Mamavation Monday - Missing

This is just a quick post because I don't have any internet at home. It sucks. Other than that, life is going ok. It's the end of the school year rush which typical to every year, I despise. I love the kids' school but I hate the last week of school because they try to smash everything into it.


My numbers are pretty junky but since I've done about absolutely zero towards weight loss over the past 2 weeks, I'm happy with them. I know that I ought to write more here, but honestly, I need a nap more than I need to write. Actually, what I really need is for someone to get back with me about how they feel on something and then to curl up against them and take that nap.  Here's to dreaming!




Average Daily Water Intake: 40oz
Workouts: None
Weight Change: (current weight: 277.2)
Overall Weight Change: -14.6 pounds

Jim's Week in Review ... Evening Edition?

Well, happy Friday one and all! It is late ... 8:58pm to be exact. Normally I post in the morning right after I wake up, but this morning, Blogger wasn't available. Silly blogger! So I waited until this evening, and now, after a long day, here I am! And guess what? Those two mystery pounds are here again too! But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Last week I was sick. I had, with the advice and consent of my doctor's office, discontinued my meds while I was getting over the stomach bug that was kicking my tail from here to the Himalayas. They told me that there is a stomach virus working its way around the community, and it is one that hangs around for a few weeks instead of the usual day or so variety stomach bug. By Sunday, I felt somewhat improved, and by Tuesday I was in the pink. We decided to start me back on my meds with a slightly different dosing schedule. The new schedule will take some getting used to, but we decided to do it in order to reduce the number of pills I was taking at one time first thing in the morning. So far, so good, although one symptom of my sickness returned with my meds, so we will be discussing this as we move forward. At least some of my gastro-intestinal distress is being caused by either my Metformin or my Byetta. Since the problem predates me starting on the Byetta, my money is on the Metformin.

So, when I could suddenly eat again ... well, lets just say my weight bounced back up ... bad. however, by the time I weighed in this morning, I had settled down to 272.2 pounds. Again. What is it about that blasted number that it keeps popping up?

Well, I really should get going. I am up early tomorrow to head down to Illinois for a special lunch event with Emilie and her mom, then we are driving back up for my brother-in-law's 50th birthday party. then Sunday will be a nice relaxing day, and then back to work on Monday.

So, drink your water, eat lots of protein and fiber, and next week, hopefully the scale has good news for ALL of us!

Jim's Week in Review ...

Let me go on the record as saying that I hate being sick. No, seriously, I HATE being sick. I am not a mountaineering, rock climbing, mountain biking, dancing 'till the sun comes up go-get-'em yuppie, but I do consider myself rather active. Of course, the way I got this way was my activity being walking from McDonald's to Burger King, but nowadays I fill my time with better things, mostly work related, but once in a while, I fill it with good friends. Well, when you are sick, that doesn't really work out that well. Being sick takes almost all of your attention. Well, as reported last week, I am sick. More importantly, I have been sick off and on going on two weeks now.

Well, after I returned from hiking, I turn a really bad turn, and Sunday was horrific. I wont give you the gory details, but I spent a good bit of Sunday evening when I needed to be sleeping with my face in the toilet. We have a shortage of substitutes for schools right now, so I have made a decision that I must be in school unless I feel like I am on my deathbed. Well, after my close encounter with the plumbing, I felt much better, so I went to work. Had a pretty normal day Monday, then Tuesday I started heading downhill again. By Wednesday evening I was wreck again.

I sent of messages to my doctor's office and we decided to stop all of my meds except my blood pressure & cholesterol, and for me to take the pro-biotic suppliments to replenish the good bacteria in my system which seem to be in short supply right now (oddly enough the same suggestion my friend made if you remember last week's post). Well, it is a little early to say if they are helping much, but we were expecting a spike in my blood sugar due to stopping the meds, and this morning it was 131 which is just one point outside my target range. So for that I say so far, so good.

Due to being sick, my water intake has been great. Of course, all the diarrhea and vomiting still leads to the possibility of dehydration, so I think that in the grand scheme of things, I am basically just keeping up. I can tell my system is a little out of whack because for the last couple days I have had these monster salt cravings. Those are mostly over now, but now I occasionally get a little craving for something sweet. I have always believed that your body gets cravings for things it needs, so I assume this is my body's way of trying to restore its equilibrium.

