Sunday, January 31, 2010

Ready, set.....

I've packed my school bag (OK, so I unearthed an ancient bag I could throw my books in), I've figured out what I'm wearing tomorrow, and what I'm packing tomorrow, and even what I'm eating for breakfast tomorrow, and I've even taken a bath to try and calm myself down because I'm keyed up beyond belief. Why? It could only be the night before school starts. I feel like I'm 10 years old again.

I've been so worked up today I've actually forgotten about being hungry. Sunday is usually my day of diet rest - the day I don't count calories but just try not to go insane, but today I've actually managed to eat less than when I was trying to eat less all last week.

I'd write more, but I'm busy pacing around the house. Does pacing count as exercise?

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Double ouch...

I gained a pound this week. I'm pretty much figuring this is one of the several I should have gained last week when I screwed up, since my body has been known to do screwy things like that. I'm taking it as the slap in the face I need to really keep at it. It's also nowhere near as bad as I deserve for how things have been lately - it's way too soon to start seeing results from my new routine from HYC on Tuesday.

I'll be spending my afternoon running around with a bunch of little ones, since we have a Brownie outing today. It should keep my mind off food, although I think I'm going to need to budget some calories for alcohol when I'm done. We've got another one coming up on Thursday, too - the kids sold the most cookies out of any troop in the county so they're all getting free tickets to Disney on Ice on Thursday. It's going to be a blast - busy, crazy, but a blast - definately something I'm looking forward to, since the kids are so excited about it. Add a brownie meeting in on Monday and I've got my hands full for the week - college and small children are going to make me incredibly tired by Friday.

I'm also going to have to figure out some time for exercise this week. I'm guessing I can find somewhere to take a walk in the general area of the college, so I might just wear comfy shoes and do that on Monday and Wednesday - at least I'll be moving. If I can't find anywhere to walk I'll be breaking out the Wii Fit between school and Brownies.

So that's that. A Gain, but I'll get over it. I know that if I stick to my HYC plan I'll see results at some point.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Ouch!

I just got my butt kicked in an unofficial family sit up contest.

Who came in first? My 8 year old who managed thirty without missing a beat and then looked at me like "is that all?" and proceeded to do 20 push ups.

Second was my hubby, who managed 20 with lots of effort. Slightly weird since he's the super fit guy - at least, he used to be. He got hit by a car while he was crossing the street this past August and has really lost a lot of his physical conditioning - he was out of work for nearly three months.

I managed *drum roll* 11. Don't laugh - 11 is actually 6 more than I thought I'd do. I've been doing lots of walking as exercise, but not really any exercises, as such. It's time to break out the Wii fit and play the section I've been avoiding since we bought it - the strength training section.

So yes, I exercised today. I walked, and I took part in the sit up contest - yeah, I know, not really exercise, but every little helps. And now I'm considering breaking out the wii, just because I'm curious as to how much pain I can inflict on myself. I've also opened a new excel page and logged our sit up progress - it'll be fun to see if I can catch up with the rest of the family soon.

I've eaten well today. I've stuck to my plan, even though this week my plan has been to deal with the munchies - I've allowed myself 2000 calories a day this week because I just can't deal with being drastic right now. Next week's HYC will involve moving down to 1700, I think.

I went out and bought some lunch solutions for next week to try out. Calorie controlled portions. We'll see how I do.

And this is me blogging! That's four days in a row! Three more and I'll call this week a success.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Just squeezing in...

It's 9pm, not my usual time for blogging but I did promise myself I'd blog every day so here I am.

I've been too busy to wander around aimlessly looking in the cupboards today, so my food intake has been OK.

I'm here, blogging, so that's two.

I walked for about 25 minutes today. It was exercise, but not exactly like I had planned. At least I was exercise I guess.

I've decided I'm definately going to do a larger breakfast thing at least on the days I have school. I've done it the last two days and I've actually eaten better and been less insanely hungry at lunchtime.

I know, not much to report today. Something struck me yesterday though, as I compiled a list of classes I have to take at some point in the future.

Phys Ed is one of them. I'm going to die. Now I know how the kids who hated PE in high school felt. I always liked it then, because although I wasn't the sportiest kid in the world I liked to play games and do exercises, but now it's going to be a completely different proposition. Hopefully it's a lot more theory than practice, but looking at the class description it's very, erm, energetic looking. Guess I'd really better get working on this losing weight and getting fit thing, huh? Yeah, I know. I'm the only person in the world trying to get fit for a fitness class. I suck. If we had a cleaning service I'd be the one obsessively polishing before they showed up every week, too. It's a sickness, I tell you.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Woohoo! Two days in a row!

