The LBDDiaries.com Blog

Ya know, this blog is about my journey back into my Little Black Dresses.  I have many.  All if different sizes.  My last one – the final one – is this one:

Just a reminder of what my goal is.  My lovely backless beautiful Little Black Dress to stun Alpha Hubby with. I need reminders once in awhile.

I’ve been on this journey over a year and not accomplished much.  Oh, I lost a little weight and gained a lot of HEAD knowledge – studying, researching, figuring, learning about myself, freaking, quitting, starting again, never giving up – but I haven’t really, really APPLIED this knowledge.  Obviously.  Ugh.

I had an epiphany the other day – really eye-opening.  Two things happened.  One was an incredible dream that I got up and wrote down as soon as I woke up so I wouldn’t forget it.  I’ll clean it up and either post it here or on the website.  It was something else and said a lot about my inner… child?  Image?  Skinny person? 

The second thing that happened was realizing that there comes a time, as an overweight person, that you realize you’re a schizophrenic or actually, it is called multiple person-inside disorder.  No, seriously!  You are two people.  At least I hope that’s all you are.  And it is like you begin to accept, “I am never going to be slender again. I may as well accept this.  I am stuck here forever.” 

This doesn’t happen on the outside – outside you’re still dieting, exercising, fighting with yourself, eating right, eating wrong, despairing, working toward goals, failing, getting up and doing it again, blah blah blah.

BUT INSIDE!  Inside is where the most important things are going on – and I don’t mean digestion.  Inside there is a whole other person – one who is programming what you do on the outside.  Some people call it our subconscious but I think it’s just a inner evil bread-loving chocolate-hoarding person who wants to control my mind and ruin my life.  OK, no, that’s not it.  I know you think I have serious issues here but I’m just joshing with ya – really!  NO, I am NOT hearing voices.  No, you do NOT need to go get the guys with the straightjackets.  Really.

OK.  I’m back.  One of the hardest things I ever had to do was face the fact that the inner image I had of myself physically was fat.  It didn’t matter how hard I tried to change, it wouldn’t go away.  Of course, I don’t think I even realized that my inner image was like that until recently.  A lot of stuff has happened recently.

All my life (well, since Senior year in high school), I’ve been on a diet or watched what I ate, or constantly stayed ON GUARD against gaining wieght.  If my weight fluctuated AT ALL, I jumped on it like a bird on a June bug (hubby’s saying).  I wasn’t overweight that time period in high school, but I gained a couple of pounds and my mom freaked.  That day is BURNED into my memory and actually affected my life profoundly.  Dieting controlled the rest of my senior year.  She didn’t mean to put that – fear – into me, but it happened all the same.


But still, I never gained weight after that year.  That Freshman 15 was taken off as fast as it tried to jump on.  Weight-gain induced paranoia began to control my life.  It happened years later, after I had my son and had trouble getting the extra 30 pounds off, then quit smoking, then got sloppy on my viligance and viola!  A few years ago it all fell apart.

My inner image had fallen apart.  I couldn’t SEE that I was gaining weight.  I couldn’t tell things had gotten out of hand.  And then one day, I did indeed see – ugh – but by that time, I couldn’t even visualize myself slender anymore.  It was as if I accepted that it would be impossible to change ever again.  It was as if my outside finally caught up with the inner image I had of myself, the picture that developed years ago in the darkroom of my mind with a slender mother who stressed over every pound her daughter dallied with.  My outer image became what was inside me.


I finally had to admit to myself recently that I had a skewed inner image.  As long as my inner image of myself is fat, my outer self is going to match it.  Without the inner image of hope, nothing is going to change.  Without change, what you see in the mirror can be a lie – like an aneorexic person who sees fat when they’re bone thin (or vice versa).

This is very eye-opening for me.  It explains a lot – like why I can eat right for a few weeks, then suddenly gorge on something I know will trigger a feeding frenzy – pirahana anyone?  They are called “remorseless eating machines.”  That’s how I feel sometimes. An apt description of me and sourdough French bread.  Or cream cheese and bagels.

