Happy Friday!

I had every intention of coming back here and posting every day, but it was a rough week! After my bout of pneumonia, I've been a lot weaker and tire very easily. I just don't feel 100% back to myself. Just walking up one flight of stairs at work took everything out of me. Each day I get a little better, so I'm definitely one the mend, but it took a lot more out of me than I realized.

I was off work yesterday and today on planned vacation time. I'm not really on a vacation (I wish!). Yesterday was my company's annual awards banquet where there honor a small number of employees nominated by their peers as outstanding, exceptional employees. My best friend of 20+ years was one of the thirteen people that received the Legend award (from a company of 13,000 employees). I was invited as one of her guests so had the pleasure of an evening at the Four Seasons in downtown Seattle (fancy!). It was very fun, and I was super excited for her. She's an amazing person in general, and I'm so blessed to have her in my life. Of course, it wore me out to the point where I collapsed in bed when I got home at 11pm.

My diet and exercise hasn't been great this week. Mainly because I've just been too tired to care. Just getting through the day is my ultimate goal. I haven't been bad, just not as conscientious as I need to be in order to lose weight.

My weigh-in at Weight Watchers on Monday was great due to being so sick. They even asked me if I'd been sick when they saw my weight loss for the week of 6.8 pounds. I didn't tell them that I was actually down 10 pounds a couple days before but my appetite came back last week. They gave me my 5% charm, for my total loss of 12.4 pounds. I'm sure not winning any races this time around. But it's not a race, it's my life.

I have my annual physical today with my new doctor. I'm not thrilled about this doctor but the choices were rather limited. She just finished her residency last year, and I'm pretty sure she's not even 30. Everyone keeps telling me that's good because she's up to date on the latest treatments and technology. I've already had one encounter with her I didn't like. After waiting for my appointment with her for a month, the soonest she had an opening, she canceled on me for "personal" reasons. Okay, I accept things happen, but I had to wait another five weeks to get another appointment.

This is the thing that really bugged me about this new doctor. I did blood work and she sent me an email that said my numbers were all normal. I looked at them online and disagreed. My fasting glucose was 119. Even I know that's really high. They had also labeled the test "Random Glucose". I emailed her back and told her that wasn't a "random" test, that I had fasted as instructed. I told her I wanted an A1c test. She emailed me back and said I was right, if fasting then it was high and ordered a hemoglobin A1c test. I had the A1c test done, and it came back like this on the results: 6.2 (High). This is pre-diabetic, which is very, very bad. I expected this since I had been on a big sugar, eat whatever I wanted binge for months. I'll be sixty in a couple months. I know you can get away with bad behavior when you're young, but once the age thing catches up to you, you lose your free pass to good health. Now I have to get serious, no excuses!

Today it's back on the high road for me. Tracking food, making good choices, and I think a nice, slow walk is on the schedule too. The sun is out, and it's a beautiful day. Life is good.

Good health should never be taken for granted

The title of this post is a given, common sense, and everyone knows it. But do we really think about it until that good health has been compromised? If you're like me, probably not. We expect good health, until it's not there.

My bout with pneumonia this past two weeks was a real wake-up call. My attention and dedication to living a healthy life went on vacation the last of couple years.

I have excuses, really, I do. Let's see, there was the most horrible divorce ever. Even my attorney said he'd never seen such a contensious divorce in his 45 years of practicing law. It was also extremely expensive. This due to the other party fighting me tooth and nail on every single issue. It was very bad, but it's over and it was worth every penny and every agonizing moment to get rid of 250 pounds of ugly fat (that was my attorney's saying).

Then the rare, extremely aggressive cancer that I was diagnosed with two years ago, and hasn't resurfaced yet. Even though that should have been my original wake-up call to get healthy, it was more of a "who the heck cares what I eat or if I exercise, I'm going to die anyway". I agree, stupid philosophy of mine.

Then love. Yes, I fell deeply and madly in love with the most wonderful man in the world. I'm still in love with him, more so today than two years ago, and every day he tells me he loves me more. I'm so blessed. Even though he's a health nut, tall and slender and works out a lot, he doesn't pressure me to lose weight. He leaves it up to me. Of course he wants me healthy, but he wants it to be on my terms.

Then my dear sister died. The sister that I had been guardian of for the past 2 1/2 years. The sister I spent every Sunday trying to give her one happy day a week. Next my favorite niece committed suicide, and my beloved kitty of nine years that I loved like a baby, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Food has always been my friend during times of pain,

Things have been going pretty smoothly this year, so far. Then the pneumonia thing hit two weeks ago. It was five days of high fevers, not being able to breathe, and feeling so miserable that I just wanted to die. I actually felt too sick to go to the doctor, but my boyfriend made me. I haven't had pneumonia since I was eight years old. I'll be sixty in August. Sixty! I'm fat and out of shape. My body is old beyond it's years because I'm not taking care of it. Recovering from pneumonia is taking it's sweet time. I know this has everything to do with being morbidly obese.

