Next Steps.

After I came home from work last night, I was feeling a run. I'm still trying to figure out exactly when to run during the week. I like to aim for at least 3 days, but then I don't like running in the morning when I have to work because I don't like to shower before work since my hair doesn't dry nice (such a vain reason, I know!). So that leaves my 2 days of the week I'm off - Monday and Wednesday - and maybe one day over the weekend? Most likely not because I love to be a lazy bum on the weekends. However, the past two weeks it's worked that I could run on Thursday night instead of Friday morning, and get my 3 runs in.

Also, after my awful run on Wednesday, I wanted to make sure that was just a fluke, and not a regular occurrence. With all that said, I come home yesterday, changed and headed out.

It was a pretty awesome run. I didn't warm up again, and my heart rate was a bit high, but didn't shoot up like it did on Wednesday. I took a few walking breaks, but ran a total of a smidge over 2 miles with a pretty rockin' pace - 11:24! I'm really proud of myself and proved to myself that I can do it.

After that wonderful run, I weighed myself this morning and did not like what I saw on the scale. But I'm not going to let it get to me. I know I had an off weekend last weekend, but I've been back on track this week. My body is going through some changes since I went off the pill, and it's taking a bit to even out. No big deal, I refuse to let this affect my mood. I just have to keep taking each day one at a time, and make it a masterpiece as my Grammy would say. I need to appreciate each day, and not keep hoping for the next step, because honestly, if we (meaning me) keep doing that, when are we going to appreciate what we have? Dreams are one thing, but holding off happiness until we get there isn't a smart way to live life.

Sorry about the tangent, but I've been thinking a lot about how wonderful it'll be when we get pregnant, but I need to appreciate the time I have with just Mr. Skinny, just the two of us. God will take care of the rest, I just need to enjoy my life each step of the way, and not be impatiently waiting for the next step.

Have a wonderful weekend! We'll be working on our lot this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some pictures to show you on Monday!

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Do you find yourself wanting that next step in your life now?

Does the scale affect your mood?

Happy Day.

It was even MORE humid today than it was yesterday if you can believe it. Well, chances are you're probably experiencing it, too, and I'm sure you CAN believe it. I'm seriously so glad we moved back to PA, I wouldn't be able to stand this is we were still in Maryland.

Anyways, let's back up. First thing this morning - it's WI Friday. Step on the scale, after doing everything that would make me loose weight, bathroom, strip down, ya know, the norm. You know what the scale said? 150.8! This is exciting news! I'm really trying to step off the scale more, and not obsess over it, but for right now, this is how I track my progress.

Sorry for the bad picture.

After I did that, I was debating what I wanted to do for my cardio today. It was SO humid though, I knew I couldn't going on a long run, especially after my run yesterday. I was in the mood to run though, but I knew only running 1 mile wouldn't be long enough for some cardio. My plan was to do a run then bike for about 2 miles. So I set out. By the time I was done by run though, I was done. I put my bike back and came inside and downed a bunch of water.

Awful picture, I'm trying out my "it's HOT" face. Does it work?

But I am really glad I went. If nothing else, I showed myself what I really could do, averaging about a 10 minute mile for most of the run, other than a few walking breaks.

Isn't that AWESOME? I'm rather proud.

Another pretty bad picture, but it was so humid I was sweating all over my whole body, even my KNEES were sweating. I really didn't want to shower, but after coming in from outside I had no choice but to hope in for a cold shower.

As for my weekend plans, it's gonna be pretty low key. Mr. Skinny and I are planning on going to see Harry Potter in IMAX/3D tomorrow night and hopefully we'll go out for dinner, too. Monday is my doctor's appointment, so I'll be back on Monday with an update on what she says about our TTC plans!

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What are your plans for this weekend?

Have you been exercising in this heat/humidity?

WI Friday.

So ya know how I said a little bit ago I was going to do bi-weekly weigh ins? Yeah, I haven't been doing that. For right now though, weekly weigh ins work for me. I'm loosing, even though it's v e r y s l o w, it's going. I lost another 0.8 this week. This is really great for me, seriously. Slow and steady wins the race, and I know that, for sure!

