Freaking out!

I don't know what the f*** is wrong with me. I'm currently up to 229.8 pounds. This is way too close to 230 for comfort. I'm super pissed off. I don't understand why I'm having so much trouble keeping my eating under control. And I don't know where my exercise drive went. This has to stop! My goal was to get down under 200 pounds before I went to Phish this year. Time to brainstorm and get a handle on this.
1. I've been working a lot of hours
2. I've been sleeping less
3. Since I'm tired I think I'm eating more

Food issues
It is probably not coincidence that I'm up in weight and have been eating lots of salsa and chips.  Between the salt and the amount I'm eating I probably have some water weight going on. 
I ran out of my flavored water.
I've become bored with my shakes.
I tend to be over zealous with cheese. 
I'm not loving salads lately. 
I'm focusing too much on fruit and not enough on veggies.

Exercise
Being tired and working so much isn't giving me motivation to exercise. 

Mentality
I'm sad that my boyfriend and I might not work out. Even if we're ok right now, my talk with a counselor and talks with friends worry me and stress me out. 
I'm working a ton because I like money and need to pay my grandma back. 
Over doing it at work and not sleeping enough are sabotaging my small efforts. 
Lots of different foods right now. 
I may have screwed up my metabolism a bit when I left for 9 days. 

So, starting tomorrow I'm doing things differently.  Back to semester start habits.

1700 cals. Zombies, Run! Nearly every day. Or swim.  Exercise class 1 to 2 Times per Week.

I wish all this wasn't so damn hard.  :(

Whew! That was one long haul....

I did it! I graduated with my Bachelor's!  But I'd be lying if I didn't say that my health and fitness goals took quite the blow.  I'm up about 8lbs from where I was before school just kicked me in the groin and didn't let me stand back up again.  I tried, off and on each week, to get back into my running routine.  I miss it!  I really do! I never thought I'd say that in my entire life.

Currently, I'm murdering myself with work to pay off school, and I may be starting a new job soon.  I'm thinking with the new job, I may have better flexibility in my schedule to pick up hours for extra cash, while making time to focus on my goal of getting down to 163ish lbs.  I don't have a particular date set to getting there, but then, it's never worked for me in the past to put such a goal on myself.  I was actually really excited to see that for the first time in my life, I had set a goal, without thinking about it too deeply and didn't place a number on the end date.  My current goal is for the next 60 days I will:

1. Keep my calories within check, while focusing on eating more nutritious food
2. Workout daily, either walking, Zombies, Run, or swimming...attempting 13,000 steps per day per my fitbit counter
3. Drink 2-4 bottles of water
4. Get adequate sleep

But there is another thing weighing on me lately that I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle.  Many of my friends are quitting smoking.  I know I should too, but it's my one (very) bad vice.  I hope that my new job (keep your fingers crossed that I get it) will assist me in cutting back.  I would like it if I only used it on the occasional social situation, like my boyfriend does.  But I think I will focus more on that when that time comes.

For now, I'm reading a lot, books for fun, health magazines, crafting magazines, and having some fun with Pinterest.  I'm also exploring foods to be healthier and working on planting a garden.  My seedlings have taken off ok.  May buy a few plants to supplement. 

One last note, that I hope I don't get in trouble for, but no one reads this thing anyway.  I'm very worried about someone close to me and their health.  I know she is attempting to work on her issues with a therapist but I fear her physical health is really going to suffer.  I also hope she gets off the medication she is on.  She seems alien currently, and we are butting heads a lot.  Anyway, I guess my point is, I wish her well and hope she can get better before she really hurts herself.  I know I'm being vague.  But I have to be for now.  Wish me luck on the new phase (I know there are always a million of them).

Checking my tracking...

I noticed that I was eating fairly normal 200 to 400 calorie meals of things I really like (chinese food, my breakfast shakes, tacos, etc) when I began losing weight at the beginning of the semester.  I was logging fairly carefully and was full invested in my workouts.  I had a few snacks a day that were 100 to 300 calories.  I averaged between 1100 and 1300 calories per day (this is taking into account exercise).  I felt really good then.
I really need to get organized and get back on track.  I think I need some distance from a few people too. :(

Interesting day

I guess I just wanted to talk about how today went. Um, I went to school and decided that I didn't really feel like being at school so I left. And I took my dog to the dog park. I've been really stressed out about school. And I've been really stressed out about my relationship with Ryan.

I guess I'm just really frustrated. I'm working on my 2 year plan and it just seems to be taking forever and the funny thing is I'm nearly done with school. Actually I'm supposed to graduate this semester. So when I graduate that part of my 2 year plan will be done . Which brings me to the other parts of my 2 year plan that I'm working on.

I I need to get my finances in order. So soon I will be doing my exit counseling for my student loans and I have a lot to do before school is done. I need to take the GRE, get at least a 3.0 GPA , and then I need to attempt to get into grad school in Milwaukee.

If everything goes as planned I will start school again next spring. Now would be a good time for Ryan to propose however he's not ready. This is a very frustrating to me. I think it is affecting my eating. Lately I've been so busy I haven't had time to work out like I would want to. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance everything after my grandpa passed away a few weeks ago.

