
cvkelz
Trying again
And really, aren’t I always trying again?
Meh. I weight in this morning at 264. Let’s just look at that number shall we? The hightest I have been in the relatively recent past was 272…that is where I started my last weight loss journey. I then lost about 45 pounds and was feeling really good.
I’m not that far away from my most recent highest and let’s face it, not that far away from my total highest..whatever that was. I never knew because our scale broke and I wasn’t in a hurry to fix it but I know it was over 300 by a chunk.
Ug.
I’ve been saying for months that I was going to buckle down again and get this fat ass in gear but it never happens.
Rob’s cardiologist put him on a low carb diet and I tried to follow it but it just doesn’t work for me anymore. I feel like crap on it because my electrolytes bottom out and no amount of salt or supplementation seems to help. Hell, I have to supplement them on a regular diet to keep my heart palpitations at bay.
I’ve decided I’m going to try something new. It’s kind of in the vein of the Zone diet…which surprisingly I’ve never tried before, but those are the marcos that I am shooting for. So basically, I am portion controlling. I’ve got myself set up for most of the day and then I will make a low carb meal at night for Rob and I will be able to have some as long as it isn’t crazy fatty.
They way we did it on keto was that we made a meal every night and then it served as our lunch the next day at least. Now what I am doing is making a meal that will last for a lot of Rob’s lunches and some of my dinners, but I will be making my lunches and breakfasts separately. Incorporating more fruits and non starchy veggies with lean meats and then using up my fat grams on the dinners that I make that will be low carb for him.
I hope that makes sense.
Today was day one.
I had an apple and PB powder for my morning snack and 1 serving of Kashi cereal with almond milk for my breakfast.
Lunch was a chicken breast and a medium yam with a TBS of butter.
Dinner will be a small serving Low Carb Taco Pie and a cup of brown rice.
My evening snack is sugar snap peas with hummus.
The most important thing is that I actively exercised for the first time in forever. Probably almost a year.
It wasn’t a lot, but I got my butt on the treadmill and did a mile. It took me almost a half an hour…not exactly like I used to do when I was training for the half marathons but I will take it. I told myself I would get on there and I would do a mile…I wouldn’t push myself and however long it took me to do it, so be it.
I’m a little proud of myself.
Tomorrow we have our weekly visit with my in-laws where we cook them dinner and spend some time together. I almost always end up eating something there and then eating again at home before bed.
I think this time I’m going to bring my snack and eat it instead of whatever dinner Rob makes (that is the hardest part, we never know what we are making until we get there so it’s so hard to plan) and then have a light dinner when we get back here.
I know Rob is wary that I’m going to make him fall off the low carb diet, but that is not my intention at all. I just want to get control back over my eating and this is the easiest way I know how right now.
So that is where I am right now. It could change on a dime, but today…I was in control.
Ta effing Da!
Yup, here I am again.
If you are reading this entry, I would like to explain the archives of this blog have been pieced together via the Wayback Machine that can show you old archived web pages. Because I have been a bit of a impatient dumbass in the past, I had lost most of my entries when I switched over to a new domain host. Yeah.
It’s nothing that I can change at this point, but I spent a lot of time last week copying the old entries over from the wayback machine and so some of the links and images probably no longer work. I just wanted to explain why.
I have shifted back and forth on different blogs over the years, but I think it’s time to come back to this one. This is a very diet neutral name and it’s one of the original ones if not THE original one that I started all those years ago. I just loved the name and so here I am.
I have resurrected my old YouTube channel by the same name as well, because…might as well keep it all in the same vein right? Back when I started that channel it was primarily for low carb recipes. It was a little show I called Low Carb Cafe and I really enjoyed and miss making those videos. So they will be back, but I’m also expanding the channel to vlogs and weigh ins and such so that it’s all my content in one channel. Much like this blog.
So things have been going meh for me as far as the weight loss. I’ve gone in ebbs and flows like always. I lost about 40 lbs with low calorie and portion control only to gain most of it back when I fell of the wagon.
