Special K CHALLENGE! Well, Kinda.

I have never been one to jump on a diet program. As a matter of fact, I hate the idea of a diet; restricting what I can and can't eat? Just typing it makes me sad at the thought of all the delicious food I wouldn't be able to eat if I were on a diet. But lately...

I have been successfully working out for over a week. My workouts mostly consist of varying degrees of resistance and lengths of distance on my elliptical, between walking and jogging, for an average of half an hour a day. Occasionally I toss in a few sets of crunches or sit-ups. I have also begun drinking at least one bottle of water a day, and trying to remember to eat a piece of fruit each day.

When I started this on August 21-- 10 days ago-- I weighed 155 lbs, and the last time I had measured my waist, it was at 36". I missed 4 days of fruit and one day of working out. Today, I weigh in at 151 lbs and my waist (as of yesterday) is at 35.5"! That seems amazing to me, since I haven't changed anything else about my normal eating habits. I'm still drinking sodas and tea and the occasional beer on the weekends, I'm still eating huge meals for dinner, I still eat fast food if I want it... And yet with a little exercise, water, and fruit, I'm already losing weight and inches off my waist.

Well, it's about to get better. I have so much more energy lately and the weight I've already lost is such motivation, that I've decided to go ahead and attempt the Special K CHALLENGE*! Of course, it's not going to be EXACTLY the challenge they suggest; I am instead tailoring their suggestions with a bit of other suggestions, and fitting it all into my current lifestyle.

I signed up on the Special K website and put in my current information. Date of birth, height, current weight. I selected the program I'm going for (a weight goal) and checked off the way I eat and some of the things I do on the survey they offer to help personalize your diet. Now, my overall goal is to be 120 lbs by New Years', which would mean a weight loss goal of 31 lbs. They don't like when you say you want to lose 10% of your body weight, so they suggest me starting with a smaller goal, reaching it, and updating my profile for the remainder of the weight I would like to lose. So I started with 15 lbs as my weight loss goal, and the site tells me that by following their plan, I can lose that within 52 days. Less than 2 months! I think that's a good start.

The basis of the Special K diet is to eat three meals and two snacks a day, and to replace two of your meals with Special K products. They suggest Special K cereal with fruit for breakfast; a fruit, cracker, or yogurt snack; a Special K protein meal bar or protein shake for lunch; a Special K protein snack bar; then eat your third meal the way you normally would. You can change it up and eat what you want for breakfast or lunch, as long as you are still eating their name brand cereal, meal bars, snack bars, and shakes. I'm not going to follow the exact meals they suggest for me, because when it comes to that "third meal", it's going to be what I want to eat. I'm using this challenge as a guideline more than an actual strict diet.

I have also been borrowing suggestions from other sources as well, such as the popular TV series, The Doctors. They suggest eating foods that are high in fiber and protein, staying away from "bloating" foods like pastas (not easy to do when you're Italian), and eating plenty of fresh fruits and veggies. What a coincidence, all of the meal and snack bars and shakes from Special K are rich in fiber and protein! And those fruits that I've decided to eat every day? I bought plums, peaches, apples, and oranges. I know my kids love all of these fruits as well, so they eat a bit more healthy too! Another source, an article from NewsMax, suggests the 5 Best Fruits for Losing Weight. This article tells me that plums are high-carb, and great with breakfast. They will help give me energy in the morning to kick-start my day. Peaches and apples are low-carb fruits, which are great sources of water, that help control body temperature and help expel bad cholesterol. And oranges are a citrus fruit, a great way to cleanse the blood, promote cardiovascular and heart health, and improve digestion. All great for weight loss!

