why did i wait so long?

Have I mentioned I hate working full time? LOL…. I just got off a three day (12hr/day) stretch, and I feel like I have been out of the loop for a week. ugh….  well, April 1st will be my one year mark from the begining of my new healthy lifestyle/journey. I can’t believe It’s already been a year! the time really flew by.  I dont think I’ve ever changed so many things in a year as I have this last year.  I’ve gone from morbidly obese, weak, unhealthy, tired all the time, low self esteem, unable to tie my shoes, shave my legs, or do any physical activity whatsoever….to being just overweight, healthy, more energetic, confident, active, bike riding, muscle building, on my way to being the person I want to be! lots of changes.  I’ll never let myself get to that place I was a year ago.  I never want to feel that way again. I was a prisoner in my own body and I’ve set myself free. thats truely how i feel.  

So there’s this newspaper thing that goes around our county’s medical systems (hospitals, clinics, ect.) that sent a letter to my gym asking if there was anyone there who had lost a lot of weight with the help of exercise.  The trainers at the gym all know me (i’ve been going there almost a year now). They know how much I’ve lost and how dedicated I am to working out.  So, they gave the journalist my number. The lady called me tonight to ask if they could interview me and use my story as a piece in the paper. It will also be in the city paper sometime in april!  so she interviewed me right there on the spot!  I dont know exactly how long the article will be, but Im pretty siked about it.  Its mainly about how being active has helped me in my weight loss. they have this campaign going on called “the start campain” which is trying to get the community motivated to start walking and basically be more active. So I’ll try to find a link to the newspaper when it comes out so you all can read the article.  Very cool stuff ,eh?   She asked me a lot of questions, but some of them were somewhat difficult to answer.  Like the question “what could you say to people to try to get them to go out and start walking?” I mean, i know it seems like a pretty easy question to answer, but I was at a loss for words.  I told her it was hard to put into words how being active has totally changed every thing about my life.  Its more important than most people realize it is.  I can’t even remember exactly what I told her, but it was along the lines of…” I dont think I could have lost nearly as much weight as I have without exercise”, “i feel more energetic” stuff like that…but none of what I said made me satisfied with the answer. Because I dont think there is any way to express to people how much better I feel, how important being physically active is to my life now, and how many years I believe I have added to my life. I  want to scream “JUST DO IT”.  ya know?

Dh started school today.  He’s very excited. I am too, but still a little scared of the financial situation this is going to leave us in for two years!  I know its to better our situation and Im totally supportive of his choice to do this, but that doesn’t make it any less scary. I just dont like worrying about money. Oh well, I just need to keep in mind that my family is all healthy, i am healthy,  we have the necessities to survive…so who cares about the rest, right?  It’s all good

