I'm still kicking! :)

Thanks to Channie for checking in on me! I realized I should write a post so you guys don’t think I’ve slipped into bloggy oblivion. The truth is, I have been putting a lot of focus into refocusing myself. I came to the realization that the month of May was a complete wash. Stayed the same weight for a couple of weeks (197), and something had to give. So for the past few days, I have been shifting my focus back onto myself, my goals and what I want to accomplish.

For some reason doing so has been a little mentally exhausting, but it reminds me of my first days back in January when I was amping myself up to begin transforming myself. It took a lot of intensity to get to that point back then, and it seems that it has been taking that same intensity this time around.

I have not fallen off the wagon, I have actually been going the opposite direction.  I am getting this train rolling again. That’s why I’ve been MIA, but that won’t stay that way! It’s just been a time of self-reflection, and remembering why I started this in the first place.

Q & A

Thank you for giving me some stuff to write about!

Jenn, I actually paid for my Disney trip with my tax refund check! Otherwise, there would be NO way we would be able to go, I wouldn’t be able to save enough for the trip package, park tickets, airfare, spending money, etc. But I chose to go on an off-peak time in October, we are staying at Pop Century which is a Disney value resort, and we don’t have to rent a car because Disney drives us to and from the airport, and provides buses to the parks. Also, we are going during a time that free dining is typically offered, so we will only have to pay out of pocket for a few special meals that I reserved. BTW, I had NO idea that I would have to make dining reservations 6 months ahead of time! I just found that out, and managed to score two reservations that I wanted. One for a Winnie the Pooh character breakfast brunch at Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, and one for T-Rex at Downtown Disney. Since we are celebrating Dylan’s 2^nd birthday there, I wanted to do a few special things. But I know EXACTLY what you mean about it being pricey! I think January may be a little more expensive than October as well.

I am still stressing out over money because I need to pay for our plane tickets,  save up spending money, plus I need to buy tickets for the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party for Halloween night, aarrgghhhhhh! But we’ll make it work, we always find a way! This trip is so important to me because JC and I have NEVER been on a trip together, and we will be together 9 years this month! It is also our first family trip as a family with the baby, and we are celebrating his birthday and mine as well! Lastly, it was the reason I started losing weight and this blog, and my goal is to weigh 145 for the trip! We could have stayed off-property to save a lot of money, but this vacation is long over due, and I wanted to do the whole Disney magic shebang!

Tiff, the job is going well! I am adjusting to the new responsibilities, and am getting comfortable. There has been some craziness (yesterday was a bad day), but I think I like it better than before because I interact with people more often now. Sitting at the front desk, I have to greet whoever walks in the door, and it makes the day goes so much faster. I miss having more freedom like before, but I was told it is temporary, so I’m biding my time. And it would be great to meet you in FL, maybe we can set up some plans! I am actually meeting Rae Rae there as well, she is going to Disney a little after me!

Kelly, I can’t wait to meet you! Even if it’s brunch (hee hee, I know you just LOVE it! LOL), or whatever.  We shall make plans very soon!!! Maybe at a Tommy Bikram session! LOL Well, that may not be the best time for a first meet up!

Thanks for the questions, ladies! And if anyone else has some, feel free to ask!

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I am kind of in a bloggy rut, don’t want to feel like I am writing the same things over and over. Soooo, I am opening up the floor to you! If you have any questions that you would like to ask me (anything), or would like me to write about a specific topic, let me know! I need to have some fresh stuff on this blog!

A Friday Quickie

This morning, I weighed 197, so I recovered from my setback. According to my ticker, I am half way to my goal! 52 pounds lost, 52 more to go! I like the sound of that. :)

Today is the one year anniversary of my mom's passing, and I have mixed emotions. I am sad, but I also feel a sense of relief that I made it through the whole year for some strange reason. I am going to spend the day in a way she would like, being happy & having dinner with my sister tonight. She wants to look for a Christening outfit for Dylan, because she is his Godmother, so we're going to try and find one tonight. Not sure how that will go because he's a big boy now (he wears 2T), but if all else fails we'll just go with white shirt and shorts. It's going to be in July, so that will work!

