okay, not here exactly, but not gone either. Still hanging in there, anyway, but it’s been a hellova week. Exercise this week was very, very bad. Food this week was very, very good though.

Shooting for a long walk tomorrow morning and, with luck, that will continue through the week as my schedule seems to be getting loaded down in the afternoons rather than mornings next week. Yay! & the week after that is Winter Break! WooHoo!

Dried a bunch of strawberries last night. I just bought a food dehydrator and I figured there was no harm in trying it out on some Costco strawberries. Damn, are they good!

Food today:

Breakfast: Kashi with dried strawberries

Lunch: 1 cup leftover veggie pasta and veggie corn dog

Dinner: will be coconut rice, scallops, spinach (the rice is my attempt at satisfying my thai cravings without going out for it).

Keep slimmin’ sisters!

I’m supposed to think “I’m slimming,” apparently. At least, that’s something I recall from today’s hypnosis session. I like the word, “slimming.” It sounds so much more positive and fun than “dieting.”

Food today:

Breakfast: 3/4 cup of oat bran cereal
Lunch: (was big): talapia with a crab cake (ate half the fish and full cake), 2 asparagus, ignored the rice easily, 1/2 of house salad, 1/2 of chocolate mousse (not bad considering on most day’s I’d have polished off the whole mousse without even thinking).
Dinner: sea scallops and creamed spinach

Exercise: 3 miles on the treadmill, including an opening 5 minute run just to see if I had it in me…and I did, but I also almost threw it back up when I was done

Actually, not so much at the moment.

I did the 14-minute weight-loss hypnosis app last night before bed and woke up this morning thinking that this might help.

My mother always forbade us (still does, in fact) from uttering the words “I think I’m getting sick,” because she believes that what the mouth says, the brain believes. With hypnosis, I think my brain is hearing what it needs to believe about weight loss.

So this morning I bought another hypnosis app. This one you can control more features, including the length of induction. I chose a long induction and as soon as hubby left for church, I was traveling down a flight of stairs very, very slowly.

I’m not entirely sure what the nice man said after I got to the bottom of the stairs where I entered the room with the lovely warm fireplace and went through the door out to the beautiful lake with the single tree, but I have vague memories of some encouraging words, some visualization, and then, 40 minutes later I became fully conscious, rested, clear-headed.

I guess I’m grasping at straws here because I really think this is going to help with my appetite control, portion control, and exercise motivation. I guess we’ll see about that.

Case in point: we got another 3-4 inches of snow yesterday and immediately after the hypnosis session ended, I just popped on my coat and shoveled our excruciatingly long driveway. As I was finishing up, I was praying I’d get done before our neighbor came out of his house. He’s had a bunch of heart attacks over the last couple of years, so all last year hubby and I shoveled out his and our driveways with every storm. This year the guy across the street has been pitching in with his snow-blower. But guy across the street hasn’t even done his own driveway yet, so I knew if my neighbor needed to get out of his driveway, I’d have to be the one to get him out.

So I’m about to pass out when I hear my neighbor’s door open and out he comes, slowly, with his little plastic snow shovel (we use a Yooper scoop). DAMN IT!

So, an hour and a half later and I’ve shoveled two excruciatingly long driveways. Clocked a mile on my pedometer, and normally I count only dedicated walks around the neighborhood or on the treadmill towards my daily 3 miles, but I’m counting this mile…oh boy am I ever.

And now here I am out of snow clothes and into workout gear. I’ve got a veggie corn dog in the oven and fresh tabloui ready to go, and as soon as lunch is over, I’m walking, yes indeed.

Exercise Update: walk/ran 2.55 on the treadmill and did another short after dinner walk with hubby for another .5, so with the 1 mile shovel/walk, that’s a whopping 4.05 miles.

Food:
Lunch: not dog corn dog and 1 cup tabouli
Snack: hand full of soybeans and 1 oz cheddar
Dinner: tried a Polish place in the neighborhood: 1/2 greasy potato pancake, 3 perogies (2 kraut, 1 cheese), 1/2 cup rice pudding with cool whip (gave the other 1/2 cup to hubby, minus the topping).

