poifectly on plan

So, yesterday was a perfectly on plan day and today is shaping up to be the same. yay! I'm feeling really great despite the fact that TOM is really kicking my butt this week. Last night, after dinner, I felt really crummy but I had a good night's sleep and have been okay today. I'm having a really productive day at work too (which is nice!).

I work in a room with 4 other people. Today, 2 of them are away (one is sick, one is on vacation). A 3 officemate decided to bring in a big ass box of TimBits "because it's Halloween." She's had them on the corner of her desk all day. Now, this person was all pissy earlier in the week because she was up 2 pounds at her WW weigh-in. Eating little balls of fat all day is NOT the way to get those 2 pounds off. Sheesh. She has lost a lot of weight but she lost it quickly and didn't workout so she's really quite flabby. She is obsessing about losing 15 more pounds. I know that if she just picked up some weights and did some serious toning exercises she'd lose the flab and look terrific. As it is, she shops in the "miss" department and none of her clothes seem to fit her properly (she's around 45 I'd say). Anyway, all that aside, bringing a family pack of TimBits into a room for 3 people is just stupid. I've been successful at not having any but I didn't really need this. Stuff like this usually sits down at reception where I don't have to walk by it every 5 minutes!! /rant

It seems sort of weird that November starts tomorrow. I always think about that old Morrissey song "November Spawned a Monster" at this time of year. Hopefully, the monster it spawns won't be a holiday eating machine type of monster. I'll have been at this for 10 months on the 6th of next month. The biggest challenge of the year will no doubt be Christmas. I got through Easter and bbq season relatively unscathed. Hopefully I'll be able to stay strong during Christmas. I'm already planning on doing very little baking. I usually do a lot and give it away but not this year. No one really needs it. I will do some ruchelach for my little old guy but other than that, I don't plan to bake much else. I just don't want to have it in the house.

Hope you all have a very happy Halloween tonight and are able to stay out of the treats!!

sunshine day

Thank goodness the sun is shining today! We've had a lot of gross, dreary rain lately. This morning, I was away from my cubicle, covering for our receptionist and could actually feel the sun's warm rays on my back while I worked. It was heavenly.

When I woke up this morning I had horrible cramps. TOM had arrived with a vengeance and I felt like crap. Like a good girl though, I did my exercises. I felt like hammered crap while I was doing them but toward the end, my cramps subsided. I had breakfast and my shower and actually felt like somewhat normal when I left the house for work. So far today, I've only had to take one Aleve. Usually, on the first day of TOM, I'm popping them like candy. I actually have an appetite too which is good. I'm just having my lunch as I type this.

Shopping and dinner last night were relatively uneventful, thankfully. We took the little old guy for his groceries, picked up a few odds and sods for us while we were there. I bit the bullet and bought my stuff for Halloween too. I had planned to go out last weekend and find some really fun / cool non-food related item for the kids but didn't get to it because of being laid-up with my back. I ended up buying a box of cheetos and a box of doritos. That gives me 120 things to give out. Now, last year I had more kids that than but not much more so buying a 3rd box would have been way too much. This way, I'll probably run out and won't have any leftovers on Saturday morning (yay!).

You'll note that I avoided buying chocolate. I just can't have those little bars in my house. I can't and I won't! I will convince myself that baby carrots are way yummier! All I can say is thank goodness it's apple season. The local apples are really good (albeit small) this year. They too are a pale substitute for mini-Cadbury bars but what's a girl to do? I'd really like to be another dress size smaller by Christmas...fingers crossed...here's hoping!

Two posts in one day! That hasn't happened in a while.

Here's this week's Wednesday Weigh-in:

Do you do better with a structured plan or do you prefer some flexibility in your plan with eating and exercise? What is your idea of a structured and flexible plan? Is there a plan that you can compare it to?

After much reading and research, I devised my plan for myself. From what I see, it's very close to a Weight-Watchers plan. I would have liked to have gone to WW but with the amount of weight that I have to lose, it would have cost me a flipping fortune. The support I needed, I found online. The regular weigh-in, I get at my doctor's office. Neither of these things cost me a dime.

My plan is structured to a point. I keep track of what I eat and what I do (exercise-wise) on Fitday. I limit the amount of calories I take in on a given day. I have goals in fitday as far as total amount of fat, amount of saturated fat and cholesterol. You could definitely call my plan "low fat" because I eat a lot of carbs, fruit, veg, whole grains. I eat lean meat, the only dairy I eat is yogurt (I drink soy milk and have cut cheese almost completely out) and very little bread. The cool thing about what I do is that I don't get hungry because I eat a lot of food in a day but it's good food, healthy, whole food.

