A completely different person

Who is this girl?? Well this is who I think I am... this girl reflects who I feel I am inside. I'm so used to seeing pictures of myself and wondering in disbelief who this fat woman is, that when I see a picture of myself where you can't really see my fat, I could stare at it for hours. Can anyone relate??

We took this picture while on our beach vacation in Eilat in the south of Israel 2 weeks ago... one of those self-shots (Marius is holding the camera). These are the only pictures I like of myself these days as if I angle my head right, you can hardly tell I'm fat. Anyway, I knew when we took this one, that this would be one of THOSE pictures... one that I can look admiringly at and say 'hey, I look pretty'. Rare.

Anyway, I've been absent from blogging. Got home from my vacation and had gained 2 pounds, which really is good, considering I was hardly ever on plan while I was away (didn't track, but tried to make healthy choices)... however, for whatever reason I went into a sort of tailspin for a week.... even had a junk food binge, which I haven't done in over 4 months now. Felt horrible, but of course in tailspin mode, it led to more bad choices over the next couple of days. I'm trying to be kind to myself as it was a tough week re-adjusting back to being home... kids took a while to get over the 10 hour time difference, I felt exhausted from the 20 hour trip, and I spent 4 days doing laundry and cleaning the house and being a single mommy again. Got sort of used to having hubby and grandparents around to help with the kids!! All that and I was blessed with the arrival of TOM.... when it rains, it pours, I tell ya!!

But enough of the excuses. I'm back.... out of the tailspin and in a better frame of mind. Hope to get back into the swing of things and start tracking and exercising again.

A few pictures....

Thought I'd post a few pics of our trip so far (we're 1 week in - 2 1/2 to go!)..... let it be known that everywhere else I will be posting pictures, I doubt I will be in any of them, so this is actually quite freeing ......to just put myself out there. And surprise surprise, I actually don't think I look THAT bad :)

This is a view of beautiful Tel Aviv from the old city

The family

Exploring the winding streets of the 'old city'

(this one's for you, Becks) - just a glimpse of the yummy baked goods found on every street corner - AKA what I'm up against :) And yes, I ate one - well I ate half of one of the ones on the bottom - it was filled with ooey gooey warm cheese and meat.... heaven....

Don't have too many exciting pictures to post as both kids are still sick and so we haven't been getting out and doing anything too fun. We leave tomorrow for our all-inclusive trip down south, so hopefully the barfing will subside soon!!

The curse of the tummy bug

I know I haven't been a good blogger (tsk tsk on me), but I truly don't have much to blog about... weight and eating-wise anyway. Both of my kids have come down with tummy bugs or something and have been barfing since Saturday. Nothing more fun than being on vacation and cleaning up puke 3-4 times a day!! Especially when the inlaws have the tiniest washing machine ever made and no dryer. Thank god I brought tons of pjs with me, although last night I had to resort to dressing my 11 month old (son) in my 2 1/2 year old's pink shortie pjs. Was quite cute... except for the barf that led up to it.

My husband just took Matthew to the emergency room, because although he's still drinking and is active and in good spirits, he really hasn't eaten solids in 4 days and 5 days really is a long time to be barfing. I'm sure he's fine, but we want to make sure.

I seem to have a mild form of what they have, and feel a tad queazy, and without getting into the gory details, am not keeping anything *in*.... if you know what I mean :) Not a nice experience, but hey my waistbands feel looser! Isn't it sad that I feel a bit of gratitude for whatever's made a home in my tummy?? I think it is, but what can you do.

Hope everyone's healthy and barf-free.... will post later with hopefully something more uplifting!!

Things to be thankful for!

If you live in Israel:

1) When your kids go on field trips, they are accompanied by someone wearing a semi-automatic rifle slung over their shoulder.....

2) Your car is checked for bombs at the entrance to underground mall parking lots by security. This includes looking in your trunk and under your car using a mirror

3) Your bags are checked as you enter a mall from any entrance for firearms/bombs

4) There is a military presence everywhere you go - and they all carry the semi-automatic rifles

5) Don't look for politeness from anyone. Now Canada overdoes this sometimes, but here it's hard to come by.... it's every man for himself and in the 4 days I've been here, I've seen arguments between drivers, people in lineups at the supermarket and at the airport..... men and women alike. It would seem that Israelis do not have a lot of patience!

