All cookies all the time

Well, I had a very slight weight jump this week. I think it is because I have been eating mostly Christmas cookies all the time. I will be glad to get back to a normal food routine. I have this problem with Christmas cookies. I am the only one in my house eating them - and after one or two plates for work I don't NEED anymore. Next year I will have to get far fewer in the exchange... I don't like them to go to waste - and they get stale pretty quickly - so I eat them even when I am not wanting them. Sigh. Sarah - I think I need to return some to you so your kids can eat them. I think I will freeze some this year too so I can eat them when I AM in the mood for them. I think the prilosec hasn't been helping either. Since I am not getting reflux from eating junk there is far less stopping me from HAVING meals composed entirely of cookies.

I have done a little bit of exercise in the last week or two. Well. Not really. I actually only did one day of water ballet and that was on Sunday morning. That was it. I did squat on my new yoga wedge twice... but that isn't really exercise. I PLAN to go to water ballet tomorrow morning too (or maybe even tonight if I leave work early...) but I often PLAN on going, but then sleep through it, or work through it - or something.

I am getting more concerned about Celiac disease. More and more the decriptions sound EXACTLY like what I have (again, except the weight GAIN instead of loss). I didn't mind the challenge of doing gluten free when it was an optional thing - and MY choice - but going gluten free COMPLETELY, and because I HAVE to scares the willies out of me. I can't even imagine not having most of the foods I love EVER again for the rest of my life. I mean, it isn't like Claire not having peanuts -because she NEVER had peanuts and lots of people don't like peanuts anyway. NEVER having bread again. Nuh-uh. I really don't love the idea.

However, YOU all better be hoping against the Celiac thing too - because they say that it is genetic - and having one family member diagnosed with it increases first and second degree family members likelyhood of having it from 1 in 133 to 1 in 22. Hee hee. We can all be gluten free together! And Sarah - even if you DON'T have symptoms, you need to be tested for it. The result of having Celiac leads to other medical complications up to and including cancer. But maybe I don't have it and we can all go back to being 1 in 133. Oh - but Katie and Emily - Celiac alerts often come in the form of anemia and mild lactose intolerance.

141.5?

I'm not sure about my weight this morning -- I weighed in and it was UP from last night before bedtime and not consistent with this past week (and I've been sick, so not eating, but getting plenty of fluids and having some, um, fluid loss), so it seemed unlikely.  So I weighed again, and it came in at 141.5, 141.0, 141.5.  So I took the 141.5.  Hard to be certain.

I missed exercise on Sunday -- I did think about it but just never made the opportunity.  Yesterday I had my usual gym workout.  Today I have an appointment for 4pm but I'm feeling so rotten I may not be able to go -- I also have a doctor's appointment for 2:30, which could be kind of tight, since I'd have to go back home and get changed and get the kids first.  Would I be a loser for wimping out on the 12th day of fitness?

I haven't posted OR exercised OR watched my diet in two weeks!

So much for 12 days of fitness. I haven't gotten to the gym in the past two weeks at all because I have this job thing that is going though one of its periodic insane times (which I'm forecasting to last through February--I've got 12 proposals due between now and February 24! An average month has two or three due) plus Christmas preparations, all colliding to create the perfect storm of non-fitness. I haven't even walked the dog. And my diet has been largely starch and fat.

Much to my surprise, when I weighed myself this morning I wasn't 150 pounds, but merely 144.2. Not great, but I'll live with it (as if I have a choice) until I can get back to a more normal routine.

The Downside

OK - I have been reflux free for almost a week now, and I discovered the downside of it. Yesterday we had our team Christmas celebration - which was mostly just lunch out and a white elephant gift exchange. But one thing we did was fill up little lunch bags for each other (THAT was fun!) so I got quite a few goodies. Also - several people brought in cookies. Prilosec is great - I ate probably a total of 10 cookies throughout the day and didn't get ANY reflux. The downside to that, is after I ate the first cookie, there was no pain and suffering as a result and so I CONTINUED to eat cookies. It was nice not having the acid - or having to take Tums - but it was nice before NOT eating cookies like crazy. Then last night, I didn't eat any dinner. The cookies had filled me up. That can't be healthy.

