wednesday wrap-up - week 7

I was so looking forward to having an excellent report for you all. I had also thought that I'd be posting here every day. Alas, that's not the case!

The cold I had a couple of weeks ago is still around. It's a wacky bug which is now affected my head. I had a killer sinus headache on Monday. It was so bad that I actually had to leave work early. I went home and got into bed and felt much better after a couple of hours of sleep. Today, the headache came back though so I had to resort to taking some drugs because I didn't want to leave the office again today.

Fortunately, in between episodes with the cold, I've had some good days. On the weekend, we did a fair bit of walking (until I started to feel like crap on Sunday afternoon). We're trying to get into more of a routine to walk together, with the dogs, in the evenings. I realize when we are doing it, how out of shape I am but I'm determined to keep at it. Even if we just do a lap around the small block, I feel good about that. Eventually, we'll expand it and when I've conquered that, we'll expand it further. I'm taking my time with this so as not to discourage myself. Walking with the cold does make things more difficult while I'm doing it but afterward, my cold symptoms go away for a little while so that's pretty good.

Anyway, the wrap-up isn't really awesome this week but I'll do one anyway!

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending March 24

• vitamins and water - back on track on both scores. The cold made me want to drink lots of water in an attempt to flush the crap out of my system
  
• didn't post here as much as I'd wanted to
  
• bought a buttload of gorgeous produce on the weekend and have been enjoying snacking on berries and apples and other good things
  
• gave into a bad craving for potato chips while I was really sick but here I am, being honest about - bully for me huh?
  
• feel good about my first attempts at a coordinated exercise plan. Now that the nice weather has returned to my part of the world, and all of the ice is melted, there is no long an excuse to avoid it so I'm getting out there and moving my considerably huge butt. Yay me!
  

deliberate

Happy Spring folks. It's freezing cold here today even though it's officially spring. I shouldn't complain really. If we'd had a day like this 2 weeks ago, it would have felt balmy. Funny how quickly your body can adjust to a change in the temperature isn't it?

I wish that my body would adjust to other things as quickly. Today, I've deliberately made my meal portions smaller and my tummy is grumbly. In a few days, I'll have adjusted again to smaller portions but for today, in addition to being cold, I feel like I could eat a small horse. Well, a small horse sized clump of some kind of food I enjoy.

For now though, I'll grab another sweater and eat my carrots and be grateful for the sunshine.

Missing in inaction

I feel as though I should explain my unplanned absence of the past few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, it got bitterly cold around here. I’d been feeling like I was fighting a cold bug, a little run down, achy, you know how that goes. Everyone in my office had been sick but I had resolve. I would not get sick. The weekend arrived and rather than give into the bug, I kept busy and felt better. I mean, we got some things done around the house and I was able to sleep in and generally go at my own pace.

On the Sunday afternoon, again, it was way cold. Sunny but bitterly cold. I went out onto the deck with one of our dogs. I was wearing yoga pants, a t-shirt and a sweat shirt and leaned against our deck railing while Gracie did her thing. I straightened up, walked back into the house, sat on the couch and experienced massive pain in my back.

This has happened to me before, but not for a good long while. I think it was a combination of stress and the cold, more the bug than the actual temperature. I was laid up for 2 days at home. I crawled back into work on Wednesday and was feeling “okay” by the weekend but really had to limit how much time I spent either at a desk or on my feet. Last week, I started experiencing hip pain. I know it was caused by the funny way I had to walk when my back was messed up. That hip pain eventually migrated to the knee area and is now in my calf. It only really aches toward the end of the day and I am feeling much much better.

Last week, in an attempt to move my old bones and get the achy parts loosened up I did some walking. I wish I could say that I was on a regular exercise routine but I’m not. I also wish I could say that I compensated for the lack of activity by making consistently good food choices but I can’t say that either.

Chocolate has been consumed (not in mass quantities but in larger than I should have), chips have been consumed (although without dip – that counts for something, right?). I did buy some ice cream treats but managed to buy the sugar free mini-sized ones. Overall, it wasn’t a binge fest but it wasn’t great.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing much better. I’m feeling better too and that will help me too. It’s a little too easy to “treat” yourself when you’re laid up. That’s when I shouldn’t be doing it but, well…. you know…

I want to get totally back on track and to do that, I need to post here. It keeps me honest and focused.

not much

I feel like I should have a post today but I don't have a lot to say. I've been online only hit and miss this week because my computer at home is needing a new processor and we won't be getting that sorted out until the weekend (maybe).