6) If you live in a building built in the last 20 years, then your apartment/house has a 'saferoom' built in - basically a bomb shelter. My inlaws place is old, so the 'safe' place is the bathroom!

7) This is noted above, but deserves it's own mention - driving here is crazy... no one lets you in, people cut in front of you all the time, traffic jams everywhere because people wont give an inch, and horns honking all the time.... I'm white knuckling it most of the time!!!

The GOOD:

8) If you have fertility issues, the government will pay for any fertility treatments, how ever many times you need it, until you (hopefully) conceive. There seem to be babies EVERYWHERE!! and lots of twins :) But how great is that??!!

So life is very different here, and yes, it's a bit scary to think that the places you're going could be targeted by a suicide bomber, however I don't really find that this affects me that much... maybe because it just seems too surreal? And Israelis certainly don't go around fearing it. If it wasn't for the security and military presence everywhere, you wouldn't even know that bombings are even a threat (they don't let it affect living their lives).

On an eating note, things have been quite good. The inlaws eat their biggest meal for lunch and then hardly eat supper. I've been following the trend and I'm actually not really hungry in the evening. There is no scale here, so who knows what's going on with the weight, but my pants don't feel tight or anything, and that's WITH the bloating from both TOM (groan.... I didn't even mention the primitive plumbing here!) and the heat :)

HO HUM....

blah, I feel so boring.. feel like I should be posting here more often to a) keep myself accountable and to b) use this as an outlet for the hunger-inducing feelings that sneak up and try to bite my butt everyday :)

Anyway, I weighed in today - my Monday *reality check* and am the same as last Thursday. This is ok, in fact sort of unbelievable as I have already used up my flex points. Just hope I can successfully do what I did last week - adjust my points down to compensate and still lose by my real weigh-in on Thursday.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to weigh myself at my normal time on Thursday as we'll be on a plane to Toronto on our way to Israel!! I usually weigh myself at 9:30am because that's my *thinnest* time of the day. Yes, that's right folks - 9:30am!! I'm usually at least 1 pound lighter than at 7am when I wake up.... I know, I'm crazy, but hey - it's a WHOLE pound lighter!!

We had a wee bit of drama as we originally booked our flights on Friday, but when we called the airline to ask about our seat assignments, they kindly informed us that our flight to Isreal had been changed to Thursday, however our flight to Toronto was still on Friday!! We booked these flights back in January on points, and they made the change in March and no one ever called us to let us know! We couldn't believe it. Anyway, we are a tad irate! We would have arrived on Friday for our flights and would have been told there was no way we'd make it to Isreal. Grrrr

Anyway, we were lucky enough to get on a Thursday morning flight, and so now we're leaving a day earlier, which makes it seem SO much more sooner! Thankfully I already have my list made of what we're taking... the next few days will be packing packing packing!!

Hope everyone's doing well and have a good week!

ON VACATION!!!

WOOHOO!! I am SO excited... to see my family, to go to my most favorite place in the world, and to get out of the same old same old daily routine around here. I'm totally scared about staying onplan while I'm away, but I'm bound and determined to incorporate some healthy strategies while there. Usually I incorcorporate the *I'm on vacation, so let's eat and drink and not exercise* strategy.... I dont go in planning to do this, but it has always organically taken over basically as soon as I step foot on cottage soil!! So this time, I am going to:

1) walk - the cottage road is along the lake.... it's beautiful.... 'nuff said. NO excuse why this cant happen daily
2) eat well - my husband and I get there first and we're doing the big grocery shop, so no reason why there wont be healthy food in the house.
3) get out there in my new bathing suit and enjoy swimming every day with the kids and NOT let my self consciousness get a hold on me. I think the more active I am and the more fun I'm having, the more I wont want to quell negative thoughts ("I look awful in this bathing suit") with a food fest
4) eat tons of fruit and veggies for snacks
5) drink tons of water
6) limit the alcohol... I like a nice fruity alcoholic drink in the evening while sitting around watching the sunset, but I wont go overboard.
7) HAVE A BLAST!!!!

I hope everyone has a great 2 weeks and I look forward to catching up on all your blogs when I return!!!