So with my Special K CHALLENGE base line, frequent fruit, lots of water, and working out, I'm actually expecting to lose the weight a little bit faster than my plan suggests. However, I will be perfectly content with any and all weight loss that may occur.  =)

I just ate my first protein meal bar for lunch. It's actually pretty good. I wasn't eating much of a lunch before this anyways, so at least now I'll be getting fiber and protein every day. I'm about to go hop on my elliptical for my daily workout. Looking forward to seeing if I reach my goals! Wish me luck!  ;)


*On a side note, the Special K CHALLENGE itself is a program that says you can lose 1 inch off your waist in two weeks! The weight loss goal plan I chose to follow on their website is a bit different from the challenge itself, because mine is working toward a specific goal over a longer time period, rather than just "what can I lose in two weeks?" If you visit the Special K website you can choose your own goal, or take the CHALLENGE! Remember though, all weight loss projections are on average, so your results may differ as well.

A Few Things My Son Says Lately

My son David says the strangest things sometimes. And some of the funniest things, too. He's just over three years old, and for the longest time he had trouble speaking. Well, not so much that he had trouble with it, as that he just didn't want to talk. He barely spoke at all, and only basic words or sounds. I was starting to get worried, until just last month during a trip to Utah to visit my dad. David was suddenly saying grandpa and grandma (both of which did sound something like "gran pop pop") and the words just started to flow from there.

In the past month, David has become a parrot, repeating everything he hears. A few things he says that I love hearing, that I am proud of him for:

• When I ask what he wants to drink, he will answer with either "milk", "juice", or "tea". When I ask what kind of juice and tell him what colors we have, he will say which color he wants. Every once in a while he will ask for a Coke, and I occasionally tell him to go get me one and I"ll open it. He goes to the back refrigerator, gets a Coke, and brings it to me.
•  When the boys are playing outside and it's time to come in, I will call David and he will come up to the front door, but he won't come inside yet. He stands there calling "Levi! Come in!" until his little brother has made it to the door first, then lets Levi in before coming inside himself.
• When he wants something, 80% of the time he remembers to ask "please". Every time we give him something, he says "thank you."
• Whenever someone gets hurt or says "ow", David will ask "Are you okay?" a million times until you reply "yes". If you say no, that it still hurts, he will lean down and kiss your boo-boo then ask you again if you are okay. He will do this until you finally do say yes. If he is hurt and you ask if he's okay, he will either hold the body part up to be kissed, or he will reply, "Yeah, I'm okay."
• He loves his grandma and grandpa, who we refer to as Memaw and Grandpa Bobby. At any random point in the day, David will stop what he's doing and look at me, and ask "Where's meemee and granpop pop Bobby?" To which I reply, "They're at work sweetie." And he says, "Oh. They're at work."

Of course, as he learns about things in life, he begins to put things together on his own. Which then leads to some hilarious conversations:

•  David, while pointing to a picture of characters from Winnie the Pooh: "What's that?" Me: "That's Tigger, he's a tiger. And that bear is Winnie the Pooh." David: "Oh. Mommy look! Poop!"
• A few weeks ago, Mike went outside to work on something. David asks me, "Where's Daddy?" I said, "Daddy went outside to work, he'll be back in soon." David says "Oh." Then a few minutes later he comes walking up to the front door saying "I'm going to work! Bye!"
• Both of my boys love music. When we're in the truck, I plug in my iPod and the boys will be in the back seat bobbing their heads and trying to wiggle around in an attempt to dance while strapped into a car seat. Sometimes, David starts trying to sing along to the songs, and it's adorable. He will say the verse that just ended, and it forms somewhat of a "music in the round" version of every song. I love when I play Hey Jude by the Beatles, because when they get to the "naaa na na nanana na, nanana na, Hey Jude" part of the song, he sings it flawlessly.
• This one is more of both boys, and no words, but it's too priceless not to include it. The other day in the truck, we were listening to a Sam Tsui cover version of Nelly's song "Just a Dream". I had been glancing at the boys in the rear-view mirror every few minutes just because I knew they were dancing and singing along, and I love watching them. There is a part of the song where he sings, "if you've ever loved somebody put your hands up" like 4 times in a row. After such a part, I glanced at them in time to see both boys grinning from ear to ear, with their arms above their heads "putting their hands up".
• I have a few different text message notification ringtones on my phone, one of which is a Lonely Island clip that says "Like a Boss!" Every time I get a text message with that ringtone, David repeats "Like a Boss!" Then I say "Are you a boss?!" and he answers, "Yeah, I'm a boss!"
• And of course, the hubby has discovered a new trick as well. David knows that the back fridge is where we keep the drinks, and he knows what a beer bottle looks like, because when he sees one, we tell him it's beer and that it's for grown ups (then I try to offer him juice or something so he knows he has his own drink). If David sees a beer bottle, he says "Oh, beer!" and if someone were to say "Hey David, can you please get me a beer?" he will! I'm so glad he can't open a bottle yet, because on that day, the back fridge will be getting a lock on it... maybe it's time to find a beer-fetching dog, like in that commercial.

