A little normalcy

So last month, my dear boyfriend was told that his days of working from home were over. Not just for him, but for his whole team. He's been working from home since around 2005-2006, somewhere in there, because his job required quite a bit of travel. The travel has been less and less over the past few years [minus the basically 6 months he spent over in Europe a couple of years ago], and finally the powers that be decided it was time for all of them to come back into the office.

Now when I would tell most people that he worked from home, they would usually exclaim, "Oh, how nice for the both of you! You get to spend all of that time together since you don't work!"

Pfft.

PFFT, I SAY.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. But when you're with someone basically 24/7, things can get kind of ... well, sometimes it blows. I'll just be upfront about that. If you're one of those "OMG Schmoopsie and I do EVERYTHING together and I cry when he goes to the bathroom" kind of girls, more power to ya. I'm not one of those girls.

Plus, I have to admit, his working from home took a toll on his health. Mine, too. Too many McDonald lunches. Too much sitting around. Too many naps. Too many days in sweatpants and stretchy shorts that let you gain a pound or two [or forty] and you don't really notice.

When he told me he'd be going back to the office on September 2nd, I was shamefully excited. I started looking for dinner ideas. I thought about how I would clean the house. I thought about how getting out of the house daily would help him, too.

I might have taken advantage of my future plans in the past couple of weeks. I sat around. I played games. I didn't cook or clean or anything if I could help it. Things were going to change, and I wanted to wallow in the slothiness that had become our life.

Today when I woke up, the house was quiet. I got up, watched 2 hours of Gilmore Girls while I had breakfast [slow scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast], I tried on some jeans that I'd bought last year that didn't fit. They fit now. I don't know why they do, but they do. I put on a cute top, put my hair up, put on makeup. I went out to the grocery stores to buy items for the next few meals.

I feel calm. It feels so normal. Right now, I have potatoes cooling before I chop up veggies to make potato salad. I have some beautiful steaks just waiting to be seasoned and grilled when he comes home. The house is still kinda messy, but it's nice to know that tomorrow as I have dinner in the slow cooker, I can take my time cleaning it up. When he comes home tonight, we'll have dinner and actually have something to talk about. Oh, that's the other thing about his working from home. We had nothing big to talk about except the cat because both of us had seen and done the same things all day long. No bueno.

Yogurt for lunch today, since tonight's meal is big. And no pics, so here, shake it off.

A Brief Freedom From Fat And Other Stuff

Yeah, I know. I haven't been here in a while. We'll skip the obligatory "This is why I wasn't here" stuff because I'm here now and that's what counts.


So sometimes I forget I'm fat.

No, no. Not in the "Hell yeah, everyone's looking at me because I look damn good with my four foot wide ass in these booty shorts." Trust me. I'll never be THAT girl.

Some mornings in that little dreamy spot between asleep and awake, I'm not fat. I make plans to leap out of bed, dance around the bedroom, paint my toenails, go for a run, do some shopping therapy for new dresses at Old Navy, bounce around the house and clean it... all of those things.

But when you're very overweight, those are just plans you have most of the time. You don't bounce or leap. Your knees and ankles wouldn't have it. You don't always dance around because you're tired. Cheap shopping therapy is out unless you want accessories because nothing really fits. You drag yourself out of bed and do the minimum of what you need to do because doing more can make you more tired, or hurt you.

I'm not looking for pity. Oh believe me, I realize that I've mostly done this to myself. Yeah, I do have some issues that makes weight loss really hard [let's face it, I worked out at the gym, had weekly personal training sessions, and ate right for a year and only lost 10 pounds in the altogether], but I'm not dumb enough to put all of the responsibility on a few health issues when I know very well that I sit too much and eat crap sometimes.

Today, though, I didn't think about being fat. Not really.

A few days ago, one of my Facebook friends posted a little article about magnesium deficiency. She's a registered nurse, but is "medium crunchy" in that she posts things about how to make yourself feel better naturally if possible rather than immediately going the pharmaceutical route.

I read the article. Then I read it again. A lot of it clicked with me. The insomnia, the irritability, the depression. I hadn't told anyone, but I honestly haven't been doing so great in the past few months. I haven't been sad all of the time, but I haven't been happy iether. I've mostly just been numb when I'm not angry. Then I headed to Google and on Wellness Mama's blog, she discussed it more in depth.

And I was shocked.

Out of the list of 26 symptoms that you might have if you are magnesium deficient, I had 19.

On her page, she mentioned the product Natural Calm. I skipped over to Amazon and took a look at the reviews. Out of just over 800 reviews, 600+ people gave five stars! I looked up several other review sites online for the product and the reviews were all just glowing. I really really wanted to get some! Luckily for me, our local Sprouts carries it and for $5 less than on Amazon.

