weigh in

Don't ask me how because I have NO idea but I'm down 2 pounds this week. Even with all of those mini chocolate bars I managed to lose 2 pounds. So, 2 down, 38 to go towards my first "sorta biggish" mini-goal.

The past couple of days have been busy so I haven't been in front of the machine much. Well, I've been in front a computer a lot but I haven't found much blogging time. Things at work feel much better this week, probably better than they have in a really long time. The other day, I had a very long (like about 90 minutes long) discussion with my boss about a number of things, workload included. A couple of weeks ago, when I was in the office on a Saturday, a colleague popped in to pick up some supplies for an out-of-town event. She made an off-hand comment about how I should work Tuesdays to Saturdays because I'm able to get so much done on Saturdays (when the phone isn't ringing and I'm not faced with constant interruptions). I mentioned this to my boss and she gave me permission to do it, if I wanted to. So, for the month of November at least, I'm planning on changing my schedule. On Saturdays, I'll go in from 7 to 2, working straight through, and that way, I'll still have Saturday afternoon free and I can have Monday to myself. I don't think that I'd want to do this long-term but it should help me dig myself out of the hole that I'm in right now. The knot in my neck feels smaller than it has in ages so this must be a good thing.

I knew that if I could just suck it up and ride it out, everything would be okay eventually. It's still not perfect but then nothing ever is. At least work is feeling manageable again. Now, if I can just sort the other areas of my life out, all will be fine.

less knotty

The little tiny chocolate bars which were in my house are gone. I wish that I could say that I stomped on them with dirty shoes and threw them in the garbage. Unfortunately, we ate them, while sprawled across the bed watching Sex and the City on DVD. I'm not proud of it but I'm admitting it here. Another thing I should have added to my "weekly goals" list was that I am going to journal every day. It helps my sanity and it keeps me honest. Honesty is good, particularly when you fuck up. If I mess up and post it here, I can go back and read over my archives and find patterns. Right now, I'm heading into PMS so that could explain the eating of the mini Cadbury's. I'm making up little goodie bags for the trick-or-treaters and I've decided to only buy candy that we don't like.

Other than the chocolate bars though yesterday was pretty good. We actually ate dinner at home last night and it was delicious and not totally unhealthy. Tonight, we have our meal all planned out so we're heading in the right direction.

As far as work and the LOG go, things are a bit better today. We stopped by to see LOG last night (and to drop off his laundry - finally!) and we all just ignored what had happened on Sunday and really didn't talk about anything of relevance. It's hard to actually have a meaningful conversation with him anymore without one or both of us getting really frustrated so we just talk about the weather and/or what he had for lunch. It's a little pathetic but it seems to work. After having an absolutely horrible day yesterday, today is much better. This morning was a little hairy but nothing I couldn't handle. I can tell how crazy it is by how knotted up my neck is. Right now, it's sore but I can turn my head from side to side so it's nothing near what it was like yesterday.

The exercise goal may or may not be met this week but, if I can get a good handle on the food thing, that'll be a big accomplishment this week.

goals

Okay, I feel like I can be serious about this thing again, this weight loss thing, this "getting healthy" business, this not feeling like a failure thing.

Honestly, that's how I'm feeling just recently, like a complete failure, not only where my health and fitness is concerned but in my working life and at home. I feel like a juggler who has dropped all of his balls and they are bouncing across the floor. Work isn't as busy as it was but it's still very stressful. I know that a lot of what I'm feeling is self-inflicted. Because I was so busy for so long, I've let many things slide and that's not like me. So now, at work, I have to try to figure out how to get myself back on track and sort out all of those things that have fallen to the side, in addition to getting my regular every day stuff done. I'm completely in knots about that right now.

Home is a mess. The house is just not clean, not to the standard I'd like it. Part of the problem is that both my old (less than 2 years old) vacuum and the central vac in the new house are not working as well as they should be so I can only ever do a half-assed job on that score. I'm lucky if I can keep on top of dishes and laundry right now. Because I've been working longer hours, I've just not had the time to deal with it properly.

As far as family goes, if it hadn't been an "official" holiday a couple of weeks (and we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' place) I would not have made the time to see them (we haven't really seen them much since the middle of August or so).

