Veg Moms

We've moved!

2006-10-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

We've moved! Update links to

http://vegmoms.wordpress.com

in need of motivation

2006-10-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

Monday again. It always comes too soon. Monday through Wednesday are bad for me, lots of classes to teach and class prep to do.

I need some motivation in the exercise department. I wish I could be one of those people that wants to exercise just to be healthy, but alas I am not. I need something to train for, some end goal in mind to get my ass moving. In the past half- marathon training or sister's challenges have worked fairly well. What can I do now?

restful weekend

2006-10-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

I am feeling pretty good this weekend. We did a little work around the house and a lot of resting. We took Iz to a fair in the little downtown area near our house. We live in a bedroom community of a much bigger town so our little downtown area isn't much. But they had an area with those bouncy slides and things. Iz is just a little too young to handle them on her own so I took her down the bouncy slide 4 times. Let me tell you, the girl was hooked. She kept saying "one more, one more" and when we ran out of tickets and had to leave she had a fit and kept saying "one more" threw her tears on the way home. So sad.

I did better with eating last week but still not great. I took lunch in several days and am planning on lunching in most of this week too. Still not in points and exercise isn't there at all, but I getting back into the groove and avoiding the crazy eating out. We made our menu and it is all mainly convenience foods (tofu, veggie hotdogs, canned veggies or beans) but it will help us get through the week.

Weighed in at 183.5 again this weekend, same as last weekend.

I think I will hit those hedges.

tv

2006-10-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a night to sit around and watch tv. I played bridge last night and wednesday is my tv day so my shows were taped so I could watch tonight. I missed lost and project runway. Now I have seen them both. I can't wait for PR to be over so I have one show I have to catch up on.

Work is getting me down. I am working on a problem and I feel like there is no solution. I keep twisting knobs and pushing buttons (figuratively, I am working on a code) but nothing is getting me closer to the right answer. I really need to take a break from the problem for a few days, give it some time to sink in, but my students are all waiting for me to wrap up the testing phase so they can start using the code. Maybe I will get it to work properly tomorrow.

Eating has been ok. Not much formal exercise but lots of yard work.

TTCing gets me down when I think about it so I am trying not to. I was hoping for a "oops, we got pregnant so quickly the second time around, guess the cliche is true" baby. We aren't having it. 6 months in and no inkling that it is going to happen for us anytime soon. I think we are going to start getting more serious about it.

Catching Up

2006-10-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to bed around midnight and then jerked awake when I realized I didn't have lunch made for school tomorrow. So I ended up making pasta, threw in a jar of spaghetti sauce, a packet of veggie burger crumbles, and the last bits of broccoli. Also made Julia some Celestial Seasonings Tangerine Zinger tea for her thermos and I put water in mine. A simple salad for me and tomatoes for her.

Julia is cutting a molar so we've been staying away from harder veggies til her mouth is less sensitive.

Things with me are busy -- I just got home from school (3 PM) and I have oodles of things to do apart from The Afternoon Nap Argument. Tomorrow I teach cooking, my friend Carla and I want to do some homeschooling units with the kids, and then there's the Christmas pageant auditions on Sunday along with an RE meeting.

Christy asked me when I first got to playschool if I was having my period and I told her I just finished it yesterday and she said she'd thought she was syncing up with someone because she's been feeling like hers is coming early. I told her so far it's Carla, then Liz, then me, and now her so that rounds out the month then.

I'm down a lb, and at 40 day cycles, so slow as it is... things are looking good for TTC next year... IF we decide to go there.

weigh in

2006-09-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 183,5 this morning.

Today has been a busy one already. We went planning on trimming the hedges, but our hedge trimmer wasn't charges to instead we went out to dig out the stumps of the hedges we cut down. We could find the shovel or ax so after a trip to wal-mart, we started the digging. The first one took forever to get out and I started to wonder if we made the right decision to do it ourselves instead of hiring someone. The next two were much easier. We ended up getting 6 out, only 12 more to go.

After lunch I thought I would trim a few of the hedges anyway. I used up all the accumulated charge and put the thing back on the charger. Hedges are the biggest PITA.

exercise, pee and a new cousin

2006-09-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

We did it! Mike and I walked 2 miles last night. After dinner, mom distracted Iz long enough for us to do an "out and back" (as opposed to walking all the way around the loop which is almost 3 miles). It was great weather and we had a nice conversation, but it was almost dark when we got home at 7:10. Crazy!

I have journaled everything the last two days. It isn't pretty, but it is all there. Tonight I play bridge so we will do a quick dinner beforehand.

Iz pee-d in the potty yesterday for the first time in her whole life! Much rejoicing was had.

We have a new cousin on the way! My brother and his spouse are expecting within days of Iz's third birthday. We can't wait.

Aye, aye!

2006-09-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

I'm on it, Amy!

Today I had another meeting at church but I got up early and cleaned the house and scrubbed down the pantry cabinets. I made lunch and dinner ahead so when I finally got home from the meeting I had something easy to eat that was ALSO ok for points/staying on track.

Tomorrow -- food and a workout. Off to bed early to make it so.

ugh too

2006-09-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

I just weighed in at 183, up about 5 lbs from my lowest weigh in of 178.5 a few weeks ago.

This past month has been a blur of craziness. School starting, no lunch planning, too much eating out, desperately low energy at dinner time causing a flurry of eating, icecream with sisters, family reunion food, traveling fast food, just got home with nothing in the fridge so lets go out food. A bad month.

My goal this week is just to start journaling my food again, even if I go way over points. And to walk at least once. The temperature is fantastic and Mom is here now which makes walking quite a bit easier.

Come on Cat! We can do this! Only 15 weeks till xmas. Only 10 weeks until the holidays start. I would like to have a solid 10 weeks, then try to maintain over the holidays.

Ugh

2006-09-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow ends a week of singular lack of routine.

Paul's been crazy busy with work and I've been crazy busy with school/church stuff and then the weekend was a visit to MIL who lives out of town and then nursery so we didn't even get a break over the weekend to recoup.

Result? eating out to often and me blaoting up about 5 lbs. Ugh.

I need to cook tomorrow to feed my freezer.

quick 3

2006-09-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hi Cat!

I was out of town most of last week and this past weekend and since I returned, running around like crazy. I am at work now waiting to hold a recitation session for my students to help them prepare for their test tomorrow.

Mom is semi-moved in with us and she has the baby this week which is great.

Sistah weekend was great but no 5k was to be had. Instead there were many trips to Panera bread and icecream and shopping. Now I have several pairs of pants that actually fit! I discovered I am short, not petite, so the perfect pant is a 14 short. Harder to find than a 14P, so when I did find one, I snatched it up.

This weekend I am gone again to a family reunion, then hopefully quite time will prevail.

Stuff

2006-09-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

We had a quiet weekend. Kid asked to go theme parking (amazing how fast they figure that out!) so we took her for a little while on Saturday. It was VERY hot so I think we're going to have to go earlier or go later next time. Lunch time is just too too brutal.

Sunday school was pretty easy -- ;lots of kids though.

I got home to find a message from my friend M. and the nutshell is that I'm going to try to pump and mail her some expressed breast milk. My heart really goes out to them -- they're having such a ahrd time. I wish I could do more.

Mighty Leaf

2006-09-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

Aside from the Toddler Afternoon Nap Struggle, I had a great day. Smooth, productive, and while I'm not done with cleaning the Man Pit, I'm in a good groove. Totally on program with the food log and all that other fitness stuff, the house stuff, work stuff, though I keep running in here for quickie updates and then running off again to tend something else.

I've been having tea before bed lately and my mom turned me on to Mighty Leaf. She picked up a couple bags at one of the hotels she was working at... Maybe the Ritz? I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm not wild about the lemon verbena but boy howdy! The "Green Passion" one had me dazzled.

noise part 2

2006-09-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

The noise was from a broken sewage pump. Cheaper to fix than a hot water heater, but smellier too. At least we caught it before we left town.

I will be gone for a few days. When I get back, I am rededicating my healthy eating and exercise efforts.

Busy

2006-09-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

Mad dash in here and I'll have to dahs back out.

Everyone is better, and I'm down to jsut the occassional cough.

I've had the 4th tree guy come to estaimte and I'm working with the neighbors for dealing with the tree that is on our shared property line.

I've cleaned most of the house in less than an hour, and just have kitchen and LR to go as far as "regular" cleaning. Then I can focus on laundry and The Man Pit we pretend is a master bedroom.

I have to work extra hours tomorrow so I'm trying to get tomorrow's chores done tooday as well. Hence Laundry Mountain.

While sick I changed my Metformin dose to 8 AM and 8 PM and it's working out a lot better than Noon and Midnight. I used to have it that way because I had to take my Levoxyl at 8 AM, but now I'm taking THAT at midnight when I go to bed. Sadly I keep loosing track of my multivitamin in there but I'll keep working on it. Better to skip the multi which is really just for insurance than a prescription med. But still...

I want to get back in the habit of it since we may or may not be TTC in Jan. Just in case, I also have been charting so... we'll see what we see.

noise

2006-09-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have packed my bag and gathered my papers. I have printed out my itenerary (why can't I spell that word?) and put my toilletries in a pile. I have gathered Iz's clothes and taken the essentials out of her diper bag to put in the backpack. I put my little handheld things on their chargers and sat down to catch my breath.

And then I heard a noise.

It sounded like water running. I heard it clearly in the upstairs bathroom, but there was no obvious running in there. I didn't hear it in our bathroom. I went downstairs, thinking the downstairs toilet was to blame (hello, just fixed the leaky toilet remember?) but the noise was still going after the toilet was flushed and turned off. I found the culprit kind of, the noise was coming from a pvc pipe in the room with the hot water heater, though not noticably connected to the hot water heater. It turns on, run (or drains) a bit, then turns off again, cycling every couple of minutes. What is actually running and/or draining is still not obvious. After all the toilets were turned off and every where else that could be leaking checked and double checked, we have concluded it is most likely the hot water heater, draining water out, then refilling every couple of minutes. We can't leave the house with a leak going on somewhere so plumbers must be called and called quickly.

Nothing is ever easy.

another fast one

2006-09-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have class in 10 minutes.

Weighed in at 180 this weekend, up 1.5 lbs from last week. Not a surprise, this much I know.

Very busy weekend, but am amazed at how much I can get accomplished when I am forced to work my ass off. I came to work on Sunday morning to write lectures, stopped by home depot on the way home and bought stuff to fix 2 toilets, went home and fixed the toilets (which have been leaky since we moved here! Almost a year ago!) Cleaned the basement, swept the outside patio, cleaned the dishes, did about 10 loads of laundry, watched the finals of the US Open, gave Iz a bath, made dinner, printed out a bunch of stuff to take with me on this trip, collapsed into bed at 9:30. Busy? Yes, but also very very productive day. And I took time out to watch the tennis and play with Iz so it wasn't all work.

I leave tomorrow night for Boston, then will go to VA to spend the weekend with my sisters. It is supposed to be the sister's 5 k weekend, but I don't think I will be doing any 5ks. I haven't walked/ran for at least a couple of weeks and am *tired*. I want to have a sister's rest weekend (with a side of shopping) instead of a 5k weekend.

quickie

2006-09-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

Boy, we had a La-Zy weekend. Now the craziness has kicked into high gear. I am out of town for 4 days next week and I have to write the lectures I will miss (so that my grad student can give them) plus the lectures for the day I come back, plus a test and study sheet for the day I come back.

Eating has been a controlled disaster, meaning we are eating out almost every meal but I am trying not to go over too much. No exercise. Sore throat (allergies, I assume, the weather has changed here.)

On labor day, a couple with 2 kids in our neighborhood invited us over for dinner. It turns out they are "bizarro" us. They just moved here from NoVa, they had the same favorite restaurant that we did, both husbands are tall and thin and dark, both women are short and not thin and red-headed. They have 2 kids, a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Iz played independently with the kids really well, she went off into their room with them and would only occassionaly resurface in the living room to bring us a doll or car or something that I assumed she wanted me to tuck in my handbag and take home for later.

weigh in

2006-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

178.5 again this week. Which is very good considering this week has included much icecream.

