Another day, another... hey where'd my dollar go?!?

Is anybody else BROKE?! Jeez...

I have so much work to do, and I just don’t feel like doing it. I’ve come down with a bad case of the dontwannas this morning. I don’t wanna put orders in, I don’t wanna check email, I don’t wanna call these people back. Oh, well.

This weekend was good – very productive. We cleaned the HELL out of our house. The kitchen is… good lord, I can’t even tell you how clean it is. Erin was a little under the weather this weekend, so we lounged around for a good bit on Saturday. Watched the Sox lose to the Cubs (WTF, guys?!?!?!??!) and I made marinara sauce. I made a great big pot of it so we can use it when Shane comes to visit (he wanted me to cook for him, and I’m making Chicken Parmesan). This way there won’t be nearly as much mess when the time comes to cook. Sunday we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and did laundry and cleaned some more. I can’t wait for Shane to get here! Yesterday I was bored at work so I calculated how many hours before he arrived. Right now we’re at 57 hours and counting… LOL

Yesterday was weigh day. I have lost two and a half more pounds. Which brings me to almost 33 pounds lost. Hopefully I can keep this up, losing one or two pounds a week, for the next year or so. If I can do that, I’ll be at the weight I want to be by next spring. If I can just keep up the effort… it’s getting very draining, tiring, and discouraging now that I’m down to chiseling off the weight one or two pounds at a time. I’m in the long haul now. Who knows how long it will last?

Things I have learned:
~ It's simple. Calories in vs. calories out. That's all. For now, anyway.
~ Music, while it may not make the exercise go faster or easier, does make it go better.
~ You need not cut ice cream out entirely. Slim A Bear ice cream sandwiches are delicious, and only 100 calories.
~ Your shoes are INCREDIBLY important when you exercise on a regular basis. They HAVE TO BE in good shape for you to get in good shape.
~ The Biggest Loser does not help motivate me at all.
~ Support is everywhere. The most important place you will find it is inside yourself.
~ Hydrate.
~ Don't be stupid about calories. If you don't give your body enough fuel, it will mutiny on you.
~ It's not about cutting out everything. It's about moderation and being conscious of what you're sticking into your face.
~ If you don't add variety to your exercise routine, you will start to hate it.
~ Patience is a virtue - one of the biggest, especially when giving it to yourself.
~ Weight loss is a selfish process.
~ You will never see your own weight loss as much as other people do.
~ Sushi is great exercise food. Protein + carbs = raw energy. Eat about 45 minutes before exercising and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with your workout.
~ When I think about how far I still have to go and get discouraged, it helps if I think about how far I’ve come.
~ Just because you’ve lost 30 pounds does not mean that things will magically fit you now. However, more things will fit you than before, and that’s encouraging.
~ Exercising might suck, but when it’s over there’s a good feeling of accomplishment. I always feel better after exercising, if for no other reason than the fact that I’ve proven that I can continue to make myself do this.
~ No one has the same weight loss experience. Take everything you can find into consideration, review it, and reject or approve it as you need to. Your weight loss is your own. Use every tool you can find to help you achieve your goal.
~ Time is going to pass regardless of what we do. A year from now, we can be a year older and just as unhealthy, or a year older and a year healthier. If it's going to happen regardless, and we're all along for the ride, why not do something productive while on the bus?
~ If I lose everything else, I still have myself and my body, and I want it to be around and in as good of working order as possible for as long as possible.

That’s all for now. Take care, guys!
Becky

Weight loss

I know I said I wasn’t going to go on and on about my weight loss efforts, but I just wanted to post an update. If this is boring to you, feel free to skip… This entry is entirely weight loss related.

I set a goal last week to only weigh myself once a week for the next six weeks, on Mondays. I did this because I was making myself crazy, getting on the scale two or three times a day, obsessing about how much I’d lost or if the numbers had fluctuated upward (as they are wont to do with anyone, given the time of day, how much water you’ve ingested, and the random alignments of the planets). So I restricted myself. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I managed to resist the temptation to step on the scale all week last week. And I was rewarded when I got on the scale and found that I had lost another two pounds! Finally – I had been stalled for about a week and a half, maybe longer. I was starting to get worried!

