Thanks Sue!!!!!
All in all it was a pretty lazy day.
I got up early to get to the lab and had some blood drawn (this always brings back memories, doesn't it?) for some more tests the doc ordered. He wanted another, more specific glucose test (Glycohemoglobin) run as well as a lipid panel, he forgot that one in December.

I got home before Steve did and he fell asleep as soon as he made contact with the couch. He had a long 48 hour shift. I didn't mind, gave me the chance to do the same. I tried for 2 1/2 hours, but after numerous trucks driving by our house (neighbor also has some remodeling projects going on) and the phone ringing of the hook (Family calling to say Happy Birthday) I gave up. I was a bit cranky, but felt better after Steve and I came back from a walk around the mountain.

I have been doing it consistantly this past month and I must say I can't get sick of it. There is always something new to see. I love watching the deers watching us:) Wonder what's going on in their heads???

Still waiting to see a mountain lion or bobcat. My neighbors see them all the time, I still haven't. I should start bringing my camera, but darn that thing is so big, but dang, I would love to catch one of them kitties on film. That would be so cool.

We celebrated our birthdays together with a King Crab Dinner. Nice and easy, no cooking , just a baked potatoe and a salad and some wine. Oh boy was I tipsy or what, I barely made it to 9 pm and I had to call it a night. I slept for almost 12 hours, minus the bathroom trips (darn wine, darn water).

Today was right back to normal life. DH getting out the tools and putting up more drywall. Tomorrow we'll be working on the garage. Those sheets are twice as heavy as the ones we carried upstairs. I hope I get tired soon, because I know he will get up and wants to start early.

Mr Sandman, where are you????????

one more thing!

I have no intention of letting my birthday turn into a binge fest. I will allow myself to gorge on dinner, king crab and maybe? steak. I am really looking forward to it. And after researching the nutro lables I am happy to see it's not that bad. The butter and french bread are the kickers. Smart Balance it is as well as a huge salad, not sure about the bread, it's so hard to resist and if it's in the house I may give in. Arrghh, just thinking about it makes me wanna have some.

As for the day, I am planning on sticking with the usual. I also had to call DH at work and tell him not to bring me a caffe latte and pastry back in the morning. I suspected that he was going to (he likes to treat me sometimes when he comes home from a 48 hour shift) and I was right. I think he was a bit disappointed, because this would have been the only thing he was able to give me this year (we decided no presents this year for obvious reasons).

But he agrees we can celebrate the day in other ways than with food. Maybe he'll join me for a walk, that would be really nice.

I feel like I am forgetting something .......... oh well, bye for now?!!!?

More Sunday News & Confession time;~)

Just got finished showing my neighbor the way around the message board and fitday. She really would like to lose some weight, so I explained her what I have been doing as well as gave her the tools I use on the internet, including ivillage for support. I told her not to worry too much about everything and just start journaling the food she eats for about a week. After that we could determine what she could do to make some changes. I hope she isn't to overwhelmed. I know jumping the "journaling hurdle" can be a big obstacle. But I believe seeing it all in "black&white" gives you a reality check on how good/bad one really does.
I also went for a walk with her this morning, it's always a joy walking with her. Time just flies when you are in good company:)
on to something else: I am really itching to go for a little run. If I do I should go before it gets dark. Logging off ....... later girls!

edited: just got back from 30min jog/16min walk. Yippie, 30 minutes in one stretch. I am thinking about signing up for a couple of 5k/10k runs this year. Maybe this will keep me motivated. But I still have a long way to go before I would be back in running shape again. I think the last time I ran a 10k was in '99 or spring 2000, somewhere around that time. Maybe I'll try and find some websites with upcoming running events in the area.

Ok, confession time. Here is what I over did it with last night!

Splitting the cake box is certainly a good idea and it works well, if you get rid of everything left over. I threw out the leftover frosted cake (wasn't too hard since I don't really like the frosting crap).

However, I kept the other 1/2 the baked plain yellow cake. I think "someone" must have already tabbed into my subconscious sending me messages to keep it. I mean why else would I throw one out and leave the other, right?

I am sure it was a set up, for a simple reason. Because this was the item in question, that caused me blowing it last night. All day I was thinking about how good some cherries (from a glass, and those would have been fine, by themselves) and fresh whipped cream would taste on that lonely small 8x8 inch square piece of cake. I am not kidding; I was tortured visually by that image, I had no power to throw it out, I told myself several times to do it, but I just couldn’t. I guess I fooled myself into thinking that I was strong enough and would not give in. Sometimes I think I must have multiple personalities, the way I argue within myself, it’s crazy.

