Day 3

It takes 21 days to create a habit, right? Only 18 more to go...

Ended the day with 1670 calories. I still haven't done any formal exercise. Maybe tomorrow.

The candy aisles at the grocery stores have exploded lately. I kind of love that.

No Jinx Zone

I'm almost afraid to talk about having another good day because I feel like I jinx it when I start dieting and talk about it.

I ended the day with 1575 calories, 1100 of which were from pizza.  Don't judge me.  That's was 2 meals of pizza and I'm not even sorry.

I saw some Hostess caramel apple cupcakes at Walmart today and didn't buy any.  That's an NSV, right?

Does anybody have the Garmin Vivofit HR?  It stopped syncing with my Android phone.  I've restarted both devices and turned the bluetooth off and on.  Nothing. :(

On a positive note...

I swear I don't only write about negative stuff.  Today will be all positive!

First, I had my physical on Wednesday.  My weight stayed the same as last year, but my labs have improved.  I had borderline high cholesterol the last two years.  This year, I had a drop so that my number was safely in normal range.  The doctor even said that the drop was all with my bad cholesterol.  Maybe that whole thing about drinking red wine being good for you is true.  The whole month before I had my labs drawn, I had been drinking a glass about every other night.

I weighed in at 240 in the doctor's office, but that was at 11 a.m. after I had been eating and drinking all morning and I was fully dressed.  Any REAL dieter knows that the only weight that counts is the one first thing in the morning, stark naked, after emptying everything you can possibly can from the innards. 

I managed to count calories today and ended the day with 1710.  Garmin tried to tell me that I burned over 900 calories from my steps today, but I'm calling BS on it.  All I did was mop the kitchen and walk around Target for a bit. There's no way I burned that many calories.  Hell, I didn't even walk 6,000 steps.

While I like keeping track of my steps, I highly doubt the accuracy of the calories burned.  Sometimes I even doubt the accuracy of the step count.  One time, back when I was using the Fitbit, I got 100 steps in while sitting at my desk stuffing envelopes. Hahahah.

The Agony of Guilt

It's one thing for me to be fat, but when I'm responsible for another living being who is also getting fat, it kills me.

I don't have human children, but my dogs are absolutely my babies and when the vet told me that one of them needs to lose weight, I cringed. Hard.  How could I let my girl get so big?  Nobody knows her breed for sure, but we're certain she's a pit mix.

She's 7.5 years old now and has started plumping up in maybe the last year or year and a half.  She still runs after every squirrel that dares enter her backyard and she loves to run after tennis balls.

We currently have a large bag of dog food to go through, but then we'll start her on a Healthy Weight food.

It's times like this that I'm glad I don't have children.  The guilt I feel over a fat dog is enough to make me want to cry.  Can you imagine if I had an overweight child?  If a child ever mimicked my behavior, they would surely be overweight.  At least with a dog I can completely control what is eaten.  

Nobody wants to hear your problems

Do you ever feel like you're living in that song Mr. Cellophane from Chicago the Musical? "You can look right through me, walk right by me and never know I'm there...."

On Thursday I had a really shitty day at work and called my husband to vent.  After I asked him how his day was and he talked for a few minutes about his own bad day, I said I was having a bad day and he said "oh I've got to go," and rushed me off the phone.  I thought he would ask me about why I had such a bad day when I got home, but he never did.

Then I got home from work Friday and he asked me about work but interrupted me to start talking about himself right away.  I just wanted to tell someone that I feel very bad about a huge mistake (like I effed up royally, seriously) and I can't even talk to the only person I live with.

I thought about calling my mom to tell her, but she works night shift and her sleeping schedule is so messed up that I don't want to bother her.  I could call my sister who has never held down a real job in her life and has never worried about money so she doesn't understand that some people need jobs in order to not be homeless (she married up....way up).

Anyway, I'm just feeling sorry for myself so I thought I'd blog about it because isn't that what blogs are for?  To dump all of our feelings in a very public forum to be judged by complete strangers?  I kid, I kid.

A coworker has convinced me to go to a free Crossfit class in the morning.  I'm VERY nervous because of my very low fitness level. Honestly, the lady who wants me to go is in worse shape than I am so I guess that makes me less nervous. Also I believe there's a chance she'll cancel.  We'll see.

Liquid Gold

I'm an addict.

I don't smoke or do drugs and I don't drink very often, but I wake up needing Diet Coke.  I need to feel the burn in my throat.  Oh, it burns so good.

I used to be addicted to coffee until I got old and had heartburn every morning after drinking it.  Diet Coke doesn't betray my body like coffee did.

Because I realize I need to lay off the DC, I've tried to find other things to pep me up in the morning.  I stumbled upon this stuff

(Like, really, I'm too old to learn how to rotate a picture, obviously.)

Anyway, I love both carrots and mango separately, but this is just not the same as the sickeningly-sweet-with-a-bitter-aftertaste therapy that I need.

Back in the day when I was a successful calorie counter, I chugged diet sodas like a champ and still lost weight every week.  I know it can't be healthy, but when you're in your 20s and losing weight, things like artificial sweeteners don't bother you.  At least they didn't bother me.  I guess this is a sign of maturity, right?  When we actually care about our overall health and not just weight.

We've done well about not eating out lately, except for my husband's birthday but that was a legit special occasion so I'm not stressing.

I'm getting excited about possible cooler weather soon (for Savannah, that means 89 instead of 90, am I right?).  I'm ready to take long walks outside and to breathe in some fresh air.  Oh, to be able to open the windows and feel a breeze in the house. Isn't that the best?

Oh!  And I've made serious headway on paying down my debt.  I dream of the day when I can spend a whole paycheck on something other than debt. Wouldn't that be amazing?

There are always challenges

This has been a trying month .  Just when I thought I had a handle on my eating, we had a family emergency and the only way I've ever dealt with stress is with food.  

My father-in-law passed away Saturday August 6th.  When we got the call that Friday before that we needed to GET UP THERE RIGHT NOW, my husband and I left work in a hurry and took the 5ish hour drive to his parents' house.  Approximately six hours after we got up there, my father-in-law passed away.  I'm glad my husband was able to get up there and say his good byes and was even at bedside with his mother and siblings when he died.

We stayed up there for several days and had food brought in by friend after friend.  It was so nice to see how many lives he touched and how many people loved him.  He really was a good soul.

So I drowned my sorrows the only way I know how, in pineapple cake, homemade chicken pot pie, honey baked ham, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, etc.

I hate to admit this, but all of that delicious food really did make the pain go away for a few minutes at a time.  In hindsight, it's probably just because I was concentrating on eating and not the loss of a loved one.

My husband says that his dad wouldn't want anybody sitting around weeping over him, and I believe that's true.  He was the type of guy who didn't want to be the center of attention. He would want us to all move on and be happy in our lives.

I'm glad to be back home and in my little routine, now I just need to make sure the routine includes exercise.  I did cut the grass before 8 o'clock this morning since I live in the part of the world that is miserable outside after about 8:30 a.m.  I came inside at just a few minutes after 8 and was covered in sweat.  The kind of sweat that makes it hard to take off your clothes because they're just stuck to your body.