The first few months on the program, I didn't allow myself any treats at all. I knew that I had to be really tough to get the crap out of my system If I really need some cheese or bread or chocolate, I get it outside my house and that works for me. I don't deprive myself of anything in particular, I just limit the number of times in a month that I allow myself to have certain things and I definitely have limits on the sizes of portions. Now, 10 months into it, Saturdays are break days. If I'm going to have a treat, it's going to happen on Saturday. I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be because I've figured out (finally, it only took 36 years!) how to balance stuff. Also, if I fall off the wagon, I don't stay off, I get back on.

I allow myself less flexibility with the exercise. I exercise 5-6 days a week because I have to. I actually enjoy it now, my body needs it and I miss it when stuff comes up (Family emergencies, illness) that prevents me from doing it. I never thought that this would happen.

I know that this is working for me because it's customized to fit my life. Because this program is forever and not just until I get to a certain goal weight, I had to keep it flexible or I'd never stick to it.

Thanks for the good wishes and healing vibes. They totally helped, really!

I'm feeling a little less zombie-esque today. I still feel a bit stuffy and achey but nothing like what I was dealing with yesterday. My hunny is all better and back to work today too so that's good. He was feeling well enough last night to actually cook us dinner. It was fabulous, tasty and ridiculously low in fat. Thank goodness we both love to do stir frys or we'd starve. My eating so far this week has been perfectly on plan and I'm really happy about that. I had another great workout this morning and other than that, there's not too much news to report today.

After work, we have to take our little old guy for groceries and we'll probably go out for dinner. I'm going to vote for Swiss Chalet. le Chalet allows me to remain perfectly on plan and still enjoy a dinner out. Other places that he likes to go are dicey at best (Denny's, Montanas, Chinese buffet....). This way, we all get something we like and I can stay on plan easily. Thank goodness for nutritional information on website huh?

By the way, did any of you watch Fat Like Me the other night on ABC? It was a program devoted to childhood obesity. As my hunny and I were both fat kids, we were interested (thanks to Robyn for sending the info out about it on Monday or we would have never known about it!!). We had taped it on Monday and watched it last night after dinner. I was really surprised by how big many of the children were. They featured a program geared toward fat kids and their families that teaches them how to make a healthy home and how to incorporate physical activity into their lives. A lot of what they were talking about is stuff that we've done this year since we started our program. I hope that school districts are able to fund more programs like this because I would have loved to have participated in something like that when I was a kid. Had someone taken the time to deal with the issue as a family problem, just not a "me" problem, I doubt very much that I'd be keeping this particular blog right now, if you know what I mean. If you missed it and notice that it's being rebroadcast at a later date, check it out. I thought that parts of it were pretty interesting.

The sickness is in the house.

I'm pretty sure that what happened with my back over the weekend was a deadly combination of a cold and pms. The back pain is gone but my head is kind of stuffy. I've been fighting off something for the past couple of days. My hunny is sick at home right now. He left work early yesterday and stayed home today. His cold is completely in his head and he's been having muscle pain in his neck and shoulder. It's a weird bug whatever it is. Hopefully it'll pass quickly.

Yesterday was a great eating day for me. Kept on plan and we even ate out last night. I took hunny for a bowl of soup at this little Vietnamese restaurant in our neighbourhood. I had tofu and veggies in black bean sauce and it was really yummy. He had an enormous bowl of soup which the waitress didn't think he'd eat but he did. Whenever he gets sick like this, he heads for a big bowl of soup.

Today I'm feeling a little dopey. I've been feeling kind of stupid for several days now, I'm blaming it on germs!! I worked out this morning and really sweated. Profusely actually. It was a little gross in a good way. I think that I may have had a low grade fever or something. My head's a little groggy but I'm trying to keep focused and get fluids into me.

One nice thing about getting a cold / flu bug this early in the season is that I'll (hopefully) be building up immunities to really nasty bugs and won't get sick this winter -- touch wood!

I'm feeling SO much better today than I did all weekend. Whatever I did to my back kind of knocked me out. I mean, I managed to get around and get stuff done over the weekend but I was definitely not comfortable.

Riding the bike yesterday helped to loosen me up a lot. I got back on it this morning too. I didn't touch the weights again today because I don't want to push myself too much. I'll monitor the situation but I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll be able to pick them up again. I just didn't want to twist myself the wrong way and end up back on the heating pad.

