A New Day

I had a great day. It started off by meeting two old friends from college for breakfast. I think I did good making healthier choices than I normally would make. And I drank a TON of water. I mean, I was floating before my food even came out!

After breakfast/brunch was over, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods to return some shoes that did not work for me. I had tried some of the Reebok toning shoes. They sure looked cute and felt ok when I tried them on, but wearing them all day or walking in them for a long time they made my feet hurt and really tired. So, I returned the shoes and got a pair of Asics (my favorite walking shoes).

After I got the shoes, I went shopping for some healthy food and came back with a bunch of fruit, veggies, and low calorie dinners to eat. So, now I'm set for my plan to lose weight. I reset my weightloss ticker with my starting weight being what today's weigh in was and then I decided to set a mini-weightloss goal for 10%.

And lastly, I emailed/posted a comment to some fellow friends who are losing weight about signing up for a 5k together. I think it'll be fun!

Insomnia leads to late night thinking

For whatever reason, I cannot sleep tonight. This seems to be a trend. I have the worst time sleeping lately.

Anyways, not being able to sleep leads to an overactive brain that starts thinking about things and usually winds up back at me (I'm so ego-centric right?)

This week I heard 2 things I found shocking and interesting all at once. I'll start with the most recent. Tonight while I was in my car, I heard the nightly trivia question. The question was: "What do 80% of men say they look for in a woman?" You wanna know the answer?.....Surprising to me, the answer was a woman who is fuller figured (to put it nicely). The guy said "Thin is not 'in' anymore."

I'm pleasantly surprised that this is the statistic. Hooray if it is completely true. I'm no rail of a woman, and never will be so maybe out of those 80 % of men, one will eventually sweet me off my feet. However, I am convinced that I must only know the other 20% of men who did not agree.with this statistic.

The 2nd thing I heard this week was on an episode of "Ugly Betty" reruns. I love that show (as superficial as it may be), but I was kind of....well I dont know exactly how to describe my feelings about the episode I watched. In short, Betty (the younger sister who wears braces) has a dream that she had perfect teeth and that it changed her entire life. Her older sister Hilda, instead of being gorgeous and business savvy, wound up being frumpy and a loser. Betty's fairy godmother (if you want to call her that) told her that in life there can only be one pretty sister and since Betty had perfect teeth which lead to perfect everything else, that left Hilda as the ugly sister. And the pretty sister is the one who gets everything while the ugly sister gets nothing.

So this got me thinking and I dont agree with this statement at all. I look at my sister and myself and, while her life does seem to be everything she wants while mine is lacking many things I want, I do not see us as 1 pretty sister and 1 ugly sister. I think we are both rather nice looking. Yes, I know I'm bigger than she is (always have been and probably always will be), but we are both pretty. So, I disagree that 2 sisters can't both be pretty or that 2 sisters lives have to be so drastically different from one another because of some law of the universe that only one of them can have what they want out of life or be successful.

On another note...tonight while Ive been laying here trying to fall asleep, I was thinking about what keeps me from being skinny. I really dont know. I watch shows where these people have a deep revelation that allows them to get over something that happened in their past that theyve been eating away the memories over. I can't think of anything that would be my reason.

My second thought about this was why is weightloss the one thing I really seem to fail at? I mean, I am so in control of pretty much everything  else in my life. I am very focused and driven at my job. I know I'm the type of person who puts everyone else first in my life and that I would drop whatever to help them out.

So, I don't get why I am not as willing to do that for myself. Or why I am such a control freak about so many things, except following and sticking to a diet. This is why I will never be anorexic or bullemic. I am not disciplined enough to control it or to stick with it.

Anyways, just some random ramblings and thoughts.....from an insomniac

Losing Weight in the digital age

Since I decided to start doing better at keeping track of what I eat and counting the calories for it, I knew I needed something to write it all down on. Well, this is the digital age, so I looked on my Droid for an app that would let me (for free) keep track of my caloric intake during the day. I found MyFitnessPal. And can I just say that I. LOVE. IT!

For starters it is FREE. Secondly, it is on my phone and my phone is ALWAYS with me so I can immediately put in what I've consumed to help me keep track of how many calories I've consumed. It also, lets me keep track of exercise and water and weight. It's just an absolutely great tool to have. Oh yeh, and you can look up ANYTHING on there and it will pop up so you can track everything you eat from anywhere you get it from.

Today I logged in every single thing I ate or drank. And although I went over my calorie goal, I am able to look at where I could have done better and know tomorrow I will do better.

I've also been looking up the number of calories in some healthy foods I like so I can make a menu and go shopping this weekend. The internet is my friend today!

Yay!

Goals

My motivation is back!!!! It's felt like a slow rumble of thunder inside me for a while to get back in "lose weight" mode, and now that thunder has finally hit me and I am gung ho about it.

I weighed myself on Friday and text my weightloss accountant (my sister) to let her know the number. I was bummed because it was higher than I wanted, so I made these goals for myself for the week: drink at least 3 big bottles of water every day, keep track of what I eat so I can keep track of calories and try to stay around 1600 a day. I'm also going to throw in there to work out at least 3 times this week.

Now, I've been getting pumped about these goals all weekend. I was in Smyrna/Murfreesboro for most of the weekend, which usually means I eat out the whole time I'm there. So when I got back home today I was going to take a shower and decided to weigh myself. I figured it would either be the same as Friday or higher, BUT OMG I was 1.5 pounds lighter than I had been on Friday morning!!! Happy day to me!

So now I'm super motivated! Ive got my water bottles ready to go for tomorrow. A semi-idea of what I'm gonna eat for the day to keep it in the calorie range and I'm already thinking about what exercise I'm going to do when I get home from school tomorrow. Yay me!

