The Fun Is Over

Spain was fun, Paris was a blast... now we are home.

The husband re enlisted in the Army for another 4 years and we are on assignment. We are leaving Germany and moving to Alaska. Yes, I am happy and excited about the move, but at the same time I am freaking out and my head is spinning. Why? Let me explain...

The brigade here in Baumholder is disbanding, which would be the same as a company or factory closing down. Some people are being transferred to other locations, some people are getting out of the army, and some are being kicked out of the army.

The majority of people that are staying in the army are moving to other locations. All at roughly the same time frame. Over 4000 families all trying to get out of here at the same time. Most of everyone here do not even have their orders yet. The orders are what is needed to make things official really. Without orders no one can get their belongings packed up and shipped out, no one can ship their vehicle to where they are going, no one can get their airline tickets. There are not enough personnel to assist everyone with this process to make it smoother. It is really frustrating, and at this moment I am feeling very overwhelmed.

I am doing everything that I can do without the orders, but the other issue is that the date we are eligible to return overseas (DEROS) is almost two months BEFORE the date my husband is supposed to report to his new duty station. He asked me if I wanted to go Stateside first and travel... no. We have three cats that will be traveling with us and that would make things way too stressful on us and them. So we are going straight to Alaska. Fine. So where are we going to stay? I checked military lodging and they are booked solid for the time frame in which we are leaving here. That leaves us having to get a hotel room off post. Fine. That will deplete some of our funds that I wanted to use for first months rent, deposit, utility hook ups, etc for our new place (wherever that might be).

Our DEROS is also just barely over a month from now... and still no orders. We leave in a month and a half (roughly) and all of our belongings are still here, our car is still here, we have no tickets out of this place... I just want to cry.

In addition to all this I have to take the cats to the vet next week, take my daughter in to see a doctor to see if she has depression or not so that they know whether she needs to be on EFMP (Exceptional Family Member Program), take my son to the doctor for the same reason but for his ADHD. I am highly annoyed right now. DON'T FUCK WITH ME! Just get what I need done, DONE, and let us be on our way!!!

I am normally able to handle stress, but sometimes there is so much that all happens at once and you need to be reminded to just take a step back and breathe.

So much chaos!

Yes, I know it has been a while since I posted a blog, no excuses... well a few... I was working, and then quit my job so we could go to Spain; they would not give me the time off since "I just took a week off to spend time with my hubby post deployment", never mind that I only took one week off of work when he was home on R&R and worked the entire last week he was home (out of town) before he went back downrange. I politely told them I would be resigning to spend time with my family before we leave Europe. I did not want to look back and regret anything!

When the hubby got back from Afghanistan, we took a trip to Garmisch and while we were there went night sledding in Austria. Here is a video from that experience... just me on (and off) the sled! That night I got so bruised it took me days to recover... it hurt so bad just to sit down my butt got so bruised! Next time I try something like that I am sticking a pillow in my pants.

We also went to Innsbruck, Austria where I felt like I was transported back in time. Such a beautiful city!!!

We went back to the Neuschwanstein castle and  saw Hoenschwangau instead since we had seen Neuschwanstein already. We also went to Weiskirchen, a beutiful little church out in the meadow...

This is also where we got the most delicious donuts in Germany!

We went back to the monastery in Ettal just because the hubby wanted his beer cheese... and beer....

We also hit up the hot tub to relax a bit.

Not too long after we spent a week in Bavaria the hubby, the oldest, the daughter and I went to Calella, Spain. That was awesome! I saw a beach for the first time EVER in my life, saw a medieval show, flamenco dancers, went to the Montserrat monastery, and traveled to Barcelona. The down side was that the souvenirs were pretty pathetic. I got what I could for me and for friends.

The day after we returned from Spain the hubby and I went to Paris. Just him and me. It was so much fun, we walked over 10 miles and got lost in the Louvre (I SWEAR I thought we were going to end up an exhibit in the Egyptian part...).

 

 

The time we have spent together has helped our marriage, and made us stronger as a couple. I feel truly blessed and thankful for the time we have spent recently working on our relationship.

In other news, the brigade here is being disbanded and everyone is being sent elsewhere. Our date to leave Germany has changed to less than two months from now... problem is we have no orders... so no idea where we are going yet!! We have somewhere we would like to go, but we won't find out if it was approved until next week. I am not saying anything until we know for certain, and I am even refraining from posting that our date to leave has been moved up in order to avoid an interrogation from everyone until I can answer their questions with more than an "I don't know".

How I Lost It

I figured it was time for me to explain in depth how I went from 225lbs to 147 lbs (so far). Yes I have lost 78 lbs so far in less than a year. It was NOT easy, I worked HARD for this!!! I will tell you how I ate, how I thought, how I exercised... I will tell all, but I have to say that while this worked for me, it might not work for you but I sure as fuck hope it does!

This picture represents 100 lbs of fat... so take just 22lbs away from that and you see what I lost! OMG!!!

 (picture used from http://gastricallychanged.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html)

OK, so April of 2011 I decided that I HAVE to lose weight. I was tired of being ashamed and embarrassed of how I looked and wanted to be thin and healthy again. So I decided to diet...

