Moved

Approaching The Drop Off has MOVED to.....

Everything Is Flux

So far not so good

Things have been rocky for me. Giving up soda is MUCH harder than I remembered. But being more active is definitely happening. I had my own little dance party on Monday night and both Monday and Tuesday I've been helping my office mate move her office upstairs with me so that was definitely lots of strength work! I didn't get to do yoga last night as I was stuck doing laundry until well after 11pm. However, yoga should definitely be happening after my meeting tonight.

What am I hoping to get out of yoga? Well - I'm hoping that it will strengthen my core muscles as well as my lower back to help alleviate my hip problems. After the dancing and the moving my hip and knee hurt VERY bad last night. I'm hoping that I can improve my muscle tone enough to eliminate the pain and be able to start walking/running regularly. There's a 5k in my town every May and I'd really like to participate this year.

Hopefully I'll still be able to move in the morning after yoga!

Starting Over...

So, I'm taking Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point's suggestion. Don't start a New Year's Resolution until the 10th. Well, technically I'm a day late. But that's mostly due to the fact that on the 10th I spent most of the day curled into the fetal position.

MALES, LOOK AWAY, QUICK NOW!

One of the side effects of my endometriosis is especially painful periods, so yesterday I was pretty much confined to my bed.

I've reset my ticker (AGAIN). I've settled on a much healthier weight for me and as such not such a drastic loss as I was hoping to achieve earlier.

But first things first - I need to get more active! I was planning on walking in the evenings but it's usually dark by the time I leave work and it's also VERY cold right now (25, feels like 19). So I'm going to have a dance party by myself this evening. I'll hook up my iPod and boogie for about an hour. It looks ridiculous, but it makes me sweat and I have a lot of fun doing it. One new song that I MUST add to my playlist before this happens is the new Lady Gaga/Beyonce song "Telephone". Definitely one of my favorites right now. I also purchased a cute yoga mat and this DVD and plan on trying my hand at yoga. Not necessarily for weight loss, but more to strengthen and tone my body since a gym with weights is not something that is accessible to me. Plus I tend to be a pretty anxious person and I figure that yoga would help me relax.

Second on my list - and this one hurts - CUT OUT THE SODA. I've been drinking Dr. Pepper like it's going out of style, which is bad for two reason. One is empty calories, and second, with my thyroid condition, I shouldn't be having caffeine anyway! Of course, soda isn't the lone culprit - I can chug sweet tea like nobody's business. In addition to cutting out the soda and tea, I need to get back to drinking water. I used to drink 8 - 1o glasses of water a day and now I'm down to basically none. That's REALLY bad.

My first short term goal is to reach 160 by my birthday, March 7th. That's a loss of 7.4 pounds in 8 weeks. I'm trying not to push it. Quoting the wise Caitlin again - It took years to develop the "bad" habits, it will take more than a few days to break them.

So here is to 2010, the year I finally shed the extra weight and get fit!

Almost a month

Has it really been almost a month?

Seems hard to believe. The weight is down some, but not much. I'm amazed it's down at all since I haven't really been doing anything - not really eating right, not exercising, nothing.

Hopefully that will change, but I can't make any promises. I've been pretty down lately and I'm desperately clawing my way back up, or at least trying to.

Pictures!

So my good friend Holly said that she DID want to see pictures and that she DOES read, she just can't comment from her phone.

So here's some pictures!



This was dinner last night - an Arnold's Sandwich thin with Spicy Three Pepper hummus, melted mild cheddar, black forest ham, and portabella mushrooms, radishes, carrots, Wheat Thins Fiber selects, and....



Soup! Healthy Choice Country Vegetable to be precise.

All washed down with a class of cranberry pomegrante juice



Breakfast this morning was a good ol' standby - cereal!



Sorry the photo is so dark! I am definitely not a photographer. This was Barbara's Bakery brand Shredded Oats (vanilla and almond flavor) with a banana and some raspberries and a sprinkle of Splenda for good measure.

There probably won't be pictures of lunch since I'm eating out and I don't want to be known as "The Weird Girl Who Takes Pictures of Her Food" - especially since I live in a town of less than 1,000 people!

Failure

So all that stuff that I said was going to happen yesterday? So did not happen. I feel like a failure. A failure at tracking what I eat, a failure at taking pictures of what I eat, a failure at trying to be more active. I have SO many great plans for myself but they never happen. Why? Why am I not making myself and my health a priority? Why am I saying "It's okay, I'll just have *insert junk food here* for dinner," instead of cooking myself (and Mike when he's home) a healthy nutritious meal? I really admire those people who seem to have it all together. They are amazing at their jobs, then come home and cook amazing food and exercise, and keep their house neat.

I used to think that putting this stuff in writing would keep me accountable, but it's not. Because no one is reading this (or at least, if they are, they aren't leaving comments) so I'm just putting it out there for WHOEVER to read. I have zero accountability. My husband loves me just the way I am, so he's not pushing for me to lose this weight, even though I'm not healthy right now.

