Sunday, December 27, 2009

Medifast update

I gained a pound last week but I think it was mostly water weight. I was down 3 pounds on Christmas Eve but Christmas eating has sent me haywire. I have done better than expected but not as good as I hoped. My downfall this week wasn't Christmas dinner or dessert of any kind...well it was the seas toffees...but instead it was flavored popcorn. I don't know why I let Peter talk me into the popcorn store. He didn't have to work too hard to talk me into it as I love popcorn.

Tomorrow is the biggest challenge of the holiday. We are going to a really good buffet with Nick and Stacy. I am going to try to stick to legal, low carb foods. I hope I can.

Lovely Christmas

Our Christmas plans were interrupted by a freak Texas snow storm. What was originally listed as a small chance of snow, but most likely rain, turned into several inches of snow for some and a couple inches for us. My mom wasn't able to come, and our friend Alexa wasn't able to come. The roads were bad, so we couldn't get out to church. We didn't have any company so we didn't have to cook. It was the most laid back holiday I have ever had. We were disappointed that our friends and family couldn't be with us, but we made the best of it in the aftermath.

Peter gave us a book on teaching a horse to drive...teaching Joe Bear to drive is going to be a goal for the winter. Of course, we will also have to teach ourselves to drive :-) I have been measuring the horses so I know what size harness to buy and I have started reading the book. Peter also got us the Wii Fit Plus which has already proved to be lots of fun.

Today we had lunch with Cat and Jena, which we haven't done for awhile. Then Jena came to the field and she and Maggie rode for awhile. I even got on bareback, which I almost never do! Liberty was fantastic for me as I wiggled into place.

I have no idea what my weigh in will be this week. I had one day of sort of eating Medifast, one day of eating no Medifast and then yesterday mostly back on track...except for movie popcorn yesterday and some hashbrowns at breakfast today. I have been exercising more, so I'm hoping that my extra calories will be offset.

Now Maggie is in her room working and I'm watching the mini-series Alice that I recorded and never watched. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it's entertaining enough I guess. My friend Amy Martin loved it and kept asking me to watch it so we could talk about it.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Snuggies


Peter bought Maggie and me Snuggies for Christmas. Here Peter and Maggie are wearing the snuggies so I could take a picture. I thinking it was really cute.
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas is closing in

I decided to stay home from work again today, so I slept in today and it was a good thing. i didn't get out of bed till almost 10am. I'm very pleased with myself. I have a group at 1 and a massage at 3 and a weigh in between the 2. Not sure how that will go. My initial weigh in on my scales are favorable. I just have to drink/eat very little before I weigh in.

I am going to sew this am...really, I am going to sew. I just don't feel motivated yet.

My mom may not be able to make it for the holiday b/c there may be snow between us. We won't know till tomorrow. The house is pretty much ready. I have a turkey thawing in the fridge and Peter is going to shop later today.

I would love to have a week just to lay around...not really sure why I feel so lethargic. My mood is good. I just hate that feeling that there is always something that needs to be done...which, of course, there is.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Medifast this week...not so hot

I have had a cold this week and not done so well on my food. I ate sweets a little each day. I should know by now that eating sweets is a bad, bad thing for me, but I still seem to do it anyway. Maggie made a really tasty chocolate cake and I indulged. So, tomorrow is weigh in and I have no idea how it will go. I weighed this am, and I will close to the same weight that I was. This holiday season has really been kicking my butt. It's hard to eat right this time of year. I don't know how people do it.

Of course, the flip side is, that I'm eating so much better this year than I normally would, so I shouldn't beat myself up.

I have begun to discover that wheat and baked goods make me sick to my stomach. Not ever time, but a lot of the time. I'm hoping that this knowledge will keep me out of the cakes and cookies...but I also know that I like this stuff enough to eat them anyway sometimes.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Photos from the Christmas Ride 2009


I got some great photos of Maggie and me from the Christmas Ride at Parrie Haynes. We had such a great time. The one above was Liberty and me cantering across a big field.
I think Maggie was cold when she hugged Dixie like this, but it's still a really cute photo.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Rearranging complete











I finally got the rearranging done and the rooms put back together. I got rid of some fabric (donating it to Meals on Wheels for their folks to sew), the bookshelf it was on and three bags of various trash. We still have entirely too much stuff in our midst, but it's a start. I have put back the dining area and will get a table eventually. As long as we live here, we'll never have an uncluttered existence. Not enough space.