Tonight we have a date planned, Thai food and a movie. The rest of the weekend is free of plans.

I still feel sick. I don't know if it is depression or a bug.

one look in my closet

2006-09-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

and I am depressed.

Everything in my closet is too big for me. Normally, that would send me happily to the mall to shop, shop, shop, but I just can't this time. For starters, almost everything in my closet is new, purchased last January when I was starting this job. And I got a lot of clothes, most of my xmas presents were clothes last year and I spent all my xmas money on post-season sales. With so many choices, I only wore everything a handful of times, so the clothes are basically brand new. And did I mention they were expensive? For me at least. Mike bought me a shirt from dillards for xmas that I liked so much, I went out and bought 4 more, each at $50. I justified that Iwould be wearing them for a long time, why not splurge.

Because I don't want to be wasteful, I want to keep wearing these clothes, but they hang off of me in a sometimes obscene way. (My favorite sweater was a black wrap sweater. I put it on this morning and it was all b00bies. I will have to go.) But even for the ones that aren't obscene, I don't like the way I look in too big clothes. I spent my whole like wearing things that would drape over me and cover me up. Now I want to show off my (slowly returning) figure.

I am thinking of putting everything up on ebay, then buying new clothes from ebay with the profit. Just a few clothes this time, since I hopefully won't be this size forever.

Quickie....

2006-08-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

No vomit and no dire rear today for Julia. Me? I'm getting a sore ear/throat. Paul says he's still queasy.

nope

2006-08-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

Not this month.

Which is ... ok.

There is a world of difference between trying to get pregnant with Iz and trying to get pg again. The first time, every negative pregnancy test was met with gnashing of teeth, cursing at the gods, and a week in bed nursing chocolate icecream (which really helped my fertility, I assure you). This time, I just threw the test away and made dinner for my family.

This time I know we can get pregnant. I am not too worried about it (though little fears keep sneaking in there). And I am really distracted by our current wee one (who has a 102.4 degree temperature today and a very red bottom caused by eating a full quart of strawberries by herself!)

It would be fun to be pregnant right now because someone I know just found out she was pregnant (shhh, its a secret). But there are also lots of reasons that it would be better to get pregnant in a couple of months, like a trip to Hawaii next May and to Greece next June that I wouldn't be able to take if I was pregnant today.

I did go and get some icecream though. :)

better?

2006-08-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

Is Julia feeling better Cat? Iz has had several bouts of stomach flu this year, you are lucky you have made it this long before Julia got something. Iz's always lasted less than 24 hours, I hope Julia kicks it just as quickly. Of course, the sucky part is that it lasts longer in the parents.

We got all ready for a walk last night and the second we stepped out the door, it came a heavy rain. WTF? Are the exercise gods against me ever exercising again? And it probably took me 30 minutes to get ready because I had to change my laces on my tennis shoes and pump up all of the tires on Iz's stroller and get a snack and juice for Iz, waters for us. Oh well, we are going to try again in a few minutes.

To deal with the craziness of the new school year, I bought a lot of soups this week to facilitate eating in while not (really) cooking. We had Amy's black bean chili tonight for dinner with fresh made corn muffins. We are definitely light on the veggies today (I should have heated up some frozen veggies for the side) but point wise it all worked out ok. I really like this chili and I like Amy's minestrone. I wasn't crazy about the Amy's lentil soup though. We will do soup 2 or 3 times a week until things calm down.

Stress

2006-08-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

Amy -- great job on the yard and on breaking the plateau! :)

Things over here are stressful. I got another 3 miles down sometimes but I can't remember which night. I stayed on track food log-wise despite eating out, but I can't remember what I ate.

What I DO remember is zero sleep and anxiety while Julia spent HER night throwing up and crying when it happened because she's never thrown up before and all she could say was "I have to spit! I need my cup!" and then "Yucky! Waaaaahhhhhh! What's happening?!"

She's got a tummy bug and is going to be fine and improved over the day, but she was stressed out over this vomit stuff and frankly, so were we.

In the car coming home from Target last night and then twice last night. Then me not able to sleep and watching HER sleep waiting to see if it would happen again.

But she's a quick learner and we taught her to "spit" into the plastic tumbler we kept carrying around because we weren't sure that she's make it to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet. She's told me every time it was coming that she wanted her cup and so it hasn't been messy at all.

Just emotionally draining.

We garden with a chainsaw

2006-08-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend has flown by, I can't even tell you everything we did, I don't remember! Yesterday after weigh in, we hung around the house. I remember there was a long nap in the afternoon and dinner out at Longhorn (there is nothing vegetarian on this menu, but the fried chicked salad with no chicked, no croutons, and regular honey mustard dressing is really good). After dinner we went to target to pick up some cards, random supplies and groceries. I remember nothing of what we did last night after coming home. Right before I went to bed, I search for (and found) a box of text books I was missing.

This morning I got up and worked on my lecture first thing. I am teaching a graduate level course this term and it is a new course so I am making it up as I go along. I had to review the textbooks in the box, then write a lecture and come up with a homework set. I was able to finish in about 2 hours, mainly because I went downstairs where I wouldn't be distracted.

When I came back up, I found that Mike had gotten the camcorder set up and was downloading the video to our computer. Watching the old videos make it all come back. It is crazy to see Iz so small, so immobile and me so HUGE. Seeing it in video makes all the difference.

While Iz was napping we tackled some more of our outdoors. We cut down 2 more bushes with our handy dandy chainsaw. There are two left but the extension cord won't reach so we have to wait to buy a new one. Then we tackled these funny plants in our flower bed. Mike and I are no gardeners and we have difficulty in discerning a weed from a desirable flower. I am not sure what we cut down today, it wasn't an obvious weed, but we didn't like the looks of it either way. I think we are going to just dig up the flower beds completely and simplify them. Because of all the bushes beside the house (we are leaving most of those) we need space to be able to get in to trim them. With these elaborate flower beds, it make it very difficult. I need to look at some different ideas on line.

So I am dirty, cut up from the thorns on the bushes and itchy from the bug bites. I am planning on doing a walk today though. I can't let my sisters continue to humiliate me in the SFWEC!

weight loss pics

2006-08-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

I added a picture taken today in my weight loss pics site.

thoughts

2006-08-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 178.5 today!!! Finally came down off the 182 line and broke through the plateau! That is 19 lbs lost this summer (in about 17 weeks). And in the 170s! I feel so lucky!

As mentioned earlier, I have had a rough week. I have been extra tired and cranky and a little sick to my stomach. These feeling coupled together always make me wonder if I am pregnant (said with a very small and timid voice). I keep reminding myself that when I actually did get pg, I didn't have any symptoms at all and wouldn't have know if the two lines hadn't formed on the stick. My period is due to start on Tuesday. I will be upset if it does.

Off to make corn salsa, naked burritos for lunch today!

great numbers!

2006-08-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, Cat, congrats on the numbers and congrats on getting all the miles in! Glad to know you are feeling better!

I did walk 2 miles a couple of nights ago, but the rest of my week has been completely dominated by the return to school. The night I walked 2 miles, I overdid it and got very sick. I had to get up at 12:30 to slam some water and crackers.

School is crazy. I hope it will calm, but this is going to be a crazy semester, for sure. I will make lots of visits to HMCUs and the like. I teach 3 days a week so either I am teaching or writing the lecture. And I am teaching a brand new class so I have to do a lot of work for that one.

I will update this weekend.

Lab Results

2006-08-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

Another 3 mile walk today. And lab results in the mail.

Glucose = 94 (want less than 100)

TG = 131 (want less than 150)

Cholesterol = 169 (want less than 200)

HDL = 43 (want greater than 55 in women, so this could use a little work)

LDL = 100 (want less than 130)

Ratio = 3.9 (want less than 5.0)

So overall -- yay. Let's see where I am in Dec.

quickie

2006-08-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

Had sprinkelrs put in back but they cut our phone line and cable line. ARgh -- have to get those repaired.

3 miles mon, 2.5 today.

oops

2006-08-19T20:12:00.000-07:00

Mike won an award at his company and as a result had a $50 gift certificate to macoroni grill. We discovered MG while still in Boston and it is probably the one italian place we go to the most. They are fairly kid friendly with crayons and paper on the table and have food that Iz wil eat. Usually I get the eggplant parm, but I wasn't too happy with it last week so I had the "build your own pasta' instead. Just a basic bowtie pasta with veggies and red sauce (they have good red sauce!) Mike wanted to get dessert since we had a gift certificate. I wasn't into dessert that much, but I said I would have a bite of whatever he wanted. He got the chocolate cake with a side of icecream. Oh my, it was very good, I couldn't stop myself. I didn't eat quite half of it, but it was close. I came home and looked up the points - 35 for the whole thing. Luckily I had a very light eating day otherwise (I brought most of my pasta home) so I was TOOO far over, not as bad as it could have been. And just today I was telling my sis I were going to have a perfect WW month so I could finally break through the 180 mark.

Speaking of sis's, we have a 4 week exercise challenge starting today. This is a milage challenge so just total miles completed. The challenge will end with a sister's weekend and 5k in VA. The 50-50 challenge is complete. I didn't do so hot, but I still like the concept and may try it in the future.

Another funny thing, starting this morning I had a horrible pain in my heel when I stepped down. It was a biting pain, just when my foot was in a very specific orientation. I couldn't see or feel anything on the skin and I was sure it was a bone spur, my mom has had those before. I was all upset, wondering how it would effect my exercise during this latest challenge. Finally Mike took a careful look and saw a tiny little black dot. He got a needle and dug a little hole into my heel (luckily that part didn't hurt). He had to make the hole fairly big to get the tweezers in there. He was finally able to pull out an inch long hair! And the pulling out hurt! I can't even imagine how a hair got into my foot or how long it had been there to finally get down to the nerve. But atleast I have no more pain while walking. Both of us were emotionally traumitzed by the whole experience.

Magic Kingdom

2006-08-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

Drizzling when we got up. So not esp. keen to do yard work. So we went theme parking again instead. Excellent weather for it -- lighter crowds and light lines.

We were really surpised that Julia was so keen on Mickey Mouse. She's only seen 1 DVD of Mickey cartoons and we wondered how she'd react to seeing cast members dressed up. But when we went to meet Mickey she walked right up to him and gave him a hug, got her picture taken and then was reluctant to leave.

She liked checking out Mickey and Minnie's houses and of course we spent the rest of the time in Fantasyland. She was not keen on Philharmagic in 3D because she was convinced that Donald Duck was trying to steal her 3D glasses when he came at us from the screen.

Julia made us ride Small World twice and waved at all the little dolls she encountered on that ride.

Peter Pan she was indifferent to and it's such a short ride with such a long line -- if we can't fast pass it, I don't want to bother with it. We did get fast passes though, so it was ok.

Veg dining at the parks are ok, but not thrillsville so I'm going to have to start packing a lunch at least for me, if not for the rest of the family. I feel all gross and bloated now that I'm home. I had to go lacto-veg. Vegan is not happening easily at Magic Kingdom.

There's a project while we have annual passes -- note down what is vegan and where you can get it. Why hasn't someone already done this online somewhere? Or have they and I just can't find it?

weight, pants, and acid reflux

2006-08-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

I weighed in at 181.5, dropping a smidge. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

For dinner, we tried out the alfredo sauce with parmezano sprinkles from the uncheese cookbook. I am going to have to give this one a thumbs down. It had an ok flavor, but was too runny. Maybe next time I can do a little to thicken it? We had whole wheat pasta and all the leftover veggies in our fridge.

After dinner, we went to the mall to let Iz run around and play on some of the toys there. It was too hot to go to the playground. While there, I tried on some pants and I finally found some acceptable ones - Dockers for Women from JCPenny. I were a size 14P medium. I am not sure what the medium means, I would have thought that the 'P' gave you the length of the leg. I bough 3 pair and called it a day, pants hunt over! I hope I can wear them this whole year.

After the mall we went to a homemade icecream place that has huge portions and free kids cone. Mike and I split a small serving (still plenty) and Iz enjoyed her cone so much she ate part of the napkin before Mike and I stopped her.

