I'm not normally one for reading into things but....

He puts his kids to bed.
His wife goes to sleep.
He drinks.
And then he texts me.

Everything hurts.

Husband and I were invited over to our friends' house for spaghetti last night. Fortunately the invitation came early enough in the day that I could burn some extra calories in preparation for what is always a high-cal night. These people LOVE to eat and drink.

So during the day I had:
Green juice (Made from spinach, lemon, lime, ginger, apples, and cucumbers)
A handful of grapes
A handful of almonds

And the exercise I got:
Cleaning the house
Barre class
Biking 12 miles to and from work.

This is all good because I ended up drinking 4 glasses of wine, and eating a dish of spaghetti and a cookie.

Today my body hurts from the exercise and alcohol.

I'm not yet sure how I'm going to balance my alcohol consumption this weekend. Three gatherings all centered around alcohol in the next 72 hours. FML. I think Husband is planning to drink a lot so I'm mostly going to go with the "some one needs to drive home" excuse. Which is both true, and responsible.

Plan for today: Walk the dog (too hot for him to run. He won't.), more cleaning (the house can never be too clean), watch my friend's kids (lots of running around, kids love it, their parents love it, I love it).

Veggie collard green wraps for dinner. Maybe nothing until then.

Veg.

So I got Husband on board with eating a plant based diet. This is good because it allows me to keep ice cream, cheese, and other things I tend to binge on out of the house. It also means the house is full of spinach, apples, peaches, pineapple, carrots, peppers, grapes, broccoli, bananas, kale, collard greens... you get the point. Produce.

It's not entirely vegan or even vegetarian. I would be cool with that, but Husband isn't exactly on board to that degree. He still wants to go out for burgers on the weekends. It is, however, making meals during the week lower in calories. Like tonight instead of beef burgers, he wants to make portobello burgers. This is easily shaving HUNDREDS of Calories from dinner.

I had wanted to run today but it is raining and the dog hates the rain. I could go without him, and  there is a chance I still will, but I'm going to use it as excuse to clean the house because that also really needs to be done, and at least I'll be moving around.

Not super skinny

The festival went about as well as it could have. I drank only slightly more than I was anticipating. The real trouble was actually after the festival when we got dinner with some friends. I wasn't hammered drunk, just enough to let my eating guard down, and had another beer, a black bean burger, fries, and ice cream. FML.

Often at these festivals, each group has a theme or somewhat matching outfits. Our group went with Tie-Dye. Unfortunately, the only tie-dye shirt I own is a form-fitting tank top. No exactly what I want to wear when I am a) over 160 lbs, and b) going to be drinking beer and eating food that can make me bloated. I tried to use the shirt as a reminder to keep my posture straight and stomach sucked in, something I accomplished for the better part of the day. At one point a woman was bringing around leftover donuts and one of the guys standing near me made a remark about how easy it is to get rid of free donuts around a bunch of fat men (not that all of these men I was surrounded by were that fat, but they certainly weren't thin or even fit by any stretch) and the woman handing out the donuts pointed to me and said "Well except for her, she's super skinny!"

Ha! It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. Super skinny. No. Granted my stomach is realistically not huge (I carry all of my weight in my monster thighs and arms) but I am so far from super skinny. The remark really was comical. It only made me wish she was right.

The rest of the weekend of course involved food. We stayed the night at our friends' house and in the morning she made pancakes that were basically deep-fried. Then beer and pizza for lunch. Then a cookout with other friends in the evening. It was an absurd amount of food and I'm fairly certain I undid all of the work I put in all week long. So tempting to step on the scale this morning, but I resisted that. Just get back on track.

Taking the dog for a run this morning. No plans until this afternoon so we should be able to knock out about 10 miles. I'm dehydrated from the beer for sure, but it needs to be done.

A little lighter, a little light-headed

164.5 yesterday morning, so it's coming off. I'm going back to only weighing myself at the start of each month because it worked better that way. As soon as I started doing it more frequently the numbers went up. Binge and not gain the next day? Must be okay to do it again! Starve and not lose anything? Must not be working!

