Somebody Help!!

Diet

What diet? I’m so tired of having to think up things to eat and I’m so busy with getting things done that I don’t have time to worry about what I’m eating … so the diet has been whatever I find the last few days.

I did try today. Had spaghetti squash with some sausage and spaghetti sauce and a salad and now I have baked eggs in the oven. But I also drank soda today and am craving blueberry muffins enough that I’m thinking of making the mile long trek to the grocery on foot just to buy some … in the dark … and the cold. Ugh. The carb cravings have begun.

Exercise

Hmm. Well, I guess if I walk to the store and back I’ll have walked two miles, half of it carrying a load of groceries. Otherwise, I’ve milked a goat today and written about 6,000 words. If I could lose weight in my hands and transfer it to the rest of my body, I’d be good to go.

Mentality

Oh hell … tonight there’s not a big enough vat of wine for me to fall in. And honestly that’s coming from someone who doesn’t drink that much. The time change and this getting dark by 5:30 in the evening is killing me.

 

Day Whatever

Exercise

Spent an hour last night, in the dark mind you, running and walking in the park. And then about 20 mins swinging. I know. Odd. I’ve done that before when I felt out-of-pocket with the rest of the world and it helped. Last night, not so much. But it did help me decide that instead of writing stuff down all the time, I’m going to walk it out. Since no one else is in the park at that time of night, I can scream at the top of my lungs and no one will know.

Menu

Eggs and canadian bacon cooked in coconut oil for breakfast. A cup of hot tea with sugar. A few potato chips to stave off hunger. Big glass of water while writing. And a beef stroganoff creation for supper with salad.

Mentality

Pretty much feel like I’m never going to lose the weight. No matter what I seem to do, it doesn’t come off. I’ve read everything I can, tried everything, and nothing ever works. It’s a vicious cycle. Of course the emotional stuff I’ve gone through recently hasn’t helped. On the odd days it makes me not want to eat anything. Can’t eat, really. I’m just sick to my stomach with worry and grief and sadness.

I read something that said “The struggles you’re going through today are just preparing you for the strength you’ll need in the future.” And I thought, HELL NO. If I need this much strength in the future, I don’t want to be there. This is harder than anything I’ve ever been through in my life on an emotional scale. How can it get worse?

Physically

My right eye has decided to see in double vision now. I’ve tried changing out my contact, since I’ve been crying a lot and they fog up when I do that, but that hasn’t helped. So I thought maybe something was wrong with my new prescription and I put in an old contact I still had, but that hasn’t helped either. It’s my eye. Whoopie. One more thing to deal with.

One Mile Down

Exercise

Made myself walk/run a mile today … complete with stopping for picking up pecans. That was a great stretching exercise and good for the waist and back.

Diet

Turkey egg omelet cooked in coconut oil with bacon bits and a sprinkle of cheese. Hot tea with a little sugar (my one daily indulgence). Working on a big glass of water now.

Not sure what else I’ll eat today. I’m not really hungry buy maybe I’ll bake a winter squash and make some soup with it. That would be nice. I think I have some chicken sausage I could cook to go with it.

Mentality

A little anxious after the events in Paris yesterday. Acts of terrorism trigger my PTSD which has already been on high alert recently. Learning to reach out to others and share what I’ve learned after 20+ years of living with it. Hope is a powerful connector of people.

Ready to write after two days of messing with computer issues and being out-of-town.

8 months along … sigh

Life has a way of throwing curve balls at me and I’m tired of it. I was doing so well with the diet and exercise but then I had to give up the gym membership because of income issues and other things took priority. Now it’s winter again and I’m still sitting here wondering what the heck to do to make this work. Again.

If I could afford to hire a coach, I would.

I keep telling myself, if this thing or that thing or this other thing would just settle down, I’d have time to focus on my weight and health. But I guess it’s kind of like having kids. If you wait for the perfect time, it never happens.

It has to be a priority. And now that I have time to focus on me, for a change, this is a priority.

The Garden Workout and Being Ill

I’m so sick I can hardly move right now. It sure does throw a wrench in the works. But that seems to be how it always goes for me. I get entrenched in a decent diet and workout routine, then WHAM, I end up sick.

This time, it might have been a bit of a detour from my routine though, that caused me to get sick.

We garden extensively. I’m kind of a nut about fresh food and growing my own stuff. Even beyond the idea of pesticides or chemical residues on my foodstuffs in the commercial stores, the idea that someone else touched my raw veggies had always grossed me out.

So, I grow my own.

The winter has been long here, lingering it’s cold snowy self for weeks and weeks beyond our normal planting schedule. But last week, the snow melted and the temps warmed up.

Thinking I would get a really good workout digging compost, carrying pots of soil, and bending and stooping all over the place planting seeds, I opted to work in the yard every day instead of going to the gym.

And it was a great workout for total body.

