You Gain Some, You Lose Some

Yet another example of Murphy's Law

2008-06-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've been so, So, SO good this week. I journaled every day (well, except yesterday), got plenty of exercise, have been drinking my water....

.....and today I find out I'm pregnant.

Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about it (please let this one stick!), but I am a teensy-weensy bit sad that I'll have to stop WW now that I've just started up again.

I'm not giving everything up! I'm still going to track and count points, but no more meetings for me.....for a while.

Also, beware of future posts on very strange bodily happenings.....

Making it!

2008-06-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I made my goal, which was to have an On-Program day. Today, I have the same goal and, so far, am making it. I will have the same goal tomorrow, which will be more difficult, since I won't be at work (this hell-hole is at least good for one thing!)

As long as I stay out of the kitchen, I should do okay. Luckily, the upstairs of our house is a total mess, so it's not like I won't have anything to keep me OUT of the kitchen! And I am planning to go swimming tomorrow morning. Actually, I've been planning to swim for months, but have never actually gotten there--but tomorrow shall be the day! I know swimming is not the best exercise for weight loss, but it's something different, and that's what I need right now.

Perhaps, my husband and I will do something active this weekend. Truly, we both could use it--him probably more than me. Rarely does he get any exercise if I'm not there with him and, well, he has no clue about portion control. He *thinks* he knows all about weight loss but he is, sadly, clueless. This is a man who once made himself a dinner of croutons and dried apricots and thought it was "healthy." (He then spent the remainder of the evening in the bathroom....)

Who knows, maybe things will rub off on him. One can only hope!

I'm back....

2008-06-18T13:14:00.001-07:00

....back from Arizona and back into meetings.

First off, Arizona. Not horrible, but not great. My mother, however, was on good behavior, so I can't complain too much. Apparently, though, I'm not the only one who has been having issues. I purchased two shirts for my father from Eddie Bauer, both size Tall XL, for Father's Day. He was quite appreciative since, ahem, he has outgrown all his other good shirts!

Anyway, I made the decision to go back to meetings now instead of waiting until after our road trip. I was looking at the calendar and realized that I would only miss one meeting due to vacation since I can attend one meeting while we are in Minnesota. Phew!

I decided NOT to go back to the big WW center one town over. This is due only to gas/distance/time. Instead, I decided to go to a meeting in the basement of a church in my own town. It works out quite well since my husband goes to Yoga on Tuesday nights, so I can drop him off, go to the meeting and pick him up. (Yes, I know some of you are saying that I could go to yoga with him. I've tried it...I don't think I'm a yoga person.)

I really like this leader, so that is good, and the meeting was well attended. Then I realized something. Back in 2000-2001, when I was having great success with WW, I was attending meetings in a basement. And this new meeting is a basement! Okay, I'm grasping at straws, but there is at least a possibility that basements bring me great WW mojo!

Oh, and I weighed in at 267.6, so basically back where I started. Well, not quite. Before I was weighing first thing (er, um, second thing!) in the morning and NAKED. This time I weighed in at night and dressed, so that number is not a good comparison.

I've been perfectly OP so far today. My goal is to be OP all day today. I'll set a new goal tomorrow.

Great article!

2008-06-12T13:40:00.001-07:00

Found this today, thought it was quite interesting!

One gold star!

2008-06-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I earned one for yesterday! I managed to track everything AND get 6 glasses of water in (I know it shouldbe more than that, but let me get the 6 down first!) Let's see if I can keep it up for today.

I am nervous about my trip to Arizona and I have a bad track record with the nerves. They usually push me in the directions of throwing everything to the wind instead of being extra-viligent. Staying OP around my parents is a nightmare for three reasons. One is all the history--I love my parents and they are certainly good parents in most respects. However, parts of my childhood were very, very hard. Secondly, the comments. I still get them from my mother. She says she's trying to help and no matter how much I tell her that she is getting the opposite effect, does she stop. Finally, my mother does not do OP food. Yes, I've tried being in charge of the food--that doesn't work either. My mother has Shongren's sydrome (I think I spelled that right!), and one of the symptoms is extreme dry mouth. My mother's way of handling this is to drown everything in oil, butter or cream. Fine, don't eat that stuff, you say! Oh, but it's sneaky. The last time we were down there, I made noodles--unbeknownst to me (until after I'd eaten it, that is) my mother had added two sticks of butter to it. When I try to explain that doing things like this is hardly helpful and it would have been nice if she had waited until others had dished up before she started "lubing it up", she shoots back with "You just don't know how hard it is when you can't even swallow." So, there it is.

I won't be updating this blog while I'm there--but I probably will update my main blog. I'll check in again on Tuesday--I'm praying I can handle this weekend!

Glimpses at the past

2008-06-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, my niece asked me if I had any old pictures of her and her dad I could send in digital form to her so that she could make a Father's Day gift for him. As luck would have it, I had a gallon-size ziplock bag full of pictures I was going to give her. So, to the scanner I went.

I've been looking through the pictures and I realized something. I was never a skinny kid, not even a thin one, but I wasn't as grossly obese as I thought (or as I was told!). I also realized that my body image is zippo.

I don't think I can be healthy until I start to think healthy. Unfortunately, changing your state of mind takes time (and a weekend with my parents will NOT help the situation). But, at least I've realized what is going on. That's something....

I'm SOOO corny!

2008-06-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have to result to such things as this to keep myself motivated:

Gold Stars

I had some time to kill after my final last night and when I would pick up my husband at his yoga class (which I will soon have to start attending as well....), so I stopped by Craft Warehouse and bought a couple of packets of gold stars. For every "good" day, I get a gold star in my day planner. Of course, what is "good"? I'll probably alter the definition as I go along, but right now it is journaling and drinking all my water.

