March 30, 2015

Weigh Day Vol. 2 & Some Blog Updates

Hi there!  Welcome back for weigh day volume 2.  Sorry I skipped last week, I was just way too busy.  I'm actually considering taking these posts down to every other week, once a week seems like too much work for me to not say much, but we'll see.  Anyway, on to the recap.  The week before last went pretty well.  I was pretty much perfect at sticking with my daily points, and didn't come close to using all my extra points.  That week I was down 2.2 pounds.

This last week was hard. Like I mentioned in my 7QT post, things have been busy, and emotional, and I'm stress eater my nature.  I went over my points on a daily basis, ran out of my extra points by Saturday (when I was spending them on pizza and wine, oops), and still ate whatever I wanted on Sunday.  I accepted that I was likely going to be up again today, everybody has to have a bad week every once in  while.  To my great surprise I was down another 1.6 pounds this week.  So, I'm now down a total 10.4 pounds.  Its a nice milestone, but makes the thought of how much left I have to lose a little overwhelming, I'm only 1/8 done at this point, ugh.  Well, just gotta keep on keepin on I guess.

Also, as I titled the post, I've gt a few blog updates to announce.  I've been trying to make this blog more official like, and it now has its own facebook page and twitter.  Feel free to follow on either!  I have to say, I avoided twitter for the longest time, but I'm loving it now, so much to read! So perfect for my ADD, lol. I also set up an RSS feed and email subscription if those are things you do (I think at least, not super tech savvy, so who knows if they work).  There are also some pretty buttons for all of these in the right column, too.  (You have no idea how many hours it took to get those stupid little buttons to work, lol).

Oh, one last thing.  If you have been kind enough to put] this blog on a blog list/ blog roll, they don't appear to have changed automatically with the url change, but it looks like they to have to be changed manually, if that's something you'd want to do.  I think I made the right changes for followers and reader to stay updated, but I can't test it out, so I can't say for sure.  Let me know if you're having problems with any of this, and I'll do what I can to fix it!

Thanks for stopping by this week, looking forward to the next one!

March 29, 2015

Infertility, Suffering, and Holy Week

I apologize in advance if this gets rambly, but I can't seem to make my thoughts cohesive.  But anyway, this all started with me being part of a gathering today that should have been happy.  We were celebrating new life, multiple new lives actually, and I should've been happy for them. But while I might've put on a good face, I wasn't happy inside. I was sad, angry, and heartbroken, for myself of course.  I sat there with my closest friends feeling alone, like an outsider, looking in on a club that I don't know I will ever be a part of.  I held it together until I got to my car and then broke down.

It felt like a punch to the gut, like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs and I couldn't breathe.  The pain, the pain that has been building up for so long, it was unbearable.  I cried, and cried out to the Lord in my heart.  I told Him, "This is not fair! I've followed all of your rules!  I always turned down birth control!  We waited until marriage! We've been open to life! We never contracepted! I've turned down all immoral procedures! Isn't that enough? Why am I being punished? I don't deserve this!"

But then I remembered, neither did He.

"But, Lord can't you give me something?  If it's not a child, can't you take this pain away?  Why does it only hurt more the more I ask for relief?  If you won't give me a child or relief, can't you at least give me a better job? Make me productive somehow?"

But then I remembered, He has given me all, He gave His very life for me.

The truth is, I am not innocent as He was, and is.  I have sinned many many times, in many ways, repeating them over and over again (looking at you, envy).  I don't know if any of those have contributed to my infertility today, but they could have (looking at you, gluttony).

It's also true that the rules God has given me are not for His benefit, but for mine, so that I may not harm myself or others, so that I might not turn away from Him and foreclose the possibility of heaven.  And it is by His grace alone that I have not fallen more than I have.

And I have to remember that life is not fair.  It has been infected by sin, original sin, that brings death and disease into the world.

As this week focuses so clearly on, Christ, above all, understands suffering that He did not deserve.  Suffering that He willingly undertook for our salvation.  Like it says in 1 Peter 3:18 "For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit."

So, I guess in some way, the sorrow and the pain present in Holy Week is a comfort to me.  Like it says in Hebrews 4:15-16 "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help."

