Gotta get it out!

it is time for me to get my butt up and move. i have been dealing with my mom’s health issues (and the recent removal of her toe)-taking her to doc, hospital, etc. i am worn out and have no energy.

motivation will not come in some miracle flash of inspiration. i am old enough to know that if you want to change-only you can do it. i guess i don’t like change. it scares me. even good change. i am so used to having this body and how it feels. but it has begun to feel worse.

i have bad habits that need to be broken, like a stick upon the back of a horrendous criminal who would not bat an eye at any other affliction. otherwise, they will scar me and eventually kill me.

the changes are few, but difficult.

1. STOP smoking
2. exercise
3. eat healthy

sounds easy, huh? but we all know better. the older i get, the harder it will be to accomplish these changes. my body tells me so…LOL! but it is no laughing matter.

i see what is happening to my mom and my aunt because of their unhealthy lifestyles. i see myself following in their footsteps and i want to find a different path. theirs has been beaten into the ground. no use in my following, i know where it goes.

some way, some how, i need a rude awakening…a slap in the face to wake up and make changes. i’m afraid that i will have to change my friends. not that they don’t support what i want to do, but they don’t necessarily help. i don’t like the thought of that, because i love my friends and i know they love me. actually, the ones that really count want to make changes also. maybe if i push them to change, but it can only happen if they are ready also.

anyway….we’ll see what happens soon. keep your fingers crossed.

yesterday when i left work, i was soooo tired and needed a beer. so i went to Margarita’s to have a beer and see my friend who works there. i hadn’t ate much for the day (yogurt, LF cheese stick, LF micro-meal) so the beer hit me quick. this is why i decided to eat there. i had a gringo-burger and fries.  it wasn’t as bad as eating the mexican food would have been and they make killer burgers and fries. so that was my dinner. i went home before the bad ice struck and watched tv. i knew there was no way i was going to exercise, i was too tired from my workday.

today, i had my usual 2-3 cups of coffee, several cigs and decided to get off my butt and exercise. i did 30 minutes of cardio. yah! that’s the most i’ve done at one time. i pop a movie in to keep me going once i start. (i’ve watched 3:10 to Yuma each time and i think i’m gonna buy it. great movie to get lost in and forget about the time.) then i did a couple loads of laundry, made breakfast (egg sandwich-2 scrambled eggs, 2 LF cheese slices, 2 slices fiber/wheat toast) and now i’m taking my mom to the grocery with me. i just have to make sure it’s not an all day event. she can spend 4 or more hours wondering around in a store. drives me nuts! i like to get in, get my stuff and get out. i also have to make sure i don’t let her drive me to eat eat eat! mothers have a way of doing that, especially mine.

anyway, i plan to do some strength training later with the bands and whatnot. i’m proud of myself for picking myself back up and following through after a week of nothing. : )

i heard that on a talk show this morning and that puts a new perspective on what i need to do in the coming year to better myself. there are no resolutions, as if i ever follow through with them anyway. there are new beginnings and new options. there are new journeys and new adventures. there WILL be a new me. 

it has been so long since i have written. i feel the need to journal, but i don’t know what i want to say so i’ll type in the hopes that it will come through my fingers. i feel so bloated, and i am at my heaviest. i know i’m at a turning point in my life. i can either get my shit together and do what has to be done to take control of my life and my health OR i can keep going down the same path i’m on which will lead to a deeper depression and deeper hatred of myself. i’m not happy at all.don’t get me wrong, there are moments of laughter and i smile and giggle, but i’m not happy. when i laugh, it feels wrong. when i’m with friends and we laugh, it feels fake.

back to my path….i don’t want to keep following the same path, but the one i know i should take scares me. it is different and unknown to me. it may not be comfortable or ‘easy’ and i never had to do hard. not unless it was traumatic and then adrenaline kicks in, takes over and you’re on auto-pilot. i’ve been told i’m a survivor, that i’m strong - the phoenix rising from the ashes. well, dealing with life, that’s easy…living it… that’s where i’m having a problem. my path…

maybe i should do a drawing of my path and what i see it as. or draw my alternate path and what i think it is, what i’m afraid of so that i can examine it and familiarize myself. then maybe i won’t be afraid of it. then i can take my first step, then walk, then run down my path.i’m looking forward to discovering my path…    

yesterday i walked 1.25 miles on my treadmill YAH! the past few weeks i’ve been self-hating and eating whatever i wanted. it got to the point that my bras were too tight and i couldn’t hook all the hooks because it was digging into me. that’s pathetic. so i got it through my head that i can’t eat whatever i want and i have to have limits to how much i eat. so the past couple of days i’ve told myself NO many times. and i’m already reaping the rewards. YAH! i can breath, i’m not sluggish AND i can hook my bra! LOL! and both nights when i went to bed, i was proud of myself and that’s saying something.

