Trouble with the Curvy

I suppose it is no secret that I've been finding it difficult to find the motivation to write within the last few... several... months. I have officially lost 47 of the 57 pounds I hoped to lose when I started this blog and I think that is an awesome accomplishment! Over my time with this blog I have built some great habits that are now ingrained in my daily life including making better food choices and walking a lot. I actually feel the physical changes in my body.. my contours are different and my overall body image I had in my head now, more or less, matches the image I see in the mirror. I know this doesn't happen for everyone who loses weight but for me, I'm truly happy with who I am and where I am in my life. I'm a much healthier person than I was 2 and a half years ago. There is still room for some improvements and I look forward to working off the last 10lbs of my original goal. The difference is that I am no longer constantly focused on taking off the weight.

I think I have hit a true turning point in my journey. When I stopped writing in July I knew that I needed to lighten my load because work was starting to get busier and most of my free time was spent walking with Brutus once his cast came off. He is back in good health now but, slowly, from July to September I made some killer progress. I got down to my lowest weight and I had good habits both with eating and with exercise. As the days began to get shorter though and my job moved me to a warehouse (temporarily) where its just me a whole bunch of old stuff, I started to make some questionable decisions that I did not, in fact, question at all. Examples of this include staying home from a walk to bake and ordering a chicken burger and french fries just about every day for a good week and a half just so I could see another human being... Well that's what I said but they serve salads and I didn't order a single one of those so.... When I hopped back on the scale only to see I

I haven't written since July. It is almost November and the last thing I spoke about was making it to 165lbs by my birthday. I did it a week early and then just kind of coasted right through the rest of the month and the next one too. Now I'm back to planning for winter and how not to gain it all back and I realized that I need the one tool that actually works: this blog. Of everything I've done this blog feels like the biggest change to my life because it keeps me accountable. I felt like I made a lot of progress this summer but looking back at this time last year I've only lost about 8lbs in the whole year. That feels like nothing when I see it "on paper" but it feels big and real in person. Those were the heaviest 8lbs I think I've ever encountered... Regardless about the stats, I'm feeling really great about this and I'm ready to make more headway this winter. I've reworked my goal from 155 to 145 because I had no idea where my target

I haven't written a lot about weight loss or the endeavor thereof this week and truth be told I haven't really been paying much attention to it. I haven't been splurge eating and I have been walking so it isn't a slack week but I have been going through the motions while my mind lingers on other things. These things include but are not limited to planning a wedding, work, Stephen King, and how awesome Brutus has recovered from his accident. This week we walked every day. On Monday we took it slow and only did about two miles. Toward the end of it he seemed to be favoring the hurt leg so Tuesday we did the same route and he didn't have a problem. On Wednesday I asked Ben to come pick Brutus up when he got tired so I could still do our regular 5 mile route. We made it to 3 and a half miles though and he was still going strong so he didn't need the ride and we did the whole 5 miles. Yesterday we did about 4 miles. I don't want to push him too far too fast but

For all the preaching I do about points systems and how awesome they work and blah blah blah I also do a fair amount of preaching how "fad" diets are a whole bunch of bullshit. Why are they bullshit? Because they are not sustainable. I'm finding that power weeks and points systems are also hard to sustain. When work and other things put demands on my time all of that extra time exercising just doesn't seem worth killing myself to do it. I'm not a very happy person when I'm stressed. I didn't know it then but that's why I struggled with a lot of things when I worked at my previous job. I loved the work and the people and but the stress and mismanagement of tasks and resources always had me on edge. So much so that I developed the phrase "embrace the chaos" and that was my mantra and it worked... for a while but I see now that stress is not something that makes me thrive. It flusters me and then I feel like a failure and then it all just goes d

I grew up in a really small town and while I cherish the friendships I developed as a kid and as a teen there is something uniquely circumstantial about them. The things we had in common back then were age and proximity to one another. I think this is especially true when I was a kid and the things I liked were TLC, the Spice Girls, Hanson and rollerblading. When you're 10 in a small town, the world is simple because the choices are rarely overwhelming. The older I got the more that changed to a degree and I started friendships with the few people in town that were around my age that liked music, writing, and creativity. I think the first time this concept dawned on me was when I started to gravitate to the director Kevin Smith and his brand of comedy and storytelling. He released a DVD of a live Q&A he did and I invited all my friends over to watch it. My closest friend since Kindergarten made a comment in passing after it was over to the effect of "Please don't mak

