trying again...

Once again I am off and running on the weight loss trail. Heaven only knows how well I will do this time around, but I am trying again. Last year I didn't start until April, and I managed to lose close to 65 pounds before the summer was done. This year I am already working at it, albeit a little bit slower.

Sometime in October I tumbled off of my wagon and fell face first into a Large Pizza, it took a while for me to surface and swim through a few bowls of Nachos and pasta, but I have arrived back at shore, and now I am trying again. Immediately following Thanksgiving my pops was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Not really surprising since it runs in the family. He has changed his eating habits quite well, and as much of a pain in the ass it is for me, I am happy for him because he is improving his health. Why is it a pain in my ass? Because it seems that with his new regime of portion control and carb counting, he uses more dishes each day than any four people and I do the dishes around here. Secondly, it seems that no matter what I wanna make for my dinner, his comes first and I have to wait to use the kitchen. Pain in the ass. Oh Well.

Now for me, I have been trying to figure out what exactly it is that causes me to binge so uncontrollably, and I have come to the conclusion that I am, 1) an emotional eater, 2) an addictive eater, 3) a frustration eater and, 4) a social eater. I rarely eat just because I'm hungry, I do happen to eat when I am bored, and I put that under the frustration heading. I also never eat just until I'm full, or just have something in my tummy, I seem to gorge. I eat until I'm feeling stuffed like a bloated hippo. I guess it is because food never refuses my advances. No matter what I look like, what I think or what I have just done, food doesn't judge me, refuse me, or make me feel bad about myself. (While I am eating it, after words I may have a little guilt) So I eat because it's easy.

Easy is gonna kill me if I don't pay attention! The easy food is the worst food for me, and yet I can't seem to get enough of it most of the time. I have to start judging myself when I eat. Once again it is portion control and exercise that is going to help me through this. My goal is to lose 90 lbs. from my current weight. Today I stood on my shipping scale and I saw my weight at 310 lbs. That means when I am where I want to be, I should be somewhere in the 220 lb. neighborhood. I KNOW I can get there, but Man it is gonna take me some real work and discipline.

I'm up for the challenge, because it will make it a lot easier to take pictures, to sleep at night and maybe to find the love of my life. ( I could find the love now, but I want to be a better version of me before I do! )

What have I done?

Can't figure out what I have done to stop the weight loss... but I know it can't possibly be the food I'm stuffing in my face! Heck no, half of that food is twice as much as I need!! LOL I have no idea why I have no freakin' control lately, I try as I might but it seems like these last few weeks I can't keep food out of my hands. Sweet, salty, spicy, cheesy.... I just want to eat and I can't seem to stop! Am I pregnant? I don't think so, need a partner for that don't ya? Enough is enough, I need to stop stuffing shit down my pie hole and get off my ass. The cold weather doesn't help! I don't want to be out in the dark and the cold doing much, but It needs to be done, and when I can show a net loss for the week, I will be happy, but right now I have been on a climb, and it needs to stop!

The weight watch...

So I made great progress for quite a while then in September I plateaued at 65 lbs down. I could live with it for the most part, but still have at least that much more that I want to lose. That said, somewhere along the line I have begun to lose ground!!

SO I have been trying to figure out what triggered my gain. I Think it is a combination of pent up cravings and a recent feeling of rejection, coupled with stress of my current financial situation, and the normal autumnal metabolic slowdown that is normal for my race, and add to that the loss of my free fresh vegetable source and You have a recipe for me gaining weight. It is too darn easy to spend money on cheap food that is bad for a body than to get the produce that is good for you, but costs way more so you can't buy as much!

I realized today that I have spent way more time on my butt the last few weeks too, so I have to redouble my efforts to get some exercise, and Today I actually gave running a little try. Nothing spectacular, just a few 50 yard jogs, with some fast walking, but it got the heart rate up and that's the important part.

I need to keep my attention on what I eat so that I DON'T eat too much. Gotta stop the snacking, which has snuck in, and get more active. Gotta push! No more screwing around!

The feeling of rejection is over a few people that I have talked to about doing some pictures of them. Sadly they have been rather non-responsive, and I guess that they have decided that they aren't interested.

as a Native American I can tell you for a fact that our metabolism tends to hit a natural slow-down in the autumn. Suddenly we all seem to start gaining weight. depending on the body type and lifestyle anywhere from 5 to 15 pounds can pile on in short order.

My veggie garden is done for the season and so now I don't have the unlimited veggies to eat every day, my starch intake has gone up nearly exponentially! Gotta quit that mess!

Keeping the faith!

Been lazy...

Summer and the livin' is easy... Not so much. Been busy as all hell and trying to keep my head above water financially speaking. It doesn't help that I went out and bought an expensive toy, but I hope that in the end it will pay me back. That will take some time, but I'll keep hoping! LOL

So my summer has been pretty interesting, (If you can call most of it summer! The weather sure hasn't been the best!) I have probably put more miles on the bike than I have in the last 5 years. Been riding it as often as possible because the gas is cheaper when you only have to by $5 worth every 80 miles or so. And when I really push it I buy $7 around 125 miles! How do you like that? For 2 more dollars I go 45 more miles!! As long as I'm not doing any "high performance" riding I have gotten the mileage as high as 52.3 mpg this summer. That's awesome and sure makes it easier on the wallet. As long as the sky doesn't look too forbidding I take the bike. ( or when I'm not going for groceries!)

