It's the Final Countdownnnn..... (you're welcome for getting that stuck in your head)

Two Weeks ago’s Weight: 232.6


Last week’s weight: 230.8

This Week’s Weight: 229.6

Loss of 1.8 lbs from two weeks ago to last week, 1.2 lbs from last week to this week, 3 lbs total, average 1.5 lbs/week



So, this isn’t bad. My goal from a few Mondays ago is to lose roughly 2 lbs a week – If I can do this, by our next wedding anniversary (and baby makin time hubba hubba), I should be down to 140-ish lbs. I’m on track for now!

My energy levels are still in the pits, but I haven’t been sleeping well at all. Friday night the 27th, Jakedog went careening down the stairs and smashed into the glass panel next to the door. He cut his head pretty badly, and we had to do some quick work to fix him. Dr Clark said we’d be fine with liquid bandage and a cone, so we literally glued Jake back together, and then slapped the cone on him. Tyler did most of it while I tried my best not to sob and/or hyperventilate. I felt like a total stooge, but I love my dogs, so whatever. Don’t judge me.

I also had my Mom staying with us from Thursday the 26th to Sunday the 29th. She was originally petitioning to go home on Friday, until Jake had his accident, and then retreated to the guest room to hide. I’m not going into specifics as I don’t like sharing details about my relationship with my mom, but I will say that it weighs heavily on me. After I dropped her off I went directly to Del Taco and got a burrito, soft taco, and nacho combo with a large cherry coke and had it finished by the time I got home (40 minute drive). I didn’t even feel guilty that time… though I did feel guilty (and sick) from the pint of Dove Peanutbutter Chocolate icecream I inhaled when I got home. Sigh. Emotional eating is so hard for me to avoid at this point. I can logically realize how bad it is for me and how physically and emotionally crappy it makes me feel, but this time I weighed it out, and the food won. I promptly ended up with the most horrific UTI that I’ve ever had, so… I think my body was trying to tell me something. We haven’t eaten fast food or meat at all for two weeks now, and I’m really noticing a change.

I’ve got 15 days til surgery. It’s still pretty surreal, but I’m trying to prepare myself now. Another thing I spent the last two weekends doing was cutting fabric – I think I ended up with 4 baby swaddles and a couple of dozen of those tactile baby square things. I just have to sew it all… but it’s going to be in my sewing room ready for me as a distraction if head hunger tries to get the best of me after surgery.

I’m starting my liquid diet today. So far, so good. I ate kinda crappy all weekend, but was already amazed at how little I was able to eat. I bought stuff planning to eat it all Friday night and pig out, but it took me literally all weekend to eat it. We made a bitchin vegan chili that I ate on all weekend, too – it was high in protein and fiber, so I’m pretty sure that’s why I couldn’t choke down my soft pretzels to save my life. I’m pretty confident about this. My nutritionist is awesome and hilarious, and the lady who will be doing my fills (she’s an RN) is really really sweet and very calm. Just the kind of person I’d want to come at me with a needle, hah. It was kind of awkward and I almost cried though, because she actually read my file, and read my psych eval. She said she thought I’d done great and selfless things with my family and taking care of my brother, and that she was there to help me do something good for myself. It was really touching. They’re both dog lovers too. It was so weird though, because they kept saying that I was one of their smallest and youngest patients… I got the youngest part, but it was hard not to protest the “smallest” part, since I see myself as so huge and grotesque. When you compare me to 900+ pound people though, I guess I’m pretty small. The neat thing is they have a closet where people can bring in their clothes that don’t fit them anymore – and Megan (the RN) says “I don’t think we have anything small enough for you even now though!” So I plan on taking some of my clothes in once I shrink so that there’s small cute clothes for others in transition. I’m so ready for this, I’m so excited! Only 15 days! Holy hell!

