Still Alive, Still Overweight, Still a Procrastinator

Okay, here’s the deal: I’m not so good at following through. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a flake, I am generally on time and haven’t made a habit of breaking commitments with other people but when it comes to commitments to myself... Not so great. Not so good at all, actually.
I have my blogger page listed in my favourites and every time I see it, I feel a little pang of guilt because I know I should be updating here every day... or at least every week but I have been radio silent for quite some time. The other day, however, my facebook pal reminded me of my blog (thanks Emily!) and so here I am... with my tail between my legs.

All the excuses I have for not updating the blog, for not sticking to my diet plan, my exercise plan or... well, anything... are pretty standard. If you do any research on weight loss, you start to learn that there really are very few unique stories. Most people fall into the same traps, the same patterns and bad habits and I am just one of the many. That’s not supposed to be a grab for pity, it just makes it equally understandable and frustrating because it’s like, “I want to lose weight, but keep trying and failing” and the answer is: “Join the club”.

So here’s the good news: I haven’t gained back the weight I lost on the first week of the detox. I think I got a little too cocky with my first week’s success, though, because I kept thinking: “If I only have to lose a pound a week, I am ahead of the game and don’t have to worry about.” Stupid, stupid. Here’s the other good news: The weight I did lose was with very minimal exercise. To me, that means that if I can get my ass in gear for exercising I will be more successful.

Here’s the bad news: I hate exercising. I can’t even pretend that I like yoga and playing tennis and making an idiot out of myself at aerobics. It’s just not my bag. I think I can make myself do it... but let’s be clear: I will not be “super pumped”. I will schlep my extra 50+ pounds to the gym and work around my bouncy boobs and extra padding, but it will not feel good. Not for a while, anyway. Everything is just so much harder when you are carrying around an Olsen Twin on your back (and front).

The rest of my life has been a bit of a gong show lately. I have decided that I am living in one of two situations: 1) I have horrible luck and bad things happen to and around me on a pretty constant basis or 2) I have the coping skills of a teething 2 year old. I’ve decided not to speculate too much on which one of those is correct because that will just lead to long, self-deprecating mid-twenties crises and a giant Pity Party that won’t help anything.
Here’s a bit of a run down on what you’ve missed on “Stephanie TV” since I disappeared:
- My stomach started to get a lot more stable once the anti-biotics and everything were done, but has since taken to randomly flaring up every couple of days for reasons I can’t quite figure out.
- My job has finally agreed to let me go down to 3 days a week, but only temporarily and only by switching my actual position. Although I make the same hourly wage, I consider it a big “step down” in terms of job responsibilities. Considering I was bored to tears before, I am now driving myself insane. Fewer days at work means less stress for me but also less money for us, which is never a good thing.
- Adrian (who, by the way, has done incredibly well and lost about 15 lbs and has been exercising really regularly) is at a pretty major cross roads for his career and instead of being happy about the new options he is being given (including one with a significant pay raise and expense account), he is just getting super stressed. Super stressed hubby = Incredibly grumpy hubby = very stressful home life.
- Our home renovations for the flood we had in November have finally completed “Phase 1”, but it has been a huge pain in my ass for the last 6 weeks. It also means that now we have to cough up $1,000 to our insurance company to replace our floors for “Phase 2”. It also means we finally get our kitchen back, which has been unusable for a lot of the past couple of months. Yet another excuse I have been using for not sticking to my meal plans, etc.
- I switched my anxiety medication to one at a higher dose which seems to be helping a little, but it was a tough transition and made me feel really shite for a while. It’s better now, but does leave me with the worst taste in my mouth pretty much all the time. I am hoping that this new one doesn’t have any negative impact on my weight loss – I think it is pretty rare that it causes major issues but with my luck you never know!
- The other big possibility is that Adrian may join the RCMP and if he does, will be gone for 6 months and take a significant pay cut. Since we don’t know what’s happening, it is always playing on my mind. If we are BOTH making less money, it’s gonna be really hard to get the bills paid and our house assessment has really gone down this year.

So that’s the big stuff that’s been happening and to say I’ve been feeling a wee bit stressed would be a ridiculous understatement. Stress = Not good for weight loss. Well, Stress = Not good for anything - Especially when you have a pretty considerable anxiety disorder.
I feel like Adrian is at this really definite cross roads in terms of his career and it’s going to really affect what the next several years of our lives will look like. It will determine a lot of whether or not I can go back to school like I want to, when we can afford to buy a proper house, when we can try to start a family, what our income will look like for extra things like holidays to see his family, etc. It is a lot of “wait and see”ing at this point, which I have never been very good at.

The bottom line, though, is that I know it is easy to get caught up in all the drama that might be going on around you but that your health really does have to take priority. For me, this includes the other bombs my body tends to drop on me but I know that it also includes my weight. I know that if I DO want to start a family soon and do all these other things, I HAVE to get some weight off first. I just wish I knew how to focus in on that and make it happen.

