A revelation

I have been slack on the posting but I had a ton of work to do and felt it would be better to get that done before blogging. Now it's Wednesday already and I haven't had a minute to breathe!

Still on an emotional roller coaster ride but I had a revelation on the elliptical last night. While the rest of my life is rather crazy and out of control, the one and only thing I have complete control over is myself. I've been feeling so powerLESS over my job and the general state of the economy and the only time I feel powerFUL is when I'm drenched in sweat while pushing my body to its limits. I have read some posts from other bloggers regarding this but it's one of those you have to experience for yourself to really get it. Next time I'm trying to talk myself out of exercising, I will remember that one for sure.

It's going to be another couple of weeks before I can use my 7 day pass at the Y. I'm out of town on Friday and Monday and didn't want to waste any of it. I will keep y'all posted.

Hope everyone is having a great week. I'm hoping to catch up on some blog reading!

Okay, here we go again!

Y'all made me blush with all your sweet comments about my pictures. I'm going to put more up because it sure made me feel great about myself ;) I get so many compliments on that dress and it was a $20 find at Ross! I found 2 dresses that day. Sometimes you just get lucky...or maybe it's just constant prayers to the Gods of plus-size fashion. Prayers for sleeves have yet to be answered :)

What a week it's been. I'm having a dinner party Saturday night and I'm making a chicken curry (Jalfrezi) from scratch. I've been freaking out about it all week and had to take a xanax last night just to calm down. I had a schedule of getting everything I needed and then got a desperate call from a friend who's baby arrived a month and a half early and needed me to help him finish painting the last room in the house they've entirely remodeled for the baby. It turned out to be a good thing because I helped a friend, got a great workout and a beautiful baby girl was born early but healthy!

My best friend is here this weekend and the favorite neighbors are coming over to join us for the curry night so I was up at 6 cleaning. I have been more relaxed about the cleaning thing lately but suddenly I'm a freak about it again. I think it's hormonal and once I have some wine with my friend I can let it all go! I'm excited to go to the farmers market and the Indian grocery store to get all my exotic ingredients and stock up on good things for the week ahead.

Speaking of the week ahead, my whole point of this post is that thanks to all of your help (my husband included!) we have found a solution to our workout schedule that should work at least in the short-term. I drop my husband off at work in the morning at the hospital where our gym is. We are simply going to get up, he will quickly walk the dogs while I pack up lunches (assembled the night before) and we will leave the house at 6:30. That gives us plenty of time to get there, work out for an hour and then get showered and ready to go to work. He has to walk across the street but I still have another 20 minute drive but this way I can keep my Weight Watchers membership and continue to use my regular gym which is very inexpensive.

Eventually, when we can afford it, we want to work out with a trainer once a week together. This week, we will start with Monday, Wednesday and Friday to let the dogs get used to being on their own longer so I'll find something to do on the days in between. Maybe Biggest Loser Yoga.

So, stay tuned for some glorious details of my journey to become a skinny morning person. I can't thank you enough for all of your help!

Re-evaluating

My favorite neighbor and I in the clubhouse. She is an actress/model which is never the kind of person you want to get your picture taken with. Luckily she's not tall.

The whole gang from our street.

Above are some pictures from the Gala on Friday night. I have to admit I didn't hate them and want to get rid of them. Some progress is being made! It was so much fun but I'm DEFINITELY not a regular country club type :)

It's been such a crazy week and it's only Wednesday. I've been feeling really tired, and cranky and then all of a sudden got my period and could not believe a month had passed already. Seems like if one thing disrupts my schedule, such as travel, everything falls out of place for weeks. Like a snowball, rolling down a hill, getting fatter by the minute :)

This leads me to my re-evaluation. I'm so glad I wrote about my daily schedule because it's helped me to do a lot of thinking about it. I can't keep living with the idea that my schedule is ever going to be flexible. I would love to work through lunch and get off early or come in early and leave early but that's just not something that is possible at my job. In fact, I asked to leave 5 minutes early for the Braves Game last week and that turned into a yelling match with my boss. Yes, I'm a VP and yes, I have to ask. I got such shit about it that I cried all the way home. I can't explain how the traffic here works but if I get a 5 minute head start, it saves me 20 minutes on my drive. He won't even give me 5 minutes to save me 20. I could go on and on about it but it's not going to change anything so I'm trying to figure out another way.

