Wednesday Weigh in Week 79

Well, I am here to say that week one of do not weigh myself and not stress about weigh in came and went...and I don't think it went very well?

But then again, I am my own worst critic.

On the bright side of it all, I did manage to get a workout in! Oh man. I'm pretty sure it's the first time that I have worked out in the last 3 months maybe? I don't know. At any rate, I got my garmin all charged up, and my new running shoes on, and I went for a walk around my block. Haha..So the area that we just moved into, is kind of like a huge rectangle. So I walked the huge rectangle, expecting it to be around 3 miles. Well I was close..it ended up being 2.5 miles. Which still isn't horrible. I was hoping for 3 miles. For some reason in my head 3 miles seems like a minimum workout to me? Like if I don't get 3 miles in it's not worth it?

I'm weird..I know.

I let emotional eating get the best of me this week. I seriously need to buckle down, for my body and for my credit card's sake ;) I'm getting pretty determined to go all hard core on my diet again and seriously cut the dairy and gluten out. And eggs when at all possible. I mean I know eggs are baked into things. But if I can avoid most of that too, I will be doing good. I have been really hesitant pinning things on Pinterest because it's just a lot of dang work. It requires separate meals from my entire family. They have no desire to go gluten free. Nor do they need to. I don't really need to per se, but if I think about the blood type diet, gluten isn't good for my blood type. And I need to find an easy breakfast solution. Cinnamon sugar toast just ain't cutting it anymore. But a no gluten, no dairy, and no egg breakfast that's easy to make? Umm, I really have no desire to eat oatmeal every day. I did that once for a challenge and I really haven't touched the stuff again.

But back before I even knew I was allergic to all that stuff, and I cut it out at the beginning of the year because I thought I had Candida. I dropped almost 25 pounds in 3 months! So if I can wrap my head around that and remember those things. Yes, making and buying my own food is going to be hard. But if in the next half a year, since that's what I have left this year. But if I could lose 50 pounds in the next 6 months that would be amazing! And really it's quite do-able. So yeah. That's what I NEED to be doing.

So I'm thinking about being very stupid and starting a squat challenge next month. It's something I pinned that takes you in a month ending up doing 200 squats a month. Um yeah. I hate squats. But I want strong knees. And a strong backside really helps with running :0) So basically there are 5 squats that it has you do and you end up doing so many of them a day. In the end you do 10 reps of all 5 squats 4 times and that's your 200 squats a day. Sounds interesting enough. But can I do it? 3 days of squats and then a day of rest. And then it just repeats itself. I don't know if my back can handle it or not, or even my knees. I guess I don't have to go very deep if I can't handle it. But I'm really in the mood to start a challenge and finish it! Dang it. And I kind of liked this one? Oddly enough...for me who hates squats ;)

So in a way, I'm glad I didn't weigh myself today. I'm intrigued by the idea of doing all the work (which I will be getting myself to do) and not looking for the reward. Not looking for the payout. Not trying to live my life based on the 3 digit number I see staring back at me. To get out there and life my life. Not in fear of what that number will be when I get back on the scale in September. But to realize it doesn't define me. That number isn't Dena. It might be what I weigh. But it's not my personality. It's not my smile, my mind. My anything. Culture seems to think it should define me. But I'm about to defy culture right now in the next 3 months. Will I hate all my clothes. Absolutely. I'm in the process of trying to pick out a new sports bra. I'm quite up there. Let me tell you. And the wearing 2 sports bras thing I got going on right now isn't working so hot. I ended up bleeding from my broken one. No Bueno. But can I get myself to spend the money on it? Oh geez. I wish I could go to the store and pick one out and try it on. But just like my shoes and wide width. They just don't go carrying DDD sports bras in the store. Hello Amazon. /end rant.

