Depression

I know I've been quiet for a while and I think that the frequency of my posts are going to remain slow.  Since my surgery, and then dealing with the whole family getting sick (which we are not completely over yet) I have sunk into a deep depression.  It's hard to make myself get up in the morning.  It's hard to make myself do things throughout the day.  Sometimes I feel like I have no emotion.  I'm tired all the time.  All I want to do is sleep.  I don't get excited, I am not motivated.  It has been incredibly difficult.  Even writing the post right now is hard.  I don't feel inspired and I have no great words of wisdom.  I wonder why I'm writing a weight loss blog when I have failed so miserably to even achieve a healthy weight.  The good news, if there is any, is that I am managing to maintain right now.  At least I am not going up.  I am at 171, only 4 pounds away from hitting the obese category once again.  My clothes don't fit.  My workout clothes don't fit. and I find myself wishing I hadn't given away all my size 14 pants.  I still have some leggings and a few large size 12 pants that fit. 

I know that this can't last forever, so I am trying to look forward and hold on as tight as I can for now.  I can't afford to do what I did shortly after the miscarriage. If I do I will end up close to 200 pounds and that might destroy me. 

Thinking about patience I know we want to try for another child in the near future, I do need to let my body heal and I hope to get out of this depression before that happens.  So that is 9 months where I have to be patient and I can't diet and I don't want to gain a zillion pounds.  So the focus has to be on breaking bad habits and eating healthy.  I want to do that much slower than I have been doing it.  I tend to jump in all at once.  I have an all or nothing mentality that I've talked about many times.  I think it's time to try something different.  Make one little change.  Focus on one little thing at a time.  The problem is, I don't know what to choose to focus on.  There are so many things I could focus on, which would be the easiest place to start.  Somewhere I would have the most success and could really turn into a long term healthy habit.  I have thought about cutting sugar but I have tried that before and it always backfires on me.  So maybe instead of trying to not eat something, I should try to eat something such as vegetables.  I like vegetables, it is just preparing them can be a pain.  I'm thinking that is where I'm going to start.  Getting in 4 servings of vegetables a day.  Maybe if I focus on adding things in, the bad things will naturally begin to diminish and if I add in enough good things, the bad things will dwindle to a manageable amount. 

It's worth a try.  At least it is somewhere to start. 

Struggles and Patience

It has been stressful here to say the least.  Since my surgery my I have been on an emotional rollercoaster, but mostly depressed, tired and cranky.  I've thought about stopping everything all together.  Stopping the blog, and just taking a step back from everything.  It's been non stop pain since my miscarriage.  First the miscarriage, then my grandma's death, then dealing with the weight gain, then the hemorrhaging, and recovering from surgery, now the whole family is sick, myself included.  Lily was throwing up and had diarrhea on Saturday.  Chloe has been sick for a week now with a cough, runny nose, some sort of head cold, which I have also come down with.  So I'm trying to recover from the surgery, dealing with all sorts of emotional trauma, suffering from extreme exhaustion and now I've got a bad cold.  I've been kept up coughing most nights, and what nights I'm not coughing, the kids get me up because they are also sick.  Chloe then starts complaining about things she has imagined up in her sleep, like how her bracelets are no longer on the door knob.  She totally freaked out at 1am because she thought her bracelets got moved.  But they were exactly where she left them and once she saw they were there, she moved onto the next thing she imagined up.  And this continued for over an hour.  It was awful.  I think I'm on the back side of this thing, but I'm still not back to normal and to top it off I've been having a lot of uterine pain today.  Whenever I stand up I've been hurting.  It's not cramps, but some other pain.  It might be from the constant coughing.  Last night I was in a lot of pain because I was coughing so much it was making the spot where I have my scar from my C-section hurt. 

