dly2006

I cannot take any more bad news here people! Since my last blog, my house was burglarized, my hours got cut by 50%, and subsequently I had to quit my dance classes 2 months before competition. So here are the details:

The burglary: On Monday 03/23, i get a call at about 11:15a.m. from my fiance that my neighbor just caught someone breaking in to our house and my fiance was on the way home and he just wanted to make me aware. Naturally, I left work that second to meet him at our house. A little background on that: my neighbor (a woman) works for the FBI and my fiance works for her husband. She had happened to leave her radio at her house that day and she was leaving her driveway (which runs behind our house) and she noticed that an unusual SUV was parked crooked and basically in our bushes. So she stopped her car on her driveway and watched to see who it was. Well not too long after that, they guy was either alerted that my neighbor was out there or he was just stupid and she sees him climbing out our window with a drawer of our stuff. Of course she knew that wasn’t right and called for the police to meet her out there. The burglar jumps in his car and speeds off out of our driveway with my neighbor close behind. He runs the stop sign at the end of our road, misses the slight curve beyond the stop sign, runs his car off the road to the right, over-corrects and looses control of his car and then flips the car as it takes out a big section of a business’s fence. Of course he didn’t stop there, he jumps out of the car while flashing my fiance’s pistol that he had just stolen and goes running into the woods. Not too long after there are swarms of police there to back up my neighbor who has been chasing him since he wrecked and ran into the woods. About this time I am arriving to the road that we live on from work. On my way en route to our house I get passed by no less than 2 state troopers on their way to the madness. I am freaking out as the troopers are passing because we live in the middle of no where and I know that they are heading to my area and are dealing with my situation. So I turn on to my road and a good half mile up the road I see pretty much ALL the county officers that there are in my county and 5 state trooper vehicles parked in some random house’s yard. I see officers all over the place with shot guns pulled and hand guns drawn. I proceed to freak out. I pass the house where all the officers are at to make it back to my house. My fiance is at the house where all the officers are and sees me passing and calls me to tell me not to go into the house in case they have to fingerprint. Well, I get there and see my bathroom window broken in and my bedroom window open with my curtains hanging out. My first reaction was to call for my dogs to see if I even hear them. I call and I call - nothing. This is the point when my heart stopped. My dogs are like my children. I’m thinking at this point that he killed my dogs. So I keep calling and calling, finally I hear the collar on my big dog start jingling and shortly thereafter I hear my Yorkie start barking. PHEW I could breathe now. My fiance calls me about this time to tell me that they have caught the guy out of the woods and that he has pockets full of jewelry and they need me to come over there and identify it. So I run over to the maddness and sure enough my jewelry drawer is in his wrecked car and my jewelry has been taken out of his pockets. I tell the officer to get the guy out of the car because I wanted to have a little chatty-poo with him. I asked the burglar what the hell I ever did to him that he had to come and break in to my house? He said “Aw man that was your house, man I’m sorry I will come out there and work it off, Im sorry. I gotta pay my light bill and my son needs dialysis.” I said “Well if you needed help, did you ever think about asking for it? I could have paid your light bill, you don’t have to rob me! Now your light bill isn’t gonna get paid, your son definitely isn’t getting dialysis and now he’s not even gonna have a dad because your ass is going to jail.” He just kept saying how sorry he was and I walked away and let the officer deal with his punk ass at that point. His name was Jervis Ricky Davis, Jr. and he was totally cracked out, high as a kite. I even think he had some on his face. Well it turns out that he had three prior felonies on his record and because he stole not only the pistol, which they never recovered but and entire bag of shot gun shells, which they did recover, he gets 5 years in FEDERAL prison for every shell he had in his posession. I don’t even know how many there were but it was something like 72 BOXES of shells. Maybe he can calculate the amount of years he’s gonna go away while his ass is rotting in jail. All he stole was my jewelry, my fiance’s pistol, and the shells, no cash or no electronics. I got the majority of my jewelry back with the exception of 2 pairs of diamond earrings which I only got one of each back, rendering them useless but hey whatever, the cops never found the pistol but they did recover the shells out of the car he wrecked. The whole thing was a nightmare because I already hate living where we do and now I can’t even feel safe in my own home.

As for my work: The executives of the company have decided to make major changes since our orders are down about 33% as compared to last year at this time. They are cutting everyone’s pay by either 10 or 20% depending on how critical your department is for the company. Well when it came to me, I was the only one they cut 50%!!!! Isn’t that basis for a discrimination claim? Unreal is the only thing I can say. The only good thing I will say for them is that they have worked out a way for me to keep my insurance because really a 50% cut would mean that I was ineligible for both my insurances and there is no way I can be without health insurance. I had planned to ask them to work a revised schedule in the fall if I get accepted to graduate school but this just jacks up all the planning we had made.

