back at it

Life is a trip. 

5 years ago I must have just decided that my life was too mundane to blog about (though I blog for myself and no one else) or I was bored with blogging. There have been several times that I thought, " I should blog again". So here I go. 

I want to go to the Maldives. MySpace Tom posted, to Instagram, pictures from his trip there, and now I have to go. Unfortunately, that may have to wait until my FIFTIETH birthday year (or, more realistically, Wayne's 50th birthday year). 

I say this as I am about to embark on a trip to sun, sand, and sea, but it's no trip to the Maldives. 

It's weird, the situations in which I find myself talking about my mom's death. Today I was getting sugared in preparation for my trip (and no, sugaring is not less painful than waxing, if you're wondering), and I'm lying on the table, feet together, knees apart, talking about my mom's last living moments. She would be completely unsurprised by my posture and topic of conversation. She got me. 

new blog

I've decided to change my blog name and maybe even begin blogging anew.  I hope to fall into a rhythm with blogging.
We'll see. Go here to find out how I do.

http://suburbanjetset.blogspot.com/

harder better faster stronger

Ahhhh!!
It's been awhile.  Blogger looks different.  Hm.  


A month ago I began a fitness challenge.  I didn't adhere to the structure of the group like I'd hoped.  I worked out a lot less than was expected, but I was damn near militant with my diet.  


On May 1st we had a fit test:  Run 200 meters, do 15 air squats, do 10 pushup, do 5 body rows x 5 sets.  My times was 18:25, and I was dyyyyiiinggg.  Here's what I posted to the fb group that day:

Okay, I am much more out of shape than I thought. I did the workout, cooled down because my hr was high. I wanted to just stop and sit but knew not to. After cooling down, I did sit down. On the couch. With my blankie. Forty minutes later, my husband woke me up. Now I'm wheezing. And that, my friends, is the ugly truth of how my first workout looked.

May 1 at 11:03am via mobile

It was a bad, bad day.  

Today I did the exact same workout in 10:23!  Fantastic! I also don't feel like dying.  I've lost 7lbs total and lost 3.5" from my waist.  I haven't measured my arms and legs yet.  The whole family was on the nutrition plan, and we've all slimmed up.  We plan to continue it with a few minor tweaks (Maya will cry if she isn't able to get some cheese once in awhile).  


I did have two cookies today, but I don't feel a need for more.  That was plennnty.  I was supporting a friend's kids' bake sale.  

2012

What shall I do this year to make the most of my final year on this earth?  I have until Dec 21st.

Well, we started the year off nicely.  Friends gathered, imbibed, danced, talked for hours and celebrated at midnight (and well past, for some)  I hope a good time was had by all.  We weren't even terribly hung over the next morning--It was a New Year's Miracle!!

We kept Maya home from school on Monday, which was a federal holiday that Wayne, and almost every other red-blooded American had off since the actual holiday fell on a Sunday.  It was a very smart move because that extra day of break was desperately needed.  It was the one normal-feeling day of the entire break: no where to rush off to and nothing to prepare for.  Just relax, catch up on homework that was ignored the rest of the break and in bed by 8pm.

And now we're back to life as usual.  Good bad or indifferent.

ssshhhh

The house is quiet; the sun is sinking lower in the sky.  I love this twilight time of day, but rarely do I get to enjoy it alone in my house with nothing but the hum of the fridge and the whirr of my computer in the background of my thoughts.

Christmas is past; 2012 is just on the horizon (I can see it!), and I am hoping for a good...no, great... year.  It's healthy to be optimistic, right?

Things feel weird and strange and surreal and different lately.  Me, my life and I.

I have this insatiable need to clean everything out of my house, but I'm not so successful at the actual follow through; I think about it constantly, though.  I need to get rid of the things that make me feel weighed down, burdened.  I feel like I did when I was a kid and I would build something up with Legos only to break it apart and start over again.  Purge.  Rebirth.  But how?  It's easier to do at age 8 with Legos than at age (almost) 41 with a family.

I love my husband, my kids, my friends, my family, my home...I just feel like what needs demolition and rebuilding is within me.


Time to break the silence.

here we go a caroling...

Today was a weird day.

It started out with me, my mom and my aunt meeting at my grandparents' house to go through my grandma's Christmas decorations and pick out what we each wanted.  Originally I asked my grandpa a few weeks ago if I could have one decoration that my grandma had for as long as I can remember: a set of carolers that she painted.

