Week...well....Hm.

Let's call it the end of a very, very long week 23, shall we?

It's been a crazy, great summer, though. And even with not staying on plan - or anywhere near it, really! - I've maintained the weight loss I had at the end of March.

Some highlights -

April, of course, we got married.  He left one job and then went back but on our terms.  No more opening shifts and 2 set days off per week, cross-training and raises, and supervisor training.  Which lasted not so long, of course.  While they never scheduled him opening again, his hours were all over the place between 7am and 5pm, and anywhere from 15-40 hours.  He was one of the few that were supposed to get no less than 30 hours per week period.  And those 2 set days off?  Happened maybe 4 weeks total.

May - we got the Nutri Ninja and I love it for my shakes.  I add a handful of spinach, a touch of vanilla extract, and then if it's the strawberry shake I add some sugar-free strawberry syrup because otherwise I can't really drink it - it's not my favorite.  If I have the vanilla shake then I'll add caramel syrup (sugar-free) and powdered peanut butter.  I haven't used it nearly as much as I should be, though.

June was rough for me - I had to realize that I just couldn't do my coaching sessions over the phone on my lunch breaks anymore.  There have been changes at work and they're not being quite as flexible about schedule changes - holding the non-phone people to the phone scheduling system (which can literally change your break time during your shift!).  But I do have the local branch now and I started going there and I really like my new coach.

July - 2 birthdays (including a 40th!) and still with the hot weather.  I can't walk outside in the heat hardly at all so I spent my breaks sitting.  I can tell, too.  I'm stiff and achy again.  I did go see a personal trainer twice and realized I am definitely stronger than I think!  I'm right around average to above average (except in sit-ups, ha!).  He had me use a TRX system the first time and I loved it.  The second session was a punching bag and medicine ball - and I loved that too!  (I think I like aggressive outlets....haha)

August - yeah, more heat.  Oh, and the Farmer's Market?  On the one day we can go, they have almost no actual produce but a few vendors with things like jams, kettlecorn, and a few other things I don't remember.  It was super disappointing for us.  I'm sure they probably had more things on the other days/hours they were open - but we couldn't get there so it didn't help us much.  We've been hitting Safeway, though, and their produce is pretty good in general.

September flew by.  I'd go on and off plan - and finally just took the month.  I cancelled my coaching sessions and did some digging around and thinking and I feel like I've sorted some things out.  The biggest thing is that I'm not beating myself up over "falling off the wagon."  It happened, but I still had learned some things and am listening to my body a lot more.  I  bit the bullet and ordered "DDPYoga" - because this video is so inspiring:

I also made the decision to start walking 1 mile twice a day - when I wake up and before I go to bed.  So I got the okay from Dad to move the coffee table into the back room.  I'll use my WATP dvds for the walking - I'll alternate days with DDPYoga with resistance band strength training.

I also disabled my Facebook account - and a month later I'm not missing it one bit.  AND my husband finally left that other job for good.  He got an offer at a wooden toy manufacturer, tried to talk to his manager to give her two weeks' notice and she kept blowing him off, so after 2 days (the amount of time he told the new employer he would get back to him with a start date) - he finished out that week's schedule and quit.  And it felt so good....for all of us!  He's now working M-F 8-430, what a blessing!

So October - we're 8 days in and where am I?  Well, October first we did this:

From the Crazy Horse Memorial website: The bi-annual Crazy Horse Volksmarch (an organized hike) is a 10K or 6.2-mile woodlands ramble to the world’s largest mountain carving in progress in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota.

It was definitely a challenge and towards the end of the uphill climb I think I was stopping every 50 feet or so.  The level part coming back wasn't much better - my feet HURT.  But I DID IT.  And I used the exercise tracking option on my FitBit and it said I did it in 4 hours.  I had a feeling it would take that long - and I'm not at all disappointed.  It's a HIKE.

So - I will try to get back to weekly posts - there's some Skoolie updates, too - slow progress but progress!  He's framing now and once that is all figured out the rest should go fairly quickly.  And I have to go find the clearance lights!

Until next time!

Week 23 Profile by Sanford

Hello!

So, I was still pretty off-plan this last week although I did make some better choices, such as taking advantage of Panera's Rapid Pick Up service - I'd order a customized salad on the app and schedule it to be ready when I dropped my husband off and there was my lunch!  It's been hard finding and keeping decent salads/mixes at home lately....

Up a bit this week - understandable as there's not been a lot of walking and not getting all my water in most days either.

