Actually, 21 pounds down, but who doesn’t love a nice round number? It also means I’ve lost more than 10% of my total body weight and I got a fancy key chain at my Weight Watchers meeting this week. To celebrate, I treated myself to shrimp cocktail for dinner and a giant bowl of ice cream for dessert – although both of which are things I eat regularly so they weren’t really treats as much as just food I really love.

I am now at my true pre-both-pregnancies weight (not the one on my doctor’s chart at my first appointment – I gained a full 10 pounds in those first 8 weeks with Evan) which is a great milestone. Unfortunately, I’m only a third of the way back to my wedding weight, although honestly I’d be pretty content if I just lost another 20. At my wedding weight, I was eating nothing but Slim-Fast bars and spending 2 hours a day at the gym (CRAZY BRIDE ALERT) and that’s just not a feasible lifestyle with 2 kids and a husband hanging around bugging me to feed them all day.

People are always curious to know how other people lose weight (Whole grains! Whole grains? Whole grains!!) so I thought I’d share what has been working for me. Of course, my first suggestion would be to join Weight Watchers – I’ve spent the last 7 years thinking about food during every single waking moment but still watching the numbers on the scale creepy slowly (and not so slowly) upwards. Now after 16 weeks on WW I think about food only when I’m hungry and have lost 20 pounds. I know I sound like a commercial and you’re probably rolling your eyes but if you’re not the kind of person who can just “eat less and move more” without some structure then it is totally worth the investment.

One of the major changes I’ve made is the number of fruits and vegetables I eat, especially grapes, apples, bananas, and veggies like brussels sprouts, eggplant, and squash. Grapes might be the best diet food ever – you can eat them mindlessly while watching tv and ALMOST feel like you’re eating candy. The vegetables I cut into pieces, toss on a cookie sheet with a little cooking spray and lots of salt and roast. Topped with Parmesan cheese I can eat them until I am STUFFED and still loose weight consistently. I also eat salad almost every day. Salad salad salad. Tons of salad. Usually also topped with cheese and light dressing, because although I like lettuce I’m not a masochist. Who wants to give up cheese?

I drink almost nothing with calories. I stick to water, Diet Coke, Crystal Light/fake Crystal Light and coffee. I use fat free creamer at home and order skim milk and 3 Splenda at Dunkin Donuts. It’s not worth using any of my points just for a latte that’s not going to fill me up for more than 5 minutes – although the Cafe Mocha K-cups are only 2 points and a nice alternative to hot cocoa and I will admit to more skinny frappuchinos at the Target Starbucks than an average person.

Other foods I eat consistently are Egg Beaters with hot sauce in a Mission Carb Balance tortilla, bacon (seriously! it’s low in points!), chunk light tuna with herbed light mayo in a Carb Balance tortilla, low fat string cheese, Joseph’s pita bread (the kind flax & oat bran kind) with hummus, low fat Wheat Thins, seafood (shrimp, fish, mussels), taco salad (with lots of lettuce to bulk up the meat and Fritos), a scoop of ice cream over a cut up banana, peanut butter on apple slices, and al fresco chicken sausage. So it’s a pretty good mix of real whole foods and diet/low fat stuff, which is a choice I’m comfortable with so I don’t have to give up ALL the stuff I love. I could never ever stick to one of those clean eating diets – I wouldn’t make it 12 hours without breaking down and shoving a whole bag of Goldfish into my face.

Besides diet, I also started pushing myself a little harder at Stroller Strides. Jogging instead of walking, doing planks on my toes instead of knees, push-ups on the floor instead of on a bench. I am reallyreallyreally sore almost every day, but it’s a good kind of sore. I can see the changes in my arms and my abs the most – I’m not going to be wearing a bikini any time soon (any time EVER) but when I see a picture of myself I no longer think “Whoa, why do my arms look so wide?” or run away from the camera.

I know weight loss might be THE MOST BORING subject ever to read about and you’re probably thinking “Where are the cute baby pictures?! I don’t care what you eat!” and I know. I KNOW. I am the worst. But I’m feeling pretty good about my too-big jeans and needed to pat myself on the back for a few minutes. Cute baby pics tomorrow, I promise.

Because I am a clumsy idiot, we spent yesterday morning in the emergency room Instead of the super fun trip to the Seaport to celebrate the 4th of July. Everyone was dressed (not just dressed, FESTIVELY dressed) and fed and packed and the car was running with both kids already in their car seats when I stepped on my left foot wrong coming down the back steps and collapsed.

