A Promise Is A Promise

Please, do not adjust your computer screens - this is actually happening.....blogging twice in one week.  I know, it is a little freaky, but just keep reading and everything will be alright.  I promised to share some of my new favorites, but first I want to share a "victory" from this week.

Wednesdays and Fridays I take a BodyCombat class at the gym.  I have been going for probably 4 or 5 months and I looove it.  It is hard, makes me wish I was dead and I look forward to the classes each week.  This past Wednesday I dropped my sweet girl Livvy off at the gym daycare and headed up to class.  About 20 minutes in one of the workers came to get me out of class - I thought maybe she had a stinky diaper - turns out she BIT a little boys ear.....needless to say, we were sent home for the day.  And while I was very upset with my daughter, I confess that I was also very upset for myself.  It's been a rough week - I've been doing what I do and for some reason my 234.4 has been a stinkin' 238.3 for much of the week (I was down to 236.7 this morning).  I was so upset that I drove across the parking lot to Target - I had a plan..... a plan to eat.  I mean, what else was I going to do ????  I could feel all of that anxiety of missing my class and the frustration of jumping back up few pounds building up inside and I instinctively went for the quick fix.  I sat in my truck in the parking lot of Target with the engine running for a good 5 minutes - going over in my mind the advantages of getting some junk to eat, how it would make me feel better and make the "situation" not so upsetting.  Then I looked at my daughter in the backseat and I wondered what kind of example I was being - and why her biting a kids ear was a free pass to hurt myself - because I would be hating what I'd done a few hours after the binge..... So I drove me and my Mike Tyson daughter home - I immediately pulled out the stroller, put my water in the basket, grabbed my i-pod and went for a great walk/jog for 40 minutes.  And I got to take my class today, sweated like crazy, wished for death and left excited for it happen all over again next week.

Moving on...... here are some of the things I've been eating the past month or so.

Breakfast for the past couple of months has been oatmeal.  I buy the huge bags of the regular Quaker Oats from Costco - it has to be cooked for 5minutes on the stove.  So I set my timer for 3:30 and while that's going I slice up a banana (small or medium, whatever works) and stir the banana in for the last 1:30.  After it's all cooked up and in the bowl I add a ton of cinnamon, a packet of splenda/truvia/whatever and add a 1/2 cup of almond or 1% milk when I'm ready to eat it.  Tastes like banana nut bread - it is so good and filling. 

For my post workout snack I have been having a Myoplex CarbAdvantage chocolate fudge shake and a peanut butter tote.  You can find the recipe here - Corinne over at Phit-n-Phat provided links to her recipe book at SparkPeople.  Me and Livvy loooove teh pb totes - I end up cutting them into eight squares and we each have one 4 days a week.  Make sure you wrap each one in tinfoil after you cut them - mine take around 45 to 50 minutes to cook and I always sprinkle one packet of splenda on top of the whole thing right after it comes out of the oven.

For lunches I have been eating - drumroll please......... Michaelina's Frozen Entree's - I am serious as a heart attack.  My beautiful sister Glamazon got me hooked.  She loves the Lean Shrimp and Pasta (totally delish) and I'm a bit addicted to the regular manicotti.  It seems like a weird thing to have, but they are low in calories and it helps me through the toughest part of my day - I always pair it with a spinach salad: 3 cups of spinach, 1/3 avacado, 2 T. Light Zesty Italian and 1/2 T. of sunflower seeds.  In this picture I added 1/4 c. of garbanzo beans and I really did NOT like them in the salad.

This week was interesting - by interesting I mean mentally hard - but I feel like I "won" the week and can't wait for the next seven days.

this is me now.



Are any of you still out there?  If you are.....bless your hearts!  Thanks for staying interested  - whether it's interested in if I'm still losing weight or if I've started gaining it back - whatever floats your boat =)

These past 6 weeks have been interesting....actually more like the past 4 weeks.  The first 2 of the 6 weeks since I've posted were pretty much like most of my year has been...... struggling like crazy just to "maintain" or not gain too much weight.  I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but this changing my life and being different and focusing on the journey and not the destination crap is HARD. 

It's hard to find new ways to motivate myself, it's hard coming up with new routines at the gym, it's hard driving home from a trip to Target or Costco and not stopping at McDonald's for lunch, it's hard to lose 63 pounds and then gain some of them back and fluctuate between a 55 pound and 60 pound loss for 6 freakin' months (that's not just hard, it totally sucks too!)

But it's also definitely hard to be so heavy that you only have 3 shirts to wear, it's hard to be so big that all you do is sweat - doesn't matter if it's the middle of summer or the middle of winter, it's hard to LOOK at yourself at 297 pounds and feel like an absolute failure.

Both things are hard - it's hard to change and it's just as hard to stay the same..... I guess it just depends on how "hard" I want my life to be. 

Well, I've kept going and it finally clicked again.... thanks in part to my sister, the beautiful Glamazon , we had a conversation about a month ago and she was telling me about how much weight she had been losing and in the middle of our convo I recognized her journey because it was a lot like mine - more like the 2009 journey and not so much the 2010 journey - and all of a sudden everything clicked again!  As of Saturday I weighed in at 234.4 - I have lost almost 8 pounds in the last 4 weeks.  I feel happy and focused and driven....I feel like my old, new self.  I have some new favorites - as in breakfast, lunch and snacks that I will be posting about later this week...promise!

 

this is me now