26 July 2008

What a long strange trip it's been........

At my WW meeting this morning a lady asked if anyone else had issues with sugar. She went on to say how if she eats a little bit of sugar it sets off something in her and she just can't stop. I've been thinking about that all day.

When I was 225 lbs I was just like that. I would eat a cookie and it would set off a binge that I could not stop. I would eat till my stomach hurt. I would eat till I was absolutely sick but still keep eating. I had the feeling that I had absolutely no control. I would be sick, to my stomach, of myself, of cookies, yet I could not seem to stop.

When I started WW 10 years ago, I would listen to other people say how they had 1 cookie and stopped themselves. I would listen and not understand how come I couldn't do that. I literally would feel like a freak because it seemed all these other people could do something I apparently couldn't do. I would get so frustrated and angry with myself. I thought I had no willpower. I thought I was weak and that I didn't want to lose the weight bad enough. Do you know how that can undermine weight loss. Talk about negative self talk. No wonder I bounced around, up and down, for so long. With those thoughts going through my head I had no chance of succeeding at weight loss.

It all started to change for me when I watched an Oprah show. She had Dr. Oz on and they were talking about various things. One of the topics he brought up was taste buds. He said to take artificial sweetener, dissolve it in water, and drink it. If it tasted bitter to you, your taste buds were normal. If it just tasted sweet to you, you had underdeveloped taste buds. I did that and found I had underdeveloped taste buds. If that's the case no matter how much you eat your are not going to satisfy a craving because your taste buds don't work right. When I learned that it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. It really changed things for me. I realized that the binges weren't from lack of willpower or control. It really changed things in my head. I still wanted to binge, but it didn't have the power it had before. I was able to admit that I had no control and I would never satisfy my cravings so why even try. It's true, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

The next thing that happened was I realized I had hypoglycemia. My blood sugar was all over the map. Once I learned this, I learned how to eat to balance my blood sugar. Since then I have never binged. I have even developed the ability to eat some cookies, or a piece of cake and not lose my mind. Because my blood sugar is so balanced 99% of the time, having a little extra sugar doesn't throw things off that much. I now feel like a normal person who has the ability to eat one cookie and walk away.

Looking back I realize how far I've come and how much I've learned along the way. It's truly amazing. I talked to the lady at WW and I hope I helped her a little. It's a long, hard road to lose weight and when you feel like a freak on top of it, it's that much worse. I'm just glad I learned these things about myself and was able to master them.

I'm going down.....

Woo Hoo!! Weigh in this morning!!! Woo Hoo!!! I'm down 1.4 lbs. Woo Hoo!! I'm very excited as you can tell. I didn't work out much this week, but I did stay within my points. I don't think I went over all week. Ahh, maybe a little bit, but I did not use all my WPA, not even close. So I'm very pleased with myself. Now, I'm off to get lunch and drink beer :)

25 July 2008

If life hands you lemons.......

I was really bummed yesterday when told I couldn't run or bike for a while. We don't know how long, it depends on how fast I heal. I had visions of an ever expanding butt and it was really bringing me down. Then last night, as I was wallowing in my potentially fat self, I realized I could still swim. DOH!! So I decided to swim everyday. I have the Total Immersion DVD. I'm going to watch it over the weekend and work on the techniques in it. I figure with swimming everyday and following TI I should have swimming mastered in 2 to 3 weeks. I like it. I have a goal, I have a plan, and hopefully I won't have a big butt :)

24 July 2008

I've been grounded

I can not run or ride my bike for the foreseeable future. After my run yesterday my heel hurt all day. This morning it was still a little sore but I went on my bike ride anyway. When I went to chiro my heel hurt pretty bad. I told her about it and she said I need to stop running until we can get this under control. When I asked about biking she said it wasn't a great idea. Since this is so painful I've decided to follow her advice.

The bursa is supposed to provide a cushion between the bone and the Achilles tendon so the tendon can move freely. Mine is very inflamed and when it's touched it's like an electric wire.

The head of my calf muscle is a giant knot. This tightness is probably pulling on the Achilles tendon along with my plantar from the other side, resulting in inflammation of the bursa.

I'm going to follow doctors orders and hopefully it will go away quickly. It hurts. I'm grounded, and I'm bummed.

Morning ride

The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. The road I was on is bordered by lots and lots of trees and there were patches of very dark shadow. I didn't see the dog till I was almost on top of him. He was standing partially in the shadow of huge tree and with his coloring blended in perfectly. When I did spot him I wasn't too concerned, I run into dogs all the time at this hour on this road. Most just look at me and go back to their business. This one was different. I noticed that his head was low, even with his back. Not good. I then noticed that his tail was lowered. Definitely not good. Then I noticed the eyes. They were locked on me and nothing was going to break his concentration. Realizing that this was a Border Collie and their instinct was to herd things and I was moving at a rapid rate made me a little nervous about the next few minutes. I had visions of a dog entangled in my wheels as he tried to nip them to herd them. This was not going to be good. I was going too fast and was too close to the dog to stop or change directions. As I got with 10 feet of him I could hear the growl emanating from deep in his throat. Oh My!!! Then I saw his shoulder muscles bunch up and I realized he was getting ready to launch himself at me. Definitely not good. I did the only thing I could think of. I yelled "NO" in a loud, deep, commanding voice. It worked. The dog didn't move a muscle and I went flying by. But for a few minutes it sure had me scared.

