Grief and a weigh-in

In 2016, I really didn't see it coming. I thought that surely, anyone with half a brain would realize how massively unqualified Trump is to be President. In 2024, I was hopeful that he wouldn't be re-elected. I mean, we lived through 4 years of his reign and clearly, anyone with half a brain would realize we left his presidency worse than we entered. But, I stand corrected. And it's been a rough day. I don't believe in voting for people who rape women, who are convicted felons, who make fun of those with intellectual disabilities, who claim immigrants eat dogs, who believe that half the population shouldn't have the right to bodily autonomy, who believe they are better due to their race. And I'm disappointed that so many people did vote for that person. If you're a Trump fan, look elsewhere. Life is short and Trump is going to set this nation back centuries. I will not waste my precious time on this Earth arguing otherwise. I have seen the effects of his policies firsthand. I live in fear for my Black children because of his leadership. This is not a time to be celebrating. This is a time of mourning. 

On to today: I did a weigh-in, as promised.

I've lost a whopping 0.2 pounds since I last posted my weight, per this photo. However, I've also gained weight and lost it again. I'm hoping to keep up the losing momentum! I want to get below 237 before the end of the year! Having oral surgery later this month should help.

Food photos 

Breakfast burrito and banana

Snack #1

Snack #2

Protein drink

Leftovers for lunch and some chips for later

Berries for an afternoon snack

Chicago style pizza for dinner; not pictured: my second piece + salad

I ate maybe 5-6 of these from the nurse's station today, too.

I came home after work, did 30 minutes on the Peloton, and had pizza with my mom and lamented the election results. I also set up my new printer and printed Reyah's birthday invitations. I will shortly sit in front of the TV to try to be numb to the pain of today.

Eats and election anxiety

OMG. THE ELECTION. FUUUUUUUCK.

Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed as planned. Today, I was in the office, which meant walking pad time! Before lunch, I had about 4k steps. I did a workout during lunch, and rounded out my 10k steps before even leaving work. That's always nice, especially on nights the kiddos are with me because I already have a ton of Mom guilt about not seeing them all the time so I'd feel too guilty not being able to spend time with them while I exercised. On weekends when I have them, I don't feel so bad sitting them in front of a screen for an hour so I can exercise, but on weekdays when the time together is already limited, I just won't take that time for me.

Food photos today were a bit harder because 1) I had to take them while walking on my walking pad and 2) I forgot a few of them and thus will supplement them by using online photos. Today, I ate the following:

Breakfast at work

Other part of breakfast

Grapes for a snack

Fiber bar for poops and farts

Right before lunch snack 

This is what's pictured above

Lunch: Banana and leftover pot pie

Berries for an afternoon snack

Cookie dough snack while supposedly making cookies

Reyah's plate (because I'd already eaten mine): Chicken tetrazzini and asparagus for dinner

Today's eats were pretty reasonable. I probably ate more than I needed to because I packed hella stuff for work and wasn't hungry every time I ate, but alas, it's something to work on. Tomorrow I'm doing a day call shift at the hospital, where it is WAY HARDER to eat healthy. You'd think they'd push healthy food at the hospital, but nope. They have mostly processed unhealthy shit in the physician lounge. Why? Because it's cheap and if you know anything about healthcare, it's a business and profit margins are the most important thing.

Toothbrush photos for a rounding out of the night:

And lastly, OMG. THE ELECTION. FUUUUUUUCK.

Food Photos and Accountability

Because of the aforementioned blogging frenzy, I took photos of my food today. Because, accountability. I don't know if that led me to eat more healthy stuff or if it led me to eat less junk stuff, but today's eats were pretty legit. I finished my 24 hour shift, drove home, made some eggs to eat alongside my yogurt drink and then ate them while doing therapy. Once done with breakfast, I hopped on my treadmill and completed my therapy session while walking. Movement therapy? Check. Talk therapy? Check. Bad ass multitasking? Check. Killing it.

I showered and then immediately passed out due to working a 24 hour shift. That being said, while in the midst of trying to sleep, I was so hungry. Like so, so hungry. I figured eating would be dumb because I was about to be unconscious, but I feel like I've been really hungry a lot lately and I don't know why. About 15 minutes before my alarm was due to go off, I got up, ate some lunch, and then one of my pals came over so we could go for a walk. She's also a doc and so it's hard for us to find time to spend together because we have garbage schedules, so we got to catch up and get some movement in. Killing it again. We're also hoping to do some more movement activities when we meet up in the future.