I guess when I say "Slacker Week" I friggin' mean it. Guess how many miles I walked last week.... If you guessed a big ol' goose egg then you'd be right! I am not even going to offer up any excuses. It simply wasn't a priority for me last week and that's why nothing happened. This week I'm longing for it and now Brutus can start coming out with me a little at a time! The kind of week I have when I have a power week is awesome but it feels like the burnout rate is pretty high. If that's all I do all the time I'm going to get bored. Having a week when its not the top of mind all the time was nice just for the sake of keeping things feeling fresh. I think my muscles and my body appreciates it too. If I plateau then all the effort is wasted anyway right?  Did I just descend into excuses? This week though I'm looking forward to getting out and logging some miles especially with Brutus. We have had him for almost a year and he has never chewe

Two weeks ago I started my first "power week" where I walked on my lunch break, after work, and did a muscle building routine in the mornings. Almost every spare minute I had was used to do something that burned calories. This week is completely the opposite and I'm wondering what to call that. I can't call it a lazy week because that feels like giving myself permission to go rogue. Today I came to work armed with a smoothie in my belly, carrots and celery sticks for snacks and some string cheese and crackers to keep me from eating my arm off. All was well until lunchtime came and I just wanted a break. I went to do a little shopping for a little event I'm helping to plan for the weekend and treated myself to some lunch that didn't include many veggies... It also didn't include french fries so there is still hope for me yet... I am looking forward to a nice long walk tonight and pretty soon Brutus will be able to join me again! His splint came off yest

You are never going to win all the days all the time. That is simply not a realistic expectation and if you try to achieve that you'll always just be frustrated at your own inability to meet your goals. It takes so much preparation to be on top of your weight loss game. Some days I just don't have it. Yesterday for example. I had the whole day and had big plans on what I was going to accomplish and then I got bogged down in doing a whole lot of relaxing and not much else. Days like that are good for me too though and I'm just not going to feel guilty about that. Today holds grocery shopping, laundry, and hopefully a walk this evening as well as this afternoon. I really don't feel very profound today and I think the moral of today's blog is that sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you... <3 Katie Y2D26 176lbs

I have been in an extremely good mood since last Saturday. There is something about feeling this ring on my finger that has changed something in me. It is a validation of love that I knew was there but never had a tangible reminder other than the swelling of my heart and sometimes that can be drowned out with other more immediate emotions like irritation, frustration, and being overwhelmed. Today is the first day though that anything else has cut through. Several other little things have happened since Saturday that are now starting to culminate in hopes of killing this amazing high I've been on. The first of these things was that my computer crashed. The one that has the only version of Photoshop on it that I own that also happens to be so far out of date that I can't even load Chrome onto it. Second, on Monday I realized that one of my contacts had a hole in it. I had a back up pair so I wasn't too frazzled about it but it definitely made the list. This was the second

Power week 1 started off pretty terribly with some rain but ended awesomely with several "10" days in a row. Power week 2 doesn't seem to hold the same magic in terms of results but this week is quite magical for another reason. Ben and I are getting married! After almost 8 years together we decided to take the plunge. I remember a night, early in our relationship, when I had fallen asleep while watching a movie with him and I muttered in my sleep, "of course I'll marry you." This is before we dropped the L bombs and after being together through so many awesome and crappy times we felt like it was the right time to make it official. We went in to a jewelery store that was going out of business last Saturday in hopes that a ring I saw Friday would still be there and it was! He made a cash offer and we made out with the deal of the century on the most beautiful ring I have ever seen.We got to the car and he proposed right there in the parking lot... the sa