Christ understands our smallness and weakness, and our pain and suffering in ways deeper than I ever could. He does not leave us stranded, alone, but has suffered with us.  And through His great suffering and death, we are offered eternal life, which is the greatest gift we could be given.

It brings me to the realization that so much of this pain I am in stems from fighting His will and trying to hold on to what I want.  I know, I've posted several times before about surrendering to God's will, but it seems I've never been able to make a whole hearted effort, and I will probably keep fighting His then trying to surrender mine my whole life.  I don't know how to let go of what I want the outcome of this journey to be, what I want God to give me.

I know that I need to let it go, to die to myself, to drag this cross of my self will to Calvary and leave it there at the foot of His.  I have to die to myself and accept that He is enough.  He will give me all I need for salvation, and that is all I need, nothing more.  My will is not better.  My plan for children may not have anything to do with His plan for me.  If raising children is part of my path to salvation, then that is what He will give me, if not, then so be it.

That was so hard to even just to type, but I know it's true. Perhaps there are other souls He will bring to me in other ways to help, I just don't know, and I won't know, probably until it's all over. All I know is that I all I can do is try to take one step closer to Him, and one step closer to letting go of myself, every day until I get there.

It's like this quote of Mother Teresa:


Some day I hope to get to that place where there is no more hurt, only love.


March 27, 2015

7QT: What I've Been Doing When I Haven't Been Here



Its been a little while since I posted something with actual substance.  If you don't count the domain change announcement and a weigh day post, its been at least two weeks (though if you hadn't noticed, never mind the apology, we'll call it even).  Since I do want to write a post, but I can't think of anything exciting to write, you get to hear more excuses for why I haven't been posting, enjoy :).

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The domain change.  See, I have been here, I've just working behind the scenes.  Or, I don't know, in front of the scenes changing the blog appearance but not actually writing anything?  That analogy got confusing fast.  What I'm saying is, I have been workin' on the ol' blog, just not in the usual way.  I have been entertaining myself greatly with it, and luckily the Hubs too.  He doesn't complain about my spending lots of time and maybe some money on this hobby because he finds it "cute."  Hey, whatever works.  Now lets see if I can find a way to work some more tomatoes into the appearance...


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Work has been crazy busy.  I know, lame excuse, but I do have to get paid somehow.*   We have had some big things going on lately which have required a lot of prep work on my part.  What's most maddening is that I won't know the result on one for months now.  Why am I always having to work on patience?  Anyway, the point is, I've been productive elsewhere, just not writing here.


-3-
The job hunt.  Yes, almost four months into the search and I'm still looking.  I have had to turn down some interviews after I heard more about the business or heard they were located too far away.  Really, if companies didn't post anonymous and barely informative job listings, I feel like it would weed out a lot of applicants. I did have one interview that went decently well.  It was on St. Joseph's day of all days too.  I have a feeling someone out there included me in their St. Joseph novena, probably my mom, she loves novenas.  I haven't gotten a definitive answer yet, and I have an interview for a different job lined up for next week, so here's hoping something works out soon.



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Watering my garden.  Ok that's a stretch.  But I have watered it twice in the last two weeks, which is more than I watered it between August and March (yes, you should feel sorry for my garden).  To be honest, the only reason I have been watering is because we did a complete overhaul of part of the backyard.  I was instructed to water it twice a week until everything got settled.  I completely forgot until the plants started looking...unhappy (to my defense, it had also rained a little too, I thought that had the plants covered).  Luckily most of my plants are California natives, which means they understand life without water.  However, my cacti killing count is up to around 5.  You know you have a black thumb when you can kill cacti.



-5-
Catching up on shows. I don't know if you remember me mentioning that the Hubs was super busy for a few months, but during that time I stopped watching (most of) the shows we watch together and let the DVR pick them up for us to catch later. It's actually taught me what shows I cared about and which I don't.  Out of like ten shows, we've only caught up on two, Flash and Arrow of course (we're totally not comic book geeks or anything).

We also have Netflix shows to work on. We really weren't fans of the new season of House of Cards. Even besides the blasphemy, the show didn't live up to the earlier seasons of storytelling and sharpness.  We have started already watched (twice) a new show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.  If you liked 30 Rock, you'll love it, though I can't say the sense of humor would work for everyone.



