Weigh in Week 21: When Life Throws you Lemons

Today my FB status sums up what I am feeling:

How come when life throws you lemons, it's always a whole tree full? I guess you can't make lemonade from just one. That's my theory at least.

Better said, I'm frustrated. Our computer broke down on Thursday night. This was our second computer in 6 months to go on the fritz. And then I had someone in my family "offer" to help with a computer to let us have so Kellen can finish out the quarter. When we got the said computer, I was then asked for us to compensate them! GRR. I mean if you say you want to help us out, at least be up front about the fact that you are wanting money for your help! And the frustrating thing is, we are already saving to buy a new computer anyway. Honestly, I am SO done with computer problems. I kind of want to go all "office space" on any computer I see right now and beat them with a baseball bat.

All this to say...unfortunately, my blogging will be lacking for the next couple of weeks. Expect pretty few pictures and posts will be somewhat sparse. I hate this so much because honestly, blogging is one of my favorite things to do- not to mention the accountability it provides.

So where is my lemonade in all this mess?

I lost .5lbs this week.
I'd love to tell you that I am so very proud of myself, but I have to be honest- I didn't deserve this. I really pigged out this weekend. We went down to visit and stay with my family this weekend, and that entailed a steak dinner or Friday, Red Robin on Saturday, and a Easter buffet on Sunday morning. Yes, you heard me right...that wretched word: buffet. (que horror music now).

The one thing I can say is that I did make a couple of good, solid, forward moving choices. I went hiking on Thursday....2 miles and 2,000 miles in elevation=one SORE booty. On Saturday I ordered a side salad at RR instead of fries. On Sunday I ran with my cousin across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I guess a lot of bad choices and a few good ones equals .5 of a pound for me. Who knows!

Wishing you all a great week. Know I am reading your blogs, even if my comments are few and far between!

Chocolate and French Fries=My Demise

I honestly believe that if chocolate and french fries did not exist in this world I could have reached my goal weight and been a success story by now (not that losing 24.5 is not a success, but you know what I mean).

I have to be honest with you all. I have eaten a massive amount of these two things in the last week.

Chocolate:
It all started with the Hungry Girl's "chocolate chip mini pancake recipe." I knew I shouldn't have even given in to buying the ingredients for this recipe because I knew that having chocolate chips in my house causes me to overeat on sweet things. Yes, you heard it right, I will literally eat plain chocolate chips out of the bag until they are gone. And that is just what I have been doing for the last two weeks!

Lesson learned: I will NOT keep chocolate chips in my cupboard. If I HAVE to make a recipe which requires this product, I will pawn it off onto a skinny friend to devour and enjoy!

French Fries:
The consumption of french fries is like a giant snowball effect in my life. It all started last week when I somehow justified in my mind that if I ordered a sandwich and french fries for lunch and then just didn't eat anything for the rest of the day I would be fine.
Healthy living, right?!

That was on Tuesday last week. It then turned into a downward spiral and by Sunday I had justified myself into eating french fries/onion rings four times in one week.
(And yes, Kristen, I did say I was going to admit this to only you, but my revelation about these food products was something I felt compelled to share! haha)

Now I'm not saying that YOU can NEVER have these things. But for ME, these foods are major triggers and I end up overeating every.single.time I consume them.

I'm not ready to give them up altogether (what would life be with chocolate and french fries??!). However, I am willing to recognize that I need to practice some serious self control if and when I do choose too!

What foods are your triggers?

Confessions, A Sore Booty, A New Person

Well this weekend was a rocky one. I want to be able to be honest with you all, but I also don't want you to get bored of my confessions of overeating so I'm going to keep it simple. This weekend I was there with food about 50%. That is not ok in my books, but I DO know that I can and will press forward and each day is a new day to choose a healthy life.

As far as my bike trip to Alki on Saturday. I also really wish I could tell you all that it was fun and that I really enjoyed it. I REALLY wish I could tell you all this. But I feel the need to be honest with you all about it.

It was pretty miserable!

Let's just say taking my bike out for [essentially] the first time on such a long trip was NOT a good idea. I knew that my butt would hurt a little bit from riding, but I honestly had no idea how sore I would be from riding just for TEN minutes. The whole trip I really struggled to stay up with the guys. In the end, Kellen and I agreed that I need a new bike. I had gotten this one for free and it has a lot of things just wrong with it that made it really hard to ride.

