losing weight

Getting motivated and getting a plan

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We have some wonderful new neighbors at our new house and truely feel we won the neighbor lotto as everyone we have  met on our street is just wonderful !! One family next to us is having some pretty exciting opportunities come thier way  and it is so fun to watch thier dreams coming true . My best girl friend Laurie just got her LVN license, and is on the path to being an RN   which is her dream come true, all of our kids  and thier spouses are starting to really  find thier paths and are doing well, which is so wonderfu land I am so excited to see these wonderful people having great things happen !!!

It made me realize that I am not content just watching them reach thier dreams and have wonderful things happen, I want to have wonderful things happen in my life !!

I have a great life. To borrow a line from a fellow Blogger I folllow, The Dancing professer, I have a dreamy life !! I have a truely wonderful husband who supports anything I want to do. He is not at all upset with me when I have a fun day instead of washing laundry , even if he is really short on socks,  and is truely happy that I had a good day and will throw in a load himself , no compaining, although I really try hard to make sure he has what he needs each day . We honestly love each other and enjoy each others company and after almost 32 years of marriage are really happy together in our marriage and are each others best  friends as well as married.  We share four truely amazing kids and three of them are now married and their spouses  are all like our own kids, we love them so much and they have given us eight grandkids, which are such a blessing !!

Blessings all, and I am so grateful every day for each and every one of those precious beings in my life !!

I have also been blessed with wonderful friends in my life. Some here in person, some friends I have had for life that live in other states as either I  or both of us,  have moved from  where we all knew each other. I have wonderful blogger friends and friends on facebook I have never met. Each one is a blessing and a gift in my life. I enjoy reading the blogs and talking on the phone and keeping up with all these wonderful people.

I have done what I was supposed to do. With considerable help from my hubby  we have raised our four kids to be wonderful and interesting adults that I would want to know even if they were not our kids. We are so proud of them all.

Now, it is my time. I do not want to spend the rest of my life on the sidelines cheering everyone on with no one cheering me. I want to have goals and work hard to make my own celebrations !! Life is so amazing and there are so many wonderful people and places and things to do,  and I want David and I to be able to see the world and meet interesting people and have some fun and interesting experiences !!!

So, it is time for me to start making more plans and then start making them happen.   Both for my personal future, what I want to be now that our  kids are grown up, and for us to make plans for us as a couple now that we do not have to make our plans around kids any longer. And also help my husband with his own plans, give him support to think about what he wants to do. He has supported us our entire marriage and never really give much thought to what woudl make him happy career wise, versus just bringing home money for the family. I want him to be happy every day with what he does , not just have to endure a job the next twenty years. HE works hard in his currrent job, makes good money but it is not his passion, although he is very good at what he does.

MY biggest problem is I am so scattered. I love to do too many things and need to focus on one  or at most two.

I love to write, draw, bead, take pictures, do all kinds of crafts, read, talk on the phone, visit with friends, go to yard sales and thrift shops, although those last few really are not career goals, although the yard sales and thrift stores could be part of a goal.

I have been working on a book for years, time to finish it and figure out what i am going to do with it  publishing wise.

I am also working hard to get off about half my body weight and that is very distracting as well. Going slow, but when you have a metabolism problem, which the endrocinologist said I do, It will just take longer but will happen in time.

So, the big questions is what do I want to do the most ??  I really do not know !!!!

We recently moved into a new(old) house and it is taking so much time to get settled in. I am finally going to have a proper work area in the living room and once that is all done and every thing I own is put away, I know I will be a bit more focused .

Did I mention I also have ADHD from childhood ?  I am constantly having to keep myself on track as I can be distracted off anything I am doing so easily.

They say to figure out what you loved to do as a child to find your true calling. I loved to do kid stuff. Run, jump, play kickball, play with my little animal toys,and for a while Barbies, draw, play with clay, paint, , color, sing, talk and spend time with my friends and play make believe games. Pretty average child stuff. Nothing that really steers me toward a dream or goal.  Kind of the same stuff I love today, except for the Barbies and animal toys, make believe ,  and the  running and jumping thing. But that is not the point !!!  I suppose some make believe in our lives would not be a bad thing, day dreaming is so important and that is what we do as kids, but we act it out !!  I had noticed lately I do not day dream as much as I used to and I do not like that !!

