I Can't Fit!

Nine

2007-09-26T10:50:00.000-05:00

Got 9 miles in yesterday.

Not all at once but over the course of the day in 2 mile or 2.5 mile chunks so figured that I ramped up the ole metabolism 4 different times yesterday for a total of about an hour and a half worth of cardio. My hamstrings are tight today and I'm a bit sore but it is a good kind of sore not a hurt kind of sore. I was playing games while on the treadmill and kept bumping up the incline every minute then when I couldn't take it anymore I finished out that minute then started bumping it back down. Then a seperate time I was on the treadmill I ramped it up to 5.3 mph and ran that for 4 minutes then took it back down to 4.3 for 3 minutes, lather, rinse, repeat until the 2.5 miles were done. Was sweating like a pig when I got finished and the heart rate monitor said that my pulse was up to 178 but that is what showers are for.

Today is 5 miles plus weights and I'm also thinking about adding some free weights with arm exercises on Saturday since I'm planning on running both days.

I did it!

2007-09-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

Ok - managed to get in 4 more miles last nite for a total of 5 yesterday. Was planning on getting up at 5am this morning but got up late so only managed 2.5 this morning with another 3 (or more) planned for lunch. That will bring me to a total of 5 for today too and then if I can fit in another 2 tonight it will get me the 7 that I planned on getting today. Saw 172 on the scales this morning and I swear that I can feel the fat burning away from my hips and thighs. The pants I'm wearing today are practically falling off of me and I had to keep my hand in my pocket to hold them up while walking in to work today.

I don't mind working out twice a day and my thinking is this - after you work out not only do you benefit from the workout but you also get an 'after-burn' effect where your body still burns calories at a higher rate for a while. I'm thinking that working out twice a day will cause my metabolism to ramp up twice a day therefore burn more calories. I don't know which one to believe as my treadmill showed that I burnt twice the calories this morning than fitday.com did when I keyed in my exercise.

I'm dropping off my sewing machine to have it cleaned and worked on tonight because I think that I can limp along my clothes for a couple of more pounds lost simply by taking them in at the waist and putting darts in them. I'm just not willing to go drop money on clothes right now because I want to see exactly what a difference the working out twice a day will make at the end of 2 weeks. I'm only 2 pounds away from my October 1st goal and am really wondering if I can lose 2 lousy pounds in 5 days that plus my goal is to log at least 25 miles this week and hopefully it will be closer to 30. I'm going to go ahead and run Saturday & Sunday because that is a part of this experiment.

I am really on point now because NASCAR will be here the first week in November and I really want people to notice or at least see a difference since I only see some of them twice a year. I think that the more I lose and the more muscle I build will only help speed up the metabolism and cause me to lose even more. Don't really have a final weight goal in mind as I figure that my body will settle on what weight it wants to be - I just want my thighs to quit rubbing together.

Goals

2007-09-24T09:14:00.000-05:00

173 - ok that puts me just 3 lbs away from being 170 and I'm wondering, since it is a goal to reach 170 by the first of October, if I can manage to lose 3 lbs in 1 measly week. I think I'm going to try something - I'm finally going to start the 2-a-days for the next 2 weeks just to see how much of a difference it will make. The schedule will be 5 miles on Monday, Wednesday & Friday along with weights on Mon & Wed and Yoga on Friday and 7 miles on Tuesday & Thursday. The 2-a-days will consist of 4 miles in the morning (or evening since I didn't manage to get up and run this morning) and then 1 mile on the weight lifting days to warm up and another 3 miles at lunch on Tues & Thurs. Not really going to worry about weekends since, while I don't run I also don't sit down with chasing a 3 yr old and housework.

Another .5

2007-09-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Ok - have seen 174 for a couple of days now so I will finally start to believe it.

Life just got busier and I'm struggling to get my exercise in. I think that I just need to pencil it in my calendar and make it an appointment. Also need to do a bit of better planning and get my slug-ass up and exercise in the morning when I know that the gym at lunch is impossible because trying to fit in exercise at night just doesn't work with 2 kids at home and a new house that seems to need something done every night.

I never started the 2-a-days but figure if I can start it now that still gives me 6 weeks until Race weekend so maybe I can still see a significant loss (I mean besides the 12 lbs lost so far). I am busy and 'active' but just don't think that the activity is the same as exercising. The area I need to target the most right now is my waistline - my hips don't really exist and there isn't much difference in the tape measure between my waist and hips so I need to start doing some exercises to define the waistline.

Today is 3 miles on the treadmill since I missed yesterday and haven't worked out since last Thursday (to speak of). I need to lift weights but would rather run than lift weights so will probably just lift weights 1 day this week. Apparently I'm doing something right because I'm still loosing weight - albeit slowly.

Another Half

2007-09-11T07:45:00.000-05:00

Ok - saw 174.5 this morning on the ole scales.

My scales only register in half-pounds so I was probably very close yesterday when I saw 175 and my workout yesterday must've put me down the half pound. I'm going to change my weight lifting day from Wednesday to Thursday so that I will be lifting weights Monday & Thursday and I'm also going to change the workout a bit. Currently I am doing 2 sets of 15 reps with the same amount of weight both times - now I am going to start with 1 set of 15 reps with the usual amount of weight then add 5 pounds and do 10 reps then add another 5 pounds and do 5 reps. I might add 10 pounds instead of just 5 if the addition of five pounds doesn't wear out the muscle. I didn't do this yesterday so will start this Thursday with the new weight lifting routine. I will continue running every day and do think that increasing the intensity of the workout on the treadmill is what is helping contribute to the drop in scales this week. Either that or my body has detoxed and finally realizes that it is going to HAVE to drop lbs or else!

NASCAR will be at Texas Motor Speedway the first weekend in November (for the race) and since we go to both races at TMS my goal is to drop enough pounds so that our friends notice it. We have friends that we only see twice a year at the races and I want, desperately, to drop enough weight that they will see it. I know this sounds shallow but it is just something that I am working towards. That gives me about 7 weeks and at a pound a week that is 7 pounds which will be about 17 pounds lost over all but I think that if I just keep increasing the intensity that maybe, just maybe I can lose 1.5 pounds a week which will be about 10.5 more pounds and will be a 20+ pound loss which should DEFINATELY be noticable. Either loss will put me down into the 'normal' category instead of the 'fat' category for my height.

Yeah Right! Like I've ever been normal.

175

2007-09-10T14:09:00.000-05:00

175 - dang is this body ever slow in letting go of the food products.

My clothes are fitting looser and my ring spins on my finger so even though I don't see the scales move very much I know that the body composition has changed. Friday I had on a pair on black dress slacks and didn't even have to unbutton or unzip them to go potty. I just pulled them straight down - the downside was that I spent the day fighting to keep them up and think that I'm going to invest in some cute belts to get me through the clothes size changes. I know that I could probably go down a size but don't really want to spend money on 1 size down when I also know that I will continue to lose weight. Think I will just limp along with belts until I can go down 2 sizes.

While laying in bed Saturday morning the Mr. rubbed my hips and said that he could really tell that I have dropped weight - not sure if that is supposed to be a compliment, I should get pissed over it or if he was just being nice to initiate some morning sex :)

200 miles

2007-09-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

Moved the ticker from 100 miles to 200 miles now that I'm over half way to 100. I'm just going to keep moving it up as I log more because I want a record of how many miles I will log this year. Am back to running now (from walking) and yesterday lifted weights for the first time since I was hospitalized.

Now if I can just start those darn 2-a-days I'm pretty sure I will be able to drop into the 160's soon.

Filler

2007-08-29T11:10:00.000-05:00

Got in 2.5 miles at lunch yesterday and another 1.5 last night walking down to see how far the lake levels have dropped. Not enough to get the damn boat launched but almost enough to reconnect the walking trails so that the walking loop at night is closer to 3.5 miles than 1.5.

While I am holding steady at 176 I really want to see the scale start moving south. I was thinking about things last night and remember that when I had a personal trainer he always said that I would have to do 1 ½ hours of cardio a day in order to lose weight. I’m not sure if he was talking about me specifically or if that was his stance for everyone. Then I remembered that the last time I got serious about weight loss I was doing this aerobic tape each morning and it amounted to about an hour of cardio – it was a step tape and unfortunately it was long enough ago that it was actually a tape and we only have DVD players in our house now. A shame because it was a good tape and worked wonders in helping me drop pounds – guess I need to stop by the nearest sports store and see what DVD’s are available these days as I still have that durn step.

I do believe that I really need to up the duration and intensity of the workouts so that the scale finally starts to move. Best I can tell I’m getting 30 minutes 5 days a week as I’m not getting on the treadmill on the weekends even though I am active cleaning house and / or doing yard work / not being a slug so I think that I just need to bite the bullet and plan on getting in another half a hour either in the morning or when I get home from work and then try to get in at least 30 minutes of intense exercise on the weekends. That and I’m slowly upping the intensity (i.e. mph) on the treadmill at lunch and will probably be back to jogging by next week.

So the focus for now is to attempt to get in an hour of cardio 5 or 6 days a week for the next 2 weeks to see if that makes a difference in the scales.

In other news – a current pet peeve of mine is why the hell do manufacturers feel the need to put ‘fillers’ in vitamins? I absolutely HATE having to swallow a fucking horse pill and do believe that if they would just cut out some of the fillers they could come up with a pill HALF the size and lots easier to swallow. I don’t usually have trouble swallowing pills but can almost guarantee that at least 2 or 3 times a week I will gag on my vitamin.

Maintain

2007-08-27T14:34:00.000-05:00

176 still this morning and I will so take it as I had the munchies this weekend and ate waffles with too much butter and syrup, about 1 tray of oreo cookies with whole milk (not all in the same sitting but over the course of the weekend), rice crispy treat, shortbread cookies, chips and chicken nuggets from Braums along with french fries one night.

On the flip side I did deep clean my whole house Saturday, both floors and all 3,000 sq feet of it which took almost all day to do then me and the little blond monster went outside to color on the driveway with chalk - well she did while I pulled weeds out of both the flowerbeds and the front yard so maybe the movement / exercise offset the major munchies attack that I was experiencing.

Made a pretty yummy meal last nite - not sure how healthy it is but here is the recipe:

3 chicken breast
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup Fire roasted green salsa
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 can quartered artichoke hearts
1 small package sliced baby bella mushroms
1/4 cup sliced black olives

Preheat oven to 350. Salt and pepper chicken breast, place in a baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. While baking mix together the soup, cumin and salsa and drain the artichoke hearts. After the chicken has cooked for 20 minutes place the artichoke hearts and mushrooms on and around chicken and pour soup mixture on top then sprinkle with olives. Cook for another 25 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink.

This was yummy but a bit spicy so next time I will probably try to cut it with some 2% milk or evaporated milk. Then I served it over some Basmati rice and a huge salad with my new favorite dressing - Paul Newmans Low Fat Sesame Ginger Dressing. Seriously this stuff is like crack dressing and it only has 1.5 grams of fat and 35 calories per serving which is 2 Tbsp - that and it has all natural ingredients and nothing unprounceable in it. Plus the company gives heavily to charities.

Had 1 breast left over after the Mr. and I ate dinner and I took the other half of my breast for lunch today so tonight's dinner will consist of the remaining chicken boobie warmed and sliced then rolled up in a whole wheat tortilla along with the artichoke hearts, mushrooms, some of the sauce and lots of lettuce - spring mix lettuce as that is what we eat. The sauce will serve as a dressing and will keep the wrap moist enough (I think - will see). I will serve the rest of the green salsa with some tortilla chips to the Mr. to round out his meal but the wrap will be enough for me. Little miss blond thangie will get fish sticks, salad and corn as this chicken is definately too hot for her delicate little palate.

Did 2.5 miles on the treadmill at lunch and can tell that my strength is almost back to normal. Will try to fit in another 1.5 miles down to check on the lake levels tonight if this evening's activities allow such grand plans. Still need to reach my goal of 100 miles but that ole ticker is creeping up there every week.

Well, what do you know!

2007-08-23T15:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had someone stop me and say "you've lost weight! Haven't you? Then again today someone else stopped me and asked what I was doing to lose weight and commented that I looked good.

So . . .

Even though it has really only been about 6 pounds apparently whatever I'm doing is paying off even more than I can tell if 2 different people have noticed.

Think I will keep doing it!

Was able to go a bit faster on the treadmill at lunch today so I can tell that I'm regaining my strength and returning a bit to normal - as normal as I can be but I can honestly say that Normal really isn't something I've ever been accused of. Tomorrow is Yoga but I'm thinking that I really might want to just get back on the treadmill instead. Peer pressure will probably make me buckle and go to Yoga as quit a few people here go to Yoga on Friday and I just know that every single one of em will harrass me if I miss.

The Mr. is dead-set to haul the RV down to the farm this weekend but I have opted out. The meds I'm on have a warning about heat-stroke and that I will be more sensitive to the sun so I'm thinking that I probably don't need to go and take any chances. He is threatening to take the little monster with him but I'm pretty sure that it is an empty threat and that he is just trying to bully me into going. Exercise this weekend will depend largely on whether his threat is empty or not. If she is gone then I can most certainly log some time on the treadmill, if she is there then it will be next to impossible except during nap-time as she is facinated with the treadmill and tries to get on there with me when she is awake. I can try to walk her down to the lake and back but she prefers to walk instead of ride so that means it will be closer to a stroll than a walk while she is out of the stroller.

More, More, More

2007-08-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

Managed another 1.5 miles last night down to the lake and back and it was closer to a stroll than anything but I still had sweat pouring out of my pores when I got back so know that I'm still in the detox process.

One of the meds they have me on, either Protonix or Chlordiazepoxide, is really jacking with my sleep cycle and I'm having a bit of insomnia so am pretty tired and really, really wanted to go to my truck and take a nap during lunch but went ahead and went to the gym and logged another 2 miles because I still have that 100 mile goal out there hanging over my header. I know that it would be easy to talk myself out of exercising every day and especially now since I had such a rough week last week but I also know that I have to start somewhere and figure why not today? That plus I saw 176.0 yesterday morning which is a 4 lb drop and I'm thinking that if I go ahead and start back exercising maybe I can stave off gaining those 4 pounds back.

Keeping the food choices to as natural as possible and made some homemade roasted red pepper hummus last night that I'm munching on right now with some 'Natural Ry Krisp' crackers which don't have anything un-natural or unpronounceable in them. Ate 2 boiled eggs along with 2 pieces of pumpernickel toast with a tablespoon of natural boysenberry jelly on them for breakfast. The bread is the natural kind that doesn't have anything processed in it but it also has a shelf-life of only 4 or 5 days once you open it - good thing there are only about 8 slices in the package but damn is that stuff expensive. I'm trying to keep my food as close to natural as I can to help flush out all the toxins and I'm DEFINATELY staying away from High Fruitcose syrup of any kind - that stuff is hard on your gut and hard for your body to process when you are healthy. I'm on my 3rd - 32 oz glass - of water so far and still have about 2 hours of work left. Then it will be 2 more (at least) between the time I get home and go to bed and another 16 oz bottle if we can fit in another 1.5 mile walk tonight. I'm also watching the sodium content of my consumption since the nasty stuff they used to flush my colon tasted like Baking Soda combined with Epsom Salt and even though I have lost 4 lbs I still can't get my wedding ring back on my finger so figure it was all the salt.

Speaking of colon - the reason I was put in the hospital was because my colon shut down completely and caused everything to back up into my kidneys and liver and I couldn't even keep down sips of water since there wasn't anywhere for it to go. Now the meds they have me on cause the exact opposite effect which means that if my tummy even thinks about grumbling I have to make a mad dash down the hallway to the little girls room - just in case. That and the side effects of one of them is that it causes you to feel weak and can cause a B-12 deficiency so I need to be extra careful to take my daily vitamin. I have a pretty consistant headache but think that is a nasty side-effect as well.

