What a Difference a Year Makes!

(Excuse the double posting today, but I'm an optimist at heart!)

As I mentioned in the previous blog or family went to DC. If you have ever been to DC on a family trip you know you walk and walk and walk. We took the subway everywhere, which was very convenient but rarely did it drop you at a main entrance of anything. We did the traditional Smithsonians, Monuments, Mt. Vernon, the Capitol and even a daytrip to Gettysburg program. Very fun, put a lot of walking.

This active vacation made me put a couple things into perspective. First, it gave me a tangible milestone to go back to next year, wherever our family vacation takes us, to compare my weight too. I could really picture what I would look and feel like with a large weight loss and was really excited.

And secondly, much more quietly in my brain, but much more important, was the realization that one year ago I would have never been able to make this trip. I absolutely could not have done the walking we did. The pain in my knees and especially my heels last year would have kept me home. This year I tied up my decidedly un-hip tennies with every outfit and breezed through the nation's capitol, wincing at all these crazy people in $3 flip flops! I guess that makes me officially old. I'm ok with that!

Also, today is the 4th of July. As we were making plans to view our town's fireworks I remembered last year I didn't/couldn't go. We live in a lakeside community and my family had found a place on the beach they thought would be perfect viewing and it was. However, last year I knew I could not even be dropped off as close to the spot as possible and make it. They went without me and I could get out the front door and see a couple big ones from the street. I was very sad. But this year, since I've taken the necessary fitness steps, it didn't even cross my mind that I couldn't go or would need to be dropped off. I can walk anywhere! I'm still a long way from my ultimate goal, but life is so much better just from taking the steps I have thus far.

So as I continue to look forward with excitement that next year I will be 100 pounds lighter I'm going to be mindful to also look a little bit back and remember and be very proud of how far I have come already. Happy Fourth of July to all!

Deprivation Depravity

Ok, my vacation is over - my family took a trip to Washington DC for about 10 days and then after a week at home I'm back to the blog. (I did blog my vacation, which was fun and completely diet and exercise free - the blog not the vacation.)

I didn't watch what I ate during the vacation. I started out strong on the turnpike getting there, but then the first museum we visited had only McDonald's as it's food vendor. I haven't had McDonald's, since February of this year! It was funny, I had a cheeseburger and fry, I was really looking forward to the cheeseburger, but it turned out it was the fries that really knocked my socks off.

I don't want to go on about the details of my poor food choices because I don't want to make myself or any readers feel deprived. Because as I have learned this week, with my re-entry to healthy eating - I am not deprived by missing junk food, I was actually depriving myself by eating like crap for 10 days. The first couple days I went without junkfood were awful!

It sounds crazy to even me and I lived through it. The first day I didn't eat anything bad for me, (this past Wed.), I was nauseous, in extreme pain in every single joint and had one step below a migraine headache all day. Just ridiculous. Fortunately, I know this is how my body reacts when I take away all it's junk, but it still shocks me every time. Just like a heroin addict knows how horrible another round of heroin will be for him, I'm sure it sure feels a lot better to feed the craving. The stuff that is bad for you - whatever your thing is - sure does some weird things to your body.

Today - Saturday, I'm still fighting the headache but the other side effects are pretty much gone. I've written down in great and graphic detail how miserable I felt this time and plan to review it the next time I try to talk myself into a little Healthy Food Hiatus. I'm a slow learner, but I keep trying.

Why I'm Going to Exercise Today

I keep wishing I would find a blog or website that I could go to everyday to get the "perfect" inspiration to motivate me to exercise. I haven't found it and really that kind of motivation would be quite impossible for any one blog to aspire. So when I feel this way, I guess I'm going to be my own motivation.



So my motivation to haul myself to the gym for 3 miles on the treadmill and a nautilus circuit is....If this is truly going to be the "once and for all" weight loss I need to be a grown up -"man up" - and do what needs to be done! Otherwise I'm just kidding myself. So at 3pm on a Friday, I'm going.

UPDATE - I made it - 2.5 miles on the treadimill and upped all my weights on the Nautilus. Woo Hoo!