Well, I ate ½ of that cake plus a jar of cherries and a cup of whipped cream; and it was good, so good that I overdid it and have no desire to do it again for a while (I hope)

Here you have it. Splitting the cake is great, but you also need to figure out what to do with the rest. In my case, I had originally planned to use it all for DH’s cake.

Now that I know what can and will happen if the circumstances are right, I won’t even bake the other half, just throw the unbaked part out ASAP.

Yet another lesson learned during the weight loss venture of mine.

And yes, I plan on having a great birthday tomorrow, even if I don't reach my unrealistic goal. I know I was aiming a bit too high to begin with.

It's a new day!

I saddled back up this morning and back on the horse, I am! I had no doubt that I would do that. In this latest attempt to loose weight, I have taken on such a different attitude about everything. All the other times I never picked myself back up, instead I used the “oh poor me, I blew it excuse”, so I would not have to continue. Ok, to be fair I think, at that time I just felt defeat, being a failure. My perfectionisms did not allow for such a behavior. I had rather shifted gears and focused on something that was more easily to obtain, as keeping a perfect house was one thing, some called me the next “Martha Stewart”J.
Well, when you look at my house now, it is not so perfect anymore. Granted going through a home remodel and having three big dogs makes it more difficult to be perfect.
--> -->
So, over the last 1 ½ years I learned a big lesson; to let go and relax and be more forgiving with myself. Sometimes I think I am too much of that now. It seems I do not get anything done anymore. Do not get me wrong, it is not that bad, I can still get this house in “visitor shape” within 15 minutes if I have to. The trick is to have a place for everything; it is easy to put things back when ya know where they are going. As for the dust, I have the two perfect excuses, everybody has dust problems up here, and when you going through construction people are more willing to overlook that. I take full advantage of it, no more dusting every day; I dust every week and on a good month I only get it done twiceJJ.
--> -->
Right now, I would rather focus on my weight loss than keeping the perfect house. I have done this long enough; it is time to get the old me back. Just the body, not the lack of experiences I had then.
I like who I am now, but having the “perfect body” would be a nice little bonus to complete this package.J

Sucky, suck, suck day!!

I feel like blahhhhh! It’s only 4:45pm and I am back in my PJs already. I have a major headache and all I want to do is sleep.

But before I put on the PJ’s I made myself go down to the mailbox and ended up with a total of 30 minutes walking. I certainly did not push it too much. At least I don’t think about food right now. Hope this will hold for a while. I really don’t want to go overboard, I am at 1123 cals right now and I am hoping to make a wise choice when dinner time comes around.

Why am I so tired? This sucks!

Oh and I tried to put/copy an update of the past 10 or so days, but its wacking out on me; html this or that or whatever it is.
I am in no mood whatsoever to figure this out, juts go to the link I posted earlier if ya want.

Where is the aleve??

edited to update!
As for the rest of my day. I BLEW IT BIG TIME. So big I am about to blow. I am close to 4000 Calories today (most in the last hour). And I am not feeling too well either, I had wayyyyyy too much (this was definately the PMS taking over). I am sure this won't happen again any time soon. Ya know when get sick from eating someting you can't stand the sight of it for a long time.
I'll be back in the race again tomorrow! Hopefully I'll get a good night sleep, so I'll have enough engery to make up for today's faux pas.

Just Great!!

What do ya know, the post is there, but I wanted to edit all the food out. Who wants to read what I eat on this blog?:)
Shoot!! Maybe I get it fixed somehow. Can you say frustrating??

Missing Post??!!??? Tech problems!

I forgot I never got the last post from Januar 17th up and running. Let's see if I can fix the problem.

Have some catching up to do and it would be great if things work properly.

if this doesn't work, most of it is posted on Fitday and/or I-village.

http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-fbilose&msg=287.1&ctx=0

Copy from food journal!

Oye, $825 worth of plumbing problems have been taking care of. It could have been worse, damaged septic or leach field (we are talking 10k and up), but still not the kind of stress I need right now in my life.

Plumbing problems!

and we are not talking about mine:)

WHAT a day this has been!
I got absolutely nothing accomplished in terms of eating, drinking, exercising.

At about 3pm I noticed a flood in the guest bath downstairs. WTF!! All I need is a plumbing problem. I have one of my own, ya knowJJ

To make a long story short, the plumber came out he snaked the pipes every which way possible, and the end result is nothing, nada, siltch!!

