Death by Cinnamon Bun
Posted: March 21, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cheating on diet, cinnamon buns, Diet, diet sabotage, Dieting, inspiration, losing weight, low GI diet, overweight, random thoughts, weight loss 2 CommentsFriends Making Monday – On Time!!!
Posted: March 18, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diet, Dieting, dieting frustrated weightloss, emotional eating, Fat, Friend Making Monday, inspiration, losing weight, overweight, random thoughts, weight loss, Weightloss 6 Comments
If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links at All The Weigh too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!
Pondering Personal Thoughts
1. How old would you feel if you didn’t know how old you are? Depends on the day, sometimes with an aching back and sore knee I feel like I’m a hundred years old. Other times, I’ll be rocking out with my teenage calves and their friends (embarrassing my poor calves to no end) and I feel like a teenager.
2. Are you the kind of friend you’d want to have as a friend? Yes for the most part. I am excruciatingly loyal, funny and supportive BUT I can also be needy which would annoy the crap out of me if I was my friend.
3. Look back at the last year. When did you feel most excited about something in your life? I dyed my hair super dark which was a complete change for me as I usually add blonde highlights (lots of them, I live in the south) to my reddish-brown hair. Now my hair is a deep, deep brown (almost black) with a few chunks of blonde and I have to say, it looks awesome…and I never like how I look but I LOVE this hair.
4. Have you ever been with someone and not spoken a word, only to walk away thinking that was the best conversation ever? I talk a lot so I can’t remember one of those…the silence would probably send me straight over the edge.
5. If you won 100 million dollars Monday, would you continue doing whatever you usually do on Tuesdays? Nope. I’d kiss my job goodbye, grab up the calves and Bull and take a cruise around the world.
6. What would you do differently if you knew no one would judge you? I’d dress more hip. I tend to stick to basic ts and jeans because I’m overweight and over 40 and don’t like how I look in trendy clothes…but I do love trendy clothes…so if I wasn’t worried that folks would say…”What, does that fat Bovine think she’s a calf”…(and if I won the 100 million dollars) I’d be way more stylish.
7. Share something you do differently than most people. I home school my 2 teenage calves. Many people think I’m nuts. I work too and homeschooling is hard but my oldest really need to get out from under the social pressures of high school and then the other one then just wanted to. It has actually been an amazing experience and I am so glad I have this time with them.
8. What’s one thing that you really want to do that you’ve never done? Live in an organized clean house…
9. If you had to move out of state right now, where would you move? Anywhere where I could live on a house (that was organized and clean) on the beach.
10. What is the one thing that you’d like to change most about the world? I wish there was less pain….people living in poverty, abusing each other, killing each other in wars, dying of horrible diseases, kids being bullied, kids without families, loneliness. It’s all so sad and it just shouldn’t be that way.
Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget to go to All the Weigh and link up in the comments! Have a happy Monday, friends!
These Sneaks Were Made For Walking
Posted: March 17, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Abeo shoes, aggressive dog, Diet, Dieting, dog whisperer, exercise, exercise with arthirtis, inspiration, random thoughts, walking, working out 3 CommentsDespite my bad knee I have been walking two miles a day. This has very little to do with my weight loss efforts and everything to do with my dogs. You see, prior to my knee issues, when I walked a lot despite being fat, I would take my beasts on 3 to 5 mile daily walks 4 to 5 times a week. I did the Avon walk each year and I needed to train.
When the knee issues got really bad, I was told to do water exercises with the fat, old ladies at the Y. It was that or I could bike. Neither work out is dog friendly…and frankly I am not a huge fan of either one. I do however love to walk. I like zoning out, saying hi to other wanderers and the general paceof hoofing it through the neighborhood. I have been missing it but I have been afraid to walk much more then through the grocery store. A swollen, painful knee cramps my style and that tends to happen when I am not careful.
Sunday night something happened that changed EVERYTHING. My 40 lb very muscular mutt (we think she is part Pit), Bessie, went all postal on my poor 9 lb mutt (a Frankenstien of a dog that looks like a mini-terrier on acid), Daisy. Bessie actually drew blood. Fortunately, the injury was minor and Daisy was okay, but I have 4 calves to think about and I can not have an aggressive dog. Calves, mine and other folks’, are constantly in and out of my house and I can’t be worried that they are not going to depart in one piece.