That is what made me start this blog, and I had every intention of writing here often and working hard to figure me out , but then life  just got in the way. It become an occasional thing. But seeing all the happy news around me, and watching the people I like and care about having such fun times and seeing so many dreams starting to come true, it really has  hit me that I have to start moving toward some goals.

I sit in my house way too much. I am living through others, way too much. I deserve, as everyone does, to have dreams and goals and celebrations of my own.

We get married, we have a shower, or showers, the wedding, and that fun time of getting used to being married. Then you have the babies and those showers and then pretty much after that, if you do not keep your personal goals alive, everything is for the kids. Their first day of school. Their graduations and big birthdays, one , ten, sixteen, and  you kind of push your stuff to the back. We did not have a big 25 th wedding anniversary party and that is a shame. We should have. I did not have a big 50th birthday, nor did my husband, we should have.

What is life, if not for celebrating ??

So, I am going to work harder, as I navigate life stuff, setting up this house, babysitting grand kids and celebrating everyone’s goals reached and dreams coming true, and get some goals of my own.

I know some things I want to accomplish.

1 lose the weight that as Oprah put it, is mud in my wings. I do believe that. I am not as bubbly and outgoing as I used to be when I felt pretty and had a thin more agile body. Although still outgoing and friendly, I am less  willing to put myself out there than I used to be.

2, finish my book and get it published and out there.

3. Get my jewelry business profitable. I am very , very proud of the quality of my pieces. I know they are good quality and worth what I ask. I just have to figure out how to get my pieces  promoted better. I am working on it, by  sponsoring a very cute and lovely  blog, showing my items on another  wonderful blog. website,  and putting them on Etsy .com.  Those links, if not on this blog to the right, are on my beading blog, which is on the right.

4. Get our debt paid off so that David has some options. Once we are debt free, except for our houses, they will be ongoing for a while, then we have more options open for doing some of the t hings we are passionate about . Real estate, we have dreamed of owning rental property and finally have one house rented and one we live in. Also , we would love to open a store and rent out booths to crafters and antique dealers. That has been a dream for honestly most of our marriage. We have rented booths and tried that way, but that is not the way to do it. Have others pay the rent and you can sell your stuff with no rental, trying to pay the rent on a booth leaves it harder to make that profit !!  We have to be debt free and maybe willing to live above  that business for a while to get it off the ground, so more things to work towards. This would be a purchased building, so the mortgage and business could be one for a while.

A good start.  Much work to do.

I will work hard on becoming focused. Something my ADHD brain has issues with at times !!!

Thanks for stopping in, I will share as I go !!!

 

some pictures I took in our back yard the other day, great new camera !!! Took a lot more, but will just share a few !!

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I have to admit I am a bit bored right now and other ramblings …..

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I am dealing with some boredom issues lately and that is not like me. I have tons of books, but just cannot settle down to read. I was working on my etsy store, but with only three sales in a month with 300 views I am a bit reluctant to spend much more on listing if I am not selling anything. I am just not able to figure out why ? I seem to be blocked no matter what I do. Someone will ask for my card, they want to buy something and then I never hear from them. I even tried to show pictures one day and my iphone refused to pull up my etsy account, it is really weird. So, I am a bit lost now that that huge project is on hold. I have so much to list, hundreds of items and had planned on working on that every week, but now, with that packed away for now, I am at a total loss and I am also bored stupid !

It is the first time since I became a mom at 20, that my life is my own.  I am 52 years old. I do not have to work around kids, or grandkids schedules and that is just weird. I think I am just finding my place right now. My husband is at work and I am  home all day without a car, so that makes it a bit hard sometimes, but I am doing okay , why in the heck did my font change, I kept trying to go back and start typing over, but it changed anyway, weird !!

