blah

TOM finally arrived this morning and I feel completely blah. I have no energy at all (although I've been slowly puttering around the house all morning) and cannot get warm. My feet are cold, my hands are cold, no fun.

I stepped on the scale this morning and again, for the second week in a row, no movement. No up (good) and no down. I'm not surprised entirely but honestly, I'm a little disappointed.

Exercise is something I need to focus more on. The little bits of walking here and there that I'm doing isn't enough and I realize this. I have a recumbent bike, DVDs, weights, bands, a mat....I need to get my rear end moving and I know it. I will definitely get myself into a proper exercise routine. Most likely, I won't start back at it today but I'm going to start moving again tomorrow!

weak end

I'm really happy that Friday has arrived. The week flew by for me but I'm way more tired than I probably should be. TOM still hasn't arrived, although I've been feeling yucky for a day or so now. I'm hoping it starts soon because I feel a little bloated.

Overall, the working week went much better for me this week than it did last. The only slip up in the grand plan was last night. My hunny had an injured arm he was resting and we were running late so we had pizza for dinner. Now, we didn't have one of this really meat laden, cheesey specials delivered to us (although my mouth is watering a little bit thinking about that idea), we had a frozen pizza. Well, it wasn't frozen, we heated it up (ba-dum-bum!) and I enjoyed it but it wasn't as "calorie friendly" a meal as it could have been.

I'm not sure what the weigh-in will show tomorrow. I definitely feel good about resisting the urge to give into foil-wrapped chocolate mini-eggs this week. Particularly the way my hormones have been raging. I'm hoping that I'll show a loss. Bloated and crampy as I feel though, I am not getting my hopes up.

confident

I had another great, on-plan day today. This makes me happy.

TOM is going to start soon, I can tell. This makes me feel slightly crampy and uncomfortable.

Given though, that I've been eating a crap-free diet for a few days now, I'm sure that will help TOM be more manageable. It's been kind of hard on me the past few cycles. I suggest to myself that it's because I'm getting older and will probably be crashing into menopause in the not too distant future. Of course, this is bullshit. I mean, I am getting older and I think about menopause now and then. Too much salt and caffeine is more likely to be the cause of my monthly woes.

Tonight, for dinner, we had a lovely veggie & tofu curry with rice. It was delicious and filling and for about 10 seconds after dinner, I had a craving for those foil wrapped chocolate easter eggs. Fortunately, that craving passed and I forgot all about it until I just typed about it. Nice.

Fortunately, we go to bed pretty early so I shouldn't be tempted by anything too bad for the rest of the evening. I feel like I'm still taking baby steps but so far this week, I haven't stumbled and banged my head on the coffee table. It's a start, right?

on course

so far, so good.

today my eating has been 100%, totally on track so far.

tonight we are dining at home so I suspect that I should able to finish the day as it started.

I actually got outside for a little walk today. The weather has turned suddenly gorgeous so it felt particularly good to get out and into the fresh air.

that's really it. on track, staying the course, being a good girl.

with luck and a little determination, by the weekend, I'll be a slightly smaller girl!

not quite a drumroll moment

...I maintained this week.

I wasn't entirely surprised by this, I wasn't entirely sad. Maintaining a loss is good. I didn't gain back my two pounds. I should have done more in terms of intentional exercise and I should have made more consistent food choices.

I did not do these things and as a result, I did not lose any weight this week.

Over the weekend, I ate too much to compensate. Not smart, I know. But there you go. Blame it on PMS.

By the way, those little mini easter eggs should be outlawed.

sucker

I've always been a sucker for songs with hand claps and lots of "ba dum ba dum" stuff in them. That really has nothing to do with anything but I thought I'd share.

What a week!!

I managed to survive. Actually, I did more than survive. I didn't feel too overwhelmed despite the pace. Since Tuesday, we have executed three events. Only once, at the last one of this week, this afternoon, did I feel overwhelmed. Unfortunately, this was caused by a technical glitch that could have been prevented if I'd brought my own laptop to it instead of using someone else's. Fortunately, it was one of those things that only the folks who are working at the event notice and none of the guests were aware that it had happened.

