Optimism and Realism

It appears my guesstimate of losing 5+ pounds by Monday might have been a bit optimistic; I'm holding steady-ish at the low-146 scale reading.  Although the "low-146" is moving ever closer to 145, unless my body does something terribly interesting over the weekend (which I will grant you is still possible) I'll be more at 4-ish pounds lost for the week.

It's still primarily water weight, and still nothing to sneeze at.

I've done the calculations and if I keep eating at the level I'm currently choosing and exercising at my current rate*, I believe it will take me about 100 days to get back to 135.  That puts my target date at Monday, April 22nd.  Okay it's more like 105 days if we're counting from this past Monday and 102 days from today, but I'm calling it an even 15 weeks just to keep my A/R tendencies happy.

Well, I've got to keep some part of me happy.  Because 100 days?  Holy cow.  The time it took me to gain this weight was only a month.  December 3rd I had a blog entry announcing my post-Thanksgiving return to 135, and today I'm still more than ten pounds over that.

Appallingly, I'm actually questioning if it was worth it.  Questioning it!  Shouldn't this be a no-brainer?  No, no Amanda, the food fest was NOT worth 100 days of a limited wardrobe, feeling bloated, and having your chest crushed (thanks to part of my weight gain being in bra-relevant areas).  It is NOT worth having to watch yourself so carefully you're pushing the office chocolates onto your coworkers simply because this way you won't eat them**.

On the good news front, though, I continue 100% on-plan for both food and exercise, so that's freaking awesome.  The guys were going out to lunch today at a new restaurant which we'd all tried to hit over the holidays but gave up because it was packed.  I told them I'd just take their review, and I stayed in and ate my salad (which was already paid for anyway, yay!).

Things are looking up.  We'll see what that scale says on Monday :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

*1200 calories/ day averaged over the course of a week
1 hour brisk walking in the evening + 20-30 minutes resistance training in the morning.

**Yes, I was totally a food-pusher yesterday and worse yet I'm only mildly ashamed.  My coworkers are adult men.  They're big boys; they can take it in more ways than one.  If they don't want chocolate they don't have to eat it.  And their metabolisms still beat mine easily.

This is Where the Title Goes!

Yeah, I was totally at a loss when it came to naming the post :P

This morning I weighed on the thin side of 146, so I figure by Monday the scale will show a "loss" of 5+ pounds from this past Monday's high of 149.  "Loss" is in quotation marks because let's face it, 5+ pounds in one week for a woman of my weight* and height is ridiculous -- it's primarily water retention, and I know that.  But I have to say that I don't mind seeing the scale go down.

I am 100% on-track with both my food and my fluids, and I'm staying there.  I keep a tally of fluids, and I take in a minimum of 80 ounces of water per day, 18 ounces of unsweetened herbal tea (Tazo's "Passion" and a peppermint tea), 18 ounces of unsweetened caffeinated tea (1 cup Tazo's Green Ginger, 1 cup black mint), and a jeroboam of black coffee (okay maybe not quite that much, but at least 24 ounces).  Diet Coke also happens, but in much smaller quantities than it once did because one can't drink tons of Diet Coke while also consuming the rest of that mess. 

I used to sweeten at least the Passion, but I've since determined that if I can't justify actual, honest-to-gosh sugar in my tea and coffee, I'll drink them straight.  I already get more than enough artificial sweetener with the Diet Coke; I don't need to add more. 

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The Nia class I took last night was interesting on a few levels.  I'd heard about Nia for awhile and had been curious as to what it entailed, but we had no local providers -- the nearest class was an hour away.  That changed when one of my friends got herself certified in Nia.  She offered an open house for it, so I attended.  And I have to say... it's not my style?  Or perhaps it's just not for me at this time in my life.  It's got a "get in touch with your inner goddess" vibe to it, and my inner goddess is as much of a klutz as my outer goddess, so frankly she's no help.  Furthermore, neither my inner nor my outer goddess are fans of any sort of improvisational movement.  Moving in a choreographed fashion strains my abilities enough!

Also, I learned just how freaking awful my knees really are, in comparison to every other woman in that class.  The attendees ranged in age from early twenties to late sixties, and the lone standout, literally, was me.  The movements we used involved a lot of circling, knee bending, knee flexing, etc, and I... couldn't participate much of the time.  It sucked.  I felt old.

