nvmythoughts

My niece sent in a clip of us at the slingshot at the fair and it’s made it to the top 3 of episode 6/7! We’re flying out to LA this coming Friday for an all expenses paid trip. I feel like I’m in a surreal reality currently. Add in trying to move out and everything is just wacky currently.

Food wise, craving ice cream, but working that craving down some. I have indulged but trying to limit it still-don’t want to be reaching for ice cream when I’m feeling upset necessarily. Tastes so good, so trying to keep it more in a treat category. I have had pizza recently, checked scale today and it was good! I’m hoping when I check in later that I’ll have lost more on their scale too.

Wish me luck, I’m picking up a new comfy bed this morning and hauling it to my new place that I’ll be sharing with my niece, her hubby and my bf eventually. Life has just kicked it in to high gear and I’m loving every minute of it!

Ok, so I’m sick. I drank some of our crappy water with some crappy mix that tasted so foul, that I ended up throwing it out. Today, my throat and nose are clogged up, and I’m taking medicine and sucking on cough drops. At least, school is over for the weekend though.

Tomorrow is the appointment at 10:30 where we pay the rent for this month, we’ll start moving in. Exciting but scary too. Hoping things will go well.

Otherwise, diet wise, I’ve had really low moments where I wanted to just eat and eat and eat. I ate some popcorn in vast quantities, but nothing too bad. I’ve enjoyed ice cream once in a while, but other than that, I eat as many veggies as I dare for dinner and some protein too. Tonight, when I stepped in the scale, the number was lower, so I’m hopeful after walking tomorrow that I’ll be even lower!

I’m overheating though, and going to go to bed early.
Thanks for encouragement every one, I’m going to try to get back to encouraging you too! Keep that scale going down ladies!

I can’t figure out when I’m sticking to the program, drinking my water, eating my meal replacement cookies and eating healthy dinners, moving around, why the heck is the scale needle not moving down?!?!?!?!

Classes are going well. I really enjoy my Teen Leadership ones, they are far more exciting and interactive. My English ones are very much blah currently, I’m looking in to ways to spice it up. Make it more interesting for students. Any ideas?

Food wise, my big temptations are still the ice cream. I got frustrated two separate times and had some. I can see why the scale didn’t move down then, but after 4 days of not seeing the scale move, I admit to getting weak about it.

Other exciting news is moving out date is coming up quickly. I’m so excited and nervous at the same time. How will it all work? I’m so exhausted by the end of the day and I know my guy is coming. He expects stuff and right now I’m just not in the mood for all that. I just want sleep. Lots of sleep. Sleep has become my lover that I definitely see way too little of.

I’ve been rambling so I’ll end it here. Hoping to see the scale move down some this week and to stand a little stronger against the call of icecream.

My stomach rumbles when I have 3rd/4th periods, but I’m able to ignore it. I seem to be at a plateau of sorts so far, when I step on the scale it keeps reading the same number. Argh, hate plateaus when it comes to weight. I’ve been staying strong with the program. I’ve been making salads when I get home, heating up the mesquite grilled chicken I found via Sam’s and using the spritzer Ranch by Wishbone. Eating all the portions of the cookies(meal replacements), drinking glasses of water with each…. The only thing I can think of is I need to walk a half hour a day and maybe that’ll boost the weight loss.

Gah. My parents have returned, and I am reminded how badly I want to move out. The place I was planning to move to, may not work out, I may be an invisible tenant of sorts as a result. Things are still up in the air so hopefully some questions will be answered soon as I still hope to move out in September, maybe around the middle of the month. I am carpooling out to the new job, this past week, a new friend drove and then this week, I’ll drive.

Tomorrow morning I have plans to get up at 5:30 to go walk at 6, hopefully beat the heat a bit. I’m going for the jetty and I’ll have a friend joining me. Then plans to go to the library, from there, to the Smart For Life place, getting the cookies, and picking up my niece for the massage treat I found a great deal for. Add in that yesterday I found out I won 2 tickets to see Creed, and my life is freaking awesome!

New friends, new schedule, new life! I feel like I’ve been on Pause/Hold and finally am getting to shift my life back on!