Now that I am off Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am thinking it would be a good day to “schedule” in sessions at the gym. I am already paying the membership, I might as well go! It also gives me a day during the week to go out and get groceries without the long line-ups (well, at Costco anyway) and have more time to prepare/cook with an actual meal plan. That’s what I am hoping for, anyway. Tomorrow is the start of a new week, so I guess we’ll just see how it goes!

Weekly Review and Weigh In: Week 3

Welcome, very late, to Week 3!
As I've already mentioned, I went radio silent for a while and a lot of that has had to do with the fact that I really haven't been feeling well. When I don't feel well, I don't go out. When I don't feel well, I don't eat very much. When I don't feel well, I don't exercise. When I don't feel much, basically, not much happens in my life. When not much happens outside of watching hours of TV and reading books, there is very little to blog about. Unless you all want to hear my opinions on the NBC primetime line up... :)

This might just be one of the challenges that I am going to have for the next 50 weeks and possibly longer than that: Even though I feel like crap, I still want to lose weight. The answer might be that I simply need to Suck It Up more. My Suck It Up skills, though... they aren't so great. I am more of a "Lie down and sleep until everything feels better" kinda girl. I am not above admitting that this might be part of the problem...

Anyway, the week went by without any major disasters in terms of weight loss. I'm sure I had a few things that I shouldn't have eaten, but I know that you have to be able to forgive yourself and just move on from slip-ups so that's what I plan to do.

Anyway, here is my Weigh In:

Weigh In: NO CHANGE
Overall Progress: LOSS – 7 lbs
Goal at this point: 2 lbs lost (which means I am still ahead by 5 lbs, woo!)

Weekly Review and Weigh In: Week 2

It’s amazing how quickly a week can go by when you are asleep for most of it... I have been “resting” as ordered by my doctor, which for me includes many naps and watching old episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. (Side Note: I am beginning to see why I was so disillusioned by relationships when I was younger consider I based my “true love goal” on that of one between a vampire with a soul and a vampire slayer. I went through a phase last year of watching old episodes of “Dawson’s Creek”, another high school favourite, and came to a similar realization when I watched Pacey give Joey a wall... How I ever thought any regular teenage boys would add up I do not know. But, oh, I do hold a special place in my heart for Angel and Pacey). Last night I went out for the first time to a friend’s Going Away party and got home after midnight. My body was so unimpressed with this “going out” business that I came home and promptly fell asleep.
This week has been tricky and I have been dreading my Weigh In today because I have been doing a whole lot of missing meals and eating thing I definitely wasn’t eating Week 1. I did, however, get on the scale this morning. Before that, here is my Week in Review:

Pats on the back:
- Drank a decent amount of water
- Got lots of rest and got right on antibiotics for infection hiccup
- Spoke to Dr about switching medication for anxiety and am currently trying a new one

Kicks in the Pants:
- Missed a lot of meals
- Did not plan out meals in advance and stick to it
- Did not exercise AT ALL this week

Weigh In: GAINED 0.5 lbs
Overall Progress: LOSS – 7 lbs
Goal at this point: 2 lbs lost (which means I am still ahead by 5 lbs, woo!)

I am actually quite pleased with this as a result. I was concerned that I would gain back all my first week’s progress because I fell off the wagon so much this week in terms of planning, eating regularly and getting in enough nutrients. I suspect that I won’t be so lucky in future weeks if this happens and I’m not toting a nasty infection, so will be very careful in the coming weeks to not undo the progress I have made so far.

Weekly Review and Weigh In: Week 1

My first week on my 50 lbs in 50 weeks challenge has come to an end and I have certainly been through some ups and downs. This week was especially difficult because of the strict Detox I have been on that I have called off 2 days early due to the stress it was causing my touchy tummy. So here is my Week in Review:
Pats on the Back:
- Drank a good amount of water every day
- Stuck to my eating plan of the detox diet, until I ended it early
- Did a lot of cooking and tried out new, healthy recipes

Kicks in the Pants:
- Did not get my 3-5 days of exercise in, mostly due to feeling so poorly
- Fell back into the habit of not eating frequently enough when I wasn't feeling well
- Probably stayed too long on the detox when it obviously wasn't agreeing with me

Originally, I wasn't going to weigh myself until Day 10 but because I have ended the detox early I weighed myself tonight. I will be Weighing In every Sunday for the remainder of the challenge.

Weigh In: LOST 7.5 lbs

Of course, I am pleased with the weight loss but it is hard to feel celebratory when today has been such a struggle. I suspect that the weight loss is due to being so sick, such severely limiting my food intake and water weight loss. I am definitely not expecting this every week!