I've never really considered myself disabled or anything like that.  I mean, I have to be cautious with all lower-body exercises thanks to my knees.  My quads, hamstrings, and glutes are all affected by this.  But there are absolutely exercises I can do for them, and I do.  I'm just limited in how much I can do which means their potential development is less. 

I also have to be cautious with my aerobic exercise.  The terrain where I walk has to be stable or familiar lest I risk re-injury (unacceptable, because that means zero aerobic exercise until it's better).  Running is off the table.  It's too high-impact.  Even walking past a certain speed is a no-no.  I can go up to 4 MPH, which isn't godawful slow, but dang it cheeses me off.  So we're stuck with walking or the recumbent bicycle.

I know, I know.  Suck it up, Buttercup. I'm just annoyed.  Last night brought it home to me that I'm really in much worse shape with those joints than I'd realized. I've gotten used to it, and with the accommodations I tend to use for myself it's livable for the most part.  I'm accustomed to the near-constant twinge in my right knee.  It's normal for me to watch something to make sure if I can do it without hosing my joints yet again.  I. Am. Functional.  I look at my little brother who had two back surgeries at age 32, had another one less than two weeks ago, and who's using a walker. 

He's only 39.

I'm blessed, truly. 

Oh well.  I've been living with it awhile, I can keep on living with it.  I don't have the 6 weeks of zero driving time that surgical recovery would require, and even with this latest revelation I simply can't justify the expense or the way my entire family -- nuclear and extended -- would be inconvenienced by me being out of commission.  I can move, and I can exercise.  It's not the way I want to but it's the way I've got.

Whine over.  Humpday is here.  That's a good thing.  Carry on, folks!


*I know I weigh more than I prefer, but I also know that I'm still well within a normal weigh range for my height and age.

2013

Heya gang!  Yep, I'm still alive. Again. Really, are you shocked? I didn't think so :P

To get the ugly and embarrassing stuff out of the way, no I didn't take my own advice over the holidays even after my recovery from The Thanksgiving Debacle. The reasons why are numerous and private* and I've gone over them in my brain and am understanding better why I have been coping by eating ALL THE FOOD (Holy Jesus God it was bad) during the month of December, but it's done and I'm back on track. Weight yesterday was 149. Yes, you read that right. I am a rockstar when it comes to gaining weight.

Eyeroll.

Anyway, I've had 1.5 good days. Yesterday was 100% on plan, today will be, and the rest of January will proceed likewise. At the moment I'm following the eating plan I was using before all hell broke loose:

Breakfast
1 egg, 2 whites
1/2 ounce cheese
1 cup seasonal fruit

Lunch
1-2 cups dark leafy greens
3-4 oz chicken (breast today)
2+ TBSP fresh salsa (I don't stress on this measurement)
2 TBSP 2% fat cheddar, shredded (I measure this with great precision)
2 TBSP reduced fat sour cream (see cheddar notation)
100 calorie pack spicy Wholly Guacamole

Dinner
1 turkey burger
1 "Ultra Thin" slice Swiss cheese
1 TBSP-ish Boar's Head Deli Style Mustard
2 cups steamed broccoli with lemon juice and black pepper

Snacks (optional)
50 - 100 calories fruit
1 TBSP peanut butter
1 cup max FroYo

This keeps me between 1000 and 1200 calories per day, depending on my snack choices.  If I eat all of the snacks, I'm right at 1200.

The reason I say "at the moment" is because I'm toying with mixing it up with the lunch or dinner, but right now I don't have energy or inclination so I believe I'm going to stick with what works.  The evening protein might change from turkey to fish, depending on what's available, and my evening vegetable may vary to wilted spinach, roasted Brussels sprouts or asparagus.

Weekends I can go up to 1500 calories, but I may not.  It depends.

Activity-wise I've managed to straighten out my knee for the moment and am wearing the brace to make sure it doesn't go crazy on me again.  That just sucks too much for words.  So last night, Brent and I went on a very brisk walk outside (in the air!), tonight I've got a Nia class I'm taking for fun, Wednesday is belly dancing, Thursday will be walking, Friday will be walking, and I'm pretty sure there will be walking aplenty on Saturday and Sunday.  Failing that, I'll get on the recumbent bicycle and pedal for awhile.