Last weekend was my all girls camping trip. We drank, we ate, we drank, we ate, and we draaaank. I had a great time and laughed the whole time. Got a sunburn on my shoulders and back (I am not a sun worshiper). So all the ‘excuses’ for not sticking to WW are over.

I got back on-program Monday and have written EVERYTHING down. I forgot how it really makes you look at what you really are eating. I’ve done well, but the evenings are difficult. I was down to 3 points after I had my dinner and I wanted to eat, eat, eat. So I had 2 slice of Sara Lee Delicious multi-grain bread and 2 Tbs of garlic hummus, 94% FF popcorn and then cucumber slices w/FF sour cream and ranch mix. I DID IT! I stayed in my points and got through my eating binge.

I am a quantity eater and I’ve found some really good foods that are low in points.

La Tortilla Factory Rosemary and Olive Oil wraps - 1 pt each
Sara Lee Delicious multi-grain bread - 2 slices=1 pt
Deitz & Watson lunchmeats - 2 oz=2 pt (ex: bacon lovers turkey breast or buffalo chicken breast-great in wraps with 1 Tbs of LF blue cheese or LF ranch dressing-1 pt)

Just the 3 items above can be mixed and matched with romaine and tomatoes to make all kinds of different flavorful wraps or sandwiches. Add a slice of LF cheese and make a melt, yum!

Anyway, as long as I make my food into a treat, I can stick with it. And as long as I get through the munchies in the evenings, I can do it.

yesterday we walked the hill again. this time we went down and up 3 times! my calves are a little sore today, but nothing i can’t handle. i have 2 more days until weigh-in on tuesday and i want to exercise today and tomorrow. no skipping. last week i gained 2 lbs and i know it’s because of what i ate the night before. but it’s still discouraging when you see it go up. i also know that when you start exercising, your body retains water to repair and build the muscles. once this subsides, i’ll be back to normal. so i weighed myself this am and i’m back down 2lbs. which is good, but i want a loss on tuesday, so i have to keep moving.

i also have to start eating better. i know this, yet there are times when i just have to have bad food. it’s engrained in me. this is how i learned to eat as a child. example: when i was off of school in the summer, my mom and i would eat a box of mac & cheese for breakfast. and if it tasted particularly good that day (and it usually did) she would make another box for us. here’s another: EVERY friday, we would have pizza hut for dinner. and rather than each of us compromising on what we wanted, we each got our own pizza. and i would eat ALL of mine and some garlic bread with cheese. another: my grandma’s sausage spaghetti sauce recipe (MMMMM!!!)- mom would make a ‘double-batch’ because we all loved it so much and would eat on it for days, well, the night she made it…i would have 3 plates and i mean piled-up. i would eat until i couldn’t move. i literally would be having pains in my stomach, we all did.

i wasn’t taught self-control with food, or much else for that matter. i was taught good eating habits - my mom did WW when i was a child. one of her favorite stories is when we would go to the grocery and go through the produce dept, i would pick and eat the raw veggies the whole time (wasn’t interested in candy) or at home i would eat tuna straight out of the can and be happy with that. i’ve always loved salad, but when i make a salad, it has to be like an event. it can’t be like the bagged stuff….no. i will make my own black bean and corn salads, cobb salad-stuff like that. but anyway, i did eat good food growing up too, but again, there were no limits on what i was allowed to eat.