I'm all cleaned out. I'm hoping to get Peter and Maggie to finish the middle room and their own rooms cleaned up. My cold has just made me feel too crummy to work anymore today.

I have been watching Dr. Zhivago on Turner Movie Classics. They are doing all epics today. I haven't seen this before all the way through. It's been good.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

New tv and chilling out

We got the dvd player installed on our new tv and we are watching our yearly White Christmas movie. It's amazing watching it on the big screen.

The rearranging and cleaning is almost done. By the end of tomorrow the house should be squared away.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Busy Day

Maggie and I worked on projects today and had lunch with a friend. I am currently finishing the last sewing project. Peter and I bought something tonight we've been wanting...I will reveal it later once I take photos of my newly "remodeled" room...but I want Maggie to be surprised so will have to post about that later.
The above picture is of the chaos of my room...Hopefully by tomorrow evening things will be looking a little neater.

Right now I've finished emptying the fabric from my shelves and I'm going through all the scraps. One of my friends does volunteer work for Meals on Wheels and they have an elderly lady who quilts and sews all day long. She likes donations of fabric, so I'm going to take a bag of fabric to my friend when I see her next week. This makes me so much happier than just throwing it away. And it's so much less work than trying to sell it on Ebay. As a result of my consolidation, we're getting rid of one book shelf that has been around for ages. I'm putting all my fabric in bins...mostly under the bed so that it will be a little more work to go retrieve my fabric, but it will be so much better for the clutter in my room. I'm in a period of cleaning things out and it's invigorating to remove baggage from my life! Maggie and I will have a little less work space, but we'll be able to move our family room back around the fireplace where we can enjoy comfortable family time.

The other reason I like to rearrange is that it gives me a chance to really clean. So, hopefully, the house will look nice when my mom comes to visit for Christmas.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Quiet Sunday morning

Peter went to early service...Maggie and I will be going to the 11am service. She has confirmation class following the second service and I saw no reason to go to two services and a budget meeting to get to confirmation class. Peter really doesn't enjoy the second service, so I think he and Alexa will go to breakfast while Maggie and I are in church. Usually we prefer the first service for the liturgy, but today, we just didn't want to get up early.

Maggie, Peter and I went to a Christmas party at Amy and Corey Crane's house last night. It was a party they throw for Corey's son and other nieces and nephews in the family. I think Maggie was the oldest there, but she still had a great time. They played games and decorated cookies. There was good food...but I ate too many cookies. I know better. One leads to another...

We have decided to rearrange again...only I can't do it yet. I want to, but it's going to be a multi-step process. We're going to move our couch back into the family room...Maggie and I will have to clean out the room. We're going to paint the room, put in flooring and then put the room together. I have the paint already, so that won't cost anything but time. We're going to do inexpensive carpet...The big thing will be that we will probably be getting a flat screen once we get the decorating done. We hope to reuse our existing furniture as much as possible and we're going to get a new table so we can have a dining room again.

I was realizing the other day that i have lived in this house almost 8 years. I think the reason I don't get tired of the house is that we keep changing and rearranging to keep it fresh. I have grown tired of having so much stuff. That's what a lot of the rearranging will be about...just getting rid of stuff.

Friday, December 11, 2009

New food favorite

Today has been a hard and hungry day for me. I confess, I have been limiting any yummy goodies in my house b/c I don't need to cheat and the rest of my family doesn't need the extra goodies either. We always have fruits and veggies in the house, but since I'm working to get back into a better fat burning state, I can't have any fruit. My diet is consisting of Medifast foods and my veggies and meat each day.

One decision I decided today was to begin to split my lean and green meal into two meals, so I can have 3 oz of lean meat twice (or 4 oz if I'm eating fish). It really helped me in the middle of the afternoon when it wasn't really snack time and wasn't meal time either.

I have discovered I really like kale. I like to toss it in olive oil, taco season, garlic powder and some pepper. Then I bake it in the oven till it gets crispy...like chips. Maggie likes it too.

It's very grey today. Maggie and I are working on schoolwork and some sewing.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Liberty is a Winner and I was not a loser...

This past weekend at Parrie Haynes, I really saw what a great horse I have in Liberty...He did his first open ride. We rode 25.5 miles each day and he still had lots of energy when it was all over. He lost one point on his MAW and a few points on metabolics over the weekend, but overall, I was very impressed.

