Review 5 and 6

These were recommended by several people. They are actually really good! You can pretend its not water.  My favorite is the peach!

Those of you who have cravings for soda this is the way to go. If you are a coke drinker you probably won't like it. The cola flavor tastes a lot like diet soda. I haven't tried any other flavors yet. They are a little expensive but help with the cravings! You can get them in the organic section of Kroger. I had a extreme craving for a diet Pepsi this weekend and it was swayed by drinking one of these!

Fighting a wall.

I am hitting a wall everyday. Being on this prednisone is making weight loss pretty much unattainable. I am now on a maintenance dose of 10mg. I have so much water retention, bloating, and hunger that I am gaining weight at an incredible rate. Its so frustrating to try so hard and not see results. The lupus makes me so damn tired that exercise is difficult. I feel like I've lost myself in this Lupus flare. Its like a tornado that ripped apart everything. This disease consumes your life. Everyday I deal with fatigue and lack of energy. I just want to live a 34 year olds life. Add in being fat and life is pretty depressing. All of the weight is going to my face and belly. You can say that appearance doesn't matter but to me it does. I want to look in the mirror and be happy. Right now I am embarrassed and disgusted daily. I am uncomfortable in all of my clothes especially my scrubs. I wish I had great positive news to share but unfortunately right now I do not. Yesterday I had my weigh in and I was 205.6. Yes I gained 4 pounds in 1 week. I am on my cycle (sorry to the men that read this) so that made cravings hard and I gave in to a couple. I see a new rheumatologist in March and am hoping he can figure out something to help. Sorry for the Debbie downer post. Its just been one of those weeks. I hope all of you had a better one.

Weigh in.

Well this weigh in wasn't good but it was expected. I weighed in at 201.3. So I gained 1.3 pounds. I went back over the edge to the 200's. I am disappointed but proud that i didnt binge eat.  I have failed at the 21 day challenge. I ate a cinnamon roll. The past few days have been really stressful and I back tracked a little. I have still not drank any soda which is a great feat for me. One step forward two steps back.....

Mirrors.

Everywhere you look there are mirrors (unfortunately). For someone who doesn't like what they see in the reflection it causes a lot of anxiety and stress.  If you think about it you cant go through a day without seeing your reflection somewhere whether it be in the review mirror, while walking down the street, shopping in the mall, going to the bathroom, washing your hands, and trying on clothes to name a few.  Ive never been one to admire myself in a full length mirror.  Why in the world do I want to see my rolls of fat in all of their glory?!  My bathroom is surrounded by mirrors.  I cant walk into it without catching my reflection somewhere.  I hate going to take a shower because I know no matter what I am going to be getting naked and indefinitely seeing myself naked.  Someday I hope to look in the mirror and smile at who I see looking back at me.

Diet Pepsi.

I am over a week in on my 21 day junk food challenge and am doing good. I however had my first "I need a diet Pepsi now!" moment yesterday. Oh how I need just a sip. I'm finding that eliminating the soda has in turn made me drink more juice/milk/tea. Those are full of calories which I don't need. Trying to drink water but I know I am not drinking even close to how much I should be.  

Oh look at that ice filled glass full of ice cold diet Pepsi! Just looking at the picture has me jittery. I swear its like I'm a drug addict looking to score some heroin.  Its ridiculous that I am that addicted to something.  I wish there was a switch I could click to make me crave water!  The food cravings really haven't started but I'm sure they will. I hope all you others that are having a "lifestyle change" (not a diet) are doing well!

Weigh In.

Today was my 1 week weigh in. Nothing official just me and my bathroom scale.  I am happy to say that I weighed in at 199.9!  I have lost 3.7 pounds this first week.  Some of the loss is due to not really feeling like eating and having an upset stomach but I'll take it.  I've stuck to what I said I was going to and have regained a smidgen of confidence.  Eventually I would like to incorporate exercise but diet is going to have to suffice for now.

The crud.

The past 3 days have been rough. Apparently my immune system is shot!  Since being in the hospital in December I am catching EVERYTHING!  I have never been a sickness catcher. As a nurse your immune system grows up pretty fabulously. But with the disease that fights its own immune system and being on steroids daily I am a good target for every sick bug available.  I have the nasty cough and snot crud!  I swear I am burning calories coughing my head off and blowing my nose every 2 minutes. I haven't really been very hungry which is good when you want to lose weight I guess!  Trying to GET healthy when you are so unhealthy is hard.
 Today marks 7 days of being soda free!!! I havent had a big ice cold frosty Diet Pepsi in a whole 7 days. The cravings are still there!  I think about caving and having a soda daily. Thank goodness for tea!  I've been watching what I'm eating and avoiding the free lunches being brought in to work.  Who wants homemade chicken casserole and brownies when you have tuna and yogurt?! Lol.  Oh what you go through to lose weight.  I have my first weigh in tomorrow morning. I'm hoping I've lost at least 2 pounds. We shall see. Usually the scale is not my friend so I may drop kick the shit out of it. It can only go 2 ways right?!
I hope the New Year is being good to all of you. What were your New Year resolutions? Anything good?  Happy Thursday!

