I'm tired. That's good. Hopefully I actually sleep tonight, unlike last night. I'm doing ok though. My day was pretty busy but also mundane at the same time.

I started of the day by going to the dentist and having a permanent crown put on following a root canal I had at the beginning of the month. That took about two hour from the time I left home until I was back at home. After that the hubs and I took the kids (our little guy and niece) and went off to buy a new dishwasher. Ours has been slowly dying and we finally said that enough is enough. Took us (read me) all of 20 minutes to pick out a new dishwasher and have it paid for. We ended up with a pretty decent deal on the dishwasher we bought because it was on sale for about $120 off the normal price (which would have made this dishwasher above the range we were willing to pay at this time...trust me, we would have LOVED one of the higher end dishwashers) and we also were given 12 months no interest (not that it will take 12 months to pay it off). We followed this with the hubs getting his hair cut and me buying a new (larger) Brita water pitcher. (Personally I prefer the PUR brand but unfortunately Brita filters cost less than PUR filters.)

After all of this when we got back home both little kids were asleep and I was VERY tired. The hubs put both of them down to continue napping in the house and I went off to bed to nap myself. I slept for about 2 hours and it felt great. I was absolutely exhausted. I'm thankful that I have a hubby that would take the kids and send me off to bed when I need it.

My eating for today has been okay overall, but ended with a high calorie dinner. I had my meal replacement shake around 4am. A large (double serving) of cereal with 1 cup fat-free milk around 7am. After the dental appointment I STILL felt like I was starving, so I had three apples for a snack. I didn't have lunch until after my nap, and for that I just had 1-1/2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Dinner was bad. Lol. Dinner was a chinese buffet...and I didn't even try to eat healthy. I just enjoyed my dinner.

It was a splurge. The way I see it, splurges are okay and long at they are only every so often. You can't splurge every day and be okay. Shoot even Weight Watchers gives you not only your daily point allowance but also an additional weekly point allowance that you can use to splurge. An occasional splurge is okay because then you aren't depriving yourself and feeling like you're being punished. This is a way of life. You eat healthy most of the time, but you can indulge occasionally.

I didn't fit in any exercise today, but I'm okay with that. If it hadn't been such a busy day today and I had actually had a decent night's sleep last night, I might have had a chance. Oh well. Tomorrow's a new day and tomorrow I'm off to the gym again. I'll be at the gym on Tuesday's and Thursday's from here on out unless there are scheduling conflicts (school programs, hubby has to work that evening, etc.) that prohibit it. Last week was a bad week because we had a family dinner on Tuesday. And Thursday my daughter had a school performance that she was in. Right now Monday, Wednesday and Friday are off-limits for going to the gym because the little guy won't go in the child watch. He gets really upset. Eventually he'll be okay with it again, but until then I have to work around him. So that leaves me with Tuesday evening, Thursday evening, Saturday (morning or afternoon depending on when the hubs has to work and what's going on that weekend), and Sunday (again, depending on what's goin on that weekend). I'm going to shoot for all four days for now, if I can. Wish me luck...no, give me the willpower and motivation to go.

198.4

I can't sleep. In fact, I've probably only had about an hour to an hour and a half of sleep last night. It's early, 6am, and I've been out of bed since 4am and awake since about 2am. I didn't even fall asleep until about 1am. So not much sleep. I'm surprisingly still wide awake. But I'm STARVING!!! I've felt this way most of the night.

I'm trying not to start my day off on the wrong foot food-wise. I had a meal replacement shake when I got out of bed at 4am. I'm still starving. I've had about 20 ounces of a sugar-free drink mix and some fiber pills. I'm trying to hold off until about 7am to have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, but I don't think I'm going to last. I don't know why I feel like I'm starving so bad right now. I know that not feeding your body when it's hungry is bad. I'm not trying to go hungry. I'm just trying to not eat too early because if I do I will be eating nonstop all day long. Although I have a feeling that may be the case no matter when I eat breakfast. I'm just going to have to fill up on lots of apples and veggie soup today.

I'm going to try to fit in some exercise today if it kills me. I need to get back into the swing of things and I kept saying that today would be the day. I'm really going to do my hardest to fit in something. Anything. My day's going to be crazy, but I'm going to try.