Of course it works, but it takes more time than I was giving it. I stepped on the scale yesterday morning only to confirm what I already knew. I'm headed in the right direction, I just need to keep working on it. I was tempted to step on the scale this morning because yesterday I biked 12 miles, ran 5 miles, and ate very little, and I feel a little smaller today, so I really wanted to see if I'm down to 163, but of course if I wasn't there I would feel less like working just as hard today. I ran a couple of miles with the dog this morning, but didn't have enough time to get in the miles I wanted to so I'm going to go out with him again this evening. I would go now, but he doesn't last long in the heat at all and when I bring him back to house after he overheats I'm always too tempted to stay home too. Damn you A/C!

I have to pour beer at a festival tomorrow, which ordinarily would mean lots of drinking, but I have had a cold and can't smell much which means I can't really enjoy the beer as I would like to so... That's an easy out of a lot of empty calories.

The best medicine? Or sheer mockery?

What does it mean when some one starts laughing every time they make eye contact with you? The guy I work for does this. He used to occasionally laugh when he looked at me, and while I noticed, I sort of shrugged it off and figured something was on his mind. But lately, it's every time. He'll be conversing with other people or minding his own business, totally straight-faced, and then as soon as our eyes meet, he laughs.

I'm probably reading too much into this, but I feel like he's literally laughing at me. My life is sort of pathetic these days and all I can think is that he's probably comparing me to his wife. She is beautiful, smart, kind, funny, has an incredibly successful career, an adoring husband, and two perfect children. She's literally the first woman I have ever met that I feel intimidated by. I'm a champion at finding flaws - both in myself and others - and I can't find a flaw in this woman. Another of my close friends has admitted to having a girl crush on her. I've tried to convince myself that I'm overreacting to this whole scenario, but the laughing has been so consistent and I can't come up with any other logical explanation as to why this is happening, but it has kind of made me avoid being around him as much as possible. No one likes to be laughed at.

Americans are fat.

I was definitely feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of being in a swimsuit all week. To my surprise, I ended up having one of the better bodies on the beach. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of skinny girls, including some that I was with (read: Husband's cousin who has arguably the most perfect body I've ever seen) but as far as the general public goes, most were definitely obese. Another surprise, was the popularity of modest swimwear. Even the skinny girls (including Husband's cousin) were wearing one-piece or something resembling it. I could cover up a little and not feel like I was some super self-conscious weirdo.

As far as weight goes, I did horrendously on the trip down to the beach. The first few days I ate modestly and got a ton of exercise so things weren't so bad, but throughout the week every one shared a respiratory infection, which I contracted on Wednesday, so the rest of the week it was hard to keep as active as I would have liked. And there was constant food everywhere.

I came home at 167.0

Gross. Probably can drop at least a couple of pounds this week, but again, still can't breathe from the respiratory infection, so running is difficult (but still happening).

I'm pissed that I let myself get this big. These numbers are horrific and need to be fixed. My new goal is October 1st, because Husband's youngest brother is getting married. I was significantly thinner at his last brother's wedding, and at my own, and I'll be damned if this wedding is going down in history as the one where I was fat.

Another fall goal is new jeans. All of mine from last year are worn out so I actually do need to buy new ones, and of course, the smaller the better.

Lying to myself

Tomorrow I leave for vacation and this morning on the scale I managed to see 159.0 Not stepping on the scale again until I get back so I can tell myself I am actually in the 150's on vacation (even though by the time I get there, I likely won't be).

Of course it's vacation, so the odds of coming back having gained 85 pounds in 10 days is pretty high as well. I'm not as worried about most of the vacation itself really because I will be on the beach and doing lots of running, biking, and swimming, but the driving is terrifying. It's 18 hours in each direction and when I'm bored as shit in the car I tend to eat. Going to pack as many fruits and vegetables to try to keep it on the healthier side but Husband loves junk food on a trip. I wish I didn't get carsick so easily because I would read or knit or something to pass the time, but focusing on anything inside the vehicle makes me feel awful, so if I can't sleep, I eat.