Mmm, food

That is my attitude this morning. I got up at 5:30 but have accomplished just about nothing. Well, the kids are both bathed. And I'm dressed. That's it.

I've been feeling very food-oriented today. My meal plan is off for the week since DH couldn't find (or forgot) a few very important things on the grocery list. When I went in to eat breakfast this morning, I found that we had no oatmeal. For a second, I was seriously tempted to eat a piece or two of leftover pizza. Then I realized how ridiculous that sounded. "We didn't have any oatmeal, so I had pizza instead." I settled for cereal, but I did eat some pieces of krab meat a few hours after that. And they were good. I could go for some more.

Sometimes I think that I would rather be fat than moderate my eating. If it weren't for my family history of diabetes, I think that might very well end up being the case. As it is, I'm apparently becoming hypersensitive to sodium since my fingers are swollen every morning when I wake up. (30 or 40 ounces of water usually makes it go down, but it's annoying.)

I'm going to try very hard not to eat until lunch. I have no idea what we'll be eating, but I do know that I have plenty to do to keep me occupied until then. It's just a matter of doing it.

Goodbye, blog

Well, not really. Catchy, though, right? The reason I say goodbye is that my mother's house has only--wait for it--dial-up internet. The horror. She is looking into getting satellite internet so that she can talk to my brother on Yahoo Messenger or something similar when he gets to Iraq. Since she lives in the country, she can't get cable under normal circumstances. DH works for the cable company, though, so he's trying to get them to pull some strings and install cable access out there. They're going to have to do it sooner or later--housing developments are springing up all around her house, and presumably they are going to want cable. The estimate is $7000, and I guess the cable company is now deciding if it's worth it to install. I will miss my cable internet, yes, but I do feel slightly vindicated. One of our neighbors has been stealing our WiFi and to him I say ha! Enjoy your last night of free internet, josh-PC, because tomorrow it goes bye-bye. Ha ha ha! And ha!

Eating is bleh. No real change. I made cheesecake cookies today and ate too many when they were first out, but that was because the first batch didn't come out very well and I was trying to get rid of them. Isn't that the stupidest reason to gorge on cookies? I did notice this morning that my pants weren't as tight when I put them on. That's a plus.

I really do need to get moving on the whole weight loss thing. The Beck Diet Solution is really helping me, but I haven't read anything on it in a week or so and I'm kind of stagnating.

Well, I have a lot to say about this move--our worst move ever, although I would never go so far as to say it was *the* worst move ever--but it will have to wait. I'm at the house to clean, and it is going very slo-o-o-o-wly. Our washer kicked a hole in the wall behind it, and I'm trying to fix it. It was able to kick a hole in the wall because it wasn't actual wallboard, and I really don't think a shoddy fix that inevitably broke when exposed to normal use should be my responsibility to fix, but I want my deposit back. So I'm fixing it. It's 10 PM and I wouldn't be surprised if I were here for another two or three hours. One nice thing about being at my mom's house, she gets home at 5 PM. I could always take her car and finish it tomorrow. In fact, I probably will, because I don't see how this is going to get done tonight.

It's a Numbers Game

I have been thinking over the past few days, weeks, whatever, about my grandfather. He died in January of 2002, at 78 years old. He died of a diabetes-related illness that could have been prevented if he had stayed on some sort of diet and exercised, even a little bit. My father and uncle also have diabetes--they have two brothers and two sisters who have so far escaped it. (I wonder how long it will stay that way.)

Anyway, my father is 48 and my uncle is 58. This makes me wonder--does that mean that my uncle has 20 years to live? And my dad only has 30? Does this mean that I am probably looking at 50-some years? It sounds like a lot--20, 30, 50 years. But when you consider that we could have at least another 10 years on top of that, and probably better quality of life in between, shouldn't that be something to strive for? Health and wellbeing and happiness and all that? My grandfather was chairbound for probably the last ten years of his life. I can only vaguely remember a time when he could walk easily, drive a car, etc. What sort of life is that?

I get these forwarded emails from my mom that say things like "Eat well, exercise, die anyway." If only it were that simple. It would be nice to have that black and white choice: I can eat well and exercise, or I can not, and the consequences would be the same. Ultimately I suppose they are, but the years before the final "consequence" will surely be as different as night and day.

