When it rains, it pours.

Just checking in. I check in on my fellow bandsters blogs occasionally. A bunch of bandsters I'm friends with on Facebook too. But I feel like I should check in on my own blog as well with a bit of an update.

In general, this has been a somewhat difficult year, and a really rotten summer emotionally. That's one thing about this blog and bandsters is that we can tell it how it is on our blogs. I can't always do that with everyone, and certainly on FB you aren't going to share TMI.

We didn't know it at the time, but coming back from Christmas vacation at New Year's and finding our entire bathroom covered in mold was kind of a sign of things to come for the new year! Leak in the faucet, lots and lots of valuable stuff lost in the bathroom and the storage connected to it. Mostly it was just gross and stressful. Despite having thrown away so, so much stuff, I can't say I've really missed anything though. Just goes to show how meaningless "things" can be.

Most of the problems have been tied to health and money. My Dad can't really take care of himself anymore, sometimes he gets a bit confused about things, and he called me in tears that he was going to be homeless because he had a falling out with the person he lives with and could I help. We aren't on great terms. I haven't seen him in many years. I'm the only one in my family that even speaks to him. Pretty much the only one at all other than the person he lives with. :(  So I was trying to figure out how to support him with his very small social security income. Then I couldn't reach him for a week and was extremely worried. It ended up, when I did reach him, that the issue has resolved itself for now, but it was stressful and a huge reminder that at some point, I will have to figure it out.

I could actually go on and on with a number of other health issues affecting my husband, close family, friends and myself. Medical bills are piling up, so we sold one of our cars, got rid of cable, sold some stuff, just to pay bills and try to live more within our means.

I'm definitely one to look at the bright side, but when it comes to serious and in some cases, terminal illness, that's a really hard thing to do. Even my dogs have had a lot of health issues, and since I don't have children, they are like my kids. I adore them and do everything for them.

One day, we were coming back from the park, and my dog JJ passed out. We walked inside, he passed out a couple more times and we rushed him to emergency. We discovered that his heart condition had rapidly worsened and he's now in congestive heart failure. As long as we get him regular x-rays and ultrasounds to ensure there's no fluid in the lungs and track the progress of the disease, he appears to anyone else to be healthy. He's definitely happy and active. But he has to take 13 pills a day. It's stressful to prepare them all and get him to take them. He hates it. And he has to be let out to pee every couple of hours b/c of his meds. I'm more than happy to do all of it, but it's just so expensive and his pet insurance doesn't cover a pre-existing condition. So there's always the question of whether we'll be able to cover the bill when we visit the vet.

During this same time, i've been going through hormone therapy and a lot of testing to deal with some cysts and fibroids. I finally had to give up on the progesterone treatment because of how much stress I've been under. I just couldn't handle it on top of everything else. The final straw was the panic attack it led to.

It's been 7 years and I haven't been able to get pregnant. One of my doctors basically said in a quite abrasive, irritated way that I'm extremely high risk for multiple reasons, and even if I pay tens of thousands for fertility treatments, I have the tiniest chance of ever getting pregnant.

Despite that, I continued to try and saw a new doctor, but I got to the point where we've run out of funds to do anything else, and I'm turning 40 in a couple of months, and I've kind of given up hope which just makes me really really sad. IVF, surrogate, adoption, etc are all extremely expensive, and while I wish it wasn't the case, right now, they just aren't attainable goals.

I always struggle with depression and overeating, but I've been extremely depressed. It's been hard to bounce back from all of this. So I eat, and that just makes the fertility thing and even the depression worse. Ug.

But my husband has been a saving grace. He's so patient with me and so supportive. For now, I'll just keep moving forward. My husband has really been a good cheerleader about getting back to healthy eating so that we feel better and are better able to handle all the stresses coming our way. In that regard, turning 40 in October is a major goal to be in a bit better shape.

Eating when I'm tired & using a "holiday weekend" as a good excuse to eat?

So it's been 2 weeks since we kick-started and things are going well. 6lbs down overall and my clothes are fitting much, much better. I was creeping up into a bigger size before the holidays and that has been curtailed!

The first week of "dieting" my energy level absolutely sky-rocketed with all the healthy food, and I feel great. We were being super strict week one and that gradually loosened up a bit week 2, but we're still on track.

I had to deal with all the things that usually make me go off the rails. We had a major investor pitch and got pretty much no sleep. When I don't sleep, I eat to somehow make up for the lack of energy and to "reward" myself.

Plus, if my husband says screw it, as he tried to during our crunch time, I often use that as an excuse too.  I kept him on track last weekend, had just a bit of stress eating that day, without much damage.

But then the MLK holiday weekend came, and I found myself saying, it's a holiday, so of course i can splurge. I splurged a bit but not bad at all minus some donuts. Alex reigned me in thank goodness. I hate, hate, hate someone else trying to control or comment on my food intake but...I'll admit it worked.

