Lost & Floundering

Holy crap! I can't believe how long its been since I posted. Seriously, I NEVER EVER meant to go so long between posts.... I don't even know what happened. Life I guess. Things got crazy finishing up the job. My Mom needed extra stuff. I reconnected with some old friends. The long neglected yard demanded time and attention. The Boy One has been having serious issues with behavior & his allergies. The list goes on...

The thing is I feel like I've gotten lost - at least the me that is focused on living a healthy lifestyle & putting those needs first. The me that needs a full life & time with friends is thriving - except I feel like crap because I know its taking time away from the gym & the food choices have been dismal at best. I 100% feel like I'm floundering - trying to figure out how to make it all work together. Its time to forge a new path... and find a new way to balance it all... I guess part of what I'm having a hard time with is that it will mean doing things that others might perceive as rude (like bringing my own meals along when I'm invited over) and I HATE the notion of appearing bitchy or "obsessed." But then on the flip side, I suppose they should understand. Sigh... it sucks trying to be a people pleaser all the time...

Two really apparent things... no matter how busy I am, I NEED to find time to blog DAILY. It so helps keep the focus where it needs to be. And, I absolutely have to track my food, especially if I'm loading up on what I'm offered other places. Just a quick example of what I'm dealing with here... dinner one night was grilled pork chops (not too bad), three starches and a minuscule amount of veggies. Oh and who among us thinks that sandwiches (on white bread) with margarine, bologna and cheese is a healthy meal? lol

The Deployment Challenge has taken a backseat to everything- which I guess means I've put my own needs on the back burner. I admit it and I'm miserable about it. It's well thought out for how things were - not so much for how things have turned out. Month two is definitely going to have some more flexibility built into it.

For the first month, I pretty much failed on all of my goals... except I managed to lose weight for the month. Despite backsliding badly this last 7-10 days, I pulled out a 1.6 pound loss for the month... far from what I was hoping for but I'm thankful for it. My StairMaster day resulted in 210 floors. My Bike Marathon day is supposed to be tomorrow, but I already know its going to have to wait until Thursday or Friday because I won't have enough time to spend that long at the gym until then. But I will do it.

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And for the better late than never part of my post... my BIG news...

I'm going to Cali for a week in mid-July... by myself! I'll be visiting my niece and relaxing. The Boy One will be here with the sitter... I am so relieved to have someone I can trust to keep him for that long. Plus, the BFF will be in town if there is a major issue while I'm gone. Its going to be soooooo nice to get away and relax for a few days! I can't wait!!!

I'm off to the gym... but I swear I will NEVER go so long without blogging again... seriously. If I forget to blog about this, someone needs to be in charge of reminding me til I do it... I had a "hair removal experience" that ranks right up there with Drazil & her powder...

Hope you've all been doing well. I'll try to catch up on some reading later. :)

House Rules & StairMaster Day Approaches

We've all heard that you should only eat in the kitchen or dining area. The primary reason I've heard over and over is that you're mindful of what you're eating if you aren't distracted by other things while you're eating. I have to admit I've always been one to "overlook" (okay ignore) this advice. I always figured since I pre-portion everything and don't eat directly from a container that I would be okay eating where ever it was convenient. For the most part I think that's been true enough, but...

When we moved into this house (2 1/2 years ago), we made the rule that there would be no food in the living room that could cause stains on the carpet. So beverages and pretty much anything but dry snacks were off limits to the living room. This totally changed my snacking habits, as far as what I was eating... almonds or other nuts became the snack standard.

Now that I've brought this new furniture into the house...

I've tightened the house rules for food even more. NO food or beverage in the living room at all. Call me OCD, but I don't even want to have to worry about crumbs or anything at all on the new furniture... so NO FOOD IN THE LIVING ROOM!

Its no secret, I spend the majority of my hours at home in the living room - aside from the kitchen, its where everything happens in our house. I have to admit that I'm surprised by the impact this new rule has had. Even though the number of calories I consume daily hasn't changed much at all, my basic eating patterns have changed quite a bit. I'm not eating as many snacks. There is more variety in my snacks - more fruits, yogurt, little salads - they are more balanced. Late night eating has almost completely stopped! This is huge because I'm a night owl & with our old furniture I was prone to breaking the rule and having a little ice cream or something when I got hungry late at night. Now, more often than not, I'm finding that even if I'm a little hungry feeling when I go to bed that's okay.