I am programmed to fail.  No, let me change that.  I WAS programmed to fail but I’ve caught on to what’s happening.  I have to change my inner image.

This is something I will be doing (and telling you about) for the next few blogs (interspersed with the Peaceful Aloha life stuff since it’s all releated.  Yeah, your lifestyle can affect your weight.  The lack of peace in a home can affect your weight.  Stress can affect your weight… but that’s a whole different blog.

Today, I am working on my inner image.  There IS a slender woman in there hiding behind that fat blankity-blank so-in-so who’s tried to take over my life.  I am going to evict her. 

I’m tired of this multiple person-inside disorder!

Here is a great Friday Mixer and check this site out – it’s great!

(This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are doing on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life. See here for the Aloha lowdown and here for the Peaceful Life reason!)

Alpha Hubby has this irritating sweet and helpful habit of saying, “Did you write it down?” when I say I forgot to do something. It’s like the saying, “If you have no goals, you’re not going anywhere.”  I have no idea who said that – it’s just one of those things I jotted down on a piece of paper because I wanted to remember it.  It’s similar to something Mary Kay Ash said.

I have been reading about Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.  Her story is amazing – in a time when women were considered incapable of running an business empire, and after she had retired after 25 years in the work force - she proved all naysayers wrong. 

I have been studying about something she did every day:  she respected time.  Time is our life.  We exchange time for money (jobs), we exchange time for entertainment (reading, going to movies), we exchange time for relationships (spending time with loved ones).  Time is valuable.  Here is a quote from the book:

Every day before Ash went to work, she would make a list of the “Six Most Important Things” to do, and give herself deadlines to finish each. “Over the years, I’ve observed that nearly all high achievers know how to make good of those 1,440 minutes in each day,” said Ash.

Anything she did not finish on the assigned day, she would move to the top of her “Six” list the next morning.

So I am working to do just that – start every morning making a list of 6 things I want to accomplish that day.  I am learning how to assign a “deadline” to the task but it’s difficult because I am in the bad habit of becoming sidetracked.  I have to develop in this area.

Speaking of getting sidetracked, I remember learning a trick a long time ago about not leaving a room until you are finished in that room.  I know it was about housework but it really works in every area of life.  The article said to take large brown paper sacks and write on the outside the name of each room in your house.  Then, if your goal was to clean the living room and there were items in that living room that belonged in another room, DO NOT LEAVE THE LIVING ROOM.  Place the items in the sack with the right room marked on it.  In other words, if you have children’s toys that belong in their room, you put the toys in the sack marked “kids room” (whatever, you know what I mean).  Then deal with the items in the sack one sack at a time.

I still try to incorporate this into my house cleaning to this day but I use cheap plastic clothes baskets that I picked up at the Dollar Store.  Of course, sometimes there are white plastic laundry baskets sitting all around the house, mocking my goal setting goals but I keep plugging and keep trying and keep working on it!

Now I need to apply this goal setting list to my daily life.  If one of the items on my list to write a posting for the day, then I can’t get up and answer the phone to chat for an hour with a friend, send a personal email, or read a book.  Any one of those sidetracks will throw my goal setting list and deadlines off, and ruin the entire point of goal setting. Ask me how I know. I have to set those things aside and finish the posting.  I can call back, write later, and read when all items on the list are accomplished!

Today I started with four items.  My four goals are making Alpha Hubby’s bread (bread machine, actually), the dining room, kitchen, and my bath area.  Under each goal I wrote exactly what I want to accomplish.  The dining room alone may take longer than any of them so I had to put the kitchen first since that only involved getting the bread machine set up, the dishes and sweeping – easy stuff that needed to be done.  When I’m done in the kitchen, I will head to the dining room with the bathroom being last on the list (one most likely to be pushed to tomorrow’s list).  The dining room is more visible and has been cluttered with unpacked stuff longest.  I need to finish finding a place for everything and everything in its place.

