day two

This morning, I wasn't quite sure if I'd be riding my bike or wading through water. Last night, the city put out a warning about the rain they were expecting. They were suggesting that the heavy rains that we'd get in the aftermath of Katrina, could cause flooding. Our last house didn't have a basement and before that, we'd both lived in upper floor apartments so worrying about water in the house was something we just gave a passing thought to. Last night, we had picked up all of our cardboard boxes and stacked them on water proof things, just to be safe (we haven't unpacked a lot of the stuff that is in the basement).

Fortunately, when I went downstairs, the basement was dry and my bike was waiting for me. I don't think that we got anywhere close to the amount of rain they were predicting which was very lucky. So, I did another 30 minute session, similar to yesterday but only covering 4.64 miles on the bike. My second day was a little tougher on me than my first. That's always the case isn't it? I could feel it more in my thighs particularly. I can feel little bit right now actually, and I don't mind a bit. It reminds me that I actually exercised this morning. I know I haven't hurt myself at all, just pushed myself, as I should have been all along. In any event, I'll try not to dwell on what I haven't done or what I did that was wrong, I'm going to work on focusing on what I need to do, on making progress with this. Honestly, if this whole weight-loss thing was a project I was supposed to be doing for work, I'd have been fired ages ago. I just need to put as much attention and effort into it as I do to other things and I can get it done. *fingers crossed*

a properly kicked ass

TOM well and truly kicked my ass this past weekend. It was almost a week late (I shouldn't say that actually, I think that my cycle has gotten a little longer as I've grown old) and when it started it was easy peasy. I figured, it was so horrible last month that I was getting off easy this time 'round. No such luck. I was in a vegetative state for almost all of Sunday. After soaking in the tub for 40 minutes, I spent a huge chunk of time in bed, taking drugs and holding on to my heating pad while watching movies on cable.

Yesterday I still felt like shit. I really didn't feel like working but I dragged myself into the office and suffered through it. This morning, I'm feeling much the same but it's okay. I'm well medicated and I know it's almost over. A big difference this morning is that I actually exercised this morning. Properly too. Stretching, full 20 minutes on the bike (4.69 miles), a little bit of weight work, an entire 30 minutes of fitness type stuff before work. I feel good about that. I'm planning to get back into my exercise routine. I'm going to shoot for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, for the next few weeks and then I'll bump it up, in five minute increments, gradually. I really miss the exercise, the sweating, the challenge. I also know that my periods were not as bad as they have been recently, when I was exercising regularly. I may get side tracked by chocolate chip cookies once in a while but I will not let the exercise thing slide again.

remembering sprouts

My brain is so fried today that as I opened my sandwich a couple of minutes ago (well opened the container it is in), I couldn't remember if I'd actually put sprouts on it or not this wasn't a long time ago, I made the sandwich about 6 hours ago. Goodness gracious that's bad huh??

Yesterday, I was away from the office for the day. Our unit went off-site to have a planning day. It was really helpful but I think that a whole day on a hard-backed chair has done me in a bit. By the end of the day, my butt was almost totally asleep, even though I tried to get up often and move around. I also had my eyes opened wide to my lack of fitness at the end of the day. When it was over, we decided to walk back to the office (it's not far, like two blocks with a little part of it going up a gradual hill). By the time we got to the door, I was really winded and felt over-exerted. Now, it was sort of warm and a little humid and I was carrying a laptop and my bookbag but still, this was maybe a 15 minute walk, if that. I know that I walked a little faster than I normally would, because I didn't want to seem pokey to the other walkers and maybe that is why I felt so worn out afterwards. Oh well, sweaty self-humiliation is good for the soul, right?

Despite the fact that I have longed for and craved big time, anything that is remotely gooey and chocolatey, I haven't given in. Fat lot of good it did me though, I stepped on the scales this morning and they haven't budged. TOM is still late so that may have a lot to do with it (or not, my heart's not been much into it this week). I am hopeful that chocolate rejection, a lack of french fries and a little bit of moving my ass over the weekend will move the scale next week. Whatever is going on with my head this week, I have to shake it. My attitude sucks and I don't much care for it. I also didn't care much for how that little bit of fast walking made me feel yesterday. Something's gotta give, and soon.

midweek

I've been reading lately. Not blogs, I always try to read those. I've actually been finding a few minutes at the end of my day to pick up a book. I used to read voraciously. Over the past few years though, I stopped making the time for it. I'd intended to read Tales from the Scale during my vacation. I'd pre-ordered it last November, received it sometime this spring, before we moved I guess. I kept it on my bedside table but hadn't picked it up until just recently. Reading it the past few nights has got me thinking about things. It's made me go back in my brain and think of all of the bad choices I've made, about the stuff I'm not doing, about how I can lose weight and yet I'm not.