Just Venting! Half Angry, Half Frustrated.

Okay this post is entirely just for me to vent. =) I have had a very frustrating day, and every time I try to talk to someone about it and try to calm down, the responses just make me more frustrated. So, the way I see it, I can type all I want here and vent to the internet, and whether or not anyone reads it, I have said everything that is bothering me without being interrupted, and being able to type just kind of makes me feel better in itself.

So this has got to be the worst Saturday I've had in quite some time (and after last Saturday night, with me having to babysit a few drunk friends, that definitely says something). First thing in the morning, at around 7:30am, I randomly wake up on my own, much earlier than I had anticipated. Or maybe it was the child kicking me in his sleep that woke me, it's hard to tell on nights that I can't sleep anyways. I knew that Mike and Chris wanted to get up early today to go to town and buy some supplies for a project they're working on, and while they were at it they had already planned on picking up some chicken, flour, and our special hot sauces from Buffalo Wild Wings so that tonight I could make homemade chicken nuggets for dinner. I was going to make them last night, but no one wanted to go all the way to Waco, and we are getting spoiled; we can't seem to eat chicken nuggets without our favorite hot sauces anymore. It just can't be done.

So at around 8:00am I decide it's about time to wake the guys, and I do so. Things went pretty well for about an hour while the guys were home. They got up and got ready to go, and Mike even decided to be extra nice and take one of the boys with them so I would have it a bit easier at home. Before they left we were all hanging out in the front yard. I had run inside to get my son a drink, and when I went back outside, they were already at the end of the driveway (a quarter of a mile away). Didn't tell me they were ready to leave yet, didn't say good bye, and Mike didn't even take his phone. I called Chris, but of course no one answers. I texted them saying that I had expected them to come back inside, and that Mike had left his phone, and a few minutes later Mike calls me from Chris's phone to tell me they're sorry, they were going to come back inside at first but ended up just going.

Oh well, so they're already gone, so they didn't say good bye, it's not like they're going away forever or anything. They're just going to town, they'll be back in a few hours. So I go inside and start doing some chores. I switched over laundry, changed my son's diaper, picked up around the house, made the beds, and got dressed. After the house was acceptably clean (for a weekend) I sat on the couch to do some more animation work on my 3DS. It's not actual work, it's a program called Inchworm Animation, where you can bring your drawings to life! It's a lot of fun, and it turns out that I'm not too bad at animated stick figure videos. I've been working on the same video for most of the week, learning how to better use the painting tools and how to work the frames for smoother transitions and animation.

Anyways... little off topic there. So I was doing some animation work, and decided to put on a movie. We finally bought my childhood favorite, Beetlejuice, on blu-ray. So I put it on and settled down on the couch with my son, my 3DS, a glass of iced sweet tea, and a bowl of popcorn. It was shaping up to be a decent afternoon, considering that I was basically alone all morning.

Just to interject here, I should mention that I HATE being alone all the time. I don't have friends out here besides Chris and his 2 brothers, I don't have any reason to go to town for anything, and it's hard enough going anywhere with 2 young boys at the ages they are. So I am stuck at home with the kids, basically "alone" all day long, 5 days a week. Weekends are what I look forward too the most, because from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening Chris comes over, and sometimes his brothers as well. It's fun, I have humans to interact with socially, I have new stories and news to hear about, not just the same "how was work today?", and I get to actually hang out, occasionally drink a little bit, and do things with PEOPLE. That's the best part, even if it's just the same 1-3 people, they are still better than nothing. Not that I don't appreciate them, because I do, and I know that sentence ended in a very depreciating way ("better than nothing"). I love my friends and am so glad they enjoy spending time out here at the house with us. My point being that I love weekends because I am not ALONE.

