Plans and Day Planners

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.

-- Napoleon Hill

I love lists.

I love seeing fairly simple tasks, bulleted down a sheet of paper.

There's nothing quite like the simple satisfaction of sitting down, lowering my eyes to my desk, picking up a pen, and scratching something off my to-do list.

I love notebooks.

I love the crisp feel of fresh paper, the smell of pages, the broad white possibility, just ready for whatever happens to come.

I love pens. I personally own more pens than I will ever use. In fact, I have a hard time restraining myself from buying pens.

Do not, if you love me, ever set me loose in an office supply store.

(Did I mention I love post-it notes, too?)

My current favorite pens were a gift from a friend. They're from post-it. Black-inked pens on one end, pink, yellow or blue highlighter on the other, and have a dainty little carriage holder in the cap for tape tags.

Oh, Johnny, I love tape tags!

Yesterday, I got a new day planner.

It's from At-A-Glance and it's quite hideously ugly.

It's orange.

I forsee the purchase of many, many stickers until I cover the entire front and back.

On the other hand, it seems to be perfect.

Perfect is such a terrible word, fraught with disappointment. And yet...


It is quite lovely.

Each day has a whole page set aside for it. I can write appointments on it and still have plenty of space left over for my daily to-do list.

I'm using the HOT section at the bottom to write down my plans for dinner menus and anything that desperately needs to be attended to.

I've divided the pages in half, making two columns. The right hand side is for special tasks for the day (for instance, this week - likely next week, and perhaps the week after THAT - I am reorganizing and cleaning the kitchen. A thorough cleaning!) and the left hand side is for those things that are regularly part of my chores list (make bed, do dishes, plan dinner, swish and swipe the bathroom).

So far, I've done everything on the left side of the page for today.

2010 (the year we made contact?)

Let me 'splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
-- Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride

Sometimes there's just a bit overabundance of life. You'd like to spread it out, like peanut butter on a piece of bread, so that it's mostly smooth from one side to the other. You don't get a mouthful of plain bread here, and a wadded up bite of nothing but peanut butter there. For one thing, it makes for a lumpy sandwich, and for the second thing... ah, metaphors are over-rated.

My house is finally empty of guests. Thank you.

I got overwhelmed this year - and this year I was trying to "take it easy" for the holidays. Easy seemed to mean that I had four unexpected guests (who let me know on WEDNESDAY that they were joining us!) for Thanksgiving... three guests before Christmas and one after. I only didn't spend time with my dad this year because of a freak snowstorm that dumped more than our fair share of white shit all over everything.

Exciting things that happened this year:

I got a new (to me) car. My husband started riding his bike to work. This meant I could actually leave the house from time to time.

I joined a gym and I take yoga and spin classes semi-regularly.

I got a concussion, hitting my head on a coat-hook. In a bathroom. Seriously, how the hell does that happen?

I broke my toe. Resulting from walking oddly while my toe was broken - ingrown toenail on the other foot. That got infected.

Got bitten by a spider. This *also* got infected.

I had a blender-full of boiling soup explode on me. I got some severe burns, but thankfully my daughter wasn't in the room, so she wasn't hurt as well, and I managed not to burn my face. It cost me a great deal of pre-holiday planning time (I was still in bandages and on pain medication for Halloween and I didn't start really feeling like myself again until halfway through November. As a result of all these annoying injuries, I named November "No Injuries in November" and astonishingly enough managed it.)

I've gained about 15 pounds since the beginning of 2010. This 1) puts me firmly back in the overweight category and 2) has pissed me off so badly that I did the most stupid thing possible, which is to say, I said Fuck It, I'll worry about it later. Yes, it's later, now. That being said:

I've decided to do the 3-Day again this year. 2009 was a banner year for me, and the 3-Day was definitely part of it. Also, apparently if I don't have a crazy goal to work towards, my work-outs fall off alarmingly. So, if you want to donate, please do.

I can't really think of anything else at the moment. It's been a bland, slip-sliding sort of year, and I'm just as happy to have it behind me.

Hope it's a better year.

F&*% You, Weight Watchers!

[Insert standard disclaimer here about falling off the wagon, gaining weight, not posting, etc etc that you've all heard about 100 times if you follow weight loss blogs at all. I'm not going to repost it.]

I stopped going to Weight Watchers back in August. After an unsuccessful attempt to move my goal weight (from 134 to 139)... well, let me rephrase that... moving the goal weight was successful. And then I blew right past it. The idea was, according to my weight loss leader, Beth, (who I still love and I sometimes feel like a horrid person for abandoning her!) to reduce some of the pressure on me... that if I didn't feel so much like I needed to maintain at 134, I wouldn't stress so much, and I would just naturally lose the weight.

It's ok, you can laugh. (I've screamed, cursed, swore, and otherwise acted like all kinds of Crazy, but whatever works for you.)

Yeah.

