Whoops

So I haven't been posting here much. Mainly because I'm not really seeing the point. I have another (more private) blog that I keep that I've been writing in for almost 7 years. It's hard for me to remember this one sometimes. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in this one either.

As far as health, I have been horribly slacking on my walking and my hip exercises. I came down with a nasty sinus infection and everything has fallen by the wayside. Not to mention that I am insanely busy this week with hell week for the play.

I am really going to try.

I lost .6 pounds at my last weigh-in.

I'm not sure what this week's weigh-in will be like. I was sick and ate pretty much whatever I wanted this week, but I also had a bit of tummy trouble which...ahem...flushed me out pretty good. I'm expecting a maintain or a slight gain.

I do know one thing though - I'll be very glad when this play is over and I can get my evenings back.

A new experience

This weekend I had a totally new experience.

I went grocery shopping and nearly all of what I got was organic.

I know this may sound REALLY strange to some of you - especially considering you shop and eat organically as much as possible.

I live in a teeny tiny little town in rural WV, so "organic" isn't really something that's largely available around here. But Mike and I went to Harrisonburg and decided that we would shop at Martin's which has a two aisle organic section (which also probably sounds strange to you).

See, the nearest Whole Foods is 2 hours away, and Trader Joe's? Well they only exist in California (KIDDING!)

But Mike and I had a blast getting organic food. It was pricey and there was some stuff that I really wanted to try that I just had to say no to because of the price.

Honestly though, I think I'm just excited to have food in the house. This was the first time we'd grocery shopped in probably three weeks or longer.

I had a DELICIOUS breakfast of Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt (in strawberry) and Bear Naked Granola in Triple Berry Crunch.

I think the thing I like the most about organic food is I can pronounce all the ingredients.

And I think Mike likes it, too. On the way home from the store (it's an hour away) he was talking about how we needed to get a cooler before we go next time. His only complaint? The organic vanilla yogurt we got is more sour than the Dannon Lite vanilla yogurt we used to get. I think he'll survive though ;)

Well sassafras.

I lost .2 pounds this past week. I feel disappointed. But mostly in myself. Because the words "Oreo Brownie" and "apple dumpling" may have occurred. But you know what? I think .2 is pretty good for as HORRIBLE as I ate last week. I seriously just could not bring myself to put healthy food in me.

Although I did bring myself to get a GOOD pair of chiropractor recommended shoes:These puppies are on my feet most days. And when they aren't, a pair of good, sensible Dr. Scholl's are. I'm not taking any chances on this hip o' mine. Despite the fact that I've horribly slacked on my hip exercises. I'm always "too tired" or "I don't feel like it". SERIOUSLY SELF? These exercises take like 10 minutes to do and I'm wussing out on them? However, my goal for the month of September is to NOT MISS A SINGLE DAY OF HIP EXERCISES.

Another thing my chiro wants to me to start doing to help rehab my hip is walking. It was originally a mile every other day but he recently bumped me up to a mile a day. I walked last night and I'm a little ashamed to admit that it took me half an hour to walk a mile. But then I remembered - I'm not training for a race (yet), I'm rehabbing my hip. Better to be slow, steady, and sure of my steps than to fall down and reinjure myself. In fact, today was the first day my hip has hurt in a while. I'm not having "episodes", it just aches. I think it might be the cold weather setting in.

One more thing I picked up in addition to the snazzy new shoes was a pedometer. Just a cheapy little $5 one from Wal-Mart, but it tells me that from my house to the speed limit sign near the high school and back is 1.11 miles so that's the route I'm walking.

I was also recently informed by Mike that my small little point and shoot camera WAS NOT SOLD as I had previously thought, so if it still works I may venture into the world of being a food blogger!

4th weigh in

So I'm down another .6 of a pound. Which would have depressed me, except I heartily enjoyed myself this weekend at Kat's wedding so I'm completely amazed! I was expecting a maintain or slight gain, so the fact that I still lost is AWESOME!

3rd weigh in

I had my fourth weigh-in overall and my third weigh-in actually on program on Tuesday.

I lost 4.4 pounds in a week!

Now, I know some are thinking that that isn't healthy and I would agree that if I was continuously losing that much weight every week it would be cause for alarm. However, that loss followed a 1.2 pound gain and also my time of the month which means that it was likely all water weight. I have really been chugging the h20 lately.

This week has been SUPER busy for me. Work has been a little nutso because of an upcoming festival. I had Treasure Mountain Festival Assoc on Monday that I ended up skipping because I was sick. Then Tuesday I had my WW meeting. Last night was play practice, tonight it's home after work for a quick nail appointment then another round of play practice, then I'm leaving around 2pm tomorrow for Kat's wedding! Whew! As much as I like being involved in community theater, I'll be really glad when Christmas Belles is over - I don't like being this busy. Although maybe I will grow to love it?

I can't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but I've started to see a chiropractor for my hip/back trouble. Things are going swimmingly there and my hip feels SO much better already. I saw him yesterday and he gave me exercises to do to help strengthen my hip and my core which he said will speed up my healing. I never thought I would say this, but I can't wait until I get cleared for regular exercise again. I really want to get into the habit of taking walks and eventually start running. But before I do any of that, I need good shoes. Even the chiro thinks that some of my hip/back pain may be a result of improper support from my shoes! And I'm not going to lie - since hurting myself I'm scared to walk.

