Day 31…

Last day of the challenge I put upon myself, post every day for month…..it fulfilled its purpose, I am somewhat back on the path…I lost another # this morning, couldn’t help myself, I just felt lighter…LOL  so I went ahead and weighed…….I am much more aware of what I am consuming….so all’s good…..I bow down to those of you posting everyday for a year….. thanks for all your encouragement and helpful advice to get me back on the road of weight loss…..

Well I have been cleaning my pictures on my phone, I cracked the face of it and will need to replace it soon and cannot get my computer to download all the pictures…so I been sending them to my Facebook page….in the process I came across a couple pictures of myself…one at my highest weight before I started on my health path in January 2015 ( The picture was taken on…the second was at Thanksgiving (2015) time when we bought this place….I am sitting in our new yard…at this point I have lost 66#’s….I can really see the difference….but here I am…Hello everyone…The chin and jowls are part of the family genes handed down…LOL  can’t wait to compare when I loose the next 50#’s…

This is our home in California…I miss it, but not the damp weather….my husband bought this house in 1974 and added the second level on it shortly after buying it…really miss the garage….LOL  the throw all place….LOL just wanted to share….

Later Gators….kat

Wednesday

Almost New Years Eve….its so hard to keep my excitement contained…I am trying hard to keep a lid on it….but sometimes it just squeaks out…LOL…I would like to think I am a patient person,(ha ha) however in reality, I just want it all done now!!!  That’s where an unlimited bank roll would come in handy, you can have what you want, when you want it, because it is true, money talks….LOL   so for me, I just take a lot of deep breaths…LOL

I have been busy this morning rearranging appointments, moving them up sooner…so my husband can join me sooner….Yeah!!  Its always easier to have the other half of the team with you…..I want this to be joint venture, something we are doing together….If it were up to me, I would of left the kids in charge of the movers…LOL  but he insist on being here to supervise the move…can’t take that away from him..I love that he cares for our life that much….and then he will be there when the furniture arrives…YEAY…..he can be in-charge….

Well  I have a full day planned….meeting my girls at our favorite tea house for lunch, then over to our daughter-in- laws folks house for a lovely dinner…nice to spend time with all our loved ones…. its been a marathon the  last couple of weeks…tomorrow I am making a New Years Eve dinner, open invites for whoever wants to show up..LOL

and New Years Day is Star Wars    and last day with my kids….so its been a whirlwind last 2 weeks and I am glad it is all coming to an end…the anticipation of New Years Day has been painful at times…LOL but exciting…..its the beginning of a new year and journey for us….

My path to weight loss hasn’t been thrown to the wayside by no means…it has taken the back seat to all that is going on,  packing, dinners, coffees, cleaning, and picking through our life one corner at a time…LOL  but I am trying to make smart choices and saying no thank you to the high sugar deserts that are put in front of me more often than not….I saw my doctor yesterday and she was thrilled with my weight loss, she is a realist and understands the holidays and then throw in moving on top of it, she wrote down my last weigh in weight which showed 68# weigh loss  and that was that…she said we will do lab work in 6 months to a year…she is not worried about my A1C, she said it was barely pre-diabetes and that she would of waited a  year anyways…so YAY to all that…my BP was at the lowest its been in a long time, yay to weight loss….so we are staying “status quo” for another year and then we will reassess my medications…. so I am a happy girl….it was nice to hear her tell me that I do know my body and I am making good decisions about my health…so I left her office on a high for sure….I miss the pool and exercise, and I know my body does too….I will get back at it as soon as I get my home set-up and organized….should be within the month…can’t wait….in my mind I am already there and have it set up…LOL  its a wonder I am sleeping at all…LOL

I just want to say Thank You to You all….

your encouragement, caring, and out-put of warmth towards me and my journey is beyond what I could ever ask for or imagined….My WordPress Community is my backbone of strength for sure….

thanks for reading the rambles of my life…..

XXXXXkat

 

 

 

Things are a changin….

Another huge change was noticed today…may sound trivial to some, but to me it was huge….for the first time in many years I was able to sit comfortably in a booth in a restaurant…no squished in feeling like I am going to pop the table up at any minute….sounds frigin sad when I write it – but hey its true…I met a good friend for lunch today…she always wants to sit in a booth…I thought why not, if I don’t fit we can always sit at a table…so I bent down and whooola I slid right in and still had room to put both my hands in front of me….

 these are exactly what they looked like…

now why am I going to all this hoopala…..well when you have been heavy for as long as I have been,  it is a big deal to finally feel like your starting to be part of the “normal” world again, get to do things normal people do…like sit in frigin booths…I have no answers for the many questions I can hear you all asking , why didn’t you do this years ago….I did try, I lost 111#’s back in the early 80’s….I was in a size 10 pants….then I married a control freak…lets just say my life took a turn for the worst for over 10 years after that…when I finally got out of that relationship I was left with heavy guilt and did not know how to deal with it, so I ate…and ate and ate…to fill the emptiness I felt not from the loss of my marriage, but from being drained of all real emotion,…then my sister dropped dead unexpectedly and I ate to kill the pain…I ate a lot…all the time, I probably put on over 50#’s at that time…and kept it on…but now, over the last year with the help of Overeaters Anonymous, I was able to finally let go of the guilt and understand the pain I carried and put the rebel on my shoulder in her place so I could get past myself to see what I needed to do….

