Whittlin' my Waist While Waltzing With the Wee One

Being a grandmother is awesome work and sooo much pleasure! I find myself incredibly busy but so happy with all the work surrounding this new baby that has blessed our family. Sophia Marie is a wonderful little girl who eats, sleeps, and poops, not necessarily in that order. She cries only when she is very hungry or has a dirty diaper. She is already sleeping all night long -- or at least until her anxious mama wakes her to feed her, fearing she may not be getting enough food.

It occurred to me last night as I was gently swinging the baby back and forth, side to side, that she could become part of my exercise program for the short term. I feel like I burn a lot of calories with walking her, swinging her side to side, and just holding her and rocking her. Probably in truth not enough calories to measure, but I am certainly worn out at the end of the day. Taking care of a large house, doing laundry, cooking, walking the dogs, etc. all counts up, I am sure.

While I am enjoying this life of being a grammy immensely, I will also be glad to get back to my "routine" at home, where I have a pattern of things I do daily to help keep me healthy. Old routines are comfortable at times, and can also be fulfilling and relaxing.

Since I did not remember to get my weight to Allan in time yesterday, I will continue the challenge on my own. It feels SOOO good to know I am moving in the right direction, even if I have to get my exercise and food when I can fit it in right now. My daughter-in-law has been very encouraging by noticing when I look "thinner" on a given day. I am still doing the yo-yo thing where I am up two pounds one day but then down two or two and a half the next day. Bottom line is that the scale is finally moving downward, and for that I am so very grateful. Thank you, God.

Sophia Marie has Arrived and is Coming Home Tonight!!

We have a new baby girl, and she is so perfect. She arrived right on time Tuesday morning, at 9:01 to be exact. She is 8.1 pounds and 19.5 inches. Both she and her mom are doing great. And her brother thinks she is the coolest baby sister he has ever seen, even though she was not able to comply when he asked her to "please say one word." Too cute.

I have been busy with laundry, cleaning, baking, getting everything ready for Mama and Baby to come home. Exciting time in our family. They will be home in a couple of hours.

Food has been an afterthought most of the week. Ditto for water; I often look over and find my water bottle empty. So I need to get a bit more structured again about my program. Definitely easier to stay with the program when I am home. But it's all good.

It's a Rainy Night and It's All Good

It is Saturday night, the rain is falling, the creeks and rivers are flooding, and I am just chillin' in my son's second floor apartment, where I am safe and dry.

I actually took the evening off. I declined to go to a friend's house for the evening. I really did not want to drive across town in the heavy rain, plus I know he is pet sitting his son's HUGE dog, who loves to rub his big hairy body against me and get hair all over my clothes. Also, because the dog is allowed on the furniture, there is dog hair everywhere. I love dogs, but not undisciplined ones who won't stay off the furniture and who won't stay off me.

So I stayed in, got caught up on my email, polished my nails for the first time in months, and watched the ten o'clock news. I also took some time to organize the things in my suitcase so I could pack my overnight bag and be ready to head back to my other son's house at a moment's notice. I was there all week, doing the grocery shopping, the cooking, laundry, walking the dogs, etc. I made a huge pot of bean soup today and then left so my son and his wife can have some time to themselves this weekend before the big event on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, their daugther, Sophia Marie, will arrive via C-section around nine o'clock. I am pretty stoked about that. I won't be present for the surgery, but I will be at the hospital and will get to see the baby as soon as she is born. Pretty exciting stuff. I have been doing everything I can to make my daughter-in-law's life easier this final week. She worked all week at her job, and yesterday was her last day until mid-May. She insisted on going to Costco on her own today, even though her ankles are very swollen. So I made sure there was plenty of food made, the kitchen clean, house straightened, and nothing to stress the mama to be unnecessarily, then headed out in the rain.

I am so happy to be part of this new life. It feels like a "bonus" and it is. I will spend a week with my son's family after mama and baby get home so Camille will not have to climb up and down stairs for the first few days. Who knows? It may be tough to go back home. I cannot wait to hold that baby girl, and I could get used to being with her really easily. I have sent lots of prayers up to God that this new life will be a normal healthy little girl.

