Victory!

No, I haven't lost any more weight (though I did gain some and lose some again, see below), but I did have a huge huge non-scale victory this past week. I mentioned before that I was going to be flying to Illinois to pick my mom and the kids and her Uhaul up and drive them all cross country to Apache Junction, AZ so they could move there. I was really kind of apprehensive about the flying because I hate, detest and otherwise loathe flying as a large woman. Well, since I really hadn't lost much weight since my last weigh in (I've been hovering around 260 give or take a pound or two), I asked for a seatbelt extender as I got on. I had the seat next to the window and D had the middle seat and some lady who was the mom to the really really annoying child in seat directly behind me that kept kicking my chair and hitting his window with the empty water bottle he had. Well I sat down and tried to put my seatbelt on and IT FIT. Sure I had to have it as large as possible to make it fit, but it fit, and fit comfortably at that spot. I probably could've made it smaller but m'eh.

Then on the ride, we spent so much time in the truck, and I managed to go the whole way without feeling like I was taking up a ton of room in the truck, or squishing my cousin (accidently there were a couple of times when we squished her between us in playing).

Now, the road trip was a disaster diet wise. I gained about 5 pounds (was at 265 Monday). But today I'm back down to 261 from eating right again. Now I just need to start drinking more water. :) I still struggle with the 4 water bottles a day. Not because I'm drinking other things just I don't have enough time in the day! lol.

Anyway so I gotta end it here, gots me some work to do, just thought I'd do an update :)

Amber

Been busy!

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've just been incredibly busy. Between work and school and social stuff I've just not really had much to talk about in here. I'm still trying to stick to my guns, and I'm having to knock of some stuff I thought I put behind me. I'm getting sick of water. Even if I put in like crystal light or something I'm just getting tired of water water water and nothing else. I don't like tea or coffee, bleh. I need to reevaluate where I'm at.

But beyond that I just need to start eating more fruit and veggies and less BS stuff that my body don't need, and start working out more. I know what I NEED to do, it's just getting my rebellious lazy ass to start doing it. Sounds easy but it's not.

Only a couple more weeks until I go to Illinois, I'm extremly excited. I miss my mom a lot and I get to see all my family again. I'm not used to being completely family-less. I grew up where my mother's ENTIRE side of the family lived in a 20 mile radius and she had 5 siblings and even THEIR kids pretty much all lived within a 30 minute drive. I'm the one oddball that moved far away. lol.

Anyway so that's about it for an update on my end.

Amber

Going home....again

So, before I started this blog journey in January, I went home to Illinois for a funeral. My grandfather passed away the morning after Thanksgiving (so black friday had a double meeting in my family this past year), so my fat ass got woke up at 5am after a 2am nighter with some friends of mine to be told the news and to be told I needed to get said fat ass to Illinois pronto. So I did. I booked the next flight out of Albuqerque (at 6am the next morning mind you, my said friends I'd pulled the 2amer with weren't happy that I made them get up at 4:30 to drive my ass to the airport lol). I think it was then that I said FUCK IT I'M DONE! with being fat. I think it started gnawing on me then that I needed to lose weight, I just chose to not take action until January 9th. I had to get seatbelt extenders, on the flights, and the last flight that landed me home in ABQ I had to sit in a seat much to small for me and was completely uncomfortable despite the complete and utter lack of people on the plane.

So now I'm flying home again, albeit for better reasons. My mom is moving to Arizona and lucky me, my boyfriend and I get to drive her and the Uhaul. Honestly I'm actually looking forward to it, I"ll get to ride with D in the cab for most of it, and with my mom in the carwhen she needs a break from driving. I get the most information and fun out of D when he's driving because he's not focused on playing a video game for once :P But I digress. This said trip to Illinois involves every fat person's favorite time....a flight. So I'm hoping (I have 3 weeks) to lose a few pounds between now and then, and to see if I can manage to get through the flight without a belt extender. That would be heavenly. I hate having to ask for one. I really do. So maybe this trip looming ahead will get me out of the funk I've been in and get me into losing weight again since I'll want to impress all my family when I go back home, and be able to fit into some nice tank tops for the ride. I bought two and they fit but they're just a tad snug, tighter than I like to wear my shirts kthxbai!

As I posted earlier, I've stocked my kitchen with good for me stuff. I've been sticking to lean meats again, I'm going to be on a mission to make a food list and dinner menu for next week and buy and cook healthy good for me dinners again, and I need to figure out a good for me lunch. I bought some turkey lunch meat and had a sandwich for lunch with grapes today but it sure didn't seem to fill me up. So that's something to look at. But I left it at that. :)

Anyway so that's today's news reel. See ya back ... possibly tomorrow!

Amber

Nose back to the grindstone

So. I posted earlier that I needed to get my head out of my ass and get serious about this losing weight goal of mine. I've gotten lax in the last couple of weeks as stress from school and laziness on the weekends became more and more common.

I was going to post a picture but my camera is being stupid. So I can't. But I was going to post a picture of my fridge. It's got several 1/2 cup sized containers that are full of fresh red grapes, a few canned fruit 1 cup cans (I like my fruit cold), and all sorts of things like that all lined up nice and neat on the top shelf. This will help me be able to quickly grab what I need, and keep D out of my shit (he loves to eat my stuff I need like Salsa and what not that I use to make lunches taste better). TOP SHELF IS OFF LIMITS TO PEOPLE WHO DONT WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT! lol.

Anyway, so that's that. I'm off!

Amber

Woo!

Yeah, so not doing well on the WL front, basically I've been lazy and I'll admit it, we've been eating out more than eating in (bad me!). Mostly because I've just been too lazy and tired to go to the store and get food and make food and do dishes and clean up and etc etc etc.

Well no more!

Putting my foot down again, I've gained enough back (I'm at 262 atm) and I'm just not going there anymore. I'm going to be honest because if I'm not honest and pretend like everything is fine nothing will change and I'll gain all of it back and be miserable again.

But, I got my dishwasher on Saturday and it makes my life so much easier. I was able to make dinner yesterday and put the dishes in the dishwasher and wash a couple days worth of dishes and put them away and not have to devote all evening to it. It's a pain in the ass in a way because I have to have D get between the fridge and the dishwasher and run the dishes because I'm too big (the handle of the fridge gets in the way), but at least they get done. So now with that I should have NO excuse to not cook dinner at home considering I will always have clean dishes! That's usually what stops me from doing dinner in the first place. Who wants to wash their dishes just to cook? lol.

Anyway enough excuses. I got paid today. I totally fucked up my checking account over the Memorial Day weekend. I didn't realize I accidently charged the two plane tickets my mom wanted to my account instead of hers....700 dollars gone out of my account. Thankfully my mom will send me a check tomorrow when she gets home. I need food in my house yo! I hate being so low on money....I'm way way under my little 1k bubble that I can dip into if necessary, I think I have about 300 left >.< Stupid accidental charges.

So I accomplished a lot this weekend. I lost 3 pounds (I was at 265 at the start of last week which frustrated me), I cleaned my house everywhere except the bedroom (hard to clean when your boyfriend is sleeping in there right?) and I managed to work on some other minor projects i've been wanting to get done but just haven't had the time nor gumption to get it done. So I'm proud of myself. We also ate at home all weekend which is a first in a while. Now tonight I just need to go to the store and get some basic food supplies to last me a couple of days and put my check in the bank. Homework galore to do too. Gonna be a busy night!

Amber

A long weekend.

You would think that a long weekend would mean more R&R for me....NOT! >.< I did get a little rest done on Friday. I worked on Friday for a little over an hour on some charting stuff that needed to get done, and then went home and basically relaxed. I really can't remember a lot of what I did Friday except that I did use my new EA Active. Saturday I got D to help me bring up the coffee table that Ken and Robin gave us a few weeks ago (shows you how often I use my back seat right?) so that I could have an empty car when I went to Albuquerque. I loaded my car with my laundry and off to Albuquerque I went with the intent of coming home Sunday.

Didn't happen.

I spent most of the afternoon Saturday with Ken and Robin and family at Chili's and doing some running around and such, setting Ken's computer back up so I could try a beta copy of Sims 3 (kinda neat) and then helping Robin pack a few things. Then on Sunday we went to Mike's house (another friend that lives in the area) for lunch (nachos, home made, not too bad I guess I tried to make my toppings be more of the veggies than the meat and cheese...) and were there from about 1pm till 9 or 10pm, drove back to Ken's house and I crashed there because my laundry wasn't done yet and so I couldn't just leave it there lol. Then Monday I helped them move a piano from inside the house to the garage so we could get some other stuff out (where it was positioned it basically blocked any large pieces from being moved from the bedrooms). Then I helped them clean out their garage of all the big stuff they were going to throw out and haul it to the dumpster they had delivered. Spent most of the day doing that until about 1 or 2pm then I decided it was best I be getting home considering I had a homework assignment to get done. Got home, did my homework, hauled some stuff upstairs from my car, think I fell asleep about midnight and got up this morning at 6:30.

Such a long long weekend and yet I got next to nothing I wanted to get accomplished done. :(

But, on the plus and very exciting side...I have a dishwasher! /cheer! Ken and Robin have one of those stand alone dish washers you can move around on wheels and I bought it off of them (since they won't need it) it's brand new. I hate doing dishes, especially in this apartment because there's only one sink so it's a pain to do the dishes. So I'm extremly excited to not have to do most of my dishes and it will make my life so much easier. I work long hours and after dinner I just don't feel like washing a load of dishes, so I'll rinse them off and they'll sit stacked in the sink for a day or two until I finally run out of dishes to use or something lol. It's awful I know but I'm just so tired after work and I have so much to do!

So this'll help. lol

Anyway back to work!

Amber

EA Active

So, I forgot that I had preordered this "game" and it showed up on my doorstep this afternoon (well not forgot, but didn't realize it was on its way to being out for purchase. I popped it in tonight (just a little bit ago, yes I'm up late/early I know) and let me just say I'm pretty darn happy with it.

I've had the wii fit for a few months, and it's great and all (I enjoy the boxing) but my main complaint about it was that I had to stop inbetween each activity to select another, or to continue on with what I was doing (like more reps or something). So there was a lot of downtime because the trainer had to talk and there was no way to skip through it. So while I may have "worked out" for an hour, it was probably only 20 mins worth or 30 mins worth when it was all said and done.

With this one there's a 30 day challenge, it keeps track of how long you go, how many calories you burn (!) and it's continous. I may have to stop to pick up the bands, or put the nunchuck into the little holder on my leg, but that's about it. It gives you plenty of time to do it (stops between each activity) but it has a skip forward button to skip past tutorials so you can get started as soon as you have the equipment picked up.

My only real "complaint" is that because of how short I am (5'0) it sometimes doesn't pick up that my legs are bending for squats because the nunchuck won't quite go parallel enough. I was practically sitting on my heels doin' squats (could be a better workout anyway right? lol). And running is a bitch and it doesn't quite recognize that I'm running either. Something to work on I suppose. nice thing is the time on the running countdown continues irregardless so I don't have to struggle to get around the track if I'm not getting it to work right (for now until I figure it out).

All in all I'm happy with it, it had me sweating even on "low intensity" work outs. Though I wish I could preprogram my "days off" for the challenge because it'd be nice to have a "day off" tomorrow since I won't be home until late (going to Albuquerque). We shall see how it goes.

You can also use the wii board if you have it, or not if you don't. The Wii board just enhances some of the activities I guess. I'd recommend it for anyone who hates going to the gym (as I do right now due to my size) and/or wants to work out in the comfort of their home. It also comes with resistance bands, which is nice for arm curls and such. :)

Amber

Slight downward motion

So I'm down a little, at 259 on the button. But that's 2 weeks worth, so...I'm beginning to think I've hit a plataue or however you spell it. I've been gaining and losing the same 2 or 3 pounds the past 2 or 3 weeks. Not for lack of trying mind you. I've been relatively OP every day. Especially during the week. I'll be down on Friday and then by Monday I'm back up again to within a pound of where I was.

But, on the other hand, I'm just trying to remember to relish in the NSV's. My clothes, despite not actually losing numbers off the scale, have been fitting more and more loose. I'm wearing, today, pants that I bought about a month ago when I was a similar weight that were really pretty tight. I mean, when I tried them on, I had on older underwear and my underwear was bunching (I hate that). I bought them anyway because I was also buying new underwear, figuring that would fix the issue. Come to find out, it really didn't. When i got home and tried them on to wear one day they fit but were tighter than I'd like to wear them. So I didn't. Now today I'm wearing those pants, and they fit perfectly fine. I bought 2 tanktops because summer is so close to being here, and they fit a little more snug than I'd like, but they work and they're a 22/24. The shirts I wear on a daily basis are a 24/26, so I've lost another shirt size. But yet, my weight remains the same.

Such is life! I'm happy with the feeling better. Though, this weekend I felt very very sick to my stomach all weekend and didn't feel much better this morning, it's not an everyday thing anymore.

I've also found a "new love" for a meal. I made some thin cut chicken tenders and lightly cooked them until it was just pink in the middle, then I poured a little teriyaki sauce on top and kept "basting" it until it was done. The turned out really tender and had a very good flavor. I made some white rice to go with it and had a cup of that and 3 tenders (they're thin and small) and was good to go. Really really good! In fact, I plan on making it again tonight, though this time I will hopefully remember to put the rice away and save it for later. I enjoy eating rice.

Anyway I need to get back to doing some work...there's not a lot to do at work work wise, but I have some homework I'd like to get started for the next class I start tomorrow. Quicker I get those assignments done, the quicker I can just relax. It's my last class before a 3 week off period that I'm giving myself. I've been going non-stop since January, time for a break!

Amber

The light at the end of the tunnel...

No, my weight loss journey is NOT at an end (no matter how much I may wish). No, my whole having teeth worked on is coming to an end. When my father died, I stopped caring, and when I stopped caring, coupled with my fear of anything dentist related (yet I work for one go figure), I basically didn't see a dentist for a good 3 solid years, hadn't had my teeth cleaned in probably twice that. Needless to say the amount of fillings needed wasn't very pretty. I take good care of my teeth NOW but the year or so that I just didn't care enough to brush them more than I had to took its toll. I had about 12 cavities two of which turned into full crowns, and one an extracted tooth (which happened last Thursday).

Probably close to 4k worth of dental work and my lovely boss did it all for me for free. Thank god. Anyhoo...So I had my tooth extracted last Thursday, wasn't too bad I guess. Not much I could do about it, it was a combination of my own stupidity and the fact that the person that did my last filling didn't do it right. Both filligs she did ended up in either a crown or a lost tooth, what's that tell ya. My final procedure will be done in June with having a crown put on another tooth. I'm eager to get it done. I feel a lot better about myself these days. Like it's worth getting up in the morning, going to work and focusing on myself. It's not just weight loss related, yes it helps but some of it is just me turning a corner I guess.

I have a decent job that pays well enough. I have a loving boyfriend that loves me for who I am regardless of weight or looks, but me as a person (something I don't think I've ever had before). I'm almost finished with my master's degree (6 more classes woo!), and plan on pursuing a nursing liscense when I'm done me thinks. I'm losing weight (even if it's a little up and down right now), and basically I'm getting my life going again.

The last 3 years have really flown by for me. They were a dark time in which I was basically just putting one foot in front of the other trying to get through each day not caring what I did, ate, or if I even spent all day in front of a computer day in and day out.

Now I'm beginning again. Enjoying walking home because it's so nice outside, enjoying listening to music, watching movies, reading books, and doing cross stitch like I used to.

Life is good.

Amber

Weekend indulging

I'm finding it harder and harder to stay on task when it comes to eating over the weekend. I need to get back into the routine of getting groceries on Friday so that we have groceries in the house for the weekend so I'm not tempted to just "go out to eat" at sonic or mcdonalds or something of the like. Granted, my food choices are better than they have been in the past, but I still don't like to eat out. It's like just inviting myself to start over with the eating out all the time or making bad choices and thus inviting myself to regain all that I have lost.

I need a routine in general but I never seem to want to deal with it. Part of it is laziness on the weekends, I'm pretty tired from working all week that I just want to relax on the weekends, and the other part is because of the time of year. I tend to get a little down this time of year for reasons already previously stated related to my father's passing away.

But, on a completely different and much more geek like note, if you haven't seen Star Trek, GO NOW! I went Sunday and I loved it (though I loved Star Trek in general so it's not too hard to win me over). It's defientally one I will be buying on DVD, and there's not many I do that for.

So for now, I bid ya'll g'bye! I've got a homework assignment to get to working on if I plan on having any time after work for my own thing today.

Amber

Challenges abound!

Ever have a day like this?

There are times when I feel like the woman above lol. This week is one of them. Over the weekend I had more computer woes. My graphics card, evidently, overheated and was messing up, causing me to not be able to play any video games. It worked out well for me in some aspects, I was bored enough to go for a walk, twice. But it also hindered me in other ways because I ended up in Albuquerque at Ken's house getting it fixed which ment, yep, you guessed it, eating out. We had chinese food for lunch/dinner (I ate enough that I wasn't hungry later for dinner), but then his wife (who recently gave birth 2 or 3 weeks ago) wanted a rootbeer float. So I ended up with a blizzard type ice cream though thankfully I only ate about 1/2 of it before I was sick of it. But still. Impromptu buying for the loss!

I had to plunk down another 250 dollars on my computer for a new graphics card and a new power supply because the one in my computer wasn't heavy enough to handle the required wattage needed for the new graphics card. I figured if I'm going to get a new card I may as well upgrade. Nvidia Geforce 9600 series ftw.... >.> Anyway....

So I got back on Sunday night/Monday morning about 12:30am. I had to hook up the computer before I went to bed, got that all done, was in bed by about 1:15. But unforunately I couldn't sleep well, tossed and turned all night. Ended up going probably getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep before getting up for work. So needless to say I was exausted all day, and had a homework assignment still due yesterday. So I succumbed to the need of caffiene. If you'll remember, sometime in Feb I gave it up. Soda that is. I occassional have a sprite, but not very often. Usually when eating out I'll have one sprite then have water after. Well, because of my need to get my homework done before going to bed, and only having slept for 2 or 3 hours, I had D pick me up my first diet dew in forever...got a 1 liter, knew I'd need that much. Turns out I was right, I did need that much. It woke me up enough to finish my homework in a timely manner, and make it able to be understood.

The nice thing? I am not even wanting another one. It was good to have it available yesterday to keep me going long enough to get something done before bed, but I honestly didn't enjoy the taste of it. It was just too ... I dunno, citrusy? Or something? no clue, but not interested!

So I haven't had time to weigh myself. I woke up at the last minute yesterday because I just couldn't drag myself up, I got up at the last minute today because I was trying to squeeze just a little more lovely sleep outta the morning before work. I really don't feel up or down, just kinda here.

I have noticed my skin isn't so tight as it used to be. not like, hanging off skin flab type, but just....easier to be wrinkled? Maybe? Especially around my stomach. My clothes that I was wearing that were kinda tight are looser now. Those Capri's I found a month or so ago that fit but were just a bit snug can actually be pulled down without unbuttoning them. I thought I had different pants on (elastic ones) and pulled them down to go to the bathroom one day and they came right off and I was like...oh...wait...uhh those aren't the pants I thought! lol. Oh well!

So, I'm just going to keep chugging along.

Post something later when I know what my actual weight is...

Amber

COOKIES!

Zomg, I hate working in a dental office sometimes. We get vendors and other salesmen who come in, patients, old collegues of Dr. M, and god only knows who other random people that walk through that door and by god they bring cookies, cake, chocolate, oranges (my fav), and all sorts of oddball goodies for us to eat, as if we needed them!

Today is no exception. It's been a while since we've gotten any goodies, since Christmas really. And frankly I had forgotten we got some now and again, until...

This woman walks through the door holding a box of cookies. She sets them down and talks to Dr. M, who then takes them in the back and places them on the mini-fridge. And there they've sat, taunting me all day. Now, normally I would've jumped immediately and gotten a cookie, munching on it, going back for 2 or 3 more and feel incredibly guilty about having ate so many. However! Today, I was a good girl. It took almost 3 hours for me to make up my mind whether I wanted one or not, and another 20 minutes to eat one. That's right. It took me TWENTY MINUTES to eat a cookie! I savored it. It was a good cookie. not too large, not too small, just the right amount of chocolate goodness that is oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The crunchy kind too. The shit I tell you.

So I had a cookie! Sue me! But, I'm very proud of myself for refusing myself (so far) to go back for any other cookie. Willpower at its finest folks! This is what living is about, moderation! I know I know, some people can't do the moderation. But honestly if I don't learn to do moderation now, I never will. I refuse to live life eating nothing but veggies and good crap and being afraid to walk past a bakery, go to a kid's birthday party or make cookies for friends and family for Christmas.

No, I plan on living life to the fullest, through moderation. Eating that small piece of birthday cake at a birthday party, having a cookie every once in a great while...it's all apart of life, and if you indulge infrequently, there's no reason not to! But I digress, the whole point of this was to explain my excited-ness of being able to say NO to more than one cookie :)

Amber

On the down train again!

That's right, I hopped back up on the train heading south and I'm down out of the 260's this week to 259.7. How exciting! Bye bye 260's! That means that I lost 3.7 this week. Now to me that seems a bit high, I haven't had that high of a loss since I started. However, I think some of my "weight gain" from last week was because my food over the weekend was high in salt, so it was probably a little water retention and a little actual weight. I also did some working out over the weekend, I did a little walking one of the days, hand washed my car another day (it was so beautiful outside), did some running around walmart buying some things to make my house a little less cluttered, and then came home and half cleaned my house (yes my house was so gawd awful cluttered I only accomplished half this weekend). Most of my clutter is cd's and games. Oh the joy of trying to put all the games back away because D continually pulls them out and leaves them out. Someday I'll break him of that lol.

So I'm not far from my 10%. It seems like when I started all of this my 10% was sooo far away and now I'm within a couple of weeks of reaching it. I guess I better save my 130 dollars and make an appointment for my massage huh? :) I am so looking forward to it, it's a genuine japanese bathhouse that offers massages for 100 dollars for 1 hour, and for 30 more you get the VIP treatment where they focus for another half an hour on a problem spot, and then you get to use a private bath before you leave. So worth it! Never done it but it sounds like heaven on earth, and I have a spot in my neck that always seems to be bothering me. >.<

Amber

Doing better.

I weighed myself this morning out of curiosity, and I'm back down to 261 which makes me happy. Some of it I'm sure was water retention and the rest was just what I ate in general. I really stuck to my guns this week, eating really well and trying to drink a ton of water.

So here's to hoping I'll be actually down for this weigh in :)

Amber

The official weight

So I remembered to weigh myself this morning. I didn't drink enough water yesterday, I can tell that today. Feeling pretty dehydrated, and most of what I ate this weekend was probably loaded with salt. But regardless, I'm at 263.4 according to my scale (I didn't have time for the Wii fit body test, I was running behind. The scale is generally a tad higher but m'eh). So up 2.2 from last week.

Such is life, and I frankly am not worried. It's not even really a true "set back" because I knew going into the weekend my eating would NOT be on par. Yesterday I stuck true to my guns, I had a small piece of left-over steak from the night before and a salad for lunch. I ate spaghetti for dinner and had a frozen fruit thing I got from the store for dessert, though I'm not sure I'll eat any of the others. They're really sugary, and it tastes sugary. I was looking for something frozen that was sweet to ease sweet cravings I do get from time to time and happened across these and they sounded ok. But, I don't care for them, so I'll let D eat them. Or his daughter :)

So there you have it

Amber

Don't even want to *look* at the scale.

First of all, I forgot today was Monday. Like, I knew that I had to get up and go to work today but it's been such an odd weekend I'm all turned around. We had a very nice weekend out, despite the beginning circumstances.

I had to drive D down to Albuquerque on Wednesday afternoon so he could have a friend of him drive him to pick up his car (long story, I won't even go there). So I had the house to myself Wednesday night. Thursday right after work I packed up my stuff and headed down there myself, we'd planned on going down Friday for a big get together with Mike and Ken and their wives. So we stayed Thursday night to hang with Ken and Robin and their new baby (he's such a cutie!). Friday we had a decent breakfast, eggs, hashbrowns (I limited myself to one of those), biscuit (one), and I had a small piece of ham (which I put on my biscuit). Didn't eat any lunch because it was such a filling breakfast, and I knew we'd be having a huge dinner. I was right. We went to a mexican restraunt, and I had 2 tacos and a bite of enchilada off D's plate. I also had the rice and beans and then we (D and I) split a soppapilla (sp?) with honey, I'd never even heard of them. It was ok I guess.

As if that day wasn't bad enough, Saturday we had a small breakfast then on our way home we stopped at an A&W/Long John Silvers. I can't go to A&W without a real A&W drink, it's the only rootbeer I like. I got a 2 piece chicken thing and ate the chicken and 1 hushpuppy and a very small handfull of fries. I had Ramen for dinner (I cut back on the sodium by only using 1/2 a packet of flavoring, it tastes just as good), because D was asleep at dinner time.

And then, Sunday we went out to eat at the local Chinese place. I was actually pretty good there. I had a small sampling of a few things, and then had some fruit to round it off. We had a pretty heavy dinner though, I had a 6 to 8 oz steak, we had mashed potatoes, a tiny bit of gravy (for me anyway), and then some green beans and mushrooms sauteed in a little bit of light butter. Was good and all, but pretty heavy.

This morning I got up and ate breakfast real quick and had an entire bottle of water before I realized that it was Monday which is traditionally my weigh in day. I'll have to try to remember to weigh in tomorrow. If I'm up, I'm up. If not, so be it. I enjoyed the weekend with friends and ate out way too much but unlike previously I am not taking that as the green light to eat whatever I want whenever I want and am completely back to eating healthy again. I had oatmeal for breakfast, with a glass of OJ and then a bottle of water. I'm probably going to have a salad when I go home for lunch, if not, then Ramen, depends on my mood, and then for dinner I have some quick spagetti planned (I have a large assignment due tonight that I didn't really get a chance to work on since I was away all weekend). Tomorrow I plan on making some chicken stirfry, Wednesday I have stew meat that I'll marinade in low sodium teriyaki and bake and Thursday I have the stuff to make some George Forman grilled chicken, have some regular baked beans (no pork!), and something else...maybe green beans or peas who knows. So defientally still on the bandwagon.

The other thing that's exciting me is that I have D excited to start going for walks with me. We'd talked about it but it was so cold he wouldn't go. Now it's starting to warm up and he said probably in the next couple of weeks it'll start warming up and staying warm, not this warming up then dropping down cold because a storm is rolling in or wondering if it's going to start raining while we're out and about, etc. Which means if he starts going for walks with me, I'll have more incentive to go. We won't be able to do any 3 or 4 mile hikes or anything by any means, because he has a messed up knee and can't walk for an extended period without pain. But that's ok, because I can't walk an extended period without getting winded because of my asthma (stupid elevation), at least for now.

So hopefully I'll remember to weigh tomorrow and letcha'll know my damages :) Though, I'm honestly not really worried about it.

Amber

Weight Loss

Crusing around a bunch of my usual blogs I noticed many people regretting their easter love fest with food. Wish I could say the same. No easter gathering here, so consider ya'll lucky that you had people to spend it with! lol.

No, I'm one of those rare people that actually lost weight this week. Weigh in today, down 1.2. I'm at 261.2, and the end of the 260's and beginning of the 250's is in sight. I'm stoked. Though, I do have a pound and probably 1/4 in the fridge, and I did have left over ham for lunch today, but I will soon be hammed out. I have half a mind to freeze some...wonder if that's practical.

Anyway, regardless, I'm going to try to get more walking in. It's be soooooo pretty out last week, this week is shaping to be pretty similar, so hopefully I'll get the "Let's get out of the house" bug more.

I think I can honestly say that this time around, I'm serious about my weight loss. Never before have I lost more than 10 or 15 pounds without gaining back 30. Never before have I cut off my soda intake to a bare minimum (I'm averaging one maybe two sprites per month, where before I was drinking 6 to 12 cans of diet dew per day, see any time to drink water in there? I sure didn't). Never before have I cooked so much, I usually would eat out more than I'd eat in. Nor go to a restraunt and order something good for me, or even something not do good but only eat part of it. Or go to Sonic and get a jr. candy sundae and be content with that little bit. It's like before I would drop a size in clothing and then go back to eating as I always did and gain it right back.

Now I can say that the shirt I bought a couple of weeks ago that was kind of borderline tight/fitting now fits fine and is actually even slightly loose.

So why the sudden change? Why now and not 5 or 6 years ago? I'll tell you why. I'm sick of it. Sick of feeling big, sick of BEING big, sick of not being able to tie my shoes, sick of constantly being tired, of the caffinee headaches, the constant asthma problems, the bullshit of being a large person. That and quite frankly, I want children. Maybe not right this minute, but down the road. If I get winded and worn out from one flight of stairs what the hell am I going to do in labor?! lol. Yeah screw that! I prefer a normal birth to a c-section, much less pain kthxbai! I want to run around chasing my kids, and being able to drive my car without feeling like the seatbelt is going to kill me just from trying to change the channel.

I want to live, and that's why this time it's different...

Just keep telling myself that and my weight loss should follow suit right? :)

Amber

A more Recent Photo

So most of the photos of me are a bit older. But when my mom came to visit, she took a new picture of me and my cousins near my house, there's a little senic pull off place and we pulled off there to take a picture.

Anyway, I'd lost about 10 or so pounds in this new picture. I'm down 15 more from that (give or take). The shirt I have on (under the little coat thing) is actually way more loose on me now than it looks in the picture. And you can see my new haircut, I got gutsy and went even shorter lol.

:)

Anyway, so here it is.

Amber

A boring Easter

So if there's one thing I absolutely miss about being in Illinois it's the huge get togethers my family always did. If it was a holiday of any sort, we got together, had a huge meal, just...was a family. You don't get that much these days, most families aren't really all that close, not near as close as my family is. So I called this evening to ask my mom about cooking the ham (I had a generally good idea of how to do it but wanted to make sure I remembered right), and of course she was at my aunt and uncle's house having a big cookout. All the hubub! My entire family (once they realized it was me) demanded to speak to me to say Happy Easter.

I miss that a lot.

Like. A Whole Lot.

Now that my grandfather is gone (he passed away the day after Thanksgiving this past year), much of my family is making plans to move. The bond that held them all there was my grandparents, and now many of my aunts and uncles are older, in their late 40's and mid 50's and they're tired of the cold and crap of IL, so they're all pretty much looking to move (me being a huge advocate of them moving here! lol). It saddens me to know that my family is all going their seperate ways, not because they don't want to be near eachother, but because they each have their own version of "paradise" that they're looking for.

What saddens me more is I'm not there to enjoy the last few big get togethers. My family was huge, my grandparents had 6 kids, and each of those kids (with the exception of my mother due to circumstances surrounding my father's accident) had an average of 3 to 4 kids. Now most of us that are my age (about....9 of us grandkids) have an average of 2 or 3, I'm the only one old enough to have kids that don't at this point. So you can imagine the size of those get togethers!

But, I'm currently awaiting my ham-goodness to get done cooking. I bought a smallish ham (I wasn't going to buy one at all), so that I could have left overs for lunch (ham sandwich anyone?!). So it'll be small, just myself and D, and we'll just have mashed potatoes and greenbeans and some stuffing (well he'll have the stuffing I probably won't) and call it a done deal.

Just another day.

Amber

Wall of pictures!

Ok peeps! Be prepared for a wall of pictures! I got ze camera working and finally was able to upload my pictures!

This is where we spread my dad's ashes, down there by that dead looking tree, it drops off and we stood on that rock when we spread them. It was beautiful there.

My "back yard". I get to see them every day :)

Me, my mom and my two "sisters". This was taken in 2007, about 6 months after my dad died. I'm about as heavy in that picture as I was when I started this thing.

Ok, enough pictures. :) I have more but I want to keep you coming back right? lol. I went for a walk today. I walked around the block, which in reality is a mile and a half walk. My block is big, what can I say. lol. Anyway, it's also got half of the really ugly steep climb to get through in order to walk around it. It took me 37 minutes to walk the mile and a half (or so my pedometer says, it says I had 37 minutes of aerobic walking, so I'm assuming that's how long it took). I'm going to have to work on cutting that down! lol.

I dunno why I went for a walk. I guess I was just in the mood. Here's to hoping I get into the mood more often.

Amber

Back to work I go!

As much as I would much rather lounge around the house some more, I'm back to work today. I'm still not 100%, but at least I'm not trying to decide if I need to sit on the toilet or hug it. I'm still a little queasy, still pretty tired and a little dehydrated (thankfully Dr. M is letting me keep my bottled water next to me today, so long as I keep the cap on). But other than that, at least I'm functioning again. Could be worse I tell myself!

I did next to nothing yesterday. I finally got myself well enough to not be running to the bathroom every 2 minutes (or feeling like I should just pull a blanket and pillow in there to sleep lol) probably around noon. D came home shortly there after with some medicine I asked for him to pick up for me, and thus began my long laying on the couch for hours watching mindless tv (I almost never watch tv, unless it's commercial free, like Law and Order on dvd). I fell asleep a couple of times for a little bit, and went to bed by 11pm. D was such a sweetie, he made sure I had water bottles nearby, got me some orange juice from the store, and some 7up (I prefer sprite but oh well). So 90% of my diet yesterday was liquid. I did have a few bites of some brocolli and cheese soup from Quiznos that he brought home for me but that's it. The rest of it was regular 7up and orange juice (calorie wise of course).

So today I haven't had breakfast, I made some oatmeal but the smell of it was making my stomach begin to flip flop. Gave it to D instead. I'm not hungry, so I'm not too worried about it but I do know I need to eat. Hopefully I'll be able to eat something at lunch, even if I have to go to the store and get some soup or something.

Here's to hoping!

Amber

Ill

I sit here recovering from an intimate morning with my bathroom. Not cool. Yesterday D wasn't feeling too well, achy and running a fever, very lathargic. I kept my distance, and hoped to not catch whatever it is. This morning I woke up before dawn and not only was I achy and doing the whole hot cold dance that you do when you have a fever, but I'm also throwing up and can't make up my mind if I want to sit on the toilet or throw up into it if you know what I mean.

Ugh.

I hate calling off work. In the time I've worked for Dr. M I've only had to call him once to tell him I couldn't come and that was when my grandpa died and I had to fly home for his funeral. I always feel so bad for calling off at any place, but especially for Dr. M because it's a small office and there's no back up receptionist really. :(

So I don't plan on posting much, I'm going to go watch tv and relax. Hopefully I'll feel better.

Amber

Another week gone by.

Another week has gone by, and no idea how I lost 1.6. I really didn't do anything especially different. Maybe the less eating out helped, while I haven't been gung-ho let's eat out, the week before last was a kind of odd week because I had the computer break which set me way behind on my homework, caused me to opt to bring home chinese rather than cook so that I could get the assignment done on time (which I did, barely, 30 more minutes and it would've been late).

I guess this week I just spent more time cooking dinner at home than I did anything. I didn't really do anything else different. So, I only have 2.4 more pounds to go before I'm at 260. Dropping below 260 will make me really happy. It'd put me really close to my 10%. I think some of the problem I'm running into is I'm not getting groceries on the weekends like I used to. It's like I get just enough to last a maybe 3 or 4 days on Friday and then I run out by Monday or Tuesday and have to go get more and the grocery store is always so very hectic after work, I hate shopping, but my freezer and fridge is too small to really have much in it. I so can't wait until we get a new place, here or Albuquerque lol. The whole economy size fridge and freezer is for the birds!

I've also realized something else. When I'm at my computer I get the munchies, or if I have something to eat that's too big (like last night, D brought home McDonalds on his way home and I hadn't ate yet so I went ahead and ate it...all of it, despite not wanting to because I didn't realize I was eating it, I was too focused on some other stuff going on on my computer), I tend to just eat it all or eat too fast and I'm like, wow it's gone but I'm still hungry.

Problem is, I have no where else to eat. We have no table (there's no room), and no coffee table to set anything on to eat on the couch. So the only real place to eat is my computer desk. I've gotta figure something out! >.<

I also wanted to throw a big CONGRATS out to my friends Ken and Robin who had their baby boy at 8:25 this morning. A strapping 6 pound 1 oz baby boy. Now to go down there soon and baby-nap him and give him lovin' and such in the next couple of weeks. Newborns are so cute! lol

Anyway, I'm going to get some stuff done here at work.

Amber

Struggling

No, I haven't fallen off the bandwagon. I am struggling in other ways. Yes my eating is affected by it, and thus my weight, but not a full blown fall off the wagon. It has nothing to do with eating out, and everything to do with being just too tired and too worn out to cook non-easy to make food. I go through a period as the weather warms up and July approaches in which I get depressed. It's seasonal, and it's related to my father's death. My father passed away July 6th, and you may say "But that's months away!" and it's true it is. But this time of the year was always my dad's favorite. He hated winter, we lived in Illinois where winter was just brutal, cold, windy and just awful. So when the weather would warm up, he'd grill out, even in like 40 degree weather he'd be out in the little patio thing and grilled in a short sleeve shirt and jeans as if it was 60 or 70 out, when it's been in the negatives for months 40 degrees out feels like a summer day.

When my father got diagnosed with his cancer in May of '06, of course my entire family was shocked, the whole 2 days to 2 weeks to live just floored us. I tried to get time off from work to go home and help take care of my dad and enjoy the last days with him and I was told no. I quit of course. I had next to no money in my account, I filed for situational unemployment and won, which is probably the only thing that kept me afloat at that time. I spent the late nights watching over my dad and my mom spent the days. I often went without sleep for days, not by choice mind you. My dad, because of the toxins invading his body from his liver shutting down due to the cancer was like a 51 year old 2 year old when it came to getting into stuff. Unfortunately he was taller than my mom or I so putting stuff out of reach wasn't really an option lol. But basically you couldn't leave anything out in the open or he'd get into it. So I stayed up all night, since I'd worked night shift before quitting my job, and then during the day I'd go out and do errands, or go to dinner with a friend of mine or something. Well of course, I'd just fib and say I napped when dad was napping in his chair at night but in reality I'd be up all night and get no sleep.

So when this time of year comes around I have a really hard time sleeping. Tonight, for example, I woke up at about 1:30am. I haven't been able to get back to bed, it's now 5am and I have to be to work in 2 and a half hours. I don't really engage in emotional eating, I go the opposite way, I don't eat. Or if I do eat I feel sick from it. Go figure. What's frustrating is that I am not entirely sure what to do about it. No, medication doesn't help, the side effects are worse than what I go through as it is, and therapy is m'eh. I've been there, done that, and wasn't impressed. I don't have daddy issues, I have death issues, there's a difference, and the last therapist I went to was all about the whole "You have daddy issues"....no, I really don't. My dad and I may not have been on the absolute best of terms throughout the years because of his schizophrenia, but I loved him, and felt loved by him, and know I made him proud while he was alive, so there's no issues. A couple of years before he died he apologized for stuff from my childhood, basically that he made me stay home and have no friends, and that he could be so mean sometimes (very mood swingy until he got his medications working right), etc etc. That's fine, we talked, we cried, we hugged, we moved on. So it's not like I didn't have closure on that aspect, don't need a therapist to try to make it out to be something it's not. If you didn't live my life, you don't know, so don't try you know?

No, my issue with everything has just been his passing, and time does help but it doesn't heal all. So every year it gets a little better, but still sucks to struggle through. My dad was 51 when he passed. My mom widowed at 43. Maybe it'd be a little easier if I knew my mom would be taken care of, that she had a man in her life, but so far she's not interested or even looking. I've made it perfectly clear that I have NO issues with her looking again. Hell she's YOUNG, she needs someone else in her life eventually,and I didn't want her thinking I'd hold her back. lol the day I told her she kinda gave me that sideways glance dog heard something look, but I just explained that I didn't mean she needed to go out right then and there and find someone, but that when she felt the time was right and she wanted to move on, that I didn't want to be the thought that entered her mind to hold her back. That was a little over a year after my dad passed. I think the only thing that keeps my mom sane and continuing to move in this world is my cousins that she's guardian of. My parents were married just shy 25 years. They were the first that either fell in love with, so it was especially hard on my mom.

Basically I'm not sleeping, so I'm tired. Since I'm so tired, I don't feel like cooking the meals I did towards the beginning. Since I'm not cooking, I tend to eat more processed stuff than I had in the past, and that has salt in it. This week I have gained a little but I believe it's salt related due to the fact that today I had some Uncle Ben's rice that has quite a bit of salt, and yesterday we had stovetop stuffing, day before that I bought Chinese knowing that I had a huge assignment to finish. Beyond not cooking and not eating as well as I should, I haven't exercised at all, I'm just too exausted. I force myself to stay up until a decent hour before laying down to sleep so I'm not up all night and end up being up all night anyway.

Talk about frustrating. Sorry for being so long winded and probably depressing and such. But since this is my blog, and this affects my weight loss, I'm putting it in here. lol

For now I shall go see if I can find a spot in my bed (provided D isn't like...sprawled across the entire bed by now) and catch an hour or so of shut eye before work. Hope everyone else has a better day than me!

Amber

A small loss.

Hmm, I didn't realize I hadn't posted in a few days. I've just been busy. I only lost .5 pounds this week but I'm ok with that. I blame the absolute awesome Outback Steakhouse dinner I had two nights ago. lol. Do you realize how incredibly difficult it is to find a "good for you" meal at outback! lol. I am proud of myself though. My absolute favorite appetizer is their bloomin' onion. I LOVE IT. I've only ever had Outback twice before this weekend and both times we got the onion and I could easily eat half to 3/4 on my own. We also got the cheese fries as well.

I managed to eat 5 of the little petals from the onion and 2 of the fries, for the taste really. I also ordered a 6 oz sirloin rather than a huge 14 oz ribeye or some other insanely large piece of meat. I got the green beans thinking they would be pretty nutritious but they slather them in some sort of butter sauce. I also got the garlic mashed potatoes. I ate all the potatoes, about half of the greenbeans and the 6 oz steak. They also asked if we wanted any dessert, and I got their chocolate brownie thing, but I asked for a small portion, and they gave me about half of a normal piece, and of that piece I ate about half of that. It was very good, I savored every little bite :)

It was a very good dinner. I did not feel overly stuffed when I left. I was pleasently satisfied and it was a really really nice treat. But I know it was just FULL of salt, so that's probably why yesterday and a little today I'm still feeling bloated. I just keep chugging my water :) So I'm not going to sweat the small loss, I know WHY I didn't lose as much as normal, and I don't feel bad about it. It was a nice night out with two really good friends (one of which is expecting her second child any day now), their first kid and my friend's mom. I had an absolute blast!

So today it's back to the grindstone. I have nothing really to eat at the house, so I'm going to have to go to the store before I go home tonight if I expect to eat dinner. lol. So for lunch I plan on getting a good for me subway sandwich, and then get something for dinner. I would love to have porkchops tonight but D's home tonight, so that's not going to happen. Perhaps I will get some Chicken breasts and george forman grill them. I wish we lived in a house or a duplex where we could have an outdoor grill. I really love grilled anything really. lol.

Anyway I need to get some work done here at work, in anticipation of going home tonight and doing nothing but working on my homework assignment. Oh...joy...

Anyway, so toodaloo! Enjoy your day!

Amber

Hmph!

Why can't I seem to get my fat ass to go out and exercise? I mean seriously! Yes I know part of it is being afraid of my asthma, ok, well, fine. But at the same time I seem to always be so excited and pumped up for the weekends to go for walks and then the weekends come and I sit in my house or something. I'm getting irritated with myself. I find reasons to not go for a walk, I feel silly just walking down the block and back, and our block is so large, to walk around it is like a 3 mile walk (I kid you not!) and a good half of it is I swear at a 45 degree angle. lol. Last time I walked to the YMCA for a meeting, my legs hurt so bad for the next week I didn't want to do anything. That's half my problem too, I get to where my muscles hurt and I don't want to exercise anymore.

/le sigh.

Well, this weekend I had all this awesome exercise planned out and I realized it would probably be dashed to pieces. I forgot that Saturday I promised a friend I'd come over to his house (in Rio Rancho, about 2 hours from here), so I'll be there all day Saturday. Friday I have to work at least half a day, possibly longer. Horray for overtime but ugh I want my 3 days off in a row! I'm so spoiled lol. I also have to do laundry, grocery shopping and clean my house on Friday. So two out of the three days I had plans for exercising is kind of out the window... >.>

This whole trying to exercise around my hectic life schedule sucks.

Amber

20 pounds down.

So today was another weigh in day. I'm officially down 20 pounds.

TWENTY POUNDS!

I am 8.5 pounds away from my 10%.

I officially stopped weight watchers...I still have access to the site and forums and such but I no longer have to pay for it, and have no access to the tracker, points etc etc. Why? There's things about it I don't really care for and I wasn't using it like I should so why pay for something I'm not using. What I'm doing is working for me so far so I'm going to stick with what I'm doing. :) What's that? Counting calories, making sure I'm eating healthy and exercising. I still have the same freedom that I have with Weight Watchers. I can eat whatever I want, I just have to keep in mind that having pizza for lunch may mean I might have to eat a smaller dinner, or I may be more hungry or something. Not that I generally DO eat pizza for lunch or whatever, but I refuse to live a secluded "I'm on a diet" life. No, I will not say "I cannot have that". Rather I say "I can have that if I eat a small portion" or "I can have something similar such as a cookie dough sunday made by weight watchers made with low fat ice cream rather than a small thing of ben and jerry's cookie dough ice cream.

It's all choices, right? I choose what I eat, when I eat it and exercise and the pounds come off. Simple. Yet so many diets make things so complicated. I've done the low carb/no carb diet in the past, hated it. My personal trainer tells me to stay away from potatoes as a main veggie and I do. I used to eat meat potatoes and maybe greenbeans or corn or peas just about every night. Now it's more meat cooked with veggies. Or meat and a baked potato with green beans. Or like two nights ago, we had a small steak, mashed potatoes with gravy (I limited my gravy to 2 tbsp) and peas. I also had a small salad with it.

The challenge I have in my life is my boyfriend does not need to lose weight, and I do. I'm sure many out there have the same problem. Yes he will generally eat whatever I put in front of him, but there are times when he wants "real" food as he puts it. Last night is a prime example. He loves taco bell, so do I. I used to be able to eat a 7 layer burrito, 2 tacos, a thing of nachos and slam down a baja blast dew with it all. I don't even want to know how many calories that is. Last night he got a burrito, taco and mountain dew. I got 2 soft shell tacos with tomato and a small sprite. I ate it, I was full, life was good. I savored every bite. I hadn't had tacos from taco bell in forever! So each bite was like...immensly good to me. Before I'd scarf it, and I'd be hungry after because I ate too fast. Now I ate slowly, and enjoyed it, and was full.

I've come a long way since Jan 9th when I started. I know some people may say "OMG YOU HAD TACO BELL FOR DINNER!" and do the "shame on you" finger wagging. But I say back why not?! In small amounts, infrequently, there is NO SHAME in having "fast food". What's important is what I do after I've had such food. Do I crave the fast food and go back for more and more until I'm back to eating the way I used to eat, or do I go back to eating healthy, cooking at home, and such? Considering I always go back to eating healthy there is nothing wrong with a small deviation of living life!

My 20 pound loss I think speaks for itself.

On the computer front, it's still not working correctly. /le sigh. We had to go back to Best Buy and get a different hard drive because the one we got wasn't working correctly with Windows XP. Oh joy. So we got it back home and hooked up and got XP on it and it works...but the network card I have for that computer is on board....and I don't know where my cd's went. >.< So we got onto D's computer and found the drivers I needed but...we're both plugged into the modem, and XP don't allow that, we need a hub. /grumble.

Basically I can't get on the internet, so I can't update most of my shit, and I am extremly frustrated. I plan on going to Radio Shack today and see if I can pick up a hub and a new network card so I can stop using all this "on board" bullshit and actually get this working. SO FRUSTRATING! >.> I hate computers sometimes.

I also have my homework assignment due tonight. I worked on it over the weekend but life kept getting in the way. It was so nice out this weekend I went for a couple of walks. Then on Saturday we went to his mom and dad's house to get his brakes worked on, and have our visit with his daughter and I did my laundry. We were there most of the day. Sunday was the whole work on the computer thing, and so I didn't get shit done other than about 500 to 600 words out of the 1400 word paper. Shouldn't take me long tonight to get it done though, one would hope.

So that's been my weekend. Not a whole lot to talk about. Life is good, weight comes off, I still need new pants. I'm about to call my mom and have her ship pants from IL to me if I can't find any here! lol.

Amber

Hazzah!