Working out after work has been okay for a while but getting home at 8:00 is not ideal when we go to bed at 10:00. Also, there are too many social obligations and life events that get in the way and lots of time to talk myself out of it.

So where does that leave me? Back to the sore subject of mornings which I've probably written about a million times by now. I can't go to my current gym in the morning because it's way too far but I have a gorgeous Y right around the corner from home. I'm thinking of quitting my Weight Watchers plan and joining. I can't afford both right now but I think I could use Sparkpeople the same way I use Weight Watchers. If I got up at 5:45, I could have an hour to work out and an hour to do all my other morning things. I would have to break up with the Today Show but I can listen to news and drink my coffee in the car.

See that gorgeous Indian woman 3 people from the right in the group picture? She works out every day at the crack of dawn at our Y. She's 6 months pregnant too. We all joke about how she makes us all feel like a bunch of lazy asses but maybe I should take that seriously. She obviously doesn't get her perfect bod sitting around in her robe in the morning.

Next week I'm going to give the 7 day trial membership a shot. If I feel like I can commit to getting up, I will join. I'm going to give it everything I have. I'm tired of fighting with myself to go after a 9 hour work day and a 2 hour commute. I'm tired of writing about losing and gaining the same 5 pounds all the time. Something has to change and change is so freaking hard for me.

In the meantime, all you morning people, let me know your secrets. Keep in mind my mother said I've never been a morning person, from the day I was born :)

B*tches and Baseball

Last night our neighbors got Braves tickets last minute and invited us along. We had great seats 13 rows behind home plate and it was the most fun I've ever had at a game. Of course it was a great game and we beat the Mets but the company was even better. We have grown so close to them and the laughs never stop. They are both actor/models and extraordinarily good looking (not our normal 'crowd') but they are completely normal, down to earth people that constantly entertain me.

Now, on to the b*tches. We were sitting very close to the players "wives" section (if you can call it that!) I wish I had a video camera because words cannot just do justice to what we witnessed in that section last night. There were 2 Paris Hilton types sitting next to each other. Both wearing tiny dresses and 6 inch heels. We had to be careful not to stare too long because the glare off the diamonds could have burned out our retinas. They sat identically cross legged, with legs as long as I am, chomping gum and simultaneously texting on their Blackberries. Neighbor wife and I were playing the "guess the cost of her giant Chanel bag sitting on the floor" game when they suddenly stood up, hiked up their skirts and started doing stripper dances for Chipper Jones who was next up to bat. He was doing that revolting lizard like tongue thing back at them. Chipper is known for having many children with different wives and girlfriends (one being a Hooters waitress) but there were so many little kids down in front, with his name on the back of their little jerseys, and he's acting like a complete prick. Not to mention all the little kids around the girls. Seriously good entertainment though ;)

I'm going to a Gala this evening which sounds fancy doesn't it? We got together with all the other friends on our street and bought a table which raises money to put up historical monuments in our neighborhood where major events happened during the Battle of Atlanta. We are actually going to get to go INSIDE the East Lake Country Club where the final leg of the PGA tour is played every year. It's only 2 blocks from our house but we've never been inside the clubhouse. We did get to spend the day inside the grounds for the Tour once and I hope to do that again one day too. I'm wearing a dress which hurts my sunburned shoulders but at least I have something to wear that fits. It doesn't look horrible either!

Oh and since this is a weight loss blog, I weighed in this morning the same as last week. I'm happy about that since I traveled this week and had my yearly non-turkey hot dog at the baseball game. Hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing weekend. It's supposed to be mid 80s and less humid here. Bring it on!! :)

I'm back and I'm burned!

view from the balcony!

Just a slight sunburn, from floating in the glorious Gulf of Mexico for an hour yesterday. I'm SO thankful I got to do that even though it meant getting all undressed, down to the beach, dressed again and immediately transported back to the hell which is Atlanta airport. At least the pain of arriving back was slightly diminished when I helped some poor woman find her way through the airport. She was in tears and said she was from Kansas and had never seen anything like it. I was so happy to help her and got her where she needed to go.

