Dawn’s Weight Loss Journey

I’ve got a happy secret that I would looooove to share with my web family…But sadly, since I do not really know who all reads these ramblings of mine, I can’t quite share…YET…(And NO, it does not involve marriage or babies of ANY kind….LOL)

Let us (Lol…I said Lettuce!) just say that I received a much anticipated phone call last night that will HOPEFULLY be the start of something truly wonderful in my life…

Last night, after MONTHS of thinking God must hate me…That Karma must have truly abandoned me…That I must have REALLY pissed someone off in a past life…Last night I finally feel like someone is saying, “We’ll take it easy on you for a while kid…”

You see, yesterday, as some of you know per my facebook status, I had MORE bad Karma…

I fell…(NO, not from grace) but literally FELL on my afternoon walk…

I was jamming along. Listening to my IPod. Thinking in my head about my progress. My weight. I was actually thinking what it will one day feel like when I am truly happy with my body. Not skinny. Not even thin. Not a certain number on a scale, but what will happen when I walk by a window, and the reflection I see is a FIT and healthy girl looking back at me…

This shouldn’t have caused my accident because I normally spend a great deal of time in my head. I am OCD anyway, and can often be found up there over analyzing everything…LOL…

And then without warning. WHAM.

I went down. HARD.

In downtown Columbus during a busy lunchtime no less.

I didn’t have time to be mortified at first because I was in actual pain. I fell so hard my glasses came off, my brand new cell phone went skidding across the sidewalk…I had three people rush up to me to see if I was okay, and all I wanted to do was cry…Which I did NOT do…

I collected myself and then checked out the damage. Both hands were bruised and road rashed. Left knee was skinned, bruised and swelling quickly. Right ankle, which I suspect caused the whole thing, was twisted and throbbing…
I hobbled back up to my office, and then the mortification set in…

How does one fall by simply walking on the side walk??

I have had these feet for a while now; wouldn’t you think I should know how to use them??? Good grief…I bet I gave those folks a laugh of a lifetime…

Anyway…

I iced it when I got home, and it’s much better today, although I suspect I might have done some real damage to my knee, but well, without health insurance, not much I can do about it right now…(Where’s the Aflac duck when you REALLY need him???)

So I am gonna skip my lunchtime walk today, to give it some time to heal, and besides, it is raining today…So I don’t feel too bad…

Next up for me is a VERY long and over packed weekend. It is going to take ALL of my will and determination to not crash and burn…Please pray for me Webbers (Unless you are an Atheist, then you can simply send me good thoughts!!!!)

Thursday night, a small beer tasting at a local beer store. Not too worried about this one, as they are just samples, and I can easily utilize portion control.

Friday night, going out with a friend to the Winking Lizard. More beer. More food. HOPEFULLY I can make wise choices here. Focus on the greens and NOT the deep fried goodness…

Saturday the MUCH anticipated Dublin Irish Festival. Truly one of the nicest Irish Festivals in the Midwest. If you have never gone, I encourage you to do so…
I look forward to this all year, and usually go every year….I am a fan of all things Celtic you see…I was most certainly a druid in a past life…Or a medieval princess…LOL…

Anyway, two of my favorite Celtic rock bands are gonna be there. The Prodigals and the Young Dubliners. I have seen them both several times and they soooo put on a rockin show. If you are not familiar with Celtic Rock, you should be…Its GREAT workout music…

This one will be the toughest, as there is absolutely NO healthy food at a festival. Period. AND I am doing a whiskey tasting. So portion control and LOTS of walking will have to help me here…

Then on Sunday, we are getting up at an insane hour in the morning to make the 3 hour drive to Cleveland for yet another beer tasting…Beer and Breakfast. LOL.

It’s completely crazy, but something we both want to do…

This one should not be too bad, as long as I pay attention…

So many many tests and trials for me this week…I am strong. I am up for it. And really, overall, I am doing really well…My calories have consistently been between 12-1300 for weeks now…

I still struggle a bit on the weekends. I am aware of it and working on it. And I STILL need to get more workouts in…Again, this will be fixed permanently this week when I get to sign up at the Y (Waiting for payday you see!)

So that’s me in a nutshell this week…

Why is it Monday already? And why wasn’t I consulted about it?