Speaking of shoes!! I bought 3 pairs this week! My running shoes came in. Which I am ecstatic to say they have PURPLE in them! I have never in my life owned a "cute" pair of running shoes. All the shoes I have ordered have been grey and blue or white and blue. Well I think I about scared the guy at the running store when he opened the box and I let out a squeal about them being grey and purple. I have cute running shoes! He mumbled something about them having new colors every year and something something..but yeah. I am excited. And then I just happened to try this pair of sandals on at Payless Shoesource. Now granted I haven't been able to fit into their shoes for a good 10 years (since I worked there). Well I slipped these on and to my shock and surprise they fit me too. They are a little to long in front, but that's ok. I ended up buying the tan pair that day. (2 pairs of shoes in one day?!?) And then I went back the following day and got a black pair. This never happens to me. I would just like to say. I pretty much just doubled the amount of shoes that I own in 2 days. I have 3 pairs that I wear consistently: a pair of flip flops (men's cause they fit better), a pair of backless clog type slip on casual shoe, and my running shoes. Then I have the nice dress shoes I just bought for the wedding I went to in April, and 2 other sandal dress shoes. I felt like such a girl coming home with all these shoes. Anyways. That was a joy for me this week haha..

And I am happy to report that I am just about unpacked and all moved into my new house (at least my PERSONAL stuff is). I have found a place for all my stuff, or it is conveniently hiding behind a door or in a drawer for me to sort through later. I have a friend coming to hang pictures with me tomorrow and everything will have its place. It's kind of exciting.

Now that I've rambled on ;) I am going to do a yoga thing on youtube and go to bed! I have woken up so stiff lately, that I want to see if this will help me at all, It's 20 minutes of gently stretching. Nothing bad :)

Overwhelmed!

Can I just say that I'm slightly overwhelmed right now? First thing first, I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. I laid pretty low all day yesterday and most of today. I did make it out to Fred Meyer today because I was wanting stuff from their organic section. They have a really great gluten free section at Fred Meyer. I am actually impressed. So anyways. My teeth are gone and I have really annoying stitches. Other than that I'm not doing too bad. Not swelling horribly. But all I've been eating is mashed potatoes, pudding, ice cream, applesauce and soup. I think I've "lost" 3 pounds since yesterday. I guess we will see how long that lasts huh? I'm still icing my cheeks. But I'm doing good. :) The pain meds are pretty ridiculous. They didn't knock me out or anything. I would fall asleep for an hour and wake back up. We had the most amazing/scary/awesome thunder and lightning show from about 2:30 to 5 am this morning. I just laid there trying to take videos to get a picture from. It was pretty intense, rattling the house. That's the fun thing about it being so hot these days. We get some pretty cool lightning.

Back to being overwhelmed. I'm still having a hard time with the concept of being allergic to dairy, eggs, beef, wheat, peanuts, and garlic. All of these I eat on a daily basis! So now that I'm not just trying to eliminate them for a season, but for good, I'm freaking out just a little bit. I mean seriously! Do you know how hard it is to find food without wheat or garlic? I can't even have a veggie burger. They have garlic in them as a seasoning. And wheat is used in so much. Dr. Ginger told me I could have eggs that are baked in things, so like a cake or waffles because I'm not eating the entire egg all at once, but not to actually have a whole egg all at once. So no more scrambled, or fried eggs, or omelets. And milk! No more milk, milkshakes, ice cream, or frozen yogurt. Or cottage cheese, or cheese. Or macaroni and cheese. It's like taking my entire diet and doing a 360! Good thing I'm not allergic to turkey or chicken or pork. I can only have beef like 2x a week now. And not back to back. And my beloved peanut butter is no more. I would use it to get protein in, that and cheese. Uh yeah. no more of that!

It's really just crazy. I have no idea that I could be eating things on a daily basis that I am allergic too. No wonder I feel so lethargic and like crap all the time. I would have these rashes that I knew were food related but I didn't know what was causing it. And so I guess I kind of foreshadowed this whole allergy testing earlier this year when I decided to do the candida self testing. I did pretty well for the first almost 3 months of the year and I had lost 25 pounds. This is pretty much the same thing I will be doing. Just without the eggs and peanut butter and garlic. Oy. Little did I know that when I decided to do that it was going to be for life.

But I guess now I have a legitimate reason for saying no to things. I'm allergic to them! I don't want to knowingly put something in my body that I know is going to cause it harm. I mean isn't that the point of avoiding foods because they don't agree with your body?

