Well, hello!

I guess I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy doing... things. I've been gardening with my Mom a few days a week, which is surprisingly relaxing. I'm not a fan of being dirty, but I've found that as long as a I wear gardening gloves, I'm fine. I'm also taking a training glass to become a literacy tutor, which is something I've always been interested in.

As far as the weight and exercise...it's been a mixed bag. I've had a lot of issues lately with trying to find time to workout. I think that I tend to try and bite off more than I can chew, and I feel like if I can't commit 3 hours a day to working out, then I don't do anything. I bought a workout journal this weekend in an attempt to try and better plan out and track my workouts. Eating has also been maybe only 80%  things are ok during the week, but tend to go to hell on the weekends, when there is too much eating out, too many get-togethers and too much alcohol. This morning, I weighed in at 207, but I've been down as low as 203.8 in the past few days, so I'm hoping that 207 is a lot of water retention.

I didn't get that job, obviously. Oh well - I'm trying not to stress about that aspect of life right now. I've got some great things planned for the summer, and lots of other goals to work on, and I am positive and confident that something great will come along.

Potential Progress on the job front

So, I had a 2nd interview for that job last week, and they also wanted to check my references, so I worked on getting those together and confirmed. I'm really hoping that I get it, and that it happens soon - I feel so out of sorts and purposeless. I've noticed that as time has gone by, my natural impulse to stay up late and sleep in in the morning is taking over. It is becoming more and more difficult for me to fall asleep at a normal time. Last night, we went to bed around 11:30pm. I tried to sleep, I really did - but around 12:30pm I finally just turned on the light and read. I read for at least an hour, and still I didn't feel tired. I wanted to get up this morning when Dan did - 6:00am - but that clearly wasn't happening when I was operating on 4 hours sleep. Very annoying.

No more alcohol!

I generally try and eat between 1300 - 1500 calories a day, which, with some careful planning and analysis isn't that difficult. BUT - I haven't been under 1500 since last Tuesday! The reason? Way too much wine. Now, I'm not going to lie - I love wine. But something has to give here. A 6 oz glass is around 120 calories, which is a lot when you are trying to be as careful as I am. Part of the problem is that I've been at my parents house 3 of the past 5 days. My mother is also a big fan of wine, and when I head over there to visit, she generally just starts pouring me a glass. It's very difficult to say no to.

Another reason that I've been downing so much wine lately is that I found one that I just love - Jam Jar Sweet Shiraz. It is freaking amazing. I never thought I was that into sweeter wines, but this just really does it for me. So, so yummy - I could easily drink a whole bottle by myself. I've currently got 3 unopened bottles sitting in my kitchen, and I'm making a vow not to open them until next weekend.

Stay at Home Girl

It honestly surprises me how little I miss working. I mean, don't get me wrong - I miss some parts of having a job, and there are times when I am horribly bored, but I'm finding it quite easy to fill my days with working out, visiting with my mom, planning great meals. One day, I was whining to Dan that I am useless and unemployed, and he told me that I wasn't useless, and that I was busy taking care of us. I was both thrilled and repulsed by this idea. I'm a modern girl! I've always worked, I've always expected to work. I never planned on being a stay at home girlfriend/wife/mother - but, however temporarily, that is what I am right now. Very strange.

Pain

I've been doing pretty well this week with the exercise - I finally decided to add some strength training back to my routine, so I'm back doing the 30 Day Shred. The Shred is torture all in itself, but I'm switching it up by also including the kettlenetics DVD on occasion (which destroys me every time I do it!) and a new Cardio yoga DVD I picked up a few weeks ago. Plus my usual treadmill/elliptical workouts at the gym. Oh, and I started C25K on Monday - its scary how much easier it is to do now than it was when I first attempted it about a year ago.

All of this exercise, particularly the strength, has me SORE. It's ironic - I'm not actually in that much pain when I am working out, but once I stop and sit, I feel like my legs are going to fall off. I'm going to push through, though - I need this. I need to see some progress on the scale before the really nice weather gets here!

Writing

I've always considered myself a good writer. Now, I may have an overly inflated sense of my writing skills, because people (my mother, in particular) have always been overwhelmingly effusive about my writing skills. I always managed to write well enough in school to rarely have torough draft things - I'd do one take, and it would be good enough to get me a B+/A- - and that was always fine with me. My last job changed all that.

I don't want to get into the specifics, but I had to do a lot of writing in my last position. And, suddenly, I was no longer getting praise for my skills, instead, I was under constant scrutiny and criticism. It's made me startlingly reluctant to do something that I've always enjoyed, and always felt that I excelled at. One of my goals for creating this blog is to give writing back to myself - learn how to enjoy words again, and to feel like I can express myself without all the criticism and negativity that surrounded me. I'm making a commitment to write something here, every day, for the next month. Let's see how it goes, and see if I can rediscover that which I've lost.

Routine

Friday afternoon already! Even though my days are certainly not as full as they used to be, I still feel like this week flew by. I'm making some progress on some cleaning/organizing type projects that I've had on my to-do list forever. I sent off a resume for what would be just about the perfect job - I don't want to say too much, but it would totally solve the whole location problem that Dan and I have. I made a little extra cash this week feeding the neighbor's cats while he was away on vacation. I even made dinner for my parents one night this week - all in all, nothing to complain about.

Still...I feel sort of directionless. I'm siting here waiting for Dan to call me - he usually gets out of work sometime between 545pm and 615pm, and he calls me when he is on his way home. I look forward to the weekends because he is around, and I have someone to talk to (0ther than the Dog). I'm working hard on the weight-loss efforts, and this week has seen some noticeable progress, including a reassessment of my collection of jeans - the 18's that I've been wearing are increadibly loose right now, and most of the 16's in my collection fit well. There are still 14's to fit into, though, before I get too excited about the prospect of buying something new.

