Decisions

So after yesterday's "rah rah!" post, I flopped. I jokingly told the hubby that all the "Old" finally caught up with me! LOL! But seriously, I'm pooped! We even went to bed last night at 9 (not quite what you're thinkin'... we were asleep by 9:30! And it's still not what you're thinkin'. ;) But the last few days, it's been a struggle to stay awake.

Seems I'm not the only one - several folks around the office are saying how tired they are even though they've been sleeping a lot. Not to mention a few people commenting about not feeling well.

Not sure if it's the change of season (we had a cold snap - for AZ it's rare for it to get below 80 right now, and Monday's high was 72... the heater even kicked on and it was down to 40 that night!) or AF just being mean to me, or what's going on.

My quandary is this - do I just give in and take it easy on myself this week, or the next day, to work on getting my energy back up? Or do I push and make myself do something my body doesn't seem willing to do? Obviously the former is more appealing, because the latter, while very noble, seems the quickest way to burnout-ville. Then again, getting out and moving is a good way to rev myself back up. But what if I'm actually getting sick and that seals the deal?!?

::flop::

The weirdest part is that it seems so foreign to me to feel this way, even though it /used/ to be normal. And now I'm not sure how to deal!

Technorati : Exercise, health, sparkpeople

My Year of Success

starts today.

Actually, any day can be your 'January 1st', but I figure today is an excellent day to look at where I've been and where I'm going.

See, it's my birthday today. (hence the special tiara... as opposed to the 'everyday' tiara I'd normally wear when doing things like dusting or laundry... what? doesn't every one wear a tiara doing housework? No? You should!) And today is my last birthday where I can say I'm a 30-something. In some ways it makes me sad and scared, and I look at what /most/ people think one should have accomplished by now and I see that I'm not really there. Or even close in some cases. I have quite a bit of weight to lose still, I'm still in a lot of debt, I don't come any where near maxing my 401(k) contributions, my house is messy more than it's not, I have no kids, I only recently got married (and it's my first and only marriage!)

But yet, I keep getting happier and more content with my life than I ever was. And I've considered myself a happy, content person for quite a while.

I bought a home almost 2 years ago, I have a fantastic man that I'm now married to and who understands me probably better than I understand myself (a very scary thing! lol!), I have amazing friends (some of whom I've never met but mean as much to me as those I see every day!) and an even more amazing family. And for the first time in ... well... forever, I have a goal, a greater purpose and a plan. I've had each separately, but now that the 3 things are together, I'm making progress like never before.

I've got 3 main things that I'm focusing on (health, home, finance) and similar to my whole push for getting into /that dress/ for the wedding, I've got my eye on the next 12 months and what I want to accomplish by the time the big 4-0 rolls around. What I've learned over the last several months is that, even if I don't completely hit my target, I've gotten closer to it than I ever ahve before.

So who want's to join me in making today the first day in YOUR year of success?! There's room for everone at the top, not just me!

Technorati : Exercise, clutter, goals, health, motivation, orion, sparkpeople, thoughts, update, weight

Oops

I've worked really, really hard to get my diet clean, get rid of the bad stuffs, get my health on track and all that happy fun stuff, and I've done great! I've cleared out 95% of the processed, enriched stuff and replaced it with healthy, real foods. Whoo hoo!

But now, I'm thinking that I've done a little /too/ good of a job at it. Why do I think this? Because I have had a serious beef craving- like to the point I'm ready to go to a steak house and dive the biggest, rarest cut they offer - the last couple of weeks.

Oookaaay, for some this may not be a big deal, just go have a burger and move on.

For me it's a huge issue: I haven't eaten beef in _over_ 10 years. Not because I don't like it - I looooved it! - It hates ME. (Omitting too many details, basically my body doesn't process it, and I get really, really sick, and no, it wasn't my gall bladder.)

Before folks start offering suggestions:
-I've already upped my iron supplement
-I eat lots of green leafy veggies
-I get plenty of protein from poultry, pork, and
-It's no where near that time of the month

After looking at what nutrients are in beef, iron is actually pretty low on the list. However, Zinc and B-12 are way up there. Baroo?! Ok then, time to up both (and I already take a good B-complex supplement). I looked at the list of foods that are good sources for B-12. Near the top are eggs and cheese, both things that I've limited (I've been using the egg substitute to cut down on fat & calories.) Looks like I need to start eating the real stuff again, at least for a bit, and see how that works out.

If you see me in the grocery store, gnawing on a steak, we'll know it didn't work. It's best just to back away slowly and pretend you never saw me. ;)

Technorati : Exercise, food, health, sparkpeople

Oh, that's right...

I /hate/ shopping. I have moments, like today, where I have selective amnesia and forget that I hate to shop. But after about 10 minutes in a store it all comes rushing back to me. But I decided to give Macy's a go, since I had gifty cards that needed spendin'!

