Is it really a choice?

After all my "let's be positive because it's a choice" I had a really lousy day today. I woke up late, missed my morning workout, and was late to work. Then I was assign two awful projects to manage.

I worked out after work and it was difficult. The extra 22 pounds feels like an extra 50 pounds, especially on the tricep pushups and chin-up assist machine.

On my way home I called my husband and asked him to get rid of the cashews he bought at Costco and the four different kinds of cheeses he got for New Year's Eve. They've been calling my name every night, and I can't take it anymore. He said he'd get rid of them.

When I got home after my workout you'll never guess what was in the kitchen. Pizza! Seriously Jack, are you freaking kidding me? Pizza?! I swear he wants me to be fat.

Although I'm trying to be positive and optimistic, I'm just not feeling it tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

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I never do these questionnaire things but a friend sent this to me so I thought what the heck, I'll do it so I can email it back to her. Then I had the bright idea to post it here so you all can get to know me a little better. Because I'm sure you're all just dying to know what color of socks I'm wearing tonight. ;)

1. What is your occupation right now? Applications Analyst / It Project Manager

2. What color are your socks right now? Blue

3. What are you listening to right now? Cobra Starship on People's Choice Awards - Hot Mess. They sound off key and kind of horrible.

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Pizza. Blame my husband.

5. Can you drive a stick shift? No

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Jack (my husband)

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes :)

8. How old are you today? 54

9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Ice skating or sometimes football if it's one of my teams (Seahawks or Broncos).

10. What is your favorite drink? water

11. Have you ever dyed your hair? yes

12. Favorite food? Cheesecake

13. What is the last movie you watched? It's Complicated (loved it!)

14. Favorite day of the year? My birthday (because I get what I want that day and I always take off work)

15. How do you vent anger? Scream...seriously, I do. Probably need anger management classes or something. Unless I'm at work. Then I just walk away...then I scream. :)

16. What was your favorite toy as a child? My first bike, the brand was Firestone and it was a sparkly kelly green

17. What is your favorite season? Spring

18. Cherries or Blueberries? I love both but probably Washington Rainier cherries

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Yes

20. Who is the most likely to respond? Twila

21. Who is least likely to respond? Linda

22. Living arrangements? Married

23. When was the last time you cried? Really cried - my brother-in-law's funeral in November. Just a few tears, stupid BL show last night.

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Oh man, too much junk...Shoes/two suitcases/cat kennel/a lamp/an empty tripod box - yes I need to clean my closet. :)

25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to? Twila

26. What did you do last night? Watched Biggest Loser

27. What are you most afraid of? Becoming a homeless bag lady or a contestant on BL

28. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburger? cheese

29. Favorite dog breed? mutt from the Humane Society

30. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

31. How many countries have you lived in? 1

32. Diamonds or pearls? Pearls

33. What is your favorite flower? Iris

35. What is your favorite color? aqua

Your Choice

I'd written a really negative post earlier today. It was titled "What happened to my happy?" I expressed my frustration with myself about my weight gain of 22 pounds.

After reading through it tonight I decided I didn't like my attitude and tone of the post. My words made me feel worse than I already do about my weight gain. I imagined someone else reading it, how they might feel. I deleted the post before it was ever published. I really want to focus on the positive, even though it's really hard at times (especially when my pants don't fit!).

Tonight is my TV night, and I'm watching The Biggest Loser. I've never actually watched an entire episode of BL. I've caught a few episodes in the past years, but it's too emotional for me. All the crying and the sad stories break my heart. No one ever says, 'gosh, I'm just thrilled I gained all this weight, my life is so much better now'.

Being overweight really does suck. It's horrible. It destroys people, mentally and physically. The good thing though, there's a cure. It's called diet and exercise. Most of us have the ability to cure our fatness. It's very hard work, probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

Continuing on a positive note, I've been wanting to post something here. It was written by someone from my work who has retired. It's applies not only to work, but also to weight loss and life in general. I especially love the last paragraph. It's so very true.

I'm not a fan of Wayne Dyer but his quotes below are pretty good. I didn't get permission to reprint this email. However, I think the author would get a kick out of it being on a weight loss blog.