THEN, this morning since Katie didn't have to get up, so I didn't cook breakfast. Instead I had a blueberry muffing for breakfast. Prior to a week ago I would not have CONSIDERED this as a breakfast option. Today that was it. I am committed now to having something decent for lunch. Or at least something with protein.

Emily - I am not sure what I am supposed to be looking for as a result of taking the iron. I won't need to give blood again until February I think - and they took it on December 9th anyway - even though my doctor said she was surprised they would. I don't know what other effects having low everything in my blood would have on me. I FEEL healthy other than sore knees, reflux (now mostly gone) and a weird buzzing feeling in my left shoulder muscle.

Speaking of sore knees (I know, I know, "Poor Charlotte!") but Sunday night I fell down and skinned my knee, just like a four year old. In fact, I was running to take pictures of Santa on the fire truck (the camera was fine), just like a four year old. I went down HARD on my right knee - which is the worse of my two. It was stiff that night - but mostly fine yesterday... until I had to sit at the Japanese Steak House, you know, where you can't streatch out your legs. OMG! My knee got so cramped up. It worked itself out pretty quickly though.

Celiac

I have been reading up on Celiac a little bit - it is interesting. I agree with you Emily, how do you diagnose a syndrome? In the case of IBS, I am convinced that that is what doctors call random digestive issues that they can't explain otherwise - or it isn't worth the effort to identify. So - IBS can be caused by a spastic colon, a food intolerence, imbalance in you digestive flora, a permanent virus, or whatever. So in the case of your friend her IBS probably IS her Celiac. I wouldn't give up the communion wafer if I were her (unless she HAS shown an improvement). As I am sure she knows gluten is found in weird places; spices, bath products, etc.

When I say I was "attempting" gluten free, I didn't voluntarily eat gluten for about 7 months. But I also didn't change my spice rack, or require people having parties to have something I could eat. I managed just fine. Gluten wasn't that hard to remove from my diet once I did work at it. I only faced it with dinner side dishes (we switched to rice or GF pastas) and my one piece of toast with breakfast. Since it was after I did that that I began having problems with my blood I concluded that the benefits from "enriched" bread products outweighed the disadvantages of the gluten.

However, my digestive problems have gone on since I was in the 7th grade. My freshman year in college I lost a ton of weight because everytime I ate I followed it up with being sick. I called it "natural bulemia." I wonder why I didn't think that there was something off at the time? That lasted all through college in fact - off and on. Which is why I weighed 40 pounds less when I finished than when I started.

Barbara Ball tested me for Celiac before and it was negative - however, she said it was a slow developing disease and might not have shown up then. The symptoms are vague enough that I can say that they all apply to me - but as Sarah said - lists of symptoms can apply to LOTS of categories. She took the thyroid symptoms and called it "Indications that you MAY have an autistic child. Chronic Fatigue, Waking Frequently During the Night, Anxiety, Depression, etc." Here is a list of the Celiac Symptoms:

Adults are less likely to have digestive symptoms and may instead have one or more of the following:

• unexplained iron-deficiency anemia
• fatigue
• bone or joint pain
• arthritis
• bone loss or osteoporosis
• depression or anxiety
• tingling numbness in the hands and feet
• seizures
• missed menstrual periods
• infertility or recurrent miscarriage
• canker sores inside the mouth
• an itchy skin rash called dermatitis herpetiformis

People with celiac disease may have no symptoms but can still develop complications of the disease over time. Long-term complications include malnutrition—which can lead to anemia, osteoporosis, and miscarriage, among other problems—liver diseases, and cancers of the intestine.

I don't have artritis, missed menstrual periods, seizures (although, I do regularly have phantom smells, light flashes and sounds - which I heard actually ARE seizures on a small scale - I heard it on NPR on one of those doctor commentary things...), I have never had a miscarriage, and my infertility is caused by something else entirely - namely the lack of the other half of the equasion. Otherwise this list is very like the list I gave my doctor the other day. However, if I am malnurished, it isn't showing up in weight LOSS. Sigh.

Seventh and Eighth days

Yesterday I did my usual gym workout -- nothing special but plenty of good sweat.  Today, however, I pretty much bailed.  I was busy most of the day and I did make a point of jumping up and down and jogging in place a few times, but I never got any real exercise in.  I hit about 7,500 steps for the day -- not bad, but not great.  Phooey.

