About Me

Hi, my name is Angela and welcome to my blog. This is a place where I write about my life in an honest and open way.

I am 36 years old, single, and a Christian. God gave me a heart to work with children and so I spend my day teaching kindergarten. It is my fourth year teaching and although it is hard I love it. I currently go to a college for my BA in Elementary Education which keeps me busy. Between work and school there is not much time left but I enjoy serving and helping others, watching netflix, or reading a good book.


Sunday, August 22, 2010

Busy Days

This week has been very long. I think I worked about 52 hours. This was 52 hours with aprox 9 kids, 7 being under the age of five. Most of it was actually pretty easy. On Thursday we all went a little crazy but it was all good by Friday. I have two more days with the 8 - 9 hour schedule and then school starts on Wed and I go back to my 4 1/2 hour work days. I can say I pretty excited about the paycheck I will get but I definitely don't miss working full time.

I have not worked out all week. I haven't worked out since last wednesday, that is 12 days with out working out. Though I am not too concerned. I keep wanting to go but I am just so tired at the end of the day that I don't make it. I think I won't start again till Wed when I am at my normal schedule but I want to try and go Mon. I am a little more used to working the long schedule now so maybe I can handle it.

Although I haven't weighed myself officially I think I have gone up an inch in size and gained maybe 5 lbs. But I haven't eaten very well so I am not surprised or concerned. I think I will still weigh in next week as planned. It will be the end of my 90 days so time for weight, measurements, and a new 90 day plan. I am kind of excited about setting some new goals and having the new school year start.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Randomness

It is raining outside. I sit in my room listening to the sound of raindrops on my tin roof and smell the rain as the air conditioner circulates air through the house. It is relaxing and makes me meditative. Pleasant memories come to mind when I think about the rain. And oh how I love the smell of rain. :)

My mothers birthday was on 8/8. I didn't really think of it. We mark down and celebrate birthday's to bring joy to those we love. But my mother has been dead for 8 years so I don't understand why I am expected to remember this day. My aunt and cousin thought it was crazy I didn't remember and my sister even thought it was weird. It is not like I don't remember mother. About my bed there are a few shelfs on which I have placed different mementos to remember this, several from my mother. A carousel horse she made (she loved carousel horses) as well as a wooden oval that has Raggedy Ann on it that I remember always being in my mothers kitchen. But even further I have a picture of her and my dad right above my bed. I see it every day, in fact multiple times during the day. ...I don't want to offend anyone if this what you do, then I hope it works for you. But personally I don't need to spend two days a year (birth and death dates) weeping over my mother. She will always be part of me (whether I like it or not) and I often wish she was here. But she is safely in heaven and I don't think she would be offended one bit that I don't stop to be depressed openly weep for her on those dates.

*On a side note. You may have noticed I changed some stuff on my blog design. Well now my spell check isn't working. This totally isn't cool! Actually it is totally frustrating. With my dyslexia I often spell basic words wrong so spell check is a life saver. I have figure this one out immediately.

I am two days back into work. I think I mentioned the first 7 days will be 8-9 hr days and then I will go back to my 4 1/2 hr days. I am watching 9 kids, all of them are teacher kids. Most of them are pretty close in age which is good; a 3y, 4y, four 5y, 10y, and 11y. A few of them are siblings so fighting of course and 3 are girls and the other 6 are boys. It been interesting, not too hard. They get loud and don't listen to me but I knew that before I took the hours. The teachers all tell me how surprised they are I can handle it all day. Though I usually want to reply, I don't know how they handle teaching a class. I think about all the stuff they have to do. I mean they have to actually get the kids to learn things. I pretty much just babysit them. I come up with a few activities and try to transition to something new before they get too bored which causes them to fight. But I don't think I could keep control of 20-30 students and get them to focus all day on math and english and science. That is the hard part. I know I can't work part time forever and so I keep thinking about teacher but I don't know if I could handle it. At the school I work at they do a lot of team teaching which I think would make it less scary but that doesn't happen at most schools. You are just thrown in the wolves. Eek!!