Recording - Not Music, I Promise :)

One thing I have learned about myself is, the best, (only?), way I get things accomplished is through careful recording. A second is that, I am really bad at careful recording, but I LOVE the concept - and oh, those office supplies! I am a great planner too, but it is that act of recording that drives results. I have been successful at this for job hunts, special events, work projects, housekeeping and personal finance, but weight, well, not so much.

I love the WW food journal and do lose when I follow those "points" to the letter and record it. I do not do so well with the program because I used to be able to tell you exactly how many chocolate chip cookies would fulfill my daily points value. Not good for long term weight loss or long term health. Plus, I would just think about those cookies constantly. So for this go around, I am taking a different approach.

I am really trying to adjust my mindset, and it is working pretty well so far. The adjustment is to see the decision -"I am NOT going to eat the, (fill in the junk food of choice)", as the reward. The "Yay Me!" moment if you will. This is instead of focusing on the "Poor Me..." of, "I guess I don't get to eat the cookie."

I believe the experts might call this a paradigm shift, but it seems to be working - and by working I mean it's easier to forgo the things that just do not fit into my goals. So - "Yay Me!"

The White Bread THEORY

Not a great day, but nothing to damaging. I didn't exercise at all today, by design. I know "rest days" are supposed to be built in to any exercise plan, which is great, but boy was I cranky today. Not good. So, I think on my "rest days" I will try to do 20 min. of yoga on the Wii Fit and/or a 30 minute EASY walk or bike ride. Though I am shocked all my vacuuming and floor scrubbing didn't reach the level of real exercise. Hmmph!

Also, we took my daughter to an Italian place for dinner. I started out very well - I looked up the menu before we got there and knew what options might work for me. I did have to ask the waitress about pizza with no cheese but did draw the line on asking if pasta removal was possible from various dishes. I really don't want to be an obnoxious eater, but I don't want to blow it either. So I got the BBQ Chicken Pizza sans mozzarella. It was actually very good.

However, the sneaky "oh, I'll just have one piece" bread on the table got me. White bread to boot, dipped in olive oil, of course. It was good, but honestly, not that good. At home I do eat bread but it's always the best whole wheat I can find. I prefer it. But, tonight's baguette got me. In the past I have trained myself to view any white bread as a pile of table sugar, which it virtually is.

So, with that said - THEORY TIME -maybe my lack of endorphin stimulation, from my lack of exercise led me to view the white bread as a sugar fix to get those little neurons firing. I like that theory. You'll learn I'm quite attached to all my half baked theories. :) Fortunately I did not consume the same level of bread that would equal a cardio/nautilus workout. So, I got that goin' for me.

Tomorrow back to the pool and hopefully a bike ride. C'mon summer weather - for real this time!

The Rules...

I am not a big fan of the word rules, but rules for my eating is what is working for me right now. I keep referring to my "eating plan" because I know I cannot do a diet, any diet, for an entire week not to mention a full year. So I have come up with these "rules." I can follow rules. I obviously cannot follow meal plans, point counts, good/bad food charts so I'm goin' with rules. Here they are so far:


1. No sharp foods. I include in this, any chips, popcorn, crackers or crunchy cookies. I have decided raw vegetables are not actually sharp.

2. No dairy. This was HUGE for me. I LOVE milk and all its luscious counterparts - cheese, yogurt, ice cream - but for now they are gone. And the word luscious will never be applied to a calcium supplement - just choked on one today!

3. Never eat more than the size of your closed fist in a sitting. I learned that if you close your fist it becomes the same size as your stomach. I found this revolutionary. It gets rid of all that portion control stuff and fills you up at the same time.

4. No horrible food. Brownies are bad for me, but High Fructose Corn Syrup, trans fats, fake sugar in all it's forms and their ilk are a special kind of unhealthy. The HFCS is hard to avoid and at some point I'm going to have to go cold turkey on "sugarless" gum, but other than that I steer clear of the really nasty stuff.

5. If I am hungry - I eat. I try and make the best choices I can and they sometimes are rather unconventional, (cucumbers dipped in garlic hummus for example), but I am not going to spend the next year starving.

