well . . .that coulda been a lot worse

I weighed myself today - for the first time in a loooooooooooooong time. Like maybe 2 months. I was scared. I finally told myself this morning, things like  "it is what it is, whether you know it or not" and "knowledge is power."  I was sure it would be +15 at the worst, so seeing the +4, especially just before ovulation . . . what a relief.

Today my plan is put the kid on the bus, play Walk It Out for at LEAST 30 minutes, shower, and then work on cleaning the master bedroom until hubby comes home for lunch. After that I pick up Kiddo early from school and take her to the doctor for some kind of creepy zit/skin infection (probably MRSA says my anxiety voice) on her ear.

Monday morning check-in

Weigh in this morning went well, don't .9 is nothing to sneeze at. Continuing to trend downard is a good thing, weight-wise!

James M. was a good CPAP last night, as far as not filling my tummy with air, but yet I'm sleepy this morning. I think I just didn't put enough hours in. Remember when I used to go to bed by 10 pm nightly? Well, those days are down the tubes. I'll have to pull them back out again and brush them off. Might as well start today!

No school for the wee one today.  She has friends coming over in the am while their mom teaches at the local community college and then who knows what the day will bring. We were hoping for a trip to Ann Arbor but with the weather the way it is, that's certainly questionable at the moment.

Spunkysuzi's challenge this week is to try a new recipe, blog about it, review it, and take photos. I have 2 I want to try from the Cook This/Not That cookbook so I intend to play along. One was banana bread but I see that one of my over ripe bananas has gone missing. I'm often suprised at what people will eat around here. I bet I could sub some greak yogurt for that missing banana, though!

Intuition vs. Compulsion, halfi-versary, and more

How many times have you read or heard somebody say "If I ate intuitively, I'd weigh 500 lbs!" or "Eating intuitively is what got me to nearly 300 lbs in the first place!" or something along those lines?

If you've been following me for long, you know that I have been struggling more with eating the last few weeks. It doesn't matter why - we all have our excuses and our times when we struggle more than others. I've been eating for entertainment which is the hardest habit for me to break. Yes, I love food -yummy yummy food that isn't good for me. Yes, I find comfort in eating what i want. And when I feel "blah" for whatever reason, I am compelled to eat and eat and eat said yummy, fattening food because that's what I want to do in the short term. That's what compulsion is all about - satisfying urges for short-term pleasure as opposed to using your intellect and determining what it is we really want out of our food and out of our lives as a whole.

Setting aside the compulsion and focusing on what we know is eating right is at the center of every one of our "diets" or attempts at healthy living. We have to make ongoing choices and sometimes circumstances make those choices more difficult than others. It's okay to have setbacks as long as we don't let them become a way of life. Replacing the compulsion to eat with other compulsions isn't going to lead us to where want to be either. Working things through, keeping your intuition keen and sharp, that's where it's at. And that's what we all work to do every day to make our lives better and longer.

Stupid shit I did.

Why do I join these damn challenges? Because every once in a great while, they actually work for me. Darn that Spunkysuzi and her crazy ideas! When I'm on track, I weigh in every day. It's been probably a coupla weeks since I last weighed.  But this week, Suzi challenged us all to stay off the scale for the week and I thought  - why not? I'm already avoiding it,  how hard can it be?  Well, dammit! I've felt the incredible draw of the Wii Fit weigh in ever since.   And if that's not bad enough, I started reading Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body and apparently he is a big fan of the daily weigh-in as well. Hmph. Well, I can tell you this. I don' t like it, but I'm going to try to stick to the challenge.

Remember that good eating day I had yesterday? Well today I made up for it. I'm not going into great detail, but I do want to share that I payed for it dearly almost immediately afterwards. My advice: if you haven't been eating greasy food much don't assume that even a little KFC "will be okay" just this once. Holy mother of all indoor plumbing! Pain.and.ful.

Sleep Study Follow up, changed the ticker, and a couple days off

Tonight is my sleep study follow-up where I experience the treatment. Guess what? I'm having a bit of an anxiety attack. I could use some info from CPAP users letting me know what it's like. Freakin out a little here, but looking forward to treatment and not having days like yesterday where I slept almost all freakin day and was still exhausted at 9 pm.

I realized this morning that I hadn't updated my ticker for a bit. So that's current now> New low weight.

Because of my leg I haven't done any exercise the last coupla days but I'm going to the gym to at least  do treads today. Hopefully it'll work off some of this anxiety.

Power of One photo and measurements

I look at this photo and I think, did I only IMAGINE that I lost almost 60 lbs this year?  Holy Crap.

It does appear that my hips are smaller, probably from the squats. Seriously considering the situp challenge now that I've seen this.

Neck
16 inches
Right Arm
14 inches

Left arm
 13 3/4 inches

Chest
 47 3/4 inches

Waist
 46 1/2 inches

Abdomen
 49 1/4 inches

Hips
48 inches

Right Thigh
 25 inches

Weight
232 lbs even

Where can I return this gift?

I gained 2lbs over night. What? Oh well, I'll return it easy enough.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Hot 100, updates, and 1 week to go

Week 2, day 3 of 200 squats and I completed 102 squats.   Later I have to do the progress test to see how many I should do next week. I'm hoping I'll be able to move up a level.  I think if I'd be more faithful with my fish oil supplements, my knees would allow more. I'm so glad I can (NSV) properly stretch my quads now, cuz they're gonna need it.

