My First try at Smilebox.com...

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Some things…

I don’t have much battery left on the old laptop so we will see how this one goes…
I’m in so many different directions right now as what I want to write about, but I will start with my dirty secret.  My corner in an extra room I have dedicated to scrap booking.  My son is going to be 8 years old, and I think the last time I scrapbooked with dedication was when he was one year old.  Since then, I have stowed everything that I thought important from his life in this area.  I keep.  I admit it.  I.  Keep.  Everything.  Then I go through it and purge a bit, but still, I keep.  This is a photo of the end result.

I keep.  Therefore, I am.  Whatevah!  I want to find a way to organize this mess and make it into a functional space that I can keep up with.  It is totally overwhelming when I go in there and look at it.  I smell a goal set: I will look for various ways to clean this mess up and ideas on how to get it organized into a keepsake for Thomas.  I will start with finding ideas on what others have done – God bless the internet!  Then I will make a plan on how to accomplish these ideas to work for me.  Then I will start cleaning up the mess one pile at a time.
And on to other news… the other night I tried a tomato peel off mask that I discovered on http://www.crunchybetty.com/.  It consisted of 1/2 cup of a squeezed tomato, for the juice, and one packet of plain gelatin.  You mix together on low heat until the gelatin is dissolved and then let it set until it is “almost” of jello consistency.  Then you slop it all over your face and let it dry.  Then you peel it off which results in beautiful skin. 
I hate tomatoes, other than ketchup and spaghetti sauce.  It was hard for me to slop the tomatoes on my face with the smell and hate and all, but I did it.  This is what I looked like after it was wet and on my face.
I don’t know if you can see the tomato-ey sheen to my face, but it is there.  After letting it dry on my face for about 45 minutes I started the peel off process.  It dried so tight on my face it felt like I was peeling off my skin.  I also worried that peeling it off was basically like waxing the hair on my face.  It hurt.  And I think it was peeling the hair off of my neck too – this is the area I started peeling first.  After a few minutes of pain from the peel off process I took a warm rag to it and it wiped off very easily.  However, I don’t think I will be slopping it on my entire face anymore.  I will probably use her other suggested method of just using it as a peel off nose strip for those pesky blackheads. 
As for the 17 day diet, I am still trekking on somewhere in the middle of cycle 3.  Things are going well and since I have been tracking my 1600 calories a day I have been steadily losing weight.
That’s all for now – battery warning just lit up!
More to follow next time. 

Short & Sweet

I would like to say “Thank you!” to my babysitter last night for showing up and allowing me to have a very spontaneous night out with family and friends in Hammond.  I had a great time and was glad to leave Hammond behind when I was done!  It had been a very long time since I haunted the bars in my old college town… and not much has changed.  There are new faces, new clothing styles, but everything else has stayed the same. 

After returning home to the reality that is my life, I was able to sleep late.  I sort of blew my diet yesterday evening with drinking and food.  I was at about 900 calories by the time I got home from work Friday night and took TomTom to get a treat for getting good behavior all week in class.  We went to the Shiver Shack in Mandeville on the Trailhead.  I had previously bought a groupon so I figured I would treat him and reward his good behavior.  He picked a “Birthday Cake” snowball.  It was yellow cake batter flavor and wedding cake flavor with condensed milk and sprinkles on top.  I chose a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw on it and a “Doberge Cake” snowball.  It was yellow cake batter flavor and chocolate cream flavor.  I asked for condensed milk on it too.

The sandwich I ate was excellent, considering I bought it from a snowball stand.  The snowball didn’t come with the requested condensed milk so I figured the diet gods were on my side on that one.  And I didn’t think the snowball was all that great.  When you got down to the middle of it there was no syrup on the ice.  We have pretty high expectations on snowballs over here.  Overall, I will stick to Papa Sams for future snowballs, but if you are at the trailhead the Shiver Shack is probably your most convenient place.

After my off-the-diet dinner and about four beers and a shot of tequila later…. I woke up this morning and decided to step on my worst enemy…. THE SCALE!!!  I pulled it out of the closet and got on board.  To my utter excitement and a look to the heavens with a big THANK YOU I lost about 3 more pounds. 

Could my theories be correct?  Was I not eating enough calories for the past three weeks and therefore not losing any weight on the scale??? So far, my theory has proven itself correct.  I have been struggling to hit my 1600 calories a day, but have managed to do it before I hit the bed every night.  And to be sweetly rewarded by a 3 pound loss is more than I could have ever asked for!!! Thank you again to the diet gods!!!!

