It will not happen, I swear to BeeGees

This will not turn into Jillian's whine and moan weight loss journey. I've been there, done that, bought the tshirt and then turned the tshirt into rags to clean my bathroom. However, this blog is my whiny, narcissistic anger management journal and, by all that is holy and reverent, if I don't get off my weight loss plateau, I am going to explode. I mean it. I will cover this whole house in cellulite and don't think I won't do it.

ONE MONTH. One month of no movement on the scale. It taunts me. I'm at *mumble*.2 pounds. Seriously. *Mumble*.2 pounds for a month. It's the .2 pounds that's taunting me. And now, it's starting to move up. My nutritionist, Fran, has finally given me the go ahead to drop down 200 calories because, frankly, I think she fears the cellulite explosion.

It's not helping. If anything, I think I may gain because of this. I've read the googled sites. They say that I need to "shake up my routine" and exercise more, which is out due to my knee. Eat at different times. Eat more. Eat less. Eat upside down, which is my preferred sleeping position according to Husband since all this started. Eat less carbs. Eat more protein. Hop on one less and shout your grandmother's middle name while tugging on your earlobe.

I'm to the point where I'm wondering if donating blood would get rid of that pesky .2 pounds, at least until it regenerates. I'm trying the eating more thing. The problem is that I'm not hungry. There. I said it. Throw your stones. I don't eat when I'm not hungry anymore. 4 months in and I just don't do it and I'm not going to and sometimes that means that I can go a week at 1,000 calories a day and now that means I'm not losing weight even if I have one day a week where I eat anything I want and can get 2500-3000 calories that day.

Fran and I need to have some one on one time. It's scheduled for the end of the month. Our relationship is suffering. I'm going to jump back on the physical therapy and try to get to where I can do exercise. I have no idea what to do abotu food other than eat when I'm hungry and eat right. I just bought a new scale to show the old one who is boss. It's pretty and glass and the old one is dirty and plastic. Who is in charge now? The only problem? It actually shows me as heavier than Old Faithful.

2 words: Cellulite Explosion.

What ifs?

When you first consider the idea of weight loss, after years and years of abusing your body, there is a certain amount of fear and reluctance. There are always questions as to whether or not you can truly put forth the amount of effort it will take to lose weight, whether you are mentally prepared for what comes with the act of the effort and the results as well as the reasoning for gaining weight in the first place. There is fear as to possible failure and the difference in how people react to you as a person. Because you know there is a difference, right? In how people treat you?

I allow myself to think about the difference in small spurts. Anything more than that feels overwhelming and since I'm only losing weight in small spurts, that feels manageable. Over the weekend, I was triggered by a PostSecret image that put into words the insecurity of some fears that I have about losing this weight.



What if I look better now than I will then? Even if I'm healthier then, what if I'd rather be shallow? Look, my self-esteem isn't over the top, but I'm not a bad looking big woman. The extra weight looks ok on me. In fact, the smaller I get, the larger my nose gets and the beadier my eyes will get. I've been skinny. I know about this. I also know that my weight disguises any wrinkles I may have gotten due to the 8 year old who likes to test my heart rate.

So, what if I look better now? What if I'm happier as a big girl? What if all the chubby chasers go away and I have no more admirers? What if the Latino men and gorgeous chocolate brothers are no longer interested when there is no "junk in my trunk" and I'm no longer "cool for a big girl?" What if I get skinny and hate myself? Some days I'm just like many other women: full of insecurity. It's just one of those days.

McDonalds' feeble attempt at making me fat

Since I jumped on the semi-health mobile back in November, I've avoided McDonalds like the plague. Well, for the most part. The Reduced fat ice cream cone is a delightful use of 150 calories and if I send my husband to get it, I can avoid the big, glaring pictures of tempting McNuggets. They are really all that tempt me from that particular fast food place, anymore.

