Good times at the workplace. Hello 2010.

OMG. I had all these good intentions to blog at least three times a week – nay, DAILY!! So where have I been? Struggling some with the health thing. Am eating healthy, but not CR’ed. Have lost zero weight since New Years. The primary reason, is what it always is: STRESS.  No time.  By the end of the day, my will to give a crap has been zapped, and all I want is a glass (or three) of wine :-).


My work is turning into an intolerable daily hell of stomach churning, fighting anxiety attacks, and suppressing the urge to either lose my temper or burst into tears, depending on the time of day. My boss held a project managers meeting on Tuesday in which he informed us that as PM’s we would have to commit to working 60 hours a week or be reclassified, which means de-motion and a pay cut. Ouch. I have zero desire to work 60 hours a week, given I have three young children. But I’m going to say I’ll do it. And at the same time, my job hunt has begun. Unfortunately, the economy bites, so there’s just not much out there that’s appealing.

Still, it’s all about daily renewal. Trying to not let yesterday’s suckiness eat into today’s motivation. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

On the other hand, I had my first annual physical in about 15 years on Tuesday, and today the blood work took place. Even though my finances are stressing me out, I’m actually feeling pretty decent right this minute.

Crud. Am at work and need to get back to it. No time to blog!!!

Happy New Years - Game On!

It’s a new year and I, for one, am really excited and optimistic about how things are going to go for me this year. I’m truly dedicated to getting my life back under control. For the past 5 years or so, I’ve sort of felt like I was just floating along, being directed by others and not really feeling like I could control my own destiny. There are still things that could happen this year that could knock me off kilter (am concerned about my job situation, and if I were to lose my job it would be a HUGE life change for me), but I’m trying to not worry about that until it happens. I’ll be the first to admit that not worrying isn’t always easy, but the trick, I suppose is in controlling those things I can control.


To that end, as I’ve said before, I’m rededicating myself to CR and to establishing a workout schedule. As a kickstart for a year of regaining my health, so far today I have done some yoga and lifted some weights. I’m going for a run once my lunch settles.

Am sitting at 432 calories after having eaten lunch, so that’s going well, too. I’m going to try and post my intake reports on this blog as much as possible, but I’m not going to freak out about it, as I have enough things on my plate as it is.

So my goals for the year, as written in my journal:

1. Consistent CR
2. Aerobic workout at least 4 days per week
3. Weight training at least 3 days per week
4. Yoga at least 5 days per week
5. Drink at least 80 oz of water/tea per day
6. Drink at least 32 oz green tea per day
7. Make one new recipe / meal per week
8. Clean my car monthly
9. Get my apartment organized and clean it on a regular schedule

I took the kids to visit my mom and stepdad (and my three brothers) in Tennessee the week after Christmas. That was fun and a nice visit. I also had lunch with an old friend from my Nashville days, which was great. We drove back down to Jacksonville on Wednesday and then I took the kids over to their dad’s apartment yesterday afternoon. They were driving me NUTS! I guess the excitement of being home, plus having been cooped up in the car the day before, plus the fact they’re totally hyperactive and nutso anyway – well, for about the first time since J and I separated I was not sad to drop them off with him.

Last night I did New Years on my own, which was just fine. I drank too much wine and just watched TV, knowing that I was going back on the straight and narrow today. So today has been just lovely so far. I slept in – was almost 8:30 am before I got going. Did some yoga, lifted some weights, ate some breakfast, started cleaning and organizing the apartment. Remaining goals for today – going for a run in a few minutes and must take down the Christmas tree.

Will try to be more consistent in my blogging. It’s going to be one way of me keeping myself motivated and accountable to my goals. Stay tuned!

Back on CR!

It’s now December 1, 2009. One month before New Year’s Day. And two weeks (approx) after my 39th birthday. I have major plans for transformation this year.


1. Get my diet under control.
This means choosing an eating plan and sticking with it. Minimizing the calories, and maximizing the nutrition. I know what needs to be done – I just need to do it.

