dog days

I'm feeling better about things today. I got in touch with some old high school friends yesterday and talking to them really helped me. I'm still quite surprised by how upset I was but that happens sometimes I guess.

Why is it so hot outside? The heat I don't mind so much, if there's a breeze. It's like trying to breathe through oatmeal outside right now. It's really gross and it's been like this for a week now. Even though we have air conditioning at home, I find that this weather really drags me down. I didn't exercise this morning because I was so sleepy. I know that the exercise would have likely helped me to wake up but I just couldn't drag my sorry ass down those stairs to do it. Worst part about it is that I don't even feel bad about not working out. I'm beyond help, I swear.

My eating has been really good. I'm guessing this is a byproduct of the weather too. It's hard to have an appetite in this heat. We had dinner at home again last night, pasta with lots of veggies and skinless, boneless chicken thighs. It still feels weird to smell food cooking in the house again, after so many weeks of doing all of our cooking outside.

I wish I had more to say today but I really don't. It's a short week around here because Friday is Canada Day. I've booked off Monday too so we're having a lovely four-day weekend. I'm hoping to get at least one day where I can sit on my deck and read "Tales from the Scale." I've had it sitting on my dresser for ages now and really want to read it. Fingers crossed, I'll get to it this weekend!

good and bad

hey folks.

Whenever I get the paper, I always go immediately to the death notices. This is a habit I formed over several years of working with seniors. It's something that I can't stop doing, no matter how I may try. This morning when I got my paper, I turned to the back as normal and read that a high school friend had died on the weekend. I don't know what the cause of death was but he was a guy who lived hard. He was a sweet fellow who I occasionally reconnected with after high school through mutual friends. We often discovered that we had mutual, non-high school, friends. I haven't seen him in a few years but still felt physically shocked when I read the notice in the paper. The shock was followed by an intense hunger and a blinding headache.

Many of us talk about how difficult it is to cope with emotional eating. This was the first time I ever experienced it in this fashion. Usually, if I'm "eating emotionally," I don't even realize it until it's over. Anyway, when it happened this morning, I realized it was happening, mentioned it to my office mate and let it go. The hunger pangs disappeared, the headache stayed for a bit (it's gone now, I've since eaten my lunch) and I'm okay. I mean, I'm still sad and shocked and a little sick about this but I didn't strap on a feedbag (i.e. doritos!) and chow down.

Ugh. I guess it is possible to see the good in something horrible. Even if it just that I don't have to eat myself silly when I'm upset.

weekly wrap-up

Did you have a nice weekend? After work on Friday, we went out and got groceries and ran our errands. We got everything done in a decent amount of time and didn't go out of the house again all weekend. Well, we went into the yard but not any further.

It was stinking hot here again this weekend. Actually, it was gross on Saturday but yesterday it was pleasant. It was hot but breezy, if you were in the shade it wasn't too bad. We did get a lot of stuff done over the weekend around the house and I realized last night that I hadn't been doing any between-meal snacking all weekend. That was good and weird. Usually I struggle on the weekends when I'm off my routine. This weekend, I kept just busy enough to not even be tempted.

Finally, this morning I got back onto the scale after a couple of weeks. I started looking at the numbers from the past couple of months and realized that from May 5 to May 30, I had gained 22 pounds. Sad but true, mostly fluid I think but not all. We ate a lot of take out during our moving chaos. Anyway, from May 31 to June 27, including fluid, I have lost 16 pounds. I'm 6 pounds away from where I was before all this moving nonsense started. With any kind of luck (I almost typed "lunch") I'll lose that 6 pounds in July and be into virgin fat by August. Won't that be nice?? Won't you all be happy to read about an actual shrinking girl instead of one who is either expanding or not changing at all?? I know I'll be happier writing about it!!

I'm going to try to get back to doing this regularly again, so here is my latest weekly wrap-up:
summary - week ending June 26

• Slowly got back into exercising again, actually rode my recumbent 2 days last week.
  
