If you still check this...

Hey peeps, if you still check in here every now and then...please head over to my newish blog which is where I moved everything this past year. Daily BDizzle has been inactive for quite awhile now so update your links please!! It's now Random BDizzle, same BDizzle craziness, just updated differently. :P

http://randombdizzle.blogspot.com

Also don't forget, you can still check out D's photoblog and see what we've been up to over at:

http://www.myliferunsfast.com

Frustrated

So my body hit that 299 mark, and I hit a wall. It's not budging. Everyday these last two weeks, my weight has fluctuated between 301 and 297, and it will NOT get moving downward again. I've been good at calories too. There has been a day or two where I went up closer to 2000 cals, but even then, that's still under what I CAN have. For the most part, I've stayed around 1400-1500 calories, and have rocked at making sure to calorie count EVERY SINGLE THING.

Granted, my exercise has REALLY lacked in motivation, but it seems to me that the weight should still be moving?? We've had some good swimming days and usually that keeps it moving. It's very very frustrating and this morning, I seriously considered chunking my scale against the wall. Would it have done any good? No, not really. Would I have felt better? Nah...but man, I thought about it.

In the meantime, I'm holding on to the hope that it WILL move again. I refuse to give into the cravings and go back to where I was just a few short months ago. And I keep telling myself, this is only temporary, this is ONLY temporary.

This better be only temporary.

I shouldn't have doubted

I was REALLY starting to doubt that I would hit the goal that I set. Esp since my weight stalled out not long ago at 310, BUT it got moving very quickly again, and this morning, the last day of the month, I'm pleased to announce that I weighed in at 299.4 lbs! Nailed it!

What definitely helped a lot was being able to start swimming this weekend. We spent two full days in and around lakes and loved every minute of it! We found a lake near us with some really good parks and swim beaches, so we very well might be enjoying that more than our local pools this summer. It's cheaper too!!!

Some goals met, more to go!

I'm excited to announce that I hit the minimum fundraising goal for my 3 Day Walk!!! We had an awesome Pure Romance party this past Saturday as a fundraiser and that topped me over the $2300 mark. Woohoo! This means I can actually get checked into the walk, however, NOW I hope to actually be physically able to do the walk.

My foot is still constantly aching, with occasional stabs of pain. Last week, I walked every single day, at least 20-30 minutes, and had a ton of pain in the evenings. So this week, I'm trying a new strategy. Last night, we ended up walking 50 minutes total (did about 2 miles), and the pain while walking was no worse than having done just 20 minutes at the time (the pain over night and this morning though? Yowza.). SO...I'm going to try completely resting it today (will do my trainer workout tonite which keeps me off my foot for the most part), and then tomorrow do another 2 or so miles, as far as I feel I can go. I'm hoping that this might strengthen it a bit more. Or it could be a huge fail. Ya never know until you try. I was really losing motivation for walking, so it feels good to have some sort of "plan", if nothing else.

As for the headaches, they still come and go. In fact, Monday and Tuesday of this week were especially bad for that. I REALLY need to take my doc's advice and go back to my TMJ doctor. Once she mentioned that, I started paying more attention and yeah, I HAVE been grinding my teeth more, making my jaw pop more (it pops everytime I move my mouth, but it's becoming habit to MAKE it pop while idle), and she thinks it could be causing the headaches.

So there's my update. I don't know if I'll hit the goal of being under 300 by Memorial Day, but darn it, I'm doing my best to accomplish it. My calories have been really good lately. I've had a few minisplurges, but nothing to derail me, they were all very much controlled, and I feel good about them. And if I don't hit that goal, it's ok. It's not going to stop me in this.

Vision statement

I'm not active on sparkpeople.com but I still get their newsletter, and today's was regarding making a vision statement for weight loss. I perused the article, and want to start working on this on my blog here. Today I'm going to focus on my motivations.

My number one motivation:

is this little man.

I want to BE there for him, be able to run with him, and never get weary. But also, I don't want him thinking that "THIS" is ok. I've worked really hard since getting him to make sure that he gets fruits and veggies and likes them, but he definitely doesn't see me eating as much of them as I'd like. And imho, that's a big part of kids loving them longterm, is seeing their parents enjoy them, modeling that behavior. I never want him to have to struggle with his weight the way that I do, I want him to be healthy, and happy.