In December of 2017 my husband had a heart attack and his dr recommended keto so we have been trying that ever since. And when I say that we have been trying that, I mean that we were really good for a few months, he dropped 30 lbs and I 15, but then I just couldn’t stick with it. I kept cheating at work and not telling my husband and pretending I was eating fine at home. We both fell out of the exercise routine and in turn fell stagnant on the weight loss front.
My anxiety and depression have played a really big part in me not wanting to do anything – also I discovered that now when I lower my carbs I get heart palpitations when I don’t supplement with sea salt because I get super low on electrolytes. It makes me not want to do the diet because I just don’t want to deal with that.
The latest set back is that my husbands mother has been in a health crisis. Her kidneys are failing and she has lots f blockages in her heart, but she only has a 10% chance of surviving surgery. So basically she was sent home a month ago to die.
In pulling her off of 15 of her medications however, they didn’t anticipate that she would bounce back. She went from being bed bound to going to Target the other day.
What this has meant for us, is that we have been heading over there most nights after work and cooking food for her…whatever she wants since they took her off dietary restriction. Since we then get home with only an hour or so to relax before bed, that leaves us at the mercy of eating whatever she wanted and also bringing those leftovers to work for lunches the next day.
Let’s just say it hasn’t been Keto, or even moderately healthy.
We made a decision this weekend that we were just going to have to suck it up and either make her meals more towards our diet, or we would have to cook a bunch on our “nights off” to supplement the meals that we won’t be eating at her house.
I’ve just been to the grocery store to stock up, and we’ll see what I can cook up tonight to get us ready for the next few days.
So that is what is going on with me. I weighed in yesterday at 257 lbs. That is up about 20 pounds from my recent lowest. I’m hoping to reign all this in and start exercising again too. Thus dusting off the YouTube channel and this blog.
Wish me luck!!!!
Tuna Casserole Recipe
This is a fairly easy little dish that cooks up nicely and doesn't take that much prep work if other than chopping up some onion and celery. I have been told that sauteing the onion and celery first in some butter until tender, greatly improves the recipe, but I have yet to try it myself.
Cauli-roni & Cheese
This is a delicious side dish that is super easy to make. My go to when I'm craving comfort food.
I'm still here!!!!
So I know that my blog was down for a very long time. It appears that Bluehost discovered malware on my account and shut down all my websites. It was a very long and tedious process to get all the malware removed and back up and running, but I refused to pay someone else to do it. They kept shoving sitelock in my face so I think they get a kick back, but to charge me upwards of 200.00 a month to clean and reactivate my site? No Thank You!
I’ve been home sick the last three days and therefore had the time to finish it between the hacking and the coughing.
The good news is that I haven’t gone off the rails completely as far as weight loss is concerned. I had a trip to Maine and a trip to Las Vegas that both centered very much around eating, but I was also walking a lot more and I actually managed to lose a pound in Maine.
I have probably gained about five pounds back as of when I was at my lowest before Maine at the beginning of October. I have also stopped working out. That started when I was in hard core rehearsals for Rocky and I let it stay dropped off out of pure laziness. Same with my youtube channel.
But I’m back in it to win it. It’s time to take the reigns back and steer this bitch in the right direction.
But for now I’m going to go lay down and cough.
Embracing the Fitness once again.
As I wrote in my last blog entry, I have started working out. Of course that was just the very first day, but I was bragging on it pretty hard.
I kept it up pretty well. From last Monday I worked out every day –counting my dance rehearsal at the theater on Saturday because it kicked my butt. I gave myself Sunday off and regretted it on Monday.
One of the many benefits I’ve experienced since adding 30 minutes of cardio and a bit of strength training in is that my mind is clear and I have more energy. I do the work out when I get home from work and I still experience the benefits the next morning. My head is clearer and I just feel better overall. I get a much deeper sleep and am far less cranky and less prone to depression.
