Well week one of the new job didn't go quite as perfectly as I'd hoped. The first day there, I was in orientation and training all day long (yes, even though I'd worked for the company for 8 years already, I was considered "new" at the Atlanta office). I brought my lunch bag, pitifully packed with just a can of Slimfast and a Fiber One bar, because I knew I wouldn't be there the full eight hours. That day, it was storming all afternoon and at lunch time, the people doing the training decided that instead of "letting" us go to lunch, they would be nice and order in pizza and soda so we didn't have to go out in the miserable weather. The training would continue while we ate. I was in a room full of men and didn't want to seem the odd bird out, so I ate pizza and Coke along with everyone else. Strike one.
The second day, which was my first real regular day in the office, I packed my lunch bag again, adding a few extra nutritious snacks. Walked right out of the house that morning without it. I realized it was still sitting in the refrigerator, when I was about twenty minutes down the road. I stopped at a gas station with a big convenience store and picked up a Coke Zero and as "healthy" snacks as I could find. I think I ended up with a Slimfast bar and a pack of cheese crackers. I don't think most gas stations are really concerned with those of us watching our calorie intake! There were at least a dozen different types of Little Debbies, but maybe two types of low fat granola bars.... Boo, strike two.
Finally, I got my act together and brought my lunch for the rest of the week. I had a bowl of high fiber cereal and skim milk for breakfast every morning, then took a cup of coffee with me in the car. Lunch was a small turkey sandwich, light string cheese, carrots, a pudding cup, a Fiber One bar, and a bottle of water. This constituted lunch and both snack breaks. It sounds like a lot of food, but by the time I got home at almost six in the evening, I was starved out of my head every night. I had to have another snack to hold me until dinner (James gets home a little later). I'm not sure if I need to add more food to the lunch bag, or more water. I know one bottle isn't nearly enough.
One bit of lucky news is that the group of ladies I work with now are all trying to lose weight, in fact they are all in a competition held by the company that ends in about three weeks. They walk at a very brisk pace on their morning break and afternoon break, out in the parking lot, and asked me to join them. I did, and brought along my trusty pedometer to find we were walking almost one mile on each break. Although I'm not super happy with the way I ate this week, I did get on the scale on Friday morning (when I would normally have weighed at Weight Watchers) and I was down a pound this week. So I guess the pizza and cheese crackers didn't do me in after all. Onward...
Sandy
James spent yesterday afternoon putting together the recumbent bike that we bought the other day. I couldn't have put it together if I'd had a month to assemble it, but James made pretty quick work of it, and he even worked out on it right away. We set it up in the master bedroom and moved the treadmill in beside it (below, with Romeo standing guard). It doesn't show in this photo, but they are facing the television- very important of course. The treadmill had been set up in the guest bedroom, which is much smaller and it sort of crowded the room. Before in this spot, we had a chess table set up that we bought a few years ago at an auction. It's beautiful, but I don't play, and the only time the pieces got moved is when the cats jumped up on the table and knocked them over. So the chess table is now in the guest room. Not in the photo is my wooden crate full of free weights, I've got them all the way up to 20 pounds. That's about the extent of my exercise equipment, not counting my step aerobics platforms from a million years ago (the 80's). I do have a nice stack of exercise DVD's, which are sitting in the living room currently collecting dust. Most of them I gave up on, because I am horribly uncoordinated, and you do NOT want to see me try to bust a move with those. I do love my Leslie Sansone DVD's- back in 2003 I used them almost every day and lost over 80 pounds (the same 80 I am trying to shed again now). I've got the workouts from one mile to four miles, but I see she has a five mile one out now! I confess, they're easy and they work, and I'm not sure why I haven't been doing them lately. Tomorrow my new schedule starts, and I will have to find my groove as a full-time working woman. I went to the grocery store this weekend and bought enough healthy food to pack my lunch bag every day and eat at my desk. I also had great luck with finding new clothes, and I was surprised at how many times I went for the larger sizes, only to have to come back out of the fitting room and get a smaller one. That's a super good feeling, especially when you can find them on the clearance rack at Kohl's- my favorite store, their plus size clothes don't make me feel like a second-rate citizen in a potato sack the way some lines do. And hopefully, when I can't fit into the new clothes anymore, it will be because I'm down another size again!! Well, having said all that, I'm headed off to ride the new bike...
