66 days

THURSDAY

So my titles might be a little boring for the next few months. They will be designed to keep me focused on the end goals - eye on the prize as they say. So today we are 66 days out.

How did I do yesterday? Well, not bad. Not phenomenal, but not bad. I did log all my food into Sparkpeople for the first time in months. My total for the day awas 1700 calories. A bit higher than I wanted to be, but I'll accept it as it was filled with mostly nutritious foods - grilled chicken Caesar salad for lunch (with dressing on the side, thank you) and chicken salad sandwich for dinner with lots of lettuce & tomato and a small handful of cashews and 2 slices of cheese. Along with popcorn for a snack. Not bad at all.

Bad news? No exercise. I didn't feel like it (when do I ever feel like it?) after I got home. I did NOT go out for drinks though, like I have for about 2 weeks straight. (small victories). The exercise thing is going to be tough for the next week and a half. I get back to boot camp in July 7th. Until then I'm on my own, and I suck on my own. I actually "thought" about getting up early this morning to run before work, but of course I didn't do it.

The frustrating thing right now is that I'm have a really crappy work situation. I'm working on a case where we we represent a humane society that had contracted with the county to run animal control. According to the contract, the county has the right to review our documents within 3 years of the end of the contract. We terminated our contract earlier this year, and for purely political reasons, the county now wants to audit our documents. So I've been sitting in a conference room all week with three county auditors as they go over our documents and flag the ones they want copied. It's so much bullshit, and I hate not being in my office, but we don't trust them with our documents, so I'm essentially on babysitting duties. Luckily my "charge" is not a real baby and doesn't cry, but it's still very needy! Lol.

Anyway, I am getting some work done down here, and can bill my time to someone regardless, but sheesh it's frustrating. I've had to get in before 9:00 each day - something I don't normally do because of my commute and traffic issues. So, yeah. Getting up to work out before work just isn't happening. Hell - at least I'm working, right?

Another thing this stupid babysitting job is doing, is keeping me from picking up my wedding dress. I really need a 2 hour lunch to get over there to try it on and make sure everything looks right before I leave with it. So far, no good. Maybe this evening if I can kick them out early enough before the store closes.

So - back to goals - I'm having another salad for lunch. Planning to make good choices at dinner, and probably will end up "thinking" about exercising. ;-)

Oh - and no weight post for a week or so as I'm too scared. I need to focus for a bit then see the damage.

9.5 weeks

WEDNESDAY

So I am 9.5 weeks away from the wedding. That would be 67 days. Really? I mean, only 67 days? I feel like I should have more to do. But I keep checking the wedding "checklists" and everything's on track. Now I just need to get closer to finalize a head count, then I can do the last big things on the list. It seems almost too easy.

Now - onto the focus of this blog - weight and weight loss. 9.5 weeks is a long time but not SO long that it is daunting. 4 months is daunting. 67 days is "a bit". I would like to convince myself that I can be a very good dieter/exerciser for 67 days. That doesn't sound unreasonable. I've done it before. We all know I'm going to totally party it up at the wedding and honeymoon beyond. So, can I sacrifice my beloved beer/pizza/fries/burgers/etc. for 67 days? Can I prioritize exercise over poker and sleeping in? Can I?

Of course only time will tell, but here we are, and I'm ready to try. Today I logged my breakfast into spark people. I will log my lunch as well. And dinner. And EXERCISE. Because tonight I am going to dust off my beautiful treadmill and give it a "whirl". Literally. 67 days. I can and WILL do this.

So far today:
Calories consumed: 482
Calories remaining available: 1018
Exercise yet to be done: 60 minutes/~700 calories

HERE WE GO...

Wedding Dress is In

TUESDAY

So I got a call yesterday from my bridal shop to say that my dress has come in - a MONTH early. Crazy. I'm so not ready for this! I'm sure it'll fit, but I'm still not at all where I wanted to be when the dress came in. I think I've decided to hold off on fittings until the end of July when the dress was supposed to come in. I'm going back to Boot camp on July 7th and hopefully will have made some more progress by then.