So now I'm back at my desk with only the slight tingling of my shoulders to remind me of the past 2 days. The food was good but it wasn't exceptional so I didn't overdo it at the conference. Yesterdays lunch was a gorgeous grilled grouper sandwich eaten beach-side. That's the best thing about eating in Florida is that I love grilled seafood and am never tempted to eat anything other than that. I had a bite of Key Lime Pie which was plenty although my frozen Rum Runner was probably not the best calorie wise. Luckily there was only time for one of those ;)

I feel refreshed and relaxed and happier than I have in a while. It's amazing what sunshine and ocean does to my spirit. I'm committed to doing whatever it takes to get me back there some day whether it be sooner or later. I need to let go of things I have no control of and allow myself be led down the path of what's next for me. In the mean time, I'm focusing on what I do have control over which is my happiness and my health.

Now, I'm off to catch up on some blogs that I haven't been able to read for the last few days!

Monday Ramblings

I'm so tired today! It was one of those weird drives to work where I felt like I was going to nod off. I just kept drinking my coffee but still feel like I'm in a haze. I thought some blog writing and reading would ease me into the week.

I did okay this weekend. Not great but not horrible either. I didn't drink too much but there was an incident with a chocolate croissant and some ice cream. Luckily the ice cream wasn't much and it was the Edy's low-fat variety. Any over-eating was purely out of boredom.

I came to a huge standstill on my paint scraping when I realized that so many of the clapboards are going to need to be replaced that we might as well get someone to replace them all. That left me really bummed and without a project for the weekend. I tried to just sit around and relax but that's something I have a seriously hard time doing. At one point my husband found me sitting on the deck reading Real Simple and said he was happy to see me doing nothing. I laughed and told him I was reading an article titled "10 ways to do nothing". At least I was doing something while doing nothing ;)

Tomorrow I'm traveling to Marco Island for work and unfortunately it's a packed schedule and it's all work. I hope to at least get 5 minutes to put my toes in the sand or jump in a pool. We're staying at a gorgeous beach resort so it's a shame I won't have more time to enjoy it. I'm bringing my workout clothes in hopes of getting some time to get some exercise. It's going to be a challenge!

In other news, I've applied for some more jobs. Fingers crossed everyone...mama needs some new siding!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I will be back on Thursday!

Friday!

I'm really looking forward to getting away from my desk at the end of this day. The weather is so gorgeous and cool this morning all I wanted to do was go out for a big walk with the dogs. On my way to work I passed lots of people doing just that. Some day I will have a flexible schedule. I just have to keep telling myself that.

My average mile on the treadmill last night was 18:45! Down from my 19.8. :) I did 2.6 miles in about 50 minutes with warm-up and cool down. I burned 400 calories too! It was tough to go faster and run more but it felt great and I probably wouldn't have stopped if my shins weren't screaming out for some relief. Midway through this gazelle like Paris Hilton thing got on the treadmill next to me. I kept focus on what I was doing and kept my little legs flying. I was drenched in sweat and sung out loud all the way home on a virtually empty highway. Love those kinds of workouts.

I have the house to myself tonight so I'm thinking HGTV and some sushi AFTER my 5th night in a row at the gym. I caught myself thinking I'd done enough working out this week and had to snap myself back into "losing 100 pounds mode". Back then I did cardio 5-6 days a week and not 3-4. There's a big difference for me and I'm trying to get back to THAT being the norm. Lord help me :)

Hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing weekend and thanks as always for such awesome support!

A New Low

I really wish I would have gone to weigh in today because those 2 pounds disappeared yesterday and I'm on "new pounds" again!

The oh so wise Mr. Sh*t said yesterday in a comment

"When I'm exercising, I don't overdo it on food because I equate that 300 calorie piece of crap to a half hour on the elliptical. Totally not worth it."

That is EXACTLY how my mind worked back when I lost 100 pounds and I THANK YOU for that reminder. It instantly came back to me! That's how I did it! That's how I was successful! I find it strange that I have forgotten what I accomplished back then and can't remember exactly what I did or how it felt. I'm sure I didn't do everything right because the second I hit my goal, I relaxed my exercise and eating habits and gained it all back. And then some!

I made it 45 minutes on the elliptical last night and burned 350 calories according to my heart rate monitor. I thought the extra 15 minutes would be really hard but it wasn't too bad.

