work) that I could not bring myself to get up and walk to the gym (and then come back exhausted and work more). But I went to a 1.5-hour session of Vinyasa yoga on Tuesday, and OH MY GOD am I sore! I mean, with regular intense exercise four times a week you would think my muscles are well-worked. Well, let me tell you, that yoga class made my legs and arms feel like jelly, and I'm having trouble sitting on the toilet (sorry for the graphic description), which is the ultimate benchmark for me. I'm actually shifting my weight when I walk to avoid the pain. Ouch!

-I may have skipped the exercise, but my eating has been very good. Within my caloric limit every single day. So take that, scales.

-My weight is stuck. It's down at 89.4kg, but this is not acceptable, I should be at least around 88kg by now! Nothing I can do about it, and I'm beginning to have a stoic approach to it.

-I blame the stuck scales on my period, which is late. I feel bloated and like I'm retaining a lot of water. I blame that whole issue on the stress, which is going away tomorrow. I'm getting my thyroid checked next week though (together with a full blood test and a ob-gyn screening), just to be sure. [PS to those who know me personnally: If my thyroid is out of whack, those people who know what my dissertation is about will get a good laugh once they realize the irony of it all.]

-Stress is going away tomorrow (or at least it's going to be less of it from now on) because I'M DEFENDING MY DISSERTATION!!! Big day tomorrow, then. Did I mention I finished writing it on Tuesday night? I will go down in my college's history as the most last-minute person ever. But it's done, and if all goes well, I will be a doctor in 29 hours from now. And after that, I will screw all thoughts of good behavior and I will party like it's going out of style. There's already a series of celebratory events planned for tomorrow and Saturday, and I'm probably taking a day-trip on Sunday (it's supposed to be gorgeous). There will be tons of drinking and dancing and eating, and living the good life. And then I'll have to sit my butt down and make corrections and submit everything to the Graduate School next week. And then I'll start thinking about parties, graduating, moving to Edinburgh, and Greek island-hopping this summer!

Did I mention I can't wait for those 29 hours to pass???

Have a great weekend, everyone!

So what's new?

2009-04-20T10:41:00.002-04:00

I don't care what the stupid scale says.
I don't care what the stupid scale says.
I don't care what the stupid scale says.

And so began my day. At 90.2 kg (198.9 lb). I was exemplary all past week, but this weekend was Greek Easter, so things got slightly out of control... but only slightly! On Saturday night (after church, so after midnight) I went to this nice dinner party and had a lot of food, but I had saved calories during the day (my dinner was roasted asparagus and three carrots), and I only had ONE glass of wine. Plus I resisted the cookies and the delicious-looking chocolate cake, which is unheard of for me! Easter Sunday was the big feast (compare to American Thanksgiving) involving lamb on a spit. OK, I ate a lot, and I had a weird craving for sugar, which pushed me -continuously- to the brownies section of the buffet. But, again, I only had one glass of wine, and had no bread with food. And all the feast took place from 1 to 5pm, and it involved some pretty intense Greek dancing, and a lot of talking and moving around (it's not like I was sitting at the table stuffing my face for four hours).

So, stupid scale, I don't care what you say. Maybe you're so mean because TOM is around the corner, and because you don't like my getting off schedule. But I enjoyed myself, and if I could turn back time to Saturday night, I would have eaten exactly the same stuff.

The shoe issue

2009-04-16T21:51:00.003-04:00

I have been wondering this for a long time now: how much do your feet and calves change when you lose a lot of weight, and how does that change your relationship with shoes??

Here are some questions I have. If you read this and have lost a lot of weight at some point in your life, please share your experiences and thoughts on the issue:

- I know that the foot size might change. I think I've noticed it in some of my shoes, although it could just be that they expanded over time -leather will do that. But how much of a change, and how much weight does it take to occur? Are we talking half a size, a whole size? More, less?

-Does losing weight significantly change the comfort level when you wear heels? I'm a girly girl, so I really like wearing heels IN THEORY, but in practice I don't do it often, because I really suffer after a while, especially if I have to stand the entire time. Fortunately, I don't HAVE to wear heels, as my job doesn't require it and I'm pretty tall (a bit over 5'7''), but I like it nevertheless, so I wonder if it's going to get any easier. I mean, I guess it HAS to get easier, I just wonder how much. Enough to make a difference at the end of the night?

-Do any of us chicks with enormous calves get a chance to wear boots when we lose weight? I have lost 23 pounds, but my calf size has barely moved, not at its widest point, anyway. My calves are muscular, and they have a nice, curvy shape, but they are freaking huge! They are a bit more than 16'' at their widest right now, so boots are a big no-no. I know that I'll have relatively big calves no matter how much weight I lose, and I don't mind that very much, but I would like to hope that I'll be able to get into boots. Is this a vain hope?

-How does the shape of the foot change? Do people move from a wide to a medium or from a medium to a narrow? Or is the difference so small it just makes shoes fit better, but doesn't change the overall shape?

Anyway, these are just some random shoe questions I thought I'd address the blogosphere. It's not like my decision to lose the weight depends on the answers, but it'd be nice to know.

That's all for today. Life is no different than yesterday, and apart from the non-progress in the differtation front, all else is well. I hope you're doing well too!

Improvements

2009-04-15T11:36:00.003-04:00

How do you like my new template? I thought it was time for a face-lift :-). I really like the new colors, they are very relaxing to the eye!

I'm semi-proud to announce that today I weighed in at 88.6 kg (195.3 lb) -- the scale was actually moving between 88.6 and 88.4 kg, but it decided to rest on the higher number. I'm proud because it seems like I unstuck myself from the 90s, which is where I tend to gravitate. I'm also proud because I have stuck to plan religiously, surprising myself. I'm not so proud because it took more than a week for a loss of a mere 0.2 kg, but there's not much I can do about that. Also, I was looking at my weight calendar the other day, and noticed that I tend to stick to one weight for a long time, then get a series of new lows in a matter of days, then get stuck again. On average it's fine, but in the short-run it can be nerve-wrecking... So, the new resolution is to not pay attention to the scale, even though I will continue to weigh myself regularly. Well, it's not a new resolution at all, but it's something I need to remind myself of on a regular basis.

It feels great to be back in shape, though. Last week I was really sore from the exercise. I mean, I'm usually sore after exercise, but last week it was just ridiculous, we're talking major pain in the abdomen/core area. However, so far this week both classes I'm taking (cardio kick-boxing and Pilates) have seemed tons easier, so I am wondering if there was some muscle-building happening last week. It would explain the stuck scales, too. I do see a slight improvement in my body, but it could be just my idea.

Now, if only I could put the same kind of energy in my dissertation (which is still incomplete despite the fact that my PhD defense is next Friday, gah!), I would be satisfied all-around!

The queen of avoidance

2009-04-13T23:02:00.005-04:00

Just a quickie to say that I weighed 89.2 kg (196.7 lb) this morning, which is more in the direction that I want to be going. I had rice with ground beef for dinner, though, and so a gain tomorrow seems plausible, as I felt it a bit heavy in my stomach. Still, I was within reasonable calories for the day (1600), especially given the intense, one-hour long cardio-kickboxing session.

It has dawned on me in the past few days that whenever I sit in front of the computer and attempt to start working, my body lifts itself (the mind doesn't follow, it's pretty automatic) and goes to the kitchen, opens the fridge door (or the cupboard) and asks for food. It's incredible how fast it happens! I knew I was an emotional eater, but now I realize that I am also the queen of avoidance, and my means of avoiding "stuff" is by stuffing my face. Nice! I have kept it under check by preparing a cup of tea instead of eating anything, and when the need to put something in my mouth is too strong to beat, I have fresh and dried fruit handy, and I eat a piece or two. For example, yesterday I bought two packages of strawberries from the grocery store, and I rinsed and cut them in half as soon as I got home, so now I have a snack ready whenever I need it. Hey, it's better than chocolate!

This is a great step, but I will feel truly victorious when I eliminate the habit, period. I need to stop avoiding stuff, and just get the job done when it's time to do it. And, most importantly, I need to stop using food as a distraction. Even Facebook-trolling is healthier than that.

Aaargh!

2009-04-11T13:09:00.002-04:00

I so hate the scales right now! This week, my eating has been great, except for Tuesday night and last night. Tuesday night I had a dinner party at my place, and although I did exercise some moderation, I did have more to eat and drink than on a regular weeknight. Then last night I went out with some friends and had some Thai food. It was 5 of us, and we just ordered five entrees, which we put in the middle. I hardly had any rice, and apart from two scoops of pad thai (one fifth of the dish?) and some noodles, I mostly filled my plate with some meat-veggies combination. I did eat until I was full, though. Still, when I woke up this morning, I didn't feel bloated, I didn't feel full, I had a comfortable feeling of slight hunger.

So what does the scale say this week?

Monday: 88.8kg (195.8 lb), which was a nice low.
Tuesday (before dinner party): 89.2 kg (196.7 lb), a one-pound increase for no reason at all.
Wednesday (after dinner party): 90 kg (198.4 lb). Understandable, although I didn't like it.
Thursday: 90.2 kg (198.9 lb). WTF??
Friday: 89.2 kg (196.7 lb). OK, getting there, although still annoyed.
Saturday (after Thai dinner): 90.6 kg (199.7 lb). What the hell is going on???

What the hell happened to 88.8 kg??? I was supposed to be going down! I know that this is not real fat gain, it can't be, since I have really been great with my eating and exercise all week. But I also know that it will be so hard to lose the extra weight again. So let me get this right: I fight all week to bring my weight back down from a day of eating slightly more, and then once it's back down I eat a little out of schedule, and it's right back up again! It's so frustrating!

Recipe: stuffed veggies (Yemistà)

2009-04-07T16:21:00.009-04:00

OK, so this is one healthy, vegetarian Greek recipe. The veggies are stuffed in a mix of what came out of them, as well as some rice and herbs.
If you don't want it to be vegetarian, you could add some ground beef in the mix you stuff the veggies with, but I prefer them without any meat.

Ingredients:
-Veggies, such as: 4-5 tomatoes, 2 zucchinis, 2 green bell peppers. These are what I use. You can also use potatoes, or eggplant, and you can vary the amount of veggies depending on how many servings you want to get out of the recipe.
-Rice (I prefer Jasmine rice), approximately one tablespoon per vegetable (8-9 in this case)
-One onion, chopped.
-One bunch fresh plain parsley.
-One bunch fresh mint. You could also put dill and pine nuts instead of mint. This is something that they do in Northern Greece. In Crete, where I am from, we use mint instead, and I love it that way! You can also add some walnuts in the mix.
-Olive oil
-Salt, pepper
-Oregano (optional)
-Grated tomato
-Grated cheese (just a little, to go on top of the veggies)
-Breadcrumbs (optional)

Preparation:
-Empty the content of the veggies, and mix content of all veggies (except the green bell peppers) in a bowl.
-Add onions, parsley, mint (or dill with nuts), oregano, salt and pepper to the mix. Add some olive oil (not much, maybe two tablespoons?).
-Chop or mash everything up (I usually use my blender at this point).
-When it's all mashed up (or just finely chopped), add the rice.
-Salt the inside of the vegetables (that's important, otherwise they will be too bland), then stuff with the rice-vegetables mix. It's a good idea not to stuff them all the way up or too tightly, since the rice will expand in the oven.
- Pour grated tomato and olive oil over the veggies. Put breadcrumbs on top of the veggies, and stick in the oven, at around 400°F. It should take around 40-45 min, but keep an eye on. Shortly before taking out of the oven, add some grated cheese on top of the veggies, and let cook some more.

Enjoy with some feta cheese or even Greek yogurt on the side, to make sure there's some protein in your meal!

Still on track and damn proud of it

2009-04-06T21:08:00.005-04:00

Today I weighed in at 88.8kg (195.8 lb), which was a new low back in late June 2008, but feels like a new low again. The scale has been very generous to me, as I've lost 1.4 kg (3.1 lb) since April 1st. My clothes feel a little looser, which is extremely welcome news! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for even lighter days!

I had a nice weekend and fully enjoyed the smaller amounts of food that I ate. I had homemade brunch of toast, eggs, and bacon both on Saturday and Sunday, but removed all of the bacon fat and cooked the eggs in very little butter (thank god for nonstick pans). Then I had a snack in the late afternoon (piece of fruit or Greek yogurt), and had fish for dinner, with roasted asparagus on the side. On Saturday night I experimented with swordfish, pan-seared in a shallot-wine-balsamic vinegar sauce. I think I'll try a different sauce next time, although it wasn't too bad. On Sunday night, though, I had salmon, which was great. I just put a little olive oil on it, and rubbed it with salt, pepper, thyme, sage, cumin, garlic, and lemon sauce, then put it under medium heat with a little more olive oil on my non-stick skillet, and when it was half done I added some white wine on the pan. Delicious and ready in under 10'! I am remembering the virtues of high-protein meals these days. I have around 8-10oz of meat or fish and a BIG side (or a whole other plate) of veggies or a salad for dinner, and I feel so full!

Sunday morning my friend and I did an hour of Pilates on my living-room floor, with a DVD which I bought for really cheap from a discount store before going to Greece this summer. It was so much fun, and really set the tone for my day! I am starting to wonder whether exercising in the morning is really the way to go, although that would mean giving up on my cardio kickboxing class, and I don't think I want to do that (although I will have to next year, sigh!). Anyway, morning exercise with friends in the weekend (before eating brunch together) is highly recommended :-)

Tonight I am cooking in advance for a dinner party I am throwing tomorrow. I am cooking Greek, and the menu will be pastitsio (which is similar to lasagna) and stuffed veggies (for my vegetarian guest), with a huge green salad on the side. Recipes to follow... So I guess there will be some overeating and overdrinking tomorrow night, but I will try to keep it in check (especially the vino part, I will limit myself to 1 or 2 glasses maximum). The fact that I'm the one who's cooking is very helpful to me.

Have a great week, everybody, and be well!

Old new low and mini target

2009-04-04T11:24:00.004-04:00

Hello, hello!

Today I weighed in at 89.4 kg (197.1 lb). It seems so high, but, hey, I'll take it over anything higher. I reached 89.4 kg around mid-June 2008, it was a new low back then. I remember how excited I was to see that number then. I also remember that I had a lot of trouble unsticking myself from 89-90kg, and was wondering whether that was because it was my long-run weight average for many years, so my body was gravitating towards it. I do hope it will be easier to get lower this time around, but I am bracing myself for a plateau.

I had an impressive week in terms of eating and exercise. I ate between 1200 and 1400 calories a day, and exercised pretty intensely four times during the week. I resisted temptation wherever it appeared and had minimal alcohol (one glass of wine on Wednesday). And all this despite some pretty dismal times in the guys front. I am quite proud of myself right now, and I can sort of see the "old me" (the one before I regained some weight) begin to re-emerge. And I am convinced about the importance of every little thing, every tiny decision in my weight loss journey. One little step at a time, you gradually get where you want to be. In my case, the more I resisted this week, the stronger I felt, and the easier it was to keep resisting. If I had given in, it would have been harder to go back into resistance mode.

I have set a mini-goal for myself. I want to be in my pre-regain weight by the time I graduate. So I would like to weigh 83 kg (183 lb) by the end of May. That's 14 pounds in two months, so it's not easy, but I will give it some serious effort.

Have a nice weekend, people!

Small victory

2009-04-02T11:45:00.002-04:00

Last night I had to go to a wine and cheese party. I drunk a total of ONE glass of wine (which wasn't even full) and had a little cheese with crackers! This is major for me, as I always overeat and overdrink in these kinds of social events. Instead, I spent a lot of time sipping my one glass of wine, and then continued with water for the rest of the night. So yay me :-)

New favorite snack

2009-03-31T16:39:00.005-04:00

I just wanted to post that I have recently discovered a wonderful and delicious variation to my regular snack. Like I've posted before, in my good eating days I usually have a Greek yogurt around 3pm. I always buy the 2% fat Total, which is creamy and only has 130 calories and a seriously high protein content (so it keeps you full and less prone to temptations).

Lately I have been adding a tablespoon of maple syrup and a tablespoon of walnuts, and let me tell you, it's seriously decadent and delicious! And all that for only 230 calories.

Highly recommended when you have an afternoon sweet tooth like I do!

Mind-screw-ups

2009-03-31T14:21:00.007-04:00

As a graduate student I have a lot of time in my hands, time that is meant to be devoted to thinking creatively and conducting research. Unfortunately, all too often when I am left to think alone in a room, I don't think about big questions in economics, cool research ideas, and identification strategies. I think about me, I OBSESS about ME ME ME. It's not positive thinking I engage in; it's not a creative contemplation of where I am and where I want to be in life. I don't sit around figuring out and making lists of what I want and then make it happen. My time spent alone is mostly limited to obsessing about what is wrong with me and with the course my life has taken, how I hate being fat and single, why am I not as happy as some other people, why I haven't had it easier, how I don't deserve to be so miserable, how I am owed happier times. It's sad, exhausting and counter-productive. Since I started grad school I developed a seriously dark side (or I got better acquainted with my seriously dark side, anyway), and I have spent a lot of time in its company, nurturing it with all the unhappy hours that were spent not doing my work.

Well, I am taking a distance from my dark side, because I (along with many others) am seriously annoyed with it. Who the hell am I to dare say that I haven't had it easy? I am healthy, I am strong, I am pretty, I have people around me who love me for who I am. I have never starved, I am intelligent, I have gotten great education and credentials to go with it, and I have all the best prospects for the future. I have had it better than most people, so what exactly is my problem? Not so long ago I used to be optimistic, confident in my intellect, open to new people and ideas, trusting and just plain good company to have around. Sure, I was fat and never felt good about it, and it did affect how my life evolved in some ways. But that's something directly under my control! Sure, I made mistakes along the way, but who hasn't? I have been kinder to everybody else than to my own self, it seems.

Somehow, in the past six years, I have convinced myself that I am a fraud, that I am not half as smart as I thought I was, that I suck at my work, that I have gotten off the tracks, that I will never be happy, that it's too late, that my life is over, that everything is said and done. What a load of crap! Still, I let it get to me, and little by little I created a monster and believed its every negative comment. No wonder I didn't want to do my work when I kept reminding myself that I was destined to fail. No wonder I felt uncomfortable among my peers when I kept thinking that I could never measure up, when I never took myself seriously. And then, every once in a while I would hear about someone else, someone who I KNOW is in no way smarter or more driven than I am (or used to be) excel, and I would think to myself "What the hell happened? If they can go there and do that, there is no way I couldn't!". Only they didn't have the self-sabotage monster scream to them that they can't make it every hour of the day.

You might ask how all this ties in with the weight loss... Well, it definitely ties in with my weight gain. In February 2008, something almost magical happened. I decided to lose weight, and somehow stuck to it. One little step at a time, lots of everyday small, simple choices (no ice-cream when everyone else was having some, no second glass of wine with dinner), and it worked! By October 2008 I had reached 83kg (183 lb), starting from at least 99kg (218.3 lb). Today I weighed 90.6 kg (199.7 lb). So clearly something messed me up after October. I knew I was an emotional eater, but this time I was even more aware of it as the overeating started again. Lots of bad things happened over that period, but the most important one, and the one that I think caused the gain, was my entering the job market. Many people had job-related stress over that period, and not everyone gained 17 freaking pounds! But for me it was different, and this is where the self-sabotage monster comes in.

I entered the job market feeling unsure of my own abilities. When interviews didn't flock in, I took it personally. And I ate to calm myself, because "this is a rough time, and I can afford some indulgence". When interviews didn't translate into flyouts, I was convinced I did something wrong. And I ate to ease the pain and the anxiety, because "everything looks better after you've had some chocolate", and because I needed something in my throat to help push the lump down. And when flyouts didn't become offers, I was certain that someone saw through me, that they realized I am not good enough. And I ate to punish myself, because I am a failure and rubbish at everything, including losing weight. All the idle hours that I spent in December, January and February, waiting for the phone to ring, were not hours during which I worked on perfecting my dissertation, my presentation, my answers to possible questions. No! They were hours during which I just blamed myself for my poor performance, because I didn't like what I was doing, because I should have done something else with my life six years ago. And they were hours that involved a lot of thoughtless eating, and even more drinking. Never mind that the job market sucked for everyone; for me, it was personal. And then I relaxed, and said "The hell with it. Something will come up. I'll be fine." And then I was myself. And then I got a job.

