Weight loss reward?

I've been eating healthy and working out 3-4 times a week and the weight is finally coming off.
I am down 14 pounds since early December!
I did not gain over Christmas, and I lost weight over New Years.
On Thursday I didn't want to go work out. I was tired and just wanted to go home. But then I thought about how happy I was at the doctors office the day before when they weighed me and the number was less than my previous weigh in.
A friend at work says I need rewards to keep going. When to get to "___" weight or size I will reward myself with "____". Well I don't have a system, I'm working out and eating healthy to get healthier, to be able to move better and do all the things I"ve missed out on because I've been heavy the majority of my life. I've never seriously dieted or done a workout program.
So I'll ask, should I have a reward in mind?

12/03/2012

I did make the workout and weigh-in on Friday. I am down a pound! Which I consider awesome since that time period also includes Thanksgiving. DH, the dog and I went for another long walk on Saturday, and DH and I went swimming on Sunday. I swam 6-100 yard sets with a total of 650 yards swum. I made Mac and cheese with ham and cauliflower from my diet book last night, and I'm taking leftovers with me for my lunch today. I will try and work out today as well, we shall see, I am not so good about working out on Monday's after swimming on Sundays.

Sunday November 25, 2012

My DH, our dog Sassy and I went on nice long walk on Saturday night, and we went swimming today. I didn't work out before swimming because of the long walk the night before so we just swam. I managed to do 4-100 yards with a total of 600 yards swam. The changing room was rather a zoo, and I'm just not comfortable changing and showering with everything flapping in the breeze for all to see. They only have the 2 changing rooms, so even though it's frowned upon, I changed in one of the toilet stalls. The interesting part was that it is one of those auto-sensor toilets and it kept flushing as I moved about getting changed, so I tossed my shirt over to top of the sensor and was able to change in peace.
I've made a lot of progress on the cross stitch for my newborn niece Kinlee. Probably because she is newly born. Funny how a deadline (or past deadline, cough cough) can motivate you. I also sent flowers and a gift basket to my brother and his wife, I hope they like and appreciate them. I was worried about them freezing if left on the porch, but then I did a face-palm. They are in GA, sure enough I checked the weather and it was a high of 65 with a low of 42 on the day they are to be delivered.
We are playing some Starcraft tonight, which I am enjoying. But before we started playing I managed to unload and re-load the dishwasher! Win! I am not a good housekeeper, so any cleaning or house work I can mange to get done is a major win for me.
That's all the updates for now! 

November Update

I haven't blogged in a while, I've done most of my social media interaction over on plurk.com. I like it over there. But I've started a weight loss journey and I don't want to flood my timeline with posts about my weightloss. Heavens knows I've muted people for doing exactly that. But I still need a way to be accountable. Thus my return to blogging. I can post here where no one is reading and still have a post that *could* be read.

