Graduated to Winks

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Wise people choose bad first so they can end on a good note, so I'll be wise. I cheated. HORRIBLY. The first round of bootcamp was highly successful. You'd think I'd be in a size 4 now with the way I was eating and exercising like I was training for Rio 16. (Let's be honest, the only training I'll be doing for the Olympics is practicing typing "US SWIM TEAM" into the Google browser. Obsessively.) Anyway, I ended the first session down 10 pounds and a jeans size. Not too much of a change on the appearance but on the inside I felt soooo much better. Then we went on our annual "Lay Around On the Beach and Make Fun of People While Eating Any and Everything Known to Man Weekend Extravaganza". And it was awesome. Until I got home. Then I felt like utter cri-zap for a week because my body couldn't handle the binge I went on. I didn't work out for a week! This week I headed back to bootcamp and basically I'm back to jelly-legs and grandma lotion to soothe my totally out-of-shape muscles. 

Now for the good news: I did get on the scale last week and it only showed a .8 gain. (Only after I threatened to take its batteries out if it didn't show the number in the tens position I needed it to show. In this case, yes, bargaining was successful.) Darlene even winked at me during a workout this week when usually she has that concerned look like she's thinking "um, is she going to pass out?" You should be proud. I've been promoted from Grade: Pukey-Needs-A-Respirator to Grade: Winking. I can deal with winks. 

I feel like I'm back to decent number. My "paper weight" looks good. Paper weight, you ask? Oh yes. I have an actual weight and I have a paper weight. Actual weight is what the scale actually says. Paper weight is what I put down on paper when my weight is required on a questionnaire (i.e. driver's license, insurance forms, new doctor papers, i.d.'s etc.) Paper weight is usually 10-15 pounds below the actual weight. Don't even act like you've never lied on those things. I actually took my 'paper weight' a step further just a few months ago. I promise it was nothing illegal. The form was for some organization that wanted me to join and they asked me to fill out a survey. I had no intentions of joining so I expressed my creativity out on paper. It looked something like this (what I wrote is bolded, my comments as to why are italicized:

1. Name? Kristin Nicole Tanner Peeblays If Michael Buble can pronounce his 'b-l-e' like "blay" then I should be able to as well. And even better, my BLAY has an S. 
2. Sex? Um, I'd really rather get to know you first.
3. Weight? Somewhere between "not too heavy for a strong, male firefighter to carry me down the steps of a burning building--but probably only a flight" and "heavy enough for a PowerWheels to break down when I sit on it". 
4. Height? Just above the required height to be able to ride all the rides at any Disney-affiliated theme park. 
5. Eye color? Dark almond with tiny flecks of gold around the center if you use the lighted mirror at any Clinique counter in the US. (I formerly taught writing so I'm a fan of adjectives.)

And so on and so on. I've written quite a bit tonight and I haven't even shared the biography I'm working on entitled "Aunt Flo: Now You See Me, Now You Don't". I'll save that story for another day soon. Until then, I'll keep working out, eating (somewhat) better, and starting my new non-fiction piece "Stupid Periods and Other Crap People Trying to Have a Kid Go Through: for Dummies". Good night. 

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.

0 for 2

Is it sad that I am now officially qualified to apply for a job as an NBC Olympic Commentator's job? I have literally watched every sport competition aired on DirecTV since about 8 this morning. OBSESSED. With my luck, instead of getting the prime positions like Men's Swimming, or Men's Syncronized Diving, which would allow me to use humorous jaunts like "Kristin Peebles here at the Aquatic Center in London's Olympic Park preparing for the men's 100M. We are on air, Lochte and Loaded"...Please argue with me that that is not the best line you've ever heard.