So we have to keep each other on track rather than be bad influences as we have in the past.

As I've learned over and over, weight loss isn't about a "fix" where once you lose weight, everything is great. It's all about management. Everyday, all the time. No magic to it.

I just did a bit of shopping, hung out with friends this weekend and saw the movie "Her" which I loved. Plus the weather here in LA is gorgeous, so I'm feeling pretty fantastic. Here's to a healthy week ahead!

WLS Blogs to Follow?

Can anyone recommend WLS blogs that I should be following? I've been out of the loop for a while. I definitely have some that have been around a while, but what sites do you love?

Do you guys get "diet" tired?

I'm really into this new eating plan. I'm enjoying the food, and I feel really satisfied.  My will to be thinner by my 40th is really strong, so I'm not feeling a ton of temptation to cheat so that helps too. Of course, it's early days.

I'm really liking that this fruit/veg/protein thing allows me to eat to be satisfied. I'm have a partial fill, could use some more, but I feel the band doing it's work too.

However, whenever I start watching what I eat, I have this thing early on where I just get super exhausted around 5pm or so. Under other circumstances, I'd just be ramping up at that time of day, but man i get POOOOOPED! Early in the day, however, I have better energy than usual. I don't feel as lethargic as usual.

Being so tired in the evening does make it a challenge to do my LONG evening dog walk and make our Vitamix soup though. But I power through. Tonight it was tough though.

If i remember correctly, some of this will past, but curious about you guys? Do you get too pooped to pop as well?

Good news!

I had two pieces of good news today. First off, I weighed myself this morning and was down 4 pounds from the weekend.

Whaaaaa?????

Crazy! Crazy good!!! So I'll take it! I'm sure it's partly water weight, blah blah blah, but it feels good and is great motivation to continue with this kick start diet we're doing that I recently posted about.  My husband Alex also weighed himself this morning and he's lost 3. (I never lose faster than him!)

The second piece of good news is that there are people out there reading this!!!  After having not posted in 2 years, I thought for sure I'd lost everyone, but when I logged in today, I saw blogger's analytics and could see that are a few hundred of you guys!  Those are new visitors starting when I started posting again. Yay! You rock! That is such fantastic motivation to keep posting and keep up with this knowing I'm not ALOOOONNNEEE!

If anyone feels inclined to comment or post, I'd love to hear from you and know where you live and anything you'd like to share about your own story -- and/or a link to your blog.

Woot woot! Happy Tuesday!

My meat substitutes aren't "lean"

As I mentioned in my last post, the eating plan we're doing this week and next allows for fruit, veg and lean proteins. My husband's lean protein is mostly plain chicken, but since I'm a vegetarian, I go the fake meat route. In looking at Weight Watchers "power foods," soy and other vegetarian meat substitutes are allowed as long as they are less than 2g of fat per serving. I must admit I was shocked when I got to Trader Joe's and started looking at the fat grams in my favorite fake meat products! I always just naively assumed they were low fat.

So, out with the Tofurkey italian sausage, the Morning Star Farms pizza mushroom burgers and the fake chicken strips. Instead, I'm having fake beef and chicken strips, Tofurkey turkey lunch slices and soy breakfast sausages. Baked tofu isn't less than 2g of fat, but it's listed separately as a power food, so I'm allowing that too.

It's not a big deal for me to swap one fake meat type for another, but I'm glad to have had this nudge to make smarter choices and not just make assumptions. My bad.

Kick Start! I do love my Vitamix.

I considered starting the year off with another juice fast. We did a 3-day one from Dr. Oz last spring and it was fantastic. It got us started on a very long health kick and I lost about 10 pounds, but my husband lost almost 40 pounds (and maintained most of that).

However, I realized what I'm really seeking is that energy boost from all that fresh fruit and veg. So instead of juicing, we decided to do all fresh veg, fruit and lean proteins for a 2-week kick start.

We'll use our Vitamix for this. A green juice in the morning and a Vitamix all-vegetable soup at night, plus a salad for lunch and various fruit or lean protein snacks. The Vitamix has definitely been well worth the cost as we use it almost every day, even when not eating super healthy.

I also decided to join Weight Watchers, as I pretty much always have to be held accountable by tracking what I'm eating. Turns out they have a 2-week introductory program called Simple Start which has a very similar concept, except a bit less limiting. In addition to the fruit, veg and lean proteins, they allow you some carbs. Things they consider "power foods." Then they also give you 7 bonus points a day for a little splurge.

So we ended up doing a version of Simple Start, except without the carbs, plus with that 7 bonus points, we give ourselves one piece of dark chocolate at the end of the day.

