I Have More to Say

I really want to keep up with this writing schedule for at least the last week of this month, but now it's nearly 9 and I haven't posted, so I don't want to go into something too deep.

I have rants, oh, do I have rants, but they will have to wait until next week, when I'm a little less drunk (yeah, right) and have time to write something a little more thought out.

I am starting a new DietBet tomorrow, a nice big one that's almost at $100,000 and will probably grow larger before it closes.

I'm also going to a local apple orchard tomorrow to pick nice fresh apples and indulge in way too many apple cider donuts. I've got a goal to do 10 more hours of Zumba in the remaining 10 days of the month.

Goals! They're good! They're guilt you create for yourself!

Adult Food Fun Time

Being an adult is really hard, you know? Especially with the whole "feeding yourself" thing.

I was a very picky eater as a child, and I largely outgrew that as I got older. I'll happily try anything at least once, and I've discovered a lot of "weird" foods that I now love, like escargot or kale. I don't have a problem clearing my plate when dinner is put in front of me at a restaurant or by one of my many friends who are wonderful cooks.

Why, then, is it so hard for me to feed myself?? It's one of the worst chores of being an adult -- even worse than having to clean the litter box. When I'm living with someone, I don't mind making healthy, delicious, balanced meals. But by myself, it's too much effort. I can barely stand to eat cheese and Triscuits.

I try every now and then. I find a recipe that might work, I buy ingredients, and then I proceed to never make it. It just seems like too much effort, and it doesn't even sound any good any more.

If I do manage to make a recipe, I inevitably make too much and choke down the leftovers for weeks. I'm still eating balsamic chicken and rice from two weeks ago.

So for a few days I eat whatever one recipe I managed to make, then I go back to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cheese and crackers and then I am just so bored of eating I can't stand it. Then I get a pizza.

There's a cycle here that needs breaking. I have SO MANY RECIPES. I have five or six cookbooks, physical books, then I have a few e-book cookbooks plus recipes from the internet that I've saved. So I'm going to try to start a bi-weekly cooking show where I cook through my cookbooks on YouTube! It helps me actually fucking make some food, it maybe helps another single dieter looking for something easy (because none of these recipes start with "in your dutch oven," I fucking promise you that), and potentially it's entertaining for everyone!

I'm kind of excited...we'll see how this goes! I'll probably work on filming the first one on Sunday, so expect something some time next week!

What do you do when you don't want to cook??

Make $$ to Exercise and Lose Weight!

Best of both worlds, right? Workout, lose weight, GET PAID.

Let me tell you this right at the top: you're not going to get rich with these phone apps. You're not going to quit your job. But you can get some nice extra spending money that can come in handy.

Two ways to make money from exercising and losing weight:

1. GymPact

I've been using GymPact since January 2011. It's had some growing pains, but overall it's a good app, and it's come a long way from where it started. GymPact pays you to work out. You tell it how many times a week you're going to commit to working out (minimum of three days a week) and how much you'll pay if you miss a workout (minimum $5 per workout missed). If you miss your pact, you pay. If you keep your pact, you get a split of the money from people who missed.

When it started, you could only use GymPact in a gym -- it locates you on your phone's GPS, and you have to stay there for 30 minutes. Technically, you could just sit in the locker room for 30 minutes, but really, if you're there, shouldn't you just work out?

New to GymPact since I joined: you can merge it with RunKeeper to count runs, walks, hikes, or bike rides you do outside, or you can wear it and use the altimeter to track a workout at home. I use this option when I do Zumba at home.

GymPact started as an iPhone only app, but the Android version released late last year, so yay! I've made about $130 from GymPact since January 2011. Not enough to pay my gym bill, but it pays for my Hulu+ and Netflix subscriptions :-)

2. DietBet

DietBet calls itself "social dieting." You join or create a bet, and everyone who joins is trying to lose 4% of their starting weight. You buy in to the bet, usually about $25-$35. You take a picture of your weight at the beginning and end so that DietBet can confirm it.

There's a social aspect where you can post your progress and workouts for people in the bet with you to comment on, but I think that would only be handy for small bets, where you actually have a chance of getting to know people. I choose the large bets, with the highest number of players for a large pot. There's a greater chance for people not to win than with a small bet, which means bigger payout.

I've done four DietBets and won three of them. And let me tell you, losing that one hurt. A lot. I just didn't get my act together in time. Thanks to DietBet, I've stayed pretty steady in my current 10-pound range. You can join up to five bets at a time, and I'd like to try that as a way to get out of this plateau. It's just hard because of the initial upfront cost -- two bets at $25 is $50 I don't really have to spare! But it would definitely keep me honest. Losing money is a very powerful motivator for me, even stronger than making money!

I've made $44 from DietBet. The most recent bet I won hasn't been tallied yet, but I'll edit this post as soon as it is to give an updated total. [Edited to add - I won $16 from the most recent DietBet!]

