Old Jeans (with photos)

This week has been another slow and steady week.  No illicit snacking at the office combined with my regular meals and workouts (including a visit from Mr. Fitness) have combined for a loss of just over half a pound.  It would have been more, but for the debauchery of last Friday's street housewarming party, for which I was paying most of the week.

We had another housewarming party this Friday for friends and coworkers, but this time I managed to keep my snacking impulses in check.  Not only that, I tracked what I consumed, which made it easier to stay on the right path.  Still, temptation abounded, and I was lucky that my hostessing duties kept me pretty distracted (we had 42 people over) otherwise it could have been another snack food disaster.

This weekend has been hugely social, with the housewarming, coffee/shopping with the matriarch, a book signing for one of the Nerd's hockey buddies, and then a 40th birthday party BBQ for another friend.  I kept snacking to a minimum at the latter because the hosts, while lovely people, let their 2-year old lick all the fruit, crackers, and cheese and then put them back on the trays, so there was no way of knowing what food was safe and what food had boy cooties.  Better safe than sorry, I say, so I avoided it all.  I have no problem with boy cooties generally, but I am choosy as to the source.

On a completely unrelated note, in preparation for our big house move I spent a lot of time beforehand cleaning out closets and cupboards of unwanted or unused things (the way one does before a move).  One thing I discovered was my blue jeans historical stash.  I had been keeping one pair of each size of jeans as they no longer fit.  Because I started at a size 26 you can guess that this amounts to a number of pairs of jeans between the starting pair and my current size 14s.

To say my current self is a mere shadow of the clown pants that I used to wear is an understatement.  Put another way:

Those are some - shall we say capacious - pants right there.

They all went to the Goodwill donation box during the move, but I'll always have the photo of the jean archive to help keep me on the straight and narrow during social weekends like these ...

Move Complete - Settling Back Into Routine

Whew!  At long last, after what felt like an interminable period of time, the move is complete.  The boxes are unpacked.  The clothes are put away.  The usual patterns of daily living have been picked up again.  And not a moment too soon, I tell you!

When last we spoke I was just recovering from the end of the move.  I had managed to put on a ridiculous amount of weight, and ballooned up to 199 pounds (and more!) after all of my move-induced emotional eating and take out food consumption.  Last Sunday I got back on the path to righteousness by religiously tracking my food and engaging in solid exercise. 

The rest of the week was more of the same.  I tracked my food and I worked out as is my custom.  Mr. Fitness came by on Thursday to kick my ass with the dreaded high intensity interval workout - which I loathe...but still managed to complete.  Most importantly of all, I did not snack all week.  This sounds like such a little thing, but I know that the unbridled snacking is what killed me over the past month or so.  Because let me tell you, I can snack like a m-f-.  Some people are good at math, I am good at snacking. 

So this week was a big test of my ability to get back on track.  I have to tell you that the first day back at the office (the land of temptation) I was white knuckling it all day in an attempt to keep from snacking.  When I left the office to go home, I was in part fleeing all that temptation.  But it worked - I remained snack-free all day.  The next day was just a little bit easier, and the day after that was easier still.  By Thursday I wasn't even tempted by the chocolate covered almonds that one of my coworkers brought into our marketing approval meeting.  Well, not more than normally tempted - I am human after all - but it was comparatively easy to stand firm and avoid the treats. 

Friday I started strong, but then lost focus a few hours into our housewarming party.  I kept with soft drinks, mostly, rather than alcoholic beverages, which helped a lot.  But by the end of the night I went a bit off the rails and snacked my face off on the delicious party food.  It was all delicious, but full of sodium and I am sure all sorts of bad things.  However because I own my choices I tracked it, to an extent at least, by adding 600 calories to my food log for Friday night.  It may have been more, it may have been less, but that's as good an estimate as any.  The key thing is that I tracked it and owned it, which is critical - - my snacking binges of the last month went largely untracked. 

I weighed myself Friday morning (pre-party, thank god) and lo and behold after a week of sticking to my plan, working out, and not snacking, I lost 1.5 pounds.  I am back down to 197.5 pounds (again), and feeling pretty good.

A new wrinkle to my routine now is that I weigh myself before working out.  So that 197.5 is an honest weight, prior to any sweating-induced water loss.  I previously always weighed myself after my workouts so as to get to the lowest possible number.  This way feels a bit more honest - it's my walking around weight, after all. 

