Warning: Whining ahead

I've been quiet of late... as the one's of sevens of you (phrase stolen from my son) who read this will know.

It's been a rough month. Hmmm, year, actually.

I've been flailing about, trying to figure out my life and what to do with it. Ideas are plentiful, yet it seems that as soon as I reach for one, my fingers fasten around nothing more substantial than a puff of air. Ability to create something concrete eludes me. Most certainly, my innate fear of commitment contributes to this lack of direction.

If it wasn't for the realization that I'm running out of cash and racking up credit card debt, I'd love my life. I get up when I want, go to bed when I want, write almost every day, walk, do volunteer work, and hang out with friends and my kids -- actually, one kid now, but we have established long-distance family chats on Sunday nights to replace Sunday dinners.


This week, I thought I'd finally made two decisions. I leased a car (goodbye car-lessness!) and met with a broker who seems to think I'd make a good real estate agent. He and I had chatted over a year ago and he's kept in touch since. I attended one of his staff information sessions on new construction and got a good feeling, so thought I'd take the plunge.

It seems I can't.

At least not yet.

And so goes my thinking... I'll do it. No, I won't. I will. I won't. Ugh! I'm driving myself -- and likely those around me -- nuts.

I apologize to all of you. You know who you are.

I've even been to a guy who reads cards. I mean, really. This has become my method of a good life plan?

He did suggest that I take stock. It seems like good advice so that's what I'm doing. Right now. Today. As soon as I sign off.

I'll let you know what I've come up with.

And for anyone wondering where my weight loss progress is at: Over the past five weeks, I've lost and regained -- thank you, Ben and Jerry's -- three pounds three times. I finally smartened up and have lost an additional two, bringing my weight loss total to 61 pounds. And, even though I have a car, I remain committed to walking anywhere within a reasonable distance.

Colleen

Foot versus Brain Power

In a competition between foot and brain power, which would win?

Try combining getting around on two legs with a 50-year-old's tendency to forget what they've doing while they are in the midst of doing it and you have an ideal situation for getting a lot of exercise.

Yesterday, I awoke at seven ready to get the house in order and start something special for Sunday dinner with my kids. I swept and dusted and washed floors. I did laundry and examined The Joy of Cooking for something fun to do with a pork roast.

I settled on pulled pork and needed a few things from the grocery store.

But first, I had to return a movie rental.

I bundled up, grabbed my shopping cart the DVD and headed out the door. Halfway down the street, I realized I hadn't checked the case to ensure the DVD was inside. It wasn't.

I returned home, got the movie and successfully returned it the struck out for the nearest grocery store a few blocks away.

At the deli counter, I ordered some coleslaw and broccoli salad and remembered that I hadn't brought my wallet with me.

I returned home again, retrieved my bank card and, since I'd overdressed, was overheated and pealed off some clothes before the return trip to the store.

I managed to complete my trip successfully this time while doubling the distance I was originally set to walk.

I am losing my mind.

The one good note -- aside from extra exercise -- is that this would have been even more annoying had I been in a car and had needed to park it each time I'd stopped.

Power to the feet -- if not to the brain!

Have a great Monday! I know I will... I'm off shoe shopping with my daughter.

(Oh, and I've finally broken through my weight-loss plateau and am down another three pounds. Yay!)

Colleen

Not sleeping and happy thoughts

Sleep, sleep... perchance to dream... or however that went. I'm up. It's 2 a.m. and I'm tired but can't sleep. I tossed and turned for two hours and then decided to get up and do something to take my mind away from the fact that I'm not sleeping. I suppose writing about it isn't the best tactic for that goal.

Thinking happy thoughts...

I'm still losing weight.
I started a workout routine last week and am still with it.
I'm going out with my daughter tomorrow -- dinner and a movie.
I'm going out with my son on Friday -- movie and maybe dinner.
(We have 2 for 1 movie passes.)
I just bought some new clothes in a smaller size because everything I own is too big.
I have a whole year to discover a wonderful job.
I have the courage to tell my mother when she is really hurting my feelings and she actually listens and tries to do better.
I am reading a good book.
I am halfway done my first edit of my manuscript.
I have kicked my sugar jones. It took a whopping 4.5 months.
I think that vanilla yogurt with mixed berries is the most decadent snack ever and I can have it whenever I want!
The servers at the tea shoppe downstairs let me hog a table for hours and while I write they bring me water flavoured with cucumber or lemon or canteloupe.
We've had some sunny days or some days with sun on the menu -- a nice break from our standard grey.