So the last few weeks I've been totally off program. Letting myself eat and drink what I wanted. It's time to re-focus. All the hard work I did the last couple months had really begun to show. I've had at least 10 people in the last 2 weeks comment on how they could tell I was losing weight. And I've responded by letting myself go. What gives? So - back on track this morning. I skipped the fast food breakfast and opted instead for a high protein option of a balance bar and some cashews. Lunch was a huge salad with chicken breast and vinagrette dressing (on the side!) I also had some sunchips which I didn't need, but overall a good choice. My new plan for the next 10 weeks or so is to try to have a small but protein rich breakfast, a salad for lunch and a "sensible" dinner. I go out a lot for dinner (and lunch for that matter) so maybe I can keep myself in check for 2 meals of the day then try not to go too off course for the dinner.

That's the plan. So far so good today. Here's to tomorrow.

Back to Blogging?

Not Sure on WI...

WEDNESDAY

So I'm not sure why I had such a funk with blogging. I tried to analyze why I didn't want to blog, and I think it was at least partly due to the fact that I've not been good with the bootcamp/eating/dieting thing and I feel like that girl that's always "gonna" lose weight but never does. This blog is supposed to help inspire me, keep me on track, and ultimately help me lose weight. When I've been bad, though I don't want to come on and say my weight, or say how bad I've been. So I say - ah - tomorrow I'll blog after I'm good today. But that just doesn't work sometimes.

So here's declaring. THIS BLOG IS FOR ME. Well duh, you say, who else would it be for? Well, no one in particular, but when you know someone's reading (even if it's only like 3 someones) you feel an obligation to do good. Well, I don't always do good. It's hard to lose weight. And you know what? I can still be a good person even if I don't.

So I'm back, I hope with the same goals, but hopefully not the same fears. Ironically I forgot to weigh myself this morning. Not at all in anticipation of this post. Yesterday morning i was at 217.4, so I'm sure I'm somewhere around there.

So - life is good otherwise. I've finally got some work to do, which translates to TONS of work to do. That's pretty much how it goes, though. Feast or famine. But it's better. I billed less than 100 hours last month (I should average b/w 160-180 each month). And this month until this week I hadn't billed even 40. So this is good. I'm not at a place where I worry about my job in the short run, but if that pace kept up, there'd definitely be trouble.

In other news, I've re-found my obsession with poker. I never really quit playing, and Erik and I have always gone out 1-2 nights a week to play with friends, but recently bought a book by a player I respect greatly, Gus Hansen, called Every Hand Revealed. It's basically the story of how he won the Aussie Millions - a huge annual poker tournament in Australia - in 2007. He tells every hand he played, the circumstance of the table, and his thought process behind is decisions. Fantastically boring for a non-poker player I'm sure, but exceptionally helpful to me. It got me inspired. I'm back playing online, and doing pretty well. I put $100 on my PokerStars account a week ago and have about $300 now. I'm going to try to build up a bankroll for Erik & my September trip to Vegas. We'll see how it goes, but right now I'm really lovin it.

Other than that, wedding plans are going fine. I'm sure there's something I should be doing right now but all the major stuff is taken care of, and we're down to details. I think it'll all work out just fine.

That's about it for now. I'm going to try to stay on the blogging thing. For me. It sure can't hurt. :-)

don't feel like blogging

217.0 (eh).

MONDAY

Not really in the mood to blog today, or the last week really. I'm kinda in a funk. Not sure why. Erik & I got in a fight last night that started over something small then got me all worked up. We're fine now, but it was emotionally draining. I've missed 3 boot camps now, after not making it this morning. I did email my instructors today though and promised to be there tomorrow. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm very slow at work, which leads to stress about my job security. I know it's not just me, but I still stress.

Anyway - hopefully I'll snap out of this shortly. I'm not loving life right now, though even in saying that I realize how selfish that is and how many blessings I have. Why is it sometimes hard to appreciate them?