Scratch

2007-08-21T14:33:00.000-05:00

Ok - we start back at square 1 on the fitness level due to being in the hospital for 4 days last week and all of the in-organic crap that was flowing through my veins. Initially I wasn't going to go over to the gym during lunch but at the last minute decided that I needed to start somewhere even if it was a rather snails pace and I sweated like a little piggy due to the toxins in my body. Managed 1.5 miles which I will gladly take because it is a mile and a half more than I would've walked if I had sat at my desk. I am still extremely weak so didn't push but walked at a 3.5 mph pace which still made me sweat. I can smell the stuff that they pumped into me coming out of my pores and it stinks - Hospital smell - YECH!

Still have the goal of 100 miles but just don't have a particular date in mind. I am just going to continue counting mileage until I reach 100 miles.

WTF

2007-08-20T15:12:00.000-05:00

176.0

Even if I did get put into the hospital for 4 days to get there. My lower GI tract froze up / shut down / stopped working and it caused terrible pain and 4 days for them to figure out what the fuck was going on with my body.

Got released Saturday nite and am back at work today - what can I say - my work ethics are off the chart. I'm starting back eating rather slow and am weak from the hospital experience so we will see if I can keep the weight off and loose more.

I need to change my thinking a bit and get serious about life changes and getting this body healthy so that it doesn't crap (pun intended) out on me again. I need to stop smoking/ keep exercising/ keep making healthy food choices so that my body will last another 40 years.

Am probably going to lay off of the exercise this week (will see how I feel) so that I can completely recoup from last weeks events but plan on trying yoga on Friday because I know that I can pace myself.

5 points

2007-08-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

Finally broke through the 180 threshold.

Saw 179.5 on the scales this morning but saw 175 yesterday afternoon around 4pm. Didn't get in my 10 miles in order to beat last weeks mileage but also didn't sit down this weekend. Not even sure if I watched anything on TV - at all! It was a busy weekend and I pulled a durn muscle in my back wrestling with middle child in the pool Saturday night trying desperately to keep him from drowning me. Slept on a heating pad last night so didn't sleep very well - that plus I got nauseated while eating dinner so only 2 bites of fajitas then I crawled in bed as early as possible to put heat on the pulled muscle.

Going to gym today to walk my mile and then lift weights. It is 101 here so I won't be walking the 1 1/2 mile circuit outside but will try to get on the treadmill (in the air conditioner) later tonight - the heat plus the fact that we have a Red ozone day and the radio said something along the lines of it being a "lung scaring" ozone day. I am still going to try and log as many miles as possible but think that I might change my focus up a bit and try to lift weights more to see if building muscle really will burn fat faster.

The other thing is that now when my stomach growls - I grin (inside) and think "hey, I'm burning fat reserves now instead of consumed calories" so the hungry feeling really isn't bothering me for the last couple of days. Been a bit hit and miss on taking vitamins and have added that as a goal - to take at least 1 vitamin a day - I say 1 because my daily dosage is split into 2 vitamins (half the daily recommended amount in each pill) because taking 1 that has the whole day's supply makes me sick to my stomach so 1 pill = half my daily recommended allowance. I feel that that, along with my healthy eating, will meet my daily recommended allowance on most vitamins on most days.

We grilled fajitas last night so that will be leftovers for dinner tonight and if I forgo the tortilla and sour cream and sautee some broccolini in a bit of olive oil, garlic and lemon juice to pare with it should be a pretty healthy dinner.

Holy Crap Bat-Man

2007-08-10T13:19:00.000-05:00

Damn - 3 miles this week!

I'm so gonna have to bust a nut tonight and this weekend in order to break last week's almost 13 miles - that means I need to do 10 miles in the next 3 days - saying it like that sounds horrible but when I break out the ole calculator it means just 3.33 miles a day so for the next 3 days I need to do around 3.5 miles. I know I can fit in 1.5 tonight after daughter's swim lessons so that means that I will need to get in another 2 on the treadmill and then fit in 3.5 tomorrow and Sunday. The 2 miles tonight can be broken down into 2 1-mile sessions because I can usually sneak upstairs and finish a mile on the treadmill before the girl-child in my household notices and comes looking for me. It takes about 10 minutes to run/jog a mile so if I can sneak away twice the cat is in the bag.

This week was absolutely NUTS and I only managed to make it to the gym 1 day - I'm so looking forward to next week when both co-workers are back because I'm going to the gym come hell or high-water. Weight is neither up nor down this week and I will take that as I wasn't able to move as much as I wanted to and ate far more bread than I should. Now all I have to do is condition myself into getting up early in order to fit in another mile or so in the morning before work - that way if I don't get to go to the gym I will still have logged some mileage for the day. I have been in the pool for 45 minutes everynight because the swim lessons are "Mommy & Me" so that means Mommy has to don said bathingsuit and splash around in the water with daughter showing her that she won't melt if she puts her face in the water.

Besides the 10 miles this weekend - the weekend plans are to sand and re-shellac the bench in the front yard, dig up some plants at a friend's house and replant them in my yard, get the cannas out of their pots and into the ground so they can multiply like rabbits, purchase annual plants for the pots and get them potted and possible finally start putting some color on the walls of this very beige house we moved into. Somewhere along the way I plan on making time for some sun and fun in the pool at a friend's house for me and daughter and anyone else that wants to tag along.

Quickie

2007-08-08T08:10:00.000-05:00

I only have time for a quickie today.

Hopped on the ole scales this morning and saw 181.

**blinks**

WTF is going on with that?

Things are going a bit crazy this week, 2 gals are out, we have a new person on the floor and another that has been here about 2 months and I have to teach new hires training 2 days this week. 181 - finally lost a pound but due to the craziness the last 3 days I can't even tell you what I have eaten or even if I have eaten. I know that I've brought my breakfast and lunch but did I eat it????? Didn't get to exercise yesterday and today doesn't look like it is going to be any better unless I manage to get some type of movement in after work. Have to bust a nut home because my daughter is in swimming lessons this week so I'm going to get in the pool with her tonight and then maybe I can jump on the treadmill or talk her into letting me do some yoga tonight.

I say talk her into it because I have to use her tv (with built in dvd player) in her room and she doesn't really like to share and when I finally bribe her into letting me use it she thinks it is fantastic that I'm finally up in her room so takes full advantage of showing me ALL of her toys.

I will fit in some exercise today . . . I will fit in some exercise today . . . I will fit in some exercise today!

What I made tonight

2007-08-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

This is what I made tonight to take for my 2nd lunch this week. Because of the running/working out during lunch I eat about 270 - 300 calories around 11 am and then another 270 - 300 around 3:00 pm. I get to work before 7:30 so usually eat breakfast between 7:30 and 8 am and breakfast consists of steel cut oatmeal, flax seed, cinnamon and blueberries. Lunch #1 is usually a frozen Healthy Choice meal and lunch #2 is usually soup - preferrably Black Bean soup but this is what I have made to take for lunch #2 this week.

The whole fixings consisted of the following but I figure that I can make it last the whole week for lunch #2:

2 limes, zest and juice

3 tomatoes

1 Jalapeno

1 red bellpepper, diced small

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

3 ears of corn, roasted and cut off the cob

1 bunch cilantro

1 medium red onion, diced small

1/2 cup organic tomato juice

cumin

Tabasco - about 20 dashes

and lastly - we grilled 4 zucchini last night but I had stubbed my toe in the salt when preparing them so they were pretty salty. There was about 1 whole grilled zucchini left so I just chopped it up and threw it into the mix since it was too salty to eat by itself and I haden't added any salt to this mixture.

The good news is that I have 3 ears of corn, deer steak, chicken breast that was marinated in olive oil, 2 Chipolte peppers and a handful of chopped Rosemary, Cantelope and Watermelon to take for work this week for lunch #1 as I am looking to cut back on the amount of processed foods items I eat and get more natural foods into my tummy. I also bought apples, nectarines and oranges to take with me so hopefully I can finally see the fucking scales drop a couple of pounds and register something besides 182.

On other news - I was lamenting to the Mr. this morning about how all of the working out hasn't netted a negative on the scales yet and he replied "Yes but I can tell a difference - you are less jiggley". This made me laught out loud but he is right I can feel a difference in the less jiggley department even if the fucking scales don't reflect anything yet.

I missed yoga this morning as it started at 8:30 instead of 9 but I did go to Adacemy and get some more running shorts, a yoga mat and a yoga tape and went ahead and did yoga watching the tape after I did yard work for 2 hours. Unfortunately my shirt didn't quite meet the top of my shorts so I have this EXTREMELY nice half moon shape burnt spot across the small of my back which was obtained while doing yard work and I just bet that my new neighbors just loved the fact that I was practically mooning them while doing yard work today.

Yogurt

2007-08-03T14:26:00.000-05:00

I did yoga at lunch today - it feels good to loosen up the muscles in my back.

Still 182 on the scales this morning but I'm not giving up - I'm going to keep plugging away because there is just no way in hell that this weight is going to stay on me if I keep exercising. I'm just going to be as active as I can and not sit down at night until I collapse in bed. The other thing I'm thinking about is that I'm going to start cooking/bringing my lunches to work. I already bring my lunch so that I can fit in a workout - but it is frozen meals and maybe there is too much processed crap in them. I'm going to try to fit in 7 fruits and veggies (not 7 of each but 7 combined) each day. I'm also going to substitute beans for meat in my lunchtime meals so that I can still get protein but keep my fiber up. I've made a grocery list and will be doing lots of cooking this weekend and portioning food items into lunch portions and freezing them so that they are convinent and easy. I'm starting to consider if maybe I need to cut out 1 of my morning latte's - can't quit caffeine cold-turkey but can cut back a bit. The herbal tea can stay but those latte's sure have alot of calories.

Need to splash some color on the very beige walls of this new house so this weekend will be spent definately cleaning, yard work, gardening and possibly some painting - not sure what the Mr. has plans for but maybe I can talk him into going out on the boat. This skin is the palest it has been by the end of the summer in years and I need some color along with the house needing color.

A marathon

2007-08-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

Still 182 on the scales this morning so come Monday we will be adding another 1.5 miles to our daily run, first thing in the morning before work and still keep the weights/running at lunch, walking in the evenings and yoga on Friday's. This working out just has to pay off sometime soon - you can't log over 12 miles in one week and not see some kind of change besides being sore. My semi-long term goal is to do 100 miles in 45 days but another goal is simply to log more miles this week than I did last week and then more miles the week after that and so on and so forth until I can run a marathon in 1 week or less.

It looks wierd to me to see the 26.2 miles up there on my tracker. Basically I have ran a marathon even if it has taken almost 3 weeks to do so. I'm going to yoga on Sunday as well as this Friday at lunch and have some weights at home that I can do a little arm routine on Saturday because I'm afraid that if I wait from Wednesday until next Monday to lift weights again I will be extremely sore again and my thinking is if I lift on Saturday it might keep the soreness at bay a bit.

I am stronger than you are and you know it

2007-08-01T15:10:00.000-05:00

Dear body:

I don't know what the fuck you think you are doing showing me 182 on the scales this morning but you better stop it right now and back the fuck back down. You know that if need be I will resort to drastic measures to get the numbers to reverse on the scale. I'm not really asking you for much - just 10% - surely you can give up 10%. I'm also not asking for this 10% immediately and am willing to give you a couple of months to give up the 18 or so pounds I need you to drop. While I do appreciate your letting go of a huge toxic poop this morning I just don't think it was enough.

and you know that you don't either!

I WILL keep exercising and will keep increasing it so you just better get it through your thick scull, right now, that this is just the way things are going to be from now on so the sooner you settle in and conform to what I want you to be the happier we will both be. You have lolly-gagged around in your sluggish ways for WAY too long and if you want to live to see your daughter grow up then things need to change. If this increase in expenditure of energy doesn't net some kind of loss by the end of the week I will add another 1 to 1 1/2 miles first thing in the morning along with the 4 a day for a total of 5+ a day and you know just how much you HATE being drug out of bed that early in the morning. If that doesn't work then consider yourself severely grounded and the next drastic measure will be the loss of food.

Bread and water - we will just see how the fuck you like that!

You know that I am stronger than you are and based on past experiences you know that you are fighting a battle that you most certainly will lose so can we just play nice and try to get along - if you dig deep down you know that I am doing this for us. For us and our family so please try to conform this time and give the shit up. I'm not starving you at all and as a matter of fact - unlike past experiences - I'm actually shoveling food type items into your pie-hole when you feign hunger pains. What I'm shoveling in is so much better for you than the chips and chocolate you think you want - that stuff is so very over-rated anyways and is bad for you in large quantities. Please, please don't force me to resort back to just dribbling in 1 coke a day.

Love
I Can't Fit

Plus 1

2007-07-31T11:42:00.001-05:00

Last evening, after dinner, laundry and reading “Goodnight Opus” to the small child that resides in my household for the 210th time the Mr. suggested that we take a walk/stroll. Now the level of fitness needed for this walk varies and depends on whether the small child will stay in her wagon or insists on clambering out and “walking” with us. If she pretends that she likes being chauffeured around then we can go at a pretty fast clip, if she insists on walking then it is more along the lines of a stroll/stop since she either walks on her tiptoes or heels and since she is only about 3 ft tall that means an extreme snails pace. So the child DID want to participate in the walk last night for about half of the distance out. Coming back we convinced her that it would be better to ride, especially since she fell down and skinned her hand and knee while trying to walk on her heels on broken asphalt – we were able to jog back to make up for just strolling half of the way out. Then when we got home, for some strange reason, I decided that I needed to hop on the treadmill for another mile to make it an even 3 for the day.

**insert maniacal laughing here**

While on the treadmill and about 75% of the way through what I thought was mile #3 I realized that I had miss-calculated my mileage so far and instead of only logging 2 miles that I had already logged a bit more than 3 miles so actually this was mile #4 and not mile #3. Goofy, goofy, goofy – I thought exercising was supposed to release good endorphins that made you smarter not dumber. What the hell – I went ahead and finished mile #4 then hopped in the tub for some splash time with the small child that resides in my house because everyone knows that letting a 3 yr old wash your hair is just more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Was up a pound this morning and just have to scritch my head over that as I got in a bit over 4 miles and 30 minutes of weight lifting yesterday along with the 3 floors of stairs at the gym, the 6 floors at the parking garage and the “I don’t know how many” at the house putting up laundry. Oh well, I’m going to keep going and try to get in 4 miles today or more if possible. Monday’s & Wednesdays will be running/weights during lunch, Tuesday & Thursday will be strictly running at lunch and Friday will be yoga along with extra running/strolling at night every night I can fit it in until I can fit in. The loop by the house is 1.6 miles, best I can figure it using MapIt and I really need to locate the durn GPS so that I can get an accurate account of that trail. Once the lake goes down I will have a 3.6 mile track out and back along the bike path now if I can just talk the small child into getting into and staying in the jogging stroller it will be even better. If not then the little bitch can just stay home with her dad on the nights he doesn’t go.

I’ve been tracking my activity level, all of it not just the actual exercise stuff and I’m starting to suspect that maybe my calorie level is a bit low and that I just might be throwing my body into starvation mode which would explain the gain and not loss after yesterday’s activities. I’m going to try to fit an apple into the daily menu and the best I can tell right now I’m burning almost 3500 calories with Basal, lifestyle and activities but am consuming between 1200 & 1350 with my fiber grams up around 35 grams a day and since I’m having issues with my body hording the food and not letting it pass back out it sure feels like this body is just hanging on for dear life. I’m going to up the fiber a bit and the calories to see if that doesn’t help move things along.

Hop! Skip! and a Jump!

2007-07-30T14:31:00.000-05:00

Hopped over to the gym for lunch today and managed to get in 20 minutes on the treadmill and 25 minutes lifting weights. I broke it up by walking 10 minutes then lifting weights (2 circuits) then went back to the treadmill for another 10 minutes at a 3.7 mph pace just to shake things out. My arms and legs are shaky now and I have a slight headache but suspect that it is due to the old body adjusting to the no carbs/alcohol/sugar today rather than the exercising.

