I just realized that neither Tom nor I have blogged in over a week. Mea culpa… It’s been that crazy and we’ve been that busy. We will be so glad when the holidays are over and we’re not having unexpected food encounters. I’m also fighting off a cold and it’s not helping. I have to give a midterm exam this evening and all I really want to do is go home and crawl in to bed. I’ve got to stay functioning until at least noon tomorrow when I’m done with classes. Then I really will go home and crash.

CARLA -
Official Weight (after twenty-four weeks): 237.6 lb – loss of 43.4 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-four weeks): 235.4 lb – loss of 42.6 pounds

Carla

When I left for Florida, my weight loss was 41.2 pounds and my goal for the trip was to stay over forty pounds lost. I managed it with just .4 of a pound to spare. I think our strategy of drinking all five shakes no matter what is the way to go.

The holiday season has been hard. It’s not easy to sit at a gathering or in a meeting where everyone else is eating and just drink your bottle of water. Today is Cincinnati State’s holiday luncheon. I’m not even going anywhere near it.

CARLA -
Official Weight (after twenty-three weeks): 240.6 lb – loss of 40.4 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-three weeks): 239.2 lb – loss of 38.8 pounds

TOM -
Official Weight (after twenty-three weeks): 364.4 lb – loss of 69.6 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-three weeks): 362.8 – loss of 62.2 pounds

Carla

UPDATE: So even though I didn’t attend it, I won a door prize at the holiday luncheon… A $5 gift card from Graeter’s… Ugh!!!

I’m back from my four day girls weekend trip to Walt Disney World and I have some souvenir pounds to show for it. I think I had done pretty well since Sara and I split everything, but the scale is showing me up over five pounds. Today, it was back to the pool and back on nothing but shakes. I’ll be pushing the water hard too. I would add some walking to the water fitness, but I also brought back a couple of blisters on my right foot so walking is not fun right now.

It’s hard getting back into the rhythm of school and I have to lecture today. I also have academic league late this afternoon so it’s going to be a long day…

Carla

UPDATE: Academic League was cancelled! Woo hoo!

Some family dropped by yesterday for a visit. The Depression Brothers: Anxiety, Anger, and Loneliness. Can’t call them old friends because I don’t really like them that much. But they’re part of me, just like family. (Truth be told, as much as I dislike them I still like them better than my brother Rick, but that’s an entirely different story: one I’m not allowed to tell.)

But anyway, they’ve been hanging around for the last couple of weeks. Work has been incredibly frustrating, but since I have an acknowledged addiction to continuing to get a paycheck, I won’t go into details. The specifics don’t matter anyway. There will always be something. That’s how work life works. That’s why they call it ‘work’ instead of ‘screwing around doing fun things.’ Sufficed to say it’s not healthy, in a mental hygiene sense, to spend your days trying to outwit the witless — to try to beat a system that really isn’t a system because there are no rules that endure from one day to the next. You really start to question yourself: “Is this place really that screwed up, or is it me? Is there something I’m missing? Something I ought to be doing?”

Loneliness joined the party yesterday. Not loneliness, really, but the memory of loneliness. When I dropped Carla off at the airport yesterday, a lot of bad old memories came flooding back. It made an already difficult day that much more surreal. I wasn’t alone all day. I work with entirely pleasant people, and there is a lot of laughter around here. The good kind, not the gallows humor kind. But the intensity of my reaction early in the morning was enough. It opened the door.

So I had my three visitors who came in like old buddies who you used to hang out with but eventually decided to leave behind because they weren’t good for you. We revisited some old habits. Ones involving food. A couple of birthdays were being celebrated and there was food. Cheese balls that contained the precise amount of crack necessary to be addictive. Caramel covered peanuts. Them’s good grazing. A bit of cake. Oh, and pizza for lunch. By the time I left work, I was anything but hungry.

So of course I picked up some BBQ to take home with me. Big ol’ plate of it.

An odd thing happened when I was eating that later in the evening. I was about half done and I was saying to myself that I should stop because I was getting full. I even set it aside. Maybe finish it later in the weekend.

And then I said to myself that I shouldn’t.

And this is the important part of the story because this is where I kicked out my visitors. I could have gone the self-pity route. I could have gone the self-loathing route. I could have rationalized it by putting what I had away and having it later. Heck, I could have even thrown it away and patted myself on the back for some act of courage. Instead I went with the physical revulsion route. I forced myself to finish what I was eating. It was unpleasant. I wanted it to be unpleasant. Don’t get me wrong, what was left wasn’t a freakishly large amount or anything, but it was more than I wanted right then.

There was a time that gorging myself like that would have given me psychological pleasure, but this time it was anything but pleasure. Whatever psychological lift the eating had given me was long gone, and all that was left was the reality of the behavior. I tasted everything and it didn’t taste that good. It had earlier. It didn’t now. I finished and looked at the empty to-go container and said “Well, I’m glad that’s done with.”

I stayed up a few more hours to let things digest, then went to bed.

When I got up this morning the last thing I wanted to do was eat. I wanted to get to the pool. I wanted to do my five shakes, a bar and a whole lot of water. I wanted to move and to get to work and start taking on some of the crap I’ve been dealing with head on. When I hit the pool I attacked each exercise. I went at each one as hard as I could. I went back and did some over just because I could. Because I wanted to. Because I could. Because I liked it. All the reasons I like to eat, but without the downside.

I was in the water about an hour and a quarter all together. Maybe six or seven of that spent on stretching and such. The rest of the time was work. And it felt good. Much better than the eating the day before.

It’s about 5:30 PM now and I’ve been pecking away at this now and then when I get a chance. I’m a little hungry. Not super hungry, but a little. After being so stuffed last night, it feels kind of good. Love it when a plan comes together.

It’s been a busier than expected day. Mostly good stuff, and the not good stuff is so typical that it barely registers anymore. I have been 100% compliant today and I plan to stay that way. I feel better today than I did yesterday, and that’s why my three little demons have gone. Sure, I miss Carla, but she’s coming home Sunday and missing someone is different than being lonely. Anxiety? Anger? If you’re not one of these things in this world, you’re not paying attention. The question is what you do with it. Yesterday I ate it. Today I left it in the pool.

I like today better.

Which is why I know tomorrow will be fine.

Carla’s getting ready to go to Florida and I’m getting ready to miss her. It’s been quite a day…

Not a Twitter user, but want to follow what we’re twittering? Go to:

http://www.tomandcarla.com/snippety

For all the news fit to print in 140 characters or less.

But they’re characters with character.

MORE NEWS HERE LATER… It’s one of those days…

CARLA -
Official Weight (after twenty-two weeks): 239.8 lb – loss of 41.2 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-two weeks): 238.6 lb – loss of 39.4 pounds

TOM -
Official Weight (after twenty-two weeks): 365.0 lb – loss of 69.0 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-two weeks): 362.6 – loss of 62.4 pounds

Carla

We’re tweaking our weight loss strategy and one of the things we did was make sure we got five shakes in every day even if we ate a meal. It seems to be working. Tom is down six pounds since Wednesday and I’m down 2.6 pounds. It will be interesting to see if this strategy works when I leave for Walt Disney World on Thursday.

CARLA -
Official Weight (after twenty-one weeks): 242.6 lb – loss of 38.4 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-one weeks and five days): 237.8 lb – loss of 40.2 pounds

TOM -
Official Weight (after twenty-one weeks): 367.0 lb – loss of 66.0 pounds
Home Scale (after twenty-one weeks and five days): 360.0 – loss of 65.0 pounds

Carla