Diary

I am sick of being sick. I think today I can finally say I’m pretty much over it… Because I ran today! I find that at the end of a cold I wrestle with that whole I’m-too-sick-reality versus I’m-too-sick-excuses conundrum. I’ve hit the streets too soon, before, and ended up with nasty bronchitis- unrelated or not to the running. But it happened and I’m gunshy. And there are times when laziness took over and the illness excuse to not run is so terribly inviting that I succumb. I did it last night. I was ‘too tired after recovering from this nasty cold… Just one more night and I’ll get back to it…’ Last night, so tonight when I came home and saw my bestest jammers in the whole wide world beckoning from my closet, I’ll totally cop to having them up around my knees before I realized what I was doing. I was letting myself ‘have one more night to recover’. But I had a good day with my students today, I was in a good mood, wasn’t hungry, thirsty, grumpy or… Sick.
So I shucked my jams, threw on my running shoes (and clothes), hopped on my treadmill and promised myself 20 minutes until I could get off. After 20 minutes, though, I was still feeling good so I kept on going for another 15, just to show myself I could.
I read an article recently, the title and author escape me now, where a woman was speaking to a friend about treating his aggressive cancer. She told him that when the cancer gets worse, that is the time to take another treatment, to try something new, to take a stand, an act of defiance against the cancer! It spoke to me so loud. My stubbornness is power. Whether or not it works, the act of defiance is good for the soul. It’s me standing up against the aggressive tide of poor food and exercise choices and choosing my health and my life. It’s hard, daily. I fail, daily. But I am defiant that I will win. I am defiant, stubborn and am willing myself into the healthier and, hopefully, longer lasting version of myself.
Getting on the treadmill today was an act of defiance against my blerch, against myself. That extra 15 minutes was me deflating it. It was a beautiful act of defiance, however small, and I am proud. Proud of my whole day, too. It was a day lived well. Absolutely worth one of my jelly beans.
Here’s to getting back to it in every way!

Oh, and this. 207.8! Woot woot!
So, something serious, though. I found out NKOTB is coming way sooner than I expected. I’m going to try for it, 185, by May 6th. That’s 24 pounds in two months. I told myself that I as long as I work hard and make reasonable progress I will see about the big unknown thing that I get to do. I’m at stupid level of excitement, though. It’s kind of ridiculous.
(But I love it!)

Do you have those places on your body that when you hit a certain weight is your tell? Like, OMGosh! I have a fat roll behind my knee now or something like that? That one thing you HATE when it appears? For me it is my chin. I’m paranoid about the double and triple chin. No matter how heavy I got, I always kept track of my chin, watching with despair as my neck disappeared and seemed to join with my chest in that whole neck-chin-wattle thing that leaves one’s neck undefined and collars or scarves homeless and awkward… I did not want that.

I was so pleased that as I lost weight my neck and chin seemed pretty responsive and shed the weight pretty quick, and then I stopped paying attention and focused elsewhere. All along, however, as I work through my body project I’ve assumed that I was very much still sporting my double chin. Like, until about three weeks ago. It was definitely smaller, but I was too distracted by other ‘trouble’ zones to pay proper attention to it.
The other day, on my way home from work, I nestled my phone into my new car phone-charger/wanna-be-a-cop-holder and accidentally hit the buttons just right so I didn’t know the camera was on and pointed at me. It caught the corner of my eye and I saw someone was calling but couldn’t quite figure out who she was, even though she looked really familiar.
I’m such a dork. Obviously it was me.
I have a chin now, apparently. A sharp, pointy chin with a solid, strong jawline like a pit bull. Naturally this prompted a furious digging up of comparison shots and the like. Man oh man. It is so weird to see myself! It’s like i just sunk into my head and lost definition on my cheeks, eyes, chin- everywhere!