Monday I felt lethargic and kind of blah. I can only assume that was because of my lack of activity on Sunday. Lesson learned. Even if I only take the dog for a short walk, I feel better having some sort of activity every single day.
What I have to stop now is feeling like I can eat more because I am burning more calories. Exercise is not a license to eat like a pig.
I am reigning it in since yesterday. I had been getting off track in my eating for quite some time so I really can’t blame adding fitness into my mix. I got complacent.
I blamed the depression that gripped me for so long. Now I’m blaming the working out…time to face facts and put the blame where it belongs. It’s time to get back to the things that helped start my journey back in January. Making better decisions. Eating more whole foods. Portion control.
I got lazy. I didn’t want to put in the effort that it takes to be prepared in eating well. We all know that in order to lose weight and eat better we have to have a game plan and stick to it. When you are prepared and you have your meals prepped and ready, you obviously do better than just winging it.
Yes, there are always better decisions that can be made but putting yourself in an area where temptation is an issue is a slippery slope, at least for me.
I have lost almost 25 pounds since January, but I did the majority of that back at the beginning of the year. Lately I have just been losing and gaining the same few pounds back and forth. And for a while I was okay with that. It was okay to maintain. It’s not enough now. I want more.
Anyhoo, the workouts that I’m doing are pretty simple, but that is what I want since I am easing myself back into the whole fitness thing again. I’m doing the Walk Away The Pounds DVD’s. Nothing less than a two mile equivalent. Usually about a half an hour. I’ve just ordered some three, four and five mile ones for the weekends when I have more time to devote to it.
So far I’m really digging them and they’ve been giving me quite a work out. Nothing compared to the choreography we ran through on Saturday, but I feel like even though it had only been a little less than a week of working out, that I felt better conditioned than I would have with out it.
I feel like I’m using these as a base and once I get better, I will add more impact and maybe start running again.
Either way, this feels amazing and I can’t believe that I have skipped this for so long.
Observations on working out thus far
Since Monday I have been working out on my own. In my last entry I detailed how I tried to find a gym around here that met my needs but failed miserably. However, what I didn’t mention in that entry was my social anxiety and what a high part that played in my decision to not join a gym.
Anyhoo, Monday I did a workout DVD.
Last night I wasn’t called to rehearsal until 7:30 and that isn’t enough time to go home, so I put on my work out clothes after work threw everything in the car and headed around the business park where I worked for a walk/jog. This is the same area that I did a lot of my training on lunch breaks for the half marathons back when I had a full hour lunch break. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. Before I left work, I put some wet paper towels into a ziplock bag and then used them when I got to rehearsal to take a bit of a whore’s bath in the bathroom while changing back into my street clothes.
Tonight I did the same workout DVD that I had done on Monday.
So my thoughts:
I haven’t felt as clear headed and generally happy as I have the last three days in a VERY long time.
If you have followed my youtube channel, you are aware that I had been suffering from a pretty severe depression for the last few months. It comes and goes in it’s severity, but it has never really gone away. My anxiety has also been very high. Having panic attacks for little or no reason. It was really starting to freak me out.
The last three days I have been in the BEST mood and little to no anxiety.
Having said all of that. None of this is surprising to me. I am not a stranger to exercise and how wonderful it makes me feel. My problem has been that I couldn’t seem to get the motivation to get back into working out, at all in the last couple of years. Getting off my couch has seemed like the hardest thing to do. I have grown complacent to my sedentary lifestyle and I was comfortable there. I was even willing to let myself fall into the depths of a deep depression, knowing that fitness would help me out of it.
I can’t explain why it seemed like such a hard thing for me to do. It just did. I just thought it would hurt so much and I would fail. And in all honestly, my anxiety had gotten so high that in the back of my mind, I probably feared that I would drop of a heart attack at the slightest bit of cardio activity.
