OMG. I'm still frigging sick.

Last month it was the creeping crud of the lungs and I thought I was getting over it except for that crud hacking cough. And now it's moved to my frigging head. I can't breathe my nose. I'M A MOUTH BREATHER. I CAN'T STAND MOUTH BREATHING. IT'S UNNATURAL AND IDIOTIC. See this guy? He's a mouth breather. That is not a look that says, "Hey! I'm quick on my feet! Capable of throwing out the number pi in conversation or even determining my left hand from my other left hand."

And really, mouth breathing sometimes happens such as in the case wherein one's nose is clogged up with god knows what, maybe some oompa loompas. But look at google pictures of this guy. (Corey Haim, for the uninformed.) He's always sitting around with his freaking mouth open. I bet he'd make a great venus fly trap.I'm going to start a reality tv show where he sits in my kitchen in the summer and catches flies for me.

At any point, how does he hang around with his mouth open all day? I've been mouth breathing for about a day now and my lips and tongue are all dried up. Think dried up sponge bob. I woke up this morning with a mouth breather film all over my teeth and a mouth breather tongue coating. And mouth breathing makes me thirsty.

But never mind the mouth breathing. I've stayed down to 15 pounds. I also haven't bothered with eating well since sleeping and, oh, I don't know breathing have been time consuming in between classes and papers and kids and midterms and random job searching.

Today, I thought I'd treat myself to malibu rum chocolate bar because I love chocolate and I love liquor. The only thing I've found greater than that is Southern Comfort ice cream floats. Anyway, I bought the damned chocolate bar because I've tried to make a point of treating myself to a very nice piece of candy once a week or so because it's better to allow some things than to create a forbidden fruit. So I bought my damned chocolate bar (a big one, it cost me two bucks at the pigg) and ate a row trying to determine what in the hell was wrong with my chocolate bar before I realized, "OH! You're a mouth breather now! You can't taste jack shit! You just paid two dollars for a nice tasting chocolate bar that you can't taste! Idiot!"

So I devised a plan. When my 14 year old daughter up from school, I shoved the chocolate bar in her face and said, "HERE! Eat this! And tell me exactly what it tastes like!" I could at least taste by proxy.

R (my daughter): "So do you want me to be completely honest?"

Me: "Yes."

R: "It tastes like shit."

Me: "Uh. Couldn't you have chosen another word?"

R: "But you wanted me to be honest."

Philistine. She obviously has no taste. And really, "It tastes like shit?" Where in the hell does she get that kind of frigging language? I think I'm going to have to talk those little ass friends of hers and tell them to watch their crusty damned little sailor mouths. Gah.

Anyway, I breathe. I breathe.

I have not given up

I was forced to take to my bed for a few days after some crud infected child attended my children's movie night at school and passed it about willy-nilly. I spent a lot of time thinking about those people to "took to their bed" with full intention of wasting away from a broken heart and all that rot during the Victorian era. Dude, those people are completely out of their everloving minds. It seriously hurts to stay in bed very long.

Anyway, the creeping crud pulled me down on Saturday and I'm just now getting over it. Still tired, but breathing. I won't bother with trying to document what I ate because I basically forgot to eat until some time around Monday afternoon. Okay, it wasn't exactly that I forgot to eat, it just required an awful lot of energy to wash a spoon (because every child in this house thinks it's their right to have clean dishes but to not have to wash them), pull down a jar of peanut butter, stick the spoon in there after grappling the lid open and then applying it all to bread. Sometime around Monday afternoon, I did work up the energy to open those wiley wrappers on the clif bars and ate one them then went back to bed. Those wrappers are apparently pretty damned exhausting. Who knew?

On an upnote, I was waiting to lose one more pound before I changed my ticker. (I like to do it in five pound increments for some reason.) I'd been on the verge for a couple of days and was pretty sure I'd be there by today. Well, I did finally lose the pound. So you'll note the change in the ticker. Yaaaaaay. (I'm still tired, so you'll note the lack of exclamation points.)