My weight loss Journey

My friend Julie introduced me to the Now Eat This! Diet book many months ago, I ended up buying an eBook copy of the book and then never really opening it. I even downloaded it to my laptop and was still not reading it. Finally, about a week ago, I went and found a paper copy at Hastings. I then went next door and had Office Depot spiral bind the book. As an aside, seriously who makes a cooking book and then puts regular glue binding on it? The spiral binding on it works much, much better and I have cooked a few things out of it already.
Though I suppose my weight loss journey actually began after I got hired at my new job. New job has a gym on sight, about a week into my new employment I went and signed up at the gym, which they call the LQ. My DH also works at the same place and we usually go in at the same time, he doesn't get off work at the same time I do everyday however. He is usually about an hour behind me, perfect time for me to go down to the LQ, get a work out and have him meet me there after he is done to go home together. My goal has been to work out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a bonus workout and swimming on Sunday at the local Aquatic Center. This plan has had some hiccups, but when we go swimming I have greater lung capacity and can swim farther so there have definitely been some improvements.
I think my major don't wanna go complaint in the back of my head is that the elliptical machines all face the Giant Mirror Wall. Not just the elliptical machines, the treadmills, the stationary bikes, and some of the weight lifting equipment. When severely overweight, it is not encouraging to have to see your flab bounce as you work out. I can see the weightlifters wishing for the GMW as they like to stand in front of it and watch themselves lift weights. and behind them is me chugging along jiggling all over the place and watching my belly bounce. It's not that big a room, but there had to be a way where the people on machines didn't have to watch themselves jiggling.
I've designated Fridays as weigh-in day, current weigh-in: 300 lbs.
How I did last week:
On Monday I was all stuffed up and didn't feel up to huffing and puffing.
On Wednesday, it was our last day of work before starting a 5 day weekend and I just wanted out of the place.  But we did take the dog for a short walk in the cold wind.
On Friday we were off work and we got exercise by wandering a few stores for Black Friday.
Are we going swimming Sunday? I am not sure, even after checking online for a schedule, if the pool is open tomorrow.
On Monday we are both off work and I am having dental work done, so no working out.
Hope to back into the swing of things on Wednesday.
In the meantime I need to start planning meals, and I need to go ingredient shopping.
Wish me luck!

Update 7/23/11

I know I haven't been posting. I am a very bad blogger.
So, some things that have been happening:
I am still delivering the morning paper, I currently deliver 3 out of 4 of the papers that are delivered in my area. The 4th paper is now available, if I want to deliver it as well. It would add 189 papers to my 130-150 papers, 92 of the new papers would be to addresses I don't already deliver to. I am still going back and forth on this.
I am currently on Plurk and Ravelry as Jarista.
I reached out to an old friend after finding her own blog, but I have yet to hear anything back from her.
In May we went down to Idaho Falls, ID and visited with my family. The main reason we went was to see my older sister 'MM' graduate from ISU with a Doctor or Pharmacy degree, which was super exciting. I got to visit with far flung family members, my older brother 'MH' and his wife and 5 kids came down from Douglas, WY, my sister MM came up from Reno, my younger brother 'DJ' came from Georgia. DJ is stationed with the Air Force in Georgia with his wife, who also came. DJ just got back from being deployed to Afghanistan so it was REALLY good to see him and to meet his wife. My mom and her husband TC were there, as were my dad and his wife KH. We last saw family last June when hubby, the new puppy(oops, guess I haven't mentioned her yet), and I went to McCall, ID for the 'C' family reunion. Mom begged me to come down since it wasn't that far away, (the trip down took twice as long because of construction, but oh well) and because TC's family drives her crazy after a few days of close proximity.
We recently switched internet providers, Clear Wire was super slow, and glitchy. We've signed up with Time Warner Cable, while the sign up process was a bit horrific, now that it's installed (finally) we are able to actually watch Netflix Instant Watch! We hadn't been watching Netfix online because out internet was so slow. One afternoon I was downloading something and it was crawling along at 5 kbs/s. Bleck!
I have signed up for Audible, and even though it costs a whole lot, I've been enjoying listening to audiobooks on my paper route. I am currently listening to Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, next up is Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon.
Earlier this year I participated in the garage sale at the Beasley Collisium, while I didn't make very much money (I had way to much furniture I think) I did SPEND money. I bought two smaller flat screen monitors/TVs. Which was fortuitous later as our main living room TV bit the dust. The remote sensor had died some time ago, and things that were supposed to be white were looking a little pink. In an attempt to fix the color by playing with the menu buttons at the bottom of the TV, hubby managed to get the TV off the 00 channel needed to watch things from the VHS/DVD player. Turns out the only way to get to the 00 channel is by the remote, which doesn't work. Also the only way to adjust the setting was from the remote. We decided to go TV shopping. It was a holiday weekend, everything TV shop wise was closed. We ended up at Walmart. We have a massive entertainment center which was bought to house the decent sized TV hubbys' parents bought. The EC is full of 'stuff', along with devices. There is a dual cassette player, a record player, a receiver, 2 VHS tape holders. YOu get the idea. So we're at Walmart, we measured the space we had for a TV before we left, and all TV's are now the wide screen things. Using our measurements, the only ones that would fit are the 28" or below sized ones. I didn't want one so small, hubby's having sticker shock and fighting with me in his own special PA way, so I was thinking we could get a new EC as well, that way we could get a bigger TV. He thinks we can't fit 1/10th of the stuff currently on our current EC into a new one. More fighting, we end up leaving with nothing. Once we get back home I end up setting up one of the small Monitor/TVs I got at the garage sale, and that is what we have been using ever since. I also managed to clean my desk and get the other (not as high quality) monitor installed as my computer monitor.
While in Idaho Falls my dad talked us into getting some baby chicks. If you don't know we previously got some chickens from my dad before he moved to Maui. The local CalRanch store had baby chicks for sale for a good price. They were 2 weeks old, so the mortality rate was cut way down. We brought home 5 baby chicks in a tote with food and water. We also took our dog down to Idaho Falls so she could meet the family, she was fascinated with the chicks, and would sniff them whenever we let her. 4 of the baby chicks have survived, and are currently in a giant metal feeding tub on the back porch. I also ordered some baby chicks online, the minimum I could order, without massively expensive shipping charges, was 15. So I ordered 15, they arrived this morning and are so cute and fluffy! 16 arrived, but I'm not going to dispute it. This way, we can eventually replace the current chickens we have with some newer, tamer chickens. Since I grew up on a farm and am not squeamish about it, the older chickens will get butchered and put in the freezer.
Now, about he puppy. Hubby wanted a dog, he wanted a dog like our friend JC's dog Shadow. So, since Shadow wasn't fixed JC bred her 1/2 Black Lab 1/2 Blue Heeler, to a co-workers pure bred Black Lab. A few months later Shadow gave birth to 9 puppies!