When we got home, I decide to have the hard cider that has been in the fridge for a while. It was a mistake. I got soooo sick. I don't know if it was the icecream or the cider or the mixing of the two with copious amounts of broccoli we had with dinner. I was sick all night, felt like I was going to throw us, and couldn't sleep because of it. Mike thought it was acid reflux which he has and can be brought on by 1) large meals, 2) fatty food and 3) alcohol. What happens when you mix all three? I took some tums and vowed never to do that again.

Checking In

2006-08-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have been sick a lot. Paul stayed home from work sick today.

Julia and I went to school fora short while and then came back. She and I are doing better. We're bouncing back faster than Paul. My boss at preschool told me that the first year working the dacare/preschool crowd really bangs your immune system up but then it's better.

I hope this school years goes easier than the last! Anyway, I cut my hours back some, so hopefully I'll be exposed to less germs and less kids.

I face yardwork tomorrow and cleaning the house before sprinkler people come MOnday to install the backyard sprinklers.

I have to clean the fridge and make soup from the last of the produce.

weekend warrior

2006-08-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Even though I brought a very yummy lunch today (naked burrito salad, same as the naked burrito with lots more lettuce and less beans), Mike's lunch plans fell through so he called me at the last minute to have lunch with him. (I just love being the back up lunch date.) While we dined on greasy mexican, we dicussed what we were going to get done this weekend. Though Mike would probably rather watch movies and go to the playground, I feel the need to do some serious home improvement. I gave him 2 options, paint Iz's room or cut down the bushes that line our fence. He chose the bush option (I would have chosen the painting, it may be messy, but there are less bug bites). Bushes- here we come. I need to stop on the way home buy some oil for our chainsaw, then we are just going to take them out from the root. We will probably just get them cut down this weekend, then dig out the stumps some time later. Digging out roots of these gigantic bushes is quiet a job, we took out a few in DC. But it is atleast a job we can all work on together. One of us will have to stay inside with Iz while the other chain saws, unless we can get some time in while she sleeps.

I have had a good week food wise, but I have only exercised twice. I have been weighing myself daily and have been bouncing around between 182 and 184 which is basically where I have been for the past 3 weeks. I guess this is a plateau since I have been eating within my WW points each week and doing a little exercise (though not as much as I should). I am not too upset about it, but I sure wish the scale would move down again. It would be really great to be in the 170s! I can't even imagine it.

Still no news on the pants front. I will have to do some more shopping this weekend, classes start next Monday!

I need a book suggestion. I am giving up my personal trainer for a while. I might still meet with her every now and then, but for the most part I will be on my own. I would like to find a book that details different strength training workouts you can do with hand weights, an exercise ball, a band, stuff I am likely to already have. It would be great to have several different workouts too. Do you know if such a book?

Cat - are you feeling better? You guys have had a lots of colds this year! Any plans for the weekend?

pants continued

2006-08-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

I had an hour today between picking up my contacts and picking up Iz so I ran to the mall to try to find some new pants. I just had time to hit 2 stores and left empty handed. I only tried on size 14 and they were all a little tight in the waist, but fit ok everywhere else. I really liked one pair of pleated khakis, but they only had them in average length and I need petite (apparently I have very short legs, I am 5'6" and should wear regular.) The others were made out of a funny material that I didn't like.

Why oh why don't they make women's pants like men's pants? Khaki, navy, or black, pleated or flat front, waist and length? I can buy Mike's pants for him, he doesn't even had to try them on. I have to try on every single pair and half of them fit funny that are the same size.

I meant to mention that we tried the amazing mac and cheez sauce from the uncheese cookbook and really liked it. It is made from mainly soy milk and nutritional yeast. The recipe called for oil, but I left it out and we didn't miss it. 1/12 of the recipe is 1 point. I paired it with 1 ounce of whole wheat pasta and had mac and cheese for 2 points total. Iz took left overs to school today and they said she ate it well.

Sick

2006-08-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

We've all got the latest cold from preschool. I'm runnign a slight fever and so is Paul. I feel queasy too because the antibiotic I'm taking for a UTI is gross.

But I weighed in today -- down 0.4 lbs.

baby

2006-08-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

Our friends had a baby yesterday. I was planning on waiting until they were back home to go and see them since they are probably overwhelmed, but I couldn't wait, I had to go by this morning on my way to work. He is so small and tiny and fresh from the womb. I held him for about an hour and couldn't get enough. Now I really (think I) want to have another.

I don't know where I am at emotionally right now. This week has been rough, full of meeting and workshops, and it is only going to get worse with school starting next Monday. I am overwhelmed.

Where do the hours go?

2006-08-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

One thing I have always noticed about diet and exercise is that if one is going great, the other is in the toilet. I wonder if this is just a time management issue.

I don't think it is.

Over here, I have the same trouble getting enough sleep, looking after the child, juggling my PT job with the kiddies, cooking for the family and all that entails, maintaining the house, exercising regularly. In order of priority.

Many jobs, just one person.

Oh, and I forgot serving on a church commitee and meeting family obligations so the child visits the grandparents and keeping tabs on the playgroup website.

I'm fairly organized in my brain, but it doesn't change the fact that there are only 24 hrs in a day and it's fine an dandy to know what needs doing when, I only have two arms with which to execute these things.

Doing things like eating out less is better for all of us... in one way. It's not so great for me because I am the household cook. Which means if we don't eat out, I don't get a break. There are periods in time where I get burnt out on cooking and making meals.

Paul's good about pitching in with the kid, but he's not stellar at pitching in with the house. He's got a different standard of clean than I do and tolerates a lot more mess than I do.

Anyway.. off the pack lunches and get to work... so I'll have to write more later.

What I have learned

2006-08-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

these past 4 weeks of doing Eat to Live.

1) E2L is *expensive*! I just went to the grocery store to stock up for the week and the bill was just under $200 and I still need to go to the health food store for a couple more things. That is for 2 people and a wee babe that hardly eats anything. Of course it included some household items, but what trip to the market doesn't? We used to spend $100 a week and I thought that was a lot. Granted, we eat in alot more now, almost every meal including taking our lunch to work. I am sure it is more cost effective, but just barely. I do spend more money on pre-processed items, like bagged lettuce and shredded carrots. I have to, because...

2) E2L is extremely time consuming. Even buying ready-to-use items, I spend at least an hour twice a week doing lunch prep, 20 minute every morning finishing lunch prep, and anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour each night making dinner. That doesn't include the time to actually eat all the food which is also substantial. It takes some work to chew up that many veggies. When I was on my trip, the people I was visiting all met in the coference room each day to have lunch. The last day we all started eating at the same time. In turn, each of them finished their lunch while I was still munching away. I think it took me about twice the time to eat than it took them.

It is taking a lot out of me to spend so much time in the kitchen, I have started to feel like the 50s housewife, except i have a full time job besides. One thing I have always noticed about diet and exercise is that if one is going great, the other is in the toilet. I wonder if this is just a time management issue. If I spend 1 hour making dinner, 30 minutes eating dinner, 20 minute watching iz while Mike cleans up from dinner, it is already getting close to Iz's bedtime when we finally have time for a family walk. Part of me wants to try to find more convenience foods, but that is exactly what E2L want me to avoid. I do as much convenience stuff as I can, like canned beans and soups and pre-cut, pre-washed or frozen veggies.

3) E2L does strange things to my digestive system. I don't usually like to talk about this stuff, but before I started E2L, I was a very regular girl. I would "go" once a day, every day, usually aroun 9 am. E2L has changed all that. Now I go 3, 4, 5 times a day or more. I can't keep track, it seems like it is every time I walk into the bathroom. I was hoping that it was going to be that way just at the beginning, but it is still going on after 4 weeks. Also I am very gassy and gassy in a bad bad way. I have been dealing with it so far, but I may have to find something to help with it when I start teaching. I would hate to be up in front of the class farting away.

4) Regardless of the expense, the time, and the assault on my nose, I love E2L. Mainly, it makes sense to me. I feel like I am eating like I am going to live till 100+ and who doesn't want to have a long fruitful life. And I feel like I have finally gotten control of some of my cravings. Last week, after lunch in the conference room, everyone would feast on a big plate of cookies in the middle of the table. I didn't have one, all week long. And the apartment I stayed in left me a huge thing of chocolates, but I never ate them. Never before have I been able to just say no to sweets and that is a fantastic feeling.

In other news, I am still working on the 50-50 challenge which we extended until this Friday. I will definitely finish the crunches and get very close on the milage, but am shamefully bad on the push ups and pull ups. It was a good thing to do though, I think I should keep these goals (or make others) in months that I want to keep exercising, but have no specific thing to train for.

We moved furniture around this afternoon and I need to go and vacuum. Landry also beckons. See why I feel like I am back in the 50s? Jello anyone?

back on track

2006-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was off the diet all day and ate all the things that I have been thinking about for the month I was doing E2L. What I discovered is that I wasn't that into them anymore. I have had half of my favorite kind of candy bar (cadbury fruit and nut) in the freezer since easter. I finally decided to go ahead and eat it last night. I liked it, it was still good, but I don't want to rush out and buy anymore. I am glad it is gone from the freezer. We have lots of chocolate in our freezer in general, usually miniatures, but I can ignore those easily.

I just wrote out our menu for the week. We are going to try a couple new recipes from the uncheez book, one for alfredo sauce and one for mac and cheese sauce. Plus naked burritos and a soup night. I tried amy's organic minestrone while on my trip and like it quite a lot.

I am off to the market, more later.

5K, slow and sno-coney

2006-08-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

97 deg today. Yow!

But we took Julia on her frsit trip to a theme park and she seemed to enjoy it. We walked about 3 miles around in the park all told looking at things and the best part was a strawberry sno-cone that we all shared toward the end.

Now that I think about it, that's her first sno-cone too.

back from CA

2006-08-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

I got back last night after spending 8 hours in airports yesterday. I was in one of those monster lines at the check in. It was crazy, but I knew it would be bad and tried not to be upset about all the line waiting.

I weighed in at 184 this week, up 2 lbs from last week. This kind of depressed me since I did really well last week on eating. I stayed in an apartment and had access to a kitchen so I made normal food and packed my lunch, etc. I even fit 2 workouts in. I did a little worse on travel days because airport food is the worst for heatlhy eating, must worse than a mall foodcourt as it turns out. Not many options, almost completely bad. I got smoothies at the airports and snacked on some almonds I brought along. I also ate a bar thing and a little bag of M&Ms they gave us en route.

Today we are having a break from the diet. 1) I really wanted a day off and a day to eat whatever the hell I wanted and 2) I didn't want to have to go to the grocery store and plan food for our week. So we went to breakfast this morning and I got pancakes and then we went out for italian for lunch and I got eggplant parmesan. I have been craving eggplant parm for weeks, but when I had it today, I didn't like it. I had to scape off all the cheese and just eat the eggplant. I wonder if I am loosing my tastes for cheese, like I lost my taste for meat. It was the same when I was eating the M&Ms yesterday, they didn't taste like anything special even though I haven't had chocolate for a while. I am excited to get back to the veggie craziness though, I already miss it.

Cat- you are reminding me we have many many hedges that need trimming. Really, I should just take the chain saw to them.

Why are my thighs sore?

2006-08-12T02:41:00.000-07:00

Why are my thighs sore? Specifically... inner thighs? That seems weird to me.

I kill anything I try to grow so I'm not a big garden person. But today I was over at church helping my friend Carla with the preschool garden project and I spent two hours with hedge clippers getting monster bushes trimmed down to waist high. (There were over my head before.)

I would have guessed sore arms, but nothing.

Instead, I have sore inner thighs. Weird.

All About Food

2006-08-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Julia and I are adjusting well to the new work schedule. I'm giving working 11 AM - 1 PM a whirl this month and I like it much better than 3:30-5:30 PM because I don't have to fight with her over naps. She just naps when we get home, and if she doesn't want to nap that day, I don't have to deal with a cranky baby a work.

I'm not yet sure that I'll keep it after this trial month though.

I'm still not getting to spend a lot of time on home things if I'm running off to school 5 days a week so... we'll see at the end of the month if I manage to paint some rooms and build my laundry table or not.

I'm still backlogged from last week so instead of walking I've been tackling housework until it is time to get Julia up for breakfast. Kitchen is better and laundry is caught up but the floors def. need scrubbing and bathrooms need a wash too. Ugh.

