Hump Day

I can't decide if this week is flying by or dragging. Can it do both?

Work is really busy. Even though I'm the newest on the team and I schedule the biggest group (and growing - I should be up to 220 associates by June), I am taking on more and more projects. Since I am already putting in 9+ hour days I am thinking about asking my boss about doing 4 10-hour days or 4 9-hour days + 1 4-hour day just to see how that goes. I don't get OT pay, but I'm putting in about 45 hours a week. I'd like to look at an alternate work week, especially because Mondays and Fridays are our down days. Wednesdays and Thursdays are the really busy days, so I can't have my dream job of a 4 day work week with Wednesdays off.

I am finally getting up the courage to enroll in Big A#%! Yoga. It's on Mondays at 4:30 and it will be for 12 weeks. This is a pretty big step for me since I am intimidated by group physical activities. The class, however, is designed specifically for larger body types and I think I would be more comfortable starting out in this class, although they have several other styles and levels when I get ready to move on. Plus they offer guided meditation, which is something I am very interested in. Of course, the biggest plus is that it is located right between two of my favorite stores - Whole Foods and the soon-to-open Trader Joe's. Hey, I'm all for stores that offer good wine for $1.99.

The sun has been shining the last few days, so I think I'm finally emerging from my post-winter funk. I even came to work without a jacket today. The one bad thing about the seasons changing is that I do not have any warm weather work clothes. One of my old standbys fell by the wayside this morning (it fell past my hips when I put it on) so I am down to 3 skirts and maybe 5 pairs of pants. It won't be sweater weather much longer so those will be retired and passed along to someone who needs them, but that leaves me with about 7 or 8 tops. I do have a few pairs of blue jeans, which I can't wear to work (I can wear black, purple, orange denim pants - just not blue denim. Which is weird because I can wear a blue denim skirt.) so those are mainly for the weekends. I am hoping I can pick up a few more items at the clothing swap on April 22 - at least enough to get me to summer. I was daring and bought a bikini - it's a regular XL top which fits (a little tight, but it keeps the "girls" in place) and a size 16 bottom which I haven't tried on yet. I do need some shorts but I want to hold off as long as possible so I get a more accurate size. I could use some new bras as well, but they are so expensive! What I really need to do is get properly fit so I know what size I should be buying. I've been wearing a 46C, but I think I might be down to a 38C - a pretty big difference in the scheme of things.

Better get going on my day. Gym tonight which I really need since I didn't workout over the weekend.

Where Is Spring?

OK, we're five days into the season we call spring and I'm just not feeling it. It's overcast, 31 degrees, muddy, brown and there are still snow piles. What's up with that? Where are the tulips, robins, warm showers and the sun? Even though we've had a very mild winter, especially by Minnesota standards, I am really ready for some warm weather. I want to feel the sun on my face and smell fresh flowers and hear birds sing.

I guess the one good thing about the continued cold weather is that I don't have to buy new clothes. I hope to remedy that at the big clothes swap we're having next month. It's getting to the point even my bras and undies are too big. It's time to clean out the closet yet again. We even have to get rid of some of Don's clothes since he's lost about 30 pounds. In fact, I think we're going to Target today to get him some new pants since he has about 1 pair that fit.

Not too much else on tap - I need to get at least one gym day in, walk the dogs, nail appointment, maybe a movie. This week took a lot out of me - busy at work, still fighting a chest cold. I think I have a touch of seasonal depression as well.

Nothing else much new. Pretty boring, I know, but I'm just not inspired right now...

Knocking On The Door

The scale, much to my surprise, showed 230.0 this morning. It's been kind of funky for me lately as "that time" arrived a week early and messed up my cycle. On my official weigh-in days (Wednesdays), I was down two pounds from the previous week so I can't complain too much.