The rest of the day I spent with the kiddos. We took down the outdoor Halloween decorations, made a trip to Costco, and then had breakfast for dinner. This is an easy go-to meal when we need something fast but also when we don't want to hear incessant whining about how horrible it is that we make the kids eat dinner.

After dinner, the kids asked for some of their Halloween candy. I had tucked it all away before they got home because they often forget about yummy treats if they can't see them. The little dude remembered so I let them choose two pieces after dinner. My mom thinks I'm a buzzkill, but maybe if I were taught to limit myself, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now. Who knows?

Anywho, I packed some good stuff for work tomorrow and will hopefully get a good number of steps in on my walking pad. I'm also ignoring election stuff completely right now because the stress is real! (I already turned in my ballot, don't worry).

Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs fresh from the farm

An internet photo of my yogurt drink

My protein drink while my lunch heated up

Leftover beef pot pie for lunch

Me and my walking pal - we did 3.26 miles in an hour

Post-walk snack

Dinner; not pictured is another serving of eggs

Ate half of this pancake, but ultimately was underwhelmed and didn't finish it

Kiddos doing homework with Nana

Zayd's toothbrush photo

Reyah's toothbrush photo

Onwards to another post of me killing it tomorrow! Planning on a weigh-in on Wednesday because, duh. Alliteration.

A Blogging Frenzy Ahead

Alas, Dear Reader, losing weight is hard and I've been avoiding blogging because I feel like I could be doing better. I have been doing my walking pad at work, but I haven't been in clinic much. I've also been getting my 10k steps a day, but my work outs haven't been very intense. I've been having trouble making healthier choices and eating more snacks than necessary. My scale is showing some weight gain. I have good intentions about the next day as I lay in bed at night, but then when it comes to putting those thoughts into practice - poof! Motivation's gone! 

So, I am going to start using this thing for what I meant it to be for in the first place: amusing ramblings for my countless fans to read accountability/motivation. I'm going to try to take photos of my meals and post them. I'm going to update you on my workouts. And I'm going to try to set a weekly goal and hit it. So, this week's goal is going to be blogging every day. Let's achieve some shit!

Halloween cuties

Toothbrush photo

Looking so grown

Watching at ice skating

Family photos and the subsequent mind fuck

On Wednesday, we had family photos. We try to color coordinate annually and often end up doing either white and blue or maroon, white, and blue. This year was a slight variation: maroon and blue only. When I peeked in my closet on Monday in preparation for these photos, I had some things that could work, but the fit wasn't great. Since resuming my weight loss journey about two years ago, I've lost 50 pounds. Thus, things don't quite fit the same. That being said, my time is very limited these days and so I had about two hours the day of photos to go shopping. I first stopped at Maurice's and was happy as a Larry to discover that I could shop on their plus size side as well as in the larger sizes on their "normal" side. Despite this, I only found one shirt that would maybe work. But, it was an XL instead of a plus size! Next, I stopped at Lane Bryant. This is a store solely for us plus size ladies. I found a lot of good stuff there and pulled my usual size. Carla, one of the sales ladies, helped me get into a room and I asked if she'd be willing to run to get me new sizes as I'd lost some weight and had avoided going shopping for a while now. She agreed and then I put on my normal size and was pleased to discover it was large on me. She had a lot of running to do to help me find things that fit well and I spent hella money. Now I have a bunch of 14/16 clothes. For reference, I started this journey in a 22/24.

Now, I've lost a significant amount of weight before and then gained most of it back, so I don't know if it was this shopping experience, but I've been in my head a ton lately about gaining it back. Despite being consistent with my healthier changes - meeting a 10k step goal every day for 134 days, eating more fruit, trying to hydrate as much as possible - I've been eating outside of my norm this week. I've been eating more often (I've been so. hungry. all. the. time.) and eating things I would normally try to minimize eating. And I haven't done my usual, "Well, I've already fucked the day, so I may as well keep going," thing that I would normally do, but I've been disappointed in myself. I also haven't done much more than my 10k steps per day this week in terms of exercise. There was one night when I could have watched my TV while walking on my Peloton, but I just wanted to veg. So, I did. 

This morning, in my attempt to pull myself out of this funk, I did a 30 minute Peloton session and did some running and was able to do it without wanting to die, which is an accomplishment. I don't know why, given that it'd been a week since my last intense workout, that I didn't think I could do it, but I was pretty convinced of my suckiness before starting. So, being done was really nice. 

I'm still kind of in this mind fuck and so we'll see where this week takes us!