Jumping back on board

So I'm back to a normal life, unfortunetly :-( I went back to work last Tuesday, so this is my first full week back. The first few days were rough. It's slow here so time has been dragging by. Not to mention that all last week I was still pretty sore, and couldn't take the percocet anymore. But the tylenol did it's thing, so we evened out in the end :-)

I went back to tracking on Tuesday, my week was pretty decent. Could have been better, could have been worse. I didn't drink at all this week, which is good, but I had dessert almost every night (ok, every night), and my goal is to cut that down to 3X a week. They were modest desserts, but desserts all the same. I also snacked too much, and gave into temptation (in the form of chocolate donuts, chocolate chip cookies, etc). That said, my breakfast and lunch has been OP, and dinners last week were healthy shepherd's pie, skinny sloppy joes, roast chicken, and thin crust pizza. All of which we're paired with veggies, and were completely within my points range.

All this culminated into a .6 loss on Friday. I was hoping to hit my 40 pound mark this week, but ahh well, a loss is a loss, right?

Moving onto the new week (which ends Friday), I had some good and bad:
The BAD:

• I didn't eat a whole lot of Friday,which led me to indulge in FOUR slices of pizza.I was too full after that, and definitely regretted that decision. I told M to stop me next time, instead of encouraging my decision
• Also on Friday I was all moody after work, and stopped for a coffee to wake me up. Of course I decided that I needed a cookie too. Blech
• I planned on keeping Saturday low key, and it was, but I made the mistake of bringing wine to my friend's place, and having about 3 glasses. When we got to the bar, I kept my drink order to 2 (one mixed one beer), and was pretty sober by the time we left. But I wish I had just brought a beer with me to J's instead of wine. I'll learn :-)
• I didn't start my workouts as planned yesterday, but I wasn't feeling great, and am a bit scared to over do it, so I wanted to wait until after my doctor's appointment today to get full clearance.

and now, the Good!:

• I had an awesome healthy fajita stir fry for lunch on Saturday. It ended up being about 15 points (for the sour cream, fajita chicken, tortillas and rice) but I was so full I only had a sloppy joe (7 points+) for dinner. Which left tons of room for drinks. I didn't meet my GHG's, but I got far more than I normally would have on a saturday.
• I kept myself to 3 beers on Friday night. M and I stayed low key and watched Modern Family :-)
• I tracked everything this weekend. Even the bad stuff

And I still have some weeklies left, which I don't plan on using. I have a low key week planned, we're getting ANOTHER snow storm Tuesday-Wednesday (blech!) . M and I are planning on going to the movies Tuesday night, so let's hope this storm is a dud. Sadly, they have been on target with the forcast this season, so we'll see :-( I'm so tired of snow.

Back to the Grind

So I'd say I feel 90% better, and am due to go back to work tomorrow, which is good, but at the same time I've kinda loved having my time off this week. It was nice to spend a week just relaxing. Seriously, my day went:

• wake up at 9. take a percocet
• fall back asleep around 10, wake up at 1. eat lunch
• watch a movie, play video games, read for a few hours
• take another percocet, fall back asleep before dinner, eat, read, watch a movie, etc until bedtime

wash, repeat. I won't lie. After months of working out at least once or twice a week (normally more like 3-5 times a week), working 40+ hours, going out, spending countless hours driving, it was nice to have an excuse to do NOTHING. I also started a new book, Fall of Giants by Ken Follet. He wrote Pillars of the Earth, which is one of my favorite books ever. I'm only about 200 pages in, but so far it's in the similar style of Pillars, but more modern day (WWI era, compared to the 1400s), and as a history lover, I'm really enjoying it so far.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end :-) I'm ready to be back in the grind, back to work, taking on everything I've missed in the past week (luckily the third week of the month is never that busy, so hopefully it wont be that bad. In addition, I still can't work out until (I think) the weekend. I'm going to ask my doctor when I get my incisions checked on Wednesday.  So at least It'll be a slow transition back :-)

I'm secretly looking forward to getting back into working out. I have enjoyed my life of sedentary, but I like feeling like I've accomplished something, and I feel better about what I eat when I'm working out. Lately every time I start to run I get a terrible pain/cramp in my side. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it's so bad I have to stop. I think it has something to do with the gallbladder, and the fact that it has caused me some, ahem, indigestion problems. To put it lightly. So hopefully I've overcome that hurdle, and I will be able to get back on my 5K training. There is a 5K in March, the 20th for St Patricks Day. It takes place in Davis, and afterwards there is a celebration at all the bars and restaurants in the area. And Davis has so many awesome places to go out (including the best Southern BBQ in the boston area), so it would be so much fun to celebrate us all completing it afterwards. My sisters and M said they would do it with me, and I want to be able to finish in under 40 this time. It'll be warmer, and If I start running again this weekend, following the 5K program (I'm back at week 6 because of the side pain), I should be able to finish it by the beginning of March, and have quite a few runs outside before the race starts.