I looked online to find out my ideal weight. I found Web.MD and eventually Sparkpeople.com. Both sites are awesome to help you find where you are, where you should be and how to get where you need to be. You log food eaten (calories, fat, etc), calories burned, weight, inches, etc. It is an awesome tool and I highly recommend either sites.  

 

At first I combined the Slim-Fast Special K diet. I had a shake or meal bar for breakfast and lunch, a 100 calorie snack in between, and I ate a "sensible dinner" which for me consisted of something less than 500 calories from the frozen food aisle. I had my own foods, my children had their own foods... we ate separately. I do have to say that I did take medication, I was (and still am) on Metformin for my blood sugar, and I started taking Alli to help with whatever fat I was eating. Alli is NOT a diet pill, it is an aid. You must still eat healthy and low fat, Alli is not a "free pass".

**Taking Alli does NOT mean that you can pop a pill and go eat at McDonald's and you are OK... it means you can pop a pill, go to McDonald's and have a salad and maybe a few nuggets unless you want greasy farts**

Slowly I started changing the way I ate. Replacing the Slim-Fast or Special K snacks for fresh fruit or veggies and then finally finding new recipes and learning how to cook healthy. I made EVERYONE eat healthy in my house. You cannot eat healthy while everyone in your house is eating junk and processed food. Once in a while I would get them a treat, but I made sure I got my own treat... something low-fat or sugar free. I started eating like a diabetic. I stopped frying foods. I started using wheat bread, whole grain pasta... I learned to READ FOOD LABELS!!!! In the beginning I would use measuring cups to measure out portion sizes... it helped me to learn what a portion was and how much I should be eating; it also helped me to log my food better when I knew exactly how much I was eating.

I stopped drinking soda and started drinking water. Soda is sooo bad for you! Diet soda or not, no matter... it is bad. Just look at the amount of sodium in one soda! So take that and multiply it by how many you have in a day... think you might be retaining a bit of water? I allowed myself one diet soda a day, and today I don't even want soda anymore!

I had lost about 38 lbs before I plateaued. I had lost almost 40 lbs on diet alone, but my body stopped losing... I realized it was time for me to start exercising. Now anyone who knows me knows that I HATED to exercise, it was a 4 letter dirty word for me. I would make all kinds of excuses why I could not do it... but because of the plateau I had to do something! I started going to the gym and working out for at LEAST 30 minutes a day. Eventually I started to actually LIKE exercising and gradually built up the time I spent at the gym. I actually got crabby if I did not exercise for 3 days or more! We have an XBOX 360, so I bought the Kinect and purchased Zumba. I had a Wii and started using the Wii Fit. I admit I did not use the Zumba for a while because it was hard and within a few minutes I was winded, but after I had built up my endurance at the gym on the treadmill and bike Zumba was bearable. I started taking Zumba classes twice a week as well... all by myself... and that was scary at first, but there is one thing I learned throughout this experience is that I could not rely on others to motivate me, I had to motivate MYSELF! If I had a gym buddy that pussed out on me I had to go anyway...

Here are a few more tips:

• Weight loss buddies are good to have, but it does not always work out... you need to make yourself responsible for your weight loss
• Buy a good digital scale. I got one that is accurate within .2 lbs... so even when I only lost .4 lbs I could see it and it motivated me to do more
• Make mini goals- I had my main goal, my goal weight, but I also had mini goals in between. My first was to hit below 200 lbs, 2nd was to reach 175 and weight less than my husband, and I also had goals to not be obese, not be overweight... be a HEALTHY weight! Going from 225 to 142 lbs seems a long way off, but mini goals in between make it a bit easier. 
• Do NOT set yourself up for failure. Don't do more than you can handle. If you fall off the wagon get right back on it! Don't over exert yourself at the gym, you will only hurt yourself and then you won't want to go back!
• Take a full length before pic. No matter how ashamed and embarrassed you are of how you look you will want to look back and see where you started. I regret not having that...
• Measure yourself from the beginning! I started measuring myself halfway through and I still wonder "How many inches have I REALLY lost?" Take measurements once a month.
• You should not weigh yourself daily... some say once a week is good. I am obsessive, so I weighed myself daily... it kept me on track.
• Don't deny yourself. If you want ice cream, have some! I would have ice cream every now and again, but I would spoon some into a teacup. It kept me in check. I still have my coffee with flavored creamers... I NEED that! 
• NO EXCUSES! Never say I can't or I do not have the time. You can always find the time to exercise. That time you use on Facebook cut it down by 30 min and work out! Think you are too fat or out of shape? No money for a gym? NO EXCUSE! Walking on the treadmill, or just WALKING ANYWHERE is still exercise, burns calories, and IT COUNTS!!!

You are your only reason for failure, you are the only one holding yourself back. You have no right to complain about being fat if you are doing nothing about it! You cannot say "I want to lose weight" while stuffing your face with fatty, salty, fried foods! I have PCOS, and for a while I used it as an excuse for why I was fat and why I could not lose weight, but I proved that it can be done... you just have to really want to... and I mean REALLY want to!

April 2011 I was 225 pounds and SQUEEZING into size 16 jeans. Now (February 2012) I am 147 pounds and wearing between a 4 and a 7 (depending on brand). Seriously, if I can do it, so can you... the biggest challenge is retraining your mind.