My weekend was kind of a mix bag of “Kudos” and “No-No’s”

Friday night was awesome. I had planned well and was able to enjoy a few pieces of veggie pizza AND a few bites of hot fudge Sunday. Brian and I had “Date night” at the laundry mat…LOL…And in between loads we walked over to the Pizza Place. It was fun actually. I ended the day at only 1280 calories and that was an awesome success.

Saturday started out well…With good intentions…(Don’t they all?)

But by dinner time I had already used MOST of my calories and we were going out to catch a friend’s band…Add in dinner and some cheap beer, and you got it…Calorie over load…

But this did go to show me yet one more sign that I am back…GUILT…
I felt guilty about my choices, or lack thereof and I just felt…Bloated…Gross…Full…

There WERE healthy options there, but I didn’t order them…And I regretted it ALMOST immediately…And the cheap beer…UGH…Gave me a headache something fierce…

So on Sunday I decided to just shake it off…Made the decision that I am just not strong enough to go out weekend after weekend YET and make good choices…

I skipped a previously arranged trip to the Jazz and Rib Fest because I knew the temptation to eat there or eat out again would just be too much. So instead, I stuck around the house, took a walk with Brian and the Dog, and grilled out some lean pork chops…It was a GREAT Sunday.

We prepped our meals for the week. Went grocery shopping. Scanned cookbooks for new and healthy dishes, and genuinely just enjoyed the day together…Got my mind back on track…(By the way, it is soooo nice having a partner who enjoys cooking as much as me and wants to be a part of the process…)

It’s hard to say no to yourself, and in this case, let down some friends who were expecting you to join them out, but sometimes you have to know yourself…And in this case, myself said I was too weak to go to a rib fest and not eat a rib…Or something on a stick…LOL…

See, the other outlier for me is workouts. I am not doing them yet. If I were, I would have been able to go to the gym and work out before or after and felt LESS guilty…But right now I can’t…

Which leads me to my next task. Choosing a gym.

Brian and I checked out the YMCA in our town on Saturday…Folks…I use the term Y very loosely here…We live in a very small town. And apparently, this Y is in an old abandoned school…It has no pool, and the “Gym” area consists of 6 ellipticals. 6 bikes. 6 treadmills. It’s old. It’s dark. And it looks (and smells) like somebody’s moldy basement. But it’s convenient (Less than two minutes to my house!) and all things considered, CHEAP.

I was dead set against it at first…I want a state of the art, FUN gym…Like I had in Florida…I want the cardio theater…The latest equipment…The 32 TV screens. Unfortunately the closest one is about 20 minutes away…

And then I thought about buying my own equipment again…But then remembered I did that once…And I heard my ex husbands voice in my head saying “Now Dawn, are you REALLY going to use that??”…And I remembered that my elliptical became a great clothes hanger and ended up being sold on Ebay…LOL…

My friend Stacey said it best…She said I need to be honest with myself…And that only I REALLY know me and what I will truly do and not do…

And because of that, I know I will find more excuses than NOT to drive 20 minutes to a gym…And even more excuses to ignore the elliptical in the living room. So I think I will suck it up and join the old outdated YMCA…

It’s a bit scary. It smells. But it has what I need…Just the basics…

So that’s on my agenda for this week…Joining the Y and beginning my hour workouts again…

It will be tough. Brian and I are used to chilling out in the evenings together, but its time. I am spending wayyyy too much time on the computer at night…Wayyyy too much time on my butt and not out being active. And I hate that…

I am never going to reach my goal of 40 pounds down by Christmas if I don’t get MOVIN…

I have another 5k coming up on August 22 (Heart Walk) and my most cherished 10k (New Albany Classic) in September…

So I MUST get training now…

Man alive am I stoked…I discovered a new veggie gem!!

It’s not like it was just recently discovered by archeologist, but still…It’s been rediscovered by ME!

I have always liked cabbage, and as a child, I would eat it raw by the leaf…As an adult I LOVE it in my Chinese food, and even cooked in restaurants, but I have never really sought it out on my own…

So yesterday I bought a head of cabbage…Folks, I kid you not, it was 39 cents!! How on earth can you beat that???

