Weigh In #1

December 1, 2012
Starting Weight (12/1/2012): 232.2
Current Weight: 232.2
Total Change: Just starting out
Height: 5'6"
Goal: 149

(The weights above are my home weights, which are usually about 1.5 lb less than at WW)

My alarm went off at the normal time of 6:30 even though it was Saturday, to go to my first meeting. I have always done meetings at work in the past so it was different to be at a center. It felt great to be up and out so early in the morning. I wore yoga capris, sports bra, tech shirt, tech warm up coat (that was removed for the weigh-in). The meeting was probably about 30-40 people - a mix of all different types. I am excited to learn about the changes to the program next week.

After I shopped at Target and didn't buy any junk, then went home for breakfast before going grocery shopping - nothing worse than going grocery shopping hungry!

It is snowing out and we are slowly decorating the house. Me and my 6 year old daughter finished up a "craft" from Thanksgiving - turkeys made out of oreos, woppers and mini reeses and to a lick from me!

And for lunch I made them macaroni and cheese - usually I give them a kid's bowl full and then eat the rest myself. I made me my normal workday lunch, and when they finished I did have one bite off the spoon. Yep, it was a small bit, but it was enough to satisfy me.

I made up a calendar of meals for the whole month of December - we do have most of our comfort foods during this time - it will be a challenge to make the meals healthier and eat less than I normally would. But it is a challenge I will take on.

I still need to make up the list of the baking/cookies that we will do this season. I don't tend to eat a lot of the cookies once they are cookies, but I am notorious at eating batter (especially rolled out gingerbread!) so I will have to be conscious of that.

Quietly trying to get back on track

In the 5+ months since my last post, the weight has continued to creep up to yet again another all time high of 236ish.

But also since the last post, we have moved....new schools, new routines. We also lost my mother-in-law 3 weeks ago which was very sudden (she had been battling lung cancer all year but was beating that. It was another rare type of stomach cancer that came on fast and furiously) and that really was the catalyst to get back on the wagon.

So I am going to clean up my blog, start posting religiously.

Tomorrow morning I am walking back into Weight Watchers. Saturday morning is completely alien to me, but it is 7:30 am so a great way to start the day. It won't interfere with Saturday activities. Target, BJs and ta grocery store are nearby so I can get all my weekend errands done on the way home. I hope I like the leader. I hope the meeting isn't too packed. Another incentive of Saturday mornings is it keeps me honest on Friday day and night. Friday day is my day to work from home and can be a "off plan" day - especially when I was doing WW on Thursdays (honestly, I would do WW on Thursday at noon, then not eat well until Saturday). And then I will have incentive to cook a healthy, low sodium meal on Friday night, a night we may typically eat out.

I also signed up for a 5K on New Year's Day. I know, completely insane! I haven't even attempted to run, or even walk, since February 5th. I mapped out a 5K course around the new house - it is kind of quirky because once I get off our road, I am on some really thin, windy roads so not very good for running. So I am going to just walk the course on Sunday to see how it goes. No guarantees I will actually do the 5K on the 1st (I did it last year) - but they do have really cool medals!

I kind of started the progam on Tuesday after signing up for WW online, so it isn't like I've been pigging out all week hoping for a max weigh in on Saturday. And then I will look forward to the next Saturday when we hear all about the additions to the program.

I am trying to take this kind of casually. I have found in the past that when I get superorganized before I start then I jinx myself and don't do well. But when I make small changes here and there and kind of track, I do well.

I am nervous about starting with exercise as well. Honestly, I have never lost weight while exercising because I know I overeat after working out - not because I think I deserve it or because I overestimate the Activity Points, but because I am just.so.hungry. I am going to try to drink a ton of water and not think about the hunger (easier said than done) because I am so eager to get moving again!

I  need to find some good blogs to read. I've been reading all along but haven't been commenting (sorry Leigh!) because my heart hasn't been in it, or a lot of the blogs I have read in the past aren't blogging anymore (and on the rare occasion they update, it is to say they've gained - like me) - and then some of the blogs I read people have reached their goal (yeah!) - But I need to find some where people are starting the journey or near the beginning and are doing really well.

Seeing so many people gain weight back over the last 12-18 months, just like me, scares the crud out of me. I never, ever, ever thought I would be one of them, or would gain so much, so fast. But it is time. My blog was supposed to be fit by 40 and that came and went, then in my 40's. In a few months my 40s will be 1/4 over - It is time!

All time high :(

I finally got on the scale once again after a long time and was horrified with the results, though not completely surprised. For a second it said 230, though flickered down to 229.6. Even today it was 227.6. But still, I was this heavy probably at 7 months pregnant with my son. I am so mad at myself - I did all of this on my own. I've eaten horribly, really over the last 16 months, but really over the last 6 months when we decided to move. I have been a complete bundle of stress. And right now the stress is at the all time high (well, in some regards - it was more stressful before we closed on the house) as we are living in 2 houses - most of our kitchen stuff is at the new house, we are trying to eat up the pantry and fridge and freezer of the old house. We are having to eat out a lot. I don't have time to plan for eating out or anything!

The season of birthdays is upon us. It is my husband's 40th so there will be a multitude of celebrations. I don't even care about mine - mine is last so everyone is sick of ice cream and cake by the time it is mine.

I am dreaming of August 3rd though, the day the movers get to wheel my treadmill through the basement door. The day we no longer have to live in 2 houses. The day I can start living again in small spurts (the stress will continue through August as my commute will double when I have to bring the kids down to our old town for camp and daycare, but that is only for 13 school days. One day at a time.