Eating was pretty bad over the weekend. As I mentioned yesterday, Saturday was a bit of a wash out. Yesterday started out with good intentions but I ate too much at lunch and dinner. I just felt hungry all day long. Fortunately, I'm feeling better today. More normal than I have in a while. I'm also back on the water again, lots of it. I started that yesterday and am feeling the benefits already. One should never underestimate the power of water and multi-vitamins!!

I didn't post yesterday because I couldn't comfortably sit in front of the computer for any length of time. I woke up yesterday morning, sort of stiff and sore. The kind of stiff and sore that I get when my back is acting up. I'm hoping that it's just connected to pms and when tom arrives it'll be gone. It's not normally connected to tom but who knows.

I managed to crawl into the shower, get dressed and go out for groceries. By the time I got home I was pretty wiped out. When Mark got home from work, we went to the Asian market for a few things that we were out of. When we got home at 1, I was zonked. I spent the entire afternoon in bed, on the heating pad, watching movies on cable.

I didn't sleep well last night and got up pretty early this morning. I decided that I'd try to exercise and I'm hoping that it's helped. I avoided my weights but I did do a 4.14 mile ride on my recumbent bike. Hopefully my back will loosen up and I'll feel more human today. Eating wasn't great yesterday but it was our break day. I didn't have breakfast and then I had a Harvey's burger for lunch and toast for dinner. Not a fabulous day huh?? Today should be better, back on track. I think I'll go have my bowl of cereal and my cranberry juice, my tummy's starting to rumble. Have a good Sunday all!

It's Friday and the sun's shining and I feel good about the fact that I have worked out before heading to the office each day this week. Earlier in the week I mentioned that I wanted to work on my water intake this week. I've improved that a little bit but still not near what I'd like to be drinking. Oh well, there's always the weekend right?

The weather's been cooler here this week and I've been getting into my sweaters again. A couple of times this week, I put something on and had to toss it back into the cupboard. Some of my tops are so big they look ridiculous on me. I'm not sure if my mum can do anything to them but I'd like to see if a couple of newer tops could be taken in. I'd love to be able to afford to go out and purchase an entire interim wardrobe but that's not going to happen. I bought 2 new pairs of pants and 2 tops recently but I can see that most of my current wardrobe is going to be too big in the not-to-distant future. Yesterday I wore a skirt and top to work and felt goofy in them. They were really baggy on me and it's true what they say on What Not To Wear, bigger clothes just make you look bigger than you actually are. I'm hoping that I'll get a little bit of cash from Santa this year and will be able to go out in January (when everything's on sale) and get some new stuff. Hope so anyway!

I'm a day late on the Wednesday Weigh-In this week:

Do you feel guilty over eating something bad or missing a workout? If not, how have you overcome that?

I try not to as long as it doesn't happen too much. Working out is something that I've practically mastered now. It's part of my day, at least 5 days a week. Every week day, I crawl out of bed, pull on my workout clothes and exercise before breakfast. Saturday is my regular break day and sometimes I'll take Sunday off as well. 5 days a week of exercise is a million times better than what I was doing a year ago right now.

During the month of September, while I was in my crazy-nutty period at work, I kept up with the workouts. My eating got all messed up. I worked through lunch, worked late, and often had to grab dinner out on the way home. Our eating routine was a huge mess but the working out kept it in line. Had I not maintained my workouts, I know that I would have gained 10 pounds (not to mention I would have been incredibly stressed).

I work hard to not beat myself up about bad eating when it happens because a) it doesn't happen too often and b) I get back on track the next day. In the past, I would let small slip-ups side track me completely. I keep my eye on my long-term goals now and accept that "treats" or slip-ups are a part of life and they will happen from time to time. When I first started this process, I would not allow myself any slip-ups. The first 3 months were tough because I wanted to break my bad habits and didn't want to risk back-sliding. This worked for me because now, when I really want a treat, I let myself have it (but I have to REALLY want it). I have it a small portion and generally keep it outside of my house. This way, I'll have a cookie (singular!) not a whole bag of cookies. This works for me, ymmv.

There was much blogger weirdness happening this morning. I wasn't able to view my page, I could post to it, publish it...but couldn't load it in a browser. Fortunately, whatever was happening at blogger has righted itself.

I'm just grabbing a lunch break right now. I have a lot of stuff on my desk at the moment but it's not killing me. I'm just pacing myself and doing little bits of stuff at a time. Clean up after our big event usually takes about a month or so to get done.

