Oh God, Time to Start Over

Somehow, I lost nearly two years. I completely failed and didn't lose any weight. I just blew it. I woke up this morning and almost two years have gone by since my last blog post.

You can ask me what happened, but I'm not even sure I can answer the question. I had every intention of keeping up my blog, keeping with my goals, and sticking to the proverbial "game plan" but somehow that got shot to shit.

I may be a mess, but I'm going to pick my fatass up and start again. I am stronger than this.

Day 12 - Can We Forget This Day?

Slept horribly. Have a cough. Feel like poo. Dragging ass. Wiped out. Goodnight.

Day 11 - Fast Food Saviors

I made a vow early on in this quest to stop eating at all restaurants that have a drive-thru window. The reality of my world is that I travel almost every day for work and I eat out a lot. I take snacks with me on the road, but quite often I end up eating meals in restaurants.

I have tried to bring an ice chest in my car with some healthy food, but honestly that ended miserably. I'm busy, and admittedly disorganized. I'm always on the go for work or taxiing my kids to activities.

In case of extreme food emergencies when I don't have time to sit down in a restaurant and eat something healthy, I have found some fast food saviors! In fact, Carls Jr nearly saved my life today. I chose the "Charbroiled Barbeque Chicken Sandwich" and an ice tea. The sandwich has 380 calories and only 7 grams of fat. The best part is, it was yummy and filling. It actually had less calories and fat than the salads (something us dieting folks can often be deceived into thinking is always the best choice for us).

I haven't had the opportunity to check out the new Taco Bell "Fresco Menu" choices, but one of my girlfriends highly recommends them. All of the items on the "Fresco Menu" are between 150 and 340 calories and 4 and 8 grams of fat.

Do you think the fast food giants are reading Leaving Lardass? Me neither. Well, whatever is going on it appears that at least a few of the fast food giants are making strides towards providing healthy choices to their clientele.

Day 10 - A Bad Case of the Monday's

Monday hit. I hate it when that happens. I didn't make time to exercise today, and for that I should be beat with large blunt objects. Here I am writing a blog about losing my lardass and I skipped a day of exercise. The morning was a blur, the workday a disaster, and the evening was a cluster**** to the tenth power. Needless to say, I fell into bed and prayed for Monday to go away.

I believe the lesson to be learned here is that sometimes days come at us like freight trains, and it's okay as long as we pick ourselves up and get back to work the next day. (I did very good with the healthy foods today despite my crappy day otherwise!)

Day 9 - Changing my Choices

Day 9 was the day to change my choices in the refrigerator and the pantry. I made a list, saddled up the kids, and made a big trip out grocery shopping for good choices. A few items on the list were:

Broccoli
Bananas
Avocados
Blueberries
Brown Rice
Nonfat Yogurt
Nonfat Cottage Cheese
Kidney Beans
Edamame
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Ground Turkey
Special K Cereal
Cereal Bars
egg beaters
green tea
mandarin oranges
bell peppers
fresh spinach
tomatoes
flax seeds
oatmeal

I figure if I am surrounded by healthy food I can't go wrong. We made the trip to the grocery store a learning experience. My six year-old kept asking, "Mommy what's healthy about this?" and as we cruised through the store we talked about the importance of making good choices to keep our bodies strong and healthy.

So with all this healthy chow at home, I'm going to be ready to take on the world this week!

Day 8 - I'm Getting in Shape to Get in Shape

Took the boys to jujitsu this morning and their professor (who is an 8th degree black belt badass babe that I adore) asked me if I was coming back to train at the dojo. I panicked for a quick second, and replied "I have to get in shape first". She laughed, rolled her eyes, and smiled at me.

The last time I went to her class I could barely walk for a week. I was literally in so much pain that I layed on the couch with icy hot pads on me and took Aleve for the entire weekend. I felt like an 80 year-old with arthritis. This level of pain post-workout is a huge mental deterrant to future workouts.

I've found that for me to stick with a exercise plan it has to be realistic to the level of fitness that I'm currently at. Baby steps. Although I feel like a complete gimp when I work out for 15 minutes and I'm wiped out, I know that if I can just increase my stamina a little at a time I'm more likely to stick with the program. If I go out and kill myself early on, I'm likely to give up and get injured.

For the record, I do plan to get back to jujitsu when I'm feeling a bit more in shape. The jujitsu workouts are brutal and I'll be ready for them soon. I would love nothing more than to become a badass and get in shape!

Day 7 - Sleep is My Friend

The importance of a good nights rest can not be understated. Sleep is important for health and wellness, and it's the most yearned for commodity in every young mother's life. I crave sleep. Ever since I was a child I have been a nightowl. I have a hard time shutting down my brain so that I can lay down and go to sleep at night. Once I lay down, I sleep almost instantly, it's just getting there that's the problem. For at least the past 10 years my normal routine includes going to bed sometime between 11pm and 12am and waking up at 6am. I drag myself out of bed and straight to the coffee maker. I'm not even human until I suck down at least two cups of java. I usually don't eat breakfast (another big time no-no!) and then by about 11am, I'm feeling so shakey I can't even think straight. (Brilliant, eh?)

When I look at this, I realize my pattern is terrible on many levels. First of all, every expert in modern medicine says that the human body needs at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a night for wellness. They also all agree that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I was recently reading an abstract from the American Diabetes Association publication "Diabetes Care" ( http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/31/Supplement_2/S303.abstract ) which talked about the link between abdominal fat and sleep apnea. I suffer from both of these issues. While no one really knows yet if being a lardass causes sleep apnea or if sleep apnea causes lardassitis, it doesn't really matter. The important thing to remember is that sleep and weight gain feed themselves and can become a viscious cycle. There are tons of studies out that talk about the different hormones effected by the sleep cycle and how those hormones interact with weight gain. I'm rather certain that my issues with insulin resistance (which is the cause of polycystic ovarian syndrome) and sleep apnea have contributed greatly to my enlarging body over the years.

So, what the hell am I going to do about it? Well, for starters I gave myself a bedtime. I am going to do my best to be in bed by 10pm, and I'm trying to sleep until 7am when I can. I am also forcing myself to have breakfast every day. This has worked out well this week so far. I find that when I eat breakfast, I think more clearly and I'm less likely to get hungry and become frantic and eat something stupid.

It's really silly that taking care of myself seems like such hard work. I'm enjoying breaking my bad habits though. It's almost like I can feel myself slowly getting better every day.