Yummers!

After a great, wonderfully inspiring weight watchers meeting I came home and made a quick dinner.  Already cooked shrimp (with some lemon pepper marinade), left over rice from dinner last night and veggies that I cut up earlier in the week (zucchini two kinds of summer squash). All thrown on the BBQ and ready in 15 min or less!!!!  Yummy!!!! 

Goals....

On April 17, 2008 I wrote this as my memoir:

“Determined to succeed at my goals”


It was days after my first marathon and my 30th birthday.   I now go back to those words and that race report.     I am determined to succeed at my goals!  And in the past five years I have succeeded at so much that sometimes I forget to stop and give myself some credit.  In the past five years I have conquered & survived cancer, my dog has conquered cancer, I have moved away from a marriage that wasn't right, I have purchased my very own home, I have passed 6 of the 7 exams to become an Architect, I have found the love of my life, I have nurtured friendships, I have excelled at my career,  I am now coaching runners, I have completed 25 full marathons, I have kept my smile, I have kept my goals in front of me.   I will continue to be determined to succeed at my goals.  Come along on my journey.

busy, busy, little bee

Whew – it’s been a crazy handful of days since my last post… I made it through the epidural steroid shot (10 days ago) and have felt some relief (don’t worry, I’ve been tracking in my little book to review with the doctor in 30 days).  I walked 2.6 miles last Saturday while I was coaching with Team in Training.  I felt pretty good.  My doctors’ orders were to do what felt comfortable as far as walking goes, only use machines at the gym, NO running, and taking it easy.  I haven’t made it to the gym – I don’t want to give excuses….  I need to get there, just walk in the door, no expectations, just walk in the door…. So when can I commit to going?  I WILL go to the gym on Saturday after TnT – a nice easy, relaxed workout, no pressure.   I did walk through the Farmer’s market at work today – two Thursday’s ago I could get there because of the pain.  I need to remember that these little walks are the positives that I was looking for – it’s not going to all come back right away.  I see the doctor again on the 30^th and hopefully he releases me to start slowly running to see how it feels, my fingers are crossed! 

I have been sporadically logging my food in my paper weight watchers tracker.  I didn’t find anyone on the local weight watchers FB page to review my log which felt a bit deflating (I guess I was expecting a ton of people to be in the same place and offer up their help).  There is someone who offered to review my food log over the weekend so as bad as it is right now I will still share.  If nothing else I have been eating normal meals, decent snacks and no crazy ‘treats’.  Well, we did have Brown Bear frozen yogurt last night, but I got the low-fat version and not a lot of crazy toppings.   It’s been better than a bad week, not a stellar week, but better than I was doing.  It’s really hard when I always strive for perfection to let myself have some wiggle room.  I’ve heard it before but this is worth repeating – this not a diet it’s a live-it!  I will go to my weight watchers meeting tomorrow night and weigh-in.  The number on the scale is not important this week, for me getting into the meeting and getting back into the routine is what I’m striving for.

Since my back was giving me so much pain I asked around and found a young man who was willing to help me out and mow my lawn.  I learned to ‘run’ in the Y-Run Club in Puyallup and his dad is a runner with us.  It feels so good to come home to a freshly mowed lawn.  I felt guilty at first but now I know I’m helping him as much as he is helping me and hey he’s making some summer money and learning how to have a part time job.  Plus he got jobs from two of the neighbors when he was here on Sunday!!! Anyway, even though I’m feeling better and I could do it on my own I’m going to keep having him come, at least until school starts.  I need to heal and make sure that I keep myself strong, plus I can do the ‘fun’ stuff because I’m not so tired from doing the manual labor part.  Look at me trying to justify it – I’m paying for a service and it’s worth the $11/hr!  No one is judging!

