Weight Loss: Day 2

OK, I know I know...day 2? How is it only day 2 when I started 2 weeks ago?

There were a few setback (*cough* couch potato *cough*)

But today was Day 2 of me dragging my ass to the gym each evening. I ended up going by myself and it wasn't as bad as I thought. No one sneered at me, cat called me, or acted like "what's this unfit person doing in a gym". And I didn't feel like the blob in the corner (can't say the same of 24 Hour Fitness, though).

I suspect the difference is I went to the base gym rather than a "civie gym". I thought it would be packed with muscley Marines and sure there were a few, but it was mostly just wives and retirees and everyone pretty much minded their own business.

I did 40 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and elliptical and then 20 minutes of weight machines. Maybe in a few weeks I will be daring enough to step on the scale.

Here's my moto post-workout "look" (HA!):

Cooking For One

I had to write it, because I know some of you child-less spouses are in the same boat: cooking meals for ONE person.

There are several reasons I cook for one rather than just doing the regular-sized recipes and putting it in the fridge:

1. It's easier to portion what I eat
2. I'm less likely to go back for "seconds" and/or binge eat the entire meal
3. It saves me money and results in less food waste
4. I'm more likely to actually cook than do take out

I was noticing that week after week I was throwing out a lot of food. Not because I was buying too much but because I wasn't eating what I was buying because it was a hassle to cook a meal for 3-4 people and then have to store it.

So what I did this past week is I bought 2 weeks worth of food at the commissary. It cost me $91.00. I bought some boxes of cheap noodles, ramen, pasta sauce, vegetables, fruit, milk, cheese, beef, and chicken (among other things).

The chicken was on sale, so I bought 6 breasts. Each breast was pretty big, so it was more like 8 meals worth of chicken. I got home and cut up all the breasts into cubes, put them in quart-sized freezer bags in the freezer. Each bag has just enough for 1 meal. When I want to cook with the chicken, I just take out 1 bag from the freezer. There's no thawing and re-thawing or chicken waste.

I did the same thing with the beef. I portioned it into 3 servings, wrapped it in plastic and foil and froze it. With the other pound of beef I made a meatloaf and I baked it in little individual-sized pans. I got 4 mini-loafs out of the mix, and I wrapped and froze those as well.

With the vegetables, I washed and cut them and then blanched my carrots, broccolli, and peppers before putting them in plastic storage containers and freezing those. With my strawberries I washed and cut those and froze them in individual baggies for one-cup smoothies.

I happened to have leftover thanksgiving turkey carcass and thighs in the freezer. So I put the carcass and the thighs in a pot with water, celery, onions, and carrots and boiled it to make a broth. Then I strained it, picked back over the meat, put it back into the soup with the veggies and seasoned it. I save all my jars, so I simply poured the soup into old sauce jars and froze those too.

I also made some homemade salad dressing and froze it in an ice cube tray.

There are some things that can't really be frozen, such as lettuce, so I washed and dried it as best I could and put it in a special cloth "lettuce bag" that is supposed to keep lettuce longer. I'l probably end up going back to the store next week for some more lettuce though, which is fine.

Cheese was on sale, so I bought 2 cubes and froze one. I know from personal experience that cheddar cheese actually freezes quite well. So does butter.

So far things have been going well. I don't make elaborate meals each night (usually just chicken with some sort of seasoning lol), but knowing that every time I cook it's just for 1 person takes a ton of stress off. Esecially since I'm trying to lose weight, so I don't have to worry about eating an ENTIRE recipe.

This time, I refuse to fail

Like many wives, I have certain deployment "goals". Things I would like to achieve by the time my husband comes home. I tried this a few times while he was in training but it just didn't pan out the way I would have liked, but this time I'm optimistic.

My number 1, more important than anything, goal is: Lose Weight.

Now, some people in my life have looked at me strange when I said I wanted to lose weight. One person asked me, "why do you need to lose weight? It's not like you're obese." So for that person's information I weight 182 pounds. When I met my husband I weighed 130 pounds. Over the years I have gained almost 100 lbs. I managed to shed a few last year and dropped down to 182. My wedding dress was a size 18. It doesn't matter than I'm not obese. The 30-50 lbs I would like to lose represent a lot more than just "getting skinny". In fact, "getting skinny" isn't even the actual goal. Those 30-50 lbs are the difference between feeling good about myself and feeling insecure. It's the difference between enjoying being out and active and wanting to hide inside. It's the difference between being sexually confident and feel inadequate in my own marriage. If eating better, exercising every day, and working to improve myself is what it takes for me to see those results, "getting skinny" is completely irrelevant.

Not to mention, I have PCOS. The weight isn't even really the real issue, the issue is the other health problems...the infertility I've experienced for the last 2 years as a direct result of being overweight. MOST importantly those 50 lbs are the difference between watching my friends have children and actually having my OWN children. I know DH wants at least 1 biological child (as do I). He frequently talks about our "son" (Lord help him if we have a girl hahaha). He talks about all the things he wants to pass on, and about having that one thing that essentially symbolizes his feelings for me: another life. He already has plans, a timeline. He actually requested his R&R dates specifically to line up with my estimated ovulation (how a man managed to figure that out is beyond me lol). So I look at myself, all 182 lbs of myself, and I don't just feel like a blob. I feel like a failure.

That's what I wish I could tell the nay-sayers. I wish I could tell them I don't really give a damn if they think I "look fine". They're more than welcome to maintain their own health and let me maintain mine.

Oh and if you live in Southern California, come with me to this next Sunday. I'm super psyched: