Do I Look Fat In This?

I had a couple of days of extreme nostalgia, which was lovely.  I uploaded some older photos to Facebook and remembered how thin I used to be and how fat I thought I was.  I remembered the shame I felt at my size, a whopping, enormous 10/12, 12/14.  I can’t remember a time when I was not ashamed of my weight.  Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

I still have not found my mental meditation stone for weight loss.  I’ve done some meditating, some tapping, some praying about it and it’s as though I have no foundation on which to stand to do it (and I am really, really good at it).  I still go through the motions.  I take my beloved Mila every day.  I watch what I eat every day.  I drink my water every day.  I still do not exercise, even though I know I should.  It’s coming and it’s real.  If not before, I know when the kids start school, I will exercise daily.  I can’t help but feel self-conscious working out in front of people, even my children.  When they are gone, I will have the house to myself and can focus.

I don’t feel bad about that.  There can’t be any shame in losing 30 pounds, taking a short break and then getting back to it again.  

The Mila still helps tremendously on so many levels, even after all of these months.  While I was on vacation, Kathy and I would order a small glass of chocolate milk with an extra glass, divide the milk and chug our Mila.  Of course, that meant we had to hand a really nasty, crusty glass back to the waitress and say, “Um, you might want to get that washed right away.”  Kathy had been out of Mila for a few days and said she noticed a change in her sleep quality right away.  To me, that and the absence of any stomach acid or sourness are the best results.  

When Delena and I were working out with the Sports Active before, we did not incorporate the balance board because we were working out together, at the same time, and we only have the one.  For my next exercise stint, I want to use the balance board because I know that there are a lot of different exercises you can do when you tell the game to include its availability.  My goal is to get in at least an hour a day of exercise, plus maybe take a walk.  I will also be using the Wii Fit because I really do miss using it.

Historically, when I am cutting calories as far as I am now plus working out, I see immediate and impressive results.  I have just rarely done both at the same time because I have a knee-jerk resistance to the sacrifice of the comfort eating (a necessity for me if I’m going to stay below 1200-1500 calories a day) added to the exercise, which I’d truly prefer not to do.  I do realize that not exercising right now is a luxury I am giving to myself and one I can ill afford.  On the other hand, I tell myself that I am not under any kind of obligation to go full force, producing a particular and consistent result all of the time.  This is my journey and my process.

Eric is the voice of reason, finally getting his say in last night on my recent lack of progress.  I knew it was boiling up in him and I had deliberately avoided discussing it with him on anything except the most shallow of levels.  He has a lot of ego and personal agenda wrapped up in this because, dammit, he wants a thin wife and that’s that.  It’s not that he doesn’t love me, but he wants what he wants and he has never been one to make any bones (no pun intended) about what he wants.  To his mind, this is something that would make him very happy that I could give to him, but I’m withholding because it’s hard to do.  

We’ve had the “Eric, it’s not about you” talk, and he does understand that, but for each of us, the things that happen to us and around us are, to a great degree, always about us.  He has something he wants.  There’s one person who can give it to him.  That one person isn’t delivering.  He sees me currently drifting along in a sea of basic apathy about something that is a very passionate and important cause to him.  His interest is not just personal in terms of what attracts him and what doesn’t, but because I am also older than he is, he worries that in a few years, the window for me to lose the weight will have closed and the health problems of obesity will take hold quickly.  It’s not an unreasonable prognosis and I don’t blame him for being concerned.  

He also takes this from a spiritual perspective, being that I planted this weight loss in March and harvest starts next week and I’m not out there “in the field” working on those crops, so to speak.  

