blew it. Blew it good.

I was off work for 5 days. I had tons of plans. I was going to go play with my grandbaby. I was going to exercise a lot. I was going to try some new recipes.

I didn't get to do much.
Hurt my back.
Had major stomach issues.
Spent a ton of money to try a new recipe and it was disgusting. And made me very sick to my stomach.

Didn't track my food like I am supposed to on the WW program.
Cheated. Not horribly, but bad enough (hence the tummy woes)
Did not exercise at all. Not even once. (My back was hurting too much. I was scared to make it worse).

I did, however, watch all FOUR seasons of "ParentHood" and laughed and cried. And cried some more. GREAT show. Glad Karin talked me into giving it a second try. I think Season 4 was one of the best.

Oh... and I gained a pound.

Wasted vacation. This week will be better.

Friday weigh in....

Another one bites the dust!

TWELVE pounds gone.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooo

strange dream..... really strange.....

Dream

There was a long row of apartments, very old and very decrepit but people lived in them. I just moved into the one on the end (far left).

I hadn’t even looked through it, didn’t know what it looked like except the front room. The only furniture I had moved in was a chair and a TV.

I was watching TV and there was this bad fire that was threatening homes.

I opened the curtains in the room and realized the fire was directly across the street, and the homes that were being threatened, was my building.

I opened the door and looked out and there were tons of people there trying to help the occupants move their furniture out of the building and into the back yard to hopefully save it.  A fireman came to the door and was really irritated that I was there because he had been told nobody lived in that apt. I told him I had just moved in, that day, and none of my things were there yet except a chair and TV. For some reason he just seemed really annoyed with me like he didn’t want me to waste his time.

I looked outside and saw all the people dragging furniture out of the apt. beside me. It belonged to a young family with about 4 kids. One was just a tiny baby.

A part of me wanted to go out there and help these people but I was afraid I would hurt my back because I can’t lift anything. Plus, I didn’t know any of them as we had not been introduced yet.

The mom with the baby in her arms came over and asked to use my phone. I let her in and she also had a 2 year old with her. A little boy.

The little boy took off exploring and I was a little worried because I didn’t know if he could hurt himself since I had not even seen what was in the apt.

So I went around the corner to the kitchen and the floor was COVERED in dirt and leaves. Dirt and leaves were EVERYWHERE and there were all kinds of bugs and critters living in the kitchen!

The little boy had opened a cupboard and there was some creature that looked like a huge crab peering out of it. He was trying to grab it. I was freaking out because I didn’t know what it was. There was a snake, and bees, and mice, and bugs and spiders…..

The mom came around the corner and got him and I tried to talk to her and introduce myself but of course, she was in no mood to be friendly since she was trying to save her entire household. I apologized that the house was such a mess and that I had just moved in. I hadn’t even looked around yet and had no idea the kitchen was so bad.

She asked if I would watch the little 2 year old until her husband got there (that is who she called). I said ok.

I remember looking out at the backyard. Full of furniture. Lots of people. The fire was pretty much out across the street so they people had brought tons of food to feed the firemen and everybody and it kind of turned into a backyard barbecue.

I felt like I wanted to go out there and join them, but I didn’t know a single person and I hadn’t helped them at all. So I stayed in my apt.

It was getting darker and the little boy wanted to lay down and sleep. He seemed to know right where the bedroom was, so I followed him and he took me to the bedroom of my apt. There was no furniture in there, just a mattress on the floor. The floor in that room was cleaner though. So I let him lay down on it.

I was terrified to walk through the kitchen. There were so many creatures and that big black snake had disappeared and I didn’t know where it went.

Strange dream. 

Facing my fears

Huh. Never expected to say this.

I'm afraid to eat.

Not afraid to eat my little WW meals.

But I'm afraid to COOK my own recipes.

I'm a very good cook. I used to teach cooking classes for 5 years. I used to cater. I used to have my own cookie business. (out of my home).

I am a really good cook. And I use the "best" ingredients such as unsalted butter, and imported vanilla, and high quality flours....

All the stuff that tastes amazing to the tongue and lasts a lifetime on the hips.

And I'm not just talking about baked goods. I'm married to a Mexican and I can make a mean taco, burrito, enchilada, tostada, and the best beans in the family.

Being on W.W. has been very "easy" so far. The most thinking I have to do is pick out a box from the freezer. The only cooking I do involves hitting "HIGH" for 3 minutes.

So my kids and their spouses are coming over for our traditional Sunday get-together for the first time since I started this program.

I can't offer them frozen entrees.

I have to cook.

I even bought a W.W. cookbook full of recipes.

So why am I scared out of my mind?

I have to start cooking again eventually. It's not good for anybody to live on frozen meals all of the time. I get that.

So why....... am I just frozen in fear?

And how......... do I ........... get past this............ without blowing it?

I even thought about fixing them "their" food and then I fix my own frozen.

But.... I need to face this food fear and get over it.

I need to start cooking again.

I feel like this is a no-brainer....... but in my brain...... the red warning alerts go off and say "Danger Will Robinson".....

Psyche..... pfffft.

Hmmm where should I go (in my imagination).....

 I have a lot of paid vacation time so I decided to take off Thursday and Friday next week since Wednesday is a paid off day due to Pioneer Day.

So I get a nice 5 days off.

What should I do? Where should I go?

Decisions, Decisions.

ELEVEN POUNDS G-O-N-E.......

So far so good. On my second weigh in I am down ELEVEN pounds. 

And it has been FUN. 