As for the followup diet once I’m back on solid food, I think we’re good to go. Tyler is still on this new kick where he wants to be “vegetarian.” We’re going for lacto/ovo vegetarian, which won’t be so hard to do. I’ve been consuming so much protein in the form of chicken and steak that I’m sick of it. We’ve tried Gardenburgers , and they’re surprisingly palatable. I bought two different kinds, the portabella and then the original gardenburger, and we were surprised to find that the portabella ones taste much better. The original gardenburger is rather mushroom-y tasting, which isn’t one of our favorites. We’ve tried them with feta, spinach and onions, white gravy, and A-1. I’ve also found and made recipes for portabella, oat, and black bean burgers and tofu burgers, and they’ve been super good, too.

I packaged up all of the meat products that we had in our freezer and took it to my Dad’s house today. Scared the bejeezus out of his dog Dozer (a 240 lb Mastiff), but I gave him some bones to make up for it. Our freezer is surprisingly bare, but we plan on filling it back up with portioned supplies of chili, veggie burgers, frozen veggies, and other meatless alternatives. We’re also toying with Bob’s Red Mill textured vegetable protein. It’s made out of defatted soy, so we’ll use it sparingly (not huge soy fans in our house), but it’s not that bad. It’s a good source of protein, and melds well with foods. However, I think that portabella mushrooms will be my blender of choice.


Anyways, that's all I've got for now. It's enough of a meandering post anyways, as it's a combo of two posts (last week's that never made it to publishing and this week's).

Hope all is well with everyone else - keep on keepin on...

Be forewarned - "feelings" and "emotions" and junk

Last Week’s Weight: 221.4

This week’s weight 222.4

 

YARGH.

 

Be forewarned – “feelings” and “emotions” below.

 

According to my tracker, I’m losing an average of .3 lbs/week. Which again, isn’t bad, but when I started I was losing 2.5 lbs/week on average. This is so incredibly frustrating to me! I am tracking points, not overeating, drinking ridiculous amounts of water, and I even started exercising a bit in the form of taking my dog for walks. I’m hoping that it’s just water weight from walking the dog (my foot and ankle are crazy swollen right now) from walking Jake, but I’m not so sure it is. I know that I’m feeling it in my shins, for sure. I’m working on stretching, and also using some cross friction fiber across the ligaments themselves, but nothing seems to be helping quite yet. My legs have been relatively skinny for the past week or so, so I’m feeling extra grumpy that they’re swollen and grotesque looking again. I feel SO self conscious about it.

 

Anyways, self consciousness semi aside – last Thursday I went to the Weight Loss Surgery seminar at Deaconess Rockwood. It’s the first step towards being considered for review for weight loss surgery. It was a 2 hour long seminar, and I actually learned quite a bit. When I get home, I may post my answers to the questions I had last week. But basically, I learned I’ll have to be off of work for about a week, and considered “good as new” 6 weeks after surgery. I will be able to eat half a cup of food at a time, and will probably eat around 5 half cup meals a day. I can be expected to lose an average of 48% of my excess body weight (I am roughly 60 lbs overweight, so that would be 28.8 lbs), but could definitely lose more with exercise and proper nutrition. I got to see a sample of the band, pictures of where scarring would be, and they also went over some of the scarier side effects and their occurrence within their practice (virtually nothing). The only thing that I didn’t’ like so much is that they recommend waiting 18-24 months after surgery before trying to get pregnant, and if I were to have surgery, the soonest I could get it done would be June… so I’d have to wait a bit longer than originally planned to start trying. So instead of June 2013, it’d be January or June of 2014, but the surgeon says it varies from person to person. I should mention Tyler is totally against me having the surgery.

 

I did turn in my paperwork so that I can at least have a consultation with one of the surgeons, and see if I qualify, when I can try for kids, what might be best for me, etc. It was so strangely emotional watching the presentation – I had this mix of hope and fear, all at once, and felt like crying the ENTIRE time. I just know that I want to lose my excess weight so bad, one way or another… sigh.