We discussed the situation in a very heart-to-heart way last night and toward the end, he was talking and I was just processing.  His presentation was so insistent, so absolute, that I had to stop making excuses, stop thinking about it in my head, stop trying to figure anything out about it and just do it.  I can accept that he was in a spiritual place, speaking his heart and honestly trying to motivate me out of what he views as complacency.  What I wanted, of course, was for him to tell me, “You know, it’s wonderful that you’re doing this and I think our lives will benefit from it greatly, but if you don’t or you can’t, it’s OK.  I’ll love you and want to be with you and think you’re sexy whether you’re 90 pounds or 500 pounds.”  In a perfect world, that would have happened, but in the real world, that’s not my husband.  In that moment of listening to him talk at length about how important this is and that I have to do this before I get older, I felt the resistance coming up in me.  Because we were in our spiritual space, I let it flow through me and out of me; not in words, but just in a release and grounding of energy.  I even had a momentary flash of anger thinking, “I will lose this weight and then find someone who would have loved me even if I was still fat and let them benefit from my efforts.”  It was a horrible, dark moment, but it was there.  

In the end, I allowed myself to focus on the part he said about not thinking about it or meditating on it, but just doing it.  The reason it resonated for me is that I had not told him about losing my mental meditation stone and he didn’t know I’d been struggling with that part.  I know his intent, although partially selfish in nature, comes from love.  

I also know that part of my reaction to what he says comes from the frustration of feeling I need to change to be accepted.  One of the reasons I am overweight is because I do not enjoy doing active things.  I like to play softball and volleyball and badminton, but beyond that, there is very little I like to do that keeps people fit.  I don’t swim or roller blade.  I don’t enjoy hiking or skiing or running.  Even when I was fit, it wasn’t my thing.  I ran every morning as a means to an end and I hated every step.  I’ve never been a “get out there and do things” person.  I’ve always been a “watch a movie, read a book” kind of person.  There is a part of me that does not want to become a different person than I am just so he or anyone else will feel better about me, prouder of me or “like” me more.  I feel the resistance in me to that change as well.  I’m not afraid that if I lose weight, I’ll turn into a different person.   I’ve been thin before and I was of the exact same mindset (which is, again, why I am now overweight). What bothers me is that I could (and likely will) lose the weight and then still be what Eric describes as a “reticent” person and that will likely be disappointing to me.  Because he has never known me as anything but a fat person, he doesn’t take me seriously when I tell him that I have never been different in my interests.  I think he believes that it has just been so long, that I’ve forgotten that I was so much more active.

This is a struggle, to be sure.  There are so many hard-wired, built in reactions in place that are like beasts to be fought and bested.  There is the challenge to decide what battles to fight and which ones to let go.  There is the balancing of this as a mental, emotional, sacred and physical quest.  There is the focus on smaller goals while still realizing this is a long, long, difficult process full of pitfalls and false gods and personal sacrifice for a greater good.

Right here, at this point, is where I normally give up completely and get busy putting back on any weight I have lost and then some.  To get different, I have to be different and do different.  I have to see this pivotal point as a sacred moment where all things are possible and then move forward rather than retreat into what is easier and safer.

Thirty pounds is a lot to lose and I’ve dumped most of that since April.  If I can do that 3 more times, I’ll be golden.  I gave birth 6 times.  I’ve moved to a new house countless times.  I’ve been divorced twice (from the same man).  I have released 3 beloved children to go forth into that scary, dark night of “the real world” to begin their lives away from me with another tiny bird poised to fly from the next in the next few years.  I have buried both of my parents.  I have sent a fiance and a son off to war, even though the son did not actually end up going.  All of those things were infinitely harder than doing this.  

I have been given, as gifts from both God and man, all of the tools I need to make this happen.  It has already begun to happen.  Now, I have to move into the next phase and make it happen some more.

I was very surprised and delighted today to find that I have lost two more pounds and I’m now really a few ounces away from having lost 30 pounds this year.  It’s going slow, but I also have not been doing traditional exercise much, which always speeds it up considerably for me.  There’s not good reason.  I just haven’t.  I still take my Mila every day and plan to continue doing so for the long haul.  The health benefits are too profound to not do so. 

It feels wonderful to now be a solid 3 months away from food addiction.  I no longer crave it for comfort.  I no longer crave sweets or high fat foods.  That doesn’t mean I never eat them, but that I don’t long for them or fight my way through the impulse buy aisle at the stores.

