May Flowers

Unfortunately, another chunk of time has gone by before I've gotten a chance to write again. I think this is mostly because I'm still just chugging along. Not much has changed. Well, until this last week, I feel like I finally made a breakthrough. I've been consistent in my exercising and have been getting outside more now that the weather is nicer and I continue to love pilates and what it's done for my core. As a person who carries weight around the middle, I'm finally seeing some relief from that.

It's also been hard for me to write when I have those bad days. Like last week when we came back from 4 days in California. We went out to Orange Co (south LA) for a wedding last week. It was a quick trip since I am low on vacation, having spent most of it on my honeymoon. I bought a dress that I loved at Ann Taylor for $40 (originally $150). A cute halter dress with an empire waist and A-line skirt. I looked cute in the dressing room. However, the pictures told a different story, at least to me. We got back from the trip and looked at the pictures my husband had taken of me. I looked like a cow. Worse, I looked like my chubby relative who shall remain nameless since this is a public blog. I lost it. I wanted to eat everything in the cabinet. What's worse is from the plane trip and eating out I had managed to gain back 4 lbs that I had worked to diligently to lose. Lesson 1: never get on the scale right after you get back from vacation and are PMSing. So, in the middle of losing it, I had the presence to mind to know that eating everything in the cabinet was not going to help. Deep breath. We do not eat because we're sad or any other emotion. So instead, I dragged my husband out for a bike ride and angrily pedaled and cried the entire way to the library to drop off books. Later, there was more crying, but not eating. Yay!

The day after that, all hell broke lose at work and I was stressed out. Again, I managed not to eat because I was upset; however the downside of this is that I was so upset that I couldn't eat. Not something I take pride in, but again, to try and sort out my feelings there was a long walk, a bike ride and healthy eating. It's more than a week later, and though the work stuff hasn't been resolved, I've fought the urge to eat because I'm upset, stressed, etc. I've maintained eating healthy and when I had an all day class that took me away from the office. I did not use it as an excuse to get a greasy burger or fast food. I brought my lunch. I had a salad for dinner the day I really wanted to just eat a bowl of the ice cream that was in the freezer. And because of that I can also say that whatever tiredness, etc that I'm feeling is due to something else, not how I've been eating. I feel less physical fatigue. As a happy bonus, I have also lost the 4lbs I was up coming back from vacation plus one additional. I have no doubt that one or 2 of those lbs was water retention from being on the plane, but it always feels great no matter how much I'd like it not to, when that number changes.

Just a note on some changes: as we head into summer, my brother and his wife have split at share in a farm with me and the hubby, so I'll be trying to think of new and inventive ways to eat and use the fresh veggies and fruit we'll be getting. I've also been doing a lot of reading about the 100 mile diet ( www.100milediet.org) so I hope to post updates about that and maybe some recipes as I try new things out.