Surprise

Saturday afternoon I think Lauren got hungry. She asked me a couple of times what we were having for dinner. I told her grilled cheese and soup as soon as I finished working on the check book. I guess she couldn't wait for fear of starving, so she did it herself.

Caleb and I decided it was the best grilled cheese and soup ever!

Weighing in

Luckily, or not, my weekly weigh in today didn't reflect how poorly I've eaten since Thanksgiving and how many workouts I've skipped. My blood sugar crashed yesterday afternoon, it was a direct result of the bad food choices I've made the last few weeks. I know when my blood sugar is dropping because my eyes start to sweat, my bones feel like they're shaking, my legs turn to jell-0 and when it gets very bad like yesterday, I have a hard time concentrating. Unfortunately, by the time I feel the symptoms it's too late. I need to control my sugar level all day, everyday.

There have been two ways for me to maintain a steady blood sugar level. The first is to have a steady intake of sugar and simple carbs. The other way, the healthy way (that has worked for the past year and a half since my "health makeover") has been to make good food choices and exercise. Getting ready for the holidays I chose option A without exercise. Yesterday afternoon that choice came back to bite me. Several hours later I was still feeling the effects of the crash and I'll have to be very careful in the next few days to avoid another one.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions. I figure if I need to make a change, today is the best time to start. So I'm making a January 7^th resolution to get back on "my plan". It's not a formal plan, it's bits and pieces of information that, through trial and error, work for me. The highlights of what I'm going to get back to doing are to limit "white stuff" (white sugar and flour), exercise, eat more small meals, journal what I eat and combine protein and healthy carbs for snacks. That sounds so simple but it isn't and it will take 2-3 weeks to get back on track.

I'm not saying I shouldn't have eaten any goodies (have I mentioned I love cookies?). But all the cookies, candy and junk I ate over the holidays weren't worth how awful I felt yesterday. Because I know that what I eat effects how I feel, I needed to be more mindful of what I eat and increase my exercise, not let it fall off the "to do" list. I thought I could just coast through the holidays without having to watch that closely – wrong! What I lost sight of is that weight/health maintenance is a journey, not a destination.

First Book of 2009

I finished my first book for this year! I started it just before Christmas but just couldn't get it finished in '08. The book was Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. I didn't know anything about it other that the excerpt from Amazon.com but it sounded good and it wasn't an author I have read so, I decided to give it a read. It was, I'll admit, not the flowers and sunshine I'm used to in most of the books I choose, it was a bit more "detailed". I tend to choose books that are safe, the same author and same style, this time I branched out. What got my attention was the setting of this book, it took place current day and in Nazi Germany during WWII. I'm a bit of a history buff, my favorite time period is the Civil War through the late 1940's. Not really a surprise this would catch my eye.

The story is about Anna's life in Germany with her daughter, Trudie, before they came to the US and the adult Trudie working on a history research project and finding her story along the way. It has a bit of romance, a bit of history, and the interaction/dysfunction of the the main characters. I really liked the story, this one goes on the "may read it again list".