Karma biting me in the *ss!

So last week I blogged about only working hard enough to lose so as not to embarrass myself, and this week I worked out hard, tracked my food, and ate better than I have in a couple of weeks... and how I am I rewarded? Well I'm still retaining water and at this morning's weigh in I showed a gain!

+.4

Not a huge gain, but a gain none the less. I can only hope this is a fluke and next week I'll show a better loss. I'm so close to two of my goals and I can't believe I haven't hit either one of them yet. It's so frustrating, but maybe I needed this kick in the ass in order to step up my game.

In other news, I'm still experiencing mouth pain. I'm going to have to get that mouth guard because I can't live like this much longer. It is so hard to eat anything hard or crunchy, and soft food that I will eat usually equals not good for my waist line. *sigh*

Bits of randomness

So I'd like to say that I've just been incredibily busy and that's why I haven't posted since Monday, but that wouuldn't necessarily be true. I could have posted but I haven't felt like I've had anything interesting to say. There have been a few littel tid bits that I've thought I should blog that, but then just never did because the post would have only been a few lines long and just didn't seem like it was worth the effort. As I re-read all this I think I might have a bit of depression going on. Mostly I think because I've been living with pain in my mouth consistently for about 2 weeks, but intermittently for about a year and half. Yes I've been to the dentist twice, there isn't anything specifically wrong with my teeth. I totally have a tooth fetish and am pretty meticulous about mine because I have such high expectations of everyone elses teeth. Yes I am weird, I know this.

So anyway, the dentist last week finally said I probably clench my jaw in my sleep and that's why I'm in pain. He also said I need a mouth guard, and did I want to pay for that now? I said no. On Tuesday my daughter had an ortho appointment and I mentioned to my pain to the Dr. He told me to hop up, and looked at my mouth, asked where the pain was and said "Oh, that's good!" and then said "What I mean is the pain is coming from your muscles not joints or bones, we can fix this." He then gave me a couple of suggestions and then proceeded to call me the next day to make sure he had explained everything fully. He also suggested a mouth guard, because he did show me where my one tooth is getting hit when I clench at night (and believe I have absolutely no idea how I get to it in my sleep because no normal person would place their jaw the way I have to to damage it!) So I have options but the pain is... painful and makes me really irritable. So enough about that.

Over the weekend my daughter thought it fun to challenge me to a plank off. She said her PE teacher makes them do planks and that she could totally beat me at it. I do planks at least once a week when I take my Abs class on Tuesday's. So down on the ground we went, got in position and ready, set, go. About 30 seconds in she starts trash talking. "Ooh are you breathing? Do I see some shaking? Is your back straight?" My Mom, who was watching, said H, she's straighter than you are. At the minute mark H dropped! She starts cracking up because she totally thought she'd win and didn't. She was proud of me, and then was like I'm out, you can stop now. I just looked at her and said "Oh no, I want you to know just how much I beat you by, not that I just beat you" And I stayed up about 15 more seconds. I was shaking too bad to stay up any longer. The point of all this is though, when I first started doing planks I could go more than 15 seconds and I can go for almost 2 minutes now. Underneath all this fat, I 'm getting some muscle! So yay me.

I've managed to get to the gym everyday this week, I feel good about that. I'm staying within my points, haven't even broke out the WP's or AP's either. I'm retaining water big time, and am not sure why, and last but not least I love Lost, I always end up with a WTF? look on my face while it's on, but it sure is a fun ride even if I have absolutely no idea what is going on. ;)

Feeling Fine

So today has been a very good on program day. I was finally able to do a bit of grocery shopping so I have fruit and vegetables back in my house, so I ate breakfast from home rather than from the cafeteria.

Breakfast
WW english muffin with peanut butter
1/4 FF cottage cheese
1 scrambled egg

Lunch
Turkey sandwich
String cheese
FF strawberry yogurt
pickle

Dinner
Sloppy Joe's made w/ Turkey meat
Salad w/ 1 tbsp of Buttermilk ranch
1 small banana muffin

All that food and I hit my points exactly! Plus, I actually made it to the gym and got on the elliptical for 30 minutes. I used a different elliptical than I usually do and it felt a lot harder than usual. I think I might need to go back to that machine again in the future. I'm exhausted! All that's left tonight is an episode of Heroes. Only and hour and 20 until I can go to bed!

