Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Productivity? What's That?

I never thought I'd say this: But now that my body has adjusted to being back on Pacific Time, I'm kind of missing my jet lag.

Waking up at 4:00 AM every day last week made me incredibly productive, because I was able to get some writing in before everyone else woke up and started distracting me.

Now that I'm fully in the "zone," the emails and phone calls and other distractions are popping up just at the time when my mind is sharpest -- which is kind of a waste.

The result is that the post I started on Monday -- recapping my experience at the Yahoo! Motherboard Summit -- is still in draft form, and just two paragraphs long at that.

I have about four hours before I have to get my daughter from camp, which marks the end of my work day. And I have about 20 minutes before my husband goes on a lunch break and calls me to vent about his day -- which marks the end of my productive work day.

So I'm just going to focus right now on getting through the 400 emails I still have in my inbox (many of which are still left from the UK trip). I'm hopeful that paring down that huge mass of stuff will enable me to feel focused enough to start writing again...

...tomorrow.

In the meantime, maybe some of you can answer me a question:

How do YOU manage to multi-task and be productive? I used to have a knack for it - but these days, I just feel overwhelmed, ALL THE TIME.

I'm serious. I'd like some advice.

The First Day of the Rest of My Diet

The final day of the weight loss program I purchased at the clinic has come and gone.

When I looked ahead to this day, I thought it would be a happy one. It should be.

I went into the weight loss clinic in July, weighing over 184 pounds and feeling hopeless about my chances of losing it.

Today, I am 54 pounds lighter. I look better than I did 10 years ago, and I definitely feel better than I have at almost any other point in my life.

I have more energy. I have more strength. I have a more positive outlook on life.

So why am I feeling so sad right now?

I have come a long way, but I didn’t meet my goal.

“What are you talking about?” my counselor demanded, pointing to the number on her computer screen. On my first day at the clinic, she asked me where I wanted to end up. I told her 130 pounds, thinking it would be a cold day in hell before I saw that number again on my own scale. I hit that mark. My BMI is a healthy 24, which entitles me to free services there during my maintenance (for as long as I want; my entire life, if that’s what I need).

According to everyone at the clinic, I’ve been wildly successful.

But once I started the program and the pounds started coming off quicker than I ever thought possible, I revised my goal.

I weighed 124 the day I got married, and by golly, I decided I wanted to weigh 124 again.

Last week, when the counselor informed me that I would be finishing weight loss today, I realized I wouldn’t meet the goal. I thought I would be okay with it, and yesterday, I even went off-diet a bit.

“What’s this on your food diary? You had a latte?!” She shook her head in disapproval.

Maybe I engaged in a bit of self-sabotage. I definitely made a bad choice or two yesterday.

So I was surprised when I got on my scale this morning to see that it showed a two-pound loss since yesterday.

Now, my bathroom scale is old technology; analog versus the digital, computerized one that is used at the clinic. I only use it to get a ballpark feel for how I’ve done. My weight on the clinic scale is usually two pounds higher; sometimes as much as four pounds higher.

Yesterday morning, my bathroom scale read 128 while the weight clinic weight was 130.

This morning, I weighed 126 in the bathroom. I got on a second time and got the same result.

So I walked into the clinic this morning feeling confident that despite my missteps yesterday, I finished the program a little closer to my goal.

I should know better than to walk into the clinic feeling cocky. Today turned out to be one of the times when my scale was wildly off the one at the clinic: My official weight loss record will reflect a half-pound gain over where I was yesterday.

The happy anticipation I was feeling turned to disappointment. And anger.

Because this is IT.

I’m done.

I am not about to shell out more money for another weight loss module to lose six more pounds (even if it wasn’t exorbitantly expensive).

I’m ready to move on to the next steps: “Metabolic adjustment” (where I eat a modified version of the diet I’ve been on for the last six months in an effort to get my body accustomed to its new weight), and then: Maintenance, where I will learn how to eat like a “normal” person (you know what I mean. Now that I’ve come this far, I cannot allow myself to gain it all back).

So I left the clinic this morning feeling deflated.

I’m shopping for a new scale.

The New Year Post

The way I see it, I'm not really nine days late. I can't really deal with any life-changing decisions like resolutions until we are home, my daughter is back at school, and I can resume the old routine that needs to be tweaked.

So yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life.

The last several years, I've only had two resolutions:

1. Take better care of my family
2. Take better care of myself

The first one usually focuses on things financial -- and I spent a good portion of the morning combing through the mountain of mail we received while we were gone, picking out the bills, and paying them. It's a little more complicated than just writing a check -- I had to download last month's bank statement so I could see exactly how much money came in and out of the checking account while we were away, reconcile it in Quicken and then pay the bills.

It's not a lot of fun. But I resolve to do a better job of staying on top of it this year.

I have also resolved to do a lot more cooking in 2007. This is something I used to enjoy a lot -- but that was before I gave birth to a picky eater and my weight ballooned to the point that the kitchen lost all its appeal to me. Megan's crazy gymnastics schedule was the final nail in the culinary coffin -- my husband HATES anything prepared in a crockpot, and there's little else I can do when I've been sitting at a gym with her until 8:00 and we're not home until 8:30 and I have to get something on the table quickly so she can get to bed by 9:00. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are pretty much a lost cause: last night, we had pasta and we'll probably continue to have take-out on the other nights.

But that still leaves me Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. So on those days, I'm going to search out healthy recipes and rediscover my inner chef. That's the plan.

Which brings me back to taking care of myself. A couple of years ago, I lost 20 pounds on the South Beach Diet and I found it very easy to live with. Until I went off the wagon over the holidays -- and never got back on. I tried - but I think that ship has sailed (I know - mixed metaphor - stay with me here).

Saturday, I went on Amazon and ordered their current top selling diet book:

You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management

I don't know if I'll like it. If not, I'll keep looking. But if I do, it will be a nice change from South Beach. Over the years, I've concluded that the weight control thing is something I will have to deal with for the rest of my life, but the good news is that there is more than one way to reach your goal -- and if something that used to work for you no longer does, it's OK to try something new.

There are other things I need to do for myself that I haven't made time to do in the last few years: exercise, doctor appointments, etc.

So those are my goals.

Happy New Year!