My number two motivation:


is myself.

I want to be able to enjoy life ALL the time, to not have a lack of energy, to be able to move with ease, never have to worry about a seat being too small. I'm tired of feeling like the odd one out because of my size, tired of seeing pics of me in a group and just being astounded at how much bigger I am than everyone else. Last year, I discovered a passion for trailwalking. It soothes me, those long walks, and I want to be able to do them all the time. And now, with my heel spur, I want to get this weight off, to have more pressure off my heel, so I can take part fully in the 3 Day Walk. Someday, perhaps, I want to run or be able to get on a bike that doesn't get bogged down by my weight. I want ME to be able to come out and play, and so I'm writing all this down, to keep as a reminder of everything I want out of life. I'm doing really good right now with the diet and plugging along day by day with it, and the weight is moving off, but I want building blocks already laid in a solid foundation, so that when the weight stops for a bit, I don't get bogged down in it like I did last time and backslide. So here I am.

More to come in a few more days as I compile and sort through my thoughts.

Two month update

I neglected to come update this two days ago. So will update from today. I'm happy to say that I am down 25 lbs since March 1st. Woohoo! 23.2 lbs was the official two month loss though.

I think I'm in a decent groove on eating. Awhile back, I ended up upping my cals to about 1400-1500 a day. I'm also eating more throughout the day, more fruits, more veggies, and while i still eat a lot of processed foods, esp for lunch, this is working. Yeah, I still have mild cravings, but they aren't near as bad as they used to be. I'm also eating little amounts of splurgy type foods as it happens, allowing some things and avoiding other things all together, but not having true splurge days where I don't count calories. Everyday, I count calories. Since this seems to be working, I'm rolling with it.

My foot still hurts quite a bit at times, but I'm managing. It has meant that I can't walk more than about 30 minutes straight, BUT I've been walking that 30 minutes a lot of days. This past week I walked every single day for 20-30 minutes. So that's just going to have to work for now. I'm hoping to start slowly bumping it up soon.

And in 3 Day news, I have less than $300 to go to reach my goal of $2300! The dinner/raffle fundraiser that Dina and I did was super successful! We raised $730 that evening, and had a lot of fun.

Not just plantar fasciitis

I went to the podiatrist today, who did xrays on my feet, and it turns out, I also have heel spurs. No bueno. So my doc put me on a fairly conservative treatment plan which includes new shoes (which I already have), heel inserts, more motrin, aspercreme, and then in a couple of weeks I can come back and get a cortisone shot if needed. Worst case scenario would be surgery, but she didn't think it'd come to that. She did say I could start slowly adding in some walking up to my comfort level. I asked about a mile a day, and she said that would be fine as long as I'm not hurting much. Basically, I can't make it worse, as it's not the spur itself hurting, its the tissue around it. So I can make my pain much worse on ME, but not the condition itself.

We did talk about the 3 Day. She said it really depends on how treatments go. She didn't rule it out though, which gives me hope! And she said I'd need to be willing to not be afraid to use the medics if necessary to ice it or wrap it. So it's still def a possibility. I'm going to work my hardest to make sure I can safely train and be prepared for it, while encouraging healing. I need to get down in weight as much as possible between now and then too, which will help take some of the pressure off too.

Plantar Fasciitis

Total suckage here. I'm working on healing up my foot now thanks to plantar fasciitis. I walked almost 6 miles on Saturday, 3 on Sunday with quite a bit of pain, and then a slowish 1.77 on Monday, and by then, I was in a LOT of pain. I can't walk at all barefoot, esp when I first get up in the morning, so have to have shoes on even at home (thank goodness for my crocs!!). And doing any kind of light walking (like going into stores for instance) leaves me in pain. So for now, all walking has been halted to let this heal. I've also begun doing stretches, icing it, etc. And I'm shoe shopping again, and will be headed to a podiatrist soon. On the one hand, I'm glad to know about this now so I can be prepared come November for the 3 Day, but I'm also extremely frustrated. With the added walking, my weight has really begun dropping, and the weather has been so beautiful, I want to be out in it. I don't want anything derailing me!