Weigh In Results

So I did manage to save my week. Thursday and Friday I stuck to my points and got a bit of exercise in so my weigh in ended up okay. It was not stellar and I am a bit disappointed in myself, if nothing else because I sabotaged myself and only worked hard enough to not gain rather than worked harder to get a good loss. I'm not sure if that makes any sense to anyone but myself. If I'm being honest the only reason I have a loss this week is because I didn't want to embarrass myself with a gain, it's not because I did all the right things and should have had a loss... so if I can work just hard enough to show a loss why in the world am I not working hard enough to show a significant loss? SO with that said... my loss this week is

0.6

I have a lot to think about, because I am really close to my 10% goal. A goal I believe I should have hit this week, but didn't because I made choices that were not wise. I have to figure out why I do what I do and work harder so not only can I hit my 10% and get my key chain, but get my 25 lb charm too because I hit 10% and then that 25 lb mark right after each other.

My Non-healthy week so far

Ughh, things have not gone weel this week. I have not been to the gym since Monday. Tuesday I tried to go but my Zumba class was cancelled and I didn't bring my iPod so instead of doing something I just left. And I'm not even sure I want to admit what I've been eating, but it hasn't been good. See I didn't get paid until well today actually so grocery shopping has not been an option for me (because I live on a budget, thank you Dave Ramsey). Basically I've been out of fruits and vegetables since Sunday as well as being out of turkey for my lunches. So I've been scrounging for food in my pantry, which btw, is better than fast food but still totally not as healthy as I should be eating. You know yummy things like Mac n Cheese and hot dogs! So while portions have been much smaller than they used to be, I've managed to eat a ton more sodium than I've been used to. And to top it all off, I went to dinner last night with my Mom and it was Italian. I ate chicken parmigiana, yum. I did take half of it and immediately asked for a box so I wouldn't eat it and I basically ate the salad without dressing... because the house dressing was creamy italian and it was gross, way too sweet and I think italian dressing should have a kick to it, but I'm sure that dinner was over 600 calories.

I am heading to the gym tonight, I don't care who I have to run over to get there. I can't stand not working out. I sleep a whole lot better after a good workout, so my sleep has been way off, and I need to burn some serious calories. I peeked at the scale this morning and it's up almost 2 lbs (thank you sodium!). So I'm drinking water, water, water and hoping I can get my groove back for the remaining 2 days before my official WW weigh in.

Food and Exercise

So after the dentist I finally ate lunch. I had an omelet for breakfast at 6:30 am and didn't eat lunch until 3 PM. I took my daughter to Subway and ate a 6 inch turkey... I actually bought a foot long so I'm eating the other half for dinner tonight. After Subway, I put on my exercise clothes and headed to the gym. I got 30 minutes on the elliptical and did 20 minutes of weight training. Not as long as I normally do but long enough for me not to consider myself lazy. The only other thing I have planned for this evening is watching Heroes! and after that I'm heading to bed!

Monday

So I didn't work more than 6 hours today because I had to go to the dentist. My teeth are nice and healthy and clean and shiny. My only problem is that I have this jaw pain that I've had for quite some time and when I mentioned it the dentist told me that I most likely clench my jaw in my sleep, which makes total sense because I wake up in pain every morning. The cure for this diagnosis? A $400 mouth guard. Uh yeah, thanks I think I'll put up with the pain for while. $400 worth of dental stuff is just not in my budget... you know that budget I've mentioned a couple of times that Dave Ramsey's finance class has put me on? Yeah I'm still trying to figure out how to survive without credit cards. I'm getting there, but doubt I'll be afloat until sometime later in the year. The Dental Hygenist suggested I try an over the counter mouth guard from Target or Wal-Mart in the mean time, so I am going to give that a go and see if it helps any.

Weekly Weigh In - 2/14/09

So the results are in and while I can still feel and see the water in my poor abused ankles I did get a really good loss in. So I'm relieved and really looking forward to the rest of February's weigh-ins, because I am so hitting my 10% goal before Feb. ends. So my results:

-1.4 lbs

Happy Valentine's Day all, I hope you have a wonderful day with your special someone. As for me, I'll be spending the day with my daughter after spending the morning having breakfast with the family. I'm thinking the DD and I will head to the movies tonight. My see He's Just Not That Into You.

Srsly?

At this late in the game I'm getting a caffeine headache (I've had enough of them to know what they feel like). My head hurts and I have no caffeine in this house to try to fix it. Hope tylenol pm will kick in so I can sleep through it.


And my darn cat has decided to play with a plastic grocery bag. She is freaking annoying me right now. She's running all over the house right now. What is wrong with her, she's normally the laziest cat on the planet, the main reason why she's 14 lbs! This is her...

