But if there is one positive to come out of last week, it’s the realization that I need to step up my game if I want to reach my 40 lbs. weight-loss goal by summer.

Since Jan. 1, I’ve managed to lose about one pound a week (I had been down 6 pounds, but I had to subtract two pounds from that because of last week’s gain, so the total net loss to date is now about 4 lbs. over four weeks) I had really hoped I’d be down at least 10 lbs by now.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m very happy that I lost ANYTHING at all. But…. Let’s face it, everyone wants to lose weight quickly – including me. (Plus, I have to fit into that damn bridesmaid dress in August, so I was really hoping to have reached my goal by then so I don’t humiliate myself in blue taffeta)

Now, I’ve gone the crazy crash-diet route before, and I will NEVER subject myself to that kind of torture again. However, I do need to push myself a little harder from now on if I want to stick to my summer goal. No more “cheat days”, no more “let’s just pretend like this week never happened”, no more “I’ll start fresh tomorrow”. No more excuses.

1) The first thing I need to do is start working out more. My new goal is to work out two hours a day. Yes, this is a lot, and certainly I cannot keep up this pace forever. But right now -considering I’m in grad school and not working- I definitely have the extra time to commit to it. I should really take advantage of this opportunity.

2) I also need to cut calories – big time. Apart from last week, I had kept my daily caloric intake to 1600-2000 calories a day. Clearly, this many calories just isn’t working for me if I want to lose 2-3 lbs. a week. If I want to lose that much weight per week, I really need to stick to 1200 – 1400 calories a day.

Well, now that I’ve revamped my game plan, I guess I should go start my 2 hour cardio session.

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Yes, yes – that is totally unfair and crappy of me – but I’m doing it anyway. I cannot bear to publish the failure that was Week 4. Instead, I’m going to pretend like Week 4 never happened and continue on from there. (Sometimes you need to play these mind games with yourself just to make it through the day)

With that said, the net loss to date is ….drum roll….still 6.2 lbs. (In all likelihood, I probably gained this week and the net loss is no longer 6.2 lbs, but again, I’m pretending this never happened)

I did manage to stick to my 7-days-a-week, hour-long cardio and weight workouts. Diet is a completely different matter. Being that it was my birthday week and I had lots of dinner parties to attend, I overate, strike that, BINGED just about every day this week. Filthy. Utterly filthy.

So this week, I am stepping up my game to make up for week-four-that-never-happened. Here’s my overly-ambitious goals for the coming week:

Calories: 1400 - 1600 a day.
Workouts: 6 days, 2 hours a day - longer if I don’t die within the first 2 hours.
(Monday, Wed, Fri – 1 hour cardio, 1 hour weights)
(Sun, Tues, Thurs – 2 hours cardio)

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Boy, was I wrong. Yesterday I decided to actually read the nutrition label on the creamer (what a novel idea) and found out it is 45 calories per tablespoon! I’ve easily been dumping in a ¼ of a cup of creamer into every cup of coffee I drink – meaning, I’ve probably been consuming 300-400 (undocumented) calories a day just from my coffee!

Hidden calories are sneaky little things- you practically need to hold a Congressional Hearing just to figure out what the hell you’re consuming. So to all my fellow coffee-addicts out there – here’s a caloric wake-up call.

Dunkin Donuts (10 oz.) coffee with cream and sugar, 120 calories

Dunkin Donuts Coffee Coolatta (16 oz.) made with milk, 210 calories

Starbucks Cafe Latte (Grande) made with whole milk, 260 calories

Dunkin Donuts Gingerbread Latte (10 oz.), 330 calories

Venti Mocha Coconut Frappuccino with whipped cream, 710 calories

Now, there is nothing wrong with splurging on a Frappuccino every now and then – just be sure you know ahead of time what you’re getting into. The other 99.9 percent of the time, use these tricks to fend off hidden waist-enlargers:

-Always, always, always READ THE LABEL and MEASURE - most chain-coffeehouses have nutrition information on their websites
-Substitute skim milk for whole milk or creamer
-Use a non-caloric sweetener like Splenda or Equal instead of sugar (you really can’t tell the difference)
-If it sounds fancy, and you can’t pronounce it, it’s probably full of calories
-And…
If you’re buying coffee out, bring a washable, reusable travel mug and ask the coffee barrista to use your mug instead of their disposable cups – they are usually happy to oblige (ok, ok, this has nothing to do with calories, but it is much more environmentally-friendly! All those disposable cups add up to lots of landfill waste…)

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For years now I’ve been like this – a binge eater, or a better term I like to use is a “snowballer”. Snowballers have a hard time letting things go. They can’t forgive themselves, accept the situation, and move on. Instead, they make the incident bigger and bigger, worse and worse, until things sufficiently spiral out of control. (Much like the way a snowball rolls down a mountain, gaining girth and speed every inch of the way until it crashes).