• I took my vitamins 7 out of 7 days this week
  
• exceeded daily water intake goal 7 out of 7 days

ick

I just got back to my desk after a quick trip to the loo. While I was standing at the sink washing my hands, under the fluorescent lights, I couldn't believe how horrible I looked. My skin is blotchy and I have gigantic black circles under my eyes. I know that I've been tired this week but I really look yucky. It's entirely possible that the fatigue is related partly to what I feel is an air conditioning cold I may have picked up earlier in the week and partly because TOM is due any minute now. I feel like I would actually frighten small children with this face, honestly!

The Monday-Wednesday-Friday exercise thing might have to be a Monday-Wednesday-Saturday exercise thing. I slept a little late this morning and just didn't get my act together to do it. Of course, when I got into work, I could get it together enough to have a piece of birthday cake (small piece, inside cut -- no sides of icing!). I did have it with some diet ginger ale. That must wash away some of the calories. gah!

Yesterday at the barbecue I honestly did okay. When I went home to get the car at noon, I had a small snack. When we got the cottage I had a couple of carrot sticks, some diet soda and a couple (not even 1/3 cup) of the new dill flavoured doritos. Oh goodness, they were good. I didn't think that they would be so good. Thank GOODNESS I was amongst friends who moved them away from me. Anyway, I had a veggie burger with lettuce and onion on it and some salad. I also had a tiny little itty bitty cupcake for dessert. It could have been much, much worse!!

Last night, for the first time ever, we cooked inside our new house. Our gas stove is finally hooked up and working and we had a delicious stir fry. We really missed having a stove. You can only have so many barbecues, you know?

This weekend, if all goes well, I'm planning to organize either my office or the rest of the kitchen and just take it easy. Ideally, we'll go do errands tonight after work and be able to just hibernate all weekend. I can't think of anything I need to do or places I need to be so a restful weekend might be just the trick to get rid of these hideous bags under my eyes!!!

hey

This is turning out to be a crazy week. I knew that it would be nuts at the office because there are a bunch of events happening this week but I had no idea that life at home would get topsy turvy too.

We spent all of Monday afternoon and evening at the emergency room with LOG. We really shouldn't have been there but his doctor sent us down. The first weekend we were in the house, he slipped in the shower and banged his shoulder pretty bad on his shower chair. The reason it happened was because we hadn't put the rubber mat into the tub yet. He got up early, before we were around, and got into the shower, not realizing that we hadn't done it. When he went to get up, he slipped and fell back. The result was that he was pretty stiff and sore but, luckily, no bones were broken. Now, he has a bad back (the result of a car accident he was in about 10 years ago) and this obviously aggravated it. Because of the pain, he stopped moving around as much as he had been, he wasn't eating much and he became very constipated. As you can imagine, this just added to his pain. Last week, the doctor came to see him and prescribed him morphine. MORPHINE!! Without x-rays, to a constipated man. Anyway, Monday, the doctor told me to take him to emerge for an enema. Fun huh?? He's feeling a bit better now but still not 100% so things at home are, um, let's just say tense. He's not feeling well, we're overtired and cranky and basically, LOG is a lazy guy who would rather we wait on him hand and foot than get up and try to move around (which I know helps because I have the odd bout of back pain myself) to loosen things up and actually feel better. We didn't get home on Monday until around 10 p.m. and we still had to be up at 4 a.m. on Tuesday so, the last couple of days we've been dragging our butts. It's been really difficult for us. I'm telling ya though, LOG is the poster boy for why you should look after yourself when you're younger. He's a mess and much of it is down to atrophy. I could go on but won't!!

So, looking after one's self. I rode again yesterday morning. This week I'm shooting for Monday-Wednesday-Friday to ease myself back into it. Yesterday was a little harder on me than Monday had been. I don't know if that's because I was so tired. I actually felt really crappy yesterday. I was at a workshop all day on Tuesday and I think I picked up an air conditioning cold. Ordinarily, I'm not that bothered by A/C but we were in a big ballroom and the temperature was frosty. I've been cold ever since. I just cannot warm up and that's why I think I picked up some kind of a cold. It's so weird. I know I'm a little run down too. I can't imagine what a mess I would be if I weren't taking my vitamins and trying to eat well.

