Musings from an Angry Halfbreed

This is very much true.  I am in much pain, but I didn’t see any gain this week in my weight.  I didn’t see a loss either.  I’m holding steady at 163.

The pain part comes from the fact that I joined a gym during the middle of the week.  I went with a coworker and decided that since it is less than 15 minutes away and on the way home, I would join the gym.  It was also quite reasonable.

I met with the trainer regarding a workout routine, and he put me through the paces for my lower body.  I meet with him later this week to learn a routine for my upper body.  Those two sessions are free with my membership, and when I hit a plateau, I’ll just pay for a few more sessions.  Either that or I will hit up the ever knowledgeable Jesse.

My legs, however, are screaming.  It’s been a very long time since I worked out, and it’s obvious.  I can feel every muscle that I worked, and going up and down the stairs in our house has been a trial.  Yesterday, I just sat on my butt and slid down the stairs.  Mostly, it’s my calves that are outright rebelling.  The rest of my lower body is just complaining.  They better suck it up because there’s more tomorrow!

I am not a morning person nor will I ever be a morning person. I don’t want to convert; I’ll unhappily force myself to convert to way the rest of the world lives. However, I don’t have to be happy about it.

Actually, I wasn’t really upset when Chris took that picture this morning before we headed to Jenny Craig. In fact, I smiled happily with my hair sticking up everywhere for a few pictures, but the grumpy face looks better with the hair. Why does it look like that when it’s straight in most pictures? Well, I went to bed with it slightly damp. BOOM! Pillow explosion!

I had to tamp it all down under a ball cap before I headed to JC. I was somewhat worried about this weigh in as I’ve been home all week and eating all day long. I was convinced the scale was going to scream, “BOING!” However, I’m down by 0.6 pounds. Better than what I expected.

We have a new consultant. She’s British, and I could listen to her all day long. She’s quite pleasant and knows her stuff for just starting out at JC. I’m also impressed that JC hires all shapes and sizes. This particular consultant started the program six weeks ago, and I can only imagine what additional information she gets by being a consultant and a client. Although I do wonder if she consults with herself or if she sees someone. I would assume the latter.

Well, even though the weather is dreary, it’s time to get refocused on my final goal. Bump up activity, keep caloric count the same, and ignore the people who tell me to stop losing weight. (One day I’ll post more on that particular subject.)

Normally, I don’t watch the show. I watched religiously until Jillian left, and I would sporadically watch it while she was gone. However, I never got back into it. That is until this season.

First, they brought back Jillian. I love her style - blunt, balls to the wall, yet caring. Don’t get me wrong, Bob is great, but there’s something about Jillian that I just respect and love. She’s just a stellar trainer.

Second, I loved all the twists this year. After being on the air for so long, NBC has to keep making changes so it stays fresh. I loved the idea of pairs coming together because really weight loss is always easier with the support of your loved ones.

Lastly, let me say I love Ali. Not the host. I’m talking about the contestant. At first, I couldn’t stand her nor her mother. However, as I have watched her grow and progress, I’ve grown to really like her. I’m even rooting for her; she so deserves to be the first female Biggest Loser winner.

As the show was doing a montage of each person who remained, Ali discussed how the fat is not the issue. The fat is used to protect ourselves from our issues. She then went on to say, “Where did I give up on myself?” That really resonated with me because at some point, I did give up on myself, and I did use food as a panacea. I realize that every step on this journey I’ve taken has been a step towards reclaiming myself and believing in myself.

Maybe that is why TBL hits home with so many people; they want that, too.

Have I ever mentioned I have an innate fear of babies? Well, I do, and this evening, we had a baby in the house. Jesse took Sherri to dance lessons this evening, which meant we babysat Daeny.

Of course, I made her cry because my baby skills are weak. She then proceeded to cry for the next 45 minutes. For a few minutes, I wailed with her. Can’t beat them, join them, right? Eventually Chris got her to calm down. He says she can sense my fear and thus becomes scared. At least that way I’m not the only one filled with fear.

He tried to feed her but she was disinterested in the bottle. He brought her down to the computer room and left her with me where she proceeded to cry. See, I have bad juju. I tried to give her a binky followed by her blanket, followed by her stuffed dog, and she was having none of it. So, as a last resort, I checked her diaper. Sure enough, it was wet. Got her fixed up with a new diaper, and I thought all was good. That is until she cried.

I tried rocking her. No change. I tried getting her to lay with her little baby arch that has toys. Nope. So as a last resort, I settled Daeny in her swing and set it to max swing. Really, it sounds bad, but it’s a gentle swinging motion. As she wailed and sobbed, I handed the stuffed dog to her and placed her blanket over her. Oh, she’s interested! Good sign.

She then proceeds to mash the stuffed dog into her face followed by pulling the blanket over her mouth and nose. OMG! Is this normal? Should I be concerned? What if she smothers herself? I ended up watching her until she started to get groggy. I popped her binky into her mouth, and she was out cold.

Over the next five minutes, I slowly ease the blanket off her face and move her stuffed dog from her nostrils. The entire time, I was praying she didn’t wake up from the movements. About forty-five minutes later, I notice she’s kicked off the blanket. Fearing that she’ll be cold, I slowly inch over to her and proceed to tuck her blanket around her. That’s when her eyes pop open like some bad horror flick, and she looks directly at me. I was frozen with fear. I slowly put my hands up and stand there looking at the ceiling. Then I slowly backed away from her. WTF is wrong with me? I’m scared of a baby?