Now I have officially lost exactly thirty pounds. This was my first goal – thirty pounds, and I said I was going to sign up for a martial arts class. Since I don’t feel like my physiology has changed all that much and I am still extremely overweight, I have decided to extend that to fifty pounds. I need to figure out what martial arts class I want to take, anyway. Also, I am worried about cutting a night out of my exercise routine. I know that martial arts will still give me a workout, but I am not sure if it will get my heart rate up and running for the 45 minutes that I try to get it to do every day to burn fat the way I want to. I might start looking around at gyms soon, too. I am doing all right at the fitness center at our apartment complex, but soon I am going to want a change. Walking is really starting to get old. And when something gets old and boring, it's that much harder to do all the time. If I'm at a gym I'll have access to a lot of different workout equipment, plus a pool that's made for swimming laps in. Also, if I can invest in a personal trainer for a few sessions, I’m sure that I’ll get some good advice about the direction I should be going in with weights and exercise. Right now I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants…

Thirty pounds – the number is not even real to me. I don’t feel a great sense of accomplishment. In fact I feel pretty much the same – people are telling me that they can tell that I have lost weight, but I can’t see it when I look in the mirror. I feel almost exactly the same. I wonder if that is going to stick with me forever? God, I hope not. I’m so done with looking in the mirror and hating what I see.

If I can just stick with how this is going, I could be at the weight I want to be by the first of April, next year. Actually if I can continually lose two pounds a week, I’ll be at the weight I want to be at by St. Patrick’s Day 2008 – almost one year exactly from the day I started this weight loss endeavor (I started March 20th). There’s part of me that still doesn’t believe I can do this – and now I’m questioning not so much my reserve and dedication and determination as I am my own physiology. I’m worried that I’ll hit a proverbial metabolic brick wall and not be able to progress past it. Like last week and the week before – doing everything right, but still not losing at all. Ah well, I guess I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it, right? I’m not going to allow myself to worry about it until I have stalled out and not lost anything for an entire month. (Now if I can actually do that remains to be seen, but I’ll do my best.)

I’ve started losing a little of my motivation – I’ve realized that I’m into the long haul now and the next eight months or so just stretch out in front of me endlessly. I know that I can do this, I know that I can make myself exercise and eat right, I’m just worried that I’m going to get frustrated with how long this is taking and get even more discouraged. I REFUSE to give up though. Even if it takes me ten years I will be at least close to the weight I want to be, dammit. This was easy when I was dropping between six and ten pounds a WEEK – not kidding – but I know that’s not healthy for me, and it’s much better for my body that my weight loss has slowed down considerably. I need to figure out how I can make myself take this one week at a time, instead of looking at all of it at once. I guess I’ve just always been short on patience when it comes to myself – I want instant results, you know? I’ve always been an instant gratification kind of person. Of course when I think about how long I have been overweight (20+ years!), 12 months can almost be counted as, if not instant, rapid gratification, right?

Next, I want to buy a bike.

~Becky

Happy Monday!

What a beautiful day it is here in Indianapolis… sunny, high of 82 degrees, and my boss is out of the office for the next three days… ahhhhh. Is there anything better than having free reign in your office? When the cat’s away… heh heh heh… The thing is, we still get our work done just as we would if she were here… it’s just totally relaxed, we do what we want while getting our work done, and we’re not worried about someone breathing down our necks about every tiny thing that comes into her mind… anyway, I’m gonna enjoy the next couple of days.

I had a good weekend. Friday night we had sushi – one of my favorites. Our local place is called Asaka, and it’s a little hole in the wall place with about ten tables and a sushi bar. They have some of the best sushi I’ve ever had… I got most of my favorites on Friday: tempura asparagus roll, tuna roll, maguro tuna and super white tuna nigiri, and gyoza. TASTY!! Then we drove around for a long time, talking… we ended up at Talbott for about twenty minutes… then we headed home. Saturday we were relatively productive until about three, then we napped like cats in the sunshine and woke up about four hours later, LOL! I don’t feel too guilty about it as we have both been sleeping like shit and we needed the rest. Sunday we packed a picnic and went to Eagle Creek park for the afternoon. It was great – we had a lot of good stuff in our picnic basket (hummus and pita chips, bruschetta, fresh berries, sandwiches on ciabatta bread), it was a beautiful day, and we found a great little patch of shade in the park where we could sit and rest and have our lunch. Nice!