 

Back to my negative self talk – I have been just totally disgusted with myself as of late, from my weight to my appearance overall. It’s really disheartening, but I feel like an incredibly self-depreciating Eeyore or something. I’m mostly doing stuff to distract myself like sew, but I’m finding anything that involves expending energy is pretty difficult, since I’m so tired from being depressed. But – I took Jakey for a walk as I mentioned, and that put both he and I in brighter spirits, as well as tiring us both out – so it’s my goal to try to walk him at least 3 days a week, preferably daily, so I’m prepared for Bloomsday and also have a way to make myself too tired to be sad. Fake it til you make it, right? I’m just tired of being back to that place where I feel like constantly crying.

 

I’ve been talking with a few people close to me about what it’s like for me to be overweight. I don’t know if that vulnerability in sharing is making me more emotional, or what. I’m proud of what I’ve done so far weight wise, but I am just so frustrated that I have reached a plateau. Most of the people I know around me are skinny, and they are constantly obsessing over food, portions, exercise, etc, one even to the point of anorexia. It doesn’t seem healthy to me the way that they do it… I’m trying not to name names, because some of them may read this blog, lol – but it’s frustrating to see/hear them so worried about a figure that is either underweight or at most a few pounds overweight… and then when my weight is brought up, I always hear “Oh, no! You look awesome! You’re not fat!” My dad said this the other day, and then said “Wait –how much do you weigh, since you’re always so worried about it?” My answer – 224. His response “Woah. That’s 60 lbs more than me!” Errr…. Thanks, Dad. =/ He didn’t mean any harm by it, but it still kinda stung. But anyways, nobody I’ve talked with thus far really seems to support my decision for weight loss surgery except for Doe, so that’s frustrating in and of itself. Everyone is worried about the physical risks and timing, or as one person helpfully put it “I was going to suggest that you get it done, but wait to have a kid first!”

 

So, anyways, that’s going to be my update for now. I’ve done enough self pitying and whining for now.

 

A slight change this week...

Okay, so I weighed myself this morning, and I did deviate slightly
from my maintaining standard. I was exactly 220.0 – last Monday I was
219.6 lbs. So, I gained .4 lbs – which is no surprise. Last week was
my delightful monthly visitor. Yesterday I ate a whole bag of David’s
sunflower seeds – oh, how I love those! So salty and delightful… but I
know that salt and I don’t get along well. I got a nasty headache
because I didn’t have much to drink yesterday, and today I’m puffy and
lethargic. Lesson learned. I have a feeling that if I hadn’t had those
yesterday, I would be closer to my weekly average for the last month –
possibly 219.8 at the most. Oh, well. I find that I can’t be so hard
on myself about this sort of stuff, because I end up discouraging
myself and getting off the wagon completely and depressed.

One thing I have noticed in doing weight watchers is that I’m actually
cutting myself off on my own with serving sizes now. I seem to have
adjusted to the lower calorie ratio due to my points, and as long as I
pace myself while eating, I feel fuller faster, and it is a longer
lasting feeling. Even when I horf something (yes, that is a valid
medical term), I usually find that I’m not hungry even hours later. I
might mention that when I horf, it’s usually something that I
shouldn’t be eating. Like fast food. Icecream. Or a burritio. Eff you,
menstrual cycle. When I have higher point values in the morning for my
breakfast or early morning snack, it will be hours before I need to
eat again. I’ve been trying to balance that out so that I’m eating
every few hours – currently I have a yogurt or a protein shake at
around 6 when I roll into work and get settled. Early morning snack is
usually a yogurt or a piece of fruit around 830. Lunch is at 11. I
have a small snack when I get home around 3 (or pack a small afternoon
snack if I’m not going to be home at 3), and then dinner is usually
between 6 and 8pm, depends on how much I’ve had to eat earlier in the
day and how soon Tyler wants to eat.

