"It's okay, it's a process..."

This is my new favorite thing to say. I find myself saying it several times a week, if not daily... "I stopped smoking, but lately have had one or two here or there.. but it's okay, it's a process." "I quit counting calories, but I'm still food logging and watching my nutrition - sometimes I eat fast food or order some pizza... it's okay, it's a process."

I can't decide if I'm bargaining or if I'm really just allowing myself to move through this without feeling guilty about every single non-whole food I eat, allowing myself to enjoy food without obsessing as long as I'm making smart choices. I really hope it's the latter and I'm not setting myself up for a huge fall here. I feel like I've said this about a million times by now... but I'm going to say it once more... if I can just get into a routine of exercising, regardless of what it is, 3-4 times a week, I'm golden. Every time I've lost a large amount of weight it was from a steady exercise schedule. I know this. I just need to actualize this into reality. (I'm so deep.)

• breakfast: organic acai apple granola w/ 2% milk
• am/pm snacks: pears, raw almonds, 8 oz. organic chocolate milk (post-workout), strawberries in cottage cheese with a little bit of stevia
• lunch: Taco Bell bean burrito and crunchy taco w/ 16oz Mountain Dew (not the healthiest ever, but I could have certainly done worse)
• dinner: Progresso light sante fe chicken soup (leftovers from yesterday), big salad w/ bell pepper, onion and peppercorn ranch, and some wheat thins
• 35 minute workout - woo! I didn't make it to the gym, but I took advantage of my basement full of random exercise stuff (dumbells, stability ball, resistance bands, etc) and put together a nice little routine that I'm hoping I'll FEEL tomorrow, both mentally and physically.
• 0 cigarettes
• will get in bed around 10:30 or 11pm
• $3 spent on lunch

I might have some frozen yogurt in a little while, haven't quite decided yet. Maybe just some blended fruit. We'll see how it goes.

Now, a note on mental health:
I have been sooooooo depressed the last couple weeks. I'm not sure if it's just these last few weeks of winter, or lack of exercise, or the fact that I feel like I've lost 90% of my home-base social circle or WHAT... but this shit needs to stop. It's just another reason to kick into gear with that whole get-my-butt-moving-4-times-a-week-or-more. Get those endorphins pumping, man!! In all seriousness though... I haven't been... but I totally could drink like half a bottle of wine or more by myself every night just to feel like I'm "doing something". Sometimes I'm really happy with spending most of my time at home with my hubby (or just by myself), getting to bed at a decent time, reading a book, watching a movie, doing laundry, what-have-you.. but then there are nights where I just want to go out and grab a beer and laugh and get the hell out of my house for even just an hour - and I seriously have no one left to do that with.

Maybe this is what a quarter-life crisis feels like?

It's okay... it's a process.

Now, that's more like it..

I did considerably better on my eating today and I'm really proud of myself. I had really wanted to hit the gym this afternoon but after getting back from the grocery store I sort of passed out on the couch without really realizing what was happening... and then about 30 seconds after I woke up some friends of ours were over with their kiddos for a playdate... and then it was dinner time. Actually this sounds like a perfect Sunday! lol

• breakfast: organic acai apple granola w/ 2% milk
• am/pm snacks: sugar cookies (could kill Mike for making these, but they're small thank goodness!), wheat thins (my latest addiction), pralines and cream frozen yogurt
• lunch: Progresso Light Sante Fe Chicken soup
• dinner: marinated salmon filet with steamed squash and brown rice
• 1 cigarette... grrrr....
• shooting for 11pm bedtime
• $0 spent

I have not yet accomplished any laundry.. I am going to go do that now. Also change the sheets on our bed. I had planned to vacuum our bedroom today but the nap kind of took up my time for doing that along with the gym-time. I really hope I'm not getting sick - I can't believe how run down I felt! I had to nap last night, too.. felt so tired I almost felt nauseous and just passed out on the sofa at like 7pm. Weird.

Oh, Weekend, you temptress you...

First things first:

I did not gain (or lose) a single anything this week. The scale read 195.8 which is exactly what is read last Saturday. My measurements are holding pretty steady. All in all not really a failure? Maybe? I did work out once this week and took some walks and stuff. This week I most definitely need to focus on getting the exercise in... I'm going to need it if I can't keep my weekend eating under control... eesh..

