It’s all up to me

I made it through the rest of last night.  I did end up eating a lo-carb bar because I was truly hungry and craving something chewy.  I have about 5 of them left, I’m not going to buy any more because the more I read about sugar alcohols the more it seems like the body reacts to them as sugar.  But they’re good for an emergency.

I tallied up my calories yesterday (had to guess on a few) and figured I’m hitting around 1500/day.  I’m going to try journaling my food and see if it’s doable.  It really shouldn’t be too hard because I tend to eat the same thing during the day, the only thing that would change would be supper.  It’s worth a try, anyway.

Day 2 of my Prevention walking plan.  Today incorporates 4 minutes of fast walking (4-4.5 mph)  with 2 minutes of regular walking (3-3.5 mph).  The first week I think I do 3 rotations of each plus a warm-up and cool-down.  Since I will have time I’ll also do a 20 minutes Pilates DVD.  I know the 4 minute segments are going to kick my butt but I think I need something like this to challenge me.

I’m also considering walking a half-marathon.  There is one in Des Moines in October and I know at least one of my sisters would walk it with me.  The only reason I’m not charging full steam ahead is that it’s on a Sunday and I don’t know if I would need a day to recouperate.  Plus, it’s about 4 hours away which adds to the difficulty on a Sunday.  Since I’m gone with my son all of the time I don’t like to take days off if I don’t have to.  It’s something to consider.

I have started my latest “new” approach to this dieting-thing.  I am going to primarily eat lo-carb but throw in fruits and yogurt.  Things started out well, even though I brought leftovers from our birthday party this weekend for the guys at school.  They ate yummy bbq pork and these awesome chocolate/butterscotch/vanilla chip bars while I ate my traditional salad.  Our schedule changed today which puts my prep period at the end of the day (I love it!!) but it threw off my snacking.  No problem, I adapted.  Then, I came home and started the first day of a fat-loss workout in this months issue of Prevention.  But I think I let myself get too hungry.  For supper I had a wonderful chicken breast as well as a tomato and some cucumbers.  But now I think I could gnaw off my fingers.  I know that I need to eat healthy foods to improve my life but I don’t want to eat healthy foods.  I want to eat the leftover birthday cake.  Why???  It really wasn’t even that good.  I did throw out the ice cream that was good and the extra bars are gone.  I was going to fix myself a cup of sugar-free flavored coffee to hit my sweet tooth but I didn’t trust myself to go into the fridge and not dig into the extra cake.  Instead, I brushed my teeth.

I think I’m just so overwhelmed with how far I have to go.  I could be off by a pound or two but I need to lose about 125 pounds.  Yes, I know I should break it down into smaller goals but I still know that it’s going to be a long haul.  Sounds like I have lost my mojo again.

But at least I’m still plugging away.  Instead of caving to the ok-tasting cake I’m writing here.  The workout is kind of concerning me because it’s actually a little less than I would normally do but the idea behind it is that if you vary your workouts and train in intervals that it’s more effective than hitting it hard-core all of the time.

Geez, my hubby is digging out the cake.  I just told him that if he’s going to eat it that he can’t bring it out here.  It’s his favorite kind of cake or I would just throw it out.

I hate it when things are this hard. 

 …I have such an awesome hubby.  He asked me what was wrong and I told him that I was debating with myself to avoid eating the cake.  He threw it out without me asking and didn’t seem upset about the idea. 

Thanks to everyone who wondered where I was.  Everything is ok, we were just really busy.  First there were conferences and then we had my older son’s birthday party.  Not a good weekend for food, but I think that starting this week life can get back to normal.  I’ll write more tomorrow when life slows down but I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m ok.

We were so slow at conferences last night and Wednesday night is usually busy from the second we start until we’re done.  Today is going to be slow but it concerns me that fewer and fewer parents take the time to check in with the school to see how their kids are doing.  Parents are always all over our butts if we aren’t letting them know about their children but yet some parents can’t be bothered to spend 30 minutes one evening to see how their kids are doing.  It’s just frustrating because it’s generally the parents of the kids that you need to talk with the most who avoid conferences.

