Meet Kara, Josh and little Brecken

Hi everybody! I just wanted to take a quick second of your time to pass on some information for a very dear friend of mine, Kara. As you all know, Marco and I struggled with infertility for years before being blessed with our little Sadie. It was via that struggle that I was fortunate enough to meet and become friends with Kara.

Kara, Josh and Brecken are a happy family of three who are looking to become a family of four via adoption. If you would happen to know anybody who is currently making that very difficult, selfless decision of adopting their baby into a home of a loving family, please pass Kara, Josh and Brecken's information along. Their information can be found online here, as well as contact details.

Infertility has stolen so many things from so many people, but it has also given us the ability to understand the full capacity of our hearts in ways which otherwise, we would not have known. 

Suck it up!

That was the outcome of yesterday's "I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna" foot-stomping, baby fit. Today, when faced with my calendar taunting me with that big excited "E" for "exercise" I sucked it up and I did it.

And, as predicted yesterday, the good voice in my head out-shouted the naughty, slothful voice in my head (but, I do have to give him props, he kept chattering away right up until the end) and I went ahead and worked a full 35 minute workout. I didn't even intend to stop at 35 minutes but my poor little Sadie baby has a cold and was up screaming in her bed. The Mommy voice trumps ALL other voices, always and forever.

I really didn't feel like working because I was so tense from the last couple of days at work but exercising actually released that tension and now my body, although tired and stinky, feels better than any amount of relaxing on the couch could have caused it to feel.

So we're off to a good positive start this week! I hope  you all are having healthy, successful weeks!

Oh how I want to be inspiring...

Oh how I want to be inspiring with this post but jeezopete I am just not feeling it. It's not gonna happen. It's just not. And that's okay. This blog has never been about me being miss merry sunshine blowing smoke up your wazoo to make you think this is simple, easy, fun, perfect or great (although many times it is every single one of those things).

Nothing is "wrong" per say, I'm just feeling very overwhelmed at this moment. This would be a moment when I would also feel the need to binge. On everything. And anything. Especially sweets. Pie, by the pie load. Cakes, by the layers. Brownies by the pan. These are my "go to" binge foods. Or at least they were.

But I'm not going to do that this time around. I may not eat perfectly but I refuse to binge. I'm just so ready to be "done" with that whole cycle, that I just stubbornly refuse to do it anymore. No more stuffing myself sick because I've had a rotten (ROTTEN) day at work. No more eating until I feel like throwing up (and then thinking "well, maybe I should make myself throw up"). No more. I'm just ready to never go down that road again. I'm ready to look behind me and wave "so long sucka" to that person on that wickedly addictive path. I'm ready and I will have to admit, it is largely attributed to my sessions with Dewy and the progress I have been making there. This is how I felt when I stopped smoking too (back in 2004). I was just fed up with it and I was ready to be done. I haven't had a single cigarette since and I'm done binging. I'm calling it quits. I didn't think I would ever feel this way in my entire life but I really feel kind of "over it".

I'm not claiming total victory over every facet of the mental weight loss game but I'm pretty sure that I've won this round.  Sarah 1  - Binge 0.

And this would typically be a moment when I would stop exercising because all I really want to do it snuggle up in bed and be "unbusy". After a long, mentally challenging day the last thing I want to do is come home and sweat my guts out, listen to that Fitness Coaches witty banter as she tries to prod me into one more round of kicks, squats or jumping jacks and work out. That "just do it' is something I still need to master.

Luckily tonight was my night off but I'm wondering, if tomorrow is a repeat of today, will I really come home and sweat? I would love to say "heck yeah you will Sarah, you can do it, think of all of those lovely endorphins running through your veins making you feel like a bazillion bucks" but right now, what I'm really thinking is "yeah, I'm totally not moving tomorrow". It's almost claiming defeat before I'm really defeated.

Maybe I'll make a deal with myself (I do this quite often, the voices in my head love to gamble) and say that tomorrow if I am still feeling lousy, I can work out for only 15 minutes but I have to at least do those 15. I can totally live with that. It's not being totally schleppy (yes, that's a word, in my vocab at least) or letting myself totally off of the hook but it's also not being an exercise Nazi. Win-win, no?

And, I know myself well enough to know that if I do 15 minutes of it, about 6 minutes into the whole sweaty mess I'll start to feeling good and continue on for at least 30 minutes. Even as I type this one side of me is saying "you're sooooo not doing more than 15 minutes" but you know, if I don't, that's really okay. Because I said it is. And I am the boss of me.

