Things that get to me

FACT: I am an emotional/bored eater. I eat when I'm tired, and since one almost always feels tired when sad, I think that you can see where I'm going with this. Since working out releases endorphins, it helps me stay on plan.



The issue that keeps putting me in a bad mood? The fact that I did not get a summer job through On-Campus Interviewing (OCI). For non-lawyers and non-law students, it's like going through sorority recruitment, feeling like you really connected with several houses, and then not getting even one bid. I'm not as disappointed as I could be; I was a close second on many of the decisions, and I lost out to friends. (Much better to lose out to a qualified, wonderful person than to some of the personality-lacking people you meet in law school sometimes.)



Still, it messed with my self-esteem. And while I love my friends, it definitely sucks to hear them talking about all the parties and goodies the firms lavish on them...while I am still unemployed for the summer.



Anyway, this is only peripherally related to weight loss, so I'll move on: I keep pulling myself up by my bootstraps, working out, taking my antibiotics (OH YES: I found out that I have a sinus infection and have to take these horse pills 3X a day--and even so, I went to kickboxing last night), and doing my thing. I think that counts for something, right?



Daily weigh-in: 153.8 (woo! slowly but surely going down)

Daily goals:

1. Work out with my friends this afternoon.

2. Keep lunch/snack points to a minimum.

3. Drink glasses of water in between the beers tonight.



Tonight is going to be a blast--it's our mid-program celebration since we're halfway done with law school!

No wonder I like it so much!

I have a favorite drink, one that I fall back on whenever I'm out. I love amaretto sours. I find them tart and sweet and refreshing, and there's nothing better to have as a cocktail. I usually indulge when I've had a really hard day (like today) or when someone else is picking up the tab on a special occasion (rare).

When I came back to school from the happy hour, replete with satisfaction from having my favorite drink, I entered it on fitday.com. Well, I tried to anyway. But fitday only has info for a whiskey sour. I tried google, and got widely varying responses. But the sad fact is that an amaretto sour is loaded with calories. As with every drink, the calories vary depending on the bartender. I was sitting at a table, not watching the bartender, so I have no idea how he made it.

A little of my glow from having what I wanted is gone, but not all. I'll simply save the amaretto sours for special days, and from now on, I definitely will not be having more than one!

What was old is new again

Dealing with an injury is no fun. Trying to crosstrain on a limited budget and a broken bike is also no fun. Finding your old TaeBo tapes in the closet and deciding to mix it up a little? Kinda fun. Fun that hurts a bit the next day.

I used to do TaeBo with my friends in college. It has been about 3 years since I've really used them--I used to be able to the advanced tape all the way through, go me!--and I only did 30 minutes of Advanced Tape 1 last night. But it was difficult, I sweated, and it was something different than using the exercise bike.

I really need to find a cheap way to replace my bike's tires. A friend of mine works for REI so I think I'll ask her for advice.

Time to go stretch out--every time I sit for more than 10 minutes, my muscles get a little bit more sore!

Emergency rooms, migraines and distractions all around

When life is going well, obstacles inevitably pop up. This week has been a failure as far as working out goes; I slept in every morning only to find my efforts to work out in the evening fruitless. First, I had to meet my roommate for grocery shopping. Then, a classmate and friend fell and hurt her ankle; there was no way I was going to have her take the bus to or from the ER! Then, today, my vision started to go crazy and I found myself in the midst of a migraine while in class. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sleep it off.

The good news? This is a speed bump. Next week will be better. I'm not going to abandon my goals just because of one bad week.

I have also found out that Ben & Jerry's lowfat version of Chocolate Fudge Brownie is extremely delicious, especially if you're sharing it with a friend.

If the way to hell is paved with good intentions, what about the road to health?

I think the answer to that one is patience. Patience and perseverance. Patience, perseverance, and surprise. Surprise and fear...wait, that's a Monty Python sketch!

I recorded a loss this week...and then I held my drink tickets for the Gala in my hand and thought, "Well, I need to get my money's worth, right?" Oops. So much for the low-calorie Diet Cokes I planned on imbibing. There's nothing worse for weight loss than alcohol, unless it is drinking lots of alcohol when you haven't had a proper, filling dinner.