In terms of food and exercise, today was erratic. I "moved" a lot but did not do my exercising, per se. Food for kind of off the wall, but I am okay for the day. I HAD to test the bean soup; since I don't use a recipe, I never know exactly how it is going to taste, so I checked it out, made some adjustments, then tested it again. I had celery and an apple for breakfast, tasted the bean and ham soup for lunch, then had sugar free popcorn and rice cakes for dinner. Snack of an apple with a few slices of cheese finished up the day. Still taking in water.

I find it is more challenging to get my water down here. I need to set up my "system" like I have at home: each evening, I fill six of the 16.9 oz water bottles and line them up so I am ready to go the next morning. That, plus the bottle I drink during the night and my one or two mugs of coffee in the morning, pretty well take care of my hydration needs. I have not been as disciplined here in Oregon with my water, so I need to clean up my act.

I lost only one pound this week, and shorting myself on the water is probably the reason. My daughter-in-law (bless her heart!!) told me yesterday that I looked slim. What sweet words to my ears...

I really want to be healthy, which means at a healthy weight. My loss seems so very slow compared to so many others, but the fat IS coming off, and for that I am so grateful. Thank you, God.

I noticed something different about my legs this morning as I undressed for my shower: the skin on my legs looks "uneven" and sort of "wrinkly" and I can pinch a layer of fat on my lower legs as well as my upper legs. I "think" I have lost some inches on my legs and the unevenness I am seeing is the result of the skin on my legs being looser. Not a look I particularly like, but I will take it for now... Beats being so fat I cannot pinch an inch.

Following the Dogs Uphill Makes My Burning Calves Scream for Help

I have been so very busy these past few days, helping a family member with a variety of tasks. Making a contribution, so it is all good.

One of the tasks I have taken over for her is walking her two dogs. Since my son and his wife live halfway up an incredibly steep hill, I can either walk down and then back up, or walk up and then back down. I choose to do the up down option, and while I thought my legs were in pretty good shape, OMG!! I walk the dogs one at a time, since one is under a year old and wild as a hare, and both trips give me cause for some serious breathing and some real thinking about the condition of my body.

I definitely need to stretch before I begin walking the dogs. By the time I have gone three blocks straight up, my poor calves are BURNING with pain. I take some small consolation in the fact that I must be getting rid of some serious calories with all this pain. My heart is racing, I am out of breath, and I am wishing the dogs were not quite so eager to get to the top of the hill, which feels like a mountain by the time I get to the top. This morning, in the midst of my pain, I reveled in the reality that each step is moving me closer to health, and for that I am grateful.

Bring it on.

Just Don't Feel Like Lovin' You Today

Anyone familiar with that song? It is awesome in my book and totally reflects how I feel some days about myself, my husband, my life, my food addiction, the world, etc. There are days I just don't want to deal with anything or anyone, days when just getting through the day takes every ounce of energy and courage I have.

Can you tell I am having a fibromyalgia day? When I have a fibro attack, I hurt all over, I have no energy, I sleep all the time, I feel "out of touch" with everything and everyone, including myself. Not sure where this attack came from (usual prompters are extreme stress or extreme fatigue). Maybe the cold and being away from home with no schedule, no predictability in my day has gotten to me. I may have skipped some meds last night also. In fact, I am pretty sure I did.

I feel pretty fragile right now. Hate it when that happens. I love feeling strong and determined and focused. The good news is that I found a couple of new blogs tonight, ones that stress staying positive. So I will work on that. I can do this. I can do this. I WILL do this.

Catching Up on Success Stories is Fun

Unbelievably, it is after midnight, and I have spent hours catching up on my blog reading. Since I am not at home, I have very unreliable Internet access. This week we are moving back and forth between family and a friend's house, and there is no Internet access at our friend's house. He does not own a computer -- won't even consider it -- so I am SOL when we are at his house. Since my husband spends all his nights there, I need to give up computers periodically in order to spend time with him.

My husband will return to Arizona this weekend, but I will stay here for all of January. I am in my son's apartment and alone tonight since he is working his shift at the fire department, where he is an EMT. He spent last night at home so we could have dinner together and catch up on each other's lives. Since he is national chair or something of the American Heart Association as well as an EMT, we frequently have lots of conversations about health and fitness. He is really glad to see that I am what he calls "taking care of myself" and getting healthy. He will leave Thursday morning for Dallas, where he is filming a training program for the Heart Association. He won't get home until very late Sunday night.

