Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Still going strong

I went to a birthday party last night. It was for a 3 year old, so there was pizza, cookies, chips and dip, cake and ice cream. Between lunch and the time I arrived at the party I had....gone shopping at Target, had a doctors appointment for myself, then drove to our peditrian to set up an appointment for my son, went home and got the kids clothes changed, hair fixed, diaper bag packed, everyone piled into the car. (I was 1/2 way there before I realized that I was still wearing my work clothes and heels, I had totally planned to change into jeans and flats, but apperently in the rush I forgot about myself!) It was about 6 hours since lunch and I was starving. So I steered clear of the cookies, but had about 3 tortilla chips to keep my stomach from growling audibly. Then I made a plate for my daughter and got her a drink. Then I got the smallest slice of pizza in the box (it was the Hot & Ready kind of pizza, so it was kind of small) and tried to coax my son into eating a few bites. He was not too interested, so I finally just ate the slice myself. I did get him to eat a breadstick and some cookie, and then we was more than willing to share in sister's cake! I however had no cake! None! and it looked really tasty too. My friend said, "ill just cut you the smallest sliver?" And I said "How about no sliver!" And I was proud of myself, I was so proud I almost forgot that I DID eat the pizza!. Small victories, I guess...

Monday, November 17, 2008

First steps along the new path....

Ok, so far so good. I went shopping on Friday and got the regular stuff for breakfast, lunch, & dinner. And plenty of fresh fruits for snacks, but also and some healthier versions of not-healthy snacks. So now if I am dying for dessert, I can have a sager free jello cup with whipped cream, and the whole thing is only 30 calories. (Yes, only thirty, I did not forget a zero.) And I have always had healthy things in the house for dinner, it just seems like the last few weeks I have been busy or tired when I got home, so I skipped the home-made dinner and instead opted for take-out.
On Friday, since I was home from work, I had already promised my daughter that I would pick her up from school and we would go to McDonald's play land for lunch. And if this was a week or two ago I would have had no issue ordering a burger and fries. And it was really hard to not order it once I was there and smelling it, but I got a salad w/ grilled chicken, water to drink, and a fruit & walnut salad for us all to share. (The kids shared a happy meal with nuggets & fries & milk.) And I cooked meatloaf for dinner. It was made from Kudu meat (my boss is a huge hunter and goes on all kinds of game hunts in Africa and all over the world, and then he gives the meat out to the employees, and in this economy I am not going to turn down any free meat, even if I have no idea what it is I'm cooking!) and it had almost no fat in it. And I toasted some whole wheat bread to make bread crumbs with, and made a tomato relish so it wasn't covered with ketchup. So it was actually very healthy meatloaf. And Saturday we went over to babysit the new baby nephew (it was the 1st time he's been left with a sitter, so I am now 1st sitter on top of 1st poopy diaper changer, I rule in this baby's life so far!!) because it was my sister in laws birthday and they were going to dinner. And when we got there she had made a cake and told us to eat some while they were gone. And hubby had cake, and he shared with my daughter and son, and I didn't even have a taste, I just had a jello when I got home. And then yesterday we had tickets to the circus from my work. And whenever my work hosts events there is a suite full of food, but I ate well, I could have had breaded chicken tenders with a pop and cookies and brownies for dessert. But instead I had some roasted lamb chops and hung around the fruit platter and drank water, and then jello again at home. It's so much easier to say no to dessert when I know I get to have whipped cream when I get home. And I also bought fat-free sugar-free pudding cups for when I really need chocolate, they are 100 calories each, so I could have 3 jellos for every one pudding, but one pudding is soooo much better than one of most anything else.
So as long as I plan ahead, and know that I have guilt free snack options, I might be able to stick to this. Who's taking bets on the next time I fall off the wagon??

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A new beginning.

Well the dreaded has happened today.

Remember back almost two months ago when I couldn't wait to be weighed? Couldn't wait for my trainer to see the concrete evidence of my hard work. And when I did get weighed I was down ten pounds already. Then a few weeks later he weighed me again and I was down three more pounds.

Now remember all the time since then. The horrible birthday week when I ate whatever I wanted. Then the weeks of overtime at work when I was exhausted on the way home and just swerved into whatever fast food drive thru was along the way. And then this last week and a half when I have been sick, so I have been eating comfort food, ya know, to comfort me and help me feel better. I knew all this was bad, but I was steadily working out each morning before work, so....it was OK, right?