The thing about that is, I also lost an additional four pounds since saturday because I've been sick and was too meh to bother feeding myself and also because strident coughing and laying about are high calorie burners (who knew?). I'm not officially counting those four pounds because I could gain that back fairly quickly even if I stick to my calorie/fat/protien/whateverelse goals this week. I'm not going to be disappointed if I add those back, but I'd like to go ahead and be done with them and have someone tell me "Here is a lovely consolation prize for having a shitty three days."

I've been a bit busy

Okay, I've been busy and a little stressed so I haven't updated here as I should have. I also haven't kept up with my exercise and have been spotty about cutting back saturated fats.

The good thing, though, is I'm not eating snickers bars for breakfast yet and I'm very pleased with how easy it's been for me to stick with maintaining a healthier menu. It really hasn't been horribly easy this week as far as time constraints. There was drama class for the kids on Tuesday followed up by a math team meeting for the middle heathen right after that and in between I managed to grab some groceries and have some freak touch me arse when I wasn't paying attention. We didn't get home until around 8 so dinner was the regular salad.

Wednesday was shit because of evening classes and then today was more shit because the middle heathen needed a scrip for his eczema which necessitated a trip to the doctor at five followed up by 45 minutes of hanging around Kroger waiting for the medicine so we didn't get home until after 7. But I'm really happy that even though I've resorted to the mundane in pinches that it's been a healthy choice. Its time for me to switch up the salad because, while I really like the salad, it's just time. You can't eat the same damned thing every day.

So I'll go over today's menu:

Breakfast - Strawberry Tortilla (6 large strawberries, 1.5 ounces of melted mozarella and 1 tbsp of raw honey on a tortilla. I really like it.)

Lunch - a crunchy peanut butter Clif bar

Snack - two tablespoons of naturally more peanut butter

dinner - salad

snack - banana

12 cups of water

1 diet coke

So I'm pretty happy with how things have been going even though I haven't exercised like I should have. I did walk three blocks today. This blog needs some pictures. I'm going to take a picture of my salad or something.

Beer will screw you up

I was too lazy to post yesterday much like I was too lazy to bother looking what I was consuming or preparing an actual meal. Blah.

So here I am today. I pulled myself out of it before it went too far and not a bad day in all.
1424 calories/56 fat/26 fiber/102 protein

Calories, fat, fiber and protein are the numbers I look at regularly. The fat count might look high for today, but it falls in the top most part of my allotted range of necessary fat. Fat, like calories, is necessary for the body.

So to honor fat and the fat clumping around my butt, here are a few details on fat:

First, there are different types of fats. There are healthy fats and then there's just crap. The best fats for you are polyunsaturated, monosaturated, and omega-3 fatty acids. Monosaturated fats can be found in olive, peanut and canola oils, avocados and most nuts.

Polyunsaturated fats are in vegetable oils including safflower, corn, sunflower, soy and cottonseed oils.

Omega-3s are in soybean, canola oil, flax seeds and flaxseed oil, and fish oil.

You should avoid or limit saturated fats (found in red meat, poultry, while milk, cheese, coconut and palm oils), trans fats (commonly found in baked goods and often begin withs "hydrogenated" on the ingredients label, fried foods, shortening and margerine), and dietary fats (meat, dairy, seafood, shortening, butter).

• Fat acts as an insulator and helps to maintain body temperature.
• It carries fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, K and E.
• Certain types of fats can include your cholesterol levels.
• maintains cell membranes
• Monosaturated fats help to raise the good HDL levels. People with high HDL levels are at a lower risk for heart disease.
  
• Polyunsaturated fats help lower overall cholesterol levels.

So there's my tiny little facts on fat. Writing this also made me think to track these fats and I see. I'm not very good at avoiding saturated fats because I adore cheese and I'm a little over my limit today. It's something I'll have to work on.

All together today, was a nice day. I cut the grass and that burned over 300 calories.

Here's the "Crap I ate Today" list.

I slept late and didn't eat breakfast.

WW Santa Fe Rice and Beans for lunch.

Pita Banana Sandwich for a snack

A salad for another snack because I was still hungry. Today it was 5 cups of romaine lettuce, one ounce of snow peas, half a cup of alfalfa, four ounces of grilled chicken breasts and 2 ounces of pepperjack cheese. (I could cut the chicken back to 3 ounces and maybe 1.5 ounces of cheese. God. I love cheese.)