Let's hope today is not a repeat and  that whole thing becomes a totally moot point (moot was for you Keith!).

I hope you're all having healthy, successful and inspiring weeks!

Distractions

Yikes! I've been M.I.A. a lot longer than intended! No worries though, things are going super well! I'm feeling good, accomplishing my mini goals and fielding "have you lost weight" comments left and right.

Dewy asked me to come up with a list of distractions for myself to use when it isn't quite "time to eat" but I am getting that familiar "I'm bored therefore I'm hungry" type of feeling. I'm sure you all know it well! I have a little list at home already but I want to know what do YOU do to distract yoruself from food and mindless grazing?

Here are just a few things I've managed to come up with:
dust the house (this always needs done!)
paint my nails
read a book
walk the dog
play with Sadie
dishes/laundry
sort old photos
brush my teeth (not that I don't do this anyway, but a clean mouth staves off hunger for me)
WRITE IN MY BLOG!

I will need to have distractions for any time of day, so at work, on the weekends, 2am... you name it, I'll need a distraction. So let me know what you think!

uber quick catch-up

This week has been insanely busy at work so I haven't had much time to blog at all. I am doing well, keeping up the weight loss spirit, my food log and the whole she-bang. I have slacked a bit on my exercising, only doing it three times a week rather than four, but I will still meet my goal that I set for myself to make at least 80% of my workouts!

Geesh, I wish I had more time to say and actually more things to tell you but right now it's very solid and steady going. Not much to report.

Don't forget to read my post below and donate (or repost on your own blogs) if you can! She only has until March 5th to meet her $500 goal and she isn't halfway there yet.

Hope you all are having healthy, successful weeks!

A little help?

See that woman there with the red hair? Well, she's about to shave it all off to make a very BOLD statement and raise money for a very good cause, Children's Cancer Research. That woman is also my sister. Our brother was the inspiration, as he will also be shaving his head for this very worthy cause, and made her start to think about her own good health, and her healthy children and just how fortunate our family really is.

When she emailed me to say "I'm doing it" I got goosebumps and I have them again just writing this message to you all. For a woman to put her own self aside and say "I WILL DO THIS", that is strentgh, courage and a beautiful example of a giving spirit! It's something that you don't see every day. I am so proud of her and want to do whatever I can to help her meet her goal.

If you can, please go to the foundations website here and support my sister's efforts by making a small donation. You don't have to give $100, $50 or even $10. Just one single solitaty dollar makes a difference. I made my small donation this morning and it took me about 2 minutes to do. If you have 2 minutes and $1, we're on our way to making a difference in some child's life.

Please feel free to pass my sister's story on, either via your own blogs, email, message board, twitter (whatever you're using) and share her link. She's only shooting to raise $500 total but I think what she's doing can raise so much more. Help her meet her goal (plus, you'll get to see what that head looks like totally 100% bald!)

Tough to workout or tough workouts? (And Happy Valentines Day!)

Last night I begrudgingly did my 30 minute aerobic workout on the Wii. No puppy dogs and rainbows there, a didn't want to do it, didn't feel like doing and had no intention of doing it. Sometimes, it's just tough to workout! I hadn't seen Marco all weekend because he worked all day long, I was tired and I just wanted to sit with him and relax, talk about stuff and not be working out.

Marco, however, gently nudged me to go ahead and do it, which initially made me want to scratch out his eyes and convinced me that he hated my guts. What a jerkface.

So I snapped on the Wii, glared at him (as he easily sat behind the computer playing poker), and began to angrily grapevine, side step, kick and whatever else that skinny beotch on the Wii made me do.

I probably switched modes and moods about 10 minutes into it though. I wasn't pouting anymore and really trying to push myself and I no longer wanted to scratchs Marco's eyes all the way out, maybe just poke 'em a little. The skinny beotch on the Wii was still irritating but I could be on a Prozac-sugar-endorphin high beyond your wildest dreams and she'd still be irritating.

I pushed through and finished a tough 30 minutes, sweat and all. I somehow managed to make that "tough to workout" monent and refocus it into a "tough workout".

As a layed sprawled out on the ground sweating and stretching Marco came over and said "good job sweetheart". I knew he nudged me because he wants to see me happy and knows I would be pissed at myself today for skipping it. That man is one brave soldier, living his life with no fear of Sarah's Wrath, which, I will say, can be pretty darned scary.

I hope you are all having healthy, successful weeks!

Very interesting observation...