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!

Beautiful day in Queens! :)

I love love love love LOVE being back in the game! My gloom & doom attitude is gone, I feel that familiar pep in my step, and I am completely refocused. I weighed 198 this morning, so I am only half a pound away from my current lowest. It felt so demoralizing to get down to the one hundreds again, just to go right back up to the two’s, so I almost freaking shed a tear looking at the scale this morning. Whew!

The sun is back in NYC, it’s going to be warm this weekend! The gray, rainy days were starting to get to me, but we needed the rain so I’m glad we had it!

I knew you guys would come through for me...

...and you did. THANK YOU for the support, encouragement, and ass kicking (out of love) that I really and truly needed. I don't care if it was grammatically correct! ;)

I started this blog because I needed to establish a support system, and I also wanted to be a form of support to others. I never imagined just how much I would need you guys. Actually, I never imagined that I would have such a bad week, I thought I had everything down pat and under control. Maybe a little bit of a bad day here or there, but not like what I let happen to myself. There is no excuse for it. You guys are right, I cannot let myself go down that road every time things get tough. That only makes things even harder. Why I "forgot" that, I don't know. I really don't. Because of my lack of motivation, I became even more depressed. Obviously they both go hand in hand. I needed to blog about it so I can prevent it from happening again, and also to encourage anyone else who is going down that path. Don't let it happen - so not worth it.

I feel a million times better since this morning's post, and my optimism and positivity is back. I am going to rock out my walk in a half hour, even though it's raining. I am going to reflect on everything good that has happened and will continue to happen.

I am not kidding when I say this: I love you guys. Thanks for helping to pick this girl back up. <3 <3

So ten days ago, I weighed 197.5. Today, I weighed in at 201.

I’m sure you want to know WTF happened, right?

Well, I just started to not care anymore. I didn’t care about my goal, about all of the hard work I’ve done so far, about the things I’ve been looking forward to, about anything really. I’ve been in a deep funk with dealing with a lot of chaos and bombshells thrown my way at my job; with financial issues; and with the new round of grief from missing my mom. Mother’s Day was HARD this year. In addition to being sad because of my mom, I was trying to comfort my sister who was having the worst day.  I haven’t blogged about this yet, but she has been through the worst. 9 years ago, she was pregnant and had her son prematurely at 6 months along, he was stillborn. In 2008, she had a placental abruption while 6 months pregnant, and my nephew lived for one month only before getting Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and he passed away. So, she had to deal with double the pain of not having her children with her and not having her mom with her for Mother’s Day. She never really shows much emotion in general, she tends to keep her emotions inside, but she just couldn’t hold it in on Sunday, and my heart was so broken for her. I wished I could do anything to take away her pain.

The funny thing is, despite “not caring”, I still continued some habits like my daily walks and packing healthy meals for work. But everything else went down the tubes. I guess it could have been worse than 3.5 pounds gained if I didn’t maintain some of the habits I’ve learned. Somehow, I managed to wake myself the f**k up since last night. I will NOT go down the same path I used to. I have learned too much and come so far, and I’ll be damned if I do that to myself. I have my son’s Baptism in less than two months and my Disney trip in a little over five months. I have an entire future of being healthy to strive for. I am better than the behavior I’ve shown these past ten days.  I am NOT a quitter!

Right now, it’s back to basics. Getting the water in, completing two workouts each day, tracking my calories at myfitnesspal, and going as hard as I did four months ago. And guys? If there was ever a need for a virtual ass kicking, it would be now.

Mother's Day

When I was pregnant with Dylan, I remember feeling so excited to celebrate Mother’s Day from now on as a mommy myself. I couldn’t wait for my first Mother’s Day, and I imagined a great day planned as a family of three as well as celebrating my own mom. Little did I know I would spend my first Mother’s Day in the oncology unit at Staten Island Hospital with my mom in a bed in a room for two patients with just a curtain for privacy. Giving my mom presents, but not knowing when she would be able to enjoy them. One of my gifts was a zebra print Snuggie type of blanket. She didn’t open it until she was released from the hospital, and she brought it with her when she was taken by ambulance because she couldn’t breathe. It was on her bed the day she passed, and I kept it, although it bothers me to look at it now…but I couldn’t NOT keep it. Sometimes I’ll cuddle with it to try and feel close to her.

