Lose It! App

Okay, so I am trying to lose a little weight.

I got a little overindulgent over Christmas and just December in general. My pants were getting a little tight and I'll be damned if I buy a pair of size 10 pants.

I looked over a lot of options and finally chose the Lose It! app.

I have never done this before, but I am now counting calories. Usually when I want to drop a few I just try and eat less and work out more and I am usually disappointed by the results. The last time I lost a lot of weight was for my sister's wedding back in 2008. I got down to 130 and looked fabulous, but it was hard to keep off.

Now keep in mind when I tell you my weights that I have a good 8lbs of tits (4 on each side). So if it seems high, please take that into consideration.

I try to stay just below 140. It is a good weight for me and I usually flux between 138 and 142 which I am fine with. When I got on the scale after Christmas I was on the far side of 140 and creeping up on 150 and I cannot stand for that. Nothing motivates me more than scary scale numbers, so since Jan 1 I have been counting calories.

I figured I need to eat around 1500 calories a day to lose a pound a week. So far it's been pretty good. I can still eat whatever I want which includes a lot of ice cream and occasional donuts, but once I hit that limit I am out for the day as far as eating. Some days and some foods are a guessing game as to exact calories consumed, but I'm making an educated guess as I log my foods.

Tomorrow is a big log-in for me. I am hoping to be near 140 tomorrow am when I weigh in. It is a very slow moving diet. If anything it has made be more conscious of how many calories some foods have. Chips seem to be the worst in calorie count so those have been mostly cut out of my diet (except for when dining at Chipotle). Even if I don't hit my goal of one pound a week I know I will get there if I keep logging my food and trying to stay around 1500 calories. I had a setback last week with my flu and just ate when I was hungry. I didn't let my stomach growl. I needed the food and energy to fight off the germs.
I have no big date in my mind of when I want to be back down to 135, but however long it takes I will be happy. I will feel better. My clothes will fit better and I will be healthier.

Overall it's a great app. I'm not sure if it's the app itself, or just me committing to keep track of my calories, but the app makes it easy to log it. Not all foods can be found in this app, but if you break a food down into it's component parts you can get pretty close. It also logs exercise. The numbers don't usually jive between what Lose It! says and my treadmill as far as calories burned, but I try and find something close. If I burn 300 calories, I can eat 300 more calories and take my daily intake up to 1800. Therefor a day with a donut means I MUST get on the treadmill.

I'll keep you posted, but I've got my fingers crossed for 140 tomorrow.

360 To Health

I am on my feet. I can breathe. I am over my PMS and all related ailments.

O happy day!

I thought I'd post some more awesome photos.

This is me before Christmas when it last snowed. We got 8" and had to cancel the last day of school before Christmas break. It was a beautiful morning as I was heading out to deliver Christmas packages for Fed Ex and I had to stop and take a selfie at the side of the road.

I know, I look gorgeous and the mountain ain't bad either.

And here is an oldie, but a goodie. Of course I did not know my husband when he looked like this. I never got to run my fingers through his long luscious locks. He cut them about a year before I knew him, so I absolutely love these pictures of him with his ridiculous hair. It's gorgeous and so blond and wavy. I can't get enough of it. Such a stud for 1995.

Funk Busting

Here is that damned commercial. I hate it and love it at the same time.

So here I am 5 minutes later cranking up Roar and a little Rihanna to try and bust this funk.

Should I not write just because it's difficult? What kind of BS is that? Isn't it supposed to be hard? There are no guarantees.

That other question that plagues me constantly: If you could do anything and knew you would succeed what would you do? WRITE!

If I was on my death bed and hadn't yet written a book. I would be disappointed with myself. Books are my life and my love. It's not supposed to be easy. I tell myself this over and over and over again and yet still I make excuses. Will I feel more creative and satisfied with my life if I write? Yes. Even if I never get published?

Still YES!

WTF am I even doing right now? Writing.

Does it make me feel better? Damn skippy it does. That's why I'm doing it on this sucky day.

It doesn't take a Master's Degree in Geometry to work out that proof.

How to Successfully Make a Major Life Change

Oh if only there were a book with this title.

And then inside the book a complete list of choices just for me.

Kind of like a choose your own adventure book, but just for my life. All the paths would be highlighted and the choices would have clear end results.

You know how when you  saw Eat Pray Love, (the movie makes it more evident that the book) and realized what a selfish bitch Elizabeth Gilbert was being when she left her perfectly amazing husband and New York life behind to go out and find herself? I feel like that.

I have everything. Awesome kids, supportive and loving husband, a community and network established, a job I love (most of the time), and a home filled with books, photographs, and movies. What more could a gal ask for?

Well this year we have no big plans that I am excited about (no Europe). I have kind of given up on writing (I don't seem to have the patience to complete anything when it gets difficult). I have a very dead end job that makes very little money. The children are all locked into great schools. Our business is frustrating, but profitable.

