...continued

My husband's PMS seems to be subsiding. I'm exhausted. Stress is a bitch. I had a good 2 days with my Dad that made up for how exponentially awful last Saturday was. I like it when he laughs, when he smiles, when he's full of hugs, and when little things seem so big to him. A strawberry milkshake. A thing of Chapstick. Really good lotion to heal his dry and flaking hands. A man-purse, of all things. He wallows in the attention. He wasn't always this way. There was a day when offering a remedy for some malady would have provoked him. Now he thrives on the attention he gets. He likes surprises. After 2 days like Tuesday and Wednesday, I hated to leave. I want more days like that. It made me happy to please him.

Nobody In My House Gives A Damn...to be continued...

Day #14

Not a happy day in my household. I'm pissed. I got up at 6am yesterday, unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, ran it, put clothes in the dryer, started another load, packed an overnight bag, and went to see my Dad. My parting words to my husband were, "Keep the laundry moving". I packed a bag just in case I decided to spend the night, but was truly on the fence. I got to Dad's at 10:35; I was anticipating bingo, but instead walked in on an old time hymn sing. I sat next Dad and kept him on the right page and sang my little heart out...until the did Amazing Grace. That was sung at both my Grandfather's and my Mother's funerals, and to this day is one of the most painful hymns for me to endure in the company of others. Sometimes I had to mouth the words because I couldn't register a sound. Tears welled up on the ledges of my eyes. I could hardly stand it. And I couldn't escape! I couldn't just get up and walk out, not where I was sitting. So I did my best to conceal the emotions, and teetered on the brink of disaster. Dad's mind was as unpredictable as my voice. A lot of nonsensical ramblings and lack of clarity about his surroundings. Not uncommon with his condition, but one of only maybe 2 days I've seen him this way. At one point, I needed to exit. I needed to leave. I needed to walk away and regroup. I found solice in the local farmer's market, where I could wander aimlessly and appear interested in uninteresting things. I bought a few of them. After that, I sought out the company of 2 old friends, twice, only I never found them at home. I found the most gorgeous orange roses tipped in red at the local Food Lion there, and bought them for my Dad. My brother helped me locate a discarded vase that wouldn't be the end of the world if it got lost or broken. They brightened Dad's room tremendously upon my return. I also snooted around until I found the photos of him and his lady friend, me and my childhood friend that had been taken down and stashed away by employees during his last room change. I put those up on the wall. It was getting late. I still didn't know if I was staying or driving home. I'm not a fan of driving at night, especially when I'm emotionally spent. One of the 2 friends I tried to locate, the lady friend aforementioned, was where I would stay when I would spend the night, but having been unsuccessful in finding her, it would be unfair of me to impose upon her at such a late time. I did however try a 3rd time to see her and was more successful. We had a nice visit, share some tears, and she did indeed encourage me to stay, but I didn't think it would be right. I went back to see Dad, found him a bit better than I had left him before, filled the car with gas, grabbed chicken tenders and onion rings, and hit the road. I got home around 9:30, exhausted. Started crying walking from the car to my own front door. All the emotions of the day could finally come out and play. I drank 2 glasses of wine and went to bed. I slept until 10:30 this morning. It's now afternoon, and I have yet to finish my first mug of coffee or breakfast. I'm too damned mad. Apparently, "Keep the laundry moving" translated to, "put the wet clothes in the dryer, start another load, and take the ones that were in the dryer and leave them in a mound on the chair in the bedroom." Nothing got done. The load left to sit in the dryer were my dark work clothes, all wrinkled. My dryer takes twice as long to dry a load as the washer takes to wash a load. Laundry is always a 2-day event in my house. So now I have 5 loads to go, and nobody understands why I can't stop crying. Keep the laundry moving. What if I HAD spent the night?!?! What if I hadn't returned until 4pm today? Do they think this shit gets done all by itself? And what was he doing all the while? He never left the house. No. He watched Battlestar Gallactica all day on Netflix! Nobody vacuumed. Nobody cleaned bathrooms. Nobody bought groceries. Nobody dismantled the F*%# Christmas tree. Nobody even hugged me when I walked in crying. It's not a good day in my house today. I lost another half pound though. Just for spite, I'll skip the fabric softener on his undies this week.