So back to the walking I must get!  I found some great beginner resistance tube workouts on Pinterest and when my husband gets home this afternoon we're going to talk about food and exercise.  He's been wanting to get back on his bicycle and I would like to get back on mine as well.  It's been really hard for him - he's used to bicycling everywhere and hasn't been able to do much at all since we got here a bit over a year ago.  There are some local people on the Profile Facebook group and we're hoping to schedule a weekly meetup at Planet Fitness - I think that will be fun!

My coach and I finally reconnected this week; it feels like it's been forever since we've talked!  And she was kind of sly in putting in the, "You don't think you can make yourself a priority?" in the conversation.  And she's right.  My biggest issue, I thought, was that I don't like a lot of vegetables.  So we agreed that veggies would be my focus this week.  So I took out my Profile guide out and wrote down a list of veggies I like, veggies that I'm "meh" about, and veggies I'd like to try.  It's a bit of a long list!  But Friday, as we were at the grocery store getting things together for a Father's Day picnic, I realized what is probably more of the problem.  I wanted to make rollups instead of sandwiches for myself and for that I needed romaine lettuce.  Granted, we only went to that big box store we all know and dislike, and so that might have been part of it.  But of the 7 or 8 packages of romaine, all had brown tips, bug holes, and slimy spots (and 1 ladybug!).  So I'm wondering if it's more of a "I like veggies but can't find decent produce!" thing?  So I'm busily pinning recipes (and if you have any suggestions, please post them below!) and what I might do is make a "master list" to take to the Farmer's Market Tuesday night.  Then for at least a few days I can have good veggies and may have to figure out leftovers and frozen or tricks (like spinach in the strawberry shake!) for the rest of the week.

So goals this week are to get strength training in 3 days a week, bike with my husband 2-3 days a week, meet up at PF 1 day a week, and walk on all my breaks!

On the Skoolie front, they got the flooring in!  We went with a hardwood laminate and then opted to lay it sideways instead of length-wise and we're all pretty tickled with it!

My husband has sketched in wall framing and we got 1 more package of hardwood flooring (but a different style that was less expensive) - we were short about 10 square feet to also do under the bed so we'll use up the flooring above and put the new flooring where it won't be visible along the walls.  Easy finish option as it will all be level and no hard thought required!!  Those first 2 open spaces on the right (well, the corner of the first one!) are where the benches will go for the dinette.  Then the floored section after is where the sink/Panda washing machine/water heater will go.  Then bathroom area.  That black stock tank is our shower tub!!  And it's back by where the bed will go.  Coming back down, the wheel well you can see on the left will be where the closet will be built, then fridge, cooktop, and new countertop oven we decided would be better than our toaster oven, countertop, and then a quasi-entertainment center - it will be countertop that sits lower than the kitchen countertop (level with the bottom of the windows, whereas the kitchen countertop will be taller and a more workable working height) and will be where a TV or computer monitor will go, and will hold games and home office supplies and probably some of our art stuff, too.  Getting there!!  With more of a set schedule, hopefully they can get a lot more progress done and soon so we can give it a good test!!

My little Ukulele loom came in from Windhaven Fiber Tools last Friday!!  I'm still waiting on the Accordian loom, but this little guy is such fun!!  Dad made the jig for me once I determined the best length heddle to make and hopefully the piece of scrap wood we selected is long enough for the Accordian heddles too - but if not, we can always find more scrap wood!!  Then I'll get corks to put over the tops of the nails to prevent hurting anyone accidentally!

And in the short amount of time I've had it, I've gone from this:

To this:

And last night I was working on this:

So I've definitely been having fun with that!  There's some fun tablet weaving patterns I want to try but I'm afraid that unless I made 1-inch tablets/cards, it's not at all feasible with this little guy!  (Doesn't mean I won't try later on!)  But there are some lovely patterns out there and I've got plenty to play with!

Until next time!

H

Weeks 19-22 Profile by Sanford

Wow - time has flown!  We've had birthdays, holidays, sickness, accidents, and family visits.  Job changes, job changes again, and hot hot weather!  I think we literally went from still running the wood stove to where's the air conditioner in less than 24 hours at one point!

I have been as off-plan as off-plan can get, too.  I've maintained the weight loss, though, which says a lot as previously I've always gained it back after being off-plan for so long. That tells me that the mental side of it is kicking in and I'm making better choices.