Yesterday, trying to be a good sport, we picked up coffee and bagels and went to see the LOG. As times goes by, we are seeing more frequent signs of geriatric senility in him. Now, he has never really been the sharpest knife in the drawer and, as sweet as he is, he only has a grade 6 education. Overtime, I've come to understand his limitations and we get along just fine. The senility thing though, that requires a lot of patience as recently, some of things he's saying and asking are just plain nuts. I don't think he has Alzheimer's Disease (my grandmother had that so I have some personal experience with it), I think that he's just really feeling the after-effects of the medical problems he's had this year (not to mention that he did sustain a head injury in July). Anyway, long story short is that I really lost my temper with him yesterday. He asked me a question and I just lost it on him. It wasn't the question he asked, it was how he asked it. It seemed very snarky and pointed to me, my hunny said that it seemed playful and fun.

I'm sure that LOG didn't mean to, but the question made me feel like I was a horrible, stupid person who is just repeatedly letting him down, despite the fact that I do way more "things" for him in a day than I do for my own parents in a month. While I know he appreciates all of the stuff that I do for him (all of his personal shopping, all of his personal laundry, I pay all of his bills...) he never actually acknowledges it. I'm not saying that I need a big ticker-tape parade but I never feel appreciated by him so I lost my temper, got defensive in answering his question (it was about his laundry) and then went quiet. The truth is, I was too upset about everything else that I have on my plate right now to talk about anything because I was afraid of breaking down in tears. I could cry right now as I type this, just from thinking about it. Fun times huh??

So, yesterday afternoon, because all of this had the appearance of me being a total bitch to LOG, my hunny was pissed at me. We talked about it and seemed to resolve it but things were still tense and weird all afternoon. So much for a quiet peaceful Sunday huh?? No wonder I have had a giant knot in my neck for two months now, is it? To console myself, I ate a whole bunch of those little Halloween chocolate bars. I don't think I tasted any of them but I ate them anyway and no, it didn't make me feel any better about anything.

This morning, as I pulled on a sweater that I have had for longer than I care to think about it, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and said, "enough!" I need to get seriously get my shit together, pull my head out of my ass and make a plan. As Denise says, I need to take some "baby steps" initially as I don't want this to stick this time. I'll start off slowly and build towards my goals (which include, amongst others, buying new winter sweaters in much smaller sizes)!!

So, here are some goals I've made for myself:

mini-biggish-goal:
- lose 40 pounds by January 1

smaller goals - to be accomplished this week:
- journal all of my food on fitday
- no muffins, cookies, donuts or cupcakes will be eaten at meetings (or brought back to my desk after!)
- no unplanned between meal snacks
- intentional exercise at least 3 times during the week and at least once over the weekend
- only one meal "out" per week (our night out with LOG)
- no snacking on halloween candy (the sooner I get the stuff into goodie bags the better)
- increase my water intake (it's been very very low just recently)

If I can do this and get through the week, that'll be a great start. It will help me feel like I'm control of at least two areas of my life and hopefully the rest of it will get sorted out too. I know this much, it can not make me feel any worse than I do, right now.

I suck

Yesterday, during my lunch hour, when I'm normally either working away or posting here, I went out with my hunny and had lunch buffet at pizza hut. What was I thinking?? He ended up having an unplanned afternoon off and wanted to take me for lunch. Honestly, I was so happy to have a break and get out of here that I didn't blink when he suggested the hut. It's quick and close to my office. Goodness gracious girls, I ate so much for lunch that I was still full at dinner time!! Then, because neither of us wanted dinner, we ended up both snacking the evening away. The only good thing about it is that I didn't eat any of the leftover candy/crap that was still in the cupboard AND I threw the ends of it in the trash (last night was garbage night). When will I learn huh??

I got brave yesterday morning and stepped back on the scales again. Up 6 pounds. Nice huh?? Not shocking though. It makes me sick though, when I think that of the 79 pounds I lost in 2003, I've gained back 35 of them. That means, I'll have to lose 40 pounds by the end of the calendar year to get to that "5 under" virgin fat goal I mentioned earlier this week. Oh well, it could be worse right?? I could have gained it ALL back with some extra to boot.

Couple of "good-ish" things: 1. I wanted to wear jeans to work today. I also wanted to be comfortable. I could get my "thin" jeans up and over my hips but they wouldn't zip unless I lay down (so much for the comfortable thing huh?) so I nixed the idea. Instead, I wore my "fat" jeans, have them on right now actually. They are not bad while I'm sitting but they really are too big on me and I'm having to hike them up whenever I'm walking. 2. Read the following article about dog walking and weight-loss. It's sort of a no-brainer but it makes me feel really glad about our recent decision to adopt a dog from our local humane society.

