box of clothes

I have a box of clothes sitting in our spare bedroom.

Mostly pants, all size 14 or larger. They are going to get stored away, and hopefully I will not need them again.

This weekend consisted of a lot of cleaning and organizing. Seriously.

I swept and mopped the kitchen. Cleaned the bathroom. Stripped our bed and the guest bed, washed the bedding and remade the beds. Did 8 + loads of laundry. Organized my husband's closet, including cleaning the floor. Got rid of the dust Rhinos under our bed. Tried on a bunch of clothes, and evaluated if they fit, were too small or too big, and put them away appropriately. Sewed buttons on my husband's shirts. Organized some extra buttons so now if I need one, I can find them easily!

And I cooked.

soup. Chili. muffins. pancakes. eggs. hot cereal. coffee. tea. hot chocolate (no, did not eat all of that, some was for Eric.) I wanted to make some food that I could take with me on the road trip to points west (Northern Minnesota, North Dakota) this week. Pretty much a dog and pony show for work. Woo. Definately no hoo there.

I'm just kind of worried about hotels. I guess there is some sort of Ag convention, and the admin person was having a heck of a time finding us places to stay. Not sure if I'm gonna have a treadmill, and it's supposed to be COLD, so I don't know that I will get outside.

But on a happy note, it appears my appetite has come back. I was worried, actually. How do you eat when your body doesn't crave any food? And you have to eat if you are going to work out, otherwise you have a nasty tendancy to get light headed and pass out... which was my fear this last week - I was in pretty bad shape Thursday after all of my activity (clearing out the snow dam in the driveway - or perhaps it should be called damn snow).

Just wish me luck in ND this week. I hear there are drifts up to 20 feet high. Glad I'm not driving by myself.

~a

Not Hungry

that's me.

And it's kind of weird, and starting to concern me, actually.

I followed my plan yesterday. Made myself a smoothie which I had on the way to the work meetings, and when I was done, I was full. Stuffed actually, which I found a somewhat pleasant suprise, as a lot of times I want a little bit more. Talked to one of the hotel staff, and made sure to order myself a salad for lunch.

Lunchtime rolls around. I'm still not hungry. But since I specially ordered the salad, I thought I should eat some of it. Now usually, I completely clear the plate of food when I get a salad. But this time, I just ate about half. And the diet coke I took to drink with my lunch - didn't finish the can, because I couldn't deal with the extra volume.

that's all I ate yesterday.

And it's Thursday morning, and I'm still not hungry. While I can't deny that not being hungry should really help in the weight loss arena, I know it's not healthy for me.

Not sure what to do now. Other than I'm heading off to work with a packed lunch bag. I might have to force myself to eat something. Scary.

~a

Day 2 BOT

It was a pretty good day yesterday.

The work meetings went pretty well, and I stuck to the plan. On a side note to that: The pants I was wearing yesterday were too big.... I kept trying to tighten the drawstring on the waistband, but they were, yes, too big.

So this morning, I went throught a number of pairs of pants, trying them on, and the ones that were too big got put in a box. I don't know that I am necessarily going to get rid of them - I know I should, so I don't have "something to fall back on" but last time I did that, I had to eventually go out and buy bigger pants. And that also sucked. But right now they are in a box, and will be stored out of sight. Because, you know, sometimes things happen.

Nuff Said.

I think my biggest accomplishment yesterday was running. a little over 3 miles. I wanted to take it somewhat easy, because I have not exercised, I hate to say it, for a week and a half. And it was good. I ran into two folks from my running club there, and me taking it "easy" had me running faster than both of them. Me. I know! Not the slowest one out there! But definately room for improvement.

And I'm considering a gym membership again. A good friend of mine is the lead Personal Trainer at the community center near me, and I just might have to join so I can have her kick my butt on occasion.

Today's food plan:
Breakfast: Smoothie
Lunch: (They are having pizza buffet for lunch at the work meetings) I plan to order a salad off of the restaurant menu. MMMMM Cobb Salad (minus the bacon)
Dinner: Probably Tacos. I have some great Whole Wheat tortillas from TJ's that are South Beach.

~a

"I'm just a stomach flu away from my goal weight"

yep. Watched The Devil Wears Prada this weekend. Funnily enough, as I was couched out with the flu... the whole shebang, nausia, tossing of cookies, headache, body ache, chills. Good times.

I was feeling better yesterday, Monday, so I sucked it up and went to work. And it kind of wiped me out. Last night was another repeat of couch sitting, chills and body aches. Took a hot bath and crawled into bed.

The good news is - I feel almost human this morning. Other than the fact that I'm nervous about eating. Hmmmm, sick, and south beach diet. What do you eat???? Ummmmm, chicken broth, tea, applesauce (no sugar added, of course).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But otherwise, things have been kind of "eh".

