Live free or die expo weekend

The husband and I had an amazing mini vacation weekend. It has been since April we got away. It was nice to get out the daily work rut.

Our main reason to get away was thr Live Free Or Die Tattoo Expo in Manchester, NH. We have gone for thr last three years for me to get tattooed. It is the closest opportunity to see thr amazing Tattoo Tara from Body Designs in Long Island, NY. She has been working on my hello kitty half sleeve for the last three years. It is coming out amazing.

The first year I met Tara she did tlmy hello kitty mad Hatter. Last year we took on a lot more than either of us anticipated by doing the white queen, red queen, white rabbit, caterpillar, marsh hare, field mouse AND mushrooms. This year was the Cheshire cat (much more relaxing for everyone).

I also (finally) had my right tragus pierced.

We did a lot more exploring Manchester and the surrounding areas. Each time we like the area even better. We found an area that was a great neighborhood that we would LOVE to live in.

Thr are is really easy to navigate. We wouldn't have to travel very far to find anything.. AND I could finally get a mini cooper!!! Therr is a dealership very close to thr neighborhood we were looking at.

We did shopping and found some real outlets where we scored amazing deals... like a 160 Michael Khors skirt for 11.99.

Back to work tomorrow.

I'm feeling more in control than I have in a while

Juice fast is over. I'm down 16.6 pounds. Best of all I feel more in control than I have in months.  I dont feel the urge to eat everything in sight. I'm not craving unhealthy food items. I'm feeling pretty acomplished.

Last night I wanted to skip the juice and have real food (I didn't). What was I thinkinh? A salad or sushi... no mac & cheese... no grilled cheese sandwich. ..no jellybeans. This morning at beakfast I did have a cheese omelet. It was yummy. No quiche, bagles or bacon. I'm impressed.

I feel that I may not have been in the right mind frame for my last juice fast.  I binged the day before on unhealthy foods. This time I had been eating fairly healthy to begin with. The mindset of health was there.  I tried different juices with different health bennifits. I have alao started focusing on drinking more water. I used this as an opportunity to train myself to overcome the boredom eating by drinking water.

I feel a new sense of freedom and victory.

Wish me luck as I continue my fight.

The battle rages on

The hardest thing about a juice fast is not munching when I'm bored. I realize that I love eating when I'm bored. Not eating when I'm bored is tough. I dont know what to do with myself.  That deamon is a strong one.

Since I am using this juice fast to help me kill those demons & make healthier choices I'm trying to find a way to deal with this. One thing I'm doing is having my dinner juice later. I've been doing this by keeping myself busy until at least 7. I've been making my juice for thr next day the night before. I understand that this is not the prefered way to juice. I dont have the option to prepare fresh juice for every meal, so this is working. Plus I have changed my storage for juice to mason jar, which supposedly makes it so you can store juice for up to 24 hours.

I'm drinking a ton of water.  When I get bored I drink more water... and more water. ..and more water. I've been drinking flavored water. I throw in some fruit like apples or citrus. It seems to help calm those demons better than plain water.

So far I am feeling much better...getting a bit of control and losing some weight.

Thr battle continues. I may not be able to defete the demons right away...at least will be able to control them better.

We all have our demons

We all have something that sets us off,  something that we can never say no to, something that changes how we act or react. We refer to them S many hjbgs. I refer to them as my demons. They are all controling & can cause us to spin out of control.

I didn't get fat because I didn't like food. I like eating. I hate eating. I eat when I'm happy. I eat when I'm sad. I eat when I'm bored. I love to eat. It is all consuming. I think about what I'm going to have for dinner while I'm eating breakfast.

I had gastric bypass surgery to help me lose weight because I was completly out of control. I had heath issues associated with morbid obesity.  I was mean. I hit behind my fat, inside I was miserable. I lost enough weighy to take me from morbidly obese to obese and now I'm just overweight.

Right after my surgery it was easy to lose weight because I was restricted and physically could not eat some foods or as much of those foods.

As time progressed I found out what foods I could eat & how often I could eat. The deamons started creeping back. I started to tolerate other foods to replace some of mh favorites. 

Recently the demons have gotten stronger. I dare say the demons have gotten stronger than me at times.

I found myself way over my high limit since surgery. I started blaming it on medications. I blamed it on my ulcer & other health conditions. Truth is, I stopped fighting the demons & became friends with them. I started hating myself. I started masking my self hatered with ramen, mac & cheese, dairy free ice cream, jelly beans and grilled cheese sandwiches. And booze... a conciderable amount of booze.

Two days ago I hit rock bottom. I couldn't put on my "fat" pants (aka bloated period pants). I found a pair to wear that has stretch & called it good. I beT myself up a lot. I decided to stop beeting myself up & do something productive.

I came up with a game plan. A) avoid triggers. This means NO trigger foods. I know that a lot of diet gurus say that you should never deny yourself. They have never experianced the the emotional attachment and the strength of my demons.  B) in addition to avoiding alcohol as a trigger I'm giving up drinking. I always end up being stupid and/or getting physically ill. Drinking also makes me eat more food. C) starting a juice fast to give myself a jump start & get crappy stuff of my system.

Wish me luck in my battle!!