I still crave fresh fruit and salads, which never was the case before.  I can feel them giving my body what it needs.  I still drink a lot more water than I did before Mila, which is good.  I still sleep much, much better at night with wonderful, vivid dream time.  My blood pressure and blood sugar levels have stayed completely within normal range.  Still zero acid reflux or sour stomach.  All of the positive results I have felt from that first scoop are in effect.  

I have noticed that I get considerably hungrier as I get close to time for my period to start.  I don’t crave anything in particular, but my appetite goes up a good bit and I pretty much want to eat the whole world, so I just keep careful track of what I am eating and make good choices.

I had a fairly profound moment yesterday and I am still figuring out what to make of it.  I posted it on my Facebook account just as it came from my head and it seemed like it bothered or disappointed some folks.  The thought was, “I don’t care if I lose weight or not.”  I guess it sounded more flip than what it actually was, which is one of the detriments of the written word, damnable lack of inflection. 

One of the things I do to help my process is that every day, I meditate/pray on what I’m doing.  Sometimes, I do the EFT tapping along with it.  Sometimes, I visualize a console in my head and I turn down the dials for appetite, cravings and such and turn up the dials for motivation, metabolism and positive weight loss.  Sometimes, I see myself standing in front of a mirror, getting more and more fit.  I have a whole portfolio of mental images and prompts I use for focus.  It only takes a few minutes and gives me a good touch point on the process.

Yesterday, I took my quiet moment and started looking around in my head for my usual tools and they were just not there.  This is one place where I don’t fake it because you’re really only fooling yourself if you do.  I re-centered and tried again and … nothing.  I could force myself to pull up the necessary images in my head, but again, that’s just going through the motions rather than feeling any kind of Divine connection to what I’m doing.

 After trying several times, I realized it just wasn’t happening for the first time in forever.  I am really, really good at this and for me, this is like getting up one morning and finding I can’t walk.  It’s just what I do.  I tried focusing on other things like prosperity and good health and patience and the connection was immediate.  It was only on the weight loss that I was blocked.   

That being the case, I started meditating/praying on the blockage and asking why I couldn’t get through to it and all I could get was that it didn’t matter and that I should just let it (the weight loss focus) go.  Far be it from me to disobey a Divine order, so I tried out just not caring if I actually lost weight or not and I realized that it felt pretty damned good.  

After a lifetime of struggling with my weight and going though cycles of either feeling successful or like a failure because of my weight, it was strange to feel completely neutral about it.  So many times that I have once again tackled the weight loss issue have been motivated because of other people, either what they’ve said or what they think or what they might think and that is a position of fear and intimidation.  There have been several times that I tackled it just for myself, but like always, I would soon end up fatter than I was before and then again, that prevailing sense of failure.  I wore the cloud of failure around me in a literal fat suit for all to see.  No matter what else I accomplished in my life, that was always the, “Yeah, but…” failure.

I remember being in GRADE SCHOOL hauling a little calorie counting book around to make sure I didn’t go over 1000 calories.  During the times in my life when I was thin, I still obsessed on my weight, got terrified if I gained a pound or two and exercised obsessively.  I have spent a solid 40 years focusing on fat and where has it gotten me?  Fat.

I think that definitely proves the theory that what we fear, we create and what gets are attention grows…like my ass.  

I do not intend to change anything in terms of how I eat or exercise because of this experience.  My eating habits, the new ones at least, are now a part of me and I don’t feel a need to shift them.  I don’t crave the foods I used to eat and sometimes, still eat them in moderation, so there is nothing to grieve from the old, fat-producing days.  I enjoy the water I drink now and don’t resent it at all.  Exercise, when I do it, feels good and natural.  

If I regret this shift later, as some have speculated I will, then so be it.  It’s what feels right for me at this point and it is where I feel I have been led, so I am going with it.  

On Sunday, I saw a couple who I have not seen in several months.  I stopped to talk to her and he was loading some things onto a truck.  He came over and said, “Wow.  You have really lost weight!”  That felt really nice.

