Lunchtime meet up

 I met my former boss (B) for lunch today. 

I can't remember/find how much of this I posted, so I am including a quick synopsis for background. 

October 2019: My beloved boss that hired me in May 2017 (R), took me to lunch and told me he was resigning. Changes were happening and he didn't like the writing on the wall. He couldn't in good conscience continue to stay in a management position when he disagreed with the corporate direction.

Three members of the team posted for his job and B got it. R left December 31, 2019. I was conflicted and that's when I began casually looking around at jobs. But I liked B, thought she would do a good job, and wanted to support her. I stayed, the pandemic happened, and that accelerated the rapid decline into dumpster fire-dom that was my last company/job.

At some point B was moved into a job where she had no experience and was given no support. I was the only member of the team that stayed on her new team. Enter our 4th CEO in 2 years. He began ousting the existing executive team and bringing in buddies he'd worked with before. At the beginning of April the IT department got a new CIO (chief information officer). Seven or eight weeks ago B told me that CIO was bringing in a buddy to take her job and she was being moved somewhere else. I took vacation, got my current job, and my first meeting with my "new" boss at the old company was also my last as I sent in my resignation letter 30 minutes later. 

As for finding a new role for B? Well, that ultimately turned out to be BS - the Friday I was up in Syracuse she let me know that her position had been "eliminated". Well, never mind it was given to someone else (with a slightly different title) and the job she had actually been doing was not eliminated - they just wanted to get rid of her the way they had so many VPs & up from the "old regime".  She had been with the company over 16 years and was both blindsided and devastated.

Today we met for lunch - 10 or 11 days after the fact. She's still pretty upset but given the tremendous stress she had been under - a new job where she had no clue and no support - I think she is beginning to feel better about things. She is looking, although she's not 100% sure what she wants to do at this point.

In any case, it was good to see her.

Mr husband had an appointment with a counselor today. I think that went well and will be helpful. He is considering switching careers (again). I'm all for what makes him happy.

Weight is a hot mess. Eating is better - most of the time. 

Baby steps.

So far so good

 No exercise other than dog walking (for now), but food is under MUCH better control.

Thank goodness for the dog

 One thing that is helping (a lot) right now is the dog. It's hot and I'm tired and my back hurts, but Pepper wants to walk! We're only doing maybe 3 a day, and I'm trying to stay away from the hottest part of the day. 

Alcohol is voted back off the island (too many empty calories and it brings too many crappy snack friends along with it). I'm not measuring, counting, or anything - I'm just focused on eating reasonable food in reasonable amounts at reasonable times. 

It's a start.

Start where you are

 I have gained 19.1 pounds in 2 months. I (finally) faced the scale today. I weigh 197.4. Work is great, my trip was good, and now it's time to get back to reality.

Ugh.

Confidence

 I am very excited to go up to Syracuse and meet my new team. Having said that, I'm very self conscious about my weight. :-(

I went to Goodwill and bought 20 items of clothing - mostly for the trip. I have a couple of dresses ($5) each, as well as nice tops, slacks, and some jeans ($4 each). I plan to take a bit of a variety of items, but I know that folks do wear jeans in the office, so I feel okay taking a bit of a variety. 

Unfortunately I will not be able to use the YMCA while I am there - due to covid they aren't allowing reciprocity from other Ys outside the area. There is a small fitness center in the hotel at least, and of course I can do stretch of yoga videos on youtube.

I wish I could sound more positive - I have a great new job that I am excited about and I've been learning tons and the company is AMAZING. And I'm so glad I left the dumpster fire that was my last company. And I'm looking forward to T having his second surgery so we can put all of his knee troubles behind us.

I want to live my best life and I'm limiting myself. Why?

Sorry for ghosting....

 Good morning.

We made a quick run up to western PA to check on the camping gear our group has stored up there. It's been sitting untouched for 2 years now in our storage trailer. Everything was in surprisingly good shape! Since we won't be using it until next year, I'm glad we went up.

Sunday I am leaving for a week up in Syracuse for work. Then on the 21st T is having surgery. So all in all things around here are pretty crazy.

Food has been rubbish and exercise has been non existent except for walking the dog (thank goodness for the dog!). I'm pretty unhappy with all of that. I keep telling myself that once we get past the 2 weeks out from his surgery life will get a bit easier. We have joined the Y - both for the pool and the group classes. Food is getting better. 

I'm tired of feeling like I have nothing to wear. :-(

Day 3

 I didn't realize that my old company was like working with a bunch of adrenaline junkies on meth until I started at a company where the people and the work seem so ..... sane. How sad is that?

