In celebration of Labo(u)r Day, I thought it might be fun to take a break from issues of weight loss, fitness, and/or maintenance for a minute. But just for a minute.

Last year, after 30 years of working for a living, I entered the world of the unemployed. I was fortunate in that I had ample time to prepare for it and received a nice severance when I left The Company, which has given me time to consider what exactly it is I might want to do for the next 10-15 years of my “career.” I was thinking about the jobs I’ve had through the years. Considering my–ahem!–advanced years, it’s unusual that I’ve only worked for four companies. Three, if you count only the jobs I’ve had as an adult, and one of those three was for only six months.

The first job for which I had income taxes deducted was at my cousin’s ice cream shop. I was 16 years old, and I made $1.60 per hour. And that was as a supervisor. It was for only one summer, and I wish I could say I learned a lot, but I didn’t. I saw it as a paycheck and nothing else. (Ironically, in many respects that’s how I had come to view my last job, too.) I also saw it as a great place to get free ice cream, which resulted in my first significant weight gain. Ugh.

I’ve been thinking about and trying to define my dream job. Something involving road trips and travel would be nice. I love exploring places and meeting new people. Maybe I can explore possibilities as a hotel/motel reviewer. I’ll get started by updating my online travel site reviews of last year’s hotel stays. You never know, some bigwig in the travel industry might be blown away by my observations and thoroughness.

But enough about ME, I want to know about YOU. What was the first “official” job you had? What would be your dream job? Are there any steps you could take to realize it?

It’s back to fun-with-fitness tomorrow!

So far wedding planning hasn’t been much fun – we’ve had trouble finding a venue and photographer (the big things!). But this weekend we finally set a date and started talking about something fun: the honeymoon.

I’ve been stalking wedding forums (because that’s what engaged girls do, right?) and have learned a lot of interesting things… mainly that people register for honeymoons nowadays. We came across a suggestion for Honeyfund where you can register for honeymoon items and decided to register there for our honeymoon. We both want to go to Hawaii so we decided on that as our destination which technically is just a stop on the way home. The sample registries gave us great ideas about stuff we can do and after a bit of research we found specific things to do like a bike ride and kayak tour and other fun active things. After adding a few of these fun experiences I realized it would be the most fun vacation I’ve ever had if we get to do it (and if we don’t and go somewhere else it will still be amazing).

Thinking about the honeymoon and all the fun stuff that we will (hopefully) get to do has motivated me to really get serious about knocking out the second half of my weight loss journey. I really wasn’t motivated by any of the wedding stuff but the idea of a awesome vacation afterwards has me fired up. I don’t want to go on another vacation where I’m not physically able to do things. I don’t want to go on my honeymoon being unhappy with my body. I don’t want to go to Hawaii and be unable to be completely comfortable in a bathing suit. I don’t want to go to Hawaii and get tired of kayayking before the tour is over or tired an hour into a half day hike. I want to go on the trip my fittest, best possible self.

One of the things on the honeyfund list is ziplining. I’ve done this before in Honduras and it was amazing fun.

The only problem was that because of my weight I had to have an extra safety harness thing. It was embarrassing and made the experience a little less fun because I had to have extra help. I would like the next time in Hawaii to be an experience where I’m a normal weight and ability that doesn’t require any extra help. At my current size I’m still able to do everything, but I’m still not to the point where I’m completely happy with my fitness level for activities like we would like to do.

So this hypothetical honeymoon planning has got me motivated. I was hoping to be at my goal weight before that time anyway, but now I see the honeymoon as a potential “reward” for it. In my opinion it would be like the ultimate reward for losing weight and getting in shape. It would be a reward to go on a trip without any thoughts about what I could or couldn’t do or about what would be harder because of my weight. It would be nice to go and just enjoy everything because I know I’m capable of anything.

Having a hugely awesome thing like that to look forward to has me so excited that I can’t sit still, but luckily I can use that energy to exercise!

Do you have a huge goal or reward you are working towards?

If you are married, where did you go on your honeymoon?

Today I was a little better. I got tons of stuff done around the house and ran some errands preparing for the week. I even made up a new fun dessert using some fresh peaches and raspberries…

OMG… it was SO good. Anyway, tomorrow I’m planning on an early morning run and some weight training. Then it’s back to work on the conference! Oh! and I have the teleclass in the evening if you’d like to join me!

Here’s my food journal for the day. I feel good about my food choices today. I’ve been battling a bit of morning sickness but it really hasn’t stopped me from eating.

Food	Units
~*~*~ monday ~*~*~
made some stuffed peaches this morning
had a late breakfast with this hubz… 1 egg/2 egg white omelet with tons of veggies and turkey bacon.
had another stuffed peach.. I couldn’t help myself. they are staring at me from the counter. so good!
handful of dark choc covered raisins while strolling around the mall.
leftover mango, black bean and couscous salad for lunch!
finished half the little guys grilled cheese. totally mindless munch.. wasn’t even hungry it was just good.
making dinner.. salmon like this.. but with collards instead of kale. plus some green beans and baked potato
fresh strawberries and raspberries for dessert!
Total:	N/A

Table provided by Roni’s Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.Follow live @RonisFood

If you are not reading this on Roni’s Weigh OR your RSS reader then it has been plagiarized!