There’s still a long way to go before I am what would be considered to be a “normal” or “healthy” size, but I feel 100 times better with the weight I’ve lost so far and I trust that the changes I have made in my life will sustain me through that process.

This is the time of the year when we see our harvests out in the field and know that they are assured, so in the planting process, this change in mindset seems very timely.

It’s menstrual week at Casa Rasbold and that means two things:  1) I’m not losing weight and 2) and I am craving (and not getting) Mexican food.  I am making a very meaty lasagna for Father’s Day and we are going to pile around and watch movies as a family.

I have found that when I’m not losing weight, there is one thing that shakes things up again and that is if I step away from the computer and get busy in real life.  That being the case, I spent yesterday cleaning out sheds and today, cleaning out closets.  I am taking a break from Farm Town (a Facebook application/game where you grow a virtual farm – sounds silly, but it’s very zen and relaxing and I have been spending too many hours on it) until after my trip in July.   By being more active in my daily life, especially now that kids are out of school, I know the weight loss will kick in again.

I’m still eating well with no processed foods to speak of, no candy, cookies or cakes and being careful on the portions.  My body has gotten used to living on far fewer calories than it should, so the other side is to kick up the calorie output and amp up my metabolism again.  The good side is that my family benefits from things being cleaner and more organized.  

The next step is yard work and there is plenty of that to do and I have just the set of kids I need to help me with it.  The garden isn’t really high maintenance just yet, but we need to get the yards cleaned up and trimmed and under control.

I look forward to the outside, active time and I know I am doing what my body needs.

I hope your efforts are going well!

Ha ha.  I’m not what ANY sane person would consider to be skinny by any stretch of the imagination, but I did find a small box of clothes I’d packed away last summer as too small.  I was actually on the verge of donating them to charity because I figured I’d never actually lose the weight and might as well free up the room.

Today, when I tried them on, they fit perfectly!!  It’s like having a whole new wardrobe!  When I put on my 3X size clothes, they hang on me like a tent and I can’t believe I ever actually fit into them.  It’s so exciting that people are starting to notice the change.  

Tomorrow is my day to weigh in. Delena and I have been exercising using the EA Sports Active.  We mostly do the sports, like boxing, baseball, tennis, basketball and dancing, but wow, it definitely gives us a great work out!  My arms were sooorrre!

The Mila continues to be my best buddy.  I can tell such a difference on the days when – for whatever reason – I don’t take it.   God help me if I miss 2 days.  I start to feel like I could eat everything in the house, my energy is nothing and I don’t sleep well.

Speaking of the Mila, I have finally gotten around to posting some of the newer testimonies from other people who are having great results using the product.  They are in the menu to the right under “Pages” via the link that says, “Mila Testimonies.”

There are a few people here and there who have problems with the Mila seeds, but usually a slight adjustment corrects the problem.  Everyone is different and results are not the same for everyone.  Here are some suggestions:

Constipation:  If you are having constipation when taking Mila, the usual reason is that there is not enough water – actual water, not just liquid – being injested in a day and/or that you are not getting enough additional fiber in your diet.  Mila itself is a fiber, but you still need leafy green foods to aid your bowel movements.  I recommend this before taking laxatives.  Eat a salad or other serving of leafy vegetables every day and drink a minimum of 4 bottles of water a day.  That should fix the problem.

Intestinal or Stomach Upset:  Some people have a problem with mild stomach or intestinal cramping after taking Mila.  This is almost always resolved by taking a half scoop in the morning and a half scoop at lunch rather than the entire scoop at one time.  

Still Have Cravings or Not Getting the “Good Sleep.”:  As I said, everyone is different and finding that Mila does not work for you in the positive way I have experienced usually means that a little more Mila is needed.  Mila is not a medication; it is a food, so you can eat more of it if you wish.  There are actually people who use Mila as a meal replacement for all three meals a day and then supplement with snacks that contain the additional vitamins and nutrients they need that is not provided by the Mila.  If you do not feel you are getting optimum results from Mila, try taking a scoop in the morning and a half scoop at lunch, then going to a full scoop at lunch if that doesn’t do the trick.  Usually, just a slight bit more will make all the difference.