My second Mother’s Day will be my first Mother’s Day spent without my mom. Obviously this day will always be bittersweet for me from now on. Not how I imagined it would be while I was pregnant.

I want to share my last good memory of my mom, and it was the only time I visited her by myself at the hospital, other times there was always someone else with us. I didn’t have much time because my sister was babysitting Dylan, but I had to relieve her before the visiting hours were over, so I couldn’t take up too much time of my own. I crawled into my mom’s hospital bed with her, and she asked me to give her a massage, which I did. She was switching channels, and found the movie “Beaches” was on. She asked if I ever saw it, and couldn’t believe when I said I didn’t. So we watched it together, or more like I watched while she dozed off & on.  I could see that she was purposefully trying to distract me from everything going on, because she almost had a forced cheeriness in her voice, and she did not want to talk about the current situation. I felt like a little girl again, especially when she asked me to brush her hair, she always used to ask me to do that when I was a kid. It was strange that I felt like a kid considering I was taking care of HER, but cuddled up in the bed, brushing her hair and watching Beaches definitely made me feel that way. It felt so nice just spending time, only me and her. That hadn’t happened in years because someone was always with us, whether it was my sisters, JC, and then Dylan. This time, it was just us.

My uncle came in the room soon after, we didn’t even know he was coming. He came in crying.  My mother and I were trying to console him, and at that point I was so upset that my moment with her was broken. I think I knew deep down that special moment wouldn’t happen for us again, and I was right. The last time we were alone was right before she slipped out of consciousness and passed away. My sister had left the room to get family members, and it was just me & her. She couldn’t speak because she was on life support, and I couldn’t really speak because I was crying so hard. We both knew that is was the end, and I just didn’t know how to say goodbye to her. I finally was able to calm down enough to tell her: “You know you’re my everything, right?” and she nodded. Then I told her how much I loved her. Right after, my sister came in as well as the doctors. Soon after, she was sedated.

I thank God that we had that last moment. Of course, I can never see Beaches without thinking of my mom, but even that I’m grateful for. From that point on, Beaches will always be “our” movie.

TMI Alert!

So before I got pregnant with my son, I had trouble ovulating. My cycle wasn’t that regular, and I would take ovulation tests to determine when I do, and I wouldn’t get a positive. I’m sure I would ovulate certain months, but not every cycle. My doctor gave me Clomid to induce ovulation when we were ready to try, and that helped me. Maybe too much because I was hyper stimulated and in pain, but it helped me to get pregnant so I didn’t mind!

Last month, around ovulation time, I experienced a lot of discomfort. I actually cried one night because the pain was getting intense, I was incredibly bloated, and the scale went up a few pounds. It went away pretty quickly. Once again, I am ovulating, and the discomfort is worse than any cramps I used to get with my period, which were bad. The scale went up three pounds, my lower abdomen is very bloated, I have a lot of headaches. I know that it will pass in a couple of days, but it’s so strange to be experiencing these symptoms now after all these years. I wonder if losing weight is helping me to ovulate regularly, and if so, I wonder why I feel it SO strongly? Maybe it's because I had a baby? I have worse pain now than with my period, it’s strange! Has anyone else experienced the same since losing weight? I am happy to be ovulating on my own, I hope that continues until we try for another baby!

The 2012 PC Walk

The walk was a great success! All in all, we raised almost $1400 to go towards pancreatic cancer research. The weather was great, and we walked along the water which was so nice. Everyone had a great time, and it felt so nice doing it in my mom's memory. We all felt her presence!

My son, he was such a trooper the whole day!

We saw orange monarch butterflies the entire day, and before we walked this butterfly kepy flying onto us and the sign we made. Any time we see orange butterflies, we always think of our mom, she had red hair.

My sister (blonde) and I 

I weighed in on Saturday, because I didn't want to forget yesterday with everything going on and having to get up so early. I weighed 197.5, so I lost 3.5 for the week!

