Aunt Flo

Aunt Flo or Tom or whatever I choose to call it (the curse!!!) came to see me yesterday. I am 43. As I get older, my cycles get worse. Severe PMS, water gain, and cramps. Killer cramps.

I used to wonder why some women would say they had to have a couch day or two when they had their periods. While I've always experienced cramps, and they were severe when I was young, they mellowed out and Motrin was always able to take the pain away.

Not now. I do use Motrin, or the cheap generic equivalent. I wake up in the night writhing in pain. I have two full days of horrid pain. I took 3 Motrin an hour and a half ago and I still have very painful cramps.

I had always hoped that as I lose weight, this problem would lessen. I think it's wishful thinking. I think it's hormones, aging, perimenopause, etc. One thing is certain: I hate it and I'm ready for it to end.

When I discussed this with my doctor, he said, "Cramps are supposed to get better as you age." What the hell does he know? He can't do anything about that bowel pain I always have, and all I get is I'm supposed to get better as I age.

I won't even go into the volume discussion because it's gross. Let's just say volume is a huge issue as well.

It's going to be a couch day today. My DH let me sleep in, as he knew. I'm going to go curl up with a good book. I know the book will be on the floor in no time and I'll probably sleep.

Exercise is supposed to help. Honestly, with the cramping that spreads into my low back and down my legs, exercise is the last thing on my mind. I can't sit, I can't lie down, and I can't stand up straight. Exercise? Ha!

The only good thing I have to say is this: I'm a daily weigher. Always have been, always will be. Even with water retention, I saw a loss on the scale this morning. So that's cool.

I sure whine a lot, don't I?

Honeymoon

I tried to think of something to blog today, and my mind went blank.

What can I say, I'm in the honeymoon period--it's easy sailing right now.

Remind me of this in a month or two! (Or three or four or a year...) Remind me when the points drop, when I get bored with menus, and when I start craving mass quantities of something.

Honeymoon period: Maybe I should plan now for monthly or bi-monthly vow confirmation ceremonies so I can stay in this honeymoon period.

I , Jo, take you Weight Watchers to be my weight-loss plan, to have and to
point from this day forward, for better, for worse, in presence of pasta and
chocolate, nachos and candy, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.

Yeah, that's it.

Upcoming Vacation

I am taking a vacation soon.

I was thinking how much easier it would have been to do this before starting Weight Watchers, but I am determined to remain on plan so I am planning my meals before I pack my bags.

So, the game plan so far is to take my own cereal. I will use my Gladware bowls, and have it pre-measured. I will have to find some skim or 1% milk. I'll even have it pre-sprinkled with Splenda. I will also take three bananas. That takes care of breakfast and mid-morning snack for about 6 points total.

Lunch can be Subway. Sometimes the meat at Subway makes me retain water. I don't think highly processed lunch meat is as healthy as they want you to believe, yet it's still better than fried burgers and fries. 6 - 8 points for lunch, depending if I get chips. Will get veggies on my sandwich.

So that puts me at 12-14 points, so I'll have 20-22 for snack and dinner (plus flex points if I decide to use them.) That's easy if I go to a restaurant that lists points, but I really want to go to the Olive Garden. Years ago I knew a gal who worked there and she said that the Cheese Ravioli which I love so much was 14 points. Now that was years ago, but I think I'll be safe with that figure. A bread stick is 3 points, and I'll get the dressing on the side of my salad.

So all I'm worried about now is an evening snack and morning coffee. We don't have a Starbucks where I live. We had one for a short time, but it was one of the 600 or so that shut down. When I went there, I always ordered a decaf with cream. I tried looking on their website but I couldn't find nutritional information for what I want. Does Starbucks have a fat-free creamer? A light creamer? Unflavored for me, thank you. I guess I can ask when I get there, but I'd rather have my points planned out ahead of time. If it doesn't work, I can always drink my coffee black, though.

Secondly, I am a big fan of air-pop popcorn. My husband thinks it's gross, but I enjoy it. So I'm used to 80 grams of unpopped kernels equaling 4 points. I am simply not up on the microwave popcorn. The room will have a fridge and microwave, so I could enjoy a microwave popcorn if I can find one that is low in points. Favorites, anyone?

The one thing that is most important to me on this vacation is to remain true to myself. Right now being true to myself means remaining on plan. I am worth it. Sure, I could indulge and "really enjoy myself." However, if I want to really set myself up for life with healthier eating, that means taking the focus off food and on to other things. This vacation is not about food, it's about rest, rejuvenation and fun. I can still enjoy the Olive Garden without going blowing my plan.

P & P

Pain and Puke...

I don't want my blog to turn into a whine fest about pain. So I'll just say yesterday was a rough day. There's nothing worse than reading about whining on a daily basis.