Not to mention my butt. I had to come home and ice it afterward. It was so painful by the end of the trip I was literally in tears. I do know that butt pain is normal when you first start riding, but I am convinced that this seat was worse and made it more painful than usual! I was about to call off bike riding altogether until the end when I got to switch bikes with one of the guys- and I felt saved! The seat felt comfortable, the bike was EASY to ride, it just felt like a total 180 from mine.

To sum things up, I will not be venturing out on another ride until I can get a proper bike!!

I will show you a cute pic of me riding anyway just for kicks:
As far as Tiff's I AM WORTH MORE CHALLENGE--this comes with another confession :( I was feeling pretty crummy after all my cheats this weekend...and I kind of peeked at the scale this morning. I realize this TOTALLY defeats the purpose of not letting the # on the scale affect you...and I feel frustrated that I would give in to that temptation. (To be honest the number more made me feel like I didn't deserve it...I am down one pound.)

HOWEVER. I am really, really happy I did this challenge. After so many bumps in the road this weekend, it could have been so easy to say "you just can't do this." But when I thought of what I had written throughout the week on those post it's, it encouraged me to know that I CAN and HAVE made positive decisions that have helped take care of my body.

Therefore, although the challenge ended today, I am going to be spinning off of this challenge and writing small notes in my food journal of positive actions I have taken. That way, I can look back and see that I really have taken steps forward NO MATTER WHAT the scale says.

This week I am refocusing. My goal is simple: starting intensity. I want to have and feel that same intense feeling I felt when I first started this journey.

One last bit of joyfulness:

I went to church yesterday and it turns out I have a huge group willing to run with me at the St. Patty's Day Dash!

I also got TWO (count em, TWO) "I didn't even recognize you from across the room" comments.
Apparently I've changed in more ways that just my eyes can see!

Skinny friends....even skinnier??!

So one of the things that has really amazed me over the past couple of years are that my friends are shrinking. You know how they say that most people gain weight after high school and college and you end up not seeing them for a couple years and then you do and you think in your mind "wow, they've gained weight." (yes we all do this, it is unfortunate human nature). Well I have to say....quite the opposite has happened with me. It seems like every time a friend I haven't seen in a while posts a picture on facebook, or I see them in person, they have shrunk!! Honestly, I can't even tell you the amount of girls I've gone to high school and college with that are now way skinnier than before. The most frustrating thing about it is that most of these girls were "average" to begin with. Now I'm not jumping to any kind of conclusion other than that they have just been working out and exercising. But still feelings rage inside my selfish head that say things like "Why them?! They already looked good before! It must be easier for them than it is for me. Life is unfair!!"

To be honest, these feelings have really just gotten me down lately. I know that I've lost almost 25 pounds, but seeing these girls that already looked great and now they look even better presents a kind of knife in the wound feeling. Ever heard of the saying "God, if you can't make me skinny, at least make all my friends fat?" Well that's how I'm feeling right. A big pity party and I think I just need to snap out of it and stop feeling sorry for myself.

Why, God, Why?!?!?!

Umm excuse me life....can't you see I NEED TO EXCERCISE!

Life is really being a giant buttface lately. Or maybe I am just being a lazy one.

We'll go with the first option. Because of scheduling conflicts and a never ending downpour of rain, I haven't been running since Friday.

The scale is sticking.....the dog is anxious....and I'm going stir crazy. All these evil thoughts keep popping into my head like "OH you're not a real runner anyway, and this 5 day break is just the beginning of a downhill battle with exercise!"

Agh. I also keep feeling like if I go to long without it, I will "lose" the endurance I have already built. Can any runners weigh in on this one?? (i know it's only been 5 days but I'm freaking out here!)

My husband sometimes plays soccer with a guy we call the "WAWA" player (prounounced like a kid crying). He always fakes injuries and does these massive rolling falls on the ground so the referee's will call a foul on the other team.

I kind of feel like a WAWA player right now. I just want the ref to call a foul on life for me right about now.

Ugh...

I probably just ate like 3,000 calories.... I feel like I need to run an entire marathon to run that off! Yuck....

I don't wanna!

Darn it, Darn it, Darn it!!!

I WANT to work out, but I don't. I'm not feeling too sick right now, but now my monthly visitor is visiting and I'm just not feeling up to do anything!! Argh! I hate this feeling. I just wanna feel 100% again and go work my little {big} booty off!

Ok, so I'm venting. Thank you blogger friends for providing me that opportunity.

Kill Me NOW!

This is exactly what I was saying to myself during my first ever step class this morning. I headed over to the local gym and decided to do a one week trial membership. While I was waiting for the class to start, I did some elliptical and a stationary bike.

