Christmas is getting bigger

This has been like the busiest weekend ever. We got our new carpet installed. We finally got our new furniture delivered at 6:30 last night. We have been cleaning out everything we own. We have rearranged rooms. We have cleaned everything. And we spent today hauling off the old furniture (including a ginormous sectional) all of which was done in my Rav4.

Did I miss a workout? Nope. The shoulders, arms and chest workout tonight was little much today after all that moving of crap but I did it. I was cursing in my head though.

However, in the midst of all of that work, we were decorating for Christmas. We decided we needed a new tree topper. We have looked everywhere. Everything left is crap. And I do mean crap. Someone told us we should try the Christmas store.

What is the Christmas store? We had never heard of such a place. Well, we found it. It is actually called the Decorators Warehouse. It is SPECTACULAR!! I have never seen anything quite like it. I did not want to leave as it is filled the holiday spirit. Pretty much anything you could ever want (except for a snowflake tree topper). I did look at how they topped their trees and I will give it a try but I am not sure I can pull it off.

This fabulous picture is from the inner section of the warehouse (before you get to the tearoom - yup, there is a tearoom). One of the MANY toy soldiers. Just to give you an idea, I am 5'10. Everything is bigger in Texas. So if you ever want to feel petite, just seek out a giant nut cracker or visit the Christmas store.

I shall post more pics tomorrow of my house. Why? Because I am just so excited about it. It is like a brand new house. I am no longer embarrassed to have people come over. That is how disgusting our carpet was. But no more!!

Hope you all had a terrific weekend. I will have a diet related post tomorrow. So please read it and comment. I will need feedback!

Chaos

I am posting quickly to tell you there will be no weigh-in tomorrow. I cannot really get to the scale. Tomorrow is the day we get new carpet and there is so much crap shoved in the bathrooms, there is not enough room to use the scale.

Maybe Saturday. Eating was like a free-for-all yesterday. Mostly involving margaritas and a piece of cake (and perhaps some queso too). Major sodium intake and water retention. Still working my ass off (trying to literally) in the gym.

I am officially done trying to lose weight for the season. Now I am trying to minimize gains as the big food, slow moving holiday season is upon me.

No workouts have been missed. Not even with the drinking and helping my husband move crap for my new carpet. I still plan on my 5:30am class tomorrow as well. I cannot wait for tomorrow to be over.

The kids are CRAZY!! For those who do not know, I teach 1st grade. I have no children of my own - yet (don't worry best bud...I will be soon enough). Today (after the holiday party) my kids went to art. When I picked them up, 4 out of 21 had been written up (for being in trouble). I am not kidding you when I say that one of them got in trouble (and this is one of the perfect identical twins I have) for eating another student's art work.

Yes. I said eating. Come on now, didn't I just feed them? One of the other students got in trouble for telling him to do it. Man, that was a fun one to call and explain to parents. I am ready for the break. I have earned it.

I hope you all had a great week and keep those calories burning!

What had happened was...

Some retired teacher had brought me some Chex Mix (okay, alot of Chex Mix). She made it herself. Mistake #1 - I opened it. Mistake #2 - since I did not have a snack packed for Friday afternoon I thought I would have a little (afterall, this had Capt'n Crunch in it and I have never tried that in Chex Mix before, it was a little spicy and sweet - AND VERY ADDICTIVE). Mistake #3 - I kept saying one more taste. Mistake #4 - I left the container (half full) in my classroom and I will have to face it again tomorrow morning.

That was Friday afternoon. It triggered a hunger in me that needed to be satisfied. I ate more than I should have Friday night (not super bad stuff, but a lot of it). Until I went for ice cream. I never liked ice cream really until I tried Brusters. This week the deliciousness was called chocolate peanut butter chip. I enjoyed every bite.

Saturday started out well. Worked out for over 2 hours (and I am sore from this new round of P90X - hello one-armed push-ups *do not be impressed* I looked like an injured animal) and ate Subway. Went to a Xmas party for a short while and only ate 2 cookies (which I could have turned down but I was getting hungry). Left there and shopped alot (for myself mostly) and got a burger for dinner (afterall, it was cheat meal night). Not too terrible until I decided I deserved some more of that ice cream and I ate it again.

