KS-Julie

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Well, I am down at 146# but certainly not due to any exercise I did for the week.  I cut my calories back to 1,250 since I wasn't exercising, but I could tell my weight loss was slowing down, my muscles were losing their tone very quickly,  and I felt like a slug overall.  Yesterday was the first day I'd done any serious exercise in close to 2 weeks, and let's just say that it was a shock for my body (850 calories of cardio).  LOL  I'm sore today and expect to be even more sore tomorrow.

But I do feel like the worm has turned and I'm back to feeling good about exercising again.  So it's the treadmill for me today and then the treadmill and gym again for me tomorrow.  I'm once again trying to drop 2# this week, so I hope to be 144# by Monday.  That will make 100# down from the highest known weight I had.  Can't wait to get a Century Card.  :-)  Maybe some of this recent exercise avoidance was a milder form of trying to self-sabotage as I approach a major goal.

And on a side not, I have discovered the lowly sweet potato!  Another good veggie for my arsenal against fat.  :-)  I got some good suggestions on how to prepare them this morning on the Forum and even accidentally discovered a new one all on my own.  My first one was eaten with cinnamon (which several people suggested), but when I pulled my second one out of the oven, I started remembering how much I like pumpkin pie spice (a mixture of cinnamon/ginger/nutmeg/allspice) and tried that instead.  Yummy!

Well, I did make it down to 148 by Monday but only because I got my period and blew off some water weight from bloating.  This has been a bad week for following my program.  I haven't felt any desire to exercise since last Tuesday.  Other than doing a lot of painting (which has given me quite a few sore muscles), I haven't been doing much at all.  I have to renew my BLS certification this morning, but when I get home this afternoon, I'm going to force myself to treadmill and see if I can jumpstart my mood.

And my eating was just as bad Wednesday through Friday.  Wednesday I ate appropriate foodsbut just too many of them.  I grazed pretty much the whole day.  Then on Thursday, I branchedout into bad foods: Doritos, bread sticks, you name it.  I then over compensated on Saturday and Sunday, barely eating anything at all.  That's going to put a big speed bump in the path of my metabolism.  Today, I'm trying to stick to my eating plan perfectly.  I just went grocery shopping last night, so I have plenty of all the foods on my plan.

I'm going to shoot for 146 by next Monday, which will definitely require me to be back on track.  I'm still trying to pick what my reward is going to be when I get to 139 pounds.  I'm waffling between getting my teeth whitened and starting up regular chiropractor appointments again to help with my various orthopedic problems.  If I can just get myself going again, I'll hit the Century Club in 2 weeks.  :-)  Guess I should probably have a prize for that too. LOL

Well, for the first time in 15 years, I have a Normal BMI again!  :-)  Prior to getting pregnant with my oldest son in 1992 at the age of 26, I had always had a Normal BMI.  Little did I know that during 3 consecutive pregnancies I would change from having a normal weight range of 120-125 to one fluctuating between 225-244.  Binge eating of sugar due to 24-hour morning sickness coupled with a sudden cessation of exercise (I had always been active) dramatically changed my health.

On the down side, I've entered into my "fun" PMS period.  Bloated squishy tummy, lower back ache, vicious temper... oh what fun!  My cravings over the last 2 days have been relentless, but I've stayed strong (I did, however, consume a bizarre amount of burritos).  This despite having to go buy $115 worth of cookies/chips/pop/etc... for a large meeting my son was supposed to bring snacks for.  That was fun.  Not!  I hope my dang period shows up SOON.

I obviously made my goal of 150# by today, so it shouldn't be very difficult to shoot for 148# by next Monday since I have already dropped to 149# as of this morning.  I need to introduce some fruit back into my diet though.  Since my diet consists of mainly my protein sources (protein bars, wraps, frozen dinners), the only produce I've been consuming much of is salads (usually eat a large Caesar every evening).  Going to try to add some berries....

Well, I wasn't an Easter bunny casualty!  I went to my family's Easter lunch and only ate filet mignon, meatloaf, and beans.  At Mark's family's dinner, I had one hamburger and a deviled egg.  No candy, no dessert!  Nada.  This is the first holiday occasion in two years that I haven't been out of control for.  Yay me!  So I made my 152# goal and will set my sets for 150# on next Monday.  That will make this my very last week in the Overweight category since once I hit 149, I will be Normal.  :-)

I also had a real shock when I tried on some small clothes from my closet.  My size 10 jeans had been getting somewhat baggy around my hips and waist but were still alright on the thighs due to all the extra skin.  However, they kept sliding down, and I was constantly having to hitch them back up.  Just for kicks, I pulled a pair of size 8 Misses Gap jeans out of the closet Sunday morning so that I could guesstimate how many weeks it would be before I could get my thighs into them...and they fit!  They are tight on my thighs, but they are actually just right on my hips and waist.  That was a real shocker.

