The Hills have Voices

Ok, so the new job has taken its toll on my weight loss plans due to the fact that I sit all day long. I get up in the morning and get on the elliptical and work out for 30-45 minutes before showering and heading to work but let's face it - when one sits in a car and then in a cafe for eight plus hours a day it kills the metabolism.

This weekend we had our yearly girls weekend in San Francisco! It was a ball and I got a workout - walking 16 miles from Friday to Sunday. My calves feel like petrified wood. I loved every minute of it. The sun, the salt air, the hills - it was glorious.

So the challenge will be ending in ten days and I haven't made a whole lot of progress. I won't take the purse home but I am not giving up on keeping this body in shape - or getting this body into shape as the hills of San Francisco told me!

Another great week! I am really enjoying this new role at work but I think it may be like jumping off that steel bridge! You know, the one that has the sign posted saying "No Jumping or Diving from Bridge! " But your young, its summer and everyone who's cool in your high school is watching you hang off the edge. You can't back out now. You'll be branded a chicken. So you jump and then it happens. You fall and fall and fall and you realize it is, if I may say, one helluva long way down. Upon impact, your swim bottoms are catapulted so far up your rear you're just glad you have 40 feet of water depth to retrieve them in some semblance of privacy and time to wipe the excruciating look of pain off your face before rising to the surface. LOL
So I have jumped and it is exhilarating! I have no idea what is really awaiting me when I hit that proverbial water!

Post Script: I never did jump from the Arlington bridge. I never even got the never to climb on the other side of the rail. I did shove my sister off. Does that count?

Laughter and Belly Flops

Wow! Today I worked hard and laughed a lot. Laughter has such value! I find that I laugh hardest when I am laughing at myself. Like when I make a faux pas I typically laugh very loudly and people will turn to gaze in frowned wonder, which in turn makes me laugh even harder. When others laugh at me I am just naive enough to believe they are laughing with me as I laugh at myself. Gotta love it. Life is good.

At this moment I am staring up at the artwork above my desk. It has lemons and lemonade in the drawing with the words below it: "It'll cost nothing to dream and everything not to". It kind of sums up my attitude...I love to jump in with both feet and find out later if I am truly in over my head! For I know I can swim. Why not just jump?! If I do a belly flop, then I figure out where I went wrong last time on the way down and tell myself how to correct course. Next time I'll point my toes and plug my nose!

As for the challenge, I have lost two more pounds. (does it matter than I had gained them back last week and re-lost them? Is re-lost a word?) I am exercising and sleeping on a routine. Eureka!

Toasting With a Monk

The Dom is in the fridge and it is only 70 minutes until Dean turns 21. Wow. Sunrise, Sunset or what?! We have had a tradition for the last 12 years that when a monumental milestone in a life is achieved we buy a bottle of Dom Perignon and toast the success, blessing, and celebration of life with that person. Mainly it has been reserved for great achievement at work but we decided to signify the celebration of Dean's life with the special champagne tomorrow. I love relishing the moments of daily life because that is all we have....daily life. I can't afford to waste the daily moment by waiting for the "special moment"!

In preparing for the festivities tomorrow I once again forgot to eat after 10 am this morning. It was 8:00 pm when I was out running errands and realized I was famished. I didn't want to grab anything substandard through a drive-thru so waited until I got home to eat dinner at 9:20! I hardly think it matters if you eat something mediocre at 9:20 or garbage at 8:00. The outcome is the same: fat cells enlarge! FYI: I have gained 5 pounds. Double dang.

Well in the morning I will exercise and anticipate toasting with the monk, Dom Perignon.

Sad.

I am in Seattle at my parents home and in an hour we will have to leave for the memorial service. My friend of 41 years has lost her husband to pancreatic cancer. I awoke in the night and thought how hard it must be to have to prepare her two boys and herself for today. I prayed that somehow God would comfort her and see her through this. I don't especially like to cry in public but I know that there is no way out of this one. I just want to make it inside and sit down before I start to cry.

Under stress I can tend to turn to food so I have been very aware of that fact on this trip. I picked up a magazine in the airport with a couple really good articles in it on how to retrain your brain regarding food. I want to pick up the book and read more called, When Food Is Love by Geneen Roth. Maybe a needed, albeit vulnerable, book club book!

