Post holiday, Pre holiday
Thanksgiving was nice. I hope it was for everyone else out there. I spent a good portion of the morning reading (more on that later), and then made the yams for dinner. While they were baking I got ready and tried to wake up K, which was difficult. He slept until 12:45 and we were supposed to be at his family’s for dinner by 1. Well, we got there at 1:25 and ended up eating at 2:00, so it was fine that we were late. We had mashed potatoes & gravy, turkey, my candied yams, corn, peas, deviled eggs, rolls, sparkling cider, cranberry sauce (I don’t like this stuff). I think that was it. Dessert was pie a few hours later. We stayed there while most everyone else went off to take a nap at home or downstairs. P and K2 were having so much fun with their cousins that we decided to just stay put. When everyone came back, we played Catch Phrase, Scattergories, and Pictionary, intermingled with pie eating. We left around 9:00, and put the kids straight to bed at home, or at least I did with a little help from K, since he was getting ready to leave for work. K2 was so exhausted from the day and his short 45 min nap that he woke up crying twice.
I’ve been reading. Way too much. I’ve read 4 books in the last 3 days. I’m not getting enough sleep – I haven’t gone to bed before midnight in almost a week and some of those nights have been as late as 3 AM. The house is starting to look straggly again, and the laundry is piling up. I haven’t been following my points, because when you are anxious to just grab something to eat and get back to reading, there isn’t time to pay attention, or eat well. Today, I need to practice what I’ve been saying I need to do for days. I need to get a prescribed list of things done BEFORE I get to read. And if I’m reading at 10:30 at night and the book isn’t done, I STILL need to go to bed. The words aren’t going to run off the page overnight!!! AND, I’m not going to run out of reading time! I don’t have to go back to work! I think that is maybe one of the reasons I’m so frantic about it. It feels like all of the sudden I’m not going to have time to read again. So, starting today, I’m exerting some self control! Reading will be a controlled substance from now on. Last night, my mom said something to me that I’ve realized for a long time but never had anyone else point out to me. She said I just have an addictive personality, and that she’s sorry because she thinks I got it from her. 🙂 Good thing I don’t drink or do drugs. Just chocolate.
I haven’t exercised, and as I mentioned I haven’t been following points. I also haven’t joined WW. I’m planning on doing that this coming week. I kind of gave myself this week off because of Thanksgiving, and I don’t want to wait another month just because Christmas is coming up. Money is beyond tight, and K is planning on getting a loan/advance from the main office on Monday – which I hope goes well because we’ve had to spend the guys’ salaries to pay our cable and phone bill since they were both temporarily suspended. And to buy groceries, which we need more of. If the loan goes through, I’ll be able to join. If it doesn’t, well I guess I’ll have to follow points on my own. I’ll get some more materials from my mom since the only thing I have is a slide rule which is a tedious way to figure out points. But I hope to be able to join and go to meetings and weigh ins.
It is Saturday, but I hope to get a few cleaning things done. I am contemplating on Monday going back to my daily task calendar which tells me which chores to do around the house each day. In the past I haven’t followed it because when I start up the right things might not be dirty, but if I’m going to learn how to MAINTAIN a clean house, and not just go from clean….. to dirty ….. to clean ….. to dirty, I need to start cleaning things even when they aren’t “dirty” or iow, FILTHY.
I haven’t really gained any weight, but I haven’t lost any. Still somewhere between 228 and 226 usually.
Different days
If a day puts me out in the world, I do not do well with weight loss endeavors.
This morning, no breakfast, off to P’s Thanksgiving preschool presentation. Which was adorable. Then off to a bunch of errands with kids and husband. Not important what they were. At presentation, had a piece of brocolli, piece of cauliflower, about 80% of some kind of bar-cookie, and 3 baby carrots. A small bite of P’s sugar cookie.
During errands, slice of the small loaf of pumpkin bread made by P in class for us. After errands, had Schlotsky’s with family – had a small turkey bacon club with no mayo and water. Not horribly bad, but it still had cheese and some sauce on it. Got home and had almost the rest of the whole loaf. It was a small loaf, but still. Unplanned days. Sheesh. Now it is 4 PM and K is leaving for work and I have no idea what I’m going to feed the kids for dinner in a while. And then I’m in for a long evening.
I just sent an email to more people than I intended. Crap. Oh, well. No real harm done, I hope. Going to go check the kids playing upstairs. There is a lot of suspicious banging.
