February 2013 Recap (GOAL!!!)

February, the longest-shortest month of the year.

It was a really hard one for me. Really hard. If I could sum this month up in a word, that word is STRESS.  However As of TODAY....

I finally hit my next major milestone. -50lbs!!   *SOUNDS THE TRUMPETS*  

Weigh In this morning was 251lbs.  This means that I ended Feb just like I did in Jan – with another new low.  YAY!   That has put the happy back in my step after a long and horrible month. 

The numbers:

Jan 31 - 253.2
Feb 1 - 252.8
Feb 2 - 253.8
Feb 3 - 253.6
Feb 4 - 252.8
Feb 5 - 252.4
Feb 6 - 252.6
Feb 7 - 252.8
Feb 8 - 252.2
Feb 9 - 252.2
Feb 10 - 252.4
Feb 11 - 253.8
Feb 12 - 253.4
Feb 13 - 253.8
Feb 14 - 252.6
Feb 15 - 252.6
Feb 16 - 252.2
Feb 18 - 252.0
Feb 19 - 251.4
Feb 20 - 251.4
Feb 21 - 252.2
Feb 22 - 252.2
Feb 25 - 252.6
Feb 26 - 252.8
Feb 27 - 251.8

Feb 28 – 251.0

Pounds lost in Feb – 2.2

Pounds lost Overall – 50

While I’m not particularly impressed with my numbers this month -  2.2lbs is more along the lines of what I have lost in a week.  I’m still pleased that I did it. It was difficult to stay positive, and to keep going, but I did. 

I went to yoga last night, I didn’t want to, I had a million excuses that I let roll around as I got changed, grabbed water and got in the car.  It was hard, but I need to keep at it.  Its good practice to make myself do something that I don’t want to.

February has been a month of struggles, so I guess it taught me that I can make it though anything if I take it a step at a time!

Desk Drawer and things

The fabulous Miss Lori at I Just Ate My Willpower had a fun task for us this morning!  What does your desk drawer look like!   Weeeee!

Of course, I'm moving desks on Friday, so this is substantially better then usual in terms of amount and organization.

• Oatmeal packets
• Blue lid - Natural Peanut butter
• Pink lid - tuna
• Zip lock - Big Train Chai Latte protein powder
• Small silver lid - V8
• Large silver lid - Zero Calorie Orange fizzy water drink
• Tampons
• Halloween decorations

Pretty unexciting mix all in!

Weigh in this morning was considerably better.  251.8.  Much better then the last few days, but this month is going to be a near zero bust. Its not a GAIN, so I can't be too unhappy.  

Tonight is yoga, I don't want to go already, which is a clear sign that I should! ha! 

The House was inspected yesterday, there are no major issues that came from it - so our realtor said - they typically hear about it right away if there is.  So we are proceeding.  March 29 is the clear out date, so we need to find a place asap to rent while we look for a new home.  Starting that today!!

Three days and counting to the new job starts. Things are starting to get uncomfortable. Everyone is sad and not shy about telling me how big a hole I'm going to leave, and how much they love working with me.  Ouch.

If only they had been as proactive about keeping me here... 

Anyway, its hard, because, I really HATE letting people down and have been in a self-deprecating spiral as I tell people they will find someone as good, it won't be an issue, etc. etc. blah. 

They aren't.  ha! I said it. 

I'm awesome, I worked twice as hard for half the pay, ate twice the sh*t sandwiches from the grumpy people I work with, smiled and kept going.  I really care about doing an excellent job, on top of being a great funny entertaining person to be around. So, they are sad for a reason, but they want to blame me and that's the hard part for me not to internalize.

February, how I hate thee

Weekend away was great. It was nice to re-charge and get outside (sunburn - ouch) and see lots of people. However, I really let the snack food get away from me and today the scale is showing a nice salt-bloat of 252.6.

Okay.... over dramatic. I can't believe that I just called .4 of a pound a bloat.  Jeez.  Back in the day I would have seen it as a major victory...however, I didn't have a surgically altered stomach. 

Ahem... moving on.

Okay - its 3 days pre-preiod, I had a lot of salty snacks and frankly, I've been a giant ball o' stress with the new job, the house staging, cleaning and selling.  So... I'm calling February a wash.

March... watch out, I'm coming to kick your ass.

OOT

Out of town for the weekend!

No scale... Lots of exercise planned!!! Have a good weekend all!

WOOP!

okay!

We have 2 full price offers on the house today.  HURRAY!!!   Houses in our area were going fast - we knew that, but we didn't know HOW fast.  So we are going to sign off on one of them today and get this party started.  Looks like we will be moving by the 28th of March.  OMG!