Wake-up call is at 5:30 for my resistance exercises.  When I feel like slacking I just think about my age and the fact that women over forty lose muscle at an alarming rate only to replace it with fat.  Flatly unacceptable.

Some of you may be wondering how I'm even wearing clothes, considering I got rid of everything that doesn't fit me (usually).  The answer would be rather uncomfortably.  I spent the last part of December and the first week of this month in skirts.

I hate skirts.

So... yeah.  This ends now.

Happy 2013, everyone!!!

 
*To clarify a bit:  "Private" in that the issues causing stress are not mine to share, but I can share that they are not involving members of my direct household, for which I am incredibly grateful.  But it sucks, it really does.  Both the ongoing mess as well as my total coping fail.

Merry Christmas!

Or Happy Festivus, whathaveyou... regardless, enjoy :D 

And We're Back!

To 135, that is.  All is well in the World of Amanda's Work Wardrobe.

Whew.

Outside of that, not much is going on beyond me coming down with the Office Plague.  We had two down for the count and two going down with it on Friday, and when I woke up Sunday morning I knew I'd been hit.  I missed work today but appear to be improving so the grand plan is to drag my ailing-but-no-longer-contagious self into the office tomorrow to survey the damage.

Anyone want to place bets on how many items have been hijacked from my desk?  I'm guessing my scissors have gone missing, likely my red pen, and also my staple puller.

We shall see.  I'll report back.

Aftermath

Hopefully we all survived Thanksgiving relatively unscathed!

I did, more or less.  To my chagrin I didn't end up following my own advice (*eyeroll*) and extended the holiday from Wednesday evening through Sunday evening.  And I will absolutely admit that I didn't put on a pair of my "normal" work pants until Wednesday (yesterday) morning when I knew most of the bloat had passed.  They're fitting fine; I'm sitting at 137, which is a pound or two over my normal-esque weight, which also means that I was a total crazy woman.

Why?  Not going into it here.  Suffice it to say that it's nothing going on directly within my own household (thank you, powers that be) and although there are other, more constructive ways to deal with stress rather than eat, food was definitely my coping mechanism in the moment.

That said, as soon as Monday hit I was back on track.  Even my extended "breaks" have limits, and the looming threat of the lack of a suitable wardrobe cannot be emphasized enough as a deterrent.

Now I just have to make it through the beginning of January without busting out at the seams.  It's totally do-able.  I think I might report in weight-wise once a week until this latest bout of lunacy is over.

Accountability:  it doesn't suck.

Just FYI...

All is well!!  I just got back from a dance workshop, which was a blast (outside of me being totally overwhelmed, that is), and everyone is doing nicely.  To give some of you more to be thankful about, I've started a secondary blog, It's All About the Herps (why stick with one crappy title when you can have two?) to spare you my ramblings about my reptilian household members.  Considering we're getting two more snakes -- ball pythons -- I thought y'all might appreciate that ;)

Have a very happy weekend everyone, and remember Thanksgiving dinner is ONE FREAKING MEAL :P

I'm Not Easily Distracted, but... oh Look! Shiny!

Hey gang, I'm alive!  I'm just terribly, terribly distracted.  My best wishes, thoughts, and prayers go out to everyone who was hit by Hurricane Sandy.  My sister lives in Brooklyn, so we've been staying pretty up-to-date. I'm just floored, and shattered for all in the area who are still being affected by the fallout from this storm.

Another point of distraction would be that the Gum Zombie's reptile-mania is only entrenching itself deeper, and since I have no objection to being overrun with reptiles (within reasonable limits, and granted "reasonable" is highly subjective), I've been researching like a fiend.  This is taking up what available time I have outside of work, homework, housework, workouts, dance, cat care, Hound duty, and socializing/maintaining the reptiles we already do possess, but if we're bringing more animals into the house I'm going to be darned sure we know what we're doing and that we can afford (financially and time-wise) to take care of them responsibly. 