One of the best things I did was start tracking my weight loss weekly. If it wasn't for that, I'd often wonder if I was losing at all since it does seem to have slowed down in the last two months. Here are the stats - in the 30 weeks I've tracked my weight, I've lost 29 out of those 30 weeks; I've lost 27 straight weeks; since surgery 24 weeks ago, there hasn't been one week where I haven't gone down at least 1 pound; my weekly average is 3.5 pounds, although the average has dropped to 2.6 pounds over the last 8 weeks; I've lost anywhere from 0.6 pounds to 6.8 pounds in one week. I don't know if there has ever been a time where I have lost weight so regularly. Yes, I would love to lose 5 pounds each week, but I'd rather lose 2 pounds than nothing at all.

When people who haven't had the surgery ask me about eating, they don't really get the whole not hungry thing. It is an odd sensation, that's for sure. The closest I can come is if you've ever been sick and nothing sounds appealing, that's how I feel pretty much 24/7. Yesterday I was sitting at my desk with beef in gravy, roasted red potatoes and broccoli. I felt like I was a kid being forced to eat my veggies at the dinner table. I played with my food. I took the smallest bites possible. I was so relieved to dump it once I though I had eaten enough. About the only thing I don't dread right now is my protein shakes and I'm really trying to limit those to every other day so I don't totally forget how to eat.

Not being hungry has not stopped mindless snacking, however. It's the weirdest thing. When I get busy at work, I take a break which often means going downstairs or to the vending machine to get something to eat. Yes, I know that doesn't make sense. I'll buy crackers, go back to my desk and mindlessly eat 4 or 5. Granted, in the old days, I would be eating the entire package and probably eating something worse than Wheat Thins. I still get caught up in the ritual of eating, even though I'm not hungry. Even though that hasn't really hurt me up until now, I need to break that habit before it does cause me to backslide.

Exercise has not been happening as I continue to recover from this darn chest cold. I will be at the gym tonight, though. I'm on the hook for one hour of Core training, but I have a feeling I am going to wuss out of the hour of cardio I really need to do.

Today is my crazy busy day at work. Tomorrow should not be nearly as bad, and I might actually get out early. I am having lunch with my former admin team to welcome the new admin who is taking my place. I'm taking her to lunch next week to give her the real skinny on where all the bodies are buried. I hope my former team doesn't give her too hard of a time. She confided in me yesterday she is a little nervous about filling the shoes I left. With a little time, she's going to do just fine.

It's only 7:30 AM and I am so ready to go back to bed. Instead, I have about 10 hours of work to cram into 4 hours. Let me grab my magic wand and get started.

Weekends Should Have Three Days

I had Friday off, which was a good thing seeing how I felt like crap. For the first time this winter, I thought I might be coming down with a cold. With a little Tussin and lots of Vapo-Rub, I seem to be on the mend. It can still feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest at times but for the most part I feel OK.

Of course, I think I got cheated out of a vacation day. I really could use about a week off just to get stuff done around the house - like painting the family room and kitchen. Or cleaning out back issues of magazines I've been collecting for no apparent reason. Heck, just filling up all the empty frames I have gathering dust would take a day or two.

I did have two good workouts - this morning's was 2 hours and burned 1035 calories. I got both cars washed, bought an end table, finished a book, walked the dogs (once, so far and will probably have a second one this afternoon), got some make-up (gift with purchase at Clinique). I even watched some of the March Madness, despite the fact my brackets blew up in the first round (stupid Syracuse and Iowa).

The weight continues to slowly come off. I have my 6 month check-up with my surgeon's office on April 18th and I would love to be under 220. I can't believe I am now 31 pounds away from being in "onederland" (that's where my weight begins with a 1 instead of a 2 or a 3). I'm finding myself less focused on the scale as of late. I've actually forgotten to weigh myself once or twice. I guess that's a good thing.

Food remains my sticking point. It's a struggle for me to eat. Part of it is because I'm not hungry, and my past indoctrination was only eat when I'm hungry. I do force myself to eat just to get calories and protein. I had some corned beef and mashed potatoes on Friday. Yesterday was better - I ate 2 full meals. Don and I went out to lunch and had some really good tomato basil soup and a sandwich. I'm getting better about ordering when we go out. I ordered a half of a sandwich and soup. I only ate half the soup and less than half the sandwich. Heck, I even had 6 french fries. It tasted good, went down well and I felt sated but it was a real task to get the food from my plate into my mouth. Last night, even though I wasn't hungry, I ate two fish tacos I made with spicy tilapia and coleslaw. Again, it tasted good and I was satisfied, but I really have to focus on eating. I should be eating something after the workout I just had but I'm not hungry and nothing sounds good.

