Pilot lights and Dieting

I got a text this morning while I was at work. It was from my roommate, M, who was home, snug as a bug in a rug in bed. He said our heater stopped working. Ugh. Right when a late-fall storm was due. Not good timing. I would just call my landlord, if it were anyone else other than my landlord, but he scares me. So when I got home from work I set about to try and see if I could fix it. I don't know if you all are aware of this, but my minor in college was in fixing ancient appliances, sooo I know next to nothing about the stupid things. I do know, however, that a furnace has a pilot light and that bad boy can go out. Thanks to Youtube for a sweet video on how to locate and relight it, I got my badself all up in that furnace's business with my matches and went to town. It didn't light. Sad Panda. I wimped out of calling my landlord and emailed him instead.
Low and behold, M wakes up as I am getting ready for bed. I lay out the situation. He takes a gander. I toss him the matches and some well wishes over my shoulder as I head for my room and wouldn't you know it, M has the stinking thing lit in under 3 minutes. Goooooooo M!

On a different note, I've been at the diet and exercise thing for 12 days now. On Thursday the 29th I weigh in. I've been tracking my progress on my own scale at home. It says I am down 16 pounds. So I am pretty stoked to weigh in on Thursday and see the looks on my dietitians' faces.
Since they want us to religiously track food intake, calories, carbs, protein, exercise and emotion here is what I know.

• I have worked out 22 1/2 hours in 2 weeks. 
• Even though I was given an allowance of 1200 calories I average 900-1000 per day.
•  It is exceedingly hard to eat 5 servings of veggies a day  
• And all my favorite foods are going to make me fat.
•  Lots of adjustments were made over these two weeks. 
• Lots of anger on my part, over not being able to do my habitual things. 
• It seems that most of my habits revolve around eating. 
• Commercials about food make me angry. 
• Reading books where the characters eat pizza and burgers makes me angry. 
• Ditto for movies. 
• Protein is all well and good but it's carbs that fill you up 

This has been an interesting start to what appears to be a very long journey. One that will definitely stretch my boundaries of comfort.

New Path New Mindset. Here I come 30! Ready or not!

Forced rest. That's what I like to call my sick days. Like today. I love my job. I want to be there all the time but I've got a super weak immune system and with my asthma and allergies I am rather prone to attacks. Tonight's sick du jour is tight sinus pressure and inability to breath but with a twist. I can breath as long as I am looking straight forward. If I look down, to my right or my left I can't breath anymore and I feel like I am being asphyxiated. It's odd. I've got pills.
So I am home, in bed, listening to good new music and tooling around on the internet. Of course that leaves my brain free to roam because, let's face it, silly cat pictures aren't that stimulating or engaging.
I am on the cusp of a life change actually. One I haven't shared on here yet and really haven't shared much in general. I am setting my feet on the path towards bariatric surgery. With a super tentative surgery date of early next year. I am going to be taking some classes down in LA until the end of this year with a group of surgery hopefuls like myself. We are going to be taught the correct way to eat for after the surgery and the doctors will be evaluating what sort of supplemental needs we will require after surgery.
So, in anticipation of this I bought a book, Cooking after bariatric surgery for dummies. Side note, I love the For Dummies books. They lay out everything so thoroughly that I feel like I can really understand it. The book has much more than recipes. It's a complete guide from kitchen to store to back to kitchen, the how and why are all explained in layman's terms. My kind of book really. I started reading last week. I thought, hey, I can get a jump start on this 1200 calories a day (once the class starts, that is all I get) and the change over will be much easier. I was lying to myself. I have yet to make it one day under 2000 calories much less 1200. I am angry when I can't or shouldn't eat and I find myself pulling into drive thrus even when I am not hungry. This is hard! I know, of course, that it wasn't going to be easy. If it was easy I would be thin.
I heard something tonight that really forced me to think about why I am fat. Like, what contributed to this? Why didn't I get a handle on it 100 pounds ago?
 I had a great childhood. My parents loved to eat! They loved to feed us kids. Tasty foods. Like cheesy ziti or juicy hamburgers. My childhood was full of comfort foods. While I was growing up both my parents suffered from obesity. My father seemed un-phased by his. He went on working his blue collar,sometimes hard labor job each day, the only difference I saw was that he napped a lot and he wasn't happy. But I just assumed that it was the way he was. My mother is the one who pushed and cajoled him into surgery at 50. Since his bariatric surgery, over 10 years ago, he is a completely different man. Imagine knowing someone one way for 20 years then, over the course of a year, their attitude, looks and quality of life change drastically. He still works his blue collar job, he still enjoys cooking for big groups but he is genuinely happy. The last ten years are the happiest I have ever seen him.
My mother handled her extra weight differently. From the start of my memories I can remember my mom yo-yo dieting. From Jenny Craig to Weight Watchers to counting calories to fad diets, it seems like she tried them all. Multiple times. My mother has never been happy with her figure and that unhappiness has affected her outlook on life. Let me explain something. My mom is my best friend and she is grounded in Jesus and happily serving her Savior here on this earth. She usually always has a smile for anyone who catches her eye, friend or stranger. My mom is such a bubbly, outgoing woman that on a recent trip to Guadalajara she was in the Mexico City airport Chili's, and she interjected herself into a conversation a few surfers were having. Low and behold they are from our city, are Christians, and know a few of our family members. 7 degrees of separation people. 7 degrees. But I digress, my mom's weight is a quiet battle, but because I am one of her closest friends I see it. I see what this yo-yoing is doing to her psyche.
 Her attitude towards food shaped my attitude towards food but I don't want to grow up feeling this way anymore. I want a healthy outlook. I don't want to view vegetables as the enemy. I don't want to look at a diet and say "I will follow this for ______, just so I can lose these pounds then I can go back to those delicious hamburgers".
 I want to automatically order a salad and not be worried that I will be hungry 10 minutes after I eat it. I want exercise to be a daily thing that I don't have to think about. I want to be skinny tomorrow too. Just thought I would throw that in since I am wishing for all this to be true like now. I have no desire to do any of the hard work I need to get to that point and I think I am angry with myself for my lack of motivation. Unlike some people, goals don't work the same for me. I don't find a will to accomplish something just because a big event is looming on the horizon. I don't know why that is. I get all gun-ho to start something, like  1200 cal/30 min exercise days and I generally get 12 hours in and I am done. Face deep in a bag of McDonald's fries as I greedily suck down a diet coke like it's the last thing I will ever taste.
What is wrong with me? Fast food has such a grip on me! I know I am not alone in this. I know that there are tons of people who feel the way I do. People with good intentions but lacking ambition to make those intentions into action and reality. Truthfully I want to start that class in LA with at least 7 days of success under my belt. I need to do that. That is the only way I am going to succeed long term. Since buying that for dummies book I have woken up each day a tad more aware what is going on with my body. One thing I do know, I have to plan. I have to plan and stick to the plan. If I fail to plan I am planning to fail. And that is not an option.