Blood!

Well - I forgot I was supposed to be doing the 12 days of fitness. Totally forgot. And - If I do a 90 minute yoga class and then 5 hours later do a 60 minute water ballet class does that count as TWO days of fitness. I didn't think so. That was hyopthetical anyway, because yesterday I skipped yoga (for the first time since April - or whenever it was I joined... 28 weeks straight except one week when I was on vacation...) It was a bad time to skip because it was the last class of the session and we won't have another one until January 7th. I am going to be SO unbendy by then. I will have to start working in my living room. I will have to do the 12 days of fitness for 5 days prior and seven days post Christmas.

I spoke to my doctor today about my blood results. She basically said "When did you last give blood????!??!" I said the night before my appointment. SHE said she was surprised they let me because ALL of my counts were VERY low. She said I had both low hemotomin and anemic - or something like that. And something that sounded like seratonin levels - only iron/blood stufff - was also low. So I have to start taking an iron supplement. She said that my vitamin D was very low too - and that is a prescription that I have to take. So she called that in for me. She said the low D would explain the muscle spasms and tingling sensations. Then she said one of my other levels of something (a non-indicative test, but tracked for baseline purposes... I don't know) was slightly elevated. Specifically mine was 23 and 20 is the high end of normal. Of course, I don't know what that means. She says she wants to re-run the blood tests in March, and at that time wants to test me for Celiac disease. I reminded her that she DID test me for that about four years ago and it was negative. She said that is often a slow to develop disease and the results from these current tests indicate that I could have since developed it. She has a brother with Celiac and so is very carefully about checking for that. I don't for one second wish that on me - but I would love to have a concrete thing to addess when it comes to my stomach issues and weight problems. Of course, the 8 months that I was attempting gluten free didn't really show any advantage - so I don't think I have developed it. She checked me for arthretic levels and they were all fine and she told me my night sweats were most likely peri-menopausal symptons. Sigh.

Fifth and sixth days of fitness

Yesterday I did my usual gym workout -- 45 minutes on the elliptical, followed by crunches and and push-ups.  Today I decided to do something different, so I ran two miles on the track (I got bored before I got completely tired, but I was going at a sub-9-minute pace) and then did a lap of walking lunges while holding an 8-pound weight in each hand.  By that point I was sweating profusely -- the lunges are a lot harder with real weights!  But I thought I needed more cardio so I did 15 minutes on the recumbent bike, and then I called it quits.  So at least it was a little variety from my normal routine.

My weight crept down a bit today -- lowest I've seen since Halloween. :-)

143.0

My weight didn't budge all week -- despite cutting calories and mostly being good about exercise it hovered around the real weight it should have been last week, i.e., 144-145.  Today it politely dropped to a half pound below last week's weight, which is probably about right.     :-)

On Sunday my exercise consisted of fifty jumping jacks at 11pm -- it was a busy day (church, brunch, baking two kinds of cookies, the kids' piano recital, an actual Sunday dinner, and something in between the last two that I'm forgetting, and cleanup and bedtime and I'm not sure what-all) but not a physically active day, but at least techically I still qualify on the twelve days of fitness.  Yesterday was better -- I labored in the garden for an hour (Yes!!  I finally got the weather I've been waiting for since the beginning of November -- not rainy and not freezing) to clear out all the dead stuff (or at least knock it down -- a lot of it still needs to be raked into the pile) and took Mary shopping (and finished the shopping for church and most of the rest of my shopping).  I hit more than 10,000 steps on the day, most of it from the shopping.

Today and the next two days I have gym appointments, so that's at least three more days I can keep exercise going!

First and second days of fitness

So, despite my cheerleading, I barely made it through the first day of fitness -- at about quarter to midnight I got down on the floor and did crunches and push-ups.  I have NO idea when I would have done anything real -- I was going from the time I got up until long after the kids were in bed.  The Christmas play was today so I had to get one kind of cookie baked by today, and since I had started the lebkuchen last weekend it had to be that one (gets the best reviews, anyway), and that takes a couple of hours.  And we had play practice.  And school.  And Mass and lunch.  Dinner was grilled cheese and tomato soup.  By bedtime I had nearly 9,000 steps on my pedometer, which is phenomenal for me for a non-gym day!