Despite all this, I have started exercising again.  Just an easy 30 minute exercise.  I started the Couch to 5k program with an app from ZenLabs.  I feel better just getting a little bit of easy exercise in, like I'm actually doing something.  At the same time it is depressing to see how much I have deteriorated because of the medical issues I've been having.  I used to be able to exercise 2 hours a day and now I can barely last 30 minutes.  The weight is weighing me down.  I feel it everywhere and it feels heavy on my body.  We are going skiing this weekend and for the second time I will have to sit out because I'm too fat and out of shape to go skiing.  None of my ski clothes fit and I don't think I could last through the physical demands of skiing. Combine that with still recovering from my three month miscarriage and surgery and it's just not a good idea.  I was planning on sitting out the ski season this year, but I was supposed to be pregnant. Sitting out the ski season and not being pregnant is a huge blow. 

One thing I have been thinking a lot about lately is patience, of which I have none.  Perhaps this trial is to teach me patience.  I want what I want and I want it now.  Waiting is difficult for me.  From my research and studies, patience seems to have three components to it, or can be applied/interpreted in three different ways.

1.  Patience is the ability to put our desires on hold for a time.

This is your basic, waiting for what you want.  I can apply this to eating by this thought.  Can I be patient enough to put my desire for a cookie on hold until a time when it is more appropriate to eat that cookie.  Instead of eating 20 cookies all at once, can I be patient and eat one cookie every 20 days. 

2. Patience is actively working towards worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results do not appear instantly or without effort.

This one hits home for me.  I want to start working on losing weight, and I want to see results and be at the finish line NOW, not a year from now.  And when I go a few days and the scale is up or hasn't changed then I get discouraged and upset.  Having patience to endure the weight loss journey and to persevere when things don't appear to be going as you would like, and continue to work and problem solve and not give up is one of the most challenging aspects of losing weight.

3.  Patience is enduring well

This one I relate to my trials and problems.  How well can I endure trial by fire?  Through this very difficult challenge that has lasted over three months now I am not sure I have endured very well or very patiently.  I wanted it over fast, and to move on.  Instead it built and lingered and I've become more depressed and I want to cry out to God and ask why am I still dealing with these problems?  Why did I have to start hemorrhaging three months after my miscarriage, why did I have to have a miscarriage in the first place?  haven't I been through enough, why is the whole family sick including myself, making it even more difficult to heal, sleep, and now I have super cranky kids and I'm super cranky! 

As much as I have been kicking at the pricks I have also tried to get through this with some semblance of normalcy.  I continue to do reading lessons with the kids, and I've tried to keep our daily scripture study going.  I have been studying my scriptures daily, and I have been trying to take the kids out to fun places and continue doing things with them.  It's been hard and I feel like I'm stumbling along. 

Last night I was reading in the book of Mormon (because I am Mormon and I study the Book of Mormon) and one of the verses really stood out to me.  In this verse one of the prophets, Alma, is preaching to the members of the church.  Much like Paul in the New Testament preaching to members of the church (such as the book of Corinthians and Romans)  Anyway, Alma says this

"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive."  Alma 7:23

Patient and long suffering.  It seems to be the theme that I keep stumbling upon.  So, that is the attribute I am going to work on developing.  If we get pregnant again in the next few months I am going to have a major Hiatus in my weight loss efforts.  Can I be patient enough to endure that without going overboard and ending up at the same weight I was when Chloe was born?  Can I be patient enough to wait and endure and just eat what is good for me, but not go extreme with severely restricting my calories.  Find the balance, and let the time go by.  The necessary time to reach a healthy weight, going slow so that I don't turn back to binging.  Going slow so that I don't feel like I'm dieting and then I am 'on plan' or 'off plan'.  Instead, I just eat the way I eat.  Change habits, and if it takes 5 years then so be it.  That is the kind of patience I need to have.  The kind that lets go of the obsessive need to lose weight and shifts my focus onto better things, like feeling better, and teaching my kids.  I need to be "temperate in all things" and remember my blessings and be thankful for the things that I do have.  Like my two girls and my great Husband and my house and the fact that I am still alive today to be here for my kids. 