Yup - I'm here again, fulfilling the easiest of my weekly goals - boring you all to death on a daily basis.

So today, in order to figure out what Im doing next week and the many weeks afterwards as far as lunch going, I'm eating a heavier breakfast, with a lighter lunch and an afternoon snack. So far I'm loveing this plan, but only because it's 10.50 am and I'm totally full from a huge breakfast. Lets see if I still love it when dinner time rolls around and I'm gnawing on my hair just to stay sane.

So there you go - food is planned (and I stuck to my plan yesterday - yay!) blog is blogged, lunches are being figured, and when I'm done typing this, exercise will be done.

And speaking of exercise, I got my daughter the "Just Dance" game for the Wii this Christmas. Well, she unwrapped it, I plan to play it as much as her. But since I've been playing it, I've realized something - it makes my arms hurt like crazy. If you don't know what the game is, you basically follow the dancer on screen doing all kinds of fabulous 80's dance moves, and they score you by using the controller you're holding in your hand. So of course, all the actions are insanely arm movement heavy. One thing I've learned is that all the walking in the world is doing nothing for my arm stength, which is apparently stuck at "weaker than a kitten" level. Maybe that'll be a goal for next week....

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

HYC Check in Tuesday!

And one very important update - as of yesterday (and two seperate trips over to the college because their online registration was down), I am a full time student! I'm so excited! Classes start next monday, so I'll actually be busy and not be sitting at home dwelling on my life (or lack of it).

And now on to the less exciting HYC stuff.

I lost two pounds last week. I'd be excited about that but I know that I totally didn't deserve it. My eating hasn't been in control for a lot of time lately and I just didn't seem to find time for any exercise other than pacing back and forth stressing about stuff. It's time to start over.

So, my aims for the next week?

1) Control my food intake!
2) Get some exercise - anything!
3) Figure out some lunch ideas. The college has a cafeteria with a fairly wide menu, but I'm thinking I've probably spent enough money at the bookstore already that I need to pack lunches. I might even start eating a bigger breakfast (since I have more time in the mornings) and a small lunch and a snack for the ride home.
4) Blog every day. I know I'm boring as hack at the moment, but blogging helps me stay on track. And I promise it'll get more interesting.

OK - four easy things, right?

So today:

I've eaten well. My food is planned, and so far I've stuck to it.
I've walked for 45 minutes.
I've considered the fact that I'm going to need to figure lunch out at least two days a week for the foreseeable future.
I'm here and blogging.
So yay! So far so good. Six more days to go.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Where have I been?

Well, lets just say it's all rather exciting.

I might (big might) be able to go to college. Just community college for the first two years, but the plan is falling into place and the eventual plan is to transfer to another local university and finally get a degree. I spent yesterday down at my local community college finding out about financial aid (not much, but some) and what other pieces of paper they need to get me the money I'm entitled to. Today I have the harder task - finding the rest of the money I need to pay for classes. I have to move fast because most classes for this semester are already full. I don't need to go through the whole initial registration process since I've already taken a few credit classes there before. I do, however, have to figure out how to declare a major (social work) and figure out how to pay for the large part the government won't shell out for.

Talk about happy and busy! Only problem is, if this plan doesn't work out, then I'm going to be really really disappointed. When I was 18 I had the decision of going home to the UK and going to uni or staying here and getting married. I made the decision to stay here and get married, and although I'm always sure I made the right decision, I've spent twelve years wishing I could have done both. We've never had the finances in place to feel secure enough for me to go to school, and, well, we still don't, but as my husband put it last night, I'm not bringing any money in now, and since I've been looking for a job for over a year and not had any success why don't we work on a future where I might be able to do something meaningful instead of answer phones all day?

So now I'm a woman on a mission. It's actually pretty good for me, since I'll admit I'm intimidated by the whole college (especially college financing) process. It's good for me to step out of my comfort zone, and boy, if this all works out, I'll get the rewards.

Phew! So that's the whirlwind that has been my life since Tuesday. Pretty cool though, huh?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I'm almost scared... HYC Time

That is, I'm almost scared to post. The last few times I've written a blog post about how I'm doing OK, I've then gone and screwed up within a few hours. I feel like I jinx myself every time I post that things are going well.

