Paying The Piper

I weighed in at 247.4 this morning for a gain of 7 lbs. Here's the pic to stay accountable to Kandice's Challenge:

For Chris' Challenge, I was supposed to start on Tuesday and screwed that up.  The rules are to exercise at least 1 hour/6 days/wk.  I did manage to do this Wed & Thur, but it wasn't a 4 mile walk at the park like I had hoped....it's been raining off and on here all week.  I ended up doing it in (2) 30 min. intervals here at home.  I did crunches (I'm unable to do a full sit-up yet), lower leg lifts, some arm work with my weights and some modified push-ups (girlie ones). 

A few people have emailed me this week to check on me and I appreciate it very much.  Leslie emailed last night and I'm going to copy and paste part of my reponse to her as to what's been going on with me so I don't have to re-type everything.  You all know already that the wknd was bad right through the holiday on Monday.  This email picks up with Tuesday morning.

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I've been doing Chris' challenge for the last 2 days, which is good, but the eating is still in the crapper. However, I'm feeling better. I've been stressed to the max ALL week, and it started on Tuesday morning. Shane (my roommate) told me that a guy from his church was looking for an admin asst for his company in Marietta. Gave me the # and I talked to the guy on the phone for a good 20 mins. He told me to email my resume and I did. That was Tuesday early afternoon. He didn't get back to me til Wed evening at 6pm...an email...so I was holding my breath the hole time. I didn't even leave the house...I couldn't. I was too stressed. The email said that he got my resume and to go ahead and call his contact girl at TRC Staffing (he had already explained on the phone that they do all their temp-to-perm hiring thru them)....and fill out the tax papers, etc. Now I'm starting to feel hopeful. I called TRC at 8am this morning...the girl I needed didn't get in til 9am...I was in the door at 10am filling out paperwork. Just about to leave, everything looking good, and he emails the TRC girl and asks her to test me on Word and Excel. Doh! I thought I was going to get out of the testing. The truth is, I've been unemployed for 1 yr and 3 mos. I knew I was going to flunk them because I'm out of practice....and I was friggin' nervous as I don't know what. The girl said she'd email them to me and I could do them at home. I called Dwayne as soon as I got in my car to head home and I was about in tears. He said just do my best and he was sure I'd at least pass them in the Intermediate range. Yeah right!

I got home, spent an hour dinking around in the 2 programs, trying to recall basic functions, and finally took the test. You had to score at least an 80 for it to be acceptable by TRC's standards. I'm not sure if that's good enough for the guy hiring or not. Well I got an 83 on the Word one and a 63 on the Excel. I called her and she said the Excel was going to hurt me....asked if I wanted to re-take it. It was 1:30p and she left the ofc at 5pm. I told her I'd study up a bit and re-take it.

I was texting, emailing and calling Dwayne on the phone and we were both frantic, googling Excel tutorials together....he actually left his desk and went in the conference room with his laptop for a solid 30-40 mins reading through tutorials with me while I worked through a spreadsheet I created on my computer. "We" studied for 2 solid hours and I re-took the test at 3:30p. I scored a 90 that time...got 27 out of 30 right. I called her at 4pm and told her, she was happy and said she'd email the test scores to the guy immediately. Well....I never heard back from him, and I know he works til 6pm, because he emailed me at like 5:57 the day before. So let's just say that I've been stressed to the max since Tuesday but especially since 10am this morning up until now....still stressed, and I'm going to stay this way I'm sure until I hear something back, good or bad. And I don't even want to think about how I'l react if it's bad news.
 
I got my last unemployment check today. I'm out of cash dude. So as of next week, Dwayne will be handing me ALL of my bill money and that just kills my soul. I can't tell you what it does to me. I know some girls are happy to have a guy pay their way but I'm just not like that....due to past experiences, it is of utmost priority to me to be able to pay my own way so I don't get stuck with no money, no job, no car, etc. (bad previous relationship)...and go spiraling into severe depression again. So I'm tied up in knots right now. Dwayne has been more than understanding, very supportive, covering me up in "I love you"'s...but even he isn't made of money, and very kindly told me that he'll only be able to carry my bills along with his for a month to a month and a half. He's trying to save to buy a house and anything he gives me comes out of his savings account.