Patience....that is not an easy attribute to develop.

(My points about patience were taken from this talk:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/continue-in-patience?lang=eng

)

Feelin Good

Today was the successful completion of day 3.  I've felt a lot better over the past few days and I think its because of the surgery.  I think that when the fetal tissue was retained, and my hormones were all out of wack it was really messing me up.  I just didn't care about anything.  Now I know that I have a certain amount of responsibility for my actions over the past several months, but I really do think my hormones had a hand in my mood and emotions over the past three months. 

Yesterday I was worried about the afternoon because I was going to be eating late.  Lily had a dental appointment at 5:10pm and I wouldn't be eating until 6:30 or later.  I was worried about going that long without food and ending up in a state of "I don't care, I am just so hungry!"  And since my father in law is our dentist we went over to their house for dinner.  They have lots of chips and so that was a minefield I had to maneuver.  Fortunately for me they also had bananas on the counter and I chose to eat a banana over stuffing myself with chips.  Matt's mom made an amazing meal with bbq ribs and mashed potatoes and vegetables.  I tracked everything in MFP as best I could and I ended up under by about 50 calories for the day.  I'm basically trying to copy what Katie did.  I know that everyone is different and it might not work for me as well, but then again it might.  I've never taken such a casual approach to tracking, where I really try to listen to my body (with a little help from tracking) and allow my calorie variation to fluctuate where if I'm not too hungry one day, then I can eat fewer calories and if I am more hungry another day I can eat a little more and one day a week allow myself to even hit 2000+ calories allowing myself flexibility in eating out without going overboard.  Usually when I would eat out I wouldn't track calories at all and I'm sure my meal alone ended up being over 2k calories.  Giving myself even 750-800 calories to eat out gives me a lot more menu choices but then keeps things in perspective and I still feel like I am getting a treat. 

Some other things that are different this time around is that I am not snacking inbetween meals.  I really like what Katie said, where not snacking allows her to have higher calorie meals so she can eat more or use better quality ingredients like heavy whipping cream, and full fat dairy (although I generally tend to avoid dairy these days, the same principles apply).  The last few days I have been eating chips every day.  I really love chips and I bought some individual to go bags from Costco so they are already portioned out and I don't have to worry about counting them out of a big bag and then feeling sad that I can only have so many chips.  This way I get to eat a whole bag of chips!  I haven't had dessert the past few days. I haven't wanted any, and that is probably due in some part to all the binging on sweets I've been doing lately.  Today was the first day that I really wanted something sweet after dinner and I decided to write a blog post first and now I'm not really interested in eating anything.  Today I ended up about 85 calories over and that's pretty good.  I'm going to take another leaf from Katie and not let the red numbers bother me.  She figured out what number of calories worked for her, and I am going to have to figure out the same thing.  I was shocked when she stated on her blog that she is eating about 1900 calories a day for maintenance and MFP told her to eat only 1500 a day for maintenance.  Just goes to show you how much those calorie trackers don't know about each individual.  (However I do believe that Katie runs five days a week and does not add exercise calories back into the equation)  So that is another thing to think about.  For Katie's full story visit her blog at www.runsforcookies.com

Just in the past three days I have gone from 166 to 164.  I know it's probably just food and water weight, but it is still good to see.  I think I can get a good streak going again.  I really want to get a good streak going and figure something out before I get pregnant again just so that I can make sure I am eating right during my pregnancy.  (whenever we decide to try again, after recent events I'm a little apprehensive about it). 

So here is to the third good day in a row.  As Joy says from Inside out "We are going to have a good day which turns into a good week which turns into a good year, which turns into a good life!"