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Being hormonal.  Since I took Clomid again (likely for the last time) this cycle, I've been fun and mood swingy again, though not as bad or for as long as last cycle, thankfully.  Even so, I like to step away from the keyboard (and the world actually) when I know I'm being crazy moody.  I generally like to have some control out of what comes out of my mount (or fingers?) and I don't always hold the reins when Clomid is involved.  I've also been a little stressed about this cycle being weird, and the blood work results from last cycle (my doctor didn't give me the exact numbers, I just got them from the lab, and they were worse than I was imagining).  I'll probably talk about it in more detail in the next cycle review post, but suffice to stay, there's been a lot going on in my head that I've been sorting out away from here.


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Falling asleep early.  Yes, I am aware this is super lame, but with everything else going on, I have been tired!  While our usual bedtime is 12-1 AM, I've been falling asleep between 9:30 and 11.  I feel like I'm getting old, but I have to tell you, the sleep is glorious.



So, that's the super exciting synopsis of what's been going on for me right now.  For more (and most likely more interesting) posts check out Kelly's at This Ain't The Lyceum.

*You may notice there are ads on this blog (well there were, they've decided not to comply since the domain change, ugh) they are mostly an experiment and I've tried to make them as unobtrusive as possible, so they haven't even pulled in a dollar yet, just for full disclosure

March 22, 2015

Exciting Blog Announcement

I picked the name of this blog years ago, when it started as a weight loss blog (you can see those first few posts if you look back to the 2012 archives).  It wasn't anything I thought I would be sharing with anyone, so I didn't google and see how many other blogs used some variation of perfectly imperfect.  I've also kind of embraced the "Tomato" name, and have wished my blog name went better with it.

The other day a google ad for custom domain names popped up. Unfortunately for the Hubs, I'm notoriously susceptible to advertising.  Soooo, guess who has a custom domain name now?  That's right, this blog!  The new domain will be www.tomatosvine.com, and the new blog name Tomato's Vine.  Because that's where the Tomato hangs out, on the vine, get it?  Ok, well I'm at least cracking myself up over it.  So, over the next few days I'll be trying to get this blog connected with that domain, and I might be changing the look up a little bit with it.  I'm not very tech savvy, so there will more than likely be some hiccups.  Let me know if you notice anything and I'll try to fix it!

March 16, 2015

Weigh Day Vol. 1

Welcome to our first official weigh day!  I'm not sure if last week counts or not, so I've decided we're starting at one today.  Props to the commenter who suggested weigh day :).  It was a close race, but it the end I liked something that wasn't tied a particular weekday in case I have to switch things up in the future.  So weigh day it is.  Also, that's my first attempt at making a graphic for this blog, so don't judge it too harshly.  Anyway, onto the actual post.

This last week went pretty well actually.  I knew I had a wedding to go to on Saturday, so I saved my extra points up for that occasion, which worked out just fine. I'm also starting to feel the effects of the weight loss. Yesterday I noticed my biggest pair of jeans are getting a little too loose, and my smaller pair of jeans are starting to fit well.  So yay for that!  Visibly I don't really notice anything yet, but I think it takes more time and more weight loss for it to become noticeable.

There was another shocking food realization for me this week.  On our way to the wedding (it was a 2 hour drive away) we got hungry.  Neither of us had eaten much other than breakfast and it was already mid afternoon, soooo we pulled over at the sight of the first burger king.  So bad, I know.  I ordered myself an original chicken sandwich then pulled up the points while we were waiting for our food. (Wrong order, I know I should look these things up ahead of time).  17 points for my little chicken sandwich, not even counting the cheese I put on there.  Again more than half of my day's allotted points.  Not cool, but at least now I know. Its hard to think that before I would normally have the sandwich (plus cheese), fries with ranch, and a soda for lunch.  No wonder I was gaining weight :(.

Yesterday we had fun with food though.  Normally we go out to eat after Sunday mass.  Yesterday I was craving all sorts of random foods I hadn't had in a while, so we decided to stop at the grocery store and pick out dinner there from whatever random things we wanted.  (Don't get any ideas about me having food cravings, I always have those. They've led us on some pretty fun adventures actually, like the day I woke up craving cuban food). I picked up some mango juice, apple sauce, a yogurt smoothie, and three kinds of cheddar.  I had also wanted pot roast with carrots and potatoes, but I think I'm just going to have to make that myself.  The Hubs ended up with a roast beef sandwich, some white american cheese he picked up from the deli, and some cheese and cheddar crackers.  Yea, we were in the mood for cheese a little bit. And yes, our meals were basically what you would feed to a five year old, but I never said I was mature.