So anyhoo....I was hoping the guy would call me this afternoon and ask me to do a face to face interview tomorrow...praying I could start on Monday. But that didn't happen. Now I'm not sure what's going on....and I know I'm only this frantic because I'm desperate. If it's meant to happen it will and it's not, it simply won't. It's just the up and down emotional rollercoaster that keeps me half effing crazy. I'd give anything for a normal, calm, relaxed year after the one I've just dealt with. It also hasn't escaped me that there are others that have it MUCH worse off... I know in the grand scheme of things my problems are menial and barely a blip on the screen....but they're MY problems, so they're very real to ME....you know what I'm saying?
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I have 2 goals for this week.  The first is to keep up with Chris' Challenge of 1 hr of exercise each day, and the other is to drop 7 lbs. this week. 

I've been consumed with this job prospect and haven't been cooking.  I'm quite certain the biggest part of this is sodium and here's why:

Tuesday - lunch out w/ mom and sister
                dinner out with Dwayne

Wednesday - lunch out by myself
                     dinner out with Shane

Thursday  - lunch out by myself
                  dinner out with Dwayne

So as you can see I've been overloading my system with sodium this week.  I feel pretty confident I'll see a big drop.  Here's my first attempt at getting back on track with the eating.....

This morning's breakfast was 4 egg whites scrambled with a pc. of 2% Amer. chz &  topped with 2 Tbsp of fresh salsa.

                                                                           Calories:  123

My next dilemna is with grocery shopping today.  I've got to go do that in a little bit and I am having a big problem with nothing I think about cooking sounding good, especially the veggies that I normally prepare ahead of time for the week.  Asparagus, broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, cauliflower, etc.  All of it sounds hugely unappealing.  I'm considering buying all different kinds of veggies today than the ones I've been eating and see if that will spark some sense of creativitiy in my meal planning.  I'm also considering not concentrating on the veggies at all this week, and keeping my sole focus on simply staying under 1800 cals and getting my exercise in.  Maybe I should go with that....keeping it to the basics...one meal at a time. 

Ok.  Well.  That's it.  I'm off to start my day.  I've hesitated to mention this job prospect all week, in case it fell through like the fiasco at the last job that lasted 2 1/2 days.  That was embarassing and incredibly disappointing.  But I've thrown it out there now, so if you would, please pray for me.  Thanks friends.  :)

Another Challenge

Chris @ A Deliberate Life mentioned in a post the other day that she was doing an unofficial challenge, mainly for herself, not to balloon in June.  She's going on vacation for 2 weeks and made a vow to herself to lose at least 1 lb/wk while she was gone by committing to an hour of exercise every day.  I asked her to make a badge for her challenge and she chose to create it using Violet from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, lol.  I think it's awesome!!

I told her that I would not only do the challenge for those 2 weeks but for the entire month of June.  I also told her I'd start June 1st...today.  Turns out I inadvertently lied about that part.  I usually like to take my walks at the park in the evening...there's more people around, all the ball fields are full of kids playing ball and I just like all the activity.  Well, Dwayne, who I just saw yesterday when we did our cookout, called this afternoon and asked me to meet him tonight to hang out.  So the exercise flew out the window.  Lesson learned....tomorrow morning I'll be hitting the trail bright and early.

I told Chris this is the EXACT thing I needed to get my lazy a$$ in gear.  I haven't done a single thing in the exercise department since I've been back from the beach.  Why, you ask?  I have no idea.  I really don't know what happened.  I've been exercising steady, at least 5x/wk for months on end...I've done it at 2 different gyms and my local park.  I've done exercise DVD's here at home.  I've done SOMETHING this whole time.  So I'm not sure why I haven't gotten back into the groove.  It's just seemed like the most disinteresting thing in the world to me, although I KNOW I shouldn't feel that way.  So I needed something like this challenge to just FORCE myself back into the swing of things. 