Source

Making Plans

So after deciding that I have no one to blame but myself, I thought about how I can go about to remedy the problem.  The first step in fixing the problem is realizing and admitting that it is a problem.  What I realized was that ever since I decided to be a stay at home mom, I have been lacking a schedule.  All my life I have had a schedule to abide by which was given me by outside sources.  School, or work.  But once I became a stay at home mom, no one gave me a schedule to adhere to and I became lazier and lazier because I really didn't have to do anything.  Now, I know I have accomplished a lot over the past 5 years and it's not like I neglected my kids, I just know in hindsight that I could have done better.  But I have five years of experience now that I didn't have then.  And I know a thing or two now that I didn't know then.  But something that has been missing from my life is a schedule, and there is no one to come up with it but me.  So I've decided that before I go to bed at night I will write out a schedule for the next few days.  It has times on it, but that is more to keep me on track vs being very rigid.  Last night I wrote out this schedule for today:
7-8: morning, breakfast, teeth brush, etc
8:30- kids bath
9:30 scripture study
10:30- drop off kids, go to grocery store
12:00- lunch, flute, nap
2:30 pick up kids
3:00- chloe reading lesson, lily activity pack
4-5:30 movie
5:30 dinner
6:30-chloe bed

While the day didn't adhere strictly to the schedule, the kids ate breakfast and I gave them a bath, then we did scripture study and I dropped the kids off at a friends house who had volunteered to watch them for me for a couple of hours.  I ended up playing my flute later in the day and I decided to play a game instead of taking a nap.  The kids watched a movie later in the evening and dinner didn't happen until 6:15.  But in essence, I was able to do everything on the list, and I feel more accomplished today.  It's a good start.  I already have tomorrow planned and when I'm done posting I will plan out Thursday.  I am usually more optimistic in my planning because I plan things that I emotionally want to do, even if I fell tired the next day hopefully I will stick to the schedule.  I just need to give it a good effort and stick with it.  Katie has been really inspiring about sticking with things that you start long enough to see them have an effect.  It takes hard work and dedication, and things can be tweaked if need be but you can't see the results unless you stick with it long enough to see results. 

In that same line, I have decided to sort of copy what Katie did to lose the weight.  I like how she talked about giving herself enough freedom so she didn't feel deprived, or restricted.  I also like the not eating snacks inbetween meals which allows her to eat more for her meals.  I think the fewer times I have to be around food and eating food the better.  Unlike a drug addict, I can't just quit eating.  Today I feel like I did a good job of eating slower to allow myself time to digest so I wasn't still hungry when I finished eating. 

Even through the bumps in the road today, I managed to stay on track.  Tomorrow brings about a whole new set of challenges, but I think I am up to the task.

Revelations

I've been perusing books about "how to think like skinny people" and intuitive eating, and rewiring your brain, and even the whole abstainer vs moderator thing.  The problem with the abstainer vs moderator thing is that I can relate to both groups.  When I think about giving up the foods I like for extended periods of time I freak out and then that can lead to binging when the foods are no longer off limits or when I "blow it" for the day.  I also have a hard time just taking one bite or having just one serving and then being fine.  A little bit never seems to be enough.  One thing about abstainers is that they are not tempted by foods that they have deemed are off limits.  That's not true for me, I am absolutely tempted by food even if I have deemed it to be off limits.  "I know I'm not supposed to eat it, but it looks soooooo good!"  I can't blame my eating on any emotional trauma.  I've had my ups and downs and I know I'm an emotional eater.  But I am at peace with my past, I am at peace with my present and the most traumatic thing that happened to me besides this most recent event of hemorrhaging was being turned down by my high school crush.  This leads me to a very important conclusion for me, something I didn't really want to admit about myself because it means a lot of hard work, which is something I tend to want to avoid. 