As far as eating goes this past week, I wasn't terrible, to be perfectly honest. I haven't tracked since last Sunday, but I'm ok with that. I didn't want to have to worry about tracking while I was feeling so crappy, and I really couldn't handle heavy foods this past week anyways, so I didn't think it was wise to worry about my eating while I was focused on resting and recouperating.

And I was pretty decent about portions. Yes, I definitely ate a lot of sweets. But I tried to focus somewhat on portions (estimating for the most part). I ate a lot of soup and cereal for breakfast and lunch, light sandwiches, and most nights had a small portion of pasta, because I really didn't have much of an appetite. To be honest, I still don't really, but definitely better than Tuesday/Wednesday.

I've gotten to enjoy a lot that I wasn't letting myself eat (not worth the points), and it got balanced out with the light meals. I weighed in on Saturday morning (my normal WI day is Friday, but with the surgery, they injected air into my stomach, and I didn't get normal again until Friday afternoon, so I felt like Friday's WI wouldn't be accurate. And I was right, I WI at 219.6, which is great, because even with not tracking and the like, it's a 1.4 loss :-) I am 1.6 away from 40 pounds, and with my surgery over with, I'm planning on being back OP, working out when I can, eating healthy (I think this week my lunches are going to be salads, with grilled chicken)

So Here's to a good week!

The plus side to the whole surgery thing

Is the forced relaxation part. The last time I got to do this was 2 years ago with my wisdom teeth, and I was just starting my birth control, so I was all emotional, and sad being home all the time.

This time has been a lot better.I've been taking the meds on time, eating light meals, and watching hours of television. It's been nice :-)


and Toby has been a lovely companion:

Recouperating

This was my Wednesday night :-)

Let me explain:
I had my gall bladder out yesterday. Months of tests, doctors appointments, and chest pain led up to the decision that because my gall bladder was performing at less than 5%. I should have my gall bladder removed, which will take care of all the indigestion, chest pressure, and gastro issues. So yesterday morning I was down at the carney hospital at 630 am for preop. The entire surgery was done by 10, and I was awake by 1015. I have to say, after weeks of hearing  how they make sure your comfortable, and the pain is so much better with the laproscopic surgery than when they used to cut you open, etc.

it fucking hurt. a lot.

I would say the care was, mixed. I had some great nurses and CNAs. Very attentive, made sure I got my meds ontime, friendly, made me feel comfortable.

But, there were also a few issues.
-When I first got my room, it took an hour for me to get my water. I assume it was the chaos of me getting settled, etc. But then I complained that the pain hadnt gone away with the morphine, and the nurse refused to give me more, and told me to "wait it out". Excuse me, I'm not asking to over medicate, but they inject it into you, it should hit right away, if I'm having trouble breathing the pain is so bad, you should do more than tell me to 'wait it out'

Thankfully, that nurses aide left at 330, and  a new group came on, with a nurse who was completely on top of giving me my meds on time (she switched me to percocet, which lasted for the full four hours, and helped with my discomfort a TON), and making sure I was ok.

My other issue"
- After 11 a new group came on. They were not so into the whole making sure I was getting the medicine on time, so I had to ask for it, every 4-5 hours. At 6 they came around to do my vitals, and I asked the CNA to see if I was due (I knew I was). At 630 I called again to see if she had checked, and to get help with going to the bathroom. she "hadn't even had a chance to ask about me yet". great. So at 7, I still hadn't heard anything, and at this point my pain level was up to a 7-8. I called the CNA again. They had switched at 7, and the initial CNA hadn;'t even put my question in, so after another 20 minutes the nurse did come around with my meds. I was crying because of the pain asking why I had to wait an hour and a half for this, she responded that she just got on. And I kjnow, it's not her fault. The initial CNA was just plain lazy. I called in the middle of the night, and she repsonded asking what was wrong over the intercom, to make sure it was actually important. Not a fan, at all.

Other than that my experience was pretty positiive. I was given a roomate at around 6, a screaming vietnamese woman who didn't speak english, and whose son didn't either, but had no problem yelling at her in vietnamese. I was irritated, as I was so tired and dizzy, I just wanted to sleep.

So now I'm home, and I honestly feel a whole lot better to be home in my basement, watching movies haha. i've rented glee and modern family, not to mention A Single Man, Rachel Getting Married, and I'm sure other movies :-)

I am not focused on my WLJ this week either. I have to eat very bland foods, so my giant sundae tonight was coupled wtih a baked potato, with cheese and brocoli, and soup with bread for lunch. Hardly a fattening day :-) And really, what makes you feel better than ice cream, anyways

Falling out of my routine

I miss the days where I liked snow days

How lame is that? I've managed to maintain a routine on the weekends: Sleep in, relax, eat a larger lunch, workout (at least one day), a smaller dinner. Relax. Repeat.

