Saturday, May 28, 2011

Welcome to the sunny side

OMG! Someone PINCH ME! It is g.o.r.g.e.o.u.s. out there today! I have the next 5 days off of work and as long as the weather holds up (IT BETTER! *Fist shaking* I hope to be out at the lake or up hiking Tiger Mountain. I've wanted to do this trail for awhile, but before this year have never really felt any kind of motivation. See, my family doesn't like to hike and I've always had this thing before about doing things on my own. I don't like being alone and if I do something alone it feels like I don't have a reason to do it. I know. Crazy town. Whatever.

Anyway. I think the weather should start improving and since I've got the next 5 days off of work (Monday-Tuesday is a holiday and furlough and Wednesday is my birthday so I took PTO) I'm going to work on my New Years Resolution to "Do more things for myself and not let the guilt or lack of company dissuade me." I'd like to go hiking at Tiger Mountain, I'd also like to go down to the waterfront and walk through the Market. I used to go there all the time, but haven't been in years.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Weekly Weigh-In 13.0

Weigh-In
Last weigh-in: 326.8 lbs
Current weigh-in: 326.8 lbs
Change: No change

I'm a slacker. I've not only been lacking in the blogging department, but in every other aspect as well. I'm so awfully busy at work and at home that I'm usually dragging my a$$ by the time I get home from work.

Doctor Visit

I went to see the endocrinologist yesterday. I hadn't been to this particular hospital in almost 10 years, it was really weird being back!

Anyway, I told him about my concerns with weight loss, the plateaus I seem to hit that never go away. How I'm always overheated but not sweaty. The joint pain, the migraines...etc. He had a bunch of questions for me as well. We spent probably 30 minutes going back and forth through a question and answer session.

All of that was so he could say, "Well, there's usually only 3 medically related reasons people can't lost weight."
None of which he thinks I have. What the f&%#? Why did we just spend an hour going over questions, then discussing symptoms and treatments all so you could tell me it's most likely not any of those? Can I have my $40 co-pay back now? Please? He had me go to the lab anyway, to get tested for all 3 just in case. The worst test is the one for the Cushings Disease. I haven't done it yet. I have to pee into a large orange container for 24 hours and then take it back to the lab. It's going to be great. I can tell. (Can you smell the sarcasm?) I should know results next week. I'm kind of torn between wanting something to be wrong with me and not wanting something to be wrong with me. If something is wrong with me that means it's treatable, on the other hand though, if something isn't wrong with me, then why can't I lose weight?

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sad days ahead

My cat is sick.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a "crazy cat lady"...but I love my kitty. I've had him since he was 6 weeks old. He was a good friend to me while I was suffering from depression. He was my constant companion when I was a stay at home mom, and he's moved cross country with me. Three times.

We took him to the vet this weekend, he wasn't eating and he was peeing all over the bathroom floor. When I found him this morning he was soaking wet from wetting on himself and covered in litter. I gave him a bath and realized for the first time how much weight he'd gone (It made The Kid gasp when she walked in and saw him dripping weight and nothing but bones.)

The vet thinks it's kidney failure :-( We've got him on special food and gave him some injections for dehydration, and we're keeping a close eye on him.

Keep him in your thoughts though OK? He's a special little guy and I'm not sure what I'd do without him!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Weekly Weigh-In 12.0

Weigh-In
Last weigh-in: 327 lbs
Current weigh-in: 326.8 lbs
Change: -0.2 lbs

Oops!

It only took me 12 weeks to figure this out but over there ----> on the right side of my page I've been tracking my weight loss. Just recently I happened to notice that what I was recording over there didn't match what Weight Watchers has been recording. I thought, "How is that possible?!" Well, simple really. I was only keeping track of my losses, and not adding in the couple of gains I had. I'd lost almost 13 lbs according to my calculations, when in reality I'm only down about 11 lbs since I started this 12 weeks ago.

Speaking of that......

Should I be frustrated that I'm only down 11 lbs? That's averaging about a lb per week, so should that be fine or should I be down closer to 20 lbs? This is why I don't read the community boards on WW anymore. Everyone had lost like 15 lbs in their first month or two and I was only down less than 5 lbs. It's depressing if I approach it that way. Not so much depressing if I only stick to reading the blogs on here that I follow. It seems like the other blogs I follow are more in sync with me. Does that mean I'm not following WW correctly? Am I wasting money? Should I cancel WW and go it alone with the use of free online tools? Grrr.

Running

I've been giving running/jogging more and more thought. I used to love running. After I broke my ankle it was hard for me to do it though. After awhile I gave up completely. When I power walk, or attempt to jog, my ankle swells up to the size of a baseball and hurts for several days. I KNOW! I should get that checked. I kept hoping that eventually the more exercise I did, the less that would happen, but so far I haven't noticed much of a difference.

I'd love to try the C25K program, but I think I'll need to consult a doctor first. The last thing I would ever want is to hurt my ankle again and be unable to do any kind of exercise. I think we can all agree that the amount of exercise I'm doing now is 10x better than no exercise at all!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

C25K and the Furry 5K

Have any of you tried the Couch to 5K Running Plan? If you have, and you're similar in weight to me, how did it go for you?

Several of my friends are trying it, one is moderately overweight, another just had a baby and is trying to work off baby weight and some excess weight from before. I haven't jogged since High School, which was about 13 years ago. Some coworkers and I were looking over the program and I think we're going to try it together. I told them I wouldn't be doing the training for it at work, but we could do it on our own at home and then work our way up and run in a 5K together, right? That would be fun, and motivational. I was going to try and use my Map My Walk account to track my times and workouts. If any of you are reading this and want to try it with us, let me know and I'll send you my Map My Walk info and we can be "friends" on there and keep up that way.