Oh, and I added a new tab at the top to keep track of my weight by week instead of daily. It's nice to see that just about every week it's gone down slightly. I'll try to keep my weekly weight day as Monday, but if for some reason I can't weigh in on a Monday, I'll use the closest day I have been able to weigh to log for that week.

198.4 today and 198.0 yesterday.

For the most part I'm eating ok. Tried some cereal for breakfast yesterday. Not sure how it helped or didn't with my appetite since it was a late breakfast. I was lucky and my husband let me sleep in. I did have too many "snacks" in my opinion. Although when I actually count snacks for yesterday, there were three and I shared one with my little guy. I've been craving sweets and chocolate a lot lately. It's driving me insane really. I'm managing well considering.

No exercise yesterday, and I don't have it in the plan for today. I'm still trying to get my house put back together to function better. Although it definitely doesn't help that we have a dishwasher that's dying, and a little guy that undoes all of our cleaning and organizing in five minutes time. Boys will be boys. Lol. So more cleaning, organizing and laundry today. I WILL exercise tomorrow.

Dinner was a bomb last night. I tried a new recipe, and I don't know what I was thinking when I picked this one to try. Maybe I didn't really read the ingredients. I don't know. I'll just put it this way, it contained onions and green peppers (among other ingredients), and tasted like onions and green peppers. Yuck!

Today my eating has been: double portion of cereal for a late breakfast/lunch (hubby let me sleep in again!) with 1 cup fat-free milk. Dinner was two servings of salad (spinach, tomatoes and cucumbers with a little bit of shredded cheese with dressing) about 4 ounces of rotisserie chicken and a couple bites of mac & cheese. I had a snack later of pringles and a chocolate bar (130 calories).

200.8

I have no one to blame for the lack of movement on the scale, but myself. I'm ok with that. I know why it's not moving and I accept that. I'm working on it, just slowly. I'm still not in the greatest place mentally to get back into the swing of things fully. Honestly I don't think I was ever 100% ready. I have so much going on in my day to day life that I don't feel ready and prepared. I'm going to work on that tomorrow and Sunday. I can't fix myself, if my enviroment is setting me up for failure.

We moved this past summer and we've never fully unpacked and organized. Things have been moved from here to there without ever really finding a "home". Every room is my house is in a state of chaos in some way or another, including the bathrooms. Tomorrow and Sunday my husband and I are going to tackle as much as we can around the house. I have a treadmill and a recumbent exercise bike and a bunch of exercise dvds. I feel like life is too chaotic that I haven't been doing anything since we got back from being out of town for last weekend. So in order to fix me, I have to fix the chaos first and that's what I'm going to do.

I'm having a hard time getting my eating back on track. I'm bored with what I'm eating and I feel like I don't have the time to even think about what to eat during the day. I feel like I do okay when it comes to dinner, because I have to plan for the whole family. I just am not putting the thought into what and when to eat throughout the day. I've been reading a couple the stories of a couple of bloggers on the Nutrisystem bloggers program (in order to get more word of mouth out about how doable and great their system can be, they've given select bloggers free Nutrisystem for a period of time. They aren't required to give a positive review, just an honest one.) and it's so tempting to sign up for a month of it just to get back on track. But the issue I have with that would be the fact that I'd still have to fix dinner for my family, yet be eating something separate. I don't think I could do that. I've considered getting it and saving the dinners for nights that we have pizza or using them as lunches later on, but I don't know how that would work with their program. I don't want to spend the money and then shoot myself in the foot by not following it word for word.

Today I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast. Lunch was tuna on a toasted onion roll with tomatoe and pickle and a side of Special K cracker chips. I've had the munchies really bad today also. I had 8 Pringles (1/2 serving) and half of two separate snack bars (my son's to blame for those, he found my stash of "emergency reserve" snacks and wouldn't leave me alone until he had some and of course I had to share with him). I had a can of Progresso vegetable soup before dinner because I felt like I could eat everything in sight again. I also had two apples before dinner tonight. Dinner was leftovers from last night because my hubby had to work tonight and called asking if he could pick up some fast food for dinner. So instead of cooking, I just ate the leftovers from last night. I followed it with a Skinny Cow peanut butter ice cream sandwich.

