Time to start over (again...and again)

Well, my original plan, to be nice and skinny by the time I turned 40, failed.  My birthday was two weeks ago, and here I am, still fat.  The good news is that I am a teeny, tiny bit skinnier than I was.  But it's pretty much just a victory on paper.

Today's weigh-in: 233.4

I am the lightest I've been since...well, I'm not entirely sure when.  Not sure I got this low after having Ian, and pretty sure I was only about five pounds lighter than this after having Brendan.  So I guess that is a good thing.

However, I still have a long, long way to go before I am at a point where I'll feel good about myself (that point is probably anywhere under 175 lbs). 

I pooped out on my working out, after trying to make 30 days in September (which didn't quite happen--I think I made it two weeks).  However, I've got the chance to start over again.  The time change was this past weekend, and unlike spring when we leap forward an hour and stagger around short of sleep, we got an extra hour of sleep when we fell back.  If I can keep getting up at the same time--5 am, which used to be 6 am--and make sure that I go to sleep a bit earlier than I would otherwise, I may be able to maintain my workout schedule.  I didn't accomplish much this morning, just some marching in place, stretching, a few minutes on the elliptical, and some arm weights.  But that still is a good place to start.  I need to rotate the weights, walking, and elliptical, because I got really bored doing just the walking workouts in September.  I have a Belly Blasting walking workout that I still haven't tried, too. 

Also, we are making an effort to eat better.  My husband pointed out that the last time we lost significant weight, in 2005 or so, he was just eating a sandwich or cereal at dinner time (because I was coaching swimming and wasn't home until after 9).  I wasn't necessarily eating that healthy at that point, but I was working out regularly.  We will have to be careful to feed the boys what they need, and try to push veggies and such.  We also need to watch out for the leftover Halloween candy, which we have a ton of.

We have some motivation (although that never seems to matter to me).  We are skiing for the week after Christmas with my in-laws.  I know we won't be skiing all day every day--we have one little one who won't be old enough to do any skiing, and I know Brendan will want to do other things too)--but we need to be in good enough shape to do perhaps half a day each day.  That's a lot, so we need to get on it.  I'd also like to fit into all my ski apparel...

On an unrelated note, we've passed a few milestones lately.  Brendan turned four a couple weeks ago, and he's definitely not a toddler anymore.  He started preschool in September, and he loves it.  I have no idea what he's actually learning, because he doesn't ever tell us anything about school, but in talking to his teacher, he is apparently at least a well-behaved kid at school.  I'm glad, because he is a little turd at home most of the time.  He talks back, tells fibs, and spends a lot of time standing in the corner as punishment.  Ian has finally gotten around to talking.  It's still difficult to tell what he's saying, most of the time, but he babbles a lot and wants to converse.  He loves asking questions.  He's a cute little stinker.  He's started doing some of the two-year-old bratty stuff we saw with Brendan, doing things he knows he's not supposed to do, being a super-picky eater, whining about everything that happens, stuff like that.  I'm just glad he's getting more verbal.  We really worried about his language skills, but he seems to be getting past that.

Anyway, I will try to post more often.  So many goals, so little willpower...

Another summer is coming to an end...

Although I have another week left before I have to go back to school, I feel like today is my last "real" day of summer, because it's my last day alone at home.  Of course everyone will be home over the weekend, and next week my husband is taking off from work to spend time with me, since our fifteenth anniversary is next Thursday.  Then we'll go camping next weekend, and then it's back to a new school year.  While I'm very glad my husband is taking some time off work, it is a conflicting feeling, because I also jealously guard my summers as "me time". 

This summer has been one that has afforded me very little "me time", and I feel like I'm not very rested or prepared to start work again.  Usually I have a full summer to do what I want, when I want.  Our sitter has typically watched the boys four days a week, meaning I only have to deal with them at home by myself for one day each week.  Last summer I went to the movies almost every week.  I get to do chores around the house without interruption, I get to work out when I want, and I get to take naps if I feel like it.  But this summer has not been that way at all. 

