Week 7 - The Ring of Fire

Crazy story from yesterday. If you want to skip what all I did this weekend (and I assure you it had nothing to do with diet and exercise) and get to the exciting stuff, scroll down to "The Fire" and read on from there.

So last week's cold turned hellacious and on Tuesday morning I finally went to the doctor and was given medicine for a sinus infection. I also got a nice shot in the ass. Hurt like hell, but really felt the affects around 7:00 that evening of some good steroids. I can totally understand why people do that stuff. I got so much more done in those few hours than I did the whole past week. But let's back this up to square one on Friday.

The Weekend (the longest in my life)

Friday I was sick and tired and thought, maybe I can just sleep through this and be done with it. It was also supposed to snow that day (several local schools were already closed for the day) and I didn't want to deal with the traffic and mess since I was planning on going to Alabaster, AL for the weekend. So I called in to work, drove to Alabaster, got there by 7:30 in the morning (local time) and went straight to bed. Slept until lunch time. Ate a little. Went back to sleep and slept until around 5:00. Then we went to bible study and had dinner and played games. I was really honestly starting to feel better, just kind of drained still.

Saturday is kind of a blur. Not sure what time I got up, but I remember feeling tons better. Nose was still running and would get stopped up from time to time, but the sore throat was gone. I was getting annoyed because I kept taking mucinex and drinking tons of water, but wasn't really hacking anything up and my lungs still felt funny. So we followed through with our plans to go out to dinner with some friends from college (including my purple baby!) and then to Montevallo's Homecoming in which the Purple Side WON! PV!! It was beautiful. I had also made plans to meet up with my friend Katie and her husband, Brad, in Birmingham that night. Normally we party fairly hard when we go out with them, but I was thinking on Friday that I wouldn't do anything big and just go home early because I've been dealing with this cold for several days. Well, by the time the group of us got there, I was having a great time with everything going on and since I was feeling better. Ended up making a HUGE mistake and staying out until 5:00am drinking and for a certain amount of time in a smokey bar playing pool with friends. Didn't think much of it at the time, but woke up Sunday in time for 2 nosebleeds and some severe regret. This set me back in my disease and I was back to a sore throat and hacking some stuff up. I figured I had Monday to recover before going to work on Tuesday.

Monday I had off from work for President's Day. However, Montevallo was holding classes and so I rode with Scott on his way to his classes and stopped by the history department to catch up with one of my professors. Dr. Ruth Truss is officially the shit. LOVE her. Bought a couple of things at the bookstore and then Scott and I went back to Alabaster and I went back to sleep. Woke up in time to see it snow at around the time I was planning on driving home. Decided to make it an early morning and drive out when the crazy Alabama snow drivers (like me) were in bed (I wished).

Tuesday I woke up to some serious aching in my chest and a fantastic headache. Thinking it was the NON-DROWSY Walgreens medicine, I thought I could sleep it off and be fine. Woke up later and just wanted to croak. I decided to hit up the doc-in-the box first thing. He was an interesting Asian doctor who told jokes like, "Want to hear a joke? Back when I was growing up we had walkmans we listened to, and those were just the thing. And now we have ipods, which is so funny." Couldn't help but chuckle and quote in my head, "FUNNY! Very amusing!" (Thank you Mel Brooks.)

He said it was a sinus infection, gave me the steroid shot, antibiotics, allegra D (which I substituted for Clariton D at the pharmacy - half the price and the publix pharmacy gave me a $4.00 coupon!), and some fantastic cough syrup.

Quick Summary:

Diet - Mexican food

Exercise - digesting mexican food, walking on bricks at montevallo, cheering the purple side, playing pool, 1 early morning adrenaline rush, some hard-ass sleeping.

How could my life get any better? I'll tell you...

THE FIRE

I woke up Wednesday morning to drive back to Douglasville, drop off some stuff and head to work. The steroids were still working so the drive wasn't too bad. I get to my apartment to find that the front door has been kicked in and left open. I was pissed and like an idiot I walk straight in and turn on a light and start looking around at what might be missing. Future hint for those of you that might be in this position: DON'T DO THAT. Just turn around, walk away, and call the police. Someone might still be in there! I got lucky. I called 911 and they sent the police to the apartment to check it out and for a report and all that good stuff. The guys were really nice and noticed right off the bat that something smelled like smoke. A factor I missed because I haven't had a sense of smell since last Wednesday. As I was filling out a report one of the officers walked around outside and found that the apartments on the other side of me were completely demolished by a fire. Well, one of them was. The other one, adjacent to me, was partially demolished. After noting this, the police concluded (and I agreed) that the fire department kicked down my door to check for damage or any other fire. Would have been nice, had someone left a note. Would have been BETTER if the apartment complex called me to tell me about ANY of this happening.