Being back at school is interesting. Since the last day of school I have cut my hair which is different. I have worked out a lot but haven't lost any actual weight or inches. Actually I still haven't been to the gym since last wed and I still am not eating very well. So the last couple days when I see teachers again who haven't seen me all summer (and some that have) they like to tell me how thin I look and how cute my hair is. Like every time some tells me how thin I look my brain just stops. I know I haven't lost weight since you last saw. I did loose weight over the school year but are they just being nice. Do they just picture me bigger in their head so then seeing me again makes me seem smaller? I don't know. So then I don't know how to respond. It is awful and embarrassing. I am I supposed to say that to people. "oh you are looking so thin!" when I really have no idea. See I have total body distortion. I can't tell when people loose weight or I loose weight, I just don't see it. I try to sometimes. Like this woman at church went on HCG and lost list 80 lbs in 40 days or something crazy. I didn't notice because I can't see it. I just can't tell. I don't know why and I don't know if it is a good or bad thing, its just a thing. In fact lately I really can't tell age. I am 28 but I can not tell you if some one is in their 20's or 30's. You know how sometimes people want you to guess their age. I won't do it. It is like me literally just blindly picking a number. Do you know how hard this makes finding a guy?! Seriously I was flirting with this guy at church once and I found out later he is like 7 years younger than me. I had no idea, I thought he was around my age. Stupid, no wonder he wasn't interested. I like to think that I think that people are just people no matter their age or size it is their personality that matters. But I have a feeling I just have body distortion issues due to my personal weight issues. I know fun, right! :)

I do like to see that I encourage other people to loose weight. A few people at church have seen me loose weight and it helps them feel like they can do it too. All my exercising also sent my sister in law and brother into regular exercise as well. I do love to see this. I am glad that I can encourage people to strive for their health goals. Sometimes I hate it though. I know I haven't lost weight since like, I don't know it feels like forever. So when people ask at first I didn't know what to say. Now I always refer to my total number because it sounds good. Saying "I lost 60 lbs over the last 14 months" sounds better than "not a pound in the last six months." I know totally negative but it is true. Frustratingly true!

Ok, enough about that. Whine whine whine! Bleh!

I should be sleeping. It is 10pm and I have to be to work by 8am. It is weird going to work so early but I have found that bed early and soda in the morning really do the trick and I am good to go all day long.

So I was cleaning my living room this evening. It was way past due. I have this stack of magazines. See I subscribe to magazines but I never really read them. I usually flip through reading like the blurbs but never the articles. So I always put it aside thinking, "Hey I will read it later." Then of course I never get to it. I have like a dozen books out from the library but I don't seem to be interested in reading them. You know how you have to be in the right mood. So instead I have been reading my magazines. Right now I am working my way through my Oprah magazines. I think next is my Home Journal because honestly I don't usually even like the articles in that one; I have no idea why I subscribed hopefully I didn't pay much. I also get Fitness, Self, and Christianity Today. I will say I think have successfully unsubscribed to all of these magazines. And I kind of like to keep the stack near by so that when I feel like subscribing to something new I can just look at the pile of magazines I have yet to read.

Another thing I need to work on again is my budget. I don't know how people do it. I always make a budget, follow it for 1-2 months and then it falls through the cracks. I have tried several methods but I always seem to get lazy about it. So here I am again needing to go through everything and figure out how I will pay for stuff. In one of the Oprah magazines I read today they had this article about budgets. It said you should list everything under a 1. Really NEED, really LOVE 2. Really need, don't Love 3. Don't need, Really LOVE 4. Don't need, Don't Love. And then when making a budget or really when you buy everything you just follow this. Finding out how important it really is too you. It is based on the statement that the average person makes $700,000 in a lifetime, how are you going to spend yours? Even as I write this I feel like $700,000 is a ridiculous number so just pulled out my calculator. If you start working at 16 and are lucky enough to retire at 65 (I hear retirement for SS is going up to 70 soon) it means you will work 49 years. If you made an average of $15,000 a year you would reach $700,000. I know I make less than that now working part time but when I was full time I made nearly double that. I do realize that this isn't very practical though. Most of my "spare cash" goes to food. When standing in a grocery store deciding if I should buy the ice cream will I really stop to use this? I doubt it. I think with my food addiction the only way it would work is if I ordered food online or made a list to have someone else shop for me so that I was in the store tempted. Like today I went to Trader Joe's just to get a couple things and I walk out with a full bag of stuff. I will eat and most of it is pretty healthy but I didn't Need it, I had food at home, and I am not sure I could say I Love any of it either. Sure it will taste good but its not the best food I have ever had.