I'm still doing Kandice's challenge, which basically is to lose as much weight as possible in the next 3 months, and whoever loses the most lbs. is the winner.  I don't think Chris' challenge has a "winner" since it's an "unofficial challenge", but that doesn't matter.  It's several of us working towards a common goal of getting in our daily exercise and I'm glad I joined in.  I promised to do it 6 days/wk, with Saturday being the exception. 

My eating has been just plain stupid all weekend right into the holiday yesterday.  Today hasn't been much better and I think that's because I know I totally blew the first half of my week (which starts on Fridays for me since that's my weigh day).

Has everyone heard of Massive Marcus listed on my blogroll?  That guy is ON FIRE!!!  He left me a comment today telling me to forget about the stupid choices and make the next one a good one.  GREAT ADVICE!!  I've given that advice myself many times over, but it never hurts to have someone give it right back to you...and I sure needed to hear it.  So thanks Marcus...I appreciate it.  If you haven't checked out his blog, hop on over and give him a shout out.  He just reached his first 50 lb. lost milestone and get this...he did it 3 months.  I've lost 30 lbs. in what?  Oh....about a YEAR now.  Struggle much?  I really need to get my sh*t together.  I'm not doing anything here but wasting time and life is flying right past me.  I need to catch up....the sooner the better. 

I'm planning on a better day tmrw and Thursday, then I'll take my scale punishment on Friday.  But NEXT Friday there WILL be a loss.  I'm not going to say I HOPE there's a loss, I'm saying there WILL be a loss.  And I don't give a crap how many times I've "started over"....the important thing is that I haven't given up.  There IS no giving up.  It simply isn't an option.  So I'll just hang out here and keep posting, looking stupid, until I finally get it together and get to my goal.  Thanks for tagging along.  :)

Memorial Day Food Pics

Oh I ate way too much.  We ate around 4:30pm.....I took pics...and then went back and picked some more around 9pm...and picked....and picked...and now I'm friggin' miserable.  :(

                                                                         My coleslaw

My baked mac 'n' chz

My deviled eggs

Kandice's cinnamon apples.

Kandice's baked sweet potato sticks.

She also brought corn on the cob but I forgot to take a pic.

I put out a fruit platter and veggie platter.

I made a strawberry & blueberry trifle for dessert w/ angel food cake & fat-free Cool Whip.

Dwayne grilled some regular burgers, chicken burgers & hot dogs for us. 

Burger fixin's.

I had a chicken burger w/o cheese, added some tomatoes, onions, dill pickles, ketchup & lite mayo.  I also had a spoon of mac 'n' chz, coleslaw & sweet potatoes.  Then I shared a hot dog with Dwayne.

I also had a spoon of the trifle, but forgot to take a pic of it.

Don't even ask me what I ended up consuming at 9pm.  Shameful stuff when you add it all up. 

On a happier note, I'm joining another challenge...this time, for exercise, which I desperately need.  I'm doing it for the whole month of June, so it starts tomorrow.  I'll elaborate on it more on tomorrow's post.  So 2 challenges going now...maybe I'll actually lose some weight in the month of June!  'Nite friends.  :)

Temp Agency

Happy Friday!  I have 2 weigh-in's this morning.

Last Friday I weighed 241.2 lbs. and this morning I weigh 240.4 lbs., for a loss of .8 of a lb.

Then on Monday, I had to weigh again (after a weekend of too much sodium) and take a pic of the scale reading for the start of Kandice's Summer Challenge.  Monday I weighed 243.6...this morning I'm 240.4, for a loss of 3.2 lbs (this only applies to her challenge).  We had to weigh Monday to get started but now we're back to normal Friday weigh-in's.