My point is that I have been my own worst enemy, and I am putting a stop to it right now. No more whining over spilt milk. I have made mistakes and I have all the time in the world to get things straight again. I WILL finish my dissertation and I WILL graduate this May. I am moving to a wonderful new city, and I will have a demanding job, and there will be no room for self-questioning. I don't mean that I will turn into an arrogant bitch, but I am seriously getting a grip and reminding myself that those who hired me were smart people, and they clearly saw some sort of promise in me. If I don't know something, I will learn, because I am capable. And I WILL NOT fail. And I will lose all the stupid weight which I regained, and then some! There!

I'm alive and mending

2009-03-23T19:59:00.005-04:00

Hmmmm... I have been thinking of how to start this post for such a long time, and I still don't know how to start, so I just started typing. I have been absent from the blogosphere for more than three months now. I'm not particularly proud of myself, nor do I have a good excuse for neglecting all the people whose blogs I followed for a long time and still trully care for. I have been dealing with a whole lot of stress, and many-many issues of various natures, and I just couldn't get myself to sit down and relate. At some point I even stopped reading other people's blogs. The dust is settling down now, though, and I am trying to get back on track with everything that I neglected all this time.

I will give an update on my situation, which will probably make for a long and not-so-interesting post, but I'll put it down anyway.

The fall semester was the big push before I entered the job market for Ph.D. Economists. It was very stressful, and that fact that I wasn't sure of what I wanted in terms of career path only made it worse. The global economic crisis magnified an already difficult and stressful situation. The market this year was hellish. I managed to land some interviews, and some of what we call "fly-outs", which are the second and final step before a job offer. None of them had translated into a job offer by March, which is incredibly late for the standards in my field.

February was hell, I can't remember a sadder period in my life. Everything was going wrong: I had no job for next year and no interest in the kinds of jobs that my peers shoot for after finishing their degrees. I couldn't work on finishing my dissertation because I was too distracted by the fact that I couldn't get a job. I was repeatedly passive-aggressive to my roomate and his girlfriend (for no good reason I don't like her, I think I'm jealous) and then felt awful about it. I felt lonely, fat and unloved. I was a handful to live with and be a friend to. For a while it really seemed like I was getting bad news every single day. It seemed like everything that could go wrong was going wrong, every tiny little thing! I never remember myself being so negative, so pessimistic and so bitter with the world. To top it off, I heard from a longterm crush of mine that he has a girlfriend across the ocean. I always thought that the reason that nothing much ever happened between the two of us what the fact that I met him a bit before he moved out of town. Yeah, right... To cut it short, I downright flipped out in February.

Then in the beginning of March I got an unexpected email requesting an interview and a possible flyout in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had a phone interview one day later, and I blew it. "That was that", I thought, "Nice, now I'm shooting myself in the foot too", I thought, "Good job, Ceres, way to go!", I thought. Of course I didn't get the flyout. But barely a week later I was contacted again and asked to fly to Edinburgh, because the other candidate cancelled. To cut it short, I got the email on a Tuesday, boarded a plane on a Wednesday, arrived and presented my work (jetlag and all) on a Thursday, and got a job offer out of the blue (I still think I did a bad job presenting my work) on Friday! They gave me one week to consider, and three days ago I accepted the offer. So I'm leaving the US, where I've lived for the past six years, and moving to Edinburgh!

I have mixed feelings about my decision. My qualms come from the fact that i) I am not sure that I will be any good in this particular position, nor am I sure that this is what I'm cut out for, ii) the pay is much lower than the equivalent job in the US, but it's not like I rejected any American offers, and beggars can't be choosers, iii)I feel uneasy about moving to the UK and leaving all my life here behind. This is a new society that I will have to adjust myself to, in addition to a new job and lifestyle (I will no longer be a starving, party-going grad student, gah!). On the other hand, I love Edinburgh, and I really like the people in the department where I will be working, the environment is collegiate and super-friendly, and I felt totally at ease during my visit there (probably because I thought there was no way I was getting the job, so I just relaxed and enjoyed myself, ha!). This is an objectively nice job, one that many others in my shoes would envy, and I hate that I am not more excited about it. After all, it's not like I need to be there and hold that position for the rest of my life, even though it has all the potential of being a position for life, if I want it! So why am I not gloating more?

I guess I should get a grip and stop with the whining. Things are much better now than they were a month ago. I have a job in a great city, I am making a fresh start, I will not be rich but I will live comfortably, and I am finally graduating in two months! No, wait, I will only graduate if I actually finish my thesis, and I have done jack sh**t about that, but I expect to get back on track now that I know what I'm doing next year.

Maybe I'm not gloating enough because I still feel so lonely and unloved. My friends and many acquaintances (including many guys I was sort of into and hung out with from time to time) are pairing up, alltogether at the same time, it seems, and I am this eternally single person. I am so sick of hearing about how gorgeous and awesome I am, about how guys are noticing me all the time. Where are they?!? I am told that I am a challenge, that they are intimidated by my dominating presence and wit. What the hell does that even mean? Should I wear a sign reading "open and ready for business, please don't be scared to come through my doors!"? Should I try to be stupid, talk in a lower voice so they'll notice me and not be scared? I don't understand! I am told that I can be defensive, that I should be more nonchalant and relaxed, that I should be the way I am when I've had a few drinks. What the hell, should I just be drunk all the freaking time? And how can I not be defensive when males see me as a buddy, not as a woman? Ughhh, sorry for the rant... I just wish that there were someone there, for a change. A male who wants me and has the balls to make a move, I mean. And not someone who sleeps with me and then never even bothers to call --scrap that, never even bothers to ask for my number (yes, that happened too. The day that I heard that my crush has a girlfriend. I told you I flipped.).

Anyhow... all the negative developments and emotions of the past months have of course taken a great toll on my weight loss, which has completely reversed into weight gain. If I thought 86kg was bad three months ago, well let me tell you, I wish I weighed 86kg now. I have to sum up the courage and weigh myself tomorrow, but I expect nothing less than 92 kg or something. At least that's the verdict from my clothes. It's so depressive. All this hard work, all this energy, and for what? I let my bad feelings, my insecurity and my boredom destroy a big part of my previous efforts. I am so mad at myself! Even today, I had a good breakfast, and then after my healthy lunch I had to go eat a brick of Brie, and as if this were not enough, then a whole lof of girl scout cookies with Nutella! WTF?!?

Exercise is the one thing that I didn't completely lose control over. Actually, I am now taking two gym classes: my intense cardio kickboxing class and a Pilates class, which is boring but does wonders. I feel so great after the Pilates workout, must be the breathing!

This is the scoop of what's been going on with me. I will weigh myself tomorrow and -alas!- report. I am sort of dreading it, but it's a necessary step, isn't it?

-Ceres

Sort of an update

2008-12-17T16:22:00.002-05:00

So I went to kick-boxing on Monday, and nearly fainted during class. Seriously, I thought I wouldn't get out of that room standing on my own two feet. I don't know if it was the fact that I haven't exercised that intensely in a while, or the fact that I went to the gym feeling hungry. I somehow didn't plan it right, and ended up not having anything to eat from noon (when I had lunch) until my class at 5:15pm, so I just felt dizzy, drained and exhausted during class. I did make it to the end, but I had to take it down a notch, didn't really jump around during jumping-jacks, that sort of thing. Hope it's better today, I have the final class for the semester in about an hour.

My weight has remained constant around 86.2 kg, going up to 86.6, then back down. I need to really stop paying attention to the scale and remind myself that my weight loss has never been super-rapid anyway. I have been quite good about my eating for ten days now, and I'm hungry by the time I go to bed at night, which I think is a good sign. I know that the two weeks from December 23rd to January 6th will be quite challenging food-wise, as I will be away from home and it's the Holiday Season, so I want to try and lose as much as possible until then. I will also practise self-control over these two weeks, but I know I will be away from my routine and from my scales, so I don't expect to lose any weight during that time. Maintaining sounds like a feasible goal that I want to reach.

A month later...

2008-12-14T12:50:00.002-05:00

... I am at 86.2 kg (190 lb). The most depressing thing is that I am relieved it's not more. I actually went all the way up to 88 kg not so long ago, and then got back on track, where I hope I am right now.

I have gone out of the blogosphere for a month, but I intend to get back on it, starting right now. It's been a really tough month for me. I have been super-busy, super-stressed, and super-depressed. I finished the main chapter of my dissertation, and I filed 100 job applications for academic and non-academic positions. For the most part of the last month, I have spent my days (and nights) alone at home, in front of my laptop, writing and applying left and right. I am sleep-deprived. I feel really frustrated, as my job seach is not amounting to much for the time being. I also feel angry, because one of my professors (one with s-e-r-i-o-u-s issues) has yet to write my recommendation letter, so my application remains incomplete. This might not be a problem for every school where I've applied, but it might be a problem for some of them.

Thanksgiving was a nice break, but a very short one. I officially took only two days off, but unofficially I was too stressed and depressed to do any work after I got back, so I just spent some days feeling sad and exhausted. Last week I took a trip to Florida and came back driving a u-haul with a friend, carrying back some old furniture belonging to my recently deceased grandmother. Fortunately it was an uneventful trip, and we all arrived safely back home.

Needless to say, I could not focus on eating well in the past month. There have been instances of binging. There has been lots of thoughtless eating. There's been a lot of emotional breakdown, when I just stuffed myself with peanut butter and nutella. And I didn't go to the gym for three long weeks. Yes, it's been THAT bad. So it's not a wonder I've gained weight.

I am determined to turn it back, of course. Now that I'm pretty much done with applications, I can go back to semi-normal eating and exercising, and hopefully drop a few pounds in the coming months. My schedule will not exactly be the same as before; Christmas is around the corner, and I'm going to Edmonton, Canada, to spend it with my aunt's family. Then I am goint to San Francisco, where the job interviews are taking place. Then I might have to fly around for seminars, and then I need to finish up my dissertation, and deal with university bureaucracy, before I actually defend my thesis and graduate at the end of May. And then, who knows? I have no idea where I'll be and what I'll be doing with myself. I feel like this uncertainty is affecting my eating. I don't know why, but it is.

I've had a pretty successful week, eating-wise. I followed Lyn's advice and took it one day at a time. With the exception of Friday night, I did pretty well the rest of the week (and even Friday wasn't THAT bad). Anyway, I want to keep it up, and hopefully get back to my all-time low of 83 kg soon. That's only 3 kg away (6.6 lb), so perhaps I can do it in a month or something.

It feels good...

2008-11-13T23:30:00.002-05:00

to be back in the zone! I've had a very good week eating-wise, and I take full credit. Never mind that the stupid scale is still stuck at 85.4 kg. I feel good, I eat well, and I have had two very intense cardio-kickboxing sessions this week. The only thing that's really lagging behind right now is my work, as I'm trying to finish up the major chapter in my dissertation and send to potential employers around the country. Wish me luck! :-)

A week later...

2008-11-11T12:37:00.003-05:00

... and where am I? I am at 85.4 kg (188.3 lb). To be exact, yesterday I weighed in at 86.4 kg (190.5 lb). I am, of course, very annoyed with myself. I was supposed to l-o-s-e weight and go back to 83 kg, not gain more weight!

So where did I screw up? Well, the major challenge was a trip to NYC. I was there from Thursday to Saturday, and of course I ate out, drank a lot, and didn't get any cardio (except for some walking in Manhattan).

But even before my trip, I didn't do very well with my eating. In fact, I only had one good day last week. Every other day started well, and then something would mess it up. Monday night I got a last-minute invitation and went to a friend's house for pizza night (to celebrate his birthday), was starving by the time I got there (after an intense cardio kick-boxing session and way past my regular dinnertime), and downed something like 7 slices of delicious home-made pizza. Oh, and I drank a lot of wine. Tuesday night I was celebrating Obama's victory, and copious amounts of beer were consumed. I also didn't pack my lunch and had pizza during a departmental meeting. Good job screwing up, Ceres. Wednesday was my good day, where I was my old self, paying attention, going to the gym, and resisting temptation. From Thursday to Saturday I was away and didn't make the slightest effort at healthy eating. Saturday night I went out with a friend (was it a date? I'm not sure :-)), and had a big dinner and beer. And Sunday, even though I started my day well, I ended up taking a walk with a friend, which resulted in a visit to a pastry shop and a big slice of dark chocolate torte for me. Then I really felt like pizza (wtf? I never feel like pizza, I don't even have pizza very often, and I had pizza three times last week!), and instead of coming to my senses and convincing myself that I was really full and should probably think about something else, I went to this pizza place (a really good pizza place, truth be told) and ordered a 14-inch very thin crust vegetarian pizza, and I ate half of it (with a little help from my friend) on the spot! It was like I wanted that pizza more than anything else, and I was going to get it no matter what. There was no willpower that could have stopped me. And as if that wasn't enough, after I got home, I ate the rest of it! Of course I didn't have any dinner later that day, but this is something that I don't do anymore, and I don't know what's going on in my head. Yesterday I had a nice eating and exercising day (hence the 1-kg loss), and I intend to keep it up, but I'm really worried about those instances of overeating.

I am not sure why I'm just not putting the effort full-time any more. Is it because I'm stressed at work? Is it because I take the pills and I'm frustrated and worried that even if I am careful with my eating, I will not lose weight? Is it because I'm sad that my grandmother died, I feel really lonely and I resort to eating to fill the gap? I don't know... I am struggling, and it feels like I'm very good about my eating and exercise when I am following my daily routine, but as soon as a social event pops up, I lose it. I mean, I'm not even trying to be careful when I'm with friends, it's like I'm giving myself a free ticket to indulgence.

Here's to a good new week for all of us. I want to get back to my low and then take it from there. I've been stuck for quite some time now, and I feel it's time I got back to where I was 1.5 months ago. I know that that will only happen if I stay focused all the time, not just one day a week! During the spring I was able to manage social life and healthy eating, and I should get back to that attitude, and shake away that feeling that whenever I'm with friends, I will eat more anyway, so I might as well go all the way. This is stupid, untrue, and not very helpful at this stage.

Lousy weekend and a fresh start

2008-11-03T08:37:00.003-05:00

I weighed in at 85.8 kg today. Thank god it's not more. This weekend was really bad. I lost it. I ate without any consideration, I just wanted to stuff myself. I ate all the wrong kinds of food, in big quantities. I wasn't hungry, I didn't really like what I was eating, but I still ate tons. It was worse when I was alone at my house. I was in deep discomfort if my stomach was not absolutely full (and I was in deep discomfort after I stuffed myself).

This is the first time since I started my weight loss journey when I really felt like I was losing it. It's like I didn't care anymore about my weight or about anything else. I don't know what got into me, or maybe I do. I tried to look deep inside me and ask why I was overeating. It was definitely emotional. I've been having a hard time since my family left. My dear grandmother died about ten days ago, and I think it's really hitting me now. My work is going badly, I haven't really done anything since my seminar, and I should be done with my paper by now (enter panic)! My weight loss is stalled, and I don't know if it was the pills (now it's my own behavior too, I recognize that), but it was really frustrating. On top of it all, I think I'm getting my period soon, and my hormones are going crazy. And instead of turning to exercise, instead of talking about it, I just turned to my fridge. Guaranteed disaster.

So I had a little chat with myself last night. I don't want to be another statistic that confirms that most people gain back the weight that they lose. I have tried so hard to make this work, and I'm not about to blow it. I was so disgusted with myself that I threw away some leftover ice-cream (and I'm banning ice cream from my house until I feel like I can handle it again). And I'm starting over. I'm starting again as if this past weekend didn't happen. I am going back to calorie counting (I didn't even bother counting since Friday), and I will make it work again. This is a war I'm going to win.

Should I be hopeful?

2008-10-30T15:41:00.002-04:00

Today I weighed in at 84.8 kg. That's 1.8 lb off since yesterday, despite an ice-cream-and-cookies splurge last night. I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking? Suffice it to say that, for many reasons, I'm not feeling particularly strong-willed right now, and I'm cutting myself some slack... Besides, it wasn't a binge, it was all taken into account in my daily calories log, and I had just come back home from an intense hour of cardio kick-boxing (I'm quite sore today!). Still, I know I should be avoiding sugar and fat, because they add so many calories without much nutritional content, plus they make me crave more sugar and fat. I will try to avoid such splurges in the future, but what can I say? Sometimes a girl needs some ice-cream...

A week ago, this number would have seemed like a nightmare, but after weighing over 85 kg for so many days, I appreciate the 84 on the scale. I should be in the 81-82's by now, but no matter. It's not like I have a time bomb in my hands. I hope this is the beginning of my adjustment though, and that I will start having a downward trend again. I also hope that the scale stops messing with my head. I know better than this, I know that I did not gain four pounds of fat in October. I know because I feel bloated, but my clothes don't really feel any tighter (they don't feel any looser either, though...). Anyhoo, let's hope I have an even better weigh-in tomorrow!

Calorie counting

2008-10-29T10:46:00.003-04:00

Well, what d'ya know? Here's an article from the New York Times today, talking about how calorie-counting is making a comeback. I was outraged to find out that Applebees was actually posting false information regarding the caloric content of its meals, I hope they have to pay dearly for it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/dining/29calories.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

My own update is grim, grim, grim. Today I weighed in at 85.6 kg, and I don't know when this thing will stop. The problem is that I catch myself eating more and being less able to resist temptation. I think I'm frustrated, and although I'm not binging or anything, I'm eating between 1800 and 2000 calories a day, which will not make me lose weight. I hope to get back "in the zone" soon.

This is war!

2008-10-27T21:12:00.002-04:00

According to my latest weigh-in, I weigh 85.4 kg (188.3 lb)! WTF? Seriously, I declare war to the scale!

I wonder if this gain is part of the side-effects of the stupid medication. And if yes, I wonder if it's water retention or a slowdown of my metabolism. I could live with the former, I guess, and it would imply that the gain is temporary. The latter is not allowed to happen, and it's really unfair! I'm getting the stupid drugs to help me get my act together and not feel completely useless all of the time. But if I gain weight, I will lose the one thing in my life that was really working! And then I will get really depressed! I'm so good about exercising, how can my metabolism be slowing down???

My friend told me today that I look "puffy", as if I have my period. Only I'm not getting my period until November 8th or something. So what the hell is this about, and when is it going to stop??? Is there any way I can make it stop? I exercise, I drink water, I eat tons of fruit (I guess I could eat more veggies, but it's not like I'm not eating any right now, I do eat my veggies!), but it's not helping :-( I'm really frustrated and I think I will end up reporting a stupid gain in October, ugh!

Stupid scale

2008-10-25T13:33:00.004-04:00

OK, I am seriously annoyed at the stupid scale and at myself. For over a month now, my weight has been fluctuating between 83 and 85.8 kg (183 and 189.2 lb). It's really nerve-wrecking! I hate these big ups and downs, we're talking six whole pounds here! And just when I thought I was finally stabilizing at the lower end of the range, and waiting for some new lows, the stupid scale gives me a slap on the face and tells me that I weigh 84.6 freaking kilos, after a day of perfectly good eating! Argh!

October has been erratic; I had my seminar on the 2nd, and I think I went on a splurge that night. My mother and sister were here, and inevitably I ate out more. I went to Florida and went over the top with food and alcohol. And I got on these stupid antidepressants, which might be causing me to retain water. But I did have many good days. Whenever my mother and sister were away, my eating was great, and I did my exercise. I think I had occasional nights of meeting up with friends and eating/drinking the wrong stuff, and I am a little pissed at myself because I didn't exercise the same amount of determination as in previous months. But again, that was only when I was out of my routine. So I think I would understand if I had only lost 1-2 pounds, or if I had maintained. But come on, I didn't eat enough to actually gain weight, so what the hell is all this about??? I am seriously frustrated :-(

The scale had better come to its senses soon (not that I can do anything if it doesn't, he he). I do not, I repeat: I DO NOT want to end this month with a gain, I don't deserve a freaking gain. Hear me, stupid scale?