Didn't see a drop on the scales this morning but really didn't expect one since I certainly DIDN'T behave at all this weekend and drank about 50 beers (not really but it felt like it). I'm going to have to do doubletime now in order to make up for the indulgence but it was worth it and fun times were had by all. I laughed so much that my stomach still hurts. I can probably just hop on the treadmill again tonight for another 2.5 throw in some gardening in the mix then get up and hit the trail again tomorrow morning along with the usual fixing of dinner and doing laundry that is a nightly occurance and everything should be just fine. My rings and bra are looser today so all of the walking around and chasing of the 3 yr old I did this weekend along with all of the trips up and down the 4 stairs getting into and out of the RV and the 3 stairs that lead up to the bathroom inside the RV probably helped offset some of the damage.

Really hoping to drop down into the 170sompthin this week so might just have to "bust a nut" the rest of the week in order to move this along.

Currently have consumed 915 calories with 33 grams of fiber

Oh yeah!! Baby!!

2007-07-27T13:35:00.000-05:00

Goody, goody Gum-Drops!

Saw 180 on the ole scales this morning and it really isn’t hard to believe that I’ve lost over 2 lbs in blood due to the number of pads I’ve managed to rip through in the last 2 days.

But I will take it – any kind of a loss is good.

Did yoga today and all I can say is it is kick-ass! I was actually sweating by the time class was over with and my arms and legs were shaky. I’m going again on Monday so that means I really need to kick it in gear and get my fat ass up and run – either in the morning or I just need to take time in the evenings to get my 2.5 miles in or I won’t ever reach my goal of 100 miles in 45 days. Plan on getting in some hiking this weekend at the trails around the lake so that should help and I hope to see another pound lost by Monday – maybe I can just leave it out at the lake along with some recycled beers.

One hundred and eight two

2007-07-26T15:08:00.000-05:00

YEAH - crawled up on the scales this AM and finally this shit is starting to move South and I saw 182. Also finally started my fucking assed period yesterday afternoon! Finished yesterday with 1600 calories, 44 grams of Fiber and less than 30 grams of fat am sitting at 987 calories with 37 grams fiber and 19 grams of fat so far today. According to Fitday I have already burned almost 3000 calories with the run and my regular activities, like climbing stairs, so that combined with all this fiber should help the produce to move through my system faster than its normal sluggish snails pace. I'm going to have to get up and run before work tomorrow because I promised a co-worker that I would do Yoga with him at lunch and the Mr. booked us a RV site out at Mineral Wells State Park where they have an 11 mile loop worth of hiking trails which means I have to bust my ass home from work so that we can then haul the RV West. Tonight will be spent packing out the RV for the weekend's festivities and I promised my daughter that I would take her to “Play Park” tonight if she let me put her hair in pigtails this morning so after the RV packing I’m either going to have to pull her to the one in the neighborhood in her wagon or drive to the big one that has the water area down the road a bit.

On the food front I am putting Tabasco on just about everything (except the oatmeal and that is certainly a thought) and I found this awesome instant black bean soup at Tom Thumb that has 14 grams of fiber and only 180 calories. The soup is the kind that I can just keep in my drawer here at work then pour in some hot water 20 dashes of Tabasco and drink it about 30 minutes before I go run so that I’m not starving my fat ass off thinking about food the whole time I’m at the gym. Healthy Choice also carries the little meals that have about 270 calories and 5 grams of fiber which are just great for eating around 2:30 – 3 so that once again I’m not starving my fat ass off after running gasping for breath for 30 minutes.

The weird thing is that even though I’m not seeing the scales move dramatically what I AM seeing is my wedding ring is looser and my bras are looser – damn boobs are not the first things to grow when I gain weight but damn sure are the first area to shrink when I lose.

There she blows

2007-07-25T14:18:00.000-05:00

183 still shows on the scales this morning. I'm wondering why I punish myself by weighing said self 2 or 3 times a day since I only go off of the firstthinginthemorningbladderdrainedcough weight. I did manage to take a big ole shit yesterday morning - it felt good and was about the size of an arm. Took another one this morning and I swear that the women of this company must've been on the same schedule because there were 4 of us in there taking a dump at the same time. You can always tell when a woman needs to shit and has company - she will always pee and then just sit there until everyone else leaves to release that shit.

Not me - I shat and got the shat out of there.

Currently have consumed 896 calories and 35 grams of fiber so am hoping to get some more of this stuff out of my system tonight. Sure would like to see the scales inch their way back South. I got in another 2.4 miles on the treadmill at lunch and will try to fit in another 2 or so tonight. Didn't walk last night partly because my knee was swollen and partly because I was feeling like a slug and was just so tired. I think it is all in my mind though so I'm going to think that I'm NOT tired tonight to see if that gets me anywhere.

How F*cking frustrating is this?

2007-07-24T09:22:00.000-05:00

Went for a brisk walk last night, pushing my daughter and Zeep in the jogging stroller I was drenched by the time I made it back to the house. The best I can tell, from mapping it out, it was close to 2 miles so I counted 1 ½ miles on the ticker tracker above to add to the 100 miles in 45 days. The Mr. smarted off when I told him that my goal was 100 in 45 days – he said something like “That’s nothing, you can walk more than 100 miles in that length of time”. It both hurt my feelings and pissed me off. Sometimes I don’t know how to take things that are said – I don’t really think he was saying it to be mean but rather think it was just a guy response and if I had been a guy it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. He is right because 100 miles in 45 days is only 2.22 miles a day and I can do more than that but really am not sure just how much I can do so I put the 100 miles up there because it is a nice, fat, round number.

The frustrating part is that when I climbed on the scales this morning I’m up 1 ½ pounds. My eating yesterday was fine with nothing bad in it and I didn’t drink any alcohol last night so the increase in poundage is rather frustrating this early in the game as I expected that I would at least see a pound move in the other direction. I don’t want to be in the 180’s anymore and really want to see 170somethin soon. I know that part of it is due to the fact that my period is now 3 days late (was supposed to start Saturday) and I can feel that my body is hanging on to everything last bite I eat. My water consumption was up around 96 ounces yesterday with 2 glasses of tea thrown in, 1 green tea with ginger and 1 white tea with orange both served over ice because lets face it – it is just too damn hot here in Texas to be consuming hot tea. Sometimes my body does this strange thing where I won’t poop for 4 or 5 days or if I do it is little rabbit turds so I know that there is more waste up there that is just hanging out and fermenting for now.

The plan of attack has been formulated and implemented.

I consumed microwavable lunch for breakfast instead of my usual oatmeal because it had 13 grams of fiber and I brought some packages of Metamucil with me so will be drinking one this morning and one this afternoon which will make my fiber intake around 20 grams and I also have some dried apricots that I’m going to be munching on because lets face it – nothing will get your system moving like a bit of fiber. 6 apricots has 4 grams of fiber so if I can munch 6 this morning and 6 after lunch that will take the fiber up to 28 grams not including the grilled chicken and asparagus (3 grams per 5.3 ounce serving, plus it contains folic acid) for lunch and whatever I’m eating for dinner. Right now I’m thinking that dinner needs to be a big salad with lots of raw veggies and something low-fat and tasty as the dressing.

The other day I set some low-fat yogurt in cheesecloth and put it in the fridge overnight to drain, it got nice and thick, then last night I chopped up a chili and stirred in some of the adobo sauce it is nice and spicy so I think that I’m going to add some balsamic vinegar and olive oil to it for a spicy dressing for the big ole salad mentioned above. Then, depending on how much I have or have NOT pooped today it might involve another glass of Metamucil for dessert later on tonight.

The other part of the plan is to log 3.0 miles a lunch today (did 2.62 yesterday) and make sure that I get in 2.5 tonight either walking through the neighborhood or on the treadmill – depending on the weather and if I walk outside then I’m going to try to implement some weights as well and or get the spare bedroom straightened up and unpack some more boxes which will be the equivalent of lifting weights.

I’m convinced that the not eating that I didn’t do years ago really jacked my system up and it probably still thinks that I’m in starvation mode. Now all I have to do is convince it that I’m not that it is ok to eat and lose weight at the same damn time.

Till the cows come home

2007-07-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

I did 2.62 today at the old mill. Shook it up a bit by walking for 5 minutes at a 4.0 pace to warm up then ran for 3 minutes bumped up to a 4.7 mph pace then walked for 3 minutes back at 4.0, lather rinse and repeat! Until I had logged 30 minutes on the treadmill then I slowed it down to about 3.0 for a bit because I have developed this horrible trait of turning beat red when I attempt to run and it takes about 30 minutes for my face color to return to normal. It is so bad that when I’m walking back to the office building people look at me like they don’t know if I’m about to pass out or if I just got a bad sunburn. I was trying to bring my heart rate down so hopefully my face wouldn’t be so red. HRMPH! It didn’t work. A friend at work suggested getting in the sauna for a couple of minutes right after I run. She said that she does this and it heats her body up so that when she gets out she cools down fast.

I didn’t get up the gumption to log any miles on the ole mill at home but I also didn’t sit down. We hung pictures, cleaned house, did laundry, mowed, weed-ate and then Saturday nite drove out to a friend’s house for a party where I chased 2 3-yr olds around and pushed them on the swings for about 45 hours. Not really but my arms were a bit sore Sunday and when I was adding it up all-in-all I probably pushed them for an hour and a half (but not all at the same time) that and I lifted them up into the trampoline and back down, so consider it lifting 30 lb arm weights multiple times. Sunday was more of the same – cleaning, moving a couch upstairs, vacuuming, mopping, laundry, and dishes. We grilled chicken boobies and asparagus for dinner last night so that was lunch today and that along with the rosemary polenta I made last week will be dinner tonight. Since it is leftovers I plan on going down to the walking trail, by our new house, to see where it leads and to test out the jogging stroller. Now all I need to do is find that damn GPS so that I can figure out how far the trail is.

I don’t remember struggling so much to start running back in 1991 as it seems to be this time around. Of course, the 50+ lbs that I’m carrying now wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would it? The other thing I’m noticing is that back then I absolutely HATED running, hated it with a passion but for some strange reason I did it religiously and wouldn’t even allow myself a day off – for any reason – I even ran on holiday when we went to Vegas and Myrtle Beach, probably because I was afraid that if I had a day off I wouldn’t start back. This time around I actually like it and am enjoying the soreness in my legs – at least I’m alive and healthy enough to exercise and feel the soreness.

The weight didn’t move a bit, either way, this weekend but I did have alcohol Friday, Saturday and again last night and Saturday I had some potato chips. Apparently Lays has come out with some new ones Rosemary and Herb and the Mr. bought me some because he knows that I have a chip fetish and he thought that I would like them. They were rather yummy but I did mindlessly munch on them, while talking to him, on the way out to our friend’s house and then back – my tummy was messed up from it and I could feel the grease coating my mouth and they sat rather heavy in my stomach. So while I will enjoy chips again I will take a handful out, close up the bag and stop and actually enjoy each and every bite. I was due to start my monthly yesterday and while I’m feeling a bit crampy (probably explains Chipfest 2007 on Saturday nite) I still haven’t started so expect that once I start I will see the scales move down a bit. Currently at 180.5 and sure would like to break out of the 180’s and be 170sompthin!

Ran out of my Kashi oatmeal this morning and had 1 package of Quakers Weight Control – it was too sweet for me and all I could taste was the artificial sweetener so I poured a bunch of cinnamon in it trying to kill the sweet taste and finally remembered that I have a bag of Bobs Red Mill 5 grain hot cereal in my desk drawer so I cut it with some of that, which made it bearable and the Bobs Red Mill has flaxseed in it so that was a bonus and will be a bonus later when the bowels move. I have some flaxseed, ground up, in the fridge at home so I just need to get in the routine of packing a bit up to add to my oatmeal each morning when I pack up my lunch every morning.

I’m munching on a big bowl of blueberries, grapes, kiwi and strawberries right now and will probably have to pee in a minute as I downed 32 ounces of water this morning and am already half-way though my afternoon glass.

Deuce and a half for a girl and a half

2007-07-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

I walked 2.5 miles at lunch for a total of 7.2 this week, which I feel good about for only having walked 3 days. That “92.8 miles left to go” on the ticker tracker sure as hell looks daunting though, will be happy when I see the 92.8 on the walking side and not on the “left to go” side. I walked at a 4.0/mph pace but since I’m tall and have long legs that is barely a fast walk. Managed to bump it up to 4.5 and jog a little for 10 minutes, the knee started having pains in it when I first bumped it up but subsided pretty quickly – quickly enough for me to keep jogging for the other 4:48 minutes. I’m sure that the ole knee will swell and will need some ice on it tonight.

And the owner of the knee might need a glass of wine to go with her glass of whine.

Strongly thinking about doing a beginners yoga class tomorrow morning at 10:45 am but also have tentative plans to go out to a friends place which is far enough away that it pretty much is a full day trip – either that or we will haul the RV and stay the night. I’m sure there will be tasty adult beverages involved but I’m not going to worry about the food plan/diet right now – just concentrate on moving this body as much as possible. Going to either hop on the treadmill tonight for another 2.5 or take my daughter for a walk to “Play Park” (what she calls any park that has playground equipment – thank you Dora the Whora) pulling her and 10 zillion stuffed animals in her wagon and then tomorrow morning will either be another 2.5 on the treadmill or the yoga – depending on when we need to leave to head West young man.

I’m sure the rest of the day will consist of chasing 2 – 3 yr olds around.

This is the year of the NO MORE EXCUSES – I need to be healthier physically so that I can be healthier mentally. I wish that I hadn’t stopped running all those years ago because both my mental and physical health took a slow decline until we were crazy.

I will NOT have chocolate today

2007-07-19T09:15:00.000-05:00

I put cinnamon in my oatmeal because somewhere, sometime ago, I read that cinnamon will increase your metabolism – sometimes I put it into my coffee as well. I eat oatmeal for breakfast almost every day – the Kashi kind that has lots of fiber and is low on sugars

I drink lots and lots of plain herbal tea (sometimes with lemon) because I read that the tea would speed up your metabolism – that plus sometimes I get the added bonus of the lemon flushing out my system. It causes me to dump – it only works sometimes though. Rarely, if ever, do I drink soft drinks – probably less than 1 12-oz can a month but do usually consume 96 ounces of water (or more) a day. All this tea and water equates into many, many trips to the bathroom which I just look at like it is more exercise.

I try to keep my fiber intake up around 30 to 40 grams a day because I read somewhere that the more fiber you take in the more calories that are excreted in your stool and lets just face it – more stool is better stool– at least in my stool book. I eat lots of crisp veggies and at least 1 apple a day.

So I walked 2.2 miles yesterday on the treadmill at the gym at lunch and then because we were installing Elfa Shelving in my daughter’s closet I went up and down the stairs at the house about 25 times. Our staircase has 16 steps so 16 x 25 = 400 steps and that doesn’t include the 3 floors I climb up to get to the gym and the fact that (yesterday) I started parking 2 floors up (on the 6th floor) at the parking garage and taking the stairs down in the morning and back up in the afternoon. I have always taken the stairs but just added 2 more floors into the mix.

I have maintained this weight loss for a while (loss 22 lbs 1 ½ years ago) so really just feel like all I need to do is move my fluffy butt in order to start seeing the scales recede. I’m going to up the speed a bit on the treadmill at lunch today to see if I can get in 3 or more miles. This I’m going to try for the next 44 days (as yesterday was day 45 or day 1 however you look at it) and see where I stand or actually where I weigh at the end of August (which just so happens to be 45 days from yesterday). Last time I lost weight I use the Glycemic Index food plan (diet) and NO exercise and lost the 22 lbs in about 3 months AND those 3 months included Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas). If the scales haven’t moved to my satisfaction at the end of the 100 miles in 45 days challenge then I might start back on the Glycemic Index food plan to see if that makes enough of a difference. My thyroid doesn’t function properly and while I do take Armour out of all of the food plans I have tried I felt the most satisfied and healthy on the Glycemic Index.

So explain to me while the scale was up 1.5 lbs from yesterday when I waddled onto it this morning and why I’m absolutely fucking starving today? My rings are looser meaning I can actually spin it around on my finger instead of just staring at the puffy flesh being pudged out on either side wishing that I could take them off. I’m going to up the speed on the treadmill today and try to run to see if I still can.

