Reflecting on 2009

Today I looked at my old blog, the one on the right, titled "My old Diana's Weight Loss Journey". I don't even remember why I started a new blog in March 2009. I vaguely remember it was something to do with this guy. :)

I was in search of my 2009 goals, which I found in my January 1, 2009 post. I also found my old blog was black type on a black background which made it unreadable. No idea how that happened.

When I read through my 2009 goals I wanted to cry. My first thought was that I'm a big, fat failure. I didn't actually make any of my 2009 goals happen, and I only had four goals. Then I decided to try and look at the glass half full instead of half empty.

Some of these goals are still going to be on my 2010 list, but here's how I did for 2009. Fortunately it was a short list.

1. Get to my goal weight of 135 (28.6 pounds to go!).

~~~ This was a fail. Any way I look at it I failed. I don't even know how I can put a positive spin on this one. I was so close and then something happened. I just stopped and went the other direction. I weighed 163.6 when I posted this goal January 1, 2009. Today I weighed 175.4, a gain of 11.8 pounds in 2009. I suppose the positive is that I didn't go all the way back up to 240 pounds.

2. Maintain my 75-pound loss.

~~~See #1. Although I've managed to maintain a 64.6 pound loss, this goal wasn't met.

3. See a therapist for that nasty little compulsive overeating problem I have.

~~~I saw a therapist for three sessions. It didn't help. I suppose I didn't give it a chance, but it seemed like a total waste of time and money. I know I have issues, but seeing a therapist didn't seem to really work for me. I'm neutral on this being a failure.

4. Work on my marriage.

~~~I did and I didn't. I guess the positive on this one is I'm still married. We have our good days and our bad ones. Sometimes it seems all bad, then a glimmer of the old us shows itself and it all seems worth working on.

Well, so much for the positive spin. The only positive is that by being such a failure in 2009 I have an opportunity in 2010 to make these things happen. More to come on that later.

My workout today
Oh my gosh! I just about killed myself at the gym. I think I'm a bit of a showoff when it comes to lifting weights and I did a really foolish thing. I did all my concentrated dumbbell curls with 20-pound dumbbells (some guy was watching me), and then my overhead press with 25-pound dumbbells. I also added some new exercises today for upper body and now I can't lift my arms over my head. Ouch!

I've added a blog page on the the right, My workouts, where I'll keep track of all my workouts. I always carry a notebook with me to the gym and write them down. Now I'll transfer the information to a blog page. If anyone has any suggestions of new exercises or web sites with exercises, please let me know. I had some bookmarked on my old laptop that crashed last summer and now I can't find them. I really want to ramp up my workout routines in 2010. This is going to be my year!

Just another Monday (on vacation)

A blog worth checking out
I read a lot of weight loss blogs. I don't always comment because I don't always have something worthwhile to say or I'm in a rush, but that doesn't mean I'm not reading your blog. Many of you are really great writers with lots of ideas and suggestions on how to be healthy and fit. Even those of you that struggle, you still give me hope because you keep on trying.

Today I came across a blog that's I think is worth mentioning. Oh She Glows written by Angela Liddon, a beautiful young woman that lives in Milton, Ontario.

I have to admit when I first read her "about" story I was turned off because her highest weight was 147 (she's 5' 4"). Fortunately, I kept reading and realized the real difference between Angela and myself is that she figured it all out before she gained another 100 pounds.

I remember weighing 147 pounds. It was when I graduated college. I remember I felt as big as a cow, and how I thought I was so incredibly obese. I was repulsed by my fatness. It's also when I started my obsessive behavior towards food and exercise. An obsession that has continued throughout my life, resulting in me gaining almost another 100 pounds.

Check out Oh She Glowswebsite. Especially some of her older posts. She has a lot to say about society's obsession with beauty and being skinny. She's a pretty amazing young woman, and I like her way of thinking.

About my post-Christmas illness
I feel 100% better today. Thank you for all your well wishes...they must have worked! I really don't know what happened, or why I got so sick. It was scary and horrible.

The more I think about it, the more I think it might be related to having my gallbladder removed about three years ago. I was reading Dawn's post about how she can't eat fatty foods anymore since she had her gallbladder removed.

Normally, even when I overeat I don't eat fatty foods. I eat too many apples or too many grapes or too many ounces of broiled chicken breasts or too many roasted Brussels sprouts. Trust me though, I can easily gain weight from too much good stuff so it's not necessarily a good thing that I overeat healthy food.