Friday:

• breakfast: oatmeal
• am/pm snacks: pears, kashi trail mix bar, cookie from Subway
• lunch: foot-long turkey breast on flatbread with bell pepper, onion, lettuce, cucumber, pickles, pepper relish and mustard, half a bag of bbq baked lays
• dinner: gyro from local pizzeria with salad and some fries, lots of beers afterward... don't judge me.
• no workout
• smoked... a lot. 6 or 7. Can't remember exactly
• $15 between dinner and beer

Saturday (today):

• breakfast: organic granola w/ 2% milk and some orange juice
• no snacks
• lunch: chicken nugget kids meal from McD's - it was really gross. And I wish I had just skipped getting anything and just let James have his and gotten something at home. 
• dinner: ham pizza - will probably have some drinks at some point. Wine or beer. Haven't decided yet. 
• spent about 2 hours vacuuming, decluttering, mopping, etc... sweating like a pig the whole time. I'm going to count this as a workout. Oh, yes, I am.
• 1/2 cigarette at mom's... made me feel funny. Plus I've been coughing all day thanks to my stupidity last night. Gonna make an effort not to smoke tonight. 
• $3 spent on lunch

As per the usual for a Saturday my eating is kind of out of control. Saturday is usually my "splurge" day. Even though I went out for dinner last night I feel like I did pretty well nutrition-wise even though is was probably a high calorie intake - and I was really proud of myself for filling up on salad and therefore leaving over half of my fries still on my plate!

Definitely should not have had McD's today - but we took James since he was soooo super good at school this week and that's what he decided he wanted for his special treat... I'm not sure why, he doesn't really seem to like the food. I think he mostly likes the PlayPlace. lol Also the Domino's for dinner probably wasn't the best choice either... but I was passed out and Mike chose our dinner soooo... yeah.

I spent a good deal of the day getting my house in order and we still have a loooong way to go. I got a new vacuum - thank GOD. I also mopped the shit out of my kitchen floor - mopping is a really good workout!!! Especially when your tile floors get as gross as ours do! I think my next project will be getting our master bathroom in shape. Tomorrow I should focus on getting some laundry done, too. And eating some fruits and veggies. lol

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

I don't do too poorly

So as I'm going through the last few days logging just the food I'm eating instead of the calories - I realize that I eat pretty well. I feel like there's no reason I should be struggling so hard to keep my calories in check.

Here's what I had yesterday:

• breakfast: organic apple acai granola w/ 2% milk
• morning/afternoon snacks: wheat thins, apple w/ 2tbsp peanut butter, Nature Valley Almond granola bar
• lunch: pita pizza (part-skim mozz/provolone shredded cheese, Wegman's smooth marinara sauce, onion, bell pepper, 4 turkey pepperonis), big salad w/ peppercorn dressing
• dinner: homemade ham and cheese quiche at mom's and 2 glasses of pinot grigio at home

I smoked 2 cigarettes - I'm starting to really worry that I'm going to fall back into the habit if Mike doesn't stop buying them. Seriously. He's supposed to be quitting with me. Last night was kind of a fail on bedtime as well - I think I finally went to sleep around midnight. $0 spent, though! 

Addicted...

I think I might addicted to counting calories - maybe obsessed it a more appropriate term.

I woke up this morning and decided I would give myself this week, and maybe next, without tracking calories - but only if I exercised at least 3 times a week. Today I'm off to a pretty good start. As soon as I got home from work (even though I worked late and even though Mike didn't get home in time for me to hit the gym at a reasonable hour) I put on my workout clothes and headed to the basement for some weight lifting while James watched a little tv. I did weights for about 25 minutes, got a shower, and immediately out my pajamas on... lol. I think being an old married lady with a kid is finally starting to catch up to me!