Still not motivated to get moving much, but like I said, tomorrow I'll work on the clutter in my life so that I can get back to working on my body clutter.

200.6

I'm having a bad day again. A bad day mentally. I know that it doesn't help that last night, and then again today I've come across blogs of two separate families that have tragically lost a child recently. One was lost to an in-home accident that I can honestly see happening with my son. And that scares me. The other poor child was only 4 months old and just stopped breathing. It breaks my heart that these families have to go through something so tragic and heartbreaking. I worry about my kids like any parent does. But since my son took so long to conceive, and was my rainbow baby (first successful pregnancy following a miscarraige), I've become even more worried about the "what-ifs" in life. My son, if my husband and myself hadn't been so attentive to him, could have passed away several times during the night. He had a severe milk and soy allergy and was on some really expensive special formula, medications and a LOT of rice cereal added to his bottles. He still would get sick violently and randomly. There were several times during the night that he would get sick in his crib (while sleeping on his back, since it's "safer"), and if we didn't hear him he could have choked to death. There were many nights where he slept (carefully) in our bed so that we could sleep, and make sure he would still be alive in the morning. If he napped too long, I would get paranoid and go check on him to make sure he's still breathing. He slept propped up. He slept on his side. He slept in a special bassinet that kept him in a sitting position next to my bed, only an arm's length away. Without all of these things, we might have lost him at some point during his first year of life. So reading about the grief that these parents are having to go through right now hits me really hard. If we hadn't been so diligent, that might have been us. Now don't get me wrong when I say that. I am not in any way saying that these parents weren't diligent in the care of their children. Accidents happen. And that's what scares me so much. Anything can happen at any time. I have a new found fear of cars and children. I have always been careful and diligent about the safety of children in and around cars. But this past year I have become much more aware of just how often children die in or because of cars. Too many children are left in cars, or get "trapped" in cars and die from exposure. Too many children are run over or backed over by vehicles. Most often by someone who loves them the most. Mom, dad, babysitter, grandparent, etc. Life is scary. The thought of losing your child before they even really get a chance to live is TERRIFYING.

So like I said, my mentality is not great today. I'm sad. I'm depressed. I'm heartbroken. And I'm even more aware of just how scary everything in and around my child can be. So today, I'm just enjoying playing with my son and niece. My son is a climber. We can't keep him off of the stairs. We can't keep him from climbing up on his table and chairs. He's a climber and we know it. So to give him a safer thing to climb, he has a little slide in the house and it's been there for months now. We do what we can to keep our kids safe, but sometimes accidents happen and that terrifies me.

Eating was ok for the most part today. I had my meal replacement shake for breakfast. Apples for a snack that I shared with the kids. Lunch was hot dogs again. Followed later on by some veggie chips and the rest of the lite french onion dip. I also had a snack bar that is kind of like a snickers. It was 130 calories. I felt like I could have eaten everything in the house today. If you're a woman, you know what that means. Lol. I've had a bunch of hard candies today, more than my usual 5 or less, so more than 100 calories worth. Also a few pieces of gum. Considering the alternative, it could have been much worse because like I said, I could have eaten everything in the house today because I felt like I was starving all day long. Dinner was some sweet 'n' sour pork chops. (I gave the recipe to my friend Pam, and after trying it, she also declared it a winner and posted it on her new blog to share yummy recipes.) I served it with 1/2 cup mac & cheese and 1 cup green beans.

No exercise for me today between feeling down, the kiddos being crazy, my daughter's school performance and I also rolled my ankle in the late afternoon. I think I sprained it. It doesn't feel like anything is broken, but it hurts. I did drink some water today, and a bunch of sugar-free drink mix. Getting back in the grove of things, just slowly.

199.8

Today hasn't been a good day for me really. I've been in a kind of funk and am just not motivated in the slightest bit. Honestly, I feel depressed. Overwhelmed. Frustrated. I'm sure I could come up with more, but I don't want to think about it. I'm tired and that's not helping things. I'm exhausted is actually more fitting.