Needless to say, after her nap, she was fine. She ended up drinking from her bottle and playing under her arch of toys. Mostly, she grabbed the round plastic rings and chewed on them while the noisy light show was playing on the side of her arch.

As strange as it sounds, I was sad to see her go. Although, I will admit I was also relieved. I’m just so lost when she cries.

As I was perusing various sites and blogs during my vacation, I came across this little gem called Hanzi Smatter. It is dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture. Sadly, there are a lot of examples of this with tattoos.

People don’t take the time to research the language or the meaning. Instead, they opt for the flash on the wall proclaiming to be the “Japanese alphabet” or some other rot. Thus they blindly get a tattoo that is gibberish or offensive to the native speakers of that language.

People want to just take kanji and mash concepts/ideograms together using the English translation with absolutely no regard to the structure of the original language. (I see this all the time in MMOs, too.) But hey, it’s all good because my fellow Americans think it looks good. That’s all that matters right? /sarcasm off

This has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves. I always remember an article I read that showed a young college guy who thought he was getting something cool, and the artist gave him several kanji characters which translated to at the end of the day, this is just an ugly boy. If you’re too stupid to do some research then you deserve what you get and have no one to blame but yourself.

Haven’t written much. Maybe a visual would better update my progress.

And another picture. This one is of me the second week of Jenny Craig, and the second is me currently.

Whatever week this makes, I’ve lost 4.6 pounds, which brings me down to 160.6 pounds.  Since my original goal weight was 140 pounds, I have 20.6 pounds to go!

I was a little concerned with how well I would do because a few of us went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant for lunch.  I ended up spending Thursday evening and Friday trying to flush out the salt out of my body from that one meal.  I was drinking water like mad.  I had some tortilla chips and salsa, which surprisingly weren’t salty.  I even ordered a small a la carte meal - a small chicken tostada.  It wasn’t until I got back to school that I realized how salty everything was.

When I got on the scale this morning, I was really nervous.  Sure, it was the end of that T.O.M., but I still felt like it was going to be a bomb from all that salt.  I stepped on the scale and closed my eyes.  Ambreen, our consultant, wasn’t saying anything, so I was really scared.  I slowly opened my eyes and looked at the digital readout on the scale, and I let out a huge scream when I saw the numbers.  I promptly jumped off the scale and hugged Chris.  Then I got back on the scale to double check.

This time next week, I should be down in the 150s!  I am so stoked!  That’s such a motivator.  I don’t care if Chris can’t go walking with me next week; I shall be walking like a mad woman!

What a long germ-filled week this has been in our household.

Chris wasn’t feeling so well the previous weekend, but he didn’t manage to get up in time on Sunday to visit the Urgent Care.  He ended up spending the last five days horizontal with the flu.  Turns out a few other fellows at his work also spent the past week being sick.  Good thing he has a really great boss who essentially told all of them to keep their sickly butts at home.

The week for me started out smoothly or so I thought.  My students were ready for their annual spring standardized tests.  We had snacks, they were in the right mindset, and we were rocking.  I was feeling great because my kids were working so hard.  That feeling wasn’t going to last.

During our staff meeting after school, all I could think was the room was really warm, my stomach was really hurting, and my head was about to pop off my neck.  Great, a cold, I thought.  So I went to my classroom and prepped for a sub.  I stayed home Tuesday, but I returned Wednesday because I couldn’t get the sub I wanted.  When testing is at stake, I’m very particular about the subs I choose.

My principal took one look at me and asked why I was at work.  All I could say was that I obviously lacked the common sense to stay home.  Wednesday dragged on, and I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck.  I prepped plans for a sub on Thursday and Friday, and this time, I had enough sense to stay home.

After managing to visit my doctor, I learned that yes, indeed, I had the flu.  My doctor, who is wonderful and has a quirky bedside manner, told me I had three options: take a blood test to prove that it was influenza (test results to return in two weeks), treat the symptoms (wasn’t I already doing that), or take Tamiflu (which could kill me). Yes, my doctor actually gave me the rundown of all the side effects of Tamiflu and cited a rare case of death.  All I could muster back was that compared to what I was feeling at that moment, death would be a welcome respite.  So, armed with Tamiflu, a wad of tissue, and orders to stay home, I came home and crashed.

By crash, I mean I slept for over twenty hours.  Sure, I got up to drink and answer nature’s call, but pretty much, I spent over twenty hours in bed - asleep.  I don’t recall eating either.  Then again, food sounded horrid.  The lovely little ones decided that I was a better heat source than Chris, and thus, I spent over twenty hours in bed with two Chihuahuas glued to my side trying to steal my heat.  Little opportunists!

I emerged Friday morning still tired and with a mild fever, but I was done laying in bed.  Instead I sat in a chair most of the day because it took way too much energy to stand.

Weigh-in with Jenny Craig was Saturday morning.  Chris lost two pounds, and I neither gained nor lost any pounds.  You’d think I’d at least lose some weight with the flu, but that one day of not eating didn’t help.  Oh well, at least it’s not a gain. 

As some people have pointed out, I haven’t been posting much these days.  Several things have been thwarting my desire to post here.

First, the constant ups and downs of my weight loss coupled with the incredibly long winter months really made me blue.  I just felt like I had nothing positive to say, and I felt so defeated by the lack of progress with my weight loss.  I couldn’t bear to post anything.

Second, I’m really just burning out in general.  A large part of that is work.  All the teachers I’ve talked to feel the same way.  Standardized testing coupled with criterion-referenced testing are just making us exhausted.

Last, I’ve spent too much time working on my gaming blog. Posting on two blogs makes for a lot of work.  Yeesh!