Balancing Ups and Downs

So I've been maintaining at 237. This week I'm at 237.8. That's a gain of 0.4. Not exactly the direction that I want to go, even though it's a small gain in the big picture.

Here's what I've been doing:
-Not going to the gym this WHOLE month
-Eating more sweets than I should
-Not eating as many veggies and salads as I should

I did not wake up early to jog like I had planned to do. I'm going to try for that in the morning and see if I can make it. I really want to see myself hit the 30 pounds lost mark. I know I've lost weight around my tummy area, and maybe a little in my face, but I want to see it more in my arms and my thighs/hips. I think jogging is a great cardio workout for all the areas of the body, and I think I just need to be dedicated to doing it.

Tomorrow - 7am - Park - JOG!

Here's what I've been eating: small bowls of cereal or a bacon and egg breakfast, or sometimes no breakfast. I've been eating low cal snacky foods like the individual sized bags of Pirate's Booty, which is supposed to be like a white cheddar popcorn but the popcorn is really a puffed rice and corn mix, not actual popcorn. I've been drinking lots of water. I've had some fast food - namely Taco Bell tacos and In and Out burger. I've also made food at home, like barbeque chicken quesadillas and garlic steak with vegetables. And I've had a few McDonald's iced coffees (nothing else from their menu, thank God!). I've discovered a small portioned, easy to make dessert - they are Betty Crocker singles - you add water and microwave for 30 seconds and you have about a 5-6 bite chocolate cake. It's about 150 calories and is a nice alternative to the small ice creams, so I have can have some variety on dessert. But I've had more pasta than normal, because it is cheap and will last long. And I don't want the pasta. I'm not even craving it. But it's cheap, and quick to make without using 4 pots and pans and other kitchen ware. I guess I'm also becoming lazy. What I wouldn't give for a nice sized kitchen and a food fund so that I could really experiment with healthy meals.

Salads have definitely been missing. When I was going to the gym, I had them more often because I would get a salad AT the gym. I would get a small portion but it was filling AND it was free because my gym gave me a $100 gift card when my friend joined. I need to bring salad back into my life. I was doing great when salads made up at least one meal every two days. Now they are maybe one meal out of a week's worth of meals.

I think I am going to suspend my gym membership due to the distance. When I start working again, I will pick it back up, but until then, I'd rather not be paying for it and then worrying about gas to get there and back. If I can make jogging a routine, maybe I will cancel the gym all together.

My mom is coming out in 2 weeks. Wait, is it two weeks? Maybe it's less than that. She will be here for 7 days, and I want to make sure I eat right while she is here. We have lots of things planned, and I don't want her visits to be about where we are going to eat.

I'm still dog walking. I am planning in June to be walking for more people, so that will also be more exercise there too. I've also gone swimming. I remember when I was a kid, my mom sent me to summer camp for 3 summers. I had to get up at 8am to go swim in the lake. Boy was it cold. But it wasn't "fun" swimming. It was learning strokes and stuff, and that's exercise if you just do laps. Maybe I should get up every morning and swim laps for an hour to work on my arms.... OR I could go jog in the morning and come back and swim laps to cool off from the jog... HEY I like that idea!

Week: 20
Weight: 237.8
Weekly pounds gained: 0.4
Total pounds lost: 19.2
Size: a loose 18
Goal: 150
Pounds to go: 87.8

Thinspiration

I'm a little behind on my blogging this week. I haven't been working out at all, because I don't want to use up my gas driving to the gym. It's made it harder to keep the weight off, although I try by making good food choices. Unfortuantely, the cheapest things at the grocery store are all carbs (think ramen noodles).

I've started dog walking for a woman that lives down the street. That helps put in a little exercise, but not much. I want to get up early and go jog at the park across the street, but I haven't been waking up so early. My days and nights are starting to turn around a little. 11am is becoming my new morning time. Not exactly what I had wanted, but I am staying up later because that is when my thoughts kick in.

About a month ago I had set up an account on Twitter, but I never went to use it. But on Sunday a friend was telling me about all the people she was communicating with on it, and so I decided to give it a try. I sent a note on Twitter to Bethenny Frankel, and this week she replied! It wasn't much - just a "Thank you" for my support of her book and to keep it up. It might not even be Bethenny - it could be her assistant, but either way, it was nice to receive.

I have 2 pairs of jeans in my closet that I haven't worn yet. My current jeans are loose, and I have to wear a belt if I don't want to keep pulling them up. One of the unworn pairs of jeans is a size 16, and the other is a size 14. They are both from Lane Bryant. I tried on the 16 last night and they are a little tight in the waist but fit nicely everywhere else. I haven't bothered to try on the 14 yet, but I think I am going to make the effort to get up in the morning to jog and hope that helps. Everyone that I know that has lost a significant amount of weight without surgery had implemented jogging into their workout. I can't jog on a treadmill because I am not that coordinated. I'd be staring at me feet the whole time. If I'm going to do anything faster than a walk, it has to be on solid ground.

