24 days!

It took 24 days to lose the weight I gained in December. Since I weigh in every week it was only 14 days of eating poorly to gain the weight and 24 days of eating healthy to get it off. There is something very not fair about that, but what's a person to do?

The biggest problem seems to be that once you go back to eating sugar and processed foods, your brain starts craving the sugar and the processed foods; it's a horrible cycle.

Dealing with addiction is hard and the commercials on t.v. aren't helping much...ads for fast foods and chain restaurants, the people are beautiful and having such a good time; the food looks fabulous; everyone is having such a good time and even though I know it is all a lie, I want to go crazy and eat frozen pizza or a greasy hamburger or butter-dripping shrimp scampi. It's hard to keep telling myself that eating like that will kill me.

Eventually the cravings will fade and I won't have to fight so hard to eat healthy. In the mean time I'll be fighting the sugar monster.

OW!

Went to the doctor to have my dressing changed; knee was so swollen that I couldn't bend it. I can't straighten it either so it was very hard to walk. I was using a crutch walking around the house. To help with the swelling, pain and the inability to bend the doctor drained a bunch of blood from the knee. OW! It feels better now, but I'm still taking the max. amount of pain pills in the min. time frame. I take the pills and off to sleep I go for awhile, then I'm awake and the pain starts and I wait out the time until it's time to take the pills again. This isn't exactly fun. My knee is also really, really bruised. Hoping things are healed enough for me to go to work on Tuesday.

Post-surgery

Today I had my surgery. I'm supposed to get up and walk around the house...using the bathroom, getting a snack, getting tea, etc. Been up a couple of times and I'm amazed how much less pain I'm expereincing. It could be the pain pills but I'm thinking it is a combination of the pain pills and the fixing of the knee. Hooray! Thank you Dr. Badger and the whole medical staff at OrthoWashington in Kirkland, WA.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my yoga classes and light exercise...it will be awhile for the yoga, but I should be doing the light exercises in a couple of weeks. I will hire a Brian as a personal trainer at the gym to help me get back into the swing of things. He is very good and will make sure I'm doing what I need to do correctly.

Now that I am back on track in my healthy eating I'm back losing weight. The week 1 weigh-in for the challenge at the gym, I lost 3 pounds. I haven't checked the weigh-in chart to see how everyone else is doing but I will when I'm back at the gym. I was very pleased. For this 3 month challenge my goal is to lose 30 pounds (or more), 3 is a good start. I know that this journey is my personal journey, but I'm just competative enough to want to kick butt and win.

My husband is back on track for now, but he is traveling in a couple of weeks and he has a hard time eating healthy while he's on the road. That is really a sad commentary on restaurants offerings. But then again, he's not really big on just eating salads.

I need to get a new dress for my daughter's graduation but I think I'll wait a couple of weeks, closer to the date, to make sure I get a dress that fits my ever smaller self.

Pre-surgery and Other Musings

I will be having surgery in 4 days. Since it is getting harder and harder to walk I'm really glad that it is happening soon. I am tired of being in pain. I'm also glad that I'm not having knee replacement surgery. It is much easier to recover from meniscus repair surgery. I'm actually getting excited about having the ability to stand and walk easily again.

I'm starting to get back into my healthy eating again. The scale will probably not reflect it this week, but in the coming weeks I should see a steady "decline".

Looking forward to this summer I bought a bathing suit today at Costco and bought it a size smaller than my current size. I KNOW I'll be wearing it when swimming suit weather arrives.

I went shopping last weekend for new bras, some tops and a winter coat. Since the weather turned REALLY COLD this week, the winter coat came just in time and of course since it is January it was on sale.

I also resolve to eat more greens and not catch any illnesses that are going around. Good nutrition fights illness!

Check out the latest blog from Dr. Fuhrman. http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/news-americans-have-poorer-health-and-shorter-lives-than-peers.html Time to wake up America and eat healthy!

The New Year

I managed to lose weight every month (an average of 7.5 pounds a month) in 2012 except December. Too many tempations full of sugar and fat. I gained 8 pounds! And because of the amount of sugary foods I ate and drank, I'm finding it hard to get back into eating healthy.

The gym I belong to is having another weight-loss challenge for 2013. I won both challenges they had in 2012, about $700, and plan on winning all challenges for 2013 until I reach my healthiest goal weight, in about 45 pounds.

I am having surgery on my left knee in a week. I look forward to being able to walking without a limp, sleeping through the night, having no pain. Funny to be looking forward to surgery...

I've read a couple of articles about how bad sugar is to your body. I gained 8 pounds in 1 month...Sugar is bad for your body! One is in the October 2012 Reader's Digest (I'm a little behind on my reading). It is by Joanne Chen and first published in Marie Claire. The other I found on-line and will link it to this post. I really think it is important for people to understand why sugar isn't that sweet little substance that is added to most, if not all, processed foods. http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/inspiration-slaying-the-sugary-beast.html

I do find that if I eat fruit, 3-5 servings, I don't miss sugar that much. However, my big addiction right now is wine . I have a stressful day and I want a glass or 4 of wine. And I know that if I open a bottle of wine, I will not stop drinking it until the bottle is empty. I'm still reading Reinventng the Meal by Pavel G. Somov, PhD and working very hard at eating fully conscience. It's an on-going process and some days I do better than others. Breathe.

Yoga helped with the stress, and I look forward to going back to that when my knee is fixed too.

My New Year resolutions...
1. Hit my goal weight.
2. Have fun.
3. Eliminate my junk.
4. Smile a lot.
5. Organize my stuff.
6. Laugh.