Has it been a week already?

A week has gone by it has not been a good week. It shows in the scale. The scale registered a 6.7 lb gain in 1 week. I know the problems and still working on the solutions.
-Eating out fast food way too much. This week especially. (pizza, chinese, fish, burgers)
-This week I have a visit from Aunt Flo.
-Lack of Exercise- Nothing in the past 5 days
-Boredom and Stress eating

In the month of October I only recorded 8 hours working out. This includes the time for bowling. The main good thing is that as of the end of October I have recorded 94 hours toward the 100 hour club at the Y. I will get my t-shirt this month! This is one month before the deadline. I did go tonight and did 30 minutes on the Elliptical. I almost had a panic attack before going in though. I was feeling like I did the first time I started exercising. The running in your head about what are being saying/thinking about the fat chick exercising. It took me 5 minutes to get out of the car and go into the gym. Tomorrow I am going to have the same issues with going to Pilates. At least I was able to get the 5 class pass for $22 from Groupon and I really like the Pilates instructor.

Work has been a bucket of stress lately. First there was the health insurance raise in rates and the cancelling of the 2011 heath and wellness program. On Wednesday they downsized. I did not lose my job but a friend did. It has been so not a fun couple of weeks. My department had 4 people laid off. Some had been with the company over 20 years. Thursday was not a good day. Neither really was today.

I may be starting to do my exercise in the morning. My boyfriend is moving shifts and he will be working 5:30am-2 instead of 2-10:45 starting in 1 week. The gym opens at 5:30. We have one car so I will be up and driving him at 5:30 anyway. I shall have to see how it works. I am so not a morning person. I will let y'all know how it works out.

Time now to relax some before heading out to get JD from work. Try to think about something to do this weekend maybe.

I am disappointed in myself

Today I walked for the Cure in Lexington Kentucky. There were so many people and it was a great time. Pretty cool because of the wind but a very nice day. No rain which was really nice.

The are a couple of different reasons why I am disappointed in myself.

- I have not been to the Y since before going on vacation (over a week ago)
- I have not been recording my food.
- I am mindless eating and getting trigger foods when shopping.

But. The biggest reason I am disappointed in myself is because I did not go for the 5K today. I stopped after 1 mile. I am just kicking myself for not going on. The reasons I stopped seem so minor. I was going at a good speed. I was feeling good. I had to go the bathroom slightly but nothing that could not wait. I basically scared myself out of going on.

I will put this behind me and move on. Next walk I will do the complete 5K.

Tonight has gone down the tubes

I was having a really good day. Food choices were in line and I enjoyed what I had during the day. I came home and had a small dinner before heading out to Tai Chi. Great time at Tai Chi. We are now up to move 14. Then at some point something switched in my brain. I am not sure what it was. I am still trying to analyze my feelings and what happened. I can not pin point exactly when things started to cycle in my brain. It feels like it was a switch, but it might have been a gradual thing over the past couple of days. Finally tonight it came to a head. When it became all about what I could eat before bed. Tonight I binged.

The weather it drains me and other thoughts

Sarong One Piece

I do not like summer. The heat and humidity just drain me. I have realized I do not mind being hot and sweaty when I exercise but getting hot and sweaty by stepping outside is just annoying. It is going get worse here in Kentucky before it gets better. I just want to stay inside with the A/C  and read. At least I have my water aerobics. I get exercise and not notice the sweat. Sweet! To this end I have bought another swimsuit from Just My Size. It was on sale plus they had a code for free shipping on an order over $25. YES! Of course now that I check out the site again I see that the price has gone down again. Well if I like it I might order a smaller size to have for later in the year. I also found a local swim shop that carries Speedo suits up to size 24.Today the water aerobics class had about 16 people. It was great! Cee is back from vacation and she decided to work us hard.

I have been feeling down for about a week. It has affected my eating. I just was not in the mood to keep track.  I did not post though because I felt I would just have a pity party and not work through the problems. I also had doubt thoughts about posting. I just need to really accept that this blog is about me and mostly for myself. I can not compare myself to other bloggers in ways that make me feel unworthy or stupid. I know I have mentioned this in other posts. It just keeps cycling through my mind. I am just trying to replace the thoughts with: "This is my journey, be proud!".

I need to work on my weekend eating. The main problem is that most of the things I do on the weekend center around food in some fashion. Dinner and a movie. Lunch out with my mom. Breakfast run before grocery shopping. Heck even the Step Out walk ended with a bunch of different options for free food. (Bagels, chips, yogurt, fruit, and drinks)  Any suggestions to help me?

