Blllaaaaahhhh....

That's how I feel about this round.  I was lying in bed last night (after I skipped on the Chips Ahoy because Tony was going to bed and I didn't want to eat alone at 10:45) thinking about why this is so hard to get into and what was different in January that got me excited about it.  I mean, I remember the feelings of elatement and determination of finally getting off my ass and getting into it.  I remember the results and how good it felt.  But something is holding me back.  I just don't know what.  Probably myself.  I have always been my own worst enemy; I mean, aren't we all?  Even now as I write this post, giving up writing it is in the forefront of my thoughts as my kids nap and I hear doors slamming upstairs from the wind... over and over again, and I have beds to make and laundry to do and my family room is a shit hole... all excuses.  All excuses to not face the truth.  Not to mention how fucking HUNGRY I am right now.  I can't get back into the swing of meals like I had them down pat before... though I'm kinda trying.  I had a handful of Honey Combs as I was shelling out cereal to the kids this morning, really early, thinking it would get my metabolism going and I'd have a real breakfast in another half hour or so.  But then I got caught up on the 'puter, and Holden is way sick and wanted to sit with his momma, and I didn't even get a cup of coffee until 9.  Ouch.  After I made the kids pancakes for lunch I had a Clif bar for lunch.  The fucker is 240 calories, 5g of fiber, and 11g of protein.  That should be enough to hold me over until at least 4 o'clock, but no.  I'm already day dreaming about chocolate chip cookies and cake and loaded mashed potatoes.  Damn it.  I figured the Clif bar was cheap, easy, and filling, and since I have so much to do today I really want to save the time and get into it.  This day, and frankly, all of last week, has been horrid.  My kids are meltdown kings, and with Holden and Nora sick I can barely keep my cool.  They've been SO naughty, pushing every button, deliberately disobeying, fighting, screaming, pushing, hitting, the gamut.  I went upstairs to get the dirty sheets so I could wash them and put them back on, and by the time I got the sheets and vacuumed up there, I came down to every single shoe in the closet (mind you, that's like, 30 shoes) strewn all over the house, along with all the dress up clothes, all the throw blankets, and all the decorative pillows, and at least two of them running and hiding because they were illegally playing with my sewing machine.  Which I don't even have time to play with.  :(

Maybe I feel overwhelmed?  Maybe it's just spring fever and now that winter's finally gone I feel like I can catch up so my mind is in a hundred other places.  Maybe it's my kids being little fucking pukes 90% of the time.  I don't know.  All I know is I need to find motivation somewhere.  Something.  Something to get me INTO it, and KEEP me there.

I just dug up all my old paper photographs to scan and post everything embarrassing on Facebook to humiliate all my closest friends and family, and I look at them and can't imagine being as thin as I was.  In some of them I was 100 pounds lighter than I am now.  In some I was only 50 pounds lighter than I am now.  I can't believe the difference it makes.  I think I was too thin, at 150, and my goal is just to be under 200.  In a perfect world I'd be 160 or 170, but that's never going to happen, and I'm okay with that.  I just want to buy a L dress from a normal store and know that even though a L is a 16/18 the fucking thing will fit and I'll have options outside of Lane Bryant and Wal Mart.  Sheeeit.

I did just jump on the scale, and am at 165.  So that's good.  A start at least.  I have been drinking more water, and trying to snack less.  Also, I've been adding in muscle building exercises anywhere I can.  For instance, I am so horribly out of shape, I can do crunches that I can FEEL sitting in the recliner.  LOL  I've started stretching again (oh, I LOVE stretching!  One of my very good friends suggested a yoga DVD, I think it was Yoga for Every Body that I might get, but in reality, yoga is just stretching with meditation.  I already meditate so all I have to do is stretch, LOL!), and using my muscles more, kind of like pilates in motion?  Like, I'll hold the milk out at the end of my arm for a minute or two after filling the kids' cups.  It's not much, but it's something, and it seems to be working.  I feel stronger, and I can already feel my tummy getting a smidgen tighter.  I also REALLY want to start walking and working on the C25K.  It seems like every day we're so busy that by the time Tony gets home there's so much to do I don't have time, and when I do I haven't showered and I'm so gross I feel like I'd need to shower to be seen outside the house, or by the time the kids are in bed it's dark.  Maybe if I designate a time, say 6:30, just 3x a week, that I leave the house, and it's MY time to walk.  I can give myself that hour no matter how dirty I am, or how buggy it is, and just let Tony deal with the kids and I could be back to help with bedtime.  But even tonight is a bath night, and Tony gets home at 5:30, dinner will be at 6, baths at 6:30 (and trust me, NO ONE wants to bathe 4 kids alone, LOL!), bed at 8, and by then it's dark.  Not to mention that the weather has been stormy and rainy the last week or so, and it hasn't exactly been the best weather to start an exercise routine in.  I mean, not that I'd melt, but I think I'd do better running in the rain once I'm actually jazzed about running.  Right now it still feels like a chore.  LOL

