Good morning, everybody!

Today is a bit of a milestone for me. We are officially through 4 weeks of the fiscal year, which means that I have 100 weeks until my mandatory retirement day. Each Friday afternoon will be 1% of my remaining work time. Woohoo!

So what part of Wicked Wine Run, held on October 27th, in the evening, at a really cool outdoor facility caused me not to realize that it was a Halloween event? What a dummy I can be sometimes. Although I was not in costume, there were tons of people who were, lots of groups with matching outfits, just a fun environment all around. There was a 5K(more on that) run at 4:00, and then a 1K wine walk at 5:30.

It was pretty chilly by the time that the race started at 4:20, so I was ready to run. When I finished, I asked Marilyn what time it was and she showed me 4:50 on her phone. I thought "that seems fake." And sure enough, Marilyn later mentioned that some people, who must have had GPS, had said that the course was more like 2.5 miles. 30 minutes for 2.5 miles is about a 37 minute pace for 5K, which I would be happy with.

Unfortunately, Marilyn didn't get to do the 1K because we had to rush home for a gala that we went to on Saturday night.

Today, I am in the office and a rest day from Crossfit. Hopefully, I can get a lot of stuff done and set myself up for a calm week.

QOTD: Yes. To my surprise, one area where I didn't have the thin privilege effect was work. My highest earning year were actually when I was obese and in the year right after surgery, which would have been based on pre-surgery results. I think that some unrelated factors offset any benefit that I would have had.

In my previous job (back in the 90's) any time that I mentioned promotion, the conversation somehow wound its way around to my weight, because "they were concerned about my health."

Breakfast: Bagel

Lunch: catered

Dinner: Some Indian dish that has required Marilyn driving all over Chicagoland looking for spices for my youngest. I will report back

Have a great day, all!

Good morning ~ Monday-Monday, here we go again! I had a nice weekend. A very lazy Saturday and a very productive Sunday so I'm ready for the week. Today I have a 11 hour day - yuck. I have an all-day online demo I need to score and post notes for, so no half paying attention and doing other work. I also have a deadline of 10/31 that I'm behind on and struggling to get done. I just need to make it to Friday, then I can breathe. I made my checklist of all the things I need to do daily to stay on track. I included some additional self-care items and geez it's a lot. Seeing it written out is overwhelming. Although I'd love to get an A+ everyday, I just want to be consistent. I finished Berry Pickers - good read. I had to pause The Shift in chapter 4. My mind kept wandering from the monotone so I'll finish later, a break will help. I just started The Housemaid and I'm totally intrigued!

QOTD: Weight stigma and thin privilege - what has your experience been with both?

People can be cruel. The looks, comments and the judgement - childhood was the worst because I didn't understand. There was always that teacher, cousin or kid in the neighborhood or at school who could make me cry. I will never forget how mean my brother was to me because my weight embarrassed him. Being the safe friend or friend zoned, invisible. I'm positive it only made me eat more and in secret, making it worse. Thankfully, there were/are many wonderful people in my life who didn't make me feel that way and I learned to handle it better as an adult. Thin privilege is mind blowing to me. It makes me mad, it's so unfair. People are nicer and I'm taken more seriously. No one looks in my grocery cart or bats an eye when I order food. I move through the world easier now. It's bittersweet.

Accountability - Fair but not horrible, I ended up over in cals and under in protein. 17 active minutes, 10,195 steps. Today I'm 168.0 and I have 30 minutes done on the treadmill.

B - coffee, TJ's eggwich

L - tuna celery and quest chips

D - eggbeater cheese wrap

s- jerky, string cheese, apple

Have a wonderful day!

When I was eating 600-800 calories and still couldn't lose for months at a time, I was so frustrated. It never made sense to me. One brutal online coach told me I was in denial about what I was really eating and saying there is no way that could be true. Sometimes? maybe that was true? but there were plenty of times where it wasn't. The wonders of the human body!

I agree with the calorie saving with diet soda, me too and I didn't care how it looked to people, though it is kind of funny... My first surgery my only instruction was to maintain my weight - don't lose, don't gain. The second time I had to do the 2 week LSD and that is protein shakes and a small list of protein choices for 800 calories I think - it was brutal but I lost 15 pounds.

Mornin' Weekenders!

I spent yesterday plowing through a book I had to read for a book discussion group that meets tomorrow morning. I need to get through another one in the next few days because I have a book review due (for a newsletter) on Nov 1 - cripes. On top of that, we went to a Homecoming bash (before the football game) at 4:00 PM yesterday - lots of food there, but I did OK - half a bratwurst, some mixed fruit, and about 1/4 cup of pasta salad. But once at the game - ugh. We had premium seats (thanks to the development director of the Athletics dept (we set up a scholarship for women's hockey in our trust recently - which explains how we managed to get the free tix to the box seats earlier this fall - and the premium seats last night). The premium seat section was attached to this "club" (you could see the game from the club - too - it was part of the stadium and had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the game) - all the free food you wanted. Tons of it. Including things like shrimp and crab legs! I blew it there. Six shrimp and about 1/4 c of roasted root vegetables (both of which were fine) - then I hit the dessert bar - 2 "gourmet" bar cookies and some apple crisp. Then later went back and had some Chex mix, about 2 oz of cheese, and some potato chips with French onion dip. I think that might have been it - but those desserts and Chex mix/potato chips pretty much killed me. Feeling it this morning. I've got two meals out this coming Thursday but I don't think anything else, so it's going to be super light eating most of this week.

QOTD: it's been so long I don't remember much, although I was obviously eating more than 3000 kcal a day, or I wouldn't have weighed well over 300 lbs. Even on my absolutely WORST days post-surgery (like Thanksgiving), I've topped out at about 2500 and felt like hell afterward. I can't believe I consistently ate a lot more than that before surgery - pretty much every day! Anyway, the couple things I do remember is my breakfast. Always a smoothie. Healthy, yes - but SO MANY CALORIES (at least the way I made them!). They would consist of a banana, a couple of peaches or a cup (at least) of melon, some berries, a bunch of plain Greek yogurt or half a chunk of tofu (for protein), and either milk or orange juice to get it going in the blender. So around 500 kcal there - plus the half & half in my coffee. Before I even walked out the door. We had a coffee shop on the first floor of the library I worked at, and I remember going downstairs several mornings a week around 10:00 to get another cup of coffee - with half & half - and a scone. So there's another 500-ish kcal. I usually brought leftovers for lunch. I must have had a snack in the afternoon, but I can't remember what. I did have a mini-fridge in my office where I kept things of yogurt and diet soda, so hopefully just that most days. I remember making microwave popcorn sometimes, though - and not the lighter variety. Dinner - I used to cook a lot more than I do now and I always made healthy things, but then, I always had two or three servings of whatever I made. So yea - just that right there is about a 3000 kcal day. And that doesn't even count the times we went out to eat - or the times I "overate" (compared to what I USUALLY ate...). When I went through my required six-month supervised diet before surgery, the dietitian had me eat 2300 kcal/day. That seemed like a really restrictive diet for me at the time. Do-able, but very restrictive. Now a 2300 kcal day would be a major binge day for me.

coffee with half & half

protein pumpkin muffin and a thing of Activia yogurt

not sure about the rest of the day because I'll be meeting up with my sister at some point (still haven't seen her yet, and she's been here since Thursday night), but after yesterday's blow-out, I will be eating very lightly today!! Maybe something like soup if we end up going out..

have a great day, everyone!