Lighter

Yesterday, my MIL told me something while I was leaving her house to bring home the baby. She said, “You look lighter”. So I said, “I hope so!” and laughed. But she explained further in her Spanglish that I look like I just feel lighter and happier. She summed it up right there. I do, I feel a million times better than I did back in January. I ALMOST forget how bad I felt back then, in a strange way it feels like a distant memory. It’s only been 4 months, so it’s not a distant memory of course, but I changed my entire life by taking those first steps in January.

In January, I wore a size 24. My heels hurt when I would wake up from plantar fasciitis. I would literally hobble out of bed. I weighed 249. I didn’t want to make plans with anyone out of shame and embarrassment from being the biggest I have ever been. At 32 years old, I felt 62 years old.

I started this blog on January 17^th, and that same day was when I began my real changes. I started walking during lunch, and have never missed one day. I walked during the coldest days of winter, in the rain, if I was sick, if I was tired. I started out a little slow, and was out of breath quite frequently. As time passed, I was able to speed walk and I never feel out of breath. I walk 36 blocks each day during my lunch break.

I also pack my food for work each day. I always have my healthy meals and snacks available. Like the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Now, I wear a size 16, soon to be 14 I’m sure. I don’t feel pain in my feet when I wake up anymore. I just get up and go. I don’t hesitate to make social plans, I don’t think twice about it. I love trying new fitness related things. I feel like a 32 year old again, I feel pretty and girlie. I love fitting into clothes that I haven’t worn in 5 years.

I’m not saying any of this to brag, because NOTHING I have done is outrageous or even that hard. I have not mastered the art of weight loss and getting healthy, I am the farthest thing from an expert, and I definitely do NOT have all the answers. I have so much more to learn, and so much more to go. I still have a little lingering fear that I will fall off track completely out of nowhere.  I’d say the hardest part is keeping up my mojo during the days that I don’t feel like it, but I read a quote that said something like “When you don’t have enough motivation, you need to have determination”. I would always try to remember that during those days to keep fighting. I’m not close to my goal weight, not at all, but I’m learning that this HAS to become a change for life. If not, I will be right back to square one. So I am learning to find changes I can live with forever, not just until I get to my goal. I never want to see myself like I was four months ago. Never. If I have to fight for the rest of my life, than I will! The alternative is far, far worse!

On Christmas day, sitting at the table with my sister, her boyfriend and my cousin, I said to them: “2012 is the year I will lose this weight. You heard it here first, people”. I believed in what I was saying, because I couldn’t envision continuing the rest of my life out of shape, obese and on the way to getting sick. I needed it to be true.

This is only the beginning for me, I still have quite a ways to go before I get to my goal. However, I don’t stress about that because these changes have become part of me. This new me is slowlyyyy becoming the real me. Do you know what I mean?

Finally! :) :)

Stopping by for a quickie while I have a chance, I have to tell you guys that I weighed in at 199 this morning!!!!!! 50 pounds lost, and much more to go, but I hit Onederland!!!!!

I got my groove back yesterday, drank plenty of water, exercised twice, and kept up my routine, and made myself get back into a positive mindset. My own personal goal was to hit 199 for my cancer walk in memory of my mom, which is Sunday. It felt like I was dedicating that goal to her, and that she would be even more proud of me during the walk because I did it! I can only hope that she can somehow know what’s happening with us, and that it makes her happy.

So I’m ready to rock out this new month! Summer’s around the corner!

Wiped out.

I.Am.Exhausted.

First day on the "new" job went well for the most part. I did not get one moment to relax, I was busy every single minute. In a way, I liked it. The day flew so quickly, and I could get used to this faster pace. We shall see.

I have to get my footing back. I was not able to drink my usual amount of water today because it was just so crazy, and I have to get someone to cover my desk if I step to the restroom, so I just couldn't seem to get it together today. Also, I have to do a shorter walk during lunch because of my new position. Things are a little topsy-turvy because of it, but I will adjust. If I am anything, I am resilient. I'm not hard on myself today, but I will not accept any excuses from myself going forward.

All in all, I think this change is going to be good for me!