On other news, I did something to my ankle/calf again, so working out is a bit more challenging. I'm doing a rest day today, but I should do something tomorrow. I'm flying to Tucson for a long weekend with my parents on Friday, which means swimming on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and possibly Monday. I have been saying lately that I was going to take up swimming as exercise (as opposed to swimming for fun), but I just haven't done it yet. This will at least be a good start to that.

Another thing I learned, no matter how much I love soup in a breadbowl, I definitely should NOT eat it. Not only isn't it not worth the points, it can do a doozy on your digestive track. Yikes!

Funny how that happens...

2008-06-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

If I follow the plan, exercise, drink water, keep up on the WW boards and post here, I lose weight. If I don't, then I don't.

I really should know better than to take a week "off". I've been doing this long enough to know that there are no vacations! Ugh! Oh well, I only gained 1.5 (and I've switched my WI days to Tuesday to help keep me on track during the weekends) and I'm back on the program. Lesson learned. Again.

I did make a decision, though. My husband and I are going to be gone quite a bit until the end of July. After that, if I'm not pregnant, I'm going back to meetings. Obviously, I need as much help as I can get.

Back at square one again....

Positivity

2008-05-27T12:50:00.001-07:00

I'm trying (very, Very, VERY hard!) to be a more positive person at work. As I said in an earlier post, my job is bringing out the worst in me and, frankly, I don't like myself while I'm here. The good news is that I've managed to stay fairly positive today. The better news is that I've been doing well with the food. Obviously, the two go hand in hand.

I did see my trainer today, which is always good for a good tushy-kicking. It was pretty unbearable when I started back with her after the miscarriage and now it's, well, not quite as unbearable. I pay her to challenge me, so I guess I shouldn't complain! I can definitely see and feel my muscles becoming more toned, but I wish it would show up on the scale!

Grr! I hate LiveJournal

2008-05-26T10:55:00.001-07:00

Complete and utter nightmare. So, I moved the blog over here.

I'm trying to keep this relatively private. I have a "public" blog (or at least as public as I'm willing to get) over here. But this one will be reserved for weightloss and TTC.

In other news...I snuck a peak at the scale and I'm at 262.0. My last weigh in may have been a fluke, but I'm certainly not arguing!

Originally Posted May 24, 2008

2008-05-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have not been staying on program lately. Frankly, I've been obsessed with peeing on sticks (all negatives...bah!) and letting everything else go. I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm, again, at an all-time high of 267.5.

I have GOT to get this under control! I'm hoping that my husband, right now, is getting out of ben and such so we can go to the gym. I've been bad about that as well (other than my personal training appointments, which I've been dreading.

I've been trying to figure out what is going on. Once upon a time, I was quite a success on on WW, what happened? Well, here's what I've come up with:
1 - Way back when, I actually followed the program. Ha ha!
2 - Currently, I'm in a very toxic job. I hate it and, frankly, I hate myself while I'm there. I am a short-timer at this point. I'm only working part time and will quit as of 9/11 to start going to school and finish my prereqs for a masters program. But, until then, I've got to learn to deal.
3 - I'm married. I love my husband and I love marriage, but it does present some weight loss challenges that I need to figure out how to handle.
4 - The whole pregnancy thing. So, there are my 4 biggies. Four isn't such a bad number? I think if I just follow these, I should have some success.

Also, here is a "before" picture of me. I hope to post better pics in the future.

Originally Posted May 13, 2008

2008-05-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

So, I met with my trainer today to go through the monthly battery of tests. The scale is first and, since last month, I'm up 2 pounds. Of course, I temper this with the fact that I'm actually down 2 pounds from last week! Then, we get the calipers. Shocker! I was substantially down on every measurement! I won't know what my body fat percentage is until my trainer has the chance has the chance to calculate it but it's got to be a good improvement! Then the cardio and strength tests and, again, an improvement on them all. Woo-hoo!

I just came across this article on CNN.COM. As much as I love my mother, I have to admit that she was anything but a positive self-esteem model for me. Not only was on I a diet from the time I was born (practically) until, well, now, but my mother spent a great deal of time bemoaning the fact that she was "so fat" and that she couldn't lose weight. I realize that I will have a battle when I have my own daughters not to fall into this trap.

Originally Posted May 6, 2008

2008-05-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

My life has been a saga of gaining and losing...unfortunately, more gaining that losing! I was born big (10lbs, 5.5 oz!) and my mother pretty much put me on a diet right away. You know the wisdom that you shouldn't put kids on diets so that they won't develop complexes? Well, I'm the cautionary tale behind it. Weight and appearance is VERY important to my mother--which is strange since from the time I was born until recently, she was quite overweight. In fact, her weight loss was not due to any healthy habits or dieting--no, she had a very, very bad case of colitis. While that must have just been horrible, it does appear to be quite a diet.

Oh, and happiness does not make you thin. Since I met my husband (which was October 2006--we were married in September 2007), I've gained almost 40 pounds. And I was overweight when we met! Anyhow, here I am--I tipped the scales at 260 this morning. Beautiful.

On the other side of things, we are trying to conceive. I know the wisdom is to lose weight first, but I'm 34 and really don't want to wait! We did get pregnant sort of by surprise in January, but miscarried in March (the doctor swears that it had nothing to do with my weight). So, we're just starting the whole TTC thing now.

I started Weight Watchers in August 2000 and lost 45 pounds right off the bat. Then I gained that back plus 22 pounds, putting me to that wonderful number I saw on the scale this morning. Obviously, I quit WW when I got pregnant and after the miscarriage, I decided to give calories in/calories out a try on SparkPeople. That worked a little bit...I think I'm going to have to alternate between calories and points to avoid burnout. This morning I signed up for WW online.

This is the first time I've done that, so let's see how it goes!