poll results

Thank you everyone who participated in my poll ! I consider myself lucky you all did since I have been so lax about blogging. let me just say I have a lot of catching up to do-- around here that is, in my little blogging world.
First I want to say I found both the poll results and the readers comments very interesting.
I wish I had the willpower to eat just fruits and veggies and protein but the sad truth is I think I would have to be checked into a mental hospital if I didn't get my almost daily dose of potatoes, be they boiled, fried, whipped or baked. There is something about them, any kind will do, Russet, Yukon, red, blue, ordinary (though I have to admit I'm not crazy about the fingerlings, something about them looking too much like fingers I guess, even their name kind of grosses me out) I'm just not sure I could live without my beloved potato past one week. I always had the feeling they were good for me and I always seem to feel so good after eating one. Besides, regardless of the bad rap they get they really are good for you. Check out the facts here.
With 7 grams of fiber and 7 grams of protein a potato even has iron (which I desperately need) and vitamin C in it, the perfect combination for optimal iron absorption!
Thanks to your comments, I did start to stash some almonds in my purse in the event of a hunger attack. I even started weight lifting and I am also eating much less wheat, so it was very good of you to make these suggestions, thank you again! I've always felt small positive changes in habits add up to something bigger and these seem to be sticking.

So based on reading your comments and pondering & looking at this poll, I decided I will stay on Weight Watchers at least until the New Year. Part of my reason is I know who the two people are that voted yes, that I should definitely stay with WW, & I got to talk to them about it & they both said the same thing, stay with WW for the support. That made sense to me.
No more going in on Saturdays just to get weighed, I'm staying for the meetings, sharing my experience & start again, to listen to others. It is easier (& more fun) to accomplish things with help from other people, something I all too often forget.
Besides, is there any other diet where you can eat sugar and still lose weight?

Two weeks ago I lost 2 pounds at my WW meeting, but last week I didn't go so I am a little nervous about tomorrow. That in itself tells me I need to report to someone on a regular basis. If nothing else, I just don't want to gain anymore weight!
Thanks for listening, I'll keep you "posted"!

Please watch this! it only takes a minute...

I've sunk to a new low...

I've gained four pounds in the last two weeks, not exactly the low I was hoping for. The really rotten thing about this is the fact that as of today I have officially gained back all of the weight I have lost since I have started this second stint at WW not quite two years ago. All FOURTEEN pounds of it, how sad is that? That is more than my dog Priscilla weighs. & she gets awfully heavy if you carry her around for more than five minutes.
miss Priscilla, please click on photo to see her cuteness up close

The other twelve I have managed to keep off (thank the good Lord) since I originally began WW, I'm guessing that was four or five years ago.

I warned the woman who weighed me this morning that I thought I'd gained some weight this week. I could tell by the look on her face after she weighed me that it wasn't going to be pretty. Arrgh! what the hell am I doing? why can't I stay focused with my food plan? Seriously, I am not getting any younger. I wonder if I am just destined to be 20 pounds overweight the rest of my life.
It doesn't seem like Weight Watchers is working for me. Then I wonder if I am just not working Weight Watchers.
I am also wondering if I should quit this program. Then I think about how whenever I skip a week of getting weighed at WW I always gain weight. It's as if I need to be accountable to someone, I need to be honest about what is going on with regard to my weight or I'll just keep gaining. This never used to be the case with me. In the past, whenever I put on a few pounds I used too focus on whatever made me happy in life and bump up the exercise and I would start to fit into my clothes better. I never used to weigh myself either.
Would I keep spiraling down if I stopped Weight Watchers, or is it possible I could still do it on my own?

For today I've decided it is very important to me to lose this extra baggage that I feel has been weighing me down.
For those of you who question my weight loss ambitions please know I'm not exactly miserable, I just remember what it was like not having the extra weight on my body. I was much more comfortable.
Somewhere along the way I've lost the knack for maintaining a healthy body weight. I write about it here as I try and figure out how to get that balance back.
I miss running faster, waking up easier, having more energy, and I remember noticing big improvements in all three of those areas when I was 14 pounds lighter.

Please vote in my poll as to whether or not you think I should stay in WW. It's over on my sidebar to your right.
Some good news, I've been exercising a lot. I jogged 3 miles the other day and I felt great afterwards.

I hope you find this as funny as I did...

I just laughed and laughed. Why Kanye West's drunken debacle made news is beyond me. This comedian puts it all into funny perspective.

