One Sliver of Pie at a Time, Lady

One scary thought running through my brain recently, has been this:

I went through a life-altering, stress filled year and I only managed to LOSE LESS THAN 15 POUNDS!!!!!!!!

Not only that, half of those pounds have crept back on, thanks to giddiness. Grrr.

So, back to doing what worked in the past:

• Eat healthier (the Dash diet worked when I lost 30 pounds in the past)
• Smaller portions
• Drink at least 8 glasses of water each day
• Keep a food journal
• Take vitamins
• Walk at least 5 times a week
• Weight training 3 times a week
• Yoga
• Meditation - quiet time
• Setting goals
• Weekly weigh-in

Put all the above into a pie chart with each representing a slice of pie. Some slices might be cut into slivers, for instance: Eat healthier would include only lean protein, high fiber, 8 to 10 vegetables per day, whole grains only, etc.

In the past, I tried to consume the whole pie on day one, which only set me up to fail. Now that I'm older and wiser, I have portioned out a few slivers for this week and when those are mastered, I will add a few more slivers.

Goals (slivers) for this week:

• Writing down everything I eat in a notebook (no calorie counting)
• Walk at least 3 times
• Drink 4 glasses of water per day
• Take my vitamins

In two days, I have already identified a bad habit - eating 6 year old's leftovers (by the way, 5 year old is now 6). I am not a human garbage disposal and I wasn't aware I was doing this until I started writing it down.

In the meantime, I have been re-reading my favorite diet books - not for a diet plan - but for tips and reading all your blogs for motivation.

Have a great day.

Redistributing the Eggs in the Carton

I know some of you have probably heard of the egg-carton analogy:

In my carton there are three eggs. Two huge ostrich eggs and a small little robbin egg.

Think of the egg carton as a teeter-tauter/see-saw, with the two ostrich eggs taking up most of the carton on the right hand side leaving a little room on the left, which is empty and slightly lifted up in the air. The little robbin egg has slipped out of it's slot and is nestled up against the ostrich eggs, safe from falling out of the carton.

Obviously, the weight of the carton is not balanced.

The 12 year old and the 5 year old represent the ostrich eggs.

Over the past nine months, I have put all my energy into my two beautiful, broken hearted children, ignoring most of my own needs. I have held, hugged, reassured, soothed and wiped many tears from 12 y/o and 5 y/o but have never shed a tear for myself. The few tears that were blinked out were for others.

I needed a cleansing "woe is me" cry, yet for some reason, I refused to allow myself to cry. It's too late now and best of all, I currently do not feel like crying.

Leaving that city on the day that vileman was arrested was the best decision I made besides not bailing him out of jail (I am so proud of the way I handled his call from jail and so thankful I didn't rush to his aid). Had I not fled and instead, stayed in our home; I would have boarded up the house to keep vileman away then retreated to the bedroom, where I would have pulled the covers over my head and stayed there. Not leaving would have prevented us from moving forward and healing.

When we moved in with my parents, they were not going to allow me to wallow in despair. My priorities were the children. Their needs and my counseling sessions with the Healer have kept me from going coo-coo. Unfortunately, I completely threw all my time and energy into their activities, losing myself along the way.

Those two big ostrich eggs saved the little robbin egg from falling out of the egg carton but it's time to redistribute for balance.

The first egg to be placed on the left side will represent diet and exercise. I'm ready to focus on this part of my life and feel I'm going to be successful. No empty promises to myself this time. I already feel lighter thanks to a divorce and getting rid of the house and though I still maintain the original 15 pound weight loss since June 25th, it isn't significant enough to be noticeable in my clothes, face, butt and stomach. I have a plan that I started implementing last week and will talk about in a future post.

Second egg in my carton will be the need to focus on my mental health. I was seeing the Healer once a week up until my divorce in January. I quit going because I no longer had good insurance after the divorce that would allow me to go with just payment of my co-pay. To pay out of pocket would have been unaffordable. Also, the 5 year old "graduated" from counseling in December so I just assumed I had "graduated" too.