B- cheerios with light soy milk

S- salad with romaine, spinach, vegies, and light catalina dressing

L- bar b que baked chicken, cottage cheese, steamed brocolli and cauliflower

S- sugar free pudding

S- fudge bar

D- chicken philly flatbread, cottage cheese, steamed vegies, and an orange

post workout: protein shake

I know this is late, but i wanted to write a post to let you (anyone who reads my blog) know a little more about me.  Sterling gave me the idea….she wrote a lovely post on little details about herself which I thought was very nice. inkheart meg did too…so here’s mine.  Some of this I have probably mentioned before.  I am 31 yrs old and have been married for almost 9 yrs to my child hood sweatheart.  John (dh) and I knew each other since we were babies. My grandmother used to babysit for him and his sister, so we played together as children, went to b day parties together, played house, ect., and have pictures to prove it.   They lived down the street from my grandparents house so we saw a lot of each other as kids. Things progressed naturally and we ended up together at age 19 for good.  He was not my only boyfriend but he is my only husband. lol.  We decided to have kids early. my first was born when I was 21 (which is when I gained the majority of my weight).  Going back a bit….I had a great childhood, a wonderful mother who worked her butt off to spoil us rotten. along with my grandparents who thought we were the most important things in the world and would do anything for us. My father was around for a few yrs and moved away when I was 4. He payed child support but, basically didn’t want much to do with us except for the occasional visit. which was fine with me. I had all the love I needed from my momma and grandparents.  I have an identical twin sister and a half brother who is about 4 yrs older than me. we have same mom, different dad.  I had a very fun and experamental few yrs of highschool.  I did a few years of cheerleading, was on the honer roll, and played in the band. I also went through a grunge stage, drug stage, greatful deadhead stage, ect…. but it was all very fun and I wouldn’t take back any of it.  (well maybe some of the drugs).  Overall I loved, loved, loved my childhood, and hope every day that my kids feel the same way about theirs when they grow up.  After highschool my sister and I went on to nursing school and hubby learned the window business from my brother.  I decided nursing wasn’t for me, and changed my major to respiratory therapy. I loved it, and have not regreted that decision yet.  My sister and I have been respiratory therapists since 2001. Its a very rewarding career, although I would still much rather be a stay at home mom.  I like all kinds of music. I love classic rock, the new stuff (upbeat stuff to work out to), country.  Its hard to narrow that down. I also love movies and reality tv. I love nature, being outside, laying out by my pool,  boat rides (especially in the everglades), the smell of a cookout in the summer, and warm weather. I hate being cold. My favorite holiday is 4th of july.   I use to love to cook, but since I’ve started eating healthy….my cooking has slowed down a bit.  Most of the things I use to cook were all high calorie, not weight friendly meals.  Now since hubby is going to be a chef, he can do the cooking,  hehe.   Im not a very materialistic kind of girl. I shop at places like target and dont spend a lot of money on my hair and clothes. Since I’ve started losing weight, that is starting to change slowly.  I just never enjoyed clothes shoping before because it was more like torture than anything. A clean house calms me, and makes me feel content. A dirty house puts me in a bad mood.  I use to be a clean freak (emerging on the brink of OCD behavior), but now that has also sort of subsided a bit.  Im not sure why.  My 20’s were pretty trying for me and my family. we have lost several close family members in a very small amt of time, including my mom, grandmother, grandfather, best friend, sister’s fiance, and my mother in law.  All of these deaths have occured since 2001. This has been very hard on all of us, but we are all living life the best we can. I dont want my children to remember these young years of theirs as all sad and traumatic. My husband and I try to spoil them and spend as much time with them as possible because they have lost so many people and have no grandparents left.  I am hoping that my thirties are much happier and drama free. so far with my weight loss….things are starting to look up (knock on wood) yes I guess im a little superstitious.  My kids, hubby, and immediate family are the most important things in my life. everything I do is for them, and I am slowly starting to realize that by taking care of myself and being more healthy, focusing on me….is actually helping them too. I have three hairless kitties who are VERY spoiled. the whole family loves them and would be lost without them. well, I guess thats me in a nutshell.

today I did two spin classes just cuz.   I LOVE THEM!! I have to work for the next three days, so i’ll be on periodically to stay up with the blogs. have a nice weekend ladies.

B- fruit smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, flax seeds and yogurt

S- protein shake

L- baked chicken, spinach

S- baked ritz crackers

D- salad ( a big one)

joy, delita, and meg…thank you guys so much. Your kind comments help more than you know.  I know I was being negative, and I am usually not a negative person. I try to look on the bright side of things for the most part, but you know some days it all just kind of comes crashing down. I am feeling a little better (still stressed) but trying to be positive. I’ve been at work all weekend and am still here. I swear i feel like I live here every weekend. might as well not even go home. All I do at home is sleep then get up and go to work again.  (there i go being negative again, lol) Anyway, something to add to my stress happened yesterday, but in a way its sort of comical. I’ll tell ya the story….. if you follow my blog, you probably know that i am a cat person. but not just any cat person….I have hairless cats (sphynxs) which I did put some pics up a couple months ago on this blog. anyway, yesterday at around 10 am I get woke up by my kids screaming that there is blood dripping on the floor and couch!! so of course we get up to investigate and find my boy kitty “baldwin” had part of his tail MISSING!!!!  I mean, not totally missing, but the skin was torn completely off the tip of his tail to the BONE!!! I of course freaked! upon further investigation we found out that his tail had been caught in the door ten minutes earlier when my hubby slammed the door on his tail. DH says he did not know the cat was there and didn’t hear him meow or anything, so we assume the cat pulled his tail out of the door jam and thats when the skin pulled off. There was literally the tip of his tail laying there by the front door! so, we took him to the vet and they ended up amputating the tip (about 2 or so inches) of his tail. they gave him a shot of hard core antibiotics and said it should heal fine, he will just have a shorter tail.  Needless to say I didnt get much sleep yesterday.  He seems ok now, the vet said they dont have much nerves in the tail, so they can’t feel the pain like you would expect. So thats my crazy story for the day.

