Trials of a Long Haired Girl

I was going through my blogs on Bloglovin' and ran across a blog post from Coffee Cake and Cardio entitled  Focused on the Wrong Thing .  I have to say that I was a little blown away and it felt like she was in my head.  Although I have not been working with a behavioral nutritionist, I can definitely relate to what she is saying for sure.   I have been doing Weight Watchers for a number of years and, honestly, I should have hit goal a number of years ago.  I managed to successfully lose over 40 lbs on Weight Watchers when I first joined, but with the stress of job changes and planning a wedding, I re-gained my weight.  I know that when I was a small child (and I do mean small since I was wearing toddler size clothing when I started school) my focus was not on food for comfort.  Unfortunately, between my second grade and third grade year, everything changed.  I am not overly fond of change but my school district decided to close my school...

I recently saw this article pop up on FaceBook about The Biggest Loser on the  NYTimes  webpage entitled After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight .  Honestly, Danny Cahill was one of my favorite contestants ever.  I hate that he has gained back his weight, but it honestly explains a lot about several of the previous contestants and their weight gain.  I then read the  Snack Girl  blog about the study.  I have to say I agree with Lisa's statement: " Society also has a long way to go to accept people of different sizes."   As a whole, society tends to frown or look down at those who have weight issues.  From time to time, even I have found myself passing a judgment against people who are bigger than myself.  It is something that I struggle with and I get frustrated with myself for judging anyone even in my head.   For me, this is a big reminder to myself not to beat myself up over regaining my weight. ...

So much has happened since I have posted last that I hardly know where to begin, but I celebrated my 45th birthday on Tuesday, the 29th and on Wednesday, the 30th, my mom was taken by ambulance to the emergency room for breathing difficulty and swelling in her legs.  She was diagnosed that Wednesday with congestive heart failure, which add to her previous diagnoses of C.O.P.D. and Diabetes.  To an extent, I walked this road before with my grandmother. We moved forward with her admission to the hospital.  On Thursday, we were told that she couldn't eat because she was having a procedure.  Hours later, we became aware that her procedure was being pushed to later in the day, so she was able to have liquids.  A few more hours passed and we were told that it was being moved to the following day, so she was finally able to eat late in the day.  On Friday, she was pulled down for her procedure.  When it was over, there were no stents placed but it was deter...

I have had a lot of stress going on of late and my food and workouts have been suffering, to say the least.  I had lost 2.2 lbs last week, but gained 3.4 lbs this week.  There is much going on, but I have to figure out how to handle this and move forward.  I do not want to go into 46 (45 is approaching too quickly for me to finish losing the weight before it arrives) being overweight and not happy in my own skin.   This is about me finding what works for me with my life now.  I figured out what worked for me 7+ years ago, but it is not the same now.  I was a single mother with family support and had workout buddies, etc.  Now, I have a husband and children and my mother to take care of and it isn’t always easy to make the schedule work.  I need to figure out how to juggle the schedule.  I am blessed to have a supportive and helpful husband and children, so I am not handling everything completely by myself.   I have made some big change...

I will apologize in advance for this lengthy post. Dear Weight: We’ve had our ups and down, literally.  I did not realize how bad things were for the longest time.  Or maybe I did and I just didn’t want to admit it.  You were my protection, my comfort and the bane of my existence.  However, I am ready to break up with you.  We've been together a long time, but I don't want to be "besties" anymore.  For my health and for my family, I need to move forward with removing you from my body.  You are doing bad things to me.  You increase my risk of heart disease, just to name one.  I want to be healthy and live to enjoy many, many years with my wonderful husband and my amazing family.  Here’s my backstory:  I started out as a chubby baby, but turned into a very thin child.  Until third grade when my school was closing and I had to change schools.  Then I gained weight, a lot of weight in a very short period bec...

Here’s my Friday update: I am down 0.8 lbs. this week.  While it may not be as much of a loss as some, it is still a loss AND the even more important thing for me this week is that I tracked every meal every day!  I am proud of that fact.  I am, however, pondering changing my strength training goals for the moment.  I was reminded this week that I need to have a little bit of wiggle room in the event of an emergency.  My DS15 ran into a car while riding his bike and that was a scary situation, but we wound up spending a fair bit of time in the ER and I had such a headache when it was over.  I do not want to set myself up for feeling like a failure.  At the present, I think I may adjust it for 2 times per week and continuing to hit my step goal, which is still changing from week to week.   I know I need to focus a little more on my food intake in the coming week.   At present, I am 7.6 pounds down from my highest weight.  ...

Hi friends!  I hope all is well!  I am excited to share that I successfully managed to track all weekend!  I was not always easy as DH and I had a date night and I had trouble trying to find a way to accurately track what I had, but I picked things that looked to be approximately the same amount of Smart Points.  My primary goal was to track and I did that.   So a question for all of you, how do you feel about meal planning/meal prep?  I believe I have changed my attitude regarding meal planning/meal prepping and it has definitely made a difference for me.  I may not have everything planned out for each day and I don't think I would ever be that girl, but I have snacks prepared and have an idea of what I am having each day and ideas about dinner.  This allows me to track what I am having and I can be prepared. Something else I feel good about so far in February, I have hit my step goal each day since Jan. 31st and got in some strength traini...