Half day

You gotta love it when you get to shop for prizes on company time. Which is a plus since I'm not good for much else today.

It was every bit as difficult as I expected it to be, and I feel like a dirtbag. My head knows I did the right thing, but my heart doesn't agree.

The Last Mile

Chyna has become increasingly aggressive with the other dogs, and snapped at 2 of our guests over Thanksgiving. Last night I broke it to our son that I had made an appointment with the vet to have her put down this afternoon.

this morning I got up and took her for her last walk around the neighborhood. That's all I can write just now.

Sad day

So, tonight we have to tell the boy that tomorrow we are having the dog put down - she is just getting more & more aggressive. It sucks and he is going to be hysterical.

Plenty of emotional eating last night & today at lunch - slept in & skipped the gym, ugh. Fever blister this morning probably due to depressed immune system from eating crap!!! Today is my mom's birthday, no chance to go to the gym tonight, but I will in the morning - really I will!

Ugh.

I do not like green eggs and ham

Sometimes I have a lamentable lapse in judgement. This week I decided to make myself pasta for lunch – so I got a bag of “Italian” mixed frozen veggies (which I steamed), then combined with sautéed chicken breast, my barilla protein plus pasta, and no sugar spaghetti sauce. Yum-o, right? Wrong! It tasted oogie – I blame the lima beans in the vegetable mix. I love limas, but they didn’t belong here. So today instead of eating my yum-o (not!) lunch from home, I bought a cup of chili (300 calories). So, not a bad choice, but I am so disappointed that my yummy fantasy lunch turned out to not be quite so amazing in the cold harsh light of reality.

I have now driven to the greater Raleigh/Durham co-prosperity sphere 3 times in 9 days in my capacity as NC treasurer of a certain medieval non-profit. And I am tired I tell you! I spent the night at a friend’s last night – going to bed after 11 and then waking up (and I mean wide awake) at 4:15. So I got up and drove in to work. And I feel like an extra from “Night of the Living Dead”, only more dead than alive. A slightly worn zombie, maybe.

So, my hobby has been stressful, my husband continues to work 7 days a week and will for another couple of weeks (if they let up on the mandatory overtime after Dec 12th as promised even though the job won’t be done), oh and my son is acting like the moodiest teen on the planet. His grandpa (my ex step dad) and his wife threw my ex step brother out of the house, and the boy is all upset about it. And of course no one in the history of the planet has ever felt the emotions! He! Is! Feeling! William Shatner could get lessons on how to over-act from the boy I tell ya.

Needless to say, my Friday commitment to losing weight has been tough. Pluses: hard workouts at the gym Fri, Sat, and Sun (30 tough minutes on the elliptical), very good eating Friday and Saturday. Sunday was good until I had a stress eating episode, which led to insomnia, which led to eating Thanksgiving leftovers at 3 am…..

I didn’t get to exercise yesterday due to travel, and I probably will pass today since I am a zombie. I had a lovely dinner with my friend I stayed with – not the healthiest maybe (grilled chicken, bacon, and tomato sandwich with homemade cheese sauce on top and baked apples for dessert), but it was at home and I didn’t snack or have any alcohol or anything.

Tonight at our house is the neighbor’s famous homemade lasagna. Even though I had breakfast at 5:30 am, the only “extra” thing I’ve eaten was a slice of light wheat bread with peanut butter to help tide me over until lunch. I will have a big salad and a small piece because they only make it once a year and it totally rocks.

Did I tell you that I ordered an am/pm yoga tape? It shipped, but hasn’t arrived yet. I am too paranoid to go to an actual class at the gym, but I plan to keep doing the elliptical to my “Cardio Coach” CDs until I feel a bit more comfortable in my skin. Is that a copout?

There is a gym that offers Crossfit classes 4 days a week at a totally doable time, but I feel too big to go. That’s kinda sad really.

I’m so done with this. I’ve been writing down foods that I like that are portion controlled (Amy’s organic burritos, yogurt with a ¼ cup of raw oats added) and fill me up. Hmm… the yogurt might make a good after dinner snack…..

Crawling out from under the stress

There are a lot of things going on, little and small. For one, my hobby is taking over my life – not in a good way. I am the treasurer for the state, overseeing 17 local branches. 3 of those are or will soon be on probation of some sort due to lack of or improper financial reporting. This creates a huge amount of extra training and oversight I must do, not to mention keeping up with my other groups.

So when stuff like yesterday happens – the guy doesn’t show up to service the heat pump, odd cell phone charge on credit card bill so hub goes to cell phone store but I can’t pull bill up on home computer b/c he has made more room for music on the computer by erasing part of the OS so that the internet doesn’t work, work computer won’t let me get onto internet either and I had to place a 6 pm call to the help desk….. yeah, I pretty much went over the edge last night.