The nerve of me, complaining about all these food temptations but I did this to myself. We have been doing biggest loser at school since August. We are going by pounds lost in one category and percentage in the other category. Some of these folks are way bigger than me. One lady has lost 20 pounds (I think I am at 15). If I could lose just a few more by Wednesday I would stand a chance at winning the percentage category. So why am I stuffing my face with delicious ice cream?

I am back to healthy eating....until that weigh-in on Wednesday. Then I have a holiday luncheon and dinner that day that I will par-take in. Tuesday is another potluck day but I can say no to that. Sometimes I just pretend that my co-workers have a lot of cats at their house that walk on the counters and drop hair balls everywhere and that if I bite into their sensational looking treats that I might get a disgusting hairball surprise. I know I am sick but it makes me not want to eat anything.

Then I will have to do my best to maneuver through the food road course until the New Year when everyone gets the same resolve that we have.

I guess I will be happy if I can maintain my weight through the month. I will continue my workouts and eating the best I can. For some reason, this seems harder to me than last December. I know I was focusing on hitting 40 pounds lost before school got out. I hit that goal with 2 days to spare and then I ate pretty much what I wanted over vacation. I gained a few pounds and it took a long time to get back to losing at a regular pace. I am not looking forward to that again either.

Oh well. Must suck it up and quit being my own worst enemy here. I need to get ready and workout. I can't be eating if I am exercising, right?

Quickie

Weigh-in day. 177.2 - .6 pound lost (but 3 pound gain last week). Not too impressed but hormones have been involved. Oh well.

Food is EVERYWHERE, EVERYDAY!!! Enough already. I feel like just looking at it and smelling it is preventing me from losing this past month. I am being really good. I mean I eat NONE of it. At least until cheat meal. And I exercise like crazy. I guess I will be happy to maintain through the holiday.

My week off of P90x is coming to an end. Start weight training again tomorrow. So some days will be back to double workouts. I guess it will keep me out of the kitchen. Next week will be the worst of all. We must be strong!!! Have a restful weekend!

So tired....

I am still here. Just super busy. Actually eating much better the past 4 days. Exercising like a mad woman. I joined a new gym. It had the classes I wanted. It has dudes....lots of dudes. The place is huge. I went to a 5:30 body attack class this morning. On the way out, I caught someone checking out my ass. So weird. That has never happened before. I guess that is a good thing because before now I belonged to the lady gym. Although it is a compliment for anyone to check out your ass, no matter who it is.

The pic is me (dark hair) and best bud and the two cutest, sweetest, lovable girls ever. Best bud made some awesome babies. We went to a Xmas party for her mom's group. It was fun dancing and playing with them. Until.....Santa showed up. One of the girls is not a fan. She is actually scared to death of him. The tears filled her eyes and she said "go...go....GO!!"" and ran to the door crying and shaking. It was cute (and a little funny). I am sure someday her opinion will change.

Speaking of Santa, I spent 3 days coloring a ginormous Santa that a dad of a former student (remember I am a 1st grade teacher) drew for me. I did not ask him to. It was a gift to me. Super nice. AMAZING artist. I am not an amazing colorer. The time it took me to color, I would have rather been blogging. However, I think I have the cutest bulletin board in the school. I surrounded Santa with letters that my kids wrote to him. Some are pretty hilarious. One student wanted to know if it was okay to ask him if he was fat. I had a conversation with my class about not saying things like that to or about people. Every year kids ask if Santa is real but this was a new one. He did tell Santa he just wanted to hug him. So precious (most of the time).

I have been working out everyday and the kids and I are studying Christmas around the world. It is exhausting. But they are having a ball! I know they have never experienced this before and never will again. I go all out. I hope someone does this for my children some day. Tomorrow is Hanukkah and we will be playing the dreidel game and making latkes. I hope I have enough energy left for kick boxing.