This past week I've done really well with making it to the gym up until today and yesterday, but I'm still not doing great with my eating habits. I've been doing better than I used to I think. I've only had 1 day where I went over 2000 calories. I walk a lot and I was really blessed to get  a fit bit from my co workers for my birthday. I really invested my money into getting good workout clothes and I've gotten several pairs of Barefoot Technology shoes. I'm currently bidding on another pair on eBay. I really love the pace glove shoes. And I've been keeping up with zombies run to a degree.

So, all in all things are going pretty well it could be worse. I just wish things would go a little faster right now. I wish Ryan was ready but then I'm not ready. I really want to be at my goal weight when he proposes. I'm going to keep working towards that and hopefully before summer hits I'll be much closer to where I want to be .

Phish tour shall be announced soon and when it is I would really like it if I could go on tour and be comfortable in the clothes I wear. I think it would be really exciting is Ryan family decides that he is going to propose at that point in time. As it is, his best friend is planning to propose to his boyfriend on tour.

Anyway I'll keep you all posted on what happens next and I will put up a new video soon. Have a great day!

Odd thought...

It always seems that when people talk about someone who's "lost a lot of weight" the story always comes second hand.

What I mean by this is, I, personally, have never witnessed someone be overweight and get down to goal.  Is this because I'm from Wisconsin? Maybe it's due to my choice to seclude myself often; I work my one job and attend school making few long term relationships. 

I'm not sure. It just seems odd that the people I know that have lost weight, did it away from me.  They weren't in my sight on a daily basis.

I want to BE that person.  The person that makes goal and people, my co-workers, boyfriend, family, etc, watch it happen. 

On another note....11+ miles on Zombie Run this week and I feel pretty awesome!

To continuing towards goal!

It's the starting of a brand new year....

So, it is now Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013. There was no Zombie Apocalypse, life has continued on as normal. SO, since we know we'll probably have some time before the next end-the-world scenario comes up, I'm back to focusing on that two year goal of mine...and this is gonna be a doozy. In an attempt to finish school and move on with my life, I will be taking 18 credits this semester, along with working full-time. I'm not looking forward to this, but I am looking forward to getting done.

 Ah hell, lets break it down into the four(?) areas I did last time and what my short term goal is to finish this thing up.

School:
 I'm taking 18 credits. It will be hell. It will also structure my time and keep me out of trouble. Then I graduate in May, hopefully with a 3.0 GPA. Then I'll take the next six months to put some cash aside, take the GRE and apply to Grad School. Wish me LOTS of luck... 

Finances:
I'm done with my student loans. Can't take any more out til I get into Graduate School, so I have to pay $3,600 for tuition and then pay about $400 for books, unless I can swing it with some older additions. To do this I've had to take a loan out on my car, and I took an additional loan out that will get paid back to me at the end of January. My plan is to do payments like I did last time, and use my tax return to blow a good chunk of tuition out. I've found that with my supplementary loans helping me, I've been able to afford to go to school and pay in installments. So, we're doing ok. I'm just going to work harder to budget using MINT.com and we'll continue down this nifty little path. 

Weightloss:
 I've been holding steady. Annoyingly. Agonizingly. Disappointingly. But, between school, my finances, and my very annoying, negative boyfriend, we're making another go of this. I will continue to use myfitnesspal and have added on Zombies! Run! 5K program. I'm currently only on day two, but this feels like something I can stick to. Perhaps this was the Zombie Apocalypse I was waiting for (life changing? Yes. Could be...)Beyond this, as a kickstart to a year of meeting my goals (13 is one of my fave numbers so better be now!) I'm doing a Suero Viv cleanse. My grandmother has given me the 3 days worth of Suero Viv, and when I'm done with this 3 day fasting exercise, I'm planning to buy some books on raw food and get back on that band-wagon. My friend Becca is doing a 60 day fast using Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead as her inspiration. Same basic principal with all of these. Suero Viv is just ready made for me to use and my grandmother has done very very well losing weight on it. I'm also going back to the gym after work with my co-worker starting Wednesday. Lastly, due to the extreme strain and stress of finances and school, I won't have time to sit and eat food. I'll literally be running from class to class and then to work every day. My days off will consist of some recovery and lots of studying. But I can just imagine myself in May, getting ready for graduation, and I'm a whole new person.

 Relationships:
 This last year, I have gained some truly great friends, and my life couldn't be more satisfying in this respect. My partner and I are doing well for all intents and purposes. I finally got a "love" statement out of him, and I'm doing fairly well with keeping up on housework and making progress in other "crafty" areas of my life. So I just hope that maybe after graduation, when I'm this "new" person, that then he'll give me that circular metal think I'm so hoping for. Also, here is to a year with more Phish shows and hopefully more musical presences in my life.

 ONWARD, HO!

215.8! But what's actually making me lose?

So, the last week has been really rough on me, but for the last two weeks, I've been taking the weightloss supplement Visi.  I noticed on Visi, during the first week that it was MUCH easier to stay within my calories on myfitnesspal.  But the second week, between, school, work, and my partner being extremely difficult, eating was no longer interesting to me.
I have another stressor as well eating at me.  I'm 10 days overdue for my "little friend" to visit.  Every test has been negative. But my mom said she went to her thinnest when she was pregnant with me...so that's a bit worrisome.