We’re a bit closer on revamping our eating. As I mentioned in my last
entry, we are stocking up on frozen veggies. I try so hard to eat
fresh, but they almost always go bad. So, frozen it is – I figure at
this point, it’s better than nothing. We also have lots of lean meat.
No milk in the house, only coconut milk – which is a pain in the ass
because I used milk for cooking occasionally… but when I think about
that, all of those foods were prepackaged or boxed, high in sodium,
and I shouldn’t be making them anyways. So, it’s not a total loss.
Plus, the fats in coconut products are more easily digested and
processed by your liver. Double bonus. Currently we have no bread or
even tortillas in the house, and I have replaced all of the remaining
pasta with high fiber whole wheat and quinoa. Tyler still has his
“stash” (our broken lazy Susan where we put all of his junk food –
country gravy, ramen, canned nacho cheese, Doritos, etc). I’ve stopped
drinking soda almost completely – when I do have it, it’s only diet…
and I hate diet soda, so it’s pretty easy to avoid. They have a really
crappy selection in the machines here at work – it’s either Diet Mt
Dew or Diet Dr Pepper. I could drink gallons of each on my own if it
were the regular version (and be ultimately cracked out, natch), but
the diet just doesn’t do it for me. If I do buy ‘em, its because I am
extra tired, and won’t be able to make it through my daily 2 hour
meeting without it.

I am taking vitamins and supplements daily as well – here’s a list of
what I take in the AM and PM (including my meds…)

AM: Prozac, Ritalin, Flax Seed Oil, Milk Thistle
PM: Ibuprofen, Fish Oil, Milk Thistle, GABA (2 capsules), and either a
multivitamin or a Vitamin D 50,000 IU capsule depending on the night
of the week.

I had been taking more stuff previously – I was taking a
kidney/liver/gallbladder mix in the AM and PM as well as a probiotic
in the AM, but I ran out of those, lol. Right now I’m just sort of
cycling through the supplements I currently have until they are gone.
What I will definitely stick with though will be my meds – the Prozac,
Ritalin, and Vitamin D, and the flax seed and fish oil and
multivitamin. I have been eating Activia for the probiotic/fiber
benefits as I seem to have issues with my stomach, but I may switch
back to a probiotic. I’d been taking Align before, but it’s kind of
spendy - $30/month for one capsule a day – but I guess it’s probably
around what I’ve been spending on Activia. I don’t know. Does anyone
else have digestion problems, and how do you treat them? My glorious
antidepressants and make-me-awake pills seem to cause my digestion
problems, but I can’t really give up either at this point. I read in
the Paleo Diet book and also heard from my nutritionist – we don’t get
enough Omega 3’s in our diet, so that’s why I will stick with the fish
and flax oil. The reason I do both is because although they are both
omega 3’s, they act in different ways.

On my final note, since this is reaching novel size – I NEED TO START
TRAINING FOR BLOOMSDAY OMGWTFBBQ!!! Seriously. It’s February 13, and
Bloomsday is on May 6. That’s only slightly less than 3 months away. I
need to couch to 5k it or something. Maybe I’ll start doing that when
I get home, and make Tyler do it with me as a warmup to the p90x I
need to start doing again, lol. Have you started training yet? I don’t
want to die! I walked it just fine last time, but about halfway
through my oxygen levels went down – the only reason I know this is
because my fingers puffed up so bad that I couldn’t even bend them,
and when I asked my doc, she said that was the likeliest reason. So, I
won’t actually die or anything, I’ll just look like a sausage when we
cross the finish line. =/

Still maintaining...

I cannot believe it’s already Thursday! This week has alternately dragged, and gone really quickly. It seems like last weekend just FLEW by, and I barely had any time to breathe. I’ve been exhausted this week (thanks to my period – sorry for TMI, but I forgot how much they suck!), and sort of floating through the week. So, it literally feels like today is still Monday, but tomorrow, there’s a weekend. What the heck? I’ve been forgetting to take my vitamins, too. I’m just out of it. Blargh.