Anyhoo...I didn't gain on a cycle week.  I'm satisfied.  :)

I've got an appointment with a temp agency this morning at 10:45am.  This is the first one I've signed up with in several years.  I'm hoping they can put me to work quickly, so say your prayers! :)

I'm having a Memorial Day cookout here on Monday.  Shane, Billie & Kandice are coming to eat with Dwayne and I.  I need some healthy options for us girls so does anyone have any ideas of some low calorie side dishes I can make?  Dwayne will be grilling burgers (and chicken burgers for us girls)...and I'll have a fresh veggie tray and fresh fruit tray, some coleslaw with lite mayo & lite sour cream (a recipe I found in my new cookbook)......and I have to make baked mac 'n' chz for Dwayne....since he doesn't eat any veggies.  But I'd like an idea for 1 or 2 more side dishes that are low calorie, so if you know of something simple and tasty, please let me know! 

Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend with your loved ones!  :)

Miss Grumpy Pants

I am so over the picture-taking, lol.

Here's the deal...I haven't mentioned this yet this week but I'm on my cycle and feeling pretty miserable.  True to form...my moods are crazy (Jekyll & Hyde kinda' stuff), my clothes don't fit right, my cramps are over the top, and I generally just don't give a crap.....about anything or anyone.  Blah!

I don't know why I picked THIS particular week to "get back on track", but it was a dumb move.  I guess there's always the rationale that I need to do whatever I can to keep from getting any FATTER...that point would be hard to argue....but man, I'm just not feeling it.  I expected the first couple of days to be a struggle (as in last Fri & Sat), but every friggin' day has been a struggle...and I feel like I'm going downhill as each day passes.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's like this EVERY month....not just this one.  I'm in the middle of the first week of a very bad two week timeframe.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate my body? 

I don't know if I've ever told this story on here before but I'm now reminded of it every month...it haunts me, lol....so I'll share it with you.

When I was younger I didn't have a cycle....it was like once a YEAR...which means life was pretty much perfect.  I had heard about PMS...the mood swings, the fluctuating hormones, breaking down in tears for no good reason, etc.....but I never really believed it or thought it was real.  In fact, I was standing in a store one day reading a greeting card....and this is what now haunts me.  There was a woman on the front talking to her doctor and the doctor was doubled over in laughter.  The bubble over the woman's head with the writing in it said, "My doctor told me my PMS was all in my head...   (open the card).....so I shot him."  And she's sitting there on the table thingie with a smoking gun in her hand.  I remember laughing a little, but my eyes flew open wide and I thought to myself, good LORD, it can't be THAT bad!!

Oh I was so wrong.  So very, very wrong.  lol

Several years later I started on birth control to regulate my cycles because apparently it's not healthy to never have one.  Enter PMS.  It was like I all of a sudden turned into a raving lunatic and had no explanation as to why....until I finally realized what comes along with having a NORMAL cycle.  I know not everyone has it....and some don't have it to the degree of others....but I've been cursed.  And I am now a believer.  lol

So anyhoo....about this picture-taking stuff.  I really don't give a rat's glutes right now.  It probably has a LOT to do with my mood swings at the moment....I might change my mind later and post every calorie again...but for right now, I'm just not...and I really don't give a flip. 

I do have some pics for today...I tried another new recipe out of the same cookbook as last night.  But I haven't even eaten dinner yet so I don't have any pics for that.  I'm waiting on Shane to get home to see what he wants to do.  I have some leftovers from lunch....the Spicy Shrimp Creole I made...but he can't handle spicy stuff, and I was ill-prepared in having a plan for dinner....so who knows what we'll eat.

I ran a TON of errands today....I was out of the house by 9am and didn't get back home til 3pm.  My sister Amy was with me.  I had breakfast out at Chic-fil-A because I overslept and couldn't get breakfast cooked in time.  However, we came home for lunch. I actually made the Creole last night in preparation for a busy day ahead, and all I had to do was peel the shrimp and add that to the pot today.  It's ironic that I actually had the forethought to cook last night so we wouldn't eat OUT for lunch today knowing we were going to be gone for so many hours....but then woke up late and ended up eating breakfast out instead.  That's the way my whole week has been....stupid.

