Yes, I have been absent from both here and even my own site, www.w8challenge.com

Thank you so much to those loyal friends who continue to worry about me!

So often we see our fellow weight-loss-bloggers disappear when they are being “bad.”  It’s embarrassing (at least for me!) to come on here and say “I went off plan with food” or “I haven’t exercised all week.”  Especially when those posts are preceded by upbeat ones that make promises that I didn’t keep.

*Sigh.*

But here’s the thing:  July is almost over.  I barely exercised at all this month and my weight is showing it.  It’s so FREAKIN’ HOT is my excuse - but it doesn’t play well considering all the exercise equipment I have inside the air-conditioned house!!

So I’m gonna do it again.  Start over again.  Because, in the end, that’s all we can do, right?  Can’t undo the past, can only move forward.  And if it means I have to “start over” 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, it doesn’t matter, as long as I keep returning and …

…never give up!

Sorry, lol, that last one just cracked me up.

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Weight today:  232.6       Change since last week:  -4.2 lbs.
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Okay so I went out of town for a couple days and when I came back - *poof!* - I had lost over 4 lbs.  What is up with that?!?  So over July 4th I gained nine pounds, then lost six for a net gain of 2.8 lbs since the end of June.  Weird.  Freakin’ weird.  I’m really happy, though, that it’s three pounds net and not nine pounds net.  That woulda sucked.

I’m still not exercising.  There’s been a lot going on and it feels like I don’t have the time but I know - I mean I KNOWWWWW - that ya gotta MAKE time.  I know this, I just ain’t doin’ it.

UGH!!! Did I just write that?!?  ME??  I wrote a whiney, negative, waaa-waaa sentence which happens to use the word “ain’t” all-cocky-like????  Shame on me!

Ha!  I crack myself up!

Okay so here’s a sentence to counteract that other one up there…

There are 15 days left in July and I AM going to put in at least 20 hours of exercise in those 15 days.

Much better.  =D

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I haven’t been weighing in.  Remember me?  I’m the OCD-gotta-weigh-myself-every-day-maybe-more-than-once-kinda-person?  Oh I’m not gonna change back into the never-weigh-myself-because-I-don’t-wanna-know-kinda-person that I used to be, nuh-uh.  Lately I just need a bit of a break.  From the weighing.  From the counting.  From the day-in-day-out-pressure.

I’m still staying on-plan with food but I’m definitely not “kicking butt” in the exercise department like I was planning to during the month of July!!  Not yet anyway.  The month is still young!

Today I had to take my mom to her doctor’s appointment.  It went well but turned into an all-day-do-all-her-errands-while-she-has-me-captive thing.  One good thing is that I put in almost two hours solid walking.  Until my feet hurt.  My knees ached.  My back hurt.  I was hungry, thirsty, and cranky.  But, she’s my mom, whaddya gonna do.  It’s not like I can tell her No.  No I won’t take you to pick up your prescriptions?  No I won’t take you to WalMart so you can get more lilac baby yarn for the afghan you’re knitting?  No I won’t stop at the grocery store?  No I won’t push you around in the wheelchair?  No I won’t drive you to Subway on the way home?  No I won’t go inside and get your food for you?  Of course I wouldn’t say No to any of those things.  She’s my mom.  And she’s 82 years old.  And she’s not gonna be around forever.

In other news, I’ve discovered Facebook.  Yeah yeah it’s been there all this time and I’ve been resistant to going there and getting sucked in.  But I finally go and submit myself to the sucking-in-process and realize that most of my family is on there and no one told me!  Geesh I feel like the last one to arrive at the party!  It’s kinda fun though, once you figure out how it all works.  I actually found two old-old friends on there, people I haven’t spoken to in 10 or 20 years!!  Very cool!!

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Weight today:  236.8       Change since last week:  +7.0 lbs.
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Okay, my Independence Day feast was awesome, awesome, awesome.  BUT.  It cost me SEVEN pounds.  OMG!!  Is that even possible?  I went off-plan for two days, TWO DAYS!!!  As of Monday my scale said I’d gained ten pounds.  TEN!!  And then in the past two days I lost three which leaves me with a net gain of seven.

It’s really hard to say right now if it was worth it.  The day off was wonderful - I feel like I needed it, needed to get away from all the “no I can’t have that” and the worrying and the counting.  Once I made the decision to have the holiday off, I totally enjoyed the freedom to plan our menu with no limitations.  My family enjoyed it too, LOL!  I spent the whole day cooking, which I never do (generally I hate cooking and avoid it whenever possible).  DS17 didn’t get off work until 4pm so I had the meal on the table when he got home:  Hamburgers and hot dogs (with buns!) and barbeque chicken on the grill, chips and dip, macaroni salad, potato salad, devilled eggs, fixed-up-baked-beans, fruit salad, and then strawberry shortcake for dessert.  This was the menu requested by my men and they dug in and enjoyed.  It’s amazing that a meal that takes all day to cook is devoured in 15 minutes or less!

We followed up the meal with a (rented) movie, went to see the local fireworks display and then shot off our own fireworks in the back yard - with a 11pm treat of smores (marshmallows cooked on the gas grill, lol).  It was the perfect day, framed by the perfect array of food.  On Sunday, I only went off-plan to indulge in some leftovers (didn’t go crazy though) and then Monday I went fully back on-plan.

It was an awesome weekend!  To the tune of SEVEN pounds.  Yikes!

This, I suppose, is testament to how our society views food.  It is so ingrained into us that our happy memories are so closely tied to our food enjoyment.  I enjoyed the fireworks and watching the movie with my men just as much as the food - but if you were to ask me in a few months what I remember about this year’s 4th of July, I can betcha the first thing that will come to mind is that meal.

Eh, the next holiday is -what?  Halloween?  Thanksgiving?  I have a long stretch of on-plan time ahead of me.  I’ll take this stupid seven pounds off again.  And again, if necessary.

I’m so not done with this journey!

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I think I counted wrong a couple times along the way but it’s been approximately one year since I went on the low-carb diet.  I totally expected to have lost more than 50 lbs. by now, but that’s okay.  Sometimes I think, “Well obviously this low-carb plan isn’t working for me anymore” but then when I go off of it I’m hit with such bad cravings that I scramble to get right back on.

With that said, I think I’m gonna take tomorrow off.  It is, after all, a holiday, and there isn’t gonna be another holiday for a long while.  Yeah I took a day off while I was in New Orleans, but this is different.

See how easy justification becomes?  Ha!

My boys want me to make a “traditional” 4th-of-July meal tomorrow, with chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers cooked on the grill and all the cool stuff that goes with that.  I was making a mental shopping list out loud in the car tonight and I kept saying, “Well I can’t have that, but…” After saying that four or five times, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be eating much of this meal I’m preparing - pretty much nothing but the meat.  No buns.  No potato salad.  No macaroni salad.  No baked beans.  No fruit salad.  No strawberry shortcake (I could have some strawberries but no cake of course).  So yeah.  Meat and strawberries.  Woo.  Hoo.

Yeah I could make me some cauliflower.  I could even make it up to look like/almost taste like potato salad.  But still, it’s not the same as enjoying that meal combination that everyone else will be enjoying.  Because that’s what it’s all about, it’s the combination.  Not just the hot dog, but the bun.  Not just the barbequed chicken, but the baked beans too.

So I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking yeah, one day.  Just one!

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Tonight we went to the movies and saw Ice Age 3.  It was awesome!  We all agreed that it was a great movie with a lot of laughs.  Two thumbs up!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

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