Feeling Stronger!!

Ok, maybe I'm not there (see above) yet, but my muscles are waking up and it feels amazing!! I had some power oatmeal this morning (I'll post the recipe at the end of this post...don't think I've shared it before) and when my break rolled around I decided to see how long I could last on the treadmill. The last time I walked, I was absolutely STRUGGLING to get past three minutes. About a minute and a half into it, my back was getting tired, my knees were starting to hurt. At four minutes, my knees felt like someone had placed a hot pebble between my upper and lower legbones..it was NOT fun.

Today, I hopped on and started it up and noticed that the typical speed I was walking at (the lowest setting available) just seemed too slow and laborious so I punched it up a few clicks. The treadmill is in Tanner's room so I was treated to his guitar hero prowess on Slipknot's "Before I Forget" and then, at my request, Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride and Joy." It was quite a treat! I was actually quite impressed with how well he kept up on Stevie's song since it isn't one he's ever really heard before and it was pretty complicated to play. PLUS, his hearing aid is barely working and of course his cochlear is still demolished...I have to sign all the time now, even if he is looking right at me. Those of you that know Tanner, know that is a HUGE change. when everything is working perfectly, he can often understand what we are saying even if he is in another room. It is frustrating for all parties...but I digress...

So normally my back starts aching about 1.5 minutes in, I was focused on Tanner's guitar hero playing, but when I noticed my back begin to ache I looked down to see what time it was and I was almost FOUR minutes in!!! I made it to 5 minutes no problem and probably could have done a bit longer, but I really want to make sure I don't injure myself so I'm going to start increasing my time a tiny bit each time I get on the treadmill. I'm going to do another 5 minutes on my lunch and then another 5 on my break. I figure I'll try 5:15 at lunch and then 5:30 on my next break. I'll see how I feel tomorrow and then determine whether to increase a bit more or stay where I'm at for a day or so.

After my walk, I went and did 100 crunches on the weight bench. Paxton was sitting on the bed and walked over by me like he was going to spot me so I said "Paxton, count them out for mommy ok?" Erik laughed and started talking in paxton's "voice" saying stuff like "1, P, 6, 6, 6, lemondrops, 200 thousand, squirrel!" everytime I did another crunch lol). Obviously counting is not one of Paxton's strong suits. It's a good thing he's so cute. You know, it is hard to concentrate on using the right muscles when you are giggling the entire time. See why I can never stay mad at Erik? Infuriates me :P

Still at 431 today, but plan on seeing more come off this week as I get more time logged on the treadmill and at the gym! Hope everyone has a wonderful memorial day :)

Michelle's Power Oatmeal:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 cup skim milk
half a banana sliced
sprinkling of raisins or dried cranberries
sprinkling of slivered almonds
butter substitute and splenda to taste

Put all ingredients in a bowl and then microwave for about 3-4 minutes. You will know it is ready when it looks creamy. The bananas kind of "lubricate" it much like real butter does so it isn't so pasty and dry. I don't really taste them as much so if you aren't a banana lover, you may not mind this addition. The raisins or cranberries provide a nice sweet punch instead of sugar and the almonds provide additional protein without adding a lot of fat. This fills me up and makes me feel full for quite some time! To be honest, it really doesn't need additional sweetener or butter substitute. Sometimes I may put a teaspoon of splenda brown sugar over the top just to change it up. If you give it a try, let me know what you think :)

Sleeping Beauty...NOT

She makes it look so easy doesn't she? I can guarantee you I didn't look quite so peaceful.

------
I had my sleep study last night. I wasn’t feeling great AT ALL. Erik and I had to go to a morning appointment and I had a few pieces of toast with low fat peanut butter before we left thinking that would tide me over till we got back. At the appointment I started feeling kind of sick to my stomach, but lately I sometimes think being hungry makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe I just forgot what being empty feels like lol? It could be the medication I take too; I seem to have a hard time with the metformin and vacillate between 1000mg and 2000mg because every time I up it, it makes me sick. Someone mentioned talking to my doctor about getting on a liquid dose. I definitely need to do something about it.

