And the stress continues

It is 11:05 p.m. so I should be sleeping but instead I want food.  Why do I want food?  Because I am stressed, I am seriously terrified that we won't make the rent this week, that our water will be shut off because we can't get it paid on time.  It is like every time we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel something more hits us financially, one of the cars goes down, the basement floods, a child gets sick and needs medicine and a doctor's visit, the list goes on and on.  Eventually it snow balls until we don't know which end is up and how the hell we are going to get rent to the landlord in time. 

We have pretty spectacular landlords who take care of problems as quickly as they can.  They are nice people and we share mutual friends.  I don't want to rock the boat, I don't want to risk angering them.  I just want to be able to pay the rent and still be able to feed my kids. 

I am hoping that one of us can find an evening job for a while to help get us out from under the mire.  So far I have resisted raiding the 'fridge but I wish the stress would just magically go away so I don't have to keep fighting through this place.

What a week!

If you have never experienced a young child with rotavirus be very thankful indeed.  My 21 month old has been so sick all week.  I bought a pack of 80 diapers on Sunday, not even needing them yet and have gone through about 70 of them.  The stench is unbelievable.  The house smells like air fresheners because the alternative is far too gross.   The poor baby's bottom was so raw and painful.

Changing that many diapers wore me out.  I spent the week carb loading.  I still managed to to stay within my calories all but one day and still stuck to about 2000 on that day too.   I am trying to reroute my brain back to the healthy side of eating.  It isn't easy.

I am hoping that the next week will be a little easier.  Little man seems to be feeling better.   My house is in good shape and I just have a couple of loads of laundry to get done.

Progress

March 2010


Started OA and SP on May 28th
July  - 20 pounds


End of August down 40 pounds



Today  down 54 pounds  (not much difference in the past month but getting more toned)



Every day I feel more accomplished and I continue to see an increase in energy. Even days like today when 2 of the 3 kids are down with the rotavirus and I am just waiting for the 3rd to succumb I can smile and know I will get through this too.

So worn out...but it is good!

I may possibly win the title of World's Worst Housekeeper.  Over the years I have seemed to be at a loss as to how to get myself organized.  Where to start cleaning and how to keep going until it was done the right way.  I basically gave up a long time ago and decided I would never get it right, or the way I wanted it so why bother?  I have spent years doing the minimum to get by.   Don't get me wrong, we don't live in filth but we do live in lots of clutter. 

This week I vowed to change that.

I had laundry from last year piled up in storage buckets sitting in our garage (where the washer and dryer are located).  Without exaggeration I had to have done 40 loads of laundry this week.  The last load is in the washing machine right now.  As I washed the clothes I found many things that were only worn a few times before they were lost in the mess.  I found bitty baby outfits from my almost two year old.  I found clothes that could have been saved if only stains had been treated right away.  I found many things that were already outgrown by the kids.  What a waste.   Now it has all been sorted.  Baby clothes have been passed on and the rest of the stuff we can no longer used is being donated.

Last Sunday we cleaned house.  Really dug in and got things looking nice.  As the week progressed I not only kept it clean but continued to do more detailed cleaning around the house.

This week my goal is to get the basement floor, which hasn't been right since it flooded in May, cleaned up so I can moved the stuff that belongs in the basement back down there and make my garage functional before it gets too much colder out.  I also want to get the flooring that we have had for about 9 months put down in our bedroom.

Hopefully within a couple of weeks we can get some painting done.  Our hall needs to be finished, the accent wall in the kitchen needs to be painted (at minimum) and our master bedroom is in desperate need of a paint job, the twins' room need to be touched up as well.

We discovered that our deck is literally falling apart.  Not good.  Hoping it is a low cost fix and that the landlords can get to it asap as it is our only easy access to the back yard.

I am really hoping to get this all dealt with in the next six weeks.

As for food...I have done pretty well this week.  I am not hearing the voices of the food items speaking to me nearly as often as I used to....lol.  Seriously though, it has been a good week.  I am hoping that I will have a better weigh in tomorrow than last week.

Damn Mother Nature and the Horse She Rode In On

MOST DAYS!