Anyways, I said all that to say that this morning I woke up a little crampy, and I am hoping beyond hope that I am not heading for another bad day, I am way too busy today and tomorrow. All that being said, what's my score? See for yourself!

Weigh in: 270.4 (-2.8)

Down 2.8 feels good, and before you say it is all due to being sick, right after one of my monster barfing sessions, I randomly weighed myself and was down to 266.5 ... boy I wish i could have used that as my official weigh in! However, I am ever closer to breaking the 270 barrier, and I hope to have great news about that next week. Until then, keep drinking your water, and I am out like a fat kid in dodgeball!

Mamavation Monday - Seriously, Why?

I honestly don't know what to write this week. I wish I had some wow, deep meaningful thing to write here but I just don't. As I write, I'm sitting down in Toledo. I should be sitting in a theatre right now watching Van Gogh but due to the lead totally stomping on my heart this morning, I'm not. I said to hell with him and supporting him and even seeing him and instead, I'm spending time with a new friend and maybe even making some new friends. Of course, these are also friends with the lead so that ought to make things interesting. Trust me to never make it easy, right?

Ugh. What is it about people that they think it's ok to lie to someone? Less than a week ago, he told me he wasn't sure he wanted a relationship and less than 3 days later, he has a new girlfriend? What the hell? It makes me want to scream! It makes me so hurt and angry. On top of that, I'm angry with myself for actually loving this idiot. Ugh. Seriously, that is the only word that sums it up. I'm so hurt. It makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with me that guys think they can do this to me? There is a tiny part of me that says hey, what if there's something screwed up about him? Too many years of "training" though says it's me..there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not smart enough, funny enough, pretty enough, skinny enough...maybe...

Now, since my laptop battery drains like we all ought to be draining our water bottles, I'm going to skip to the weekly summary. I do want to say that my weigh in this week was actually on Friday because I won't be home tomorrow morning to weigh in. I'll weigh in "officially" on Tuesday morning and try to remember to come back here and update this.

Average Daily Water Intake: 85oz
Workouts: 3 hours of pool time working with kids
Weight Change: -8.4 (current weight: 273.2)
Overall Weight Change: -18.6 pounds

Jim's week in review ... back in the saddle again

Yup! Back in the saddle indeed! This has been a good week! My water consumption was up (2-3 bottles per day) and ... don't freak out on this one ... I have been riding my exercise bike again! Every morning this week I have spent 15 minutes on the bike. Honestly, I had forgotten how good that felt. On Tuesday, I went in to work having ridden and a couple teachers mentioned how chipper I was looking.

This weekend, I will be out camping and hiking We will be hiking on the trails of the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest on the Parnell Segment. First we will be heading to a camp shelter near the Parnell Observation tower and take fresh pics for the front page of my hiking website (which I really need to update). The website can be found at http://mnjhiketheiat.net (shameless self-promotion). My plan for Saturday is to hike and aside from breakfast, eat nothing but a couple protein bars and drink nothing but water all day.

A couple times in the past week, I have had some severe intestinal issues, including some bloating, belching (a nasty, sulfuric affair) and diarrhea. A friend suggested a nice little OTC remedy, and I took it for the first time last night and the early results seem promising. I will post more about the results of trying this out next week.

And now, the moment of truth. If you remember my post last week, I had gone back up to 275. Well, today I am down to 273.2 (loss of 1.8). I think that once I break through the 270 barrier, I will probably start losing more rapidly ... I just need to break through that barrier.

Well, off to work for me, and happy losing to you!

Mamavation Monday - Dropping the Ball

Happy Monday, everyone. Oh how I wish I could say that I had another butt kicking weigh in this morning. I didn't, though. I totally dropped the ball this last week. My water intake was pretty much non-existant. My dietary habits weren't bad, actually but probably could have been improved upon. Exercise...oh right...that's the thing you do when you get up and move about, right? Ok, I didn't totally slack there. In fact, I spent about 4 hours in the pool last week helping little kids learn how to swim. Apparently that wasn't enough to counteract the not drinking of water and such.