Wouldn't you think that reading about other people's struggles would inspire me? Instead, I find myself reading about binges and wondering what's in the cupboard!! TOM is late (but en route) and maybe I can blame this shitty attitude on hormones. I'm getting sick of fighting with myself all the time. I'm not unhappy generally and, at the moment, I'm not unhealthy but, I should weigh a lot less right now than I do and I should be a lot more fit. But I don't and I'm not and I'm the only one who can change it (I know that). Like this week, so far, I haven't properly exercised, I have watched my food intake and it's not been horrible but, it's not been fabulous either. Why can't I figure it out? I got the shit scared out of me in December 2002 and that got me on this path (well, I started in January 2003). Does that have to happen again to get me jump-started? Do I have to hear again that two really cool people have died prematurely as a result of heart disease? I sure hope not. I'm hoping that by the time I get through the book, I will be all inspired and ramped up again because something has got to give. I'm white-knuckling things right now and I don't like how that feels.

On a slightly non-related note, when I picked up the book and flipped through it, I was pleasantly surprised and a little shocked to see that my brother's ex-girlfriend (who I LOVE) had a submission show up in it. It's kind of a small world, isn't it?

sore mouth

Yikes. I always book my dental appointments for first thing in the morning. The nice thing about that is that the office is still running on schedule when I'm the first appointment of the day and, I get it over and done with early. The downside of this is that my mouth is kind of sore and tender for the whole day. What it is it about getting your teeth cleaned that does this?

Other than that though, I have literally no news to report. Work's keeping me busy so the week is just floating by. I know it's only Tuesday but it feels like it'll end up being one of those weeks that on Friday afternoon, I can't figure out where it went. Ugh. Speaking of which, duty calls. Me and my sore mouth should get back at it.

blurry

This morning has passed by rather quickly. I'm surprised and happy about it. This morning I was feeling a little foggy and groggy. I didn't sleep well last night, it was odd. Yesterday ended up being a gloriously lazy day.

We got up kind of early (for a Sunday anyway) and my hunny made us a delicious breakfast (breakfree egg scramble with turkey sausage). We spent the morning doing our various chores, I cleaned up the washroom and did dishes, he cleaned the fish tank out. By noon, we were all done. I spent 30 minutes soaking in our spa tub. I still can't get used to having one of them in the house, it had been about 3 weeks since I'd been in it. After I crawled out (literally, I was as weak as a wet noodle), I was just exhausted. I'd relaxed myself into a coma. My hunny took a shower to clean off all of the fish tank grime and we sat down to discuss our plans for the afternoon. We couldn't decide whether we'd go to the casino or to the pictures. Somehow, we ended up falling asleep talking about it and the next thing I knew, 3 hours had passed by. The sleep felt really good but it sort of messed me up last night. I was very tired by 10 when we went to bed but it took me a while to fall asleep. When I finally did fall asleep, I had really vivid dreams all night. It was weird.

Weekend eating was okay. Between all of the sleeping and the not feeling great, I didn't have a lot of spare time to snack with. I'm still french-fry-free and have no desire to break that. No chips were consumed over the weekend either. Again though, I gave into my sweet tooth and some cookies were purchased and consumed.

My goal for this morning was to ride the bike. I'd missed Friday's session because of the cold. When I woke up, I lay in bed for a while, considering my options. My hunny went off to work and I decided that instead of the bike, I'd do a chore I'd been putting off, I scrubbed the kitchen floor. By the time I was done, I'm sure I'd worked longer and burned more calories that I would have on the bike. It was so nice, after my shower, to walk across a clean kitchen floor. It's one of those jobs I hate doing and just put off as long as possible. I'm thinking that I may put it on my schedule and do it early in the morning (like this morning) once a week on a day I'm not riding. I'm still going to ride 3 days this week and next week... but in between, I'm going to plan some chore I don't like to do. Goodness knows that housework can make you sweat!