It's hard because I'm gonna have to do it alone. My family isn't going to change all their eating habits for me. So it means I'm gonna have to be cooking my own meals all the time. Most of what we eat for dinner has one of those ingredients in it. Well I can have spagetti with my brown rice noodles and sauce, but I will have to leave the cheese out of it.

So I just have an interesting path ahead of me. I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to do the allergy tests. I mean if you don't "see" a reaction you aren't going to think you are allergic to something. But once you know, it should be like their is no going back.

Except after my teeth heal. ;) That's when I'm gonna get serious about this. Because right now the majority of soft foods that I can eat have milk or dairy in them. So give or take a week and I will getting serious here.

Wednesday Weigh in Week 29

So. It appears that my weight keeps going the wrong direction. Isn't it supposed to go the other way? I mean I have many reasons that I can blame this on, and they could probably be all legitimate. I really have been slacking on my water intake. Which is probably really affecting me. I probably have had less than 3 cups a day for the past week or so. Which isn't the greatest in 100 degree + weather. Blah. And seeing that it's been that hot I haven't even bothered to exercise. I really need to get back into a morning routine of just doing what I can in the house. By the time the afternoon and evening comes around I'm too tired/busy to actually get a workout in. Plus I am not going running in 100 degrees. It's around 11 at night right now and it's a good 80 degrees. I would actually love to go on a run. But I don't go running after dark.

So my appointment is tomorrow to figure out if I have any food allergies. I already got a phone call from them telling me that my gluten and candida tests both came back negative. In a weird way I was slightly disappointed. I mean I honestly know I feel better when I am not eating the gluten. But then since I've found out I'm not allergic to it, all I have eaten is gluten since it's been "off limits". I almost wished it would have been positive so I would have had a "reason" to not have it. I have such an irritating way of being all or nothing. And it shows both positively and negatively. So here's to finding out tomorrow if there is anything I am allergic to and what I get to do about it. :0)

We are on our 4th day of 100+ heat. And it isn't supposed to be under 100 till Friday. It feels like our summer came! I don't even remember having this many days over 100 last summer, let alone 4 days in a row. At least it's a nice dry heat and I don't feel so stuffy. We did have this amazing lightning storm the other day. I love to sit and watch those. I personally feel like it was better then the 4th of July show we had at my house ;)

Wednesday Weigh in Week 26

Ok. So I amazingly pulled that one out of my hat? 4.4 pounds lost last week. I started back on my gluten free/sugar free/yeast free diet. I have kept mainly cheese in my diet just because I need some protein in my life. I went back to watching calories and I exercised every day....until Thursday.

Wednesday I did this new workout video that we have. Kettlebell training with Bob Harper. It was a half hour and you basically do squats moving the kettlebell around. I made it through--(I HATE squats). And the next day felt like I couldn't move. So I made it through Thursday. I went for a walk/run when my mom got home from work to try to loosen up. It kind of made me hurt more. I then proceeded to not work out Fri/Sat/Sun. I was getting ready to work out on Monday when I had this intense pain in my back. Like I was locked up, I could barely walk or sit and I didn't know if I was going to be able to take the boys to swim lessons. I spent most of Monday icing my back. Yesterday I felt a little better, and currently the ice pack is back on my lower back as I type.

I obviously need to work on strengthening my lower back. If I sit for too long it starts hurting. And since I need to be working out, I am gonna keep it low key for a while and stick to the Airofit and going for walks at night I think. Unless I can find some good back strengthening things I can do.

This is one of those things that would normally cause me to throw my hands up in the air and say I'm done. But I can't be! I'm halfway through the year, and nowhere near where I wanted to be. I spent 3 months cheating, and now I'm playing catch up. Week 1 of catch was great :0) Until I hurt my back :( Now I have to keep going.

I finally got an appointment made with a local doctor to figure out if I have food allergies/gluten allergies/candida. Well ok. I called yesterday and got bloodwork scheduled. But they are calling me back today to schedule the appointment. With just the perfect timing, it's hopefully going to be the day before I get my wisdom teeth out. Oh. Joy. This is going to be quite the summer. I just decided I needed to actually find out before I go still doing all of this on my own whether it's even a problem or not. So. That's my plan. I hate getting my blood drawn though :( So I'm not looking forward to that part of it.