Obesity and politics

2008-10-22T10:50:00.005-04:00

I read a fascinating article in the paper today:

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/weighing-the-vote/?8dpc

The author, an evolutionary biologist, is wondering whether the obesity epidemic might transform people's personalities and political opinions. The underlying reason is that there is ample evidence that a fetus's exposure to hormones affects that individual's personality, because it affects the wiring of the brain which takes place in utero. There is also some evidence that personality and psysiological responses to triggers are correlated with someone's political views (although I'm not sure that causality has been adequately proved here, it seems like a really tall order). Obese women have different hormone levels than normal-weight women, so their children are exposed to a different set of hormones during pregnancy, which might affect their personality. If the link from your brain make-up to your political opinions is proved, we might be in for some big political shifts when the kids of the one third obese American mothers reach voting age!

As an economist who does a lot of quantitative work (and who actually works on the effects of the intrauterine environment on an individual's human capital), I don't know if all these causative links are established to a satisfactory degree, so I am not hasty in accepting or rejecting this hypothesis. At best, some of these connections have been shown in lab experiments on animals, not humans, and there's of course so many other factors that affect someone's personality, in addition to genes and intrauterine environment. But it's still an absolutely fascinating hypothesis, and it doesn't seem completely ridiculous to contemplate!

Nothing new from the front

2008-10-20T23:24:00.002-04:00

I don't have much to report, but it's been almost a week since my last post, so I thought I'd check in.

My mom and sister left on Friday, and I've gone back to my regular eating and exercise routine. I'm actually pretty proud of myself, because I managed to squeeze four sessions of cardio last week, which with all the work/family/traveling, I hadn't done in a long time.

But my weight is stubbornly stuck, and I'm not very pleased about that. It's frustrating, because I AM doing things right, but I still can't get back to 83 kg. Today I weighed in at 84 kg, which is only two pounds away from that, but it seems like I should be much lower than 83 kg by now. Well, at least I've lost some of the weight I gained in Florida. I'll stick to what I'm doing and hopefully I'll see some magic numbers again soon.

I have convinced myself that the weekend in Florida is partly to blame, but then also that this new medication is making me gain water weight. My mouth is constantly dry (actually it's getting much better now, after two weeks on the pills), and I don't sweat as much (or not at all!) during cardio. I know that these are usual side-effects of citalopram, and I do think my body is retaining water like crazy. So I'm just giving it time before I freak out. I know that I will lose weight eventually if I keep doing what I've been doing.

As an aside, I bought a really nice suit on sale from Ann Taylor, together with a shirt and all, for less than half the regular price! It's a size 12, and it fits just fine, it's quite loose, actually. If it gets too loose by January (when I will need it for sure), I'll just have to have the pants taken in. But for now, I'm ready for an interview! The only thing missing is the actual, finished dissertation, ha!

On screwing up

2008-10-14T10:34:00.002-04:00

I got back from Florida last night. I weighed in today: 85.8 kg (188.8 lb). Shit, shit, shit! I know this is not a real 2 kg gain, but let me tell you, it feels pretty damn real right now.

Mostly I am disappointed at myself for not really making an effort to eat moderately. I mean, ok, I was with the family, and I knew I would overeat somewhat, and drink tons, just because this is the kind of family gatherings we have. But why did I need to buy chocolate milk and a Reese's extra large peanut butter cup when I went to the supermarket to buy tampons (yes, I had my period, damn it!) ??? And why did I need an apple coffee cake thingy from Starbucks when I was waiting for my flight (at least I had a non-fat latte to go with that, ha!)? And why did I eat the stupid peanuts on the airplane, when I knew I wasn't hungry? And did I really need all those nuts during cocktail hour? Or the second serving of ice-cream for dessert?? Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...

I am experiencing major discontent with myself right now, and I am putting a stop to eating out of control. I started my day eating as if this whole eating episode hadn't happened, and intend to keep it that way. My mother and sister are coming back later tonight, so I do expect slight deviations from my regular eating schedule tomorrow and Thursday, but that's it! No excuses after they're gone.

On the bright side, all of my family commented on my weight loss, on how great I look, etc. Even I had these moments when I looked at myself in some random mirror and thought "hey, I have really shrunk, and I'm not even halfway to goal"! But I really need to remind myself that I am not done yet. I still have a loooooong way to go. I cannot stop now.

Stuck with good reason

2008-10-09T20:35:00.005-04:00

Oddly enough, my seminar presentation went fine. My adviser told me that I did really well, that I had the right attitude and that I set the tone for all future student seminars of the semester (I was the first of my fellow students to present). Another professor (who has been giving me a l-o-t of trouble) said pretty much the same. So, for once, I am academically satisfied, although I got many comments and now need to restructure my whole paper in order to make it more coherent and convincing. There's a ton of work to do, but I am in great standing right now, at least according to my professors.

You know what else is great? I was actually wearing a business-like shirt for my presentation! This is amazing, because my breasts have always been too big to fit into one properly (and without attracting the wrong kind of attention for a job talk, if you know what I mean). Well, guess what! Not any more! I am comfortable in a size 12 wrinkle-resistant, stretchy shirt from Talbots!

My mother and sister are visiting from Greece, they came last Saturday. While it's great to have them here, especially after a really stressful week, their visit has taken a toll on my eating and exercise. Between brunches and bigger-than-normal dinners, I have managed to maintain (at a higher weight than my all-time low), but I haven't lost any weight. I'm getting a little anxious to see some downward movement on the scale, because I keep going from 83.8 to 84.8 kg, whereas I should be at 82 kg or something by now. I know that I have been eating and drinking more, so this is not exactly one of those rants where you're doing the right thing and still don't know why the scale won't move. I guess that part of me just wants to go back to my daily eating and exercising routine, and I'm eager to see a lower number on the scale.

But this is not happening any time soon, because I'm off to Florida for a family reunion tomorrow (that's why my family from Greece is visiting), and it is going to be a weekend full of food and drink and celebration. I'm coming back and then my mother and sister are spending some more time with me before heading back to Greece a week from tomorrow. In other words, I won't get back to normal for another week. Needless to say, I don't expect to lose more than a pound or two by the end of October, and even that looks really good now; let's hope there's no gain.

On the bright side, it is really-really nice to reunite with family, and I'm very happy to go to Florida tomorrow. On top of that, I have been feeling much better psychologically. When I was under all the pressure before the presentation, it sort of felt like I had switched to survival mode, it was like I didn't have time to think about all the things that bother me in life right now. I concentrated on work, and it made me feel better, even though it was stressful.

I did see a psychiatrist yesterday, though. I had made the appointment a long time ago, and even though I feel ok now, I know that dark thoughts are just around the corner. Sure enough, he put me on antidepressants. He put me on Citalopram in particular, which is the drug in Celexa. I'm seeing him again in a month, to touch base and see if the medication is working. I'm fine so far (this is only the second day I'm taking the meds), although my mouth feels constantly dry, which is one of the side-effects, apparently. I just hope I don't gain any weight as a result of the drug, I have worked so hard to be where I am now, I do not want to see my weight go up and my lovely new clothes not fit again!

Quickie

2008-10-01T10:47:00.003-04:00

Today's October 1st, and I weighed in at 83.6 kg (183.9 lb). That's a 3-kilo (6.6-pound) loss in a month, so it's pretty good. The bad thing is that I'm still almost 1.5 lb up from my all-time low, but oh well. With so much stress and sleep deprivation these days, it's a miracle I haven't pigged out and gained more.

My laptop wasn't fixed yesterday. The technician said that it probably needs a new motherboard, so now I have to mail it to Dell's offices. It's amazing how these things always happen at the worst possible time. As if I didn't already have enough on my plate...

Did I mention I'm freaking out about tomorrow's presentation/grilling???

Little earthquakes and false alarms

2008-09-30T12:43:00.004-04:00

So the past few days have been a little rough for me. My weight has not been as low as it was on the 23rd. Today I weighed in at 84 kg, which is 185.2 lb. This is a combination of the lower weight probably being a bit of a fluke, and also some less-than-perfect behavior on my part. There was the splurge on my friend's birthday, but there were other nights too when I socialized over drinks (many drinks!) and munchies. Damn, I just can't resist munchies if I've drunk the tiniest bit! Anyway, I'm not over-stressing about the weight at this point, although it's a little disappointing that I'm up from my all-time low. On the other hand, I know what caused it, and I know the weight will go back down. It's just that I hate not being able to be social without the scale protesting! I'm doing fine whenever it's a regular, boring workday, and then whenever I go out at night, I inevitably screw up!

My sources of trouble are not weight-related at this point, though. I have a big and important seminar presentation this Thursday. It's basically the most important part of my dissertation that I'm presenting, and I'll have a tough audience. I expect to be grilled, and I am really not looking forward to it.

To make matters worse, my laptop decided to crash on Sunday afternoon. The slides on which I would build my Thursday presentation were in that laptop, so was the program to create them. My hard disc is fine, so the files are still there. It's probably just a problem with the fan or the processor, and I'm waiting for the technician to have it fixed as we speak. But the bottom-line is that it's a bit of a setback for me, and I'm already short of time here!

To top it off, I've got some good-turned-sour news on the guys front. I was in a friend's house on Saturday night, and I met this guy who seemed interesting and (more importantly) interested. You have to understand, I am a complete chicken (and very-very inexperienced) when it comes to guys, and I found myself flirting with this interesting new person, exchanging funny looks, looking at each other all the time, etc. Maybe my newly-bought size 10 pants from Express helped :-) At some point (well into the small morning hours) he was sitting behind me, and started caressing my shoulder, then moved on to my neck... Anyway, we ended up kissing and making out, but I didn't bring him home, because... I don't know why, honestly. I guess I knew I had to work hard on Sunday, and I wanted a good night's rest? Or perhaps he was so drunk that I'd rather not do anything with him on that particular night? Or maybe my instincts were right and I followed them subconsciously? All of these excuses are pretty lame, I think.

Anyway, I spent most of Sunday with a stupid smile all over my face, until my laptop crashed, that is. And then yesterday I found out that the interesting new guy has a girlfriend. Sure, she's in California, and he's not sure he wants to be with her now, but officially they're still together.

I am not so much annoyed about the girlfriend. I have learned to expect most normal-looking and normal-acting guys to be with someone in their lives at this point (I don't know which category this leaves me in, ha ha). But I'm furious because I explicitly asked him, and he lied to my face... twice! He muttered something like "This is not a long-term thing...", and I asked him what he meant, and he asked whether there was somebody else in my life. I said no, and he said, "that's what I meant". I guess I should have picked it up (and maybe I did), it seems so obvious now, but remember, I'm clueless (I'm learning fast, though). So I asked him, explicitly, if there was somebody in HIS life. And he said no, explicitly. And then I told him I really wanted to see him again, and he said "I'll see you soon". And then our common friend (who was wasted at that point), just as I was leaving, told me that "he's a great guy, and he is unattached". He completely volunteered this information, I didn't ask him or anything. WTF?!?

So yesterday our common friend told my other friend that this guy actually has a girlfriend. Then he went on to say "But you know, your friend is a grown-up woman, she had a good time, so it's all good, plus she's one hot lady, I'm sure she'll be fine."!!! [Apparently he said that I was "one hot lady" three times, over and over again. By the way, I'm getting weird vibes from this guy too, but guess what: he has a girlfriend!] How is it "all good" when I was lied to, in front of my face, by BOTH of them? I mean, I had a right to know, and then it would have been up to me to decide whether I wanted things to go any further. I'm just so disappointed, nothing seems to work out for me...

Anyway, the computer guy is here, so I'm ending this. Wish me luck for my poor laptop's sake! :-)

Social eating

2008-09-26T00:53:00.004-04:00

Last night I screwed up big time (food-wise). One of my best friends celebrated her 30th birthday, and we had a veritable feast at my place. She made caponata and guacamole with toasted bread and tortilla chips as appetizers. Luckily, I was still cooking when appetizers were on the table, so I pretty much missed them. Main courses included an oven dish of pasta in a meat-and-tomato sauce, as well as oven crepes in a cream-and-mushroom sauce. I made the zucchini-potatoes-ricotta thingy I had made for 4th July, as well as my signature half-baked chocolate cake with raspberry coulis. This is all good, healthy, homemade goodness (even the chocolate cake is not too sweet). But we also had two store-bought cheesecakes for dessert. And I also made piña colada. Need I say more?

I ate and drank so much that I disgusted myself. True, it was a special occasion, and I hadn't eaten much during the day, and I had gone to cardio kickboxing that afternoon. But I don't understand why I ate so much that I had a terrible stomachache afterwards. It was the stupid cheesecake, I know it was! I was doing fine (relatively fine) until I sat next to the cake, after we finished eating, and I must have nibbled my way to a second piece of cheesecake, without bothering to realize how incredibly full I was. It was when I stood up from my chair that I felt like a brick had found its way to my stomach! I felt so miserable, it was really painful, and it was all self-inflicted!

I tried to calculate how many calories I ate yesterday, including the creamy cocktail and all the wine that I had, and I stopped at 3,000, because I just got too disgusted to keep counting. Given that I had only eaten around 750 calories before dinner, I ate at least 2,200 calories during the course of the night! No wonder I felt about to explode!

Social eating has been one of the major challenges I've had to face throughout this weight loss journey. I am doing well when I'm by myself (which, fortunately for dieting purposes, is almost every day). I don't drink alone, and I watch what I eat when I eat alone. I even do well when I'm in charge of everyone's eating, when I know what will be served. But put me in a group situation beyond my immediate control, and I lose it! Combine that with cheesecake (yum!), and I can't seem to get it right!

I just don't have a good answer to this problem, I guess. If I take a look at my calendar, the not-so-good diet days have been those days when I did something social for (or after) dinner. I'm lucky (?), because these occasions do not arise regularly, so I keep losing weight, although really slowly. For example, I did get right back on track today, and I ate a little less than I normally do. The cheesecake and the chocolate cake are long gone from my fridge (they're in good hands, I'm sure). But I'm thinking of all those people who are constantly on the go, who go to professional dinners and receptions all the time, and I just don't know how they do it! I guess that it's a habit, and you learn to plan around it, but if someone put me out of my life and into the life of a professional who has to attend a lot of social functions, well let me tell you, I would gain 10 pounds in a blink!

Huah!

2008-09-23T10:33:00.004-04:00

So my cardio kickboxing classes started yesterday, and today I'm feeling a bit like I've been beaten with a baseball bat. My arms, back, abs, and butt (oh, especially the butt!) all hurt, so I guess it was a good workout. On the other hand, I did expect it to be worse, and I was a bit surprised when I sat on the toilet today without much pain :-)

I stepped on the scale today to look at a fabulous 83 kg (183 lb), which is another new low for me, bringing my total weight loss to 16 kg (35.3 lb)! One more kilo off and I will be exactly half-way done! I have to say, I never really thought I could do this. I mean, I kept imagining myself thinner, but never really imagined the getting-there part, does this make any sense? I don't remember when was the last time I weighed 83 kg, I think it was sometime between 1999 and 2002. As an undergrad, at some point I lost some weight by following a crazy diet which made me starve. It was the only time in my life when I did such a thing. I have a vague memory of weighing 83 kg, but I remember it as an all-time low, I definitely didn't go lower than that, and I don't even remember if it was really 83kg or 83.8 kg. And even at that weight back then, I had a much weaker body and nothing like the muscles I've built this time, so I'm pretty sure I look t-o-o-o-ns better now.

I think I need some new clothes. I've got, like, two pairs of pants that fit semi-well right now, and that's only because they were too small in the past (why I bought clothes that were clearly too small is a mystery to me, but it's coming quite handy now). The funny thing is, though, that I need new shoes! My heels are all kind of too big right now (as in you can stick 1-2 fingers in-between the back of my foot and the shoe)! I guess I'll need to invest in some new clothes and shoes very soon, especially since I want to look good for job interviews. The thing is, though, the more I delay the purchases, the better the clothes (and shoes?) will fit when I need to wear them. Hmmm...

Alas, I still have enormous calves. All this weight lost and my calves have _maybe_ shrunk by an inch, if at all. I think they were 17in. at their widest part, and now they are a little more than 16in. when I measure them in the morning. I always told myself that one of the reasons I wanted to lose weight was so that I could get some nice boots. I love boots, but I have never been able to find anything that gets past my calves, and I don't like the shorter ones very much. I might have to readjust my expectations. Maybe I'll never be able to find nice boots, sigh! I'll be one of those skinny people with calves the size of my thighs, ha ha! Maybe I should take up soccer!

A welcome loss

2008-09-20T15:26:00.003-04:00

Just thought I would let you know that I reached a new low today, as I weighed in at 83.6 kg (184.3 lb), which means that I have now lost 34 pounds (and I am 41 pounds away from goal)! This is despite a night of complete debauchery yesterday, during which I drank five (!) beers, which is much more than I usually drink these days... Granted, I ate a very small dinner, to make space for alcohol calories, and I also danced quite a bit. I was a tad dehydrated this morning, though, so it might be a while before I see this number again. Also, I just came back from a very big, delicious, and filling brunch, so I expect a higher number on the scale tomorrow. Still, it's a new low for today, and I'll take it!

How to stay focused

2008-09-17T19:56:00.005-04:00

Ioanna commented on my previous post and asked for some advice on how to stay focused when the going gets rough: what do you do when you arrive home tired, after a hectic day at work, and have no energy to think about what you are going to eat?

I will write down my two cents, but more people should feel free to comment here or send links to their own blogs, where they talk about the subject.

First of all, there are big pay-offs to planning ahead of time. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to actually cook ahead of time, although that seems like the best-case scenario. But try doing the thinking ahead of time: maybe that morning, as you eat breakfast before heading out, or even during lunchtime at work, you can think about your dinner. It's one thing to go home feeling super-hungry knowing you're grilling chicken that you defrosted that morning, and quite another to arrive home on an empty stomach having no clue whatsoever about what will enter your mouth in the next half-hour.

Which brings me to an adjacent point; you should try hard not to let yourself go super-hungry. When I get super-hungry during the day, my defenses weaken, and it's much harder to say "no" to bad food options at night (same thing happens when I drink alcohol, sigh!). I personally don't snack between breakfast and lunch, but it's crucial that I eat many low-calorie snacks between lunch and dinner. I might have a sandwich for lunch at 12:30-1pm, then I eat some fruit around 2:30-3pm, some Greek yogurt at 4-4:30pm, some other piece of fruit later... You get the point. This makes it easier for me to control myself on the days when I arrive home tired after the gym and there's no ready food.

Second, learn to cook yummy and healthy food fast. My own personal favorite has been grilled chicken in a lemon mustard marinade, with herbs, which literally takes 10 minutes to prepare from scratch and grill on a Foreman Grill (it would be better to leave the chicken in the marinade, but sometimes I can't bother, I'm too hungry). The only planning ahead you have to do is to defrost the chicken that morning (I usually buy some meat and then freeze it in individual portions of half a pound or so). You can also use fajita mix and fry the chicken (two teaspoons of olive oil are enough for one person), that's also delicious. Or you can put some canned tuna in a green salad and add some vinaigrette. In general, there are many quick and delicious recipes with meat (or fish, but I don't freeze the fish, so I usually have it on Sundays or Mondays, one or two days after a trip to the grocery store). If you eat 6-8oz of protein, with some salad on the side, then you have a filling, healthy dinner, which really doesn't take long to cook.

Third, you should keep yummy, healthy snacks around, and not-so-healthy snacks out of your face. If you arrive home feeling hungry and you can't wait for the 10 minutes it takes to prepare your grilled meat, you can have a snack that will be like a "quick fix" before your actual dinner. This works really well for me, because I usually get home after the gym, and I have to shower before preparing dinner, by which time I'm starving. So I buy some dried fruit from Whole Foods, and it really does the trick: cranberries, papaya chunks, ginger, the more exotic the better :-) I have a couple of pieces of each and then go shower or prepare food. Eat something that almost feels like a treat, something that you really like. But remember, the goal is to get energy for 10 minutes, not have an actual dinner on dried fruit or other snacks! It might take some trials before you decide what works for you, but there has to be something that's low in calories, healthy, and enough to give you a boost for the 10 minutes you need before you have some warm dinner on your plate. Nuts are a great choice (cashews are my favorite), you have to go easy on them though, and sometimes that's hard when you're really hungry. But if you can get just a handful of nuts and then put the rest back in the cupboard, that's a healthy, excellent choice of food to keep you going for a while. Another idea is some hummus with baby carrots. Yet another idea is some soup, if you like the prepared ones that you can just stick in the microwave with some water. Soups fill you up really fast, so I like them as well.