So, it seems, the house rule to protect the new furniture may also help shrink my tush... which brings me to my next topic...

Tomorrow is the first of my monthly "see how many floors I can do before I collapse" days on the StairMaster. Let me just tell you right now, I'm not expecting great results... the number of times I've been on the StairMaster to prepare for this event is dismal at best. I'm just gonna get on there and do my best - what else can I do at this point? To make it as successful as possible... my plan is to go to bed earlier than usual tonight, get up enough before The Boy One to get a refreshing shower and healthy breakfast before he gets up for school, and make sure I down a good chunk of water throughout the morning. I plan to arrive at the gym at 8:00-9:00am which should give me plenty of time to "collapse"before I have to be home to babysit.

I have other BIG news to share... but I'm saving it for another post because I'm mean like that, lol. Hope you're all having a great start to the week!

Do Better!

That's what the Outdoor Challenge game for the Wii kept telling me tonight - wretched thing!

As I was standing there - fighting to catch my breath between activities - I was trying to remember the last time I actually "played" this game and it has been MONTHS. It may seem like I can do amazing things at the gym... but at this one little Wii game I SUCKED big time. This got me to thinking about the importance of varying my workouts and how easy it is to get into a rut of doing the same thing day in/day out - week after week.

This made me oddly thankful for the chaos that is my life right now - because if things were more "routine" I'd be doing my normal thing at the gym & maybe getting in some outdoor walks with the weather supposedly improving. If that were the case, I would likely be increasing my distance and time on cardio equipment and I would still be totally clueless about how poor my jumping skills & reflexes have become. I've seriously got some work to do... I couldn't jump the virtual rope more than a dozen times without tripping and falling on my face, lol.

On the job front, I'm not going to work again until Sunday afternoon/evening. So that means I will have TIME! Time to clean my house. Time to do meal planning. Time to do meal prep. Time to get to the gym & get a few floors in so the StairMaster part of my challenge doesn't kill me on the 15th. Time to do something fun with The Boy One. Time!!!! I can barely believe it!

Part way through the day I found myself craving a candy bar in the worst possible way (my friend George aka TOM has arrived), but in my quest to find alternatives to squelch these cravings in lower calorie ways I did this.... I grabbed one little 100 calorie ice cream cup from the freezer, topped it with a tablespoon of reduced sugar chocolate syrup, four frozen chocolate chips and two chopped almonds. I took it out on the patio (in a rare moment of bright skies) and savored every bite. Not quite the same as a candy bar... but every bit as tasty as a Hershey's with Almonds... and it saved me 50-75 calories... not a lot, but every bit helps right?

How do you beat the TOM cravings?

IHOPpin' to Trader Joe's

Write.

Delete.

Write.

Delete.

That is what I've been doing for the last five minutes, trying to figure out how to start this post. All day I've been thinking about what I wanted to follow up my last post with... and now that I finally have time to sit down and write I am so tired I don't feel up to tackling that tonight... so you get this (and I apologize in advance for how boring it will be).

This was a LONG day... with lots miles on the road for me. My Mom had a legal appointment this afternoon, so I was out the door as soon as The Boy One was off to school. She wanted to go to IHOP before her appointment. Let me stop right here and say that this was her fourth trip there in less than a week. And the other three were with members of her TOPS group. WTH???

I looked over the menu & was pleased to see that the whole back was filled with reasonably low calorie restaurant options (under 600). I was quickly frustrated when I hopped on my phone and discovered that I couldn't find nutritional info for their other menu items. After coming home, I dug a little deeper and discovered that the rats apparently have an aversion to sharing their nutritional info. That's gotta say something about the damage eating there can do if you're not careful.

Despite the "healthful" menu options, I finally settled on something else. The Sirloin Tips & Eggs breakfast meal... except this is me who hates eggs... so they let me substitute a fruit cup for the eggs.

My best guess on this meal is that it was somewhere between 609-1000 calories. I was able to find individual calorie counts for the fruit, pancakes and whipped butter. Myplate says that the meal is 609 calories, but I'm wondering if that is strictly for the steak & egg part (not including the hash browns or pancakes). While I'm still a bit frustrated I can't pinpoint the exact calorie content for the meal, I have to say I'm glad I chose this meal. Everything tasted delicious. The steak was tender, the mushrooms and onions flavorful, the fruit juicy ripe and the pancakes to die for fluffy.

