Too Afraid of Disappointing

The Holidays turned out to be more then I could handle. I thought I could be strong enough, powerful enough to resist temptation. I ended up Not being strong enough to resist temptation and not even motivated to get up in the mornings to get to the gym. Sometimes I found it hard to look at myself in the mirror. I am just too darn tired of disappointing myself. Plus, having to tell Melissa that I lost my fire was too hard. I came up with excuses for not working out with her. I just couldn't look at her in the face and see that disappointment.
As I look back at the beginning of December I realized why I lost my fire. It was the 2lbs that I gained that first week. That week of perfection. Do you know how discouraging that is? To have a perfect week and not have the scale reflect that perfection? That was it. I figured, what the heck? I might as well just not even try right now. So I didn't.
In an attempt to start over again, for the ridiculous amount of times, I am not going to weigh myself for the first month. I can't let the scale beat me. I have to just build on my good behavior. I can do that.
I might not quite have the fire under me yet. But I have to keep trudging along. If I can just bang this out in the next 3-4 months, I wont have to torment myself any longer. 3-4 months is such a short amount of time. Then, it's all about maintaining. Fighting to keep my weight the same. I've done that. It's the losing part that's a bitch. Shoot, did I just say that. It's the truth though.

Scotharoos, to delicatable to pass up

This morning I was reading in Mosiah with my kids and came upon the last verse in Chapter 7. I had to read it again, and then one more time just for good measure. I love how you can liken the scriptures to your own life at certain times, if your heart is ready for it. This is what vs. 30 says:

But if ye will turn to the Lord, with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.

I realize that this could have reference to a miriad of topics and all sorts of bondage. But for me right now, my bondage is my addiction to food. And what a comfort it is to me to know that I don't have to fight to be freed from my bondage by myself. If I just turn to the Lord, trust in him I can be free. What does serve him in all diligence in mind refer to? I think we have to put forth our efforts and not just sit around waiting for him to give us the answers. We have to actively be putting our minds to the task at hand. My task is to get control of my eating every single day. We are also reminded that things happen on the Lord's time table, and not on ours. There are things that I have to learn through my daily struggles, and until I truely learn from them I'll keep falling. But that's okay, because the Lord is loving and will help to pick me back up again.

This week I have been doing awesome. Until I had to prepare my sweets for the Ornament exchange tomorrow. I made Scotharoos. A treat that I make only at Christmas. 'They're not synonomous with Christmas, it's just I don't make them any other time of the year. When I was done making them I tried them out. And then again, and then one more time for good measure. As I look back on that mistake there were no emotions attached to that episode. Except for the fact that they tasted so good, and maybe I felt a little deprived. Which I shouldn't have since that muddy buddy episode last Friday. Obviously I still have issues to face. And what it comes down to is the restriction I place on myself. But those restrictions have to be in place if I'm going to have any kind of success at losing this last 20lbs. I can just hear Melissa in my head right now, " Then you just don't want it bad enough." I do want it bad enough. I'm just so easily swayed by other people. I hear what they have to say and give themselves allowances and then I feel like I need to give myself allowances. But that can't be the case. I have to be diligent in mind or it's not going to work.

I've said this time and time again. Losing weight is such a difficult and emotional journey. Not one to take lightly or half heartedly. Trying to lose weight during the Holidays is also a difficult task in and of itself. But I am strong. I've made it this far and I can continue to be strong. I have many battles to face over the next few weeks. I have to make the decision now to say "No", to pass on the sweets, to freeze them and save them for Sunday night.

I don't want to fail again. I've already mastered that. It's time for me to master a new art, healthy living.

Stupid snow halted my early morning work out

I was up on time, dressed and ready to go. When I opened my garage door, there stood my husband's work truck, plugged in to who the cus knows what. Something about keeping it warmed up. What ever. So I trudged back upstairs. Brent asked me if it was too cold to go. I replied, No, your truck was in the way. Of course he didn't budge. It proceeded to snow from that point on until early afternoon. I didn't even make it to work out with Melissa. I sure do feel like a blob today. The only work out I got was to shovel the driveway about 3 times. Stinking snow. I love it for Christmas, but would rather the darn stuff stayed in the mountains where it belongs.

