not a usual wednesday wrap-up

The cold I referred to yesterday still haunts me. What's worse is that it hasn't actually developed into a full blown cold, it's just been there, in the background, bothering me whenever I get tired. It's mucking with my stomach too, I think, whatever this bug is.

Over the past 24 hours, I've probably eaten less food than I have in any other 24 period over the last month. Sadly, I have also been running to the loo and had a sinus headache for extra fun.

The smaller amount of food was intentional, the bathroom running was not. Can't really say what that was about. I feel rather strange right now, a little loopy if I'm honest, could be the sinus meds.

Whatever the case, my hubby and I talked a lot last night about our plans to move forward. This came on the heels of him having a doctor's appointment yesterday. In this appointment (which was with a specialist, not his GP), he was told that if he lost as little as 50 pounds (that probably sounds like a lot of weight but we both need to lose a significant amount more than that right now), he could get off almost all of meds. He's a type II diabetic and that means he could possibly be off all of his diabetic medication, his blood pressure stuff and possibly only be taking his cholesterol stuff. Eventually, he may be able to get off that as well.

This news was not surprising to me, I've seen this happen to folks on the Biggest Loser. I've told him that before but this is the first time he's heard it from a physician. It was great to hear this. We're both seriously working on our portion control. What we eat has rarely been the problem (pizza nights and chinese take aways aside), the portion thing has been. The trick I think is to bulk up on the veggies and cut back on the noodles or rice. The two of us have decided to cut pork out of our diets (we already don't eat beef). Our nightly dinner contains tofu at least twice a week, I'm sure we could make that happen more often.

almost a month later

Yikes, last month I said I really wanted to post more often and then I totally dropped the ball.

I wish I could report that every day since the last time I posted was picture perfect and that I was sitting here an entire pants size smaller than I was on September 6 (the date of my last post) but I can't. The last month hasn't been a complete wash out but it didn't end up like I'd hoped it would.

There are lots of excuses I could give for it, work got busy, struggles with a head cold, yadda yadda yadda. The bottom line is that there were excellent days and others which would best be described as wash outs. Fortunately, the good days out numbered the bad days.

Exercise was sketchy, in consistent but still a huge improvement over previous months. Food choices at home and in the grocery store were much better than they had been. Sadly, we chose to ignore the healthy food a few times and order take outs (generally Chinese or pizza).

The big thing is that I refused to be completely discouraged by "bad" days. This thing will get easier and we'll plow through the temptations in the best way we can.

I did promise to talk about long and short terms goals and I still promise to do that. In the meantime, I was actually able to meet one of my short term goals and it surprised me. In 2007, I bought this really pretty pink top to wear to a wedding (with a black skirt). When we restarted things in late August/early September, I was thinking about that top and how nice it would be fit into it comfortably enough to work in. I had a particular work event in mind, that event happened on Saturday evening and I wore the pink top. It fit me much better than I thought it would (although it could still be a bit looser). Wearing that top, as small and silly as it might seem, felt really good. It reinforced and reminded me that we need to stick to our guns and lose this weight.

I want to fit into all of the nice clothes I have in my closet which are just too snug, I want my knees to continue to feel better and I want us to be a couple of active, healthy old people.

holiday monday

I'll do an official wrap-up on Wednesday, like I like to do but I thought I should report in on this holiday Monday.

The first week went pretty well, all things considered. Some of the factors which made the first week a little tough on me were a full 5 days of mega-humid weather and me having my period. Two not-so-great things that don't go well together.

I took Friday off from work so I'd have a four-day weekend and was glad of it. I have spent the past few days puttering around the house, playing with the dogs and getting caught up on my housework. Being at home like this is usually pretty dangerous for me. The snacking devils call my name frequently when I'm home. Keeping busy cleaning helped me to keep the snacks at bay.