If you know you will not finish an item in one day, just do what you can that day.  In my case, unpacking from the move is a one-shot deal.  Once it is finished, I will never have to deal with it again.  It is hard to define a deadline for unpacking so I have to figure out ways to break it down into discernable goals – things I can do that day that will move the unpacking forward.  Thus, I finish unpacking and putting away the boxes in the dining room.  That is a goal.  I do not bring more boxes in to be unpacked until these boxes are dealt with.

The kitchen, on the other hand, is a goal I know a good deadline for.  I know about how long it takes to do the dishes and load the dishwasher, sweep and mop the floor, wipe the counters, clean the stovetop.  I can set that goal deadline fairly accurately.

So the Peaceful Tip for today is to write down your daily goals.  Start every day knowing what you want to accomplish that day, listed in order of importance.  Do not go to the next item on the list until you are finished with the one you are on.  Do not stress and do set realistic deadlines.  If you need me, I’ll be in the dining room for as long as it takes to get it in order!  That pix above is deceptive – there is a temporary table set in front of the dining room table and the temp table is covered in unpacked items.  Help me, Rhonda!! My poor bathroom may be pushed out for… forever!

So – I’m sitting here admiring my room service cart and can’t take a picture of it because Alpha Hubby is on a walkabout and took the camera.  I know he’ll get some great pictures but I sure wanted to show you my amazingly beautiful cart!!

I’m sipping fresh watermelon juice that is in a small bottle nestled in it’s own ice bucket.  The Bellagio Crab Eggs Benedict is so pretty I hate to disturb it with a fork and knife!  I know it will taste amazing but I’m drinking my first cuppa before I do anything.  I have to admit, the Bellagio staff creates a beautiful presentation in everything they do.  The service is so exceptional you feel like royalty.

I have a lot of amazing pictures.  Still kicking myself over that cord that was left behind.  I guess you could use this as an Aloha Peaceful Life posting – since one of the best Peaceful Tips I can give you is to pack carefully and in-advance!!!  I so didn’t want to go on this road trip at first so I put off everything.  Packing at the last minute leads to a lot of “Where’s this and that?” and “I CAN’T believe you forgot to bring that” or “Ugh, why did I bring so much when less would have done just as well?” 

I know the answer to that last one – when you don’t make a good list and write things down, you take too much to cover the “just in cases” – just in case you don’t have enough clothes, makeup, gadgets, books, magazines, blah blah blah.  Advance preparation is godly.  Just like cleanliness.

So that’s it today from the road – OH – the wedding was last night – I have to say Elvis looks pretty darn good for a dead guy!  The wedding was really sweet – not tacky at all.  The chapel was beautiful and the entire “show” was so special. 

While it may not be traditional to be married in Vegas by Elvis wearing shorts and flip flops (him) or a pretty summer green and black dress (her), there was enough tradition to make this mama tear up – a bit!  She cried (from biting her lip to keep from crying) and he danced (who knew he could?) and it was just perfect.

Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel – for your traditional and non-traditional wedding!  Then, of course, afterward, you must have a non-traditional wedding dinner, right:

Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Cafe – very yum.  Very unique.  Very interesting.  Very fitting for this wedding party!

I was also able to pick up some beautiful pastries from the Jean-Phillippe Patisserre – looked like little miniature wedding cakes – much too beautiful to eat!

My Crab Eggs Benedict are awaiting me on my *ahem* (am I spoiled, oh yes I am) china plate, with my beautiful silver, flowers and I just have to go now – see ya!

Next week my baby – BABY, ya’ll – turns 28.  HOW did this happen SO QUICKLY?

These two are getting married next Tuesday in Vegas.  By Elvis.

We are all going to have a great time.  While they play at the Planet Hollywood Towers, Alpha Hubby and I will be playing at the Bellagio with its many restuarants and Jean Philippe Patisserie.

