The scale dropped

Just a quick note to say that the scale finally dropped again. I am starting to see a pattern in my body and weight loss and am realizing that I will lose every second week but in the intervening, hormone laden weeks I will not. So, I will try to hold for those weeks and then, if I stay on plan, I will lose for the other weeks. Hopefully, and it should if I am on plan, I will lose well in the loss weeks and overall still have a steady 2 lbs per week weight loss over a period of a month.
More later....

A successful trip

Just back from Las Vegas, celebrating my dad's 70th birthday. Had a great time, visiting with family (my sister and her family flew in too).
My plan for the 5 days was to eat as clean as possible and walk a lot. Well, overall, I succeeded on both fronts.
I blistered my feet (sandals and I don't get along) and my eating was pretty good. Three meals a day with no snacks as my meals were bigger than normal. When I did need a snack I bought an orange or a yogurt. I tried hard not to finish the portion of food served to me. I can't believe how big the portions are in the US. I hear about it on the news all the time and figured there would not be that big of a difference from here in Canada, but wow. My husband and I even shared a breakfast one morning because the portion was so big.
Anyway, got on the scale when I got back and was almost exactly the same. Then, this morning I got on the scale again and I am down almost a pound from when I left. WOW. I don't think I have ever stayed the same on vacation. I am very proud of myself. I had a plan, and I stuck to it.
For lunch one day I ordered salad with crab. Another day, I ordered sliced pork with some rice and soup. For dinner one day, I ordered halibut with veggies. Another, we went to a steakhouse and I ordered the smallest steak on the menu (a petit filet at 8oz) and some peas. The peas were swimming in butter but overall a much better choice than what I would have made in the past.
I had gained a little weight in the week before I left and that is slowly coming back off, so I'll report the official weigh-in tomorrow. I expect I will still be up a little but I am totally back on track and will kick it this week.
Another thing I am learning about is how my body reacts to sugar. I always knew that I was sugar sensitive. My doctor told me when I was in college that I was probably hypoglycemic. I have never been tested for that specifically, but the fact that I get migraines if I go too long without food probably confirms it. My fasting glucose test has always been normal and my doctor even did the three month blood test which was also normal, so I am thankfully not diabetic, but boy does my body react badly to sugar. Had a craving for sweet last night and our calories for the day were pretty low, so Hubby and I had some frozen yogurt with a small piece of chocolate cake. We definitely had more than we should and it was almost 11 at night and boy was I sick last night. I slept really poorly and was woken at 3am feeling nauseus and unwell. I think that happens to me only when I have sugar. Also, I was away 5 days, in a strange place, with a time change and long flights and I had no headaches. No Migraines, No Headaches, no nothing. I was so happy I could not beleive it. Then last night, I had sugar and this morning, bang, a headache. Not a bad one, but definitely there.
My sister has been bugging me for a while that my migraines are probably food triggered and she wants me to get that checked out. Then Lynn over at Escape from Obesity blogged that when she cut out sugar completely her migraines went away. I really didn't think that could be possible, that mine weren't sugar related at all. Now, I am not so sure. I definitely get them for other reasons as well (hormones mostly) but maybe some are sugar related. I will have to pay closer attention to that and see.
It's good to be back, looking forward to catching up on all of the blogs I follow. Looking forward to a great week.
I will do this, I will.

Feeling better, finally

Headache free today. Man was that a rough go. Had a pretty rough time of it of late but feel pretty good today and hope to stay well for a while.
All of the meds I have been taking have messed with my weight. I have been pretty good on the diet and can't get my rings on again, so I am pretty sure it is water weight that is reflecting on the scale. Also, all of the meds plug up the digestive system, so I have been trying to eat tons of fiber the last couple of days. It is starting to help the digestive track, but the extra calories are probably not great overall. All that to say that the scale is up 2 pounds, with official weigh in tomorrow, but it will come off next week. My body goes in cycles like this and I am learning to embrace it and not get discouraged.
We are heading out on vacation tomorrow. Meeting up with my family in Las Vegas. My plan is to eat as cleanly as I can and to walk, a lot.
My sister is bringing her laptop to Vegas, so hopefully I can borrow that to blog from there.
In the interim, have a great week. Respect your body, be good to yourself and we'll chat no later than Monday. Promise.
I will do this, I will.