Join the newest game with me! It starts on September 24 and ends on October 21. It's got a big pot with lots of players, so if you win, it should be a decent payout! Are you ready to make a change?

DietBet is currently only available for iPhone.

Would the prospect of making or losing money motivate you to lose weight?

Start Small

Yesterday I did very well with my goals! I only had one decaf americano with caramel and half and half at work -- a far cry from my two or four drinks with lots of syrup and calorie-filled toppings.

I can feel myself getting addicted to the caffeine even in the decaf though, and I don't like it. I'm going to cut it back to just one shot of decaf espresso.

I ate 56g of sugar yesterday -- my current goal for the week is to eat fewer than 80g of sugar. That's a LOT of sugar, but it's not at all unheard of. Start with fewer than 80g. Work it down until it's around 40g. Sounds a lot better than just cutting it off alltogether!

I ate very lightly yesterday, and I mostly focused on eating proteins instead of carbs and sugars. I was still hungry when I went to bed, but I had a DietBet to win this morning! I weighed in at 6 ounces less than I needed to win the DietBet, so as soon as it gets verified, I'll let you know how much money I won off that ;-)

I've won two out of the three DietBets I've finished this year; this win would be number three. It hasn't really helped me break out of this plateau I've been in for over a year, but it does help me from going any higher, plus I win some money! I won $11 with the first one, and $17 with the second. Nothing to quit my job over, but it's more than I had before, and it kept me honest when I'd binge!

I try to join the big, popular games over a small game with people I may know, because the odds are better with a big group and a big pot of money that more people will fail and my payout will be bigger :-) This isn't the only way I monetize my weight loss! Tomorrow I'll write a summary of all the things I do to make money off weight loss.

Do you track your sugar intake? Do you feel like you eat a lot of hidden sugars during the day? You'd be surprised!

Sugar fiend

For the rest of the month, I'm going to try to write here every single weekday! Whoa, what crazy commitment.

Yom Kippur has passed, and I made it 22 hours without food or water. It was so, so difficult for me to do nothing all day. No walks, no exercise, no going out because it's still 100+ degrees outside and I can't have water. The entire day is a bargain with myself.

Wake up at 10am; well, see if you can make it till noon. Oh god, it's only 10:36, I'll never make it till noon. Okay, it's noon. I can make it to 1. I can make it to 2. Ok, at 3:30 I give myself permission to cave. Well, maybe 4. Ok, 4:30 is 22 hours and I give in.

It's amazing how often you still have to pee when you're dehydrated.

Then I had pizza and a hard cider, which was probably not a good idea and gave me an even worse dehydration headache than the one I already had.

Oh yeah, I've been there

I really, really need to cut back on my sugar intake. The hardest part about doing that is that I work at a very popular coffee shop where I get all the free drinks I like during my shift. And it's salted caramel time. I would be perfectly content to just eat a small cup of whipped cream, caramel, and salt with a spoon.

I've been changing my drink from the horrific 30g+ of sugar sweet cinnamon steamer to a decaf americano with a few pumps of caramel. I don't drink caffeine -- at all. So even the two decaf shots I've been drinking have been making me jittery, and I really don't want to get addicted again, even mildly. But it's so hard to work a shift without drinking anything, and I'm sick of iced tea.

But I've got to get the sugar under control; no amount of exercise is going to change anything when my sugar intake is so nuts. So for the rest of this week, I am only going to have one of those caramel americanos per shift, and NO OTHER SUGAR DRINKS. Since I'll be posting every day, I can keep track of my progress. And my daily sugar grams!

What's your biggest sugar weakness??

Sacrilicious

Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. From sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow I will fast to repent my sins, ask forgiveness from God, and forgive those who I might be mad at. It's the holiest of days in the Jewish calendar and very serious.

I like the clean slate of Yom Kippur. I like not holding on to guilt or anger, but releasing it at least once a year. I like the idea of using the fast to aide in prayers; when you feel a rumble of hunger, remember why you're doing it, and it makes it more meaningful.

I also like Yom Kippur because it's two chances to binge. It is terrible, and I'll have to ask forgiveness for feeling this way, but I like Yom Kippur because I get to binge. I binge before sundown tonight, fast for 24 hours, and then binge tomorrow night because I can rationalize I haven't eaten in 24 hours.

I know this is disordered eating, and I do want to work on it. I also want a pizza. Bingeing is numbing. Food is comfort. It's a hard cycle to break. It's not just a matter of willpower, it's changing the way I feel and react not just to food, but to life-stress, boredom, and emotions. Willpower is bullshit. It's creating an entirely new way of thinking from how I've learned to think over the last 35 years. It's overcoming a compulsion.

I'm going to try and make some changes. I have a coupon for a free slice of pizza at an excellent local pizza place. Maybe I'll break my fast with a slice instead of a whole pie. 

Still fighting the fight

Yeah! That's how it works, right?