Sleepless in Toronto

To lose weight and to be fit, you need to have enough sleep. I hear that a lot! Unfortunately between my job, my kids and sometimes even my tv, I got without enough sleep a lot.

For example, this week I am on call at work. For some reason most of the calls I have been getting, have been coming in at 4 or 5 am. On Thursday, I worked till midnight preparing for a project. Got up at 5 am for a call on Friday. The project failed and I worked till 4 am Saturday fixing the problems. Got up at 8 am. So today, my biggest challenge is to not overeat while I am very tired.

On the plus side, I am trying to get recognition at work and more importantly, more money. I need money. Sure every time I get a dollar more, it has already been spent. You know on silly luxury items, like getting the breaks on the car fixed. But at least with overtime, I don’t have go into debt to repair those cars. I hope to make enough to build a little deck in our backyard, so that the kids can play out there without always wanting to go to the big park. Meanwhile I can cook and watch them through our big windows.

Today I have only one goal:

1. Stick to weight watchers points.

I bought a lot of veggies so hopefully when I run out of points, that will keep me going.

Bye.

The Garage….

Our garage is scary. And what’s scarier is that you can only close it from inside the house so often we don’t know if its closed or open. It is so full of garbage and crap that you cannot even get to the middle of it to get the stroller or the kids bikes. Today is the day we clean it up. Now that its light outside for longer periods of time, we should be able to get it all organized and cleaned out today. I will load the van, and Sean will take all the garbage to a drop off center. I can’t wait. I mean, I know I said I was a naturally messy person, but that doesn’t mean I am one of those people that drowns in dirt and lives in a complete dump. When it starts to get bad, I usually have a nice girl come in to help me get caught up and do the big stuff. Then I yell at Sean and the kids to try and keep the place clean. And I try to pick up after myself a little. Then it starts to get bad again. Then after I work overtime, I hire the girl again.

I am thinking that I may have to hire landscapers for my front yard. But I don’t want to pay for it. Its just that I really know so little about plants and shrubs. No, I will persever on my own. If I just plant one shrub a day then soon they will all be planted.

Well I’ve been trying to follow weight watchers for 4 days now. I stayed within the 24points for 2 days, and for 2 days I used the remainder of the points I had. (Well those two days I simply stopped counting and pigged out at my Mom’s but that’s pretty much the ww freebies that I used.) Now I need to stick with the 24 points a day till Wed. night. And then the week starts all over. Until I know I’m losing, I don’t think I’ll even bother weighing myself.

I’m also putting off exercising until I get a handle of nutrition.

My goals today:

1. Stick to weight watchers points.

2. Eat slowly.

One goal for today

Ok just one goal for today.

Stick to weight watchers points!

Birthday and Passover.

Today as I logged on I found my first comment. Thank you!

I’m still trying to get the hang of using this site. It was my daughter’s birthday on Thursday. She is now 5. On Friday we celebrated the birthday at my Mom’s and then she wanted us to come over for Passover on Saturday. At first I protested but then felt guilty that I was skipping out on the traditional dinner and depriving my kids of the traditional celebration and a feeling of their traditional roots. Anyway of course I went. And of course I ate too much. Somehow I just forgot that I was on weight watchers. I just simply forgot the whole night that I was supposed to be watching my weight.

I am a complete idiot when it comes to repeating my mistakes. I know that I can’t stick to weight watchers yet, I keep trying it over and over again. So I know that it doesn’t work for me but I keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that something will change.

Today, Cinderella is coming for Ar’s b-day party. She is very excited. I don’t know if more than 3 girls will come but I don’t care. The less work there’s for me to do. I have a cold today and feeling quite lousy.

Yesterday I was on a mission to make my house get some curb appeal. I looked so terrible before. I tried to diguise it with rocks but that just made it look even worse. So I bought some edge bricks and dug out a small trench to put the bricks in. Then I mixed up the ground with some soil and now I have to plant the shrubs. I got a very good workout!

So little did I know that the hole for the shrubs has to be 3 times as deep and as wide as the container holding the shrubs. That I don’t think I can do. Since Sean is usually so busy, I think I will hire someone to help me with that. Sean is normally too busy either with the kids or with work. I usually find that if I can’t do something myself, its just easier to hire someone.

 

The non-loser

My sister yesterday went on and on about how much she was motivated by the biggest loser. Every Wednesday we go out in the evening away from the kids. We walk around the mall. Buy make up, eat something bad for us and top the night off with Indigo and a cappuccino.

So she went on and on about how she was motivated. I felt like a bit of a non-person listening to all of that. Since seems like I’m the only one who has stayed at the same weight for 5 years now. I got more and more down as I sat in the mall waiting for her to look through clothes that i can’t fit into.

As I walked through the mall with her then, I said: I will lose the weight and then I will teach others how to  do it. I hoped that saying outloud would make it true. Of course I have a lot of work ahead of me.  Here are my new goals for the next week.

1. Eat 5 meals a day.

2. Drink green tea.

3. Stick to weight watchers points.

4. Listen to the motivational cd’s once a day.

5. Stick to an exercise program.

These are not refined goals but I will work on them.