 And last there is dance: Naturally when you are faced with the question of paying rent/insurance at 50% salary you have to look and see what expenses you can cut. Dance, for me is one of those unneccessary expenses that has to be cut. Well I call my dance instructor and what does she say, not I’m sorry, wow that is tough, nothing, she says: well see the thing is, now the girls will be disqualified if you don’t compete. If the numbers don’t match up they will disqualify us. You don’t want that to happen do you? I mean was she serious?!? I know she has a business to run but when it comes to paying my insurance or taking dance there is just no question!!! She just made me feel worse about a situation that was totally out of my control. I think the worst off all of it was dealing with her!

Despite all of that, I have actually kept my eating in line, I did have a bit of easter candy and this weekend I went a bit overboard but I snapped myself out of it and just kept reminding myself that eating badly is just going to make me feel even worse. So for now all I can do is keep my head up and hope for the best in the future. Hope everyone has been better than me!! 

Hello everyone! I am happy to report that I lost this past week! The scale read 147.6! My eating was right on que this weekend also and I kept all your blogs in mind while eating this weekend. I too have a lot of difficulty staying on track on the weekends but I really think that I was not eating enough. I eat way more healthy snacks during the week (more frequently as well) and keeping with that trend I not only stayed fuller longer but didn’t overeat because I was WAY hungry!

We went out to eat on Saturday but I was very meticulous in choosing a meal before we left the house and all in all it only totaled around 420 calories. Now normally I feel bad about being such a picky eater and saying: do this, not that, and leave off this, and substitute that, but at dinner it was actually pretty easy. And boy did they give me a serving of steamed veggies! It was the bulk of the plate and they were oh so good!

Also, I have been trying to listen to my appetite a bit more lately. If I am hungry, I eat. If I am eating, I try to stop before I know that I will be full. Just today, I got a sub for lunch. I had they guy at the counter cut it in half. Now I had full intentions about eating the whole damn thing but I took it slow and after the first half, I took a time out to gauge my continuing hunger. I ending up wrapping the second half up and saving it for later (dinner probably). I am WAY proud of myself for that. Amazing: I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat!

The fiance is out of town for a few days on business and while I have dance pretty much every night he is gone, I will be on my own for dinners these few days. Which actually will be a good thing. My fiance is not a large guy but man can he eat! I always tell his assistant to keep food on hand if he gets cranky, nothing will cheer him up faster! She thinks I am joking…… one day she will learn.

And just a side note, has anyone talked to Katie in a few days? Haven’t heard from her in a while….. hope she is doing okay!

Anywho, back to work. Good luck with this week everyone!

This morning I read a really great blog by Jacki and I think everyone should just take a quick look at it:

http://backtomyheydays.buddyslim.com/2009/03/03/put-those-frowns-away-now-there-is-no-quitting-in-base-umer-buddyslim-refocus-and-re-evaluate-your-goals-today/

She offers some great ideas and motivational words that everyone could benefit from.

As for me, I have really got to say that the diet has been going well. I am one of those people that loves sweets and chips and sometimes I can’t stop at just one serving but I am happy to say that I have REALLY been focusing on my portions and being accountable for everything that I eat and this far, I truly have stuck to my 1300 - 1400 calories. I am not seeing it on the scale but I just need to be patient. This may sound odd but sometimes I think that having to count my calories just isn’t fair. Why can some people in this world just eat and eat and I am the one who has to have one cookie? But I just try to think, if I don’t hold myself accountable, NO ONE ELSE WILL! I am doing this for myself!

The biggest loser last night hit the nail on the head. When Jillian was having a hard time motivating Laura to WANT her weight loss. Except with me, I want it so bad it hurts but I just have trouble with the motivation aspect of it. I am still working out and watching my diet, I just think something is all jacked up in my head right now!

On another note, Todd (my fiance) and I started P90X this week and it is tough, not nearly what everyone hypes it up to be, but it is tough. I can’t do eveything that Tony Horton is doing–yet! It is getting there though. As the cycles go throughout the weeks, I am sure that it will get better. I can already tell a difference in the Ab video that we have to do pretty much every other day. I do wish that Todd and I would have started the “lean” cycle instead of the “classic” but Todd insisted that we start the classic. His reactions to the videos have started to frustrate me a bit. Both him and I are EXTREME perfectionists (you wouldn’t think that we would let ourselves gain weight then but this is an issue for another day!) so he gets WAY frustrated when he can’t do everything on the video the first time. I try to talk him through it but he would almost rather not follow the video than attempt something and not be perfect right away. A perfect example was two days ago when we were doing the yoga video. The yoga video is quite long, an hour and a half, and almost immediately he got frustrated because yoga is WAY out of his norm. I have taken yoga classes before and have danced for nearly 11 years of my life so I was familiar with most of the moves but he just got so discouraged and almost blew the whole video off in the first 10 minutes. I just kept right on and let him throw his fit. He eventually came back into the room and finished it but it is quite disheartening to have your support just bail on you! Oh well, I’m hanging in there!