Speaking of eating, it's been a pretty good week so far. I'm still not tracking but am doing okay. At the workshop on Tuesday, I ate some things I wouldn't normally (like cookies for afternoon break -- they were soooo good) but at lunch I had a lot of veggies and fruit so it balanced out. They actually had the best roasted veggie sandwich, I really enjoyed it. The salad was fresh and gorgeous and the fruit was okay. Some of it wasn't ripe but that's to be expected in these places.

Today I'm going to our office's annual barbecue. It's at our VP's cottage, east of the city. It's a gorgeous spot, on the river and it'll be nice to get away from the office for an afternoon but it could be a healthy eating challenge. Luckily I'm going with a weight-loss buddy so we'll help keep each other on the straight and narrow!

forgetful

I honestly forgot to weigh myself this morning. I fully intended to but didn't do it, it completely slipped my mind. On my way back upstairs after my workout (more on that later!!) I walked right by the laundry room, where the scale is, but I didn't stop.

After breakfast and a shower, I realized what I had done. Thinking back about it right now, perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing. The curiosity over the number is still in my head but I'm wondering if it's not healthier to not be so into weighing myself. Some weeks (when I think I'm doing really well), I do it every day.

Looking back over the past week, I didn't track my food at all and don't think I did too badly. I wasn't totally perfect but I was pretty close most days. For me, recently, it's been all about the "more good days than bad" thing. This week should be full of good days.

So, working out, intentional exercise, moving one's booty. This morning, I did it! Over the weekend, my hunny sorted out a big chunk of the basement and I was able to ride my bike this morning. I started off slow, on the basic 20 minute cycle but I managed to cover 4.66 miles. I felt every one of them too. I forgot how my butt can fall asleep on the recumbent. That'll pass, and I'll find my weights (haven't a clue where they are!). Eventually, we'll get the little tv we bought for the basement hooked up to a dvd player (and our dvd's will be unpacked) and I'll be walking away the pounds again. I did find my mat and my resistance bands so I'll mix things up a bit more as the week goes along. Today, I was really happy to get some stretching and a 20 minute ride in. I didn't have any trouble getting up at all this morning, in fact I was actually looking forward to it. I know that I've said this before but I'm still surprised that my body misses it when I don't exercises it and rewards me when I do.

Who knew huh??

hero worship

Please go over to Taylore's page and read about her trip to the gym. Talk about a huge ass NSV. She's totally my fitness hero this week, seriously. Anyone who can make good food choices while under that much stress deserves a lovely tiara!

My day is going pretty well. Yesterday was good too. Whatever this bug is that I've had (and I say had because today I'm feeling almost normal again) has very much affected my appetite. I'm not upset about it all though. I've been craving healthy foods. The food as fuel thing is kicking in, slowly. I have no doubt that the weekend, as always, will be a struggle. I may even forget at some point and have something "bad" but I won't beat myself up over it. I'm so happy with the way this week has gone, illness and lack of proper exercise aside, that I know my good choices totally outnumber the bad choices I've made this week. Very very few bad choices have actually been made this week. Who knows, maybe I'll even find my scale and get back on it this weekend.

good good good

I'm feeling a little bit better today, still not 100% but better. This morning, I would have given anything to have been able to sleep for an extra hour, seriously. The funny thing was, an hour before the alarm went off, I was wide awake and got up to pee. I had no trouble falling asleep again but so didn't want to get up when I had to, strange how that is sometimes huh??

I can report that yesterday's eating was very very good. I didn't track (again) but I know that I was within my calorie range and I didn't snack at all after dinner. This is a bad habit that I had gotten into when we were moving, absent minded, evening snacks. Not necessary, just a terrible habit. One thing I have been doing is drinking a lot of water. Ever since we moved and our new fridge was installed, both of us have become absolute water fiends. Sometimes I have it just on it's own, sometimes I have it over lots of crushed ice, others, over cubes. The water filter / ice maker thing in the fridge is worth it's weight in gold I tell ya!

