A busy weekend...just mundane stuff...oh...and a bazaar/bake sale fund raiser at work on Saturday! It wasn't a pretty weekend foodwise, but I'm back on it again today! I also haven't exercised since Thursday!! I feel quite badly about this but not bad enought to do anything about it this weekend, I guess!
OK...so I'll drag that tazer out and tag myself today...just need a little jump start!
Three things that trigger my bad eating habits:
*Eating out!
*Weekends (in general, unless I plan my meals beforehand)
*Sugar!
Guess that means I need to really focus on those key things, huh?
Today I will:
*Drink 80 oz water
*Workout when I get home (NO excuses!)
*Eat a healthy lunch & supper!
(Salad for lunch, a new Sate Chicken & healthy coleslaw recipe that I found in "Cooking Light" which I will share later!)
Hugs to all! Thanks for letting me come here even if I didn't do all that I said!
Does today start our exercise challenge? Elisha...I forgot to tell you to put me down for the same number this time! 160 minutes! I CAN DO IT!!!!
This will be quick, since I just got some work that has to be done ASAP, but my afternoon should be open to post some comments (I hope).
Official weigh-in this morning was 212.6. Same as yesterday. Hhmph.
*crosses her arms*
Honestly, I think my body needs a day off. Well, my body will have to wait until tomorrow! But I do think I'm going to try to talk Steve into skipping tomorrow's bowling session in favor of being lazy!
I didn't sleep much last night, and when I did sleep I was having bad dreams... things like wrecking my car, stuff like that. I sure hope I get some rest tonight.
Oh, well, someone else just volunteered to do my work, so I guess I'll continue.
Calories yesterday were fine... 1401. But my meals were still heavy, and I felt like I ate too much. I got in 60 oz. of water, which is good for me on a weekend, but still not enough. I didn't eat anything at the bowling alley last night, so that is good.
I did pretty well at bowling last night. My first game sucked, but my last game was 166--my previous high score was 134, so that was really good for me.
QotD: What has the biggest impact?
Drinking water. If I don't drink enough water, I don't lose weight. Period. Plus I get all headachey and bloatey, and I'm just plain cranky. Hydration is key, chicks! Water, water, and more water!
OK, my train of thought is gone, so I guess I'll move on to comments.
Julie: ZZZZTTTT! Consider yourself tazered! Now eat healthy today and get in your exercise AND water tonight! The Exercise Challenge starts today, and you are on for 160 minutes.
MsRD: I love shopping in new places! Whenever my best friend and I are feeling stressed, we take little road trips, usually only about 45 minutes up the road to the next town with a mall! It's not anything special--they have even less than we have here, and most of it is the same, but it feels like a getaway! I remember being in Chicago. We walked all the way from Navy Pier by the Sears Tower and back to the Palmer House Hilton. We didn't realize it was so far! At least we got in some exercise! But that was a few years ago, so I don't think that exercise is helping me much now!
Rosie: Julie is right. You need to find some outlet for all that anger. Journalling helps. Or a good kickboxing video (plus you get in your exercise). Or just take a walk around the block. Exercise helps relieve stress. Honest. Hope you're feeling more like yourself.
TBJ: WOOHOO! on the bar application! That must be a weight lifted off your shoulders! No, we don't have a closing date yet. Hopefully this one will move quickly. I figure we'll move in January. I wish it was sooner, but there's nothing we can do about it.
Joy: Where are you? Come back and give us an update! Hope all is well.
Ang, Bethe, Birdiegirl:
OK, that does it for me. For now anyway. Have a good day, chickies!
~Elisha
I forgot to weigh in this weekend, but I'm not about to go step on the scale now. I'M ON VACATION!
Not going anywhere, not doing anything special. Just going to have a "Me Week".
