Weight

Finally, Movement

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 4 Comments

On the scale that is.  I haven’t blogged month that last few months.  Life has just been busy and I have been trying to figure out how to keep all the balls I am juggling in the air and the blogging ball has been left to lay under the table gathering dust. 

Well, I am proud of myself that I have completed 36 days of exercise so far this year.  That means I only have 329 more days to go.  I feel great and am so happy that I have found my commitment to myself again.  Sadly, after 31 days of exercise in January, I did lose a pound.  Not one pound.  I weighed the same amount on Jan 31 as I did on Jan 1.  I was irritated and a little flabbergasted.  I thought I was doing great–I felt great.  I wasn’t tracking my food and I obviously should have been.  That’s not entirely accurate.  I tracked my meals and I was eating fine–what I wasn’t tracking was the food I was eating off the kids plates or the type of calories I was eating. 

I have PCOS and have written about it in the past.  I need to watch my carbs and make sure to eat the right kind and not too many.  I shouldn’t have more than 150g of carbs a day and less would be better.  Well, on some days I was consuming closet to 300g of carbs.  That isn’t good for me, nor will it aid in my weight loss efforts.  So, I have download the new LoseIt app for my iphone and am keeping tack of everything I eat and of my carbs/fat/fiber/protein and it has opened my eyes.  And finally 4 days in I have seen some movement on the scale–nearly 2lbs.

I have accepted that losing weight is going to take a lot of work and it really is a numbers game and a numbers game that is more than just calories in vs calories out.  I need to eat the right calories for my body and what my body needs and struggles with.  I am looking forward to my official weigh in on monday to see what a week of doing what I need to do and should be doing has gotten me.

When Logic Fails

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

I have been working out/exercising every day now for 26 days.  I haven’t lost any weight and I finally have figured out why.  I haven’t been eating enough.  I know that sounds crazy doesn’t it.  But when you exercise everyday and you don’t give your body enough of the right stuff, it holds on to everything you do give it.  I was really frustrated the other day and forced myself to sit and think about what was going on and what the problem was or could be.  I haven’t been counting my points or keeping track of my food.  I also know that I haven’t been eating bad.

I now have the exercising down.  It’s like a drug for me and I am addicted to it and the way I feel.  I have so much more energy and just feel better overall.  I have started to branch out and vary my exercising.  I have to put in a plug for my Wii Fit.  I know there are lots of you out there who love the Wii Fit and I am a believer.  I love the work out I can get a pretty good one–I try to get to the gym 5 days a week and then use the Wii Fit on the weekends.

Now that I have the exercising down and know that I will be able to do it everyday for the next 11 months, I have to focus on my food.  So I will get back to tracking my food and making sure that I am eating what I should and how much of it as I should.  Exercise really isn’t enough–it is only part of the issue.

Now I will tackle food.  Have I ever told you all how much I love food?  But it is a love/hate relationship.  I love food, but because I have the tendancy to over eat I try to stay away from it and keep it simple.  But simple has lead me to eat too little and forget some of the basic tenants of being healthy.

Oh the road that never ends.

I Choose Life

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 5 Comments

I have not written about weight loss in a long time–probably because I have fallen off the bandwagon and there really isn’t loss going on.  I have skirted the severity of the issue and it is time that I address with brutal honesty the serious nature of the issues.  I am not dying…not any faster than I am just through natural aging–don’t want to freak any of you out. 

I have PCOS and have written about that previously–sorry too lazy to look through past posts for specifics.  Because of this my hormones are messed up–especially my estrogen and I am insulin-resistant.  This means i have a hard time raising my good cholesterol number and my triglycerides are high.  This puts me at high risk for type II diabetes and heart disease.  Now, while there really isn’t much I can do to change the facts, I can change everything else.  With diet and moderate exercise I can reverse the effects of the PCOS–not get rid of it but manage it–and reduce my risk for type II diabetes and heart disease substantially.  I have been ignoring this.  PCOS is what is keeping me from getting pregnant and I think that subconsciously I didn’t want to get pregnant–that is a whole separate post–but now that we have decided not to do IVF there is no reason I can’t work on being healthy.  I need to do it for myself and I want to do it for my kids.  I want to be healthy and I want to live to see my grandchildren grow-up as well as my own children. 

It has been really easy to just ignore the severity of it and treat my weight loss as a cosmetic goal, but it isn’t.  I owe it to myself to be honest an to work hard to really make sure that I am doing everything I can to be healthy.  I don’t want to be put on meds to control these issues (insulin resistance) that can be handled through simple diet and exercise changes.  I haven’t made my health a priority, partly because that means I would have to address the real issues that I have and the serious turn they could take. 

Thank you for listening.

Friday Weigh In and A Sleep Update

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

First we’ll start with the weigh in.  I must absolutely recommend adding more children to help with weight loss.  I am really hard pressed to find time to eat and to prepare food.  I know this isn’t ideal, but I have been lucky enough to prepare leftovers of healthy food to be eaten.  I have not been as diligent in counting points, etc., but I know that I haven’t been going over on points.  I am down another 1.4 lbs this week for a 7 week total of 10.8lbs.  I am happy and content with the rate of weight loss.  I have come to accept that fast is not good and that slow and steady really does win the race.  I have 14.2lbs to lose before September 27th–which is 10 weeks away.  At my current rate, I should make it by then.  Yay!  I just to have to stay committed and on track.  Thanks for all the support.

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Peepers is sleeping more/better.  There are touch and go moments and still bouts of crying for an hour or so because she is so tired but can’t fall asleep–but she is now managing 3+ hour stretches at a time.  It is amazing how little sleep you can get by with it you get to have your 90 minute cycles of sleep.  She is still gaing weight at a fast pace she is .2lbs away from 15lbs–which puts her at nearly 3lbs gained in 3 weeks.  She is growing and changing and is relatively happy–but boy does this girl want to get in on the action.  She gets so mad that she can’t crawl and even more mad that she can’t stand and walk.  She’ll be walking too soon for my liking.  

My Handyman and Friday Weigh-in

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

We put Peeper’s crib together last night.  We are hoping to start the transition to her sleeping in the crib.  She is eating a lot less at night now so should be ready to sleep on her own soon.  It will take time to transition her and we will start with naps first. 

Anyway to the funny part of my story.  I guess it’s funny in that “paint yourself into a corner” kind of way.  We were putting the crib together and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to Hubby’s part.  We get done with putting the frame together and I am admiring it, but notice that Hubby is in the middle of the crib.  Now he is a big guy–6’5 250lbs.  He has built himself into the crib.  Now this isn’t the funny part.  The funny part was watching my completely inflexible husband get down on the ground and attempt to crawl out from under the crib.  It was priceless and I wished I had had my camera with me. 

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I didn’t lose any weight this week, but I didn’t gain any either.  Considering I didn’t count my points and didn’t really exercise and certainly didn’t sleep or eat very good, I am so very happy.