Well it was not OK. And today I paid the price. I got weighed! For the last few weeks I kept wondering when he was going to weigh me, and dreading the result. And every day the he didn't weigh me I felt like I had won some kind of small battle, and celebrated with some leftover Halloween candy. But today I lost the battle. I finished up my cardio warm-up and followed my trainer to the front of the workout center. I thought we were going to do some free weights, maybe ab work, maybe.....oh no! Is he standing next to the scale? Not good! I even set down my water bottle in mid sip because I didn't want that last drop of water to add any weight.

I gained three pounds! Not horrible, not as bad as I even thought it was going to be. And I immediately tried to explain it away. Well lets see, 3 pounds. Thats obviously 1 pound of water weight (it's that time of the month), 1 pound of gained muscle (I have noticeably bigger biceps and who knows what else, you just can't see it under some layers of fat), and maybe 1 pound from bad food choices. But my trainer wasn't buying it. He asked why someone would get up early every day, work her butt off in the gym, and then immediately throw it away by eating crap! He told me that he was so proud of me in the beginning but now I was letting him down, and he had told my Dad how good I was doing and now I was letting my Dad down. He really put me through the ringer. And he worked me out hard. He even made me run on the treadmill, he had made me do a slow jog before, but today he cranked it up to a full out run. And usually I am just counting my reps. But today I have no idea how many of anything I did, because he was talking to me the whole time.

Have you been watching The Biggest Looser like I said to? Did you see on there how they are sweating, and crying, and can hardly breath, and can't take do one more rep? Well that was me today! And I think that he pushed me that hard to make sure that I really want to do this, to make sure that I'm not just wasting time, and wasting his time. And I did it all. I even busted my leg really hard on a bench after the first set of bench presses, and it is all scrapped and has a goose egg. But I didn't complain, I just did it. (Hey, I'm a Nike ad!)

But he is not totally mean. By the end he gave me a hug. He helped put things into perspective. And I don't usually throw it all away on food. I usually eat a good breakfast, and snack, and then it begins to go downhill at lunch. And then dinner is bad. And then I have a sweet night time snack too.

But I thought about this, and then discussed it with my trainer to. When I go into my daughters room, and she has scribbled on her dresser with markers, I have this talk with her. "It's up to you to make decisions for your self. If you want to use the markers you can decided if you would like to color on paper or in a coloring book, or if you would like to color on toys or walls or furniture. And if you color on paper then I will hang it up and everyone can see it and everyone will be proud of you. But it you color on your dresser then it may be a secret for now, but eventually I will find out and I will be upset. And then you will have to be punished, and you will have to help clean it up, and your markers will be taken away. So you decide how you want to be treated." And it seems so easy and it makes so much sense.

So now I just have to use the same logic on my self. "Niki, it's up to you to make decisions for yourself. If you want to eat you can decide if you want to make good healthy food choices, or poor ones. If you make good choices you will live a longer healthier life with more energy and look so much better and then everyone will see the results and be proud of you! Or you can make poor choices and you will be able to hide it for awhile, but you will only be hurting yourself.

So today I am starting over. None of my excuses, just do it. And I can have 'treats' now and then, but not everyday. Just one day a week, so today I had yogurt and oatmeal in the morning. And tuna on a whole wheat tortilla and a salad and an apple for lunch. And the funny thing is, I had all that stuff packed this morning and brought it to work with me before I even knew I was being weighed, or had the whole melt down in the gym. So I had already planned to eat very healthy today. I just have to do it everyday.

(And yas, my daughter did scribble bright pink marker all over her dresser yesterday. The beautiful old dresser that was mine when I was a little girl, and it matched my canopy bed. And the bed was ruined, but my mom gave me the dresser. And my husband spent a whole weekend stripping it down and repaining it 'antique white'. And we bought her bed to match it. And gave it all to her for her 4th birthday present. And it was very meaningful to me, even though i'm sure she didn't care. And I did not attempt to clean it off yet. Because right now I can hope that it will all come right off. But if I start to clean it, and it won't come off, i'm sure i'll cry.)

Monday, November 10, 2008

The Weather is working against me!

In case you don't know, I live in Michigan. Michigan where we have weather that will knock you off guard when you are not looking. And right now it seems like the weather is trying to knock me out of my work-out routine. And if you've been following along, I can not afford to be thrown off my routine. We have learned that I am almost hopeless with a diet, so my exercise routine is all I have!

Last week I started getting sick. Nothing big, just a cold. I got a scratchy throat, little headache, tired, you know- what you get with the change in the weather. This started on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I got up at 6am to go work out, but I only made it as far as the bathroom before I decided that I was in no condition to be exerting myself. So I crawled back into bed and re-set the alarm. It was my first time that I officially skipped a workout!