Food wasn't all that great the last couple days, but it usually isn't great on weekends, so I'm not going to get bummed about it yet. The weekdays will be the real test. So far, I've just had my usual bowl of oatmeal w/ cinnamon and cup of coffee w/ creamer, just like if I was at work. The only thing that makes me sad is that I forgot my grapefruit knife at work, and I have 3 incredibly tasty grapefruits sitting in my fridge. Perhaps tomorrow's exercise will be walking to work to retrieve said knife.
I have gotten a fair amount of decluttering done the last few days, and I think I might try one of my exercise DVDs that takes up more room to see if I can do it yet. When I'm done on the computer I'm going to try "Crunch Cardio Salsa". It looks like too much fun.
I didn't get any exercise yesterday, unless you count the decluttering, but much of that was sitting and sorting, so I don't really count it. Rule of thumb: If you can do something in a nightgown, it's not really intense enough to count as exercise. I did get exercise all 6 other days of the week, though, in one form or another.
QOTD: I'd say the support and care of friends has impacted me the most. At the beginning, a co-worker saw my frustration over my weight and taught me how to follow the WW diet. She encouraged me through it and I lost 20 lbs. After a long plateau, I found 3FC, got TONS of support here, and have been losing more. Other co-workers saw I was losing and complimented me, and that has pushed me even more. I never would have been able to do it without my own squad of cheerleaders.
Elisha-- Great job avoiding the food at the bowling alley! I always thought that stuff sticks to your bones and never goes away. Tasty as it is when you eat it, I always regret it in many ways afterwards.
Hikein-- If we do all that we say we're going to do, than we wouldn't need to come here! It's always to share with people who are all in the same boat!
MsRD-- Chicago is quite the place for walking. You really got your miles in! My favorite place to walk is on Navy Pier.
Rosie-- 3FC is a great outlet. If you ever need to get something off your chest, you'll find lots and lots of understanding people here, and even people who've gone through the same thing you have. Paper journaling is also a great thing, even though there is no feedback. There's just something cathartic about transferring your emotions to a piece of paper. It allows you to step back and look at the situation, and sometimes get a different perspective on things.
TBJ-- I like the idea of starting the day with prayer and journaling. I'm going to have to try that next week when I'm off vacation. Not that I won't pray and journal now, it's just that... Oh, heck. You know what I mean.
Hi Chickies Hope everyone is having a great Monday.
DH has been away this weekend ... and you know the story about the cat and the mouse. Well it's true. I don't know why I can use his absence as an excuse to binge. He doesn't give his permission or approval on what I eat so, why do I feel that he has that power over my decisions and that I must do my overeating behind his back? Guess when I figure out the solution that one out... I'll have it licked (pardon the pun). Needless to say the scale was WAY UP this morning. Probably higher than it has been in over a year. I'm going the wrong way chickies.
I think maybe I'll shorten my goals to daily goals. Day by day, babysteps. So today....
Mark me down for 240 minutes of exercise this week, Elisha ... that is the only thing that I will commit to for the week (PS ... I think I must have had dislexia on my goal last week... that's the only way I could figure on 420 minutes ... okay its a lie...)
I'll be back to comment later. Hugs everyone and keep up the good work.
I found the scale over the weekend and updated my signature line. I was happy that my CW is still less than my high weight last year. However, for some reason I feel fatter than then...must have had more muscle at that time as I had been doing a lot of english horsebackriding last fall and so had been posting a lot (work, trust me!).
Anyway, I'm now fully aware of my body weight. ;-)
I'm watching my portion sizes, did snack too much yesterday though. Today I'm actually counting calories just due to what I've eaten it's been easy...
Yogurt Drink in AM 65
Soup 180
Cookie Snack 100 (prepacked 100 calorie Pecan Sandies)
Granola Bar 160
That's all so far and it's 3PM so it should be a good day as my hungry part of the day is well over.
Predicting snow tomorrow...and I'm finally getting new tires put on my car tomorrow...glad I had appt for it as they will get busy once the snow flies and everyone finds out how bald their tires are!!!