Well, I had to check in.  I am still trying.  If anyone can find motivation for me, please send it this way.  Right now though I have to go make 5 beds and finish up the laundry.  Ya know, before the kids wake up and re-spread the shoes everyfuckingwhere.  :P

Much love,

Oops

I wish I'd never gotten sick.  It is, without a doubt, the single most thing that threw me off my road to recovery.  I am bitter about it, very bitter.  I was doing SO well.  I was at a point where I no longer had cravings for processed foods and sugar.  I no longer needed to eat an entire box of mac & cheese without feeling cheated.  I no longer needed to fill my cereal bowl in order to feel satisfied.  Because I made smarter choices; instead of two overflowing bowls of Fruit Loops, I'd have a cup of granola or Kashi, or granola and Kashi mixed together.  Instead of a whole box of mac & cheese, I'd have a few tablespoons of mac & cheese, with a protein and a whole box of frozen veggies, with a promise to myself that I wouldn't feel bad if I decided to have popcorn with butter for TV snack.  I was actually craving HEALTHY foods like veggies and fruit instead of Hostess cupcakes and Ben & Jerry's.  I never made any qualms about not giving up my favorite foods, but I had learned how to eat a cup of low fat ice cream instead of a pint of 32g of fat per serving.  When I got the stomach flu, I was sick for WEEKS afterward, and even had another bout of another stomach flu  (it was a bad winter illness-wise).  I couldn't figure out how to eat veggies without my whole digestive system revolting.  Let alone lose my cravings for comfort foods and bland tastes that I had when I was pregnant; pasta, mashed potatoes, breads, etc.  And while I definitely blame my decline on a couple of viruses, I also take responsibility for not having more tenacity and motivation and determination to not let myself fall to the point where I wasn't back on track after a brief oops.  I mean, we've all been there, right?  I think the biggest diet sabotage, for me, is boredom.  So once I got to the point where the newness and fun started to wear off, though I tried to stick to it, I got sick, and that was just my "good" excuse to fall off the horse and wait for the next wagon instead of getting back on.  I suck.  I feel like a failure, and while I tried so many new and different ways to trick myself into it, it was still a diet all along.  SIGH.

Needless to say, I've kinda let myself go...  A few days ago I weighed in at 264.5, and today I just got on the scale at 269.5.  Granted, I had a Chinese food feast with my parents on Saturday, after pizza, cake, and ice cream at a birthday party, and I had the rest of my Chinese leftovers for lunch today, so I'm retaining a shit load of water, but I've lost almost all of the good habits I worked so hard to put in place.  Gone is a small breakfast after waking up; gone is the lack of cravings for veggies, and in its place are the old icky cravings for doughy sugary goodness; gone is my will to drink at least 36oz of water a day (which I didn't pick for a particular reason, I just thought two full plastic cups was a good place to start, and our Target $1.99 cups hold 18oz.); it's all gone.  I am going to have to dig deep to find the motivation to get them all back.  Maybe firing up the old blog will help.  I'll tell you what... hopping on the scale to see the 270's looming before me got my ass DIRECTLY to the computer to blog about it.  I kicked 270 to the curb for forever.  I will at least hold true to that.  If I can lose 20 pounds and get down to 250, maybe I'll be able to wear shorts this season.  ::eyeroll::  And I'll kick 250 to the curb for forever.

