Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I know its kinda like cheating...

but I'm not weighing in tonight. I know I gained because I wasn't following the plan and I didn't exercise with the exception of dodgeball and the work I've been doing around the house. I'm in a good mood. I don't want to ruin it. Next week, I'll be ready to go.

I got an email from my sister that she is having the EXACT same problem as I am. She gained about 15-20 pounds and she can't lose it. She's going to classes at the gym, watches what she eats and she said she'll lose just a little but then she's right back where she was. Her doctor thinks its a side effect of the medicine she's on. She thinks that might be my case too.

My question is, is it possible to lose weight if medicine causes you to gain? Or if you lose a little, will you be able to keep it off? Hell, I'll take sanity anyday over a size 10 pair of pants. So if the actually pounds want to stay they can. I'll just need to work on toning them up.

Miracles

I'm not a real religious person, as I'm sure I posted at some other point on my blog. Nine years ago this August, I was in a firetruck that rolled over 1 1/4 times on a highway. Based on physics of the accident we shouldn't have survived, or shouldn't be able to lead the fairly normal lives we lead.. There were three total on board. Two were found right away and no one could find me. My dad having connections with various people in the fire department, got word "it didn't look good" and they were pretty sure I died. It took personnel nearly an hour to find me under all the equipment in the cab, but they did. We all had significant injuries, but for whatever reason we were allowed to survive and achieve events such as graduation, marriage, kids, and home ownership. This is where my psuedo religion enters the picture. I don't know what or who protected us that day, but if you ask any of our friends and family, they'll agree it was nothing short of a miracle.

Around 645 am yesterday, we got a 911 call for "one not breathing" at a local residence. The text of our call said, "father not breathing, no pulse." This seemed as though it was going to be like every other cardiac arrest. Old guy is died in his sleep and the wife finds him when she gets up to start the day. The outcome is the same, for the most part. They remain dead.

We got on the scene and started treatment, gave some medicines, and by the time we were ready to put him into ambulance, he had a pulse and shortly after was breathing on his own. During the 15-20 minute ride to the hospital he started moving his feet. By the time we got to the ER, he was asking us to put on a fifth blanket because he was cold and wanted to know why his chest hurt (CPR). Some people (at work) act like a "save" is no big deal. Like we shouldn't have an emotion from it, but I'm not going to lie, I thought it was amazing. It's not amazing like, oh, the medics saved him because they're so smart. Really, we didn't do anything that took a whole lot of thinking. I do think its a miracle that someone checked on him at that particular moment in the morning and called 911 at just the right time and everyone did all the right things so this guy, who was dead, was revived and capable of yelling at me 45 minutes later because I didn't put enough blankets on him. Not only did he did he seriously come back from the dead, he didn't seem to have any brain damage from the lack of oxygen to his brain. This wasn't going to be one of those saves that spend the rest of their lives in a coma at a nursing home. He's going to go home in a few days.

The ultimate and truest miracle of all.....
In my past time of Facebooking I read a lot of one sided stories. I read a girl from my HS was pregnant w/ baby #2. It struck me as odd because I saw all kinds of "memorial" type poems, etc. before the baby was even born. I sent her cousin a message to see what was wrong.
This was his reply (names removed) :

"You are right about the complications with the pregnancy. The diagnosis throughout the whole pregnancy was baby B would have spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. We saw evidence of this ourselves in the numerous ultrasounds where the bones were very gray in color, smaller sized limbs, and a cleft pallet. The doctors gave zero chance of survival short of a day or two, let a alone a normal life. We were all getting prepared for a funeral service the following week.When B was born all the doctors kept saying they don't understand how he is doing so well. B doesn't have the cleft pallet that was seen on a ultrasound just 2 weeks earlier. His physical proportions are within normal limits, only a slightly enlarged head which the doctors are not concerned about. His skull and other bones are partial cartilage right now, but they expect them to be normal within 3 years.So there are some hurdles mom and her family will need to overcome, but B is expected to recover fully within 3 years and lead a normal life."

Can you even imagine being the parents of that child? To have planned the funeral for your unborn son and deliver a baby that should live a normal life. The doctors did nothing to fix the baby.....someone or something else did. An absolute miracle.....

Monday, March 23, 2009

It was a bad, bad week.