Sorry for being behind on blogs. Just know that I am still sticking with it. I am trying to kick some ass on this 3 pound gain. I have actually stayed off the scale since Friday. I am proud of me. The lady troubles linger on so I am not sure this week will show any different but all these new classes have made my calves sore. I may actually soak in the tub before bed. I will probably be in bed by 8. So sad. So tired.

Hope all is well for you friends. Keep on it! We can make it through this damn food season.

By the way.....did you watch Biggest Loser? HOLY CRAP!!! I was shouting "no way!!" when I saw Tracy and Rebecca. Those are some of the craziest transformations yet. We will get there too. And Danny, the winner? How hot was he? Looking like Mel Gibson, only sane. Pure inspiration and cannot wait til the new season begins in a few weeks!

Tis the Season for Gaining!

Yup. This is one gift Santa could have kept. 3 pounds. For real, yo. I do not have much to say about it except that I am treating it like an out of body experience. If it is still here in 2 weeks, I will worry more.

That said, I have noticed that some bloggers are...how do you say?....MIA. If any of you are still reading blogs, please come back!! I miss some of the snarky commentary (although there are some of you who are still blogging regularly that keep me giggling - so thank you!!!). This journey is rough this time of year. We all know that. I am hoping those MIA are just really busy. But even if you fell off the wagon, we are reaching out our hands to pull you back on.

I may have gained 3 pounds but I do not want it to turn into 30. So I will blab on and on about my bumps in the road and know it is only temporary (fingers crossed).

May your scales only be kind to you and show you love. May Santa visit your home with better gifts! I am off to workout! Burn, baby, burn.

Why is there no formula?

You know weight loss is supposed to be simple in theory. Take in fewer calories than you burn and viola - weight loss. In execution it is much more complicated. There is metabolism, body type, HORMONES. Friggin' hormones.

My weight is still up and waiting for the lady troubles to be begin. It is kinda like waiting to be smacked in the face. I am trying not to flinch. I am sure the extra 300 to 500 calories I ate the past two nights after dinner have not helped. Not really bad calories, just more than I should have. Not even for hunger, just an overwhelming need to eat. And it tasted pretty good too. It is funny how being up a few pounds makes your mind go crazy. I keep thinking when I look in the mirror those old pictures will be looking back at me. But no. I do not look any different (read fatter), but that thought is still there - lurking in my mind. So instead of continuing to bitch about how hard this week is I decided to find one positive thing to focus on.

I started trying to run a little bit (and I mean little - like the distance of 4 mailboxes on my street) last fall - I weighed in the 270s. Not the easiest task in the world for me at the time. Then I continued to add a little more (not sure why I stuck with this, I am not a runner - maybe just to challenge myself). Oh, I did this with the vampire method (early morning under the cover of darkness so no one could see me or judge me). Today I can run a lot farther and a lot faster (and I feel fine doing it in public). Sometimes I feel like I can fly - even this morning being up a few pounds I felt that way.

Last December was when I first tried to run on a treadmill. I was scared to death everytime I did it for the first few weeks. I was scared I would fall and break my face. That, and man did my belly rolls flop around when I ran. I ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes as part of a warm up the other day and I did not think twice about it. Had that been my goal, I could have gone a lot longer and even faster. I was just trying to warm up my muscles. This is progress people. Especially for someone who is not a runner and will probably never be a runner. So there it is. All my sunshine and positivity - I must rest now.

I went to the doc yesterday. I asked about calories for maintenance and a good goal weight for my build (since no charts really take that into consideration). She was thinking between 160 and 170. She also thinks maintenance calories for me will probably only be an additional 200-300 per day. I am looking at about 1800 (when the time comes). Looks like I've got some more work to do! She also said I may have to drop to 1500 calories to get the last of the weight off (um, this sucks). I am having a hard enough time sticking to 1600 this week.

I just wish there was a specific formula to follow. Like with the Jenny Craig eating plan. The problem with that is, I want to enjoy my life too. It is all trial and error. This week I think I keep hitting on error. Maybe today I can hit on a winner of a day. No whammy, no whammy (90's game show reference - 10 points to you if you caught that).