Shipwrecked & Comatose

The time has come that I dread the most. I hate photo day.  I have to take these photos every month and with so little progress happening, I feel as if every photo I have taken is just more of the same.  Still, since I didn't post my last photo, I'll post this one.  Do you see a difference?  I don't. This week I'm down only a half a pound and my girth measurements are up.  I haven't been terribly on plan this week.  I admit that.  Even though I really thought my habits of eating slowly and stopping at a certain level of fullness were sticking, it seems like this week they weren't.  I do notice I feel full faster and more easily, so I guess my eating is a little slower, but I'm not stopping when I should.  I haven't been leaving things on my plate.  I have felt satiety and still kept going.  I like food too much. The vegetable habit continues to elude me.  It really is extremely difficult to eat five vegetables a day....

I finally have the body I want.  The key to getting the body you want is to want a really sh***y body . - Louis CK When I'm at the gym I rarely ever socialize.  I'm pretty sure my fellow gym goers think I'm unfriendly and anti-social, but that's not the case at all.  The problem is that I'm too social.  If I start talking to people, I will never do my workout.  There have been many instances where I run into an old friend and we start chatting and soon an hour is gone and I haven't even seen the inside of the locker room yet.  My mother will ask me a question while I'm warming up on the treadmill and soon I've been on the treadmill a half an hour and I'm out of time for the weight room. This means I don't know many of the names of other gym members.  I plug into my headphones and ignore everyone.  I recognize all of the regulars, but I couldn't tell you most of their names because I don't talk to them.  Occasionally one or two of them...

This week's major news story was the election of a new pope.  That's all anyone is talking about right now.  Everywhere I look Catholics are rejoicing, celebrating, and expressing their well wishes as Pope Francis takes office. You know what's weird?  Catholics are still complaining about church policy and the church's role in their lives. How many Catholics wholeheartedly embrace the denial of gay rights, the denial of women's reproductive freedom, the denial of women in positions of power, the wisdom of priestly celibacy, and the belief that the pope is the unquestionable and infallible word of God?  How many Catholics are disgusted with the way the Church has handled sex abuse cases over the decades? While we're at it, how many Catholics  truly believe without question the Virgin Birth, transubstantiation, and the belief that only Jesus-centered beliefs will win you a reward when you die?  Do you ever think it's time to give this up? Does it se...

I lost another pound this week.  Despite my intention to do what I think it would take to lose another two pounds, I did a lot of backsliding. I should be pleased I lost anything.  I guess that means that while I do some backsliding, my habits are sticking.  I am likely doing more right than I am doing wrong.   The scale is frustrating though.  I see my weight now and think of the 35 pounds I still really want to lose, or at least the 25 pounds that are slightly more realistic to lose, or the 15 pounds that will most likely be the best I can do.  It's very easy to stare into the future, look at your goals, and think that this is just a Sisyphean task. I have lost a mere 6 pounds in 8 weeks. Then I remember my team's name, which is also my team's motto.  We are Team TNT - Today Not Tomorrow.  I have to work in the here and now.  Concentrating on what I can do today is the only way I will meet my goals in the future. This week's habit is to...

Sometimes the world we live in gets me down in the strangest and most annoying ways.   The same stuff just hammers at me daily and wears out my brain. I’m on Facebook a lot less these days, so I no longer do Irksome Facebook Posts of the Week , but whenever I do go on Facebook and see the same stuff all of the time, it’s going to make its way on to my blog so I can say exactly what I think is wrong with it.    Here is my current list of things that get under my skin, rub me the wrong way, and make me wonder how exactly I’m going to deal with humanity for the next 40-50 years.  Some of it is Facebook based, but some of it is just about everything in the world.      1.  Zombie s - Zombies are the new vampires.   Hollywood is coming out of one rut only to fall right into another.   Granted vampires, mobsters, and werewolves still want to hang around.   The latest craze seems to be making over and modernizing classic ...

I lost only four-tenths of a pound.  I'm surprised I didn't gain.  I did my habits for the most part. I just ate a few things I shouldn’t have. I have to realize that just paying for this program does not automatically give me the body I want.  I still have to do the work.   I was almost going to make this post a full-blown confessional of the things I shouldn't have eaten this week and why I ate them.  I realized after writing it all out, that it's silly for me to do that.  I don't need a confessional.  I know what I did wrong. There were sweets I was convinced I had a "craving" for.  There were starches I thought would just complete a meal.  It was the wrong thing to do.  I realized that describing it in detail actually makes me dwell on it more.  Every day is a new day to wipe the slate clean.  What I ate was in the past.  I can only do my best to avoid eating crap today. I think I’m starting to anticipate too m...

So I just ended Week 7 of Lean Eating down a total of 5 pounds and 5 total inches.  It's nice that I seem to be losing the girth in my waist and bust.  Today I even saw the tiniest bit of shrinkage in my ginormous thighs.  Oops.  I said ginormous thighs, didn't I?  Maybe one of these days I'll learn how to end that negative self talk. The latest habit is to include lean protein in every meal.  This one is semi-easy for me.  I'm pretty carnivorous, so putting protein in my meals isn't difficult.  The hard part is that "lean" part.  What is lean?  They gave us a list of acceptable protein sources.  It includes "lean" meat (beef, pork, veal, game), chicken, beans, cottage cheese or unsweetened Greek yogurt.  eggs or eggs whites (in other words we're not forbidden to eat the fatty but nutritious yolks), and protein powders.  Obviously my most favorite meats like duck, lamb, and bacon aren't mentioned.  The rest seem r...