So, after the appointment, I was STARVING. I decided I’d allow myself to kind of go off my diet as a planned cheat for doing so well with both my diet and exercise. I wanted some breakfast tacos, but Wendy’s was closer so I settled for a chicken club sandwich and an order of fries. I even got a regular coke! I couldn’t finish the sandwich and only had a few fries (somehow we must have ordered the biggie or something because I’ve never seen an order of fries that large before…even when I ordered it in the past lol…figures the day I can’t eat them, they actually fill the darn thing up!). I was kind of proud of the fact that I couldn’t eat the whole thing and stopped rather than continuing to eat just because it was my cheat. I immediately felt sorry though…spend the rest of the afternoon not feeling great and even laid down for a while.

Later for dinner, I had a bit of toast with some butter spray (zero calories, zero fat) and some chicken noodle soup and went off to my sleep study. I apologized to the guy that had to hook me up to everything because I wasn’t all that chatty and just wanted him to get the job done so I could go to bed. I thought about having him take a pic with my cam phone after he was done, because I was looking all kinds of crazy and figured you guys would probably LOVE to have a laugh with me. If I wasn’t sick, I probably would have done it ;)

The bed they had me in was so comfortable! I actually got some decent sleep, but apparently I didn’t hit some minimum so they didn’t have to do the second part of the study. I don’t know if that means I wasn’t having any apnea episodes and wouldn’t have a cpap recommended for me or if it just meant the apnea wasn’t so bad that they didn’t need to get me on a cpap right there and then. I guess I’ll know in a week.

Erik came and picked me up and again, I tempted fate and asked him to stop so I could get some breakfast tacos. I know…I don’t know what got into me, I’m disappointed. Especially since I stepped on the scale right after and saw I was back at 431 :( I doubt I gained weight that fast from the few things I ate though. I think it was probably because I’ve actually had loads of salt in the last few days, so some of it is likely water and maybe a lb or two from the cheats. Again, I felt like crap and slept most of the day. My poor stomach was screaming at me “What are you doing??? We are sick her woman, doesn’t anything kill that appetite of yours?” Apparently not.

So, I finally woke up and decided I should probably take a shower and get all that sticky crap they use for the electrodes out of my hair. Once I took a shower I felt a little better, but still didn’t feel like eating. I decided to call the bike place down the road from us to see if they had an adult trike we might see for Tanner. Carlos, the owner said they did and I asked him if he had any bikes he thought might work for me. He asked my weight and I was honest with him. Poor guy, he was quiet for a second and I just said “Yeah, I’m a big girl.” He said “Well, I think it is great that you are thinking about doing something like this, why don’t you come by and we’ll talk.” I asked Erik if he would want to go with Tanner and I and surprisingly he said yes. I thought for sure going to see about a bike for me would rank right up there with going swimming with me, but I guess not. Score a few points for Erik this round.

Tanner has never really been able to learn how to ride a bike due to some balance issues he has. I think that he probably COULD have learned when he was younger, but his frustration tolerance made teaching him very difficult. We finally just gave up after purchasing a bike that sat a bit lower and he still had difficulty managing it and finally refused to get on it. He tried out a blue adult trike that didn’t look all that goofy in person. He did fine, but the guy remarked that his muscle tone was pretty low. He had a bike for me, but said that I would probably need to wait until I was closer to 300 unless I wanted to ride a trike to start off with. Maybe for now, we can work on getting tanner the trike and get erik some clearance bike or free bike from somewhere so that he and tanner can start riding together. I can get up in the morning or go out at night and start building up my stamina on the trike and get me a decent bike when I lose a little more weight. Guess we’ll wait and see how it plays out, but it was kind of fun to think about getting more active and encouraging Tanner to get more active.

