Sept 1st (251): Well, I finished the month of August +2 lbs higher than I started. I know this isn't the end of the world, but I'm still so depressed and feel like such a failure. It's my own fault because I didn't even try to stick to my program for the whole month.

Sept 2nd (250): I started to send an email to the diet-list to talk about how depressed I've been lately and how hard of a time I've been having. I decided that its not really appropriate for the list, so will just write about it here instead. I know I've already written about some of these issues in my July and Aug journal, but I'm trying to put all this into perspective. Please forgive me for repeating myself here. For 18 months after my knee surgeries I went through a really deep depression, mainly due to the fact that I was steadily gaining weight each month. I went from 136 to 285 lbs. During this time period I also moved from Texas to California; so on top of being depressed about the weight gain, I was really homesick and lonely away from my friends and family. This past May I finally got so sick of being miserable and unhappy and I started doing something about my weight. (I started doing a medically supervised liquid diet). The weight started coming off and I dropped 25 lbs in two months. I could also see some of the "old" Jabbers coming back again. I felt happier and didn't feel as angry and depressed as I had been in the past. In the beginning of July, Pat told me he wasn't happy with our relationship and thought we should call it quits. It was so devasting to me...I had worked so hard for the last 2 months to drop those 25 lbs and was trying so hard to make things at home happier for us. I was dumbfounded that he would decide AFTER things started getting better that he didn't want it to work anymore. I wrote him a letter and begged him to give our relationship a little more time to see that things were improving. After a few days, he agreed to give it one more try and we signed another 6 month lease at our apartment. Things improved a lot during the month of July; my daughter went to Texas for a month to visit her granparents. The private time Pat and I had really helped strengthen our relationship. Then at the end of the month the bombshell was dropped... I found out that Pat had an affair a few months before. To rub salt into the wound...the woman he had the affair with was the only "friend" that I had made since moving to California. Pat said he was sorry and would do anything it took to make things work. And to give him fair credit...he has been trying really hard. The problem now is with ME. Things have been really good between Pat and I, but out of the blue I keep finding myself thinking about what he did and I just lose it. I start yelling, screaming, and crying at him and we end up fighting. I don't even have anyone to talk to anymore... my "best" friend that I used to confide all my problems to....she was the one that used all the information I was giving her about our relationship problems, turning around and then SLEEPING with him. So, not only do I have to deal with the betrayal of my boyfriend, but also my one and only friend that I had here. And now I can't seem to get back on my weight loss program. I don't know why it was so much easier for me to lose weight when things weren't going so great with my relationship...now that things are good, I can't seem to stick with the program anymore. I feel so lost and alone, and I should be feeling happy because Pat has been trying so hard to make things work.

Sept 9th (250): Sorry for not updating my journal sooner, I spent the holiday weekend in Las Vegas for a friend's wedding. It was a nice wedding, but waaaaaaaaaaaaay too unorganized. All the people in the wedding were staying at different hotels so it was a pain in the butt trying to keep up with everyone. I had the stomach flu the whole trip, so that was a bit of a bummer. At least I managed not to gain anything while on vacation; I'm sure the flu helped.

Sept 10th (?): Forgot to weigh myself this morning, but I did pretty well yesterday on my eating so hopefully tomorrow will show a loss. I've made a mini goal to try to lose another 10 lbs between now and October 10th; which is my two year anniversary. That will put me at 240 lbs and a total of -45 lbs. Hopefully this new mini-goal will give me the motivation to get me out of this slump.

Sept 11th (250): GRRRRRR still the same weight. I've been really good for the past few days too. Frustrating. Another frustrating thing happened to me this morning...the car died again. I don't know if its the alternator still or the battery or something different. It died this morning when I stopped at the juice smoothie shop before school. I ended up having to walk a mile and a half back home. I'll also have to walk a mile to pick Alexis up from school and then a mile back home...so like it or not, I'm getting about 3 1/2 miles worth of exercise today. Maybe that will actually help boost my weight loss.

Sept 12th (248.5): Yippppppppppeeeeeeeee!!! Thats right, the scale moved today!! I was beginning to think my $70 scale was broken and would not move below the 250 mark. I exercised 4.5 miles yesterday, it didn't kill me although I can't honestly say that I enjoyed it either. I'm going to try to make a habit of walking to my daughter's school to pick her up. My school schedule should allow me to do that on Mon, Tues, Wed, and Fridays. May set a smaller goal to do it for sure on Wednesdays and Fridays since I don't have class on those days. No excuse for why I can't do it. If that goes well, then I'll add in Monday and Tuesdays. I don't want to set myself up for a fall, so I won't commit to all 4 days each week, but I can at least aim for 2 days per week to start.

Sept 13th (248): So happy to see the scale starting to move again. Our friends that got married last weekend sent us a box from Hawaii yesterday. There was a box of 14 chocolate covered macadamia nuts...I must confess that I ate 13 of them in one day. (I would have eaten all 14 of them, but Pat snagged one out of the box). I'm not sure what the calorie content of each one was, but there were two nuts in each one, dipped in chocolate. Guess it won't be the end of the world and at least now its out of the house. Hope the scale doesn't punish me for my sins this weekend =P

Sept 14th (248): Been keeping busy with school the last two days...haven't gotten around to exercising yet though. I just hate exercising so much. Wish I knew why. I used to love it and did it every day, 7 days a week. I need to start slowly and work my way back up, but even getting STARTED seems to be too much to bear.

Sept 18th (248): Took two exams this week; got a 100% on the first one and a 98% on the second one. Yay! I wish I could be as successful with this weight loss effort as I seem to be with being a student. *sigh* Oh well....one step at a time, I guess.

Sept 20th (248): I bought some Balance Bars this weekend to take to class; they follow the 40-30-30 program. Figure it will be good for me to eat on the run and hopefully will help if I start eating something in the morning rather than waiting until after my first class to eat anything. My goal for this week is to lose 2 lbs.

Sept 27th (?): Ugh. I've been so bad about keeping up with my journal this week. I haven't even been that busy with school this week, so can't use that as an excuse. I've just been really lazy. Haven't weighed myself in a few days...although I haven't been too too terrible this week, I haven't really been on track either. I have two weeks to go until my two year anniversary and I had hoped to be down to 240. That means losing about 4 lbs each week for the next two weeks. Not impossible...but will be very hard. I tend to try my best to do it.

Sept 30th (246): Yay... I managed to drop two lbs this week to finish out the month at my new lowest weight since starting my new journey in May. Granted, I had to lose the same 5 lbs over and over for the month of August and half of September... oh well...will consider that practice weight. I've lost those 5 lbs so many times now, that I think I must be perfect at losing them. I put a picture of me and my family on my web page...I was so scared of everyone's reaction, but luckily have gotten nothing but nice comments. I'm going to take some closer up pictures of just me standing in front of a white wall...front and side view. Then I'm going to use that as a reference point to noticing if the weight really is coming off. Hopefully if I take the same poses again around Christmas time, there will be a drastic difference.