Call the CDC!!!

Germ Warfare has begun! Yesterday, was a disaster. I went to work, clocked in, took a few phone calls, was REALLY bored and didn't wanna be there. Around ohhhh... Noon I got a phone call at the main switchboard. I was, of course, on one of the few calls I had taken for the day so they paged me over the intercom. Lovely. I knew it had to be the school and immediately said, out loud like a dip, "Well THIS can't be good..." The caller said, "What???" as I threw them on hold and called the switchboard. Sure enough, it was the school nurse calling. I finished up my call and had them transfer Nurse Judy to me. Shecky had gone to the nurse in the morning with a headache. She let him sleep for about an hour then sent him to lunch. After lunch he decided to hurl the contents of his stomach into a trash can... Twice. She assured me he wasn't running fever but I KNEW the daycare wouldn't want him there if he was impersonating "Chuck". NORMAL people would be able to handle this with aplomb. Me, I was like, CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP! R. was an hour away from where I work (and hour and a half from the school) on an installation job. Since we only have one car and I can't drive it was on HIM to come get me and Shecky, take us home and possibly go BACK to the job he wasn't quite finished with. We were finally able to pick him up from the Nurse's office at 2pm. We stopped for some Gatorade, Saltines and Sprite and went home.

The poor kid was like a piece of overcooked pasta. He was limp. His legs were rubbery. He kept saying things like, "When I stand up I feel like my legs don't work" and "My eyes keep crying but I'm not sad." I kept trying to baby him. I offered my lap to him. Usually, when sick, he wants Mama and no one else. This time... not so much. He just wanted to lay in the oversize chair and stare at the TV. NOTHING makes me feel worse than being unable to make him feel better. NOTHING. Usually I can joke with him until he's happy or be goofy enough to take his mind off of feeling bad. Not this time. I felt his forehead and he was BURNING UP! I cursed the school nurse, called R. and requested a thermometer and Children's Ibuprofen be brought home when he headed this way. He finally, bless his heart, got home around 8:45pm. (His 8 hours were up at 4:15pm.) Temp was 100.7 and he was sleeping soundly on the chair curled up with Mei-Mei. We semi-woke him, gave him the medicine and took him to bed.

We watched a RIDICULOUSLY stoopid movie, American Pie: The Naked Mile. It was mindless and retarded and made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to wake my drugged child. I finally went to bed at 1:30am and... couldn't sleep. I had checked on Shecky before going to bed but the fever was bothering me. He was sleeping VERY deeply and, like a dork, I took that as a sign that the fever was effecting him much more than it actually was. I woke R up from a dead sleep and made him bring Shecky into bed with us. I was finally able to sleep but I woke periodically to poke The Boy and make sure he was still conscious and hadn't lapsed into a coma from his 100.7 fever. ::rolls eyes:: What an Amature! heh

Eating Through The Pain

Today was an odd day. I was up until almost 5am. I was having a lot of pain in my intestines. ::Wrinkles nose:: I know. Not a pleasant subject but its got a point. As a result, I stayed home from work today. I slept until almost Noon and awoke with a headache. Before I knew it, it was going on 2pm and I hadn't eaten anything. I grabbed some cheese cubes and some Hormel Turkey Peperoni. Had a Weight Watchers Cookies and Cream Ice Cream Bar and went about the remainder of my day just kind of laying low. R. called on his way home from work to see how I was feeling. I was still kinda low so he said he would pick up dinner... from McDonald's. ::smacks self in face:: OK... so, I got out my Dining Out Guide and looked up the points. I still had like 28 or 29 points left for the day. I got a Big Mac, an Apple and Walnut Salad and a baked Apple Pie. That totaled 25 points. (I didn't eat the nuts in the Apple Walnut Salad and a lot of the fat in it comes from the walnuts.) I have 3 points left for the day. I'm probably going to eat a ton of grapes tonight to use them up.

The question I have is, "How bad is it to use up the majority of my points with a Big Mac and an Apple Pie from McDonald's?" I'm still within my points total for the day but ... Guh... that stuff is BAD for you.

Why do I Blog?

