World's Greatest Friends!

It has been one heck of a week and I will admit that I’m more than glad that it is not only a weekend but a long weekend. To catch you all up after my amazing day on Saturday things went downhill quickly. Sunday on my way home from my weekly gathering of writers I got into a minor accident. It was nothing major, no injuries and neither car really had much damage. After reporting the incident I realized just how old my car and the fear began to sink in that she wasn’t going to get repaired. This was confirmed after I had it appraised on Monday. I still had a little hope though after talking to the insurance guy who said that it could go either way when I told him the total on the damage. Stress kicked in along with panic, fear and sadness. I was having a hard time sleeping and my stomach was one giant knot. The worst day was Tuesday when I still didn’t have my rental and realized I left my purse at work. I had a full blown panic attack. Now I tell you all of this so you can understand where I was at. Things looked bleak and I felt hopeless but as the week went by things turned around. I am in a completely different head space now in spite of the fact my poor little Tercel is finished. This blog entry however is not about the car; it is about everyone who helped me from losing my mind completely.

I have said this before but I truly feel the need to say it again, I have some of the greatest and most supportive friends in this world. Even though the whole situation was incredibly frustrating and left me feeling more than a little cursed I was receiving lots of messages and texts reminding me that things would get better. Every time I thought I was going to lose it someone would pop up to help cheer me on. Whether it was just someone to listen to me rant or someone to drag me to Peter’s Drive In for ice cream or helping me begin the search for a new car so many of my friends have jumped up to help me out. It amazes me at how many great people are in my life, I sometimes forget that I have as many friends as I do.

Now that the stress has been lifted off my shoulders, decisions have been made and plans are in place I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all my friends. I know I’m not always the easiest person to deal with, especially when I’m stressed but I’m so glad you all put up with me. So as my night is coming to an end I just want to say that I love you all. Each of you means a great deal to me no matter if I have known you for many years or just a short time. Without each of you this last week would have been even more miserable. I look forward to repaying all of your love and support back to you. (We can start with rides in the new car once I figure out which one I’m going to get.)

The Moment You Realize Life Has Changed

I wish I could say that on this third week of planning and preparing my meals that I was down again but I can’t. Of course I knew going in on Saturday that I would be up, but that is what happens when I don’t really track for three days out of the week. The good news is that in spite of the set back Saturday was a truly amazing day. I came to the realization that my life has changed and that I am no longer the same person I was.

It was a gradual realization as the day went on but all the pieces fell together as I was driving home from a movie. (I’m not sure why these thoughts always occur to me when I’m driving and can’t write them down. It’s really quite frustrating to try and remember all the brilliance while I’m being distracted by driving…hehehe). I realized that I have changed! I am not the same Jill that started this weight loss journey. Things that once tasted good to me don’t, I’m excited about meal planning and I am even realizing that I am somehow inspiring other people – which are all things I have strived to achieve. Like I said it was a pretty amazing day today.

It started first thing in the morning as I was waiting to go to my meeting. Rather than sit and watch tv I pulled out my meal plan sheet to begin to work on the plan for this week. Well as I began to fill in everything I actually lost track of time. As crazy as it may sound I was excited to be creating my meal plan. Last week was tough not just for the lack of tracking but also because I was hitting that point where I know I’m getting bored with my food, which is why I pulled out my meal plan sheet. (On a side note meal plan sheets are just paper that I did on my computer that have spots to write in meals and snacks – nothing fancy just a little tool I put together to help myself.) When I actually write out a plan and can see where repetition lies it becomes easy for me to swap in a different vegetable or fruit, or plan a different dinner to cook to spice things up. I haven’t done a lot of meal plans because it feels like a chore to me. It is one of those things I know I should do because it generally does help me to eat better during the week but it always feels like so much effort. I certainly have never felt excited or eager to do one until I started this week’s on Saturday. It was one of those things that as I rushed out the door I just sort of shrugged my shoulders at.

When I arrived at my Weight Watcher’s meeting I was in a really good mood (which isn’t always the case when I know that I’m going to show a gain). One of the things we usually do at the start of our meetings is to open up the floor to anyone that has any issues or concerns with the program. Sometimes people do and sometimes there is just silence. Saturday however one of the other members asked a really good question that I think all of us have to deal with. “How do you keep yourself motivated even when you have a bad week?” This is a topic that is near and dear to me because I know that my journey is going to be a long one. I’m always looking for new things to keep me moving in the right direction and to keep me excited about what I’m doing. There is one thing that has been pretty constant though for motivating me and that is the back of my bedroom door and so I spoke up to share my idea.