The wonders of being a woman kept me from making my goal of 2 pounds this week, I was barely able to hold my own.  Water retention is not a beautiful thing.   In addition to that I missed my meeting Saturday morning.   This is the first time I have missed an OA meeting in the past 4 months.  

 Four months, I can hardly believe it.  I feel like this lifestyle change is starting to become innate.  I don't often struggle to make the right choices these days.  I ended up eating restaurant food 4 times last week.  It was just a fluke of circumstances but each time I chose a healthy meal and kept it light.  Not only did I make light choices but I enjoyed every bite of them.  I had a spinach, ham and mozzarella egg white omelet with whole wheat toast.  I was very satisfied afterward and it was amazing.


I worry that I will slip again though, I think that I will always worry.  It has been a couple of months since I have gone off of my food plan.  I feel better than ever.  50 pounds lighter feels amazing.  I have so much more energy and am just happier.  I am just beginning to really work with my sponsor and feel lucky to have found one.  I know many people who are trying to work the program without one and I don't know how they manage.


I found an amazing product at the store yesterday.  Flatout brand flat bread.  I picked up the light original as an alternative to a tortilla.  They are fewer calories and 2.5 fat grams which is the same as the tortillas I usually buy.  I smeared a full serving (could have used less but needed the calories and protein) of reduced fat peanut butter at one end and put a whole banana across it (too lazy to slice it) and rolled it up just like that.  It was amazing.  The texture and flavor of the flat bread was nicer than doing this with a tortilla and Hy Vee's reduced fat PB is really good.  Oh, and the bonus...each flat bread has 9 grams of fiber.

Thankful

I could not be more thankful today.   My 10th wedding anniversary is in just a few days and I am blessed to have a husband who has spent our marriage making sacrifices to make my dreams come true and provide for our family.  We have been faced with so many obstacles during our marriage but we keep overcoming them together.   We have three beautiful children who know that their daddy loves them and wants the best for them.  We have a nice home and cars that continue to run after more than a decade each. 


Now we are going to have our health.  As I have walked this path toward health my husband has been so supportive and now he has begun to get serious about his own journey.  Adding diet changes to his already great workout schedule.


Today I weigh 50 pounds less than I did not quite 4 months ago.  I have hope that loss will continue and that my health and happiness will continue to increase.

Let Me Fall--Josh Groban

Let me fall
Let me climb
There's a moment when fear
And dreams must collide
Someone I am
Is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me
So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear them
Let me fall
If I fall
Though the phoenix may
Or may not rise
I will dance so freely
Holding on to no one
You can hold me only
If you too will fall
Away from all these
Useless fears and chains
Someone I am
Is waiting for my courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me
So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear
Let me fall
If I fall
There's no reason
To miss this one chance
This perfect moment
Just let me fall




What I have learned over the past 3 1/2 months is that I have to be the one to change.  I can't rely on someone else to save me.  I can't listen to the advice of someone who hasn't been through this and learn anything, I have to rely on my ability to take risks and find out what works for me.  I am incredibly grateful to my friends and family.  Especially my OA sponsor and meeting friends, to my Spark People buddies who keep me on track with Challenges and just by checking in with me.  


On Sunday I weighed in and was 237 pounds.  That is what I weighed on my wedding day.  It seems like divine timing because our 10th Anniversary is this week. 


As much as my husband can make me crazy sometimes he is a pretty amazing guy. It was his idea to move forward with fertility treatments after we spent 3 1/2 years trying to conceive on our own. Our twins Christian and Patience were born 9 days after his dad died from metastatic prostate cancer. At the time my hubby was working full time and working on his masters degree, yet he woke up at every feeding for six months, he never hesitated to change a nasty diaper, he walked in the door from work and started helping with the babies. When I had a chemical pregnancy months before we conceived Chance he was a rock. When we, amazingly, got pregnant with Chance (after the shock wore off) he stepped up and started getting things ready. He worked two jobs. He helped me with night time changes when the baby came 4 1/2 weeks early in addition to the daytime stuff. He took the big kids to Karate. He loved me when I was 237 pounds and relatively perky the day we got married, he still thought I was at 285 pounds after two pregnancies, he has been an amazing support on this journey to health.


I feel blessed to have him as a partner.