Project Start Again: Lose 50 Pounds

Ok, so here we go again... Wheeeeee!

I tried to hit this really hard last year, and many obstacles fell into my path to trip me up...my kids getting older and mouthier, the photography business practice, Mike's work schedule among things...but honestly it was most notably - me! I do have an insane habit of being overly ambitious at times...and starting this blog, I really had high hopes to change many parts of my life all in the course of a year. Silly rabbit.

A year seems like so much time at the start of it...and then all of a sudden, it's gone! And you wonder, "what the heck did I do with all that time?" :)

I do have a teeny confession to make that seems appropriate right about now...my wonderful, friendly hometown doc seems to think I have a case of the bi-polars. Just a mild, minor case, he assures me - and even though it's not an official diagnosis, the symptoms do kinda fit. In a normal full blown bi-polar patient, there are two phases - two "poles" - depression and mania. Depending on the person, they spend their time cycling between the two, and may spend some time in the middle, feeling healthy and good. For someone with a severe case, that "middle" is usually only accomplished with the help of medication.

In my case, what we think is happening is a mild version of the mood disorder. Researchers are starting to find out that similar to autism, bipolar has a spectrum. It's not just black and white anymore. Bipolar I, II, III and IV - with differing symptoms and different expressions of mania. I have been depressed on and off since I was an adolescent - my whole family has a history of hormone imbalances - so this should come as no shock to me! :) Depression was always there, even though last year it came to a pinnacle. Open, blue skies seemed so empty and gaping to me - so hopeless and awful. I just wanted to curl up into bed and stare at the wall. Nothing held any true and deep happiness for me - and my emotions were always at the surface. Just telling the doc my symptoms, I was choking back tears the entire visit...yeah, embarrassing! Awkward! And I was always like that - with Mike, my parents, the grocery store clerk...sad. I mean the situation. A sad state of affairs. :) It honestly felt like the post-partum depression I had 2 years earlier, exactly the same - and that had me wondering. Why did it hit me one morning when I woke up? Why wasn't it gradual. The post partum actually woke me out of a sound sleep three days after the kids were born...and stuck with me for three freaking months. This arrived as I woke up one morning, not as severe...but it stayed for months and months.

But that was just one side of it for me. When I felt good - it was this need to finish a project, to feel productive...I wanted nothing else but to work on whatever the project was, and it frustrated me not to be able to do so. Mania? Hmm. In any case, it looks like my mania (or hypomania), if it is truly that, may manifest in bursts of either anger (which is awful) or ambitious streaks...and then cycles with depression. The depression lasts longer for me, and is affected by outside influences..such as the death of our dog.

But also, by exercise. Surprisingly, last year, the three times I tried to go gung-ho and exercise every day, after a week, I would feel this sapping of energy - I always described it as feeling like I got hit by a truck - a little melodramatic, but hey! I'm hormonal. But it really felt like I had the whole body aches. I couldn't get out of bed. Didn't want to! And it inevitably derailed my progress. I'm guessing it has something to do with the exercise messing with my hormone levels, and my body was trying to compensate and level it out. I just need to get past that slump by exercising less, but pulling through it when the hormone crash happens.

I thought you were talking about losing weight here? Why all the melodrama-mama-crazy-woman-bipolar talk? :)

The reason I put this all in here is because it is a crucial piece of info to my hopeful success. I need to take everything I am learning into account and roll with it. With this new little gold nugget, my plan of attack has changed - to be more aware of the mania. Even though I knew it seemed ridiculous to accomplish all of my projects in one year, I still honestly thought I could get it all done! C'est la vie. No more obsessions or a crazed need to finish now (even though I have to repress that every.single.day.), just a slow and steady progression to fix what is broken in my life. Which on days like today it seems like everything is broken. :( I have to realize that I have no consistent help with Mike working cah-ray-zee hours, so anything I do has to come from me, with occasional leaning on him or my dad, or even his dad maybe... but these are my projects, and everyone else has lives to live too! They aren't just sitting there, waiting for me to utilize their crazy talented selves for a design project - we'll see what the year(s) bring! Again, we'll see. I'm gonna stop rambling now. :)

And even though some days I feel like I can do it all over again, finishing things in a year, I am practicing some restraint and taking it easy, in stride. It will all take time if I am to stay the course and not fizzle out like I did last year. Learn from mistakes, move on. Thus the renaming of the blog! I am giving myself as much time as I need to do what I want - no more time frames, just a start...and hopefully an eventual finish.

But the start - the start is what is most important. :)

So, I am restarting this one - on my way to losing 50 pounds...but I will start with 1...then 5...then 10...and so on! Exercise when I can fit it in, eating right when I am able to do so...healthy choices, but not feeling restricted. Comfort food sometimes, laziness whenever I can get it! haha! But always on the lookout to sneak in some exercise into my day. More water! More healthy tea! More healthy additives and nutritionally dense foods - hopefully this whole picture look and hopefully easy and forgiving and flexible approach will be the key for me to make it stick. I so want to be svelte again. That's my new word. Svelte. Love it. It sounds Swedish.