Produce delivery was yesterday and while I didn't take a picture of my cooler, I did spend some time cleaning the fridge and boxing up my produce. I also made several meals.

Caesar salad and beef kabobs for Paul, then all my work lunch stuff.

That one is for my friend Carla since it's my week to make lunch. She's getting pineapple juice, seasoned black beans and kidney beans, herbed polenta, stewed strawberries with balsamic glaze, blueberries, and grilled tomato/pepper relish topping for the polenta.

I get similar only after taking out her bean portion, I added a can of italian stewed tomatoes and blendered the beans into soup. Her lunch would not have been good with polenta and bean soup sharing the same container and I already filled the divided one up. The polenta would have gotten all soggy sharing with soup, so I just scooped out her beans so they'd be drier.

Anyway, I get the same herbed polenta with relish, and organic grapes on the side.

The rest of the blueberries I'm saving for my preschool cooking class tomorrow and then I ate all my stewed strawberries at dinner.

What I did was picked out all the soft strawberries from a 2 lb box, and then saves the rest for school.

Hulled, halved, rinse and into a sauce pan with 1/3 cup water, 1/4 sugar, and 1 tbs balsamic, bring to boil, scoop out strawberries, and let the liquid boil down to a glaze. then spoon a little bit on top of the strawberries and throw out the rest.

new clothes?

2006-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have been packing for my trip and was happy and dismayed to discover that the new clothes that my family got for me last xmas are too big. And not by just a little bit. The pants are very loose (but luckily not obscene) and the shirts are huge on me. They are supposed to be fitted shirts, but they just look like a sheet on me. I am going to have to figure out how to take things in because I don't want to have to buy new clothes again just yet. Plus these clothes are new, barely worn, I can't give them away. So happy that my work this summer is evident, but annoyed that my new clothes are too big.

We went to chili's today for lunch. I tried their steak and portabello fajitas minus the steak. They were good, a taste I have been craving. I stayed away from the cheese and sour cream, but ate teh guacamole and totillas. When I got home I looked on line to try and estimate what I ate. The tortillas are 8 points for 3! The ones we buy are 1 point apiece and much nicer. I didn't know how to count the fajitas, they were pretty oily but who knows how much. I ended up adding 7 points which is equivilant to 2 tbsp of oil, hopefully it wasn't that much. So a big lunch, but something I have been wanting.

san diego

2006-08-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

I leave for san diego early tomorrow. I am getting ready to pack and just checked weather.com for the forecast. It looks fantastic! Highs in the 80s, lows in the 70s, sunny or partly sunny each day. I hate to travel, but I can't wait to have a little break from this heat. And I am staying in an apartment instead of a hotel, an apartment with a fully stocked kitchen! I am taking some oatmeal and popcorn with me and plan on hitting the market for veggies, fruit and soups when I arrive. To pass my free time, I am taking my exercise clothes and my quilting.

I feel bad leaving Mike and Iz though. Both have stressful weeks ahead. Iz is changing classrooms at daycare and will likely not adjust well. Mike has a big meeting.

I will be taking my new pocket pc with me and will try to update. Have a good week Cat!

Weigh in

2006-08-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

182 this morning. Down 0.5 lbs from last week.

My friend is having a craft day today so I am heading over in a few minutes with my quilting. My thighs feel better, but I am still exhausted.

third times a charm

2006-08-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

I have started this post a couple of times already today, but given up because I am in such a crappy mood. I hurt myself yesterday by doing too much exercise. Today I am walking like I have been riding a horse and have a hard time getting up and down. I spent most of the day lieing around feeling sorry for myself and EATING (but mostly healthy stuff so it is ok, no big binge, but still eating when I am not hugry just for boredom and feeling sorry for myself.)

Anyway, we tried a recipe from the Uncheese cookbook yesterday, the unprocessed cheese sauce, I think and it was pretty good. Definitely not the real thing, but close enough. We ate it over baked potatoes and broccoli.

I tried to broil asparagus and our oven has gone all ape shit on us. It won't go off the cleaning cycle. We are going to have to get a new one which won't be trivial because our current one is a built in and very small and we want to get a bigger one and move it. Moving it will require some cabinetry and electrical work. We were planning on doing it along with a semi-major kitchen renovation, within the next year or 2, but not right away.

Tomorrow is craft day at a friend's house and I am going to work on my quilt that I haven't worked on in ages. This weekend will hopefully be low key, then next week I am out all week.

red curry

2006-08-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last night we made a red thai curry. It was super easy, just mixing the curry paste from the grocery store with coconut milk, but it was too spicy for us. It also didn't have the panang flavor we love. I haven't found the panang paste yet, so we will keep trying. Tonight I am trying a new recipe from the uncheese cookbook. I am a little nervous, but maybe we will like it. My new blender will arrive tonight too so smoothies for everyone.

Tired today. Another morning workout with the PT, then a smoothie as a treat which was soo yummy. They make it at the gym with frozen fruit, not some juice mix. It was really good, I am sure i will try them again.

I did the elliptical this morning for 20 minutes. It said that I completed 1.5 miles in 20 minutes. I have a hard time believing that, I have never ran or walked that fast. I don't know what it is measuring.

food for a day

2006-08-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

I put up a post on my other site that details what I ate yesterday. It was a lot of very yummy food!

I am taking off early today to go swimming with Izzy and friends, then heading to the mall for shopping with another friend. Trying to cram as much in to the last couple weeks of summer as possible.

I haven't exercised in a few days and feel really bad about it. I meant to get up this morning, but after dealing with a midnight cry-fest by Iz, I slept in late. Now I am late to work and grumpy.

morning

2006-07-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

It was a very bad morning. I had to take Iz back to the daycare today. It was horrible, for me at least. I think she was happy to see some of her friends.

Your massage sounds divine, Cat, it reminds me that I need to schedule one. My back has been achy the last week, probably from the pull-ups I am doing.

I am going to do a "food for a day" thing today so I have been snapping pictures all morning of my breakfast and lunch. I packed a big lunch today! I wanted to do it today because tonight we are making naked burritos for dinner.

This healthy eating stuff takes a lot of time. I spent an hour prepping last night for lunch today (made hummus and the salad base) and dinner tonight (made the corn salsa). This morning, I still had to cut up veggies and fruit, finish the salad, package everything, another 20-30 minutes at least. And I am using pre-cut or frozen veggies whenever I can, I use canned beans, I am making all the short cuts. If I want to maintain this lifestyle, I am either going to have to find a way to do this faster or hire a cook.

hummus for lunch

2006-07-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

We are having an early dinner/late lunch with some frieds at 3 today so we just wanted to snack on something at noon. I made this recipe for hummus and was quite happy with the results. It was definitely different than the "loads of olive oil" variety, but still very tasty. We finished off a pound of carrots while eating it, even Iz ate a couple of raw carrots (a first for her.) I am going to stop by the store on the way back from our meal and get some more ingredients to make some for snacks this week.

Mom left this morning after staying with us for 2 months. We were all sad to see her go, many tears were shed. We had a fantastic summer and have asked her to consider coming back indefinitely.

It has been an emotional day. I have wanted to eat. After mom left this morning, I just wanted to wake up Mike and go out for a big breakfast. I forced myself to get some oatmeal instead. I have been munchie all day, but have been successful at eating only healthy snacks instead of binging on the chocolate that lives in our freezer. I am also PMSing. I was wondering how I would handle the chocolate cravings while doing E2L. So far it has been ok, I have been doing a lot of fruit smoothies though.

A note about the smoothies: we have already worn out our old blender making daily smoothies. I was considering getting a vitamix or cuisinart blender because they had a good reputation and looked formidable, only the $400 and $120 pricetag stopped me. I checked consumer reports and their best rating went to a $50 option! Of course I can't find it anywhere local, so I ordered it online last night.

Another note about smoothies: The trick to the perfect smoothie is frozen fruit. If you use fresh fruit, then you have to add a lot of ice and it waters down the flavor. I use all frozen fruit except banana. We have been mixing banana, mango, mixed berries, strawberries and pinapple. My favorite is banana, mango, mixed berries. I blend the fruit with 1/2 cup of soy milk and 3 splenda. I add about 2 cups frozen fruit and 1 banana per serving. I usually add 1/2 cup of water in the beginning to aid with blending and 1/2 cup crushed ice at the end to thicken it. I have been sampling all the smoothie places in the malls when we go shopping and I like our homemade smoothies much better than anything we get out.

Tired but good

2006-07-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

My family naps. I wish I had leftovers to eat. The maple glazed tofu turned out really nice with the mustard greens and rice.

The massage? I took Julia to school early and then after tidying up a little bit I popped over to my appointment a little more than a block away. I really would like to take some yoga there, but my schedule is still not settled so I need to think about it still.

My therapist was a new one to me -- Jennifer. She was very pleasant and I enjoyed the whole experience. I told her I didn't like lavender and that I felt tense and just wanted silence. I didn't feel any particular bad spots, but if she discovered anything to let me know because at preschool I could be doing all kinds of things with wonky posture.

Last time I had a lower back ache which turned out to be tense hips likely from hip carrying babies around so I quit carrying them that way. So no hip problems this time.

But apparantly I had some shoulder problems. She got it all worked out with some deep tissue mssage in those areas. It wasn't the top-neck part like it would be if it was desk strain. It was lower shoulder blades and I'm trying to figure out what I've been doing to bother them. I do remember feeling annoyed with my bras and thinking it must be nursing boob stuff, but it turnd out to be annoying shoulder stuff.

It was a great massage and I felt a lot better. I really have to think about making massage appointments more often for both of us and working it into the budget. I'd much rather think about preventative care than have it go on indefinitely.

I really had no idea I was hurting until the hurt was gone. But living with low grade hurt and waiting for it to become high grade hurt so's you notice it and go see a doctor about it -- such a waste of time. And who wants chronic pain? wait too long and you could be looking at permanent injury too.

The whole time I was being massaged I kept trying to think about the part of me that was being worked on. To really focus and be in my body; be present in the moment. It's harder than you'd expect.

I went to school after that and we were having a slow day. A lot of absent kids. I didn't feel like super cleaning once the kids were gone so I did basics and left because I was only going to be back today.

Today we got up and went to church and while Julia and Paul played in the sprinkler and washed all the Fisher Price "little people" toys, I scrubbed out 5 classroom floors and directed other volunteers to cleaning windows, cabinets, and so on. Across the courtyard there were more people moving furniture and rearranging things so we can start the new school year with clean classrooms. Paul and I still have two other shelves of toys to scrub before we're totally done.

We came home disgusting and took showers and now they're napping and I'm up still.

spa? and weigh in

2006-07-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

How was your massage Cat?

I weighed in this morning at 182.5, that was a step in the right direction! I have been bouncing around the top of the 180s for over a month now. This all veggie -all the time diet has kicked things back into high gear.

Making my grocery list for the week and trying to figure out which new recipes to make. To simplify, we are going to have a couple stadard meals each week (pasta and naked burritos) and a night of just soup and veggies. The other two meals will be new recipes or revisiting old favorites. This week I am definitely going to try a new one from the Uncheese Cookbook, maybe the cheese sauce to go over baked potatoes and broccoli. Now I am searching for another new one to try.

14 hrs to go

2006-07-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

14 hrs to go to my massage appointment. One hour of bliss awaits. I soooo need it.

Most weekends have been really busy lately so I haven't had any down time. It will be a few more weekends yet before I get a break on Saturdays because church RE is getting the school year ready to kick off. At least I only have one more week working afternoons at preschool. Then I can just do mornings and have some afternoons for ME.

Julia's also being really clingy and it annoys me. With the heat, the last thing I want is her on me when she's not nursing because I get hot. I dislike the other kids at preschool doing that too. I don't want to be mean about it, but sticky little bodies clamoring all over me is NOT my idea of having a good time. It would be different if there was a need... someone upset, needing attention, etc. But they just want to sit on me to sit. Julia's retaliating by trying to sit on me more than anyone else because I'm HER mom.

Even when waiting at the pool for her swim lesson to start... miles of benches, lots of open floor and she wants to sit on my right foot.

