My Lighter Half

My husband weighs less than I do. It's something I've sort of known for a few months, but now I'm sure of it. We have a balance scale, like at a doctor's office and he left his weight on the scale. Not just a smidge less, but about 30 pounds less. I find this both embarassing and maddening.

To make matters worse, he has begun the same diet as me (basically just counting calories) and he has lost more weight than I have since he started. It is so not fair.

Well let's think about this for a minute. I do all the grocery shopping, meal planning, meal preparation...and meal cleanup too. Perhaps if I had a personal chef I could lose weight effortlessly. I need a me. I want to scream.

Weigh Day

Hello there!  Thursday was my Weigh Day and I lost 1.75 pounds, which is .25 short of my weekly goal.  I am still on track overall, but am disappointed to miss a weekly goal.  I was on track with the amount of calories I ate but a little behind with the amount of exeercise I did.  I'm going to remind myself that I did the best I could with a snowy week.  I'm also going to focus on eating better quality calories this week and see if that helps.  I have a hunch that 100 calories of banana are a better choice than 100 calories of Oreo.

Motivation Follow-Up

So here's how the rest of the day went yesterday.  I did make it to the gym for a decent workout (yay!).  I did do a smidge of stress eating, but well within my calorie limits.  What have I learned?  Well, I guess the same old tendencies are there -- to be lazy and to stress eat -- but with a new twist of staying on track.  Keep calm and carry on, as they say.  Is this perserverance?  It kinda feels like it.  Tomorrow is Weigh Day, so the evidence of whatever actions I took this past week will be there, either way.

Got Motivation?

I'm dragging a bit today.  My back aches, my knee hurts, I'm overwhelmed with the kids and housework and hubby is really stressed out at work.  Suddenly my family looks like something you see on The Nanny.  I don't feel like going to the gym and I do feel like drowning my stress in some chocolate or maybe some nice warm bread with butter, or maybe wine.  Weigh Day is only two days away and I'm not so close to my goal for the week.  This is the first real dip in motivation that I've had this time around.
I'm blogging this out to hold myself accountable for my actions for the rest of the day.  I'm going to report tomorrow how the rest of today goes...good, bad or ugly.  One of my goals with this blog has been to motivate others, and I'd feel really bad if I had to post that I sat on my ass and ate a pound of cookies. 

"Thin" Food: You Are What You Eat (I Hope!)

I've been really taking the time to read food labels in the grocery store.  Because I'm actually counting calories, I want to really compare total calories, but also consider the overall quality of the food, like trans fat, fiber, cholesterol, sodium, etc.  It's very time consuming, but I've found a few gems.  If I ever figure out how to add pages to my blog, maybe I'll add a page listing some of my faves.  And if I really get my act together, I'll ask the companies that make those products to pay me for advertising. 

But here's the trend I notice:  many of the foods I love are sold in "thin" versions which, of course, are much lower in calories.  There's bagel thins, sandwich thins, pretzel thins and you should see the lunch meat...three slices stuck together are still see-through.  Suddenly it seems that everything I eat is thin.  Hmmm.  Could it be that simple?  Eat smaller versions of what you like and the pounds will drop off?  What an epiphany!  Why didn't figure this out a long time ago?

Weigh Day!

Thursdays are my official weigh day and I'm happy to say I lost 2 pounds this past week, which is my weekly goal.  I'm feeling a major sense of accomplishment because I really had to scratch and claw my way to meeting my goal this week.  Because of a series of winter storms I wasn't able to hit the gym as much as I wanted to, so I further restricted my calories to compensate.  It was a pain in the ass, but now my ass is smaller! 
I've mentioned starting using technology to help me with weight loss.  I've actually learned how to turn on our Wii, which Santa brought us in 2009.  It's a shame, but I never get interested in any of our gadgets because I just don't have much talent with computerized gizmos.  (You can see visual evidence of this in the appearance of my blog.)  I've also suffered a much shorter attention span since I started having kids.  But I had to learn how to hook up the Wii....it was do or die (sort of).  I've been doing the Free Step game while watching tv.  The really cool thing is that I can see my progress on the Wii.  I'm used to seeing the scale go up and up and up.  All through the past decade really.  It's a real thrill to see my weight and BMI going down.  It is truly a novelty, and I love it!  Next I want to see my Mii get thinner...she's a chunky gal.