I called the emergency maintenance pager for someone to fix my door so it would actually shut and lock before I left work. Love how the EMERGENCY maintenance guy took an hour and half to get to my apartment. Called him at 7:30am and he got there after 9:00am (which is the latest I can get to work). On my way to work I made a couple of phone calls. I'm kicking myself now for not calling my sister first since her husband is a fire marshall. But she still came in and helped me out a ton with figuring out what to look for damage-wise in the apartment. Dad also suggested to check for water damage.

Talked to the apartment complex manager who did not know how I got skipped on the phone call list for contacting everyone in the building about the fire. Interesting considering that MY APARTMENT WAS NEXT DOOR. Something else interesting, she had no idea the fire department kicked in my door. The fire took place Monday night around 7:30. She came out and watched. Obviously, she didn't come back for a follow up to the damage because my door was left open for a day and half!!! Unacceptable!!! Luckily nothing was taken. So now she's sending an inspector to the apartment on Thursday to look over the place for further damage. She's also "negotiating" with her district manager/supervisor about possibly relocating me. We'll see how much she can actually do for me. For some reason, she seems a little iffy on that, but I don't plan to be around for the noise and sweaty questionable men outside my apartment and all those people looking to loot the burnt apartments.

So there's been nothing like this week. It's been amazing. Thank God it was shorter than most, but wow. It's been something. Woke up Thursday morning feeling much more perky and ready to take charge of the day. Can't wait for round 2 with the apartment complex.

Here are some pictures:


These are the two apartments that burned. The fired started in the one on the farthest left (if you couldn't tell) and spread through the front door to the bedroom of the neighboring apartment.



This picture shows the partially burned apartment on the lower left and the side of my apartment in the upper right. See the smokey stuff on the side?


And this is the view from my patio.


So yeah, I get it. I'm lucky nothing caught on fire in my apartment and I'm very thankful that the fire department probably did break into my apartment to check and make sure everything was ok. But I feel severly wronged and neglected by my apartment complex and will be making sure wrongs are righted and that this doesn't happen to anyone else. I mean seriously, AT LEAST A PHONE CALL!

Week 6 (I would love some cheese with this Whine)

This week did not really have much progress to talk about. I apologize for the following update:

So Sunday, the day I posted those pictures, I did some weightlifting with Scott, ran for an hour (still hovering around the 15 minute-mile mark) and then swam a little. I will say that after an hour of doing the Galloway method, I was no where near as tired and achy as I was after just a regular round on the treadmill at my own pace. But by the end of it all, I was absolutely EXHAUSTED.

Then Monday I took off from working out because I was officially going by the Galloway Method schedule which has you run a lot on Sunday, take Monday off, run on Tuesday, take Wednesday off, run Thursday, easy walk Friday, and Saturday off. Well that was all good and well until I woke up Tuesday morning with a horrible sore throat that wouldn't go away and my chest starting feeling really heavy. I got home Tuesday afternoon, took my dog out, and went to bed. Or I tried to. Couldn't go to sleep because I had shivers from a fever (low grade) and eventually I took a night time cold pill that wiped me out and took away the fever and left me sweating like a pig when I woke up at 2:00am from the piles of blankets I put on the bed. I took two more pills and was good to go.

Wednesday I stayed on the daytime pills so I could go to work (and I had to be at work by 7:00 that morning). Ran out of pills by 12:00 after which my head continued to swell with mucus until I left at 3:15. However, Scott sent me flowers which I got at work about 5 minutes before I left, and it made me feel better and more cheerful for my drive home. The most interesting part of the day was after lunch during our database training, a co-worker told me to "bring something to table" and I said, "All I have to give is mucus right now." You ever feel so sick you don't care at all what other people think at the moment? I'm sure I'll regret it later. I don't right now, though. Anyways, I got home, took the dog out, and went to bed.

I slept until Scott woke me up at 10:00pm with a phone call reminding me to make the chocolate toffee for the Valentine's Day party we were having at work on Thursday. My co-workers liked it so much, they asked me to make it again for this party. Well, crap. I thought no one would want to eat it because I'm sick, and I'll be stuck with perfectly good chocolate in my apartment that I don't even want to eat. (Although, for some reason this disease is making me crave macaroni and cheese and gooey chocolate like CRAZY. The only saving grace is that I don't pack those things in my lunch, so it's not available when I want it most, and I'd skipped dinner for the past 2 nights.) So I washed my hands every 5 minutes while I made the toffee and kept it as sanitized as possible and luckily, they ate about half of it at the party. I will leave it there until Friday and then take what's left of it with me to bible study Friday night.