Today I got up and got dressed in my exercise clothes, so I went running right after breakfast.  I went about four miles.  Very slowly, but I did them.  I haven't been running in ages, but thanks to my other exercising it wasn't that much of a shock to my system.  Tomorrow will be more of a challenge for exercise -- I won't be up to running again but I don't usually have the gym as an option on Sundays (they're open, but no childcare, so Daniel and I have to go separately, which is never as much fun).  But I'll figure something out!

I'm in ...

I'm planning to start my 12 Days of Fitness tonight (Friday). I had attempted to start a more comprehensive plan last weekend. I got through the first couple of workouts but I got quickly sidetracked. Then I worked endlessly all week (didn't get home until midnight last night and most other nights). Argh! So I decided this morning that I'll go home tonight and start back on my exercise plan and see where I am at Christmas.

I've been really frustrated over the past month or so because it's obvious that I've put on a few pounds or as I like to call it -- the immaculate pooch (not a dog) -- as I'm expanding in areas that were thinner (aka gettin' fat). Yet I've been pretty good on food. I was going through a list of what I no longer eat/drink i.e. soda (Diet Coke) and the other crap I've gotten out of my diet and I concluded that I should weigh, oh, about 120 pounds max. haha Not happening.

But what has become glaringly clear is that exercise is a huge component. I've known that but I've seen recenlty what brief stints of inactivity can do. I do like to exercise and I enjoy how I feel when I do get off my butt.

Incredibly, even though I have no husband, children or Christmas b-day parties to prepare for, I manage to be exhausted and use up the majority of my day with no time left to work out.

I'm hoping next week gets me on the right track so I'm ready to continue the plan even when Congress returns for what will be a blindingly busy January.

Good luck everyone!!

It's happening again!

I hate trying to keep up with exercising this time of year! I went to the gym on Monday and then every other day this week I've had to spend my lunch hour running errands, largely to get ready for either the scout meeting or Claire's birthday. Never have a December baby. It's too much work. And then every night has been the same thing--staying up late trying to get the house in order and things prepared for the party. I haven't even started on Christmas wrapping/baking/cards, etc. yet.

And today is no better. No errands, at least, but I have to head to a conference in 15 minutes that will have me out all afternoon, so no gym today either. And tonight I may fail at the 12 Days challenge right from the get go because I have to finish getting ready for the party--clean the house, make the cake, put together goodie bags blah blah blah.

12 days of fitness time!

OK, everyone!  This is basically a verbatim post from last year.  It's two weeks until Christmas.  Including tomorrow we have 12 days that aren't Christmas or Christmas Eve.  So here's the challenge:  twelve days of fitness.  Do 12 days of SOME kind of exercise every day.  It can be as simple as ten jumping jacks (which would be enough to kill me -- I hate jumping jacks) if you discover it's 11:58 pm and you haven't had a moment to exercise yet.  But do SOMETHING!  Ideally it should be something different every day -- try out each of the different cardio machines at the gym, do upper body weights one day, lower another day, do a video you haven't pulled out in ten years (Jane Fonda, anyone?  I have one with Scottish dancing on it!), try jogging if you usually walk, run up and down the stairs until you pass out.  But anything is better than nothing -- if you can't come up with something new, do something old again -- it still counts.  12 days!!  That's all!  Then you can relax when Christmas arrives.

For new ideas, last year the list from my gym included:

• Bring a friend (not very useful for our purposes)
  
• Take a yoga or Pilates class
  
• Take a Strictly Strength class (cardio muscle work)
  
• Take a morning cycle class (that's 5:30 am -- they mean MORNING)
  
• Take a cycle class after noon
  
• Take a cycle class on the weekend
  
• Take a 20 minute Absolute Core class (Pilates without the stuff I'm good at, I guess)
  
• Take any cardio-based aerobics class
  
• Free weight upper body workout
  
• 30 minute elliptical workout
  
• 30 minute stair stepper workout
  
• 30 minute stationary bike workout
  
• 30 minute treadmill workout
  
• Body Master (like Nautilus) upper body workout
  
• Body Master lower body workout
  
• 3 mile workout on the track
  
• 2 laps of walking lunges on the track
  
• Hammer Strength workout (it's a cross between Nautilus and free weights)
  
• Take 2 back-to-back classes (like I'd survive!!)
  

