Sunday, August 11, 2013

8-11-13

I have had a great weekend. A few months ago I bought tickets for my husband to see the Carolina Panthers play the Chicago Bears in Charlotte on Friday night. I took Friday off of work and we met up in Charlotte for lunch with two of my friends, Heather and Johnette, at a place called Dish. I liked the restaurant, but not so much what I ordered. I got the country fried steak which came with mashed potatoes and gravy and I got a bowl of fruit on the side. The potatoes were good, but I'm of the opinion that you can't really go wrong with real mashed potatoes. The steak, on the other hand needed a little help. It had a good flavor, but it was overly greasy and wasnt crunchy at all.  However, their sweet tea was exemplary, and that makes up for greasy country fried steak.

After we had lunch, we found our hotel and rested for a little while.  Then we walked down Trade Street and got a little to eat and then walked to the stadium. Not being familiar with the area and not having the foresight to look at a map and plan out our walking route we followed the advice of the people at the front desk of our hotel. By doing this we probably increased our walking by at least a third. We finally got there and found our seats. Total nosebleed section. 24 rows straight up to get to our seats. For some reason I had expected the seating to be the bleacher type variety not the chairs with sides. Fat asses and tiny seats don't exactly work together. We hung out for a while and decided to get something to drink and we also decided to stop by guest services to see if we had any options for more fat friendly seating.  Having to do this when you go to an event is a very humbling and embarrassing experience. While the workers are at least well trained enough not to make judgements to our faces, I will always wonder what they say after we've left. Anyway doing this caused us to have to walk all the way around the stadium twice (yay, activity!). We finally got something to drink, found our seats so that Michael could watch the game and I could watch the people (and read a trashy romance novel).  Watching an NFL game is much different than watching a college game. In my opinion the NFL game was more spectacle, whereas in college football it seems like there are more people involved in the game itself. Even a non-football fan like me can't help but get caught up in the enthusiasm of the fans at a college game. That enthusiasm seemed to be missing at this game. I still had a great time, though and Michael got to cross something else off of his bucket list. 

Yesterday morning we drove back home, picked up Flash at Lexington Pet Lodge (if you're looking for a really good place for grooming or to board your fur kid, look into them. They're really nice, clean, and they have no issue with you calling every day to check on your little pup. Not that I'd know or anything). We got home, took a really great nap and then went out for supper and to go see a movie. Between eating and the movie, we walked to Lane Bryant. I tried on a ton of clothes. Of course since I could only afford a few pieces, everything fit and looked nice. I ended up getting a cardigan, a top and a new pair of pants for work. The awesome news of the evening?  The pants are a size smaller. I'm finally into a size 26, which is kind of like saying I'm only humongous now instead of gargantuan. I'll take it. 

I have not been doing well in my Nerdfitness challenge. I have been a total slack ass.  Last week I didn't do any real exercise aside from my normal being up and about. I didn't track my food either, even though I still did well and didn't really lose control. Fitting into smaller pants has help my motivation again.  Friday evening we walked 2.5 miles getting to the stadium, around the stadium and back to the hotel, Saturday we did some walking while we were out for dinner and the movie and this morning we walked for about 35 minutes. I forgot to weigh myself this morning before we left the house so I'm not sure exactly where I am at the moment. I didn't weigh myself last week either. I'm going to do my best to have a better week this week and then remember to weigh next weekend sometime. My hope is that the scale says something between 265-263.  I'll be satisfied as long as it doesn't show more than 268. 

I feel good. I'm happier than I can ever really remember being. I don't feel defined by my size. I like me again. Best of all, I can look at myself in the mirror again and not be disgusted. There was a long time where I looked at only what I had to as I was getting ready for work or whatever. I couldn't point out a single thing about my appearance that I was satisfied with or liked. I can't call myself beautiful or attractive, but at least I'm not disgusting.  Beautiful and attractive is a work in progress. As of right now I'm down 75 lbs and I'm 6 lbs away from my lowest weight in recent memory (2007). I'm so excited about that and all of the things that losing weight is going to allow me to do in the future.