And I don't feel deprived at all. I have had hamburgers... pizza, pasta, icecream.... 

I've had "mcmuffins" -- the weight watchers version. 

I have had oodles of fruits and veggies. 

I've had steak fajitas. I've had shrimp. I have eaten very well. 

I have had more variety on this than if I eat on my own. LOL

And the weight is coming off. 

The scale says 11 pounds. I don't notice it yet on me. I have to lose at least 20 before it becomes noticeable.

But I am getting there. 

Whoo hooo Success! 

It drives me insane that NOBODY understands chronic pain......

I give up. I give up trying to make anybody understand what it feels like to live in my body.

With pain.

Chronic pain.

That does not EVER go away.

Some days it is tolerable.

That makes it a "good day".

Some days it is debilitating, scream-out-loud-out of my mind hurt. That's when I have a "bad day".

I have a very high pain tolerance. Several physical therapists have told me so. They hook me up to the electrical shock machine and I tolerate a VERY VERY high setting. I was told football players, grown men, would be in tears if they had the same level as me.

So people need to understand that when I say I hurt.... I MEAN IT.

I don't expect anyone to make it go away. I don't even need anybody to acknowledge what I said. I just need to SAY IT. Because SAYING it or posting it actually lightens the load.

But when people say to me "how is your back today?" and I say "fine" and they say "what did you do to make it better?"   I want to rip their heads off their bodies and chew it up and spit it out.

Because I DID NOTHING TO MAKE IT BETTER. IT IS NOT GONE. IT IS JUST TOLERABLE. TODAY IS A GOOD DAY. I AM STILL IN PAIN. I ALWAYS WILL BE.

This is not muscle pain. This is SPINAL CORD pain. Unless you have experienced a ruptured disk or degenerative osteoarthritis in a part of your back and neck.... you have NO IDEA what it feels like.

I would rather give birth without drugs every week than have this pain. It's that bad.

I try very hard to keep quiet about it. But it wears me down. I have no pain medication other than tylenol or advil and that is not strong enough. But shoot, it is nearly impossible to get Lortab these days since so many idiots abuse it and make it impossible for those who really need it to get any.

If I go and ASK my doctor for it.... I get identified as a "drug seeker".... even though I have a pain management doctor... he is against the use of opiates. Which is fine with me. I don't care what he gives me, I just need something STRONGER than OTC meds.

Anyhow.... I just had to vent.

Now, I will go take my Tylenol and work the rest of my day.

Back to Work

UGH! 

Success!

Amazing! I stepped on the scale this morning and 8 pounds are gone. EIGHT POUNDS!  I know that a lot of that is water-weight. I always gain when I go to Vermont because it's so humid. But still.... pretty darn good numbers there. Definitely keeps me motivated. I was expecting to only see 2 pounds gone.

I did a half hour on my bike yesterday. I'm hurting a little today but not too bad.

The food has been pretty good. I like that it is easy to just microwave it and not have to think about it. But it's more expensive to eat that way, so pretty soon I will have to start cooking again. I borrowed a weight watchers cookbook from the kindle library. It only has a couple of recipes that I want to try, but it's a start.  What I really need to do is sit down with my normal recipes and plug them into the recipe tracker so I know how many "Points" they equal and then just eat that stuff. But if it involves too much math, or too much having to "think" about it, I am less likely to stick with it. For me, the key is EASY.

Anyhow, I have one week behind me so let's head into Week 2 and see how it goes. A lot of my friends have done amazing weight loss recently so that is motivating to me. My sis-in-law Suz looks FANTASTIC!  She does the Shaklee 180 and I did look into that but that is so horribly expensive there is NO WAY I could afford it.

Anyhow.... it's Friday so hopefully this weekend will see me doing a bit more bicycling.

Weight Watchers Day 1 ---- I can DO THIS!0

Banana - 0 points

Breakfast sandwich... 6 points

chex mix snack.... 2 points

Cucumber - 0 points

Herbal tea - 0 points

Milk 1 point

fresh spinach - 0 points

Thai chicken and noodle lunch - 7 points

tomato - 0 points

Turkey and stuffing dinner - 6 points

English Toffee Crunch icecream bar for dessert.... 2 points. 

This is all the food that I ate on my first day of Weight Watchers. AND I STILL HAD POINTS LEFT OVER THAT I DID NOT USE!!

And I wasn't starving to death at all. 

And it's actually kind of fun to play around and see how much "bang for the buck" or "food for the points" I can get into one day. 

I like this. 

I get 32 points a day. I only used 26 yesterday. Pretty good. This week I am using the frozen meals just because it is easier and too hot to cook, but I don't plan to stick on those. I will start making some of the WW recipes soon. 

Here we go .... AGAIN

So last week I went home to visit my dad and the first words out of his mouth were "Boy have you gotten BIG!"

Thanks dad.

Like I don't already KNOW that.

But maybe it was the nudge I needed to really DO something about it. I have tried and tried. I just can't stick with anything.

But, one thing I have not tried is weight watchers. I know a lot of people in my ward who have used it and lost weight. But I kept thinking I just wasn't in to that. But obviously trying everything else under the sun hasn't worked so what have I got to lose?

So I signed up for it. Now, let's hope I can make the plan work. My problem is that I don't exercise because I am afraid of rupturing a disk in my back (for the third time).  And, I am a stress eater. If I am the least bit sad, anxious, depressed, or angry... I will grab something.

So, I have to change some of my behaviors. And find some kind of extremely low impact exercise.

Anyhow.... let's see how this works. Otherwise... .I just give up.