My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Almost 2 years ago, my best friend announced to me that she was getting married and I was to be a bridesmaid. It was the start of a new year and between that and my feeling my days as a frump were coming to an end, I decided I was going to lose 80 pounds!! Okay.. so once my delusion of grandeur was over, I was only about 45 pounds lighter. That’s no small feat and I am happy to say that I have kept nearly most of it off. I tried again at the beginning of this year and managed to lose the 10 that I had regained… So where am I now? Read more »

I. AM. AN. EMOTIONAL. EATER.I am sitting here scarfing an apple crumb muffin from Costco. Yes one of those huge ones. I just finished off a cheese quesadilla. I feel a surge of guilt swelling in the pit of my stomach and I. DON’T. CARE. I don’t care because I just came from touring a rehab facility that will become my mother’s home for the next couple of weeks. It was old. It smelled funny. The old people in it could barely move. Their emotionless faces stared back at me as I stood there thinking that I could not let my mother live there.  Yet she must if she is to get better. Sure there are more “resort like” places we could send her to but then she’ll be ignored there as what the reviews and ratings are saying. This place that she will go to comes highly rated despite appearances. And it is quickly becoming a bitter pill to swallow.Last week Mom lost function of the left side of her body. Unable to get herself to the bathroom, let alone move, there was no other choice than to call 911 to help get her to the hospital. For the past week she has battled Lactic Acidosis, a urinary tract infection, a kidney infection and some other unnamed infection that she picked up from the hospital. Massive doses of antibiotics, several blood transfusions and scores of pills later, internally her numbers are under control and she is getting back to health. Yet her left side remains weak – crippled by arthritis and gout. Her pain is substantial. She cries out whenever anyone tries to move her. She wants to come home. I want her to come home. We all do. But she can’t. Not like this.The prognosis is that the vertebrae in her cervical spine has deteriorated to the point that it’s compromised her spinal cord. Left untreated she could face a future of paralysis. Surgery scares her. It scares me. But it’s the only way she can find relief. But she can’t have it until she’s stronger. And she can’t get stronger until she has it. What is she to do? In addition to these decisions that she faces, she is feeling a sense of rejection. Her only source of healthcare is Medicare. Medicare has strict rules and according to hospital administrators she has overstayed her welcome. She must leave, they tell her. She can’t stay there. Yesterday she was moved from the 1st floor to the 3rd floor – a not so subtle way of saying, if you don’t get out, we’ll neglect you until you leave. The difference in attention she has received in the past 16 hours is palpable. So we are working hard to get her out as soon as possible.The next stop isn’t much better. We anticipate her spirits lowering further when she gets an eyeful of these new digs. We’ll do all we can to make sure she keeps motivated to get out. She must. We want her there even less than she’ll want to be there. I guess that I may as well get used to the place myself. I plan on spending lots of time there – I may even move in. Just so she knows that she’s not in this alone.In the meantime, the diet is shot to hell. I’ve gained 2 lbs this week. This bloody muffin is tastin’ pretty good….

FINALLY!!! Seriously, folks I was thinking I was going to go ballistic if I didn’t hit this number. I surpassed it by about .2lbs but I am just going to call it an even 35 for now because as we all know and as my rantings can attest, the scale has a mind of its own! Who knows what it will say tomorrow!? But for today it said A LOT and to see that number dip just below a certain point had the semblance of sweet victory for me. And it’s just what I need to keep the momentum going and try to double my results.This week hasn’t been that great in the work out dept. I injured my upper left leg the other night. I wish I could say it was from something really cool like kicking @$$ on the dodgeball court last Saturday (which for an old gal, I guess I did) but that wasn’t it. The great injury occurred when I (wait for it…..), went to kneel on the ground so I could put together a shelf for my sister. Yup. All I did was try to get on the ground. Instead I felt a pop and I yelped with pain. It’s sore but I don’t think it’s lasting. The ol’ time o’ the month reared her ugly head (FINALLY!) the other day and then couple that with the pulled muscle, I called it a day on exercise yesterday and today. I kinda feel guilty about that. Funny how that is. But the good news is that I am chaperoning a field trip with 2nd graders today and we’re doing some walking so I will not feel THAT guilty! I’ll get my exercise in somehow and then get back on the wagon tomorrow.Real quick…dodgeball. I played for two hours last Saturday and I reaped the rewards of sore muscles for THREE DAYS afterwards. I could move and all but woo! It hurt to do so. I hadn’t played it since I was in 6th grade and man, they play it differently these days. SIX BALLS! And they are coming at you from all directions. It can get pretty violent and I must say it is an excellent way to relieve some of that pent up aggression. Who knew I had any? I would LOVE to play again this Saturday but I have a pressing family engagement that I must attend. BUT… I will be back next week. You can bank on that. Hopefully the soreness won’t happen this time!