Yesterday throughout the day I didn't log calories. I did put everything into my tracker at the end of the day, however. Here are stats for yesterday, 2/21:

• total calories: 1'904 - this is about 100 over where I'd like to be, but I thought I'd be way more than this so overall I don't feel bad about it at all.
• no workout - I started my period yesterday and I felt like I was dying a little bit.. bad cramps, bad headache. Thank goodness we had the day off and I could just curl up on the couch and die for a while!
• I quit smoking a little over 3 weeks ago - there have been a few days where I broke down. I think I've smoked about 6 cigarettes in the last 23 days. Definitely not going to beat myself up over that. It's a process.
• 11pm bedtime
• $5 spent on lunch

And for today:

• breakfast: organic acai, apple, pomegranate granola w/ 2% milk
• morning/afternoon snacks: pears, raw almonds, wheat thins, chocolate milk (post-workout)
• lunch: garlic chicken lean cuisine w/ whey protein fruit shake
• dinner: steamed zucchini with earth balance spread, big salad with onion, bell pepper and light peppercorn dressing, and Progresso Chicken Tuscany soup (that stuff is SUPER good!! I need to pick up some more at the grocery this weekend)
• 25 minute workout
• shooting for 11pm bedtime
• $0 money spent

I may have a serving of this butter pecan frozen yogurt (delicious and very low-cal!) while I watch some Glee here in a few minutes, but other than that I think I'm probably done with food for the day. 

Over this week I'm going to just track the food I'm eating, not calories, and see how things go with that plus getting back on a workout routine. I'll also remember to do measurements this Saturday. I may give the scale a break for a while, too... but just typing that makes me feel like I need to freak out. I should have never bought that damn thing.

The little things will add up

This is what I have to keep telling myself. Last night I did an excellent job with portion control. As soon as my plate hit the table I separated out half of the portion and didn't touch it - it went in a box. Good for me! Today Mike and I went for about a 3.2 mile walk. Also good for me! Good for US!

I did a quick tally of last night's calories a few minutes ago and I didn't break the 2500 mark which is excellent - even more excellent is that I didn't think about how many calories I was consuming once during dinner. I just enjoyed my delicious food and the conversation going on.

Today I've done really well and have eaten lots of fruits and veggies - I did have the other half of last night's dinner for lunch, but even at that I'm still under 1800 for the day.

I'm really struggling a bit with how I want to move forward with this whole health experiment. Part of me wants to stop counting calories for the next couple weeks and make a hard conscious effort to get into the gym or walk or do SOMETHING physical on a daily basis and see how that goes.. and part of me is terrified that if I do that I will ruin everything I've worked so hard to accomplish so far.

This afternoon I watched Super-Size Me, which was excellent - if you haven't seen it already I highly recommend adding to your Netflix list! The idea that someone can gain 30 pounds in 30 days is pretty terrifying. Don't get me wrong, I know I wouldn't be eating McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday nor would I be consuming anywhere near 4'000 calories/day... but it was just a rude awakening of how quickly you can pack on weight if you're not careful - not to mention how EVIL AND TERRIBLE MCDONALDS FOOD IS! ...even though I still love it and there might not be a better handover cure...

I'm tired of feeling like I'm battling myself constantly. I had this sort of breakdown around this time last year - I had been counting calories for a few months and then found myself breaking down and binging because I constantly felt like I was denying myself. Up until these last few days I hadn't felt denied, or at least I hadn't felt it as strongly as I have this last week. Maybe it's something about this time of the year - with that last few weeks of winter hanging on and the desperation for spring so strong.. it's almost like I'd do anything just to make the next 6 weeks of chilly weather bearable and food is a big part of that. Or maybe it's that I'm feeling it stronger now because I haven't been smoking the last couple weeks and that's catching up to me. Whatever it is, I don't like it - I've had enough! Go away!

I guess for now I'll continue posting daily "stats" and decide what to do about the calorie counting/exercise routine over the next few days.

Positive thing about this past week (past couple actually): I've gotten on an incredible bedtime routine during the work week. I'm in bed asleep no later than 11pm every night and most mornings I'm waking up on my own before my alarm even goes off. Yesterday (Saturday) I even got out of bed at 8:30am! Which felt amazing. I'm finding myself coming home from any weekend excursions by midnight as well which is also awesome and amazing for me!

