I did it.

Oh god I'm exhausted.

I'm gonna go celebrate with some Superbowl Goodness.

But oh, oh, it's not over. I've discovered I actually enjoy the elliptical. So even if I gain all of my weight back in beer tonight, I'm all over making it disappear again.

Mmm... beer...

I haven't blogged in a while.

Reasons:

After New Years, I quit smoking. AND I started dieting more. Dieting to the point that it wasn't helping. I was so angry that I couldn't eat everything I wanted to eat, so I just cut out most of my eating throughout the day.

This... is very bad. My body held onto whatever I put into it for dear life. My weight wasn't coming off at the astronomical speed that it has in the past.

This pissed me off. And it made me not want to do anything, made me totally emotionally lethargic. My looming deadline, which I thought I had in the bag, was approaching waaaay too quickly for my tastes.

About a week ago, in the car, I said to Dan, "I don't think I can do it." 

And he, bless his heart, said, "Well, have fun explaining to that bitch downstairs why you're handing her 200 bucks." 

And I was like, OH HELL NO.

So in short, I'm back on track.

Hell, I even took my sweaters off of my elliptical machine and started using it. I'm heavily out of shape, so I'm starting on the lowest setting. I do 45 minutes or an hour on low. And I sweat my balls off.

I can fucking DO THIS.

Trader Joe's sells these balls of pizza dough for pretty cheap. What's even better is they sell whole wheat pizza dough, so we can still eat pizza and it can be healthier for us.

Because really, who the heck wants to give up pizza? 

Our last encounter with the Trader Joe's Dough was when Dan's dad, Jack, and step-mom, Julie, came up from St. Louis for a holiday visit, pizza makings in hand:

The fun part about working with a ball of dough is you feel like a real chef. You get to flip the dough, just like they do in movies. At least this is what I've heard. Dan is the cook around here. I'm just his biggest fan. I like to pretend we do these things together, but really, it's all him.

We'll just say that I take care of the "eating" part of the whole "cooking" experience.

And now for a Dough-Flip Stand-Off:

I think Dan won. Good times were had by all that night. Not only did they bring us stuff to make pizza with, they also brought us a ton of really good beer, which basically negated any health we were gaining from the pizza.

Now, you can also buy your pizza crust pre-made, which is what we did a few days later. It's a little less amazing, but satisfying nonetheless, especially when you pile a bunch of toppings on it...

So that's pre-made whole-wheat crust, alfredo sauce (we went for a white pizza this time), provel cheese (St. Louis exclusive), mushrooms, ham, and chicken.

Totally healthy, right? Right? 

For the after-photo, we invited a few of our ridiculously adorable salt and pepper shakers, courtesy of my mother: 

We all know beer goes very well with pizza. So does red wine, we've discovered.

Clearly I discovered the black and white function on my new camera, courtesy of Dan.

(I find that oversized sweatshirts you've been wearing since high school always look classier in black and white. Don't know what it is about them.)

On that note, I hope everyone out there has a fantastic Christmas tomorrow!

Remember, it's Jesus's birthday, and I have it on good authority that he doesn't want you to diet on the anniversary of his birth. It's in the Bible. Something about how he really loved cake and pie. Something like that. I don't know, I read it so long ago...

MERRY CHRISTMAS/HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

So it's becoming readily apparent that I'm probably not losing weight fast enough to make my goal.

Why is this? 

Well.

Remember those rules I set out for myself? 

I've...I've broken every one of them.

And it was fantastic every time I did it. Sweets at work, beer at home with friends and family, food before bed.

I have continued to drink water. And every time I have urinated, it HAS been into a toilet. So at least there's that.

I'll be stepping it up after Christmas. Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet is a bitch, but it will work.

Until then, I have Rock Band.

I'm pretty much addicted to the drums, though I am known to rock the guitar every now and then. Anyone who hasn't played this game basically thinks I'm a geek at this point. Anyone who has played it, and enjoyed it, however, knows how awesome I am when I say that I play Hard Guitar and Medium-Hard-Expert (depending on the song) Drums.

