Failure Is Terrifying

I'm feeling a bit better today after being a total Danika Downer yesterday. So, we'll just do a daily recap like usual so you don't stop visiting my blog :-)


This morning, I didn't get up for the gym. My alarm went off and I shoved it back to 7:20 like a champ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get me started. We're just going to move on. But, since it's Wednesday, I did weigh in per usual. Last week (which I never posted because I didn't take a pic), I was at 217.2. This week's weight:

That's a two pound loss. Don't ask me how I lost two pounds because I honestly don't know. Maybe my wisdom teeth were really heavy. 


Anyway, as today was Carrie's birthday, I knew we would be going out for lunch to celebrate. So, I had to pack enough snacks for the entire day rather than just the morning like I usually do. So, while my bagel toasted, I collected some fruit.

I had some watermelon, grapes, and raspberries. I also took in my last box of South Beach diet bars. I don't know when they're going to come out with something new, but I hope it's soon! I may switch to Luna bars permanently if I can't find something, but I'm hoping I don't have to because they're kind of expensive.

Morning bagel

Once at work, I got a few last people to sign the birthday card we got Carrie yesterday and then I headed back to the office to procrastinate/waste time since that's what I seem to be doing most of the time now-a-days. Carrie arrived at 8:30 a.m. and loved that so many people had signed her card. What can I say, I had a lot of time yesterday to hunt people down.


The morning was pretty uneventful, per usual and then we headed to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. The good thing about Ruby Tuesday's is that they have a Fit and Trim menu where they feature meals under 700(!!!!) calories. I got the jumbo shrimp scampi with zucchini. Normally the meal comes with white cheddar mashed potatoes, but I decided to save some calories since I don't care for mashed potatoes much anyway. I'm guesstimating that my whole lunch was about 250-300 calories.


Lunch went a little longer than expected (1.5 hours) and then we headed back to work to do a whole lot of nothing. Then Carrie busted out the brownies that Leslie made for her. I caved and had three. Don't worry - they were small. But I am so sick of feeling as though I'm punishing myself to lose weight. And besides, I'm going to be starting something new that will hopefully help me to reach my goals (and I will tell you about it shortly).


After work, I headed to my leasing center to pick up my packages that contained my med school books! I was pretty pumped for their arrival because I'm a huge nerd that loves learning. The body is fascinating and I can't wait for school to start!

Oh, I know you're jealous of all this knowledge I'm about to have!


And then I headed to personal training with Mark. We did a lot of arm strengthening stuff today (yesterday we did core) and my arms felt like Jell-O afterwards. Since Mark had about half an hour to kill until his next client, we sat talking about his new job (I'm very proud of him - he's going to be the head trainer at another gym!) and some of my goals. I told him about how I've lost a bit of motivation and how I'm really scared of failing at my goals and gaining back the weight. And this is a real fear - one that I've struggled with for a long time.


Though I know this sounds conceited, I'm pretty much good at everything I do. I know that sounds terrible, but let's face it. I'm doing pretty well. High school? No problem. Graduated in the top ten percent, got into all the colleges I applied to and went off to the University of Michigan. College? Yeah, that was hard, but I came out with a pretty good GPA and a chemistry degree of which I'm pretty proud. Job? I'm making quite a bit of money, have great benefits, and mostly like what I do. Friends? Man, I've got some of the best. I love them with all my heart and they love me. Family? Okay, it gets a bit complicated there, but my mom's amazing and loves me a ton. My sister and brother, though not as close to me as my mother, would definitely be there if anything bad happened. So, I'd say I've got it pretty good. But, because I'm so used to everything working itself out, failure terrifies me. Now that there's something I really want (losing more weight and not gaining it back) and a huge possibility that I won't get it, I'm too scared to get invested. I just try to shove it off and not let myself have what it is I'm working toward so that I won't technically be failing if my work doesn't pay off. Make sense? Thought so. 


Anyway, I officially have 8.2 pounds to lose to reach my goal of being 207 pounds (one pound below my lowest recorded weight) by the time school starts on August 20. So, Mark told me I need to commit to working out twice a day. And you know what? He's right. Instead of being down on myself for not achieving as much as I want and being scared out of my mind that I'll fail, I need to just get up and do it. So, I'm doing a few things to help myself. But first, here's what I had for dinner:

Sweet potato "fries" and green beans

Oatmeal cookie for dessert

Alright, now what you've all been waiting for: what I'm going to do for myself so that I won't fail. Well, first of all, I'm throwing out this July Challenge. After all, today, I had dessert. Whoops. Also, I haven't really committed myself to it. So, now we're going to try something new. It's going to be my 30 day challenge because, as of tomorrow, I have 30 days until med school starts!


So what does the 30-day challenge entail? Not much.

1. I will work out twice a day and record it on a calendar
2. I will weigh myself and record my weight everyday

That's it. I think I set my sights too high with my July Challenge because this month I felt as though I was really restricting myself and setting myself up for failure. So, it's time to start again with something I feel as though I can actually achieve. 

To hold myself accountable, I made two sets of calendars for recording everything: one for recording my weight (which will be posted in my bathroom):

And one for recording my workouts, which will be posted on the door to my apartment:

So, I will be going to the gym tomorrow. I used italics so you know I really mean it! 30 days. 8.2 pounds. I can do this! I will not fail!

Imagine the biggest wrench ever...

It's 5:00 on a Friday morning. What are you doing? You're probably sleeping. What was I doing? I was hating the fact that my alarm was going off and that it was time to get my lazy butt out of bed to go to the gym. But, I went. I got a good hour of cardio in and then had the same breakfast as yesterday.

