Purple dumbbells. I know it sounds silly, but they have made my month.
My upper arms have always been a travesty. Not only do I have the aging batwings going on, they are extra meaty and flabby. It’s like a second arm hanging off my bicep. GROSS! About a month ago I added ten pounds of dumbbells (purple, of course) at my desk and 4-5 times a day I pick them up. I do 2×10 reps of 5 lbs presses, 2×10 reps of 10 lbs presses, 2×10 overhead triceps presses, and 2×10 curls. It’s wild, and I get sore, but it’s a good kind of sore.
I’ve lost about an inch off my upper arms. I and others have noticed that it’s not as flabby. My sleeves aren’t as tight either which is wild. I still have a long way to go, but I tell you when I needed a NSV (non scale victory) since the scale isn’t budging, so I will take it right now.
I am struggling mentally. I think I really realized the extent of what is going on yesterday evening, and now I am trying to figure out how to course correct my brain before I go completely off the reservation. I haven’t felt this depressed in a while, and I need to figure out why. At first I thought it was the addition of the Wellbutrin, but I have been off of that for over a week and it wasn’t supposed to have any lasting effects.
Work has been a dystopian hellscape since AI threatens to replace me, and my role in the company is uncertain. School is hard as hell as I near the end, the courses are getting super real, and have been increasing my caffeine intake yet still sleeping for hours after I get off work and disrupting my sleep schedule. Gaming is not as fun as it used to be for me. Actually nothing is. I used to craft my days away, but it’s all locked in a messy, cluttered, disorganized craft room.
I used to take joy in cooking, but even that has become a chore. It’s a struggle making things that are delicious but still healthy. And then when I do make something delicious that I love it’s like I have to stop myself from having too much of it so I don’t destroy myself. And then if I don’t stop myself, if I indulge, which I have been doing a lot lately because I’ve had a major “fuck it” attitude to life and the world, I beat myself up. Then I spiral into a self-loathing because I’m terrified of screwing up all the progress I’ve made so far. Then I second-guess every decision I’ve made leading up to this.
I swear I’m still taking all my medications, so it’s definitely not that. I wonder if introducing the wellbutrin broke me or if work is just that insane that it’s affecting everything. I wish I had more answers. I’m not going to stop trying but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t on the struggle bus with getting outside of my head.
I’ve gotta get this knee fixed. It’s my main priority for the year, because that will make my quality of life so much better as well as afford me more movement opportunities to lose even more weight. It’s the age old “get a job, but to get a job, you need experience, to get experience, you need a job” dilemma. Move more, exercise more, but to do that I need to not hobble… to get my knee fixed, I need to lose weight. To lose weight, I need to exercise more. I’m doing what I can with a recumbent bike, swimming (when weather affords) and dumbells at my desk when work is slow.
Yesterday I decided to put a little bit of mild fasting into my schedule, only eating when my lunch break hit at around 11am. I then made a huge salad and ate that, and a little later had some fruit – grapes and cherry plums. A little later I had some garden crackers and was good until dinner, where I made a balanced dinner and then had a little more fruit/veggies and hummus as a snack while I raided. All in all I had a great food day, so I think I’m going to continue the trend of fasting until lunchtime and seeing if that helps me keep my caloric intake to a minimum.
I am drinking plenty in the morning. Water, an alani, a coffee or two or ten (just kidding but some mornings I need it!) and my medicine and vitamins/supplements until 11am. I’m using the dumbells until my arms are sore so we’re going to keep these good vibes going. Meal plan is almost done for the coming week, thanks to Pinterest. Just need one more meal to make it complete!
Last night was a takeout night, and I went completely off the reservation. Kiddo wanted Sonic after I got out of work, and I obliged. I got myself some garlic parmesan bites (260 cal, not so bad) along with his food but I also managed to eat a chicken tender and half a tater tot order just munching. Bad, bad girl. I wish I could say it stopped there.
We get to the takeout part. I decide to get a southwest salad at chic fila (with grilled nuggets) and there was a reward for 2 free chicken strips. Free food has no calories right? Wrong. I ate those, and then got the boys food. Popcorn chicken and curly fries for kiddo, and a combo for the mister. I ate most of the fries before we got home (He doesn’t eat many fries so there was plenty still for him). I also got him a chicken sandwich from Walmart. I ate my salad when I got home, and I ate another salad after that. I also had cashews I got from Walmart. Did I chart all this like I should? No.
It’s wild to me because I can be relatively okay until that first morsel of food hits my lips, then it’s like it’s all I can think about. So today I’m trying something new. As I type this, it’s 9:42 AM and I have been up for almost four hours. My usual breakfast time is like 7-8 AM so this is off for me. I’m going to try to go as far as I can without eating to see if it will help me. I’m so afraid of losing all my progress that I am desperate to try anything at this point. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Good lord. This is a spiral. The more I stress about what I’m eating, the more I’m complelled to stress eat. It’s a weird cycle. I have moved my little dumbells to the office so when I get the urge to boredom eat, I can grab them and do some workouts. It’s working, for the most part. I’m coupling that with eating filling, healthy meals and snacks today and seeing how that works for me. I also need to dye my hair today or tomorrow.
