190.2: Soooooo Close....

I'm back down to 190.2.  Sooooo close to that 189, yet soooooo far.  Keep at it, right?

The night before last I couldn't fall asleep.  One of those nights.  I think the last time I looked at my phone it was a little after 1am.  My alarm goes off at 4:30am.  Yeeeeaaaaah.  4 hours.  So when I got home yesterday I was drained.  I made dinner and then Pete and I headed to bed.  Seriously.  I laid in bed listening to American Idol and Pete actually fell asleep right away.  At 9pm I let the dog out and it was lights out for me. 

(sidebar)
I love the 9pm news.  I don't have to wait until 10pm to get my news fix before bed.  But if I keep going the way I am, the 6:30pm news will likely be my 'late news' and I'll be in bed, asleep, by 7pm.  (end sidebar)

So this morning I woke up at 4:30 am on the dot....with no alarm.

Then I played the game "Should I go to the gym or not?" Apparently after the inner mind duel, the gym side won.  I got up and headed out.  I did 4.75 miles in 60 minutes; some jogging, some walking up hill, some running and some intervals.  But crap, there are some treadmill dos and don'ts when you're at the gym. 

1. If there are 15 open treadmills, don't pick one right next to someone else.  Leave a 1 treadmill buffer between you.
2. If you're running and the person next to you is running AND you both have ear buds in, don't try to talk to them about what's on their TV.  Just do your own thing, and I'll do mine.
3. For Pete's sake...if you ate a dozen hard boiled eggs for dinner and have egg farts, buffer yourself by at least 4 treadmills.  AGAIN, don't go right next to the one that is already taken.

I'm sure there are more rules, but this is what I have from this morning.  I can't ever look at an egg in the same way after breathing that in while I'm huffing and puffing from running intervals.  Ever. 

191.0; Exercise Baby!

I'm linking up:

If you haven't been over to Erin or Alex's blogs check them out.  And do something else.  Check out the linked up bloggers.  There are usually some really good ones.  I've spent more than my share of time reading these last few weeks.

My weight remains unchanged.  Boo Hoo.  I've done some longer (for me) runs in the last few days - 4.5 and 5 miles.  My legs felt tired afterwards, but good tired.  You know that kind of tired that makes you remember how hard you worked out each time you step?  Yep, that's the tired I'm talking about.

I need some new running gear.  Anyone else wear a HRM strap and have issues with your bra getting between the sensors and your skin?  Or is it just me?  I've tried more structured bras and cheep stretchy bras and they both seem to do it after a while.  I need to find a solution for that.  I also need more running tops.  I like to run in yoga tops.  Don't ask me why.  Ok, fine, ask.  It's because the structure of the fabric holds me and my excess tummy skin in and more of the air form the fans get to my skin.  But damn if it's not hard to find fitted yoga tops that aren't $70.  I think I'm checking out the outlet store this weekend.

It's also time for new shoes.  I have about 6 months on these and my toes are starting to numb up again after runs.  I'd love one of these:

But will likely end up with this again due to my wonky feet and stride:

Sigh.  I believe my feet are aching to have some girly, bright, fun colors to make them go faster.  However, they're also calling for much support and help with planting my foot...(sigh).

191.8; Negative Self Talk

The other night I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep.  I have insomnia and take anti anxiety meds to help me get to sleep and stay asleep.  It's not a perfect cure, but I also don't want to spend my nights eating at the White Castle drive in naked while taking Ambien.  Because I am POSITIVE that this would happen only to me.  And my little mini schnauzer would be in the passenger seat wearing these, even though he hates them:

So when I take the meds I lay down and try to relax and hope that I fall asleep.  But often it doesn't happen.  And what I've discovered is that in that time between it not happening right away and my actually falling asleep, I engage in lots and lots of negative self talk.

I beat myself up for forgetting to send back my shirt.  I silently berate myself for not paying the gas bill yesterday and having to send it today.  I yell at myself for not going to the gym.  I curse myself for not getting the bathroom cleaned like I had planned.  I plan my tomorrow so that I get all those things done, plus the new things and then again berate myself over and over the next night for failing to get it all done again.

In these moments of self doubt I wonder if I'm where I'm supposed to be in life?  Did I make all the right choices (other than Pete and the pup above - those choices are SOLID)?  Did I do all that I can do to be a good me?  What other things can I do?  How can I change my life to be better? 

It's these questions and concerns and worries and issues that keep me from falling asleep.  I used to try to occupy my mind with a story or something to make sure that I wasn't berating myself.  Now I turn to my cell phone and try to play a quiet game while I wait for the medicine to do it's thing.

