TGIF, MF!

Indeed.

I'm glad this week is OVER. I'm glad it's practically 70 degrees outside! I'm glad I'm leaving in a little while to do the kid transfer, and it will still be sunny out. I have to kinda take back what I said about daylight savings time yesterday, but only the part about not liking it. I still hate losing that hour. But I do love that it's still light out at 6:30! I can envision many trips over to the track across the street with the kids when we get home from daycare/work, woohoo! I will definitely have to have meals planned/prepared so we're not trying to battle hunger for an hour after playing at the track, and it's 7:30 or 8:00 and no supper yet.

I had a great counseling appointment, where I summarized this past month of work hellaciousness and how I've improved my eating healthy skills, and how the balance of eating crap/right has shifted to a higher percentage of Eating Right and making good choices. Yeah Xena!!!!

It's hard to remember the positive stuff when the lousy eating or other not-so-healthy choices seem to overshadow everything. Did I tell you that our office vending machine (EVIL handiwork of beezlebub) now features Double-Decker Little Ho Debby oatmeal fake-cream pies?!?! Double DECKER?!?! How do I know this, you may ask? Well, I think that answer is pretty damned obvious. Double Decker, fer crissakes!

Evil.

Anyhoo, I am viewing this spring as my own continued blossoming, and soaking up the sun at every opportunity as suggested by my therapist. Blissful! And only 305 days to go. Happy weekend!

Ahhhhh(choo) - Spring!

I've made a meeting date with myself every day at 12:45 to "Go Outside!", and my calendar pops up the reminder so that I don't forget. It's been absolutely *gorgeous* these past few days - tomorrow it's supposed to reach 70! Woohoo! So I've walked every day this week for 10-25 minutes. So refreshing. This is the way to take care of my emotional/spiritual health too - I love being in nature, and although work is located in an office park type setting, there are plenty of trees and budding flowers to enjoy amidst the asphalt and cars.

I'm getting my typical spring energy flow going, although I hate hate hate daylight savings time and losing that bloody hour this Saturday (technically Sunday, right?). It often takes me weeks or sometimes *months* to recover. My current internal clock is waking me up around 6:30, which is 15 minutes before the alarm. The logical next step is that next week I'll be waking up around 7:30, hahaha. Ha? I think the trick is to force myself to get up for a week straight and my body clock will eventually catch up. We'll see. Getting to 6:00 yoga class next Thursday should be an absolute blast!!!

Spring is also good for my eating/activity levels. My eating drops and my activity goes up, I have more energy and joie de vivre. I have noted that since I lost these 22 pounds, my natural flow of things is, well, more natural, if you know what I mean. I wish this would kick in soon, because I'm still craving sugar (damn coffee!), and our building cafeteria is closing tomorrow so they sent over a big tray of brownies & oatmeal raisin cookies. I hardly even *like* their brownies and oatmeal raisin cookies, yet I am having some of both. And I had a final cup of their butternut bisque for lunch, and noticed their turkey dinner sandwich (sliced chunks of "real" turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce) and HAD to have that, since they're gone for good. Do I see any vegetables or fruit in this picture? I doubt the cranberry sauce is natural, so I can hardly count that as fruit. I guess the butternut would kinda count.

I keep returning to the most likely source of this anxious nibbling/craving, and it's work. I'm toying with the idea of having next June 21 be my last day, or maybe June 20 so that I'm free on the first day of summer in 2007! This would totally depend on where my massage certification/schooling stands by then, and what kind of clientele I have ready to go. Anyway, I calculated the actual number of workdays, not including vacation days but including holidays, and I have 306 more business days to go!!!!!!!!!!! I'm hoping this focus will give me a goal to focus these dadgummed anxieties on and open up opportunities that I may have been closed off to otherwise. Stay tuned!

I'm also hoping that starting school in June will alleviate some of the anxiety. Last night my massage didn't work out due to misunderstanding of the time, so that was a bummer. But I did go and work out instead, and reached my March goal!!! I have done 58 miles since 1/1/06 (elliptical & treadmill), which may not seem like a lot, but I have also been doing yoga, so not always able to up the miles. My reward is a new pair of workout pants. I am a workout clothing ho. My daughter has to physically restrain me when we are in tar-gez or wallyworld near the workout clothes section. I get hepped up on new workout gear. I am a lo-ser!