We did have some microwave popcorn during a movie on Sunday but overall, foodwise, I'm pretty happy with our efforts. I'm also thrilled with how just a little bit of regular exercise is making me feel. My right knee has improved significantly and I feel like I'm moving around a lot easier now. My husband has noticed it too. The knee thing was really getting bad. If I sat for any length of time, when I stood up, it was taking me a while to sort my knee out. Over the weekend, this was not the case. The flexibility in the knee is improved and the pain is almost completely gone. Not bad for one week huh??

I think that the baby steps thing is the key for me. I'm easing back into the exercise thing and am feeling almost immediate benefits. For me, I know if I tried to do too much too quickly, I'd hurt myself, get discouraged and fall off track. That's not going to happen this time!!

ups and downs

So yesterday was day 3. We both found it a little harder to get through our bike rides on day 3 than it was on day 1 and 2. I rode exactly the same distance last night that I had done on Tuesday but it took me a lot more effort to get there. I know that it's good to work harder, this is not supposed to be easy.

A few months ago I started a new job. My old office was on the ground floor of a small building. Very rarely I would need to go up to the second floor so I got pretty lazy. The new job is a building I have worked in before. It's really old and cut up weirdly and we have lots of stairs. I mean LOTS of stairs. My office is on the third floor, the washrooms and kitchen are on the second floor so I'm up and down them several times a day.

When I first moved over to the new office, I was only there 2 weeks before I had a week of a vacation scheduled. After that break, I was in the office for about 3 weeks and then had another 2 week vacation booked. This week is the 3rd week since I've returned from my vacation and I am finally starting to feel a little better about running up and down the stairs. Now, I'm not actually running up and down them but every day, it gets a little bit easier to do them. Sad huh?? I am THAT out of shape, stairs are a struggle, or were. They are definitely not as tough as they had been and I'm looking forward to being able to do them faster and more frequently as time goes on.

So, right now, the focus continues to be on movement. The more I can move myself, the better!!

just like starting over

Holy crap on a cracker, I cannot believe how long it has been since I've posted here!

Admittedly, my journey to a healthier me has taken lots of twists and turns over the past year. Lots of restarts, lots of derailing...

At the moment, I'm taking a kinder, gentler approach to things and both my husband and I are doing this together.

For the longest time, we've been complaining to each other about how far off track we both got. Neither of us has been thrilled with how we've been feeling, unfit and generally yucky. He's a type II diabetic and we're both overweight. This is not good for anyone.

Last week, he had what ended up being the flu but a few trips to the doctor and the diabetic clinic for some pretty extensive tests was a bit of a wake up call for both of us.

Over the weekend, we talked about it a lot and crafted a plan I think will work for us. It's pretty simple, we both eat very reasonable and healthy breakfasts and lunches - I eat breakfast at home and always take my lunch to work, he eats both meals at home because his work schedule permits that. Dinner and the evenings in general is where we get into trouble. Our food is not necessarily high in fat but our portions have been way too big. We also both are snack addicts in the evening while watching tv. Dangerous combo.

This week, we've been having smaller dinner portions and not been snacking in the evenings. So far (and it's only been two days) it's going very well. He is noticing a difference in his morning blood glucose reading already.

The other part of this is exercise. We have really not been doing anything remotely resembling intentional exercise. We have a perfectly good recumbent bike sitting in the basement which we hadn't used for ages. The second part of our deal is this: when we get home from work, I do my ride while he makes dinner (I don't like to ride on a full stomach). When dinner is over, he rides (which is what he should be doing as a diabetic so we've been told). Riding the bike and eating smaller meals is what helped me lose 75 pounds a few years ago and I know it'll work again. Already today, I'm looking forward to getting back on the bike when I get home tonight.

I think we are off to a great start and because we are doing it together, we can help keep each other on track. I have some short term and long term goals that I'll talk about later. The one I will mention is posting here more often. I realize I miss writing and do like to share my small victories and challenges as I do this.

If anyone is still out there reading this, I plan to be back for the long haul!!

wednesday wrap-up - week 7

I was so looking forward to having an excellent report for you all. I had also thought that I'd be posting here every day. Alas, that's not the case!

