oh chocolate...sweet sweet temptress....
Day one of being back on track has been weird. Right now, more than anything, all I can think about is how much I want some chocolate. On the ride home from work it kept popping into my head. This is not PMS related, this is stress related. Work is still going badly. I've found that I'm not letting work shit creep into my thoughts while I'm at home. Somehow I've figured out how to block it all out when I'm not at the office. While I'm at work though, it's insane. I'm the only person left in our unit since my boss left and I'm really overwhelmed. It's not that I'm being asked to do anything that I can't do (because I've been very clear about what I can and cannot do since she left), it's just the workload. It's suffocating me to the point where I'm not being productive at all. I spent this morning in a transition workshop (related to the re-org) and when I got back to the office, my head was throbbing. I decided to talk to my director tomorrow and find out if I can get some help in, pronto. I don't want to fuck stuff up and I am fairly certain that they don't want me going off on stress leave or worse. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone in soon. Something has to give, I just can't take it anymore. On top of that, I'm going to have to be training folks who will take over what I've been doing and learn a new job at the same time. It's a lot of balls to keep in the air.
Through this all though, today, I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to let what's going on around me throw me off my program. I was really successful too. I worked out this morning and had a healthy breakfast. At lunchtime, I came home and had a lovely salad and a yogurt. Tonight we're having something with shrimp and tofu and veggies (not sure what yet but I'm sure it'll be lovely). Even though I knew that what I was doing was good for me, I still keep thinking about chocolate. I mean, I could go get some and eat it. Chocolate is not going to make me feel better though, not in the long run. It might give me a quick sugar / caffeine rush but the remorse and calories is not worth it. I feel pretty good about not giving into it. It's a relief to be home and in my safe, chocolate-free environment.
This week I'm physically feeling better too. My back was wonky for almost an entire week. That never happens, I couldn't believe how long it lasted this time. It's always something that is brought on by stress but it usually goes away after a day or so. Last week though, it dragged on and on. It made me miss my workouts and they are my number one source of stress relief at the moment. I'm so happy to be back on my exercise program. I had no idea how crappy I was feeling last week until this morning when I realized that I was all better.
Overall this week, I'm really focusing on 100% on track eating, workouts every day and, hopefully, a lower number on the scale on Saturday. Looking back over what I've just typed, I can feel my headache ebbing away with the chocolate craving. I don't know how I'd cope if I couldn't just pour everything out there like I do.
Monday, March 08, 2004
Sunday, March 07, 2004
back to basics
To say that my efforts lately have been lackadaisical at best would be an understatement. I've had intense work crap going on as well as silly family drama recently and I've used these events as excuses to not give my very best to my program. That's ending today.
My hunny and I have talked it over and we're not going to use any external crap to excuse bad behavior any longer. Now, we weren't so far off the mark that we were both gaining weight like crazy, that didn't happen. Somehow we managed to maintain over the past few weeks. I don't want to maintain any longer, I want to lose again. I want to see those numbers getting smaller on the scale instead of staying exactly the same for weeks on end.
At the beginning of the year I was full of vigor and inspiration and I've allowed crazy stuff that I can't control pick away at it. I'm not going to allow that to happen anymore. I've said it before (because it's totally true), I deserve better than what I've been giving myself recently. I deserve to have a strong and healthy body. I deserve to have a body that will allow me to live to a really really old age. Doing half-assed workouts or eating hit and miss meals at odd times (or missing some meals and then over eating at others) isn't doing either of us any good. Also, we've just been plain old eating out way too much recently. Not only is it not the healthiest thing to be doing, it's getting stupidly expensive.
Monday morning we're going to head back to boot camp. We're going to get back to our regime (that we love and makes us feel so good) tomorrow. We went out for groceries this afternoon and we're totally stocked up with good stuff. We got a huge container of mixed organic greens, a tonne of portabellos, sweet peppers and a bag of five romaine hearts at Costco. Our freezer is full of lean pork and skinless chicken breasts....our tofu and fruit are stocked up...same with the cereal and soy milk. We're all set for a back on track week.