One thing that I'm trying to focus on, and this has always been hard for me, is the idea of food as fuel instead of food as recreation. Admittedly, we're both foodies, we love good food, heck my hunny is a French Chef but, we're both working on changing how we think about food. I'm trying to stop myself before I pop something into my mouth these days and force myself to think about whether it's good for me or not. Now, this doesn't always happen but I figure that the more I work on it, the more I'll do it and eventually, I won't even think about it anymore. My feeling is that if I can retrain my brain into approaching food this way, maybe I won't have to track and record and count. I get so tired of doing that. I think that's why I fall off track, it all gets boring.

Anyway, I know that it's early but so far today is going really well and I expect that the rest of the day will too. Fingers crossed, huh?

where'd the week go?

It's been a while huh?? I'm still here, still struggling along.

Ordinarily, I post on weekdays, either early in the morning or on my lunch hour. Last week, I had a couple of lunch dates with friends and things were just generally very busy so my posting time was eaten up (mmm...wonder how many calories it has?)

Over the weekend, the gym didn't get totally set up. We worked on it some but mostly, I worked in the kitchen. I unpacked a few more boxes, did some cleaning, basically made some more room in there. Even if we had fixed up the gym area in the basement, I wouldn't have been working out. I've been sick for the past couple of days. I'm back at work today but I'm not feeling all that great so I may leave early if I can.

I haven't stepped on a scale in over a week, I haven't really been tracking what I've been eating and there's been no official workouts. Not good huh?? I wish I cared. Isn't that terrible to say?? Yeah, well I'm saying it anyway. Honestly, we worked our buns off over the weekend so that was a lot of calories burned. Even though I'm not tracking my meals, I'm not going too crazy. Being sick has sort of ruined my appetite (thank goodness for small favours huh?).

Anyway, as you can tell, there isn't much to report but I felt I should pop in and write something to let you all know that I'm still very much alive. Hope you're all still alive too and are having a good week.

humpity do dah day

I can smell rain. It smells delicious and, I think, is calorie-free. There is foundation-shakin' thunder happening, folks, I think we are going to get us a storm! We are in desperate need of some rain around here, hopefully it'll pour all afternoon!!

So, it's hump day again. How does that happen?? The week has been very busy, good busy though, not the bad kind. I had all kinds of intentions of getting things done that aren't getting done but I am getting other things done so, again, all good.

My eating is getting better, particularly yesterday and today. I'm getting very excited about my plans for the weekend. I have it all worked out how exactly I'm going to get the "gym" sorted out. I am really missing my morning exercise sessions and want to get back into it as soon as I can. I'll have to take some before and after pictures so you'll have an idea of just how big a mess I have to sort out in our basement. Still, it'll be worth the work in the long run if we have our own exercise space!!

just quiet

I don't have a lot to say today, really. I think I'm starting to get used to our new bed. I slept a lot better last night than I had the night before although my back was a little stiff when I got up. I first noticed that happening last night. We were watching tv and I was laying on my side. When I moved to get up, the middle of my lower back was sore. It was a kind of an "overuse" sore, know what I mean? Once I got half-way across the room, it was gone. Same thing this morning, once I got moving around it disappeared so I figure it's just an adjusting thing.

By the weekend, we should have an exercise area cleared out in the basement. Last week, I picked up some of those foam, interlocking squares that you put on the floor, to use in the "gym." The basement isn't totally finished so there is a concrete floor down there which can be kind of cold. I also bought a small tv (13") to put in there. We just have to get at some of the boxes and move them around before we can actually exercise there.

It'll be nice to get that all set up properly. I'm really happy about having my own exercise space. Working out in the living room is okay but it'll be nice to leave things set up all the time and not worry about the LOG falling onto stuff.