I requested my medical records from my doctor to see my weight history. The lowest recorded weight in the records I got was 274 in May of 2005. It is quite interesting to realize that I will be at my lowest weight in 6 years. I think this is a also a factor in my thoughts and problems the past 2 weeks. I need to figure out who I am. I am not only changing physically but mentally and emotionally as well.

I wrote a poem back in high school or college that still rings true for me. I did make 3 line changes to make it about being healthier.

In the beginning there was only me
but now that is not to be.
I AM
daughter, sister, student
friend, lover, teacher
and others I do not name.
BUT AM I
Healthy or prone to sickness?

Weak or strong?

or other labels I do not name?
Of this I must know.
Because In the end
I am just me
On this new beginning

A Friend's Observation

Last night LM and I head out for dinner and errands. We went to Jo-Beth, and Whole Foods, but first we had dinner at a Chinese Buffet across the street. As we were dining on sushi and some other items she commented that she has noticed a change in my eating. That I am not eating like I am desperately trying to cram everything in. I know I am paraphrasing some. She noticed that I am being more picky about what I eat. She also commented that with the first 40lbs I lost I also got rid of some other baggage as well. She is very correct about that. I think the desperation she was seeing in my eating was me trying to fill voids with food and not deal with things. I was just eating and eating and eating.

At work yesterday I commented that the more weight I lose the more outgoing I am going to be. I have always been a friendly bubbly person. With the increase in confidence and pride I am also going to be alittle more adventurous and wild at times. This journey is going to be an interesting ride for me, my family and my friends. One start was just going out by myself to see Thor. I have been searching for more things to do in and around Lexington. So many ideas and so many opportunities. The one thing that will hold me back some is money. I did sign up to take Tai Chi again for the next session. I love that the class is 1/2 price since it is a repeat of the beginner class. That is one reason I was willing to sign up again. I am hoping it will help to ingrain the moves. I really need to make it a priority to practice at least every other day. I am finding it easier to schedule time to exercise. I love finding classes at the Y that I enjoy. I am worth taking the time to work on ME.

I am special, strong, and worthy.

The train has been derailed

I am slowly getting back on the track. I did not record my food all weekend. I am only now starting to put the pen to the paper and get it all written down. I ate out way more than I had been and went with fast food more than once. The only work out that I have done in the past 5 days was my Tai Chi class on Saturday. I did not get to water aerobics yesterday and I do not plan on going to pilates today. I might try to do some cardio tonight and/or practice Tai Chi. It really all depends on how I feel.

There is 1 cause of this derailment and it is called that TOTM!

(totm= time of the month)

I so do not like TOTM. Now for a TMI moment... For almost 2 years TOTM lasted 3 weeks and then I would have about 1 week off before it would start again. The doctor tried many things and nothing seemed to work. About 3 years ago we found something that has really helped. Now I have Aunt Flo visiting for about 4-6 days and she is definitely not the same. I still get headaches and cramps most months though. Meds and the bed are my friend. It just makes it so hard to get out and do things. There is always the worry that I will have issues when out and about.

Yesterday I did record everything I ate, and I am doing it today as well. I did do a short practice of Tai Chi last night. I am working on planning items for the next work wellness challenge. We have a work sponsored program coming up called 10 for 10. We will be working on losing weight/getting healthier over 10 weeks with weigh ins every 2 weeks. There are 2 individual parts to do and 1 team part that you can do if you want. I am in a team and I think we can do it! I will explain more once we get started on Friday.

The ups and downs of the Weekend.

Friday after the consignment store adventure I went home and had some dinner. I stayed under my calorie budget and relaxed. Not much of note other than having a nice relaxing night.

Saturday started off great. I went to my Y and filled out my April calendar for the 100 hr challenge. I got 13 hours of exercise in April. This is really cool since I need to average 11 hours a month to be able to get to 100 hours before the end of December. I am well on my way. Then I went to the other side of town to Beaumont Y so I could go to my Tai Chi class. We learned 4 more moves and my balance is getting better and my legs are stronger.

On the way home I stopped at my mom's and go her her unused/expired medications. I then dropped her meds and our meds off at the medtoss sponsored by the police department. Since they took prescription, OTC, supplements and vitamins we got our bathroom closet cleaned out! Now I plan to only buy supplements if I really plan to take them.

JD and headed out to go see a movie and I did have some of the popcorn. We headed to BD's Mongolian grill after the movie. YUM! It is one of our go-to restaurants if we are not sure on date night. It can be very healthy.

Once we got home my brain started to cycle with depressing and discouraging thoughts. I am not sure where they came from. In the end at about 10pm I binged. I had 4 mini ice-cream sandwiches and 2 mini bags of Funyuns. The total was about 660 calories so not a big binge but a binge none the less. I was not eating because I was hungry. I was not eating to have something that tasted good. I just stuffed my face and went back for more. Of course my blood sugar spiked after that. I even realized what I was doing while I was doing it but I still went back for the ice cream. I did my Tai Chi breathing before bed and got a good night sleep.

