pizza, ice cream and band lessons

Wednesday night seems to be pizza night around here as of late and last night was no exception. Except for the fact that I got so hungry while working late that I apparently checked my restraint at the door and ate an entire pizza. Yep.

Then to top it off, I needed something sweet, so I figured that I'd polish off what was left of my pint of Ben and Jerry's, which was just the bottom quarter of the container. After about 4 bites, I was done and the remaining three (or four) bites went back to the freezer. Today is another day, thankfully. Darn PMS.

And in other news, Matthew's started teaching band lessons during his ACT time at school. For those of you who don't know, ACT stands for Academic Completion Time, aka, study hall for us old timers. haha. Anyway, he worked out a deal with his band director to teach band lessons for students who want the extra lesson time on the trumpet or the trombone. There is some compensation involved, which he's pretty excited about, but I promised him I wouldn't mention what that is here.

It was completely his band directors idea; something she used to do also when she was his age. Who knows, maybe he'll catch the bug to teach music? Right now he's aiming for a degree in Math or Engineering, so we'll see; he's got a couple years to decide.

That's all, folks!

Wordless Wednesday- Before and Now

Before : November 2010; weight 191

Now : March 27, 2011; weight 162.2

one day at a time

In keeping with Jen's newest post, I have a few thoughts on that myself. I'm struggling to get out of the one-sixties. I know, I know, it's just a number. And considering where I started, at least it's a smaller number of some significance. And I can wear smaller pants, by two sizes. But considering how far I have to go still? Not being able to crack into 159 is discouraging.

I ramped up my workouts the last few weeks; going for a 5k on the treadmill instead of just one mile at a time. Hopefully that'll do the trick for the upcoming weigh-in on Monday. But I hate it. Two miles is fine. Not fun, but fine. The additional one point 12 miles? I hate it. Every second. I have to talk myself into every quarter mile.

Maybe it'll never get easier.

I wanna be able to wear size 6 pants. I wore a size 7 in seventh grade, we moved and I was up to a ten in no time flat. Now I'm happy to be in a 12, but I still wanna be in a six. But you know what I wanna do even more than that? Eat ice cream and not have to work it off later. For there to be no consequences for a life of pizza and burgers and ice cream. Wouldn't that be great?!?!

Alas, I'm all too aware that there are consequences to such an eating style and I do feel better focusing on fruit and veggies and portions...but dang-it-all, today I feel like I don't wanna do this forever. So one day at a time, I will.

in the morning

I've got a sorta crazy work schedule this week. I'm working until close tonight, till 8pm on Wednesday and till close on Thursday. Add to that dinner with Carrie tomorrow evening, (Yay!) and I'm not really seeing the boys till Friday, except for the hour in the morning when they're getting ready for school and maybe 15 minutes or so on Wednesday before bedtime.

It's not my favorite.

But Jon's taking tomorrow off since he worked all weekend building a server. And I'm working on Saturday but getting off at 6pm. And in all the craziness, I've seemed to have more time to get in workouts than ever this week. Planned this week are a 5k today and tomorrow, weights on Wednesday and a 5k both Thursday and Friday.

I'd really like to break out of the 160's with my weigh-in next Monday. I got my "now" picture taken and I'll try and get that posted by Wednesday. For now, I'm off to the treadmill; have a great day!

you gotta want it

I think that in order to achieve something, you've got to want it bad enough to do anything to get it.

Take weight loss, for example.

A person can't "wish" to be 30, 60 or even 5 pounds thinner. You gotta do the work. It takes looking at your diet and making the best possible choices you can; meal in and meal out. Then there's the dreaded exercise. Even Jillian Michaels says that she hates working out, but she loves the way she feels afterward.

I don't wake up and say "Oh, gee; I wonder how much fruit and veggies I can consume today?" In the same light I am also not one to jump out of bed, run downstairs to the treadmill and crank out the miles with a smile on my face while singing at the top of my lungs. Nope; most mornings it's more like "Oh, look at the time; I need to get on the treadmill NOW because God knows I won't wanna do it after I get home at 8:30." And I drag myself away from the computer to change clothes and get it done.