Now it's time to be serious about my health. I don't want to be one of those frail old ladies that can barely shuffle along. I see them in the stores, riding in the electric carts or leaning on their baskets, moving so slowly through the store. They're usually very overweight and they have a sadness in their eyes, like life is such a miserable struggle for them. I DON'T want to be one of those ladies!

My plan is so simple. I'm feeling much better, but exercise other than short walks, is out of the question. I managed to get outside yesterday for about 20 minutes. Not much, but at least I'm moving. My eating has been good the last two days. Weight Watchers is the only way to go. It's healthy and they have made it so easy to track food.

I want my health back. It's not gone, just temporarily on vacation. I have my annual physical on Friday, which I'm dreading. I have a new doctor, since my old one retired. This one is young, just finished her residency in 2014. I'm not sure if I'm going to like her. She doesn't know I was 232 four weeks ago, and am 219 today. True, some of the weight loss was water/muscle due to my illness, but so far I'm hanging steady at 219. If she doesn't mention my weight, I will not be going back to see her. I hate doctors that pretend I don't have a weight problem. Most people would probably disagree with me, but I want her to say something. If she doesn't bring it up and ignores it, then she'll be ignoring a huge health issue of mine. I'll let you know how that goes after I see her on Friday.

It feels so good to be back to blogging. I can't believe how much I missed it. Even if people don't read a word I write, at least I'm getting my thoughts written down. It encourages me to stay honest and stay on program.

Thank you to the few of you that commented. You're so kind, and your words mean the world to me.

Did eating healthy give me pneumonia? Nah!

Four weeks ago I rejoined Weight Watchers, cut out sugar, made healthy choices, started taking my daily vitamin again, actually tracked my food. I started back to the gym, was wearing my Fitbit, walking at lunch and getting in my 10,000 steps a day. Things went pretty good for two weeks. Down a few pounds, feeling better, more alive. Life was good.

Then it all went to hell in a hand basket last week. A coworker came to work with a bad cold. Next thing you know, I'm sick. The cold turned into the flu, with 103 temperature, vomiting and diarrhea. I thought I was going to die. The flu turned into pneumonia. This all happened in one week. I saw the doctor last Monday, she sent me home for another week. My blood oxygenation was 91, which is pretty low (I've never seen mine below 98). At 91 the red blood cells can't get enough oxygen and organs can get damaged. Breathing has been difficult, and then there's the coughing. I coughed so much and so hard that my ribs ached.

I'm doing much better today. My blood oxygen is at 95, which is a huge leap from 91. I had ordered an oxygen meter online. A rather expensive one so I wouldn't get false readings. I checked it on my boyfriend and he's a steady 99 or 100. Until today I was at a steady 92 or 93, seeing the 95 is very exciting. I can feel that I'm getting better, which is a huge relief. I have a new respect for people with COPD. I have just experienced a touch of what it's like to not be able to breath easily, and it's miserable. My energy was at the lowest I've ever experienced. I actually got up, showered and dressed this morning. Life is good again.

It's truly ironic that I finally make an honest attempt to get healthy and then this happened. I suppose it's just life, slapping me down a little when I get a little too cocky about myself.

I've lost a few pounds, but it was mostly water weight and probably some muscle. Up until yesterday I could barely stand to look at food without wanting to heave. Today my appetite is back, so I'm back to tracking all my food in my Weight Watcher phone app, back to making healthy choices.

I want to come back to blogging. I doubt there's anyone that even reads my blog anymore. I always come back, post, then disappear for months. I hate people that do that because I wonder if they're okay. I'm going to try it again, this blogging thing. It was such a huge piece of my life. I miss it. I miss you guys, the few of you still out there that know me. I still ready your posts, usually once a week I catch up on you. So many people have dropped out. I always wonder what happened to them.

Until tomorrow...

It's not rocket science

Yesterday was sort of a fail. My eating was very healthy, but I didn't track my food after  breakfast. I didn't track it because I was lazy. I'm sure I was well within my Weight Watcher Points of 30, but I just didn't feel like making the effort to document everything I ate. I had a huge salad with about 3 oz. of cutup chicken breast for dinner, with homemade balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing. It was delicious and the first salad I've had in about a year. I'll do better at tracking my food today.