Day #12

The scales moved! Yay! I've decided I very much like ground pork seasoned with taco seasoning. Two ounces of that, an ounce of shredded lettuce, and 1/4 c salsa in a 60 calorie Oat Bran Pita makes a very delicious, hearty lunch (no cheese, and I didn't miss it)....That's like, under 250 calories. A small apple put me at 296 if I recall.

I made some delicious oven baked potato chips the other night...Have I mentioned those? Two potatoes made 2 cookie sheets worth, so yeah, you could eat a bunch of them. I sliced them on the mandolin thingie, spread them out as best I could on a cookie sheet covered with parchment, and sprayed them with Pam. I did one sheet with just salt...they turned a funky grey. The other batch, I used a smoked sea salt, garlic powder, and cayenne...OMG....they were awesome! I baked them about 30 minutes at 200, but then cranked the heat up to 375 to finish them. Some were perfect crisps, while others that overlapped didn't quite get chippy, but they were good.

Day #11, January 26, 2012

Weight isn't dropping like I think it should. I'm wondering if 1500 calories a day is still too much? I've been rigid with measuring and journaling, but I'm still hanging around 3 pounds off total as I approach the end of my second week. I've started walking a mile at a time. I've started taking the stairs 3-4 times a day, which my PT says is more than I should be doing this soon. I've added acai berry juice back to my routine; an ounce, 3 times a day. I have more energy and my mood in general is better, but I still feel like it wouldn't take much at any given moment to make me cry...I'm anxious throughout the day, especially in the morning and evening. I have more energy and do things later into the evening instead of crawling in bed at 8:30. I just now finished making food for the weekend for a co-worker who has a bit of a crisis going on. I'd normally be asleep now. So why is the weight not cooperating??? A lot of time and energy has gone in to making it happen, but it's not happening. :(

Day #9, January 24, 2012

Another good day. Steel cut oats with dates and cranberries for breakfast, my usual, safe, eat quickly lunch. Supper was a new recipe, the one I would have liked to have made last night had the salmon fillet we bought not been rotten. I returned it this evening and got a fresh one, and made Wasabi Salmon Burgers. I also tried my FB friend Kenlie's crispy spinach, AND I made oven baked potato chips that were deLIcious! I still have 270 calories left, and it's very close to bedtime. I'm back on my organic acai berry juice, 3 1oz shots a day. I DO feel better. I walked a mile after work too. It takes 12 laps to make a mile, and I obsess over keeping track of laps, so I came up with a way to do just that with little or no thought. Between my CVS card, my Kroger card, my Food Lion card, my Dick's Sporting Goods card, blah, blah, blah...I had 12 things on my key ring, so each lap, I flip one, loose, dangly one to my fist, the last of all of them being my car key, so that tells me when I'm done. It WORKS!

