Someone Called Me Skinny

I followed the 5-pound weight loss of last week with a 1.6-pound gain. I wasn't too upset this time. Stress can wreak havoc with weight loss, so I'm expecting things to settle down soon.

I've been eating less and less protein lately. I've been making huge bowls of salads and grabbing a bowl or 2 for meals. I found out at the nutrition class this past Tuesday night that I'm supposed to be eating 7-9 servings of vegetables a day. YIKES! I'm barely getting 3 in. But, yesterday and today I think I got them in.

This current bowl of salad includes the big bag of cut up lettuce, carrots and purple cabbage. I added mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, and red, orange, and yellow bell peppers. Gosh, it's so delicious that I had to have 2 helpings today for dinner. That was after I had a chicken ensalada at Alamo Cafe and a baked sweet potato for breakfast. So, I definitely had enough vegetables today. Of course, it's 11:22 pm, and I'm starving.

We had a going-away party at Alamo Cafe today for my son who is moving to Pennsylvania. "We" included my ex, my daughter and her husband and baby, my sister and brother-in-law, my son and me. My dad and my ex's wife weren't feeling well, so they couldn't make it. It was a nice chance to visit since the funeral a week ago. It's still painful to have a gathering without our special little guy. We all miss him so.

When we were leaving, I hugged my brother-in-law who called me "Skinny." OMG! I thanked him for noticing and saying something. He said it was obvious.

The photo on my work ID is terrible. I never liked it, and I can't wait to replace it. A friend said I should get a new one now. But, you know, I'd rather have people look at it for whatever reason and be surprised when they see me in person. Like Jim Rohn said, I'd rather look better in person than in my photo. I remember when I was a Mary Kay consultant I went to a convention, and when Mary Kay entered the stage, I was shocked at the little old lady she was compared to the photos we saw of her all the time.

Today I had so much energy. I went from room to room putting things that had gathered around the house in their proper places (or at least in the proper room) I organized my Toastmaster stuff, filing away the manuals I completed for Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), and organizing the manuals I'll use to work on for my next DTM. DTM isn't the end. I know several people who have 5! I'll cross the stage May 4, and I'm hoping to have several family members and friends there. I don't think it costs anything to be there for that part of the conference. It'll be at the Airport Hilton, and I can't wait! I've already paid for my conference ticket. I hope I can find the receipt! (?)

I found some paperwork in my Advanced Communicator Gold packet that got me really excited. They are training materials for 3 leadership modules. They are 90 minutes long. I'm going to see if I can incorporate them in 3 Toastmaster meetings, doing 30 minutes in each meeting. First I have to get the packets. I've been planning to teach leadership, and this is exactly what I was looking for. It's been there all along, but I never noticed them. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. How many times have I heard that, and how many times has that happened to me? As a matter of fact, when I started getting serious about earning DTM, I met someone who said just the right things to get me going. Together, we did several out of Toastmasters projects where I could practice speaking to totally unfamiliar audiences where I could complete the professional speaker speeches. I may ask him to cross the stage with me. I also want to ask the person who suggested I join Toastmasters for extra credit in 1991. I think I'll wear the dress I wore to my daughter's wedding - IF it still fits in May. It may be too big.

I've reached a couple of major goals, and I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm being pretty ruthless about taking large clothes out of my closet and getting them ready to give away. I'm keeping a top and slacks that I wore before I lost weight. As a matter of fact, they were my weigh-in clothes the first couple of months. I washed clothes earlier this evening, and I put several items in the dryer hoping they'd shrink because they are getting too big.

One of my goals was to lose enough weight so my grandson could sit on my lap in the race car at Chuck E Cheese. He and I would race together with him struggling to sit on my lap and turn the steering wheel while I took care of the pedal. And I struggled to feed the baby. Now that I have a lap again, feeding him isn't as difficult.

I definitely look and feel better - even if I do say so myself. I never had this much motivation after this amount of time with any other weight loss program. I'm surprised and pleased. I've been doing this since September 7 - 4 months and about 3 weeks! Yea me!