But I have another problem that appears every spring … I am allergic to the whole world. My allergies roar into full blown sneezing, coughing, asthma induced fits that leave me heaving everything including liquids.

I am miserable.

But the garden is planted for the most part and all those lovely vegetables from my organic garden will soon be on my table …

IF they make it to the house without me eating them first!!

The Motivation of Results, no matter how small

So, I’ve been doing a core workout before my aerobics at the gym for the last couple of months. But really it’s only been a couple of times a week that I manage it because the mats are usually taken when I get there and I can’t do the routine without a nice thick mat.

My old boney self sticks out in the wrong places.

But this week I managed three sessions of core workout and then spent five hours digging compost, moving it in a wheelbarrow, and then digging up garden beds yesterday. Talk about a CORE workout.

Needless to say my abs were groaning, my back was protesting, and I wanted to just flop over and not move ever again.

But when I went to take a shower last night, I noticed my upper abdominals were more defined than I can remember them being. They still have a long way to go, but the fact that I noticed a difference sure makes all those hours of twisting around with a medicine ball seem worthwhile.

And it was such a needed to boost to my mentality to keep going on this journey.

I have dieted and exercised so many times over the last twenty years only to quit a couple of months in because of lack of results. It was all very disheartening time and time and time again.

So, seeing some results unexpectedly, really motivates me to keep moving on. Yahoo!!!

First day back … I think I overdid it

Well, we took off on an adventure for my son’s 21st birthday and went to New Orleans. Fabulous place, if you’ve never been. I just love it and now my kids do too.

But it was not kind to my diet.

Just saying, no matter how delicious Beignets from Cafe du Monde are, they are not diet food. Nor are Strawberry daiquiris or beer or fried oyster po’ boys or … you get my drift, I think.

So today, I was back at it. Off to the gym with my husband in tow this time. We did a 20 min core exercise routine with the balls, then 5 mins on the elliptical, and a mile on the track of intervals.

I’m still searching for something on my body that doesn’t hurt.

Food was good though. Totally paleo breakfast of eggs and bacon and paleo lunch of  salad greens, cabbage mix, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and tuna with a raspberry dressing. And … I even managed a mostly paleo supper. We had chicken sausages, asparagus, and an apple salad that has apples, celery, walnuts, and cheese in it.

I almost never eat dairy any more. Milk hasn’t crossed my lips in years … but cheese still sneaks in every now and again. I make sure it’s well aged though and if possible, from my own goats.

A Healthy Meal

Another day, another meal.

When I was a foster mom and had four kids in my house all the time, I felt like all I ever did was drive a car somewhere to drop off or pick up a kid and work on meals. I was either planning the menu, doing the shopping, or cooking the meal. It seemed, at times, food was my life.

With one teenage daughter left at home, I find I no longer want or desire to cook anything most days. And yet, we still have to eat. Some days it is quite a challenge to put a meal together because no one will tell me what they want to eat but veto half the suggestions I make. It’s nuts.

But today, I managed to make a meal.

Goat chops

Roasted sweet potatoes with a drizzle of molasses and cinnamon

and a Salad with tomatoes, carrots, and broccoli

I know if I’m going to lose the weight, it takes not only working out but also eating right.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

3 medium sweet potatoes (we grow our own), peeled and roughly diced about 1/2 inch

1 tsp molasses (or honey)

1 Tbs coconut oil

cinnamon to taste (we like to use Vietnamese)

Set your oven to 400 degree F. Mix your sweet potatoes with everything else until well coated. Your hands work best for this. Spread out on baking sheet and roast for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir once or twice while roasting.

Tonight we’re off to the gym again for a good cardio workout. Since it’s cold outside right now, I have to opt for the gym because my asthma won’t let me breathe in cold air. Sigh. Maybe that will improve with weight loss. We shall see.

Off to the Races

Today I begin day 1 of an 8 month journey to health and wellness.

As an adult I have struggled with my weight since college, ballooning over 100 pounds while pregnant with my first child. I kept asking my doctor what I could do to stem the weight gain and he kept telling me it was fine, nothing to worry about. But I never lost on ounce.

As a teen I used to run all the time and swim. I was on a swim team and workouts kept me trim and lean. I could easily run five miles without much thought to it. I remember the feel of finding my rhythm, my breath, going in the “zone”.

I especially loved the times my dad would load us up in the car and take us to the path that joined all the parks together in our town. Then we would run by the river, through the woods, across creeks, in the shade, in the sun. The sounds of the city, the stress of the day would just disappear.

Thirty years later, 21 years of marriage, two children and a gaggle of foster kids later and I am nowhere near the level of health I had then.

Time to change.

Day one – 30 minutes cardio workout

5 min warm up

1 min run/ 2 min walk repeated 7 times

5 min cool down

 

Smoothie for energy

Banana

almond milk

dark cocoa powder

blueberries

kale