And I have no one to blame but myself. Trust me, I tried to blame it on someone or something else. I dont know how much I've gained because the scale and I aren't on talking terms right now. But that is okay. Today started a new week and I'm doing super good. I have more fruit packed with me today than a grocery store. I missed breakfast.....and lunch wasn't til 4pm. I splurged and had a Subway tuna sub. I just had a big ol' salad so I think that covers me in the veggie/fruit dept. I'm also nibbling on a Safeway brand frozen dinner, trying to decide if I like it. It smells good, but I don't think it tastes that good. Lean Cuisine is much better, in my opinion.

Anyway, it will be a good week. Plus, we're going to look at houses on Thursday!! Yeah!!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

I don't want to hear about it.

Ok. So I didn't get to the gym today. I know, I know, I said DEFINITELY. But, I think I did enough activity to equal the gym in addition to getting a lot of stuff done that I've been putting off. I spent 1 1/2 hours vacuuming and washing floors. Another 45 minutes (maybe more) was on laundry. I walked around stores for about 2 hours then scrubbed cabinet doors for about a half hour. I don't know how many AP's that equals, but I do know it is equivalent to an achy back. Tomorrow, I'm going to the gym. I have it worked into my schedule. I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow in order to make meals for the week. I'm going to the grocery store near the gym, so I gotta go. Either I go or I think Brian will pull me by the ear to get there. You think I ramble to you guys about me going or not going to the gym, or eating good and eating bad? Imagine being Brian. Back to the gym....my goal at least an hour of cardio. More would be better. I have plenty to burn off from this week. I'll have to schedule my trip around a movie or something on TV so I will be preoccupied. TNT is always a good bet for classic weekend movie.

I've got some good meals planned out for the week. I'm hoping I can make most of them tomorrow so we don't have to rush around cooking at 8pm some night. We'll be dining on Crunchy Onion Chicken with snap peas, meatloaf with mashed taters and beans or cauliflower (broccoli for him), teriyaki chicken and sticky rice, whimpies (sloppy joes), and pork tenderloin that I made for Brian to take to work. I still have plenty of cabbage and noodles leftover. I joined etools today so I can utilize the recipe builder. Its hard to figure out points for a meal without the builder. I figured out that my cabbage and noodles is 6 points for a VERY filling, large portion. Speaking of that, I may have to have Brian made some of that Rachael Ray Chili I posted about a while back. Oooh, I'm starting to look forward to this week and leftovers! (And saving $ by not eating out!!) But really....how many days til Easter? I almost broke down and had a slice of pizza tonight at the food court. Instead I dined on Boardwalk fries and grilled chicken smothered in cheese and probably oil. Yep, could have used 6-7 points on pizza. Instead I probably used a days worth of points in the fries alone. Well, let me explain myself....

I was a good girl and went to Subway. I was craving their tuna. I had 10 points left and I figured I earned at least 3 APs today so I was set. No chips. Just the sub and a diet soda. I waited in line and ordered my tuna. In the meantime, two other customers showed up asking for chicken and meatball subs. "Sorry we're out," said the sub maker lady. Ha ha, it was funny to me for no real reason....maybe because my sub was being made in front of me. It was time to pile on the veggies. No tomatoes. They are out. WTH? Fine, I decided that was okay. I paid, I sat and I started to eat. And then I stopped. I swear the tuna was dry like it was a day old or something. I was so disappointed. That is how I ended up drooling past the pizza place and ended up at the cheese steak place. I compared it to Steak Escape's points values and figured I was in an okay range. Til the fries. Ugh, will power. Where did you go?

Ok, so a few bad days. Its been a weird week. I'm ready for tomorrow. I even have notes to myself written. In my journal it says, " BE GOOD TODAY, MONDAY, and TUESDAY!! try to be the same or less for weigh in Tuesday. You need to stop being lazy and make some progress or you'll wear sausage casings forever!!" I'm sure I'll forget this when I wake up. What a wonderful thing to see first thing when I go to journal my breakfast. But if it works, I'll be writing myself nasty-grams all the time.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

On a mission

to get this place ready to sell! We've been dilly-dallying around but that all changed yesterday when we found a house we want. We can't buy til we sell..... I'm super excited! And I figure with all the work I'll be doing, that will count towards some AP's. I might even make a trek up to the gym today depending on my progress in the house.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Come out where ever you are

A while back I added FEEDJIT to my blog just to be nosy and see what areas of the county read my blog. At the time I'd been blogging for quite some time and was convinced it was just my friends and family checking it out. It was awesome to see that people from all over the country were reading and it seems like I have some regulars stopping by. Apparently I've gone international. I even found I have readers from places like Canada, Norway, Britain, and Pakistan. Anyone interested in introducing yourself or at least letting me know where you are from?? Feel free to leave a comment.
1. EVERY part of my body hurts from playing dodgeball on Wednesday night, especially my butt. I thought it was all fat back there.....good to know there's some muscles.

