It's been a while...

since I've taken the time to sit down and write anything for my blog.

Why has it been so long?

Well, I've been busy.

Busy doing what?

Well, I've been busy EXERCISING!!!!

How's that for awesome?

It's true...since I gave up on the whole running thing and decided to focus on what I could do without hurting myself or my massively fried joints and ligaments, I've been feeling fantastic.

I'm doing strength training with Danielle (my personal trainer) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I go to yoga. In the afternoon on Mondays, I take a class at my gym called "BodyFlow." It's sort of a combination of yoga, pilates and tai-chi. On Wednesday and Friday afternoons, I take a mat pilates class. My pilates instructor is fantastic. I'm getting ready to start taking a private pilates reformer class with her sometime on Mondays too. In between my morning and afternoon workouts, I do at least an hour of cardio...usually intervals on a bike or an elliptical depending on how my knees feel. I still walk on the treadmill, but I'm not going to try running again...at least not anytime soon.

According to my BodyBugg, my burn has been averaging around 3000 calories a day during the week and about 2500 on the weekends. I don't go to the gym on the weekends, but I've been trying to get my family involved in more physical activities...like bowling and whatnot. I'm going to be taking one of my nephews on his first horseback ride soon. I also seem to have a never ending supply of chores. Did you know that you can burn upwards of 3 calories a minute folding clothes? I can. Pretty cool, eh?

Come on ass, we've got laundry to do.

The past couple months...

have sucked sweaty monkey balls.

I have been a prisoner in my own body and, for the most part, in my own home. The vertigo has kept me from driving anywhere. I have been entertaining myself by spending inordinate amounts of time watching television, surfing the internet, and EATING.

What do I do when I get a chance to get out of the house? Lately, I've gone to the doctor and gone out to eat. Not good. Not good at all.

I never thought I'd get to the point where I missed the gym, but I'm there. I begged my hubby to take me the other day and managed to get in about 15 - 20 minutes of cardio before I felt like I was going to puke up a lung. It was better than nothing, but not nearly enough...at least not enough for me. I've lost a ton of endurance and a lot of strength too. Like I said...this sucks.

The good news is that I'll be heading back to ENT #2 this coming week for a follow-up. He should have all my test results by now. Maybe he'll have a plan too. The better news is that I haven't heard anything back from him as of yet about the tests. Considering the fact that bad news travels fast, I'm taking that to mean that I do NOT have a brain tumor or something equally awful.

In the meantime, I've taken to chewing ridiculous quantities of sugar free gum in order to keep myself from eating so much. It seems to be working. I've lost three pounds since I took up the habit. Granted, I'm still up 5 for the past month, but still.

I'm maintaining hope that my doctors are going to be able to solve this problem once and for all. I'm lucky enough to have excellent doctors. It's now not just me vs. my ass...it's me AND a fair crop of the Houston Medical Center vs. my ass. I'm confident we'll win.

My apologies to those of you...

who have been whining, bitching, and moaning about my not writing anything recently. (You know who you are.)

Here y'all go:

I haven't been writing because I've been trying to avoid whining, bitching and moaning myself. For the past month or so, I've spent more weekdays than I can count in doctor's offices. I've spent so many hours having ultrasounds, MRIs, CT scans, and tests I can't even name that I'm quite certain my insurance company is going to put a contract out on me soon.

Today's a day off from all that. I'm at home. Alone. Watching television and doing laundry. I would like to go to the grocery store but I have to wait until my husband gets home. I've had more than one doctor tell me that I shouldn't drive while I'm feeling dizzy. I'm feeling dizzy so I'm not going to drive. Simple, but it sucks monkey balls all the same.

Working out has become nearly impossible. The rhythmic motion of ANY sort of cardio makes me so motion sick that I'm in the bathroom puking up my lungs within a couple of minutes. Yoga is a joke. If I bend over and then stand up again, the world goes grey and I end up on my ass. (I want to shrink it, not break it.) I managed to pull off a couple of sets of pushups today, but the vertigo's been significantly worse since I did. I'm hoping that's because I'm not allowed to take any Dramamine right now - in preparation for ANOTHER test that they're doing on me tomorrow.

If I were being careful about what sorts of food I was shoving in my face, I'd still be losing weight. Unfortunately, the more time I spend not being able to do much of anything besides sit around feeling sorry for myself the more I'm tempted to shove food in my face as some sort of self-defeating method of entertainment. This has been going on for about two months now, I think? I know I lost weight the first couple of weeks...then held stable for a couple...now I'm up five pounds in the past few weeks since Thanksgiving. Damn those leftovers! This does NOT bode well for meeting my goal if I don't get things under control in a big hurry.

So, what to do? Time to get things back under control. There's no sense wearing the Bodybugg when all I'm doing is sitting on my ass and/or being hauled around to doctor's all day. I can, however, get back on track using the Bugg website to log my food. I can also STOP eating things like leftover crackers and brie from Thanksgiving and Celtic sea salt caramels.