back to the whole weight blog thing, lol……… I weigh 203.6!!! woo hooo!!! two more lbs lost, now just waiting to get to Onederland. Ive been real good on food all week. Im going to work out after work in the morning so that I can spend some quality time with the family this evening. I miss them

talk to ya all later

Im stressing out!! I tossed and turned and hardly slept today, just to wake up with a headache and on the verge of tears. I think the little stresses in life just keep adding up in my brain, and I think i might explode soon.  I hate to pour all this emotional crap all over my diet blog but I feel better when I write things out.  I know that things could be worse (and have been worse) in my life, but it just seems like a bunch of little things that are going on right now are overwhelming me.  What makes them overwhelming is that I cant do anything about them. I have pretty much no control over the situation.  1st off and main source of my stress is our finances.  Before the economy took a crap we were doing fairly well. I still had to budget but we had what we needed, had good credit, were pretty secure.  Now dh hardly has any work and is about to have none when he starts school (cullinary). That puts a lot of pressure on me to pay all of the bills and work overtime. I am not dealing with this well.  I use to work part time, now I am working full time. not dealing well!!! We are also going to have to move because we can’t afford this house much longer.. I HATE MOVING!!! WITH A PASSION! we have moved a lot since coming to florida and at first I think it was fun for the kids…new experiences, new neighbors, new environment…ect   but now its starting to wear on them.  we never move far enouph to change their schools but its still stressful. We have to move because we can’t afford this house on my salary alone :(   I LOVE THIS HOUSE.  LOVE IT!!!!  I am going to be soooo upset to leave this house.  not dealing well!  now, i know i bitch a lot about my sleep issues.  I work midnights and have a horrible time sleeping at normal hours on my days off. its virtually impossible.  This stresses me out, because I feel like a vampire. I hardly ever see the sun. also, I usually am waking up right when the kids come home, then I have to go to the gym before they close at 10pm. This takes up time with my family. ugh….I just dont know what to do.  I think I may have to find a 24 hr gym so that I can work out at night when they are sleeping.  this would be fine except that I am totally loving my spin classes, and dont think any gym will have classes in the middle of the night.  stressfull!!!! I have a lot of responsibilities to deal with that has to do with my work that has to be done by may, I have a million dr appt’s i need to make and take care of that I have been putting off for ever!! its just all adding up, and Im about to break!!!

So sorry for this ranting, whining, annoying post ( I even annoyed myself writing it)  but, on a good note, this would all be much harder to deal with 100 lbs ago.  also, working out helps me relieve my stress.  I always feel so much better and relieved after a workout. almost like a great massage. Tonight I  went around my block twice taking turns walking/running.  I have never been a good runner, but its never too late.  I spent an hr doing this, then took a vigorous bike ride with dh.  I tell you…..I did feel much better after that, however that euphoric feeling only lasts so long before the stress kicks in again. It doesn’t help that i am up all night by my self while the rest of the world sleeps.

B- fruit smoothie with strawberries, orange, blueberries, nonfat greek yogurt and flax seeds