Oooh, maybe I’ll take the kids and go to the library! I need more books to read and I do have a car. And that would kill some time. And then we could get greasy fast food since we have the money for it, at least today. And tomorrow is WW and that kind of thing will be out for the most part except rare exceptions. I’m liking this idea. Except K2 spent a lot of the day in his carseat. Okay …. going.
Title goes here
I hate thinking up post titles. Hate it.
Friday I counted points. I did pretty well if I do say so myself. I did calculate how many points dinner would be beforehand, and limited myself to a 1/2 cup of cooked rice (which was actually almost plenty), 1/2 cup of green beans, and half a salmon fillet. After dinner I had a couple of muffins and then used my exercise points to eat the rest of the small batch of cookie dough I’d made the night before. I guesstimated my intake at about 31, which included my 3 activity points.
Then Saturday. Hmm. I took the craisins out of my breakfast and left the coconut oil at 1.5 T, which took it down to 5.5 points. And then I went to a baby shower. Where I ate a lot of foods that I don’t know the points value of, and probably too much of it all. I wrote it all down, though, even though I didn’t assign points. Then I went out with my mom for her to do some Christmas shopping. And I had no snacks for the kids (PREPARATION!!!!), so we stopped at McD’s and got some fries (for the kids), which I ate too many of. Then to Mom’s house, where we had oven-baked fries, hot dogs, and peas for dinner. I had 2 hot dogs with cheese and bun. Peas, and too many fries again. Home found me eating a few more things like chocolate milk, graham crackers and a couple of hersheys kisses and a bite-size 3 musketeers.
So, after Friday I weighed in Saturday morning at 225, a low I haven’t seen in a few weeks. And after Saturday, I weighed in this morning at 227.5. So that’s what I get. But I’m counting Saturday as using my 35 flex points for last week (nevermind that last week for WW was 2 days long), and I’m back to it today. It is 11 and I haven’t eaten yet. But I’m going to have my oatmeal for an early lunch. And then church, where I won’t eat any of the snacks I bring for the kids.
K2 isn’t liking me sitting here. Gotta go.
Resistance…
Has to last more than one day. I have 13.5 points left for the day. I didn’t know beforehand that the ounce of cheese I had in my lunch was 3 pts. Trying to resist a 4 pt muffin, because that would leave me only 9.5 pts for dinner and anything else. And I’m hungry.
Just got done going for a walk. First 10 minutes with my daughter, and then 20 minutes by myself (a little faster). Going to have to start using a sports bra again if I want to mix in any running, but for now I’m content to just walk. Going to do BOW+ tonight. Said I was going to do it last night and didn’t do it.
I think I’m going to cut the oil out of my breakfast altogether tomorrow. So breakfast will be 5 pts instead of 6.5. Or I could cut out the craisins and leave the oil for 5.5. Yes, I think I’ll do that instead.
Still discussing how we can support each other (me, my mom, and my brother) without using money as a reward, since money is so short for everyone these days. Especially me.
Salmon and veggie for dinner. Maybe rice. Should calculate it out before I eat it. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
Suggestions and contest
I got some great suggestions in the comments on the last post from a friend from the T-Tapp boards. Thanks L!
A little over a week ago, my hubby suggested that I start a contest with my brother that lives in Georgia when I was responding to an email from said brother about how he he *has* to lose weight for his health. He’s had a bunch of health scares on top of his every day problems exacerbated by his extra weight, and his goal is to lose 20 lbs by the end of the year and then some more. I suggested the contest to my brother. We’ve gone back and forth about it – he was focused on some doctor’s appointments and making sure he didn’t have cancer for a while. And now its crunch time and we have to decide if we’re going to do the contest.
And I’ve chickened out. I think.
He’s a guy. He’ll lose those 20 by Dec 31, probably. But I don’t know if I can lose that much by then. And even if we push the end of the contest out further and do percentages, he’s a guy. And guys seem to lose weight much faster and easier than women. So with almost everyone thinking that my brother was the sure winner before we even started, I backed out.
I still want to be involved with my bro’s success and for us to motivate each other. But …. oh, well. No need for more pressure than what I’m already putting on myself. My bro has lost 5 pounds in the last couple weeks and I haven’t even started. So I guess this is one thing to tell myself not to put it off any longer. “Tomorrow” will never come if I’m not careful.