I weighed in on Sunday (since I forgot to on Saturday). I'm still where I was before. Standing still wasn't part of this plan, and especially standing still because I haven't worked hard enough to lose anything!

It's been hard to get properly back on track since my parents left. There, I've said it. I've been good at half heartedly getting with the program, but to be brually honest, I'm not going to get anywhere if I continue carrying on like last week. This week so far I've been better, but lets face it, it's only Tuesday.

Yesterday was awesome - since Iz and Chris were off, we decided to go bowling and we all had a blast. I ate great, because I wasn't bored and I was happy. But I'm not always going to be busy and happy. In fact, days where I'm both busy and happy are few and far between. Today, I've been busy, but I've also been stuck at home since Chris accidentally ran off with my car key. There are a few things I need to get but since the stores I need to get to are over 10 miles away I'm doubting that I could walk it and still be in time to get Iz off the bus. On top of that, I seem to have pulled a muscle in my butt. No, I have no idea how I did it either but I can really feel it pulling whenever I go up or down stairs.

So far, this week has been awesome. I hope to report next Tuesday that I've made it a whole week (and a bit) sticking to my plan. Oh, and I'd love to report a loss, too :)

Friday, January 15, 2010

Ho hum...

It's another day. Another day on the super long journey that is getting rid of all the nasty funk under my skin. It's one of those days where the journey feels insanely long because, well, because I don't have much else to do. Being unemployed sucks.

So what have I done with my day so far? I've reorganised my kitchen, and dinner is in the crock pot. I may as well get myself a big skirt, an apron and some sensible shoes.

I think I've kicked the munchies that have been plagueing me since Christmas. I was able to get away with it while my parents were here, but no more. Yesterday I was perfect. Well, noone's perfect, but I ate really well. I went grocery shopping and managed to get a ton of groceries for not so much money.

So I should cheer up right? I guess that's what I'll work on next.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Back on track... hopefully

OK so yesterday was a food disaster. I planned out what I'd eat carefully, and then totally disregarded my plan - but yesterday is gone and there nothing I can do about it. I'm back with a new plan this morning, and since I'm feeling better I'm much more likely to stay on track.

Life wise, yesterday was pretty much blah. I got a few things done - things I could do while I stayed home, and then I just sort of flopped on the couch and did nothing. I've got to go out today though,hubby has a viewing to attend tonight and I need to find him some pants that actually fit. Oh, and I need to go grocery shopping. I'm going to try and find some hot options for lunch - I think if I prepare a hot lunch I might have a better time staying on track through the afternoon, especially while it's so cold out. I'm going to check out the Progresso soups - I'm not a huge soup fan but maybe I could work on changing that if I can find a few varieties that look good (and have a low calorie count). It also might help me up my veggie intake, because since my mother left my veggie intake has dropped dramatically again. Thats' a habit I really need to work on.

So that's the plan. Now lets see if I can stick with it.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

And then it all fell apart again...

So last night I went to bed with swollen glands and a sore throat. This morning I woke up with a full blown cold. I think I have the man flu. You know, not really the flu but I could swear I'm about to keel over any minute now. All I want to do is sit on the couch, play around on the internet, and maybe put the TV on later.

You'd think this would make me want to not eat anything, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. When I'm sick, unless it involves thowing up, I comfort eat like crazy. Luckily the dinner I have planned tonight is really low cal, so I have some leeway today.

The plan today was to get some mega exercise, get some things crossed off my to do list and generally be running around all day. It's not going to happen. I may get as far as curled up on the couch.

I hate when plans get ruined. I hate even more that if I really sucked it up, I could still get some stuff done, but since it's not desperately important it gets done today, I'll end up procrastinating. I'm being pathetic, but I don't see myself getting it together today.

So pathetic it is.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I'm officially back!

My parents left last night. Yes, there were some tears - it's always difficult for me to realize that I'm probably never going to live in England again.

But you know what? I was planning to have this day as a transition - to ease back into my way of doing things after so many days of doing everything everyone else's way. I don't need it. The first thing I did was to get up and plan out my calories for the day. Now I'm blogging. After Iz leaves for school there will be exercise. I actually like my routine - much more than I thought I did. I really thought it would be hell to start counting my calories again - not that I've eaten excessively, but just because it's a new level of strict that I didn't have for the last month. I'm actually excited about it. I've not even weighed myself - every time I've stepped on the scale it's told me I'm holding steady, so I'll weigh in like usual on Saturday and start updating from there again. I'm actually less bothered about losing weight at the moment - it'll happen if I stick to what I've been doing - no need to obsess about the numbers on the scale. I was planning a day of mourning for my food freedom, and I'm actually more excited about regaining the control.