Sorry about all the rambling.  On to the substance of the post.  I did weigh in today, down 1.2 lbs.  Less than I was expecting, though I might just go and blame it one the jeans I was wearing for being heavier than the pants I've worn to the weigh ins before.  I guess any progress is good, but I wish this progress would hurry itself up already!  I'm getting a little frustrated that last time I lost weight twice as fast as I am now (I pulled up the my old records), but I guess I am also three years older.  Who knew my already slow metabolism could slow down any more? Ugh. Oh well, here's hoping next week goes a little better.

March 14, 2015

Halfway Through Lent

Back when we were talking about preparing for lent, I came up with some pretty good ideas for what I was going to do.  They covered all the categories and ensured that I would have a fruitful lent (not that I said that in the post, but I may have been thinking it).  Well, here I am, a little over halfway through lent, and it is so not going as planned.  Some things failed a few days in (or the first day, like when we went out for pizza after Ash Wednesday mass) and some never got off the ground.  The one thing I have stuck with is praying the rosary on my way to work on the weekdays, if half distractedly listening to a rosary CD counts.  But you know what, I've realized that I'm ok with it.

This lent has been difficult in a lot of ways, with work and the unsuccessful job hunt, my personal life at times, and with treatment, side effects, and failed cycles.  Its been a battle most days to make it through without being bitter, angry, envious, or giving up.  I don't always win them, but I try to bring these battles to prayer, and acknowledge that I still believe in God's goodness regardless of these trials (as trivial as they may be), that I won't give up on Him, as much as the devil tries to tempt me or whisper lies in my ear.

To be clear, it hasn't been all bad, or even that bad compared to probably most other people, just difficult for me.  And there have been plenty of moments of good.  As I sit here on a sunny Saturday morning in my pajamas drinking coffee watching the silly dogs and Hubs run around, life seems pretty great actually.  I'm trying to learn to savor these moments and to be thankful for them as they come along as well.

I think for right now that that's enough.  Or at least its all I can take, and I think God understands.  Maybe its even God teaching me that He has his own plans for my lent.  I'll admit I didn't pray about what He wanted me to do, I kind of just came up with what sounded good to me.  So who knows.

Going forward though I would like to kick my participation in the sacraments a notch.  I know it definitely couldn't hurt, haha, and would more than likely help.  I can use all the extra back up I can get.  I have literally driven in circles deciding whether or not to go to adoration and confession (there's a great abbey nearby me that offers both every day) and I always come up with some excuse not to go and heading home instead.  I need to work on getting past that.  So I think that is one thing I do need and want to focus on in what remains of lent, though again, I'm not setting any solid goals or quotas here.  Here's hoping I can.

How has your lent been going so far?

March 12, 2015

Cycle Review 5


I can't believe its already that time again.  For a quick recap, I did everything the same as last cycle, except upped the clomid dose to 50 mgs and didn't take biaxin.  The cycle went okay.  I did get side effecty from the clomid again, I think I cried at least once a day for seven days in a row, but that's actually better than the last time I was on this dose (believe it or not), so I can't really complain.  I had a long pre-peak phase, and a short post-peak phase, so the opposite of last cycle.  I noticed that this cycle seemed to be pretty similar to all my anovulatory cycles, so I wasn't getting my hopes up.

My doctor's appointment today confirmed that this cycle was anovulatory.  My doctor is a little surprised at how resistant my body is being to clomid, even after the surgery.  My estrogen and progesterone are both low, and my testosterone is still high.  Oh, and my next cycle started already today, making my postpeak the shortest its been since July of last year.  Ugh.  Though in good news, my insulin level has come down to normal. We had added a couple new supplements this cycle (I really have to get that list up on here) and I think they might've done the trick.  I just wish that was having some positive effect on the rest of it. The doctor thinks we should give clomid one more shot then move on to a different treatment, but we aren't sure if we can do that (it's a more expensive route).  My doctor did say she was open to trying out letrezole again too, though she doesn't seem to think it will work.