I know that I'll feel better once I get back into my exercise routine. I've fallen quite behind in the "going nowhere" challenge and I'd like to regain some miles in June. Anyway, as you can see, not much to say today. Hope your day is going well. Stay cool!

new week

I had all kinds of great plans for the weekend. Sadly, most of them didn't happen. High on my list was getting caught up from the sleep I'd been missing out on. On Saturday morning we did sleep in but I was really stiff and sore when I got up. For the past few months, we'd been talking about getting a new bed. Every time we'd start talking about it, we'd realize that our house wasn't big enough for us to get a king sized bed. On Saturday afternoon, frustrated by the aches and pains we were both feeling, we went out and bought a new bed. It arrived yesterday and it's lovely.

The queen sized bed we had been sleeping on, in it's day was a very good one. I paid a lot of money for it and it's done me well over the years. For four years, I didn't sleep on it (we slept on the mattress my hunny brought with him when he moved in with me -- it was 10 years old at the time). When his old bed finally died, we started sleeping on my old bed again. I bought it in 1988 so, it's well past it. It's actually not a bad bed, for a couple of nights but so we're going to keep it in our guest room. The new one is huge but it's not so big that it totally fills the room. It felt weird having all of that extra space last night though.

Honestly, my hunny slept like the dead but I didn't sleep well at all last night. My annual performance review at work was this morning. On Friday afternoon, I got myself into a state and convinced myself that I'd be fired. Stupid? Paranoid? Irrational?? Yeah, I know. My review went very well. I haven't been fired. I was really nervous though, all weekend. I even freaked out a little about spending the money on the bed, we should be saving it, in case I get fired. So, I didn't get fired, we did get the new bed and I shall sleep on it tonight, and have a restful sleep, not the up every 30 minutes and then toss and turn for 10 minutes kind of sleep I had last night.

In addition to shopping for a bed and then having to run around and find linens for it, we had company for almost the entire day (and for dinner) on Saturday and then different company yesterday. It's been great to see everyone but yikes, it makes it hard to get stuff done. We had almost no time to just chill out and my eating was not fantastic this weekend. Dinner on Saturday and last night was pretty okay but Friday night we had Chinese buffet and I ate a whole bunch of those little tiny tootsie rolls. Not good. Oh well, 10 loads of laundry and all of those trips up and down the stairs to the laundry room must burn a crap load of calories, right?

Anyway, once again, its Monday so here is my latest weekly wrap-up:
summary - week 2

• intentional exercise: I walked a little bit and continued moving boxes around, a lot. I also did a small amount of yard work over the weekend. This is something that I'll have to get back into doing but for the moment, I'm happy to keep active by unpacking and stuff like that (not to mention that my bike is hidden behind a wall of boxes at the moment.
  
• I took my vitamins 7 out of 7 days this week
  
• exceeded daily water intake goal 7 out of 7 days
  
• As I wrote last week, I'm up 9 pounds since my weigh-in in early May. Considering that when I weighed in last Monday, I was 23 pounds up (a huge fluid gain), 9 pounds is not terrible. I'm not thrilled about it but then, I wasn't exactly "careful" about what I ate over the weekend.

happy friday

Good mornin' folks.

Oh goodness but I'm tired this morning. Last night, I think I got about 3 hours of sleep, maybe 4, max. After dinner was over and all of our evening chores were done, I was totally exhausted. My feet hurt, my knee was giving me some hassle and my lower back was bugging me. It had been a long day and physically, I felt beaten up. I had a nice long soak in the tub (I still can't believe that we have a whirlpool tub in our bathroom!!) and felt really good when I got out.

Yesterday, my hunny's knee injury was acting up so he was feeling pretty lousy. He'd had a soak in the tub as well. When we went to bed, he immediately fell asleep in the middle of the bed. I tried moving him, nudging him, everything short of poking him in the face but he wouldn't budge. He was dead to the world. I was glad that he was sleeping because I knew that he hadn't had much rest the night before when the knee thing started acting up again. I basically tried to get comfortable while hanging on to the edge of the bed but it wasn't working. Finally, about 2.5 hours after we went to bed, he got up to go to the washroom and I was able to claim back my side of the bed. Of course, by this time it was almost midnight and we had to be up at 4 a.m.

