Bon Voyage Skinny!!!!!!

So as you know I have a boy friend...Skinny.... and well he has had a long history of drinking.... even though he is only 28. Going back to his high school days when he and his friends were sneaking drinks from their parents liquor cabinets, then moving on to having older friends get them beer. Then we have the really drinking starting when he moved out of his parents home and was on his own..... needless to say he had A LOT of run ins with the law. By age 22 he had 2 OWI and a couple of public intoxication.... at that time he says he made a decision to start slowing down a little but he didn't, or at least from what I have heard he didn't (since we weren't dating then). So from age 22 to age 27 he was pretty good at not getting into trouble, that is cause he decided he won't drive when drinking.....which is a very good thing, but he was still drinking every week. So now I came into his life, we are started dating and his drinking was cut down to 1-2 times a week, since I had a good job and didn't want to go out all the time, plus he didn't want to party as much with his buddies. I thought that he was grown out of the drinking phase... I was wrong.
In April of 2005 we started the downward spiral, Skinny decided to go out with his "best Friend" A.A., whom he always goes out with, but this night was different, Skinny was really really drunk to the point he was fighting with AA and he needed me to come get him. As soon as he got into the car I knew we would have problems. I drove him home and he decided to get out of the car while it was still moving in his parking lot. So a trip to the emergency room, 3 surgical staples and a huge hangover later, he vowed he would never drink like that again.......
Jumping a head to Sept 2005, again out with his friends, and he is ready to go home...so he decides to walk......but is drunk and has no clue where he is at....so I get a call again.... to come get him..... while on the phone with him....he has no clue even what bar he had just left. SO I start driving around to places he would go or I think he might be coming form.....1/2 an hour later I get a call from an officer, saying they found him passed out in the grass and I could come get him. So I head to the location the officer said they were at... it probably took me 5 minutes... but in that time Skinny...being the "charming" drunk that he can be.... had " won himself a ticket to jail" as the officer put it. So off to the station I went to wait for him to be processed and released to me. Once again the next morning vowing to never drink......
In the next couple of months that followed there was a ton of incidents where we would deal with a drunk night and then he would vow to never drink again, cause something bad happened the night before...... but it all came to a head on Feb. 5, 2006... superbowl Sunday.
Skinny decided since his team, the Steelers were playing it would be a great time to watch the game with his buddies. Long story short he was to get a ride home from AA but they got into a fight again, so I had to go get him.... at 2 in the morning..... he was very drunk and very upset about losing his coat and wanted me to look for it. I tried to reason with him... but it didn't work.... so we get home and he decides he needs to leave, so off in his car he goes.....and wouldn't you guess he gets caught driving drunk. Which now is a huge deal, cause in Iowa, your 3rd offence is a felony.
So since Feb we have been waiting thru hearings, court dates and treatment to see what is going to happen to Skinny. Skinny has actually not even drank since Feb. I think he really has learned his lesson. But we needed to see if the courts thought so, we had been prepared that Skinny would need to be in jail for 30 days.... but that is not what happened on Monday when he was sentenced. He is going to the FORT...which is an intensive treatment program for OWI offenders..... it can be anywhere from 60 days to 5 years ( which is the maximum sentence for his crime). So now I'm home alone...living in my apartment for who knows how long... all I can say is that hopefully Skinny will get the help/treatment he needs to deal with his addiction.

