Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Happy New Year - Game On!

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

Isn't it such a relief that in 2018 almost every financial transaction that we make is now electronic??  This relieves us of the frustration we used to feel at the beginning of each year when you'd write the date wrong on all of your checks and then have to put your initials next to the scribble where you tried to fix it instead of writing out a whole new check.  Oh, the needless check wasting!  (That used to fry my arse every time...grrrrr!)


See....already 2018 is better than 2017.

So, did you make a resolution for the New Year?

What'd you resolve to do?

Does it have anything to do with a diet or exercise or eating better or working out?

If so, good for you!  I've failed at the New Year Day Diet resolution too many times in my 44 years to risk it.  I feel like I'll jinx myself if I try it again, so I did the obvious thing.  I started on December 31st instead.

On the morning of December 31st, I got on the scale and looked at the food in my house  and said, "Well, let's leave this disaster in the past, shall we?"  That day I went back to the healthy eating that I was doing with everyone in October and November.  My holiday anti-sugar sabbatical is O-VAH.

Sugar done me wrong AGAIN, dammit.  It makes me so angry!  Cuz I was so SURE that sugar had changed just in time for the holidays and would no longer give me anxiety and crabby moods and inflammation and a bloated gut.  I had detoxed from sugar with you all before Thanksgiving and I just knew that some miracle had to have occurred that would allow me to eat sugar and feel fabulous.

As stupid as that all sounds, what else could I have been thinking when I started eating the desserts and treats and candy?  Huh?  What?  I ate much smaller quantities of sugar (and not one damn latte....  score for me!), but I was still putting it into my body and expecting different results from the past.

By now you all know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right?  Well, my thoughts that eating sugar, albeit in much smaller amounts, would suddenly be okay for me was just total insanity.  I am a person who is negatively affected,  both mentally and physically, by sugar in all forms.  This is a fact.  It's equivalent to being an alcoholic and thinking that you can just have one drink here or there.  Actually, here's one from my past.....

When I quit smoking cigarettes, the best piece of advice I ever got was from a limo driver on the way to the airport.  He told me that I had to be done forever to be successful.  "Don't ever look at a cigarette and think that you can just have one or two and go back to quitting.  It's not possible.  You weren't a social smoker.  You smoked every day.  You need to be done forever.  Quitting means quitting, not pausing."

A year later, I was entertaining fellow employees who were visiting our New Jersey office from California.  They were young and fun and wanted to go out for drinks in Manhattan.  Our company gave us a car and driver and off we went.  I also went off of my Quitting Wagon the minute the girls lit up their Newport Light cigarettes.

"Want one?" they both asked simultaneously.

I had already consumed a few alcoholic beverages and, being the lightweight drinker that I am, I succumbed to peer pressure and lit up.  (Yes, I know it's not actually peer pressure, but in my head I was trying to be part of the gang and peer pressured myself right into it.)

I didn't smoke one or two or ten.  I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes in just under 4 hours.  Yup!  It tallies up to one menthol cigarette (which I never smoked before, by the way) being lit every 12 minutes.

Afterward, spent an hour in the bathroom at Sushi Samba trying to make myself throw up because I had actually given myself nicotine poisoning.  I was nauseous and dizzy and kneeling on the floor of one of the tiny little rooms with a toilet in it,  holding myself upright with one hand on each wall, praying (PRAYING!) that I would vomit or die as soon as possible.

For the record, I did go back to smoking again for a few months.... until I moved into a smoke-free apartment.  Nothing squelches a desire to inhale carcinogens and tar like standing outside at midnight in blistering winds and single digit temperatures while shaking in your jammies and trying to keep your cigarette lit.  EFF THAT!

Here I am, a decade later doing the same thing with sugar.  It's just like giving up any bad habit; you need to struggle and just quit....not pause.

In true dieter's fashion, I took photos on December 31st too.  No make up.  No special outfit to attempt to hide my chubby spots.  And if it hadn't been so damn cold, I would've put on shorts and a t-shirt.  I have one of those photos from the fall and things don't look much different now, so I'll have to dig that up.  But here I am!




I'm not going to throw a weight number out there or list my measurements.  (I will say that I'm a size 14 for comparative purposes - lol)  I didn't want to get distracted by my scale.  Here's how meaningless those number truly are..... Someone told me that they always weigh themselves before and after they poop in the morning.  Why?  Because the number AFTER they pooped was always lower.  So, my question was, "Are you aware that neither of those weights are your actual weight then?  Because all day you fluctuate..... poop builds up, poop comes out.....it's just a mind game that you play with yourself to see a better number and think you're lighter."  It's totally equivalent to when I get on the scale and then get off and shush it across the room with my foot and get on again, hoping for a lighter number.  And sometimes it is!  Which one is more accurate?  Who the hell knows!

At this point, I'm really aiming for visual change.  More so, I want to FEEL the change.  My knees stopped cracking after I lost the 10lbs in Oct/Nov.  But my body still aches.  I want the rest of me to feel better too.

I would also like to lose the back fat.  It's just unsightly.  ðŸ˜©

Anyway, here's a little rambling message from me (as if I haven't said enough already, right?)  Happy New Year!
I apologize for my mispronunciation of Ghiradelli.  I just couldn't go back and record the whole thing again because of it.  


ps. Just in case you weren't already aware, we don't say "Happy New Years" or write "Happy New Year's".  It's Happy New Year.  No "S" And for God sake, keep the apostrophe out of it!  You're welcome.



If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory


Wednesday, November 15, 2017

130 Pounds of WHAT?

I can't believe a month has gone by already!  Thank you all for following along with me on this journey.  It's become a lot more than I anticipated!