A fabulous eclair

I stuck with my goal and didn’t eat after 7. But I sure ate a lot before that. Including one fabulous eclair. Love those eclairs.

 

My aunt is a saint

I am a lazy person. I will admit it. I am not one for whom picking up after myself is just an ingrained habit. I was never very good at keeping my home very clean. But now that I have kids that gives me just more of an excuse. I can’t find the time. But its true. It’s hard to find the time. So my aunt comes over and does the things that we both know need to be done. Today she helped me organize the basement. I feel a little embarrassed that she did it all for me. But whenever I went down there I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t get my thoughts together well enough to get it done, to figure out how to do it. She did it all in like an hour.

I really have never thanked her enough for all that she has done for me. I don’t normally ask for these things. She just comes over and does them. She has been coming over every Saturday for the past couple of months. She has been cooking up a storm and today she showed me how to cook several things.

I’ve decided to thank her by painting a nice picture for her. I think it will turn out nice cause I picked a very smiple type of subject. I don’t know how else to thank her. But I will keep trying to think of things.

But time is tight when you are a working Mom. By the time I put the kids to bed, I really don’t have the energy to clean the kitchen or reorganize a closet. I need that one or two hours to watch tv and relax before the marathon the next day. The next day: wake up at 6. Make my daughter a lunch, eat breakfast, make me a lunch and make Sean a lunch. Take a shower. Wake up the kids. Get them dressed. Drive Arianna to school, drive Nathan to daycare and then drive to work. Come home from work, make dinner. Read with the kids. Get them to bed. So time is busy.

Ok Back to my goals. Today is day 2 of not eating late at night. To be honest, I don’t know if I really stopped eating at 7 but the point was that I didn’t binge in the evening. I had that oatmeal cake that I had made for the kids. I know that I didn’t eat great, but at least I wasn’t binging in the evening.

I know. Oatmeal cake. I found the recepie and thought its a good way to make a semi healthy cake while using up the oatmeal. I’m happy to say that the kids loved it. I had some with milk. Not the flavour I would think of if I were to think of cake.

The office

I cannot believe that my co worker said that there are better shows to watch than the office????!!!! 24?????

I don’t know if Jim just fulfills all my fantasies for a perfect man, or the humour, but that show is just the best. I was thinking about the new episode today all day. Poor Michael with his 10″ plasma tv and his bench of a bed. It was sad and funny to watch.

Love Peanut Butter and sushi

Well it takes 21 days to establish a habit. If I’m successful tonight then, it will be my first night.

Today, I did a small faux pas at work. I heard that my team lead was going to lunch so I with my misplaced bravado invited myself to join along. Turns out that she was treating the Data Warehouse people out of her own pocket for a great job they did. Since I invited myself as well, she payed for me too. I felt silly.

Really I wanted to get out and just talk to people outside of work setting. I’m not a loner though sometimes I feel like I am. I thought that going out for lunch would be a nice way to become more familiar with people. And I overhear everything she says on the other side of the partition so I just can’t help but come over and join in the conversations. Nothing personal, but if she is talking about a pregnant man that we both saw on Oprah, you gotta go over there and discuss it. I cannot for the life of me sit there and not participate.

The end of the story was that we ate a lot ( it was one of those all you can eat things) and she didn’t mind. I apologized profusely over and over. Like I said: I ate a lot. Some sushi, some beef and more sushi. It was fun.

Then I got home, I had some chicken, and a peanut butter sandwich.

Love peanut butter. That’s pretty much the only thing that I can cheat on and enjoy at home. We have nothing else sweet at home, because if we have sweets at home, my kids will be eating them. And so far we have avoided cavities and day to day, I’ve managed to feed them some pretty healthy meals.

Ok so day one of not eating after dinner. I can, I can, I can make it for 21 days.

 

A work in progress

My long term goals:

1. I wear a size 36/c-d bra. Finding a sexy bra to wear its easy. I wear sexy bras and feel great.

2. I enjoy wearing regular sized clothing. I feel and look great. I have a great variety of stores to shop at and it feels great to shop again for clothes that look and feel great on me. Shopping which I used to love to do, feels great again.

3. My family is proud of me that I was able to improve my health, look better and accomplish something that was such a challenge for me.

After failing many many times its hard to find the motivation to try again. Last night wasn’t very successful. I don’t know why but I just wasn’t strict enough with my self to stop eating after 7. First I munched a little here and there and soon, I had the usual biggest offender bread, butter and this time a slice of cheese. I also had quite a bit of cabbage here and there.

But I have to keep because what else is there to do? But I have to say that it is quite difficult to hear my sister talk about her struggles when she has already lost about 50 lbs. I really feel like a looser. I know those are self defeating thoughts that shouldn’t be part of this diary but it is what it is. I’ve never been successful at losing weight consistently. I need to learn new habits and not give up.

Today’s goals:

1. Drink green tea.

2. Do not eat after 7pm.

3. Listen to my hypnosis/motivational cd’s today.

Funny things that my kids said: Everytime I tell Nathan about something that he needs to do like go to bed or something he shouldn’t do like eat cookies, he says: But Daddy says that we can do it.