So today, I’m sticking to 28 points. I am optimistic. Next week, I’ll join WW officially. And I’m working out – back on normal schedule. 3 days a week at a minimum, and walking. I’m going to have to work out in the afternoon. It is just TOO easy to convince myself not to do it at night, at least until I’m back in the habit. I’ll find out on Dec 2 if I get to keep my treadmill (bankruptcy) and if I do, I’m going to have my husband move it into our cramped living room. We don’t have room for it, but if its there I’m hoping it will annoy me so much I’ll have to use it to make it worth having it there. And I can do it while I watch my DVR shows.
1) 28 points. Try to keep it to fresh food to keep full and satisfied.
2) Exercise.
3) Keep busy so that I don’t eat out of boredom.
4) Drink water – no lemonade. Too many wasted points.
Test day – 28 points
I called my mother last night and had her calculate how many points I should be using for Weight Watchers, since she’d pointed out that I could start right away and didn’t need to wait until I can afford to join a meeting. Bummer. I get 28 points. Today, I thought I’d count while carrying on as usual without restricting or changing anything. And things gotta change.
My breakfast, since I typically use a tbs of coconut oil, is 8 points. If I take out the coconut oil, its 5 points. So the coconut oil, as good as it is for me, might have to go. Of course, it probably won’t keep me full as long without it. And then the day continued. With a pretty fatty lunch and some snacks, I was down to almost no points by mid-afternoon. Some of that attributed to the Country Time lemonade that I’ve been putting in my water to mask the yucky taste of the water. The filter is old in our pitcher and the pitcher must need a washing. 1/2 scoop is a point and I usually put at least 2 scoops in every Nalgene 32 oz bottle. So that makes a full Nalgene, which I sometimes drink two of a day, 4 points.
I’m going to try and calculate dinner to get a full reckoning of my day’s points, but I know I went over 28 by quite a bit. So I’m counting this as a learning experience, and I’ll consider what I need to do to get my intake down. Cutting out the lemonade is for sure. Probably the coconut oil, or at least halving it.
On my next shopping trip, I’m going to buy some no-calorie cooking spray. Its not the most natural thing, but it will cut out the oil. Also probably shouldn’t have 3 pieces of bread as an afternoon snack along with some tootsie rolls. When I have a full count of today’s intake (assuming I’m not eating anything else tonight), I’ll post the whole thing here, and if anyone in cyberspace has any suggestions, I’m open to them.
Breakfast – oatmeal concoction – 8 pts
Lunch – Ramen noodle/egg scramble – 6.75 pts
Snack – 4 long tootsie rolls – 4 pts, 3 pieces of bread – 3 pts
Dinner – chicken, broccoli, butter noodles – rough estimate 12 pts
1.5 32oz Nalgene bottles of Country Time lemonade – 6 pts
TOTAL – 35 pts
Could have been worse I guess. I could have gotten it down to 28 easy if I hadn’t had that bread or the lemonade. Or if I’d still had the bread but not the tootsie rolls. Which I don’t even like, by the way. So, live and learn. I’m still going to put the coconut oil in my oatmeal tomorrow. But I’m going to try and stay away from eating things I don’t even like just to be eating, specifically in the afternoon and evening (today’s not over yet, hopefully I’ll stick to that). I’m going to try tap water and see if that tastes good enough to leave out the lemonade. And I think if I split my lunch and snack into healthier items that have fewer points, it should be relatively easy to stay at 28.
Onward! I haven’t made a mental commitment to work out tonight. But I guess I still might get inspired. I fully intended to work out last night and did not do it. So we’ll see.
Coming to conclusions – or trying to
I’m trying to decide some stuff.
1) Whether to try WW again. I feel so conflicted between this and going it alone with GM/MM and fasting. But I feel like with WW I might learn to make some better food habits, where the fasting just temporarily delays the problem. Plus there’s the built-in accountability with WW. I can’t fast when I’m pregnant, so its not a long-term, consistent solution. I’m leaning toward WW, but then I have to decide when I can pay for it, hence when I can start, and where I should go. And should I invite my mom to join with me again? Or is that just wasting her time – especially if I don’t pick a meeting that she can attend with me? Do I pick a location nearest me, or a location mid-way between her and me?
2) Start tapping yet? Or just start walking? It is unseasonably warm these days, and walking yesterday (with P, so not very fast) felt good. I finished that book and it kind of inspired me to get to running again, but I know I have to start with walking. Do both? Is both too much? I’ve been so unmotivated lately….. I just need to decide I’m going to do it and when and visualize myself doing it … getting ready, when its going to happen, what I’m NOT going to do (such as plop down as soon as kids are in bed and veg out). Visualization is important for me – because if I don’t picture how its going to happen and when I just fall back on the comfortable habits I’ve fallen back into over the past month.