I kind of have new motivation, though I've never thought of "events" a good reason to lose weight.  It's the worst way to diet.  A crash diet sends you into starvation and low-blood-sugar-shakes, and after pissing your brains out for 6 months drinking a gallon of water a day and gagging down only foods that come out of a garden, you lose 50 pounds, only to look stellar, not normal, at your event, and then blimp out again two months post vacation/wedding/school reunion/etc.  Eating healthy and losing weight should be a lifestyle change.  A permanent change.  Something that you don't get overnight because you have to seek and destroy 30 years of horrible eating habits.  BUT... my brother is getting married on a cruise to the Caribbean in November after an 8-month engagement.  I'm a size 24.  Fatter than my mom, my husband, my father-in-law.  My bathing suit, which looked awesome online, has ruching across the stomach for a disguising effect; except on me it just flattens over my stomach and all the slippery material collects over and under my massive gut.  PUKE.  Along with a Caribbean vacation cruise, this vacation is Tony's and my 10th Anniversary trip.  We're getting the stateroom with the veranda, we're living it up with the full drink package, and I want to zip-line across Wallings Forest in Antigua.  Max weight to participate is 265.  We went to Antigua on our honeymoon with the intent of hiking the rainforest, but of course as fate would have it, they were in the middle of the worst draught in recent years' history, and the whole island was brown.  Nothing lush about it.  LOL.  So that didn't exactly happen.  And I'd like to wear my rings when we go.  And not feel like a spitfire pig.  Not to mention I'd really like to fit in the airline seat. 

So there it is.  I'm going to try to get back in the game, no matter how lame my motivations are, they're motivators.  Which I desperately need.  I'm starting the Couch to 5K program, and am going to start off by drinking more water, and getting in breakfast.  We'll see how that goes.  Hopefully those will be easy so that I can get used to those 3 steps, and then pick up 3 more.  I have 6 months, and I'd like to lose 50 pounds in that time.  It's a lot to aim for.  Maybe too much.  Maybe 35 is a more realistic goal; 1.5 pounds a week-ish?  We'll see anyway.  Who the fuck knows.  All I DO know is that it's going to take a miracle for me to lose anything with how I've been eating lately.  Dayum.

Much love,

I AM Still on the Bandwagon!

Sorry I've been MIA.  Like I said, I got off track after being sick, and the last two weeks and this week are ridiculously busy.  Well, for our world anyway.  I won't even get a break until Thursday!  I've also been staying really busy around the house, which is great!  I had been sick since Thanksgiving, on and off, leading to a sinus infection, with a week off before getting the flu, so I am REALLY behind on my household chores.  My house is a shit hole, and we still have some things to unpack and/or organize.  I'm way behind where I wanted to be by this point.  So having the energy and ability to do work is really working out for me.  Yesterday I put away ALL of my laundry.  ALL OF IT!!!  I feel like a Goddess.  Like, who actually gets their laundry washed, dried, sorted, folded, AND put away all in one day?  ME!  Though there were like 6 clean baskets of laundry sitting in my bedroom for the last two months, so... yeah.  It's gone now though, and it's going to be lovely to look through a closet again instead of digging through a basket for clean undies.

I AM still working on losing weight, making smart decisions and being healthier.  I'm currently at 263.5, so I haven't really lost anything, but I have been able to maintain the weight loss I DID achieve while I was so busy, and out and about, so that makes me feel good.  I haven't been super careful, or choosy about my food, there have been points of weakness and junk food and cheating (it is that time of the month).  But I'm okay with that.  I have never wanted my weight loss to be a quick drop.  I don't have a time goal, really.  I want to lose weight slow enough so that I don't get saggy skin.  Plus, the slower you lose the weight the more likely you are to keep it off, and that is my main goal.  To keep it off and find a new attitude and lifestyle with food that keeps me HEALTHY.  Sans saggy skin.  So I'm trying to get back on track.  I went grocery shopping on Saturday and spent $240 on healthy foods.  Which almost gave me a heart attack.  Pft!  I can't wait for summer, I'm thinking of starting a veggie garden.  And even if I don't, the farmer's markets provide fresh, ripe, local fruit and veggies for DIRT CHEAP.  And that's exciting!