Despite my questionable eating habits, I am still maintaining at 175, so that's a relief. My work pants are dropping off me today, but the fear of gaining is holding me back from buying smaller sizes. *sigh*

This is so hard

*sigh* It was very difficult to get up this morning, and all I wanted was coffee. Eeeevil coffee, which I am "back on", much to my bf's chagrin. He's been trying very hard to steer me away from it (the 10-minute back & forth on sunday was entertaining)("I want coffee." "No, you don't." "Yes, I do, and I'm going to make some." "Sweetie, you really don't want coffee. Remember how proud you were of yourself for getting off it last month?" "Yes, I know, but I want some, and I'm going to have some." back and forth and back and forth and then: "Well, I'm going to have some anyway - do you want some?" "N---yes." Uh-HUH!!! The truth comes out. Of course, *he's* not the one trying to get off coffee!), the poor dear. I'm fortunate that he is so supportive, in a loving (not nagging) way. I do appreciate it. Maybe some of you can relate to that knowing-yet-not-doing. I can totally nod my head in vigorous agreement with Jonathan's post from yesterday (3/28) over at SDP - "oh, what the heck!". Indeed.

So I went to yoga last night, and the very-nice-teacher let the kids take the class with us. I love to see them trying new things out (we do have a kids yoga tape at home that they've done before, but this class is geared towards adults), and they're such great kids. They did quite well, and I'm incredibly jealous of their flexibility!!! I try not to compare myself to others in the class, but I did kinda notice that I'm pretty flexible too, except for my very tight hamstrings. A massage therapist that I met during my training told me that she used to have her boyfriend walk on her hamstrings to get them to relax. WALK on them! I understand that they are very big muscles, so it takes a lot to get them to stretch out? I don't want to spread false info, but I can certainly relate.

My son decided that srivasana (sp?), which is the "corpse" or relaxation pose usually done at the end for 5-10 minutes (or longer if you're lucky), was the best part of class. Who wouldn't agree with that?! Isn't that why we *do* yoga? Hee hee, it was pretty cute.

Anyway, to continue the GMST (see yesterday's post) theme, I did get to the post office to get a package mailed out, and got another package ready to go (but need bf's help to finish, so didn't complete this task), and I got to yoga, and I made a healthy dinner (grilled marinated chix w/asparagus and cooked carrots (raw for me)). That was about it. Oh, and finished (FINISHED! CAUGHT UP! At least until tonight, when there will be more dirty clothes. Always with the dirty clothes around here, geez louise!) laundry. Then we crashed in front of the boob tube to watch a few episodes of the s1mpsons season six (alliteration!) and go to bed, since I was wiped from being up so late from the night before.

So I was in bed by 10 - why the hell was/am I so tired this morning?! I had a sorta unpleasant dream about work right before I woke up, so perhaps that is troubling me subconsciously? I was nude, and one of the management folks here was trying to bring through some guests, and so I had to wrap myself in army green curtains until they went through, and my supervisor was pointing out that these curtains were from IK3A! Aren't they lovely! And I was like "why are you pointing out the lovely curtains that I am shielding myself with?!?!". I'm sure my former massage classmates would have a field day analyzing that one (they used to analyze each other's dreams, to some funny ends). Oh, and my clothes in my closet (which wasn't my closet) were a complete mess and someone had moved them from my true closet (which still wasn't my real closet). Dreams are whacked.

I am tired and annoyed and irritable and it's not even pms time, and all I wanted was coffee (check) and some sweet or fattening food (no check, thankfully!). I was running late (naturally - I stayed in bed as long as possible) and so have eaten a ka$hi granola bar for breakfast. It could be worse, right? RIGHT? I have an orange and some yogurt and a little gouda cheese wheel (the mini, individually-wrapped ones, can't remember the brand - babyb3l?), and greens/peppers/carrots and steamed zucchini/summer squash for lunch, and leftover rice/beans. So I'm good. And I'm doing a practice massage tonight, so that is always good to reconnect me to why I'm really here.

Please give me the strength to not succumb to "oh, what the heck!"!!! And may I continue to GMST.

GMST* (and an apology)

*Getting My Shit Together

Hey, I'm trying here. My life is now like most formulaic movies, wherein there is a scene where the hero/ine gets their shit together, accompanied by some kickass getting-their-shit-together music: I am in that mode. I wish I had a soundtrack to inspire me, and a screenwriter to make it pass by easily/effortlessly/quickly. Unfortunately I do not have either of these, so the process is challenging/taking lots of effort/slow, and no music can be heard.