Being very aware that I didn't work out, I knew that I needed to be extra careful with my calorie intake. I think I did a pretty good job. I only had a few reese's pieces. And I kept popping the gum into my mouth. I found a new pina-colada flavor that is tremendous. Let's see what the damage is.

breakfast:
oatmeal with apples and pecans (350)

snack:
cheese, carrots and a few crackers(160)

lunch:
chicken sandwich on whole wheat(400)

snack:
crackers and laughing cow cheese(200)

dinner:
healthy version of baked potato soup, just 1 cup(300)
1/2 pear(45)

total calories: 1410

Melissa always tells me I need to stay within 1400-1600 calories a day for my body to lose weight healthy.

Dreaded Weekend was indeed dreadful

When I'm not trying to be super careful with what I eat, I love the weekends. But the weekends simply suck when I'm trying to earnestly lose weight. I know it shouldn't be difficult. But it was. Hunger reared it's ugly head on Friday, and it was ugly. I kept it at bay by eating every 2 hours, that's how hungry I was. Then my primary class came over for a pizza party. I had two slices of regular full fat pizza, it was my home made pizza so I know exactly what was in it. But then my teaching partner, Linda, brought over some muddy buddies and my best efforts when out the window. I downed a cup full of that stuff, and then another. I'm so ashamed I haven't been able to bring myself to tell Melissa. I know how disappointed she would be. BIG SIGH!!! I'm disappointed in myself. Especially after doing so well at Enrichment just the previous night. It stinks. But what do I do? Continue on with my mini melt down by going to Arby's with my dad. I did pass on all fries, and dipped my roast beef sandwich in honey mustard. Which I will be doing from now on because that was the best thing ever!! After getting back to my Dad's he had a container of gum drops on the counter. I set them aside and tried to hide them as best i could, but he quickly pulled those things out and I just couldn't resist again. Weekends are so ding dang difficult. Sunday was better. I fasted until after church and induldged in some redvines and 1/2 cup of ice cream. Then I thought I did pretty good at Brent's work party. Still, I know I can do better. I have to do better if all my hard work is going to actually be effective.



I went to the gym Saturday morning, swearing at myself the whole way. Then I managed to get up out of bed again this morning and made it to the gym again. I ran for 30 minutes and then walked for 30 minutes. It felt good. Now I just feel my body falling apart. Both knees of mine are hurting and in different ways. I would have ran longer but didn't want to injure myself. So walking it was. At least I got right back on track again this morning. Pat on the back for me.

I ended the day really well. Instead of eating the casserole i made for my family I had an egg salad sandwich with 1/2 an apple. I didn't eat anything after that. I wanted to, mind you. But losing this weight is more important then that bite of ice cream.

I ate about 1300 calories today. I tracked it on a notebook downstairs. I'm excited to be turning in my food logs to Melissa. I think having her evaluate my menu will be really helpful.

Early morning no go

Yesterday morning I woke up early and read to go to the gym. I went to grab my keys and they were not there. I looked over as much as I could in pitch darkness. I didn't want to wake anyone up. After about 5 minutes I gave up and crawled back into bed. I didn't want to go back to bed. I was really excited to get to the gym and see what the new class on Thursdays are like. Alas, it wasn't in the stars for me to get to the gym. I'm just glad it was on a Thursday when I work out with Melissa. I was still able to get an hour work out in. Yesterday was also Enrichment night. Full of full fat foods and decadent desserts. I was super proud of myself. I had just a tiny serving of funeral potatoes, no roll, huge portion of salad, and no dessert. It was awesome. And to my surprise, it wasn't hard at all. It's because I'm still on fire. There are some many get togethers in December I have to pick and chose which ones I want to be bad at. Sorry ladies, last night just wasn't going to be worth the extra calories. It was a wonderful evening though.

This morning was really hard for me to get up. Brent had to leave earlier then usual so I just biked in the fat burning zone. I burned just over 200 calories. Which isn't enough. I should burn at least 500. I'm not sure I'll hit that number today. Too many things pulling me in different directions.

My eating has still been great. Although today I am really hungry!!! I mean HUNGRY!!! I'll need to call for back up today. Talk myself through this. Or just gorge myself on cabbage and carrots.

It's going to be another good day. And my first weekend is approaching. I know I will make all the right choices. I must, I don't want to ruin all my hard work this past week.