Today is an amazing historic day. If you're thinking that I'm referring to making it into the 60's, well, you'd be wrong. I did not make it into the 60s last night. I weighed in at 170.8lbs. I was a little disappointed but when I thought back to where I started how can I really be disappointed with that? Its coming soon and when it does it will be its own historic day. I'm referring to the Supreme Court making it legal for any American couple to get married. I don't intend for this blog to spiral into a political blog but this is something that really means something to me and I felt compelled to mark the day because this blog is somewhat of a journal as well as a weight loss tool. I can't help but be elated when love wins. I'm a hopeless romantic and it brings tears to my eyes that love prevailed in the face of fierce opposition. So many people have fought for so long for the right to marry the person they love and today they can celebrate. This is

It is going to happen today! Tonight when I get home and I get back from my walk and I step on that scale I will see a 6 in the middle!! This is not to say that when I wake up tomorrow morning that it will still be there because that's unlikely. I weigh myself twice per day; once in the morning and once after my walk. There is usually a 3-4lb difference in the readings and helps me to determine what things I do in a day really work. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 174lbs. Last night after my walk the reading was 171.8. It was so close I could taste it... no pun intended... This morning I was at 173.8 and I am certain I can see a 6 tonight if I walk on my lunch break and walk tonight after work. I need this a lot because it will make progress feel real. Yesterday was a nearly perfect day and would have been perfect if I had remembered my FitBit yesterday morning and I feel so great. This power week thing is kind of awesome. I even put on a tshirt this morning I haven't worn

Yesterday was pretty much a bust. I got rained out on both walks and when I got home Ben had washed and dried an entire mountain of clothes that needed folding. Excuse? Probably, but there is something about a rainy day that zaps me. My food choices were great yesterday though and today the sun is shining and its another chance for a do-over! I've also added a bonus point to my 10 things to achieve each day (I had to crank it to 11...). Brutus loves training now that he can't walk. He loved it before but now he has all kinds of energy that is most constructively applied to training. I felt so helpless that day but training is something I can actively do and if I'm being honest its my own laziness that we don't do it more often. While I don't think the extra point helps my fitness in any way, it does help me not be lazy which is also a goal that does matter to my fitness. Laziness is a big part of losing weight both as a hindrance and as an aid. I know that sound

The first day of Power Week went great! I only earned 9 points though because I should have drank more water but that is an easy fix. Today is not going as swimmingly because the rain is washing out my walks. I clearly didn't consider weather in planning my two weeks of "gettin' skinny." Instead I'm going to be forced to check out one of those YouTube routines I found but exercising for an hour at home is nearly impossible for me because there is a handsome boy and adorable dog that compete for my attention. I would always rather hang out with them than do anything else and it distracts me and sucks all my ambition out of me. I suppose I could say to Ben "Honey would you mind leaving your home and bringing our dog (you know, the crippled one that needs to have a boot he hates applied every time he goes out in the rain) for about an hour so I can exercise at the house in peace." That, to me, seems pretty selfish and a bit ridiculous. If I asked I think

Last Monday I talked a big game about how "this is going to be the week I hit the 60's" all woohooing and delirious with unrealistic ambition. I, in fact, did not hit the 60's. I did enjoy a milkshake, some fried food, and a whole lot of auction fun that kept my focus elsewhere from Wednesday through yesterday. I completely checked out and as a result the scale gave me a hearty fist shaking with a ripe 178lbs this morning. I've also talked a big game about "making life changes" and "doing things that will make a long term difference" and about not giving up everything I love just to be skinny. I still think these are all principles that have gotten me to where I am today but its time that I sock myself with some realism. To lose weight you have to eat less than you burn. In order to do that I need to not eat milkshakes and fries and I need to exercise more. I think the biggest thing I've learned how to do is to maintain the weight I keep

Over the 8 years Ben and I have been together we have accumulated a lot of crap. When we moved into our house we kept a storage unit because our entire house contains one single closet that is not very big at all. We have been saying for two years that we would clean it out and get rid of the stuff that we didn't need anymore. After two years of talking about it and a month and a half of actually doing it, we are finally done! Among the ton of junk I found bags of clothes that I remember putting away thinking that I would wear them "someday" when I lost weight. I'm pretty sure that when I packed them away I never really had an intention to lose weight. Perhaps subconsciously I did but those clothes were not a motivation at all. When I found them it was like going shopping again with stuff I already knew I would love. The best find was two pairs of capri dress pants that were size 12. When I started this blog two years ago I was a size 18. For most of the past year I