Paul and I haven't had much couple time either -- he's really busy with work and then there's the crazy weekends.

Went to my WW meeting. I'm still not sure how I feel about this group of people. Nice enough, but not a whole hck of a lot in common yet with anyone. Though I'm -1.6 lbs since last week. Maybe that's enough. To work it to break my palteau? And who gives a hoot if I make any new friends there or not?

The lab work went ok -- now I'm just waiting for results. My temps are still way low. high 96 - low 97 is NOT normal temp for me. My feel feet cold a lot.

I suppose it's just as well that all the children want to sit on my feet then.

most amazing dinner ever

2006-07-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I made one of the most amazing dinner I have ever made. I love burritos, those huge ones where you watch them stuff them full of black beans, rice, sour cream and cheese. Last night we had a burrito inspired dinner, sans rice and tortilla. The base was canned black beans, mostly drained and cooked down with garlic. It was a lot of beans, about 10 ounces for each of us. On top of that, we put summer veggies (squash, carrots, green beans, onions, and peppers) which came frozen in a bag and just had to be heated. We topped that with corn salsa, I followed this recipe and it was divine. On top of that went romaine, guacamole and fresh diced tomatoes. It was fantastic. It will join pasta with veggies as one of our weekly meals.

Last night was the first time I have ever made guacamole. Mike and I love avacados, but neither of us have really liked guacamole much, then we went to one of those restaurants where they make it in front of you. We asked for mild and chunky and it was divine (if only I was watching what they put in!) I searched the web for a mild easy guac recipe, and ended up mixing it up on my own based on several ones I read:

2 avacados
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 tablespoon of salsa

I have never bought avacados before. I dont' know why, i guess I was scared about getting into it, but it was super easy. Now I will buy them every week!

Grumpy

2006-07-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

No, I don't know where she is. Hopefully Mojodiva is doing ok and is simply in the middle of a blog redesign too.

Things here are ... here.

I have a dr appt this afternoon for labwork. Ugh.

I had a horrible day yesterday. TOTALLY wiped out by the time I came home from baby swim class, and really irritable that I had to keep going and make dinner instea dof take a nap. Ridiculous that a Saturday away makes me whole week all crazy, but that is my fault for not planning enough meals ahead and freezing. Thankfully though, Paul had some beef stew freezer stash to dig into so it was just cooking my stuff.

The hoisin eggplant recipe got embellished with red peppers and water chestnuts and I packed up leftovers for my dinner tonight.

Last night of running the workshop -- hooray! Then after that I have a heavy week covering for L. who will be on vacation, and THEN I can start the new schedule with less hours. Thank heavens!

I started looking at spa prices. I hurt all over. Ugh.

where is Mojodiva?

2006-07-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Cat- I can't see her blog anymore, can you? She was supposed to go into WLS on Tuesday. I am worried.

Last night I tried two new recipes and we didn't like either. I hate that. I spent all this time chopping and grinding and cooking and washing dishes and all for things we were so-so about. The first was the Cheesy Tofu Spead from the Nut Gourmet. I didn't like the flavor. I can't even describe the flavor, it was strange. I could taste the tofu and the pine nuts and nothing else. I bought the book though and several other recipes look good so I will keep trying.

The other was the Veggie Vindaloo recipe from Fat Free Vegan. It was ok, but it didn't have a strong indian flavor until you got to the bottom of the plate with the tomato sauce and kidney beans. There wasn't enough sauce and spices for all those veggies. If I try this one again, I would double the sauce and keep everything else the same, or maybe try the crockpot version.

I was very disappointed. Both these recipes came highly recommended and I followed them to a tee. Oh well, lots more to try. Tonight we are doing Naked Burritos: Black beans, grilled veggies, corn salsa, guacamole, romaine lettuce and diced tomatoes. Easy Peasy. It will be my first attempt to make guacamole and I am excited. I love avacados!

I got up and took a 3 mile walk this morning. The 50-50 challenge is leaving me behind. I am doing better than Mike though, since he hasn't done a single thing this month. I don't have a lot of energy right now, I think I am still in caffiene withdrawl, and my knees are twingy, I don't want to risk running on them.

Fitday and eggplant

2006-07-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

What: treadmill, program 4
Duration: 20 min
Distance: 0.9 miles

Quick treadmill walk this morning while Julia slept on.

Amy, I use FitdayPC and switched over from Fitday online when it came out. It's got more features, but still not everything I'd like. Even so, it's the best of the bunch that I've come across. And once I get to a point where most of my custom foods and recipes are inputted, I *hate* to change! So much typing!

Laundry's about wrapped up and I'm waiting for Julia to get up so we can lunch.

I want to go get eggplant from the asian grocery and a few other things. I was craving eggplant with garlic sauce. There are a few different recipes online for it that I am considering.

grocery trip and tracking

2006-07-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Cat - do you use a website or software to track your calories/nutrients/etc? Which one?

Last night Mike and I went out to thai food and to the grocery store (how romantic!) At the thai place, we convinced them to leave the panang sauce on the side and the dish was perfect, stir fried veggies and tofu with a drizzle of panang. I am still going to try and make our own next weekend.

For dinner this week, a couple of new dishes (a naked burrito and veggie vindaloo) and pasta primavera. We are also planning huge daily salads and lots of fruit and I am going to make the creamy nut dip that I saw online a few weeks ago, so I had a huge shopping list. Mike was overwhelmed. He hasn't been doing the grocery shopping with me recently since Iz losed patience quick so we split. Our cart was bursting, the tab was almost $200 and I still need a few more items from our health food store. What is crazy is that this is really just a weeks worth of food.

I have been finding it suprisingly easy to "eat to live" while eating out. While we were on our trip, we did 2 italian dinners, 1 burrito place, a cracker barrel, a food court in a mall, and a panera. At the italian places, I did big salads and small side of pasta or minestrone. At the cracker barrel, baked potato and salad. At the burrito place, I did a naked (no tortilla) burrito with grilled veggies, black beans, salsa, lettuce and guacamole (and it was the best meal of the bunch!). At panera, I had black bean soup and big salad. At the food court, I went to sbarro and got salad, steamed veggies and a side of pasta with marinara that I shared with Iz. At two of the dinners, I did the full fat dressing on the salad (had no option) but the others, I got the low fat on the side. It was great! I also hit as many smoothie places as possible and made my own smoothies at night. I walked twice while there for a total of 7 miles and then walked a lot more during all the shopping.

Howdy!

2006-07-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

I was looking at holiday 5k's that might be out there and noticed that the Disney Half is still got some slots open. Sigh. Tempting, but no. I don't have the time for that much training.

Today at work L. asked me how I was doing on points and I said it was fine and I hadn't really noticed much of a change since it's only been what? 4 days now?

She said she feels crazy.

I pointed out that I get a lot more points as a nursing mom, and I'm not changing anything really other than tracking points at this point.

L. on the other hand, is a week ahead of me, on less points AND she's trying to go vegetarian whole foods AND her previous way of eating was nonvegetarian fast food/frozen food heavy.

The only thing I've noticed WW points is doing for me right now is increased fiber. I've gone from averaging 30 g a day to 40 g a day.

We were gone over the weekend visiting my MIL so I have a lot of hosuework piled up for me. Busy day tomorrow catching up so I'm going to sack out.

howdy

2006-07-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say we are back from our weekend away. Lots of fun to be had by all and I managed to mostly "eat to live" while out, even though we mainly ate out the time we were gone. This week, I will be trying a couple new recipes and will try to post about them. I will update tomorrow!

off for the weekend

2006-07-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Hi Cat! Glad to see you back in blog land! Let me know what you try from the raw book, I have been thinking about trying it as well.

I just got back from the gym and now I am off to see my brother. Have a good weekend!

Catching Up

2006-07-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

A whirlwind catch-up post since I'm about to throw dinner together and deal with my crazy chlorine hair.

We are well and over the cold, although the cold is going through preschool and another child brought in pink-eye. Ack. I'm going to have to guard against that.

Class tonight... Julia can swim! A little less than two yards from me to the teacher or from me to the wall. Past that she can no longer hold her breath and she doesn't yet know how to come up for air. But she kicks and propels herself along and tries to do something about her arms. Mostly kicks though. Getting her to move her arms and legs in sync is going to be interesting. I'm excited about showing Paul what Julia's up to at the pool these days.

Julia is in panties out and about now. She'd been in them at home for a long time and then trainers/fitteds out and about. We've been having a lot of arguments lately about wearing waterproof training pants or panties and the compromise had been to put them on top of the panties and go.

Only it's no longer satisfying her and she wants only the Hello Kitty panties so after talking with Paul we decided to just hang up the trainers except for bed time. She usually wakes up dry but every once in a blue moon we have a problem so... it's more ME than her who isn't ready to let that one go because we continue to nurse/cosleep and I don't want to wake to pee on me.

I went to a WW meeting today. My friend/boss rejoined and she wanted company. So I said I'd go. It was about what I expected, and I think I was the only veg*n person in the room. But I agreed to do it for a while. We'll see how that goes.

I got "Raw Food" from the library and I'm trying to decide what recipe I'll try out over the weekend.

Child is on my leg complaining that she wants to play a game... so I'm off.

Amy, post the panaang sauce when you give it a whirl. Sounds delish!

going well

2006-07-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

I think I have eased into this diet. Everyday it gets easier and I feel fuller and more satisfied.

Yesterday we went to the thai place for lunch, but they wouldn't leave the sauce on the side. After they brought us the curry, I asked for an extra plate and rescued my tofu and veggies. They did bring us extra veggies though, it was a nice big plate, I didn't have to eat the rice. When I went to put lunch into WW, I realized how caloric the panang sauce is. It is primarily coconut milk. I am going to try to make it at home next week, I can use the light coconut milk and keep the sauce on the side.

Even with the coconut milk for lunch, I didn't hit my point mark yesterday. We had a veggie scramble for dinner, I just cooked up almost every left over veggie in our fridge and mixed with egg whites. On the side, we spit a baked potato. I had a smoothie last and a handful of nuts at bridge (avoiding the cake and brownies). The only thing we didn't get yesterday was our raw veggies, but we did ok on veggies overall.

Tonight I am going to try one of the recipes in the book, it has black and navy beans and kale and spinach.

Mom, Iz and I are going to visit my brother tomorrow for a long weekend. I am interested to see how I can deal with this diet while traveling and not having complete control of my food. I am going to take a couple of cans of soup and some fruit, just in case.

The diet is going well, but exercise is floundering. I haven't exercised since Sunday which really bums me out. Partly because of crazy house stuff, partly because of the extreme heat. I will work out at the gym tomorrow before I go, and try to walk while we are gone. It is 20 degrees cooler where my brother lives.

Day 3

2006-07-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was great food-wise. House-wise it sucked. Both pets have stomach viruses meaning we spent the better part of the day cleaning up messes and steam cleaning carpet. No exercise for me other than moving the furniture around. So far, I am not doing so great on the 50-50 challenge.

But food saved the day. Oatmeal and grapefruit for breakfast, soy nuts for snack, large salad with kidney beans for lunch, 2 cups of berries for snack, pasta with huge amount of veggies and tofu for dinner, then a smoothie for dessert. While making dinner last night, I weighed the veggies to go in the "pasta sauce", a term which I use loosly because it was much more like veggies with veggies sauce on a few twirls of pasta. I cut up a green pepper, mushrooms, a stalk of broccoli, 1/4 head of cauliflower, a summer squash, and I threw a bag of sun dried tomatoes on top. All that ended up weight 1 lb, my goal was 2 lbs (1lb each for Mike and I). I cut up another broccoli and threw most of a bag of spinach in, and the marinara counts too. I still don't think I hit 2 lbs, but it was close. The volume of food was ginormous. It was good, but by the end we were both just tired of eating.

Today we are braving eating our for lunch at thai food. I already know what I am going to have, tofu and veggies with extra veggies and the panang sauce on the side. Usually the veggies and tofu are swimming in the panang, more like a stew. It is so spicy, I can't eat it without cutting it with lots of rice. With the panang sauce on the side and just drizzled on for flavor I think it will be just fine with no rice.