So... I managed to stay at 139 (or within 2 pounds of it) for most of July, and then a bit of August... and then I continued right on up. I don't know that I'll ever quite forget that annoying little noise the Wii Fit makes when I step on it and it tells me I'm "overweight". It's a mocking little noise and my Mii looks down at herself in shock and horror. (in case you've never seen it, I've gotten QUITE USED to my Mii with the triumphant horns and jumping up in the air when the weight comes up as "normal")

I'll say this for the Wii Fit. It is just as mocking and cruel as kids back in the fifth grade. Like I don't have enough problems; lets add mockery from my scale?

So... yeah.

I ran right up to 143 or so.

Now, on the BMI scale, that's only overweight for my height by 2 pounds. So, what's the big deal, right? The big deal is that I've gained almost 7 pounds this year, and nearly 10 from when I hit goal. And it wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. Even adjusting my goal weight wasn't keeping me "free".

And with joining a gym (I love my gym... it's clean, it's friendly, it's not a meat market. I love my classes...) which costs $30 a month, I was having a lot of trouble justifying the $12 a week I was spending at Weight Watchers for the privileged of hearing Beth go over the same information week after week after week. Honestly, I've been going to WW for three years (ish) now. There's not much new they can tell me. I know what they think I'm supposed to do. I know. Whether I'm actually listening, or just hearing, I haven't really been GETTING anything out of it for a while now.

Over the last three years or so, I've tried tracking about 80 different ways. I've used weight watchers paper journals, I've used the online site. I've used Spark People. I've made my own paper journals. And honestly, very little has worked for me long term. I've always felt annoyed, blown it off, forgotten about it... (also, it doesn't help in the SLIGHTEST that Thomas doesn't need to track AT ALL and the bastard is still as skinny as a rail...) But I know I need to track, so back in September I've tried to be better about my tracking.

I managed to track for almost all of September. I was still mostly following Weight Watchers guidelines - getting 19 points a day, trying for my vegetables and stuff. (As a note, when you're down to 19 points a freaking day, there's no room for anything that's not your dairies/vegetables/protein.... seriously. Screw grains, you're not getting any flipping grains! Your two oil servings are 2 points, 2 dairy servings are 2-4 points, 5 f/v are 2-3 points if you happen to really like apples, which I do!, and 2 protein servings 5-8 points per day... that's 11-17 points a day right there... and a cup of brown rice is 3 points.)

And you know what? I was still sneaking up in weight. And sometimes it wasn't a sneak. I'd be doing "perfectly well" and I'd drop 0.2 pounds. -0.4 pounds. And then POW! Gain 2.8 pounds in a single day.

Truly, this was NOT working.

So, talking with one of my online friends, I decided I'd try something else.

Enter the F&^# You, Weight Watcher's Plan.

Before you get upset and defend the plan, allow me to say this: It did work for me. For years. I wouldn't be where I am now without it. And even 10 pounds over goal weight is not someplace I ever thought I'd be. I never thought I'd be wearing size 4 or 6.

It's just not working NOW.

And I'm upset.

Whether I should be upset with myself or the plan, I don't care. I'm blaming the plan.

I joined Spark People, and as I don't have access to the Online Tools, I'd been using that to track. Every single day it was telling me "Hey, bitch, you don't eat enough!" Ok, so it wasn't saying it like that... I'm allowed some creative licensing.

I've gone through this before. I get so obsessed with Eat Less, Move More. I mean, it's what you hear ALL the time...

So I'd work out three times a week, go for walks 2 - 3 times a week, and eat as little as humanly possible. (Seriously, I haven't eaten so much as a bite of pizza in 2 years!) And it was NOT working. I wasn't eating my flex points. I wasn't eating my Activity Points. I was hungry, angry, and gaining weight.

So, I decided, about a week ago, since I was gaining weight *ANYWAY*, that I would experiment.

I'd see if maybe Spark People had a clue.

They don't "reward" exercise with more food. Nutrition and fitness are completely separate. You set up a goal for working out and you set up a goal for losing weight.

Spark People said I should be getting 1,500 - 1,800 calories per day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. (Ish.) According to my strict Eat Less WW policy, with my 19 points, I was getting between 900 and 1,200 calories a day.

So starting on Monday, I pushed it. I was gaining weight anyway. I hadn't seen the inside of a WW meeting hall in over a month. It wasn't going to matter to anyone BUT ME if I put on another five pounds.

Instead of counting points, I've been counting calories. Not worrying so much about fat content. Not worrying about high fiber foods. (Especially not the crap I've been eating recently trying to keep my points down, like absurdly high fiber yogurt. I mean, really? What is IN THAT stuff anyway. It's YOGURT. There shouldn't be FIBER in my yogurt!) Not worrying about getting in my "healthy oils". Tracking how many fruits and vegetables I've been getting, how many grams of protein.

This is only week one. It may change.

But this week, I've gone from 141.1 to 138. That's over three pounds.

In a week!

And I'm less cranky, less hungry, and feeling LOADS better.

Thanks for getting me to where I am, WW... but it may very well be past time to part ways.

It's not you.

It's me.