You're not going to hear anymore excuses for this chickie, the scale will have moved in a downward direction come Saturday morning!!
To say that my efforts lately have been lackadaisical at best would be an understatement. I've had intense work crap going on as well as silly family drama recently and I've used these events as excuses to not give my very best to my program. That's ending today.
My hunny and I have talked it over and we're not going to use any external crap to excuse bad behavior any longer. Now, we weren't so far off the mark that we were both gaining weight like crazy, that didn't happen. Somehow we managed to maintain over the past few weeks. I don't want to maintain any longer, I want to lose again. I want to see those numbers getting smaller on the scale instead of staying exactly the same for weeks on end.
At the beginning of the year I was full of vigor and inspiration and I've allowed crazy stuff that I can't control pick away at it. I'm not going to allow that to happen anymore. I've said it before (because it's totally true), I deserve better than what I've been giving myself recently. I deserve to have a strong and healthy body. I deserve to have a body that will allow me to live to a really really old age. Doing half-assed workouts or eating hit and miss meals at odd times (or missing some meals and then over eating at others) isn't doing either of us any good. Also, we've just been plain old eating out way too much recently. Not only is it not the healthiest thing to be doing, it's getting stupidly expensive.
Monday morning we're going to head back to boot camp. We're going to get back to our regime (that we love and makes us feel so good) tomorrow. We went out for groceries this afternoon and we're totally stocked up with good stuff. We got a huge container of mixed organic greens, a tonne of portabellos, sweet peppers and a bag of five romaine hearts at Costco. Our freezer is full of lean pork and skinless chicken breasts....our tofu and fruit are stocked up...same with the cereal and soy milk. We're all set for a back on track week.
You're not going to hear anymore excuses for this chickie, the scale will have moved in a downward direction come Saturday morning!!
Saturday, March 06, 2004
shopping survival
I am so not a mall rat anymore. I know that I used to be but that was years ago, in high school probably. Today, my hunny and I decided to take a road trip down to Syracuse. We wanted to pick up some Diet Coke with Lime (it totally rawks -- we drink our diet coke with real lime all the time, this is a fabulous product that will hopefully be available in Canada soon) as well as some Special K with Almond & Vanilla. We also wanted to check out some computer type stuff and I wanted to visit JC Penney & Lane Bryant.
We ended up at the Carousel Center. It was a zoo. It was also about a million degrees in there, I swear that they still had the heat on!! We managed to get a fabulous parking spot by Kaufmann's and wandered through the mall, looking around for the stores we knew that we wanted to check out. There were huge line-ups everywhere. I couldn't believe it. One thing that I learned today is that there are not nearly enough women's washrooms in the place. Every restroom had at least a 10-15 minute wait.
Eventually, I was able to find a directory and locate Lane Bryant. It was exactly where it had been last time I was in the mall but that was so long ago I can't even remember. I was in luck because I needed to find some new bras and they have a huge sale on bras and other stuff like that. Miracle of miracles, I actually found some stuff that I liked. I picked out four bras and some undies and turned around to make my way to the cash. There were at least 30 women in line ahead of me. I stood in the line for a few minutes and did some calculations about the exchange rate and the actual prices of what I was holding in my hands. It didn't take long for me to put the stuff back and go back into the mall, where my hunny was patiently waiting for me. I was a little disappointed but I just couldn't imagine standing in that line for what looked like would be 30 to 45 minutes. Insanity!! For undies!! I don't think so. It probably didn't help that it was after 3 p.m. and we'd not yet had lunch.
We decided to get outside, get some fresh air and rethink the whole thing. Once we got to the car, we decided that it would be a better use of our time to just head back up to Watertown and get what we wanted at the grocery store there. We had a great time. We found the cereal and the pop as well as some fat free salad dressings that we can't find here and some Zesty Honey Mustard by Gulden's that looks really yummy. Watertown's actually less than a hour from here so we may go back again soon if we find that we like the stuff we found today.