I really would like to be running again but also realize that after this much time, at this age and weight and having had knee surgery back in February that I really need to start out slowly and cautiously so that I don’t injure myself and have a setback.

FIRE IN THE A-HOLE

2007-07-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, lets fire this little puppy back up and see what we (we being I, of course) can do about finally getting this weight-loss thangie going again and finally loose those pesky little pounds

all 40.5 of them!

New neat little Ticker Tracker at the top = my goal is to do 100 miles in 45 days, which amounts to about 2.22222222222222 miles a day and is totally doable (is that REALLY a word or should it be do-able). In reality I plan on walking about 4 miles a day, most days, but did NOT really want to see 200 miles in 45 days in black and white on this blog. I totally understand that I might not be able to get in 4 miles on some days or even walk at all as travel plans are in the works right now but still wanted to put a goal out there and then just track my mileage to see how many miles I CAN walk in 45 days . . .

Then see if I can beat it the next 45 days!

Even if it is only by a mile or two.

I did 2.2 at lunch today, because this neat little company I work for sponsors my membership to the gym and just so happens to conveniently be located right across the street from the durn thing. I can guarantee at least 2 miles during lunch - most days and that just leaves me having to fit in 2 more either early morning or late evening. I also need to clean up the spare room, move things around, because right now the tread on my mill is folded up and against the wall and there isn't enough room to move it out so I can fold it down and utilize it for something other than a extremely expensive clothes rack or dust-gatherer.

I would like to get back into running and am seriously considering doing the Lukes Lockeroom thangie so that I will be on a "program" and accountable because apparently the motivation to do this myself has just flown the coop. We recently purchased and moved into a house in another city and there is a Bikram Yoga place by my new house that I'm looking into. The durn thing cost about $139 a month and that is their discount fee IF you have it set up as Auto Debit - un-Auto debit (meaning cash or check) is $170 (the bastards!!!!!) and we really need to adjust to the increase in $$$$$ for the house payment before I go saying that I need $200 a month for yoga. So right now will just concentrate on the walking 100 miles in 45 days (or less) and look back into the yoga thing in a couple of months - maybe I will ask for a month for my birthday from the Mr., my parents and his parents so that will give me at least 3 months worth of yoga.

Eating really isn't bad as I don't drink soft-drinks of any kind and don't use sugar in my tea or coffee or eat sweets. Have lots of veggies and fruit so really don't feel like I need to adjust the eating right now maybe just do a bit of tweaking to it. Really I just need to get my fluffy ass up off the couch and moving.

Quickie

2006-03-27T12:17:00.000-06:00

Ok - here is a real quick update.

The new job is going great but doesn't leave much time for anything else right now. The funny thing is that it also doesn't leave much time to eat, worry about not eating, obessing over what I'm gonna eat next or anything else having to do with food or food like items.

The good thing about that is that I've dropped down to 172 without even having to think about it. I'm not sure exactly what has flipped that switch in my brain but it has been flipped, as opposed to me flipping it off, and the weight is slowly coming off without my having to even think about it.

I think that it can probably be blamed on the fact that I just don't have time to sit down right now so food in is less than calories being burnt. Not a bad thing.

I will put up a REAL post later this week but have missed ya'll.

Scary Stuff

2006-02-21T19:35:00.000-06:00

I quit my job yesterday.

Yep - you read that right. After being with this company for almost 14 years I got offered a job with another company so I resigned. Friday, March 3rd is my last day here and I have mixed emotions about it.

Food wise – well I don’t really know what to say as I haven’t been eating right but then again I have had a sinus infection for a week now so I haven’t really been eating. Sinus medication really kills the appetite – either that or all the snot dripping down into my stomach is making me feel full. I haven’t exercised a lick but I also haven’t gained or lost any poundage.

The next 2 weeks will be rather full as I’m training people how to use one of our systems and also trying to document everything I do in detail for whichever poor soul gets this job after me.

The good news is that the new company I’m going to work for pays for their employee’s gym membership and the gym is right across the street from the building so I should be able to clock in 2 miles during my lunch hour – and I actually get an hour for lunch to do so. I’m really looking forward to adding exercise as a routine into my lunch hour and this woman is all about routines.

I hope everyone here is doing well and I will be stopping by to check in on ya’ll.

Struck down by sickness

2006-02-15T11:55:00.000-06:00

Quick update as I’ve been fighting an upper respiratory infection for about 5 days now so haven’t exercised since Saturday. Food intake has been ok – I guess – I haven’t been tracking my food but then again I really haven’t been eating. The sinuses draining into my stomach really curbs the appetite doesn’t it?

The Mister got me some chocolates for Valentines Day. It is ok because I asked for them but have only had 1 because they just don’t sound good – damn, you know I’m sick when chocolate doesn’t sound good. I’m hoping the kids eat them all up before I start to feel better.

Don’t really feel bad about the lack of exercise because it is all I can do to drag my arse out of bed and get to work. I have a lovely interview tomorrow so I’m trying to introduce whatever medicine I can into my system so that I feel halfway normal tomorrow. Oh, yeah and TOM is due sometime today so I’m really hoping that the sickness combined with pouring medicine into my body cavity will cause TOM to be a day or 2 late. I really don’t want to go on an interview worrying if I’m going to bleed through or not and this is a full day interview so I’m guessing the white pantsuit is definitely out of the question.

Joke there as any good Southern gal knows you can’t wear white before Easter!

I was reading back through my posts and remembered just how good I felt after exercising so I’m going to go ahead and hop on the ole treadmill when I get home tonight and maybe it will help push this nasty stuff out of my system. I might not run all of it but I am going to try to get in my 2 miles – will just listen to my body and take it easy if need be.

Finally – I love red bell peppers and they are high in Vitamin C so I made some rather tasty stuffed red bell peppers and am eating them for lunch today. Here is the recipe:

½ cup barley
4 red bell peppers
4 ounces feta cheese
1 medium apple, chopped
8 green onions, chopped,
½ cup golden raisins
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt & pepper

Cover the barley in boiling water put a lid on it and set it aside for 3 hours or you can follow the directions on the side of the package to cook it faster. Chop bell peppers in half, slicing through stems to help them retain their shape when you bake them and scoop out the insides and seeds. Set bell peppers in a baking dish cut side up. Mix together cooked barley, feta cheese, apple, onions, raisins, basil, cilantro, and lemon juice. Taste mixture and season with salt and pepper if need be. Spoon mixture into bell pepper halves. Pour about 1 cup of water into bottom of pan to keep bell peppers moist and bake in a 350 oven for about 35 minutes. Make sure you cover pan with foil to retain moisture.

These were very tasty and the apple and raisins give it a “sweet” taste.

Interview

2006-02-09T14:37:00.000-06:00

Well - life got in the damn way last night and I didn't hop on the treadmill. I think that I'm going to run 3 miles tonight - partially to makeup the 2 I didn't run last night and partially to punish myself because I could've at 9:30 but didn't. The thing is that I'm just so angry with myself for not going ahead and getting the running out of the way. I'm such a routine person that when something throws my routine off it just feels like I can't recover from it. Maybe I just don’t want to recover from it.

I received a call from a company that wants to interview me next week. I'm both excited and nervous about the whole thing. I've been with my present company for 15 years and the other company cold called me - out of the blue - wanting my resume. I half-assed threw one together and emailed it to them thinking that there was NO way they would want to interview me after that lousy resume crossed their desk.

So far I've had a package of Swiss Cakes at 270 calories and 12 grams of fat - sheesh! I really want to hit the snack machine again even though I have an apple sitting right here on my desk. I haven't decided if this eating binge is due to the nervousness or the excitement I just know that I want to nosh on something. Hmmm – maybe I should just make it an even 4 miles to punish myself for eating the Swiss Cakes.

Spicy Hot!

2006-02-08T08:28:00.000-06:00

I just have to say that the leg lifts that I’ve been doing for about a month now are really starting to pay off. The Mister has been telling me for about a week that he could see a difference and when I looked at myself in the mirror this morning (ewwwww) even I could tell a difference. I’m sure the running helps too but since I have been sporadic with the running and rather consistent with the leg lifts then they deserve the credit for the slimming of the hips. The targeted area is right at the bottom of my hip kinda where my leg joins my torso. You know how you tend to get those “saddle bags” right there????? Huh? You don’t – well I do and they are definitely going away.

I have noticed, just this week, that my dress pants, while fitting in the waist are just hanging in my hip area. Today I put on an olive green, moleskin pant suit and the pants are literally falling off of me. Well, actually the jacket is olive green, trimmed in black and the pants are black with a side zipper. I just bought the damn thing at the beginning of December and this is only the 3rd time that I’ve had it on. I can tell that if I lose 5 more lbs there is no way that I can get by with wearing this to work because I’m pretty sure that the pants will fall down around my ankles when I’m walking down the hallway right in front of a bunch of men!

It is a size 14 but must be on the large size of 14 so when these pants hit the ground, since this suit is so new, I will have it dry cleaned and ship it to anyone out here in cyber land who is brave enough to wear my cast-offs. If there aren’t any takers then someone at Goodwill will be happy as I don’t know anyone my size in my real life.

I did my 2 mile torture run last night for a total of 4 miles so far this week. Been running with the treadmill pace set to 4.5. Kinda freaked out this morning when I realized that I have an appointment at 4:30 today to get waxed and was afraid that it was going to be ANOTHER workout that I might miss this week. Then –DUH – I realized that I could just hop on the treadmill after I get the Princess to sleep. The other good news is that middle son’s Region’s competition is during the day Friday so it looks like I will be able to run, just fine, Friday night. WHEW – the 2 miles is torture enough and I really wasn’t looking forward to having to go 2.5 for 4 days to make up for it.

Lastly I wanted to share a little secret – well, not really a secret but I still wanted to share it. I have been bringing Turkey wraps to work with Turkey, low-fat cheese, no-fat mayonnaise and plenty of lettuce on whole wheat, low-carb tortilla for lunch. The thing is that even though it is probably just me being mental – I can tell a difference in the taste of the no-fat mayonnaise. Since I live in Texas AND we tend to like things a little spicy down here I opened a can of Chipolte peppers in Adobe sauce and added about 1 teaspoon of the sauce to 4 Tablespoons of the fat-free mayonnaise. It adds a nice kick, still gives me the satisfaction of having the creaminess of the mayonnaise on my wrap and hides the no-fat taste for my taste buds. No, I don’t add all 4 Tablespoons to my wrap I just added about 1 but this mixture should last the rest of the week refrigerated.

Weigh Me

2006-02-07T08:04:00.000-06:00

I’ve decided to stop weighing every damn day and just go to a once a week weigh-in. I’m going to weigh myself on Fridays and was it ever hard to NOT jump on that scale this morning. When I was making the coffee it was mocking me – taunting me to “just step on aboard before you have that sip of coffee”. I tried to ignore it but the voices inside my head kept getting louder and louder so I went over and removed the battery out of the scale and put it in a drawer in another part of the house just to shut it up. Sure hope I can remember where I put it when I go to weigh Friday as I’ve been known to forget where my keys are when they are in my hand.

I did hop on the treadmill last night for a 2 mile run and hated every damn last minute of it. I was bitching and groaning in my mind the whole time but had set it up to run for 2 miles so I did. Then when I hopped off of it I fixed dinner – well actually I threw together my part of it which was the salad and we ate. I vacuumed the house because people were in and out during the Super Bowl party Sunday and “stuff” got tracked into the house. After that I flopped down on the floor to do my leg lifts. My youngest thinks that if you get down on her level that you become her own personal jungle gym so she straddled my waist and wallowed around on me the whole time. Talk about making it difficult to do leg lifts – it was tough with a 25 lb squirming baby riding my waist like I was a pony.

The thing I noticed is that afterwards – after the running – I felt much better and even though I had been tired all day I felt energized. I got to bed late Sunday night and the little one cried out at about 3 am so I got up and rocked her back to sleep and it felt like my head had just hit the pillow when the alarm went off at 5 am. Talk about major draggin ass – I had it major yesterday and just wanted to crawl under my desk and take a nap but figured the boss wouldn’t really like that so I refrained. Figured that I would just go to bed early but after running I felt awake and actually had some energy so I got some stuff done around the house. This just emphasizes to me how important it is that I exercise because even though I’m using up more energy it seems that I have more energy than I do when I don’t exercise.

The only day I might not be able to run is Friday because my middle son has Regions Friday night (after school) and you never know how long they will last. I’m thinking about running 2.5 miles Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday to make up for the 2 miles I might not be able to run Friday. Then if I get home in time and am able to get on the treadmill the extra .5 from Wednesday and Thursday can just be added to the weekly total. I’m trying real hard to plan out this exercise and make it a focus point in my life. I’m also thinking about adding an upper body workout 3 days a week because I have 5, 10 & 20 lb free weights at home. I will just have to use some of that “extra” energy from tonight’s run to lift some weights after the baby goes to sleep as I really don’t want to bonk her in the head with a 5 lb weight.

Oh yeah – the chicken last night was excellent so here is what it was marinated in:
4 chicken breast
4 cups of water
2 Tablespoons Kosher Salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon cloves
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon celery seeds
4 Clementine’s, cut in half squeeze the juice then just add the juice and the squeezed Clementine to the marinade.

It marinated for about 24 hours and the chicken was very tender and juicy and you could taste the clove and Clementine. The Mister grilled the chicken and some asparagus but I could see reducing the water to 3 cups and then cooking the marinade down on the stove. Maybe adding some cornstarch to thicken it up and serving the chicken over rice with the reduced marinade as a sauce poured over the top sometime in the future.

Come On 180!

2006-02-06T09:53:00.000-06:00

Well – I really wanted to see 180 on the scales this morning – but no way.

I didn’t expect to see 180 because we had a Super Bowl party yesterday and there were just too many sneaky snacks and tasty adult beverages. At least I didn’t realize a gain after munching on chips, dip, critters, chicken wings, black olives, guacamole and a beer or three. So in that aspect I guess it definitely could’ve been worse. Plus knowing that 20 friends were coming over I got up early and scrubbed my house from top to bottom – I’m talking q-tips in the corners and wiping down the baseboards kind of clean - four hours worth of clean. The Mister hauled all of the leftover grub to work today to feed his guys for lunch so that will save me from munching on anymore of that food stuff.

The Mister was so sweet and in worrying about my “I Don’t Want To Be Fat Anymore” food plan he marinated some chicken boobies and bought some fresh asparagus to grill for me to eat during the party. He was so proud of his little self when he showed me what he had done so that I could stay on plan. I was rather proud of him too. I decided to just go ahead and indulge yesterday for 3 reasons:

I have been eating on plan
I had used low fat ingredients in the dips (shhhhh – don’t tell as no one noticed).
Didn’t want to be the weird one out munching on grilled chicken boobies and asparagus while everyone else was munching on munchies.

So for tonight’s dinner it will be grilled chicken boobies, roasted asparagus and salad and since everything is ready to go - the plan Stan is to hop on the treadmill when I get home for a 2 mile run. The Mister will fire up the grill when he gets home (30 minutes later) to cook the chicken and asparagus and all I have to do is toss together the salad.

I’ve been mulling over the running aspect and my real need to actually get some exercise into my routine and I’ve decided that I’m going to run 14 miles a week. That will be 2 miles a day and something that is very doable when I consider that “Once Upon A Time” I ran 30+ miles a week and biked 40 miles on Sunday. I know that I can run 2 miles right now because I have done it – what I haven’t done is make it a part of my life – a part of my daily routine like I should. I’m going to keep a log and if I have to miss a day then I will just double up on the other days so that the weekly total still equals 14. I read somewhere that what matters most is how many miles you make your body move and that it didn’t matter as much whether you ran or walked those miles. I really need to get my mind around this whole running thing and make it a necessity – like breathing.