 

I did weigh myself on Monday morning, however, and found that I’m still maintaining. 219.6 – so I technically lost .2 lbs, but I’m definitely at some sort of a plateau. I haven’t been exercising at all, since I have given myself every excuse not to, so I’m sure when I finally start to do that again, I’ll start losing weight. I’m hoping that when I’m not on my period next week, I’ll have lost some more weight. I feel especially puffy today. And bitchy. But that’s neither here nor there.

 

We’re trying to transition to a healthier diet – I’ve been reading Kristi’s Paleo book, and getting some great ideas and information. Tyler is gung ho to change with me, but it’s still a slow process. We’ve got Luke living with us now, so there has been an influx of junk food as I mentioned before. I went shopping the other night though and bought enough frozen veggies and meat that I stuffed the freezer full – no room for Totinos pizzas. We’re still slowly transitioning from processed carbs – we now have only quinoa, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta in the house, only whole wheat tortillas and wraps, and whole wheat bread. Tons of frozen veggies and fruits and frozen meat (mostly chicken, but some steak and seafood to mix it up). All of the cheese is gone, and I’m going to eventually phase out yogurt and kefir. We already drink only coconut milk, and use coconut oil for cooking (though we have butter around).It’s a small step, but I’m already noticing a marked difference in how I feel bodily. My left leg has been normal sized all this week – it’s amazing. My stomach is regulating itself, and save for my pms cramps, I haven’t had horrid stomach cramping and aches. It’s also not as bloated – I can actually see where I have abs, and I can suck my tummy in, too. I’ve been barely eating any salt, and drinking at least 100 oz of water a day. I bought a bottle of Smart Water at the gas station last week, and I’ve been having 2 of those at work and one at home.

 

I have an informational appointment on March 1 at Rockwood Clinic to check out their Bariatric Surgery program. I still technically qualify, so I’m still pursuing this. My doctor finally gave me a referral for an evaluation – I have 15 office visits, and I will be scheduled as soon as I go to the informational appointment (they refuse to see you unless you’ve been through the 3 hour meeting). I think this is actually pretty wise – I’m interested to see what other information I can get. So, who knows. Maybe I’ll actually end up with the lap band as I’ve wanted. The only thing I don’t think I like about it is the fact that they have to fill/unfill the port, which involves a needle (obviously), but I like that it’s adjustable – especially since I’ve informed Tyler that we’re going to start trying for a baby next year. Once I get pregnant, they can unfill my band so I can eat normally, and once I give birth and am done breastfeeding and all that stuff they can gradually re-fill so I can lose the baby weight. Any ideas as to what sort of questions I should ask? I just thought of one now – what if I have a c-section (God forbid). The port is small enough that I don’t think it’d interfere with a developing Bardwell, but what if they cut me open? Ewwww!

 

So, I really need to get myself going on the exercise. I have to admit it was a lot easier when we could just do it in the basement and I didn’t have to worry about my brother in law walking in and seeing me red faced and dying. I could always do it upstairs… I need to get re-motivated! I was so gung ho at the beginning of the year. I can only use depression and stress as an excuse for so long. I’ve been focusing all of my energy on sewing lately, which is good, but the sedentary aspect isn’t. Maybe I will buy a new harness and possibly a muzzle for Jake and get him used to going on walks again. We both need it – and it’s a good way for us to bond. I just hesitate to do it without a muzzle and harness because we live right on a busy and popular jogging/biking area, and Jake hasn’t been on a walk for so long that he might be a little too excitable. My silly Cubby… sigh. I also need to start training for Bloomsday! Omg!

 

Anyways, that’s all I’ve got. Still maintaining, but proud of myself for it. Have a good weekend

So, I've obviously been really bad at updating. It's been almost two weeks (12 days, to be exact) since I posted anything at all. Whoops. I've been somewhat of a slug lately, family drama and stress has rendered me pretty much nonfunctional. Which is lame. I contacted my doc and she gave me the go ahead to up my antidepressant, and it seems to be helping thus far. I'm pretty cracked out while I'm adjusting, but at least I'm able to move around and do things. Before, I'd been getting up, going through the motions at work, and then coming home and basically staring at the wall until Tyler made me go to bed.