I was going to try to recreate a recipe I had spied on my FAVORITE Food Network show, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (You know, the show my boyfriend Guy Fieri does!! LOL….Shhhh…Neither he nor his wife realizes I am his girlfriend…YET…)

Now, at first this recipe sounds high in calories, but I assure, it is not…(Of course, you could always fatten it up if you wanted to!!)

Here is the recipe for those of you wishing to try something a little different:

6 cups/1 bag of egg noodles, boiled (220 calories per cup, 6 cups in a bag=1320 calories)
6 strips of LEAN, CENTER CUT bacon (30 calories for 3 slices = 120 calories)
½ a head of shredded cabbage (25 calories folks!)
1 small onion (30 calories)
2 tablespoons of Olive Oil (200 calories)

Cut the bacon into bits and fry to a nice crispy brown, add in the onion so they can sauté a bit…Then add in the cabbage, use a lid on your pan to trap in the moisture and reduce the cabbage. Then throw in your already boiled noodles. Depending on your bacon, you may not need any more oil, but I did add two addition tablespoons. Garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and WHAM…A delightful main course or side dish…

6 one cup servings end up being 282.5 calories!!! Folks, that is NOTHING…And it’s ever so filling…

So I was so incredibly pumped, and Brian and I were trying to decide what to do with the other half of our cabbage…And we have all kind of ideas now…We feel like adding it to everything, because folks, this cabbage apparently is a power veggie…I HAD NO IDEA!

Some on line research shows that it’s VERY low in calories…High in fiber (Between 2-4 grams per cup depending on web source!) (This also might explain why Brian and I were fighting over the bathroom this morning…LOL…Ewwww…TMI???)

Each cup contains 1 gram of protein and in additional to a slew of other vitamins, this sucker packs a whopping 36% of your daily Vitamin C recommendation!!!! Holy wow Batman!!!

I am so excited. I feel like making cabbage bread…cabbage soup…cabbage eggs…cabbage cabbage!

Anyway, just wanted to share with you all…

Having a pretty good week food wise…Exercise wise the weather has put a damper on my walks, but I still feel okay…Going to check out the YMCA this weekend to see how much a membership is…

I cannot WAIT to get back on an elliptical again…I miss my beloved elliptical machines…My butt REALLY misses the elliptical…LOL…I had a GREAT elliptical butt at one time…

Speaking of elliptical, just a quick shout out to my gal Misty…She is pretty new to this weight loss journey, and with the help of Weight Watchers and her elliptical, she has dropped over 12 pounds in just three weeks. VERY PROUD of you Misty…I know how exciting and difficult it can be!!

I am having one of those days…Okay…Let’s be honest, I am really having one of those months…

You ever get the feeling that the world seems out to get you? And you just can’t figure out why?

Yep. That’s me. I am feeling a little down. A little defeated…And more than a bit off…

I will preface this by saying I KNOW things could be worse…Truly. I am not that ungrateful…

But man. I feel like I really can’t catch a break right now…

I am not a perfect human specimen by any stretch, but I do try to be the best person I can be…I make mistakes, own up to them, and go about making amends for them…

I self analyze often, and in MOST cases, over analyze. (Who me???)

So I have to wonder who in the heck have I made angry upstairs and WHY?????
Yesterday ended in some tears for me…Tears of frustration…I think I just reached my mental breaking point.

It took three weeks for my first paycheck to get here. It was mistakenly mailed to an old address, and despite a forwarding address, it was not forwarded, and sent back to Detroit, Michigan where it originated from. I finally got it on Monday…

I was excited that I can now get caught up a bit on finances. I am not in a deep hole yet, but let’s face it, after three months of no fundage, I am in a hole…

But I have prided myself on the fact that so far, I have not let my credit go. I was tempted at one point to file for bankruptcy, and in this economy, I don’t think I would be alone, but I didn’t, and so with the help of Brian, my ex Steve, and my mother and father, I was able to get by okay and without owing too many people…Without their help, I couldn’t have done it. Period. And I am glad I have that kind of support.

So I deposit the check yesterday, and inform “Person that I owe money to #1” that they can deposit their check now from me…Ooops. Wait a minute…Apparently the Credit Union I belong to put a three day hold on the check…

What? Why? It’s a payroll check from a legitimate, well known, company???