For me, having the sour stomach, reflux and indigestion go away is the biggest benefit.  Next is actually sleeping through the night for the first time in ages and then the weight loss.  Since the weight loss is pretty important to me, you can see how important the stomach and sleep benefits are.

I have stopped thinking in terms of having to beat a deadline or race anyone with my weight loss results. One of the things the Mila has taught me is that each person is different and has to find their own way to make it work.  For me, that’s Mila – which reduces my calories, and exercising.  I exercised for over a year with Andie and although I got more flexible and stronger, I can’t say it affected my weight loss much.  I had to totally change my eating patterns to see good results.  Twenty-six pounds will soon turn to thirty, then thirty will be behind me forever and I will be looking at forty pounds lost.  When I hit fifty, I’ll already be halfway through my weight loss journey.  Come to think of it, at 26, I’m a quarter of the way through and that’s some fantastic progress.

It’s exciting to see it actually happening after all this time and admittedly, my patience is straining a bit because I’m eager to get there.  I have to remind myself that it took time to get here and it will take time to lose the weight as well.

Thanks to everyone for their love & support.

I have not exercised in quite a while, but the clothes are still getting bigger on me, so I am not too worried.  I know I will start up again soon.

I have been exceptionally diligent about my eating knowing that I am not exercising.  Eric and I just put on a major event in our town that required weeks of planning.  The last week was particularly brutal and we finally had the event on Sunday.  I was D.O.A. Monday, went to town for provisions yesterday and I’m still really wiped out today.  If I didn’t take the Mila, I’d be in really bad shape.  The balance and energy it gives me really helps, as well as the good night’s sleep I normally get.

Last night, I didn’t realize how late it was and I had a couple of glasses of Dr. Pepper.  Evidently, it was enough caffeine to work against the Mila and keep me awake in the middle of the night.  I went to sleep quickly around 10:00 PM, but woke up just before 1:00 AM because the dog had to pee and I just could not get back to sleep.  One of the things the Mila does is help you feel refreshed when you wake up, whether you slept for 8 hours or 4.  That aspect of the Mila, mixed with the caffeine, had me wide awake.

I did some computer busy work and finally got back to sleep around 4:00 AM.  Today, I am fairly draggy and tired, but feel otherwise well.

The event on Sunday was the first time I have been out and about since Fall and it was great to have so many people notice the weight loss.  I did not think it was that visible, but several folks commented on it and that was very, very nice.

I was bent over painting signs for the event a few days before and Eric (who very rarely says anything of this nature) commented that my butt looked a lot smaller.

My daughter-in-law has reached MY goal for July already following her gastric bypass surgery.   I’m not even close, so I have given up on reaching it.

In fact, I’ve pretty much let go of the goal aspect of what I’m doing.  I know that I am eating well and despite the past week, exercise is an important part of my life now, as is the Mila seed.  I’ve incorporated the necessary changes, both physically and in mindset, and I know that the positive outcome is assured.  The progress is very nearly constant and I could not ask for more.

So many clothes from last summer are too big for me or fit where they did not before.  I was wearing a size 22-24 when I began this journey in January, more enthusiastically in April.  I should have been in a 24-26, but I could not bring myself to buy clothing that large, so I wore tight clothes.  Now, I fit comfortably into a size 18-20.  The weight loss, last time I checked a week or more ago, was at 25 pounds.  I love to go pick up a 25 pound bag of dog food or charcoal and think about how heavy it really is.  The scale read 26 pounds down at one point, then settled back at 25.  I’m betting it’s more of that by now, but I have not yet checked.

Physically, I feel so much better.  I’d always viewed weight loss as the big picture; how much better my life would be when I lost 100 pounds or more.  I didn’t think about the journey itself and how once I got on the right path, I would feel better much, much sooner and continue to feel better and better as I progressed.

There is still a long way to go.  My next big moment will be when I go below 200 pounds for the first time in around 17 years.  