Day 2

2006-07-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was much better for food, though I felt like crap most of the day. The absence of my morning espresso drink through me for a loop and I was out of it all morning. I ended up leaving work early and taking a long nap. Today I brought some iced tea to help ease the pain of caffiene withdrawl

Food consumption was almost perfect yesterday. Oatmeal and grapefruit for breakfast, banana and fruit for snack, huge salad with orange and almonds for lunch, Amy's organic black bean chili with broiled asparagus and broccoli marinara for dinner, a banana strawberry smoothie for dessert. The fruit and raw veggies were there, the beans were there, the cooked veggies were a little short, but close. I put everything into weight watchers and was still 2.5 points shy for my daily goal.

After dinner last night, Mike and I went to the bookstore to look for a couple of cookbooks. I wanted the Uncheese cookbook that I have heard so many great things about and the Nut Gourmet that Nava Atlas reviewed a bit on her site. They had neither, so I spent some time leafing through Nava's cookbook which I was sure I already had, but hadn't used much. When I got home, I couldn't find it so there is another one I want to get. I ordered the first two from B&N.com because I had a birthday gift certificate.

My main problem so far with this diet is that I am not really sure what my goals are. I know I want to go 1 month with no coffee or chocolate. One goal is to eat the 4+ servings of fruit, 2 lbs of veggies, and the 1 cup of beans each day. But am I eliminating all dairy, eggs, etc? Is that one of my goals? And what about pasta? One thing I don't like about this book is that he gives this table of each type of foods nutritional density, but he doesn't give us the ability to calculate it ourselves. He makes a strong argument in the book that just because something says it is whole grain doesn't mean it is really that much better for you. So how can I compare labels and choose the best product when I am eating something pre-made, like soups or pasta?

Another thing I am not so sure about is the salad dressing issue. He recommends using dressings that are 20 calories or less a serving. He gives a list of comercially available ones, only one of which I could find in my health food store, then he gives recipes to make some, most of which rely on flavored vinegars which I can't find locally. Is it that important for it to be 20 calories? If I have a dressing that is 50 calories a serving that I really like and will eat more salad because of it, isn't that better?

So far I really like the idea of the diet, but I am having some problems putting it into practice and figuring out my goals exactly.

beach, birthday, and so on

2006-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic time at the beach. I wonder how long I would have to live there before it started feeling old. I think I could be there a while. I put some pictures up on Izzy's website. The neatest thing was experiencing it with her for the first time. She loved the ocean.

We drove back on my birthday and I was a little depressed. One last big dinner out and a few presents and it was over.

On Sunday, we started our month 50-50 and "eat to live" challenge. I walk/jogged and did some crunches with my sister in the morning and had oatmeal. We went out to lunch at a noodle place. Mike and I both ordered a garden salad (hold the croutons and cheese) and then a pasta primavera to share. Mike thought it was funny that we are going on a diet so have to order 3 entrees. Mom, sis and I went to the mall afterwards. I stopped and got a smoothie on the way home. After dropping my sis off at the airport, I went to the grocery store and bought for veggies and fruits than I ever had before (which is really saying something). Even the cashier commented on it, saying I was testing his knowledge. For dinner, I made a WW recipe with tofu and veggies in a tortilla with steamed veggies on the side. After dinner, Mike and I shared a few chocolates (not on the diet, but a birthday present from my sister. They were yummy and now they are gone.) Then a handful of popcorn a little later.

It was harder than I thought it was going to be and we didn't do a very good job of following it. Not enough beans, fruit, veggies, too many starches. Before bed I packed two big salads for today which will count for our 1 lbs of raw veggies. I put half an orange and some almonds on the side. I also made a fruit salad and packed a couple of containers of that. This morning, I have had oatmeal and a grapefruit. I packed up my salad and sides for lunch and threw in a banana in case I get hungry. Tonight we are going to have chili, asparagus, and watermelon. Today will go better.

Sick

2006-07-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

Taking the week off work. Sick. Threw up. Congested. Ugh.

Vegan Meal plans

2006-07-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

I ran out of food. By that I mean I ran out of already-prepared food boxed up to eat in the fridge. So today I'm having a sandwich theme day because I won't get to cook anything ahead to box up until tomorrow.

I want something delicious to eat but I don't know what that is yet.

So I'm poking around in cookbooks and online for something new to make that strikes my fancy.

And I came across a few vegan meal plans.

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/meals

I see this sort of stuff around all the time, but not vegan.

So it's a nice change.

So's raw eye candy... mmmm!

good run

2006-07-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day, one of the best we have had this summer. Today is shaping up pretty nice too. A cold front came in, cooling everything off and taking away the humidity. When I got home from work, I tried a new recipe - bean and tortilla pie from WW. It was pretty good and very "eat to live" friendly since it is mainly beans and spicy tomato sauce with a couple of whole wheat tortillas thrown in. I made a salad, asparagus and fresh fruits for the sides. Mike and I have been trying to eat more E2L friendly this week to get us ready for the plunge the week after the beach.

After dinner, I was sleepy and could have taken a nap, but decided to run instead. I had a lot on my mind from work and thought getting out would put things in perspective. It did. I did the second run of week 5 of C25k. I jogged for 8 minutes, walked for 5, then jogged for 8 more. It was a great run! I am sure the fantastic weather had a lot to do with it. When I finished the first 8 minutes, I could have kept going. I walked really fast for the 5 minutes in between instead of my normal limping, catching my breath speed. The second 8 minutes was harder, I had a head wind while running around an exposed part of the lake and there were lots of people out walking to dodge. After another 5 minute walk, I started running again, faster this time, and sprinted 2 minutes until I reached the end of the lake loop. It took me about 28 minutes to go 2 miles. I am supposed to run the 2 miles this Saturday, I wonder how long that will take. I just hope the fantastic weather continues.

Busy at work today, then packign tonight. Will be gone all next week. Happy summer!

chasing overweight

2006-07-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I worked out with my PT. We did a new exercise where I laid on a bench with a 10 lb weight in my hands over my head (hanging off the bench). I brought the weight to my stomach and back. This morning my triceps are sore. I have never had sore triceps before. I guess that is a good thing?? I really want a bench. I want one where I can do inverted situps. I love those things.

I went to play bridge last night and was telling everyone of my diet plan. They all thought I was crazy. They arleady think I am crazy because I am a vegetarian and don't drink wine (it is a "wine and cheeses' bridge group, so I guess I chose the wrong crowd.) The worst though was this women coming up to me afterwards and telling me the secret to losing weight was some nutritional supplement. No thanks! Since I changed jobs and moved last year, no one really appreciates how much weight I have lost. They didn't know me when I was really fat, just my modest chubbiness of now.

I realized a couple of days ago that I am almost overweight!!! I have been obese for about 12 years. If I weigh less than 186, I cross into the overweight category. Isn't that exciting. 155 markes the highest "normal" weight for my height.

I am so excited about going to the beach in a couple of days, but I am equally excited about the 50-50 challenge and the new diet afterwards. Lots of stuff to look forward to for the rest of the summer.

Long Day

2006-07-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

What: Lower Body weights

Can't write much. Today is my long day and I still have a lot to do before we go to school.

Got weights out of the way this morning while Julia was asleep. Going to try to get dinner made ahead while she's still zonked out.

2006-07-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

What: Shoulder's, Bi's, Tri's & 1 mile walk

Got weights done in the morning and then a short walk in the evening yesterday. I'm looking at a short walk this evening if we don't go do something as a family this afternoon. We're trying to wait out the rain before we decide what we want to do.

I just took my Glucophage and had it with my lunch: 1 cup cherries, 1 cup millet and swiss chard polenta with sun dried tomato pesto, 2 cups lettuce and tomato with goddess dressing.

If the weather clears up I think we might take Julia to the pool. There's no swim lessons this week because of the holiday and then I've switched her to evening class so I don't know if we'll be taking pictures at the end of those lessons because I don't know who teaches them. Mr. V. does pictures in his morning class and I got the ones from Julia's 1st session scanned in.

In the first one, I had to count to three and then dip her in.

In the second one, I had to count ot three and sort of "swoop" her through the water so she'd get used to gliding along.

Looks like the rain is gone -- and we're off!

non-holiday

2006-07-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

I am at work while others are at play so not too happy today. But very busy and have to finish a major project before the beach.

The Eat to Live (E2L) continues to freak me out. I read some boards about it last night and found a list of E2L recipes on a fat free vegan website. I think we are going to try it out, with a few caveats.

We are going to try it for the month of July 16-August15, the same month as the 50-50 challenge and the month before the fall semester starts for me. The last week of this month, I go on a trip to CA, but I am staying at a place that has a kitchen so I should be able to continue the eating pattern there.

The goal of the plan is to eat 2 lbs of green, non-starchy veggies a day (half cooked and half raw), 4+ fruits, 1+ cup of beans, and unlimited other non-green, non-starchy veggies. You can also have up to one cup of starchy veggies (baked potatoes) or whole wheat pasta or brown rice or oatmeal etc, plus limited amounts of nuts, olives and avacados. No sweets, no animal products. He also suggests no in between meal snacks, but I am ignoring that one for now.

The changes we are going to make involve the starches. I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day and I am a creature of habit. I have eaten oatmeal for years, I love it, and I am less willing to give it up than the sweets and caffeine. (I eat the no-sugar kind with extra soy protein.) But, based on this plan, it would mean I couldn't have any other starches in the day. So I am going to allow 2 starches each day. Maybe after we start following this plan, we will be too busy eating veggies to care whether we eat pasta with dinner or I will discover another fantastic breakfast, but allowing an extra starch is the mental speedbump I am crossing to be willing to do this plan.

I will still do WW, too. I am curious to know if I will be able to get my minimum points in on WW with this plan since most veggies will be very few points. Fruit counts several and I am planning on eating lots of fruit, so maybe.

My plan will be to have my oatmeal for breakfast, one or two servings of fruit in the morning, a huge salad with nuts and fruit and maybe veggie soup for lunch, another fruit in the afternoon, cooked veggies, beans and pasta/rice/bread for dinner. Fruit for a late night snack.

Last night we had make-your-own pasta again. I grilled a green pepper and a carton of mushrooms. I wilted a bag of baby spinach and 1 cup sun dried tomatoes in a bowl. I divided the veggies between Mike and I (and gave Iz a few too) and served with the enriched whole wheat pasta. it was so much food! It gave me a taste of what this plan is going to be like. And I love sun dried tomatoes. For me, they make the dish.

The one thing I hope we can do with this diet is get Iz eating more veggies. She eats lots of fruit and will have salad with us, but we have a hard time getting her to eat cooked veggies other than green beans, peas, corn and potatoes. She won't try spinach or brocolli or peppers or tomotoes.

OK, getting back to work.

intense

2006-07-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

On the recommendation from Vegan Lunchbox, I bought Eat to Live tonight and have read most of it already (in 6 hours). I skimmed the anti-meat stuff because its preaching to the choir. This book is rocking my world. Dr. Fuhrman suggests a diet of mainly veggies and fruit. For the first six weeks, the goal is 1 lbs of fresh veggies, 1 lbs of cooked veggies and 4 fruits daily!!! And no sweets! No dairy or eggs, either. I don't know if I can do it. Can I got 6 weeks without refined carbs, without pasta, without soy analogs? Without CHOCOLATE???

In theory, I am all for it. His revised food pyramid is completely in line with the way I want to eat. I am going to have to think about this some more.

Have you read the book Cat?

exercise recap

2006-07-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

This will be short because I am at work and it is Sunday and I don't want to be here long.

I walk/jogged around the lake last night, following Week 4 of C25k intervals. The intervals went like this: jog 3 minutes, walk 90 sec, jog 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, repeat once.

The first 3 minutes I felt strong and happy and like I was really running. I was trying to focus on the present, the next 10 steps, not distract myself like I normally do when I am running. The first interval was perfect. During the 90 seconds of walking, I caught my breath and was saying "great! Now do that again!" I started running for 5 minutes and was running strong, then about 2.5 minutes in, I ran out of steam. I stopped at 3 minutes, full of upset and self doubt ("why is this so hard? Will it ever get easier?") I walked a minute, then started jogging again to make up my 2 minutes missed time. The next two intervals were at a shuffle pace (but I didn't stop!) and I even sprinted the last 30 seconds.