Ugh. Now this person has to wait till Thursday. I feel like a schmuck…They have already waited two weeks for me to GET the check…Good grief!!!!

Last week I received a collection notice…My first collection notice since 1996. I kid you not. I was FLOORED…Had no idea what it was for. Come to find out that a checking account I set up in Florida for the sole purpose of paying for my move, was over drawn by 33 cents….Please read that again…33 cents.

I closed the account in March after paying for my move, and had NO IDEA it was overdrawn. It was over drawn because of a mistake on the part of the moving company who overcharged me, then refunded me through the account, leaving me short 33 cents.

Since this account was closed, and I have never received one single notice from them, I had no idea…

So instead of a notice from the bank (Wachovia, to whom I will never EVER give my business again) I received a notice from their collection agency. They are now charging me $40.33. I was sent to collections for 33 cents, and now owe 40 dollars for those 33 cents. Are you kidding me? Had you let me know, I would have gladly sent you two quarters tapped to a post card…

So several calls later to Wachovia, I learn that they did get notification of my address change in May, but still made no attempt to send a notice…But she did say that in MOST cases, they will waive the 40 dollar fee but that I need to call a different number of course…

So for three days I call and call and I get stuck in the phone tree from hell, and every time they go to transfer me to a representative, I get disconnected. UGH.

So finally last night I reach a person, who gives me yet another number to call, which is really just the collection agency where I am repeatedly reprimanded by JOE DUDE COLLECTOR telling me how worthless I am for not paying my debt and that there is nothing more he can do.

Whatever…

Yeah, I will add you to the top of the list of people needing money from me. NOT…

So I get to work yesterday morning and I have no dollar bills to pay for parking. All the lots down here are “Self Pay” meaning there’s a little metal box with slots and numbers, and you slide your money in them for collection…I have been doing this for a month. Yesterday, I had no ones, so I used a five dollar bill to pay for a FOUR DOLLAR spot…

I walk out to my car after work and there is an envelope on my windshield. Stupid and naïve little me thinks “Oh, wow, look, they are giving me my change back!!”

Ummm. NO. It’s a parking ticket with a picture of my license plate and a threat to prosecute if I do not pay now 35 dollars!!!! Are you freakin kidding me?? 35 dollars for a spot that I OVERPAID for by a dollar???

I walked right up to that box yesterday and slid in a 5 dollar bill. Now I would like to know what proof they have that I DIDN’T pay?? Because I am pretty hard to miss…I was pretty livid…I called the number on the ticket and of course got a voice mail…This one I AM fighting…

But I am soooo tired of fighting people…

The easy thing to do would just be to suck it up and pay the 40 bucks to Wachovia and the 35 bucks to the parking people, because the time, energy, and frustration I will waste on fighting it seems daunting…But I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right to me…

And I have NO IDEA why, for one small moment in time, I can’t catch a bit of good Karma…UGH…

I weighed myself this morning…FINALLY…After six months of not knowing, I now have the truth…

It had to be done…I cannot gage how far I have come if I don’t have a starting point…And although I am not a huge fan of scales as a constant guide to success, well, you do at least need to know what you’re up against…And now I know…

The good news is that it was not nearly as bad as I had made it in my head to be. I put a figure in my head of what I thought it would be, the absolute highest number I felt I could handle…And, well, it was NOT that…Thank God!

The bad news is that I DO have some work ahead of me…Work I have done before…Ugh…

The good news is that in reality, it is only 7 pounds higher than I was at this time last year…With the year I have had I am going to say I am okay with that…

The bad news is that LAST year when I weighed in right before my back surgery I SWORE I would NOT be that size again…Liar…

The good news is that I am already feeling better. As my buddy Stacey said, it’s just a starting point and if I choose to, I NEVER have to see that number again…

The bad news is I have seen this number TWICE now on this journey…

You see, I am at the exact re-start weight as I was back in 2006 when I jolted myself back to reality…What IS it about this number for me?? (Maybe I need to play the lotto?)