So, I Bought A Scale.

I sent Mike to get a scale at BJs for me this week.  We had a coupon, so it was only $9.99! I have never owned a scale in my life, never used one to help me lose weight - in fact, I always looked at fat grams and carbs during diets to help me control my eating - never calories and never really my weight.  This is all so different for me. I always looked at weighing one's self every day as over obsessive, since it can change a lot even during the day!  But, there is something to be said about knowing all the facts - measurements, healthy eating, calorie counts and....my actual weight.  It all factors in together so you can get the whole picture!  

And not looking at calories specifically and not weighing myself is probably the reason I am where I am today. 

Since I signed up on the Adios, Fatty blog, as someone who will be accountable and has to "weigh-in" every week, and since I am truly counting calories now - I figured a scale would be a good idea.  Plus, it's pretty.  Glass and metal, with a digital readout.  Like Mike said, it's too pretty to belong in our ancient old house. ;)

But, like I said, it's kind of annoying when you weigh yourself in the morning...knowing you were 203.6 yesterday...and this morning you are 200.6.  Huh.  And then by noon, you are 202.3...and then by 5pm, you are 203.6 again.  Grrrrrr.....  But!  That 203.6 is better than the 205 I started with!  And I know it's accurate because Mike said his weight was exactly the same at the doctor's office a few days ago, where I read out 205 last week.

So, I am hoping it will help in my fight!  Otherwise, it will end up in the garage sale pile.

Back on Track

I'm not sure you can say "Back" on Track if you never really got on it in the first place!

But, that's where I am.  After two weeks of being sick and caring for the sick, I have finally "started" again.  I am learning to deal with this calorie restricted new day, looking forward to the day when I can just eat to maintain!  

Hopefully I will get my numbers up daily - I want this blog to be my motivator, the vehicle of accountability to myself.  For both diet and exercise! I also want to post them in case there is anyone out there looking for advice in exactly how to get where they want to be and hopefully, if you are reading this blog, it might help you in some way. 

I want to post all the info that helps me, from BMR Calorie Calculators to getting better organic foods and lots of healthy recipes up here. Also any tips and tools that help me along the way. Motivational quotes, books, other websites, etc. will also find their way on to this blog, rounding out the road map to a new me!

I'm also back on track with some of my other organizing projects - I'm hoping to post about the progress on those in this coming week.  Stay tuned!

All the Motivation I Need.

I ask myself why I am trying to lose weight.

And this is what myself tells me:

Obvious reasons:

• Being healthy, feeling good, not getting Diabetes.
  
• Keeping up with the kids, having the energy to attain all the goals I want for all of us in this next year.
  
• Not feel embarrased in a bathing suit
• Not have to wear maternity clothes for the rest of my life (duh!)
• I want my strength back.

And with eyes as big as saucers, these are today, just realized reasons:

• My 15 year High School reunion is this summer. Whoa.  I do not want to be the one that when I walk away, everyone shakes their head and discusses how I "let myself go."
  
• Family Vacation this August, in the water constantly, I don't want to be mistaken for a water buffalo at the water's edge and be eaten by a freshwater crocodile.
• 10th anniversary trip this summer to somewhere hot, I don't want to feel frumpy and self-conscious, I want to feel hot!

Those last three are ridiculously powerful motivators, if only for extremely vain reasons.  But, I can handle that.  

I am signing up on the private weight loss blog I follow, called "Adios, Fatty", as a motivated-guest blogger/poster this week.  I am looking forward to the accountability from all her readers. If you are interested in her journey, she has lost almost 30 pounds so far and super fast, predictably 2 pounds a week like clockwork because she has done the math!  She's an animal!  I am sure she will let you in on the blog if you are interested.  Shoot me an email at ertelbear@gmail.com if you want to sign up for hers and I will let her know she has more readers!  She already has two other weight loss posters and I think about 15-20 readers, so I will be the third to sign up and post every week. The more motivation the better!

Snag!

Monday was good!  It was my first day of exercising and eating well.  I was on track.

And Monday night, I started feeling a little under the weather.  Super bad headache and just plain bushwhacked.  So, I took a few Motrin and called it an early night.  Tuesday morning I woke up sick.  Really sick... And SORE......!  What timing! Curse you, Jillian Michaels!!

30 Day Shred Users have all commented that the next day after the first workout is unbearable pain.  Soreness, achy, can't sit down or do a flight of stairs without the ever-present agony kind of sore.  

