Absent

I know that I have been absent. 

This is probably the longest that I have been away from the blog since it started. It really wasn't on purpose, life just took over.

I've had some reflection time during the last week even if I haven't had time to write it down and I've even written some blog posts in my head, but again they just didn't make to my computer screen.

This past week has been tough. Add that to the experiment over the long weekend and its been a rough 10 days.

I think there are a lot of factors at play including, but not limited to: Stress, time, hormones, boredom (of doing and eating the same stuff). Today and this past weekend I was just ridiculously busy. I'm really not one of those people who complains how busy I am, anyone who knows me knows that my regular life is busier than most people, so trust me when I say I'm busy, I'm really busy, talking worked 15 hours this weekend last minute and not 8-5 hours either.

Now is the time that I need to figure out where to go next.

I know that I am enjoying the weight that I have lost. The problem is getting the motivation to get to the next step. I can be easy to get lost in the compliments and the good feeling about a smaller size and new clothes and forget that I am still 80lbs overweight and I have a long weigh to go. I don't know if there is harm in taking a break before I keep going, but do worry that if I'm not continuously strict that I am going to slip and have more than the occasional treat or day without tracking.

The same time as easy as it is to count calories and as effective as I have gotten at burning 500 calories at the gym in a short period of time, this is really hard work both mentally and physically and I think my body or my brain or both has fighting back for the last little while with both cravings and frustrated feelings about how hard this can be and how strict I have to be.

I still am making 80% good choices especially breakfast and lunch which I have down pat. Dinner is not bad, but snacks can creep up on me pretty quickly and I need to reign in on them.

I do want to go back to tracking, but when I stopped working at 11pm and that was only because I wanted to write this and go to bed it does seem to get put on the bottom of the priority list.

I don't really know what to do. I'm not giving up, but I have always been honest in my writing and I'm not going to stop now just because its hard and I'm confused. 

The reality is that I'm not going to solve these problems tonight and I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully a trip to the gym.

The Experiment

So to recap from Friday - I got home from work feeling frustrated that I was about to embark on the first long weekend of the summer and I was going to be stuck following my weight loss program, measuring, weighing, exercising and counting calories.

I should have known better immediately when I found my mind taking the the position that I was going to be depriving myself of something. As soon as that became my mind set I knew that I had lost before even putting up a fight.

So I gave in and decided that I was not going to restrict myself and I was going to "enjoy" the weekend. That was the experiment.

The good thing about experiments is that we learn. My hypothesis (and you thought I wouldn't retain anything from Science Class) was that by allowing myself to eat anything I want I would be happier and have a better weekend.

By Sunday I was feeling tired, lazy and completely unmotivated. By Monday all I wanted to do was eat and read a book sitting on the couch. I believe that the increase in sugar and simple carbs that I was eating along with a ton of diet pop was having a significant impact on my body and I was noticing the impact really quickly.

Even though I started to notice this Sunday and Monday I was not able to pull myself back on track, despite knowing that if I ate better and moved I would feel better, I just couldn't motivate myself and so the cycle continued.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. Prepared by breakfast and packed my lunch for work, every calorie accounted for.

I feel 100% better already and now I know that by following my healthy diet I may not eat junk, but I actually prevent depriving my body of energy and motivation for activity which really should be the focus of the long weekend, not food.

I just don't want to.

Here in Canada today is the start of a long weekend. To me long weekends signify, relaxation, bbq, spending time with family and friends. Long weekends do not signify calorie counting, long workouts at the gym and stressing over food choices.


Driving home tonight I sent a text to my husband. The wording was simple - I don't want to diet this weekend. His response - LOL. I asked what was so funny, he hasn't answered me yet.


I am in no means abandoning my weight loss efforts, but I have to be honest, when it comes to this weekend, I just don't feel like it.


I don't mean that I plan to gorge myself or eat everything in sight, but I want to make food choices based on what I feel like having, not how many calories I have left.


I have noticed a 30 day pattern with my diet behavior. I followed clean eating faithfully for about a month before I fell off the wagon, weight watchers about the same. I have now been counting calories with great success for about a month and I can tell that I am getting bored.


I'm not sure exactly what to do in order to get past this mental plateau. It does not help that this week has been crazy busy and I am really tired. Perhaps a weekend of relaxation (I am on call, but fingers crossed) will help put me in a better place to move forward.


Will I count calories this weekend? Honnestly, I don't know, but I will be conscious of what I eat, I will make it to the gym and I will not give up the journey.

Seeing Red

Today's weigh in was frustrating. I know that I should now be past the point where a single weigh in on a single day can frustrate me, but I'm human and it still bugs me.

I was up half a pound today.

I know that a day or two from now that 10oz will be gone, but I still wanted to see success today. I know that I have not worked as hard this week because of my birthday this past weekend, but I still worked hard and I wanted to see some result.

I know that there is nothing that I can do about it, but I'm still upset and mad. At first I was made that I ordered the bacon/alfredo pasta on my birthday, but then I remembered that I also watched what I ate all day and said no to dessert. I made that decision and was happy with it and I am not going to regret one meal out of 21 for the week.

I am going to continue to work hard and go to the gym and weigh myself in a few days at which time I hope to write another blog with a happier tone.

Told you this week was going to be tough

So it's Wednesday, I'm on call for the second time this week and I am really wishing it was Friday right now.