And though this blog wasn’t as short and sweet as I expected... I am short and sweet.  And I find that a perfect line to end on.. until next time!

Thursday is Over

It’s been another long week with work and I am glad it is almost over.  I have a ton of paperwork to sift through tomorrow and I am NOT looking forward to it.
On a better note…. I am still in Cycle 3 of the 17 day diet.  I have started to analyze everything I do as far as eat and exercise to come to the conclusion as to why I didn’t lose any weight in Cycle 2 and have yet to lose weight in Cycle 3.  The most current theory I have come up with is that I am not eating enough calories.  After logging everything I put into my mouth over the past three days I am only hitting the 1300 calorie mark because I find something to shove in my mouth at the end of the day to hit that limit.  According to my own personal research, I should be eating at least 1300 – 1600 calories a day (1300 being on the much lower end) in order to lose 1 -  2 pounds per week.  All I can do is experiment, yet again, and continue to log in my calories and weigh in next week and see if it has made a difference.
I feel like I am trying to seek out that happy medium that my body needs to finally click and lose some weight.  I’m older, and just going on a diet doesn’t seem to be working anymore.  It feels like there are all these equations and factors that have to be met to get the perfect results and VOILA!  You lose a pound!  That’s a lot of work for that pesky pound, but it would be worth it.
My co-worker is also on this diet and is steadily losing weight.  She has lost weight in both Cycle 2 & Cycle 3.  It is a little discouraging, but it doesn’t last long because I know what an achievement it is to lose that weight and I can only be happy for her.  Then I go back to my little head and try to analyze what I am doing that is not giving me the same success.  Is it the age difference, she is 10 years younger than I am, is it the exercise she is doing vs. the exercise I am doing??  She doesn’t seem to be hitting her calories either, but she is still losing the weight so it isn’t much of a concern for her.  This isn’t something I have just started to battle.  It is a battle I have been having with my body for over a year now.  I have done exhausting workouts with trainers, walked miles upon miles, ran miles upon miles, dieted – you name it I have tried it – and without much success.  Logging my calories eaten and calories burned is my last stop before I take all this to a doctor and/or nutritionist.  I will take all these printed out papers and say WTF??? What is going on here?  I don’t want to take any medicines to make it right.  I just want to find the answer.  What else do I need to do to lose weight?  That is pretty much the only source occupying the frustration side of my mind. 
On the creative side, I made my own lip gloss tonight for the first time.  I had all the ingredients around the house and decided to whip some up.  This is what it looks like sitting on my night stand “setting” until tomorrow morning when I can cap it up and put it in my purse.  It is an experiment for one of many planned Christmas presents for friends and family this year.  You can see where I haven’t been able to keep my finger from dabbing in it even though it hasn’t set yet.

As for TomTom, I love that kid.  He told me that this diet thing just isn’t working and he is going to love me know matter what I look like…  that I was always going to be his mom.  Yep, I love him!  He is getting back into the flow of school and enjoying his gifted classes.  He is studying a grade level above his own in math and reading and about to start soccer at the end of August.  I am going to enjoy this next week because it is the last normal week we have before all the extra curricular activities start full blast.  We will have religion on Monday, soccer on Tuesday, Cub Scouts on Wednesday, soccer on Thursday and hopefully nothing on Friday.  Phew!  Just thinking about it makes me want to pull out the calendar and start writing it all down.
Thanks to TomTom’s motivation I have quit smoking… again.  I fumbled over the weekend when I was drinking and bummed a smoke today to appease a craving.  I am learning what triggers a craving and for the most part trying to avoid those things.  This is easier said than done.  I learned today that chewing gum is a trigger for me.  I always popped a piece and went out to smoke.  Today I popped a piece and had a huge craving that I gave into – but I am going to pick myself up and push forward with the hopes of not falling prey to another craving.
I have made a goal to do three journal entries per week.  For me that will be blog entries per week.  So here I am writing my first entry of the week on Thursday (I know, I’m late, right???)  Better late than never.  Until next time…

The 17 Day Diet – Cycle 2

I am well into Cycle 2 of the 17 day diet.

I lost 12 pounds in the first 17 day cycle.  Dr. Mike estimates you to lose 50% of the weight you lose in the first cycle, in the second cycle.  That would be an additional 6 pounds for me.  However, I have lost absolutely nothing in the first 10 days.  I am officially finished with this cycle on Saturday of this week.  Today is Monday.  I have gone to the extreme of hiding my scale in the back of my closet because I was obsessing on how much weight I haven’t lost.  I can tell you for a heavy woman, to eat very little variety, and work out regularly, and still not lose weight is perhaps one of the most frustrating feelings I can have in my life.