So now, at my age, I am so happy that I am able to put my life back on a healthy track, I cannot have any regrets for how I lived life up to now it was what it was, dwelling on it won’t make it go away….feeling guilty for my actions of the past will only weigh me down…no pun intended…so when I am able to do something that a lot of people take for granted is a biggie for me…its just another step in the right direction…when I look in the mirror these days a women I used to know…she is looking back at me with a little more gray, her dimples are back, there is sparkle in her eyes…she is standing straighter and taller…and I am feeling good….and I just wanted to share with all of you…thanks to your encouragement, your ideas, your motivation, and your inspirational stories are all helping me become a better person…inside and out…thanks……

Until tomorrow

Whooo Hooooo….

 First the sunset last night was breathtaking….

Well good news I am down 6#’s since last Friday….whipppeeeee……its working!!!!  I thought this would be a could time to list some facts on here….I weighed in on March 24th this year and I was a staggering 326 pounds…the highest I have ever been….It took me about a week to come to grips with how obese I was and start counting calories, so on April 2nd I started recording and counting all my calories on my new path to weight loss…with a family members help and encouragement I started to attend Overeaters Anonymous, I had been on every diet that ever was to no avail, with this I might be able to get to the root of my reason for eating, I went to meetings and worked the program and its books and steps….I must say it helped me overcome some deep personal issues I had been harboring that I was eating to get help alleviate…so I thanked them for the help and walked away…I continued my new journey..slow and steady…Since then I have lost 61 pounds!!!   whoo hooo   I set goals at the beginning and the first was getting under 300 pounds, check, check done that – next goal was getting to 250 pounds, check-check did that on vacation, next goal is 250 pounds, only 15 away…..then 199, first time I will have been under 200 pounds since 28 years ago…then time to re-evaluate and set new goals…I am starting to really see a change on my body, my arms, legs, face, hips are actually melting away….gone to never return…I am so excited that I can hardly contain myself…my energy level is through the roof, my husband told me yesterday I was scaring him with all the energy I had…LOL  love it…I told him wait till I drop another 50….my clothes are getting really baggy, and not just my personals…LOL  I ordered a couple items in my old size and they are to big…time to get the old sewing machine out…I wanted to share my journey with everyone and share my excitement of a big 61# loss this morning when I got on the scale…..I believe watching my carbs and all that stuff for the last 3 days have really helped…I do notice I am eating differently…choosing my foods differently, not that there a better choice, just less carb laden foods that’s all…my next big health goal is to kick my A1c numbers back down the ladder….

I also need to say thank you to the WordPress community…what a great place to have landed….my wonderful daughter suggested that I try blogging so I did and was quit happy that I had a great place to journal my days and thoughts, then she said you know you can tag, so she taught me how to tag and the rest is history…I have met so many wonderful people that have inspired me, motivated me, and encouraged me….

Thank you, Gracias, Danke, Ta, Merci, Grazie,

Ok-so on with today….as you can see its been a great day…It started early as the sun came up going to the gym…did a 40 minute work out on the machines, continuing with the increased weight, less reps and more sets…its working…I had a great sweat on when I was done…and that included 100 abd crunches….then on to water aerobics, it is getting easier..I noticed that today…did a full hour of aerobics and then jogged for another 10 minutes and swam a few laps…onto the hot tub and wet sauna to sweat it off…LOL  so exercise done…and I felt energized for the day…

My food was good….I was 1035 cal….and my carbs were 102, her suggestion was 90 to 160 carbs, but I would really like to get them down to about 50…its really hard since I don’t eat a lot of meat, I can go weeks with out meat…it seems like all the protein foods are high in carbs….so more research is needed, I am looking into a protein tablet so I don’t have to worry about getting all my protein from foods and keeping the carbs down….I have the upmost respect for anyone who has to do this daily….count, count, count….I did add fenugreek capsule to my daily vitamin regime, it is suppose to help keep blood sugars low…and she approved…Yay….

