more than you ever wanted to know

The fact that I gained less than half a pound this week is a success to me. I…well, hold on, T.M.I. ALERT: If you choose to continue reading be warned that I’m not holding back on the talk about girl stuff that tends to make some men uncomfortable.

So! In the past year or so my periods have been closer together (like every 3 weeks!) and have gotten heavier….have to get up in the middle of the night kind of heavy. I just chalked it up to getting older, and find it ironic that I’m in a stage in my life where I know I’m finished having kids and am ovulating way more often. Not fair (in a heart beat I’d trade with my friend who has been trying to have a baby for a long time).

Last weekend I realized that I had not had my period in 5 weeks. Holy crap. I started to panic and “What ifs” were filling my head. I convinced my self that it was fine and I should just wait until Wednesday – give it 4 days. By Monday I was in full panic mode. If I was…you know (I still can’t even say it) then how would I blog about weight loss? The half marathon would be totally off the table. How would it affect my taking college classes? Would my husband have a heart attack? Panic. Tuesday morning I made an unnecessary trip to Wal-mart…the furthest store from where I live so I’d be less likely to see anyone I knew. I bought the test, drank lots of water and headed…to the track. I wasn’t ready to face the music so I walked 2 miles. The whole time I was concentrating on good posture, keeping my stomach in, watching the track team practice, and not thinking about the Wal-mart bag in my car. When I got home I really had to pee. Time to face the music. It didn’t take long to see that I was worrying for no reason. HUGE sigh of relief.

Then Wednesday morning I started…with a vengence. I have had horrible cramps, my body has felt like it was on fire, and I’ve been bleeding uncontrollably. I’ve been craving carbs and fat and wanting to lay around in bed with a heating pad on my lower back. Good times. I still got 4 workouts in. I only drank one soda. I indulged only slightly in some dark chocolate…and a shake on date night with the hubs. A relatively good week for one invaded by Evil Aunt Flo.

This coming week I need to keep up my regular workouts and maybe add an extra since it’s my last week of freedom before classes begin, use gum to curb my cravings, and make sure I’m getting my veggies in.

Wish me luck!

Resolve

My jeans were falling off my bum today. Nice problem to have, but I like these jeans. When I was commenting on it (not complaining) my husband said, “Well then stop….wait. Never mind. Don’t stop.” I thought it was sweet. If you’ve never met my husband let me introduce you…

Cute, right?! I’m a lucky girl. He is a very good husband, too. Perhaps you noticed he looks kinda skinny. He’s got great genes (and he looks good in his jeans). He has made me feel loved and beautiful nearly every day we have been married. He’s supported me when I have tried to lose weight before and not said a word when things didn’t go well…or ended abruptly. He has given me the space to make my decisions, and loved me no matter what.

I really do feel blessed, because I know that isn’t always the case for women. A friend told me in confidence this week that her husband said it was time for her to lose weight. {crickets} I’m sure it was said in love, but the sting of it…hard to recover from. I’m obstinate. I think that is why Heavenly Father gave me my husband. If my hubs said that to me I might’ve gone out and eaten a cheesecake to spite him. That’s not healthy…in any sense of the word. But the truth of it is if you are going to lose weight it has to be your decision. For some of us, it’s hard to make that decision…again. We’ve made the decision before with little or no success. Why would we want to put ourselves through it AGAIN?!

I have one good answer: because you CAN lose the weight (all of it). You CAN get healthy. You CAN look seriously hot in a nice pair of jeans….or boots…or dress…or whatever you wanna look hot in. What is stopping you? Tell me and I will join your support group to help you overcome that obstacle(s).

Why do I believe that you can? Because I gained a half a pound this week. Maybe it was PMS or muscle weight (my bum is seriously sore from this week’s workouts) or maybe its my lack of time which translated into too much eating out. No matter the reason, I did not give up. I (most nights) got a good night sleep. I still did not eat candy. I got 3 workouts in. I will not let that half a pound phase me. Not even a little. It may even have increased my resolve to work harder this week and make sure the scale is in my favor next Friday.

I believe you can because weight loss isn’t just about success. Real weight loss, the kind I’m trying to achieve this time (The time. My time) real weight loss comes from not giving up, from overcoming the obstacles, from Resolve.  Do you have it?

My resolve this week will be focused on better planning my family meals. No drive-thrus. We may “have to” go out to celebrate my handsome hub’s promotion (woot! woot!), but that can still be healthy. I resolve to take at least one day to go walking/jogging/running. It will mostly be walking, but I want to work up to a run…in addition to my regular workout class I attend.

Wish me luck!…and I’ll wish the same for you!

Am I alone?

Do you do this? Please tell me I’m not the only one who gets neurotic about weighing in. Please.

Since starting this blog I’ve developed a Friday ritual. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just leave it at I try to control the variables so that all things are equal every week. When I step on that scale, the circumstances are as humanly close to the same as the week before. Is it superstitious or good science? Or just plain old neurosis? You know what I’m talking about, right? Same time of day, shoes or no shoes (don’t we ALL take our shoes off?)…please say I’m not the only one who displays this neurotic behavior.

This morning my ritual got interrupted by a child’s doctor’s appointment (everyone is fine). I weighed in late and after I had eaten, too. I was already nervous about weighing in. My week has been stressful (you’ve been there). I’ve done considerably less stress eating than the previous AB, but I did stress eat. Heck, I even made it to bed by 10….once. However, between the stress and the PMS (see Mondays’ post) I allowed myself some cheats which made me dread the scale.

Then as I was trying to take a picture of the scale the focus wouldn’t….focus. I had to weigh myself 3 times before it worked and, no joke, every time I got on the scale the weight went up by 2/10ths of a pound. As if I wasn’t neurotic enough about weighing in.

This is the result I’m taking. I didn’t gain (but I still felt the picture needed to look as scary as it felt stepping on the scale). 

My goal for this week is simple: Be better than last week.

You know how you get going in weight loss and have some success and think, “Hey, this isn’t so hard!!” Maybe this week was a little bit of that, too. But I’m realizing more and more that this IS hard. I still look in the mirror and wonder when the me I picture in my head is going to show up looking back at me. She’s not going to show up any time soon if I keep making excuses. And I can’t give up this time. I have too much at stake.

Wish me luck.

Timing

Rae is cruising in the Pacific with her husband and shipful of strangers. I’m sure we’ll get to hear all about it next Monday! She tried to compose a blog post before she left, but ran out of time as she got ready for her cruise. We’ll excuse her for a vacation that was planned months before I beguiled her into blogging.

As long as I’m here making excuses I figured I’d share a little something. It’s that Time of the month for me. I know I’m not the only one that craves fat and carbs (preferably sweet ones), right? And during this Time…that’s all I want. I was lurking in my pantry and tried to convince my husband we should have pre-packaged cupcakes for dinner. Luckily, he has more willpower than me (must be why he’s so skinny) and gave me the serious voice when he said, “You can’t have that.” He even helped me (ok, he did it all) get a real dinner made.

After dinner, I was back in the pantry looking for chocolate. Why is chocolate so good during this Time? Thankfully, my friend, Tami, introduced me to this delicious, healthy alternative….

Chocolate, almonds, hardly any sugar…Brilliant! Had myself a little handful and gladly left the pantry. As for the rest of the week…

Wish me luck!