Healthy & Fitness - September 2014

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

As homemakers, when we take care of ourselves, we increase the strength, stamina, resistance and optimism we have to enjoy life and to be nurturing to others, whether in our homes, extended families or community.

Welcome to our September thread about benefiting health and fitness! We are challenging ourselves to greater well-being and encouraging well-being in our family members. Each of us is learning - recognizing needs and finding personal balance.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony are you ready to grab onto me and we'll do what we can to reverse our stinkin' thinkin'?

I'm starting to at least think the word 'depressed' when I'm pressed to describe how I feel. Deeply, deeply, unhappy covers it. And it is frustrating because it upsets dh when I'm this unhappy - he feels he hasn't done enough for me or that I don't appreciate all he does.

All I can see is what isn't happening. I'm about ready to abandon my attempts at normal weight loss and go to either a completely different set of meals for myself or request that he join me in changing his diet as well. I just know that with 50 pounds to lose, I can't go on doing what I've always done. It just doesn't work any more.

I think I want to move to stopping our eating out. He's free to go by himself, but I just can't go with him because I don't make healthy choices (or, as in the case of the chip wagon tomorrow, aside from water, she doesn't sell anything that is healthy.) WW works on the theory that you can eat anything but in moderation. But other plans seem to point out that moderate eating of 'nutritionally empty' foods leads to binge eating and I think that's my issue.

I'm so tired of this. And I miss my optimism. I joked it was packed away early in the prep for the move and back then I hoped I unpacked it soon. But I haven't found it yet. The apartment looks good, the house is sold so that won't be a problem, both kids are here in Ottawa with me, and things should be all rainbows and fireworks but I honestly just want to cry, cry, cry.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony: you asked how pedometers count steps and as RR said, it depends on the pedometer but many of them won't count until you get to 10 steps in a row. On the fitbit there is a also a flower that 'grows' as you move more. So it senses your movement. I haven't noticed if it grows more even when I'm not taking steps (but am actively moving my upper body.) It would be interesting if Lady M remembers what the flower looked like when she was doing booth duty on the weekend.

When I think that the fitbit doesn't count shuffling steps (i.e. when I was unpacking/packing) and that I got to 10K plus steps a day during that time, it shows how much I was moving. I still have more upper body strength than I did before the move, although I suspect I'm losing it now. But the watermelon that dh kept asking to carry yesterday really didn't feel all that heavy to me.

[Nancy]

I walked with my friend last evening.
Bs was up this am drat.

[Ramblinrose]

whoops...I'm in a fog and didn't read the tread very well...put my today's response in yesterdays thread...My head still hurts and after yesterdays "wet bed comment... that the story I'm sticking to

[Harriet]

Hi to Kathryn and Nancy.

RamblinRose, don't you want to move your post today over here to the new thread instead? It is such a happy one. Just copy it and post here, and more will hear encouragement.

Those are good thoughts, Kathryn - wondering about the SAD light's potential help - sure. If you identify "trigger" foods, consider still enjoying it but at dinner/evening when it won't have a chance to change your plans at a following meal. What a good problem to have someone who is frustrated when they think they haven't done enough to help you. Can be an honest problem, yep, yep, but good in one way.

Here I am, ARMED with record keeping. That's all I really asked of myself for these last 6 months of 2014 - just to KNOW what I was doing again. This a.m. was end-of-month moment. I measured and got it all written down.

I lost quarter-inches at 3 places, above and below bust and waist, a very nice thing to know. But a half-inch is gone at abdomen, which makes me quite pleased, and feeling that I'm doing the right things for me. I think hips (glutes), arms and thighs are having an exchange of muscle for fat, however slowly. Measurements there aren't changing but I'm "feeling it" during workouts and maybe-maybe seeing better looking arms in short sleeves, for instance. (much needed)

So obviously, keeping good records also inspires to do more.

The jump up in weight from adding more exercise is gone.

A few clothes have felt looser at times, and that was lower body.

More mornings without as much lower back pain, I think. But still so random when it happens that I can't always figure out why.

I got some sun this morning.

[Harmony]

Another month. Another opportunity to start over.

I am weary of feeling bad. Just tired of it. I am trying to be patient with myself though and so far have been able to keep up with the bulk of things around here.

Harriet, you sound like you are doing so good. Always keeping to your plan.