2. Coming off a loss week, I haven't been doing very good in the eating department. I have lots of excuses like St. Patrick's Day and and eating wings at the bar that sponsors my team, being super bored at work and craving an omelet this morning. But I'm not going to tell you any of that stuff. Since I just woke up from my nap, and I've got four days remaining til I have to weigh in, my tracking starts now. (I'm saying the omelet was from yesterday. The way I see it, my day doesn't start until I've had a big lump of sleep. That and if I count the omelet I won't be able to eat anything more today.) I am going to workout...I have it all planned. I'm hoping for today but I'll see how sore I am. If not today, DEFINITELY tomorrow. And I have home chore stuff to do so that will increase the activity points too.

3. Meal planning: I was doing so good. That's until I run out of ingredients, get lazy and don't want to spend money at the store. Apparently all that is doing is sending us out to eat which I'd venture to say is more expensive than if I went to the store. (Duh.)

4. Oh, the irony! My sister got a cat. Over a month ago she went to take the cat to get fixed, but the cat ran away. Eventually Tillie came home and her appointment was rescheduled for this week. Imagine my surprise when my sister texted me, "I took Tillie to the vet today to get fixed and the vet came out and said, 'Tillie's 45 days pregnant.'" HA! How ironic Ms Chickadee skipped out of the last "fixing," got knocked up, and got out of this one by being preggo. Anyone in the greater Rochester/AlfredUniv. area want a kitty?

5. Our furloughs may be turning into layoffs. I really didn't think a County such as ours would take the risk of laying off firefighters, medics, police and corrections---its not a peaches and creme kind of place. We don't have enough employees as it is to ensure safety, but layoffs are in the talks. Part of me is worried because I have 4 1/2 years on and employees under 5 years are the first (supposedly) to be laid off. The other part of me doesn't care. There is no sense in worrying about it. I can't do anything to stop it. If that time comes I guess you'll be seeing me working at Target or Pottery Barn or something. (Hell, might as well work someplace where you can get discounts on stuff you like. With talks of selling this house and moving elsewhere, we are a little worried about the work situation, but with Brian and I, we'll work through what we have to. Lord knows we've worked through TONS already.

6. I wish it would warm up already. I'm so tired of this up and down crap. Just pick a temperature already. For being the first day of spring its not all that pretty out.

My brain is empty now. There's nothing more to type.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Week 1

Lost 5.8 pounds. Got my first 5lb star. It's funny how sticker rewards work just as well in adulthood as they did in kindergarten. :)

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Its never going to end....

That's how I feel about this weekend. Its going to go on and on and on and never stop. This "hell weekend" at work only happens once a month but sometimes I think its a weekend too much. I work 24 hours on Wednesday. Friday I go in at 11pm and stay til 3pm Saturday. I get to spend 16 hours at home, then return for another 24 hour shift Sunday. Only this weekend its extra....I'm here from 7am today (Sunday) til 430-5pm Monday. Its hard to plan food for that amount of time. If I pack something, there's no guarantee I'll be at the firehouse at meal time. If we're out all day, we have to schedule our meals around what's open and that's not usually the healthiest place in the world. Oh well. I think I'm good for today and tomorrow. I think I did good yesterday, although to be honest, I didn't journal anything.

I have a new found love for Atlanta Bread Company. I was tired and cranky and starving when I left work yesterday afternoon. I stopped at Subway, took two bites of my sub and tossed it. It just wasn't what I wanted. Yeah, I threw some money away but the way I saw it, I was better with that than eating a bunch of points with the potential of eating more just because my craving (whatever it was) wasn't filled. (I did save the Diet Coke and Baked Lays.) I sat in the parking lot and searched through my Dining Out Guide. I read Atlanta Bread Company's values and remembered there was one a few miles ahead of me. I've never been there before but I will definitely go back. Their toasted cinnamon bagel and RF cream cheese was really good. All together it was 7 points (maybe less actually). I love Panera Bread's cinnamon crunch bagel, but the bagel itself is 8 points....thats not counting whatever goes on top of it---you really have to plan around that bagel. Atlanta's bagel definitely filled my craving. At the last minute I decided to stop at Brian's parents to visit with the family before I went to sleep. Since I had a little something before arriving I didn't devour every quiche and pig in the blanket I saw. I had a few and even though they were yummy, I knew when it was time to stop. WW life was so much better when I had more points to work with. That was one advantage to being heavier! :) ha. Working with 31 points as compared to my now 24, soon to be 23 is a lot different.