Day #8, Monday, January 23, 2012

Good news, but could have been better. Today is weigh-in day. I lost 2.5. It should have been more, but I have only myself to blame. I did fine yesterday up until supper, which came about 2 hours later than usual. We had to go out of state: I ate my usual breakfast at home instead of us stopping at BoJangles on the way. I had half a protein bar late morning. We stopped at Wendy's for lunch: I had a large chili and a side salad. We worked all afternoon scrubbing walls and ceilings in our empty rental property. We left there around 5:15 with a 3 hour drive home before there'd be food. I ate a half ounce of almonds. We had thought we'd stop at a favorite BBQ place and just get meat and brunswick stew to bring home, only we discovered they aren't open on Sunday. We didn't have a plan B. Fog on the mountain with zero visibility made me really squirrely. I ate the 6 saltines I had not used on my chili. I was tired, and getting really hungry. We got home at 8:30, without so much as a plan, only I knew I wasn't cooking. I decided all I wanted was scrambled eggs, and lots of them. Instead, my husband brought me 2 scrambled eggs, a slice of regular whole wheat toast, and a sliced orange. I ate it all. But I was in that zone, the point of no return, where I went far too long without eating, and I couldn't rationalize. I ended up having 2 glasses of wine, a cinnamon danish from my son's breakfast stash, and I crawled into bed with raspberry poptarts, totally exhausted. I paid for it on the scale, no doubt.
Today, I've been better. Breakfast and lunch were pretty routine. I left work at a decent time and went to the Rec Dept to begin my free membership. After enduring the application process down wind of the lady working the front desk who was eating Doritoes, I walked a mile on their track. One mile is 12 laps. Boring as Hell, but I'm contemplating the purchase of an iPod. Never had one, hate technology, but it would give me something "to do". It would also give me the advantage of having a valid reason to ignore people and focus on what I went there to do. There were only 6 of us on the track and I knew 2 of them. I don't like chit-chat when I'm trying to exercise, and I was on a mission to get in, do my thing, and be out before school children arrived. My day ends 51 minutes before theirs does, so with planning, it should all fall in to place.
Tonight, I'm blogging to pass the time to keep from pouring a glass of wine. My calorie bank has just enough left for supper, but that's the problem again..I don't know when supper will be! The boys are out test driving cars again! My son sold his, so now he's without a vehicle, so there's a bit of pressure to find one soon. I started to prepare food, trying a new recipe: Wasabi Salmon Burgers...only, when I opened the salmon fillet my husband purchased, it just about knocked me over! The SMELL! I've prepared salmon many, many times, but it has never had an ODOR. This is rank. I am not going to proceed until another nose verifies what I suspect, and if I'm right, somebody will be going back to Kroger to get their $9.99 back! So I don't know what's for supper...or when. I got on here to see if I could bake my own potato chips. Seems like I should be able to. I have Pam Olive Oil Spray, but I have regular Pam too. All the recipes I pulled up say to slather the thinly sliced potatoes with butter. I don't see that happening. By the way...Did I mention I walked 1 mile?!?! ;)

Day #6, Peace and Quiet

After what seemed like a stormy night with all the annoyances poking me with a stick, today has gone smoothly. The men folk are currently out test driving cars. I would have liked to have gone to see my Dad today, but awoke to a layer of ice on everything, freezing rain, and icicles. It's all melted now, but you never know which way it will go. So I got up and made a nice breakfast for a break from the breakfast cheesecakes. I took 1 egg and 2 eggs worth of whites, cooked them in my small skillet so it flipped like a pancake. It came out the same size as my Oat Bran Pita, so I put it on top of one of those. Added some carmelized onions cooked with mushrooms and jalapeno. Sprinkled that with an ounce of diced ham and a half ounce of swiss cheese, folded it in half. To that I added a side of light orange juice and it all rang up for 305 calories. Good eats.
I just now got around to lunch, and it was a leftover mini turkey & ham meatloaf to the tune of 315 calories. Making myself drink water. I don't drink enough and can't seem to form the habit during the school year when I REALLY can't leave my classroom. I usually have a bottle of water and a carbonated mineral water with my lunch at work, and then I only have 1 class afterwards, so I can make it that long.
I think supper will involved some steamed shrimp, red, yellow, green and orange peppers with onion and mushrooms and garlic, and....I don't know what else. Rice and pasta steal too many calories. Maybe boiled potato, which I like. I weighed this morning and I'm down 3 pounds so far with nothing really counting until my official weigh-day, Monday. I just needed to know.
Plans for the rest of the day involve picking 3 recipes from SO many out of the new cookbook I'm enjoying and planning a grocery list. I figure I can really cook every other night of the week and have left overs the following or do a soup and grilled cheese night between. We did soup, grilled cheese, and lite Caesar salad last night, and it came out to a painful withdrawl from the calorie bank! It was a shameful amount for a meal that obviously wasn't all that. Damned cheese. The soup was lentil, so that packed a punch too...and real whole wheat bread. No butter though. I just threw the bread on the griddle and let it dry toast and melt the cheese.