I'll admit, though. I was a skeptic. I didn't think it would work. I mean, c'mon. I have all these issues! They can't be just related to me needing magnesium. A simple fix like this? No way. Nuh uh. Maybe it works for other people but it won't work for me.

But I tried it anyway. After all, why not? Then I would be able to say that I tried and it wasn't that so something else is making me crazy and sick.

I followed some of what other reviewers said to do. Just 1/4 of a teaspoon in some warm water at night. Magnesium is a laxative if taken in a bigger amount [think Milk of Magnesia] so I didn't want a big blow out or anything.

The first night I did it, I slept like a baby. I woke up and I didn't feel like I wanted to kill someone right away.

That night, I made my little mixture and went to bed. When I woke up, I didn't actively feel like death.

Last night, I took my little mixture. I had trouble falling asleep because of the coffee I'd had at 8pm but still, when I got to sleep, I slept well.

Today I was able to forget about my fat for a while. I cleaned the kitchen a bit, and the living room. I vacuumed. I cleaned out my cat's litter box and scrubbed her water dispenser and her food dish. I sang and danced all afternoon in the house. I opened all the curtains to let the sunshine in. I didn't even think about food. I felt good. I felt happy. I didn't feel like this massive, depressed, overly anxious, superfat person that I've felt like for months. I mostly felt like me again.

Of course, tonight I'm paying a bit for my little "Fat freedom." My feet hurt and my body is tired. But it's good, you know? It feels good.

I'll keep taking my Natural Calm. I'll keep seeing if there's some kind of improvement. If this was one of the fixes that I needed in my life, $20 is an awfully small price to pay for it.

And it hasn't given me the runs. So you know...there's that.

Day 9 - Maybe My Head Will Fall Off

It's been a bad body week for me. I'm blaming it on the full moon.

So there was the dizzy episode at the gym on Sunday. I have come up with several other reasons why it may have happened, but now I think I'm so anxious that it might happen again, I'm deliberately making myself dizzy. Anxiety is fun, y'all.

Then 3 days ago, I went to the grocery store and I guess I stepped wrong because oh my GOD, does my foot hurt. Mostly when I point it, and not all the time, and it's happened before, but holy cow. I'm trying to stay off it, but sometimes it feels better if I walk. And sometimes it hurts so much I need to sit. I don't know.

Yesterday, my boyfriend was trying to solder a metal strip onto a watering can that he'd bought. The decorative strip came just hanging on to the can on one side when he opened the package. He asked if I could pull and hold the strip down while he clamped it. So I did. But he wanted it tight, so I went to slide my finger to tighten it and... SLICE!

Oh. My. God.

It's a good thing that blood doesn't freak me out. I ran to wash the cut and then applied pressure while he got bandaids and antibiotic cream. It doesn't hurt right now, but typing sucks with this bandage on my fingertip and I need to shower soon and it's going to suck to wash my hair.

What else can happen this week? My head could fall off, I guess?

By the way, that watering can is bad news bears because in the course of his little project [the can is to be modified so that a hose can run through it and into the pond], he burnt his leg and cut his finger, too. I told him that he should leave a bad review on Amazon that the watering can has now hurt the entire family, including the cat. [She's fine, but she could have been stabbed in the eye with the loose strip.]

So what else is new?

Since I've deemed myself too injured [and let's face it, too clumsy] for exercise this week, I've been doing a lot of reading and catching up on some TV shows. I've been reading some of Alice Walker's books, but to be honest, the only one I really enjoy is The Color Purple. Maybe because, since it's mostly written in Celie's voice, it doesn't feel quite as pretentious as The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing The Secret of Joy.

Speaking of pretentious, does anyone else watch Pretty Wicked Moms? My best friend got me into this show, and I'm kind of [ashamedly] enthralled with these womens' mostly ridiculous lives. But can we talk for a minute about Emily's earrings?

She wears these earrings in almost every single episode! And one time they showed her going to sleep in them! Given that she runs a fashion boutique, you'd think she'd want to wear all kinds of things. Even funnier, there's a YouTube video of her boutique from 2010 and she's wearing those SAME EARRINGS. I'm going to guess they were passed down from her great grandma or something and she has an incredible sentimental attachment to them, because I can't think of another reason for a supposed fashionista to wear the same tired old earrings for 3+ years.

I'm making chicken yakitori again tonight. Well, kind of. I'm using the sauce but just grilling full thighs and zucchini rather than making skewers. After this past week, I don't actually trust myself with a knife and wooden skewers at this point. I'd probably end up making some chicken coated punji stick.

Day 8 - I'm not a doctor but I've watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy

So I'm super medication sensitive. I can't take many things. I get side effects to pretty much everything, which is about as fun as it sounds.