My basic plan right now, is to baby it til this weekend, and then maybe get in a slow mile in new shoes. A very slow mile. If that feels ok, I'll add more distance, though certainly not the 6 miles I WANTED to do this weekend again. :( But hopefully, if I do this the right way, I'll be back doing long walks in no time.

Slight change

If you look at the right side of the blog, I made a small change to the ticker. It was originally setup to log miles walked this year. Well, the first part of this year wasn't so good so I restarted it to log since March 1st, when Beth and I restarted the Losin Together blog. It's not super impressive yet, but stay tuned, it's gonna get GOOD. :)

A walk to remember

Last year, with all the long training walks I did for the half, I learned a lot of valuable lessons about nourishing my body and providing it with energy. Yeah, apparently I forgot all of those lessons since then. D and I headed out on a 4-5 mile walk today. I did try to be semi-prepared. I had carby snacks, ate a PBJ before going, had 2 bottles of water in the stroller, and had on sunscreen and a hat. But then, an old friend caught up to me on the trail, and we chatted some as we walked so I ended up going a mile further than planned. On our way back, at 4.22 miles, I stopped to let D go play on a playground right off the trail. He took off running, immediately tripped and scraped the mess outta his knee, blood everywhere. As I cleaned him up, my body felt weird. I knew what was coming then. It was hitting an energy wall. I immediately started munching on carbs and sucking down water, but it wasn't enough. We ended up sitting til the dizzyness passed, but were still 1.5 miles from home. So we got up finally and started walking. I didn't get far before I hit that wall again and had to sit down. At this point, I came very close to calling a friend to come get us, but wanted to give it one more try. Again, didn't make it far. As I was sitting down on the curb, the color purple in the stroller caught my eye. It turned out to be a bottle of Propel. Score!! Even though it expired in Feb, I quickly downed 1/4th of it. The resulting energy surge, and drinking the rest of it on that 1.5 miles, got me home. So...lesson remembered. Water is NOT enough for me. I think I was feeling a lot of that at the half last year too. My body needs those electrolytes. Moral of the story: know your body and be prepared, you can't afford to get stuck out on a trail somewhere!! (This is not the first time I have learned a hard lesson out on the trail...sheeesh) But despite it all, I feel great about having done a total of 5.78 miles today.

Welcome to April

It's April 5th but close enough. Easter was this past weekend, and despite how I felt all day, D and I had some really good discussion about it. I found a video online that we watched together, and then I read him the easter story from his kiddo bible. This is the first year that he really asked more questions, and while I know he still doesn't understand it, nor can he grasp it, I loved some of the questions he had.

I also changed my Heels and Hills walk in May to the 10K. I'm so not ready for the half, and that was a tough choice to make but, I feel it's for the best. I HAVE started training for the 3 day in November, and have gotten in a couple of decent 3 mile walks. We have lots more distance to travel but I'm making a good start.

Despite AF being a PITA this week, my weight has been coming down this past week and weekend, esp with the upped walking. I am loving that and will definitely continue on this path.

And finally, I reached over 50% in my 3 Day walk fundraising!!! I def have my team, The Boobie Battalion, to thank for helping in that, as it was the garage sale that threw me over. We work so well together as a team, and I can't wait for the walk!

A good reminder

So I get the Jillian Michaels emails in my inbox, and just wanted to share this as it struck a chord with me. I didn't even need to read the whole article...lol just the teaser caught me.

"Who doesn't want to look totally hot? If you asked 100 people who were starting to exercise for the first time (or returning to regular workouts after a long time off) what their main motivation was, the majority of them would say something like, "I want to look good," or "I want to fit into a size __ again." And hey, whatever gets you on track initially is good enough for me. But when that scale hasn't budged in a few weeks, it's time to remind yourself that there are lots of other reasons to make exercise a habit."

You can read the rest here.

