an apple a day

today was fun. my mom, sister and i went shopping at fred meyer then had lunch at taco time. it was tasty. it was kindof a big meal, so i didnt eat much all day after that. i had a really big apple on the way to my sister-in-laws house for scary movie night. while there, my sister and sister-in-law had mac n cheese, but i dont like that, so i didnt eat it. i had some goldfish though. i was proud of myself for eating an apple, and a big one at that. i usually dont like apples, but i think i may be starting to like them now. we'll see.

things are lookin up

today was great, up until 11pm. i spent most of the day with a friend making cards and calendars and awesome crafts in general. she made me some fresh juice and it was delicious. come lunch time we had soup. all good things. i am thankful to her for keeping me on track whether she realized it or not. sometimes it helps to be out of my house too, because the holiday food is still lingering. i will be glad when that disappears altogether.
i left my friends house around 630 and came home to those terrible christmas goodies. LUCKILY, they are dwindling down so it's getting down to the stuff i dont want. i probably had a cookie or two and then it was time to be on the road again. i took my sister to babysit and then headed home and went on the computer. when i picked her up from babysitting at 11pm though, we went to the drivethru at mcdonalds. i had a mini meal which consisted of a mcChicken with no mayo and a small fry with a small diet coke. it was tasty and everything i wanted.
id say that was a better day.

today wasn't even a good try

let see...what did i eat today that didn't come out of that cookie jar??? hmm...sadly, i think the only thing that wasn't Christmas crap was...pie...nope, that's Christmas crap too...water?
i stayed in my room most of the day doing crafty things with my new Christmas present (scrap booking paper cutter, a "cricut"), blogging, playing "fishville" on Facebook, and being lazy in general. I'll take that shower i needed to take, tomorrow morning before heading over to my awesome friend's house for more craft time.
anyway. i did have some fake pepperoni stuff that is more like summer sausage. still evil food...nope, today was bad too. ugh. why cant i do it? what i really mean is "why am i NOT doing it?". i know i can do this, get the weight off. i have done it in the past and felt awesome because of it. i need to focus in and work my plan and exercise and drink my water. i also really need to start up taking my vitamins again, and the omega 3 oil supplements. maybe my hair crap (dandruff stuff) will get better too then. ugh.
i sit here in my room drinking water because i didn't have liquid today. and I'm thirsty. i know that when I'm thirsty it's supposed to mean that i am already dehydrated. so my plan is to drink water all night. i will not be up all night peeing because...I'm not like that. my body can hold it in and get the sleep it wants, and then when i finally wake up, I'm about to burst. TMI.
well, goodnight dear void. you are a therapeutic outlet for me even when things don't go the way I'd hoped. I'm so glad the Internet came to be. what a wonderful invention.

"Food for thought"

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
-Louisa May Alcott

Unknown Author
You don't realize how strong a person really is until you see them at their weakest moment.

Unknown Author
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.

Julius Erving:
If you don't do what's best for your body, you're the one who comes up on the short end.

Winston Churchill:
Never, never, never, never give up.

Horace:
Rule your mind or it will rule you.

If you wish to grow thinner, diminish your dinner.
Henry Sambrooke Leigh

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.
Peter De Vries

Let your head be more than a funnel to your stomach.
German Proverb

i didnt get this way by eating too many apples...

you know when you were a kid on the playground and you loved to spin around and around with your arms way out feeling how good it was to be alive and feel the wind in your sails?...well, when youre an adult, its like that, but to me its like a personal vacation from my life. i spin and spin (not ACTUALLY, this is a metaphor or something) and then i get that really good feeling right before i hit the ground or something close by, stopping me. it seems the only way to stop spiralling out of control is to smack right into something. i guess its that old saying "you have to hit rock bottom before you can make your way to the top". i feel this right now. ive not stopped my (probably emotional eating) spiral yet, but i for some reason can still enjoy that feeling of the lack of control. i know i will have to hit rock bottom sometime soon. i want to. how far off the course do i have to get to make myself come back and gain control?

wanted: perfect balance

today wasnt better than yesterday, but it was different. i woke at noon and watched some movies and ate some christmas cookies....this isnt sounding like a lose weight journal, its sounding much like a gluttony journal. ugh. at 5, i picked up my sister from work and we went with 5 other friends to barnes and noble because there was apparently some sort of sale and a few of them had gift cards that were burning holes in their pockets. you know, books are an addiction as well...for them. and sometimes me too... anyway, after books we went to the olive garden for dinner. sam and i split the chicken parmesan and had salad and ...a few breadsticks. it was good. i also had my diet coke and water. spending time with these friends was awesome. when i came home this evening, i had some peanut brittle. im so glad some of the foods ive been eating are seasonal. that means i'll get to be without them.
i really need to just figure out how to eat to live, not live to eat. i dont WANT food to rule my life. i want to be able to do things all day and never think about WANTING food. i want to have to remember that i need food, not remember to stop. ugh. life is hard.
i have to find that perfect balance between eating and not eating.

