What's on the menu today, RNYers? Happy Friday!

Oh Louise that sounds like a lot!  Just a visit from a mother can tip us all over the edge lol ;)  Your planned menu sounds good, and I bet you can make those kids do relay races and stuff!  

Good morning, Em! Sounds like you have a lovely weekend in store, from weather to cooking some yummy, WLS-friendly food. I hadn't planned much cooking this weekend, as I'll be spending a lot of next week cooking (relatives of the husbeast are coming in from out of town, and they're not going to want to eat out every night) so for the weekend it will be simple stuff for the most part.

Today's a "get back on track" day. I've been allowing portion sizes to creep up and making poor choices in terms of my food selections, so I've set up a nice clean plan for the day that I WILL stick to. No departures from the plan, no excuses! Some walking to ease back into the exercise thing, although I'm still not really pumped about doing more strength training yet. I think part of it (aside from the pain) has to do with the fact that so much of what my trainer gave me is floor exercises, and to be honest, getting up from the floor is really difficult for me at this point. I felt embarrassed enough lying on the floor doing exercises and looking like a beached whale trying to get back to the water no doubt, but then struggling to get up afterward was really a horrible feeling. I feel kind of sad, it's like the stuff I just got has killed my enjoyment of working out. Not trying to be a baby here, but if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing I'm just not going to do it, and I don't want to stop what I've been doing so far. So I'm considering skipping all the new stuff and just working on what I'd been given before, and telling my trainer at our next meeting "Nope, not gonna do that just yet." I'll do push ups and planks at home, where the only audience I have to worry about being amused is my cats. 

For today: Water - 40 ounces in, going to push for 120 ounces minimum for the day. Exercise - as above, walking and some strength training planned. Supplements - Morning batch done, rest on track. And for le menu -

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Pam I love that you are having Manwich sloppy joes!! As a Kid that was one of our FAVOURITE meals!  I still love the taste and smell... mmmm that's making my mouth water!

I hear you on the floor exercises and how hard it is to get up off the floor.  Could you ask your trainer for help getting up? Are you happy with your trainer, have you made a connection with him/her?  Don't be afraid to tell that person I am just not comfortable with this until I am a bit smaller and my movement is better.  But just to play Devils Advocate I have found in the last Seven months since I had surgery I have had to face demons and do things I don't want and change my WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE upside down and I made through and I could not be happier.  I am saying part of this journey is challenging ourselves and making ourselves do things we have not done in years.  But in the same breath don't do anything you are not comfortable with and that makes you unhappy, that's just not fun.  If you prefer to get down at home with the Kitties I say go for it, this is your journey and only you know what your comfort level is.  In the famous words of JLP (Jean Luc Picard)... "Make it so" Love it!!

Keep smiling beautiful, you are doing amazing and need to remind yourself you have LOST 100 pounds and YOU ARE WORKING OUT, major major accomplishments in my books babes!!

Hiya Daze! The sloppy joes may not be the best choice nutritionally, but it's a good choice for an easy meal for both me and the husbeast: I can put his on sandwich buns and give him a salad on the side, and mine just goes in a bowl, and we're both happy.

I hear what you're saying about pushing and facing demons. It's true, that's a big part of what needs to be done to make this journey a successful story for me instead of just another failed attempt at weight loss and getting healthy. I thought about this a lot since I posted this morning, and I honestly think that I've done a whole lot of challenging myself...hell, I signed up for a freaking gym, with a freaking personal trainer for goodness' sake! So I'm not feeling too down on myself about things at the moment. I had felt like the trainer and I had connected a little better than when we met originally, but when I thought about it I had told her on my second lesson with her that I preferred not to get on the floor (she was going to show me a hamstring stretch, so instead of the one on the floor she showed me a standing version instead) and here she had me doing a whole set of different exercises on the floor. So I'm thinking she's not really listening to me, and I'm back to wondering if I should switch to a different trainer. I'll give that some thought again.

Thanks for the support, hon! I'm a work in progress, yeah, and I need to keep remembering that and remembering where I was six short months ago.

/hugs!

Ugh, I'm sorry you're having such a challenging time right now with your workouts. While I agree with Daisy about challenging yourself and pushing outside your comfort zone, I also think that being miserable about going to the gym or exercising is sort of setting yourself up for failure. I don't know how long you'll be able to keep it up if you hate it and the goal is for life long change, right? 

You're already challenging yourself so much, I think that if the floor exercises at the gym make you uncomfortable, keeping them at home is fine, for now. I think you've connect pretty well with your trainer, so I'd take some time to talk to her some more about your needs, goals, and comfort level. Good luck! 