The good news, no, strike that, the GREAT news, is that I am not back to my 250 pound starting point I was when I decided to do this way back in 2004…

The bad news is that it probably only takes a few more lazy months to get there…For it is much too easy to gain than to lose…

The good news is that I have no idea what I was on July 1st when I started back on my journey…So in my head, who knows?? Maybe I have already lost 4, 5, 6 pounds…I will never know…So therefore, I can pretend I have…LOL…

I definitely FEEL better, and that is awesome…

The bad news is that…Well, I think that’s all the bad news…

Back to the good then…

I immediately shared the number with Brian…GASP! I know. I know. Many of my friends do NOT tell their significant others their weights. I do get that…

But I started doing this back in my marriage with Steve. And I think it’s because Steve never judged me by my weight. My weight was never a factor in his feelings for me, and he ALWAYS supported me in my efforts to lose, and therefore, telling him was a bit of freedom for me…

I was always bigger than him from day one yet he still asked me out! And even after I lost the weight, I still was, so it really never seemed to bother him. It’s just something I dealt with…And apparently, he did too. I have been truly blessed in the arena of finding good men…(Ladies, they DO exist!)

Anyway, I started telling him somewhere along in my journey as a way to hold myself accountable AND also so that he too could appreciate where I came from and where I was going…He helped celebrate my successes, and understood my defeats better, I think.

I have no doubts that Brian would love me whether I was 135 pounds or 435 pounds. Truly. I could be wrong, but it’s doubtful. He is just that kind of guy…

And telling him was NOT easy in the least. It was actually a bit humiliating to be honest. But some of the greatest rewards come from doing things that are HARD for us to do…If we ALWAYS stay in our comfort zone, we will never be challenged to be more or do more…

So I told him what the weight was…We talked about it…We made a plan…And suddenly, it all seems okay…I did NOT cry…I did not have a meltdown…I am not even really depressed…Maybe disappointed a bit…But now I simply have a starting point…

I will NOT state here what that weight was for one reason only…

As we all know I am very open and honest about my battle with the bulge and I cross post my blogs on three different sites…And I have a lot of love and support flowing all around me (THANK YOU!)…

But it only takes ONE person to read it and state a really stupid comment like “Hey, fat girl, put the cheeseburger down and you might lose weight” (Yeah, like its simply that easy…And I don’t even EAT cheeseburgers that often!) Or one soul to say “Damn, I had no idea she was that huge…” and, well, that’s just ignorance and negativity that I don’t need right now…

So for now, Brian knows, and my weight loss buddy gals will know (LOVE YOU GUYS!!!)

And that will be enough for me…Eventually, I will tell all…I always do…Hah…
So that’s it.

I made a goal to weigh myself this week, and I did it…It was hard. I fought it, but in the end, I did what I knew had to be done, as is my way…

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY…Eh?

Wow…

Well, my week has gone very well…I have almost completed week three of my New Journey…And overall, I am very pleased…

This week I kept my calories way down, and surprisingly, did not feel deprived or hungry…

I have walked every day, although this is the next thing on my list…I want to increase my exercise as soon as I can join a gym. That should be within the next two weeks…

So I finally got paid today…My second check, not my first…its still MIA…

So I decided to take myself out to lunch today…

I was hungry. Didn’t have a filling breakfast (A special K bar and some honey baked pretzels). So my first action was to go across the street and check out the little Ma & Pa Mexican joint across the street. It smelled soooo good and a long line was forming…So I go in…

I am fully prepared to eat what I want…Although, I am not sure why…Hunger, I suppose…Frustration from my week…Elation that I finally have some money in my account. Who knows…At any rate, I temporarily lost my mojo…Or my good sense…

So I am reading the menu…Tacos…Burritos…NACHO’s…OH MY…I focus on the nachos…They sound yummy. Homemade chips with beans, cheese sauce, meat, shredded cheese (TWO CHEESES), guacamole…YUM…

And then I see “Salad”…And I think oh, okay…I could get a Mexican salad…Without cheese…Without guacamole…Without…Without…Without…

What’s the point in a Mexican salad? That’s not what you go to a Mexican restaurant for!