Something in my ankle went “POP”, a sound so sickening I got light-headed and saw stars.

“I think I’m going to pass out” I said to E.

Then I passed out.

I came to after less than 15 seconds, just in time to keep from peeing my pants. (For the record, I have low blood pressure, and there’s something about the shock of an injury – not the pain, just the IMAGINED AWFULNESS – that causes me to faint. It’s happened since I was a kid, at least 6 times that I can think of. Only once did I actually pee my pants.) E helped me hobble into the house and got me a bag of frozen peas before unpacking everyone from the car. I quickly realized that although my ankle wasn’t broken, it was a serious enough injury to warrant a quick trip to the hospital. Because it’s not like the 4th of July is a busy time for emergency rooms or anything. Especially when I can’t walk on my own so we get to bring BOTH kids, one if which just realized he was not going to see the HORSE! WATER! BOAT! he had been promised. Good times. So we packed everyone back INTO the car and drove up the street to the ER.

The wait was blessedly short and the kids were total angels for E while I lay on a gurney and winced every time anyone even glanced at my ankle, but the diagnosis wasn’t helpful. It’s not broken (bless grilled cheesus) but it’s a moderate sprain and I’m supposed to stay off it for at least a week and wear my air cast for a week past the point I can walk on it. If it’s not healed in a month I should call my doctor.

A MONTH. I’m supposed to sit on the couch, icing and elevating my ankle, taking it easy for a month. I barely made it through a DAY and that was with E home to bring me stuff (not to mention BlogHer is in a month and no matter how many rosettes I glue to my cast there is no way I want to wear it around San Diego).

But the more pressing problem is that E is working today and I am supposed to care for 2 kids without walking. It’s impossible. And I don’t just mean “wow, this is going to be hard.” I mean it is bordering on an unsafe situation to be injured badly enough that I can’t pick up the toddler and I literally couldn’t run to save our lives. I certainly wouldn’t leave my kids with someone ELSE in this state. But we don’t have childcare – or even a regular babysitter – so the best I can do is use my crutches for the urgent stuff, like feeding everyone and poop emergencies, and hope E can come home early from work.

On a more selfish note, I’m super annoyed I won’t be going to Stroller Strides or running or even doing yoga DVDs anytime soon, so my plan to lose weight is completely derailed. Sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself sends me immediately into MUST EAT GIANT BAG OF CANDY RIGHT NAOW mode, and I’m pretty sure Weight Watchers doesn’t allow for a pound of chocolate caramels four times a week. But I guess the good part is we don’t HAVE any candy in the house and I’m too gimpy to go get any so unless I can bribe E into buying me some I’ll just be cranky and injured with my lentil salad and my carrot sticks.

Good times all around.

Update: After sleeping on it and letting some of the swelling go down, it feels like it’s not actually my ankle that’s hurt, but my foot. Which means as long as I walk on just my heel I can limp pretty well, but also means the ankle cast they sent me home with is basically useless. I’m going to just keep up the Motrin and the ice and praying most of the pain is gone by the weekend so I can get back to my life.

You know those people who have amazing personal style and do crazy things with makeup and ride vintage bicycles to local farmer’s markets where they make 5 new friends and eat jicama salads with hand-shaved Parmesan and triple chocolate cake but still lose 5 pounds while homeschooling their kids and writing an incredibly successful blog and then do some long division just for fun?

I am not one of those people.

Almost nothing comes naturally to me. The last time I was just plain GOOD at something without really trying was dance class when I was 11. My teacher said I had perfect feet and fantastic arches. If you knew how often I thought about that compliment even now 18 years later you would laugh at me.

Most of the time it seems like everything takes so much EFFORT. Nothing is effortless – it is in fact, effort-FUL – and it all feels sort of overwhelming. Sleepless nights, raising a toddler, feeding my family, keep the house from devolving into TOTAL chaos, buying clothes that fit, making sure I don’t have mascara running down my face (I usually do), maintaining friendships, running, providing fun and educational learning experiences for my children…They all seem hard to me, especially when I think of them all at once. Thank God there’s no long division.

So last night I added one more thing that’s going to take some effort, but hopefully in the long run it will make a lot of things easier. I went to a Weight Watchers meeting and signed up.

