Welcome!! A little background . . . I have struggled with my weight for 14 years now and I don't want to do it anymore. I have gained and lost 75 pounds twice and I'd like to lose it one more time and never gain it again. I'm trying a blog to help me stay on track with my goals, accountability, and my life along the way.
I have been meaning to write this post for a week or so now. I'm glad I kept putting it off though because I do feel better than I was feeling. Last week I was feeling awful about myself. Probably the worst that I'd felt about myself in a really, really, long time. Two days in a row, I couldn't manage to get out of bed. Then after that, I did get out of bed only to go to the grocery store to buy a wheel of brie and box of crackers and drown myself in it. I just felt like I was falling apart. My eczema is bad, my nocturnal chronic urticaria (fancy words for nighttime hives & itching) has never been worse. It's a special kind of hell, that I would wish on no one. Well, almost no one. My bingeing has never been worse and my hair-pulling has never been worse. I have no recollection if I've ever mentioned that on the blog but there it is. So yeah, there it all is. F*CK.
I started to think about how to get myself out of it. I have been sucking at the points counting and just don't actually want to do it. ($$) I joined Sparkpeople (free - my username is cgintraining) and got excited about that because there is no manipulating it. Weighing your food and entering it, plain and simple, it will count every calorie. WW points are a bit vague at times. Like one laughing cow wedge is one point but then one day, you use two and when you enter it, you realize two, is still only one point. Now you're pretty much going to eat two for the rest of time because you can. But those calories still count. But even joining Sparkpeople, I was thinking eat eat eat. The minute I try to control food, I want to eat more than anything, and I do. That's a problem. The only time I find my eating to be that of a normal person is when I'm regularly working out. I don't know what it is but I just don't have the same urge to eat everything bad in mass quantities. I don't know if it's that I don't want to negate the workouts or if it's the endorphins that just make me feel better or a combination. This brought me to the decision that instead of placing the focus on food and what I can't eat, I'm focussing on exercise and activity. Might seem like the same thing, but I feel like the gym is exercise and going for a leisurely bike ride or a walk after dinner is being active. Then maybe, just maybe, normal food consumption will follow. Where to start?
This post is going to be too long. I just know it. It already is. But I should do it now so that I don't just never do it.
I saw on my brother's facebook that he registered for a half-marathon in October. He's a paramedic and my stepdad is a firefighter and this is the first race for that group. I went to the website to see if there were other events and immediately, before I could change my mind, registered for the 10km. It's October. I can do this by October. I am relieved to have a real attainable goal. I then emailed a few friends and one registered for the 10km and one registered for the half so I'm guaranteed to have people to eat after race pancakes with! And I roped them into it, so I'll do it. And there's a medal. I'm all about the bling. :) Oh and the health benefits are pretty good too.
Okay, that's enough for now. There is much more I want to write and I want to share a super delicious recipe I made yesterday but that will wait a few days. Yes, a few days, not a few weeks. And here's a photo of my biggest (smallest) spirit lifter, my niece. She comes over for supper every Tuesday with two other grown-ups and I usually babysit her once on the weekend. I can't say no because it's a great way to spend an evening!! Can't wait till I can pose her pretending to drive my car like Toonces the driving cat.
And a very short video about how funny she thinks I am. :)
So if you're still here, thanks for sticking with me!!! I have been reading posts but every time it came to writing my own, I just didn't. Now i'm going to go get my gym stuff together for tomorrow so there's no room for excuses!
It's been too long!! I know!!! So in my last post I was back to tracking my points and counting the days AND I had started going to the gym again. I'll back up so we can catch up.
March 19th -- weighed in at 220. Decided that was the day that I had to get back to the gym. Pronto. That week I tracked everything I ate and I went to the Y Monday to Thursday and Saturday. March 26th -- weighed in at 217!! Woohoo! So working out and tracking my food actually works. Interesting, interesting. I went to the Y Tuesday to Thursday in the morning before work. Didn't do evening classes because it was spring break and they are cancelled and replaced with children's programs. April 2nd -- weighed in at 214.8, down another 2.2!! Woohoo!!!! I made it to 14 days of all food tracked.