I didn't do a proper workout this morning but we did a tonne of walking today. Other than the no air in the mall thing, the walking felt good. All of the time spent in the car on the other hand, was a little exhausting. I'm sure that we'll sleep well tonight. Tomorrow I do plan to do a proper workout first thing in the morning and then Monday, as I said before, totally back on track with that. On that note, I'm heading off to bed. Hope you're having a good weekend so far, I know that I certainly am!
I am so not a mall rat anymore. I know that I used to be but that was years ago, in high school probably. Today, my hunny and I decided to take a road trip down to Syracuse. We wanted to pick up some Diet Coke with Lime (it totally rawks -- we drink our diet coke with real lime all the time, this is a fabulous product that will hopefully be available in Canada soon) as well as some Special K with Almond & Vanilla. We also wanted to check out some computer type stuff and I wanted to visit JC Penney & Lane Bryant.
We ended up at the Carousel Center. It was a zoo. It was also about a million degrees in there, I swear that they still had the heat on!! We managed to get a fabulous parking spot by Kaufmann's and wandered through the mall, looking around for the stores we knew that we wanted to check out. There were huge line-ups everywhere. I couldn't believe it. One thing that I learned today is that there are not nearly enough women's washrooms in the place. Every restroom had at least a 10-15 minute wait.
Eventually, I was able to find a directory and locate Lane Bryant. It was exactly where it had been last time I was in the mall but that was so long ago I can't even remember. I was in luck because I needed to find some new bras and they have a huge sale on bras and other stuff like that. Miracle of miracles, I actually found some stuff that I liked. I picked out four bras and some undies and turned around to make my way to the cash. There were at least 30 women in line ahead of me. I stood in the line for a few minutes and did some calculations about the exchange rate and the actual prices of what I was holding in my hands. It didn't take long for me to put the stuff back and go back into the mall, where my hunny was patiently waiting for me. I was a little disappointed but I just couldn't imagine standing in that line for what looked like would be 30 to 45 minutes. Insanity!! For undies!! I don't think so. It probably didn't help that it was after 3 p.m. and we'd not yet had lunch.
We decided to get outside, get some fresh air and rethink the whole thing. Once we got to the car, we decided that it would be a better use of our time to just head back up to Watertown and get what we wanted at the grocery store there. We had a great time. We found the cereal and the pop as well as some fat free salad dressings that we can't find here and some Zesty Honey Mustard by Gulden's that looks really yummy. Watertown's actually less than a hour from here so we may go back again soon if we find that we like the stuff we found today.
I didn't do a proper workout this morning but we did a tonne of walking today. Other than the no air in the mall thing, the walking felt good. All of the time spent in the car on the other hand, was a little exhausting. I'm sure that we'll sleep well tonight. Tomorrow I do plan to do a proper workout first thing in the morning and then Monday, as I said before, totally back on track with that. On that note, I'm heading off to bed. Hope you're having a good weekend so far, I know that I certainly am!
Friday, March 05, 2004
the french
One of things that really helped me get through this week at work is music. I mean, I've always got my headphones on but this week in particular I realized that everytime stuff would just feel ridiculously unbearable, I'd put my copy of "Local Information" by The French on and it would just make me feel SOOOOO much better. I'm not sure why but I can't stop listening to the song The Wu-Tang Clan, it just makes me smile. I guess this is relevant to this blog only because it's helped me to maintain my mental health this week.
Today I'm feeling like my old self. I'm not working today but I was up early anyway. My back is still a little stiff but I managed to get onto the bike for a short while this morning. I've also already done 2 loads of laundry, cleaned up the main floor of the house and have just finished scrubbing down the the bathroom. I think this is pretty good considering how much I've been hobblin' along all week. I'm going to do gentle exercise all weekend and by Monday, I should be back to full steam with my workouts. I've also half planned out our meals for the weekend so that should help me keep the weekend munchies at bay.