When I first started this journey almost three years ago now I put up a sheet of brown paper on the back of my bedroom door and I began to fill it with quotes, ideas, goals and even some pictures all as a way to keep me motivated. I see it every morning when I open the door and every night when I close it. It has become a great reminder of what I want. There is something powerful about having a visual that you can look at to remind you in an instant what you are after. Well after other suggestions were given our leader asked the member which idea she thought she could and would use and the member said my idea. It filled me with pride. As if that wasn’t enough though a couple of the other regular members also told me and the meeting that they too have started to cut up their veggies ahead of time and bag them into what they call “Jill bags” so that they are ready to go when they need a snack. This is an idea that I shared a few weeks ago in a meeting. It made me realize that I do know the right things to do and if other people can use my tools and be successful then so can I. I want to inspire people and it appears as though I am. It is a pretty great feeling to know. Of course that being said I do have to remember that while I want to inspire others I also have to remember to inspire myself.

With a powerful start to my day I felt ready to take on the world. I had plans to go play bingo with my sister, which is something I haven’t done in a great many months (probably since last fall). One of the things I most look forward to when I go to play bingo is the hall’s chicken fingers and their honey dill dip. I can taste it before I’m there and actually get excited for it. Today was no different. Once I got settled I placed my order and when it arrived I took the first bite and was shocked. It didn’t taste as good as I remembered it. At first I thought maybe I just didn’t chew it enough or something (I know it’s a little crazy but hey that’s me) but low and behold it was the same for all the bites. I did still eat it because it was my lunch but I won’t be in a hurry to buy the same thing next time. I didn’t really think much about it at that moment; I just sort of shrugged it off while I got distracted playing bingo. But of course as I was driving home it matched up well with my thoughts in the car.

While driving home from the theatre when all of these things were starting to be pieced together it started with the fact my stomach was turning and I was feeling ill. I knew right away that it was the popcorn and pop that I had eaten while I watched the movie (and yes before you ask I did track and for those of you curious a large popcorn without butter is approximately 27 points). As my stomach turned I realized that I didn’t want to do this anymore. The popcorn didn’t taste good enough to make up for feeling ill after. My body was telling me exactly what it should have always told me (and really probably was telling me if I was so busy ignoring it). I was finally starting to hear and pay attention to what my body was trying to tell me. This is something that is definitely new to me.

I know myself well enough to know that although I feel this way right now that I will not always avoid chicken fingers and popcorn because there will be a day where I forget how I was feeling on Saturday. Then again my hope in writing this down is that it will stick with me. Saturday was the first day I really felt right to my very core that I wanted to do better for my body and for myself. I am done living the way I have always lived. Now it is time to live the way I always should have been living.

Photo Wednesday: Nothing Like a Well Loved Toy

I have been thinking a lot about the photos that I have picked up for these Wednesday posts and why I love them.  The reasons have always been so varied but one thing for sure is that they all make me smile, remind me of great moments, and even tweak my heart a little.  They are photos that I look at over and over and ones that I want to share with everyone.  This week's photo is one of those.  It is of Kaitlyn (one of my adopted nieces and daughter of one of my good friends) and her favourite stuffed animal, Bunny Brown.  Bunny Brown has been very well loved and very much reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit.

Every time I look at this photo I get something different out of it.  When I first took it and was looking at it on the camera I thought it was cute, much like many of the photos I took the day we visited Discovery Wildlife Park for the first time.  When I uploaded it on to the computer and pulled it up to the size of my computer monitor I realized that it was a really special photo.  Then I went and had it printed as an 8x10 for a scrapbook and that is when I fell in love with it.  Part of it is the colour - I love the way the pink pops out (nothing like choosing your background...of course now I recognize the need for a good background but I will admit when I took the photo it wasn't even a thought in my mind).  I also love that you can almost feel the love that Kaitlyn has for her rabbit. 

The coolest thing about the photo in my opinion is that now when I look at it I also feel some nostalgia for my own childhood.  We all have a favourite stuff animal or toy (or in my case a blanket) that we loved to carry around.  My hope is that when Kaitlyn is much older I can present her with a version of this photo and it will bring back all the great memories of a simpler time.  It will remind her of a friend that kept her company, protected her from the world and learned all her secrets. 

Progress in my Weight Loss Journey

I realize it has been a little while since I really wrote about my weight loss journey and there is really no reason for it other than December and January were rough. Now I know this is the case for a lot of people but for me it wasn’t because of all the Christmas treats and food but instead because I ended up quite sick.