It’s easier than I expected now that I have the right plan and the right tools for me, but it still has its challenges and I know that just a couple of false moves could put the whole process into the ditch and have the weight regained in no time at all.  It goes back on so much faster than it comes off and that warning is always in my mind.

I am grateful that for me, the Mila combats the majority of the cravings and keeps my portion control in check.  It eliminates the sour stomach and reflux and that, in and of itself, is worth continuing it.

One day turns into another and another and the weight is coming off.  For that, I am truly grateful.

That’s two more pounds I hope to never see again.

For those of you who are keeping track, I think that is 26 since January.  That doesn’t count the 2-3 pounds I’ve lost and regained several times.  I am optimistic for this week because I know I am holding some fluid weight that should be gone the next time I weigh.

Delena and I have been walking, but prior to yesterday, by the time she got awake and ready to move, it was just too hot out for a big ol’ thang like me to be hauling up and down these mountains.  On Wednesday, we did the Biggest Loser Yoga work out with Bob Harper.  It’s a good work out, don’t get me wrong, but at some point – and I’m not even sure when – I threw my back out big time.  I think it was likely in the moves that go from plank into upward facing dog.  I didn’t feel anything make damaging sounds at the time, but by 5pm or so, my back was really singing.  It’s the same area that went out on me when I was pregnant with Nathan.  He was a really big baby and also my 6th and around month #8, something just gave out and I ended up spending most of my last month in bed because of it.  It’s right in the small of my back where my uterosacral ligament would connect into my pelvis, that lower back indentation just before your butt crack begins.  Here it is 3 days later and I still am really, really stiff and sore in my back in the mornings and can’t sit or lie down comfortably for any length of time without it really hurting.  Aleve helps a little.  I’m walking like a woman twice my age right now.

Despite that, I was able to work out Thursday and Friday using the EA Sports Active on the Wii.  For those folks who were looking for a less expensive alternative to the Wii Fit, this is it.  It has literally hundreds of exercises and is a great work out.  The balance board is not required.  You just need the Wii and a TV.  I was able to find plenty of exercises that would protect my back and still let me work up a great sweat.  I like that Delena and I can work out together.  It has a function for working out with a buddy and provides a split screen.  We’ve had a great time with it.

I put on my swimsuit the other night to go out into the jacuzzi with Eric and I showed him the leg of the swimsuit.  ”See where the elastic in the leg is stretched out?  My leg stretched that out!”  There was easily a 3-4″ gap between my leg and the elastic of the suit.  It feels really good to see real results, especially when the scale isn’t moving as I’d like for it to.

I am grateful to have lost 26 pounds, don’t get me wrong.  That’s more than I’ve lost in a year in a long, long time.  I’d hoped for more by now; almost double, in fact.  Still, I’ll take the slow, steady progress that I know is going to make a permanent change over the faster progress that may or may not stick around.

Last week for the first time I can remember I went to the movie theater and did not order popcorn.  The smell was absolutely intoxicating, but I remembered well that the last two times I ate movie popcorn, I got really sick afterwards.  By the time I was a third of the way through the movie, I wasn’t missing it any more.

Delena and I have been dividing our food into 5 small meals of 300 calories each.  Since I’m taking the Mila, I have to push myself to eat all of those times, but I know that when I’ve eaten less frequently, my weight loss has slowed down.   I’m drinking lots more water, which I have found is absolutely essential to helping the Mila curb your appetite.  

I went back on the PremPro hormone replacement therapy and after a week at even the lower dose, I’m back to myself again.  I’m grateful to feel grounded, healthy and centered once again.  Being all fragmented and flighty was fun, don’t get me wrong.  I was able to go off in my head and get lost with no problem at all.  Unfortunately, I was more irritable and had trouble focusing to get anything done and that doesn’t fit in with my life right now.  I’m grateful that I can have good results on a low dosage and feel so much better.  Any time I forget to take my Mila, which is rare now, by the end of the night, I have a sour stomach and then I end up not sleeping well.  The day I start taking it again, I begin sleeping soundly through the night and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day.