Exercise yesterday was non-existent. Sometimes I wonder if I could become fused to my chair. Like I've read about that can happen to extremely overweight people when they never leave their recliner or couch. In my weak defense, I still have a terrible sounding cough from a cold I had over a week ago. It sounds a lot worse than it feels, but I didn't want a lot of stares at the gym as I hacked away while exercising. Not that I need an excuse to not exercise, because sometimes, I'm just lazy.

Today I have three simple goals:

1.) Track my food in Weight Watchers online tracker
2.) Stay within my 30 Points
3.) Go to the gym!!!  (this should really be number one)

I ordered this last week, and I'm really looking forward to listening to these CDs -- The Mind-Body Code: How the Mind Wounds and Heals the Body. Unfortunately Amazon delivered it to someone else in a different city so I won't get it until tomorrow. I think my problem is the negative voice in my head telling me I can't do this. Somehow I need to stop listening to it and get that positive, supportive voice to come back to life. I need to heal my body. 

The formula for losing weight is so simple. Eat less, move more. It's not a secret, it's not rocket science, but it's so difficult. Something is causing me to fail at this and I think it's me. I should be the one in control of what goes in my mouth, but it seems like there's something else going on here. I really need to figure it out. 

The sun is out, a real rarity this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. I think I'll go for a walk. I love the sun. Sun mixed with some exercise, it's like an antidepressant for me.

Until tomorrow....

Off to a turtle pace start for 2015

It's been three weeks since I posted anything. Three weeks of constantly thinking I really need to do something about my weight, but not putting much effort into it. I sort of tried, but not really. I didn't eat a few boxes of cookies or bags of candy that I would have normally eaten. I only ate fast food once. I walked during lunch a few times and hit the gym once or twice a week. Isn't it strange how we make our new normal? Mine had become no exercise and eating every piece of junk I wanted.

This morning I logged into Weight Watchers. I signed up for online three weeks ago and logged my food twice during that time. Today I told myself is the day that I get serious about losing weight. Of course that voice in my head said "ha, I've heard that before!". Shut up head if you can't stay positive.

I entered my food in the tracker for today and looked at the weight tracker. I had added my weight on December 28 but hadn't touched it since then. I weighed this morning, and I really wasn't sure what my weight was before I started my half-assed attempt at losing weight. I was very surprised to see I'd lost 7.2 pounds in three weeks. Although I'm a little happy about it, part of me can't help but think if I had really made an effort, I could have lost a lot more. I know from my past efforts that when I start out at a high weight, 236 pounds this time, the weight comes off pretty easy to the beginning. At least I didn't gain 7.2 pounds. Yes, that's the bad voice in my head that wants to make me fail at this, now allowing me to be happy about what it considers a mediocre weight loss. I'm working on shutting down that voice, but a lifetime of listening to it make it hard.

I got a Fitbit Flex as a gift from where I work (we could choose anything from our company store for $100 - I chose the Fitbit). I love this thing. The few times I've actually used it, it really motivated me. Well, at least for a few days. When I didn't make an effort to exercise it was depressing to look at it. I walked yesterday at lunch and was delighted to see the walk was three miles. I had measured it on mapmyrun.com a few years ago, and I was happy to see the fitbit came up with the same distance. Fitbit results from yesterday (fitbit emailed me that I was an over achiever. Hahaha!):

I don't have an exciting scheduled today. I had a healthy, late breakfast, now some house cleaning (I love a clean house but hate to clean), a gym visit and maybe a walk with my boyfriend (he joined my gym and loves going to the gym...nice, but sometimes annoying too). Then something light and healthy for dinner. 

One day at a time is all I can do. It would be great if I could keep up a two pound a week weight loss, but I know that's not realistic. As long as I give this at least some effort, I'll be happy. I doubt I'll become a crazed maniac going to the gym five or six days a week and tracking every single bite I eat - at least not every day. That's just not me anymore. I'm pretty sure that "do or die" attitude I had was exactly what helped lead me down the path to cancer. I'm a little more relaxed about stuff these days. It's the key to a happy life. 

Regained it all...again

Let's just cut to the chase here. I've been on a year-long "eat whatever I want" path, and it's caught up with me. After months of carefully stepping around the scale and avoiding it like the plague, I stepped on it this morning. I knew it was going to be bad, and it was just as bad as I thought. No surprises. My weight is back to what it was even before I started this blog over seven years ago.

235.8

There are many words to explain how I feel about this. "Horrible" because I screwed up (again). "Sad" that I did this to myself (again). "Happy" that I feel ready to start on a healthy path. "Excited" because I remember the rewards of a healthy diet and exercise plan. "Fear" that I will fail and be fat forever. 