So, needless to say, I have not done a shred of exercise since Sunday, though my diet should be making up for it considering Tuesday and Wednesday I'm counting a total of about 700 calories. However, today (Thursday) I did eat some cookie cake and other things at the party, so we'll push today's to something like 1,300-1,400 calories. Not expecting dinner tonight, though these cough drops I got are really helping with the sore throat today (Publix brand-sugar free honey and lemon cough drops). Still can't hear much outside of the constant ringing in my ears. It is unbelievably annoying. The pressure in there won't balance for nothing. And my nose and sinuses decided to catch up and play ball with the rest of the illness just yesterday. So I'm dizzy today and not planning on working out because everything just hurts and I don't want to embarrass myself by losing my balance on a treadmill, or walking to the door for that matter. (GOOD GOD, CAN SOMEBODY CALL THE WAA-MBLANCE?)

BUT, I haven't had a fever since Tuesday night, and like I said, my sore throat is finally starting to go away. Hopefully by Saturday I'll have everything hacked up and be back on track again. Wait a minute, that means I'll be resting. I can live with that!

I just remembered, I was going to introduce some organization to the blog:

EXERCISE

1 day (2 hours)


DIET

Thank y'all so much for the suggestions last week on lunch ideas. I made a couple of batches of white chicken chili on Sunday and kept one of them to eat for lunches. It's really good with some fat free sour cream and fat free shredded cheese. So easy to make if you have a crock pot, too. Just add a couple of cans of northern beans, 2 cans of chicken (drained), 1 can of rotel, any other veggie you want to spice it up with (I like onions), and then pour in some low sodium chicken broth (however much you want for your preference of consistency), turn on the crock pot and stir occasionally and you're good to go!

Next week I'm going to crack into some more of y'alls suggestions, though. Especially some of these new ones I learned about this week. Check it out:

Devil's Food Cake (of any brand) mixed with a can of pumpkin. That's right, a can of pumpkin. Nothing else (whatever you do, do NOT add water!). It's a bitch to mix together, but helps if you have a hand mixer. It will also look like a Martian landscape before and after you bake it, but put a little fat free cool whip on top and you have yourself a rich chocolaty almost fat free dessert! You can make it as a cake, or like Carla (the co-worker who gave me this recipe) makes them like cupcakes. I've tried them and they are FANTASTIC.

Carla also tried out some burgers this week that sound fabulous, and she gave me her permission to share it. It includes Jenny-O Frozen Turkey Burgers ALL NATURAL (95/5). They are individually packaged, but you can throw them straight from the freezer onto the skillet and cook. Then put it on a healthier bun with goat cheese, a nice slice from a good ugly tomato, a few banana pepper rings and add a little A-1 or hot sauce and some light mayo. She is an experienced connoisseur of foods both diet and non-diet, so I absolutely take her word on this and will be giving it a shot.

My friend Katie also gave a shout out to me about this yummy pickled veggie mix called Mezzetta California Hot Mix. Haven't gotten a chance to try it yet or check out the nutrition on it, but according to her you should be able to find it around the pickles. Normally that kind of stuff isn't bad and I am a SUCKER for pickles which are helpful snacks when on a diet. Some nutrition facts say pickles are 0 calories, others say up to 17 calories. Either way, how many can you eat at a time, right?

And if you ever crave something gooey chocolaty like I've been all week, my sister reminded me of the fat free and/or sugar free jello pudding available just about anywhere! It worked on my cravings. Thanks, sis!

Is it just me or did that sound like a pharmaceutical commercial crossed with mentos?




And lastly, I got some advice for anyone else who may be aching. Once again, I have not given this a shot yet, but another friend of mine, Jennifer, recommended a lotion for muscle soreness. It's called Village Naturals Therapy Muscle Relief lotion. She said it also comes as an oil or body wash and you should probably be able to find it around the bubble-bath kind of stuff (most likely in a Publix). I really can't wait to try this one out!

Next update won't be this whiney! I promise! I just need to snap out of this mess and get back on track. I haven't lost my drive for this yet! 3 weeks from this Sunday is the Disney Princess Half-Marathon!!

And for those of you following along and doing your own diet and exercise plan, keep me posted on how you're doing and if any of this is helping you out! Y'all keep giving me such good ideas for stuff and I want to make sure I can help do the same for you!

Week 5.5 Update

Ok, I promised some updates on pictures and weight.

#1. Weight: So when I first weighed myself it was on my mom's scale and it told me I was 220 a few weeks ago. I'm starting to wonder how accurate that really is because right now, the scale at the gym is saying I'm 223 lbs and last week it read 225 lbs. So, yeah, the weight is coming off, but obviously, it's a LOT slower than I thought and, to be honest, I think I weighed more when I started than I originally thought. But, whatever. It's working. I'm still losing weight. I'll start trying to include weekly poundage in the weekly blog.