I got to work right on time and was prepared to go play my role in the April Fool's joke we had prepared for my boss Mike. Carrie, Sheli, and I had decided that each of us would go into Mike's office and quit; I was going to go to grad school, Carrie was going to move to Chicago, and Sheli was going to be a stay-at-home mom. I went first and told Mike that I got into grad school and would be leaving. He was really supportive and asked me where I was going to school, what my stipend would be, and when I'd be leaving. I made everything up as I went, and then he told me he would e-mail the president and everyone to let them know they should start searching for my replacement. I left quickly and told Carrie to hurry her butt up and get in Mike's office so that he couldn't send the e-mail. However, when she got in Mike's office, Carrie completely caved and told him that it was a joke. But, I didn't know this. So when Mike came and called me back into his office, I was a little nervous. He shut the door and told me that despite the fact that it was April 1st, this joke was completely unprofessional and he would need us to turn in our badges. Then he asked if Sheli was in on it too. I told him that Sheli was maybe involved, but it was all in the spirit of fun. He called Sheli into the office too and she presented us with a cookie cake that said "April Fools Suckers!" with two rings that said "FAIL" on them. She totally switched sides on us! And she totally threw a huge wrench in my staying in my calorie range goals...

Cookie cake

I had about...oh...four slices. Why? Because it was sitting right in the office willing me to eat it. And my willpower today was at an all-time low. I blame the frosting. I love frosting. A lot. So, um, oops? But I kept lunch pretty light - just some soup.

After lunch, I moved the cookie cake to the lunchroom. Because if I had to look at it any longer, I knew I'd gobble up the rest. Gah. But I'd like to celebrate a little victory, if I may. When I have a bad food day, I usually just say to myself, "Screw it. I'm already way over, so why not go ahead and eat anything and everything!?" But tonight I didn't do that. So yay for me. What did I do tonight you ask? I went and got a car wash (it's so pretty!) and I watched about 8 episodes of 30 Rock. Woot. This show is hilarious.

So fresh and so clean, clean

Do you marathon any TV shows?

Giving into temptation rids you of temptation...

So, since I talked about portion sizes yesterday, I think it'd be fitting to tell you all about my day today and how I didn't bother with them yet again.

So Sheli brought in Cadbury mini eggs. Now, if you've never had them, let me assure you: they're crack in chocolate form.

crack Cadbury mini eggs

It wouldn't have been so bad if Sheli had just left them in the bag (out of sight, out of mind), but no, she put them in a beaker (the chemist's equivalent of a candy dish). So, basically, the eggs were sitting there screaming at me to put them in my belly. And since I'm not one to say no, I ate them. A lot of them. Mostly I waited until Carrie and Sheli weren't in the office and then ate like 6 at a time. And this didn't happen just once. It happened several times. So, I looked up how many eggs were technically in a serving. Twelve. I'm guessing I had somewhere between 2 and 3 servings. Probably closer to 3.


Now before you jump to comment below about how bad I was, it gets worse. At lunch, there was a "crock off." People brought in crock pot dishes and there was a contest for best dish, etc, etc. Well, I decided to go home for lunch where I could control my calorie intake and so I could get some shorts for my knee brace fitting later.

My lunch!

But when I got back to work, they were just breaking out the dessert. And guess what it was? An assortment of mini cupcakes. Really? Now how could I say no to that? I couldn't. Duh. So, I had two. I mean, they're mini cupcakes, so two's not that big of a deal. And then I made a second trip to get two. After that, I made a third trip. And then a fourth one, though I only got one during my fourth trip. But if you do the math quickly, that's seven mini cupcakes, which is about five too many.

So, by this point you're probably getting ready to write me a comment telling me how disappointed you are, but don't worry. I did something worthy of redemption - kinda. Well, it's going to start out sounding bad, but it's not that bad. So, about a month ago I bought fudge from Carrie (it was a fundraiser for her kids' school). Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was setting myself up for trouble. But it's fudge from Mackinaw Island. And it's been featured on Food Network. And it was only $6. And it was for a good cause: the education of tomorrow's leaders. I had to.

But, because I know myself, I decided I need to do something to make myself accountable for not eating the whole delicious block in one day. Because, not to brag or anything, but that's not even a challenge for me. So, I took the block o' fudge out and decided to trace its outline on a piece of paper and then eat an appropriate serving size.

Outline of block o' fudge

Fudge with a ruler so you can get an idea of its size

Block o' fudge missing a chunk

Also, after eating this chunk o' fudge, I put it in one of the cabinets so as to forget about it for a bit even though I'll probably be obsessing about it for a while. I'll try to post a pic everyday, but there will be some days when I hopefully will have forgotten about it completely so I don't eat it all too quickly.

In other news, my knee brace fitting went well today. I should have them in maybe 2-3 weeks. I'm excited about them because they basically will force my knees to be aligned the proper way and should improve my range of motion. I mean, I can't get too crazy and go running, but I should be able to do some more cardio exercises with Mark. I also checked with the nurse about the synvisc injections and she's supposed to call me back within the week about scheduling that.

For those of you who have reached this point in my daily ramblings blog, I want to thank you. It's hard for me to talk about my downfalls and obsession with food. And it's even harder to put myself out there and admit to eating 7 mini cupcakes. But I know you'll support me. Tomorrow will be better. And instead of beating myself up about some poor decisions, I'll channel that energy into my work out. I've just got to keep at it!