Namaste

Week 2, Day 1, Weight 195 pounds, 3 down, 27 to go.


Yoga was great this morning, I really like yoga. It feels like a luxury. My first memories of exercising on purpose were getting down on the floor in front of the television with my mother and watching the lady with the waist-length braid and a large yellow cardboard sun behind her demonstrate "cat" "dog" and various other poses.
I was probably 4 or 5 years old. I remember my sister being born when I was 5, but I do not remember much about her being pregnant. What a forward-thinking 40 year old mother of eight she was to be doing yoga with her preschoolers on the living room floor in 1976!
I guess that's why yoga feels so much like a luxury. I reminds me of a large room with green carpet and a large picture window which let the light in, and television tuned to PBS, and my mother and I doing cat, cow, and dog poses.
After yoga I did 35 minutes on the elliptical and burned over 300 calories. Wish I could take a sabbatical from my ER job and do this every day. But bills have to be paid and children have to be fed and clothed, so I'll squeeze it in when I can.

Namaste

Week One: Day Four

Thursday and Friday were work days, twelve hour shifts in the ER. Thursday was ok because the other dieters were working. So less extra food had been stashed in the break area. Friday however was a different story. The eaters were there. They funny thing is that each day I worked with someone who had had a gastric procedure. Thursday a clerk who has had a gastric banding. She only watches carbohydrates. She brought liverwurst to share (and I will never, ever eat liverwurst). She also brought summer sausage which she sliced up to share.

Friday’s nurse has had a gastric bypass, she has gone from huge to tiny yet eats constantly, in large amounts. The overlapping shift were the real saboteurs however. First, My own sister shows up with a huge sack of Bugles, a jar of malted milk balls and peanut butter with celery. Then someone remembers that this is the last day for one of our coworkers and sends out for a cake! Help! How can anyone eat less in this atmosphere of indulgence!

I went to lunch with our clerk, a big girl herself, and she suggested going back for the brownies in the cafeteria. I said, “But I’m on a diet.” She replied, “Yeah right, a see-food diet just like I am. ” (Maybe she’s right.) I have, however tried to keep track of everything, and I mean everything I have eaten. Mom thinks I should weigh myself daily. I refuse. I will only record my weight once a week on Wednesdays. That gives me four more days to lose this first stubborn pound. Wish me luck!

Recreation and Relaxation: Week One, Day One

My weight this morning 198 pounds; 30 pounds left to lose.

Today I ate half a bagel with with some cream cheese on it before rushing the kids to shool and then heading to the Y. I arrived about 20 minutes late to the Zumba toning class. It was fun! I didn't know the routine and had a hard time keeping up, but the music was good and we wiggled our hips alot. I think I'll like the class. After Zumba, I joined the yoga class across the hall. Yea! Yoga was a nice relaxing stretch with meditation at the end. I feel much better and less stressed already!

I was really hungry after all that, so I caved to temptation and got a $1 sausage biscuit at Mcdonald's and a small (free) water. Now I am using the library wifi to compose this post.

1/2 bagel 115 calories. calories from fat 5
1 ounce cream cheese 100 calories. calories from fat 80
one Mcdonalds sausage biscuit 430 calories. calories from fat 240

total for this morning 645 calories fat calories 325

Ok so the sausage biscuit was an indulgence. Guess I'll have to eat super low fat for the rest of the day. I think I'll have an apple when I get home.

A New Beginning: Week One

I have not made a new year's resolution to loose weight. I don't like dieting. But my blood pressure and my stress levels are high. I do like exercise, though. I have been living apart from my soon to be ex for 2 years and my mother (meddling and hypercritical as mothers can be sometimes) has insisted on spending money on my weight loss. She wanted to enroll me in Jenny Craig. I talked her into paying my start up costs for a family YMCA membership instead. I have promised her that I will lose 30 pounds in 30 weeks. I am 5'2" and weigh 198-202 pounds depending on when and which scale I step on. So in 30 weeks I plan to weigh 168-172 pounds depending on when and which scale I step on.

I hope this blog will help keep me motivated. I will list what I eat, and what and how much exercise I've done. I may even share a bit of my day; my frustrations, and triumphs.