Of course, the flip side of this is to try and keep temptation away. If you know you love cheese and lose control over it, it's a bad idea to keep cheese and crackers at home, unless you're throwing a dinner party soon. If you can't eat just a handful of nuts, it's probably better not to keep them around. If Nutella is your nemesis, don't make it hard on yourself by having some readily available. Every person is different, and you have to discover for yourself what works and what doesn't.

Fourth, keep fall-back-on foods in the freezer. A fall-back-on food is a food that you like, and which you can fall back on (duh!) when all else fails. When you're just too freaking tired to cook, it's easy to just call the pizza delivery guys and veg out in front of the TV until your food arrives. A much better option is to know that you have something in your freezer which can transform itself into dinner in less than 10 minutes, with very little effort. My own personal favorite is Chicken Tikka Masala by Whole Kitchen, a Whole Foods Brand (you must think I'm a Whole Foods freak). I think it's delicious, and it makes for a filling dinner (one serving is 490 calories or something), so I always keep some packages in my freezer. You can try many frozen meals and see what works for you, just try to get some brand that goes easy on preservatives (and be prepared to pay a higher price for it). Also, I avoid those frozen meals that are especially made for those on a diet, because most of the time they taste like crap and also they are not very filling. But some people like the fact that they can have a serving of that, and then something else, and then something else, before they're done with dinner. Everybody's different, we have different tastes, and that's ok. Remember, the key is to like what you're eating, otherwise you will find it hard to choose that option over other alternatives when you're really hungry (and you will find it even harder to keep making those decisions for a long time).

Another idea is to cook something that you like and that freezes well in large quantities, then stick it in the freezer in individual portions and have it on those nights when you can't be bothered to cook. Lentil soup, for example, has worked for me in the past (although, come to think of it, I haven't had it in ages!).

Fifth, don't beat yourself up if you feel like you screwed up. Sometimes, no matter how good your intentions are, you can't avoid overeating. For me, this usually happens when a friend invites me over for dinner, or when (worse, even) we go out in a restaurant. It might happen if work sucks and after dinner I eat some leftover ice-cream or other dessert I hadn't planned on eating (that happened to me yesterday). These things happen, and as long as they don't happen regularly, it's ok. You can't stop having dinners with people just because you're trying to lose weight, although you might want to go for the grilled chicken in the menu instead of the carbonara, and you might want to have more water and less wine than you would normally have. And maybe some food will always be comfort food for you, and it's ok to have it in moderation if it makes you feel better after a crappy day. Sit down, relax, enjoy with no hard feelings, take in the flavor that you love, and then go on with your life and your healthy eating and living. DO NOT think that a little slip-up is ruining all your efforts. That said, if you feel like you're developing a pattern, then stop and think, and make the necessary changes.

I think that this is pretty much what I have to say on this. I will not lie and pretend it's easy, because it really isn't. It takes a lot of determination, strength, courage, call it what you might, to stick with it, but the pay-offs are great! Remember to always like what you're eating, otherwise it's not worth it. And take time to discover what really works for you, not just for today, tomorrow, or until you reach your goal, but for the rest of your life.

There! Inspirational enough? :-)

Amen!

2008-09-17T13:23:00.002-04:00

I read this article at the New York Times website today, and I had to provide a link. I really hope that the trend towards "positive eating" and home-cooking continues. My only concern is that making the time to cook is very hard for many people, but it does seem like the way to go.

Hanging in there (barely, though)

2008-09-15T09:26:00.005-04:00

Many thanks to Heather, Lainey, and Lyn for your comments on my pics :-) I hope to have more (or should I be saying less? :-)) to show in the future!

The past week has been a little rough. My weight has gone up accordingly, and today I weighed in at 85.2 kg (187.8 lb), more than three pounds over my all-time low. I know that my period is partly to blame for this, but I'm also counting four days of not-so-great eating. I didn't go completely over the top, but I definitely exceeded the calories that I normally eat. I had many dinner thingies, parties, and an abundant brunch going on, as it's the beginning of the semester and we're all catching up. Apart from the off-plan eating, I drink a lot of alcohol on these occasions. And alcohol, as we all know, has a l-o-t of calories. I'm a little annoyed with myself at the moment for eating so much in the past few days, but, honestly, I'm worried so much about other stuff in my life right now, that healthy eating, although a priority in general, is not something that I think about constantly these days. There are so many other issues to obsess over, weight loss seems like the one thing that's actually working for me right now!

I went back to regular exercise mode, and I went to the gym four times last week. I am doing forty minutes (35' + 5' cool-down) on the elliptical machine at high resistance (13), and my average heart rate is between 155 and 165, which is pretty high. I then do some stretching and yoga-style movements, and in the end I do 100 (50/rest/30/rest/20) abs. So that's a solid workout, four times a week. Can't wait for my cardio kickboxing class next Monday. Much as I brag about the gym and my increasing endurance, I still think it's boring to exercise by myself, and it actually takes more time than when I'm in a class environment.

Psychologically, I've been a b-i-g mess this past week. I'm really stressed about finishing my dissertation and landing a job, and it gets to me so much that I end up doing no work whatsoever. I'm frustrated and I don't think that I want an academic job, but then I'm worried that I won't get a job outside of academia (e.g. in consulting firms), because I'm 28 and I have no work experience (I started grad school right after undergrad). So I feel like a big, fat failure most of the time, and it's really hard to work when I feel like that. I just cry my eyes out at least once every day.

I'm also obsessing about being single and alone, and everybody around me seems to be coupling up and falling in love, or married already. It's hard to confess, but I think I'm jealous of others who (seem to) have it all worked out and are on their way to success and love. I'm just feeling so lost and all over the place!

I have been seeing a therapist for some time now, and she's been wanting to put me on antidepressants for a long time. I have been resisting and saying "no" (very emphatically!) every time she brings up the issue, because, except for my ability to work, I'm fully functional. I have no sleep issues, my appetite is unaffected, and when I'm around people I laugh, I joke, I'm ok. It's just that I can't work, and because this is such a critical period in my work, I feel that I have no choice; I will ask for medication next time I see her. I'm really worried about all the side-effects of these drugs, and it's a big step for me to admit to myself that I might need them. I don't know much about these drugs, except that after I've asked left and right, it seems like a whole lot of people in my entourage take them! I hope they help, though, because nothing else seems to be working right now.

Before and After pics

2008-09-09T14:45:00.022-04:00

OK, my scale is working fine, since today I weighed in at 84.2 kg (185.6 lb). I'm still happy, it seems that I lost some fat while in Greece (and possibly since I got back).
I played around with Picasa 3 (which you can download online for free), and I managed to hide the facial features in my pics. Honestly, the end result is a little spooky, I'm not sure I like looking at my picture with my face "erased"... For anyone wishing to try it out, I used their "retouch" button, under the "basic fixes" tab, and basically replaced my facial features with other patches of skin from my body. It sounds awful, I know, but it's easy and it serves the purpose :-)

Before:

So, here's a pic from summer 2007. It's me in a bathing suit in Crete. It's pretty ugly and unflattering, possibly one of the worst pics I've ever taken. I don't know how much I weighed, definitely over 200 lb, possibly over 210 lb.
The pic next to that was taken on New Year's Eve 2007-2008, so a bit more than a month before I started losing weight. I must have weighed around 218-220 lb on that one. It's pretty flattering.

After:

I took these pics as I was trying out outfits for the wedding that I went to in Crete. I weighed 189lb when I took those, so I've lost more weight since then (I now weigh 185 lb). My mom actually had to take the dress in a little bit, because it was too big, especially in the chest area. Before I started losing weight, this dress was too small.

I have to say, it's not like the difference is striking in these pics, but there you go...

My scale must be lying...

2008-09-08T15:14:00.004-04:00

or going out of whack, because today I weighed in at 83.8 kg (184.7 lb)! That's an amazing new low, and it's the third day in a row that I've gotten such great news! I am very-very happy, of course :-) And it can't be muscle loss, because I did go to the gym three times last week! I just hope my scale is still accurate at this point! I wonder if the fact that I slept a l-o-t this weekend is making my body shed extra water, hmmm...

I went to Health Services today, and it looks like my tonsillitis is making a comeback. They put me back on antibiotics, double dose for ten days this time, boohoo! At least they seem to have rejected the possibility that I have mono, which is great news, I really can't afford to fall sick right now.

New low, at last!!!

2008-09-07T10:57:00.003-04:00

I am ecstatic to report that I've had two new lows in the past couple of days! Yesterday I weighed in at 85.2 kg (187.8 lb) and today (oh joy!) I am down to 84.4 kg (186.1 lb)! Since September 2nd, when I weighed myself after my vacation, my weight has been going down every single day! I'm not used to such nice, steady weight-losing behavior from my body, I'm really surprised. Not sure how to explain it, perhaps crazy water retention? Perhaps I actually lost weight while in Greece? I'm not sure, but hey, I'll take it!

I want to post some pics, but I am reluctant to show my face, so I was trying to find some program that will decrease the resolution around my facial features. I can't figure it out, though. I thought I could do it with Picasa, but I can't... If you have any ideas (other than just cropping the picture), let me know. I guess Photoshop will do it, but I don't have it installed on my laptop, and it's a really big program to install, and I never use it otherwise, so I was trying to avoid that.

The bad news is that I think my tonsillitis is making a comeback, because my throat/right tonsil is sore since Friday, and it's exactly the same feeling that I had before I got really sick in Crete. I just finished my dose of antibiotics on Tuesday, and I was doing fine! I think I'll go to Health Services tomorrow, I don't want to fall sick again! I didn't go to the gym yesterday because I don't want to push my body at this point, and I've already had three days of intense exercise this week, which is ok. I slept a lot yesterday, didn't go out, didn't have any alcohol, but I'm feeling slightly worse today, so I'm officially worried.

Back to -30 lb

2008-09-05T09:38:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to say that I weighed in at 85.4 kg (188.3 lb) today, so I'm back to 30 pounds lost. I am contemplating putting some pics up, but there's not that many full-body photographs of me! I'll see what I can do, though :-) I'm so ready for some new lows!

Kicking butt

2008-09-04T10:13:00.003-04:00

Ha! Weighed in at 85.6 kg today (188.7 lb), so no gain during my vacation, must have all been water retention (I can't have lost one "real" kilo in two days). I am half a breath away from my all-time low, and I can't wait to get even lower.

Kicked butt at the gym yesterday, and I'm getting more exercise today (and tomorrow and on Saturday!). My cardio kickboxing starts on the 22nd, and it will be three times a week for this semester, yay! This means that I will only do the boring elliptical machine once a week, and I should be all set with my exercise.

Back in shape

2008-09-03T10:34:00.004-04:00

Like I predicted, the scale read a lower number today; I weighed 86 kg (189.6 lb). That's just a bit over a pound from my all-time low, so I'm in good shape, I think.

I just hope I haven't lost too much muscle, it's been almost two weeks since I hit the gym last. I'm getting in some exercise today though, and I plan to go to the gym four times this week, and get back on track on that front as well.

I had a good food day yesterday, and I plan to continue in this spirit :-) Healthy eating and exercise are the two things that I feel I have control over in my life right now, they are the things that make me happy and give me strength to tackle the rest of my issues. I want to see a new low soon!

Back on track

2008-09-02T12:55:00.004-04:00

I came back from Greece yesterday, and after sleeping for 11 hours or so, I weighed myself this morning. The scale read 86.6 kg (190.9 lb), which is exactly one kilo more than I weighed on August 1st. So it's a gain compared to last month's reading, but it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. Three weeks in Greece and I hardly gained anything, it seems. I am treating some of this extra kilo as water retention, as I feel bloated by the trip, the jetlag, etc. We'll see what the scale says in the next few days. I'm quite happy and content, and I'm pretty sure I will post new lows very soon. I also measured myself with the tape, and, if anything, the measurements seem smaller than last time. So I'm treating this as a victory.

I understand that my last post was pretty bleak. I was having a blah day, and I guess I took it all out on the blog. The truth is that even the "binging" with the Merenda was not that bad, and it really could have been much worse. In the old days, I probably would have eaten most of the container on one sitting. There was definitely a behavioral change from my part during the trip, even if I wasn't perfect 100% of the time. I did exercise moderation when I ate out (went heavy on healthy stuff that I can't find in the US), and the only thing that I didn't control was alcohol consumption, although, looking back, it really wasn't that bad, except for 3-4 nights during my entire vacation. And I went to the gym and worked hard during the one week when I was in Crete before the wedding crowds arrived. A year ago, all of this would have been unheard of.

I am realizing that in all the blogs that I wrote while in Greece, I failed to mention the reactions of people who saw me after a whole year! My friends in Athens noticed ("This is the thinnest we've ever seen you, right?"), my old high school friends in Crete noticed, especially the males ("Wow, you look... amazing! Wow!..."), my family noticed ("What happened to the rest of your butt?"), everyone noticed! It was fantastic! I could feel the looks of admiration coming from pretty much everyone. There were old teachers and family acquaintances that almost didn't recognize me when I saw them at the wedding! And I got some guy attention (and action) during my night outings :-)

These remarks all provide even more incentives to continue with my plan. When I go home next year, I want my BMI to be in the normal range, and I want more people to have trouble recognizing me!

Whoops!

2008-08-30T09:23:00.008-04:00

I am blogging from Athens. I planned my trip so as to spend four days with my old friends before heading back to the US, but instead I'm spending most of the day alone, because my friends are either away on holidays, or working long hours (and weekends) for very little pay. I have never seen such exploitation of white-collar, top college-educated workers elsewhere, and I have vowed never to return to my home country permanently, unless things change pretty drastically. I feel really lonely right now.

The problem with spending the day alone is that I resort to food for comfort, in a way that I haven't done in a really long time. I hate to be writing about this, but I have to let it out, because it's eating me up (no pun intended). Yesterday and today, I have woken up meaning to go out and visit the stores, but before I could mobilize myself, the stores had closed for the afternoon (stores here close at 2:30pm and open up again around 6pm, until they close for the day at 8:30 or 9pm. Today they don’t open in the evening at all). So I stay at home, with no Internet connection (I have to go to a local Starbucks for that, where I am right now), and I eat.

My main source of bad, extra calories these past two days has been Merenda, which is the Greek equivalent of Nutella (chocolaty hazelnut spread, caloric dynamite). I don't know why I've been craving chocolate in the middle of the hot summer like that, but I have. And let's just say that I've fully indulged in my craving for two days in a row. You see, I bought a jar of Merenda when I got to Athens, because I know that my (skinny) friend (whose apartment I'm using) likes it. I didn't even think I would open the damn thing, and now I've emptied half of it and have probably eaten 1200 completely unneeded calories, and my friend hasn't even come back from holidays yet! The thing is, my friend is getting ready to move out of Athens, and I'm thinking that she wouldn't have time to finish the jar on her own. So I'm helping her out, you see, I can't have Merenda go to waste, right? Right... This is the attitude that has made me fat over all these years. This is so lame and I'm so angry at myself! I shouldn't have opened the damn thing, especially since I had bought other, healthy stuff for my breakfasts (which, by the way, I'm consuming on top of the Merenda)! Go figure... Merenda by itself wouldn’t have been so terrible, except that after I’ve eaten big quantities of it (on top of other stuff), my friends finally get off work and have time to get together over dinner, followed by decadent ice-cream! Such was my day yesterday, and I think it will be pretty similar tonight.

I’m really not sure why I binged on Merenda. Is it boredom and the fact that I have nothing to do with myself for many hours in the day? I do think that this is one of the reasons I was fat as a kid. Or maybe my body is making up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, when I was sick and ate almost nothing. Or is it sadness and stress? I am sad, stressed and melancholic for a number of reasons: crumbling friendships that are not passing the test of time, my greatest love interest of all time (now a really good friend) insisting that I go stay with him and his girlfriend during my stay in Athens (and me acting like a complete nutcase and resisting his tempting offers, because I don’t ever want to feel indebted to his girlfriend), the bleak job prospects here in Greece, which pretty much make it impossible for me to come back, my really painful and increasing contempt for my father, whose long-term unemployment is ruining his self-respect and turning him into a serial partying, late-night-out drinker, some other emotional let-downs involving a Spanish guy who was supposed to visit me in October but just got into a relationship (I’m assuming the visit is off), and the prospect of working really hard to finish my dissertation and enter the (academic) job market as soon as I go back to the US... Maybe I’m eating so that I don’t think about all these things that are otherwise constantly buzzing in my head. Maybe I’m trying to obsess over my weight instead, which is something that I know how to fix and something that WILL get fixed as soon as I get back to my routine.

I could be overeating for a number of reasons, then; boredom, loneliness, disappointment, sadness, stress and anxiety. I don’t care why I’m overeating, but I do care for that big number that I know I will face on my scale on September 2nd. So I know I’m not touching that jar again. Now it’s halfway over anyway, so there’s definitely enough time for my friend to finish it before she moves out. Ha! No more excuses! And I don’t need another 1200 calories. Yuk!

But this whole Merenda ordeal reveals something deeper about my eating behavior, and for me, that’s the most unsatisfying part. I thought I had said goodbye to the days of thoughtless eating, but I was clearly wrong. Take me out of my well-established, well thought-of routine, and I’m bound to mess up. How can I ever hope to maintain a healthy weight when I act like that? I don’t want to be counting calories and measure portions for the rest of my days; it’s exhausting and may very well be impossible later in life. What will I do then? I’ve lost 30 pounds, and I don’t ever want to get them back, I want to move further down, and I want to STAY down. Whenever I lose this weight, I know that I will probably have to stay in maintenance, calorie-counting mode for at least a couple of years before I try to eat without counting every bite. But before I ever hope to get there, I need to change my approach to food pronto!

I’m almost looking forward to coming back to the US, back to my routine. It’s a little sad; I didn’t expect to feel like that. I miss my friends there, I miss my roommate, I miss my cardio kick-boxing class (did I mention I feel like jelly after so many days of complete physical inactivity?), and I miss the safe distance from Greek reality for people of my age and social status. And I look forward to losing more weight, to posting new lows, and to getting done with my studies. Oh, and I really look forward getting a grip, because I’m starting to seriously annoy myself here.

Sick

2008-08-27T02:33:00.003-04:00

I am still on vacation in Crete, I'm leaving for Athens tomorrow and then I'm flying back to the US on Monday. My friend's wedding took place on Saturday, and we all had a fantastic time. It was really great to have my best college friends all together again, and in such a festive atmosphere too. On the other hand, I am realizing that the geographical distance between us has turned into some sort of psychological distance; we're growing apart, and I can't seem to overcome it. It made me really sad, and I'm still not sure whether I should make a big deal out of it; I mean, it IS a huge deal to me, but should I sit down and actually talk about it with them?

All in all, though, it was great, it seemed like an endless party from Thursday to Sunday. The problem is that after all the festivities were over, I got really sick. I have been fighting off a cold since I got here (maybe I caught it on the airplane or something), and on Monday night it turned into a bad case of tonsillitis. Yesterday was really bad, I even had high fever (I never get fever!), and swallowing is still really-really painful. The doctor put me on antibiotics without second thoughts, and I've spent most of the past one and a half days in bed. It sucks to be sick in such hot weather and while I'm on holidays, but on the other hand I'm getting pampered by my mother, which is really nice. I guess that all the lack of sleep (I had been under-sleeping way before I got to Greece), the traveling, and the copious amounts of alcohol took their toll on my immune system. Lesson to be learned: I'm not 20 anymore, I can't do that sort of thing over such an extended period of time without consequences.