I'm trying really hard to increase my water intake this week. It's something that I let slide a bit over the past month or so. I was not drinking nearly enough water during the daytime and I need it. I try to make up for it in the evening but that's a problem because I just end up running to the loo all night. I have been successful at getting back into my workout routine. Okay, well I've done it two days in a row this week (yesterday and today) but I know that I'll be on track for the rest of the week. Taking time off from work is nice but it can really throw you off of your routine if you're not careful.

Halloween is coming up and I've been thinking a lot about what to shell out. I want to give something away that's fun but that's not candy (I don't want my house to get egged -- yes, they still do that!). I asked the lovely ladies over the weigh-better board for help and they gave me some fabulous suggestions. Sugar free gum was a popular suggestion, as was a non-food item, like a small toy or something. One I really liked was to give out a package of instant hot chocolate. This way, the kids would have something hot to drink when they got home and were sorting out their candies.

The ulterior motive for this is that I don't want to have any "leftover" mini-chocolate bars in the house. If they are in the house, we will eat them. It's that simple. I know that the best way for me to deal with temptation is to avoid it. Once Halloween is out of the way, it's smooth sailing (holiday-wise anyway) until Christmas!

I was back to work today after my delicious long weekend. It was so peaceful and productive here at home. It made going back into cube-land that much more difficult. However, the blow of being forced back into the workplace was softened by a treat. We were taken out to lunch by one of our lovely volunteers. He wanted to thank us for helping him with an event he organized recently. We got to have lunch somewhere I'd never been before (a gorgeous country club). Our table overlooked the lake side of the club and we had the dining room to ourselves, very nice.

I had a really nice chicken Caesar salad and a diet coke. As we were all being "treated" we all dessert. I never have dessert anymore but my mouth was watering for a sliver of pecan pie. It was dreamy! It had been a good long while since I'd had pecan pie and I enjoyed every crumb of it. Dinner at home tonight was super low fat, mega high in veggies so it all balanced out.

This morning, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to the sound of thunder and hail. There was an incredible lightning show happening in our back yard too. It sort of jerked me out of bed though. I worked out before heading to the office and felt the better for it. Over the long weekend, I missed working out in the mornings. I must remind myself to keep doing it in the mornings, even on the weekend.

Just another follow-up thought to my sudden awareness of other people's body types...Over the past week or so, I've been rewatching my Sopranos Season One DVD Set during workouts (it makes the time just FLY by). I couldn't help but notice that the "Ba Da Bing" girls, while slim and busty, are not particularly well toned. Funny huh? I mean, if I ever get close to being as slim as those girls are, I hope to have muscle tone and definition and not a jiggle-y ass (my ass jiggles plenty right now, I'll be happy to lose that!). I find it funny how, since I've started exercising and working on my own muscles, that I find that to be more attractive and more healthy looking than just a slim body. I'm not talking about big body builders or anything, just definition. I think that muscle on women is definitely sexy!

brrrrr....

Thanks to Taylore and Denise for their comment about yesterday's post. I felt better after reading them. The thoughts I'm having aren't mean spirited but they're new and they were causing me some concern. I guess I just get so excited about the things that are changing in my life that I want everyone else to feel them too. I know though, better than anyone, that you have to come to this stuff on your own, when you're ready, or it won't work.

I was off work today. I booked today and Friday off and have enjoyed a really nice long weekend. I didn't "properly" workout yesterday but I did do a bunch of yard work yesterday and this morning. It felt great to be outside in the cool air and sunshine, working in the dirt and leaves. I'm going to workout this afternoon (slept in this morning --- soooo nice!) but will be back to my regular morning sessions again tomorrow.

Other than a few errands and working around the house a bit, we've had a pretty lazy weekend. It's been nice, well deserved and LONG overdue. One thing I've noticed though, being around the house for the past few days, is how chilled I get now. I never used to get that cold in the winter, unless it was January and we were in a big freeze. Now, I'm cold A LOT. I'm always pulling on extra cardigans and wooly socks when I'm home. My layer of insulation is getting smaller I guess. I know that part of it is the transition from summer to fall and that my body is adjusting to the cooler temperatures. I know though that part of it is also the less blubber thing. I guess I'll just have to schedule in extra workouts in January when it's really really cold out! When I'm moving my butt, I'm not chilled.

I don't mind though. Being chilly reminds me of far I've come. Kinda like having your pants fall off of you...It's annoying but it's not a bad problem to have!