Christmas dinner consisted of a lot of foods laden with butter. Real butter. Not the Smart Balance stuff that I normally use, but real, 100% dairy butter. Even the turkey gravy had, heaven forbid, drippings from the turkey, including a lot of the grease (made mother-in-law style).

I suspect that's what caused my "stomach flu" symptoms. Overeating really fattening food. In other words, that was self-inflicted pain. It's something I don't ever want to experience again. Ever!

Plan for the week
Today is just a lazy day. It's noon and I'm still in my PJ's. I often wonder if when I retire someday, if I'll even bother to get dressed. I could be like Hugh Hefner and just wear my PJs all day, every day. :)

I am going to get out of the house and hit the gym soon. I'm going to really make an effort to limit it to about an hour. Also, because of Fatinah's post about 10 health misconceptions, I'm going to change my workout.

I'm going to do a 10-minute warmup on the elliptical, then my strength training for 30 minutes, and then a 30-minute cardio. I've been doing this backwards for months (okay, years). I know it's suppose to be strength first and cardio second, I hate cardio so much I always want to "get it over with" so I do it first. It's time to do it correctly.

I'm also really going to try for muscle confusion. I was watching a P90X infomercial last night (at 3am...my sleep is really screwed up), and they kept talking about muscle confusion. I'm a creature of habit but I need to mix up my exercises and not do the same blasted exercises every day. I have exercise books and favorite websites so I'm going to try out some new things today.

Wednesday we're going snowshoeing up at Crystal Mountain. We bought snowshoes last spring when they were on sale and haven't used them yet. I'm looking forward to getting outside. I'm starting to feel housebound. A day trip to the mountains is just what I need.

Did I mention I love not working? Totally, completely love it. I don't miss one aspect of it. I'm just sorry I only have six and half more days until I have to return to the grindstone. Yes, I really need an attitude adjustment about work. Something to work on for the new year, among many other things.

Still alive after 36 hours of hell

I'm not sure what happened to me Saturday but after my two-hour workout at the gym I became really sick as soon as I got home. Room spinning dizziness, horrible nauseousness and dry heaves because I hadn't eaten anything before going to the gym.

It continued all day yesterday, throughout the night until 6am this morning when I sort of started to feel human again and could finally lay down on the bed. Prior to that the movement of the bed made me feel sick so I was either laying on the floor or sitting in a hard chair.

I couldn't even keep water down. I tried eating saltines and I threw up. I took Pepto Bismol and threw up. I couldn't watch TV because the movement and the noise made me feel even more nauseous. I couldn't even read because of the dizziness.

My husband found me curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor at 3am and tried to make me go to the emergency room. I refused. I told him if I was still sick in the morning, then maybe. The thought of going to the emergency room made me feel even sicker.

I'm not sure what happened but I suspect it might have been either 1.) some sort of stomach flu or 2.) that disgusting, fattening Christmas dinner. I swear I'll never touch butter again as long as I live. Even now just thinking about it makes me feel kind of sick.

I felt better today but still kind of dizzy and slightly nauseous. I was able to eat a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup tonight and actually keep it down (no turkey, it makes me feel sick to think about it). I also drank a couple glasses of water today. I've been super thirsty because I couldn't drink anything yesterday and actually keep it down.

You never appreciate your health until you go through something like that. I'm so happy to feel better. I can't wait for tomorrow to feel even better. Plus I can sleep in my bed tonight and not on the floor or in a chair. Life is good!

Pink glove dance - really cool

A new beginning

Christmas. Food. Lots and lots of food. After the last two Christmases of being a really good little Weight Watcher, yesterday I made the attempt but finally said to hell with it. The Weight Watcher recipes I made turned out disastrous.

The Weight Watcher stuffing recipe, the Smashed Buttermilk Potatoes from their Thanksgiving magazine issue, and the 3-Point pumpkin pie all tasted really terrible. The stuffing was dry, the potatoes, well, turns out I hate buttermilk, and the pie, I messed up and accidentally doubled the sugar. It wasn't even edible.

So I dug into the real stuffing that was full of butter (I know, because I made it) and the real mashed potatoes with again, lots of butter. Because doesn't lots of butter equal lots of love?

I also drank too many Pomegranate martinis. Actually, they were mostly juice. I love Pomegranate juice but it's very high calorie so it wasn't much of a trade off to have mostly juice instead of vodka.