A couple of weeks ago, Meredith sent me a note about the March issue of Self magazine. She told me that there was a mention of this blog on Page 73. I was really surprised to hear this and spent the next week and a bit frantically trying to locate a copy of the magazine locally. Every place I went to was still carrying the February issue (I even found one store that still had the January issue on the shelf!). Finally, Wednesday night, I was able to find a copy of the magazine. Heather was nice enough to scan her copy and post it at the Weigh-Better board so I actually got to see it last week.
In "real life" there are only 3 people who know about this particular blog. It felt a little weird to see the URL (they only mentioned the URL, not my name, I didn't even know that they were doing this) for my little page in a big magazine like Self. Most of my offline friends are not all that savvy when it comes to computer stuff so I never worry about them stumbling onto this page. In the store, I opened the magazine to page 73 and sort of looked around and remember thinking that now, anyone in the store could just go to it and read this blog. Not that they couldn't before but before, you'd sort of have to know what you were looking for. I know that I've had a few more hits to my page over the past couple of weeks. It's kind of cool. I know that having this blog has helped me in so many ways. Sometimes when things are just getting to me, writing them down and letting it flow helps to put it into perspective. If you would like to see the article, just click here. It's pretty cool and I'm a little surprised that out of all the links that they could of put up, they put mine but I'm happy about it nonetheless!
I think I'm going to jump in the shower (which is nice and clean again!) and head off to do a bunch of errands. I'm feeling so much better right now than I have all week, I don't even mind that it's pouring rain right now!!
One of things that really helped me get through this week at work is music. I mean, I've always got my headphones on but this week in particular I realized that everytime stuff would just feel ridiculously unbearable, I'd put my copy of "Local Information" by The French on and it would just make me feel SOOOOO much better. I'm not sure why but I can't stop listening to the song The Wu-Tang Clan, it just makes me smile. I guess this is relevant to this blog only because it's helped me to maintain my mental health this week.
Today I'm feeling like my old self. I'm not working today but I was up early anyway. My back is still a little stiff but I managed to get onto the bike for a short while this morning. I've also already done 2 loads of laundry, cleaned up the main floor of the house and have just finished scrubbing down the the bathroom. I think this is pretty good considering how much I've been hobblin' along all week. I'm going to do gentle exercise all weekend and by Monday, I should be back to full steam with my workouts. I've also half planned out our meals for the weekend so that should help me keep the weekend munchies at bay.
A couple of weeks ago, Meredith sent me a note about the March issue of Self magazine. She told me that there was a mention of this blog on Page 73. I was really surprised to hear this and spent the next week and a bit frantically trying to locate a copy of the magazine locally. Every place I went to was still carrying the February issue (I even found one store that still had the January issue on the shelf!). Finally, Wednesday night, I was able to find a copy of the magazine. Heather was nice enough to scan her copy and post it at the Weigh-Better board so I actually got to see it last week.
In "real life" there are only 3 people who know about this particular blog. It felt a little weird to see the URL (they only mentioned the URL, not my name, I didn't even know that they were doing this) for my little page in a big magazine like Self. Most of my offline friends are not all that savvy when it comes to computer stuff so I never worry about them stumbling onto this page. In the store, I opened the magazine to page 73 and sort of looked around and remember thinking that now, anyone in the store could just go to it and read this blog. Not that they couldn't before but before, you'd sort of have to know what you were looking for. I know that I've had a few more hits to my page over the past couple of weeks. It's kind of cool. I know that having this blog has helped me in so many ways. Sometimes when things are just getting to me, writing them down and letting it flow helps to put it into perspective. If you would like to see the article, just click here. It's pretty cool and I'm a little surprised that out of all the links that they could of put up, they put mine but I'm happy about it nonetheless!
I think I'm going to jump in the shower (which is nice and clean again!) and head off to do a bunch of errands. I'm feeling so much better right now than I have all week, I don't even mind that it's pouring rain right now!!
Thursday, March 04, 2004
little by little
Finally, I'm starting to feel better. I realized about an hour ago that the pain had subsided to a dull thud. I'm going to have to be careful of what I do for the next few days but I'm finally walking tall again. For the past few days I've been sort of hunched over.