I can not believe how dark it is right now. It's after 7 a.m. and it's still like night outside. I had planned to sleep in this morning but couldn't so I've been up since 6 a.m., puttering around the house.

Yesterday was a bit of a blur. I went out and bought a couple of new tops for work. I really don't want to put a lot of money into my wardrobe right now (because I know that I'll be shrinking out of it). I spent a fair bit of time wandering around the store. I know that over the past couple of years, I hadn't spent much time even looking at clothes because I hated trying stuff on. I just always knew that it would look terrible and not fit properly so why bother, right? The tops I got are a size smaller than the last tops I bought, they were 4x's. It is kind of nice looking at smaller sizes even if it still is a 4x. I'm so happy that it's not 6x or 7x anymore.

I had a bunch of other errands to do, banking, drug store, that kind of thing. Lately, I've found myself really paying attention to the sizes and shapes of other women I see. I can honestly say that I never paid much attention to what folks looked like before. I remember that I usually felt like I was the biggest person in the room, anywhere I went. Now, I know that this was not always true but it was often true. I find myself feeling a little bad when I look at someone and think "hey, my ass is smaller than hers" or "wow, I'm not that big anymore." I feel bad about this for many reasons, because I feel like I'm "judging" folks almost and I think that's wrong.

I also think it's wrong because, despite the fact that I've lost almost 80 pounds and am physically very strong and flexible, I'm still a fat girl. I'm still bigger than a lot of folks and I'm sure that lots of "thin" folks look at me and think "hey, my ass is not as big as hers." I have noticed recently too, that there seems to have been explosion (no pun intended) of very large women in my town over the past year or so. I've noticed this particularly amongst young women and I wish that I could say to them, "stop it now, trust me, you'll be glad you did...don't wait until you're 36 like I did" but I can't do that. They wouldn't listen to me, I wouldn't have listened to anyone who tried to say that to me when I was younger (although, I know that when I was in my early 20's, I was not as big as some of the young girls I see now). It feels like I'm being shallow and I'm not. I honestly worry about their health, like I worry about mine. Funny thing is that I don't feel this way if I see fat girl walking down the street or heading into the gym at school, if I see them heading down the junk aisle at Wal-Mart though, it's a different story.

I'm struggling with this because it feels wrong to me that I'm thinking and feeling these things. Do any of you have these kinds of feelings creep up on you since you've lost weight? I'd love to hear any suggestions you have for letting it go and not feeling like I'm being a judgmental bitch.

It's almost completely past my bedtime right now.

I had today off from work. It was pretty busy though. I slept in a little bit but did my workout before I headed out of the house. I had a great ride on my recumbent bike after yesterday's unscheduled break. I spent the best part of the day doing errands. I took our little old guy to his doctor and I saw mine (briefly), picked up his prescriptions, did some shopping...it was a busy day. I didn't get to see my doctor for very long as her secretary had double booked her for part of the afternoon. There were a number of emergencies happening and, let's face it, my appointment was far from life threatening. We had a quick chat about what had happened since my last visit. She said that the brief off plan detour was down to the transition from summer to fall. I think she's right because the same thing happened in the spring. I mean, I did have my busiest time of the year around the time summer was winding down and fall was arriving. She did say that she thought I looked great and was really happy that through it all, I'd kept up the exercise. I feel pretty good about that too. Even though my eating routine was shot to shit, I managed to exercise at least 5 days a week.

Anyway, I'll cut this short and toddle off to bed. 'night all

gas attack is back

Or rather was, last night. I'd not had one for a while but I think that stress and flat diet coke got the better of me last night. I was up almost all night with gas pains. Fortunately, they finally went away around 3 a.m. Unfortunately, I get up at 5 a.m. This morning, I slept in 'til almost 7 a.m. and did not work out. I've felt a little nauseous all day and haven't eaten much. I am really pooped though so I'll be having an early night. I vow to work out tomorrow morning, come hell or high water. I'm off from work tomorrow so it'll be easy to do that and sleep in a little bit.

Yesterday, I totally missed the Wednesday Weigh-In so I'm weighing-in on Thursday instead:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how knowledgeable would you rate yourself on the health and fitness scale? If you rate yourself on the low end, what are you doing to learn more? If you rate yourself highly, how did you get there?

I would rate myself somewhere in the middle.

I read about health and fitness constantly. Very little of what I read is old news to me. I'm really fascinated by some of the new studies that are coming out and I'm always happy to hear about new techniques for exercises. I figure that the more I learn, the better equipped I am to carry on with this program for the rest of my life.

