Vacation Damage

I had a week of vacation, which was so nice! I loved not having to work this last week. However, for me, vacation seemed to mean not having to count calories, and I really don't feel like getting on the scale this week, so there won't be a weigh in. I'll be back for that next week.

I did, however, think of something this morning to help motivate me to do better. Thanks to Willow's vet bill, I won't be having any extra money for a good long while. Even when I get done paying Jim back for the amount he paid toward her bill, I'll still have to save enough to buy Jim's wedding ring and to buy my clothes and jewelry for the wedding. So I'm thinking I'll be pretty broke right up until October or so. And I need a haircut desperately. My hair is too long and is getting split ends, and it needs to have about four or five inches cut off.

So, I asked Jim if he would give me money for a haircut when I get under 200 pounds, and he said yes. Yay! So maybe I can make that happen in the next few weeks. I hope so!

Also, I have no idea what is going on with my scale. It's an old doctor's scale, and it seems to fluctuate so much as to be completely unreliable. On Wednesday I had to go to the doctor for my annual physical, and I weighed myself before I left, wearing exactly what I would be wearing at the doctor's. I weighed three pounds more here than I did there (and the doctor was happy, because my weight was down six pounds since the last time I was there, which would have been in December, when I was going through the heart palpitations). So I came home and happily adjusted my scale to read three pounds smaller. Then Gracie (my cat) got on the scale and sat down this morning while I was in there, so I weighed her, and it said she only weighed 5.5 pounds. I know for a fact she weighs 9 - 9.5 pounds. So what the heck? I don't know what to believe anymore, and am this close to buying a cheap bathroom scale to replace it.

Anyway. I'm back to work tomorrow, which means back to being good, so I'll weigh in next Monday, and every Monday after that until I get under 200 pounds and can get that haircut. Woo!

Willow and Her Cone

I found a different cable to work with my camera, so as promised, pictures of Willow and her stubby tail, with bonus images of Bernie, who is laying with her on the futon.

Weigh In and Willow

So, I did well last week! When I tell my weight, it'll look like I didn't lose much from my last weigh-in, but after a month of more cheat days than good days, I had gained some. So...

On Monday, March 7th I weighed 219.5. (I told you I was bad for the last month.)

On Sunday, March 13th I weighed 213.75. Woo! I lost almost six pounds in a week. THAT'S how good I did this last week. :)

Of course, I'm still way behind where I should be, but I'll catch up over the next couple of months. And I'll be back next week with another weigh in.

Oh, and I was going to post some pictures of Willow, but I seem to have left the cable for my camera at work. :( So I'll have to wait to show those to you later (I'm on vacation this week). But just know she's doing well. I'm giving her pain medicine three times a day, and she's doing very well wearing the cone. Jim and I are very impressed with her. I'll take her later this week to get the bandage on her tail changed, and we'll see then how it's doing. Hopefully it'll be healing well.

Willa Billa

When I adopted Willow in August, 2005, I had no idea what I was getting into. For three days she was the perfect dog - calm, easy going, affectionate. And then she ran out of the pain pills she was on after she got spayed.

The Willow I have known, loved and sometimes wanted to murder in the years since is nervous, edgy, neurotic and desperately wishes she were the only animal in the house. But she's also loving and affectionate, and just wants to be with me or Jim as much as possible. We both love the stuffing out of her. The fact that I do love the stuffing out of her, though, made it very hard to get through this morning.

You see, Willow's neurotic nature has sometimes shown itself in a rather unpleasant way - self-mutilation. She sometimes goes through periods where she chews on the tip of her tail whenever we're not home with her, or even when we're sleeping. She chews the hair off, she chews at the skin until she bleeds, and this last time she even tore the skin off so it was basically degloved. Prior to this, she's always stopped before any real damage has been done, then the tail has healed and the hair has come back. This time she didn't stop, and her tail was in horrible shape, so I took her to the vet.

Her first visit for this was two weeks ago. They gave her antibiotics, cleaned her tail and wrapped it up so that she couldn't go after it, and sent us home. Today was her recheck. I was very much hoping that her tail would be healed, and she would be fine, but it wasn't. They took the bandages off, and her tail was obviously very infected, despite the antibiotics. It looked and smelled horrible. They have to amputate the end of her tail. :(

So now she's at the vet, and I'm home, worrying about how she's doing, wondering how I'm going to get her adjusted to wearing an Elizabethan collar (new things make her very nervous, and she basically lost her mind when they put it on her at the vet's office), and of course wishing she could have just left her tail alone in the first place. Poor Willa Billa.

Keep her in your thoughts today, okay? She's a crazy, neurotic, spastic mess of a dog, but she's ours, and we love her.

Change of Plans

Okay, here's the thing. I can't be trusted with monthly weigh-ins. I thought I needed to step away from the scale to make it lose its hold over me. Plus I liked the idea of stepping on the scale after four weeks of being good, and seeing the number drop maybe 10 pounds from what it was. But here's what I hadn't considered - I'm a procrastinator. Give me four weeks to do a job, and I'll wait until the last week - even the last few days, if I think I can get away with it - before I'll even start to work on it.

The very first week of this 28 day period - shit, the very first DAY of this 28 day period - I was already telling myself that I didn't have to weigh in for four weeks! I could eat extra and it wouldn't matter! I had been sticking to 1300-1400 calories per day before that. As soon as I started this 28 day challenge, the number crept up into the 1500s. If I stayed within my calorie range at all, that is - most days I didn't.

So yeah, two weeks later I'm here to admit that I've had a very bad two weeks. For every one day that I've stayed in my range, there have been easily three days that I haven't. A four week lapse between weigh-ins is not a good idea for me.

And so I'm here to say that weekly weigh-ins are coming back. I'm not weighing in tomorrow, because frankly I don't even want to know how much damage I've done. But I'll be back weighing in next Monday. And I'll be here every Monday from there on out. I need a deadline to keep me honest! And that deadline can't be more than a week away, apparently.

So, for the next week, I'll be doing the five parts of my 28 day challenge, and I'll try to post my results in here every day. I can't guarantee I'll always remember, but I'll try. And I'll weigh in on Monday to show how I've done.

Here's to a better week, full of exercise, calorie control, and a lot more discipline.

Wednesday

Another day, another post! I'm on a roll!

Today's stats:

Calories: 1494
Fruit: An apple and a banana
Water: 8 cups
Exercise: 22 minutes on the elliptical
Scale: nope!

Tuesday This Week

I'm back! Woo! Here are my results for the day:

Calories: 1471
Fruit: One apple
Water: 8 1/2 cups
Exercise: 21.5 minutes on the elliptical
Scale: Nope. :)

A little better on the calories today - I like the number being in the 1300s or 1400s. Better on the elliptical. It's amazing how much ground I lost in a month and a half of not going to the gym! I did fine today as far as my cardiovascular system was concerned, but my thighs got very sore. I'll get back there soon enough. If I did 21 1/2 minutes tonight, maybe I can do 25 tomorrow.

So, a good day! Here's to another one tomorrow.