The good thing in all of this (I suppose), is I haven't been eating much. Again, when I do, it's been absolute crap, but I've still maintained my weight from 12 days ago. I'm at 219.8 as of this morning, so I technically put on .2 lbs, but I'm not going to wig out over that. I haven't been exercising at all, so it's pretty impressive that I haven't wavered much.

I'm going to try to start p90x again this week, but I'll have to see how that goes. I've pretty much lost any enthusiasm for it as my stress levels are increasing. I know it would be an amazing stress release to expend that much energy, but again, I've just been barely functioning outside of going through the motions, so I'll probably have to start slow again. That's frustrating, but in a way, I'm apathetic right now. It goes back to my list of things that are preventing me from reaching my weight loss goals - depression and negative self talk. I had hoped to be down to 205 by this time on my original goal timeline, and I'm 14lbs off. I need to get on my game, damnit!

I lost!

So, I'm going to try to get better about posting updates. We'll see how that goes. I also need to figure out what on earth is going on with my lack of html lately in this as well as my other blog.

As noted from my last post, this hasn't been a very good week for me food wise. I've eaten sporadically, and when I have, it's been absolute crud - fast food, pizza, high fat, high sugar comfort foods that are easily obtainable. I admit it - yes, yes I do. I haven't exercised one bit other than cleaning my mom's house like a crazy person and running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. However... dun dun dun... I lost weight. No idea how. Officially at the doc's office Friday I was 225.6, confirmed on my home scale. Today, I am 219.6, as of about 5 this morning. Pretty happy about that - a full six lbs. I'm tracking my points religiously now, even when I eat shit food, and I'm getting better at staying within my daily points, and definitely using a smaller portion of my weeklies when and if I do go over.

I went back and found some info showing that I'd done weight watchers from Feb 10-Feb 11, and obviously didn't lose anything - however, they don't still have my tracking records, and I was only able to find records from like, September 10 to Feb 11 showing that they'd taken payment for my online membership. I emailed my doc the info - I don't know if that will make any difference or not in the lap band process since she wanted proof I'd done weight watchers for 6 months... otherwise she doesn't want to see me until June. That's all well and good, too - if I can truly lose the weight myself, I'm going to do it. I'm going to try my hardest, for sure. I just want to get it done one way or another. I'm tired of feeling so icky.

I am actually semi on track for my weight loss goals anyways - I was surprised. I looked back on myafirst blog entry at my goals, and I'd wanted to be down to 215 by yesterday's date. I'm at 219.6 - so at least I'm below the 220s at this point! The last time I was anywhere near that was the tonsillectomy period, where I simply couldn't eat. So, here's to hoping I can continue to lose at a reasonable pace. I mentioned last time as well - my tattoo with Patrick is March 30th, and I'd like to be down to around 175 by then. 90 days to lose 45 lbs might be pushing it, but I'm still determined to at least try.

In other news, which could possibly impede my weight loss, I am looking again for some form of part time employment. We have overtime through the end of January, but between holidays and bereavement, I'll only get about 10 hours total of overtime pay, the rest will be straight pay. I'll take what I can get, though. I'm working on my debt snowball, and we're a bit behind - I want to get caught up and ahead! I did get my w2 today though, so that's a start. I have so many goals that I want to reach this year... ack.

I am not going to lie...