I'm not a prodigy by any means, but I can hold my own, and I know how to use my Star Power.

Admit it, I'm turning you on.

My character, in all her hot glory: 

And yes, her name is Amandatastic. I know you were about to ask.

The glory of the drums? They make me sweat.

The following pictures don't really do this justice. Pretend it's really my hot character in these.

The kick pedal requires you use your whole leg. FYI. My right leg is kickin'.

Super hot, I know.

Did I mention this makes me sweat? Quickly? 

I want to see someone go on the Rock Band exercise plan. See how much weight they lose.

And naturally, I can't do this without my boyfriend, Danified: 

The resemblance is uncanny, I know. For the record, he rocks the Expert Base until its face falls off. And he gives the Hard Guitar a run for its money. And he tells Singing how much he loves flowers, and then pukes on them.

More later. There is wine to drink.

Quick blog today, I have to be at work in an hour and a half.

Forgive the unpainted toes and the blurriness, I was having camera difficulties: 

At any rate, that says 175.2!

Just thought I'd share. :)

We ate like shit over the weekend before this diet. Yes, on purpose.

Ah, Gluttony.

As a final hurrah, we ordered pizza from Leona's. Strike that. We ordered two pizzas in from Leona’s, plus the biggest mozzarella sticks you’ve ever seen: Think of a banana. Then think of that banana as fried and filled with mozzarella. They're bigger than that. Oh, and we ordered chicken strips. I would have photographed them, but I was too busy eating them.

Seeing as I had eaten enough food to get me through a good three more days, it wasn't that hard to start the diet on Monday, December 1.

Though I wasn't hungry, I did eat breakfast. Fake eggs and canadian bacon, YUM. At work I went with a non-fat sugar-free carmel latte, instead of the frappuccino I really wanted, with 3 pumps of peppermint, 2 pumps of mocha, and 2 pumps of white mocha. I call it the "Amanda." My lunch was a ham sandwich on cracked wheat bread. Not bad, not bad indeed.

For dinner, Dan made my favorite pasta EVER: whole wheat pasta with alfredo sauce, pesto, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, and broccoli. This photo doesn't do it justice, as it just comes out looking like a salad: 

...but do not let it deter you. It's the best pasta ever. AND I only finished half of the bowl, which was a feat in itself.

Our friend Erica came over to weigh us. Here she is, in all her adorable glory, angry that we didn't tell her we would be photographing her: 

Now, I usually weigh myself alone and naked, because I can’t be bothered to have anything else affecting that scale. For my purposes with Erica and this websiteI opted to wear clothes that maybe didn’t weigh that much, and also that showed off my slammin’ figure.

SLAMMIN’:

So slammin, in fact, Erica could not keep her eyes open.

See that ass? That thing takes work. I have to sit on it maybe 3, 4 hours a day to keep it looking like that.

At any rate, I about vomited when I saw what I weighed: 

Quick note on my toe: Yes, it's weird. Also totally awesome. I have Multiple Hereditary Exostoses, which, in a nut shell, means I have little extra bony growths all over my body, mostly in my joints. When I was young, my foot was normal.

But, one of those little bone guys grew on the joint attached to that toe, which made that part of my foot stop growing while the rest of it continued. Thus, Awesome Toe. I've only met a couple other people with the same toe. One, my late brother Alex, though his was on his left foot (put our feet together and you had a pair!). Two, some chick in line at Victoria's Secret. That's it.

Moving on...

I weigh a lot, especially for my height, which is 5'5''. There's really no way to sugar coat it. I am a flaab.

Dan was next. He was also super thrilled to be on the scale.

At first, it was too good to be true...

But then it revealed its ugly truth: 

So, I've got to get to 164.4 by Feb 1st, wearing the same clothes. Dan's got to get to 232.0.

And, not only is this on the internet, it's also in writing. HAND writing.

Oh God.

