Stomach Flu. An easy way to drop 4 lbs.

It's true. I have been afflicted with a stomach virus. I'll spare you the gory details. My poor stomach is still so irritated I haven't managed any solid food yet. I'm going to try some fish for dinner tonight, so we'll see how that goes. The biggest bummer about this is it is taking me away from getting ready for the stair climb. I felt behind the ball already. Oh well. Maybe it was a sign I was pushing myself too hard. I don't plan on hitting the gym again until Friday.

The best part about it is I finally finished a yarn wreath I've been working on. I'm super thrilled with how it turned out and I hope the person likes it!

Anyway, I'll be back to work tomorrow, taking it easy on the food. Dry heaves are no joke with a freshly filled  band, I tell you.

Slowly inching downward

I have good news. The scale is moving in the right direction! So nice to be able to say that. Hubs and I just finished our first official week of Weight Watchers, and it's going well so far. I do notice that since, I can't eat the volume sometimes required, I will finish up my points with something dumb like M&Ms. No more of those this week. Well, at least not every day. 

We had a pretty good weekend. I cleaned out my bedroom closet to make room for my new clothes (my mom and I went shopping on Wednesday), and I took the tater tot to see The Secret World of Arrietty yesterday. It was her first movie theatre trip and she did pretty good. We only had to go to the bathroom once! Miracle of miracles! It was a good movie too.

The only bummer this weekend was Saturday night when we I woke up at 10:30 hearing hubs go into tater's room and her crying. The light was on so I figured I better check it out. OMG. Barf everywhere. Poor thing. We think she was coughing so hard, she just tripped her gag reflux and there everything was. So gross. It was even in her hair! We got everything (and her) cleaned up pretty fast and got her back to bed in like 15 minutes and thankfully she went back to sleep. Of course, the next morning was no fun because I had to deal with a pile of barfy bedding.No stains though -- love Oxyclean!

And just in case you haven't heard enough about barfing at 8:30 in the morning... I totally got stuck on chicken soup last night. I think it was a combo of being tight from my impending period and slurping down big chunks of chicken and kale (we started putting kale in our chicken soup -- it is insanely delicious). Bad combo. So, it's liquids for me today. At least until dinner time. 

My stair climb is coming up in two weeks! Yikes! I will tell you I have been ROCKING the stepmill at the gym. I did 15 minutes on it this morning at 42 steps per minutes. If I do my math right, that is 630 steps, and the climb is 1035 steps, so I'm over halfway there. I'm sure I will walk the stairs a little faster than I do the stepmill, so hopefully I can finish the whole thing in less than 30 minutes. I'm getting pumped!

January Wrap-up

I know... it's so overdue.

Let's review my 2012 goals and my progress:

Health

1. Get to Goal Weight: 170lbs - Oops. I gained 6 lbs in January!
2. Give paleo-style eating an honest month (at least) of effort - I lasted about two weeks before I realized I was bastardizing it beyond recognition. Definitely not the way for me to lose weight.
3. Set monthly exercise goals and track consistently (and blog it!). I set a goal for twenty workouts in January. Then I hurt my back. So... yeah. I can tell you that I logged 4 workouts for January and burned 996 cals. Not enough!
4. Find fitness events to stay motivated to exercise. - Signed up for the American Lung Association Stair Climb on March 4! 
5. Take supplements daily. - Working on it. I'm having difficulty with pills.

Overall: I guess 1/5 is something.

Home

1. Paint and install old headboard. - Made  plans with my dad to make this happen. He's got lots of tools and fun stuff and, most importantly, the space to do this.
2. Follow the 2012 Organize in 5 Daily Diary. - So far so good, but I'm way behind. I need to bang out a big chunk of them this weekend.
3. Find a space in the basement to organize crafty items/tools. - Not started.
4. Carve out a little office niche somewhere in the house. - Not started.

Overall: Definitely still in the planning stages here. It's ok. I've got all year.

Work

1. Finish Service Excellence Certification - I'm signed up for the rest of the classes I need to take, and I finished the first half of the CBTs. Whee!
2. Do monthly or semi monthly staff morale projects. - Still working on ideas for this. I came up with a couple, but when I asked for opinions, no one liked them. Party poopers.

Overall: Good progress!

My hubster has decided to do Weight Watchers, so in an effort to be more unified in our weight losing efforts, I've decided to do it with him. We'll give it three months and see how it goes. I'm back working with the trainer and getting ready for the stair climb in March. I was really worried about it, but my trainer made me do some stuff that brought back my confidence. Did you know I can do the stepmill for 12 straight minutes? Neither did I!!  I will try to tack on another minute or two every time I do it. I'd love to be up to 30 minutes by the time the race rolls around. And that's life in a nutshell for me!

BYOC!

Wow, it's been way too long since I've done a BYOC...

1. Name a Valentine gift you would NOT want to receive.

Candy. Not that I don't like it, but it would mean that someone is trying to sabotage me! I do enought of it myself, I don't need anyone helping!

2. What's your vacation personality? Do you act/eat/talk/do things differently or completely opposite from when you are not on vacation?

I mostly am the same. I can't think of anything crazy different. I certainly don't act any different. I probably eat a little different. I mean, who doesn't?

3. Describe yourself in 5 POSITIVE words.

Positive!

Flexible

Understanding

Adaptable

Fun-loving

It's funny because I just took a management strength skills assessment this morning, and my top strength is "Woo", as in Winning Others Over. I like Woo better. Woo!

4. Do you have any phobias or irrational fears or dislikes?

I don't have any outright phobias. Irrational fears? Plenty. Too embarrassing to mention. Dislikes? Spiders, heights (yes, this is why I never go with anyone to the Willis Tower in Chicago), watery coffee, limp handshakes.

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in blog land and in real life.

Real life has been nutty this week. Super busy at work, though I did manage to get my butt to the gym twice. 

Blogland, well, I'm making an effort. I got to sit down and do some reading/commenting on Tuesday. I'm making a goal to post at least twice next week.

Coming clean

So... yeah.

It's been almost a month since I've posted. We all know what that usually means (cough cough backslide cough). It's true. I'm up a few. Only a few mind you, but a few just the same. Oh hell, I'll just say it. I was up to 210 last week.

I hurt my back a few weeks ago and that, couple with a sick and/or not-sleeping kid meant all my gym plans went in the toilet. Well, my back is better, but I've spiraled out of control pretty badly.

I'm going to admit something to you. I love the idea of paleo. I really believe there is something to it, that it makes sense, and that it's a really healthy way to eat. But you know what? I've used it as an excuse to eat high fat, tasty foods. It is definitely not conducive to me losing weight. That's me... I'll twist something and bastardize it until it's unrecognizable, yet I'll still be following "the rules" and still be getting frustrated that it's not working.

F it.

Normally I would follow that with some gung-ho statement about how I'm going to start doing X and quit doing Y. Blah blah blah-de-blah. Not this time. This time I'm going to wallow in my disappointment with myself for a little bit.

I do promise not to disappear for so long again. I know I owe you a January wrap-up.