It’s like I’m right at the edge of acceptable stress levels, so any annoyance pushes me over the edge. This isn’t a good place to be. I will get these groups straightened out because I signed up for this job (although I had NO idea how much time it would take up!).

Things I have in my own personal action plan:

I’ve been doing about 85% of my planning and weekend food prep. Need to increase that percentage.

Get exercising! I ordered the am/pm yoga on VHS (that’s all we have in the bedroom). The am program is 15 minutes and the pm is 20. I can manage that. That will get me 2-fold benefits: exercise and stress relief.

Stop making excuses.

Put myself first at least 1 hour a day.

Hope you have agreat Thanksgiving!!!

Crime and punishment

At least it feels that way. Eating has remained dodgy and exercise has remained sporadic. I’ve been bouncing around a 5 pound range or so, but the upper limit of that feels like it’s just slightly above maximum acceptable limits.

Last night I decided to take a walk – the weather is pleasant still, I felt the need to move, and the dogs haven’t been walked in a while. So, by the half mile mark my back was screaming. It was awful. I felt like I was reaping the reward of my lousy eating and subsequent weight gain.

Why? Do I somehow feel that if I don’t take care of my body I’m thumbing my nose at aging? Am I saying, “Look at me! I can treat my body like crap and it’ll take it just as well now as it did at 25!” Only the reality is that it won’t.

I have to make permanent changes. I got so close to goal and had such a solid exercise regime…. Why did I throw it all away?

I’d walk more in the neighborhood, but it is simply too painful. I guess I need to seriously curtail the eating and really clean it up, and use the elliptical at the gym until I’ve dropped 10 or so pounds and then hopefully I can hit the street more often. This is crap.

On track? What track????

Busy weekend, power outage, very long trip to Raleigh. Nutrition dicey at best, never got grocery shopping. ugh. House must be cleaned for T-day, lifestyle must be transformed. I've done it before.....

The insanity begins

So, the meals, treats, and over-eating extravaganze has begun here in my corner of corporate America. Sigh. I will continue to fight the good fight, but I gotta say that I'm tired. the good news is that things are easier when the boy is out of school.

These are not the ‘droids you are looking for. We can go about our business.

Hmmm… the usual mixed bag of gym, snacking, exhaustion, good choices, bad choices, sleeping in, waking up early….. never on a firm path – always bouncing like a pinball between a healthy plan and disaster. Nothing ever changes but the day.

I’m tired. It was a busy weekend. I made good and bad choices, hit the gym both days, ran yesterday, slept in today. By evening my energy levels are in the toilet, which makes things tough. I have no answer. I need a change but lack the energy to achieve escape velocity…..

Are you getting as tired of reading about it as I am of typing it?????

A quiet turkey day

So, my MIL won't be coming for Thanksgiving. Not quite sure how to react. She says she's been working a lot and will be tired, but she lives less than 2 hours away. I dunno is she's put off because my mom called to ask her instead of hub, or what. Maybe I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth???

Did calisthenics this morning - truly a humbling experience.

Yup - still here

Hello. I haven't abandoned this old blog yet. My son is being a typical surly teen and my husband is working 7 days a week and I am tired. I cried all the way to work yesterday.

Despite my utter lack of interest, that magical time change is making the whole getting up a 5 am thing a reality. I've gotten up and exercised every day this week. Woot! Not doing so great tracking food, but since I eat the same thing every day (except dinner) and I plan & cook it all in advance, its pretty good stuff.

After things slow down with hub's work (after the new year) I am planning for us to do a 3 day weekend down in Helen Ga - lord knows we need to get away. I think we're all pretty burned out.

I know this isn't very exciting. My low back and shins have been bothering me some, so running has been limited. But I've been doing some in the neighborhood, using the elliptical for my interval training, and trying to do 20 minutes of slower but good speed cardio post weights.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I can't out-train poor nutrition. Food intake is the critical piece.

A day (or 2) late

November is here, and I want to set soem goals for the month. I am still a bit on the tired side, so I am actually starting tomorrow. Some of these may seem silly, but they all serve 1 purpose: to help me feel as well as possible.

Things like being sure to wash my face & brush & floss before bed mean I sleep better. Regular exercise and eating plenty of healthy foods helps as well. My plan is to get in 2 interval and 2 weight training sessions per week, with 3 being optimal. And squeezing in the fruits & vegetables. I had a big salad & bowl of soup for dinner last night, so I'm working on some of it already, but I opted to sleep in this morning to get caught back up on my sleep.

Hope you all have a good weekend.