working at it

Intermittent posts are not good. Regular posts from me indicate a certain amount of structure in my life. Routine is not something that is happening for me recently.

Of the holy trinity of weight loss (healthy eating, regular exercise and lots of water), I am usually able to accomplish 1 or 2 at a time but rarely 3. This past week has found me enjoying a larger than normal (and definitely good) amount of water in my routine. I guess it's partly the warmer temperatures but I've become very aware of how important the water is for me, for a lot of reasons. Two really obvious ones are my skin and my digestion. Both are improving dramatically since I've stopped borderline dehydrating myself.

Exercise has been a little better over the past week or so as well. I'm definitely walking more so that's good. Eating is a struggle though. Meals are okay, I'm doing well with my portion sizes for the most part. The snacks kill me though. On the weekend, I devoured an entire back of salt and vinegar kettle chips in an afternoon. Did I need them? no. Did I enjoy them? I wish I could say no but yes, I really did.

Of course, the remorse set it later...too much fat, too much salt, not enough good stuff in my diet that day.

I guess I'll blame it on my hormones because I think TOM actually started today, on time. I say "I think" because last month of was a bunch of false starts that gave me my period, off and on, for about 2 weeks. It feels more like a normal cycle this month so I'm going with it.

Since the weekend, I've been working on the eating too. Again, always, baby steps right? I'll master the three things yet. It's just going to take me a while.

beautiful people

Many thanks to all of you for your wonderful birthday wishes. I'd been away from my home computer for the past few days due to work. Today, I had time to catch my breath and read my email and your messages touched me very much. So again, thank you all.

This weekend is a long one here in Canada. Monday is Victoria. Smack in the middle of this weekend we will travel to Toronto and participate in an unveiling for LOG. It's the last "official" thing we have to do for him and it's a little bit sad.

Beyond that, there is not much to report. We had another successful event last night and even though I'm operating on about 3 hours sleep today, I don't feel bad.

For the record, I tried on "those" pants the other night. I pulled them and walked around and they felt okay. When I did the "sit test" on the end of the bed. I laughed and knew that there was no way I could sit through a dinner in them. Back into the closet they went. Next year! Without a doubt. Hell, we have another one of these fancy events in September, I'll be wearing them by then, comfortably, while sitting!!

Happy weekend everyone and again, thanks!

on cake

So there was a gorgeous cheesecake to be had on my birthday. You can drool over it if you want:



It weighed three pounds and was full of white chocolate, peanut butter and cream cheese. He actually made it with lower fat cream cheese and margarine instead of butter but goodness, it was decadent. I had a piece and a half on my birthday and a piece tonight. The rest of it went to the office, to friends, to some ladies my hunny knows. It's all gone. It was amazing but it was a birthday thing. It's over.

And now I'm 40. It's not as bad I once imagined it would be. Of course, the bad imagining happened in my teens. I'm a little more realistic about things now. I'm feeling good about the age thing and about myself. I had a little talk with myself and convinced myself that I'm not a bad person because I'm now 40 and still fat. By convetional standards, no matter how much weight I eventually lose, I'll likely still be considered fat. I'm not bothered by that. I just want to be healthy. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it.

One day at a time, I'm taking care of myself. Seriously. I mean it this time, I'm gonna do it!! Watch me!!!

a couple of weeks

it's been a while since I've posted. it's for a lack of thinking about posting, rather it's been about a lack of time to collect my thoughts properly and write here.

I wish I could say that during my absence, I have magically lost 100 pounds have had to run out and get a whole new wardrobe. Alas, I haven't even stepped on a scale and I know that my pants aren't falling off of me so I can safely assume that the status quo remains.

Sadly, this means that my short term, more comfortable pants goal of March has not been met. If I'm honest, part of me is disappointed with myself and part of mine is so exhausted from work (it's been insanely busy since the beginning of March) and I don't care. I mean, I care. I'll care on Thursday night when I'm sitting at a fancy dinner in tight pants but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

Mostly, I'm not beating myself up because it's my birthday tomorrow. Today is the last day of my 30's and so far I've been spending it in my jammies, playing with the camera my hunny bought me for my birthday. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a white chocolate cheesecake in my near future too.

