February 26 - Under 200 lbs

The trick is going to stay under 200. The scale clocked me in at 199.8 this morning (199.6 initially, but 199.8 on a second weigh in.) That means 34 lbs down. That means 11 lbs lost this month so far. That means "goodbye 200!". That means there's still more work ahead to maintain that under-200 status.

Yesterday I ate too little. I just got caught up with stuff and forgot to eat. Promise to be more conscious today.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. Flax Oil Gel Tab. 1/2 cup of Fiber One

Lunch - Spinach Salad and 1/3 cup black beans

Dinner - Chopped Salad & 2 of the Kobe beef sliders (yum!). Glass of red wine.

February 25 - Wednesday Already

I got nuthin'. Thanks to Jan for some vintage ads including this one for "Sanitized Tape Worms". Go ahead and Google it. It was legit.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee & flax oil geltab. 3 popovers

Lunch & Dinner - Uh, "potatoes and fruit". (I had a 1/2 of a vodka-cranberry martini). I just wasn't hungry the rest of the day.

February 24 - Body Hack

As usual, after a weekend of slight overeating, I've returned to my usual eating habits and guess what? Again, the weight just falls off. Odd thing how the body works. Trust me, I'm not complaining.

All traces of the pastries from the weekend are gone (I brought them to the neighbor's Sunday evening) and the Girl Scout cookies are in the car. I'll give them away at work.

I stopped at Target on Sunday and walked by some free weights. I took 3 10-lb weights and held them for a minute. Damn things got heavy. That's how much extra weight my fatty carcass was dragging around. Then I put a 10-lb down and added a 5 so that I had 25. That's how much I still want to lose. I took a mental picture of how much I'm still carting around with me.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. Flax Oil Gel Tab. 1/2 cup kibble

Lunch - 1 cup black beans.

Snack - 10 mini caramel cakes

Dinner - Wedding soup from Caffe Roma, plus a piece of bread and a slice of pizza. (I refrained for ordering a whole pizza. Hooray!)

February 23 - Lost Weekend

Uh, my camera broke. No, that's not it. I left my iPhone at the cleaners on Friday. No, that's not it either. I spent the weekend with some Amish, and everytime I took out my phone it freaked them out a little.

Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket!

I'm considering this past weekend my "lost weekend". If there was a pastry diet, I would have been on it. Yesterday I took Mom to breakfast, but for the rest of the day I picked at leftover pastry from Bob's birthday party. All day. And into the night. Now, I did lose a little since yesterday, but my body is craving salads and beans, so today I will treat it right.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. Flax Oil Gel tab. 1/2 cup Fiber one Kibble

Lunch - Spinach Salad.

Snack - 5 fabulous crackers w/slices of cheese

Dinner-ish - Banana. 10 rice cakes. I'm going for a massage, so I wanted to eat light.

Snack - I was a little hungry before bed, so I had 6 of those spectacular crisps

February 22 - Carnage

Just like in wartime when they don't want you to see the pictures of the carnage, I don't have any more pictures from yesterday's food intake. Dinner was fabulous, but we all ate too much.

In short, I had about 8 of those fabulous crisps with cheese at the pre-party. Dinner was a glass of wine, 2 slices of pizza (I had forgotten I already had 4 in the afternoon) and half of a pasta cabonare. We then came back to the house where we all tried to resist desserts. I had about 1 full dessert.

It was only 1.2 lbs gained; much better than last weekend's binge. I notice that whenever Bob comes home for a weekend, I overeat and then when he leaves I go back to my usual eating habits.

We'll just blame Bob. :)

Breakfast - Lo-carb western omelet wrap. Fruit

Rest of the day - Pastry. Pastry. Pastry.

February 21 - St. Pete's - A

Christ on a bicycle. Bob just woke from a nap and he's babbling like Sophia from the Golden Girls on sodium penethol. I said something about pizza and he muttered back something about "St. Pete's a name in the bible..." I swear, it's like Special Ed hour over here sometimes.

Speaking of pizza, today's lunch was a "meh" boxed pizza from Whole Foods. We went there looking for more of those nummy crackers that I mentioned last night. Found them. The 4 slices of pizza came to 330 calories, so I'm not too worried.

I *am* concerned about dinner tonight at Caffe Roma. We're going out to celebrate Bob's birthday, then coming back here for desserts from Farkas' pastry shop. Napoleon's for everyone!