To be clear I don't mean that Zumba is like turning tricks, contrary to popular belief. Last night a thought struck me as I was trying to keep up with the new instructor in my Zumba class. As she was salsa-ing and shaking her booty like she had the Alabama Shakes, she did this thing with her hips and when I tried to mimic it and failed an image of Brutus popped into my head. He's learned several "tricks" - sit, shake, high 5, "hug", and "focus" where he touches his nose to the back of my hand. He LOVES to train and is a little workaholic. When the treats come out he knows he has to perform and if you sit there and ignore him for a bit... say 5 to 10 seconds he just starts going through his entire repertoire of tricks at the same time making him look like an adorable furry fool. As I was trying to move like my instructor, I felt like I looked as adorably foolish and I busted out laughing much to the dismay (or confusion) of the rest of my class. L

I woke up this morning and wished with all my might that this was a 3 day weekend... Flag Day right? Sadly, no day off to celebrate Flag Day. Friday night we had a nice chill evening at home. Saturday morning we were up early to set up the yard sale and it was a great success! We had some stuff left over and some things we forgot to gather and it went so well we are going to do it again this weekend at Nancy's house to capture a whole other market we may have missed. The boys went fishin' and Brutus got to hang out with us in the sunshine. The Pup Doctor told us to try to keep the splint as clean as possible and try not to get it wet so we have had to resort to putting a plastic bag on it to accomplish those goals because "staying off it" is an impossibility at this point. That dog has no fear and apparently no adverse feelings towards pain because he's running around on it like he was made that way. Yesterday Ben and Brutus spent the day installing a new ligh

The one thing that I have heard over and over from people that like this blog is that it is real. They like how I sock you with honesty and talk about things that most women are too timid to put in writing. I'm sensitive to the reasons why most women don't like to talk about their weight and body image but talking about these things helps me stay on my path to being healthy and I knew from day one that I wanted to write an honest account of my experience without sugar coating it to create an image I want people to recognize instead of the image that is true. Sometimes it isn't pretty and sometimes it really, really is... Writing has always been therapeutic for me. I've kept a journal for many years of my life and when Myspace introduced an online option for this thing they called a blog I moved that journal online. There were a few occasions when I wrote about something that offended people I cared about and ruined relationships that have yet to be repaired and I d

Two whole years! I'll never forget the day that I started this blog. It was the day that Bangor Metro came to do a cooking segment at my house. I made pancakes that day and to celebrate this morning I made peanut butter, banana, sausage pancakes for Ben and I. I remember sitting down to write the first entry and wondering if I would give up on this after I got bored but two years later this blog is still my best tool (other than my laid up Brutus<3) for losing and keeping off weight. When I started back then I sort of had this hope that I would find recipes and other fun things to share but I never really expected anyone else to read it. This was something I did to help me, not necessarily to entertain but I am pretty funny so...... there's that.... :) What the blog has turned into is more of an account of what it is like to lose weight in the real world. Demands of work, family, friends, and life in general make it hard to plan out the things that you need to stay health

Tomorrow is the 2 YEAR anniversary of Trouble with the Curvy! I'm pretty excited. In last year's anniversary blog I was disappointed to realize that celebrating a weight loss anniversary with cake is like celebrating sobriety with a beer so I didn't eat cake but I'm wondering if maybe I should have.... Instead it seems like I spent the following year just maintain weight instead of continuing to lose the rest. This year I'm wondering if I should just have the damn cake and then spend the rest of the year making more progress. I don't know if anyone else experiences this but anytime I indulge in something super sinful I now feel something like guilt that makes me want to work harder when I'm done. I think this is a good mindset to have but it is also a slippery slope isn't is? Eat one cookie and you end up feeling like Cookie Monster getting busted in Family Guy... It is no secret that I have an addictive personality. I find something I like and I te

