Long Time, No Post

Well I know.... It's been one heck of a long time since I posted an update regarding my Diet To Go diet. But it's also been one heck of a summer. Not only have I not posted here about my journey for the last month and a half, but I haven't even kept up with the other people's blogs who are using Diet To Go. So there you have it, I'm officially a slacker. :)

Problem is... I've been gaining and losing the same 3 pounds ALL SUMMER LONG!!! One of my biggest issues was regarding the minor surgical procedure I had done on my left big toe. I had immediate water retention due to the "trauma to my body" and the resulting weight gain from that. And because of my crappy blood circulation in my body, what was supposed to take a couple of weeks to heal up actually ended up taking 2 months to heal up. And because of that, I had to pause my gym workouts because I couldn't wear sneakers.

Then the SUMMERTIME EVENTS started. First we had my husband's birthday and the trip to New Jersey. As soon as I lost the weight I had gained from those two side-by-side events, I had the toe surgery. Then after that came Father's Day. Well of course we had to have Dad over for dinner as we always do, and so there came those pounds I had just lost. So a couple weeks after that, got those pounds lost again, and we have company come to visit from out of town for several days. So once again, gained a few pounds from that. Several weeks later, I've lost those pounds and now it's my birthday. There is much ado over my very significant 50th birthday and many dinners to celebrate. Well of course I gain a few pounds there. So now I'm in the process of trying to lose THAT regained weight.

I want summer to be OVER! Ah, but wait! As soon as summer is over, guess what?!?! We're going away on a much needed vacation. As a present to me for my 50th birthday, my husband and I are taking a 2 week tour of the Western US which will include stops in many of the National Parks. This is something that we are really looking forward to doing. But again, I suspect I'll gain a few pounds due to the deviation away from the Diet To Go meal plan. My body is all about gaining weight and will do so at any possible opportunity.

GRRR! It's just sad when I think about all the weight I've lost over the summer, probably 10-15 pounds, but it's regained weight that I've lost so I see nothing happening on the scale. I need to get back to the gym and I'll do that as soon as school starts up again for the year (in about 3 weeks). The gym is a madhouse in the summer with all the kids using the kid-friendly facilities there, so we tend to stay away from there in the summertime and swim in our pool here at home every night as our exercise. But it's not the same as an hour on the elliptical, so once I get back to that routine, it'll help me drop the pounds off a bit faster I hope.

But I just needed to bitch a bit and vent a bit and also get back to being accountable for the mess that is my eating program.

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Week 14 Results and a helpful link

Well, I'm happy to say that I've lost enough actual weight to offset all this water retention. Still retaining a lot of water and probably will throughout the summer. Not only does PMS cause water retention for me, but exposure to the sun does as well, and we've been doing a lot of swimming now that the pool water has warmed up considerably. But I'm back down to my 15 pounds total lost, so I probably lost an actual pound of weight this past week despite the water retention. YAY!

I found this link today via an email I get from SparkPeople.com. It's called 30 Ways To Outsmart Temptation, and since the DQ Blizzard temptation is one that I deal with on a weekly (if not daily) basis, I thought these pointers might be handy for others who have diet demons and temptation issues. Here's the link: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calendar_2009_skinny_cow.pdf

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Week 13 Results

Grrrrr...I hate water retention. Yep, I'm one bloated gal this week. The sheets on the bed leave dents in my skin which I can see when I wake up in the mornings. My rings are tight on my hands. My ankles are swollen. Everything feels tight. So it's not a surprise that when I weighed in today, I am up a pound, for a grand total of 14 pounds lost instead of 15. So disheartening, but the battle continues...

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Week 11 And Week 12 Results

{smacks head} Geez, I just now realized I never posted last week's results! I guess the whole toe surgery thing was more of a time consuming affair than I had anticipated. So ok, Week 11, I lost one pound and now Week 12, I've lost one pound for a grand total of 15 pounds lost! YAY!! I am now back down to the weight I was in the summer of 2003. So I'm really feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Now granted, I'm not perfect in this journey. I slip up a lot. Due to the toe surgery issue, I haven't exercised in two weeks, and I may not exercise next week either (we'll see how it goes). So to have lost 2 pounds in two weeks despite not exercising is even better.

Some peoples' diet nemesis is the calories consumed from alcohol, some have problems with snacking on chips or sweets. My nemesis is ice cream. And it's a big one. I think my car is auto-programmed to drive to the Dairy Queen any time I head in the easterly direction around here. But then I think about reality... it's not realistic to say that I can never have ice cream for the rest of my diet journey, or even the rest of my life. I HAVE to be able to learn now to manage it, to be able to be like a normal person and have an ice cream every now and then and not totally overdo it to the point of sabotaging my diet results. So far, I've been able to do that, still averaging a little more than a pound lost each week, but it is a CONSTANT mental struggle for me and something I have to analyze and plan for if I want to indulge in that treat.