By the way, me taking this picture for you all to see my meal prompted another round of my Mom's bewilderment over my decision to blog and talk to "strangers on the Internet." I think she still didn't believe I was really blogging because she was like "are you REALLY doing that?" in that tone of total disbelief.

The legal appointment happened to be in a city where they have a Trader Joe's; yay for me! You people that have them in your backyards are sooooo lucky... this driving over an hour to get to one is crazy, lol.

I picked up all of these goodies...

plus a few other things. I'm particularly excited about the fresh blueberries (my FAVORITE fruit) and some white balsamic vinegar that someone in the store suggested trying.

My "treat" of the shopping trip were these chips...

Holy crap! These things are soooooo tasty. I opened the bag in the car on the way home because I was dying for a snack and figured they were a better option than a drive-thru. Driving home, in pounding rain, I counted each and every chip that I put in my mouth - the bag says 20 is approximately a 1 oz serving - and stopped at 20. The rest of the bag sat on the seat next to me for the rest of the hour long drive home and I didn't touch it again! Amazing because these are truly crazy good!

Because I'm curious - and because I bought a bunch of it - what's your favorite thing to stir into yogurt?

Let's All STOP!

Before I get on to my post, I should report that the scale LOVED me today... to the tune of 4.2 pounds!!! Holy crapola I can hardly believe it... its rare, if ever, that I've seen that large a number. I stood staring at the scale having one of those moments of "how the heck did that happen? am I sick and don't know it?" Then I thought how different this past week was from the few previous and I calmed my not-so-little self down.


So the report for week one: I had a loss of 4.2 pounds, which brings me down to 194.4. My calories ranged from 1190-2500ish during the week. I had restaurant food on three days, but on the third day kept it within the calories of my planned meal. Exercise was a real struggle, which I wrote about yesterday. I got in a tad of cardio... I think about 3 miles walking is all; two core workouts and one general strength training workout.


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Okay, now on to what is really on my little mind... something that has been lurking for a few days and has gotten to the point where it is nagging at me the second my mind starts to wander to blogging.

Remember, last Thursday I took The Boy One to Applebees for his school fundraiser... and proceeded to add quesadillas and a margarita to my planned meal. I think that meal is where this thing began nagging at me. Since then, I've seen or heard several people in blogs, on FB or in text messages practically begging for forgiveness for little indulgences such as candy, chips, ice cream, an extra dollup of sour cream, etc. That night, as I was eating, I texted Melissa and told her I was committing "foodicide." Her response is something that I want to repeat to every person I hear or see admonishing themselves.


DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT IT!!!!!


She didn't shout it like that, but those were her exact words to me... and they are my words to you should you happen to have a few M&Ms, a little bag of chips, an extra piece of bread, a scoop of ice cream or whatever.


By now you probably know that my philosophy is to live a healthy lifestyle & lose weight in terms that I can sustain for the long haul... meaning its not going to be perfect from a nutritional standpoint and its not going to be so strict that I snap one day... meaning its going to have highs and lows... means its going to adjust within reason for the other areas of my life. This is why when I do a gym challenge, I increase my calorie intake so that I don't lose weight too rapidly... because I know that while I may push myself beyond my normal levels to finish a challenge its not something I can do day in/day out for the rest of my life.


When it comes to food, the same rules apply for me. I eat mostly nutritious, healthy things. I feed these same foods to my family. I know what is and isn't beneficial for my body. I also know that some things which are definitely not beneficial happen to be mighty tasty. I know that, for me, it is unreasonable to expect that I will never again eat a donut, fried cheese stick, croissant, etc. For most of us, we have spent a good portion of our lives eating foods that were not good for us, but we surely enjoyed the taste... and its probably not likely that we will never have them again. And being perfectly honest, there are certain foods that I feel are worth every minute I have to spend in the gym to compensate for them!


Instead of beating ourselves up over "giving in" to temptation or having a "slip up" by eating that ice cream cone, we can turn it into a positive and say something like "I choose to incorporate foods I truly enjoy into my plans." Or something like, "I can choose to eat anything I want... if I plan for it and if it is worth it to me use the calories that way."


I know there are people out there that have problems with binging and I recognize that a simple bite can lead to an all out binge for you... and for you I know its often better if you just stay totally away from certain foods. This I understand... and I commend you for having the mental fortitude to avoid foods that are triggers for you.