Getting back to my day, I was about 5 minutes into the movie when the guys got home. They were back half an hour sooner than I had estimated, though I wasn't about to complain about that. They came inside, but announced some bad news. They were right there in town, half the reason they went was for the chicken and sauces, and they forgot them. Completely slipped their minds till they were practically home. I didn't have anything else I could really cook for dinner that could feed all of us except for manicotti, and we've had pasta most of the week so no one was too excited about the idea. Instead, someone would have to go back to town to get the supplies for dinner. And who else could go, except me? They wanted to get started working on their project, now that they had everything they needed. I agreed and said I'd go after the movie ended, though I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of being alone even longer.

They sit down to watch the movie with me (though they were "about to go work" the entire time) and Mike says he's hungry. Okay, you know where the kitchen is... he gets up and goes into the kitchen, and comes back a few minutes later telling me that he knows what he wants for lunch, he'd like 3 eggs, fried, over easy. ...okay? What do you want me to do? You were the ones who forgot food, so if you're hungry now you can cook it yourself! It's an egg for crying out loud, how hard is that? Get a pan, spray it with cooking spray, crack an egg, flip, move to plate. Done.

But of course he expected me to cook it. He asked me three times before he turned the movie off and gave me a look that could have scared the fleas off a dog. I was frustrated, I honestly don't understand why I have to cook him his lunch when he is a 29 year old man who is perfectly capable of making his own lunch. I angrily got up and went into the kitchen, saying "alright alright, I'll cook you your damn food!!!", slamming the door behind me. I got the pan and started cooking, and after a minute he comes into the kitchen. First rule: when you piss a woman off and still expect her to do something for you that you ought to be doing yourself, you leave her the f*ck alone while she's doing it.

He comes into the kitchen and starts complaining, while I'm standing there with the pan and the eggs, waving the spatula as I tell him that I'm in the process of cooking his food, so yelling or complaining to me won't make it cook any faster. He turns red and starts shouting at me, that all he wants is a few eggs, he told me what he wanted and had to ask me three times, but I was too busy being lazy, watching a movie, and playing on my game to just get up and cook it, it's a simple task, why was I being so difficult? Which of course, after being frustrated anyways, I lost my own temper and the kitchen was soon filled with the sound of each of us arguing our point louder and louder. He said that he was mad, and he was going to continue to be mad and yell at me until he had his food because his stomach was physically hurting him at this point from not eating anything. Which I don't see how that's my fault, he should be responsible for eating when he's hungry. He's the one that never eats breakfast, so did he think I was going to cook for him that morning? If he didn't eat lunch when they were in town then he should have picked up the food so I could cook it. If he was that hungry, he should have ate something sooner, and if he's THAT hungry, there should be no reason he has to wait for me to cook it when he can do it himself! If he doesnt know how to cook an egg, PRACTICE. How else will you learn how to do it?! And if it just seems too complicated for you to understand, FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO EAT. Seriously.

I gave him his eggs, to which he said thank you, but I was still mad. I almost laughed when I walked back into the kitchen to clean up and Chris was making his own lunch. See Mike? He knows how to get up and fend for himself, is that so hard for you to do every once in a while?

Finished cooking, I decided I was going to go to town right then, so I could calm down a bit. I got my shoes on, but I needed to air up one of my tires and take out the trash that was in the bed of the truck. Mike helped me out, which I appreciated, but I was still upset and just wanted to get away. He gave me some extra money and told me I could get anything else I wanted or needed while I was there. He got mad at me once again, because I was still mad. That's another thing that pisses me off (sorry for the language), but every time he's mad, I can understand why he's mad, but it takes him a while to cool off and nothing I say usually works, so I just give him time, even if it takes a few hours. When I'm mad, he expects me to be fine within a few minutes, and he gets mad at me if I'm still angry after like 10 minutes. Ridiculous.