I've got other stuff to write about but it'll have to wait. The shower is calling my name and I want to get outside into the fresh air, with my new camera!

craving confession

It's Friday night and once again, I managed to get through another working week without too much stress and bother. It was busy, really busy. Not that I want to cause myself undue stress but I recently found out that a young man (his mother and my mother are good friends, I only know him to see him) was diagnosed with a fatal form of cancer. Apparently, in this particular case, the largest contributor to it was stress. We all have way too much stress in our lives, this I know. I guess it's more important than ever to find a way to manage it. In the past, I have heard and read that stress causes serious problems in your body but this is way beyond anything I've heard before. This guy is 43 years old and he'll probably not see the end of the summer. It's sad.

Speaking of dealing with stress, traditionally, I've turned to food as a coping mechanism. Of course, I also turn to food when I'm celebrating or sad or tired. Tonight, after dinner, I sat on the sofa, while we watched TV, and all I could think of was Mars bars...and timbits. Sad isn't it? I have this huge, strong chocolate craving and it's really bugging my ass. I know that usually, cravings fade after a short while but it's going on 3 hours now and I can't stop thinking about chocolate. Of course, I won't give into it, mostly because we don't have any real chocolate in the house and I'd have to go. Still, I've entertained going out in the rain and finding a huge bag of Mars bars to dive into.

It's a sickness, I think. It feels like that right now anyway.

nothing much

I think I post here less often than I used to because I don't feel like I have a whole lot to say. Recently, I went back and looked over some of my old posts and I used to sound a lot more excited and I think, more interesting.

I need to work on my excitement factor. It needs to be increased, without a doubt.

The weather has been reasonable here lately. Nice, spring weather. This weekend, I think we'll get back out in the yard and do some cardio gardening / raking. I like that kind of a workout. Sometimes, I actually miss shovelling, sick huh?

My eating has been up and down this week. There was the cake the other day, I had lunch out yesterday and again, had dessert. It was a trio of truffles, can you blame me!!? It did come with fresh berries too so that's okay right? Fruit with chocolate cancels out the fat? No!? Oh well. TOM is knocking on the door so I blame it on hormones. I actually thought that it started several times over the past few days but it hasn't actually. I think it's just stress, messing with my cycle. That happens to me every once in a while.

So, as long as the hormones rage, I'm still in dangerous territory. We're barbecuing tonight though, turkey sausage and lots of peppers. We're going to make wraps with them. It should be good and not too calorically crazy. As I feel like I'm always saying, usually, these days, I'm making more good choices than bad and that's good. I just have to get to a point where there are almost no bad choices. And I need to be more exciting. Good and exciting, easy peasy, right?

a whole new week

Yesterday, I made a deliberate effort to spend more time going up and down the stairs at work. I work on the second floor of an old building and I usually try to minimize the number of trips I need to take up and down, mostly because I'm lazy but partly to better manage my time. Monday though, I thought, stop being lazy, do the stairs more often, you'll be happy you did.

Last night, I was really glad that I did. I did them a lot more than normal. I realized in the doing of them, how out of shape I truly am. Today, I didn't do them as many time as yesterday (partly because I was out of the office for 1/2 the day on a training course). Honestly though, had I been in the office all day, I'm not sure how I would have managed. I kind of hurt myself yesterday. The hurt is in a completely good way though, I can feel the extra effort in my thighs. I'll definitely continue this stair stuff again tomorrow. I can feel how good it is for me. Today I did get a bit of extra walking in, and that was good too. I am noticing though, that since my last bad-back episode, I'm a little tender at times in the sore spot and have to slow myself down a bit while I'm walking. It's not bad enough to make me stop though, just enough to remind me that it happened.

Eating continues to be pretty good. Yesterday was perfectly on plan. Today was not because we had birthday cake with my parents (but it was a coffee cake with not much icing). It's okay though, that's life, right? I cannot and will not hide from cake for the rest of my life. I may do a few extra flights of stairs tomorrow though!!