As usual, I have no explanation for my bad behavior. I'm relatively happy. Yesterday was my 31-year anniversary working for a really great company that I love. My career is good, my job is secure. My divorce has been final for almost one year. December 31 will mark one year since I was legally divorced, and that was a huge, uphill battle. I'm madly in love with my boyfriend of almost two years, he's truly the love of my life. My house is now "MY" house legally (that was another year-long battle with my ex). 

So what the hell happened? I don't know. That's where the fear comes in. If I can't figure out why I regained the weight again, how will I ever keep it off? 

Right now my plan is just to take it a step at a time. First step, lose the weight. While losing the weight I'll try to figure out what is so messed up in my head that I think over-eating can solve all my problems. I need to do some soul searching and identify those problems and figure out how to cope without food. 

I know some kind souls out there will probably suggest therapy. I've tried it, and I'm a pathetic candidate for therapy. I've had one or two sessions with at least four therapists in the past two years. I actually saw one therapist for three sessions. She's the one I liked the best. Unfortunately, after three sessions she told me there was nothing wrong with me. She said I had my head on straight, that I was smart, and I knew what to do. She didn't think there was any need for further therapy. I had to agree with her since she didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about myself, or anything I should do to be a better me that I didn't already know. So it's a no on therapy.

I just signed up with Weight Watchers online. What's with the chat thing they have now? I hate chatting with people I don't know. I actually hate online chatting with people I do know. I really just wanted it for logging food and exercise, and the recipes. Maybe I'll transition into meetings again, but maybe not. I'm not sure yet. 

What triggered my "I've got to do something now!" was a clothes shopping expedition yesterday. Holy cow! When did I go from a size 16 to an 18W pant size? I knew all my pants were tight and causing me pain, but I didn't really pay much attention. It was a horrifying experience looking at myself in a 3-way mirror. 

So I'm back at it again. I bet if I searched that word "again" on this blog it would probably come up hundreds of times. At least I'm going to give it my best effort. 

If anyone actually is reading this, thank you. I almost gave up on blogging. It seems like so many people I started blogging with years ago have quit. I still read the few of you that are active, but I rarely comment. I guess because I felt like a hypocrite if I left a word of encouragement when I was doing so poorly myself. 

Happy post-Christmas and pre-New Years to everyone. I shall be back tomorrow to report how my first day went back in the healthy world.

Hello world!

Last week I wrote my first little program in Swift, the new iOS (Apple) software language. All first programs written in a new software language are called "Hello world!" where you write a program that simply says those two little words. It seemed appropriate for this post since I feel like I'm starting over from square one on the weight loss and exercise.

My weight is back up in the 220's. I'm not even sure what I weigh since I haven't been on the scale for a few weeks. My 59th birthday was last Thursday. I'm out of shape and feel every year of my 59 years.

I've noticed about 75% of the bloggers in my blog roll are gone. I wonder if they did the same as me and just gave up and decided not to write about it anymore. I completely understand that line of thinking because that's where I've been for months.

The thing I can't figure out is why this weight gain happened. I'm not depressed. I'm madly in love with the man of my dreams. He treats me like a princess and is actually probably a little more in love with me than I am with him (and he reminds me of this every day). I love him like crazy, but he loves me a little more. It's really a nice feeling to be appreciated and loved and to love someone back that deserves it.

Last year was a bit rocky, cancer and divorce. This year my sister passed away about three days after my last post. Which was three weeks after my niece, my sister's daughter, committed suicide.

Even though those were sad events and maybe a little stressful, it doesn't explain the weight gain or giving up on exercising. I was sure this time was it, and I'd never gain the weight back. I've thought that so many times in my life that it "almost" makes me think why even bother to try this again.

I can't just give up on myself. I have so much to live for, so many things I want to do before I die. Since I'm definitely in the last phase of my life, I don't have any time to squander on being fat. So I'm making another attempt to get healthy.

I'm not sure which "diet" or food plan I'm going to do this time around. I rejoined Weight Watchers two months ago, but I just couldn't get into the swing of it. Since my favorite leader quit I can't find a leader that I even sort of like. They all sort of annoy me. I'm still trying to figure that part out.

I am back at the gym and boy is that hard. Working out is painful when you're 220+ pounds. My body feels like it has lead weights attached to it. Every minute on the elliptical was pure torture. I only did 20 minutes today but it felt like an hour. I had done five minutes warmup on the the Stairmaster, which was even worse torture than the elliptical. Twenty minutes of weights and I was out of there. How on earth I ever did 90-minute workouts I'll never know.

So I'm back. Back to posting, back to reading the few blogs that are still out there. Back to diet and exercise. Hello world!