Sunday:

• total calories: 1750 
• 3.2 mile walk
• tomorrow is a holiday so I may stay up until about midnight
• $3 spent on starbucks

On depression, self hate, and how the wrong things sometimes work

I'm sure it's been pretty obvious to anyone who follows this blog that I haven't posted all week. I honestly just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was completely crushed after last Saturday's weigh-in. I pretty much just gave up this week.

I continued to count calories, but only at the end of the day and mainly just to see how much over I was going every day. Honestly, I didn't do too poorly overall. But I ate and drank what I wanted, didn't exercise, and pretty much just sat around feeling miserable and sorry for myself most of the week. I almost has a breakdown last night about what to wear out for a bit - I was completely disgusted with myself and the negative inner-monologue was going full-force.

Unfortunately telling yourself how much you hate you doesn't do much in the way of motivation. And you know what REALLY doesn't help? Stepping on the scale this morning to find that I lost 1.5 lbs in the last 7 days.

What. The. Hell.

I basically did everything wrong and I lost weight. I'm so over this.. the really messed up part is after completely freaking last night because I felt like I looked sooooo fat, convinced I had to be back up over 200lbs just because of how disgusting I looked, all day today I feel like I look super awesome and it's all because of that stupid number on the scale.

Perception is an amazing thing, ladies and gents. An amazing thing indeed.

I think maybe I give up on trying to damn hard. I think maybe I need to chill out and stop putting so much pressure on myself. I need to stop focusing on the vanity and start focusing on the health factors instead. There are lots of reasons I need to lose another 30lbs. and 99% of them are for health, to make my body love me and to be able to love my body in return -- not just because it LOOKS good but because it FEELS good and it does the things it's supposed to do.

So tonight I'm going to go out with my husband and have a delicious dinner at Olive Garden with some good friends of ours. Instead of calculating calories with every bite of breadstick I take, I'm going to focus on the conversation and having a good time. I'm not going to beat myself up tomorrow for eating what I want. I'm not going to overeat and I'm not going to indulge in junk-food and high-saturated-fat food every day from here on effectively ruining the last 5 months of hard work, but I will start loving myself more and stop hating myself for not being my own ideal. By doing this I WILL (not hope, not try) have more motivation to take care of myself, to exercise, if for nothing more than to have the energy to do the things I enjoy doing and the things I want to do - and that includes being able to have days (consecutively at that) where I can eat and drink whatever I want without being a human calorie calculator feeding myself a negative monologue the entire time.

Week 5 - Day 7 and The End of 5 Week Challenge

Well. Fuck.

That's pretty much all there is to say.

I stepped on the scale this morning to find my weight only .4 lbs less than my starting point... I think I need to just NOT weigh myself anymore. Here's the breakdown...

End of 5 Week Challenge:

• Weight: 197.4lbs (.4lbs loss after all is said and done. Fail.)
• Chest: 39" (1 inch loss)
• Waist at bellybutton: 34"(3 inch loss)
• Hips: 45" (1 inch loss - I think I may have measured incorrectly last week)
• Arms (flexing): 13" (no loss)
• Thighs: 26" (1 inch loss)

My goal weight at the end of this was 188lbs - a couple weeks ago I had gotten down to 194 and was hopeful. Even if I was at 194 this morning that is less than a pound a week for weight loss and that is pretty disappointing. I am trying really hard to focus on the inches lost instead of the epic fail the scale is displaying.

I think basically what this all boils down to is: I'm one of those people that has to exercise in order to really be able to lose weight and most of this past 5 weeks I have done very little of that. It just makes me want to cry... this time last year I thought for sure I'd be at least SOMEWHAT closer to my eventual goal weight. I thought I'd at least be down to 180 or even 185. I'm a little disgusted with myself.

I think another thing I need to really do is stop eating fast food. Period. Friday or Saturday out at the bar, wanna splurge on some mozzarella sticks or nachos? Sure. Taco Bell every Monday and Wendy's every Friday for lunch? No way. I just need to start taking a packed lunch to work on those days so I can still join my co-workers for lunch just without eating the terrible-for-me food.

Tonight I'm going out for my husband's birthday and I'm going to allow myself to eat and drink whatever I want to avoid breaking down and giving in to my stress and low self-esteem by allowing myself to smoke. I think maybe quitting is more important right now than anything else. That doesn't mean I'm giving up calorie counting for the whole week or anything... and I actually already calculated out what (at the moment) I want to eat and drink tonight and am going to post stats with those totals now.. I'll edit tomorrow if need be.