Afterwards, we stopped by McDonalds (Erik had already promised Tanner) and got Tanner something to eat (and a shrek mug for me....they already had the fiona mugs :(and then we stopped by a nearby BBQ place to get a baked potato for me. I ordered it dry and doctored it up with some butter spray (which is kind of saving my life lately) and some light sour cream. That seemed to sit a heck of a lot better on my stomach. I still don't know if the problems I was having was due to the food I ate or an actual illness. I suppose it could have been both, but you know what I mean. I'm back on track though. Want to see that scale start moving back down :)

I thought I'd post a picture that I took the other day with my phone. I've discovered that if you hold the phone right over your head and look straight up into the camera, you can take off about 200 lbs in your face lol. Before the surgery I'll have some real pictures of me looking head on, triple chins and all. This picture was a nice kind of motivational picture for me though. It made me remember what I used to look like when I wasn't so portly. Wonder how long it is going to take me to look like that head on?
========
I slept like crap last night! Was up at around 3am, tossed and turned and finally just got out of bed at 4am to play a little bejeweled in hopes that I might get tired again. I finally got to sleep around 5am, but boy..I don’t feel rested!

Maybe I’ll be extra tired for my sleep study this Friday night. I have to have another one done for the surgery and I’m anticipating that they will probably get me back on a cpap which I’m kind of looking forward to. I know I’ll have to get used to it again, but I really did sleep so much better when I was wearing it.

I went and worked out at the pool yesterday. Darin, one of the trainers there worked with Shannon and I and gave us a sort of cardio/strength training routine to do while we are there and it seemed to work fairly well yesterday. I’ll continue to do that plus try to increase my time on the treadmill. I really would like to be walking at least 15 minutes at a time by the time I go in for surgery because I know I will heal faster if I can walk afterwards.

I got on the scale this morning and I was down another lb or two to 429 and some change. Haven’t been below 430 in quite some time. Certainly not since starting this blog that’s for sure so I’m pretty excited about it :)

I’m having some weird kind of stuff going on though. I feel light headed periodically and am having trouble with jumpy vision (mostly when working on the computer.) At first I thought it was vertigo, but now not so much. Not sure what it is, but Saturday I go to see the eye doctor and get new glasses. I may make an appointment with my regular doctor just to make sure none of my meds is causing the problem. I’ve recently increased my metformin because I know it helps me lose weight easier and I suppose if it is playing with my blood sugar, that could be the problem. Who knows? Always something with me isn’t it?

Diet-wise, still going great. Last night I had a protein shake before going to work out and thought I’d get by with just the shake, but later that night I just got incredibly hungry and knew I had to take another handful of pills before bedtime so I just nuked a lean cuisine pizza, had a few olives and a dill pickle and that seemed to take care of things. I ate rather late, but I didn’t go over my calories/fat, etc so I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

Wow, I started this blog this morning and finishing it up just now so that I can post it. Just got back from a workout at the pool, took a shower and weighed myself and I’m down to 427!!! I was 429 this morning. I’ll have to see what I weigh in the morning though…could get a few lbs back due to water fluctuation. I’m in the 420’s though and headed to the teens with a bullet woot!

Making progress :)

I typed this up last night, but forgot to post :( Stepped on the scale today and I'm at 431 and some change. The lowest I've been in a Loooooooooooooong time. I think it is the lowest I've been since starting this blog. Looking forward to the 420's.

-------------
I’m already feeling bad about my post yesterday. Not because I didn’t mean what I said, but ….I don’t know..I guess it is just part of my make up. I don’t think that Erik is evil incarnate. There are good things about him, but I guess I’m just starting to see that he just isn’t the person I’ve thought he was. I guess I just don’t trust my judgment about him and my new years resolution was to get rid of people who don’t seem to invest as much into a relationship with me as I do with them. Of course I can’t sever ties with Erik, we share a child together, but honestly….I think I may have just had my final wake up call about the sort of relationship we will be able to have from here on out. I don’t really want a steady diet of someone who places so much value in appearance and in what other people think of them. Of course people could say I might not be in the situation I am in right now if I cared a bit MORE about what people thought of me.