I cannot run any water until they have it fixed, hopefully tomorrow afternoon.
HELLO, woman on gazillion gallons of water, what is she to do? I guess I have to pee in a bucket (haven’t done that since I was a kid on the camp grounds, just great.)

We are already $350 into it with having anything fixed whatsoever.
We have a septic system and the plumber thinks it’s either a broken pipe (please NO!) or the tank is full (which is unlikely since we have only been here for 1 ½ years. It just shouldn’t be. But it could be explained the plumber if we have ground water getting into it, mmh once again very unlikely, but not impossible.

Even if that’s the case, GREAT, empty the darn thing and let’s go on with the day.
If it’s a broken pipe we are talking major $$$$$. That’s all we need right now, with all the $$ we have spend so far on the addition.

I am hoping for the septic guys to confirm a full tank.

So, having no water to clean up myself (you can imagine what I looked like a few hours into it, being exposed to sewage water YIKES!! Ok, I was lucky, there was only water from the washing machine coming back up, but still …..)

Where was I? So me being a mess, I called my neighbor asking if I could wash my hands and clean up a little and she did me one better, she offered me to use the shower. THANK YOU!!
And she asked if I had dinner yet, which I didn’t. I accepted her generous offer to heat up some pot roast, and it was yummy. THANK YOU, again!!

I have no idea how many calories I consumed, but I am sure, including the small piece of cake I was still within my “budget”. If not, OH WELL!! I’ll find out later.

I haven’t had any water and aren’t going to until the plumbing is fixed; at least not the remainder of the night.

What a day!!

I am back!!

January 15th!! WEIGH IN DAY!!!

I can’t believe it!! First my scale showed 201. Well, that’s not possible, that would have been a 13 lbs loss in 2 weeks, no way that could be right. And it wasn’t. I stepped on the scale again, ERROR. Oh man that is torture, what if it shows nothing?
I stepped on it again 203.5 lbs and agin and again and again, I did it 10x just to make sure. It showed once out of ten 203 lbs. Well, I’ll take the extra ½ pound and be very happy!!
Starting weight: 213lbs (Jan. 1st)
209 lbs (Jan. 8th)
Current weight: 203.5 lbs
Goal: 165 lbs by the end of the year.
-->--> -->
I lost 5 ½ pounds this past week and a Total of 9 ½ pounds!
That was so very unexpected. I also know not to expect too much next week. It will slow down if not stall at some point.
But for now, I am TAKING IT!!!! Yeah!!

Here are some highlights of what's been going on in the past few days:
or go to my journal on i-village to get all the details, but who has time??:)(I went back to get support during the battle of the buldge)
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-fbilose&msg=287.1&x=y

Jan.7th:
If I could cut out the sweets I would cut down on 500-600 calories a day. WOW that's a lot. Especially since I mostly consume them in the later pm hours.
I am out of the Lindt truffles. DH is out of White Oreos, I also have no more licorice. My supplies are dwindeling down. I haven't bought icecream in almost 3 weeks and I may not again for a while.


January 8th:
Wow, I lost 4 pounds.
I didn't expect that at all. I was hoping for one. Especially with all the food I had this past week. I guess whatever I have been doing is working. I am certainly motivated to continue.
But FOUR POUNDS I am still blown away by that. It, can't be all water weight, can it?
Not with all the food I had and all the water I drank. But who cares!!
I lost FOUR pounds!!
and I am not hoping for the same next Monday! I take anything, but a gain!

January 9th
Just got back from my walk. I am so glad I went. I had that little monster sitting on my shoulder telling me I was too tired and maybe I should rest instead. Ha, I won, I went anyways, for about 70 minutes.

January 10th
Squeezing all this water into 1/2 a day is torture. Not so much the drinking, but the p&&ing part of it. Can't go anywhere unless I know for sure there is a bathroom near by.
Got to go:) Oye!! hope this will pass soon.
Later:I went for 60 minutes and it was 3.2 miles. I took the car afterwards to messure the distance

January 11th
Got up much earlier than usual today. And went to bed way late. So I am dragging a$$. Not very motivated to go walking. I don't like being tired. But the day isn't over yet. I'll get myself ready and run some errands. This may just motivate me enough to keep going, even if it may just be down to the mailbox.
Later:I think today was not so good of a day in general. I have been so tired. I can't function on 4 hours sleep.
I didn't walk today. I will have to make up for it on Sunday! I don't like making up, I like being ahead. Get it out of the way and be done with it, kwim?