Dinner was 3 ounces of chicken and an ounce and a half of pepperjack cheese on a Tortilla Factory low carb tortilla.

Oh, and I drank 64 ounces of water and kept it down to one diet coke.

So here is tomorrow's plan. (Pretty much the same verse as before.)

• drink 64 ounces of water
• try to hold down the cheese to 2 ounces a day
• keep within range
• get in at least 20 minutes of exercise
  

Hello.

I would post, but I've had four beers and that's a lot of beer for me. The small ones. In the can. I'm so happy I can type. I hope it looks like English tomorrow. The spellcheck is very helpful.

I did fine. Had a hamburger and chips and dip so I'm sure that besides the beer that I am not in calorie range. But that's okay because I'm taking today off.

KAR

1204 Calories/40 minutes of exercise

Okay. So I'm apparently really not going to worry about posting on Wednesdays until this class is over. But I'll review my goals for Wednesday.

• one diet coke Fail. I had two. I also had two today.
  
• bring a slimfast for dinner. Check
  
• exercise for at least 20 minutes. Fail. Had too much going on.
  
• drink my water. Check
  
• log food in sparkpeople. Check

As a very short update to Wednesday - I did stay in calorie range, but I had too much going on to get around to the exercise.

Today was a good day, although I'm seemingly up to two diet cokes today.

Walked three blocks to school and back then came home and did a 20 minutes Leslie Sansone one mile.

• Breakfast: 1 cup of low fat yogurt and one cup of kashi cereal. A diet coke
• Lunch: a slim fast shake
• Snack: slim fast milk chocolate peanut bar
• snack: pita banana sandwich (I linked the recipe in a previous post.)
• Dinner: salad with 4 ounces of grilled chicken breast and two ounces of pepper jack cheese.

I'm happy to report that I have over 200 calories left if I wanted to have something else. That's a pretty good sign for me considering that I've stayed satisfied throughout the day and means I'm learning how to eat healthy again. Oh, and I've even pulled out the scale a couple of days ago so I can be sure to record everything.

Also, in case I haven't mentioned it, the valerian root does seem to finally be doing it's job so I'm getting more sleep. Today is the first day in a long time where I've been gone all day and am not dragging ass by three o'clock.

Tomorrow we are planning a neighborhood cook out so I don't have plans to stay within range, but to enjoy myself without going so far overboard that I make myself miserable.

So, Goals for Tomorrow:

• Head off to the gym and hang out on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes
• drink at least 64 ounces of water
• log everything into sparkpeople

Pudding for dinner, y'all.

Goals set yesterday:

• keep it down to one diet coke Check
  
• remember to bring my slimfast to class with me so I won't stare at snickers bars in desperation. Check
  
• at least 20 minutes of exercise. Check
  
• park three blocks from class and walk. Check.
  
• log everything I eat on sparkpeople. Fail.
  

The days started off really well and I was all prepped. Brought my slimfast, parked three blocks away, was prepared for class. All that good stuff.

Today was one of those weird days when you spend half the evening running, though, and I never actually got around to eating dinner. Someone called again to borrow money like I have this mother fucking secret money stashed away in an offshore account somewhere that I can just pull at will and that I only wear the trappings of relative poorness to throw the not-so-smart-ones off the trail. That aggravated the hell out me. BUT! I did not go the with a pissed off binge route. I stayed the course and had a banana and a cup of cheerios in the afternoon.

But then there were afterschool activities, a visit to my grandparents house and right when I was pulling up the recipe for supper a friend came by to get some advice on some family issues so by then my schedule was all off track and I never got back to it. I don't think I went over, but I didn't stick with my plan.

My daughter ended up cooking spaghetti for dinner (because they really weren't all that enthused with what I had planned) and by the time I got through, I sure as hell didn't feel like spaghetti. So I had half a cup of chocolate pudding for dinner. *hiding under the desk right now*

I'm not going to put what I ate today. Nothing spectacular and a little weird in general considering I didn't even have dinner.

I have class on Wednesday evenings, so dinner is pretty well out for tomorrow. I also may not be posting tomorrow evening or for very many Wednesday evening thereafter.

