So far I am working my buns off and it feels great! Today was the first day back at school and I still worked out without hesitation. I created a goal sheet where I put little happyface stickers if I exercise, drink my water and take a multi-vitamin. I will add more goals to it in a couple weeks.
On Saturday I went with my mom and sister to a big wedding expo in Seattle. My mom really wanted to go but none of us expected to buy anything. The first thing we saw was all the different companies and their wedding dresses. I was shy to look around but my sister immediately began browsing as if she was getting married. That helped get me going. Most of the places we looked had really yucky dresses that looked like costumes, but I found some very nice ones at one particular company based in Olympia. I probably tried on about 5 dresses and then there was this one. It was perfect. It is simple and the material swoops to the side just a bit. It's also sleeveless and laces up in the back. The torso is kind of like a corset so it holds everything in and makes it look like I actually have curves, which I don't. I'm not an apple or a pear, just a straight line most of the time.
It didn't fit perfectly but it will by July. It was a size 6 since I guess wedding gowns are in European sizes. $460 seemed very reasonable, too! There was this guy for the Seattle times who took tons of pictures while I was trying on a veil and jewelry and he took down my name and my mom's name but alas, some other girl and her mom ended up getting their picture on the front page. Bummer. The upside is that Mike doesn't get to see the dress until our wedding day. My mom took it home and stashed it away.
I don't recall ever making a real New Year's Resolution. This will be my first official one. I never did before because I was afraid of breaking it, but I know myself well enough to know that I can do it as long as it achievable.
Here it is - I'd like to go back to 115 pounds
I'm starting with the basics. Drink 64 ounces of water a day, take a multi-vitamin, begin an exercise routine weekly, and eat reasonably. I will still use Weight Watchers as my tool for tracking the food I eat so I can stay on track.
I will worry about fruits, veggies and dairy later on down the road. I don't want to overwhelm myself so I'm starting small. The water and the multivitamin are easy because I've never strayed from that for a long time now. The exercise is going to be the biggest challenge, so that will be my main focus for the week.
I won't be recording a weight loss goal until next week since I'm not weighing in until the 9th. I want to give my body a week to get used to what it's like to eat like a normal human being.
I hope everyone else out there had a great holiday and enjoyed their New Year's celebration!
I apologize for not being around these past couple weeks. I meant to check up on everyone but there have been a lot of meetings and I have been busy with reading some books at home that I am very interested in.
We have been cooking every week and the results are astounding. We discovered that we can cook! I made a paremsan chicken bake the other day and it was wonderful. Mike made a home made pizza and it was one of the best ever. Unfortunately the nutrition facts were just as bad as if we ordered from Pizza Hut. I'm making a greek dish called Pastitsio tomorrow. My para just gave me a wonderful Christmas gift, too. It's a bundle of healthy recipes she picked out for me. I will be making many of them over the two-week break.
This is our last week at school! I don't have a lot planned and very few meetings so I expect to be able to relax a little. The S-Curves are having construction during rush hour (of all times!) so there is a lot of road rage on the way home. The S-Curves are part of a major freeway that everyone and their mother drives to get anywhere. There's not a lot of other options for me so I have to tough it out.
I hope all of you are doing well. I'll try really hard to remember to check in with you this week sometime to see what's new.
Here's our wedding update. It's been a while since I've even said anything about it. Things sort of went on the backburner as soon as the school year started but we are slowly working our way there.
The wedding is set for July 20, 2008 at the Lake Wilderness Lodge in Maple Valley. It's a really nice facility at a very decent price. It's got a spiral staircase and lots of space, plus it's right on a lake. The side of the lodge that is facing the lake is pretty much made up of glass and that is where we will hold the ceremony.
We're just now getting the payments made to officially book our officiant and our DJ. We booked the caterer a long time ago and they will be doing our food, cake and serving the alcohol that we will be bringing in. We have a photographer in mind as well as a florist. I told my mom that we'd get a couple checks in the mail to secure some people this month. My sister is calling my mom the "Bridezilla" because she is way more into this wedding than I am right now. She is constantly calling and e-mailing to see if I've done something and to tell me what needs to get done and when it needs to be done. Money has been tight so I've been waiting to save up a bit.