I've watched men's and women's weight lifting, archery, handball (yes. HANDBALL!), and jujitsu, just to name a few. Not only have I thought to myself "what the hell is this" a thousand times today, I am now an expert in qualifying and scoring, and know way too much about snatches with clean and jerks. Yes. I have no life. On to the reason I have the said 'no life' is I am on bedrest. YES! Unfortunately, bedrest is nowhere near as awesome as I thought it would be. Mainly because it's summer vacation and I was already on "bed rest". Now that it's official, I'm enjoying it not so much. I am on bedrest for no, not an injury, but for yes, another miscarriage. I know, I know. You probably just said "oh that's bullshit" out loud. If you didn't, well, let me assure you those were my exact words when I went to the bathroom Saturday evening and got a nice view of bright red blood after finding out a week earlier that I was about 5 weeks pregnant.

If you haven't been keeping up with this blog, see my first post! I had my first miscarriage in October. As it was considered a fluke, we have been busting balls to conceive since then. This time around, I had many of the crazy pregnant lady symptoms unlike the first go round. Intense boob pain, peeing like every 10 minutes, exhaustion, and a missed period. Mike and I were tight-lipped as we didn't want to jinx ourselves like we felt we did the first time. I even pulled the "pregnancy card" and made Mike go grocery shopping last week. Anyway, we were much more aware of what could happen instead of being blindsided like last time. So when I wiped and saw blood, I just had a moment of pure anger rather than despair. Of course I allowed myself to get really upset for about 10 minutes but it passed. Mike took me to the Johnston Willis ER where I stayed for a few hours on Saturday night not because we were unsure of what was happening, but because I wanted somebody to tell me WHY this was happening during the process. With positive pregnancy blood and urine tests but blank ultrasounds, they told me nothing. I was labeled a "threatened miscarriage". They did give me 2 Tylenols and let me watch the Olympics while we waited. At this point, we were past the grieving, past the anger, and onto the accepting stages of what was happening. Accepting for us is the "can't-be-serious, highly inappropriate, giggly stage". It basically distracts us from the sadness of the situation as it occurs.  I asked my doctor what type of pain reliever I could have and she said, "Tylenol: Extra Strength". Mike said I could be the new spokesperson for "Tylenol: Miscarriage". Bust. We have been playing out fake commercials randomly since Saturday.

So after a full day of abosolutely nothing (blood-wise) I started bleeding again today and took one of my many pregnacy tests. It was a weak negative, which means my Hcg's were dropping, hence, no babies. I should totally invent pregnancy tests that predict miscarriages. The first test I took last week said "YES", which I thought was hilarious, instead of changing colors or pink lines. My invented tests would say, "MAAAYYYYBE", "KINDA, BUT DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP", or "EPIC FAIL". Sadly, I don't think people would find humor in these situations like we weirdos do.

This post has been short and sweet (like my most recent pregnancy...BAZINGA!) but I wanted to share the reason why I haven't posted about exercising and losing weight like my last post implied I would. We are doing really well, just a little disappointed. I'm on light rest til Friday and then hopefully I'll get back to some sort of normalcy. We do, however, intend to kick miscarriage's ass in the coming months. August-October is prime baby-making time in the Peebles' household. So don't feel sad or sympathetic for us, just pray we can COOK ONE LONGER THAN 6 WEEKS next time. Eventually we'll get one to stay for 9 months :)

I'll leave you with this thought from my last post, "Chubby Girls Can't Have Babies"...
My last visit at the GYN was June 23. Pretty sure I concieved the week after. Chubby Girls Can DEFINITELY make babies, we just have an oven default that needs to be repaired before the next one settles in. In yo face, Dr. Gospenedtic!!!!! On to the next one...

Chubby Girls Can't Have Babies

You'd think someone who likes to write as much as I do would keep up with her blog and not skip months at a time. I come from a long line of procrastinators. It's only natural. Hopefully you haven't keeled over and died anxiously awaiting my next blurb and are still willing to catch up on my latest happenings. Let's begin with the obvious: it's July now and it's suffocating to go outside. I despise sweating, period. I can deal with the sheen that develops from just walking onto my front porch. I call this "glistening". If I have sweat between my fat rolls when I sit down and I can feel it dripping down my back from just walking up the stairs to the pool, I immediately tap out and head for the nearest A/C asap. I call this "unattractive". I can't imagine being pregnant during the summer. Perhaps God knows how annoying I would be to him if I were pregnant now with all the "OH MY GOD IT'S HOT" rants so he hasn't let it happen yet...