So here are to goals for tomorrow:

• one diet coke
• bring a slimfast for dinner
  
• exercise for at least 20 minutes
• drink my water
• log food in sparkpeople
  

Another day, some more chicken

So to review my goals for today:

Keep it down to one diet coke. Check


Try to drink 64 ounces of water. Check

Work in at least 20 minutes of exercise. Check

Work up a post about the benefits of flax seeds and why I need to go back to including them in my diet. Fail. Maybe some time this week.

Okay, so I did several good things today. I kept it down to one diet coke and I did drink my required 64 ounces of water and I am getting better about what I eat. Having to lay out in front of the world is a little disconcerting.

So here is today's meal:

• Breakfast -Pita Banana Breakfast (Pretty good.)
• Snack - one large banana
• Lunch -WW Santa Fe Style Rice and Beans (I love these freaking things. The Lean Cuisine ones are not as good. )
• Snack - five table spoons of Naturally More Peanut Butter Okay. This was pushing it on several reasons. One, I wasn't really hungry and at the very least I should have just had a teaspoon to satiate my lust for flax seed filled peanut butter. But the freaking stuff is addictive and while it's a healthy alternative to regular Jif peanut butter, trying to eat the whole damned jar is just not a good idea. I don't want to stop buying it because I love peanut butter, but I may have to if I don't get my shizznit under control.
• Snack - again. Coconut cake. I don't regret the cake. That was a damned good piece of cake and I don't even like coconut. I really which I'd left the peanut butter alone and then all would have been well. I managed to restrain myself to a third of a slice. My god it was good.

• Dinner - 6 ounces of barbequed chicken and 1/4 cup of red beans and rice.
  

I entered my meals and random eating into www.sparkpeople.com and over all, I didn't do very badly. I went about 200 calories over. (That's guesstimating since I have no idea how much was actually in the cake, but I'm comfortable with that.

And miracle of miracles, I got off me arse and did Leslie Sansone's WATP express 2 mile which took about thirty minutes.

So not a bad day in general and I'm happy with it. Especially for a Monday.

Goals for tomorrow:

• keep it down to one diet coke
• remember to bring my slimfast to class with me so I won't stare at snickers bars in desperation.
• at least 20 minutes of exercies
• park three blocks from class and walk.
• log everything I eat on sparkpeople.
• 
  

Okay, so it's been a couple of weeks. Shoot me.

Shortly after my last post, I went on a PMS induced binge for a couple of days. Well, about four days to be exact. I've worked myself down, but I've been a slug in other respects.

Haven't exercised much and haven't made an effort to eat healthier. I have however, started adding supplements to my daily routine and have done fairly well with that.

• Acidophilus - This is supposed to help with the sugar craving and I think it seems to be doing a fairly decent job.

• Fish Oil and Flax Oil - for omegas 3, 6, and 9

• A women's multivitamin - because I'm a woman. duh-her

• B12 - It's supposed to help with my bitchiness. I'm not sure if that's working.

• Valerian Root - for the insomnia that's been beating my ass down for the past three months or so. I don't know how this is going either. I seem to get to sleep more quickly than I have, but I have these really weird dreams. Like when I was apparently living in some sort of hospital or dorm room with hard wood floors and Candace Wilson kept trying to throw sheep skins down on my floors even though it wasn't her room.
  

There haven't been any exciting realizations or milestones achieved at all in the past three weeks and the longer I waited to post the more embarrassing it was to admit that I was avoiding myself so here I am.

On Friday, I worked up a two week menu based on healthy recipes mostly found at sparkrecipes. com and made a list. Of course, I left the freaking list sitting on the desk, but I was moderately pleased to discover I'd only missed a few items that I can pick up sometime in the next few days.

I did pick up a pack of those Slimfast drink doohickeys. I'm usually not a big proponent of them, but I decided it was a healthier breakfast option than the snickers bar I grab out of the snack machine right before class half the time. Really, the I think a lot of my problem is working through this insomnia so I won't keep oversleeping and spending half the day feeling rushed and stressed.

Today was Begin Anew Day #765 and it went well. I am a slug so I didn't work out. But I did focus on eating healthy and that went pretty well.