Truth be told.  I simply just like food.  I like to eat.  Eating is fun, yummy and easy.  Making food takes effort, but eating food is easy and pleasurable.  Eating yummy food is even better because it is even more fun and even more pleasurable and your brain releases even more feel good neurotransmitters.  So, I just like food.  I like everything about food.  I like everything about eating.  It's my favorite thing in the whole world to do.  Food is everywhere.  Good food is everywhere, and it is easy to get.  High carb yummy delicious nutrient lacking food is easy to get.  Every second of every day, it's always there.  So there is no reason not to partake.  It's as easy as pie, which is also delicious. 

So I like food, that might not in and of itself be a problem if it weren't for the second thing I have come to realize about myself.  I am inherently lazy.  As much as I hate to admit it, it's true.  Given the choice, I tend to choose to move less.  Play with the kids outside or sit inside and dink around on my phone.  Clean the kitchen or watch a movie with my kids.  I always want to choose the path of least resistance.  Some people will tell you that this is natural and that it goes back to ancient times when we would try to conserve energy.  See that doesn't help me choose to move more.  Just gives me another excuse to be lazy. 

I also tend to be impulsive.  So giving into cravings is pretty much a given on a daily basis.  Sometimes I wonder if giving into cravings is harder because I want to eat the food, or because I have a hard time controlling my impulses.  So it all boils down to mastery of self, which I am obviously not anywhere near close to.  I feel like I need to just buckle down and do it, like Katie did from runsforcookies.com  .  She was talking about just doing it and getting it over with.  I need to just decide what I am going to do and follow through.  I have tried so many different things over the past few years that I have a pretty good idea of what will work and what I want my long term life to look like.  I just have to do it, be willing to change, be willing to work, be willing to put in the effort and right now I am just too darn lazy and I like eating food.  Mentally I don't feel ready even if I'm screaming inside that I want to be thinner and to be healthier and I want to be free of food cravings.  I need to make an action plan and then follow through.


Following up on my last post, I feel like I have recovered from the surgery, but I am not yet fully recovered from the blood loss and the past three months of trauma my body went through.  I'm still incredibly tired and pretty much unmotivated to do anything.  I took the kids to a place called Focus on the Family where I could sit and watch them play with pretty much minimal effort.  They are pretty cooped up from me being out of commission this past week.  Hopefully now my body will heal and I can get my emotions and hormones under control and start feeling better soon.

Hemorrhaging due to miscarraige

So Matt brings this home from Costco on Monday

Which has been tempting me all week.  Temptation has been rising and falling all week in a crazy roller coaster ride, made only harder by my body misbehaving.  This week has been really rough.  A lot of confusion, exhaustion, worry, and stress.  So I mentioned before that I started gushing blood on Sunday.  That is when it really started to get bad.  I thought my body was cleaning itself out and I think my body was trying to clean itself out, but I just wasn't quite getting it done.  It stopped bleeding Sunday night, and through Monday it wasn't bleeding much.  After talking with my sister, I believe that my body had successfully clotted, but I was still having really bad cramping.  Tuesday afternoon came and I started dumping blood in small amounts again.  So I blew out the clots.  Tons of blood and clots were coming out.  The one time I missed the toilet my pants were soaked in blood within a matter of seconds.  However, again it stopped, so I wasn't quite sure what to do.  I figured "ok, it's stopping I must be getting over it".  Then comes Wednesday and I didn't bleed much until about 2 in the afternoon when again it started dumping in small portions.  Wednesday night I had another major episode of blood gushing everywhere.  When reading about hemorrhaging they talk about saturating overnight pads in under 2 hours.  I was so confused because nothing was consistent.  I was saturating an overnight pad in seconds.  But then the bleeding would stop.  After Wednesday night's episode I decided I should call the doctor in the morning.  It was a really bad episode, involving washing my pants because I was just soaked and the blood kept pouring out.  By the time I went to bed I was so anxious about it I just couldn't sleep.  I got up a little while later to go to the bathroom and more blood came gushing out.  I was getting more concerned because usually the blood stopped at night, and this time it didn't.  I went back to bed in the hopes of getting some rest only to get up half an hour later and have even more blood go gushing into the toilet.  By that time I was wide awake and woke up Matt to tell him what was going on.  After talking about it for a bit we decided to go to the ER.  I called my mom at 1:15AM and thank goodness her phone was on and she answered.  She got to our house about 2AM and in the meantime I had two additional episodes of blood gushing, by which point I felt justified in going to the ER because it had never been that bad before. 