I've been busy from the very beginning.  The end of the school year coincided with my younger son's second birthday, and so I had company in town.  Then I started a three-week, eight-hour-a-day writing course that had so much homework I ended up spending an extra two to three hours each day working on.  Although the daily class ended after three weeks, we still had another week and a half of writing before the end of the course, so I still wasn't doing other activities.  All this was punctuated with several trips to Wyoming to visit family and go camping.  After the 4th of July, our sitter cut back from watching the boys every day to watching them three week days each week.  The week after my course finally ended, a friend of ours was coming to visit.  She's not really on a schedule with this particular trip, and so instead of arriving on Tuesday (when I initially expected her) or Wednesday or Thursday (when she had said she'd be coming in), she didn't arrive until Sunday.  Sure, that was a whole week to myself, but it was a week spent cleaning, getting ready for the visit, and following her texts, phone calls, and Facebook posts.  She required a bit of guidance to get to Billings, so my time was spent on that instead of on me.  [Gosh, it sounds so selfish when I write it like that.]  Much of the next week was a trip to Yellowstone with my husband and our friend.  Then home, and four very long days with the kids bouncing off the walls after not seeing us for part of a week.  Our friend stayed with us for another two weeks after our Yellowstone trip, so I had to play hostess all that time.  We were very happy to have her come see us, but it meant that I had to think about activities to do and places to go, and make things to eat.  I couldn't sit back and just be my own lazy self.  After she left, I had to deal with the boys for the weekend of course, and then I finally got a week to my self.  I went to the movies, I flopped on the couch and watched tv, and I got some long-needed chores done (well, one of them).  This has been a nice week, just decompressing after everything that's been on the schedule this summer.  But it's just been this one week.  Next week, my husband has the week off, and we will finish the week by getting in one last camping trip with the in-laws, and then...*poof* summer's over. 

I guess I really need to get rid of the perception that summertime is "me time".  I suspect we are getting close to the time when the boys will not be going to the sitter at all during the summer.  I may only get one more summer, maybe, that is "me time", and then I'll have the boys to deal with.  At least by then they should be better behaved and capable to going to public places without being complete boogers.  I hope.

DAMN am I fat.

So, my company left today.  While it was great to have her here, it's something of a relief to not have to plan any activities, cook actual meals, or generally attempt to be more interesting than I am.  It will be nice to have a little time to myself without feeling like I need to entertain someone else.  I have two full weeks left before I have to show up for the beginning of another school year, so I have a little decompression time.  But I have so much stuff to get done around the house!  Argh!  All summer long I had expected to be working on these projects--rearranging the linen closet, sorting through the boys' clothes, cleaning up the utility closet, that sort of thing.  All I've managed to get done so far is get the linen closet emptied and get half of the contents washed and put away.  That's it.  Pretty big disappointment. 

All this sitting around and eating these dinners I've cooked hasn't been good for the ol' waistline, either.  It sounds really stupid, but when I cook a meal, I feel obligated to eat it, and the leftovers too.  So I've been eating way more than I should, and of course I haven't been exercising.  I did go on a two-hour horseback ride yesterday, which is the most physical activity I've had all summer.  I knew my weight hadn't improved any; it's been sitting steady at close to 240.  But I didn't realize how bad I really look.  My friend has been taking occasional pictures on this trip, and I've ended up in a few of them. 

Looking at these pictures, I cannot deny how horrifyingly fat I am.  I don't see much of myself most of the time.  In mirrors, I see myself from mid-torso up.  Sure, I know I'm fat, but all I see is that view, straight on.  I don't see my legs, my thighs, my ass, and I don't have a real perspective on my stomach other than that it's there and it's big.  But in these pictures my friend is taking?  Holy shit, I am a fucking beast.  It doesn't help that my friend, who has been in some of the pictures with me, is a petite size 4 in comparison to my size 20.  But even without her in it...I am FAT.  No denying it.  Here's the thing...when I see obese people, I sometimes think to myself, "Well, yeah, I'm fat, but at least I don't look that bad."  But you know what?  I DO look that bad.  I look horrible. 

I have been desperately afraid that she's going to tag me in these photos.  I look awful, and I don't want all these other people on Facebook to know that.  I also need to lose weight.  As we've established before, I'm not very good at that.  I have two weeks left before school starts, and I need to figure out a way to lose maximum weight in that amount of time.  I didn't eat very well earlier today--I had fast food for lunch.  But for these last two weeks, I'm going to have to really cut back.  I also need to go to the gym every day.  I'd like to get up in the mornings and do a 3-mile walk as well, since I'm supposed to do one on August 24.  I just hope I can do something about this.  I look TERRIBLE, and I'm so embarrassed about it.