I really need to sit down and write out some realistic goals for myself and get focused. I think that will help me to stay focused on other things in my life right now too.

Day 7:

• total calories/points: 1,617 / 38 - I've only eaten oatmeal and a little pita pizza today and I'm not feeling especially hungry so my calories so far are pretty much nonexistent which is the only reason my projected calorie count for the day is so low. 
• no workout
• NO SMOKING
• going to bed whenever the hubby is done celebrating
• $? - it's his birthday, I'm not putting a cap on what we spend for this evening.

Week 5 - Days 5 and 6

I've gotten really off-track about working out. Getting sick kind of puts you in a nose-dive on the motivation plane... next week I'm hoping to get back in gear!

I'm starting to really worry that I'm not going to be anywhere near my goal weight come my weigh-in on Saturday. :(  I'm going to try really really hard to not feel guilty about that and let it ruin everything for me...

Day 5:

• total calories/points: 1600 / 36 - I just have to say I'm really starting to kind of hate WW.. the points system makes NO sense to me. Like I felt like I did REALLY excellent this day. Lots of fruits and veggies, lots of healthy fats, lots of protein... and yet, somehow even though I only consumed 1600 calories I went over my point allowance for the day by 3. WTF. 
• no workout... of course. Story of my life.
• 0 cigarettes
• 11pm bedtime
• $12 spent on dinner/starbucks

Day 6:

• total calories/points: 2120/55 - I used all my flex and activity points this week. First week I've done that, I think. The wine I drank killed me on intake. But that's okay. I had a blast playing Cranium with a group of friends. 
• no workout, per say... but I did spend about 2 hours purging my closets and kind of running around like a mad woman. That has to count for something. 
• 1/2 a cigarette which was gross and made me cough all night. Yuck. 12 days + one half of a cigarette still equals success to me. I'm proud. Of this one thing at least.
• 2am bedtime - had to stay up to get that Season 1 finale of Mad Men in! lol
• $12 on dinner

 

Week 5 - Days 3 and 4

I've been a loaf about posting regularly, I know. And I know I've said this already... but we're in busy season at work and sometimes when work is over the last thing I want to do is sit on the computer and write out a post.

Day 3:

• total calories/points: 1'526 / 30
• I did NOT make to the gym... I feel like I did post about this...or I started to... maybe? I started feeling really run-down in the afternoon at work. I think perhaps Strep took more out of me than I realized. I got home and put my jammies on. I decided better to get all-the-way better than to go to the gym, feel like I need to push myself, and then feel completely and totally sick all over again.
• 0 cigarettes - the end of yesterday was incredibly stressful for me and I wanted to smoke SO BAD.. but I didn't. And I'm really proud of that. 10 days now. 
• 9:30pm bedtime. You read that right. I was really really run-down...
• $3 spent on lunch. God bless bean burritos and their cheapiness. 

Day 4:

• total calories/points: 1'800 / 37 - I've had an Eating Day today. I've been really really hungry all day. Even being super busy at work could not effectively distract me from my stomach screaming at me to feed it. The worst part? I felt really guilty for not working out...
• no workout... yeah, I know, I just said that pretty much - but I had to do Stacy a favor and keep her kiddo for a couple hours and I'm totally happy about being able to do that for her. Plus this gave me another day to kind of test out my "recovery". 
• 0 cigarettes / 1 beer - I spent some time at my mom's tonight and it was really hard not to smoke. I really really wanted to. Instead I just decided to leave a little earlier than I intended. I couldn't be tempted any more. I just kept trying to remember how awful it would make me feel and how yucky I would smell. It kind of works. Sometimes. 
• going to bed in just a few mins... 11pm bedtime
• $4 on lunch

Today I wanted to eat everything... ALL THE THINGS. I tried to stick to fruits and veggies after getting home from work, but still had to sneak some cheese and crackers at my mom's to settle the savage beast that was my belly.

The other thing about today is... I felt fat. When I took a shower earlier this evening and I felt like my belly looked really really flabby whereas before I got sick I felt like it was starting to finally FINALLY tone up a bit. Just another thing to add to my gym motivation.

