It's All a Conspiracy ...

Have you ever had one of those days ... er, weeks ... or months ... or, let's face it. Lives where it seems like everything's out to get you?

Yeah. That would be how I'm feeling right now.

I've struggled to find a way to exercise that doesn't hurt my feet. I've told you the feet story, haven't I? It's pretty pathetic. Anyway, so I happened upon the Wii Fit. Love the Wii Fit. Plan on getting the upgrade soon. I've mastered the Advanced Step for aerobics and I'm a Yoga Master, so I'm ready for more challenges. The Wii is my friend. I love the Wii.

My husband vacuumed the Wii sensor bar cable and broke it.

Yeah. That was fun.

However, I did find a replacement online. It was $14.95, which is pretty good, with free shipping, which is excellent, and is wireless. Priceless.

We're now waiting for it to arrive, and we'll see if it works. That's always the challenge ... will it work.

Keep your fingers crossed for a resurrection of our Wii ...

Tristi's Friday Update

When you turn on the Wii Fit, one of the first options you see is to weigh yourself. It becomes nearly second nature to click the little button and see if you've lost anything, but there's a danger in this - you can go for a whole week eating chicken breasts and carrot sticks and lose one ounce, then eat a slice of pizza and go up two pounds. This makes you think, "I can never, ever cheat, even a tiny bit, or I'll stay fat forever." And, as we all know, this kind of thinking makes us head straight for the fridge. You can't tell someone they can never, ever again eat something they would like to eat ... it's a recipe (pardon the pun) for disaster.

I've decided to weigh on Fridays, before breakfast. If I watch my weight inch up and sneak down and inch up and sneak down by mere ounces all week long, I go stark raving bonkers. It's better for me if I see the results of an entire week's work at once.

I did pretty well this week. I exercised every day but Wednesday - Wednesday was a really odd day. It's like my world got turned upside down and a great many things didn't happen that should have. I'm still trying to increase my vegetable intake and decrease my sugar intake, but that will be my goal for this next week.

Now, I'm ready to make an announcement.

A couple of years ago, I went chocolate free. I went for nine whole months without any chocolate whatsoever ... and then this happened (click here for link). Easily, one of the worst days in my writing life. I headed for Baskin Robbins and got two scoops of the most chocolatey chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks they had. From there, I sort of went back to my old chocolate consuming ways.

But, the announcement! I am now chocolate free again. One day so far. :) I did it once, I can do it again.

Today chocolate, tomorrow - the world!

An Interesting Observation

I've done the Wii Fit the last two days, my feet finally well enough to resume exercising. It turns out, I didn't have gout after all - just a whole lot of painful swelling. I was put on a really nice anti-inflammatory and I've only had to take a few doses, and life is good again. But I digress.

I've done the Wii Fit the last two days, like I said, and each time, I weighed myself right before and right after. What's interesting to me is that I generally lose weight while I'm exercising, to the tune of about a pound. I don't know if that's water I'm sweating off, or what, but regardless of what's causing it, it's actually a pretty good incentive to exercise. Get on at one weight, and get off at another! Yeah, sometimes the simplest things make me happy. :)

I'm still working on finding ways to cheer myself up without food. There are some days to where I just feel this amazingly strong need to grab a treat because of how things are going in my life. Once I can figure out what to do instead, I'll be able to make a lot more progress. I've tried turning on the radio or calling someone - those things that are supposed to help for emotional needs - but it's the physical kick in the pants sugar gives me that I'm trying to replace in a healthy way. I'm going to try taking a vitamin C instead. That's a really nice kick in the pants.

Anyway, things are going pretty well so far. Still having issues with remembering to eat, but yesterday I made some good food choices (I ate breakfast, Marta!!) and while I wasn't perfect, I do feel satisfied that I'm putting forth some good effort.

Regaining my footing

I feel like I'm trying to climb a mountain, and a couple of weeks ago I slipped on a glacier and fell halfway back down. I literally gained back half the weight I have lost so far. But I'm working my way back and I'm only a pound up from where I was before I fell. I should probably come up with more analogies about pitons and safety ropes and whatnot, but it's too early in the morning to do that much thinking.

I've started exercising with Wii Fit a few times a week. It can be a little deceptive. It feels like playing a game, but the soreness and stiffness in my thighs tells me the step aerobics are a real workout and I overdid it. I've heard there's a way to play on the Wii with friends over the internet, but I haven't figured out how. Anyone know?

A Rollercoaster Week

I've had a lot of ups and downs for the past week and a half. First of all, I made the huge mistake of buying a snack size bag of Lay's potato chips, thinking just a little bit wouldn't hurt. WRONG! I have a problem with too much salt, and apparently I have been getting enough sodium in my regular diet that the chips just pushed it into critical mass. When I overdo the salt, I retain water, which seems to build up fluid in my inner ears, which makes me dizzy. I also developed a headache. (My body will take any kind of stress and manifest it as a headache.)

So I broke my rule and drank a Dr. Pepper. The caffeine is a diuretic, which helps to flush out the retained water. It wasn't enough to kill the headache though, and I took some Excedrin, which is my last resort because it makes me feel sick and very jittery. So I ate a large amount of chocolate, which for me is like a tranquilizer that doesn't put me to sleep.

After all this self-medicating, I was dreading what the scale would say on Thursday morning. Sure enough, I was up 3 pounds. It was so depressing I totally put off posting. But then the next morning, I was back down to where I had been the week before. Weird!

On Thursday night, out of the blue, my husband's sister called to say she and her husband were coming up for the weekend, and they were bringing us a Wii! She uses Wii Fit every day and loves it, and she is worried about my husband's health and wanted him to have an easy way to exercise. They got here on Friday night and my son, our resident tech expert, set up the Wii. It said I am 3.5 pounds heavier than our scale said that morning, but some of the difference could have been evening weight versus morning weight, and fully clothed versus not. At least that's what I tell myself. My body fat in the overweight range, but my Wii Fit Age is only 42, or 5 years younger than my real age.

This morning I stepped on the bathroom scale again and I'm back to where I was before the potato chips.

Checking In

So I have found that I am an inconsistant blogger when I don't have good news to share. Which is really not very accountable. So I had better post and be more accountable! I have had another stay-in-place week, it seems like it is just so hard with everything on my plate. But my kitchen is finally all repainted, and looking very nice if I do say so myself. And my bathroom is as done as I can get it since plumbing is not my forte. I was able to take a bath in my tub for the first time in four months-yay! Now the only thing left to do is hook up the sink and the toilet, which I will try to do myself if another week goes by without it getting done. I am really looking forward to school starting, as I will be able to get out of the house to exercise in between my kiddos going to school and my extra kiddos showing up and it won't mean my having to wake up before dawn.

I am hoping next week I will be able to stick to a stricter diet and utilize my Wii Fit more. I am still in project mode, two friends decided they are finally getting married and gave everyone 10 days advance notice of their elopement. And a cousin just got engaged. So I am working on the crocheted blankets I make for wedding gifts that take a month apeice to make and hoping to make them both in one month instead of two more months in project mode.