Monday?!

I have never started a "diet" on any other day but a Monday.  I decided that if I was going to do this and do it right I was going to start on a different day of the week.  I spent New Years Day with my girls enjoying myself and the time with them.  We went to Olive Garden and had a not so great lunch. It is definitely not what I would have wanted for my "last" meal.  So I made up for it and ate Chinese for dinner!  It was delicious!  Hee Hee.
I went to work Friday with my new mentality in place. Every single co-worker was not starting their "diet" until Monday.  So today I was on Day 4 of no caffeine and they all had caffeine headaches and withdrawals!  LOL. They all thought I was nuts to not be starting on a Monday.  
I've been doing pretty good so far.  On Day 2, I was the biggest bitch anyone had ever seen or dealt with.  I felt VERY sorry for my family!  As of today though I am okay.  I have had some cravings for chocolate mostly.
Trying to begin to like who I am on the outside but it isn't happening.  When you look in the mirror and only see fat its hard to like yourself.  I wish what I looked like on the outside didn't matter to me but I'd be lying if I said it didn't.  I would be bold face lying.  I have who I want to be in my subconscious.  I don't remember a time in my life that I liked who I saw looking back at me.  I don't want Lupus to be my crutch.  I don't want the fact that I am on prednisone to be an excuse to eat to much and gain more weight.  I have a really long way to go!
Until next time readers!

Review #2,3, and 4

So here we go with another fruit water drink.  This is watermelon punch fruit water. When I initially tasted this it was a shock. There was a whole lot of carbination. Carbination overload! It was that burning in your mouth carbination, just wow!  Once the drink was opened several times and became flat it was great! I can't say I will be buying that one again. It to has sucralose in it.  Onward to the next one!

I tried another drink yesterday on my journey to finding a replacement for my diet Pepsi. SOBE life water, coconut water. This was interesting. I love coconut so I thought this would be delicious. The initial drink was okay. I swallowed it and thought "Hmmmm okay maybe I could drink this one". Once I sipped 3-4 more times my thoughts changed to "this is horrible"!  It wasn't satisfying at all and all it made me want was a big glass of water. It was one of those drinks that aren't refreshing at all! So I ventured on to another one....

I have to say that this drink was the worst of all of them so far. I got a lemon and lime to try. I opened it up loving the sound of the pop of the tab. I thought " oh sweet mama this is going to be good!" I took a big drink and oh my lord was it disgusting! It tasted like club soda with a hint of lemon. I passed the drink around and got bitter beer faces from everyone. It was awful. I thought okay maybe the lime will be better. I actually don't care much for lemon unless its lemonade. So my thinking was the lime will have to be less disgusting. Ummmmm I was wrong! It was equally disgusting. I tried to mix the two together and put it on ice thinking maybe it would taste like sprite. I was horribly wrong in my thinking. It was an epic fail. Urgh.

So as of right now I haven't found that over the top wonderfully satisfying replacement drink. I may be stuck drinking regular old water. Oh what a tragedy!!!!

Review #1

Time for review #1!

I picked up several different waters from the gas station yesterday. I wanted to have a variety to choose from. 

I tried the Go Grape Flavor Splash, made by Aquafina, last night. This water was delicious! It tastes like grape koolaid! I kept waiting for the koolaid man to come barreling through the wall!  Hee Hee. The water does have sucralose which I am trying to eliminate along with the aspartame but it was a nice change and gave me something else to drink. Im trying to stay away from juices as they are full of empty calories. I don't want to eliminate diet soda and then drink juices and gain weight due to calories. 

By the way I woke up with the same headache I went to sleep with which sucks but it is slowly going away.  I've made it through mid-day of day 2! Go me!