Oh, and the pumpkin pie from Costco. It's ginormous so I'm sure a piece isn't 8 Points like a normal pie. Probably more like 16Points. Bad. All very, very bad.

A strange thing happened yesterday morning, my brand new scales stopped working. I stepped on them and nothing. These were my second new scales in about three months. They both stopped working for no apparent reason. A new battery didn't help either. On my list of things to do today is buy new scales so I can weigh in before the new year.

I started off today reading several posts by other bloggers. I was surprised by how many people said they ate poorly yesterday but they'd get back on program after the first of the year. What???

That sort of surprised me. My intent was to get back on program TODAY. After reading about other people waiting to start after January 1st, I thought, well, maybe that's not a bad idea. I have all this great food in the house, how am I going to resist it. Why not just give in and eat what I want for a whole week?

Then I read Jack's post, and I came to my senses. That was crazy thinking, eat what I want for a week?! It's like I went temporarily insane. I was 175.4 on Christmas Eve day. I probably gained a couple pounds yesterday, and if I continue to eat like yesterday for a whole week I could easily pack on another five pounds.

No worries. It's not going to happen. The gym opens at 8am, and I'm going to be there. I'm getting dressed as soon as I finish this post. After my workout I'll stop by the store and buy another new scale so I can weigh in today.

DH's knee replacement

DH had his left knee replaced on the 14th of December. He got to come home on the 17th after his physical therapy that morning (I got to be his physical therapy coach on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday so I would know how to help him do his exercises at home).
He did really well at the hospital, but once we got home, the swelling and bruising in his leg got worse. This was despite the exercising and icing we did as recommended by the therapists at the hospital. He had physical therapy one day at the VA and they recommended that he go back to his surgeon to see about the swelling, that that should be checked out.
We saw the surgeon yesterday, and he ordered a sonogram to check for blood clots, and to see if the blood thinner he ordered was causing bleeding. No blood clots, no extra bleeding, but he did say to discontinue the blood thinner, start the low-dose aspirin, elevate, and ice for 20 minutes out of every hour until the swelling goes down (and keep wearing the compression socks). So we're doing that, and it seems to be helping some. Staples come out on the 28th (that's DH's birthday, good present for him).
He is walking really well, using the walker when we go out because, of course, it's Minnesota and winter is finally hitting us with a vengeance. He uses the cane around the house since our house just isn't walker-friendly (the bathroom door just isn't wide enough to get the walker through unless you go through sideways). And the stairs to our bedroom in the basement don't seem to bother him much either, so that's good.
The only time he seems to have a lot of pain is when he's doing his exercises, or after Marty has jumped on his leg (and he seems to want to do that when DH is laying down in bed, trying to go to sleep). At least he has pain pills to take before we start his exercises.
DH keeps apologizing to me because I have to haul everything in from the van, and help with his leg - getting the compression sock on, doing the exercises, getting in and out of the bathtub, etc. I also have to shovel the sidewalk to the driveway (thank Maude we have someone who plows the driveway for us, and another person who comes down and snowblows the city sidewalk that runs along one side of our property - the city doesn't cut you any slack when one person is disabled and the other is laid up, you still have to clear the sidewalk or they will, and they'll charge you an arm and a leg for doing it). Side note - I shoveled the short walk from the door to the drive today and when I came in, I had some snow on my shoes. Knocked it off on the mat by the door, and Marty had to check it out. Then he ate the snow.....LOL
Silly cat. I told DH that doing all that stuff is part of being married, that when he's laid up, I take care of him and do what needs to be done because I know he would do the same for me (and he's going to do that when I have my carpal tunnel surgery, so no biggie).

I have the power

Since I returned from Edmonton over a week ago I started my late night binging. I've been like an addict that has lapsed and returned to her drug. Sneaking, quietly into the kitchen around midnight, and eating whatever I could find. I've disgusted myself.

During the day I'm the perfect Weight Watcher. Eating very healthy, working out two hours a day of intense exercise. At night I become a different person. It's a sickness.

Last night I was reading the latest issue of US Weekly. I really bought it because Elin and Tiger were on the cover. I can't help it but I'm fascinated by their story. The perfect woman with the perfect face and perfect body, with two perfect children married to what we all thought was the perfect man. As sordid as the story is, I can't stop reading about it.