***
MsRD -- Ooo, shopping in the big city. Michigan Ave is fun, it feels so cosmopolitan. I had a job interview once that was only two blocks away from Mich Ave, and I felt like I was a city girl, all cosmopolitan-like and stuff. As for what's next for me, I need to find a job, and I need to stop stressing about finding a job. I'm going to concentrate on what I need to do at this moment in my life, and will deal with job hunting later. (And then bore you all with tragic tales of job hunting...)
Elisha -- Good job passing up that pizza and pasta buffet. Yippee about the recent weight loss.
Julie -- Yeah, exercise in the morning provides motivation for the rest of the day. Yeah, Hubby left for Minnesota yesterday. I'm an introvert, and not the best person at making new friends. Hopefully I'll have decided on a martial arts school soon, so hopefully I'll meet people there. And on Wednesday I'm planning to go to the local church in my synod.
Joy -- There's a U-turn ahead; now go the other way on the weight loss! You can do it! I have a friend whose fiance left for a different state, and my friend stayed behind for a little while. She overate while the two of them were separated. The business about significant others leaving and sweethearts overeating seems to be common. With Hubby back in Minnesota for the month, I'm going to try to avoid overeating out of lonliness. Let's work on it together.
Birdiegirl -- Glad to hear that your weight is still under where it used to be. That shows that you are capable of keeping weight off, even if there were some minor fluctuations. Most people gain it ALL back and then some... even if you didn't lose as much as you were hoping, look at the past year as successful maintenance.
Rosie -- You are a human being and deserve to be treated with a certain amount of respect, even by people who don't like you. Go kick some butt.
***
Quote:
What do you do that has the biggest impact on your weight loss?
I eat less food.
Quote:
Rule of thumb: If you can do something in a nightgown, it's not really intense enough to count as exercise.
I visited my Mom this morning. Most of you know that my Mom has Alzheimer's and lives in the locked-down dementia unit of an assisted living facility. (and,yes, it really is as bad as it sounds, despite heroic efforts of the staff to make it otherwise)
Most of the time, I visit Mom in the evening, after work, and have
excused her tiredness or lack of ability to converse on the fact that it is the
end of a day and she is weary. But today I visited at 10am, and discovered her to be no stronger or more alert than at night. Yep. Reality reached out and sucker punched me....hard.
So...I left there and, as usual, drove directly to the local McD's and
ordered a hot fudge sundae. Stress, you know. It forces me to turn to food
for comfort and to make the bad stuff go away. It doesn't work, but I
do it anyway.....and IT HAS TO STOP!
Face it, chickies, stress is a part of life, like hangnails and dirty laundry.
Stress is there, and will always be there, because sometimes life just sucks.
We must devise a more creative, and less physically destructive, way to deal
with it.
We have to try relieving stress with something other than food.
When the everyday worries pile up and everything is going wrong, we have to find the courage to say, "There are so many things in my life I can't control, but I can control what goes into my mouth."
Next time I visit Mom, I have to make a conscious effort to avoid the 'ice cream trap'....maybe it will be as simple as making a right hand turn instead of a left out of the parking lot.....or listening to some beautiful music on the
way home...maybe just doing some little thing that will restore a little sanity to life.
What are your thoughts? What are you going to do the next time life deposits a load of manure in your driveway? What evasive maneuvers do you have planned to avoid being drawn into the stress=food lockstep?
Hi - My Mom developed alzheimers when she was in her late 50s. It was very very mild at first, barely noticeable if you didn't know her well. When she was in her mid 60s it was undeniable and yet my family denied it over and over. Never sought treatment or doctors they went to didn't think it was it.
I knew Mom, she wasn't Mom anymore. She stopped reading novels, she was an avid reader (like myself) and we would swap paperback books. Around 1990 or so, she stopped taking home books I had left out for her. She was 58 - 60 years old at that time.