Why, NO, I won’t be indulging. Why do you ask? Hey, there has to be some sort of payback for going through 13 agonizing drugged out of my mind (ever heard of the Twilight Drug? Good stuff man. You still feel the pain but ya just don’t care!) *ahem* – drugged out of my mind hours of labor 28 years ago, right? RIGHT? OK, I promise, I will look and not touch. Smell and not grab. Drool and not embarrass myself. Promise. Yeah. Sure.

WHERE did all the time go to?  I mean, I just went into labor – on Labor Day (which caused NO end of joking from the labor room nurses) – 28 years ago.  HOW did he grow up so fast?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHUA and

CONGRATULATIONS Josh and LieghAnn, Sept. 7, 2010

Blog Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

(Originally posted 3 June 2009)

Somewhere in the past few days, I have had an epiphany.  I love that word – epiphany!  It means an “ah ha” moment – a revelation – an eye-opening experience.  Sometime between last Friday and Monday, I realized that something my brother said was true.

Here is what he said.  Understand that he just lost 38 pounds.  He also has friends at a consulting firm he works with regularly who just lost a lot of weight.  She lost about 80 pounds and her boss lost 155 pounds.  Here are their stories, my brother, the secretary and the engineer:

Being a guy I did not think at all about what I was going to do.  During my last visit to the doctor, around April 2008 for a common cold, as usual, they weighed me and I was up to 178# (usually I am around 140) and right at having to go buy a larger set of suits and business dress clothes for the second time.  That was my awakening moment – period.  And I will say now – that is what it takes for some – to hit bottom and “to want”, and I stress “to want/commit”  to lose weight at all cost.  Anything short of that and you will talk yourself out of it – continually.   I did not read any books, do any diets, any anything.  I simply followed the life long rules and cut back on what I ate and started exercising faithfully.

She said her key was to faithfully work out at all cost.  She started working out at the house at all hours until her boss (my friend) bought her a membership at a fitness club because she was so dedicated and doing so well.  She would show up there at the gym at 4 in the morning if that is what time it happened to be.  “Every day” was her rule for exercise, regardless of the time. 

The engineer’s tactic was to go to bed a little hungry every night.  Again, no diet, no research, as long as he was hungry he knew he was losing weight.  He would wake up and eat as much as he wanted for breakfast (all stuff – sausage, bacon, eggs, etc.) and then have an average lunch then very little, if anything, for supper – as long as he went to bed hungry. 

My brother’s take was this:  After talking to these friends, it is interesting (and a coincidence) that we all thought and acted the same way.  The bottom line to the thought process for all three of us was that it is all in the mind.  When you hit bottom you will (or I guess I should say “most will”) react in a positive way – not think about it, not talk about it, not read about it, not study it, not care what any one else thinks – you will just DO IT – and be successful – end of story.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

(Today, August 11, 2010 a year later)  After mulling about where I am and where I want to go, and realizing how absolutely miserable I am with my body, look, shape, lifestyle due to excess weight, I know I need a “this was IT” moment and a “I will just do it” determination.  I’ve farted around for the past year and barely lost 15 pounds (which, while it is better than NO pounds, is NOT acceptable). 

I need to JUST DO IT.  I will just exercise and I know now it has to be a daily cardio hit – 2-3 days a week isn’t cutting it.  I will just eat right and yes, it is easier when BAD foods aren’t in the house.  I will just quit making excuses for myself and wearing blinders.  I will just stop acting childish about weight loss and I will just take responsibility for my excess weight.  I have just run out of excuses.  It is time. 

I am heading back into my first little black dress (oh, honeys! I have 13 of the suckers to work myself into – various sizes!  I’ll post them in pix form someday).

So if you’ll pardon me, I need to JUST go hop into the pool and do my cardo!  See ya….

