Indiana oddities

About three things have struck me as peculiar this past week, so I thought I'd throw them out there, which shall heretofore thenceforth be known as Indiana oddities.

1. At the boys' schools, when there is snow on the ground, there is no need to send in snowpants or boots. They just have indoor recess on those days.
???
When I emailed their teachers to confirm the policy on when I should send in snowpants and snowboots, Luke's teacher said they just stayed in because "the children would get too wet and cold."

What??

2. When you get a driver's license coming in from another state, you have to pass a test. And it's hard. And the last time we moved to Indiana, I failed the test because you can only miss like 2 out of 50. And the questions are either idiotically easy, like "If a blind person is crossing the road, you should....
a. Honk Loudly
b. Swerve to miss them
c. Come to a complete stop in the middle of the road, or
d. wait for them to cross the crosswalk.

I'm not making this up, this was the question. Or, conversely, it is something like this:
If the road is wet and slippery, you should:

a. if you have ABS antilock brakes, you should...
b. if you have conventional brakes, you should....
c. to dismantle the engine block, you should...
and so you get the point here.

what? who knows these things?

Anyway, luckily, and surprisingly, I passed. But my #2 oddity is, you cannot show teeth when you pose for your driver's license picture. You can smile, just without showing your teeth. Which equals my look of painful constipation now on my driver's license. Thanks Indiana BMV.

3. We don't have a local library in my town (it might be on my long term list to try to do something about that, but that's for another day) so I went to the next town over and tried to get a library card tonight. Turns out, in my township (townships are big here), we apparently don't pay taxes for any library, so in order to get a library card, you have to pay $85/year. ??? I was shocked. I just thought it was part of being an American that you could walk into a library and get a library card for free.

And there you have it folks.

Week 2 JC Results

Ok, I promise that going forward my only blog entries will not be dieting results, but it just so happens that I haven't done anything since my last entry on this topic!

Week 2 is under my belt.............

-2.5

Cumulative: -7.3

 

Yeehah!

 

This past week was a little tougher, I felt a little hungrier or maybe struggled a bit with not eating what others were eating that looked good. I went out to a restaurant for the first time while on the plan, and ordered linguine with chicken and pesto. I used an old Weight Watchers trick and asked for a to-go box and put over half of the food into the box before I started to eat, and that seemed to work pretty well for me.

 

Another interesting aspect of this program is the armband piece. You can sign up under different levels, and I chose the most expensive version they call "metabolic max", which includes an armband that you wear pretty much around the clock. Apparently this armband is being used on the Biggest Loser too (full disclosure--armband is an NBC company so go figure), but anyway, it has been really quite fascinating to see what data it collects. It claims to capture 9,000 data points per minute or something crazy like that, keeping track of your calories burned, steps taken, and even the amount and quality of your sleep at night. You input the food you eat each day, and then it gives you a "calorie deficit" for the day, since you know you need to burn 3500 more calories than you consume to lose a pound in a week. You can then print out a 4 page report at the end of the week to analyze how you did on all the parameters, including % of carbs, fat, sodium intake, etc.

 

If anyone is interested in learning more about the armband, you can read more here. The armband is separate from Jenny Craig, anyone can use it.

 

I'm finding that the shelf ready foods which do not need to be refrigerated/frozen all seem to have the same thick, orange, pasty "Chef Boyardee" quality to them so I would definitely steer towards the freezer version of the foods. Otherwise, I am pretty happy with the food taste, and am actually surprised that with the food all being prepackaged food that they are able to keep it within the sodium levels recommended each day (which I was able to verify as one of my armband data collection points!)

 

Overall, I can tell I've lost a few pounds although it's not enough for anyone else to tell yet, and I am happy to be nearing the next 'decade' of weight.

 

 

Results-Week One

My first weigh-in was today... results.........

-4.8 lbs

 

 

What was good: I liked the lack of preparation/time needed to make my meals. The most time consuming piece was making a salad with my lunch. This fits right into my lifestyle right now and it is so easy to just look at the piece of paper where it tells me what I'm eating next, and knowing that the number of calories and the fat/carb/protein balance has already been thought out for the day. And actually, the food for the most part was pretty decent. Maybe it's because only eating 1200 calories a day, damn near anything will taste pretty decent.

I also really like the one on one consultations. I know I would not have been able to get this catered approach to my own issues/eating with a larger group setting such as Weight Watchers. I told the girls that they should make me their project and that I wanted to be one of their before and after posters.

 

What was tough: The last few days of the week, I felt hungrier so I did a lot more grazing. While the amount I ate was still significantly less for the week than it would have been had I not been doing Jenny Craig, I was still a little disappointed in myself that I didn't end up doing even better by avoiding those extra bites.

The cost of this program is also a bit tough to swallow. It is about $130/week in food. HOWEVER: If you look at it as something that I need to do to change my life, it is much easier to justify the cost. Plus, once you factor out the cost of what you would have spent on food for yourself anyway, it isn't as high. I was eating out for lunch at least 3-4 times a week before, so the cost of this program diminishes even more. At this point, I needed something, and it was worth it. I need to look at it like I was worth it.

 

Loved: The chocolate cheesecake.

Hated: The cheese curl snack. Tasted a bit like cardboard.

