Weekly Weigh-In

Yesterday was my first official weigh-in.  I think I'll keep it on Tuesdays since I always have those off and can weigh in at the same time each day.  Anyway, I was a little nervous- I haven't been 100% perfect this past week.  I was pretty sure I'd lost though.  5.6 pounds to be exact. I know some of that was water retention and that I can't expect to lose that much every week because that would be unhealthy, but I'm still pretty excited.  Especially given the week I've had.  The job transfer fell through so I'm stuck at the hell hole.  I'm fairly certain I'm not ovulating at all (I've been charting for 4 months now and the first line NEVER gets darker than the second line).  I've been doing a lot of research on that and it seems that people who've been on Yaz often have that problem.  So I'm scared and angry about that.  I've got a doctor's appointment later today to talk to my obgyn about it.  I've been stressing out over that all week, too.  Typically I'd have spent every waking moment at home drowning my sorrows and stress with food.  I still sort of did that, but I had tons of celery and light popcorn in the house so I didn't really sabotage myself the way I'd have liked to. 

Anyway, I'll focus on the positive- I lost 5.6 pounds in a week.  Go me.

I Buy Notebooks

Every time I "restart" my healthy-living routine I buy a brand new notebook.  The medium 5-star college-ruled kind.  I always pick a bright blue or green cover- it matches my bright and cheery outlook on all of my future successes.  The crisp, white, clean sheets sparkle at me.  They represent everything I want to be.  They are pure.  Nothing has touched them.  They have no history, no errors, no evidence of failure.  They are perfect, and each time I buy one I promise it that I will keep it perfect.  That when I begin tracking what I eat and how often I exercise my new notebook will still be perfect because I will be perfect.

Wanna take a guess at how many half-used notebooks I have around my house?  Without fail they all turn into scrap paper for jotting down random life necessities- shopping lists, to do lists, sketches for work... The diet goes out the window and so does the notebook.

I've been operating under the heading of "The past is the past so forget it and start from scratch" and I still believe that- sort of.  I think the problem for me is that in giving myself a blank slate I am pardoning all of the choices I made that got me to this point, and while forgiveness is necessary, turning a blind eye means never learning from my mistakes.

So, true to form, I bought ANOTHER notebook yesterday.  This time I will write down the good AND the bad.  When I eat a bowl of Trix or put too much cheese on my potato (or dive spoon first into some Everything-But-The) I will not give up on my notebook.  And, just like me, I hope my notebook will get healthier over time.

How many times can your job make you cry before you say "I QUIT!!!" (Among other things)

My husband has been asking me to quit my job for weeks.  Maybe months at this point.  The routine is set- I come home after a horrendous day of being screamed at, having had things thrown at me (or at least sent whizzing past my ear), having heard the latest bitchy comment made behind my back, and the second I hit the front door I fall apart.  Sometimes that means I cry.  More often than not I've already cried at work in a bathroom stall, or on the drive home, so by the time I get home I've entered into rage mode.  I recount my day with rhetoric that would make my deceased grandfather (WWII sailor) proud.  Or maybe cringe.  Ben (the husband) listens.  He always listens.  He gives me hugs.  He agrees with me that the bakery manager, aka "Mussolini," (a passive-aggressive, menopausal- read   "hot flashing "-  Jekyll and Hyde type) is a bitch; he tells me that my Borderline Personality Disorder decorating lead, aka "Fearless Leader," is a nightmare.  And then he asks me the question that any sane individual would ask, "why don't you leave??"

The truth is I think about leaving every day.  I've watched three of the 5 of us core decorators quit.  The latest one of us to go leaves on Saturday.  After that it's just me, Mussolini, Fearless Leader and two part-time interns.  But I can't just quit.  True, if this was any other type of relationship I would have called a spade an abusive spade long ago and walked out, but this is a job.  I have to stay if only for the health benefits (Ben's don't kick in for another 3 months).

For the past 11 months I've repeated this routine.  Cry-rant and rave-claim defeat-wake up at 3 am to start it all over.  And then Sunday came.  Every week a list of openings within the company (it's a chain) goes up next to the time clock.  This Sunday an opening came up in a store that is literally 3 minutes from my house.  15 with a foot of snow.  Today I got the paperwork to make the transfer.  I will turn it in on Friday.  It will get faxed and finalized before anyone in the bakery knows what hit them.  And hopefully, in two weeks, I will be FREE.  I am terrified that the new bakery will be as bad, or worse, than this one- but I know what will happen to me if I stay.  At least this way I'm breaking the cycle of learned helplessness.

Wish me luck.

Day One

Recently I've been doing a lot of wishing and lamenting.  "If only I could go back in time and warn myself of what would happen to me."  Show myself the 240+ pound prison I'd create.  Explain the hell of going from 247 to 212 and back up to 241 again.  Of course I know, just like everyone else with any grasp on reality, that wishing doesn't do shit.

This morning, however, another thought occurred to me, "What if I do nothing and in 5, 10, 15, 20 years I'm sitting at the same desk thinking, 'If only I could go back in time and warn myself of what MORE would happen to me.'"  If I do nothing, change nothing about my life, logic promises that things will only get worse.

So here I am, beyond ready for change.  Being accountable to myself, my husband, my family, my trainer, even my future kids hasn't gotten me to where I need to be.  So I'm trying something new.  I'm going to be accountable to cyberspace.  I'm going to put my life in print where numbers won't lie and strangers won't help me make excuses.  More than that, I hope to find support out here. 

As for today's plans- I'm looking at a 1400 calorie day filled with cleaning and painting the future nursery (time killer and motivational!).

Hey! I Have a Blog!

Hello there.  My name is Sarah and I'm a 26 year-old pastry chef working as a cake decorator.  I've been married since July 2007 and I live in Pittsburgh, PA.  Those are the basics. 

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now.  I follow a few friends' blogs and they seem to really love it, so I guess I'm giving it a try now, too.  I'm thinking that the two biggest themes of this blog will end up being weight loss (I'm at a horrifying 241) and conception (we've been trying since March).  Both are lonely subjects, but maybe with this blog they'll feel a little less so.

Currently the extent of my computer savvy-ness ends with emails and facebook, so please bear with me as I learn.