I suppose that I could make my own soundtrack, huh?

Another unfortunate aspect of this is that I've been here before, LOTS of times. Again and again and again and...*sigh* Admittedly, it does get easier, and the lapses are shorter, and the mistakes made during the lapses are less grimace-inflicting. I only eat 2 chocolate bars instead of a package of them, etc.

As usual, part of the pattern has to do with how many dishes are in the sink and how high the laundry has piled and how well/not my meals are planned/purchased/prepared. The worse it is, the highly probable chance that I'm not eating/exercising right is. My house has been on the brink of minor disaster off/on recently.

Sunday I did my taxes, which I had been semi-putting-off, and that launched me into GMST mode. I worked out (elliptical and chest/arms - I am so freakin' sore now! I have been doing mostly yoga and then nothing while I was sick, and I'm very surprised at how sore I am after one workout), I cleaned off my island, which is a perpetual paper dump, which leads to chaos everywhere else; I did laundry and dishes and unpacked from skiing and put away paperwork and did bills. Last night the kids & I put away the ski stuff which was blocking the foyer, which is where all of our storage is and my massage stuff (no wonder I couldn't find my bag of sheets last week when I went to do a massage for a friend!), and they did chores (sweeping/dusting) while I made a healthy dinner and prepped veggies for their lunches and mine and then went to yoga, and did some more laundry and dishes and then the awesome bf cleaned the bathroom & finished the dishes, and when I got back from yoga I did some more frickin laundry (is going away for the weekend ever worth it?!) and balanced the ol' checkabook and finished the bills and got ready for today.

And so I feel better in general, and that affects my eating/taking care of myself. It's insane, I know, but there is such a connection for me. When my house is a mess, I'm a mess, and I'm getting better at catching things before they backslide. I still haven't figured out if there are triggers or which happens first. But it's clearly a pattern that is very familiar and probably, in some sick way, a comfort. I don't pretend to understand, although I have a hunch it could be partially due to my Control Freak sorta nature. I swear I've been working on that for years now, and probably always will be. At least I'm aware of it, and that's a huge step in the right direction.
In the meantime, I scramble to catch up and make right, and stay up until after midnight to do so, which is not a long-term healthy solution. I'm a little worried about starting school in June and juggling full-time job and kids and relationship and practicing/reading for school and KMST (Keeping My Shit Together). I better get working on that soundtrack!

************************************************************************

As promised, the Apology:

Can I just say that I am a Blogger Idiot??? (Blidiot?) I just found out that I was supposed to be checking my "Moderate Comments" section to actually see the comments.....! DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I apologize to those who have left me comments and then probably wondered why the hell I wasn't publishing them. I feel so very d-u-m-b dumb! Sorry!!!! Ok, I'll stop beating myself up now. Thanks SO much for your comments and support - I love this forum!

Recovering

I've decided that I can't let my work situation determine what/how I eat and take care of (or don't) myself. It should be obvious, but I've been allowing it to happen. I hope to reverse it, in fact, and make it the reason I'm *more* determined to take good care of myself and eat well/in moderation. It's an interesting goal, and I'm trying to be open to accomplishing it.

Congrats to YP, who made it to the 100-lbs-lost mark! Her blog is terrific and very inspiring. She's done it the healthy, long-term way, and I look forward to her posts every day.

No exercise yesterday. I couldn't even exercise patience! What a lousy day. I felt very shut down last night, and felt bad that my bf has to deal with the fallout from that. I'm irritable, testy, and very detached.

I'm trying to figure out exercise today. I have a practice massage early evening, and still need to go grocery shopping. Tomorrow morning is 6 a.m. yoga, so I don't want to overdo it tonight and then not get up. We'll see what I can do!

Interestingly enough, the scale was at 173 today. 173! How can it fluctuate 2 pounds in one day?! Maybe it was the chocolate on monday? I dunno. I don't feel as tight and buff as I did when I got back in February. I'm working my way back there, and really just feeling lingering congestion in my sinuses & lungs, so should be able to get back in my groove.

Attention work: you will not get me down! HA! *pppppbbbbblllltttt* - Xena

Yoga? Check. Chocolate? *sigh* check.

Yeah, I went to yoga last night. It's one of the few things that can make me feel human again after a day of hell, I mean work. It's so nice to open up after a day or longer of feeling tight and curled up. Kinda like the daffodils forcing their way up under the furnace exhaust outside my house. There are even buds on the trees. Hope springs eternal, har har har.

I also imbibed in more chocolate, and goddess help me, coffee today. I don't pretend to understand, and I'm too overwhelmed with work to process it right now, so I won't even try.

No exercise tonight - daugher has her band concert. I was going to try to squeeze in yoga, but the class ends when her concert begins, so no good. I suppose I could throw a yoga tape in, or maybe the new bellydancing one that has yoga too. Even just 15 minutes would do me good...

I have a boiled egg/baby spinach/those peppers/flaxseed oil & baba gannoush for lunch. An orange. Already had an organic granola bar. Oh yeah, and the !@#$ coffee.

Surprisingly I'm still at 175. It's like I'm testing it, pushing it, being rebellious, sabotaging myself. *sigh*

At least I decided on a massage school, but now have to wait until June to start. In the meantime, I need to move forward with taking care of myself and figuring out ways to survive work w/o eating my way through the pain.

hack sniff achooo! blechhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh happy Monday, how sweet to see your shining face in my week once more.

I caught the stomach flu last Wednesday and was in bed for 2 days. Somewhere in there I caught my daughter's chest/sinus congestion too. Yuckkkk! Friday night we left for my company ski trip to vermont. Thankfully I didn't have to drive.

I took it easy and had some great runs. Yesterday was snowy all day and I felt much more tired than Saturday, so quit early. It was my only skiing this season, but it was great. The kids had a terrific time. It was wonderful to hang out with them w/o time pressure, rushing around to "get somewhere", like most of my/our life is. I'm leery of spring sport signup because it will just mean more running around, and since I'll be starting massage school at night soon, this will just add to the chaos. I'm certainly not as energetic as I used to be, and this sort of schedule is becoming more exhausting. Is it worth it?

Yes, school for me is crucial right now - I need to do this so that I can move on to the next phase of my life. Sports for my daughter is very important to both of us because she gets so much from it, loves it, thrives on it. Plus gets fresh air and keeps in shape, and builds her self-esteem. I am always cautious about my own reasons for this, to be sure that I'm not forcing anything on to her or trying to live vicariously through her, know what I mean?

Eating was lousy. I'm pretty clear on how I've learned along the way that "vacation is the time for eating the junk food you don't eat the rest of the time", and it certainly holds up with my own children and me. Not so good at all. It was funny, because my son even commented on it, and how do I explain why it's ok to eat che3tos and chocolate now (especially since we're skiing, which needs *good* fuel for lots of energy)? I am sure that I wasn't very convincing, even to myself. We did bring grapes and gator@ade, which isn't exactly the best but better than getting soda on the mountain. The kids had things like pizza and fries at the resort; I had soup and fries, and stuck with water, but still had the other stuff at the hotel. I'm still trying to figure it all out. I certainly don't feel great about my eating, although I'm glad I had a tostada salad at the restaurant saturday night - it had greens and tomatoes and rice and black beans; the worst things were the sour cream and cheese on it, but yummy otherwise.

Of course I also drank this weekend. 4 total over the weekend, which I guess isn't bad, but thrown on top of not feeling so hot and the other junky eating, well...

I'm feeling better today tummy-wise; I'm still quite congested and feel a little light-headed. I want to go to yoga tonight, especially to stretch out the skiing muscles, but I'll have to see how I feel. It is a gentle class, which makes it pretty damn appealing right now - I don't know how many downward dogs I could do w/o passing out.

Eating-wise: well, I brought the last few pieces of chocolate. I also have cut-up red/yellow/orange peppers, baba gannoush, and baby carrots, plus nuts and chicken soup (packaged, unfortunately) for lunch/snacks...

I need to get back on track!

Miserable

*sigh* I am feeling terrible emotionally, and it shows in my eating. My good habits learned at kripalu are slipping away, and I feel so crappy that I almost don't care. But of course I do care, and it's really bothering me. I know it's work and the stress/current managerial challenges here. I feel trapped by my circumstances as the primary breadwinner (practially only since the !@#$%^&*() ex isn't keeping up with his $$$ obligations - bastard!) of the house, the good education the town we're living in provides, current standard-of-living, and the need to pay for massage school for the next year, which could easily surpass $10K. When I feel trapped, I get anxious. And I want to eat to numb it, make it go away, make it feel better, make it different than it is. Which it never does. Hmmm.

I'm closer to "rescue" mode than I was yesterday, but not close enough to refrain from drinking coffee, which I was doing SO very well at not drinking, and eating too much portion-wise, and seeking out sugar sugar sugar. I've already gained a pound, no surprise, and I'm afraid to weigh myself the rest of this week. My pants are still falling off me (the bigger pairs, anyway), so I'm not in trouble yet. I will if I don't stop my downward spiral. I need to acknowledge that a year ago, this would have thrown me off for weeks or even months, and the year(s) before that - forget it! So I'm still making progress.

Even being able to just *identify* the source of the feelings is HUGE for me. In the past, it would have taken days/weeks or maybe not happened at all. Now the knowledge is there (it probably was before but I wasn't as able to access it) much more quickly/clearly. What a blessing that is in most ways, beyond the "great, now I have to do something about it" reaction that I'm currently dealing with.

It's always been difficult for me to be flexible/spontaneous (that is one thing I can thank the ex for - he made it impossible to be fixed/rigid in my plans, so I got better at going with the flow) and not hold a perfect picture of how things must be. It's very difficult for me to be open to other answers to my work dilemma. It frightens me to think about having to change something that I have been doing for almost 9 years, to take a risk and do something new/different that could help me stay in the town that we're in until the kids get out of school (and/or possible longer). I'm comfortable here (at this job) - it's stressful, but it's known stress, and I have flexibility which would be challenging to find in a new job (until I had paid my dues). Ideally I'd love a part-time job with benefits. I know they exist, but they are extremely rare, and I wouldn't leave the hell here to go to a job that didn't have a better culture, even if it did have benefits. At least I know the players here, and how to work with the situation to the best of my abilities, whereas a new place would be a stress on its own, if only for the sake of being a new and therefore different place. As I mentioned, I'm not the most flexible person (although I can do a kickin' triangle pose!), so to try to go to school while I am adjusting to a new job? No way, dude!

I can't go part-time here. As it is, our dept. is understaffed, so that wouldn't be an option. Once I get my certification at massage school and build a reasonable clientele, I can look into part-time work. Benefits are still a huge concern, so I've joked with the bf that I may have to marry him for his benefits. Thank you to our current healthcare system for this difficulty. If it were just me/health insurance, I could save money every month and hope that I stayed healthy, but the kids are involved and will be for at least the next 10 years or longer. I certainly can't count on their (I use the term loosely) father to step up to the plate on this either. Bastard.

My rescue plan for the moment: I just ate my orange, and am drinking my water. I have a small portion of veggie calzone left for a late lunch - just enough to satisfy me but not too much so that I feel gross. Stay away from the coffee for 2.5 more hours. Go to my yoga class. Go home and roast the veggies that I have from last week for a curry salad with the chicken that I still need to cook up. Feed the kids salad and their chicken for dinner, or maybe the barbeque tofu that I pulled out of the freezer days ago and still haven't done anything with. Clear off the clutter that's starting to accumulate on the island that I spent hours last week clearing. Of course, all I've been wanting to do when it hits 8:00 or later is to crawl into bed and sleep away the pain. *sigh*

Oh, how they fall! And hard!

Yes, "they" would be referring to "ME". Bad bad xena. Succumbed to the chocolate beasty once again. a pb big cup delight and small (ha!) bag of c@dbury easter eggies. *sigh* And coffee this morning, but that was in my master plan for the week. At least it was a small. On the brighter side, my car didn't need the fixin' I thought, so I "saved" almost two hundred smackaroonies! My daughter is home sick *again*, and so I'm home again. Not feeling quite as overwhelmed, thankfully.

So I don't know what to say about the chocolate. Did I mention that late afternoon yesterday, someone put out grrl scouts cooki3s? Mint chocolate? Did Xena eat any? Yes sirree bob! Probably 7-8 of them. What a mess I am sometimes, I just don't get it. What is so awful in my life that I need to abuse my body like this? Honestly, the stress cannot be that bad, can it? I've got my health, two beautiful smart kids, a nice apt. in a very nice community, an awesome bf, family, friends, comfortable wages, flexible schedule somewhat, the opportunity to go back to school and move into a whole new career. Yet the stress is still there and it's not pretty these days. I wrote up my comments on my annual review yesterday and it made me absolutely miserable how my work is not noticed/appreciated/supported by upper management. *sigh*

So I didn't work out yesterday and bf got up this morning to go to the Y so couldn't work out anyway. I plan to work out later tonight but that depends on my daughter's health. I'll miss yoga tomorrow (wah!) but hope to get to the Y later in the day, if it's open late on saturdays. If not, I have plenty of yoga tapes and a new yoga/bellydancing tape to try out. I need to keep up with the weights since I'm doing so much yoga now (it replaces my elliptical/weightlifting workouts on those days).

