Caffeine no more.

I have been looking more seriously at the changes that I need to make. Diet, exercise, healthy living.  Everything just seems so overwhelming.  Two weeks ago I decided to cut out one thing that is affecting me: caffeine.  I'm not someone who drinks six cups of coffee per day, but I do drink a grande cup of Starbucks soy chai each morning (sometimes two in a day!).  When I don't drink it, I find myself suffering by noon.   I started researching some of the side effects of caffeine.  Anxiety is one that stuck out;  I have self-diagnosed PMDD, so in my research I saw that caffeine is pretty bad for someone with PMDD.  I also go through the "crash" during the day where I feel terrible, am groggy, etc.  So I decided to quit my super expensive habit of drinking Starbucks. 

The first day failed as I had my chai before work; my co-workers were really hard on me because they knew what my plans were.  The next day I succeeded.  I had a headache by noon, and took two naps at two hours each; it was difficult to say the least.  Day two I slept later than usual by about two hours (9:30am). I felt okay in the morning, but knew that once I was a few hours past my first normal dose of caffeine, I'd feel the side-effects.  Yep, I dragged myself to work and had an exhausting day.  My muscles hurt everywhere and I felt dehydrated, no matter how much water I drank.  I felt out of it the whole day, and my co-workers, boss and even a random customer asked me what was wrong. 

Day three was still exhausting -- all of my muscles ached, I felt tired all day and I still felt like I was in a funk.  My boss wanted to strangle me.  I was annoyed and had a shorter fuse than normal, which was tough because I've made some huge personal strides at work lately. 

The rest of the first week went okay; I found that I stopped enjoying the breakfast sandwich I normally got from Starbucks, because the two items usually go together and it just wasn't the same.  It left me with positive and confused feelings all at once; I have stopped spending $7-8 per day on Starbucks, but my routine was always to start there.  I usually start my day with a drive with my dog so that can have something exciting to do.  I do this because he used to get sick quite frequently when I took him to the dog park.  So, what now?  I substituted other things - Subway breakfast sandwich, a stop off to get a bagel, etc.  So, it is just confusing. 

I've just completed the second week of being caffeine (well, Chai) free.  The end of my first week, and the beginning of the second week were interesting. I have noticed that I'm more depressed lately and I'm much more lethargic. I kind of miss the jolt in the morning where I have a great bolt of energy, but I don't miss the afternoon lull or the sweating and rapid heartbeat if I drank chai too quickly.   I'm moving in a couple of months to another city, and my life and my job are almost up in the air which are most likely contributing factors, but I can't help but think that the lack caffeine is not helping me.   I don't want to start drinking it again, and I look forward to see how I can progress. 

Back again... Secret Service Hotties and raw foods.

I took my camera to DC today and SWOON to the Secret Service.  What's up hotties? I mean seriously; I walked for around 20-30 minutes, did a huge perimeter of the White House, and I saw maybe 20 Secret Service guys who were dressed like police (same types of outfits, but they were SS).  I swear to you out of 20, at least 18 were gorgeous, and the others were still good looking, just a little too short for my desires.  In my head I was screaming "What's cookin' good lookin'!?" and hope that it never came out aloud...

Well I'm back (again).  Every time I begin a new diet regiment (or rather re-start a better lifestyle) I become super "cravey."  I suddenly want Mexican food or fast food.  For example, I don't eat fast food (i.e. McDonalds, Burger King or Wendy's), but I've been suddenly craving Taco Bell like crazy. I don't even like Taco Bell!  I have decided that instead of doing calorie counting or Weight Watchers or anything like that, I'm going to try to just eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible in place of the crap foods that I'd usually eat.

I pulled out the almost never-opened Raw Food cookbooks that I have and am going to try to make more raw foods. For breakfast instead of Starbucks I'm going to try to make fruit smoothies and eat a Larabar about an hour after that. Then, instead of fast meals that I can microwave, I'm going to try to make sandwiches with no bread, or eat salads and foods like that.  We'll see how it goes.  I won't go 'cold turkey' into raw foods or anything, because I know that I always have the boomerang effect.  I need to have an egg in the mornings some days, I won't allow myself to feel guilty for it.

I also need to get back to the gym. I wish I liked the gym.  I am going to try to do other things, like hiking, biking, walking the dog etc.  We'll see how it goes!

Have a happy Easter / Passover / Sunday / Day off of work!

What a change...

So, one would think that going to one of the largest and most incredible, populated, busy cities in the world would create a strong desire to work out like crazy and eat healthily.  Well, I thought I ate healthy. I made it a point to walk no less than 15 blocks north at lunch before I ate lunch and turned around to walk 15 more blocks, so that I would get some exercise.  In the evenings I walked between 15-40 blocks before turning around also.  I calculated it and I walked between about 3-6 miles per day.

I ate salads and hummus, made sure to get fruit salad almost every day, ate few "bad" foods, although I ate out for every meal.  I tried to eat at healthy, local and fresh-food serving restaurants and did fairly well, but I do know that I made some poor choices. So, I didn't lose weight. In fact, when I started this new job I was 256 pounds. This morning I was 260 pounds. This was in two weeks.  Travel days were the worst - I have a history of traveling and eating in train stations and airports, eating pretty much crap.  Well, in three weeks I had 6 very long travel days. I know I ate poorly on each of those days.

I feel bloated, gross, lethargic, depressed. I don't feel like I did when I was unemployed but exercising super regularly, eating homemade foods.  This training that I've been in is nine hours long, with a one hour lunch.  By the time I get back to my hotel (after working and walking) I've been up for about 13-15 hours, and I just don't feel like jumping on the elliptical or treadmill, or even doing 20 minutes of weights.

It's horrible to say aloud how much this job is making me miserable so far.  I was made to feel really uncomfortable (by the way of sexual harassment) by someone in a higher up position (whom I will not work with other than the work that has already happened).  I met someone from another location who was an absolute D-BAG, who made the weeks suck even more by putting everyone (me) down to make him/herself seem super awesome and amazing.

I applied to a university today. I hope I get in and can afford to go. I really want to go to school full-time and maybe work part-time.  I want a job that I love, or at least look forward to going to each day.

I can't believe that I've turned such a corner, and for the worse. A month ago I was feeling okay, feeling like I was doing well or at least tolerantly well with weight loss. I honestly expected myself to be 10-12 pounds less by now than I currently weigh.

Also, my sister joined an online dating site last week and convinced me to do it, so I did it today. Then I read an article where a man said that he won't date women over size 12, 14 is pushing it.  He said 16 or higher is just gross. Awesome.  What a smart time to join a website, right?

Oy.  Does anyone have ANY suggestions or ideas as to how I can pull myself out of this slump?  Please reply, Any help or suggestions would be amazing.