George Catstanza
Unfortunately April 1st was the day things went to hell and a little off track. You see, my lovable, super affectionate, dog-trapped-in-a-cat's body, Georgie has been peeing outside the litter box about once a week for six weeks. Not spraying or marking, but full urination. I was at my wit's end when once again in the middle of the night, I was woken up by him scratching on the carpet in an attempt to "cover up". I jumped up and cleaned it up and then started crying. I had no idea what to do to solve this issue that I hadn't already tried. I was exhausted and wondering how I was going to possibly keep him if I couldn't fix it. Did some googling. Made an appointment with the vet. $213.96 of money I don't have for a visit and a shot of antibiotics for a "possible" bladder infection. I'm paying him lots of attention and playing with him. I've got two litter boxes, one per cat. I've been emptying the "stuff" every night so that it's cleanest when he seems to do the peeing in the corner. If after the two weeks, he still does it, I'm going to ask about the kitty prozac. I will try everything before I resort to giving him away because he really is an awesome cat full of personality. He plays fetch for crying out loud and cuddles like crazy.
Of course, the combination of my cat stress and pms (which my doctor suspects is pmdd) made this turn into a small binge of off-plan eating and the following day, I managed to cry three times before I got to work and twice after I got to work. Thank goodness I was leaving early to take Georgie to the vet. Did I mention that one of the times that I started to tear up was because I was on the bus and realized that I forgot my sweater?? Us chubby girls like our cardigans, admit it. It's a safety blanket. I went the whole day without it. Again, thank goodness I was leaving early. So the rest of this week was spent not feeling great. I didn't eat out of control but I didn't make it to the gym either so my weight has actually stayed steady so far. My goal is to not gain by Monday. On Easter Weekend. Hmmmm . . . no, I can do it. No gain by Monday.
My niece. She will get whatever she wants from me!!
I'm in LOVE with her!
Now that the pms has passed and Georgie has gone five days without peeing in a random corner (that I know of), I'm super duper excited for this weekend. Easter Monday was an option for us to take off so I opted to take it off and use a vacation day. Four blissful days. I've designated it home improvement weekend!!! I'm getting all those little things that I've been meaning to do, DONE. I painted my bedroom the first week after I bought my condo. I copied the color from Carrie's new apartment in the SATC movie. I love it. And then over the next year I painted my kitchen and bathroom. Both green. Then over the last year, I've been noticing little spots where I hit the ceiling or the door frames so I'll be walking around with a tiny brush and a can of white paint for an hour or so, hahaha! I also want to change my light fixtures, bye bye 1985 brass!! I'm hoping my fixtures will in by Saturday but if not, then likely the following week. My new brother-in-law is an electrician and he's going to do it for me. I babysit my sweet niece in exchange, although, that's really a win for me. She's delicious. I also have to do some fixing in the porch. I have a three-season porch on the front and above the windows for some reason is just lattice so basically, rain, snow, sleet, wind, bugs can all come in through those little holes. We are going to block that off and then hang my sweet little patio lights. I'm excited!! After that, it's coffee on the porch on the weekends till October or so.
This week I watched season one of The Killing. Natasha recommended it. It was so so so so good. I kept staying up too late because I needed to know what happened next! Now that I'm caught up to what AMC is playing on TV for season two, I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait a week for each episode!!! At first I wasn't sure how I would see the lead female investigator as anything but the sister wife from Big Love but I got over that really fast.
So here I go getting ready to attack my to-do list!!!
Anyone else had a cat peeing outside the box before?? And solved it??
I saw on my brother's facebook that he registered for a half-marathon in October. He's a paramedic and my stepdad is a firefighter and this is the first race for that group. I went to the website to see if there were other events and immediately, before I could change my mind, registered for the 10km. It's October. I can do this by October. I am relieved to have a real attainable goal. I then emailed a few friends and one registered for the 10km and one registered for the half so I'm guaranteed to have people to eat after race pancakes with! And I roped them into it, so I'll do it. And there's a medal. I'm all about the bling. :) Oh and the health benefits are pretty good too.
Okay, that's enough for now. There is much more I want to write and I want to share a super delicious recipe I made yesterday but that will wait a few days. Yes, a few days, not a few weeks. And here's a photo of my biggest (smallest) spirit lifter, my niece. She comes over for supper every Tuesday with two other grown-ups and I usually babysit her once on the weekend. I can't say no because it's a great way to spend an evening!! Can't wait till I can pose her pretending to drive my car like Toonces the driving cat. 