Hot 100 goals - what the heck were they?

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly  50% success this

week but I was up past midnight last night w/o even realizing it.
Nutrition: Eat more fruit! I'd say probably about 50% success on this as well. I started out the week pretty good, but then I was sick sick sick and didn't eat much. I did have a banana for brekkie today though!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35. It is currently at 35.4 according to the BMI calculator on my phone so I'm getting close! I have one more week to make it, but having lost 11 lbs so far on this challenge is good enough for me to say "I haven't blown it."

Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
Major fail. I think I skipped 2 days this week altogether and only ended up blogging twice one day - yesterday.  I'm ok with it. It can't be "all about me" this time of year and when I'm deeply depressed I don't feel like talking to anybody, even the blogosphere.

Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey
He's hooked on video game currently (Sid Meier Civilization) so he's not too much into health and nutrition. That's ok. He's happy and I'm good with that. At least he's not sitting around stuffing his face with junk.

Finally!

Last night I finally was able to "normally" digest something. The Mac N Cheese, of course. It would be something fatty and highly caloric. Ah well,  I'm hoping this means the virus is on its way out of my body. My weight was the same this morning as it was yesterday which is somewhat of a relief since it hopefully signifies the end of this flu or whatever it is. Today I hope to be getting on and using Walk It Out for a while and see how I do. So far, eating is good, only about 150 calories and not hungry. Pushing lots of fluids and laying low for now.

Sweetie has a vaca day today and tomorrow which means he should be home from work soon and won't need to be back until Sunday.

A blessed Saturnalia, Merry Christmas, etc to all of you :)

quick morning post hot 100 & blowing it

No, RNTG, not that kind of blowing it.

I had a slight weight gain this week. two-point-something, i haven't time to look and do the math. Lots of muscle building this week and some NSVs which I will hopefully post later.  It could also be the gimongous ball of snot that is resting somewhere between my sinuses and my throat. Feels like it weighs 40 lbs.  If today wasn't my final training with Tom, I'd go back to bed. I'm gonna go breathe on her and lick her water bottle when she's not paying attention.

Bedtime, not so good - There's been a lot of reading to do on blogger lately.

Fruit - about average

Hubby - mentioned "crash diet" this week and I asked him not to be a bad influence on our impressionable tween

Time to prop up these sinuses and go lift some weights. 3 reps of 12. Only thing I want to lift is blankets over my head.

Hot 100 and "I Refuse to Blow It Over the Holidays" update

I've lost 9 lbs since the first day of autumn. More would be better, but as long as it's going the right direction, I won't complain.

Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly
I've done very well on this except for last night when I had a hard time winding down after a day full of family fun :)

Nutrition: Eat more fruit!
I could do a lot better. I've been slacking here but I have lots of big juicy grapes waiting for me and I don't intend to let them go to waste!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35
36.82 It's getting there! And with the new gym membership, it should get there a LOT faster now

Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
This has been more difficult with all of the holiday prep and not much profound to say. Not a lot on my mind except for cleaning.


Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey

Quote of the day "I could try to lose weight too, ya know"  :)

Hot 100 and I'm Not Gonna Blow It Challenge updates

Back on the first day of autumn, I joined these two challenges - for more details, see the links in my sidebar.

For the Hot 100 Challenge we got to set our own goals, and we do a weekly update.


Health: Go to bed by 10 pm nightly
I did really well this week!

Food: Eat more fruit!
I am making fruit my bi-otch!

Activity: Achieve BMI at or below 35 (37.26 currently - getting closer!)


Accountability: Blog at least 2x daily
Yeah baby!

As for the "I'm Not Going to Blow It Over the Holidays" challenge, it' is to keep us focused and working hard over the holidays. And I can honestly say that I made it through Halloween without a net gain!  I'm so thankful for this challenge because it's helped me not completely pig out, although I have enjoyed a bit o chocolate recently! Much different than a bag of chocolate (Sam's Club size)








Pay it Forward: Encourage hubby to join the journey

just. WOW.

Anybody who's read me for a while knows that I weigh myself every morning and that there's no talking me out of it. In my mind, this keeps me from going too far up on the scale, which I had been doing as I slowly snuck up to +4 lbs because I simply wasn't making good choices where food and exercise was concerned. Now granted, it wasn't nearly the bad choices I was making a year ago, but still, those four pounds didn't take long to pile on.

A coupla days ago I got my head back in the game and dropped 2 lbs overnight. Then yesterday I was up 2.2 lbs. Naturally, I blamed Patrick. Not really! I knew I had eaten lots of fruit despite my lack of hunger and one of my basic rules is to not eat if I'm not hungry.  So then yesterday, I ate even more fruit, but only when I was hungry. This morning the scale shows my biggest overnight loss to date. Down FOUR POINT FOUR lbs. Finally, I'm at a new low. It's only slightly lower than I had been before I went awry a couple weeks ago, but I'm back on track and that's what's important.

I joined a new challenge last night and am going to work it for the first time today. I'll tell you about it a little later as this post is already long and rambling and my warm bed is calling me back.

Maybe there's something to this fruit-eating business!