I finally left, and was glad to be able to breathe without being yelled at or looked down on. Though I still ended up crying the entire way to town. I went into the two stores I had to go to, got what I needed, and the only few things extra that I picked up was cereal for the kids, some ice cream, and Mike's ingredients for his homemade dip, along with a big bag of tortilla chips for him. I felt bad that we had argued, even though I didn't feel like it was my fault, and wanted to have some sort of peace offering for when I got back to the house. I came home, and the guys had taken the kids off on the property, so no one was at the house. No problem, I unloaded the groceries myself and was still humming the song I had played repeatedly on the way home. (For some reason today, Skrillex's song "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" seems to calm me down. It's not exactly a calming song, I dont quite understand how that works... but whatever. It works. Not gonna question a good thing.).

The guys came back up to the house when they saw my truck coming up the driveway, but by then all I had left in the truck was sodas. They carried them in, and I showed them what I got, and gave them the change left over. I was trying to be nice, I was pretty calm at that point, and they seemed to be in good moods too. They laughed, saying they honestly didn't expect me to bring back any change at all, they thought I was going to spend every last dime they had given me, just out of anger. I'm sorry but I'm not one of "those" girls. I might be mad, but I'm not going to waste money that we might need for better things until the next payday. Mike was thankful for the things I had gotten him for his chips and dip, and things seemed to be alright again.

Until a few minutes later. I asked Mike to change the boys' diapers, while I put the groceries away. By the time I was done, he still hadn't moved from the couch, so I got the diapers and changed them myself. Then the guys said they were going back out to finish up what they were doing, they were almost done, and they left. I was a bit disappointed and frustrated at that, too. It was like, "here Crystal, be alone all morning, be alone for the beginning of the afternoon, then what the hell, you might as well be alone for the rest of the afternoon too, and possibly well into the evening." Granted they didn't say that, but they might as well have. I felt like I was alone all morning, and came back home just so I could watch the kids while they left again. Lovely. Mike saw my frustration just before he left out again, and asked what was wrong, and when I tried to explain how I felt, he got mad at me. I'm not allowed to have negative feelings apparently, and I don't think he really understands the loneliness I feel. How could he really understand, he goes to work during the week, during which time he has his coworkers for social interaction, and he's in town, where lots of other humans are. My cat was the only real company I have had all day. I think she understood how I felt, because she curled up in my lap every chance she got.

It's already 4:00pm, and I am still alone. Well, alone with the kids. As always. Today has been a very confusing day for me, because I have been taking my antidepressants every day, and I didn't miss them this morning. I mean, my doctor told me I could find a good schedule (if I take it too late in the evening I get insomnia) so this week I have been experimenting with taking them at the same time, and taking them at various hour intervals each day. So far the best I've found that keeps me happy all day long is taking them between 3-5 hours apart, unless it's already noon by the time I take them, in which case I take them at the same time. But even having taken my pills this morning and not missed them in the last 24 hours, I feel... unhappy. I have been easy to anger, frustrated, lonely, I cried on the way to town... I'm not supposed to have crying spells anymore, and I'm supposed to have energy and the ability to think things through. There should be no reason I was this upset today.

Of course, it's not really a crying spell if I had a good reason for it. So I think the real issue is just how easy it is for me to get angry today. I don't WANT to be angry. I want to be happy and feel wanted and included and not left behind. I want to enjoy my weekend and social interaction with someone my age! The only person that has really seemed to care and made me feel better today is halfway across the country. =(

Well, I think I'm going to try sitting down on the couch again, maybe put a movie on again, and see if I can convince myself that the rest of the day will be better. Thanks for letting me vent, like I said I doubt anyone will really read this, and I don't expect it, it was just an outlet for me, no real information or news to convey. Just had to get that all out. Hope everyone else has a good day!