Hello? Are the lights still on?

Sorry for dropping outta sight. The boy has been in quite the mood this week, cluminating in our turning off his phone. Things are improving, but its been a stressful week.

We're still trying to find a way to keep Chyna since the only option we've found is to have her put down. She is staying in the kitchen some days (the days when bess is home) so bess can be outside. Some days Bess goes to my mom's, so Chyna is inside maybe 2 or 3 days a week. But bess was getting very depressed, so this seems to be helping. The boy got so upset, we are trying very hard to work things out.

I'm tired, but we are managing to get to the gym, I am walking (running some, but its bothering my shins), and trying to get the food back to normal.

Have a good weekend.

Is there really such a thing as "too late" for your health????

Check out exhibit A: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/sports/othersports/21builder.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Each day is a new one

Still struggling with evening snacking, but I am getting back into the groove at the gym, walking quite a bit, and doing good with cooking meals for the family. So, I'm only missing one piece. It's a deal breaker in terms of weight loss, but I just remind myself how many good habits I've rebuilt.

I so wanted to believe...

I am very disappointed by the Floyd Landis decision. I guess I'll keep watching the TdeF, but not with the enthusiasm I did 2 or 3 years ago.

My motivation is flagging, and I have snacked too much the past few nights. For someone as short as me, that can mean the kiss of death for the week. I am going scuba diving in 6 months and I'd love to at least be back down to the weight I had gotten down to by then. Help me remember to stay the course, please?

In good news, I clocked 2 miles this morning. Woo hoo!

Have a good weekend!

A tummy full of soup

Still struggling with the exercise. I am renting a workout DVD from Netflix and giving it a shot - The Pit Workout - sounds pretty cool anyway.

Food is okay - a bit of stress eating in the evenings the past couple of nights, but not TOO hideous. No cheese dip has been involved. :-)

Loving the cooler weather!

This morning I used an hour of vacation to pick up the house before the cleaning lady comes. Only a woman would use her vacation in this way.

I am going to Durham tomorrow evening after work to meet with the lady with whom I am running a large event. Saturday my mom and I are going shopping. Pray for me. Or something.

A mixed bag

I was down 2 pounds on the nurse's scale. I weighed in the hall right before I went in and was 1 pound lighter on the hall scale. So at least I know how they line up. Glad I'm seeing some progress. The clothes situation is fairly dire. I did pick up some shirts over the weekend, but I neeed something on the nether regions as well.

I've been very tired lately - went to bed at 8:45 last night! I am struggling with getting to the gym, but I am walking at least. I had a mini meltdown this morning, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Not even quite sure why.

We are headed to Florida over spring break. Hoping to visit a friend, but odds are good he'll be in Baghdad. I worry about him, because he is back & forth over there (and other exotic locales) on a regular basis.

Nap time!

Boy, could I have slept in this morning! The air is nice and cool and the windows were open - delightful. But I got up and did a brief walk/run thing. Ugh. Weight has dropped down today to what I saw last week on the hall scale. Exercise was okay this weekend, although I never got to the gym. But I walked a couple of times and was active. Eating was better.

I made a big batch of gazpacho sooup this week and put some in my lunch. I also bought bell peppers, celery hearts, and cherry tomatoes at Costco, in an effort to increase ye olde veggie intake.

We are going to a wedding in November at Ren Faire (huzzah!) - my girlfriend Ceara has agreed to help me make an outfit. Most of my medieval attire is peasant class since I am frequently working at events, I'd like to have a new outfit.

Hung with friends, cleaned the boat & took it out for a while, a bit on the busy side, but nice.

Oh, and I'm loving the weather!

Keep on keeping on

Attitude crappy last night - somewhat better today. This feels hard. I feel like I will never lose weight. Ugh.

Quotes for the day:

“Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn.”

“Everyone has a plan until they get hit.”

Both by Mike Tyson.

Or good old M. Ali: “I hated every minute of the training. But I said to myself, bear the pain now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

We got up this morning and hit the gym. Right now the workouts aren’t exactly arduous – more a time for both of us to ease into a routine. But still, it feels good doing it. The boy laid back down when we got home! :-O

Had to make a mad dash to the grocery store before breakfast (the cat doesn’t like the new brand of litter and expressed her displeasure by taking a poo on his floor) – why doesn’t the convenience store carry cat litter? That’s not very convenient! Pulled into the garage and discovered that I had hit a frog as I pulled in. Yes, I cried.

I got on the scale again today (not the one in the nurse’s office which I used yesterday, but the one in the hall) and it said the same thing it did last week. Either it’s a couple of pounds lighter than the nurse’s, or I lost 3 pounds in a day. I have been doing quite well with my eating and exercise, but I need to (of course, as always) keep a closer eye on the weekend.

I am still feeling a million times better than I was – I am very glad I got off that medicine. I’m sure it helps some people, but it was doing me more harm than good. Yes, I still get angry and cranky, but not as badly. I do think the exercise helps, and now that I’m off the medicine, I can feel it helping. Which makes it easier to keep at it.

We walked the dogs last night – the exercise seems to be helping Chyna. She walks great on a leash and it seems to give her a sense of purpose. Whatever the reason, she is being less aggressive with the other dogs. We are still keeping Bess inside though just to be sure.