The Pity Party is now officially over!

ok. I'll be honest. Reflecting back over the past few weeks...ok, months, I see that I have been having a pity party for myself. It's not big secret that I've gained a good portion of the original weight I lost back. I mean, you can't exactly hide weight gain when you are out in public every day. So, yeh, just in case you are oblivious, I. Have. Gained. Weight. There! I said it, the secret is out.

Now, I finally was honest with myself that I had gained too much of my weight back back in July. I acknowledged it outwardly, but inwardly I denied! Denied! Denied! However, there is one aspect of my job that keeps me from deny to myself any longer that I have gained weight. My clothes! I want to cry every morning when I'm having to pick out something to wear because all of my pants are too tight. I can't squeeze into the 14s I was wearing at the end of last year. :( And I'm sure my shirts look awful with that spare tire I apparently picked up on the side of the road at some point.

Ok, sorry that last comment was a pity party comment. Here's the deal. I really have been feeling bad about myself and gaining weight. I've been talking about what I was going to start doing since July, but I haven't done a darn thing. Why? I honestly think it's because I do not want to admit that I've gotta start over, or just get started period. I keep thinking about how hard it was the first time, but then I think about how great I felt after I got in the groove of eating healthy, drinking water, and exercising regularly.

So, I took a step tonight. I contacted a nutritionist I know to see about getting some tips/help/ a giant push in the right direction.... Also, I read some great blogs tonight that I've been missing out on (Jessie you've reinspired me) since I've been so busy and that has really really REALLY got me motivated. Finally, my AMAZING sister sent me the sweetest, bestest, most encouraging text after she read my last blog.

So, now what? Well, baby steps, baby steps. I'm gonna work out a plan to be started ASAP. Since it's almost 10:45, I dont exactly have it worked out, but hopefully by the end of the week I will and I can get on target. Knowing people love you and support you and want to see you succeed for YOU makes everything worthwhile.

One of my goals is to blog daily. Knowing people are reading and anticipating my words will keep me focused. I will also continue to text my sister every Friday  morning after I've weighed in. She's my accountant (she holds me accountable). I'll continue to drink uber tons of water daily. And I think I'm going to take my friend Jessie's idea and sign up on Caloriecount.com to keep track of my calories along with keeping a little food journal to write down what I eat.

Ok, I'll work the kinks out in my plan more tomorrow. Time for some rest.

This is a Heavy post

So, recently I was watching some entertainment news show ( I think maybe The Insider). Anywho, they showed a clip about Wynonna Judd discussing her recent 60 + pound weightloss. She apparently has been doing some kind of brain thing where she just basically reconditions her brain to want to eat correctly, etc. The part that hit me was when they were discussing how she got to the point where she finally decided to make a change and lose some weight.

Here is where the heaviness sets in for me in this post. In the discussion about why Wynonna decided to get help, she said that some of the people close to her were talking to her and told her they felt like watching her continue to live like she was (meaning eating and being a fattie) was like watching a "slow suicide" and asked her what she was going to do about it.

Wow! I mean, what a way to look at it I guess. So, ever since I've heard that I've really been thinking about that. I mean, do people think that about me? I mean, I know what I should be doing, and I have the desire to eat better and work out, but for some reason I'm weak and I'm not doing it.

So I now I'm looking at myself trying to figure out why I'm not doing what I should be doing and how to get my rear in gear to get on track. It's just heavy on my mind and I can't quit thinking about it. I don't want to die because I'm making poor choices. Gotta make changes and gotta get started. No more excuses.

Why I refuse to get the BRCA test

My mom is a breast cancer survivor. I am beyond thankful that she is alive and well and can be an amazing inspiration to other women and men who are going through the scary time and experience of cancer.

Five years ago when my mother was going through her breast cancer treatments, a test was given called the BRCA genetics test, which looks for a mutation on a gene that is linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. This basically means that it can be passed down through a family.

My grandmother's mother had cancer, my grandmother had cancer, my mom had cancer.....do you see that this is obviously passed through my family? Would you be surprised if I told you that my mom tested positive for the mutated BRCA gene? Would you say my chances of having the mutated gene are already high?

When my mom was tested they told her that it's a 50/50 chance that she would pass that gene to her daughters. Guess what? She has 2 daughters. The way I look at it, that means than one of us could wind up with the mutated gene and one of us couldn't.

Doctors strongly push for you to get the test if your family member has tested positive because they will put you on high alert watch for breast and ovarian cancer. They also encourage you to look into preventative surgery (such as having a mascetomy and hysterectomy) once you are you done having kids.

Now, I told you all of that to tell you this: I flat out refuse to have the test done. Here are my reason's why:

1. If God is going to give me cancer, He's already planned for me to have it.
2. Because I've had at least 3 maternal family members who have had a form of breast and/or ovarian cancer, I'm already on a high alert watch. My doctors are well aware of my family history and make sure to check, check, and double check when anything seems out of place.
3. Since my sister and I have a 50/50 chance of having the mutation, I would DIE if she had it and I didn't. All I would ever do if I knew if one of us did have the gene is worry about when it would finally put the cancer in us. Why worry about something you have no control over anyways?
4. I am 28 and still single and I don't have kids. I want kids, but I don't have any prospects for a husband yet. So, if I tested positive for the gene, exactly how old would they wait for me to get before they started harping on me to have my top and insides removed as a preventative measure? Would they wait it out to see if someone ever marries me and has babies with me? Or would they start asking me at 35 to have my breasts removed and my ovaries taken out because I'm still single and childless? Also, just because you have them removed doesn't mean that cancer won't and/or can't form in the tissue where your breasts and ovaries were.

So, basically I will never have the test done because I know that I'll be taken care of regardless of whether one little gene says that I may or may not get cancer one day. So why give myself the extra stress?