Day 5

Here is today's picture; day four of my newest beginning. I have been counting my calories and exercising and I think I am down 2 pounds. I wish I hadn't estimated my weight. But oh well I will just have to deal with it. I don't think I was even a pound off on my estimation. The only complaint I have is it's the end of the pay period and I am very low on healthy foods. The only reason we have healthy foods is because we went to store the other day to pick some up. Might have to take some money out of budget to set aside for and extra trip to store at the 1/2 way point to our next shopping trip. :)

Weight Loss Is An Emotional Roller Coaster

Well the title of this blog pretty much says it all. It's been awhile since I blogged. I haven't forgotten about it but when you do daycare in your home, well that really leaves time for pretty much nothing else. Even exercise and eating right. I often wondered how I gained so much weight running around caring for kids. Well here it is, you don't have time to make a well balanced meal that is filling and fills all of your health needs when you only get a split second to do it. And you think "Oh I will get that healthy meal in during nap time so let me grab a hand full of this to hold me over" HAHA yeah well that hand full of, what ever, is never healthy.
Well this weekend I was given an insight of why I started to go on this weight loss journey to begin with. I keep feeling dizzy. Mostly when I get up out of bed. I can't walk in a straight line and it takes me a minute to gain my grounds. I kept thinking that it was my inner ear again, but then I realized it was different. When it was my inner ear I would fall on the ground before I even realized that I was dizzy. This time it's pretty much I am feeling dizzy as I am getting up. Took me a few weeks to remember that high blood pressure can make you dizzy and that I used to get dizzy when I would stand up from sitting last time I was having blood pressure issues. So I got my B.P. cuff to check things out. My B.P. was high, very high! I was medicated when my B.P. was 130's over 100. This weekend my highest reading was 156/104. Yeah, I was a bit freaked out. I wanted to cry so bad but I kept telling myself "you did this to your self. You knew this was gonna happen."
So I am freaked out enough to start caring. I reread my Letter to Myself. And I am so glad I did. I almost think I should print it, frame it and hang it on the fridge. Today I am going to get back on that tread mill and start walking and work myself up to running again. I should make myself a count down to the D.C. Marine Corp marathon I plan to run in October 2012.
I know i can do this. I am stronger then I give myself credit for. I love the high I get from running. And I want to be back in my skinny clothes this summer.

Letter to myself

I can't find my CD of old picture and my heart is more into my weight today any way.

Dear Self,
Today is a new beginning. You have decided to take this into your own hands and you will succeed. You can do it. You have all the tools, you have all the knowledge. I want to remind you how far you have come......
You are 22 lbs. less then you were 3 years ago, however you are only down 20 lbs. from 2 years ago. Remember how happy the weight loss made you feel, how good your body felt, how much energy you had. Your knees, hips, and ankles didn't hurt. You felt like getting up and doing stuff. You were able to breath easier while doing activities. YOU WERE RUNNING!! Today you long to have all that back. Today your hips, knees and ankles hurt. You are sad every time you look at your self naked in the mirror. You don't want the stress of worrying about if the high blood pressure will come back, you hate that your mind wants to get stuff done but you don't have the energy. You remember being less cranky and irritable when you were lighter. Lets work hard to get that back.
Today you are doing great. I am very proud of you. You have been tracking and measuring your food intake. I know you can keep it up. It's not as hard as it seems. When you track you realize it's pretty easy and you actually get full on smaller amounts of food. Try to remember this and hold on to it. You know your Levi's? I want to remind you of the day you put them on straight from the dryer and they slipped down your hips. If it weren't for your butt they would have fell to the floor. Remember that smile that came over your face, remember the feeling of being on top of the world and thinking you will never let them get tight again. Now I know they are not tight, yet! But they fit and they fit good. They don't slip down and you get very nervous to put them on. It's time to make those babies slip off again. And this time lets aim for them to make it all the way to the ground.
You have a reasonable goal in mind. You can achieve it. And don't let people telling you negative thing get to you. They are just jealous. There is no one stopping you but yourself. Don't wait for someone else to give you a push, you need to push yourself.
Now go out there and get it done. I know you can do it.

a lose is a lose; right?

