An Empire State of Mine or The Big, Fat, Irish-Korean Wedding

I know it's been a while, and I have no excuses. June 16, I went to New York for my cousin's wedding. Grace went with me. She thoroughly enjoyed the plane trip there. I was worried about how she'd handle it. My mom paid for my ticket, and Grace was young enough that she could ride as a lap child. I was really nervous about not having our car seat on the plane. Grace stared out the window of the plane for at least an hour, fascinated by all the clouds. I was very proud of her. She was such a good girl! Mom held her for most of the two flights to NY. Once there, we got our bags and waited for mom to secure a rental car. She wasn't happy with it when she pulled around, so back to the rental lot we went, and waited in the car while mom went off to have a talking-to with the rental people. Meanwhile, Grace is in the back seat going "Uh-oh. Trouble. Uh-oh, Nana. Nana, trouble." I sat laughing & explained to my almost 2-year-old that this was something she would grow used to. If Nana wasn't in trouble, she was making some. Finally we got everything straightened out, go settled into our hotel, and went to dinner. All the while my ears are popping, and it's incredibly painful. Did I mention the last 20 mins of a plane ride are a nightmare for me? I just hide my head and try not to cry. The pressure has always bothered me, even when I gnash away at chewing gum.

The next morning, I woke up at 5. I laid in bed a minute. I hadn't slept too well, being too worried about seeing my family for the first time in almost a decade. I thought I should probably check out the fitness room, get it out of the way for the day, but it was 5. Who the heck gets up at 5 in the morning to workout... ON VACATION? I do.
So I tiptoed quietly about our darkened room, pulling my things together. I spent almost 2 hours in the fitness room of our hotel. 1 hour on the TM, then more time doing weights. It was a small room, not much bigger than the common American living room, but it had what I needed. I got back to our room drenched. Ma & Grace were still sleeping. I waited till Grace got up to shower, so we could both be squeaky clean and pleasant smelling for the family.
I can't remember how it came up, but at lunch that afternoon my mom told me to tell my favorite aunt what I had been doing that morning. I told her I was at the gym... on vacation... at 5 in the morning, which is really 3 in the morning here at home. She said I was nuts. I figured as much. It runs in the family.

The next few days were filled with loud, very stressed out Irish relatives all yelling at eachother as we prepared for the wedding, and super naughty food. My aunt seemed very supportive of my new lifestyle, and tried to buy me food I could eat. "What do you want? I don't know what you eat. What do I feed you?", but whenever I'd open my mouth, my mom would give me the evil eye. I was sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. My mom didn't want us to be a financial burden on anyone, especially with my "special diet". I told her it's not a special diet, it's how I live my life. She was also very concerned that I'm starving myself to lose weight, which she added a few days later that I eat too much. Huh?! Yeah, I told you this family is crazy. To reinforce the craziness, I continued to wake up at 6 every morning and hit the gym. Yes there were days I didn't want to get out of bed, but I went, and stuck with the program. Because healthy food wasn't really available to me, I ended up getting sick on vacation one day. My stomach hurt so much, and I had the runs like nobody's business. Luckily, a yogurt ended up chasing most of the discomfort away (hooray for natural cultures!). Around the same time, my family decided to hit White Castle for belly bombers. If you've never had one, it really is something to try. It's sort of a rite of passage in my family. They're these little sliders of cheeseburger death. I let Grace have one (again, rite of passage), but passed on it myself, and laughed all the way back to my aunt's house while everyone belly ached about their belly ache.
I offered multiple times to cook for my family, but nobody took me up on my offer. It was a week of fast food and feeling really gross. At the wedding, everyone kept telling me how amazing and beautiful I looked.
I kept looking around to see who they were talking to.
I guess I'm still getting used to compliments.

The day before we went home, my aunt took Grace to the local aquarium. They had a pool of little rays who were SUPER friendly. They would come right out of the water and let you pet them. I tried to get Grace to pet one. The noise that came out of that kid's mouth was somewhere between terrified and "THIS IS AWESOME!". It was the funniest little screech. I was rolling.

