Adjusted Reality

Quick update because I don’t have that much to share, but blogging daily is helping me relieve a little stress this week…soooo….

Project: Unfluffy Bride

Yesterday I was so excited about my 3 lb loss.  I felt all spiffy and like I had found the answer.  It motivated me yesterday to stay on track and keep my calories low and I actually wasn’t even grumpy about it.  I don’t know if it was mind games or the fact that I ate really healthy yesterday so I had plenty of low calorie food like spinach and salad and soup and gardenburgers and all such things – but I wasn’t even miserable about it.

I got up this morning and stepped on the scale, happy and ready to face the day.  It spit back at me 155.2.  Yep, that’s all but 0.2 lbs gained back.  Yesterday was a freaky fluke.  Hello, motivation killer.

But I’m going to keep on it.  I am weirdly enjoying this lazy period of very little exercise, my body is probably in need of a break.  Today I was going to run, but I decided a dance class tonight sounded more up my alley.  I figure that it’s only 8 days (and the weekend will probably be a little higher anyway), so I might as well see what happens.  I know I’ll want to return to hard training soon, and I cannot train well without increasing my calories, so this is very temporary.

Some positives though – I also decided to give up coffee (my one cup of decaf) and instantly my stomach hasn’t been feeling as bloated.  Tea isn’t as good in the morning, but I know that’s a conditioned response of having coffee each morning.  And I need to splurge on better tea (I got the cheapest generic stuff and it tastes like cinnamon sticks and water).  All around eating less has made me choose what goes in my mouth very carefully, and I think I’m eating healthier in general.  I feel slimmer, which is really the point, right?  I’m not sure if it’s psychological or what, but the pooch is smaller than normal this week.

Wedding Stuff:

I have secured a ride to the craft store to deal with centerpieces the day before.  She seems excited about it, so that’s good.  I am still going to check on the flowers because they will be easier, but I have a feeling it’s going to be much more cost efficient to do something ourselves.

The next thing on the radar is parents gifts.  We’ve already taken care of the rest of the wedding party – but this is just hard.  My parents don’t go for kitchy things at all, like the sappy poem plaques and the hankies, and crap.  My parents and Zliten’s parents are just about opposite in every way, and we’d like to do the same thing for them so neither feels slighted.  Gift cards feel so impersonal.  I’d love to say we’re all going on a cruise next year, but that’s a LOT of money and I don’t what the time off situation will be like for everyone.  For my parents, they usually give a hint of what they want for Christmas, and for all other holidays we usually get them a card and take them to dinner.  I see a lot of traditional gifts are a frame with a wedding photo – well, that’s nice and all, but we won’t have the photos for a while…. any ideas?

Besides that, we just have the reception timeline and playlist (going to work on that this weekend), tinkering with my hair some more, buying lipstick (but thanks to a magazine ad in fitness I think I’ve found both the brand and the color I need), and purchase some dancing shoes for the reception – sandals might be comfy and all, but they’re hard to dance in… didn’t think I’d need TWO pairs of shoes for my wedding, heh.  The other thing I need to do this weekend is pre-pack everything to make sure it all fits in the suitcases we’re taking.

Too much to do, not enough time to do it.  That is the motto of the day…

I am officially going to forgo even the NOTION that I’m going to put together well thought out, informative posts until such time as I return from Vegas and am a happily married lady.  So, for the next two weeks, welcome to my stream of consciousness.   Here’s zee updates.

Project: Unfluffy Bride

Well, well, well.  I guess the voice in the back of my head was right.  See, I was trying “you can lose weight AND be as active as you are and eat like a normal human, really, you can do it!”…but I really suspected that it was more like “to lose the last 20 lbs, you’re going to have to go through some serious pain”.  Both in terms of working out less than I want to, and eating less than I want to.  I’m 2 days in and feel weak.  I don’t feel like I could go out and run for an hour today.  I did 30 mins of DDR and about 30 mins of weights, and I’m BEAT.  And this is after 2 full days (one unplanned) off.  Tomorrow I’m HOPING to go for a relaxed 5k jog but I’m not even sure I’ll be up for it.

The upside: I’m down 3 lbs.  From yesterday.  Pre-workout I weighed 153.0 and post workout I weighed 152.4.  Yesterday I was at 155.4.  Last week, my LOW weight was 156.4.  I don’t expect to continue to see results like this (nor do I want to – it’s just not healthy), but it is giving me the sign that this is the right thing to do.  If I can continue to lose a few ounces each day, I might even make my previous goal of being under 150 by the time I leave for Vegas.  If I find success with this method and want to continue after the wedding, I don’t think I can do it all the time.  I’m thinking maybe 1 week on, 1 week off or something.

So Monday Stats:

Numbers: 1271 calories in, 0 calories workout.

Mood: sorta dismal.  It didn’t help that I really front loaded my day with the calories (150 cal breakfast, 600+ calorie lunch since I went out to tex mex, and 50 calories fruit snack), but then I had to hit the grocery store hungry right after work, and it was PACKED.  By the end of the trip I was *overit*.  I had planned to do a short workout that evening but I was even more *overit*, so instead we had dinner.  Dinner was actually delicious and filling (a filet and a half of mahi mahi in lemon pepper, rice, and stir fry veggies), but then later we flipped on food network and it was Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.  Yeah, that’s helpful after day 1 of calorie restriction.

However, I have to say – seeing 152 point something on the scale made it worth it.   This may be the first time since my race I’ve been that low.  I was fearing that after the day I had it was going to be up to like 157 or something and I was going to be posting a very different thing today.  Today should be easier since I don’t have to navigate a restaurant menu and have big, filling, healthy meals planned, plus I’ve already got my workout done so I don’t have to worry about anything this evening.

Wedding Stuff:

It’s really hard to do this all remotely.  For example, they’re asking me about the table linen colors, and it’s hard to tell what they mean by purple – and saying deep purple isn’t really clearing it up (is deep purple plum or violet or what).  I’m going to walk into everything never having seen the cake, the flowers, etc – and that’s making me a little nervous.  What I do have to keep remind myself is… no one is going to remember if the table linens don’t exactly match the cake which doesn’t exactly match my colors and bouquet.

I’m still finding out how much centerpieces are going to be if they just take care of them, but I’m going to venture that it will be cheaper to do them myself.  The plan right now (unless the flowers end up being supah cheap) is to get to a craft store in Vegas the day before and pick up something, whether it be the tea lights/mirrors/flower petals idea or oversized glasses with something in them (I’d love to put real fish in them – how cool would that be – but since no one is really local, I don’t know what we’d do with them after).

Other things on the list include reception timeline (what happens when so our master of ceremonies can keep stuff moving along), reception play list, some of the wedding party gifts, a few hair and makeup details for me, and I think that’s about it.  Oh yeah.  And deciding whether to do purple and white linens or just white.  Hate that I don’t see anything until the day of.  Wish they could send over pictures – it’s kinda what I expected.  I’m a visual person, SHOW ME the color, don’t describe it.  Le sigh.

Anyone else have something cool to report?  My favorite thing right now is that it’s 12:30 and just about time to eat.  Hooray!

Images today by toothpastefordinner.com because…well, I wanna.