All of the churches put on lunches for all the new teachers. The favorite of this county seems to be chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, rolls and honey butter from Golden Corral. This Golden Corral put on a breakfast last week, and that was calorific as well. It is a place a friend calls “the trough” and sometimes I really agree with the nickname.

Some of the churches put on good lunches, but my stomach/the food didn’t agree with me all the time. This caused a few decisions to be made as far as taking less, not going back for seconds, etc. This all worked great until they did a salad bar deal with the best ranch I’ve had in ages. That last one was a doozy as far as making me feel crappy.

I really like the new county and their whole approach to education and well frankly, life.

Seriously? I mean seriously?!?!

My downfall is free food. I only just discovered this downfall as the new school district is very giving with food at the orientations. They fed us 2 snack times, breakfast and lunch. Only one of all that was really healthy, as it had cheese and fruits. We bond over food. I want to bond, but I have a problem not eating the food as I talk with new people.

I had made really great strides, I was almost 20 lbs down, until one bad decision led to another, and I beat myself up about it. I know I shouldn’t, but it just seems to be on a never-ending loop. Enter small binging session when I had dinner. I’m going to get on track tomorrow, as I won’t be at school or orientation. Lots of stuff is going on tomorrow, so I’m hoping that all the activity will help burn some of my bad choices.

However, now that I know one of my major triggers, I come to a bigger problem. Next week, all the churches are going to be doing luncheons for the new teachers, to help welcome them, get them acquainted and also to give some freebies/goodies. It’s a way to connect with the community and teachers. What should I do? I had brought my food to eat both of the orientation days but couldn’t resist the free food.

Buddy Slim buddies, what should I do about the luncheons next week? Should I go? Should I forgo it? I don’t know if my will-power is strong enough to try to resist the free foods.

The lifestyle/diet plan I’m on is called Smart For Life aka the Cookie Diet. You eat 6 cookies before 5pm and drink a glass of water with each one. These cookies are meal replacements basically. Other than their shape being similar at times to a cookie, they do not taste anything like a cookie, they are all the essential nutrients you need in your day, then you end it with a healthy dinner, plenty of green veggies and protein of chicken or turkey basically.

One of my past entries told about the new product they have which are cupcakes, same idea as the cookies, however these are from what I’ve seen online, more of an appeal to children. Obesity is an epidemic that is hitting the young adult and child population worse in many ways than the adult population.

This shows basically the meal plan for the day and how many cookies are to be eaten:
http://www.smartforlife.com/myplan.aspx

This is the website posted on the cupcakes packaging:
http://www.thinadventure.com/

I have gone through weight loss before when I lost 60-70 lbs, to earn $1000 from my dad and to get in better shape back when I was 13-15. I did that on a low calorie diet and exercise plan. This time around I’m doing it on a low calorie diet and exercise plan. I did this plan from December 2008 to June 2009 and lost 70 lbs. I maintained that without eating cookies until December. December brought deep depression and anger about unemployment. I’ve begun getting out of my depression phase as I now have a job and future plans. I’ll never forget how debilitating depression was and how much it can affect all that you do and are. Currently Florida heat is grueling and we’ve also had lots of rain, so my walking has been less than what it was.

I am tired of the commentary that I’ve received via walking, flea markets, people and my own inner dialogue. My journey with weight loss and life has revealed that binging isn’t the answer, nor is hiding and eating food to make myself feel better. How I feel inside is most important to me, and I’ve allowed my outside to mess up my inside. I’m getting back on track and helping myself.

I crave a certain special ice cream. Joy’s Ice Cream…marble crunch and chocolate chip are currently my favs, and in a special waffle cone with everything on the rim, it’s a tastebud delight. I actually did give in to my urge to go get some, but the shop wasn’t open yet, and I am resisting my craving. I resisted last night, had some popcorn instead. I do need to pick up some more sugar free jello, as that is an ok thing to have later on after dinner.

Other than that, I’ve become a scale ho again, jumping on to see the numbers go down. That is major exciting as for so long now, they’ve just *gulp* climbed.

I have cut out soda buying for at home which has made me rely on water and the sugar free drink flavor mixes you can put with water. 4C Green Tea is fantastic. I’ve also been working on using up food stuffs before buying others. My inner dialogue and I have many discussions when I’m looking at food ads or food. Fast food is less of a temptation currently, but eating out at a nicer place still appeals.