My grandma was very artistic; she painted wonderfully, and she also wrote poetry.  For a person who never went to school beyond 8th grade, she was very well-read and was a great writer.  However, painting is what I think most people would remember about my grandma's artistic side (well, and her cake decorating).  She worked at a ceramics shop for awhile, and she had a lot of different figurines in her home that she painted; we all had been given gifts that she painted for us.  Every grandkid has a piggy bank hand-painted by grandma among other various knick knacks.  She tried on several occasions to teach me how to paint, but I just don't have that creative gene.

But the carolers... I loved them, especially!  

I asked to borrow them this year because it made me sad that my grandma's cherished Christmas decorations wouldn't see the sparkle of the Christmas lights again this year.  My grandpa decided that he would have me, my mom and my aunt go through and divide among ourselves the Christmas decorations.  

I told my mom and my aunt that all I wanted were the carolers.  

Now the carolers are residing on my fireplace mantle.  I was also allowed to take home some very vintage angels that are probably from the late 1950s or early 1960s.  They are also on my mantle.  I love seeing these decorations in my home; it's so much better than having them packed up in boxes for another year.  

My grandma marked all of her figurines with the year and her name (it's usually carved in the bottom because she would pour the mold, then put her name on the bottom, I guess).  The carolers were made in 1971--the year I was born and the year of my first Christmas.  

The angels. 

The carolers.

ich habe keine idee

But I have many, many wonderful and witty ideas all day long.
Then I open my blogger dashboard and ....whoosh.... all my wonderful wit dissolves into dur, dur, dur.

Today we got our ginormous tree, which would not fit where I wanted to put it.  I have to say, our tree looks really freaking awesome with our new floors and our painted walls.

It was bizarro to pick a tree with only one of our kids instead of two (like every year from 1996-1999 and last year) or three (like every year from 2000-2009).  Maya missed her sisters and once again I was sad that we didn't have just one more kid for Maya to chum around with.

Speaking of bizarro, my oldest daughter moved into her 2nd apartment.  Townhome, really.  She's all mature and responsible; I'm glad I didn't strangle her during her teen years, as I almost did time and time again, because she has turned into a well-adjusted adult.  Those teen years were hell, though.  No joke.

I skipped both of my boot camp classes this week because I was so tired all week long.  It sucked.  Also, as of today it has been 84 days since my last menstrual period.  No, I am not pregnant.  I just had a pap a week or two after that period, and the pap came back normal, so I also do not have cancer.  Therefore, I must be menopausal even though my dumbass condescending doctor claims that I am too young to be menopausal.

What does she know.

Tomorrow I visit Brazil for the third time.
Pray for me.

My "I" post

Mexico was awesome.

I met my goal (125) by the time we left for our trip.

I gained 5lbs while on our all-inclusive (food and drinks--alcoholic and non-alcoholic) trip, but I am already down 2lbs (we've been home for 3 weeks).

I signed up for boot camp *again*, and I was dry-heaving a few times during the 90-minute class this past Monday.  Wednesday was better.  I do not recommend 3 weeks without exercise.

I really want to try CrossFit, but Wayne is not digging that idea.

Also, I've decided that I totally would be down with lipo and tummy tuck.  Please, Santa?

Still going...

I am still adhering to my diet, and I am just not seeing much change.  I nearly had a mental breakdown a few weeks ago.  I was crying, anxious, bitchy as hell... the pressure of needing (wanting?) to lose a certain amount of weight by a deadline is a lot of pressure.  Plus, I am busting my ass at the gym every week: Mon/Wed Boot Camp for 90 minutes, Tues/Thurs Zumba for an hour + strength training.  Boot Camp was kicking my ass; by the third week in, I began to accept Boot Camp and not feel a knot in my stomach on Mondays and Wednesdays.

It's so depressing to be working out a lot and following such a stringent diet while not really losing weight.  I am losing inches and gaining muscle, though.  I can see it in my arms and my butt in particular.  I'm on this damn Belly Fat Cure diet, and my Belly Fat ain't been Cured, I can tell ya that.  I am resigned to the fact that I will always have belly fat.  Always have; always will.  The only Belly Fat Cure I think will work for me is liposuction and a tummy tuck, which isn't an option.  I simply cannot justify such a major surgery for the sake of vanity.

I weigh-in again tomorrow, and I am hoping that I am within sight of my goal (125).

I did finally cancel my Weight Watchers membership, and it felt so liberating! I thought it would make me feel panicked, but instead I felt a huge sense of relief.  Yea!

Just over 2 weeks until we leave for Mexico!!!   We plan to start packing this week...

unsweetened

I was thinking back the other day to 2004.  2004 was the year I started my very first diet; I was weeks away from turning 33, and I had never felt a need to diet before, though I am sure that sometime around 2000/2001, I probably needed to diet.  Post-baby weight is harder to shed at age 29 than it is at age 19 (fyi).  Anyway, I was turning 33, and I was months (9, to be exact) away from getting married and going on a cruise through the Mexican riviera.

