Your alcohol tolerance is showing.

Knowing I had to go out for Mexican food for two friends' birthdays last night, I made it through the day having only eaten a banana and running 4 miles. I had planned to only have a small margarita, one enchilada, and a side of beans. Well, I was the last one to show up, and every one had already ordered jumbo margaritas because they were basically the same price. Hesitant about the sugar, but enthusiastic about the tequila, I too ordered a jumbo margarita (some estimates online calculate that to be about 600 calories but I'm calling it 1,000 because I am a repulsive person).

Afraid I was going to wind up too drunk to drive home, I ordered extra food (honestly, what is wrong with me???) so I got THREE enchiladas, with beans AND rice. This act of personal terrorism turned out to be entirely unnecessary, because while all of my other friends either drank half of the their margaritas and felt pretty tipsy, or drank theirs entirely and were hammered drunk, I downed mine and felt nothing. Had I ordered less food, I would have felt drunk and consumed fewer calories. 

HAVE I MENTIONED I DRINK TOO MUCH

So today I plan to have my coffee (which I am currently consuming) and then eat an apple in a few hours to try to keep my metabolism going. At some point I will go for a run, and then Husband and I have dinner plans. I would like to figure out how to not eat dinner, and I would also like to not drink alcohol tonight. Probably neither of those is going to happen. 

Closing in on February

So, I told myself I would only weigh-in on the first of every month so that my body actually had time to lose weight, because weighing too often is a downfall of mine. If that scale has gone up when I think it should have gone down, I say "fuck it" and stop restricting. If done properly, weighing only once a month should prevent that. If I haven't lost anything in a month, I'm clearly not even trying.

I didn't hold to this entirely though. I weighed myself about halfway through the month, which I did because like most people, I typically weigh myself first thing in the morning, naked, after I've peed. On this day, I was so curious, and it was late afternoon, I had just eaten, and I was wearing clothes. This was when I was "down a pound" like I said in my last post. So realistically, maybe down more than a pound, but I didn't actually see a lower number, so I'm not saying it was.

And February 1st is really only a few days away, so if I don't want to kill myself on Monday I will have to work hard the next few days.

I'm currently working on talking myself into a run. I'm so sore though. On Tuesday I took two PiYo classes, one at 5 am and one at 6 pm. I'm usually sore after one. I was really feeling it yesterday, and while I was at work, I had to move kegs in the walk-in fridge. The smaller kegs weighed about 60 lbs, and the larger ones weighed about 160 pounds. My arms were shaking by the end of it because they were already sore from PiYo. It was good though, because I ate a fucking burger from Culver's for lunch so at least I burned some of it off. (side note: I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and looked up the calorie count estimation from Culver's, the burger I thought for sure had to be at least 1200 Calories, was only 710, so that's a plus)

But this is also why I used to be so much thinner. It never used to matter how sore I was, I was exercising. Old age has made me lazy. I am almost 30, after all. And here I thought eating/food/weight/body issues were just a phase for teenagers. Ha.

Whiskey, beer, and swimsuits

As usual, booze is my nemesis. If I was really committed to losing weight I would lay off that shit, but I can't seem to. Does that make me an alcoholic?

Sunday night a couple of friends came over and the four of us killed about two and a half bottles of whiskey while hanging in our hot tub.

It's so ingrained into my life though. Husband and I are home brewers, and since I have been unemployed in my field, I have been working both in my friend's beer/wine making supply store and as a brewer in a microbrewery. Every night it seems there are local tappings and events I feel the need want to go to. All of my friends are there. And I love craft beer/wine/liquor. And it's not like I'm getting trashed during the week though occasionally on weekends but I'm easily including an extra 300-500 calories A NIGHT in alcohol. Restricting food is easy. Restricting booze is not. And this is why we are halfway through January and I have lost one pound. I'm not even back to my pre-Christmas weight.

On the plus side, the resolutions are going well. I'm closing in on finishing my third book of the new year (which has not felt nearly as burdensome as I anticipated) and Husband and I ran our first 5k on Saturday. It was about 10 degrees out so we were pretty bundled. The worst part is that the 5k in February could potentially be colder than this. Though, to be perfectly honest I'll take the frigid Midwest winter cold over the sweltering Midwest summer heat. Heat and I are not friends.

Ironed out

So the two solid resolutions are as follows:

1. Read one book every week in 2016. This seems daunting, but I know enough people (even those with busier lives who don't enjoy reading as much as I do) who have accomplished this goal. I can do it. Plus, more time reading should mean less time eating. I never eat while I read - which may help explain part of why I was so skinny in high school, I spent all of my free time exercising or reading.

2. (and this one was Husband's idea) Run an official 5k every month in 2016. This one is a little boring to me, because I typically run longer than that distance at least twice a week (used to be every day. dammit.) and I ran a marathon last year, so a bunch of 5k's is not a big deal. But Husband has been wanting to start running again, and he never really was much of a runner, so he set a goal that was manageable to him but would motivate him to run more often. The hard part has been that the year starts in January and it's cold so while I am fine with it, and have been out running regularly, he has not. So it's going to be harder for him. Our first one is this Saturday. And the high is supposed to be 12 F.

I have been terrible at restricting this past week. I expected it to be hard Sunday through Wednesday because Husband's brother and wife were in town staying with us, and they LOVE to eat. But last Friday I was at my new part time job (while I'm still unemployed by my field) as a brewer at a local brewery. The job is a lot of fun, but the restaurant part of the brewery is open on Friday, and being the nice people that they are, the kitchen was supplying the head brewer and I with a steady supply of fattening food. That, coupled with the beer we already drink while we work was a disaster.

But I won't have to work another Friday there for a bit, and the relatives are gone, so I can finally restrict. I have plenty of calories in me so the plan today is to eat nothing. Just to feel good again. Then tomorrow I'll definitely not be eating all day because we have a friend's birthday party to go to (low-key, not even any booze) and tomorrow is also Husband's and my anniversary so we'll probably at least drink after the party.

Improbable but possible.

Happy New Year you starvin' Marvins!

My trip was okay for the first week (which is all it was supposed to be) as my friends were active and the schedule was busy so I went running every day and ate very little. BUT! Of course I wouldn't be so fortunate as to end on that note. I thought I was in the clear, as I had definitely not gained anything the whole time at my parents' but shortly after checking in for our flight home, our flight was canceled and we couldn't get anything out for another three days. So we decided to make the most of it and visit my in-laws (as they lived closest to the airport that we were able to get out of). I weighed myself the day we got there. I weighed myself the day we left.

I gained 4 pounds in 3 days.

What a fucking joke.

I spent most of December restricting pretty hard so I should be able to keep that mindset in the new year. I'm already accustomed to it so I won't be a shock to my system like most people deal with when starting their overly-ambitious resolutions.

I've got a few other resolutions in mind (like the one I make, and fail to keep, every single year, to go one full calendar year without purging.... maybe 2016 will be the year?) but I'll let you guys know once I have them more ironed out.