Now is the summer of my discontent...

This summer just is NOT going as planned.  I had really hoped that I would be starting the school year about fifteen pounds lighter than I ended it, but it is not to be.  I do still have four weeks from today until the first day of school, but my working out is still going to be iffy.  I had thought that this week would be "mine", that after Monday with the boys I would be on my own after my company left.  But my company hasn't left yet.  Our friend who came to visit is on no particular time frame, and after we've assured her several times that she's welcome to stay as long as she likes, she is in no hurry to leave.  It's nice to see her, especially since we haven't seen her in several years, but it's a little strange to not have any idea when she's planning on leaving.  It means I have to be sort of "on" as a hostess all the time, to to mention the fact that she has plenty of time to evaluate my questionable parenting skills.  *sigh*  She's been invited to participate in a dog show in Denver on August 15, so she's planning on being in Colorado by then, but she doesn't yet know when her friend in Denver would like her to arrive.  She is considering driving back through western Montana and also through Wyoming to do some sightseeing before going on to Colorado, but again, since she doesn't know a hard target date for Colorado yet, she hasn't really made other plans.  My husband did show her some possible routes to take, and she's realized that she might end up spending 3-5 days on this longer drive, which means she might need to leave August 10 or so, but that means I still have 11 days left to host, feed, and entertain.  Since we've been cooking dinner pretty much every night since we got back from our Yellowstone vacation, I've been eating more than I would have otherwise.  We ate a lot on our vacation as well, so since we got back, I have tipped the scales at 240 lbs.  We haven't done much physical activity either, so no exercise.  I'm not comfortable going down to the basement to use the elliptical machine in the mornings, since my guest is staying down there.  I don't want to go for an extended walk, because even in the mornings it's very warm outside and I also don't want my friend to wake up and come upstairs to find there's no one here.  We could walk her dog, but her dog isn't used to walks and pulls quite a bit, and my friend is worried that she might pull out of her grip and get loose.  Taking her to the dog park just doesn't give me the same exercise.  I need to just start doing those Leslie Sansone walking workouts in the morning, upstairs, but I do feel a little weird about the possibility that my friend might walk upstairs mid-workout, and starting today we also have roofing guys working on the house (and the siding guys should be next) so I need to draw the curtains on all the windows so they don't watch me working out.  That would be creepy.  And I've got to start eating better, too.  More veggies, less everything else. 

My new goal is simply to lose five pounds before the first day of school.  I hope I can do it.  It seems like such a simple thing, to lose just over a pound a week, but I haven't been able to do anything like it for years. 

So, Corey from Pawn Stars weighs less than me...

I just read an article that said that Corey Harrison from Pawn Stars, previously known as Big Hoss, now weighs 210 lbs after having lap band surgery a couple years ago and working out a lot more ever since.  Must be nice.

I, on the other hand, do not weigh 210 lbs.  I'm still close to 240, with my weight fluctuating a few pounds each day.  I think I weighed myself a couple of days ago at 237.8.  Sometimes I'm down to 236, sometimes up to 239.  I don't top 240 unless I'm dressed or it's the end of the day.  I usually weigh myself in the mornings so I'm as "empty" and light as I'm going to be.

Anyway, I had originally had plans to work out, either walking, swimming, or lifting, every day before my class.  That didn't happen, as I discovered I needed all my non-kid time to read and write for the class.  Even the week after the class, I still had lots of work to do on my final paper and portfolio, so I didn't do any working out.  Over the 4th of July weekend I DID my first actual piece of exercise in God-knows-how-long: I walked a 5k with my mother-in-law.  I knew she had been walking daily to get ready for it, and I was really worried about being able to keep up with her.  It actually turned out way better than I thought; while I definitely got plenty of exercise in walking the course, I pushed her to her best 5k time, 54 minutes.  I'm pretty sure I can do better than that.  I've been meaning to try again, but I need to figure out an approximate course around here to walk.  I just signed up for another one on August 24.  I really should train first. 