On the eating/exercise front: from last Monday to Thursday, before my friends arrived for the wedding, I tried really hard to stick to my regular eating and exercise habits. I subscribed to the gym, and exercised pretty hardly four times last week. I counted calories and weighed myself on my mother's scales, which, according to my sister, always show her one kilo (2.2 pounds) too heavy. If this is true, then that's great, because the last reading was 86.2 kg. Take a kilo out of that, and it means that I've actually lost weight since I came to Greece. Even if these scales are accurate, though, it's still not a big gain, so yay for me!

I haven't weighed myself in a week, though, because my eating, drinking, and sleeping patterns have been so irregular. I haven't eaten all that much; I've been having pretty small breakfasts, and then a tiny snack and a bigger dinner (but nothing too extravagant). Alcohol, of course, has been a different story, but it only really lasted from Thursday to Sunday. On Monday I started feeling sick, and I haven't drunk (or eaten much) at all since then.

I really wanted to go to the gym this week, but there's no way I could make it while feeling so frail. Now I'm just wishing for a full recovery by Monday, when I'm flying back. And then it will be back to hard work, regular exercise and healthy eating for me! And I need to be careful and make sure I get enough sleep in the process :-)

On the go...

2008-08-17T16:01:00.005-04:00

It feels like I haven't blogged in ages. The last week in the US was absolutely crazy with deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines. I left for Greece on August 9th, and I weighed 86.2 kg (190 lb) on that morning. I wasn't very happy about that, and I'm not sure why my weight crept up and stayed there (maybe some salty dinners?), but I honestly didn't have the time to worry about it.

I haven't really done any calorie-counting since the 9th, and my eating and drinking has been off-plan and not particularly moderate. I overate and drank tons on my birthday, which I celebrated with old friends in Athens. I don't really care about that, it was a special day! Then I went to Kos and Kalymnos (two islands in Eastern Greece) to meet up with some other friends. I think I did fine in terms of eating. All of the food was healthy and not very fatty, lots of veggies (I loooove Greek salad!) and grilled meat. I did a decent job going easy on the feta cheese and not overindulging in deep-fried potatoes, which is standard summer food in Greek tavernas. I ate my tzatziki on a single slice of bread, which might not be optimal, but it's better, and a definite behavioral change from my part. We generally had two meals a day: a biggish, heavy-on-fruit breakfast (more like brunch, considering we never got up before noon) and then dinner at a taverna. The quantity of food wasn't big, all things considered. But I did drink a lot of alcohol, and a lot of sugar with it. And I barely had any exercise (lying on the beach doesn't really burn much), which makes me feel a bit like jelly. I miss my cardio kick-boxing class, can you believe it?

Now I'm in Crete, in my parents' (and what I still consider my own) house. Last night I had my 10-year high-school reunion. There was so much food and drink! Truth be told, I didn't think about dieting, I just ate and drank without considering my long-term weight-loss goals. Again, no bad feelings, I fully enjoyed it. Besides, I don't think I ate all that much; I had barely eaten anything all day, and for some reason I was really thirsty during dinner, so I stuffed myself with water. BUT I drank tons: white wine, red house wine (which is more brandy than wine), beer, rum and coke. And three yummy, fruity shots. By the end of the night, I was pretty drunk (along with everybody else), and I can hold my drink, so I must have drunk a l-o-t. Damn alcohol, why are you so fattening???

Today was a good day (or half a day, since I got up at 3pm), not a lot of food and all of it healthy (except from two small pieces of chocolate), but I didn't get out of the house, so that's zero points for exercise. I've been feeling a little sick, I guess my immune system got tired of the lack of sleep and the excessive amounts of alcohol, and it's sending me a warning... Tomorrow I'll start logging calories again, since I'm at home and I can better control my eating. I'm even weighing myself tomorrow! I'm also going to the gym and paying for a week's worth of visits, so I'll get in some exercise again. The problem is that my friends from Athens are coming on Wednesday night (a good common friend is getting married on Saturday), so I expect more crazy drunken nights and a fair amount of food.

I know I'll gain weight and that this holiday will be a step back from my goal weight. This sucks, but I don't know that I can stop it from happening. I don't want to control my alcohol intake, and I don't want to think about dieting. I want to have a good time before I go back to the US for the semester from hell. Unfortunately, alcohol is a big part of my social life, and I am not willing to give it up. So I'm coming to terms with this fact, and I know that I will go back into my old ways after September 1st, when I board the plane to cross the Atlantic again. I have also convinced myself that any weight gain will go away easily once I settle in my regular eating habits and exercise pattern again. For the time being, I'm avoiding any obvious calorie dynamites, but I'm not going crazy. Summer time is here and the living is easy :-)

30 pounds lost!!!

2008-08-03T12:24:00.002-04:00

Oh my! I can't believe it! Weighed in at 85.4kg (188.3lb) today, bringing my total weight lost to an unbelievable 30lb! I still have 45lb to go before I reach my target, but it suddenly doesn't seem as out-of-reach as it once did!
OK, pressing deadline to meet and almost no work done since Friday, so I gotta run :-)

Ops!

2008-08-02T22:58:00.014-04:00

Ouch! I have been reading and re-reading my last post [how lame is that? Oh, the lengths that I go to in order to avoid work! (eyes rolling)], and I fear I sound like a self-righteous bitch, which I may very well be, but I really didn't mean to come across like that. I don't pretend that I have the answers; I have been fighting with my weight my whole life, and this is the first time ever that it seems to be working, and I'm not even sure why!

I'm an intelligent, young and accomplished woman (did I mention I'm also really modest?), and I still think this weight-loss thing is the hardest thing ever! If it were easy, I would have done it a long time ago, because it sure as hell bothered me long before I had any success in it! I was mostly pointing out (probably thinking loudly) some facts and attitudes which, I fear, are now becoming social norms, and which definitely don't encourage people to maintain a healthy weight and level of exercise.

Update:
I simply HAD to share this picture from an article by Bill Marsh featured on the New York Times website today. The numbers speak for themselves...

The scales still give me a fit on most days, by the way... According to today's reading, I gained a pound for no obvious reason, except perhaps a sssss-lightly saltier (although pretty small) early dinner yesterday. Had I gone out for dinner and had I even -thought- about alcohol, I'm sure it would have been worse.

Slight (boring) update on the exercise: I've increased my time on the elliptical machine to 35 minutes + 5 minutes cooling down, and I keep my heart rate between 155 and 165, which I think is pretty good. My maximum heart rate is usually 174, and if I fall below 155 I am alarmed and increase my speed/intensity. Today I sweated so much, I loved it! I usually don't sweat much, even if I am exhausted and my rate is super-high, but today was different, not sure why though... Also, I tend to do more than 4 minutes on my push-up position these days. Today, for instance, I did 4 minutes and 15 seconds. It doesn't sound like a lot, but let me tell you, when you're up there standing on your hands and feet for four whole minutes, 15 seconds more is a friggin' long time :-) Thank God for music, I couldn't do it without my tunes blasting in my ears.

I had some bad episodes of stomach/belly cramps some time ago, so I'm a bit more careful about not eating heavily before exercising. It was probably the high-protein Greek yogurt that did it, so I now have it at least two hours before I hit the gym.

God I hope I go down to 85kg before I leave for Greece. "Oh, wouldn't it be lovely?"

A new low and some social commentary

2008-08-01T10:40:00.006-04:00

World, lo and behold!! I weighed in at 85.6kg (188.7 lb) today! Is this great or what? I have lost 29.5lb, and I am queen of the world (with a pressing deadline to meet) and dieter extraordinaire! And guess what; my size 12 Express jeans are actually fitting quite loose around the waist! They're still tight around the thighs, but I have a big lower body and a relatively small waist, so I expect this sort of thing to happen. I'm not shopping for a smaller Express size any time soon, but knowing that I can actually fit pretty comfortably in their size 12 is a definite victory!

Like I wrote in my previous post, I went to an amazing concert yesterday! It was at Foxwoods casino in CT, which I thought was a really odd venue for "The Killers", but oh well, it worked out fine. The number of obese people around me struck me, though. It was people of all ages, both men and women, going to the concert or just gambling away their life savings (that's a whole different issue, though). I actually almost felt like my weight was normal when I was around them! In my university and among the people with whom I interact daily, I am probably among the heaviest women. Let me tell you, there are not many overweight people making up my daily surroundings, it seems like anorexia is a bigger problem in my part of America. But yesterday, when I left the confines of my tiny little fishbowl, I remembered what it's like out there (ok, that sounds a little dramatic, but I swear that's how it felt).

I also have more observations of an anthropological nature :-) First, there are exceptions, but I really think that fat people tend to cluster (or that skinny people tend to cluster, take your pick). Usually when there was an overweight person in a group, there were more overweight people around him/her. That's especially true for women. You had some groups or skinny twenty-somethings scantily dressed and showing off beautiful bodies and toned muscles, and then you had other groups of overweight or downright enormous people sticking together. Why is that? Do we pick our friends based on their weight? I would hate to think that, but it might be true to some extent, even after the trying, ugly high-school years. Or is it that we weigh the same because we have the same habits? The second reason would mean that fat friends socialize by going out for enormous dinners and watching movies with extra-large, extra-butter popcorn and non-diet soda in hand. Skinny friends, on the other hand, meet their friends when they go out shopping (for scanty clothes), they share makeup tips and they meet for an afternoon jog, followed by a skinny latte at Starbucks. Either way you cut it, I don't like it, it makes me sad. FYI: I went to the concert with two pretty skinny guys, so I definitely don't fit the data. But then my statistics professors always said that you should never treat yourself as an observation.

Second, I am still awed by the food portions served in this country. My friends and I didn't have time to grab dinner before the show, and so we went to a pretty sad food court in the casino, to fill our empty stomachs before the show. I went to this asian-style counter and ordered some bourbon chicken that I love and haven't had in ages. I thought "just protein with a side of steamed rice, how bad can it be? Definitely better and more filling than a greasy slice of pizza." And this is probably true, as long as you are prepared to throw away three-freaking-quarters of what they served me! I mean, I must have gotten at least a pound of chicken on that plate, but the really crazy part was the rice. My plate must have had at least three cups of rice. Is this your idea of a SIDE-dish? I threw away most of it, fighting against the principles that my grandmother instilled on me as I was growing up, and which I still find hard to do away with (never throw away food, think about the kids in Africa). I did a good job with the chicken, I think I ate between half and three-quarters of it, but the rice was just ridiculous, I still shake my head when I think about it! I felt full, stopped eating and still threw out three quarters of my plate contents, how can this be right???

Well, enough ranting about that. The third observation has to do with people's attitude towards the slightest exercise. When we arrived at Foxwoods, we parked at the first self-parking garage that we found, and then went into the casino. We asked a man if he knew where the actual concert venue was, and his face contracted, he gave us a long, pitiful look, and he said "oh, it's quite far, it's on the other side of the casino, it will be a long walk!" We checked a map, and it really was at the other side. But it took us maybe ten minutes of medium-paced walking to get there, ten minutes of comfortable walking in an air-conditioned, carpet-covered space. How is this perceived as a long walk??? I mean, ok, it wasn't next door, but that man made it sound as if we would have been better-off by taking our car and parking in a different lot.

Then, after the concert was over, we had to go down a level to start our long, hard hike back to the car. The electric stairs had a huge waiting line, more like a herd of people around them, all of them young men and women who had just come out of the concert. We were among the few people who decided to take the actual, non-electric stairs to the lower level, and not wait in line. It definitely saved us time, but most other people (I repeat, all of them young, healthy fans of "The Killers") just waited for their turn to take the electric stairs. Making the effort to climb down a bunch of stairs didn't even register as an option, it seems. I mean, forget about the benefits of exercise: I hate-hate-hate waiting in lines if I can avoid it! Am I among a very few people who feel like that??

Then, when we had almost reached our car, we had to go up a level, and, again, there was a big crowd of people waiting for the elevator. We took the stairs that were right behind the elevator, and it still felt like we were among the few people who actually considered that option.

My point is that I don't understand why there is any debate about why America is fat. Just look at people's lifestyles and choices! People are served out-of-control portions, and walking to places doesn't even count as an option next to electric stairs and elevators, even if we're talking about young, healthy people. No wonder the pounds come on.

Well!

2008-07-31T12:15:00.004-04:00

"Life has a funny way of helping you out when you think everything's going wrong and everything blows up in your face"... I have to report that I somehow managed to pull off two new lows in just two days! I weighed in at 85.8 kg today, and I really think that the stress is pushing my metabolism to its limits. Let's see what happens tomorrow, when it's official "weigh-in" time!

I feel a little yucky because I haven't been to the gym since Monday, due to all the workload and to a cancellation of my cardio kick-boxing class. I just hope that it's not muscle that I'm losing, I don't want to lose any hard-earned muscle right now!

The day started in a bit of a dreary mood, as I slept for only 4 or 5 hours because of my deadline. The new low was a bit of a boost, but I'm so concerned that I am losing muscle, that even that stressed me out! [Go figure...] This is probably an irrational fear, because I don't think two days away from the gym will make me lose half a pound of muscle, especially when I got to ride my bike on my way to school! Anyway, when I don't sleep enough I develop all kinds of crazy concerns...

Another reason I felt badly was because "The Killers" are playing nearby today, and I have a ticket, but I was seriously considering skipping the concert to meet my deadline. It made me feel super stupid, because it's not like either the concert or the deadline were unexpected occurrences, and I know I should have worked more in the beginning of the summer! My paper is in a dreadful state, and it makes me angry because I know I can do so much better! Anyway, the fantastic-amazing-fabulous news is that the conference deadline got extended, so I have until Sunday night to finish up whatever I can finish up, and submit my paper. This gives me some precious time, and of course now I get to go to the concert! So life is good today!

A good day?

2008-07-30T17:34:00.006-04:00

OK, so today is a good day, weight-loss-wise at least. I hit a new low of 86 kg (189.6 lb)! I have now lost 13 kg in total (28.7 lb). I can't remember ever achieving such big weight loss in the past. I have no idea how my body can go from 87.8 to 86 kg, which corresponds to a fluctuation of 4 freaking pounds, in just two days, but apparently it's possible.

The thing is, I'm not even really glad about it, because I'm so stressed about work, and I feel so useless on so many levels, that a mere 200gr below my all-time low is just not doing it for me. Of course, 200gr down is still better than 200gr up, but this recent yo-yo-ing is really wearing me out psychologically. I can't enjoy the loss when I'm pretty sure I will climb back on the scale tomorrow just to see another unexplained gain.

I woke up today with a headache, as well as an intense pain in my belly, and I think it's the stress and anxiety from work. I have an important deadline on Friday, and a presentation in a week from today, and some US student visa issues to sort out, and the big teaching load, and I'm just so overwhelmed right now. I'm so overwhelmed that I can't actually do work! I just wish I could press a fast-forward button and find myself in the comfort of my parents' house. At least that's a nice thought; I'll be home soon. The problem is that work will still be on my mind, and I will probably need to do stuff while in Greece. In fact, work will be hell until February 2009 at least, when the job market mayhem is over. Then I need to deal with the final details of submitting my dissertation, defend in the spring, and finally graduate in May and start afresh, god knows where and doing what. Can't wait, because life really sucks right now!

Right, enough whining, I should be grateful for my tiny loss and all for the other great things in my life that I keep taking for granted.

Back to stuck

2008-07-28T01:50:00.004-04:00

My yay's didn't last for very long, as my weight went back to 87 kg (191.8 lb) as early as Friday. I went out with friends on Thursday night, and had a salty, Mexican dinner and a lot of alcohol, which explain the hike. It was a good friend's birthday, what was I to do??? I have been eating well (and staying away from alcohol) throughout the weekend, but I'm still up there.

I hate that I can't eat out and drink a little alcohol without the scale reminding me for days later. I'm doing really well all week, and then one night of eating outside of my own kitchen takes it all away. I mean, come on, I weigh as much as I weighed three damn weeks ago, and it's not like I have been eating at maintenance mode! I have definitely been taking in fewer calories than I consume, so what's the deal with the scale?? With work being really stressful right now, a nice, more permanent decrease in numbers would be really nice.

I know that I'm doing really well overall, and everybody tells me how great I look, but I want to keep losing, I hate being stuck despite the effort. I have a feeling that while I'm in Greece for three weeks, the only feasible goal will be maintenance, so I was hoping to lose more than 4 pounds in July. Clearly my body doesn't think so. It's too bad.

On the bright side, I have never once considered going back to reckless eating. I'm sticking to this lifestyle, loss or no loss. It's boring and tiresome to count calories every single day, every single bite, but going back to how I ate and lived before is not on the table. This deep, inner determination and certainty is very different from my feelings towards weight loss in the past. This plan is here to stay :-) Now if only the scale could listen!

Yay, yay, yay!

2008-07-24T12:32:00.003-04:00

I almost did the chicken dance in front of my scale this morning! Finally a new low! I'm in the fourth day of my period, and my weight today was a glorious 86.2 kg (190 lb). I'm very excited! It took me almost two weeks to lose one pound, but I'm there! Now, do you know what would be even more amazing? If only I managed to lose another couple of pounds before I leave for Greece on August 9th :-) Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Recipe: Zucchini-potato-ricotta pie thingy (boureki)

2008-07-20T23:33:00.006-04:00

Despite my rotten mood, I will share another recipe that I tried for the first time on the July 4th BBQ, and which proved a big success :-) It's basically a vegetable pie ("boureki" in Greek, or "borek" in Turkish, take your pick). In Greek, it's called "Haniotiko Kolokithoboureko", which means "zucchini pie from Hania" (Hania is a very pretty town in Western Crete).

The mint added in the cheese adds a very special flavor, which is actually pretty common in recipes from Crete. The ingredients make for a pretty big pan, enough to produce around 20 generous pieces (which is why this is a great recipe for big groups of people). I used a round, 3-inch deep pan, with a 13-inch diameter. The recipe calls for "soft mizithra" cheese, but you can't really get that in the US, except if you live in New York City's Astoria, or perhaps in Chicago (or wherever there's a sizeable Greek community, like in Toronto). I have found that a pretty decent substitute is a mix of soft ricotta cheese and its harder equivalent, ricotta salata. I usually add 2/3 of the soft kind and 1/3 of the hard kind, and it works pretty well. So here goes the recipe (I'm sorry I don't have a picture, I will add one to the post when I make the pie again):

Haniotiko Kolokithoboureko (Zucchini-potato-ricotta pie)

Ingredients for a 3-inch deep, 13-inch-diameter round pan:

Dough (yes, you will make your own dough, although I suspect you could also use puff pastry from the grocery store. But your dough will definitely be healthier):
Dough Ingredients
-1 pound flour (I think I used all-purpose flour because that's what I had)
-3 tablespoons olive oil (extra virgin, of course :-))
-2 tablespoons lemon juice (you could also add a tiny bit of vodka or grappa! In Crete, you would add the local quivalent, called raki.)
-1 glass (8 oz) water
-1 teaspoon salt
-sesame to put on the whole pie right before putting in oven
Preparation
1. Place flour in large mixing bowl. Make room in center of bowl to add remaining ingredients.
2.Pour the salt, oil, lemon, and water in that spot.
3. Mix very gently, DO NOT overdo it! Just mix so that there are no big lumps of flour, don't overwork the dough. I always get that part wrong when I make dough. I work with it too much, and then it becomes too "elastic" to do anything with it.
4. Cover and let it "rest", while you prepare the filling.

Filling
Ingredients
-2 pounds zucchini, cut in thin "disks"
-2 pounds potatoes, also cut in thin "disks"
-salt, pepper to taste
-fresh mint to taste, chopped (maybe half a bunch?)
-2 pounds ricotta and ricotta salata mix (1.4 lb soft ricotta and 0.6 lb ricotta salata, or something like that)
-6 tablespoons olive oil
Preparation
1. Make sure the zucchini and potatoes are well-salted.
2. Mix cheese and mint.