As I write this I am procrastinating cleaning which is something that I really need to do. I'm not quite sure how such small people (children) make such a big mess so quickly, but I do know that keeping up with them is a full time job all on its on and I have full time job on top of that.


The time is 5:35pm. My husband is not yet home from work, I am trying to get dinner thawed out while trying to decide if going to Zumba while on call is brave or stupid all the while thinking that I should be spending the evening putting the house back together.


What I am not going to do is allow this stress to cause me to eat. I feel so overwhelmed right now that when I was on the phone (work stuff) my 3 year old used this opportunity to bring me the package of cookies knowing (he's pretty smart) that he had a better chance of getting one while I was on the phone. The problem, I seriously can not remember if I ate one, I don't think I did, but I can't be sure and this only happened 15 minutes ago. I can easily see this snowballing if I don't take control right now.


So the chicken breasts on defrosting and I am going to make a salad and some veggies and I am crossing my fingers that my husband walks through the door before my cell phone goes off again because if he doesn't I may end up with an empty package of cookies and no idea how it happened or any recollection of eating them.

Am I up for the challenge?

This week is going to be a challenge. The good news is that I have figured this out already and at least won't be caught off guard.

The first challenge is that I'm on call twice this week plus this weekend which could/will impact my ability to get the gym at night. The solution - try to work out as much as possible at the gym during my lunch hour.

The second challenge is that I have told myself that I want to accomplish a lot around the house this week before the long weekend. Also since I'm on call so much we will be staying home which makes it a perfect time to clean and organize. The solution to this problem is the same as above.

The other side of these challenges is to make sure that they don't negatively impact my food. Last week I had a late night work thing and had to go out in the middle of the night. I ended up eating a 400 calorie muffin when I stopped for coffee. Then since it was the middle of the night I had to figure out which day to count the calories for. - Solution - pack a snack if I have to go out at night.

I think just being this busy is going to have the potential to impact my success this week, but unlike weeks in the past I am aware of the challenges and prepared to deal with each one.

I have increased motivation as I did allow myself some additional calories this weekend for my birthday which means I need to be even more focused this week. I did start right on track this week even though a wonderful dairy milk cake was brought into the office to celebrate my birthday. I even cut the cake and did not eat any of it.

Here is to a great week and for those Canadians out there a long weekend at the end.

The Lulu Dilemma

All I wanted for my birthday was to shop at lululemon. I had an experience in March where I tried on a jacket in lulu and it fit. Since then, purchasing a lulu sweater/jacket has been something that I really wanted, or so I thought.

Yesterday was my birthday and since my family was well aware of my birthday wish each gift I opened contained either a lulu giftcard or cash to shop there. I could hardly wait to go shopping. Problem is that the closest lulu store is an hour away from my home.

Since the long weekend next weekend is sure to be busy and the 2 hour round trip is too much for a week night I decided that today was the day to shop. I was a bit disappointed that I seemed destined to go on my own. Both my sister and mom were out of town and it was a bit last minute to invite friends, but I really wanted someone to be with me for this experience. This was not just birthday shopping, but rather a reward for my hard work to date. I was pushing for my husband to come along, but my 3 1/2 year old son kindly reminded me why taking 2 kids to lululemon was not my best plan. I ended up going with my daughter for a girls shopping experience.

During the hour long drive I started to have a panic attack, would the clothes fit, would the staff look at me like I shouldn't be shopping there, what if they told me the clothes wouldn't fit. I had completed turned this positive trip around in my head. I was in full panic mode by the time we arrived.

I calmed down a bit going into the store, but was still overwhelmed. I quickly realized that my size (12 the largest lulu carries) was the most popular size and finding items in that size was proving to be difficult. The jacket I tried on a month earlier was no wear to be seen and the few that I tried on could be successfully worn, but were tight and I was having a hard time spending $100 on a top that looked, well, tight.

Feeling a bit defeated I remembered a conversation that I had with my sister. She had told me that there was another store just down from lulu that sold similar clothes, but sold sizes up to an 18. Since just over half of my spending money was cash I thought I would give it a try.

The store was very lulu inspired. The clothing was similar and the store's phrases even poked fun at the competition, one bag had the phrase "This is no lemon".

I started to look around still feeling a bit on edge, but when I started to find clothing from 0-18 I started to question my focus on obtaining the lulu jacket. Did I really want to buy something that didn't fit well? Was wearing that name more important than feeling comfortable in the clothing.

I was pleasantly surprised in Titika. Since they went up to a size 18 I didn't feel out of place and since all the clothes were 0-12 I wasn't stuck in a plus size corner of the store.

I immediately fell in love with a green top which could be worn both at the gym and also just as a casual top.

I decided on that top and a pair of athletic capris which cost together the same price as the ill fitting sweatshirt. The best part, I felt great.

Since I still had gift cards to spend I went back to lulu feeling much more in control and happy. In addition to a sweater my other coveted lulu item is a gym bag. Lucky for me this item is only available in one size so all I had to decide was the colur.

I'm not saying that I still don't want a lulu sweater, but I do know myself well enough that I would rather wait than try to squeeze into something that neither my body nor my mind is ready for. I ended up with the best of both worlds and felt so good about my purchases that I allowed some photos to be taken as there have been some requests for new pictures. This is a big deal for me as I hate having my picture taken. As you will see in the pictures I still have a long way to go in my weight loss journey, but I have to date lost 21lbs and I feel great.