No, I don’t mean bad as in rancid, smelly or so old, it has to be thrown out.  I mean bad as in… well, think of a nice friendly family dog going bad.  Rabid, snarly, turning on you, foaming at the mouth.  Not your friend.  Or bad-to-the-bone as in major sinful and if you indulge, you will feel guilty the rest of your life, haunted by memories of things done in the dark that you shouldn’t have done.

Recently I looked at foods I knew were not good for me and they had suddenly become my enemy.  They had turned bad-to-the-bone.  They tried to trick me with the siren call, “Oh come on, just one won’t hurt you.  Really! Don’t you trust me?”  I would be lured into the cabinet or fridge or freezer by these voices of foods gone bad-to-the-bone. 

Which takes me back to an earlier blog about GETTING EVERYTHING OUT OF THE HOUSE THAT YOU KNOW YOU DON’T WANT TO EAT.  For me it was crackers, lovely little buttery crackers, crackers that “everything tastes better because it is sitting on one of those crackers” crackers.  You know the ones I mean.  And since those crackers absolutely must have something sitting on them, we talking the need for peanut butter and also cream cheese. 

These are foods that, if they are in the pantry or fridge, I will be led by my flesh and drawn over the dark side of the kitchen.  I can spend time looking for those bad, bad foods.  I cry out to them, seeking and searching for my old companions.  I am NOT a happy camper when I can’t find one thing to indulge in that I wasn’t supposed to.  No crackers, no peanut butter, no chocolate, no cookies, and no chips either!  Yet I would have this burning need to eat something like that!

This leads me to believe, by the light of the new day, that it is not easy to break that habit of nibbling on those foods gone bad for you.  I thought knowing they were out of the house would keep me from searching the cabinets for them – I was wrong.  I actually had the thought that perhaps there was one little bag of something in the back of the pantry that I missed.

I am eternally grateful that I got all the foods out of the house that I don’t want to indulge in.  I guess that means there is no darkside in my kitchen anymore.  Well hooray.  So why am I not happier about that right now?

  …bbbbbb bad!

So here I am out in left field. Well, actually, this is Alpha Hubby in left field. I am out of my comfort zone.

Left Field (click on any picture to enlarge):

This is our new field to the left of the house.  In the field to the right are these two characters – Alpha (beginning of the herd):

And Omega (ending in my freezer): 

As soon as these two were dropped off in the right field, they promptly (unbeknownst to us) got spooked and Omega broke thru the bobbed-wire fence and led Alpha astray… 280 acres away astray.  It took two days and multiple hours for these two, seen here discussing the importance of spending quality time together while chasing two contrary calves, to herd the… umm… herd (can two cows be a herd? Yes, if they are all you have right now!), back through the fence.

Meanwhile I have been dealing with this, the before part of the deep end of the pool (after the men came to measure for a new liner) wherein are two huge frogs, bugs, grunge and whatnot – and this is AFTER they drained it, pulled the old liner out and went on their merry way planning to come back another day.  Some water leaked back in and it also rained but ewww.  It was uber gross.

Here is Day 1 after they installed the liner; I am very pleased.  I began filling the pool.

I am very happy with the results BUT my Day 2 and part of Day 3 pictures pretty much look the same because they made me call them to finish when it was 6″ in the shallow end (which meant losing 17 hours fill time); then they came, finished up; I began filling again – and the liner began pulling out from under the cap on top holding it on.  Another 16 hours fill time gone.  I yam not a patient person.

BUT hooray!  Today I got to begin filling again and now it looks like this and should be full by tomorrow after church.  Isn’t it beautimous?  I am blessed.

So we are starting our new adventure.  He’s ranched before (before me) and has always wanted to get back into it.  We decided to raise our own beef so we KNOW what is in them – healthy beef.  It is actually part of my journey – eating healthy.

This nice long beautiful driveway.  Can’t you see it with twinkle lights at Christmas, wrapped around the top of the fence?  I know!  Awesome, huh?  But you should have heard Alpha Hubby when I mentioned that to him! Whaaaat?