23 July 2008

I knew this would happen

Last night I reached the end of my rope. I had to get back to working out. I was feeling antsy. I'm not sleeping well. I'm tired a lot. I hate the way I feel when I don't workout. So last night I'm sitting reading and all I could think about was running. I had to read the same page 3 times because my mind kept drifting off to running; what I should do, how long, how far, intervals??; like that. So I went to bed and decided I was running in the morning no matter what.

I woke up before the alarm and lay there waiting for it to go off. Then my back-up alarm went off. What??? Usually the first alarm goes off and I turn it off. If I get up I turn off the back-up but if I drift off to sleep the back-up definitely gets me up. So why was the back-up going off??? Turns out I never set the alarm last night. DOH!!!!! Was I trying to sabotage myself??? If I was it failed because I got up anyway :)

So I did some strength work and then headed out for a 35 minute run. I walked the first 5 minutes (that makes such a huge difference, thank you Michelle) then started running slowly. I ended up running for about 25 minutes then walking the last 5 as a cool down. It felt great! The heel is bugging me a little bit, but you know what??? I did an entire marathon with PF. I think I can suffer through a little heel pain. I'll be diligently stretching and icing and I see the chiro tomorrow. It will get better.

I was reading a description of ART. The person writing said it was just like strength training. By pushing on the muscle you are disrupting the tissue creating a chemical reaction that will heal the muscle and make it stronger. I found that fascinating for some reason. So ART is like strength training when you can't do it yourself :)

22 July 2008

I love these things....




Your Superpower Should Be Manipulating Electricity



You're highly reactive, energetic, and super charged.

If the occasion calls for it, you can go from 0 to 60 in a split second.

But you don't harness your energy unless you truly need to.

And because of this, people are often surprised by what you are capable of.



Why you would be a good superhero: You have the stamina to fight enemies for days



Your biggest problem as a superhero: As with your normal life, people would continue to underestimate you




This one I got from Irene!!!

I am falling apart

Wow, getting old is definitely not for the weak :) So the heel still hurts. I've been stretching and icing just like the chiro said, but it still hurts a little. I see the chiro again on Thursday and hopefully that will finally fix it. I know this ART works, I just need to be patient. I think my PF took a couple of weeks and it definitely got worse before it got better. So I just need to bide my time and be patient. My heel will get better.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that the base of my thumb on my right hand hurt. It wasn't bad, but it was sore. I figured I must have banged it or something and just didn't remember. This morning the thumb hurts like heck and the other one is sore. What's up with that?? I'm guessing there is something I'm doing that is bothering my thumbs. Maybe it typing :) Anyway, it's very strange.

Finally, as I said yesterday we may be close to buying a house in Colorado. There is a 1/2 of a duplex for sale in Greeley. Greeley is home to UNC and therefore rentals are in demand. This house is pretty cheap (at least when compared to homes in Hawaii) and we are thinking of buying it and renting it out for a year. Then we'll have a place to move to when we move. We don't particularly want to live in Greeley but it would be a good income property once we do buy a place we want to live in. Anyway, we have begun discussing it with the mortgage broker. I'm not thrilled with buying a place sight unseen but, on the other hand, if it's rented it must be half way decent and for the price I don't see us getting screwed. Or we may just make a quick trip to Colorado to check it out. I'd need to stock up on my travel supplies, but I think we could swing a long weekend in Colorado.

That does it for me today. I have an inspection at the end of the week so I'm off to do some cleaning.

21 July 2008

Frustration......

I have a situation.... I can't go into here because the people involved might read it...... I'm frustrated and I don't know where to turn........... UGH!!!!!!!

In other news, I was just cruising around reading some blogs I don't normally read (I'm killing time at lunch). I stumbled across a couple of blogs written by one person and the English was horrible. I know I'm no English major but this was really, really bad. I immediately assumed this person was not American. Wrong!! Born and raised in the good ol' USA and educated in our school system. Wow, that is really bad. I can only assume that this person does not proofread what they write or run spellcheck.

I am such a snob about spelling and grammar. I read a lot and I have found that the quickest way to read is if something is well written, as in good grammar. It doesn't have to be perfect, I know I'm not perfect, but at least make an effort. If a blog has lots of grammatical errors I will stop reading it. It's not worth the effort to try and figure out what they are saying. It doesn't take that much longer to proofread something. I will write my post, run spellchecker, publish the post then read it. Sometimes I edit it 3 or 4 times for stupid mistakes. It still only takes about 2 minutes.

Okay, I'm feeling a little grumpy and grouchy today over things I can't discuss :) We may be on the verge of buying a house in Colorado. We would rent it out until we moved then we would have a place to move to. So, in the interest of sanity, I think I'll go look at Kohler faucets, they generally don't piss me off :)

A dilemma

I went hiking yesterday and not 15 minutes into it my heel started hurting. So I took it slow and easy but did my hike anyway. It bothered me most of the day but seems to be pretty good this morning. I had half a plan to run this morning but have decided to wait until tomorrow.

I have a dilemma. I wrote a post on one of my other blogs about something that bugs me. In that post I made a comment about something else that I plan on writing on further at a later date. One of my regular visitors picked up on that brief comment and expanded upon it. And now I don't know how to respond. You know what? I wrote a post the other day about how I'm going to write what I feel and not worry about what people think. I just need to stick to that. Okay, so forget that.

I woke up this morning with a raging headache and I don't know why. I went to bed at my regular time. I didn't drink or eat excessively yesterday. I don't understand it. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't have dinner last night. I just had a bowl of cereal because I wasn't that hungry. But that shouldn't have caused this headache. Oh well.....

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...