Sunday started bright and early with rain. I got back on track with recording my eating and planning my food. Today has been a good day for eating. I did have Chinese food, but it was by choice and cravings and not mindless stuffing of my face. I made the decision to eat it. I also went to the Y today and got 40 minutes in on the cardio machines. (25 treadmill and 15 elliptical) I did a mile on the treadmill in 23 minutes and even jogged for some of the time. It was not crowded so I did not feel so self-conscious. It was only for about a 1 minute, but it was Jogging!!!! I plan to do more time on the treadmill and may also try to walk some of the legacy trail so I can be ready for my walk to STOP diabetes on June 4th.

Now I need to record the 40 minutes since my work wellness program has a challenge this month. In May the challenge is to get 400 minutes of exercise. Since I have to get at least 600-660 to be on track for the 100 hour challenge I think I can do the 400 minutes. :)

NSV: I went to Kmart and tried on some capris. The 22s were snug but I was able to Button and Zip!!! I plan to go back and put some on layaway. In about 6 weeks it will be starting to get really hot in Kentucky and having the capris will be great. It is also nice that they are on sale at 25% off.


How was your weekend? Any plans for the week?

Mid-Week Musings and Rants

I am going to start of with a couple of good things, move to the not so good things and then end with I hope some more good things. We shall see.

Yesterday I called DrF to find out if she wanted to change my Glyburide based on my A1c results. She agreed that it needed to be changed. I am now taking 2.5 MG twice daily instead of 5mg twice daily. She also said that if I notice the numbers going down more with my weight loss I can go down to just 1 pill w/ dinner. I am really really happy about this.

On Friday I will be participating in my work's biometrics. It is part of our work wellness program. They will do a blood test for sugar and cholesterol and also measure blood pressure, weight, etc. Once I have the data I can enter it online to get a wellness score. I am hoping that the score will be better than every other year that I have entered data. The score goes from 0-100 with the lower the number the higher your risk. 0-70 is Very High, 70-80 is High, 80-90 is moderate and 90-100 is low risk. My 'best' score was 76. in 2008. I am looking forward to the numbers.

Now on to the not so good things.

Yesterday/Last night a storm system moved thru the area and about 2pm yesterday I started to feel the changes. It made me cranky, tired, and in a brain fog. These are all previews to getting a migraine. The lights started to hurt at work. I came home and had some dinner and then took a nap for almost 2 hours. So not a good thing. I did not take meds soon enough and woke up this morning in a complete pain fog. I could barely open my eyes it hurt so much. Time to bring out the prescription meds and call in to work. Keeping food down was a struggle and spent much of the morning in bed.

This afternoon has been better, but struggling with good food choices. Sometimes I get so fixated and frustrated on food. I just want to not have it be one of the first things I think about in the morning and one of the last things I think about at night. I want to have healthy choices become 2nd nature. I want to know what is better at restaurants. Heck I do know but sometimes just do not go with that choice. Today it was after driving JD and LM to work I wanted something for lunch. I thought about Qdoba but the parking lot was just too full. I ended up at Jimmy Johns. I ordered my usual and it is 820 calories. I am starting to beat myself up because I did not replace the mayo with mustard and that I got cheese. The sandwich could have been so much less in calories if I had just done those 2 things. I am trying to figure out if there is a reason I did not do that. Did I want to sabotage things? Now the bag of skinny chips is sitting beside me just mocking me. Why not just scarf those down as well? Does it even really matter?  I will work through these thoughts. It is just hard with still having the brain fog.

I am also starting to beat myself up over not going to work out last night and not going today. I know I need to recover from the migraine and that working out could cause a rebound. It has happened before. I am just so worried that if I do not go then I will stop going all together. Of course that is not the case because I have a workout partner LM who would get me back in to the gym. It is so great that she has joined. I also have my Tai Chi class that I have to go to since I paid for it. I will probably go thru the moves tonight at least 3-5 times and that will help center and calm me.

Now to help me get out of this funk I am going to end with some good things.

A couple of people at work as well as some family have noticed the weight loss.
I portioned out a bag of pistachios so I have another snack ready to take to work.
I do feel that I am getting stronger.
I found a cool website that has listed healthy menu items from multiple restaurants.
http://www.healthydiningfinder.com/
I am getting great ideas and tips from other bloggers that I have been reading.
My work's wellness website (say that 5 times fast) has a new feature this year. I think it will give me some great information along with the other parts of the site.