Fire Up For Fall: Week Three

1. What have you done this week to get to your goals?  I've been pretty good on water, poor on my eating, and crummy on exercise.  Two days I had more than one caramel frappe a day so I blew that, too!  I gained a half of a pound.  I'm on the fence as to what to do about Weight Watchers.  One of my goals for this challenge was to recommit to it but I haven't done that.  I'm going to try this upcoming week on my own and see how I do.  I think WW is a wonderful program, it just may not be right for me at this time.  It's become a structure I want to rebel against so I'm taking it out of the equation for this week.

2. What have you done to make yourself feel fabulous?  This one's easy... I cleaned out two closets that have been in need of a cleaning for YEARS.  I didn't realize how good this would make me feel.  I think maybe it's given me some motivation to do more purging around here.

3. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?  What are your goals?  Ambitions?  My goodness this is a hard one for me and to be brutally honest, it's the kind of question and thinking I run away from as fast as I can.  Why?  Because this being a stay-at-home mom has been hard for me and when I look down the road 5 years and see more of the same I don't know how I feel.  I don't want to go back to work and have the kids get taken to and from school by a day care bus that takes them to spend the rest of the day at day care.  But I miss the mental challenges that work brings.  Here's what I can say for sure no matter how the next five years work: I hope in five years I'm happy with the decisions I've made over the previous five years.

4. Give us a tip or a fact.  About anything.  Never fill up your car with gas when the tanker truck is there.  When they fill the tanks with fuel it stirs up sediment in the tanks and you put that crap in your car, making it less efficient.

5. What was the most recent dream you can remember?  I had a very vivid and detail-filled dream last night that I had Stage 3 breast cancer in my left breast.  Then I get up this morning and there's a breast cancer PSA in my email.  Is someone trying to tell me something?

I know Rebecca asked for a positive picture and I don't know if this qualifies.  But it was positive in that it made me laugh (guffaw actually) out loud.  Having five and six year old boys I'm sure this is simply a glimpse of the future!

Fire Up For Fall: Week Two

It's Week Two of the Fire Up For Fall challenge so that means it's time to check in!

1. What have you done this week to help you achieve your goals?
I've drunk my water every day, exercised several days, tracked some days, blogged three times and I've only had one caramel frappe daily.  Overall about a 65% hit rate on my goals each day.  I lost 1.5 pounds this week.

2. What have you done to make yourself feel fabulous?  I got my nails done as a gift to myself for my 40th birthday.

3. What is your talent? What are you good at? {Genuinely, EVERYONE has something big or small}At the moment my talent is needlepoint and cross-stitch.  Or maybe I suck at it and it's just a hobby.  No, I'd say I'm talented at it.  Here's a picture of a needlepoint work in progress...

4. What's been the highlight of your week, toot your horn, what are you proud of !
The highlight/lowlight/most important part of my week was that my 47-year-old brother had a massive heart attack with 100% blockage of the carotid artery.  I say this is a highlight because I'm just so damned glad it didn't kill him.  As for what I'm proud of, I'd say I'm proud that I didn't binge as a result of the stress of it.

5. Fun Question: What's your guilty pleasure TV?Hands down my guilty TV pleasure is the Real Housewives of you-name-it-I'll-watch-it.

My positive picture of the week is of what I did to make myself feel fabulous... it's my hand with my new nails!

Depressed

I wish I knew exactly why I'm feeling so down.  I know it's related to my brother's almost-fatal heart attack but I can't put my finger on exactly why I feel so down and on why my eating hasn't been on track.  Logically this should reinforce the healthy eating, but instead I find I now want to eat and eat and eat.

My dad has been on my mind a lot these last few days, since he also had his first heart attack at 47 and died of heart failure at 53.  Going through this with Mike now brings back plenty of memories of my dad's struggle and the choices he made that helped lead to his death.  Part of me worries about what this family legacy means for my own heart health but the other part of me likes my aunt's theory that this is a male issue in our family, not a female.  I don't buy that, though... the reason it's not a female issue is because there aren't biological females in this line of the family, so I don't put much weight in that theory.

I guess I'm sad that my brother's life is going to be so altered because of this.  He's going home from the hospital wearing a LifeVest (a difibrillator built into the vest) for three months and then they'll see what the permanent solution will be.  I just hope he makes the changes to his diet that are necessary.  Clearly genetics is stacked against him; the only thing he can control is his diet (he doesn't drink or smoke) and his stress level.  Time will tell.

My birthday

Yesterday I turned 40 and it was definitely a big day, though not in the way I expected.  My 47 year old brother, Mike, had a major heart attack with near 100% blockage (I think he had what the cardiologists call the widowmaker).  The good news is that my sister-in-law is not a widow.  Though his heart is damaged, his spirits and sense of humor are not.

My dad had his first heart attack at 47 as well  He had another a couple years later, then finally succumbed to heart failure at 53.  Now my brother starts at 47 as well.  My brother and I both inherited our physical characteristics and bodies from our dad, so this is a wake-up call for me as well as for my brother.  We've both got to lose some weight and move more.  I'm on the right track, having lost 24 pounds so far, but I have a long way to go.  My dad couldn't break the hold his addictions (smoking, drinking and eating) had on him but my brother and I can change our eating.

One thing is clear... this can't just be a temporary goal.  I have to be in this for life.  To commit that once I'm at a healthy weight, I'll keep up the exercise my body needs to stay healthy, that I'll keep eating right so I can maintain some level of health so I can prevent these problems.

