It’s all up to me

I caved on got on the scale.  Yesterday afternoon I wanted to but I was feeling kind of vulnerable so I knew that if I didn’t see a number I wanted that it could throw me off track.  Wisely, I told myself that if I still wanted to weigh myself in the morning that I could.

I was totally expecting a great number.  I have worked out every day since Sunday and have not deviated from my eating plan in forever.  Instead, I’m up .5.  WHAT!!!???   The rational side of me knows that I’m PMSing so I’m probably retaining water.  I also know that I can see changes in myself, my clothes are fitting better, etc.  For instance, today I’m in a pair of pants that a month ago I would not have worn in public and now they’re even kind of loose.  I have lost 15 pounds since mid-December.  When I started I was a tight size 24 (let’s be honest, I was a 26) and yesterday I pulled out a pair of size 22 pants that I could wear and was even able to almost button/zip a pair of size 20 pants.  All of this should make me feel good but it doesn’t.

This is why I hid the scale.  Granted, hiding it where I can find it kind of defeats the purpose, but at least it makes hopping on a conscious decision instead of a robotic action.

So where do I go from here?  The fantastic news is that this is not making me want to abandon ship.  I’m assuming in a week or so when I stop retaining water that I’ll start to see a drop in the scale.  I am also at the point where food cravings are gone.  Yesterday my older son brought home some cupcake-like thing from grandma’s and he left 2/3 of it on the table.  It didn’t even cross my mind to take a bite.  The fact that I’m PMSing and not craving chocolate is huge.  I feel great and look forward to exercising.  If I wasn’t in this Biggest Loser contest I think I would have my hubby completely hide the scale for months at a time and just rely on measurements but that’s not an option.  So being realistic I’m going to keep doing what I have been doing and try to remember that my hard work is going to pay off.  Maybe not today, but it will pay off.

I am proud of myself.  Yesterday we did get out of school early but the roads weren’t too bad, yet, so I decided to go home and workout.  I upped my weights and used the 12 lb. weights for every exercise in the FIRM DVD.  Usually I drop to 10 lb. weights when I have to double up but I figured if I wanted to buy 15 pound weights I had better make sure I can do the whole workout with 12.  It was tough, but I did it.

Today we have a 2 hour delay, it was announced last night.  I will be so ready for spring when it gets here, it seems like we have a major storm every week.  Anyway, since it was known that we had a late arrival today I told my hubby that I wanted to get up at the regular time anyway and workout.  Usually on Wednesdays I can’t workout because my son has physical therapy right after school.  But since we’re going in 2 hours late I can take an hour to workout and still have enough time to get to school early and get some work done.  I felt a tiny bit guilty about this (don’t I always) because neither of us have been sleeping well lately because our son has been getting up at 1:30 or 2:00 and staying up for the day.  But my hubby went to bed at 8:00 last night so sleeping until 5:15 is still pretty good.  It’s now 5:00 and my son slept until 4:30 so I feel like a new woman.

I also told my SIL that if school is cancelled today and if the roads in town are good I still plan to bring the kids down.  She said “no problem” and truly sounded like she was ok with it.  I just figured this way there would be no reason for me to not be able to have a few hours to myself and to get some work done. 

I’m surprising myself with my assertiveness, both in telling my hubby that I plan to workout in the morning and telling my SIL that I’m going to expect her to work even if we don’t have school.  And what I have noticed is that as long as I tell people what I want to happen instead of asking them if it’s ok they don’t second guess me.  I don’t know why I haven’t figured this out before now.  At school I am very assertive and the kids know when I tell them to do something that it isn’t a suggestion, I expect it to happen.  Same thing with my kids, they can just tell with my tone of voice.  But for some reason I didn’t think to try this approach with adults.  So this will be my goal for now, being more assertive in my dealings with other adults.  Wish me luck.

I was watching Dr. Phil today because his show was about weight loss.  There was a woman on there who had lost a significant amount of weight and had a ton of extra skin leftover.  This is one of my biggest fears; that I will lose the weight but still look frumpy because I have saggy skin.  She lost hers much more quickly than I will lose mine because she had gastric bypass but I would have to think that even losing weight slowly has limits.  How much can skin stretch?

Have any of you lost a lot of weight (like 100 pounds or more) and had your skin snap back?  My highest weight ever was 295 (I’m 5′7″) and I’m guessing I would like to end up about 150.  I have been overweight for nearly all of my life (I’m 33) and had 2 babies so my skin has been stretched for sure.  Just curious.

I decided to be a grown-up last night and get over my crankiness.  I was able to get in a great workout which helped matters.  Part of what helped was that I watched my new favorite show, “X Weighted” while I was on the treadmill.  Yesterday’s episode focused on a woman who had very low self-esteem and was negative about everything.  She saw a woman who told her being unhappy was her choice and if she wanted to be happy then she had to choose to be happy.  Gee, was this a message to me?