#2. Picture: So, to keep a good tab on how progress is going, I have the original shirt the first fat picture was taken in and will be taking more photographs in the same position (but with different pants) every so often. Though it's been over a month since the first picture, I will try to provide updated photos sooner. However, after looking at this week's picture, I'm severly disappointed. I don't think I look really different, due to posture (probably). It really is unattractive. So I will also provide these new riveting frontal and profile pictures as follows:

Whoops! Forgot about that last one! That would be the FANTASTIC birthday cake from Publix I had this year. Way back around the beginning of January....and the beginning of my diet. Though that night I tore up some chicken hibachi. No prisoners, baby! Ahem....but those times are long gone. No longer will I get the clean plate award at Mexican restaurants, nor at Chinese Buffets. I am now a dainty flower which delicately chooses her food and eats it lightly and gently in order to savor its goodness....because there won't be much.

Week 5 - And I'm Still Alive!

Alright! So, due to my LOVE of organization, I'm going to break things down a little easier in this blog by separating the DIET portion of the discussion, from my EXERCISE portion. I can't explain why, but it makes me feel better.

DIET

So far the oatmeal for breakfast is still the best! It holds me over well and it fits great with my calorie and fat portions for the day. It also forces me to sit and take my time to eat while I'm watching the news in the morning which helps me keep at ease throughout the rest of the day. It's also one less thing to try and do in the car. I made Fiber One muffins this weekend which are really not bad. No side effects take hold until around dinner time, so I can eat them before work and things balance nicely. They taste fantastic. I got the banana nut ones, but there are other flavors and there are plenty of coupons for them at coupons.com.

I'm starting to get burnt out on the same microwave lunches with yogurt and weight watcher cake. SO, I'm looking for alternatives. The yogurt I'm ok with keeping, but the dinners are getting really really old. I'm trying to come up with some dinners that I can heat back up when I get to work and eat there. Nothing sounds fantastic, though. Wednesday I heated some soup and made a fat-free pimento cheese sandwich to go with it. The progresso chicken gumbo (less sodium) was fairly good! I plan to buy more groceries next week and will draw up a plan then. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Dinners this week have been challenging. Monday night was a salad, but by Tuesday I was in the mood to stuff my face with monkey bread or anything sweet I could find. Not sure what the deal was, but it's still killing me! So I splurged a little and on Tuesday night I made some chicken fried rice with balsamic vinagrette and a little olive oil. The secret is, lots o' chicken, li'l bit o' rice. Which is hard, because I think the rice is the best part. But this way you can save yourself some extra empty calories. Then top it off with a fiber one muffin. That lasted me Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Next week, I'm trying polenta! Thanks for the advice, Rachel!


EXERCISE

Sunday I went on my first real run! It was a beautiful day, but FRIGGIN' COLD! I think that cut me short fairly quick. I measured later and I ran about a mile out and then back to the apartment, so 2 miles total and it was about 30 minutes. I need to get batteries in one of my plastic digital watches so I can keep better track of my time. It is important to be able to meet the requirements for the half-marathon.

Monday night I got stood up by my new friend from the cycling/spin class. She told me the step class they have on Monday nights use free weights and are like that BodyPump class at Gold's Gym. I went, and she was right, but she wasn't there. It's ok. I bonded with all the other people in the group through our pure agony over doing pushups half up the step and half on the ground. OUCH! It was good. I couldn't even pick up a gallon of milk later that night. Good stuff.

Found out my sister did 8 miles on Monday with an average of about 12 minutes a mile! Shazzam! I thought that was inspirational, so I decided on Tuesday that I would run as well since my legs were the only part of my body that wasn't sore. However, Tuesday was rainy and dark, so I had to do it at the gym on the treadmill (aka. bane of my existence). I was afraid of doing something like this. It wasn't as bad as I thought, though it still didn't work very well. Trying to do the Galloway method of running and walking ratios doesn't complement the constant adjusting of the treadmill speed. It was a good run, though. I lasted about an hour and averaged a 15 minute mile. And if I wasn't sore on Tuesday, I was RIDICULOUSLY sore on Wednesday. Good time to take a day off, though I did go swim for a little bit just to move around some. For whatever reason, it seems to help with the soreness. The hot tub felt fantastic as well.

Then on to Cycling on Thursday. With the rain and wind, it didn't happen. The same feeling that I used to have about going to class on days when the weather was like this kicked in and I reverted to skipping. So basically I stood up my new friend after she stood me up on Monday. Haha. My plan is to wake up tomorrow (Friday) morning and go running before work.

Next week, I will continue running more since it's down to the count. Less than a month before the half-marathon!


On a side note, work has been exercising my eyes fairly well. Imagine if you will, 600 political buttons in just 1 of 10 drawers to be counted, organized, and inventoried. Sweet Jesus.

Hope everyone is doing well! Any suggestions as to how to survive a 13 mile run will be greatly appreciated! So would some advice on what to wear when running. This is all really new to me. I'm looking for those little utility belts that hold water and your cell phone and keys and all of that while you run, too. NO fanny packs, though!

Woohoo!