And in other news my lovely little Subaru has been having some serious mechanical issues.  Like $4,000 repair issues! YIKES!  So I’ve been weighing the cost to do the repairs or get a different used car – a stresser for sure.  In the meantime I’ve been driving around smelling like burning oil, leaving oil slicks and praying that my timing belt didn’t snap… Buying a new house just six months ago I was worried about having to go out and get another big ticket loan (plus I worry about money all the time since I’m my own breadwinner).  Anyway Cooper came with me on Saturday and we did some test driving to get me started.  It was so very helpful to have him help me get my feet wet and just ‘be there’ while I talked to the salespeople.  I worked at a car dealership in college and I’ve negotiated three car deals in my past but it’s never easy.  Anyway – long story short I sold the Subaru to a place that has two shops, one that repairs Subaru’s and the other that sells them.  They had looked at my car in early June and know the amount of work it needs – I got a very reasonable price from them and I feel good that Miss Subbie will go to someone who is looking for her and not just a wholesale junker land.  I took my money to Lakewood Ford and bought myself a used Hyundai SUV.  It’s a bit of an upgrade from the subbie but it’s a great car and has low miles.  When I get back to running its going to be a great race vehicle and it’s even AWD so I can get up to the mountains in the winter for snow shoeing!   Buying a car is never easy but I can honestly say that this was an easy experience.  I was treated with respect and I was able to negotiate a good price and get a loan all on my own. Talk about feeling empowered!  Darby dog went for her first ride tonight and she’s got a ton of space to enjoy now. 

Gheez,I can go on and on but really I need to prepare for FRIDAY!!! And get my rear to bed – sleep is important both for my weight loss efforts and for my back recovery.

This weekend is a busy one; a long Team in Training Saturday practice with a strength clinic at a Physical therapist, workout at the gym, tapas and wine with Cooper at his friends house, Coaching at the See Jane Run event in Seattle, going to show my Dad my new car and design & drafting of a custom residence for a side client – yep, that’s a busy weekend and I love it!!!

Time to get back on board....

Where do I start – life has sure been challenging, rewarding, amazing, hard and well…. it’s been L-I-F-E. I’ll share about what has been going on as it has all been having an effect on where I am now and why I’ve started writing again. My wonderful best friend said to me earlier today in a doctor’s office waiting room “you’re whole life looks like it’s in that notebook – writing it all down helps you keep it straight doesn't it?!” or something like that – it hit me – when life is spiraling out of control I tend to write it down – so I can remember what’s going on and so I can look back at it when I don’t remember what medicine I’ve taken or when my MRI was or which doctor I saw last week. I write it down so that I can feel some control over what has been some very unsettling time for me. During my therapy session today I talked about how my eating has become purely emotional and that I have been eating – “because I just want to, or because I deserve it” (in the best teenage girl defiant voice ever). So the plan I (we) came up with is to go to Weight Watchers and find someone – a fellow member or my leader to work with one on one so that I can get my head back in the game. I reached out to the WW facebook group today to see if someone will look over my food tracker at the Friday Meeting – then I know my food journal will be looked at then hopefully I’ll keep writing in it for more than a day (I tend to do good for a day or two – sometimes even a whole week and then I drop off the map). So that’s the plan to try and get my eating from out of control back to eating to be healthy.  Even if I can't exercise I can at least control what goes in my mouth.  My therapist also made a great statement - the doctors are doing their best to help me get better - they are putting tools in the box - what am I going to put in the box to help myself?  So I've got to do my part - I'm going to get back on board and help myself.


A bit of back story
Some of my eating/health/weight issues are stemming from the fact that I am having a very hard time exercising – due to a herniated disk in my lower back and degenerative disk disease in my lowest lumbar region. Sounds scary and it is. It’s been since March 12th that I went to my first chiropractic appointment – it’s been a whirlwind since – doctors, chiropractors, physical therapist, family doctor, three surgeons, therapist…. To figure out how to fix this… today I got an epidural steroid shot in my lumbar region – a last gasp to try and avoid surgery and help the pain so that I can try and get moving again.  So far all I feel is the continued numbness in my left foot, tigling in my calf and some numbness in the back of my thigh. I can only walk a block and then a horrible shooting pain goes up my leg into a tight spot in my buttock. Standing upright is almost impossible and it just plain always hurts.  I had my fingers crossed during the whole injection, hoping that it helps relieve some of the pain so that I can at least start walking again - if I can't run for a bit thats ok - I just want to be able to walk - please, just a nice walk....

This is just the tip of the iceberg and there is so much to tell, to work through and to get figured out but I had to start somewhere – here is to taking the first step in the right direction.
~Jess