Sandy
So today I did a lot of blank staring at the clothes hanging in my closet, trying to make decisions. I told James today that I want to dress more professional for my new job starting next week. I will be making more money, and have a position with more face to face contact with the sales staff, and I want my new supervisor to be happy that she picked me out of all the other many applicants. Before, when I worked for the same company back in SC, I was there almost eight years and frankly, I was so comfortable with everyone there and my place in the department, that I stopped worrying about what kind of impression I made on people. I had no contact with the public. I worked off hours so that for the first 3 hours of the day, I was the only one there at all. There were days I schlepped into work wearing the same capris and sandals I would wear to the beach. When you're heavy, sometimes it doesn't matter how nicely you are dressed or how put together your outfit is, you still feel like a slob and a mess. I had many days like that. But I don't want that for myself anymore. I will be working with complete strangers who don't know anything about me at all, and I know first impressions are usually lasting ones. So, I've been thumbing through the pieces in my closet and finding What Not To Wear, instead of finding the right clothes I should be wearing. Suddenly nothing I have in my closet seems good enough for me to wear when I go out into the world and meet my new co-workers. When I was at home all day long, no one saw me but the cats, and they are surprisingly nonjudgmental. I have trouble letting go of clothes, but I do try to donate to Goodwill as often as I can. I have things that I still wear simply because they are comfortable, not because they look good on me or fit properly. Okay, so I love my Life Is Good shirts and I won't get rid of those no matter how worn out they are. But do I really need to keep (and keep wearing) that shirt I bought at Target two years ago that is now too big and is starting to fuzz up with age? I know I've talked about this before on my other blog, but now it has a more significant meaning since I'll be working again and meeting new people. This weekend I'll have to spend a good deal of time trying on clothes shoved in the back of the closet that I haven't seen in awhile, and putting together (matching) outfits for work. And yes, I will probably do a little shopping too, because what woman doesn't love a good excuse for buying new clothes? I haven't really had to "worry" about how I dressed in a very very long while- probably the last time I took extra care in my clothing choices was back when I was dating James!!!- but next week I will feel like a debutante making her entrance. I know the new person in the office always gets scoped out with a critical eye, because come on, who of us hasn't done that to the new receptionist or the temp?? And at my size, I can't simply fade into the woodwork, so I might as well straighten my shoulders and wear a brand new blouse...
Sandy
If anyone needs a little extra inspiration- and who doesn't- please go check out Tosca Reno's website. I have all her books and am trying to ultimately work my way towards following her food plan. Yes, with Weight Watchers you have the ability to eat whatever you want as long as you stick with your points. Tosca may not be a household name like Jillian Michaels, but I love Tosca's fresh approach to eating clean. It's real and it's not gimicky and it's healthy. I discovered her book The Eat-Clean Diet about two years ago and have read all her books now. I have fallen backwards and have been relying on Lean Cuisines and the like to keep me on the right path, but I know processed foods are high in sodium, full of chemicals, and not realistic if I want to lose the weight and keep it off for good this time. Tosca did it all on her own, and if you go see her before and after pics, you will be impressed. Has anyone else out there checked out her cookbook yet? Let me know what you think about it.
Sandy
No news to report today, as I struggle with getting rid of the pounds I gained on vacation. I do it every time we go out of town, so I am not shocked that it happened again. (Who ever lost weight in Vegas? Money yes, weight no!) But I know I will have to toughen my resolve as my life and schedule change drastically next week. On Tuesday I go back to work full time, after ten months of staying at home. I will be working 8-5, like the rest of the world, after about six+ years of working 4am-noon. It's a 30-40 minute drive to my new office, thankfully through beautiful winding countryside on roads with little to no traffic- so no stress or road rage to put me in a mood. I will be gone from home now from 7 in the morning until probably close to 6 at night. I know, that's how the whole world turns! But, it's been a very very long time for me since I held down "regular" hours. I will no longer be able to make my Friday morning meetings to Weight Watchers, and if you read my other blog then you already know going on the weekends will be nearly impossible since James and I so often go out of town, or at least get into Atlanta. And of course housework that I was able to do during the week will now have to undoubtedly be shifted to the weekends. It will be a big adjustment, but I don't have any desire to give up the fight yet. I plan to carry my lunch to work and avoid the pitfalls of eating out with co-workers (one of which is the hubby), and I will go back to emptying my wallet of any change so I'm not tempted by the vending machines. These are all traps I have experience with, and I know they are easy to give in to on days when stress and deadlines and work loads become too much to shoulder. I am less concerned about my diet (easy to control, I can only eat what I bring with me to the office) and I'm more worried about finding the time to exercise now. I know me, and I already know I will kiss the gym bye-bye. I won't make the time to go. But, I absolutely love my treadmill and as long as the battery is charged in my iPod, I can stay on there for four and five miles at a shot. Now that we have the new recumbent bike (above- much assembly required) to set up right beside the treadmill, there will be no whining about how it's too cold outside to walk or how I don't have time to make it to yoga class. Both of these pieces are going to be placed right in front of a TV, so I can't even use the excuse of a new episode of NCIS as a reason to skip working out. I am mostly worried about my use of time in the evenings now, since I will have very little of it. I've had the luxury lately of twelve and thirteen hour days home alone to exercise whenever I wanted to, and now I am going to have to make myself set up a structured schedule and stick to it. I've always been fantastic at time management at the office, but boy I suck at it when I'm at home...We'll see how it goes, starting next week...
Sandy
Well week one of the new job didn't go quite as perfectly as I'd hoped. The first day there, I was in orientation and training all day long (yes, even though I'd worked for the company for 8 years already, I was considered "new" at the Atlanta office). I brought my lunch bag, pitifully packed with just a can of Slimfast and a Fiber One bar, because I knew I wouldn't be there the full eight hours. That day, it was storming all afternoon and at lunch time, the people doing the training decided that instead of "letting" us go to lunch, they would be nice and order in pizza and soda so we didn't have to go out in the miserable weather. The training would continue while we ate. I was in a room full of men and didn't want to seem the odd bird out, so I ate pizza and Coke along with everyone else. Strike one.