 OK, enough bitching.  I’m just going to try focusing on the parents who do show up because we do appreciate you.  Food-wise yesterday sucked and I’m guessing today is going to be more of the same.  Our schedules are totally wacky and during the 90 minute break we have for lunch I have to run around, get kids from daycare, feed the baby, feed myself and get back to school.  I’m going to do the best that I can but I know it’s not going to be perfect.  I also skipped my workout this morning because with me being gone last night the baby got off his schedule and didn’t go to bed until after midnight.  Nope, I wasn’t getting up at 5 to hit the treadmill.

So I’m going to do the best I can to minimize the damage and refocus myself tomorrow.

Today is going to be a busy day.  We have school all day and then conferences tonight until 8:30.  I like conferences, though.  Who doesn’t like getting paid to talk to people?

<> Last night I had a mini-brainstorm.  I think my thyroid might be functioning incorrectly.  My younger son takes thyroid medication because one of his other meds causes his levels to be off and when we researched hypothroidism many of the symptoms match me.  I’m exhausted, always cold, achy and can barely lose weight even if I’m being perfect.  I need to have my annual exam at the gyno anyway, so I’m going to call today to schedule that appt and ask to have my thyroid tested.

As girlygirlsebas put it, I think I have found my mojo again.  I’m at a point where I’m excited to be working toward my goal and I think breaking it down into smaller accomplishments gives me something to work toward.  Even though my weight is higher than it would have been if I had stayed on plan, it’s still lower than it was before Christmas when I started this journey.  And I’m in smaller clothes so I need to look at the big picture.

This week is going to be very busy but I will be able to workout every day but Wednesday.  Tonight I have to scoot out of school immediately so I can get in a workout b/c I have a haircut at 4.  Tomorrow we have school all day and then conferences until 8:30 so it’s not going to happen, but Thursday we don’t have to be in until 9:15 so I will be able to workout in the am, which is good b/c we are at school until 8:30 pm with conferences.  Friday we’re off so I will be able to workout then, too.  Saturday could be a toughie b/c we have my older son’s b-day party but I’ll worry about my plan for that when the day draws near.

My goal for today is to create a workout schedule for each week.  Starting next week our school day is being extended by 30 minutes to make up some snow days (a brilliant idea!!!) so I will only have exactly 1 hour to get changed, workout and be back in the car to pick up the kids.  I can’t waste 5 minutes trying to figure out what I’m going to do.   I think after this week, too, that our lives won’t be as chaotic with appts./events in the afternoon so there should be nothing distracting me from working out 5 days/week.

With my food I have decided to let fruits/yogurt back in but I’m still going to watch it.  I will probably have a yogurt right when I get home for energy for the workout and then have a piece of fruit after supper.  That way if it does trigger a carb-craving I won’t have to fight it all day.

Today is another snow day.  Over the weekend the weather was awesome, in the 40’s both days.  Yesterday it began to rain which was great because it helps melt the snow.  But I’m sure it turned the gravel roads to muck, and then it got colder overnight and started snowing.  I figured we would have a delay for sure but it must have been worse than I thought.

So today I’m going to make myself relax.  You would think that someone who battles their weight would have no problem relaxing but it’s really a struggle for me.  I got the kids off to the sitter’s and got in a good workout.  I dressed myself in my smaller jeans I bought over the weekend as a reminder that what I’m doing is working, even though it’s not working as fast as I want it to.  Then I hit Menards and Lowe’s to browse flooring, countertops, etc.  It might seem like a chore but I love to do it.  Now that I’m home I am doing laundry but beyond that I’m not doing any housework.  I started reading “Winning by Losing” by Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser and I’m going to read that some more.  The times I have been more successful at losing include reading books about weight loss.  I don’t think it’s the information I gain as much as the focus it brings.  It’s kind of hard to read a book about weight loss and eat cookies at the same time :) 

I also might try to fit in a nap or polish my nails.  I feel like a total bum, especially as I look at our house that does need to be cleaned, but I know that I need this.  Plus, I have Friday off from school because of conferences and my older son’s birthday party is Saturday so we’ll be deep cleaning then.