I was pretty upset after the appointment, and for most of the rest of the day, though I'm starting to calm down now.  My mind made the jump from this cycle not working, to the next one not working, to surely we'd be out of options and at the end of the road.  I am realizing that I can't jump to that conclusion yet, and have to wait and let things play out as they will.  I've decided (for now at least) that even if the medicine fails for now, I can take some time off treatment to focus on losing weight, and then try again if I get my weight within healthy range.  That is somewhat comforting to me at least.

I am still worried that I'm in the relatively small percentage of people whose bodies don't respond to the surgery, but I guess it is too soon to know if that's true yet.  So far I've had one unknown (recovering from surgery), one good, and one bad cycle, that doesn't really say anything.  I'm mostly worried because of something somewhat silly. After I had the surgery, I have prayed that, if the surgery wasn't going to work, God be merciful and not give us false hope. I was feeling like not ovulating this cycle was God's way of letting me know things aren't going to work out, but I can't really make that call right now.

So we'll see how the next cycle goes.  If by some miracle my body decides to respond, maybe things won't be as bad as I think they are now.  If not... well we'll cross that road when we get there.

Trying To Forgive

The last couple weeks for the Hubs and I have been a little rough. We've both been overextended,  stressed out, frustrated, and irritable due to circumstances mostly outside of our control. There's been a little bit of taking it out on eachother and a lot of bickering.  It hasn't been fun.

Last night it turned into a little bit of an "airing of grievances" where both of us went back and forth telling the other why they were being upsetting. Finally, I got tired of it and just said "how about a fresh start?" And so we agreed to start fresh and forget all those things that had been bugging us. Of course, in the next five minutes, we had to remind each other like five times of it, and to stop dredging things up.  We did eventually get past it, and it felt so much better to be reconciled again.

Humans can be like that. We can be petty, small, slow to forgive, and quick to hold grudges. God isn't though. God forgives us over and over again. As long as we ask for it in confession and are sorry for our sins, forgiveness is there waiting for us. And God's fresh start isn't like our fresh start, where we bring things up again. No, once our sins are forgiven, they're gone!

It's so beautiful that God has given us the sacrament of confession, and allows to come back as many times as we need it, for all the times we sin and sin again. It's also a beautiful example. Though we fall short time and time again, we can keep reaching, keep trying to forgive and to love as God does.

Check out the other great posts over at Blessed is She!

March 9, 2015

Monday Weight Update

First, a housekeeping (blogkeeping?) detail, then I'll get to the substance.  So, currently my weight watchers weigh in day is Monday.  I used to prefer Tuesday or Wednesday because it would let me bounce back if when I was bad on the weekend, but this works best with my current schedule and keeps me on my toes, so I'm sticking with it.  Anyways, back to the point.  Mondays= weigh in day. I'd like to do a weekly (more or less) post updating on my progress so far. Monday weight update is a pretty boring title, so I'd like to think of a more catchy title for the weekly post, but I can't really come up with anything.  The only thing I've thought of so far is Motivation Monday but, lets be honest, I might have some bad weeks where I'm not so motivated. So, I'm asking for your help to come up with something! Feel free to leave any ideas in the comments.

So, that's the blogkeeping matter, on to the update.  This week was a little easier than last, considering I wasn't on a road trip or anything.  The process slowly gets easier as I get more used to tracking and planning meals. There still are moments where I really just want all the carbs and sugary things and its hard to hold myself back.  I ran across a package of oreos in the pantry that I had forgotten and started snacking on them all the time.  I finally had the Hubs polish them off so I wouldn't.  The poor guy has a rough life, haha. There are also moments of shock, like when I was considering getting a bread bowl from Panera.  I learned the bowl itself, not even factoring soup, would be more than half of my daily points!  Crazy!

I also came across some extra motivation this week.  I broke down and paid a fee to get access to all of my blood work from the last few years from the lab I usually use.  Looking over the labs, something was abundantly clear.  Although treatment can help level things out, it appears the overriding issue is my weight.  As my weight went up so did the bad levels, even while I was receiving treatment that was supposed to be making things better.  Even looking at my most recent labs after surgery, my hormones are better, but still not as good as when I started treatment, when I was 50 lbs lighter :(.  Its kind of disheartening thinking about the fact that my gaining weight has directly worked against what we've been trying to accomplish, and that even after everything I've been through, my hormones aren't better than when I started.  Its also difficult knowing that I have a long journey ahead of me, and this weight isn't going to come off as fast as I put it on.  But it does give me motivation, knowing that I have concrete proof that losing weight will help make me healthier, and give us a better chance, even if it doesn't get us to the final goal.