S- salad with spinach, romaine, and lots of vegies with italian/vinegar dressing

L-white bean soup

S- peach chobani greek yogurt

D- baked chicken, cottage cheese, steamed cabbage

today I made a kick ass dinner. I think I have mentioned this soup before, but never wrote out the recipe. I got the original recipe from myrecipes.com but of course did my own tweaking on it.  I have to say it is the best soup I’ve ever made. It is sooooo yummy!! I usually just eyeball amounts on the vegies and stuff so bear with me.  You need about 3 carrots, 3 big celery stalks, one onion, two cloves of garlic, diced ham…I use cumberland gap diced ham (one package)  low sodium, fat free chicken broth (2 reg cans) 2 cans cannelini beans, 1 can great northern beans (just the regular size cans), extra virgin olive oil, parsely, bay leaves, pepper and water.  cut up the carrots, celery, and onion into small bite size pieces and place in a bowl. mince the garlic.  in a big pot (soup type pot) heat half a tbsp of olive oil, then throw in the ham and saute for a couple minutes. then add the vegies and garlic and saute for about ten more minutes. stir frequently. after ten minutes has passed add the chicken broth and beans plus about one can of water (you can make it as watery as you like but if you use more than one can of water, i suggest adding some vegetable powder or ckn powder.  Then add 2 large bay leaves to the pot and stir. let simmer for about 45 minutes or until the vegies are soft. at the last five minutes add pepper and parsley (I just eyeball it). discard the bay leaves before you eat. I am telling you…this soup is awesome!!! I calculated it to be about 300 calories for an average size bowl (about 2 cups) and like 30 g of protein and 14g of fiber from the beans.  It is healthy and tastey.  It does have a lot of sodium from the canned beans, but if you drain and rinse the beans that cuts out the sodium significantly.. if you do this, you may need to add a little more water. This makes a pretty big pot of soup. my family of 5 eats it for dinner, then we have left overs for the next day.  but believe me…it doesn’t last long (we usually fight over the last bowl)  hehe

I did an hr body pump class tonight plus half hour on the elliptical.

B-fruit smoothie with pineapple, orange, banana, flax seeds and nonfat greek yogurt

S- protein shake with peanut butter

L- white bean soup, one piece of corn bread

D- big salad with spinach, romaine and lots of vegies, more white bean soup

wow, the time flies by on this blog site. I wish I had more time in the day to read everyone’s blogs.  I really need to try to get some sleep, so this will be a quick one.  Today was st. patricks day, so I made corned beef and cabbage.  I had a little bit of the corned beef, lots of cabbage and carrots and half a potato.  I hardly ever make this, so hubby was thrilled!  He loves his irish food. I did my spin circuit class today. I’ve realized that push ups are getting a tad bit easier to do. She really kicked our butts tonight. My instructor is a solid, muscular (perfect body) type of girl.  Her body is my goal (lol).  so, i figure…If I just keep going to her classes, eventually my body will conform. we shall see.   good night every one. (I know its 3 am, but this is my normal evening hour)   hope to get some sleep before the sun rises.

We finally did it!! My whole family went and purchased bikes. We really can’t afford it right now, but I figured it’s worth it.  My kids don’t get enouph outside activity at all.  Ever since I started doing spin classes, i’ve wanted to get a bike so that I can enjoy being outside and getting exercise at the same time.  DH wanted one too.  There is a huge bike trail in our town called “tour the cape” ( we live in Cape coral). so we packed up the bikes yesterday and headed out on the trail.  It was so fun. Not only was it wonderful to be with the whole family doing something other than watching tv or eating. LOL   but it was good exercise too.  It was an awesome view and the weather was great! the little one, my daughter who is only 5, still has a hard time keeping up with us. she is still using training wheels.  Because of that, we got one of those child seats to go on the back of my bike. She loved it! It did make it a little harder to ride with her on the back, but that’s ok. It was very fun.  She is at the top end of the weight limit on that seat, so we wont be able to do that much longer. Hopefully she can learn to use her bike w/o training wheels and build her little leg muscles to keep up with us soon.  We were out riding bikes for a total of about 3 hrs yesterday.  I am hoping we can do this much more often.  sorry i’ve been slacking on the blogging the last few days….. I was working all weekend and it was busy!   I dont know how to thank you all enouph for your wonderful comments on my pictures! It is really awesome to receive such great support.  I can’t wait to be able to share my final goal pictures with you all.  It might be a while, but I know I’ll get there some day.

yesterday:

B- fruit smoothie with avacado, pineapple, strawberries, flax seeds and non fat greek yogurt

L- 6 in turkey sub on wheat (subway)