HURRAY!!!!!  and ... jeeze already!!!  haha

Last night I went and joined a beginners yoga class. It was hard, I have very inflexible feet and ankles, so that makes it tough, but... I liked it and I have a 10 class pass to use over the next 3 months.  So yoga will be done.

Scale was up this morning, 252.2lbs.

I had dinner (3/4 of an Amy's veggie lasagna) at 9pm last night. I should have had a protein shake and went to bed, but I'm not making really good decisions right now. I need to remedy this.  Have any of you ever heard of Decision Fatigue. 

I know that I have this....my job is making 1,000 decisions an hour, being a wife is all about decisions, the house, the food, the dog, the car, the cleaning, what we are doing, when it needs doing, how its going to be done.  My Husbeast is a wonderful man, but he isn't great at getting anything done and decided. Thats my job.  *sigh* 

Decision Fatigue is basically research showing that the more decision you make in the day (even little easy ones), the harder decisions are to make further along (even the easy ones!).  Its a big reason why I make poor choices at night (so think I), and why the decisions about me and my health tended to be poor... because I was so far down the priority list.  Which, I'm working on changing that too.

Anyway - that's my little psa today.  Its some interesting stuff.

Tired Bunny/One bad thing

Last night I was in bed with the lights off at 9:30pm. That is unheard of for me, as I am typically a night owl.

However, I'm pretty darn busy right now, I had a hard weights session last night, and top off all that with the monster amount of cleaning and running around - I think it was a well deserved night off.

One bad thing: Old habits die hard. 

I was out at the walmart getting a new doormat, and thought that I would go and get a tiny small ice cream, but inside I already knew that I was going to get a pint. And that I was going to eat that pint all by myself.

As if.

So I got home, told myself a bunch of lies about how good I've been and how I'm only going to eat a little bit. Then I sat down on the couch with the spoon - and tried to eat it all. I couldn't. Gandalf the Sleeve Wizard did his job and stopped me.  So, all I did was make myself sick, and barfing ice cream is really so so nasty, so nasty. 

Mission accomplished ...  in terms of negative reinforcement. I have the remainder of that pint in the freezer and honestly, the flavor is not appealing anymore.

Weigh in this morning; 251.4 - holding steady.

On a good note - we had our house listed last night and there are 4 viewing booked for today, 2 for Thursday and one for Friday already.  WOOT!  Sell Sell Sell.

down!

Finally some movement on the scale today. 

Weight in – 251.4

I'm heading out of the 250's. I can't wait to see that 249 on the scale.  Soon Tamzin Soon!!!!  I actually got super confused while looking at it, thinking that I’d put ON weight, not lost. Ahh mornings, so much to do, so little brain power.

So my February goal to get on my bike in the mornings is a complete fail. I haven’t done a single session.

However, I’ve been doing my 2x a week weights. So to remedy that, I signed up for and paid for 10 yoga sessions at a studio near my house.  I have "yoga for beginners" on Wednesday nights and a couple of Sunday mornings. It will do two things, 1. get me moving, and 2. get me out of the house while its getting shown.  Excellent all around.

However, with all the cleaning I’ve been doing – it has been a solid work out. My back and legs are killing me today and my hands are really sore and tired from scrubbing stuff all weekend.  

Tonight is weights, not too sure how great I will do, but at least I’ll get it done. Then home to catch up on watching The Walking Dead and have a hot chai latte protein drink for dinner.

Also – a quick note of thank you all for your comments on here for the last week – I’ve not had a chance to respond to them all, but they are still appreciated!  J

Phew

Well this weekend flew by.

There was a planned baby shower sat morning, it went well, but was a lot of work.

The rest of the weekend was cleaning, packing, sorting, cleaning, more cleaning, folding, washing....

You know, the usual. Haha.

But, success has happened. The house was shown once today, pictures tomorrow, and gets listed on Wednesday .

Phew. It's been a busy weekend.

No weigh in today - the scale was put away, but its coming out tomorrow so i get to see what's happening. :)

4 Month Sleeversary

4 Months in!   Hard to believe that it was such a short time ago as 4 months!!

Starting weight – 301
4 Month weight – 252.6

Pounds lost – 48.4

Pant sizes down – 3
Shirt size down – 2
Month 1
Month 2
Month 3

Today I signed my new job offer - new role and department at my current company.  I'm super excited!!   :)   HURRAY!!!!!   More money, more work, more travel, and more interesting!

Changes this month.... yes, there have been a few more.  The pounds lost between month 3 and 4 is small  - only 3.4lbs, however the visible changes are huge.