I also did something very MizFit yesterday. When I was leaving the grocery store, I had a 12 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and a gallon of milk. I had parked my car far away (on purpose) and walked all the way back to the car doing bicep curls and shoulder raises with my purchases.

Tonight I'm back on the treadmill and trying to beat my sad little 19.8 minute mile...my legs are seriously 2 feet long so it's going to be interesting to see how much faster I can get :)

Tomorrow=Friday. Hurrah!

Back at Weight Watchers

+2 pounds. I can't say I'm too upset after not having been for a month. Next week will be a loss although I'm going to have to do some creative scheduling since I'll be out of town for work the middle of next week. I'll have to decide whether to weigh in before I go or when I get back. Luckily I'm traveling with my 90 pound co-worker who is the healthiest eater I know and also one of my strongest supporters!

Thank you all for your suggestions yesterday on my schedule. I suppose I should have clarified how much my husband does because he deserves some serious props. Not only does he run the dogs twice a day for 30 minutes, he feeds them, empties the dishwasher, does the laundry, starts dinner, mows the grass, waters the garden and so on. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I married someone who doesn't do anything because I would rather be single if that were the case! :) I'm going to start getting up 30 minutes earlier to do some abs and resistance training in the morning and focus on getting my cardio after work.

Speaking of cardio, I did 45 minutes on the treadmill last night for the first time in a very long time. About 15 minutes of that was running and I burned 340 calories. I'm trying at least 300 every workout and alternating treadmill and elliptical each night. So far so good!

This week is going by fast thankfully! Hope you are all doing great!

A day in the life

I've been thinking a lot about time management lately and wanted to lay out my daily schedule and see if there's any room for improvement.

5:45am - alarm goes off
6:05am - husband gets up
6:30am - I get up and take a shower
6:50am - husband has my coffee ready (love him!)
7:00am - watch first 20 minutes of Today with my coffee
7:20am - assemble both of our lunches and snacks
7:40am - finish getting ready. Pack gym bag.
7:50am - out the door
8:30am - arrive at work
12:30pm - eat lunch at my desk
1:00pm- go out to run errands or sit in my car and read for a while.
2:00pm- back to work
5:30pm- leave work
6:00pm- arrive at gym
7:00pm- leave gym
7.30pm- arrive home - finish making dinner
8:00pm- unpack gym bag - eat dinner
8:30pm- clean up kitchen and maybe catch some HGTV
9:00pm- watch something on TV with husband
10:00pm- bed

Now that I see how my day is scheduled I can see why I feel like I do the same thing everyday and most of it revolves around trying to be healthy! I used to have the opportunity to work out at lunch back when I lost 100 pounds but there is really no way I can in my current situation. I've gone over that a million times in my head and it's not doable with only an hour. I did Curves for a while at lunch but it's a waste of time because it's not enough hard work for me. Maybe this is how it's supposed to be right now - it just sometimes feels like a really long day without a lot of time for myself. I'm sure I'm not alone in that feeling!

I woke up with very sore legs this morning and that was my punishment for skipping the gym for 2 weeks straight. It felt great to go back last night and my goal is to go every night this week. 1 day down, 4 to go! I like a small challenge like that. It somehow feels manageable if I take it a week at a time.

Bring it on

I finally feel a little refreshed and revived after a 3 day weekend and tons of fun with my family and friends.

This is the garden we built in honor of my mom's 60th birthday. My sister and I bought the pig and the sunflower from a local couple who do gorgeous scrap metal art. My mom is a big folk art fan and we thought it would be fun for her to have some for her yard to remind her of all of us :). All 7 of us kids made stepping stones with messages on them to lead up the hill to the garden. It turned out SO nice and she was so happy with it. It was a lot of work but I think seeing us all working together on it was the best part of it for my mom. That is my sister in law and my little nephew in the picture.


I was depressed when I woke up yesterday and realized it was already Sunday but then told myself that It's up to me to face the week ahead with a good attitude. It's a challenging time right now but I can't let that continue to control my life. I started out by preparing a ton of good food for the week so at least I know what's for dinner every night. I have a ton of vegetables that I bought on the way home from the mountains. For $3.59 I got a huge cabbage, 2 sweet potatoes, and 2 meals worth of zucchini and yellow squash. Everything is washed and ready to go. The cooking instructions are on the fridge and HIGHLIGHTED so my husband can put things in the oven. No excuses to skip the gym which hasn't seen my fat ass in 2 weeks!