I was home, in bed with Baxter, by 7pm. I slept til 435 this morning. It was wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I could definitely head back to sleep and probably will at some point. But, its amazing how some sleep makes you feel so much better. I woke up ready to go---ready to journal and be on plan.

This weeks goals:

COOK: I have my cookbooks here with me today, so I'm going to make up a menu. Its so much harder to eat well when there's no food or leftovers in the house.

GROCERIES: Well, if I want to eat what I've planned, I gotta.

EXERCISE: I'm really going to do it. I have to. Figure if I'm going to do this I better go all in....not just eat better.

Good luck to Susan this week and her mini-goals! I hope it works for her. Good luck to everyone with their weigh-ins. I'm looking forward to mine. Mini-dilemma though...Tuesday is St. Patrick's Day. Going to have to find a way to weigh in and enjoy some St. Patty's Day festivities!! My meeting isn't til 530pm....may have to search for an earlier one somewhere......

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Ugh. I gave in a little.

I had a bad day and a half. I had a little bit too big of a "snack" before bed on Thursday. At the time I thought, no big deal.....then there was yesterday. I was really upset about something upon leaving for work last night. I made it within 5 miles of the firehouse and found myself pulling in to Burger King for a Whopper Jr and a Diet whatever they have. I ate it which made me feel better, but then I felt like a fat ass for giving in. So much so I couldn't fall asleep because I genuinely felt guilty. Here I am this morning, very tired, finishing out the remainder of my shift. Although I know I can't dwell on it, I'm still annoyed with myself. Thankfully, I brought my breakfast and lunch for today which will help get me back on track.

Another motivator? Seeing a recent picture of yourself. Lots of people look in the mirror and see a "bigger" them. Not me. I look in the mirror and see a smaller me. Then reality kicks in when I see a picture. I'm not okay with that person. Just another reason to keep going I guess.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Still doing it

I'm really starting to get excited about this. I'm still on plan, still haven't eaten pizza, and still WANT to continue. I did great today, if I say so myself. I stopped at Wawa fo coffee on the way home from work this morning and drooled a little over their sausage & egg sandwiches then a little more when walking past the Krispy Kreme counter. What did I do? Spend way too much for cut up apples, but I'm okay with that. I nibbled on the slices for the next 45 minutes in the car, drank my coffee and didn't feel the list bit guilty. I had a 5 pt bagel (with margarine) before my nap. This evening we went to Brian's parents for dinner since his grandparents were in town. The food was good, but I was totally under control. God, I could have eaten three more slices of bread and another serving of lasagna....or maybe try some meatballs but I didn't. I had the tiniest amount of meat sauce so I could wipe it up with my bread and I was finished. That was preceeded by a pretty good sized salad. I think I may have gotten all my fruits and veggies in. I had dessert but definitely didn't overdo it. Its amazing how well you can do when you plan ahead fo such occassions. BTW if you notice my r's are missing its not because I can't spell but because the stupid key keeps sticking.

I feel like maybe I'm presenting myself differently or maybe its just me looking at things differently but I feel like I have more support this go round. Thats good because I'll need it.

Non-food news:
I met Brian's cousins baby boy, Mason, this evening. What a cutie! And he's not one of those "oh he's cute" kids but he's really a hideous looking child, but a genuine super cutie. I love his hair all spikey. I'm sure with all the passing around of him, he was ready to head home. Unfortunately, according to his mom, it sounds like he will be up for a while.

If you want to watch an "Awwww" video, click here to see my boy Carter.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I'm back.

