TeresaNJ's Journal, comments, tips and advice appreciated!!

[TeresaNJ]

Saturday, May 3, 2003

I'm starting this today, even though I'm not "officially" starting Alex's Atkins Weight Loss Challenge until tomorrow. Let me begin by saying that I hate to diet, hate to exercise and hate counting points, calories, carbs and anything else! Not much to work with there in terms of losing weight, eh? Anyway, I'm 46, swiftly approaching 47, and while I look pretty good for my age, I don't feel healthy. I'm about 20 pounds overweight, but some days feel like I am dragging around an extra 50 pounds. I really want to get in better shape, and to do this, I know I must start on an exercise program, and establish better eating habits.

I'm not a junk food eater for the most part, but I do love salty foods such as sunflower seeds and potatoe chips, and I adore high carb foods such as breads, cereal and pasta. One of my favorite meals is a broccoli rabe sandwich on a hard Italian roll! I have never been a big meat eater, so that is going to be a switch for me.

One of my other "vices" is smoking. I know, I know, please don't tell me how bad it is for me. Especially with me being a nurse. I use to smoke as a teenager, from 16-19, and then quit until 7 years ago when my dad died suddenly. It was such a shock and so stressful that I picked up one of my brother's cigarettes and smoke it, and then smoked a few more. The next thing you know, two years went by! My DH challenged me to give them up, and I did, cold turkey, until two years ago when I underwent the biggest stress in my life ever. Of course, I started smoking again. Some days I have only a few, some days a half a pack, some days a whole pack if I'm really stressed. I am going to give them up for good, some time in the near future I hope. I'm just not quite ready yet. They are definitely my big crutch. I figure it's better to smoke than drink, or do drugs, LOL. I'm still not completely recovered from my life changing experience of two years ago, but I'm getting there. So the cigarettes are part of my coping mechanism. Why, I don't know. But there it is.

For today I've eaten so far some slices of liverwurst, shrimp and Chinese veggies, and have had several cups of coffee with powdered creamer. Can't give up the coffee and am going to go buy some cream today.

We're going out to dinner tonight with my sister and her husband and my best friend and her husband to a Japanese restaurant sort of like a Benihana's. I vow to eat no carbs at dinner, and no dessert.

Be back later!

 

[SnowAngel]

Good Luck. How are you doing?

 

[TeresaNJ]

Oh my gosh, was the last time I looked at my journal really seven months ago?? I'm ashamed of myself! I am really sick of this extra weight. My pants are so tight I feel like I've got a corset on, and my reflux is so bad from everything being so restricted, LOL!! I told my DH that this is it, I am losing this extra weight, and he can join me or not, but he is getting pretty chubby too. So he agreed to join me, hurray. We're suppose to be doing the Disney half-marathon in 2005, but at the rate we're going, we'd be rolling it rather than running it!! So, I joined WW, and this time I am committed like never before. Today I had one hard boiled egg, and one hard boiled egg-white and a pear for breakfast, a cup of chicken gumbo soup, spinach, stewed tomatoes, and half a grapefruit for lunch, and some sushi, peel and eat shrimp with lemon juice, and crab legs for dinner. I drank over 64 oz of water, and although I didn't work out today, I plan on doing it first thing tomorrow morning. I'm hoping I stick this out. It would be so wonderful to put my pants on and have them be comfortable, or even a little loose! Let's see, I was 155 this morning, and hopefully this time next week I'll weigh less than that.

 

[TammyNC]

You can do this and by posting again and joining WW you are proving that you are serious. I am planning on walking the 1/2 marathon in 2005 and I know you and DH can do it too. Drinking water is so important and it can be harder in the winter time to get it in. You are doing great in that department. Keep up your hard work.

 

[TeresaNJ]

Thanks Tammy for the encouragement. (I posted this part on the main WDW Marathon Training Thread, and copied it here to my journal so I didn't have to repeat myself.) Yesterday we went to the high school track and walked 2 miles and jogged 1/2 mile. First we walked one lap, then stretched, then jogged one lap, fast walked a lap, jogged another lap, then fast walked the rest. My husband then wanted to run up the bleachers a few times, but I told him he was nuts! I'm lucky I did as much as I did. Today we only walked a mile around the track as it started to rain, and I wasn't enjoying it. DH said, "what if it rains during the Disney 1/2 marathon", and I said, that's different cause we'll be at WDW!! We're hoping it stops raining sometime today so we can finish another mile. I don't think we'll be doing any jogging today though, just walking, as my legs are a little sore. I think we definitely need to come up with a plan as to how we're going to conduct this training though, mostly so we can keep track of what we're doing, and to see a definite progress.

The hard part yd was that DH and I were meeting our best friends, Kathy & Frank, down the shore in Ocean City, to celebrate their 30th annivesary. We walked the boards, took some pictures of the ocean, etc., and bought no snacks except a bag of roasted peanuts in the shell, as we were starving, but only ate a few. Fortunately, it being winter, only a few places were actually open, but there were pizza places, fudge and candy shops, and a few other nonos available, but we were good.

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant, so that was kinda hard. I did have some bread, but no butter, and no dessert, and I didn't finish all of my pasta, so I was somewhat happy about that. After dinner we all went back to the condo K&F were staying at and watched the rest of the playoff football game, and I had one Coconut Rum & diet coke. So all in all, I think I did pretty good.

 

[Octoberbride03]

Welcome back to the Journal Teresa

Hope you find yourself a lot more successful this time around. You have plenty of time for the 1/2 marathon at WDW, so good luck with training. Remember to have a good stretching routine b4 and after your jogs though so you don't damage your joints or tendons.