As I was finishing the above paragraph, I just got word that my friends dog died this morning of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. Apparently it's going around so for all dog owners out there, please be extra vigilant. They think she may have eaten some discarded food on a walk. Bless her little heart. Positive attitude just took a little blow.

I did bring my copy of The Secret with me to work to read on my lunch break. I half-heartedly read it once but I think I really need to look at it more because I really believe in the laws of attraction. I guess it can't hurt and maybe it will help me get a fabulous job.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that your weeks are off to a good start!

Would it kill you?

Thanks so much for all of your uplifting comments yesterday. I feel a million times better today even though I just had to take money out of savings to pay bills. At least there was some there.

"Would it kill you" was a phrase that was used often in our house growing up even though it's not a very Catholic thing to say ; ) It was always "would it kill you to pick that up off the floor?" or "would it kill you be nicer to your sisters?" I was thinking about this a lot on my way home last night and decided I should really ask myself that question more often.

Would it kill me to go to the gym? No
Would it kill me to NOT go to the gym? Probably, eventually
Would it kill me to enjoy friends without alcohol? No
Would it kill me to be nicer? No
Would it kill me to get up earlier? No
Would it kill me to feel hungry now and again? No
Would it kill me to be a little more frugal? No
Would it kill me to go to work every day? No
Would it kill me to turn off the TV? No
Would it kill me to eat more vegetables? No

The list could go on and on but the bottom line is I need to quit whining and face the hard facts that the stuff I have to face everyday is really not going to kill me.

Moving on, I'm celebrating the 4th by scraping paint all day tomorrow and then piling the husband and the dogs in the car to go to my moms in NC on Saturday morning. It's going to be 10 degrees cooler there and I'm REALLY looking forward to that. Lots of family is coming to celebrate my moms 60th which was actually a couple weeks ago but she was out of town.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

Long week!

This week is just dragging by and it's a short one since I'm off Friday. It can't come soon enough.

I've been really down in the dumps again due to the usual crap. Each week I keep thinking something is going to happen to restore my optimism about my future but there's nothing happening. I continue to struggle to pay every bill but seem to work harder than ever. I know that so many people have it so much worse and I should be grateful to have a job etc. etc. but some days it really eats away at me. It doesn't help that I'm hungover from 4 beers I shouldn't have had last night but was necessary to get me through a really uncomfortable situation.

I had to go to a friends house for a get together since it's his little girls birthday and I missed the party over the weekend. The uncomfortable part? The way this little girl is taken care of breaks my heart. Her parents split up a couple of years ago and neither one of them want her. They take her a week at a time. I no longer speak to the mother so I'm not sure the situation over at her house but at her dad's it's not so pleasant. She was absolutely filthy from school and living out of a suitcase on the floor of her also filthy room. She turned 6 yesterday and I know 3 year olds that are more advanced and better behaved. She has obviously had developmental problems since she was a baby but no-one seems to give a crap. It's just hard for me to see and there is absolutely NOTHING I can do about it. It's not my problem nor my right to step in unless she was really in danger.

I'm really not sitting on my ass waiting for some breakthrough on the career/financial front. I'm working on a few side projects that I've always wanted to do and hopefully one of those will be a "way out". I also think not having had a true vacation in over a year has taken it's toll on my spirits. I thought about switching up my anxiety meds but right now I owe the doctor $500 that I don't have for my last physical which insurance didn't cover. (our "director of administration" failed to note that part when she switched our insurance plan)

Sorry to be such a downer folks but it's all part of the roller coaster ride that is my life. Things I'm grateful for today? The best husband in the world, 2 sweet rescue mutts, great neighbors and my blog friends. Oh and the 3 day weekend coming up. Now if it would just hurry up and get here!

*Edited to say that I'm not weighing in this week. That's the last thing I need because I know I've gained this week. My gym bag has sat unused in the car since Monday. If this headache will go away, I'll go tonight. I think I need it to get out of this funk.