So for those who have specific diet demons, just try to be wise about it, and plan for it and maybe just have a smaller portion of it than you usually do. Even though the DietToGo plan is incredibly easy and the food is tasty, there are still times when that diet demon raises his/her head and makes me want to indulge in my ice cream nemesis. It's my job to learn when to say enough is enough!

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My Left Toe

It's been about 32 hours since I had the ingrown portion of my big left toe surgically (and hopefully, PERMANENTLY!) removed. I decided to go ahead and do both sides of the toenail area while it was numb, and that should take care of any future problems I might have had with the inside margin of the nail along with the ingrown and somewhat infected outside margin.

Although I've had problems with ingrown toenails for years and years, this was the first time I've ever gone to a podiatrist to have it taken care of. I honestly don't know why I never went to one before this, maybe I was scared that going to a "specialist" would involve more painful procedures than I was willing to have done, but I have to say, Dr. Christopher Dobry at Frisco Foot Care was just wonderful. He was extremely patient with me, did everything he could to minimize the pain of the shots required to numb the toe, talked to me about various subjects throughout the procedure to keep my mind off of what was being done, and from what I can tell so far, did a fine job of the procedure itself.

When I had an ingrown toenail removed from the very same location 6 months ago by my Family Practice doctor, it took nearly 2 months to heal up. This time around, I can already tell that the healing time will be substantially less. I have minimal pain and I'm already putting pressure on it when I walk. A much, much better experience this time around.

So many thanks to Dr Dobry, I'll be back again soon to get my right big toe done and that should hopefully be the end of any more ingrown toenail problems, well, at least a 97 percent chance for permanent solution!

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Week 10 Results

I'm happy to report that the last remaining pound gained during our New Jersey trip is now gone! So I'm back to the original weight I was at right before we left. Yay!

On a more painful note... I've got an ingrown toenail that will be excised on Tuesday. I have the worst toenails known to mankind and I have had to have ingrown toenails surgically removed since I was in my early 20's. And no, I do not wear confined shoes that squish my feet, I wear Birkenstocks almost exclusively now (except when I go workout at the gym), but my toenails are just genetically messed up and this is unfortunately something I have had to do periodically all my adult life.

This time around though, I'm going to a podiatrist instead of to the family doctor. When I called for the appointment, the receptionist mentioned to me that I would be given the choice to have either a "Correction" or a "Permanent Correction". I would assume the "Correction" is to just have the offending piece of toenail removed, but the thought of a "Permanent Correction" is very appealing to to me even though I have no clue regarding what's involved.

If I never had to have this done again would be soooo nice, because having the doctor inject that deadening stuff into my big toe is incredibly painful, and I actually put off going to get this done longer than I problably should just because of the pain from that shot. So next week, I'll post an update on what happened and how it's going. But I'm sure dreading Tuesday morning....

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It Was Tut-riffic!

The King Tut museum exhibit has been in Dallas for about the last 6 months. Greg and I have kept saying we really should to and see it before it leaves town for good. Well we finally went to go see it yesterday, on the closing weekend! How's that for procrastination?! But anyway, it was really quite interesting, and the craftsmanship of the items they found in his tomb along with other tombs in the area was extraordinary. Some of the most intricate jewelry and wood work, those Egyptians really knew how to be patient and take the time to do something right.

As a high school student, I had developed an keen interest in Egyptian history from my World History class, and it stuck with me as I grew older, so I was really happy to get to go and see the exhibit. Greg found it interesting, but he doesn't do real well in large crowds (he gets a very strong feeling of the invasion of his personal space in crowded conditions which makes him very uncomfortable) and so he enjoyed it for awhile, but he was also glad when I had had my fill of it and was ready to head home.

One unfortunate thing happened though... we left home at around 11am to head to the museum and in our rush out the door, FORGOT to bring our DTG lunches with us, so by the time we got home at around 5pm, we were STARVING! Needless to say, the lesson learned here is don't allow yourself to get so rushed that you forget to bring your food with you. So once we got home, we ate both our lunch and our dinner. Yummy goodness!

One last thing to share... I lost one of those pounds I had gained during our time in New Jersey, so I'm starting the new DTG week up just one pound from when we left. Not too bad at all, I feel it was a very successful trip. :)

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