A mixed run. I don't know if I am pushing myself too hard physically or not enough mentally. The entire way home, my legs felt weak and shaky. This week I move on to week 5, hope it goes ok.

I stopped by the playground on the way home to try and do a pull up to see where I stand with the 50-50 challenge. The last time I tried to do a pull up was in middle school, we were supposed to do them for the presidental fitness award. I might have held onto the bar for a couple of seconds before falling, or I might have just fallen right off, but I know I never actually pulled up. Last night I thought I could at least do 1, I mean I have been working out. Nope, just like middle school. I grabbed onto the bar and fell right off. We have a pull up bar that we are installing in our basement so I will get lots of practice, but it looks like that will be the hardest part of our 50-50 challenge.

foiled

2006-07-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

The plans for my morning I mentioned at the end of my last post didn't happen. I woke up around 4 to our dog making god awful noises and couldn't go back to sleep until 5:30, then I slept until 8. It was too late to exercise, so walk/jogging is put off till tonight. I just grabbed some oatmeal and came to work. Since it is the last day of SSWEC, I am going to do 90 minutes, walk/jogging, stretching, and yoga. Last night I did an additional 30 minutes of weights/crunches/pushups. I will miss SSWEC, it really got me motivated to do loads of exercise. I hope I can convince my sisters to do it again.

I weighed in at 188 this morning, up 0.5 lb from last week.

I still have to go to the grocery store, but will do it this afternoon when I get home. I found two new recipes I want to try this week, a mexican tortilla pie and a summer vegetable curry! Both sound fantastic.

Cat- I am jealous of your family pool time! Mike isn't into pools much. He can only stand about 30 minutes and then he wants to go home. Iz can stay for 2 hours or more. I am signing her up for water babies this fall. It is a Saturday class that starts in August. I am looking forward to her getting more comfortable in the pool. She likes the kiddie pool now, but is still a little frightened in the big pool.

Busy

2006-06-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

Julia is a baby wipes junkie. I can't stand the smell of them. It's like how she's a Kleenex Junkie too. All about getting the things out of the box.

For the short while that we used disposable wipes, it was Seventh Generation unscented ones and then cloth wipes or wash cloths. The ones at school are usually supermarket generics that just STINK of that "baby powder" scent.

I hate that smell. It makes me crazy. Mom lamented to me that Julai just "didn't smell like baby" because I was so anti-baby powder smells that I refused to buy anything smelling like it. Not wipes. Not soaps. Not lotions. Nothing!

But today she got a hold of a wipe at school and hasn't yet had a bath, so she reeks of it. Ugh. Ugh.

I didn't realize how busy it's been with doing swim in the morning and then school in the afternoon til I started to write and scrolled down to update from my last post. Very sporadic.

Julia completed her second session and we have a week break before she begins her third. Thankfully, I managed to get her into the Tues and Thurs evening session, so it won't be so frantic, and if Paul manages to take her to some of them, I can hit water aerobics. If not, at least it slows down the pace for me.

Mr V. keeps asking me when she turns three so he can pass her to "Level 1" since she seems ready/capable but she's not 3 til Jan so she's stuck in "Parent & Child" lessons until next summer. I just want her to have fun with it and learn some water skills, so waiting til next year is fine with me. At the same time, I'm really happy with how she's coming along -- lots of new things we want to show off to Daddy over the weekend when we can hit the pool as a family.

Got some weight workouts in and I've been food logging. I saw my RE and got a prescription for Glucophage again. Also agreed to go to a Weight Watchers meeting with my friend/boss. I don't know that WW is for me, but I agreed to go with her to her first meeting for the support. She's feeling anxious about it.

Me? All in all, maintaining decently. But I want to head into losing again. It's been enough of a break.

exercise

2006-06-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

Just walked around the lake. It was a good brisk walk, probably one of the best I have had of late because I am so well rested. I am going to do some free-weights and crunches in a sec.

My Sister's Six Week Exercise Challenge is up tomorrow. I had a significant lead until I got sick and have been pulling a strong second since then. It looks like I will finish about 100 minutes behind the leader, but I will post my final times tomorrow.

(On the sick front, no more snot but still have a deep cough. I am giving it till Wednesday then I will head to the doc if I still have it.)

For the next week, I am going to try to exercise every day because I know I will slack some at the beach. After the beach is over, Mike and I (and maybe some sisters) will participate in a new challenge, but this isn't a competition, just a list of things we want to do in the month. We are calling it the 50-50 challenge. Between July 16 and August 15 we want to complete:

50 miles of running or walking
50 sets of crunches (20 crunches/set)
50 sets of push-ups (10 push-ups/set)
50 pull-ups.

I am going to print out a graph with blocks we can color in as we complete the exercises. The hardest thing for Mike is going to be the running/walking, he hurt his foot over a week ago and is still hobbling around. Unless I get sick again, the running/walking should be the easiest for me to complete.

Tomorrow I am going on a walk/jog, doing week 4 of C25k again. I will start week 5 next week which ends in me running 2 miles straight. Mary wants to run at the beach so I will try to maintain the 2 miles while I am there then continue on with week 6 of C25k when we get back. At the end of the 50-50 challenge I should be running 3 miles straight. I will have 1 more month before our Sister's 5k in September to work on speed.

Tomorrow I want to get up early to exercise, run to the grocery store for some supplies (I want to make a new dish this week, need to look for some net-spiration) and then go to work for as long as I can stand it. I have a busy week before the beach with a proposal due the week we return from the beach. I don't want to fret over it while I am away so must finish this week.

style

2006-06-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Going out to exercise in a sec so this will be short.

Mike and I went to dinner and I was passing out starving. I ordered salad and baked potato and couldn't get the food down fast enough. It was a sick feeling. I guess my body got used to all the extra calories I was giving it the last few days.

We quickly stopped at the mall and while he shopped for games, I tried on some shirts at one of the stores. He came in while I was trying things on and I asked him what he thought. For everything except solid colored t-shirts he said "doesn't look like you". It made me realize that I have no style. I have been wearing solid colored t-shirts and jeans/shorts for 10 years not becauseI wanted to, but because it was all I could stomach from the plus sized section. Now I have options, but no style, what to do?

back

2006-06-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

The trip back was just as bad as the trip there. I arrived at the airport an hour before departure time only to be told there was a "problem" with the plane and they were flying in a new one and the flight would be delayed 30 minutes. No prob, I had a two hour lay over in Atlanta. While sitting at the gate they announced the plane had still not left the ground from its previous destination because of bad weather and the flight time was futher delayed until 9:25. Now it was cutting close, but the new arrival time still gave me a 40 minute lay over. The plane arrives, we all get on, take off and get to Atlanta in plenty of time to make my next flight. I am not stressing at all, I am even considering helping a mom traveling with 2 kids sitting across the aisle get into the airport since we weren't going to use a jetway, just exit onto the tarmac. We taxi to the gate and sit there... and sit there... and sit there... for 20 mintues. While they were parking us. We were right beside our gate and we were just going down the steps onto the tarmac, but they wouldn't let us out of the plane. By the time I got out, I had 15 minutes and my departure gate was on the other side of the airport as my arrival gate. I started running. I arrived at the departure gate completely out of breath only to be told the gate had pulled away only one minute before. The next flight was an hour later, but oops, it is overbooked. The next flight with available seats is at 5. I break down in sobs at the desk, big snotty ones, uttering the f word a few times. Isn't it kind of funny that the only flight that left on time the whole trip was this last one, the one that I missed? I will avoid atlanta at all costs from now on, it is an f-ed up airport. Finally got on a flight 2 hours later after calling delta and sobbing on the phone about my crap trip.

Now i am home, have been movied and fed and am ready to shower and have icecream. Glad this hellofa trip is over. It was good seeing everyone at the conference, but I don't know if it was worth it.

The eating, it was bad. No exercise except running through the airport. Starting fresh tomorrow.

crap

2006-06-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

This trip was crap from the get go. I had to wait in the HSV airport for 5 hours when trying to leave, eventually I was just re-routed. Finally got here after midnight. Food intake has been way way way too much. Obvioulsy, I have a problem. A serious sweets problem. Back at the hotel for a few minutes before dinner. Will get back to HSV on thursday (I hope).

trip

2006-06-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

We had thai for dinner and it was fantastic! I haven't eaten thai in quite a while and have missed the spicy curried. I had panang and mike had massaman. Yummy!

I have been trying to ignore the fact all day that I am leaving for a trip tomorrow. I leave here at 3 and fly through atlanta where I have a 2 hour layover. I am going to check the web to see if I can find someplace to eat there where I won't blow my points (did enough of that for dinner tonight.)

The hotel I am staying has fridges and microwaves. I will be eating lunch in the cafeteria so at least a salad will be a safe bet. Wish me luck, next week promises to be very rough.

Party

2006-06-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

This is something I don't mention much. It's also something I don't do much.... parties.

We had a kiddie birthday party to go to. One of Julia's little friends turned 4 and we went over to their house for a small gathering and water play.

Like I always do, I ate before I went.

Like I always do, I offered to bring a dish -- both to help the host and to ensure there's something vegan for me to eat. Lucky for me, the parents are vegetarian, and the food was ALL vegan. That doesn't happen often.

What also doesn't happen often? I felt relaxed, comfortable, socialized easily. I didn't feel the pang of social anxiety I feel at other gatherings. I didn't (and this is important) end up nibbling too much food just to keep anxiety at bay. You know.. that emotional eating thing?

Paul told me afterward he really had a nice time too -- no stress, everything very pleasant, etc.

So... what's different this time? Hanging out with people I truly enjoy who don't make me tense.

So... how do we make family gatherings this pleasant so there isn't tension for me?

day off

2006-06-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today I am taking the day off. No working, no exercising, no cooking or cleaning (though I was convinced to make pancakes this morning.) Mike made pasta for lunch and is in charge of laundry and dishes as well. I am feeling refreshed.

I weighed in at 187.5 this morning, another .5lb gone which is pretty good considering how bloated I feel lately. That makes 10 lbs since i started WW this last May and 59 lbs total since January 2005.

I am very PMS-y and hormonal lately. I guess I am still getting used to going off the pill. I keep thinking I might be pg, which is almost an impossibility. Besides, the last time I got pg, I had no early symptoms and felt pretty good the whole first trimester except for food aversion.

Mike and I did a quick shopping trip last night. I was looking for capris, Mike for shirts. I bought 2 new pair, both in size 14. I think highschool was the last time I bought anything in size 14. I am wearing one of them now and feel quite fit and trim.

I have been on the couch watching movies all day. We are going to go to a movie shortly, then out to thai for dinner. I should take the day off more often!

when working out isn't working

2006-06-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

I really should know better. This cold I have has prolonged itself because I refuse to take the rest that is required to heal. Yesterday should have been a rest day. I woke up early and all snotted up, I had a sore throat and was coughing, yet I still got out of bed, put on my exercise clothes and walked for 50 minutes before 8. I felt horrible all day yesterday, I was in a bad mood, sore, irritated with being sick. And I feel worse this morning. Where am I now? Sitting in front of the computer in my exercise clothes. I have a PT appt this morning. And I am planning on running.

I am going to take tomorrow completely off and possibly Sunday. I am on a trip all next week.

should have word sunscreen

2006-06-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

I got up early this morning and walk/jogged my way around the lake. It was already hot at 6:30 and very sunny. I had a hard time of it. I had to cut short two of my jogging intervals, but I made the time up at the end. I tried to run a little faster than last time, but found I could only maintain a shuffle by the third interval. I am still dealing with snot issues, both in my nose and throat meaning that a nice deep breath results in some equally deep coughing. The jog sections went like this : pant, pant, deap breath, cough cough cough, fart. If you were passing me, excuse me!

While I was out there struggling, I kept trying to think about my accomplishments, about how far I have come in the last 1.5 years. But, let me tell ya, it didn't help. The fact that I have lost 60 lbs helps a lot of things, I can now run up and down the stairs without losing my breath, but it doesn't make getting out to exercise any easier or making daily/hourly healthy eating choices. I am like the stock market, "past performance is not indication of future gain".