Meal planning is getting harder as the weeks go by, because I’m bored with everything I’ve done. My husband is getting more annoyed with stuff too, like for instance the ribs I made on Sunday. They were amazing but he didn’t want to bring messy food to work. I get it, but I’m just trying to keep it tasty and a little different when I can, and cooking on weekends is when I can take my time and make good stuff.
I think it’s time to take back to my original hunting grounds and hit up Pinterest. I have so many recipes saved on TikTok these days, but that is so hard to sort through. At least on Pinterest, it’s saved into groups and easy to find. What I need to do is move the video links from the recipe videos I liked to its own Pinterest group. Brainstorming out loud here.
If you are reading this and have something new I can try, let me know. I’m getting bored over here and running out of new ideas.
I have found that the only way to keep myself satiated between meals is to snack. So my goal has to be to find high volume, low calorie snacks. I have a few go-tos that I have found make me happy and give me the volume I need to not think about food, but not add a ton of calories.
Cucumbers – I will slice an entire cucumber rather thinly and make a quick dipping sauce that is very low-cal and no sugar. Another favorite bulk treat is popcorn. My favorite is the love pop from Central Market (HEB brand) and it’s 170 calories for TWO CUPS! That’s huge.
As I had stated previously, I had started Wellbutrin a few weeks ago for my ADHD. I feel like it’s made me gain weight as it started going up while nothing else has changed but my medications. Not only that but my energy level has been depleted. It cumulated with me sleeping through most of my long holiday weekend, and almost oversleeping for work this morning. I decided yesterday to stop taking it (as apparently I am getting the reverse effects as it gives most people. They report more energy and focus and weight loss. I’m not having any of that obviously) so I’m going to see if I can regulate and then I can reevaluate with my doctor when I get on my higher Rybelsus dose. And hopefully that will eliminate the rest of my food noise.
I’m doing everything I can to stay on track and get this weight loss, but at this point I’m sort of keeping afloat and not swimming. I need to do something to help it along.
Breakfast
1 cup Seven Sundays Wild Berry Protein Oatmeal – made with water
4 strawberries
215 calories • 11.3g protein • 37.5g carbs • 3.2g fat • 5.9g fiber
Snack
1 cucumber and four pickle spears
54 calories • 0.5g protein • 2.6g carbs • 0.1g fat • 0.8g fiber
Lunch
French Dip made with Dave’s Killer organic sandwich roll, roast chuck, and 2 slices mozzarella cheese
520 calories • 38g protein • 40g carbs • 22g fat •4g fiber
Snack
1/2 cup Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup zero sugar Cool Whip, 2 strawberries
90 calories • 10.7g protein • 9g carbs • 1.6g fat • 0.6g fiber
2 pb2 protein bombs
98 calories • 6.4g protein • 11.4g carbs • 3.6g fat • 4.4g fiber
Dessert
1/2 cup Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup zero sugar Cool Whip, 2 strawberries
90 calories • 10.7g protein • 9g carbs • 1.6g fat • 0.6g fiber
This was a pretty much usual day for me, give or take some. I tried out a new recipe I will be posting later for dinner, and I exercised by riding the bike and working the dumbells.
I love swimming. It’s an amazing form of exercise for people who have bad legs and knees. The water makes you feel weightless and kicking and the swimming motions of the arms work the entire body. Back pre-baby when I was doing well with losing weight, I lived at an apartment complex that I had access to the pool at late nights. I would go around 10-11pm at night every night and swim laps for a half hour or so for exercise. I was too self conscious to do much during the daytime.
Now, the swimsuit that I got at the end of last season is a little baggy. I still wore it today to the pool, during the daytime (while other people were there! -gasp-) and took the kiddo … we swam laps and played around for a few hours. I applied water resistant sunscreen but it wasn’t very resistant at all. Kiddo’s face is red and my face and shoulders/back are bright lobster red.
So here’s the thing that I just discovered: sunburns can effect blood sugar! The stress to the skin and inflammation can cause increased insulin resistance and increased gluconeogenesis, which means the liver produces more glucose and it increases the blood sugar. Increased cortisol levels can also stimulate the release of glucose from the liver. Sunburns can lead to dehydration, which also will concentrate blood sugar levels. Cue “the more you know” jingle.
So moral of the story: I wanted a tan, and I should achieve that after the redness and peeling is over, but I need to find more water resistant sunscreen for the future because it’s not worth the blood sugar level increase to look darker. I’ll bust out the Jergens healthy glow tanning lotion. For everyday wear I use the CeraVe moisturizing suncreen for my face, but it isn’t waterproof so it’d be useless then.
Either way, I had so much fun at the pool and hope to go many more times this year. Swimming is my favorite form of exercise and I will suffer the burns – for now.
