I Never Dreamed that Cleaning House Would Count as Relaxing

I have been attempting some serious time off from work this month.  My yarn store for the month of September is officially closed on Sat, Sun and Mon.  Amazingly everyone when I tell them is VERY supportive of a small business owners need to take some quality family time off.

This weekend we filled our family time with:  Shopping at Ikea, Homegoods and Marshalls.  I scored-drawer organizers, bone china cereal bowls (pottery ones always chip to quickly around here).  Grace then went out for a sleepover and we had friends call-They were coming over for wine in 1 hour..holy crappoly..my house had a serious case of mess going on.

When I say serious I mean SERIOUS-too much work, too much play and no picking up piles of crap that really don't have a home to go to.  We quickly cleaned the main level (messing up our bedroom and my shop in the mean time) but...My living room, kitchen and dining room is finally habitable again.

On Sunday we took Grace to Horseback riding, went shopping to horse crap like fly spray and riding britches (don't even ask how bits of spandex can cost twice as much as yoga pants when they are made out of the same thing but with two reinforcing butt patches.

Back to her stable for a barbecue (it was OK but there is drama going on that I will address in another post).  then home to my clean living room kitchen and dining room..ahhhhhh that felt so good.

Fast forward to today-Monday.  After a morning of meetings and such Grace and I had lunch at our local and then came home with the intention of watching a little crime drama TV and folding laundry.  Two missing remote controls later I ended up poking my head into my daughters room...She had food with bugs ($$%@$#$@$).  After I had a momentary coronary we proceeded to do a major room clean, reorg and repeat the rules on NO FOOD IN ROOM.  The fruit flies totally creeped her out (thank goodness).  She was distraught in one of the mascara running bawling scenarios.

Now it is midnight-my house is a lot cleaner and for once I can say I am satisfied with my days off.  There is oh so much more to do around here but progress was made and I am feeling good.

Now there must be some hidden clue in here or technique that I could apply to my weightloss.

xxxooo

Little By Little...Step by Step

Its funny how the lessons one learns fade away at times and need to be relearned only to fade again.  My little quest to regain control of the scale is still on.  This weeks epiphany is...big changes kind of fail. Little ones changed progressively seem to work better (at least for me).

You all know abut my long and failed relationship saga with Starbucks.  My goal over the last week or so has been to back off not quit the coffee habit and increase the food related calories cause lets face it there have been days where most of my calories came from a stupid frappaccino.

so..Here is a reporting of a very (I think) successful weaning (not off just a step away mind you).

Last week I down-sized from two venti frapps a day to 2 grandes.  I did not feel any pain.  In fact the coincidental alignment with the return of my long lost period made it so I would have been too tight to drink something as big as a venti anyway.

Yesterday was round two of the cut backs.  The whipped cream on top is off the menu.  Now I have been very scared to look at the calories I have been ingesting ala Starbucks but now..now is the time to compare.  OHHHHH MYYYYYY GGGGG (yes that was a real time search and reaction..eek)

I checked...Calories of old: 540
Grande with whip: 420
Grande without the whip: 290
Tall will by 230.

I just cut my calories in half from those things.  hanging my head in shame.  Coffee milkshake drinks are evil.  This weekend I am moving to tall in the morning and an orange drink in the afternoon.  A Trenta sized one of those drinks is just 170.


The result has been good.  My ticker is almost truthful again.  The scale hit as high as 182.  This morning I was 177.

The Good the Bad and Hormones

I thought I had finally found menopause.

I rather liked it.

Everyday the same mood-Not always great but not the highs and lows of myself pre-meno.  No pads, no worries that I would have embarrassing 'accident' on that heavy day.  Now worries that i would run out of pads at an inopportune moment.  No 'difficult laundry'.  No gauging what day should I stay home because of high volume 'flo'.

The downside however was that with no water gain I didn't have a tightening and loosening of my ban during the month.  I managed to get really good at judging, sliding and otherwise maximizing my calorie intake with the restriction in place.  With the ebb and flo of hormones I retain water in strange and mostly a pain-in-the-ass-like way.  boobs, swell, ankles swell, I get tense and irratable (who wouldn't sloshing around an extra 3-5 pounds of water).  Even post-band I noticed my belly bloats (in a crazy and noticeable way).

but...that restriction....

So I had 6 glorious months of menopause.  I like it mostly.  I didn't like the creeping scale.  Not all of my weight gain is due to menopause but some of it definitely is.  I have now had two months of fertility revisited-out of menopause and back to normal womanly monthlies.  Mostly this sucks.  but a my little and significant silver lining is the band tightening that water retention brings.