All that told, I'm going to try to blog regularly again.  At LEAST three times a week.  I figure I can make time for my self, my feelings, and my weight loss buddies at least that often.  Because I really do love blogging.  I am a person who loves to hear herself talk, and I have no outlet.  Besides talking to myself, which Tony hates.

Let's see... what'd I eat yesterday... One of the best parts of taking pictures of all my food to post here was that it helped me remember what I'd eaten.  I've gotten out of the habit of taking pics, and maybe I should try it again.  It's time consuming, but it really helps keep me on track and excited about what I eat.  I can remember lunch and dinner on Saturday (a small Buffalo burrito with chicken from Boloco, which as it turns out, is in the 811-calorie-range.  Oops.  Dinner was meatloaf (made with 1/2 lean beef, and 1/2 turkey and low fat cheese, so I tried to be smart making my family a dinner by cutting calories from a normal recipe), a baked potato with butter and low-fat sour cream, and a shit ton of green beans.  I was so full by the end that I couldn't finish my potato!  Go me!!  One big change I've noticed is that my stomach has shrunk.  A LOT.  And I am trying REALLY HARD not to over eat and expand my stomach again.  Feeling full after half a plate of food is awesome!!  And before I forget I made brownies but with applesauce and only one egg, so they were fairly low fat... but I ate 4 or 5.  Oops again.), and everything I ate yesterday.  So here's how I stuffed my gullet on Superbowl Sunday:  Breakfast was Vanilla Almond Special K with a 1/2 cup of vanilla almond granola.  Lunch was a Kashi Cranberry Walnut bar and a banana (it was quick and on-the-go since I found myself starving in the middle of my laundry crisis and didn't want to lose my motivation by stopping to eat).  I had a chocolate bar for snack (not the best choice), and a handful of mixed nuts.  For dinner I had more nuts and a single french fry, and a single chicken nugget.  While watching The Black Eyed Peas destroy the Superbowl Half-Time show, I ate about a cup of ice cream, which was fucking DELICIOUS.  It tasted like real ice cream, and I'm a peanut butter whore.  It was the best light ice cream I've ever had.  Yay.  And instead of destroying a pint of Ben & Jerry's in one half hour, I ate a reasonable amount and was satisfied!  Yay!

I'm going to try to do better this week; weekends are always hard for me.  I want to get back on track and see the scale move again.  Because like I said, I'm not in it to lose 100 pounds in 4 months.  I'd rather take a year to do it, but not stress myself out over it.  So I'm ready to get back into it, now that Aunt Flo is on her way out, and taking her chocolate cravings with her.  I even find now that with snacking, I don't want junky food.  I'd rather have a handful of nuts or a cup of ice cream than 3 Devil Dogs.  Which is good.  Baby steps, but progress.

I hope to be back to blog soon, and I promise to try harder!!!

Much love,

A Lot of Ifs, Ands, & Buts

Damn it, that was a rough weekend!  I'm finally feeling a bit better and am starting to graduate to real food again.  (The girls haven't gotten it... yet...)  Though I'm finding I'm having a particularly tough time trying to stay on track now.  I don't know if it was from how bad I felt, and how awful food was (never thought I'd say that), or if it's because my stomach shrank so much (why am I not EMBRACING this wonderful side effect???), or if it's because after I get sick I crave comfort foods and usually give in to meatball subs and french toast, or if it's because my rag is coming soon-ish, or what.  But it's really discouraging me.  I can't decide if I want to eat some comfort foods for a couple of days but just control my portions and see if I feel better and will get the appetite for better foods, or if I should just plug onward with broccoli for dinner and deal with the stomach ache.  I feel like if I ate comfort foods it might be like starting all over again even if I had portion control, kinda like a starving shark that catch a whif of fresh blood on the current and WHAMO! they're like a caged beast trying to escape with its life.

So yeah... I'm stuck and stressed and freaking out.  Only a little.  But I don't want to blow this.  I don't want to fall back into the fatass abyss like I always do.  And I understand that normal people can eat a 6" meatball sub and have no issue with it, even if they're not trying to lose weight.  Because they're starting low, if one meatball sub bloats them up a half a pound they'll lose it the next night with their typical veggie stir fry.