Honestly, I don’t have much to say other than I don’t think I have ever met a more fickle thing than my bathroom scale. It boggles my mind as to why it behaves the way it does. Per my last post, I just sprinted on by the 30lb mark and hit 31 without blinking an eye – much to my delight. But there I have sat for over a week, the scale bouncing back and forth between 31 pounds to 31.2, 31.4 and back to 31lbs. It has been frustrating.Couple that with the intense stomach pain that I was experiencing on Friday (I won’t get into details but someone explain to me why when you start to eat right your digestive system freaks out!), and the fact that my impending visit from Aunt Flo (I know, TMI! It’s my blog so get over it) and it’s no wonder that I am not seeing any big changes in the scale. Speaking of Aunt Flo, I know it must be coming at some point because I just can’t get enough of chocolate. My sister and I went out to a candy factory yesterday so we could pick up samples of some candy that we hope to have at our parent’s wedding anniversary party in August (yeah, August. We’re big planners). Anyway, we got like $25 worth of candy – all of it wonderful and I swear I can hear it calling to me… Kriiiiisssss! EAT ME!! Seriously? One thing that I have been pretty proud about is my ability to stave off temptation but then the monthly visitor starts to rear her ugly head and and seriously? If you were a chocolate bunny, I’d bite your head off!So needless to day, I ate a few too many pieces of chocolate yesterday but then this morning I got on the scale expecting no movement other than a gain and it was .6lbs LOWER! I know…I know…it’d have to take a lot of chocolate to make me gain it all back in a course of 12 hours but this is what this new lifestyle does to you…it makes you crazy and irrational. The good news is that I am not

D Y I N G!

This diet thing really isn’t much of a diet so it hasn’t been a huge sacrifice. I just simply pay more attention now and find that it’s not that hard to say no or to opt for water instead of soda. I also have found that I enjoy the exercise even though some days it’s hard to get my butt to the gym but once I am there I like the solitary feeling I get when I just plug myself in to my iPod and get lost in my thoughts and the music. I also have found that if I don’t go, I really feel like I am missing part of my day. Wow…whodda thunk it?

So, I am now closing in on 33lbs lost and it’s all good. I bought a skirt last night that was 2 sizes smaller than I would have purchased only a couple months ago and that was a wonderful feeling.

I passed another milestone today. What gets me is that yesterday I was .6lbs away from it and I was hoping that I’d reach it sometime this week. But imagine my surprise this morning when I got on the scale and discovered…

Down 1.4 pounds from yesterday!! Totally blew past 30 lbs and made it to 31 lbs!

So, I bit the bullet and decided to join a gym. Having worked out consistently for the past 4 months, I figured it was time. Besides, I was getting tired of dodging the old people a the mall. I was also wondering if just doing the walking thing was enough. I had proved that I could keep with it and since I am *THIS* close to breaking the 30 pound mark, I figured I had the incentive and perhaps varying the workout I was doing would be enough to jolt the ol’ body into giving up some more of the weight.I had been checking out the ellipticals and thought it would be “fun” to try them out. I already know that I don’t like treadmills. I own one. It’s collecting dust in the garage. If I am going to walk, I had better be going somewhere. I dunno. I’m weird that way. So while my sister decided to stick to the treadmill, I hopped on the elliptical ready for some “fun”. First, to use an elliptical you must be coordinated. Your arms swing back and forth and your legs do this kinda running, climbing thing. It was a weird combination for me and it quickly got out of hand. In minutes I was gasping for air. I was clearly doing something wrong and it felt like all eyes were on me. What is that bozo doing on the elliptical? Somebody get her off of there before she hurts herself or worse, hurts one of us! That was the longest 5 minutes ever. I managed to stop the thing and nearly spilled out on to the floor – my legs were like jelly and I was sure I was walking like a drunk. I am clearly NOT READY for the elliptical.I headed to the stationary bikes and picked out one. Let’s just say it now. I am a novice with the whole gym thing. I figured what damage could I do on a bike that doesn’t move? Plenty. First I didn’t know how to turn it on. The older lady next to me kindly told me to just start peddling. Of course. Thank you. About 10 minutes into it I was starting to get really tired of my knees hitting the handlebars and I was still feeling the effects of the elliptical. I had gasped any moisture from my throat while I was on the thing that I was now in a fit of coughing and it was all I could do to not drink the whole bottle of water that I had with me. I was sure that my exercising neighbor (that kind lady who thinks I am a total moron) was thinking that I was ill. But she took pity on me. She pointed to the lever under my seat and told me to move it back. Thanks to her, I think I may have spared my knees any bruising. The coughing, however I couldn’t control. It continued for the entire 25 minutes I was on the bike. I figured I had tortured the lady long enough and decided to move on.::: Cue the Jaws music :::Next up was a little weight training. I swigged back some water and stared at a couple machines to figure out what to do next. I bypassed the pull up machine because lets face it, I had already made a fool of myself enough today. I opted for the weight machine that would work the arms. My arms definitely need it. With the nearly 30 pounds lost, I have discovered that I am developing wings. I could take flight at any moment people! It took a few reps to find a weight that was good for me – basically the weight of the handle bars and nothing more. A few reps later and then I was on the abdominal machine. All I can say about that is that I know I looked as stupid as I felt doing it. There is surely no way that machine helped anything. By this time I had been at the gym nearly an hour. I was ready to call it a day.Elliptical Machine = 1Kris = 0Maybe I should stick to walking…