Because of the good sleep I am getting, I am not sleeping in as late as I expected I would.  I normally wake up around 7:30 – 8:00 (I was figuring more like 9:00 – 10:00) and since my kids all sleep late, I get an hour or two of quiet time before the day begins.  That’s a real blessing.  

I won’t make my goal of being under 200 pounds by mid-July unless something really phenomenal happens (which it did in March, so I don’t discount the idea) and I’m at peace with that.  As long as progress continues and I feel good, that’s all that matters.

I apologize for the delay in updating.  Eric and I have just gone through a tremendously stressful financial time that climaxed (which makes it sound like a pleasant experience, it was not) in the past couple of weeks.  I hate that feeling where despite your best plans, dreams and what you think are very appropriate actions, the world seems to conspire to keep you locked in a perpetual cycle of failures and frustrations.  

In light of all of that, I did not make good food choices and I barely exercised at all.   When I did exercise, there was no real enthusiasm or determination put into it.  I felt defeated and sad and it showed.  

I still took the Mila every day, sometimes twice a day, and that is likely all that saved me.  I did not gain any weight, luckily, but I did not lose any either, which is a shame since that is something that has been easy for me lately.

What happened is I got overly confident because of my progress and did not make the good choices I’d been making.  I’d think that because I was eating so little, I could have a “real” soda instead of a diet one.  I’d have movie popcorn instead of a healthy lunch.  I’d eat fried chicken instead of baked.  So I wasn’t really eating more in terms of volume, but I was in terms of calories.  

That means I pay for that with a couple of weeks of no progress until I got my head out of my sizable butt and figured out what was going on and how (again) I was fooling myself.   I am just grateful that so little damage was done.

Eric said something the other day about my lack of current progress and I said, “Look.  Go to Wal*Mart and pick up a 20 pound bag of dog food and lug it around the store for a while.  That’s slightly less than what I’ve lost so far this year.  From that perspective, I don’t feel too bad that I had no progress for 2 weeks.

Despite our financial woes, I was a selfish mom and wife and bought the EA Sports Active.  It arrived a couple of days ago and boy, it is a heavy duty work out.  I pour sweat when I do this thing.  It has none of the game feel that the Wii Fit has, but is still fun and is very challenging.  I’ve been quite stiff and sore every day I’ve done it.  The only complaint I have is that it doesn’t weigh you (so I have to weigh in using the Wii Fit still) and the response time with the Wii-mote and nunchuck is not nearly as targeted and quick as with the Wii Fit.  That can be fairly frustrating, but the work out is worth it.  I’ve done 45 minutes to an hour each day.

Starting Saturday, Delena and I will be doing the Sports Active and also walking the hills.  Those two things should definitely do the job.  The Mila still dampens my appetite considerably and provides all of the other positive results.  My failure is my own and I am grateful to be back on track.

I haven’t weighed yet this week because that is a Wednesday thing.  I’ve taken the weigh ins down to once a week.  I still work out with the Wii Fit as part of my exercise plan, I just don’t do the body test part.

Today is NOT one of those work out days, however.  I’m giving in to an urge to coddle and nurture myself today.  (It does feel odd not to be doing that with food because previously, that would have included lots of nurture foods)  I went to sleep around 10pm, which is about typical for me.  Elvis woke me up at 1am, just absolutely dying to pee.  Normally, I don’t have any trouble getting back to sleep since I’ve been taking the Mila, but for the past several days, it has been absolutely pouring rain.  Right now is one of the few clear moments we’ve had and I can see one tiny patch of clear blue sky over the trees.  Everything else is clouds.  I have what is possibly the only dog on earth who is afraid of the dark, so if Elvis goes out at night, he has to have the back porch light on and I have to step out onto the porch with him or he flips out.  What can I say?  The boy has issues.  After getting a good dose of sheeting rain on me while he searched around for an hour and a half looking for the very best place to pee, I was pretty well awake.  I did manage to get back to sleep within about 15 minutes of getting back into the bed, which was nice.  At 4am, the other 3 dogs woke me up whining and fussing and complaining.  It’s not like them at all, so I knew something was up.  Sure enough, one of them had gotten sick and pooped all over the work room floor.  Agh.  I got them outside and started mopping and using paper towels and Simple Green to clean.  Two dog beds had to be washed and by then, you can figure I was up for the day.  Dylan is away at Science Camp and so after Delena went to school at 6:30am, I crawled into bed until it was time to get Nathan moving at 8:15am.  At some point, Nathan came in and got in bed with me and we napped right up until the last moment.