Daily dog walks work off the pounds By Megan Rauscher

Dogs may be more than man's best friend; they may also be a tool for losing weight, according to a new study that shows making a commitment to walk a dog -- your own or someone else's -- leads to increased exercise and weight loss.

The goal of the study, according to Rebecca Johnson, was to encourage sedentary overweight people to exercise and specifically to walk.

"We know that walking is good for people but we don't know how to get people to continue to do it. We wanted to see whether bonding with a dog might be a motivator to continue walking," said Johnson, who is an associate professor of nursing and director of the College of Veterinary Medicine's Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The dog-walkers in the study started by walking 10 minutes per day three times per week and eventually walked up to 20 minutes per day 5 days per week. One group walked for 50 weeks while another walked for only 26 weeks.

For the study, the participants walked with loaner dogs -- trained and certified "visitor" animals that were provided by the Pet Assisted Love and Support (PALS) Program.

According to Johnson, the 50-week walkers lost an average of 14 pounds during the one-year program. "That's a better result than most of the nationally known weight-loss plans," she told Reuters Health.

The walkers "bonded with the animals, improved their flexibility, balance and ability to walk, lost weight and felt better about themselves so it was a very positive thing all around," Johnson added.

It's important to realize, she said, that these were a sedentary, economically disadvantaged group of people with multiple chronic illnesses. Some had trouble walking even 10 minutes per day three days per week at the beginning of the study but they gradually improved their ability to walk.

"We had one lady," Johnson said, "who relied on an electric scooter when she was outside of her apartment and by the end of the 50 week program she was able to walk to the neighborhood grocery store and back."

The 26-week walkers did not lose as much weight as the 50-week walkers "so we know that it takes a year see the weight come off," Johnson said. Having a dog or being responsible for walking someone's dog may be just the motivating factor to keep people walking or encourage more people to walk, she said.

argh

It's mid-week already and I cannot believe it, really, I can't. The time is flying by just recently in a manner that doesn't thrill me. Like yesterday, I went back to work after staying home all day Monday waiting for the furnace guys to show (they never did -- they ended up coming yesterday). I had forgotten that I had a 2 hour meeting, mid-morning. I was barely making a dent in the debris on my desk when I had to dash off to that. The next thing I knew, I was digging through the rubble again but it was 1 p.m.

We bought several lottery tickets for the Friday and Saturday night draws but didn't win a penny. So much for that plan huh?? I must say, today, I feel better than I have in a couple of weeks. The pain in my neck is slowly fading away and I'm sleeping better. Of course, I can thank my tiny little blue pills for the sleep but still, I feel more rested. Working on Saturdays has been helpful but I don't want to continue with it. I'm hoping that this weekend, I won't have to do it. Goodness knows that my house is beyond grubby right now and I really should spend a whole day cleaning. On Monday, when I was at home, I didn't want to get started on my laundry because the laundry room is next to the furnace room... One thing I did accomplish was finally unpacking my winter clothes and putting the summer stuff away. Eventually I got the laundry done too but I didn't have a lot of energy to do much else. When I wasn't working, I slept a lot over the weekend. I'm probably coping with the stress a little better this week because I'm not totally, physically exhausted.

As far as weight stuff goes, I'm feeling really fat right now. I haven't stepped on the scale in several days but I know that I have to be "up." My face looks rounder to me, I just feel bloated and gross. Also, I have two zits on my chin. Again, it's probably from stress and the bad eating that was happening around here. I feel like such a blob. One thing that we've stuck to this week is the no buying of the junk food. No crap has come into this house and I intend to keep it that way. I want this journal to be about having a healthy lifestyle and about losing weight again. I'm tired of writing about how miserable I feel and how unhappy I've been recently. My game plan right now is to keep up with the no junk food thing, continue to get lots of rest and start back on the exercise regime on the weekend. As always, I just have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and get back on track. Ideally, I'd love to be 5 pounds into "virgin fat" territory by Christmas. I think that this is a reasonable goal and it would be terrific for me to start the New Year at an "all time low" weight.

thanks

I want to thank everyone who has left me supportive messages and/or emailed me over the past few days, it's helped a lot.