Btw - I think I'm moving into a "obsessed with weight lifting" phase... so be prepared to read a lot about that in the weeks to come... and perhaps another Challenge... stay tuned.

Week 5 - Day 2

Super Bowl!

Well, we couldn't make it to any of the parties this year, but we certainly haven't scrimped on any of the overeating.. lord. lol

Had some Olive Garden for lunch which was super delicious and really amazing after so many days of so not enough food. I did pretty well since I only ate half of my entree and brought the rest home to enjoy for lunch one day this week.

So here are the stats:

Day 2:

• total calories/points: 2'500 / 50 - I'm totally okay with this since I've eaten pretty much not at all this week. Get that metabolism going again!! And get into the gym tomorrow evening!
• no workout, but did walk around the mall for about 2 hours - figure I burned maybe 200 calories. Maybe. lol
• 0 cigarettes - woo!!!
• $15 on lunch
• shooting for 11:30pm bedtime 

I'm actually really nervous about going back to work tomorrow after being out so long - I just hope I'm not as behind as I'm afraid I will be. I WILL workout tomorrow whether or not I make it to the gym.. if that means going over to Mom and Dad's at 8pm to use Dad's weight bench then so be it, but I'm definitely continuing this weight training I started last week with the crazy awesome results I saw yesterday with my measurements. That definitely made me feel SUPER good about myself - plus I'm comfortably fitting into almost all of my size 16's now and I want to keep that trend going! While at the mall today I went into American Eagle to look around and Mike asked me, "Why do you come in here when you can't really fit anything?" and I said, "Because in a couple months I WILL be able to." That was a great feeling - being confident that I can keep up with this and reach my goals one step at a time!

Week 5 - Day 1

(wrote this yesterday... never posted...)

End of Week 4 Body Stats:

• Weight: 195lbs - I'll talk about this a little more in a moment...
• Wasit at belly button: 34"... THIRTY-FOUR INCHES!! I shit you not, folks. I shit you not. In case you're not picking up on the excitement... that's 2 and a fricken quarter inches!!! You know what else is super duper exciting? My "natural" waist? 32 inches. When I was 17 it was 29... only 3 inches away. That's pretty amazing and mind-blowing.
• Hips: 44" ...that's 1 1/4 inches!!!! 

 So, as you can probably tell... I'm pretty excited about those measurements. For serious. But now.. the weight issue. This is why the scale has never been my friend. The only time I ever used to weigh myself was either the one or two times a year I had to go to the doctor and they make you step on a scale... or like once a month at the gym, randomly, just out of morbid curiosity. I'm a super tall person... I'm 5'10", so that number is always disappointing to a certain extent because "skinny" for me is still like 150 or 160lbs... which would be considered over-weight for the average sized person.

The other thing is, before I got sick this week, I began some serious weight training. That pound might be muscle gain - which would be amazing. And I'm obviously doing something right to have lost so many inches this week. This makes me really excited to do full measurements again next Saturday with hopes that by Monday I'll be almost 100% and able to get into the gym at least 3 or 4 times during the week.

Now for some stats:

Day 1:

• total calories/points: 1'719 / 37  -- I was actually hungry enough to eat a full day's worth of food.
• no workout, but did actually get off the couch!
• 0 cigarettes - officially ONE WEEK smoke free!!!
• 1:30am bedtime
• $0 spent

Well, I made it through the bulk of the weekend without smoking. I'm pretty proud of myself. I have to say, the actually acts I don't miss.. the way it kind of defined a part of my personality, who I am/was, I miss a lot. Even though smoking is definitely NOT cool sometimes it definitely made me feel like I was cool. I think I'm going to be one of those people that not a day goes by where I don't think about having a cigarette. I guess we'll see. If I can get through the next couple weeks, great. My biggest challenge will be getting through the Spring, though. When the weather gets warm I smoke more just to have an excuse to be outside. Wish me luck!

Week 4 - the rest of the days...