Hubby wanted a girl puppy, and there was only 1 girl puppy in the litter. 8 weeks later, after much visiting and holding, and holding a sleeping puppy on us, we brought home Sassy. In a litter of 9 she was the only girl, and she was 'in charge' and would beat up on her brothers. JC kept 1 of the boys, named him Blaze, and still has Shadow. We love having a dog, she is sweet, funny, hyper, goofy, and currently sleeping under my computer chair. She's 14 months, but as a friend says Black Labs are puppies until they are 3 years old. Sassy and the cat, Moonstone, play and fight and tolerate each other. It's hard to feel bad for the cat after seeing the cat go up to the dog, who is minding her own business chewing on a raw hide, bat the dog without claws and run off. When the dog ignores her, the cat looks all disappointed and comes back, extends claws and takes another swipe to get the dogs attention and to get her to chase her and play.


We also had a human new arrival, but since this is getting rather tl:dr I'll save that for another day.
Best wishes!

I am a bad bad blogger, but here is a update

Sorry to have been so, non-communicative, things have been rather busy.
The Highlights:
-I am up at 2:30 int he morning because I deliver the morning paper.
-I get home at about 7 am, where I usually join hubby in the bed.
-He gets up to go to work at 1 pm, leaves by 2 pm, I usually get up with him.
-I spend the next few hours doing various things.
-I am usually back in bed by 8 pm
-and the whole thing starts again.
Add-ons to this lately have been:
-We have mostly moved into the house.
-We still have a trailer full of stuff, and our living room is full of the furniture that should go in the bedrooms
-We have been waiting to get the sewer line replaced before replacing the carpets in the two bedrooms and the basement apartment.
-Our new housemate has arrived and is living in the basement, and going to the U of I.
-I started playing around on Plurk.com. I am Jarista for anyone interested.
-Our brand new bed has arrived, and that is glorious. I have never had a brand new bed.
-I am painting when I feel up to it.
-I have been fighting a cold/sickness, oh and I don't get days off from delivering the paper.
-I finally finished the add-ons for the Delaura afghan. Now, to wash it, photo it, and give it back to her.
-Sewer line may not have to be replaced, the city wants to use us as sort of guinea pigs to see if a new system will work. they basically put a lining in the pipe, inflate it, and pump epoxy around the lining, which makes a brand new pipe. They are coming on Tuesday to video the line.
-Carpet estimate ppl are coming on Monday to take a look at where we want carpet, and to give us an estimate on installing carpet.
-I have lost quite a bit of weight from what I was at this time last year, which is awesome. I think the paper route really helped with that.
-Our lovely used Jeep we got last year may be having some issues, we are planning on trading it in on a truck of some sort, and buying the Jeep from the estate.
-I am loving listening to podcasts, audio books, and podiobooks on my paper route.
-Hubbys 'partner in crime' at work has had to 'cross train' at work, so she has been working Day-shift for the last two weeks. So he has been really bored at work. We went and kidnapped her from work on Thursday, and took her out for some really good Chinese.