All in all it was a good week.  I saw positive progress back into my routine, I was able to resist temptation at the office, and our house held up to the housewarming party.

Here are some photos of the place (minus party-goers, of course):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoy discovering the routines and flow of this house.  Our neighbours are wonderful, and I actually had a really nice time at our housewarming for the street last night.  

And now it is back to continue these routines.  I have some laundry on the go and I will steal some time to do a bit of weaving.  Ahhhhh....

Clawing my way back...one day at a time

I had a major breakthrough at the end of April finally breaking past my previous low weight of 185.4 to reach 184.9 pounds.  It took months and months and months of work to undo the impact of poor eating habits over the period before I started work at my new job last year, and the holidays at the turn of this year.

My personal trainer, Mr. Fitness, was a major part of this turnaround.  Another part - - a very big part, as it happens - - was my disciplined eating habits.  Reducing snacking and keeping my calories within a reasonable range helped me drop the weight slowly but steadily.  The workouts helped me improve my overall fitness and get me toned.  Together the eating habits and my workouts combine to improve my fitness level every week.

At the end of April, right after hitting this milestone, I went home to Edmonton for a holiday.  Healthy eating habits went out the window with numerous dinners out combined with unhealthy-ish food at the Patriarch's house.  After I got back from Edmonton I had a few moderately good weeks, then it was back on a plane to New York and all the food and drink that one finds there.  More eating out, and more street food.  It turns out that I am very good at finding food in New York.  Hey, a girl's gotta have a skill. 

After this veritable smörgåsbord of eating and drinking I knew it would take a few weeks of highly disciplined eating and intense workouts to get me back into shouting distance of my previous low.

So that's what I did.  I kicked the workouts up a notch and I stopped snacking at the office.  After the usual 3 or 4 day withdrawal period this was no longer a major struggle and I found it relatively easy to stay on track with my eating plan.  Now after a couple of "clean" eating weeks I have virtually no desire to snack and it is much easier for me to manage my food consumption every day.

I am now back down to 186 pounds and change, a mere whisper away from my previous low milestone of 184.9 pounds.  I feel toned and strong and am noticing that my clothes are fitting better than before. 

On the one hand it is easy to get despondent about putting myself through what is essentially a 2-month plateau.  One week of really bad eating requires at least 6 weeks of good behaviour to undo - - yikes!  That math really sucks.

On the other hand it is wonderful to know what works and to have the confidence to apply what works knowing that it will pay dividends sooner or later. 

On the "sooner or later" front, one comparatively recent innovation is that I no longer set time limits on myself to lose "x" pounds/week or to reach my goal weight by a specific date.  As long as I am making positive strides in controlling my eating or pushing my exercising or I see that I am losing something (no matter how little), I remain positive.  I know that the way my body behaves it will lose a little, or none at all and then suddenly lose pound after pound in its own good time - - as long as I stick to my program.  Although I would like to control when the weight comes off I am apparently not the boss of this and so have gradually learned how to accept the uncertainty (although admittedly with more zen-like calm some weeks than others). 

All in all, then, it has been a good couple of weeks.  I am sticking to my program and I continue to see progress.  That makes me very happy.  

A Challenging Week, but another NSV...

This week for some reason I went a bit off the rails with snacking, something I haven't done in quite a while.  But all is not lost - I had another NSV this week, so there's that!

I have noticed that I am more prone to do things like this - - engage in a minor blowout - - after hitting new milestones.  Last week I lost another pound to bring my total weight lost to 140.9 pounds, with the 180s (pounds, that is) only a hop, skip and a jump away.  It is only natural that I would find chocolate damn near irresistible under these circumstances, of course.  Sheesh - self-sabotage much?

The weekend started off positively enough, at a dinner party with friends after a 3-hour visit to the Metro Toronto Zoo.  It has been more than 10 years since I have been to the Zoo and it was a lot of fun.  With my improved fitness levels it was actually a pleasant enough walk around the various exhibits looking at the animals, rather than the grim death march that it would have been for me before I started working out. 