I am tight..and although the recent stuck episodes (I have had a few) and a meal or three where I had a drink and discovered dinner was not going to happen were pain in the arse.  I mostly consider this a silver lining.  Hello again 170's I hope to see all of you.  Especially if I have to put up with all of this other hormonal crap.

I feel like one of these right now...

Did I Really Say That?

Drinking...ahem the calories.  Today my favorite girl machine-the scale-presented me with 178 :) I do like-y.

Food: grande frapp.  for breakfast
Lunch: One cheese-y omelet ala David.
Mid Afternoon: one grande frapp.

One Pimms Cocktail.
one hot chocolate and rumpleminz.

Dinner: 1/3 burger, 4 fries.  (these got stuck and returned about half).

The drinks came before dinner as we had 40 minutes to wait until happy hour...I have no business eating food after 8pm...I did it anyway.


Drink much?  :(

It is midnight and my tummy still hurts.  Oh..the stupidity.  I wonder if tomorrow's scale will be so kind.

It Is All About Eating Food

Well hit my up side the head with a 2x4 guess what?  When you drink your calories you don't lose weight!  When you drink your calories you gain weight.  Duh...but have I learned this enough to not do it.  Why of course not.

Today-More food down the hatch.  My precious frapp: (I had a free one and a girl can't pass up free can she?).  Shared an egg sandwhich with Grace (yes a splart of mayo).  I had the egg late so I wasn't hungry at lunch.  At 3:30 I had another Frapp.  and an oatmeal cookie (The Starbucks baked good suck now by the way..Bleh).  and then...way until 10pm I had a tiny tiny plate of nachos (8 chips, 1oz cheddar and one splart of sour cream).  Not a great day food-wise but there is more.......


Last night David made me go play Ingress (forever after this call the stupid game as we do around the house).  We did this get a group of people together to mark portals (landmarks) in our team colors and make them all at a high level.  Anyway..the point is.  This involved bucket loads of walking.  MIles and miles of walking.

The scale this morning in payment for my good behavior was...down to 179.0  I have been rolling as high as 184 and dipping to just above 180 for about a year now.  This 179.0 is grand.  I like this new tighter band and my better behaved self.  Fingers crossed I can keep it up!!  I want to see 170 again.

xxoo

view from my buggy windshield.  Driving along the Columbia River Gorge into the sun.

1 splart =1 tablespoon according to my 12 year old

Things my 12 year old says that make me go Hmm....

1.  After reading her my post from yesterday and the comments she said in a very authoritative voice:  Well actually a splart is a little known unit of measurement approximately equal to two tablespoons..hmm or is that one?  Of course I believed her because she has the gift of LIE---There is no such mention of a splart in any google search.  If you find one definitely link it.

2.  When the local air show (just 1/2 mile down the road) started their fireworks show at 10:15 at night and it ran until 10:45 she came into our room and moaned in a very moany way.  "what the heck are they doing making such a racket at this time of the night?"...Ok she is 12 and those are fireworks.  I would expect..lets go on the rooftop or can we walk and go see but?? when are they going to end????  I guess 12 is the new 90.

3.  David is restoring an old APPLE IIe desk computer.  One just like the one he learned on at the age of 10.  He ordered old floppy disks and they arrived.  He pulled them out of the package and asked Grace if she could identify them.  She did without hesitation and you should have seen him puff up with pride.  I then gave them both a rash of crap..as you could see him thinking in his head..that my girl..my technological nerd girl..she knows the gear.  Some serious nerd love going on in my kitchen over stupid floppy disks.

A photo of this nerd girl:

Two in Two days-Wahoo

Blogging is good for the banded soul.  After my several month hiatus I posted yesterday and  cconfessed to my horrible eating/drinking habits. Today I am trying a little experiment I am going to call..EAT FOOD DAMNIT! :)

So far:

Shared an egg sandwich with Grace: 1 slice of bread, 1 egg, 1oz cheese, 1 splart of mayo.
Mid-morning snack:  one Tall peppermint mocha frapp.
Lunch: Shared fish and chips with Grace.  I ate two oz deep fat fried fish (and yes it was beer batter and yes it was YUMMY).  one french fry.
Mid afternoon: iced tea (no calories baby)

I am not sure what dinner will bring-I will be back.

My photo of the day:  My cat Kokomo is a cutie-She can sit in the oddest positions in the oddest places.  Yesterday she tortured Grace from the banister.  If Grace went near she batted at her head using just those dangling feet.