Moonwalk

I woke up today with renewed energy and ran down to Starbucks (well - walk/ran) to get a doppio and ran back before showering and heading to church. Whenever I run on the street I wonder what in the world is jiggling that I can't see. I don't want to be one of those women you see in the grocery store who have no true friend to tell them, "Oh Child, did you know that your bum looks like the face of the moon in those pants?!" Maybe I need to ask my BFF to drive behind me as I run just to make sure it is not an obscene sight! I can count on her. She would tell me Lawdy, Lawdy, Miss Claudy change your outfit!

It is only three weeks to my first 5K run (benefiting the Salvation Army Women's Shelter at Lodi Lake) and I am not ready. I will have to be diligent this week. I am meeting my friend (not Jack) at 6am to run in the morning. I know it is important especially on Mondays for me to workout before hitting the store since I really need to be present for those who need to talk with me.

Sundays are my free days to eat whatever I want. Today it was popcorn and white wine and cheescake. Yes, cheesecake. I even bought a bottle of Dom to share with Dean on his upcoming 21st birthday! I absolutely think it is the best champagne in the world and haven't bought it in years. Every month I walk by it in Costco and think how fun it would be to just drop it in the cart. Today I did!

Training like an Olympian

I hadn't realized it had been a week since my last blog. I'll blame work. What day is it? What time is it? Is that am or pm? Geez. I really ask those kind of questions! When 9am seems like 3pm and Thursday evening like Saturday afternoon I know its time to regroup. So I make dinner and work out while the chicken is in the oven and tell Jack not tonight. When life gets this topsy he can only join me on my Friday workout, which when one works split days off, can be twice a week! I met Jack when I was sixteen and he was so sweet. I was hooked. I turn up the music and keep lifting the weights and moving. Jack sits on the workbench waiting for my next break. He steeps in the sweet marriage of carbonation and pop and keeps me company. Yes, I enjoy Jack and diet pepsi during my workouts once in a while. Oh, PLEASE, as if you were so pure. I think I read somewhere that the Olympic athletes use Jack in their training routines. Yes, I'm sure of it. So far I am down 9 pounds. Jack says, "Go Tess!"

Things that talk back

My running partner has been gone this week and my tennis shoes stare up at me from the closet floor like two little dogs who never get walked. They have sad little eyes with their laces laying on the carpet floor and tongues hanging out. Even as I shut the closet door I can hear them whining. I've had it. I don't have to listen to this! So I tell them in a very stern voice, "It's raining! I gotta go to work! Don't you get it? I promise, we'll run tomorrow night after work, okay!?!?" Sheeze. Material things tend to take on a life of their own if one isn't careful. All I can say is my new running bra better just keep quiet.

Pruning my frame of mind

I just got home from church where I saw a friend who has lost 45 pounds. I was shocked. I was also motivated. I have been doing well exercising but the eating has gotten out of hand! It has been a pattern in my life to either do well with exercise or eating but not usually both at the same time. I am ready to change that cycle. I will surrender what I think I want at the moment and do the right thing instead. Period. What a great day to make a turn.

Yesterday Tim and I ran the lake loop which is nice because it is softer than the pavement and is much more scenic. Afterward I came home and started butchering my olive trees. That was a workout all by itself. We have a system: I prune and Tim picks up after me. I like that system. The fog is burning off and I am going to go put on my running shoes!

Run, Forrest, Run!

I can't believe it has been five days since my last blog! Lots of food has passed by this face in five days with the Superbowl last weekend. I ate some great food on Sunday watching the game but why am I surprised when I feel gross after eating that crap? Pizza, spinach dip, beer...the list is ugly. I only feel good that Tim and I have started training for 5k races. We run in the evening on a running plan that helps new (or new this year!) runners not get injured. He holds the stopwatch and we run 3 minutes walk 2 minutes, repeat, for 20 minutes. When he runs without me he runs 5 minutes and walks 2 minutes. Our first race is in March and the second in June. My district manager has run a marathon for which I hold her in high regard yet can safely say I will NEVER submit my soul to such gruel. I continue to lose a pound or two a week but tend to indulge in samples now that we are trying coffee three times a day at work. I was thinking tonight as I ran, "I may just have to run to The City and back to burn off my sampling today"! Double dang. Tomorrow is a 4am day and I will bring my yogurt, berries and acai juice for the blender come 4:15 am and stay away from the samples!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How Far Away IS Long Island Anyway?

