I made it!

I made it, I made it, I maaaaaade it!  I'm dancing a little jig because I can't contain myself!  This morning when I weighed myself, I was down 10.0 pounds.  Then I did it again and it was 10.2 pounds.  Then I made the mistake of trying again, which resulted in my weight loss being only 9.8 pounds, so THEN I had to try again and I was back to 10.0.  I'm calling that a success.  :)

Today is my last day at work for the next 11 days.  I'm so excited to have that much time off.  The last time I had that much time off in a row ...I was on maternity leave.  Yikes.

Our plans for the holiday vacation?  Organize the house.  I know that doesn't sound like much fun - and really, it's not - but I just can't stand the clutter in the house anymore.  The husband hired a professional organizer for me for Christmas and our first session was last Friday.  I have some "homework" to do before she comes back after the New Year, but I'd like to do a little more than just the minimum she asked me to do.  It's such a good feeling to finally be doing something about the "Pit of Despair", as I lovingly refer to our house.

Tomorrow the plan is to finally go to a Mexican restaurant and pig out on chips and margaritas- something we haven't been able to have for the last month.  (way too many calories ...in just one chip!)  Mmmmm...  Chuy's...

P.S.  The husband made it to his goal of 15 pounds lost, too.  Together that's 25 pounds of fat that is now missing from our house.  Yay!!!

This exercise business is really getting in the way.

So I've been exercising religiously for the last few weeks and must continue doing so this week if I want to lose those last couple of pounds.  However, this is really getting in the way of getting ready for Christmas!

In previous years, I've been able to go Christmas shopping at lunchtime during the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas.  And to make it worse, a couple of months ago, my company banned shopping websites from our internet access.  It's made Christmas extremely difficult this year.

The husband and kids are out shopping for gift cards and other miscellaneous presents today, but there are still a few things I need to get.  Well, where there's a will, there's a way.  I just have to find it...

Getting there...

Today was weigh-in day and I'm slowly getting there.  Actually, last week on Thursday, I was at a lower weight than today, but this past weekend of socializing with friends did me in.  I'm down about 7.5 pounds today.  And I only have three days left to lose that last 2.5.  Somehow, I'll make myself do it, though.  I've gotten used to starvation!  :)

So, on Thursday morning last week when I weighed myself and found that I had finally broken that elusive goal-weight I've had in my head for the last couple of years, I immediately went and scared the crap out of the husband by waking him up and yelling, "I made it!!  And look, if I stand sideways and suck in my tummy, I almost look skinny!  And, and look!  When I pinch my fat, there's so much less there!!!"

After he figured out that there wasn't an intruder in the house, he calmed down and said, "Yes, you look great, dear."  Good husband.

And I'm off to drink some more water...

Sodium is not my friend

I stepped on the scale this morning (just because I like torturing myself) but today I was met with a pleasant surprise: I was three pounds lighter this morning than yesterday morning!  I must have been retaining a lot of water yesterday, I guess.  So, I need to remember next week before the final weigh-in that sodium is not my friend.

Last night was supposed to be our bi-weekly date night, but the nanny couldn't make it, so we spent a quiet evening at home.  It was probably a good thing, too, because Marxo's throat started hurting and she seems to have a swollen tonsil on one side.  We put her to bed and spent the rest of the evening helping Fellan to finish his homework for the week.

You would think, then, that we would have been able to go to bed early, right?  Well, at least, that's what I was fantasizing about.  But, no, we had to pick up the house and put away clothes and wash the towels and finally made it to bed at about 10:30.  I'm still recovering from the weekend, I guess - I'm still tired.

So, I'll be calling the doctor this morning to see if we can get an appointment.  Seems like the kids have been sick a lot this fall...

Really? REALLY?!!

I weighed myself last night and after starving myself for a second week in a row with only one evening of decadence, I've gained a pound since last week.  Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be female...

Need sleep...

I need some sleep after this weekend!

The husband and I went to a Christmas party this past weekend in Midland, TX!  It was fun, but it basically took up the entire weekend.

My husband does quite a bit of consulting work and the company he works through had their Christmas party this past weekend.  They usually have it here in Houston, but last year, the Midland folks suggested that they hold it out there instead.

So, we all flew out there and tore up the town.  Not really, but we did stay out much later than our normal bedtime.  :)

And, on Friday night, we were up late, entertaining friends at our house and then getting ready for the trip.  I'm really ready for a nap.

But!  No rest for the weary!  I must work out today to attempt to undo some of the harm that the tenderloin topped with lobster butter (yum!), potato cakes (yum!), wine (yum!), and flourless chocolate mint cake (yummy, yum, yum!) did to my "diet" over the weekend.  It's not going to be good news tonight when I weigh myself.

But it was worth it.

Fed Up With Lunch: Eat Along Challenge

Mrs. Q over at Fed Up With Lunch posted a challenge for this week.  (apparently, I just can't turn down a challenge!)

This week, she's asking everyone who packs lunch for their children to post pictures of those lunches.  So, this morning, I set them out and took these inspiring pictures.

Marxo's Lunch

Fellan's Lunch

Actually, after setting out their lunches and looking at them, I really found nothing inspiring about them.  But, this is what they have every day.  It is what it is - and at least there are no preservatives, artificial colors, or flavors.

Marxo's lunch is always either a Babybel cheese OR yogurt, half a sweet peanut butter sandwich on home-made bread (natural peanut butter mixed with honey), water, fruit OR vegetable (typically cucumbers and carrots), and a cookie (which many times she doesn't eat because she doesn't have time or she's full).

Fellan always eats his full lunch.  His lunch is always a cheese stick, a toasted american cheese sandwich on home-made bread, Pringles, fruit (most of the time, the kids choose to have grapes), 2% milk, and a cookie... or two.

This year, we've been making the kids pack their own lunches.  They get their fruit, cookies, and Pringles ready the night before, we make their sandwiches for them in the morning, and then they're responsible for packing it all up before they leave.

They've also been going to after-school care this year at the school and if they want a snack (they're not allowed to usually have the snack from the school because it's generally crap-food), they're responsible for packing that the previous night, too.  Fellan usually chooses a mandarin orange cup and a package of Annie's Homegrown Bunny Crackers (similar to teddy grahams - chocolate is, of course, his favorite flavor, but we've been out of those for awhile...).

Marxo says she never has time to eat a snack after school, but I've been trying to make sure she has something in her bag, in case she gets hungry.  There's currently a smashed Kashi granola bar and some raisins in her bag.  And they've been in there since the beginning of the school year.  :o

I wouldn't consider these to be in the same class as the very original, cutsie, all-wholesome lunches and snacks that others provide for their kids, but I do think they serve the purpose and they're still relatively healthy.  And it works for us.  :)

Coats!

We live in Houston.  A place that does not require a coat for probably 9 months out of the year.  Yet, we've got coats.  Lots of coats.

So many coats that they can't all fit on the coat hanger.

... and also a tire.

(Notice the "energy particle" I captured in that photo.  You know, the things they're always pointing out in those TV shows about hauntings and ghosts.  "We suddenly felt a presence and a cold draft of air came across the room.  We didn't see anything, but when we reviewed the video later, an obvious energy particle can be seen shooting through the air!")

Progress!

Last night when I got home, the husband and I went upstairs and ripped off our clothes and headed to... the bathroom to weigh ourselves. We both laughed at how funny this would look to anyone else.

Good news, though - I've lost 3.4 pounds! All that starving is doing some good! :)

I don't think this is a good long-term plan in the slightest - losing this much weight in this short of a time is just not a good idea, but I think it's going to help me finally get some motivation to keep it going and I think I should really be able to hit my goal of being fit and healthy by the time I'm 40. Yay!

UPDATED: Oh, and the best part is that the husband has lost 6 pounds, so I figure at least one of us should have a very good shot at being in the running for all the prizes. There are lots of guys who have already posted that they've lost at least 7 pounds. Us poor women are having a bit of a harder time, though...

Progress?

Well, tonight I get to find out if I'm making any progress. I feel like I should be - I'm really embracing this gnawing in my stomach... odd as that may sound.

About 10 years ago, the husband and I got in very good shape and lost quite a bit of weight in the process. I'm trying to do the same thing now as I did then - only I'm kind of stepping it up a notch on the food part of it, tracking every calorie and severely limiting them.

At that time, I had heard about people who were using prayer to lose weight. It was an interesting catch-phrase that made it national news at the time, but it turned out what they were really doing was just waiting until their stomach growled to eat - which is really the point, right? You should only eat when you're actually hungry. But then they used prayer to help themselves get to the point that their stomachs were growling.

So, I tried to implement that idea along with the idea that calories out must equal calories in and suddenly the pounds started melting away. I'm hoping that if this "crash diet" gives me the kick-start I needed, I'll be able to keep up the weight/fat loss for awhile. I'll be 40 next year and it's my goal to be fit and healthy again by then.

So you know what can really help out in the "calories in" part of the equation? If you go for a bike ride that should only take a couple of hours, but then it ends up taking four hours and by the time you get home, you've entirely missed lunch! Which is what happened to us yesterday. (but I don't really recommend it)

We decided to take the kids mountain biking at Double Lake Recreation Area. We've been here before and it's a great place to mountain bike - and it's only an hour away from our house! The problem is that there are quite a few rolling hills on the trail and Marxo's little bird-legs just don't have the muscle-strength to get up them. She has to get off and walk in many places, so our average speed ends up being about 3 miles per hour. And since we haven't been riding much lately, the kids' tolerance level has decreased and their whining index has increased and then the 1st of Newton's laws comes into play: things at rest tend to want to stay at rest. Ugh.

Since a cold front came through Saturday night and it was significantly colder on Sunday morning, we didn't want to get out too early. But then we ended up getting to the park a little later than we probably should have: Noon. That's Ok, though, I thought - we'll be done and home by at least 3:30 or so. We'll have plenty of time to eat a (very) late lunch, clean up the house, have dinner, and still have time to finish putting up the Christmas decorations.

Hrmph. After taking two snack breaks and noticing that the sun was starting to get low in the sky, I was getting rather worried about our plans for the rest of the day! We finally made it back to the car at 4:00, which meant we got home at 5:00, we missed lunch and went straight for dinner.

Calories in yesterday = 1250
Calories out yesterday = 609 (approximately - hard to tell, we were going so slowly!)

I think by that calculation, I should have lost about 2 pounds just yesterday! (kidding) But, we'll find out for sure tonight when I weigh-in...

Another day, another (not) pound

So I managed to make it through the day without cheating and made it to bed before my stomach started grumbling too badly. I was surprised this morning that I wasn't more hungry. I even made it to work before I really started feeling hungry at around 7:15 or so. I normally try to hold out until 9:00 to eat my granola bar for breakfast and today it was a struggle. I was actually shaky right before and after I ate. It's going to take a little while for my body to get used to this few calories - in the meantime, I'm sure it's going to protest.

Last night it took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get home. There was apparently a fuel spill on the highway that I take on my way home and it was closed. It was a nightmare.

There was a small up-side to this, however. It meant that we didn't eat supper until almost 8:00, so after my measly portion, I didn't have much time to get hungry before I went to bed!

I did make the mistake of weighing myself last night before I went to bed. I gained a pound. I don't know how that could be possible, but, for real, this time I'M NOT WEIGHING MYSELF UNTIL MONDAY!

My one concern in undertaking this challenge is the message that we're sending our kids. I don't want them to be concerned in any way about their weight while they're growing up. Fellan is a very healthy, very muscular boy, which means that according to the BMI scales, he's bordering on the label "obese". He is not in any way "obese" and our daughter doesn't have enough body fat to keep her warm during her swimming lessons! So, I don't like talking about my weight in front of them. We include the kids in our weekend exercise (bicycling) and the husband and I usually try to talk about being fit and healthy, but I know we occasionally refer to ourselves as being fat. Just an observation and something for me to think about.

And day one went down in flames...

Like I said, I knew there probably wouldn't be a chance that I could lose 10 pounds before Christmas, but I was hoping to at least get some sort of weight-loss or fitness-enhancement started through this challenge.

If yesterday is any indication of how seriously I'm taking this, then I will have gained 10 pounds before Christmas.

Last night was "Date Night" for the husband and me. We let our nanny go at the beginning of this school year, but since the kids love her so much (and we do, too), we didn't want to cut all ties to her. Instead, we have her come every other Tuesday night so that we can have a Date Night.

So last night, we decided to go check out an Indian restaurant we've never been to before. And when I got to work this morning, I started putting in everything I ate and drank last night, but after the vodka martini, saag paneer, and saffron rice, I gave up. I was well over my limit and I didn't even get to the gigantic King Fisher beer I drank and the other two entrees! I weighed myself this morning. I'm up more than a pound. Nice.

However, I put in all the food that I plan to eat today and the exercise I plan to do at lunchtime. If I don't eat any extras, I'm under my caloric limit.

I'm going to make sure to have more resolve today. And I'm not going to weigh myself again until next week. There's definitely such a thing as too much data. :)