The 256 pictures and the 252.6 pictures are VASTLY different!!!  I honestly couldn't fully believe the difference those little 4lbs made in my body.

As for clothing sizes, there has not been a change there in number, but there has been a change in fit.  My shirt as looser,  my size 18 pants were tight and now they are comfortable.  My new jeans (18) are showing the biggest difference, I put them on last night to go to the movies and just pulled them on without unbuttoning.  I had been wearing my old size 20's thinking that the 18's were too small, but now I'm into them and have put hte 20's onto the donate pile so that I am not tempted to wear them out of habit.

Sheila at This One Body left a great comment for me yesterday and I went back and read her February posts. I have been on a big stall - 15days of near the same weight.  However, (like Sheila) - I'm not going to worry about it, the downward movement will continue, I just have to stay the course and keep doing what I'm doing, because it is working!

Typically I do a list of improvements, but this month I'm  just going to do pictures. Because they say more then any list that I can think of today.

Left 301 - Right 256

252.6lbs

Valentines!

Happy Valentines Everyone!!

I have a date with the Husbeast tonight to go and see DIE HARD 4!!!!!  A good day to die harder or whatever.  25 years ago the first movie came out... damn that made me feel OLD. 

Weigh In this morning - 252.6  :)

Happily heading back down from my stress-ball week.  I'm feeling significantly better, still a little nervous.  I should be getting a written offer this Friday!!

But, for now I have other things to focus on. Chiefly, house selling.  Our realtor called and said the market has taken off and we need to get ready for our house to get listed next week, Wednesday. This Sunday we are having two people come through for a pre-opening viewing (yay!).  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a very quick sale. She is even re-doing the comps and pricing because what we thought would be good 3 weeks ago is too low now.  Great news for us!

So evenings this week are just pounding my way through all the little chores...changing light bulbs, cleaning stuff, polishing the glass wear, dusting, packing boxes, organizing the drawers and cupboards, etc, etc, etc.

Okay.  Time to get to work. My blogging has fallen off this month - I need to get back on it.


and for you singles out there.... here is your gift from me! 

Mantra

Today I am not hungry.

Today I am feeling scared, stressed, nervous, tired, overloaded, guilty, and worried.

I am not hungry, and putting food in my mouth will not solve any of the other feelings that I'm having.

The interviews went well - they are making me an offer at the end of the week for the new job I applied/interviewed for. 

I had to tell the two women that I work for yesterday that I was possibly leaving the department. That was hard.   Really hard. I chickened out twice.  I really hate to disappoint people, I hate putting myself first, I feel guilty for leaving, even though its best for me.

I'm also scared about the new job, more travel, more responsibility, more everything.... what if I can't do it, what if I do it badly, what if they don't like me.

Then I remind myself: I've never had a job I didn't do well, I'm a high performer, I get max bonus's, I get great reviews, and I always strive to do my best - this will be no different.  I will put in the effort, I was the top candidate for a reason, they aren't stupid. I am going to be great.

So today I have to STOP feeding my feelings. 

H2O

This weekend I did the WORST job ever of staying hydrated, and today's weigh-in was the proof of that pudding.  I also did a poor job of eating protein.

Weigh IN - 253.8

Got my bloat on, so this week I need to focus on water water water water.

I did a big workout on Sat morning, and then spent the day cleaning. The house is getting listed next Wednesday, so I still have a TON of stuff to get done, and lists are out and the nightly work is prepped. 

I have a dental appointment today, so I need to have a snack, go to my meeting, then hit the road to get my teeth cleaned.

This next few weeks is going to be crazy.

Interview update: it went well - I can't really tell how this one went, the interviewer was a harder read.  They are going to make a decision later this week or early next week.  Just waiting and seeing at this point. 

:)

Busy!

I've been rock'n and roll'n at the office and at home. Lots of projects on the go, not time to stop.

Weight is doing good - I'm in the early part of the month "stall" where I be-bop around in the same pound range for a week or more.

Weighed in at 252.2 today. Still, I'm very pleased and trusting my sleeve, Gandalf to do his job.  He is, but I'm doing my part too!

Water has been a problem these last couple of days, so I'm going to concentrate on that today and this weekend.

I have my second interview later this morning. I woke up at 3am and was wide awake until 6am...got another 40 min of sleep after that, and then it was up shower, dress, and eat.  I've thought about it, prepped for it. Now I just have to do it.

Last night I even managed to get in a 45min walk.

Tucked In

NSV Alert!!!!


Today I put on a shirt for work and ......

drum roll please.....