But I didn’t want to let my hurt feelings about not working out on Saturday and my hubby’s ignoring my anger go away.  So while we were making supper I asked him why he didn’t ask my that I was upset.  At first he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about but then he said that he figured it was just that I was tired of all of the chaos in our life.  I said that yes, I am, but explained that I was upset that I wasn’t able to workout on Saturday after I specifically said I needed a workout.  He said “All you had to do was ask” to which I replied “I did.”    I also told him that I guess I didn’t want to have to ask again, I wanted him to realize how important this is to me and tell me it’s ok to take time for myself.  Our younger son was being difficult all weekend so I didn’t want to leave him alone with him, those guilty feelings again.

Today hopefully should be ok.  We’re getting out of school early because a blizzard is heading our way but since we live in town I’m still going to try to workout before I pick up the kids.  I won’t jeapordize our safety but I think I should be ok.

I didn’t write yesterday because I didn’t have much to say, plus the day was totally hectic.  I don’t come today with much to report, either. I think it’s because I have been angry the last couple of days and when I get angry I don’t talk.  It all started because I wasn’t able to workout on Saturday like I had planned.  Early in the morning my older son had an appt.  My hubby and I were deciding who should take him and I said “I don’t care who goes, I just want to make sure I can workout when I get home.”  He said “ok” and he stayed home to relax since the baby was napping.  Before we left he asked if we could stop at the store on our way home so he didn’t have to do it later.  No problem.  But as the day went on and the baby was difficult I had no opportunity to workout.  Then to make matters worse, he didn’t ask me WHY I was mad.  My emotions are extremely easy to read and when I’m upset I go from talking 100 mph to not talking at all.  Not once that day did he ask.

Fast forward to yesterday and I’m still pissed which is totally unlike me.  Usually I wake up and forget what happened the day before.  I went straight to the basement to workout which I figured would improve my mood.  Nope, still pissy and he’s still not asking.  Now I realize that I am a 33 year old woman who should be able to express her feelings when she has them but since I knew that he knew I was mad and still wasn’t asking I didn’t want to make it easy on him.  Plus, he was a total grouch and when I asked him what was wrong he said “nothing”.

I feel so rotten complaining about him because he is a fantastic guy but that doesn’t negate my feelings.  Adding to this the baby got up at 2:30 and didn’t go back down so it should be a long day.  The good news is when I’m mad I usually don’t want to eat so I shouldn’t have to worry about eating to make me feel better.  If I’m still upset tonight and he doesn’t ask I’m going to be the bigger person and start the conversation.

<>Oh yeah, weight-wise I’m down 3 pounds to 275.  Maybe if I focus on that it will make me feel better.

So far everything is going according to plan.  I’m scared to write that because I don’t want things to change.  Last night we ate burgers w/o the bun.  Not the healthiest but still on plan and if you can’t splurge every now and then what’s the point?  The baby just went down for a nap so he should sleep the whole time I’m gone with our older son to his appt.  This way my hubby gets a break so I don’t feel guilty when I workout later.  If I can get through today eating on plan things should be ok; Friday nights to Saturday are usually my hardest days.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

The last 2 days have gone really well but now I’m hitting my danger zone…the weekend.  Life is not as predictable as during the week and even though it should be easier to fit in a workout since there is extra time it’s much harder.  So here’s the plan for the weekend:

Tonight I will not workout, Friday is my rest day.  This is mostly because I pick the baby up early from my SIL (older son is w/grandma on Friday) so there is nobody to watch him while I workout.  Tomorrow am my older son has an appt. so I will need to fit in a workout after we get home.  Sunday we are going to a charity breakfast at the place that held a benefit for my younger son last year. We always try to go and support them since they helped us so much.  They serve omelets which I can eat but there are also pancakes and toast.  I’m just going to ask them not to put any on my plate.  I will workout right when I get up so that I get it in and help myself stick to my eating plan.

I am so glad to be back in a routine.  Yesterday I did well with eating, the only exception being too many mixed nuts.  Even though I know I ate too many I did manage to stop myself before I ate the entire can.  Tonight I’m going to ask my hubby to hide them.  I wouldn’t have even eaten them if I hadn’t opened the cupboard to get something for one of the boys.  I saw them sitting there and something salty at the time sounded good.  But to make up for it I baked fish for supper and had some veggies.  I also was able to get in a workout.  I can tell it’s making a difference because with this FIRM DVD you use medium weights.  Before my medium weights used to be 10 pounds and awhile ago I bumped them up to 12 pounds.  Now those are getting too light so I think I’m going to need to buy some 15 pound weights.  It makes me feel pretty good because the ladies on the DVD are using 5 pound weights.