Dan got a jump start, I think. Erica trimmed his eyebrows with my nail clippers before she left. It's something that started at a bar one night and now she trims them whenever she comes over.

I'm willing to bet shedding those eyebrows will mean an automatic pound lost by the time she's finished.

I wonder if I should shave... everywhere...

Hmm.

I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm much better at eating and sitting around than dieting and exercising. I consider it one of my strengths, really. Something that really showcases my character. (Plus, I look really STUPID when I exercise. I turn beet red, sweat profusley, cry uncontrollably, lose control of my bowels, age at an accelerated rate, etc.. Not very pretty. I avoid it at all costs.)

I'm someone your kids can look up to. They can look at me and think, "Wow, that chick really can sit on her ass and eat. I wanna be just like her when I grow up!"

So why, why on earth would I want to give that up? Do I loathe the girl in the office downstairs that much? 

I don't think it's about hating her, for me. I consider her more of a product of the times than anything. It's more about loving money, and this is MY money, and I can't think of a better person NOT to give it to. Whenever I pass the office on the way to my elevator, I imagine myself dangling $200 cash in front of her. I imagine she's foaming at the mouth, maybe even experiencing some spontaneous acne, and her eyes are filled, FILLED, with tears of greed. She's reaching for the cash, but I pull it back just in time for her to fall out of her chair, seriously messing up her hair. This is when I skip away and sing, "My ass won't be fat in February, and your ass won't be rich." 

This little scenario really helps when it's midnight and all I want is to raid my fridge.

I'm definitely a night-time snacker. Dan and I both are. It's probably one of the reasons we're together.

What, it's not good for you to go to sleep on an empty stomach, you say? Something about metabolism slowing in your sleep and you not processing the gallon of ice cream you just ate nearly as well than if you had stayed awake a few more hours? 

Dan and I scoff at that. We don't like to go to sleep on empty stomachs. We like to feel forced to lie on our backs because our tummies are so full. I prefer to be uncomfortably, baggy-pants-and-oversized-shirt full. I like to go to bed knowing that my body is going to hate me all night while it tries to work its way through whatever heavy thing I just put into it. I love weighing myself in the morning, totally naked, and thinking, “Wow, those numbers just keep going up and that’s FANTASTIC.”

It's clear that the night-time snacking is part of what's doing me in if I want to lose weight, which is why I will do my darn best not to do it in order to get these 15 pounds off.

In fact, I've got a list of rules, all of which I will likely break in the coming months (it's DECEMBER. There are things like COOKIES and PASTRIES readily available to me at my job, 40 hours a week). The trick will be not to break these rules that often.

First rule: No eating before bed. At least 2 hours before.

Second rule: NO eating before bed.

Third rule: Drink lots of water. Pee constantly. Preferably into a toilet.

Fourth rule: Make sure to snack between meals. Nuts, cheese, and peanut butter are acceptable.

Fifth rule: Try to make your carbs whole wheat. Don't cut them out completely or you WILL become homocidal.

Sixth rule: Keep your portions smaller, especially those containing carbs. Eat until satisfied, then stop. Remember, if you’re starving, eat something, and even if it’s just a little something you will feel the opposite of starving within 30 minutes.

Seventh rule: Try to keep sugar intake to a minimum. It will just make you hungrier. This is where sugar-free popsicles, creamsicles, and fudgesicles come in extremely handy to help that sweet-tooth craving. This is why I have 2 boxes of these in my freezer.

Eighth Rule: Eat breakfast! By "Breakfast," I mean "Something without 80 tons of sugar." Fake eggs and canadian bacon are always delightful.

Ninth Rule: No beer. NO BEER. PUT THE BEER DOWN. If you must, wine. And if wine, red wine.

Tenth Rule: In case it wasn't clear before, do NOT eat right before bed.

I think these rules are relatively simple. They represent somewhat major changes to my diet, but are not completely impossible. I'm gonna do everything I can not to kill myself to lose this weight. If there's anything worse than losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time, it's gaining it back times two. And if I gain it back times two, homegirl downstairs gets another $200. It's only fair.

