Kale yes!

Alright, it's my mission in life to name the title of each of my postings with a play-on-words about KALE. I have either had broccoli or kale with every meal ev-er-y-day for the past two weeks. Stick a fork in my dead, limpy, foul smelling kale. I'm done with it! It's week 3 and I'm so anxious to weigh in tomorrow morning. I weighed in today for our school's weight-loss challenge and I had lost about 3 pounds. I came home and SMOKED a 4.88 mile walk so I am crossing my fingers I can officially weigh in tomorrow with a 4 pound loss. Hence, the "Kale yes!" of today's post.

I'm also super giddy because it's BE--Birthday Eve. I'm still a total kid and get excited about my birthday almost as much as Christmas. I'm particularly excited about leaving 26 behind. It has been a craptastic year! I shouldn't say that, because it has had some pretty hugely GOOD highlights...but for those of you who are my regular blogger-followers, you know I don't mind telling 26 to go to kale. (Shucks, should've saved that one for next week's blog title!)

I got an early gift today about 2:15! Aunt Flo decided to make an appearance on Day 26 this time. Last month was about Day 34. So apparently we are still playing this game of "GUESS WHEN". And like all the Aunt Flo's that showed her face in between the 1st and 2nd miscarriages, it still feels like salt in the wound every time. The sting doesn't last long, but I definitely get angry for a second or two when I realize I've started.

This past weekend I had a momentary crazy-lady melt down. I have been surrounded by baby birthdays, pregnancy, baby gender, and baby name announcements for about 2 weeks now. Don't get me wrong, please, I'm not a Debbie Downer and hate all things baby and all people related to baby anything. I'm just human and my natural instinct when I hear certain things or see parents my age doing things they have no business doing, I have thoughts I shouldn't have. Sue me. Believe me, I know the feeling of seeing a positive test and I know the feeling of announcing a pregnancy. I am so excited for all the moms who have that feeling. I promise! I think I just let myself get angry because I want to relate to those people. I want my kid to grow up with all these new (and soon to be) babies because so many of these future parents are my friends--and I want our kids to be friends too! Dang it. I also want to have a kid before all the cool names are taken! Everytime Sandy Feet posts a new product, I'm jealous of the cool kid names I see lately. I ended up going walking when I realized I was getting emotional Sunday (blame it on premensies) so I got up an sweated it out with the iPod blasting out the negative thoughts and inserted positive ones in place. I'm good now! I swear!

Anyway, Negative Nancy hour is over. I have so many positives to look forward to for 27! See below!

1. I'm starting 27 six pounds lighter! In yo face, Doctor G. (see earlier post, "Chubby Girls Can't Have Babies")

2. One of my confidants shared with me today that after her 2 miscarriages, she had her son when she was 27.

3. So many of the stories I read about girls like me uncannily get pregnant a year to date from the first miscarriage...cue October 23rd!

4. Our "go" time officially started September 1. We have until March 1 to get me knocked up before all the poking and prodding begins. Obvi from the last report cards, we usually get an A+ in conception!!!!

Hopefully, with things in "a place of YES" as they are now, 27 will be the wimpy kiddy ride compared to 26. I'm so ready to get it the kale started and put this one behind me! (Lame, I know, but I had too many to bust out tonight ;) I'll post briefly tomorrow night if I made it official with 4 pounds. I know you'll be right there waiting for me to post...

What. The. Kale.

As promised, it's Tuesday and it has been one week since the beginning of bootcamp. I have news!!!!!! I weighed in this morning and have only lost 2.5 pounds. I was quite ticked at my frenemy, the scale. I thought that with all the kale and broccoli and chicken and water and LACK of Hershey bars I'd have lost at least 15 this week. But it isn't so. Blahh. On the blinding bright side, 2 weeks ago I found a pair of jeans at Loft that made me look like an 8, (the number, not the size) You know, an 8 is just a zero with a tight belt on. Anyway, I went back this past weekend and tried on the same jeans...they were actually very loose! Mike said they made me look like I had a 90's mom-butt. Not sure what that meant but I didn't think it was a good thing. We did my measurements after I weighed in and you wouldn't believe the difference that I'd lost in just a week. I'd share the info with you if I hadn't left it in the car, and frankly, I'm not moving an inch from the bed until I absolutely have to in the morning!

In a nut-shell, while I wasn't thrilled with the scale number this morning, I am super excited about loose jeans! I'll leave you with this jewel from my inner 13 year-old-Taylor-Swift-lovin' self...

(Addressed to size 14:) 'WE-eeee Are Never Ever Ever, Getting Back Together!!!'

