It’s all up to me

It’s not too tough to figure out that I have been struggling lately and although I for the most part know why (the restrictions my shoulder injury have placed on me are making it difficult to exercise as intensely as I like to) it’s hard to do anything about it b/c I can’t make my shoulder heal any faster than it is.  When I was at physical therapy on Friday I asked the therapist if he thought I’d be ready to return to kickboxing in January.  He’s not sure.

Hearing that really put me into a funk.  I decided to call Patrick, the guy we know who, for lack of a better term, is a psychic reader.  You may or may not believe in any of this and for the most part I think the majority of people who do this sort of thing don’t truly have a gift, but I believe Patrick is legit.  I first met him when we booked a session for my sister’s 40th birthday and there were details he knew about her that he couldn’t just guess.  We then had him read Kyle over Christmas break last year and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  We are off school on Friday so I took a chance and he’s available in the afternoon.  I don’t know what to expect but I know that meeting with him will give me the mental boost I’m needing.

Then, I ran into the couple who own the kickboxing studio where I used to work out.  She said that it’s is basically a for sure thing that they’re going to add a 3:30 class (the time I need!!!) and that they could work around a rotator cuff injury, especially since I still have 2 months to rehab and make progress.  Hooray!  This is the kick in the butt that I need.  Now that I know I’ll be able to go back to hitting and kicking things I need to make sure I’m in primo shape to do that.  Plus, I want to be thinner when I return than when I left in June. 

So here’s what’s going to help me be successful:

1.  Meeting w/Patrick is going to pump up my belief that I can do this.  I could probably get the same benefit by going to my old counselor (and it would be cheaper b/c that’s covered by insurance!!) but there’s just something about Patrick.

2.  We’re starting another round of the Game-On Diet tomorrow and it will go for 4 weeks.  I’m so glad we’re starting this week b/c otherwise the change in schedule w/conferences would definitely make it difficult to stick to the plan.

3.  Knowing I’ll be returning to Ferrell’s in January provides me w/athletic motivation as well as for vanity.

4.  I’m meeting w/some out-of-town girlfriends the first weekend in December.  You know, the friends who are all as skinny as they were in college even after kids and the one who is a personal trainer?  Yeah, those friends.

That’s enough for now.  My 20th high school reunion will be next summer but even though I want to look good for that it’s not immediate enough to be true motivation.  I’m going to focus on the rest of 2011 before I begin to motivate myself for 2012.

Every day I have been vowing to get back on track and every night I crash and burn.  I do well all day, exercise at night, and then eat and eat and eat.  It’s a challenge to eat too much b/c our house basically only has healthy food but it’s still possible to eat too much, even though it’s less enjoyable.

So fortunately we’re re-starting the Game-On Diet next week.  We’re moving from 2 larger teams to several smaller ones to keep everyone more accountable.  I’m especially glad that we’re starting next week b/c it’s parent-teacher conferences and that generally spells disaster for my diet.  Not this time!  I am still planning to be at or below 185 by the end of the year so I’m no longer obese which means I need to get my butt in gear since I was 203 this morning.

My head is not 100% in this so I’m wasting a fair amount of energy deciding on what to eat (more honestly what NOT to eat), how much to workout, etc.  I hate it when I’m like this.  These next few weeks are chaos w/our schedule due to testing, parent/teacher conferences and family events but I need to remind myself that there is never a perfect time to diet.  If I don’t get the scale moving downward now I’ll be up 15 pounds before the holidays are over and that would be stupid.

So for now I’m working on not succumbing to the all-or-nothing thinking that has cursed me in the past.  Today, for instance, I ate more than I normally would b/c we’re giving standardized tests to the kids (hate it!) and all I do is stand there and watch kids fill in circles.  Normally I’m running around and don’t have time to think about being hungry but today that’s all I had time to do.  Even though I ate more than normal for the most part it was healthy, and even though I had 5 Starbursts and 2 small pieces of chocolate I’m not going to let that derail me.  Then, I could only make it through 30 minutes on the elliptical instead of the 45 minutes I had planned but I’m trying to remind myself that I did 30 minutes!

Enough boo-hooing, I just need to do it.

