just lovely, thank you

I'm having a wonderful day.

The sun is filling my living room, making it bright and warm. My mum and dad were over earlier for coffee, I have actually started prep for my holiday baking and my boxes of holiday ornaments are piled up in the kitchen.

Now, things haven't happened in the order I'd planned them so far but it all feels good just the same. I had great intentions of cleaning all morning. I started the cleaning (part of the basement looks AMAZING right now) when my mum called and said that they'd be over. I stopped cleaning, dragged the boxes upstairs and had a shower.

After they left, instead of starting up the cleaning again, I got into the prep part of my holiday baking. Right now, I'm waiting for my hunny because he's playing hookie from work this afternoon. We're planning a late lunch out somewhere nice. Later this afternoon, I'm going to clean the living room and do my window "light displays." We may get the front yard done too but if we don't, I'm not worried. It's still early and we'll get it done when we get it done.

Overall, I'm feeling more relaxed and healthy and happy than I have in weeks. Now that all of my major projects at work are finished up, I feel that a huge weight has been lifted from me. Life is good!

a change WILL do you good

we recently switched brands of yogurt at home. for a couple of years now, I've been a Source by Yoplait fan. About 6 weeks ago, I saw that Silhouette by Danone was on special for a fantastic price so we tried it. not only do I like the flavours better than the Source flavours, the price is just terrific and it's a little lighter on the calories too.

don't you just love it when you find something like that?

I'm happy to report that I'm feeling much better today than I have since I got back from Toronto. whatever mini-version of food poisoning I got has finally gone. my system was all messed up for a few days. In a way, this is never a bad thing because it makes me eat less than normal but still, I'm happy to be feeling better. now, if I can just get rested back up and lose this achey feeling I've had in my joints for the past week or so, I'll be really thrilled.

because I was out of town for work on the weekend, I have tomorrow off. I'm planning to do my housework and get all the yucky stuff out of the way before the official weekend begins.

after today, I only have two weeks left in the office before my extend-o-holiday begins. I'll be out of the office for four weeks and hope/plan to clean up my act while I'm away. I know that it'll be the holidays but still, even I can figure out a way to work in more exercise during the break! there will be no excuses!!

simple

I seem to be posting about once a week. This isn't bad, considering how infrequent my posts have become over the past few months.

The last week has been busy for me. At times, it's been easy to be "good" about food choices, at others, I've not cared too much. That's a by-product of the busy. The busy this week involved me having to travel out of town to help out at an event. While away, I think/know I got a touch of food poisoning and my stomach has been wonky ever since. Tonight, it's particularly bad but I'm hoping it'll pass soon.

I had a huge surprise at the end of last week. I think it was Thursday or Friday when I decided to step on the scale. Mostly, I check it to make sure that I haven't gained 20 pounds over night. Status quo is my friend right now so you can imagine my shock when the scale said I was down 6 pounds. I'm not sure that it's a legitimate loss, that it wasn't just from stress and fluctuations in how much water I'm carrying around. Either way, it made me feel good and kept me pretty much focused on good eating for a few days.

Speaking of which, here are some kind of neat NSV's that I've experienced this week:

1. passing up on a piece of homemade cheesecake in the office last week. It was brought in for a lovely friend's birthday but I just couldn't eat it, not before lunch anyway.

2. choosing a veggie omelet and toast when we went out for lunch, out of town, over the weekend. I really was jonesing for some pizza or a huge plate of pasta but I had the veggie heavy eggs instead.

3. I just said "no" to jelly beans, gummy things and homemade chocolate chip cookies at work too. I wish I could find it as easy to say "no" at home as I do at work.

This week, I'll be super duper happy if I have managed to maintain that crazy 6 pound loss. On the other hand, I'll not be suicidal if I gain it back this week. I don't really believe it happened anyway.

on eating when you're hungry

Over the summer, my hunny was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. Upon his diagnosis, we started to study blood sugar levels and nutrition and all of the other body chemistry that comes with it. I thought that I knew a lot about nutrition before and that I didn't have a lot to learn. Boy was I wrong. Oh, fyi, just because one knows a lot about nutrition doesn't always mean that one does what one should with that information!

We've both learned a lot about listening to our bodies more. Of course, it's one thing to listen to it, it's another to do what it tells you... the reason I mention this is that last week, I was hungry, like really hungry, most of last week. I'm now thinking it was because I wasn't entirely over whatever the bug was that I had the week before. Unfortunately, many of the times when I gave into the hunger, the lovely little clementine oranges I have with me all of the time didn't really touch it on their own. No, I would have an orange, and then a granola bar and then a huge handful of goldfish crackers... and water, lots of water, water all the time. The no snacking in the evening thing only lasted a few days. Thank goodness we didn't have any chocolate in the house last week. I would have just devoured it.

In between this all, I keep jumping on the scale. I feel like I'm gaining five pounds a day but my weight hasn't changed. I do know that I'm not feeling terrific with my fitness level. I might not have gained any weight this fall so far but I haven't really done any intentional exercise either and it shows. I feel it in my knees when I'm going up and down the stairs at work. I think I should be walking more quickly than I do when I'm actually walking outside.

Fortunately, the hunger issue is not as big a problem as it was last week (although I still feel like the bug is hanging around). Work is winding down. We have one more big event on the weekend and after that, it's not too bad for the rest of the year. I'm definitely making changes to what I choose to eat. Portion size is still an issue. I think it's better to eat larger amounts of healthy foods than it is to eat large portions of crap. I think that if I can find the time to start posting here a little more regularly, that will help me with my progress.

On that note, I think I'm going to take a little walk while I still have some time left on my lunch break.

I can report

...a couple of things:

1. I was off from work on Thursday afternoon and all day Friday due to illness. I feel much better now.

2. Before going home sick, I talked to my boss about my overwhelming workload and I've been given lots of help.

3. I have not cried at my desk at all this week.

4. I have not snacked in the evenings the past two evenings (I know it's only two but still, TWO!)

5. While I'm not 100% back on my original plan, I'm more focused on my eating and making a conscious effort to be nicer to myself.

6. I hope to be posting here a little more often now than things seem to be settled, or at least more settled than they have been recently.

how've you all been?