The trip home was not so fun. Grace was kind of a bear the whole way. To start off, we got out on the tarmac in NY and sat for a while, before being informed that there was a nation-wide shut down of all aircraft in and out of Chicago (where we were stopping first). So they took us back to the terminal. We were delayed 2 hours in total, but we thought it might be okay since we had a 2 hour lay over in Phoenix. Maybe this delay would mean we wouldn't have much of a layover. We get to Chicago, and get out on the tarmac, and we're informed that there will be a further delay while we're re-routed. Joy. We stay optimistic, hoping our plane in Phoenix will wait 20 mins for half of its passengers on the plane we're riding. We get to Phoenix only to find our plane left. We had a 2 hour layover. Nobody was amused. I just wanted to get home to my own bed, healthy food, and normal life again. I think Grace felt the same way as she got upset whenever I'd restrain her from running down the tunnel to any incoming planes. She knows the plane takes her to daddy, does it really matter which one? Let's just get on one already!
We finally got home around midnight, a good 4 hours after we were supposed to be home.
Grace got to see her new room, which I had spent most of June cleaning out in preparation for her move. Andy did a bang up job with it. I will have to post pictures soon as we still haven't gotten it decorated.
My studio got moved into the tiny, time-share kitchen-sized space of our bedroom. It's pretty scary. I fell into bed with a "yeah-right" mentality about attacking it. It's insane.

Mom stayed on with us a few days. I fell out of the routine I had spent so hard maintaining. I'm just getting back into it now. Luckily I've still been losing.

Will post again soon with the story of Grace's birthday. The length of this one is getting out of hand and my brother-in-law needs help running a few errands.

Keep fighting your dragons!

Joy In The Journey

Today was weigh in day. Nothing. Blah. I've been hovering between 188 & 191 for over a week now. I'd like to move on. 185 is a big number for me, and I want to get there soon. 185 means no longer obese for me. Today I lowered my weight loss goal from 2 lbs a week to 1 lb, in order to increase my daily calorie intake. I've been hungry for them, so maybe eating a bit more will help get me going again.
Recently I was asked to speak at Enrichment Night at church about my weight loss journey. After I bawled like an idiot, I got the message across. Last year I weighed almost 250 lbs, and slept 16 hours a day because I didn't have the energy to do much else. I felt like I was failing in my marriage because I didn't love myself, and I didn't want to be touched... and why would my husband ever love me the way I was? So I decided something had to change. That something was me. Then I showed them the size 24 jeans I started my journey in, and proceeded to climb into 1 leg. Yes, all of me fits into 1 leg of those jeans. They were floored. I told them I went from a size 24 to a size 8, that I had a 50" waist, and now it's 32". I've taken 10" from my hips, and 10" from my thighs. I told them they could do it too, that it was all about choices. Food doesn't make us fat. Food CHOICES make us fat. I told them if they could see themselves the way the Lord sees them, they would realize their infinite beauty & potential. They just have to CHOOSE.

In the words of one of my current favorite songs: Always gonna be another mountain. I'm always gonna wanna make it move. Always gonna be an uphill battle. Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose. DOESN'T MATTER HOW FAST I GET THERE. DOESN'T MATTER WHAT'S WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE. IT'S THE CLIMB.... Remember, friends, even when you have crappy weigh ins, take joy in your journey, and find the positive things about it to help keep you going. I may not be the weight I want to be now, but I've taken more than 3 feet off of my body, can do a 5k in 45 mins, and fit into sizes I've NEVER fit into before (or dared to dream of). "It's sad when we give up the things we REALLY want for the things we want RIGHT NOW." So keep your eye on the prize, and "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swi-i-i-i-ming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim."

6 Impossible Things

Rough night. Hubby gave himself food poisoning, and Grace has sinus funk. Grace spent most of night in bed with us. She's a kicker. I don't think a single part of me avoided getting walloped or bonked by some random little person's body parts. On top of it, I feel like I'm trying to fight gambu off too.

Since hubby was home sick today, he agreed to lay on couch with Grace & be miserable together long enough for me to go to gym and get a run in.

I've been wondering about the safest, most effective & efficient way to get a 30 min 5k in my reach. Still trying to figure it out without killing myself.

Saw the new Alice & Wonderland on Saturday. Meant to go when it first came out as my 50 lbs lost treat, but that didn't happen till a month or so later. Now that I'm almost half a pound away from being 1/2 way to my goal weight, it seemed like a good time. There was a phrase in there that inspired me. "I believe in 6 impossible things before breakfast. COUNT THEM!"

Here are mine:
1) I can run a 5 minute mile

2) I can qualify and run in the Boston Marathon

3) I can run a sub-20 min 5k

4) I can reach my goal weight of 135

5) I can get my house clean before I leave on vacation next month

6) I can find happiness and learn to like myself



Remember: at the end of the day, every magnificent hero must still face great adversity to get from Once Upon a Time... to Happily Ever After. What dragon will YOU slay today?