But I get it done.

Now, I've been on a weight loss journey before, got derailed by the curveballs of life and ended up back where I started. But I'm determined this time to make the changes it takes to be able to stick with this long term. To set myself up for success.

I have a friend who's struggling with needing to get to the place where she'll be really ready to take on this journey. And I just told her something that my Mom told me years ago when I was in that same place, the place of wanting to lose weight but not really ready to do the work. She said "Darlin'...(that's what she calls me a lot, "Darlin'")....you just have to finally get to a place where you can't stand carrying the weight on your body one more second. Then and only then will you be ready to do anything it takes to change it."

Including eliminating all the excuses why you can't. I had those by the truckload, let me tell ya. And occasionally, since life is that way, those creep in again. I may let them get ahold of me for a day, but never two, as two tends to turn into a week which turns into....well, you know.

It must be done because I'm worth it.
----------------

In other news, taking advantage of my day off, I made, but didn't finish a big breakfast of 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, one slice of toast and grapes. The cat found what I didn't eat of the eggs and licked the cheese off. (I sometimes let her lick my plate after dinner too; keeps me from going back for more...)

I took yesterday off from working out since the boys had a 2 hr delay, so that means at the end of this post, I'm committing to five, yep, five, miles on the treadmill. Not really for speed, just for distance...but still getting done.

And I think I'm ready to take a picture for a "Now" part of my journey. I think I also found the best "before" pic from July at around 191. I'll try to get that posted by Wednesday.....

Have a great weekend!!

winter returns

The boys' school district issued the first snow day of the year yesterday. And today, a two hour delay. IN MARCH.

I drove to work yesterday morning at 10am in near white-out conditions. And you'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) what purchases people deem necessary during a snowstorm. I was told that the first customer of the day purchased six candy bars. That's it.

Believe me, it was not a very profitable day for our store in that little (7,000+) town.

Hopefully today will be better. And hopefully road conditions are improved also.

At least Caleb can get in a little cartoon time before school. haha.

Resistance is (sometimes) futile

I'm looking at things in a whole new light thirty pounds (almost) down. As in, "Gee, so m&m's are forty nine cents this week, huh? I wonder how long I'd have to spend on the treadmill to burn those off?"



"Pretty close on an hour you say? FORGET IT."



Don't get me wrong here; two nights ago I had a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. That's the first ice cream I'd eaten in 2011. It was good, but it was almost not worth it. And my Valentines Day gift? Still even has the plastic on it, five weeks and one day later.

I'll get to that one of these days.

But lately, everything I eat is measured against how long I'd have to endure the treadmill to burn it off. I guess that maybe had I always had this mentality, I'd not have gotten to a place where I weighed 191 at barely 5'2".

I even turned my back to the candy rack at the grocery store this afternoon. But you know what I did buy? A book by my favorite author that I can't wait to start!

And I went shopping in my own closet this week too. Turns out, most things should really be a twelve and most things are a ten, but I could fit into several pieces (skirts and tops mostly) that I hadn't worn in at least four years.

That's exciting stuff and worth the resistance all in itself.

safety dance

Sorry for my absence from blog-land, friends. The last ten days or so have been challenging. But I'm back and aren't you glad?

C'mon, admit it. You're glad.

I didn't even really stick to a workout schedule in the last week. Amazing how three days off for retreat can morph into a week. Not that I didn't work out at all, cuz I did; I just didn't workout as often or with as much intensity as in the last several weeks.

That's changing this week, believe me. I need to move. Just thought I'd report a little finding first.

I have a pair of black dress pants that I love. As in, when given the choice in what to wear to church, I'd choose these even over jeans. Really. Even though it meant my feet would be tortured in high heels all morning since the pants are too long for flats. And they're comfortable; the pants, not the heels.

I remember when I purchased them three years ago. I bought one size, took them home and over the course of two days, decided they were too tight; took them back to the store, got the next largest size and wore them comfortably ever after.

End of story. Except not.

I went to put on my favorite pants yesterday morning and without looking at the fastener combo, tightened them to where they needed to be to fit my waist.

Um, something was terribly wrong. Instead of meeting the button with the buttonhole, I found my hand holding the inside of the waistband a good three inches past where the button should land.

So I thought, "oh for heaven's sake...these aren't that big, I wore them a month ago." Imagine my surprise when it became apparent to me as I went from our bedroom to the den downstairs that I was not going to be able to just hoist my pants periodically all morning.

But I can't change what I'm wearing, I thought. I've settled on this sweater. And I'm not really liking the way either of my black skirts fit. And I didn't shave my legs.

Keeping with the pants is a must.

But I have to tell you that I then had to go in search of a safety pin to tighten the waist of the pants and then position the gathering just so it wouldn't be terribly noticeable. But then I couldn't get the safety pin closed and had to employ the help of my husband who was only too happy to help.

It's a problem, I know. Shopping will soon become a necessity. Cry with me, will you? :-)

Seven Quick Takes

1. Good Morning! The sun is shining and we're hitting the forties here today! I know, I know, but we'll take it.

2. After what seemed like months of suggesting to Jon that he get the den organized and cleaned, I came home last Saturday evening and it was done. He put together the large desk and put the small one up in Caleb's room. Caleb is thrilled and now we can actually leave the door to this room open.

3. I got given a project at work a couple of nights ago and I finished it last night; I was pretty proud of myself to have started and finished without any help, except if you count some consultation with my assistant manager Michelle, who's in charge of my department. Still, felt good to have accomplished it all on my own. The "luxury bath" section never looked so nice.

4. I'm headed to pick up my friend Stephanie in a couple hours and then we're off to Ladies' Retreat. I haven't seen her in about six months, so to just get the chance to hang with her will be awesome; add to that getting to see friends from other churches and this is my favorite weekend of the year. Seriously.

5. I got a reminder call about my doctor's appointment this coming Monday; as if I could forget.

6. We now know first hand why my parents used to say that it's totally true that if you "give a teenager an inch, they'll take a mile". Oy. He's gonna work off that mile, believe me.

7. Rest day today as I got in four workouts this week. I plan to hit the workout facilities at retreat tomorrow afternoon during free time, if I can get my sciatica to settle down.

Have a great weekend, all!

employee challenge

Like I said, I'm a competitor. I'm also apparently my worst critic, but that's another post.

I'm fairly new to my company, so I've been experiencing things for the first time several times over in the last seven months.

This month? The "Walk with Walgreens" employee challenge.

A challenge, you say? Perfect.

Every employee gets a pedometer and I finally got mine yesterday from our district manager. The goal for the company is five billion steps for the month and then we get a "jeans and gym shoes" day corporation wide. That's kinda exciting. We're all on our regional managers team to be the winner based on the average number of steps per person and there are gift cards and corporate recognition involved.

So, I plan to walk for distance, not time, for the rest of the month, starting this morning with a 5k. I'm about 10,000 steps behind my store manager as he got his pedometer almost 3 days ago and I got mine last night at 5pm, but it shouldn't take me long to bridge the gap at home.

Here we go!

sausage stuffed in spandex

Had dinner at Olive Garden with Carrie and the boys last night. Hadn't seen them for about six weeks and if you have or know children, especially babies, you know that lots of changes can occur in just six short weeks. Justin is thinking about walking and Kyle smiles all the time.

It was super fun to have dinner with them.

And I ordered chicken alfredo pizza, ate only half and one bowl of salad and not a single breadstick. Go me. While I still don't want to know the calorie count on what I ate, yikes, I'm giving myself credit for only eating half. And Kyle gets credit too, as feeding him a bottle took enough time to slow down my eating and help me get to full faster.

And I was happy to do it. I love those boys. (And their mother, though she's not convinced it has anything to do with her anymore. ) :-)

I could have gotten home in enough time to read Caleb a bedtime story, but instead I got the idea stuck in my head that I needed to see my progress in action by trying on jeans.

This was not such a good idea and it boils down to one word.

Spandex.

