The Gym: Genevieve

So last Thursday night, my mom and I went out to dinner at a small Italian restaurant and then walked over to a gym about 7 blocks away from my house to sign up for a membership and a personal trainer.
I saw her for the first time on Sunday, and she kind of assessed my body and where my starting point is. I then went on Monday with my friend, and then because Wednesday's are "free guest Wednesday's", my other friend and I went over today because I had a session with my trainer at 4:30.
This session was probably the most intense work out I had since I went to Camp Shane, two summers ago. She also emailed me a food log, an example of a food log and guidelines for eating and food shopping.
I'm seeing my trainer again on Friday and I think this is all going to work out well!

Genevieve

Aunt Sue: A vegetarian?

Ok, it's March and I'm still not losing weight and lapsing into periods of overeating. I'm thinking of trying a vegetarian diet, mainly because I think it would be healthy and I don't eat that much meat anyway. Plus, it would be interesting to explore. I'm going to start researching that today. I'll keep you posted.

Aunt Sue: My rumpled and torn new leaf

I vowed when I got up this morning to make March a perfect month in terms of eating and exercise. I don't know why I continue to make vows like that because I didn't exercise and I just had some M&Ms. I keep looking at specific dates and saying "this is the day I'll change." Looking back on it, whenever I have made a big change - like when I stopped drinking - the date only became significant when I looked back afterwards and recalled that it was when I started. One day at a time is a mantra I've never forgotten in almost 17 years as a recovering alcoholic. I have to extend that to the rest of my life. Tomorrow, in addition to not having a drink, I won't have M&Ms for dinner. That's a promise I can keep.

Chinese New Year: Genevieve

Last night, we had a huge Chinese New Year dinner at my house. While it was extremely delicious and amazing, I did a pretty bad job with moderating what I ate. We had a lot of family members over from my dad's side of the family and I think everyone had a lot of fun. Really, when we first started the blog, one of the first things I thought of was Chinese New Year. I knew it wasn't going to be helpful for me at all, but it's only once a year that we get to have all this rich food. We had peking duck, sticky rice stuffed in a chicken, ox tail stew, shrimp, chicken skewers and a lot more. I'd say everything was a success, except for a few glitches and mishaps... but it wasn't too significant.
My brother had friends from school over and after my friend and everyone else left, we played a game of apples to apples, which I've never played before. If you haven't played it before, I suggest you grab some friends and go out and get it, because it's probably the most fun game I've played in a while.


Genevieve

Aunt Sue: SlimFast

Does anyone have any feelings about meal-replacement shakes? I've started drinking SlimFast sometimes for breakfast and at other times when I get home from work. This is certainly not something I'd have a second helping of - so that's good. And it works OK in the evening. But when I have one for breakfast, I'm hungry soon afterwards. Breakfast is always a challenge for me. I never leave myself enough time in the morning to actually prepare a meal. I'm not even sure that SlimFast is the best of its kind because there are a number of different brands. Any thoughts on this?

Aunt Sue: Dressed in black

I'm dressed like a Greek widow today - all in black. Not for any reason other than a vague notion that it's slimming. I have had mixed success today - mostly good but I've had a number of small cookies that one of my coworkers brought in. I'm going to the gym tonight for at least half an hour. So that would make it a largely good day.

Speaking of largely, I've been piling up my fat clothes to give away. Not sure that's a good idea when I'm still fat but I don't want to wear them anymore. I'd rather go Greek widow than mother of the bride. I don't actually look like this photo, by the way. I think it's from Zorba the Greek.

Aunt Sue: A smoky breakfast

I really do have to get more practice cooking. Just one week after making bean soup that was still crunchy days later, I made a breakfast for my nephew, Genevieve's brother, that was fair to not-that-good. Plus, there was a smoky incident involving the muffins. He was a good sport, but I really do have to become a better cook if I'm going to eat more healthfully. In the past, I've relied on frozen Weight Watchers or Lean Cuisine dinner, but that gets old after a while.

My niece said something in her last post that really resonated with me. She said it has hit her recently "how much I should want to lose weight." I feel like that all the time. I should want to do this. I do want to do this. But...... It seems to me sometimes that if I really wanted to be thin, I would be. And yet, I do want to be thinner but I'm obviously not committed to it.

A nutritionist told me once that thought follows action. I was able to stop drinking almost 17 years ago by joining AA and following a plan, in that case the 12 steps. So maybe I should give Weight Watchers another try. I'm already signed up for the online plan and I'll give that a shot again before I try meetings again. Perhaps the online plan and communicating with other bloggers would be a good combination.

Anyway, onward.......