merry christmas

today was christmas, so i ate nothing really awesome for me. i had cookies this morning and then some oj and chocolate. the christmas morning works. in the afternoon, we went to my aunt's house for dinner/stuff yourself silly night. i had more crap and some broccoli casserole. one veggie of the day! yay. christmas itself was fun though. held my cute niece for a while while she was sleeping and then played wii with my cousins at night. it was really a lot of fun. here's to hoping i can control myself at least once in the next week...

christmas is coming!

i have to jump in here quick and write before it turns into tomorrow. i was baking all day long, and i didnt realize that when i bake i dont eat, but i dont. i had a few pieces of bacon that dad left for me when i woke up and then i relaxed a few and then started making cookies. i made gingerbread cookies, peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses on top, peanut butter fudge and regular fudge. i also half dipped pretzels in white chocolate for my brother. all of these cookies went in two tins to give away for christmas. i didnt have any of it until i was all done, then i had a few pieces of the peanut butter fudge. some people came by the house this evening and sang and gave us more goodies. that was fun.
for dinner i had sweet and sour chicken (home made for once) on rice. the sweet and sour had pineapple, frozen veggies, canned sweet and sour sauce, terriyaki cooked chicken and was wonderful served over rice. i drank only water today. yay me.
theres my update for today. even if its short or rough or bad or wonderful, i'll be here every evening with "the rundown".

christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat

well today was terrible. well TODAY wasnt terrible, I was. i didnt eat well today, but i DID get some veggies in when i had a veggie fit hit bowl at taco time. i am no closer to overcoming my addiction to food than i was yesterday or last week for that matter. today did not help anything. i was lazy and i had a bunch of carbs.
this blog will be all about my honesty as far as what i did with food each day (even though it will be absolutely boring to anyone but me when they read it) so i have to say that this morning i didnt eat until about noon when mom and i were out shopping and we had lunch in the drivethru at mcdonalds (that word comes up a lot, mcdonalds, i know...) i couldve and SHOULDVE chosen something nice and healthy because there are a few choices that would be preferable and helpful in my journey, but no, i chose chicken nuggets and fries and diet coke. i am terrible. today i do not feel good about myself or my food choices. and christmas is in two days. great.
i think i want to have a goal of 25 lbs off by my birthday. that will be may 25th. good luck.
okay, then after lunch, we came home and i had a cheese stick and ritz crackers (which as the day went on, turned into an entire tube of the ritz crackers and 2 cheese sticks total). my sister and i met my parents (after work) at taco time where i had the diet cokes and the fit hit bowl (rice, cabbage, corn, black beans, salsa. good) for dinner. it was good and healthy. at least i found SOMETHING good to eat that was good for me today.
i know my blogging must sound like i am just complaining about myself and that i am talking about how i eat all this bad stuff. okay, i DO eat bad stuff, that makes me human. and fat. but i really Do want to change, thus the blog. i will try my best to be better and report everything as it happens if you promise not to judge me for my bad days. because i certainly have bad days. more lately than good ones.
and i also finished my christmas truffles. there were six of them with bites taken out of them, but i finished them off today. at least theyre gone now.
christmas is in two days. wish me luck with the snacks, treats, food and drinks.

I have to keep reminding myself

NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS BEING THIN FEELS!

I need a salad!

Today so far, i've had mcdonalds chicken nuggets, french fries and soda and then some christmas gift truffles. when i say some, i mean the entire small box. and its only 4pm. i suck. today hasnt been as controlled as i'd have hoped it to be. for dinner, i need to eat a salad. something thats not fried or potatos. christmas season is the hardest because i LOOOOVE chocolate. i will get through this. i will.
i think i need to find a book to read through this holiday. maybe that would help. i have yet to read 'Harry Potter 7' and i need to re-read 'Eclipse' before the movie comes out. other movies that i need to read the book for=dear john, which is coming out in february, but im getting that book for christmas, so it doesnt help me get through christmas until that day, which is not helpful enough.
i wish i had more self motivation. for some reason i missed that table when i was at life orientation...

