Ms. Cheevious in Hollywood

My Zany Years Spent Working in Tinsel Town

Diet

You are So Phat!

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We are nearing the end of March, 2008.  So many people out there are reaching for and sticking to their New Year’s Resolutions! I’m so proud of everyone!  There is Heather Mills (she got her millions), Ryan Seacrest (he finally made the cover of Details), the Fed (their recent maneuvers may keep the economy from completely crashing so far), and geez, so many others!

Did you make a New Year’s resolution?  If so, what was it, and did you keep it?  My resolution was to fit back into my thin and beautiful clothes, and stay that way.  You see, I have this book I’m writing.  It’s called Ms. Cheevious in Hollywood – Memoir of a Hot Mamma.  It’s even won awards like “Best Unpublished Manuscript” at the New York Book Festival, 2007 under the title MILF This! Confessions of a Hot Mamma.  So, ya’ think there is much pressure?  It’s pretty near impossible to BE what most people think of or believe to be a HOT mamma!  And don’t get me wrong.  I’m not self-congratulating by the title.  I just believe beauty emanates from within.  If you can smile and exude joy and are pleasant to be around, that is SO HOT.  No.  That is SO PHAT.  Dude.

And, It’s not like I am overweight or fat.  As I’ve said before, some of my friends and family think I’m a little crazy.  I think, “neurotic” is the term my boyfriend likes to use. But I am a stickler about health and feeling good about myself.  So, I chose to buckle down and make some things happen.

If you’re new here, let me first say “Welcome!”  Now let me fill you in.  It all started back in January. I’ve been on this relentless roller coaster ride of healthy weight loss ever since (well, that’s debatable, if you read my “monster in me” post). 

It’s been a rocky road, with just about every single one of life’s hurdles crossing my path, just for good measure.  I’ve been faced with:

1) an illness in the family;
2) major changes to life as I know it with my man (as we venture into the bi-location realm of our never-mundane, but always lovely relationship);
3) three major property transactions;
4) two moves from and into two different states;
5) operating my marketing and public relations business; and
6) submitting my book “Ms. Cheevious in Hollywood” for publication!

All the while, amid multiple rounds of stress, PMS, business and personal travel, and other day-to-day trials, I’ve been trying to lose weight. 

How’d I do this week?  Well — not so great.  Hey, it’s bound to happen!  Any of my recent posts (The Monster in Me, Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pop, or Krispy Creme and a Bag ‘O Chips) will testify that amid such turmoil, I’ve not been the model diet maven. 

But I confess that I have stuck to it no matter what.  Why?  Because it’s important to me.  Regardless of how difficult it gets, I don’t want to give up. I am determined to succeed at this!  Well, there is also that little matter of my heart and soul being laid bare for all to read and see in this blog.  So, I am under tremendous pressure, and I damn well better stick with it! 

So, without further adieu, my results for this week:

Start Date:  Thursday January 31, 2007
Height: 5′ 5″
Goal: 125 lbs
Beginning weight:  136 lbs
Weight after week 1:  132.5 lbs (02.07.08)
Weight after week 2: 130 lbs (02.14.08)
Weight after week 3: 130 lbs (02.21.08)
Weight after week 4: unknown – no scale! yippee! (02.28.08)
Weight after week 5:  128 lbs (03.06.08)
Weight after week 6:  127.5 lbs (03.13.08)
Weight after week 7:   127.5 lbs (03.20.08)
Net Loss / Gain this week:  – 0 lbs – awe
TOTAL Net Loss:   8.5 lbs  UH HUH!

Last week I called myself the Energizer Bunny of healthy eating.  This week, I’m more like the Gumby of weight-loss.  Okay. I just dated myself.  Horribly.  Regardless, my batteries are sputtering, and I think I need a jump start.  But I still believe what I wrote at the very end last week, “When my world is crazed, and life is busy, and I am traveling and buying property and transitioning in life – I could easily give it all a rest. I can do this, and I will.  I know I need it and that’s what truly matters.  I will not stop trying.  Today is the first day of my greatest success.”