Night chicks!

Lazy!!!

Okay, question answered. Let’s move on.

I’m back from mom’s. Flew out to MA to surprise her for her birthday last weekend and the biggest surprise for me was that she was actually surprised to see me. I was sure my family had blown it. We had a lovely time and I think she’s feeling a better about turning 80 than she did last month. Part of that was having us all around, but part of it was also her doctor telling her that she’s healthier than most of the 50-year-olds he sees.

I wonder if I’ll see 80. Probably not if I maintain this stupid weight.

So my new thing is I’m trying to eat mostly vegetarian meals for health, environment, humanitarian reasons. I was a vegetarian for 11 years before I met my meat-loving husband. Now I’m bringing us both into a more “flextarian” diet plan. Vegetarian most of the time, meat only once in a while.

This is my first fully vegetarian week in about 7 years. WOW! What a long time to be away from something that was so much a part of my identity for so very long. Of course, I haven’t been a smoker for about 5 years either.

The detectives in the group are starting to put 2 and 2 together here. Let’s see, started eating meat, stopped smoking, wrote a dissertation and got an academic job. Yeah, this whole huge weight gain thing isn’t much of a mystery now, is it?

Anyway…positive notes for the week would be that I did sign up for the 5k in May and I’m looking forward to training for it…right? Sure, except for the whole Lazy! thing. I’m also pretty pleased with the vegetarian semi-commitment and hubby’s semi-on board. We’ve also had 3 out of 5 job candidates on campus already, so by this time next week we’ll be done with the search and I can get my life back again.

Oh, and early this morning I got an app for weight-loss hypnosis. No, I don’t know if I believe in hypnosis. But I’m a life-long 4am-6am insomniac, so I figure during the 2 hours that I usually toss and turn, going over lists in my head, having conversations in my head with the difficult people in my life, and imagining how wonderful life would be if I could just sleep for 8 solid hours, I’ll listen to the nice man tell me that I have my eating under control and I LOVE to exercise. Can’t hurt, right?

Night chicks!

3.25 miles, actually. I did some sloppy math last night and I think 3.25 miles will get me to 535 miles by July 1.

No miles yet today, but I need to do laundry when I come home, so I’m going to treadmill may way through a laundry cycle or two and take the dog for a nice long walk.

The weekend will be tricky. I can get my 3.25 miles in tomorrow morning, but then tomorrow afternoon I’m flying to MA to surprise my mom for her 80th birthday. Not coming back home until Tuesday, so it’ll be all outdoors walks for me over the weekend. I’m not going to sweat it. I’d like to get my miles in every day, but if I don’t, that’s okay.

I’m thinking about registering for that 5k in May. The tentative plan is to continue doing short, but inspired, runs during my walks for the next two weeks and then rotating the C25K program into my routine after that until I can mostly run 3.1 mile every other day. That’s the plan, anyway, and the 5K I’m signing up for is a walk/run, so even if I’m not at 3.1 miles of running by May, I should be able to get a respectable time.

Food today:

Breakfast: 1 cup quaker oatmeal squares…yummy

Lunch: salad?

Dinner: I need to do something with this summer sausage in the fridge (chicken sausage). Maybe over pasta with a salad on the side.

Happy day chicks!

Maybe even one hour at a time.

Whatever works today.

My usual 8am meeting got canceled. Yay! Then a colleague sent out a request for someone to cover his time with the job candidate in the morning and I almost volunteered to do it. Then I thought…wait, I’ve got enough on my plate this week and I want the morning to walk and meditate and just relax.

So . . . 2.5 miles in the morning and 20 minutes of meditation. It was hard to get into the meditation at first because I had all this noise running through my head about what I needed to do. But eventually, with the help of the nice lady’s voice, I realized that I’d set aside this time just to meditate, just to sit quietly, which means that going into the meditation, I’d already decided all this stuff could wait. And it did wait, and I feel great!

Dinner with the candidate tonight. I have my meal picked out (scallops or salmon, salad, no potato this time, extra veg, beer).