I'm glad I had the foresight to buy jeans that were smaller. I'm sure I did it because they were on sale - that's usually what happens - they are on sale but they are the wrong size so I will buy them and wait until I can wear them. As I am losing weight, but also unemployed, I would not be able to buy myself smaller clothes if I had needed them. Plus, they help as encouragement - to encourage me to get down to that size.

This coming week my goal is to get up at least twice to go jogging. I don't know how long it will last, but I at least have to get up to do it. At this point that is the accomplishment. I'll worry about duration later!



Week: 18
Weight: 237.4
Weekly pounds lost: 1.6
Total pounds lost: 19.6
Size: a loose 18
Goal: 150
Pounds to go: 87.4

Weekly Rantings

So, I'm on a rant. This news story that came up yesterday has been eating away at me, and I have to let it out. On my internet server, one of the daily news stories was about how this family's nightmare of their teenage daughter's death is still ongoing. So I clicked on the story. Turns out, this family lost their 18 year old daughter in a car accident. The main point of the story is that their daughter was more or less decapitated, to the point where even the parents were not allowed to see the body to identify it, but days after the accident, CHP officers leaked the photos of her body at the scene of the accident onto the internet, and now they are everywhere and it's been two years and the family cannot get the pictures removed because they are on over 1600 sites. The family had a $20 million lawsuit against the CHP, which they lost and are appealing.

Upon reading more, I learned that a few months before the accident, the girl had tried cocaine and had to be taken to the hospital because she had a chemical reaction to the drug (she had an inoperable brain tumor that she's known about since she was 8). The night before this accident, she had done cocaine again and her parents had drug tested her, took away her car keys, and were planning on admitting her to a hospital the next week.

As a result of being grounded, the next day she stole the keys to her father's Porche, went speeding down a highway over 100 mph, hit a Honda and lost control of the car. She had never driven this car before, btw. The Porche crossed all the lanes, the median, all the lanes of the opposite side of traffic, and crashed into a toll booth.

What bothers me is that the general outcry of the public is to have the photos removed because they are gruesome and hurtful to the family, and to remember the girl as the pretty innocent angel she was.

I will agree that the photos being online may be hurtful to the family, but that's about where my agreement stops. I don't think the girl was an angel - I think she was an idiot. How can you, knowing you have a brain tumor, decide to do the cocaine again? And then to be upset because you are being punished for doing it? And it's one thing to steal daddy's Porche, but it's another thing to drive it like you are on the Autobahn. Especially when you have no experience driving this car at all. She could have killed the driver of the Honda she hit, but no one is talking about that. And I'm not a parent. But I doubt her parents are deliberately looking up the photos of her death online. If I had a child, and my child made the decisions that led up to this result, I would ask that high schools and driver's ed classes use the photos as an example to teenagers to show them they are not invincible. I wouldn't want to see the photos everyday, but if I knew the photo made 1 person rethink how they drive, or whether to drive intoxicated, it would make a positive difference. Too many kids think they are invincible, especially behind the wheel of a car. Remember when Nicole Ritchie got arrested for driving the wrong direction on the 101 Fwy? She was intoxicated at the time. Look at Nick Hogan, who paralyzed his best friend for life. He was street racing, and then when the accident happened, he didn't want to do any jail time.

The general sentiment that the photos need to be removed and that the people who posted them are disgusting human beings makes me wonder about the naivety of the world. Everyone has a choice to look it up or not. If you can't stomach it, don't look. But don't look and then criticize because you don't like what you saw. I wonder to what extreme these people go to... should the medical examiner not do his or her job because the state of the body offends him/her?

That's just the first thing that's got me riled up. The next was an internet joke about the swine flu posted to a yahoo group that I belong to, and most people responded that they found it offensive. It was a picture of a dirty toddler kissing a dirty pig on the snout. It may not be funny to some people, but I think there's a difference between not funny and offensive. I'm not sure how that is offensive, unless you live in the woods and raise dirty toddlers. I think there's more offensive things going on around us on a daily basis. I'm lost as to other peoples' standards of offense. Does this mean I can say the economy is offensive, or the income tax percentage rate is offensive? Maybe next time I am out shopping, I can tell a woman her implants or her cleavage is offensive? Can someone come up to me and tell me that my weight is offensive to them? Can I tell a really hairy guy at the beach he is offending me? Where do we draw the line? A toddler kissing a pig. It may not be funny. That's fine. But does it really offend you? As part of the greyhound rescue, I watch all the time as a member of our group eats something, lets their dog lick the spoon, and goes right back to using the spoon themself. Offensive? I kiss my dog all the time on the snout. I also kiss her nose and her head. Once, I even pulled out a poo that wouldn't fall out of her butt so she wouldn't have to walk around with it dangling there. Offensive? I'm helping my dog not be humiliated. Maybe that is too much for some people to bear.

Maybe my weight is offensive to some people. Then again, maybe my losing weight is offensive to bigger people who think you can be proud at any size.
________________________________
There. That's my line and I'm drawing it.




Week: 17
Weight: 239.0
Weekly pounds lost: 3.0
Total pounds lost: 18.0
Size: 18
Goal: 150
Pounds to go: 89.0