I'm going to try to get back to doing this regularly again, so here is my latest weekly wrap-up:
summary - week ending August 21

• Slowly got back into exercising again, actually rode my recumbent 2 days last week.
  
• I took my vitamins 5 out of 7 days this week
  
• exceeded daily water intake goal 7 out of 7 days
  
• in my cleaning frenzy, I forgot to weigh in this morning. Given how close I am to TOM's arrival, I'm not expecting much
  

more better

I know that it's not grammatically correct to describe how I'm feeling as "more better" but yanno, it's how I feel and I often play fast and loose with the rules of grammar.

Ordinarily I don't post over the weekends but I felt like I should explain yesterday's absence. I woke up yesterday with a headache / body ache / stuffed up thing happening. It sort of hit me on Thursday night, just before bed. Of course, I figured that a good night's sleep would cure whatever it was. It didn't. Yesterday, I ended up staying home from work and tried to rest up and get rid of whatever it was. I called in to the office and left messages for the folks I needed to inform and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the sleeping thing only lasted until about 9 a.m. when my hunny came home to meet the cable guy. As we'd been fighting with the cable company since we moved in, I couldn't complain about it even though I meant that I had to get out of bed (one of the rooms that needed dealing with was our bedroom). Eventually, after lunch, I got back into my beautiful bed and slept the afternoon away. I still felt kinda crappy last night and even this morning when I got up but right now, I'm feeling not bad. Still a little sneezy but a whole lot less achey so that's good.

My hunny was working today so, while he's been away, I've managed to get a fair bit of stuff done, cold / weird bug and all. I did 6 loads of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen and changed the bed. Our bathroom still needs to be dealt with but I've decided that I'm done with chores for the rest of today. When he gets home from work, we're gonna head out and do some errands, groceries mostly and then go visit the LOG after dinner. Tomorrow I expect to have a lazy day. It'll be nice, having most of my chores done. All we really have to accomplish tomorrow is me scrubbing the master bath and him cleaning the fish tank. If all goes well, we'll have a lovely afternoon of sipping icy drinks on the deck. I'm just so glad to be on the other side of this bug, I'll be happy if we just lay around like 3rd base and watch tv. You know, one of the best things about being sick is how good it feels when you're better!!

quickie

It can't be Thursday already!! I guess it is though. The week is going by really quickly, it's kind of crazy actually. I've also been spending a lot of my spare time on flickr (it's so addictive). Last night, we went out so I could take some photos and we ended up walking around for more than an hour. I said to my hunny, "yanno, when we're out taking photos like this, we're not sitting at home eating." When you're not around food at all, it makes snacking infinitely more difficult.

Tonight we're doing the same thing but with music (a friend of mine's band is playing in the park tonight). Right now, anything that gets us moving and keeps us out of the kitchen is good by me. And I should have lots of photos to post tomorrow.

french fry challenge

It occurred to me this morning that I had not eaten a french fry in almost 3 weeks. This might not seem like a big deal but considering how often we eat out (although for the past few weeks, we've not eaten out nearly as much as we had been doing) and how much "access" to them I have, you should be impressed. I've decided to see how long I can go without indulging. They are one of my big time trigger foods, particularly when they are smothered in ketchup. I'd like to see if I can go an entire year without them. If I can get through a whole year, I'm hoping that I will never want one again. How neat would that be?

I came to the sickening realization this morning that I'd only lost three pounds since January. 3 sickly, pathetic pounds. I've been up and down like a rollercoaster throughout the bulk of 2005. Now, I have lots of excuses (the whole house buying / selling / moving thing alone caused me to go off the rails in a big way) but that's all they are, excuses. If I'd been more committed, more serious, it wouldn't have happened. All I can do now is keep at it. The Saturday pizza incident, a little bit of a chocolate and a few cookies are all that separate me from an otherwise decent past three weeks. If I can just get rid of my cookie craving, I'd be doing something. The salt thing seems to be under control. I'm no longer longing for doritos or chips and dip (another big trigger food) so that's something. The sweet tooth is another beast entirely though and something I know I will struggle with forever. If I give into a little bit, every once in a while though, I should avoid a binge.

