On My Own

So, with the husband gone and me all by myself in an apartment (yay, less cleaning!) I had hoped to really be able to focus on losing some weight.

Yeah, the best laid plans....

Sadly the only plan I seemed to actually stick to was the go wild and eat a bunch of junk food I would never keep in the house around my husband plan.

Today I weighed in at whopping 145. I am 5'3" and this is basically the top of the BMI chart for me. I was about 150-155 when I started to lose weight back in 2006, though I first started regularly weighing myself around this weight. But at that point I dropped myself to about 800 calories a day and got away with it because I was out of the house for 12+ hours working and going to grad school. I also basically lived on tomato soup, pb &j sandwiches, and candy. And diet soda.

I'm not in that place any more and I would really prefer to do this healthily. My very lowest weight when I had bronchitis in 2008 and basically lived off of a few pieces of fruit everyday for a month, I was 113. It was a little too low for me. I like 118. I think it's a good thin weight, with out being too anorexic looking. At this point though I would even take 120 or 122. 


My normal mindset is to tackle it all at once and start restricting, taking things out of my diet etc, but like I said, I'd rather be healthy about this so... for the past few days I've just been making sure I exercise. My hubby even bought me an activity tracker with HRM for my birthday a month ago (because he knew I wanted it) so I really need to start really using it.

I am doing Rusty Moore's visual impact (I found out about it ages ago through Kitty, but this is the first time I've really tried it), because I can do it with hand weights or at the gym, I can do the cardio on a treadmill or outside. I'm doing it instead of a Jillian Michael's program for a couple of reasons.  All of my exercise equipment is in storage so I am currently using the apartment complex's gym and it would be akward to do a video there. Also, I thought I would switch it up a little bit. The focus is on lifting heavy (which is still pretty light for me) instead of light with high reps. Then doing HIIT for cardio right after.  I like that too because it breaks up the monotony of just running. Even though I would really like to get back into race shape and do another 5 or 8K, I'm going to focus on losing the weight first.

I have done two weight workouts this week and 3 cardio plus a leg day. And I can barely lift my arms. My glutes hurt, my chest hurts.  It takes me maybe an hour to do all of it (I do about 45min of cardio instead of just 1/2 hour though) less on the leg day. And I have never felt this sore since I tried P90X.

My next step is to drink more water --- I just got up and threw out the soda that was left in my fridge. I do have some cranberry juice in the fridge, but if I stick to 4oz in the morning to help take my vitamins, that's only 55 calories, and that is another routine I'd like to get into, taking my vitamins.

Step 3 will be cleaning up my food. I want to be able to do it all, and I am struggling with that, but I don't want to it all right now, then fall off the wagon tomorrow because I restricted too much and went on a binge.  For now, I only want to pledge not to buy any more junk food. No more chips or candy or soda come into the house. I have some chocolate left from a going away party and some potato chips (which I don't like that much really), pretzel crisps and hummus, and some microwave popcorn.  That doesn't sound like much, especially when I probably won't eat the potato chips. But that doesn't take into account what I have already ripped through this week. The relocation company is nice, and they left a huge basket of  "treats" in our apartment when we moved in & with hubby only being here a few days, it fell on me to eat them all.

Anyway... I'm just going to try to be better from now on. Hopefully I can come down a few pounds in the next couple of weeks.  And even more when I go visit the hubby in Europe in June.

WTF?

Holy cow it has been forever....

Things are crazy here.

We sold our house.

My husband left for Switzerland yesterday for work and doesn't come back until Sept 15.

I get to go there June 1st.

We're going to Africa in July for our honeymoon.

In September we will move yet again -- about 4 hours from where we are now -- for his work.

I'm still my highest weight since 2005.

I've had to buy so many new clothes because nothing fits.

I'm easily 25 lbs from where I'd like to be.

I have been out of a job for 8 months, it'll be over a year before I even get to look for work for myself.

I've been too busy selling the house and saying goodbye to my husband to be too depressed, but I also haven't taken care of myself at all, either.

How is it possible for life to suck and be exciting all at once?

2015 and Right back where I started

I was looking at some of my old calendars where I record my weight and I discovered that I am back to where I was when I first made a change back in 2006. Maybe a couple of pounds lower because I didn't totally over do it over the holidays.

But there you have it years of hard work down the drain.... And as much as I tell myself that I can get back to that place. I really don't think I can.