I started my new medication this weekend, that included a new wonder drug called Rybelsus. Now this is a semiglutide similar to Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy etc. The only difference is it’s a pill taken orally instead of the once-weekly injection that the other medications are. Now, I tried Ozempic when it was still mostly used for diabetes, and it was working great. As soon as I went from the starter dose to the next step, however, the side effects started hitting me hard. I was so sick I thought I had the stomach flu. Nausea, vomiting, excessive fountain pooping . . . and it lasted for months. We didn’t connect it to the Ozempic at first because I didn’t have any of those side effects on the lower dose. It ended up with me in the hospital after blacking out and slicing my hand open while I was unconscious.
Flash forward to years later, about 2 years ago, when my (new, then) doctor decided to try Mounjaro. I was up front with the doctor about my previous GLP-1 woes and my concerns about trying another, but reluctantly agreed to try with the assurances we’d stop if we started to notice the same side effects trending . I gave it about three months, and started struggling with the same issues, so had to go off it then. I was disappointed, but resigned myself to not being able to take any of the weight loss medications.
This medication you have to take 30 minutes before you put anything else into your mouth in the morning, with at least 4 oz of water. Saturday was my first dose and I started noticing the food noise in my head and the hunger all the time was starting to dissipate. Sunday morning, I didn’t eat until well after noon and even then it was because I knew I needed to. That was a feeling I needed to feel, because the last two weeks have stressed me out post-surgery with all the “food noise” going around. This is going to be wonderful! I’m so excited for this new Rybelsus journey.
I have the luxury of living close to Houston, Texas, which means I have access to the best grocery stores. Anyone from outside of Texas just doesn’t know how good quality HEB is. They hit different. My other favorite grocery store is Kroger because they have amazing deals. Their Buy 5 save 5 gets me every time. The digital deals? On point. If you’re a soda drinker you can find most weeks they have buy 2, get 2 free. My shopping and planning journey is pretty meticulous and it starts on Wednesday. I look at both of the sale ads for the week and use it plus recipes I’ve favorited and saved over the week to plan the meals I make. I usually leave one free night for take-out or easy fun stuff but other than that dinners are all planned out. My schedule starts from Saturday (the day I do grocery shopping) to Friday, I try to keep the dinners easier on the nights I play games with the bois and love utilizing my crock pot. Let’s go over this week as a great example!
Today is Saturday, and I got a microwavable brisket from Costco and I’m going to serve it with boracho beans from HEB and corn on the cob nuggets from Kroger. I like to cook the corn in the air fryer, brush it with butter and use the everything but the elote seasoning. Chef’s Kiss! The beans I got from one of HEB’s meal deals. They like to do a thing where you buy the protein advertised and you get like 4-5 things free. It’s a really good deal. This one was a family pack of sausages and I got corn (used last week), the beans, some HEB brand oreo cookies for free. They had sparkling flavored water but since it wasn’t sugar free, I opted not to grab it since nobody else would drink it. Kiddo will eat the oreos eventually so it was a good deal.
Tomorrow will be a recipe that I took from Southern Living Magazine. I have a bunch of subscriptions to cooking magazines. I get Food Network, Southern Living, Food and Wine, Pioneer Woman, and Real Simple. I go through the magazines when I get them and tear out recipes that I think are interesting, and then I set them aside. If I make them and it hits, it goes into rotation. This dish is an “in rotation” one. It’s stuffed pork loin with bacon and greens. HEB had a sale on pork loan, the large ones. I managed to cut it into quarters for four different meals, wrap up the other three individually and put them into the freezer It calls for mustard greens but I prefer turnip greens, so I got those. Bacon I had from a sale last week. It will be served with mixed brown and wild rice and peas and carrots.
Monday comes from the Food Network pasta edition. It’s listed as fettuccine with carrots and peppers. This is one that I’m going to alter for weight loss purposes. I’m going to substitute the fettuccini with Banza spaghetti (made from chickpeas). I’m also going to add some of the leftover sausages I put in the freezer from the HEB meal deal. This has carrots, squash, and bell pepper in it as well. I’m very excited to try this one!
Tuesday is an egg roll bowl, so I grabbed a package of cole slaw mix to save time and tears on my part. It’s got the shredded cabbage already ready to go, along with carrots. I got some ground pork to season and got some ginger to throw in as well as garlic. This is a fun favorite one for me, but I have to alter it where it’s not as “Asian tasting” to keep the hubbers happy.
Wednesday is a favorite. I have chicken breasts in the freezer already divided up for easy grabbing from a previous Costco trip. I saw a video on Tiktok where they made chicken tenders and fries that were around 550 calories for the whole plate, so I am going to recreate those. I am so excited for this one. I might try to make a low-cal version of the McDonald’s creamy chili dip to go with it.
Thursday this week is my free day. I have plenty to pull out of the freezer with the quick meal prepping I have done, and I can grab something fast for the boys. I am excited for this week and hopefully can post some recipes!