Life is settling into a sense of normality and I feel like I have finally had time to come up for air so it’s back into the battle of the bulge.  Last week I had planned to start working out again since Kyle was out of the hospital but I was EXHAUSTED!  The mental toll of being in with him for a week caught up to me.  Plus, I was staying late at school every day trying to get caught up.  Throw in a few appointments and it was pointless to try to workout.

I also had to punt for my lunch choices b/c I hadn’t taken the time to clean my veggies that I normally take for lunch.  I know it doesn’t sounds like a big deal but finding the time/energy to get that done wasn’t going to happen.  Instead, I took a pb sandwich every day w/a greek yogurt and some fruit.  Still healthy-ish, just higher calorie than I normally eat.

And you know what?  Even though I didn’t exercise, had candy and “normal” food for a week or 2 I lost weight!  Not much, barely a pound, but I lost.  This morning was 200.2 which means I can get rid of 1 rock from my jar of the 17 I need to lose to be out of the obese category. 

I’m still restricted in the exercise I can do b/c of my shoulder so I’m curious to see how that will go.  Have now had 3 physical therapy appointments and now instead of the deranged shoulder he’s back to saying it’s rotator cuff/tendonitis.  This current set of exercises he has me on aren’t causing additional pain so I’m hoping they will actually help me make progress.  I can tell my arms have already lost definition but I know it will bounce back quickly when I’m cleared to lift weights again.  I just hope I can get everything healed before the 1st of the year when I hope to return to kickboxing.

I’m happy to report the reason I haven’t been here for a while isn’t b/c I fell off the wagon but I wish that was the reason

Kyle was admitted to the hospital a week ago today and we weren’t discharged until yesterday.  Started w/continued pneumonia and dehydration.  They figured he’d be in overnight to get IV fluids but then his bloodwork came back out of whack.  Even though he was rehydrated his sodium levels were climbing.  Turns out one of his meds makes his body pee out all of his free water and hang onto the sodium.  They eventually got that figured out but they had to make sure to reduce it gradually b/c if it went down too quickly it could cause his brain to swell.  Then, once they got his sodium levels in the right range his potassium levels dropped.  During that same time he started spiking a temp, getting up to 104.4 at one point.  We’re assuming the fever was due to a virus b/c all other reasons were ruled out. 

We’re slowly getting back to the regular routine but after being out of school for nearly a week I’m staying late so workouts aren’t even a thought.  My shoulder is also still bugging me so I’m going to physical therapy 2x weekly and food is turning into whatever is still in the house.  Hopefully the weekend will be quiet and we’ll be able to get groceries, relax a bit and feel recharged for the following week.

I don’t think my shoulder is getting any better.  Well, I can lift it over my head now but I still can’t lift it to the side and now it’s constantly hurting instead of only every once in a while.  I don’t know if I’m doing the PT exercises wrong or if it’s just not working but I’m getting frustrated.  I go back on Monday and I’m going to keep doing the exercises for now but if the pain increases I’m going to stop and call him.

I’m also worrying b/c Kyle had his 2nd bout of pneumonia in 3 weeks and he’s not bouncing back very well.  Normally after about 2 days on antibiotics he’s smiling and I still have barely seen a smile and he got sick on Thursday.  Our older son also had pneumonia in there (germs, germs, everywhere) but he’s over it.  I know it takes a while to get over pneumonia so I’m probably just being impatient but I’d hate to think this is a preview of what the winter will be like.

Because of the shoulder pain I’m focusing mostly in cardio.  The weather is absolutely perfect around here (75 and sunny) so we took the dog on an extra long walk.  I know in a couple of weeks I won’t want to be outside too much.  I’m keeping up w/my calorie counting and have an extra motivation b/c some girlfriends and I are making plans to do early Christmas shopping mid-November.  These are the friends who range from a size 0 to probably a 6 and all have had at least 2 kids.  If they weren’t such fabulous women I’d absolutely hate them

Last week got crazy busy and I haven’t been on to update.  Here’s a quick recap.

Went to physical therapy and he’s not convinced it’s my rotator cuff, he thinks it could be a deranged shoulder.  Deranged???  In my line of work deranged means crazy.  He quickly explained that it just meant it’s out of range so I have these weird exercises to do every 2 hours.    I’m doing my best to try to remember to do them w/the hope that I’ll be back to regular lifting soon.