I can guarantee you that I, personally, will be bringing no lizards of any kind into my home.  They're cute and have personality, but I have other things to take up my time beyond chopping salad for a giant herbivore; gut-loading bugs for the omnivores similarly lacks appeal.  I've considered a Sulcata tortoise, but in light of the fact that they grow quickly from a very cute hatchling size (2-3 inch shell length) to being the third largest tortoise in the world (18 - 36 inch shell length), I think we're going to take a pass for a bit.  I'm not quite ready to sign my back yard over to an animal that's going to not only outlive me, but also rearrange my landscaping to suit its wishes.

So this leaves us more or less with... snakes.  Lots and lots of snakes, at least someday if that child has his way.  My current big mission is preparing a habitat for our first ball python, which I believe we'll be bringing home sometime between spring and fall of 2013.  I have a tank already, but ball pythons have very specific humidity requirements (50-60% normally, 70% while shedding) which can be problematic when you're dealing with a glass enclosure and screen top, so this is requiring some work/ consideration.  Also, I need to provide not only adequate heat levels in addition to the humidity, but I need to monitor same and be sure I have a proper power supply to accomplish all these things.  Honestly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed but once we get the first setup complete any future setups will be more or less just a matter of repeating what's already proven to work.

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On the list of things I haven't been distracted about would be my workouts and food.  I've started getting up at 5:30 in the morning (much more workable than 5:00) to do my resistance, and that's going well.  I've moved the necessary equipment into the master bedroom and there I can get everything accomplished in some solitude, which I desperately needed. Also, I'm still tracking my food on SparkPeople so I don't lose my mind and consume the entire GDP of a small island nation during this holiday season.

So in other words?  Priorities are sound, and I'll be more present once the newer additions to my schedule fall a bit more firmly into place.  Have a good one, folks!

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

 October is, very quietly it seems, Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  In case that's passed you by I figured I'd mention it, especially in light of this:

Brookfield Spa Shooting

The above link goes to a blog that a friend of mine, "Lucy", writes for.  She's a domestic violence survivor.

So am I.*

I don't go into it much here.  This is not the place.  But when you're sitting in the middle of the Parents, Children, and Divorce class your state mandates divorcing parents take, reach the section on domestic violence, and realize that every. single. step. on the cycle of abuse excepting only the man beating you senseless is exactly how you've lived the past decade of your life...

... it all kind of clarifies things a bit.  You start to understand why you were always excusing, with "I'm sorry, he's just been so stressed out."  "He's only like that when he's drinking."  "I shouldn't have pushed him like that.  It's my fault really."

It wasn't my fault.  Five years ago, I finally realized that.

There is no specific class of person who is abused.  Domestic abuse and violence crosses all socioeconomic boundaries, all educational lines, and all gender lines.  It is at every level of society, bar none.

Shame is a great silencer.  The silence ends here.

Resource Link:  Our Place

*Please note that I am NOT in any way referring to Brent/ Choreboy.  We only just celebrated our third anniversary, and I cannot believe I am so fortunate as to have finally ended up with such a wonderful man.  I didn't want to put this in here, but I wanted even less for people to think that my husband is in any way being referred to in this entry.

Sucker, Part II

We went back to Repticon today, in large part because once the Gum Zombie had his snake yesterday nothing would do but to come straight home and get little Slither unpacked and into his habitat, so we missed probably at least 30% of the exhibits.

Today, someone else joined us on the journey home...

This is Sarah.  She's mine. She's a 3-month-old Dodoma out-cross, weighing in at 16 grams.  Kenyan sand boas are dimorphic, so Sarah will outweigh Slither by more than double by the time they're both adults.

Brent's sole comment?  "I live in a zoo."

Yes, yes you do sweetheart.  But no birds, I promise!

Sucker

I took the Gum Zombie to Repticon today.  We (okay, I) had zero-to-minimal plans of getting anything.

Of course we came home with something.

Meet Slither, the four-month-old anerythristic Kenyan sand boa.  Thankfully the little fellow (all 14.999 grams of him) eats frozen mice.

See subject line.  Yup, that'd be me.

'Tis the Season

Hooray holidays!  Yes, that delightful time of year is approaching that many of us have historically taken as free license to gorge, or at least sneak in a few treats we wouldn't indulge in normally.  Y'all know I'm the queen of moderation; that said, here are a few little... well, "guidelines" really that I find helpful to remember.