I am looking forward to getting married and having a wedding but planning it all makes me so much less excited and really more stressed. Happiest day of our lives? I'd like someone to tell me that their wedding was the happiest, non-stressful day of their life after being the one doing all the work. Meetings and booking and pricing and planning and money we quite frankly don't have right now. I'm hoping that I will feel better by spring, at least.
Mike cooked tonight and it was wonderful. He spend a good portion of the day making it. He made everything from scratch and stocked our kitchen with a bunch of spices, too. He made a home-made vinagrette for our salad, and a potato soup with green beans. For the entree he made cajun-style cod. It was really spicy which is how we like it. The rub was made from a mix of different spices, including cayenne pepper and freshly ground peppercorns. Burke came over to share with us and brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
I also went shopping for a couple meals that I will be making this week. What a breakthrough! We don't cook. Ever. Maybe if we get into the habit of doing this more and more often we will not have to worry about the health of our future children that we plan to have one day.
We were baaaaad this past week. It felt so good, though. Thanksgiving was nice. Whoever made the stuffing put raisins in it... What were they thinking??? I don't eat stuffing but Mike does and I think it tarnished his outlook on my extended family. I've never seen stuffing with raisins in it and I don't think they belong, either. Oh well, we had pumpkin pie and apple pie and green bean casserole, among other traditional foods. Then we went out to eat with some friends on Sunday.
I weighed in this morning and lost a pound. Say WHAT? I know what this means. It means that all the food I ate this week is going to take at least a week to catch up with me. So if I'm really really good this week I might be able to maintain at next week's WI. Or I might gain. I am setting reasonable expectations because I know I did not deserve this loss.
Oh well, it still makes me a little giddy to think that I lost a pound after eating my guts out on Thanksgiving and eating a Rajun' Cajun chicken burger and french fries at Red Robin.
I lost what I gained last week, so that is a relief. I played it serious this last week and worked really hard, except for one day.
On Saturday there was the BlueNile formal holiday party, which is an annual thing in November. Mike hasn't been happy with his job lately so we decided to say "screw them" and go to my sister's big housewarming party instead. It was a lot of fun. The only problem is that the kitchen is the biggest room in the house and that's where everyone hung out! Incidentally that's where all the food was, too. I ate my heart out but still kept track of everything and stayed on plan. By the end of the week I still had about 10 flex points left.
Mike and I started walking a mile a day on Monday and we're gradually working our way up to jogging over the next several weeks.
Has anyone heard of the new e-book called Kindle? Amazon.com sells it for $400. I want one soooooooo badly but the price is too ridiculous to even consider it. If it was $100-200 I would definitely look into it. I'm going to get one sooner or later but the price has to drop significantly to even afford the darn thing.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Turkey Day! We're going down to Lacey which is in the Olympia area to visit my dad's side of the family. Tomorrow will be the one day I allow myself to eat a lot of food, but I am committing to only one piece of pumpkin pie. I'm so excited for a 4-day weekend!
I gained and I deserve it. I'll bet that cake caught up with me, plus the weekend didn't go so well. I had a great week but since Monday was Veteran's Day and my whole family had the day off, we went out to lunch and I ate some things I probably shouldn't have! I know that if I exercised there would be some serious damage-control. That is something I need to commit to. If I don't commit to it now then I need to at least think about it for winter break. That will be a good 2-week jump start. I've been getting into the habit of getting home from work and watching Oprah instead of exercising. I can still watch Oprah and exercise at 5pm. Mike doesn't even get home until 6 so I have no excuses.