How many calories are in a Long Island Iced Tea? Do I care to know? Not really. The entire prospect of drinking alcohol with a drop of diet pepsi and some citrus, thinking that there aren't any "carbs" in it is just a lie. All that sugar has to turn to something but after you've been up for nineteen hours your eyes glass over and you just pour the alcohol and see ZERO calories written in the air in front of you. This just adds to the deception since my eating today was total garbage. Let's see - Reduced fat turkey bacon breakfast sandwich at 5am, Diet pepsi at 10am, spinach dip with sourdough bread and a long island at 7pm and oh yeah...the top of three chocolate cupcakes (without frosting) at 3pm. I like just the tops and didn't have any frosting or the fortitude to actually make frosting. I will have to run rain or shine tomorrow.

Run/Walk

I love reading each others blogs on this weight loss challenge. I have an amazing headache but after I read the blogs I am putting my tennis shoes on and hitting the road before dinner! I want to run a 5K race in June!! I started run/walking -run one minute and walk seven minutes and then repeat. Sometimes I get too tired to finish the exercise piece by evening. This morning I woke up at 2:38 am (my alarm was supposed to go off at 3:15 am) and I decided to just get up. I thought I could nap this afternoon but I need to work out instead! I told my family that I was taking the week off this week. They thought I meant work - but I meant dinner! I haven't cooked a meal all week and it has been HEAVEN. And today I didn't even say anything stupid on the drive-thru speaker like last week when I asked the gentleman what I could do to "get him started". Oh, boy.

Work and no workout

Sometimes working eight hours on my feet feels like I went to the gym and played basketball - especially on busy weekends like yesterday and today. It does not necessarily follow that I should shirk my workout but all I could do tonight was stumble in the door, make dinner, throw in a load of laundry in the wash and fall onto the couch for 45 minutes before Kaden came over. (I know I am tired when I don't notice that he has drawn all over his face and hands with a permanent marker on my watch). I ate crappy today but I often falter when I get tired. Oatmeal with dried fruit, yogurt, egg and sausage, then spaghetti at dinner. I really don't care at all. I told Diana that a customer once told me she joined Weight Watchers and I blurted out, "Ohhh...whenever I think of Weight Watchers its like someone is holding a pillow over my face". Too many rules make me draw outside the lines immediately! Tomorrow is a new day and I will draw the lines myself for my own success.

Snow White and the Devil

It has come to my attention the need to clarify the snow white bowl. Yes, I did mean Snow White as in the Seven Dwarfs. It is large and green and Snow White is dancing on the front. The pears and cottage cheese looked a little lonely in the bottom of that thing. She looks much happier dancing around a bowl of vanilla ice cream smothered in hot fudge!

So my strategy to "pack it on" last weekend worked as I have lost eight pounds as of this morning. Yippee! I am trying to eat a little more to keep the metabolism burning but again today I just wasn't that hungry. Today was a smoothie for breakfast, protein bar for lunch, oatmeal with dried fruit as a snack this afternoon and chicken caesar salad with bread tonight. I am not hungry now but still a plate (yes, I said plate) of warm chocolate chip cookies with a cold diet pepsi sound heavenly. But those cookies AREN"T heavenly! They are the devil! The DEVIL in brown sugar. They only lead you down a primrose path to depression and misery.

Ok, so I got a little carried away. Onward.

Forgetting to Eat

So it is not like me to forget to eat but today I did. It is almost 7:00 p.m. and I just realized I haven't eaten since 12:30 p.m.. Today I had my normal smoothie (blueberries, blackberries, yogurt and acai juice) for breakfast, had a protein bar and some cashews at lunch cuz I was on the run getting my haircut and grocery shopping and now I am eating pears and cottage cheese out of a snow white bowl while I wait for beef and barley soup to finish cooking. I really don't feel like eating. That means I will be ravenous in the morning before work. On days like today I wonder....am I forgetting something? Did I really eat something else and don't remember? You know, like one of those people who take an Ambien sleeping pill and get up in the middle of the night and eat a whole pan of brownies? Trust me. It happens. Onward.