I am doing everything the way you I am supposed to do it, and the scale will still not budge.  And the scale has a lot of budging that it is still able to do if I want to get down to my goal weight.  It makes you want to just say screw it and go have a hamburger or something, because you would weigh the same thing if you devoured a hamburger that you weigh from eating a salad and doing your work out.

What gives?

Here is a recap of what my cycle 1 day was today:

350 calorie Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (140 calories), with a 1/8 cup lowfat probiotic milk (16 calories), 1 oz colby jack shredded cheese (37 calories), ground turkey breast (120 calories) with mexican seasoning (15 calories), onions (15 calories) and bellpeppers (6 calories)

Snack: Apple (95 calories)

589 calorie Lunch: turkey burger (240 calories) with a tbspn of light mayo (50 calories) and  ketchup (30 calories) to dip in.  Carrots (50 calories) cooked in 1 tbspn olive oil (119 calories), with dill and salt and pepper.  Juice of one squeezed orange (100 calories).

280 calorie Snack: Iced Coffee with homemade agave chocolate syrup (150 cals)  and 8 oz probiotic milk (130 calories)

40 calorie Snack:  (15 calories) dipped in Hidden Valley Ranch dip made with Vosko’s greek yogurt (25 cals)(1 –2 tbspn)

416 calorie Dinner: chicken breast  (130 calories) in 1 tbspn  (119 calories) olive oil with spinach (7 calories) and alfredo sauce made from: 1/2 cup probiotic milk (65 calories), 2 tbspn chicken broth (5 calories), 2 tbspn Vosko’s greek yogurt (25 calories) , 1/4 cup lowfat parmesan cheese (65 calories).  I did not eat most of the alfredo sauce.  Just cooked the chicken and spinach in it, then picked them out as as I ate it and washed the rest of the sauce down the drain.

80 calorie Snack: 1/ 2 cup sugar free fat free chocolate fudge pudding made with probiotic milk (80 calories)

So that is a total of 1850 calories.  I am trying to meet my calorie allotment as advised by a friend’s trainer.  1850 is still a seriously controlled calorie count for me.  I am generously giving myself calories in the above count too.  I threw out some of my eggs and didn’t eat my alfredo sauce. 

The weight should be coming off. 

I will weigh myself at the end of this cycle and look for that weight loss.

Until then…. good night.

Any advice????

Getting to know you again

Well, what can I say?
It's been awhile.
You are still looking good!
And many other fancy lines that skirt around the actual fact that it has been a really long time since I have wrote something in my blog.
Why?  I've managed to keep myself busy doing other unimportant and insignificant things.
Or I just haven't made the time to sit here and type something up.
So let's get past all the excuses and whining and get to the meat of this post...
Where am I now?
I am sitting in my bed, a few months older, but not much wiser, as the end nears to this too fast summer of 2011.  School will be starting just around the corner and my life will resume its normal routine once again.

Today is August 1st - and I have officially quit smoking... again.  I think that will be the third time in 2011.  Let's not mention how many times I have been down this road before.  One thing I am doing different is using "the patch" and looking to my son when I need some serious motivation to get thru cravings.  Maybe that is what the difference is for tonight.  Instead of spending this time smoking a cigarette on my carport with the dog and cats I am in my room typing a post to keep my hands and mind occupied.
It sounded like a good plan to me.

And since my life is and always will be made up of a plethora of dieting I should add that I am currently on cycle 2 of "The 17 day diet".  As for all those great workouts I accomplished at the beginning of the year, I hit a great lull on the workout front and lost all motivation up until I started the 17 day diet about 20 days ago.  The diet recommends exercising for about 17 minutes a day to keep up the weight loss.  I have been doing about 17 minutes on the treadmill and slowly increasing my incline by one notch every week.  I usually do this Monday thru Thursday, and also do a yoga practice in the evenings on these same nights.  I haven't been able to put much time into exercising on the weekend because I spend that time with TomTom.  I do try to make something we do together active so I get my calorie burning in one way or the other.

And this is where I am right now.  Getting used to the diet regime, continuing on with the exercising, and coping with nicotine withdrawals...again.

This is a pretty generic post... but it is a new start to a good habit.