Goals for this week:
Drink 64 oz. of water 5-6 days a week
Watch what I eat and really ask myself if I'm hungry before digging in the cupboard for a snack
No more than 1 grilled cheese sandwich (2 points!) a day
No more than 1 ice cream (2 points!) a day
Eat one apple and 2 yogurts each day
Take a deep breath and drink some water when I'm having a craving
Take 2 comfy baths to relax
Work really really hard to stay on plan this week even though it's the BlueNile winter formal on Saturday
Ok, it's a lot of goals but they're fairly achievable if I put my mind to it. I haven't been relaxing enough and my job is really getting to me. I've been using my stress as an excuse to go off-plan. I think to myself, "I hate my life so I'll just eat myself to death." Something like that.
Anyway, I'll go check up on you guys later. Gotta get back to work.
I am very happy to say that I maintained this past week. Mike and I worked hard to be good and even decided to not eat out on the weekend. Then our friends, who just moved back to Seattle from Columbus, Ohio, came over. As usual, friends tend to come visit with a growling stomach so we did go out to eat on Sunday. Since we were "bad" Mike practically begged to go out and get dessert that night. I shouldn't have given in because I wasn't in the mood for dessert. We went to QFC and bought a round white cake and each ate half! I repeat: I wasn't in the mood for dessert! So why did I eat it? I didn't even enjoy it, really. This is why I'm glad I maintained after eating pad thai and half a cake with frosting.
The words of the week are "self-control". I have a poster in my classroom that says, "Self-Control is knowing you can but deciding you won't." Hellooooooo!
Anyhow, I am going to keep trying and never give up. This weekend we are celebrating my mom's and my sister's birthdays at a restaurant where you can't plan ahead. You verbally tell them your likes and dislikes and they create a menu for you. It's called Pasta Fresca. I will make that dinner my one big yummy evening and work as hard as I can to eat when I am hungry on the other days.
My para is sick this week so I have been managing on my own. I am proud of myself for doing so well thus far. It has caused more stress and exhaustion than my body should take but this weekend is going to be 3 days long!!! Extra sleep and relaxation. I hope everone else is having a good one. :)
I caved and finally recorded my real weight. It's time to revamp and get with the program! The chart shows my losses and gains since September 17. I am experimenting with having my weigh-in day be Wednesdays because I am the least consistent on the weekends.
Thank you all for your encouraging words about the job and the weight gain. I was touched by a couple comments I got about my high school job. I am trying to be the most positive role model I can be. It just tears at my heart sometimes. Last Friday a man was shot and killed in his home by one of our freshmen who was robbing his house. Several of my students are friends with the kid and are gang affiliated. We have to send students to the principal if they are wearing more than 2-3 red items because that has been a problem here.
Tonight is parent conferences, though. I hope to meet some eager parents.
Tomorrow we are going out to Seattle to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D. I'm looking forward to that because it's such a fun movie!
My sister is moving into a house this weekend and we are helping. That will be good exercise!
Many of you sent me a message after noticing I was checking your blogs but not saying anything! Thank you all for supporting me even though I've been unsupportive of myself. I checked people's blogs because I want to know how all of you are doing, but I haven't had the energy to post a comment to everyone.
Work is not fun and that is what has been holding me back from doing anything right. I started a new teaching job at a high school, thinking it might be more enjoyable than junior high. It is much harder and the students are much more challenging. It is an inner city school with many kids who come from nasty home lives and/or don't have parents. Skipping is incredibly common and parental support is uncommon. More than 80 different languages are spoken throughout the district. Adapting to this environment has proved to be challenging for me.
It seems like I'm re-starting my diet every other week because I let the stress control me. I was exercising in September and hurt my foot. It got better but I am not motivated to begin again. Anxiety and depression are two problems I've had throughout my life and right now those things are dominant contributors to everything I feel and do. I'm working on it and I have faith that one day things will get better. This age group is not right for me. I went to college to be an elementary school teacher, so why in the world did I decide to become a high school teacher? I learned my lesson.
I hope everyone is doing ok. I'll try to drop by and say hello to all of you. Posting on here is always motivating and I should really get back with it!
I'm making a greek dish called Pastitsio tomorrow. My para just gave me a wonderful Christmas gift, too. It's a bundle of healthy recipes she picked out for me. I will be making many of them over the two-week break.