Last week at my appointment with Dewy (Disorderly Eating Woman YAY!) she suggested that perhaps I would want to try weighing in blind or only weighing in at my appointments with her. The reason being, I've mentioned to her that when I step on the scale it can effect how the rest of my day goes. If it's a loss, I'm obviously happy and can sometimes relax a little "too much". If it is a gain then I get a bit nervous and I become restrictive, probably overly restrictive.

The point of my getting help with all of this is not to lose a ton of weight right this very second, Biggest Loser style. The point of all of this is for me to form new habits and over a length of time the weight will gradually come off due to my new habits, not because I ate 900 calrories every day for 3 days, binged a day, went back to 900 calories, repeat repeat repeat like I have so many times in the past.

I agreed that I would only weigh at my appointment with her, weighing blindly and only knowing my weight once a month was just too over the top for me. Keep in mind that although my "official" weigh in was only once a week, on Mondays most recently, I still got on the scale almost daily. Ritualistically.

The first couple of days were pretty rough (to use the word loosely) and it was tempting, I will admit. I mean, who would know if I really did get on the scale or not... nobody but me. But what's the point of all of this if I start lying to myself (or to you all).

But by days 3 and 4, I noticed something else. I was feeling good. My clothes felt loser to me, I felt like I was standing taller. Just feeling good about myself made me, well, just happier. Happier to stick to my changes. Happier to exercise in the evening. Just all around happier, all week long. Now if I would have stepped on the scale and not seen a loss or,*gasp*, seen a gain, which let's be truthful here, it just happenes sometimes for no forseen reason, it would have totally altered my mood. I really hadn't realized what an effect those numbers, when seen on a daily basis, were having on me.

So if you're a scale junkie and you recognize some of this in yourself, maybe give it a try. Do it for a week or so and just see how you feel. See if the numbers are playing mind games with you as well.

I hope you are all having healthy, successful weeks!  

What a Monday!

Mondays are my weigh in day now and I was really surprised to see that I was up 0.3 kilos or 0.6 of a pound. Not that it's a significant gain but I really feel like I've lost. My pants are looser, my coat isn't as snug around my rump when I zip it, and my tush feels smaller. Granted these are changes that everybody would notice in my bod, but I see myself naked every single day, so I do notice them. An even bigger surprise was that those numbers didn't ruin my entire day, send me into a "why bother" tailspin or even really peeve me. I was pretty okay with that, reasing being:

I've been doing AWESOME on my workouts. Seriously awesome. I have only missed one day in the past 4 weeks since setting my original goal and it's just been fantastic. They're getting mildly easier to do with each passing day and I'm remembering back to how this whole thing started... how I lost my first 30 pounds back in 2006 and this is exactly how it felt. It wasn't easy back then, just like it's not easy now, but I was determined and I feel so very determined!

I've also been doing great with my other mini goals, such as cooking more home made meals, trying new recipes, drinking 64 oz of water per day and eating fish three times a week. Breaking these goals down has been instrumental to my less mopy-after-gaining-attitude because now I have so many other focuses besides "did I lose or didn't I". It was such a simple trick that I learned from Dewy, my therapist, but it really does work. Granted I'm not "fixed" quite yet but I am well on my way I think!

We did decide that maybe it would be a good experiment for me to try not weighing myself every week except at my appointment with Dewy. Because I tend to be so number focused, she thinks it could help me gain a little more perspective on all of the other great things I am doing for my body. It's also a reminder that this is not only about losing weight, this is about fixing the way that I deal with food on a daily basis. It's about figuring out what makes me tick and tweaking it. It's about making changes that will last a lifetime. So this week, I am not to step on the scale once. Not even to peek. That's actually going to be pretty challenging for me because I do tend to hop on almost every morning "just to see". What that does though, is if the number isn't exactly what I want to see, then it throws me into "oh-my-god-I-have-to-work-harder" mode, making me be more restrictive than necessary with my food intake, which tends to make me food obsess, which tends to make me binge. It's that cycle there that I hope to break. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint! We'll give it a go for a couple weeks and see how I do. I do love a challenge!

I have some other "homework" that I will share with you all later on! I hope you all are having healthy, successful weeks!

Keeping it level

That's my big goal right now, is trying to keep my blood sugar as stable and level as possible. That's why at the center where I am getting help at, Dewy (Disorderly Eating Woman, Yay!) suggests that I eat every 2-3 hours and really trying never go to over that three hour threshold. Since adopting this method I can honestly say my energy level is better than it has been in a very long time and certainly since my daughter was born.