New-Old Clothes

So I have been on this diet/weight lose plan for almost 3 months..... and finally I'm seeing some results.... I mean it seems like it has taken me a ton of time to lose anything substantial. But there is an upside....finally. You see....I am A CLOTHES HORSE..... I love to shop... just ask my family. So I have tons of clothes is various sizes now, since I have moved up and down the scale, and well most of my favorite clothes I haven't been able to fit into... till now.... I can finally fit into one of my favorite khaki long skirts.... I loved it when I got it and I wore it a ton ,a year or so ago, but then "grew" out of it.... Anyway last night when I was planning my outfit for work, on a whim I pulled it out of the closet and tried it on....to my surprise it slide right on and even looked good... after a quick ironing job, it look great on. I was in heaven. I start looking thru my clothes for something else I could try on and see if that fit...... as I started pulling things out and putting them on, I realized I had a whole "new" wardrobe. It was the best feeling ever, I don't have to go out shopping for anything really new ( alright I say that now, but we all know I will probably be out there soon again). But seriously, it makes all the hard work I have gone thru so far worth it. The best part is... tonight is the start of Rosh Hashana and I have a great outfit for tomorrow's services. I got this cute suit, that is a little dress with a balero jacket... 2 year ago for my cousin's bar mitvah and have only wore it 2x... cause I once again "grew" out of it. So a month ago i tried it on and it was tight... not super tight but tight enough for me to think " sausage in casing".... so that was right before I started Jazzcercise... and one of my goals was to lose enough weight to get into the suit for this weekend. So last night in my "fashion show" in front of the mirror, I finally tried on the dress and it looked good...even without panyhose and heels..... I was elated.... I actually jumped up for joy. Truth be told I have been working out but my teeth have been bothering me a lot so every night I have had either ice cream or a pudding popsicle.... so I was worried that it was being counterproductive with my workouts... but it looks like things are working out for me. Now I just have to remember not to eat a ton tonight and continue on my path.....cause I have a wedding next weekend and then Yom Kippur with other " new" set of clothes to make sure look good. Cross your fingers and hope I don't have to go shopping before the weeks end.

Reformed Fat person

Last time I talked about my struggle with weight loss, or my ON-GOING struggle with weight loss... and it got me thinking about people who have lost weight in the past and their personalities change. For example....... The empress about 4 year ago we both started on the diet road....and I lost weight more quickly... I think it was do to being under the control of the WN.... and she was on Weight Watchers.... granted she did have a lot more weight to lose and she was going at a slower pace...still we were on the road at the same time. So after about 6 months of dieting and working out, I end up falling off the wagon, since I got mono.... and she continued.But the who time I was dieting, I did try to not press my ideas on people. She lost a ton of weight and her personality changed... or should I say got worse.... she went from teasing and joking to being down right mean spirited. She was a nightmare to go out with... especially if you wanted to actually eat something. She would give you this stare and say..." you are actually going to eat that.....I thought you were on a diet". Give me a break! You are not my trainer/diet consultant. Anyway her attitude started to spill over into other things.... she was just mean to people over-weight... especially people like her friends and family. I mean at Passover she was so rude to my sisters.... they actually licked her veggies before giving her a bowl of soup ( that is a story for a different time) plus she was mean to people who were trying to lost weight... ie Joy-Joy who is always nice to people.....well the Empress just flattened her one night with insults. It was insane... but in the end she did get what was coming to her.... she was able to keep the weight off for a little while and then she started to fall off the wagon.... now she is totally off the program... she has gained all the weight back and then some.....I truly believe in karma.... and it definitely bite her in the butt. You shouldn't be mean to people when you are up...cause on the way down, they are not going to help you out....hey we might even wave and laugh as you fall. So this is my point... I have seen tons of people who were over-weight fat and as soon as they start to lose the pounds their personality goes down the drain.... they think they need to be the food police. My thought is, if you want to be on the program for yourself... fine, just don't make me have to listen to it and don't try to convert me.