Breakfast:

one cup of Nature's Path Organic Pumpkin Granola
one cup of skim milk
one banana

Dude, I totally love this pumpkin crunch granola cereal deal. It's a little higher in the fat and calorie area than most cereals, but it's the good fat and according to the box it's also "an excellent source of omega-3." Not to mention 6 grams of protein per 3/4 cup serving. But the most awesome of all is the crunch factor. I love crunchy things and it has this really weird freaking crunch, almost like those dehydrated marshmallows in Lucky Charms cereal and I love those little dehydrated marshmallows.

Lunch -
I think I forgot to eat lunch.

Dinner:
A salad with three cups of romaine lettuce, 1/2 of a cucumber, chicken strips and pepper jack cheese. I really, really love bacon bits, sharp cheddar cheese and blue cheese dressing on my salads, but I always feel guilty about it because that's too much "extra" stuff to throw on something that's supposed to be healthy for you. So I finally came to the conclusion that grilled chicken strips would be a good source of protein and the pepper jack cheese should add all the WoW factor I need in a salad. It was pretty good.

I also made a Creamy Peach Cantaloupe Soup. My youngest child seemed to really like it, but I didn't find myself overly fond of it. Of course, I also don't really like cantaloupe, so I don't know what I was expecting from this soup . . . I suppose a fascinating discovery into the varied tastes of cantaloupe. But cantaloupe tastes pretty much like cantaloupe no matter how much yogurt and peaches you throw on it. Plus, I'm not overly fond of the cantaloupe texture and apparently even blasting the hell out of it in a food processor does not get rid of that weird cantaloupe feel.

On an up note, I have lost FIVE pounds. Okay, so three of those pounds were probably from PMS bloat, but I take what I can get and now the ticker officially moves down five pounds. It gives me a lot of hope that I can do this within the next year and a half.

Okay, so tomorrow's plan:

• Keep it down to one diet coke (I did manage that very nicely today.)
• Try to drink 64 ounces of water.
• Work in at least 20 minutes of exercise.
• Work up a post about the benefits of flax seeds and why I need to go back to including them in my diet.

I really have to stop letting people piss me off

I have a History of the English Language class on Wednesday evenings. For some reason, night classes really piss me off and put me in a bad mood. On top of the recurring insomnia, I'd decided to lay off the work out today and have a cheeseburger while I did some things around town. I was okay with that plan for today.

And then I went into full pissed off mode. People around here seem to smell when I have money in my bank account. One called to borrow money and the other called to tell me not to cash the check he'd sent me to pay back a loan. So I spent a lot of time raising hell because I don't actually have money. I have money, but I don't have money to throw at people like I'm the frigging Macy's Christmas parade Santa Claus. So I ate all of the caramel cremes. All of the ones in existence - so if there's some sudden caramel creme shortage get the hell over it. And then I topped it off with a hershey's almond bar.

This was not happy, anticipatory eating like the bagel and cookie yesterday. I'd been wanting that damned bagel and cookie for over a month. I'd thought about it and by yesterday afternoon, the desire had reached the crescendo. No. This was vengeance eating.

You want money I can't afford to give you because I know you'll never pay it back? SCREW YOU! I'M EATING ALL THE SUGAR IN THE UNIVERSE RIGHT NOW! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT! NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FOR YOU! NO MOCHA LATTES! NO SUGAR IN YOUR COFFEE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Now, a rational person would not do that. A rational person would not rationalize eating all the caramel cremes in the world to get back at people who piss her off. Let's be honest. I'm obviously not a rational person. Sugar is my crutch and I turn to it when I'm stressed. The day was already stressful because I don't have my book for this class yet (bookstore's fault for not ordering it until the day class started) so I hadn't read the material. I don't like evening classes and I had a lot of errands to run. For some reason, the money thing was just the topping to send me into a sugar rage.

So the major point of today's blog is this: there are not enough caramel cremes in the world to work through stress and general pissed offedness.

I really have to learn to deal with it some other way. Maybe manslaughter.

Good day.

Neena and Veena from yesterday really worked my butt. I could still feel it this morning so I will definitely be alternating them with my other tapes. I thought about doing it again today, but decided I need to keep the routines varied from day to day right now to allow my body to not become to acclimated to any particular session.