Friday Post

Tomorrow is weigh in and I'm a little nervous. I haven't been nervous about a weigh in in a while, so it's kind of a weird feeling. I'm dealing with TOM and retaining water like nobody's business... I do take a water pill for my blood pressure so water retention usually doesn't last long, so tomorrow I could have a huge loss or n loss at all. It also didn't help that I ate a piece of pizza at lunch today... after I'd already eaten my turkey sandwich. For dinner I ended up only eating a small bowl of cereal, mostly because I was still full from my extremely huge lunch.

Now normally I'd take all the possibilities of the weigh in and toss it out the window, but I'm really close to hitting my 10% and I want it so bad. It would be an awesome little Valentine's gift for myself, especially because no else will be getting me something special tomorrow. One of the sucky things about being single.

So I think I'm going to send myself to bed now so I can get to tomorrow and find out is I'm going to have a rockin' weigh in or not. Keep your fingers crossed.

Tusady Recap

I Zumba'd my butt off tonight! Seriously, I've been taking this class since September but I think the class keeps getting harder and harder. I can not remember the last time I produced this much sweat. I love my Zumba though. My instructor Tracy is all kinds of awesome. She has been so encouraging to me and because I can tell she wants me to really succeed it pushes me to work harder so I can. I also take an Abs class with her before Zumba... and I still suck at that. I'm getting better but I totally can't wait until I have abs that can get through the class without wanting to cry. ;).

Tonight after class I made up a salad and had a Progresso vegetable soup, and I've been full ever since. That's actually a lot less food than I normally eat after Zumba, but yesterday I wasn't feeling too hot and I think that might be why I didn't eat all my points today. I have now gone 7 weeks without eating dinner out at a Fast Food joint. Actually that should be 7 weeks that I've been to a fast food place for any reason. This is such a huge accomplishment especialy when you take into account I have a teenager living in my house. She has been really cool about this healthy living, and without her even trying to lose weight has managed to lose 5 lbs. She likes those results so she hasn't pushed the fast food issue at all. I'm so proud of her. She even ran a mile today during her PE and she didn't slow down to a walk at all. She was so stoked about it. Persoanlly that would be a goal I'd love to accomplish myself. I can only get about a 1/4 mile before I have to walk. I'll get ther though.

I watched The Biggest Loser and got to hand it to Bob's team, they are far more compassionate than Bob team's of the past but I totally see this biting them in the ass completely because Jillian's team is made of of huge game players. Bob is gonna be pissed too! They didn't listen to him. They're all gonna be hurtin'.

Thoughts for Monday

Does anyone else ever have a difficult time acknowledging their weight loss in real life? I know for me, when someone asks me if I've lost weight or goes straight to the compliment I really have a hard time talking about it because every single time I get to the point where my weight loss would be considered significant and I get compliments on my loss I start packing on the pounds again. And I'm so afraid of this happening once again. Why in the world am I so afraid to be at a normal weight? It's totally ridicules how I've sabotaged myself the last 10 years. 1998 was the last time I was at a normal weight at about 154 - 160 and 2003 was the last time I had significant weight loss which had me at one point 198. Since '03 I've been anywhere from 205 to 251 (my highest weight ever!)

This time around (the 251 scared me back to WW) I've been losing in much smaller numbers but much more consistently. Everyone I know basically knows I've been doing WW since September and while people do acknowledge my weight loss, I really haven't. I say thank you and move on or totally change the subject because I don't know what else to do. I can't go back to that highest weight, I can't...

I think this is why I've turned to blogging about my weight loss, there's a certain anonymity here that doesn't affect my psyche and doesn't trigger (whatever it is) the button that has me gaining weight when a get a Woo-Hoo from my fellow bloggers. Compliments hear make me feel good, yet ones in real life leave me embarrassed and turning red. I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, other than it's been bothering me since I posted a picture on FB that had a lot of chatter about my weight and hair. And I was thinking after all that. Jeez, did I look that bad before? Why is everyone so shocked? Should I be hurt or offended? But for the first time in 10 years I didn't go running for Taco Bell. Maybe I'm changing. Maybe my health is finally more important than being thin? Although don't get me wrong, I so want to be thin. I think that would be teh Awesome! So after reading thrrough this juble of a mess, does anyone else ever feel like this? Or is it just me? What have you done to counter act your inner sabatouer?

Weekly Weigh In...