Anyway, the rest of the day is all about resting - reading the Sunday paper, starting a new book, doing the crossword, walking the dogs. A perfect day in my book.

Body Fat vs. Pounds

When I got my lean body mass/body fat calculated back on January 22, I was at 49% body fat - which meant at the time, I was 130 pounds of lean muscle and 125 pound of fat. I had my body fat re-done on Saturday and it came in at 64.5% lean muscle and 35.5% body fat - or in pounds, 153.5 pounds of muscle and 84.5 pounds of fat.

Even though the scale only shows a drop of 17 pounds, my body had lost 40.5 pounds of fat and gained 23.5 pounds of muscle. That, to me, is just amazing. I believe in the motto that it's not just about the numbers on the scale, and seeing how my body has changed just in the last 7 weeks makes me realize that I can't just rely on the scale to tell me the whole story. Guess I'm doing something right.

In my last post I talked about how it was 60 degrees on Friday. Well, we got hit with about 8 inches of snow yesterday, making for a terrible morning commute, and it was only 8 degrees this morning on my way in to work. Crazy Minnesota weather! Luckily I left early and my commute was only about 15 minutes longer than normal. I only saw one car in a ditch. An hour later and it would have taken about 3 times as long to go 20 miles. Even the transit buses were having trouble staying on the road.

I have a busy week of work as I try and cram 5 days into 4, but having Friday off is totally worth it. I don't exactly sleep in, but I usually get up at 5:15 AM, so anything past that is a bonus. We're usually up around 7:30 or so on weekends, although the dogs have been sleeping in until 8:00. No big plans for the three day weekend - we're supposed to get the right couch delivered on Wednesday (Marshall Field's delievered the right color and fabric LOVESEAT last week. Just a wee bit of difference.) and I'm sure I'll have a ton of things to do like laundry.

Last Sunday I had to go to Mall of America to get some pants that actually fit (I got tired of holding them up with binder clips!!) and went early so I could do laps around each level. I did a total of 6 laps, or about 3.5 miles. I really felt like I deserved a reward! I remember the first time I went to MOA in August, 2004 when Don was interviewing here. I only made it around 2 levels, and even then I had to sit and take a break. Now I can do 6 laps without sitting down once. And that was on top of doing 90 minutes of cardio on Saturday - 4.5 miles!! Pretty soon I'll do something crazy like enter a 5K race. Or something really crazy like entering
this (not until 2007, though).

Gotta have goals, right?

The Weather Outside is Frightful

Well, as they say, if you don't like the weather in Minnesota, wait 5 minutes. Yesterday, it totally felt like spring - 60 degrees, warm breeze, kids playing jumprope and on swingsets, Canadian geese returning. We even had a warm shower early this morning along with some thunder. Heck, this morning when I went to get the paper, I heard the beautiful sound of birds singing.

And then I read the weather forecast - wind gusts up to 40 mph, dropping temps (only a high of 40 today) and up to 6 inches of snow between Sunday and Monday. Ugh. I was really hoping spring was upon us. Looks like we're going to get another blast of winter before that happens.

Yesterday was spent in the hospital with Don. He had his double hernia surgery, and came through with flying colors. He's resting comfortably now - probably the great drugs. It will be a pretty mellow weekend - just jaunts to the gym for me and maybe the store for provisions.

A few other hiccups this week - the couch we ordered was finally delivered (3 days late) and it was not what we ordered. It was a loveseat, not a couch! Just a wee bit of a difference. They had already moved our old couch out, so we're stuck with just a loveseat (the recliners won't be delivered until the end of the month) until next Wed. I moved our chair from the front room in so we have a little more sitting room, but what a hassle.