But, let’s remember where I came from, shall we? 

Here is my left hip on January 31, 2008:

lt-hip-01310871.jpg

And here it is in the same pants, same location, etc. today, March 20, 2008:

lthip022008.jpg

Let’s take it all in perspective! 

So tell me.  Did you make a resolution?  Having any trouble keeping it, or are you experiencing great success?  Tell us here.  It will encourage someone.

If you are struggling,  know that it’s normal. It’s part of the journey – par for the course, as they say.  Whether you’ve found it easy to keep your New Year’s resolution, or you’ve had your share of set backs, realize this:  Life is not worth getting down on yourself. 

I challenge you to be strong, courageous, and go for the most impossible goal you can think of!  You can do it!  Because you ARE so phat sister (or brother! Whatever the case may be)! Ya dig? And I mean that in the purest sense of the word.  I believe in you. So just do it, would ya’?

Here’s to less of me next week, and to you – to great achievements and reaching new heights in your goals.

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Blog content copyright 2008, LISA JEY DAVIS a.k.a. Ms. Cheevious

Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pop, Zucchini on the Top!

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I had quite an eventful week after chatting with you last. 

It started in Tampa, Florida, where I attended a business conference.  It’s also where I successfully fit into THE summer business suit.  Yes, that very suit.  You all know what I’m talking about.  Aside from the fact that THE suit I’m referring to has been the catalyst for this entire series of posts (regarding my urgent quest to shed 11 pounds), it’s also a part of your lives too.  You either own one, or you have something similar hanging in your closet.  It’s that one item that doesn’t look or feel as good as it use to, and yet you continue to store it in your closet.  Why?  Because of the promise of “some day.”

Some day.  We all know that nifty little “catch all” too well, don’t we?  How many times do you plan to do something, or simply envision life a certain way in the future, and yet some how, “some day” eludes even the best of planners? 

When I put MY summer suit on the first time, “some day” was no longer an option.  THE summer suit  precipitated a somewhat frenzied, yet long overdue reversion back to healthy eating habits, with the full intention of not only fitting into, but looking HOT in said suit.  And guess what?  I fit into my suit.  It looked great, and I felt great wearing it.  The shoes – not so much.  But as they say, “Fashion before comfort, baby.”

Welcome to part #263,000,432 of my series on, well, me.  And if I’ve actually fooled you into thinking that, my work here is done.  HA!  You’ve actually entered a place for people to read the stuff of an every-day life enjoyed to the fullest – shaken, not stirred.  And with a twist. It’s a place people come to read each week, because they laugh and they identify, and because we are all a little insane at times. But seriously, I am actually in the midst of a self-imposed weight loss challenge.  I will fill you in on my progress eventually.  So keep reading.  It’s very good, I promise (my weight-loss result, of course).

After writing last week’s blog post I hopped a plane in Tampa and headed to Los Angeles, California.  I am buying a condo in LA, and over this past weekend I hunted like an Amazon for the best deal, in the best neighborhoods.  It was also the day I received a call, with subsequent text messages from a sister I rarely hear from.  I was changing planes, and missed the calls and texts, but my heart leaped into my throat when I saw who it was.  My worst fears entered my mind.  I called my sister immediately to discover that our mom had suffered a stroke. 

It turns out that my mom, although 83, is doing okay. She’s a fighter, I tell ya’. But it was a scary and uncertain couple of days, which when pondered, brought to mind all the most important parts of our lives.  Forgive me if I wax sentimental here for a bit.  I know. For me, this is a stretch.  I found myself remembering my mom as my “mommy” who I loved so much as a kid – and of course, I still do today.  I really, really loved my mom though.  She was my very first best friend.  I called her ad nauseam at work every day after school.  Sometimes I would hear the receptionist say laughingly, before she actually put the phone on hold, “It’s Lisa again!”  But I didn’t care.  I needed to tell my mom what I thought about my walk home from school that day, and how funny something struck me on television, or how Billy Norton ate a grasshopper on the play ground, and “ewe” how gross was that, and whether I hated my homework assignment for the day.  She always listened and laughed and tried to accommodate my need for her over the phone, no matter how busy she was.