Off and on this week, I've felt like I'm getting a cold or flu. On Tuesday, I felt really lousy and took some cold meds and felt better. I'm having the same symptoms again right now. I've taken another dose of the cold meds but my head is pounding still and I feel a little dizzy.

I have a lot to do here at work this afternoon but I think I'll be hitting the bed as soon as I get home, instead of hitting the old exercise bike. Honestly, I'll be so glad when winter is over and all of these horrible germs are gone.

hope you all have a good weekend!

wednesday wrap-up - week 3

I've spent the week on what feels like a food roller coaster. I've had my good moments (the ups) and some moments I've not been so proud of (the downs). Overall, I do know that when all is done and dusted, I've had more ups than downs but unfortunately, not enough to show any significant results. In the past, I'd have blamed the time of the year, the changing weather and general malaise that happens 'round here at this time of the year. Of course, all of those things come into play but ultimately, I should be stronger than that and I wasn't.

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending February 25

• vitamins and water - back on track on both scores. I took those vitamins every day and have been chugging the water like it's going out of style. I do notice an improvement in my skin and I thank the H20 for that
  
• due to computer issues at home and busy days at work, I've not posted as often as I would have liked to. Hopefully, by the weekend, my home computer will be back up and running
  
• discussed the treats at work situation with my co-workers. We're throwing all of the crap out and everyone is going to make an effort to not bring stuff in. We always all complain about and yet some folks continue to bring it in. We'll see how it goes!
  

no remorse

Friday night, before we went home, we stopped for groceries. My hunny had driven past the store on his way to pick me up and he commented that it was really busy there. As much as I would have liked to have put it off, I knew that if we didn't go on our way home, we may go home, order a pizza for dinner and that would start the weekend off on a bad foot.

The store was really busy but we got through it pretty quickly. We stocked up on lots of healthy snacks. Once again, almost no packaged food was in our buggy, just stuff from the outside aisles of the store.

Over the weekend, the nagging hunger pretty much stayed away. On Saturday night, because we'd not been out to dinner in over a week (which is very good for us!), we decided to go out for sushi. It's an all you can eat place but you order from the menu. We've been there before and really enjoy it. I had my favourite salad (with deliciously fresh avocados) and we ordered lots of sushi. It was super filling and very satisfying but I was still jonesing for chocolate after dinner.

On the way home, we stopped off at the drug store so I could get a chocolate bar. that's right, I broke down. It was so good. And I didn't eat the whole thing that night. I savoured every bite and enjoyed some of it yesterday too. I realize now that rather than make myself insane trying to feed a craving with something else, it's better for me to indulge in a small amount of the real thing, just once in a while. I think I'm good on the chocolate front for a while now. I'm glad that I waited as long as I did but I don't feel badly about finally giving in.

the hunger

For some unknown reason, the past couple of days have been really challenging for me. On Wednesday and Thursday, I just felt hungry all day long. Even after eating my meals, I'd still feel hungry. The temptation to snack was intense. Fortunately, we don't have any junk in the house so the small amount of snacking I did do was on stuff which wasn't horrible. All the water and gum in the world wasn't helping, which is odd, because it usually does.

Today I don't have that nagging hungry feeling like I did yesterday. I keep trying to figure out what caused it. Perhaps the weather has something to do with it. It has suddenly become very cold here again after a few days of pretty moderate weather (for this time of the year in this part of the world anyway). Yesterday I felt sore and cold and it was damp all day. I wonder if just wanted to comfort myself with food. Whatever it was, I tried to fight it. I did eat a couple of extra portions of sugar free jello along the way but for the most part, I just tried to ignore it.

It's a good thing I did too because if the weather hadn't been sort of dicey, I would have been jumping in the car and heading to Tim Horton's for something chocolatey and cake-y or to the grocery store for something in the Ben & Jerry's family. Not good. Well, actually, really yummy but not at all what I need right now.

Hopefully, whatever it was is over for now and I won't be struggling to stay on track all weekend. I am looking forward to a time when this all becomes second nature again.