And now I'm getting sleepy so am going to try that bed thing again.

Good night!
Colleen

Read the labels

 

 

 I purchase items from Melaleuca because I like using environmentally-friendly cleaning products around my home. Today, as I was perusing the website, I stumbled across these in the diet and weight-loss section. They are not available for resale in Canada.

 

Just look at that label. 160 calories. 60 calories from fat. 23% of your daily recommended saturated fat based on a 2000 calories a day diet. I can't imagine many who would lose weight eating 2000 calories a day.

I guess that keeps the customers coming back longer.

Geez.

Colleen

 

My Sugar Jones

So getting back to the diet has been fun. My goal in December was to maintain the weight I had lost which I more or less succeeded at. (Yes, okay, I went up about a pound but it's already gone, so I'm not counting it.)

But now let's get to what the real issue is... my sugar jones. Holy crap! I primed the pump with a tiny -- and I mean tiny -- piece of cherry pie and by the next day was eating every brownie in sight.  Made me realize that when people talk about sugar addictions, they aren't making it up. (Waaaa! I've got an addiction.)

I had sort of realized it before Christmas as I white-knuckled my way through days of healthy eating, dreaming about food. I keep only healthy stuff in the house for a reason. Geez. I wouldn't last a day with pie. Although I have. And it's made me feel very self-righteous. But I have become one of those people who concentrates on food intake. What have I eaten?  What can I eat? What will I eat? The kind of person that I would have wanted to slap silly only a few months ago is now me.

The only advance I think I've made on the psychological front is that as I was gorging (and by no means did this year's food-fest come anywhere near to what I would have eaten say last Christmas) the junk didn't taste as good as I thought it would. And it made me feel kinda gross.

Not that I stopped eating. I kept right on sampling hoping for that wow-this-tastes-amazing chime to ring in my brain's pleasure centre. Didn't happen.

Once the holidays were over, all the left over treats were given away or thrown out and the fridge is back to it's pre-Christmas offerings. Non-fat yogurt and low-sodium V-8 are my saviour foods. If I want something sort-of desserty I go for the former; if I'm hungry but it's after supper or mid-afternoon, it's V-8.

When's the next celebration? Valentine's Day? At least that won't be an issue for me this year.

But when does the habit/craving stop?

Anyone? Anyone?

Colleen

The 10% Factor

I've done it! I've done it! I've dropped 10 per cent of my body weight! Yea!

To my heart: You are welcome.

Colleen

Calorie burn calculators

I walked to Clay Cafe yesterday to meet my daughter for a few hours of clay painting. When we were done, I walked back home.

It's a 3.3 km walk in each direction.

Today I tried to find an online calculator to figure out how many calories I burned. Each calculator gave me a different number and spanned the range from over 200 calories to over 1000 calories. Really?

I wouldn't have thought it would be that difficult to figure.

Anyone know of a reliable source?

Colleen

Yesterday

Down another four pounds this week. Take that, Mom! HA!

On another less glorious note, I mistakenly thought my writer's group was to meet yesterday and bused over to Clayton Park only to discover that our schedule had a hiccup and we're meeting next week. I took the opportunity to have lunch with my daughter so it made the trip worthwhile.

Today, my son starts his new job as a server (promotion from host/busperson). It's the first time he has to bus to work so of course I had to call him to make sure the bus arrived on time so he wouldn't be late. (Okay, I know I worry too much but wait till your kids are at that age when you have to start treating them like adults. It's not that easy.)

Now, I'm going to do a bit of yoga to get the day off to a good start, do some laundry and get down to some work!

Have a great day!
Colleen

Sunday

I had the treat of borrowing a car yesterday in hopes of catching Whip It with my kids. (It was playing in a theatre out in the big-box store area that would take us about an hour to bus to.) It's rare that we all want to see the same movie so I was pretty excited. My mood was dashed when I discovered that the only showtime is 9:50 by which time I had to return the car. Damn.

Still the car allowed me to do a large grocery order and for my daughter to haul all of her laundry here and back again. She couldn't have done that on the bus easily.

The kids and I have made a pact to get together every Sunday for dinner. Again, it's not that I don't see them individually (I live with my son after all) but that they don't see each other. We had dinner then watched The Devil Wears Prada. My son was definitely in lets-humour-mom mode because I was so disappointed in not getting out to the movie we had planned on. I've booked them both to watch it with me when it launches on Pay Per View or is released on video. (On a side note: Everyone involved with TDWP should be giving a cut of their salaries to Meryl Streep. It would have really sucked if she hadn't been in it. She is a god.)

