Is this some sort of test?

Wow, hard to believe sometimes how weird life can be. Tuesday afternoon here we had yet another freak weather event. Come on--10 inches of rain in 6 hours? You have got to be kidding me. Major amount of stress getting home that day in the car. I was afraid that I was going to become one of those world's scariest videos, as my car floats into the Han River. Long story short, my trusty, ancient minivan got me home, but I was pretty shaky by the time I got there.

Glad to say, though, I don't think the stress is affecting my eating too much. I did have a beer after that scary experience, but it's pretty amazing--I can't seem to drink like I used to. When I lived in Russia, it was pretty much a daily habit to drink a liter of beer a day. Yikes. Now I can barely get through one petite American sized beer.

Here's hoping for calmer seas ahead.

Good things

OK, so since I'm not really "feeling it," I'm going to focus on some of the good things I AM doing, and I'm going to try to add these things up enough so I build momentum in the right direction. Yesterday evening, I had kind of a hectic schedule (no big surprise there, right)? I left work around 5, got home (luckily) by about 5:20. It was a good thing I arrived then, because my youngest had soccer practice at 5:30 and of course was not ready. Despite the fact that DH had the day off (at least on paper).

This is probably something that deserves a little bit of writing. DH has been driving me crazy lately. He has a new boss who is requiring a lot more work out of him. Unfortunately, New Boss has no wife or children, so he believes that his employees are available to him 24/7. Anyhow, even though DH is supposed to be on vacation this week, he's working madly on preparing for a visit from some pretty important people. He worked on it all weekend, which resulted in me having to shuttle two kids to and from overlapping birthday parties to places I'd never visited before in this foreign city in which I live. Stress! So, back to yesterday, he's working all day at the computer, so the house is a wreck, the kids are not dressed, groomed, etc., and he's bailed out of his responsibilities to take one of our children to sports practice. Very frustrating. He'd kind of disorganized anyway, and I have a sense that if he were more organized in his approach, he could probably compress this work into a more manageable time frame. BUT of course, I cannot suggest that approach, not being part of his vaulted organization. Oh well.

One of my frustrations is that I know he's concerned about the kids and their weight. My idea was to get them more involved in sports so they would be more active. Good idea, right? He just doesn't seem to get that in order to achieve big goals, you have to work on things every day consistently. Like menu planning and cooking healthy food (anathema!) Like making sure homework gets done and checked every day...but that's another gripe for another day. Or planning a party if you want to have a more active social life (and not just bitching about it on the weekend when you are disappointed with your social options.) Anyhow, I digress.

So bottom line, I'm crazily getting our youngest ready for soccer, while trying to figure out how to get the middle kid to football an hour later. The good news is that they both made it, and had a good time and got some fun exercise. I discovered that there's a track around the soccer field where my DD practices, so I got some walking in, also. I think I'll be able to do that during her practices this fall, so that's a great discovery.

Of course, we were not done until 7:30. And, you guessed it...of course, no cooking was done (me, DD, or DH). I called to get them to start it, but they insisted on going out to a buffet. The second good thing I did was to eat a salad instead of the buffet. With the dressing on the side, I think it was a pretty good choice. By the time I got home and cleaned the wreckage of the day, I was ready for bed--yikes. I guess with this sports schedule I'm going to have to break out the crock pot.

Well, looking back on this post, I see a lot more bitching than good things, so sorry about no truth in advertising in the title. I am happy about the new walking opportunity, and I plan to take advantage of it.

Honestly, not focusing

I'm not doing too well lately on the weight loss front. Frankly, I'm just not focused on it. What I've discovered is that I'm not necessarily eating for emotional reasons--I'm just distracted and eating mindlessly. Unfortunately, I have lousy eating habits, so if I'm not focused, I slip back into them. I've been busy lately, and the focus just hasn't been where it needs to be to get results. So there, blah.

I really have to be honest with myself. Yes, maybe no one else will know that I ate a cookie in the car, but I know, and my body knows it too. Who am I trying to fool, anyhow? I really have to face the reality of what I'm taking in vs. what I'm putting out. There are no shortcuts.

On top of my malaise, I've had this persistent headache for about the last week. It's on the left side of my head, and really annoying. Even more than usual, I don't feel like exercising, and it's not helping much with that whole dynamic.

Is that enough whining yet?