I gained 3 pounds last week!

oh well...
I didn't want to go to my Weight Watchers meeting this morning but I knew I had to because I didn't go last Saturday, I wasn't feeling well. And though I am not feeling so hot today, (I still have a cold) I knew if I skipped another week of getting weighed it could prove to be disastrous.
As I drove to my meeting I kept thinking I should just quit Weight Watchers. I thought maybe then I could relax, the weight will just drop off and things will just magically fall into place.
It's so weird how I seem to go through this reasoning every now and then, or should I say "magical" thinking? It must be a form of denial.
I mean, why don't I just stick to my program and lose the frigging weight already???
Pondering this, I looked back at the last time I was relatively successful at keeping my weight down. It was last winter, January of 2009. I was 6 pounds lighter. Ever since than I have been losing weight or gaining it back in two or three pound increments.
What does it take to be successful, to lose weight and keep it off?
This morning, Eileen, my Weight Watchers leader told my group, "Quitting is not an option".
Funny how that was exactly what I was thinking of doing this morning and that was one of the first things I heard her say not to do. She also said, and I am paraphrasing here, everyone cares about how they look, and when we take care of ourselves that is when we feel good about ourselves. We stand up straighter, we feel more confident, and we don't let people use us as a door mat. Then she said, "I demand to be treated well". Which made me think, why don't I demand that of myself? Why don't I treat myself well by putting my focus on achieving this one goal that I know will make me feel good about myself?
Every time I have succeeded in sticking to my program, my self esteem has gone up immeasurably and the cool thing is that self esteem naturally overlaps into other areas of my life.
I remember thinking when I lost the first fifteen pounds, if I feel this good now, how will I feel when I achieve my ultimate goal? Perhaps I am just scared to move out of my comfort zone?
I think it might be time for me to do some fire walking. In other words, I need to move out of my complacency or fear or whatever, and commit to taking the actions I need to take.
I need to do this because I really want to lose 18 pounds by November 12th.And I can't be afraid to say that just because I am afraid I won't be able to do it.
So, thanks Eileen, for saying the things I needed to hear.

this was the view from the breakfast room at Borgo Argenina, the place we stayed in Tuscany. I can still hear the birds singing.

We Will Never Forget

I read this on my friend Daryl's blog, Out and About in New York City, on the M104 this morning. I found this incredibly moving and I wanted to share it with you.
When I asked Daryl if I could reproduce it here, just as she did, she said, "absolutely".
Please visit her blog here where she also has a photo of the Twin Towers.
Thank you Daryl.



From the 104th Floor
by Leda Rodis (age 14 in 2001)

When the plane hit the building
rocked first
to the right
then
to the left,
and outside all the skyscrapers
of New York
seemed to tremble.

The alarms screamed louder
than we did, and I knew
it was time to get away. It's funny
what you notice:
a pen rolling across the floor
my screen saver flicker and go off
a picture of you
and me
at Coney Island.

So much to leave behind. And yet so little.

Running down the hall I remembered
my mother
taking me to the top
of the Empire
State Building when I was just
a little girl,
telling me that a plane
had crashed there a long
time ago. So I thought that maybe
that's
what happened. Just
an accident. And accidents
happen everyday.

Under the blown-out exit sign
a crowd
is screaming,
crying,
pounding
on the door.
I know:
There's

No
Way
Out.

You have to believe that I tried. I'm not the one
to give up.
Back at my desk, I rescue
the rolling pen,
stare
at the blank screen, and
hold
my picture
of you.
I look out
at the blue morning.
I expect
to see God there.
But what I really see is
another plane.
And I know what it means.
But I don't know why...

I always thought that life was full of choices.
It always has been.
What to wear
Where to eat
Who to love
(and you know who I chose).

Now my choices have been taken away from me.
The men in the planes have narrowed my choices
down
to
two:
Death by fire, or death by fall.

I see the smoke
rising
filling the room
It's hard to breathe

I look towards the open window.
What
would falling feel like?

I remember the roller coaster at Coney Island.

The wind tugging at my hair
How good it felt to scream.
The feeling in my stomach.

And how all the way down

I was with you.



many of you have asked who Leda Rodis is ...


ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, 14-year-old Leda Rodis was in her high school library in Vermont, researching a freshman English assignment, when the announcement came over the loudspeaker: airplanes had been flown into both towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Like people everywhere that day, Leda watched the unreal images on television as the mammoth structures burned, then collapsed, killing thousands. The image that stuck with Leda most was that of two very brave people jumping from the towers, holding hands. Rather than die in the fire the terrorists had created, they chose to jump. And they chose to do it together.


More than any other event in history, images from 9/11 are forever seared onto humanity’s collective consciousness. Every person has tried in some way to come to terms with that day. Leda decided to write a poem. “From the 104th Floor” flowed through her as if a voice had come up out of the rubble. Though it memorializes the events and feelings of that day, “From the 104th Floor” is in the end a love poem. An inspiration. Love is bigger than terror.


Leda’s mother shared the poem with a friend in Brooklyn, Serguei Bassine, a young filmmaker. The poem’s images dug so deeply into him that in the weeks following 9/11 he would stand up and recite it on his subway commute from Brooklyn into Manhattan. Each time he read he saw horror turn to grief and then to hope in the eyes of his rapt listeners. For a long time he wrestled with how to bring the poem’s images to film without violating the integrity of the poem, or the enormity of the experiences of the people who were lost. In the end he made a short film usingblack-and-white animation as a way of honoring both the writer’s vision and the courage of the people who perished.