They must have really changed the sizes over the last 15+ years cause I distinctly remember wearing 7's when I weighed in the 120's.  And if I can fit into an 8 right now at 152, then I guess I'll be a lot smaller than 7 by the time I hit 122.  I'm curious to see what size someone 5'5" and 122# wears now.

Well, after the previous week where I ate way more than I'd wanted to at a medical conference over dinner, I was really dreading this last Friday cause I had an all day conference from 7:45 to 5:00...so two tempting meals to get through with people eating all around me.

I headed to the breakfast buffet tables strong in mind and body and completely ignored the vast array of muffins/sweet rolls/etc... and walked away with only a small plate of fresh fruit and a tiny glass of grapefruit juice (there wasn't any water out on the table).  I'd brought along a protein bar for mid-morning but dreaded the big sit-down lunch that was coming up.

As I'd expected, the center of the lunch tables was laden with desert choices (cherry cheesecake, frosted carrot cake, etc...), and I had to smell them and look at them all the way through the salad and entree.  I only ate the beef and the broccoli off the main plate along with a single whole-wheat roll out of the heaping bread basket.  But I just knew I was going to break and eat a dessert...I was obsessing like mad.

But I won out!  And that's something that almost never happens when I get a really strong obsession going.  I sat there while everyone except the elderly diabetic man on my left ate at least one dessert and stayed strong.  That's the first time in a very long while that I've been able to wait out something I was obsessing over.

So I had no problem hitting my 154# goal this morning (actually hit it yesterday morning) and am setting my sights on 152# by next Monday.  Now I just have to get through the family Easter dinners on Sunday...eek!

Well, I had a medical conference to attend last Wednesday night which included a dinner.  I had the best of intentions heading over there that I was just going to eat the meats and veggies, but by the time I finished my salad, the bread basket which had been taunting me from the middle of the table won out.  I will commend myself that I only ate one roll and that I chose a whole wheat one, but the devil in me buttered it as well.  The main course was pretty healthy (filet mignon, baked salmon, steamed veggies, and some rice), but it was a huge meal compared to what I've been eating recently.  And then I really lost it and ate the damned cherry cheesecake they'd served everyone too.  :-(  God knows how many calories was in that sucker.

And, as usual, it had after effects as well.  I was so full still by the next morning that I didn't eat at my normal times, waited way too long to have my first meal (which triggered some pretty strong rebound hunger), and barely drank enough water to stave off dehydration.  So by that night, I found myself gorging on chicken taquitos.  Ugh  Fortunately, those 2 episodes were my only falls off the wagon this week, and I did increase my exercise temporarily to help counteract the calories.  Since I got my period and blew off all my bloating, I did make my weight goal of 156# by Monday (yesterday) despite my 2 boo boos.  I'm shooting for 154# by next Monday which should be pretty easy since I'm already down again this morning to 155#

I'm still dreading the approach of Easter.  I'm going to avoid buying any chocolate for the kids, but I'll have 2 different large family dinners to attend...and both will have too much food...which will of course be high-fat/high-sugar.  Maybe I can contract a sudden stomach bug that morning and beg off attending!  LOL

This whole week was pretty ordinary with nothing much to report other than I'm just starting my lovely PMS bloating phase. Ugh!  At least I didn't gain any weight, but my abdomen's all pooched out and squishy...I feel like a water balloon...my cravings are all weird...and I'm snapping everyone's head off. Or in other words, my normal PMS state LOL  I'm sitting at 158# right now, and I'm going to shoot for 156# by next Monday since I'll drop weight pretty easily once my period starts.