A lot of orientation and at the end of the day I am exhausted! My former title was software project manager, my new title is senior IT project manager. They seem so organized - after coming from chaos I have to keep reminding myself that I can do this! 

How bad was it? My #1 top priority project - a new product launch I was working on? Practically no IT resources available to work on it and no project manager assigned. So yeah.

Just trying to keep my head above water right now, but I know it will get easier.

First day

 Exiting my job job was crazy and sad. They pretty much ghosted me - once I sent in my resignation letter I never got any response from HR asking about things like PTO payout etc, and of course no exit interview. Oh well.

I start in my new in a couple of hours. More to follow!

A change

 I put my 2 week notice in Monday. I feel so much less stressed.

At the beach

Taking a vacation this week to enjoy some family time at the beach.

Take care!

Slow & steady - it may win the race but it's frustrating!

 Another half pound loss this week. Not surprised - not gonna lie, there was some major stress eating last weekend!

I'm doing between an 8:16 and 5:21 intermittent fasting schedule (except the days i fell face first into a pizza) and I am enjoying it. I'm not a big fan of breakfast food anyway, although we did have breakfast for dinner one evening. So mostly I'll have an afternoon snack (yesterday was a bacon & tomato sandwich), a healthy dinner, and maybe dessert or an evening snack. 

It feels easy and I'm not that hungry. Once I get to the point I am finding hunger really distracting, then I'll eat! I still try to make reasonable choices, but I'm not counting calories or weighing anything - which feels very freeing.

Not much going on here for the holiday weekend. A friend from Maryland is down visiting her daughter and is staying with us, so Tim gets another human to talk to! And another friend is coming over after work to grill burgers & watch "Labyrinth" - so yay!

Enjoy your weekend!!

Same old Same old

 This week has been pretty bananas at work so I haven't had a lot of head space for posting. Tim's knee is doing really well (we're going to the gym this afternoon). I've struggled some this week, but the scale is (slowly) moving in the right direction, and I have continued to exercise. So - small victories.

Another work week in the books

 It's not quite the end of the workday, but lunchtime Friday is good progress!!

It's been a frustrating week. We found we need to replace a bunch of our AC ductwork (cha-ching!) and I'm getting a new boss at work. Frustrated & burned out is where I'm at right now. So this weekend is especially welcome.

Take care.

Monday again

 Happy Monday (lol).

Hope you had a good weekend. Ours was ... okay. We were both kinda low energy & cranky. Not sure why, but there you are.

Saturday I opted for a 3 meals day (and an after dinner snack). My eating window was roughly 12 hours and I did NOT snack between meals. Yesterday I used a 6 hour eating window. I had planned to make it 5, but T wanted to go out for a late lunch and I didn't want to sit there & watch him eat. 

Other than that, walking the dog, doing my kettlebells, T goes back for his ortho follow up this afternoon. I'll keep you posted.

Take care!

A science experiment of one

 Good morning and happy Friday! It's been a nutso week. I am going to MAKE TIME for DOWN time this weekend! :-)

A lot of things (except work) have settled out a bit. Tim is doing much better and has graduated to a cane! He is going back to (sort of) doing Optavia (formerly Medifast). I did it the first time with him to see how it worked. He had done it in the past and had a lot of success with it.

Things I liked about it:

• Easy (except dinner)

Things I didn't like about it:

• Expensive
• Not a lot of selection
• Dinner is good, but there is a lot of weighing & measuring.
• I was assured the hunger would go away. IT NEVER DID.

By the end, I was adding a lot of meat & veg just so I wasn't constantly hangry. Not gonna lie, I was miserable. But I gave it a good try.

So color me shocked when I decided to give intermittent fasting a go! I mean, if I'm starving on Optavia then it's gonna be way worse with nothing at all, right??? Wrong!

Let me back up. I've been reading Katie's blog https://www.runsforcookies.com/ for ages. She has tried intermittent fasting in the past and I've always felt like it wasn't for me. I wake up hungry. I hate being hungry. But recently she mentioned in a post about reading (or re reading) a couple of books: "The Obesity Code" by Dr. Jason Fung and "Delay, Don't Deny" by Gin Stephens. I got curious because this isn't something I know much about since I've never really considered it. On a whim I checked them both out of the library. I read Dr. Fung's book first, and I'm glad I did. 

Jason Fung is a kidney specialist who has spent a lot of time trying to help his patients, most of whom have type 2 diabetes & are overweight. This book synthesizes his findings based on a ton of human studies. Even though this isn't an easy read, I'm glad I read it first. Gin's book is a layman's book. She does reference both studies and other books, but had I read it first I might not have been convinced to give this a whirl. 