Denying my Daughter

Yesterday my sweet daughter, who grounded herself until Thursday from friends, asked me if she could make some cookies. I simply told her I couldn't have cookies in the house. Why not she asked. Because I'm trying to be good. And if there are cookies in the house it makes it really hard for me to be good. But Mom, I'll leave them in my room where they are no where near you. Ya, right. Like I'm going to let my daughter make cookies and then leave them in her room. I told her that I have no healthy cookie recipes. End of story. Or so I thought. After school today, since Hannah was still grounded and still determined to make cookies, googled "healthy cookie recipes". And she found one, and it only had 4 ingredients and was just 10 calories per cookie. I was impressed. Ya, they were merguines. But we added orange zest and vanilla to the batter and I have to admit, they were quite tasty, even delicious. So delicious that I had more then four of those cus cookies. Moral of this story? Research for healthy cookies is a great way to stick to a new way of life.

A funny thing happened to me while I was on the treadmill watching VH1. Every song could be a metaphor for losing weight. Carry Underwood talked about a man being a tall glass of water but turns out to be candy corn disaster. I've experienced candy corn disaster, how about you? Maybe it's not candy corn. It could be redvines, or m&m's, or chips, and let's not talk about zingers. I had a major disaster with those about 4 years ago. I need to be reaching for that tall glass of water. A new stradegy that I'm trying to combat night time cravings. Another song that came on was Rob Thomas' Living Outloud. He talked about starting all over, and expressing ourselves with our words and basically communicating instead of leaving all our feelings pent up inside. Boy, am I so guilty of this. I am going to try and live my life more outloud. I think it's healthy. I'm talking about VERBAL communication. None of this texting crap. I'm not going to progress much if I don't let my loved ones know how I'm feeling about my life and the lives of those around me and how we are weaving in and out of each others lives. Ya, it can get complicated, and frustrating but it's how we learn and grow.

breakfast:
cereal and milk with a side of bacon

snack:
a few almonds

lunch:
grilled chicken and pork with a whole lot of veggies

snack:
more stinking cheese
carrots

dinner:
egg salad sandwich.
Just wasn't feeling the chili I had made for everyone else. I actually didn't want to go near the cheese or the chips with a ten foot pole so I opted out.

snack:
5 merguine cookies

calories in: Who knows. Too tired to count

calories burned: 570, that's 60 minutes run/walking on treadmill

A little bit of Ghetto Booty

Recently at my Gym the Tae-bo instructor departed. I remember going to her class 2 years ago. Not much had changed which was a little comforting. It was a little sad to see her go. Last week I was gone for the first class of the new instructor. This morning I met her. She was very nice, very outgoing. She introduced herself and asked me what my name was. I can't repeat her name because it was a tongue twister. It sounded a lot like Shakira, but it's not Shakira. She told us we could just call her Shoe. If that name sounds a little black, it's because it is and so is the instructor. She was SO much fun. I found myself laughing at my white girl uncoordination. She literaly asked us to shake our booties. You know, like you see in all the J-Lo music videos. It was bad, on my part. How do you do that kind of shake? Seriously. In another combination move she asked us to ride that pony. Ya, you read that right. Complete with laso and reigns. I felt a little foolish. But it was really fun to "shake" up my work-out. I hope to channel some of that ghetto and shrink my booty.

Today was another good eating day. I made sure I was prepared and didn't leave the house hungry and made sure I ate lunch at home. Staying on top of my hunger is key. I realize that it's only the second day. But you have to start with some kind of momentum. It was hard again in the evening not eating sweets after dinner. I was still a bit hungry so I ate a little more turkey. I hope was the right choice.

Today was also another good exercise day. Not only did I make it to the gym for an hour, I worked out with Melissa for a good 50 minutes. If that's not serious determination, I don't know what is.

breakfast:
1 cup of chex
1 cup milk
1/2 banana
2 slices of bacon

snack:
cheese and an apple

lunch:
egg salad sandwich
carrots

snack:
more cheese, it was another indulging day.

Don't you find that when you cut major things out of your diet you turn to other outlets. I know I have to watch my cheese intake. And I will only eat it once tomorrow.

dinner:
turkey, bacon, avacado salad.

Total calories: About 1400

Total calories burned: roughly 770