The only **ahem** exercise that I have managed to do every day is 60 leg lifts (each leg). Have been doing them for about 3 weeks now and it is starting to pay off as all of my pants are very loose in the hip area. Last night when I plopped down on the floor to do them – the Mister patted my hip and said that he could tell a difference as he is starting to see muscle – of course he could’ve just wanted to get lucky (hehe). The lifts are getting easier so I’m thinking about adding another set of 20 for a total of 80 or digging through my closet to find the 5lb leg weights and start using them. I think the leg lifts are the reason that I’ve been able to locate my hipbones.

Addictions

2006-02-03T11:18:00.000-06:00

I dreamt last night that I was running.

Many years ago, when I worked in another city and before my divorce I ran 5 miles at lunch. I didn’t miss a day and the feeling the running released was much like a drug. I was addicted to running. I guess that really isn’t a bad thing to be addicted to. The marriage was horrible and the man I married turned out to be abusive, both physically and mentally. Running was my release. It was my way of dealing with all the anger that was building up inside of me because I couldn’t lash out at him.

When I left him I stopped running because my lunch hour now needed to be spent making up time missed due to being drug into court 19 times in the 2 years it took to get the divorce finalized. I wasn’t able to run before or after work because I had custody of our 2 small boys and didn’t want to leave them at the house by themselves while I ran.

When I met the current Mister he was the total opposite of the former asshole Mister in both looks and personality. He made it ok for me to be me. When my weight started to climb and other health problems cropped up the current Mister is the one who urged me to seek medical help to figure out what was wrong. Not because he wanted me to lose weight but because the screwy hormones changed my personality and he wanted his wife back - fat or thin it didn’t matter. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism and put on medication to give my body the hormones it was no longer capable of creating on its own. Regardless of what they tell you the thyroid hormones won’t fix the weight problem or sluggish metabolism that result from inadequate natural hormones. You have to be active and exercise to fix that.

I have blamed my weight and an assortment of other problems on my thyroid over the years not willing to accept that the blame rested squarely on my shoulders. DUH! Of course you are going to gain weight when you go from running 5 miles a day and chasing 2 little boys around to sitting on the couch munching on chips and dip. I know that exercise is the key for me and that I really need to start exercising to see this weight drop off.

I went to the Doctor last night for the lower abdomen pain and he started me on a round of antibiotics because his initial thought is that it is either a bladder infection or an inflammation of the colon. He did assure me that it had absolutely nothing to do with the green tea that I’ve been drinking and he told me to keep drinking the green tea because it is very good for you. I should’ve exercised last night but used the excuse that I’m sick to not crawl on the treadmill. I also called off work today because it hurts to sit and I’m very uncomfortable at work. I feel like I have a rock in my abdomen.

While lying in bed this morning (right after the running dream) I still had my eyes closed and was remembering the feeling I used to experience – the euphoria from running. So I started clicking back through my memories to when I started running and distinctly remember that when I started I couldn’t even run a mile and hated every minute of it. I didn’t think that I would ever run 5 miles a day and like it. Somehow, without my actually realizing it, I was running every day and even worked it into my schedule when we went on vacation (ever ran through Las Vegas- I have?)

I think that I’m going to actually schedule my treadmill time and allow myself 10 minutes of meditation right before I hop on the treadmill so that I can remember what it felt like, all those years ago, to be addicted to running. This post is mostly so that I can look back at it on those days that I don't feel like running and remind myself that if I keep it up some day I will be addicted to running again.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

2006-02-02T10:11:00.000-06:00

Well I managed to NOT exercise AGAIN last night besides 40 leg lifts (each leg). My excuse was because my abdomen on the left side was hurting. It is a rather weird pain and goes all the way through to my back. I initially thought it might be from all of the green tea that I have been consuming but didn’t have any after lunch yesterday and still had pain so it probably isn’t the tea. I have a rather high tolerance for pain so I’m unable to judge when something is just a normal pain or when it is something serious. It did hurt badly enough last night to cause me to lose my appetite so I didn’t eat any dinner. I got a call into the Doctor to discuss it with him and see if he wants me to come in. What the hell am I saying of course he will want me to come in he bought his wife a new BMW for Christmas. MEH! Probably still should’ve jumped on the treadmill and attempted it. Even if I only ran for 10 minutes it would’ve been 10 minutes more exercise than I got.

Did get to discuss our evening routine with the Mister and we are going to shake things up a bit. Currently the Mister gives smallest child a bath and I get her to sleep. Since I get up at 5am to get middle child to swim practice by 5:30 this means that I usually fall asleep on smallest child’s floor while trying to coax her into dreamland. Told the Mister that it really would help me if we could switch – meaning I would give Princess her bath and the Mister could fall asleep on her floor *ahem* I mean get her to go to sleep. Doing this would allow me to clean up the kitchen, step on the treadmill and get anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour workout, shower and still get into bed by 10:30 p.m. When I fall asleep on her floor, even if the Mister wakes me up, I’m too groggy to even attempt exercise and usually just crawl into our room, on hands and knees, and get in bed.

The strange thought that popped into my head this morning was “Maybe it is a cyst or tumor in my abdomen causing all of this pain and I can lose some more weight when they remove it”. Sometimes I scare myself.

Gonna have to get my big ole ass in gear if I really want to lose 24 lbs by the end of April so I can be a hot babe on the beach with my other blogger friends.

Mind Games

2006-02-01T15:01:00.000-06:00

I’ve been having some rather weird random thoughts lately about weight loss endeavors. Well that’s not entirely true as pretty much ALL of my thoughts are weird. Here are the ones I remember:

1. Wonder how much weight I could lose if I cut my hair (my hair is thick and long)?
2. If I eat that chocolate cake and then take some ex-lax does it negate the calories from the cake?
3. Should I pay cash for that Ex-Lax so that it doesn’t pop up in someone’s database that I’m abusing Ex-Lax?
4. Am I cheating by weighing first thing in the morning (neked) when years ago I used to weigh right before working out which was right after dinner fully dressed?
5. Should I try a weight loss patch or pill?
6. Wonder if I could lie and get my insurance to cover lap-banding?

Ok, before anyone panics and calls me rude names the lap-banding is definitely out of the question. I’m afraid of needles and going under the knife is not something I could do. Plus I think that with only 41 lbs to lose it would be the chicken way out. Before you start throwing knives at me just let me say that I think lap-banding has a place in this world and should definitely be an available option for people who are morbidly obese or who have been overweight all of their life. The thing is that while I’m fat I haven’t always been fat and I know what it feels like to not be fat and exactly what I need to do (besides the “I Don’t Want To Be Fat Anymore” food plan).

Exercise.

I need to exercise and frankly (no my name isn’t Frank) I haven’t been exercising like I should. Yeah, yeah the 60 leg lifts I did last night count but cardio is what I really need. My excuses are (and YES they are just that excuses)
1. My iPod broke.
2. My treadmill has a lose screw on one side and is rather shaky when I grab the hand thangie.
3. I have a small child at home and after I wrestle her to sleep it is usually 9pm
4. blah, blah, blah!

The thing is that a blogger friend of mine called and wants me to join her and a bunch of other blogger friends for a Holiday at the end of April. At the beach. I actually sat down and figured that losing a lb a week I could lose an additional 12 lbs before I go. 12 lbs would put me down to 169 which is entirely acceptable but I also know that if I got this big, fat, old, lazy butt of mine in gear I probably could lose an additional 24 lbs before the end of April.

Maybe this is the motivation that I needed.

Oh yeah – the green tea thing from yesterday’s post – not doing that anymore as it royally fucked up my bladder. I thought I was ovulating x10 and peed about 14 times just to relieve the pressure. Didn’t drink any green tea last night and felt fine. Then this morning I had a cup of green tea and about an hour later the whole pain of passing my left ovary out of my body started happening again.

Weird stuff I’m telling you!

Tea anyone?

2006-01-31T09:15:00.000-06:00

Well – the fiber overdose from yesterday certainly worked as I pooped twice and when I got on the scales this morning I am down a pound. Well – down a pound from my 182 weight and down 2 lbs from the 183 I saw yesterday morning. Ya think that I pooped 2 pounds worth of stuff????? I didn’t look, but seriously doubt that I shat out 2 lbs as that might’ve hurt plus I probably would have had to break it up with a hanger to get it to flush.

No treadmill last night either as we went to the viewing of the body for a friend of ours who committed suicide. We did stop by the local Meglo-Mart (i.e. Sams) and perused it’s aisles for about an hour. So a leisurely hour long stroll pushing a 25 lb baby in a grocery cart that adding weight quicker than I can - will be added to yesterday’s activity (the cart added weight, not the baby). Did I mention that I hate Sams? Well, not so much that I blame the Meglo-Mart but rather that we can’t ever walk out of that place for under a couple of hundred dollars. But I did find some rather large blueberries, some HUGE strawberries which will make a wonderful shake for breakfast tomorrow and a package of frozen Cajun shrimp that can be tossed into a rather quick pasta meal at some future date.

Now for a question for anyone who still reads me. I’ve been doing some research on drinking Green Tea and have found lots of information on its weight-loss abilities. Apparently it is supposed to speed up your metabolism and cause you to burn about 266 extra calories each day that you consume it. It is also touted to have the ability to suppress your appetite. Has anyone tried Green Tea????? I’m wondering if you have noticed any weight loss that you can partially contribute to consuming Green tea and if you have had any negative side effects from drinking it?

On that note today’s meals will be:
Breakfast:
1 cup Fiber Choice cereal w/ 4 ounces of skim milk
8 ounces of green tea
Snack:
1 cup blueberries
Lunch:
4 ounces grilled tuna
½ cup grilled asparagus
1 apple
8 ounces of green tea
Snack:
1 pear
8 ounces green tea
Dinner:
4 ounces grilled chicken boobies
Orange Basmati rice (with raisins)
Grilled zucchini
8 ounces of green tea

BTW – I think I just might make my goal of 180 by Valentine’s Day.

Looking for 179!

2006-01-30T13:50:00.000-06:00

We took the baby to see the granimals at the Stock Show yesterday. We walked around for over 3 hours – leisurely stroll but it beat sitting my arse on the couch for 3 hours plus I was pushing the stroller with a 25 lb kid in it. I cheated and ate a cheeseburger while there but did share some of it with the little one. We are such Bubba’s that we bought her a pair of Carhartt overalls for next fall. Gonna teach her how to drive the tractor and spit next. What I didn’t have was the funnel cake, cinnamon roll or dippin dots that smelled soooo good. Then last night I sipped on a small glass of Amaretto and had some ice cream. Hopped on the scales this morning and saw 183.

WTF?????

It kinda freaked me out at first because I know that I didn’t consume 3,500 calories over and above what I burned. Then I remembered that I didn’t poop yesterday so I really think that the inch up in the number on the scale must be because my body is hanging on to that nasty old cheeseburger. I didn’t make it onto the treadmill yesterday but did wash my truck and cleaned house which has to burn some calories. Didn’t sit down until about 7:30 last night so the increase (even if it was only a pound) really surprised me. The funny thing is that the slacks I’m wearing today are much looser in the legs and hips then they were 2 weeks ago.

We had a rather yummy dinner last night. I bought some yellow fin tuna steaks Saturday and 2 bundles of asparagus so the Mr. grilled them for me. I made some mashed potatoes for him and the kids to make up for making them eat “healthy” stuff but I just grabbed extra asparagus and opted out of the mashed potatoes.

I also wanted to share this creamy dip that I made:

1 cup no-fat cottage cheese
½ cup no-fat yogurt
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons no-fat Italian dressing (the dried stuff in a packet)
Sprinkle of cayenne pepper (depends on how hot you like it)

Whirl all of the ingredients in the mixer until creamy.

It is really creamy and taste sinful. I use it for dipping vegetables and chips made out of whole wheat pita bread but it is good enough to make you feel like you are cheating. Seriously – you won’t even miss the fat.

For breakfast I ate 2 Wasa crackers (4 g fiber) with some Laughing Cow Light cheese and a Clementine and for lunch I had a bowl of split-pea soup (8 g fiber) with about a cup of chopped asparagus (3 grams of fiber). Snack is an apple (4 g fiber) and right before I go home a pear (4 g fiber). Maybe all this fiber will help that nasty old cheeseburger move itself right outta my system.

Come on 179!

Treadmill Troubles

2006-01-27T11:45:00.000-06:00

I’ve been having a little trouble over the last couple of days with exactly how many calories I burn when running on the treadmill. My treadmill, which allows me to key in my weight, age and track my heart rate, always returns a number of calories burned as a higher number than the results that show in fitday when I key in my minutes and miles. It had me bumfuzzled. Then Hilly pointed me to a neat site that tells you how many calories burned for each activity. (Mucho thanks Hilly)

Last night it finally hit me!

DUH – I always use the incline when I’m on the treadmill so I’m pretty sure it causes me to burn more calories than I would if running on a flat surface. My treadmill shows progress in laps and it takes 4 laps to equal a mile. I walk the first one between 3.5 and 3.8 mph then run 2 laps at 4.3 mph then walk 1, run for 3 then walk the last one kicking the mph slowly down to 3.2 as a warm down for a total of 2 miles. The walking is done with the incline set to 3.5 and the running with the incline on 1.5. With either fitday or caloriesperhour.com it doesn’t have a place to key in if you’ve used the incline. So for now I’m going to go by what my treadmill tells me since it has so much more information to calculate it on – that and the fact that it shows I’ve burnt more calories (hehe).

Reached a milestone today – I have my shirt tucked in. Not a huge milestone but a milestone nonetheless. My dress pants have fit **ahem** rather well up to this point and I just didn’t like the stretched seams screaming at people when I waddled my huge ass by them so I wear tailored shirts but with them hanging out. Today, even though the scales showed the same damn thing as yesterday, the pants are loose and are sitting down on my hips so I tucked in my shirt to keep them from causing me to show a little crack. Not that there is anything wrong with a little crack but just that it is so wrong in the workplace – even if I were a plumber. Really, they aren’t loose enough to fall off but the milestone is that I have enough confidence in the way I look to tuck my shirt in.

It is so easy to look at the tree instead of the forest and get disgusted or depressed that the weight isn’t falling off faster but really when I looked back I have lost 10 lbs in 2 months. Give me a second and let me take a step back and focus on the whole forest. Ok, better now. The silly, little girlie part of me wants it to all be over with and she wants so badly to weigh a measly 140 lbs but the grownup, woman reasons with the little girl and says that 10 lbs in 2 months is a good, steady way to lose weight.

SHUT UP WOMAN!

Didn’t have the chicken boobies for dinner last night because I’ve been busy packing stuff up and getting rid of stuff and last night it was pack up the china and stoneware to go to storage and then move all my scrapbook stuff from the front closet into a spare closet. I didn’t ever get hungry and really didn’t want to eat if I wasn’t hungry so I just grabbed a V8 and sipped on it while moving stuff around. Food calories yesterday came in at 720, which is rather low but again I didn’t want to FORCE myself to eat if I wasn’t hungry. I figured that if my body got hungry it would tell me so. That and the evil co-worker’s cheesecake that she forced (grins) on me the day before that caused me to come in 250 calories over what I had planned was sitting, fresh, on the top of my brain and I think some of it settled around my hips as well.

Hungry Building Syndrome

2006-01-26T10:44:00.000-06:00

I think I suffer from Hungry Building Syndrome.

Let me explain. While I’m at work I am always hungry and tend to lose my appetite when I am at home during the weekends and evenings. I think it started when I was pregnant this last time as I pretty much munched on something consistently to keep my blood sugars level. It was healthy stuff like an apple or carrots or celery but still I munched away. Only gained 20 lbs but since I was 175 when I got pregnant that is all I was supposed to gain but it started the bad habit of munching. I dropped back down to 175 lbs but started gaining weight when I started back to work because the munch habit kicked in and worked my way back up to 192 lbs. I wasn’t exactly munching healthy stuff unless chips and candy bars are considered healthy.

I sit at my desk for 7 to 8 hours a day so maybe I need a new job. Wonder if anyone will pay me to run. I did change my eating habits back to munching on healthy stuff but still I munch away. Think I could really lose some weight if I could break the munch habit. It just seems like if I don’t have something in my mouth then I’m starving to death – but only at work. I’m not really a gum smacker and chewing gum doesn’t help anyways as my stomach growls. I don’t know if this is actually physical hunger or more of a mental thing but I sure would like to know how to stop it. Hmmmm - counseling anyone?