I did eat better today, for the most part. I had my meal replacement shake for breakfast. A bit late, but I had it. Lunch was two hot dogs on buns with ketchup, mustard and relish. Followed by some veggie chips with lite french onion dip. Again I didn't measure out those, but it could have been worse. Dinner was three slices Digiorno pizza with spicy ranch dressing. And then I had a Weight Watchers chocolate muffin because I was really wanting something chocolate. Dinner was pizza because of me having such an off day. I'm sick of pizza. I don't even really like pizza.

No exercise for me today. I didn't even attempt it. So bad.

I didn't drink a ton of water today. In fact, I didn't have any plain water today at all. So bad. I did however fix a sugar free drink mix and drank most of the 64 ounces of it that I made. So that was better than nothing.

I'm going to shoot for a better day tomorrow. I'm just feeling down and out and really overwhelmed with things. Tomorrow's a new day, and I get to start fresh in the morning. As soon as I get the kids to bed, I'm going to bed early to try to get some extra sleep. I will start fresh again tomorrow.

200.4 today and 200.6 yesterday.

:( Not too happy, but what should I expect for how I've been eating and exercising. I've been eating like crap for the past couple of days. And I also haven't been exercising.

Friday I was not able to go to the gym to exercise. My little guy has never really been left alone with anyone and he's at the age that separation anxiety is kicking in. He wants mommy and daddy all the time. And he definitely doesn't want to be left with someone he doesn't know, in a place that he doesn't know. I took him in to the gym on Friday morning to see if he would adjust better to the child watch if I went in with him and let him play while I stayed in there with him. He wanted nothing to do with it at all and didn't want me to leave. When I did leave (twice) he balled his eyes out and cried hysterically from the moment I left. Poor thing. So no gym on Friday. Saturday through Monday we were out of town visiting with close friends and some family. I didn't make it to the gym any of those days. I felt guilty, but I just didn't have the proper motivation to go. I also didn't bother to do any in-home exercises. I'm such a slacker. Today wasn't any better. I didn't even attempt to do any exercising. Tomorrow's a new day though.

My eating has been poor. Friday evening I fixed a pizza for dinner. Saturday I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast and we ate fast food on the go for lunch and had a Chinese buffet for dinner with friends. So bad!!! Sunday I had my meal replacement shake and two apples for breakfast. Lunch was a late lunch, and was a french dip sandwich (normally I wouldn't touch them) and french fries. We had lunch at a relative's house so there wasn't any say in what to eat. It was yummy, and wouldn't have been too bad if I hadn't eaten my sandwich and fries, and then proceeded to eat my daughter's leftover fries. BAD!!! Bad mommy habit. I also had some SWEET sweet tea with it. Bad!!! Dinner was pizza back at our friend's place. Monday was bad! We had a late breakfast (more so lunch, but was oh so yummy then!). I had three average pancakes with regular syrup (smack me now, that's a LOT of sugar!), three pieces of bacon, eggs that were smothered with cheese. And also two biscuits with jam. So bad!!! It was absolutely delicious though! Dinner last night was leftover pizza from Friday night. (You know, for someone who doesn't like pizza, I sure have had a lot of it lately.)

So on to today's eating. Meal replacement shake for breakfast. Lunch was some veggie chips and lite french onion dip. Bad!!! I didn't even portion or weigh any of it. Dinner was horrible! We went out to Red Lobster with family to celebrate a birthday (birthday person picked) and I ate so bad. Part of lobster/seafood nachos. Two cheesy biscuits. Salad with ranch dressing. Tilapia stuffed with crab and shrimp and a cream sauce (cream translates to HEAVY calories automatically). And I also had a Maine lobster tail. So so bad. Oh, and diet soda. I definitely haven't had nearly as much water as I should be drinking for the past several days. Tomorrow's a new day, and a fresh start. And boy, do I need it.

I'm supposed to go to the gym tomorrow evening but I don't think I'll go. I honestly have way too much stuff going on at home for the next several days, and that combined with my little guy not wanting to be there, just makes it difficult. I will, however try to get in some exercise at home. It's the best that I can do for the next couple of days.