Despite my skepticism and my determination to find SOMETHING to roll my eyes at, I liked the meeting. I like the plan. I like the fact that I get to eat more because I’m nursing. I feel very hopeful that even though it’s going to take some work, I’ll be able to finally get back to a happy place where I don’t cringe every time I look in a mirror. Because although “eat less and move more” sounds easy enough (perhaps even effortless for some people) it is not enough for me. I’m going nowhere without trying harder and I feel like until I can be happier with MYSELF I have no chance at being happier with my life in general. And who has time to be unhappy with themselves when there are vintage bicycles to ride?

p.s. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a weight loss blog and I’m not being sponsored in any way. I’ve just heard good things and seen friends and family have a lot of success, so when my friend Cheri asked if I wanted to come with her I decided I had nothing to lose. Besides 50 pounds. So, yeah.

I dislike my Google Reader on Mondays.

Mondays are the day everyone weighs in, literally, regarding their diets – especially the dozen or so bloggers I subscribe to who participate in a meme called “McFatty Mondays”. Now, I know the name is in jest and will not be writing an angry ranty post about something that’s not meant to hurt anyone. The people who participate are doing so willingly and no offense is meant. I also know the point of the meme is women encouraging other women on their weight loss journeys (and support IS very important when you’re making a life change like weight loss) but seeing McFatty McFatty McFatty over and over bothers me. But it’s not just that meme, it’s a lot of women recapping their weekends. “Oh I was so BAD! I cheated! I’m terrible! I’ll never fit in my jeans again!” It’s like a cacophony of everything a woman as ever said across the table to her girlfriend as she orders the cheesecake.

It’s taken me a long time to order the cheesecake. I like the cheesecake. The cheesecake and I, we are friends.

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When I was 19, to hide from the cheesecake, I tried to disappear. Literally. I gave up most food and existed on diet shakes, diet pills and Diet Coke. I slept a lot, because when you are sleeping you cannot eat. I volunteered to ride the ice cream bicycle all day at work so I could squeeze in 2 or 3 extra hours of exercise. There’s nothing that says “Maybe you have issues with food” more than spending all summer riding a bike around a campground in blazing hot weather selling ice cream out of a cooler and never once having so much as a freeze pop because those 90 calories might mean the difference between losing 1 pound and 2 pounds this week. I was addicted to watching the numbers go down, the same way a drug user is addicted. I would do anything to lose weight.

I would like to fill in this part of my story with lots of reasons. I was in a really unhealthy relationship that mainly consisted of who could be the most screwed up and one of our daily dysfunctional rituals was fighting over who could eat less. My college had an unusually high proportion of gorgeous, tan, size 2 girls and comparing myself to every single one of them was my favorite hobby. I was on my own for the first time in my life and the way I chose to maintain control was through food. Maybe I read too many issues of Cosmopolitan and it brainwashed me.

But it doesn’t really matter. The point is I spent my sophomore and junior years of college very thin and very miserable. One of my most distinct memories is watching an MTV True Life episode about people who hated their bodies and thinking “Wow these people are straight up crazypants crazy” Until the girl on the show said she weighed 115 pounds and I cried because I weighed more. I used to daydream I passed out from not eating during work so maybe someone would finally say “You might need help” instead of “Wow, you look GREAT!”

Maybe I did look great. I don’t really know. There are very few pictures of me from those years because I was convinced I looked fat and wouldn’t let anyone take them.

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So now, when I say cheesecake and I are friends, maybe you can understand why that’s a big deal for me. I don’t want anything to trigger those old thoughts and behaviors. I’m afraid if I start counting a few calories I’ll end up counting them ALL (I already had to delete a food tracker app from my phone because I freaked out about eating anything that wasn’t specifically listed). Losing 20 pounds is never enough. It has to be 30, 50, 80 pounds and it has to be now! Yesterday! I need to get my body back! (Because apparently my baby took it somewhere. Maybe I should just ask her.) Swimsuit season is coming! And then I am miserable again.

To be honest, all my pregnancy weight from baby #2 is already gone. Being sick so often was a really effective diet and fevers burn a lot of calories. Maybe this time breastfeeding is sucking out all my fat or chasing a toddler really was all the exercise I needed. (Wow, I’m practically a celebrity mom! Alert US Weekly!) My body is back to the weight it likes to maintain when I’m not trying to diet, a weight I’m not particularly happy with but one that isn’t going to hurt me. I have clothes that fit and can smile into a camera instead of running away.

That’s not to say I’m not trying to be healthier. I’m back at Stroller Strides and feel good to be working out again. I had a yogurt for breakfast and am proud of making a wise choice. There is broccoli in my fridge and I have plans to actually eat it.

But I also plan to eat the cheesecake.