Weigh-in Day No. 5

Not what I would have wanted to see, but pretty much what I expected after Thanksgiving. I'll take it.

Today I'm Thankful

Today I am thankful for so many things. To name a few:

• my husband



• my children



• my family
  


• that I don't have to worry about a roof over my head, heat, cooling, a car to drive, etc.



• my relationship with my Savior



• my church



• my body (I'm slowly learning that it can do amazing things if I take care of it)



• that I live a life where I can focus on something like weight loss because other things are taken care of



• Dave Ramsey and his financial principles
  

Here is a photo of me and my munchkin taken on Tuesday at her school's Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Weekly Weigh-in Day No. 4

This is exactly what I needed to see today. (I actually weighed myself 3 times before I believed it.) I'm a little nervous about the food extravaganza that is tomorrow. We are headed out of town until Sunday and the whole weekend is usually a major food marathon. I'm trying to plan in some major exercise while I'm gone. I've also made sure to go to the gym the past two days and work out extra hard there also. But still, I'm nervous. This number definitely helps though! I'm so close to the 20 pound loss mark and that is sooo exciting! After this, my main goal is really to maintain this weight through the holidays. Losses would be great but I'm trying to stay realistic. Staying between 260 and 265 through December 31st would be ideal for me at this point. As for today, I'm just going to celebrate that number right up there!

Weekend in Review

Hubby's birthday/date night was wonderful! On all fronts actually. We had a terrific time together. Dinner out. A little Christmas shopping accomplished. A hotel room in town (which meant a full night of sleep!!!). A quiet little breakfast out the next morning. Simple but wonderful. Just what the marriage needs sometimes. :)

And the food was great. We had dinner at Macaroni Grill on Friday. I order the Pollo Caprese. It was a grilled chicken breast, an arugula salad, and a serving of capellini pasta. Delicious!!! And (according to the menu) 580 calories. I didn't finish all of the pasta. Even if it was a few more calories than that, it couldn't have been anywhere near the carbonara I had the last time I was there that was 1200+ calories. So that was a step in the right direction. I had gone earlier Friday and bought some cupcakes for us at a bakery here in town. Our favorite there is the maple bacon cupcake. I ate the entire thing. And it tasted like heaven. In the past, I'm ashamed to admit, I have gone there and purchased 4-6 cupcakes and eaten them all on my own. This time, I ate my one cupcake and just truly enjoyed it. And didn't feel bad.

Saturday morning for breakfast we went to a little diner restaurant. I ordered their pumpkin pancakes. It came with 3 pancakes, 2 eggs, and sausage or bacon. I ate one pancake, my eggs, and ordered the turkey sausage patty. Again, it was yummy and in control.

The rest of the weekend was completely on track also. Which is pretty awesome considering the week ahead. But I'll analyze that later. For now I'll savor the victories I have. Like the fact that I was able to wear pants on my date this week a size smaller than I previously wore!!

One of those days.

Today has been one of those days. You know the days. The ones where everything can and will be difficult. It started with my son being awake sick from 3:00 to 5:00 this morning. Then, I had both of my childcare kids here at 7:30 as well as my friend's son who I trade kids with once a week. Lost count? That's 5 kids in the house to get ready for the day. I know a lot of people have that many kids. I don't. It's a challenge for us. But we did manage to get everyone out of the house and headed to church for MOPS. Well, let's just see the day in schedule form, okay?