I never used to spend much time reading or watching health news items but I'm always interested nowadays. I'd say that I have obtained a fair bit of health and fitness knowledge but I know that there is still a lot of stuff out there for me to learn. I'm sure that I'll never stop learning!!

For some reason, the food I've eaten today just tastes better than I remember it tasting lately. Odd huh? I just finished an Astro Fat Free Raspberry Yogurt and it was totally delicious. mmm...yum! For the first time in ages, I brought a sandwich with me for lunch. I had a turkey sandwich and it was really delicious, nice fat free turkey with some Billy Bee Honey Mustard on it. It's also fat free and is SO tasty.

I worked out again this morning and felt kind of sore as I got to the end of it. It was a good kind of sore though. It's that "Yeah, I exercised today and it hurts" kind of sore. I know that I really neglected myself over the weekend and I'm paying for it now.

Eating was basically okay yesterday. Much better than the previous week had been. We stocked up on good and healthy stuff over the weekend so we have lots of fresh veggies in the house. Dinner tonight should be good. If we don't go out with our little old guy, we'll have a tofu stir fry tonight. I could live on stir frys.

Other than keeping on track with my eating and actually having worked out two days in a row, there's not much to report. I must admit that I feel way better about myself when I'm eating good stuff than when I'm not!

I'm back at work today and back on program. I worked out this morning. I was a little stiff but it was a good, sweaty workout. I really felt it and enjoyed it. I felt completely invigorated when I was finished. Many thanks to you all for the comments about yesterday's post. I have a number of excuses for my "bad" behavior of late. Stress, busy at work, same old crap. Funny thing is, I cope with stress and life and everything better when I'm eating healthy food and being kinder to my body. Hopefully we'll all get back on track, together, this week, we can do it!! We deserve to be treated better than we've been treating ourselves lately!

I didn't get around the Progress Prompt last night, so here it is:

Describe your eating habits at mealtime. Do you think you need to change them in order to lose weight and get healthy? Where do you usually eat? Health experts are telling us not to eat in front of TV. Why?

This is something that we changed drastically, when we began this new lifestyle. We used to eat late in the evening, plates on laps, in front of the television.

When we changed what we ate, we changed how we ate it. We moved ourselves to the dining room table. We still have the TV on (some nights) but we're sitting up, correctly. We also eat much earlier than before. We try to have dinner over by 6:30 p.m., including clean up. One thing that helped to facilitate this was the purchase of new living room furniture (you don't want to get hoisin sauce on the new upholstery!). I did notice that my digestion improved when we started eating all of our meals in a seated position, at the table. Watching TV while you eat can be a very dangerous distraction. It's easy to not pay attention to what you're shovelling into your face when your mind is preoccupied with something on the boob tube. Overall, I think that the experts have it right. Get off that sofa and up to the "big kids" table!!

The weekend's sailing by. I'm feeling a bit better than I did on Saturday. I got some good sleep the past couple of nights and have been dreaming less and less about what happened at work on Thursday. We had our Thanksgiving meal at mum's yesterday. She had it at 1 p.m. which was nice. I like that she does that, you have the best part of the day to digest the meal. There was a lot of food and I had dessert and everything (pumpkin pie and maple ice cream).

mmm...I just realized that I didn't post yesterday. I guess there's just not to report these past few days. I didn't even bother weighing in on Saturday. My heart just wasn't in it, I couldn't be bothered to see that the scale hadn't moved this week. I'm fairly certain that it did not go down. I may have even gained a pound or two this week, it's been one of those weeks, if you know what I mean.

The past few days have not been on program. I mean, I'm aware of what I've been eating but I wouldn't say that anything is really "controlled" as far as portion sizes go. I also have not worked out all weekend. I have been doing a fair bit of work around the house but that's not the same. I'm getting back on track today though. My hunny is going to rebuild our computer later today and I plan to finish up my laundry, workout, and pamper myself today. We don't have any commitments today, no where we have to be so we can just stick close to home and veg out. I need a day to veg out, to recharge my batteries, to move my body in a healthy way and make myself feel good again. There has been too much self-indulgent crap in my head the past few days and I need to clear that out and start fresh.

As I've done and said in the past (well, since January), I will not dwell on slip-ups anymore. I will not beat myself up because I had a few cookies over the weekend. I will brush off the crumbs, get back on the bike and eat some fruit. I know that I can do it, I'm strong enough to not let the bad mood I've been in completely compromise what I've been working so hard on. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

As most of you know, I'm Canadian. For those non-Canadians out there, it's Thanksgiving weekend here. Tomorrow we will trundle off to my mum's for a turkey dinner. I'm not to worried about over doing it tomorrow because the meal is basically well balanced. I'll just avoid desserts and the super fatty stuff. My mum's not a big gravy / sauce person so her food tends not to be too bad, calorically speaking (can one actually speak calorically? Let's say, "yes," just for fun).