Then, I went to use my AMEX card to pay for Don's prescription and it was declined. I thought it was weird but figured I'd deal with it later. When we got home from the hospital, there was a message for me from a toner company in Oregon saying they received an order which they thought was fraudulent - and order for 2 toners at $250 a pop. What alerted them was the IP address - it was located in Nigeria. After a few phone calls, the story seems to be that somehow someone got my credit card information and was able to find me in the white pages to get my billing address and phone number. It's a scam this toner company has seen a lot of recently - they get large orders shipped to a city with a port (New Jersey, Los Angeles, New Orleans, etc.). It almost always has a free e-mail address (Hotmail, Yahoo), the billing address and shipping address is different. The toners are shipped and then sent by cargo ship to Europe and resold back to the US at cutrate prices.

When the merchent called AMEX to alert them to the suspected fraud, the first person they spoke to was pretty nonchalant about it. They got a supervisor on the phone who finally put a hold on my card. By the time I spoke to them, another charge had been declined at a Bed, Bath & Beyond in New Jersey for $1.00, meaning they were trying to see if the card was still valid. I cancelled that card and by 9:00 AM this morning had a brand new gold card in my hand.

I will be contacting the phone company and de-listing our number. I will also contact the three credit unions to put an alert on my reports. I did check my other AMEX accounts and those don't seem to be affected. I'll have to watch our Visa as well.

With all the snafus that have been happening lately, it's reminding me of our first few months here. I'll probably have to get a sage smudge stick to burn and rid the house (again) of all this negative energy.

New Photos Posted

You can find them here. I had no idea how busty I was!! Glad I'm not losing weight in that particular area...

Five Months Out

What a busy week! I had to work Saturday, plus I put in a lot of OT last week, so it kinda feels like I haven't left my desk in 10 days. I do have Friday off, although not for a good reason. Don needs to have hernia surgery. Not only does he have the one we knew about, but it looks like another one is developing on the other side. His doctor told him it's about a 2 week recovery period, so it could be an interesting few weeks. The good news is that Jager got her stitches out on Saturday, and although we still have to take her out on the leash so she doesn't run or play, she's getting better every day.

So, here is my 5 month post-op update. I weighed in this morning at 235.2, down 101.4 pounds from my heighest weight and 86.6 pounds since surgery. I am only down 9.6 pounds from February, but I guess I can't complain too much. I'm wearing a 16/18 on top and a 20/22 on the bottom, although I am finding that I can get into a 18/20 depending on the cut of the pants. My next goals are to be down to 221.8 (13.4 pounds) by my 6 month post op check-in and to be under 200 by June 5.

I am very happy that I am consistently getting my 68+ ounces of water in daily and remembering to take my supplements. For the most part I can eat pretty much anything, although I did throw up my scrambled eggs this morning, and I'm not sure why. I don't really miss anything, and continue not to have cravings. Physical hunger isn't an issue, but I am battling eating out of ritual or bordeom.

My physical activity continues to increase. I was even at the gym before 7:00 AM on Sunday. I do feel stronger and like I have more endurance. My trainer helped me bench press 100 pounds (what I've lost so far) on Friday. I still can't believe I used to have to haul that poundage everywhere I went. No wonder I was so tired! I still need to be more consistent about working out. This week, I'm training on Tuesday and Satuday and will go to the gym on Sunday, but I should try and workout today and Friday as well. Part of me thinks, "Well, it's three more days than I was doing!" but at the same time I know that by adding two more days I might actually lose more than 9 pounds a month.

Things like my self-confidence and self-esteem are getting better. I still have instances of self-doubt - thoughts like, "Can I make it through this crowded bar without bumping into anything or anyone?" I don't have a real sense of my own size. I still feel like a lumbering ox on occassion, and often surprise myself by fitting in between chairs or being able to fit into a booth.

This is going to be another busy week with me trying to get 5 days of work crammed into 4. I know I'll be here late at least on Wednesday and Thursday. Good thing I am still getting OT (my move to my new department STILL hasn't taken place, which means my raise also hasn't been processed!!) so I want to milk that for all it's worth. I have a few high level meetings today where I will be presenting, so I should get ready for those. Of course, what I really want to do is sneak off to the quiet room and take a nap.