stopping by friends on a cold dry evening

Today.
Today was fun.
I woke up at 745am like usual and took my sister to work then came home and slept until 1130am and started to clean up the kitchen in preparation for baking. I made up some gingerbread cookie dough and put it in the fridge to chill until my friend would come and bake them with me so we could decorate christmas cookies together. my friend was a bit late, so i went about my way baking them all alone. i even started decorating cookies by myself. I am not into gingerbread, so i didnt eat EVEN ONE COOKIE. i was really good. forced to be good because i dont like what i was making. what a way to stop your cravings...bake things for others that you dont like.
my friend showed up, we decorated and baked and then decided to deliver the cookies to friends of ours so we wouldnt have all ten gazillion of them lying around waiting for temptation to kick in. BOY that was fun, delivering cookies to four of our close friends. We had a blast and felt like we were truly spreading the holiday cheer to everyone. BEST DAY EVER. at least this year. We decided to make it a tradition to deliver cookies to these friends on the week of christmas. awesome.
at about 3pm, during the baking session, i realized i'd not eaten anything (because of the sleeping in) so i went for a cheddar cheese stick. it was tasty. i usually am not a cheese alone kind of person, but in that moment, it was perfect. at hand, delicious, not cookies. win.
after the delivery of all the cookies was done, we (my sister, my friend and i) went to mcdonalds for some dinner. Since I hadnt eaten all day, i decided on the angus burger without mayo or cheese. (again, not a mayo person, or melty cheese on burgers. or cheese really at all except cheddar, but not on burgers anyway. only melty cheese on nachos...ANYWAY) i got the meal which comes with a drink and fries. not a perfect choice, but i needed some real meat. the angus burger is like something you might cook on your home barbecue, not one of those cookie cutter mcdonalds looking burgers. it was real and it was tasty. and i enjoyed every minute of it. isnt that the point?
tomorrow im going to work on drinking more WATER. i find i get in liquid, but not always the WATER part of the liquids. i think if i work on one thing a day, my days may work out better. less stress, more success.
on the ride home, my sister gave me a cookie she got at work, so i had one cookie for today. that was perfect. in a world with thousands of cookies, i chose the other cookie...and that has made all the difference...wow that was weird, sorry. not a good poetic awesomeness.
its weird that my day can be really messy and filled with take out /eat out food and yet, if i feel good about it at the end of the day, it will have been a good day. thats what i'm aiming for. feeling better about myself.

panda express and burger king...

Having started this today, I may as well write about how I survived. NOT WELL. Not terrible, but I could have made a few good choices along the way to help myself to success, but...such is life somedays.
Today my mother, sister and friend headed out to Walmart for some things. We stopped at Panda Express for lunch and that is where I could have chosen better...I had orange chicken and vegetable spring rolls (better than some other options, I have to note) and chow mein noodles with a soda. Soda is not going to be something i'll give up. I am trying not to give up anything on this journey, but rather, learn to deal with it in my life, because having food in my life is a strong reality. There's no avoiding the fact that i have to injest calories to sustain life. I just wish that I would learn faster to "eat to live, not live to eat".
I did, however, stop eating when I wasn't hungry for more. Improvement already. I actually left most of the chow mein on the plate while I cracked into my fortune cookie.
Then I was good for a few hours. I had a refill of the soda for the car because I wanted it. After shopping around at the Dollar Store and Walmart, we headed home. I dropped off our friend that rode along with us and mom and I set off to Burger King (i know, eat at home at least once a day ashley, I know!) to meet dad for some dinner. I chose the whopper jr with no mayo (luckily i hate mayonnaise) and fries and a soda.
After Burger King, I was done for the evening. No more eating went on.
Today I stopped eating when my body told me to.
Today I enjoyed time with friends while out shopping and eating out.
Good start, Ashley.
The first step to changing is admitting you have a problem isnt it? Here goes my first step. I'd say today was successful considering I was in town for two meals of the day. Although I couldve chosen no fries or perhaps steamed vegetables (at panda express), I chose to partake. I have to remind myself that I am not going to deprive, i'm going to learn smaller portions of what i want so that i can have the most success and continue on without feeling deprived (which would make me spiral into an eating frenzy).
keep moving forward.

Starting Now

I made this blog to help myself stay accountable to...myself, in my journey to becoming a healthier, happier me. I'll be blogging my way through my weightloss while facing struggles, ups, downs, cravings, feelings, urges and thoughts. I needed a place I could go to where I would be able to document how my days go and how I get through them, so I came up with this blog.
Here we GO!
In the sidebar, I put a picture of myself that was taken just days ago. This I will use as my "before" photo from here on out. I hate seeing it and knowing that it is what I look like HERE AND NOW right today, but that is the point of this journey. Change the image in the mirror by changing the person looking in it.
If nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes...