Yeah, I'm still here

Just in case you were worried.

I've bitten off more than I can chew, har har har. I'm not whining - I knew what I was getting into. I was being optimistic about fitting exercise and good eating into this plan, but so far it's not going as planned.

I'm feeling overwhelmed, and my first reponse is to comfort eat, so I've been doing plenty of that. Fully aware each time, so that's better than the past. Being fully aware kinda makes it worse, though.

I had 4 classes last week, and the same for this week, plus football/soccer practices & games, PT appointments for the daughter's various injuries, and work. And breathing - not much of that going on.

My plan is to get to the Y tomorrow night, even for a quick 20 minute cardio and some weights. Will that just make me feel more overwhelmed and exhausted?

I dunno, but I need some serious stress relief. My anxiety is increasing exponentially, in inverse proportion to my lack of exercise. I'm sure I would be eating better, or at least less, if I was exercising.

I've given 3 massages, so that's movement, at least.

I'm hanging in there, so maybe that's the most important of all...

Walk To School day

Another walk-to-school day, so at least I got some exercise. But then I ate 2 smallish brownies, 3 gh1radell1 chocolates, and some mocha (hot coffee/hot choc mixed together). My eating was deplorable yesterday, although I had some greens with my bacon and 1 slice of bread/mayo. I'm surprised I didn't pass out in class.

I have some rice/beans/chicken that my ex-MIL made when she came up this w/e. I didn't exercise as I hoped to, and took a huge nap Saturday. Maybe I was coming down with something, I dunno, but I was *exhausted*. Spent the w/e doing the sports stuff, enjoying my ex-SIL's 3-month old baby, and not doing much of anything else. I still haven't cooked up the veggies that I bought saturday morning, and I have class tonight, so probably won't happen until tomorrow. I have 2 apples and an asian pear sitting on my desk, just as they did yesterday, sadly waiting to be eaten. And waiting. And waiting...

I have carrots and yogurt for class snack tonight. I need to lay off the brownies and mocha and start drinking some water, take some vitamins. I was doing so well w/exercise the first week & 1/2 of school, I can't stop now. The walk this morning was nice, not very long (a little over a mile, maybe?). Tomorrow is son's soccer practice so hope to do laps again, if it's not pouring (in which case they'd probably cancel practice, but we have open house & haircuts so wouldn't be able to get to the Y until after that - there's a thought).

I was reading about people who have gone through surgery for weight-loss, and it scared me. It scares me to be over 180 again (182 last time I checked). It's so easy to just keep eating the junk and ignoring how the days are piling up, that I can start "tomorrow". I'm sick of it. Where is my willpower? I was reading about Beth's amazing willpower against the B&J, which I ate a WHOLE PINT of last week in one sitting. What the hell is going on? Am I really that stressed about school/work/kids/sports/when-the-hell-am-I-gonna-make-veggies? Superwoman syndrome strikes again.

I know part of it is my inconsistent procrastination at work. When I get stuff done, I eat better and want to take better care of myself. When I don't get stuff done, I guess I might be punishing myself for it? Or not bothering to do the other "stuff" too? GRRRR

I am happy to report that my sink is clean, my counter is clean, hell, even the kitchen island is clean (usually a mecca of papers, bills, mail, assorted stuff). My bed was made this morning, my bedroom is picked up. My basket of papers isn't threatening to dump all over the kitchen floor. I have fruit and veggies in the house, the kids have lunch stuff. I'm not really doing that BAD. So WTF???????????????????????????????????

I'm going to get some water and buckle down here.

Drive-by Check-in

Not drive-through, thankfully!

Ok, I've still been freaking out with mini-binges of mostly chocolate things, and I had some dunkie's coffee that someone brought in this morning. Balanced with healthy meals and not all that much extraneous snacking. Mostly hitting the one veggie/one fruit per day goal.

Walked for 55 minutes during son's soccer practice yesterday - mostly flat ground but didn't have proper sneakers, just slide-in's so definitely had to grip those puppies by the end.

This morning did 40 minutes of "dynamic" kripalu yoga by tape, since my damned DVD is finally dying and couldn't do my tribal bellydance fusion dvd. Ah well - the yoga was wonderful. I miss it mucho mucho!

School starts for me next week - 3 nights and one weekend day, so I seriously need to buckle down on this anxious eating and get some healthy munching options to replace it....

Had a blast!

The beach was loverly - it only rained a bit on Saturday night, while we were inside eating freshly-grilled steak tips (yum!) and sweet potatoes, along with salad. Poor babies, eh? Also consumed along the way was much salad, some meat-a-balls, too many jello shots to count, some wh3at thins, which I adore and don't buy 'cause I'll eat the whole box myself, a chocolate-chip bagel, coffee, water (tried to keep up with the dehydrating effects of the alky-hol), chocolate (dark, which is great for your heart, so no worries eh?) fondue for the fruit salad, and my chicken-blackbean-chili. Chunks of cheese here and there. Apple crisp for dessert. No beach ice cream, although I did get my favorite-ice-cream-of-all-time coffee cookies-n-cream (it's not the same anywhere else), YUM! Too much booze and ciggies. Ah well.

We walked the beach every day (probably a mile or so each way). We walked to/from the dance club, where I danced my fool head off, jumping around and making the girls laugh. My quads are *still* sore from jumping around in 2-inch chunky heels. I'm lucky I didn't sprain my ankle! I did some yoga poses in the ocean, swam a lot (not the last day - too cold). Walked up/down the 3 flights of stairs to our rental at least 4-5 times/day, not to mention carrying all of our crap to move in on Friday and out on Sunday. So got lots of movement to counter the lots of calories.

I had a terrific time.

I did not exercise yesterday, as I was recovering from the "weekend bender" (the bf called it that) and still sore, mostly my legs. Today I walked the track while son rollerbladed. He wants to do it every day now!

Mini-binge last night on single-serving package of chocolate chip mini-cookies and a sn1ckers bar, and 3 chocolate mini-grahams. I think the stress of going from work to home/football pickup/dinner/homework is already getting to me, so I need to find alternatives to stuffing the anxious feeling with eating.

Buh-bye

All packed and ready to go! Working a 1/2-day then heading off to the beach weekend w/my girls! There's 7 of us - what a perfect number. It's supposed to be in the low 80's today (yippee!), occasional t-storms tomorrow (boohoo), and probably flat-out raining on Sunday. Ah well. We'll have a blast!

Yesterday, after doing so well, I succumbed to the local DD special of medium hot (decaf) coffee for 49cents, boohoo! Then I had a w0nka bar, which is cinnamony chunks of graham cracker or something in chocolate, boohoo.

But then I had a healthy dinner (curried chix and lots of raw carrots) and nothing else, except a few drinky-poos with the bf. Oh, and a clove.

I didn't work out this morning as I have been very sore (surprisingly so, given the wimpy weights I've been lifting) and stayed up until almost 1 a.m. last night....we'll probably walk the beach tonight so I'll get some movement there, plus I have to walk down to a meeting in a different building, so that's something too.

The scale (after finally starting TOM)(see, I *told* you the weepiness of last Sat. was PMS!) is inching down, and I'm currently at 178, yeah! It's good to be out of the 180's, even though it was a brief stay. It made me a bit fearful of rocketing back up to 196, like I was a year ago, ugh!

Have a super weekend.

Movin' right along

Another successful workout morning (dancin' to the Wave), although my son kept interrupting and at one point I was chanting, in my head, "patient, present, and forgiving....patient, present, and forgiving...". That shit actually works!

Had the turkey tacos late last night and SO wanted to have more than one, but decided to have a little turkey/guac/lettuce/tomato pile instead. I was very hungry, though, so am impressed that I stopped there. I've been grabbing a turkey/cheese/greens/oat bran bread sandwich for the kids' practices since they last so long, and that's been helping keep me in check, along with a few bits of trail mix (organic, of course)(watta snob!).

Tomorrow afternoon I depart for my annual women's beach weekend, where I will be sure to overeat, although we do bring fairly healthy dishes, and most definitely overdrink/smoke. I can't wait! I will try to avoid the beach center, where they have fried dough and softserve ice cream, which I don't normally go for, but there is something about beach ice cream that can't be beat. Anyway, it's not *all* about the food/drinking - we always end up laughing practially nonstop, and sometimes talking about really deep issues. It's a crazy, wonderful mix.

In the meantime, I've been eating my goal of one fruit/veggie per day, and exceeding it so far. I don't want to get settled into that notion, though, because if/when it ends up being *one* per day, I won't feel as though I am failing. We'll have fruit salad and regular salad all throughout the weekend too. We also do at least one long walk along the beach per day, and try to go out dancing at one of the dives. I may just break even for eating/moving!

I am also enjoying the workout routine of doing a 30-minute or less workout in-between when the daughter gets on the bus and the son gets on the bus. It still gives me enough time to eat breakfast, shower, help him w/any last-minute stuff, and get any lunch stuff that's not already at work together. We'll see what happens when my school starts up again in a week & 1/2 (ugh!). I had originally planned to get up at 5:45 to go to the Y, but this is working out pretty nicely so far. It's been a good transition to the earlier start of the day.

I haven't had my vitamins etc. yet, so I will do that now! And my caffeine-withdrawal headaches seem to be gone already, very impressive. Maybe the decaf was a better choice after all. I know I'll be having coffee this weekend too...

But I don't WANNA get up!

*sigh* I hate getting up early. Hate it hate it hate it. Especially now that it's starting to be chillier in the mornings. Ah well - suck it up, xena!

I was soooo exhausted last night - we didn't get out of football until almost 7:00, and then I had to find a lunchbox for the son (failed mission), a soccer ball (failed missions), a key copy (successful), and a run to the drugstore (successful). Since we didn't get home until almost 8:00, the planned dinner of turkey tacos was down the tubes. We had BLw/otheT since the son can't have tomatoes. Then I had some cereal since I was so frickin' hungry.

I also had a huge headache, which makes it challenging to be Present, Patient, and Forgiving, but I did a good job of it anyway. I know the headache is the dreaded Caffeine Withdrawal. CW, you suck!!!

I still had a headache this morning. It's ok for now.

I worked out again this morning, good xena. I did my Goddess bellydance workout w/Veils, which was a good 25 minutes but unfortunately not much of a cardio workout. My arms were *killing* me, though! Then I lifted with my wimpy 8 pounders - chest and arms. I did 3 sets of 15 reps instead of 12, since the weights weren't very challenging.

I'm also a bit sore today in the hamstring area, probably due to the psycho yoga workout. Geez.

I had a banana with breakfast (and have grapes for lunch), so I just need to have a veggie with lunch, easily accomplished (I have eggplant/ricotta leftover pizza, a small salad, and my tomato/eggplant dish). I'm striving for the turkey tacos tonight, although football goes until 7:00 again and I still need to get back to the grocery store...

So I've accomplished my 2 workouts for the week, and 1 lifting session. One more to go!

School Year's Resolutions, Day 1

I'm happy to say that I worked out Saturday (a great "dance" video, The Wave) and this morning, yippee! Saturday I also did weights (shoulders/back) at home, which sucks since my heaviest dumbbell is only 8 lbs. (and why are they so frickin' expensive?!), but the Y was still closed. This morning I did a psychotic fat-burning (excuse me, fat-BLASTING) yoga video by psychoqueen herself, Denise Austen. That lady is CRA-ZEE ("FEEEEL your yoga body!"). It's virtually impossible to have good form going at that speed, and some of her backup dancers were *totally* not using good form at all - it made me cringe. I guess that makes me a Yoga Snob.

I was a patient, present, and forgiving mom when my son told me, last night at 5:45 p.m., that he didn't have a lunch box. What?!?! Well, he'll just have to get over the trauma of using his sister's lunch box with the purple and pink trim. It's mostly black, so he'll be just fine until we get him a new one tonight, after 3 hours of football practice. The coaches *say* they'll only be practicing until 6:00 or 6:30 (they haven't even actually told us the end time yet) and then keep the kids until dark. Grrrr

I also accomplished the food allergy deal - we spent probably 2 hours at the sow-your-___-____ natural food store, scanning every frickin' cracker/cookie/bread/soup/etc. label for the son's allergy triggers. 3 weeks of eating clean and then re-introducing the culprits one by one. What a pain, but if his allergies improve/decrease, then it will be worth it. The daughter is taking salads (yeah! of her own accord! she's tired of sandwiches!), and they both had fruit in their lunchboxes, which were ready last night, amen.

I've taken my vitamin/iron/ginkgo biloba for today.

I've already had two fruits (banana and some strawberries with breakfast) and two veggies (tomato & eggplant that I roasted in the oven with some bulgar wheat), and it's not even lunchtime!

I have leftover eggplant/ricotta pizza (boo, I know) for lunch, along with some salad (mixed greens, yellow/orange peppers, and some cukes), grapes, and more strawberries. Oh, and some carrots.

I'm waiting in fear for my caffeine headache to hit....I've been mostly drinking decaf, so I'm hoping it's not as bad as the normal withdrawals. This is going to be a tough one, folks. I know it wasn't on my resolution list, but it really plays a big component in my sugar spike/crash cycle. *sigh*

My mini-goal for this week is to be patient and leave a lot of time open for getting used to the school/sports schedules again instead of trying to plan every minute of the evening. Cut myself some slack. Be compassionate.

Speaking of which, when I was doing The Wave on Saturday, I actually started tearing up, and then crying. I think it's because I was finally doing something nice for my body, and how I've been abusing/neglecting it. Then I got weepy that night, so maybe it was just PMS. ;-)

It's good to be back on track. Let's keep this train moving!