On another note – one of my evil co-workers came through here yesterday passing out pieces of cheesecake so I indulged. UGH! It put me over my 1500 calories by about 250 calories yesterday and made a huge difference when I hopped on the ole treadmill last night. Once again I felt sluggish and just didn’t have any energy for the rest of the evening. I’m starting to think that downing sugar and fat late in the afternoon really has an effect on my lack of energy the rest of the evening. Brought a grapefruit and an apple today to satisfy any late afternoon munch fest so will see what that does to my energy level tonight. REALLY want to stick a knife in that co-workers back for offering me cheesecake (major weakness).

I know it really isn’t her fault and that I could’ve just said no but it looked so damn good and I haven’t had cheesecake in a really, really long time. Think I’m just going to have a talk with her and explain that I’m trying to lose weight and that I would really appreciate it if she didn’t even bother to offer me anymore fat, calorie laden foods (i.e. desserts). Hopped on the scales this morning and while it didn’t show a gain it didn’t show a loss either. Not that I think the cheesecake alone caused the scales to stay the same but that combined with the chips & salsa and the pizza from the day before probably didn’t do me any good.

I just really want to see something below 180 right now.

So for today food will be:
2 cups Honeydew melon
2 cups cucumbers and tomatoes
1.5 cups whole wheat pasta with ½ cup no sugar spaghetti sauce
1 grapefruit
**Updated**

1.5 cups whole wheat pasta with ½ cup no sugar spaghetti sauce
1 apple
Dinner will consist of grilled chicken booby, 3 cups lettuce with 2 tablespoons of no-fat vinaigrette and roasted red bell pepper.
Had black bean soup for lunch instead of the pasta (for the fiber - like 10 grams a serving) and 8 ounces of V8 juice for dinner because I wasn’t hungry last night and didn’t want to force myself to eat.

Maybe all that fiber will move things through my system faster.

SIGH!

When will I ever learn?

2006-01-25T15:05:00.000-06:00

I’ve been tracking every morsel of food that passes these lips for about 3 weeks now and have about figured out that 1200 calories is just too low for me. I noticed a trend that when I lose weight my calories are closer to 1500. I just think that the 300 difference in calories might mean the difference between my body functioning properly and starvation mode.

Spoke with a good friend of mine, who happens to be studying nutrition, and she thought that 1200 might be a little low as well. Especially since I have been hopping on the ole treadmill for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half 5 to 6 times a week. Maybe I made a mistake in the beginning when I dropped my calories from only God knows how many a day to a measly 1200. Maybe my body needs more time to adjust to the lack of food. I’m going to try and keep my calories up around 1500 for a couple of weeks to see how I do and then will revisit it later on down the road to see if it needs to be cut back further. Probably when I plateau.

I figured that with my base metabolism and what little activity I do about 2700 to 3000 calories are being burnt up like vapor trails rising from the hot asphalt on a 100 degree day. If I run for an hour and a half my treadmill tells me that I’m burning up about 750 calories and if that is so then 1200 definitely isn’t enough that day.

On another note – I ran out of steam last night. When I got home from work I got on the treadmill and was it ever a chore. I couldn’t catch my breath at all so I only went 2 miles in 31 minutes and had to force myself to even do that. Afterwards I just lounged around on the couch because I didn’t have the energy or desire to do anything. Did force myself to do 45 leg lifts (each leg) while lying on the couch but not much else.

The Mr. asked me several times if I felt bad. Yech – YES! Why yes I sure do. Today we were trying to analyze why I dropped like a fly yesterday. We went over every little thing and I think it has to do with the tortilla chips and hot sauce I ate yesterday afternoon. Then after I got off the treadmill that lone piece of pepperoni pizza in the fridge kept calling my name so I nuked it for a bit and ate it. Did pick off most of the pepperoni and fed it to my youngest as she loves the stuff.

Still I think that the garbage poured into this old body of mine contributed to the sluggish nature I felt last night. Maybe, because I’ve been putting fruits and veggies and an occasional grilled yard-bird into my stomach it had to work really, really hard to figure out what to do with all that fat and grease I shoved down my face. So today I went back to my yummy, nutritious, delicious food fare from the “I don’t want to be fat anymore” food plan and feel better (was going to say feel normal but I’m not sure I know what normal feels like).

Hope this is a lesson learned for Ms. I Can’t Fit!

Just For Today!

2006-01-24T15:06:00.000-06:00

I was talking to an old friend this morning, well old in the fact that yes he is old and also that I’ve know him for a long, long time. I’ve know him longer than I’ve know my husband. We got to talking about this whole “I Don’t Want to be Fat Anymore” food plan that I’m on and the need to throw real regular exercise in the mix because I will plateau at some point. He asked me how much I want to lose and when I said 40 lbs – he said “Wow, that much?” “I don’t think you need to lose that much”.

**insert manic giggling here**

He knew me before. Before my thyroid crapped out and went on hiatus. Before I divorced and remarried. Before I gained almost 70 lbs. Before I had my 3rd child. Before I turned in to the snarky, well curved woman that stands before you today. Ok, ok, the snarkiness has always been here but before everything else I mentioned. He actually said “What did you weigh before? Because I thought you were too thin before and could stand to gain 10 pounds. I think you are just right now.”.

He made me feel good for a minute.

But just for a minute. I thought back to ancient times when I weighed 130 pounds and don’t remember ever thinking that I was thin. Actually I remember the fat hanging off of my body. I remember my size 7 jeans fitting a little too tight at times. I remember when I compared myself to others that I didn’t quite measure up or rather measure down or measure small enough or whatever measuring cup you choose to use.

Funny?

My goal is 140 lbs but I’m wondering if that is a realistic goal since I’m 5’8” and am now in my 40’s (early 40’s). So, while I’m going to keep my tracker at the top of this page to reflect 140 lbs I think that I’m just going to eat right (most of the time) and exercise and let my body decide at what weight it needs to settle at. It is a rather uncertain goal but I think that I will just know when I reach a weight that I’m comfortable with (and right now it would be practically ANYTHING under 180). I’m going to try and not focus on the numbers nearly as much as I do the whole “get your body healthy girl” thangie that is going on.

So for today, and it will likely change tomorrow or early next week, I’m comfortable with the changes I’ve made already. I’m comfortable with the 9.5 lbs lost so far. I’m comfortable passing up that piece of cheesecake and I’m comfortable just plugging along with my new food plan. Even if I don’t obtain that 140 lb carrot hanging out there somewhere in front of me the changes I have made so far are good changes and I’m much healthier than I was 2 months ago.

So to all the people out here in blogland who are trying to lose weight I lift my low-fat virgin daiquiri and sip to your health and happiness.

Something Lost and Something Found!

2006-01-23T08:14:00.000-06:00

PF Changs wasn’t so bad after all. Knowing that we were going to PF Chang’s Saturday night and that I probably wouldn’t behave on the food front I got up Saturday morning and did some spring cleaning. Hey spring cleaning equals exercise. We had reservations at 8 pm which is later than I like to eat but I was busy Saturday and figured that I had burnt enough calories to afford it. I did splurge and had 1 dumpling, 1 lettuce wrap and then settled down for my Buddah’s Feast steamed. It was just a big bowl of steamed veggies and I did allow myself a couple of beers. I haven’t had any alcohol for 2 weeks and when we decided to go bowling afterwards I figured that any empty calories from the beers would be burnt off bowling.

Then Sunday morning, feeling guilty for the dumpling and beers, I got up and cleaned up the kitchen, washroom and dining room including moving out the fridge, washer and dryer and chasing any and all dust bunnies that were behind/under them. I also cleaned out and vacuumed my truck then my middle son and I went to the mall. I asked him to walk 1 turn around the mall with me first before we went shopping so we did. Then we started back at where we entered and went into almost every store. All in all we walked about 2 hours so I figured it was more calories burnt there.

Last night, while lying down, I thought that I felt my hip bones. I had lost them years ago and forgot what they felt like so when I put my hand on my hip and felt a bone I wasn’t certain that it actually was MY hip bone and not something in my pocket. This morning I checked again and YEP it was definitely a hip bone that I felt. I tried on a pair of black pants that haven’t fit for 3 or 4 years and was able to get them buttoned so I wore them to work today. They are a little tight in the waist (not butt) but I was just happy that I actually could get them buttoned because prior to today the buttons didn’t even remotely approach each other when I tried them on. It was a Grand Canyon between the button and button hole.

When I hopped on the scales this morning I had lost a pound over the weekend which really surprised me since I hadn’t behaved and had 2 slices of pizza for lunch Sunday along with the dumpling and beers Saturday night. I did make rather yummy veggie lasagna for my dinner Sunday night which will also double as lunch for the next couple of days. I used the whole wheat lasagna noodles that are enriched, some no sugar added pasta sauce, a whole bag of spinach, 1 zucchini (sliced) and instead of ricotta cheese I used 1 block of tofu and 1 cup of fat free cottage cheese then I sprinkled about ¼ cup of real parmesan cheese on top for flavor. Don’t know the nutritional value of this but it was rather yummy and I figured the only fat was the tablespoon of Olive Oil I used to sauté the onion and garlic in and the ¼ cup of parmesan cheese. Plus all the fiber in the pasta, spinach and zucchini should help move stuff through my system faster.

So for now I lost a pound and found some hip bones. If anyone has lost their hip bones please contact me as I’m still not sure that they are mine.

I Still Can't Fit!

2006-01-18T10:51:00.000-06:00

Ugh – wasn’t able to exercise to speak of last night.

The boy (middle child) had a school sporting event that didn’t end until 9:00 so I didn’t get home until 9:30 last night. I had the forethought to grab an apple to munch on while at the event so that kept me from diving head first into the hotdogs, nachos, chili-cheese Frito pie and other crap they sell at the event but I did splurge on a bottle of water **insert grin here as I’m being sarcastic**.

By the time we finally got home I was both exhausted and starving. Everything and I mean everything in the fridge and cupboard looked absolutely wonderful but I decided that since I hadn’t exercised that I was sticking to my “I Don’t Want to be Fat Anymore” diet. I looked through the fridge and here is what I threw together:

3 scallops
½ cup broccoli floweret’s
½ can garbanzo beans, rinsed
5 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Juice of ½ a lemon
Small drizzle of olive oil.

Turn the oven on to 350º. Arrange the fennel slices on the bottom of a large piece of parchment paper. Sprinkle the broccoli, garbanzo beans and cherry tomato halves on top of the fennel. Drizzle with olive oil (about 1 teaspoon). Arrange the 3 scallops on top of that. Scatter the chopped garlic and squeeze on the lemon juice. Sprinkle the whole concoction with Old Bay Seasoning (or the seasoning of choice). Put another piece of parchment paper on top and fold the sides – sealing the whole thing. I let it bake in the 350º oven for about 15 minutes. Using lemon juice keeps me from grabbing the salt shaker.

It was very tasty, very filling, hit the spot, insert whatever other clichés you want here, low-fat, high fiber and I’m sorry that I don’t know how many WW points this is for those who are on WW.

Then this morning I had a discussion with the Mr. about the dinner date at PF Chang’s this weekend and we discussed why I didn’t really want to go and how much pressure I was feeling about the whole situation. He said that we didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to and that he would call and say that HE didn’t want to go instead of putting the blame on me. He also said that he didn’t care how much I weighed and that he loves me if I wore a size 5 or a size 14 that my weight didn’t have anything to do with the way he felt about me. The only reason he was encouraging me in all of this is because he wants me to be healthy so that I can be around a long time.

I realized that the pressure was what I was putting on myself and those women had seen me fat for a while. It shouldn’t matter what they think but it does. I know that 8.5 pounds lost is nothing to scoff at and if I can stay on track and focus on the day to day stuff instead of trying to focus on what is going to happen next week or next month I can stay on target. Taking it one day at a time is what I’m trying to do and I’m trying NOT to worry about it.

I decided to go to the dinner date since I already scoped out PF Chang’s menu (don’t you just love the World Wide Web?) and have found 3 or 4 things I can eat and still stay within my 1200 calorie daily limit. Instead of focusing on how much I can lose by Saturday I will focus on what I’m doing today and look forward to this summer when we all get together and go out on the lake and I can finally hold my own in a swimsuit. Well, not that I really want something to hold but that I don’t have to feel like the beached whale around all the other babes on the boat.

By my calculations, if I lose 1 ½ pounds a week I can be fit and down to my goal weight (140) by July 20, 2006.

Where OCD meets Shallow Hal

2006-01-17T11:16:00.000-06:00

I have a small confession to make. Ok, ok it is a rather large confession but let’s just brush it under the rug after we write about it – O.K.?

The confession is this: I, at one time in my life, suffered from anorexia/bulimia.

After standing 5’8” and weighing 130 lbs (132 lbs when I was on the rag) until I was 29 years old I quickly spun out of control and dropped down to 117 lbs. To put this into perspective I normally (not that I’m normal) wore a size 7 and dropped down to a size 3. It was WAY to thin on my frame and definitely wasn’t very healthy nor did I employ a healthy way to lose the weight. I sustained myself on 1 coke a day and if and when I tried to eat – most of it would come back up.

I’m not trying to rub this in anyone’s face just stating some facts so that you (and I) know that I have the ability to spin out of control. I suffer from OCD and occasionally it rears its ugly little head at the most odd times. Most of the time it can be satisfied with turning all the pots and pan handles a certain way, C-folding all the towels, arranging the cookbooks from largest to smallest and cleaning the corners of the floors with q-tips – but sometimes it needs to be fed with more drastic measures.

The thing is this – I lost 2 lbs over the weekend and when I climbed on the scales (again) this morning I had dropped another pound - three pounds in three days. When I got to work today I started feeling a little crampy so pulled out the calendar so see when Aunt Flow is supposed to arrive for her mini-vacation. She is due to day. What woman, in her right mind, loses weight the day she is due to receive her precious Aunt Flow? Not that I’ve ever claimed to be in my right mind but come on.

Not me, not ever!!!!!

Shallow Hal boarded the ship because of the dinner date we have this weekend, at PF Changs, with friends. One girl has spat out 2 children in 12 months (yes they are 4 days shy of being exactly 12 months apart) and she has already returned to her pre-pre-pregnancy weight. Another gal is 6’2” and weighs about 140 lbs – the bitch - I just want to hold her down and spackle her ass with about 40 lbs of Cadbury Eggs Hilly was talking about the other day. Just kidding – about the spackling part not the bitch part because she really is a bitch. Nobody likes her and if it wasn’t for her husband being our friend we wouldn’t ever have to see her again. The third woman is 8 months pregnant and has put on all of about a pound or two. The last woman, mother of two, also looks “normal” or at least is of a normal weight. Then there is me – fat-assed me – huge I really need 2 chairs me – ignore me while I suck this duck sauce off my sweater where it dripped me.

I want so badly to lose enough weight by Saturday so that the other women in the picture can at least tell that I have lost weight. Welcome Shallow Hal, come on in and take a seat in the recliner on the right. Better yet, get your ass up on that treadmill and help me lose about 20 lbs by Saturday. Did I mention that all of these women are 14 years younger than I am – no I don’t think I did – somehow it just doesn’t matter? What matters is that I can feel myself spinning out of control once again.

I’m compulsively logging in every bite that passes these lips and every little sip of every little thing including water. I’m entering in every possible food combination for the day to make sure that it totals UNDER 1200 calories and am having to struggle to keep it up around 1190 instead of 900 calories. I’m fidgeting and bouncing my legs when sitting at my desk and pacing up and down the dock when I go smoke a cigarette, walking around the house at night while hoisting 10 lb weights in each hand and jumping on the treadmill every chance I get. I’m spinning out of control. I can feel it and it is a rather familiar feeling – too familiar.

I have to tell you that it is both scary and exciting at the same time. I know what I’m capable of doing I just don’t know if I will be able to stop.