IT LOOKED BETTER TUCKED IN THEN LEFT OUT!!!!!!!!!

Closing in on my 50lb Goal & Thoughts on Workplace Descrimination

OMG ... I am so close to having lost 50lbs I honestly can't believe that I let this sneak up on me like this.

WOOHOO!   I'm super excited.

Weigh in this morning: 252.4

I have a second interview this Friday for an internal job I applied for, and here is why I want to talk about it. 

Nicole at Beauty and the Bypass was asking a question about discrimination at work for being overweight.   I wanted to reply to that post, but the answer is long, complicated and biased to my experience.

As someone who has been varying degrees of slightly overweight to morbidly obese, but also brainwashed by my parents to think that I was a huge hosebeast from a very young age, I have a hard time telling when I was actually overweight and when I was just a little chunky and when I was actually normal sized.

Honestly, I still do some days.

Anyway - absolutely I've been discriminated against as a fat person at every job I've ever had. Maybe not for promotions, but as a person. To combat it, I was hyper sensitive about doing good work, being competent and making sure that I was in totally control of my job and duties.  Mostly, I think people looked at me and thought nasty things about my fatness.  However, I made sure that no one could say that I was lazy and didn't do my job well.  However, even with all these efforts, I never was invited to work on any extra committees, projects and given praise for my contributions.

But, that is a big but.... I really believe that the biggest factor holding me back has always been me. 

I'm the one that thinks I can't do it, I'm the one that scared, I'm the one that doesn't want to be out in public looking a fat mess, I'm the one that thinks people are laughing at me, I'm the one that thinks I don't deserve to be paid well, appreciated and promoted. I worry that people don't want to sit next to me at dinner tables, meetings, any place where I might have intruded on their personal space. I worried about tight elevator rides, getting in vehicles with co-workers and all kinds of strange little daily things.

When I went to this last interview, my attitude had changed.  The interviewer told me about the events planning part of this role, and I thought about how great that would be.  An hour later I realized, that I hadn't even thought about how embarrassed I would have be to meet hoteliers after dealing with them on the phone, that I wasn't scared to wear dress shoes all day walking around.

50+lbs ago, that would have been the first thought.  The job involves some travel - no problem, I fit into airplanes now. 

I also wasn't worried about the first impression that I would make, that I would walk into the interview and the first thing that they would notice wouldn't be how massive I was.  Now, I just look kind of chunky, but I wouldn't say that I look so out of place anymore.

So I think that there is discrimination, I also think that I am a significant amount of my problem. Sadly there will always be "something", either I'm too fat, too tall, too ugly, too stupid, too canadian, too married, too freckled, too smart, too whatever....  In the end all of those things are more about the person that is thinking them, then about me.  So, I have to just work on the me.

Anyway, Nicole, thank you for putting that into my brain to think about.  I know that there is a lot more to this, but its good fodder for starting a conversation - even if it is just with myself!!  :)

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished. Yesterdays water consumption was up and I'm feeling better for it.

Weigh In: 252.8

Back down again this morning from my salt and dehydration bloating this weekend. 

I worked hard on Sunday as we got a lot of stuff done and I can feel it in my legs and back for sure.  Plus, I slept like the dead last night.  O.U.T out!

Just finished my lunch - left over naked tenders with carrots and celery sticks from BW3 (med hot sauce and blue cheese dressing on the side).  YUM!  Plus, its nice to have every meal I get while out turn into 2 or 3 meals.  Crazy times!

I'm wearing today a shirt I bought a month ago that didn't fit. It fits today.   LOVE that feeling.

Happy Monday!! 

OPERATION HYDRATION

I have been running around like a mad woman these last few days, working on the house, cleaning, but also enjoying myself so I can't complain too hard.

I also had my first real volunteer session at the Dress for Success on Friday morning. Which was great. I can't wait to go back and get my hands into the organization and helping out.

However with all the in and around and out and about over the last 4 days... I've REALLY neglected my water.  Badly.  So today is OPERATION HYDRATION.

Water is on all floor, on all stopping points and its my job today to get it in me.

We are bricking in a back patio today, so for the last few days I've been to the hardware stores, getting 100 large paving bricks, packing them too and from the store to car, car to garage and garage to back yard today.

We have another friend here to help so that's been great, he and the Husbeast are getting a few more bricks and bits that we need.  You know that there is never any project that has 100% of what you need no matter how good you plan, so I'm getting a break.

And by break I mean, I unloaded the dishwasher, put the laundry in, and am updating my blog.  HA!  A woman's work is never done.

Weigh in this morning is: 253.6

Pic of the dawg on the new bricks.