I am just taking it a day at a time, trying to figure out how to lose weight, I am really sick of being huge and just want to get this weight off but it is really not happening. Just finished an eight week stint on low carb with zero results. I had one cheat meal at day ten because my hubby was starting with me the next day. We followed the diet by the book, and neither of us lost a bit over the next almost seven weeks, so we are going to try something else. It is such a hard diet to be on, so we will find something not quite so impossible to do long term.

We have four of our  grandkids coming over this weekend, my husbands exact words when I told him the second two were coming was, are you crazy ? lol. I told him no, they will entertain each other and they are all old enough it will be fine. I am very exicted about it and I think he is too !! Four kids, no more pool, too cold and it will be a very cold weekend, so it will be interesting !! I know McDonaldsa indoor playground will be a key player in the weekend plans !!

Anyway. Just in a rambling kind of mood. I will seee if I can post a picture of the park, not sure I can post chihully on the blog, but I can post pictures of the actual park.

To change the subject, the Chihuly exhibit has been extended at the Dallas arboretum until the end of the year and we are both very excited about that. we are so in love with that exhibit and the arboretum itself, we are going to buy a season pass and enjoy it as many times as we can before it is gone in nine or ten weeks !! We both love to take pictures and was that an amazing exhibit !!

I just cannot get my computer to download the picures, it took ten minutes to get the one of the tree.

Okay, well, I am off to find something to do, not sure what, but I am just in that kind of mood tonight !!!

Off the wagon

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I have not been here in about a month. I have lost a few pounds and kept them off, but I am still not doing what I need to be doing to get this weight off.

We are in the middle of getting ready for a big move. We bought our house over ten years ago and decided to rent it out to our oldest daughter and her family so we can move up by my husbands work. He currently drives an hour each way and will only have to drive 15 or so mintues once we move. The stress of the move and preparing for a huge yard sale before we move ,  has really caused my hubby and I to not eat as well as we should be eating.

The good news is the new place, a very nice apartment comes with so many awesome ways to get excercise. Lap pool, five mile hiking and biking trail, all cement, a 24 hour gym, and we plan to use them all. Also being in a second story apartment will cause us to climb s tairs at least once a day !!

So, I am still standing in my truth, I weighed today and I am 250.5 and that is a better then where I started but a huge gap from where I need to be.  I am going to starting trying harder to work on it for the next 25 days until we move, not that I am counting, lol, but once we move, it will be a fresh start and we plan to take full advantage of it !!

I will try to post in the next few weeks, more often, but once we move my obligations will be a lot less and I will be working hard on my goals and posting almost daily at that point !!

Thanks for stopping by !!

Day 4

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I know I have not posted in a day and never finished Saturday but I have not fallen off the wagon at all. I had some stuff to take care of and decided to not post about it until today .  I got up to 251 today but for good cause and if you do not like reading about personal stuff like medical stuff, do not read any further, lol !!I did make an interesting discovery which I am thrilled with !!

I  had to do a fast on Sunday for my year overdue first colonoscopy which I had today. Yesterday was not a fun day and I had to basicly not eat anything and use laxitives which were not fun at all. Overall it was not a horrrible day. I made sure to eat light on Sat which helped. I got through yesterday and my test today and I am in perfect health and need not have another test for ten years. I am thrilled !! Now the thing that I discovered which is amazing and fairly exciting to me, is while fasting I of course could not eat any normal food. And all of the allergy symptoms I had been having which had been almost unbearable pretty much  disapeared .  Coughing, and again, too much info for most, but after four kids no kegals, so coughing is not a pleasant thing for me to go through. I am working on it, but the coughing really derailed me.  I have wondered for a long time if I am sensitive to wheat and or dairy but never really acted on it. I got up Sunday, did not eat them and by noon I happened to notice I had not coughed all day. I still took a benedryl to make sure, but by nine no more coughing but since I had to get sleep for my test, I took one anyway at midnight, and  woke up today and no coughing. None. I could not drink cold drinks, they made me cough , I could not have the air on in the room I was in as cold air made me cough so I had to keep the vent in our room closed . I had some coughing fits in the last week where I could not stop. I had discovered taking one benedryl every two hours took care of it, and I did go to the doctor and make sure taking a bendryl every two hours is okay,  so those episodes stopped,  but that had its own problems, sleepiness and feeling so thirsty from it dehydrating me.  So, today after my test I decided to not eat any dairy or wheat for a few weeks and see w hat happens. So far today, can drink cold drinks, can sit under the air conditioning vent and no coughing. I had never had coughing with allergies before, so it was a very weird thing anyway.  But after over a month of miserable coughing and some other allergy symptoms, I am feeling great benedryl free.  I am sorry I had to share my reasons for finding out, but it is a fact and what I had to go through and something we all have to do at 50.  I am hoping this change with the allergies continues and cutting out the food is the solution.