I was beside myself. Bessie has been a great dog and has never once behaved aggressively for the 4 years we have had her. Then all of the sudden she just went postal. I did what any good dog owner would do. I checked out Cesar Milan’s website. The Dog Whisperer says that often dogs that are aggressive are simply not getting enough exercise. They have a lot of energy that they need to get out somehow and if you don’t get them moving they will find a way to exert themselves, even if it means mauling a member of the pack. That actually made a lot of sense to me. I bet I’d be much less likely to bitch at the Bull if I was exercised daily.
So, in an effort to save my dog from a trip to the Humane Society, I cautiously took her, and her faithful companion, on a 2 mile walk last Monday. I took the flatest route possible which is important when you have knee issues and I wore these special shoes that my mom bought for me that are made for fat, arthritic old ladies. They are called Abeo shoes and you can only get them at The Walking Company. I have no idea how my mom found them but they truly are amazing. Apparently they were designed at Stanford University specifically for us fat, arthritic old folks. I won’t go on and on about them as this is not a sponsored post but if you are a fat, arthritic old person with knee issues, buy these shoes, whatever the cost.
I iced my knee that first night and the next morning, my knee was fine…so…I did the same thing Tuesday….and then Wednesday…and then Thursday…and Friday too. My knee was a bit sore and puffy Friday afternoon and Saturday, but nothing tragic. I made the Bull pick up the slack over the week-end and rested and iced my sore, only slightly swollen knee. Tomorrow morning, I will resume the walking routine and am cautiously optimistic that both my knee and my beasts, will continue to behave.
Looking back, I am sort of happy that Bessie tried to kill Daisy; it has forced me to try something I would have been afraid to do otherwise and I now get to return to an exercise I actually enjoy. Hooves crossed that the positive results continue.
Moo!
Fit To Be Friday!
Posted: March 15, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diet, Dieting, dieting frustrated weightloss, Fat, inspiration, losing weight, overweight, Tracking weight, weigh-in, weight gain, weight loss, Weightloss Leave a commentYAHOO!
The 2 pds I was up earlier in the week have miraculously disappeared…so I am back to being down 7 pds. I know that’s not a huge amount of weight to lose but the fact of the matter is everyone has to start somewhere. My youngest calf weighed 7 pds when she was born so essentially I’ve lost a newborn. It seems like a lot more weight when I think of it in terms of losing a small human being.
My goal is to lose 3 more pounds by the end of March. Hooves crossed.
Again, I know it doesn’t seem like much but since I gained 2 pds earlier in the week for no apparent reason, it is not inevitable. I will have to work hard. I hate that.
Moo!
Weigh-In…Sorta
Posted: March 12, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 CommentIt’s not Fit to Be Friday, I know, but Friday, I didn’t have access to a scale. Saturday and Sunday we drove home from the funeral. (Such a relief to sleep in my own bed Sunday night.) Yesterday I weighed myself and I was down another pound, which I happily recorded in My Fitness Pal. This morning I am up 2 but I refuse to adjust the My Fitness Pal number for 2 reasons:
1. My food intake yesterday was on track so I think this weight gain is a temporary water sort of thing.
2. I don’t want to.
You are not technically supposed to weigh yourself daily anyway. If I wasn’t scale obsessed and hadn’t stepped on the scale this a.m., I wouldn’t even know. So I am just going to pretend that I have a healthy attitude about the scale and didn’t actually step on it this a.m. Have I mentioned that I’m an expert at making excuses and rationalizing things?
Today I am going to up my water intake and avoid all carbs even the healthy whole grain ones….because no carbs seems to up my weightloss. I will not do that forever, just for a day or two….until I lose those 2 pds, I have never really gained 😉
Moo!
Rough Week But I Am Keeping on
Posted: March 5, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diet, Dieting, inspiration, loss, loss of a loved one, low GI diet, low glycemic index, random thoughts, weight loss, Weightloss 6 CommentsThis week has been a toughy. My Aunt passed away. It was not a surprise. She had been battling aggressive cancer for the last 9 months and lived 3 months longer than predicted. I was very close with my Aunt. She never married or had children and I was like her surrogate daughter. She spend holidays with us. I always sent her mother’s day cards. My kids loved her like a grandmother. She was a huge part of my life.
Sometimes when people die, it is sad, but it doesn’t effect you on a day to day level. You miss the person but your daily life doesn’t change. You know what I mean?