Thinking thin

So I know I haven't written in awhile but things were a little crazy and I couldn't come up with anything interesting to tell you all . Then yesterday while I was visiting with my sister, she asked my why I haven't updated my blog. I told the same thing, " I can't think of anything interesting that has happened at dinner in the last several weeks." She just said, "why don't you change it up a little," so I thought I would just give you some random thoughts......here goes.
My whole life I have been a little overweight, starting out when I was a child with a little round tummy then moving to an adult ...and ...well gained weight every where. But for the majority of my adult life I have been a size 16-18....so not too overweight but enough that I should be working out on a regular basis. Which I have done for periods of time... for example... going back to when I was in high school. I decided my junior year that I was tired of being one of the "fat friends" and rode my bike everywhere and join water aerobics with my mother and did normal aerobics.... it worked good until school started and well there was pizza parties and overnights with junk food.....plus I had a car and didn't want to walk or bike anymore.... yes I know these are excuses but hey I was 17 and young.
Jumping ahead to college.... were I didn't really gain the "freshman 15" I stayed about the same, I think it was do to not having my mother's cooking and crappy dorm food.....so I spent a lot of meals eating popcorn and jello.....plus I walked EVERYWHERE.... to class, to the bars, to where ever. No one had a car ....or at least very few people so it was good for me. By my sophomore/ junior year I had made friends with people who liked to work out and we actually enjoyed going to the gym. So I did start losing weight...not as much as I probably should have since I turned 21 and was drinking like a fish ( like most college students do) but enough to be able to shop in most stores and find something cute. Finally in my senior year of college is when I got serious... not sure it was due to a roommate obsession with losing weight for a up coming surgery or if I was just bored and didn't want to study..... anyway... we walk, jazzercised and ate good health meals.....the weight really did start coming off and I was a solid 14.... then came Gay D.... he was obsessed with his weight and as his friend....I became a little obsessed.... which in turn made me lose more weight... I was down to a size 12 in no time and still losing weight.... I think that was the lowest I had been at since I was in junior high..... but it didn't last. I graduated college and moved to AZ where I was walking less, working out less, pretty much doing everything less... so the weight returned and would stay for 4 years.
Jumping ahead to right after my sister's wedding..... I had starting tipping the scales at around the size 20 mark.....when a nice summer sunday in Aug come around. I was sitting by the pool with friends and family.... when one of my "friends" LA Annie started trashing another one of our friends( who happened to not be there). You see Joy-Joy had gained a lot of weight do to stopping smoking and well LA Annie thought it was her place to comment on it. So we got into a decision on how fast you can really gain and lose weight......and well WN ( Workout Nazi) piped up and said that he could get anyone to lose 60 pounds in 4 months with a stict workout/meal program. At first I was like no way... but as I thought about it.... I was like...... hey if he can do it when why not, it can't be that hard. So off to the gym I want to get my membership and jump.. both feet in to the "program" he had created. Now I should probably tell that he was in excellent shape.... he was a former runner for one of the colleges here and didn't put anything really bad into his body other than beer. So when he made the program for me.... he kind of forgot that I was a 5'4 little fat girl who really hadn't workout as an athlete...EVER. But still I was willing to stick to the program and do what he said... plus it was just for 4 months....then I would see what would happen...... so off we went on the little weight loss adventure. I worked out 5 days a week..... he allowed me sundays off and eat ...well really nothing.....alright that is not true.... I ate the food pyramid....you know 2 fruit, 2 veggies, 1 dairy, 1 meat and 1 bread... you get the idea... right??? Yeah well I don't think people really realize just how little food that really is... I was eating basically nothing and working out non-stop..... added into it was the drinking of over a gallon of water a day... and the weight started to fly off. It was actually great for awhile...... until I got mono...my body was put into such shock it was shutting down. So I had to spend 3 weeks at home on my couch doing nothing. Now you would think that I would start gaining weight again... but since I was so tired all the time, i didn't want to eat anything... But that soon changed and I was soon heading up the scale again.
ALright one more jump in time to a year and half ago. I decided, since I'm now dating Skinny and he is going to the gym all the time, that I will get a membership and start working out. I did good for awhile....a little water aerobics, some treadmill, some walking but soon I just give it up...and resort to TV for the winter. Which means I really start to put on weight.... by this past may I was into a size 22 and heading for 24.... the heaviest I have ever been.....but there was a glimmer of hope. You see I have TMJ and have had for about 10 years now. I have had bite guards and pillows, taking drugs and done physical therapy.... all of which worked for a while but now are no good. So I have finally decided to have surgery, but before I can do that I have to get my teeth ready, which means braces...and so my eating has become a lot more limited.....since it hurts to eat and EVERYTHING gets stuck in them. Hence me back on my weight loss plan. I have lost 22 pounds so far since the end of June and still going. I have added working out ( jazzercise) in the last month and everything is going well. I think this time I will actually keep it up. Since I have a goal and hey maybe I will be able to fit into the cute wedding dress I have had my eye on( if I ever do get married). I will keep you updated on my progress...... and hopefully not any set backs.