This has been an awful week. I started out well, and with the best intentions, as I always do, but as the week wore on, my eating habits sort of slid into a deep, dark hole. My stepdad passed away Thursday morning, and it started then. I had woken up in an amazing mood, made a delicious breakfast sandwich, packed a healthy lunch and healthy snacks, and went out the door. When I got to work, I noticed that I had a missed call from my mom. I called back, and he'd had a massive bleed and was on ventilators. So, I left to be with her, as he'd been given only 2 hours to live. His heart hadn't been beating on its own for over an hour, and it was only a matter of time. I dropped my breakfast, lunch, and snacks off at my dad's, told him what happened, and left - I had no appetite. So, I went out to be with her. Once we got the call that he'd passed, the family that gathered and I went into autopilot. We started helping her to clean her house and get things in order. Cleaned from 9-4, I'm sure I burned quite a few calories in the process. Didn't eat anything until 4, when someone handed me two cheeseburgers and told me to eat, so I did. First meal of the day at 4pm. I left at 430, unloaded stuff at the dump and Goodwill, and ordered a pizza on my way home. Ate 3 slices, drank a 20 oz diet dr pepper, and then we went to bed. Friday morning I drove back out (she lives in Rathdrum which is about an hour away). I took a banana and string cheese, ate them on the way. We went to the funeral home, went to the county to pick up an app for assistance to help with the cremation, stopped at the store, and then I dropped her off and came home. While I was at her house though, I ate a donut - at the store I grabbed some fancy lunchable and a low cal fruit drink. Went to my doctor's appointment, grabbed Burger King on the way home. I had a fishwich and onion rings and a med regular dr pepper. I promptly had a nervous breakdown and spent the next two hours freaking out while Tyler calmed me down We made popcorn later in the evening, and I had some reeses peanut butter cups, too, and a chocolate milk and watched six episodes of American Horror Story. Today - well, I could barely get out of bed. Usually I'm up by 7 at the latest on the weekends, and Tyler finally got me up at 10, asking if I was okay. We had scrambled eggs and an english muffin for breakfast, Velveeta Shells and cheese for lunch, more popcorn and reeses, koolaid, and Azteca (including 2 pomegranate martinis) for dinner. Currently taking shots of goldschlager and preparing to curl up in front of the fire with Tyler and the doggies. Tomorrow, I plan on starting p90x again. We're also starting on our proper eating again. I have pulled out a half pound of squash from the freezer to make a squash/pumpkin soup, along with some containers of chicken and beef stew that I'd made earlier. We're also going to make some 13 bean chili and a lentil chili that Shannon gave us for Christmas. SO, needless to say, I'm having a bit of a downward spiral. I know it's not good to let myself fall into this, since I'm prone to depressions already, but we're calling it my "few days to breathe." Then, I start over again tomorrow. I have Monday off, so I just need to pack healthy foods for when I'm out helping Mom with everything, and then make sure to eat well when I get home. As for my doctor's appointment - I have mixed feelings. I spoke with my doctor, and she's given me the criteria, but won't put a referral in until June. She wants me to go through 6 months of Weight Watchers tracking as well as six visits with the nutrition specialist and of course, exercise. I'm not very optimistic though - I've tried weight watchers before with no results, modified my eating before with no results, but maybe combined with the p90x, I'll be good to go. I don't know... but it sucked to get the news that we're delaying the possibility for another 6 months when I feel like I've been trying so hard already. To increase my determination, I have my next tattoo scheduled for March 30th at 2pm. My goal is to be 50 lbs down by then. Between eating and exercise, I should be good... as long as I don't eat like I have the last few days, that is. I'll post a vlog update soon, and hopefully be better about updating this on Mondays. It's really frustrating when I can't access blogger from work - I never want to get back on the computer once I'm home.

Ringing in the New Year

Cross posted at Life Changes to Increase Our Health

Okay, so I see Kristi had the same idea that I did :) I woke up this morning and was like - I'm TOTALLY posting!

So, here's the downlow. It's 2012. Officially, irrevocably, so that means it's on like Tron. Weighed myself first thing, 224.8 - same as yesterday, but I'm kinda grumpy about it, because honestly - who the heck gains weight when they have the flu? SERIOUSLY? Anyways, it's a bit below my all time high of 230, but it needs to be much lower. I was calculating it last night, and if I lose 5% of that, I'll be down to 210. I haven't seen that for 2 years! I almost met it when I had the tonsillectomy and couldn't eat anything for two weeks, but that's not a viable diet, unfortunately.

