There is a mountain...

the size of a bull elephant on my dining room table. It's flowing onto the floor and spreading out of the room altogether. The majority of the contents of this mountain came out of my closet.

You see, it's almost time for the kids to go BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! I was just at Walmart the other day, picking up some Kashi cereal bars, and there were aisles and aisles of school supplies...all shiny and beautiful and whispering the reminder that it's a time of joy and celebration. Back to SCHOOL is ever so much better than just about any other holiday...in my humble opinion. My older son has gone from 270 something pounds...wearing a TIGHT 38 inch waist...to 195 pounds...wearing a 30 inch waist. He NEEDS new clothes! My younger son has grown at least six inches in the past couple of weeks. He NEEDS new clothes as well! However, in order to determine exactly what they need (they've got to have some underwear or something that still fits, right?)...I make them go through their closets and pull out everything that no longer fits or is in some other manner unsuitable to keep. If they can swap stuff around, great. If not, I don't force the issue.

This year, I decided not to be a hypocrite. It was high time I cleaned out my own closet. Since my ass expanded, I've been living in a land of delusion...hanging onto the "skinny jeans" and various and sundry other clothes that I thought I might wear again. I'm not talking about stuff from just a few years ago when I was wearing a normal size skinny jean...I'm talking about stuff from...get this..."back in the day!" I know!! Crazy, isn't it? My goal isn't to have the body I did from "back in the day!" If anything, I'd like to have a BETTER body than that...healthier...stronger...more toned...not just thin.

So, I cleaned out the closet. Every single item of clothing that is too small, regardless of whether or not I think I might fit in it again a week from now or a year from now is going to charity. Every single item of clothing that is too BIG is gone too. I'm done hiding my fat ass under giant sweaters and, for the love of God, I made my husband promise to divorce me if I ever bought another VELOUR JOGGING SUIT!! I am too young and not nearly fat enough (enormous ass or no) to wear velour jogging suits. What the hell was I thinking?

The funny thing is that the majority of what I'm left with is...EXERCISE CLOTHES!!! Are you surprised? I'm not. That's really all I ever wear anymore. If we go out, dressing up consists of a "nice" t-shirt and khakis or jeans...and I still have some of those left that fit me now. I don't need to be going out very often right now anyhow. It's too damn hard to keep track of what I'm eating when I do.

I might go to Academy or something when I take the kids clothes shopping and fill out my current wardrobe with a few more things to wear to the gym...but, other than that, I'm not going to buy any more clothes until I hit my ultimate goal. When I do, my sweet hubby had better hide the American Express card...because my new skinny ass and I will be going on the shopping trip to end all shopping trips!

According to the...

scale at my endocrynologist's office, I have managed to lose a whopping SEVEN pounds in the past SIX months. I guess I'm happy that I didn't gain weight with all the crap that's been going on...but damn...I wish I'd managed to pull off a better number than that.

Oh well, what's done is done.

I am slowly but surely RE-learning how to manage my stress levels and keep them from causing me to shove food down my gullet like a half-starved oil soaked pelican. I am slowly but surely RE-learning how to get up off my fat ass and get more exercise without hurting myself. I am slowly but surely RE-learning how to keep track of the math and know that if I consume less calories than I burn I will lose weight.

I just need to finish "slowly but surely" RE-learning all this so I can get moving towards my goals at a faster clip. I'm going to be turning 40 in less than a year. I just caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day and, in addition to the Louis Vuitton trunk sized bags under my eyes and the deeply stressed and furrowed brow, I SWEAR I saw...get this...not just double chins...but CELLULITE on my neck!! How the hell did I get cellulite on my neck? I don't even have that much cellulite on my enormous ass (don't get any funny ideas, ass, I KNOW you're listening!)...so, how could it possibly be on my neck??!! I have no answer to this horrifying question, but I do know that it WILL BE GONE before my next birthday!

One step at a time...when I keep them up, sometimes they add up to 20,000 steps a day and that, my dear friends, is a LOT of ass burning steps.

A little less than...

one down (0.8 to be precise)...many more to go. I didn't quite hit the two pounds my bugg and I were shooting for this week, but I'm going to call it a success regardless. I still lost and thankfully didn't GAIN!

Success points:

* I managed to keep track of what I was eating...EVERY SINGLE DAY!
* I managed to get to the gym (only once but I was doing PLANKS - real ones!)
* I did my physical therapy on the bike on 4 other days besides the gym day.
* I had LOTS of opportunities to make some really bad food choices and passed them up.
* I had calorie deficits on days when I thought I was going to have
surpluses...just because of extra activity.

For the sake of not psyching myself out, I'm not going to call them "failure" points:

* On one day, I ate and ate and ate...and didn't exercise...and ended up with a
calorie SURPLUS of over 1800 calories!
* I used food, once again, to comfort myself during a stressful situation. I could actually feel the anxiety melting away as I scarfed down my massive plate of Chili's french fries. Some people have their alcohol, or their drugs, or whatever. It seems I have food. There, I admitted it. Hi, my name is Naomi and I'm a food addict. (Y'all are supposed to say, "Hi Naomi!" and welcome me to the meeting or something now.)