Jan. 12 th:
Didn't sleep much, again. That really messes with my motivation.Once again I ended up not walking. There was so much going on around here all day long I didn't even get the chance to take a little snooze. Just 20 minutes would have done the trick to get me up and running somewhat normally again.Plus we went to have dinner at a friends's house. Of course I didn't know what they were cooking, so I kind of saved my calories for that.Had 3 bananas and 1 cup of strawberries throughout the day. Which was fine, even though I know not the best thing to do.

And how about this? They made chicken cordon bleu for dinner. They are themselves on the "Atkins". So only protein and some veggies for them and they made some rice for us and their daughter.

I think I did good eyeballing the amounts. I pretty much checked this day off as calories all being used up.

I am not sure if I will get to workout tomorrow. DH and I will have to carry 53 sheets of drywall upstairs and install however much we can get up. I might have to count that as my exercise. Not feeling to good about losing another potential workout day.

Jan. 13th:
Getting a really late start today. Didn't get out of bed until 11 am. didn't get to bed til 3am though. I had to make up for some I didn't have the 2 previous nights.
I am so not looking forward to slepping 53 sheets of drywall upstairs. And installing it to the ceiling. But there is no way around it. Hubby can't do this one on his own.

I am kinda worried about Mo. weigh in. Worried that I didn't lose any more or gained some back, because of the lack of exercise the last couple of days. Need to keep positive thoughts and reminding myself that I am not just sitting on my a$$ all day and eating bon bons. More later:

Later: Got myself up and decided to walk down to the mailbox (had to do at least what I promised myself to do).
Once I was down the hill I decided to do a little jogging. I figured let's see how am I doing? It's been forever, I used to run quiet a bit (as in 50 lbs ago)

I am pleased, I managed to jog without stopping for 11 minutes total. Not too bad, if I may say so, especially with the hills (0.8 miles, not a lot, but I DID IT:))

I ended up walking /jogging for a total of 30 minutes and I feel good about it. Almost as if I made up a little for slacking off the last 2 days.

January 14th
Waiting to get the HO2 out of my system, so I can go for my walk (maybe jog).
Later: WELL, I didn't go for a walk or jog!! BUT, I did 50 flights of stairs in my house, plus walking across part of the upstairs (40 feet back and forth) each time I got up there. It took me 22 minutes. My 3 dogs joined me. It was a little crowed, but I apprecciated the company. It certainly didn't get as boring as I thought it would. Ya know doing the same ol' thing over and over again isn't so motivating to start with.
"Thank you boys"!! They are all sleeping now. Even doggies get excausted:)
I worked up a good amount of sweat and a solid fat burning heartbeat. Great leg workout!! Is my butt going to hurt in the morning??

(BTW: my a$$ and legs are killing me:)

Just one more step!!

Well, I missed it, literally!
Missed the last step going down the stairs this morning (6am) and fell . Now my ankle, my big toe and my back are hurting. I know I didn't break anything. Oh, yeah this has been the second time within the last week, plus I slipped and feel getting out of the shower just before New Year. A huge part of my left butt cheek was black!! I have never seen anything like that.

Now, I ask myself is someone out there trying to prevent me from losing this extra weight? (or am I plain and simple accident prone??)
Well, too bad!! I am not going to give up. A sprained toe (which hurts a lot when I put weight on it) an acky back and ankle isn't enough to stop me.
I had a broken toes before and sure I wasn't able to run, BUT I put on my Tevas and walked instead.
It may not be as fast and pretty, but I will be walking down that hill today. Someone has to get the mail, right?

It's 1:15pm already and once again I haven't had anything but my coffee. I know this is something I need to work on and it is on my "TO DO LIST".

Later: Just got back from my walk. I ended up doing 40 minutes. Once I got down to the mailbox I decided to keep walking for a while longer. It was painful, but I am not complaining. It could be worse. I am just thankful that I am still able to walk.

later:
almost midnight and I am taking a look at my food tracker. (Needed to add the 5 truffles I just had).
If I could cut out the sweets I would cut down on 500-600 calories a day. WOW that's a lot. Especially since I mostly consume them in the later pm hours.
Well, I am out of the Lindt truffles. DH is out of White Oreos, I also have no more licorice. My supplies are dwindeling down. I haven't bought icecream in almost 3 weeks and I may not again for a while.
Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me! Bring it on, I am ready!! Maybe I'll make it without hurting myself hehe:)

It's cold !!!!

the temperature in our house dropped about 12 degrees over night. I could feel it happening when I woke up a couple times during the night. Having the fireplace for the only sorce of heat is a bit of a pain, but I am glad we have at least that. I got the heat back up to 61 so far, it took about 5 hours to get it this high.