I read a homeschool blog, and the mom who wrote it was pregnant. She had that disease/condition where you throw up all the time when you're pregnant. Every single day I read about her throwing up or vomiting. The whole nine months. It was gross. (Yet I couldn't quit reading.) One word she never used was puke. Homeschoolers are a polite lot, and many don't use such vulgar words. I do. lol

So I think from here on out instead of talking about pain, I'll think about that puke, and just say "rough day." I'll know what I mean, and I won't bother anyone else with my stupid whining.

Yesterday was a rough day. Today is turning out much better, thankfully. I've filled my water bottle and am drinking like crazy today because yesterday I felt toxic. I think the water really helps clear the system.

Flex Points

Yesterday was one of those days I was so hungry, I would have eaten the wallpaper off the walls...if we had wallpaper, that is. There are going to be days like that. The first two days I was on program, I experienced that.

Well, no amount of water or fluid would hold me over yesterday. So I decided to dip into my flex points. I used a whopping 10 of them.

When I did Weight Watchers before and lost 72 pounds, I ate at the top of my point range. Back then it was a range with no flex points. It switched and I just distributed the flex points to my daily allotment. So it really wasn't a change at all.

Now, it's a huge change. Why? Because my daily point target now is 34. When I pulled out my Winning Points book, I saw my range was 29-34. The same. But not really, because now I have an additional 35 points per week. So in reality, if I were to distribute those flex points like I used to, I would get 39 points per day. That freaks me out. For some reason, it seems way too high.

Now I know Weight Watchers is constantly researching their program. The numbers change based on their research and science. I need to get that through my head and not be afraid. Yet, I am very afraid of 5 extra points a day, or a free 35 points for a week. It just seems too good to be true.

I find it ironic that most days I usually have no problem hitting my target. Some days, though, I am full in the mid to upper 20 range. On those days, I force myself to eat the rest of the points. Granted, those days aren't often--I think I've had three such days like that. Then there are days like yesterday where I could have easily gone off plan and eaten a lot.

I have always believed I should listen to my body. That's why yesterday I dipped into those scary flex points. I have also always believed I should eat on the high end of points on a daily basis, because when I get thinner and have fewer points, I will really want to do that. I want my body used to losing with more.

I need to leave all the worry up to Weight Watchers and just follow their plan. I guess next Monday the scale will tell me if I should be afraid of those flex points or not.

Mean/Bad Mom Award

I get the trophy today.

I woke up groggy, way too early--I need my 8 hours a night--and I was dealing with a 13-year-old boy.

At 13, my son is just learning that his parents are stupid, that he knows better or best, and that we're old and not with it. I kind of snapped at him. Not kind of, I did snap. Yesterday's math had over 100 problems, and I told him there's no way we'll do that many in a day. We broke the lesson into two days so it was more manageable. So this morning he argued with me that he finished all of yesterday's assignment. I knew better, I graded it. I just snapped.

I yelled. I used a bad word. The same bad word my mother would use when she was really pissed off. I did not, however, use his full name.

The end result was he sat down and did his math. His attention didn't lack, and he got it done in record time. In the mean time, I felt like a bad mom. I hate that.

This happened because:

1) I was in a lot of pain this morning

2) I didn't get enough sleep

3) He's a teenager and I reacted to it instead of recognizing that his arguing is a developmental thing. Calm words and direction, with clear expectations, work much better than yelling

After he finished his math, we sat down and had a talk. I apologized, he apologized. I was honest explaining I didn't feel well. That's just not good enough though--it's an excuse for my wrong behavior.

The only good thing was I did not turn to food to comfort myself. Also, I stopped and thought it through...I'm only human, and humans aren't perfect, they screw up. While I felt bad, I did not guilt myself. That serves no purpose, and when I do that, I start getting into stinking thinking and usually end up eating something in mass quantities.

My son and I discussed options for me when I'm hurting and grouchy. We both decided it would be best for me just to leave the room for a few minutes until I get my act together. It would be best for him to be quiet and listen to his old mom.

It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't one our our best moments, either.

Learn and move on.

Insomnia

Tonight it hit. I toss and turned for an hour and a half and finally got up. I popped a pill...Ambien will soon kick in. My doctor told me to go to bed immediately as they hit fast. Nope, it takes about 45 minutes for it to kick in with me.

My mind races when I go to bed. I think of so many things. I have great blog posts forming in my mind--all to be lost by the next day. lol Perhaps that's like being drunk and having a good idea only to realize it was pretty stupid when one sobers up? lol

On this journey to health I'm on, sleep is a big issue. I am a night owl by nature. When I was a baby, I had my days and nights mixed up and was pure hell on my mother. I made up for it later in life, we were very close. I used to go to bed every night at 10 and get up at 6. Now I go to bed at midnight, or close there to, and get up when I wake up. I have given up on setting an alarm because I sleep through it.