I'm still really exhausted and upset about what happened on Thursday. I haven't slept much this week, I keep waking up every couple of hours. I had yesterday off and did a bunch of errands and went for coffee with another coworker to talk about what had happened. The day basically flew away from me. We ended up sipping diet cokes by the waterfront, the weather was gorgeous and it was nice to get out of the house.

Today I've been doing major housework, all day. I'm into the laundry portion of the fun right now. We're sort of taking this weekend as a break from our program. We're not going totally nuts but we're not really paying attention to the counting of calories thing. I find that whenever we do this, I don't go too crazy because I just physically can't anymore.

Hopefully tonight I'll get a good night's sleep and be able to enjoy the rest of the long weekend. At least the bulk of my housework is done, that's a huge accomplishment. I totally neglected the place for the past couple of weeks. In another day or so, I'm sure things will be back to normal. At least my cold's gone. That's something that I can be thankful for this weekend.

I just got home from work. I was at a friend's house after we left the office. One of our really good friends and coworkers was fired today, without notice. It was pretty sick and disgusting.

I ended up not eating lunch and then having pizza and wine for dinner. Not good. What was good though was getting together with my friends after work, to deconstruct what had happened to support this wonderful woman who's been let go.

I'm really pooped and am heading to bed. Sometimes, work really sucks ass.

Here's the latest Wednesday Weigh-In:

Does the change in seasons affect your health, or your exercise routine? How do you handle that?

I get up around 4:45 a.m. to exercise. I get up, get dressed, workout, have breakfast & shower. Some mornings I may do a load of laundry while exercising, on the whole it's a pretty productive routine and I usually feel like I have accomplished a lot before I get to the office. I have come to realize that if I don't exercise first thing in the morning, I'm probably not going to do it. Several weeks ago, right as things at work started to get crazy, the mornings became very dark. This made it really difficult for me to get up at my normal time. As we got closer to the official start of fall, I was sleeping later and later. I was still working out but I was pretty out of it some mornings because I couldn't get going. It took me a few weeks to adjust to the change. Fortunately, I've gone past that now and will be okay until the time changes. At the end of the month, when that happens again, I'm sure it'll throw my routine for a loop for a few days until my body adjusts. I must say though that autumn is my favourite time of the year and I find it easier to push myself to exercise when the weather is a little cooler.

I'm back at work today. Back on track, back into my routine.

I got up this morning and my back was still a little twingey but I worked out anyway. I took it easy though and didn't hurt myself. I felt great afterwards and I could feel my back loosening up. It's going to be all better by tomorrow, I'm sure of it. Because I'm back on a normal routine, I am back to eating lunch again. It's so nice to have a break in the middle of the day. Lunch, what a concept.

I was supposed to see my doctor this afternoon but she had to postpone my appointment so I'll see her next week. Other than that, all's back to normal, or as close to normal as normal gets around here.

I'm sick.

That cold I've been fighting for 3 weeks got the better of me. I know that's why my back was bothering me yesterday (and continues to do so today). My head is stuffy and I feel gross. I haven't worked out and I can't keep warm.

I've got the flannel pj's on, the old chenille housecoat, the wooly socks and the homer slippers on. It's a lovely sight, ugh!



I just got up from a really good nap. I know that you're not supposed to sleep on a heating pad but a 45 minute cat nap can't hurt. Since I've been up, I've been catching up on some of my blog reading. Over the past few weeks I really missed keeping up with what everyone has been up to. I want to wish a belated Happy Birthday to Lose the Buddha! It's a whole year old now!! I was surprised on the weekend to realize that this blog is almost a year old too (well, 10 months). Where does the time go huh?

Overall, catching up, I see that everyone's doing pretty good. I mean, we all some weeks when we do better than other weeks but overall, everyone's staying on track. We're not letting little slip ups here and there defeat us. One of the hardest things to do is to not let the little mistakes get you down. I was watching Dr. Phil yesterday (Monday is Weight Loss Challenge Day) and he was talking about "right thinking" for weight loss. I haven't picked up his book yet (and most likely won't until I see it in a $3 bin at Chapters) but most of what I'm hearing about it is good old common sense that most of us have been applying to our own programs all along.