Since I’m out of my workout routine I decided to get something new.  For 5 seconds I entertained the thought of buying a treadclimber b/c I LOVED it when I went to the gym.  But buying a $2500 piece of equipment is definitely not in the budget, so I settled for a $20 Cathe Friederich DVD.  I have read a lot of reviews about her and people tend to like her so hopefully it will come soon.

Food hasn’t been great but it hasn’t been awful, either.  Last weekend was homecoming, our anniversary and 2 meals eaten out.  I decided to loosen the reigns and was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t dive head first into grease and fat.  Friday for lunch we went out between school and the homecoming parade and had Pad Thai.  That night for supper all I wanted was a bowl of cereal.  Saturday night we had mahi mahi which was healthy, balanced out w/the baked potato (with butter AND sour cream) and cannolli for dessert. 

This week I’m trying something new, at least for me.  I am recording what I eat with calories.  I know, not rocket science, but more detail than I normally go into.  Since I tend to eat the same food on a daily basis up until suppertime I typed out food and calories for everything and just copied it multiple times.  I then will add in what I eat for supper.  Even if I only do this for a few weeks it should get the scale moving in the right direction.

And speaking of the scale, my short-term goal is to end 2011 simply being overweight which means I need to crack 185.  Yesterday I topped the scales at 202 (so long, onederland) so that’s 17 pounds in 3 months–doable.  I am going to collect 17 little rocks and put them in my bowl like I did to get out of the 200’s.  I need to think of a reward that I truly want and won’t buy for myself w/o earning it.  I’m cheap and have a problem w/delayed gratification so I need to put some thought into this.

Hope everyone has a great week

I’m in a funk and I don’t like it.  Mostly it’s b/c I’m actually following my plan but I’m not losing anything.  My guess is that I’m overdoing my free day and it takes all week to undo the damage but I don’t think I’m doing anything different than I have in the past when I have lost a pound or 2 a week.  For now, I’m going to continue for the week and see if it was just super-duper PMS where I was retaining water.  If things don’t improve I’m going to go back to measuring my foods to make sure my portions aren’t getting out of control.  If that doesn’t work I might go back to frozen meals for a while to have built in portion control.

I am proud, though, that I haven’t thrown in the towel in frustration.  My workouts have continued and I’m following my food plan.  I guess that’s one perk to eating nearly the same thing day after day.  Eating has become automatic.

I go to physical therapy on Friday so I’m anxious to see what they have to say.  I know I need to take it easy on my shoulder but I don’t like having to modify my workouts.  Gee, control issues anyone??  I’m going to follow their recommendations to the letter b/c I hope in January that Ferrell’s will have a 3:30 class so I can rejoin and I know if my rotator cuff is still bothering me that it won’t be an option.

The doctor said that I’m probably pinching a nerve near my rotator cuff.  He’s going to send me to physical therapy one time to learn exercises and then I can do them on my own.  My appt is a week from tomorrow and until then he’s not restricting me from exercise but said if it hurts to avoid it.  Whew, I was worried.

I’m feeling really fat and fluffy today and I don’t like it.  I just started TOM so I’m sure that has something to do with it but it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m grouchy.  Plus, my 8 year-old is being a complete turd and I’m in no mood to deal with it.

Otherwise life is good.  The game is really helping me to focus on healthy eating and my workouts are going well.  I am worried a bit, though, b/c I hurt my shoulder a couple of weeks ago and it’s still bothering me.  I truly have no idea how I hurt it, there was just discomfort one morning when I woke up.  I honestly thought I just slept wrong but the feeling never went away.  Stupidly I haven’t stopped lifting and after doing an upper-body workout last night it has been hurting more.  Not a sore-muscle kind of hurt but a chronic, annoying kind of hurt.  Amazingly I was able to get into an orthopedic doctor tomorrow afternoon so I should know something more by then.  I fear that he’ll tell me to lay off the lifting which I know is logical but it works and I don’t want to slide backwards.  But I’m smart enough to know that if I’m not careful I could do some real damage which is why I called the doctor.  I’ll let you know how it works out.