Right direction, for a change!

Down 1.4 lbs. Finally moving in the right direction! This week I cut down on dairy products in an effort to get my skin to stop spazzing out. Cutting down on dairy means, by default, cutting down on ice cream and cookies (as in "milk and...")

Didn't get to the meeting on time this week, and didn't quite make the exercise goal, so those will remain on my commitment list this week, and I'm adding in "increase fruits and veggies".

Resolved (more or less)

Up nearly one lb per week. Still, considering what I ate, I think I got off easy. So I'm going to climb back on the wagon one umbrella step at a time. I worked out today already. So...

Resolved: no more trigger foods around the house (sorry, kids!)

Resolved: go to a WW meeting every week, no matter how successful at eating I was.

Resolved: go to the gym at least least twice each week, and take a walk at least twice as well.

OK, those are 3 do-able goals that I believe I can achieve this week. Going right now to clean out the dribs and drabs of triggers I still have. No guilt about tossing food.

My impetus for this move was buying a new bra and it not quite fitting. I still don't quite understand that. If I still fit in size X, why would a new size X be too small??? Stretching? Fabric only stretches so much. Very odd. But I have been uncomfortable in my clothes for a number of weeks and DAMNED if I'm going to keep this up and have to buy bigger sizes. Thankfully my 2 best jeans are still loose in the waist. I'm sure if I tried to replace them with identical sizes they would be too small...

OK, OK already...

So two incidences happened this week that are finally making me say "enough already". One is the realization that it's been so long between weigh ins that I'm at the point of having to re-enroll, and the other is I'm only just starting to not feel overfull for the first time in 2 days. Yes, I woke up feeling full yesterday morning from the prior night (and I think it was the cookies I baked at 10 PM that put me over the hump), and I remained feeling full all day. Now I actually think it was some kind of tummy bug, because really, I didn't eat much yesterday at all. But still. I think I'm at a turning point.

When I was first laid off, I thought wouldn't it be cool if I lost weight and got a job before my severance pay expired. OK, those two things are not related, per se, but both would be cool things, positives resulting from a negative experience. Instead, however, I am gaining weight, haven't exercised much at all, and have not had much interest from my resume submissions at all. It's hard for me to be positive in the best of circumstances. Add a bit of a challenge and it becomes really impossible to be positive.

On the other hand, I have an opportunity to do some forms for a recruiter. If I do a good job, that could net me some kind of positive action on the job front. This week was bad in that I had my daughter home from school, so I was not able to make my usual support/resume groups. Next week I will make a game plan. I will have at least 2 ego boosting events: the meeting about forms and a volunteer banquet plus baby sitting from sister, who is usually good for an ego stroke.

So two things I can do to help me get back on the wagon: don't bring any trigger foods home, and don't make any more cakes!

Wrong Way!

Turn back, woman! I'm heading in the wrong direction--or perhaps there is a conspiracy afoot to discover the pounds that SOME others have lost. I don't want them, but I can't claim to not deserve them (or rather, have earned them).

I have been unemployed for a couple of weeks now and my upbeat, non-bitter attitude has been a bit strained at the seams. Hence the uncontrolled eating. I am trying to remind/convince myself that gaining weight is not going to help me find a job, but so far I'm not buying that. Oh well. This is a new week, another opportunity to crawl back onto the wagon and do what I know I can do: stick with the plan. Almost all the trigger food is gone now, and I'd have to leave the house to get more. On the plus side, I've somehow strained my left arm and it makes driving a bit difficult, so a joy ride to buy crap is not as likely. And I'm trying hard to reinstill the notion that the ice cream is not mine but the kids. We'll see how that goes. And no birthday cake will be in the house until Saturday. I will have help eating it, hopefully (I am planning on baking a bundt with my new pan).

Resting my arm now...

Plumb tuckered out...

Ethan's party was yesterday. He's five and still needs a nap, but doesn't always take one. So instead, he literally fell asleep on his feet.

Revising History

Have you heard? Size 12 is the new size 10; 40 is the new 30 (and 50 takes 40's place as well).

Maybe it's a Baby Boomer thing, rewriting history or facts to suit your own situation. I know my dad did a lot of revisionist history, shaping himself in stories to be the kind of father he never was in real life. But lately I appreciate a good revision myself, and I look for opportunities to make changes in myself where they won't be noticed as much.

Why hide change? Well, another way at looking at change is to admit that the way you once did things or looked or what have you was wrong, or not good, or some other negative connotation. (In fact, every positive sentiment can be flipped to be negative, and vice verse...)

Vacations are a good time for me, personally, to try out new hair styles or fashion looks. This works out for me particularly because I make such a big deal normally of not caring about my looks, so when I'm off in some strange town no one will scoff at my contradictions. For some reason, I also spend a lot of time on vacation looking for a great hat, but that's a story for another time.

I find myself poised at another opportunity for change and redefinition: I've been laid off, or layed off, depending on how you look at it. In slightly less than a month, I will be without work, or perhaps on the road to the job of my dreams, at last. I'd settle for the job of my realistic fantasies. 

A fantasy job would be you being overheard while talking to your friends by some high muckety muck at a really cool company and being brought in without an interview to a really cool job with short hours and high pay. As opposed to realistic fantasy job, which involves you finding a nice job after a short search and not too many humiliating interviews working OK hours with a couple of really nice benefits.

So here's to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, and how I want to look, and what hat I'll wear when I get there.

Triggers!

Last week's triggers are not as easy to figure out as this week's. This week I got 30 day's notice that I'm being let go at work (layed off or laid off? Is one preferable??) Last week, however. Well, the cause wasn't as cut and dried (0r traumatic).

Last week was spring break, and my daughter was off with my husband for 3 days of it. On Friday, finally, after 4 years of procrastinating, I got around to filing our petition for re-adoption for our son. Something about the paperwork and the complex instructions, and the metal detector at the courthouse, and losing yet another keyring Swiss Army knife to security, and having the filing clerk question my documents, something in there made me feel really inadequate or stupid or something else. Then I went and met up with my family at the post office to apply for passports for the kids. Despite having my huge book of paperwork including several copies each of my and my husband's birth certificates and marriage certificate, I did not have a copy of Kyra's birth certificate. I could not convince the passport clerk or her boss that I didn't need this according to the instructions on the internet. Again with the feeling stupid or inadequate or inept, or some other "in-" prefix feeling. Sigh.

So between that and the lay off this week, I've been in an ice cream spiral of despair. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far. I'm actually OK about losing my job. I've been trying to get up the backbone or something to leave. What I really wanted was to get a fantastic job and leave with no notice. Well, that can't happen now, what with the severance packet I have waiting at the end of the rainbow. 

It doesn't help that I have this cold that makes food taste like paste (so I keep trying to see if it tastes better...)

Well, I know that ice cream won't find me a job, that expanding over my waistline while job hunting will just make me feel more inadequate and useless and unwanted. Still, there is that other half a pint of ice cream... Maybe just one more serving...