We are leaving in the morning for our annual Myrtle Beach (partial) family vacation. I can't count on my hands how many summers I've spent at the beach. I can't remember what happened each year and who went with us, where we stayed, etc. but I can usually remember bits and pieces from every trip. Time has certainly changed things though and it's uncanny to me how it changes in just short periods of time. I remember being at the beach different summers and thinking "I start my senior year in high school in a few months" or "where will I be working when school starts in a few months" or "maybe next year I'll have my future husband here with me". Just last year, Ryann and I were walking in from the surf and this little girl, maybe 1 or 2, was playing in a small puddle with her mom. Ryann was like, "Maybe that'll be you next year". I remember, specifically, bursting out with laughter saying "BAHAHA YEAH RIGHT!" Here it is almost a year later and the thought of taking a baby to the beach isn't so foreign to me. Funny how perspectives change so quickly.

I think I started writing about my miscarriage because it is therapeutic, or at least that's what my mom thinks. It does help me sort my feelings and gives me an outlet. It also helps in the sense that I've had so many people respond to my posts and email me personally with their own stories of pregnancies, miscarriages, and other encouraging words. Mike and I are doing so well and honestly don't have that many "issues" over our mishap. One of the reasons we are so made for each other is that we find humor in EVERY situation, regardless of how morbid or depressing it can be. My school send me a dish garden when I miscarried and while it was so incredibly thoughtful, both of us busted out laughing and said, "what makes them think we'll be able to keep this plant alive?" See. So immature. Sidenote: the plant is still thriving today and I make it a point to keep it alive, even almost 9 months later!

I visited Dr. G (not because I call him a cool name but because I honestly can't remember how to spell it right now) (oh, and he's my OB-GYN) in late June. This was my 6 month post mishap appointment. Everything checked out perfectly and there is nothing physically wrong with me that would cause me not to get pregnant again. Obviously Mike isn't the problem; the swimmers can get there, but my oven just burnt out before they were cooked. Probably not the best analogy, but you get the point. I had like an hour talk with the doc before he examined me and I told him about all my period issues. Keep in mind, I love this man and trust him whole-heartedly. However, he thinks the reason my cycles are insane and possible issues with conceiving are because I have gained weight. Yes. His medical advice for me NOT getting pregnant is because I'm fat. At least, this is all my brain was processing while I was listening to him explain how the body reacts due to weight gain. He's showing me diagrams and doing a wonderful presentation about what foods and exercise I should be doing...and I have a glazed-over look on my face because I am mentally listing EVERY SINGLE FAT PERSON I KNOW THAT HAS EVER HAD A KID! What the hell, doc.

When I weighed in at his office in November, I weighed 150. When I weighed in last month, I was 170. That's 20 pounds in 8 months. For those of you who know me very personally, you know I had a hellacious school year. So, between my personal and professional life this past year, it's apparent that Number One: I survived. Number Two: I ate enough food to feed the entire population of Turkmenistan. This brings me to the newest topic I shall be blogging about...losing. freaking. 20. pounds. (at least...but shooting for 35!)

Obviously, this endeavor will not begin until AFTER I return from the beach. At said beach, I will try not to eat my current weight in steak, seafood, and ice cream. However, it is very possible that I will eat that amount but burn it off by walking to the ice cream stand every night at 11. Let's face it, I can't walk up and down the beach for exercise because I will get chub-rub between my thighs and just be Debby Downer for the rest of the trip. Now do you see what I'm up against?

Please join me in my newest adventure. I've set aside the baby crazy thoughts and now have my sights on Skinny Kristin. Because let's be honest people, it's a known fact that 5'3 chubby girls can't have babies until they lose 20 pounds. Eek!