By the time she was 62, phone conversations with her center completely around herself. She didn't even ask how things were with me and my family. Her world was shrinking more and more.
I specifically remembered a conversation I had on the phone with her younger sister during this time. Urging her to talk w/my Dad that Mom has Alzheimers! Her sister ALSO denied this could be true "she's too young" blah blah blah. THEY ALL THOUGHT I HAD GONE OFF MY ROCKER!
Well, as it turned out she finally was diagnosed with it..FAR TOO LATE for the medicine to "slow down" the symptoms. Mom was already lost inside her head somewhere. Tangled up in diseased nerve endings...Dad said she would sometimes come around for a few minutes and then fall back into herself. HE thought she knew what was happening, but simply couldn't communicate it.
In 2002 Dad succumbed to cancer. Over the next year, Mom just let herself go so she could be with Dad in heaven. She passed away in 2003, almost an exact year later. Her alzheimers really wasn't advanced enough to kill her, she DECIDED to let herself go.
The last year was very sad. She totally withdrew and didn't know anyone. Even my sister, her primary caretaker. Yet still, physically she should not have passed away.
The heart is the strongest part of us, and hers had died when Dad died.
Alzheimers is a very slow sad way to go. I didn't mean this to be depressing, it's just the last chapter of my parent's lives. I spend my time thinking about when I was a kid at home and they were young and vibrant and arguing with each other over the supper table about some trivial matter.
I was actually happy in many ways when Dad gave in to cancer and when Mom gave in to life. They were in pain and sad. Death released them.
This past summer my hubby and I released their ashes into the Gulf of Mexico (and after that all the hurricanes came through that area). I chuckle thinking of them stirring up the ocean waters like that!
Hi all...I know this isn't a forum for Alzheimer's, but it seems there are some thoughts out there about it tonight! As most of you know, I am an Activity Director in a Nursing Home and have worked in long term care for almost 15 years...where Alzheimer's runs rampant! It is the saddest, most debilitating disease anyone could ever imagine...and it is worse for family members!
I have seen this horrific disease slowly take the lives of so many beautiful people. People come to us usually when they are no longer the people their families knew...which makes it easier for us, but soo much harder for the families. My only loving words to any of you (((((MsRD & Birdiegirl))))) who are struggling with your loved ones' decline...is to remember the good times and the wonderful memories! MsRD...your Mom is NOT the same person you knew her to be...truly, she is not. It's ok to hold onto those beautiful memories of her and let go...and cry. What would your Mom want you to do when she was able to give you advice? Maybe you could give that some thought...
I have a wonderful story about two friends who came to the Assisted Living Facility...and then later to the Nursing Home where I work. They were neighbors...as different as night and day, but the best of friends. One was a housewife...very simple...the other had worked for the CIA and then later was a HS teacher. They were inseperable...and despite their dementia, made me (and each other) laugh every day. I remember walking past their room one day and hearing them talk about their families coming to visit them...they were looking for their families to visit them. I assured them that their families would be in soon that day. They were happy to know that...and went on about something else. Oh...they were so funny!
I guess the moral of the story is that even if your Mom doesn't seem like she is happy to see you or has much zest for life left, I'm sure she is happy to know that you are and have been a part of her life! That, my friends, is soooo worth remembering that OUR life AND health is important enough to not turn to food when we feel life crashing down on us!
Having said that....I did with a bunch of sweets in the house what MsRD did a couple of weeks ago with the Halloween candy to get rid of it...I ate it! 4 frosted sugar cookies & about 1&1/2 cups of icecream!!! OMG...I feel like puking!
On a positive note (not that it did me much good...) I did 25 minutes on the bike tonight after work, as promised! Now...if I can just get a handle on the food!!! OK...another day! <Sigh>
With all the talk of stress-related eating, I thought this question could help stir up some mental activity, and get us thinking of ways to beat the stress!