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Have you guys ever felt like you just hit a wall? Like there is just something stopping you? I have felt this way for a couple of weeks. I have no motivation to do anything. I don’t want to work, I don’t want to exercise, I don’t want to think. I just want to lie in bed…. all day long and do nothing. But it is more than a physical lasyness, it is mental, emotional. It is like it is all piling up at once. I am hoping that once I get past this weekend, I get the GRE out of my way and all of my application materials to ECU, that at least a bit of this will go away but what if it doesn’t? I just feel so bad. Now I know that you will say that exercising will help…… and it will, but I just can’t find the motivation to exercise. I mean do you guys ever just worry yourself sick? It has gotten so bad I went to my doctor about it, but when I explained to her all of my circumstances she said she could prescribe me something but that my situation really wouldn’t get better until I got out of this environment. This place that I live is just unlike anything you could ever realize. I hate it so much it is just breaking me down. I’m young, I don’t feel like I should feel this bad. Oh well, enough of my blah-ness, now to force myself to do something….. Hope everyone has a great day/week.

So this week was a big ZERO for the weight loss. I think I have learned my problem through reading all of your blogs though: I am not eating enough! I think I cut down my calories WAY too far and now my body is fighting. Week two was always a tough week on biggest loser though right?! This week, I am going to focus on eating more little snacks and keeping the calories around 1400 - 1500. I have been doing well on water consumption and I JUST ORDERED MY P90X!! I am SOOO excited to start and it should be here in 5-7 business days. That will be the boost I need.

This weekend my parents were in town and I am happy to say that I did not put on any weight despite my mother making a cake, giving both my fiance and I lots of candy and cooking way too much all weekend. I just stuck with small portions and when we went out to eat, I focused on ordering foods that had protein and served to positively nourish my body. My favorite was the Tuna and Spinach salad I ordered with green beans and a few olives. It was served with a vinaigrette dressing and it was oh so delish!

This next weekend I will be taking the GRE and finishing up my application materials for Grad. School… ahh the stress! Oh, well… I am looking toward the future, right?!

Sooo… I am anxious to know how everyone else did for Valentine’s day weekend?! Hope everyone played it smart and I wish you all the best with this week!

I haven’t posted in a few days but I am so low on energy I just needed to get some things out!

Yesterday I had a TERRIBLE day at work. I had to lay off 3 people and not only that but my bosses asked me to do it and then overstepped me during the entire thing. What is the point? Also, I skipped a manager’s meeting because at last weeks meeting I got MOCKED by the same bosses. How do they expect me to be respected by other managers if they don’t treat me respectfully? Honestly they act like the frat boys that they are and it is beyone me why they still have any employees. The best reason I can come up with is that we are in the middle of no where and the employees have no other choice. Kind of like me huh?! This job will be a huge reason why the weight does not come off.

On another note, my goals for this week are: Walk more, drink more water and hopefully hit 147lbs. I have been attempting to wear flat shoes to work so that I can get more walking in during the day. I think that I have been successful. My parents are coming in to town this weekend so that could hinder since I know my mother will bring candy and goodies for Valentine’s day. V-Day is such a fun holiday and I hate to miss out on all the goodies but as long as I plan for the calories in the sweets I think that I will be okay, but I am definitely one who likes sugar.

Also on the horizon is getting the materials together to apply to grad school for admission in the fall. I think I have decided to attempt the online general psychology Masters at ECU. All this stress is just not good for me but I am attempting to drudge through it. I have just got to think and plan for the future. Hope is the only thing getting me through at this point.

So…. How has everyone been? How are things in your diet world? If anyone needs support, just let me know! Good luck everyone!!

Well, this week has been good for me. All my water weight has come off (6 pounds!!) and I accredit that to drinking more water and being meticulous on what I eat. Measuring and accounting for everything.