OK, I’m off to have Jillian tell me what to do.

Day 1, Part 2

I am reading this book and really trying to take the lessons to heart.  Plus, I was reading 080808’s blog the other day and she had revised her goal for 08/08/08 and I wanted to set a goal for that date, too.  I just grabbed my calendar and I see that it is 23 weeks until that date so I’m going to set my goal as losing 46 pounds by then (2 lbs/week).  This morning I weighed in at 277 so that sets my goal weight at 231.  For those of you who regularly read my writings I know I said that I wasn’t going to weigh again until Easter but I did today for 2 reasons.  One, my hubby didn’t hide the scales yet so they were staring me right in the face.  But honestly, I could have resisted them.  The main reason I weighed this morning was that I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted last weekend and I wanted to have an accurate record of the damage before I re-started and revised my plan.

Now that I have my calendar out I see that there are 43 weeks until the end of the year.  If I keep up my 2 pounds/week I can be down 86 pounds by New Year’s!  So I am also going to set a goal of being below 200 by the time the clock strikes midnight.  I “only” need to lose 77 but realizing that some weeks I may not lose 2 pounds it is still an attainable goal.

To get there I am going to need to be more specific in my plans.  I am going to workout 5 days/week and actually am going to create a schedule so I don’t have to think about which workout I’m going to do.  I’m a person who works great with a schedule so this won’t get boring for me.  I am also going to try modifying my diet a little bit.  I had previously been doing SBD/Atkins and seeing limited results.  I’m still going to basically do SBD but I’m going to allow myself some fruit and possibly lo-fat dairy like yogurt and cottage cheese.  It will keep me from getting bored in my food choices and make me feel like I’m treating myself.  Even last night when I was in the last hours of my all-I-could-eat weekend what I really wanted was an orange.  I do have to watch, though, that I don’t go overboard because I love yogurt and fruit.  Hopefully, the fact that I’m going to avoid the scale until Easter will allow my body to adjust to the addition of healthy carbs and still get smaller.  Because the way I look at it, even though an apple has more carbs than an Atkins bar, it’s healthier and has about 1/2 the calories.

Wow, if you read all of this I really appreciate it.  I’m just so excited to get started again that I had a lot to say.

This weekend’s plans have gone out the window.  Our day started yesterday with Kyle having another seizure.  This was a pretty serious one.  We have some medication at home that we give him when his seizures have been going on for 5 minutes or more (it’s basically a bunch of valium) and it took quite a while to get it under control.  Normally after he has a seizure he takes a long nap and wakes up good as new, but yesterday he was really fussy.  He literally had to be held every waking moment until about 8:00 last night.  It was a long day.

I didn’t sleep well last night because any little noise in the monitor woke me up.  I’m feeling guilty because Kyle was making noises yesterday morning but they were normal wake-up noises so I didn’t check on him right away.  I just wonder how long he was having his seizure before I got to him.  I also think that’s why it took the medicine so long to work since we didn’t get it in his system as quickly as we normally do.

I have decided to have my tubes tied.  I had a dream last night that the preg. test was positive and I about had a panic attack.  After yesterday I realized that we cannot handle another child as much as I would love to have one.  I took another test this morning and it was negative.  I should get my period tomorrow so when I do I’m going to call the gyno to schedule a consultation.  I’m scared because I have never had surgery before but I think it will relieve a bunch of stress for us.  Hopefully it will provide me with motivation, too, because I just researched the procedure and it stated that obesity was a complication.  I probably wouldn’t have surgery before summer so maybe I can drop 30-40 pounds by then.