 

2. Get back into the gym habit.
After my separation from J, a week with sick kids, a week of vacation/traveling, and a week of illness myself (head cold and cough), I haven’t been to the gym in a while. I went a few weeks ago, once. Clearly not enough for improvement in my cardiovascular fitness, or the size of my ass!

 

3. Yoga, yoga, yoga!!
I not only need, but want to incorporate yoga into my life regularly and often. I love it when I do it – I just need to do it.

 

4. Organizing my car/office/apartment.
The apartment isn’t too bad right now (kids’ rooms notwithstanding), but my office and van are another matter. They’re bad. Embarrassingly bad.

 

That’s good for a start, though there are other things I’m planning this year, too. Right now I’m starting with the diet.

 

I’ve waffled over the best way to get back into a more strict CR mode. Clearly my plan to be “moderate” and just generally eat healthy is a failure. If I am not regimented, it becomes way too easy for me to cheat. When I am carefully tracking calories and nutrition, I am WAY less likely to make poor choices. Plus, as almost any serious cronnie will tell you, people who think they’re getting required nutrition without tracking their input, probably aren’t getting their required nutrition.

 

So I thought to myself, the best way for me to really get motivated and stick to an eating plan is to have an actual plan (duh!). I debated what I should try out. Vegan? Vegetarian? Pescatarian? Zone? Low Carb? April Smith has pretty much convinced herself to go low carb, and I thought, I’ll just jump on that bandwagon. Thing is, what IS low carb? How do you define it? I ran by the library at lunch and picked up a couple of books on low carb living, including the bible of low carbers, Atkins.

 

I have to confess that I never really read the Atkins books over the years. I just felt like it was probably too extreme, and the one time I tried an uber-low-carb diet I lasted like 2 days. So in skimming the Atkins book this afternoon (Atkins for Life), I think there are things in there to learn, but I’m now not convinced that I want to do a REALLY low carb diet.  For instance, Atkins recommends you stick to less than 20 g carbs the first two weeks of his diet. 20 grams??!! For real??? There is no effing way!

 

Today I have been legitimately minimizing my carb consumption, and still I’m already at 40 grams of carbs for the day. Here’s what I’ve had so far today:

 

• Can of sardines in mustard and dill sauce
• 2 cups coffee with creamer
• 2 Halls cough drops
• Spinach salad with mushrooms, bell peppers, and a couple of cherry tomatoes (small salad), low fat Italian dressing with some extra red wine vinegar added for taste
• Green Giant immunity blend steamed veggies (broccoli, carrots, red and yellow bell peppers in a garlic-herb infused extra virgin olive oil seasoning)
• 4 oz 2% cottage cheese

Other than the cottage cheese, nothing was really starchy – no pasta, rice, potatoes, beans, etc. But still I’m at 40 grams! And when I did a preliminary planning test on Cron-O-Meter, I checked to see how many carb grams equate to 30% of my daily diet if I’m at 1200 calories for the day (am going quite low to start out – want to drop a quick few pounds before Christmas) – it came to 90 grams.

  

So now I’m thinking I’ll just shoot for a zone ratio, just like the good old days when I was first doing CR.

 

I wanted to write more here, but as time has once again slipped away from me, I’ve gotta go pick my kids up from school.

 

The plan for tonight – baked or stir fried chicken breasts (100 grams for me), one oyster (while plugging my nose and with lots of hot sauce and a soft drink chaser), 30 almonds (for my vitamin E), and more veggies. I’ll still be short on potassium, iron, folate, and B1, but I’m going to take a multivitamin just to cover my bases.

Ok. Seriously gotta blow this joint!

 

Post Thanksgiving Recap

So the Thanksgiving holiday has passed. We had a good one. We (the kids and J and I, along with my oldest stepdaughter and her two kids in a second vehicle) all road-tripped it to Arkansas to visit with J’s mom and sister. Despite our separation, things are fine between J and I so it was an ok visit. The drive totally blew, however. 14 hours in a vehicle with three small kids. Two of them barfed on the way. Yes, it was that kind of trip. Still, it was really nice to visit J’s mom. She is 78 and has cancer, so I’m more than a little worried that this might be the last Thanksgiving visit with her. I hope I’m wrong, of course, because she truly is a wonderful person. Picture a sweet little old southern grandma – that’s J’s mom.