My weight loss continues. As of this week I am up to ( down to?) 60# gone, I am actually down to one extra chin! The last few weeks have been hard with festivals and carnivals around. I love greasy carnival food, corn dogs, fried dough, sugar waffles, and sausage loaded with onions and peppers, not to mention pizza and candied apples. I took a Friday night at the Onion Fest and chowed on the good stuff. And then last weekend pops went to a festival and brought home bag of sugar waffles. So I had 2 of those too. I have been quite good though most of the time. Since I have been harvesting my squish, I have been eating zucchini and yellow summer squash almost daily. I love the stuff grilled with loads of spices. It is also great in an omelet with some broccoli or sausage. My favorite so far though is to mix it with crushed tomatoes and pile it on a little bit of cooked pasta. Man is that a great treat. I can't do it too often, but when I do. it sure is worth the wait! My meat intake is actually way down this summer. I have been way more veggie centric than usual. Not that I want to cut meat out of my diet, but I think that I'm just better off eating more veggies and less of the vegetarians.

Got a new Lawn mower last week. My old one was getting pretty beat. I have had it for 5 years and I use it for grass in the summer and with the snowblower attachment for snow in the winter. Believe it or not I checked the numbers and it had less than 500 hours on it! I was kinda surprised when I saw that. I gave the old one to my sister. She has a much smaller yard to mow, and the riders are quite a bit lighter than me, so it should last them for a few years. As long as they keep it lubed and sharpened it should serve them well for a good while.

Been watching the news and all this healthcare debate with ever rising bile. I just can't believe that so many Americans are so stupid. Well, I take that back, I can easily believe it, I'm more saddened by how easily they fall for the crap that gets doled out by the republican obstructionists. The Preamble to the Constitution specifically states,:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

To me the general welfare includes the health of the citizens. Public Healthcare is more constitutional than any insurance company collecting premiums and denying coverage ever could be. So you don't want Public coverage? How about this, You don't take it. There are far too many people out in the country who have NOTHING!! They work to make ends meet and they have squat to show for it, and if they get sick? They work through it, usually making everyone around them sick in the process because they can't afford to miss a day of work . If they get sick and can't work? They're pretty much screwed, because you can bet that there are bills that are gonna be late. It is the health insurance that has put me in a freaking hole. How? Because I was paying for "health" insurance that turned out to be more scam that insurance. My own fault for trying to do something without enough research. I dropped that one and got some real coverage, but now the money coming out of my paycheck each week has dropped my net income substantially, so the bills that I should be able to easily pay each month are squeezing my Fridays awfully close together. I push the due-dates of my bills to the limit, and I count on the mail float from the time I write a check until it gets cleared at my bank. So I can send out a check on Wednesday and know that by the time the funds are demanded from my bank, the money will be there on Friday. I have lived paycheck to paycheck most of my life, but this is probably the tightest I have even had to keep the books, even now with a savings account, I can't get ahead. And I don't even pay rent or a mortgage! I can't imagine how a family survives. And the big difference is that I now have Health Insurance. And it is the LOWEST PRICED I could find. Them what has Medicare have it good and they know it. I love to see them on the news shouting "Keep your government hand off my Medicare!" Um... OOOKAAAYYYY.... Medicare IS government sponsored healthcare. My suggestion is that they first expand Medicare to cover anyone 50 and up. That takes a huge chunk of the population in, especially with the aging Baby Boomers. They are nearing 65 fast! Just two years to go before the first wave hits.

Ok enough for now. But remember please, FIND THE FACTS!! Rhetoric sounds great and it can fire you up, but the facts will set you free, and show you what is right and wrong.

funny what changing, changes...

Hello Lovely readers, and thank you for paying attention! If you have been following this blog for the last few weeks, you know that I have been on a mission to lose some weight and to change my lifestyle.

One of my changes is activity, I need to be more active, and I have been riding my bicycle as often as possible, for at least 30 minutes each day. I tried to do this last year, but that little seat seemed to hurt my fat ass, so I went and got a different seat, and now it's MUCH better. The seat is wider and a little softer, so it is less likely to disappear up my ass! Now that I can feel that my ass cherry is safe when I ride, I actually like it again. I have to say that now that I am riding on daily basis, when the weather is bad enough that I can't ride, I actually miss that 30 minutes or more out there in the wind and the sun. I never thought that there would be a time when I was missing physical activity. Heck you could knock me over with a feather when I realized it. I have a new pair of rollerblades that I am getting used to, and I hope to be able to skate for an hour without needing to rest my feet before the summer is over. I wish I had somebody close by who I could play frisbee with. or to ride with, or to skate with. I'm ready to have some company while I try to get myself smaller.

Someone asked me why I decided to lose weight, did I have heart problems or diabetes or high blood pressure, and truthfully, I had none of those problems. What I had was sore feet, and a belt that was getting tighter in the same hole! I was in the shower one morning and I realized that I had to lift up my tummy to make sure that I rinsed all the soap out from under the fat roll. Then I looked in the mirror and realized that I had fat rolls under my arms! I had become the people who disgusted me in wal-mart! My knees hadn't yet started knocking together when I walked, and My pants size was still under 50, but it was getting close, and I was completely disgusted with myself. That's why I decided to lose weight!

I am getting into smaller pants now, and in fact I had to dig out a smaller belt and punch a new hole in it so I could keep up my smaller pants. Man, how good did that make me feel? !! I keep working at it, and I know that eventually I will be even smaller yet. I keep working at it, and seeing results sure makes me feel better about what I am doing, and gives me motivation to continue.

I'm feeling better, and with the right plastic surgeon I could even look better!!