I am tired of the heat, but I hope it lasts a little longer. My mom is pushing me to go shopping for some fall clothes, but the thought is enough to send me running for the cheese dip. Maybe I'll feel better about it in a couple of weeks once I'm firmly back on the exercise train.

Not freaking out

I am bloated right now - my fingers are swollen. ugh. I was down 2 pounds on Friday, and up 1 (from last Tuesday) today. Gah. Stay the course. I'm doing the right things.

Busy busy

Things are continuing along well here. The boy and I walked the dogs last night (Bess is over at my mom’s so we only had 3. She goes over there for a day or so during the week so she gets more outdoors time as we no longer leave her outside when we aren’t home.) We had our kick off and official pedometer start yesterday afternoon for our “fit-n-fun” and I already got a lunch voucher – they handed out 2 for the people with the most steps and I had over 17000! So I am having a grilled chicken sandwich and side salad today – yum!

We have a lot of fun plans for the weekend – we may meet friends for dinner tonight, tomorrow we are helping a friend move, Sunday is yard work for the boys, groceries & food prep for me, and then we’re headed to the lake to clean the boat. I haven’t told my hub yet that he will be helping the boy with the yard work rather than me, but I don’t see him doing the food prep for the week! :-O

We were planning to go to a medieval event next month about 3 hours away. We really didn’t want to just head up for the day, so we asked our good friends R&M if we could stay at their place. Instead they paid our way for the entire weekend – cabin fee, entrance fee, and dinner Saturday night. I cried. The generosity and quality of friends … it just amazes me at times. I feel so lucky.

Anyway, despite the bad news earlier in the week and the need to ration, things are moving along surprisingly well and I continue to feel good and feel like I am accomplishing a lot in terms of moving toward improving my habits & health. I took a few steps backward, but that’s okay, that’s life.

Lunch box make-over

I've spent the past couple of days with a nasty tummy ache in the afternoon, so I made a few changes in ye olde lunchbox: removed mounds of raw celery, replaced lunch (baked chicken & veggies with sauce) with leftovers, removed pint of black tea (I have green with lunch anyway) and will drink water instead.

Had a very good workout this morning at the gym with the boy. Getting up wasn't TOO hard and we both had a good time - AND it wasn't crowded! Woo hoo!

Depsite the money stress, I'm doing good. I was really pooped last night so we went to the cafeteria, but I had a healthy (relatively) supper and didn't snack at all afterward. Tonight i plan to be swept away by Calgon! Long week - kinda tired, busy at work. But my mental outlook is really great.

Lunch Loathing Land

(Do you know what Adam Sandler song the title is a play on?)

I chose poorly with my lunch this week, and it seems to be upsetting my stomach! Yesterday I left early with terrible stomach pain (after lunch), today I thankfully had the super duper Rolaids in my purse. It’s only baked chicken and frozen vegetables with sauce, but somehow the thought is mortifying. I wound up buying fried rice to go with it (what part I ate) and then half a turkey sandwich later when I was hungry.

It doesn’t help that I am short changing myself at my morning snack because my dipping sauce for my celery that I made up from a mix is so spicy even I can’t eat it! (That boggles my mind).

Hungry. Not happy with food choices. Tummy hurting. Thankfully, I have leftovers!

Not freaking out

My run of unexpected financial outlays continues unabated. This one to the tune of $3400. Ouch. Beyond ouch. We have cancelled most of our October plans in an effort to economize.

I am using Galloway's beginning marathon program, starting next week. Basically, you go a long run once a week, increasing by 1 mile per week, starting at 2 miles.

Walking is going well, my blister is healing up nicely, and the boy and I are going to the gym today.

The news was bad, but the world didn’t end

So, we are kicking off our “fit-n-fun” thing at the office this week. Today, I got to go to the nurse’s office to pick up my pedometer and get on the scale. The news was bad – I have gained every bit of the weight I had lost: 29.5 pounds. On someone only 5’2” tall, that’s a huge amount of weight. I guess I could’ve fallen into a vat of cheese dip, but I’d already had my pity party this past weekend, sp I was ready to move on.

I got up and walked (again) this morning, and even threw in a few spurts of running (amazingly slow running, but still…) The boy wants to start going to the gym a couple of afternoons a week, and I told him I wanted him to lend a hand with dog walking a couple of evenings a week. For now the plan is this: walk in the mornings, hit the gym 3 times per week (2 afternoons and once on the weekend). I’ll add in some intervals and up the intensity in the gym in a couple of weeks, but for now this is good. I threw any crap food that came home from vacation or got purchased by our house guest into the garbage this past weekend. Food is prepped and last night I got busy and forgot to go foraging for a snack until after 8. At that point I was a bit hungry (I’d eaten dinner early), so I had a Nutrigrain bar and a couple of wedges of laughing cow cheese. I am eating in a fashion similar to Body For Life, but I am trying to keep my calories in the 1500 range.

This sucks as I do feel a bit deprived, but once I get used to it I’ll be okay. This is what I have to do.

New shoes!

Got a huge amount accomplished around the house this weekend - I was a regular domestic diva! I feel good about that. I ate too much crap yesterday while watching tv - I was bored and I knew I was starting this fit-n-fun thing at work tomorrow. Not good reasons, but there you go. On a more positive note, I got new running shoes which I used every morning - Saturday, Sunday, and today. Woo hoo!