So, I woke up sick AND that kind of sore.  It was a brutal day and an awful blow to my momentum and motivation.  Today is the first day the soreness has mostly abated and I can just deal with being sick.  And today is the first day I realized just what kind of sick I am.  Chest cold, at it's finest.  Can you beleive that I was that sore that I couldn't tell what was hurting from the sickness?  It's kinda funny, really.  

I haven't fallen off the healthy eating bandwagon though, just the exercising.  We actually had a good meal last night that I will be posting this week - the basic chicken, veggies and whole grain cappelini kind of meal... It was very tasty.  So, hopefully tomorrow, I will feel well enough to get up early again and exercise my patootie off...again.  

Check out some of the new healthy living blogs I have added to the sidebar.  There are some really great recipes, tips and motivation butt kickers on there.  I will be adding more as I start different kinds of projects, and then sorting them as they are all different kinds of helpful.  

Recipe Madness

Ok, so these will not be recipes that would be fit to file under "Recipe Madness", but the title made me chuckle, so there it is.  I'd like to share a few recipes I find or make up along the way on this blog.  You can choose whether or not they are fit for man or beast... if they make it here, at least I liked them...and since it's my blog, I can cry if I want to!  ;)

This is my only caveat:  I like a lot of "weird" stuff.  And sometimes I make combinations just to try them.  Sometimes I like them and others, well, those times I know why I never became a professional chef.  By the way, "weird" in our house is defined as something Mike doesn't like. 

Since I want to try and reduce the amount of calories I ingest daily, and also a few carbs along the way, I decided to go a little South Beach on myself and try a lettuce wrap sandwich.  I have had a few in the past (like a rosemary chicken goat cheese wrap!  Yum!) and they never fail to amaze me in the fact that I really don't miss the bread at all.  In fact, I like the refreshing crunch of the lettuce leaf instead.  Not all the time, of course, but if I skip the bread now and then, that's almost 200 calories I can either use somewhere else or skip altogether - a worthy sacrifice!

Today was the start of this new endeavor, so I came up with this lunch quickly after getting the kids settled in their own highchairs, munching on their own good stuff.  Can you believe my kids like prunes?  That amazes me every day...but, that's another story.   ;)  

What should I call this one?   Hmm.....

Avocado and Egg Lettuce Wrap

(that's pretty straightforward, huh?)

2 red leaf lettuce leaves

2 eggs

4-5 thin slices of avocado (hass)

1 tbsp hummus (any kind, I used the classic)

Dijon mustard (to taste)

dash of Cumin (optional)

Using the smallest amount of butter possible, fry up the two eggs, breaking the yolk so the whites and yolks all cook together.  While they are cooking, mix the dijon mustard and the hummus together in a small bowl.  When at desired flavor, place the lettuce leaves on your plate and spread half of the hummus/mustard mixture around on each leaf. When eggs are cooked, place 1 egg on each leaf, on top of the mixture.  Spread the other half of the hummus on the eggs. Cut the avocado into chunks and add on top.  Sprinkle with cumin and wrap.  

Warning, they take a lot of practice and skill to eat without getting messy.  I haven't mastered that quite yet.  Also, I made this without mixing the hummus and mustard first, and this is why I modified the recipe.  The picture shows a big dollop of the mustard on top...and since I am a softie and Dijon can be quite like horseradish in the strength, I figured it would be better spread around a bit.  

I ate this with 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries and a big glass of water.  The dijon mustard and the cumin added a nice kick.  I liked this one quite a bit and will make it often for a quick lunch.  

Approx calories for the whole meal:  325

I walked this morning for 35 minutes, only burning 235 calories.  Boo!  Then, in the afternoon, I did 30 Day Shred, and doing some research, first timers to the levels might burn around 225-250 cals.  All that work for the same as a 40-minute run.  This is going to take some time to get used to!

Project Start: Lose 50 Pounds

God, that sounds hard.  It sounds like an impossible goal sitting on this side of it.  I have always struggled with my weight, typically "yo-yo"ing since I was a teenager, and always conscious and self-conscious about it, no matter how healthy I was at the time.  

I have come to realize that I have a medical condition, known as PCOS, that causes my body to go into a mode called "Insulin Resistance".  That is basically the step right before diabetes sets in, and why it is known as a pre-diabetic condition in medical circles.  What that means is that my body is shutting down the pathways to the cells that glucose would normally enter to level out blood sugar. So, my pancreas is overproducing insulin to force open these pathways.  Since the pathways are still opening, my body just works as normal, but one day, when my pancreas is overworked, it will shut down, and diabetes will be the instant result. It will look like to the outside observer that I didn't have diabetes one day, and the next, I did.  Scary thought, since you can't ever go back from that point. 

Right now, my blood sugar would register as normal, or in a healthy range, almost as if nothing was wrong.  But, my pancreas is working overtime, and every day I do not exercise or eat right is a day I walk toward the irreversible condition of diabetes.  That should be enough to get me going, right?  Well, it is not enough to just exercise.  It will be a huge step to just lose 10 pounds with this condition, but eating "right" is a must now.  And I say it that way because everyone has a different "right" way to eat for their particular situation.  