I know the scale today was not completely accurate as I had not eaten in a day, but I am hoping it does not go up much and I can get it in the forties in the next week or two. I am determined to get my weight down . This week I really saw myself for the first time , and truely saw how much I have to lose. It is a bit discouraging but I will get it off. If there are foods bothering my system, cutting them out will help I am sure. If I was wrong and that is not the issue, then I wlll cross that bridge when I come to it, but so far, feeling much better !! It is still allergy season so a bit of symptoms would be normal, but the amount I was having was way worse then I have ever had and I had been told it is just a bad allergy season, but to have it  all but stop suddenly after not eating, that makes me think there might be more to it. I still have a bit of allergy stuff but nothing big and we will see how the cough goes. I have had a tiny little cough here and there but the cough I have had the last six weeks is gone. I will not mind having to take a benedryl or two a day like a normal allergy season, it was the every two hours that wore me out !!

So I had a banana when we got home from the hospital and then  for lunch we went to Logans and I had a piece of grilled salmon, a skewer of grilled veggies a salad with no croutons or cheese on it with olive oil and vinegar , and no rolls with our meal and also had a sweeet potato no butter, cin sugar on the side and put a bit on. It was a healthy and really delicious meal with no wheat or dairy. I will admit I did have a handful of peanuts, who can resist eating them and throwing the shells on the floor, too much fun !!!

For dinner we are mixing black beans, brown rice, corn, mild rotel and some extra lean ground beef  and then David will have some cheese and sour cream but I will not, I will have some guacamole on it though. So, that is today. Will figure out tomorrow before I go to bed. Not leaving things up in the air anymore, but will have a plan for the next day before bed each  night.  I want to eat healthy and not only lose weight but  make sure I do not eat anything that bothers my system, I do not want to go back to that nightmare again.

So, that is what I have been up to this weekend !!  I am happy to start the new week with the medical stuff done. I was a bit anxious about it all and stressed so having that done makes me feel so much better !!

I am looking forward to a great week and seeing where this food experiment takes me.  It will be a challenge but one I am up too. 

No excercise to post today, I am taking it easy, I am bit wiped out from the last two days and they told me to rest today. Tomorrow I will be walking again.  I am bound and determined to get active and get this weight off !!

Day 2

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I had to have been a bit bloated yesterday, today my weight is down to 254.5, still way too high, but at last a bit better !!

It is a bit crazy around here today.  My daughter and her hubby and family live with us and they found fleas on thier cats so they have been hard at work to get rid of them. I did not eat much of a breakfast, I ate  two of those prepackaged string cheese things.

Lunch I had two slices of ww bread and a serving of mayo, which is two tablespoons and a small can of tuna in water and a handful of baked lays potato chips .

I will add more through the day as I eat. I Have had a liter of water and a half liter of cyrstal light raspberry ice and a half a litter of crystal lite peach and mago tea.

Starting fresh today

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Okay, day one and starting fresh, no more excuses.

Got up and weighed myself, not a good number, but it is what it is and it is my job to change it. My weight this morning is 257. that is my highest number yet and terrifies me because if I am that high, where could it go next. I used to think 240 was my highest, so it is very motivating. I do not want to hit 260.