I have been watching this show Huge it is on ABC Family. It is about kids at a fat camp. I like it. It is cute and funny. But in the story the camp director used to be overweight and went to that camp herself as a kid. In this weeks show she goes to an overeaters anonymous meeting where she celebrates her 7th year as part of the program. And after this past week I feel like maybe that is a program I should look into. I mean, I started watching what I ate and then I all of a sudden go off the deep end. I can't even tell you how much I have eaten. Whether I am out or stay home I find someway to binge eat over the last week. I know it is bad but it's like I can't help myself. It is very frustrating. Like tonight I should have gone to the gym. I wasn't that tired from work and I had the time but no, instead I watched 3 hrs of tv and then just spent the last hour blogging to the world.

Bleh! I know more negative. Sorry I didn't know it would turn out so whiney.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Repeating the Past

You know how they say "If you always do what you've always done you always get what you you've already got." I feel like that is my motto for last week.

So the goal was to not weigh in for three weeks and instead focus on my food. I tracked my food for 2 days and then my food went haywire. I ate out like...I think 6 times this week. Which is way excessive for me. I don't even have the money. I like new it was stupid and still would eat out. And then when I eat bad whether it is out or at home I can never get myself to write down anything. So I was good actually I was great the first couple days of the week and then down the tubes. I almost wanted to weigh in to show myself how much weight I gained because I was an idiot but I just figure I should just get back on the wagon, do what I know I need to do and wait to weigh in.

I just hate watching my calories. It is so...restrictive. Watching everything and doing good and then beating myself up over something stupid. Like my calories are good but I don't get enough protein. Or whatever. So no more tracking. I need to just listen to my body. Feed it what it needs when it needs it. If I fill my fridge with healthy food then that is what I will be eating so nit picking each thing is silly. It is like when I was like 19 or 20 I went to the dr and they said I had high blood pressure. The guy wanted to put me on meds for it and I was like no. So I had to come back in a month to show improvement. So I ate healthier and exercised and when i went in it was down. The dr asks what I eat for lunch and I say sandwhich with meat and cheese, chips, and water. And goes "you should really cut out the chips." That was it. Not good job or anything positive just told me what I was still doing wrong. It was stupid though because before that I was going out to eat every day eating hamburgers and fries. It felt like there was no point because my good choices are still just not good enough.

Anyways. ;) So no weigh in this weekend. My pants are still feeling fine. I pushed myself at the gym at the begining of the week. I went to a yoga class and another Zumba class at my gym and I think on Tue with the yoga class and doing my strength I was there almost 2 1/2 hrs. On Wed I did a Body Pump class that my friend was teaching. It was really tough and I was feeling the it in my back and shoulders the rest of the day. But I haven't been back since. So 4 days without the gym. :( Not good I know. I need to go tonight. They close at 9pm and I think I am just going to do some cardio today to get myself started again. This week I go back to work. I am going to watch teacher kids so I will actually work a full 40 hours. So I don't know how I am going to do it. I hate going at peak time and I will be getting off work right at 4 or 4:30. So that puts me at peak but I don't know if I go home I will make it back out the door to go to the gym later. So we will see. I need to get back in there and keep up with my strength and cardio training. Plus I really do want to see if I can run a 5K by Oct for the Susan G Koman Race. I need to be a little more routine with that training schedule too. Oh, but I have stopped using my inhaler. I bring it along in case I have a problem but so far none which is great because it means that my lungs are healthier then they were two months ago before I started going to the gym. So yea to that!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The Final Stretch

So I weighed myself saturday and like I thought I gained weight. I gained 3.5 lbs taking me to 257 lbs. My waist remains at 49". I didn't stress about it at because I knew that I hadn't been eating well and had eaten a lot salt so no biggie. I was writing it down on my 90 day plan calendar and noticed that I have 3 weeks left in this set of 90 days. I started out at 255 lbs and have stayed right around their the entire time. I still really want to get below 250 by the end of the 90 days.

I have decided to do two things different. First, I am not weighing in until day 90 which is on August 28th. I think this will help so I am not so stressed about the number on sat night. Plus the fluctuations I think are messing with my head. I mean I got down to 254 and then stress out again and gain again. I think I am scared of getting under 250. But maybe if I just focus on being healthy instead of a number then I will find myself on the other side of the imaginary wall I have built.