I never expected to learn as much as I have this past month.  What started out as a vlog about losing weight became a quest for information about why I can't escape the clutches of unhealthy food.

Many moons ago, I took a Nutrition Course in college from Annmarie Colbin, a brilliant woman who owns a culinary school in Manhattan and has published multiple books about food and nutrition.  She opened my eyes to the disgusting crap that can be found in food.  The education I got on olive oil and fat free condiments alone was worth the price of those credits  (plus she's very funny, which made me love her even more!)

Then I became a health coach after losing weight 3 years ago and learned so much about how our bodies work in regards to what we put in them from Dr. Wayne Anderson (another very witty fella).  I have to admit that my weight gain had NOTHING to do with everything that he taught me.  Had I continued eating like a normal healthy human being, I would still be 33lbs lighter!  

So, imagine my surprise when I started this journey and gained all of this insight on will power and sugar and cravings.  Today, I gained another tiny tidbit that has knocked my socks off and I thought I'd share:  


Oh yes.  Can you see the light more clearly now?  I know I can!  I think that if we consumed 130 pounds of anything slightly addictive in one year we would surely be a slave to it by the time we finished.  

The visual of that much sugar in cube form just sends the message home.  Here's another one for ya:
There are 56 skittles in one regular bag, so that's 31, 570 bags of Skittles

This is the same amount of sugar as found in two 12oz cans of regular soda

200 years ago we were eating 1/17th of the amount of sugar???

I'm just going to let this all settle in.....

xoxoxo,
Vicki
If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory


Sunday, November 12, 2017

Practice What I Preach

I'm having a rough few days and the last thing I wanted to do was update my vlog.  I prefer to hide in a bubble during these times.

However, I don't think it's really fair to only post when things are going well.  It's not realistic either.   If nothing else, I'd like to remain genuine during this process, so that means I need to include the good AND the bad.

If you have any words of wisdom, please feel free to share!!!

So, here's my update.....I tried to lighten it up a bit:



If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory


Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Don't Be Dopey

I can't believe this, but THIS post.... this one right here....  THIS'UN HITHER.... is my 100th post.

Do you know what that means?

That means that there were 100 times that I felt the need to talk to strangers.  Yup.

Because if I know you, you've probably heard a lot of what I've babbled or ranted on and on about.  You probably got it straight from the horse's mouth at one time or another.

I'll have you know that I didn't realize this little 100th Post factoid until after I did my little video, so there will be no celebratory hooplah going on.   In fact, I was so jazzed up about my topic today that I almost didn't write anything here at all.  I was going to just post the video.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm really digging this book I've been reading,  The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, PhD.  I've never been a "sciency" person, so I was surprised that this book grabbed my attention and held it for so long.  Even mores, I can't believe how excited I am to share and relate to the information.

I've been struggling with my biology for a long time.  In my brain, I can be a size 2 with no problem! But then something sneaky creeps up and pushes me off my path, and I'm left standing there going, WHYYYYY????!!!

I now see that I have to evaluate my ENTIRE self to understand why I keep sabotaging myself.  It's not all physical and it's not all mental.  It's everything.  And I'm a bit uninformed.  But I'm learning!  I'll probably get it all figured out when I'm 93.... or 10 minutes before I get taken out by foliage (because, as I've mentioned, foliage is going to be what causes my demise!)

Today's video is about dopamine.  And manipulation.  And hot pretzels.  And struggle.  And monsters.  And Christmas music.  Oh yeah..... it's got ALL of those things in it.  Prepare yourself!

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory


Saturday, November 4, 2017

What So Funny?

Thursday was completely craptastic in regards to "regular life".  I define Regular Life as everything that happens beyond my control.  Truck breaks down, clients neighbor yells at me for my clients dog's behavior, I step in dog crap, etc.  Just life.

As my incredibly fabulous therapist has trained me to do (nope.....still not sharing his info....he's too valuable and I'm kinda greedy with my sanity maintenance), I "used my humor" to cope with the stressful things going on around me.  It also made me consider that laughter could be handy with getting me through the really tough craving times.  So, I have downloaded my favorite stand up shows to my phone for those moments when sugar starts screaming my name. I'll let you know how that works out.  R&D starts now.

One of my top prerequisites in choosing relationships is a sense of humor. You can only understand how important this quality is when find yourself buckled over, laughing your ass off.... only to look  at the person you're with and see that they haven't even mustered up a smirk.  Utter disappointment.  Relationship O-VAH!

On the flip side, have you ever had a laugh so hard that the person you were with only has to say one word or short phrase, and for the rest of your life the two of you will giggle when you hear it? (Audrey: chiffon!   Craig: Supplies!  Kelly & Rose: CAA. Ron: she turned me into a newt...I got bettah!)   That's totally priceless to me!

That's what my ramblings are about this time.  Please leave recommendations in the comments if you have any!!!  I'm always looking for new stuff!


I had wanted to share one particular clip of Eddie Murphy (Google "Eddie Murphy finding an African wife"), but I try to avoid posting things that might make my mama call me immediately and yell, "I just saw what you posted....You need to take that down immediately!" (And yes, that has happened to me at the ripe old age of 45....and I obeyed)

So, here are some "less-profane" samples of the comedians I mentioned:

Jim Breuer:
This is an older bit, but my favorite story that he tells with an impression....the glorious Dave Chapelle.   I can SEE it in my head:

Kathleen Madigan:
While her stories abou her parents are the best, this is her tearing thru the first five minutes of my recorded favorite show:




Eddie Izzard:
If you can appreciate finding humor in the ridiculousness of religion, this is great:

Chris Rock:
Best PSA ever.

Yours In Laughter,
Vicki
If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory