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