And THEN someone mentions Tater Tots, the best drunk food ever. And you find yourself wondering who you have to beat up to get a plateful of Tots.

Yeah...this weekend didn't go so well. I had calorie-laden Long Islands, Tater Tots at 2am, and then a hangover brunch that involved chorizo and eggs. But I think I've relearned a valuable lesson--a lesson that I need to learn about once a year, apparently--about planning ahead. If I had thought to have a good meal before the party, if I had alternated alcohol with water, I would be much prouder of myself right now.

Beating myself up about this serves no purpose. Instead, I'm going to work on my homework and then go work out.

Stalling out

This last week has reinforced to me how important it is that I learn to wakeup earlier and work out. I slept in, then promised myself that I would work out later in the day. Of course, life intervened: finishing my reading and review took longer than expected, which meant arriving at home hungry and tired.

Today, I'm going to try and inspire myself a bit by cleaning and filing. Nothing makes things seem more possible than a clean slate--or clean room--to work with.

A so-so kind of day

Evenings are such a minefield. I respond well to schedules and being busy. Being at home with nothing to do but chores, I tend to nosh mindlessly. But tonight, I stopped before too much damage was done.

Again, I couldn't manage to rouse myself to get up for more than a twenty-minute yoga workout this morning. Someone has suggested that I schedule my workouts and post them somewhere above my desk, just to try and jar my brain into thinking of this as a duty, not something I can beg off. I may do just that. I also need to come up with a better incentive structure. Being a bit of a cheapskate, it is hard for me to promise myself pedicures, clothes, shoes and vacations with any degree of sincerity. Where's that altruistic, anonymous benefactor who will bribe me towards fitness? Do such kindly souls exist? Would someone actually give me a trip to Greece to celebrate reaching my goals?

Hello? Anyone out there? Nah, didn't think so.

I am NOT a morning person

Today was another attempt and another miss at getting up early to exercise. After dragging myself home after a very long day, I spent most of my evening doing more research and reading, not noticing how quickly the time was going by. Now I'm irritated at myself for not working out today.

There is a nasty cold hitting my classmates. Having been sick a lot in the last six months, I only hope that my immune system is going to adopt a "been there, done that" attitude and bulldoze past it.

Now: I am going to bed early and getting up early to work out. Otherwise I'm going to have to buy this.

Habit-breaking, habit-forming

One of my goals this year is to become a morning exerciser. This quarter, this has been made more challenging with 9am classes. If I want to work out, shower, eat breakfast, and catch the bus in time to make it to the law school with a bit of breathing room, I either have to do a short workout (i.e., 20-minute yoga DVD) or get up REALLY early. This is made more complicated when my roommate, who gets up after me, is already using the shower when I get back from my workout.

But the real problem isn't the shower: I have the hardest time getting out of bed at 6am! I've been slowly trying to push back my wake-up time, but I have this unfortunate tendency of falling back asleep. Even putting my alarm across the room hasn't nipped this habit in the bud.

On the habit-forming side, I am having some success resurrecting an old, kind of weird habit: Pulling off pieces of food--like cheese from pizza or a quarter of a cookie--and throwing them in the trash before I can eat them. I know it's weird. But when I hit my first plateau two years ago, I started doing this at work and the scale started to budge again. It is best to do this only with snacks and treats.

At first, I was horrified at myself for "wasting" food by not finishing what I started to eat. We're all taught to clean our plates as children. (By the way, I think this is the worst thing that you can do as a parent. By all means, withhold dessert, but making your child eat past satiation sends the wrong signal. They learn not to listen to their bodies saying, "Hey, I'm full, you can stop eating now.) But then I realized that eating something I didn't need or want wasn't a waste--it was just another step towards a healthier, fitter body. So I'm going to continue to pick pieces of granola bar off of my snack and throw it away, pull cheese off of entrees at restaurants, and leave things on my dinner plate.