Dead Tired in WA

So Alenn got home from work yesterday at 8:30 pm, but by the time we got the van packed and actually left, it was 10:00 pm. I drove until 3:00 am, which got us halfway through Oregon. Alenn then drove us the rest of the way to Seattle and we arrived at 7:30 am. Although I got a little bit of sleep while Alenn was driving, I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep well. I am looking forward to a soft bed tonight!

Alenn used his points to get us a really nice suite at the Mariott. Its a mini-apartment, complete with refrigerator, stove and dishes! And it was recently built so its very nice. I was able to get some work done this afternoon while the kids watched on-demand movies and destoyed the room - at least I feel at home with the destruction :).

Alenn won't finish his work for today until 7:00 pm and as tired as we are, we likely won't do any site seeing today. That's okay, though. In a little bit, I'm going to take the kids to get some must-haves and drive around a bit to get a look-see. We're not in Seattle anymore, but a little farther north. The sun just now came out, so I'm anxious to go as soon as the movie they're watching is over. We're paying for the privilege, so I want to get my full money's worth!

I'm not sure what I'll do for a workout today. I ate a really bad breakfast at Denny's this morning - a cheese, egg and ham sandwich and a couple of their new pancake balls. Also, we had McD's for dinner last night, which is defo a bad idea. So, I'm like mega off my diet at the moment and I'd better have a good dinner and do some exercise if I don't want to gain 10 pounds this weekend. I'll have to ask if they have a gym here. If not, maybe I can find a park to take the kids to and walk around in.

I didn't make it to the gym yesterday - I had to go to my son's school at lunchtime and worked until late playing catch-up from the day before.

But, I went today:

25 min eliptical
25 min stationary bike

I still have a lot of work, especially with the reduction in hours for everyone in the company, so I didn't stay at the gym long. But, I upped my efforts a bit and really felt wiped out once I'd finished my 50 minutes.

Its nice that I'm not sore after a workout anymore, too.

I feel I'm neglecting the strength training, but I know I'll get to that when things settle down around here and I'm doing the most important stuff at the moment anyway.

So hubby won employee of the year for last year and was given $1000 in gift cards. He decided to buy a treadmill and exercise bike because he wants to lose weight too. I feel kinda stupid for having the gym membership AND the exercise equipment at home when we are financially stretched, but at least I can now work out at home on the days when I can't get to the gym. Not that I couldn't before (a walk up and down the street isn't difficult) but having the machines here will make me more likely to use them, I think. Or not. Either way, I can now work out effectively at home or at the gym so there is NO EXCUSE to not work out. Given the amount of money we are spending on exercise at the moment, Alenn and I had better lose some weight this year!!

I have decided at the last minute to go out of town with Alenn. He was going to drive from CA to WA tonight, after work. Well, I didn't feel comfortable with that, especially considering how late it will be before he's home from work because he's a 3 hour drive away at the moment. So, I'm going with him to help drive. It's cool because he has a presentation on Tuesday in CA so he has to come home on Monday, which is my day off anyway. So, it all works out. And it will be fun to go out of town. Also, my kids' grandma lives in WA so they'll go for a visit while Alenn is working. It all works out well.

Surviving the bad days

Official weigh day, here are my numbers:

Weight: 168.0
Weight lost this week: 0

I'm actually okay with my numbers this week because over the weekend and the beginning of this week, the scale had moved back to 169, so I'm glad it went back down by this morning. I didn't lost anything, but at least I didn't gain anything!

Yesterday was a really bad day. It started at 4:00 am when Nathan, my 1 year old, wouldn't stay asleep. Alleyne had had a long day at work the previous day and I was just tired from my new schedule. I took a turn with Nathan but he just cried and fussed because he was so tired but wouldn't go to sleep and that kept Alleyne awake too. Later that morning, Alleyne and I got into a huge fight during which neither of us was being reasonable because we were both so tired. It ended up being a pretty horrific fight so that I called off at work because I was a mess. Alleyne calmed down and took a nap with Nathan and I wasn't sure what to do with myself at that point. I was thinking I should try to work, but knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate and my work is such that I don't have much room for mistakes. So, I went to the gym. That is a first for me, to react to stress and upset with exercise! But, I did an hour on the treadmill, alternating between walking, jogging and hill climbing. I felt better after an hour but so tired physically that I was spinning. So, I came home and tried to take a nap. Alleyne got up with Nathan and then I couldn't sleep because I was stressed about my fight with Alleyne, which we still hadn't resolved. I finally sat him down in the evening and we smoothed everything out.

So, I'm really hoping today is a lot better. Alleyne is going out of town again tomorrow, so I'm bummed about that. But, it's got to be an improvement over yesterday.

I did okay with my eating yesterday despite everything. Actually, I didn't eat a heck of a lot most of the day because I don't tend to eat during a crisis but after the crisis.

I did eat a Butterfinger last night though. I didn't even enjoy it and knew I wasn't enjoying it while I was eating it, but ate it anyway. One of these days I'll be able to put the damn thing down.

Biggest Loser

Anyone watch this show? I'm thinking...yes! :) I quite like it, although I'm jealous of the contestants who can spend all their time just trying to lose weight. Not that I'd want to be away from my kids for weeks at a time, but it'd be nice to see a double-digit weight loss in one week!

I had no reason for bringing that up, other than just to talk about it.

Today was good - gym workout:

40 min eliptical
20 min stationary bike

No strength training again cuz I ended up working past 12:00, but I plan on doing some dumb bell weight lifting while watching TV tonight.