Epi-lasik Update

216.2

WEDNESDAY

Well, I went in for my 6 week check up yesterday after my Epi-Lasik eye surgery. And ... drum roll please... I have 20/15 in both eyes. *cheer* I knew I could see well, mostly because I don't think about my vision anymore, but it was wonderful to hear that is better than "perfect". I'm so pleased. Hopefully it'll stay that way. I don't have my next check up until August, so we'll see then, but i should be good to go. The Dr. was very pleased.

And, I don't have any of the bad side effects others have complained about. I don't have dry eyes, which may be because I had Epi-Lasik rather than traditional Lasik - I seem to remember reading/hearing that was one of the differences. I don't have halo's or night vision problems. Frankly I feel like I see exactly like I used to with my torric contact lenses in. But with out the troublesome eye irritation from the contacts. Very nice!

No other major update. Today we had "off" from boot camp - one of two week days during the month where we have a break. I was so excited to sleep in, but I think my body has become accustomed to the early morning wake up's (could it be true?!?) because I woke up at 4:45 on the dot, then kept waking up every 30-45 minutes until finally I gave up 30 minutes before my alarm went off. Crazy. I didn't think it was possible. But - back to boot camp tomorrow, so all's well.

On the food front, I still can't commit it seems. Yesterday is a perfect example. I was PERFECT all the way until dinner. Where I had a burger and fries. Boo. I'm trying to counteract this with getting in as much exercise as possible - adding WiiFit workouts to the days I have boot camp. But sheesh - I've got 88 more days. Where am I going to get the motivation to commit?

Same ol' same ol.

I did pick up my bridesmaid dresses yesterday, which look great. I also paid off my dress. And in a hope to feel inspired and motivated, had the clerk write down the body measurements I had taken when I ordered the dress. My thought was that, though I haven't lost a ton of weight, hopefully I've lost inches from the boot camp. I'm going to try to remember to measure tonight.

That's about it...

90 Days and COUNTING.

215.8

MONDAY

This weekend was nice. Except for a little tiff on Friday night with Erik. I got to see Sex and the City twice on Friday. Once with work people, once with my girl friends. Very nice. I got to share a beer with my fellow boot camp graduates. That was nice as well. And after Erik apologized and realized how wrong he was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday shaped up nice as well. Saturday we bought our wedding bands and ordered the tuxes for the wedding. Check and Check off the to do list. Then we went to a friend of his's house for his friend's son's graduation party. That was nice. Then we went home and watched movies together while drinking beer (my last binge for a while, I hope). Sunday we worked on the house. A lot. I got my office set up, did the grocery shopping. He got our seasonal stuff put away in the attic and the yard trimmed/edged. Not a bad day. Then we had a nice dinner at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant.

Didn't want to come to work today...wanted a longer weekend.

Oh well -this morning was the first day of a new month of boot camp. There were only about 8 or 10 new people, and probably 10 or 12 returning people. So it'll be a smaller class this time unless a lot of new people sign up last minute (like I did last month).

So this month, my focus is food. Last month it was surviving the obscenely early morning workouts. Now I feel strong at the workouts, so I need to try to really incorporate their food plan. I'm at 215.8 today. I hope to be under 210 by the end of the month. That's the plan. I know if I do well on food I can do it. It's the unplanned binges that put me behind.

So - today has started off well. I've got 2 of my 5-6 small meals eaten with a plan for all but my dinner, which I have lots of choices at home for. And I hope to get 2 work-outs a day in. On at boot camp and one on either the WiiFit or Treadmill at home at night. I've got 90 days till the wedding. 90 days. That will go SOOO fast, I know it.

Oh and for further motivation? The ring I picked out for my wedding band came in a size 7. They agreed to size it for me, but we decided to wait until closer to the wedding to see what the right size will be. Already I'm down to a 7 1/2 from a 8 1/4 that my engagement ring is. We're getting that sized too. But if I can get down to a 7, no need to size the band, just need to size the engagement ring. I have no idea how many pounds I need to lose to drop .5 size in a wedding band, but hell, it'd be nice recognition if I can do it.

Here we goooooo.


Now I just have to get my work done that's due today.

Oh