Echidna, Snow Leopard, Giant Panda and Red Panda [clockwise from top]

It was actually quite neat to see some of the animals out and about, especially ones known for hiding (like the Echidna) or sleeping (like the pandas and snow leopard).   I really enjoyed seeing all the exhibits we could, even though it was still a bit nippy out.  I was generally comfortable, but my hands got cold whenever I stopped to take photos, which was often.  My only regret is that we did not get to see the tigers, rhinos or giraffes, because by the time we reached those exhibits it was closing time and the animals had been taken off display for the evening. 
 
Trouble started at the dinner where I ate more than I intended, in part because our hosts had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to choose foods that the Nerd and I could eat.  Honestly, though, I just took a day off from good eating discipline. 

The trouble for me is that a day off is never just a single day off...it usually turns into two or three.  And so it was for me this week - - a couple of days of snacking, followed by an unplanned rest day, just in case the snacking wasn't sabotage enough. 

The good news though is that once I shook my head and got back into my routine it was easy enough to get back on track.  Mr. Fitness came to kick my ass on Thursday and we had a great session.  I learned how to do a clean and jerk, something I worked on again in my weekend weight session. Plus, we had fun passing and slamming a medicine ball around. 

Even better, the Nerd has figured out how to help me with food.  I have previously really struggled when my target daily calories has hit 1450 or lower, because many of our Jamie Oliver meals, although balanced and delicious, top out at 700+ calories.  This makes it almost impossible to eat under my target calories in a day and requires me to eat back some of my exercise calories.

This is always risky because estimates of calories burned are notoriously inaccurate, even with the heart rate monitor or pedometer, so I seldom eat back the full calories my workouts allegedly give me.

This week, coincident with me getting back on track (yet again!), the Nerd suggested arranging our meals into smaller portions.  Instead of making a recipe that serves 4 and portioning it into 4 servings, we are portioning it into 6 servings.  Bingo - instant calorie reduction, with a barely noticeable reduction in portion size.  We top up the meals with extra vegetables for bulk, and even with reducing the carbs in most meals I haven't felt deprived in the least. 

The combination of getting the snacking back under control, continuing my ass kicking workouts, and eating more manageable portions has brought be almost within spitting distance of last week's low weight, even after losing my mind with snacking this week.  I'll take that.

The food thing has always been (and I suspect will always be) my Achilles heel.  But I feel more optimistic about my ability to work with my nutrition plan now that we are consciously managing down our portion sizes.  This strategy should easily work until my calorie target gets down to 1,300 calories per day, which won't be a while yet.  Importantly, I don't feel so helpless to hit my calorie targets - - it feels like I can still eat reasonably and stay within my target numbers with our new portioning plan.  And that is a very good thing.

Now on to the NSV. 

I ordered some new workout clothes from Old Navy last week because I have been spending more time living in yoga pants and sports bras at home because of my 6x/wk workouts.  Girlie needs clothes to properly sweat in, after all. 

Along with the yoga pants and workout shirts I ordered a pair of button fly "boyfriend" jeans in size 14.  Given my - ahem - badonkadonk I expected that these would be aspirational jeans that would fit me in a month or so. 

For shits and giggles I put them on yesterday, just to see how far I was from fitting into them.  Yeah, so they were loose. (!!)  Now I understand that each pair of jeans is like a precious snowflake, and each style and manufacturer fits a little bit differently, so a size 14 in one style for one brand will not fit like a size 14 in another style or brand.  But the fact remains that I have a pair of button fly jeans that are size 14 that fit this girl, and that makes me very happy.

Sadly, I cannot wear these magical jeans to the office because they are distressed with holes in the knees (not appropriate for the Pop Factory's dress code, natch), but they are great kicking around jeans for weekends.  Also, super comfortable.  Added bonus - - I love button fly jeans. 

So this week has had a little bit of everything.  Some social activities, some good workouts, some bad eating, some food epiphanies, and some clothing wins.  All in all, a good week.

Tomorrow night the Nerd and I are having dinner with my old landlords, so I will have to do some menu planning tonight so that I keep more or less on track at the restaurant. 

Another week of walking training in the books...almost

Well, it's week 3 of our walking training for the big Weekend to End Women's Cancers walk in September, and so far we have walked 23.7 miles this week, with another 6 miles to add to the count scheduled for tomorrow.

Toronto, from the Leslie Street Spit (Tommy Thompson Park)

We tried to fit today's walk into the schedule before my usual shopping/coffee/gossip-fest with my mom, so the Nerd and I left around 5:15 this morning in our attempt to walk 12.5 miles before shopping.  We made it - just! - but my legs were completely aching and sore while I was shopping (although a brief nap and some time in a haircutter's chair completely put me back to rights by the afternoon).