1.5 weeks left of SSWEC and 2.5 weeks till I go to the beach! I am very excited about a full week off and lots of fun with the family.

more thoughts on goals

2006-06-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I posted about weight goals and the thought has depressed me ever since. I hate weight goals, mainly because they are so unpredictable and uncontrollable. The number on the scale goes down at its own pace, seemingly (but not really) regardless of what I do. I could have a great week of eating right and exericsing and the scale go up, and have a horrible week and the scale go down.

To focus on something I do have some control over, I was thinking about a good obtainable exercise goals that I could meet by the end of the year. One of my goals is to be able to run 3 miles, a goal that I am working on now as I work through the couch to 5 k program. Another goal is to run 3 miles "fast". To me, 10 min/mile is super fast and seems almost unobtainable, so I will settle for fast = "less than 12 min/mile." So that is one definiate goals I want to meet by the end of the year, running 3 miles in less than 36 minutes.

Other goals are less formed. Another blogger I read is doing something fun with her gym. She is completing all the ironman distances (the run, bike and swim), but doing it over a month. I thought that would be a fun thing to do, except I don't own a bike and there isn't a good place to take long bike rides around where I live. And the swimming might be rough too. I can swim in the community pool in the summer, but afterwards, I would have to join a gym. But I am thinking of something like that. I would like to do some exercise other than running or walking eventually.

Mike and I used to play a lot of tennis when we didn't have a kid. Since mom has been with us, we have played a couple of times and I really enjoy it. I would love to play more often and to somehow make a time to play with childcare after mom goes home.

An update on living with my mom - it is going great! izzy loves spending time with her grandma and has been talking a lot more with the one on one attention. Mom absolutely adores living with Izzy and taking care of her. Mike and I have been enjoying spending more time with mom and more time alone. It is working out for everyone.

SSWEC update

2006-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Remember the sister's six week exercise challege? We started week 4 on Sunday, only 2 weeks left. Before this past week, I had a solid lead over both sisters. The illness changed everything though, now I am down about 100 minutes from the leader. My goal is to exercise like crazy this week, try for 90 minutes each day (we have a 90 minute daily cap). Next week will be rough since I will be on travel, but I will try to exercise then too. My trip is to NH, so at least it will be cool.

I still managed to do 200 minutes of exercise last week even though I was very ill. Not too bad.

Julia looks so cute with the weights, Cat! Iz is always trying to pick up our weights, but she tries for the 8 or 10 lbs and I am worried she will drop them on her feet. We got the yoga kids dvd this weekend and tried the first one out. She didn't make it all the way through, but she enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so.

I worked out with my PT this morning and walk/"jogged". I was back to shuffling, much like I did last year. I can feel the difference now, I like going faster must better. It seems harder in some ways to go slow. Everytime I tried to go faster this morning, though, I ended up coughing.

I am making arroz sin pollo for supper tonight!

Weights with company

2006-06-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

I was getting through the usual shoulder, bi's and tri's routine when Julia woke up. We took a potty break, got some soy yogurt eaten, and then came back to finish up the workout together. The second half went a lot slower but it was very entertaining.

I ought to give working out in my shirt and panties with only one shoe on a try.

Catching Up

2006-06-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Great pix, Amy!

Things here are quiet this morning. I skipped Julia's swim lesson because I hated to wake her. She's had a rough week and we're all low on sleep.

Thursday we went out of town to see my nephew off. He flew back to South Dakota.

Friday I worked preschool alone, so I felt all crazy when I came home. Had I known I was going to be working it solo, I would have prepared a little better and gone in a little earlier to get myself settled.

Saturday my friend Monique showed up from Texas and I hadn't seen her in years... I gave her all of Julia's baby clothes that I hadn't already given Lara. Monique is closing in on 8 months and I long came to the realization that even if we do have another child, people are going to overwhelm us with STUFF. Saturday night I took a little snooze whiel Paul worked on his part of Sunday's sermon, and then when he went to bed I checked it over for him for spelling and grammar and then printed it out and got all our gear ready.

In the morning we took off and since I wasn't working nursery I got to hear the Father's Day service. Paul was the speaker for the "new" dad, and they had another man covering the middley bit with older kids and teens, and an older gentlemen covered empty nest/grandfatherhood. Sort of like reflections of paternal love.

Paul was anxious because the last time he had to address a crowd was his valec. speech in HS!

But he did well and towards the end he started getting emotional and teary and then Julia started hooting and hollering for her Daddy from a pew. People found this amusing.

Afterward we went to a teahouse for lunch with some new friends that we've been trying to get together with for a long time. It was pleasant and relaxing. Home for a nap, then up again to dine out. Paul craved California Pizza Kitchen and who was I to argue with the Dad? I wanted a pina colada and ordered a salad to keep the calories down but it turned out that they ran out of that salad so I ended up getting a veg. pizza anyway and brought home the rest. It was an interesting combination -- mushroom, eggplant, corn, broccoli, pepper, etc.

We popped in to see my dad after that and spent a while watching Julia horse around.

Today? I'm up trying to plan my week like I do most Mondays. Tuesday I get produce, so I have to do a lot of cooking. Wednesday I have the workshop thing so that's going to be a rough day. After that, it should be easier and we have the weekend free of obligations so we ought to be better rested.

I didn't exercise heavily last week (1 weight workout, 3 swim lessons) but I did keep a food log and I'm down 2 lbs. So... let's see how this week develops. I have two recipes I want to try out so I'm looking forward to that.

very busy with nothing to show for it

2006-06-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

except for a bed covered with clean, unfolded laundry.

This day has been crazy. I got up, made pancakes for my family and immediately started feeling ill and laid back down again. Got up to make lunch, only to discover that two family members had escaped with no time of return. Watched some meaningless tv while doing laundry. Finally they appear so I started lunch. It was a great lunch! Now that my mom lives with us and she doesn't eat mushrooms and Mike doesn't like my sun dried tomatoes, I am always making two or three different sauces when I make pasta. For lunch, I did a "build your own" pasta. I made all the veggies seperately and put them in little bowls, even had two different sauces to try. I served it with a side of asparagus and it was delish! I am going to have to do it the next time I have guests over. A fun yummy meal without much work that can please everyone.

All afternoon I felt like I was prepping for dinner. We cooked out, tofu for the veggies, something else for the meat eaters. I wanted to make some homemade ice cream to go on the side. We have an icecream maker that we got when we got married 5 years ago and have never used. Well, I dug it out, washed it, read the instructions, bought all the stuff, put it all together and ... it didn't work. It was supposed to turn itself off after 40 mintues or whenever it was done. An hour later it was still whirling away so I went out to check it and the agitator wasn't turning. I thought I solved the problem and got it started again but it didn't work that time either, or the next. Finally, after all the dishes from our meal were cleared, I looked at it one last time, declared it a bust and we went out for icecream.

No exercise, not the best eating. Not a great start to the week.

weight loss pics

2006-06-18T04:39:00.000-07:00

I put some pictures of me over the last year and a half here, including one taken last night in my new dress.

I am 90% today. Slept much better last night with no nyquil. I still don't feel up to running, but I can definitely do a nice walk.

We had a great date last night. We saw a decent movie (lakehouse, it was way better than breakup!) and had the best meal in this date series yet! It was at a restaurant that had nothing vegetarian on the menu, but we have eaten there before and know they will make up a nice veggie pasta or plate if you request it. The last time we ate there was new years eve 2000 just before we left hsv for the first time and they sat us at the same table. We had one of those great conversations about movies and life and future and the food was divine! I somehow turned off my WW mental calculator and dived in. We had a grilled bread and brie appetizer, salad, and I had the pasta dish which was in this amazing cream sauce and roasted veggies.

Today we have no big plans except for grilling out for dinner. I am making tofu on the grill. And we are making homemade icecream. :) Have a great day, Cat!

weighin in

2006-06-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

I weighed today at 188. Firmly in the 180s now.

I walked alone last night because Mike wasn't feeling well. He isn't feeling much better this morning. I was hoping to wake up early and run to mitigate the damage of our planned dinner out, but it didn't happen. Even though I took only 1/3 a dose of nyquil, I still woke, late, in a fog that I couldn't shake.

80%

2006-06-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

Life isn't completely back to normal, but almost. I did get a walk in last night, 2.75 miles in about 50 minutes. I was coughing and congested by the end of it, but I pushed through. Another walk or something else tonight. I wanted to get up early and walk then, but after a bad night of coughing and midnight dosing of Tylenol, I was out for the count this morning. Running starts again either Saturday or Sunday.

Last night before supper, mom and I took the munchkin and walked around the mall for an hour and I found a dress! I hope I bought the right one. We found one I liked at the very first store we stopped at, then we went to 8 different stores and tried on loads more. I didn't like any as much as I liked the first one so I just ran back in and bought it. I think I grabbed the right one, it is a knit dress, black with white swirls, but I tried on two different knit dresses in that store, both black and white. I will try on again tonight to confirm. Fancy date is planned for Saturday. :)

Motivated by cat's post below, here is my dream weekday schedule. Never goes this smoothly.

5:30 a.m. - out of bed, teeth brushed, drinking water

6:00 - 7:00 a.m. - exercise: walk or walk/jog around the lake and stretch

7:00 - family wakes up

7:00 - 8:00 a.m. - eat breakfat, make lunch, make coffee to take to work, shower, get dressed for day

8:15 a.m. -arrive at work, check email put up lunch

11:00 a.m. - eat 1/2 of lunch

1:30 p.m. - eat 2nd half of lunch

3:30 p.m. - leave for home

4:00 - 5:00 p.m. - hang out at pool with munchkin

5:00 - 6:00 p.m. - make dinner and eat

6:00 - 7:30 p.m. - family time. Go to playground, take a walk, play downstairs

7:30 p.m. - bath time, bedtime ritual starts

8:00 p.m. - munchkin's bedtime.

8:00 - 10:00 p.m - Dessert, dishes, laundry, prep for the next day, more exercise, alone time with Mike.

10:00 p.m. - off to dreamland.

feeling better

2006-06-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

I was feeling well enough to get out of bed this morning and get myself ready for work. I thought I would only stay a couple of hours since the last two days have seen meen mostly in bed. But I actually fell ok and might put in a decent day at the office.

Things are going ok. WW has become a part of life again in that annoying way that I can't eat a meal without mentally calculating the number of points in it, the number of points I have left for the day, the number of minutes I will have to exercise to make up for going over, etc, etc. It takes the joy out of eating high point food, but in a good way. You know that commercial for total where the woman just has to look at something and the number of calories pops up in her computerized brain? That is me right now.

I am hoping for real exercise tonight, a walk or tennis. Will update later.

mia

2006-06-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

sick in bed for three days. I feel slightly better today, meaning am out of bed and might try to drive myself to work for a couple of hours. I miss exercising and blogging. I am still eating ok and logging everything though.

My Day

2006-06-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

8:30 AM -- Take meds

8:30-10:30 AM Eat, prowl the house, nurse, anxiously watching weather

10:30 -- get kid in car and go to pool, parkign lot full, park at church and walk back to pool, Dress child, feed her yogurt, sunscreen.

11:15 - 11:45 AM Swim Lesson

11:45 - 12:00 PM Drive to grocery

12:00 - 12:30 PM Get prescription and groceries done, also get gas

12:30 - 12:45 PM Drive home

12:45- 1:30 change clothes, eat lunch with kid

1:30 - 2:30 nurse and nap with kid

2:30 - 3:00 get diaper bags and lunches packed, change clothes, get kid in car

3:00 - 3:3o drive to work

3:30-6:00 At preschool minding children, cleaning up, etc.

6:00-6:30 Eat lunchboxes, nurse kid

6:30 - 8:30 Hold workshop while DH takes kid on outing to bookstore

8:30 - 9:00 Drive home

9:00- 9:30 have snack, deal with mail

9:30- 10:00 Bath and story

10:00 - 11:30 nurse and fuss with overtired child trying to get her to sleep

11:30 Send Daddy in to deal with it so I an regain my composure/temper

Tomorrow's not looking much better. I have swim lesson, and a day off work, but we're going to a family thing in the evneing so I have from 1:30 PM - 5:30 PM to do a week's worth of housework that hasn't gotten done and get a workout in there, any type.