Dayyyyyyy twoooooo of Nablopomo

Its day two and I am already struggling to think of what am I grateful about today!!! S has a bad cough and cold. Every time she gets sick, two days later I am sick, a week later she is fit and fine, two weeks later I am still struggling!!! I woke up today with my throat burning like it was on fire! The entire day stretched out soooooooo looooooooooong.

But I am super grateful for my job. I took the summer off and as soon as I was ready to look, God plonked this contract opportunity right in front of me. The controller loves me and wants to hire me and I went right back to work after my wonderful wonderful summer off. I am thankful to God for the break I could take and for giving me a job when I was ready to go back. Incredibly blessed!!

I was doing so good on my diet and exercise; did I say I lost 18 pounds over the past four months!!!! Diwali has put some of it right back :(( And now being sick makes me want to reach for all the unhealthy creamy cheesy fried, chocolatey, gooey yumminess that makes my mind feel better (temporarily).

So maybe I should talk about my diet here. I had put on 20 pounds over last summer - sheer side effect of taking prescription asthma medicines that I should not have taken in the first place and pushing stupid quantities of albuterol and other steroids which had no business being in my poor body. But I will not dwell on the past. So this year, when I took my break, I also ran over to a medical weight loss solutions group here. They put me on a 800 calorie diet with meal replacements for the first month and Oh man, what a huge shock it was to my system!!! The first few days I only thought in terms of three hour installments - I could eat a snack/bar/shake every three hours and it was gone within minutes and I would be staring at my watch waiting for the next one. But slowly the hunger pangs ceased and my body adjusted to eating smaller portions. And then the mind focused on how I turned to food every time I was bored, sad, tired. It was very hard getting rid of this habit of wanting to eat every five seconds and to divert my mind to other activities; to dealing with the root cause of every emotion instead of throwing coffees and chocolates at it, to drink water when you think you are hungry because if you ate lunch thirty minutes ago, there is no way you are hungry in 30 minutes! My dietitian said many folks mistake thirst for hunger. I was amazed at how much water you should drink and how much I actually did. And I thought I drank a lot. This first month made me more aware of my thoughts and my body and how I reacted to situations and adjusting to portion sizes. We started adding back regular food slowly and now I am back to a regular diet (reduced portions). But I did lose 18 pounds so far.

Working out daily during my break carved out my muscles, made my butt tighter and gave me a new high. I also managed to "walk" a half marathon to accompany my super star 64 year old brother who has turned into a Forrest Gump ever since he retired. He walks about 14 miles every single day!!

I am so grateful to have these opportunities to take care of myself; a husband who lets me have time to focus on my health and to have the courage to take those steps of enrolling in a weight loss program and to stay focused on my diet and exercise plan. Next eighteen pounds are going to be the hardest but I am hoping I slowly trudge along and make it to my goal weight.