So what do I do?  Who knows.  But I think I'm going to have a meatball sub for dinner tonight; a small one, plain.  Because I'm finding that that which I truly crave is not substituted by consuming every other food in the house.  Ugh!  So far today I've eaten a banana, a PB&J, a handful of Baked Cheddar Ruffles, about 6 Russell Stover chocolates left over from Christmas, and just now about 1/2 cup of cherry pie filling with frozen fat free cool whip on it.  I TOLD you I'm losing all control!!!  And damn it if it isn't Aunt Flo's fault.  She's a dirty bitch.  I have about a week left of this PMS bullshit and I'm starting to wonder how much weight I can gain in a week.  Probably everything I've lost.  Because we ALL know it's a CINCH to gain weight, and a BITCH to get it off.

Regardless of all that shit, I've lost a total of 13 pounds.  My weight this morning was 263, which is AWESOME.  That's almost a pound a day, even with the wackiness of the flu and rehydrating.  My poop is almost solid again, which might help my body regulate better and use the food better.  I don't know if that's bullshit or not because I just made it up.  Sounds like a good theory, right?

Since I'm so far behind in blogging, I may try to catch up from this past weekend, I may not.  I don't want to be stressed about blogging or losing weight or changing my habits because I know myself and I know that being stressed and discouraged are my biggest pitfalls.  So I just have to change the way I look at things.  And if that means I don't get to go back in time and make 5 posts, then I don't.  I'd rather be unstressed, and posting current, and losing weight.  So we'll see how I feel.  Plus, I have the hankering to play with my sewing machine and I don't think I'd have time for that if I wanted to catch up blogging.  I didn't eat much anyway so I guess the posts would kinds be boring.  I mean, for you.

Much love,

Just Dropping in for a Sec... And a TMI Warning

Just wanted to update everyone that I am hella fucking disgustingly sick.  Like, sitting on the toilet with a bucket in my lap sick.  Well, I was yesterday, and I stopped puking around 2 AM, just around the time Holden started puking.  ::sigh::  I still have the runs, so I haven't eaten anything since yesterday morning's Bear Naked Triple Berry crunch, which I doubt I will be able to eat ever again after throwing it up for 14 hours straight.  In case you're wondering, throwing up granola is kind of like eating it - it has the same consistency either way.

So far today I've had 3 glasses of ginger ale, which I praise Allah for since I was so dehydrated last night I would have to get out of bed just to run my tongue under cold water in the bathroom until it felt wet again.  It was horrible.  Let alone that throwing up is my least favorite activity, next to holding spiders.

The "silver lining" to all this is that I dropped 11 pounds.  Overnight.  ELEVEN!!!  Holy shit.  I went from 265.5 yesterday morning to 254 this morning.  WOW.  No doubt I'll make most of it up, but hopefully I'll at least get a jump-start on next week's weight loss when I do start eating again.  It would be nice to start up at 254, since I haven't seen the 250's since the triplets were newborns.  But I know the best way to lose weight is the healthy way, and vomiting once an hour for 14 hours is not healthy.

I'm feeling a bit better and contemplating dinner, which is hard since I want to go straight for comfort food.  Hm.  Maybe some toast and some chicken noodle soup will be a good avenue to take, kinda not healthy, but still comfort food.  It's not like the waffles my kids are eating that I'm drooling over while my intestines make ungodly sounds.

Here's to feeling better tomorrow, and not having any more pukers in the house.  Please, God.  If you are out there, make my kids healthy.  I don't know if I can handle more throw up in one weekend.  Okay, I've used all the strength I had from the 5 crackers I ate an hour ago typing this, and I must be off.  Plus, I have to hit the bathroom.  Like, NOW.

Much love,

It's About Time!

I weighed in this morning at 267.5 (my scale only does 1/2 pound incraments, thank GOD), which is half a pound up from yesterday's 267.  BUT - what all of this really means is that I kicked 270 to the curb and will NEVER see it again!!!  HOORAY for teensey tiny milestones!!!