This is precisely how I am with food. If I make one slip up – say an extra dinner roll – I freak out, call myself a failure, and BANG! the binge begins. Usually, this is accompanied by some twisted rationale like “oh well, I blew it for today so I might as well go all out now”.

So, after being bitchy last Sunday night, my boyfriend braved it and asked me what was wrong. “I totally screwed up on my diet,” I whined. “I’ll never lose weight.” Seeing as he was a philosophy major in college, I can always expect a good answer from him. His response was, “grab your sack and get over it.” Then he walked out of the room.

Surprisingly, his words-of-wisdom were rather helpful. See, I, like most women, have a screwed up relationship with food. I always have to go and make a simple situation complicated (and often worse) by infusing emotion into it. “an extra dinner roll equals failure, badness, loss-of-control etc.”

Men, on the other hand, like to keep things simple. “an extra dinner roll equals an extra dinner roll”

(I do hope I am not offending anybody here with my sweeping generalizations, these are just my opinions and observations)

In the end, perhaps this is why I am a fat binge-eater/snowballer, and my boyfriend is not. He knows not to make life more complicated than it already is. And he knows when to grab his sack and get over it.

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It all started Friday night at a friend’s dinner party. I innocently ate a coconut cookie thinking “it’ll be fine, I have a few extra calories to spare”. Then came the wine, the pigs in a blanket, the spinach dip, the chocolate brownies…

Ready to sacrifice for my sins, I woke up Saturday morning and headed straight for the gym for a cardio sweatfest and then promised myself I’d eat well for the rest of the day. That good intention lasted until about 2 p.m., when a bag of chocolate trail mix somehow made its way from the kitchen cabinet to my mouth. It was all downhill from there…

Once again, I woke up this morning and promised myself I’d start fresh. I’d put all the badness behind me and renew my diet vows. Three hours later, my guilty little hand was stuffed inside a bag of buttered popcorn, the other hand working on a bag of frozen chocolate chip cookies. (Yes, FROZEN cookies – I was so determined to binge, I wouldn’t even defrost the suckers first). On top of all that, I missed my daily workout.

So, here I am once again, bloated, cranky, and discouraged. Ugh! What is wrong with me? Why do I always sabotage myself?

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During the first year or so of our relationship, we both managed to put on about 20 lbs. each. Of course, he was skinny to begin with, so the weight gain wasn’t bad for him. I, on the other hand, moved from “chunky” to “fat”. Attribute it to giddy love, dinners out, popcorn at the movies, and overall “getting comfortable and lazy”. Not to mention the fact that I took on his “junk-food football Sundays” and “Taco Bell fourth meal” eating habits.

(In fact, I recently read an article which said that over 50 percent of people gain weight when in a relationship. I have therefore come to the conclusion that people with really great bodies are A.) Single, B.) Recently divorced or in the process of, or C.) Cheating )

So, when I decided to start my New Year Better Body resolution, he decided to join in and get healthy with me. I am certainly not complaining about this – his support and encouragement is wonderful. It’s also kinda fun to spend some quality time together at the gym (I think we talk more while on the chest press machine than we do all week).

My real issue is that he can eat more than me, workout less than me, and still manage to lose MORE weight than me! Ahhh, the joys of having estrogen and child-bearing hips…

In the end, here’s the lesson for the day: Having a diet and workout partner is great for support, encouragement, and accountability. But don’t compare or judge yourself against them. Especially if your partner has more testosterone than you. Everybody’s body and chemical make-up is different.

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What a great week! 2.8 lbs. is the most per-week I’ve lost since I started. I have to say, it’s definitely the reduction in daily calorie intake. When I first started, I could barely stick to 2,000 calories a day – I was so hungry! But it seems as the weeks go on, I’m gradually becoming more satisfied with less food. I’m a firm believer that the stomach does expand / shrink in response to how much you eat. I’ve also cut down a lot on sugar, “bad” carbs, and fat – all of which are chemically addictive. So I think my physical addiction to bad foods is subsiding too.