Guys, ever since Monday I have been CRAVING my workout. No joke! I couldn’t wait to get home tonight to do my DVD. Last night I was lamenting that I wouldn’t be able to do a workout at home because of rehearsal, and when I made the decision to walk/jog my old stomping grounds I was soooo happy with myself.
It should also be noted that I am pretty sleep deprived right now because of rehearsals. I am normally in bed by nine thirty on weeknights and by seven or eight on a Sunday to prepare for the week. Sunday and Tuesday I wasn’t in bed until 11 or midnight both nights because of rehearsal. While this might not seem like much to a youngster that doesn’t require much sleep, this is a HUGE lack of sleep to me. One that typically leaves me grouchy and emotional for the rest of the week.
I have felt fantastic all work week! I might have drank more coffee than normal,(which by the way, normally makes my anxiety go through the roof – not this time!) but I have felt pretty darn amazing.
I hope I am not jinxing myself by posting this, but I don’t think so. I’m really happy and excited to me working out again and I love this feeling!!!
Adventures in (NOT) Finding a Gym
So I am going into another theater production. It’s Rocky Horror this time and I have been cast as one of the Magenta’s in a rotating cast of three. Don’t ask, it’s too long to explain.
Knowing how horribly out of shape I am and how I will have to be wearing some sort of maids outfit onstage, I got it in my head that I was going to join a gym! I was going to finally start working out damn it!
I did a little research on nationwide gyms that would have a branch where my mom lives in Maine, since I will be going there for two weeks in October before I debut in the show. Anytime Fitness seemed to be the winner. I was hoping we had a Planet Fitness near where I live but we don’t. I got really excited that Anytime Fitness was 24 hours and all over the country and the website made it sound like they had these great shower facilities and locker rooms, and there was a branch three blocks from the theater! It seemed perfect.
So I walked my happy ass into the location Saturday before rehearsal and got a tour. The facility itself was very nice! Very clean and hardly anyone in there on a Saturday afternoon. Lots of machines and weight stations. It was looking promising. Until he told me that they had ONE shower and no locker room. I was still willing to join but when he told me the shortest contract term was 12 months and there was a 99 dollar penalty fee for breaking it early, my heart sank. I was hoping for something more short term since the play would be over in November.
This, among other reasons kept me from joining.
When I got home that night I hopped on the interwebs and started researching again. There is a gym that is native to California but has several locations here called In Shape. The website made it look amazing! They had everything, even a pool!
I signed up for a free 7 day trial that doesn’t start until you walk in and activate it and spoke to one of my cast mates excitedly about it the next day. She was sad to inform me that she had also done the trial previously and found the clientele at this location to be obnoxious and snooty and the staff not very knowledgeable. In further talking with other people over the course of the last 24 hours, that opinion was backed up multiple times. I also checked Yelp and saw some scary reviews about the cleanliness.
I checked on other gyms in the area but I just keep hitting a brick wall.
Plus, if I were to be completely candid, I’m not sure how often I would talk myself out of going. I know myself pretty well after 43 years and I can already hear the excuses clouding my brain of why I can’t go on certain nights.
So I thought about it a lot and I realized that I have a lot of tools at home that I could utilize to start myself in the direction of working out. I have a crap ton of work out DVD’s that I’ve never even touched! I have a Tony Little Gazelle that is currently serving as a clothes rack and I have a mini stair stepper in the upper house gathering dust.
What I really would want to go to the gym for would be a treadmill.
So what if I worked out at home? And if, AND ONLY IF, I did it on a consistent basis, what if I plunked down the money I would have spend on gym dues into a savings account to purchase a treadmill?? It would take a little while to get the one I want because I have expensive taste, but isn’t that the point of the dangling carrot??
My biggest problem with working out at home is that once I get home from work and my butt hits the couch, I ain’t moving. It’s a proven fact. So tonight I decided to try and jedi mind trick myself. I got home from work and said hello to the dogs, before putting on my gym clothes. I kept saying to myself: “I am not at home, I am at the gym.” I put a work out DVD on the TV and proceeded to do a half an hour of fat burning cardio. This is the first time I have deliberately (not choreography for a show) worked out in at least a year, possibly two. I felt AMAZING afterwards. Still do.