I miss being able to get up in the morning and drive to the beach for a swim in the ocean. That was a better stress reliever than a plate of french fries. Much better.

Three weeks...

from today I'll be taking my husband to San Antonio to celebrate his birthday. We're staying in a gorgeous hotel on the Riverwalk. We have reservations in two of the best restaurants in San Antonio. We'll be shopping for quirky souvenirs at El Mercado. We. Will. Be. Swimming. With. The. Belugas. At. SEAWORLD!! For those of you that have never heard of a Beluga...imagine a dolphin...increase its size by about three times...make it white...squish its face in a bit...there you go, that's pretty much a Beluga.

So, my fat ass and I will be at Sea World, celebrating my dear husband's birthday, by swimming around in a giant aquarium with the adorable baby Belugas. My favorite bathing suit is primarily black with a "slimming" white stripe. All I can think about is the shouts of terrified children, "OH MY GOD, MOMMY! SHAMU IS TRYING TO EAT THE BELUGAS!!!!"

It gets better. There is going to be a professional photographer too.

Honey, if you didn't know how much I loved you before, please know it now...and promise me that if they try to capture me and toss me back in the tank with the other killer whales you'll speak up before it's too late.

Ass, suck it in or you'll be muu-muu'd.

Normally, seeing...

an account deficit of 1055 would FREAK ME OUT!! As a matter of fact, before I checked, and double-checked the Bodybugg FAQs, it did freak me out. Guess what? Having a deficit on the Bodybugg is a GOOD thing.

I've never claimed to be good at math. Weight loss is all about math. Thankfully, the Bodybugg is doing math for me. It has determined that it's a healthy goal for me to lose 2 pounds a week. Initially, I had overridden its suggestion and told it I wanted to lose FIVE pounds per week. The bugg was upset about this idea, but let me have my way. I tried. I was not successful. The bugg was right. Being unsuccessful was depressing. It made me want to flush the bugg. But, considering that the bugg was a) very expensive piece of electronics and NOT a cockroach...so therefore, probably not easily flushable...and b) a birthday gift from my husband, I decided to bust it out again and give using it another shot. This time, I let it set the goals.

I think I understand the math now. 3500 calories to burn a pound, right? Today, having KEPT MY PROMISE to myself to log my food...I know that I ate just a little less than 1200 calories. I also know, according to the bugg, that I burned a little over 2200 calories. Take the difference and what do I end up with???? I end up with a calorie deficit of 1055...according to the Bodybugg. Well, if I really push my math skills to their outer limits...I can figure that if I can do that again tomorrow...and the next day...and the next...and so on...for the rest of the week...that by the end of the week...I will have a total calorie deficit of about 7000. Now, according to my math, 7000 divided by 3500 (the # of calories it takes to burn a pound!!)= 2!!!! How crazy is it that the Bodybugg KNOWS that too? Amazing...almost like magic.

I can't wait to see how it all adds up tomorrow.

What "they" say...

is true. You really do need to write down what you're eating. Well, maybe YOU don't...but I do. It's so damn easy to trick myself into thinking that I'm eating less. A little bite here...a little bite there...all those "little bites" add up to a couple of extra meals (maybe more) by the end of the week. When I don't write down what I'm eating, invariably, I don't lose weight...or worse, I gain!! I've been kidding myself for the past couple of weeks. I've done a great job "automating" my meals...especially breakfasts and lunches during the week. Weekday dinners and weekends still get away from me. This week, for example, I got up every morning and ate a hard-boiled egg and an orange for breakfast...for lunch, I had a big, green salad from the grocery store salad bar (lots of fresh, raw veggies, a couple of ounces of lean protein, and a tablespoon of dressing)...dinners, who knows? Does anyone know what I ate for dinner? I have no clue. It was different every day and I didn't write it down. See the problem?

So, I promise myself this: starting tomorrow morning, I will write down what I'm eating. Every bite of food that goes in my mouth will be documented. At the end of the day, I'll log it all into the Bodybugg system. It'll all be there...staring me in the face...inescapable...unavoidable. I won't be able to kid myself about the extra couple 100 calories of this or that...here and there. My ass won't be able to kid me about it any more either.

One step at a time.

Sometimes I've got...

to wonder if my Mother-in-law is conspiring with my ass against me in this battle. I leave names off the internet to protect the innocent and the guilty...but hubby's Mommy: if you're reading this, you KNOW I adore you, so please don't take this the wrong way!! Good lord woman!! Two bags of Italian Vanilla Mini Wafer Squares???!?? Seriously?! By the way, just because I KNOW they're your son's FAVORITE doesn't mean he automatically has dibs on them if you forgot to label them with his name, does it? You sent over TWO BAGS of those delicious little crispy, creamy, trans-fatty, morsels of deliciousness. One bag was mostly gone before breakfast. So, now you know why I didn't have room for nice fresh healthy fruit salad this afternoon.

Ass - 1 : Naomi - 0

Thank goodness I gave the elder teenager permission to take away my television, phone and internet privileges if I didn't do my cardio this evening. I'm sure he'll be taking that responsibility very seriously.