So those are my food rules. I am very open to adding to them if I learn something new, but for now they are working. I'm pretty sure at some point I'll have to start calorie counting too, but for now I am getting really good at these and do not want to get overly fancy with myself.

Any tips or rules of your own you would like to share are always welcome.

"Nobody Trips Over Mountains"

I've been thinking a lot about perseverance today. I found this quote:

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown

Pebbles seem to come in all forms: brownies, cookies, laziness, self-doubt, procrastination, brownies... The one I've been up against this week is impatience. I said to my husband, "OK, I've been doing this new lifestyle thing since February, I'm done, I should be skinny now." Sound familiar? Me too.

The truth is, I have been doing very well. My eating plan is working, my exercise is going better than I expected and my weight goals are being met. Apparently I still need to take the huge step of internalizing that this is permanent. And it has to be if I'm going to get over the mountain that is my weight. I'll get there - and now I know where I'm aiming. Woo Hoo!

2 Days

Actually 1 1/2 days left of school for my daughter. She, needless to say, is quite excited. I, on the other hand, am a little nervous. My eating and fitness plan has been going quite well, but I've had a rather Dee-centric schedule since I started this. With her home, I can foresee this changing. Fortunately she knows what I'm trying to do and wants to be my "coach." I think she will do a good job too. I picked up the "Biggest Loser 30 Day Jump Start" to help. It features a different set of exercises each day that she will be able to "coach" me to do. We'll see - I don't do many "exercises." I like the treadmill and weights, (along with Water Aerobics, of course), but, who knows, these might actually be good for me too!

I'm starting to get a little slack on my food rules. My post tomorrow will highlight those. "Constant Vigilance!" needs to be my mantra as I go through this year. It is so easy to justify and slip. I suppose technically if I justified it, it is not actually a slip. I really do not want to get into beating myself up through this though, so I'm sticking with slip.

I am looking forward to the scale tomorrow morning. It is the end of the third week and I'm hoping to move down into the next set if 10's, (ie: the 30's, the 20's etc.). And, no, I haven't given my starting weight or goal weight yet. Still a little too self conscious - random as it may be.

Perfectionism - BE GONE!

Ahhh perfectionism...My favorite form of procrastination. I've done the posts. But they are not just quite right, so I delete them. Not save them in draft, nope, delete them. Why, I guess so I don't have to share my lack of perfection with the ethernet. I always think I have held it at bay and then it sneaks in and rears its ugly head.

But I'm a firm believer that naming the problem is more than half the battle. So this is getting posted no matter what. It kind of helps that it was a good scale morning too!

I've been cooking this week and just about got all the junk food that I like out of the house. My husband's birthday cake is still lingering, but fortunately it is WAY to rich for me, but it does get me thinking about other types of chocolate which, as always, leads to chips. And those chips are how this whole weight loss program began. (Insert "Wayne's World" flashback music here...)

Back in late February I felt like I was coming down with the flu one afternoon. Not unheard of in Feb., but I don't get sick to often and I always think it's something else. Well this particular afternoon I was trying to find something to "settle my stomach" and thought - "oh yes, chips." As I opened the cupboard I remembered that we had run out of chips the day before. Hmm...

(A side bar here - I can remember this day like it was yesterday. I can see myself at this cupboard as I type and feel how I was feeling.)

As odd as this is going to sound to some - it was indeed the lack of chips making me sick. I found it unbelievable too, at first.

Now, I love chips - Lay's plain potato chips are first with Doritos (original) a close second, but really any chip will do. But I always believed I ate them very moderately. This day I found I was dead wrong.

Fortunately we were out and I decided to eat some plain turkey instead. I felt a little better, but was down until around 6pm, then I felt pretty good again. I felt fine the next day, but around 4pm, I started feeling "flu-ish" again. That's when I really began to understand it was the chips. (Even as I'm typing right now, I'm getting a small headache and feeling a bit nauseous...) I was going through a withdrawal from them. Similar to coffee.

