My, how things have been crazy around here. I’ve scrubbed down the kitchen and guest bathroom (except floors), moved all of DH’s stuff out of his office and set it back up like a respectable bedroom, had the house painted, painted the front door, changed the locks on the shed and external closet, gotten plants planted in the front flower beds, moved a lot of things to the shed, moved a dresser out by myself, vacuumed some, and plotted plenty of other things.

The kitchen, while properly bleached, is a mess again just from the necessity to use counter space. I haven’t quite finished packing up the small appliances, but I think I have one box left. DH’s stuff is a MESS all over the living room floor, and he didn’t even touch a single thing yesterday. I told him if he’s not done tomorrow, I’m shoving what’s left into boxes and putting them in the shed.

I’ve started cleaning out a lot of my office, too. I moved a lot of the pre-packed boxes of fabric, yarn and related supplied to the shed. I went through a lot of my boxes of random stuff last night and picked some things to release into the wild. I’ve still got plenty that I’ve just put into a different box to think about later.

I’m hoping to get DH’s clothes packed up today and work on our bedroom. That will probably include our bathroom as well.

I’ve got plenty of places to touch up paint, but I think I’m done with the front door and have one spot left in the guest room, so I can rinse the brushes and start new colors! There are really only 3 left since the red stripe in the kitchen is fine. We have a light green in our bedroom/bathroom, a peach in the living room/dining room/hall, and a light yellow in my office. Plus the flat white in the closets needs to be touched up as well.

I’m also hoping to figure something out with the area around the A/C unit. I’ve destroyed the grass and put down plastic under some stepping stones, but the grass is still growing through on the edges. I’m thinking about getting some sand over the plastic. It should help level the stones, too. The one issue I’m having with the stones is that they’re 12×12, and the area is about 2 inches less than 5 feet. It makes for a not very fitting in last row. But maybe I’ll figure something out!

It’s almost 8:30a which means I’m behind even though I’ve watered the plants already and had something for breakfast. Too much to do!!!

Things have been crazy hectic, and I haven’t been spending much time sitting down to post.

I didn’t meet my June exercise goal after being sick a week and then going out of town, but I’m not discouraged. 11 miles is a LOT compared to nothing! I’m only shooting for 10 miles this month since I know I won’t have any time to hit the gym until the 22nd of July.

DH was offered a job in Southern Maryland while we were out of town, and he has to start on July 20. We’re trying to get all of his stuff packed up and get the house cleaned and ready to show by the time we leave on July 16. I’ll be gone for 6 days, and hopefully people will come look at our house. And buy our house.

We’ve found a great place we want near DH’s work, although we don’t know what will happen with my job yet. I’m going to start putting in more applications once things settle down, but we’re hoping I’m able to keep my current position even if I have to drop down to part time to do so.

I may have missed my June exercise goal, but I exceeded my June weight loss goal. I weighed in on June 1 at 284 and then on July 1 at 271.5 for a total loss in June of 12.5 pounds!!!! If I can do it again, I’ll be almost at 10% loss by the end of July!!!!!!

Most of my exercise for the next 3 weeks will come from MAJOR house cleaning and yard work to get the house ready to list. I’ve already cleaned out, bleached and reorganized the kitchen cabinets. I need to repair part of the counter next to the stove, clean out the fridge, and clean the floors. I also have to pack up all of the things that I took out of the cabinets that I won’t need for however long I’m in the house alone.

I’m really hoping the house will sell quickly. Depending on how things go with work, I may stay with a friend for a while so that I can keep working and get some money set aside for job hunting after I move. It’s all in the air since my boss is on vacation and won’t be back in the office until July 13. Fortunately, that gives me time to get a lot of things done at home for selling the house since I can work partial days from home.

June weight loss: 12.5
June miles: 11.75

I’m between doctor’s appointments right now.

At the first visit today at my endocrinologist’s office, I met with a practitioner before the doctor. He was really cool, easy to understand and talk to and seemed very interested in trying to find a way to help me. He wasn’t sure what they could do there, but it turns out he also works 3 days a week in my OTHER doctor’s office!

My vitamin D levels are really low. They were normal last visit in April, but they’ve dropped too low again this time. They’ve doubled my dose of prescription vitamin D.

Cholesterol and thyroid levels are normal. Blood pressure is good. Glucose was high by 2 points. They didn’t do the full insulin panel last week, but I had that done today when they had to do a hepatic panel on my liver.