When we got to the ER and they asked what was wrong and I told them I was hemorrhaging the person who checks you in had this look of horror on her face.  People can die within minutes when they are hemorrhaging.  Fortunately, I hadn't gotten to that point.  My blood pressure was 120/something when I got there which was perfectly fine, and surprising considering the amount of blood I lost it told me two things. 1: I had tons of adrenaline and stress hormone running through my body and 2: We got to the hospital before it got really serious which was a good thing.  Having a little more time is always a good thing.  While waiting to be seen I had another episode.  I didn't have to wait long.  There weren't many people in the waiting room at 2am.  I really liked the doctor who came in to see me.  She was very sympathetic to my plight and she seemed really peeved that I had been dealing with this for three months.  Most women get over a miscarriage in one month and she said that there was no reason I should still be dealing with this three months later.  She had to do a pelvic exam not unlike your yearly exam at the doctor, but she couldn't see anything due to all the blood and clots coming out.  Afterwards, it was an ultrasound and fortunately they were able to confirm that I had fetal tissue still attached to my uterine wall.  It was partially attached, and that tissue is vascularized.  So blood was pouring into my uterus from my blood stream because that tissue was still partially attached.  I didn't know that was what caused hemorrhaging in a miscarriage or birth.  After they confirmed what was going on they were able to order the D and C.  They had told me that usually they don't do emergency D and Cs in the middle of the night unless the woman is bleeding out and isn't going to make it until morning.  So I might have to go home and schedule the surgery for later in the day since I wasn't technically on my death bed at the time.  However, by blood pressure dropped from 120 to 95 in 3 hours and the doctor kept seeing how much blood I was losing.  By this time, I was dumping blood every 20-30 minutes and the doctor was afraid I was going to become anemic soon.  My doctor being sympathetic to my plight was able to get my OB to agree to perform the surgery at 7:20 in the morning. 

I'd never been put under general anesthesia before.  They actually gave me the drugs in my IV instead of in a gas form like I thought they would.  It was an interesting experience and I wish I could fall asleep that fast at night.  I was just out, and then waking up and they gave me some pain meds through my IV and made me eat an ice chip, which I did a pathetic job of choking down.  I was utterly exhausted.  Not sleeping at all the night before, and then having the anesthesia in my system.  I didn't want to wake up, I just wanted to sleep.  So I pretty much ignored everyone and slept until they sent my husband in to wake me up.  I guess they were concerned because they told him that I was really groggy and having a hard time waking up and that maybe if he went in there I would wake up more.  He got me to wake up.  I couldn't ignore him ;-)  and not long after I was discharged.  We live 5 minutes from the hospital and it was the worst car ride of my life.  I was nauseous within two seconds of the car starting and I almost didn't make it home.  When we got home, I almost threw up in my driveway.  But there wasn't anything in my stomach.  My little sister had spent the day with the kids to let mom go to work (grateful that they let her take the day off of school) and when I got home I largely laid on the couch feeling sick.  Matt bought Chipotle for lunch.  I didn't want to veer too off track, but given the circumstances I didn't feel like I could put up much of a fit about staying on the Whole 30.  I had a salad from Chipotle with no dressing, but put guacamole on instead.  It had beans and rice in it which are not Whole 30 approved but given the circumstances, I just let it be.  Mom also made dinner for us that night.  We got a three and a half hour nap and mom Made us salmon and veggies (from my freezer.  All my emergency foods that are quick and easy to make are pretty much depleted now since I have been using them all week and haven't been to the store all week).  She also made more rice.  I had only a little bit of rice since I'd had it for lunch.  Mostly just to taste because she made it with chicken broth instead of water and it was really good. 