For today's grim death march - er - pleasant stroll, we walked out to the Waterfront Trail to Leslie Street and the Leslie Street Spit and Tommy Thompson Park.  The route was an almost perfect 12.5 miles, and it was such a lovely time of day to go out.  I will say this about Toronto, joggers and cyclists get out early, but there were hardly any of them out there for the first half of our walk.

Sandpipers

What was extremely cool about today's walk (other than finishing, of course), was the diversity of wildlife we saw at the Park.  There were the usual seagulls, loons, Canada Geese and ducks, naturally.  But we also saw a male Oriole in all his orange splendour, as well as a variety of terns, swallows, egrets, swans, sandpipers, and a multiplicity of bunny rabbits.

Ttust me, this is a bunny

The sounds of all the different species were very distinct, as well - - from forest sounding birds to waterfront birds to the absolute cacophany from a nesting colony of seagulls.  Neat.

Last week when we did our 12.5 mile march, I was in definite agony and struggling for the last 4.5 miles.  This week I was relatively comfortable for the first 10 miles, and uncomfortable for 2, and only seriously in discomfort for about half a mile or so.  The last couple of miles today were not fun, let's not kid ourselves, but I can definitely see an improvement in my comfort level for walking at distance.

Tomorrow's walk is "only" 6 miles, which feels like an easy stroll to me now.  The Nerd teased me when I told him we only had to walk 6 miles tomorrow, and reminded me that  2 years ago, 6 blocks were an impossible walk.  Last year, 6 miles was an endurance test that would have led to aching legs for the entire next day.  This year, it's a break from the half marathon distance walking we can do.  And although I definitely feel like I have walked a long distance today, my legs are mostly fine now, hours after the walk.  If last week is anything to go by, I will sleep very well tonight, and I will feel perfectly normal for our walk tomorrow morning.

I have significantly reduced my elliptical time over the course of the week because I do not ellipticalize (yes, that's a word) on walk days, so as to avoid burn out.  I can still do weights on walk days, because my weight program is largely a core and upper body workout. 

I have also maintained a good focus on what I have been eating this week, and have really controlled my snacking.  For me it's all about what I put into my mouth, because there is literally no amount of exercise that I can do that can make up for a serious binge.  Trial and error over the last couple of weeks has shown me that my calorie sweet spot is between 1600 - 1800 calories, regardless of my activity level.  Eating back my calories entirely doesn't seem to work for me, so I am now trying to stay within this range whilst avoiding snacking on peanut butter or M&Ms. 

We'll see where we walk tomorrow!

Back on track Week 83: 139 pounds down (with pics)

Want to ride a roller coaster?  Follow my poor snacking decisions this past month.  With all the ups and downs on the scale I could barely keep up, and I finally had to hold an intervention for myself to kick myself in the ass and say "no more snacking!". 

This is what 4 weeks of workouts and 2 weeks of unbridled snacking look like.  The good news - - the really good news, in fact - - is that by snapping out of my destructive eating habits last week and taking control of my calories consumed, I have undone all the damage I caused by my excessive chocolate consumption, and even saw a bit of an overall loss to finish off the month.

The bad side is that I basically gave up almost a month's worth of progress, having to re-lose weight I had already lost.  I can't tell you how many times I lost and regained those 2 pounds between 197 and 199 pounds.  Too many times, at any rate.  That's a little depressing.

You can see this reflected in my overall goal tracker.  Where I was previously on track to hit my goal weight a little early, now I am right back on track for hitting it sometime in January.  That's a little depressing, but not unexpected.  I knew the last 30 pounds were going to be challenging, and eating my way through a candy store this month only increased the challenge.   Because it wasn't challenging enough...

What good things did I learn this month?  One good thing that I learned is that it is relatively easy to get back on track if the good habits in your life are fundamentally sound.  I was still eating very healthy meals thanks to the Nerd's cooking, and I never missed a workout, so once I cut out the snacking, it only took a solid week to get back on track.  I officially finished the month at 194.7 pounds, down 139.2 pounds overall, which is a tiny 1.7 pound loss in August (but a loss nonetheless, so I'll take it). 