In other news, I've lost 20 pounds in six weeks and have been making good progress with my latest manuscript including writing a synopsis for it that will become part of my grant application next month. How rare of me to get anything done ahead of time!

Colleen

Get moving

Yesterday started with some good news. I'm down 19 pounds since Sept. 8. How great is that? I even had a dessert last week. Of course other than that I am only eating one meal a day -- but it's whatever I want minus dessert and a slightly smaller portion than I would have eaten previously. The rest of the day is yogurt, berries, cereal, raw veggies, that sort of thing. Along with a bit of walking, it seems to be working just fine. I'll switch things up when I hit a plateau.

I'm surprised at how easy it's been to lose. I have hypothyroidism and am peri-menopausal -- two factors for a less-than-optimum metabolism.

I tried losing weight last year. I worked out hard everyday doing major cardio (for someone of my size) and watching what I ate. I lost about five pounds and stayed there. Increased my workout time. Nothing happened. I gave up.

One thing I had noticed, however, was that if I spent a day doing housework. Nothing major, just a full day of moving, I'd drop weight.

In addition, I figure there has to be a stress factor at work here. As in, I'm not stressed so my body isn't holding on to fat stores.

I'm not on a work-out regime, I have seriously cut calories and move more regularly. That seems to be it. Nothing spectacular.

Not having a car has really impacted my daily routine. Even if I don't walk far, I walk to everything and that's made a difference.

Pretty cool.

Colleen

Weight

Oh, and I've dropped 15.5 pounds in one month.

I feel good.... da da da da da da...

C

The weight of the world... or my ass

The day is dragging, just like my backside.

It's not even three yet I've looked at the clock about a hundred times today.

Things started well enough. I woke before eight, showered, dressed and walked to my dispensing opticians to pick up my new specs. On the way, I realized I'd forgotten to bring some mail that should have been sent out days ago -- one piece being a query to an agent regarding my manuscript. I wonder what darkness in my brain has made me foot-drag on that?

Back home, I am having trouble seeing clearly with the new glasses despite having tried them out in the store.

I've been trying to write, working on the new story, and it's been painful. Slow, slow, slow. I decided to break away and get the mail out so I headed toward the grocery store. They all have post offices in them now, right? Wrong.

Doubling back, I walked to Dresden Row feeling like I weighed about five hundred pounds. My legs didn't want to carry me. I dressed too warmly and began to sweat. What should have taken me about thirty minutes took forty-five.

What's wrong with me?

My back's been stiff and sore so I haven't gotten out much since I've been back from the cottage. Could that be it?

Regardless of how much weight I've put on, I've always been able to walk long distances without any problem. This time, it's killing me.

Agh! That was probably not the best use of phrase.

I look forward to the day this walking thing is easy again.

Colleen

Running errands

Time for my morning sun salutations then I'm off to Spring Garden Rd. to order new eyeglasses, take care of some banking and to find a fax machine.

Still hoofing it.

Down another pound.

Colleen

The first step

I started driving when I was 14. Yes, I know it wasn't legal. But we had just moved onto a farm we named, not so affectionately, Green Acres, and since my kid sister was being taught how to drive the tractor (so I could do the heavy lifting) I got to learn how to drive the car.

Since that time, I have owned or had access to a car with the exception of a one-year period when my daughter was an infant and don't get me started on that -- it was a brutal year.

The alarm would go off and I'd hold my eyes closed, miserable that another dismal day of transportation logistics had begun. No bus ran between our apartment and her daycare and we were without stroller so I carried her, her diaper bag and my over-loaded purse every day (yes, it was even uphill). Then I'd try to extricate myself from her chatty babysitter in time to either catch a co-worker before she left for work or the bus. I was late nearly every morning. Late, oddly enough, was frowned upon.

Pediatrician appointments, grocery shopping, every single excursion was a nightmare.

It was a year that scars me still.

I have owned a car through poverty, post-secondary education, two divorces, and numerous lifetimes.

Until last month.

On August 8, 2009, I became car-less.

Though a long and convoluted break-up of my most current relationship, I ended up without the family vehicle.

I'm trying not to be bitter.

Instead, I am going to learn how to live without said mode of conveyance. I am downtown after all. How hard can it be? I can walk almost everywhere. And there is a bus system.

And so I walk. My calves are already starting to tighten and I've dropped 10 pounds. If only I didn't have another 100 to lose that 10 would be pretty impressive, wouldn't it?

So, we begin my story of my life on two legs.

Let's see how far we go.

Colleen