I'm definitely planning to get back to my workout routine starting tomorrow. Feeling like I do at the moment, I see no reason why I shouldn't. Today so far too, my eating has been on track. Yesterday wasn't horrible either now that I think about it. Not fabulous but not too bad. I quickly hopped on the scale this morning, expecting to see a huge gain (although it's not official until Saturday) but I was happy to see that it was the same as on the weekend. Status quo is good enough for me, particularly after several days of not exercising.
Work doesn't feel as horrible today as it has all week. I know that the back pain (which was caused by stress) was creating a different kind of stress all on it's own and I'm sure that's why I had so many mini-meltdowns this week. Looking back over the past couple of days I now see that I've actually accomplished a lot this week and feel pretty good about it. I'm really looking forward to just kicking back this weekend and trying to forget about all the bad crap that we've been dealing with recently. Not exactly sure what we'll end up doing but I'm sure it'll be fun. I'm not thinking about that too much either, I'm just happy to be feeling better, finally!!
Finally, I'm starting to feel better. I realized about an hour ago that the pain had subsided to a dull thud. I'm going to have to be careful of what I do for the next few days but I'm finally walking tall again. For the past few days I've been sort of hunched over.
I'm definitely planning to get back to my workout routine starting tomorrow. Feeling like I do at the moment, I see no reason why I shouldn't. Today so far too, my eating has been on track. Yesterday wasn't horrible either now that I think about it. Not fabulous but not too bad. I quickly hopped on the scale this morning, expecting to see a huge gain (although it's not official until Saturday) but I was happy to see that it was the same as on the weekend. Status quo is good enough for me, particularly after several days of not exercising.
Work doesn't feel as horrible today as it has all week. I know that the back pain (which was caused by stress) was creating a different kind of stress all on it's own and I'm sure that's why I had so many mini-meltdowns this week. Looking back over the past couple of days I now see that I've actually accomplished a lot this week and feel pretty good about it. I'm really looking forward to just kicking back this weekend and trying to forget about all the bad crap that we've been dealing with recently. Not exactly sure what we'll end up doing but I'm sure it'll be fun. I'm not thinking about that too much either, I'm just happy to be feeling better, finally!!
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
hurtin' unit
If you can believe it (I sure can't!), my back is still mucked up. It's better than it was yesterday but only marginally. I know that I should have stayed home from work yesterday but I just couldn't. I stuck it out and was really uncomfortable. I probably made a tonne of mistakes but at least I was here. I'm here again today, uncomfortable and prone to tears if someone asks me how things are going (in a unit that should have 4 people in it, on my own!). Not fun!
The stress is really getting to me. We've also had some family "fun" to deal with this week. My hunny's no good, deadbeat, fuck-wit, asshole brother is in the hospital. At first we didn't believe it (because his lying asshole wife called the little old guy) but we confirmed the information with North York General yesterday in the morning. The little old guy is prone to getting things wrong when it comes to medical terms and names. Last year, LOG was in the hospital recovering from a dissected aorta and, for weeks after getting out he couldn't remember what he had suffered from. Finally, when John Ritter died from a dissected aorta, he was able to tell folks, "yeah, I had that thing that killed Jack from 3's Company!"). Anyway, he told us that his son was suffering from a relapse of Wegner's Disease. I found this to be odd because this is a disease that affects babies. After many phone calls and digging around, we discovered that he actually has Wegener's Disease. Different spelling, quite different disease. He's pretty seriously ill and it's causing all kinds of logistical problems on our end as we live about 2.5 hours east of where he is. The LOG doesn't really want to make the trip but would like to see him (impossible!!?), my hunny doesn't want to go because he hasn't talked to his brother in 10 years. It's all just lovely and fun in a disgustingly complicated and horrible way.
