diets tried and failed

This morning I got on the scale and was okay with what I saw. Not ecstatic, mind you, but accepting. For most of my life I've tried to lose weight. I thought about how far I've come, having lost about 35 pounds, and what a long journey it's been. I've tried almost everything out there, with little results. Finally I found the one thing that worked. Don't worry, I won't keep it a secret. :)

-I tried Rev XP. Probably my first attempt at pills. Contains just a ton of caffeine and "herbal supplements" and gets you going crazy. I lost several pounds in the first couple days but after that not so much.

-I tried SlimFast. Okay, shake for breakfast, shake for lunch, and a sensible dinner is harder than it sounds. Who wants to drink flavored milk for breakfast and lunch EVERY SINGLE DAY. Not me. Although I do still drink SlimFast for breakfast fairly often. It is pretty good...in limited amounts.

-I tried Hoodia. Some kind of herb from an African cactus. It's supposed to suppress hunger and make you feel full. Well when you eat even when you're not hungry (like me) it isn't very effective.

-I tried a juice fast. I drank juice for four days straight. I lost like five pounds, but drinking only juice and not eating any solid food does some weird things to you. It was supposed to be some kind of detox program to do for a month and I was supposed to make my own juice with a juicer, but I didn't have one. This one actually sounds legitimate as a detox program, but for long-run weight loss, not healthy. Did you know if you heat up tomato juice it tastes like tomato soup?

-I tried the "apple diet." Don't worry, I didn't only eat apples. What I was supposed to do is eat an apple before every meal. Apples have a pretty high water content and relatively few calories so they will help you feel full without putting on the pounds. Well, I got pretty tired of apples.

-I tried the "yogurt diet." Ever heard that increasing your calcium intake will help you lose weight? Well, it's true. I ate yogurt for every meal, and I got really sick of yogurt. After that I didn't eat it for about a year.

-I tried a colon cleanse. I had to take these disgusting pills twice a day and drink this gross packet of fizzy juice. I'll keep my colon dirty, thank you.

-I tried SlimQuick. Probably the only diet pill I was on for an extended period of time. I actually did lose weight on this one, but it was probably because I was exercising too.

Add on to all the things I tried all the things I've even thought about trying and you've got yourself quite a list. And this isn't even counting all the actual "eat-less-exercise-more" diet diets I tried. But they didn't work. Finally one day, so sick of everything I just wanted to give up, I found the answer. Here is is:

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

This verse gave me the motivation to lose weight. I was trashing God's temple and it wasn't right and I didn't want to do it anymore. It's hard, but I also found this verse to help me stay focused:

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7

So now I try to eat healthy and I make a concentrated effort to work out fairly often. I've learned the hard way that making the right choices is the only way to lose weight. The other ways may offer a quick-fix, but they are not sustainable and they are not God-honoring. There is no discipline in taking a pill to lose weight. My body is disciplined to lift the weights I tell it too, it is powerful to withstand strenuous exercise, and I do my best to honor God by keeping his temple in good condition.

all my names

YOUR REAL NAME:
Alaina Lynn Bundy

YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 4 letters of real name plus izzle.)
Alaiizzle

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal)
Blue Kitty

YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (your middle name and street you live on)
Lynn Highway 87 W

YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name.)
Bunal

YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (Your 2nd favorite color, and favorite drink)
Green Pass-O-Guava Juice

YOUR ARABIC NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms middle name)
Lnlvean

YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:( Parents middle names)
Lynn Joel. Or Joel Lynn

YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Kiki

apartment hunting

Darren and I have sort of started thinking about/looking at apartments for this fall. He originally wanted to live in the U married housing because it was supposed to be pretty cheap, which it was. Unfortunately it was only 382 square feet. Sick. So that got thrown out the window. I've been looking at some different apartments today and I did find this one that I really like. It also appears fairly reasonable and somewhat close to both our schools. It's larger, which is good, because I don't think I could handle living in a 382 square foot apartment for two and a half years. A semester, yes. But anything more than that is just too long. There were a couple others I liked, but the Wheelock Parkways was definitely my favorite.