I've got that down fairly well through the week when I'm at work, as I tend to be more in a pattern then. I get up around the same time, I set my reminder on my email to tell me when I should (generally) have my snack, I have pushed my lunchtime back to fit in this schedule, I have a second reminded pop up to tell me to eat my second snack and then I have dinner. Dinner is the one that is always a tricky one. I sometimes go over my 3 hour limit before eating dinner as I'm busy paying attention to Sadie (my delightful daughter, check out her blog). The weekends, well, they take some strategic planning sometimes and I can improve on my eating during that time for sure.

I'm encouraged to eat six times a day with my first time eating being as close to when I get out of bed as possible. The reason being is that it's probably been a very long time (10-12 hour) span of time since I'd last eaten, therefore my blood sugar would be extremely low, if I would test it. A lot of people (including me) say "well I'm just not hungry in the morning", which may be true, you may not feel hungry, as in, your tummy isn't growling, BUT if you would check your blood sugar, you would see that your body is, indeed, hungry.

There is no cut off time as to when I should eat last. If I am awake and it's been 3 hours since I've last eaten I should have something, anything, to keep my levels, well, level. Some "diets" encourage you to stop eating after a certain time in the evening such as 6 or 7pm, yet most people don't go to bed until 10, 11 or even later. As you will be able to figure from the paragraph above, if you stop eating a 6 and then don't eat again until 6, 7 or even 8 the next morning, you're really asking a lot of your body!

Notice I'm not counting calories, I'm not counting points, I'm not counting anything except the hours and logging my food intake every day. Yes, I have been given a list of good foods and snacks to help me make better choices but let's face it, it's not that I don't know that an apple is a better choice than a muffin. I know (for the most part, sometimes you can really be fooled!) what is "healthy" food and what isn't and they're not tyring to teach me that. They are focused right now on getting my eating in a normal pattern with normal portion sizes.

So, that said, I wanted to share with you what my last couple of days have been like just so you can get a real idea of what I've been doing. Keep in mind I am not perfect, and you will see that. I am not trying to be perfect, I'm just trying to do a little bit better that I've been doing in the past.

This is copied and pasted from my food log:
(wwbb stands for whole wheat brown bread and I've left some other descriptions in the text below for things not everybody may know)

Feb 1st


8:00 - 2wwbb 1 w/ humus, 1 w/ butter and honey, 2 cappucinos w/ sugar
10:00 - sultanas (fruit snack bar, 2)
1:00 - 2wwb w/ light cream cheese, 2 slices ham, apple, 2 diet cokes
3:00 - banana
5:00 - 2 time out biscuits and a cappuccino w/ sugar
7:00 - Thai curry chicken and veggie w/ noodles
9:00 - sultanas
worked out for 30 minutes, was very hungry afterwards, so had my late snack even though I had eaten 6 times already that day

Feb 2nd

7:30 - 2wwb humus, cappuccino w/ sugar
10:15 - sultana
1:00 - cheese tortilini w/ meat sauce and veggies (1/2 portion), diet coke
3:00 - apple
5:00 2 mandrins, 3 pieces of chocolate
8:00 steak w/ sauteed onion, mashed potatoes, greek salad, diet coke

Feb 3rd

8:45 - oatmeal w/ raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon, 1 capuccino w/ sugar
10:45 - apple
1:00 - 2 wwbb w/ mayo, roast beef slices, salami, cheese, tomato, cuke, lettuce, 2 diet cokes
2:15 - 1/2 slice of apple tart (office party)
4:30 2 mandrins
7:00 - thai curried beef w/ veg and rice (didn't eat my usual full portion,felt full)


Feb 4th
8:30 - oatmeal w/ sprinkle of brown sugar and cinnamon
10:00 - 2 mandrins
12:45 - white fish w/ pesto (baked), w/ small fries (10), 4 onion rings, mushrooms and onions (sauteed), 2 diet cokes
3:30 - apple
7:00 - ceasar chicken salad, 100 ml optimel kwark (this is a Dutch yogurt type food)
in bed at 10


Feb 5th
8:15 - 2 wwbb humus
10:00 apple
2:00 - tomato soup, 2 wwbb w/ butter and one slice of old cheese
4:30 - 100 ml optimel kwark
8:00 - baked chicken breast w/ bbq sauce, roasted pumpkin

Also in my log I mention if I have had a struggle or emotional day as to later see where my destructive patterns are.
 
So that's what I've been up to as far as how and what I am eating for right now. Once this becomes more 2nd nature I will start focusing on other aspects of weight loss.
 
I hope you all are having healthy, successful weeks!