3) Register for a race next spring to have a goal that I’ve already committed to? I’m thinking just 5K or something like that. I haven’t participated in a race since high school cross-country, which I sucked at. There are so many races in these parts, it will be hard to pick one. And I’ll feel so much more comfortable if I have someone to do it with me….. but who?
I have some stuff I have to get done today, and some other stuff that I’ll be pleased to get done but is not urgent. I’ll probably do it all after K2 goes down for his nap. I haven’t gotten a lot done this morning, but I’m okay with that. I have to go get P in 45 minutes, and K2 has been up since I took her; he came with us. So I’m thinking he’ll go down a little earlier than normal today.
Beginning of a new week, or end of a an old one?
I never know if I should count Sunday as the beginning or end of my week. I can look at it as the day that ties it all together with rest, family time, and church, or I can think of it as my spiritual jump-start day to the week. Food for thought.
I’m not going to write down a blow-by-blow of the week since Wednesday afternoon when I wrote my last post. A couple highlights of the last few days were: 1) going over to a friends’ house with the kids Friday morning to hang out and talk. The kids had fun with her little girl and the two kids she babysits, while we sat in the living room and chatted about most of the things we’ve talked about via email over the last couple weeks. We’ve never really hung out before but we’ve both always wanted to be better friends, so we decided to make it happen. We email a lot because neither of us are really comfortable with phones. We had a good time talking, I just hope I didn’t say too much and that my instincts that nothing I said will go any farther are correct. I didn’t talk smack about anyone, but I was very candid about how I feel about the way some people act and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I hope we get to get together again soon. My friend is pregnant and doesn’t feel good most of the time, so that puts a damper on her life right now.
2) Friday night we went out to dinner with my parents and then went and spent some down-time at their house. K was not with us since he had to work, but it was nice to get out and do something different with the kids instead of our usual routine of killing time in the evenings after their dad leaves.
Other than that, nothing of significance has really gone on. I spent most of yesterday trying to prepare my talk for today and after that preparing my lesson. I don’t feel uber-prepared for either, so that is going to make me uncomfortable until this day is over. I will be hugely relieved when 4:30 arrives and church is over, so my talk and my lesson will be over by then for better or worse. Then I have a month to prepare my next lesson, and I just hope I will make myself start preparing earlier. My lesson will be the Sunday before Christmas, so it would be nice to do it up a little fancier than normal with some kind of fun hand-out. Of course, hand-outs cost money and that I don’t have, so we’ll have to see.
I’m still waffling on my diet plan. I haven’t done a fast yet, and I haven’t done and all-natural day either. With what we have in the house, all-natural would be hard to do. I could do it for at least one day, but I don’t know if we’d have the necessary foods to do it for more than that. I’m still considering WW, mainly for the accountability. K suggested I go into a contest with my brother for some cash – my brother lives in Atlanta and weighs about 10-15 pounds more than I do and he has a lot of health problems with it. But the thing is since he’s a guy he’d probably win the contest if he put any real effort in no matter what I did to try to keep up. I also find myself lingering on miracle pill commercials – you know the ones. The ones that say “this pill helped me lose weight so fast with little or no effort!” I’ve resisted so far, but mainly because I have no money. If I had money I’d probably give in to the temptation to try, even though my mind tells me they never work.
I haven’t started working out yet. Last Wednesday, I passed a few clots and bled heavily until Thursday morning. I concluded it was from all the physical work I did on Tuesday. It slowed down on Thursday and then was heavy Friday morning. And now it has stopped completely. I plan to start working out on Monday with a BWO+ and perhaps a walk. It has been 2 weeks and 2 days since the D&C.
I’m reading a book called “Running with Angels” that a friend of my family gave to my mom for me to read. It is very good and I identify with her so much in the book. The problem I find is relating to the huge mind-switch she had after a great tragedy in her life that helped her to have a different mindset about food, herself, and taking care of herself. I don’t want any more tragedy and my miscarriage hardly compares with her experiences, but at the same time I don’t know how to make that switch in my brain or psyche. I honestly think a huge part of it needs to be spiritual and my spirituality is at an all-time low right now. I have work to do there, renewing my habits of daily scripture reading and prayer. And actually trying to communicate with Heavenly Father so that I can receive the help he is surely trying to send me if I would but be open to it.