The basic recap of my sick days and then end of my week were this:

I did not consume more than 1'000 calories or 25 points per day. I did not work out. I did not do much more than sit on my couch and watch the BBC version of Skins for 3 days.. with a couple of random movies thrown in. For those of you who read and might not know me on the book of faces: I started running a high fever in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, continued running that fever into Thursday accompanied with the rawest/sorest throat ever known to man to the point where I could hardly swallow my own saliva (I'm so pretty) and went to the doctor where she informed me that "Oh GEEZ - yeah, you have really bad strep", gave me an rx for some hardcore antibiotics, and send me along my way.

...here's where my Mental Illness kicks in a little bit... so I just flat out haven't really been that hungry for the last 3-4 days, and even when I am I'm limited to, like, soup because my throat hurts so bad the thought of eating or drinking anything other than luke-warm or hot liquid is like HELL to me... I did manage to be able to eat some kung pao shrimp the other night after popping 3 ibuprofen for the pain/swelling... but so I've eaten like non-existent calories for 3 days now... and I find myself yesterday when I WAS actually hungry freaking out about breaking that 1'000 calorie mark because I hadn't been doing anything but sitting like a lump and I still wanted to be able to post that I'd lost SOMETHING this week... and I was thinking oh, yeah, totally, I will TOTALLY lose weight this week... but then the other kind of nuts thing is that even only eating like 800-900 calories a day, once I actually reach that mark I feel incredibly full and can't imagine eating ever again. Plus on any given normal day I wake up pretty hungry in the mornings - I'm a big breakfast person - but even today I am just... not hungry. I'm also one of those people that usually gets a migraine if I just don't eat, but that hasn't happened once this week either.

Sorry that was kind of confusing and weird rant... let's blame the sickness. I guess the bottom line is - I was starting to kind of freak out about eating MORE THAN 1'000 CALORIES! That's crazy talk. I love food. Y'know, when it's not making me feel like I'd rather have a lion tear out my throat than swallow chewed solid food for fear of the scraping pain it causes. But yeah. Here's hoping I'm back to normal in the next couple days. I was hoping today would be that day since I've now been on my antibiotics for almost 48 hours. Maybe tomorrow, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be attending any Super Bowl activities. *sigh*

Week 5 post coming up shortly...

Week 4 - Days 3 and 4

I probably should have known I was coming down with something when my calorie count for Sunday was only 990... and then again when Monday night and all day Tuesday I just couldn't get warm. I had on an undershirt and 2 sweaters and I was still FREEZING. Sure enough after barely being able to sleep despite feeling completely run down and exhausted and going to bed at 10pm... I woke up at 1am with a fever of 102.7 and my throat so sore and lymph nodes so swollen I could barely swallow.

I've been nothing but a pitiful, sick lump on the couch today... well, half in my bed, and then half on the couch... I'm really upset because today was supposed to be my workout day, but obviously with a pretty insistent fever and major body aches I won't be doing much other than continuing to be a lump for the remainder of today and probably most of tomorrow too. This is the major thing that sucks about having daycare/school-aged children... they bring home all those tiny yucky germs from all the other kids they're around all day.

So here are my two days worth of stats..

Day 3:

• total calories/points: 1'987 / 35  -- I think I was somehow subconsciously making up for my measly intake on Sunday
• 45 minutes of weightlifting - guestimating about 350 calories burned. 
• 0 cigarettes
• 11pm bedtime
• $5 spent on lunch

Day 4:

• total calories/points: 1'600 / 33
• no workout
• 0 cigarettes / 1 alcoholic drink
• 10pm bedtime
• $6 spent on lunch

I want it to be known that today marks 4 days of no smoking. Before I realized I was coming down with the freaking flu I went to meet up with a friend of mine at a local bar - had one beer, no cigarettes. And the smell hanging on my clothes when I came home made me want to puke... now, I'm not promising anything, but that one night at a bar where everyone was smoking and I didn't makes me feel confident that I can kick this habit. Now, I have to get Mike to quit too... this is what happened last year about this time - quit smoking for two months, he didn't, and by my birthday in April I gave in and totally started smoking again. Maybe this time I can hold strong.

...even just typing this about smoking makes me feeling like I'm gonna throw up... that might have something to do with my current illness though...

And now, for some mac'n'cheese cause that's the only thing I can imagine being able to stomach.. some Mad Men... and bed.