Sometimes Impalement Really Is the Answer

So I've mentioned in a previous post that my husband is a chef. This is good and bad. The good thing is that when I print off a fabulous new recipe to try, he whips it up without batting an eye and it turns out perfectly. He's also quick to whip me up an omelet or other healthy low-carb something or other if he hears the I'm-about-to-cheat phrase of, "I'm starving." He also watches me like a hawk when it comes to eating regularly. One of the benefits of doing a healthy low-carb diet is that I'm not hungry very often and when I'm hungry enough to say, "I'm starving" it's usually been several hours since my last meal (this happens most often after a long night of work). It's not unusual for him to ask me when I ate last, several times a day. This is all wonderful, but marriage to a chef has some serious drawbacks. The obvious is that he's a chef and has only made one dish, in thirteen years, that I didn't like. He's very creative too and often will come home with a take out box of one of his "inventions" and say, "You've got to taste this!" I hate to hurt his feelings but lately I've been having to say, "No honey. Not even one bite." We've talked about it a bit and I pretty much told him that while I adore his cooking, it's not healthy for me. At least not his usual cooking. So he's promised not to bring anything too tempting home. Which brings me to a really important point. When you're in a relationship and trying to lose weight and get healthy, it is IMPERATIVE that your partner be supportive. Without that support you will most certainly feel like your journey is that much longer, lonelier, and more difficult. I feel very blessed that my husband was so open to helping me because I know others who have faced loads of resistance from their partners.  Usually this resistance is fear of change on the part of the partner, but in some cases it's just that the partner is an ass. I have, however, devised an almost foolproof was to tell the difference. If it's a case of fear of change, as you become more fabulous and healthy, the fear of change will usually become pride in your accomplishments. If it's a case of being an ass, as you become more fabulous and healthy, the desire to impale them on the nearest pointy object will increase proportionally.

I'm Not Gone

Been awhile huh? Lol. Sorry, but it's been busy for me and finding the time to blog has had to be worked into the schedule along with the rest of my crazy life. My Anniversary weekend was SO AWESOME. We had such a blast at the Creation Museum. Then we got back and I had to work the next two days. On a quiet night at work I can find time to blog but Monday and Tuesday were anything but quiet. Those days are always big surgery days and as you can imagine, post-op patients are very needy. I have been humming along though. The weather here has been rainy and cold but I love the fall weather and the cold gives me an excuse to wear my new Creation Museum hoodie. I have done really well with packing my lunch...until tonight! I still need to work on my water intake. It's not a matter of a lack of good water, the water/ice machines dispenses purified water, it's just a matter of breaking my addiction to soda. I have a serious addiction to diet soda.  I don't even think it's the caffeine. I think I'm addicted to the chemicals in the soda. I can stop drinking caffeine and aside from a mild headache have no problems.If I try to give up the diet soda though...I'm a raging beast. This alone is enough to tell me that I absolutely must get rid of the soda, but it's going to be tricky. I have to try a step down method. I'm replacing the diet soda with water a little bit at a time. I'm hoping to be off it completely in a year. On a lovely lighter note (pun intended), I went to the uniform store to buy new uniform pants and the cashier made me feel so great. I bought two pair of pants and when I went to checkout, she told me I'd pick up the wrong size. I told her that I usually bought my pants a size or two big because I liked them loose and comfy. She said, "A size or two is one thing but these are WAY too big for you." It made me smile because they were only two sizes bigger than my starting pant size. Yay me!!

The Voices Told Me To

I need a vacation. I'm not sure what the heck is going on but this last week has just sucked! My patients have all been (literally) crazy and there is a reason I am NOT a psych nurse. I. Don't. Do. Crazy. Well, let me amend that. I like the ones that are so crazy they wear tinfoil hats to protect their brains from alien mind control waves, or truly believe they are the Queen of Sheba, or they stay huddled in a corner because the voices tell them too. I like them because I know they REALLY need my help. The kind of crazy I can't handle is the drug-seeking, IV drug abusing, belligerent and verbally abusive to the staff kind of crazy. They usually have some real reason to be there, but they don't want to listen  to us or try to get better. They just want us to wait on them and give them drugs. I'm not stereotyping IV drug abusers either. I've had many patients who were former abusers and they were great patients. I didn't get in this buisness to push drugs. I'm a healer. It's who I was born to be. It's all I've ever wanted to be. I'm the shoulder to cry on and the one who gives hugs when there's nothing anyone can say to make it better. It's really rough when I try to help and it goes in one ear and out the other. HOWEVER, in spite of this lousy week I have been strong in the face of temptation (and not just my video), and I even got a work out or two in. Hallelujah!

I will be taking a mini-vacation this weekend. It's my anniversary on Sunday so my husband booked a romance package at the Ashley Quarters Hotel in Florence, KY and we will be sans ninos for two days and one night. We will also be visiting the Creation Museum, which we've wanted to do for SO long now. I am super excited. Not to worry, I will not be going crazy with the food stuffs. I will have a little bit of a treat on our actual anniversary, but since we will have spent the day walking for miles around the museum (literally, it's HUGE and there are botanical gardens with mile long paths) it won't be too terrible. Also, the hotel has a fitness center and I've packed workout gear.