In there I had my birthday and Memorial Day and Mother's Day...all bad for the waistline if you let them!  Last week I had a cold bad enough to keep me home from work for 2 days and still coughing a week later.  But finally feeling mostly back to normal.  That means, of course, not a lot of walking has been happening because it was really  hard to breathe.  My Fitbit stats reflect that a little bit - for brevity I'm only posting the most recent week:

But I'm already ansty to get back to walking and you can see by Monday and Tuesday I was ready to go!  I've purchased some resistance bands from Profile by Sanford and will be adding strength training to me repertoire somehow.  That's part of today's tasks, to figure that out!

On the weight loss front, I'm not quite to Twodorland but I'm super close!!

For reference:

That's a whole lotta fast food!!

My sister-in-law's parents are in town and we had a lovely visit with them, going to Bear Country, USA and then lunch at Famous Dave's - and I think the 3 ladies were the only ones who weren't regretting eating there!  I had the catfish fingers (breaded and fried but not greasy which is nice!) and garlic mashed potatoes and 1 corn bread muffin.  I was satisfied without having gone overboard.

Earlier this week we were in a 4-car accident - thankfully no serious injuries!  Everyone walked away!  One lady did get checked over by the EMTs but she went home with her daughter and her other daughter drove that car home - although I'm sure it's a total loss.  We were at an intersection, fully stopped, waiting for the SUV in front of us to turn left and she was waiting for oncoming traffic to open up so she could do so safely.  A pickup that had been jacked up and "tricked out" rear-ended car #1, pushing that into car #2, pushing car #2 into our rear end, lifting it and moving us forward 2 feet.  We have an '02 Durango, not a light vehicle at all, and again, fully stopped, brakes fully engaged.  Car #1 was crumpled, multiple fluids leaking, but driver was safe.  Car #2 rear end was crumpled, and passenger side fender was crumpled.  Both will most likely be considered a total loss by insurance.  We sustained minor damage - the hitch we just put on a few weeks ago needs to be replaced as does the bumper and bumper assembly.  But it's drive-able, the parts will be in in a few days, and it will be back to the way it was.  The advantages of a good solid vehicle!  We did go to Urgent Care and get checked out - my brother had literally just gotten off the plane coming home from a conference and he came to follow us over to make sure we were good and the Durango was good.  Yay brother to the rescue! ☺

I did purchase a Nutri Ninja with Auto-iQ so I can start making my shakes into smoothies, including adding spinach to the strawberry one.  I had a gift card yet from Christmas to use which helped - but since I'd killed the store-brand version when we were in Ohio, I figured a Ninja should serve me well!

Things should be getting back on track - more so now that we've ironed some things out with my husband's employer.  He took a leave of absence (they didn't want him to quit when he found a different job - that job didn't work out as well as we'd hoped) and agreed to come back on our terms - no more opening and specific hours availability, and basically set days off unless absolutely necessary.  He also wanted some recognition for the fact that the majority of the customer comments/compliments mention him by name, that he's the only one who has yet to call off since they opened, he has the experience others don't but is still stuck at the cash register.  So he received training to become a trainer and is in line for supervisor training, finally.  That means I can schedule things accordingly - like meeting local Profile people once a week.  And it means being able to schedule workout times for strength training.

Until next time!

H

Happy April!!!

I hope everyone had a safe April Fool's Day!! :-) I slept through mine, which is probably a good thing!! LOL

Just a quick update. My new WIP is not going to be the Lion Brand shrug, but rather this one. The Tutu yarn was too expensive, so instead I am using Caron Simply Soft in Rubine Red (I think, but it's a really BRIGHT pink! LOL) and for the ribbing on the sleeve cuffs and around the body I am using Bernat Boa in "Chick". It shouldn't take too long to do up, and I can't wait to wear it!! I'm picturing it with a black sleeveless polo I have, or white tees, or I have a floral shirt that it would be perfect with.

I weigh in tomorrow, but I am not thinking there will be much in the weight loss department. My perserverance has taken a vacation, unfortunately. I did get the book from the library, and photocopied the pages I wanted. I plan on modifying it a bit in that instead of using 3 pound dumbbells and isometric/dynamic tension, I will use a resistance tube. And somehow start Monday, even if I am coming off of night shift!! :-) I also plan on walking my dog most days this week (Thursday might be tricky since I work day shift) and hitting the gym at least twice.

On that note...I better go study some more. Thanks for checking in, sorry it was a rather dull post this time around. Until next time!!

Heather