The plan

OK girls, listen up...
After listening to some of the comments received both here and off the blog (yes, people discuss my blog w/ me in public) I have devised a plan for all of us. Participation is strictly volunteer but I would like to know who is willing to participate so we can be supportive of one another, and also so we can evaluate what is working and what is not.
This is about exercise and how we can get on track to do it as part of our everyday routine and be healthier.
Everyone who is going to participate must think of a daily exercise routine that they would enjoy doing. It dosen't have to be the same routine everyday, in fact varying the exercise may help you stay motivated. Write the routine down by days, ie, Monday walk 3 miles; Tuesday work out w/ weights and take leisurely walk; Weds walk 3 miles, etc. You get the picture. It is your routine, make it yours!
We will follow this routine that we have set up for ourselves for one month! DO NOT THINK BEYOND ONE MONTH! I say this because I keep thinking about having to diet and exercise until Sarah's wedding and it wears me out just thinking about it and then I lose my motivation. The other thing thing about thinking way ahead is that you think you have all this time and then the time is here and nothing has been accomplished. We need to take it ONE DAY AT A TIME.
Also, you must write it down for the entire month--almost like you have scheduled it into your day--that way you have already made time for it and you can schedule everything around your exercise routine.
This will start March 1 so please take the next couple days to develop your exercise plan. If you need music to walk to or exercise to, I have volunteered my husband to make you a CD. He is currently making mine--one song at a time! I think it will be more enjoyable to listen to what I like or can sing along to (yes, I am the mystery walker singing out loud to her self as I stroll the streets of Lawton). So if you need an individual exercise CD made--just get the music to Buggs.
As far as dieting--we all know what WE ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO EAT--so be healthy. I plan on eating healthy during the week and then using my weekends to enjoy my self--with in reason. I am an adult--I should be able to monitor myself, huh?
As soon as I get my routine figured out, I will post it here.
Tell me what you think?

I'm ok. Are you?

Today is my day off and I feel like "nesting" as 10-8-ish so aptly referred to it in her own blog. I have a list of things to do, and a list of things to accomplish. One consists of many, many things to do and the other has two things listed--1. hang a curtain rod and 2. patch the holes in the bedroom walls before hubby paints this weekend. This weekend? Hell, its only Tuesday!

So I started my day by going to the local grocery store because I needed breakfast food. I also bought sugar free ice cream bars, a bag of Valentine Chocolate covered peanutbutter hearts that were 50% off and 3 magazines.
I can explain all of them except the Valentine sweets. It could be PMS or it could be the damn chocolate craving I have had for days which I find interesting because normally, I don't eat chocolate.
Its deprivation. I can't have it, so I want it. Like that boy in high school that all the girls wanted so you did too, but when you finally got him you couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about? Or giving something up for lent (if you are Catholic) and for 40 days you think about it--congratulating yourself for being "good" and telling everyone how great your doing but after lent and you are no longer deprived, you can't even remember what it was you gave up.
Each chocolate/bp heart is one serving. Each serving has only 45 calores and 8 grams of sugar. I can have a minimum amount of chocolate and peanutbutter on my diet and this is how I justified buying them and this is how I will justify it to hubby.
Justify it to hubby? There's that guilt thing as if eating candy is going to break his heart! There may be something Freudian about buying chocolate shaped like hearts!

I bought 3 magazines because all my books are either packed away or covered in plastic--we're painting, remember?
I bought Martha Stewart's Living because it was a special gardening issue and I love gardening. It has articles on hot pepers and cooking with fresh herbs and some really awesome recipes--especially meatless. I have never been much of a meat eater and I am tiring of all the meat I have been eating lately so I'm trying some veggie dishes. We'll see how hubby likes this turn of events. And she had a good article on wines that I will show hubby.
I also bought a Woman's World. I only bought this to find out Kirstie Alley's diet secret. No, it was not worth $1.49 to find out that she lives on Jenny Craig frozen dinners. I did find out that researchers @ the U of Kansas found that "folks who ate two frozen meals a day ended up just as thin as those given diet pills." Hum?
There were some other articles about trying the asian energy cure if you hate exercising (but it had something to do w/ mushrooms) and another about 3 secrets tricks your IPOD can do.
The third zine was FamilyCircle which boasted "Thin for good" and "Fast family meals" on it's cover. So have you heard about the new Sonoma Diet? You follow it for 10 days and you do it in "waves" as opposed to "phases" like the South Beach. It lets you eat bread and cereal and drink wine. It is inspired by "'one of the most flavorful crusines in the world...the foods of the Mediterranean...'"
I didn't finish reading the explaination, but there is an entire book about it.
What I really bought this particular magazine for was the article titled "beyond spaghetti" which was all about different oriental noodles--which I have tried in the past, but not as deliciously as the magazines suggests. Definitely some awesome recipes. I can have noodles?

What I have concluded in all of this zine reading this morning is 1. I'm ready for Spring; 2. I'm bored with my diet; 3. I don't want to be on a diet, I want to eat rice noodles; 4. I want to nest today and hang my curtain rod tomorrow.

Here's to being ok where you are at the moment!

The monster I have created

This blog is doing what I wanted it to do: give people a place to vent, to realize they are not alone in their efforts, to understand that failure is not a solo flight.
10-8-ish commented on my last blog about giving up and then giving in. I too had one of those weekends. I was tried of salad, I wanted sugar, damn it, and I REALLY wanted PIZZA!!!!
So I talked with my hubby about this. I said, hubby, I want pizza and beer. Hubby said OK. He even volunteered to drive with me to the store to get beer and to Little Caesar's for pizza (I really had a craving for Chucky Cheese Pizza. Go figure).
In the store, I couldn't find the beer I wanted. My hubby was in the wine section looking for a "new" wine for his recently aquired taste in wine...red of course, and patiently listened to me rant about the beer situation. I wanted what I wanted.
Forget the beer. Lets go get pizza, I said. He answers back something about him cooking if I didn't feel like it. Nobody is cooking, I said. We are getting pizza.
He started looking around in the meat section. How about steak? Chicken? No and No.
Burgers? OK, burgers. BBQ burgers.
This meant we needed BBQ sauce to put in the ground sirloin he picked up. After 15 minutes studying the backs of ALL the BBQ sauces, we chose Big Mo's--not for the price, but because compared to the cheaper Jack Dainels BBQ sauce, it had 5 less calories and 1 gram less sugar.
OK, I get the message. He is not going to let me fall off the diet wagon.
If I was going to have a burger (with no bun of course) I wanted baked beans.
All the beans I wanted had sugar in them. Hubby finds beans with NO sugar. Texas Ranch beans. I surrender stating that I can always doctor them up w/ Splenda if I have to.
We also spent a good amount of time in the spagetti sauce aisle looking for something "nutritious" to put on the whole wheat spagetti we bought at a market in Detroit. We bought pickled Asparagus (he didn't know that until we got to the check out). But we didn't buy beer or pizza.

I have created a monster. My husband is a nutrition monster.
When did he start reading lables for anything other than sodium? What is up with walking past the beer and browsing the wine? I found him reading my South Beach cookbook!

Could it be the 10 pounds HE has lost since I started MY diet?
He has started to give me tips on when to exercise and for how long.
I'm worried. Maybe he will start getting me out of bed and forcing me to walk the treadmill? Maybe he will start weighing me before and after work to see if I cheated? Maybe they have such things as food breathalizers?

I'm not sure this is a good thing. Its hard, very hard, to fall off the wagon when someone has you tied down. And if I cheat, who am I cheating now, myself or him? I'm sure it has a lot to do with love.
Don't you?


Still -17lbs and holding!

A Valentine's gift to me...

Two days ago I wasn't anymore motivated than I was the last time I blogged which was a while ago. I have been a little depressed because I have only lost another 1/2 lb in the last week. Hum....
So, I gave my self a gift for Valentines...a pep talk.
I have been getting exercise advice from everywhere and find it interesting what sorts of things people do. Even my daughters have given me advice...Kerri is going to show me butt exercises to do on my Big Blue Ball and Sarah says we should all dance a few extra dances and drink a few extra beers when we are at the bar.
My pep talk was just about the same pep talk I gave myself when I wanted to quit smoking (which I have successfully done for almost 9 months). It was a talk about being around to see my daughters live out whatever life dream they had. It was about living to be a "participating" grandma (I want to be the fun grandma). It was about finally having the time and hopefully more energy to take care of myself. It was a talk about what my husband deserves in a partner. It was about what I deserve as a human being.
So the treadmill and the Big Blue Ball have been my friend the last couple days. I also have some hand weights and those big rubber bands if I get bored. I am going to blog more. I am combining exercising and writing in an effort to inspire creativity in both areas.
I'm excited.
Thank you all for the suggestions, the words of motivation, and the offers to go to the gym. Please let me know how you are all doing w/ your own efforts.