There are some points throughout this journey where I think "I so rock!" and this week is one of those weeks for me. I hit the gym 4 days this week and worked really hard (I mean really hard) 3 of those 4 days. Wednesday I kind of flaked and only stayed about 30 minutes. I started tracking what I ate from Tuesday on. Tracking is not something I do on a regular basis, but it was an eye opening experience. I have been eating way more than I should be and the biggest reason why is because I did not re-evaluate how many points I should be eating daily. Since this journey began I "lost" 3 daily points, but... uhhhh, failed to give them up because I "conveniently" forgot about the fact that your DP's drop as you lose weight. Now that I've remembered and I will be following my new DP's I might see more consistent results on the scale. So... on to this morning's weigh in. I am down

-2.2

So exciting to see over 2 lbs lost. I would have been thrilled with a 1 lb loss so 2 lbs puts me on a completely different level. Tonight, I'm going to a hockey game. I love hockey and am really looking forward to seeing the Blues play the Avs. I'm not worried about the food there because it's too damn expensive and I'm too cheap to buy the food. So the kid and I will be eating at home before we go to the game.

Quick Post

I haven't posted much this week in the way of my weight loss journey, but I'm still kicking ass and taking names. I've eaten pretty healthy. I'm still cooking every night, and hitting the gym most nights too. I almost flaked ont he gym last night, but went in anyway. I didn't do much, about 20 minutes of weights, and then made and appointment for my health re-assessment at the Y, but at least I didn't spend the entire night on the couch which was my original plan. I think my next weigh-in on Saturday will show another loss, how much remains to be seen.

Different kind of healthy

This year so far has not only been about making my body healthy but also about becoming financially healthy. I've been taking Financial Peace University through my church. The class is pretty simple, the advice he gives is not complex, it's based on common sense. Though just because it makes common sense it does not mean that any of take the advice. I'm trying though.

I've spent the last 2 weeks working on my monthly budget to try to make the numbers work. Sadly, I have not been able to do it. Now I should preface that I have very little credit card debt (like less than $500), but I have a house payment that takes up 67% of my paycheck, and this would be why I can not currently get healthy financially. I did do a few things to lower my monthly bills, and was able to my monthly expenses by $72. I am also going the coupon route. I'm collecting coupons online and getting the Sunday Paper and hoping I can find enough savings so I can feed my daughter healthy food at reasonable prices. The bottom line is though is I do not currently have enough monthly income to pay my monthly expenditures and eat every month.

Which brings me to this conclusion... I need a new job. One that will pay me about $8,000 more a year. I've been applying within my company and have a few good leads, but I need to put my resume out there and see if there is anything out there for me. Which I know will be hard because the current economy is not so good, and it seems there are tons of people looking at the same jobs I would be.

Current Mood: Frustrated

I got into an argument with someone last night and it's been with me ever since. I think it might be a while before we speak again. She's actually mad at me, while I'm just frustrated with her. I handled things badly, but I wasn't wrong just a little more sharp (okay maybe a lot) than was neccessary. You see I graduated from school last June. I worked very hard had little to no help and earned my grades. This person is smart but acts dumb (Reason #1 for frustration) she is not dumb she is lazy! (Reason #2) And stubborn and never admits a mistake. Never! After I graduated from college she went back to school to get her degree. Yay her, right? Well every single class she has taken she has asked for help, used my body of work to jump start her papers and once, that I know, of slapped her name on something that was 100% completely mine. After that happened I told myself I would no longer help her because she was totally in the wrong. She still doesn't see what the big deal is. She told me that last night, turning in my work as her own is no big deal, why am I upset about this?

So last night's argument? She called me and asked me to write 200 words for her discussion questions because "she had a bad day" and "she wants to just go to bed" I told that I didn't know how to say this without sounding like a bitch but No. She told me I was being a bitch and that I was selfish blah blah blah. And then she said that she would do it for me (yeah the difference is I would never and didn't ever ask anyone to do my work for me) So I completely lost my cool (which I regret) and went off in way that really the situation didn't warrant. I didn't really realize how bothered I was by her previous actions until she called me selfish for basically standing up for myself. It would have been much easier to have written up the 200 words than to have gone through everything last night. I made her cry and got mad at myself for being so upset about the whole thing. I slept like crap because I couldn't really get over it. On a positive note, I didn't take to eating. I stayed completely out of the kitchen.

I just don't know how to fix it, because while the yelling was wrong, I am not wrong. I earned my degree by myself and so should she. And I do know she had a bad day, but I also know that 90% of that bad day was her own fault. So, I'm left frustrated and a little bit sad. It's a huge mess.

Updated Profile Pic...

So I updated my profile picture. I actually posted this pic on Facebook and received more responses about this picture than just about anything else I've posted on FB before. 1) I have naturally curly hair and everyone who knew me from HS has probably never seen my hair straight and 2) I am officially at a 20 lb loss and I (and everyone else apparently) can really see a difference in my face. So that feels pretty good. I can't even imagine what my face and body will look like in another 20 lbs! It's been at least 5 years since I've been there and it's easy to forget being smaller when you've been large for quite a while. Something to look forward too and work towards!