Exercise Rebellion

Summer has turned to rain here in Oregon and so has my gumption to exercise. I am still somewhat tight but my run of weightloss has finished. I gained a pound today (it always happens at the whole 10 pound marks!). I have also been sitting on my backside instead of walking or biking or anything else. I just want to snuggle in a blanket and watch a movie!

Blah.............

Update:

Ok I forced my sorry backside into my new diaper pants (padded bike short underwear things). drug the still unused bike out of my car. Put the illfitting helmet on and coasted down the hill that I live on. The wind felt cool and breezy. A brief flash of..oh this isn't so bad..maybe even nice. Then I got to the bottom of the hill and pedaled the bike. I lasted 1/2 a block. My butt hurt, my thighs hurt so I lowered the gear and tried some more. I finished the block and made a quick decision to turn back up the other side of my loop because there was no way I was going to make it around the neighborhood!. I got halfway up the hill and had to stop and walk. I got back on the bike and managed to ride to the top of the hill and then stopped again for a rest. Finally I coasted back into my own driveway and yard. In all I managed to be out of the house for a @$%@$%$ total of 22 minutes and rode around my short block. arghghghg I need a nap!

Weird Tightening Up? is it Hormones?

So today has been the tightest day I think I have ever had. I am sitting here with my first bout of post-band acid indigestion. As I am feeling a tad PMSy (no hysterectomy yet and avoiding the decision like crazy!). I managed 1/3 of a cheese sandwich today, 1oz of cheese, 1 Mango Mantra protein drink and a cup of clam chowder. I did sneak down 4 small squares of good British cadbury's chocolate.

I have the say the sandwich went down the easiest. The smoothie and soup have been difficult. It took me about an hour to drink the smoothie and the soup is still not down and I ate it 3 hours ago!! I am still afraid to drink some water before bed.

I am going to walk very carefully. Stay hydrated (lesson from Caroline!) and if things persist go in for a visit to my doctor. I have had tightening in previous months but not to this extent.

Hopefully the weight loss will continue....down another 1/2 pound today.

Non-Scale Victories

Life is filled with small victories-or little learning lessons as the case may be. Of late the weight loss seems to have finally gotten to a point that these victories and lessons are hitting me on the back of my head.

1. riding in coach an an airplane is much more comfortable when you weigh less.
2. When you butt disappears from weight loss you cannot sit as much or as long in one place.
3. When you are thinner people look at you and smile (as 0pposed to looking and then looking quickly away when you look them in the eye)
4. Turnstyles (even the skinny ones) can be walked through without sliding in sideways and jumping through. I walked through one yesterday straight on (I do not know why door checkers are such jerks about moving it with their hand and letting bigger people through the gate-it is humiliating).
5. When you are thinner the doctors office gowns do not expose all of your naked flesh but actually can cover it up!!
6. when you are thinner stairs are not nearly as scary.
7. weight loss does not always occur right after you have been on your best behavior-sometimes it takes months to show up!
8. The band gives you the enforced patience to wait the unfair lag time it takes for the good behavior to show up on the scale.
9. Some toilet stalls are still too small to open the door without straddling the toilet!!-it is not just me!
10. when your butt shrinks you actually get shorter while driving a car! My husband and I now have mirror wars because i am not the same height as he is anymore.

Bottom line-The band is great! I never would have accomplished what I have without it. The band takes work but it is mostly wrapping your head around the changes that the band forces that are that work. The band forces me to be patient because I cannot give up and have a burger or doughnut when I do not lose deserved weight. The band forces me to stop eating too much at my meals, too quickly and washed down with copious amounts of fluid.

With the band I eat slowly, I eat sparingly and I eat liquid free. The tiny bit of food I eat sticks with me for long enough. I can stick a stall in weight loss out long enough until my little turtle moves again(see the weight loss ticker above).

Right now my goal weight is at what I weighed in high school (170). After my last weight loss stall I was worried that it was going to be difficult to get to even this goal. This latest burst of weight loss is leading me to believe that I can dare to hope for a real goal--maybe even 150. At 82 pounds lost I am still more than halfway there (This would leave 72 pounds to go. It just blows my mind that this is possible!!!

