A new beginning (again)..

Wow, it's been  year since I posted here... *slaps forehead* And sadly, not much has changed.

Has anyone reached a point in their attempts at weight loss where they just feel totally overwhelmed by the amount of information? Yeah, that's where I am.

I am very bad at keeping track of counting calories. I bought a food scale and so on last year. But eventually my desire to log food, especially food that I would eat at a friend's house (how am I supposed to log like 5 pieces of bell pepper?), kinda died off.

I came across the Diet Doctor who talks about what is known in Sweden as LCHF. Low carb, high fat. To me it makes sense and provides some relief. Forget about the calories but eat small portions of highly flavorful healthy food. Sounds very European, n'cest pas? Anyway, although I have (in my opinion) cut out a lot of bread, carbs, what I am concerned about is sugar. It seems to be in EVERYTHING. And very hard to cut out, especially when you have a sweet tooth... but dark chocolate or some berries usually helps the situation.

In my most recent effort to get below 200 lbs I am going to begin by reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. I find food history fascinating, as I do with most anything historical.

I am just tired of failure, and attempts to start again. I hope to report on my discovers, successes, frustrations, and failures.. and remember to do it this time! :)

Here I GO!!!

It's been a while but I've finally had enough of sitting around and pretending that I'm on a diet and pretending that I'm going to lose weight if I continue what I'm doing. I tried to lull myself into a reality where I thought "if I just eat a little less" it might work. Might. I don't need might! I need "it will work".

But what is that factor which will make it work? For me it's probably willpower and accountability. I already know that I eat too much (usually over 400 calories what I need to be eating).

Sooo I also want to set some goals...and follow them.

#1. I'd like to find some fellow bloggers to team up with and keep each other accountable. Not like, "OMG you didn't follow your plan or you are eating horribly, now DIE!" But just checking in and encouraging each other. Is there like some sort of WL blog ring thing I can join? I'll have to investigate.

#2. Post SW pictures.

#3. By next summer I have a Very Important Meeting (going to meet two Very Important girl friends whom I've only ever known online :) and we have plans to dress up and hit the town. Do I want to be feeling like I can't wear anything or I'm the ugliest one there? Please. No.

I also want to post about just regular stuff now and then. I'm sure I'll be fairly whiny on this blog (sorry) so I want to balance it out with some awesome, inspirational things. I have a tumblr where I post pictures and stuff found from others on Tumblr, but I don't really care to update with long picture and text posts, so insert blogspot. :D You may or may not be aware that I'm a huge vintage enthusiast and derive a lot of inspiration from fashion and people of prior decades... so pics of that nature may crop up now and then.

I may make a list of goals and put them up on my blog so I can look at them and cross them off as time goes on and I accomplish more and more.

Ok, that's it for now. :D

A bike ride

Well today I went for a bike ride to the library :D Our area is very hilly, so it was a little ... errr, interesting at times. My legs definitely are "thanking me", as one of my teachers from last semester used to say. Funny how soreness (it's not really PAIN, just soreness) should be considered thanking, but the benefits are reaped later with repeated efforts.

An interesting quote I read a while ago was along the lines of, "I work every day to look/feel this good" (I added 'feel' in there because for me, being more healthy is not solely based on looks, but also my own personal feeling of being lighter, more self-esteem, etc). Which sadly is not always true. I have a few friends who eat the junkiest food and they are still very slim. I'm chalking that one up to genetics. It can be very frustrating for me, because I love to exercise (even though I may complain[?]) and do active things. Most of these friends don't even want to exercise. And yet I'm still over 200 lbs. Argh, why?

Anyway, I keep reading that lifting weights is important for losing weight properly.  I read so many different pieces of information that it's kind of like overwhelming. Anyone got any suggestions? I don't have any equipment, but I'm not afraid to go out and buy or make some weights to use... I just don't know how to use them.

A crazy week

Not much food-wise is going on that I can report. I know there's not really an excuse for not starting the zigzagging, but at this juncture in time I don't have the opportunity to sit down and figure it all out. Why is it that I get the most motivation right when I don't have time?!

Well, in any case, my friends and I are wanting to be super active this summer. We're thinking about sailing (already done it - love love love it), yoga (not a lot of interest in that for me), there's also hula (hehe). I'm not sure yet.

Hopefully things will be back to normal next week once I'm back home!

Inspiration

Still not set up

Today I had grand plans to start off the calorie shifting. But as finals are on the horizon, I haven't had much time to do anything, much less set up a diet plan. I feel pretty bad though as I went to a fast food place, and had burgers, fries and an ice cream blended thingy. Then after that I went to Panera, had a salad and sandwich for dinner with a lemonade. I'd really like to cut more sugar out of my diet, but it keeps cropping up EVERYWHERE! Argh. Oh well - like the title of this blog is - don't look back and start again tomorrow. I'm thinking calorie shifting will have to be planned out more towards the end of this week, or wait until I get home.

Greetings and salutations

Hello everyone! A new blog is nothing new on the internet anymore but I want to establish some rules for what this is going to be...mainly for myself.

I'm here to document my weight loss. Right now I am 230 lbs. This is actually the lowest weight I've ever been. Why do I want to lose weight? A variety of reasons...

• Health. I want to just FEEL healthier and fitter. 
• Looks. Yes I am a fashion bug, and I simply want to wear clothes that I like. I'd like to wear a belt one day and have it be visible. And I love vintage styles. 
• Dance. I love swing dancing and well, as good as I am at it, I often times am self-conscious and not a lot of guys spontaneously ask me to dance. :\ 
• That kind of leads me to a last point, love. It's a little touchy subject, no? Well, I'm not saying that I want to change myself to find someone. I just want to show that I have determination, and that I am healthy, which will attract the type of people that I am attracted to as well. (Sadly, I have a penchant for tall, skinny guys. They don't usually go for us 5'6" chunky girls.) 

2. I'm also just hear to write about random frustrations, etc. I have a livejournal but I just don't feel it's as open as I want it to be. Also, the community there can scare me at times.

Anyway, if some poor soul stumbles across this, please let me know ;)
I'm going to be researching a new diet, which I think will work well for me. It's called calorie shifting. I am currently in the process of reading The Sassy Program - more later! x