I know half or more of my problem is not moving enough. I used to bike around the neighborhood almost every day with DH but since his hip got bad he quit doing that and I haven't wanted to ask him to keep fixing my tires so I can go by myself. Biking is really the only exercise I have tried that I enjoy. Oh, swimming would be nice too if we had a pool. The beach is too hot for me right now. Walking holds no interest either. If I had a safe wildlife area to hike in maybe.

Anyway, my goal for this month is to try to move more. I do have my thinking more straightened out by just reminding myself to accept my situation and be thankful more. I am disappointed that at this weight I'm feeling more uncomfortable than I should be. You should have seen how hard the last pedicure was to do.

(Kathryn) I'm wondering how much you are missing your house? Do you think that's contributing to your sadness?

[Twins' Mom]

Yes, another chance at starting over. I have eaten so much this weekend that eating less sounds attractive at this moment. I am mortally afraid of the scale right now.

I need to somehow restart and keep the exercise program going somehow, and get back to being WW "on program."

Goal to get to YMCA for exercise two days this week and a total of 12 times this month and show up at WW to weigh weekly.

This morning we ate at an ATL "jewish deli." Bagel with scrambled egg and bacon, and latkes. Coffee with a lot of cream - I didn't ask for skim or 2% milk to go with it. I'm not sure what we'll do for supper tonight - I know neither of us will want lunch.

[Ramblinrose]

Thank you Harriet for your suggestion...I didnt even think of doing this. Plus your eating tips are good ones. Boy this is gonna be a long post....

If it makes any of ya'll feel any better, I haven't been exercising like Harriet has...some days I get on my gazelle, but other days I don't. During the month of
June when I was hitting the gym 3-5 times a week my weight loss seemed to slow down. That may be because my body was converting my fat...and there's plenty of it...into muscle. Bet that's what happening to you Harriet.

And Harriet, you and FF were the ones to convince me to keep up with my measurements. That really helped to motivate me when the scales didn't reflex my efforts. And as I said earlier in the day...if it hadn't been for ya'll cheering me on, I don't think I would have been as successful with this journey either.

I think we should stop our negitive comments about ourselves and celebrate the women we are now/today. Harmony, like you I got really tired of myself and the way I looked in the mirror. Then I decided to stop putting myself down, formulate a plan and then do something about it. Thats really how my journey started.

Ya'll have no idea how much negative talking was going on in my mind...thats because it was so very bad I didn't want to share it with anybody. I just got tired of hearing myself whine. The first thing I did was to get up in the morning and make myself look the best I could for the day. It was hard...my stomach stuck outway more than my "sisters", my chin and jowles had grown, and my eyes were so puffy with my eye lids hanging down that I looked like a Chinaman. I was beginning to out grown even my big clothers and finally I got real with myself and said...who do you think you're kidding???

With each pound I lost and I do mean each I celebrated my success, even the little 1/4 and half ones. And each time I heard myself say...I can do this. To be honest at first it was a whisper and shaky at that.

If you told me five months ago that I would have reached one of my big goals by today I would have told ya'll that you were crazy. As Kathryn so well said I had to change my stinkin' thinkin'. Losing weight really isn't about which diet you choose...there are many good ones out there...its about the mind game that goes on in your head...for me it was like...gee I'm having a bad day, it won't matter I'm gonna eat this peanut butter anyway or well I just blew it by eating 2 cookies so I'm gonna eat 5 more; who cares

But the truth of the matter is I care. After I did stuff like that I was so hard on myself, whipping my soul with all that negative thinking. Like Harriet said...I had to stop and think about WHY I did what I did and come up with a solution...like moving the peanut butter out of my sight, cause for me, if I don't see it, I won't eat it...but if I do see it, that PB calls to me all day.

I stopped thinking about all the things I couldn't eat and focused on the ones I could and then found differnt ways to fix them. I measured and weighed all my food because if I just eyeballed them I knew I would add "just a bit more" to make sure. I was drinking 4-5 diet sodas a day...boy that was a hard one to give up, but after reading what the artifical sugar was doing to my body...like holding on to my fat and making my organs work over time...my brain/mind/thinking began to kick in and it was much easier to talk myself out of needing it.