Have fun!  Who's with me?  Post each day and tell us what you did.  Bragging rights if you finish!  Eternal shame (or at least as long as our attention span lasts -- an hour or two) if you don't.

No Change

Well - I weighed myself yesterday and it was same same. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she said that my weight was the same as it had been in May - so, I guess it is true - I am holding steady. Now, if I can just get it to go DOWN.

I am sore today. Unlike the old lady water aerobics Emily experienced, yesterday's session has me sore today. She had us kick with a kick board up and down the pool for a few laps - and then ride a noodle "like a waterhorse" only it was more like a sprint on a bicycle - However the whole image of the waterhorse was kind of fun. Then she had us cha-cha-ing in the water. This time she was decribing the water as chocolate pudding. She is fun, and WAY more energetic. And Emily - I looked at the clock this time - we only used the weights in the water for the last 10 minutes - and at NO POINT did I get cold!

I almost didn't go last night. I was very unmotivated. It was rainy and cold. I was forced to go to the gyno yesterday (not forced - just it was time for my annual) and so I figured my reward for that SHOULDN'T be exercise!! But I hadn't been able to go because of conflicts ever since Emily and I went two weeks ago - so I made myself go. It was fun.

Yesterday was also yoga. Usually in the last couple of sessions per quarter Stan makes us do harder stuff to see if we are ready for level two (none of us are!). So yesterday he made us do half handstands. Our feet are braced against the wall and our arms are supporting our upper bodies. My feet were REALLY sweaty yesterday - so I swear I COULD have done it, but my feet kept sliding down the wall. I was having balance problems yesteryday too. I was just in bad shape all around!

I gave blood Tuesday night. My count was high enough so they took my pound of blood. I just got distracted from this sentence - so I am not sure what I was going to say about that... Oh Well.

138.4

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hee. As if. No, have to rearrange those numbers a bit. My weight today was actually 143.8, more than a pound up from last week, and no real surprise--I had the sort of PMS over the past few days that sends you running for the Girl Scout cookies like they've stopped making them. I ate an entire box of Samoas between Friday and Monday, plus three pieces of birthday cake. And four meals on Saturday (had breakfast, then lunch, then came home from basketball and had second lunch, then dinner, then popcorn and Samoas). All of this in a week when I only went to the gym twice (well, it WAS only open two days! My evenings were hell so I never exercised at home). It was ugly, as weeks go, and I'm just putting it behind me and pretending it never happened.

I forgot to weigh today

Totally forgot. Oh well. I haven't been to the gym since last Friday. I had my company party on Saturday night - but I didn't eat that much.

I met with Rebecca on Wednesday. She has started me on an herb blend that is supposed to support my gall bladder in addition to my thyroid. She thinks the muscle spasams I am having in my upperback is gall bladder related. Who knows. I am more worried about my reflux - which has become pretty much constant.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I am going to have to run straight from yoga to Manchester to see my doctor. I have about 45 minutes to make it. I have a list (literally) of things I want to discuss with her. When I made my appointment this time I asked them to make sure they allow enough time that we can talk for a few minutes afterwards. How silly is that... Rebecca - who I see once every six weeks or so talks to me for over an hour each time. My doctor - who is SUPPOSED to be the person who figures out what is wrong with me - doesn't spend 10 minutes talking to me once a year. So - if Rebecca can look at me (and my family's history - i.e. Emily's positive response to Metformin) and say she thinks my thyroid isn't functioning optimally - WHY isn't that more credible then the numbers from a blood test? Sigh. Where is the art in medicine anymore?

143.5

Hooray!  Downward motion at last!  I've been cutting calories for a week and I've seen instant results.  The last pound isn't real -- I have dropped two pounds since yesterday, 1.5 pounds since my lowest this week.  But I'm exercising and eating light and I'm trying to keep this going until Christmas.

12 days of fitness starts Friday!