Today was Leslie Sansone day with the Walk Away the Pounds Express 2 mile walk. Leslie is one of the really happy people and all that cheerfullness can be grating on any giving day. More than a few WATP (Walk Away the Pounds) adherents say they turn down the volume once they learn the routine and turn on their own music.

Leslie has a kajillion different videos out and they're all pretty simple, more like light aerobics that vary intensity and time. The one and two miles are pretty good for beginners. The one I did today was nothing for me to finish off when I bought it a couple of years ago. Today, I worked up a sweat, my legs ached from the knee lifts and I was sweating like a whore in church. Or a fat woman in the candy store.


Also, I parked my car three blocks away from my school so I walked an extra six blocks today. I went at a leisurely pace, taking about ten minutes for each walk so it wasn't any spectacular work out session, but it was a nice little addition to my day. Sooner or later, I will go back to using the stairs at school but the last time I tried that, I ended up heaving and nearly wretching out a lung in front of a bunch of 22 year old babies. Given that I'm mildly vain, I'd prefer not to repeat the situation any time soon.

And I thought I might try journaling my food here for a while.

Breakfast - egg white omelette with onions, cheese and sour cream (The egg whites are specifically for health reasons. I'm just one of those freaks who prefers egg whites.

Lunch - Einstein Brothers Veg Out on an Asiago Bagel and a mudslide cookie. Neither one of these things are particularly healthy other than my big, calorie ridden bagel comes with a few slices of cucumber, lettuce and onions. But I really wanted the thing. I'd been thinking about it all morning and I'll be damned, I was going to have it and the cookie. I don't regret it.

Snack - 1.5 cups of skim milk and 1.5 cups of Flax Plus Pumpkin Crunch cereal

The Plan

There are a few secrets to weight loss I discovered over the years.

1. Don't try to change everything at once.
   
2. Don't guilt trip yourself.
3. Diets suck, so don't diet.
   

With that in my mind, I have a multi-layered plan that I make up a bit as I go. Currently, there are three things I need to do:

1. Increase my water intake.
2. Write down my food intake. (I have no intentions of purposely changing the way I eat right now, it's too much. At this point, it's enough to write down everything I eat and see what I can improve over time.)
3. Commit to exercising at least thirty minutes, three days a week.

Once I've incorporated those changed into my daily life, I'll add in new things like increasing my time exercising or focusing more on portion control. I would be remiss if I didn't mention sparkpeople.com right now. Most of the things I talk about here are things I've learned from sparkpeople. I really enjoy the site because it's an all in one spot for weight loss including a food journal, forums, and health related articles among other things. I also really like it because it's free and I'm really addicted to those little points. A lot of people don't like it because they find the site hard to navigate and it may not be the best site for everyone who is looking for an online weightloss community.

Officially, this is a weight loss blog

I have been lucky enough to lose something like 80 pounds some two years ago. Unfortunately, most of the little bastards found me and I'm not enjoying their reattachment. I've been saying that I'm going to do something about it and I'd make little starts to get back on the wagon, but could never seem to commit myself to it.

It wasn't until I found myself face deep in a carton of Moose Tracks Extreme ice cream last week that the fear hit me - if I keep eating this crap someday a rollback wrecker is going to haul me out of my house in nothing but California king size sheets sewn together to cover my gunt and androgynous fat person boobs. This is inconceivable and so on Friday morning I pulled my self out of my sloth and did a three mile Leslie Sansone video with the full intentions of doing a one or two mile tape over the weekend. Except I overextended myself in that way that I usually overextend myself when I get a great idea and spent the entire weekend babying my overly contracted calves.

I have a plan. Of sorts. I'll talk about that later. Right now I will ramble as rambling and ranting are two of my strong points.

Today, I did a belly dancing tape by these Neena and Veena chicks. I tell you, if you really ever want to feel like a lump of uncoordinated fat cells, belly dancing is the way to go. For all my personal embarrassment though, it was an excellent work out. I only did the basic moves today and worked up a nice little sweat. I think I'll do this on the days I don't have time to do anything else and I will eventually work my way up to the actual fat burning portion.

I also want to use this blog to review exercise equipment and videos from an actual fat person's point of view and to post some most excellent links. Pictures and whatnot will be forthcoming when I get around to having a few rolls developed.