Even though the scale was not kind to me this month, I still managed to lose more than an inch off my body (which is the whole point of measuring).  I suspect that I am nearing the end of my physical changes, so from now on in I am expecting to see my losses of inches to taper off somewhat.  I will probably lose fractional inches off various pieces of me as the year winds down, but it is unlikely that I will see another 3" loss in any given month.

This puts me into a size 12 dress depending on the style.  I got a new dress to celebrate, and have gotten a ton of compliments on it.  Photos will follow once I take them.

So how am I progressing, shape-wise?

In a fun NSV I have had to order some new workout gear, because the Old Navy XL stuff I have been wearing since February is starting to get a little too baggy. 

Let's compare to 6 months ago:

I am definitely seeing more definition in my stomach and arms, and my hips, stomach and bust are noticeably smaller compared to 6 months ago. 

My official photo for the office website is also much better:

So progress all around, despite having a somewhat trying month.  I learned that I cannot expect to lose weight if I indulge in unrestrained snacking, and although I still have to fight the food cravings every day, I know that this week will be easier than last week, with a week of healthy eating under my belt. 

It's funny that when I start to eat a lot of chocolate, I just want to keep eating it.  Whereas when I haven't had chocolate in a while, I no longer crave it.  I know that learned scientists have done studies on this, but it's interesting to see it happening to me. 

Even with a tough month I am marginally closer to my goals:

Less than 10 pounds to go to hit middleweight.  I may not do it this month, but I know I can hit it.  And I am now less than 30 pounds away from my overall target, and just over 25 pounds away from having a normal BMI for the first time in more than a decade. 

Off the reservation ... but coming back

The real truth about trying to lose weight is that it is what goes into your mouth that drives your results.  You can exercise all you want, but if you go crazy with food, there is not enough exercise in the world to overcome all those calories. 

Confession time.  This past week has been a bad one for snacking and for dining out or in with family and friends - lots of snacks, and lots of bigger than normal meals with wine.  The only saving grace is that I have still worked out on plan, so my "consecutive weeks worked out" streak remains intact - now up to 65 weeks and counting.  The bad side is that I have really let my eating, especially my late night snacking, go completely out of control. 

It's time to take things back in hand.  I am doing a few things this week to shake things up and break out of this negative spiral. 

First, I have stopped weighing myself every day.  Even though I only recorded my weight once a week, I was getting completely obsessed with the numbers on the scale, and when they did not decrease, I would get frustrated and binge out on chocolate.  I know, this is not exactly productive behaviour, but what can you do - - they call it "emotional eating", not "rational eating" for a reason.

I am not sure what my new weigh-in intervals will be, but I don't plan to step on the scale until the end of the month just to get a baseline, and then perhaps not until the following month-end.  We'll see if I can resist the temptation to weigh-in.  I have noticed a real tendency for my moods to follow the scale - - when I gain, for whatever reason, I feel depressed, and when I lose, I feel energized and unstoppable.  Those mood swings are taking over my days, and I need to break out of them.

I have not weighed myself for more than a week, and it's actually kind of liberating.  I did hop on the scale for a directional read this morning to see how much work I need to do to get down to my lowest weight - - a lot - - but I was expecting a bump yesterday after a gourmet dinner out at North 44 restaurant with the family last night.    

Second, the incremental chocolate dish on my desk has been banished.  I could not resist the lure of those bite sized chocolates, and they were killers to my carefully planned out days - - especially on days when the aforementioned scale is being uncooperative.  The chocolates ran out on Friday afternoon, and they are not getting replaced any time soon.  This will help me cut out the illicit snacking that has been my achilles heel the past few weeks. 

Third, I have completely changed up my free weight routine.  I have been doing the same free weight routine virtually unchanged since October, and it's time to mix things up and give my muscles a bit of a challenge.

This morning was the first morning of the new routine, and it was a killer.  Very challenging, which is good.  And yes, the new routine includes planks, as promised, which lead to all sorts of creative swearing on the part of yours truly.  I can still only do 5 planks of 30 seconds each - - barely! - - but hope that over time as I continue to work on my core I will be able to do more.

Fourth, it's time to step up the elliptical again.  I took the cross-ramp up to 8 a couple of weeks ago, so today was the time to take the tension up to 8, from 7.  It felt challenging, but good.  I felt great after finishing my workout, and I certainly had a good sweat this morning.  I released all the glows today. I may have actually experienced an endorphin. 