I digress. Also on the front cover is the Biggest Loser at-home winner, Rebecca Meyer. She went from 279 pounds to 140 pounds. At the start of the article the journalist ask Rebecca "How do you feel?" After saying how fantastic she feels she said something that really struck a nerve with me. She said:

"I realized The Biggest Loser wasn't going to magically "fix" me. They were going to give me the tools to help me change my life forever, but I have the power. I just had to wrap my head around it and do it myself."

I read that one paragraph several times. This was me! Weight Watchers has given me the tools, but no one is going to magically fix me. It's all up to me. I have the power. It's in my control what I eat.

There are a lot of things in my life I don't have the power to control. I can't control my husband (sure, I try, but that's a losing battle). If he's in a bad mood or grumpy, I can't change him (yes, I try, sometimes it works, sometimes not). I can't control our dark, wet weather here in Seattle. It's going to rain and be cold and dark no matter how much I prefer warmth and sunshine. I can't control my job, what projects I get assigned to work on. I'm somewhat powerless in many areas of my life.

The one thing I do have power over is what I eat. I have the power for that one facet of my life. It seems so clear to me now. It's literally like a light bulb went off in my head.

I didn't binge last night. The first night in eight nights. I feel enlightened, like suddenly I "get it".

I have the power. That's my new mantra.

Getting a grip

Yesterday's post was a sad one, one of my "woe is me, my life sucks" posts. Dawn was right when she said it sounded like depression. I was depressed and have been for months. Mild depression, not suicidal stuff, just a feeling that all is not right in my world. Some days are darker than others and yesterday was one of the darkest.

This morning I woke up feeling a wee bit better about my life. It's really not quite as bad as I make it sound. It's not perfect by a long shot, but on the other hand, it could be a hell of a lot worse.

Christmas always does this too me, makes me sad for the things and people I don't have in my life. I miss my mother a lot this time of year because she always made the holidays so special for me when I was a kid. My childhood Christmases are the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting. It was perfect, or at least, that's how I remember it.

This year I started early on the seasonal depression so by the time the Christmas season came around, I was in a pit of despair and self-pity. I credit a lot of my sadness to all the traveling I've done for work during the past four months. It was a strain on me, my health, my diet and exercise routine, as well as on my marriage.

Today I see some light in my life, it's not all darkness. I have a feeling of optimism, like maybe I'll make it through this and everything will turn out okay.

My husband and I are talking, laughing, joking around, almost back to our old life. The hateful and spiteful things we said to each other while in Edmonton are still between us, like a wedge trying to drive us apart. We're trying to get back to what we had and what we know we can have again. Marriage takes work, and neither one of us wants to give up on "us".

Today I'm cleaning the house and then we're putting up the tree this afternoon. I'm actually looking forward to spending time with my husband. Something I haven't felt for several months.

I also have plans to go to the gym, but limit my time there to one hour. The last two days I've gone for two full hours each day. I realize that's utterly ridiculous. No one should spend that much time working out every day unless they're a professional body builder. I just want to be healthy, not spend my life in a gym.

I have a better grip on reality today. I feel more like me. The cloud of doom and gloom seems to have lifted somewhat, and I can actually say I feel a flicker of happiness. I just hope I can hold onto this ray of light.

~Diana
175.4

Trying to stay positive

Over the past several days I thought of a hundred things to write about but all the topics were downers. Each time I'd even think about writing a post I found myself spiraling down into a self-pity party.

My Edmonton trip is over. Having my husband go with me was a huge mistake. Instead of making things better, it made me miserable. When I'm working in a new city away from home, I'm highly stressed. After a day of meeting new people, trouble shooting problems, making endless phone calls to my home office, the last thing I wanted to do is go out and have "fun". I just wanted to crawl to my hotel room and collapse.

As a result of me not being fun, we had a huge fight while in Edmonton. Probably one of our all time worse fights in our 21 years of marriage. He left a day early to go home, which was fine with me. I couldn't handle the double stress of my day job and then my night job of being a loving wife.

Even though it's been almost a week we're both still mentally bruised from the arguing. We both regret what happened, but what's done is done. We can't take back the hurtful, mean things we said to each other.

Now we have the added stress of Christmas, the season of joy. Sorry, but I'm just not feeling it. I want to feel happy and peace on earth and all that other stuff I'm suppose to feel this time of year, but it's not happening.

I'm on vacation for the next two weeks. We had plans to travel to Denver and Arkansas to see my husband's family, but I think we're putting that on hold until after the new year. I can't bear the thought of getting on another plane. Maybe it's incredibly selfish of me but I need to stay home for a while.