Bradley and I are going through a renaissance of looking at who we used to be. We used to be really big. I was so big that I kind of just accepted my bigness as normal. I was big enough that I thought getting down to 280 was probably a pretty healthy weight to sustain. I was bigger than most people in any given situation.
I was really big but I didn’t know it at all. I was and am still happy. My life was and is still full. We go in circles trying to honor the versions of ourselves we used to be, but we’ve finally come to the conclusion that, while those were good, well-intended people, it’s okay for us to let them go and grow out of them at last. She was unhealthy and steadfast in her willingness to live a shorter life full of things that continued to make her sicker. He loved her so much he would have done anything for her. He picked her, the fat girl in every way, and it was hard for him to let her go. I held onto her for a long time and so did he, but I’m a shadow of that girl now, not just because of my size, but also because of all the inner-reflection, the mental work, the letting go of fear I’ve been doing. He finally let that full, big, round girl go and he let me know that the newer version of me is the best, healthiest and hottest he’s ever seen, so I can finally let her go, too. At last.
I’m a better person now. Not only because I weigh less- I’m happier. Life is fuller and better. I have the energy to be so. I’m never going back, and we’ve finally linked hands and realized that we have to love these versions of ourselves best now. Those other selves belong in scrapbooks, they are people to learn from, but not so much to be anymore.*
***
You may have noticed a flurry of postings lately. Every once in a while I feel like it’s important to bring up my Tamara Shazam purpose and mission statement. My purpose for starting this site was as an accountability tool for myself when I started my Body Project. I needed a place to bray my accomplishments out where I wouldn’t be bothering other people who didn’t want to hear about it. I needed a place where I could obsess and be as self-centered and reflective as I needed to be to meet my goals. This place is a tool for me. Reading other blogs made me realize that I became inspired, motivated and smarter from them, so I decided that if others’ words and deeds could do that for me, my experiences might do that for you. As my favorite bloggers get closer to their goals I get inspired to do the same.
I’m posting a lot right now because I’m weak. I’m looking around me all the time for things that inspire me, move me forward and force me to reflect. Writing here this week is keeping me on target and moving me forward. Thank you for being my audience, keeping me accountable and cheering me on. I appreciate every page view and comment I get more than you could ever know.
<3 *in general terms- we are, at our cores, who we have always been, we are just leaving the cruft behind.

I’ve had a cold for well over a week now. At first I was pretty okay with it- it was all in my nose and didn’t seem to be traveling anywhere else… As the week progressed, instead of getting better it just kept getting worse, and seems to be heading to my chest, so today I took another day off. I really hate taking days off. It’s so stressful with the mystery substitute and his or her chemistry with ‘my’ kids. I hate it. But I hate being all sneezy and grumping at my sweet little second graders more, so staying home seemed like a better option today.

I’m a better dieter when I am working. Food at home calls to me. I snag a cracker here, a few nuts there, a swig of this, a swipe of that. As I meander back and forth through my house I am constantly taking turns through my kitchen, looking in the fridge and pantry as though something particularly delicious may have appeared in the last 30 minutes.

{I realized I can do modified pull-ups, so I did a set while we were on a walk recently, Bradley ran around snapping pictures like mad. For some reason, it’s really important for me to try to be able to do a pull-up… 🙂 }
Because this is a holiday weekend, there weren’t many substitute teachers for the Friday preceding, so finding one to take my class for the day was a little touch and go there for a bit. Even though I called in the night before, I still didn’t have a sub secured by the time I needed to leave for work. I headed into work like usual this morning, fully dressed, lunch in hand, so when I returned home after my sub arrived I decided to stick with the food I had packed for the day; I would eat the same food as if I were at work for the day. Guess what? It worked! Knowing what was in my lunch bag actually made me plan out my day’s food. After my breakfast of veggie sausage links, I ate my berries around 9:00 AM, apples with my nuggets at lunch and had a cheese stick for my later snack followed by two tacos for dinner and rice pudding for dessert. I didn’t go off plan once until I realized I was fairly below my calorie target for the day and added about 20 chocolate chips to my pudding. I think I’ll just pack a lunch again tomorrow and the rest of the weekend and rely on that as my weekend food source. Talk about making a plan to be successful!
I did finally have to head upstairs by about 9:00 to get away from my kitchen, though. I’m doing pretty well, as far as resisting the siren’s call to eat goes, but I’m still fairly weak. I stepped back into old habits that have me putting something in my mouth faster than I remember to stop it. I’m actually needing to spit things out from time to time when I realize what I’ve done mid-chew. That said, I’m feeling stronger and stronger every day. I feel like my determination and will are functioning better again and it feels so good. Like, I lay in bed at night and think about all of the good food choices I made that day and I pat myself on the back, celebrate and congratulate myself. It seems silly, but its working for me!
***
I didn’t lose anymore weight today, according to the scale. Poor me! LOL! Seriously, though, it had to stop sometime. I’ll admit, though, that I was a little disappointed. It would have been kind of cool to just keep melting away like that. I suppose that’s why I call this time of the month warrior week- if I put in the effort during the first week and a half of my cycle it really pays out in pounds lost!