Great Weekend

I had an amazing weekend, in which I didn't stress too much about food, or my lack of employment. Friday was a beautiful, sunny warm day here in New England, and I drove my little convertible with the top down, into the city to get my hair cut. I also went and got my first pedicure of the season - so exciting! Friday night we went out for dinner with our friend Pam and her boyfriend. Dinner was indulgent, to say the least - we went to Union Station Brewery in Providence, which is always a favorite. Union Station brews their own beer and specializes in sort of upscale comfort food, at fairly reasonable prices. When we go there, we always start with the beer sampler, which gives you little 2oz pours of all their current beers, for $7. I had the blue corn tortilla chicken enchiladas, which are always a favorite, and Dan had a burger, which he had been dying for. Plus some great beer, a few bites of loaded pub chips (kettle chips with melted cheese, bacon and sour cream - to die for!) and a small caesar salad. The meal was nearly impossible to count - we took our best guesses and both went over our calories for the day.

Saturday, we headed down the Cape so Dan could spend a few hours at work. I sat around and read for a bit, then we headed out to make a stop at Trader Joe's, where I picked up some interesting things I've been meaning to try, like agave nectar and flax seeds. We also got some great lavash flat breads, which I used to make a great low-calorie bbq flatbread pizza on saturday night - only 338 calories! Next time, I'll add some chicken and it will still come in at a pretty reasonable calorie count. We managed to get in a quick 45 minute cardio workout at the gym, too.

Yesterday we woke up and had breakfast, then made it to the gym for an hour of cardio, then we headed into the city to go to the Bruins game - I got the tickets for Dan as his birthday present. The game was great, then we headed home to meet up with the family and have dinner at our favorite Chinese/Sushi place. Again, hard to track the calories for the day, but I feel pretty confident that I stayed more in range than I did on Friday. We finished up with ice cream cake and a game of yahtzee. All in all, a great weekend with plenty of activity, family and friends - can't ask for more than that!

Grey

I usually do the laundry on Sundays, and as I was folding everything up last night, it hit me - my entire stack of shirts was shades of grey, black and navy blue. Perhaps this was a little bit of a coincidence, but I think it does speak to my mood. Today starts week 5 of my unemployed life, and I am a little depressed about it all. I still think about my former job, and my former co-workers, and get upset. I'm trying to move past it, trying to figure out what my next move is, but I'm having a hard time seeing the forest through the trees.

Despite all this, workouts have been going well, and eating has been largely on track. I weighed in this morning at 217.4, which is significantly lower that I've weighed in a while - so I am hoping that this is the end of my plateau, and the weight loss has been jump-started again. I did nothing but cardio last week, which seemed both a bit lazy, and rather counter-intuitive, but who am I to argue with the apparent results?

I've got a (for me) busy week coming up - tomorrow is my boyfriend's mother's birthday, and I we are going to his sister's house for dinner with the family. I am in charge of making the cake, which is great because I love to bake, and I will be able to tell exactly how many calories are in a slice. I did the cake about a month ago for his sister's birthday, and knowing that a single slice was close to 400 calories made us both very conscious of what we were eating.

Wakeup Call

Everyone who begins a diet and exercise program has a wakeup call, right? Some moment where you realize just how out of control you have gotten, how awful you look, how unhappy you are with your life. My wakeup call was when a friend posted this picture on Facebook:

That is me, on the far right, wearing a dress that I thought was particularly flattering. This was taken at the end of August last year, at a friend's birthday celebration, and I remember having a fabulous time the entire night. Indeed, there are other photos of that night that have me at a different angle, where I don't look so huge and bloated and uncomfortable. And those are the pictures that, in the past, I would try and focus on. But, this picture illustrates just how overweight and uncomfortable I had become. Looking at this picture, I don't remember a fun night spent with friends - I remember how out of place I look, how miserable. Shortly after this was posted, I started going to the gym. About a month after I had started at the gym, I started keeping track of my calories with SparkPeople.

I don't really know why it was this picture that was the trigger for me - there have certainly been bad pictures of me in the past. But it was.

The Plateau

Ever since I became unemployed, almost a month ago, I've been working out quite a bit more than I had been previously. Not only do I suddenly have a lot of free time on my hand, but Dan, my boyfriend, also decided to join the gym a few weeks ago. So, I've been doing about 2 hours of working out a day, including quite a bit of strength training. You'd think this would result in some serious weight loss, right?

Wrong.

SO wrong.

I've basically been at a standstill in the weight loss department for the past month. It is incredibly frustrating. At first, I was blaming it on the slightly indulgent birthday weekend I had at the end of February. Well, that was almost 2 weeks ago now, and the numbers on the scale are still not budging. Out of frustration, I've stopped doing any strength training this week, and am only doing cardio. I'm hoping to see some results soon, before I tear my hair out.

Remaking Darcie

About a month ago, I got the wake-up call of my life - I lost my job. I'd been at the same company for over 4 years, growing increasingly disillusioned and unhappy with what I was doing. I knew it was time to make a change, I just didn't know how to think about starting to actually make that change. The elimination of my position took that indecision away from me.

I am using this unexpected time off to reevaluate my life. I'd been working, since November of last year, on trying to lose weight, and for the first time in my life, I've been somewhat successful. I've lost 30 pounds in 4 months time. I'm counting calories, and I'm exercising, and I'm working on remaking myself into the person I know I was meant to be.