Diet Birthday Cake

Monday afternoon I was supposed to meet with the "bootcamp" lady about her program. I honestly was exhausted and sitting in my chair at school procrastinating what I needed to do for the rest of the week when my phone dinged an incoming email. In my procrastination/whiny mental conversation with myself, I had already put starting bootcamp on the back burner. Then I checked my email. Bootcamp literally forced itself into my brain when I was so ready to make another excuse for not getting my rear in gear about losing these added accessories attached to my hips. It was my lady and she was basically like, "I am here. You need to be too." So I left work and headed to meet her. Basically, bootcamp is 1 hour workouts lots of times during the week at ungodly hours of the day for 4 weeks. And also, a crazy meal plan that even Tweety Bird would starve on.

I immediately left the lady and went straight to the store to stock up on what little food I was supposed to eat this week. This pretty much consisted of: eggs, kale, grapefruit, water, fat free tuna, tilapia, and chicken breasts. I probably could've picked leaves off the bush in the front yard too and they'd be okay, according to this diet. If you are turning your face up in agony for me as you read this, bless your heart. You should be. You will understand my torture a little more when I tell you that that little bit of food cost me $50.00. Do you KNOW how many cans of Beefaroni, bread, cheese, bologna, containers of BOGO Breyer's ice cream and Lay's Tangy Carolina BBQ chips, and $1 cheeseburgers from McDonald's $50 will buy? Enough for me to live off of for 2 weeks. Of course, having eaten all that while being broke this past year got me the extra bit of Kristin in the first place.

So I got up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at  4:30 AM. A-M. In the morning. (Last time I was up that early was for my 4th grade class field trip to Jamestown, btw.) to go to the workouts. Then I walked/jogged/speed-walked (while trying not to vomit) 3.5 miles yesterday and just a little while ago. The exercise and diet are honestly not too bad. I was making the food issue out to be a big deal in my head, but then I reminded myself that I went 6 weeks with nothing more than Ensure 3 meals a day and could DO THIS. With that in mind, I've been sticking to it. And it's only been a WEEK. Kick me!

Today has been the worst so far. I scrolled through Facebook earlier and all I saw within the first 3 posts were pics of some kid's birthday cake. Which reminded me of my upcoming 27th birthday on the 25th. Which had me thinking of places where I wanted to go to dinner and what kind of cake I wanted this year. Which has gotten me to bring myself upstairs to blog...in the furthest room in the house away from the kitchen. Ugh.

On a brighter note, I went to a forreal SPA yesterday and had a forreal massage. Thankfully I could barely move from all the exercising I'd been doing and the hour long rub-down cured my soreness. I'd like to think I was the type of wealthy that could say "Oh Dahling, I'm just so sore today, why don't we schedule massages" but I'm not. Mike and I had been saving from our last beach trip to be able to go Mitchell's and it just so happened our scheduled date was the weekend after I'd been playing the fat kid at football camp all week having asthma attacks and faking cramps to keep from doing the reeeeally hard moves. While my rub-down was fantastic, I'm the type of person that can never fully RELAX. My brain is always working and I'm never able to clear my mind completely. So as I'm laying (naked) facedown into the little face-pillow thing that leaves your face squished up and staring into the floor, my brain WANTED to clear itself but it just wouldn't happen.

My massage thought process went something like this: "What if there is a camera in the floor right where I'm looking at and they take these hideous pictures of people's faces to make fun of us when we leave. I wonder if this girl is making a puke face while she's rubbing my back. I know my fat rolls are visible because the blanket is about to drop down to a borderline lesbian encounter. HA. I wonder if lesbians would rather have a man or a woman masseuse? I wonder how you spell 'masseuse'? If I think I'm fat with just my back (which is probably stretched out enough that there aren't any rolls, per se) I wonder how many gross hairy fat men this girl has to massage? When does "The Client List" come back on TV? I'll have to look it up. I know J. Love Hewitt had fat hairy men to rub down in that show. Yes. That show also has Colin Eggleston in it. Who is also on Rizzoli & Isles. I wonder how many products I can think of that could be called "Rizzoli & Isles"? Perfume? Yes. Law firms? Yes. Salad dressing? YES! (in my most snotty, white girl voice) "Could you pass the Rizzoli & Isles, dahling?"