My treat to myself tonight is artichokes. I boil them and use the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray along with the True Lemon, heat up that in the microwave and dip the leaves in it. It’s a safer cheat, as it is veggie and (in my mind) protein. Stocked up on lettuce, cucumber and green pepper, so I’ll be good for salads. Absolutely love the Wishbone Ranch Spritzer, get the great ranch taste without the massive calorie intake.

I did almost pass out when I mowed the lawn this week. It was quite hot, the grass thick and I’d only eaten two of the cookies. Needless to say I came in and drank some water and tea before finishing. Taco salad that night had a little more of my goodies which was a reward on top of getting the lawn mowed. I’ve been walking on Saturday mornings and doing breakfast with my friends, usually something with eggs, then stick to the cookies/cupcakes for the rest of the day. I had a salad later for dinner, and I was still hungry so I did have some popcorn. FL heat is really bad out in the laundry room, which I’ve been trying to clean up, now due to a massive outbreak of fleas as the kittens were in there for a while. I’m hoping the kill flea stuff will work and I can get back in there to get more stuff out.

I think I’ve rambled a bit but eh, that’s the fun of me.

Starting out with Smart Cookies, I lost 10 lbs, but through a series of food choices and craziness, I didn’t completely lose them. They’re haunting me in every food I shouldn’t eat or want.

This morning I went walking, and did 2 23 minute miles. Way slower than my prior 17 minute mile but I have lost the urge to be out there. Florida heat is just killer, even that early in the morning. Worked a good sweat. Had breakfast with a fellow walker, the omelet was fabulous, I will definitely go for it again. I made the mistake in saying yes to the pancakes which are not on the diet plan, but they tasted fabulous. They were heaven and hell in each bite.

My body let me know the mistake I made throughout today. I felt sluggish and fuzzy. My diet has not included that much starch and boy do I not want a repeat next weekend!

Parents left today, so I have the house all to myself. What used to happen when my parents left, is I would binge. It has almost always been my secret compulsive behavior. Smart cookies helped me start to curb this and I’ll be working on continuing to curb it. I know all the foods I’m craving are bad on this, and will corrupt the good keel my body has been on over the past couple days.

Here’s to losing some weight before my next check in on here!

Wow, I hadn’t realized it had been so long since I had logged in to the site. Massive apologies to every friend on here! I got lost in drama, depression and believe me those are quite hard to pull out of with no job or interviews. However, I did persevere and had a great job interview in May, which led to the best wake up phone call ever-the job offer at a school in the county to the west of me. June was a celebration of my 28th birthday, which was pleasant and fun. Just before that, I moved in to my classroom, all the stuff from my storage unit. July has been sorting stuff out at my classroom(yeah!) and getting other stuff organized. The hope and plan is in September I will be moving out of my parents, and in with my niece and her hubby along with my guy moving in too. It will save money, no one will be too lonely and should be new and exciting. I’m really, really excited about that.

Diet and health wise, I fell hard off the wagon on the road to temptation and food. I managed to maintain my weight loss until December 2009 and then December/January I began to gain again. My job situation was so rough, which played to my attitude towards food and general outlook on life. I still tried to work out, and walk walk walk, but February/March had a huge drop off in walking as it became just me, all my walking/running friends joined marathons and I lost the drive to walk. I managed to get back in to walking late April/May but now in July, it is sweltering hot so waking up earlier on Saturdays to go walk, has become near non-existent. I’ve been trying to get my friend back into playing racquetball but she has a packed summer whereas I’m more spontaneous. Gah.

I’d regained 35 lbs, to my horror but have restarted the Smart Cookies meal plan yesterday. I didn’t throw up which is a vast improvement over the last time I started it. They have a couple of new programs, one that encourages massive weight loss much quicker and the other is the Cupcake Diet, which is basically like the cookie diet, from what I’ve seen. I did get some of the cupcakes as the carrot kind was yummy. I’m hopeful that it will work again as food choices are more limited and I didn’t get hit by so many cravings once I was following it full swing.

Life’s ups and downs eh? I’m most definitely looking forward to the future again!