We are having issues with gut sounds. He eats like mad on the trail, but I think he gets focused on his work and the gut sounds just never circulate. I'm going to have to figure out something to do with him that helps him keep loud guts.

Liberty placed 3rd in a class of 7 (three pulls, only four left at the end) Even more impressive, he placed ahead of the horse who won the President's cup last year. I was pretty excited.

The year end results from 2009 came out as well and we did really well. I knew that we were tied for first place in novice heavyweight, but I found out we were overall novice reserve champion. I also won first in novice horsemanship (that blew my mind) and we won novice team. and....because his half Arab papers came through before the end of the year, he's also novice/CP high point half Arab. He so far has exceeded all my expectations that I could just bust.

The ponies are getting the week off while Maggie and I do Christmas crafts and just take a break. It's been cold, so staying off the horses hasn't been a struggle. Liberty continues to surprise me with his attitude too. He seems to thrive on the work. He's happier to see me when i'm riding hard and traveling a lot than he is after I have given him days off.

This year (2010) we're going to tackle open, brush up on obstacle--I'm finally going to learn to open and close a gate--do a 50 miles endurance ride and start taking dressage lessons.

Medifast today...I gained a half pound. I'm sooo frustrated. I went to the ride and I rode hard. I ate a little more than usual, but I was hungry and I burned about 1200-1500 calories each day riding hard. I only consumed maybe 1500 calories each day (well, except for Sunday when I ate cookies and drank cider) So, this week...no cheating at all. Maggie and I had lunch after my weigh in at Jamaica gates where I ate meat and salad, which is on my plan. I began to think that I should split my 6-8 ounces of protein and my 3 veggies into 2 meals instead of one. Maybe that would help with hunger? I also got some of the momentum products to help with speeding things up and appetite control.

Christmas ride...booting story

I have known since I first started riding Liberty that he was going to be special. Before I began to really train him, I had thought he might be a "transitional" horse...the one I rode while I waited for Fiera to grow up to be old enough to ride. Now, I'm not only sure he's not transitional, but I find myself wondering why I have another horse at all. He has turned into such a special guy, that my heart swells with love and happiness to have him in my life.

This past weekend was the Christmas at the Ranch Ride. Usually it's held at Six O Ranch in Cleburne, TX, but this past weekend it was in Killeen at Parrie Haynes. They have been in a severe, multi-year drought, so they are very happy to have had so much rain. I was concerned about doing the ride in my easy boots, since in NATRC, we can only use boots which go below the hairline and don't cover the heel bulb. I have used them successfully a few times, but since I had had Liberty trimmed the previous week, the boots seemed to be a little big. I wasn't sure they would stay on at the trot and canter since we were now in open. Previously, I had only done novice speeds in boots.

We applied our boots (Maggie was using boots on Dixie too) before check in on Friday. In this case, I did nothing special to apply the boots but just pulled them on his feet. Usually I use either athletic tape or duct tape as a base for the boots, but I had such a difficult time to putting the boots on without any tape, I decided to go with just the boots. I had thought I would pull off the boots and add the tape, but since I couldn't pull them off easily, I just went with it.

Saturday Liberty's boots stayed on for the first loop. He lost the left one early, but we saw it come off and I put it back on at the first P&R. He lost the right one on the beginning of the second loop, but again, Maggie saw it and we put it back on...only to lose it again in the next mile cantering on some good footing. That boot was never found again. Dixie lost her first boot on the first loop and we reapplied and lost it. She lost her other boot too, but I have no clue where it went or when we lost it. At the end of the day 3 of our 4 boots were found. We decided that we would ride barefoot on Sunday as it was just too much hassle in light of the fact that we'd had multiple boot failure that day. We had no idea if we would be able to complete sound without boots, but it was worth a try.

Sunday it was raining and the trails were even wetter than the day before. We did not boot and had less trouble with slipping and sliding than the day before. In fact, while wearing just one boot, Liberty fell down in the muddy conditions on Saturday (miraculously, I didn't come off and he hopped up and went on about his business) The horses began to slow down for rocks and mud, but figured out the game of keeping good time elsewhere. We checked out sound, having ridden barefoot the whole day.