In this case, my daily life will change. Before she was diagnosed we spoke on the phone weekly. Once we knew, we spoke daily. I would call her everyday on my drive to pick up the calves from school. She was my company as I gathered my troops and I will be lonely next week when I drive to get them in silence.
She died on Friday and we drove all day on Saturday to get to my family. Since we have been here, we have been busy with family, funeral, the business side of death. It has been stressful and emotional and many times downright unpleasant. My mom is the only surviving sibling and I am my mother’s only child. The burden is on my mom to handle things and I have become my mother’s personal assistant. I know I need to help. I want to help my mom but honestly I’d rather have a pap smear than deal with this. I am particularly dreading our afternoon excursion to go and start cleaning out my Aunt’s apartment…she was a bit of a hoarder (understatement) and I know they are going to be lots of expletives uttered by my mom (and me) as we work our way through.
Remarkably, I have not veered at all from my low GI diet. I am amazed. I had gained all that weight when I had my tantrum 3 weeks ago. The first week on the low GI diet, I lost 2 pds and then I sort of stopped losing anything. Rationally I knew that was hormonal. I am very effected by hormones and retain a lot of water in the last 2 weeks of the month.
I carried on. I did not get so frustrated that I quit. I did not throw another tantrum. I just kept keeping on. Reminding myself that even if I don’t lose anything, I need to get my blood sugar and cholesterol under control. If I can do those 2 things, I’ll be ahead and I can focus on weight loss later. So I stayed away from sugar and white flour. I focused on veggies and fruits and proteins. “If I can’t grow it or kill it, I can’t eat it” has become my mantra. I need to get healthy so I don’t end up insulin dependent and heavily medicated (and not in a good way) – that is not how I want to live. I ignored the scale and just kept keeping on.
Then a funny thing happened. I got my period and lost 4 pounds overnight. I am now back down 6 pounds. All through the family gatherings and funeral happenings, I have stayed the course. The sweets at the repast looked good but I didn’t long for them the way I had in the past. I knew they would taste good and I definitely would have enjoyed a cookie but I never felt like I HAD TO HAVE a cookie or a brownie or any of the other amazing looking treats that were there. I had chicken and salad…and then some more chicken and salad. I talked with family and friends I hadn’t seen in a while and had more chicken and salad. I drank a lot of coffee (I know not so good from the low GI standpoint but way better than brownies and cookies). I did not have one sweet.
A month ago, I would have used my Aunt’s death as an excuse to stray from the course. I would have said, “I am sad, stressed, emotional, overwhelmed, screw it all, I’m having a cookie.” Only I wouldn’t have had 1 cookie, I would have had many, many cookies. Then I would have felt like crap, which would have led me to just eat more junk which would have made me feel like crap…..you get the picture.
I am very proud of myself this week. Actually, I am very proud of myself for the past 3 weeks. Yay me!!! I can resume my Fit to Be Fridays this week as I have caught up to my original 6 pound loss and am now optimistic I can be down a total of 10 pds by the end of March. And if I don’t lose those 4 pounds? I will just keep on keeping on….
Moo!
Friends Making Monday…a Tuesday version
Posted: February 26, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diet, Dieting, dieting frustrated weightloss, eating disorder, emotional eating, Fat, Friend Making Monday, inspiration, losing weight, overweight, random thoughts, Weightloss 2 CommentsI have done a terrible job posting lately. Since I received my news from the doctor, had my tantrum, and then epiphany, I have actually been doing fairly well as far as eating goes. I have not lost much weight but I have been avoiding white flours, sugars and anything processed. I have been eating more chicken then any Bovine should lawfully consume (the Chik-Fil-A cows would most definitely approve) and lots of fruits and veggies and my new favorite treat cottage cheese mixed with vanilla Greek yogurt and almonds.
I feel like I should be melting away and am a little frustrated that I am not. Physically, I am feeling good so that is a plus. I am going to give myself another week of just focusing on healthy whole food choices before I start shifting the focus to exercise and portion control. Rome was not built in a day….and neither will My Inner Bunny 🙂
Now onto the point of this post. As usual, I am late but yesterday was Friends Making Monday and I just love to participate so here I go…..
If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has an opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!
Questions and Answers
1. Did you watch the Oscars? If so, who did you enjoy seeing most? Nope, I just can’t get into any awards shows. Thank goodness for Yahoo though because I love to see the outfits.