I realize now, without a doubt, that I never lost that best friend status with my mom, and even as she approaches the end of her time here on earth – and no one knows when that will be – she could be with us for many more years to come – I will always revere her and think of her as one of my very best of friends, as well as my mother, my nurturer and my very own special mommy.  She has no idea of the grand and beautiful legacy she has built over her lifetime, and I am a proud and very lucky part of that.

My mom was the consummate “hot mom.”  We grew up with incredible images of our mom as a youth – photos proudly displayed around our parents’ business and our home by our dad – of her in her late teens and early twenties, when she looked more beautiful than Rita Hayworth.  We knew that our mom was glamorous, beautiful, talented and incredibly intelligent.  What a role model, eh? 

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She was (and is) also very funny.  While we were growing up, she regularly did things (without meaning to) that cracked each and every one of us kids up.  We had so much fun around our house, we were taught that life was to be enjoyed.  And my mom is responsible for that.  She showed us all how to have fun or to look on the bright side, no matter what the circumstances.  She modeled it for us as well. 

Thinking about my mom like that truly reminds me of being a kid. 

It makes me remember simple things like wanting to learn to jump rope.  My mom took me out to buy one, because she understood. I remember working so hard at it so I could jump in with the other girls on the playground at school as they jumped to all the different chants and rhymes, like this one: 

Down, down baby, down by the rollercoaster,
Sweet, sweet baby, I’ll never let you go,
Shimmy shimmy cocoa pop, shimmy shimmy rock,
I met a girlfriend, a triscuit, she said a triscuit, a biscuit,
Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top, 
Ooh Chelley, walking down the street, ten times a week,
I said it, I meant it, I stole my mamma’s credit,
I’m cool, I’m hot, sock me in the stomach or forget it.

Remember those types of meaningless games we’d play over and over again?  Okay, maybe it was (or is) just me.  But I have to admit, it was a carefree time, in the biggest, truest sense of the word.

And now, I find myself at a loss for funny words to describe my challenges of weight loss this week.  How does one mitigate the seriousness of life, with its very trivialities?  I guess that staying fit and lean, for me is not trivial.  It’s a matter of life or death, and the ability to enjoy that life that is so precious!

This week for me was all about survival, I suppose.  Not in a sad sense, but I just found it challenging to stay awake!  I was exhausted the entire trip!  But I did have some fun in LA, like seeing The Color Purple (INCREDIBLE), and going to the Clipper’s game (thanks, Bill!).

I suffered the usual missteps, like being served regular coffee instead of decaf (BAD thing to do to me), and feeling so shaky and almost hypoglycemic at an airport that I ate an entire large slice of pizza, only to arrive home and eat a giant cinnamon role at Zele Cafe – not to mention eating the remainder of a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar found in freezer when I returned home!  Now that’s WILL POWER  my friend!   

I can, however, leave you with this:  I stuck with it.  I could have hung it up, especially after that big pizza, pastry and chocolate day, and allowed myself a few more days lacking self control, but I didn’t.  I had to make the conscious choice NOT to.  It was also difficult staying on track in strange cities, at hotels and in airports.  I did what I had to do.  I went to the local grocer and bought organic baby carrots, I brought my favorite bite-sized chocolates with me, and I was a complete nuisance to waiters at restaurants (okay – that last one is always true – but I just love making up my own healthy menu item – without butter or oil, please).

I even blamed my hardcore antics on you guys! It was a real convenience, so thanks! Ha ha.  I only used it as a last resort, but I said something like, “Nope.  Can’t have it. I’m on this weight loss challenge with my blog, and I have to report my progress every week.  Sorry!” I know, it’s bad, but hey, whatever works!