Overall Preparation of the pie:
OK, so you've got the dough, and you've got your veggies washed, cut, and salted (don't combine the veggies. Also, minimize the amount of water on them, otherwise the pie will be watery). You also have the cheese mixed with the mint in a separate bowl.
1. Divide your dough in two equal parts.
2. Place one part of dough in greased pan (use olive oil to grease your pan). Make sure the whole bottom of your pan is covered. If your dough is too "elastic", I think you should do it again. That's actually what I had to do when I made this pie; I made 1.5 times the dough, because I worked one dough part too hard before putting it on the pan, and it was impossible to spread it once it was in there.
3. The layers go like this: First, place the potatoes on the dough. You can add pepper. Next, spread half the cheese-and-mint mixture. Then, add the zucchini (and pepper). Finally, spread the rest of the cheese-and-mint mixture.
4. Spread the second part of the dough on a floured surface (DON'T OVERWORK THE DOUGH!), and then carefully place it on the last layer (the cheese layer). Again, it should cover the whole surface. Spray with the olive oil, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
5. Right before you put the pie in the oven, "form" the pieces. Using a knife, cut the pie gently, superficially, into pieces, without going all the way to the bottom of the pan.
6. Bake in medium oven (anywhere from 350 to 400F) until done. It should be brown on top, and cooked inside. It took about an hour in my oven, perhaps a little longer. I think that next time I'll cut the veggies a little thinner.

This sounds complicated, but really, apart from the dough-handling, it's not that hard. It was a definitive winner, so I recommend it for any social gathering involving homemade food :-) Good luck, and please post comments if you try it!

Still up there

2008-07-20T22:59:00.004-04:00

I'm a little frustrated as far as weight loss goes (not that other aspects of my life are going that great either, but that's a different story). Since that glorious day when I weighed in at 86.6 kg (190.9 lb), it's been uphill :-( When will this stop???

My worst day was Saturday morning, when I weighed 89.2 kg (196.7 lb, gulp!). I shouldn't even have weighed myself, I should have known better. I went to a friend's house on Friday night (after I had dinner) and totally pigged out on snacks. Most of them were healthy, low-calorie stuff like pretzels, carrots, hummus, pineapple and watermelon, but still... After I got myself tipsy, I was attacked by a sneaky pint of chocolate ice cream, and I was too exhausted and intoxicated to say "no". By the way, chocolate ice cream easily makes the top of my list of "forbidden foods", the foods I lose control over... I felt so bad afterwards, I don't know what got into me! What was I thinking when I ate all that ice-cream??? I wasn't thinking, basically... I hate it when that happens! I had done so well all day, all week!

Today I weighed in at 88.4kg (194.9 lb), which is lower, but still 4 pounds up from what I weighed on July 16th. I'm blaming my period for lack of a better excuse. I've been right on schedule all week, and except for my irrational, stupid behavior on Friday night (and higher-than-average alcohol consumption last Saturday, more than a week ago), I haven't eaten anything that would explain this gain. What gives???

I really hope this weight comes off the same way that it crept on; suddenly and in a matter of days. I know it's not body fat, it's obstinate water retention, but it's still annoying as hell!

A little venting

2008-07-15T08:55:00.006-04:00

I spent the weekend not doing any work, but thinking about it constantly, in a way that I didn't really enjoy my time off [welcome to grad school!]. I'm quite stressed, as there's a ton of things to do by the end of the month and before I leave for Greece. Teaching is absorbing all of my energy, but I also need to get my dissertation in shape for the fall, if I want to graduate in May.

Anyway, the good news is that on Saturday, July 12th, I weighed 86.6 kg (190.9 lb), which is a new low! The bad news is that I have never seen that number again since that day. For the next three days, my weight has been 87.4 kg (192. lb), which is not the direction I want to be going! Saturday, which is when I hit the new low, was alcohol-intensive, and I had a lot of salty meat, so I couldn't complain when the scale didn't reward me on Sunday. But on Sunday I had my first-ever yoga class, I sweated tons, and, although I had a filling brunch, I had a light fish dinner. So I wasn't happy when my weight didn't change for my Monday weigh-in. And yesterday I had a normal eating day, and I did my cardio kick-boxing and everything, and still today my weight was unchanged. I'm blaming it on my cycle, as I'm expecting my period on Sunday, but it does seem a little odd to put the water weight on a week ahead of time! I'm just hoping that I'm not stuck again so soon after my previous plateau...

I've also been having some health issues. The first is that I think I got a little something stuck in my heel. It's been there since the end of May, I can feel it, and although it doesn't hurt regularly, if I wear the wrong shoe it does bother me. It's not serious, it's just annoying, and if my body doesn't reject it by August, I think I'll need to have it removed when I'm back home.

The second health issue is that I might have meralgia. I didn't know what that was until I spoke with my mom (who's a physician) on Sunday. It's a rare disorder most commonly found in middle-aged men! There's no mortality or morbidity associated with it, but let me tell you, it's annoying as hell! Apparently it's caused by a compressed nerve that runs from the pelvis to your knee. My symptoms are characteristic of it; ever since the winter, there's a spot on my outer thigh that's been itching like crazy, and it's also hyper-sensitive (I get a bruise if I put a little pressure on it). Meralgia can be due to many factors, but I have a feeling that in my case it was obesity and tight-fitting clothes that caused it. My mom said that it might have been the cardio kick-boxing, some change in the muscle distribution in my body that triggered it, but I'm sticking to the tight-fitting clothes theory. Anyway, I'm really worried about it, because from what I read online, it's quite possible that it will never go away, that I'll just have to live with it and just try to fight the symptoms! I'm clearly doing the #1 thing to do, which is to lose weight and wear looser clothes, but I really want this thing to go away, I'm way too young to develop such issues! I read that, in some cases, meralgia might disappear spontaneously, and I'm just praying for that.

Anyway, this post was longer than intended, sorry for the venting... It's just that I hate to feel that I am not 100% healthy! I'm realizing these days how much I love my body, how much I want it to be in as good a condition as possible for as long as I am alive, and I don't want to have this weird disorder follow me!

Recipe: oven-roasted potatoes

2008-07-11T11:02:00.006-04:00

I weighed in today at 87 kg (191.8 lb), which is my record low. Now I'm getting eager to see my scale go down to 86! :-)

This is one of the winner recipes from the 4th July BBQ. It's really simple, and although not designed to appeal to dieters, it's really not that bad for you. Definitely better than french fries, anyway... :-) It's great as a side dish, and it's vegetarian. You could also combine it with Greek-style burgers, and you have a great (alas, non-vegetarian) entrée.

Oven-roasted potatoes in a lemon-mustard sauce

Ingredients (approximate amounts, they are enough for a big pyrex, so that's a lot of food!)
--5-6 big potatoes (I used a combination of yellow golden and russet, because that's what I had.)
--1 medium-large onion, chopped
--1-2 cloves minced garlic
--1/2 cup olive oil or less, depending on your taste
(I only use extra virgin at all times, and so should you :-))
--lemon juice from 1-2 lemons (to taste, I love lemony stuff, so I use a lot of it)
--1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (or less, if you're not a fan)
--salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, sage to taste (sage is optional, use it if you have some in your pantry. I had some so I just added it, and it tasted good)
--water (maybe 3/4 cup? Something like that...)

Preparation (super-easy, just combine everything, I don't think the order is important)
--Peel the potatoes, put them in water, and then cut them in half-to-3/4-cubic-inch wedges (imagine you've cut a cubic inch in half diagonally... Am I making any sense?). Not that it matters very much, just make sure all pieces are approximately of the same volume, so they cook more evenly.
--Remove the potatoes from the water, and salt them. Place on large Pyrex pan.
--Add the other spices: pepper, oregano, thyme, and sage (I am very generous with my spices, I love strong-tasting foods, but that's up to you).
--Add the onion and the garlic, mix (using your hands or a spoon) so that the onion and garlic go everywhere on the pan.
--Add the olive oil, make sure it goes everywhere.
--In a small bowl combine mustard, lemon juice and water, mix together until they all blend.
--Add mix to the potatoes. Then mix the whole thing to make sure there's sauce everywhere. If you're making burgers too, add them to the pan, place over the potatoes.
--Cook in pre-heated medium oven (400F). They take their time, I think around 45min-1h. You just need to test with a fork whether the potatoes are soft. The bigger the wedges, the more time they take to cook, I think. Also, you might want to take the pan out halfway into the cooking and give a stir to the potatoes (and turn the burgers). You might also need to add water, if you see that there's next to no sauce.

Enjoy!!

An application of Econ 101

2008-07-10T16:44:00.005-04:00

My weight has not really changed since July 4th; I weighed in at 87.2kg (192.2lb) today, although my all-time low was 87 kg (191.8lb) on July 7th. So I'm settling in the 87's, which is great for now. I have lost exactly 3kg (6.6lb) since June 10th, which is 1.5 times what I want to be losing each month. So it's great, although I'm getting eager to go down to 86! I'm going back home in a month, and I can't wait for my family and friends to see (and hopefully notice) the change :-)

An odd thing happened this weekend, though: a friend of mine, who apparently is trying to lose weight, called me up and during the conversation she said: "I want you to tell me your secret, you look amazing! I know it's hard to lose weight, and you're doing so well, you are an inspiration to me!". I think it's funny, because nobody has ever told me that I am an inspiration to them before, for whatever reason. Also, up until quite recently, all of my attempts to lose weight have been largely unsuccessful, so being called an inspiration in somebody's attempt to lose weight sounds even more ridiculous! Who am I to preach???

To be honest, I didn't know what to tell her that wouldn't sound like a cliché and that wouldn't make me sound like an arrogant, self-righteous bitch... The only thing I could think of was "Eat less, exercise more. In general, eat fewer calories than your body consumes for its daily needs. The rest is all details. There's no secret, it's as simple as that." Then I told her what I've written in this blog before, about how I'm feeling so much stronger, much more decided and determined to lose the weight this time around. How it's important to never lose sight of the end goal, even if you can't follow your plan every day.

Then I told her what my mom told me to describe what I'm feeling in a recent conversation we had: that the small delight of eating the wrong thing is just not enough to make up for the disappointment, the remorse, the second thoughts that I experience later. Apparently that hit a spot, because she emailed me a couple of days later, telling me so [isn't it funny how mothers just nail it down in a simple phrase?]. She said that she's been on target all week, and whenever she wants to eat more than she ought to, she thinks of this; how feeling overweight is a bigger price to pay than the cost of giving up that extra amount of food.

I'm teaching Econ 101 to summer school students, and the #1 Principle of Economics is that people face trade-offs. You can have the cookie, in fact you can have the whole batch, if so you choose. Then you'll just have to give something else up. This could be many things: the lower number on the scale, the one-size-smaller pair of pants you saw in the mall last week, your health and self-esteem, the ability to run around with your kids and walk longer distances, looks of admiration from the opposite sex, you name it! When you decide whether you'll have the cookies, and how many you're going to have, the rational thing to do is to compare the extra benefit of eating the cookies to the extra cost, to whatever you're giving up. If you're overweight, then as long as you place some value on the future, it's just not worth it (most of the time, anyway). Most people, when they binge, they just don't think. They don't do this instant cost-benefit analysis that comes naturally and subconsiously to others. I know so, because I've been there many times. For some reason the mind blocks, and we just eat without thinking, probably to make up for something that's lacking in our life at that moment. We eat without thinking of the consequences, but that doesn't mean that the consequences are not there. Then we gain weight, and we feel bad, so we overeat again. It's hard to break the pattern, but at the same time it's easy, as long as you THINK RATIONALLY.

So the next time that you want that cookie really bad, think about all the things that you want really bad, and perhaps having that cookie is not going to be a priority after all.

Independence!!

2008-07-05T12:07:00.003-04:00

I am really happy to share that when I stepped on the scale yesterday, on the 4th of July, it read 87.2 kg (192.2 lb)!!! I have now lost a total of 26 pounds! This is great news, because I am no longer in the "obese" category. My BMI is now 29.8, which means that I am merely "overweight"! I know it's just a label, and the BMI is not 100% accurate, especially for tall people of muscular build (like me, he he), but, hey, it's a milestone! I feel awesome, I notice the change in my body (I noticed the change before the scale agreed), I feel lighter and smaller, and it's so great to have others notice as well! I feel like the hard work is paying off, and I know I'll get stuck again, but for now I'm just really glad to be here!

So, the long-awaited change in the scale made for a great start to my day yesterday. After that, it was all planned out; I basically spent the whole morning and afternoon cooking, and then my roomate and I hosted a barbecue in our back yard. It was great, I think that more than 40 people showed up! It was not at all a traditional American-style barbecue, though. My roomate made Asian-style chicken skewers with Satay sauce. I made Greek burgers and tzatziki sauce, spinach pie, oven-roasted potatoes in a lemon and mustard sauce, a zucchini-potato-ricotta cheese pie, and four different kinds of salad (Greek salad, lettuce and scallions salad, spinach with Mandarin oranges and almonds, and a kind of bruschetta with Cretan rusks, grated tomato and feta cheese)! I will post some of these recipes soon on this blog. Notice how everything that didn't go on the grill was vegetarian! We served cold watermelon in the end. My roomate also made sangria, which we put in one of those long, 2-gallon water dispensers with the little tap in front, so the sangria came out (like water, ha ha) and all the fruit remained in the container. It was a great party!

I think that, all things considered, I handled the food pretty well yesterday. I did have a lot of meat, but I only had one slice of bread, a few potatoes, a small piece of spinach pie and an even smaller piece of the zucchini-potato-ricotta pie. I wish I could have done equally well on the alcohol front, though... I don't even remember how many glasses of sangria I filled and emptied (5? 6?), and then two friends started making piña coladas, and who can resist those??? I had at least three glasses of them, they were delicious, but a very-very bad choice for someone who wants to lose weight. I'm not really beating myself up about it; I know there will be days when I will just not be able to stay on plan, and I did eat fewer calories than I normally allow myself throughout the week, preparing for yesterday's splurge. Today it's back to business though! I guess that my roomate, much to his delight, will have to take care of the 60+ beers which people brought and didn't manage to drink yesterday, and which have invaded my fridge :-)

I hope you all had as great a time yesterday as I did!

This is so slow!!!

2008-07-01T08:34:00.003-04:00

I weighed in at 88.2 kg (194.4 lb) today, which is a new low. But I feel like it's getting so much harder to lose every extra kilo these days! On the other hand, I am right on target, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining... I need to reach 88kg by July 10th, which I guess is do-able, and I want to believe that I will have lost more by that time.
I feel like my weight didn't want to leave the 89kg-90kg range though, and I'm wondering if that's because this was my weight for a considerable amount of time, all through college. I'm wondering if our body has some sort of "internal memory", and it remembers how much it weighed in the past, and gravitates towards that number. Well, I'm rebooting my system, and by body will follow sooner or later, it's just such a pain to get there :-)

A little something...

2008-06-26T00:20:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to share my enthousiasm: I felt the urge to go shopping today, and I did some damage :-) I went to a sports store to get some new exercise clothes, because my old ones are falling apart. Well, it turns out that the "large" yoga pants (the stretchy kind) were too big for me, the medium actually fit better! I couldn't believe it, but hey, I'll take it! Now I'm looking forward to the next time I go to the gym! Oh, and my size 12 Express jeans are fitting better and better! So even if the scale doesn't think so these days, my body is definitely shrinking!

Recipe: healthy and flavorful grilled chicken

2008-06-24T16:36:00.003-04:00

I love this recipe! It's so quick and easy, and it makes a great dinner. It goes very well with a green salad topped with dried cranberries and some pine nuts, served with a teaspoon of olive oil and as much balsamic vinegar as you like.
Ingredients (for one):
One boneless, skinless chicken fillet (about 6-8oz raw)
Olive Oil
Dijon Mustard to taste (one teaspoon?)
Lemon Juice to taste (1 tablespoon?)
Spices: salt, freshly-ground pepper, dried oregano, dried thyme
Preparation:
Sprinkle chicken with olive oil. Add salt and pepper, and rest of spices to taste. Mix mustard and lemon juice and pour on both sides of the chicken fillet. Let chicken in the marinade for as much as your appetite permits.
I use my Foreman Grill for the chicken, I let it grill anywhere between 5-8 minutes, and it's delicious. Alternatively, you could bake the chicken in 375-400F, and add some capers to the sauce.

Stuck again

2008-06-24T16:28:00.002-04:00

Yikes... I think I'm stuck again. I weighed in at 90.4 kg yesterday, which is definitely the wrong direction. I got my period today though, and my weight dropped to 89.8 kg already, but it's still higher than my record low of 89 kg. I want to weigh 88 kg or less by July 10th!! June has been a little disorganized regarding my eating, I was in Florida the first week, and then I spent a lot of nights eating out with friends after I got back, but I definitely kept on track most of the time, and I went to the gym religiously! I wish I could lose as much as I lost in April, but I think those days are over. Still, I think that losing 2 kilos or 4 pounds a month is not unrealistic, and that's all I want!

I remember Paris

2008-06-18T18:59:00.004-04:00

Today I weighed 89.2 kg (196.7 lb), which is a new low! I think I weighed 89 kg back in the summer of 2001, when I came back home from my student exchange year in Paris. I definitely lost a couple of kilos while I was studying there. I don't think it was because I immersed myself in French cuisine; I had little money to eat in fancy French restaurants, and many a night I remember having salad with bread for dinner... but the salad had a pound or two of Brie or Camembert cheese in it!

The reason I lost weight is that I was living at the "Cité Internationale". The "Cité" is basically a big campus full of dorms of different countries, serving the housing needs of international students, most of them studying for advanced degrees (or on student exchange programs, like mine). The campus had its own restaurant, and many nights we would gather up with other exchange students and eat all together. I think this is why I lost weight; I was eating with others in an organized way (except for those nights when I had those cheese-intensive salads in my room), and the meals were balanced. I remember having roast chicken, grilled salmon, salad, a small piece of cheese, one slice of bread...

I also walked a lot during my exchange year; there's no better way to get to know Paris! However, I didn't do much in terms of "organized exercise". I think I went to the campus gym once and was intimidated. Yes, the exercise that I got came from walking around the city, and dancing in the many parties that I went to.

So, organized eating and a less sedentary lifestyle made me lose a couple of kilos, with zero effort on my part. This is important; I never remember paying attention to what I was eating, and I drank tons and tons of alcohol during that year! I mean, if I had paid just a little attention, I could probably have dropped more kilos. Granted, it wasn't much of a weight change, but the fact that it came so effortlessly still strikes me. I have never lost any weight without concentrated effort, except for that one time. Usually I have to concentrate just to maintain my weight!

After I got back to my old habits in Athens, I also got the weight back. It came gradually. Then I followed a crazy diet where I starved myself and I think that at some point I weighed, like, 83 or 84 kilos. Most of this loss must have been water and muscle, which was bad, and I felt pretty frail for an 83-kg-heavy girl. I dropped the diet, and got the weight back in zero time. Two years later, when I came to the US for graduate studies, I weighed 92 kilos or so, and I remember feeling fat "above my long-run average".

Now, being so close to 89 kg makes me think of Paris. It's funny how I associate phases of my life with whatever I weighed back then; I think it goes to show that I was never comfortable with how fat I was, my weight was always such a big deal, such a big part of who I was. Being overweight dictated so much of what I could and could not do in life, such as the clothes I could buy, the style I could have, the guys I could hope to attract.

It's funny how it took so damn long to internalize the need to lose the extra pounds, and firmly believe that I could do it. All my life, my being overweight was "my big issue", something insurmountable. It was like this major battle that I kept losing. Every time that I tried to lose weight, I thought I was pretty damn serious. And in a way, I was serious, I wanted to lose weight so badly. But I just kept being my worst enemy; I kept wanting that ice cream, that extra serving of french fries, that extra meal after I'd already had dinner... And every single time, there was a tipping point, after which I just caved, completely helpless. It was just impossible to get over myself, to fight the cravings. It was like there was a demon in my ear whispering "oh, come on, you know you want it so badly, you know it's soooo good, you know I'll win in the end, you know you'll have it... mmmm...".

This time, it's so different! It's not easy to lose this weight, I have to fight all the time, adjust my program, sometimes say "no" to eating-out invitations, be a party-pooper and have very little alcohol, plan my meals ahead of time and go grocery shopping more often... But in a weird way, it's easier than ever before. This need to lose the weight is coming from within, it's so deeply-rooted that it's just THE priority right now. There's no powerful demon whispering any more, just a whiner that shows up every now and again, and I know how to shut her up really fast! It's like me and myself want the same thing this time, the internal struggle is so much less intense! Yeah, I know the ice-cream tastes good, and you know, maybe I'll have a little every now and then. But losing the weight is just more important. I'm just more "mature" about the whole thing, but I have no idea why it happened now, how it came about, and why the hell I couldn't do it before.

