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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

A Good Day

I had a good day today. I saw Miss Donna today. I gave her the link to this blog so hopefully I will have someone else reading it. While I was talking to her, I came up with a great idea for a blog entry..and then promptly lost it. Hopefully it will come back to me sometime during this next year.

I started off the day with some low sugar instant oatmeal with milk. I spent some of my early morning making lunch for my husband and me. My lunch today was a little later than usual, causing me to be very hungry when I actually sat down to eat my sammich on Johnnie Bread. I let myself have a snack of string cheese around 10am. Along with the sandwich, I had some pretzels and a handful of peanuts.

It's been two days since I've had any soda or caffeine. I've been drinking water throughout the day instead. The headaches are coming, I can feel it. It's also been over a week since I've had Subway for lunch. I used to do Subway 3-4 times a week because it's conveniently located across the street from the bank. The last time I lost weight, I pretty much stopped eating Subway except for once a week when I would allow myself a 6in sandwich.

For dinner tonight, I made a dinner salad and then two pieces of frozen pizza. I usually would eat 4 pieces, or half of the pizza while Pat would eat the other half. There are two pieces in the fridge right now, probably saved for dinner on Friday night. Tomorrow is Wicked so Pat and I are going out for dinner after work and before the show. Yay for Wicked.

On a side note, kind of, I did have a cookie after dinner. Does that make this good day a bad day?

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Biggest Loser

It's not too often that tv shows make me cry but the Biggest Loser so far this season has been hard. I noticed the majority of the contestants this year are between the ages of 23 and 31, my age group. This scares me but inspires me at the same time. I'm really rooting on Jesse. He is a Minnesota boy that went to same college my husband did, although my husband did not know him.

I walked over my lunch period today. I needed to run to Walgreens to pick up some pills that I had renewed. The walk to Walgreens and back is under a mile so I walked into the neighborhood a bit then to Walgreens for a total of 1.14 miles. After that, I ate my portion controlled lunch and read the newspaper.

I was starving by the time I left work, I grabbed an apple out of the fridge at work to eat on my way home from work. Once home, I ate half a whole wheat bagel and then put on my work out clothes. I turned on the tunes and walked 1.4 miles more. I enjoy walking during work. I noticed that during my lunch break I would eat over the whole hour pretty much. The snacking was getting out of control. So now when I feel the need to snack, I put on my shoes and walk. If I dont walk during that time, I'm actually starting to feel like I'm missing out on something. I'm glad there is going to be nice weather over the next week or so.

My legs hurt today. I'm not sure if its the brand new shoes or what. Its probably a combination of new shoes and me being fricking out of shape.

I got on the scale this morning. I weighed in at 228lbs. This is next to the highest I've ever been and that was 1 1/2 years ago. No more. Ive lost weight before and I know how to do it. I just have to do it again.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Choice

Am I allowed to write two entries in one day? I suppose I am.

Looking through some inspiration this morning, I found a blog that is run by Jack Sh*t, Getting Fit. In this blog, Jack asked other popular diet bloggers what they know now in their older age that they wish they would have known when they were 25. Well, I'm 28 so I figured they would have something that I could use in my own life.

One of the bloggers, Patrick, put it just about perfectly for me. He said that he wish he knew that the word "Choice" is the most empowering word. Here's what he had to say on the topic.

"If I had a dime for every time I was asked, "What I wish I knew at 25 that I know now", well… I’d have a dime.

There is one word that I wish I knew at 25 that I know now (I am 45 today). One word whose power will either create or destroy depending how you use it. Had I known, I would have put it to use a long time ago in creating the me I want now.

When we eat we have a series of choices before us. Choosing to be deliberately aware of our decisions about food engages too our often disjointed physical and mental senses together into a more powerfully responsible decision machine. This deliberate awareness will have us first validate that we are in fact hungry, that our hunger is real and not just a want for more food."

He talks about the deliberate choices we all make about food but I want to apply this to the choices I make every day. Ofcourse including choices about food is important and probably the hardest one for me but having that little one word thought in the back of my head I think will be incredibly helpful. If I need to just remember "choice" in my head, it will be a small reminder of what I need to be thinking about. But I should be able to use this little thought for everything, including getting out to get some activity and making decisions about my day in general.

I've found in the past that I have success with little cues that bring my mind back to focus. I often time lose my focus and just need that little thing to make me remember why I am doing what I am doing. I think this will work for me. I will give it a try.

Currently Listening To: Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michelson

Church and Music

Pat and I drove back to Madison this morning from a weekend in the Twin Cities to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. During the drive I told him about this blog and what it means to me. I talked to him about the things I want to change and the things I want to try. I discovered a couple of things.