I think I can say I am not prediabetic . My fasting blood sugar has remained well under 100 for weeks  without meds, today it was 84. I am thrilled with that number . I take cinnamon with chromium twice a day and walk every day at least a bit and if I do those two things, normal blood sugar. Now I have to get the weight off to  make s ure I never do get diabetes.

My goal today is 1200 calories.  Keep the fat down to about 20 to 30 grams and get plenty of fiber through whole grains, fruits and veggies. I plan to get as close to a gallon of water as I can and  choose healthy meals. My goal is to get at least 20 to 30 minutes of walking in as well.

I will p ost my meals here end of the day and will keep track of all my progress on this blog.

So, off to start day one, I am very relieved and excited to be starting my weight loss journey.

OKay, I am editing this through the day to put in my  meals.

Breakfast was a bowl of old fashioned oats I cooked with a bit of raisins in it and then added a small spoonful of spenda brown sugar. You need very little for a good flavor and then a splash of milk.

lunch David and I split a roasted chicken breast sandwhich from Subway. I got no cheese and only the piece of chicken breast, lettuce, tomato and lots of red onions with a splash of  red wine vinigar, NO dressings otherwise and we  had some baked lays , the plain kind with it.  I will post later with dinner .

I had dinner fairly early and due to allergies and being tired I made myself a sandwich with whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter and all fruit  blue berry jelly,and that was all I ate, and no snacks all night.

For snacks during the day  I had a bowl of red grapes and a banana and some raw broc, califlower and carrots with very minimal Italian dressing, just dipped the tip in and did not use much.

Excercise wise I walked twice for 15 minutes each time.

Standing in the truth !!

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I am a big Suze Orman fan and even though she is talking about finances when she says it,  I want to stand in my truth.

In asking others to join me here, I want to be honest with my current weight and goals and keep track of my progress here.

I am 51 years old,  a mom to four, grandma to seven and have been overweight since our second child, adding to that weight each of the pregnancies.

My weight at the doctors office today was a scary 257. I am not proud of that number. Before I got pregnant with our first child I weighed 118 pounds. I was not a stick at that point either. I had a bit of weight on me. But I am willing to shoot a bit higher but still fairly low at 125 which means I need to lose a bit over half my body weight. The doctors office gave me a sheet stating my bmi is 44.97 as of today. Yikes !! I am almost half fat, that is so sad !!

I am an emotional eater. I eat when I am sad, bored, happy, angry , frustrated , you name it, I will eat in that moment . I am an impulsive eater and usually not lazy. I have no problem making something from scratch if I want it bad enough.

I have been diagnoised with prediabetes but with taking cinnamon supliments twice a day and walking at least once a day I have kept my blood sugar well below 100 without meds and that is something I am very happy about.

I do have elevated blood pressure , today it was 134/92 and my cholesterol last time it was taken , end of last year was 240 , I cannot remember the break down but only my LDL was bad, my HDL and triglerides were good.  For that reason only I was not put on meds.

I have what is called metoblic syndrome. I have a  good deal of weight in my belly, and it is out of proportion to the rest of me. I am fat all over, of course. You cannot be 127 pounds overweight and not be fat everywhere, but my stomach is way out of proportion to the rest of my body. Once I get some of that belly fat gone, I should see my numbers all come down. The belly fat from how it was told to me by the endrocrinologist , is alive and releases hormones that cause trouble with your blood sugar and causes the higher numbers on the blood pressure and cholesterol. Having a fat behind is much healther as that fat does not do that, only belly fat  has the ability to trash your health that way. So, I have got to get about 50 pounds off to see some differances I would think. Only the last twenty to thirty pounds seemed to cause me the trouble but I am going to work very hard to get this frist 5o off this next year. Unlike those contestants on The Biggest Loser, one of my husbands and my favorate shows, it will not come out in huge losses every week not having a Bob Harper and gym at my beck and call !!!  If I can lose one to 2 pounds a week the next year, I will be very happy.