The cold I had a couple of weeks ago is still around. It's a wacky bug which is now affected my head. I had a killer sinus headache on Monday. It was so bad that I actually had to leave work early. I went home and got into bed and felt much better after a couple of hours of sleep. Today, the headache came back though so I had to resort to taking some drugs because I didn't want to leave the office again today.

Fortunately, in between episodes with the cold, I've had some good days. On the weekend, we did a fair bit of walking (until I started to feel like crap on Sunday afternoon). We're trying to get into more of a routine to walk together, with the dogs, in the evenings. I realize when we are doing it, how out of shape I am but I'm determined to keep at it. Even if we just do a lap around the small block, I feel good about that. Eventually, we'll expand it and when I've conquered that, we'll expand it further. I'm taking my time with this so as not to discourage myself. Walking with the cold does make things more difficult while I'm doing it but afterward, my cold symptoms go away for a little while so that's pretty good.

Anyway, the wrap-up isn't really awesome this week but I'll do one anyway!

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending March 24

• vitamins and water - back on track on both scores. The cold made me want to drink lots of water in an attempt to flush the crap out of my system
  
• didn't post here as much as I'd wanted to
  
• bought a buttload of gorgeous produce on the weekend and have been enjoying snacking on berries and apples and other good things
  
• gave into a bad craving for potato chips while I was really sick but here I am, being honest about - bully for me huh?
  
• feel good about my first attempts at a coordinated exercise plan. Now that the nice weather has returned to my part of the world, and all of the ice is melted, there is no long an excuse to avoid it so I'm getting out there and moving my considerably huge butt. Yay me!
  

deliberate

Happy Spring folks. It's freezing cold here today even though it's officially spring. I shouldn't complain really. If we'd had a day like this 2 weeks ago, it would have felt balmy. Funny how quickly your body can adjust to a change in the temperature isn't it?

I wish that my body would adjust to other things as quickly. Today, I've deliberately made my meal portions smaller and my tummy is grumbly. In a few days, I'll have adjusted again to smaller portions but for today, in addition to being cold, I feel like I could eat a small horse. Well, a small horse sized clump of some kind of food I enjoy.

For now though, I'll grab another sweater and eat my carrots and be grateful for the sunshine.

Missing in inaction

I feel as though I should explain my unplanned absence of the past few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, it got bitterly cold around here. I’d been feeling like I was fighting a cold bug, a little run down, achy, you know how that goes. Everyone in my office had been sick but I had resolve. I would not get sick. The weekend arrived and rather than give into the bug, I kept busy and felt better. I mean, we got some things done around the house and I was able to sleep in and generally go at my own pace.

On the Sunday afternoon, again, it was way cold. Sunny but bitterly cold. I went out onto the deck with one of our dogs. I was wearing yoga pants, a t-shirt and a sweat shirt and leaned against our deck railing while Gracie did her thing. I straightened up, walked back into the house, sat on the couch and experienced massive pain in my back.

This has happened to me before, but not for a good long while. I think it was a combination of stress and the cold, more the bug than the actual temperature. I was laid up for 2 days at home. I crawled back into work on Wednesday and was feeling “okay” by the weekend but really had to limit how much time I spent either at a desk or on my feet. Last week, I started experiencing hip pain. I know it was caused by the funny way I had to walk when my back was messed up. That hip pain eventually migrated to the knee area and is now in my calf. It only really aches toward the end of the day and I am feeling much much better.

Last week, in an attempt to move my old bones and get the achy parts loosened up I did some walking. I wish I could say that I was on a regular exercise routine but I’m not. I also wish I could say that I compensated for the lack of activity by making consistently good food choices but I can’t say that either.

Chocolate has been consumed (not in mass quantities but in larger than I should have), chips have been consumed (although without dip – that counts for something, right?). I did buy some ice cream treats but managed to buy the sugar free mini-sized ones. Overall, it wasn’t a binge fest but it wasn’t great.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing much better. I’m feeling better too and that will help me too. It’s a little too easy to “treat” yourself when you’re laid up. That’s when I shouldn’t be doing it but, well…. you know…

I want to get totally back on track and to do that, I need to post here. It keeps me honest and focused.

not much

I feel like I should have a post today but I don't have a lot to say. I've been online only hit and miss this week because my computer at home is needing a new processor and we won't be getting that sorted out until the weekend (maybe).