I got my computer parts! We actually ended up going Wednesday evening, just D and I. It was nice to get out of the house. It can be hard to get him moving sometimes to get going, part of his problem. But he was in a great mood, I was in a great mood, and Santa Fe is lovely at night. So we hit up Best Buy around 7pm after filling one of my tires with air (I still haven't replaced them, stupid Santa Fe Walmart doesn't have a tire center!). We got my new hard drive (500gig for 100 bucks! not too shabby really), and a dvd burner WITHOUT lightscribe technology, and a new decent sound card so I won't have to use my on board card thus eliminating the whole scratchy voice over vent problem I've been having. Also picked up a new video game just cuz, all in all I spent 250 bucks. When we get all this stuff in the only thing I won't have replaced is Ram and/or Motherboard lol. Ahh well, that'll be next year probably...

So I had an off day on Wednesday eating wise. Though I'm pretty proud of myself none the less. Wednesday afternoon I had this nice little lunch planned, chicken salad with green onion, and black olives a splash of dressing and a tiny bit of cheese. I had the salad already in a bowl waiting for me at home and when I got to work...SURPRISE! We're going out for lunch at the chinese buffet because a co-worker had a birthday and we need to do her birthday lunch...oh...joy...

So I managed to go through the buffet with ONLY getting 1 cup of beef and brocolli and one cup of rice and 2 small pieces of the chicken used for sweet and sour chicken. That's it! ALL I HAD! >.< I wasn't hungry so I had no real desire to go back for anything except I did go back for probably close to a cup of fresh red grapes. HOLY SHIT! I MADE IT THROUGH A BUFFET ON ONE PLATE THAT WASNT EVEN FULL! Can you believe it? I sure as hell couldn't.

Anyway, so I was really excited, I got home and asked D if he wanted to go to Santa Fe, was shocked he said ok on a work night. We went and got the stuff and it was getting late, both of us were starving. So he started to head off to taco bell but I diverted him to Wendy's. I couldn't think of much that Taco Bell had on their menu that would be even close to being a "good choice". At Wendy's I got a large chili a 5 piece nugget and a small fry. I had about 3/4 of the chili, 4 of the nuggets and not even half of the small fry I got. Probably not the best choice ever for food, but I rarely get to eat Wendy's but you can't go to Wendy's without having a couple of chicken nuggets! I should've just stole a couple of D's fry's instead of ordering a fry, but a new idea floated into my head.

I do not have to eat all that I order!

New idea! WOW! I don't have to eat everything I order if I get full before I've ate it all! WHAT A CONCEPT! I got full and still had 2 nuggets and a good half of my fries and I looked at it and was like...why do I feel like I HAVE to eat this food? There's no reason to eat it if I'm full, so...I grabbed one more nugget (they're so good!), picked up my try and pitched it. D kind of gave me that cock-eyed dog heard something look and when I asked what he said it was the first time since I moved here that he'd ever seen me throw away food off my plate. Ever. I've been here almost a year. He asked if I was feeling ok and I said yeah I just was full.

Quite interesting this is. Learn something new every day. I may even try this at home! lol. I've also started putting dinner away into the fridge as SOON as we get our plates. I'm less tempted to get more if I walk near an empty stove than if there's still food out waiting to be eaten I've noticed.

So that's been my week, how's yours been? Oh, and for the record, despite my eating on Wednesday, I'm still down to what weight I was when I was at the end of being sick, so I've still lost so far this week. :) And I haven't even exercised yet, that comes today and Sunday XD

Toodaloo!

Amber

Computer Woes

Well, peeps, my computer hates me. Feeling is mutual at this point. I went home for lunch yesterday, had a quick bite as normal and sat down to do a little mid day wow-ing for the rest of my lunch hour. After my wow-ing was over, I shut the program off and went to brush my teeth before returning to work and when I came back around the corner, my computer had reset itself. Odd, I thought. So I told it to restart windows normally and...it wouldn't load windows! Stupid computer...

So I frantically called D and told him at work, and he said he'd take a look when he got home. He did, and came to the conclusion my hard drive is dying. Booo...While we got it up and running again, he doubts it'll last long, and I have to spend the next few days backing up all of my information and such. I am just hoping it'll hold out until Friday. I am off Friday and can go get the parts, and D said he'd put them in on Saturday for me since by the time I'd get the parts on Friday he'd be at work already and wouldn't get home until late.

Oh the joys of computers....

For now, eating is on track. My back and legs are still hurting something fierce from Sunday so I've been nursing them, hopefully I'll get to do some exercising later this week.

Amber

Weigh in day again!

So being sick really messed with my weight loss. I lost 2.9, which is awesome, but not, by any means, in the way I would've liked to. 3 solid days of not being able to eat hardly anything had me down almost 6 pounds, some of which came back when I started eating and hydrating again, and I'm fine with that.

So I guess I hit my 5% mark last week and didn't notice. I had to get under 270 to hit it and I did. lol. Shows you how much I look at numbers eh? Only reason I knew I did was because I joined WW at 281, 4 pounds under my initial starting weight of 285. I put my weight in today and it flagged it as having lost 5%, which perked my curiosity to see when I actually hit it since I started this journey a little before I started WW.

I got to thinking yesterday about reasons I started all this, beyond just the "Oh I need to lose weight for my health" thing. I think it all started when I realized that yet again my clothes were getting too tight, and uncomfortable. I was going to walmart looking for clothes and 4x clothes were either too tight, or didn't seem to fall quite right, too short, or whatever, and I was depressed. I could barely get my seatbelt on without it feeling like a struggle. I was having to take my winter coat off before getting into my car in order to be able to wear my seatbelt. No more! I told myself. Yesterday I noticed that the shirt I was wearing was no longer showing my "stomach, it was just hanging off my shoulders. I noticed that I got into my car and buckled my seatbelt with my lighter spring jacket on instead of automatically taking it off. Life is good!

I went to Walmart yesterday needing to buy pants. Have you ever gone out, as someone losing weight to find clothes, knowing you've probably dropped a pant size or two but still stick to that "oh I wear a such and such size" mentality? Yeah that was so me yesterday.

I wandered around Walmart, and everything I picked up I kept saying oh that's cute, it's a 4x it'll fit. I had about 5 things in my car and I hit the fitting room. First thing I did was try on these cute black pants with dark red thin pinstripes going down....they almost fell off me they were so big. Which actually sucks bad, I liked those pants and there was none in my size. Since I'd grabbed another pair at the same size of the same type only straight black, I didn't bother trying them on, they would be too big as well (I never did find any pants, Walmart's selection sucked, and I need new pants badly, the ones I have for work are so baggy I feel like a thug wearing them or something). Next I hit the 3 shirts I picked out. Two of the three were too big. The two that were too big were 4x as well, a 26/28 shirt. The other was a 3x that actually fit and the only reason I'd grabbed 3x was because there wasn't a 4x and the material was stretchy so I figured it might fit. The 3x is slightly uncomfortable, mostly because it's that type of material that hugs you and so I feel like I constantly need to be adjusting it. But I bought it anyway, knowing that soon it'll fit perfectly. I'm wearing it today actually, at work. It's not easy finding clothing that fits, even with being down a size. Not because there's not much selection (which is true anyway but still) but because things don't seem to fit my body correctly. I tried on this one shirt, and at a 4x it was large around the stomach and such, but the way it went across my chest made it really tight and I didn't feel comfortable at all, so much so it took two seconds of it being on to say "Mmmm NO!" lol.

My legs hurt....and not just a little. I had an appointment at the Y yesterday with my trainer to go over nutrition and such and I had the bright idea of getting my cardio in for the day by walking... Right. So I walked, 1.3 miles to get to the Y but failed to realize how damn steep the hill is to get there. It took me 31 minutes to walk the 1.3 miles and by the time I got there my legs were on fire. I sat around a little waiting for her (I got there early) and then talking with her and you'd think on the way back home it'd be cake because it's all downhill, no my legs hurt sooo bad! It's like right at the hip joint! lol. D kept saying I looked like a duck trying to walk last night. I threw his new game cd holder at him roflmao.

Anyway so that's been my weekend. Eating right, exercising and just chillin'. Hope ya'll have a great day!

Amber

Ho boy here we go again...

So....I got smacked upside the head with the "guess what!" hammer this morning. D found a new job....in Albuquerque, about 2 hours from here. He starts on the 30th. So of course my first OMG reaction was like ZOMG WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! my stress level I think went through the roof, and then some.

After he got me to calm down (I was asking 5 billion questions I guess), he explained that this new job is going to make him 38,000 a year, as much as both of us currently make combined with him working part time at the Lab and me full time at the dental office. We're also NOT going to move right away, he's going to have training for a couple of weeks in Albuquerque and then he's going to be a system administrator and some of the stuff I guess the company he is going to work for is all over this area too, so he MAY not have to move.

I'm torn. In a way I would LOVE to move to Albequerque. I don't really care for it up here on the mountain, I would like to get away from the cold weather, and my asthma does better at lower elevations. But....

I would have to quit my job. <----That right there is scary.

Why? I had a hell of a time FINDING a job when I first moved here, granted it was probably because we lived on the mountain where there's next to no job market....but STILL! What if's started running through my head. What if I can't find a job, how will I pay my bills (I'm very independent, I hate others paying for me). What if I DO find a job and it sucks and it starts messing with my ability to finish my master's degree. What if he loses his job, what if what if what if UGH!. I hate it!

I really hope this works out, and that I can manage to squeeze in all of my dental work before we have to move (if we need to). See, right now, my dental work is free, Dr. M does it. I had one hell of a lot of cavities to fill, and a tooth that was crowned and another that's broken that either may need a crown or may just get extracted (fine with me either way honestly). I'm deathly afraid of dentists when it comes to being in the chair, so I hadn't gone to a dentist since I was 18 probably. So with all the work that's been done, if I'd have to pay for it myself you're talking thousands of dollars, and I still have probably close to 1500 to 2k left to be done. So if I can squeeze the remaining like....5 small cavities and that one big ? tooth....life would be much better.