I should go have a sleep apnea study done. Honestly, the reason I haven't is I don't want people watching me sleep. What if I scratch something in my sleep? What if I expose myself? What if I fart? My husband sleeps on the couch half the time due to my snoring. (His is worse, imho.) Those all seem pretty stupid, but they are honest concerns of mine. That plus drooling, contorted face, talking in my sleep...I just don't want to do it. Besides, my husband has never heard me stop breathing in the night.

I sure never feel rested, though. The Ambien has always worked well, but now I'm feeling sluggish the next day -- kind of drugged. I don't take it very often at all.

I have a sleep hypnosis CD which helps if I can shut my mind off. The problem with that is you are supposed to wear headphones when listening to it. I do that, but then I sleep on the stupid cord and have a line running across my face. Sometimes I get the giggles over one little part of it that makes no sense. That wakes me up and takes any relaxation away.

Sometimes a bedtime snack helps. In the old days, that snack would be huge. I have three exercise points I could use. I'm not really hungry, though. I also haven't used any of my flex points. So I could have a glass of milk and a 1-point English muffin, or something light. I think I'll just wait for the pill to kick.

I hate this. I want to be a morning bird. I guess it wouldn't really matter if I were only a housewife. The thing is, I'm a homeschooling mom. I'm not a typical homeschool mom, I don't own a denim jumper. I don't go to church, but I call myself a Christian because I am. We don't homeschool for religious reasons. I have friends of all faiths and friends with no faith. I don't care as long as they're good people. Anyway, we have to start school at a decent hour.

I don't understand why when I worked, I could sleep at 10 and get up at 6. Now I can't. Is it lack of self-discipline? Is it fat related? Is that saying fat people are lazy true? HA! I don't think so, I'm anything but lazy.

Anyway, I know that a good regular sleep routine would do much for my health. It would help matters if I could get by on fewer hours, but I can't. I'm a grouchy tired person.

I'm hoping time will help this issue.

Thank you, Richard Simmons

For making your videos. You make exercise fun for me.

Yes, world, I just worked out to a 30-minute video. Started out great, thought it was only 20 minutes long, had a mini-tantrum in my brain when I realized it wasn't, kept pluggnig away, got really tired the last seven minutes. BUT...I did it.

I love Richard Simmons.

First Goal Met

I met my first goal of losing 5 pounds. 21 more of those to go. =)

In losing just six pounds, I also dropped my BMI from 47 to 46.

Emotionally I'm feeling very strong.

Physically--pretty much the same. This one will take time. I have lots of pain: back, bowel, joint, etc. I need to incorporate exercise, that will help with the pain.

I'm well on my way.

I'm very determined. I'm not going for vanity (although that's a nice benefit) I'm doing this to feel better. I want my blood work to be good. I want to have a strong, healthy heart. I want to have one pain-free day. And then another. And so on. I want to be healthy.

I'm doing this solely for me. In this case, it's good to be selfish.

Monday Weigh In-Day

276.5

Down 2!!! Woo-hooo!

Sliced Cheese

I'm working on my grocery list for this week, and I had planned on going to Hy-Vee instead of Wally World. The thing is, they only have Kraft 2% sliced cheese, and Wal-Mart has Borden's.

I will make an extra trip to Wal-Mart for the Borden's. It tastes that much better. Still a point a slice, it's cheesier. I think it might have a touch more fat in it. All I know is that it's good.

Will Power--I have it

Last night when it was time to cook supper, DH and I noticed the chicken was not thawed. He said, "Skip it, let's free-feed." We do that every once in awhile, everyone eats what they want.

I pulled a portion of baked ziti out of the freezer and microwaved it. Much better than a Lean Cuisine any day. We had two left over portions when I prepared it earlier this week, and I thought ahead to freeze individual servings. Great idea, and one I will continue. Less waste, and instant food if I need it.

Awhile after that, I had to make a phone call. While I was on the phone, my son asked if he could make a coffee cake. Egads. Yes, I said to him. And he did. While I was on the phone, the smell permeated the house. I was drooling. Oh my gosh, did that smell good. When it was finished, I took out a tablespoon, and took exactly a 1-tablespoon bite of the coffee cake and counted it as 1 point. I didn't point it, but I figured it was a good guess. lol It was delicious.

I watched my boys devour the cake. There's about one slice left this morning. I was okay with my one tablespoon bite, because I wanted to stay true to myself. And I did. They're always going to be preparing high-calorie goodies, and I might as well get used to that now.

Prior to starting up WW again, I'm sure I would have had 1/3 of that cake with a huge glass of milk. Now, I savored the flavor with that tiny bite and I was completely satisfied. Honestly.

Had they made no-bake cookies, it would have been harder for me. I need to prepare for that day, because it will come.

I was pleased with my will power and determination though.