Someone asked me why I started this Blog. Last weekend I went to visit my parents. They live on a lake. Well, on the SHORE of the lake really. Its really nice there. We had a good visit. Shecky swam in the lake, rode his three-wheeler, played on the playground and actually got to be a KID and just do his own thing for a couple of days. He really loves it there. Living in Houston he doesn't get an opportunity to just play and run like the crazy kid he is.

On the way home we ran into some REALLY bad traffic. I mean the kind where your car doesn't move an INCH... for over 2 hours. It was really, REALLY horrific. Trapped in a teeny car with a bored, Bored, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOORED 6 year old who had to pee BADLY and who had no toys or games to keep him occupied. We had been stuck in the same spot for about an hour and a half or so when people started getting out of their vehicles and walking up the line of cars (two lanes wide). Someone in a vehicle behind us was going back to his car and I asked him if he knew what was going on. There had been a really bad accident up ahead, a double fatality. Two women had been killed and the person that had caused the accident had tried to run away... LITERALLY. He took off on foot, ran into the oncoming lane of traffic and was hit by a car going the other way. HE STILL KEPT RUNNING. The authorities caught him about a mile away.

We weren't all that far from the accident. It probably happened only 5 or 10 minutes before we arrived on the scene. That got me to thinking. Here I was, in a very small car, a convertible even, with my son and a very close friend. Had we left my parents place 10 minutes prior it could have been US in that wreck, in the coroners van, in the body bags. Pondering that brought me to this thought, "If you don't loose weight it could be you anyway. Either way you go... you're gone. No more time with Shecky. Never to have gotten myself together. Never to have gotten back on track with my life. Never to have sung again. Never to have started "That fricking Blog!""

I realized it was time. I started examining myself. Internally, externally, emotionally and objectively as I could. I got serious about my weight loss. I got mad at the mess I had become and started figuring out ways to fix it all. I started my fricking Blog. :)

Bucking up! (That's Bucking... with a "B")

I went to my meeting this afternoon. I was still feeling rather down about the low weight loss. As the other members of our at work group weighed I started hearing rumblings. "I only lost 1 lb." "I maintained, whoo." I realized I wasn't alone in my disappointment. I realized I was, in fact, NOT being realistic in my expectations. (Shock! Surprise! WHAT??? ME? NOT realistic in my expectations???? Bite me. Heh ) 1.4 pounds isn't a lot in relation to how much I have to loose. It IS a start though. I lost almost 6 sticks of butter. I said that to my mom on the phone last night but I didn't really see the value in it. It was like, "Well, it IS almost 6 sticks of butter..." My internal monologue went something like this, "AND? You need to loose like 1228 sticks woman. That's NOTHING!" (Yes I actually did the math. Calculators are a wunnerful thing.) This time as I run it through my head I realize that's a lot of fricking butter. Its fatty and greasy and guh! NOT IN ME ANYMORE. That's a happy thing.

I tend to try and look at the whole picture too much. I do it in almost all aspects of my life. Sometimes, its a great way to view situations. It lets me look at different angles and possibilities and play Devil's Advocate. However, I'm finding with weight loss all it does is leave me feeling overwhelmed and antagonized and anxious because I have SO much more to loose.

Here's my solution. I'm setting small goals for myself. My first Mini-Milestone is to be able to weigh at the regular meeting here at work. I have 16 pounds until I reach that goal. Normally, in the past, I would reward myself for meeting this goal with something food related. Dinner out, some decadent dessert, whatever. THIS time I'm gonna feed my passion. I love to sing. It makes me feel alive and "in my happy place". It makes me feel like I'm firing on all cylinders. I'm going to start singing again. Just here at home. I'm going to buy some Karaoke CDs for myself and use Shecky's Karaoke machine. (I figure SOMEONE should get some use out of it.) I'm going to start doing my vocal exercises again and I'm going to sing again and not be afraid.

Another Day, Another 1.4 LBS???? Come ON!

Well I weighed in today. I have a small problem with this. My WW meetings are at work. The scale they bring to these meetings at work will only weigh up to 440 lbs. I, as noted above, weigh slightly more than that. I have to go to one of the Weight Watcher centers and weigh there. Its not a HUGE deal but it is a big challenge. I don't drive. No, scratch that. If I'm going to be completely honest with you, I can't drive. I can't fit behind the steering wheel. I'm dependant on R. to get me where I need to go. R.'s schedule at work is insane. They have open ended shifts so they go from 7:30am until their job que is empty. EVERYONE'S job que. Lately he's been working late, until 10:00 pm a lot of the time. Hopefully that will be coming to an end soon but there is no guarantee. I do have someone else that would take me if they could but they don't get off work until well after the centers are closed.