My results for this week:

Start Date:  Thursday January 31, 2007
Height: 5′ 5″
Goal: 125 lbs
Beginning weight:  136 lbs
Weight after week 1:  132.5 lbs (02.07.08)
Weight after week 2: 130 lbs (02.14.08)
Weight after week 3: 130 lbs (02.21.08)
Weight after week 4: unknown – no scale! yippee! (02.28.08)
Weight after week 5:  128 lbs (03.06.08)
Net Loss / Gain this week:  – 2.0 YEAH BABY!
TOTAL Net Loss:   8 lbs  WOO HOO!

It just goes to show that persistence pays off.  If you’ve set a goal that seems difficult to achieve, don’t give up.  Keep your focus and stay determined.   You’ll get there. 

So many of you wrote me emails over the last two weeks asking what I am doing to lose the pounds, exactly.  Don’t forget that the first week of my diet is posted on my website for all to see.  Check it out.

Have you instigated your own “challenge” lately?  Are you trying to achieve a goal in an area of your life?  Hit reply to post and talk about it!  Be comfortable in your own skin, and have a wonderful week!

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Blog content copyright 2008, LISA JEY DAVIS a.k.a. Ms. Cheevious

Junk Food My Arse – Really!

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Ever feel like you’re just a cog in the wheel of the world, and relegated to doing things the same old way, day in and day out?  Ever think that the wheels on the bus really do just keep going round and round?

That’s how it is at times for me.  My boyfriend is one of those tall, lean, super muscular types that has always been athletic and active, and has never had to diet.  Welcome to my nightmare.  I was all set before I met him.  Well, in the health and diet department, at least.  He introduced me to the joys and delicacies of salami from around the globe (which I never would be caught dead eating before), served with fresh baked tuscan bread and olive oil.  Oh, and the incredible wines that we love to drink!

Don’t get me going! I’ll gain weight just typing this. But if I even think the words “diet” or “cut back,” or “slim down,” I may as well just say “fuh-get-abou-dit!” around our house and just eat the stinkin’ salami.  Heck, if he doesn’t mind the rotund little sub-human species that appears before him after a few years of eating like he does, why should I even try?

If you’re new to this blog, welcome.  Enter with caution.  You will get the hard cold truth, the facts about things in life and the world – as discovered and submitted by my crack team of research experts (yeah, right), and hopefully you’ll laugh a little.  Cuz my life is just one big joke. HA!

But you see I’ve been on this quest to get from this:

lt hip 013108

That’s my left hip / waist up there.

Stretch marks and all.  I have no secrets, I know.

To this:

Dance - 03-small
That’s me on the right. But it doesn’t
really matter.  The red leather pants
are mine as well, and I use to fit in
them just as nicely!

The truth is, I stay fit for ME.  And this is the start of week 2 of my “thin thinking, lean, mean machine” approach to fitting back into my suit.  I started last week as documented on the post I’m a Thin, Light, Lean, Mean Machine – Don’tcha Know?.

I also want to clarify exactly why I am trying to lose weight.  But I won’t do that here. To find out, you’ll have to read this whole thing.  It’s near the end.

Last week I left you with the notion that I have GOT to lose 11 lbs.  I have a business trip coming up and have to fit into my suit!  It’s a brand new, gorgeous suit.  Now comes the good stuff.  HOW I am doing it? I’ll give you a hint:  I am a lifer with that weightloss group you thought was only for old, fat, frumpy women.  Well, guess what?  It’s not, and I’m not.  It’s just smart.  Hello Weight Watchers.  Yep. They’ve saved my life – or at least saved me from having to buy entirely new wardrobes – more than once.  It’s true.  I even go to meetings when I can.  If anyone wants to get details on how I do it, you can go here to see everything I ate, as well as the “before” pictures of both hips, and that suit.  Ich.

I have to say, there is this whole mental thing that happens when I try to eat healthy.

Take the Super Bowl, for instance.  My boyfriend and I were spending time at our house in Moab, Utah. We don’t really know people in Moab.  We planned to watch the game on our own.  My boyfriend knew this was weird for me.  I like people, and I like to be social – especially when there is a big event that everyone gathers together to watch.