3:00am: Puppy(my son) wakes up
5:00 am: Puppy goes back to sleep
5:45am: Wake up and take shower
6:30 am: Munchkin(my daughter) awake
6:40am: Puppy wakes up for day
7:05am: 1st childcare girl gets here
7:25am: 2nd chidlcare girl gets here
7:30am: make breakfast for my kids
7:40am: pack lunch for Munchkin and get backpack ready and dressed for school
7:50am: friend's son gets here
8:10am: start trying to load kids into car for church
8:19am: actually get all kids in car for church
8:30am: work in nursery at church
10:45am: leave church to take two older kids to school
11:00am: get back to church to work again
11:30am: head home to feed littles
12:35pm: get phone call that my cousin had a miscarriage*
1:15pm: leave for doctor for Puppy appt
2:35pm: leave doctor's office with diagnosis of sinus infection, double ear infection, bronchitis, and pink eye
2:45pm: pick up Munchkin from friend's house
2:55pm: drop off Puppy's prescriptions
3:15pm: pick up Puppy's prescriptions
3:45pm: return home, change diapers, feed kids
4:00pm: 1st childcare girl goes home
4:35pm: 2nd childcare girl goes home
4:45pm: sit and rock my sick Puppy

Quite the day, right? I really can handle all of it. Even the crying, which I left out in the rundown. The one I can't quite handle? That one at 12:35. The one with the star. The loss. See, this is the 3rd person I'm close to who has lost a baby in 7 weeks. Two cousins and a best friend. The heart break for them. The hurt for myself as it reminds me of my own pregnancy loss seven years ago. If I was a drinker, I'd be three sheets to the wind by now. But I'm not. I turn to food when life is tough. And today, life is tough. And all I want to do is eat. And eat. And eat. The kind of eating where I don't have to think,feel, or hurt. Even if it's just for an hour. The kind of eating where I feel like vomiting when it's over and my mouth literally aches from the quantity of food consumed. I want sugar, fried foods, comfort foods, soda, ice cream. You name it, I have wanted to eat it today.

But I haven't. Which is actually quite amazing. Even while I ran my errands and the fast food places were oh so tempting, I kept driving. It physically hurt. The temptation. The desire. The urge. The need. But I resisted. And I'm proud of that. But what I'm left with sucks. Because all the feelings, exhaustion, pain, tears, and heartache aren't being numbed by mindless consumption. They're just here. Being felt. And that part definitely sucks.

Thanksgiving 5k

We are going to be headed out of town for Thanksgiving this year and I've been looking for a way to find something "official" to do as an exercise/activity that morning. They do a Pie Run 5K in my hometown but that doesn't help since I won't be here. Then I came across this virtual 5k that's being hosted by a health blogger. So I signed up! I feel like adding my name to the list and tracking my time and sending my completion photo will be a great accountability.

Weekly Weigh-in Day No. 3

The pounds aren't flying off, but my eating hasn't been drastic. Just different and normal portions and lots more activity. And it's starting to show! This loss accomplishes my short-term goal for Thanksgiving. I think we'll just hold onto that one for one more week, though, since this weekend is my husband's birthday and we're going out to dinner/dessert. I don't plan to go way overboard, but I am going to enjoy the alone time with my husband more than worry about my eating. We'll see.

the weekend....

Bullet points will probably be the easiest.

The Good:

• Ate my fajitas at the mexican restaurant friday night a la carte with only one tortilla and less than 5 tortilla chips beforehand.


• while shopping saturday, got a value size hamburger and took off the top bun as well as the mystery sauce, ate only 3 of the (way too salty) french fries *felt good to know taste buds are changing


• made great breakfasts all 3 mornings


• did not oversnack during the day


• worked out friday even though I'm sick

The Bad:

• Chili's for dinner Sunday - ate half my plate of honey chipotle crispers/fries/cinnamon apples and LOTS of chips dipped in ranch dressing


• made homemade chocolate chip cookies Saturday night - ate 7 throughout the weekend


• while I didn't overeat Saturday night, we ate crap food of pigs in a blanket and boxed mac and cheese for dinner. Just no real nutritional value.

But now, it's a new week! And I really don't feel set back by my weekend. For each area that I could have improved I do feel proud of choices that I did make. The house is stocked with healthy meals and snacks for the week. I'm still quite sick but planning to try the gym still today. I have always heard that exercising helps to keep you from getting sick, but I don't know if exercising while sick has any benefit. I just know that I'm still so early into this that if I start finding reasons not go, I'll stop going. Plus, yesterday made ONE MONTH since I started!!!! That alone feels pretty awesome!