I am not going to step into my 30's with the same mindset I had in my 20's. I can't or I will be dead at 50. 

So how to plan? Menus, recipes, calories, high protein/low carb, low fat, portions, exercise! My head is starting to spin Exorcist style.
                                                             My goal this week is simple.

•  Learn to grocery shop/make a menu
• 1200 cal/day
• 30 min workout/day
• Journal food intake 

5 things.
Realistically speaking, I want to hit the 1200 mark for at least 3/7 days. The workout mark for 4/7 and journal 7/7 . If I can do that I will feel like it was a success. The one thing I know for sure, if I am not walking with my Lord each day I will not succeed here. He is in control of this. When I give it up, He is in control of me and my body and my cravings. Lots of prayers will be needed for this week. I will fill you guys in on the 16th on how it went. Until then. Live well and thrive. 

- B

Running away?

I don't know what I'm doing.

I have this idea, this small inkling, about quitting my job and leaving the states.. for say.. a year. or two. You know, life is supposed to be full of certain things. Like getting up and doing the thing you love everyday. I don't love my job anymore and I no longer want to make it my career path. I feel like I'm living a meaningless life.

Europe would be a good place to be a vagabond for a while. Maybe help me get my priorities in line. The only thing keeping me here is my fear of the unknown. I could just attack it. See where that leads. There are a lot of logistics to making this plan work but I don't see why I couldn't do it. Hell, maybe I will find a place over there that I love and just stay. It can't be any worse than the limbo I live in everyday here.

Weeks seem to pass me by as though they are mere hours in a day and I am chagrin to recognize that I am, in fact, getting older more quickly then when I was young.

Five things

I was laying in bed the other day, trying to fall asleep and thinking about eyes. So this week, my #1 thing too be thankful for is my eyes. If I were blind my main past time, photography, would be moot point. If I were blind, the windows to my soul would be permanently closed. I think you can tell so much about a person by looking deeply into their eyes for a spell. So eyes. My #1 thing.
#2. For a little levity I am going with trash bags. Boy am I happy I was born while they were invented. Especially the flex fit ones. You can stuff like 5 pizza boxes in those bad boys. Trash bags are definitely a reason to be thankful.
#3. The right to choose your own path. There are a few great advantages to being single. One would HAVE to be, I am the only person who makes my choices. I will always gladly accept suggestions but ultimately it boils down to me. And I like being the master of my own universe.
#4. A good solid foundation. I was born into an extremely loving, extremely close family who's head of household is always my father and who has worshiped and loved God from day 1. I have never been left wanting with them. They built the foundation for the person I eventually became and I am so very grateful that they made it a solid one.
#5. Books. I devour books when I am at work. I am so glad that we don't live in a censored country where I am told what to read. I use books to escape to a million different places, try on new lives, experience love and pain in new and different ways and to ultimately educate myself on the true human condition. What would I do without those little square pieces of tree and ink? Most likely I would be bereft and lost.
And there is my five for this week.