Your Choice
I've noticed the Water Cooler is getting a bit philosophical these days. I think it's fine if people want to use this forum as a place to vent. The primary reason for the Water Cooler is to provide a place to anonymously ask a question. When there is a question, I will do my best to answer it.

I think all of us are vulnerable to getting 'down', perhaps some more than others. I admire the eternal optimists and I really try to be one. I vividly remember the presidential election of 1980. The year before, Jimmy Carter, who some have said was one of the smartest men to ever hold the office, gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people. This became known as his "malaise speech" and it characterized his leadership for me. His despair was contagious and it was reinforced by recent memory of the Vietnam war and by current gas lines. The year 1979 got even gloomier when Iran captured and held 52 American citizens hostage and a military action to free them ended in disaster. There was a lot of negativity in the air and of course the press seemed to be amplifying it to the maximum extent.

In 1980, President-elect Reagan, on the night of his landslide victory, met the press with a smile and his jaunty manor and when asked what he thought of the state of the nation and our future, he reply was something like "I'm confident and excited about our future". To me it was tremendously refreshing to hear leadership in a positive direction. In his inaugural address he said "facing our challenges ... does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds..." Now some have said Reagan wasn't capable of knowing how bad things really were, but I disagree. My sense was, instead of choosing despair he chose to be optimistic and to give the nation reason to feel confident. And it was contagious. There are a range of opinions about the Reagan years but even most of his harshest critics would agree that his optimism never faltered and his ability to communicate that optimism was legendary.

I don't want to sound preachy here because I sometimes need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and do an attitude check. Many years ago I heard a tape of a presentation by Wayne Dyer, the popular psychologist. One thing that stuck with me was his comment; "Our lives are a sum total of the choices we make".

Your team, this division, this company, this nation, and this world will never be perfect. You can choose to spend your time pointing that out, or you can choose to spend your time to make things better and to inspire those around you. Both choices are contagious.

Three more Dyer quotes:
Everything is perfect in the universe - even your desire to improve it.
There's nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

What you think, is true.

In the recent Weight Watcher magazine there's a success story about a woman that has lost 159 pounds. Her yoga instructor's mantra is "What you think, is true."

I love this saying, and I completely agree with it. If we think we're a big, fat slob, a failure at weight loss and that we'll always be fat and even if we lose the weight, we'll probably gain it back, then it's true.

I'm a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. By believing in myself I can make things happen, things like losing weight and maintaining the loss.

No talk about "it's too hard" or "I'm tired of this." or heaven forbid "I want to quit!". That will get me nowhere except back to weighing in at 240 pounds.

I've gained 22 pounds since February 2009 to now (ten months). I was 154.6 for a brief moment on February 17, 2009. Am I sad about screwing up and basically wasting the last year? Hell yes! Am I going to do something about it? Double hell yes!

Weight Watchers
There's a 10-week Momentum challenge starting this week at Weight Watchers. I missed my meeting Saturday (I had numerous excuses, all of them bad). I'm going to a lunch meeting this Wednesday. I'll have my official post-holiday weighin and start the challenge.

Looking at my last official weighin I was 176.4 on November 19. I think I'm still pretty close to that. That's not really a great thing, but at least I didn't gain anything over the holidays.

If you have access to the Weight Watcher website, here's a link to the New Year, New Resolve Challenge Week 1. It looks interesting and even a little fun.

Book: The end to overeating
I'm still reading it, and I'm in the Rehab section. I'm working on a couple of the behavioral changes. Stay tuned for more on this book. I still think the premise is good and it makes sense. It's the "doing it" part that's difficult (isn't that always the case?).

Exercise of the day


I hate lunges. Like really, really hate them. They hurt like heck, and I feel like I'm going to fall over when I do them. I'm so worried about making a fool of myself that I mainly focus on my balance, not really working my butt and thigh muscles.

Now I use the Smith machine with two 25-pound plates, so I'm lunging with 50 pounds. It's difficult but with the machine I can focus on my form and not worry about falling over.

Check out this instructional video for the Smith Machine Lunge. If it comes up with a start button, just click it. Don't worry about the gender/height thing.

Picture of the day
My assistant while taking down the tree on Sunday.

Current favorite workout song
Hot Mess by Cobra Starship

Sorry Amber! I'm sure this will insult your ears. The official video is kind of disgusting, but it's a great workout song.