Wisdom from my walk

A friend and I attended a Curves weight management class on Jan 24th.   She has been sticking to the diet and has lost 5 lbs in the first week!  I am proud of her.  She is frustrated w/ me because I am not doing the diet!   We don’t have the money right now to budget for special diets, it’s just “regular” foods but eating healthy is so much more expensive than not!  I’m trying to limit portion sizes instead and it seems to be helping.
My biggest issue with dieting is that I tend to over do it, just like most things in my life.   I have a propensity to starve myself and then binge later.   Leftover bad habits from my teen years when I swear I had an eating disorder.    Dean doesn’t believe me but I am confident that I am bulimic.  I go as far as to not eat for a day and then eat tons later, I just don’t do the whole throwing up thing!  I also tend to not eat and then over exercise to make things even worse.  So I know if I tell myself I am dieting I’ll go back into this negative pattern and I’m trying to avoid doing that.   I still tend to do this to an extent but I’m aware of it so I try harder.   I am wondering if I need to seek counseling for bulimia before I ever try to “diet” again.   I am aware of the problem so that’s the first step towards healing right?  I just wish Dean would see it too so I didnt have to be alone in this battle with it.   I think because it’s such an internal thought process he just doesnt see it, plus he’s not around Mon-Friday when I have all day to not eat.   not to mention the kids keep us so busy with their eating issues who has time to focus on much else!
When I was pregnant with each boy I had gest. diabetes and had to be on insulin and a special diabetic diet.  I was great about the diet, too good in fact that my sugar would be out of whack and I’d have issues and weight loss.   The docs were always concerned because I always kept losing weight the farther into the pregnancy I got, why Dean didn’t see my eating issues then I’ll never know!   The diet I had to do then is very similar to the Curves one and I know I can do it and I know I will lose weight but I also know I have the potential to make the wrong choices, like the choices to not eat  and then to over eat.
I’m sharing this here as a form of accountability and also in hopes Dean will begin to help me with this since he reads this!  🙂

got weighed and measured at curves on 1/24, then again today.
here’s the results:
lbs lost = 7.75
inches lost = 4.25
body fat ls lost = 5.98
that’s just in 5 days!! not too bad huh!??!  I’ve worked out at least 3 times a week since January 1st.   wohoo!!

Dean & I

Amy, Bo , Zeke & Ginger

our wintry mailbox

more up on Flickr… 

Yesterday we got hit w/ about 6 inches of snow before an inch of ice coated everything through the night.   Since this morning another 3+ inches has fallen and we’re still expecting more!! Dean was off of work yesterday as a planned day off for a dentist appointment so just stayed home due to weather.   Last night he got a call that the office was closed til noon today, he just found off the office is closed all day!! So two days off for he and Caleb!  They went sledding yesterday but today it’s a bit dangerous looking out there for that!   So we’re staying indoors playing in the basement w/ the space heater keeping us toasty!  More pics up on Flickr…

in our FPU class the first step is to get $1000 in a savings account, an emergency fund.   We knew that was the first step but we couldnt imagine how’d we get that money since we barely feel like theres any money left after paying all the bills.   Thus why we never save!   So Dean is very gun hoe about getting this money and has been researching many different avenues on how to save us money.   He came up w/ a great plan and I’m so proud of him for not only taking the initiative but following through!  :-)  We typically get $5-6000 back at tax time.   Why you ask, well because I like it that way!  No it’s more like you get a job and at that time you decide what you’ll put on your w-4 for deductions and then forget about!  turns out that number that was a 3 for us(ok dumb I know there are 5 of us!)  and it should be 11!!  So needless to say Dean changed that number to 10 (to be safe that we dont end up owing next year)  and set up to have anything over his regular paycheck,the amount that we are used to, to go directly into our savings account.  We wont know how much that will be yet but we’re hopeful it’s going to be a substantial amount of money we can be earning interest on for a year instead of waiting for the gov’t to give us our money back in the form of a refund each spring.  So while we wont get a high refund next year, we wont owe and we’ll have had that money in a high yield interest acct so it will be worth more than what our refund would have been anyway!  I highly recommend anyone who gets a high refund back to consider making this change to your W-4 ASAP!  it just makes sense, wish we had thought of it sooner!

I had a goal of losing weight before my 30th birthday. This past weekend I reached my 30th birthday but my weight lose goal had to be put on hold after 3 months of back to back surgeries. I’ve finally trying to get back into a routine and am going to curves 3-4 times a week. I’ve already lost 4-5 lbs since the beginning of January so it’s helping. My body isnt quite ready for a full schedule I suppose since I’ve been bombared w/ several different infections since my surgeries. Today I’m battling an infection in my foot from the dissolvable stitches not dissolving, a sinus infection and bronchitis. A few weeks ago had a uti that the dr said was a result of my hysterectomy that was the kind of infection you get while in the hospital!
Trying to lose weight so I can hopefully get healthier and prevent my rising blood pressure from being a problem as well as to avoid type 2 diabetes as I’m currently pre-diabetic and have a family history of it so it’s looming just waiting for it’s chance to jump on board all my other health battles.
Maybe I can meet my weight lose goal for my 31st b/day!! 🙂 As a family we’re starting to do a journey toward financial peace as well, but physical peace would be great too! One of my main reasons for getting all of those surgeries done was so I could start the year off with better health.  These last few weeks have me worried I may never get that opportunity.   I know this may be a temporary thing but once things seem to be going well something else sneaks up on me, health-wise.   I have to remind myself my last surgery wasn’t all that long ago and was a major one but my stomach feels fine, so I can’t bear to use that as an excuse!

I had a job interview yesterday for a front desk position at a hotel.  I was told they’d contact me today with their decision.  I also put some ads out there offering in home childcare and got an email about that today.  So either way I hope to be able to start to finally help out financially!!

well it’s time to get lunch ready for the kids!  Dean’s supposed to be coming home to help w/ that, and I am so grateful to him for putting up w/ my weaknesses!   I’m on day 2 of antibiotics but today I’m wheezing worse than I have been so I’m actually feeling worse than I had been!   Hoping it’s one of those where you get worse before you feel better deals!

Today I turn 30.  All I know for sure is that is this is what 30 feels like, well it sucks!!  Or maybe that’sthe bronchitis speaking!  I went to the Urgent care earlier today since my doctor was closed today, hoping to get some antibiotics but the dr said he thought it was viral and I left w/ nothing more than knowing I seriously need to get my blood pressure under control!  So this evening we’re off to work on tech team on church and the kids are staying at home w/ Dean’s mom.   Dean’s dad is working on tech team w/ us, it will be the first time we’ve all worked on the same team.    It should be fun, as long as I don’t cough up a lung or anything!  Karen sent me an e-gift card for bath and body and they are having an awesome sale today so I ordered some stuff really cheaply on there this morning while I ate my pancake breakfast in bed that Dean made for me.   My friend Malinda went w/ me to Old Navy yesterday to use a gift card my mom had sent me, and we got some great deals since they too were having an awesome sale (50% off already clearanced items!)  So I got stuff w/ my gift card and Malinda got me a sweater there too!   Dean hasnt given me my gift yet, but his mom did bring me flowers.   So it’s not a totally horrible birthday, I just wish I wasn’t sick!!  but really whats new ??