Something to Snicker at

When you're working on losing weight, life can be tough. All you think about is your weight, your chosen diet plan, and your workouts.  I was driving to pick up my husband from work tonight and one of my favorite songs came on. As I was listening to it, the idea for a video came into my head and I just started giggling. Never is there a time in your life that you need something to snicker at than when you're walking the "thin" line. Feel free to link, share, steal, or just plain groan at my FIRST ever YouTube video.

Pictures

Today is awesome. Yes it is. For starters I was able to get some decent sleep, which can really make a difference in how the day goes. Then my husband and I went out to lunch. (I, ahem, sleep til noon on my days off.) I had a wonderful low carb lunch and then went to tan.

This is my favorite bed. It's an Ergoline and it's huge(!) which means lots of space even for my ginormous butt.

And before anyone goes and gets all preachy on me about the sins of tanning, stop. I started tanning because a couple of months ago my doctor ran a bunch of blood tests and found a couple of major issues, one of which was a serious Vitamin D deficiency. I work nights and even though I try to get outside on my days off, apparently I don't expose enough skin (seriously...would you want to see me expose more skin? No, you wouldn't). After talking for a few minutes about the other stuff - vitamin B12 deficiency and hypothyroidism - he suggested that visiting the tanning bed a couple days a week would be a good way for me to get my Vitamin D. "Don't go crazy and try to get super dark because then you're in skin cancer country," were his exact words. Then he told me that my vitamin deficiencies are contributing to my anxiety and seasonal affective disorder. He also told me, and this was VERY interesting, that obesity causes most of the Vitamin D deficiency in developed nations because Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and fat cells like to suck it out of the bloodstream and store it where it cannot be utilized by the body. Interesting. So my husband and I talked about it and he drove me to the tanning salon where they hooked me up with a package and now I'm two shades darker and my vitamin levels are up. Win-win. I'm still having trouble remembering to take my thyroid medicine and my vitamins so my husband told me today that he's buying me a pill organizer (yes, like the older folks use) to help me remember to take my pills. I protested that since I only take a thyroid pill and vitamins, I don't need an "organizer." He made his point by explaining it wasn't for organization, just a visual reminder to take them and also a way to let me know if I've actually taken something already as I have a tendency to ask myself (out loud) if I've taken my pills today. Okay honey, you win, I'll use the old folks way.

After lunch my husband agreed to take some "Before" pictures of me since I got my awesome new digital camera and for whatever reason that is infinitely easier for him to work than the camera on my phone. So here they are! (And this is quite the step for me, posting them into the blogosphere, as I am very self-conscious about my looks.)

So this is me. Wt 304. Ht 5'5".

This shirt is a 24/26 and these jeans are size 26T because I like my jeans long.

Baby got back.

I hate how you can't tell that I have high cheekbones because my face is so round now. But I smile just the same because I'm happy about the journey I'm on and where it's taking me.

Rough Patch

So it's been a rough patch the last couple of days. Life. Work. Everything. My eating has been fine but I haven't been able to work out and that's been bumming me out. I hear people complain all the time about how they don't have time to work out and usually they're full of crap. I normally have plenty of time to work out. I work twelve hour shifts at the hospital so I only work three days a week. I also work nights so I have the treadmill all to myself and the free weights all to myself. My office is my workout room and I don't worry about waking anyone because once I close the door the noise is pretty much gone. I don't work out on the days I work because anyone who works twelve hour shifts will tell you that on work days you go to work, you go home, you sleep. That's pretty much it. Well this last few days has been hell at work. In the last two nights I've had to: call security to remove a visitor who was threatening a patient, call family to come in at two in the morning because a patient was completely off their rocker and throwing a fit, deal with the constant whining of two drug abusers who kept calling out for their pain medicine five minutes after I'd just given it to them, and help work a Code. At home I've been dealing with end of soccer season tournaments and two boys who absolutely refuse to do their chores and a husband who is coming down with what I had. I am confident that the next few days will be better. For now I will breathe and go make dinner.

What Doesn't Kill You

I am all better! Well, okay, I'm still fat...but I'm totally over my (killer) cold! I swear that nurses can survive Ebola, Dengue Fever, and even the Plague but the common cold has taken out most of my unit. Now life can get back to normal. I hate being sick. Absolutely loathe it. I've never liked being told I can't do something and when I'm sick I feel like my body is telling me I can't do ANYTHING. Super frustrating. So now that I'm all better I will be hitting the treadmill tonight. I'm looking forward to it and that is proof right there that being sick does something evil to my head. I've been thinking that there has got to be a good training program for walking that will help me to work toward my goal of running again. I know that I can't run until I lose a certain amount of weight (on orders from my orthopedics doc who has been treating me since I was eighteen), but I would like to be working on my pace and endurance nonetheless. It has to be flexible since my schedule is kind of wonky and I don't work out on days when I work (not at this point in my journey anyway), but since I only work three days a week, it shouldn't be too difficult to find one.

My guys showing their love for boobies before the Crew game on Sunday. This picture amazes me because my husband is 6'6" and my boys are only 11 and 8 years old. I gave birth to giants.

DC tried to play dirty but my boys won just the same.

My Crew

Oh and I got a new camera! Yay! Now I don't have to take all my pictures with my phone. I still prefer my 35mm SLR for "real" photography, but it's nice to have a digital for my everyday point and shoot stuff.