We even talked about spending Christmas apart, but we both know that would be the final nail in the coffin of our marriage so we both agreed we're not ready for something like that...since that would really be the end of us as a couple.

So much for remaining positive. This is probably just about the most depressing post I've ever written.

On the diet front, I'm hanging in there at 175.8. I was at the gym for two hours yesterday, getting back into the swing of things with the exercise. It felt good.

My goal is to try and get to 170 by the end of 2009, which isn't too far from where I was on December 31, 2008 - 165.2. That means I'm up 10 pounds from a year ago.

Never mind that I dropped down to 152 for a brief period during the past year so technically I'm up 20+ pounds. I just don't want to think about that right now.

I'm going eat healthy for the rest of the year and hit the gym every day. That's my goal for the next two weeks. I'll set new goals for 2010, but right now I can't think that far into the future. I'm just trying to get through a day at a time....and stay positive (not doing so good with the positive crap).

A fat rant

by Joy Nash

So much to do, so little time

I have a lot of stuff to do today to get ready for our trip to Edmonton tomorrow. I say "our" because my husband is accompanying me on my business trip for the very first time. It should be interesting. Hopefully we won't wind up in divorce court when we get home. He's never seen me in full work mode crazy on one of these trips. Sometimes it's not a pretty sight.

I spent the morning with hubby at the urgent care clinic. He's been sick for 12 days with flu, cough, and now a bad sinus infection. Funny thing, I almost gave him my antibiotics last night. I went to the doctor yesterday for my cough syrup and the doctor insisted on giving me antibiotics even though I protested that I wasn't "that" sick.

I filled my prescriptions (including my codeine cough syrup, the nectar of the Gods), but I was determined not to take the antibiotics. Then I woke up this morning feeling sicker than I did when this all started and coughing up all kinds of nasty stuff.

Last night I read several articles on phlegm. Yes, I lead an exciting life, reading phlegm articles on a Friday night. The different colors mean different things. Yellowish-green means I'm fighting an infection. I decided maybe the doctor was right and I'm a little sicker than I originally thought, so I took my antibiotics. Hubby had to get his own medicine, thus the urgent care clinic.

While I was at the clinicI read a 2008 Good Housekeeping and came across an interesting article. Let Your Heart Break by Geneen Roth. A must read for those of us living under the illusion life will be grand when we're skinny.


After the clinic we went out to eat. My husband was starving so he wanted to go to the Blackbear Diner. This place serves massive servings of really good comfort food. It's usually torture for me, but I had eaten a Luna bar while at the clinic and a ton of water. I wasn't really even hungry, which is so odd for me (more proof I must be sick).

Here's what my husband ordered, the Southern Scrambler, 1130 calories and 71 grams of fat! It was a concoction of giant biscuits, two eggs, two big sausage patties and smothered in gravy. Honestly, it didn't even appeal to me.



Here's what I had, on the "Light" menu. They didn't have the calories for it on their website, my guesstimate is maybe 350. I ate most of the chicken breast which was prepared without oil, but left a couple ounces on my plate. A little of the cottage cheese, about 1/4 cup, and all of the fruit, with black coffee for my beverage.

Well, I'm off to do the zillion things I need to do before we leave tomorrow morning. Among those things is the gym even though I'm not feeling very Superwomanish today. :)

Day 7: I was superwoman this morning!

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but this morning, I rocked it at the gym. Seriously, I really did.

After yet another sleepless night of coughing and hacking in spite of my nightly shot of NyQuil, I woke up in a foul mood. Really unhappy and tired. My first thought was noooooo! I can't, and darn it, I won't!

I reluctantly got dressed in my workout clothes, stood in the kitchen in the dark and drank a cup of coffee. I was thinking about how bad I felt and I was sick and it's only 17 degrees, and well, the excuses to not workout were endless. An entire repertoire of "poor me!", this isn't fair.

Luckily, my inner skinny girl that's fighting against my outer fat girl said get your butt out of the house, in that car and to the gym. I promised myself 20 minutes on the StairMaster and I could come home.

Well, I did 30 minutes on the StairMaster, from level 4 all the way up to level 9. Then I worked out with the weights for a full 30 minutes. I was a soaking, wet mess by the end. The weird thing, I didn't cough once during my entire workout. My nose was runny, but no coughing. My lungs were on fire and my throat burned, but that was all.

