9/20/2012: China? So Soon?

It looks like I may be going to China in a couple of days.  Yes, a couple of days!  I sent my visa application to Washington DC yesterday via UPS Red and with a little work and a little determination on their part, I should have my passport back tomorrow and we'll be headed to China on Saturday.

Castle Creations has a factory in China that manufactures electric motors.  We manufacture the controllers here in Olathe.  I am going to China to meet the CPAs that are doing the audit of our China factory and to tour the facility.  I am really looking forward to it.  I'll be traveling with the CEO of Castle, Patrick, and with Kate, the Business Director and the person that used to be in charge of the finance functions.  It will be a good opportunity to spend time with both of them and learn more about their thoughts, concerns and hopes for the company.  I am excited about the trip.

On the other hand...we leave on Saturday.  Yikes!!  I have to be firmly committed to exercising and eating right while I am traveling.  I am certain the hotel in China will have a gym, so I will use that.  In may be hard to count calories accurately, but I am going to give it my best shot.  Of course, my goal will be to stick to my trend line.

Speaking of trend lines, I am slightly above my trend line (but several pounds below my goal line) right now, but that fits with the stair-step pattern that has developed over the last several months.  I am confident that I will have a big enough drop one of these days, soon, to get me back to it.  Thursdays, as you probably are already aware, are my mark-my-chart day and I weighed 170.6 pounds this morning, a four-tenths of a pound drop from yesterday.  It's good to see the gradual progress, but my goal is to stick to my trend line as closely as possible.  If I do continue to lose weight at the rate that I have lost weight since mid-April (an average of 1.8 pounds per week), I will reach my goal weight of 150 pounds on December 3rd, 8 weeks ahead of schedule.  That's my plan!!

Last night was bowling night and it went late, we didn't get home until about 10:30.  Then I had a ton of trouble falling asleep so I slept until 6:00 this morning and did not go to the gym.  My at-home schedule is to have Thursdays off, because of bowling, so I don't feel terrible about that.  I will swim for at least a half-hour, if not longer, tonight.  Yesterday was kind of a nutty eating day.  I ended up running around in the morning to come home and get my passport and get a photo taken for my visa application.  Then I had a couple of important projects to get done prior to a 5:00 board of directors' meeting.  I stopped at Panera's for their 390 calorie strawberry and chicken poppy seed salad for lunch and they don't have it any more.  I ended up getting the 530 calorie roasted turkey salad instead.  I only used half the dressing, so that helped, but I still ended up eating a little more yesterday than I intended to.  Total calories for the day were 1674.

This morning I will offer a very brief introduction to "Women, Food and God," by Geneen Roth.  The book centers on Roth's philosophy that our relationship to food is an exact microcosm of our relationship with life itself.  She believes that everything we believe about love, fear, transformation and God is revealed in how, when and what we eat; and that we don't eat compulsively because we are hungry, our compulsive eating is a form of acting out a world of hope or hopelessness, of faith or doubt, of love or fear.  Roth believes that if we really want to know how we feel about ourselves, the world around us, and our faith, we need to look no further than the food on our plates.

I read most of this book aloud to Jack as we drove down I-70, on our way home the last day of our trip.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it's an easy read.  But as I read it I had a lot of ah-ha moments.  There were several times when I said, "She's nailed it!  That is exactly how I've felt!"  There were also passages in the book that helped me truly understand why this time really is different.  This time is different, I've known that for a while, but I didn't exactly understand why it was different.  I've never bothered to go back and add up all of the pounds I've lost and gained and lost and gained in my life.  Too many, that's for certain.  I don't know if it's 1000 or more, which is what Roth says she has lost in her lifetime.  But there was definitely a pattern of getting to be 75 or more pounds overweight, getting absolutely disgusted with myself, going on a diet and losing 25 - 50 (or more) pounds, staying at a reasonable weight for a while, then going through some transition that caused me to lose focus on my weight and start eating again, and experiencing the inevitable weight gain.  Of course, each time I'd start a new program I'd say this time is different, I'm not going to gain it back.  But, of course, on February 27th, 2012, I weighed 224 pounds.  I had gained most of it back.  For the record, the most I have ever weighed (on a scale) was 238 pounds when I was 39 years old.  I have no idea what my high weight actually was because that time around I did not actually get on a scale until I had been working hard at Tae Kwon Do for a few months and had already started watching what I eat a little.  I couldn't face getting on a scale at my heaviest, but I am guessing that I was somewhere around 250 pounds at my heaviest, over 10 years ago.

For several months, now, I've known that this time is different.  I know it's different because I am not "white knuckling" it and struggling with food choices.  It's been pretty easy to eat a reasonable number of calories most days.  I also haven't craved alcohol since I decided to stop drinking.  After thinking through all of the pros and cons of consuming alcohol, it just made sense to not drink, anymore.  I don't find myself wanting my "diet" to end.  I know that I'll be keeping track of calories for the rest of my life, and that makes sense to me.  I am looking forward to reaching my goal of 150 pounds, just because it is the end of that stage, and I will get to move on to the next stage, but it doesn't mean much will change about the way I eat.  I'll eat a few more calories, because I won't be trying to lose weight anymore, but that just means I'll be adding a little more protein or a little more fruit.  Not binging on cookies and ice cream.  Until reading the book, I didn't understand what changed, though, I didn't understand why it was different.  I think I do now.  As I re-read the book and blog about it, I'll share my ah-ha moments with you.  It's starting to make sense, and I like the way that feels!