I’m not complaining one bit. 208.8 is a great number to be at today- I just feel weird posting these losses day after day. 13 pounds off since Christmas! It’s unbelievable how fast it suddenly seems to be rolling off of me. I’m kind of wondering if taking time off wasn’t a good thing, if maybe I reset myself, kind-of. I had been consistently eating between 1100-1600 calories and working out often over the past year and I didn’t lose much of anything. Granted, I was lenient, but I wonder if falling off the wagon that hard reset my metabolism or something… I dunno. Whatever it is, I’ll take it! The oddest thing is that I’ve had a nasty cold all week and I haven’t even been exercising. Like, at all.
I’ve definitely broken my sugar addiction. Last night I was eating some granola and came across some dried fruit. At first I thought some candy had fallen in, but it turned out to be a dried cranberry. My litmus test for appropriate sugar intake is whether or not dried fruit tastes like candy. There was once a day back in time when milk chocolate didn’t even seem sweet enough. The fact that a craisin gets me so excited is cause for kicking the heels up!

My new hotness of late is this new Coke in the green can. (Aside: remember New Coke from the 80’s?!). Over the holidays I was all sad about beverages. Everything you drink in December seems to have sugar, aspartame, fat or alcohol in it- things I wasn’t looking to add to my diet or have deleted from my diet altogether. I was drinking plain water. Sadly. Missing my Diet Coke. Poor me. Just clean, delicious water that magically flows from the tap… Then Bradley came home with this green Coke, and guess what?!?!? It has neither high fructose corn syrup nor aspartame, is lower calorie AND tastes good! The recipe uses cane sugar, like Mexican soda, and stevia, which I usually hate but is yummy here. I was a happy girl and remain a happy girl as long as it stays in production. They still kick a 90 calorie punch, though, so I drink them in moderation, enjoying them a couple times a week. I will never go back to drinking a lot of soda, but it’s nice to know I have an alternative for when I want one.
I never thought I’d endorse a Coke product, but this is a much more responsible choice they are offering this time around.
***
I wonder if I’ll weigh less tomorrow… I wonder when this will stop?? It’s been bizarre, not losing anything for ages and suddenly having it just shake away. I’ve promised myself some, big, embarrassing unknown NKOTB related experience if I reach 185 by the time they roll through town this summer on tour. Talk about motivating!

Today after work I went about my usual business. Drove home… Got cut off on freeway… Considered throwing milkshake at the car of crazy driver… Didn’t have milkshake… Realized I had rotten banana… Too late… Regretted not throwing rotten banana anyways… (This is all the true story, by the way, of The Crazy Driver and the Honking, Milkshake-less Teacher, as told by Mrs. Littlejohn.) Anyhow…
I got home and was doing the usual stuff – change clothes, bathroom time, hand washing and cleaning up from my morning when I spied the scale out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to get on it, because surely I popped back up to 215 today, right? I grudgingly got on it, prepared for bad news, and instead it showed 210.8. Wait, WHAT? That’s a full ten I’ve lost. Unbelievable.
And as the icing on the cake?

Yup, gas prices under 2.00. Living the dream.
*
And as extra bonus? Bradley dug these sweeties up today and sent them to me. This was me at my honest to goodness highest of 340. I can hardly even see myself in these anymore. I don’t recognize her… It’s so strange.