Of course now I'm coughing non-stop, but hey - I did it! Superwoman returns!

Day 5 & 6: Hanging on by my toenails

It's sure not easier the hundredth time around the block with this weight loss stuff. It's almost as tough as it was at the beginning, but I'm hanging in there.

This cold has really knocked me down. The coughing is making me crazy. I'm going in to see the doctor for some codeine cough syrup tomorrow. I need to sleep through the night before I hit Edmonton on Sunday.

My husband is going with me to Edmonton. It's the first time he's joined me on a business trip. When I told my coworker that's also been doing these trips, to different cities than me, he asked me what's wrong with him...why does he wants to see you in all kinds of crazy? Well put.

I've booked a room with a fireplace, hot tub and a king sized bed. My husband wants to go to the mall on Sunday. Did I ever mention I kind of hate shopping? Being in the world's 3rd largest mall isn't exactly my idea of a good time.

I was looking at my 2008 weight loss calendar where I write my weight almost every day of the year. On December 31, 2008 I weighed 164.8. This morning was 175.4. Three weeks, ten pounds? I know it's pretty much a ridiculous thought. Maybe five pounds if I put my mind to it. I'm going to try my best to not gain and lose at least a few pounds by December 31, 2009.

Tomorrow I'm going back to the gym for a light workout. Nothing too crazy. I've wanted to go but the hacking up a lung made it seem like a bad idea. Tomorrow for sure.

The NyQuil is kicking in so I'm off to bed. No crazy eating today or yesterday. Just normal stuff. Normal is always a good thing.

Days 3 & 4: Still among the living

Someday I'll learn to listen to my body. On Sunday, I was wiped out all day, barely able to get dressed and get to the gym by 5pm. It was cold out, 32 degrees and my throat was sore. I just thought I was being a lazy, sloth-like person and forced myself to go to the gym.

The workout hurt like heck. I was sweating, but that was before I even started the workout! I felt clammy and chilled to the bone. My breathing was difficult and labored. I couldn't understand how I'd gotten so out of shape in such a short time.

Well guess what? I have a cold (or maybe it's the flu, I'm never sure). I've been flat on my back for two days, waking up and not knowing if it was a.m. or p.m. My body aches and my mind has been in a fog. I've been coughing up gross, nasty junk from my infected lungs. Tonight is the first time I ventured into the kitchen looking for food.

I'm going to work tomorrow since I have to get things ready for my Edmonton trip next week, and I'm actually feeling a little bit better. It's my last trip on this project. Hallelujah! I can't wait to have my normal life back.

Day 2 continued: Paying for my sins

For most of the day I sat around in my pajamas curled up next to the fireplace, reading magazines, and watching several episodes of Snapped while cuddling my cat. Plus listening to my husband hack and cough and complain as he's recovering from the flu. It was basically a pretty good day. I felt relaxed and warm and comfortable. Happy to be at home.

At 4pm I forced myself to get dressed for the gym. It was utter torture working out today. The extra weight has made my workouts painful. My left knee hurts, my left heel hurts. My lungs were screaming at me while I was on the StairMaster for thirty minutes and then the elliptical for another thirty. My arms are still achy and sore from yesterday's workout, and I could barely left them above my head to pull on my workout shirt.

This is my penance for having eaten like a pig, not exercised on a regular basis, and gaining 22 pounds in the last few months. Today's workout was painful. Looking back, the last few months really weren't worth it. It wasn't that fun to eat what I wanted, or to skip my workouts. If I had it to do over, I would have done it differently. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Day 2: It's not easy to start over

This is my second day back on track. I forgot how hard it is to go from eating junk to eating a healthy, low-calorie, low-fat diet. And the exercise. Oh my gosh! I've heard of muscle memory but I think mine forgot everything they ever knew.

After 40 minutes of cardio and 40 minutes of upper body weights yesterday I could barely lift my arms last night. I looked in my exercise journal and my last serious weight lifting workout was Nov. 18. No wonder I'm in pain! I've had a few treadmill or elliptical workouts, but no strength training in almost three weeks. I felt weak as I lifted 20-pound dumbells. I hate that feeling. Plus it hurt like hell.

My food choices the last few months have been horrible and got worse as time went on. Last week was my absolute worst week. I was eating cookies and candy like an addict. Oakland airport had See's candy booths everywhere (San Francisco is the See's candy headquarters).

Unfortunately the Oakland airport was a smorgasbord of unhealthy options. Sure, they had healthy things too, but those weren't what I chose. My attitude was bad and my food choices were just as bad.