So, in the morning of the big game he took me out to breakfast.  Remember – I am watching everything that goes into my body.  So, when our choices were limited to Denny’s or the Steakhouse that serves breakfast, I knew I’d be in trouble.  In L.A. I could go to any number of restaurants – even Mel’s Diner on Sunset – where ordering something like steamed vegetables scrambled with two egg whites would seem commonplace to them.  As a matter of fact, they’d have it on the menu.  I held my breath and thought to myself, “We are not in Kansas any more Dorothy.”  Besides, I knew it might be my only chance to see beyond the walls of our house on Super Bowl Sunday.  So, off we went.

As I looked at the menu, I mentioned how I couldn’t decide if I should eat the amount of food I would normally reserve for lunch, and then have my yummy egg whites and grilled vegetables at lunch. Then it happened: Peer pressure.  Holiday pressure.  Non-dieter pressure.  Pressure from someone who has never dieted in his life.  “Why don’t you just enjoy the day? It’s Super Bowl Sunday! We can grill some great stuff and make some really good Super Bowl style food (translation: junk), and you can start again tomorrow.”  I knew he meant well.  He is so sweet.

I was forced to explain how it really works.

“Realize this,” I began, knowing full-well he knew he was in for a lecture of sorts. “If I live my life like that: eating junk food, or the holiday food of choice, or whatever – every single time there is a holiday, just because there is a holiday, I may as well forget about ever eating healthy, staying thin or living a healthy existence.  Think about it.  There is some occasion every single month, usually several times a month.  Birthdays, client meetings, Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, business lunches, weddings, you name it. I have to decide I am a healthy eater – no matter what the occasion – and only allow myself to eat that stuff, like nachos, when  IIII really want it (emphasis on I).  Sure, it always tastes good, but I have learned that I will never succeed if I live that way.”

He quickly agreed.  Poor guy.

But he ordered the “lumberjack” which consisted of two sausage links, two strips of bacon, a slice of ham, two eggs, hashbrowns (the processed kind), two pancakes with butter, and an order of white toast with butter (and jelly, of course).  Talk about will power.  Mine, I mean.  Come to think of it, I didn’t even flinch. I didn’t even realize I’d taken an inventory of his meal until just this moment.

I ate oatmeal with splenda.  Yum.

I didn’t really crave anything on his plate.  I wasn’t jealous or wishing I could have pancakes.  I’ve also learned that all of those decadent, yummy, fattening foods are always around.  They will find me, believe you me, no matter where I go or how much weight I lose.  But I tried to remember the last time I ate and ordered whatever I wanted from the breakfast menu at Denny’s.  If I tried to remember that two or three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to recall.  I would have laughed and thought with a distant memory of that greasy taste in my mouth, how it must have been in high school or something. But the sad thing is, as I looked at my boyfriend’s entire table of food, I realized I’d just ordered the lumberjack myself about two months ago. This is why I am here now, trying to lose 11 lbs.

How easy it is to slip into the land of “I can eat whatever I want and still look fabulous” mentality.  I decided a few years back, and I am quickly regaining that resolve, that I will always have to work at being thin and fit, and that’s just it.  If I decide I have earned the option of looking frumpy after reaching seventy, then I will cross that bridge, as they say.  But even that thinking gets you in trouble.  I can just see it.  With that mentality, I’ll reach my seventieth birthday and head straight for the market to buy myself all the favorite foods I’ve kept myself from eating: pizza, manicotti, filet mignon with real butter, giant baked potatoes with real butter and real sour cream, nachos with beans and ground beef and cheese smothered all over them, enchiladas, with cheese and sour cream, and oh so much more.  I’ll decide that my three-times-a-week yoga class can now be replaced with baking days. I’ll bake my delicious Russian Tea Cakes (all butter), my chocolate chip pecan cookies that have Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate in them, and my fudge and peanut brittles, and every other kind of decadent sweet I can think of.  I’ll say it’s because I’m older now, and I’ve earned the right to bake food for my kids and grandkids (if I ever have them).  But in reality, I’ll be eating most of it myself, because hey – I earned it.