It feels like sophomore year of college. You know what's going on and how to make it, and now you just have to slog through 3 more years to graduate and make the next life change: graduation.

But at my age and in this stage of life everything will remain pretty much status quo for the next 10 years when the last of my kids graduates from high school. It seems like a very long stretch of working and homework and dinners and shopping at Target.

How does one add spice into that? Tickets to Katy Perry shows? 2 week summer vacations with the family? A new car? Rearranging the furniture and painting the living room a new color?

I know it's the journey and not the destination in life, but what if that journey has turned into an endless road trip through the cornfields of Illinois. Even looking out the window isn't any fun anymore.

And yes before you ask I do have PMS. It's those few days before when my hormone levels are so low that I question my entire life and where it needs to go next. And then wouldn't you know it iTunes radio turns to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah and things gets really existential.

That new Apple commercial with Robin Williams monologue from Dead Poets Society is really getting to me and the ad is on constantly. It really doesn't make me want to buy Apple Products, but does make me question what I am doing now to add verse. "The powerful play goes on and YOU may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
I've had this discussion here before about the importance of adding a verse. Does it make me any more or less of a person if I add a verse. We can't all be big important people in life. Somebody has to just deliver the mail. Somebody will just be really good at painting road stripes. I may be here solely to be an awesome mother to my children. What if that is my verse? How am I to know?

Making a change just to change is usually not a good idea. Should we pack up and move to Belize like those people we see on House Hunters? Should we sell our business and relocate? Should we downsize so that we have more family time and money to travel? Should we try to eat healthier? Is it just the pressure of a New Year and the need to do better than last year? Or is it just Jan/Feb and I'm in the doldrums?

I know there aren't any answers to my questions. Only time will tell. Hell, next week I'll probably be fine and excited about something that I don't even know about today. But in the meantime, damn, today is difficult for no reason at all.

Dickens Sick

If I was a character in a Jane Austen or Dickens novel I would probably be dead. My sister would have been sent for, my children not allowed into my sickroom, and a doctor who makes house calls would have been sitting next to the fireplace in an uncomfortable chair. The curtains on my large canopy bed would be drawn.
For the first time in eight years I actually took to my bed for an illness. I did not leave my room on Saturday. Food was brought up to me at my request. I did not take a shower. I did not read. I slept fitfully all day. The windows were too bright to let the curtains be pulled open.
It was the kind of sick where you see people on TV riding bicycles, eating at restaurants, and riding in cars and you think, I will NEVER be able to do that again. I will never be well enough to leave the house ever again.
And then it was Sunday and I took a shower and rode in a car and went to a restaurant. Then I immediately collapsed into my bed upon returning home and napped for 2 hours from the exertion.
Today is better. I had to take the children to school, again. I have taxes that need to be done before the end of the week and laundry that must be done to try and kill whatever virus attacked me.

Again if I were a  character in a novel written in the 1800's I would be able to convalesce for weeks to get my strength back from the awful fever that I was afflicted with. What ever happened to that? Why is that not permissible anymore? I could definitely spend at least another 2 days in my bed. Is it because no one has servants anymore? Is is because a mother is not allowed to be sick? Is it because the world would grind to a halt with my absence? I'm not sure, but I sure would love to have certain favors granted to me because of my recent illness.

But the world still revolves. I had to buy 2 Katy Perry tickets today. We are all out of band-aids. There are bills that need paid. I need a balance transfer for one of my credit cards (Suck it Discover card. You will never charge me 20% interest). There are books that need read and a dishwasher that needs emptied.

I would totally exchange a 21st century sick bed for a 19th century sick bed, as long as I could bring along a large bottle of Tylenol.

Almost too late to say Happy New Year

I'm late I know. 
I've been busy and today I am overwhelmingly sick. Like too sick to read, like too sick to keep my eyes open in the shower. I think maybe I've consumed too much Dextromethorphan and Guaifenesin.

Can you tell I copied and pasted that?

I could barely get the kids to school today.

So why am I here writing again. Well, it's interesting. There has been more activity here on my blog since I've been AWOLsince November than almost all of 2013 combined. There is this strange little post titled Driving Advice in England that has been getting mucho traffico.

I cannot figure out why. It doesn't really give any advice, kind of just asks for it. It talks about Rick Steves' divorce, but he's not at the pinnacle of love life gossip and I was talking about it 2-3 years after it happened. I just can't figure it out. There were over 1000 page views last month alone.
I even got some mail from Google about my AdSense account. That kind of traffic is worthy of a book deal in some circles.

So I'll be back on Monday to update and post some photos and also talk about my 5 pound weight loss since Jan 1.
This flu could really help with that project.

So stay tuned. I'm still here.