See. Totally incapable of letting my mind rest. I know I've been rambling but honestly, it's keeping me away from the kitchen. And also away from my car keys, because I am NOT above going to Sonic, in the rain, to get a vanilla cone. Is it bedtime yet?? I'll leave you with what I've been eating this week. I'll promise to share my weightloss (yes, I'm being cocky about that) on Tuesday if you promise not to feel sympathy towards me after you read this sorry excuse for a diet I'm on. I don't need sympathy...I need encouragement to keep me away from allll the things I've been craving today. I'll also take suggestions on recipes for Diet Birthday Cake. Until Tuesday...

Tuesday:

1/2 grapefruit & oatmeal

1/2 grapefruit & tuna salad (with NOTHING good in it, I promise)

Ground turkey burger (just the patty, with A1 sauce)

Wednesday:

2 scrambled eggs w/cheddar

1/2 grapefruit & turkey burger

1/2 grapefruit & chicken breast (plain)

Thursday:

2 scrambled eggs w/cheddar

2 cups broccoli (w/FF cheese)

2 cups kale

Friday:

oatmeal

ground turkey burger (just the patty, with A1 sauce)

ANOTHER ground turkey burger

2 cups kale

Saturday:

oatmeal

honey mustard chicken (chicken breast cut up w/FF honey must.)

a few spoonfuls of brown rice

broccoli (plain)

ground turkey burger (just the patty, with A1 sauce)

Today:

oatmeal

1/2 sweet potato (w/less than a teaspoon of light butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar)

2 cups chilli

**Orbit Sugarfree Sweetmint gum has been working overtime to cure my sugar-fix this week. And I was supposed to have 2 more grapefruits worked in there somewhere but have you tasted a freaking grapefruit, ever? Blehhhhh.**

Is this real life??

I was just sitting downstairs in the recliner reading when I got an inbox alert from a fellow blogger. She was basically wondering why my slack-@$$ hadn't blogged since July 30. That prompted me to come upstairs and fill you in on the past 5 weeks, the Readers-Digest version.

When I started this particular blog at the beginning of summer, I had intended to share every so often the misadventures of me losing weight before I went back to school. It's obvi (especially if you witnessed my mini-meltdown last weekend in a dressing room at the mall because I couldn't get a pair of pants zipped up) that I haven't lost that much weight. 6 pounds to be exact! Here are the reasons why things haven't gone according to plan this past summer:

1. I had about 2 good weeks of really "working out". The 3rd week, I found out I was pregnant. Hence, I had to cut out all the "strenuous" workouts that my body wasn't used to handling.

2. 4th week: found out I was miscarriaging...is that a word? So I was on strict bedrest for a week.

3. 5th week: Last beach trip of the summer. And let's be honest, if you work out or diet during vaca, you're an idiot. Probably a skinny idiot, but still an idiot.

4. 6th week: **The week I had originally planned on going back into gym/bird-eating/gym mode**
Start of my new job (well, technically same job, new place) and I fell off a chair I was standing on in my classroom and fractured my elbow, busted my shin on...something, hit the bone above my eye when I head-butted the floor, and briefly died of embarrassment. This particular jewel of a story prompted the title of this post. If you haven't, you must You-Tube 'David After Dentist'. After my post-olympic high dive from. a. chair., I was in the ER, highly drugged, and remember thinking, "Really, Kristin? Is this real life? Are you really that desperate to get out of gymming it up that you subconsciously fall off things to hinder your workout?" When I was once again off pain meds, I realized and accepted that I wasn't purposely trying to keep myself out of exercising, but that God just doesn't want me to be thin! This is the only logical explanation I can come up with!

However, (against God's obvious wishes), I have a meeting on Monday with a lady that I've heard some pretty fabulous things about. She runs a weight-loss "bootcamp" in town and is super motivated about helping chubby people like me scrape off these extra 20 (or 30 or 40) pounds that seems to have attached themselves to my body from out of nowhere...

Basically, you get up at 5:00 in the morning, meet the other chubby people like you, and workout insanely for an hour. Then go to work. Then meet at night and workout insanely for an hour. Then do it all over again the next day. Or something like that. I've learned that I can't do the gym by myself. I can go to my Gym BFF's classes because she motivates me, but I find that if it's up to me, I'd rather veg out instead of physically getting in my car and driving the 1.5 minute drive to the gym everyday. Unless it's to drive somewhere to go out to eat, because that seems to be working out well for me the past few weeks. Besides, my fellow teacher-friends out there know this, when you walk in the door at night, you are DONE. With a capital D. I need somebody to get in my face and make me responsible for busting my tail. Hold me accountable for getting the weight off, not making up every excuse not to.

So! I promise to get back to you one night this week to fill you in on the deets with bootcamp. Just pray that I can make it til Monday without a random pregnancy, random miscarriage, or falling off any random object and hindering any and all exercise.