I have to say, though, that I'm enjoying the ride! I'm trying on old clothes that I haven't worn in years (why did I even bother to keep them?), and they fit well, even better than they did when I first bought them. I'm feeling confident and strong (going to the gym has a lot to do with this). I'm getting attention from guys left and right (now that's a new one!). I feel lighter and more flexible just walking down the street! I can only imagine how great it will feel to actually reach my goal weight of 65 kg (143 lb). Can't wait!!

Guy attention

2008-06-15T09:39:00.004-04:00

If you exclude the boyfriend that I had in 6th grade, who was too embarrassed to even talk to me in public (or in private, come to think of it), I've been single all my life. I had many guy-friends, but nothing romantic ever happened. I had crushes, lots of them. Some of them lasted for many years. I fell in love with good friends, developed obsessions, and things were never the same after I confessed my feelings. I've gotten used to guys looking at me as a pal, not as a woman. When I think a guy likes me, most times I don't trust my instincts, because they've been wrong so many times in the past.

Random guys here and there expressed interest, but they were never dating material. I blamed my weight for failing to attract the guys I was interested in. Maybe it was not the weight per se, perhaps I wasn't confident enough because I felt fat. In any case, if the extra pounds had not been there, I'm fairly confident that I would have had a different experience.

Well, things have been very different lately. During winter break, right before I started losing weight, I went to Madrid to celebrate New Year's with some old friends. We were in a nightclub celebrating 2008 when this friend of a friend, to whom I was introduced some days back, just grabbed me and started kissing me! To this day, I'm amazed that a nice, decent-looking guy thought I was attractive! And then I got some guy attention when I was in Florida, even though I was surrounded by two gorgeous friends and a six-feet tall Brazilian ex-model! :-) This guy came to talk to me, he was pretty funny and nice-looking, and we exchanged phone numbers, and have been flirting with text messages since then. And on Friday night another guy "attacked" me. He was smart, sexy, and good-looking, but I had to fight him off many times, because after hitting on me he told me he had a girlfriend (which didn't stop him from continuing to put the moves on me pretty aggressively, yuk!).

I confess I enjoy all the attention, I've craved it for so long! I'm starting to really believe that I am attractive, and it's such a great feeling! I hope that at some point some nice, single guy (who doesn't live across the Atlantic) will like me. But these little stories have been great ego-boosters, and I really think that the weight loss has a lot to do with the increased attention I'm getting.

My trip to Florida

2008-06-11T09:54:00.006-04:00

I came back from Florida on Saturday night. I had a lovely time with my grandmother and the friends who came to visit. Every one noticed that I've lost weight, and my granny kept telling her friends "She's lost 19 pounds, you know!". When we went out with my friends, I felt much more confident and ended up attracting attention from random guys, which almost never happens.

Regarding my food choices, I think I did pretty well, so I'm quite proud of myself. I paced myself all day, had much less alcohol than previous times, and at dinnertime I loaded on whatever vegetables the buffet had to offer. When everyone else had ice-cream for dessert, I went to the salad bar for fresh fruit (my granny said she was so proud of me, she was going to tell my mother, he he). After my friends arrived, I couldn't pay as much attention as I did before, so I guess I had maybe 2-3 days of over-eating, but not in the sense of eating more than I consumed, just in the sense of not eating little enough to lose weight. The fact that I was the designated driver whenever we went out was a good excuse to drink much less than I would have done otherwise.

The only thing that didn't go as I hoped was my exercise. I did go to the pool and swam laps for, like, 30 minutes each time, but that didn't really get my heart rate up the way that going to the gym does. I had packed exercise clothes, but it turned out to be too complicated to gain access to the fitness room, and it was way too hot and humid to exercise outside. It was a pretty sedentary week, but it was beyond my control to put more exercise in.

Now I'm back, and I weighed 90 kg (198.4 lb) on June 9th, which was great. I weighed 90.2 kg yesterday and today, but I don't really care about this tiny gain. I wish I could have lost more during the month of May, but there were so many things happening that, even though I did my best, I only lost 1.8 kg (4 lb). That's my goal for each month's weight loss, so I feel like I'm right on track. Besides, there's really no rush. I feel a big difference in how I look (and how others look at me), and I'm satisfied. I know I need to lose more, and I know it will happen if I keep doing what I've been doing.

My cardio kick-boxing class resumed on Monday, and I was really excited to go back. I just love my instructor, she's so passionate and encouraging! It was also great to see how my physical condition has improved over this past semester; I worked out better than ever before without getting too exhausted. I guess that as I carry less and less weight, the exercise will become easier and easier. I'm also starting to like what I see in the full-body mirror every morning, what a lovely feeling!

Recipe: Fava beans with artichokes

2008-06-11T09:52:00.003-04:00

Fava beans and artichokes are used in many recipes in Crete, and this is one combining the two, which I really like. It's a healthy, vegetarian springtime and early summer food, when fresh artichokes are abundant in Crete. The original recipe calls for fresh (not dried) fava beans (which look like enormous green beans), but I can only find the frozen kind in the US, and they tend to become very mushy once boiled. So I just used dried fava beans, that I found in my supermarket. Make sure you leave the beans in a bowl filled with water for at least 12 hours.

Fava Beans with artichokes
Makes 4-5 servings:
-12 oz dried fava beans, put in water, leave overnight, drain right before cooking
-one-two 9-oz packets of frozen artichoke hearts (I only used one packet and it was fine, but I love artichokes, so next time I'm using two)
-4-5 tablespoons olive oil (one per serving, I figured)
-1.5 teaspoons chopped garlic (you can add less if you're not a fan, but it's really great in this recipe)
-chopped fresh dill (use a lot, most of one bunch)
-1 tablespoon flour
-1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
-salt, pepper to taste
Preparation:
-Pour lemon juice on the frozen artichoke hearts (I think I used the juice of 1.5 lemons, but I love the taste of lemon in food, so I wouldn't hesitate to add more next time)
-Heat olive oil and saute the drained beans
-Add the chopped garlic and the dill, then add a couple of glasses of water and simmer for about 10-15 minutes in medium-low heat
-Add the artichoke hearts (in the lemon juice, do not wash or anything), then add salt and pepper and let simmer for another 15 minutes or so, adding more water if necessary (I definitely added a couple of glasses more)
-In a glass, mix the flour and the vinegar, and add, little by little, some of the sauce from the food (something like 5-6 tablespoons, one at a time)
-Pour the flour, vinegar, and sauce mix back to the pot, and stir lightly so that the mix spreads in the pot.
-Simmer for another 5 minutes, and it should be ready!

This is a picture that I took the last time I cooked this food. The dried beans are a little harder than the fresh, but it still tasted great!

Enjoy!

The worst is over...

2008-05-27T21:49:00.004-04:00

... at least for now, it seems. I weighed in at 91.4 kg (201.5 lb) both yesterday and today, so I think that my body is starting to get out of this awful plateau. This is not my record low, but it shows some movement in the desirable direction. But why do I care so much about what the stupid scale says? I am more than a number, and my clothes are way roomier than they used to be. I don't let the number on the scale affect my eating, it's just that I hate to start the day in a bad mood!

Anyway, I'm getting my period later this week, so I expect my weight to stall or even go back up temporarily. But for now, I'm pretty happy :-)

The festivities for the semester's end are pretty much over, and now it's back to normal for me. Not for long though, because I'm flying to Florida this Saturday, to visit my grandmother for a week. My grandmother lives in one of those "assisted communities", which are basically like hotels for retirees. If you've seen the movie "In her shoes", you know what I'm talking about.

I'm feeling a little nervous about my eating and my exercise during this trip. Given my recent behavior in New York, I am afraid that I will flip out and just not think about what I eat. That will really set me back if I do it for a whole week. Also, I usually don't get much exercise while in Florida; I spend most of the day in front of the tv, waiting for the next meal. I drink a vodka tonic with my granny before dinner, and sometimes we have a glass of wine after eating. Did I mention that there's a dinner buffet every night, and that the food is delicious? Usually I spend half an hour swimming in the pool every day, but I know it's not enough exercise to make up for all the extra food and drink.

So I am laying down an action plan. First, I decided to take my gym clothes and shoes with me, and try to run and power walk for 30 minutes every day. It's not as intense as my regular exercise plan, but it's way better than nothing. I just hope I stick to the plan. Second, I have decided not to have any vodka tonics (ok, maybe just one or two, when I feel really festive). I will load up on Diet Cokes (which I don't usually consume, by the way), and pretend I'm having rum and coke. And I will stay away from the mixed nuts which we always have with our drinks. Third, there's always a huge salad bar and some kind of cooked veggies in the buffet every night, and I will fill half of my plate with that. No need for generous servings of mashed potatoes (but, God, they're good!). And definitely no dessert/ice-cream after dinner (although I guess I could allow a serving of soft-serve vanilla for one night)! But mostly I will stick to coffee. Finally, since I will have no regular internet access during the week, I will buy and download the fitday.com program that I have been using so far, and try to count calories while I'm there.

This time I will go prepared, and hopefully I will not mess up. I don't want to gain back any of the weight I have worked so hard to get rid of.

Not very exciting update

2008-05-24T13:38:00.004-04:00

I haven't written about my weight fluctuations in a long time. It's because what's happening between me and the scale right now is really frustrating. After I weighed 91.8 kg on May 10th (glorious day), my weight kept decreasing by 200 grams every day, until I hit 91.2 kg (201.1 lb) on May 13th! After that, my weight has climbed back up to anywhere from 92 to 93.6 kg (202.8 to 206.4 lb), and I can't get it to go back down! I'm so frustrated!

There are, of course, reasons that explain this weight persistence: the "good" reason is that I might have gained some muscle. I got really sore from the gym two weeks ago. It was so bad that I couldn't sit on the toilet for many days, I had trouble climbing the stairs, that kind of thing. I guess that means that I had a really great workout, and I guess that I do need all the muscle I can get right now. More muscle mass means more calorie-burning (and better-fitting pants, and a nicer-looking body...), and, therefore, faster weight-loss (assuming you don't eat more). In the short-run, though, more muscle is a pain in the butt (I know I can write better puns :-))! Muscle is heavier than fat, so you might be losing fat and still seeing a gain on the stupid scale. I know all that , but I still caught myself thinking time and time again: "I don't want any more stupid muscle, I just want to lose weight!". I know that this is the wrong approach to it, but right now I'm super-sensitive to that number on the scale. My clothes keep fitting better and better, and very soon I think I will be able to fit comfortably into a size 12 pants from Express, which I bought a long time ago and never wore out in public because they were so tight. But still, having the scale move in the wrong direction and stay there for a good two weeks is just not fun!

There is a "darker" reason why my weight is stalled: much as I have tried to stick to my plan, those social gatherings marking the end of the academic year are just taking their toll on me. It's not so much the food, because I think I have managed to plan ahead and either save calories or have dinner before socializing and then keeping away from the food. But I can't handle the alcohol, and I have been drinking more than in the previous months. I read that many people actually lose water weight when they consume alcohol, but for me it's the exact opposite! Alcohol makes my body hold on to water like crazy, so every time that I consume alcohol, I know I will see a non-loss on the scale the next day. I've been having a lot of those days lately.

On top of that, I went to New York last weekend to visit a friend, and I completely ruined my diet for a couple of days. I'm still pretty angry with myself, because I made so many poor food and drink choices over the weekend. For example, I had a side of garlic bread instead of a side of salad, and I had an ice cream after a very filling dinner; what the hell was I thinking? I just didn't care, I went numb and consumed the wrong kind of food like crazy (did I mention that I also drank a ton??). And then I felt bad about myself, and then I just ate more food to punish or comfort myself or whatever, I'm not sure... I think that I was already a bit frustrated with my stalled weight when I got to the City, and then when my friend didn't notice all the weight that I have lost, I became even more -how should I put it?- prone to resignation and vulnerable to temptation! I came back home and weighed 93.6 kg (206.4 lb) the next day. What a wake-up call! I was back down to 92.4 kg (203.7 lb) one day later, but it still felt super-bad to have seen that big of an increase after only two days' worth of careless eating (which, all things considered, were also two days of intense walking around Manhattan, it's not like I was sitting on my desk downing junkfood!).

Anyway, the bottom line is that between the New York trip and my social life here, it's just hard to lose any weight. I'm still hoping to be down at 90 kg (198.4 lb) by June 10th, but I'm not so sure I'll make it. I'm also going to visit my grandmother in Florida for the first week of June, and I know it will be harder to lose while I'm there. I keep telling myself that the important thing is to eat less, exercise regularly and pay little attention to the time line, but I can't help wanting to stick to my initial goal of 2 kilos per month.

The good thing is that I am doing really well on the exercise front. Now that I'm in-between sessions for my cardio kick-boxing class, I just go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I am now doing the elliptical machine for 30 minutes on resistance level 15, and then I do a 5-minute cool-down (at resistance 10-12). Then I do some standing straight on my hands and feet for 4 whole minutes (when I started, doing 2 minutes seemed like a big thing!), and then I stretch (sometimes I also do some push ups or some abs). So that's a solid, pretty tiring workout, 3-4 times a week. Right before I went to New York, I also went to spinning class for the first time. A friend of mine is teaching it, and he somehow managed to talk me into going. I was terrified, because I had heard it was a hard, one-hour-long class. But I ended up doing great, following the resistance levels that he suggested, just going slightly slower. I guess my physical condition is improving! It was such a great workout, and I will be taking his class once a week for the entire summer. Combined with cardio kick-boxing, that will be three hours of cardio class per week, so then I will just be doing the elliptical machine once a week. Whoo-hoo!

Recipes: tzatziki sauce and burgers à la Grecque

2008-05-17T00:26:00.006-04:00

Here's a couple of recipes that I would like to share: Greek burgers and tzatziki sauce.

Burgers à la Grecque
Ingredients for 8-12 patties:
-1.5 lb ground beef (I only buy the lean kind these days. The fatter the meat, they more they will shrink once you cook them)
-1 small onion
-0.25 cup breadcrumbs (approximately, you could use less)
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-one small tomato
-chopped fresh parsley to taste
-oregano to taste
-chopped fresh mint to taste
-salt, pepper to taste
Preparation (you basically combine everything):
-Chop or grate the onion (I use my regular cheese grater)
-Grate the tomato (again, using the cheese grater). You can also just use canned strained tomatoes or chopped tomatoes, or tomato paste, or whatever. You don't need a lot, just a little bit to make the burgers juicier.
-Mix the meat, the egg, the grated onion, and the olive oil. Add the breadcrumbs and the grated tomato, and in the end add the parsley, the mint, the oregano, and the salt and pepper. Be prepared to use your hands to mix the whole thing,as if it were dough.
-Make individual burgers. Depending on their size, this recipe is enough for anywhere from 8 to 12 burgers. Remember that they will shrink slightly when they cook, but you don't want to make them so big that they burn on the outside and are raw on the inside. I usually make mine around 2.5-3 inches in diameter, and 1.5 inches thick or so.
Cooking suggestions:
-These burgers have been a hit in all barbecues where I have served them here in New England, where people just have them in a hamburger, as a "regular" pattie. I like to grill these burgers either on an outdoor grill, or my Foreman grill, or just on a non-stick frying pan with a little bit of olive oil (medium then low heat). I don't eat them in a bun or anything; I just have them with salad, and I always add lemon juice on top of them, once they're cooked. They are also very good with tzatziki (see below). These burgers freeze really well, so I usually make a batch, stick them in the freezer and take a couple out at a time and let them thaw whenever I want a fast, filling dinner later in the day.
-Another way to cook these burgers is to stick them in the oven, with cut potatoes and onions, in an olive oil and lemon sauce (also add a little water, some mustard and paprika as well, it goes really well with the potatoes!).

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"Real Greek" Tzatziki, another favorite in summer barbecues
Ingredients for a big bowl:
-600 gr Total Greek Yogurt (I use the 10% fat, but I think the 2% fat works equally well as a lower-fat alternative)
-1 medium cucumber
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (NOT Balsamic vinegar)
-1 big clove garlic (I'm lazy these days and I abhor the smell of cut garlic on my fingers, so I usually use the pre-chopped kind). You can vary the amount of garlic depending on how mild/strong you want the tzatziki to be. Usually, a big clove gives a strong taste without being too overwhelming, which is appealing to most crowds.
-Salt, pepper to taste
-Fresh dill to taste (1 tablespoon?)
Preparation:
-Peel the cucumber and grate it on a strainer. Leave in strainer until the liquid is mostly gone.
-Mix olive oil and vinegar (they have to be in a 2:1 ratio), and add chopped garlic in the mixture. Mix well, using a spoon to "squeeze" the garlic pieces.
-Combine grated cucumber, yogurt, and oil-vinegar-garlic mixture.
-Add salt, pepper (I just add and try and add and try until I like what I taste)
-Add chopped dill.
-Refrigerate before serving, so that the tastes have the time to mix.

Enjoy!!

In praise of Greek Yogurt

2008-05-16T23:32:00.008-04:00

At some point in this blog, I have to praise Greek yogurt. I think that it beats any other afternoon snack by far, and I'm delighted to find the exact same brand that I used to buy back home in Greece, in my local supermarket in the US! I usually stock up on Total 2% by Fage every time that I go grocery shopping, and then I have one container per day, sometime between lunch and going to the gym, in-between two fruit snacks. I snack a lot between lunch and 5pm or so, but it's all healthy and low-calorie stuff, basically fruit and yogurt.

Greek Yogurt is creamier than conventional yogurts, and it has a velvety feel to it. It's also really filling, despite supplying only 130 calories per container (the 0% variety has only 80 calories per container). In the beginning I thought that I was feeling so full because I was eating the 2% variety, so no wonder that the fat kept me going for longer than the 0% American yogurts I would have consumed instead. But now I think that it's because Greek yogurt has a much higher protein content than conventional yogurts. Protein is filling, and it takes up more energy for the body to digest, so Greek yogurt really hits a spot when I crave food a couple of hours after lunch.

There are many variations to choose from: I really only use the 10% fat kind for cooking (to make tzatziki, or some Greek desserts that call for yogurt instead of milk). Here's a recent New York Times magazine article on Greek yogurt, with some interesting and delicious-sounding recipes at the end. I consume the 2% fat kind on a regular basis. There's also the 0% kind (which is a bit too thin for my taste), the 5% (which I've never tried), and also 10% or 2% containers with fruit, or honey, or honey with walnuts (which Greeks believe is an aphrodisiac, by the way). I sometimes buy the 2% with fruit, just to mix it up a bit.

I highly recommend it to anyone trying or not trying to lose weight. You can have it plain (like me), or drop some honey on it, or have it with granola, or with cornflakes, or with jam/fruit, or with a cookie, you name it! Either way, it's delicious!

A change of course :-)

2008-05-11T11:35:00.005-04:00

I'm very happy, because after being stuck and even gaining in the past 10 days, I finally saw some weight come off. I weighed myself on Saturday morning, and despite having eaten salty cod in a Portuguese restaurant the night before, the scale read 91.8 kg (202.4 lb)!! Then I weighed myself again this morning, and I was down at 91.6 kg (202 lb)! I know some of it might just be water loss, but I'll take it anyway!

Like I said, I went to this Portuguese restaurant on Friday. This last week was mostly eating out, it was crazy (compared to what I've been used to in the past 3 months or so)! But a very dear friend is graduating, and his parents are in town, so he invited me and others for dinner, so we could all meet them. There was no chance I would have said "no" just because of my eating plan.