For the rest of us, though, I say....


Let's all STOP beating ourselves up over the occasional treat & remember that living a healthy lifestyle does NOT mean we have to be perfect with every morsel that passes our lips.


And even if you totally fall off the train for a day, remember this... its not what we do once in a while that is going to make or break us in our efforts; its what we do consistently - day after day - that will determine our success.


Plan for success!

Realizations of the First Week

Today marks the end of week one of my "Deployment Challenge." The week has had some frustrating moments, but has been mostly positive. Over the course of the week, I have come to some realizations...

1. You should NEVER eat something without knowing the nutritional (or lack there of) values in advance... unless you're prepared for the consequences. Remember the chicken quesadillas? Okay so maybe not a new realization, but one that I still need to be reminded of from time to time.


2. I can have Sunny D in the fridge without inhaling it! Generally speaking, I don't care for artificially flavored fruity "juices" but I LOVE the tangy kind of Sunny D. This bottle has been in my fridge all week and I've yet to have a glass. I actually bought it so I could mix it with some Malibu for a tasty adult beverage... and The Boy One has been so sweet as to save the last little bit for me. Since I've yet to have a day where I wanted to use those calories that way in the evening its still sitting there. I should probably just tell him to finish it off, lol.


3. I do not have enough time to do it all. There are only so many hours in the day. Between babysitting, taking care of The Boy One, my job, the house, the stuff my Mom needs me to do for her and trying to take care of me... my days are FULL.


4. Number 3 brings about this realization... I cannot commit enough time to the gym to burn 6,000-9,000 calories a week doing cardio. Not right now; not with this job and the stuff going on with The Boy One right now. I just can't... I have to put him first.
5. Sometimes - say when you're traveling with someone else - you may not have the choice about where you eat. But you can still choose what you eat. Case in point, the BFF actually decided to go to the bead store with me today (she drove) and stopped off at a KFC/Taco Bell to grab lunch. It sucked, but we truly didn't have time to run to a grocery store if we were going to make it home before The Boy One got off the bus and we were STARVING.

So... one week in I'm going to modify for myself just a bit... and just until my job ends for the first one... which is supposed to be the 18th (I think).

Modification #1: Instead of burring 6,000-9,000 calories weekly through cardio activity, I will commit to doing some form of exercise every day that raises my heart rate for at least 30 minutes. This may end up being a video or something strenuous on the Wii... but it will be something EVERY DAY.

NO EXCUSES!!!

Modification #2: In the event that I am put in a situation where the dining location is out of my control, I will make a food choice that is equal to the calories I would have eaten at home... or I will order a fruit cup and wait til I get home to eat more.

I'll share my official results from week one - tomorrow - after I face the scale and can give a complete report, lol. I haven't peeked at the scale all week... so I'm a little anxious to see what it says.

The weatherman says we're gonna get some sun & warm weather tomorrow - that's a sure sign of a good day ahead, right? :)

Okay So I'm Not Alone :)

The last thing I did before I went to bed Saturday was write my last post... well that and shed a few more tears before I finally crawled into bed. When I woke up this morning, I was so touched by all of the encouraging comments... so I want to take a minute to respond to each of them.

Chris- I really appreciate that you know what military life is like & can relate. Communication is really a big obstacle for us - its one of his biggest deficits... but I do the best I can with it. And without God & my Bible, I don't think I could do any of it...

Girl Bandit- Thanks for thinking I'm strong. I don't feel so strong, but maybe if I hear it enough I'll start to believe it.

Sandy Lee- It totally helps to know you're all out there... more than you realize. :)

Jen- I agree - its so much harder to have close friends as adults. I've tried talking to her, she thinks she's balancing things well so I don't know what is left for me to do but accept what little time she has to share & try to heal the hurt. Thanks for being there. :)

Drazil- Send that # on Mama Pimp... but I promise not to wake you up in the middle of the night (I think, lol). Don't worry I won't eat my hand off... I need it to shovel the food in, lol. Love you

Jamie- He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was five. We are in the process of having him re-evaluated at Children's right now. I try really hard to use that type of approach with him, but its VERY difficult to get him to express his feelings. Its extremely frustrating; at the same time I know there are parents out there that have children with much greater disabilities, so I try to be thankful.

Seth- Thanks for your prayers. :)

You don't know how thankful I am for all of you. I truly don't feel so alone when I see all of your wonderful comments. It especially means a lot when they come on a weekend... I know how busy weekends are for people.