Living the Morning Person Lifestyle

It is 6am. I am currently behaving as if I live on eastern standard time (somewhere between German time and Pacific standard time). I really like the quiet time! I get lots of uninterrupted computer work done. So much so that I am even entertaining the thought of becoming a morning person (if that is possible).

My job is predominantly to write reports, articles for professional papers, presentations and of course teach (I do most of this online during the school year). It is an on your butt computery type of job and although I like most of it, I have not been successful at focusing and getting the articles I am supposed to be writing done. This is mostly because I need to concentrate to do it. These early quiet mornings seem to be doing the trick in providing that concentration time.

Before the band (and possibly turning 45) I used to get this concentration time by staying up until the wee hours of the morning after everyone went to bed. I have not really been able to do that even before my trip because i have started nodding off before everyone else (my older kids, husband etc) go to bed. I think this morning thing is a winner-and I am going to do my best to shift my schedule to it!!

On the scale front-I got that extra pound off and hoping for another!! I am starting to get a taste for th 100's and I am a short 24 pounds away from them. Somewhere in my stash of saved stuff (probably in a buried box somewhere) I have a pair of size 20 button fly Levi Jeans that I wore when My oldest daughter was 3 (she is now 24). I weighed 200 when I wore those jeans. Needless to say I am beginning to have a look for those jeans to see if they will fit me yet. I am sure my butt has shifted south and my stomach is all differently shaped but I am hoping that 1. I can get my sorry backside into them and 2. that they will not look too stupid on me and I can wear them again.

Home Again

Thanks for the comments Caroline and Bunny-I frankly had decided that no one really read the blog so had shifted my traveling related posts over to facebook (It is full of family, friends and colleagues from work so I do not talk diet there at all).

So Germany and even Dresden turned out to be beautiful and history rich cities (even if most of Dresden was a rebuild). I do not yet understand why Dresden specifically was targeted by the UK in the war but looking at the pictures i got in a book that showed photos after the war and after the rebuild were quite something. I walked at least three miles a day. We were with a woman who had just had back surgery so there were taxis called frequently to go to dinner or back and forth form the conference but I chose to walk to wherever we were going and took random walks around town everyday.

We took two day trips from town. On Monday there was a stern wheeler ride up to a fortress/castle 20 minutes by train up the river but 4 hours by boat :) Then on Tuesday three of us took the train to Prague for a schlep around town to see what was there. Both of these areas were beautiful and I have a few pictures (still in the camera). My camera battery chose to die early on in the Prague trip so I think I only have two pictures from that day. I will of course get them on here eventually!!

All of the walking kicked in my weight loss again. I got on a scale the night before we left Germany and I had maintained my weight but at the time my ankles were blown up like a pair of balloons so I figured that once i got home I would show a loss and I was correct. I have lost a pound and expect to lose another tomorrow (fingers crossed).

The day after I got home we packed up the car and drove up to Seattle for a Paulo Martini concert that I had stupidly agreed to before I left. By the time I took a nap and woke up again to go to the late night concert I felt positively ill with jet lag. The concert was good but all I could focus on was how tired i was!

Then on Monday I had to go down to work and catch up on everything that was left neglected while I was away in Germany. There is one benefit to having jet lag. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning when no one else is and am getting plenty of quiet time to get stuff done uninterrupted.

Another development is that while I was gone David has apparently sold the house! A real estate agent called, came over to show it to a large family and they are apparently in love with the place. I am torn as I would like to have all of the home fix it over with but I also would like to continue to enjoy my nice new kitchen and wood floors! The agent is coming over with an offer tonight. Unless the offer is appallingly low we will take it and move into an apartment while we look for just the right piece of property to build on (if such a place exists).

Bunny-I usually try to have one protein shake per day (although I get lazy and do not always). I drink vanilla whey protein powder (all of the others including nasty old slimfast taste horrible to me). I mix one scoop of the whey powder with about 1 cup of milk and a handful of frozen fruit in the blender. It gives me almost two cups of an ice-cream like treat that allows me to get in enough grams of protein for the day. I usually have the drink in the evening because when I have tried it in the morning it does not stick with me as long as real food does. For my three meals a day I try to eat real food.