I went for my run this morning, and it was another "eh" run, but it's done. I haven't had a good run in a while. I probably need to drink more water and eat more fruits and veggies. I'm slacking on veggies especially, big time. Another 2.81 finished. I only walked 3 times, and I timed the last 2 to make sure it wasn't over 1 minute. I think I held a pretty steady 11-12 minute pace for all of the running section, and my walks weren't too bad either.

Now for my plans this weekend. I'm going to my cousin's house, ya know the one who serves her kid toaster strudels for breakfast, and pizza rolls for dinner? Yeah, her. Now don't get me wrong, she's my favorite cousin in the world, and her and I are basically like sisters. Neither one of us has a sister, and even though we're 6 years apart, we've stayed close our whole lives. I want to come up with a plan. I've been tracking every day for 20 days (according to My Fitness Pal), and I want to keep that going. There is NO reason to give myself a free-for-all all weekend.

With my oatmeal discovery this week, I think I'm going to make my own prepackaged oatmeal for breakfast. I'm taking some fruit for fruit salad, but that's the only plan that I have. At least I'll have a filling breakfast? It's so hard to plan for stuff like this. As long as I track everything though, that's what really matters. I'll make smart choices and really watch my hunger signals, that's the most important.

I probably won't post until Tuesday, but have a nice long 4th weekend!!

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What are your plans for the 4th weekend?

Scales and Trails.

Rhymes, huh? :)

I'm really bad with coming up with clever post titles, my days are pretty repetitive, so it's nothing new or exciting. Looking for jobs, running, yoga, blogging, reading. Boring life right now.

Anyway, I'm going to start doing Weekly Weigh Ins again. On Fridays. I'm really trying to focus more on how I feel than what the scale tells me, but it's really hard. Now that I've been actually working out and running regularly, I want the scale to show what a great job I'm doing. It's not always working like that, but it is on the right path at least. Since my last official blog WI, I've lost 6 pounds. It's not a ton, but I'm truly accepting the fact that I'm a slow loser. The upside to this is that I know I won't go back to the way I was eating. It's going to be hard to figure out exactly how to maintain, but I'll deal with that when I get there, and probably won't until the end of the year.

My current weight as of this morning is 153. I'm so close to the 140s, I can taste it. I've been in the 150s since January, but there was a TON of maintaining in there. Right now I'm aiming for a goal of 140. We'll evaluate when I get there and see if I want to go lower. I'm not worried about it. Sure, I'd love to be done loosing weight, but I'm just going to focus on being healthy, rather than being attractive. Healthy is what matters.

On the other side of things, my brother and I went for a run this morning. It was an okay run. I thought after my 2 mile run on Wednesday that todays run (run .5, walk .25, run .75, walk .25, run .5) would be cake. Boy was I wrong! I think the root of the problem was that I was running with my brother, who could probably run a 6 minute mile, so he's naturally faster than I am. I try to keep up with him as much as I can, but it's hard. I thought I was just having a bad run day, but when I looked at my pace once we were finished, I ran an 8:30 pace! That's crazy! And I actually kept it up for a little bit, too! So I blame that. Even my walking pace wasn't so bad. By the last 3/4 of a mile or so, I just told Brother to go ahead. I knew I wanted to go slow and he could have sped up.

I walked most of the way home the last little bit, but I'm not ashamed of it. My right arch was bothering me, so I didn't want to get a blister or anything, so I walked. I hope there's nothing wrong with my shoes, I just bought those shoes! All in all, I don't think I'll have to repeat the day, but it was a difficult outing.

Does anyone know how accurate Nike+ GPS is? My brother's said 2.9, and he did go a little farther than me, but I think it would have been more than that. I've been doing all my training runs off this app, and I don't know what I'll do if it's inaccurate...

Do we look alike? I'm not gonna lie, Brother is RIPPED!

When we went down to stick our feet in the water, last week we noticed there were some fish eggs around the steps on our dock. Today there was this...

Last time we saw them they were in a different spot and they were more string-like, so what the heck happened? Do I have any biology people reading my blog?

