With the job hunt, I have been very stressed out and I know for a fact that I am a stress eater. Why haven’t I posted my fitblogging stats? Well, they haven’t been that great, but now that I’m back on track. My weight for this week was 174. No “point one” or “point four”, just a solid 174. That means my total weight loss is 18 pounds.

Esther and I have started our vegetarian lifestyle, which I know helped this week, meat is hight in points anyway. I have also tried really hard at work to not sneak a treat or two or four, which is much easier now that every on know that I’m leaving and that everything is starting to fall into place.

The vegetarian food has been very good, a big shift from a turkey sandwich everyday. I have been bringing containers of frozen veggies to work, heating them up and adding a pinch of salt. I guess if you’re vegetarian you should really learn to like vegetables, right?

The next weekend is going to be difficult. Esther and I are flying to Kansas City to attend my sister’s graduation so we will not have access to an accurate scale and there is bound to be a lot of dining out. I know Esther will help keep me inline.

This morning was the usual weigh-in day at our fine household and after a disappointing set of results for me last week, I have positive news to report. I drop 1.1 pounds! Hooray! Let’s celebrate… um… no. Celebrating usually involves chocolate cake… can’t celebrate.

We drove out to a national park that is very close by and went for a run/walk this morning. Of course that was after I made the most awesome grits and steak breakfast I’ve ever had. The interesting thing is that the last few days as I become more mindful of the meat that I am eating, I am thinking that going vegetarian won’t be that hard. In fact I kind of feel guilty eating meat now even though we haven’t reached the May 1 deadline.

Sorry, let me rewind a little bit. I am going vegetarian May 1. Why vegetarian? Why May 1?

I’m going vegetarian for several reasons, for health, for social change, for the animals, but mostly for my religion. In the past year, I have become Buddhist and part of Buddhism is that one should refrain from taking the life of any creature. I have been very good about not stepping on spiders and trying to save earthworms when I can, but I think that going vegetarian will be a profound change for me.

As for the May 1 deadline. Esther and I have a lot of meat stored up in our freezer and I don’t want to waste it. We are gradually eating our way through the stores of meat and meat products that we have so that on May 1 we can start with the vegetarianism 100%.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty good. Esther and I had a great breakfast, an excellent weigh-in and a good workout, definitely worth celebrating sans chocolate cake.

When I last updated about fitblogging/fatblogging, I was way under. I let that go to my head and I managed not to lose a single pound, or half pound, or tenth of a pound. I am still at the same weight and while I’m a little disappointed, I’m not too upset as a whole.

The thing that was weird about today was that we lost our cat today. Not in the “oh no, he got outside and ran away”, but in the way where he has joined the great scratching post in the sky. Floyd has been sick for a while, three months now, and while he showed some improvement over the course, on the whole it was really just a steady decline. He had lost over 40% of his body weight, consisting of little more than flesh and bones, he could eat or drink with bringing it up shortly after consumption and the vets were no where closer to finding out what was wrong with him.

Esther and I were faced with a choice, costly test that may or may not get us answers to what’s wrong, or take away Floyd’s suffering, which there was plenty of.

So on the whole, the past year has been one of loss. First we lost Esther’s dad, then my pet rat, and now our first pet together, Floyd. It has been very hard to maintain my Buddhist outlook on life, partly because there is no god to be angry with, partly because it all come back to attachment, which leads to suffering; how can you perceive death with out attachment? Apparently, that means I should meditate more.

Floyd, I miss you.

Um. I didn’t lose a limb, but apparently I lost almost 10 pounds lighter than last week. I stepped on the scale this morning and I said to Esther, I lost a little weight.

“How much?”

“A little, it says 176.8″

“A little! That’s almost 10 pounds!

“Oh yeah… I guess it is

It’s probably due to the stress I’ve been under at work, I haven’t been eating my lunches, I’ve been drinking a _lot_ of coffee, which has probably shot my metabolism into high gear. Now it’s all about maintaining that phenomenal drop in poundage!

Today was the weigh-in after a week of not really following the Weight Watchers super strict. I was not the best Weight Watchers dieter. The great thing was I was only up half of a pound. Pretty good for not exercising or really following the plan. I kind of needed a week off to regain my focus. Esther went on a big long walk this morning to re-enforce the fact that we are back on “the wagon”.

With the motivation of losing that additional half pound, I will be doing regular midweek updates again.