Best type of failure...

Yesterday I was a failure. At overeating. As in I tried to do it and failed. At every turn. For starters, we had some Bask.in Robbins ice cream in the house from Wednesday night. After a VERY rough start to my morning, all I could think about was how I was going to "reward" myself with the rest of that ice cream when the kids went down for a nap after lunch. My mouth was practically watering in anticipation. And what happened? I went out there to get it only to discover that my mom had put it in the wrong side of the fridge the night before and it was melted. Completely ruined. So, no ice cream.

Next up? I decided that I could not bear drinking just water with my lunch. I have sweetened iced tea nearly every night with dinner and I used to drink it throughout the day also, but I have made an effort to cut back to only one glass at night and none during the day. But yesterday the water wasn't cutting it. But rather than making tea, no sir, I was drinking a soda. More specifically, a regular Dr. Pep.per. I got out my glass. Poured it. Made my lunch. Sat down. Took my first wonderful drink. And it tasted AWFUL. Much like a soda taste when it has gone flat. And rancid. Had the soda gone bad? No, my taste buds had. I have faithfully begun taking my Topamax pills for my migraines again and they affect how I process the taste of foods. Namely sugar. Soda is the first to go. I physically can't drink it. I forced down a second swallow and literally started to heave. So, no soda.

The final try? Chips and salsa. We still had some delicious chips left from Saturday's birthday party that I have been avoiding and homemade salsa. I poured myself a fairly large bowl of chips, along with a nice sized bowl of salsa, and sat down once again to basically pig out. I had eaten two, count them, TWO chips when my phone rang. It was a friend of my asking if she could drop her 3 kids off at my house for a little bit while she ran an emergency errand. Of course I said yes, but that would then make for 6 kids at my house. There was no way I could enjoy my little pigout session at that point. So I poured the chips back in the back, the salsa back in the container and went on my merry little way. So, no chips and salsa.

As I said, the very best type of failure. :) Sometimes it's great when life gets in the way. I read a great quote this morning too....

"Don't exchange what you want the most for what you want at the moment."

Weigh-in Day No. 2

Waking up to this has started my day off great!




Actually, more than just that number is the fact that since Thursday of last week, I have been back on track after all the candy bingeing. It feels good. And I have been following my dietician's advice and focusing more on eating "normally" as opposed to trying to basically starve myself. Anything is permissible, just in appropriate portions. So I am not really missing any foods and I am still seeing the weight start to come off. The gnarly workout sessions probably aren't hurting either. ;)

parties and ice cream.....

Definitely not two things that are very conducive to weight loss. Over the weekend we hosted a 30th birthday party for a good friend of mine. Her folks cooked the food and it was delicious! The best chips and salsa ever, but I made a deal with myself that I would only eat them while I ate my lunch. I knew that the grazing could kill me. I even skipped the cupcakes altogether, but that was mostly because.....

We made a plan to go have ice cream later that evening. At the best ice cream place ever. Or, at least in our town. It's a family owned business that makes everything fresh in-house and they serve the BIGGEST dishes of ice cream. We had a group of almost 20 people and when it came time to order I meant to order the petite blondie but left off the petite word. Oh my lordy, the bowl of ice cream that came out. With enough carmel sauce to bathe in. And the blonde brownie on the bottom. One bite and I knew I wanted to eat all of it. It tasted like heaven. However, it was extremely rich compared to how I have been eating. Plus, all the working out is motivating me to try and not blow all that hard work with food. So, I ate about a third of it, asked for a to-go container (Sidenote: I have NEVER not cleaned my dish at this place.), and brought the rest home.