Game plan for tomorrow: Drink lots of water. Eat healthier than the past few days! Get up and get moving! Clean the house! Yes, that one's important too. Without a clean house, you feel cluttered. When you feel cluttered you start coming up with excuses and lack of motivation. So that's definitely on my list of things to do tomorrow. Tomorrow's a whole new day, and I'm going to start fresh in the morning. So having said that, I'm off to bed now!

Short post tonight because I'm tired.

199.0!!!

Yay!!!

Went to the gym Friday night and did some cardio only. No gym on Saturday, but I did do some in-home exercises. No gym and no exercise on Sunday. No gym and no exercise on Monday, but I went out and "tested" out a few ellipticals. Does that count? Lol.

Went to the gym tonight and worked out with the trainer doing some weight machines and also some sit-ups on a bosu ball. I can't do them on the floor due to when I fell and broke my tailbone. It hurts. It still hurts on a bosu ball, but do-able.

I will be going to the gym the rest of the week unless I can't for some reason (like the kids get sick, etc), so tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and then Saturday morning. I'm heading out of town Saturday afternoon through either Sunday evening or Monday morning. I'm debating on going to the gym when I'm out of town even though those are my normal "off" days. I will just have to see how it all works out.

I'm still eating ok. I've had my splurges. Went out to eat on Sunday with the hubs for an early Valentine's Day dinner. It was a disaster because our 17 month old son didn't want to sit for dinner. So we ate in shifts. I ate more than I should have, but I alloted for a "splurge" since I haven't had one in a while. Still doing well on my every day eating though. And I'm hoping that when we go out of town for two days that it can be kept up while staying at someone else's house. I'm trying to plan ahead to make it work.

A little dissapointed. Today's weight is 200.4.

The scale seems to be stuck. I will admit that I'm a little bit dissapointed that it's not really budging at the moment. I do realize that since this is the first full week that I've really started exercising, that the scale probably isn't budging right now because my body's trying to adjust to the changes going on and isn't sure what's happening. If you watch The Biggest Loser, I think I'll refer to it as "the dreaded week two" where a lot of times the contestants don't lose, and might even gain slightly while their bodies adjust. So that's how I'm going to look at it. This is my "dreaded week two" weight stall. I'm ok with that. There should be a light at the end of the week (or two), and I'm going to hold out for that.

So Wednesday I made it to the gym. I did some walking around the indoor track, followed by the "weight loss" program on the elliptical. That's about 35 minutes long with the cooldown. I finished up with walking some more on the indoor track. Overall it was about an hour of cardio.

Yesterday I did an in-home walking dvd. I completed 3 out of the 4 miles on it. And last night was another night at the gym. We were a little late getting there unfortunately. We did 45 minutes with the trainer and I finished up with the 35 minute elliptical program. I've noticed that my cardio is improving. I'm not as out of breath and no longer struggling the whole time. This is good. I'm supposed to go to the gym again tonight to do some cardio. I feel really good about all of this so far. Yay!

Today's weight is 200.8.

So I made it to the gym last night despite my back killing me and my husband suggesting that I stay home. Surprisingly enough once I got on an elliptical and got my heart rate up, my back didn't hurt much any more. We worked out with our trainer for our session and worked fairly hard, but also not that hard. There were times where I thought I could have done more, but other times where I felt like it was enough. I did have to stop and rest twice during the training due to pain. I bent over after doing some wall-ball squats and it felt like all of my innerds on my right sight had been smushed into my ribs. It hurt really bad. After 2-3 minutes it was like it never happened. The other time I had to stop was because the center of my chest felt tight and it was harder to breathe. So I took a break for a couple of minutes and drank some water. It took longer for that pain to go away, but once it did I hopped right back into the workout. We workout with the trainer again on Thursday.

I'm planning to go to the gym again tonight to get some cardio in. Nothing major, but something's better than nothing.

I'm still eating well overall. I'm still sticking with the same daily meals with just dinner changing out. We've been trying a bunch of new recipes for dinner, and so far they've all been hits except for one. And ironically for that one recipe, I was the only person that didn't like it. I have a recipe for Jambalaya cooking in the crockpot for today. I'm not sure if I'll like it or not, but it's worth trying.

Today's weight is 200.2.