Some good has come out of this though. I called my surgeon today and scheduled my surgery. I will be having surgery July 6th. That gives me over a month to get the remaining 34 lbs off. He only required 30 (15 of which I’ve lost), but I want to be under 400 by the time I have surgery. I started crunching numbers and based on how others have done with the same surgery, I could possibly have as much as 40-50 lbs off by the end of July. That would have me at 350 lbs before the end of summer! I haven’t weighed that much since probably the late 90’s! I could easily have another 100 off before the end of the year which would have me at the weight I was when I got pregnant with Tanner and just 30 lbs from the skinniest I’ve ever been! These are the things I need to stay focused on. Please keep me in your prayers.

I think one of the first things I’m going to love doing when I get enough weight off is doing my own grocery shopping. It is going to take a while to get there though as I'm finding I just can't walk for long stretches without having pretty bad knee pain. So, I’ve even been looking at bikes for both myself and Tanner. Last night I found this site and talked with a guy this morning who said that he could get a bike together that would support my weight for about $700. Much less than the $2000 bike I’ve seen at another place. I used google to see how far the pool is from where we live and it is just under 2 miles. I think going to the pool would be a great incentive to get tanner to get on his bike and 2 miles there, 2 miles back! Sure, we will probably be the neighborhood freak show (I’m sure loads of people won’t be able to resist getting a phone cam picture of me on a bike from behind), but so what! In no time at all, they won’t even recognize me the next time I’m out right ;)

I don’t have the money for the bikes at the moment. I have to get $500 together as my down payment on the surgery and take into consideration that I won’t be working while I’m recovering. Erik’s pay is going to drop as well since he won’t have much work with his second job over the summer. I’m not going to think about that though. If I had to have emergency surgery, we’d find the money somewhere and if this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is.

Today I stayed on target for my diet (probably way under, haven’t added everything up yet). I was supposed to go workout with Shannon, but for various reasons, it didn’t happen so I did 5 minutes on the treadmill and 100 (adapted crunches). I was really hoping I could last longer on the treadmill, but my right knee starts to feel like like there is a dagger inside it by about 4:30 so I didn’t push it. I’ll work hard in the pool tomorrow. I’m thinking about going first thing in the morning just in case shannon can’t go tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see if I can drag myself out of bed early enough.

OH! And one other great thing happened today :) My puppy came back! I’ll take that for a good omen :)

And people wonder why I feel like such an ogre...

Don't you love how I always start these posts off by saying I'm going to wrap it up in a nutshell and then....five pages later...I'm ready to post? The real nutshell is this:

HCG isn't for me. I'm back on a sensible diet and have lost the five lbs I put on while loading for the hcg. I've been back to the pool last week and have started other exercises at home to build up my strength. I've called my surgeon to schedule my surgery for mid to late June and I WILL have the weight off by then.

Now for the crazy vent that just had to happen so that I could get to sleep tonight. If Erik is one of your favorite people, you may want to stop reading because this is pretty much all about him.

----------------
I’ve started and stopped writing this post for the last several days. Really since my last post. I’ve just had so much crap going on and I didn’t want to get on here and just bitch about my crappy life some more so I elected to not say anything at all. I don’t really want to go into elaborate detail, so I’ll just bullet point everything so I can just move on with the weight loss and exercise bit which is all anyone probably really wants to hear at this stage in the game:

*my dog ran away
*erik has some neck problem that required a $500 MRI and Physical Therapy that is going to cost us another $120 a week and seeing as he can’t afford it, guess who gets to pay for it???
*Tanner demolished his cochlear processor a month or so ago and we just found out that it is going to cost $1500 to repair. Looks like he’s just going to have to be a little bit deafer for a little bit longer
*even though Erik can barely afford to pay his share of the bills each month, he is talking about trying to go back to school and while he says he’ll square away the finances on his own, I just have this feeling it is going to add to my already unbelievable financial burden and I’m just DONE making up the difference all the f'ing time.
*Erik’s rich friend offered to pay for his THIRD f'ing vacation since we split up (I haven’t had one f'ing vacation the entire time we’ve been married) and when I spoke up about not relishing the idea of juggling Tanner for four days WHILE I tried to work from home, this guy called me a vindictive bitch for “orchestrating” the whole thing just to take the “only four days out of the year he has off” away from him. In all fairness to Erik, he didn’t have a problem when I mentioned that it was stressing me out, but come on……why did I even have to point out the f'ing obvious??
*Tanner threw a teacher’s phone which means that he (read me) has to reimburse her for it. He’s been thoroughly punished and doing extra chores and had all kinds of shit taken away in order to “pay” for it, but it doesn’t negate the fact that it’s coming out of my pocket
*I am so tired of never having a f'ing car that I am seriously about to go postal on someone. I have to rely on a friend to get to the gym and I’m just sick and damn tired of trying to figure out how I’m going to get stuff done; not to mention, it is almost summer and I’d like to be able to go back to the outdoor pool with tanner. And, whenever I get this worked up about it, I can’t help but be a little pissed at Erik for putting me in the f'ing position where my car got repossessed in the first place.
*speaking of pool, the cherry on top of this crap sundae happened yesterday during a sweet little conversation Erik and I had about pool memberships. WE were looking at a local pool and they had three different kinds of memberships: individual, plus one, and family. At first I said that I thought maybe we could just do the plus one since we are hardly ever able to do anything together due to work schedules. Then I noticed that they were open until 9PM on Fridays and Saturdays and said “Hey, I bet that would be fun! It would be an inexpensive way for us to get out as a family..” and although erik wasn’t facing me, something in his body language immediately alerted me to the fact that he was instantly uncomfortable.

Why don’t we just take this bullet and blog about it because it is what is really eating me for the last day or two. So, normally when I see Erik get like this, I joke it off…give him a pass…make up a million and one damn excuses for why it is perfectly ok for him to be ashamed of me. I don’t know what got into me, but maybe its just been the last few weeks of hell that have put me in one of the all time bitchiest moods I’ve been in for quite some time. Maybe its because I’m actively working out and trying to watch what I eat and not coping so much with food when I have these emotions. I don’t know, but this time it just all came out. I made a comment along the lines of “Oh, I guess you probably wouldn’t be up to that, being seen with me in a swimming suit…the horror!” He said nothing, didn’t turn around from the computer, nothing. “what’s the big deal Erik honestly? You see what I wear, I have a pair of swim shorts and wear a shirt over my suit, it isn’t like I’m going to be flouncing around in a one piece” he made some kind of dismissive “pshaw.” For probably the first time in my life, I didn’t back down..”Really erik, what the F do you CARE what other people think? It isn’t like I’m going to be kissing all over you and trying to hold your hand or something” his response? “Anyways…moving on.” Yeah, I think I’ve said before that he doesn’t like to talk about stuff like this and lucky for him, he picked someone who is a chronic smoother over, fix anything, delicately step around everybody else’s f'ing feelings kind of girl so I’ve never made things quite so uncomfortable for him before.

Hurt and disgusted, I got up from the bed in his room and went into my office to cry. He decided that was the PERFECT time to go get the batteries we needed for our fire alarms. While he was gone, I decided that I wasn’t done talking about this so when he got back I asked him to come in so we could talk. He stood in the doorway as if he was WILLING me to ask him what the weather was like so he could shut the door and move on with his life. I suggested he sit and he had the f'ing nerve to act SURPRISED that I might want to be having a lengthy convo about something that was obviously important to me….what could it possibly be?