A friend and I were talking once about diabetics not being able to stop consuming sugar because they felt better after eating it and we agreed heroin and crack users probably felt a lot better after getting their fix too. Even though it was slowly killing them. Same with sugar for a diabetic and apparently the same with chips for an obese person.

The good news is, I haven't had a chip since then. And let me tell you - I was so sick - every day from 4-6pm - the main times I ate my chips. It took a full week to get past feeling sick. Then about a week later I went to a movie and had popcorn. BIG mistake. I was really sick the next day and all day. I decided no more "sharp" food. I know even outside of whatever horrible ingredients are in those things the "sharp" edges do a number on my digestive system so I stopped it all.

The bummer was, I did not lose a pound. Nada! But I noticed my dry hands and feet started clearing up and I just felt better. I figured if I could stop all chips for this long it might be a good time to get some other things under control too. Namely, my food intake. I wanted to make sure I didn't start substituting different bad stuff for the chips. And I haven't.

That one conscious decision has led me to a series of decisions culminating in finally doing the hard work to regain my health. These decisions have come from me - not motivation from a book or talk show host or television show, but from me. That is one reason why I am so confident I will be successful this time, once and for all.

The Good, The Bad and the Jelly Beans

So, good news, I got my laptop back. And better news, I finished a week of my Year. One week down - 51 to go! I did pretty well too. Down 4 pounds, walked 10 miles and did well with my food plan. I also rode my bike about 5 miles and did water aerobics 3 days. All very good. But today....well, today was hard.

Just yesterday it crossed my mind, "This whole eating thing just isn't that hard. Why do I make it such a big deal - it's as simple as eating only what is good for you and not to much of it, what could be easier than that?" Even as I was thinking it, the other side of my brain was just rolling it' s eyes and thinking, "yeah, simple, easy, sure...just you wait."

Of course I did not have to wait long. Today came and from the time I woke up, nothing was easy. Isn't it strange how that happens? Eating right, working out can truly feel so natural. And it should be the easy option. But it seems so fragile. It just takes one glitch, or no glitch at all to just de-rail everything.

Today I rode my bike with my daughter on "Ride to School" day, and had a light nautilus workout. Good Stuff. However, I (unfortunately) spent the rest of the day wondering what I could eat, what I shouldn't eat, what I'd really like to eat and where to get it, what was in the back of my pantry that might be good, what would it hurt...and on, and on. Grrrr...

And actually I did not do to badly. I had 2 extra pieces of garlic bread and some jelly beans, (found in the back of the pantry). Not great, but certainly not the end of the world. The main thing was the amount of time and the amount of anxiety caused by obsessing over these ridiculous questions.

Once again, my menus are key and I really need to stock up on some snacks that can get me over these inevitable humps. Anything that can stop my food obsessing and prevent this, "ug, I just ate a buncha' junk" feeling will be a good thing. So, tomorrow will be a day to come up with some great snacks and do the weekend menus.

Now I know this year won't be "easy," (frankly, easy is a lot of what got me to this weight), but one of my goals is to learn and implement more and more so I can avoid as much "hard" as possible.

The Perils of Planning

Happy Belated Mother's Day! I survived the weekend including Mother's Day Brunch and am more relieved than happy. Unfortunately, I was so focused on the weekend I haven't made a plan for this week - and it shows.

Honestly, it should not be that hard for me to come up with menus for a week, or even dinners for a week. I do fine with breakfast and lunch - it is snacks and dinners that hang me up every time. Take tonight as a for instance...It is past 6p.m. and I have fretted all day over what to have for dinner. Why? I have no idea AND I have nothing planned, I'm sure I'll go to the local grocery store and get a rotisserie chicken. My only solace is that I'm pretty late and they may be gone. I guess I am not the only 'surprised' by the fact that dinnertime comes once everyday.

By the way. This is why I do "Tomorrow's Menu" instead of "Today's." Ever since I got married and realized, popcorn, in some circles, is not a main course, the dinner thing has plagued me. And I whine about it - mainly to myself - my favorite rant goes - "3 meals a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month = 84 meals, how can I be expected to do that!?!" And on, and on...