I don't know, so many scenarios going through my head. Albequerque isn't near as expensive as it is up here, so finding a place to live would be easier and cheaper and probably bigger with more ammenities than here. Could even find an affordable place with a washer and dryer in apartment! lol. That would so make my day.

Anyway, I'm going to go, it's lunch time and I'm starving. Cross your fingers for me.

Toodaloo.

Amber

Sick

So I've been sick since Monday. I've been going to work and such but I've felt soooo sick to my stomach. Just looking at food has been enough to make my stomach start to go "flip flop" and make me feel even more ill.

I am feeling just a tad better, not by much but I'm getting there. At least this morning I didn't wake up feeling like I had a hangover like I have the last couple of days. I've just been drinking lots of water for the most part....lots and lots. I went through almost 7 bottles of water yesterday, I usually struggle to drink 4 on weekdays but I felt soooo thirsty. I'm actually kind of excited for tonight. D's going to make dinner, I just got to go get the stuff from the store tonight, he wants to make some stuffed bell peppers. I'm down any day that he wants to make dinner lol.

As I've said before, he's extremly supportive of me losing weight. He knows the last couple of weeks I've just been swamped. Between working late (I worked until almost 6:30pm last night, did that at least twice last week), my master's degree program...my house is a wreck, and the dishes are piling up (ugh), I just haven't had time to focus on me. There's been a couple of times when I ask him what he wants for dinner and he says he'll just go get something out for us and quickly disappears, then I am all like "zomg he's going to get me some fast food crap that I can't have!" but he comes back with like...Subway. Such a sweetheart.

Being sick sucks when it comes to the scale though. I'm down 1.3 since Monday yet I know when I get over whatever it is that I have, it'll probably come back. Boo.

My trainer person from the Y gave me a couple of websites ya'll might be interested in. The first is a calorie tracker that I find much more...easy to use I guess than some others I've played with. It's called fitday (www.fitday.com). There's a lot more features to use in it than some other free trackers. It has a mood tracker, good for tracking how you felt that day and if it coorelates to overeating or whatever, it's got a weight loss goal tracker, a weight tracker, body measurements tracker, food and activity tracker. I can put in my minigoal weights and look at it numberwise, or look at it graphically. It tells you what it thinks your resting calorie burn is based on your lifestyle, and then adds in your activities for the day to give you a roundabout calorie burn for the day vs. the intake. It's got a diary feature as well, so you can jot little notes to yourself (ie, today I was sick, or ... whatever, also useful for tracking trends). I've started, I think, to move away from WW. I think it helped me to get started, but there are things about WW I do not agree with, and makes no sense to me. For example. 1/2 a cup of fruit is 0 points, where a full cup is 2. ...double the fruit is 2 points when originally it was 0? Makes no sense. 0 + 0 does not equal 2.... Or another thing, 3 oz of boneless skinless chicken breast is 3 points, double it you get 6....right? wrong, it's something like 6.5 or something silly. WTF IS THAT! lol. Plus, another thing I don't like. Get a WW frozen meal for lunch 6 points but 800mg of sodium. Sodium means nothing in WW. I could eat a cup of fried rice for 8 points, or I could eat homemade fried rice for 8 points and the home made would have a ton less sodium than the restraunt style yet it's the same point value. MAKES NO SENSE TO ME!....

So...I'll wait until my subscription runs out and probably not continue it. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have had that beginning, but I don't think WW is for me in the long haul. I can see myself losing weight with them but then gaining it back once I finished...the whole "eat whatever you want" part doesn't sound right. I'm not saying I need to go gungho I can't eat anything but healthy in my life, but something doesn't seem right that I'm trying to lose weight but if I wanted to I could go have pizza hut. >.>

That being said, I do enjoy a nice night out now and again. Since this journey is supposed to be about a lifestyle change, not just a crash diet, I remind myself that nothing is "offlimits" to me, so long as I practice moderation. For example, a piece of cake at a birthday party is NOT offlimits. I just need to limit the size I eat, and/or exercise it off afterwards. A piece of pizza is NOT offlimits so long as it's just one piece, or isn't loaded with insane amounts of meat or something like that.

Basically, make healthy choices and keep the weight loss going or keep the weight off and still live life to the fullest. Nothing is more frustrating than to go to a party and realize that all the stuff there is self-induced "off limits" and results in cravings and binges. Now, I'm not one to binge, I never have been. At least not in the sense of some of the blogs I've read or anything. My weight is from a self-induced fear of exercising, my lifestyle of being a computer geek, and eating unhealthy foods like fastfood, greasy food, etc. But I do understand that sort of craving one can get that says I WANT THAT and no matter what you do you feel the urge to go out and get it! So I try to counteract my cravings by either having something small that's sweet or whatever if it's sweet I'm craving, or if it is something that's moderately unhealthy (like wanting a piece of cake at a birthday party) limiting how big it is.

It's all about lifestyle, and I keep reminding myself of that.

That was quite the ramble...anyway. The other website she gave me is called www.physicsdiet.com. For those of you that track your weight every day, this is the place for you! You put your weight in each day and it does some averaging stuff to it and tells you what your body is actually doing. So, say you weigh yourself every day and your up one day down the next, etc, it'll average it out and tell you that your body is still losing weight (ie, you're seeing water wait fluxes etc), or that you're gaining weight (usually after you've had several weight gains in a row). I've been playing around with it just because it's kind of neat. I could see it being useful for when you hit a plateau and you're frustrated that the scale isn't moving, this'll help. I don't know if I recommend weighing in every day, but I know some people do and that's fine. So here's a nifty website for you! :)

Now if only I could get my lazy ass up and exercising more....

Amber

Another weigh in, another pound gone

So it's Monday, my typical weigh in. I'm saying goodbye to the 270's today and beginning the journey through the 260's. I haven't been under 270 since 2006. I've had jaunts up into the 280's followed by a short skip into the 270's then back to the 280's again since then, but never below 270.

This weekend, somehow I found a pair of capri's that I haven't worn since 2006. They are brand new, I bought them the week before my dad passed away when I was about 248 or so. They were kind of big on me then (I like my pants to be a little baggy, tight sucks thanks much!) because they were non-stretch pants I tend to give myself a little extra room just in case, and for when Aunt Flo comes to visit. So they're a size 26 pant, non-stretch and I have no idea how they ended up in plain sight on my floor. Out of curiosity to see if they were my pants or D's (they were folded), I picked them up and was like HEY! I know these pants! So I tried them on, and they fit, comfortably though a tad bit snug. I can wear them all day and zip them up without having to do the "gotta...get...those...pants on" dance, but they're a little bit snugger than I'd normally wear my pants. Score one for me!

Otherwise it was an uneventful weekend. I have a huge homework assignment due this evening and unfortunately I haven't even really started on it. I'm was so tired from the crazy week at work I didn't even want to look at my homework, and now I'm regretting it. Hopefully I can do most if not all of it at work today because I'm really not feeling well either. Before I went to bed last night I was getting a stomach ache and chauked it up to something I'd ate not agreeing with me or something, but then this morning when I woke up it hit me like a ton of bricks again and even now at work I'm still feeling ill. Usually if it's not really me being sick but something not agreeing with me or just me lagging at getting up in the morning (I sometimes wake up feeling icky), it'll go away after I get up and get moving. Today is not one of those days. I really hope I'm not getting sick, or that I get sick enough to go home and snooze and feel more refreshed later or something.

Another good thing to report, my foot problem is gone. I'd been using some over the counter cream at first, and switched to another, different over the counter cream (per dr. advice) and that cleared it up completely over the weekend. Very happy I am. Talk like Yoda I will. Anyhooo...so my feet no longer itch or hurt like mad. Which means I can start going for walks again woo.

Anyway I'm going to stop babbling now. I need to take a look at that assignment and get to work on it. Take it easy ya'll.

Amber

Silence

I know, I've been quiet lately. Unsure what to post really, not much going on. Work's kept me busy, so busy in fact that Monday I got off at around 6, and Tuesday I got off at 10 to 7, which sucks considering I already normally work 10 hours, so tack on an extra hour or two and bleh!

Food wise I've been fine. I've tried salad the last two days and...mmm...doubtful. I need to find a night to sit down and cut up tomatoes and get some black olives and stuff to put in it. The lettuce, carrots and red cabbage is all fine and well but it's so bland and rabbit foodish. I also don't particularly care for light ranch dressing, but they didn't have any fat free or light western dressing, in fact, walmart in Espanola doesn't even CARRY western dressing....jerks. I have some regular dressing at home but it's like 15g of fat for 2 tsp or something rediculasly high like that. Not worth it... /sigh I dunno.

But anyway, so food has been fine, water intake could probably be better, I'm just barely getting in my 4 bottles of water per day on weekdays, especially this week since we've been going so late at night. I really should talk to Dr. M and see if I can keep a bottle of water up front as long as I promise to keep the cap on (which I always do anyway). He doesn't like water up front because of the computer equipment, and I can understand, but....I NEED WATER! >.>

Exercise could be much better, I constantly struggle with this aspect of weight loss. As I posted at the beginning of my blog, I am afraid of exercise. Before you laugh, read my very first post and you'll see why. Don't get me wrong, when I do exercise, I feel good after and all but it's the starting that scares me. In fact, at one point I was so scared of my asthma when I started exercising that I bought an alert necklace to wear to say I was asthmatic. My trainer said she's going to tackle exercise on Sunday with me...ehh...

I know baby steps blah blah blah. Baby steps feels too small. If I'm going to lose weight I need to push myself. I'm physically fit enough to go for longer than 10 minute walks but too scared mentally due to my childhood to walk fast enough to get my heart rate up. Nothing to do with my heart, but everything to do with my asthma. Hearth rate up = heavier breathing which could = asthma attack = scared Amber. At least that's what the brain says anyway.