I basically told him that I wasn’t stupid. That I KNOW the real reason why he won’t go out to dinner as a family….why he turns down ANY suggestion that we go out in public in any f'ing form. That the look of discomfort on his face doesn’t go unnoticed whenever he’s talked about a work or school function and I even halfway acted like I might be interested in going. I acknowledged that about the only damn thing he WILL do with me in public is go to the movies with tanner and I because he can walk faster than I can and if he puts enough distance between us and makes it to the theater before I do or…better yet…has me walk on ahead then nobody has to know we are together. Of course we sit together, but he’s always sure to have Tanner between us lest anyone think we are a FAMILY.

I also told him that I UNDERSTAND having a fleeting moment of discomfort…wondering how many people are going to stare, is someone going to say something. I UNDERSTAND not being able to help those feelings to begin with, but what I can’t understand is WHY after 20 years with me being the only real person in his life who accepts him for exactly who he is, being the one person he KNOWS he could always turn to, the mother of his child, his wife for 13 years, his best friend for 20…WHY NONE OF THAT F'ING MATTERS now that I’m 400+.

He tried to blame it on being “worried” about me. He’s worried that I may fall somewhere and he used an incident that happened recently (that I don’t think I got around to blogging about) where I fell outside our house. I was able to pull myself up, but for a few long minutes we weren’t sure what we were going to do. He said he thought he was going to have to call the fire department to come haul my ass off our neighbor’s lawn. This might even be a halfway decent excuse for his behavior if half the time he refuses to do something like what I’ve mentioned above he didn’t immediately suggest that Tanner and I do it minus him. If he is so worried about me, then WHY is he suggesting that his son would be any better equipped to handle it if something along those lines happened? I call bullshit.

The problem here is that I KNOW that if the shoes were reversed, if it were him that were morbidly obese, I *might* have the same sort of initial *cringe* worrying about what other people might say to him or stare at him, etc. But the difference here is that I would be worried about how it would affect HIM…not how it would affect ME. I wouldn’t care what some stranger thought about ME being with him as a friend or otherwise because I have 20 years of history with this man. While things haven’t been perfect, I’ve always thought he was an amazing man and father and while I won’t take the amazing father from him…I’m beginning to wonder if this amazing man was just more of the f'ing fabrication I made so that we could go on living our façade of the happy family. So, up to this point…all things being perfect….I would have said “Screw all those other people, let them stare, let them say whatever the hell they want. He is MORE than his body. He is an amazing father, he has a mother and sister that love him, friends that care about him for who he is…these people don’t know all that so yeah….they are going to judge him by his shell, but SO F'ING WHAT!” If he’s interested in doing something health for him and for his family, I’m going to support him in whatever way I can and screw what anybody else thinks. You know what his answer to that was? “I guess you are just a better person than I am.”

At that point I just said “Alrighty then, I guess that is all there is to say about that then isn’t there?” Because really…what more can we say? It is what it is. He’s embarrassed and ashamed of me and NOTHING else that makes me who I am means enough to him to support me regardless. So what CAN I really say or do about it? Nothing.

This obvious vent isn’t so much about this ONE thing. It is about feeling as if I’m having the same “There is no Santa Clause” moment over and over and over again. How many times am I going to have these blinders ripped from my f'ing head before I SEE things for what they really are? I have never meant to him what he meant to me. I never WILL mean anything more to him even on a friendship basis. And the saddest thing? He will NEVER live up to the man I built him up to be in my head. It just isn’t in him.

HCG and ME

I think I may have mentioned that my doctor suggested this protocol to me several weeks ago. He was supposed to be getting it in and was going to show me how to do the injections myself, etc but it has been probably two months already and he still doesn't have it in. I actually have two friends who have been doing this and are experiencing great results so far. I was talking to one of them a few weeks ago and she was really encouraging so I decided to buy enough for my first round and see how I do. I figure I'm bound to lose something because the first 40 days you are eating only 500 calories a day (basically lean meat, a few select fruits and green leafy veggies). I'm still trying to get under 400 lbs for my surgery, so I'm hoping that, if nothing else, I'll achieve that goal over the next month. At that point, I can decide whether I want to have the surgery or see how I do another round.