Today, Tyler and I are planning on starting a Beachbody series of exercises. It's most likely going to be the P90x, so I'm preparing myself for 13 weeks of hell. I've read reviews on Amazon (sort of my go-to if you haven't noticed), and they mention puking your guts out for the first couple of weeks while your body adjusts, and feeling like you want to die. My knee is already acting up because of who-knows-what... it was fine when I had been doing the elliptical, but I think I tweaked something in my lower left back and it's affecting my knee. Yes, I shall whine thoroughly about this. It makes me walk funny and I can't really squat down to pick stuff up. So, I'm scared of the lunges and squats portion, even more so because this is the leg that I characteristically have the horrific edema in. I bought a knee brace that had pretty good reviews on Amazon, so I have it on right now for the extra stabilization. I know once I strengthen my core, I should be better, but dang, color me concerned and pre-whiny at this point.

I have a pretty set weight loss plan as well, I hope to be down to 170 by March 30th. I should be able to do it between Weight Watchers, exercise, and utilizing my elliptical and my BodyMediaFit armband. It's going to be lots of tracking and nitpicking myself, but dang, I want to do it. My doc and I are still pursuing (or re-pursuing) the possibility of a lap band though. I know it might seem drastic, but honestly - if it's covered by my insurance (which it is), it could be another great tool for helping me to lose weight and maintain it. So, Wednesday I have an appointment with a nutritionist (the first visit of six, I'm not sure if they're all pre-op yet), and then I meet with my primary doc on Friday to see if we can get the ball rolling. If we can't -at least I have 4 approved visits with a nutritionist, and she can be a valuable resource as well. So, I'm chronicling this on my youtube channel , if anybody other than Kristi wants to check it out ;)

We're also going through our cupboards, and trying to eat the crappy stuff now (or get rid of it), so that we can start replacing it with healthier fare. You'd be proud, we only have one box of Velveeta Shells and Cheese left, lol. Most of the pre-mixed stuff that we have left is now low fat/high fiber or fat free/high fiber, low sodium, etc. It's rough going, but we'll do it. It's a lifestyle change - I know it probably doesn't seem like it, because I'm just getting rid of Mac and Cheese, but Tyler and I both rely on easy to make foods... I usually only make the homemade stuff on the weekends or evenings. So, it will be a behavior change and an adjustment. We're also going to attempt to eschew the purchase of fast food. We'll start with a month, January, and go from there. I don't want to point fingers, but Tyler is a bigger offender here than I am, since he is on the road daily, and rarely packs a lunch. So, that oughta be interesting. I use Mint.com to track our finances, and on food/groceries last month, we spent $1300. The amount of our mortgage. Granted, part of that was grocery shopping for non food items as well, but a large portion was fast food/restaurants. I hope to cut that at least in half by this month. It's ridiculous to spend that much on stuff that isn't organic, isn't healthy, etc.

I also have a few non-fitness goals that I want to attain, first and foremost to set up my craft room so I can get going. I figure I can spend an hour a day sewing, scrapping, whatever, and an hour working out - which order should I do them in? =/ I have my new planner for the year - bought it last night before watching The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - pretty good, btw, not entirely true to the book, and I was kinda pissed at the changes they made because they were so blatant, but I will definitely see the next two when they're released. Ate a shit ton of popcorn, drank a large (44 oz??) cherry coke by myself. We had Oysters, Asparagus, Jalapeno Poppers, and rolls with homemade tapenade for dinner, and a few drinks. We were soundly asleep before the new year.

Anyways, that's all I've got. I just finished signing up for Bloomsday - the email was in my inbox bright and early encouraging me to register, so I did it! Between that and my highschool reunion, I'm determined to be FIT this year!

Best to all of you, and WE CAN DO THIS!