So anyway the big challenge for me will begin the moment I hit my ultimate goal. I already know my thinking...gee since i've lost this weight it won't matter if I eat....... fill in the blank. Or gee now that I'm where I want to be I deserve this.... fill in the blank. The fact of the matter is this is a process. I will need to come up with a solution, like allowing myself one free day a week, but not to give myself permission to go crazy.

I am lucky in that I've done this before...lost 45 lbs and then kept it off for 15 years...so I do sort of have a plan, but it will need to be tweeked. Food has and will always be my weakness...I use it to make myself feel better when I'm having a bad day...I use it to reward myself when I've done something good...I eat stuff just because Sweetie can..he can eat an entire carton of ice cream in 24 hours and never gain a pound...and he does it often like once a week or so. He loves cookies or any type of sweets...right now I have cranberry muffins that are to die for sitting in my pantry. I made them myself and only licked the spoon twice... I've learned to put all his goodies out of sight when I go into my pantry....anyway I now have the confidence that I can do this.

And Harmony and Kathryn, I thought of you this afternoon when I caught my reflection in a store window...I almost didn't recognize myelf. I want ya'll to experience the same thing. I don't care what size you are...ya'll are terrific women and have made my life more richer just by having ya'll in my life...but I do understand how ya'll are feeling about yourselves....its the pits i know.

But you can do this...what ever the "this" may be. Kathryn...don't wait for a diet book to show up on your door...in the meantime do all the things you already know what to do. I kept putting things off telling myself when I find the perfect solution I'll do it...and in the meantime I kept putting on my weight. Remembr ya'll I am one of the oldest women in the village...and I could come up with a hundred excuses for why nothing I was trying would work, when the truth of the matter was I was just lying to myself and I was getting pretty good at it.

The beauty of this village...and ya'll are beautiful to me no matter what you think...is that we are caring women who by the grace of God have found each other inthis crazy world called cybernet. Each and every one of you has wisdom, love and humor...some times far more than I ever do. I only want to encourage and love ya'll back as much as ya'll have done for me.....

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Ok... I sort of hesitate to write this as I don't want it to come off as bragging, but if I can't tell ya'll, then who can I tell

First..Sat night we had a dinner date with some friends. I put on some white jeans and a knitted lacy long-sleeve shirt. As we were getting ready to leave Sweetie said to me.... wow, you really look terrific. I jokingly said..its nice to see me wear something different than black.

Then yesterday morning I put on a long-sleeve t-shirt and a pair of shorts, remember I was really feeling nasty with my headache, and walked by Sweetie to do something. He looked at me and said...Boy, you're getting skinny. Made my day, but also made me wonder where has he been for the last few months...LOL Every week I share with him my weight ups and downs and he right there with me when I'm eating my dinner. Silly guy

Then this morning I got on the scale...figured it would be up because of all the meds I took yesterday and I had to take more than usual. Imagine my surprise and delight to see my weight had gone down.

So here's the Skinny of it...pun of course is intended.

Since the beginning of April I have lost 23 lbs, or as Sweetie put it to me this morning 15% of my weight, and 26 inches. And, as of this morning, I have reached my big goal

I have 10 more pounds to go and am using the clothes in my "Dream closet" as my guide. I must be crazy, but I signed up for another diet bet for the month of Sept. It starts on Wed and I leave for vacation on Friday. If I follow the course of the diet bet program, I will only be required to loose 5.2 lbs for Sept. that equals a little more than 1.3 lbs a week which is surely doable. And if I can do that, then for the month of Oct I will be requried to loose 1.25 lbs a week and will be at my ultimate goal.

I love coming here and posting my "hits and misses". Ya'll have been such a great support system for me and I so appreciate it. Ya'll are my greatest cheerleaders... and I believe one of the reasons I've done so well. Thanks...

_________________
Live Boldly, Take Risks, No Regrets...Jilliam Michaels

[Nancy]

I am glad I took those jeans backgbot some 29" long ones and a pr. Of the dark blue color I wanted last yr. So glad I could still wear the same size as last yr. Yea!
H. Complimented me on the new teal green shirt I got too.

Ran water through the coffee maker. Made mac n cheese for h. Did not have any not my fave thing.
H. Grilled burgers for lunch.

I am doing good with food med log. P.m. dose # is not such a worry now just trying to tweak the day time #'s and med. Dose using my new bs monitor a lot now these days so I keep a container of test strips ahead.
Will go back to the cheaper ones after these are gone.