So, today began my first of three days "loading" before I start the VLCD (very low calorie diet). Basically, on your loading days, you eat pretty much what you want. Many people seem to use these days as a treat to eat all the stuff you aren't going to be eating over the next month. One friend has urged me to try to stay away from sugars and starches during these three days, but I think it is more so that when you go on the vlcd, you adjust easier. Another friend used her 3 days as license to eat whatever she wanted and she did great her first round. I've spent the last two plus weeks really watching what i ate and have lost a few lbs. My body is really kind of not cooperating and I'm not sure why. I'm hoping that stepping up my exercise will help.

Anyway, by Sunday, I will be on the vlcd phase. Most people tend to lose on average about a lb. a day...at least half a pound a day. I'm hoping that since I have so much to lose, I'll be on the higher end. It is kind of exciting to think that I could be under 400 lbs for the first time in years in about a month.

I've been busy the last week or so and Tanner is kind of going through a rough patch which is why I haven't been posting much. It has just been really draining on me as each night has been a battle where he is concerned and after months of a really easy going kiddo, it is kind of a very depressing deja vu and I didn't want to get on here and complain. He seems to be doing a bit better so I'm hopeful. He isn't thrilled about going to the gym with me (hopefully that starts next week), but I'm really hoping that the more weight I lose, the more strength I get back, the more I'm going to be able to start doing with him. He is just the hardest kid to motivate!

Anyway, break is over so have to get back to work BOO! ttys

I'm still alive!

I apologize for being absent the last few days. I've started to post and actually have a post in draft that was almost finished from a few days ago that I just never got around to actually posting. I haven't stopped dieting, although I did get a bit disheartened because the scale crept up to about 435 from 432 around Monday and has stayed there give or take a pound both ways most of the week (I need to weigh myself today and I'll post it later). I think I may actually be trying to have a period after months (I can't even remember the last period I had...I know..that's bad) which may be impacting my weight. It is either that OR those salads I got and some of the other times I've eaten something I didn't actually prepare myself had more fat or calories than I actually thought they did.

On other fronts...that damn cyst is back :( So, I'm going to have to try to get into the doctor at some point. I think that may also have contributed to another bout of lethargy I've had the last few days uggh..hate it. That is probably the biggest reason I haven't posted...been working like a fiend and once I'm off...I am just so exhausted, I spend a few hours with Tanner....work a few more hours at my night job and then go straight to bed.

Speaking of..I just started working my day shift and two people called out so I should probably go as I have a ton of work to get done and I imagine Im going to stay pretty busy on the phone unless they can get these other shifts covered. I will weigh myself on my break and update this post so check back later in the day if you want to know the damage :S. I do have some other stuff to report (on the exercise front) and I hope to update that tomorrow. You can read my food log from the past few days (just change the date at the top) here. Not great, but not horrible...had a few days (like yesterday) where I went "off" my eating plan a bit, but you can see I stayed under in calories if not fat grams lol :S Dinner would have even been ok if I hadn't had that darn biscuit!!! 250 calories and 15g of fat IN ONE POPEYE'S BISCUIT????? that's insane!

DAY 8:

Today was pretty uneventful. I'm still trying to get one of my good friends to join the gym I want to go to. We used to go together, but she couldn't afford it and then I stopped going and blah, blah, blah. She weighs a bit less than I do, but she's shorter and she is beginning to head down the same path I did. I think the one thing that saves her right now is that she has a young daughter who keeps her busy. I just don't think she's ready to really commit to making that sort of change in her life. Like me, her mouth says she wants to, but her actions say otherwise. So, for now...I'm just going to have to drop it with her. Maybe as I get more weight off and start feeling better, she'll want to follow suit.