When I start losing weight again, you all know it because I get up on here and start waving my weight loss flag around, blaring the news from every roof top, blog and Facebook post I can: I LOST WEIGHT like I’ve done something truly exceptional… Which I suppose I have. I mean, seriously, I am an excellent fat maker, here. I can make fat out of almost anything, and my body is exceptional at finding places to store it. So the fact that any fatty tissue ever takes its leave of my body is cause for celebration I suppose…
I LOST WEIGHT!
I LOST WEIGHT!
IIIIII LLLLOOOOSSSSST WEEEEIIIIGHT!!!!
Like, a lot. Tonnnns. Totes 8 pounds since the ball dropped.
And it’s aaallll fat, baby. Eight pounds of fat.
No, there wasn’t any water weight in that at all.
All fat.
I swear it.
Okay, so around three pounds is what I would call fat and the rest was likely water. It came off too quickly to be anything but water, but it’s nice to get the ego boost of numbers swiftly moving in the direction I desire: 221-213 since 12/26.
Sigh of contentment.
That makes me happy.
🙂

Today I had the opportunity to cruise the awesomeness that is the Bellevue Skate King. I love it when I find a place that so closely resembles the exact experiences I had as a child so a good roller rink gets me pretty excited. And I don’t want a polished and fancy rink (well, maybe that would be kinda cool…), I want the exact rink from my childhood. Fortunately/unfortunately, skating rinks are one of those kinds of places that are patronized enough to keep the business afloat but not enough to get cool new shag carpet or new wheels for the skates. Skating rinks are, generally, 100% retro, still clinging to the carpet-covered mushroom benches, made back when pa opened the rink in 1968! 😉
Anyhow, I was not alone in my quest for the flavor of my childhood days. There were a lot of people there, most of them were novice skaters ranging from ages 4-8. That’s not to say there wasn’t a large population of grown men who were skate-dancing. You know, the guys who artfully turn on one foot, noodle around with crossing the feet, spin this way and that, weave effortlessly between neophytes, go down into crouching positions way more often than necessary… It’s like watching them in their own living room, they seem so gloriously lost. They were there, definitely, doing all of their svelte moves. In all fairness, where does one employ those moves in today’s day and age? I love that they still exist and still show up with their fancy skates, dice and flotsam hanging off of their pristine race-quads.
I skated for two hours with my daughter and her friends before the floor became insanely crowded and one woman broke her ankle by tripping on a little kid who zipped right in front of her. I could see the next tumble being mine, except the little kid would likely be suffering the injury and I really wasn’t game for that level of mind-bend on myself. I had one blister, I was satisfied, I excused myself to leave. I excitedly checked my WiiFitt Meter to find that two hours of skating yielded 1000 steps. Apparently it doesn’t read roller skates! Who cares. Fun and exercise were had!

{Skating rinks across America are responsible for keeping records of the hokey pokey in production. Yes, she meant and said records. And how awkward is it taking a selfie in front of everyone who is looking at the hokey pokey?!?! Pretty stinking awkward!}
Pet peeve of the New Year:
Loose and lose are two different words.
When people say they need to ‘loose’ some weight, it drives me up a wall. That extra ‘o’ makes all the difference in the world:
Lose: the act of shedding and getting rid of something, often never to be returned. I want to ‘lose’ some weight.
Loose: when something does not fit tightly or closely. My belt is too ‘loose’ since I lost weight.
Two totally different words. Usually I don’t make a big stink about grammar rules, because who wants to be that guy, but this is a word that I, personally, see misused more than any other because it so closely relates to my passion project: getting healthy and losing weight!
Besides, I’m a teacher and an English major. I have to be a little picky about some things!
(Please don’t send me the myriad of grammatical nightmare examples found on this website. Long ago I gave up trying to be perfect and just started writing with voice because that’s way more interesting for me to read.)