21 day junk food challenge

So today marked the 1st day of the 22 day junk food challenge! I am super excited but not really. 21 days without chips, soda, cookies, candy, bread, biscuits, fast food and chocolate! Oh hells no to NO chocolate. This will be a true test of willpower.  Its lunch time currently and things have been going okay.  I'm having the hardest time saying goodbye to my diet Pepsi. If you have read my other posts you know how I love my diet Pepsi! The struggle is real people! The true test will be a couple days down the line. I can usually handle my "lifestyle" (not a diet!)change for a few days without eating like a fat ass pig. Only time will tell. Its now the evening and I have a killer headache! This is what I get for being a fatty. Speaking of fatty I am now back on a higher dose steroid taper due to the pain and stiffness that has come back in my hands. I'm so disappointed and frustrated with this disease. I am going to have to work harder and hope like hell the weight stops piling on.
I have a few questions for my readers.
1. Is a cappachino a form of chocolate?
2. Is cereal a no go? It doesn't specifically say cereal on the list!
3. Is Subway considered fast food?
4. Are sit down restaurants like Olive Garden considered cheating?
On another note I weighed in for the first time this year. I am embarrassed to say I am 203.6 pounds.  Sigh.

In the next few days I am going to be reviewing different drinks other than soda!

Thanks for reading!

It's a New Year

It's a new year and I am so far from where I want to be.  My resolution last year was to lose 50 pounds. That was a joke!   I've not posted on here in a looooonnnngggg time. I've stayed away out of embarrassment. I was doing so well and then fell off the wagon and was ran over by it.  I wish I was posting about how successful I ended up being but as usual I failed in the losing weight department.  I look back at my posts on here and I realize just how bad I failed. I didn't just disappoint myself but I disappointed my readers.  I had so many of you walking with me through my journey. So many of my readers were rooting me on.  I was told by some that I was their motivation. Oh how I have failed.
This year has been difficult.  I joined MMC weight management and was able to lose 25 pounds in 3 months!  I was so happy and proud of what I had accomplished.  I was let go by the weight clinic the 1st of April and I went crazy with the food. I went from eating 900 calories to who the hell knows how many!  The month of April was the start of our difficult year. Jason went in for a routine knee surgery and came out being told he could not place any weight on the leg for 3 months.  With that news came a lot of stress.  I am a known stress/emotional eater.  Jason was unable to work for 3 1/2 months. There was a lot of juggling and switching things up. I had to do a lot on my own because Jason was unable too.  With all of that came a lot of financial difficulties and credit card use.  I of course just ate my stress.  Soon after Jason got back on his feet Anistyn broke her leg. With her broken leg came a lot of guilt. Being a parent brings daily guilt and second guessing. I was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease in the middle of the year. My back issues made it extremely difficult to exercise.  I would try to walk on the treadmill and my back would burn and pain would run down my leg. It made daily life difficult and of course I ate my feelings. The second half of the year both girls were sick every other week it seems. If I'm followed on Facebook most know that my Lupus has been a bitch since the beginning of November. I've been very depressed and angry.  I usually handle Lupus well. I am usually able to get up in the morning and just "handle" it.  For the past 2 months though Lupus has controlled me.  In the past 2 months I've had 2 ER visits and seen multiple doctors.  The first visit was due to pleurisy.  I had been having difficulty breathing for for several days prior but I just pretended it wasn't happening.  Once I started having pain in the back and chest I knew it was time to get some steroids.  Soon after I finished the medrol dose pack I began having pain in my left hand and difficulty gripping things. The pain quickly increased and I had trouble bending the fingers of my left hand. As a nurse I need my hands.  As a mother I need my hands. I was given another medrol dose pack and about a week after I finished it I started having neurological symptoms. I was at work and started having difficulty concentrating, blurred vision, fullness in my head, difficulty talking, and running into things.  I was sent to the ER.  That ER visit turned into a hospital stay and high dose steroids were given. The steroids helped a ton but for the past 2 months now all I've wanted to do is eat! I already have a difficult time with overeating but taking steroids everyday has made it all so much worse.  I've been back on my  maintenance steroid dose for the past 3 days and this morning my hands hurt so bad I had difficulty pumping gas.  So more than likely I will be having to increase my steroid dose again.  I know this blog isn't about my Lupus but it has had a huge impact on my overeating and bingeing the past few months.  I don't like myself and am disgusted at what I look like. I am at my heaviest weight ever. EVER!  I know my weight doesn't define the person that I am but it means a lot to me. I am far from the young skinny girl that Jason fell in love with. Jason doesn't find obese people attractive.  He finds them to be disgusting and grotesque. I want to be attractive. I want to feel attractive.
Over the past year I have bought over eaters anonymous books, listened in to a over eaters phone meeting, joined weight watchers, and joined hot yoga. I never read the over eaters books.  I hung up on the phone meeting after 2 minutes.  I stopped going to weight watchers after 1 month. I never even stepped foot into the hot yoga class. I am currently a joke. I'm a failure.
So that is where I am. I am going to try and write in here every couple of days as it helped me in the past.  I am sure hoping this year I succeed in some way.
Until next time.....