On again off again. On again for good!!

Well I keep going back and forth. I have great intentions, I'm going lose weight and have a healthier lifestyle full of fantastic choices...and then something rolls around and the perogies look so good, or one piece of chocolate can't hurt too much (until it turns into 10 pieces of chocolate). I joined SparkPeople yesterday though and I definetely think it's going to help. I always thought I'd be a Fitday whore for the rest of my life, and while it's nice SparkPeoplejust seems to have it all going on. I love that it gives you mealplans (even if I don't use them, simply because I don't have most of the things on their mealplans), I love that it gives you an exercise plan that you can do at home without having to go out and buy a ton of weights, I love that you can set other goals and track them everyday aside from the normal goal of "lose weight". There actually isn't anything yet that I don't love about it.
So I'm moving on from the food I had over the past week. I had tons of bad choices, and there was only one night where I actually binged...but a bunch of bad choices over a day easily adds up to over 2000 calories, and I need to be in the 1200-1500 range. I'm going to try to use this blog to focus more on what I've done good. I have so much self hatred, I don't need one more place for me to write it down and make myself feel worse, when my goal is to learn to love myself more. Of course I'll mention the bad things I've done, but I'm not going to focus on them.

Today, what I did right:

I ate breakfast
Not only did I eat breakfast, I ate oatmeal for breakfast. This is a huge step for me that I've been able to do lately. Growing up I couldn't even looking at oatmeal, the taste wouldn't necessarily be bad, but the texture literally made me gag if I tried to eat it. Apparently something's changed, and I loooove it. That and the instant stuff made by Quaker seems to have the perfect balance of sweet but not too sweet, which is good. I don't have too much of a sweet tooth, particularly in the morning, but most days this seems just right.

I didn't go out for lunch
Even though I forgot to pack one. I realized at breakfast time that I didn't have a lunch with me, so instead I ate two packs of oatmeal since I was still hungry and eating two would keep me fuller throughout the day and less likely to go to a fastfood restaurant or to the vending machine. I did end up going to the vending machine, but only because I knew that lately they've put in a slightly healthier choice of Cheecha Krackles. Admittedly they're not perfect, but they're much better than the Miss Vickie's Salt and Vinegar chips that were calling my name. To go with that I also had an AllBran bar that I had at my desk. I know that most "bars" aren't that fantastic for you, and I should have had actual AllBran rather than an AllBran bar, but cereal is hard to keep and eat at work, and it's better than a chocolate bar!

I didn't stick around work for cheap french fries
The cafeteria is only open some days, and then it does open it doesn't open until 4:30pm for the night shift. I was planning on leaving at 4:30 today instead of 5 so I could meet my bf at the library and then go home, and there were so many thoughts of "well it'll take him longer than you to get to the library, so why not stick around and have some super cheap french fries and cheese sauce". I love love love french fries, especially with cheese sauce, so to just walk out the door at 4:30 was a big step for me.

I walked to the library instead of taking the train
It's only a 15-20 minute walk, but some days, particularly days like today where it was snowing a bit, it seems so much more appealing to be undercover on the train. But today I decided to walk it and felt better for it.

I didn't stop at Arby's on my way to the library
Usually when I do end up walking I completely defeat the purpose and stop at Arby's for some fries! Can you tell that fries are a huge weakness for me? If I could pick one food to make an automatic free food it would definetely be french fries. I have such a salt tooth it's crazy and I'm a big potato fan, have been ever since I was little. But today I didn't succomb to the delicious temptation, and while I'm still craving salt like mad I think I'll have a pickle instead haha.

So I think I did pretty good. I had been planning on using the exercise bike at home (since going to the gym kinda fell through since the bf and I only got a couple hours of sleep and were exhausted), but we ended up just going to bed at 7. But I'm up now for a couple hours so maybe I'll do something before I fall back to sleep (though if I'm smart I'll use this chance to catch up on some sleep. Exercise is good, but it's hard to even function without enough sleep). I should have something to eat though, I've had a lot of carbs today and not enough calories since supper ended up just being a bowl of brown rice before I passed out. But then there's that nagging beast in my head telling me that if I don't eat anymore then maybe in the morning I'll be below 195 (yep, I'm back up there). But maybe I just won't bother weighing in the morning and take 195 as my Wednesday Weigh-In. This is probably the smartest idea, so I think I'll go with it. Nutrition is more important than losing a bunch of weight (especially since this weekend I had creeped up to 197, so I have fixed things a bit).

Other happy news! I had an appointment with my plastic surgeon, and she looked at my boobs, finally took all the paper tape off (I know, it's only been a month, but I wanted to see what they really really looked like damn it!) and she said that they're not perfect yet, but looking really good for the stage they're at. I was grabbing my pills tonight and I was completely topless and I had a chance to really look in the mirror (I'm so bad about doing that, I like to pretend my body doesn't exist for the most part), and I was so happy with what I saw. Everyday I'm happier and happier with my decision to have this breast reduction. Sure there's scars, but they're minimal compared to what other types of breast reduction surgery have (I don't have the big one that goes underneath the breast, but I do have the one that goes around the nipple and down), and there's a little bit of puckering on the one side, but she assures me that the puckering will go away (and if it doesn't they fix it), and the scars will fade at least a little. And ya know what? Even if they didn't, I'm so happy with the shape and the size I'd be ok with that. The scarring isn't too bad yet, and I could definetely handle it if it stays this way.

Food today:
Breakfast
Quaker Instant Oatmeal - Apple Cinnamon: 110
Quaker Instant Oatmeal - Maple and Brown Sugar: 120

Lunch
Kellogg's AllBran Bar: 130
Salt and Vinegar Cheecha Krackles: 89

Supper
Brown Rice with soy sauce, teriyaki, and hot sauce: 368

Snack
Chocolate (damn you Easter! I don't even like chocolate that much): 226

Total: 1043 (as you can see I need to have at least 150 more calories to hit my minimum calories, and I definetely don't want my metabolism to go into starvation mode)

Editted to add:
Supper
Brown rice with soy sauce: 119
Green Beans: 51
Parmesan Cheese: 10
Oh Naturel! Meatless Chicken Cordon Melts: 230

New Total: 1453

So maybe I'm just tired, but while looking up the nutritional information for the Meatless Chicken Cordon Melts, I was amused that it said on Schneiders website "A delicious breaded and stuffed meatless cutlet. Delicious served with brown rice and a side mixture of grilled vegetables sprinkled with Parmesan cheese." It's like I had my own little version of this without even looking at that site (just green beans instead of mixed grilled veggies) right down to the parmesan cheese. Are they ever right! It was delicious. Not the best fake chicken I've had, but it's good...the broccoli cheese ones are even better. And I like that they have the cheese in the middle that gives it the delicious cheesey flavor that I love, without having a whole crapload of cheese to majorly up the calories.

p.s. I fell within all but two of my nutritional goals on SparkPeople *thumbs up*
Folate and calcium were too low, which I should really up...maybe I'll start taking a folate supplement. I want to have kids sometime before I'm 25 (or maybe when I am 25...that'd work too) and they recommend that you take folate for a few years before you have kids to promote a healthy pregnancy...not sure what it does, I should look it up sometime. I'm so bad about taking pills though, I'd be way better off if I could just find some really good high folate foods.