Anyone willing...

to give me a good swift kick in the pants?

I just can't seem to get my butt out of my reading chair and start exercising.
I figured out by counting weeks on the calander that I have 15 weeks until my daughter's wedding. I don't think I will reach my goal by then but I will be darn close.
The count as of today is 16.5lbs.

I have added skim milk, strawberries and yogurt to my diet. This means I can have Chai Tea. Love it. And yogurt and strawberries. Love it even more.

I haven't become totally bored with my diet, but I have become bored w/ thinking about food. I don't think I should have to think about food so much, but on the other hand, if I had thought about food maybe I wouldn't be obese.

Yes obese!

According to guidelines bought to you by your neighborhood wellness experts, I am obese in relation to my height and age.

So my husband says I need a goal.
My goal is to lose 2lbs a week until the wedding. That would be another 30 lbs. Add that to the 16lbs I have already lost for a total of 46 lbs. I wanted to lose 60lbs. I will still have 14lbs to go before bathing suit season (LOL) but I have a feeling I will be looking good at the wedding.

This diet thing has become a family affair because over-weightiness is a genetic trait in our family--amoung the women. It has something to do with the stout little English grandmother on my dad's side and the stout little Irish grandmother on my mother's side.

My niece is getting married this year, right after my daughter. So my sister is now on a diet. She is having an exercise motivational problem also. That may be genetic too. She says the most exercise she has done so far is get the Richard Simmons excercise tapes out of the cabinet. She has placed them where they constantly remind her that she is not using them. This is also a genetic trait.

Our younger sister has been reading my blog and is now fearful that she will be the Fat Aunt at the weddings. Keep reading sis, maybe you will find some motivation here. Or not.

The first step...

So today I have been sitting around on my big butt thinking about my excersise routine. Thinking about it is the first step...

I know it will involve walking. I already have a route mapped out around town and in bad weather I already have a treadmill.

Actually... ((warning...please do not try this at home, the following was performed by an expert and should not be attempted by amatures...))

I discovered Sunday night that walking in the snow ain't that bad...I got p.o.'d at my husband and walked home from a friend's house. It was around 10:00pm, snowy, cold and I was very drunk. I'm not really sure how far I walked (the hubby's says over 2 miles) or how long it took me (it seemed like forever at the time). I do know I fell down once. I remembered this yesterday when I felt the bruise on my outer thigh.

I am considering it the beginning of my exercise routine. From now on though, I will make some important modifications, such as:

Wear running/walking shoes instead of boots
Wear appropriate clothing instead of jeans, a sweater and 500 million Mardi Gras beads around my neck
Walk in daylight
Walk sober

To add insult to injury, I had to work 16 hours yesterday...as a nurse, that means that I spent nearly 14 of those hours ON MY FEET!!

Which is why I am sitting on my big butt today, thinking about my exercise routine...
which I will restart tomorrow...

15.2lbs and losing...

Countdown

If you're checking in just to be witness to the countdown...

-14.8lbs and losing! This was verified by my new scales both last night and this morning. I have lost nearly 1/2 of the weight I gained in the last three years.

I had gone about three days without the scales moving. I thought she was ignoring me or didn't like my singing anymore. Don't let on to her that I ever doubted her.

I have pretty much settled into this way of eating. I have had no bread or starches for two weeks. I think the only thing I miss in that group is Panera's Asiago Bagles and potatoes.

I have had no fruit for two weeks. I don't miss anything in that group because I'm not a big fruit consumer. I ate a lot of bananas before and now I find out it is the fruit highest in sugar!

I have had no dairy. This group I miss. I miss yogurt and milk.

I was supposed to refrain from drinking alcohol. I didn't. But I must admit that I didn't drink anything but wine and the most wine I drank all week was at Mug Club.

I am at a turning point.
Move on to phase two or stay here for another week?
Start exercising?

My scales

I have developed an intimate relationship with my weight scales.

Every morning I strip naked and say, "Scales, scales on the floor, please say less; don't say more."

Then I mount them.

Its a great way to start the day--if you actually get on and off satisfied.

-12.5 lbs and losing!!!