Almost "Normal"

I got on the scale yesterday for the first time in a while and found that I'd lost 3 1/2 more pounds. Interesting. I'm only 3 lbs away from being a "normal" BMI. I wonder if I lost it because of the weight training? I really don't feel as though I've been eating any less. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the gym's weight room and I was startled by how normal I thought I looked. It was the first time in a long time that I didn't look at myself and see only "fat".

Food and Spring Fever

I had to work on Valentine's Day, but my lovely family showed up to visit me bearing tulips, and had a dozen roses waiting for me when I got home. We all went out to dinner together and I practiced mindful eating. I only finished half my dinner, even though I was ravenous by the time we got our food.

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The day before V-Day, T took the girls to the father-daughter dance. There was no school due to winter break, so the girls went around the corner to get their hair fancied up by the woman who usually cuts it (in her house). They both had sparkly hair spray in and felt quite beautiful.

I've been thinking about food a lot again lately. I'm not sure if it's because I've been looking at quite a few food blogs (who knew there were so many people who take daily pictures of everything they eat?!?) or because I'm still feeling rather disgruntled and stressed. I feel so restless -- maybe I just have spring fever. We're getting MORE snow today, to add to the 100 inches we've already had this winter. Blech.

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I've been experimenting with breakfast lately -- trying to eat enough to keep me full longer than a couple of hours. Even when I eat 550 calories (oatmeal with cottage cheese, almond butter, almonds....) I usually get hungry within 3-4 hours. On Friday I ate some high protein cereal with milk at 5:00am, worked out for an hour and got ready for work, then ate a Lean Cuisine Panini at 8am. I still got hungry by 11am. Since I wake up at 4:45, that is 6+ hours -- and I did exercise for an hour -- but I would still have expected that much food to keep me from feeling as though I could gnaw my arm off by noon. If I didn't have a family to feed, I'd eat dinner at breakfast time and oatmeal at night!

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I am going to see both my therapist and my regular doctor this week. I found a lump on my shoulder a week ago and want to get it checked out. With my family history, I immediately thought CANCER, but hopefully it's just a cyst or something. It's round and hard like a marble, and doesn't move around. Mysterious.
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WHY will Blogger not let me put spaces between my paragraphs?!? ARGH!

Black Friday

First, the good news: when I was at the Y last week, I was stretching and suddenly realized that my injured leg bends almost as much as my other leg now. Maybe it doesn't sound very exciting, but the orthopedic surgeon told me that would never happen. He said I'd be lucky to be able to bend it 3/4 of the way, and I'd probably never be able to sit cross-legged on the floor again. I'm happy to report that he was wrong! I can stand up, bend my knee, and pull my foot up behind me to within an inch of my behind (if that makes sense). I've been steadily increasing the weight that I'm lifting, though I'm reaching a point when I'll have to stay for a bit. On the squat machine, I started with just the bar, but I'm up to putting on 100 pounds now! I still see absolutely no quad muscle in my injured leg, but I've really only been working at it since December, so maybe that's normal.

My sweet dh made me brownies from scratch for my half-birthday last week. I was AMAZED. The man cannot cook an egg! He got down one of my cookbooks and made brownies from a 2-page recipe that involved melting chocolate and tempering eggs and everything! They were so fabulously delicious, fudgy, and rich -- I should have taken a picture of them. It drives him nutty that I insist on celebrating half-birthdays, so he's never done anything on mine until this year. I think it's a fun tradition.

So, when I last posted, I was fighting the dessert demon. Last Friday, things came to a head and I had a really bad day. I didn't binge, but I ate quite a few things that I wasn't hungry for and I spent the entire day obsessing about food and trying not to eat. As I lay awake, having a very sleepless night, I let my thoughts wander to what on earth was the matter with me.

I think that it's really just that the stress in my life is overwhelming me right now. Work is crazy busy, I am the head of a new work group and feel very nervous about doing it well, the tension with my coworker is difficult, and at home we're having house issues. I discovered that five of our beautiful wood-framed windows have mildew all over the frames. I can't imagine why -- our house is so dry I have old lady hands. I have noticed lately that the house really needs a lot of deep cleaning -- you know, that stuff you neglect like cleaning all of the sticky handprints off the cupboards and banisters, washing curtains, dusting blinds, washing windows, etc. It depresses me because I really don't want to spend my free time cleaning, but I'm embarrassed at how it looks and it bothers me to see it. I am loathe to ask dh to help me with it because he hates it too. I suppose I will have to though, unless I want resentment to take over my life.

So, Saturday I spent some time making a to-do list for work, telling myself that I can really only do one thing at a time and at least if I have a list I'll fell as though I won't forget something vital. The home thing is still making me unhappy. I have to bite the bullet and make a list there too.

I haven't weighed myself in ages, but my clothes still fit exactly the same and people I haven't seen in a while are still making comments about my losing weight. I ordered some clothes that were on clearance and was pretty pleased to see that size 10s and mediums fit me perfectly. Yes, I'd like to be smaller, but maintaining my 20-lb loss for this long without giving in to bingeing or starving or over-exercising is a victory right now.

I've discovered that reading blogs is quite dangerous to my wallet. I have now ordered Barney Butter, Justin's Nut Butter, Clif-Z bars, and several other foods online after reading and seeing them on other people's blogs. At the store I bought some Peanut Butter & Co Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter and pumpkin to put in my oatmeal, Barbara's Peanut Butter Puffins, and some sort of Kashi Sunshine cereal after seeing that in people's blogs online. I have to say that pumpkin in oatmeal -- yum yum! I never would have thought of it!