But then I should consider myself lucky, in my neighbor's house it's freezing all the time. But not because they have an insufficent heating system, no it's because he is cheap. So when he was gone for a couple of days this week she told me she turned the thermostat up to 58. OMG that's still freezing!He seems to be a bit of $ pincher and only keeps the heat going in one part of the house (familyroom/ kitchen area). Rather washes the dishes himself than running the dishwasher, stuff like that.

Maybe I should invite her over , my house is currently 62 and climbing!!

(Have been good about walking, went on the same route by myself and the dog this time. Was able to pick up the pace. It took me 65 min compare to 90 when I walk with my neighbor. But either way it's good. And no more walks when it's dark.)

Come Here Putty Cat!!!

NOT!!

I made it home ok! kinda scared the willies out myself this evening.

Ya'll know that I am trying to stick to my promise and move every day a little extra. I ran out of time before we had to leave to go to our monthly luncheon meeting (I officially joined the newcomers this month).
And since we were half way there yet we decided to go to Sam's Club and do some shopping. Last time I went was about 6 month ago and I needed to stock up on a few things. Anyways, we got home after 5:30pm and by the time the hailing stopped and I unloaded most of the groceries it was pitch black out there.

I decided to put on the rain jacket, get a flash light and go down to the mailbox anyways.

Well, half way down I remembered that it's hunting time for the putty cats (aka mountain lions and bob cats). Kinda made me walk a bit faster, if ya know what I mean! I am usually not too scared about stuff like that, but unfortunately this is for real.
Just a few days ago our neighbors saw a mountain lion on a tree not far from the trail they were walking on. Plus some of our neighbors had some chickens and goats fall victim to the hunters in our region. Same thing with those darn rattlers we have around here (remember?), I need to remember they do exist, they really do exist!!

Maybe I should take my doggie with me or better yet maybe I should walk when it's light outside. Yeahh, I think that's what I will do from now on!

Good beginnings!

Two days down the rest of my life to go.......

I managed to stick with it for two days. And I even ended up doing more. Went for long walk with my neighbor yesterday and today. And when ya go for a walk around here, it's all hills.

Not really much going on around here. I am kinda avoiding to think about the next step regarding the adoption. I really enjoyed not having to deal with it over the hoildays. Actually, I don't feel like talking about it right now, either.

Now, look at the time!! I better go now and snuggle with the boys (if I can get a spot on the couch).

I did it!!

I already did it today, once!! I went down the mailbox and dropped off some mail for the mail woman:). Maybe, just maybe I will go again and pick up the mail as well.

I am planning on keeping a record on the website below of my progress. I found it a couple of years ago and it was very helpful in assisting me to monitor my progress. Not sure of I am taking on to much by trying to journal everything, but maybe it will help me to stay focused. Especially now, since I have made it public and everyone can see how much/little I am committed to myself. You know, kinda like this: once you make the announcement there is no turning back, everyone knows and will be watching.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=pixelgraphs

I'd say: I am off to a good start (now how is this for positive??!!)

Resolutions ......

(I started this post yesterday)

…. to have or not to have them? How many of us actually follow through with them? I have never been one to set myself goals at the beginning of the year. I usually like getting a head start, usually start making the changes when I decide it’s time to do so. Why wait until the 1st of the new year to get the benefits from a positive change?

This is how it used to be. Lately I have found myself waiting for the “right day” to start over fresh. So far it hasn’t come, so far I am still stalling on taking the first steps towards getting back to my happy self. The happy self I used to be before we embarked on the journey to have a family (first In Vitro fertilization, now through adoption). I am not saying that the failure to do so is the only reason for my feeling so down, it surely contributes a big part to it though. I am now finding myself in the position where I don’t know for sure anymore how it started. Am I upset because I have gained so much weight or am I fat because I am upset about stuff and therefore don’t care about myself anymore and let myself go. I think it’s the last, but it could be the first, everything seems so connected and it’s hard to figure out where it all initially started. One thing is for sure though. I can not continue on the way I have in the past 1 ½ years

So, what changes am I going to make? I will try to do my best and change the following “misbehavior”. I AM going to increase my daily activity. It will be baby steps at first, like walking down the hill to get the mail instead of getting into the car to do so. I think this will be the one and only promise I make to myself. No sense in coming up with a long list of good intentions, just so I end up not keeping any of them.

Keeping this one promise to myself will be my one and only goal.