Eating today, beside coffee and the rest of the chocolate eggs, has been cranberry granola w/soy milk and some water. Not mixed together, 'cause that would make it watery and soggy. yuck! I have mixed greens and an avocado waiting for me for lunch, plus some pumpkin & sunflower seeds (raw unsalted), as well as an orange. I need to figure out a protein....I have chicken that I need to marinate in curry for tonight's creation of chicken/veggie curry. I have an eggplant, some broccoli and cauliflower, and I hope a can of garbanzo beans although I have to check first. The chicken will be enough protein otherwise. I think I also have some carrots to throw in there. Yummy! Oh and an apple and some raisins for a sweet kick.

The return of the cravings - now showing in full 3-D!

I was afraid that this would happen. I am in serious craving mode this week, and I have conveniently identified someone/thing to blame! Besides TOM, of course, which is such a convenient excuse a week out of every month!

The stress of work has returned in full force. Although I still have my lessons learned from my month away, I am not employing them daily and therefore the old habits, the traditional comfort of food, especially chocolate-based, is calling its siren song. Wailing. Screeching. Pounding into my head. And then someone came to chat with me during his lunch, and he had a yummy cafeteria chocolate chip cookie. Damn him! It looked so good! And he didn't even offer me a piece! I don't know how I can escape the image, the craving, the supposed *need*. Logically I know that it's not a Need, it's a Want. I do want it real bad. And I'm supposed to start TOM any day now, so that makes it a gazillion times worse (or googleplex, as my son likes to say). I just had a banana, and although the sweetness was a small satisfaction, it didn't erase the image in my mind. So I can have it because it's *today*, right, and I can go back to my newly-learned habits *tomorrow*, right? I've also been craving coffee BIG TIME as well. Really, just the caffeine-high and sugar & cream in it.

I have been working out, so that's a saving grace somehow, I'm sure. I almost always make better food choices when I have been working out. Now this morning, I thought I had set my alarm for 5:40 to get up for yoga. Nope, it was set for 6:40. ARGH! I was even in bed before 9:00 last night - you would think that would wake me up early, but no no no. I've eaten well today otherwise. Why am I already talking like something has happened? I have not consumed any chocolate or sweets or anything yet, and I do believe I've convinced myself otherwise. I had granola w/soy yogurt and a tablespoon of natural PB for breakfast, an orange, salad w/peppers/flaxseed, strawberries, black bean mush. Yes, I can see now that I have been eating a lot of sugar today, even if it's "all natural". Hmmm. And I still have yogurt/granola in the wings, which again does have a goodly amount of sugar.

I'm just not sure I can resist the chocolate. *sigh*

So since Monday I have done gentle yoga, Tuesday was more vigorous yoga, and last night was elliptical and chest/arms. On the plus side, despite my bloating etc., I'm still weighing in at a smidge under 175 (why don't I just say 174?). I have one of those analog (hee hee) scales, so it's mostly up to my interpretation and lousy eyesight. No workout today since I missed yoga and have a meeting tonight, and probably no workout tomorrow unless I get up mega early since I have to bring my car in for work and after work is community band night. It's easy to rationalize that I need a break anyway, but I don't want to miss any opportunity to keep that lovely number right where it is or lower!

Yesterday was terrible with the cravings too, and I really should have gone home and taken my pre-TOM herbal remedy but I didn't. I think I ate like 2 chocolate-covered graham cookies and 2 chocolate-chip (not cafeteria, unfortunately) cookies. Much better than past binges, but a binge nevertheless. And I know it's due to work. Did I forget to mention that yet? I am feeling demotivated and don't have any desire to do what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's very difficult to push myself to do it. I have my massage school interview next week at the other choice school, and then I will decide, so hopefully that will keep the fires burning and the light growing at the end of that tunnel.

The stress returns

It's probably a "duh" for many folks, but stress has a huge impact on my eating and my attitude. Well, yeah! I was home yesterday with sick daughter, and was trying to unpack from my return of over 2 weeks ago, and was feeling so totally overwhelmed and stressed. My tasks weren't fun/mindless tasks, but more of the balancing-the-checkbook, sorting papers, trying to find room for all of my new massage materials (boy is that industry high maintenance in terms of "stuff you need to have to do it"!). I hate clutter, and because this apartment is bigger than my last apartment, I find that stuff just keeps piling up and up and out and over. Blech!