Off and on this week, I've felt like I'm getting a cold or flu. On Tuesday, I felt really lousy and took some cold meds and felt better. I'm having the same symptoms again right now. I've taken another dose of the cold meds but my head is pounding still and I feel a little dizzy.

I have a lot to do here at work this afternoon but I think I'll be hitting the bed as soon as I get home, instead of hitting the old exercise bike. Honestly, I'll be so glad when winter is over and all of these horrible germs are gone.

hope you all have a good weekend!

wednesday wrap-up - week 3

I've spent the week on what feels like a food roller coaster. I've had my good moments (the ups) and some moments I've not been so proud of (the downs). Overall, I do know that when all is done and dusted, I've had more ups than downs but unfortunately, not enough to show any significant results. In the past, I'd have blamed the time of the year, the changing weather and general malaise that happens 'round here at this time of the year. Of course, all of those things come into play but ultimately, I should be stronger than that and I wasn't.

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending February 25

• vitamins and water - back on track on both scores. I took those vitamins every day and have been chugging the water like it's going out of style. I do notice an improvement in my skin and I thank the H20 for that
  
• due to computer issues at home and busy days at work, I've not posted as often as I would have liked to. Hopefully, by the weekend, my home computer will be back up and running
  
• discussed the treats at work situation with my co-workers. We're throwing all of the crap out and everyone is going to make an effort to not bring stuff in. We always all complain about and yet some folks continue to bring it in. We'll see how it goes!
  

no remorse

Friday night, before we went home, we stopped for groceries. My hunny had driven past the store on his way to pick me up and he commented that it was really busy there. As much as I would have liked to have put it off, I knew that if we didn't go on our way home, we may go home, order a pizza for dinner and that would start the weekend off on a bad foot.

The store was really busy but we got through it pretty quickly. We stocked up on lots of healthy snacks. Once again, almost no packaged food was in our buggy, just stuff from the outside aisles of the store.

Over the weekend, the nagging hunger pretty much stayed away. On Saturday night, because we'd not been out to dinner in over a week (which is very good for us!), we decided to go out for sushi. It's an all you can eat place but you order from the menu. We've been there before and really enjoy it. I had my favourite salad (with deliciously fresh avocados) and we ordered lots of sushi. It was super filling and very satisfying but I was still jonesing for chocolate after dinner.

On the way home, we stopped off at the drug store so I could get a chocolate bar. that's right, I broke down. It was so good. And I didn't eat the whole thing that night. I savoured every bite and enjoyed some of it yesterday too. I realize now that rather than make myself insane trying to feed a craving with something else, it's better for me to indulge in a small amount of the real thing, just once in a while. I think I'm good on the chocolate front for a while now. I'm glad that I waited as long as I did but I don't feel badly about finally giving in.

the hunger

For some unknown reason, the past couple of days have been really challenging for me. On Wednesday and Thursday, I just felt hungry all day long. Even after eating my meals, I'd still feel hungry. The temptation to snack was intense. Fortunately, we don't have any junk in the house so the small amount of snacking I did do was on stuff which wasn't horrible. All the water and gum in the world wasn't helping, which is odd, because it usually does.

Today I don't have that nagging hungry feeling like I did yesterday. I keep trying to figure out what caused it. Perhaps the weather has something to do with it. It has suddenly become very cold here again after a few days of pretty moderate weather (for this time of the year in this part of the world anyway). Yesterday I felt sore and cold and it was damp all day. I wonder if just wanted to comfort myself with food. Whatever it was, I tried to fight it. I did eat a couple of extra portions of sugar free jello along the way but for the most part, I just tried to ignore it.

It's a good thing I did too because if the weather hadn't been sort of dicey, I would have been jumping in the car and heading to Tim Horton's for something chocolatey and cake-y or to the grocery store for something in the Ben & Jerry's family. Not good. Well, actually, really yummy but not at all what I need right now.