I feel like I need a kick in the pants or this is never going to happen.

Gain

So I gained a pound this last week. I'm not terribly surprised. I wasn't tracking, wasn't watching portions, wasn't really doing ANYTHING.

But I've kicked this week off right! And I'll have pictures of my food soon to show you! And then I'm going grocery shopping and walking this evening. Hopefully I stay feeling a little better today. Yesterday I was congested and coughing and just felt icky. So far I feel alright though.

I've had a busy morning, meetings, working on reports.

And of course, in typical "me" fashion, I slept in later than I should have. I screeched out of bed at 8:23 this morning, and I had a meeting at nine. Thankfully I'm such an old hand at this that I was ready to head out the door at 8:46. Of course, I paused to eat a quick breakfast, but I still made my meeting on-time (maybe a few minutes late).

Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it.

Hello?

Hello? Motivation? Where are you? Please come back. I miss you!

This week was...not good, eating wise. I just can't seem to get my groove back. And the fact that Mike doesn't really eat too healthy doesn't help. I love him, but there isn't always that support at home that I need. Not that the thinks badly of what I'm doing or anything, it's just hard to eat healthy when you're the only one doing it, ya know? Plus I am COMPLETELY salad-ed out. If I never even LOOK at another salad as long as I live I'll be fine.

Why is this so hard? I know what to do, why don't I just do it?

Starting tomorrow there will be pictures. I'm going to have to be a food blogger if I'm ever going to be held accountable. Just gonna have to. And I'm hopefully going to get in a nice walk tonight. And I need to start doing my hip exercises. I think my problem is I'm feeling overwhelmed. Eat healthy, walk a mile a day, do my hip exercises, it's all too much. But I can't put any of this off any longer. I really really can't. With my family history, by living and eating the way I am, I'm playing with fire. I'm setting myself up for a heart attack at a young age just like my Mom. And I will NOT do that to the people I care about - put them through that worry and fear.

The cycle ends with me.

Do over!

So, I've reset my ticker because I am starting over.

I haven't been to a Weight Watchers meeting in almost a month. So I joined WW online today. I've done it in the past and it's MUCH easier for me to keep track if I do it online. So my weight kind of "restarted" because it wouldn't be fair to count first-thing-in-the-morning naked weight versus having-eaten-all-day fully clothed weight.

And you'll see my goal has changed a little.

I would really really like to see the 120s, just once, even if I can't maintain it. Ultimately I think I'm going to settle around 135, most likely, but just once I'd like to see 129, so I decided to make that my goal. It's well within the healthy range for my height, but of course I'll re-evaluate all along the way to see how I look and feel.

So what prompted this? I did laundry last night and the simple act of carrying a small basket of laundry up the stairs left me wheezing and gasping for air. THAT HAS GOT TO STOP. I need to get into better shape. I had planned on walking to work today, but in typical me fashion, I overslept. I am going to go on a nice long walk this evening after work though. Nice and slow to protect my hip. Which I never mentioned, but my hip is getting worse. Because I haven't been doing the work. No walking, no stretching, and my chiro's office shut down. So I'm going to have to DO THE WORK for this to happen. And I hate that. I really do. I was naturally thin for so long because I was super active, had a lightning fast metabolism, and was a picky eater. Then I realized that food was really good and stopped doing so many extracurriculars and BOOM - the weight came on. I'm pretty sure that the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school I gained at least 30 pounds.

Hopefully tracking online will motivate me to keep up with it better. Here's hoping!

Putting it all out there

The last month or so has been a complete and total trainwreck for me. I've regained about 1/4 of all the weight I lost. I have had no desire to do anything good for myself.

THAT STOPS TODAY.

Today is the official start of OPERATION: DO IT.

I'll let you guys in on a couple secrets (hence the putting it all out there).

I suffer from a condition known as endometriosis. This was found during a surgery I had last year to remove a cyst (that turned out to be caused by the endometriosis). I consider myself VERY lucky that I don't suffer much in the way of pain. However - I have been in constant treatment for this disease for the last year. Today marks ONE MONTH of treatment left. I have ONE MORE MONTH and then I get to live somewhat normally. Now, treatment isn't horrific or anything, I'm just relieved to be almost done!

I also suffer from a much more well known condition - depression. It gets a lot worse around this time of year with the change in the weather. This is part of the reason that I have had ZERO motivation lately. I feel drained of all my energy almost all the time as it is, so it's so hard to find the energy to do the right thing for myself.

I am BACK ON THE WAGON as far as Weight Watchers goes and I'm going to start a Seinfeldian Chain as far as working out is concerned today. I am going to walk a mile every day. And I'm going to mark it on my calendar and try really hard not to let the chain break.

I have felt more capable and in control the last couple of weeks than I have since Summer probably.

And sometime soon I am either going to get a small point and shoot camera or I'm going to start carrying the Power Shot with me and photographing my food.

Hooray for motivation!