had to laugh

My mum was talking to my cousin on the phone today. My cousin was explaining to my mum how she was doing the blood type diet and she's only eating organic food. She also told my mum that she's become a vegetarian, oh she eats chicken and fish, but she considers this vegetarian (mmm...when I was vegetarian for 5 years my definition was "no food with a face" but, obviously I was wrong). Anyway, she hands the phone over to her daughter who tells my mum how her mommy just inhaled 3 chocolate easter eggs. Wonder which part of them was organic? I mean, have a treat sure, but get down off of your high-horse when you're doing it.

We survived our big family meal. It was really nice and I didn't go too overboard. I did have dessert but just a small amount. We actually spent more time visiting than we did eating. This is a pretty huge deal for my family as it's usually "eat first talk later." I had a great chat with my mum about fitness and health. She's a great seamstress and I've avoided letting her measure me for the past several years. Today I let her measure me again and she was pretty impressed. I also confessed to her (the only person I've told beside my hunny and my doctor) was my starting weight was. She was quite shocked and, when I told her what I weighed right now, said that I did not look like I weighed that much. I told her that recently, I've been feeling really fat again, as if I'd not lost any weight at all. I know that it's psychological but it's there. I keep having to put on my old (fat) jeans and watch them fall down around my ankles. I have to keep taking off my rings (that I once couldn't take off) and putting them on my thumbs.

I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and, although I tell myself this over and over again, I'm really going to work on not obsessing over numbers. I want to break through this stupid plateau that I've got myself stuck in but it's not just because of the numbers on the scale. I want to build more muscle, I want to feel stronger and more flexible. I know that if this happens, the numbers will go down on the scale and that's totally excellent but mostly, I want to feel better. This week, I'm going to get back on track, 100%. I'm going to shake up my exercise program, I'm going to stick to my eating plan. If I do both of these things, I know that I can see results faster than I have been lately.

Part of the reason I've stalled is because of my head cold. I know that. The other part of the reason though is that I've become complacent. Over the past few months, I've learned how to maintain my weight loss but I don't want to maintain anymore. I want to find some of that enthusiasm that I felt back in January. At the beginning of the year, I told myself that I wouldn't let work get to me, that I wouldn't get stressed out over stuff I had no control over, blah blah blah. Obviously, that was easier said than done because I did get stressed out over work (only because I had NO idea how bad things would get) and over stuff that was beyond my control. I need to pump myself up again and get back to challenging myself. I need to sort my head out. I need to re-read Dr. Phil's book and kick myself, firmly, in the ass. I know exactly what I have to do, I just have to do it!

busy as a little bee

I'm having a very good day so far. I honestly feel like the worst of the cold is behind me. It's down to a bit of a post-nasal drip and a mini-coughing fit every now and then.

I was up very early this morning for some odd reason. We could have slept in but I didn't bother. I got up and started puttering a bit. I'm kind of glad that I got such an early start on the day because now, I basically have everything done that I needed to do today. I had a tonne of errands to do this morning and I beat the crowds as much as I could. I had to go into the bowels of hell (read, trendy-ish west end of town area) to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, some birthday gifts for my hunny (his birthday is on Wednesday), odds and ends for around the house at the dollar store and a gift for my mum for tomorrow (to thank her for cooking for all of us).

When I got home, it was so nice that I took a walk around the neighbourhood. It was nice to get out and into the sunshine and breathe in the fresh spring air. This afternoon I've been cleaning and doing laundry. I just finished up all of my laundry and cleaning stuff. It feels good to have actually accomplished everything on my to do list today. That hasn't happened in ages and ages.

Tomorrow should be interesting. We are having Easter linner (late lunch, early dinner) at my mum's. I'm not too worried about the meal though. She's cooking a ham but she's doing it with a lot of veggies and I've asked her to not put cheese into anything and she's agreed. We also agreed to not do the easter chocolate thing so I'm not worrying about that. I should be able to keep on track for the whole weekend at this rate. I definitely need to make up for the over-indulging I did over the past two days. I know it's a holiday weekend but I'm not going to allow that to be an excuse to over-indulge for the entire weekend. I keep repeating this to myself over and over in my head and it seems to be sticking. So far, so good!

whew

The relapse I've suffered with my cold isn't as bad as my initial dose but it's making me feel less than happy.