It is now 10:15 am, I am going to head to bed.
Have a wonderful day Everyone!

Explanation of Hardest of Days

Ok, I think I am finally ready to post again. It has been so long I'll have to remember how!

Just after my husbands birthday my Mother In Law passed away. She was 56. Her one love, her husband had passed away about 6 years before this. She had never really gotten over losing him, and to cope she was drinking more and more, and eating less and less.
For years and years when Brad (her husband and my father-in-law) was alive they would stop drinking for a month, as an exercise to prove they were not alcoholics. We suppose she had decided to do this on her own, and didn't tell anyone what she planned.
My husband and I, and his sister, her husband, and young son all live in the same town with her, my sister-in-law lived about 3 blocks away, and still the first we heard of this was that she had called the police because she was certain she heard someone in the house, locked herself in the bathroom and called the police. The police broke down the back door, and found no one. She was hallucinating. Debie (my sister-in-law) came over to be with her. We got a call at 11pm on Sunday night, but we weren't home because we are night owls and my husband works swing shift 2:30-11:00 pm. When we got home at around 4 am we got a message from Jasson(Debie's husband, my brother-in-law) that we needed to call them, no matter what time it was when we got home. We called, he filled us in. Could we come over to the house and be with mom on Monday because Debie had to be to work by 8 am. Yes of course we could. We got what little sleep we could and came over. Debie had called in sick to work, and we were trying to decide what to do. What scared ME was Debie said mom had had what she termed seizures in the middle of the night, muscles knotted up and severe shaking. She was going through alcohol withdrawals. Which can be deadly, especially without medical help.
We couldn't convince Debie to bundle her up and take her to a hospital. She kept saying she was sleeping now, sleep is good for her right? Especially since she hadn't slept much during the night. But.
There is always a but isn't there.
When she woke up, she became stubborn and refused to go to the hospital. Refused help, out stubborned both of her stubborn children and me, the scared spouse.
I grew up LDS, I had NEVER dealt with alcohol withdrawals, or DT's as they can be called.
I wanted to just wrap her in a blanket and drag her to an ER. But she woke up before we could come to a consensus, and she out stubborned us all.
She said she needed some more sleep, we let her sleep some more, checking on her every 15 minutes or so. Debie went to check on her and screamed for my husband, he sprinted for the room, leaping the coffee table. I stayed in the living room, he yelled for her a couple of times, shaking her, then yelled for me to call 911 NOW!! I did so, she wasn't breathing. He was doing CPR. The fire dept. and the ambulance came and worked on her for some time while we stood in the living room, trying to stay out of the way. Trying to believe it would be ok. That they would get her back. They took her to the hospital. The one that made a medical mistake and killed Brad. It was so hard to sit in that waiting room. I just sat in a chair and held the arms of it and tried to control my shaking. I called my mom in Idaho Falls and asked her to pray for Linda, telling her some of what was going on.
She never came back. They called us into a room. Debie immediately says 'I don't like this room.' I didn't either, it was the "I'm sorry we did all we could, but she is gone." room.
We picked up her watch and ring from the police department last week.
We lost her on Monday, Debie's birthday came on Tuesday.
She and I were just starting to become friends. I miss her. I am sure her two kids miss her ever so much more than I do, but I miss her still.
We are in the process of moving into the house she owned, which we now own.
I am typing this from what used to be her living room and is now mine.
We are working on the house, I have painted the living room. I have plans to paint the main bedroom before we move our bed into it.
We are sorting through my husbands parents lifetimes worth of things.
The hardest of days is not over, I am not sure it ever will be.