We'll have to move into an apartment the 3rd or 4th weekend in August. Darren has a military thing from the 28th to the 11th of September, so he'll be gone for those two weeks. My school starts the last week in August, so it just depends on how much time we want to settle in. I hope rent can be prorated so we don't have to pay for the whole month of August when we won't be living there, but I have my doubts.

Darren's gone tonight at another tree conference up in Cloquet so I'm all alone again. I was planning on going home and exercising and then cleaning the house but I woke up this morning with a sore throat and just am feeling really tired and out of it, so I'm not sure if all that will happen. I'll probably just go home and lay on the couch reading and watching movies. I did just clean the house last Wednesday and I like to clean it every week, but with us being gone Thurs-Sun it didn't get that dirty. Plus we have Blair's dog Buddy there with us right now until he and Mom get back from Hawaii and it feels useless to clean when there's a dog in the house. I'll probably just clean the toilets and wait on the rest. We don't have a water softener so the toilets always look dirty. It's annoying. Speaking of which, I need to buy some Iron Out for the laundry...my whites are getting dingy and I'm too impatient to wait until I have a whole load of whites that I can bleach. No, I don't separate my laundry. Bad, I know, but I've never had a problem until this annoying iron-y water. Ugh.

week 3 weight loss

Ugh. I was up .5 pounds since last week, which means I've only lost 1.4 in three weeks. Lame. But I guess it was to be expected after totally pigging out down in Iowa last weekend. I'm actually sort of surprised I got that low, because on Monday morning it wasn't looking too promising. But this weekend we're just staying home and there's no cheesecake so hopefully I'll be able to do better. Here comes the silver lining: of the .5 pounds I'm up since last week, only .1 pound of it is bodyfat. Yay! So that crazy new workout must be building my muscles. It sure feels like it is. I really need to start strength-training. I just don't like that as well as cardio so I hardly ever do it, but building muscle is the best way to lose fat.

Last night I did have a piece of leftover wedding cake, but it was our one-month anniversary, and the last piece of cake, so I know there won't be any more of that. I also tried to have a piece of chocolate while Darren was in the bathroom but he heard me and chased me through the house trying to grab it. I couldn't get the wrapper off fast enough so I put it in my mouth half-wrapped when he caught me. Haha, I showed him. Although, I must admit, it does make me feel slightly pathetic. But he said he would try and lose weight with me. He's only going to cut back on what he's eating because he refuses to do workout videos with me and it's too cold outside to run.

The 8 pound goal is pretty much going out the window. We're leaving in four weeks (yay!) and if I could lose 3 pounds it would be pretty great. I'm glad we're home this weekend so I can try and eat normally. I usually spend all week trying to lose my weekend weight gain and by Thursday or Friday I'm finally feeling good about myself again only to chow down all weekend long. What a bad cycle. We're going out to Troy and Tina's for dinner tonight so I had better behave!

weekend in Iowa

We went down to Iowa to visit Chris and Courtney for the weekend. It was tons of fun. We went bowling, played some laser tag, went ice skating, and ate a lot! The drive was pretty brutal, but we left really early on the way home Sunday (got up at 5:20!) and made it home around 3 after stopping in Brainerd at Target and Cub. We wanted to get home pretty early and still have time to relax and unwind before work on Monday. I'm glad we got up early and left, plus I slept the first two hours and Darren drove, so it definitely worked out well for me. We got IHOP when we left and it was GOOD. Yummy french toast.

