Exhausted

This week has LITERALLY kicked my ass. Long days at work, early mornings, late nights where I haven't been home before 10pm all week... And i still found time to go to the gym for zumba three times.

There has been snow and sleet and ice storms. There has been never ending meetings, day long strategic planning sessions, redo and redo of forms and reference books. For every step forward, I get pushed back 12.

Mentally, I'm done. I'm exhausted. Sleep deprived. And there is still one more day to get through.

Hormones, and weather, and sinus infection...oh my!

This week will be interesting with Donny. It's cold and rainy, aunt flow is on the horizon, and I'm sick. All of them on their own is enough to tighten Donny up, but now it's the LapBand Trifecta.

I can already feel the tightening start. My little pouch is full of sinus drainage. I'm not hungry AT ALL, even though the 1/2 cup of maple macadamia ice cream tasted pretty nice.

I bought stuff to make my noodle free veggie lasagna this weekend, and never even tried. I layed out my spaghetti squash to thaw, but that was as far as I got. Might just have that with some marinara tonight.

I have vegetable beef soup to eat that I made last week, and i've barely touched it. My freezer is full of soups and stews that were made but not eaten. Seriously, it's packed.

I have a problem that alot of WLS peeps tend to have... The inability to cook in portion appropriate sizes. I don't know how to make just a little bit of something, I only know how to make big mamma-jamma amounts. Don't get me wrong, I'm alot better than I used to be with this, but it's still a constant struggle, hence the massive amounts of food in the freezer.

I grew up in the country on a farm, where portions were big and seconds were encouraged. Healthy appetite = healthy kids. Showing love was done with food. In reality, it just encouraged a lifetime of overeating... And it's something that's been a constant struggle for me, even with my Band.

Unfortunately, the Band doesn't shut up the voices in my head. The voices that say, "that's not enough to leave for another meal, you should just finish it now", or " you Deserve that ________, because you worked hard today ", or my favorite, " I'm stressed so its OK to have _____ to make me feel better ". Aren't we all a little guilty of those?

That is my battle, and my burden to bear. It's also the reason that I probably haven't been as successful with my Band, and I'll be hitting my two year bandiversary in March.

But I can still do this. I can still make it work. I've accomplished so much health wise that if I never lose another pound, I will still be happy with this choice.

I'm not giving up, and I'm not giving in. I'm recommitting to myself in 2015. I'm going to keep doing what I do right: exercise. And doing better at the things I need to improve: portion control, water, and tracking my food and protein intake.

And even though it's a real pain in the ass to write every blog post on my phone, I'm going to recommit to you. And I'm going to do better about holding myself accountable. I need to do that for me.

So even though it's a few weeks late, I'm embracing 2015 as my year of change. You are welcome to join me... The more the merrier!

Because...meh, there is no excuse.

I've been trying hard to get back on track. I bought alot of high protein snack options. I've been working out. I'm trying to drink more water. Every day is a battle.

But I must be doing something right....Two people in two days have told me that I looked like I was losing weight. I haven't checked the scale, but I might suck it up tomorrow, only because I need to update my ticker. My lowest weight at 327 was right before I started antibiotics and steroids for the upper respiratory infection  back in November.... And subsequent unfill. And subsequent weight gain. Sigh.

I haven't gotten a fill, because I still have restriction. I just need to stop eating. I am a compulsive overeater. It's my brain that won't shut up. It's constantly telling me I'm hungry, even when I think one more bite will make me puke.

On that note, I'm sharing a yummy recipe I made the other night. A few weeks ago, right before Christmas, I was on a Greek food kick... And I bought this huge block of feta from Sam's Club. Needless to say, I got off the Greek food kick and still had a huge block of feta left. I didn't want it to go bad, so I looked up some ideas for it. And voila... Baked feta! It was delicious. You just have to eat it fast BC feta will harden back up once it cools.

Ingredients: feta cheese, sriracha, olive oil, garlic powder.
Directions: place feta in baking dish (individual serving I used a mini pie pan!), drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic powder, and then slam on the sriracha. Put in oven and bake until the exposed cheese starts getting a little toasty brown.

I had this with the Crunchmaster 5grain crackers. Perfection.

Later gators. Work beckons.

I'm back!

It took 12 hours to get home to Baltimore in the rain and fog...but we did it. And we came back with more than we took with us. Believe me, our Prius was packed!

Between the two of us, we bought Five Pairs of shoes! Only three of them were for me, though. Two are for the gym, and the third is a pair of Birkenstock sandals for summer. Score!

The ELB came back with snacks and sodas that he doesn't get the rest of the year. I got Snuffles (see picture below). I couldn't leave him on the clearance aisle at Walmart--he needed to come home with us!

I have a lot of pictures of the beach, and got retweeted by the MB tourist twitter.  We went to two womens college basketball games (Coastal Carolina and University of South Carolina), a hockey game (Charleston Stingrays), walked the Market in Charleston, walked the Riverwalk in Columbia, walked the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk, walked the beach, walked the outlet mall, and walked the flea market.

Donny decided to make her presence known, so I had restriction ALL week. Not sure if this will mean a loss or not, because I drank alot of milkshakes. And we ate alot of Zaxbys and Cookout.

I will be surprised if I didn't gain 10 lbs when I weighin on Monday. But I get back to the gym Monday night for Zumba. Since I'm still healing from the tendonitis in my right elbow, weight training is out for the near future--so I'm going to try to step up my cardio the next few weeks.

Anyways, happy new year friends. I'm looking forward to an amazing 2015 with all of you!