The past two mornings, I've not had any trouble getting up in the morning and I've worked out. It's been a bit tough though. I've really had to push myself to get through them. It's good in a way because I'm finding that I'm really sweaty and feel very much like I've worked hard when I'm done. Eating has not been fabulous but not horrible either. The difficulty stems from having eaten out for dinner both last night and tonight. I made decent-ish choices but ate too much and I know it. Fortunately, I'm not eating all that much during the day but this is not an ideal and I know it.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do this weekend. We have to go to my mum's for dinner on Sunday but other than that, we have no plans. I had half thought about doing some painting but I know that I'll be lucky to get through my laundry and other household stuff this weekend. I know I need to take it easy and I'm going to.

Stupidly, we had to go do errands last night after work. I could not believe how busy the stores were. It was so insane. You'd think that the stores were closing for a month instead of for just today. Sheesh. We needed to go to four or five different places and only made it to two. By the time we had fought the crowds at both places, and stopped off at the bank, I was so pooped that I wanted to go home. I'm not looking forward to it but I definitely need to do errands again tomorrow. I plan to get up and out of the house early and hopefully beat the crowds, or as close to it as I'm gonna get. It's not stuff that I can put off any longer either so I just need to suck it up and do it.

Ugh. You wouldn't think that a stupid head cold could hang on for so long or be such a huge pain in the ass but hey, it is!

blah blah blah

Yesterday didn't end up being the fabulous, perfectly on plan day that I had planned it to be. Ordinarily, I don't set the alarm but, due to the sleeping in problem I had on Monday, I wanted to make sure that I got up early yesterday and I did it. When I woke up, my throat felt like it was full of broken glass and I was all stuffed up again. It was bizarre, it was like I was getting sick all over again. After much nose blowing, before and during, I did manage to get some exercise in. I did feel a bit better for it and carried on with my day.

My eating was good all day but I was feeling weaker and weaker as time moved along. By the time we got home last night, I was feeling crappy and was starving. I ate way more last night for dinner than I ordinarily would have. When I sat down and figured out my calories, I was definitely over what I should have had. I have to admit, I was too tired to really care about it.

Today though, I'm back on track. Still coughing and feeling generally not great but doing okay nonetheless. I did workout this morning and I've eaten well all day so far. I know what we're planning to have for dinner tonight so I shouldn't have any trouble at all keeping to my plan today.

Funny thing is, everyone I talked to yesterday was starving too. Not sure if it's time change related exhaustion induced munchies or what. Fortunately, it seems to have passed.

damn you, time change

I knew that changing the clocks would kick me in the ass. Last night, I was not tired. We vegged out in front of the tube, we watched Arrested Development at 9:30 p.m. (which is ridiculously past our bedtime) and then Extreme Home Makeover from 10 to 11 p.m. I was actually sleepy by 11 p.m. and had a great night's sleep. This morning however, I slept in really late, I had a bunch of stuff to do before work (because we were having our little old guy over for dinner tonight) and I didn't get to workout. Because I had to rush home, make my one dish for the dinner (my hunny did everything else) and the go pick up said little old guy, I couldn't workout right after work. Now, it's 8:30 and I'm pooped and heading to bed. I'm going to definitely get up early tomorrow morning, get my workout in and get back into my routine.

At work today, there was a thank you luncheon for some student volunteers. I don't usually go to these things but I really like the students and felt I should go. The lunch was amazing. I had small amounts of everything and, when I added it all up, it didn't end up being too terrible. Add that to what I just had for dinner though and I'm not sure where my calories will end up. I may have gone over a bit. I can tell myself that it was a special meal for the little old guy (it was our attempt at a Seder for him) but the bottom line was that I ate too much today and I didn't exercise.