Other than yesterday I felt this week was fantastic as far as my eating goes. I keep track of the food I ate and stayed on track. Exercise was less then what I wanted but I did get some in. I noticed that I could not reach my toes this week when stretching. YIKES!! Not great. I am pretty flexible, not quite Gumby, but I can still do the splits if I keep stretching. So on the days I couldn't exercise I sat on the floor with the 4 month old I watch and stretch while I played with her. I can reach my toes again ::sigh of relief::
So confession time, yesterday I felt frustrated and I didn't get my normal nap time break. Today I wont either but I know about it in advance. I don't like surprises like that. Plus the older girls I was watching were driving me up the wall. So to take out my frustration I ate Oreo's and milk for my lunch. They were reduced fat and I only ate 5. I guess that rationalization doesn't help any does it? And I made pizza for dinner. Although he pizza wasn't bad how much I ate probably wasn't ideal. I LOVE pizza. It's not a diet friendly food for my. I know better but when planning the menu this weekend I didn't plan on having a bad day. Any way today is better. I am starting off with my healthy oat meal breakfast and I have a plan. I have already started to exercise today.
I have an exercise ball. I have done some squats and used the ball to get my arms involved. I used the ball to do some inclined push ups, and some crunches. But then the kids decided that the movie I put on wasn't interesting anymore so I moved onto dishes while they played. I am getting ready to walk up and down the stairs for about 15 minutes. Hopefully the baby will sleep while I do this.
Ok recipe today is pizza. Homemade pizza is great in the fact you control what goes in it and on it. last night I made the crust it's real simple:
1 pk yeast
1 cup warm water (105)
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups of flour
Mix yeast water and salt for 1 minute. Add 1/2 cup of flour at a time until dough pulls away from wall of bowl and forms a ball. cover let stand 1 hour. punch down cut dough in half to make 2 medium (ish) size pizzas or keep together to make 1 larger. (I used my kitchen aide)
Top how ever you want.
When I don't have time for this I used whole wheat pita bread as the crust. It's very tasty and so low in calories/points.
OH and last but not least I lost .2, not much. I actually weight earlier in the week when I was doing great and I was down .4, so I guess yesterday weighed it's toll on the scale this morning.

It's difficult

I have decided to not go back to weight watchers. At least for now. I know how to lose weight. I know what I am doing wrong. I don't need to pay 9 dollars a week to see what I am doing wrong. So I am on my own. I am hoping I get my head in the game and start to recover from my pity party. I can do it. I have done it twice before, once on my own and once with the help of Weight Watchers. I know the real help, the real success comes from God. So here I go.
I will weigh in once a week, every Friday morning. I will never tell you what I weigh but I will tell you my progress. This week I start at a 0, then in the weeks to come I will state my lose for the week and my over all lose. I will tell you what I struggled with during the week. If you have loving suggestions I will gladly listen to them. If you want to join this journey with me I will gladly exchange ideas with you.
I did not cook dinner last night. My sister was sick earlier this week so we switched days to cook for each other. And I just through together stir fry veggies and chicken. Easy and healthy.
This weeks struggle was to squeeze in exercise. I did actually get one day of exercise in. Not enough I know but I have a new plan. Jeremy found a marathon in two years in Washington DC. I have always wanted to vacation in DC. So we are gonna start training. I really don't think I will run the whole marathon but I can see myself doing the 1/2 marathon. We are going to have a mini gym in our garage and start working out together. I look at my crazy busy schedule and it looks like we can work out evening sessions on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then after FPU is over we can add in Monday. Since we only have 1 of everything we are going to alternate days of cardio and strength.
I ask for your prayers for me during this journal. Thank you

Unfit

So I didn't make it to Weight Watchers last night. Thursday is a new night for me, I used to go on Wednesdays and a friend called to ask if I would go to a movie with her. I remembered W.W. about an hour before she came to pick me up.

But I did try a new recipe that was FANTASTIC!! I am always leery about eating cooked spinach because I think of canned spinach and well YUCK!! But fresh is so yummy. I really think you all should try this:

5.8 oz of couscous prepared (next time I am gonna cook with chicken broth)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts heated for 2 minutes in a sprayed pan then set aside
1.5 lbs cut up chicken breast (i added a little season salt) browned
6 cups of spinach add to chicken along with walnuts once chicken is cooked all the way. (I actually only used about 3 or 4 cups, 6 just seemed too much.) Serve chicken on top of the couscous. Once I topped the couscous with the chicken I thought it just needed some tomatoes for the eye appeal. I was right it was so pretty once I did that. And it tasted very good. My kids wouldn't touch it, but you know what I am passed caring about that.

Also yesterday I decided to walk on my treadmill during nap time. About 28 minutes into my planned 1 hour work out my legs started to itch. At the 34 minute mark my legs we so itchy and burning I just could not bare it any longer so I stopped and went to shower. My legs were bright red and starting to swell and felt very hot to the touch. After showering I went on line to look this up and see if there was a name for it and if I should worry. This is not the first time I have had this happen. I discovered what was going on.... I am unfit!! It was a hard thing to swallow. I guess while exercising my muscles get warmed up and require more blood but the capillaries can't supply the blood fast enough which causes the itching. This really broke my heart. It takes so much work and effort and time to become fit but it only takes minutes to become unfit. My new plan of action is to walk a little slower and maybe cut it in half and just exercise twice a day instead of all at once.