HFH Week #1 Fat Ticker Friday

Well, it's already Fat Ticker Friday for those of us over here in the Eastern hemisphere, so I guess it's time to 'fess up. It's been a doozy of a week, in a lot of ways. First, the good news: 1.1 pounds down. This isn't just good news, it's what I'd called freaking fantastic news, since it's not what I was expecting when I got on the scale this morning.

I'd been amazing all week. Hit all of my workouts (see below) with almost pleasure, cut down on snacking a lot since last week, ate a lot of fruit and a few more veggies than usual. Then, I ran up against my Bad Day. I have one of those about once a week, and I can't always anticipate it. Lately, it's usually on Thursday or Friday, because of circumstances at work, and I've done a fairly good job of starting off every week with a super excellent attitude and a new passion and stick-to-it-iveness. But then the Bad Day happens, and sometimes it compromises the whole weekend. The week before last I went off on Friday and didn't surface again until Sunday night at 9pm, when I went for my crazed spandex run to purge the negative attitude. Last week, I had a bad day on Thursday, but recovered by Saturday morning.

And this week Thursday proved to be my trouble day yet again. I woke up really tired but still went to the gym in the morning, then just steadily pooped out over the day. I found out on Wednesday that my stepfather had had a heart attack, so I've been really worried about my mom and frustrated by the fact that I can't be there. He's okay, but it was scary. And by Thursday afternoon my will to continue was just dwindling. My second graders were a pain in the ass, my favorite student was a jerk, and five of my third graders spent the entire day on their knees and elbows in the hallway as a punishment for fighting. Oh, Korea. I came home and started off okay, with a little nutty cereal in yogurt and an apple--my new favorite healthyish sweet snack. Then I had dinner, some beef soup and rice. Then I met my friend Tim and had a donut (no, bad). Then I guess I figured, hey, what the hell... so we went out for pizza too.

I know this territory. This is my danger zone. This is how I gained 80 pounds to begin with... multiple meals for social purposes. I had the insight, the other day, that back when I was really heavy, I just didn't derive a lot of joy from life. My only joy really came from eating (which was temporary, obviously) and spending time with friends. And I would combine those by eating out, which was expensive, but even more costly to my health because of big portions. Then... if I wanted more joy, I would just go out again. My stomach must have been remarkably big then, when I could eat an extra value meal from Taco Bell and go out to Olive Garden in one night.

Even at the pizza place I knew what a mistake I was making, so I guess that's why I managed to maintain a semblance of wisdom. Yeah, I let him order the pitcher of regular coke, which I haven't had for a month (and truth be told, haven't missed that much), but I only about two cups. We got regular crust rather than cheese-filled. And the whole pizza was, I swear, only slightly bigger than a personal pan pizza, and I only ate 2 out of the 6 slices. So obviously this wasn't the worst thing I've ever done. It wasn't even really that big a deal. It was stupid, especially the coke, but it wouldn't even have been so bad if I hadn't also eaten the soup and rice at home. Plus, I was mad that I did it on Thursday night, right before having to weigh in on Friday. I was so afraid that it would cause some big jump on the scale and seemingly invalidate my 6 other days of hard work.

And here's where HFH is really helping me. Because I wouldn't have cared. I would have known that it wasn't such a big deal, that even if there was a little jump on the scale it was arbitrary, that doing the right thing 6 days and doing a little wrong on the 7th day still works. But knowing that I was part of a team, of a group goal, made me care. In truth, it shamed me. I didn't want to be the person to start off the first week with a gain, although I certainly wouldn't "hate on" anyone who did. :) So yeah... shame as a motivating factor. Score.

And this morning I had an actual "What would bloggers do?" moment, and it worked. I woke up when my alarm went off at 5:30, but I totally didn't want to get up. I snoozed for 2 five minute periods, then finally sat up and clicked on my computer, checking my email. And I was still pretty sure I was going to reset the alarm for 7 and just forgo the whole workout, but then I cliked on my Google Reader...
And I saw 8 unread posts, most of which were by other WL bloggers I follow...
And then I remembered HFH...
And then I realized that it was weigh-in day...
And I remembered the pizza, whose glory had by now had completely faded...
And I decided to just get up and go lift my weights, and was at the gym by 6.

And now I'll admit to being completely ridiculous, but only for the cause of helping to lose 500 pounds. I peed and weighed myself, which is my every morning routine, seeing a perfectly acceptable number. Then I went to the gym and forced myself not to gorge on water like I usually do. And then I weighed myself again. Then I peed and weighed myself again trying to get to 79.9kg. But be serious-- this is a new decade of kilograms we're talking about. (I know how insane this sounds. Do not feel compelled to point it out to me. :) In fairness, I've seen this decade of kilograms before. I even flipped back through my calendar when I was marking my weight this morning to see when exactly I first saw the number 79 before the decimal point. It was in May. A tough little reminder of how I dragged my feet for pretty much the entire summer, and even gained twelve pounds, 9 of which I've lost again in the past month and a half.