Sunday afternoon my husband and I sat down to watch the NASCAR race as we usually do. We are huge fans. But this is also a really tough food time, because it's when I want to snack the most. Sunday afternoons are pretty much a non-stop snack fest. I knew I needed something to fidget with to keep me from eating the whole kitchen. I had a pomegranate in the fridge and decided to give that a try. A friend of mine told me that she peels it back a little at a time because she finds it kind of relaxing and more time-consuming that way so I thought I'd try it like that. It was my first time really eating a pomegranate and I enjoyed it very much. Plus, it kept my hands and mouth occupied. As in, I ate off of this thing for more than an hour and a half and still didn't finish it. And while I ate my fruit, what did my husband consume next to me? The rest of my ice cream.

At least that is no longer sitting in the freezer yelling for me to eat it!

Not enough.....

Apparently, an almost 4 pound loss still wasn't enough to enourage or deter me from bingeing yet again yesterday. Another day, another gargantuan quantity of food in the afternoon. 3 pm seems to be the enemy lately. I'm an hour and fifteen minutes away today. I think we're going to be fine today, but we'll see.

The only good thing about the overeating of the last 3 days has been that I have been honest about it with my husband. See, I'm a secret eater. I prefer to buy a bunch of food when I"m alone, eat it alone, and hide all evidence that I've ever had it. So my family doesn't generally see me eat that much, but yet, they have watched me gain 50 pounds or more and don't really understand where it comes from. That's because of the lies. If nothing else, I am not lying about my food intake. I figure that I have to start somewhere, right?

Last night's workout was especially brutal. I mean, 1000 calories worth of candy is not exactly fuel for working out. I felt gross from the moment I walked in. Was dizzy and shaking almost the entire time. Exercising has been making me feel a little like Superwoman and last night, all I wanted to do was yell, "I quit!" But I didn't. I finished it all. Each and every station, rep and lift. And I'm glad I did. That felt like yet another teeny tiny baby step forward. My eating choices did not dictate the rest of my day and I followed through with my commitment to work out.

I'm trying it again tonight. Working out, I mean. Not bingeing. This will be my first back-to-back days of hitting the gym. I'm pretty nervous but excited at the same time. We'll see.....

Weigh-in Day No. 1

This was the perfect motivation to get out of the candy and start my new week. And let's disregard the ridiculous need for a pedicure.

disaster.....

Today has been a disaster foodwise. Well, not the whole day. Let's elaborate. I woke up around my usual time. Ate a normal breakfast. Had my regular kind of snack. A delicious and healthy lunch.

Then came 3pm. Between 3pm and 4pm today, I consumed more than 1800 calories. 1800. That's my whole day. More than many people eat in a day. In one hour. What did it take to reach that number? 3 slices of pizza plus 2 full size candy bars plus 6 fun size candy bars.

Needless to say, the Halloween candy is officially leaving our home. Nearly all of it anyway. We'll keep a few pieces for the kids, but the quantity we have now is clearly not good for me. I am always like this. I'm great most of the day, then around mid-afternoon, it's like BAM! Must eat now! And I never eat just a little. It's always huge portions. Not like a few bites throughout the day. Nope, all at one. As in, while eating the pizza, I had the candy lined up and waiting. Now, some 6 hours later, I still feel like vomiting. Part of that feeling comes from the quantity of food and part from the self-disgust I still feel. This is where the real battle lies. My instinct when I loathe my actions like I do right now is to.....you guessed it....eat large quantities of food. I'm trying to blog instead.

So far, it is working. The plan for tomorrow is to go to the gym and get back on track with the eating. I can do this. I will do this.

Tomorrow is also weigh-in day! That really could go either way at this point. Guess I'll just have to get to sleep so that I can wake up and find out. Night!

before pics....

Here are a couple of shots taken last week. I have always felt like "I carry my weight well." Ha! What a joke. Nobody looks good at nearly 280 pounds. I hate being in pictures. As a result, there are very few photos of me with my kids. Growing up, my mom never liked her weight in photos and so I have nearly no pictures with my own mom. I have always hated that. One of these days, she won't be here and I have so little photographic history of her. And what am I doing? The exact same thing to my children. Grrr... Even more reason to change our legacy now.