So, I’ve decided to plan to go out like Audrey or Katherine Hepburn.  Slender, lovely, and full of style.  That’s my plan anyhow, morbid and narcissistic as it sounds to speak of how I want to look when I die.  It’s more about how I want to live.  When I get older, I don’t want to lose my breath trying to lift my sausage thighs up the stairs, or to bend down and pick something up.  But I’m so young and so far from being that age, you say? Well, now is the time to set patterns and lay the ground-work for how it with be then.

So NOW is the time – okay, last week was my NOW – but I have begun. 

Here are my results after week 1:
Start Date:  Thursday January 31, 2007
Height: 5′ 5″
Goal: 125 lbs
Beginning weight:  136 lbs
Weight after week 1:  132.5 lbs (02.07.08)
Net Loss or other:  – 3.5  WOO HOO!!!

Now as to the reason I am on a quest to lose weight, and even more important, why I feel compelled to explain it again?  Well, some of you out there are wondering (I know this, because I am clairvoyant) what in the world I am doing trying to lose weight.  You think I’m as thin as I need to be, and I thank you for the good thoughts toward me.

My response? Only I know where I need to be.  I am not, nor have I ever been anorexic.  You will see this when you take a look at what I eat in a week!  I vowed long ago to never let my weight get to the point where others decide it’s time for me to lose it.  By then, it’s so far gone, it’s extremely difficult.  I know.  It happened to me after I gave birth to my youngest son.  Oh – about six years after.  It was way past my time then, and took several weeks and months of hard work and dedication to get to where I wanted to be.  I will not let that happen again.  I know the signs.  It happens slowly.  Five pounds in a year, or so.  But it doesn’t stop until you get tough on yourself and reign things in.  So, I’m doing it.  End of story.  But again, thanks for caring!

I’m on my way to a renewed me.  What about you?  What are you doing to get healthy this year?

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Blog content copyright 2008, LISA JEY DAVIS a.k.a. Ms. Cheevious.

I’m a Thin, Light, Lean, Mean Machine – Don’tcha Know?

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There I said it. It’s out there in the universe, swirling around now. I’m a thin, light, lean, mean machine.  That’s me!  Well, it will be soon.

Today I put a suit on that I plan to wear on a business trip to Florida in late February.  I embarrassed myself.  Just two and a half years ago this suit fit me and looked pretty stinkin’ good.  Not so this time. Blech.

So, I promptly took it off and hung it on my bedroom door as a reminder.  I proceeded to take three sheets of 8.5X11 paper and write messages to myself.  I wrote one that says “Don’t eat ANYTHING. You must fit in your suit! You need to lose it!” (it’s on the junk food cupboard) and another saying, “Thin & Lean is IN & Beautiful!!  Thin, Light, Lean, Mean Machine!!” (that one is suppose to get me amped up, and it’s above my desk), then one last one says, “The weight needs to come OFF! and you are the ONLY one who can do it!”  (that one is on my bathroom mirror).

So – I’m going to document my losses here.  I am good at this. I can definitely lose weight when I put my mind to it.  Don’t worry.  I am a health-nut dieter, not a basket case with OCD and anorexia. I’ll be good, I promise.

This all begs the question:  What do you do to get yourself back on track, both mentally and physically?

Tell me about it! I’d really like to hear, especially if you are trying to get slim once again as well!

Here’s to the new US in 2008 – or should I say, renewed US?  After all, this won’t be new – it’s more like a long lost friend who’s come back into our lives!  What a fantastic feeling!

So today – here I am at ground zero.  I have lost no weight.  My goal?  At least 11 lbs.

Stay tuned for the adventures of the Lean Mean Ms. Cheevious.

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Register to receive these posts by email and get my eBook “Ahhhhh…Haaaaaa Moments with Ms. Cheevious” for FREE. Registration is on the right side bar of every blog post. See you next time.

Blog content copyright 2008, LISA JEY DAVIS a.k.a. Ms. Cheevious.