In other news, I got back on the bike again. The pain in my foot / ankle / leg was gone this morning and I did a quick 5K on the bike. Not as long or as far as I would have liked to go but it's something.

hurting

Yesterday, I wore some new-ish shoes to work. I say "ish" because I bought them a year ago. They are just slip on, casual shoes, I bought a white pair and a khaki pair. The white pair are all broken in but the khaki ones, I'd only worn on one occasion. I knew that they might bug my feet so I bought a pair of old faithful type sandals too. About half way through the morning, I develop a blinding pain in my ankle, like I've twisted it (except I haven't) and can not put any weight on my left foot. I switched shoes when I got back to my desk but I spent the rest of the day hobbling around. The only time it felt remotely okay was when I'd have my shoes off. It even caused my whole leg to throb in pain. By the time I got to bed last night, I was a full-blown hurtin' unit. Luckily, right now, I'm feeling okay. Whenever I get up to walk around, I'm still stiff and sore but not like I was yesterday.

Because of the pain, I've decided that this will be a Monday - Wednesday - Friday exercise week. It's probably better that I ease myself into it anyway, I'll do the same next week and then go to four days the week after that. I don't want to do too much too quickly, especially not now that my foot has decided to be silly.

Foodwise, things are okay. I'm still not 100% (I'll admit it, I have had a couple of cookies in the past 24 hours) but not terrible all the same. I'm using my "do more good things than bad" measuring stick at the moment. If the worst thing I've done is eat a couple of little cookies, I'm happy with that. I've also vetoed any more pizza coming into the house again for a while. It did neither of us any good whatsoever and I don't care that it is one of my all-time favourite foods, I just can't handle the cheese and grease anymore. Over dinner last night (wraps made from left-over grilled veggies and chicken - yum) we discussed how much better we're feeling since we've cut out the crap. It's funny how quickly you feel the changes. It's also scary, how fast a bad food choice (and it wasn't just the pizza - it was partly eating it late at night and then again the next morning for breakfast) can make you feel like total crap. The simple lessons are often the most painful ones to learn. Hopefully, I won't forget the painful part of it, anytime soon.

happy = over-fed

So, Friday, I was like super duper happy. While I was wallowing in happy, my hunny was having a horrible day. Actually, technically, he was having the second of two bad days, Saturday wasn't all that shit-hot either but it wasn't like Friday had been for him.

I felt really badly for him and wanted to help him feel better. So, Friday night, pretty late by our standards, we're out in the west end doing errands and stop off for supper. We actually had a very good meal as far as restaurants go, we each had large salads that were both yummy and filling. Unfortunately, we did not go straight home from the restaurant; we stopped off at the bulk barn. I bought chocolate, those little chocolate rosebud things. I actually ate them too, little by little all weekend I nibbled on them. Bad huh?? Oh it gets better. Saturday night, we ordered a pizza. We tried to order a smaller size but the guy offered us a "deal" as the pizza maker had made a size larger "accidentally" of the pizza we ordered. Of course, once it arrived I ate too much, I also ate too much of it for breakfast yesterday. I spent the whole day feeling tired, full and heavy. Today, I've had heartburn from it. Nice. I'm six days away from TOM so I could blame it on PMS I suppose. I could also just admit that I was weak and really wanted to be bad.

This morning, I convinced myself that I would not, under any circumstances, step onto the scale. I didn't want to know how much I weighed, how much damage I'd done over the weekend. Instead, I hopped onto my recumbent bike and rode. I only rode for 15 minutes, 3.55 miles. Not great, not horrible either considering that in the previous 12 weeks, I'd ridden about 45 miles, total.

After my ride, I stepped onto the scale (which I keep in the basement, in my laundry room so I'll not step onto it constantly). Imagine my shock when I saw a one pound loss. One whole pound. Imagine, if I'd actually done a bunch of exercise last week and not eaten like a pig over the weekend, I may have lost two. It's enough of a shock to make me clean up my act today, I'm telling you. This week will be a good one. I will ride my bike, I will not eat crap, I will not have heart burn. No arguments.

head's happy, heart's insane

For some reason, that I'm not too concerned about at the moment, I have been ridiculously happy recently. Without over-analyzing things too much, I am feeling like it's a combination of many things:

1. I don't worry about LOG all the freaking time like I did when he was sick and at home all by himself all day long.

2. The eating better thing is making me feel better physically and more in control of my life generally.

3. I'm listening to more music and less talk radio. Sometimes, it's true, ignorance is bliss.

4. Our finances are in much better shape since we sold our old house and bought the new one.

I almost feel like I'm going to jinx this feeling by talking about it. Like, if you tell someone your blowing-out-the-candles-on-the-birthday-cake-wish, it won't come true. Most of the time I'm bitching and moaning about how I'm not eating well or feeling well or am just generally unhappy with myself because I keep fucking this thing up. Right now, while I'm not feeling any of those negative things, I figure I should share that. Goodness knows it's about time I said something positive!!