Why do it again, you ask? Because the original piercing was an expression of a quasi youthful rebellion that had been banging around inside this arthritic, old-feeling body of mine the last year or so. A nose ring, to me, says, “Hey, I’m fun!” and god knows I haven’t been a barrel of laughs these days. The nose ring is a good reminder.

Almost 3-year-old Claire spent the night Thursday, and on Friday morning she watched me clean my nose ring. The ritual is ridiculously funny – swab soap on the site, sniff salted water up your nose, blow out, suck water, blow, suck water, blow. Swab antibiotic liquid on the site, sniff salted water up your nose, blow out, suck water, blow, suck water, blow.

Claire watched intently, then she laughed and said, “You look like a cow!”

She’d probably seen a photo like this somewhere:

But what I heard wasn’t a 3-year-old observing water coming out of my nose. What I heard were the two boys across the street from where I used to live in 1986 when I weighed 250 pounds the first time. (Yes, I’ve been down that 100-pound weight-loss road before.) I was knocking on my neighbor’s door, happy about something or other, when they yelled out, “Mooo! What a cow!”

Boom, just like that, the happiness was gone. My stomach hurt like they’d physically punched me. I’d been called names before, but “cow” seemed to hurt more than the others. And when Claire said I looked like a cow, for a split second I was self-conscious…again. Fat and therefore should be invisible…again.

Even after all this time thin, after all the work of keeping my body and emotions in sync and healthy, that old feeling of worthlessness lies dormant until it is awakened by a word: cow.

I don’t tell you this to be Debby Downer. I tell you this because it’s reason 593 why losing weight is not the cure for all ills. Losing weight can make us healthier, it can be a real boost to self-esteem, but sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you feel about yourself in the moment. An old sickly feeling can spring up at the most surprising times, fresh as a weed you thought you’d killed last week. Running away from it won’t work. Eating a jelly donut won’t do the trick, either. Facing it, labeling it, and not judging it or myself are the three best tools I’ve found to use when it happens.

I acknowledged the 250-pound me knocking on my neighbor’s door, gave her some loving kindness, and then kissed Claire on the head.

“Grammy DOES look like a cow!” I said. “And what do cows say?”

“Moooo!!” she said.
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Giveaway reminder! If you’d like to win Billy Blanks Jr. “Dance With Me Cardio Fit” DVD, jump over to Friday’s blog (click here) and leave a comment to throw your name in the hat. I’ll draw a winner on Wednesday.

My last weigh in was on a Wednesday when I had just gotten sick. That sickness basically lasted a full week (some sort of cold/flu monstrosity) and I laid around on the couch not being able to move. And because of that (and because I hate Wednesday weigh ins even though I keep trying to like them) I decided to go back to Sunday weigh ins and stick with what I’m used to doing.

Once I got over being sick I’ve had a fun weekend. Yesterday Kepa and I went to a beach to take photos and climb on the rocks.  Weekends hanging out with Kepa are fun!

Weigh In:

Current weight: 207.4 lbs
Previous weight: 206.1 lbs
weight Loss: +1.3 lbs
weight Loss Total: – 43.6 lbs
Starting weight: 251

A gain isn’t exactly fun to see, but I’m not shocked at all. No exercise, sickness, eating for comfort for half the week, and TOM bloatedness, all add up to being a gain. I know that one week a month it’s very likely the scale will show a higher number even if I do everything right, so considering this is the week and I didn’t do anything helpful I’m okay with it.

Plus I went back and looked at all my weigh ins from the last month and realized it’s pretty cool to see the (mostly) steady downward trend despite this week’s unfortunate weigh in:

210.6 lbs (7/25/10)

209.0 lbs (8/1/10)

208.4 lbs (8/8/10)

206.6 lbs (8/18/10)

206.1 lbs (8/25/10)

This week I’m up, but next week I’ll be back on that downward trend again. I’m healthy once again and ready to get in the gym finally. And I’ve started meal planning which should help me even further so I don’t eat crap on the weekends anymore.  I’m over it and ready to get past 200. I don’t know how many times I’ve said it but oh-my-goodness I’m really freaking over it.

Goals From Last Week

Goal #1: Get better! DONE! I’M HEALTHY!

Goal #2: Workout at the gyms I visited and join gym #2. – DONE! We joined gym #2 and I worked out briefly once. That’s pretty lame, but considering my cough attack after that workout I had to do what was best for my body and sit it out.

Goal #3:  Make at least two new meals this week. – Done!  I made turkey burgers with parsnip fries and Kepa and I made roasted balsamic brussel sprouts and thai green curry chicken and tuna, corn, and sweet potato frittatas. So three new recipes these week and all were amazing.

Goals For This Week

Goal #1: Workout at least 4 times this week. Get in the gym now! Strength training ftw!

Goal #2: Make two new meals.

Goal #3: Count calories. OMG. Really? Yes. I’m going to try counting calories this week. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I hate counting calories and I’m an intuitive eater – even when I meal plan I make it flexible and just do what I want. But I’ve decided to try my best at calorie counting because 1) it is something that will help Kepa (especially when I make meals and serve them)… 2) it will be helpful for when I create/share recipes… 3) it probably will help me too (I tracked nutritional info for a while to keep my sodium low and probably still should). I admit that I’m going into it because Kepa mentioned it and I would do just about anything for him, but I think ultimately it will benefit everyone if I can find a way to do it without driving myself crazy.

So I’m over the sickness and over being 200+ lbs and over so many things from last week. This is a new week and it’s going to be an awesome one!