The first few days of the week I was not sleeping well. The lack of sleep made me more determined to eat during the day because I knew that I needed proper fuel and not sugar or crap, if I was going to get through it all and accomplish what I needed to do. Now, having said that, we did have one dinner out (the buffet on Monday) and I had a lovely, albeit large, lunch on Wednesday (I wasn't supposed to eat at the event but they needed folks to fill a table because a number of guests did not arrive and we had a fully set table sitting empty!). I also had a Dairy Queen blizzard. Most of the time though, I was pretty good. Definitely much better than I have been over the past several weeks. I also spent a lot of time on my feet and did a fair amount of walking, outside in the fresh air. It didn't kill me do this either. Weird huh??

All of these events meant that I had to dress up a little more than I normally do. For two of the three days, this meant wearing dress pants that are definitely too snug around the waist. I'm okay with wearing uncomfortable clothes right now though because they will definitely help me stay on track. So yesterday, when I pulled the one pair out of the closet and slipped them on, I was happy when I didn't have as much of a struggle as I normally do, sliding them over my hips. They aren't loose by any definition but they definitely felt better so I must be heading in the right direction.

Tomorrow I'll weigh in again and I'll see if the chinese / dairy queen hurt me. Right now, I know that I'm in the middle of PMS because my hands feel really swollen and I'm tired and crabby. If I don't show a loss tomorrow, I'll blame it on hormones, if I do show a loss, you'll be the first to hear about it!!

screw you bacon

The other day, I was reading about Denise's pledge to chew her food better. As I read that I realized that I don't chew my food nearly as well as I should and have made a conscious effort to do better. I don't always remember to count but I'm definitely chewing more!!

So this morning, I was working at a breakfast event. It was a buffet meal and they were serving bacon, sausage, eggs (scrambled), eggs benedict, waffles, home fries, etc. All things I love (well I would have avoided the eggs benedict because you know that that hollandaise is from a packet and I live with a French chef who can make the real deal anytime I decide that I'd like to increase my cholesterol that much!). Anyway folks, I chose to have fresh fruit, fat free yogurt and a bran muffin. Aren't I a good girl??

Last night was another story. We are still sticking to our "one meal out a week" thing but last night, we ended up at the Chinese buffet. I did start with a salad and did not have dessert but I know I ate way too much. When we got there, I was starving and I way more than I should have. I know I did because I felt uncomfortable for the rest of the evening.

Today will be much better, it is already actually. I had the good breakfast, I'm currently eating (and chewing carefully) my packed lunch and dinner will be prepared and eaten at home tonight. Control is important for me right now. Really important. I want those pants to be comfortable again!!

almost spring

I cannot wait for spring to officially arrive. I'm jonsing for fresh, local produce in a big way. Ice-free sidewalks are also high on my list of things that I can't wait for!

On Saturday afternoon, I ended up taking some tylenol and retreating to the bedroom to watch some tv. I put in a Family Guy DVD and I think I fell asleep about 10 minutes into an episode. I dozed in and out of about 3 after that so I think I slept for over an hour. When I finally sat up in bed, my headache was gone and my appetite had returned. The appetite was hit and miss all weekend, which again, is very odd for me. Yesterday, I didn't eat lunch. Strange.

It wasn't really until after dinner last night that I felt hungry (figures huh??). It was the first time in several days where I'd actually had pangs of hunger. While I was doing our taxes yesterday (and sorting through a mound of un-filed papers) I found $10 in amongst the Canadian Tire money. After dinner, all I could think about was taking that $10 to the DQ and having a blizzard. I was able to talk myself out of it but not before I had talked myself into making some brownies. See, a while ago, I bought a box of brownie mix at Costco. The giant box had 4 pouches of mix. The last pouch was in the pantry, calling my name. Eventually, I gave in and made the damned brownies. At least there are no more pouches in the cupboard and I will not make the mistake of buying them, they are too good, if you know what I mean. For pete's sake, they are made with Ghirardelli chocolate. Anyway, I didn't have ice cream but I did have a couple of brownies last night. I'm not proud of it but at least I didn't spend any money.

Today so far I've eaten almost entirely raw food. Lots of veggies, much fruit. If I keep this up and chuck the brownies tonight, I should be able to show another loss this week. Here's hoping, anyway.

top o' the late morning to you all

A couple of days ago, in between the heaps of crusty leftover snow, we had actual green grass poking out and teasing us. It seemed like spring had almost sprung. Today however, we woke up to a marshmallow world and the green is covered in a blanket of white.

It's a good thing that I like shoveling snow huh?