Have a great weekend!

Stepping Away From The Scale.

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't been tracking my weight in quite a few weeks. As much as I wish I haven't been weighing myself, I have been. Obsessively, in fact. I weighed myself every morning from last Thursday to this morning. I like what the scale is saying, but I still know I shouldn't be weighing myself every day.

I have a problem with the scale, it's not always my friend. I have read so many blog posts lately about the scale, and I wish I could put the scale away once and for all. However, I do have more weight to loose and I never measured my body, I don't think I would like checking progress that way. Maybe once I loose all my weight and just want to tone up, that would be an ideal way to check progress, but not quite yet.

No, the scale does not accurately tell you what your body looks like, and it is not a measure of how fit or healthy you are. Right now, at about 155 pounds, I might look completely different than someone else at the same weight. Even another woman the same height as me might look completely different. But yet we put so much into the scale and what it reads.

When we move, I think I'm going have Mr. Skinny hide my scale. This has worked in the past to break me of my obsessiveness. I need to focus on how my body feels instead of how the scale tells me to feel. When I gain, even if it's a tiny gain, I feel like a failure, I quickly judge myself on my eating and exercising habits of the past days or the past week, even if it is a fluke. I'm a woman, I have hormonal changes, and they affect what the scale tells me.

For right now, I need to continue weighing myself. Every day is not a good idea, and I realize that, even though I pull the scale out daily to check and make sure I'm on the right track. Weekly worked while I was on Weight Watchers, that's what they recommended and that's what I did, no problem. It was the day you got all new points, if you were in the red, it was forgiven, a brand new day. Now, however, as I'm just tracking calories, there are no "saving points" for a big event. You can exercise that day to have extra calories to eat, but you can't hoard points. For right now, that works for me.

Since I don't have that once a week ritual anymore, I think I'm going to switch to bi-weekly weigh ins, permanently. Or at least until I get to "goal weight" whatever that number may be. I know what's considered healthy for my height, but I don't think that's considered healthy for my body type, so we'll play it by ear and see how it goes. I don't have to worry about it for at least 15 more pounds, and that's if I ever get out of my rut of these stubborn 5 pounds I've been playing with for months. Alas! I did break through on one of my days of weighing myself daily. I don't know if it will stick around, and I'll weight until next Friday to see.

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Do you weigh yourself?
If so, how often and are you planning on "stepping away from the scale"?
If not, when did you stop?

What's going on in my life.

School is almost over. Only 2 finals, 1 paper and 1 assignment is between me and graduation.

I didn't weigh myself today. As per my post last week, I'm not weighing myself until next Wednesday. I feel good, but I know I went over my calories two days in the past week, which is good. I'm focusing more on calories than points, and it's pretty great.

I've been going to the gym regularly again. On Sunday, I went to the gym for 1 1/2 hours, and walked/ran about 5 miles. This movie was on, and even though I'd seen it before, I didn't want to miss it, so I kept going.

I've been doing weights! This is huge for me, and I'm really enjoying them. I'd like to get a few more weights, but the Nike+ app for my iPhone is SUCH a huge help! I can do weights in the comfort of my own home.

My cousin had her baby! I'll be posting a picture later today. It's a boy - Colton Michael and he's precious! I stayed over with her in the hospital on Monday night and I'm having a tough time catching up on my sleep. Oh well, babies are SO worth it. Although this doesn't help my baby fever, but I can spoil her kids until I have my own, right?

I'll keep chugging along though, and keep an eye out for picture update tonight!

Taking a Break

I'm still here, just feel like I don't have a lot to say about being healthy since I've gained for the 3 week in a row. And school is super stressful.

I don't have any motivation anymore. I'm getting really frustrated. I thought I was doing good, at least for the past two days, and then I step on the scale this morning. See? That's the problem, I stepped on the scale. It changed my whole mood. I actually thought my pants were a bit big, and now I feel like a fat lump.

I know I'm still down 21 pounds from where I started last May, but I should loosing, not gaining. I know I can do it! I've proven that I can do it, so where the heck did that motivation go?

I'm trying to take a step back and figure out what I can do. First of all, I downloaded an app on my iPhone - My Fitness Pal. It's like sparkpeople, counts calories and other nutrients, but it has just about every brand name you could think of.
Jif natural peanut butter? Check.
Stonyfield banilla yogurt? Check.
Kashi GoLean Cruch Honey Almond Flax? Check
It's awesome, so I've been tracking on there for 3 days now, and I think I like something different. Rather than points where my banana, cantaloupe and strawberries are "free" I can realize that they do have calories, but they're good for you, too.

And I'm not stepping on the scale until May 11th. I'm taking a week off. I'm also going to join the OP2Overcome challenge. 21 days completely OP - no going in the red, and tracking every. single. thing. that goes in my mouth. I weighed my food this morning to accurately track it and I'm going to start measuring food, something I've never done before. Yes. You read that right, I've been on WW for almost 1 year and I've never measured my food. It's that bad.

I just restarted my weight history on WW. Fresh new start at 159 starting today. My next goal is my 5% goal at 151. I'll get there. It's a slow trek, but I will get there.

I think I'm also going to post on here what I ate yesterday. Everything I ate yesterday. This is more accountability than anything else. So I know that if I ate a cup of peanut butter and oreos, I have to tell you all - so keep me accountable!! If you have any suggestions, please tell me.

Yesterday's menu:
B - 1 c. Kashi cereal, 1/2 c. Stonyfield yogurt, 1 c. strawberries
S - 1 small apple, 1 tbsp. peanut butter
L - Leftovers, 2 c. cantaloupe
D - 3 oz. pork loin, 3 c. roasted cauliflower, 1 c. skim milk, 3/4 c. quinoa
Activity - 50 minute aerobics class - burned ~319 calories

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Any words of encouragement, stories, advice?

WI Wednesday

First of all, do you like the new blog design? I think it looks pretty nice!

I'm really getting discouraged. I think I need to try something new. It's not the tracking that's bothering me, it's the weighing. The scale went up again folks. I know why, I ate Panera for lunch yesterday, and I didn't eat lightly. I had a steak and blue cheese half salad, and broccoli cheese soup, with the bagette, of course. I know I could have had healthier options, but I can't say no when it comes to that broccoli cheese soup and bagette! The salad was eh, but I ate it all anyway. I was full, but Panera has such delicious bagels! I just had to get one! I only ate half, but I didn't really need it. I chugged water for the rest of the day, and had a pretty light dinner.

I'm still up 0.6 this morning. No, it's not a huge gain, but I am so sick of being stuck in the high 150s for 4 months! That's rediculous!!! So, what do I do? I mentioned a few weeks ago about getting to worried what the scale says that if it goes up, that sets my mood for the week, or at least the day. I stay on track, but I still just want that scale to go down.

I think, starting in May, I'm going to go to bi-weekly weigh ins. We'll see how that goes, and I might even go to monthly weigh ins. I really should start taking progress pictures, and tracking measurements. My life is too busy for that right now though. I know, I shouldn't push my health to the side, but until school is over, that has to come first. I'm going to aim to get to the gym twice each week, for about 40 minutes each time. After school is over, I'll aim to get there 4-5 times each week, and actually focus on progressing somewhere - running again, weights, yoga. But all that good stuff has to wait until May 12 and my finals are over.

On another note, I have something to mention:

1. We do owe those taxes because our jobs didn't withhold enough MD taxes - bummer.

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Do you like the new blog? Any suggestions for it?

Do you track measurements, pictures, weigh yourself? How often?

WI Wednesday and Weekly Reflections

Score! The scale is going in the right direction - FINALLY!

I know that it was due to my own fault, no one was forcing me to eat the junk food I was eating, but I got my motivation back. Took a few weeks, but as I was talking about it with a co-worker, I stayed within 3 pounds of my lowest weight, which means I can maintain successfully. Yes, I still have 20ish pounds go loose, but I learned something.

Anyways, I did loose this week, and I'm down 1.2 from last Wednesday. I can get the scale moving in the right direction now. Summer is coming, graduation is coming, and I want to feel good about myself!

My goals for last week went pretty successfully, too!

1. I tracked everything! Even my Burger King, Rita's, Sheetz and I still have a good loss!

2. Work out 3x - WIN! I went to the gym last Wednesday for an awesome run, went to my spinning class on Thursday, and went for a long (mostly) walk, little run on Monday when it was beautiful out.

3. As for my papers, both were a fail. I am going to be interviewing my uncle for my seminar paper, but I haven't had time yet to start my Native American paper, although I did pick a topic.

4. My daily devotions - another win. I look forward to this time every morning, where I can spend time in God's word, read a devotion and pray for God to impact my life that way.

5. I like to think that I've been a good wife this past week, but I've had my moments. Everyone does though. I do think I've done a pretty good job though.

Next week's (4/6 - 4/12) goals:

- Continue tracking everything. I'm going to NYC this weekend, but I plan on tracking whatever I eat.

- Keep emptying our freezer. We're coming up short on money since we owe a HUGE chunk of taxes this year, that came out of nowhere, so we don't have a ton of money to buy new foods each week. I think we're going to have to be pretty creative and start emptying our pantry and freezer.

- Work out 3x again.

- Start on my seminar paper.

- Get a bibliography started for the Native American paper

Happy Hump Day!

WI Wednesday and Reflection

*Sorry for the big paragraph chunks. I hate it too, but Blogger won't let me change it :( I gained again, but it's not bothering me today. I feel back on track, I know where I'm headed and what I need to do. That run on Monday really helped me out and get my head back on straight. I only gained 0.6, and I didn't drink all my water yesterday, and have leftover shrimp linguine alfredo for lunch yesterday. I did work out on Monday, worked out yesterday thanks to my Aerobics class - by the way, the instructor is a personal trainer and in my opinion, she brings too much of her personal trainer personality into a college PE class. Seriously, she could give Jillian Michaels a run for her money. And yet, she treats us like we know nothing about health and fitness, anyways, that's another topic. I've also been really focused on eating real foods over processed foods, as well as eating less meat. I'm debating erasing my weight history on my weight tracker - again. I've been doing so badly in the past few weeks that my average loss is actually an average gain! That's pretty depressing, don't ya think? Since it's almost the end of March, I'm going to look back on the month. I'll also look back on my weekly goals. - I maintained this month. I lost in the beginning, and gained in the end, but I will end the month with the exact same weight that I started the month off at - 158.4 - and I don't view that as a fail, but rather a learning experience. I can go on vacation and not gain a ton of weight. I can have an off month with minimal exercising and maintain. - I haven't been doing my yoga. I really want to get back into yoga, I'm just having a hard time finding the time to do it, and I'd really like to go to a class, it's so much easier to do in a class than by yourself. - Tracking this month was pretty off. Tracking this week was pretty off, too. I didn't track the weekend and most certainly did not track the deliciousness I had from Red Robin or Red Lobster. Fail. - This week I've really done better at spending time with God, and being a better wife, so those are both wins as far as goals go. - I successfully interviewed my dad for my research paper, but I haven't set up a time to interview my uncle yet. I'm waiting for HIM to get back to ME. Not my fault.

This week's (3/30 - 4/5) goals:

WW goals -

- Work out 3 times

- Track EVERYTHING!

Non WW goals -

- Start researching Native American paper and writing Sem. paper

- Continue being a nice wife

- Continue doing my daily devotions - these are helping me so much. I realized that my Bible has daily devotions, so I started from the beginning and I'm going through them, and I feel like God wrote them just for me. It's a wonderful feeling. I might write a blog each morning or evening about my daily devotion and just reflect on it.

Just for some April goals, nothing major, I'm going to be focusing more on weekly goals.

- Get the scale moving in the right direction again.

- Aim for 60APs in the month of April. I did it in January, I can do it again.

What are your April goals?

i gained

Yep, I gained. 1.8 lbs. to be exact. It's not a huge deal, I mean I was on vacation last week, and ate a good amount of food, but I can't help the thoughts running through my mind:

- I walked tons every day.
- I only ate when I was hungry.
- I only had 1 big meal a day, and it was nowhere near what I would have eaten 1 year ago.