My liver enzymes were high. They’re worried there might be damage or something, so I had to get blood done for that. The practitioner also sent me with a note to my GP’s office to get an ultrasound of my liver which will be happening in 30 minutes. I had time to have lunch with DH, though, since I can’t get to my office on the other side of town.

Since the practitioner from this morning also works at my GP’s office, I can have my ultrasound follow up with him. I should be able to try to get some other things looked at through him at that office as well. He also wants to look at the meds I’m on for depression/anxiety and sleep and see if he can’t find something better.

I’m worried about the liver thing cause I don’t really know anything about any of that. I think I got the idea that it could be related to my lifestyle changes for losing weight, and if it’s a fatty liver issue (as opposed to liver damage), it could work itself out as I lose weight.

The Cushing’s test that they ran in April came back normal, though. So that’s 2 different tests for that that came back normal which is good.

Also, to finish up my rambling, I’m down 10.5 pounds from April according to the doctor’s office scale, and you KNOW how those things are!! I went last in early April, about 3 weeks before I started WW. That’s only about a 1 pound difference between the two. Feeling good about that! My grandmother commented on it this morning, too, and I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed!

Things seem better this week than last. I’m still tired, as always. I had blood taken for labs on Friday morning and will go in to the doc’s office tomorrow to see how things look. I still doubt it’ll be helpful, unless something came of the test a few months ago I never heard results for.

My health may be no different, but my weight is! I’m down to 272.5 as of this morning’s at-home weigh-in! That’s 1.5 lbs below my June goal of losing 10 lbs and there’s still a whole week left!! That week, though, will include 4 days out of town with restaurants and friends who make fabulous things. There’s no telling what will come of it on that end, but hopefully there will be good news on the other end of why we’re going.

I took measurements this morning, too, and I’m happy to say that calculations show me 12.5 inches down overall compared to 2 months ago and 26.5 inches down overall compared to 4 and a half months ago!

13.5 pounds and 26.5 inches is totally something! Only 87 pounds to go before I’m overweight!

It’s been a pretty awful week around here with feeling bad and not getting any exercise as a result of the feeling bad. I haven’t updated any of my calorie counts or exercise totals for this week, so I’ll have to catch up with that at some point. Not right now. Once I’m done with this, I’m going to lay back down and hope for feeling more rested when I wake up.

Today, though, is a good day. My morning weigh-in read 276! That’s the lowest it’s been in a year and a half! Totally awesome!

I am feeling pretty crappy today. This last week has been seriously rough on my overall feelings. The unknown health issues seem to be creeping in again to knock me down. My sleep is going back down the drain. My energy levels have tanked. The joint pain and general discomfort have increased. I couldn’t even sit still last night because my knees and ankles and everything kept throbbing!! My arms keep falling asleep, and I just generally feel awful. It’s the worst it’s been in a few weeks, actually, and it’s really hard to remember what it was like before the pain, even when it wasn’t so bad yesterday. I spent most of Sunday with a headache, and it started coming back last night, too. It’s just not fun!

One of my best friend’s lives about 900 miles away. I don’t get to see her often, so most of our friendship happens over the internet just like these forums. She’s funny and artistic and intelligent and FREAKING TINY. She complains about looking awful in a bathing suit because she had 3 kids, and I haven’t seen her midsection since, but measurement wise, her waist is probably not much bigger than my thigh. I don’t get to spend my time with her in person, so it doesn’t usually get me down.

I’ve been feeling pretty good about myself lately. I haven’t been losing a lot of pounds, and my scale hasn’t gone lower than 277.5 since the first time I saw that number about 3 weeks ago (it just goes up and comes back to that). My inches haven’t even changed much in the last month (I think some of the wrong places have gone up), but I’ve been exercising. A lot. From the Queen of Sedentary to almost 4 miles per week on the treadmill plus strength training. I had been feeling better energy-wise (so sleepy this last week though!). I even kind of feel less flabby when I’m standing in front of the mirror putting on my makeup or brushing my teeth, at least when I’m alone.