So that all being said, I did lose another 2 lbs last week. That means now I'm down a total 5.4 pounds.  I'm just hoping to keep the momentum going and to keep getting healthier!

March 7, 2015

7QT: Road Trip Edition



Ok, I know I'm late for seven quick takes, but I wanted to post about the roadtrip we took last weekend, so here goes:

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What lead to it? I got a little antsy and decided I needed to drive somewhere, far away.  Last road trip we went on that was longer than a few hours was two and a half years ago, so obviously we were overdue.  I was first dead set on some longer options, but the Hubs wasn't exactly keen on the idea of driving 12-14 hours each way on a 3 day trip (yes, I am crazy).  So I decided on a 7 hour drive up the coast instead, and planned it over the last few weeks.  The poor Hubs got dragged along, under some protest, but he did have fun in the end.

-2-

Biggest takeaway from the trip?  My cell phone is homicidal.  Seriously, it took us on some scary routes, from a windy mountain "shortcut", curvy one lane roads with barely enough room for two cars, up and down steep hills in the middle of a city, and everything in between.  Next time, I'm plotting the route out on an actual paper map ahead of time, like we used to back in the stone age.  Lesson learned.

-3-

Also, I wasn't the biggest fan of nature either.  First of all, that whole getting dark at night thing is a real drag when you're unfamiliar with your surroundings.  The trip was planned to all take place during the day, but we hit some problems getting started (like having to turn back for my medicine) and ended up driving the last 2-3 hours after sunset.  Second, I learned a couple days before the trip that a big storm was on its way in, but I didn't let it deter me.  Yea... driving in the aforementioned dark while its pouring and you can't see the lines on the windy one lane road, no good.  Also unappreciated, random hail storm (which mostly had be worried about my paint) and pouring rain up a winding freeway (luckily the snow just stayed on the hilltops).  For someone who only drives about ten miles through the suburbs to work (my commute before that was a half a mile), it was quite the challenge, to say the least.  I told the Hubs I felt like the post office.. neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night... lol

-4-

Destination one was Carmel, CA.  It was pretty great.  We stayed at a little bed and breakfast type place built in the 1920s, love the old charm.



Unfortunately, we were a little behind schedule (see above) and rolled into town around 9 pm.  We scrambled (mostly unsuccessfully) to try to find food before the town essentially closed down at 10 pm, which it did.

Yes, this was "dinner", wine and cheese

At 10 there was only one place to go, the bar.  Yes, one bar.  It made for some great people watching.

The next day we did some sightseeing at the local mission. There are 21 missions that were built by Spanish missionaries in the 1700s (I believe) up the California coast.  Fr. Junipero Serra was a Franciscan missionary responsible for founding most of them.  You may have heard lately that the pope is planning on canonizing him on his visit to America, which is  pretty awesome.  So we were pretty happy that we got to visit the mission he was buried in.  It was really beautiful.

The restored mission
A beautiful statue of our lady where JPII had prayed!


Where Fr. Junipero Serra is buried

After the mission, we did some sightseeing, then were on the road to San Francisco!

Our last view of Carmel

-5-

The drive to San Francisco was pretty short, should've been 2 hours, but was 3 after some small detours and the blinding hail encountered.  There were some fun places we passed through that I totally want to go back to some day.  This town that claimed to be the artichoke capital (of the world)  and this one  that was pretty emphatic about garlic.  We also got off the freeway on the misleading exit of silicon valley road, where we did not see silicon valley, but did see this tumbleweed.



The Hubs did not understand my enthusiasm over seeing a tumbleweed, but I thought it was pretty cool.  To each his own I guess.

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San Francisco!  (Not pictured due to terrifying ascent and descent of hills).  So much to see in so little time.  Although we couldn't make it to some of the big tourist attractions, like Alcatraz and China Town, we did get to some of my favorites.  We first stopped at a decently famous restaurant the pier for some sourdough bread and clam chowder (and dinner).  The ten minute wait turned into almost an hour, but it was worth it.  Next we walked down fisherman's wharf, checked out the pier, picked up some sourdough bread to take home (nothing better than sourdough bread straight from San Francisco).
Fisherman's Wharf

View of the Bay Bridge from the Pier

Loved these! Sourdough animals!