We ordered littlenecks (a New-England type of seafood, very much like mussels) in two different kinds of sauce as appetizers, and then I had baked cod with boiled potatoes, in a sea of olive oil. I was surprised at myself, seeing how differently I approached food. I only had four littlenecks. I did have three slices of white bread with the littlenecks' sauce (which was delicious but not too oily, and I was starving by that time!), but, as funny as that sounds, I actually paced myself; the way that bread was passing around the table, I could have had 5 or more slices. Then, I had just half of a boiled potato, and half of my fish. Then I felt too full to eat anymore, and I just stopped. Not so long ago, I would have made very different choices: I would have eaten much more bread, and then I would have ordered one of their steak-with-fried-egg-on-top dishes, and I would have cleared my plate. Then I would be completely stuffed and would have gone straight to bed. This time, I thought about the fact that I don't cook fish as often as I probably should, and I never ever cook cod. So I ordered a much healthier entree, which was also something that I hadn't eaten in ages, and I didn't even finish it.

Having that cod reminded me a lot of my Greek grandmother, because she used to cook it, and cod has a very particular taste that I have associated with my childhood. I didn't like cod very much as I was growing up, it seemed kind of bland. Having it the other night, however, was actually comforting to me. It's funny how our memories shape themselves through our senses, and how strongly I associate tastes with past experiences. In this particular case, tasting cod again made me have flashbacks of my grandmother in her kitchen, constantly on the move, washing dishes, preparing food, cutting salad, setting the table... I could almost hear the sound of pots and pans, I could almost smell the spices in the kitchen and the garden outside.

I ordered some lemon. That's how I had it at my grandmother's house, and it seemed wrong to have it any other way.

Back to losing

2008-05-09T09:36:00.002-04:00

Today I weighed in at 92.2 kg (203.3 lb), which is a new low for me. The water gain of the previous days was probably related to the unusually long period that I had this time. I feel like I'm rebooting my system, and I'm driving my body and my hormones crazy :-)

A friend of mine passed his qualifying exams yesterday, and the plan was to go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and then to a bar for drinks. I had made early plans to attend a poetry reading though, so I skipped the dinner, and just joined my friends for drinks. I had Greek-style burgers and a salad by myself in-between the reading and the drinks [burger recipe to follow]. I would have loved to go to the dinner, but, on the other hand, it was a lucky coincidence, because lately I feel like I'm eating out every other night, which is good neither for my weight loss nor for my bank account. I did have a couple of cocktails which were pretty sugary later that night, but still managed to stay within my caloric limit.

The days when I exercise, I allow myself to eat up to 1800 calories. When I don't exercise, I try to eat around 1500 calories. Most of the time though, it kind of happens the other way around; I tend to exercise during the week, when I usually have a modest dinner at home, so it's easy to actually stay within 1500 calories. On the contrary, the days when I don't exercise are usually the days when I have to go out for dinner, or participate in another social activity that usually involves eating and drinking. In those days, consuming 1800 calories or more is almost inevitable. I guess that I try to make up for that by limiting my calories when I can, which is usually during the week. So I think that, on average, I actually eat less in the days when I exercise. What matters, of course, is how much you eat versus how much you consume on average, and one or two days off-plan will not make much of a difference.

Still gaining

2008-05-07T10:10:00.004-04:00

I don't understand my body. I do what I have to do, I'm careful of what enters my mouth, but still I can't get back to the 92.4 kg low that I saw on May 1st. I weighed 93.4 kg today! Last night, a friend of mine had a gathering, and I had a light dinner at home, then drank two glasses of wine at the party, and ate some fruit, two slices of ham and some chips with salsa (but very little, really!). I remained within reasonable calories and was definitely not expecting another gain today :-( I've said it time and time again, losing weight is the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do in my life!

Today I'm going to the gym again, for my cardio-kick-boxing class. There's only three of those left before the end of the semester. Then the summer classes will begin, but it will not be immediate, so I'll have to do the elliptical machine more often than I do now. I'm still feeling sore from all those squats we did on Monday, but I guess that's a good sign. It's amazing how after a whole semester in the class, the teacher still manages to get us sore. She constantly raises the bar, increases the number of repetitions, and raises the speed. I never thought I would say that, but it feels good, and my sore butt is proof that I've done the right workout, ha ha!

The problem today is that another friend invited me for a "pizza night" at his place. If I didn't see a loss today, there's no way I'm seeing one tomorrow, with all the salt I'm going to consume tonight...

It feels like these past 10 days, with the end of the semester approaching and all, have been full of social gatherings where food is involved! It's so much easier to control what I eat when I have dinner alone every night, but I don't want to give up my social life because of my weight-loss plan! I am still very careful of what I eat, but still, I'm bound to make different options than what I would make if I were eating alone, and the food is definitely saltier.

I know I'm losing fat as long as I consume more calories than I eat, even if the scale doesn't think so. I don't care, or at least I shouldn't care, about the water retention. It's just really frustrating to try so hard, to resist so many temptations (as much as possible), and then not see that translate into a lower number in the morning.

Oh well, enough bitching for now. I will do my best at the pizza night tonight, I will bring healthy toppings with me, and I will not have more than a glass of wine or a beer. For now, the scale can go screw itself.

Creeping back up

2008-05-05T09:43:00.006-04:00

In the interest of full honesty, I guess I should say that I wasn't very happy with what I saw this morning. I am back up at 93.2 kg (205.5 lb). I got my period on Friday, and didn't weigh myself on that day, but my weight has been climbing up: I weighed 92.6 on Saturday, and 92.8 on Sunday. I'm pretty sure it's water gain, but it's still kind of frustrating; I got my period, so I was expecting to lose, not to gain.

I did have a lot to drink on Saturday night, because we had a spring ball in my university, and I had 3 beers and something like 4 glasses of wine. The life of a grad student involves a lot of alcohol, what can I say? Then last night a friend of mine called and wanted to go out for dinner, so we had Indian food and I ordered tandoori chicken. I ate all of the meat, but barely touched the rice and only had a quarter of a garlic naan. I guess it was pretty salty, so that might explain the gain.

Today is the start of a new week, and it's back to normal for me: breakfast, then lunch, then healthy snacks, then gym, then light dinner. I do hope to see those pounds come off again before too long. In my mind, I feel like I'm already below the 90's!

Working out

2008-05-01T11:36:00.001-04:00

I guess I should write a post about my relationship with exercise.

I was really lazy as a child and as an adult. It was kind of a vicious circle; I was fat, so I was too conscious to exercise, so I was bad at it, so I didn't want to do it, so I ate and gained weight, so I was fat, and so on and so forth. In Greek school, where we got grades for every single subject (including religious education, which was pretty much obligatory), my lowest grade was in physical education, and I hated it. I was never a runner, and I always came last in any class competition and sport. It hurt my ego a lot, because I was so good at everything else, but I sucked at basketball, volleyball, sprint, long-distance running, you name it. The only part where I did well was flexibility; when it came to stretching, I was suddenly among the best. I had a great teacher of physical education in middle-school, and he made me try my best, and then rewarded me for it, but that was about it; I got full marks for effort, but low marks for actual performance.

That said, I actually got a fair bit of exercise during my school years and afterwards, in college. I walked to school and back every day, and most weekdays I also walked to my evening classes and back. The catch is that my hometown is built on three hills, and I live on top of the middle one. My middle-school was on top of one hill, and my high-school was on top of the other! So just to go to school, I would walk down a hill and up a hill (we're talking pretty steep hills here), and because I was usually running late, I would basically power-walk for about 20-25' every morning. The same thing would happen on my way back from school. Then, in the afternoons, I had to walk down the hill to go to my evening classes, and back up the hill to finally go back home. I must have spent at least one hour (if not more) walking (or power-walking) every day, but I was still a fat girl, because I just ate a whole lot.

During college in Athens, I lived 15' away from campus, and I walked daily to school and back. I was also going to the gym on and off, taking body sculpt classes, aerobics, lifting weights, and all that jazz. I think that I was just realizing that exercise is important, overweight or not, and I tried to get in shape, even when I wasn't actively trying to lose weight.

When I came to the US, I followed the same pattern for the first couple of years: I would hit the gym every now and then. There were periods during which I would go every day, and periods when I would just not care. I still walked to school, but it was so much closer this time compared to before (5-10' of medium-paced walking to get to my department).

Then, in the summer of my second year (if I remember well), I took the exercise issue more to heart than ever before. I knew I didn't really enjoy exercise within the confines of the gym, but I loved dancing and I liked swimming; so I took it from there. I started hitting the pool, and it became a habit that I enjoyed until the building had to be demolished because of some flaw in its construction, about 1.5 years ago. But for 1.5 years before that, I swam a kilometer or more, 3 or 4 times a week, at a relatively fast pace (I think it took me half an hour or so). I started off slowly, and then I kept setting new goals for myself, and it was actually fun! When the semester started, I also took some salsa classes, although I mostly did that to socialize. Still, increased exercise was a nice by-product! This is the first time in my life when I remember looking forward to my exercise. It was more than exercise, actually. It was the time of day when I would concentrate on something that was completely under my control, in contrast to other aspects of my life (like research, grad school requirements, etc), which seemed totally hopeless. In the pool, it was just me and the water, and the rest of the world could just go hang themselves, that's really how I saw it. So, whereas in high-school I was good at academics and hated exercise, during grad school I took strength from my improving performance in physical activity, in order to tackle academics, which were not going so well.

I need to stress that I didn't really lose any weight when I was getting into this exercise routine, except when I actively ate less. I think I lost some weight during the first summer that I hit the pool, but that was only because I tried hard to limit my eating, and we're not talking about anything more than 4 pounds, all of which I took back later. I might actually have gained weight because of the increased muscle mass. Yet, people kept telling me that I had shrunk, and I could feel that my clothes fit better (although I don't think I dropped a size or anything). I was becoming stronger, I was feeling healthier, and although I knew that I needed to drop many pounds at some point in my life, I felt good, I felt fit, I felt victorious!

After I became more confident with my physical condition, I started taking a relatively low-impact class at the gym (remember, that was really not my thing in the past), while I continued to swim. I was lucky to have a great instructor, who really pushed us to go beyond ourselves, but always doing so with love and care, and making sure to stress that we should listen to our bodies and take a break when we needed to.

Then the bad news struck, that the pool had to close. I panicked, it felt like losing a good friend! But I was determined not to stop exercising, so I did something that would have seemed impossible a couple of years back; I took cardio-kick-boxing, which was the highest-intensity class offered at the campus gym! It was offered by the same instructor who taught the low-impact class I was already taking. To this day, I do cardio-kick-boxing twice a week, for a whole hour each time. It's really great, and I can tell that my physical condition has improved dramatically with all the squats, the punches in the air, the jumping-jacks, the push-ups... I think I like it so much because of the instructor, and I know it will be super hard to replace her when I get out of here. She knows how to push people to their limit, how to get you not just motivated, but downright passionate about your work-out!

Since I started being really serious about losing weight, with counting calories and logging my food, I increased my exercise to 3-4 times a week. Cardio-kick-boxing is on Mondays and Wednesdays, so Tuesdays and Thursdays (or some other time of the week, including weekends) I go to the gym and do the elliptical machine for 35', then do some push-ups/stretching, for a total of about an hour's worth of exercise. To this day, I don't really like this form of exercise, but I still go, because I know it's necessary for me to achieve my goal, and I love the way I feel after I've done it. Good music is essential (thank God for mp3 players!), and having a friend exercise with me makes a ton of difference (although I don't depend on other people going for me to go).

I think that exercising semi-regularly for most of my teenage and adult life has saved me from a ton of health issues that accompany obesity. It's also the main reason I don't have to resort to plus-size stores to find clothes, even though I'm obese, according to the BMI index. I must have more muscle mass than most people weighing as much as I do. I usually fit in size 12-16 clothes, depending on the store. OK, I'm cheating a bit, because I mostly buy stretchy clothes, so it's easier to fit into a smaller size. But you get the point! Exercise pays off, and you might not see it immediately, but the effect is there, and it will show not only in your clothes, but also in the way you deal with your life in general!

Staying fit is just about the best thing you can do to your body (and your mind, I've come to realize). It doesn't matter how much you're exercising or what you're doing, as long as you listen to your body, respect it, push it gently and little by little to where you thought it would never go. I suggest starting with something that you enjoy. There has to be some form of exercise that speaks to you; for me it was swimming, for others it's outdoor walking or jogging, or dancing, or house-cleaning (that definitely counts!), whatever! Find what works for you, and keep it up!

Another record

2008-05-01T09:33:00.000-04:00

An amazing thing happened this morning. I weighed myself and looked at an astounding 92.4 kg (or 203.7 lb) on the scale. It might be just a fluke, but I'll take it anyway! I'm really happy, best start to the new month!
Some years ago, I would freak out if I weighed as much as that. But right now, this is a big victory. I'm almost below 200 lb, and I can't wait to get to the 100's.
Tonight we're going out to this concert with some friends, and we're grabbing dinner and drinks earlier (and probably more drinks later). I will try to be careful about what I eat, but I know I will consume more calories than if I had a meal at home. However, I can't give up my social life during the weight-loss process. Dinners out are not an everyday thing, anyway, and I'm sure that if I'm careful during the day, I can pack an extra drink to my daily caloric limit.

New Low!

2008-04-30T09:42:00.000-04:00

Today I weighed myself and I was down to 93 kg (205 lb). This is the monthly target I was supposed to reach by May 10th, so I'm very excited. And this loss is despite the fact that I'm getting my period towards the end of the week. Hurrah!

Update

2008-04-29T11:08:00.001-04:00

Last Friday I hit a new low! I weighed in at 93.6 kg, after the scale had been stuck around 94 kg for about 10 days. On Saturday I weighed 93.4 kg (205.9 pounds), which was another record low. I think that when I arrived to the US, almost five years ago, I weighed around 91-92 kg (202.8 lb), which was already slightly above my average weight during college. So that's only another 1.4 kg or 3 pounds to go! I guess that's the first of many mini-targets, until I go down to 65 kg (143.3 lb). To reach that target, I want to lose a couple of kilos (or 4.4 pounds) each month, and each month starts on the 10th for me. If I weigh 93 kg by May 10th, my monthly target is accomplished, but I think I can lose more, given that there's still 11 days until then, and I'm already at 93.4 kg.

This Past Sunday was Greek Orthodox Easter, which meant a lot of cooking and eating for me. Greek Easter is like American Thanksgiving; everybody gets together and eats non-stop. The Greek Community in my University always throws a big party which involves cooking lamb on a spit, and offering traditional, homemade Greek dishes, and a lot of alcohol. I spent a big part of last week preparing all kinds of desserts for the celebration. I did stuff myself with food on Sunday, although I didn't have any alcohol, which I consider a victory. I didn't eat too much of anything, but the sheer variety of foods was so large, that just trying a bit of everything made for a huge meal. I was stupid; I got so full, that for about half an hour, all I could think about was how disgustingly stuffed I was. I am only used to eating smaller quantities these days, and eating all that amount of food in such a small time frame made my body complain. Luckily, it didn't show on the scale at all; I weighed 93.4 on Monday (and Tuesday) morning. Maybe it was the fact that although it was a huge meal, it was the only meal I had that day, because I had no breakfast (I woke up and drove to the celebration site after a cup of coffee), and no real dinner. So throughout the day, I didn't eat many more calories than usual.
I'm looking forward to the next low, although it could be a while, because I'm getting my period towards the end of the week, and the bloating has begun.

More background

2008-04-24T17:19:00.000-04:00

I guess I should write a bit more about my (weight) history. Like I said in the previous post, I have always been chubby. Actually, erase that, I have always been fat. I will be 28 years old this August, and I now weigh 94 kilos, which is 207 pounds. Back in late February, I weighed 99 kilos (218 pounds), so I've already lost 11 pounds or so. I am 171 cm tall, which is 5 ft 7''. According to BMI tables, I am obese. I want to go down to 65 kg (143 pounds) and stay there for life.

I am not sure why I was overeating and why nobody stopped me as I was growing up. According to psychologists, kids overeat because they are depressed. I definitely do not remember feeling sad as a child, although I don't remember being particularly happy either. But then, my overeating started before I can remember, so I am not sure what went wrong. I did not suffer any traumatic experiences, except perhaps for the fact that my mother left me with my father and my paternal grandparents for 9 months when I was between 2.5 and 3.5 years old, because she had to finish her residency (she's a doctor) in another city. I don't remember that period of my life at all, but I guess some psychologists would say that it might have played a role in my developing this tendency to overeat, perhaps to compensate for other stuff that was missing. Other than that, I grew up in a stable, middle-class environment, with parents who loved me and grandparents who spoiled me, since there was no other grandchild to get their attentions. I have a great relationship with my mother, and I talk to her like I talk to my closest friends. My father and I have had a very rocky relationship in the past, but there was never any major drama, and I never really doubted his love for me. The atmosphere is much calmer now, and we actually enjoy each other's company.

I was an only child until I was 7, that's when my sister was born. Because of our age difference, I was a bit of a mother to her. Now we're both in our twenties (I'm 28, she's 21), and we're more friends than anything else. We have a great relationship, although I still tend to mother her; I don't think that's ever going away :-) My sister was very overweight as a kid, but she lost a lot of weight in high-school, without any help, just by monitoring herself. Interestingly enough, my sister lost her extra weight after I moved out of the house to go to college.

Anyway, back to my weight: I personally think that I liked food too much, and I outsmarted anyone trying to keep me away from it. As a child, I spent many hours at my Greek grandmother's house, while my mother was working. My grandmother used to hide all kinds of treats in the house, to have something to offer to guests, but I would just discover them and eat them; it was like a game for me, making sure that there was no chocolate, no cookie left in the house. I wanted to eat everything, it was like my stomach was the bottomless pit! Maybe I was feeling lonely and bored when I was alone at home with my grandmother, and looking for food before consuming it was just something to keep me busy. Or it could be that I was so lazy by nature, that I would rather eat in front of the TV than go out and play with other kids. Or maybe I was really shy and it was easier to communicate with food than with the other kids. Whatever it was, it gave me a burden that I will be happy to part with!

It's not like, within my family, it was not pointed out to me that I was fat. However, nobody ever tried to actually do something about it, except from occasional abusive language from my father and comments like "Eat less!", which are just not very productive. My grandmother, having suffered a life of war and deprivation, was unlikely to deny anyone any kind of food, and her cuisine, although delicious, was very heavy in olive oil. I think that cooking and giving food to people was her way of showing her love, and I was eager to oblige. And although, all things considered, the food was healthy, non-processed, homemade goodness, there was no notion of portion control. My family's eating schedule was also not very typical. My mother, being a foreigner (more on that on another post, maybe) never cooked, it was my Greek grandmother's job. I never remember eating with my mother and father, there was no such thing as "dinner time", we just didn't operate like that. I had lunch by myself after school at my grandmother's place, then my dad would come and eat, then pick me up, get food for my mother, and drive back to our house, where my mother would eat. I don't know what I ate for dinner, probably left-overs from lunch, which were more than enough. So when it came to sitting down for a meal, there was nobody for me to watch and learn from. My habits got set the wrong way, I guess, and, by the time I realized, it was really hard to uproot them. I think that I'm getting there, though.

So, to cut a long post short, I have always been fat, and I guess that the culprit is my own predisposition to overeat, combined with no moderation and no example-setting behavior at home. There were periods in my life when I lost weight, but they were very spread out during my lifetime, and the weight loss was never big enough to put me in the "normal weight for height" range. I was never OK with it, I have always felt uncomfortable in my skin, and the extra pounds that I've carried have taken their toll on my life in many different ways: not being able to get into the clothes I like, feeling too fat to be attractive to guys, too chubby to be "cool". It's not the weight itself that does it, it's how it has affected my personality, or rather how I project myself because of it. Athough I was constantly "trying" to lose weight, I was always overweight, so there was always a distance between who I was and who I wanted to be. Once my habits were set, I just couldn't change them. This is exactly what I'm trying to do now, and it's worked rather well for the past couple of months. I'm not sure what's so different this time, but I deeply feel that the change is coming from within, it's like something clicked! Perhaps I'll write more on that in a future post, though.

I started counting calories and keeping a log of my daily intake in mid-February. I weighed myself only twenty days into my new eating habits, and discovered that I was about 4 kilos heavier than I thought I was when I began counting calories. It was a rude wake-up call, but, oddly enough, it didn't put me down. There's just no other option than losing the weight, you know? So it will take me longer to reach my big target, so what? I'll get there eventually, I know I will.