Arthritis is arthritis…..still here and will always be….hoh hum…no need to whine and cry about it…at least not today I am on too much of a high…LOL

I did go to an acupuncturist, my son and his wife have a wonderful gentleman they go to, and wanted me to go as he does help people with active wet macular, but there was nothing he could do to help me at this time, he made several good suggestions and e-mailed me a web site, so that was positive.  He can help my husband with his aliments so that’s a good thing.

so until tomorrow….

Trainer Tuesday

  Well I met up with a lovely women (my trainer)  who was very knowledgeable and we hit it off from the start…in fact I think that she was surprised that I was as “gym smart” as I am…LOL  I knew how to breath through the exercise and about muscle training, all that good stuff, I had shared I had a trainer back in 2008 for several months and he was a good teacher too….We went through 9 different machines and went over all the pros and cons about the machines and proceeded through a good work out…I stepped it up to 15 reps instead of 12 X2  and we put the weights to where it felt comfortable but I could feel like I had  worked out…I signed up for 4 visits with her, I am thinking that would be enough to get me initiated back into the machine part of the gym and set me in motion…I even worked up a sweat…nice!!!  I am excited  how the day went and am looking forward to meeting with her on Thursday…its only for 30″ so I already planted the seed I want to do 15 reps X 3 sets on each machine, so in and work out,…Can you tell I am excited…LOL  she did mention that I will need to shake it up a little and rearrange my workout so I am not always doing the exact same routine every time…any ideas from anyone why I can’t…I am a creature of habit when it comes to exercise…in and focus get it done and out!!!  Not one for standing around jibber – jabbering with everyone…in fact if no one talks to me all the better…LOL  I am not there to socialize…I find the “pool” people like to talk a lot…call me unsocial, but I am at gyms…LOL and cafes….LOL I think that is why I haven’t attended a pool class, the last gym I went to the pool people were a little over the top,  even if the instructor canceled a class they would take over the pool and one of them would get up and run the class….hummmm good in a way, but really!!  My daughter and I used to laugh and have fun during the class and we were constantly getting shushed by the group…LOL  lighten up people, its all relevant, fun in the pool exercise class…they chased me out of the pool more than one time…LOL

Been one an upper all day….feel like I am entering my next  -run to the next goal – so to say stage of my weight loss…it feels good…calorie count is great so far…have plenty left for dinner and will be under 1000 calories with no problem…

the smoke is better today with the cooler weather and moisture it seems the smoke was pushed down, they were even able to go back to water dropping on the fire yesterday…so again thanks for all the rain dancing….LOL  still burning out of control, they are starting to let people in to look for animals and assess the damages…my heart is saddened for them all…I can’t imaging what they are going through….

I need to give a thank you to Paul @   https://wwwpalfitness.wordpress.com/          for re-blogging yesterdays blog post, I am honored…thank you

So until tomorrow….

Smoky Thursday

With all the fires burning in California the wind is blowing smoke our way.  I really feel for the people who have lost their homes…and the fire fighters, really bad this year…the sun was so orange when it set the sky looked like it was on fire too…Hopefully the cooler weather will give them one up on the fire….

Well Thursday was a very good day….cleaned out the garage, well all the old boxes and recyclables, took all the bottles and cans to the recycle center, made 40$ dollars, went out to lunch on our big wind fall…LOL  got a little more packed for our up coming trip, my cousin came over and got all the scoop on the house, she is house sitting for us while we are away…

Food was good…I find that I have stopped eating at 3p the last couple days…full, no need to eat more, calories used…I am still using the popsicles in the evening for my evening food addiction…however I have noticed that I don’t have any urges to eat anymore in the evening…yay…another step in the journey….sometimes my mind floats to the thought of popcorn…but since I have a new partial in my mouth, popcorn has not been my best friend, LOL….so that was for the positive….because I love, love, popcorn anyway you want to make it…

I am at 1126 calories….I did have rice today so I am feeling a heavy tummy this evening and it tipped the scale a little and low and behold I thought I was drinking a zero vitamin water I bought, but I realized halfway through it I grabbed the wrong bottle, its a vitamin water, frigin 100 calories each…Ahhhhh so there went another chunk of useless calories…oh well teach me to pay closer attention….

Exercise, well I am trying to change my thought process and make it more about my health and the positive that comes from doing it…and not the negative thinking….so my newest mantra instead of dread, is yay its time to exercise my joints, loose my weight, feel better, move better, a quote from my friend Billy @                        http://simplelivingover50.com/2015/08/06/the-type-2-balancing-act/comment-page-1/#comment-5391    ” My workouts are not a task, but a labor of love”     this is just a line from his post today and it hit a nerve, made me start thinking about how negative I have been about my exercise…so Thank You Billy for you wonderful post and positive out look on life….I am still doing my exercises through out the day to keep all the strain away from my joints and its working….and I have switched them up a little…added in a couple sets of core…we will see how long my knee will tolerate it…..

Until tomorrow…..