Finally, I need to re-integrate rest days into my program.  I had been good about taking rest days for a while there, but I let my obsession with the scale push me into working out without taking rest days for a few weeks.  One of the symptoms of overtraining is depression, which just leads to binge eating for me.  Another symptom of overtraining is lack of progress.  Just what one wants to see after pushing it as hard as I have been doing.  I know that I have a tendency to overdo things, and failing to take rest days is just one part of that.

So, this week I shake myself, dust myself off, and get back on plan.  The workout plan is on track, and has never fallen off track, so now it is time to get the eating under control.  Today was Day 1 - on track.  Tomorrow I will work on stacking another good day on top of Day 1.  Put enough good days together, and this week will take care of itself. 

When the going gets tough...

Photo courtesy jules:stonesoup, licenced CC BY SA

... the tough go back to basics.

I have to admit that this has been a difficult week for me.  I have been snacking.  A lot.  And not in a reasonable way, with healthy almonds or apples - - this week I have been snacking on chocolate.  Lots of it. 

I keep a candy machine full of peanut butter M&Ms on my desk, and on special chocolate occasions like Easter, Valentine's Day or Halloween I also put out a candy dish with special chocolates and candy.  Mini eggs at Easter, mini chocolate bars at Halloween, chocolate caramel hearts at Valentine's day - - the people in my office love 'em. 

I am generally a woman of stone when it comes to eating the chocolates.  I typically just don't do it.  I know that chocolate is one of my trigger foods, so I tend not to eat it, because if I eat one piece, I want to go back and eat 10 more pieces.  The peanut butter M&Ms do not tempt me at all - - they never have - - but I have to be on my guard with the other chocolates. 

In the last few weeks I have been sorely tempted by the candy dish, to the point where I finally crossed the line and started to eat the sweets myself.  Most days I would be diligent and track what I ate, but a couple of days I went completely and utterly off the reservation and ate chocolate after chocolate after chocolate.  Mini peanut butter cups?  Sure thing.  Hershey's Kisses?  Absolutely.  Mini Peppermint Patties?  Bring 'em on.  And on.  And on.  After a few minutes it was easy to lose track of how many little chocolates I had actually eaten.  Enough to have lost count, which is too many, when you think about it. 

Once I began the rationalization process involved with having the first little chocolate (so tiny, so few calories, I'm still way under on my calories, I worked out today), eating the next 10 or 15 chocolates was easy.  Except for looking at myself and owning up to what I just did - - that was difficult. 

I knew that this week I was in danger of sliding completely off the rails.  So I did what I should have done last week, and went back to basics. 

Yesterday I tried to make it through just one day without illicit snacking.  No little chocolates.  No mini caramels.  No shredded cheese.  No bread with margarine.  Just three balanced nutritious meals with proper sensible snacks.  If I could make it through one day, I thought, I would be able to begin taking back control over my eating.

I made it.  Every time I felt tempted to pop a chocolate into my mouth, I took a new piece of gum, or a took a sip of water.  Anything to deal with the oral fixation I have been feeding with sweets.  And when I got home, I went straight to bed and didn't hang out in the kitchen, looking for snacking ideas.

This morning I felt great.  Full of energy for my weights + elliptical day, and a million pounds lighter - - mentally, at least.  I had beaten down my impulsive eating and had stuck to my plan, for one day at least.  But that one day was a complete win, and I feel great for having that win under my belt.  It showed me that I could do it - - I could be in control again.

Today is a new day, of course, and another day to try and hit the plan.  Having mastered my impulsive eating once, though, now I know that if I take it just a day at a time and if I keep my focus on the fundamentals I can push past this and return to my healthy eating habits. Today already feels easier than yesterday - - it is requiring less of a physical act of will to resist the siren call of the chocolates. 

Tomorrow when the chocolates run out the jar will go away until Back to School season.  This little habit is too expensive - - in many ways.  Aside from the money I spend subsidizing my co-workers' snacking habits (which is not insignificant - - these guys can put 'em away!), I have fought too hard to develop healthy eating habits to piss them all away on a handful of candy now.  I work too hard every day, sweating it out on that damn elliptical, to give it up now with stupid mindless emotional eating. 

I am better than this.  I can be better than this.  One day at a time.