4.4 pounds :0) That was a good week!

Wednesday Weigh in Week 22

Gosh, it's crazy to look at 22 weeks gone already. Not too much to report right now. I promise to get back to more posting as soon as my life slows down a bit but here is my picture :0)

Yep. A loss of .2. Which is what I consider a good maintaining after the week of crappy eating I have had. So all in all I'm not too upset. I have to realize that times like this in life are going to come and I am going to have to figure out how to make it through them without gaining all the 20 pounds I have lost back. I just have to keep pressing forward!

Wednesday Weigh in Week 21

Yep. Survival Mode still. Well that and I'm a girl. And that's all I'm going to say about that. I am currently sitting in my pajama's fighting the urge to go and buy ice cream. My mind is telling me that it really needs a blizzard. My stomach isn't completely full. I was thinking about eating a piece of pizza in a little bit. That might help with this ice cream problem.

What I really need to do is get back to my gluten free diet. For the last couple of days I have this spot in my mouth that I am pretty sure is candida related. And I could probably get rid of it by going back to GF. My life is quite stressful at the moment. So I am just coping by using food. Sometimes I wish I was the other way around. Coping by not eating. But then again I want to be healthy. Or at least coping by working out. I still haven't figured out how to be home to take care of family and work out. I literally want to go to bed the second I know the boys are asleep because I am just so tired. Let's be real here. Getting up by 5:30 to take care of dog/Mom/boys, get me ready for work, work 7 hours, cook dinner, do baths, read stories, put boys to bed, clean the kitchen and try to keep my eyes open until 9 doesn't somehow include exercise. But it does include stuffing my face. Sometimes stuffing it to stay awake. Last night I crawled into bed at 8 hoping to get some much needed sleep. Yeah. I felt like I woke up every hour. Or to say the least felt like I rolled over a million times. It's 7 now and I am ready to crawl back into bed. Sometimes the dishes are just gonna stay dirty.

And I know it's bad to think that I'm really not all that concerned that my weight is going up and down right now. I think partly it's due to not wanting to beat myself up for not being on track to my goal. But circumstantially right now, I don't feel like I am doing all that bad. I haven't gained it all back. I'm at least being honest with myself. I'm under a 10 pound gain. I really just need to get through the next 3 weeks and then I will be able to get back to being really serious. Or that's what I keep telling myself in my head.

cravings

Ok let's be real here. I have been at this for over a month. Good news! I lost 14 pounds! Bad news. I now would like to eat everything that I haven't eaten in the past month. You know. bread. ritz crackers. CHEESE. milk (more than the little bit in my coffee in the morning). Ice cream. pretzels. Bagels. Desserts. More than one coffee a day. Adjusting to life without those has been pretty good until this last week or so. I don't know if it's because I did have some more carb-y stuff on my birthday which led to my body thinking it needed it all or what? I want it ALL. And I want it now! LOL! I just know that even peanut butter is getting boring to me. And finding a sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, yeast free dessert is hard. The gluten free cookies I made were quite yummy, but they did have sugar in them. So it's not something I want to incorperate a lot into my diet until I feel like the candida is gone.

So far I haven't really seen much improvement on my toenails. Which I wasn't really expecting to see right away because toenails grow out really slow. I was kind of hoping some miracle would happen and by next month my toenails would look amazing again in time for the wedding that I am in. We are wearing flip flops. In March. Sadly I think I will be getting a manicure when everyone else gets a pedicure. I am not ready for someone to be touching my feet yet. It's just not fair to them I don't believe.

Just some minor complaining :) I mean really all in all, it's not that bad. It's just relearning to eat a completely different way. Which can be hard. But in the end after I have lost all my weight it will be worth it :)

Experimenting

Well I pretty much started phase two of trying to get rid of the Candida overgrowth today. I started taking Grapefruit seed extract which is supposed to kill the overgrowth inside my body. Pretty sure it's working as I have had a headache all day! Still have to figure out how long to take that before I start taking a probiotic. I figure I will just take it for 3 weeks to a month to use up what is in the bottle. Unless I start feeling way better way sooner!