Still, I was thrilled to eventually see that 79.9, even with all that manipulating. I think this is why HFH will work so well for me... Because I'm not dissatisfied with my body enough anymore to force myself to be as strict as will be necessary for me drop these very last pounds. I fit in my clothes really well. I'm happy when I look in the mirror, even a little narcissistic, (but I think that's only in comparison to the hate I used to feel for my reflection, sadly). But just knowing that I'm part of a team, that there's a goal in place and I'm 1.6% of it... (Ha, I should never have done that math.) That helps to motivate me.

But that brings me to the other thing I realized while showering this morning... it's not going to work everyday. It may not even work almost every day. Because the desire for donuts is strong, and sometimes the arbitrary knowledge that there are 79 other people (most of them a half a world away) going through this won't be enough to stop me from sugar-chasing. Unless...

I know them. Unless I know then in a slightly more substantial way than choosing blogs at random from the sidebar. Because I just don't have a lot of free time to read blogs, and then I get so overwhelmed at the prospect of all of them that I just click and read and click and read. And I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I have kind of a hard time commenting on the blogs of people I've just "met." I think it's because I'm a little bit shy. If they mentioned something that really gets me thinking, or that I've done before, it's easier, but sometimes I'm just at a loss for words, aside from the obvious... "Good job avoiding the ice cream!" "Hang in there!" I feel ineffective.

So I was thinking... would anyone like to form a mini-team? If this is totally against the spirit of what Baby Tea Leaves had in mind, I'll rescind my offer, but I hope it's not. I'm not proposing mini-teams to compete against each other... I really like the fact that this is a huge group effort. But if there were a few people, in a similar position to me maybe (last 20 to lose), then we could really get to know each other and maybe encourage each other in a more meaningful way. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I don't think so. It's probably not conceivable for any of us to read and comment on 80 blogs. (Sure, maybe. That's about 12 a day.) But even if we could, would we have time to get caught up on their history, and be able to keep them all straight? No way.

I think some people already have this built-in team because there's a group of people that they regularly read and exchange comments with. But I don't really have that... There are some wonderful people who read me and comment, who always brighten my day, but it's not as if we've agreed... "Hey! Let's be a team!" And they're not all doing HFH. So would anyone like to be my team? To agree to keep an eye on each other on like, a bi-weekly basis, and get to know each other as a bit more than just numbers (weight, cardio minutes, calories). And to be accountable... to call each other on it if we fall off? I feel like maybe I need some mid-week motivation and responsibility between weigh-ins if I'm going to keep this up. Anyone else feel this way?

Yikes, I suppose I should post this over at the actual HFH chat entry. It feels so solicitous. :) Anyway, that's the long of my story: 1.1 pounds and a Friday morning rebound. I think I might be travelling this weekend, which could be dangerous, but I'll just keep saying it: "WWBD?"

Oh, right! I almost forgot about Christie's question of the week:
What do you want your legacy to be? Or rather, what is it about yourself that you want to be known for? And do you think you've accomplished that so far in your life? Are you the person you want to be? If not, how will you get there?

This is a good question, because I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I think I'd like to be known for being a really kind, good-hearted person, but being honest with myself... that's unlikely. It's not that I'm habitually unkind... I'm just not as sensitive as I'd like, and I don't always know exactly what to do or say to make a friend feel special the way some people do. Plus, I'm a little too sharp, too quick to judge, than I ought to be. I think that really, what I'm mostly likely to be known for is my passion. When I'm working on something I love, I'm downright unstoppable. And I've discovered recently that, on the right task, I can be pretty darn diligent.

So in that respect, I have accomplished it. I'm generally considered successful by my family and friends. More importantly, I suppose, I feel good about what I've accomplished. But I'm acutely aware that my professional success will probably not go down in the history books. I don't want to be known just for that, because relationships are really important to me. So I want to become a better, more mindful friend. I want to be less self-centered. (This is hard, when I'm trying so hard to change my lifestyle. Has anyone else noticed that?)

Exercise log:
WT = weight training
IT = interval training

Friday: 45 min. WT (legs, back, bis, abs)
Saturday: 45 min. WT (shoulders, chest, tris, abs), 30 min. IT on treadmill
Sunday: 34 min. long run
Monday: 45 min. WT (legs, back, bis, abs), 30 min. walk
Tuesday: 45 min. WT (shoulders, chest, tris, abs), 30 min. IT on treadmill
Wednesday: 20 min. IT on treadmill
Thursday: 23 min. IT on treadmill