Last night Darren's mom and grandparents came over for dinner and we watched Fireproof. I had seen it in theaters but it was everyone else's first time. We all really liked it. Tonight we're just going home and relaxing and heading over to my mom's for some hot tub time. We've been married for one month today, which is so crazy. I can't believe it's been a month already!

week 2 weight loss

Well, not so good this week. The results are pretty disheartening. I'm UP .8 pounds since last week (darn you to heck, you cheesecake). Ugh. Although, I didn't work out this morning, and usually when I weigh myself after I work out I weigh like half a pound less. From all the sweating, I assume, but I can't be sure. It sounds weird. It is weird. One of my friends said she always weighed herself after working out because she weighed less then and I started weighing myself before and after and it's true. Anyway, I'm going to work out tonight after work before Darren gets home from a workshop in Cloquet. I have been really good about working out this week. I've worked out every day since Sunday for a total of 130 minutes. I still need to get some strength training in there though.

Well, the bright side is I'm down a total of 1.9 pounds since I started 2 weeks ago, so I am sticking to my pound-per-week goal. Of course the first couple pounds come off the easiest. It's those last five that have been with me for ten years I'm worried about.

is it monday AGAIN?

This morning felt like a Monday. It was just one of those mornings. I was SOOO tired when the alarm went off and I woke up with a headache so I hit the snooze for almost an hour while Darren kept yelling at me to get up. Finally he said he had to go so I went downstairs to kiss him goodbye and then went and slept on the couch for a while. I finally forced myself to get up and work out and I thought it was going to kill me. I managed to get ready for work but was already late before I left home. I had to take Darren's truck today and when I walked out the door I realized the codes for the post office boxes were in my car, and I had to stop and get the mail since my mom is gone. So I drove to Darren's work and my stupid key wouldn't turn in the car door (better check into that later) but then I realized it was actually MY keyring with Darren's truck starter hooked on. So I used my power-unlock to get in the door and get the codes. I drove over to the post office and managed to open the boxes on the first try. There was a ton of mail since there wasn't any yesterday, and I hit my head on the truck trying to get in without dropping it. It hurt and messed up my hair. When I went to put on my seatbelt before I left the post office it was stuck. Like when they lock when you slam on the brakes. Only it was so tight I couldn't get it around me. And that's when I started swearing. Sorry God. So I squished myself into the seat and pulled as hard as I could and strapped myself in there. Only then I couldn't move much of anything, so I undid the buckle and threw the seatbelt off of me (it hit the window so good thing it didn't crack) and said "screw it." Out loud to myself. Then I drove off to work where someone had made cupcakes and brought them in so I felt a little bit better.

weekend

I hate how fast the weekends go by. And it's not like we did a ton of stuff, we mostly just sat around. But it still went by way too fast. Friday night we made a big dinner of meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes, yummy. We watched some Friends and just kind of relaxed. We did run over to my mom's quick so she could give Darren the low-down on fixing the fire for the next two weeks while she and Blair are in Hawaii, lucky duckies. Also ran up to Godfrey's and bought stuff to make cheesecake...mmmm...Oh, all day Friday I never even realized it was Friday the 13th...kind of weird since I was at work and writing the date down on stuff. I didn't notice until this morning but I guess nothing bad happened so oh well.

Valentine's Day we got up and made a big breakfast of blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, and bacon and kind of just hung around all morning and baked our cheesecake. We packed up some pop, chips, and hotdogs and went snowshoeing out behind our place since it borders the foothills. We had a little fire and roasted hotdogs. I haven't had hotdogs over the campfire since last summer, so it was fun. I did get a little cold while we were just sitting there, though. Darren made another batch of jerky when we got back and I took a warm shower and read my book. For Valentine's Day dinner we stayed in and had chicken kiev, rice, salad, and peas with our cheesecake for dessert. We drank a whole bottle of champagne and I never felt a thing until I just about fell asleep standing up. It just conked me right out. We finished up that cheesecake yesterday...good thing it was only a half recipe.