Compassion amidst pain

I have decided that for this week I am not going to weigh myself. I think it is causing me too much grief. I am struggling enough with making good choices and exercising and keeping the migraines at bay, and to add one more stress point is setting me over the edge.
So, until next weigh-in, I am off the scale.
Let's see if I can hold out.
I will keep to my eating plan, nourish myself with good food. Try to be as active as I can and accept whatever comes next week. Over the long haul, and that is what this journey is, it will be fine.
I had a doozy of a migraine last night, dinner ended up being cereal, and then some toast with cheese. A bit of a mess but I was in no shape to cook. Hubby was not helpful at all and I was pretty mad. He is really good at becoming a lump on a log when I feel sick. He doesn't know what to do for me and so it seems he just hunkers down and does nothing.
And man, does that piss me off. I mean really, show some compassion. Ask me what he can do to help. Offer to make dinner. Make a cold compress to put on my head. Do something to show compassion and thoughtfulness. I tried to explain all of this to him, but he just says there is nothing he can do for the headache. He's right, there is nothing he can do for the headache. I will take my meds and sleep it off and the headache will go away.
That is not what this is about. This is about me feeling scared and vulnerable and worried and needing to know that he is there for me, not just when everything is great but also when things are crappy and I am sick. This is about me needing pretty major surgery in a few years and being scared that he is not going to be able to handle it. This is about me wanting him to acknowledge that I feel like crap and that it's ok to feel like crap, that he loves me anyways.
I know that he does, and rationally I am way overthinking all of this and it will all be fine. But, the emotional, overthinker, who is always scared and overwhelmed gets more so when I am feeling sick and needs that little reassurance to keep me grounded.
He doesn't read this blog and while he knows that I write it and that lots of people read it, he hasn't yet seen any of these postings. I will share this one with him. He is my rock and I love him, and maybe if he reads this, he will learn a little bit more about me and be able to help me in a way I think I need. And maybe, by sharing it, I will learn a little more about myself and be able to dial back on the insecurities and learn to deal better. Maybe there is a middle ground and we can find it.
I will do this, I will.

Nurturing the soul

I have been really cranky lately. I know I am not much fun to be around when I am cranky and I think hubby deserves a medal for putting up with me.
There is a lot going on at work, my boss is not the easiest guy to work for and lots of "stuff" going on in the family. I have been looking at everything in a pretty negative way lately and feeling pretty unhappy. I am getting tired of being cranky. I am tired of feeling sorry for myself and having a bad attitude and thinking, no one is going through this, no one is going to understand.
But when I look around, really, really, look around, I realize that I have so much. So much to be thankful for. My hubby and I are solid. My job (not the boss, just the work) is pretty good. Even my boss, maybe I can figure out a way to not let him get to me. I am able to be in control of this life that I have and live it in any way that I choose.
So from today, I choose to be thankful. I choose to be happy. If I choose to live that way, in a happy, nurturing way, then my life will be that way. It will make the rest easier to deal with. And by being happy, I will be in a better place to deal with whatever gets thrown at me. So I will not only nurture my body with good food and some exercise, I will try to nurture my soul too. I will spend some time thinking about how to do that. I will take better care of the whole me. From today.
I will do this, I deserve it!

Obsession abounds

Weigh In today. I have a loss for the week of 5.2 pounds. Unbelievable. I don't think I have ever lost that amount of weight in one week. Ever.
I weigh myself everyday. I know you are only supposed to weigh in once per week but I do it everyday right when I get up. I believe that it helps to keep me on track. If the number is down from the day before it motivates me to keep up with the diet. If the number is higher it gives me a bit of a kick to get on track.
But it is a problem and not one that I know how to solve. This week, I knew I was on plan. I knew I was having a good week. Did I really need to know how the scale was reacting every day? What ended up happening was by yesterday, I was so afraid of doing something that would make the scale go up that I was afraid to eat. Me, afraid to eat. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would be my reaction. I really had to talk myself into eating dinner last night. I was able to prepare a healthy one, but I was obsessed about keeping the sodium levels low so that I wouldn't be retaining water for this morning's weigh-in.
I am not sure what to do with this. I know, logically, that I will not lose 5lbs in a week each week. I know, logically, that it would be lunacy to try and that it would cause me all sorts of headaches and lethargy if I did. But the scale moved a lot and that's really motivating. I know, logically that the number on the scale is not all that important but I need to be under 250 for my surgery, so for me, it is.
I haven't decided how I am going to handle this yet. I still feel the need to weigh myself everyday as the mental check in with myself. I think though, that as part of that mental check in, I need to continue to remind myself that I need to eat enough food to fuel my body, prevent the migraines and give myself enough fuel to function well at work. I will try to maintain a weight loss of 2lbs per week and not be so obsessive about this. I just haven't figured out how.
I will do this, I will.

Building on good choices

I have been making some good choices lately.
I have always heard people say that if you want to feel a certain way or act a certain way or make a huge change in your life, you need to just start living that way. Don't wait for the motivation or the "kick" you think you need or some external force to come along and get you to do it. Just live it. Live it everyday for however long it takes for it to become a habit. For it to become normal. For it to be just the way you do things. I never understood how that could possibly be. I mean really, if you force yourself to do something you hate, can it really become something you enjoy and look forward to?
But maybe, I am starting to believe. It is getting easier in the office to avoid the communal snack area. It is getting easier to order better in restaurants. It is getting easier to bring my lunch. It is getting easier to not snack at night. These are just some of the things that I have been forcing myself to do for the last 7 weeks and it really is getting easier.
We were out a lot this weekend, and I found myself ordering water instead of pop in restaurants. I ordered grilled chicken at a hamburger place. I order steamed rice and sliced pork at a chinese restaurant. I am making better choices. They are getting easier to make and I am not feeling deprived.
I am feeling empowered. That is quite a change.
I recognize in me that exercise will be my biggest struggle. But I am trying. I realize I will not go from 0 to 6 days a week immediately, so I am trying for 3. 3 cardio sessions and 2 weight sessions. It is not overwhelming. It feels doable. I will build on the good choices I am making around food and it will spill over into the exercise.
I will do this, I will.

The cake that wasn't

We had a Mother's day bbq at my sister-in-law's on Saturday night (yes, a day early, but it is hard to coordinate the schedules of such a large family). Anyway, I had a very successful time of it. Just a chicken burger, no bun with some baked sweet potato fries and salad with no dressing. I did though have a small piece of banana bread, but I kept it light all day so that I could do that.
The scale is finally catching up with my efforts. It continues to go down and at this rate I stand to have my best week ever. Very exciting. It is very motiviating to keep on making good choices when the scale is cooperating. I just need to keep in mind that when I really am following my plan and keeping the calories down that the scale will catch up and not let it derail me when the number on the scale doesn't move that quickly.