2. Do you drink meal replacement shakes, smoothies, etc? If so, what’s your favorite kind? I went on a SlimFast kick for a while. I would add bananas and berries. It was delicious and I would have it for breakfast. BUT it is full of salt and carbs so no longer on my list of green light foods….Moo!
3. Share one thing you have done to help someone in the last week? I delivered 4 bags of groceries to our local food co-0p…all items I purchased for close to free using coupons. I try to gather free or super cheap items each time I shop and collect them until I have enough to deliver.
4. What is the tastiest thing you ate last week? My new favorite treat – cottage cheese/vanilla greek yogurt/ and almonds…the closest thing to cheesecake I am going to get for the foreseeable future.
5. Think of one fun thing that you could do this week without spending any money to do it. We have a themed movie night a few times a month. This week we are going to watch Bend It Like Beckham and eat Indian food.
6. Share one place that you’ve been to and would like to visit again. The Beach….sort of ironic since I look like a beached whale in a swimsuit but I LOVE THE BEACH!!!!
7. Do you prefer Facebook or Twitter? Twitter – it is too easy to waste too much time on FB!
8. What is your favorite vegetable? Brussel Sprouts….roasted with a touch of olive oil, sea salt and parmesan cheese.
9. Share a goal that you have for the month of March. My goal for March is to make my new low GI diet a habit. I need to get to a point where I just reach for the right foods without thinking about it. Once I get to that point, I am going to up my work-outs and reduce my portion sizes. I am optimistic that I can lose 10 pds from now to the end of March…hooves crossed.
10. Share a quote that inspires you. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” Lao Tzu
Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget go to www.alltheweigh.com to come back and link up in the comments! Happy Monday, dear ones!!!!!!!!!
Friends Making Monday (late…no surprise)
Posted: February 19, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: A Course in Weightloss, blogging, Diet, Dieting, Friends Making Monday, inspiration, losing weight, overweight, random thoughts, weight loss Leave a commentKenlie over at All the Weigh does a weekly Friends Making Monday (FMM) – Some weeks I do it, usually by the time I get around to it, it’s Tuesday and then I feel like I’ve missed the boat. But today, I figured I’d do it on Tuesday. Who says Friends Making Monday can’t be on a Tuesday, right?
If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!
Blogger to Blogger
1. Does your blog have one overwhelming theme? Yes, my frequent and often futile attempts at weightloss.
2. How did you come up with the theme(s) for your blog? Was it intentional? The theme of my blog is My Inner Bovine because sometimes I feel like there are 2 mes. One the healthy, fit me and the other, the Inner Bovine, who just wants to eat, and only eat crap. The theme was very intentional.
3. Share something cool that has happened in your life as a result of blogging. I have met some awesome supportive people and have learned about A Course in Weightloss.
4. How much time to do spend reading blogs everyday? not enough. I wish I had more time as I find other people’s journeys fascinating.
5. Do you blog on the weekends? Yes,
6. Do you keep track of your stats? Do they matter to you? no and no
7. How do you decide how much to share about your personal life? I try to remain fairly anonymous so I don’t really care what I share.
8. Do you aspire to be a writer, or did blogging happen for some other reason? I love to write and would love to figure out a way to make a living at it but for now my blog is enough.
9. As a blogger, do you think it’s more important to write for yourself, or for your readers? I write for me but that is the whole point of my blog. A more public journal about losing weight. I am great at lying to myself so my blog is the place where I am held accountable.
10. What kind of plans do you have for the future of your blog? Just keep keeping on.
Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions. Don’t forget to go to All the Weigh and link up in the comments. Happy Monday!
A Bovine Breakdown
Posted: February 16, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: A Course in Weightloss, compulsive eating, Diet, Dieting, dieting frustrated weightloss, eating disorder, emotional eating, Fat, inspiration, losing weight, low carb, overweight, random thoughts, weigh-in, weight gain, weight loss, Weightloss 7 CommentsI am not weighing in this week because in all honestly I don’t want to record the massive weight gain I managed to accrue. Valentine’s Day didn’t help but in all honesty that is not why I gained so much weight. I had a bit of a Bovine breakdown. A moment of who the F cares, I am just going to throw in the towel and remain a fat cow until my early demise due to heart disease and complications with diabetes.