Seems that the jeans I've worn for almost three years contain 1% spandex. Huh. After digging for about 5 minutes for a size 12 short, I found a pair and took them to the dressing room. They went on and buttoned and all was okay. But just okay. What is with those mirrors anyway? Yikes.

But then I took them off and checked the tag and they were TWO percent spandex. And that additional percent makes a difference, you know. So I gave them to the fitting room attendant and went in search of a pair with only 1% spandex, which would therefore be a better equivalent since 99% cotton/1% spandex in a size 14 is what I currently wear.

Those took longer than five minutes to find. And in trying on the second, better suited for comparison pair, I learned two things: first, that additional percent really is stretchy; and second, my body is not now, nor will it ever be, suited to low-rise jeans. I mean, really.

The good news? I was able to get the size 12, 1% spandex up and buttoned and still breathe.

The bad news? Low-rise don't fit my body type and instead of being able to focus on being down two sizes since Christmas and getting into a smaller size, spandex or not, I cried all the way home at the thought of joy-stealing-spandex in my jeans.

Even if it is only one percent.

back up your work

My husband is in IT and he's always telling people "You wanna back up your work. You will not be happy if you're forced to recreate all your work due to an error on your computer."

That's not really an exact quote.

I bought a new scale just over two weeks ago. Then two weeks ago today, I stepped on it for the first time and it weighed .4 higher than the scale at my doctor's office.

But I didn't stress, I just assigned myself the position of "user 1" and vowed to stay off of it until today.

And I did. And it's in the kitchen. And I'm also in the kitchen A LOT. So the fact that I completely ignored it for two whole weeks is HUGE. Pun sorta intended, sorry.

I was awake before 5am this morning; partially due to not sleeping well from having too much diet coke yesterday and too much on my mind and partially due to Matthew getting up to use the bathroom at 5:11...that's when I finally got out of bed.

All the little details aside, in about 5 minutes time, I found myself ready to get on the scale and find out just how well I'd done resisting McDonalds and pounding for miles on the treadmill.

I stood on the scale and held my breath in anticipation. I couldn't help it.

Five seconds later, it gave me a reading I was fairly pleased with which completely explains why I'm having to pull my pants up at every turn.

But I can't even begin to describe what I was thinking when three seconds later I was informed that I was UP from my previous weight.

What?!?

I'm pretty sure I recorded.....WHAT?!?!

And not just up, but....get this, up ONE HUNDRED AND SIX POUNDS.

Oh for heaven's sake.

While I'm more than completely baffled as to how that's possible in one minute, the next minute it occurs to me that the difference between what the scale says I gained and what I actually weigh also happens to be pretty darn close to the exact weight of my nine-year-old son.

Apparently the scale is another item that Caleb just can't resist touching.

I gave him a stern talking to, believe me. ;-)

Good thing I'm anal and decided two weeks ago to create a document keeping track of my weight. And I'm keeping it updated too; obviously this scale is not smart enough to do it for me.

Oh, and for the record, I'm down 7.2 pounds in two weeks. I'll take it.

Seven Quick Takes

1. Good Morning! It's 5:01am and I've been awake for at least the last ninety minutes and already finished a cup of coffee. I feel like I'm channeling my Grandma Nichols this morning; she always got up before the rooster.

2. Cranking out the music for retreat; trying to get finished up enough to get a list to my pianist before Monday. I downloaded some sheet music for some great songs and this year we're blowing the doors off...it's gonna be AMAZING.

3. Matthew got some standardized test scores this week. That kid amazes me; for the amount of studying he doesn't do and yet he does so well in school. Geesh. All his scores were either on the high end of the "proficient" scale or firmly planted into the "advanced" category. He gets all that from his dad, for sure. Seriously.

4. I was saddened to learn this week that our local school district is probably cutting the high school music program from the budget next year. I have a kid that'd rather die than not be able to play the trumpet; he's NOT gonna take that well at all if it actually happens.

5. Things are well with Caleb too. He's had a good week in the classroom and on the bus, so this is improvement. Seems that the chocolate milk bribe did the trick; at least for this week. And he's got "a ton!" of birthday money burning a hole in his pocket; I doubt I'll get through today without having to take him to town to do some shopping.