So anyway, I'm feeling stressed, and naturally my mind goes to "what can I eat", which is really an extension of the more honest but not always obvious "what can I eat to distract myself/make myself feel better/numb that discomfort"? I gave into it somewhat, although thankfully we don't have much junkola in the house right now. My mother had given me a ceramic jar filled with biscotti, so I had one of those. A small handful of roasted salted cashews (blech! I much prefer my raw unsalted version that I have here at work). A brownie from the batch that I made for the kids' lunches, with a smear of PB. Lunch was over-portioned, and hardly any veggies (corn (starch, really) and butternut squash). It was SO hard not to make coffee! I had some on Sunday so that is my allotment for the week. The usual distractions, which I am trying very hard to break.

It's not easy.

I tried drinking a bunch of water. That helped a bit. I mostly tried being with the feelings of stress and overwhelmed. Now that I think more about it, I could also have acknowledged that it was perfectly normal and acceptable to feel that way. I went to yoga, and that helped a TON. Breathing. Plowing through the paperwork and other stuff so that I could at least get it taken care of, instead of distracting myself, not getting it done, and then feeling even worse.

It's not like I haven't been working out. I've taken about 5 yoga classes this past week (all so delicious and wonderful!), given 3 practice massages (which is a mini-workout in itself), ellipted, walked to/from Y, done my weights. Yet these damn feelings still come up!?! How come?!? Isn't exercise the panacea to all my troubles? Why the hell not? That's what the TV and magazine ads claim! Be thin, be beautiful, all your troubles will disappear. Oh, and you'll get a dishy rich man. Woohoo! I'm still waiting....

I kid, I kid. I know why I'm working out and eating better, and it ain't for any of those reasons. I think my bigger problem is my soul-sucking corporate job. That's why I'm learning massage, so I know this is helping me feel that there is light at the end of this depressing tunnel, and I would like to make it out alive, with a healthy body and hopefully intact mind. I KNOW the exercise helps with that!

Today I've had (NO COFFEE) water water water, vitamin, granola w/soy yogurt, apple, black beans, roasted garlic couscous with chopped kale (so easy to throw in the frozen chopped stuff when the water is boiling! No lost vitamins!), and baby spinach w/flaxseed oil. Not sure on the whole-grain-ness of the couscous - it was a box that I had in the pantry.

Yoga tonight, yeehah! Then grocery shopping, so dinner will most likely be a salad with some seeds/flaxseed oil, maybe leftover chicken/beans/salsa/corn from last night. I have a banana waiting on my desk for before-yoga-snack. I'll make it through today.

p.s. and I'm still maintaining at 175, and may in fact be a bit below that. Woohoo!

Chugging along

(no alcohol included)

I'm sloooowly getting caught up, but am not there yet. I scheduled all my appointments for this week since I was away for the month and then was hoping to get caught up last week. HA! Ah well, life moves on.

No gym yesterday - pizza and chocolate-covered whoopie pie instead. This is ok with me, though, because I know if I don't have something like that at least once in awhile, I will end up binging. I am still definitely worried about pms symptoms next week, but I have an herbal remedy that I got from the local health food chain. It tastes terrible (you put a bunch of drops into water and chug it) but it seems to help, even if it's only the placebo effect. I'll take it!

Have gym clothes, will travel to Y tonight with son who will swim while I'm working out downstairs. Then yoga class very early tomorrow morning - yippee! Excited about class, not so excited about getting up to be there for 6:00. I am very grateful that they offer it, though!

I forgot my roasted veggies today, but do have the rest of my salad, some baba gannoush o'reilly, yogurt, peanut butter, flaxseed oil - all mixed together! I kid, I kid. For breakfast I had an instant oatmeal packet (not so great, I know) with blueberries and a tablespoon of PB. So roasted veggies tonight, maybe with turkey/cheese or eggs. Cage-free all natural, of course.

Looking for massage schools where I can get the rest of my hours to be certified. Not liking the schedule choices given my restriction of working full-time and taking classes. I'm not sure when I'll have the time or energy to work out, but I know if I don't the stress will kill me otherwise, and I'll have even less energy, so I am trying to be open to all possibilities. *sigh*