This morning I tried a little packet of Amazing Grass Green Superfood. You add it to water, milk, smoothies, etc, and it has a bunch of vitamins and herbs and grass. Surprisingly, it tasted pretty much okay. I got it in the Orange Dreamsicle flavor. I drank it with breakfast this morning, and then a couple of hours later, I headed to the gym.

Now today was the first time I've been to the gym since getting my House Targaryen t-shirt. I wanted to be all kick-ass and Mother of Dragons at the gym! But well, Daenerys would have been ashamed of me because what happened next was stupid.

I thought that I'd do a strength training workout and then finish with some cardio on the treadmill. So I got in there and started out with a workout that Seth had me do back when I first started. 30 minutes in, and I thought, "Well, I'll do some step ups and squats with the weights." Things were going fine and then BAM! DIZZY SPELL.

Luckily I was standing right next to a bench when it happened, so I sat down quickly. But as scary as it should have been, my main thought was, "Oh HELLLLLL no. I'm not going to be the fat girl who dies in the gym and then my story is told to high school girls about not killing yourself working out if you're already superfat."

So I sat for about 5 minutes until the dizziness passed, got my stuff, and drove home.

My first thought was that maybe my blood sugar got too low. Usually when I go to the gym, I go within an hour of eating but this time I went later. As soon as I got home, I drank some juice and got a protein shake. Then I thought, well, I must not have been breathing correctly throughout my workout. That does tend to happen when I'm lifting just because I'm so focused on my form and what I'm doing, I forget to breathe.

But throughout the day, I've felt "off." A little dizzy still, a little bit not right. I sat here thinking about what I ate and what it might be. The only thing different that I had today was the Green Superfood. Since Google is my friend, I looked up if there were any side effects.

Two things popped out at me. One was maca. Now a lot of people, TONS of people, take maca supplements with no problem. But in some people, it causes dizziness and nausea. Hey, bingo!!

The second thing was stevia. I'm not really familiar with stevia because since I tend to be a little sensitive to artificial sweeteners, I don't use them a lot. I tend to use regular sugar, or honey, or nothing at all. I decided to look up side effects to stevia.

WELL WELL WELL.

From 3 Fat Chicks, some side effects of stevia are: Dizziness, bloating and nausea, low blood sugar, and low blood pressure. Also, stevia comes from the ragweed family, and guess who is allergic to ragweed? This girl!

So I am going to assume that these effects are not long lasting and I'll feel better tomorrow. But unfortunately, I can't use the other two packets of Superfood I bought. This is definitely NOTHING against the product or the Amazing Grass company at ALL. But this does bring me to a big realization: I need to stop just taking supplements without doing a LOT of research first so that I know exactly what it is I'm taking.

I think that eating regular meals with real food will do me a ton better than all these supplements and drinks I insist on buying just because they claim health and good benefits. Real food, real exercise. That's the prescription I'm giving myself.

Day 7 - Insomniac

Okay, you know, I pledged 31 days of posts, and dammit, I'm gonna do 31 days of posts. So let's pick up where we left off and even if it takes me until next year, I'm doing 31 flippin' posts.

I've had issues with insomnia since I was a kid. I also used to have sleepwalking issues, but thankfully I outgrew that before I got too big to handle. One time my sister caught me trying to get out of the house and when she asked me what I was doing, I said I was going to get the dog out of the box. Well then.

I can go a while without having too much insomnia, but when it does hit me, it's a mess. And unfortunately, that's been my life the past month or so. I WAS doing fine. In bed by 11, asleep by midnight, up by 8. It was all good.

But lately...not so much. If I'm asleep before 4am, it's a surprise to me. If I'm out of bed before 11, it's even more of a surprise. Since my schedule is pretty flexible [meaning: I don't actually have one], this isn't truly a huge deal. Except, you know, it is. When my sleep is all weird like that, I can't seem to make myself do much the rest of the day. I'm truly more of a night owl than anything else, but I do notice a huge change in my productivity levels when I sleep from midnight until 8 than when I sleep from 4 to 11.

Last night was pretty much the worst it's been, though. I tried! I took a melatonin, I got in bed by midnight, I really tried to sleep. But things keep making it impossible. My boyfriend was BLASTING some music in his office and it sounded like the symphony was right there in the bedroom. The cat patted my back just as I was dozing off, jerking me out sleep because I was pretty sure it was monsters. When I did finally fall asleep, somehow in my dream, Chevy Chase was yelling "IT'S THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. THE OL' MISS. THE MIGHTY MISS-IS-SIP!" over and over until I woke up. For whatever reason, it scared me, which is stupid. I really like the movie Vacation.