PS. I'm not even brave enough yet to talk to my gym about their trainers, so GO YOU! I know even that step can be a challenge.

You're right, Anny, and so is Daisy: I need to challenge myself and push a little bit. But I keep thinking about something Jackson Galaxy says on My Cat From Hell a lot: he talks about cats having a "challenge line". This is the point that you can push a cat up to, making them more and more uncomfortable, until finally you push them over it and they lash out at you. I think this stuff with the floor exercises is just my own version of a challenge line at the moment. Going to the gym, using weights and machines, etc. is bringing me right up to the brink of that line. Getting down on the floor is pushing me over it, as silly as that sounds. And honestly, I'd been enjoying the feeling of having worked out prior to this last session, and that's not something I'm willing to give up. So next week I'm definitely going to let my trainer know that anything that requires me to get on the floor is out, period. I tried it, and gave it my best shot, but at the moment it's not something I can comfortably (emotionally and physically) do. And I'm ok with that, because I know there's all kinds of other stuff I CAN do. And in time, I'll revisit the other stuff as well, but I need to work up to it. Challenge lines can move, and mine will, I'm confident.

I so appreciate you and the support you give! Thank you!  /hugs!

Oh Pam...such a bummer that your training is deterring you :(  I don't blame you - getting on and off the floor isn't as easy when we are a little heftier ;)  I agree that it might be good to really sit and talk to her.  There are a zillion things to do in the gym that do not involve the floor.  Push-ups against the wall, abs on a machine, etc.  My trainer has me do 45 minutes of non floor stuff and we end with 5 minutes of planks and abs, but if it was making me feel uncomfortable/in pain, I would have him drop that.  I know it can be embarrassing to say "I can't do that" because we want to be capable (especially those of us who are, ahem, perfectionists!) but you will like the gym a lot more if you are doing things that you like, that are comfortable, and that don't cause you pain.

While I do agree that new things that we fear are good to incorporate, but if getting on and off the floor is really an issue for you at this weight, hold off for a little while.  Ain't no shame in your game!

Also very impressed you have realized your food choices and portions are creeping up (clearly a problem we ALL had pre-surgery) so good call on keeping them in check.  I wanted to stress eat SO bad yesterday and was thinking about your and Anny's posts yesterday with your coping mechanisms.  While I didn't grab a slip of paper from a basket (though it's a super cool idea) but I made myself portion out a dinner, and call an old friend to catch up, and go to bed early.  I was really happy that you guys were commenting on that :)

I do plan on talking with her one more time before changing trainers. I'll reinforce my earlier comment to her about not wanting to get on the floor, and see where that goes. She may have just forgotten that we'd talked about that, and was trying to get me to incorporate more stuff. We did talk a little afterward, and I'd asked her why we keep changing things up so much. I'd found myself getting a little frustrated that every time I thought I had gotten a routine going, at the next session she gave me all new things to do and told me not to do the old things anymore. That has been difficult for me to deal with, as I don't feel like I'm finding any sort of groove. She explained that the package of training sessions I'd purchased was intended to give me a wide exposure to things I *could* be doing, and that I was supposed to decide which ones I liked doing. Well, that wasn't the philosophy I was thinking of at all, I was thinking that she was helping me build some sort of routine that I would continue with after this particular batch of sessions ended, and so I was thrown all for a loop. (Yeah, sometimes I don't handle change well, I admit!) Being a perfectionist, a completionist (I want to check off *everything* on the list, every time) and impatient is very bad juju, apparently. So, as usual, I'll keep working at it and keep thinking of this as being a work in progress. I hate using the word "journey" most of the time, as I think it's a little cliche, but this really is, isn't it. There's no simply going from point A to point B, it's a continuous series of steps from A to B to C to D and on and on. And I need to keep remembering that.

Sheesh. They never told me there'd be so much navel-gazing involved post surgery! 

The food thing, yeah, that's been me falling slowly into old habits and ways of thinking. I'm so glad I've got this group, because it makes me think about my choices more, and makes me more accountable. I know I "have to" come here and talk about what I'm doing, and that helps me go "Holy crap, I'm making really bad choices here, and I need to stop right now!" That's invaluable! I'm glad to hear that you're getting some benefits from it as well! Now I need to follow my OWN advice apparently, LOL!

/hugs, as always, my friend!

You got it Pam!  If certain exercises made me feel uncomfortable or weird I wouldn't do them either.  There are millions of ways to strength train, make your trainer find some that work for you!

I definitely will, Louise. Thank you so much!