The good news is I got a new pair of walk/run shoes! That was easy, and considering my foot is picky, I was happy that I tried on a pair and they fit. Whoo hoo! That gave me encouragement to press on to look for a pair of pants. Now, of the 8 pairs I tried on, they were all size 14 and fit with no problem. yay! Some were a weeee bit tight, but nothing I was worried about popping a button off of. Problem is, I'm a classic kind of gal. I want basic, non-descript black dress pants. Nothing special, honest. But apparently classic isn't good for business because it means people would buy less clothing, so everything is trendy. Take the 'wide leg'... I've come to terms with having a slightly wider leg pant - I didn't really like it at first because, to me, it doesn't add balance, it adds volume. And I'm all about not adding any more volume! But that's what's widely available, so I'm ok with it. But I'm not ok with a pant leg that's so wide that a small child and a few critters could make a happy little bungalow out of them. Eeesh. And apparently if you're a size 14, you're also 5' 20" tall because every pair would have to be hemmed. I'm 5'6"! with heels at least 5'8"! WTF?!?! I'm not short! Grrr... so yeah, didn't find a pair of pants. darn it. (side note: I decided to check out a couple of web sites of places that I may have better luck ordering them... only to find NY & Co. is PROUD to now offer size 0 ! Z-e-r-o! Hello! all anorexics, er, small boned ladies! Come on down! ::flop::)

Oh, I did get glared at while shopping. I found it amusing and almost wanted to hug the woman. I had ventured over to the "Women's" department (hey, they had exercise type clothes as the 'border'... not so subtle, Macy's.) and while I was looking at the sale racks a woman shopping in that department gave me a look like "get out of here, not /your/ size!"

I decided then to venture to the lingerie department... I need new bras since mine are getting way stretched out.

Ugh! After about 20 min of frustrating and trying to find styles on my own, trying on this or that one, I decided to enlist help of the sales lady. Part of the "problem" is that I'm still the same size! The nice lady grabbed a few for me to try on and I found one that I really liked and got 3. They're. All. Beige. Grr.

small rant

I get the fact that one can't pick and choose where the weight will deposit itself or come off, but my body is frustrating the heck out of me. I'm wearing a smaller size in pants and in tops. Schweet! But makes absolutely no sense that my waist measurement is the same, and my bra band & cup size is still the same! Oh! And I would absolutely L-O-V-E to be able to walk into a main stream shop and find an abundance of cute bras in a size OVER a C cup! I'm not talking VS or Fredricks - I'm talking Macy's, Kohl's, or even Target for cripe's sake! We're all told "love the skin you're in, no matter what size!" And then the one industry that has the power to really let us feel sexy and confident (nothin' like racy red undies to make you feel special during that long boring meeting, eh?!) SMACKS US DOWN! it's all about the b00b's, eh? Guy's love cleavage, right?! Then why the heck do D+ cups get relegated to industrial construction bras in white, beige or black?!??!

/small rant

Ok, this is me breathing. I'm thinking I may start shopping at Layne Bryant for bras. Either way, I think I need a beer now. LOL!

Sometimes the dragon wins...

Or in this case my brat won. And it was a good thing.

With the onset of fall with it's slightly cooler weather (hello?! This is Tucson! We're only getting down in the 70's at night.) and it staying darker longer in the morning, it's been increasingly difficult to get out of bed in the morning over all, forget about getting up to exercise. I was good Mon - Wed, then Thursday I hit that ::kick, whine:: "No wanna" place. One would /think/ that was Veruca rearing her bratty head, or Stevie just being a lazy teenager, but no, that was ME! It was aaaalll me whining about wanting 5 more minutes. My not-so-much brats were trying to push me out of bed, saying, "Just go for a 15 minute walk. YOu'll feel soooo much better during the day!"

"Nah, I have to get into work early - it's a busy day. No time. Besides, I'm in charge, darn it so back off and hit the snooze!"

Man I can get grumpy in the morning. LOL!

So I slept in, and had a seriously cranky day. I couldn't get started, couldn't quite cope with all the stress and activity going on around me. It was miserable.

This morning was the same thing, because there are some lessons I apparently am unwilling to learn. Alarm went off, SNOOZE! Alarm went off. SNoo- huh? I had this picture that formed so clearly and fully in my brain, I literally laughed out loud. At 5:25 am, I was laying in bed laughing. This picture was of a 6- and a 13-year old girl, dressed to go out exercising, standing next to my bed, arms crossed and tapping their feet, and giving me the look of, "Don't even make us drag yer sorry butt out of bed. You're not going to win this one."