S- protein shake with peanut butter

D- baked fish, rice and broccoli

S- dill pickle

FINALLY,  100LBS GONE FOR EVER!!!  I feel amazing. So as promised I am posting progress pics. the first one is comparison of me at my highest weight 305 and today at 205.  The 2nd one is a pic when I had actually lost about 15-20lbs although I couldn’t tell. I had just got done exercising at my sisters house and was looking pretty bad. I didn’t usually look this messed up, LOL. My hair was frizzy, I had mismatched socks on, and I was flushed from exercising…but it does make good progress pics.  All the current pictures were from today. I was very happy with these and I hope they can be useful to someone for motivation or just to give hope that it is possible to change yourself. Im far from done, but I must say I am waaaay happy with my success so far. woooooooooooohooooooooooooooo!!!

and this last one is of my twin sister and I today at my sons b day party. she is the one who took all the pictures for me today. I am the one in the grey shirt.

update: thanks so much for your comments! Im off to do a spin class and weights to shrink my butt some more

This is a sneak peak, mainly because i like this picture, hehe.This is me on saturday driving to work on the last night our hospital was opened.  soon I will post progress pictures. I just want to make sure I hit that 100lbs lost goal before I post them. They will be full length photo’s. not just a face shot. This weekend was soooo draining! The hospital I work at closed on sunday. They opened a new one down the road. It is beautiful! I worked the 1st night it opened! What a stressful, exciting, emotional night that was! there were media everywhere! We transferred over 100 patients from one hospital to the next, some of which were in ICU. They were all safely tranported in a little over 8 hrs! Amazing.  The new hospital is bigger, smells wonderful, has all new equipment, computers ect…. It is very nice to work in that environment. Here is a news link about it.  http://www.abc-7.com/Articles/readnews.asp?articleid=26817&z=2  

Being a respiratory therapist, we have to work in the whole hospital. Nurses usually are confined to their designated area, when we get to go everywhere from ER, ICU, general med, and OB. I was in ICU last night (the 1st night) which was exciting and stressful at the same time. Not too many people can say they worked at a hospital on the 1st day it opened! Pretty cool eh? One of the many reasons why I started trying to lose weight and get in better physical shape is because of my job. A lot of people think respiratory therapists just hand out nebulizer treatments to people who are wheezing or having a little trouble breathing. Although that is part of our job, we do a whole lot more than that. We take care of people on ventilators, Intubate people (put them on life support), manage the ventilators, draw blood, transport people to ct scans, run to codes and do CPR, plus a lot more.  Im mentioning this mainly  because this has a lot to do with why I am on this journey. When I was 300 plus lbs and totally out of shape, doing these things became very very difficult!  Every time I go to work, i find it more and more easy to do what i have to do. If I need to run to a code, no problem, do cpr…no problem….help transport a pt on a ventilator…..no problem..not to mention all the walking we do. I just cant stress enouph how much easier my life and job has become now that i am healthier. Last night we had a code(the patient is not breathing and or has no pulse). I ran to the code and then did chest compressions on the patient for about a half hour!!! a year ago when we had a code I would always be the last one there, and then I would try my hardest to get out of doing chest compressions. When I did have to take a turn at it, I could only do about five minutes before I was dripping with sweat, my back was aching, my heart was pounding, and I was about to be coded!!  It was so embarassing to know that I couldn’t do this part of my job. Last night people were asking me “do you need a break yet?” “are you tired yet?”. I just kept saying “NO, im fine” :)   it felt so good!  I could have gone on for ever doing chest compressions on that guy! I never want to get back to the way I was before, NEVER!! anyway, just thought I would share my weekend with you all.

today I had

B- greek yogurt with honey

S- post workout protein shake

L- egg beaters, turkey sausage, fruit and yogurt

D- shrimp and angel hair pasta, with a salad with romaine, spinach and italian dressing

S- 100 cal popcorn….then weight watcher mint chocolate chip ice cream cup

well, Im not too devistated to announce that the scale read 206 again today. but, It was frustrating. I know some day soon that stupid thing will read 205! LOL. To look on the bright side, i still lost 1.2 lbs this week. so, thats good.   I will probably wait a couple days, then try the scale again.  After I get that magic number, I will post progress pics soon after.

works been insane the last couple days. We are moving tomorrow, so this is our last night in this hospital. Its pretty crazy.  Of course everyone is having food, cakes, ice cream, chips ect…. to “celebrate” our last night here.  not a good scene. I did have some tortilla chips and salsa, and some potato salad. I went a little over on calories tonight, but not too bad.  Still feel like I was a bad girl