I'm still down 10 pounds from where I started. This is a good thing. I'm not closer to my mini goal of 275. That's annoying. I managed to lose 10 pounds. I know more how to do this. This is good. I totally didn't do it. That's bad.

The reality is that I know what I did wrong. I know that I let emotions totally get in the way of what I needed to be doing. It's been a rocky week for that. I just got to the part of things where I could move on from that last big rejection when that person suddenly popped up again and started acting like nothing had happened. That is such a man thing, I swear. Now to those few male readers I have, please don't take it personally. It's just that I've never experienced that behavior in anyone other than a man.

On top of that, I felt totally rejected by someone else that I've cared about for years. So, that didn't help. Plus, lately, I've been feeling really isolated. Truth be told, I am isolated. I live in the middle of nowhere and don't really have the money to go see people plus my house is in no condition (total representation of where I am emotionally) to have anyone here. I've also felt really apart from my mamavation lovelies. I'm sure a lot of that is all in my head but since this latest round started I feel like no one has time for me anymore and they're all busy with each other.

Now, really, I'm sure that's not the case at all. Heck, it's no one's job to babysit me. I'm just as capable of picking up the phone and texting or what have you. It's also my job to get off my sizeable rear end and get moving on things. I wrote this long thing yesterday (where very few people can actually read it) and I said that I'm not as put together as everyone thinks I am. I'm really not. Right now, I'm actually really fragile. I'm emotionally tired right now and that's dangerous for someone trying to lose weight.

So, where is this post going? I have no idea. I seem to have totally lost the thread of where that was...I guess I'll just say that a person can never have too much support. I need support. Jim needs support. My Mamavation sisters need support. I'm asking my friends to come out of the woodwork right now and remind me of all the awesome things about me and to show me some support. Together, we can do anything, even shed over 100 pounds. I'm going to look at this gain as a good thing. It reminded me of what I need to be focusing on. 10 pounds down, 101 to go.

Average Daily Water Intake: I won't say 0 but it was really, really low.
Workouts: 4 hours of pool time working with kids
Weight Change: +1.8 (current weight: 281.6)
Overall Weight Change: -10.2 pounds


PS No, there is no rhyme or reason for today's graphic other than when I was looking for something related to 2 pounds it came up and amused me. So, enjoy today's McHottie, everyone!

Jim's week in review... Spring Break Edition!

So, today is the final day of spring break. Spring break is ... well, it is fun. It is also my worst nightmare. Let me explain. I am a mindless snacker. If I am home, I will snack, pure and simple. It doesn't have to do with being hungry, it has to do with habit. It is a habit I am trying very hard to break. I can think nothing of watching something on TV and munching on a bag of chips or pretzels. As a matter of fact, I really AM thinking of nothing while I am doing it. So my main defense has been to not have those snack foods in the house.

Spring break, however ... well, it kinda queers things. I had my first family barbecue of the year during spring break this year. My brother and sister and their families came over, we fired up the grill and cooked up a storm. Chicken breasts, dogs and burgers (both beef and turkey). I limited the other items to veggie trays. No creamy potato salads and no pasta salads, both of which are absolute diet killers. My sister makes an awesome salsa, though. However, there is always an abundance of chips and pretzels at a barbecue, and now those are just sitting on my counter.

Add to that, there was Easter dinner yesterday, and I was invited to a Palm Sunday dinner last week. then during the week, I was on the go alot, so there was a lot of eating out. Needless to say, I didn't do so good this week. Have you ever felt like you were losing the same three pounds over and over again? I have looked at my posts since starting to blog here and realized I have been fluctuating between 275 and 272 most of the time. My trip to the scale today found me at 275 again. Over the next few weeks, I am sure I will lose down to 272 again, then end up messing up again. I really need to start thinking thin!

Well, back up on the horse ... time to drink water, stop eating and start exercising again ... and until Friday, I hope that you, gentle readers will do better than I have been. Anyone with a few ideas on how I can break the habit of mindless snacking, please drop a comment. I could use the help.