Yesterday, the participants were discussing their internal dialogues when it comes to their bodies and weight loss and he's right, most of us are our own harshest critics. If you don't believe that you can get healthy and fit, no one else will either. Kind of like what Fred says about it, if you live like a fit healthy person, you'll become a fit healthy person. I'm really glad that it seems like Dr. Phil is helping these folks so far. He's not being a bully, he's being a realist. I just wish that he'd quit making it sound like he's the first person to have come up with these ideas. I half suspect the was reading our blogs in preparation for these shows because so much of what he's saying, I read in everyone's journals, all the time.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit of a chill so I think I'm going to crawl back onto the heating pad. Happy Tuesday all!

I'm back.

This is the longest that I have gone without posting here since I started this blog. The weekend flew by and I was super duper busy. I had an hour or so off on Saturday afternoon, between events, but I was pretty brain dead. I spent the best part of the weekend outside, in a tent. It was cold, windy and rainy for part of the weekend so, despite the fact that we had rented heaters, the tents were damp and muddy. I was a mess when I finally got home yesterday. Achey and tired. I'd slept too hard in the wrong position on Saturday night and my back's been acting up again. I'm not really surprised though, after the weekend we had. Everything went well though, all are happy and my back will be okay in a day or so. Our director sent us home from work this afternoon. She couldn't believe that we'd come in to check email and voice mail and tie up some loose ends. I'll get some more lieu time off later on for all the overtime I've put in recently.

Over the weekend, I didn't eat a whole lot. This wasn't a good thing though and I'm sure that's why I was so exhausted and dehydrated last night. Our routine has been so thrown off over the past couple of weeks that I really did not want to weigh-in on Saturday. I was sure that the late night meals would have caused a gain, or at least a non-movement week but I actually lost 3 pounds last week. I'm not sure how that happened but I'm happy about it.

Because my back is bothering me, I didn't workout this morning but I hope to later on today if I feel better. I'm planning to get onto the heating pad shortly. Even though I'm really beat and am feeling like I've got a cold coming in, I know that I had a lot more energy this year than I did last year. I know that I worked harder and did more than I have in a couple of years. There is no way that I could have accomplished as much last year as I did this year, if I was still in the same shape I was in 12 months ago. What a difference the past few months have made. I realized this morning that I started this program 10 months ago today. 77 pounds in 10 months is pretty good.

I'm back to my regular routine again starting tomorrow. I go back to my doctor for my monthly check-in on Wednesday. I'm tired and my back's a little stiff but that's okay, everything else is just fabulous. I'm relieved and happy with myself. It's all good right now!

So, the biggest part of my job, the main project that we work on all year is this event that is big and annual (no Homer, it's not the Chili Cookoff). It starts tomorrow and it lasts for three days. It's why my routine's been out of whack lately. It's why I've been forgetting to eat. It's why I've been waking up in the night making lists to myself. Because of this, I've not been posting much lately. I have, however, been working out, very regularly and have been doing fairly okay with my eating. These two things are helping to keep me far more sane than any other year that I've worked on this particular event.

I don't know that I'll have a chance to post this weekend but I am going to try to workout every morning. If you have any good vibes to send my way, I can use 'em!! Happy weekend all!

I'm actually stopping for lunch today. First time in a week. I have lots of help today and it's making things more manageable. Over the past couple of days, I have been spending a lot of time running up and down stairs (literally running!) and hauling boxes around (up and down stairs). I noticed that I'm able to comfortably carry much heavier boxes that I could before and that the stairs are not killing me. I can run up and down them 2 or 3 times in a row without getting winded. It's a great feeling, I feel so STRONG!

Here is this week's Wednesday Weigh-In:
What was the best piece of advice or tip you've received in regards to weight loss and fitness issues?

It was a threefold piece of advice: take it slow, set goals and be realistic.

The "take it slow" thing makes so much more sense. It took me a long time to gain the weight and I can not expect to lose it over night. The longer it takes me to lose it, the better my chances of keeping it off are.

Setting small goals is so important for me. I have a large amount of weight to lose but if I break it down into 10-20 pound increments, it doesn't seem so overwhelming.

Being realistic applies to many things. I don't worry about being perfectly on plan all the time. This is not a diet for me, as I've said before, it's a total lifestyle change. This means that from time to time, I'll have things that are not "healthy" as a treat. That's being realistic. I also think it applies to my long term goal. What I'd like to weight and what I will end up weighing, may be two different things entirely and that's totally okay with me!