That struck close to home, even though it hasn't been weeks, but this week my body has been quite weird about the weight. On Wednesday, it jumped UP 2.4 lbs, and I've eaten REALLY good this week. SO I was getting frustrated. It's just SLOWLY come back down the last two days too. But I keep reminding myself that that doesn't give me the liberty to say screw it and eat whatever and not exercise. That this is a day by day process, and even if I lose NO weight at all, I'm doing what is right for my body so that I can lead a HEALTHY and more productive life. I'm eating healthier, making better choices, and getting my workouts in. As such, my body IS getting stronger. I do things in my workout with my trainer that I couldn't do 3 months ago. I can feel the changes slowly but steadily. So for now, I'm good...that email was just the motivation I needed to keep at it another day. And I thought I'd share.

Not so daily anymore...

I have SO slacked this month posting on here...sorry! I have been posting on Beth and I's Losin blog daily, recording what I eat and my activity. Since March 1st, I'm down 6 lbs. Well, 8, but our weigh-in today was after a lot of carbs etc for me on Saturday, so 6 "official" lbs. Regardless, despite some emotional stuff going on, I've been sticking to the diet for the most part and am feeling pretty good about my choices.

I started walking again today. D and I got out for a 3.27 mile walk tonite. It was tougher than I thought it would be, but did include some decent hills.

I'm pretty much having to admit that I likely won't make the Heels and Hill Half Marathon in May. It saddens me, but I just don't think I'll be ready! I'm going to keep pushing forward as if I'm still doing it though, and might make a last minute decision to go ahead, but as of now, I'm not seeing it happen. I still weigh 29 lbs more than last year's half, and can only imagine how much harder it will be. So that's my big announcement. However, the September half is definitely still on, and I'm excited about having all summer to swim and get in good training walks, now that the majority of my eating is under control.

And finally, our 3 Day team fundraising is going really well! We just had a garage sale this past weekend, and will continue it this coming weekend since we still had so much stuff left. Despite the rain and cold, we were quite successful!! So...on we go towards hitting our goals!

It's never too late...to start over...

So...Beth and I decided to restart the Losin Together blog today. Goodness I've been struggling, and she has as well, so it's about time. We've talked about it in the past, but now, it's on!

I haven't posted food on here in awhile anyway, so this blog will stay about the same...I'll keep doing updates a couple of times a week, or every day if I really make some improvements.

So as of tomorrow, head over to our Losin Together to check out our progress or search for us on Facebook, we have a fan page!

In other updates, I'm still diggin training with Janie. She just upped my reps again, and while OUCH, it's a good feeling to be stronger and know I couldn't have done this three months ago.

We ate crap yesterday, BUT we got some good walking in. Two friends, me and our kids walked to eat lunch at a restaurant, which is 1.2 miles from my house. We walked back, hung out a bit, and then walked up to a football game half a mile away from my house. We got in a total of 3.4 miles roughly. It was such a good feeling! Too bad I ruined it with the food choices I made.

In memorium

So yesterday was D and I's 3rd anniversary of the adoption being final. Well, today, is the 3rd anniversary of my grandad passing away. He'd been in a coma for a week or so, the end stages of Alzheimers, and I almost rescheduled the adoption hearing, but we had no idea when he would go, he could have gone another few days. And I really felt that with everything going on centering around my grandad, that D deserved "his" day.

The day that he died was interesting though. We were waiting on my uncle to get back in town to say goodbye. My grandparents have 5 kids; 4 girls and one boy. I had this feeling my grandad was waiting on my uncle to get there, and sure enough. We'd been at their house most of the day, and as soon as my uncle showed up, D and I left to go to my other aunt's house so D could get a nap. As we were headed to her house, it was right as a massive sandstorm blew through Dallas, and as we got to her house, we got the phone call that he had died. The sky was all orange and brown, it was surreal.

It's been 3 years and half the time I still feel like he's here. When I'm at my grandma's house on Sundays, sometimes it seems like he's going to come out of the bedroom at any moment. My dad and I have gotten closer since I got D, but my grandad was so much more like a dad to me growing up. He was a great man, quiet, solid, always there. I miss you, Grandad. We'll never forget you, but I so wish you and D had been able to get to know each other.