Day #5, Friday, January 20, 2012

Sorry I missed yesterday. I got distracted. I stayed on my diet and under 1500 calories, but I was mad. My feelings got hurt by a total stranger, and I was left not knowing what to do with my emotions, and fought to stay out of the kitchen, wanting something to numb the pain. This person had made nasty reference to someone specific to some woman's weight, my weight being the same as hers. I won't go into any more detail or I'll just get pissed off again, but it was hurtful...'nuf said. I e-mailed my FB friend, Kenlie, and she immediately responded with calm, rational advice that unruffled my feathers, which allowed me to measure a half glass of wine to use up my remaining calories for the day and crawl in bed.
Today was fine. I got into a good routine this week, and the key was preparation to my relationship with food. I'll have to reload supplies this weekend, but the breakfast cheesecakes and blueberries were a daily thing, as was the turkey breast at lunch. Supper required more effort, and some days it was a stretch to make it from lunch to supper without a snack, but the final products were both tasty and attractive and kept me within my calorie perimeters. A new recipe perked things up mid-week.
Tonight I'm a little wiggy and cannot seem to escape things that make my blood pressure rise. My son is having car trouble with a car my ex-husband provided for him, so now there's talk of selling the vehicle, shopping for something used, yada, yada, yada; my son is currently obsessed with looking at SUVs on the internet, like THAT's gonna happen, and the tv is too loud, the dogs are barking, my Christmas tree is still up and lit (though the ornaments have been off for 2 days...so, that's something), I'm out of laundry detergent, and I'm savouring the last inch of wine in my glass because once it's gone I only have 114 calories left for the day. It's almost 8pm...I can do this. I weighed this morning, and though the scale is moving, I thought it would look better. I'm not going to fret...it doesn't get carved in stone until Monday. My husband is saying something, but it's like the teacher's voice on Charlie Brown specials...I need to take a deep breath and tune it all out. I have yet to change gears from the hectic day at work, and I don't see it happening any time soon. I'm going to go read, somewhere far away from the tv, dogs, and men talking about cars.

Day #3, Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A Spicy Chicken Leg and Chick Pea Stew is simmering on the stove, and some whole wheat couscous might saddle up with that shortly. Going in to supper, I have well over 800 calories left. A portion of stew will take 216 of those. I didn't require any snacks I pre-packed today, and I did get up about 20 minutes earlier to allow myself to weigh out a complete breakfast, sit, and eat it. Minor adjustments, but no biggie, and the fact I'm not hungry and making it totally ok from meal to meal makes me happy. I went to Barnes & Noble and grazed over the cookbooks after work. I came home with 2 I'm excited about. (Thanks Georgia and Tom for the gift certificate! I didn't even use it all today!) Odd, but two recipes that stood out the most as ones I'd like to try immediately both involved tofu! I haven't done a lot with tofu, though Sheryl Crow's cookbook has an AMAZING appetizer spread made with it that I have made many, many times. I'm excited about the prospect of new tastes. I already have my menu planned and shopped for for this week, but with that under control, I have time to pick a couple recipes for next week, shop, and anticipate.