Doing a ton of research over the last two years about the kids' nutrition, I have gleaned much good information for myself as well.  And I can tell you that it is exactly the opposite of how I have been dieting/eating for health.  Low fat is not the answer, at least not for me.  

I have to stay away from processed carbs, sugar, bad fats.  Any of these foods will turn directly into fat because my system is telling itself to store the fat, since my cells are resisting the insulin. That is why it has been so hard for me to keep weight off.  A few years ago, I dropped 20 pounds over 9 months.  I was at the gym 5-6 days a week for 2 hours a day.  High intensity workouts and strength training.  Spinning, running, high impact aerobics - super high energy workouts.  I was burning almost 800-1000 calories every day, sometimes more.  I never cut back or changed what I was eating, only worked out more if I had a highly caloric day.  I built up an insane amount of muscle, but my weight dropped very slowly.  I should have realized it back then, but it was my PCOS that was preventing me from losing more weight faster. With how much I was exercising, I should have lost much more in that time.  After I fell off the exercise bandwagon, around December of that year, by February, I had already gained 10 of it back, and by summer, I wouldn't be caught dead in a bikini again.  It came back so fast and I never connected the dots. I worked my butt off and as soon as I stopped, I was worse off then I ever was before.  And then I got pregnant with the triplets!  Bad timing.  ;)

So, back story behind us (phew!), I need to change my eating habits and start exercising again.  I miss running so much that it hurts.  My peace, my quiet, and my aggression had an outlet - so many good feelings and thinking time - it is an incredible teacher.  Of endurance, patience, aggression, control and the ability to master different muscle use, I could go on and on!  

In Late July, I started to run again, on our treadmill in the house.  Not exactly the same as being outdoors, but it felt good.  I ran every day for a month, and then we lost Ruger.  So, my drive faltered, since he was so much a part of my morning routine, sniffing the track before and after, like he was wondering where I went on it... so cute.  Not to mention, that week, my knees ached so bad, I could barely walk the week that he died.  It was agonizing pain, physical and emotional. I always wondered what caused it and how, once I started again, I could avoid that pain.  

Having a nice chat with my doc this week, he and I agreed that I need to lose at least 30 pounds to start. Ok, fine. I knew that I needed to lose weight, but our conversation has me feeling like a bit of a loser. I went in with a torn muscle in my stomach.  A few weeks ago, I went outside of the garage to check if we had a package delivered.  It was a bitterly cold day, so I jogged quickly to get back inside.  Literally about 25 feet.  Before I got to the door, I felt a searing pain in my left side stomach area.  It burned like crazy and I knew I tore a muscle.  My doctor thinks it's a hernia.  From jogging 25 feet.  Wow.  That brought me to a new low.  

How fat do you have to be to tear a muscle jogging 25 feet?  How out-of-shape do you have to be?  Well, all of that is me right now.  And don't worry, this is not a "pity me" speech, so you don't have to leave me a comment to soothe my aching self esteem. :) I need this motivation, this anger at myself to move forward.  This is my "tacklin' fuel".  (Name that movie!) 

The other blow to my plan was his response to my question about the sore knees after running. He said not to even think about running until I lose 30 pounds.  WHAT?  But, I run.  That's what I do!  Now I have to walk??!  I need to run!  I felt like crying, like someone had taken away my most powerful weapon in the fight for all I want to physically be. It's just not fair.  (I know, wah, wah, wah.) 

So, my plan.

• Eat whole grains. Veggies. GOOD fats (olive oil, avocado, almonds, etc...). Fruits. Lean protein. No low fat foods, since they tend to bump up carbs to compensate.  No low carb diet, since all I need is a Low G.I. diet. Yummy, whole grain forms of carbs. Another post! 

• Watch my calorie intake.  The next post will show the calculator I robbed from another weight loss blog I stalk.  

• Plan my meals for the week, including snacks, until it gets to be second nature.  

• Exercise. Walk. Up a serious incline. Blech.

And if all goes well, I can theoretically lose 2 pounds a week.  It's been done!  I am inspired by the blog I am reading, unfortunately private, but she is a triplet mama and she is doing it.  She keeps losing 2 pounds every week, so I am encouraged.  

I would love to join the Y again, since I adored their facility.  I need variety with my workouts, and that allowed me to choose what I wanted to do when I got there.  Plus!  They have an hour and a half of free child care every day.  Woo hoo!  We live too far away and don't have a second vehicle right now...so it just isn't a financial option at the moment.  Remember?  No money!!  lol

So, tomorrow morning, I start to exercise, which means I have to get up earlier than the troops.

No more sleeping in!