well then.

Written on Wednesday night:
The 2nd half of my week has been hit and miss. I'd exercise and drink my water, calorie plan and eat as planned, then do something stupid like make chocolate no-bake cookies and eat until I couldn't hold anymore. Eerrr. So frustrating. Monday night is weigh-in and I really don't know what to expect.

Last week's lesson was about sleep, and how being sleep deprived throws your whole system out of whack. It's true. I just wrote and erased a huge paragraph telling you about all of my responsibilities and why I don't get enough sleep. I just don't. And then I crash. Today was a cool, cloudy, rainy day and man oh man, I crashed hard. I HAD to sleep. But the teens were playing a board game, hubby was already napping and I just sat on the couch with my eyes half crossed and felt like crying from exhaustion while watching my toddler. A bit later, my teen daughter saw my face and told me to go to bed and she'd watch the toddler for a while. Yay! But my sleep was interrupted a few times and then I finally just got up when daughter let out a terrible scream because her brother had scratched and tried to bite her, since she made him NOT STAND ON THE VCR PLAYER. Yeah. Another fun day in our house. And then I made the decision: I am not going to church tonight. I am going to take care of my body. The toddler is going to grandma's and everyone else is going to church, while I do a few things around then house and then go to bed. At 7, I plan to take a warm bath (not an easy thing when you have no hot water heater-- I have water boiling on the stove), then get in bed and catch some zzzzz's. I can already imagine my pastor/pastor's wife/whoever saying "You stayed home from church because you were............tired????" Well, yes. Because I need to take care of ME. And I'm pretty sure God's giving me a thumbs up for doing so. I'm not sure, though, that he gave me a thumbs up for a million calories worth of no-bake cookies. I have 24 hours until weigh in. All I can do at this point is to eat to the best nutrition advantage as I can, drink my water, get my exercise, and treat my body right. Then I will just accept whatever the scales say. I sure am hoping for a loss though! Thanks for reading!


Update on Tuesday, 09/22/15: At last night's weigh in, I was UP THREE POUNDS. *face palm* It's easy to feel like a failure. But no. I'm not quitting. I will succeed. (I ate junky salty velveeta chili cornbread bake for lunch a few hours before weigh in. Can I at least hope a little of that 3 pounds was water? :/ )

301.6

That's the restart weight. I was 301.6 at Monday night's meeting. Here'a a mid-week check-in.

Monday:
Ate and drank according to plan. Put in a Biggest Loser Powerwalk dvd and could only get through 7 minutes of it. I told myself that was ok and that I would do 7 minutes every night. And next week I could do 8, then 9, etc.

Tuesday:
It was a busy and stressful day. I won't bore you with details. I had a flat tire in the midst of all of it. I had a meeting during lunch time and they served us lunch. The world's best homemade mac and cheese was probably a LOT of calories.......and cookies. I had allotted 600 calories for lunch, as I wasn't sure what would be served. I'm sure I consumed more than that. Then at supper time, I realized I didn't have salad dressing for the huge salad (with chicken) that I planned to have. At this point, I just needed to eat SOMETHING. There was no going to the store. Baby was whiney, I was exhausted, the house looked like a bomb went off and I just needed to do what had to be done and go to bed. So I ate junky fried food and orange sherbert and went to bed. However, I DID do my 7 minute exercise dvd before I went to bed and even fit in a 15 minute walk before my meeting.

Wednesday:
Today was to be another full day. Note: I live approx. 30 minutes away from the town where my family works, where we go to church, the barber, etc., so we usually try to do everything in one trip to keep from spending a lot of time and gas. However, the timing of things today was pretty spread out.
Today's list looked kind of like this:
Iron son's work clothes (He works at Braum's. It's kind of like a Dairy Queen. And his uniform wrinkles badly)
school
lunch
load up and go to mom's for showers for all of us (Our hot water heater is out! boo!)
drive to Duncan to the barber for son before they close
spend the next hour and a half cleaning the church, since we have time to kill until he goes to work
drop son off at work
drive home and cook a super quick supper and eat and get ready for church (we were home one hour)
go to church
stay and talk a long time afterwards, waiting for son to get off
find out son will be working 30 minutes late
drive around to help baby go to sleep
pick son up
get home at 10:40

(YES......son needs license! Soon!)

All of this with a very active, kind of moody, certainly exhausting one-year-old.
When I looked at this list this morning, I felt overwhelmed.
But then I made out my food plan and despite this crazy day, I ATE EXACTLY AS PLANNED. That's a big deal. Because while driving around waiting for son to get off work, I really wanted a combo meal from McDonalds!

And now it is 11:45 and I am not going to do my 7 minute exercise dvd. Tomorrow is another day. I MUST REST. Thank you for reading!

P.S. Everything on the list gone done, even though we finished school in the car!

P.S. again. My house still looks like a bomb went off.
goodnight!

Amy returns

*steps up to microphone, smiles at crowd, takes a deep breath and says the following*

Hello, and thank you for coming to hear me speak today. It is good to see you and the support you provide with simply your presence excites and encourages me.

Some of you may remember me and some of you may be just beginning to follow my journey. I could bore you with a summary of my history, who I was in blogger world, my past successes, the failures that touched my life and the hardships I've endured. But I won't. Because none of that matters now.

Today is a new day. This is a new season. And I'm becoming the person I've always dreamed of being.

Welcome to my blog. Welcome to my life.

I hope you enjoy following along. I look forward to reading about your journey as well.

Thank you. Let's DO this.

*steps down and shakes hands with you all*
(thanks for reading)