Oh, at 3:30am I got awakened by a phone call from The Husband. I'm so glad he called, but sadly I was so tired that I barely remember the conversation. I do remember that he has arrived safely at his new little part of the sandbox and has to sleep in a tent with ten guys. Can you imagine the "gas" in that tent???? LOL

After the rough end to Saturday, I decided to just chill for our Sunday. No running around, no work, nothing. I even had the guy I turn my work papers in to come pick them up from me (he was really nice and actually offered to do it when I explained what's been going on). The boy one woke up cheerful & apologetic for making me cry (I guess he heard me after I left his room).

Food was okay for me today (I still need to update my food page badly, but its all written elsewhere so its not lost), except I had way too much sugar. Can we say cookies & Mug root beer? But I'm still in my calorie range despite them.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from yesterday's outing. We went to Port Townsend, which is a 30 minute ferry ride away. Its a great little town with all sorts of unique little shops, including one of my favorite bead stores & a fabulous underground restaurant. The nice part is we walk on the ferry & then all around the main street of the town... so its built in exercise and The Boy One loves it there. Living so far from the city, its nice to have a little outing close to home & that doesn't cost us a fortune to enjoy.

One of my favorite things on earth is a view of nothing but ocean & sky... this comes pretty close.

There were a ton of sailboats on the water as we approached the ferry landing on the other side of the water.

The Boy One and I waiting for the return ferry. This was about two seconds before he gave me a huge sloppy joe (aka licked the side of my face).

Our trip home was slowed somewhat when we had to wait for this big cruise liner to pass in front of us. Pretty sure we somehow ended up on the wrong boat and that's the one we were supposed to be on, lol.

Seriously this got me to thinking a cruise might be fun. Have you been on a cruise? Would you do it again?

Good day, Tough Night

Saturday was a good day... The weather was fantastic. I worked. I took The Boy One across the water for an afternoon of exploring, shopping and good food. Then it all fell apart...

Around 10:00pm, I went in to suggest that The Boy One turn his game off and settle down for sleep... he'd had his pill around 8:00, so I figured he'd probably be getting sleepy. He turned the game off and practically threw it at me... telling me to "keep it for a month" because he'd been a "bad boy." This had me totally dumbfounded because his behavior was EXCELLENT on our whole outing. Other than some extra bouncing around when he got excited, there were no behavior issues & I don't even consider that a behavior issue... just an excited twelve year old jumping around like a nine year old. When I told him that he was a GREAT boy all day & asked why he thought he had been bad, he got violently upset. Not as bad as some times in the past... but kicking me and thrashing about. He fell asleep in this tense, angry mood... which is typically not him at all. All I can do is cry...

And I'm alone...

Drazil wrote about how she would be ALONE if she lost her husband and Jenny. I am very much like her in this... pretty much I have The Husband and my BFF. Yes I have other friends... but no one else nearly that close, no one that I could call without looking at the clock first. In all seriousness, there have been periods where I think I literally would have died without them. And now... The Husband has deployed... The BFF is so wrapped up with her new boyfriend that she isn't really "there" like she used to be. So in essence...

I AM ALONE!

Granted its not a permanent alone... The Husband will come home in six months... the BFF might figure out how to have a man she actually wants to spend time with and a BFF too... but for now when I'm in a ball of tears there is no one. So here I am, writing, and glad that all of you care enough to read my ramblings... it helps me feel a little less alone.

And to keep from being a total downer here...

Despite all of the emotional drama right now, I have NO desire to put food or beverage in my mouth. No emotional eating here.

I walked A LOT today... including up and down LOTS of stairs.

And, I have some really awesome pictures from our outing that I'll get posted soon . :)

Good luck to everyone doing Race for the Cure!

Thursday's Trials...

Looks like I'm playing catch up again. This is my Thursday night post, coming along on Friday morning. Oh well...

Thursdays are therapy days for my son, so I always pick him up from school early to go to the appointments. Yesterday, his teacher asked if I could arrive a little early for a meeting. Meetings are never good at school right? Surprisingly, this one actually was... right up until the end. He's doing well for her & the best news of the meeting, she is going to come back for one more year specifically to work with him. Now the not good part - she told me that she has seen a "difference" in him since I started working. I asked what she meant, because I've noticed more of the "characteristics of an autistic child" in the last few weeks (but I didn't say that to her). She paused and said "I don't know how to put it, but he seems more autistic" and went on to describe the same behaviors I've seen an increase in at home. To me it just reaffirmed that I've made the right decision in staying home with him all of these years. But, what to do about the current job - I do plan to finish it out, since its only supposed to be another three weeks - but for the life of me I couldn't force myself to leave him home and go work last night.