I wasn't always like this.  It started in my 30s.  There was a period where I was averaging 2 hours of sleep a night because I was so involved in my head.  And it used to be that I made lists in my head of things to do or things that I had done that day.  Now it's turned to beating myself up about what happened recently or didn't happen.  I don't know when it shirted, but it did.

My goal for March is to stop myself from the negative self talk at night.  Instead to start listing the things that I did do that day.  The things that I have in my life that are working.  And to gently remind myself of 1 thing only to do better the following day.  One.  Not forty.

192; Eating Out After Surgery

So this month marks 2 years since Pete had his gastric band and a year since I had mine.  I'll have updates from us both later this month.

But I want to talk about eating out.  In reality we don't eat out that much anymore.  Partly because we cut back when Pete was on unemployment, partly because we have a pup to come home to and let out and partly because it's tricky to order after surgery.

First of all I don't even want to discourage anyone from having any surgery to help with weight loss.  It's a tool that I choose to use.  Certainly if it was a wonder surgery I'd be 150 pounds by now.  Clearly, at 190 and struggling, it's not.  But there are aspects of life that you have to change after you have surgery.  Eating out is one of them.  At least for me.

When Pete had his surgery, our plan on eating out was that we'd split an entree and an appetizer.  This way we got enough food for both of us and enough of a choice/variety for both of us.  But then I had my surgery and our amount of food was even less, we decided that for the most part, we'd be splitting meals out.  Now that's not to say that we don't ever each order a whole meal, it happens sometimes.  Then we have a lot of leftovers.  It's always a dance over who chooses what.  But Pete is a gentleman and usually lets me choose, as long as it's something that he would eat too.

But there are issues.  As we've found out, nothing is ever without issues.  There are times that restaurants are hesitant allowing us to split a meal.  We have to explain that we both have surgery and can't finish the whole meal.  Some of them will then actually split the beautiful plate so that we each enough half the meal.  Some will refuse to split the plate and Pete and I eat off the same plate.  How romantic, right?  LOL  And still other places charge a split plate fee.  Anywhere from $5-$10.  At times the fee is almost as much as another entree; in those cases we just order a second entree and plan on lots of leftovers.

To be honest, I understand that in the more expensive restaurants we are playing with their presentation.  However, at the chain places, it shouldn't be that big of a deal - nothing is really artfully arranged.  So at times it again feels like we are penalized.  Before it was paying more for larger sizes of clothes, now it's more to eat less food.  Penalty.

I have to say that my dream eating out meal is a burger.  But it's not happened for me.  Maybe that's why I still dream of it?  There is nothing like a burger out with all the stuff on it that I don't keep at home and all the sauces and cheese that I can fit on it.  The issue for me is that I can't eat the burger with the bun.  The textures of the two are so different that it gets stuck.  So I avoid that.  But then the burger is sometimes really dry with the stuff taken off.  So then it gets stuck too.  A homemade burger isn't the same and I can't really recreate it.  So as of today, my dream meal out is a juicy burger with fries!

191.4; Friday Fives

1.  Lesson learned:  mussels plus cream sauce are WAY to rich for me.  When I was a kid, I got sick off scallops in cream sauce and it wasn't until this year that I tried scallops again.  I tried mussels for the first time Wednesday night in a beautiful saffron cream sauce.  Wonderful!  But I spent the rest of the evening and the whole next day in bed wishing my stomach was separate from my body.

2.  Tonight is the last night of our Mpls St Paul Restaurant Week.  We're headed to The Capital Grille.  This time it's back to salad, veggies and steak.  No more cream sauce with seafood.  I'm hesitant, but have been waiting to go here for so long, that I can't miss it tonight. 

3.  Pete and I did our taxes this week.  We'll be rich for a millisecond until we catch up on bills from Pete being out of work.  I'm going to celebrate the millisecond and the paying of the bills.

4.  I'm also looking for ward to a new dish disposal.  The one we have now is done.  DONE.  It currently must be started Flinstone style with the end of  a wooden spoon and then shoots water out the cabinet door.  Pete is the absolute fix it until it can't be fixed guy.  And this one can't be fixed anymore.

5.  Thanks to my upset stomach and issues yesterday, I am caught up on Real Housewives, Combat Medics, Moonshiners, Cooks Illustrated, Full Throttle and The Americans.  Love the Tivo in our bedroom.  Additionally because the anti nausea med gives me such a headache, I spent the day doped up.  Today I have a migraine med hangover and more sleep, more anti nausea meds and Tivo.