One More Mile

Sorry I've been quiet lately. I could use several excuses, but the truth of the matter is, really, that I'm a lazy pud. I even took a week off from the gym (tsk, tsk, tsk)

Thankfully there's this thing called a husband. And today, after dinner, husband said "Honeymoon's over" and got me to the gym. It was busy, all machines were filled, but I started stretching while I waited for a TM to open. After I hopped on, I pushed myself hard to run a mile straight-- for the first time in my life. I did it in about 13 mins. The last quarter mile sucked, but that's my fault, because I tried to rush through it by putting the TM on 7 mph and burnt myself out in about 10 seconds. It was a fun 10 seconds, going that fast, but, let's face it, the next 3 minutes were NOT so fun. Let myself ease off a bit and just do some sprinting intervals after I caught my breath. Took about 1/2 a mile, but I got going again and finished strong. For what it's worth 5 mph is getting more and more comfortable, but I'm also finding 4.2 comfortable for longer runs.

Getting closer & closer every day to being 1/2 way to my goal weight. Just gotta get to 56.5 lbs lost!

Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride

This last week has been a roller coaster ride. On Wednesday I had a great run, going 1.92 miles on the treadmill. My friend Jazz & I also had a pretty productive day in the studio in preparation for a show this past weekend. I dropped her off at a bus stop so she could go up to Salt Lake to meet with her hubby, and started to pull toward the yield when... CRUNCH. I T'd another car in the rear door. My brand new car was scratched, and I had an accident on my record now. I've only had one speeding ticket in the 10 years I've been driving, now this. I don't know if I didn't see him or if he didn't see me, but there you have it. I was pretty upset. Luckily nobody was hurt. In fact, Grace kind of looked at me like "why are we stopping, mom?"
Our insurance was great and dealt with everything. I was pleased with the way they handled it. We were only out $250 for repairs, insurance picked up the rest (which included a displaced headlight and rearranging the inside of the fender)

After dinner we went to Coney's Frozen Custard to try their new chocolate raspberry creme flavor. Andy chose brownies to mix in. It was really good. I was still sad, but chocolate makes almost anything better.

Then I had Andy drop me off at primary presidency meeting. I told them about the accident, and just wanted the spirit to come and quiet my soul. I was just about "there" during a very good object lesson. The object lesson was about fitting our calling into our daily lives. We wrote responsibilities on clear decorative stones (Grace, Andy, cook, clean, etc), and placed them in a large baby food jar. After that you add colored pebbles that represent life's little surprises (car accidents, unforseen bills, etc). Then we had this larger rock, which represented our church callings, that we also had to fit in. It didn't fit in on top. So we dumped our stuff out, put the rock in first, and then put the rest of it back in the jar. To make it count, you had to close the lid on the jar. Mine fit fine. Object lesson achieved: put your calling first. One of the counselors was struggling to get all of hers in, so I offered to help. I was just starting to close the lid when KABOOSH! The jar 'sploded and sliced my hands. I got a pretty deep gash in the crook of my left thumb, and a bad cut across the pad of my other. Other parts of my hands and fingers were also banged up. One of the counselors called my hubby to tell him the news. All I heard on the other end was "No, we're not kidding". Like how accident prone can this woman be in one day?! I was taken home where hubby rushed me to urgent care. The counselor who took me home stayed at our place since Grace was already in bed. I got Frankenstein stitches in my life hand (which, and I know this is dumb, are a blow to my self image. I feel ugly whenever I look at them), and 2 or 3 stitches in the pad of my other thumb. It was not fun.
Then the next day my mom called to tell me she has to euthanize our amazing dog. They found a tumor the size of a football and operating would only give her two or three months of extra life. So now not only was I physically broken, but heart broken too. Between those two, I started to have shock symptoms (nausea, chills, kind of out of it) and crashed on the couch the rest of the night. Slept soundly for 4 hours, then went to bed and slept more.

One thing about really bad things is that they only seem to come in threes. Friday morning I woke up feeling pretty glum and did my weekly weigh in. I came in at 199.8. I had officially left Twoterville and entered Onederland. I smiled and thought "Alright." It was like Mr. Sun was peeking his little head out of the clouds for a minute. The weekend got better with many top three finishes in the classes at the model horse show I went to, and I had good company driving there with two fellow friends/hobbiests.