Minus 2 and counting

2006-01-16T21:46:00.000-06:00

Down 2 lbs over the weekend. For some strange reason weekends seem to be easier to stay on this "I Don't Want to be Fat Anymore Damn Diet" than during the week. I think we suffer from "fat building syndrome" - it is like the sick building syndrome except you get fat as well as sick.

Have kept my calories under 1000 for 3 days now and managed to bag up 17 bags of leaves out of the yard this weekend (oh the joys of home ownership) as well as hopping on the ole treadmill for a little 30 minute run tonight.

Things just seem to be falling in place right now but I'm waiting for the OTHER shoe to drop!

Tag You're It!

2006-01-14T15:38:00.000-06:00

I've been tagged!!

Hilly has tagged me on her site and I have to answer these questions and as a reward, I get to tag 4 other unsuspecting bloggers or blogettes. Here goes!

Four jobs you have had in your life:
Technical Analyst
Contract Manager
Long John Silver's Cashier
Human Resourses Recruiter

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Blazing Saddles
Tombstone
Fried Green Tomatoes
anything with Vin Diesel in it.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
I'm at a HUGE loss here because I don't really watch T.V. but probably anything on the FoodNetwork would do.

Places you've been on vacation:
Kerrville
Los Angeles
Hawaii
Las Vegas

Four of your favorite foods:
Chocolate
Cheescake
Pizza
Rum

Four places you'd rather be right now:
The Farm
Port Aransas, TX
My Hot tub
Thin!

Four sites I visit daily:
Dooce
The Food Whore
Waiter Rant
Fat Man

Four people I will tag
Well I don't know 4 people on here and am not sure anyone reads this anyways so if you want to tag yourself go ahead!

Blunder Girl!

2006-01-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

A good friend called yesterday. I haven’t seen her in about a year or so. She wanted to meet me for dinner, I said yes but then the panic set in. I’ve been trying so hard this week and have actually consumed less than the 1200-calorie a day “I Don’t Want to be Fat Anymore Diet” that I’m on. Not much less but since I’m already full from dinner I have skipped my evening snack. She suggested “Sardines” an Italian restaurant locally. More panic, stomach sinks and heavy breathing starts – does an Italian restaurant actually have ANYTHING on their menu that I can eat. I googled them and they didn’t have a website or menu that I could peruse ahead of time.

Oh Hell!

So I just decided that one day wouldn’t hurt me and I went. It bothered me all night. It was what I was thinking about while trying to catch up on her life and family – in the back of my mind, rolling around, was “You blew it buster”. Got home rather late 9:30, which was way too late to exercise since my wake-up call comes at 5:00 in the morning. I went ahead and packed my breakfast, lunch and snack for today and hopped in bed at 10:30 for a quick roll in the hay with the Mr. and I mean quick. Does that count as exercise?

It woke me up several times worrying about the extra calories that I had consumed and the thought of that spaghetti just settling itself right down on my hips was agonizing. I hopped on the scales this morning to see exactly what the total damage was and was rather surprised when the scales said the exact same thing they said yesterday. Well, not that my scales actually talk, but at least they can read. Then when I got to work I subtracted out the dinner I was SUPPOSED to eat and added in the dinner actually consumed and again was surprised to see that I only ate 1300 calories yesterday. Figured it would be much more then that. I had the Veal Marsala and a side of spaghetti but did leave about 1/3 of it on the plate. Not because I wasn’t hungry but because I was just too damn busy flappin my jaws to shovel food in. I figured out that I could just skip snack again tonight to make up those lousy 100 calories that were indulged in yesterday.

Oh, yeah and I bought a pack of cigarettes on my way home last night. When we were done eating and I got into my car I had a message from the Mr. saying that we needed milk so I’m totally blaming this one on him because if I hadn’t stopped for milk I wouldn’t have bought cigarettes. Actually, that is a bald faced lie; I probably would’ve bought them today. That whole thing about people gaining 10 lbs when they stop smoking is rolling around in this old noggin along with last night’s blunder which will probably still turn into blubber.

Blog Damn Diet!

2006-01-12T09:33:00.000-06:00

Ok – I been on this Blog Damn diet for going on 4 days now and the scale hasn’t budged an inch. Well, really, it did budge but that was when I accidentally kicked it while trying to step on it while half asleep.

This is so frustrating!

My brain knows that 4 days really isn’t enough of being good to start reversing things AND I haven’t exercised yet but come on – I have denied myself the stuff I want with absolutely no reward. I’m all about rewards. I really need to start exercising mainly because that has always been the key for me to lose weight and the lack of exercise is exactly why I’m sitting at 186 lbs. I just can’t seem to find the time – really need a 36 hour day sometimes. If they would just hook my keyboard and monitor up to a treadmill, at work, that would help tremendously.

The good news is that I’m interviewing with a company that is very health conscious and even pays for their employee’s membership to the gym that is right across the street from their building. It will be more money but I’m so on that job like stink on shit, if offered one, simply because of the gym membership. They also encourage their employees to go workout on their lunch hour. Wow – to get a whole hour for lunch – something I haven’t had for years.

Then there is the whole “giving up smoking” idea. I have 4 cigarettes left and I’m hording them like chocolate because they are the last. I won’t be buying another pack of cigarettes after I finish this one. The thing is that I’m kinda scared about stopping smoking right now. Just the thought that people usually gain weight when they stop smoking because, lets face it, smoking depresses your appetite, really has me in a tizzy. I need to stop for my health, first off, and because it goes along with the whole healthy theme that I’m trying to incorporate into my life right now.

Then the Mr. came home last night and told me that several of our friends want to get together on the 21st and go to PF Changs. ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH! I’m so dreading it and my stomach really sank when he said it. He is aware that I’m dieting right now and was kind enough to ask if I wanted to go or not saying that if I didn’t he would just tell them that we had other plans that day. What a wonderful man! I gonna get on line and see if there is anything on the menu that comes even remotely close to something I can actually consume before I give him a decision. Most of us have had children in the last couple of years and the getting together is just harder these days so it would be really nice to catch up with everyone.

I think I just need to schedule some workout time. Pencil it in on the calendar. Right between cooking dinner and doing laundry! YEAH RIGHT!

Can You Smell What the Rock is Cooking?

2006-01-10T13:35:00.000-06:00

I haven’t posted because there hasn’t been any change. No gains nor has there been a loss either. I haven’t exactly been bad but I haven’t been good either. There sure are a lot of have-not’s in those three sentences – a lot of negative vibes going on!

While reading everyone else’s blogs I realized that pretty much everyone had a New Year’s resolution to really buckle down and start after the first of the year. I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution because I hadn’t gotten to the place, in my mind, where I could. I wanted to start eating right and get healthy but just wasn’t to the place mentally where I felt I could commit to it.

I finally got there – I pulled out a book that I already had that outlined the G-Index diet. I hate that word – DIET! Really this doesn’t need to be a diet but rather a lifestyle change. I don’t need to go on a diet but I do need to change the way I eat, exercise and just about everything else I do. The thing about this “change” is that it actually requires brain cells – you have to plan out your meals and snacks – brain cells that I already have precious few of. Instead of grabbing something quick and easy I now have to actually put certain things together. Oh well, I really needed to dust off my food scale anyways.

The foods are filling and utilize lots of veggies and fruits but they DID have the gall to ask me to give up my precious coffee. Apparently caffeine stimulates the appetite, blood sugar and insulin and God knows that while I do like some things stimulated my appetite isn’t one of them! I’m cutting back slow rather than stopping cold-turkey because I don’t want to suffer from withdrawal headaches while I’m trying to eat right so for now it is just 1 cup of coffee in the morning and I will be switching to half caffeine/half de-café next week. I don’t drink sodas or tea so I don’t have to worry about cutting that out.

Last night I stopped by a health food store, looking for some cracked-wheat bread and instead got all involved in an ionized foot bath. It took 30 minutes and is supposed to draw out all the toxins in your body. I might as well try to heal myself while I’m trying to get healthy. The water was really gross with all the scum it pulled out of my system and I could tell a difference as I had way more energy last night than I’ve had in about 8 years. I’m going to do the foot-bath thangie, once a week, for the next 8 to 10 weeks to see if it keeps helping with the rather lethargic way I have been feeling.

While I was soaking my tootsies (good thing I got a pedicure recently) and talking to the wonderful lady who ran the show we started talking about bowel movements and I realized that I hadn’t had one for about 3 days so now I’m also on a detox program for the next 10 days that is supposed to cleanse out everything hanging around in my lower GI tract. Once all that shit is out of my system maybe I will experience a loss of a pound or five.

The other thing I did was bought a cute pant-suit that when I tried it on was one of those “I could wear it, but should I?” type of pant-suits. I could get the pants buttoned and zipped but you could definitely tell if I was wearing thongs or briefs (it is thongs BTW). My first goal is to get down to 180 lbs and if I manage to lose 6 more pounds then the suit should fit just right. It is a rather forward-thinking reward and last night when I really wanted to have a piece of chocolate I just stepped into my closet and tried on the pants again. It stopped me from eating chocolate – I have to play little games like this with my warped brain.

The thing is that I keep thinking about how Hilly has already lost 100 lbs. WOW – my daughter weighs 25 lbs so that is like her and 3 of her little playmates or an Olsen twin and a half (hehe). I keep thinking that if Hilly (or insert anyone here) can lose 100 lbs then surely I can lose my measly 46 lbs. I think I’m going to print out Hilly’s picture and tape it to the side of my monitor, my rear-view mirror and the fridge just for inspiration.

Tune in next week and watch while I stop smoking and start exercising.

New Year!

2005-12-30T13:43:00.000-06:00

I will see you lovies sometime next week as we are going out of town and I plan on marinating my cranium in alcohol this weekend.

That and drunken, co-ed, neked sex!

Watch For Falling Fat Lady!

2005-12-29T12:09:00.000-06:00

Can fidgeting be considered a form of exercise? I sure hope so because that is all I’ve managed to accomplish for a couple of days now. That and twiddling my thumbs up my ass - which is only done for the pure pleasure thereof and not for the exercise factor. Actually I have this saying stuck in the back of my mind that goes “A body in motion stays in motion, a body at rest stays at rest”. My brain tells me that since I have to sit at a desk all day at least with the fidgeting I’m moving some. Flawed reasoning at best but it makes me wonder just how many calories you can burn in an hour by fidgeting, probably not as much as I could burn in an hour walking on the treadmill.

Then there was that piece of pecan pie I ate last night right before bedtime. It was dancing around on the counter just screaming out my name so being the nice person that I am – I ate him. **Insert “damn mother-in-law for leaving the damn thing in the damn first place” here** Enjoyed every list sinful bite and considered chasing the crumbs around with my wet finger and licking the gooey stuff off of the plate when I was done but didn’t. I let the cat lick the gooey stuff instead – who said cats don’t have a sweet tooth? While picking up the kitchen it hit me – I ate that pie and I wasn’t even hungry. Now why in the hell did I do that? Do you people realize just how many empty calories were contained in that piece of pecan pie? Of course you do and so do I! Right before bedtime no less.

Someone should spank me!

The thing is that even after eating that piece of pie and enjoying every last bite I actually felt bad afterwards. Both physically and mentally sick and had a hard time going to sleep because I was beating myself up over such a stupid decision. The question “Why, why, why” kept going around and around in my head because I could’ve saved myself, oh, about 700 calories yesterday by simply not eating when I wasn’t hungry. DUH! This, by the way, will take a little over 2 hours to burn off those 700 calories by briskly walking or about an hour at a 9-minute mile dead run.

The other thing is that after eating that pie my heartburn, that hasn’t bothered me in a couple of weeks, flared back up and I had to consume a couple of those chalky horse pills that subdue the fire in my stomach before going to bed. It is something that has been noticed lately – the less sugar consumed = less heartburn and the chocolate WILL be mourned greatly.

So today it was carrot chips with hummus for breakfast (mostly carrots, easy on the hummus), tofu curry and vegetables over rice for lunch and grilled chicken & salad for dinner AND NO DAMN PECAN PIE!

Fluffy Marshmallow Butts!

2005-12-27T08:36:00.000-06:00

Wow – got on the scales this morning and realized that there has been a 6 lb loss in Peanut Butter & Jelloland since starting this weight loss blog on December 2nd and most of it came off my boobs. I really think the accountability has helped – or at least it has made me conscious of what I’m putting into my mouth because I know that I will have to record a weight gain here. Since I’m an overachiever and very competitive I don’t want to have to do that and every time I take a bite of something (or want to) I think about this blog.

For some reason this Holiday season feels different. I decided, a while back, that I wasn’t going to forbid myself anything, just that I would make smarter choices (like cutting a piece of pie in half). If I wanted a piece of fudge then I ate a piece and I even had a piece of pecan pie without feeling guilty about it (my dad makes the most killer pecan pies). The significant thing is that I sat on the floor and shared it with my daughter, whereas in the past I would’ve sucked the whole piece down and eyed the pan to see if I could sneak another piece. I guess that I didn’t feel like this was the last piece of (insert your forbidden food of choice here) that I would ever have and just knowing that I could go get another piece if I wanted. It is a change of mindset. It also makes me wonder exactly why I’ve felt like some foods are forbidden – who started that trend? Was it me or someone else or a combination of the two?

The other thing that helped is that we made Fajitas for our Christmas celebration, instead of the traditional turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc… (i.e. fattening stuff with fluffy marshmallows and lots of butter that more closely matches my fluffy ass). The serving of Fajitas was much, much easier than fixing the other stuff and by skipping the tortilla, sour cream and guacamole I was able to consume only grilled chicken, beef with bell peppers and onions so don’t really feel like I consumed too many calories. The family loved it too since everyone is pretty much burnt out on Turkey and Ham by now. We had people arriving for about 4 hours so was able to cook the meat and veggies ahead of time and put them in a warming tray on the counter and let people serve themselves whenever they arrived. This also allowed us to play gracious host/hostess instead of Mr. & Mrs. Chef as in “don’t talk to me I’m in the kitchen cooking and the last thing I need is another WARM body in here – CAN SOMEOME BRING ME A COLD BEER?”

Part of me is really surprised at the weight loss. I realize that it is always easier to lose weight at first (i.e. “water weight”) and that it will slow down or cease with what I’m currently doing and that I will have to up the ante in order to reach my goal. In other news my cousin, who is 1 month older than I, came over Thursday night and the bitch weighs 126 lbs – I hate her! Not really, actually I’m jealous of both her weight and the fact that she got some new boobies that are all perky and firm. I know this because she let me play with them and not in a perverted way.

I also bought my daughter a wagon, which seats 2, for Christmas with the grandiose plans of her momma actually getting off her fluffy butt and pulling the darling child around the neighborhood. She weighs 24 lbs so if we stuff toys in the other seat I should be able to get quite the workout. The nice thing is that the weather was 71 here yesterday and since we have leftover fajitas to eat for dinner tonight I plan on pulling her around for 30 minutes when we get home.

I hope everyone had the Celebration of their wishing and got everything their hearts desired.

Surprise!! Surprise!!

2005-12-22T12:17:00.000-06:00

Well - Aunt Flow arrived this morning, just as expected, but the unexpected part was a pound lost somewhere in the covers overnight. This really surprised me as I haven't exactly behaved in the eating realm this week. We have ordered out twice this week because of trying to get a bathroom back in order before twenty freaking five people show up for Christmas Eve and the small fact that we really don't want to tell them to "just pee in the hole in the floor". Knowing my family someone will miss and piss all over the new wallpaper and yellow absolutely isn't any part of my color scheme unless it comes out of the babies diaper.

The first night it was Italian - some kind of pasta floating around in a buttery cheesey sauce and last night it was pizza. Both nights I did eat salad first before diving into and swimming around in the yummy goodness. Plus I might have had 2 or 3 teeny tiny beers last night while working on the bathroom. Today at work they provided us lunch - enchiladas. Not good!!! Not that the enchiladas weren't good as they were great but their choice of what to provide us just isn't a good idea for my waistline. Then there was that whole dessert tray full of chocolate and me on the rag. Not a good combination at all. So right now I'm inhaling something called a Molten Chocolate Volcano cake - which is this German chocolate cake concoction that oozes with a cream cheese/coconut/pecan mixture when you cut into it. I can actually feel it adding itself to my hips with every bite.