Well, I'll have to figure something out. Right now work and school take up most of my weekday time. I'm also large enough that I feel downright silly working out on the wiifit in front of D. I tend to exercise when he's not around...kind of like hiding it or something, why I don't know. He's extremly extremly supportive in my decision to lose weight, and commented a couple of days ago he could tell that I had lost a little, but I've been ridiculed in the past by boyfriends and told I'd never lose it so why bother etc etc, so I guess I just don't want to think he's just saying it to be nice sort of thing, despite knowing he's genuine about it. lol.

I'm so screwy eh?

Oh well, I better get some work done on my homework if I plan on doing anything after work tonight remotely fun.

Toodaloo

Amber

Quite a bit better now!

So they still itch a bit and they're still a little tender but my feet are like 30 times better today than they were on Friday by far. On Friday they were getting worse, and I went to the doctor and got some medicated cream to use, and used it as soon as I get home, but much as you know, things always get worse before they start getting better and on Saturday I could barely walk on them. It was horrid. I put off my laundry doing and my grocery shopping because it hurt so bad to walk. Probably didn't help that I did a little bit of exercising on Saturday, despite how my feet hurt. Oh well.

But last night I actually got a full night's sleep (last 3 nights I've woke myself up scratching my feet), and woke up this morning and did the soak and cream and was able to slip my shoes on without going OWWWW, and haven't really had any problems here at work either. Hoozah!

So! Still on track with watching what I eat. I did have a nutritional counseling appointment, she suggested a visit to the land of salads but.....ugh I hate salads. It's such diet rabbit food! I'll try it but...we'll see. So despite problems exercising this weekend, I did manage to lose 1.6 pounds again this week, putting me to just under 271. Soon I'll say good bye to the 270's. I haven't been under 270 since my dad passed away in 2006. When he passed away I was 240 pounds, I quickly gained over 30 pounds in the following few months. Kind of hard to keep weight off if you're severely depressed and could care less about anything because one of your most supportive people in your life went bye bye.

Anyway, I need to get some homework done while I'm at work. I'm completly caught up for the manic monday that it is, which is a first, and am even ahead today, so a homeworking I will go! lol

Amber

Noticeable changes

So I just woke up a few minutes ago (rare for me to sleep past 7am). I'm nursing my poor feet which according to the doctor both have a fungal infection, my callouses make me more suseptable than most, AND of course make it damn near impossible to get rid of it in a timely manner. Nuts.

My left foot is much worse off than the right, though the main area that was really painful is feeling better. I *forced* myself to walk 10 minutes at 3.0 at the gym yesterday when I went for my appointment and did some weight lifting with the trainer. I felt very stupid and very fat for getting on the treadmill for 10 minutes and getting off, as if all the "fit" people in the room figured I couldn't take more than 10 minutes, but alas, it was only my foot giving me the problems. I was going to try for 30 but after the 10 my foot was just throbbing, time to get off! Ahh well, get this cleared up and I'll be back to my 30 to 45 minute walks.

Anyway, my topic today is noticeable changes, both on scale and off. Obviously I've lost a little under 13 pounds and am closing in on saying good bye to the 270s (weigh in tomorrow baby!). That is pretty huge for me. The fact that it's also the end of February and I've not given up, also a huge victory. I think it just might stick this time.

But other things I've noticed, one of which is highly exciting to me. I have a couple of shirts I'm going to have to retire because they're too large. I also have an Eeyore shirt that I bought when I was living in Texas that *almost* fit but was just a tad too small to be comfortable that now fits comfortably, and finally....I'm wearing my ring again.

Let me give you some background on this very special ring. I wear it on the finger you're supposed to wear your engagement ring or wedding ring. There's a specific reason. This ring was my grandmother's (on my mom's side) who was like a second mother to me. She was paralyzed on her left side for 95% of the time I knew her. I only have one memory of her not being paralyzed and I treasure it. She got married at a very young 14 years old, back when that was still ok, to her 18 year old boyfriend. She had 6 children, all but one within 2 years of eachother, that one was 3 years after the child before him and he's the oddball of the family in more ways than one. She went without bras to save up money to help pay for the house. She NEVER turned away any of my aunt and uncle's friends who would come over for dinner...she fed all of them, no matter what the cost (generally she had anywhere from 10 to 12 kids in her house for dinner). When my grandmother was paralyzed due to having a stroke and a heart attack at the same time and given 6 months to live, she couldn't talk, but she "laughed" at the doctor and proved him wrong, living 10 years beyond what they predicted. Even with her paralysis she often watched her grandchildren (especially me), and some of my most fond memories is seeing her walk into the gym (very slowly, she refused to give up her quad cane and walked wherever she could) to watch me perform at a band concert, or playing aggrevation (board game) on the handmade board that my grandfather made and my father painted. She was a total insperation to me in my life. She passed when I was 14. I was very sad.

After her passing before Thanksgiving in 1996, my mom came to me, it was about December or so, and handed me a ring. This beautiful but simple ring was a blackhills gold ring with one simple rose on top and fit my finger like a glove. She told me my grandmother had given it to her a couple of years ago and told her to hold onto it until she passed away and then give it to me. She wanted me to wear it to not only remember her, but to also remind me to keep chugging away at my goals. She wanted to remind me to not get married until after college, to continue to persue everything in life as I always have, gungho. She didn't want me to take it off until I had another ring to replace it from the man I was going to marry.

Now almost 13 years later, I can count the number of times I've had to take it off on one hand. Once for a week when I accidently left it at my boyfriend's (at the time) house when I was putting lotion on and forgot to put it back on, another time directly after my dad had a huge scare in high school and I almost lost him then, I gained a lot of weight from stressing, couldn't wear it for a couple of months, and finally just recently I'd gained some weight and again couldn't wear it. It still fit but it felt too small and I didn't want it to get completely stuck and need to be cut off or something.

But now it's back on, and it's there to stay. I plan on losing this weight and keeping it off this time, so hopefully the next time it comes off is when it's too big and needs to be resized smaller. :)

Amber

No exercising for me this weekend :(

So starting a couple of days ago I developed like...little bumps on the underside of my foot, right on the ball of my heel. At first they just kinda itched, and which isn't entirely unheard of given my track record of horribly calloused feet (there's a reason I get a pedicure every 2 months, if I don't my feet crack and boy does that hurt). I didn't think much about it until I woke up yesterday morning and could barely walk and the little bumps had spread to my other foot now too.

So I made an appointment this morning for the doctor (I got here in a few minutes). My feet itch and hurt so bad to walk on it's horrible, so unless it gives up a little the most exercising I will get this weekend will include maybe some weight lifting (I Have 2 5 pound weights at home), and stretching.

My weekend is already pretty packed as it is. I have this Dr. appt this morning, an eye doctor appointment this afternoon (I so need new glasses) and then a trainer appointment on Saturday to learn the machines (I missed last Saturday's, I didn't realize what time it was until I was 20 mins late), and then a nutrition appointment with the trainer on Sunday. Talk about lots of stuff to do aye?

Not to mention I have an assignment that's due on Monday that's driving me bonkers. I can't find any of the terminiology I'm supposed to look up in any of the chapters we're supposed to read. /sigh

Oh well, off to my appointment I go. I'll update later.

Amber

I'm glad...

...that I don't keep junkfood in the house. And that I was too tired and feeling too lazy to go out and get anything too. lol.

I found myself perusing my cupboards and my fridge last night at least 4 times that I can remember. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it was because I was just tired, or bored, or hungry or what, can't put my finger on it but I had the munchies and luckily for me I had nothing in the house to munch on! lol. Don't get me wrong, I have food in my house, chicken, beef, pork, veggies galore, yogurt, applesauce, all sorts of things. But it wasn't what I wanted (whatever that may have been), and what sounded good I wasn't willing to add those calories onto my day so...the fridge was shut, the cupboards closed and back to my computer I went.

I need to invest in some cheese sticks. I didn't buy any this past time at the store (I was in a hurry) and I think that may have been what I was looking for last night. I wanted something kind of salty tasting (so the applesauce and such was out), but really didn't have anything that qualified that wasn't like a thing of Dinty Moore beef stew (curse my mom for leaving the 2 she bought and didn't eat with me).

Oh well, such is life. There's a reason I don't keep junkfood in the house, and that'd be it :)

On a completely different note, I have been using this pedometer just about every day (forgot it at home on Monday) and I realize that I don't walk around hardly at all, even when you count my walking back and forth to work. Yesterday I logged a whole 3500ish steps. That's pathetic! I need to figure out how to put more walking time under my belt everyday or something. I'm usually so tired after work that I put together dinner and I'm ready to just chill. You'd think that with a job of sitting down all day that I wouldn't be tired, but I DO work 10 hours a day, sometimes more and after I get dinner done all I want to do is kick back and relax before I hit the sack around 10pm. I can't JUST work out on the weekends. Weekends I'm usually catching up on things that need to be done (housework, homework, etc) that I don't have a lot of time or willpower to force myself to do during the week, and while I do often go Friday Saturday and Sunday to work out to me it seems like that's not enough or something I dunno.

I have found some good recepies though! I plan on making this one tonight for dinner again (we had it about a week or so ago):

Quick and Easy Chicken, Broccoli and Brown Rice

1tbsp. vegetable oil
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 can (10 3/4 oz) Campbell's Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (I use 98% fat free)
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 1/2 cup uncooked instant brown rice
2 cups fresh or frozen brocolli flowerets (I use frozen so I can make beef and brocolli from the same bag)

1. Heat Oil in 10" skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until well browned on both sides. Remove chicken from skillet.
2. Stir soup, water, paprika and black pepper in skillet. Heat to a boil.
3. Stir in rice and broccoli in skillet. Reduce heat to low. Return chicken to skillet. Sprinkle additional paprika and black pepper over chicken. Cover and cook 5 min. or until chicken is cooked through and rice is tender.

Yum yum! Enjoy!
Amber