In other news, we're definitely not participating in the 5K walk. I suspect that we'll walk way more than 5K that weekend though because we're going to New York. We already have a trip to NYC planned for early December but this October weekend has just sort of popped up. For a while now, I had been hearing through my Belle & Sebastian lists that they were playing at a festival thing in the states this fall but I didn't pay much attention because I'm not much of a festival person. Mostly, I object to having to go to shows that are in middle of a field and that I have to sit through bands I'm not really interested in. Anyway, when I heard that the show was in Brooklyn, in a ball park (very civilized) and that there were other folks I really wanted to see too (Beck and the Raveonettes to name just a couple), I got seriously thinking about it. This morning I ordered our tickets, I booked a hotel yesterday and we're going to go down for 3 days. We haven't been to New York in 3 years so I'm really excited about the trip, I'm also very much looking forward to seeing B&S. I feel like I've loved them forever and have never seen them live. They have played in Toronto a couple of times but for one reason or another, we were never able to get there for the shows. We're still planning the December trip too. I know that we're really lucky that it's just a 6 hour drive from here so we don't have to deal with flying and all of that.

So, yeah, that's my happy weekend news. yay!

la, la, la, hey!

I feel like this is really boring. I'm actually writing a lot these days, trying to get caught up on a tonne of back-logged personal correspondence. It fees like I've owed everyone one I know an email for ages and I'm working hard at trying to get that all caught up. Unfortunately it means that by the time I get around to posting here, I'm all out of things to say. Sad state of affairs isn't it?

Eating continues to be (boring) very good this week. Last night for dinner, my hunny made this huge ass salad. It had tomato, english cucumber, portabello mushroom, broccoli, green onion and hard boiled egg. For a dressing, he mixed together fat free cottage cheese and fat free sour cream. It was delicious and completely filling. Yum. When he first told me about it I was a little skeptical that I'd like but I was pleasantly surprised.

I still haven't officially signed up for the 5K walk because there is a really chance that I'll be going away for a fun, fun, fun weekend that weekend. I'll know for sure by this time tomorrow. I don't want to say anything more about it right now, in case I jinx the fun thing but I will post about it later on if it happens. yay!

Before I go, I wanted to tell you all to go over to Emily's page and give her some serious high-fives. The girl made it to goal yesterday!! For now I can only imagine how wonderful that feels. Hopefully, one day, I'll know for myself.

so hungry

For some reason, I'm absolutely starving right now. I shouldn't say "some reason," I know the reason. I was in a meeting this morning and missed my mid-morning piece of fruit for snack, snack and then, not 5 feet from my desk, there was a whole mess of food, a going-away-party for a co-worker who is leaving us for green pastures. There was a huge bowl of cut, fresh fruit and a plate of the most delicious looking and smelling chocolate chip cookies on the counter. I stayed behind my desk and stood and talked to folks, avoiding the food, fruit and all, at any cost. I knew that if I wandered over for a piece of melon, I'd be too tempted by the chocolate chip cookie. I'm glad that I was "strong" then but I'm dying now and I'm still 20 minutes away from my lunch. Ugh!

Last night, to quote Kirsty MacColl, I said to my hunny, "look out world, I'm about to be bad" and had oatmeal cookies after dinner. I know that there are worse things that one can have than a couple of oatmeal cookies but I've been working really hard on the no snacking in the evening thing. Overall, yesterday was very good, within my allowable caloric range and all that jazz. Still, I knew I was being "bad" and I did it anyway. Why does that happen?? Thank goodness there weren't any chocolates or candy in the house, I would have definitely gone over. What kills me is that I'm not actually hungry when these things happen, I just need something sweet. Don't say "have fruit" either because I've been eating a crap load (no pun intended) of fruit lately. It's more a starch meets white death thing.

Positive thinking though, right?? No dwelling on the slip-up, move on, fresh day, yadda yadda. I'm not yadda yadda'ing it today really though, I'm being a "good" albeit hungry girl. Oh well, that will soon be sorted out. This week, so far, it's not so bad...and how's your week going?

quickie

Honestly, I've not got a lot to say today. This is probably a good thing, considering how much I rambled on and on yesterday.