I don't know how I gained a half pound, since I was really, really good yesterday.  I was secretly hoping to get to 265, or at the very least hit the 10 pounds lost mark.  Oh well.  Tomorrow is another day, and who knows, with my wacky scale I could step on tomorrow and see those results, so long as I stay strong today.  (I'm picturing myself as a Rosie the Riveter type, except instead of showing off my guns I'm holding up a carrot.  HA!  I'm weird.)

It was a snow day yesterday, we got about 6" of snow, and Tony worked from home.  After seeing the scale yesterday morning I had a HUGE burst of motivation.  I had another bowl of Kashi Go Lean and my standard 3 cups of coffee.  I managed to not snack in the AM, thanks to the 18g of protein (or whatever the insane amount is) in the cereal, and the caffeine that kept me rolling.  Plus, catching up blogging all morning kept my hands and mind occupied so I wasn't tempted to eat out of boredom.

By the time lunch rolled around I was hungry.  I had a WW Smart Ones Ravioli Florentine meal, and it was really good.  It even resembled the picture on the box!  I don't know if it was just me or the meal was too light or what, but I was hungry all afternoon.  That sucked because it led to snacking, but I tried to keep my snacks healthy.  Around 3 o'clock I had about 10 Roasted Garlic Triscuts, 6 with cheddar cheese.  The cheese pieces weren't huge, they were about half the size of the cracker, but neither was low-fat.  Around 4:30 I was hungry again, and craving something sweet, so I grabbed a 100-Calorie Snack pack of Golden Oreo Mini-Cakesters and OMG were they ever FABOULOUS!!!!!  They tasted like tiny, dry, frosted vanilla cupcakes.  Mmmm.  Totally worth the money and the calories if you have a craving.

I fed the kids a ghetto supper while Tony plowed, so I didn't eat until later.  It was around 8:30 when I finally realised I didn't have dinner.  At least the cakesters kept me full, LOL!  I made a delicious Healthy Choice steam lunch meal, Garlic Herb Shrimp.  Since it was only 260 calories and I was craving spinach, I ate an entire package of frozen chopped spinach with it.  I added 2 tablespoons of butter, which I didn't think was too bad for an entire package, and salt, pepper and garlic powder.  The whole meal was totally filling and satisfying and I was pleasantly surprised by the Healthy Choice meal.  It smelled awesome, and was really yummy.  Very light and colorful and flavorful.  Like most frozen meals with shrimp, I felt the shrimp was overcooked and rubbery but it wasn't too too bad.

Beacause I ate late, and because it kept me nice and full, I didn't have a single snack all night.  It helped that I was watching Heavy, and just like Hoarders, I had no desire to eat while watching it.  The show was outstanding, and I found it as inspiring as I'd hoped.  I didn't like the whiney fat girl on the show, but I liked the trainers, the pace, and the information.  I didn't like the end, because I guess I was expecting more of an update like you get at the end of Intervention or Hoarders, and that wasn't really there.  But the show overall was good enough for me to want to save it on DVR so I could watch it again.  The more motivation I can find, the better, and I'll take every little drop I can!  I CAN do this!

Much love,

MLK Monday - And That Mother Fucking Scale

AGAIN.  271.5.  Are you fucking kidding???  One day, okay; it's a fluke.  Two days???  Has to be that I gained 3 pounds overnight.  DAMN IT!  The weekend was OBVIOUSLY a bust, so I had to commit to doing my very best on the weekdays to insure that a couple of minimal slip ups on the weekends wouldn't derail my progress as much as it had.  Taking two steps forward and one step back every week would take me AGES to get to my goal.  With that in mind I set my sights on eating like a rabbit so I could re-lose what I gained sooner than later.