                                                 Chicken Breakfast Burrito from Chick-fil-A.

                                                                         Calories:  450

Sauteed 2 c. onions and 1/2 c. celery in 1 1/2 tbsp of EVOO.  (The recipe called for 2 c. of celery but I didn't have that much left in the frig...it also called for 3 Tbsp of oil, but I couldn't spend that many calories on just oil, so I only used half, which worked just fine.)

2 Tbsp of all purp flour, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp. ea. of s&p...was supposed to be 1 tsp of cayenne pepper, but I didn't have any, so I threw in a few shakes of Creole seasoning.

Simmer all the stuff together (you saw the small can of tomato sauce and large can of crushed tomatoes in the photo above) for about 30-45 mins.  Today I re-heated it, then added the 2 lbs. of shrimp the recipe called for....oh!  It also called for 1 bay leaf and 1 Tbsp hot pepper sauce (I used Tabasco).  Anyhoo, add shrimp and cook on medium heat for another 15-20 mins.  I served it over 1 c. of Steamfresh brown rice.

My sister ABSOLUTELY loved this dish and I thought it was pretty darn tasty, too!  It says it's 8 servings, but I doubled the servings and made it 4....1 for each of us and I have 2 svgs left in the frig.

It's 242 cals/svg...so my plate was 484 cals.  The 1 c. of brown rice was 150 cals, so the whole plate was 634 cals.

I had a Kashi bar this afternoon for a snack.

Calories:  110

My calories for the day so far are 1194....still trying to figure out dinner. 

Talk to you tomorrow! 

Day At The Lake/New Recipe!

My sister Brandy went to the hospital to have her baby today....Jeremiah has arrived and I hear he's healthy.  I took my niece and nephew, Carla and Cyress, along with my sister Amy, out to lunch today and then to the lake for some fun in the sun.  I let Carla choose where we were having lunch, and she chose her favorite...Chinese!  Yes, I took a pic.  I also let my sister take a pic of me in a bathing suit...with no make-up.  Can you believe it????  I still can't believe it...but I'm going to post it.  I have no idea why, lol.

Breakfast was a Kashi bar.

Calories:  110

Lunch at the Chinese buffet.

Calories:  ???

Pics from the rest of the day, and new recipe at the bottom!

My mom gave me a new recipe book a few weeks ago and I finally made something out of it.  It was FANTASTIC!!!!  Spinach-stuffed chicken breasts...here's my pics!!

(3) 6 oz. boneless skinless chicken breasts pounded to 1/2" thickness, 1/2 c. lite sour cream, 1/2 c. 2% shredded colby-jack cheese, a little spoon of minced garlic & 9 oz. bag of fresh spinach (wilted in microwave on high for 2 mins).

Wrap each pc. of chicken with 2 strips of lower sodium bacon (2 pieces of bacon is 70 cals).

Bake uncovered at 375 for 40 mins, then on broil for addt'l. 10 mins.

Here's the calorie breakdown:

First, the filling is supposed to be for 4 chkn brsts, but the pkg I bought only had 3 in it.

Filling:

9 oz. bag of spinach:  60

1/2 c. lite sour cream:  320

1/2 c. 2% shredded colby-jack chz:  160

1 small spoon of minced garlic

Filling total:  540

Divided by 3:  180 per pc. of chicken

Calories for one serving:

6 oz. chkn brst:  180

2 pcs. lower sodium bacon:  70

1/3 filling:  180

Total Cals for one svg:  430

I paired mine w/ about 1 1/2 c. of yellow squash, zucchini & onions.

Calories:  457

I'm excited about trying some more recipes out of this book very soon!

Be back tomorrow!  :)