Weighing In

The calls started this morning from managers giving me their weight for I am "the keeper of the weights". I actually thought I would have to remind them to let me know but to my surprise they were anxious to do it. Those conversations varied from "don't breath this to a living soul" to "I don't care if you tell the whole world". A new and interesting side to my peers. I like it.

As for me, Mondays are always packed and this was no exception. I started the day right with an ice cold diet pepsi on my drive to work. I know I am PMSing when I need diet pepsi before 6 am. I was hungry today which is unusual. I had blueberries, acai juice and yogurt about 7am. At 10 I was hungry and I ate a reduced fat turkey bacon breakfast sandwich and then got really hungry again and realized it was 1pm when I had an oatmeal with one pump sugar free vanilla and dried fruit. I had two bites of frozen yogurt when I remembered that I wasn't eating sugar! HA! (I then threw it in the trash) I came home after a long day to make my family scallops gratin by Ina Garten. Since I am allergic to shellfish I ate chicken breast and some almonds. Dessert was another diet pepsi with Absolut. Nice. I realize in writing this that I didn't have any greens. Tomorrow is a new day with my workout planned in the morning and some dark leafy greens somewhere along the way. Gonna drink a glass of water, work on homework and fall into bed.

The match

I used to date a guy in high school who wrestled heavy weight on the wrestling team. As a wrestler he would have to weigh in at match time and couldn't be over a certain weight. His pattern was that he wouldn't eat all day of the match and then scarf all his favorite food right after the meet was over. It was a little disconcerting to watch but then again, I never understood why guys would want to touch each other's sweaty bodies on a gritty mat. Ick. So my dilemma is kind of the reverse since the managers in our district decided to hold the initial weigh in on Monday and our contest would begin then. Well, dang. I've been working at this and losing a couple pounds so now I feel like I gotta PACK IT ON! I have the weekend to eat sodium-rich foods so I can gain some water weight for my initial weigh in so it will deceptively look like I have lost more later. Oh brother. This seems wrong on so many levels. I'm off to order a pizza and pour myself a cold drink.

One measly pound

Each morning I have been getting on the scale and it reads the same number. Day after day after day. (okay so its only been three days). This morning it moved one pound down! I was feeling good and repeating the mantra in my head, "one pound a week is 52 pounds in a year". Then I checked Staci's blog (another manager at work). That creep has lost seven pounds this week. Dang. I chalked it up to her being twenty years my junior and moved on.

It's a good thing my husband doesn't read blogs. This gives me license to confess publicly those things he may never realize.....like why his protein bars are MIA. I decided I like those little peanut butter ones and I don't always plan my menu so I just take one at a time and slide them into the dark chasm of my gigantuan purse. (Is gigantuam a George W word? I always loved it when he made up words). ANYWAY, at some point he will question me about them and I will cock my head sideways and squint my eyes and say, "Hmm" like I am really concentrating on where those little rascals could be. And he will saunter off and that will be that. I love that man.

Figuring This Out

Okay, so my son has told me that my last blog was not a blog at all but rather a post for facebook (which I used to call MyFace cuz I couldn't remember the name). Yeah, yeah, yeah. The point of this is to have some fun and plot my course for weight loss. The goal? Twenty pounds - and of course the purse at work for the manager who loses the most weight. I am glad we are starting on Friday because today I tried to make a shake out of berries, yogurt and Acai juice. It was great but only proved to awaken a hunger so ravenous that I swiped a chocolate cupcake sample. Dang. Ate chinese food for lunch (double dang) but no dinner and worked out. I haven't hit the weights in some time so the squats I did yesterday are starting to surface. (my butt hurts when I try to sit down!) My husband thought the treadmill died so he placed it on the side of the house and it is now a total loss. The rain has demolished it. So for now it is weights, stairs, the ball and my tennis shoes. Let the games begin!

Contest is Coming!

Our contest is to start Friday! Biggest Loser wins the pot of money and their self-respect!