Fortunately, my eating continues to be squeaky clean the past couple of days. I'm not using fitday to track stuff, I just know what I'm eating (or rather what I'm not eating) and about how much I should be eating. There are certain types of foods that we're both avoiding right now and we're eating pretty much whole foods. It's going really well. I'm so glad that my hunny is cooking again, it makes this whole thing so much easier.

Oh, yeah...one more thing, my white capris (which were a little snug in the waist when I wore them last) are feeling more comfortable today. They won't be falling off of me anytime soon but they aren't cutting into me. Thank goodness!!

Boring is good, isn't it?

salt and food

It's feeling like we're really back into the groove again. My hunny seriously restarted with me last week, well, actually, it feels more like I'm restarting with him. Either way, it's so good because he's cooking again, really cooking. As you all know, he's a classically trained French chef and, in the past when I've tried to talk about fat-free or low-fat cooking, it's sometimes been a struggle. When one is used to cooking with heavy cream and butter and all of that other "bad" stuff that us low fat folks try to avoid, it's hard to break the habit.

He's been complaining for weeks now that he's too fat. Not something that you hear too often from a guy is it? All kidding aside, he has gained some weight over the summer months, we both have. I feel that way too. I mean, I know that I am fat but I've been feeling extraordinarily heavy just lately. I've always been heavier than he is but at the moment, I think we're pretty close (give or take 10 pounds). Last week, he finally found his inspiration somewhere and started using that new stove of ours. We've had lots of stuff that is steamed and grilled and even the other night when we had pasta for dinner, it was with chicken and lots of veggies and it was fresh whole wheat pasta from the shop around the corner (not to mention much smaller portions than we'd ordinarily have).

Now that he's cooking again, and we're off the take out / fast sandwich track, I'm noticing that a lot of my bloat is disappearing. The swollen ankles I've been suffering with all summer are pretty close to normal and I'm realizing now (yeah, because I'm an idiot) that it's a lack of salt in my diet this week. Salt. Fucker. So much of what we had been grabbing over the past few months has been processed or eaten in restaurants that I had lost all track of how much sodium I was consuming. I never thought of myself as being that salt sensitive but I now know that I am. I'm also feeling really great about the meals we're having at home. For one thing, they are delicious and tasty, for another, I know that they are super healthy and chock full of good stuff.

On Saturday morning, we visited a new grocery store just west of here and loaded up (and I do mean LOADED up) with produce. My hunny grilled a tonne of eggplant, habaneros and jalapenos and made this kind of smokey relish on the weekend and I picked up the ingredients for a non-dairy, low-fat version of caesar dressing. I found the recipe here via a link from DietGirl. It's an amazing site and I think that we'll be trying lots of their recipes in the near future. I'm loving that we've bought all of this good for us food and that we're actually eating it. That may sound silly but I know that you all know what I mean. You put it all away and then, when meal time comes around, either or both of you is too lazy/tired/whatever to do anything with it so you go out for a bite. Sound familiar?

The saving money thing is good too. When you're buying groceries and eating out all the time, it gets really expensive. I'm hoping that some of this money we're saving can go towards some new clothes. On my birthday, my mum gave me $100 to buy an outfit with and I still have it tucked away. As I promised many months ago, I have not bought any new clothes (except for some very much needed underpants a while ago) because I'm not a size smaller yet. I'm sticking to that and, I may not be able to buy anything until Christmas but I don't care. I need to change this, I need to get smaller and I want to feel better.

The changes we have made this week are helping enormously and I do feel better today than I did a week ago but I know that it's a slow process. I weighed myself this morning (and saw a 2 pound loss) and realized that I now weigh exactly what I weighed two years ago this week, when I was on my first way down. I had started in January 2003 and kept going until around November (that was my lowest weight to date). I'd like to pick up that momentum and be back into virgin fat by November. That's not totally unrealistic.

Right now, I'm happy that I've lost 2 pounds this week instead of gaining them. I'm also happy that my shoes and rings feel better, more comfortable (damn you salt!!) and that I finally got the energy together last night to do some weeding in the garden. I am feeling it, big time, in my legs and arms today but it's a good feeling. It's all good and as long as my hunny and I can keep propping each other I have a feeling that we'll both be a fair bit smaller before the holidays hit.

yay!