Liberty and Dixie don't live in rocky conditions, so conditioning their feet is not really a great possibility. Liberty has never had shoes; Dixie has had shoes one time. She has gotten sore footed in the past, mostly due to her tendency toward insulin resistance and being overweight. Liberty was tenderfooted this summer when the rain caused extra grass growth. I also think that sometimes the hay has too much sugar in it and will cause these problems. It's been my limited experience that management and diet are more important than conditioning on the terrain where riding will take place, but it's nice if you can throw in some conditioning. As a result, I always prefer to boot rather than to take my chances barefoot. One of my friends with a really good barefoot horse, was laid up all fall when her mare suffered a stone bruise which turned into an abscess and then a bone infection...better safe than sorry. I have recently purchased some gloves for Dixie and some Goober Glue, but the glue didn't arrive in time for booting this past weekend. Liberty's feet aren't quite the right shape, but I'm sure we'll try the boots on Dixie in the future.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Packing

I have been busying myself packing for the NATRC ride tomorrow. Almost all my stuff is together...I only need a few things at the store, which is a solid relief. I'm buying the food package at the ride and eating/drinking my medifast food.

Maggie has a friend over today, which is great for her. She doesn't get to play with other kids enough.

Maggie has been sewing her Christmas presents today and I have been embroidering the things that she's sewing.

Getting ready to weigh in..not feeling too optimistic about it.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Busy, good day

I had a good Medifast day today after my earlier blog. I ate only what I was supposed to with the exception of sharing some dessert at a local restaurant with Peter tonight. I ate fish with veggies and skipped the mashed potatoes. I weigh 2.5 less pounds than I did this AM, which means that I have a ton of water weight hanging around. I don't weigh in till Thursday this week, so I'm hoping that one more good day will at least leave me even from last week...counter acting the holiday.

I have made my plan about the weekend. I'm going to order up the dinner, and the two lunches, skipping the breakfast for my shakes. I'm going to be hungry when I come in off the trail, so I feel like the soup and salad lunch will be just the ticket. I'm planning to buy a box of the "green" bars this week, which have a few more calories in them and have ready made shakes and easily eaten snacks to take on the trail. Now that I have a plan, it will be much easier to stick with it.

For the potluck, I'm either going to make some apple bread (or Maggie will) and/or sweet potato casserole (b/c I have a ton of sweet potatoes in my cupboard and I'm really not supposed to eat them) but I also think I'll bring a jug of red wine to share with my friends. I might be feeling like bringing two...not sure. I always want a beer when I come off the trail, so I'm going to buy a six pack of beer and take two...one for each day. If I take more, I will just eat them. Of course, Peter did buy me a new bottle of brandy, so Maggie and I could go nuts and make a bread pudding instead of anything I have mentioned...I'm wondering if you can make pumpkin bread pudding, or sweet potato bread pudding...the possibilities are endless.

I still need to pack for the trip the rest of the way. I have been gathering my clothes and packing the various things I will need. Since I have the platform in the back of the suburban now I will have to reinvent how I pack.

I have packed our suitcase

Medifast Update

I realized that I was doing better eating right when I blogged each day about my progress, or lack thereof. The last month hasn't been so hot. I have my weigh in and measurements tomorrow and I have no idea how it will go. I have lost something every week, but nothing close to what I was losing before. I have to seriously get back on track to make my February deadline.

This weekend will be my first open ride in NATRC. That is not a problem in itself. The problem lies in that they are serving yummy food all weekend! I'm planning to buy dinner on Friday, eat the potluck on Saturday (but I'm bringing my own salad in case there aren't enough veggies) and I'm going to eat the soup lunch on Sunday. Maggie and I may stay over till Monday am, so I will have to plan dinner for her. I hope/plan to stay on my diet as much as possible. I'm allowed to have an extra shake if I get hungry and I"m going to get some bars which are a little more filling to take on the trail. I'm going to keep my eating plan up as much as possible. I figure I'll bring extra green with me so that if I get really hungry I can eat pickles or something. I might even eat my salad back at the trailer before supper, or wait till the end of the line while eating my salad, so that I won't be so hungry...of course, my usual strategy is to get in line first, so I can get the veggies I need in my diet.

At first, a little cheating wasn't the end of the world, but I"m slipping. By slipping, I'm not learning the proper way to conduct myself outside of my medifast world, so it has to stop NOW.