Hopefully, whatever it was is over for now and I won't be struggling to stay on track all weekend. I am looking forward to a time when this all becomes second nature again.

survey says

Last night, we had a visit by some folks from Statistics Canada. They were doing a survey for our local public health unit to find out what folks in the community knew about their services.

The survey itself was brief but they left behind some literature about the health unit which was sort of interesting. I knew about a few of their programs but they have a couple which could help with weight loss that I was not aware of (they also left us a copy of the latest "Canada's Food Guide" which was nice). The two programs I thought were particularly cool were the "living well phone line" and "dial-a-dietitian."

It's sort of cool that they came to our door. You just never know when help is going to be offered to you - this was a very pleasant surprise.

wednesday wrap-up - week 2

You may have wondered where I have been for the past almost a week. I was sick. As a dog. I had booked off some extra time for an extra-long, fun-filled weekend. All of my weekend plans were cancelled and I was sick for almost the whole time. Not fun. Bad food choices were made at time, at other times, I had no appetite at all. Overall, the week was a bit of a wash out

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending February 18

• vitamins and water - I did drink a huge amount of water over the past week but the vitamins were hit and miss because of my not feeling good. This week should be a huge improvement. I also drank a lot of diet ginger ale which wasn't great
  
• despite my good intentions, I did not post here at all over the weekend or during "the illness"
  
• was able to avoid the many treats which keep coming into the office. I even avoided the wonderful smelling marble cake which was here on Thursday
  
• no real, intentional exercise to speak of
  
• did not weigh in but if I had, I don't think I'd have seen a change for the better

fill'er up

This week, I've noticed that I fill up very quickly at meal time. It's pretty incredible and I'm not complaining one little bit. I imagine that part of it is all of the water I've been drinking, combined with the better quality food.

The best part of it is that the evening snack cravings are disappearing. I'm sure that the weekend (as always) will continue to be a struggle but at least I feel like I'm in control through the week.

Yesterday, I got a little walking in. It was raining pretty hard so I didn't do a whole lot (just 20 minutes) but I was glad I did it. It's a long weekend 'round here this weekend and the weather is supposed to be cold but nice. This week, a lot of the snow has melted so the streets and sidewalks are in much better shape than they were at the beginning of the month. The improved conditions should make walking easier - I'd like to walk outside every day over the weekend if the weather permits. I'd enjoy it and I think that the doggies would as well!

wednesday wrap-up - week 1

This week was really the first full week I can report on. Overall, I have to say that I feel good about how things went. In the past, I've jumped into this with both feet and white knuckled things. I've overcontrolled my portions and that created a raging craving monster inside of me. This time, I'm not being as hard on myself. As I mentioned last week, I'm concerned more with content than portion size (they seem to go hand in hand though). I know that I've eaten far less food this week than I have in a long time. I also know that the food I did eat was of a higher quality (more nutritious, less crap-filled) and that I'm feeling better physically because of these better choices.

So, having said all of that, here's my weekly wrap-up:

summary - week ending February 11

• again with the small stuff - I took my vitamins every day over the past week and I drank a butt load of water. I did have some diet soda on the weekend but not nearly as much as I normally would
  
• posted here, almost every day - I took one day off over the weekend - this journal keeps me accountable to myself and I like sharing what I struggle with, and what works, with you
  
• continued to avoid treats while at work. yesterday, a wonderful coworker brought in some carrot cake. it looks and smells delicioius and it was very nice of her to bring it in but I feel good about having not indulged in even a small piece
  
• once again, my exercise was mostly stuff involving the dogs and some walking. I feel like I need to create a solid exercise plan now that I'm feeling better about my eating
  
• hopped on the scale this morning for the first time in a long while. I wasn't impressed but also wasn't shocked by what I saw. I know that the next time I hop on it, it'll be a smaller number

like water for chicken

My poor hunny is a migraine sufferer. Recently, because of the crazy weather he's been suffering with them more frequently than normal. Yesterday he had one so when he picked me up from work he feeling better but beaten up. He'd gone home in the morning and slept for a little while.