After just one day of clean eating and exercise I feel like my mind is clearing. It's like I've been in a fog and now it's finally lifting. I think fat and sugar have a very negative effect on my thinking and my happiness. I've been terribly depressed and didn't even realize what was wrong with me. I know the lack of exercise probably played a big part in the depression. Add in the terrible food choices and it's a miracle I made it through these past months.

I'm drinking a lot of water, something that's barely passed my lips these last few months. I was living on Starbucks as my beverage of choice. Normally I rarely drink Starbucks since to me it's just wasted calories. Even the "light" or "skinny" options are ridiculously high in calories.

Yet I just didn't care and was ordering at least one grande or even venti "light" pumpkin spice Frappuccino every day (sometimes two!). Having one of these beverages first thing in the morning would set my mood for the entire day. Since I'd already "blown" it, it didn't matter what I ate for the rest of the day. And if I eat bad, I don't exercise.

Today it's black coffee with a dash of 1% milk, and my normal food which is amazingly delicious. Yet a part of me is thinking about the snickerdoodles and the brownies and the See's candy. I'm like an addict craving my drug.

I'm sure I can do this, stay on the straight and narrow. It's not the easiest thing in the world but I know it's possible. After all, it's not the first time I've been down this road.

Interesting tidbit in Prevention magazine Jan. 2010 (a really good reason to get to a healthy weight!):

What Your Scale Says About Your Brain

If it registers a healthy weight, your mind is likely youthful too. In a recent UCLA study, overweight people had 4% less brain tissue than normal-weight adults--the equivalent of their minds aging 8 years. One possible cause: a high-calories or high-fat diet, which clogs arteries in the brain, restricts blood flow, and causes cells to shrink. --Lauren Geiman

Day 1: Does this mean I'm a failure?

I weighed 154.6 on 2/17/2009. Today I weigh 176.8. That's a gain of 22.2 pounds. I feel like a big, fat failure.

My list of excuses for gaining so much weight is long. The main one is I've been on the road a lot during the last four months. Either work, family emergency or vacation kept me away from home and my routine. I don't do well when I don't follow my routine. Even when I was home for the weekends it took me a day to get back into the groove of things, only to leave on a Monday for another trip. I never got a routine down when I was away. I don't know why, but it just seemed impossible and unimportant.

My hours were long and erratic. I never knew from one day to the next what hours I'd be working or for how long I'd be standing on my feet, and stressed about the endless problems at work. It played havoc on my body and my mind. I feel like I've been depressed for months.

The really sad part is I feel like a complete failure in the weight loss game. It's strange how hard I am on myself. I don't look at other people as failures when they gain weight back, I figure they're just human and that's what happens. We screw things up sometimes. It's just life. I'm not as lenient on myself for a weight gain. Instead I'm highly critical, and consider it a personal failure of the worst kind.

One of my favorite bloggers is going through a personal health crisis. I love this person even though I've never met her in real life. Her enthusiasm is contagious. She recently told me about what she's going through and that she doesn't want to blog publicly anymore because she can't stand being a public failure. That broke my heart. She's just like me. I don't want people to think I'm a failure. I want to be perfect. I want to be a poster child for weight loss. I want to be admired and held up as an example of what can be accomplished. Instead, I'm an example of what NOT to do.

The fact is, I'm not perfect. Far from it in many areas of my life, but especially when it comes to my weight. It's a fight I've been fighting for a very long time and one I'm not ready to give up on. I figure I'll be fighting it to my death.

I know I can lose the weight, again. It frustrates me that I do this to myself. It's damaging to my health and to my mind to gain so much weight. Sometimes I feel like if I don't figure out the real reason for my overeating that I'll never really successful at losing the weight. I have some ideas why I want to eat so much, why I want to be fat, but knowing why doesn't seem to help me conquer my demon.

My goal for the present is to lose the 22.2 pounds. I know what to do, count Points and stay within my allowed Points, and exercise. I've been failing in both areas and that's resulted in a large weight gain.

I'm also going to try my best to post every day. Not mindless posts about where I am on my trips, but posts from my heart. I've noticed my heart hasn't been in the right place lately. The depression shines through most everything I've written lately. I have to pull myself out of this funk and move on with my life.

This is a new day, a new start. No deadlines for me, just one day at a time. I'll also repeat my mantra....I am NOT a failure. I am NOT a failure. Or should I say the positive, I am a successful, worthwhile human being. If only I believe it.