I did learn that moving, having stuff in two houses, remodeling, unpacking, freaking about space, and other lovely things like that, can affect your journey back into your Little Black Dress.  It’s called STRESS and you sure can eat some crapola during this time period.  It pays to pay attention – which I didn’t do – so now I am getting off the five pounds I put on by eating deli food.  Didn’t matter that it was a Swiss Bistro – toooooooo much bread (and homemade steak fries).

But that is part of the journey – life sometimes gets in the way!  Be prepared – better than I was – and factor things like this into your journey!!

When one is overweight, one has developed what I call “The Art of Lying.”  Oh, don’t get huffy – we have all lied to ourselves at one time or another when it comes to excess weight.  How do you think we got to where we are?  Whether it is 10 pounds or 200 pounds, somewhere along the line, we did that settling I’ve talked about and decided we look just fine.

Of course, if that is true, why are we always thinking about those extra pounds?  Why is it we don’t want to go to the store for fear of running into people we know?  How many times have we been depressed because there is nothing to wear in our closet (read, nothing that looks good on us)?  Too bad we don’t have talking mirrors.  If we did, it would be easier to be honest… or more probably learn to destroy mirrors. 

But the kind of lying I am talking about is that deep down lying you probably don’t even realize you do.  Take the food journal you need to be keeping.  While tracking down ever bite you eat, knowing you have a daily calorie intake limit, do you ever, say… feel the urge to cheat a wee bit?  Say, shave off a serving size or two, telling yourself, “It won’t really matter?”  Or maybe you write down that oatmeal but don’t count the butter and sugar you put in it?  Or maybe you don’t count the cream in the coffee thinking it won’t make that much difference to the bottom line?  YOU are the ONLY one you are fooling.

How about not counting the “reward” day you give yourself for being good all week?  Do you realize you can undo every beneficial thing you’ve done the prior week in one little reward day?  Are you lying to yourself about how much of a reward you are giving yourself?  I was.  I had to stop the reward days, reward meals and reward anything because I discovered that pretty soon I would flip-flop and have 6 days of reward days and one day of eating right. 

WE DID NOT BECOME OVERWEIGHT BY BEING HONEST WITH OURSELVES.  We have spent this entire time saying, “I’m not eating that much.  I don’t know why I keep gaining weight.”  How about the old, “I’ve tried every diet program out there and they all don’t work for me.”  Unh huh.  Sure.  Yep.  How about, “I quit every diet program out there and that is why they didn’t work for me?” 

Let’s quit lying to ourselves.  My all-time lie to myself was that a diet program didn’t work but the truth was I began to finagle and change up the program a little bit.  You know what I mean.  If it said, “Eat 350 calories for breakfast” and meant healthy serving size of oatmeal, dry whole wheat toast and orange juice, I would say, “Hmm, if I eat one biscuit and some gravy and coffee, as long as I eat the same amount of calories they mandated, I’ll be fine.”  Yeah, except I didn’t factor in the extra fat, the white flour (which is a trigger food for me) and so much cream in my coffee, it was off the chart in calories.  Or that I’d eat “just one more half of a biscuit….”

The trouble with lying to yourself is that if you lie to yourself long enough, you will begin to believe yourself.  You really do believe you aren’t eating as much as you are because you have no idea how much you really are eating.  An example?  You may not be eating as many times a day as you used to, but you may be eating more at each meal to make up for it.  You also really believe you aren’t eating that much or that every program has failed you.

In the beginning of the journey into the Little Black Dress, face the fact that you have been lying to yourself all this time.  As you begin to learn true portion sizes, check and make sure you are not cheating on your journal and lying to yourself about the amount of exercising you are doing.  If you think, “I’m not eating that much” stop and say, “No, that is a lie. I am obviously eating too much somewhere or I wouldn’t need to lose this weight.”  The more honest you are with yourself the faster you will get into your Little Black Dress and feel better about yourself!