Challenges

Well, in the end I did all three of Amy's challenges.  I tracked food on Daily Plate, not that it has done me any good -- I can see how badly (or irregularly) I'm eating but I'm not really changing anything.  I tried water aerobics for my something new (it was fun but not life-changing -- it's not something I could take up regularly without the pool providing childcare, and if they do that I'm going to go back to lap swimming, which I always liked and which gives me a better workout).  And I've only missed my vitamin once in the last few weeks, while I was at Mom and Dad's.  But I'm pretty consistent about it anyway.  The challenge I should have given myself on that last point is to take calcium supplements every day.  I stopped taking them when I take my vitamins because they could only be hurting my iron absorption, which is terrible to begin with.  But I've never found another time of day that I'm good about taking vitamins.

Our next challenge is for the twelve days of fitness, folks!  That starts December 12, the first of the last twelve days before Christmas Eve.  I'll repost my challenge from last year then, but even if I don't remember to post it that day or the day before, our goal is to get some kind of exercise, even something pathetic, twelve days in a row.  It's the darkest time of the year, and some of the busiest, when we all WANT to be slugs.  But we'll be sluggish enough during the holiday week, so we can't be slugs for the whole holiday month.

147.0, and no gym for me, either

I actually dropped from last week, but that's in keeping with my bloating theory for last week.  I have eaten so much pie since Thursday that it's not even funny -- I seem to be the only one in my house trying to use up leftovers.

I scheduled a gym appointment for today but I've had to cancel it because Mary has altar servers' training.  (Not that I have any confidence that she'll get to use the training -- the new people doing the scheduling only scheduled two servers per Mass, not the three that have been requested, and they didn't include the list of new servers, which means they won't be listed until the NEXT schedule in March, by which time we'll be gone -- but I guess that means Mary could be tacked on as a third server anytime she's at Mass).  I couldn't have gone to the gym anyway because my "hour or so" appointment at the dentist once again turned into two-and-a-half hours of being socked in the jaw, so now I ache, even with a solid dose of ibuprofen.  AND afterwards I found out our insurance was maxed out, which nobody bothered to look up in advance, so now we're stuck with the whole bill -- last year my post-November work got done after the first of the year, which I didn't remember and didn't know it was so expensive, since insurance paid, and this year it got done promptly, which means this is my third round of stuff in one cycle.  I've only had fillings -- no crowns or anything dramatic -- and I've maxed it out.  I'm pretty ticked off at the office staff for not helping me keep up with these things!

No gym today

There's a gas leak on campus and they've had to shut down the athletic center to deal with it, so no gym for me today and possibly not tomorrow. Last report said they didn't know how long it would take to fix it.

So is God telling me to take it easy for a day or is God telling me to try out the new warm winter running tights I just got?

Me too same weight

I was SHOCKED this morning!!! I was all prepared to weigh a good five pounds more than I did last Tuesday... but I was the exact same weight - which even last week was on the lower edge of my current range. Yay! It can't be because I ate well (duh! Pies!) or exercised much (one session of yoga, one of old lady water aerobics and a couple of sessions painting trim in the basement...). I certainly haven't been feeling skinnier (see comment about weighing five pounds more...). I don't know. I am not complaining.

I have another meeting with Rebecca tomorrow. I just went on November 12th - but we ran out of time before we ran out of topics - so I scheduled a second meeting with her. I am glad actually because my reflux has been just awful lately. I don't know if she can help with that at all...

I have this horrible dilemna too. She is offering a 12 week long weight loss group class thing starting in January. It is expensive - $675 - but it includes weekly meetings with a group facing the same problems as me, 2 one on one sessions (I get them anyway - so that is $68 right there...) herbal supplements ($375 worth the description says - that is a lot of supplements!) plus meal planning (I don't know if I need that) and grocery store strategies (I don't know if I need that either). Anyway - I am thinking the money is too much. (I mean that is more than the cost of the gym for one year. More than the cost of meeing with HER for one year. It is as much as it would cost me to put in my yoga floor...) But at the same time, I wonder if it wouldn't help. I just don't know. Maybe I will discuss it with her tomorrow.

142.6

I can't believe I'm the same weight as last week! I thought for sure a steady diet of pie and an entire weekend with no exercise to speak of would make me gain weight. It's nice to be wrong.

On the treadmill yesterday I could really tell that I hadn't exercised since last Wednesday. I did my usual four miles and kept it at the same pace as I had been doing the past couple of weeks, but it was a lot harder to stay at that pace and I had to cling to the railing at times to keep up. I'll probably just get back to my previous level of fitness and then will go on winter break and have to start all over again!