In the spirit of watching grass grow and digging ditches I have a short story. Driving home from therapy yesterday I noticed this bird flying rather oddly - diving down like it wanted to land and then springing back up - repeatedly as we were approaching. Watching the bird - more than the road - I saw the cause of its dilemma. There was a huge bald eagle perched on top of a house... I suspect the bird feared for its life, lol. We see eagles here almost daily, but I think that's the first one I recall perched on a roof like that. Anyway...

The boy one's school partnered with Applebee's for a fundraiser last night. I promised we'd go, picked out my meal online before we went...


The Asiago Peppercorn Steak from their "Under 550" menu is actually 390 calories. Its really flavorful and just the right size meal. With this meal, I would be using one of my restaurant opportunities for the week, but would stay within my calorie range for a "typical" day.

Then this happened...


The boy one wanted quesadillas (dang the waitress for mentioning them)... so naturally I ate half the order. Holy crap... do you know these things have 90 grams of fat in a whole order??? Seriously? They look so puny & its chicken!!!

And if that wasn't bad enough, part way through the meal the best bartender on the planet arrived at work. Honestly, this girl makes the BEST margaritas I've ever had (and yes I've had plenty of them in plenty of different places). I swear I would kidnap her and make her live in my kitchen if she didn't have a baby at home that would miss her. Okay, not really, but I would so pay to have her as a personal bartender. So with her arrival I had to add this to my meal...

Really I HAD to! Her schedule almost never coincides with when we eat there anymore so I hadn't had one of her drinks in a LONG time.

All told, my dinner was over 1400 calories - a whole days worth of calories!!!

On the exercise front, my mystery pain has mostly subsided. I was able to do core & strength training yesterday. Yay!

Today I must squeeze yesterday's missed work in with today's... not to mention three bracelets that must get finished today and babysitting... I'd better get my tush moving, lol. Have a great Friday everyone!

Deployment Challenge Quickie #1

So far I have one person - Debbie - who says she's doin this bout of craziness with me, two people that may start late (I HOPE THEY DO) and it sounds like one person that will do the monthly bike marathon with me.

Exercise hasn't happened for me yet. :(
My plan was to start yesterday, but then mystery pain hit & changed my plans. About the Vicodin, I took the prescribed dose for my chest wall pain (this felt similar, though more widespread) and that was prescribed for my current weight +/- 5 lbs... so I really don't know what the deal was with it making me feel icky.

Day 1 Calories: 1,499
Day 2 Calories: 1,190

So far so good on the food. Tonight is a planned dinner out... so we'll see how that goes.

I'll be back with a "real" post later. Hope everyone is having a great day so far. :)

Rewards, Setbacks & Baseball

Hey everyone, I had my post 95% written when the news had "breaking news" that totally blew my thought process. Ken Griffey Jr. - my favorite baseball player ever - announced his retirement. I am in mourning!

Yes I know its silly. And yes, I definitely knew the day was coming... but still its sad to see one of the last true professionals in the game call it quits. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that I was probably one of the happiest people in the area when he returned to Seattle. Seriously, I pre-ordered tickets to last year's home opener - which was an amazing experience - and immediately bought tickets to the final game of last season (anticipating that he would likely retire then). We totally intended to go to a game before The Husband left on deployment, but the Navy schedule didn't let that happen. Have to admit, I'm feeling a bit bitter toward the schedule that kept us from going at the moment... grrrr. Its time to dry my eyes and have my finger on the trigger for when they announce the date of the retirement ceremony at the stadium... cuz you can bet your last dollar I will be there.

Okay now, for my original post...

Do you ever feel like planning is the surest way to have something unexpected happen? I swear just about every time I have a concrete plan something interferes - and typically something major enough I have to alter my plans. Today is a classic example. My plan was to hit the gym this morning, deal with the furniture delivery/babysit in the afternoon and work for a few hours in the evening.