So, tonight, I will make my menus for the week AND schedule a time to make menus every week along with when I will shop for the groceries. What a concept, I know - but I'm getting there. I do know myself well enough to know I do follow a schedule like a soldier, ONCE I get it done. So that is my mission for this evening - after my chicken!

Dangerous Weekend Ahead

Maybe dangerous is a little strong, but it is a holiday weekend with company. The normal routine would be, Friday night, pizza, Saturday morning breakfast before kids soccer game, lunch, shopping trip with a mid afternoon snack and then out to dinner all to be capped off by Sunday's Mothers Day, brunch. Ay-yi-yi.

But not this weekend. Nope. This Friday night I was still pushing the Quinoa and after dinner we did a 2 mile walk, (my company is my parents and they are quite fit so they were game. A sliver of desert, but not too terrible. Tomorrow, I am planning to get to the Y for a light nautilus workout in the morning, cheer on the soccer team, (Go Tree Frogs! and then we are all going to a nice biking trail and seeing how far we can go. Still out to dinner Saturday night and Mother's Day brunch, but not an unmitigated disaster.

It's a nice feeling not to have to white knuckle it through a big weekend. My goal is to keep us active and make reasonable food choices. No problem, right?

2 Miles!

I walked 2 miles today on the treadmill. I have not walked two miles in more than 2 years - so YAY ME! I started last week walking one mile and today was my first crack at two. It took 42 minutes, so there is a lot of room for improvement, but I don't care because I did it!

I've been struggling with all sorts of joint pain since college, but the last two years have been especially rough. Most of it due to the combination rapid weight gain and poor shoe choices. Clogs are so comfortable, but they did such a number on my heels. Probably not as much as the weight gain though.

You may ask, 'how did you get rid of this pain?' And I would answer, 'I tried everything.' doctors, medications, supplements, crazy juices, massive amounts of fish oils, leg braces, orthodics, magnets and any other sure fire remedy someone mentioned in passing. The doctors never really found anything wrong and just said, "stay off your feet and lose 20 pounds." Very helpful. I managed the "stay off your feet" part but gained another 20 instead of losing it. Shocking, I know.

However, I did find a very good chiropractor who has hung in there with me. She has done what she can, especially for the times when the pain got to be severe and rather than just constant. And, I have also discovered deep water Water Aerobics. I have been going 2-3 times a week for about 5 months and the difference is incredible. It was to the point where I had trouble driving because it hurt so much to push the accelerator and today I walked 2 miles, with no pain!

Water aerobics, especially in the deep end is a very kind exercise, (once you get past the initial hurdle of wearing a bathing suit and getting out of it in front of real live people). You can easily go at your own pace and all anyone sees is your head. No one can guess at what level you are working. But you do work. I do not believe I have lost a lot of weight while doing the classes, but the routine of it and just the feeling of being active again have been great benefits. But truly neither of these can compare to loss of pain.

I've begun to call it my water "therapy" just so I am not tempted to commit to anything else that comes up at the same time as the class. It is that important to me. I highly recommend it to anyone who is in a futile position like I was or for people who have never or have not in a long time participated in regular exercise. You do not need to swim, (I sit on a noodle), you just need to stick with it.

First Post!

My first blog post! This will be short but I wanted to start this 100 pound year today. The 100 pound year is exactly what it sounds like - this year, starting May 6, 2009 and ending May 6, 2010 is the year I will lose 100 pounds. Coincidentally, this is about how overweight I am. So, I will do my "about me" and profile tomorrow, but I didn't want to put this first post off any longer. I have a "slight" tendency to procrastinate.

This blog will be a work in progress, but two features I definitely want to include are "Tomorrow's Menu" and a Walking Ticker. "Tomorrow's Menu" will be exactly that - what I'm going to eat the next day. It's an accountability tool for me because menu planning is a constant struggle for me, but feel free to pilfer them. I'm new to blogging but I bet I can figure out a practical way to post recipes on here too.

The Walking Ticker is simply to keep track of my goal of walking 50 miles a month.

I'm excited to get started and look forward to getting into this even more. Any support, suggestions, questions and comments will be greatly appreciated.

See you tomorrow!