YIKES!

I was surprised to see I have “followers” on my blog!! And even a comment posted!! Thank you, ladies. I hope not to disappoint! And YIKES! A moment of panic at the thought someone is reading this!

I had an even bigger surprise. Well, no, Jon had an even bigger surprise. He was talking on the phone last night with his brother and I heard Jon say, “No, I didn’t know she had a blog.” He turned to me and said, “You have a blog? What are you blogging about?” They went on talking and nothing further was said between us about the blog that night.

This morning I asked him if he wanted to read my blog. I thought I had better show it to him right now since it is very personal stuff. He read it, and said he wished I’d talked to him about it or shown it to him sooner. He said he didn’t know I was “trying” to loose weight and all; he thought I had decided to wait till after my retirement date. He said he felt like he’d somehow let me down by not helping me with my efforts, or that I blamed him for not succeeding somehow.

Neither is true. In fact, now that I think about it, one of the reasons I didn’t say anything to Jon was because since I’ve known him I’ve given him whiplash with all my starts and stops. How many times I’ve told him I’m going to quit drinking, and don’t. I’m going to get up at 5:00 and work out, and don’t. I’m joining Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, or you name it, and quit. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget when I was going to become Vegan (one of those times I posted it on facebook but didn’t mention to Jon and he found out from Jason! See below). He always does everything to support me. I’m the one that quits. So I had thought I would do this quietly on my own without telling him, so as not to cause him any grief over it if I failed to follow through.

This morning after reading my blog, Jon immediately googled Michael Thurman’s 6 Week Body Makeover and said he thought I should try that. He had seen it on TV and thought it is what I need. Well, normally I don’t believe in that sort of thing. If it’s too good to be true……But I felt badly about not showing him the blog from the beginning, so I ordered it. I’ll let you know how that works out. Has anyone tried it?

But Jon was not happy with me. He said he does not like to hear from someone else that I’ve done or said something. This isn’t the first time. There have been a few times Jason has said to Jon “Oh, I hear you and Judy……” this or that. See above: Vegan. And Jon had to reply he didn’t know anything about it. (I put things on my facebook and I’m always surprised if someone actually reads them. And I don’t usually think to mention to Jon that I’ve posted something on facebook.) Ouch, my bad. No defense. It was very uncomfortable around our house this morning. I know it will pass, but now I feel like I’m on eggshells.

Back to TV infomercial products…..last summer I came home one day and Jon had received his P90X program that he had ordered – without, let me add, my prior knowledge. We both did the workouts – Jon for about 6 weeks, and me for about 4. We both liked the workouts. They work. Tony Horton kicks buns of steel! But for me, and I think both of us, taking an hour to 90 minutes daily to work out is HARD. Jon works long days – he generally leaves at 8:30 am and gets home at 6:30 pm. Then add an hour or more work out on top of that? And then add a couple of hours to plans meals and cook. Hard. But while we were doing it faithfully, we both felt better, slept better, my skin was looking good. Jon was getting ripped! I want to go back to those workouts AFTER my retirement date.

Weight Watchers. I’ve joined and quit a number of times. I feel like the meetings are like AA meetings. (Yes, I’ve been to AA meetings.) However, at one point they had a “Fat and Fiber” system. That WORKED for me. All you had to count was fat grams and fiber grams. I wrote down everything I ate, and realized in order to get the correct number of fiber grams and limit fat – you have to eat they way you should anyway. But for me it worked. I lost 25 pounds in about 3 months. This was in 1997. I was riding horses once or twice a week, doing Tai Kwon Do once a week, and walking 30 minutes daily religiously. I did those 30 minute daily walks from around 1990 through 2003. It was when I got out of that walking habit that the pounds began their creep.

Jenny Craig. When I saw Valerie Bertinelli on the cover of whatever magazine and read how it was Jenny Craig that she used to loose weight, and that she’s about my age and had about the same weight gain as me, I decided to call Jenny. I did it for about 2 weeks. Yes I lost weight. It was too expensive for us. I knew the day I signed up it would be when the woman at Jenny said it would probably cost less than what I spent on food already. She said, “Do you eat out a lot?” I said, “No.” She looked somewhat startled and started talking about something else. The food is expensive. It cost much more than I would spend for food. Also, when I read the ingredients in the frozen meals, and packaged goods, they seemed to contain a lot of sodium and other things I prefer to try to avoid. Mostly they tasted very good. You eat their products and add your own fresh fruit and salads and vegetables. Here’s the thing I liked about that system that I think I could duplicate on my own. You have a weekly plan – everything you are going to eat for the entire week, including snacks, is written on a chart. Your entrée is very small. You add lots and lots of vegetables and salads. So, for example, you eat a tiny piece of meat, a quarter cup of side dish (potato or pasta) and eat loads of greens to fill up. AND – BEST PART OF ALL – you come home from work, pop a frozen meal in the microwave, and eat. Meal prep time cut significantly! It works.

Does any one have experiences with any products or systems you’d like to share? Love to hear about it.

Facts: I'm at 180 today. Jon and I walked yesterday. I walked today. Ate fruit and veggies. And a few too many oreo cookies. One glass wine last night.

Thanks.