I'm honestly starting to feel so much better about myself overall - I've noticed that my skin problems don't bother me as much as they used to - really none of the flaws that I used to zero in on bother me as much as they used to. I'm thinking it's a combo of the weight I've lost and the fact that I'm just genuinely making steps towards taking care of myself.

And so I have not updated in over 3 weeks. I hate it, but I kinda feel like there is no point. I'm doing my thing on Weight Watchers, tracking my points, etc. If I had a slim little purse size point and shoot camera I'd do pictures of everything I ate, but I don't. I have a Canon Powershot that I really don't feel like lugging with me everywhere. And I just don't feel like doing food logs. I've done them in the past and... I don't know... I feel like they just aren't very interesting on their own. I will admit, I have been kinda pushing Mike for a nice little point and shoot camera for me. Although he talks about selling the Powershot if we do that, and that Powershot was his first baby, I'd hate to feel responsible for him getting rid of it. I do have a camera on my cell phone, but it's not very good quality.

As far as WW goes, I lost 2 pounds my first week then gained 1.2 pounds the second week, so I am only down .8 overall. Although I have a feeling tonight's weigh-in will be very good because I've been tracking EVERYTHING this week and I haven't been overly restrictive.

And so it goes

So, you've probably noticed that there have been no updates for a while (if anyone is even still reading this).

Things have just kinda been moving along slowly.

I took a positive step and rejoined Weight Watchers last night. It's the only thing that's ever worked for me in the past, and I really need the help. So I changed my ticker to my starting WW weight and I'll be updating it on Tuesday evenings/Wednesday mornings. I understand the clothed-end-of-day weight for WW will be higher than my first morning naked weigh in I usually do, but I'm okay with that.

I also lowered my goal a little bit. We'll see how things shape up when I get there.

Hope you're all doing well!

Journey Down the Sidewalk of Weight loss

I don't know if any of you are familiar with this "Autobiography in Five Chapters", but I think it really describes my struggles with losing weight well.

Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost....I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit...but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.

Chapter Five
I walk down another street.

I think I'm stuck somewhere around chapter three. I keep falling into the same bad holes. I see them, but I'm just so used to them. I know it's my fault, and (if the mood strikes me) I get out immediately. I'm looking forward to moving on to chapter four.

I had a breakthrough realization this weekend. I have been punishing my body because it's not working the way I want it to. After this realization, I said to myself (almost out loud) HOW CAN YOU EXPECT YOUR BODY TO WORK THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO IF YOU'RE NOT TREATING IT RIGHT?! You can't expect a high performance machine to operate at its best if you don't fuel it right, can you?

I think maybe I need to focus less on weight and more on how I feel. Or maybe only weigh myself once a month or so. I tend to get hyper-focused on numbers, which is why Weight Watchers was successful for me the first time I tried it, IT'S ALL NUMBERS! But I tend to obsess a little if I'm not careful, so I think I'm going to back off a little. Maybe even on low-glycemic, just focus on eating healthier, even if it isn't the perfect low GI meal. Plus I think I'll feel a lot less guilty just eating better rather than eating low GI - it's so easy to slip with that type of eating. I feel like if I allow myself more stuff that's "not allowed" I'll be happier over all.

Because, as much as I'd like to lose 30 pounds, it ultimately boils down to being healthy. Being able to exercise without injuring myself, being able to go up and down stairs without feeling winded. Just being happier in my own skin.

Bleh

So I'm up another .4 pounds. I am not surprised. I sabotaged myself pretty hard yesterday. I was having one of those days where it just seems like everything that could go wrong did and I was overwhelmed with just LIFE in general and I ate two candy bars and a really carb heavy, salty dinner.

Part of me really wants to throw in the towel. I'm having a hard time with some other stuff, I can't seem to exercise without injuring myself, etc. etc.

But I'm getting ready to make a nice healthy breakfast, and maybe try a different pair of shoes and go for a short walk.

I can't let myself keep getting so discouraged, if I do this weight will NEVER come off. I have work out DVDs and I have the whole great outdoors to walk in. I CAN DO THIS!

Owwwwww

So remember that walk that I talked about yesterday? I was telling Mike about my walk last night, and described the route to him and asked him how far he thought I had walked. He guessed two miles and I was like "WHAT?! Shut up, there's no way that I walked two miles!" So today after work I drove the route and SON OF A GUN I WALKED TWO MILES!

I also discovered why you should not go from sedentary couch potato to two miles in bad shoes all at once. I've thrown my hip out. Yes, my hip is all weird. I'm not sure how or why but I do that when I went to go down the stairs at my office there was a shooting pain in my hip followed by a feeling of numbness down my whole leg and I almost fell. Then it happened again a few steps later. I seem to be fine on flat surface (other than a dull ache) but stairs practically kill me. There's sharp shooting pain when I climb stairs, and the shooting pain/numbness/almost falling going down. I'm not sure what to do about this. I've never had a "sports" injury. I'm a natural born klutz so I'm more likely to hurt myself cleaning the bathroom than getting a legitimate injury from activity. Obviously I am not walking tonight, and probably won't really walk very far again until I get decent shoes. What else can I do? I've taken some Aleve for the pain, but it still feels a little like my hip is out place. Help?