I might do that again if it comes down to it.

Tomorrow I will do mad exercises, likely walking the mountains if the weather clears as it is supposed to.  Eric got the weight bench set assembled and I look forward to using it.  It’s on the back deck, so I will have to wait for it to dry out a bit.  

This weekend, I grabbed a sweater I wore a good bit at the beginning of Winter and put it on and wow!  The arms came way down onto my hands and the sweater itself was almost to my knees!  I called Eric in to look at it and he was really amazed.  Even more cool is the fact that honestly, other than making time for the exercise, I’ve barely felt the weight loss in terms of any kind of sacrifice or deprivation.  It’s just happening, which is nice.  I almost feel like I can’t take credit for it.  I’m eating when I’m hungry and I don’t miss anything.

A few days ago, Delena and I were out and I knew I’d not eaten up to my usual 1200 or so calories that day, so I decided to treat myself to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.  I ate it, but just barely.  I could totally taste the grease and sugar in it and it made me about half sick.  I don’t even want the candy any more, which is a lifetime first.  Before, if I would drive through McDonalds, I would get a Filet o’Fish plain with no cheese, a Big and Tasty burger completely plain and an order of fries.  Now, I get a regular plain hamburger or the Big and Tasty if I’m really hungry and a diet coke and I’m done.  I haven’t had fries in forever and don’t miss them.  Same with potato chips, which were a downfall for me.  What’s great is that my McDonald’s bill went down to around $3-4 from $8-9.  

When we would go out for Chinese food, I would have 2 bowls of Mongolian BBQ and an order of plain fried won tons to get full.  Now, I have about 3/4 of a bowl of BBQ and maybe 1/3 of an order of won tons.  It’s strange to eat so little and be completely full, but hey, I’m grateful and it works with no inconvenience to me, so I’ll take it!

Despite working my under arm muscles, whatever you call them, with over and behind my head weight lifting, I am getting the loose skin there that keeps waving after you stop.  I’d so hoped to avoid that, but I guess I’ve just been too big for too long.  I’ll keep working them!

This weekend, I skipped Mila for both days because I was critically low and wasn’t due to get another bag until Tuesday (today).  By Sunday night, I was so uncomfortable.  My heartburn was back and I felt scattered and irritable.  I was eating much more often than I had been and felt – for lack of a better word – contaminated inside.  My systems just didn’t feel like they were working well together.  I took my Mila first thing yesterday and within an hour, I felt better.  It hurt me to realize that the crappy way I felt Sunday night is how I used to feel all of the time.  I’ve gotten so accustomed to feeling well and healthy and rested and grounded and not hungry all the time that I’d forgotten what the norm had been for so long.

So in short, so far, so good.  I’m still on track and excited for the weight loss that each week brings!

Oh and at the last check, I was down 22 pounds since January, 12 of which are since I started the Mila the second week of April.

Hello Everyone!

Today completes my second week of taking Mila seeds.  My weight loss has stabilized to around a half pound every day to 2 days, but it has been steady.  The only time it slowed to less than that was last weekend when I stopped taking them because I wanted to enjoy eating.  I have lost a total of 8 pounds during that 2 weeks, but I had also gained a bit of my lost weight back before I started taking the seeds, so some of that was just making up for backsliding.

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I decided this weekend to avail myself of one of the benefits the Mila seed has over gastric bypass which is that you can stop taking it and not have the hunger suppressed (or so I thought).

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