Ugh

Just found a blogging friend on Facebook and noticed she's lost a lot of weight since January. Kudos to her! Anyway, I checked my January weight and I haven't even lost 20 pounds this year. UGH January is when this high pain business started, though, so I wonder how much effect that has on my weight loss.

I think that during my recovery will be a perfect time to analyze, do further research, and come up with a plan of action to heat things up a bit. Although, I must admit that even though the number on the scale has been low, I'm actually pretty happy with my nutrition, how I eat, the fact I'm not turning to food during high stress and that my focus is on fitness as much as it is losing weight. I don't even crave fast food anymore!

So I guess I take that UGH back. I'm doing fine, all things considered. (But I still want the weight off yesterday!lol)

I got another Tom Venuto book to read during my recovery. Actually I have a few books to peruse during my recovery. I love to take little nuggets of wisdom from wherever and apply it to my life, personalize it.

Speaking of small weight loss, my body is continuing to change. My husband had to go to Denver again this week. When he returned last night, he noticed my hips were smaller. I had just noticed that as well. The ever evolving belly is, well, not skinnier but the weight has shifted and it is kind of saggy looking. That happens from time to time and it has always indicated fat loss rather than scale loss.

I asked my husband to help me do menu planning for this week since he'll be doing most of the cooking--the first few days, at least. His response: Invalid food. Why did that just seem so offensive to me? I wasn't worried about my food anyway, I was concerned about hubby and DS. I think it offended me because I am doing everything in my power to not be an invalid--and he used that word and, well, no. Recovery food. Much better choice.

Last night's workout was just the ticket to relieve stress. Plan on working out in a bit again today. I don't feel like doing a weight tape, so I'll just do it on my own. When I'm in the mood, I'll do workouts consistent with Body for Life instead of tapes. I love tapes, but sometimes I like to go it alone. And when I do the Body for Life stuff, especially the upper body stuff, I find it very effective.

Well, that's all for late Saturday morning. Oh, if you are on Facebook and want to be friends with me, email me and I'll contact you. I'd rather not post my full name here. lol My email is linked on the left side of my blog.

Nerves...

They started acting up tonight. After hubby got home from Denver again tonight, I realized the week was over, he was safe and sound, and I put my own self into the spotlight. My stomach started churning and before I knew it I was walking around with nervous energy, picking at things, picking up, throwing away, re-placing, etc. Then I decided to use that nervous energy for good because I wasn't hurting at the moment. Who cared that it was 10 at night? I put in a Christi Taylor DVD , and went to town.

I stepped that nervousness all away.

Why am I nervous? Surgery is Monday. I really hope for all my readers' sakes that they find what is the problem. I remember reading a homeschool blog a few years ago where the mom-to-be had the condition where she vomited all the time during her pregnancy. (Forget the name of that.) She blogged every day, and every day I would chuckle to myself as I clicked onto her blog. The question was: will she mention vomit today? And yup, she always did. I couldn't help myself from visiting, because I was waiting for one post where she didn't tell about throwing up. That didn't happen until after she had the baby. I found it funny. Not that she had the problem, but that she blogged about it every single day.

I look at my blogging about "the pain" in the same light. Will I mention it today? I'm so tired of mentioning it, yet it's part of my life. So hopefully for everyone's sakes (mostly mine and my family, but my dear readers, too) the doc will find the problem. Then I won't mention pain again. Unless I pull a muscle working out or some such thing.

That's my hope, at least.

How to Remove Hair Dye From Your Skin

Ahem.

1. Color your hair late at night.
2. Notice you go the stupid blackish dye all over your skin by the hair line.
3. Try in vain to scrub it off with a rag, then baby oil, even considering acetone, but not resorting to it.
4. Wash hair, scrubbing hair line, worrying that you're messing up the dye job you just gave yourself.
5. Notice that nothing worked.
6. Sleep on it.
7. Get up the next morning, forgetting about the hideous black line around your face.
8. Put on workout clothes.
9. Do a tough Firm.
10. Sweat profusely.
11. Use your pink t-shirt that you only wear for working out to wipe your sweaty face because getting a towel would take too long.
12. Continue working out and sweating.
13. Finish workout, get on the floor to do stretching and realize that there are black streaks all over your t-shirt.
14. Panic, thinking of your carpeting.
15. Breathing a sigh of relief that the carpet is safe.
16. Shower.
17. Comb hair after shower. Notice that you sweat away all the black dye from your face.

See, working out is good in many more ways that we can expect!

Abs

The past several months, I have not done ab work. It hurt. I was also afraid that I would hurt something. No core work. I have a Cathe core DVD untouched waiting until the day I can start up again.

Not that I'm anxious, hate ab work! I'm weak in the abs. Even when I weighed 120 pounds, I couldn't do Jane Fonda's ab work--wow, is that dating me!

When you're overweight, ahem, morbidly obese, you can't pull your stomach in. It was only a few months ago that I could actually suck my gut in. Yes, I would play "before" and "after" in the mirror when I discovered I could do that. (It's the silly things in life that bring a smile to one's face and make life fun.)

This past week, I've been thinking a lot about my DVDs that I love to do. So many of them say the same phrase: Engage your abs. While I always knew what that meant, I never really did it--maybe I couldn't, maybe doing the workout was tough enough without worrying about the abs, or maybe it was because I couldn't chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.

I don't know what overcame me this week, but as I was doing the dishes, I would engage my abs. Then I would do it as I was standing at the washer, bending and engaging at the same time. Before I knew it, I was engaging my abs all the time. I'm doing it right now!

It doesn't hurt my owie at all. I basically just pull my belly button to my spine. (Not literally! lol That's lingo from my videos.) My abs/stomach feels so much better after a week of doing this.

Do what you can...I've told myself that all along this journey. Maybe all this engaging will help once I'm able to actually do ab work again. My pants are a bit looser, I see some changes in the old tummy. It's the little things, they all add up.

This doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy ab or core work in the future, but I'm doing what I can.

:D