And then it hits me…

Truly, it might have been the voice of God. The voice of my inner self…Or heck, maybe it was Jarod! LOL…

If I had lost several pounds, been doing in this for months, maybe, and only maybe, then could I reward myself a little…

But at the end of measly little week three?? NO WAY. I will not do it…

I leave the line, walk next door and get a nice 6 inch sub from Subway. No cheese. No condiments. And it came in at 300 calories…

Waking up just saved me several dollar and probably 900 calories…

I am telling you…I am there…I am fighting this every step of the way…

I typed it all up in a frenzy this morning in anger and frustration, and the result was a lovely 7 page blog…SEVEN pages…LOL…

I laughed to myself and said “NO ONE is going to sit through a seven page ANGRY blog Dawn, not even when it’s as wonderfully well written as yours”…Hee hee hee…

So then I went back and took out all kinds of stuff…But then it didn’t quite make sense!

So I decided to chuck the whole thing and simply state this…

I will simply condense it into this…I have only been here for two weeks. I have had absolutely NO training or feedback whatsoever. Trust me. I have asked. I am not the kind of worker who meekly sits in her cubicle and waits…I always search out knowledge or stuff to do…

So an extremely long story short, I have been an office professional for over 12 years. I have over 10 years of relevant and recent experience in the job I was hired to do. In those years I have sat on HUNDREDS of conference calls…
But never, in all my life, have I sat on one like the one I sat on yesterday.

It was my first contact with my “client” and it was SUPPOSED to be an over view of my training and what’s going to happen…

Well, it turned out to be a personal attack on me personally, and the company I am working for.

This person literally questioned my ability to do the job on the call, in front of five other people…All based on a list of questions I had prepared to ask about the specific duties of the position…

Her exact words: “Well, after reviewing these questions I have GRAVE concerns that you have ever done, or can do, benefits administration”

WHAT??!?!?!

Did she REALLY just say that out loud in front of everyone??

Yes. Yes she did.

Ten years I have been doing Benefit Administration, and I have done it DAMN WELL thank you very much!!!!

I was appalled. It took everything in me to ONE, not CRY and TWO, to not walk out of the call…

And no, I wasn’t just being an emotional goose…My boss who was in the room with me also felt the hostility and thought it was completely out of line…(Later in the call, it would appear she didn’t like how my question was WORDED but agreed that the question was relevant. A miss communication that could have easily been cleaned up had she spoken to me directly!!!!!)

Again, I have been doing this job, and jobs like this for ten years…I was upfront with them completely during the interview process…They wanted a technical guru, which I am not, and I told them that…This job IS very technical, but it’s all stuff I have done on some level and have NO DOUBT I can do again given some over views and guidelines.

I have also been told repeatedly in my career to ALWAYS ask questions…And that there ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS…

Well folks. Apparently there are stupid questions and I asked one!!!!

See, the problem lies in the fact that they, the client, do not like, us, the host, for other reasons than just my small portion of it, and sadly, I got stuck in the middle of that battle…

Why some of this could not have been worked out, OFF LINE, professionally, between the two bosses is beyond me…

And as for the lady above who made such a rude statement, let me remind you I have been here two weeks and have never spoken with her, who is to be my trainer. Now don’t you think if she truly had some concerns she could have taken them to my boss off line???

Anyway, never being one known for keeping my mouth shut, I definitely defended myself, my abilities, and my actions to date…Which went over like the proverbial led balloon. And I did receive a gentle reprimand for doing so, but OH MY…I have never been spoken to like that in my entire professional career…

She was completely out of line and I stand by that…(In hindsight I should have simply excused myself from the call)

But the result of all of this was, that by the time I left the office yesterday, my face was red, my chest was hurting, and I just wanted to kick, cry , scream and eat…UGH…(Don’t forget, it’s also TOM)

So had this occurred just two weeks ago, I would have begged and pleaded for Brian to go get us junk food. Order a pizza. Something. Anything to emotionally kill the anger and frustration…

But surprisingly, yesterday, I did not.

I came home. Ate a healthy meal we had thrown in the crock pot, vented a bit to Brian, and then kind of chilled out…

I refused, once again, to cave…

And every time I achieve that goal I can almost feel myself grow stronger and stronger…

It’s an awesome feeling…

I don’t know why I didn’t break down last night…Perhaps I finally want to be healthy above all things…Perhaps I am finally ready to shed these pounds the right way, the healthy way, and for good…I don’t know…

I just know that I have an awful lot going on right now, but for the first time in a long time, even though chaos is swirling all around me, here, in the middle of the storm, I am remaining calm, positive and focused…