So, I'm back to square one when it comes to getting to the gym. Frustrating. The main reason I want to go is #1: I want to be able to take Tanner with me and get him more involved. #2: I'm scared of injuring myself and I know the fitness guy there could help me set up a strength training program that could help me get my strength back without risking an injury which could sideline me for quite a while. I can think up exercises to do for my upper body. We have a weight bench and we even have some cool weights that we bought years ago. I know what to do with them. I can also do pushups against the wall, work with soup cans and arm raises, etc. I even started doing some modified crunches using the weight bench. I put it at an angle where I'm leaning back a bit and pull myself upward into a sitting position. Believe me, after about 20 I feel it burning in my abs so it is doing something. I'm going to continue those until I can get on the floor.

I figure, for now...the back exercises, the wall pushups, the modified crunches..these will keep me plenty busy. As a side note...to those of you who might think I'm not pushing myself hard enough, know that it is mainly because I'm scared to death of hurting myself. I'm worried about getting shin splints or a pulled muscle; pulling my back out or injuring my knee. Any one of those things could not only sideline me for quite a while, but they can also make it even more difficult to get going again when whatever I screw up heals itself. By then, I will have lost even more muscle tone and I'm telling you...if I lose anymore muscle tone, I'm not going to be able to get out of bed or out of a chair without assistance.

Anyway, Here's what I accomplished today. You can see my physical activity notes below what I ate. Let me know if you can't see this. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Saturday Weigh In: 432 on the nose!!

Yep...actually lost 12 lbs since this time last week :) Pretty awesome hmm? I have to say that I'm kinda feeling it in my body...just not as difficult to get going once I get on my feet. It is very subtle, but its there.

Probably the biggest change is in my energy level. I knew eating better would probably impact that a little bit, but it has really had a much bigger than expected impact. On my days off, I could literally spend all day sleeping and still not wake up rested (I'm sure this has a lot to do with the apnea and the fact that I'm not currently using my cpap...I need a new mask). I was also extremely exhausted by the end of the day on my work days; so much so that I had started taking a nap between my two jobs which meant I wasn't available to tanner much (he would come in and watch TV in my bedroom while I got a bit of rest (this wasn't every day).

Yesterday I went and got my nails done and a pedicure. Even doing something like that takes a lot out of me at the moment, but I noticed that I bounced back much quicker. Amazing how quickly you start seeing results.

Yesterday I "splurged" a bit at dinner time. Erik got pizza, but he got me a thin crust veggie pizza. I had one slice of that and one slice of the regular pizza they had. It wasn't a horrible splurge. I was consciously making choices about what I ate and what level I would stop at. For lunch, Shannon (the friend that went to the salon with me) and I stopped at jack in the box and I got the chicken teryaki bowl which..Yikes just pulled it up on their nutritional menu... is 693 calories and 6g fat. Higher in calories than I thought, but I hadn't had breakfast so it isn't that bad really.

Erik has kind of been driving me nuts. I don't know if I'm just more aware of it when I'm dieting or if he subconsciously (or consciously) amps up the verbalization of his own cravings or what; I'm probably just more aware of it lol. He knows I've stuck to my diet and have been working hard to continue to do so, but the other morning he mentioned he was going to whataburger and asked if I wanted anything. I told him no, and then last night he starts talking about having this pancake craving..he got me going lol. We were looking up Ihop and talking about getting take out from there this morning. We pulled up the website and worked ourselves up into quite the pancake frenzy. Luckily, we slept on it and decided we'd just get pancakes from whataburger. I was looked them up and they are only 408 calories with 4 grams of fat for three large pancakes...not bad. I didn't butter them and only used one syrup (120 calories 0 fat) so all in all, that "splurge" was only 528 calories and 4 grams of fat!! That's better than most lean cuisines lol :)

I really have to thank Chris for helping me simplify my thought process when it comes to dieting. Instead of focusing so much on good vs. bad foods, I'm focusing on a caloric intake (my cap is about 1800 per day, but I'm usually well below that). Since I've been doing that, I find that I don't feel as deprived. I'm not obsessing so much about food. It really is helping so thanks friend :)