My friend met up with me to go to the step class. We had no idea what to expect. It started out good and was definitely a high intensity work out. After about 20 minutes, I totally hit a wall. I felt SO nauseous and knew that if I kept going I was going to hurl. I tried to get back into it multiple times, but each time I felt more and more sick. I finally decided to call it quits, I apologized to my friend, and snuck out of the class.

I am so embarrassed. I was DEFINITELY the youngest person there. There were probably multiple people in their 60's and 70's just totally rockin it. I can't believe I couldn't do it. I wanted so bad to finish the class but my stomach was just not having it. And since I get no opportunity to explain myself to the 30+ people in the class, they all probably thought I just gave up because it was to hard.

Oh well. Just a little humbling on my part I guess.

Now I'm really wondering if I'm coming down with something. I've been feeling kind of achey and nauseous but nothing to the point that I would say I have the flu. I don't know.

Skinny Friends Just Don't Get It

On Saturday I hung out with a long time friend who has never struggled with her weight. She was always the “skinny” friend growing up. We started our time at Subway for lunch and I chose to get a foot long veggie sub. I was SO full afterwards, but boy am I glad I made that decision! Our next stop was Wal Mart to do a bit of shopping. Within the first half hour, my friend (fully knowing that I am trying to eat healthy and lose weight) asked me if I’d want to buy some macaroni and cheese and candy to eat later. I politely reminded her both times that I was trying to eat healthy. She laughed and was apologetic for offering two times in a row.

When we left Wal Mart, she asked if we could stop by Starbucks. Now this is not SO bad because there are healthy choices there, but the temptation is still high for someone struggling. Luckily, I resisted and just asked for an ice water.

Later that night she proceeded to talk to me about how she couldn’t decide whether to order mozzarella sticks or mini burgers from Applebee’s. (We weren’t even there yet!).

Instead of Applebee’s, we ended up heading to grab snacks from a local supermarket later that night. While I was frantically searching for a good healthy, quick meal to grab (they had closed down the salad bar), she then “lovingly” offered to “buy the chips and you can by the dip!”

I have to admit; I got a little snappy at this point and felt kind of guilty afterwards. I just don’t understand how people can be so insensitive to something that they KNOW you are working so hard at. But at the same time, I have to remind myself that she has never struggled with her weight, and she doesn’t realize that eating can be an addiction just like drugs or alcohol.

Later that night I laughed with her that from now on I would just make a habit of eating a foot long veggie sub pre-hang out with her to avoid temptation.

I want some friends!

hehe. Ok, in all seriousness I have absolutely no idea what I am doing at this "blogger" thing. I would love to have some "followers" i.e. "supporters" on my blog but I'm not quite sure how to go about this, considering I don't know many people trying to lose weight myself (damn all my skinny friends!!).

So far I have just started "following" a ton of random people's blogs. We will see how that is and hopefully people don't find this crazy. If you see this post, FOLLOW ME!!!

Grrr....

Ok, this is the point that I get really stinking frustrated and just want to give up. The last two days I have worked my butt off to make sure I am right around my correct calorie intake, and have ran both days. And yet today i wake up and I'm still at 5.5 down. Agh! I know I just need to get over this hump, but I was really hoping I would lose 8 lbs this month. That would mean that I would have to lose 2.5 in 6 days. Um....not going to happen seeing my pattern in the last 3 weeks.

I am frustrated...but I will continue. There is no other option.

It's possessed

Yup, that's what I've decided about my scale. I woke up this morning weighing 1 pound more than yesterday. What the heck? And the frustrating thing is, not only did I work out yesterday, but I also didn't eat many calories either. Not that I was TRYING to eat so few, but I was just not that hungry yesterday. Anyway, needless to say, I am frustrated. I want to get a new scale...but I don't want to spend the money. I don't know. Grrrrr....

In other news, I've been watching season 8 of the Biggest Loser since yesterday, and I have shed more than one tear so far. What an emotional show. It's weird to me that I can identify with the contestants, because on one hand I think "oh I'm nowhere close to that." But the fact is...I'm close. Too close. And I want to make sure I NEVER get there.

Today. Down 5.5 pounds altogether, and starting my fourth week today. I need to rock this week.

Turkey Day..Oh the sweet, sweet sin of feasting

Day 18. Turkey day. Mashed potatoes, pies, pies, pies, food galore. Wish me luck.

On another frustrating note, the scale said only 4.5 down this morning. Ugh. I swear the thing is possessed. I am really thinking about investing in a new one. In the meantime, I feel I must cave in to Kellen's advice and stop weighing everyday. I think Mondays and Thursdays are my new weigh days. Can I hold out until Monday this week? We will see.