Pony Tails and Photo Tricks

I had to update my profile pic finally. I've posted the old one here for reference. :(

I just don't at all look like the old one anymore. I'm a few years older and am now at my heaviest (again, grrr) plus, no more bangs, i have long hair, and it's pretty much always pulled back. Constant pony tails are never a good sign of where things stand in my life.

My new profile pic is what I call a #dogselfie - It's one of the most recent pics of me from my 2-week holiday break with one of my dogs Cali. We were on a road trip driving from California to Texas. All my photos these days involve major cropping, a bit of contortion, flattering angles and this chin thing a DMV photographer (of all people) told me about. I hadn't learned the trick in the pic above.

But this pic here is from Christmas Eve where the "trick" is in effect (and notice the hair pulled back!) I'm bending over so it's not the best cropping on this photo, but it was an image I had easily accessible. And no double chins! I'll try and find some "bad" pics for contrast, lol!

The trick: jut out your chin and lean your head ever so slightly down. It may feel artificial but it creates the illusion of a stronger jaw line in photos. I also do a thing where i suck in my double chin a bit! lol! So sad I know, but I know some others of you out there have little tricks too! Takes a bit of practice in the mirror (so VAIN! i know!), but the trick works for me.

Working up to 40

2014 is a big year for me as I'll be turning 40 in October, and I am utterly determined not to turn 40 at the weight that I'm at. That means a lot of big changes need to happen. I've made my list and have been working at them. But the weight loss thing I convinced myself would start in the new year. And well, here we are. 

Instead of going into all the usual pep talk, I'll just provide an update on life since my last post a long, long while back. I'm so, so glad that I did not get the job in the last post. Ug, I'd be out in a warehouse type office in a too-small company in a not-so-nice suburb in Orange County. Instead, after a couple of other rounds of interviews with other companies, a few months later I got a fantastic job at a gorgeous university in Los Angeles very near to the ocean. I work in web marketing and get to do a lot of fun mobile projects. The best part is that I have my own office with a nice view too. 

Since i get to tell it like it is here, the people i work with can be really gossipy and catty. I'm learning that universities are very political places, not just mine from what I understand. My boss is the ring leader, and he really should know better. And there's another guy who is such a bully, but I've gotten pretty good at just stopping him short when he's in a super crabby mood and telling him, "Wow, you're cranky today," and that usually shuts him up. One of my 2014 goals is just to rise above all that pettiness. Which I found I've mostly been able to do the last few months. I have bigger things on my radar than to be dragged down by that b.s.

There are a TON of great perks about the job however that make it worth putting up with. Other than that, I can mostly just forget about stuff when I leave at the end of the day which is a pretty big deal. And the vacation time and benefits and retirement plan are all really excellent. We just finished 2 weeks off for the Christmas break. It feels like a million years since i was in the office. LOVE!

Another major plus is that I can get a free MBA, which helps make up for the non-profit salary. A "free" MBA is such a big deal. I already have an MA in Writing and there was a guy in my program who was a staff member, and I remember thinking how smart it was that he had his MA paid for. I will be paying for my undergrad and grad school loans for a very, very long time. 

I won't go into all of the MBA stuff, but based on my last job, I feel like there are some skills that degree offers that I really need to move into more senior management. I also hope it will help propel me into higher paying jobs -- really help me move up in my lot in life. I'm been stuck in middle management for too long, especially when I see the major success my friends have had. I'm really tired of our crappy apartment. I want something better. 

The MBA will also be really helpful for the new tech startup my husband and I started this past summer. It's all full-scale, the real deal. We have a couple of investors and a canned demo. Plus lawyers, a developer, an accountant and more lawyers. Next up, the full prototype. Having a job that I can turn off at the end of a 9-5 day is really helpful when I know I'll be part-time in the MBA program and working on this startup. 

This is where the weight loss comes in. My approach to weight loss this time is very different. It isn't about how I look at all.  I just need the energy and the get up and go from being thinner to meet all the goals i have. I feel so lethargic when I'm heavier. I need to just brush off that sludge and be less burdened. I worked full-time through my first masters program and went to school full-time, so I know I can do it. In general, the busier I am, the more energy (adrenaline!) I have to do even more. 

Another major thing is getting pregnant. We've been struggling with fertility issues with 5+ years now. We started fertility treatments last year, not IVF, but the cheaper stuff like Clomid, etc. Luckily, my doctor isn't a jerk about the weight, but the problem is that i'm not ovulating which can be a direct result of being overweight, so I know i need to lose weight. Plus, if i feel burdened and low energy now, and I'm not pregnant, i really need to prepare my body a bit. 

So lots of stuff on the radar, but I love having a lot going on. Gets me way more ramped up than just being lazy.  I'm committing to posting more often to stay focused on my target goals this year! 

Happy 2014!