I heard from the Healer in February and she asked if I would be willing to come back and see her. She offered to see me on a pro-bono basis for four weeks. After those four weeks were up, she extended it for another four weeks . . . (how f*cked up am I?!).

Truth is, I love counseling and walk out of her office feeling lifted and empowered.

So for now, I plan to focus time on those two new eggs along with my children. With time, the carton will eventually fill up with more and more eggs representing other areas of my life; all equally distributed.

And as I redistribute my time, emotions and energy from fully focusing on my children, their ostrich size eggs will return to"normal" healthy sized eggs. This should help them progress on and no longer feel the responsibility of keeping mommy happy, fulfilled, and busy.

Day 5 Freedom* from Caffeine

Very minor headache today. I suspect next week will be soooooo much better.

On the plus side, I have upped my water consumption which really means I went from drinking a swig of water per day to take my synthroid pill to drinking about 48 ounces (maybe more) a day.

We have FFA shows coming up this weekend and next week. The 12 year old is showing his goat, which will be sold next Friday (hopefully). Sadly, that left the 5 year old's goat, Fat Nannie, all alone in the goat pen and she cried all day yesterday.

Oh, and the 12 year old has offered to "train" me with my workout but says before we start, he needs a whistle, stopwatch, megaphone and . . . a cattle prod.



*See Hanlie's post.

Day 3 of Caffeine Deprivation

Other then the shaky hands, sweats, shivers, diarrhea, runny nose, bad-ass headache and visions of Jesus, I'm doing swell.

Can't wait until tomorrow.

Start at the Top and Work Inward

As you can imagine, I haven't felt my "prettiest" over the past seven months.

I have neglected my appearance, my body, my health and my skin.

If you knew me three years ago and saw me today, especially after my great escape, you would ask yourself "my goodness what happened to her?".

Does she smoke a carton of cigarettes per day? No.

Is she drinking dark whiskey? No.

Stress is a bitch and will age you overnight. If you don't believe me, just look at pictures of the Presidents on their first day on the job, then compare them to pictures six months later.

Astonishing.

The most noticeable (to me anyway) is the area around my eyes. Dark circles and wrinkles that were not present last spring.

The last seven months, I had two things on my agenda . . . keep the kids away from vileman and the divorce. I was able to check those two things off my list over a month ago, and now it is time for some self-love/self-care.

Before you think of me as a whipped dog, I must be honest and tell you that I started getting over six hours of sleep in September. This occurred after a few therapy sessions and the relief of talking it out allowed me to relax a bit. Unfortunately, the insomnia returned a few weeks before the divorce hearing and I'm still not back to six or more hours. But, I think once I'm exercising on a regular basis and taking better care of myself, I'll be snoozing like Sleeping Beauty.

One natural mood enhancer that occurred, was I got a haircut in late October. And a good one. Infact, it is probably the best haircut/hairstyle that I have ever had and I've maintained the cut by getting it trimmed every five weeks. The almost 45 years of bad hair days, including my years as an infant and toddler have, hopefully, come to an end.

Time to stop eating crap. The reddish brown dog loves to eat crap. He likes kitty cat crap, horse crap, and his new favorite . . . goat crap. Reddish brown dog craps a lot too. Keeping him away from crap on a small farm isn't easy.

I'm no better than reddish brown dog when I end up eating half a family sized bag of Doritos, washed down with a diet pepsi. It's crap. It won't be easy, but I can have self-control to say no to crap snacks and instead eat healthier.

Last week I walked four times. Today is the first non-rain day, so I will be out walking after picking up the kids from school.

I purchased my favorite face creams, luxuries that I did without for many months and decided what the heck, they make me feel better. I also picked up a multi-vitamin and a large bottle of glucosamine for the joints.

The DVD player is set up in my bedroom with my favorite exercise DVD's handy along with a 10 pound set of weights.

So, I have a hairstyle that I like and can maintain, I bought my face cream and eye serum (though I think only surgery is the answer at this point). Vitamins and minerals will be consumed. Walking is happening.

Need for improvement: food choices and weight training.

Wish me luck!