Tonight I’m at home, sans children. That’s one thing I can’t get used to. The first thing after opening the door to my apartment it seems so quiet and empty and I always, invariably feel a catch in my heart and I think I’m going to cry. After I put the television on I manage to get over it, though. It’s funny that no matter how crazy, hyperactive and ornery my kids are when I’m with them and would give anything for a break, the second that I’m without them there’s like a giant hole in my heart. They just belong with me, I guess.

Ok. Gonna sign off. I’m tired and I just want to veg before sleeping, but I hadn’t posted for a while so I figured I’d better get off my duff and write something before I get out of he habit again.

Tomorrow I'm going to work out and make the right food choices, etc.  Am looking forward to it!

Back to normal

So life is back to normal now.  I've been too busy to write/blog/do anything more than just live lately, but I did want to check in and let the 5 of you who read this know that everyone is ok now.  Actually the whole family got sick last week.  Baby Colin was sick Monday through Wednesday.  Connor was sick with fever and cough Thursday and Friday.  Cailyn woke up Saturday morning with an ear infection. 

Good times.

Everyone seems to be back to normal now, though. 

I'm 39 years old now.  I'd like to say that I've been a pillar of willpower and stauch healthiness this week.  Umm.  Ups and downs.  Guess that's life!

Ok. Gonna go.  Am on annoying laptop with missing "shift" key (due to violence by almost-2-year-old during previous "Go Diego Go" computer episode).  Am going to wake up tomorrow, healthy, vital and ready for new future.  Right. . .

Sick child!

My youngest is sick.  He started getting a cough last weekend - and its a gross, wet nasty one.  Then Sunday he started acting lethargic and, well, sick.  I'd been dosing him with cold medicine and ibuprofin, by turns.  Then yesterday, he was obviously running a fever, so I took him to the doctor.  103.1 degrees at the doctors' office.  They did a flu test: negative.  They did a strep test: negative.  So its just an unnamed virus.  They say he has a throat infection and upper respiratory infection, so we're using a nebulizer for the cough, but that's basically it, other than using ibuprofin to try and keep his fever down.

I just hate when my kids are sick.  I'm not freaking out with worry - it's kind of a relief to know that the doctor has at least seen him.  But its still a concern that he's still got the fever.  It was high again last night and this morning, and he's sleeping right now.  Unfortunately, he HATES being poked at, so I haven't been able to really "take" his temperature - it'll take two people to hold the little bugger down if I want to get a true reading.  I could tell it was up, though, by how hot he felt.  I figure as long as the medicine is obviously bringing it down, I'm not going to worry about it too much.

I sure hope that after today the worst will be over, though.  Guess I'll go back and check on him again now.   

Kids!

So the kids are with me this weekend, and things are great - we've done tons of fun things (playground, Museum of Science & History - we have a membership, playing here at the apartment, etc.).  Then I think, why not check my e-mail?

20 seconds later (give or take), I look up and Colin (the almost 2-year old) has pulled approximately 27 wipes out of the wipe box and is systematically piling them up on the living room floor.  Yeah.  Kids!

At least they weren't chasing each other with the giant exercise ball at full volume throughout the apartment (like they were earlier).  Or deliberately tipping over the recliner in the living room just to hear it thump (like they were earlier).  I lovingly call my children "spirited".  In other words, my kids are the ones you cuss out under your breath in the restaurant/grocery store/post office (insert location here).  I SWEAR it isn't because they don't have discipline. 

Believe me when I say that there are definitely kids who are just ornery by their nature - I like to think its part of their unique charm.  Please be patient with us if you encounter us in your daily routine, and try not to think less of me as I yell/holler/scold/whatever to try at appear like a normal well-behaved family in public.

Thank you,
Amy