I'm thinking I'm going to lick my plate clean anyways.

Tonight is a small celebration with cousins where fajitas will be served so I can skip the sour cream, guacamole and tortilla filling up on the grilled chicken, bell peppers and onions instead. The only obstacle here is that one of my female cousins is getting a divorce after 23 years of marriage and she will be bending my ear all night in the hot tub while getting drunk off Lemon Drops so maybe I can have lemonade put into my glass instead and trick her into thinking I'm getting drunk with her without actually consuming the metabolism slowing alcoholic tasty adult beverage of choice.

I hope everyone has the Holiday of their wishes this year.

Ughhhhh!

2005-12-21T14:07:00.000-06:00

There is nothing new to report on the weight loss endeavor. I haven’t been exercising or eating right and while there hasn’t been any gained there hasn’t been any lost either. Plus I’m due to receive my Aunt Flow either tonight or tomorrow morning so the lack of weight loss isn’t exactly a surprise. My body is telling me to just eat everything in sight but my brain is saying “No, No, have the carrot sticks instead” – damn brain why does it have to go and be all logical about stuff? Whose brain is this anyway?

The Holiday time (there that should piss off the Christians) is extremely busy and every night there is something to do. Haven’t wrapped any Christmas presents so that is on the plate tonight instead of the Chocolate covered almonds that want to be on the plate. Plus we started a slight remodel of the main bathroom and the wallpaper needs to jump itself on the walls sometime between now and Saturday night. How smart was that to start a remodel and then invite 20 relatives and friends over for Christmas Eve? Where was my brain then – Huh??? Huh???

Oh I see – it can advise me to eat the carrot sticks but left the room when the whole remodel discussion was going on. That’s it! I’m firing my brain.

I want a new brain for Christmas to go with that miracle wrapped in a gold bow!

Fit-less in Seattle

2005-12-19T13:39:00.000-06:00

I ran into a co-worker in the hallway just now. “Wow – have you lost weight?” she asks. I giggled nervously wondering if 3.5 lb loss on someone who weighs as much as I do can really be noticed – out loud I said “Yes, 3 ½ lbs”. She says “Wow” **insert large eyes here** “How did you do it?” and then eyes glistening with lust as she leans forward to hear my “secret”. “Diet and exercise” I replied. It took some of the wind out of her sails and she cast her eyes towards the floor disappointed. I get what she is feeling. No miracles, no diet pills, no angels flying down from heaven to chip off the fat that has accumulated around on my backside. It happened the old fashion way.

Diet and exercise!

Two 4 letter words – hey wait one of those words has more than 4 letters in it – oh never mind it is still a 4-letter word. I know that the weight will come off faster in the beginning because some of it is probably water weight and as time progresses and if I progress then I will have to work harder and harder to lose. Don’t we all, in some way or another, wish there was a “magic pill” that we could take and without having to put forth any effort or even think about it the weight would magically disappear just the way that it appeared – without us having to think about it. I think that is the reason why the diet industry as a whole does so well. We all are just looking for a miracle that we can purchase and put under the tree with all the other presents.

I think I want mine to have a gold bow!

Why I Can't Fit!

2005-12-16T11:26:00.000-06:00

I decided something.

I’m going to change my goal of losing 49 lbs to just losing 9 lbs. I’m not going to change the ticker above because loosing 49 lbs is my ultimate goal but it seems rather un-daunting. 9 lbs seems like a more realistic goal and certainly is doable for me. 9 isn’t such an unobtainable number. My plan for now is to lose 9 lbs in the next 9 weeks – which should put me at 180 lbs by Friday, February 17, 2006.

That doesn’t sound so bad now does it - 180 lbs by Valentines Day?

It is a little game I will play out in my head – something to trick myself with. I realize that I didn’t get here in just 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or even 1 year and losing a pound a week it would take me nearly a year to lose the 49 excess pounds that have squirreled themselves away on this body of mine. Damn those squirrels – I’m thinking they would make a rather tasty stew with creamy mashed potatoes and some homemade rolls dripping in butter on the side. 1 year certainly sounds like a long time and also is very discouraging whereas 9 weeks sounds much easier to obtain. Much more controllable and I’m all about control.

Too many times, in the past, I have set a goal date to lose those nasty 49 lbs and too many times I have failed. I think that I have been putting too much pressure on myself but I also realize that I haven’t made exercising a priority. I want those bags of fat to “just go away” without me having to think about them – much like the way they arrived. But the “not thinking about it” is what got me in trouble the first time and I’m not talking about the “not thinking about it” causing a pregnancy out of wedlock either. Really – I’m getting too old to not think about it anymore or to get pregnant.

I have OCD and I finally realized that when I try to lose weight I go all out. Exercising like a crazy woman – hey wait I am a crazy woman – cutting out EVERYTHING in the food chain that is “bad” – which translates into anything with flavor - and obsessing on what the scale says. In reality I’m going overboard and hurting my chances of obtaining my goal – then when I don’t reach that goal it frustrates me to no end and I wallow around in food. Telling myself that it isn’t my fault, that my metabolism doesn’t work, that I’m destined to be fluffy for the rest of my life – but that just isn’t true.

It IS my fault.

My metabolism WILL work the way it is supposed to if I exercise something besides 12 ounce curls.

I’m NOT destined to be fluffy.

Lastly – I’m the only person who can do anything about this!!!!! (notice the overuse of exclamation points)

I’m not going to deny myself food anymore as this approach just doesn’t work for me. But I am going to be smart about food choices. If I want chocolate then I will eat some chocolate – this time it will be a Hershey's Kiss instead of the whole Hershey’s bar. If someone offers me cake or pie then I will eat it, but I will cut the piece in half first and give the other half back. If I want something crunchy then I will munch on carrots, celery or an apple, something sweet then a piece of fruit and if either of those cravings isn’t satisfied then I will eat chips or candy – just not the whole bag. I will get out what I intend on eating, close up the bag or box and put it in the back of the cupboard. I can do this – 9 lbs isn’t so bad!

Next week we will be discussing exercise! Now doesn’t that sound exciting?

Care to care?????

2005-12-14T11:43:00.000-06:00

I did something out of the ordinary two weeks ago. Well, not that anything I do is ordinary, but rather out of the ordinary for me. I cleaned out my closet and got rid of EVERYTHING that didn’t fit. Yes, I stood in my closet for hours trying everything on and if it fit it got hung back up – if not then into the Goodwill pile it went. Three garbage bags were donated to Goodwill the next day – can you say “Tax Write-off?”. I can! Letting go of the “me” I used to be and accepted that the “me” (all of me) looking back from the mirror, is who I am, was rather tough.

My reasoning for cleaning out the closet (besides the fact that I could use the extra space) is that if and when I lose weight then the reward will be new clothes in a smaller size and not that Chocolate cheesecake I really want. When I lose the weight they will be even more out of style and hanging onto them is really sad and depressing and unrealistic.
I also accepted the fact that I won’t ever be a size 3 or even a size 5 or maybe a size 7 again and that is ok. Right now I would just settle for not having my thighs brush together anymore. That and the nasty roll/fold/flap that somehow grew on my back, below the bra but above the waist - it makes me feel like a Shar Pei. The clothes hanging in my closet were out of style.

Welcome to the real world of I Can’t Fit! It is like getting a bucket of cold ice water thrown in your face – only now you have fat rolls to trap the little pieces of ice in.

The epiphany was somewhere along the way I stopped caring. Once upon a time I was a rather nice dresser and enjoyed looking nice. Not wanting to face the clothes size creeping up into the double digits caused me to hate shopping and only buy what was extremely necessary. When my waist (and the rest of my ass) expanded even more and I couldn’t force my fatness into the dress clothes hanging in my closet then I resorted to wearing jeans. Jeans are perfectly acceptable where I work and I accepted that, except that I also stopped shaving my legs every day and sometimes wore a baseball cap because my hair was greasy from lack of shampoo application.

The picture here is that somewhere along the way I stopped caring about me. This created a vicious cycle of me not caring and the weight creeping up because I was no longer taking care of myself. Getting rid of the clothes was like exfoliating your skin it was a cleansing. A purging but not like the purging I did when I was anorexic as this kind of purging won’t eat at the lining of my esophagus nor deplete my body of necessary vitamins and minerals.

Then I did a horrible, horrible thing. I bought new clothes – yes I went shopping, and actually tried on everything I liked in a size 14 and bought some of it. That felt good and so did the compliments I started receiving at work so I bought some more. I tried on shirts in a XL – a size that wouldn’t fit so snuggly as to show off all of my currently owned *ahem* curves. Something that actually flattered my figure and I didn’t have to tug and pull at it all day. Finally I can sit at my desk without having the blood cut off from the bottom half of my body because my waistband is too tight.

And that my friends is a good thing.

Can you smell the sabotage in the air?

2005-12-07T09:03:00.000-06:00

After vowing to weigh only once a week I broke down and climbed on the scales this morning – 192.5 freaking pounds. What is going on? I don’t get it; I resolve to get fit last Friday and after maintaining 189 lbs for 4 or 5 months climb up 3.5 lbs. Have been careful of what I ate, was able to do a fitness tape for 20 minutes Monday night, walked around the mall pushing a stroller with a 23 lb baby for 45 minutes last night and still put on weight.

The logical part of my brain tells me that I’m not going to see a change in 4 days especially since I haven’t been doing an hour and a half of cardio but the emotional part (read the female part) is disgusted and hurt that denying myself hasn’t resulted in even a half of a pound loss while following all of my old bad habits didn’t result in a gain – go figure!

Do I have blinders on?

It just seems like my body knows that I’m trying to lose weight so it digs in its big fat heels and refuses to budge. Not only refusing to budge but packs on the pounds as well. Speaking of big fat heels, my shoe size has increased along with my waist size. Back when I wore a size 5 my shoes were 9’s now that I’m in a 14 my shoe size is a 10. Do feet gain weight as well?

Also, though badly wanting a drink of the Tasty Adult Beverage kind I haven’t indulged since the Lemon Drops Saturday night. Had my 2 cups of coffee in the morning and then water, water, water with lemon (and not of the Drop kind) the rest of the day. The thing is that this weight loss thangie is so depressing that I really could use a stiff drink – would like to crawl inside a bottle of Vodka and drown myself. You could read about me in the local newspaper – here is the headline “Big Fat Woman Drowns in Bottle of Vodka” and the subtitle would be “We haven’t figured out just how she fit her fat self in there”.

This is so discouraging!

I’m considering doing something drastic just to be able to see a lower number reflected back at me on the scales. I remember a friend dropping lots of pounds by eating rice – just plain white rice for most of her meals. I’ve been thinking about doing this but including a vitamin so that I can meet my nutritional needs. Maybe I should just do the “Meal Replacement” trick (i.e. slimfast) for 2 meals and then sensible dry baked chicken and raw veggies for dinner. Also talked to someone who had the lap band surgery and she has lost 10 lbs in 4 weeks. She wasn’t 100lbs overweight but still had the procedure done. If I wasn’t such a pussy about going under the knife I would seriously consider this idea.

Big Fat Pussy = Big Fat Woman

Managed to catch “The Biggest Loser” several times and think that it is doing a great thing even if it is exploiting fat people. The thing I wonder about is even though those people lose all that weight how do they handle the emotions that caused the overeating in the first place? This makes me wonder if I am secretly sabotaging myself somehow. I need to log into my FitDay account and start tracking every morsel that passes over these big fat lips so that I can honestly see how many calories I am consuming.

In the bottom of my heart (which is probably fat) I know that I really (REALLY) need to exercise. Why does it seem that when you try to fit exercise into your day things seem to snowball and you just can’t find the damn time. I think that instead of trying to fit 1 ½ hours of exercise in that I’m just going to start small and fit in 20 minutes. Years ago I ran 5 miles a day – every day – with 2 small boys, working fulltime and going to school at night – how did I do that? Looking back it just seemed natural – maybe it was because I made running a priority.

How do I get back to that point?

Grand Illusions

2005-12-05T08:44:00.000-06:00

Weekend workout plans were cancelled.

Now these are just excuses but after my epiphany Friday I had big plans of going home, dusting off the treadmill and logging in some time on the hour’s meter. Grand illusions are more like it. What happened in reality is that my son had a sporting event Friday afternoon and while arriving at the event at 4:30 we didn’t get home until almost 9. Once arriving home it is my responsibility to get little Princess asleep. The Mr. and I have an agreement that he bathes her and I get her to sleep that way we share parenting responsibilities. Well – she must’ve heard about my resolve to exercise because what normally only takes about 10 minutes took over an hour – yeppers it took me an hour to coax that little sweetheart that it was nighty- night time. We will blame this one on the 3 hour nap that Grandma let her have.

Coming out of her room at 10 pm kinda blew any grand illusions I had about exercising. I guess I’m hoping if I just think about it the weight will start melting off with just mind-power. Hey, that’s a thought – maybe I need to start meditating and visualizing the fat melting and dripping off my body – then I can market and sell the technique and become rich enough to hire a personal trainer. Nah – if I lost enough weight to market the technique then I wouldn’t need a personal trainer – damn Catch 22.

The rest of the weekend was spent putting up Christmas lights, Christmas shopping and cleaning the house. It was busy, busy, busy but I didn’t manage to fit in any exercise except for pushing Princess around the neighborhood in her stroller to look at Christmas lights Saturday night with a Lemon Drop in one hand so I’m gonna guess that the alcohol more than offset the leisurely wandering. Oh and I did help the Mr. carry a 10ft Christmas tree into the house, string it with lights and hang decorations on it but he vacuumed so there was a missed opportunity for a little exercise.

I’m wondering if starting a weight loss program during the Holidays is a very smart idea but then again people generally put on 10 lbs during the holidays so maybe starting one right now will keep me from putting on the 10 lbs in the first place. I’m also wondering if some kind of diet pill might help kick-start the sluggish old metabolism and the ensuing weight loss, no matter how small, will help with the sluggish mind frame. I really want to weigh myself every damn day but think that maybe a weekly weigh-in is better because the daily reminder of not seeing the scale move will be depressing. Friday seems like a nice day to weigh myself because I’m usually able to control myself during the week and are bad on the weekends.

Hmmmm – maybe I need a spanking.

Weight loss

2005-12-02T12:12:00.000-06:00

I have another blog that is about my life and daily musings but currently have so many people that I interact with over there that I’m not comfortable posting my weight loss struggle on it. Sad – isn’t it? That I’m not comfortable discussing my weight-loss struggles or weight issues in general with my online imaginary friends. Not that they are all imaginary because I have met several of them in “real” life and have plans to meet several more next month. I wonder what picture they have of me in their heads and if the real me will disappoint them.

Disappoint – huh.

Isn’t it sad to think that I associate being overweight with people being disappointed in me? I’m disappointed in myself! Have been thinking for a while about starting a weight loss blog because it would give me some accountability. I would be accountable to my weight loss blog to face the truth and post my current weight and any and all attempts and endeavors to lose said excessive baggage.

Excessive baggage – wouldn’t you just like to leave that at the bus stop like a fake bomb! It would be funny to see the bomb squad move in and detonate the bag and realize that it was only 50 lbs of fat. Reminds me of the time, years ago, that Oprah wheeled out 40 lbs of fat in a wagon on her show – fat to represent what she had lost. I think Oprah looks better now than she ever did but I also think she is in a healthier place both emotionally and mentally regardless of her dress size.

It will also give me a chance to discuss and try to get to the root of the weight issues that have plagued me (and now my sister) most of my life. My family knows about my other blog and I have to be careful about posting anything sensitive over there that might hurt my mom’s feelings. My mom is the basis for my weight issues. I see that now but don’t want to bring it to her attention and accuse her because she likes to remain in her fantasy world surrounded by fairytales and flutterbys.

I’m fat - I’m tired of the fantasy and I’m tired of the secrets.

**deep breath**

I’m a 41 yr old female and weigh 189 lbs as of 5am today. Lets see what I can do about it!