My Hard Core Day

     So I spent a day trying to live in the spirit of the woman who blew her nose in her shirt in order to stay focused on her workout.  (See the previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)  It started around 7am when hubby and I discussed our plans for the day.  He had the day off because of MLK Day.  It was a carefully crafted plan, choreographed like the New York City Ballet.  I workout at our local YMCA, which offers babysitting but follows the public school schedule.  So if school is closed, there's no babysitting.  We planned how we could each put in a workout and balance the kids, plus grocery shopping.  Healthy food doesn't just grow on trees, you know. 
     I went to the Y at 8:30, and left by 10:45 to go grocery shopping.  (By the way, they had babysitting after all.  I'm always so close to being on top of things, but just not quite right.)  I headed to BJs for some items, then Stop & Shop for other items that we don't need a full gross of.  I got home at 1:30, believe it or not.  For some reason time stands still when I'm at Stop & Shop.  I was looking for some relatively healthy chocolate and cookies---yes, I'm modifying my behavior, but I'm not giving up on chocolate entirely!  It is very time consuming when you actually read food labels and compare, but sooooo worth it when you find a good product.
    I got home, starving by then, and chowed some lunch before hubby ran out to the gym.  He had to run to the mall to buy new running pants and didn't get home until about 5pm.  I still hadn't showered, mind you, and the kids were starting to get wild....their sign of hunger.  I fed them a snack of mini bagels and headed to the shower.  Along the way to the shower, I stumbled upon things that needed to be cleaned or put away, etc.  By the time I got out of the shower the kids were winding up again.  I always say that 6am and 6pm are the witching hours at our house.  For some reason the boys get insanely wild and even the baby gets fussy.  I blame it on hunger, because all calms down once they get food in their bellies.
     So, I got out of the shower and got dressed and I needed to do my physical therapy exercises which are helping me fix my urinary incontinence problem.  (Hey, after three kids, who wouldn't pee a little when they cough or sneeze?)  I have some simple exercises that take about 10 - 15 minutes and so far they've been very effective, but I never have time to do them.  Correction:  I never make the time for myself to do them.  By then I heard the baby screaming and the boys running and jumping--to the point where the whole house was shaking--and of course they were hooting and hollering too...a truly wild rumpus had kicked in full force.  And hubby was yelling at them, but it did't seem to be helping at the moment.  I knew that I needed to go downstairs and provide some backup to hubby and impose some order on the chaos.  But I really want to stop peeing my pants too.  It's my Hard Core day, so I ignored all the ruckus downstairs and I did my physical therapy exercises.  For me.  Me.
     We ended up eating at 8pm, which is actually the boys' bedtime.  They were fried, I was fried, but I was hard core and I got my things done.  It wasn't pretty, BUT I achieved my goals for the day.  I burned the calories I needed to (2900), kept my calorie consumption within my limit (1900), and did my physical therapy routine twice.  It all comes down to a shift in focus.  My focus wass on me today.  Not that I'm neglected anybody else.  Really, the boys were having fun being nutso while I took care of myself.  The baby would've been fussy anyway.  A late dinner every now and then isn't going to kill us.

                             Tell me about something hard core you've done recently.

Footnote:  I hope I didn't offend anyone with TMI about the incontinence stuff.  I included it because it was integral to the story but, more importantly, if any of you reading this have the same problem I want to encourage you to talk to your doctor about it because it really can be fixed.  My OB/GYN offered me surgery or physical therapy, so I opted for therapy.  The therapist said that shes' seen way more severe problems than mine respond well to therapy.  It's a few really simple leg lift type of exercises and they work like magic!

Hard Core

Here's something I've been thinking about lately:  If I can do so much for my family, work so hard to keep them organized and on track, then surely I possess the skills to do the same for myself.  For all you moms/dads or people who manage others at work, you know what I mean.  I'm talking about the ability to plan ahead and the fortitude to execute those plans.  We know how to get things done.  For example, the other day I was on an elliptical machine at the gym and the woman on the machine next to me was sniffling quite a bit.  Finally, she just blew her nose in her t-shirt.  Of course it was gross, but I thought, "Now there's a chick who knows how to get things done."  Now, THAT'S hard core.  So I'm dedicating my day to getting things done, even if it ain't pretty.