So after tossing, turning, and watching the Footloose remake [Kenny Wormald, you will never be Kevin Bacon], I decided to get up. Took a Zegerid for the acid reflux I've been having again lately, waited an hour, took off my glitter nail polish disaster, waved a wet towel around the room trying to get rid of the smell before Don woke up and started complaining about nail polish remover, turned on my fan to high, scared the cat because seriously? Who waves a wet towel around at 6am? And then it was breakfast time.

I thought I'd just make a couple of eggs, but I discovered some extra zucchini that I had leftover from when I made the yakitori. So I diced one up, along with some mushroom, and decided to make a fritatta.





Also, I figured the smell of cooking zucchini and mushrooms might help the nail polish remover smell. I don't care about the smell myself, but someone has a delicate baby nose and he can't handle any smell that isn't cookies or tacos.

After I poured the egg into the vegetables, along with a little bit of diced ham and shredded cheese, I decided that I didn't feel like making a fritatta, which involves baking, and I'd just make an omelet. But well, then it just ended up being a scramble because you know what? I maybe got 3 hours of sleep and I don't care what society says about my eggs.





Do you like my extra fancy paper plate?

I popped all the ingredients into My Fitness Pal just out of curiosity and got this as a result:





Yes, I do try to always use real butter. I realize that it's higher in calories than a light margarine, but have you ever actually looked at the ingredients in those "light" spreads? There are 14 ingredients in Blue Bonnet light margarine to make it 50 calories a tablespoon. There are 2 ingredients in butter: cream and salt. Personally, I feel better about butter. I could have left out the ham and cheese, too, but I have read a lot of things that say it's okay to have a big breakfast to get your day started. Of course, there are probably as many things that say if you don't start your day with one strawberry and a cup of black coffee, you're doomed to a life of being superfat, but I tend not to believe those. Also, at my weight, my calorie goal for weight loss is almost 1900 calories a day. So for ME, this breakfast is awesome. For you, you might need to take it down a notch. Of course, if you work out, the calories in this will be probably be burned off in an hour.

Speaking of working out, I'm going to attempt the gym today. I'm thinking maybe if I really wear myself out today, I can sleep tonight. Here's hoping!

Day..Whoops.

Okay, so I kinda suck at this whole update every day thing. But considering I'm not actually sure if anyone is reading this, I guess it doesn't matter. :)

There are some weeks where my motivation is super high. I can power through any workout, eat well, sleep well, etc. But there are other weeks when my brain is saying, "Yes. DO THIS. You must!" And my body says, "LOLNOPE."

Because when you're superfat, sometimes your body makes the decisions for you. My brain might say, "GO GO GO!" but my legs say, "Naw gurl. Ain't happenin'." It's not a mind over matter thing. Your legs HONESTLY cannot go. Your feet hurt. Your arms feel heavy even without holding a weight. To push yourself means risking an injury because you know your form will be totally off.

It's been one of those weeks for me.

But, I know it won't last forever.

I tried out a new recipe yesterday - the chicken and zucchini yakitori from Skinnytaste. It was DELICIOUS.





I used rice wine vinegar in place of the sake because I don't drink and it would have been kind of worthless for me to buy a bottle of sake just to use 2 tablespoons of it. I also squirted in some sriracha because I love sweet and spicy. I had a couple of pounds of chicken thighs, so I doubled the recipe for the sauce. I also skewered in some baby bella mushrooms because those are my faves. I think I could have eaten every single skewer!! It was a party in my mouth and I didn't want to invite anyone because I wanted everything for myself. Even my boyfriend seemed to like them, and he is super picky!

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I don't want to make big claims of going to the gym and all that because I'm not sure how I'll feel tomorrow. But we can always hope, right? :)

Day 6 - Fitting Is Cool

So the other day when I was laying outside in the sunshine, I managed to hurt the toes in my left foot. I know, right? Only me. But I think when I went down on the ground, I bent them just a little too much, and as a result, ouch. It's mostly just my 2nd and 3rd toes, but it's left it kind of hard to walk around too much. I've done this before, on my other foot, by kicking the wall in my sleep. I know it'll go away on its own but it's hard to wait!

I did manage to get out a bit today AND I wore my new Game of Thrones shirt! [Btw, they're having a limited sale again on the shirts, so if you're looking for your own, head over to Pop Up Tee to get in on it!!] It was awesome to be able to wear it out and about and not feel self conscious in it. That was my biggest fear, that it wouldn't really fit and I'd have to wait to wear it. I think I'll love it even more when it's more loose! But yay for fitting!

Since I was trying not to move around too much today because of my toes, I thought I'd pull the camera out and attempt to do a little vlog that did not involve my face. Hahaha... My house did NOT come out very well in the video! I think if I plan on doing any vlogging, a BIG clean up of this house is going to have to take place.

Cleaning house burns calories? Right??