Tuesday night we went shopping and hubby let me get two new pairs of shorts and a new shirt. I've been feeling like a house in my shirts that no longer fit, and my size 16 shorts were starting to slide around a little bit. Despite my hands killing me as I tried to do the button, I now fit comfortably into a size 14! I do not recall ever being a size 14 as a teenager or adult. I remember being in 8th grade swim class. In the locker room, I could hear the girls wish they were more filled out in certain places like I was, while I desperately wished my size 16 pants were size 10-12 like a normal 14 year old.
I know vanity sizing has gotten worse in the last decade, and my size 14s are probably really 16s (or would have been 10 years ago), I'll take em!

This morning I weighed in at 198.2-- .2 away from 50 lost. The only number in my head now is 185... no longer obese.

Road Blocks Suck

It's been a frustrating week. It started out fine, but the last few days have just been trying. Wednesday I woke up with really sore shins, which lasted Thursday as well. I have a history of not getting along with Airwalk shoes, and those are what I wore on therapy day (where my brother in law goes to therapy & I walk laps around the mall, it's therapy for both of us!), doing even more walking after the mall (Andy needed to go up to Weber State University to get a student ID card). I'm pretty sure that's what did my shins in. I will be whining continuously at hubby for new shoes. One friend had the brilliant idea of retiring one's running shoes for regular wear and breaking in a new pair, which is what I might do.

Oh and lame excuse #2, Grace is just getting over being sick for a whole 2 weeks, so her being sick kept me home from gym, too, since I didn't have anyone to really watch her.

Friday I ended up in SLC. Hubby has been remodeling the bathroom, so we are without a shower until it's done. Thus, I drive Grace & I to SLC to hubby's work every few days to get a hot shower. In the midst of all this, I've also been struggling with food issues. I just don't want it. My mentality is better today, but now I don't want dinner even though it's our fabulous homemade pizza (half the calories and sodium & tastes just like chain!)

So today while hubby continued to lay tile in our bathroom, I told him I was off to the gym to get my mojo back, and would be in no hurry to get home. Please take care of our little person when she gets up from her nap which I just wrestled her into (and not in a fun way).

I figured I would just put in a light maintenance run, but my body is getting stronger, and just can't handle 4 mph anymore. It's painfully slow (literally). I'm maintaining an average of 4.5 now, with a couple of minutes here and there at 5 or faster.

After I got my run in, I hit the stationary bike and put in 10.8 miles in 30 mins. In all, I torched 606 calories. Been a while since I blew past the 500 mark.

Really frustrated with my virtually non-existent weight loss this last week (less than a pound, so angry), but certain road blocks will be out of my way next week.

Suggested to hubby that we go for walk on Sunday so I can get a head start on my miles for the week.

Sunday is Easter. Today I took Grace to an Easter Egg hunt. We got there early to secure our spot. I was hoping with the weather, and conference, nobody would show up. There was still a tremendous turn out. We stood in the freezing wind for almost 1/2 hour. We were 2 ft away from the eggs, patiently waiting on the concrete. You can imagine how upset I was when The people in charge shouted "go" and the eggs were GONE! I had to climb over eggs with Grace just to get 2. We were so lucky we got any at all. *sigh*, at least we lucked out and got one with a prize ticket inside. Grace made off with some sidewalk chalk-- one of her favorite things.

Anyway, that's all

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

Food is Gross

Have you ever stopped to think about how gross food really is? It goes into our bodies... we turn it into mush, and then our bodies liquify it with acid in a process not unlike resomation. Then it travels through this slimy, two mile tube, where it's compacted with more acid, gasses, and deadly substances and comes out as poop. Hope you weren't eating anything while reading that. That kind of visual tends to impair an appetite.

Speaking of impaired appetite, I've really been struggling with food lately. Not for the above reason, but I just have no appetite. My body is hungry, but my brain is convinced that everything is disgusting. It's 3 pm, and half of the food on my MFP food diary has come off. I haven't had lunch, my morning snack, or my afternoon snack. I've also had no water today yet. I don't know why I'm struggling with this lately. It usually doesn't come on till summer. For me, it's normal to experience loss of appetite in summer. I don't do well in heat, and heat dampers anything I desire to do. Including eat.
Nothing sounds good. Everything is gross.

How do you go from 250 lbs and eating everything in sight, to 200 lbs and everything is gross? More importantly, how do you fix it?