I need to cross these negative thoughts out of my mind! One week of gaining isn't going to kill my weight loss journey. It was a vacation, my jeans still fit and it could have been a lot worse.

Back to happy things: Disney World was wonderful! I had such a blast with my momma, we talked the whole time and we took our time, walking a lot, looking a lot and I enjoyed every minute of it. I got 6 free birthday desserts (thank you birthday pin!), wished "Happy Birthday" in no less than 6 different languages, was sung "Happy Birthday" in Italian, got to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and my mom paid for all the vacation, and most of my souveniers! I have nothing to complain about. It was an excellent vacation, and I can't thank my momma enough for taking me. I told her thank you at least 5 times each day and would tell her thank you every night when she was tucking me in. Yes, I just turned 22 and my mom tucked me in when we were on vacation, there ain't nothing wrong with that.

It was relaxing and just what I needed since I was so stressed out. I also got a lot of research done on my huge senior seminar paper I need to write. I'm confident I should be able to successfully do this paper now. My dad is uber excited for me to write this, and I'm pretty pumped, too.

One last thing, since this post isn't all over the place enough; I'm changing my monthly goals to weekly goals (for now). I don't think monthly goals are working very well for me, I start out really motivated at the beginning of the month, and then the month flies by and it's already the end of the month and I have a list of goals that I've failed. I'm going to focus on the smaller things, like tracking and working out rather than big goals like loosing x lbs. and being at x weight by y date. That's not working for me. I was doing really well in January - February until Pop Pop died, then it went wonky. I need a kick in the butt, and by focusing on each day and week instead of month and year.

Sigh. I feel better just writing that. Stayed tuned for some pictures from my trip - I'm at work now and don't have them with me - and my goals for the week of March 23 - 29!

WI wednesday and house update

House update

First things first. We didn't get the house. It was on the marker for 80+ days and the weekend we put an offer in, someone else does, too. Awesome. So we're back to square one. We probably won't be able to look at any houses until I get back from Disney World since that's 2 weekends that are shot.

Most of the houses in our price range are in need of some level of renovation. Honestly, I'd be okay with getting a house that's move in ready, we'll slowly save our money and redo each room at a time, and hopefully we can make a pretty penny on it when we sell it in a few years.

When we talked to my in-laws on Saturday, they seemed all excited for us. Once we told them we put an offer in, my FIL was worried that we wouldn't be able to back out of it if something was majorly wrong. We assured him that we still could, but I think it really hurt Mr. Skinny knowing that we didn't have his dad's blessing to move onto the next step of a house. Neither set of parents, mine or his, ever bought a house, so they don't know the process, and were worried when we put an offer in without the home inspection. They didn't know we had to put an offer in in order to get the utilities turned on for the home inspector. Oh well. The right house is out there somewhere. God has a plan for us.

WI results

I lost again! I'm down 2.2 pounds from last Wednesday! I'm still 0.8 away from my lowest before Pop Pop went downhill and passed away, but I'm getting there. And this weekend I had wine and 1/4 of a box of brownies!

I'm worried about Disney though, I don't want to come home and have gained and I'll have to loose that weight AGAIN. I'm really hoping that I can focus on portion sizes and stopping myself when I'm satisfied and before I'm completely stuffed that I feel disgusting and terrible. I also know what we'll be walking a LOT! I've heard people say they took a pedometer and have walked anywhere from 13 miles to 18 miles in one day, so I'll be getting my exercise, for sure. I'm also going to take some peanut butter, some bread and apples that I can take some snacks with me while I'm walking around the parks, and to save money and hopefully not buy those cute little mickey ice creams!

We have the dining plan, so we'll have one good meal every day, but that meal includes an appetizer for each of us, as well as a dessert. I just need to focus on hunger signals.

What's your strategy when you're on vacation?

WI wednesday

I lost 0.2 pounds this week. I know why (I think), and I know a loss is a loss. I know. I just started working out again on Saturday after a near 3 week hiatus. I tracked everything that I ate, and mostly accurately I think. I'm hoping that it was just my muscles retaining water once I started working out again. I ate all my WPs, but none of my APs (I earned 23), but tried to eat my APs (as WPs) on the day that I earned them, does that make sense?

From the week that I had lost 2.4 pounds I ate all my points, WPs and APs and had a huge loss. As a result of that week, I thought that I am one of those people that needs to eat all their points. Now from this week, I'm not sure. So what do I do? Should I try to eat all my points again, following the week that I had a big loss and chalk my small loss up to my muscles retaining water? Or should I try to eat less, maybe half my WPs and see what that does?

What would you do?

We'll be home again this weekend, so I can stay OP pretty easily and keep getting my hiney to the gym. I already have a date with a friend for a cycling class tomorrow night. I have my gym clothes with me at work and I'm planning on doing W1D2 of my couch-to-10k training after work tonight. I'm also planning on getting up at 5am again tomorrow and doing yoga, which I really enjoyed yesterday morning.

My goal this month is to get back into yoga, and I'm aiming for April's goal to be weights. I finished reading "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" and really liked the book.

Have any of you read it and done the program?

I bought and read it on my Nook though, and would like to get the book as a real book so I can take it to the gym with me. I'm kind of excited to do weights though. Hopefully I can figure out how to finagle my way around the weights at the gym. I'll get up in the morning and specifically go just so I can have the least amount of people there.

What is it about weights that scare women off? How do you deal with that?

Really, I guess that only way to deal is to suck it up. I wish I had friends around so we could buddy up and hit the gym together, but I'm a loner.

Okay, rambling post over. Happy Hump Day!

back to reality

I'm back. Hopefully nothing else happens. I'm so ready for February to be over. It wasn't a good month. Yes, it's the shortest month of the year, but this February seems like it's dragged on for ages. Sigh.

WI this morning - I lost 2 pounds from last week. I'm excited, really. I thought I'd be up to 163 or something again, but I lost 2 pounds. Guess that's what happens when you have a huge glass of wine and an entire box of mac and cheese the night before WI. I'm ready to jump on board again. It wasn't even nice to eat whatever for 2 weeks. I missed the planning, knowing what I was going to cook, and not feeling like a stuffed sausage when I went to bed. There were nights that I couldn't sleep because my stomach hurt so bad.

I missed my fruits and vegs, my GHGs. I missed the way I felt when I got home from the gym. I have to say though, I haven't gone to the gym in over 2 weeks, and I probably won't go until Friday. I have a ton of homework to make up tonight. I have an assignment due tomorrow, and a test first thing in the morning which I haven't read for the class at all. It's gonna be rough. Whatevs, I'll get through. Pop Pop and spending time with my in-laws was wayyyy worth it over some grades.

Pop Pop and his first "real" grandchild - Mr. Skinny. Even though Mr. Skinny is the 6th grandchild, he was the first male to carry on their last name, and he's named after Pop Pop. My MIL got diamond earrings when she gave birth to him. No lie.

I have some exciting news, but I will be waiting for another post to tell it. It's too exciting to be added at the bottom of this post, it deserves it's own post.

another update

Okay so I wish I had good news, and I don't. When I talked to Grandma yesterday she didn't give me details, and I didn't ask about details. When Mr. Skinny got home, he had talk to his dad and got the details and the rest of the story:

Pop Pop has 20% of his heart currently working. His lungs are filling up with fluid. They're going to try to do the pacemaker, but we aren't sure when and it *could* work, but they don't think he's strong enough to go through the surgery. If the surgery isn't successful, the doctors are giving him about 2 weeks. That's it. 2 weeks.

This sucks. He's only 73. He's not going to see us move back to PA, or see his future great-grandchildren. I feel bad for laughing and going on with my plans each day while Pop Pop is dying in the hospital. I know that's what he'd want me to do, go on with my plans, but it's hard. It's really hard.

The only request that Pop Pop had for us at our wedding was to "get what we had to get done, done, and get your butts back up home." Direct quote. I know I'm being selfish, and it's not even that I can't get through this, but I'm worried about my in-laws. I don't know how they're going to take it. I know that Mr. Skinny and I can get through this, and we have time to prepare, but I wish we were closer. I hate being 3 hours away when something like this happens.