Yesterday we were lazy again and stayed home from church. We pretty much sat on the couch. My brother came over around lunch time and I did his laundry for him since Mom is gone. Darren went ice fishing with his boss in the afternoon and I relaxed and then did a new workout video, which I actually kind of liked. I got on the scale afterwards and it was not good (darn all that cheesecake!) so I'll be hitting the workout and slimfast pretty hard the next couple of days. Ugh. I'm bad at losing weight...

We don't have any plans for tonight. I put a roast in the crockpot this morning so at least I don't have to worry about dinner. I do really need to exercise when I get home from work. I've just been so tired lately. Not sure what's wrong with me. Sometimes I go through weird phases where I sleep a lot and then others where I don't sleep at all. I'm just like that.

Death

This is going to be kind of a sad, reflective post...

It all started as I was reading a friend's blog today. She was writing about losing one of her good friends a while back to a long battle with cancer. There was a link to her friend's blog, so I went there and read some of the last posts before she died. It was hard. I didn't even know her, but my close friend did, and I felt for her. It's scary knowing of someone so young dying of cancer. It makes it so much more real, so much more a threat. This brave young woman fought for a year and a half before she passed away and as I was thinking about that I realized how difficult that must have been for her family. To watch her suffer and slowly die. But then I thought, "at least they got a chance to say goodbye." It might sound morbid, but I went on to think about which would be the preferable way to die. Slowly, with lots of room for 'last times' and goodbyes, or suddenly, with no final 'I love yous'. And I couldn't decide.

My father died suddenly. One minute I believed him living and the next I was informed he had been dead for hours. And I felt a million things all at once, yet nothing at the same time. There were no goodbyes or I love yous, and there were no last times...only the ones I would look back on later and cherish as my last moments with him, unaware of the future. I think the shock of losing a loved one so suddenly makes for a longer grieving process. With slow deaths you have time to prepare, and in the end it always seems more like...relief--that they are finally in a place of no pain, that the long anxious waiting is over, that closure has been found and life will continue--than it does an overwhelming sorrow. There's no shock--that has already come and gone with whatever diagnosis led to this end. There's only quiet sorrow and the God-given overwhelming urge to continue life...to continue living.

It's times like these I do not know how I could survive without God. How do unbelievers weather the storm of life and death without relying on Him? To have no hope, no joy, and no future would be beyond my imagination. Even in death we as Christians know we have won. 1 Corinthians 15 is especially encouraging to me.

"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

(1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

If I had to choose between the two, I couldn't. Death is a horrible, yet necessary part of life, and we all must come to it eventually. To die suddenly is perhaps better for the dead, yet more difficult for the living, and to die a long painful death is difficult for both, yet offers final opportunities otherwise not found. In the end, it must be left to God. All we, all I, can do is trust Him.

laundry 101

Today's lesson: Do not wash ACUs with towels.

Darren had drill last weekend and his ACUs have been sitting on the floor since then so yesterday I finally decided to clean out the million pockets and wash them. He had me wash them before drill (not sure if they were dirty or what the deal was) and when I asked then if I could wash them with other things he said I probably shouldn't. So I listened...the first time.

Yesterday I threw his ACUs in the washer and figured I could throw some other stuff in there with them. Hate to do a load of wash and not take advantage of it. So I threw in some jeans and some of his work clothes and some towels. Well, the velcro on the ACUs destroyed them. I mean, they're still usable, but I had to take out the scissors and cut off all the strings after the velcro shredded them. Lesson learned. Ugh.

week 1 weight loss

Well the first week went pretty well, which is fantastic! The un-fantastic part is that most of that weight was just fluctuation since I was pretty high when I started. Oh well. I still lost 2.7 pounds! I told Darren he had to help me by making sure I didn't pig out on chocolate and got up to work out in the morning. So last night (I totally forgot I told him that) I went to grab a piece of candy and he practically tackles me in the kitchen and won't let me eat it! I was mad at the time but now I'm glad. And then this morning the alarm went off and I didn't want to get up to work out and he shoved me over and ripped off the covers and turned on the light. Then when I still refused to get up he tickled me until I relented. Annoying. But effective. So he's like my personal trainer now, I guess. I have managed to work out several days in the past week. I did cardio this morning before work and when I get home I'm going to do some strength training for a little bit. Then I have to clean the house. Ugh.