You know how the New Year begins and you’re all gung-ho with enthusiasm, determination and will-power? Well, it looks like we were like that on the first day of the New Year, but on the second day of the New Year I woke up with some pretty serious pillow creases on my face that were determined to stay there. We did peel ourselves out of the house long enough to take a walk around the block, but the cold air drove us back inside prematurely, to MarioKart, to Gilmore Girls, to pajamas, to books… Yesterday was a two-mugs-of-hot-cocoa kind of day at Lj House.
Today we had to reckon with that and prove that we are in 2015 with heart and purpose. Bradley found a new hike through an app that was supposed to guide us to all kinds of outdoor urban experiences, but really had, like two hikes in our area when there are a bazillion… But it did find us this one!
It’s called the Denny Trail Loop, and it was pretty amazing since it plunged us immediately into a beautiful old growth kind of setting within the first 25 yards. It had decent elevation, but I was a little dismayed at the 1.1 mile distance. We decided to explore an arterial trail, and that’s where it got interesting! There was a stream that we got to cross 3-4 times on very rustic or nonexistent bridges, gorgeous moss-covered trees and a beautiful ravine to marvel over. Because we failed to loop, we ended up in a neighborhood that felt somewhat near to our home, so we decided to just walk the rest of the way home. We weren’t as close as we thought, though, because we ended up adding 3 miles of walking through neighborhoods and ended up walking a little over four miles! It wasn’t as beautiful as the old growth trail, but it was a really fun adventure. To make it home, we turned on Siri who directed us to turn this way or that and gave us the confidence to not feel lost! It was a really fun adventure.

To finish out the day, we turned into mall nerds and intentionally brought books and drawing materials to hang out, drink coffee, write a blog post and enjoy that whole coffee house feel that only a Starbucks in the mall can provide. Seriously, it was way fun! Crossroads Mall is the place to be when you want a taste of mall life in the 1980’s!

To usher in the New 2015 Year, we Lj’s sat around playing video games while eating burrata and brownies- a refined palate for sure- to pass the last of 2014 away. At midnight we ran outside hollering our greetings to the New Year and smootching in exaltation. It was freezing-cold, though, so within two minutes we were inside, in bed and almost fast asleep. I’m telling you- that last 45 minutes before midnight is a killer on New Years Eve night. I’m always sitting with my eyes rolling back and my head jerking back and forth drowsily. Then, after running around all wild at midnight, I’m usually energized and have a tough time settling down. Last night, though, I was out like a light.
This morning we rose and shone and hit the ground, literally, running. Bradley and my son headed out for a run, while I favored a warmer run in my garage. I made it 38 minutes and almost two episodes of Californication (I’ve been marathon watching it guiltily this break!) before I headed out to the streets with Bradley and Martha to brave the brisk, frigid air for a fast walk. It felt like a good way to start the year off on the right foot.
Resolved!
Last year I almost met my resolution of getting under 200, but clearly that went out the window. That said, I’m a firm believer in making goals for the year. As I wrote last year, studies show that people who make resolutions are much more likely to meet those goals. I feel like there’s no loss in trying!
Resolution one: Hit a weight in the 180’s, ideally 185. If I can get lower that that, BOO-yah !
Resolution two: Train for and run a half marathon, ideally the Seattle Rock and Roll Half Marathon. I had to promise to Bradley, however, that I will not compromise my mobility or health in order to accomplish this goal. If I meet a distance that makes me hurt, I won’t push myself further.
Check-in on 2014’s Goals:
Last year my goal was to gain lean muscle mass. I’m not sure how well I did on that. I did attempt to do that, but halfway through the year I realized that I was having a really tough time both losing fat while eating to gain muscle. It seemed easier to focus on the fat for now and the muscle for later. That said, I did go from a size 16-18 to a solid 14 in the year without losing much weight at all. Not including the last two week’s gain, I lost a little over 10 pounds last year. I yo-yo’d between 201-223 this year, mostly between 205-213. I can’t say if the size shift is from a fat loss and muscle gain or if it is simply from my skin shrinking up.
I can say that I’m proud of my exercise this year- I was pretty consistentwith aerobics, but I would like to push myself a little harder. I go back and forth between actually challenging myself and just getting the workout in that burns fat and allows me to maintain some sense of physical ability. I should also be integrating more anaerobic exercise, but meh…
This year I’ll lose the fat. Next year I’ll try to gain some muscle.
Happy New Year!

{somewhat affected face, but I am oddly fond of this selfie for some reason}