We were supposed to go to Ottawa tomorrow night to see the Smugglers and the Evaporators but I don't think that's happening now. I had Friday booked off and, when I realized we may not go to Ottawa, I was going to cancel it. I'm thinking now that I'm going to take the day, try to convince my hunny to take it too and just try to chill out. Goodness knows we both need some down time.
As I'm sure you can imagine, meals have been sporadic at best and working out hasn't happened because of the back thing. It's shaping up to be a complete wash out of a week. Hopefully once I get through hump-day it'll improve. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hope you are all having a better week than I am!
If you can believe it (I sure can't!), my back is still mucked up. It's better than it was yesterday but only marginally. I know that I should have stayed home from work yesterday but I just couldn't. I stuck it out and was really uncomfortable. I probably made a tonne of mistakes but at least I was here. I'm here again today, uncomfortable and prone to tears if someone asks me how things are going (in a unit that should have 4 people in it, on my own!). Not fun!
The stress is really getting to me. We've also had some family "fun" to deal with this week. My hunny's no good, deadbeat, fuck-wit, asshole brother is in the hospital. At first we didn't believe it (because his lying asshole wife called the little old guy) but we confirmed the information with North York General yesterday in the morning. The little old guy is prone to getting things wrong when it comes to medical terms and names. Last year, LOG was in the hospital recovering from a dissected aorta and, for weeks after getting out he couldn't remember what he had suffered from. Finally, when John Ritter died from a dissected aorta, he was able to tell folks, "yeah, I had that thing that killed Jack from 3's Company!"). Anyway, he told us that his son was suffering from a relapse of Wegner's Disease. I found this to be odd because this is a disease that affects babies. After many phone calls and digging around, we discovered that he actually has Wegener's Disease. Different spelling, quite different disease. He's pretty seriously ill and it's causing all kinds of logistical problems on our end as we live about 2.5 hours east of where he is. The LOG doesn't really want to make the trip but would like to see him (impossible!!?), my hunny doesn't want to go because he hasn't talked to his brother in 10 years. It's all just lovely and fun in a disgustingly complicated and horrible way.
We were supposed to go to Ottawa tomorrow night to see the Smugglers and the Evaporators but I don't think that's happening now. I had Friday booked off and, when I realized we may not go to Ottawa, I was going to cancel it. I'm thinking now that I'm going to take the day, try to convince my hunny to take it too and just try to chill out. Goodness knows we both need some down time.
As I'm sure you can imagine, meals have been sporadic at best and working out hasn't happened because of the back thing. It's shaping up to be a complete wash out of a week. Hopefully once I get through hump-day it'll improve. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hope you are all having a better week than I am!
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
around
It's been a few days since I've posted but I have a reason. On Sunday afternoon, my back went kerfluey again. This is the same thing that always happens and it almost always happens because of stress. I know that all of the stress over the past couple of weeks has just finally manifested itself in my back. I can do all kinds of exercises to make my back stronger (and trust me, when it's feeling fine, I'm very strong, I can lift all kinds of stuff, no problem) but it doesn't make any difference when the stress hits. It's feeling much better today but I'm having to be careful not to twist the wrong way. Sunday afternoon/evening and all day yesterday were spent on the heating pad, popping ibuprofens. I've been around, just not in front of the computer.
I'm back at work today but didn't exercise this morning. I'll get back into it again tomorrow I'm sure, at least in some kinder, gentler way.
It's been a few days since I've posted but I have a reason. On Sunday afternoon, my back went kerfluey again. This is the same thing that always happens and it almost always happens because of stress. I know that all of the stress over the past couple of weeks has just finally manifested itself in my back. I can do all kinds of exercises to make my back stronger (and trust me, when it's feeling fine, I'm very strong, I can lift all kinds of stuff, no problem) but it doesn't make any difference when the stress hits. It's feeling much better today but I'm having to be careful not to twist the wrong way. Sunday afternoon/evening and all day yesterday were spent on the heating pad, popping ibuprofens. I've been around, just not in front of the computer.
I'm back at work today but didn't exercise this morning. I'll get back into it again tomorrow I'm sure, at least in some kinder, gentler way.
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