Day 2...not bad!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
I got a little wiggy over breakfast, not really having time to sit down and savour my meal. Instead, I weighed 2 options...running out the door without any food, or snarfing down a 130 calorie homemade breakfast cheesecake. I snarfed. It held me nicely until late morning. I could have grabbed a banana, but I like to weigh those, and just didn't bank enough time on the front end of my day to do that and get me out the door on time. I had pre-planned snacks for today, and had a half ounce roasted, unsalted almonds in my purse, so I pulled those out and ate them one at a time (they taste better that way, as do M&Ms, but I digress...) to hold me until we were released from our in-service to go eat the lunch that was provided for us. I knew my boss' favorite lunch to provide, so I packed mine. I had a moment of feeling like a misfit and considered eating away from the herd, but then I decided "Hell no!" I'm doing what I need to do FOR ME. After work, I had an appointment to see the knee surgeon at 4:15, so I knew I'd be getting hungry. I packed half a protein bar to tie me over, even cutting it into nice little bite size squares that very closely resembled fudge. :) That got me through the appointment (which did not come to pass until 5:15!), then I stopped to buy gas, ran to Office Max, and then to Kroger for a Lite Caesar Salad mix to go with the last grilled chicken breast my husband and I split for supper atop the salad. I still have 370 calories left for "soon"...it hasn't been bad. My success will be dependent upon pre-planning. Tomorrow I hope to get a walk in before heading home, somewhere flat. Knee has improved and the surgeon was pleased with the PT progress, so he technically has released me to the care of the PT who will see me again in a month to check my progress with the at-home exercises I've been assigned to do. I'll see him a month after that, and then be on my own. All things considered, I feel good. :)

Friend Makin' Monday: Weight Loss Tips

I'm new to this, and really don't know if I'm following protocol, but we shall see! The things I have found helpful are:

1. Buy nice digital scales; weigh and measure everything...and write it down.


2. Save a few calories to enjoy at the end of the day with the satisfaction that you DID it another day! Close out your calorie account and turn off the kitchen light for the night.


3. Presentation, presentation, presentation! Don't eat anything until everything you PLAN to eat has made it into the presentation weighed and measured.


4. Put dinner plates on the top shelf and eat off smaller plates, fun plates, or saucers.


5. Don't weigh every day.


6. Invest in cookbooks that are within your comfort level of cooking and have recipes that include the nutritional information, using ingredients you're most likely to have on hand or can get without stopping at 3 different grocery stores. Try 1 new recipe each week.


7. Shop with a list, and never shop on an empty stomach.


8. Subscribe to a blog you enjoy so updates arrive by e-mail. I, personally, open my e-mail during the hardest part of my day...I've just walked in the door from work, hungry, with several hours to go before supper. One day I was eating chips when I got Kenlie's update. Another day I was having cake. At that point, I decided there was something wrong with the picture, and so...here I am...networking for support to create change.