This coming week is going to be a real test of my willpower though. I have several dinner parties to attend and it’s my birthday this week! So cake is going to happen.

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I must admit, though, that I am rather proud of myself. Despite all the turmoil going on in my life recently (an illness, a car accident, fights with my car insurance company, fights with my health insurance company, the start of the spring semester, long-lost visiting relatives, and your typical depression, despair and temporary insanity) I have remained remarkably true to my New Year, New Body Resolution. I worked out every day and ate reasonably (though I’m still pushing about 1600 calories a day).

The funny thing is – I always used to make excuses as to why I couldn’t stick to a diet and exercise program. There was never enough time to workout. I needed to “stress eat” to forget the day. I’ll start fresh once my life has calmed down – I just can’t do it now. And on, and on, and on….

But this time around, when my life started to take a frantic downward spiral, I didn’t freak out. Not one binge-fest. NOT ONE! And not only did I make time no-matter-what to workout, I actually looked forward to the workout! It was my “me” time and a great stress reliever (especially my new Kung Fu workout, I simply pretend I’m kicking my insurance agent in the face. Fantastic for the emotions – and the quads.) I guess, in a weird way, sticking to my New Body Resolution gave me a much-needed sense of control over my life. Even when I couldn’t control anything else that was going on, at least I could control this.

So, all in all, I am pretty happy about what I accomplished this week (diet and exercise-wise that is, the broken car is another matter…) Hopefully, tomorrow’s weigh-in will reflect all this good behavior! I’ll let you know how it goes…

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I had a feeling I would not do so well on my weigh-in this week. It seems like no matter what I do, I just can’t stick to my goal of 1600 calories or less a day. I’m just so hungry all the time! Plus, I made the lethal mistake of having some wine the other night – I should know by now that I cannot drink on diets. It’s not the calories – in fact, I had saved an extra 200 calories that day just so I could treat myself to a glass of wine at night. No, the issue is getting drunk and losing my mind. After drinking ¾ of a glass on an empty stomach, I started getting all loopy and drunk (I have turned into such a lightweight when it comes to booze). By the time I finished my glass-o-wine, I had completely lost my mind and was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets for munchies. And of course, I was feelin so good after the first glass of wine, I had to pour myself a second… So, in the end, I managed to blow my diet – for the second week in a row.

I had been pretty lenient on myself the first two weeks of this diet – I considered it my “transition time”. But now, now it’s time to buckle down and really do this! Here are my mini-goals for the week:

1600 calories a day – no cheating!
At least 6 hour-long workouts
Goal weight loss for the coming week: 3 lbs.

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Looking back at all the old photos of myself sent me into a tailspin of depression. I haven’t been able to shake it yet, so I hoped by writing about it today it would help me make peace with my past.

As some of you might know from reading my past posts, I’ve been fat 90 percent of my life. I started my first diet at age 7, but nothing ever really helped. In high school, I peaked at over 200 lbs at five-four. I never went on a date. Got made fun of by boys in my class. And when all the other girls were wearing cute Abercrombie & Fitch clothes, I was stuck shopping in the plus-sized department at the old lady store.

When I was a freshman in college, I got my first boyfriend. I realize now, years later, I was an easy target for him – fat and insecure and oh too happy to finally get attention from a boy. As it turned out, he was a con-artist and an abusive jerk who cheated on me, stole money from me, and overall treated me like crap – and I let him because I didn’t think I could get anyone else.

Eventually, broken and tired, I bought a workout video and started working out every morning. I also started doing some very unhealthy things too, like smoking and starving myself. In the end I lost over 90 lbs. (though I wish I had been nicer to my body in the process – I’m still struggling with a pack-a-day cigarette addiction as a result).Losing weight gave me the confidence I needed to leave the abusive relationship – to this day, I consider it the best thing I ever did.

After graduation, I landed a very stressful job as a newspaper reporter. But as my career skyrocketed, my body plummeted. I ate to forget work, to relax, to make myself happy. I stopped working out completely. Within a year, I was back to 175 lbs. That was several years ago now, and I still haven’t been able to shed the weight.

I recently went back to graduate school to earn my Master’s Degree – which I’m thrilled about. I have a fantastic boyfriend of two years. Wonderful family. A dog who I love more than anything (even though he is sometimes naughty). My life seems to be going well – except for my body.

When I look back at all my “thin” pictures, I can’t help but feel angry that I did this to myself again. My only comfort is knowing that I did it once, and I can do it again. Tomorrow is weigh-in day! Wish me luck!

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