Tri Care

So Darren and I decided to get on the military insurance called Tri Care, which is actually really good. It's $180 a month for both of us and covers prescriptions 100% and has a low deductible. Bummer he can only have it as long as he's in the Guard, but hopefully by the time he gets out I'll have a job with insurance.

Anyway, we got married on the 24th of January so we had until the 31st (a Saturday) to get our marriage certificate, enroll me in DEERS, and apply for the Tri Care to be covered for the month of February. They stressed that we MUST have the application in by the 1st. We got back from our honeymoon on Wednesday and spent Thursday (the 29th) driving down to Little Falls to enroll in DEERS. Got that all taken care of, no problem, and the woman who was helping us said she could take care of Tri Care for us too. So she went on her computer and did all the application online and all we had to do was sign it and fax or mail it. Darren specifically asked her if we still needed to have it in by the 1st and she went on about how since the applicated was dated before the 1st, it would be okay as long as they received payment before the 10th.

We got home late Thursday and on Friday sent the application in by fax. Darren called them on Monday and they never got it so we had to fax it again. Well now they're saying that since they didn't get the application until the 4th we aren't covered until March 1. SO ANNOYING. After we made so much effort to make sure everything got taken care of before Feb 1. Ugh...ticks me off. Oh well. Hopefully I don't get in any traumatic incidents until March 1, because we'll be paying out-of-pocket. Dang it. It's less the fact that we aren't covered and more the fact that they claim to never have received our fax. But that's how the military is sometimes...

losing weight

I gained three pounds over the holidays and I haven't been able to lose it yet. Ugh. We're going to Grand Cayman on March 25 which is 49 days from now (exactly 7 weeks) if I did my math right. I want to lose 8 pounds between now and then. The three I've been up since Christmas plus another five to get to my goal weight. I've never reached it, but I've been within four pounds.

I read an article in one of my Bride magazines a while back about how most woman gain a lot of weight after they get married and that is NOT going to be me! I've already lost 35 pounds; you'd think 8 would be easy. Granted, it took me almost two years to lose that much weight...I'm slow. That worries me a little bit about losing 8 pounds in seven weeks. I'm going to have to hit it hard, I guess. Well, really I weighed about three pounds less a week ago and I KNOW I didn't gain three pounds in a week, so some if it is just weight fluctuation anyway. So hopefully it'll be more like 6-ish pounds.

I'm hoping keeping track a little bit on here will help motivate me. I've done fairly well eating today so far although I didn't get up and work out this morning like I should have. Maybe tonight. Yesterday I did cardio so today is strength training which is nice because it's something I can do while watching TV. With cardio I have to watch my little workout video but I have the strength training one memorized for the most part so I should be able to do it while we watch Friends tonight.

MRS

I guess life doesn't stop once you get married. Mine sure hasn't. I can't believe how busy the past week and a half has been! The wedding day just flew by--it was so crazy. It's all kind of a big blur, which makes me a little sad. I want to do it again because it was so much fun and I feel like I missed so much. Of course, on that day the only thing I really wanted was for it to be over. I was TIRED by about 8 pm and ready to call it a night. Plus my dress was suffocating me inch by inch.

Darren and I got all settled in our place, but I still need to do some cleaning. At least the place doesn't look like a disaster anymore. It did for several days but it's liveable now. Yesterday I made our first "traditional" after-work dinner and it turned out great. We watched several episodes of Friends (we're going to watch all 10 seasons but we're only on the first) and just took it easy. It was nice. Tonight we're having chicken fajitas for supper; Darren's in charge of those. :)