I plan to be very transparent here. I will post my weights and any test results when I go to the doctor. I wil talk about how I did each day, did I eat well, or cheat, how much excercise did I get and so on. I would love others to jump in every day to share thier progress and maybe we can really encourage each other to get where we each want to be !! 

So, day one officially starts tomorrow, I ate pretty good today but not as perfect as I plan to, so tomorrow night I will post my progress and maybe even post through the day. I am very excited and hope to meet many other people trying to lose, so please introduce yourself and share what you are comfortable sharing here !! 

We can do it !!! 

Stephie

Learning to love ourselves

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Another blogger wrote today about people who say negitive things about overweight people, many times disquised as advice.

I do not know why people are so critical of overweight people. It seems to be the last allowed prejudice.  Many feel it is okay to tell someone they need to lose weight and tell them they eat too much and do not understand that damage they are doing.

Many overweight people struggle with self esteem. Sometimes caused by the weight and sometimes the self esteem issue causes the weight. Either way, the people that suffer from lack of self esteem have trouble getting incentive to lose weight , the food has for many become t hier comfort and the more uncomfortable with thier body they are, the more they turn to food. It often becomes  a vicous cycle .

What I want people to understand that are not overweight and have never been overweight and feel good about themselves. They are often asking someone to fight hard for someone they do not love very much. If you do not think you deserve to be happy, or deserve to be thin,  you are not going to be willing to do what it takes to work  to get thin. That causes discomfort, and the food which helps you to bury the discomfort is now going to be taken away. This can cause panic and depression in a person who is suffering with this and often is just not sustainable. Think about it this way. If you do not love yourself, and  you do not feel deserving, you are not going to be willing to fight to get the things y ou do not feel you deserve. Who is going to fight for someone they sometimes even hate or despise ?

We need to concentrate on why someone does not love themselves and teach them why they are loveable, just the way they are. Fat or thin makes no differance in our worth as a person and if  more people who tell the people they love or even just work with and know, how wonderful they and what they admire about them and help them build themselves up, they would want to do the hard work that comes with losing weight. They would start to love them selves and care about themselves and want to fix those things that are not right in thier life, without you telling them too.

Lets be clear. I have never myelf met an overweight person who wanted to be that way.Okay  I do know there are some people out there who love being  heavy  and are happy that way and love themselves heavy , and that is not the issue here. I am talking about those people who do not want to be overweight but just cannot seem to overcome the to them unsurmountable work it takes to get to goal. It is not an easy thing to do.

I have often said when you are over a hundred pounds overweight and starting a diet, it is like trying to go up 100 stairs with one hand and one leg tied behind your back.  Scary and seems impossible. But once you are invested emotionally in yourself. You see the beautfiul person that you are, and that fat or thin  you are worthy of being loved and cherished and also , you are worthy and deserving of being slim and healthy too. At that point you can see yourself reaching goal, you can see yourself happy and slim and the work does not seem overwelming anymore. That stair case seems less scary .  Hard yes, momenets it seems impossible, yes, but you are willing to work through those bad moments because you know that is all they are. Bad moments.

So, if we can just teach our thin friends that they are not helping by saying “constructive ” things , that overweight people  know they  need to lose weight , and they  know they  are too heavy and have health risks because of it.  Instead they should show thier friends they care.  Tell tell them  what  you admire about them and how much you like them. What their strengths are and how beaufiful they are.  Show jthem they  matter and that you are glad they  are here , fat or thin. Love them  unconditionally .

Not many people are willing to fight for someone they do not love or care about, so you are just ingraining that feeling of being unworthy every time  you tell a heavy person what they should be doing. It makes them feel like a failure and it is humiliating.

We are all worthy. We are all beautiful. It took me a while to see that, but now I am happy with who I am and I am now willing to work to be healthy because I deserve to be healthy and strong and fit. I deserve to have energy and be able to do all the things I want to do.

So, lets just help each other love ourselves. Nothing is more important for so many reasons.  We are all wonderful, beautfiul and deserving of good things.