That pretty much all went out the window at 3:30am when I woke up with mystery pain. First the pain was just in the shoulder blade of my previously injured shoulder. By the time I got up with the boy one the pain had spread down my rib cage and the outside of my right "girl" was screaming... not to mention it hurt really bad to take a deep breath. I downed a couple Vicodin with breakfast - hoping that would knock the pain and that by evening I'd be okay to work & get in a condensed workout at least. Apparently, I didn't eat enough food with it because I ended up feeling soooooo sick - like I could hurl or pass out at any given moment. Or maybe it affects me differently with 50 pounds gone from my body... whatever it was not a pleasant experience. I'm feeling better, but think its probably best to take it easy for the evening... so that's what I'm gonna do.

Today has been a bit of a setback - between the pain keeping me out of the gym & just feeling generally icky for so much of the day. Tomorrow is a new day... hopefully a pain free one.

As promised, here's what I plan to do for my rewards for the Deployment Challenge. I'm going to build myself a charm bracelet - either Pandora or Chamilia. Something like this...




Each month will offer me the chance to earn three charms/beads: One for meeting the food goals, one for meeting the exercise goals and one for posting a loss for the month. I like this idea because I can totally customize it to fit my tastes and budget. Its something I will enjoy creating & having, but not something I would ever consider spending the money on just for kicks.

Debbie - I tried to email you about joining me in this... but it said your info was all private, so please email me. :)

I tried a new chicken recipe for dinner tonight. Time to go see how it came out...

The Deployment Challenge

The Navy - and I assume the military in general - is full of acronyms, abbreviations, designations, etc. CS, AT, AE, MA, AD... and a ton more that all mean something to someone. Some are pretty easy to figure out, others a bit more of a challenge. I think sometimes that's how people feel about the process of losing weight and/or living a healthy lifestyle. Some things are easy to figure out... like calories in vs. calories out. Other things are more challenging... like weighing the nutritional benefits of one food vs. another or the benefits of one form of exercise vs. another.

For my Deployment Challenge, I'm borrowing FE, or flight engineer. FEs have the important job of operating engines and and aircraft systems - including troubleshooting and fixes - all while the aircraft is in flight. People that choose this job go through extensive training - 9 months of school, plus other requirements. This isn't my husband's job (we looked at the program, but being an FE generally wreaks havoc on family life because they live by the flight schedule).

The way I see it we are all the "flight engineers" of our own journeys - whether its to lose weight, get healthy or continue maintaining a healthy lifestyle. We "operate" the engine and systems that are our body - by the food we feed ourselves, the exercise we choose to do, and whatever we choose to do to nourish our souls or maintain good mental health. As we go about our lives, we troubleshoot to see what's working and what isn't... and we come up with "fixes" to tweak aspects that aren't giving us the results we are seeking... much like the flight engineer must do to keep the plane flying safely in the skies.

By the way, my "starting" weight for the Deployment Challenge is 198.6 lbs. UGH!!!


Now for the Challenge Details...

Some of these may change a little bit month to month... as I "troubleshoot" and tweak.

** Challenge is for six months (June-November) - but broken into one month segments. **

FOOD

1. Eat 1,300-1,500 calories per day/six days per week


2. Plan meals and/or keep food journal (I'll be adding a separate page to my blog with my planned meals/food journals)


3. Enjoy restaurant food two times per week (maximum)

EXERCISE

1. Burn 6,000-9,000 calories per week through cardio activities


2. Do a strength training workout 3x/week


3. Do a core workout 4x/week

Because I like to push myself at the gym, I will be incorporating the following things into my workout schedule:

• A monthly marathon on the bike - to take place the last day of each month June-November with the goal of decreasing my time each month


• Increasing my duration on the StairMaster - basically hop and and go for as long as I can - to take place at the middle of each month June-November (500 floors in a single session is my ultimate goal for this)


• Start the C25K program - I'd like to build up to doing a 10K before the end of deployment

Because every good FE deserves a little dose of R&R, I will be scheduling myself 30-60 minutes of "me" time every day that has nothing to do with the topic of a healthy lifestyle.

There ya have the nuts & bolts of the challenge. If you're interested in joining me for one month - or six - please leave a comment to let me know. I'll be doing a quick daily progress post for this in addition to my regular posts... so that can be our check-in spot.

And my positive - keep me going - motto is...

Believe in yourself, as if the possibility of failure does not exist.

Next post... my planned rewards. Now who is gonna join me???