New Minivan (to me, anyway)

We went with the 2008 Kia Sedona minivan. It had the best remaining warranty (and we were able to upgrade that warranty so that we now have 5 years/58K miles).

I'm having to learn how not to drive with a lead foot - the Sedona has so much more acceleration and pick-up than any other vehicle I've ever driven, it's just too easy to hit the gas pedal from a complete stop and be doing 40 mph before you know it (and that's in town). It gets up to highway/freeway speeds faster than my Grand Caravan and Windstar ever did, so the cruise control will definitely get used a lot.

The only drawback to buying the Kia is that the seatbelt fit way too tightly and I needed an extender. Kia doesn't offer extenders, at all. Something about seat belt extenders haven't been tested for safety so Kia won't be responsible if the extender fails in an accident. Right, so the seat belt doesn't fit me, I can't buckle it, I'm in an accident - does that mean I can sue Kia because they refuse to put seat belts in their vehicles that will fit fat people? Not to mention that in MN, they passed the law where you can be stopped and ticketed just for not wearing your seat belt. So I've been cheating and driving with the seat belt buckled before I ever get in the seat and then I sit on it (looks like it's buckled and the harness is behind my back to anyone outside the vehicle). Just a stop-gap measure until I could go online and do a search for an extender that will fit the Kia (the ones I had for the Windstar wouldn't work). I finally found one on eBay (final cost with shipping was $38.98) that was 15" long, which is perfect, puts the shoulder harness right where it should be (between my breasts) so the damned thing doesn't decapitate me. Ordered it Monday afternoon and it got here in today's mail. Doesn't match the interior color of the Kia, but I don't care, safety is more important than a color-match, IMO.

I'll know in a couple of weeks how it does on gas mileage (in cold weather anyway). Vehicles always get better gas mileage in warm weather than they do in cold weather, so I know the mileage will get better when spring and summer get here (and it's finally getting really cold here in MN, it's actually 15 degrees F and snowing today, yuck).

Oakland

Just pictures I took today. I take tons of pictures, pretty much every day of my life.

This one is the trail that runs in front of my hotel along the water. I went for a walk here today. It looks a lot prettier in the picture than it did in person. The water is terribly polluted, full of garbage. Plastic bags, potato chip bags, even condoms were floating in the water. The grossest thing I've ever seen. Of course I'm only four miles from the airport, always a notoriously bad area of any city.

This was a picture I took from inside the Oakland Airport terminal. They have a great view.

More pictures from in front of the hotel, on the paved trail.

Pigeon picture. :)

The pier in front of the hotel here in Oakland is the San Antonio fishing pier. Guys were fishing off this pier. I'd never eat anything caught in this water. Too gross! And don't they know San Antonio is in Texas?

Cool artwork in the Oakland terminal, painted on the windows. Not in our terminal, but in our arch enemy's terminal (that other airline who shall remain nameless).

A view of my hotel from the pier.

How on earth did I stay in my room for a whole night, look out the "window" this morning, and not realize it was a sliding glass door with a balcony? The view from my room, that I discovered tonight.


I'm not going to talk about my day. It was just another day in my life. Difficult. Exhausting. The same old same old. Nothing new.

Greetings from California

Work
I'm in Oakland for my job, another deployment that has gone awry. It's 2 a.m. and essentially the entire counter and gates are down right now and none of the "experts" can figure out how to get it all working.

You would think by now, this being our seventh city doing this, that we would all have it figured out. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Every airport is different, different network setups, different systems. I just hope we can get it all working by 5 a.m. when the counter opens...or it will be hell. I'm not even sure how we can function without computers and printers.

Diet and Exercise
My eating is on track. I lost a pound since yesterday, so I'm back to my pre-Thanksgiving, and pre-death in the family weight. I'm still up 20 pounds from where I was a couple months ago, but I'm working on it.

My hotel is pretty nice, and my room is gorgeous. I'm in the new section with the new gym., which I haven't been able to check out yet (later , if I ever make it back to my hotel). I'm in a suite with a microwave and fridge. I even packed a bunch of my own food for sandwiches and snacks. I'm sick to death of eating out, plus I don't always make the best choices even if there are good choices to make.

Well, that's it. Not much new. Still sitting here waiting for my network guys to figure out this mess. It's 2:16 a.m. and I'm exhausted. I just want to sleep.