Ten days until Shane comes to visit… I’m like a little kid, I’m so excited. We have all this stuff planned… movies, a trip to Chicago and the Art Institute, lots of great restaurants, an RPG… we’re gonna have such a great time. I can’t WAIT!! Although we still do have some cleaning to do before we can have a guest for six days, LOL… nothing major, just straightening up and vacuuming, etc. I’m just bouncing in my chair, I can’t wait for his visit. It’s gonna be great!

I need to put up a new pic of Max so you guys can see how he’s grown… he’s getting SO BIG! And he’s still crazy, but sweet. I love him to death. I can’t wait for our friends from Greenville (coming up to visit in August) to meet him. They’re bringing their new baby, and I can’t wait to meet him either! I love having things like that to look forward to… visits from friends, movies, the state fair (in August), whatever… it helps the long days go by faster when I can say, “only this many more days until (insert event here)”. Helps me not to be so bored. Ya know?

Anyway, hope everyone’s doing well. Happy Monday!

~Becky

Friday's Feast # 143

Appetizer: Tell about a time when you had to be brave.
When my grandmother passed away, I went into the hospital room with my sister, aunt and uncle and stayed while they turned off the machines. I held her hand, we sang her favorite hymns, and read some of her favorite passages from the Bible. It was one of the scariest, hardest things I've ever done... but I made it through, and I'm glad I was there.

Soup: Which upcoming movie are you excited about seeing?
Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World's End. It's gonna be awesome! An extra added bonus is that my best friend from college, Shane, is coming up from SC to visit on that weekend and we all get to go see it together!

Salad: Name an item you try to always have on hand.
I never go anywhere without my athsma rescue inhaler.

Main Course: Imagine the most relaxing room you can think of. Now describe it!
A combination bedroom with an office in a loft above the bedroom. Lots of light, windows from floor to ceiling with hardwood floors and thin sheers over the windows. A huge bed with fluffy bedclothes (down comforter, mattress pad, etc) and egyptian cotton sheets. A ceiling fan stirring slightly. And a cat sleeping somewhere in a pool of warm yellow sunshine. Beautiful!

Dessert: On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being highest), how spiritual or religious are you?
Probably a 4 or a 5.

Been a while...

Been a while since I posted so I thought I’d give an update. Not much going on here, as usual. Sedate and boring. I don’t know which is worse… a boring life or an eventful one… probably the boring one. However I do remember a particular Chinese curse that says “May you live in interesting times”. Ha!

Soooo… what’s been going on? Our friends in Greenville had their baby last week. He’s incredibly adorable. I’ve seen a couple of pictures and he looks as cute as his mom and as cantankerous as his dad. Hee! I can’t wait to meet him in person. We talked to his mom yesterday and she sounded happy, but tired. I guess that’s the way most new parents sound, though, LOL.

I’ve stalled on the weight loss – I’ve been stuck at the same place for about a week and a half now. I’m not too worried about it though, because I have incorporated strength training into my workout, and I have been building muscle which weighs three times as much as fat. I haven’t gained anything, so I’m not gonna obsess about it. For a while there I was weighing myself like two or three times a day, and making myself insane, so I made myself stop and I have now adopted a goal of only weighing once a week, on Mondays. It’s harder than I thought it would be to keep myself off the scale, but I’m managing. I have gained another hole on my belt, and this weekend I found that I have lost a size in my jeans… maybe two! We went to Old Navy and I bought a shirt… that is an XL!! I can’t remember the last XL I owned… maybe I was in high school? I have no idea… but it was a LONG time ago!

We went to see Spider-Man 3 last weekend. It was good… I’m a freak about comic book movies, so I’m entertained easily, and Spider-Man is near the top of my list when it comes to movies like that. I thought it was well done. There were some things I would have changed… (Topher Grace as Venom? He’s about as scary as a fluffy Persian kitten) but all in all, I thought they did a good job. I’ll definitely buy it; we own the other two so I’ll want to complete my collection. And, I’ll probably watch it a few times too. ;-)

My friend Shane is coming to visit in two weeks, and I’m so excited about it that I can hardly sit still. He’s going to be here for six days… I’m actually having kind of a real vacation with him. We’re going to go to Chicago for a couple of days while he’s here and we’re going to take him to the Art Institute. We’re also going to go see Pirates of the Caribbean while he’s here (he’s a Pirates freak like we are). It’s going to be so much fun. Yippeee!!

OK, I better get back to work. So much for updating… take care all!

~Becky