As we all know, we can't undo the past, but we can change our future by making smart decisions in the present. I can't change the fact that I ate a lousy breakfast today, but I CAN make myself something healthy for lunch...and have a protein shake for a snack later (instead of chips and salsa or some such nonsense)...and I CAN grill up some chicken and clean some lettuce or steam some veggies for all of us to have a healthy dinner (instead of ordering a pizza.) Sometimes it's easier said than done, but the way I've been feeling lately, I think it'll be easier done than said.

I'm not through with you yet, ass.

Sometimes I've got...

to wonder if my Mother-in-law is conspiring with my ass against me in this battle. I leave names off the internet to protect the innocent and the guilty...but hubby's Mommy: if you're reading this, you KNOW I adore you, so please don't take this the wrong way!! Good lord woman!! Two bags of Italian Vanilla Mini Wafer Squares???!?? Seriously?! By the way, just because I KNOW they're your son's FAVORITE doesn't mean he automatically has dibs on them if you forgot to label them with his name, does it? You sent over TWO BAGS of those delicious little crispy, creamy, trans-fatty, morsels of deliciousness. One bag was mostly gone before breakfast. So, now you know why I didn't have room for nice fresh healthy fruit salad this afternoon.

Ass - 1 : Naomi - 0

Thank goodness I gave the elder teenager permission to take away my television, phone and internet privileges if I didn't do my cardio this evening. I'm sure he'll be taking that responsibility very seriously.

Goals!!

I've been thinking a LOT about this lately. What, exactly, am I trying to accomplish by ditching my family, my work, my pets, and my home for 4 weeks and heading off to fat camp?

What are reasonable goals? For weight loss? For fitness? For PERMANENT changes in my lifestyle and attitudes towards health and food and fitness?

I was watching the Biggest Loser last night. Now, I don't know exactly how similar the place I'm going will be to "the ranch" but I do know that they plan on making me work out 6 - 8 hours a day. I know that someone else will be preparing my food. I can assume that they won't be feeding me the same sort of high-calorie/low nutritional value crap I tend to gravitate towards at home. I know that they give me one of those Body Bugg thingies to wear so I can supposedly see how many calories I'm burning vs. how many calories I'm consuming. The math is easy: BURN 3500 calories = LOSE one pound. Can I do that every day for a month? Could I do that TWICE a day? What's reasonable? Possible? Former camp attendees say to shoot for around 10 percent loss (average of 2.5% week) over the 4 week period.

So, like I said, I've thought about it a lot...trying to be realistic and hopeful at the same time...and this is the list of things I'm going to try to accomplish:

1. I'm shooting for a loss of 15%...I know there's going to be fat loss/muscle gain stuff going on, but overall, 15% is my goal. I won't be totally bummed out if I only hit 10%, but with the tools they're giving me and the fact that my body has always responded very nicely to being given high quality fuel and lots of exercise, I think this is reasonable.

2. I want to NOT injure my ankle!! I know this is a negative and goals SHOULD be positive, BUT (big BUT...not big BUTT)...I've blown out my right ankle one too many times already. My podiatrist says the next time means surgery for certain. The surgery entails having the stringy torn mess that remains of my ligaments replaced with cadaver ligaments (gross!) and not being able to put an ounce of weight on my foot for three months or more. This would not be a good way to continue my fitness journey. It would be bad. Really, really, bad. I have to be careful with my ankle!

3. I want to be able to RUN! The last time I tried running/jogging (I'll call it running because that seems more cool) at the gym, I managed a huffing and puffing 5 minutes at 5 mph. I would like to be able to do at least 30 minutes at that speed without feeling like I was going to have a heart attack and die!

4. I want to learn some simple ways to feed myself and MY FAMILY things that aren't going to pack pounds on me. I don't want my husband to develop diabetes like his father...in spite of the fact he's not overweight. His "go to" meal is a giant bowl of cereal...the sweeter the better. I'm tired of seeing my younger son live on frozen waffles because I'm too tired in the evening to make dinner and he's too hungry to wait for me to order something (pizza?!). I'm tired of seeing the total lack of variety in my older son's diet. For the past month, I don't think he's eaten anything but lunch meat, bread, and yogurt. No vegetables. No fruit. Just dry sandwiches and yogurt....not good. My family counts on me to lead them and feed them. If I'm not doing it, they fend for themselves....just not very well. I need the ENERGY and the ideas to make it easier to do a better job...for all our sakes!

All in all, I'm hoping that after a month of eating right and working out 6 - 8 hours a day, that when I get home some of the things that seemed hard before won't seem quite so hard. I would think that after a month of camp, getting up in the morning and going to the gym for an hour won't be such a big deal. After a month of camp, stopping at the grocery store on the way home (instead of KFC!) to pick up something quick, easy, and HEALTHY to make for dinner won't be such a big deal. After a month of camp, continuing my journey with my Incredible Shrinking Ass so that I can be seen in the damn bikini in public again before I turn 40...not such a big deal!!