Lunch is leftover tabouli with chunks of fresh moz.

Update: dinner. had the mashed potatoes with the scallops…all else as planned.

Yesterday’s food…1/2 veggie sub and 1/2 bag chips, tabouli with moz, PB & J on whole wheat, clementine.

Ran oops…walk/ran a mile after dinner for a total of 3.51 miles on the day (clearly I’ve got running on my mind). YAY!

The scallops last night were disgusting. Salad, potato, and broccoli were fine, but I ate the first scallop and thought “no way, no one would send out food that disgusting.” Second scallop was slightly, but not remarkably better. In for a penny, I tried a third scallop and realized I should probably get home quick to get my worldly affairs in order. So the lesson there: if a place serves fish only with very strong sauces, don’t assume you can get it broiled or grilled without the sauce. The sauce is meant to cover the flavor of the fish.

Up with the sun again, but this time I got all three miles out of the way early and even did 10 minutes of meditation, which felt amazingly good. I got an app for it, you can choose music or natural sounds, lenght of time, and whether or not to have a speaker walk you through the meditation.

Our next candidate is on campus tomorrow. Dinner at a real fish place, so the same plan as before (scallops or salmon or talipa), salad, veg, potato.

Today I have a lunch meeting complete with a Jimmy John’s veggie sandwich that I’ll eat half of and save the other half for dinner on the drive to class tonight.

Ooh, I’m so on top of things today, I’m going to take a break to just relax and read blogs.

Let’s call it Day 2.

We have a candidate for a job in the department on campus today, so I was up with the sun to hop on the treadmill before heading in. 2 miles actually came easily. The remaining 1 mile was easier, though: walks hither and yon around campus.

Actually, food’s been okay too now that I think about it:

Lunch: 3 cups of leftover tabouli. I added tomatoes, peas, edamame, arugula, and fresh mozzarella.

Snack: hot chocolate (no whipped) from the campus cafe

Dinner: with the candidate. I previewed the menu, so it will be broiled scallops, baked potato, veg, salad. Beer too, though.

If I’m feeling ambitious, I may hop on the treadmill when I get home, but we’ll play that one by ear for now. Okay, I was just told we’re heading out for dinner…wish me luck with avoiding temptation.

But I’m not going to share any with this group because ya’lls’ BS detectors are pretty good.

I just fell down and went boom with my 3-mile-a-day goal. Now I’m sitting here & it seems impossible, when I know dern well it is more than possible.

Okay, so I’ll get the 3 miles in today. That’s the promise. One day at a time. Just 3 miles, just today.

In other news, my typical “lost and can’t get the people I’m with to realize I know my way around” dream has turned into one where I’m just running, fast and long, all alone, and all around this same dream neighborhood. My translation: subconsciously I know that getting in shape and running again are the best ways to regain control of my life. & man, it’s so sweet to be able to run in those dreams, up hills, jumping over streams, along lakes, down wooded paths, through these sweet smelling pines and all around these beautiful fields.

Okay, I could sit here on the couch and continue prepping my online class or I could head upstairs, put on my workout clothes, and hit the treadmill.

Done.

Thanks for being here chicks, thanks for your keen BS detectors, and thanks for checking in with me (Eileen, your simple question arrived in my email and brought me back here today).

UPDATE: sat around working on my class for another 3 hours & then finally, finally, finally grabbed the dog and headed out into the 16 degree, but sunny, day. We got in 1.7 miles, so I’ll finish up the last 1.3 on the treadmill while the laundry runs. UPDATE UPDATE: got the last 1.3 miles in while watching part of a mystery on TV…kinda relaxing. Then cleaned out the basement, did 6 loads of laundry, prepped my class, and made tabouli for dinner. Now I’m calling it a night!

Day 10: Not so much good.

At least I got in 2 miles yesterday!

Also got in burger and fries for lunch (gave father-in-law most of fries), chili for dinner, and peppermint ice cream (about 2 cups) for snack. Argh.

Today the only goal is to do better both with the walks and with the food.