I didn't exercise at all last week. It was just too frickin' cold. Didn't want to get out of bed in the morning, where it was warm and toasty. Evenings last week were spent cleaning/organizing as we had our annual party on Friday. "Thank God the Holidays are Over" was a good success. I figure we had somewhere around 50 people show up throughout the evening. and I allowed myself a break from the GADO for the night. Someone brought home-brew porter. I had to have some!

As of this morning, I am down 18 pounds since I started trying to follow SB in October. I'm prettty happy about that, but need to keep going.

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and yes, I know I have not updated in a while. This is what happens when you get new technology that allows you to check email, facebook and blogs without getting on the computer (iPod Touch), when work does not allow you to access blogs, and when the last thing you really want to do when you get home is fire up the work laptop, as it seems that your husband is always on the home computer (as he has no access to the internet at work) when you want to look at something.

I'll try and do better. I need a place to keep myself a little more accountable.

Plan for today:
Smoothie for breakfast
Who knows for lunch - it's a work meeting where they are providing food...
Dinner: Salad, as I have a bunch of lettuce (red, romaine, green leaf) that needs to get eaten up.

and I will be packing my workout bag with me, with plans of running at the Metrodome tonight. I will need to see how the day goes and if I am wiped out again... but I will have my things!

ta
~a

Better, but not perfect

But I can live with the better.

Had dinner out on Saturday, and I stuck to the lean protein (chicken) and ate all of my veggies, some of Eric's veggies, and avoided the bread, the potato and the alcohol. And I did look pretty good if I do say so myself.... I managed to get my hair into a pretty elaborate updo. It only took about an hour and a half...

Sunday, was okay... I ate a couple of SB muffins I had made, and was pretty good, until my friend and I decided to go to the movies. We went to see Valkyrie. It wasn't bad. It was actually quite interesting, and you were still hoping that they were going to succeed with the plan, even though that's not how it ends. Kind of like watching Titanic, actually... you know it ends badly, but you still hold out hope. Oh yeah, and what's a movie without a large buttered popcorn? Not exactly on the South Beach plan. But there could be worse things. And I actually didn't finish the whole thing. I got full and stopped. Chalk one up for me. Okay, half.

Tonight I went to Book Club, where the host had made calzones. So I ate the filling, and a little of the bread (but not much), and drank lots of water. And avoided the box of Christmas goodies that was passed around. I was full, and didn't want anything. Okay, I wanted a cookie with a peanut butter cup in the middle, but I didn't cave in. And I am quite proud.

Since Christmas, I have lost 3 pounds. Nothing earth shaking, but it is a step in the right direction. I now need to not skip two days in a row of exercising. Tomorrow morning, I will get up and ride my bike in the basement. I have stuff on my iPod to keep me amused.

I've been having fun with my new iPod touch. I downloaded some podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and started to listen to one at work today. After some loud chuckles and snorts, I decided I couldn't do that - my cubicle neighbors might think I was having some sort of episode... and it was hard to concentrate on work.

Eric's gonna be gone this weekend, and I plan to cook up a storm, to get some meals in the freezer for myself, and I am gonna clean, clean, clean, as we are hosting the 12th annual "Thank God The Holidays are Over" party the next weekend. Should be fun as always.

On that note, if I'm going to get up in the morning, I need to be off to bed.

Ta!

~a

New Year

And what would it be without some resolutions? I'm not that big on resolutions, and why do they need to start on January 1st?

How about some goals?

How about one goal?

I want to run a marathon this year.

There's some various assorted things I need to do to get there, which I suppose could be resolutions: Eat better, lose weight, exercise more. but I know I'm not going to reslove to exercise at least 30 minutes each day. Because, you know, life tends to get in the way, and you need to be flexibile, or things are too stressful. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm about ready to hop back on the South Beach bandwagon. I kind of threw things out the window a bit since Thanksgiving. Like drinking too much beer. and eating Christmas goodies. And more wine than is "allowed" on the diet. Yeah. Spent Boxing Day (I work for Canadians...) recovering from my hangover on the couch in the living room. Drank too much wine at my husband's Aunt's house on Christmas, but I think it was the shot of Tequilla that did me in.

So it starts. Eric and I are going to Florida on February 27th. I would like to drop a few more pounds before then, and I want to make some inroads on building up my endurance. So from now until then (8 weeks or so) I am making a vow to not have any alcohol. Partly because of Christmas, but also for the fact that I seem to be drinking more wine to compensate for the sugar I am not eating. Hi. Can we say swapping one addiction for another?

And I'll try to get here more to write. Seems to make me more accountable for some reason. Whatever works, right?

~a