Happy Gotcha Day!!

Today is the 3rd anniversary of D and I going before a judge and promising to mommy and son forever! He never promised to be good, and I never promised to be perfect, and we're an even match. I *heart* that kid!!

How did we celebrate? Well...I put him to bed early, and left him with my brother to go see one of my favorite shows: Phantom of the Opera. Yes, I'm a mean mommy, it's ok, we'll celebrate tomorrow. POTO was AMAZING. I've listened to the music of it for years, and have seen the movie, but none of those could compare to seeing it live. We ended up getting 6th row seats from another momma who was not able to use them. It was TOTALLY worth the expense.

Rough, emotional week

I got some bad news regarding after school care for D on Wednesday and it really made my week spiral. And as such, so did my emotional eating. :(

I also know that this coming week is going to be an emotional one (stay tuned for posts on that). SO today, we hit up the grocery store, got lots of fruits and veggies, lean proteins, etc, and I am ready for a good week. I tried to make sure to be as prepared as possible.

We did have a good weekend though even though it was busy. Some babysitting, two trips to Ikea, hanging out with good friends, and busy work on my living room (pics to come), made for a very tired Brandie!!

Best snow EVAH!

So I purposely waited til today to post again. I noticed that as it got closer to VDay this past Sunday, I got increasingly DONE with it. And all I wanted to do was rant about the day. So, to spare your eyes that, I stayed away from here. I'm better now. We did end up having a fairly busy weekend, but the HIGHLIGHT of it was that the weather made it a 3 day weekend!

This past Thursday, around 3am, it started snowing, and kept snowing. We got about 12 inches of snow! So work let out early on Thursday, and most schools in the area shutdown on Friday. No work! The best part, was that really, the roads didn't ice. It never got low enough in temp to, so we were able to get out and about on Friday, and just enjoy the day! D loved playing in the snow, I think it was a once in a lifetime opportunity! I'm 30 and have never seen that much...so...YEAH.

We also got to meet my cousin's new baby girl! They were visiting this weekend from Colorado, and she is just PRECIOUS...

I topped off the weekend with a trip to Ikea for a new coffee table, side table, and rug. I'm revamping my living room some and can't wait to see it completed!

One simple change

It's amazing to me how one simple change in the order of my workout, can be so much more effective. The last week, it had been getting easier to do one full round of the workout and then do it all over again a second time. Well, last night, my trainer had me double each set as I do it, and omg I was hurtin. I finished strong, but man, I could feel it SO much more! It was still the exact same workout as this past week, but just changing the timing of it, wow. So while I'm not truly sore, I have a few twinges in places, esp my triceps. It's more of a feeling tho that they got worked, not really "sore". I love that we are changing just enough each week to keep it amped. I'm not getting complacent in this, thanks to my awesome trainer!

A big S day...

Sunday...Sweethearts...Superbowl...Satisfying food at Twisted Root? Ok that last one is pushing it a bit with the "S".

Despite AF trying to ruin my day, we made the best of it anyway. It was a rocky morning, but D had sweetheart pics with his little friend this afternoon. So he got all dressed up for that, and I do have to say, even though I may be a bit biased, I have NEVER seen cuter children!! :) Yeah I'm biased.

After that, we hit up Twisted Root for dinner. And even though money issues were the main reason for what I got, I did NOT get a burger. *gasp* That's right, though I can't say that what I got was a TON better...a grilled cheese sandwich with curly fries. And I had some Twisted Root Beer. But I did plan for it today, had only had about 300 calories all day before that. And really haven't had much else tonite so I figure I'm ok for the day.

This past week, I wasn't the greatest with food portion-wise, so this week I'll be tightening up big time since Valentines Day is this next weekend. And that is a tough day for me typically. I hate it, basically. I hate the reminder EVERY where of what I don't have, and I can't escape it. And I have to say, it's now a huge pet peeve of mine when married peeps say they "don't really get into V Day"...yeah, because you HAVE someone. Urrggh...ok vent over. But it's how I feel.

So yeah...I'll get over it. And it will be Feb 15th, then 16th, and so on and so forth, soon enough. Now to get through this week.