In January of 2006, my boyfriend had just broken up with me, I was in my last semester of grad school, looking to spend less time at my house with my mom & her husband. So I spent time at work, school, and the gym. I wrote down every calorie and fat gram and I shrunk.

Now here I am... happy in my relationship with my husband, but otherwise bored, unfulfilled, and borderline depressed. So I eat, and then eat, and eat again.  I try to make plans to be healthier, to eat better, exercise and fill my time a little better. But each new day it goes out the window as I just have this overwhelming feeling of "what's the point?"

Over the long holiday I changed my last name to my husband's. It is weird. When we first got married I was anxious and excited to do it, like that was some important symbol of being married (or more likely it was something to focus on right after the wedding), but now that it is done I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I joke with him about it saying "at last, I'm owned by a man!" But in reality I feel like that is exactly what changing my name means, that I'm not my own woman any more. It never really occurred to me how hard it would be to give up who I was. Husband is traditional and wanted me to have his last name, but to his credit when I was discussing how weird it feels to go through the process, he did say if I felt strongly about it I didn't have to. But I did.

And now I sit with an identity crisis, between the name and the weight gain, I feel like I've just erased who I used to be.

I am alive... I swear

So.... I realize it has been months since I last blogged.

First the run up to my wedding was crazy.  I was pretty stressed out up until the day before. Getting everything ready, creating maps, directions, gift bags, and working with dumbass hotel employees trying to get those to people was the worst. 

But, my wedding was the best day ever!! Seriously, I had mad amounts of fun and it seriously could not have gone any better unless it was the ending of a rom com movie. That is not to say that some things didn't go wrong... but I'm glad (now) that they did, because I will always remember it and can laugh about them now.

The weeks since then have not been so great.

Hubby and I will have to move again. We found out the day we got back from our wedding. It's soon enough that there is no point in finding a job just to have to quit. So I'm left to be an unhappy housewife.

He's been traveling for work. I've been depressed. Not exercising, eating too much. My weight is the highest I've seen it in 7 years. It's really unacceptable, but I can't manage to do anything about it.

So, that is where I am right now.... I apologize that I've been so quiet, I just can't seem to get enough energy to care about much anything these days including blogging. Though I do get on sometimes and read yours. And I am still here and alive.

I'm hoping the new year will bring some relief.

Stressed

I have permanent knot in my shoulder muscles from being so freakin' tense. I've had a massage, the relief lasted less than 8 hours.

We moved a month ago and because of the wedding things are still not settled.

I am behind in blogs, writing mine and reading yours.

I may be gone for another month or so... for which I apologize.

When I come back I'll share more about the wedding.

Wedding Wednesday: Vendors pt. 3

Ok. So here is the last about my picking vendors for our wedding (maybe, we're doing a food tasting in 1 month!)

Picking a Photographer was one of the hardest things to do. I was on a pretty tight budget, but I didn't want to sacrifice quality. I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'd only be able to afford 1 photographer for a short amount of time. My budget BTW was $1800.

First I started with people from FH's home town and checked out thier wedding albums. That did not help. Mostly they used the 1 local guy who could be hired all day for $500 and photoshops the shit out of his pictures (evidence that the pictures aren't good to start with).

Lovely pictures on their own, but not a good use of photoshop.

Then I started hitting up the wedding websites for vendors, and finally google.

I found a photographer that I really liked. She was exactly my price range and her portfolio was awesome. Very much what I was looking for. I contacted her and found out she was booked on our date. I was bummed.

I started over and went through so many sites. It seemed like anyone I liked was too pricey and anyone in my range just didn't offer enough or wasn't good. T

Then I found them... Goofy Named Photographers (not their real name). I hated their name so much that I looked at them last.

But then looking at their portfolio it was clear that their style was what I was looking for. I filled out their questionaire which was filled with questions like "what's your favorite sushi?" and "batman or superman?" Along with regular questions about what type of pictures I was looking for.

http://theweddingsparkler.com/wp-content/gallery/gallery1/waving_shapes_with_wedding_sparklers.jpg

Based on their website they were supposed to have packages starting at $1500. But it turned out that was for an assistant photographer. I ended up doing some negotiating, taking some things out of the package and coming down to the top end of my budget. Even though it was more than I originally wanted to spend. It was important enough to me to spend a little bit more to get closer to what I wanted.

I'm very excited. I have chatted with them over the phone, and I will get to meet them on the weekend of my bridal shower.

Then there is awesome photoshop:

I want this photo for my wedding

135

That was today's weight.

6 weeks and I haven't budged. I just can't make any decent change to make significant progress.