Normally, I'm not much of a pudding eater, but with the weird cravings, I ate a LOT of pudding this weekend.  Saturday I consumed an entire box of instant SF/FF butterscotch pudding (4 servings for 280 calories), and on Sunday I ate an entire box of SF/FF pistachio pudding.  I'm going to try to avoid pudding today since the only real nutritional value in it is from the skim milk.  Not really sure I need to be living on artificial fillers/flavoring/coloring. :-)

My hubby Mark is home all this week since the school where he teaches is on spring break.  Hopefully, I won't tear his head off before he heads back to work next week.  LOL  I've had this weird low-grade fever all week that sort of peaks in the late evening/early night.  Not sure if it's related to my current PMS in some way, or if I'm fighting off some minor infection.  But I felt like I was roasting all last night. :-(  Left the window open, kept the ceiling fan on, kicked off the sheets....

Anyway, hopefully I can keep on track this week with everything since Mark will be sitting around all week eating crap in front of me and luring me onto computer games instead of exercising. :-) 

Well, apparently my old shorts/pants that are 6 sizes too big aren't quite cutting it anymore since they almost fell off my 160# butt yesterday at the gym while on the elliptical! LOL  Fortunately, I'd already decided that my "reward" for hitting 159 would be some shopping on the Victoria's Secret website.  I'd looked the other day, and the sale section had some good yoga pants and exercise shirts available.  So in another 2 or 3 days, it will be shopping time for me.  Goodbye 3x t-shirts and size 22 shorts!  (I'm size 10 in my old jeans right now.)

I haven't quite decided what my 149# prize is going to be yet.  I keep waffling back and forth between hiring a personal trainer at the gym for a while or getting my teeth whitened.  Both are something I'd normally never do, but 149 will be a HUGE milestone for me since it will mean I will finally have a normal BMI again (something I haven't seen since 1992).  Usually, my rewards aren't quite so expensive, but I want to make this one very special.  I have a pattern of self-sabotage every time I get close to passing a major milestone.

I'm shooting for 158# by next Monday, so I plan to hit the gym 3x this week instead of 2 (and I'm back to my daily treadmilling now that the basement is mostly stripped).  The next big roadbump I see on the horizon is Easter.  I'm thinking of focusing on coloring hardboiled eggs with the kids (I've never binged on eggs) and substituting quarters into plastic eggs for the kids' hunt rather than chocolate.  I'd rather not have any chocolate in the house because it WILL lead to a binge.

Well, I did make yesterday's goal of 162 pounds but only by treadmilling like a maniac over the weekend.  I was actually ahead of schedule the previous Monday since I was already 162.5 by that point due to dropping some PMS weight suddenly and had 6 days to drop only half a pound.  Then along came Wednesday, my husband's birthday.  Ugh!  Birthday cakes are a bad trigger food for me, so I had tried to plan my day in such a way that I wouldn't lose control.

The day started out fine...had my normal snacks at 6:00 am, 8:30 am, 11:00 am, 1:30 pm.  But that's when things started going wrong.  I got pressed for time and ended up missing my 4:00 pm snack before heading to Hutchinson for Caitlin's 2 hours at Sylvan.  My gym time is during her Sylvan hours, so I ended up doing 2 hours of hardcore exercise on an empty stomach.  Two strikes against me at this point.  Then we had to stop and get my husband's b-day present on the way home (takes another 30 minutes to drive home), so I didn't walk in the door until 7:30 pm.  I hadn't eaten for 6 hours and had exercised on top of that, so I was RAVENOUS.

My plan had been to walk in and eat my usual Caesar salad for dinner and catch up on the last of my water.  Instead, I walked into a kitchen counter with an array of food.  (My sister-in-law had wanted to help out and had brought over some edible birthday fare, something I had intentionally avoided buying.)  Monster cheese enchiladas with sour cream and all the fixings, a massive Boston cream pie (literally like 10" tall), and a frosted chocolate b-day cake that Caitlin had picked out which was big enough to serve 50 wedding-size pieces.  (There are only 5 people in my family.)

It kind of goes without saying that I lost it.  I binged on everything till I was almost to the point of throwing up.  Then had to lie in bed in my food-induced coma (so much for a fun evening with hubby).  The simple fact is I'm a sugar addict through and through.  There is no such thing as a normal relationship between me and cake/cookies/pie/chocolate.  I have to face that for the rest of my life.  All I can do is take my Wellbutrin to help my compulsions (all of them, not just for food), drink my water, exercise, never go more than 3 hours without snacking, and always keep appropriate foods at hand.