It is very nice to be near my boys after a six month absence, for I miss them so when I cannot be near them. Even though it is after midnight, I just got a text message from my other son, reminding me I can stay at his place anytime I want. Nice to be wanted.

I have now finished my water for the day, the last of it in the form of hot water, and that tasted really good in the cold weather. No fireplace in this apartment, and the insulation is not the best from the feel of things. The heating system is kind of strange in this apartment based on my limited experience, but, hey, it works, so no real complaints. Just seems strange that the only heating element for the kitchen, dining area, and living room is a single little unit in the dining room.

Right now I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with gratitude for the wonderful support group I have stumbled into. So great to know that others are also walking the same path I am on toward fitness and good health. Such an exciting time for so many of the bloggers I follow, so many success stories. What an impressive group of people, and I am so encouraged by the examples they set by their actions. If someone had told me that I could lose steadily (albeit slowly) like I have been doing since I joined this group, I would not have believed it.

For reasons unknown to me, the people I know are either very thin, very tiny people for the most part. I also have a friend who has had gastric bypass surgery, hated what it did to her life, and has gained a lot of weight back. She constantly tells me I look great and don't need to worry about my weight. Sweet, but not true. My other friends, in an effort to be kind, tell me I look fine. People sometimes think they are helping you when in fact they are not doing you any favor by indirectly discouraging efforts to lose weight.

I guess everything in life can be perceived as relative, but as an unhealthy, obese person, I do not gain anything at all by being told I look good when I am 40 pounds overweight, and I have the high cholesterol and high blood pressure to prove it. Additionally, I am borderline Type 2 diabetic due to my poor food choices as well as the quantity of food I used to consume. What I need to hear are comments like, "I am excited for you that you are making your health a priority" or something to that effect when I say, "no, I am watching what I eat" to an offer of a piece of cake or a second helping.

It will be so cool to see what my glucose reading is when I have my next blood test. That will be with my new doc, of course, since my ex-doc (the incompetent one) has no recollection of even discussing diabetes with me. She suggested I go to diabetes food classes to learn how to reduce the sugar levels in my blood, but now she has no recollection of ever talking to me about diabetes. Hello!! Doctors can be very scary....as in, what do older people who become forgetful do when they have a doctor like that? Sounds downright dangerous to me.

But I digress. My glucose level was 121, and I expect a SIGNIFICANT improvement with my new way of eating. I am totally excited about taking better care of my body and getting healthy. Yes, the weight loss is nothing short of wonderful, and the improvement to my health is awesome as well. I'm dreaming of a healthy body....just like the one I used to have.

Thank you, God. I know I am richly blessed.

Surprising Developments

I cannot believe it, but I am currently losing weight without a lot of effort on my part! What is truly amazing is that I don't think about food all the time. I used to finish a meal or snack and immediately begin thinking about the next food I could and would eat. No kidding; if I was running an errand in the car, I would make sure I had something to eat in my purse and/or in the car. I remember one time in the not very distant past when I could not find a snack pack of peanuts I was sure I had brought with me, and I panicked! I searched everywhere and could not find those peanuts. I finally decided I must have dropped them on the way to the car. And the first thing I did when I got home from my errands was to look for the peanuts. Found them in the car a week later.

That I can go several hours now and not think about food is nothing less than amazing. I don't know how long this will last, but it is a great feeling. Thank you, God, and thank you, fellow bloggers.

This morning, I weighed myself and found I was down. Ordinarily, I would have used that weight loss as cause for celebration, which would have meant I could eat something to "celebrate" my loss. Today, I did not even think about celebrating until I was getting out of the shower and marveling at the weight loss, and then it occurred to me that I had felt nothing but JOY when I saw the number on the scale. No desire to eat, only a desire to lose more. I am so grateful for this feeling. It is so very cool to get excited about losing weight instead of being afraid to feel good about it for fear it will go away tomorrow.

Does that make any sense? My weight has been such an up and down yo-yo for so many months, regardless of what I did or did not do, regardless of what I ate or did not eat. What I know for sure is that I am closely watching my calories now, more than ever before. Maybe my body simply decided to get off its fat butt and start responding to my efforts. I truly do not understand all of this, but I will take it.

I'm dreaming of a slim body.....just like the one I used to know....