We had a couple of errands to do and after we were finished them and were on our way home, the "what will we have for dinner" discussion started. Now, my hunny is a chef so he's looks after most of our meals. Sometimes when he's recovering from a headache he gets some odd cravings. Last night, it was chicken. He's not a fan of chicken for the most part (he eats it but you know...). It wasn't just chicken though, he kept talking about fried chicken. This was very strange. He is really not a fan of fried chicken. Anyway, he kept talking about it and talking about it and we ended up eventually in the drive thru of the local KFC. It wasn't the best thing in the world to have had for dinner but it did make him feel better. I had a bowl thing (so did he) and we shared some popcorn chicken. I did notice that I was full really quickly and didn't feel like snacking at all in the evening. I suppose that's a good thing huh? Usually "fast food" leaves me wanting more.

This morning, not intentionally, I have avoided coffee at work (and the yummy looking carrot cake someone brought in) and have been drinking a lot of water. Dinner was a bit salty last night so that may be why I've been wanting water. Less than stellar food choices aside, overall I feel better right now than I did two weeks ago so I think I'm on the right path.

I survived!

I ate no chocolate this weekend.

I did not bake muffins (it would have been a silly thing to do for me - I think I would have eaten too many of them and they still wouldn't have been chocolate).

I did snack on my rice cake type snack items on Friday night and yesterday afternoon. We did order a pizza for a late lunch / early dinner on Saturday and I had salad with it. It was a fair compromise for having a little bit of greasy stuff. I did have some leftovers yesterday too but overall, it could have been much worse.

The weekend really was all about food. Me thinking about wanting something I really shouldn't have (or at least not have too much of or have too often) and then getting busy doing something else so I'd stop thinking about it. Distractions can work to help with cravings, I think.

While part of me wanted to stay home today and play with the dogs, the other (bigger) part of me is glad to be back at work and into my routine. Routine is the very best friend of a person who has food issues!!

ugh

Woke up this morning feeling stiff and sore, again. Whatever this bug is that I have, it's getting rather boring.

I also woke up thinking about greasy breakfast foods and chocolate. Hormones anyone? Yeah, I'm fighting it. Maybe the compromise will be some sort of home baked thing. Mmm... maybe low fat carrot muffins?

braced

All week this week, I've been dragging my butt around. I talked to a co-worker this morning and she's felt the same way. We both think that we've had a weird flu bug of sorts. Partly it could be that we've had extremely cold weather here this week but I don't think it's entirely down to the weather. Last night and this morning, I was having aches and pains in my joints and was really uncomfortable. It's not so bad now that I'm at work and have been moving around but I was feeling really crappy about it last night.

In fact, I felt so crappy about it that I really wanted to indulge in something "bad" to make myself feel better. Fortunately, we didn't have any bad stuff in the house. After work last night, we stopped off to do a quick shop at the grocery store. While we were there, we stuck to our list and bought mostly fresh ingredients so our meals will continue to be amazing, veggie filled events. I did pick up a couple of veggie frozen pizzas. I love pizza and figured that having a frozen pizza in the house will help when I get those cravings. They are less fatty than the one we like to order from our neighbourhood pizzeria not to mention they are much smaller. I wanted to buy a package of whole wheat crusts but they didn't have any so I opted for the frozen version, if you're wondering. The other thing I got for myself (trying to think ahead instead of reacting always) were a couple of bags of rice cake chip things. I know that I'm heading into a particularly hormonal time of the month and I may need something salty. They should help. I know I should try to avoid the sale entirely but that's not going to happen (not yet anyway) so I figure it's better to control the fat and the portion. Again, baby steps right.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't worried about the weekend but I'm trying to remain focused on the long term. Overall, I think my choices have been much better than they were last week. All I can do is keep improving that every week and know that I'll feel better for it in the long run.

What do you do to avoid those evening and weekend temptations?