The past few days have literally flown by because of household illness (not mine) and work busy stuff. I work on a team of events planners and we have 6 events scheduled for the next two weeks. Ordinarily, we don't have this many things happening all at once so it's been hectic.

My hunny had a touch of that nasty stomach bug that is going around. Our local hospital has had an outbreak of it too so it's literally everywhere. I was lucky enough to avoid it all week. This morning though, I feel like I may have a touch of what he had. Last night, for the first time in I don't know how long, I didn't eat dinner. I had an appetite but the idea of actually preparing and eating something made me feel nauseous. At the time I just chalked it up to being overtired (we were out of almost everything so we went out right after work on a 2-hour, four store shopping marathon). Just before bed, I toasted an english muffin and proceeded to sleep for 10 hours. I never sleep this long. We went to bed shortly after 9 p.m. and I slept until around 7:30 a.m.!! This morning I've been a little achy and cold and have had a bit of dodgy tummy too. I may go lay down for a bit if I don't feel better soon.

This morning, I decided to weigh-in. I did last Saturday too and I think that will be my new weigh-in day. It worked for me before, Saturday weigh-ins, because knowing I would weigh-in on Saturday made me avoid the "hey, it's Friday night - let's have a treat" thing. I'm happy to report that I'm down 2 whole pounds this week.

I feel really good about this and my short-term goal right now is to lose 15-20 pounds by mid-May. I don't think that this is unreasonable considering how much I have to lose overall. I have many reasons for wanting to lose weight, most of them are related to general health and longevity. In addition to these reasons, I really want to wear smaller clothes...to feel better in the clothes I have, to be able to find clothes easier. Also, toward the end of May, there is an event I'm working at and I'd really like to be able to comfortably wear these gorgeous pants to it. I wore them to the same event last year and I remember being really uncomfortable throughout dinner. They were just too tight and I remember when I bought them, they were actually loose on me. They are black, crepe-y, flowy pants with lovely lining and they look like a gorgeous long skirt instead of pants. I know that I can do this and I will!!

I think that this is a great carrot to dangle in front of myself and, as I already said, it's realistic. I'm feeling inspired by the 2 pounds. It's a small step but it's something I feel good about. I haven't felt good about much weight-loss related in a while so I'm taking what I can get. We also stocked the kitchen with tonnes of fresh fruit and veg last night. We've got whole grains galore and other good stuff so that should make things easier.

The snow may have dampened my spring spirit for a couple of days but I'm feeling good about myself again and that's way more important than the weather!!

all fall down

It is not easy to fall with grace. I know of what I speak because I fell in our driveway the other morning, with no grace at all. I tripped over my boot laces (well, the laces from one boot became tangled on the hook of another boot) and the next thing I knew, I was on my knees in the snow. At first, I was concerned that I'd "knee'd" my pants. Fortunately, I did not do this. When I got into the car, shaken but not stirred, I realized that I had cut the shit out of my hand and wrist. See, the snow is starting to slowly melt around here during the day (well on sunny days anyway). The temperatures are so cold right now though that what remains on the ground is really crunchy, crystal-y, sharp, shards of ice. My hand and wrist were sliced by ice.

For the rest of that day (Thursday), I was really stiff and sore. I was pissed too because my knee had started to feel better, I'd actually worked out a couple of mornings this week, and I all I could think about was how I'd now re-injured myself. Fortunately, this seems not to be the case. When I got up yesterday, I was a little stiff but much much much better. Today I feel almost 100%. The cold is almost gone, TOM has passed and I think my injuries are almost all mended.

It's a weird feeling, normal, after a few weeks of feeling like crap. Oh, injuries and illness aside, I seem to be doing pretty well with my eating. I know that I'm definitely not eating as much as I was a few weeks ago. My portion size had dramatically reduced and I'm not feeling hungry. In fact, I'm feeling really hungry at meals and then I don't seem to need nearly as much food as I once did, to feel satisfied. I'm really hoping that this is something which will stick with me because portion control has always been a challenge for me. Even when eating healthy food, I know that I just plain old eat too much.