This morning I have had 1/2 a cheese sandwich with lunch meat and will probably have 1/2 a grilled cheese for lunch (although I will sometimes have a bowl chunky soup. For dinner I have 1/2 cup of whatever is cooking but avoid the pasta and potato (I periodically try these to my peril).

Oddly since I got home on Friday my stomach has gone all strange and I am having to relearn what is OK and what is not OK. I have had two stuck episodes since I got home on things that have up to now been OK as long as I eat them slowly. I am not yet sure if the problem is that I have tightened up, if I am relaxing because i am home and getting sloppy or if the food i can eat has changed.

Gutten Tag

I am in Dresden, Germany at a math ed conference. I have a camera and bag full of protein bars, protein powder but need to get some bottled water!!

This is my first international trip all alone...Im at once excited and also kinda lonely. I arrived her today at noonish, got my hotel room and crashed for 3 hours. I then went out to find methods of communicating with home. The hotel internet fees are 26.99 euro per day (wayyyyyyy to rich for my blood) and my cell phone would go on roaming as soon as I turned it on. Instead I bought a pay as you go local phone (a new sim would not work in my sad old phone). I then discovered that If I joined boingo back home I could get my stay with unlimited coverage for 60 dollars. I signed up. Now I am all set.

Traveling in my newer thinner way was Very much more comfortable!! I did not fit and overlap into my neighbors seat. I did not get that look from people as I walked down the aisle towards them that said..please not next to me....I could cross my legs and stretch my legs quite comfortably in front of me. It was still difficult to sleep because i like to lay my head forward on my tray with a pillow (like sleeping on my stomach) but the lady in front of me was a back sleeper and reclined full back thus blocking my space. The food was fine. I remember before when I traveled i would get really hungry between the meals but this time i could barely eat any of my food (just got full). I saved my brownie and a square of cheese for a snack about midpoint in the flight and that was fine. They never give you enough liquids so I had a large bottle of water of which i managed a little more than half.

So far Dresden is not thrilling me. I am in the main part of town (in the UK it would be the high street). with a hotel facing a big McDonalds and shops. I have not seen anything quaint or cute but I also have not left this street. If anyone knows any must see items or shops in Dresden please do drop me a comment or email (tina@deadhat.com).

I will keep you posted on the sights!

Tina

Giving In To Exercise? and more Gibber Jabber

I'm still here. Stuff has been going on but not on the scale. It leads me to believe that I am finally at the end of my lazy (yes I have been moving more but not exercising) ways. As I type this my inside voice is screaming...noooooo I don't want to. I hate exercise and sweat. Sigh.....

Ok now to what has been going on. I moved Cinda out of the house yesterday to her apartment back at college. I drove David's ginormous new truck for the first time (see the man in the chair blog for further details-I told him to post a pic) . It was better than I thought to drive but I did not even attempt to back it into our driveway and parked it on the street when I came home. Just to get a little perspective on the size of this U.S.auto-makers example of gross excess. A queen sized bed fit flat in the back with room to spare on either side. When I told this to David-he was slightly embarrassed but is still in love with his new monster or as we have dubbed it-white horse.

Cinda in a creative act of silliness named our three cars before she left-I have the gray whale, David is white horse and the smaller truck that Cinda drives has been dubbed white wolf. I somehow feel that David's much bigger truck should get the whale brand but since it was purchased with hauling a future horse trailer in mind (see Grace's blog called Half-British). The horse-trailer is a ways off but she is doing brilliantly in lessons and seems to have found a sport she will stick with for the long haul. Now we just have to decide if we are going to be city people or country people..somehow I think country will win out in the end.

Last night we cleaned out Grace's old room in preparation for the carpet guy who is coming tomorrow. We have four more rooms to empty (goodness knows where all of the crap will go). I cannot believe how much stuff can fall behind a bed, under a bed, behind a dresser....etc. We also have some painting and wallboard to put up.

I am off to work today and have to pack a load of stuff down to Cinda on the way that she left behind. Cinda's university is located 20 minutes north of the one where I work. Oregon is strange in that most of its state universities are along the coasts-one along the northern border but east. four along the west coast and finally one in the south (sort of central) east. Most of the Oregon Acreage is without higher education opportunities. I suppose this as in many parts of the world, is the reason online learning opportunities are springing up (my current job is developing one of these).

I hope anyone who reads this is having a stupendous day!!