I'm doubly frustrated tonight due to the small weight loss. I feel like I've done a good job following the program but apparently, not so much. I haven't been getting all my points in every day. Actually, most days. The lady that weighed me in said that's part of my problem. I get 44 points. 44 FREAKING points folks. Heh. NORMALLY, I could polish that off with a meal at IHOP or The Cheesecake Factory. I'm trying to make healthy food choices as well as watch the points. Doing that... 44 points is a WHOLE lot of food. I'm pissed. I'm frustrated. I'm NOT going to let this derail me. I have a bad habit of that. I refuse to fall into that trap again.

I've done a lot of thinking about what I have done the past few weeks and I think I've identified some problems and I have a plan to correct them.

1. I'm not eating enough points during the day.

Change Being Implemented: Eating a larger breakfast and trying to make healthy food choices that have more points.

2. I'm eating too many carbs and not enough protein.

Change Being Implemented: Adding Cheese, Beef Jerky "nuggets" and Turkey Peperoni to my foods and taking away the snack cakes and popcorn cakes.

3. Not getting in all 5 suggested fruits and veggies

Change Being Implemented: Eating more fruits and veggies. Keeping a larger variety of fruits handy.

4. Eating too may points in the evening.

Change Being Implemented: Eating a larger breakfast and lunch and a smaller dinner. Higher point but still healthy snacks. (It may SOUND like the same issue as number one but its actually not. Its from a completely different "thinking problem".)

I know I'm making progress. I can look at what I've been doing and see the things I need to work around. Notice where I can make changes and deciding what changes to make. I'm being realistic and trying to maintain my focus.

I want to leave you with a quote from a conversation from my son:

Shecky: Momma, why are you eating different food that me and Daddy now?
Me: I'm on a diet baby. I have to loose some of this weight?
Shecky: Why? You're just... you.

God Bless 'im! He's right. I just need to be more me, and less. :)

Here we go...

This is my first blog post EVER. I am many things to many people, but, I am not a writer. Any gramatical errors, spelling errors or blogging faux pas that I make will hopefully be forgiven.

Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way I thought I might introduce myself and my family to you. I have a 6 year old son (we'll call him Shecky), a 38 year old husband (We'll call him R.), and an 18 month old long hair'd Dachshund named Mei-Mei. I'm sure you'll get to know all of us better than you ever dreamed, probably better than you ever WANTED to. Heh.

This blog has a specific purpose. I weight 457 pounds. I recently started Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time in an attempt to rectify my weight. I've tried liquid diets, beet diets, cabbage diets, starvation diets, low carb diets... you get the idea. I've attempted everything under the sun with little positive result. Recently, I figured out why. I had given up on myself a long, long time ago. I've had a weight problem all my life. Never THIS bad, but, its always been a fact of my life. I never used to let it stop me. I worked full time, had many friends, was a social butterfly. I used to go to Karaoke Bars and sing once or twice a week. I used to sing competitively and did quite well. I used to act in local "Little Theater" troupes. I was proud of who I was and what I did. Somewhere, somehow, I lost all that. I still work full time but I can't clean my house. I have trouble standing for very long. I hurt ALL THE TIME. I can't walk far. Climbing the stairs to get to our apartment winds me more than I can express. I never go out anymore. I only sing at home and even then its rare. When I go to Walmart I have to use one of those little scooter carts. If there aren't any available I wait. I KNOW people are laughing at me and mocking me, even if they aren't. I skip family functions when I know people I haven't seen in a long time are going to be there because I don't want them feeling sorry for me or worse yet, being disgusted by me. I don't know when all this happened. All this baggage is here and its real and its ugly and I have no idea where I got it from.

This blog is my way of holding myself accountable for loosing the weight and finding myself again. Even if no one ever reads it I've put it out here in the anonymous Internet and someone COULD. Putting this out here, admitting my weight publicly and laying my foibles bare for all to see is my first step to becoming who I once was and finally turning into the adult I wanted to be.