Today I woke up to 10 inches of snow on the ground, white out conditions, and a text from my boss saying the office wouldn't be open till one. I burnt 400 calories shoveling (Thank you HRM!) and had a decent sized breakfast., Good so far right?

I was angry that I had to work, so I got myself a caramel iced latte. Then I came home, and was like "fuck it, I';m tired, its gross out, I'm not going to work out"

Then, my family caused some drama, so I had a beer, and then my sister made delicious cookies, so I had to have one of those (with some ice cream...)

And now I just feel gross. It makes me so angry. Why is it that I can't just be good, follow my plan, and not let personal stress/boredom get to me?

The drama was food related, of course. Part of the reason we're all "larger" is due to the way we were fed growing up.

My parents were never the type to let us eat take out all the time. Even now looking back, sure we had fast food pretty frequently, but the majority of our meals were home cooked, a meat, a starch and a veggie. We are a VERY irish family, so it was a lot of lamb, roasts, chicken, potatoes, etc. Which is good. Our issue has never been the nutrition side of meals (I mean, yes growing up we had a lot of junk, but it was all snack food). The issue has always been portions, which I can say hands down is the thing I have the biggest issue with on weight watchers. So all my family (besides my father) is or has been on WW. All my sisters have lost a considerable amount of weight, but two of them have admitted to getting a little too obsessed about it, to the point of anorexia. My third sister is currently pretty scary with her eating habits. She also has a habit of judging us for eating not so healthy things sometimes, and tonight was no exception.

My youngest sister cooked a shepherds pie, and my dad asked for two helpings, and my sister basically told him he should be fine with one serving, which caused some issues (which I understand, if you are worried about someones weight, you say it to them at a chosen time, not when serving them dinnre and making them feel bad about it). Then she told my mother she is in a downwards spiral because she wasn't satisfied with one 6 point serving. It was so frustrating, because no matter how many ways I explained ot my sister that it's hurtful to treat others like that, and judge their eating habits, and that her eating habits weren't exactly healthy, and we are all worried about her.

It majorly stressed me out, and I'd be lying if I didn't take solace in dessert and beer :-( Ahh well ,move on, tomorrows a new day, and I'm definetly going to the gym after my pretest tomorrow, that's for sure

Week 40

And I'm down 37 pounds. I "maintained" the past two weeks.

When I say Maintained, I mean I didn't WI on the Friday, but instead during the week, and estimated that I didn't gain, or lose. Sigh. I know. That's not "WW". But for me, It was the holidays, I knew I was indulging in food and alcohol more than I normally do, (but I definitely was smart and didn't over indulge) I think it's ok to take off a few weeks. For me, It's fucking hard to constantly focus on being good, and if I tell myself I'm going to be good, especially during the holidays, I tend to mess up more than I normally would. So I let myself breathe a little bit.

And I'm totally fine with that.

So a recap:

• Christmas was fun. I indulged, but I watched myself. I focued on veggies and portions. And I'm proud of myself for that. :-) Did I drink? Hell yes I did, but not overly.
• New Years: I drank, but I watched my eating :-) Give a little, take a little right? Thursday night after work we all went to a piano bar downtown for Dukes Bday. we danced, we drank (too much. I spent wayy too much money), and I ate McDs went I went home. But I split a 2 burger meal with M, and I bearly ate dinner. New Years Eve I honestly don't know how much I drank, but hey, it's new years :-) I had a ball at the party I was at, and had a delicious hangover lunch of frozen pizza, chicken fingers, and french bread with cheese
• Sunday M and I celebrated our  3 year anniversary our way. No fancy dinner, no extra gifts, just spending a great day together, drinking good beer, eating some food, watching sports :-) It was a great day together

Monday Morning I brought myself back OP.  I watched my eating, portions, and focused on working out. I only got in 2 workouts but both of them were great, and I was exhausted afterwards. I also didn't drink at all, and got in all my water, and most of my GHGs

And it worked, I was down 2.5 this week!

A week from Tuesday is my gall bladder surgery. I'm nervous, but also excited not to have redic indigestion, and a week off to just relax. I plan on renting a million movies, and vegging to the extreme.

Because of this, I am going to be OP all week, taking it day by day. I plan on going to the gym Sunday Wednesday and maybe thursday, and then doing a video Monday night (and thursday if I'm too sore from the gym on Wednesday) I have a plan, and I'm going to stick with it!

Next Friday M got us tickets to the beer summit in Boston, I'm so excited!! Its going to be a great way to relax, start off my time off, and I've never been to this one before, so I hope its good!!