I decided to stop wasting all the energy I was using to complain and use it to better myself. I decided yesterday to go to a WW meeting. I'm so glad I did, although the weigh in wasn't pretty. :( I forgot how great a good meeting and leader (stop laughing Brian) could be. My old meeting was convenient because it was at a WW center, but it wasn't that personal kind of meeting. It felt like a lecture hall. This was different. Its only once a week so I can't keep pushing off weigh-ins til tomorrow like I did at the WW Center. Meetings are held in a church hall. There's something warm and inviting about a church hall. We sat at tables instead of rows of chairs. Its amazing how conversations just spark up when you're staring across at someone. With all this chatter I heard all the new food everyone tried over the past week and if they were good or not. I heard of different ways people got their exercise in. I LOVE my leader. He's probably my age and he's kinda funny, but is super supportive. Instead of the "me" stories other leaders have told in the past or the fake "yeah's!" when people annouce their losses, he walks right up to that person and asks, "how did you do it?" and "how do you feel now?" Amazing. No one asks the how do you feel now. A woman hit her 75 pound loss last night and you could see real emotion from her when he asked how she felt now. She said she never ever thought she could loose that much weight. She went on to say, she knows if she could lose 75 pounds she could stay on plan. That same woman said she comes to meetings because she likes all the "new, excited members." Sounded dumb to me at first, but she went on to say members that have been on plan for a long time just want to kick the plan to the curb because it gets hard, but the new members excitement encourages her to try to be just as excited and on plan as the newbies. I think there's some truth to that.

I came on a perfect night too. The subject was all about moving, exercise and why we hate to do both. My leader made a good point....WW isn't training us to be 5K runners. All WW asks is for some movement. Sometimes I think my activity points have to be 30 min on the treadmill or something. But standing instead of sitting burns more calories. He said walking the stairs during each commercial during a 60 minute show can be equivalent to walking 1.5 miles. Housework. Playing with the kids. Anything, just move. He had an equation on the board:

E=MF

Exercise = More Food

Why didn't I think of that? Just call me Capt. Obvious.

After the meeting I went to Staples and found myself a perfect steno notepad to journal as well as a "Mom's" calendar. Its a weekly calendar that has a spot to list all the meals planned for the week as well as a rip out grocery list. How great is it to plan your meals and your grocery list at the same time. I could do it on normal paper, I know, but this is more exciting. I'm definitely more excited to cook. I also found this website that has WW recipes. Cookbooks are sometimes overwhelming to me, so this is a much easier read.

So I really have a positive attitude. Maybe the most positive since my first go round with WW years ago. I pray it continues.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

RIP

Our washer just died a horrible death. It should have warned us it was sick so we could make arrangements.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Dodgeball anyone?

For some reason I'm always afraid to try new things, even if I think I'll like them. Its mainly because of that awkward, "hi, my name is Sarah," conversation. But, my friend Missy has convinced me to join a dodgeball team with her in Baltimore. I think it will be fun once the initial hellos are done. I also have a feeling there will be plenty of unexplained bruises.

We are addicted...

to Geni. Its almost more addicting than FB.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I've been in a blogging slump, as I'm sure you've noticed. I've been in a mood and I don't know how to describe it. Over all, I'm okay...like I'm not sick or anything. But "something" has been bothering me that has me feeling kind of, well, in a slump. I've been doing the emotional eating thing even though I'm not sure what emotion I'm feeding. Watching the scale rise then makes me feel like I'm a loser at the WW game even though realistically no matter how many times I say I'm on plan I know deep down I'm not. I've become a load and procrastination has kicked in big time.

The day has finally come that I've been threatening myself with for a year or so. Yesterday I found out the hard way I fit in only one pair of my uniform pants. And that single pair definitely was not easy to hook shut. I was scared to death to squat down because I swore they were going to split right up the ass.

I left for work all kinds of upset. How did I let myself get to almost 190 pounds? The little joke of growing out of my big girl pants has actually come true. Will this finally be my wake up call to get on plan the way I should? And for more than a week or two? I've given up on promises and "I swears." No one can hold my hand. I say I want support, but I have to support myself.

Driving to work all pissy yesterday I realized I haven't eaten pizza, my favorite food in the world, in over a week. The first few days sucked, but here I am alive without pizza and I'm not really even craving it. It took some will power. But I don't think I'll have a problem with no pizza til Easter.

Will that thinking work on all foods? To keep me in my points range til I see some results? I don't know. I know its all up to me. The question is, am I ready? I don't know. I just know I want to be comfortable in clothes, especially at work. I'm ready for those, "did you lose weight?" comments.
I'm jealous that my roommate from college is all gung ho about starting WW. I wish it were me. I wish I was ready to give it all I got.