Another thing that I have been thinking--I really want to lose weight. Really really. But somehow I let the stupidest things get in my way--Taco Bell, for one. Chocolate, for another. How is it that I could value a taco or a candy bar over the thing that I have wanted for over a decade?

I would love some chocolate right now

So far this isn't too bad as far as the food goes, although as the title says a piece of chocolate would be good. After I kicked the whole "rapid results" thing to the curb it was much easier (although now I have a bunch of grapefruit to eat). I actually feel like I'm being healthy on this plan. Breakfast was 3 egg whites and salad; lunch was 2 oz. chicken, 1/2 cup mashed potatoes (made with no butter or milk, but I added a sprinkle of bacon cheddar dip mix, 10 calories per teaspoon and I used less than that), and a cup of that squash vegetable mix. Snack of grilled chicken, mushrooms, and red onion. Dinner chicken curry with broccoli, carrots, red onion, and white rice.

The food may not be bad so far, but going from around 2500 calories a day to around 1200 is hard. I finished dinner maybe half an hour to forty minutes ago and I'm hungry. I am ignoring it. And I discovered that you are supposed to eat all the food in order: breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, optional evening snack. Oops.

Also, the literature says that most people don't find that it takes them longer to prepare meals as compared to before. I don't know if it's that it's my first day, but that's crap. Normally I would microwave leftovers or maybe a veggie burger or some form of convenience food if we had it, or maybe I would eat whatever the kids had left on their plates. It took me close to an hour to make lunch and dinner today, and this method of cooking sure generates more dishes. It is healthier, though, so I guess that's my tradeoff.

I did not get to take that walk today--I babysat my niece this morning so I couldn't go then. As a result of having her the kids got put down for naps late and didn't wake up until 4:30, an hour before dinner and not the optimal time to be leaving. I have just now finished making their dinner, cleaning up, making my dinner, and cleaning up after it. I will be mowing the lawn when they go to bed and probably doing some cleaning in the basement, but I would have preferred the walk. I think.

It's just me again

I know I've been inconspicuously absent for a few days. I haven't been avoiding you, I swear.

I'm kind of annoyed with myself right now. I haven't been to the gym since the start of this thing. Actually since well before the start of this thing. I really really want to go. No, I do, seriously. However, I have this weird thing now where I will be dead tired around 9 PM, sleep for an hour, wake up, be up until 3 AM, sleep really crappily until DH finally drags me out of bed so he can get ready to leave at around 9 or 9:30 AM. He leaves a little after 10 and gets home around 8:30 at night. The gym closes at 9. We are a one-car family, and even if we weren't the child care situation at my gym is iffy to say the least. I would probably be seriously angry if I loaded up the kids and took them down there only to find out that it was full, but that's a moot point.

I need to drag my ass out of bed in the morning and go, I know, but it's so hard when you've gotten maybe four hours of sleep. I guess I'll have to split it up--whatever I can get at night and maybe two hours during naptime, and hope I don't keel over from exhaustion.

I've been playing around with real estate listings for the past few days. I would love nothing more than to get my hands on a neglected old house and bring it back to its full glory. I have this weird thing about "saving" old houses from being turned into shitty apartments or being bulldozed to make way for condos or McMansions. To see an old house that someone has remuddled to the point that it needs to be torn down to the studs makes me want to cry. I think I seek out these neglected houses because I feel bad for the old houses I've owned and had big plans for, but haven't been able to save because of one extenuating circumstance or another. If any of that makes sense.

Our credit sucks, though, so purchasing a house will be a few years in the making. I even applied for a mortgage tonight, but, surprise surprise, our scores weren't good enough to get it. (By the way, I think it is a bit silly that the gateway criteria is credit score. To me it's a bit arbitrary to be the end-all be-all deciding factor in these things.) I was completely expecting that we wouldn't get it, but it still depressed me. And I ate a bowl of pasta with ricotta and mozzarella. Sorry, Internet. I'm hanging my head in shame. I fell off the wagon. I wish I could guarantee that it won't happen again, but I can only say that I'll do my best to stay away from the spaghetti next time.