Right now I'm a bit of a zombie, I'm on my second cup of coffee and I expect that I'll be getting a third at some point this morning. Sleep deprivation aside, I'm feeling okay today. The problem with my foot has been that my heel spur on my left foot has been acting up again. It usually does whenever the summer starts and I start wearing sandals again. My spur really likes the comfort of shoes and socks but dammit, I'm wearing sandals. It's way too hot not to, not to mention that socks and shoes look goofy with sun dresses or capris.

Anyway, this week has definitely been a better week than I have had in a few, foodwise anyway. It hasn't been perfect but I have definitely made more good than bad choices, overall. I have to be happy with that, that and the fact that I can see my ankles again. It's the little things that make the difference, isn't it?

hello, sandals!!

My feet are finally un-swollen. I'm down a bit again today and I'm pretty sure that's the end of the fluid bloat. That puts me at 9 pounds up, overall, in a month. Honestly, I know that a gain like this is bad but I'm so relieved that it's only 9 pounds. It could have been so very much worse and trust me, on Saturday, I thought it was. At least right now, I'm comfortably wearing sandals again. My ankles look like ankles and not over-stuffed sausages. My feet feel better too, not as tired as they have been and it's been almost a week since a screaming charley-horse has jerked me out of bed in the middle of the night. Hurray for healing huh??

Every day this week, I'm feeling a little better than the day before. The only real difference I'm seeing is, at the end of the day (like after dinner), I'm much more tired than I normally am. Considering all we've been through over the past 10 days, I'm not surprised. I almost can't believe that tomorrow it'll be 2 weeks since we took possession of the new house. It really feels like home to me. I know I sound like a broken record but I never knew that a house could make you has happy as I am right now.

Eating yesterday was a little on the bad side. We had pizza for dinner. Now, we did have thin crust with chicken and veggies and a salad but still, I know I ate too much. Oh well, today is another day and I'm off to a good start already. We're barbecuing tonight (duh, we still don't have our new gas stove hooked up, we'll be barbecuing a lot) so I shouldn't run into that problem again today. It's just a bit of an adjustment after weeks of not really thinking too much about what we're eating, to all of a sudden start planning meals again. We can do it though, it'll just take us a few days to sort our heads out. Right now, I'm just taking everything one day at a time.

flushed

Thank goodness the bloat is slowly decreasing. If you can believe it (and I wouldn't have if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes), I have lost 11 pounds in fluid in 48 hours. When I stepped on the scales this morning, I was down another 6 pounds. That puts me at 12 pounds up from my last official weigh-in in early May. I'm not sure if that is all fat, I know it's not all fluid. We definitely overate during May and we lived on take-out for a while so some damage was done. 12 pounds I can deal with though, 23 was over the top, even for me.

Yesterday and again today, even though it's really nice outside, I'm wearing shoes and socks. The socks are helping keep the swelling down in my feet and ankles. This morning my feet actually looked normal again. My rings are fitting normally (a little loose is how they usually fit) again today and I noticed that my face isn't looking as puffy as it was on the weekend. All of that water I've been drinking is definitely making a big difference.

Eating has been pretty good over the past couple of days. I will confess that we went to the Dairy Queen last night after dinner but I had enough calories at the end of the day to allow for that. I think that an "all things in moderation" approach is going to make the transition from pre-move sloth to post-move healthy-girl a little easier. Today I'm actually not feeling really sleepy either, which is good. Now, I am back on the coffee at the moment but I am really needing the boost in the morning and I do drink it black anyway so it's not like a huge calorie splurge. At the moment, caffeine is a very good friend to me.

So, so far this week is going well. It's hump-day already, which I cannot believe. The fact that it's June already is a little mind-boggling too. All in all, I am feeling better every day and that's the main thing right now.