It may only be July 20th, but I already worry about fall clothes. Honestly, that is the main reason I am forcing myself back on the scale and having to think about things. Honestly, I worry that some of the size 18W pants I have from the spring won't fit (and I just remembered, the one pair I did like I had to throw away because I stained them and I couldn't get the stain out). But I WILL be buying pants in a few sizes this fall. When I rearrange my clothes (we don't have as much closet space in the new house but I can see it all at once as it is open) I am going to be realistic and only have out what fits, but have the smaller sizes easily accessible.

I am very excited about this next chapter in our lives and getting back on the wagon. I know I should start today, but I just can't.

I am alive!

It has been a long, long, long 5 months since we decided to move. And it isn't over yet. We closed on our new house on Wednesday, but we are still in flux really through the summer. We will be living in our current house until early August, then for 3 weeks after that we will be commuting from our new house to our old town to my work (and the reverse each evening), then vacation, then Labor Day. So it is going to be a long hard summer of being out of sorts, without a schedule or routine which is a killer for me.

But the good things about the new house are:
-A perfect space in the basement for my home gym
-A good loop to run a 5K
-A huge kitchen with plenty of space of have all my healthy food easily accesible
-Space in the kitchen to have my recipes easily accessible
-Lots of mirrors in the master bath so I am forced to look at my self a lot
-Plenty of stairs

So having a healthy lifestyle once again is constantly on my mind - I know it sounds somewhat of a cop-out to say I can't start until Labor Day, but I am being realistic. I have not a second of free times these days to think and plan and execute. Doesn't mean that I will allow a free-for-all for the next 2 months. But I am just so physically and mentally exhausted now that I can't commit to much.

I made myself get on the scale...

Not a pretty # - 219.0. But I did it. I haven't stepped on the scale in over a month - life at home and at work have been so stressful that the old habit of 'if I step on the scale and I don't like what I see, I am going to have a crappy day' came back. But things are getting better, plus I knew I was gaining even more weight, so I needed to see the damage.

The good news in my life is that we are buying a house. We close on June 27th. Our current house has been on the market for about 10 days. Logistically it would be nice to close on our current house after the new one, but financially it would be nice to do it the same day, but I think we've reached the point that if we don't have an offer now, that isn't going to happen.

It is going to be a long summer as all the kids daycare/camp is near our current house, not the new house. So I am going to have a double commute twice a day. Which means breakfast and dinner could be on the road a lot this summer! But I am prepared to do what I need to do to eat healthly foods myself.

The first thing I did this morning was calculate the points of my granola and as expected I was horrified! My favorite cereal was discontinued several months ago and I have not found a good replacement. This morning I bought a new cereal and will start measuring again.

I stocked up on ice cream treats for the summer and got myself some skinny cow ones.

I will continue to weigh myself each day.

I need to up my water intake again.

less sugar, less salt.

I can not commit to exercise at this point. Now that the TV season is over, I am hoping I can start getting to sleep earlier and I would like to do C25K again - it was been almost 4 months since I have run. But at some time we are going to need to start packing up the house and thus my nights may get long again.

In my dream I would lose 20 lbs by Labor Day weekend which would bring me to 199. But 20 lbs in 14 weeks is pretty agressive for me knowing that we are moving during this time and that our schedules will be completely influx. I would to at least like to get down 10 lbs.

I wiil, i will, i will post a lot.

Neither here nor there....

We had to walk away from the house that we put an offer on - the foundation was not straight in one area and they had made attempts to brace it. After we told them we were walking away, the sellers said they had all this documentation stating the foundation had been testing and was secure. We had to tell them 'too little too late - that is what disclosures are for' It killed me to walk away because there just haven't been any other houses even remotely in our price range in the towns we want to live in. Yet we continue to get our house ready for the day we do find a house we love.

And yet we continue to live in limbo about everything - our house is disorganized as we try to organize it - but even then it wouldn't be the way we would want it permanently. And once it is staged, trying to live with it like that and with 2 small children.

With sadness the last race I had signed up for and had to blow off was last weekend - maybe next year. Maybe after this weekend I can start to get back on track, slightly. The treadmill is in its new home in the basement, the mornings are light, I shouldn't have any excuses after this weekend. I hope and pray.....

I am alive....

It's been forever since I posted, but there just isn't much to post health-wise, because it was been the farthest thing from my mind.

Once we decided to try to move, it's been full steam ahead. Originally my realtor wanted to list our place in mid-late March, but we have too much work to do. We are trying to list it on April 25th. With my husband busy at his new job, the planning has been all on me. But he's been great in the execution department. My parents took the kids all weekend this weekend and we got a ton done. But we still have a bunch to do, so if we can't get contractors in in time, then the date will be pushed out.

Then there is the other side of things - looking to move. The town we want to move to, the town we've been looking at for 2 years, has had very limited inventory so far this spring. The ajoining town, which is much more expensive, has a ton of inventory, but in our price range, the houses are 20+ years old and will need more work in the immediate future, plus the master bedrooms just aren't very big.

We put an offer on a house in our desired town and the offer was accepted. But we found out after the fact that the house is on wetlands so what we would be able to do could be limited plus we would have to go through hoops to be able to do it. We have this inspection this week - we are crossing our fingers that everything goes okay. Walking away would be so hard! And I am not sure if we would be able to move unless something else good comes up - but at least our house will be done so we could move on a moment's notice. I would just hate for Ellie to have to start school part-way through a school year - even Jack for that matter.

Needless to say, I haven't been running since February 5th. I've blown off 2 races already and probably will blow off the one I signed up for in 2 weeks. I hate to do it, but there just hasn't been the time or the energy. I will get back to it. I did pull out my stuff tonight, so after the carpet is in installed in a week, hopefully I can get back on treadmill, and in a couple weeks it should be light enough in the morning in order to get outside again. Crossing my fingers.