Friday night, though, DH and I had met up with my best friend and her new b/f for dinner. After dinner, we went to the liquor store nearby which is right next door to a restaurant that has VERY reflective windows. I generally try not to look in things like that, but I caught a glimpse of the reflections of 3 very normal sized people followed by a short dumpy me. I felt so awful about myself right then, and I haven’t recovered. The worst of it is that it brings back other times when I’ve felt that disgusted with myself, and then my brain starts pointing out that nothing is changing in any of the numbers even though I’m working my ass off, counting calories, following Weight Watchers, exercising nearly 5 hours per week.

I know it’s a lifestyle change, and that these kinds of feelings are the ones that have made me and so many others leap from the wagon and back to our terrible lifestyles.

It’s just sad that feeling so awful about myself makes me want to give up rather than work harder. It makes me want to cry into my pillow instead of going to the gym. It makes me feel like nothing I do is going to make a difference.

But as hard as it is, I can’t let myself give up. I’ve lost weight before. I managed to lose 30 pounds over the summer once, and while I have more than that to go now, I know that I can push through this so long as I don’t let myself get sidetracked. I just can’t let myself give in to the depression, I have to fight through it, and maybe one day, I won’t feel like the Goodyear blimp standing next to my friends.

I’ve been having a rough few days over here, not feeling so great with a lack of motivation. After two roughly 1400 calorie days and feeling really crummy, I decided to go over yesterday to see how that would help. It didn’t, and I went up 1.5 pounds from it (after not losing on the LOW days).

I skipped the gym yesterday because I just needed sleep, but I didn’t get much sleep. My sleep the last few days has been under 7 hours again, so it seem logical that I wouldn’t be feeling tip-top. It just kind of sucks, though.

On the bright side, on official WW weigh-in on Monday, I was down 3.6 pounds for a total of 5.2 since I joined. That’s good.

I didn’t manage to get a walk in yesterday, but I did do day 2 of Wii Active. Too many lunges!! Owie!!

We also got in a lot of furniture moving and took 2 loads of stuff to Goodwill. We wound up getting rid of most of the furniture hubby was hanging on to after he moved in with me except for his water bed which we plan to attempt to sell. We have a dining room set to sell, too, and we managed to get pics taken of the china cabinet and table legs yesterday. I have a small pic of the table, but I’ve taken it apart and wrapped it up so I don’t want to unwrap it and put it back together to list.

We now have a TON more space in the shed for moving things from the house as we get them packed up. That’s my plan for slowly getting things taken care of for the moving across the country if either of us ever gets a job. Or even an interview.

This morning’s weigh-in at home put me down 5.5 pounds from last Monday morning! How awesome is that! I know most of it’s from the out of town weekends since I was about 1 pound down from now the Friday before I went to visit the in-laws. Either way, it’s progress. Yay progress!

Oh my goodness, I am SOOO sore! Squats are NOT my happy place!! The fronts of my thighs and my butt have been screaming at me for the last 24 hours!

When I got up yesterday, I did about 35 minutes on the Wii Fit to kind of stretch and prepare for Day 2 on Wii Active. I was watching a little tv to recoup when my friend said she was ready to go get pedicures, the plan for the day. Originally, I planned on pedicures and lunch at the sushi place by the nail place and coming home. Instead, we wound up walking around the shopping area where the nail place is, to Target, the grocery store, and up the block to Walgreens (I measured it on Google maps at about 0.6 miles).

Then we met up with my friend’s BF to get lunch, but the sushi place was closed until 4:30p. I managed to get in touch with my husband to see if he wanted to join and stay over to watch the Wings game, so that’s what we wound up doing.

When we got home, we watched a little tv and I went to bed. How exciting!

This morning, I’ve already done 30 mintues of Wii Fit, and I really do plan on doing Wii Active later. I also intend on walking around the neighborhood to finish out my 5 miles for the week. I measures a path that is 1.16 miles, and I need 1.15 to hit 5 miles. Sounds like it’s meant to be!

The husband and I also plan to do a little furniture moving in his office, changing out the tv and tv stand in his office. His XBOX looks like crap on the tv he has in there, and we have my old living room tv just sitting in the bedroom not doing anything. It’s bigger, better quality and he’s tested that the game looks a lot better. He’s been trying to play on the living room tv so he can read the on-screen stuff, but I spend most of my time in the living room so it causes a little conflict

Since the other tv doesn’t fit in his tv cabinet, we’re going to go ahead and get rid of it, taking it and some things from the shed to Goodwill hopefully. I’m looking forward to getting some more space in the shed since we’re trying to pack up some pieces of the house in hopes of moving this year.