Ramblings from 2:24 AM from an Insomniac

Ah, me, you, laptop, and Tylenol PM. The life of an insomniac with an achy leg who has too many thoughts floating around in her head.
As I laid in bed next to my Fuzband (who was doing his level best to imitate an accordion being run over by a steam roller remixed into a 3 hour long disco song) tossing and turning I began to play snippets of my life in my brain. I have one of those brains that likes to go on 100 mph ADD tantrums when I should be sleeping.
My brain produces a mental TV show where it just shows flash backs of the previous seasons. I was zooming around my life to lame loser boyfriends, to girls you knew would be knocked up before graduation, to Amanda's most embarrassing moments, to what it was like to be smaller than I am now. After watching an hour and a half of flash backs I rolled out of bed and went in search of Tylenol PM.
One of the things I was thinking about was a sign I saw at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Appropriately placed in a toilet stall, it read "The Scoop on Poop: elephants can poop up to 300 lbs per day". I thought to myself while reading this sign, I weigh as much as elephant can poo in a day! Great.. now I am equal to a steaming pile of pachyderm excrement!!
Which reminds me of when I was smaller and I heard on TV that a heavyweight boxer weighs around 200 lbs. At the time I was 210 lbs and was horrified that I was fatter than Mike Tyson was in his glory days. I would give anything to weigh 200 right now. A whole 150 lbs less than when I started this journey. That would mean I lost a whole person off of me.
I am happy to report that I am back to my pre-vacation weight of 307 as of Saturday AM. I am happy that I did not screw up my diet too terribly and that I didn't gain. The extra weight I had acquired was water weight as I expected because TOM showed up about three days after the 308 weigh in.
In other somewhat related news I have taken myself off of Phentermine. I am tired of the constipation, worsened insomnia, anxiety, crabbiness and feeling like I was butter scraped over too much toast. Much to my delight I have not wanted to eat everything in sight and I have not returned to my bad habits. After rehabbing my back last week I am back on the Wii Fit and walking with my husband and dogs.
It is funny I was averaging around 6 to 7 miles per day at Disney and toward the end of the trip it was becoming easier. If only I could mentally visit Disney world every day and walk 7 miles I would be as big as a toothpick in no time. I thought to myself last Saturday night that if I could do 7 miles in the sun at Disney than I could handle thirty minutes in the evening at 86 degrees in SC. Sure enough after walking about 4,000 or 5,000 steps around the neighborhood felt like nothing. This was very encouraging that if properly motivated I could handle anything exercise wise that I wanted to. After dinner last night I felt a little guilty after having one big slice and one mini slice of my fathers birthday cake. So to try to alleviate some of the guilt I started up the ol' Wii and proceeded to sweat for the next thirty minutes.
Things are on the upswing which is great, if I could only fall asleep life would be even better.

Slacker Girl strikes again

Sorry for the intermission all five million readers out there.

Heh.

I have great news to share, I am now down a few more pounds to 311! Thirty nine pounds lost since October 2008. I am also a total of three dress sizes down.

Exercising and moving more everyday has been helping with strength, stamina and mobility. I have noticed very small changes that make me feel great. I can squat and bend better. I am more comfortable riding in a car. Booths at restaurants are not a source of anxiety anymore. (Those of you with big tummies and abdomens know exactly what I mean)

I have had sort of a revelation when it comes to food. I always thought you under eat then over exercise and boom you lose weight. Nope. Not so simple. I found that the days I ate the least the scale did not move. The scale would not move for days on end. Then I threw my hands up and said I have to do something. I started looking into eating more nutritious food not just less of it. I found a great website nutritiondata.com. My diet was not very well balanced. My daily requirements of nutrition were not being met. When I am eating a good balance of carbs, fruits, veggies, protein, fats (the good kind), I lose weight. I was hitting plateaus be cause I was either lacking a food group or some sort of nutrition OR I was not eating enough to sustain me.

Your body actually needs a certain amount of calories just to survive. The trick is to eat that amount of calories you need to survive. Then you burn off enough to trick your body into using it's fat cells. The side effects of not eating enough were irritability, feeling queasy, dizzy and faint.


During my plateau surfing I noticed something disturbing, (WARNING possible T.M.I .alert here) I became very irregular. From 1x a day to once every 2 days, to once every three days, then every four days. This worried me. I contacted my pharmacist and the Phentermine I am on can mess with my digestive function. She suggested milk of magnesia, bad bad idea. I have had issues with gastric reflux disease and occasionally have flare ups. Apparently milk of magnesia plus phentermine plus gastric reflux=human water wiggle. For 24 hours I became way too intimate with my bathroom decor. I saw my Dr. a few days later I saw my Dr. and I he suggested adding a fiber supplement and gave me a Rx in case that didn't work. All I can say is thank God for Benefiber. It doesn't taste or smell or turn me into a human whoopee cushion that has to stay at least 10 feet within a bathroom at all times.

So since the nutrition revelation and the correction of "movement" problems I have gone down a few more pounds. Hooray for success!