6. You know how March came in this week? Sunny with mild temps; it was wonderful. You know what's forecast for the weekend? Snow, sleet, freezing rain...you name it. It's crazy.

7. To close out here, I just ask for your prayers for me. That at retreat, I remember that it's not about me, it's about Him and that I remain calm if things don't go exactly like I have planned in my head. And for me physically, seems there's potential for something that I can't get any answers for until after retreat due in part to my erratic work schedule and the busyness of the specialist I need to see. While we're not freaking out until we're told there's a reason to, I'd just appreciate your prayers.

Have a great weekend, all!

Push It

I'm a competitor. Not in the way my husband is, where every board game is serious business and losers need not participate.

I'm my own worst competition. But I mean that in a good way. You'll see.

I awoke this past Saturday morning determined to take a rest day. I'd worked out five days already for the week, my body was kinda sore and as a bonus, I didn't even have to go to work. But as usual, once I got out of bed and was moving around, I was really craving exercise.

Do people really do that? Really? I was, and it's still weird.

So I got changed and hit the treadmill with my music cranked to full volume. But it only took me about thirty seconds to realize that I'd forgotten about a very important component of my plan.

My inhaler.

I pushed through, completing a mile in 15:30 and staggered to the kitchen to get a hit. After I regained my sense of balance and could take a deep breath, I posted to FB that I got it done but "no record broken today".

My friend Steph immediately jumps on with "Cut yourself some slack! You don't have to break a record every time!" And my response was "Don't you know me at all? Of course I do!"

I was only kidding. Except when I realized I wasn't.

I've become such a black/white thinker through this process that if one mile is good, two is better. If under fifteen minutes for a mile is good, closer to fourteen is better. If 100 calorie pudding is good, sixty calorie pudding is better.

You get the idea.

And it bugged the crap out of me that I let that mile go for 15:30. Even though pushing myself to go faster without the ability to breathe could have been disastrous. And that's not an exaggeration.

I did take a rest day on Sunday but then Monday, I tried the treadmill again, remembering my inhaler this time. I've covered the time display with masking tape trying to focus on distance rather than time and when I get to .98 mile I take the tape off to see just what the time is when I cross to the mile.

First mile Monday? 15:07.

Fine, but not really good enough.

After five minutes rest, I went for a second mile and completed it in 14:43. And blowing the doors off that, I completed my second mile today in 14:07.

Who knows where we can go from here.

And I know, Steph, you meant for me to not be so hard on myself. And I'm getting better at that, but at the same time, you provided me with a challenge that eventually my body will be thankful for. Thanks!

Thirteen-thirty, here I come.

Ninety Minutes at Chuck E Cheese

Here you have some random observations from the time we spent at Chuck E Cheese aka Germ-a-palooza on Saturday for Caleb's birthday.

- Four o'clock is never too early to arrive. Maybe earlier would have been better.

- It's not apparently important for a child to be able to walk to enjoy many an activity. If the parent wants to haul said child in and out of the crowds, that is.

- The little boy dancing on the air hockey table was my favorite. He was young enough to still be in a diaper as evidenced by his sagging pants, but old enough to climb up and down from the table with absolutely no help. There were absolutely no parents around either.

- Chuck E Cheese himself is like Elvis. Or the Beatles. Or Justin Beiber. There was much screaming with delight when he appeared.

- It is acceptable to be a severely overweight woman and chase your toddler up into the tower that leads to the tunnels on the ceiling. Screaming his name repeatedly only adds to his determination to climb up as quickly as he can. Telling other adults standing nearby that you already told him three times that he couldn't go into the tower, but then you let him because you weren't quick enough to drag him out only helps teach him that maybe you don't mean what you say. Good luck with that when the teen years hit.

- Dads have as much fun with some of the games as the kids. Or maybe more fun.

- Unattended toddlers, no matter how briefly so, will attempt to join you in your booth and partake of your share of overpriced, crappy pizza. Then when the parent catches up, there will be much screaming on the part of the toddler and not so much as a word from the parent.

Wanna go?