exercise was a bad thing too. i was a slim child, but when i hit puberty, i went out everywhere. i was kind of a tom-boy, so i think i freaked when i started getting boobs and didn’t want anyone to see. and i think i picked up on my mom’s depression and ability to ‘hide’ behind her weight and began to build my own ‘wall of fat’. and maybe the fact that i wanted to hide and had my own form of depression kept me from playing and running like i used to. i was also a shy child and very overprotected, so i wasn’t allowed to do much with the other kids. i don’t know, there are so many things that can point to who i am today. as one of my friends tells me all the time, “you think too much, give your brain a rest.” and he’s right…lol!

anyway, i’ve got laundry to do, grocery, mom’s day-which i was plainly told by my mom, “don’t even come over because i know we’ll get into a fight.” but i still have to do a card, right? i don’t know about that situation, it’s a turning point in my life and i recognize that, but i’m not sure what to do. if i was on the outside looking in, i would probably tell myself, quit trying to get her approval because it will never happen. why make yourself miserable like her. you have your own life to live and if you don’t take care of yourself, physically and mentally, you will be hurting yourself and become miserable also. anyway, soooo over that subject.

to all the mom’s out there… i wish you a GREAT mother’s day! whether you want it or not…LOL!!!

i just finished going down, then up, then down and back up a monstorous hill at my best friends house. and i have to admit, it kicked my ass the first climb, but the second climb i took it without stopping. i paced myself because i didn’t want to stop, gasping for breath again. i am sweating to death in the AC while he gets his shower, then it’s on to my house so i can get a shower. then we will eat salad, low-fat bratts and fruit for dessert.

the first time i did THE hill was 2 days ago and it kicked my ass then to. i had to stop, mmm, i guess 5 times to catch my breath. of course, being a smoker doesn’t help, but i am what i am and can only change one thing at a time or i will get overwhelmed and quit everything and go back to my old and horrible ways.

so anyway, i took the hill twice tonight. once would have been fine, except when we went to dinner last night, i got the salad bar AND a sandwich. then when we got home, i starting craving hot fudge cake. now, i never crave sweets, especially hot fudge cake, but I WANTED HOT FUDGE. i told him that if he took me to get the hot fudge cake, i promised him and myself that i would do THE hill twice. so after seeing the crazed look in my eyes, he drove me to get hot fudge cake, we came home and i ate it.

today, i did THE hill twice. a promise is a promise.

i don’t know what i want to talk about, i just felt the need to come and write. but i don’t want to do a diary kind of thing. the guy i mentioned, things are gonna be slow with that, but that’s ok, it will teach me patience and how to stick with something and that will benefit me through all things i do.

i weighed myself this a.m. and was down 2 lbs, i just hope that’s not a ’stay up real late’ thing and that it reflects at weig-in on Tuesday. i went to breakfast with a friend this a.m., well around noon actually…lol (late nite remember). anyway, this place has the BEST breakfast and I LOVE breakfast, could eat it all day, but of course, i ordered scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, goetta and rye toast. had 2 cups of coffee with it. BUT…..here’s the great thing about it…i was full after eating about half of my food, so i boxed it up to take home for tomorrow a.m. i’m pretty proud of that. this has happened quite a bit lately. portion control is being burned into my brain, and i’m learning that i don’t have to eat everything in site to be satisfied. in fact, if i eat it all, i’m not satisfited and continue to look for more to eat. but if i leave food on my plate, i’m happy with my meal and happy with myself. i haven’t been tracking my points, which i feel guilty about, but then i don’t because i can’t track points the rest of my life, i just won’t do it. and the whole point of WW is to teach you to make good lifestyle changes and as long as i’m learning that, which i believe i am, then i’m doing what i’m supposed to be.

must be the gemini in me, i feel i have to be special, so i alter it to work for me. anyway, it’s a lovely day and i’m using my friend’s laptop outside while he cuts grass. the sun is warm and the breeze is refreshing, not to mention the smell of fresh cut grass!

wow, i don’t know what to talk about first…ok, my best friend moved back into town! he surprised my by showing up last nite while i was talkin to him on the phone. i knew it was him, i just knew it! so, if he gets a day shift like he wants, i’ll have my workout buddy again!

so the other thing is, i think i’ve lost a couple pounds and i really don’t know how. i’ve ate horribly this week and haven’t done much exercise. so i think it best not to ponder, but go with the flow and get back on track.

anyway, just wanted to pop in and say something. till next time…