What are some non-food related things you can do to relieve stress (or boredom, or anger, or loneliness, or any other emotion that could drive you to eat)? Try to list at least 5 activities that are non-compatible with eating, the more the better.
Alzheimer's... my grandmother is developing Alzheimers. It's not bad yet, but it's getting worse. Sometimes she is fine, and sometimes she is just... not. Some people in my family are doing the denial thing. It's scary to think of someone's mind fading away like that, bit by bit.
OK, there's more I could say there, but I don't want to start crying here at work, so I'll stop.
Well, yesterday was an ok day for me. Not enough water and no exercise, but calories were only at 1242. The scale is down to 211.8 this morning. YAY! And I'm wearing pants that were once pretty tight, and this morning they are loose. That makes me feel good, and reminds me of how far I've come. Sometimes I forget... last year seems like so long ago, especially since I have done some backtracking in the meantime.
I skipped the exercise last night on purpose. I was so tired yesterday, and my body was complaining about it all day, so I took it easy last night. But Steve and I are not going bowling tonight, so I rescheduled my exercise session for this evening, so I won't miss any workouts.
I'm getting a little nervous about the upcoming holidays. A couple of days ago, if you had asked me, I would have said that my resolve was so strong nothing could stop me, not even the super-yummy White Russian tiramisu I'm supposed to make for Christmas dinner dessert (and tiramisu is my *favorite*). But yesterday I found a recipe for cheesecake pumpkin pie, and my grandma wants us to make a dessert for Thanksgiving (in addition to her regular pumpkin pie), and Dad said he would buy the ingredients if I would make it... and then we started talking about all of the other yummy holiday foods that are coming up. And now I'm anxious. This is the time when I fell off the wagon last year, and this is the season that is the most challenging for diets in general.
My plan is to do as well as I can every day that I can. Thanksgiving and Christmas I can have what I want, but only one serving of anything. I don't know what else to do. I'm going to have to work my butt off and really push myself with the exercise, and I'm going to have to be selective with the random goodies I find myself facing. I don't need to eat all of those cookies. Most of them don't even taste as good as I want them to anyway. I just need to remember that.
QotD: What do I do to relieve stress?
1. Give myself a manicure. Trust me, after the polish remover, you do NOT want to be licking your fingers.
2. Bubble bath. Light some candles, put on some nice music, get one of those eye mask thingies, and soak up the goodness. And then, of course, you have to exfoliate and moisturize and pamper yourself even more after you're done soaking.
3. Face mask. Good for your skin, and if you get the kind that dries, it's hard to move your mouth.
4. Exercise. Go for a walk or lift some weights or do some yoga.
5. POST! Or journal.
6. Write. Most of the time when I write, I write about how much I hate being fat and how good it feels to exercise and eat right and do something good for my body.
OK, chicks, I've got a meeting to go to. I hope you're all having a wonderful day!
~Elisha
1. Allow myself a few minutes to feel sorry for myself. (Do not eat during this time)
2. GET BUSY with something else, be it work, home chores, horses, son, whatever...get my mind off it.
3. Go back later and re-assess, Does it still seem overwhelming? Is it not really in my control (even if I wish it was)? Do I need to just LET IT GO? Do I need to work on it now and "get it off my desk/task list".
4. Decide and move on (a decision in this moment can be changed later upon further re-assessment, so don't get stuck here).
quick monday post...
I feel quite badly about this but not bad enought to do anything about it this weekend, I guess! 
Question of the Day
Exercise Challenge 11-14 to 11-20
(PS ... I think I must have had dislexia on my goal last week... that's the only way I could figure on 420 minutes 
... okay its a lie...)
As for what's next for me, I need to find a job, and I need to stop stressing about finding a job. 
I'm an introvert, and not the best person at making new friends. Hopefully I'll have decided on a martial arts school soon, so hopefully I'll meet people there. And on Wednesday I'm planning to go to the local church in my synod.