After reading both books, I was convinced that regulating insulin v. calorie control is a legit (and maybe even healthier) method for losing weight.So this week I have been a study of 1. 

Monday I did basically an OMAD fast (one meal a day). I had dinner at 5:30 and a snack (popcorn) after. Tuesday I ate 3 meals, but like Dr. Fung suggested I did NOT snack throughout the day (I did have an evening snack shortly after dinner - a root beer float made with protein powder). Wednesday I did a "fast 5" (that's a book Gin references) where you have a 5 hour eating window. Mine was from 3-8 - I had a snack, dinner, and an evening snack. Thursday I repeated what I did Monday. The result? I lost 4.6 pounds this week. 

But how did I feel? Pretty good! Yes, I got hungry sometimes. I was the least hungry on the OMAD days, then on the fast 5 day, then on the 3 meals day! Like Dr. Fung said, the hunger came in waves but I kept busy & distracted myself. I drank water, black coffee, & tea throughout the day. I was less hungry eating this way than I was on Optavia.

I am doing OMAD today. Dr. Fung suggests doing OMAD 3 days per week, with 3 meals (no snacks) the other days. Gin (who reminds the reader a billion times that she is NOT a medical professional) says "Here are all these methods. Here's what works for me. You gotta figure out what works for you!" If I am cranky mid afternoon I will pivot and do a fast 5. Anyway, a couple of pictures from Dr. Fung's book.

Have a great weekend!

A lot of catching up to do!

 Good morning.

So, where to begin?

Yes, I bought a car. I purchased a 2007 Nissan Sentra back in 2009. I really loved that car but it was approaching 250K miles on it, and Tim's is approaching 300K. I had been looking around for a while, and decided to go ahead and pull the trigger before the trigger got pulled for me. I went (back) to Carmax, they offered me a decent price for my trade in, and I bought another Nissan Sentra. The reason they had to ship it from Virginia is because I was determined to drive a car with color! I didn't want black, white, or gray. And I wanted a sunroof.

I was able to move my Sunpass from my old car to this one, so mom and I drove it to Georgia to see my great aunt this past weekend. We hadn't been down since December of 2019. Y'all, she is pitiful. The only good thing I can say is that she is in no pain. The gal there said some days she makes sense, but Saturday wasn't one of those days. She pretty much just lays in bed. It was so sad to see her so frail. (The reason we wanted a Sunpass is because FL and NC toll passes work in GA as well and it makes getting through Atlanta easier). 

Tim's surgery went well and the PT guy says he is ahead of the curve. So yay! There has been a lot of this going on around here:

His follow up with the ortho is next Monday, hopefully at that point he will be cleared to do a bit more. He did graduate to a cane, it's supposed to arrive Thursday.

The first day he came home I might have had a meltdown because I felt overwhelmed & incompetent. My in-laws came over a couple of days and mom came up earlier than planned - having family to help out has been awesome. And a dear friend husband and pet sat so we could go to Georgia. 

I was able to finally finish the new valences for my living room - I think they are a lot more cheerful than the old ones.

(Note the styling sheets & towels tossed over furniture. Four dogs for a week is a lot of fur! LOL)

This year has been hard - I know I've said that a lot. There's stuff I haven't gotten into here, and prefer not to. The down side of marrying later in life is that it can be challenging to adapt to something new - you both bring a whole set of baggage. (A really big set, like for an around the world voyage in the 1930s!! lol) And when things are tough you don't have the history (or entropy) to keep you chugging along. There have been a couple of times this year that we very nearly called it quits. Even after months in counseling, we still came pretty close. I think we had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. I asked T to reflect on his past relationships and rate how he treats me relative to past wives/ girlfriends. He got pretty quiet and said "I've probably treated you the worst." I told him I thought I was worthy of his best. He agreed.

We are taking a marriage class (in addition to checking in with our counselor once a month or so). It has been super helpful! Obviously we took a break for the surgery but we are back at it, plugging away.

So I guess some good has come out of the bad. That's probably my theme for this past year - looking for the silver linings.

Take care. I've missed y'all.

The other side of surgery

 T's knee replacement went well, but I am pretty swamped just now.

Still hanging in there

 Sorry guys. Between surgery prep and buying a car and work being crazy I've been busy. Yes, I bought a car. Well, I'm buying a car. But it is being shipped here from Virginia so I haven't bought it yet. Pictures when I have it!

A bit better

 This week has sucked, but my food choices have improved somewhat.

That's all I got.

Spoke too soon

 Well, last night was an epic fail. I got to a point during the day (with work), that I just figuratively threw up my hands and threw in the towel.

Today is a new day to make good choices.