• Calories from the candy taken from your child's Halloween stash still count.
• Ditto the candy you bought to give out to the neighborhood kiddies.
• No, just because you "accidentally" overbought the Reese's Snack Size Pumpkins doesn't mean that you personally must ingest them all to avoid wastage.*
• Thanksgiving is one day, people.  One.
• No, not two.  I don't care that Great Aunt Paula brought her butter, cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream and bacon dip that you may never have a chance to eat again before you die.  ONE.
• Despite what the retail establishments would have us believe, Christmas, too, is one day a year.
• No, Grandmother Mercy's famous chocolate pecan marshmallow surprise cookies are not an exception.  
• Yes, I know she baked them special, just for you.
• Fine, just tape them to your ass and be done with it.**

In other words, everything has a caloric toll no matter what the calendar says.  I keep tracking over the holidays because it keeps me honest and I do better with visual confirmation that, yes, I really did eat THAT MUCH yesterday so I need to be sane today.  It's what I found works for me because otherwise... well, that list didn't leap fully formed from a vacuum. 

Have a good one, y'all.  And be smart.

*Not that I, personally, would ever have done this...
**Seriously, you might as well.

In Brief

You know how easily some folks throw out their backs?  I swear, that's how it goes with my knee.  This evening I was engaging in the high-impact activity of sitting down to eat my damn dinner when *crick!*  There it went.

I'm holding out as long as I can before I take up my ortho on his surgery offer, but days like this I start thinking maybe we could work out that whole six weeks of no driving thing...

Guts, I Haz Them!

No, this isn't becoming the Belly Dance Fashions blog.  That, m'dears, is a picture of Yours Truly, mid-graduation dance.  Turns out the old girl has some nerve left in her yet!

Thanks to my oh-so-delightful anxiety, I was planning to just take beginners a third time.  However, on Sunday night, September 23rd, inspiration hit and I figured I'd better grab that sucker before it got away.  So before I went to bed that evening, I had a complete choreography.  Brent videoed me the next night, I tweaked a couple of spots, and rehearsed every spare second I had (and some I didn't) up until the performance on Wednesday night, the 26th.  Nothing like giving yourself 72 hours notice to get the old juices flowing, eh?

And I totally wasn't hiding out in the restroom at work practicing my dance in a 4' x 4' space.  Ahem.  Nope, not me.  Pardon me while I work on perfecting that "I'm totally innocent!" look...

So anyway, I made it into the intermediate class.  Hooray!!!

As Promised

The recital pictures!  I've had to do some severe editing so I don't expose anyone on Teh Intarweebs who'd prefer to stay a teensy bit more anonymous.  I also had a picture "done" so when that comes in I'll post it as well.

Still hanging steady at 135/136, and I think I'm going to hang out here for awhile.  I have enough flexibility to not freak about how my pants are fitting, and it's time to stabilize once again.  I do find it hilarious that last year it took me 16 weeks to drop from just over 141 to right at 135, and this year it took a whopping six weeks, if that.  The only thing I can figure is that last year I'd been bouncing around the upper 140's for awhile and hit 150 before I decided to go into weight loss mode, whereas this year I'd been hanging around 138-142 since after my ablation (135-ish prior), thus giving me a lower starting point.  Eh, it's a theory.

Anyway, to the pictures!

Yes, I was texting well-prior to the performance :P  In fairness, I'm posting this one because it's probably the best shot of my hair and eye makeup.  That dressing room was crowded!

Outdoor shot -- my hip scarf is barely visible primarily because it hangs down in back.

Here's another outdoor shot -- do NOT PANIC over my stomach!  It was the pose (which is another reason why I posted the prior picture before this, because, yipes -- could I suck in any further???)

And at last, on stage!  This is definitely a better shot of the hip scarf, too.

We really had a blast performing, and everyone did a marvelous job.  We didn't get to see the professionals and more advanced classes/ individuals/ duets perform at the recital since we were backstage, but we saw their acts at the run-through and they were all fabulous. 

Now I just need to get over this anxiety and do my graduation dance to get into intermediate, because seriously y'all, I can only do this dance so many times before I go stark raving mad.

Have an awesome weekend!