I also am currently soaking my feet in RAW apple cider vinegar right now. It's supposed to be a natural way to get rid of athlete's foot. The whole issue with athlete's foot is the main reason that I realized that Candida overgrowth may be in fact what I have. I have had this issue for about 10 years and I can't get it to go away. My toenails are in horrible condition. I can't wait for the day that my toenails are all grown out nicely and I can actually go get a pedicure from someone. Until that day, no one is touching my toes. I won't put any salon through that. Yucky toes. I wish I could paint them, but alas, you are not supposed to do that when you have athlete's foot. Dang. Can't even cover it up. I usually end up painting them if I know my toes are going to be seem and then taking it off that night. Or at least that is the goal ;)

But sadly that raw apple cider vinegar is expensive! It was almost 6.00 a bottle. And I ended up using almost the entire bottle to soak my feet tonight. Now the one thing I was looking at said to soak your feet every night! But there is no way I can afford that. So if I think this helped at all I might try doing it once a week. I was really doing it to 1) see if it made a difference and 2) try to jumpstart the whole cleaning out the toenails effect. I by no means want to sit with my feet in soaking wet socks everynight till its gone. A) that's a lot of money and B) I don't have all that many socks and I don't want to be wearing two pairs a day. That's a lot of laundry!

So I press on. Press on through the headache, press on through the wet socks. By all means 2012 will be the year that I finish what I start. With the weight loss and the athlete's foot :)

Beets and ONE WEEK

I was brave yesterday and tried a beet. I wish I had been able to take a picture of my hand after I peeled them :) They were so purple :) But all in all they tasted like dirt. I wasn't too impressed. It wasn't really something that I would want to eat quite often at all.

I don't remember now what I ate yesterday either. Not a whole lot though. I think my stomach is definitely getting smaller. I am more satisfied with lesser amounts of food these days. Which is a strange phenomenon for me. I used to live a life of constantly shoving food in my mouth. And tonight I walked all around the grocery store, down the baking aisle, in the bread aisle, and I didn't want any of it! I shuddered! Um yeah. I don't know what my problem is LOL!

I spent a ton of money on groceries today. Well not all groceries. I had to get my normal vitamins because I was out of one and the other was low. And I have been reading on the http://www.thecandidadiet.com/ site about the antifungals to take to get rid of the yeast in your body. So I found some grapefruit seed extract to take that is supposed to work really well, and then I also got some raw apple cider vinegar also. I had a friend who told me that she actually drank it diluted in some water. I was more interested in soaking my feet in it to see if it would help my athlete's foot go away quicker. And I got some protein drinks to see if I like them to try to increase my protein. I am just not going to be able to eat enough I don't think. Or maybe I am. But on some days it would be nice to have a little boost. But all the protein powders I was looking at were packed in sugar! I was shocked. There was no way I was going to buy those with that much sugar in them. That was ridiculous. That would defeat the purpose of me giving up sugar if I had to use a protein mix with a ton of sugar in it. Uh no.

I have now been yeast/sugar/gluten/dairy(mostly) free for one week. There are a few things I was still eating. Like the 1/2 c milk in my coffee, with some syrup or creamer. I was eating apples still, but I didn't today. The last apple I had was tasting gross to me. I ended up throwing half of it away. I was sad. But the yeast and the gluten I have stuck too. Unless they were hiding in something I ate. There were a couple of times I ate like cream of chicken soup. Or tonight we had sausage and been casserole. Mom made me a little bit without the bread crumbs in it, but some of them might have been soggy and I might have eaten a few. But I ate nothing breaded, or pasta or the like.

I can tell this is what I am supposed to be doing right now. There is no earthly reason that I should not be craving any and everything sugar right now. Or bread. It's like my brain switched. I don't want it. I mean I want it in my coffee. I am still not quite ready to give up my coffee. Yes it's on the list of no-no's. I might eventually switch to decaf. But for right now I am keeping it. If I don't see an improvement by the end of January I might change my mind. But I can look at cookies or donuts or cakes and really be ok with the fact that I don't want it. Which is the weirdest concept in the world for me. But that's God. Now. If only I could make my brain like lots and lots of good vegetables that I should be eating I would be all set! This time at the store I got a cucumber to try. :)