Last night we went to see Rodney Carrington in Raleigh and although there was lots of alcohol being served, I didn’t have anything to drink! Not that I am against it or anything but that is a lot of empty calories! We did however go to Dunkin’ Donuts (mmmm!) and I had a coffee roll and some iced coffee with cream and sugar. It was sooo good. I think it is important to remember that as long as you account for the calories, you don’t have to cut anything out completely. That will set you up for failure. Just be honest with what yourself and you will see results.

Now the weekend is what scares me. All this free time and I am already hungry. I have a bad habit of eating when I am bored. Any one else have the same problem? What do you do instead?

Hopefully, we can get out and do something so I am not at the house to eat.

Good Luck to everyone this weekend!

Good Morning Sunshine!

Well, the dreaded happened last night. In my modern dance class, our leotards arrived. That was bad enough because then I have to look at it and know that my everything will be out for the world to see, but then… my dance teacher made us all try them on!!!!!!! I didn’t even wear tights last night because I had pants on. Oh My Gosh I thought I would die. Suprisingly enough though, I wasn’t the biggest one. (Is that mean because I really don’t mean it to be?!) I guess I am just harder on myself because I am the only adult in the advanced class which consists of 12-18 year olds. They have SOOOO much energy and I think the thing that I notice the most about them all is that they are happy. No wonder they are all so small! Here is a new weight loss formula for everyone: Energy + Happiness = Weight Loss! I guess you never stop learning, huh?!

On another note, the luncheon went well yesterday. While they did serve something not so diet friendly, Honey Baked Ham (which I think is one of the most unhealthy places for a dieter), I only ate half of my sandwich, a bag of pretzels (calorie controlled), a slice of pickle and a peppermint. So, it could have been worse. How did your day go?

I am really tired today but I have clogging tonight so that will a good little energy booster. I hope to start P90X soon. I am actually pretty excited about that because I have heard from people who are using it now, that they really like it and are really seeing results. Has anyone tried P90X? If so, what are your thoughts?

Well, that is it for now. Good luck to everyone today and remember you can do anything you set your mind to!

Good Morning Everyone! There was a little snow on the ground this morning so that was exciting! And, when I weighed this morning I was down from 154.8 to 152.4! Woo-Hoo! I mean, it is all water weight, but still, I will take it!

You know, I think a lot about my weight (I think all of us do) and how I got to be this weight. I think one of the most important steps in your weight loss journey should be thinking about why you got to the weight you are and what life events surrounded those pounds. I think that those obstacles have to be overcome or any weight loss will be superficial and as soon as those regressed issues rear their heads again, the pounds will reappear. For me and many others, I would assume, overcoming my obstacle is easier said than done because my obstacle is my job. My job stresses me out!!!! Every day I dread getting out of bed to come in to a toxic, negative workplace. The negativity has been directly reflected in my body. I stress out and then I pig out. I think there is nothing worse than hating the place that you work! For now, I try to make the best of things and just remember that I am lucky to have a job and be able to stay out of debt and pay my bills. Some long-term planning eases my tension, so I have to remind myself that I won’t be here the rest of my life. Does anyone else have a similar issue?

 On another note, I have a lunch & learn meeting at a local community college about the new FMLA regs so I am hoping that what they serve will be friendly to my diet. In case it is not, I will pass on their lunch and take some snacks to have instead.

Best of luck to you all today!

Well, here’s to day two! I got in late last night because dance lasted until around 9:40 p.m., which put me home around 10:15p.m. I am a bit sleepy but here is the plan for today:

I drank 16 ounces of water before I left the house.

Breakfast was a Hostess 100 Calorie Pack Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake(20% of my daily fiber!), 8 medium sized strawberries, and approximately 16 ounces of decaffeinated coffee with 3 teaspoons non-dairy creamer and 3 packs of splenda(I like my coffee sweet, what can I say).

Hopefully 32 more ounces of water after breakfast.

Snacks for the day could include: Natural apple sauce (watch out for that high fructose corn syrup), a GoLean Crunchy bar, a blueberry Special K bar, a 100 calorie pack of cookies, pretzels & cheese Handi Snack, or a Weight Watchers chocolate chip cookie.

Lunch will be a Chicken Enchiladas Suiza frozen meal by Weight Watchers.

And for Dinner: …….. I don’t know. This is where I always get tripped up. I have a man to feed, as well as myself and although he is dieting with me and is fully supportive, I have a difficuly time trying to find something that both him and I can eat and stay within our calorie needs. Any suggestions from anyone?

It seems like we get stuck in a rut, and then end up eating the same boring chicken breast or pork chop with either brown rice or instant potatoes……. BORING! I like gourmet foods (or at least the taste of them) but how do I accomplish fine dining on a diet budget??? This will be addressed further, but for now back to work. Best of luck to everyone today!