March Madness

So around the 10th of March I decided I needed to start keeping a journal. I use MyFitness Pal to keep a food log, I have MapMyFitness to keep track of my walks (which I haven't done any of lately), and I now own a FitBit. With all of these wonderful high tech gadgets, I feel like the thing that may help me most right now is just a simple log of my day. Most of the time it is one or two sentences, sometimes it is more. I normally write a quick bit in the morning when I get up, and then a follow-up the next morning about how that day ended. I have simple goals for this month. And since I mention them in my writing I will share them here:

Goals:

 - 3500 steps per day
- 16 oz of water per day
- no candy
- don't go over your calorie limit

3-10-15 

8:00 AM - 300 lbs. I'm not sure if that is right. If it is, it shouldn't be. I ate way too many calories this last week. My goal is 1978 calories today, let's see if I can manage that. 

My 20 day challenge

The only thing I actually took away from the real food mini-challenges I was doing was to buy more organic foods and to eat 4-6 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. And I suppose that it was a success because those two things have to do some good, right?  And I've seen so many challenges floating around that I always think "I could do that!"  But when it comes time to actually do it.. well, not so much.   So I was thinking one day why not challenge myself? Why not make a challenge that will be difficult and take some work, but it is doable for me. Why not set myself up to succeed instead of fail. And then hopefully I can do another challenge and add on a few more things.  And so without further adieu:

Image courtesy of arztsamui / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So maybe you're thinking, "What is so hard about that?"  Well frankly anything from sodas down. It's freaking HARD!  I have a sweet tooth, like honest to goodness could eat every. single. sweet.  All of them. It doesn't matter what it is, I want it. And I'll even make a special trip to the store to get sweets.  I'm just that darn addicted to them. So going without anything sweet for 20 days is gonna be a challenge for sure.  So that's my goal. I'll also be blogging about the process. So stay tuned for those fun whine filled posts!  Wish me luck~

Let me be candid

This last week has been a roller coaster of emotion. We received some not so great news about my mom. She's been really light headed lately, confused, and forgetful. To the point that she can't remember things she's known for years and she uses the wrong word a lot. We mentioned it to her doctor and he wanted to do an MRI to make sure that there were no tumors in her brain. He asked if she'd ever had one, I told him yes, at the beginning.

So they did a repeat scan and found tumors in her skull; not her brain, but the skull. This means that her cancer is a definite stage 4 now.  They scheduled her for a bone scan to see how far spread these tumors in her bones are. We found this out right after we learned that the pneumonia she had been fighting for over a month was still here. We went to the doctor Friday to find out the results of the bone scan and how this affects her diagnosis.  The scan showed that the tumors in her bone are basically in her entire skeleton. In various places from her skull to her legs she has tumors.  Her doctor said that he is ever an optimist   So he has changed her medicine out and she will undergo a few more rounds of chemotherapy using two new drugs.  He's hoping with the new medicines that we can get her disease to a stable point again.  To be honest my hope is waning. When my mother started chemo I hoped she would be cured. Now I'm just enjoying every moment I have with her, and hoping for the best. Whatever that is.




On the home front she has been having a lot of difficulty getting in and out of bed, which is where she spends most of her time at the moment.  Lifting herself up causes a lot of pain probably because of the tumors in her bones. So we've had her set up with a hospital bed and nurse. She also set herself up with a physical therapist. She's thinking maybe they can help work some of the soreness out since she spends so much time in bed. I'm all for that. I'm glad because it will allow her to maintain her independence for a bit longer, which is really important to mama.

At the time of this writing she's actually back in the hospital for the pneumonia that she is still battling.  After we went to the doctor Friday we ran a few errands and then went back to her house. She was fine then, just a little tired and so I went on home to let her get a nap.  Then Saturday about lunch time my brother and his family went by to check on her, again she was fine. At about 6pm Saturday evening my sister called to check on her. Mama was having an extremely hard time breathing and couldn't even speak because of it. So my brother went and picked her up and rushed her to the ER where we all met her.  She is feeling much better today but they have decided to keep her until they get the pneumonia healed. She's been fighting it for about a month with medicine at home so that obviously isn't working.  I know my mom and know she is NOT going to like this being stuck in a hospital. But I think this is the best for her too.

Now I have told you before that I am an emotional eater.  Eating junk food gives me comfort. I don't know why, I haven't figured that out yet. I just know it does. So this past week, the second part of the mini-challenge I am doing, was a complete and total flop. Not only did I not eat my two fruits and vegetables with every meal, I ate cookies and snickers.  Many cookies and snickers.  And the thing that gets me is I knew what I was doing the whole time. It wasn't as if I was blindly eating and suddenly had a realization, "Oh my, I have eaten an entire Snickers.  How clumsy of me"    Naw, I went into it knowingly and willingly.  I was standing at the candy counter one day thinking to myself, "Do I really need a Coke and a Snickers?  You know how many calories that is, and how hard they are to burn"  It only took me about 15 seconds to decide yes, yes I did need a Coke and a Snickers.

And I am really not sure how to combat this. How to beat these tendencies. If I beat myself up about it, then I feel worse. And I say to myself, "Well, you've flopped anyways, no sense in trying now. You're just a failure. Go get a Snickers."  If I tell myself, "Ok you screwed up, let's move past this, just don't do it again." Then I feel.. less guilty?  when I do buy the junk food. Because then I tell myself, "Well you just screwed up is all, you can fix this, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!  YOU GOT THIS!  Besides, you need it. It makes you feel better"   And I'm struggling to find something that makes me feel as good as food does.  So that when I am NOT hungry and DON'T really want it, I won't go to it. I'll just find something else to do.  So I guess I'm just letting you know that I have failed this week. I don't know how to stop myself, and I am open to suggestions.

photo credit: C. E. Sandoval via photopin cc

Oh, and I'm rebooting part two of the challenge next week.  So hopefully I can get myself back on track.

One down, 13 to go

So week one of the challenges is behind us and overall it wasn't too bad. We were eating about three to four servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Upping that to six was a bit of a challenge, but I did enjoy it.  I never really felt hungry and I found myself with more energy.  I still caught myself eating entirely too much processed junk.  My son brought home a box of chunky chocolate chip cookies and I ate four of them before the box was gone.  Even though I read the ingredients, I knew what was in them was bad, and I really wasn't hungry for them. I just wanted them. This is the hardest part for me. The desire to eat junk. It isn't that it's that great. It just makes me feel good.  And I'm not even sure why.  I am really trying to work on that.  At least it was only four this time!  I have eat half a box of those by myself in the past, so at least that is some small improvement.


I figured when this week started that it would be really easy to up my intake of veggies and fruits since I do love them. I was wrong.  The hardest part is making good decisions really. I had tons of fruit and vegetables on hand for the week but when the cookies were brought into the house by my kids and I had a choice between a piece of fruit and a cookie, I caved.  On the upshot I did realize that eating five to six servings of fruits and vegetables really does make you feel fuller. Now I just need to figure out some way to resist the temptation of cookies. And chips. Ok junk food in general.  At any rate I have decided to continue this challenge indefinitely. It just makes sense to, ya know?

A few of the meals we had this week included:
~ Baked French Toast Casserole with fruit (strawberries and bananas for us)
~ Herbed Baked Chicken with green beans, carrot fries, and mashed potatoes
~ Toad-In-A-Hole, cantaloupe, and an apple
~ Sweet-N-Spicy Crockpot Chicken, brown rice, broccoli, and an apple.
~ Blueberry pancakes, sausage patties, and cantaloupe.

This weeks challenge is going to be just that for me, a challenge.

Beverages are limited to coffee, tea, water, and milk. One cup of red wine per day and one cup of juice for the week. 

Ok first off a confession: I am freaking addicted to sodas.  I mean BAD.  I have given them up in the past, but I did that by drinking tea instead of soda. Which is awesome, right?  Except that my tea is sweetened with sugar. And this challenge says that I can have water ,milk, one cup of juice, coffee, and tea.  But ONLY sweetened with a little honey or maple syrup.  Warm honey lemon tea is awesome in the winter when my throat is scratchy. But I just can't see honey being nice in a glass of ice tea.   So honestly I'm gonna do this for one week. Maybe less, we'll know next week lol.  But I do want to take this chance to give up sodas again. In a week without them I should be closer to giving up the habit.  So this weeks goals are basically to try and avoid the junk foods. My kids are gonna bring them in. I can't always use them being here as an excuse to eat them.  Junk food is everywhere and at some point I just have to start developing better habits.  And to avoid sodas and try really hard to avoid tea unless it is sweetened with honey. The good thing about this is my body should be really happy with my water consumption this week!

“The key to life is accepting challenges.

Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.” - Bette Davis

I've been reading a lot about eating real food. I posted a few links to it in my last post and I've been trying to make baby steps toward that end.  I find the biggest problem I have in my weight loss goals is myself. I'm lazy and I hate change. So whenever it comes time to do something different, I balk.  Either that or I get all gung-ho:

 and give up about 5 minutes later.  Lately that's the way I've been acting about weight loss. I'm cool for the first little bit of a diet. But then I get frustrated.  And honestly I'm just sick of counting calories.  One of my dear friends made a comment about it that really stuck in my mind.  "If you're counting calories, how does that help you in the long run?"  And she's right.  Sure I'm eating too many calories, but my problem is the type of foods that I eat.  I really need to change that, and if I change that, then I think I'll be healthier and better for it.  But it isn't just about me. I have a family of 5 that I feed and I really want to change their eating habits as well.  My husband has numerous bowel issues and we're just starting to realize that the foods that we eat have probably contributed to that or caused it altogether. So I want to do something that will not only help me lose weight and get healhty, but help him as well. And I want to do something that my kids (who are almost adults themselves) won't turn their nose up to.




To that end I've decided to accept one of the challenges laid out in the blog 100 Days of Real Food. I've been reading various real food blogs for several weeks now and I love all of them.  But I find this one to be the most interesting because she has small children, and because she seems normal. She isn't some health guru who is telling me what a horrible person I am for eating crap all of these years and teaching my kids to eat it. She's just a mom who wanted to do better for her children. I can so relate to that! She has several different challenges on her site, the 100-day pledge, the 10-day pledge, and 100 mini-pledges. I'm not much of a cold-turkey person so the 100- and 10-day pledges would be harder for me. I could probably do 10 days, but you never know.  So to that end, I've decided to take on the mini-pledges I figure if I make small changes, one week at a time, then maybe I can sort of "sneak" in this change and my family won't even realize.

Since I love vegetables I'm hoping this one will be pretty easy.  I plan to head out to our local farmers market this weekend and see what kind of deals I can pick up.  I'll make out a meal plan today to kind of guide me through the process as well.   I'm hoping that at the end of these 100 challenges our lifestyle will have completely changed. I would like to lose the weight. And I would love it if my husband could have a normal life. Or at least as normal as life is with kids.

Scotty, I need more power!

Willpower that is.  I have the strong urge to write here that Iam doing well on my diet. That I am really trying to lose weight.  I really do want to. And I know what to do. It's the doing that is causing me issues. My plan is simple. Cut out sodas, junk food, and processed foods. Eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise daily.  This, I figure, will net me the body that I want. It won't be easy, but it should be doable.  Cutting out sodas is fairly easy now. At one point they were my hardest point. But I've gone without them so long that now when I drink one it doesn't give me the same "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD" feeling that it once did.  Junk food now.  That on the other hand....

This cartoon is by Dave Walker.

And usually while taking a little look on the internet for some motivation, I grab a snack. A cookie, a bowl of cereal. Pretty much anything I can find that is sweet.  Now maybe you're thinking, this is simple, just don't buy that stuff. Well yeah, in a perfect world but I have 3 children.  I try not to buy sugary cereals, cookies, and junk food in general. But then I get these cravings...

Courtesy of: Qnica on deviantART

Yeah it's pretty much like that. I feel like I can't stand it. I MUST have sweets and everything is fair game. If we don't have any cookies on hand, I'll eat cereal. If we don't have anything I'll bake up something sweet.  I definitely need willpower.   

I'm frustrated with myself because I know what to do. I'm almost 40 so losing weight isn't as easy for me as it is for someone younger. But I have seen results when I stick to my diet. If I mind my calories, avoid the crap, and work out daily then I lose weight. No not fast, but I don't want to lose fast anyways. But here lately I haven't done any of that. I've ate far too many cookies and far too few fruits and vegetables. And lately my favorite word is "tomorrow".  Tomorrow I will do better. Tomorrow I will leave the cookies alone. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.  Yet tomorrow never comes. And I just get more frustrated with myself for the crappy choices I am making.  And I demean myself too. When I go out to buy the junk food (and oh yes, I make a special trip to the store sometimes just for junk food) I think to myself, "I know what they're thinking.  They're all thinking 'look at that fat woman, she doesn't need any more junk food.'"  

Photo credit: colros / Foter.com / CC BY

I'm mentally kicking myself for knowing what to do and yet not doing it. I realize no one can make these changes except for me. And I need to do better.  I am quickly becoming that woman that took an entire box of cookies to her room, hid and eat it. The woman who would hide candy bars in her purse and eat them whenever she was alone. One thing I do know is that I never want to be her again.  I can do this, I need to quit whining and making stuipd decisions and do it. My tomorrow starts today. Wish me luck!