One Hundred Days with No Sugar

I had the day off, yes, but I was up in the night with a horrific headache.  I sat on the couch with a massage tool working on my upper back and neck for two hours until it went away.  When Mark got up for work, I helped him prepare food but then went back to bed.   I took the kids to school, then went back to bed.  Of course, this never works, because other people are up, and they feel compelled to text me. "I think I forgot my meds."  Et cetera.   I napped a little, then went to the gym.  I didn't have much time left to exercise, though, so I just did four rounds of elliptical and three of abs and weight-lifting.  I finished the weight-lifting routine I had started a few days ago.  All the songs randomly lined up on my iPod were under three minutes for the first three rounds, as if they knew there wasn't much time.  All in all, I burned about 258 calories. I spent the rest of the day finishing up my two sons' Eagle Sc...

I made myself do a plank before bed last night.  I picked the next longest song on my iPod, which was 3 minutes 7 seconds long, and I made it most of the way, but it has been so long since I did a plank that I did rest my knees, twice, briefly, before it was over.  I'll do the same song again next time and work up from there.  Before I started doing this planking thing before my sealing, I could barely do one minute, so I did improve. I slept pretty well, I thought, except that I woke up with a tension headache in the night.  I took ibuprofen, but still woke up with a bad tension headache when my husband got up for work.  He sets his alarm early enough that he could give me a massage for a few minutes, which helped.  It was after five when I finished making his eggs and pudding, and I should have gone to the gym then, but I felt really tired, and the loss of my headache was still new and flimsy, so I went back to bed. Well, you guessed it.  I didn'...

Here's what happened.  I had so much to say about Halloween and no time to say it in, and then the following days were the same.  I was very serious about counting calories and losing weight before my sealing, and I did lose seven pounds in the nine days.  I counted calories, I did planks in increasing lengths, and I did two workouts most days.  This left me little personal time, and I'm still a full-time working mom and the cook in the family.  Also the laundress, but I digress. Anyway, I did really well, and I kept track in my notebook--just didn't blog, until about day twenty-three, and then I went sort of off the rails.  I just didn't keep track for a few days.  When I started keeping track again, I saw that some bad habits had crept in.  I decided to start the hundred days afresh, and I did, but I wasn't blogging, see, and so my accountability was too low.  It was easy to say, "This will be day one," "No, THIS will be day one," until I...

So, I know I dropped the blog.  And I'm sorry.  Some of you were reading it. What happened was that I went out of town, and I didn't want to post about being out of town until I was back in town, because I am a little paranoid about telling people in an online forum that I am out of town.  Just in case they know where I live.  And are burglars.  And, no, I have not been out of town this whole time.  I was out of town for four days.  It was a trip with my five younger children and my husband--a family trip.  It was really good for us as a family, and we were pretty busy.  In addition to two days of driving, four plays we were scheduled to see, and a dinner another hour away with some of my husband's family, we had an unscheduled car breakdown and a fruitless visit to a mechanic. When we got back, there were mountains of laundry to wash and, you know, real life.  I meant to blog about those four days, very soon.  And I ke...

My workout today was sixty-five minutes long, with forty-five minutes on the elliptical. I did abs, extra abs, and weight-lifting, too. I was delighted to see that, even though I have been feeling heavy--and ate a small dessert late last night, my weight was at the **8, the full twelve pounds off.  I had to work upfront when I got to work this morning, which I dislike. I sneaked some of my eggs (early) on the few occasions when I had to go back to my desk. Lunch was leftover sweet and sour chicken with non-sugar sweeteners. I had an apple and peanuts for snacks.  I made split pea soup for dinner, but it took a while to cook. We did most of our Saturday shopping early while we waited. I had a little over half of my raspberry orange from Easter while I waited for dinner. I probably should have had less of it, but I didn't want to finish it, so that's progress.  My feet and back were tired by the time I finally went to bed.  It's going to be a big weekend. ...

When I woke up, I had about thirty minutes before I had to get in the shower.  I had to be ready early to register my youngest child in school.  If I'd gone to the gym, I would have spent most of that time driving.  So I ran in place for nine minutes, looking at the clock, did a plank, and went for a ten-minute walk around the neighborhood. It wasn't enough, and I continued to feel very full all day.  I'm not sure I overate in any way, but I think maybe I just don't need as much food as I used to need. I saved my "one sugar thing" for book club tonight.  Right before book club, though, I remembered that it was at the house of a woman who always eats healthy, and I started to think that maybe what she would be serving wouldn't have any sugar in it, and so I would end up with no sugar again late at night. I didn't want to repeat last night's disgraceful performance, so I came up with a whole different disgraceful performance for tonight.  I stu...