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. 1/2 a nut/pineapple bar from Farkas'. (He cut a piece and put it into my hand. What could I do?)

Lunch - 1/2 of the Whole Foods Mediterranian veggie pizza.

Dinner - a couple of slices of Caffe Roma pizza. A slice of bread. 1/2 order pasta carbonara that I split with Bob. Back at the house I had a couple pieces of pastry (Napoleons, mini-Key Lime cheesecake.)

Girl Scout cookies came in today. I didn't buy the usual 20 boxes. I bought 3: 1 Lemon Chalet and 2 Dulce de Leche (shown left.)

Get this: 3 of these little bastards are 200 calories. That's like my entire lunch! I took one for the team and ate 3 and you know what? Meh, not so good, aksully.

Sad when I'd rather have a cup of black beans over cookies. Or, maybe not.

February 20 - My New Goal...

I have a new goal. I'd like to be at 200 or below by March 1.

Why? Because then I will actually be the weight on my driver's license!

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. 3 Popovers (1 egg, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk. 350 degrees til brown.)

Lunch - Spinach salad w/cheese. 10 mini ricecakes. 3 of those damned Girl Scout Cookies.

Dinner - 1 cup black beans.

Snack - Stopped at Truffles to find the handsome and humpy Jeff serving up homemade biscotti. I had one along with a Chai Tea. I found out after ordering it that it's filled with sugar. Won't make that mistake again.

Then, came home and Bob brought the most fabulous snack with him. Raincoast Crisps! OMG. Fabulous. He brought the Rosemary Raisin Pecan crisps. Light, brilliant flavors. We paired them with assorted cheeses and I think I had about 10 of them.

February 19 - 30 lbs officially gone

If I were still on Nutrisystems, today would be the day that I earned my 30 Blue Bear. I have officially lost 30 lbs since December 1st.

I started having a mental block around the 25lb mark. I was thinking, "I've never lost more than 22 lbs in the past. I will never lose more than that again." But I put those thoughts aside and kept slogging through.

If you're trying to lose weight, keep going. It's hard, but it's worth it. Do it for yourself, not for anyone else. Do it because you want to be healthy to enjoy life, your kids, your grandkids. Do it because trips to the hospital suck. Do it because you are more important than any piece of cake or second helping of pasta.

FYI - My other Bear Days can be found here and here.

NEW: I'm not going to post pictures of coffee anymore. I drink 2 in the morn usually. 1/8 cup 2% milk, a couple Sweet & Low

Breakfast - 2 coffees. 1/3 cup dry kibble

Lunch - Spinach Salad. 10 caramel rice cakes

Snack - 2 pretzels

Dinner - baked sweet potato

Snack - Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwich

Love the Name of Her Blog

Dieting is Not a Piece of Cake.

Simple. Fabulous. To the point.

Exhilarating. Humilating.

True confession time. This is probably the boldest thing I've posted to date - my pants size.

When I started this project on December 1, 2008, I was wearing a size 42 pant. Yes, 42. I could squeeze into 40's, but the 42's gave me that room to breathe. Now, I *am* pear shaped and have child-bearing hips, but still, putting on those 42's every morning was a stab in the heart.

So, I stopped at Target to look at pants since everything I have now is big. I tried on 40's. They fell off of me. The 38's were also big; I could pull them out from my body.

36's are where I'm at! They're a little snug, but they look good on, and I feel great in them. I can't tell you the last time I was in a 36!

Suck on that, Nutrisystems.

UPDATE: The humiliation continues. I was sorting through my pants. I was actually in a 44 in December. Ugh.

February 18 - Bob's Birthday

Today is Bob's birthday. He's in New York for work today, but he'll be home this weekend. Wherever you are, have a little something sweet in his honor. Bob loves his sweets.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. 1/2 cup kibble.

Lunch - Spinach Salad.

Dinner - Lean Cuisine. Not shown: Small handful of almonds before dinner.

February 17 - Tuesday Already

Drove to Erie, PA last night to see the tour of The Drowsy Chaperone. Delightful. This meant eating on the run, but the turkey sandwich from Tal's was nummy.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee. Kibble (Fiber One Cereal)

Snack - Caramel Rice Cakes

Lunch - Spinach Salad.