Friday night I drove home from work with sunshine on my face and a heart full of hope and determination. Little did I know my world was about to change... again. Nancy and I had planned a yard sale for Saturday and I invited her and Donnie over for dinner and to prep for the next morning. After we unloaded her car onto the porch I went to get a few things from my car and Brutus slipped out the door and started running in circles around the house. He almost NEVER does this. He is usually so good about staying in when doors get open but he was in a playful mood and just bolted. After a few spins around the house I was able to get him back on the porch and grab his collar but it literally slipped through my fingers and he was off again. This time he went and took a big poop on the neighbor's lawn that we share. I stepped off the porch to go toward him calling his name and instead of coming toward me he went toward the road instead, still looking at me like we were playing a game.

I'm pretty sure that a one hour lunch breaks is a little gift I get to unwrap each day. It's like one of those 'gifts' on Let's Make a Deal though and can contain a Zonk some days. Today was not one of those days. I ate my salad at 10am and had a whole lunch hour to walk so I set out on a brisk walk around a nice neighborhood near work. It has a few hills, got me 2.25 miles already for the day and only took me about 35minutes to complete. Once I got back to work and still had 25 minutes I was able to go out and run the errand I thought I was going to have to run tonight after work. Frackin' score! I also got up this morning and did an ab workout and followed it up with a breakfast made of a banana and peanut butter (hence eating my lunch at 10am...). By all accounts I am KILLING it today! I feel pretty redeemed for the first couple of days of the week when I was being killed by the proverbial it. I'm on my way. I didn't weigh myself on my hard rainy

I genuinely feel like the last two days have been some of the longest in my life. Monday the rain was bad enough but yesterday I had some sort of stomach bug that made me feel dreadful all day. After much sleep I woke up this morning and there was this big glowing yellow ball of awesome in the sky shining down on me and breathed new life back into me. This morning I had the fire back and was able to get up, make Ben some breakfast, do my arm workout and hang out with the dog all with enough time to spare to get to work a little early. I remember several years ago when I felt like I was sick every other week. One of my greatest weaknesses is that I can't really concentrate on anything if I'm not feeling well and when I can't concentrate I start to bug out. The only thing that helps is curling up in a ball and sleeping until I can't sleep anymore. Feeling gross yesterday reminded me of when my life was filled with so much more of that instead of the happiness I feel tod

Last week I had a thought that kind of floored me. On Wednesday it had rained and thunderstormed for a good part of the day but I didn't want it to keep me from walking but also didn't want to get stranded like we did last summer so we went to walk around Coburn park. I couldn't do 5 miles of circles and figure 8s because I get bored pretty easily with my surroundings so we went for 2.5 and left. When I got home I felt like I had been lazy and should have gone the full five because "I only went two and a half miles today."  2 years ago if I could have heard myself say that I would have laughed out loud because going 2.5 miles per day then would have been a significant improvement over doing nothing. I'm going to put that in the win column. The weekends are still kind of a problem because when I get done work for the week I tend to fill my weekends with plans that inevitably revolve around what I'm going to eat. I love food and that's the hardest thin

Losing weight is 100% a mind game. Every game you play is better with data. The more data you have the better you can play thus increasing the odds you'll win. My new points system has provided me with data that tells me if I am actually doing the things that will shed pounds. My fitbit also provides more data and all of this information (now that I'm actually paying attention to it) is making an actual difference on the scale. Now I know why I'm not losing weight when I really "feel" like I've been working hard to do it. Feelings are the opposite of data but are so much more potent in influencing the mind games I play with myself but data can come back and be my little weight loss ninja. Yesterday I only earned 7 points but it was really a kick ass day because I made really good decisions in the face of feeling like having McDonalds for breakfast and eating an apple and a yogurt instead and today is going well too because this is the first morning I've