I feel like I didn't eat a lot.  I wasn't very hungry. Well, I woofed down my chipotle, but after that I haven't felt too hungry and yesterday I even skipped lunch.  I've just been doing the best I can sticking to a healthy diet.  I've had to drink some diet soda yesterday and today just to wake up.  I've got the kids all by myself and I can only leave them alone watching a movie for so long (like, until the movie is over) and without the caffeine I wouldn't have been able to do squat. 

My older sister is coming over tonight and hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow.  Today I'm not really in pain anymore, and the bleeding has stopped (at least I haven't bled today, who knows if it will start again tomorrow.  My body seems to like playing tricks on me).  At this point it's the fatigue, and a general feeling of crumminess.  But I think I am on the mend, and once I fully recover and can cook my own food again, I will resume my Whole 30.  For now, it's enough that I don't eat that cake that is still in the refrigerator.

The importancne of Meal planning

Well, I've made it to day 6.  I'm actually very surprised that I have made it this far.  I've been floundering so much lately that I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to come back to healthy eating.  I was just too depressed, too much in the clutches of sugar and being very impulsive and giving in.  My will power practically gone.  This past week has been miserable.  I have a knack for timing these things just perfectly.  Last time I did the Whole 30 I still had a cold, so the first week was especially miserable because I already felt awful from my head cold (it was the worst sickness I have had in a very long time.  It was also coupled with a sinus infection) so the symptoms were coupled with the withdrawal effects from getting off sugar and a high carb diet and also getting off caffeine.  This time around I started and my cramps and emotions and hormones were raging wildly all week, culminating in the events of Sunday, which were awful enough, but I had severe headaches and massive cravings.  It's been a tough week... And I still have two days to get through before the end of week one. 

Week one is always the hardest.  Week one is the week where my cravings are running wild.  It's also the week where all these thoughts tend to run through my head "why am I doing this again?  Am I sure I really want to do this?  I just started so it is okay if I go off track now because I can just start again tomorrow."  Not the best thoughts to be having but that is what goes through my mind every time. 

Last night I pulled some fish out of the freezer for dinner since I had forgotten to defrost the chicken for the meal I had planned.  Speaking of meal planning, I need to do that today.  I can't even stress how important meal planning and being prepared is.  If I don't know what to make, then odds are I won't be cooking or if I do cook it won't be nearly as heathy.  It's usually something involving pasta.  And I have backups for those days when my planned meal just doesn't work out.  I always keep fish in the freezer, because it thaws fast and is easy and fast to cook.  I also like to keep frozen vegetables on hand for those times I don't have time to actually make a vegetable side dish.  I can just put some oil, and seasoning on those vegetables and put them in my Pampered Chef micro cooker, and nuke them in the microwave and they come out great.   I also have Whole 30 approved chicken sausage on hand as a backup too.  I love chicken sausage and for lunch or even dinner I can microwave them (the fastest method) and serve them with vegetables and avocado, or when it's warmer outside I can grill them, or sometimes I will make a potato hash with them if I'm feeling particularly creative.  You don't need a lot of backups, just a few.  I have a friend who makes freezer meals and uses those as a backup.  Those are excellent and I keep telling myself that I should do it, but since I cook three meals a day I can't bring myself to spend a whole day cooking, although it might pay off in the end on future days..... I really should do that.  Then depending on what your freezer meal is, you can put it frozen in the crock pot, or thaw it in the fridge the day before and have it ready to go.  I like the crock pot better.  If I'm going to spend a long time prepping these things, then it had better go wickedly fast on the day I'm actually making them.  I'll take a look into it and maybe write a series on it.  As an ex-pampered chef consultant, I've had a lot of exposure to freezer meals.  Anyway, that's all my ramblings for today.