There are many things I want to change. Among others, there are two things I want to incorporate back into my life over the next few months, church and music.

I'm Catholic. I was raised this way. Although I don't agree with everything the Catholic church says and does, I don't think I would ever actually leave the Church. Growing up, I went to mass every weekend with my mom and my sister. Sometimes, I would even go to mass twice in one weekend. In elementary school, my mom was a CCD teacher and even my own teacher a couple of times. In Junior High, I taught Sunday school classes with a friend of mine and I was very involved in my own religious education. High school I was even more involved in teaching and catechism. Once I went to college though, the attendance at church dropped. I pretty much stopped going all together. I still went on weekends when I was home visiting my parents and ofcourse during the holidays. After college, more of the same. Pat and I joined a great church in Madison a couple of years ago and we give them money through automatic withdrawal each month but we don't go, and now it's even worse since we live further away. This is something I want us both to be able to change.

Tomorrow I will talk about my music and how I'm going to start bringing it more into my life.

Today was a good day overall. Culver's for lunch, which wasn't so great but Pat and I did get out in the yard to do a bunch of weed pulling and planting of real plants. It is surprising how much of a work out that actually is. Back to work tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if I am able to avoid Subway for lunch and the snack box in the break room.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Blog Purpose

This new blog has a purpose. This purpose was inspired in part by Donna of The Year of Living Healthfully and A Quiet Life.

I'm committing myself to a new path in life.

The past few months since Pat and I moved into our new house I'll admit that I haven't been myself. I've been in the dumps emotionally and physically. Summer is supposed to be a time of activity and joy. My summer was spent inside on the couch while my husband enjoyed the weather outside, I'm sure frustrated that I wasn't joining him in the constant yard work. I hated this summer. It was hot, it was humid and there were lots of mosquitoes. So there I sat, on the couch, in front of the wide screen tv, wearing a dent in the cushions, my jeans getting tighter as the days went on. There were some good times like the actual moving in to the new house and our summer celebration with friends and family around the 4th of July but more of the time I think I was depressed.

As the somewhat chilly weather of Autumn has moved into southern Wisconsin, I have started to feel my brain start to clear. I've discovered that I hate feeling like I am just existing in this life of mine. I'm 28 years old and married to a wonderful man...and I'm just existing. I feel like I'm missing something. I'm not sure what it is but it's time to find that thing or those things I am missing.

I am one of those 20-somethings that didn't discover in college what I wanted to do with my life. I work at a bank, I like it for now so I don't think what I'm missing is a career. A career doesn't always make a person and I definitely am not the type that is defined by a career, or it is that I don't want to be.

I'm overweight. I hate to say it but I am and I have been since the day I graduated from high school. Who ever heard of the Freshman 15...oh and the Sophomore 15, and Junior...maybe Senior 15 too? Every time I've had a major change in my life, I've gained weight. There is one exception, and that was my wedding. I was not happy with how I felt in my wedding dress so I lost about 15 lbs after my wedding and I kept it off for a year and a half. I gained back that weight this summer, the summer of the couch. Ultimate weight loss goal, 60 lbs from where I am this day.

I need to find some extracurricular things to do besides get up in the morning, go to work, come home from work, go to bed and do it all over again the next day. I thought the sorority alumnae group would work for me. I haven't quite decided on that outcome yet.

So, what is the purpose of this new blog "destroying dead ends"? It's just that. I'm not going to let there be dead ends in my life anymore. I'm going to conquer those scary and nervous moments that don't let me move on, the ones that keep me from getting off the couch and make the change. Those dead end moments when I get home from work and think I am just too tired to go for a walk. Those dead ends when I want to eat half a pizza and then regret it after I swallow my last bite.

I don't quite know the details of how I'm going to do it yet. I have set myself some mental but more physical challenges over the next year. I am going to be doing the Lifetime Fitness Turkey Day 5k again this year, but the plan is to jog the whole distance. I also plan on the Krazy Legs 8k in the spring in Madison. The ultimate goal is the Iron Girl Duathlon a year from today. Some of these are large goals but I am sure that I can do it.

New running shoes were purchased yesterday in Minnetonka, a gift from my mother. I'm not really sure if she thinks I am going to follow through this time. I've made commitments like this in the past. And I almost never follow through but I know I need to do this.

Other changes that need to be made are the conscious decisions that need to be made on a constant basis. I need to make good decisions about what goes into my mouth, what I say to people, how I feel when I wake up in the morning, what sort of day I'm going to have, what I buy, how I listen, how to be a good friend, about keeping this blog updated, and how to be a wonderful wife.

Sleepiness is taking over my fingers at this moment, making it a very slow typing process. I will give another post tomorrow when I am home.

Goodnight!