That was February 2004.  I followed the South Beach Diet and did The Firm and Denise Austin workouts in my living room. In November 2004 (at the moment I boarded the plane to New Orleans for my wedding and honeymoon), I stopped dieting and exercising and proceeded to gain back every pound I lost in 2004 (and then some).

Fast forward to May 2009.  I had reason to go to the doctor, which I never do (in sickness or in health), and those bastards made me step on the scale.  I'd been to the doctor a year or so prior and refused to be weighed, but I was curious this time. I think maybe we didn't have a working scale at our house.  I weighed 162, I believe.  One-hundred-sixty-two.  I am 5'2" (rounding up).  That was more than I weighed when I was full-term with my youngest daughter.  I was floored.

I went home from that appointment and joined Weight Watchers.  I thought, screw how expensive I think it is.    I need to do this.

Soon thereafter, my family joined the YMCA.  Again, we had always thought the Y was too expensive, but I had a goal in mind, and I needed to exercise and diet to reach that goal.

The goal, at that time, was my 20th high school reunion (August 2009).

By July 2010 I made my goal weight (I think I was 120 then), and I was really pleased with my progress.  I was at a lower weight than I was the last time I dieted.

In September 2010 my grandma died, and I used my "I'm a stress eater" rationale to excuse my going off-plan.  I haven't really been able to get myself back on the WW track.  I tried to follow the new plan (Points+) diligently but I still wasn't seeing much change in the scale.  It was frustrating.

I've been paying $39.95 a month to WW since May 2009, and I just haven't been seeing much change this time around with Points+.  I don't know if that's a result of the new plan or something I'm doing (or not doing).

We have another trip to Mexico coming up, and I realized several weeks ago that I had 10-15 pounds I'd like to lose before our trip.  I began an online weight-loss challenge with the idea that I had about 14 weeks to lose 15 pounds (that would put me at 120).  Before I began the challenge, I decided to do a weight-gain to make my loss more significant.  Don't ever do that.  Gaining 5 pounds is easy, but losing that same 5 pounds can take weeks.  By the time I began the challenge, I had increased my weight from 135 to 139.

Weight Watchers wasn't causing me to see the decent losses I'd seen on the previous plan (Points), which was 1-2 pounds per week.

A few weeks ago, I remembered summer 2010, when I was at a spray park with some friends; they had a book called The Belly Fat Cure that they were all flipping through.  It looked interesting, but this was about the time I met goal on WW, and I wasn't about to mess with my success.  This year, though, I thought maybe I need a change in diets.

Three weeks ago, I checked out Jorge Cruise's book, The Belly Fat Cure through my library (on my Nook Color!).  I really didn't like what he suggests one does to lose weight (and belly fat); it's just not fun:  low sugar (no more than 15g per day!), no artificial sweeteners (gasp!), and low-carb (120g per day).  I have to admit, I love the initial challenge of a diet, so initially I thought, can I really omit artificial sweeteners, my dear Splenda and saccharin?  Can I stop eating fruit, which I had been gorging on while following the WW Points+ plan?  I'm down to try testing myself.

Well, I'm concluding my second week on the plan (diet), and it's still not fun.  I do feel better.  My weight loss is still not as rapid as I would like (I was 132 today), but I am on track for my goal of 125 by the time of my trip.  No sweetener took some getting used to.  I tried Stevia in several forms (that is an allowable sweetener), but I don't like the taste of it.  I would rather have no sweetener than use Stevia.

My single complaint about the BFC is that there is no easy way to track my sugar, carb and fiber consumption during the day.  Can I get an app, please?  None available.  So I use post it pads that I write my intake on every day, then I stick the post-its on the pantry door.

At age 33, I was so proud to say that it had taken so long for me to go on a diet, and now I feel like I live my life on a diet.  I probably spent over $1,000 on Weight Watchers (even when I wasn't sticking to the plan, I continued to pay $39.95 per month from May 2009-September 2011), and even now, I only decreased my membership instead of cancelling.  After reading the BFC book, I have to wonder if all the fruit I was eating on WW Points+ (fruit is 0 pts) was keeping me from losing weight.  My sugar intake had to be through the roof.

At age 40, I wonder if I will ever be able to live life not on a diet and maintain a healthy weight (135 is considered overweight for my height).  Ugh.  In my next life, please let me be tall and have a fast metabolism.  Amen.