Yesterday was shot as far as exercise and tracking but given I was at the hospital all day I'm fine with how the day went.  One goal for the challenge that I've stuck with every day so far has been to only have one caramel frappe a day.  This is a HUGE accomplishment for me so I'm giving myself major props for breaking the habit of multiple frappes per day.

I'm still very worried about my brother as he's still at risk for a major cardiac event, but I can say I had a very happy birthday.  The best birthday present ever... my brother is still with us!

Fire Up For Fall: Week One

I haven't blogged since the beginning of August and probably not-so-coincidentally, I've only lost a few pounds since.  To get back on track with my weight loss efforts as well as my blogging, I've joined a seasonal challenge called Fire Up For Fall hosted by Rebecca at Weight Wars.  Each week I will check in and assess how I've been doing with my goals and I will answer questions posed by Rebecca weekly.

1.  What are your goals for the Fall Challenge?
       A. Recommit to following the Weight Watchers plan; track everything I eat.
       B. Drink 100 ounces of water every day.
       C. Do some form of exercise for 30 minutes, five times per week.
       D. Blog at least three times per week.
       E. Lose 15 pounds.
       F. Have only one Hungry Girl caramel frappe per day.  This may sound silly but this just might be my hardest goal!

2.  Why have you chosen these goals?
I chose these because they are fundamental to a more healthy lifestyle and to my weight loss efforts.  Striving towards these goals will help me get more in control of my eating and exercise habits.

3.  What have you done this week that's made you feel fabulous?
Absolutely nothing, in fact I can't think of the last time I did anything to make me feel fabulous.  This is a great reminder that I need to prioritize myself higher than I currently do.  I'm going to work on this one so I can learn what fabulous feels like!

4.  What do you think will be your biggest challenge in reaching your goals?
Not slipping into emotional eating, self-sabotage, and binge behaviors will be the biggest challenge, hands down.  That is the core that underlies my goals.  If I don't make progress on my goals during this challenge I can guarantee that these factors are in the driver's seat.

5.  Where in the world do you live?  What's amazing about it?
I live in Carrollton, Texas, USA which is a suburb of Dallas.  I can't call where I live amazing (with a straight face anyway) but one thing I like is that I feel like I live in a smallish community, whereas it's really a town of 125,000 attached to the Dallas metroplex.  I live with my two kindergarten boys, two dogs and a wonderful husband, so I think that's pretty amazing!

And now for my positive picture or image for the week is a saying from Pinterest that applies to both my life in general and to these healthy living goals as well.  A reminder that to get the results I want, I have to put the effort in.

Have a great week and thanks for reading!

Welcome back, me!

I'm excited about tomorrow as it is a jumpstart to my stalled weight loss efforts.  I've joined a seasonal challenge called Fire Up For Fall (more info on that tomorrow) that's getting me motivated to recommit to getting healthier.

It's been a busy six weeks since I last blogged, as it brought the end of summer break and the start of kindergarten for the boys.  They've been at school for four weeks now and I admit I'm still adjusting.  Adjusting to having so much time and not always knowing how to fill it.  I've volunteered at the boys school a few times - the first time was met with glee and excitement and joyous expressions when they saw me, but subsequent times have been met with "Awww, Mom! We want other parents to do it, too."  Sigh.

I've been cross-stitching Christmas gifts for the boys' teachers and working on a needlepoint project that has been a lot of fun.  I never knew needlepoint could be so cool!  Lest you think I'm a complete needlepointing dork, let me assure you that this is definitely not my grandmother's needlepoint.  I'll post pics when I finish, probably in a few weeks.  Add to that catching up with friends without kids around, and trying to tackle little projects around the house and I've managed to stay busy enough so far.

I'll be back tomorrow with my first post for Fire Up For Fall, but in the meantime, here's a grainy picture of the first day of school...

Rebellion

I've been reading a book called Beck Diet Solution that is a compliment to whatever diet plan you're following.  It uses cognitive therapy techniques (something I'm a huge fan of since using them to combat my depression) to help you succeed on an eating plan.  I'm using the word diet because as much as I want this to be a "lifestyle plan", I'm calling it like it is.
A core concept in the book is to create a food plan for every day and then don't waver from it.  I got to that part in the book and then one night I diligently prepared my food plan for the next day, with only the best of intentions.  Up to this point I had been doing WW for two weeks and was very much staying on plan.  Unfortunately the creation of that food plan ran this train off the rails, so to speak.  I knew what was happening all day even as it was happening... I was rebelling.  Putting my food plan for the day in writing ahead of time gave me something to rebel against.  Something to resist.  When the author talks about how we want to strengthen our 'resistance' muscle, I don't think she meant to resist the food plan itself!

So that one day of off plan eating led to three days during which I really struggled to make good choices and keep within my points.  I was hyper-focused on food and even went through another period of grieving the junk I used to eat, also known as my food crutches.  Today is a Monday and fortunately, I woke up clear-headed and ready to get back on track.  So that's what I'm doing.

I'm still reading the book that recommended the food plan, but so much of it revolves around the food plan and resisting deviations from it that I don't know how much I'll be able to get out of the book.  I'm sticking with it for now because I still need help with all the sabatoging thoughts that are part of this weight loss journey.

My goal for this week is to be back on the WW plan every day - tracking and getting all my GHG's every day.  With exercise and water thrown in for good measure!