Insert Cute Title Here

Well y'all, I've hit 136 enough days recently that I feel comfortable actually posting it. Once is water, twice is maybe? But third time's the charm. I am trying not to care if the scale stays in this neighborhood rather than continuing its downward trend. Honestly though, I'd like to wave at 130 even if it's just a fly-by. That was my ultimate goal. On the other hand, even when I was at 133 my pants were all loose and I'm not sure if that's a good look for me anymore.

Besides, I hate belts.

That said, we've got our belly dancing recital coming up this Sunday, so I'm glad things are more on the low end of the scale. I've been practicing like a fiend, and at this point with the choreography it's more about refining the steps for me than learning them and committing them to memory because after the number of times I've done this I don't think I'll ever forget it. I've got a permanent groove worn in my bedroom carpet where I've been hiding out going over and over and over this thing.

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My food intake is appallingly boring. Five days of the week I eat nearly the same thing, because it's just easier. Breakfast is an egg white scramble (sometimes with a yolk, sometimes, not, ALWAYS with lots of white) with a side of vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, tomato) and a side of fruit (berries, apple). Lunch is the infamous "Here's How I Keep Myself Away from Chipotle" salad with greens, chicken breast meat, salsa, guacamole -- I've switched from avocados because those suckers kept rotting on me, and after eyeballing its ingredients list, Wholly Guacamole is acceptable in my world -- reduced fat sour cream and 2% shredded cheddar. Dinner is some sort of lean-to-leanish meat (fish, turkey burger, pork tenderloin) along with more veg, and I do throw a dessert in, generally some variant of frozen yogurt. From my calories, I'm about 80% good to my 20% dessert, and I can live with that.

The other two days a week I kick it up a notch. Sometimes this is the weekend, other times I spread it out during the week just depending on my schedule and all. I might add in more carbs (Chipotle bellows loudly even when I do my best!), or go with a less lean meat choice (pot roast, anyone?). The boys and I went to Yogurt Mountain this past Saturday, which I'll totally cop to counting as breakfast. And I will absolutely admit that Bacon Happens.

Just not often. And not in excess. Because "often" and "excess" are what got me to 200 pounds. I'm not going back there.

Besides, I can't. I got rid of the clothes. Makes it a bit more tricky to scoot up that scale ;)

Have a good one, y'all! If I get any decent pictures of myself at the recital I'll post them afterward. Be warned, makeup will totally be set to Streetwalker.

I'm gonna have fun with this.

I Remember

Requiescat in pacem.

Evolution

Although I've been quiet on the blogging front recently, I've been reading. It's made me think about all the changes to my diet since 2006 when I finally got the big "holy cow, this is not what I want to weigh!" alert.

When the Elder, then age seven, first bellowed my 200-pound weight to the entire grocery store, I went with what I knew. At that time, it was one of those pre-packaged meal systems (I don't link to them, but its initials are NS). Oh god, it was awful. I wish I had some of the labels around because seriously, that is some of the most processed "food but not really" stuff out there.

But I did lose weight on it.

After a couple of months I knew I had to do something different because although the NS stuff was obviously working, I couldn't keep on eating like that. There were a few items that I found along the way that I could live with, but overall the stuff was just foul. I knew I liked Lean Cuisine, so figuring that NS had me on about 1200 calories a day, that's what I decided to do for myself.

I started reading the nutrition information on packages -- yes, it took me until I was thirty-six years old to figure that out -- and made sure my days were right at 1200, with about 30 calories on either side for mathematical issues. I ate Lean Cuisine, I ate South Beach wraps (mostly for breakfast), I ate sugar-free 10-calorie Jello cups, I chewed craploads of sugar-free gum. You know, that stuff does interesting things to your insides if you chow through an entire15-stick pack in a day.

So still more processed stuff. And I lost weight on it.

Then when I got divorced in late 2007/ early 2008, my household had a big drop in income. I couldn't afford all the pre-made food anymore, so I had to figure out what to do with a much smaller budget. I started looking at recipes more, because it's cheaper to cook from scratch.

I lost weight that way too. I got down as low as 133, and have maintained between 138-142 since then.

This past January, when I had my gum surgery, I got it in my head to track how much sodium I was eating. I'd bought some V8 vegetable soups in addition to the godawful Slimfast to get me through the all-liquid days following surgery, and I was absolutely stunned at how much sodium was in those suckers. Holy cow, it was insane!