I woke up sick.  Not totally deathly ill, but really run down and so congested that I went through a box of tissues in just the morning.  I blew my nose so many times it was raw and scratchy by lunch.  Not a great way to start the week.  Thank goodness Tony was home to kid wrangle because I wanted to do nothing more than to sleep the day away.  Breakfast was Kashi Go Lean, which tasted remarkably like cardboard, and resembled rabbit food and bird seed combined in one box.  It wasn't delish, but it did satisfy, and it kept me full all morning.  I goofed off for a couple of hours and then decided to shower and do some more laundry, and we decided we'd take the kids to McDonald's for dinner and to play in the Play Place.  I put away some stuff that was already on hangers, folded the little girls' jammies, and decided I couldn't handle it.  I took a quick shower and crashed into bed, sleeping for as long as I could.  I have no idea how long it actually was, but I woke up with the low-blood-sugar-shakes at 3:30, and three kids screaming, "McDonald's!!!" in my ear.  I gathered some clothes for the kids, got some pants on, made myself a PB&J to take the edge off of not having eaten since breakfast.  I didn't gob on either, and I made it on rye, so it was as healthy as I could toss together for something to take in the car.

We let the kids play for about an hour, maybe more, before making them eat.  They had Happy Meals, Tony had a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (which I realised is really just a Half Pounder with Cheese, and why didn't they just call it that?), and I had a salad.  It was the Bacon Ranch one, but again I went easy on the dressing.  I also got a hot cocoa, not a vanilla shake, made with skim milk and no chocolate.  Those fuckers were out of cocoa mix so they had to give me chocolate drizzle and mix it up, and it ended up not being very chocolaty at all.  Of course I snarfed a couple of fries from the kids' meals, but it was less than 10.  Not bad.

I managed to not snack at all because I schlepped around until just before 9 when I decided to go back to bed.  I was exhausted, and had no interest in ANYTHING at all, so I called it quits.  Being sick sucks.


Since I don't have any fun pictures, let's start talking goals.  I have several goals, several things driving me to finally lose the weight.  One of my main goals is to be able to put my wedding band and engagement ring on again.  I haven't been able to squeeze my fat fingers into either since I was about 2 months pregnant with the triplets.  Everyone asks why I haven't I just had them re-sized, and the answer is always the same: "I'm going to lose the weight."  I don't want them to stretch the gold and ruin the thickness, let alone the inscription.  But how long can I use the, "I'm going to lose the weight" excuse?  This year will mark Tony's and my 10th wedding anniversary.  Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to get them back on for that?  I think so.  Plus, I've been wearing these fake rings from Macy's for over 3 years now, and they're not nearly as beautiful as my real set.  So that's why I made Fitting Back Into my Rings one of my goals.  Here's the hysterical part... I think they're a size 6.5 and 6.75, and I was around 180 pounds, give or take, when I got them.  So I figure if I can get down to around 200 I should be able to get them on (and back off) without too much trouble.  We'll see.  But a goal is a goal and if it takes me getting to 180 to get them on, then God damn it I will.

Another really, really good reason I have for wanting to lose weight is my knees.  My knees have been FUCKED UP since I had the trio, so almost 3 years now, and I'm sick of it.  I can't kneel without pain and swelling for days afterwards, and forget crouching.  I crouched once in CVS to look at the make-up on the bottom of the wall and FELL OVER.  It was one of my most embarrassing moments.  I don't know if anyone saw, but I hope they didn't.  I literally got down half way, yelped - loudly, and fell onto my ass, my legs tangled up because my knees wouldn't bend.  And not only was it embarrassing, it hurt like HELL.  Oy.  I've gotten a few cortisone shots, which really help, but not long term.  And what I need is long term health for my knees.  I already have arthritis in the infancy stages on at least my left knee, and I don't want it progressing.  Since I'm already evolutionarily inferior with flat feet, my knees are meant to turn in.  Now that I'm so fat they aren't able to, and I think that a lot of the miniscus bruising I have is just from walking with too much weight on my legs.  My natural stride is no longer natural, and so it's forcing my knees to sit differently, and cause the pain.  (If you're interested at all, this program is wonderful, and taught me a lot: NGC's The Science of Obesity.)  Plus, I've read that for every 1 pound of weight you lose, you take 4 pounds of pressure off your knees.  That would mean if I can lose the full 75 pounds of weight, that would relieve 300 - THREE HUNDRED! - pounds of pressure of my knees with EVERY step.  No wonder my knees are so fucked up.  So that's why I made My Knee Health one of my goals.

I'll go over more goals another day.  Right now I have the Heavy premiere on DVR that I am dying to see.  I have a feeling it will be a super motivator, and I am really, really excited to watch it.

Much love,