Of course, the big test is the weekend, right? So far so good today. Hopefully, the rest of the weekend will be as good as last week. I'd love to see a drop on the scale sometime soon!

much better, thanks for asking!

my weekend was really nice.

actually, saturday and sunday were pretty uneventful but yesterday was awesome. for most of the weekend, I felt like totally hammered crap. tom was incredibly gross and painful and I was still having yucky cold symptoms which were interfering with my ability to get a decent night's rest.

sunday night, probably because of the huge amount of TOM related pain killers I'd ingested during the day, I slept like the a log. yesterday, I got up when my hunny got up (4:30 a.m.) got my laundry done early, baked some gorgeous banana muffins, watched some movies, cleaned up one of the drives on my computer, prepped dinner (my hunny is a chef so I almost never cook dinner - I did last night though because I'd been off). I never left the house and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very relaxing and I felt better yesterday than I had in a week.

today was back to work and by mid-afternoon my cold was starting annoy me again. I could feel my head starting to fill up, mid-meeting. nice huh?? I'm planning an early to bed night tonight. I realize that I need a lot more rest right now, while I'm recovering from this bug, than I normally do. happily, the cold is still making me want to eat less. my appetite is significantly decreased and I'm not unhappy about that. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep this eating less thing up when I'm all better.

in other good news, Taylore's back and she's sick with the cold so pop by and say hello and send her lots of feel good soon vibes.

never on a sunday

I don't usually have a chance to write here on a Sunday but I'm taking time this morning. It's not really that I have anything exciting or strange to report. Rather, it's that I have a big mug of coffee at my side and I'm taking time for myself this weekend.

Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I took some time to sort through my blog roll list and catch up a little on who's still writing. I was a little surprised at the number of folks who have stopped journaling. I guess it gets hard to keep writing if you feel like you're just saying the same stuff over and over again, I know that this is an easy trap to fall into, I do it myself.

My feeling though, is that if I keep writing, even not regularly, it's good for me. I'll see where I'm doing "okay" and "not so well" and hopefully I'll see patterns emerge and try to work around them.

Being sick this week has been good for me in a way. With the increased mucous production my body has been doing, my appetite has decreased. This almost never happens to me. Twice over the past few days, I've not been able to finish my meal. This is good, I think. Eating less, for me, is always good.

Rather than focus on good or bad, I'm trying to keep my mind on being healthy. If I keep my mind on eating healthy stuff, good fuel for my body, nutritious stuff that will help battle the cold and make me strong, I think that's good. I've been trying to do that for the past couple of weeks and it's going okay.

The other day, Wednesday I think, I stayed home from work (I hadn't slept at all the night before and could almost not breathe). At some point during that day, my foot started to hurt. It was a muscle ache, like I'd stretched something in an odd way, or slept on it in a weird angle. By Friday night, it was really killing me. Once I would be up and moving around, it was okay but if I sat down for any length of time, it would stiffen up and I had a hard time putting weight on it. It really didn't help that I was working at an event on Friday night and stood on a concrete floor, in my winter boots, for 2.5 hours. Anyway, it kind of kicked my plan for a Saturday winter hike in the nuts. Today though, I'm feeling much better. Not quite 100% normal but definitely improved. I might try to get outside for a walk around the neighborhood and see how that feels. Honestly, between my knee the other week (which is fine now!) and now this foot thing, I feel like I'm falling apart.

Tomorrow, I've booked a day off for myself. I don't really have anything planned, just hanging around the house, getting a few things done, maybe read a book, just have a day for me. Goodness knows, between the cold, TOM and the foot thing, an extra day off will do me a world a good right now.

mia

well hello. I realized this morning that it's been a while since I'd posted here. honestly, I'm just not thinking about the old blog much these days.

for a while, I was in the habit of posting at lunchtime, while I was at work. that's not happened recently because I've been kind of busy at work. lucky for me, we've hired a new admin person and so far (it's only been 3 days) it's making my life much easier. she's a dream and I feel very positive about the whole thing.

this week, I've had a wicked headcold. the first really bad cold of the season so I shouldn't complain. I think I picked it up in the grocery store on Sunday (from the buggy handle - gross). we've been sleeping well and eating well and generally taking good care of ourselves so that's the only thing I can think of it that would have exposed me to the germs. this morning I'm feeling marginally better although my nose feels like it looks like raw hamburger from blowing it so much.

to add insult to all of that nose-blowing, tom started this morning. fun times huh?? oh well, at least it's freezing rain outside right now so getting to work should be tough. I'm not complaining, really...just saying. it's almost the weekend and I've booked Monday off for no particular reason so that's good. I'm just really looking forward to breathing and sleeping again. I miss those activities, a lot.