We told my SIL that she would need to work off the $76 she wants to borrow through babysitting by the time the credit card bill arrives.  It’s a small step but at least this way we won’t have to cough up the money when the bill arrives.  It’s just amazing to me that she and my hubby grew up in the same house…he has such an amazing work ethic and sense of responsibility.  She’s a great person, don’t get me wrong, but has never been made to solve her own problems.

Hope everyone else had a good day.  Also, if any of you are motivated by success stories there is a new program on Discovery Health called “X-Weighted”  I have only seen it once but it follows someone on their weight loss journey over a period of time.  It’s on 11 am Central time.  I plan to tape it today and watch it on the treadmill tonight.

I’m not going to go into details but let’s just say that yesterday was not a good day.  I did finally get in touch with my SIL but amazingly she had an appointment scheduled during the middle of the day so if I brought the boys down I would have had to pick them up within a couple of hours so it just wasn’t worth it.  Gee, did she miraculously predict that we were going to have a snow day or was the appt. booked right before she called me?  Then as we were talking it came up that her boyfriend is on a health insurance plan through our state.  It’s a LONG story but he moved her from Massachusetts to be with her in September and still hasn’t gotten a job.  He can work, he’s just choosing not to, and now he’s taking money from the state to provide his health insurance.  Meanwhile, my son is on a waiting list for disability benefits (and has been for 13 months) because there isn’t enough money in the state budget.  Then it got me thinking that since he doesn’t have a job there is no way he can be sending money to help take care of his kids in Florida.  And THEN I realized that all of the times that they have had to borrow money from us for lawyer’s fees (my SIL is in the middle of an awful divorce) that if he was working that they wouldn’t need to borrow money.  I don’t know why this didn’t dawn on me before but it all hit within about 30 seconds yesterday.  I would hate to know what my blood pressure was at that moment.

So I turned to food.  Stupid, I know, but I did.  Today, however, is a new day and I’m going to try to remember that the only person I hurt when I use food like that is me.  I also ordered Turbo Jam yesterday so I at least did one healthy thing.

One positive thing that came out of yesterday is that my hubby and I agreed that we aren’t going to lend them any more money.  I don’t know why they think we have a ton of it lying around, we have been living off of my teacher’s salary for the last 2 1/2 years since my hubby was laid off and went back to school.  If they want to charge something to our credit card that’s fine, the just need to pony up the cash at the time.  I feel bad for my hubby because he’s at the point that he’s going to be relieved when she moves to Florida.  She’s his only sibling and I hate to hear him talk that way.  But I completely understand how he feels, I sort of feel that way, too.  I know we have allowed ourselves to be put into this position but she just expects us to take care of everything for her and doesn’t take any responsibility herself.  It will be interesting to see where this leads but for now we can’t afford to put out any more fires for her.

Oh, the drama.

I really need to get to the bottom of this guilt thing.  Last night the baby woke up at about 1 or 2.  It was my hubby’s turn to get up with him and looking back the last 3 times he has gotten up in the night it was my night to get up with him.  I got up with my hubby, checked to see that the baby was ok, got a bottle ready for him and then felt incredibly guilty for going back to bed.  Why?  When it’s my turn to get up in the night my hubby doesn’t even stir when I get out of bed.  I change the diaper, get the bottle, etc. all by myself.  And it’s not my hubby making me feel guilty.  I was incredibly lucky to marry a man who truly carries his weight around the house and with the kids.  He does the cooking, shopping, cleaning and has the majority of the responsibility for our older son since our younger son’s disability consumes most of my time.  The only thing he does do is act like a total grouch when he doesn’t get enough sleep but don’t we all?

 So here’s the problem with the guilt today.  I am home today with the kids because school was cancelled due to snow.  I have called our sitter (my sister-in-law) to let her know I’m going to bring the kids down later so I can workout and get a few things done around the house but she’s not answering the phone.  This happened one other time this year when we had a snowday, she just thinks she doesn’t have to work.  It’s a complicated situation.  But back to the guilt.  If I can’t get ahold of her I won’t be able to workout until hubby gets home.  Knowing he’s exhausted and had school all day I will feel like a slug asking him to watch the kids so I can workout.  On top of his other things today he was outside plowing the driveway and sidewalk.

So I need to solve this problem.  I am going to call my sister-in-law quite frequently if she doesn’t call me back to make sure that she earns her money for today.  Gee, can you tell I’m bitter about this????  If for some reason I can’t I AM going to stick to my eating plan for today.  I may not get in exercise but I can eat properly.