Well, I need to take a shower so that I have plenty of time to do my hair before church. I want to look and feel presentable since I have to stand in front of the whole congregation to give my talk and then later in front of the whole Relief Society to give my lesson.
How do I get rid of the “all or nothing”?
Yesterday I did it all. All that I had planned to do. Except one thing. And today I feel like a failure.
Monday night, I made generalized daily schedules, menus, diet plans. I had a plan for each day, how it would lay out (unless something unusual comes up), one schedule for school days and one for non-school days. I had 2 weeks of menus planned out for dinners. I had my fasts and all-natural days planned out through the first week of December.
According to my plan, I will pre-pick certain housekeeping items from the house-wide list that I made to do the next day during the scheduled time frame. I did everything I had planned to do yesterday, including some organizing of both the kids’ rooms, some changes in the living room, dusting, and some storage organization on the stairwell ledge. I went to get my hair done during the time allotted to make dinner, so I asked K to make dinner. I got back a little later than expected, just in time for him to leave for work. I ate dinner, did the dishes, gave the kids baths. Put laundry away. During all of that, though, I managed to sprain my ankle. So instead of the short workout and the START OF A FAST that I had planned for after dinner, I didn’t work out, and I didn’t fast. After eating only 3 meals throughout the day without any snacks, I had a minor binge. Let me see if I can remember what it consisted of. Marshmallows, 3 fruit snacks, a granola bar, a honey sandwich, a plate of white cheddar cheezits with cheddar melted on top. A big glass of Nesquick milk. I think that’s where it ended, but good grief.
And then I forgot to pick out my tasks for today. So I’ve gotten nothing done today. I took the kids to playgroup, which I haven’t gone to in a few months. Since we all got up so late, that was really the first thing we had a chance to do after breakfast. I did unload the dishwasher before we left. But I didn’t start a load of laundry and now K has bogarted the washer for some of his work clothes, which he’ll wash, dry and then take out just what he wants to wear instead of putting it all away.
It is 1:46. According to the schedule I should be spending some time with P to teach her and play with her. I should be accomplishing my pre-set housekeeping tasks, and then I should be making dinner starting at 3:30.
I’m trying to mentally take it easy on myself. I can’t be perfect from the get-go. The playgroup was not on the schedule. I can still change clothes and get some cleaning done. My ankle is feeling a lot better so I might be able to work out tonight, a short one. And I need to remember the mental decision and commitment it takes in order to fast after dinner. I obviously wasn’t ready.
So, trying not to feel like a failure. Not really succeeding. Going to go change clothes and clean some stuff while P plays with her play-dough ice cream sundae maker. I’ve refused to let her watch TV today so far, and I’m determined to continue to do so. A day with no cartoons. Let’s see if she survives. If I survive.
226.5 this morning.
Married and divorced
It is Monday. The day I’m supposed to start ‘doing stuff’. It is 10:15 AM and so far, I’ll I’ve done is take P to school and come home for a quick nap and a dream about getting married and divorced from some guy that picks his nose and eats the result. I won’t go into more detail than that – it was VERY weird. Especially since the dream never explained why I wasn’t still married to my husband and how I managed to get married to this guy at a college tuition counter. Very weird.
So now I’m up, I’ve fed K2 some breakfast. I’ve had a fun-size pack of M&Ms and a granola bar. Not an auspicious beginning. Last night I finished my room-by-room list of everything that needs to be done around here. I purposely didn’t include anything on the list that I would like to do to the house, but that would cost me money. I also left off the things on the list that need to be done but that K has to do, either because I’m not strong enough or don’t have the house-maintenance know-how (mostly caulking). The list is two full notebook pages long, 2 columns on each page. I have to admit I’m overwhelmed. I know I need to make smaller lists of what I’m going to get done in one day. So I’ll try that. But whoa, do I have a lot of work to do.
228 this morning. Basically not even trying. It is mindless the way I’ve been eating these days. The desire to be chewing – to have SOMETHING to occupy my time that is effortless. Stopping that when I don’t even think it through first usually is going to be difficult.
Went to pick up P from school, went to two banks, one to withdraw and one to deposit, went to Veda to make an appointment to have my hair highlighted tomorrow (gift certificate from work). Now home again. Now trying to figure out if I’m going to even try and get something done today. It is cold and raining outside. Have to also decide what bills to pay, and which not to pay. Behind on everything, so I probably can’t catch us up on anything. But need to pay as many as I can.
First time paying bills on the home computer.
Comfy in My Skin 