In brainstorming a topic for this entry I found that I only have things to complain about today and that's never a good way to start a Pep Talk to yourself. Fresh off a long weekend that I should have used more wisely, I have a ton of stuff to do. Usually having a lunch break helps me catch up on stuff but today there was a luncheon at work so I didn't get to have my usual grocery shopping break. This, unfortunately, means I am probably not going to find time to walk tonight. What is most unfortunate is that walks tend to help me when I experience irritability and today I feel like everything is grating on my nerves. Happiness depends on how you handle the day though so I refuse to give in to a self fulfilling prophecy AND its a short week so I'm not sure what the hell my problem is.. Other than the 99 things that keep annoying me at every turn. Days like today are bound to happen regardless of how well things are going and you just have to power through them. I could jus

I couldn't wait to go for a walk last night. I had a stressful day and it was beautiful out so I thought we'd do a pretty long one. Maybe 5.5 miles and I set my fitbit to update me with my progress every .5 miles instead of at every mile so I could get a better idea of the distances we are going. The first half of the walk was awesome. We went down one side of the river, did some interval running, and kept a pace of 15 minutes per mile... We usually are about 17-18 minutes per mile so I was feeling pretty awesome. I'm in a really great part of my book too so I wanted some time to indulge in that too so we headed toward Coburn Park to run up some of the hills and take a little water break in the park. We made it about halfway through the park when we were approached by a stray dog. He had a choke collar on and the way he was standing made me a little nervous. He came over and then wouldn't leave us alone. We walked the rest of the way through the park and down into t

I've learned something extremely valuable over the last week. Today is the 7th day that I've been using my new points system and at the end of today I will have earned 38 of a possible 70 points. The only thing I changed over the last 7 days is keeping track of the points because I wanted to see how often I was doing most of the things I've determined will help me get to my goal. Turns out, I only do about half of them regularly. I earn one point for each of these things I do: Walk Do Alternate Muscle Exercise Eat Salad/Veggies No Fried Food Had Active Lunch Drank Water No Sugar Wore Fitbit Achieved Calorie Deficit Submitted Blog Entry Getting 5 points per day seems to be pretty easy and I am doing about 5 things on the list every day without even thinking about it. I've only had one day in the last week where I got all 10 points and you know what I remember about that day? It was the best one I've had in a while. I didn't feel like I was "di

I just finished reading "Duma Key" by Stephen King in which one of the character's mantra is "Do the day and let the day do you." Yesterday I did not do the day or let the day do me and thus I ended up sabotaging a perfect day for an awesome walk. I don't know what gets into me sometimes but it really feels like there is a second person inside my head that is bound and determined to make me fail. This is the same voice that talks me into eating fried food, sitting on the couch instead of walking, getting mad at the dog for being too excited to see me, and sucking the life out of any good mood that exists in my house before I arrive. I am all about the self love but I do not love this side of me. I actually hate this side of me. It is the worse version of myself and I'd like to eradicate it for good but how does one go about doing that? I think we all have a demon like this that lives within our personalities and thrives on negativity. Some people that

I have never been a proponent of dieting because my feeling is that the progress you make by reducing your diet to things you would not generally eat isn't sustainable because it is only temporary. When I started to change my life I knew that if I wanted it to work this time I had to make permanent changes not temporary ones that would result in faster gratification. Sustainable life changes take time and any diet plan that doesn't take that into serious consideration is simply a gimmick. There is one I saw recently called the 21 Day Fix that made me laugh pretty hard because it employs good techniques to help you make permanent life choices but is too scared to tell people that so they market it as a 21 Fad Diet that you should really just repeat every 21 days and because it focuses on portion control it doesn't deprive you of things you don't want to give up permanently. It uses color coded containers that help you manage your portions and has workout dvds that keep

I saw a blog post recently entitled "The 'After' Myth" that discussed how even after you've met your goal you don't see your body as a new enlightened thing that you've always dreamed of, instead you can still feel self conscious and unattractive. I completely understood the author's struggles and heard echos of things that friends on weight loss journeys had said to me before and I think it is safe to say that we have all had these feelings at some point. How many times on your journey did you have a great week and was feeling really great about your progress then caught a glimpse of some roll or something from under your t-shirt that made you feel like your "fat" self all over again? I think everyone that starts down a path to lose weight imagines that one day, after a lot of hard work and discipline that we will look a certain way that we have concocted in our heads and suddenly the battle will be over and we will love our bodies and be