 

So, heading into week two. Let's hope I have another good loss that will help me stay motivated. I am going to be going to the Wisconsin Dells next month which will require me to strap on a bathing suit so that might help give me a little nudge. 

Fresh Start

I have decided to document a journey that has been started and stopped many times before--weight loss. I feel that this has been an issue in my life since high school. I remember eating carrots and pretzels for meals in hopes of losing or maintaining my weight. Then, after I graduated college and got my first job, it took me about a year to get around to losing all of the pizza, breadsticks, and beer from college. I joined Weight Watchers and lost 33 pounds a year or so before getting married. I was motivated, and I was sure that I would never end up in that place again.

Fast forward to 14 years and 3 kids later. I gained about 50 lbs with each pregnancy, always managing to hang onto 10-15 of those after the baby was born. After 3 kids, this has really started to add up.

When I look in the mirror, I feel like I am a caricature of myself. I somewhat resemble myself, but in a funny cartoonish sort of way. When I see pictures, I honestly can't believe that this is what I look like, so I generally avoid pictures and home videos. I am always the one behind the camera. Which honestly, is not the way I want my kids' lives to be documented. I want them to grow up and see me in their memories too.

I know that I am able. I really want to do it. But I have started, and failed, so many times that at some point I have stopped believing in myself and my abilities. I used to think that I could do anything that I set my mind to. When I was in college, I challenged myself one semester to get straight A's, and I did. When I first joined Weight Watchers, it never crossed my mind that I would not lose the weight. But now, here I sit, wondering if this is the way it will always be. I want to do it, but  haven't found the strength or motivation to stick with it and make it happen. But a great America lyric comes to mind: "Oh, Oz never did give nothin' to the Tinman. That he didn't, didn't already have".  I know I already have the ability within me. I just need to believe in myself again.

So, the outcome is this. My word, or phrase, or resolution, for 2013 is:

EMPOWER MYSELF

 

I want to believe that I CAN lose the weight. I CAN figure out how to put something together, or read a manual, or make something work again. I CAN understand how to use the new iphone5 I was recently armwrestled into. I AM smart and I CAN DO IT!!!

 

I have joined Jenny Craig, and I will document my journey on my blog as another accountability tool, and just because I like to talk about stuff.

 

Do I think Jenny Craig is the smartest, best choice to lose weight? No, not really. Honestly, I'm sure that Weight Watchers is a better plan. But it just isn't doing it for me anymore. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of tracking, and looking up, and measuring, and writing down that it takes, and I have tried to restart it no less than 5 times in the last 14 years unsuccessfully. So, I just need something new. Something that is sort of a no brainer. Enter Jenny Craig. Initially, you eat off of their preplanned, prepackaged menu, so the extent of my effort is to look at the daily chart and see what I am going to pop in the microwave next. I just started last Tuesday, so tomorrow is my first weigh-in.

 

I will check in with you again tomorrow and let you know how my first week went.

 

I appreciate you being part of my cheersquad.

Happy

I cannot tell you how happy I was today to hear laughter in my house with my child and a friend again. It has been way too long since I've heard that noise and it made my heart feel so full. I hope this is the beginning of something good. But Jack is so his mother when it comes to wanting to skip right past the "dating" phase and go straight to the "going steady" phase. I overheard him telling the friend that maybe he could come over for a sleepover on Saturday. I later tried to encourage him to take it slowly and let things develop, and not jump right to the sleepover stage since this was their first time playing together, but I know it is SO hard when you are ready to have good friends!

On another note, Luke wanted to know why his 'nickels' get hard when he is cold. Any help on this one?

Swacket

I have a new word for you that I learned today.
Swacket.
I used some of Josie's birthday money to buy her a swacket.
It is a denim jacket, with a hooded sweatshirt sewn into it.
How clever are these marketers nowadays?

I also got her a little western style button up shirt that is SO screaming for cowboy boots to go with it, but that is neither here nor there.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Ours was good. Luke had a very Ninjago Christmas. I mean like every gift under the tree, from both us, and his good friend Santa, was Ninjago. Though he seems to have lost faith in Santa and his abilities to deliver. This year, he claimed that he was going to put everything he really wanted to get on Grandma's list, because he knew he would get it then, since Santa never gets him what he wants. Such a cynic at such a young age. I tried to explain to him that when he adds something like a ninja suit onto his list at the 11th hour, Santa might be already DONE with him and so therefore cannot pull a ninja suit out of his jolly fat bag, but it falls on deaf ears.

This morning during breakfast, he asked me why he didn't get to sit on the fake Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas this year.

Rob picked him up from school and when he was explaining why he had temporary paper license plates on, Luke said, oh, I know why you just have paper ones now, because the real ones are made of lava, right Dad?

Oh my child, these comments are what keep us from tearing our hair out when you make us crazy. Thanks son.

Editor's Note: It turns out all of that crazy talk before might have been because he actually was getting sick, but just didn't know how to verbalize those feelings yet. He got strep throat over Christmas break, but without the sore throat. Only Luke. So he had a raging fever, headache, and general malaise for almost a week before we figured it out and got him on an antibiotic. He did say to me today that when he had that headache he was scared that something was wrong with his brain, so that does sort of validate my idea that maybe he's been exposed to too much reality lately. I think it's time to rein it in a bit and let him live in innocent world as much as I can right now.