If I decide to do it, I'm going to start on May 23rd, so that it's a fresh week. I haven't totally made my mind up to commit to it yet, so I'm going to think about it a bit more. I know that if I want to keep up the losses, I need to do something to change my workout routine.

Also, on June 12th me and The Dog will be walking in the Seattle Animal Shelter Furry 5K. I don't think I'll be ready to run it by then, but I have wanted to participate in this for a few years now and I think this is the year to do it!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Weekly Weigh-In 11.0

Weigh-In
Last weigh-in: 330.4 lbs
Current weigh-in: 327 lbs
Change: -3.4 lbs

It was a very good week! I wish every week could be this easy and great and wonderful full of sunshine and happiness.

I've not been blogging this week because this week has also been a very very very hard week. Stress. My husband was interviewing for a really fantastic job and found out they passed on him for someone else. After that kick in the gut, we hit some financial problems that have us both in a bit of a depressing state this week.

The thing that helped so much is that this time instead of eating my stress away, I exercised it away. I went walking more this week than I've gone in a long time. It felt good to walk off the stress.

If next week is better than this week, I'll be happy, but I'm hoping I can keep up the weight loss momentum!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Weekly Weigh-In 10.0

Weigh-In
Last weigh-in: 331 lbs
Current weigh-in: 330.4 lbs
Change: -0.6 lbs

So a loss is a loss right? I have a picture to post later, it's my graph from Weight Watchers. The part that makes me laugh is there's a huuuuge dip from a few weeks ago when I dropped down to a whopping 329.2 and then it slowly climbs back up. Almost as if to say, "NO NO NO! That is UNACCEPTABLE! You can NOT be less than 330!!!"

The surprising part, and I know I shouldn't necessarily be happy about this, is that I didn't do anything this week. I haven't been feeling well, I've been sick. My husband went out of town for a job interview and the thought of moving is making me stress out and be kind of an idiot. I've counted pounts, but haven't been too mindful of what I'm eating (I'd talk about eating 4 peanut butter cookies and two chocolate chip cookies lastnight but I don't think we need to necessarily dwell on my downfall!). The rain has returned which has left me with not a lot of options exercise wise, so I put in the walking dvd lastnight after I spent over an hour fighting with The Kid to go to bed ( NO! You can NOT stay up until 1:00 a.m. on a SCHOOL night to wait for your dad to come home!) By the time I got that situated and the DVD in, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, so I did maybe a 1/2 mile with the DVD and then collapsed in my chair to watch 30 Rock.

My lunches have been doing pretty well this week. I've had chili (which I found out I'd been counting the points wrong on all this time! I kept thinking "Wow, 8 pts for a can of chili? Not bad! WRONG. That would be one serving and a can is two servings. Oops.) and some salad, but I think I'm officially done with salads. Maybe not done done, but we definetly need a Ross/Rachel break. I need to see other foods. My mom does this thing on Sunday afternoon where she cooks up all these meals and then freezes them in Tupperware containers so she has lunches for the week. It's like making your own frozen lunches. I know what you're thinking: "That's a great idea! Making your own lunches!" No. I was going to pay my mommy to do it for me. WHAT?! She's already doing it for herself!

I kid, of course. On top of making lunches for herself on Sundays she also makes her own dogs food...and I'm afraid that asking her to make my lunches will result in a "mix-up"!!! Ha ha.

Anywho. I've still not passed over my "plateau" yet and I'm a little nervous that I'm going to be stuck in this range for awhile (Fat So Sarah commented she was on a plateau for 3 months. I don't feel like I have the patience to endure something like that. I feel like if it keeps up I'm going to head the direction I've always headed, slowly start getting frustrated and feeling like it doesn't matter what I eat or how often I exercise because it doesn't matter anyway.

It's going to be a constant struggle, but I'm going to do my best to keep it up.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Oh Emmm Geeeeeee


Holy leg kicks batman!

Another appropriate name for this post could be: "How Leslie Sansone kicked my ASS"

Today The Hubs and The Kid took The Dog to Doggie Disneyland (Or...dog park...however you prefer to read that...) and I had the whole glorious afternoon to myself. I've got all the windows open letting the beautiful air outside come in and de-stink the house (it's been pretty closed up lately thanks to the crappy weather we've had and is in bad need of an air-out!). I'm also doing laundry.

Anyway, I was sitting here browsing our Netflix instant queue on the Wii and remembered that a few months ago when I first got back into this weight loss thing, that I bought the Leslie Sansone: Walk at Home: Walk Away Your Waistline! DVD and belt. It sat in it's box next to our recliner for the last 8 or so weeks, unopened, sealed up tight. I'd bought it after reading some posts on Weight Watchers Community boards, and after it arrived I convinced myself it was silly to have done that because hello? Walking outside is much more intense than walking inside...in place right?!

So yeah. I put the DVD in and had the option of choosing the full workout, 1, 2 or 3 miles. I thought "What the Hell...I'll do the full workout. Most of my walks outside are between 2 and 3 miles anyway, so this should be easy peezie right?! Oh, my poor distorted little mind.

She had me doing knee kicks and side steps and and and and...by about the 3/4 mile mark I was falling behind and cursing out Leslie's smug little smile.

I made it through the 1 1/2 mile mark before I collapsed in exhaustion in my chair and fumbled for the Wii remote and instant streaming of Wings: Season One.

The work out though was great. It almost felt like I did after I was done working out with my personal trainer. I just need to find time when The Hubs and The Kid aren't around so I can do it without feeling like a beached whale silly.