So anyway, it took me the rest of the weekend just to undo the damage (I bet I consumed roughly 4,000-5,000 calories during the binge.)  This week I'm going to do my regular diet and exercise plan, but I'm only going to shoot for being 161 by Monday.  I'm on the last week of the basement clean-out, and it's really been dragging me down physically (plus all the stairs have flared up the meniscus in my left knee).  I want to make this an "easy" week, so no hardcore obsessing about weight.  Next week I'll go back to the usual 2 pounds a week, but right now I need a break to get this stinking basement finished.

Well, I guess I get an F for regular blogging! LOL  The bad news for February is that just about everything that could go wrong did; the good news is that I didn't put on any weight during all of it (I'm sitting at 164# at the moment).  Yay me!

First off, I did break and binge Valentine's Day, but it was odd.  Unlike at Halloween where I binged on little chocolates through bags and bags (consuming many pounds), I was physically unable to make it through even the first bag of chocolates.  I started eating these little Nestle Crunch hearts and only about 1/4-1/3 into the first bag I started feeling nauseous and faint.  My pulse was racing, and I felt weak as a kitten.  Maybe I was having sympathy dumping after reading so many post-op's forum stories.  :-)  Anyway, I lost all desire to consume chocolate that evening and didn't end up having any more for the rest of the month.  Maybe my body is becoming intolerant to the massive binges I was capable of in the past.

Stress-wise February has been a banner month though.  I had my annual mammogram, and the radiologist thought he saw a mass in my left breast.  Numerous additional views later plus an ultrasound, he finally decided that maybe it was density changes related to weight loss.  Phew!

Then because I had sent Caitlin (the daughter I was home-schooling) back to public school this fall, I decided I really ought to think about heading back to work at some point this spring.  I decided I would send out ONE application a month till May when I would actually get serious about looking for a new PA position.  Well, you guessed it; I put out ONE online application and their personnel director had called me by the very next day to come in and interview.  Ugh!  So off to get my hair colored and buy a suit I went.  She interviewed me the very next day to see which of their positions I was most interested in, and I should be having my second interview (this one with the physician himself) in about a week.  (I chose the surgical urology one over the oncology and pulmonolgy.)  Despite not actually wanting to go back to work this soon, I am actually kind of excited about it.

Next, one of our cats has gone missing, and of course it was Caitlin's favorite one...Mr Stubby.  We've looked for him for several days with no luck, so this afternoon it's sign time with a reward.  I think someone has picked him up and is keeping him (he's a beautiful neutered male Ragdoll).  He was in the house 99% of the time and usually only went outside for about 15 min every morning at 5:00 am.  I've never seen him go more than a block's radius from our house, and we live in a very tiny town.  And, thank god, there are no smushed cats on the streets anywhere.  Hopefully, the reward will trigger someone to return him.

My 14-year-old son who had the bad left arm fracture from falling off his horse in January is apparently allergic to the cast material.  (Two years in orthopedics and I'd never seen anyone allergic to a cast!)  So after he was in the longarm cast for the first month, they were unable to put him in the shortarm cast he was supposed to wear for the next month.  All the k-wires were removed from the bone in case they were part of what was causing the reaction, and he's now wearing this little flimsy velcro brace since it's our only option.  Hopefully his next x-ray in March will show enough healing that he can start some gentle physical therapy cause he's lost most of his motion at the elbow and wrist for now (as well as a lot of finger movement).  He was supposed to start Scuba lessons soon for a trip he's taking to Australia in June, but those may have to go by the wayside now.

Now for the piece de resistance of stressful February happenings!  Picture a 2,000 sq ft basement filled to about 6' high with boxes and piles of accumulated junk from our family, my parents, my grandparents, and even further back.  Then add in a flood which saturated almost everything down there.  Enter the catastrophe relief company we hired to clean the basement and eliminate all traces of mold before we remodel down there.  Now picture me sorting through endless quantities of moldy belongings filling dumpster after dumpster and overflowing 2 different storage units and 2 different horse trailers.  Needless to say this has completely de-railed my usual exercise habits because I spend all my time sorting, lugging stuff up and down the stairs, and collapsing into bed exhausted at night.  But I suppose lugging 50# Hefty bags up the basement stairs and off to whichever destination is a suitable alternative. LOL

Anyway, hopefully March will be a bit more peaceful (although I do still have at least 2 more weeks sorting in the basement I would estimate).  A week from tomorrow would be March 5th, so I'm going to shoot for 162# by then.  I'm behind the schedule I'd set for myself, but this whole basement clean out has messed all my plans up, so I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with what's possible for now.  Once the basement's finished, I think I can get back into my regular exercise program again.  :-)