It's Friday! I know that it was a short week, just four days, but it really felt like a super long week for some reason. Could be that whole getting back into the groove of work after being away. I'm not really sure but I'm really happy that it's almost the weekend.

I'm happy to report that my eating is well and truly under control. The weekend will be a challenge, it always is. Tonight is our garbage night and I'm planning to have a big, huge chuck-out. It's amazing how slowly crap can find it's way back into your pantry. We don't have a lot of junk but we do have some and I'm getting rid of it all. Having that stuff in the house is what tempted me into snacking in the evenings earlier in the week. Yesterday was an 100% on plan day and today is shaping up to be that way too. It feels so good to be back in control of my eating again.

The exercise piece is coming. This weekend it's going to start and by this time next week, I hoop to be back into a routine with that as well. Boy, it sure feels good to have my head out of my ass again!!

fogged up

I was sure it was foggy outside this morning but, it turns out that our windows are just all fogged over on the outside. It's weird and it's still really hot out, even at 5 this morning.

I am seriously considering participating in this year's "Run for the Cure." A gang of folks in our office put a team together each year and for the past couple of years, I've had other things going on the weekend of the run. Now, in case you think that I've lost my ever loving mind and am planning to actually run, I'm not. I would be walking it. You can do either 1K or 5K and I'm really thinking that I'd like to walk to the 5K route. I may try to convince my hunny to do it with me, we'll see. I need to talk to him about it this weekend. I think it would a good thing for me to work towards in the short term and it would help me stay focused.

Last night, our dinner got all messed up. A cable technician was scheduled to be at the house between 5 and 8 p.m. He showed up at 5:30 and was here for an hour and forty-five minutes, making out dinner really really late. Now, it was just leftovers and I suppose that we could have eaten while he was here but we didn't want to do that. The really frustrating part, besides getting so hungry that both of us felt ill and having to eat at almost 8 p.m. was that he never really did fix our problem and we need to have yet another person come back. Fun huh??

Anyway, I must dash and head off to the office. I'm hoping that this humidity will indeed break, like they are calling for it to do. Stay cool kids!!

heat

It's all yucky and freaking hot here again. The weather was so nice when we were off last week, I can't believe how gross it is again.

In other news, there isn't really much to report. The restart is going okay, not fantastic but okay. Last night, I gave in to a little bit of after-dinner snacking. It's just a bad habit I picked up last week while we were off and I'm struggling to break it. It'll happen though. Other than that though, eating was good. Exercise is something I'm going to really focus on next week. Our "gym" area in the basement is in disarray at the moment because we have been re-arranging furniture and the bike is surrounded by and covered with "stuff" right now.

As always, when I restart, I am feeling better about things in general and I'm trying to not be too disgusted with myself for the lack of motivation I've experienced recently. Onwards and upwards right?? Or, downwards if we're talking about the scale and the size of my pants!

work

Last night I was musing to myself about how nice it would be to get back to work, back into a routine. This morning, I'd have paid any price for an extra day of vacation. As I climbed down the stairs toward the laundry room to throw a small load in before work, I kept thinking about how nice it would be to crawl back under the covers instead. Alas, the laundry got done, I'm at work. bah!

So remember how I wanted to rest and eat well and exercise on my vacation? Yeah, well that didn't exactly happen. I did get some rest but we both ate way too much and ate out too often while we were off. Exercise? ha! Well actually, when we were away we walked a lot but it wasn't the sweat-breaking kind of walking so it doesn't count.

This morning I stepped on the scale and was up 2 pounds. I hadn't weighed myself since July 10 so I was expecting more of a gain, to be honest. As much as I hate hate hate starting over, again, I'm doing it, again. I keep telling myself that starting over is better than quitting and I know that's true. Knowing it is one thing, doing it is quite another. It's hard and I'm sick of it. I wish that there was a quick fix but I know there isn't. The only thing that ever worked for me was to eat less and exercise more. You all know that because that is what works for you all too. Unfortunately, for me, over the past little while, it was easier to eat more and exercise less. I've paid that price and now I have to get my butt in gear, yet again.

happy august!!

I'm back, or rather will be back tomorrow.

I just felt like I needed to pop in quickly. We've been on vacation for the past 10 days but it's back to work tomorrow. Hopefully, back into a routine, goodness knows we need one.

At the moment, I'm feeling rested and well. Fingers crossed, I'll still be feeling that way at this time tomorrow. Until then, Happy August everyone!!