Promises Aren't Meant to be Broken

Monday, January 16, 2012
In my next to last post, I promised I wouldn't go another 4 months without posting. I didn't...I went more like 7...almost to the day. Summer went down hill fast. I spent it alone for the most part as my husband traveled non-stop with his job. My son worked in the woods, and on the rare occasions that he ventured out, it was to go to Walmart to restock camp supplies and ride in grocery carts...as it should be. I'm glad he's living the life. I mentioned knee pain in my last post; that escalated into a major ordeal and I have just completed a round of physical therapy and see the surgeon again tomorrow. Not for surgery; just for him to poke it and nod, and probably insist I lose weight. After that, there were female problems that required attention, my father-in-law taking a sudden turn for the worse (though he has since regained vitality), and currently my father's decline in health. We had to make the decision to put him in a facility just before Christmas so he'd receive proper care, no longer able to consistently care for himself and be safe. So Christmas was hard. I half-heartedly put up a tree and put candles in the windows, and that was it. The tree is still up. No joke. And it's on a timer, so yeah, it's on every night. No wonder the neighbors don't associate with us. In September, I made the decision with my husband's support to have lap band surgery. I never wanted to go that route, but I didn't want to spend the remainder of my life fighting a battle I've never won. We went to the info session, I attended the support group, we started eating dinner on saucers instead of plates...then insurance denied us. I was beyond sad. That was the end of the road in choices, and I was denied access to the only hope that remained. Somewhere within that lost time frame, I went on a mild anti-depressant; some days it works better than others. I don't mean to sound like Eeyore. Really, I'm plugging along, no worse for wear. That's just the scenario of events leading up to where I am today.
I originally dug through the deep, dark recesses of my brain trying to remember my password to get on here and delete this blog, if that's even possible, and/or begin a new one. As I started re-reading old posts and looking at pictures, I realized I'm a work in progress, and if I delete the progression, then it's just work. It did me good to look back and see the enthusiasm I had, to see pictures I enjoyed taking, to see the time I invested in myself making pretty food. It wasn't for nothing. In the past 7 months, I've continued to get on the scales. Not with any real determination to make them move, but more to see if I was doing any real damage while I was emotionally adrift between rocks and hard places.
I am HAPPY to say this morning that I am pleased. Not sure if that's a proper break to begin a new paragraph, but I wanted emphasis on HAPPY, and what I discovered. In my last post, I yammered about my 8 pound loss for the week, but I really didn't recollect what number that put me on. You know what I mean. At some point in this process, they're all just numbers and all that really matters is that they get smaller, not what they are. I don't know what I weighed June 16, 2011. Fortunately, I tracked that elsewhere and it didn't take long for me to look it up. So here's the news. I'm only 4 pounds up in 7 months. That to me has "victory" written all over it. As an emotional eater, with all of the emotions I have experienced in 7 undocumented months, I apparently found another way more than once to deal with it. I'm happy with that. In years past, I have gained upwards of 15 pounds over the holidays, starting in October with Halloween candy. This year I bought Tootsie Pops and put the basket on the stoop; never even answered the door, but when I went to turn the lights out and retrieve the basket, it was empty. No residual chocolate to consume. Thanksgiving was the usual fare, and leftovers. Christmas, not so much. I baked on request. If my son wanted cookies, I made him cookies and he took the off with him to the rescue squad, where he volunteers. If he wanted rum cake, I made rum cake. Other than that, I made the one cake that has always been present on Christmas and I enjoyed it thoroughly, as often as I wanted. It was a trade off. I made the one thing I most wanted instead of producing a Martha Stewart variety of choices to graze on. It paid off. I do remember the highest number I ever reached, and even with my 4 pound gain in 7 months, I'm still 15 below that, and that I can handle. Like I said, it's much better than I expected given my history.
So today I begin again. Yesterday was spent in preparation for today and the week that will follow. I bought turkey breast, weighed it out into 90 calorie bags. I bought roasted, unsalted almonds, and weighed them out into 1/2 oz, 90 calorie portions. I bought fiber bars, and baby carrots, and blueberries, and almond milk. The arsenal is stocked. I made breakfast cheesecakes...I had gotten into the funk of not eating breakfast, and working through lunch, and then coming home at 4 starved. I'd eat the king's ransom and spoil my appetite for supper, but eat again anyway. I can't remember the last time I drank water. I drank coffee or wine. I won't give up either, but today they get put back into proper perspective. The cheesecakes will make a nice start to my day. They're already made, all 7 custard cup sized...mainly cottage cheese, light cream cheese and egg whites, Splenda, almond extract and orange peel. I like them with blueberries. I bought low sugar protein bars to have half before 3rd period, and the other half before I leave my classroom so as not to go home ravenous. I'm hoping half a bar gives me enough oomph to get me through an hour of some activity, all of which I can take advantage of on school grounds: walking the track, lifting weights, using a recumbent stepper or bike, treadmill, whatever...something every day before I leave work. Part of my physical therapy involved finding motion control shoes to correct my severe pronation, so I'm always IN tennis shoes...no excuse to not go walk the flat track before heading home. I have to work up to doing stairs. I've been doing stairs, but I've been doing them incorrectly. I can only correctly do up to 3" steps right now...stairs in buildings are 7", so I have some work to do.