Surviving the Storm

I feel like I've been totally distracted lately because we are recovering from a pretty nasty typhoon here. We were out of power for four days, and our phone is still out more than a week later. I felt very disoriented throughout the experience--kids were out of school, couldn't eat normally, couldn't get homework or regular work done properly, yadayadayada. Lucky for us, they moved us to a hotel over the weekend, but that was odd too--since my kids don't really like Korean food, they were eating $13 room service hot dogs. I was eating whatever, too, which is never very good. My scale was drowned in the storm, so I had to buy another one, which seems to be giving me different readings depending on how I'm standing on it. Yikes, am I making enough excuses yet? Anyway, I've just been distracted by all of this real life stuff.

So I'm looking to re-focus. I want to get back to exercising consistently this week. I'm also interested in simplifying my eating--I've been reading lately about folks who are limiting meals to 500 calories or less, with a couple of small snacks during the day. I like the simplicity of this approach, and I may start it soon if everything calms down! Hope you all have a good week!

On Jillian and other thought provoking things

Well, I watched the new Jillian show the other day, and I really had mixed feelings about it. She's really mean!!! But she did get results. My DH was watching it with me, and I commented on how negative I thought she was. His response was "maybe that would work for you." Yikes. Not the response I was hoping for. But in the spirit of trying to keep an open mind, it has been rolling around in my brain...does slow and steady really win the race? It seems like I have been "trying" for a long time without getting very far. Maybe a butt-kicking, negative approach would be more effective...I don't really know. It's not like I feel like I can be an expert on this topic, since I have spent my entire life in some state of being overweight. Somehow, in my heart of hearts, I feel like the American public has an insatiable appetite for watching overweight people chastised and humiliated, and this is not the best way to go. At least that's what I believe.

Another interesting development...DH had to go to the doctor this week for interpretation of his results. Generally, luckily, he's pretty healthy for being obese. He still wants to lose weight, however. He asked the Dr. what he should do, and mentioned the medifast approach. The dr's response--too extreme. He recommended cutting out fried foods and red meat and processed food. Interesting. We'll see what DH does with that information. I actually think that's pretty good advice, at least for DH. I probably could still maintain my ample self eating that way...still would need to practice portion control.

Finally, I read a post recently on Weightwatchers web site about overweight children. In short, it was about how upset the poster was about her mother and grandmothers' comments regarding her chubby child. Amazingly, there were 90 some comments on the post. Somehow, I found this comforting, that other people also worry about these things. Hopefully that does not make me neurotic. At any rate, what I gleaned from the poster and all the comments was to focus on HEALTH, and not on weight, especially when it comes to children. Glad we got that one straight.

Baby steps

I did finally get around to some exercise last night--not a lot, but some. I'm trying to alternate walking with a little jogging, to get my heart rate up. I did see some positive movement on the scale this morning, so hopefully this trend will continue. I also noticed that I had a lot more energy for my evening's chores, so that's all good. My eating continues to be fine--I had cold homemade whole wheat pizza with turkey pepperoni for bfast this morning. For lunch, I had grilled eel with vegetables and some rice. Very weird combos, but all good healthy stuff. Dinner? I have no idea, which reminds me to call DH to see if he will be joining us. I would love if the thunder would stay away long enough for us to go for a swim...I'm not quite ready for summer to be over yet! Have a great weekend everyone.

Busy days

Well, the crud seems to be gone now, which is good--phew. I need to figure out how to get some exercise in more regularly. I am eating more healthily these days, but not seeing any results on the scale. I can only conclude that it's because of my very sedentary life at a desk. I'm dreading the concept of setting my alarm earlier, but I think it's the only time that other things are not going to get in the way. I need to drum up some enthusiasm on this--inspiration anyone?

I guess it comes down to how badly I actually want this. I was talking with DH the other day, and he was bemoaning the fact that he's at his heaviest ever. He accused me of the same...until I reminded him that I am down from my highest a year ago. Now, I would love to be able to say I'm down a LOT from there, but unfortunately in a year's time it only amounts to 15 pounds lost.

I have been thinking lately it sure would be nice to say I'm down, I don't know, maybe 50 pounds by this time next year. Heck, I see blogs of folks who have lost over 100 pounds in a year. Like anything, it's a matter of focus.

In fact, this is a running theme in my own life, and one I've often advised others on--it's not so hard GETTING what you want--it's DECIDING WHAT you want. So hard some days to figure that out.

So what do I want? How badly do I want to see 50 pounds gone by next August? I really need to figure this out. I think we all know what to do to get there. It's just deciding, really deciding what we want.