Food for today:

Bowl of Total Raisin Bran w/ 1% milk
1/2 cup coffee with 1 tsp sugar & 1% milk
whole grain bread w/ 1 tsp peanut butter
1 cup red grapes
4 whole grain crackers
2 slices cheese

That's a lot of fat, I'm thinking. I don't know why, but I'm attracted to foods like nuts and peanut butter and cheeses. I wish I could avoid them more. I had no veggies today! Fruit, but no veggies. I'll have to just eat salad for dinner or heat up a bag of frozen veggies.

I did well at the gym today. 65 minutes on the treadmill (including 10 mins jogging and 25 mins incline) and 20 minutes on the stationary bike. I didn't do any strength training today because I ran out of time. I was sweating buckets, though, so I knew I had a good workout. I've also started pushing myself on the bike, increasing the difficulty until I can barely pedal and then dropping it back down after a couple minutes. That's how athletes train, right? I like challenging myself, too. I want to see how much stronger I will be in a couple weeks compared to today.

Eating lately, not as good. I don't know why, but I have fallen off the wagon since the pizza incident. Not that all my choices are bad, but not all my choices are good. Not that all my choices were good before, but lately less of my choices have been good than before. Its like since I gave myself the night off with the pizza and Mountain Dew, I can't gear myself up for behaving with my food choices again. And twice over the past week (once being the pizza day and the other time being last night) I have eaten, knowingly, past the point of satiation. More self-sabotage. I just haven't figured out what the driving force behind it is.

At least I'm still doing well with the exercising, though. I didn't make it to the gym over the weekend but on Saturday I did some yoga and chased Nathan around the backyard and Sunday I went for a hike with the fam and then played soccer in the parking lot before we left. I love those kinds of days. In fact, it was only cuz hubby finished work super early that we were able to do that. I wish we could do it every weekend, but Alenn is gone too much. In fact, he'll be in away again next weekend :(. I just found out and I'm not looking forward to it.

Yesterday, I noticed that I've been feeling increasingly lonely lately. Not only is Alenn often gone, but we have moved away from all friends and family and have yet to make new friends.

Ack, enough whinging! Everyone has their trials, I just need to take it one day at a time and enjoy today.

Without Direction

It's difficult to describe, but yesterday was the first weekend day in a long time when I did not have something that I HAD to do. Usually, I put doing things off all week; such as exercising or doing the laundry or finishing my work or getting the house cleaned up. Then, come Saturday morning, I wake feeling like I need to do all the things I didn't get done all week. Well, that didn't happen this Saturday because I had such a productive week. I had exercised 5 days in a row. I had cleaned the house and done the laundry every day of the week. I had worked as many hours as I was allowed to work.

Now what? So, I cleaned out my van, which has needed cleaning for months. I can't describe the amount of ground-in crumbs I vacuumed up - except to say "gross!"

Now what, again? I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Suddenly, now that I had permission to, I didn't want to laze around reading a book, watch a movie, take the kids to a park or go shopping. I felt out of sorts for most of the day. Do I only want to do those things when I'm avoiding doing the things that need to be done? That's a strange thought.

Today, I woke early and played with the baby. Ashley, my 6 year old, got up and she played with us. I fed them breakfast. I cleaned up my bedroom and the living room. I got the older kids up.

Then I was back to "now what?" I read some of my book but, although its a good book, I got tired of reading.

I did another load of laundry.

I put clothes and towels away.

Then it was 10:30 am and I was showered, cleaned, bored... I can't go anywhere because the truck is sans working brakes (hubby will be working on it again today) and he had to take my van to work. That's okay, though, cuz I have no where to go anyway.

So, what do people do when they aren't doing something to avoid doing the thing they should be doing? I have no idea. I think I'll take the baby outside to play while I ponder this idea. Then I'll put him down for a nap and do yoga, maybe that will help.

Oh yeah, and although I shouldn't be checking, the scale is up again. I'm back to 170 this morning. I'm thinking "its the exercise" and trying not to lose heart. I know its normal to go up and down on the scale when starting a new exercise regime. I need to stay off the scale!

Since I can't go anywhere today, I have no excuse not to drink my 6 glasses of water.

Me n Pizza

This is my typical behavior: I have a 1.6 pound weight loss in less than a week. I eat half a pizza for dinner. I am back up on the scale the following morning. (My 2-step program in action.)

Why do I do that? First off, when I decided to order pizza for dinner, I knew it was a mistake. I told myself I would only eat 2 pieces and that it wasn't completely bad because I was getting the multi-grain crust. Like that makes up for the gazillion calories and fat grams?? Not. Anyway, so then we get the pizza and I don't eat 2 or 3 or even 4 pieces - I eat 5 pieces of pizza! And if that weren't bad enough, I drink a glass of full-cal Mountain Dew.

The weight loss should have given me the motivation to do well, not slide back. But, it seems that every time I start doing well, I have to sabotage my efforts. This is a NOT GOOD cycle. Not the end of the world, of course, but I need to figure out why I do this.

Today is better. I ate my one egg on whole-wheat english muffin with no condiment for breakfast. Fruit for snack. Veggie soup and fruit for lunch.

At the gym:

20 min stationary bike
30 min eliptical
10 min strength training

I wanted to do some work on a step machine, but ran out of time cuz I had to be home before the girls arrived from school.

On the eliptical, I went balls-out (as hubby would say) and got my heart rate up to 180. I was huffing and puffing and seeing stars, but I felt really good for it afterward. That was for the pizza!