So I got up, got out, and had a fabu walkie. The sunrise was beautiful and totally worth it. And there was cake at the end, or at least it was at work. :)

Actually, there's a bunch of it around here at work. I guess that January was a particularly, uh, 'slow' month for couples with the number of October birthdays, not only in my family, but here at work. ::giggle:: But today we celebrated my boss-man's b-day, and even though I'm not really a fan of it, I had a piece of Black Forest Cake and OMG it was nummy.

I decided a while back that, if I was going to indulge, I was going to make it worth it. If you're all about the box cake, that's fine. But for me, if it's a treat, it's gotta be something I can't have/get all the time. Something as rare and wonderful as the rarest gem, or the plant that only blooms once a year. With the holidays last year, it saved me several times to limit my time and calorie expenditure on the desserts that spring up like weeds staring oh, around now, but more so between 11/1-12/31. Like chocolate chip cookies - I love 'em, but they're every where. Now a Rocco's cookie, that's a different story. OMG num! Or my mom's, cuz, well, it's mom's.

Cake - well, you can get random store bought/box mix made cakes any where any time. But a from scratch, artfully made cake or pie of numminess - say from Nadine's like I had today and who made our wedding cake, or a rarely made banana chocolate chip coffee cake from evil co-worker lady, or mom's pumpkin pie that she baked the gourd herself - That's what I'm talkin' about.

It's all about setting a certain standard for what deserves to go into your body and enjoying to the fullest rather than feeling guilty. (and omg that statement can be read so many ways ::blush::)

Technorati : Exercise, food, health, life, motivation, sparkpeople

Yay the economy is in the toilet!

A strange and wonderful thing happened today - co-worker lady and I went to the breakroom for lunch and there were no chairs! We had to steal some from an office just to have a place to sit.

This rarely happens! I made a joke of how "Either the economy is in the toilet or it's the day before payday... oh wait, it's both!"

While there's plenty of stress and worry about the economy, money, and the cost of, well, everything, there's a small glimmer of hope: Even though it's a hit to the wallet, it's a benefit to the waistline. I've noticed over the last 1-2 months the number of people brown baggin' it has increased 3-5x. It used to be I was the only person who would be eating in the breakroom and the only company I would have would be people dumping their take out contaiers in the trash. Now if I want a bit of alone time, I have to find somewhere else. It's awesome! And there's the occassional "I'm feeling a lot better" type of converations.

I have a hope and dream that, when things turn around and the economy is doing better, people will continue. I doubt it, since most people have gotten used to the convenience of drive throughs and resturaunts. But even if 1 person sticks with it, it will be awesome!

Technorati : Exercise, food, health, money, sparkpeople, thoughts

Update fun...

Wow... It's been a few days since I've written anything! It's been a really busy few days at work and personally and while my brain has been bursting with ideas, it's that whole time vs. energy thing - I haven't had either. But either way, here I am. I set my timer for 15 minutes to do a small brain dump to at least get a few things out.

I had a small breakthrough today... actually I had 2, but one more momentous than the other. I was out on my walkies this morning, listening to the No Excuses radio show and this lady called in to ask about how to get away from using the scale as the measure of success. He gave some good examples and I had a stray thought that literally stopped me in my tracks.

I had decided to do a once a month weigh in, and as of today I'm down to 176.2. whoo hoo! I'm very excited since I haven't seen that number in forever. I'm even more excited because I'm fast approaching the 30% body fat mark which totally kicks butt! What's even better is the fact that the thought I had was that I don't care if the scale never goes down again, as long as the body fat continues to drop. If I'm at my current weight, but at my goal BF of 20%, I'd have 140 pounds of bone and musckles! So actually, I'd be at my goal weight, just not in the way I anticipated. But what struck me is that I really have moved from relying on the scale for my motivation and for it to tell me what mood I'll be in, and I'm just using it as a tool for the greater picture. Yes, I still get annoyed if it goes up or doesn't go down as fast as *I* want it to, but I understand now that there's more factors to consider and if one part of the equation doesn't seem ideal, maybe the other parts are.

The second thing that happened is that I wore pants today that I haven't been able to wear in years! (I'd say about 8-10 years) They were a little snug in the waist, but they were a solid size 14! No spandex stretchyness, just an unforgiving waistband at a size 1-4! Schweet! I was so excited! I told someone at work about it. "I haven't worn these in 10 years!" I boasted.

Then I realized, "holy cr@p! I'm wearing 10+ year old pants! Why?!" I mean, yes, I deserve to wear a smaller size, but why do I deserve to wear clothes that are that old and are slightly out of style? They're semi'-classic' but the pleats in the front aren't flattering no matter the size and the tapered leg really dates them. So they, along with the 3 other pairs of pants I've been saving till I can wear them again... they're in the donate pile. Yes it's wasteful, but I'm in an entitled mood, so there. :P LOL!

Technorati : Exercise, health, motivation, sparkpeople, thoughts, update, weight