That's when it finally clicked that cooking my own food was about more than saving money. It was about my health. Food companies don't care about our health; they care about their bottom line which is increased by using as many cheap, processed ingredients as possible.

And all that said, I'm still not a total convert. I love Fiber One brownies, although they're not the crack they used to be. You will pry my Diet Coke out of my cold, dead fingers, although I don't suck down quite as much of it than I used to.

Hmm. Interesting pattern right there.

The thing I see consistently is that my diet has improved over time, just as a natural part of me wanting to be healthy. First the focus was on scraping the weight off, then it became about what I could live with taste-wise, and then it became about eating what was better for me overall. I'm a work in progress. I'm not perfect, and honestly I'm not even trying to be. But I'm sure a hell of a lot better than I was, and I'm certain that process will continue. I work better this way.

I'm doing the best that I can, today. Tomorrow, that best may be better. I'm good with that.

High Anxiety

Still here, y'all -- I've just got some mental craziness I'm having to juggle.

I'm a pretty high-anxiety person in general. I stress to a ridiculous degree, wake up at 3:00 AM and can't get back to sleep worrying about things that I can't do anything about (mostly because it's THREE-FREAKING-A.M.), and endless loops of The Shit That's Gone Wrong Or May Go Wrong play over and over in my head. It's a delight, in the "wouldn't it be nice to function like a normal person? Hah!" sense of the word.

Trying to manage the anxiety is one reason I gained all the weight I did. I was in a very difficult marriage, the details of which I don't discuss too much here out of respect for my children's privacy, and the constant churning feeling in my gut was momentarily calmed by food intake. The worse things got, the more I ate until I finally hit a weight that slammed me between the eyes when I heard it. Then I had to drop the food and in doing so I was forced to deal with what was really going on (the whole "what was eating me" thing)...

Remember my limited coping skills? That would be one aspect. It's not over my marriage anymore, thankfully. Choreboy rocks. But I still have it over other areas of my life, and the big one that's kicking me in the pants right now is the "graduation dance" for bellydancing.

The way things are set up, everyone takes the beginning class twice. After you've taken it twice, you're allowed to choreograph and perform your own "graduation dance" and move up to the intermediate class. Unfortunately, I am not creative. No, don't point to this blog and say I'm creative because nothing here is fictionalized other than my last name and the names of others. Everything else is based firmly in reality. This extends to all areas of my life. I'd love to write fiction, but the best I could manage would be rather stilted fanfic. I can't worldbuild or create my own original characters to save my life. Every MC I create is a total Mary Sue, and I end up throwing in the towel on NaNoWriMo on an annual basis. In the kitchen it's the same. Give me someone else's recipe and I'm golden. I can follow those suckers like a beast. Just don't ask me to create my own because it ain't happening. On those few occasions I've attempted to follow some errant inspiration the results have been less than palatable.

So needless to say, choreography isn't my thing. At all. I can't improvise, I can't choreograph, and even trying it at all in the privacy of my own home has me a shaking mess. Again, I can follow someone else's choreography just fine -- give me practice time and we're set! But to create something on my own, without a specific pattern or anything?

Nope.

So I'm stuck. I can either stay in the beginners class forever or hope that sometime between now and the end of next term (there's no way I'll be able to graduate at the end of this term, less than one month away) I grow a creative bone and somehow make this happen.

We shall see. It's not like this is earth-shattering or anything; it's merely the symptom du jour of a much bigger issue.

Silliness

Yesterday was one of those run-run-run days, with getting the Elder's new school uniform shirts (they're changing the dress code, thus rendering his shirts from the past two years utterly useless), getting pre-first-week-of-school haircuts done for both boys, and shopping for Choreboy's birthday. The most relaxing part of my morning was stopping by the pet store to pick up a ginormous bag of food for the three garbage disposals cats. While we were at the pet store, I also found the perfect shirt for Hound:

Poor dog... hee!

I did make a donation of a flat of cat food to the SPCA while I was there as well. I figured if I could buy a very silly shirt for my dog, the least I could do was make a matching donation to animals who aren't quite as coddled as mine.

Have a great week, all :)