Yup, you guessed it, I received some not so great news from the doctor. The “you are a borderline diabetic with high cholesterol and better lose weight before you kill yourself” sort of news. My favorite line from the nurse who had so kindly called me to tell me the results from my blood work was, “The doctor wants you go on a low-carb, low-calorie, low-fat diet.”
Great! Is there anything left to eat? Sure, if I was a rabbit and not a bovine. Moo!
I threw a bit of a tantrum (more than a bit) and did not take care of myself at all this week. I didn’t even look at A Course in Weightloss, I ate what I wanted and managed to make myself sick on more than one occasion. Finally I had a bit of an epiphany. Sadly the epiphany didn’t arrive until yesterday (after I managed to gain almost 5 pounds) but here it is:
I felt like crap for most of the week. I was gassy, crabby, fatigued, my stomach hurt and even though I kept eating, I had a general feeling of malaise. I felt significantly worse when I ate something full of refined sugar and/or carbs.
Wait for it…..
Perhaps these foods are having a negative effect on my blood sugar resulting in me feeling so completely awful. (Did I just hear a D’uh?)
Yesterday, I ate exclusively chicken, veggies and fruit and for the first time all week, I felt physically okay. Not great, still a bit tired, but a ton better. Maybe I need to eat more like a rabbit, not because the doctor said so or because I can stave off some pretty serious health issues (those clearly aren’t enough motivation for me), but because I just don’t feel very well when I don’t. When I feel icky it affects my mothering, my wifeying, my friendying, my housekeeping and my working….a whole bunch of ‘ings are negatively effected when I eat like crap. Seems like I am better at everything when I eat like a rabbit. Moo!
I managed to forgo leftover Valentine’s dessert last night just by reminding myself how awful I felt physically when I ate it the day before. I need to keep that feeling at the front of my mind, to constantly remind myself that how I eat no longer just affects the size of my hindquarters, it affects my entire life…..perhaps I should change the name of my blog from My Inner Bovine to My Inner Bunny.
Moo!….Hop!….Moo!
Fit to be Friday on Saturday AGAIN!!!
Posted: February 9, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: A Course in Weightloss, compulsive eating, Diet, Dieting, dieting frustrated weightloss, eating disorder, emotional eating, exercise, Fat, inspiration, losing weight, overweight, random thoughts, Tracking weight, weigh-in, weight loss, Weightloss Leave a commentI didn’t get a chance to post yesterday because my last post, Tearing Down the Wall, received such amazing comments that I spent my blogging time responding to those instead of writing my Fit to be Friday post. I am going to write a few posts based on those comments so I won’t bore you with that now. Suffice it to say, I am very fortunate to have such insightful people supporting my weightloss journey and I truly appreciate their comments.
Now, onto the weigh-in….Remarkably, despite my faking it last week, I managed to lose another pound. This is particularly impressive as we hosted a Superbowl Party with way too much food which meant way too many left overs. I am feeling a bit lucky and not so deserving as I am not quite sure how I managed to end up at a loss. I will say that Wed and Thurs were spent eating ONLY fruit, veggies and protein, I didn’t even have salad dressing. Obviously, my body responds to that and I am going to keep that up this coming week. I did veer off a bit yesterday and today I did try some homemade bread with real butter . But starting tomorrow I will be back on track. Part of setting my goal at only 1 pd a week is that I won’t have to be a dieting fiend 100% of the time and can have a piece of home made bread with real butter on occasion, which by the way was amazing.
This morning I took my dogs for a 2 mile walk. This is the longest I have walked since my knee surgery and it felt good to push myself. The knee surgery has made me afraid to push myself physically as anytime I do too much I end up with a swollen knee that I can’t walk on. Because I have been biking for a 1/2 hour 3 times a week, I felt strong enough to go on the a long walk. I felt awesome when I finished and the dogs were most appreciative as it seems that I am the only one in my family of 6 that is capable of walking them. I know the 6 pds didn’t make a difference in my ability to walk but I do think that regularly biking has helped a lot. I enjoy walking and am hopeful that this is the beginning of me being able to start walking for exercise again. Biking seems like such a chore and walking outside with my dogs is relaxing and enjoyable.
I have finished reading the next Lesson in A Course in Weightloss and am going to start drafting my letter to the Not So Thin Me today. I am a bit reticent because I just don’t know what to say besides F&@# YOU! That hardly seems healing though.
Anymoo, until next time…..
Viva La Bovine!
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myinnerbovine 