If I can keep up this mindset, I think I might be on to something. I hope so.
Things I Am Grateful For
I’ve been in the grips of a pretty bad depression for a while now. I have good days and bad days, but overall it’s been pretty bad for the last month or two. I’m on my way out of it now *knocks wood* and this morning actually felt kinda joyful.
I like the days when I can appreciate everything I have and the people in my life. Today is one of those days.
Having said that, I would like to take the time to be grateful. I want to put it out there so I can read it again next time the darkness comes for me again.
I truly live in paradise. I live in a very small community in a small town on a beautiful piece of property along the river. We are fairly secluded and in this day and age of noise and gadgets and all the distractions that life can bring along, there is a great amount of joy to be found just sitting on the back porch listening to the river ripple along beside you.
Of course it doesn’t come without a price. During drought season there is always danger of a fire in the heavily wooded area that is our backyard. Rainy season there is always a risk of flooding as the river is so close. In the last two years we have been in very close danger of both, thankfully everything worked out okay. *knocks wood again*

My dear sweet husband
I am married to a very supportive and patient man. I know it takes a special kind of person to put up with my crazy and he has done it for the last 18 years with minimal complaints. *knocks wood yet again* He makes me laugh on a daily basis and he calms me when I get upset. He encourages me to talk things out when I start to stuff my feelings down and was a godsend in helping me get over my bulimia.
I honestly don’t know where I would be in my life if I hadn’t met him. I don’t even want to imagine it. Marriage is never all sunshine and roses and of course we have our ups and downs like any other couple. But for this gal that said she was never getting married and never had a relationship longer than 6 months before meeting him, it has turned out pretty well.
I am a hermit. I’m putting that out there so you will know what a frustrating friend I must be. I will make plans with you from the comfort of my own house and then when it comes time to have those actual plans, I will do my best to back out on you. It’s not because I don’t want to hang out with you. Not at all. In fact, in all reality I probably miss the hell out of you and to see you would do me a world of good, but I don’t want to leave my house.
I am well aware that this is not healthy and it is getting worse over the last couple of years. I know that my friends get upset when I do this and I have certain friends that just don’t put up with it. They pull the tough love because they know in the end that getting out of the house and hanging out is what will make me feel better. They don’t let me weasel out of our dates unless of course it is an actual emergency. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the friends that ask me to do something knowing full well that I will back out and they let me. It is still nice to be asked and included even though I know, and they know that I won’t go.
The reason I preface all of this like I am is to illustrate the fact that I have the best friends in the world. A great support system even though I am not always the best friend back. I know I can call them and in a second they will drop everything and come to my aid. I often try to convince myself otherwise. It’s a defense mechanism that I have. I build walls, it’s how I am. I have severe trust issues. However, I know that in all reality, my friends love me and would do anything for me. I don’t know what I have done to deserve them in my life.
I have been blessed with the best furbabies in my life.

Romie D. Dog
Romie was an 80 lb German Shepard mix that came with the husband. He was big, goofy and lovable. He was not so sure about me since I took his place on the bed when I first moved in, but he eventually warmed up to me and soon loved me as much as I did him. He made the trek to California with us but eventually at age 16, the inevitable happened. He was a good boy that gave us many years of love.

Our Beloved Pappy

Shilo Wallace Machado
Pappy was the best dog. We adopted him in 2007 from the Salinas Animal Shelter and he won us over with his big brown eyes and his snuggles. He was a Corgi/Terrier mix and 20 lbs of pure love. He had a tendency to mark his territory so all of our rugs were ruined in a few months, but we were willing to overlook it because he truly had us in the palm of his paw. He wanted nothing more than to love and be loved…and to catch that pesky lizard in our front yard. We had him for a wonderful ten years before the cancer took him. He lasted two years longer than the vet said he would and I’m grateful to have had that extra time with him.