The hardest of days

Things I've learned since Monday morning:

Grief and grieving are exhausting.

Stubbornness is not always a good trait.

Laughing at a two year olds antics is still possible.

Grief hurts, physically and mentally.

How you deal with your grief can lead to some horrific consequences.

Finding out who needs to be called is very difficult.

Eating and drinking are important during the first few days.

It's good to have family around.

I've had a very bad two days.

Perfect Post Award

I am having trouble coming up with how to start this post.
It has been quite some time since I did one of these, but I am nominating a post for a Perfect Post Award.
This post by Thumper sums up perfectly my view on the argument about gay marriage.
Growing up my aunt lived with a roommate. It was many years later that my mom explained that her roommate was actually her lover and partner. I love my aunt and was not all that surprised by the news. Not long after that my best friend came out to me. Since then I have been rather aware of the horrible treatment homosexuals receive on a regular basis.
The Perfect Post Award is run by these two lovely ladies; Lindsay www.suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com and Kimberly / MommaK www.petroville.com.
If you want to check out other Perfect Post Awards, go check out Momma K at www.petroville.com

Answers and other news.

I've been a bad blogger, and I freely admit it.
I just don't think people are interested in my ramblings.
However I have had two questions, and I think I'll answer those.

rennratt said...

Has work been going well for your husband? Are things looking up now that spring may finally be there?

Spring was here for quite some time, now that we are finally headed for summer temps, things seem to be going a bit better. DH still hates work, and his coworkers are driving him quite crazy with how um, well dumb they can be.

AND

Maria said...

So, how did the friend thing work out?

So far she has been good, I joined in on a yard sale with her and a couple of other ladies at her house. We haven't been mistreated, but I am still not completely at ease with her. They invited us to play Mario Cart on their Wii this weekend but we ended up playing DnD* 4th edition with some coworkers of DH.
The DnD was pretty fun, basically we created characters and checked out how the new combat system was going to work.


Other news, we went and looked at a $84,900, 4 bdrm, 2 bath, unfinished basement house in Colfax, WA. It was pretty nice, but it has a few problems, like very little yard, a porch that is coming off the building and taking part of the roof with it, rotting stairs, a boarded up asbestos furnace, plastic taped down over a dirt floor, and a set of removed steps next to the rotting steps that would have to be replaced. So far we haven't made an offer at all.
We have also been looking at used cars. Think we finally found a car that we can live with. Only problem is that we would have to put a longer seatbelt in for me, because I couldn't get the passenger seat belt latched. The dealer said there wasn't anything they could do about it. He said he checked into it twice, yeah right, DH Looked online and found something within a couple of minutes. Despite the dealer being weird we will probably get the car.
I have been enjoying Woolgathers, they are great ladies and one guy.
I have been helping my friend J.D. get his apartment cleaned out. He is finally moving after being in a one room apartment for the last like 6 years. I helped him on Friday, and I'm helping on Monday too. This is about the third time I have helped him clean his apartment in order to move to a new one. This time his mom is actually paying me for my time, she says so she feels like she is doing something to help him move.
I finished my socks!!! Pictures soon.
I started a pair for my mom, and another pair for me.
We had quite a bit of snow on June 10th. About 3" Most was melted by the time we got home from Spokane, WA. We went to help our friend Scott with his 2 sons while his wife became a citizen. It was pretty cool to watch.
If I think of something else to update I'll try and remember to post it.


*DnD = Dungeons and Dragons for those who don't recognize the abbreviation.