Then we headed to Ghirardelli square for some chocolate... and ice cream.


Sooo yummy

(Now are you amazed that I still managed to lose weight last week?)

-7-

After mass the next day we had to head home :(.  We did drive over the golden gate bridge and stop in a cute little town on the other side.

Driving over the golden gate!

Sausilito

The rest was a mostly boring mostly straight 7 hour drive.  I think we heard every song on the radio at least 3 times.  Also, there was a big of an intense case of road rage on my part, which had the Hubs a little concerned, but I eventually got past it, lol.  I was definitely happy to finally get home!  Thanks for stopping by!  Hopefully next time I get by post done on time.

Head over to Kelly's at This Ain't The Lyceum for more!

March 3, 2015

Back to Weight Watching

I've mentioned here and there since the great paleo fail that I needed to do something to get my weight back on track.  Last time I talked about it, I mentioned I was leaning towards starting weight watchers again.  Last week I finally took the plunge and signed myself up for it again (I really have no idea what number try it is this time, ugh).  I updated the weight journey page (and I'll be updating the weight tracker as I go along), but I wanted to wait a week before posting anything to make sure it stuck.  So far it has....well, for the most part anyways.

As for what finally pushed me over the edge, its was really that promotion to get the first 2 months free if you lost 10 lbs.  Weight watchers is a little pricey, so the possibility of recouping some of the expenses was helpful, as well as a good motivator to stay on the plan.  I also chose it because I'm lazy.  I know, awful reason, but I like the fact that starting is easy, not some overwhelming endeavor, which is where I usually get stuck in the putting it off process. I've done it before, so I know how to do it again, and already have cookbooks and whatnot at my disposal.

I also like that it allows me to incorporate any type of eating I'd like as long as I just count the points.*  Down the road, I would like to give paleo another try.  I have noticed my stomach reacting to certain types of foods that I could probably eliminate through the paleo diet, so its definitely still in the back of my mind.  I do need something more structured as well, so I like the idea of eating paleo style on weight watchers.  But for now, I'm just trying to do this one baby step at a time.

Back to how its going so far, pretty well.  The first few days of any diet are always tough.  For me its the shock of realizing how much I was eating before, even though at the time I thought it was just fine.  Its also difficult snapping myself out of food related habits.  For example, when I go to the pharmacy to pick up my latest prescription or vitamins or whatever, I guess I would always pick up a bag of chocolate to go with it.  Because obviously I needed the chocolate to make myself feel better about the whole reason I was there to pick up stuff.  Last week I caught myself unconsciously doing the same thing, mindlessly browsing the candy aisle to pick out some chocolate, when I had to make the choice to say no.  Maybe some of you can have chocolate around and eat it in moderation, but not me, if chocolate is there, I will continually snack on it till its gone.  I'm sure more situations like that will come up, hopefully I have enough willpower on hand when they do.

We also went on a road trip over the weekend.  All the driving (1000 miles round trip) actually kept me busy and not thinking about food. To the Hubs's dismay, I forgot to pack snacks, so there wasn't much mindless eating on the road going on.  Though once I made it to our destination it was a different story.  I had to have ALL THE FOODS.  Luckily weight watchers builds in some extra points and I was able to use those.  We aren't going to talk about the extra chocolate though.

All that being said, I did have a successful first week.  I'm down 3.5 lbs.  I know its not a huge number, but its a start, and that's all I need right now.  Here's hoping I have more good updates for you in the weeks to come :).





*  In case you aren't familiar with weight watchers, its basically a weight loss system where you are allotted a daily number of food "points" (calculated based upon your gender, height, weight, and age I think), for example, I'm starting with an allotment of 33 points a day.  A food's point value is calculated from its fat, protein, fiber, and carbohydrate content.  You are also allotted 49 extra points to use any time during the week.  As long as you stay within your points, you can eat whatever you want. So basically, its kind of like calorie counting, only using a different system... that doesn't consider calories. for more information, feel free to check out their website.