That 5k was it; I haven't done any exercise other than that.  The past two weeks, after the 4th of July, I've had the boys F-M, which means no working out for four days in a row.  I need to just suck it up and start getting on the elliptical or doing an in-house walking workout in the evenings after the boys go to bed.  It's just that it's the only time I have to sit and enjoy my husband's presence.  Also, working out in the evening makes it harder to go to sleep at night because my adrenaline is up.  Working out in the morning would be better, but the sooner I get up, the sooner the boys get up, it seems.  I can't count on a certain amount of time in the morning that I can work out.  And the days I didn't have the boys, I had other things to do--I had my portfolio to finish last week, and this week is all about cleaning up the house for the company I'm going to have for the next week and a half.  We're going to Yellowstone next week (with our company and the boys), so although I'll get some walking in, we'll also be snacking all day and sitting in the car a lot.  Yuck.  Not great for the weight loss plan.

By the time our company leaves, I'll have four weeks before teachers have to report for in-service and the first days of school.  And it will still be having the boys for four days in a row each week.  So much for my 15 lbs of weight loss this summer. 

I'm just so beat-down and defeated.  I hate being fat.  I hurt every morning and every night because I'm so heavy.  I have to wear shoes all the time because my plantar fasciitis is bad.  My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, my neck hurts.  And I just don't know what to do to fix it.  I have so many excuses, and I can't make myself stop using them.  I'm going to be 40 years old in about three months, and I really didn't want to enter my 40s almost 100 lbs overweight. 

I need help.  I keep hoping I'll wake up one morning and be skinny.  It hasn't happened yet.

Same sh*t, different day...

Today's weigh-in (after breakfast): 239.0

So, I did absolutely nothing on the weight-loss front.  I'm still in the same place I was in January.  Today is the first official day of summer, since yesterday was the last day of school, and although I plan some "bad" eating this weekend (my younger son's second birthday is tomorrow, so I'm working on birthday cake, and we're grilling steaks tonight because my dad is in town) and really don't plan to do anything super healthy this weekend, I figured I'd go ahead and post about my summer goals.

We have to report on Monday, August 25 for the opening of the school year (which starts Wednesday the 27th), which gives me 11 weeks to work with.  I am taking a writing course for the next three weeks, which means I won't have a lot of time to work out, but I will try to go in the mornings before it starts at 9 each day--I'm still taking the boys to the sitter's at 7 each morning, so I can head to the gym and get maybe an hour workout in before needing to get dressed for my class.  The class shouldn't be horrible for my health; although there will be snacks each day, I probably won't eat as much because people will be "watching" and I'll be occupied in the writing assignments, and also, we will be doing some walking around here and there for the class, so I'll get a little exercise in as well. I've also committed to walking a 5k with my mother-in-law over the 4th of July weekend, so I need to get some walking in.  

My goal for the summer is to lose 15 lbs.  If I can lose 1.5 lbs each week, I'll lose 16.5 lbs.  If I can manage 2 lbs each week, I'll lose more than 20 for the summer.  I've got to at least lose 10 lbs; I can't bear to be so close to 240 lbs.  It's horrible.  I feel like crap every morning: my feet hurt, my back hurts, my knees have started to bother me a bit (although the squats challenge I did in the month of May might have contributed). 

I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired.  And fat.  I'm sick and tired of being fat.

Brand new year, same old same old

Today's weight: 235.6

So, it's a brand new year, but not much has changed.  Still fat, still disorganized, still short-tempered, still depressed. 

My primary goal, at least short term, is weight loss.  My plantar fasciitis is back in my right foot, seems like it might be starting up in my left foot as well, and I have some other undetermined problems in my right foot too--I get joint pain near my big toe (but I don't think it's gout) with pain extending back toward my leg and also across the top of my foot near my toes.  I think I've probably just been favoring my foot because of the plantar fasciitis, which has made me walk funny and has caused some of the other pain.  I hope.  But I'm pretty sure if I can lose ten or twenty pounds, it will improve my feet greatly.  I need to try to work out at least 30 minutes a day (to start with), and I need to eat less.  It's going to be a challenge; I've been trying to lose weight (or at least saying it) for years now.  I'd like to be below 200 lbs by the time whatever trip we decide to take for our 15th anniversary rolls around this summer.  If I shoot for July 1, which is 6 months from now, it means I'll have to lose 6 lbs per month.  That's doable, but it will definitely be a challenge since I've not managed to lose anything in so long.  I need to start drinking a lot of water, stop drinking soda, stop eating chips and candy...meh. 

I'd like to be more patient, and more organized, and all that other good stuff, but I can really only worry about one thing at a time. :)  Here we go, 2014...