Generally speaking I consider myself to be fairly healthy. I very rarely ever get sick and if I do generally I’m out for a day maybe two but then I’m back to normal. Well as many people have been hearing the flu that is going around this year is a little crazy. On Christmas Eve by the time I got home from visiting with people I was white as a ghost and feeling pretty miserable. I went to bed and woke up feeling like death. What followed was a week of absolutely no energy. There were moments when I didn’t even have the strength to change the channel on my tv with the remote. Needless to say cooking food and eating were not high on my priority list although I did try to make sure I was getting something in my system. I knew because of this that when I went to my weigh in at Weight Watchers that I was going to be down but when I saw the number on the scale I was shocked when I saw the number. In the week I was sick I ended up losing 15 pounds. This looks great on paper but the reality of it was that it sucks but at least it made sense why I had no energy and felt so horrible.

Sometime during that week, while I was sick, I decided that this whole flu/cold thing or whatever I had was my body’s way of restarting. I found a new focus and decided that this year was going to be the year that I set the goal of losing 100 pounds and actually make it happen. My body was giving me a head start. Hehehe. Rationally though I was smart enough to realize that the 15 pounds I had lost was going to come back because it wasn’t a true weight loss but part of me hoped I would be wrong. So for the next two weeks I watched as the numbers on the scale bounced back. Even knowing and acknowledging that the weight gain was going to happen it still wasn’t easy to see the numbers go up. It is always hard when you know that you are doing the right things and following the plan to see a setback. I was starting to feel the frustrations that come along when you struggle with your goals.

After the second week of weight gain my body was basically back to where it was before I got sick so it was time to step things up a bit. I decided to try and put a little more structure into my plans for losing 100 pounds this year. Drawing from all the knowledge I had gained at work around goal planning I set up to create a goal plan for me. I set out a specific goal with a specific timeline but I also included some very specific steps to get me there. I know that to achieve a big goal you need lots of little goals to get there. It’s like that quote, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It was time of saying I wanted to reach the destination and to actually start moving towards it.

One of the very first things I decided to do was to find a way to make eating my vegetables easier. Like so many people I have good intentions and fill my fridge with them but they have a tendency to sit in the crisper drawers and at least half of them get wasted. So taking a page out of my brother’s book I decided to do a week’s worth of prep with my vegetables so that they are ready and I don’t have to worry. I had seen pictures online of people putting salads together for a week at a time and enjoying them with promises that they didn’t get all soggy. I wasn’t really sure that it was really going to work and was truly worried that the consistency would not hold up. What if my vegetables went from crunchy and fresh to soggy and blah? But it was worth trying.

Off to the grocery store I went with a list of vegetables and other food to keep me full all week and give me a little variety. When I returned with all my new fresh food I piled everything on the kitchen table and began to cut and chop. After an hour and a half I had enough salads made for lunch and dinner for four days, as well as my afternoon snack which is also some sort of vegetable. The base for my salads were all the same (a mix of lettuce, carrot, cucumber, tomato and broccoli) but in order to make things a little more interesting I also added a few tweaks into each container that I knew would change up the flavour just a little. In some of the salads I added cheese, in some avocado and in a few I even put some nuts. Of course I also made sure I had a few of my favourite dressings to add (and yes I do use dressing and it is the full fat versions and/or homemade with oil – some things are just worth the splurge in points).

This whole process felt really time consuming in the moment but it did give me a sense of being in control again. I enjoy having a plan and knowing that I don’t have to worry about anything. I felt motivated and excited for the week. I knew that in the morning when I was rushing around I wouldn’t have to worry about making something for lunch. I could just grab the prepared stuff and toss it into my backpack. The whole process left me feeling very powerful and excited about losing weight again. Even better though was when I went to weigh in the next week I saw a loss. Sure it was only a pound but it was the first true loss since being sick and it felt like things really were starting to get back on track. The biggest reward though was not the loss but getting to see that the results were matching to my intentions. Excited from seeing the results, I was pumped and ready to try again for week number two. I was even more motivated and prepped even more things. For week number two I not only prepped my salads, my afternoon snack but also my morning snack and a few other odds and ends. The fridge was full as was the kitchen table with the food that would get me through the week. So once again this week when I went to weigh in I was rewarded with another weight loss and this time it was just shy of 5 pounds. Effort = rewards = happy, excited me!

I feel like a warrior ready to do battle now. I’m finally figuring out the tools and weapons I need to win and there is something incredibly powerful about that. I’m tired of fighting against myself and am ready to put all that energy into moving in the right direction. I have more motivation and excitement than I have had in a very long time. I have a clear focus of where I want to go and a real plan to get me there. I’m no longer hoping for weight loss, I am actually going to make it happen.