Today, however, between physical therapy and teaching my undergrads, I was in a hurry. Normally, I get my grilled chicken sandwich from Wendys but I made the assumption that McDonalds would be faster. I pulled in the line and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

While I sat there, I pondered how much of my obesity was due to McDonalds. No, no, no, McDonalds did not put the food into me. I'm not a foolish person and I don't blame McDonalds for making me fat. Yet, with that thought in my mind, they aren't doing much to help me stay healthy, either. They aren't as "side" friendly as Wendys or Chick-Fil-A. I continued to think about this and chided myself for laying the blame at the feet of a conglomerate instead of myself. As I was doing so, I inched a car length forward and saw a HUGE red and white sign that said "FREE PIE WITH ANY LARGE SIZED MEAL."

Excuse me, please stop the boat. Wait, what? If I UP SIZE my meal, which is in larger portion already, you will GIVE ME A FREE PIE? So, you will reward me for eating more with more food? Specifically, a dessert food that most people find hard to resist?

Screw you, McDonalds. Screw you. You deserve some of the blame for this!

I got my grilled chicken sandwich and left. Next time, I'm going to Wendys.

A dirty restaurant, cheap but good food and free entertainment?

For those that personally know the Blueshelled family, most are aware that the last 4 months have been months of great change in our familial health. All three of us have taken an active role in watching what we eat and attempting to be more active. For me, unfortunately, a bum back, then a bum knee, now surgery preventing therapy for the knee, has made the activity part difficult. However, among the three of us, we've been doing quite well for ourselves on the sticking with it.

One of the ways we accomplish this is by having one day a week that we can eat whatever we want and as much as we want. Generally, what we've found is that we only go about 500 calories over our restricted daily caloric intake and we more than make up for that throughout the week.

With all of that explained and out of the way, Saturday has been our beloved free day. Free day is what gets us through the rough days where we want to eat everything under the sun, but don't. Free day is coming and we can eat all those bad for you things then. The knowledge of it is soothing. What's funny is that, come free day, we still don't know what we want to eat. It shows how food has taken a back seat in our lives.

Tonight was no exception. Dinner time came and we drove around the area looking for inspiration. At long last, we settled upon the Waffle House. If you have never been to the Waffle House, you have never set foot in the South. They used to be dirty, filthy pits of cigarette smoke where you could get greasy food at cheap prices in a reasonable amount of time. Now they are dirty, filthy pits minus the cigarette smoke (thank you smoke free Tennessee!) where you can get greasy, TASTY food at cheap prices in a reasonable amount of time.

As we walked in, all the tables were dirty and we sat down at one and had to ask someone to clean it for us. Husband ordered what he calls "Satan" hash browns. I can't tell you what all is involved in this meal other than it smells pretty bad and is 100% guaranteed to give you heartburn from looking at it. The verdict from Husband is "Delicious!" AJ and I ordered our regular variety of foods and we sat quietly talking while waiting for our food.

In the middle of what seemed a fairly standard meal, the Waffle House staff erupted in drama. 2 new people showed up and immediately started telling the others they were now required to stay overnight (this was around 9pm), as 3 people had called in sick. This turned into 30 minutes of all of the staff there complaining about how people only call out on a Saturday if they are lying and how, since the 3 of them are friends, it must be A PARTY!

Of course, this turned into one using his defense mechanisms to justify his staying as to how he needed the money and would get overtime. This was until the manager burst his bubble to tell him how they would just switch his shifts later in the week and "make" those that called out tonight cover the shifts, thus demoralizing the poor guy even more with the knowledge that he was going to not only have to stay up all night to cover someone's shift, but also was not going to get anything extra for his trouble.

Husband, AJ and I didn't even pretend to not listen. This was fascinating stuff. As we packed up to leave, the manager called another staff member back and we heard him say, "You have to stay tonight, too. We just got another phone call."

This is a good incentive to get a college degree, I think, to those that don't have one. But thank you for making my meal interesting.