Second, I need to focus more on being healthy. This week I read an interview by Kelly Rippa that said her Dr sister once told her that when she exercises she should be focusing on the inside not the outside. That every time she steps into a gym it is to make her heart healthy and the number on the scale will just naturally follow. And I think that is a great mind set and I am going to try to tell myself that when I go in the gym because often times I am thinking all about the calories I am burning. Which is important but as my aunt pointed out to me when I ran into her today that today was my mother's birthday, which I didn't even remember because its been 8 years since she died of a heart attack. That really that is what I really want to prevent. I don't want a heart attack before age 50 so much more than I want to fit into a size 16.

I think I mentioned before I have this book called "FitBook." It is very detailed in what you put down, all your food and exercises each day. So my challenge for myself is to write everything down for the next 3 weeks. I want to see exactly how many calories am I eating, how much fat and protein. Am I getting any fruits and veggies in? I am also going to track my exercise so I can see exactly how often I increase weights and make sure I am being consistent with my gym workouts. I think the biggest challenge of this is my work. This week I have off again, week 2 I work 40 hours 8-5, and then week 3 I go back to regular school schedule of 11:30- 6:30. So with my schedule so random I think it will be easy to make excuses not to write in it but also that it is the perfect time to write it all down to keep me on track even when life is a little crazy.

Speaking of challenges. Last week's challenge was to go to at least one but hopefully two classes at my gym. I only ended up at one and that was because I was meeting a friend. I went to Zumba class on Thursday morning. It was weird and frustrating because I couldn't tell what I was supposed to be doing and the teacher kept stopping and being weird. I need to try it with someone else before I give a final judgement on Zumba. I tried to make it to a 9:30 am cycle class on Friday but I slept in too late and so I got their exactly at 9:30 and the class was already full. I do need to start learning to wake up earlier so I am going to try to make it to a couple classes this week as well. But my biggest challenge to me is write everything down.

In reference to my last post. I did not work out sat or sun. I do plan to go back again tomorrow. The only book on tape I have is the bible so I pulled that out and loaded Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John onto my ipod. I figured that would get me through the week and I think I may do Psalms and Proverbs next. This is so that I am not reading, in case that was causing my dizziness. I also plan to focus a little more on breathing and if at any point start feeling dizzy to stop my ipod and focus directly on breathing during the exercise. I am hoping this should help take care of things. The other thought I had concerning this is I was diagnosed with "exercise induced asthma" so I use an inhaler before exercising every time. Well I have been trying to take myself off from it unless for an emergency so the same two times I got dizzy I hadn't pre-used my inhaler. I didn't directly link it before because I use the inhaler when I feel my chest tighten and hard to breath. But if I am dizzy because not enough air then maybe it is part of the problem. In which case I need to just work through it because you aren't actually supposed to use an "emergency inhaler" daily. So I don't know we will see. Who knows maybe I just need more water, I probably drink less now that I'm not working because I don't think about it as much.

I still plan to post each week even if I don't have a number so I will let you know how it is going soon.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Weak

This week between the 1-2 of exercise every day and an extremely stressful situation I am dealing with my body seems to be upset. I try to pay attention to my body. Like when I have a headache, why do I have a headache. For the last two day while doing cardio I have gotten a headache and begun to feel dizzy. I had been reading both times so maybe it was that, and I hadn't eaten much before either workout either so maybe that. I only worked out about 30 min today on a bike and was feeling awful. It's not like I have a cold but my whole body feels week, tired, and dizzy. I took advil but it didn't make the headache go away. I had originally planned to go again later in the evening but I decided a day off would be better. I didn't think you could do too much cardio and I have been getting plenty of fluids and trying breath right but maybe I wasn't breathing right while I was reading. And then I think maybe it is the stress that is causing some of this. I am not sure.

I know I am supposed to switch from binging and shopping when stressed to exercising. And I have been doing that this week but... this just makes life more frustrating. So I may take a couple days off from the gym, it will depend on how I feel tomorrow night. I don't think tomorrow will be a good weigh in either. I ate salty popcorn today and went out to Chili's tonight for dinner. Both times I was halfway through eating and I go duh, tomorrow is weigh in day this was stupid. But mostly I am trying to relax and don't even care about the number on the scale. I just want my body to calm down. I need to relax because I know my body shouldn't feel like this.