Today I went back into the office again (2nd Saturday in a row) to get some stuff done. Mostly on Saturdays, I try to organize the chaos and get through the things that are tough to manage when the phones are going nuts. I knew that I really had no choice in the matter because Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, when I left the office and got into the car, I started hyper-ventilating which was followed by deep, deep sobbing. For weeks now, I've had a knot in my neck. Right now, for the first time in days, it feels less painful that it has. Maybe that's a sign that things are getting better. Hope so.

When I finished at the office, I picked up my hunny (who was also working) and we went and did some errands. One of the errands included picking up fish and chips. Yeah, you heard it, chips. French fried potatoes, hand cut, salted and covered in malt vinegar. I shouldn't have done it but I did and it was yummy. We brought them home and watched some taped episodes of Eastenders. It was nice to just tune out, enjoy the meal and forget about work for a couple of hours. When we finished, I went and lay down on my bed. Mostly I wanted to rest my neck and I figured I'd do that for 20 minutes or so and then get going on my laundry. 2 hours later, I woke up when the phone rang. I felt amazing. So much better than before. The sleep did me a world of good. I'm still feeling a little sleepy now and think I'll be okay today so I'm going to skip my pill.

Tomorrow I plan to sleep late, do some housework, get the laundry done and visit the LOG. Monday I'm home with the furnace guys. I've brought my laptop home from work so I may do a little work, I'm not sure. A good friend of mine, who I haven't seen in entirely too long is coming over for coffee in the morning and I hope to not talk about work while we catch up.

Other than work though, nothing much is new. I realize that until I can get my head sorted out and get work under control, I'm not going to be able to concentrate 100% on my weight loss efforts but, we have a plan. My hunny and I have decided that starting Monday, there will be no unhealthy food coming into the house. We've both been too slack lately and it's gotta stop. If I'm stressed and I wanna overeat, at least, if there is no junk in the house, I'll "overeat" apples and celery instead of cookies. Just because my job is all nutso doesn't mean that I have to gain 20 pounds while I wait for the shit to settle.

in the shits

Apparently, October 10 was "World Mental Health" day. Who knew? I received an email at work (not just me, everyone in the organization got it) about Mental Health and work stress. I had to chuckle as I ticked symptoms off of their list of Emotional and Physical stress "signals." The last week of this month is also "Healthy Workplace" week. Yeah, the week before Halloween. That should be interesting. How can a place that is full of mini chocolate bars and rockets be healthy??

I'm still really behind at work. This morning, I forced myself to block out everything around me and try to get some financial paperwork sorted out. It's given me a huge headache and I've only just knocked a dent into it. I feel like I'm digging a hole on the beach and the sand keeps filling the hole back in no matter how fast I dig. I keep hoping that it'll get easier, and with luck it might after we get next week out of the way. I feel like I've been saying that for a long time now, next week it'll be better, next month... yanno? It's just a crazy pace. The work isn't stuff that I can't do, there is just so much of it now that I cannot keep up.

Last night, I took one of my little blue pills for the first time in a very long time. The doctor gave them to me to help me sleep (they are a super mild anti-depressant). It took me a long time to fall asleep last night (we didn't get home until about an hour before bedtime and I should really take it at least 2 hours before bed) and I still woke up at 3 a.m. When I woke up, I looked at the clock and just went back to sleep. This morning I felt a little groggy but the black circles are a little smaller today than yesterday. Tonight I plan to take my pill right after dinner and I'll try to get into bed really early. I'm just so tired and no matter what I do, I cannot get the kink in my neck to go away. Also, I haven't done any proper exercise this week yet. I cannot get into it and I know that I should because it'll make me feel so much better.

While I'm moaning, can I just say that a day with some sunshine it in would not be a bad thing right about now?? It's been grey and cold and dark and rainy here since Friday, that's almost a week now. It might have been yucky before that but right now, my mind only goes back to Friday...no, on Thursday I went to that funeral and it was sunny. It's gross and cold and I still haven't dug my winter stuff out so I'm making due with my "in between" clothes. This weekend, I hope to avoid going in to work and I can stay home, crank the stereo and get my summer stuff packed away and pull out the sweaters. Hopefully, listening to the Polyphonic Spree at high volume will shake some sunshine into my soul. Goodness knows I could use it.