It's going pretty good. If I just chill out and listen to my bod, and brain and figure out which one is saying its hungry, then I can make an informed decision about what I'm going to do. I have this thing about eating when bored, so I'm doing more to fill up my time. I'm beginning to recognize more when my brain says "bored" but my stomach says "don't need anything". I'm getting better at stopping myself when I want something sweet and thinking about how I want my muscles to look. I want them to look like they have a healthy amount of fat on them, not more than necessary amount. I'm a very "twitchy" person. I have a hard time staying still for any period of time, so finding things to do has been interesting.

I sent in my admissions paperwork for Mission College at the end of last month, and now just have to decide which classes I want to take. After spending some time with my mom this Christmas in Santa Barbara, I'm very interested in learning spanish again. I took it in high school, and I remember enough to understand the simple things, but not enough to carry on a conversation. Mom was speaking spanish to everyone she could. The housekeeping staff at the hotel, people in restaurants, people on the street. It was pretty cool. Spanish is a very .... romantic? language I think. Robust... all those rolling R's

Having two weeks off of work was wonnnnderful. I loved it.

There's this fine line. Where, if I'm craving X and don't/won't have it, then I end up eating Y and Z to make up for it, if that makes sense. Gotta get that figured out.

Man, this weekend I ate totally crappy. Or rather, I ate well, but added in sugar like you would not believe. I was having one of those "last supper" weekends. I had talked to my therapist last week about weight stuff in general, and the issues I've been having with weight gain. After we ruled out failure of the WLS (my pouch is fine), she talked to me about doing a 2 week carb detox process. I've done it before (3 days), gone insane, gone zombie, and scarfed everything in the house. Here's the deal though.... if I don't ever make it through day 3 (much less 2 weeks) how will I ever know if the detox will work and kill my cravings for sugar? According to Atkins, South Beach and all the others, it DOES work. A few friends of mine swear by it too. *sigh*

I swear, I'm like a junkie now when it comes to that stuff. My body turns sugar into fat, period. This is true for so many obese people. I am a case in point. I swear I wasn't taking in that many more calories than I was burning. Even when I was working out hard and only eating sugar now and then, the weight started creeping back on. My ass is getting bigger by the day.

I wanna get this monkey off my back *grin* I've made a few rules... No food in the bedroom (I had started snacking in the evenings whilst watching TV in our room), eat meals at dining room table. No Carbs/Sugar until the 26th of January *white knuckles keyboard*. After that, whole grains and some fruits until I peel off at least 15 of these nagging pounds and/or drop size enough to fit into my Tonya Pants without sacrificing bloodflow to my thighs.

I know I've said all this before, so much to the point where I even got sick of hearing myself. I think my head hasn't been in the right place to achieve this goal though. It might not even be totally in the right place now, but like they say about quitting smoking: It takes several tries for most people, and each failure means lessons learned. SOOOO... Rather than being all sick of myself and self-defeating... I'm employing the "I like myself as I am" tactic with some "I would like to see where my potential lies in fitness" thrown in for good measure. I mean really, accepting yourself as you are NOW is the best way to be able to change. I only have one body, I have to learn to live with it and work with it, and accept it before I can change it. At least, that's how I feel. Obviously all methods I employed pre-surgery didn't work, and most I've employed in the last 6 months post-surgery haven't done me any good.

SO, for bfast I had half an omlette with veggies and cheese, and for 2nd breakfast I had the other half. I skipped "elevensies", walked and am now having grilled salmon over a bed of weeds with oil and vinegar for dressing, YUM.

OH, and I also have to identify why I've been eating like this in the 1st place. Making up for something I feel is missing in my relationship or life or what not. Nothing wrong with feeling that way, just gotta face up to it. Raar. Once I got started down that path of food vs. feelings... holy moly did it go downhill fast.

I went snowboarding by myself on Saturday. Oh man, did I have fun. I'm still fighting my "fear factor" on speed. I keep braking, slowing down, chickening out. I AM going to break that this season. Raar.

Last night I was making sugar-free mini-cheesecakes. Then while I was waiting for them to bake, I made myself a cup of hot tea with Splenda. Keith was at the kitchen sink and he turned and looked over his shoulder at me with this sparkly look in his eyes and small smile. I asked him "What?" and he said "I'm proud of you baby!". THAT right there is going to keep me going on this no-sugar low carb thing for quite a while longer. I can't even tell you how much those few words meant to me. I hugged him hard and thanked him. *sniffle*

Something dawned on me this am. Since I talked to Keith about what was bugging me and lurking in the back of my head that I was stuffing down with sugar and food on Monday night, I haven't had huge like... issues with it. Monday sucked cause I hadn't gotten it off my chest yet, and I was trying to do not eat... Monday night was good... Tuesday all day was even better.. I feel good this am... FRICKING AMAZING how that works. Get whatever it is that's bothering me out in the open and face it, and boom... the food loses its power over me. I dunno why I have to keep relearning this, but, it's all good. All life!

Man, I am totally pooped. I need a nap. I got up this am and went to the gym... I went to bed at a decent hour and I got plenty of sleep... I think I'm just suffering from low-carb adjustment right now. I so want to go home and face-plant on my sofa....

I wanted to turn around and go back yesterday, and I would have if it weren't so flipping far to drive *sigh*... I so wish we lived nearer to the snow! Something is really clicking out there. I got up some good speed this weekend.

I carbed out a little this weekend too. Friday night I had oatmeal, Saturday I had a croissant bfast sandwich, half a regular bag of peanut MnM's and a pita... Also some honey-wheat pretzel rods. Sunday was a piece of garlic bread with lunch, more pretzel rods, an apple... Nothing hugely bad. I could have totally done without the mnms, pretzels and garlic bread tho. So this morning I weighed in a little higher than on Friday. I saw 168 on Saturday. I think I didn't get quite enough water this weekend either. When I'm at work, I suck it down all day. On the weekends, not quite as much cause I'm moving around and not parked with a huge glass in front of me at all times. I did get one of those "Camelpacks" for snowboarding tho, that really helps. So what I'm saying is, I'm up a little and trying not to freak out. No reason to, s'all good.