Tuesday is another day however. Tomorrow there are no special luncheons planned, no holiday dinners, no reason to sleep in late. I will get up early. I will exercise. I will eat good, healthy foods. No exceptions, no excuses. That's a promise!

lazy day

I feel rested and well tonight. My hunny didn't work today and we spent an entire day together today, not doing too much of anything at all. We spent the day just vegging out. We watched some TV, we hung out. It was basically a very chilled and relaxing day. We could have slept late this morning but were both up kind of early. We didn't jump up and out of bed like we normally would though which was nice for a change. Our pace lately has been so go-go-go that it was nice to take things slow for a change. Another nice thing was that we're both feeling so much healthier this week than last week. The cold we had/have/are getting over is a nasty nasty bug. It knocked us both totally on our butts. I'm still coughing and it was almost 2 weeks ago that it first hit me.

Exercise-wise, I didn't do anything today. Saturdays are usually my break day and I took today off even though I had only exercised 3 days this week. I noticed that last night, when I got home from work, I was really tired. Not mentally though, it was just that my muscles were tired. I had worked out yesterday morning and I think that by the time we got home last night, my muscles were feeling oxygen deprived. I'm still a little stuffed up and am coughing a fair bit so I know that I'm not getting as much oxygen as I normally would be. After work, we did errands (in the rain) for almost 2 hours. It was after 7 p.m. by the time we got home and we didn't finish dinner until after 8 p.m. This is an extremely long day for us. Through the week, we're in bed by 8:30 p.m. The way my arms and legs were hollering at me last night as I was hauling some heavy stuff up the stairs, I figured that I'd be taking a break today. Tomorrow, if it's not raining, I'd like to take a nice walk outside. If the weather is crappy, I guess I'll just do my normal workout. Now that the weather is finally getting nicer, I'd like to get outside as much as possible.

Tonight the time changes and I'm a little concerned about it. Over the past few years I've noticed that it takes me a couple of weeks to adjust to the time change. It really throws a monkey wrench into my routine and makes my morning workouts more of a struggle. Tonight though, we adjusted our clocks early so hopefully the transition will be easier this time. Eating today wasn't fantastic. I guess it was part of the lazy day we had, part of was the rain. I know I ate too much starchy stuff today and not enough fresh fruit / veg. Tomorrow will be better. I guess I convinced myself I needed a day off from thinking about anything at all. When that happens, I forget about balancing stuff. Chalk it up to the lazies. Tomorrow I'll be back on track, 100%.

I'm not sure what happened to Thursday. I know that work was really super busy yesterday, productive and good but busy. Last night, I had a huge surge of energy and was able to get a lot of stuff done around the house that desperately needed doing. While my hunny was cooking dinner, I started doing laundry and made a first attempt the vacuuming the downstairs. After we ate, I finished the laundry and the vacuuming. I also got the upstairs sorted out and all I have to do this weekend is a little more laundry and the bathroom. Things had gotten really grotty and yucky while we were both sick.

Yesterday was the closest thing to being back to normal that I'd felt in over a week. I got up and exercised yesterday morning. I didn't do a full workout like I usually do but I did make an attempt and felt pretty good afterwards. I think that I may have overdone it a little with the cleaning though because I slept like the dead last night. When I woke up this morning, I felt so groggy and sleepy I almost fell as I made my way to the washroom. I had a lot of strange dreams last night though, I do remember some of that. I almost felt like I'd been drugged, it was very odd.

Today is going well so far, despite the slow start. I had a terrific, almost normal, workout this morning and my eating has been really on track for the past few days. Hopefully I'll be able to continue the good work I've done the past few days over the weekend. Weekend's are always a struggle but I'm going to have to work at not letting them get the best of me. I'm not expecting to see a loss this weekend but I'd really like to see one this time next week. I'm definitely finding it easier to stay in control of things now that I can actually breathe and sleep, go figure huh?