Shilo is a princess and a brat and I love her with all my heart. We acquired her when a friend of ours was fostering a pregnant dog. We got invited over for Thanksgiving in 2010 and left with a new baby girl. Okay, not exactly but that was pretty much how it went. She is a 14 pound chihuahua/min-pin/dachshund mix of pure energy and clinginess. She is incredibly co-dependent and wants nothing more than to be in my lap licking my face 24 hours a day. She is also amazingly adorable and such a sweet love. If Shilo isn’t getting your attention, she will demand it and it will be so cute that you have to give in.

Princess Chewbacca Fuzzlebutt
Chewie is our newest addition. We adopted her about three months ago from the SPCA. It had been several months since Pappy passed and we are really a two dog kind of family. We scouted out the SPCA website and picked out our top three choices. The first being a little white dog named Princess. We never made it passed Princess’ room, but we did not go home with her. Instead we fell madly in love with her funny looking roommate “Pop Tart”. She was quiet and loving and a little shy. We interacted her with Shilo and they were indifferent to each other so it was on to the adoption. We found out from my friend that worked at the pound that “Pop Tart” had been adopted out previously with one other dog but was returned because the other dog didn’t like her. How sad! To be rejected twice! We renamed her Chewie and while it took her a while to come out of her shell, she is now happy and thriving in our household. She still won’t play with Shilo, which drives her nuts, but they generally get along.
Being a pet owner is never easy because you know they are on a limited time frame, but the unconditional love you get through the course of their lives is so worth it. I am very lucky to have had some of the best doggies in the world to call my children.
This was all more than I intended to write. I do have more things that I am thankful for, but I think I will save those to write about another day. Don’t want to seem too greedy.
Mini Goal Achieved! Down 20 pounds!!
Okay, this is just amazing to me. I haven’t been able to lose more than a total of seven pounds in about four years. I get gung ho the first week and then start to lose all motivation because I get caught back up in the fact that I love to eat.
When I was losing weight before, I don’t even think it was because I was dieting, but because I was running and burning calories.
I have lost this current weight without even working out!!! Other than choreography for the play, which is nothing compared to my two mile runs every day that I used to do. I can’t even believe it.
Literally. There is a part of me that wonders if the scale needs new batteries or that I need new glasses, but the proof is in the pudding. My jeans are literally falling off me. I had to wear a belt for the first time in forever this week. I look in the mirror and see my double chin going away and my cheekbones emerging. I’m having to tighten my bra rather than wear an extender.
It’s all pretty exciting to say the least. When I first started this blog I stated that I wanted to lose 20 pounds before we take our trip to Vegas in May. Well, I did it! I can’t even believe it. 20.8 to be exact as of yesterdays weigh in. So I have achieved my first mini goal!!! It’s so boggling my mind that I am where I am already. I mean, I know it’s been almost three months, but it really doesn’t seem that long to me. And I really don’t feel like I’m depriving myself much of anything. I mean, I guess it did in the beginning, and I do remember being much more hungry at first, so I guess it is really true that you just need to give yourself enough time to make or break a habit. I don’t even really think about it anymore, I just eat what I know is going to be good to my body and that’s it. Keep my portions small on the bad stuff and fill up on the good stuff. It sounds so stupidly simple when you put it like that, but it’s true.
My broken big toe is finally starting to heal much better now that I’m not dancing on it three days a week, so I’m hoping to actually start getting some exercise in soon. Nothing more than walking and some Walking Off The Pounds DVD’s but it will at least get me moving and getting my heart rate up.
Not much else to report on the weight loss front, I think that is a lot actually. I guess I should set a new mini goal. I have the whole wedding ring thing but I think that’s going to take another month or so.
I guess I’ll go with getting back into a comfortable size 20…though I think I gave them all away when I gave up on ever losing weight, but I can be convinced to go shopping I suppose. 😉