One thing about me that I haven't blogged about is that I bake. I love to bake. I find it very soothing to spend time mixing and kneading and folding and from very simple ingredients a beautiful, delicious cake or bread, or cookie, or brownie can appear and delight so many people. So I bake, a lot. Well in the six weeks that I have been very seriously dieting I have not baked at all. Not once. And I have to say, I feel like I am going through a mini withdrawal. I sit, for hours sometimes, looking up recipes and imagining how good that cake would be, how much fun the bread would be to make, to watch rise, to knead, to punch down and watch rise again.
Well about three weeks ago, I got it in my head that I was going to bake a coffee cake. A simple humble white cake with a crunchy topping. I have been searching for what I consider the perfect recipe and this weekend, I found it. I was so excited. I even had all of the ingredients in the house and at last, Sunday morning, I was going to get up early and bake it. That way, hubby and I could have it for breakfast. I mean, really, if you have baked goods as a meal that makes them healthy right? So before bed Saturday night I shared this great plan with hubby. I told him we were going to get up Sunday morning and I was going to make this cake and we would enjoy a leisurely breakfast with coffee cake and our morning lattés. Well, we got up Sunday morning and I thought long and hard about all of the effort that goes into making the scale budge even a little and how hard it is for me to lose even one pound and in the end, I made poached eggs and toast.
The recipe will keep.
I will save it and then next time we entertain and host a lot of people I will bake it and be able to share it with others.
Just like so many other conversations with myself that I am trying to reframe as part of this journey, I need to reframe my baking. It will evolve into something I do to share with others. Something I take pleasure in producing for them. Oh, I will not deprive myself of a small piece, but it will be as part of a planned day where it will not derail me. It will not turn into chocolate cake for breakfast. It will not be a soother for me, rather it will be a gift to my friends and family.
I will do this, I will.

Great food day and a migraine

Had a really good food day yesterday, I had a latte, 2 eggs, one toast for bfast, 4oz meat, one toast, salad for lunch, orange and 1oz almonds for snacks and lots of veggies with 6oz chicken for dinner. By my calculation, I think it totalled 1440 calories. Well below my target of 1800. The problem is by the time I got home from work I had an aura which preceded the actual migraine. I will send my daily record to the dietitian to see if I could have or should have done something differently.
However, I had committed to myself that I would workout last night, and headache and all, I DID! Yeah me. I got on the elliptical for 25 minutes and then did an assortment of crunches and leg lifts and free weights for a total workout of one hour.
We ended up eating dinner after 8 which is probably not the best but something has to give if I am going to get some workouts in.
I have to admit that I am in a much better mood this morning then when I got home last night. I was fine but a little hungry when I left work at 5:30. I figured that I would drive home (usually 1/2 hour or so) have a small snack and jump on the elliptical. Problem was, I hit traffic, maybe the worst I have ever seen on a beautiful clear day and by the time I got home over an hour later, I had an aura. I hit my driveway and burst into tears because, well frankly, this isn't fair. It isn't fair that I ate well all day and tried to do the right thing and I end up with a migraine. It isn't fair that most other people would have been full and happy and successful with what I ate and not had the headache. That is why for the most part I have been unsuccessful at losing weight in the past. I have blogged it before, but whenever I have a really good diet day I have a really bad headache day. They go together and it's just not fair. I have a really hard time functioning with the migraines and in my job and in my life I need to function. This is going to be the hardest part of my journey. The balance I need to find between portion control and feeling well. If anyone has suggestions for how to overcome this, please comment. I would love to hear from you.
My birthday is coming up in early summer and my parents have very generously offered to kick in some money towards something I really want. I am thinking of asking for them to help me purchase a treadmill. I already have the elliptical which I use but I am thinking that if I had the choice of two things I could mix it up a little. Also, if the weather outside is nasty (which it often is north of the 49th parallel), I can go for a walk in my basement instead of outside.
The scale has responded (finally) to the good eating and the water weight seems to be gone. A new low today on the scale but I'll wait until next weigh-in to post officially.
I will do this, I will.

Kidding myself?

Ok, so maybe I have been kidding myself. I have been giving it lots of thought and reflecting on the conversation with the dietitian yesterday and I think there are lots of little things getting in the way. It is the cookie here, the extra slice of bread there and they are adding up. So, I will, until the next weigh in, try to count calories and keep it under 1800 each day. That and count carbs too. This means that I will keep a food diary on paper that I can have with me all the time. It also means that I need to eat simple distinct foods so that I can easily track the calories. No combo, complex meals for a week. I will try to blog the food results on my food jounal blog as well. Let's see how this goes. If all goes well I will try to keep doing it.
I find it very restrictive to do this and have always rebelled against it when I have tried in the past. It makes me feel freakish that I have to do such a thing and "normal" people don't. So I do it for a while and then wonder why I am punishing myself with counting calories. And then I quit counting which then spirals into eating whatever I want to because "normal" people can.
So I need to work on reframing that conversation. I need to believe that I am counting calories because I am nurturing my body and because I deserve to be healthy and less sore and more active. I will count calories because it will get me to my goal and because I deserve to succeed in life and if this is what I choose to concentrate on, then I will succeed.
I need to concentrate on it. I need to spend more mental energy on caring about myself and taking care of myself and view this journey in a positive way and not in a self defeating, I am worthless kind of way.
If I frame this differently then I will be more successful. Good, fun, caring things are way better to concentrate on than yucky, hard, scary things and so I will reframe this and focus on the good this will bring to my life and not on the scary this is right now.
I will do this, I will.

Carb Counting

Official weigh-in today. Still retaining some water so up 1.1lbs. I really believe eating has been ok, so it will be interesting to see what the scales says in a few days. Hopefully, I am not kidding myself.
Went for another walk last night, that's two in a row if you are keeping count. Also still taking the stairs at work, everyday.
Met with the dietitian this morning. She showed me how to count carbs and suggested I keep them between 8 and 10 per day. For anyone thinking of doing this, each 15grams of carbs counts as 1. But things like rice and lentils have a bit more. She says you need 140grams per day for brain function and she thinks when I get too low, it triggers my migraines, which triggers a mini carb binge. So we'll try to spread enough carbs throughout the day to keep the migraines away without the count going too high and affecting my weight.
Overslept this morning and feeling pretty crappy today. I didn't prepare any food for work so the dietitian gave me oatmeal to bring to work (pretty sad when your dietitian has to give you breakfast to go) but I will make good choices today and will eat all of my fruit that has been accumulating in the fridge at work.
I will do this, I will.

Muffins are not worth the calories!

Yesterday was a pretty rough day hormonally and mood wise (yes they go together). Actually headed out with hubby for a walk last night and had to head back a bit early because I had this wave of nausea take over. We ended up walking for 25 minutes instead of 45, but it was something. Tried to keep my portions down at dinner to help compensate for the chocolate chip muffin I bought at Tims in the afternoon. I only looked up the calories when I got back to work, and wow, who know it was over 420 calories for one muffin. And it's not even big! My favorite donut it turns out is only 300 (apple fritter, in case you are interested) and a plain chocolate dip is around 200. Way better choices than the muffin and they would have cured the craving just as well.
I am fighting a migraine today but am trying to stay on track. Toast with light cream cheese and jam with a latte this morning. Orange for snack. Beef sandwich for lunch. Yogurt for an afternoon snack.
I have lost 2 lbs overnight. Hopefully the rest of the water weight will go today. I will report my weigh-in tomorrow regardless of the water retention.
I am excited to see the dietitian tomorrow and learn how to count carbs. Hopefully that will help with the migraines and the weight loss.
I will do this, I will.

A good Monday.

A good weekend overall. Too much family and not enough me time, but still managed to do some gardening and spend a little time relaxing with hubby.
Very bloated today, hoping lots of water will cure it. Couldn't even get my rings on this morning and the scale showed a three pound jump from yesterday. Oh, and I had a pretty good food day. Eggs and Toast for bfast, grilled pork and noodles for lunch, Turkey and roast veggies for dinner with no snacks. It's just that my body is a bit off. This is the way it goes for me and I have to learn to not worry about it, drink lots of water and keep to my food plan and the scale will sort itself out.
What I used to do, is justify a binge because the scale is up anyway so why not allow myself a treat. Now I am learning to stay on plan and the scale will come back down when the water weight goes.
A good lesson to have learned. A good thing to keep in mind.
A good Monday to you all!
I will do this, I deserve it.