What's the reason for that last change? There are two. First, I have a lovely new pair of jeans that are size 18 - with no "W" behind it! The W is significant to me. I know it's supposed to stand for "woman" but to me when I pick it up off the shelf it always stands for "wide" as is - "wide load". I know it's not much but it's a start - proof that my body is changing and that I don't have to flip out over every half pound lost.

Second was the discussion I had with my hubby last night. We were talking about how good my breathing has been in the super cold weather we've had lately. That's usually one of my biggest asthma triggers - going from cold air to a heated room or vice versa. This year it hasn't been a problem, and we've been well under freezing temps here for a few weeks now. Usually when the weather gets like this I have a horrible time, but this year I've done everything I've tried to without a problem. I couldn't figure out why, but then my hubby pointed out that the pounds I've lost and the exercise I've been doing have probably been helping my body deal with things that used to be a challenge. It's working - I have proof it's working, now I've just got to trust myself and my body. I'm not very good at that.

I think I was flipping out over every half pound lost because I didn't trust my body to respond appropriately to diet and exercise because of all those half-assed tries before. I've proven that it's responding, so now the scale truly is for once a week. I don't have to have evidence every half hour anymore.

So - trust is my new watch word.

Oh, and the New Years resolution - going surprisingly well. I've yet to have a proper flip-out about anything - and this is from someone who lost her car key last night in a bunch of snow in someone else's yard. My hubby was right - I did flip out about small things way too much. I've just got to trust that I can do the right thing in a sticky situation and that I can adapt when things don't go my way. Again with the trust - apparently it's my word of the new decade....

Monday, January 4, 2010

Another quick check in...

I promise I haven't given up blogging - it's just going to be hard to find ten minutes to myself until next Monday... the house is crowded and I'm not exactly good at blogging about my innermost feelings when someone's reading over my shoulder.

Still plugging along - my food intake today so far has been much more in line with how I should be eating, so I guess Christmas and New Years really is over.

As far as my one single solitary resolution, so far so good on that today, even though the last few days have been stressful, things that should have sent me into stress orbit are actually not bothering me so much. I even managed to not freak out at not sleeping well last night and having an early start this morning.

More later - I have to get Iz from the bus stop and then continue entertaining!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!

Usually I'm not one for New Years celebrations, but for some reason this year I'm happy about the idea of a fresh start - more to continue what I started and the hard work I've been doing since September.

I even have a New Years Resolution this year. I'm quite excited about it, because I've never really done that before, either.

It is:

Live in the moment.

Yup, that's it. The whole resolution in three words. To most people it sounds simple, but it's not something I'm good at doing. I'm always too worried about making things more perfect, or worrying about what's supposed to come next. In the past, I've ruined whole weekends over what might happen at work on Monday. I've ruined whole vacations worrying about feeling sad about having to leave. I've ruined birthdays by not enjoying what was going on, but worrying that I'm not making the day perfect enough.

I think that's half of what's made me so fat. I've not enjoyed what I've eaten because I've been more worried about what I'm going to eat next. I know people say half the joy is in anticipation, but for me the bit I have to work on is enjoying what I have. Instead of lying in bed worrying about what I have to do tomorrow or (my favorite) worrying about how tired I'm going to feel the next day because of the sleep I'm losing worrying about how tired I'm going to be, I've been trying to just enjoy the sensation of lying in a warm comfy bed. Instead of worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow, I have to learn to savor what's going on. I really think that if I can crack this, I'll have a lot easier time controlling my eating, as well as the rest of my life.

So that's the resolution.

Oh, and just for kicks I weighed myself to see what the damage is for these last few weeks. There is none. Well, there is none yet - I've given myself until the end of this weekend to do what I want, within reason. I was shocked, but thinking about it I've been moving a lot, and not eating quite as badly as I once would have. Sure I could have probably lost a few extra pounds in the last 10 days, but I didn't do any damage either. So I'm starting the new year with exactly 100 pounds to lose, having lost 23.5 - I wonder what next year's total will be? I'm excited to find out!