I'm tired and I'm hurting. I just want to go crawl in bed and lay down and sleep. I can't do that though because I have an appointment with a trainer at the gym at 7pm tonight. My sister and I are sharing 24 personal training sessions over a 12 week period. I'd hate to miss a session after paying for the trainer. My sister would still be able to go and keep the appointment, but then I would miss out.

Somehow yesterday I hurt the lower right side of my back. I don't know what I did, but it started hurting really bad last night right before I went to bed. It still hurts today. I think it has to do with the way I was holding my son yesterday. That's just my best guess though.

I think I'm going to try to fit in a nap before having to go to the gym later, otherwise I'll end up bailing out for sure because I'm so tired right now.

Today's weight is 200.6. I desperately need to get my hair cut and I plan for that to be my first reward after getting under 200 and staying there for at least 2-3 days.

I'm still eating well. We went out to a chinese buffet yesterday for dinner. I did eat a little more than I should have, but I did make a few better choices. I had water with dinner instead of soda. And also once I felt full, I stopped eating. The main "mistake" I made was having a nice serving of banana pudding for dessert, but the way I see it is that I'm allowed to splurge every so often.

I'm exercising most days. I did 60 minutes of light cardio on the 4th. Nothing on the 5th. And today I went to the gym and did about 5 minutes light walking/jogging cardio followed by approximately 30 minutes of heavy cardio on an elliptical. I'm feeling good about my choices.

We (my sister and I) signed up for 12 weeks of twice weekly personal training sessions. We were able to share the sessions so it's half the cost for each of us and we just work out together with the trainer. Works for us because there's no way we can afford it separately. Honestly neither one of us can really afford it by splitting it, but at least we'll have 12 weeks of training to get us started. It gets us in gear and will teach us what is best to do for us.

Today's weight is 201.2. Still making progress.

Still eating well all day long. Still drinking enough water each day.

Yesterday I went to the gym with my sister and we worked out with a trainer for 45 minutes. Learned that I have a long way to go, but that my sister's worse off in some areas. She's definitely more flexible than I am though, by a lot. Lol. We discussed paying for three months of 2x/week training. We can split the cost and the trainer will train both of us. Not bad. Think we'll probably do it, just wish it didn't cost so much. Three months should get us in better shape though.

Didn't go to the gym tonight. Went to the store and bought more workout clothes though. I did get in an hour of cardio today on my exercise bike. I'm not going to the gym tomorrow either. I have family commitments. I plan to go on Saturday morning. Sunday's I won't be going to the gym at all either. That's a family day.

I'm making progress and I feel good about my eating habits. We had tacos for dinner tonight. I normally eat too many. I also normally eat hard/crunchy tacos. Instead of even making that an option, I just put out whole wheat tortillas for the family to use. No complaints here. Dinner was good and filling and no one ate too much. I cooked some turkey bacon for dinner tomorrow. Not sure if I'm going to like the turkey bacon or not. I'll have to see how it is on our grilled chicken sandwiches tomorrow night. I'm hoping they're yummy.

Today's weight is 201.8! Yay! It's still going down! I'm so happy and motivated. Monday evening my sister and I went to the gym to get our "orientation" done. We were a little bit late and had to finish up by the time the child watch center closed, so we didn't really accomplish much that night. We didn't go to the gym yesterday because it was our mom's birthday. We had dinner with her and went to see a movie. Tonight we're going back to the gym to finish the orientation.

My eating is still on track, and I'm doing much better on the dinner front. I ordered a couple of cookbooks that came in last night. And I had also purchased a cookbook at a local store and planned our meals from that one before I went grocery shopping. Dinner hasn't been a situation where I'm wondering just how many calories I'm taking in. I could be doing better with some of the veggies for dinner, but baby steps. Overall I'm doing well. I'm also doing better getting in my daily water requirement, except for yesterday. I didn't drink a whole lot of water yesterday because I spent 3-1/2 hours in the dentist's chair in the early afternoon, followed by the movie in the evening. I am back to drinking enough water today though.

I'm still not really exercising at home, but since we're going to be going to the gym fairly often now, I'm not too worried about that since there's a plan in place. I'm making progress on the scale and in inches lost and that's good enough for me right now.