It occured to me that my boyfriend and I losing weight may be damaging to our health:

1. Exhaustion, mostly from having to run away screaming from every person that hits on our new svelte selves.

2. Hypothermia, because our clothes will fall off of us at random, probably while we are outside in the snow.

3. Third-Degree Burns. Being intimate will be a struggle because we will both be smokin’ hot (OH!). It is highly likely we will work through the pain, however, which means increased hospital visits. Our insurance premiums will skyrocket.

4. Bruising. In the nether-regions. There’s currently a lot of cushion down there. There will be less. This will be painful.

...We may not make it out alive. But we will each likely die wearing our respective "O" faces.

...too much information?

...how 'bout now? 

I've basically been a chub factory my entire life. Even at age 8 I knew my thighs did things, fatter things, than the thighs of the other girls in my class.

"Your brothers were chubby when they were younger, too, Amanda," my mother used to tell me. "Once you hit puberty, you'll get much taller and it will go away." 

For my brothers, puberty meant stretching to 6', all of their fat stretching and disappearing as each inch appeared.

For me, puberty meant sprouting to a whopping 5'5'' and retaining every ounce of fat I had been cultivating since I was old enough to say "Happy Meal." 

I was not pleased. But man-oh -man, those Happy Meals were de-lish. And man-oh-man, I only stopped eating them when I realized I could order from the adult menu.

In high school, my fattest, I did Weight Watchers for a summer and dropped 30 pounds to the 150-lb-range. And thus began my yo-yo life.

Today I'm back to my high school weight, pushing 180 lbs, and I'm hating myself. It's probably all my boyfriend Dan's fault. We both moved in together and discovered how much we really enjoyed eating ALL of  the food in Chicago.

Me, at my hottest, right after Dan and I moved in together, Winter 2006: 

I'm on the left, the glasses-less one. Though my best friend Katie is also pretty hot.

And here I am, overjoyed that I fit into my skinny jeans, in the fall of 2006: 

Did this last? Oh no. Dan, also known as The Love of My Life,

...well, we moved in together and we just started eating. We were overjoyed to be together, but also weren't watching ourselves the way we should have been.

Within a year we had gained something like 20-30 pounds, each.

In my defense, I lost my brother Alex in that year, on June 23, 2007:

...and in Dan's defense, his girlfriend lost her brother in that year.

Real downer, no? 

In lighter news, I'm ready to stop hiding behind my brother's death as an excuse to gain weight and get control of myself.

And what better way to do that than to lay down money against someone I can't stand?

Ah, the fun part.

My enemy, against whom I'm bettin' some hard-earned retail-management cash, is someone who has no idea how much I loathe her. That's because she's not self-aware enough to know when anyone dislikes her. In a nutshell, I live in apartment building, on a high-up floor, and she's the chick who works in the building manager's office.

I don't think she's the building manager. In all honesty I never bothered to ask, because I can't stand hearing her speak. I don't even know her name. I just know that conversing with this person is a challenge due to her condescending-yet-how-could-she-possibly-be-condescending-when-she-doesn't-even-know-the-meaning-of-the-word nature.

I avoid talking to her whenever possible. I try to be a good person, too, and not someone filled with hate. I don't hate her. I just don't think she has any real purpose on this earth. That's not hate, right? It's just me telling the truth about my feelings.

Or something.

At any rate, I will give this woman $200 if I don't lose 15 pounds by February 1st. And I really don't want to give her any more money than I already have to, at rent's-due-time. Though, again, I don't think she's the building manager, or owner, and thus doesn't really get any of my money anyway. It's the principle of the thing.

15 pounds by February 1st is a mini-goal. I want to lose this weight slowly, as I've crash-dieted before and it's only ended in more poundage in the long run. The slower you lose, the slower you re-gain. I'd like to avoid the re-gaining all together.

Dan? He's gonna lose weight, too. We're a fat couple right now. By February, hopefully I won't be able to say that anymore.

Cheers.