Okay, FIL just called me. They're going to update Pop Pop's pacemaker. It could be tonight, could be tomorrow, could be Friday. I want to go home right now, but I have to wait for Mr. Skinny. This is Pop Pop's last chance. Just pray for the strength to get through this whole process.

On a side note: I lost 2.4 pounds this week. I think I'm going to be one of those people that has to eat all their points, WPs and APs to loose. That's what I did last week, and I think I'm going to try it again this week and we'll see. Granted, with this whole thing with Pop Pop, I might just toss WW aside and put it in the back of my mind until we get through this.

Prayers are appreciated. Thank you.

*drum roll please*

Hey! Guess what?! Today's WI day!

Oh boy, I was a little nervous, but I stepped on the scale and BAM! 157.6 this morning! Heck yes! I haven't lost this consecutively umm... *runs to check my WI page* EVER! This. Is. Incredible! I am *so* proud of myself, I can't even believe it. I have tracked everything that goes into my mouth, although I do need to work on accurate portions. I've been working out, although I need to work-out more.

The only thing I want to complain about (just for a minute) is the amount that I'm loosing. Before someone gets mad at me and lets me know that I am in the healthy weight lose for each week, I know that. And I have no one to blame but myself for slowly loosing. I need to work on my portion sizes. I really would like to get a food scale so I can see if my potato I eat each morning is actually a small potato in the tracker, and that my guesstimation of 3 ounces of chicken breast is accurate. I might pick one up this weekend actually. I never rewarded myself for my 160 goal, so that might be it.

\rant

All things aside, another positive thing has come out of this WI: I'm not longer obese! I never really felt obese, even when I was 180, I just felt fat. Alas, according to my BMI -- which I think is kind of full of balogna -- I was obese. My BMI was 34.0 when I started my WLJ last May. Today, I am 29.7 - a full 0.2 under the highest for my height. I am quite proud of myself for sticking it out.

The highest healthy BMI I can have and be considered healthy is at 132. That's really little. I don't know that I could get down to that. My first goal is going to be 140 and we'll see how I look when I'm there. I don't have a certain size I want to get down to, heck I'm already in a size 4, and I don't even have a number that I want to see on the scale, but I want to love how my body looks. I want to be comfortable in clothes that fit me, and in a bathing suit. I want to wear skirts and dresses in the summer, and shorts! Ahh well, I'll just keep trucking along.

Stay tuned for my February goals this afternoon!

Happy Hump Day!

WI wednesday

i lost again - down another 0.4. it's not great, but i'll take it. especially after feeling so terrible on saturday night after having 2 pieces of lasagna and wishing i would throw it up. i won't let myself get like that this weekend, and i'm staying home so i can pretty easily stay OP while i'm home. hopefully i'll get to the gym friday, saturday and sunday. there's no reason why i shouldn't get there.

i'm almost done my second cycle of OP2Overcome, tomorrow will be my 21st day. i can't believe i have literally tracked every single day of january! that's a huge accomplishment! okay that's a lie, i've tracked every day since january 3rd, but still, that's pretty big. tracking has become such a habit now that i don't think i could not track a day. it's things like this that make me really excited and know that i can lose all this weight and get to my goal.

for my third cycle i'm going to get my GHGs in EVERYDAY and everyday after that, if i can't do it one day, then i have to start the cycle over again. hopefully this will be motivation to get 30 minutes of activity in everyday and focus more on my GHGs and correctly tracking everything. i'd really be able to continue with some great losses and hopefully get to goal by my 1 year WW-versary in may.

i'm still not sure what my goal will be. i might have another 18 pounds to lose, i might have 23 or maybe even 28 more to go. i'm not sure. i'm just going to have to see what my body looks like at those weights. 137 is the highest weight for a healthy BMI, but i'm a thicker boned girl, i don't know that i could get down to 130, although it would be great to say i lost 50 pounds. anyway, we'll cross that boarder when i get to it. for now i'll just keep moving toward that goal.

happy hump day all!