As the day went on I didn't feel too bad, and I went to the hospital on my way home that night to see my new nephew. This all led to me getting home late and not getting the rest that I should have. So I got up Thursday to go workout, and I felt way worse than I had the day before. But I couldn't skip two days in a row, so I sucked it up and went. I did my cardio OK, then started some weights with my trainer. I did some back and shoulder stuff with no incident. Then it was time for squats, with a 20 pound bar. I did the 1st set ok. But I needed to sit down when I was done. Then I started the 2nd set and got about 5 reps in before I thought something was feeling alittle funny. I did one more and the room swayed a bit, so I stopped and took a few deep breathes, then I tried to do another one and started to go down. My head was all swimmy and I could feel my pulse beating really hard in my neck. My trainer made me sit down immediately and told me that I was done for the day. He explained that if you are even a little sick it will really show up when you are working out your legs, something about them being big muscles, I don't know I was really just trying to not pass out. So that cut the workout short.

Friday I was determined to do something, so I went to the workout center. I jumped on a treadmill and started at my normal warm-up pace. After a few minutes instead of reeving the machine up a bit, I slowed it down. Then a few minutes later I slowed it down again. This went on for about 20 minutes, until I just gave up completely. Little did I know that my trainer was standing right behind me. "Wha'cha doing?" he asked. "I'm done!" I told him. He kept asking "Why?" as I explained that I was tired and sick and needed to quit for the day. But he was understanding and told me to rest up over the weekend, lots of fluids, blah blah blah, and he'd see me on Monday.

So over the weekend I got very little done, I had to cancel plans that I had (Sorry Kendra) and tried to get some rest. And today is Monday, and I'm full fledged SICK!!! Coughing, sneezing, green snot, the works! But it wasn't going to keep me out of the gym. So I got up, dressed, in my truck and on my way. Until I hit Traffic! In the morning it usually takes me just under 30 minutes to get to work. Today it took me over 90 minutes!! When I walked out my door there was a tinny tiny bit of snow on the ground, but apparently a whole ton of black ice on the freeways, and no one thought it would be a nice idea to send out salt trucks. So there were spin-out all over and the rest of us crawled along. I started watching the clock like,"I guess my workout will get cut short." Then "I might just have to skip it and just start work alittle early" Then "Well I guess I'm not working out." And finally "I don't even think I'm going to get to work on time!" Which I didn't.

So the weather is out to get me. It's trying to make me too sick to workout, and then when that isn't working, then it is throwing traffic jams in my way! Ohh well, tomorrow is another day. And I guess I'll just need to get up a little earlier!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I got a new Baby Nephew

Yep, my hubby's brother & his wife had their baby yesterday. I went straight from work to the hospital, with a quick stop at Toys-r-us to buy a cute bag. (I had bought a cute outfit for the baby already, but had it in the plastic bag from Sears. I was all proud of myself that I had a 'new baby' present all ready to go, then I realized that it might be a nice idea to actually wrap it) He's cute, lots of hair, looks like my son when he was born, which is probably because my brother-in-law looks an awful lot like my hubby.

I usually don't post much of the going's on in my life on here, I try to stick to the workouts and diet, or lack there of. But this baby is significant for a reason.

#1 The new mom, my sister-in-law that I love, is one of those people that we all hate. You know, tall, pretty, great body yet she lives off of pizza and mountain dew. So I'm sure that she will snap back into pre-baby shape in a matter of weeks. but right now she will be dieting and exercising, so we can work on that together. Her to loose the baby fat (and she is breast feeding, so she may get back her pre-baby body in days!) and me because of my love of Taco Bell and no will-power.

#2 My brother-in-law did what men do, while his wife was pregnant he put on weight. So now he needs to work on taking it off. This helps me because my hubby will go over there and work out with him. They have a treadmill and a set of nice weight machines in their finished basement. So I will get a skinnier, healthier, more energy hubby, and I will get a couple evenings a week where I get to pick what to watch on TV because he will be gone to his brother's house.

I have no problems exercising now that I have a great gym and a great trainer waiting for me every morning. But we all know that I struggle with the food side. So if everyone around me is dieting, it will be so much easier for me too!!!

One last thing. Yesterday just after I got to my sister-in-laws room at the hospital. The new baby was whining a little, so I went to pick him up and noticed that his little wrinkly baby feet were out of his blanket. So I set him on the bed to re-wrap him, and made a comment about how tiny his diaper was, and the mom said it hadn't been changed yet, so I checked and ...... big sticky pile of merconium. I asked her if her or the new dad wanted to change the 1st diaper, but they said the honor could be all mine. So now I will always hold the esteemed place of being the person that changed his 1st ever diaper. I am truly blessed!