A few more steps but the stress is mounting.

Well, if all goes well, I won't have to stay in an apartment when I travel to MS any longer. We have a contract on the house with the garage mahal but there are a few hoops to jump through first; home inspection, appraisal, insurance, etc. If all goes well we could take possession sometime in August. I'll keep you posted.

So, how is this messing with my diet. As you know, I've dropped down to 3 meals, 5 days a week instead of a full 7. It allows me to eat out a bit or with my family. It also leaves me on my own to make healthy decisions which can be difficult. I don't mind telling you I still crave carbs and not having that DTG meal in front of you to heat and eat my mind begins to wander towards them. The stress of re-mortgaging my life isn't helping matters and I have a history of stress eating, too. I'm staying active...as active as I can with a job that confines me to a chair but my treadmill is still calling me each morning and the honey-do list of house repairs will keep me busy for weeks as we prepare to sell our existing home.

I don't want to say my focus for weight loss has deminished but with so many things on the plate in front of me I feel I could derail. The compliments and the way I feel are carying me right now but as the vison gets blurred a bit some things move to the peripheral. As I focus on doing the deal on this house and preparing my home for sale I hope my weight loss goals don't end up there.

Apartment life sucks!

The transition from New Orleans to Mississippi is a slow process but we are making gradual progress. No sooner that we secure an apartment for my wife and son to live in while he begins first grade than we actually find a house to make an offer on. It couldn't happen soon enough for me. I've been in my home for 17 years and have forgotten how bad apartment life can be; dogs barking, paper thin walls, etc. It's all a bit much for me so finding a house has just moved up the priority list for me. Granted, I don't live there full time...neither does my wife, yet but even staying there a couple nights on the weekends while we look at homes is enough to turn me off. The woman that lives above us has two little yappy dogs that will bark at anything. Couple that with her obvious size 12 concrete shoes that she walks in and the fact that she gets up for work at 1:30am and you've got a recipe for a very unhappy tenant--ME! We do have an offer in on a really nice home with what I'm calling a "garage-mahal" in the back. Keep your fingers crossed

that they accept our offer so we can move!

Diet wise I'm doing well. I'm keeping up with my exercise and sticking to the meal plan as best I can. As previously mentioned, I went to 5 days a week, down from 7 so I'm providing a few meals on my own. As long as I can stick to the low/no carb regimen, I think I'll be OK. I'm at 222.5 or so and hoping I can drop into the teens very soon. I feel better than I've felt in a long time and it's all due to the weight loss, eating plan and exercise. Unfortunately when we let these things slide we end back up where we started; tens of pounds overweight, eating poorly and not exercising. Then we can't seem to figure out why we feel so bad. Hmmmmm

Stumbling through another week...

I feel like I'm stuck at 224...not that it's a bad thing but I'd like to hit the teens before the end of July! I knocked my meal program back to 5 days a week/3 meals per day because it seems like I have a backlog of extra meals. With the recent holiday and an extra shipment while I was on vacation, for some reason I have several leftover meals. I'm trying to get my wife to eat them and I hate throwing them away...I pay for them, ya know. Invariably I end up eating a breakfast or two off program and a couple of lunches or dinners so 5 days should be plenty to fill out the week.

My last shipment was completely destroyed by UPS. I mean I barely got it home before the whole box just fell apart. I don't know what they did to it but I hope no more arrive like that. I called DTG and explained what happened. Even though they have no control over what UPS does with their packages they were kind enough to ship my next set of meals for free! Great customer service.

I've been pretty stressed out lately with the move (we got an apartment in MS over the fourth) and looking for a house to buy, plus keeping up this one in LA. Having a structured meal plan like DTG has kept me from going off the deep end and stress eating. Knowing that there is food available for me to eat and that I'm not left to my own devices has really help me to maintain these last few weeks. I'm back on the treadmill, after being sick last week...just wasn't up to it. I really want to get into the two hundred and teens. With a little luck and some hard work I will get there and maybe my offer on a house in MS has been accepted...cross your fingers for both.

The move and the 4th was a success but I'm paying for it now.

I hate being sick. I've been feeling this coming on for several days now but somehow was able to shrug it off. This is my second day of missed work. It all began Saturday June the 28th as I drove to Florida with my son. He had the sniffles but I didn't think much of it. He would spend an entire week with his "poppa" and I would turn right around to Louisiana dragging a 20 foot trailer to move my wife to Mississippi fourth of July weekend. In preparation for the move we kicked up all kind of dust and even got some furniture from an elderly couple (with cats) from across the street. I believe my sinuses began to pay from that point on. It has also been very dry with record breaking heat.

The move went fairly well and we were able to spend the rest of the 4th of July weekend enjoying the festivities with my wife's family and community friends. Sunday we headed east and stayed the night at her new apartment in MS, son in tow. She had to go to work early so my son and I kept the Gulf coast on our left for most of the ride home. My intent was to drop him off at daycare and head to work sometime before noon. As the ride home wore on I began to feel increasingly worse and warned my assistant that I may not come in at all. Just before I was ready to bring him to camp I decided to take his (and my) temperature. They were both over 101. We were going no where...the same was true this morning as we were both over 100 and I felt worse today than yesterday.

Now to the weight loss. Let's back up to Sunday June 29th. My wife and I packed the majority of the furniture headed to MS on that day. She has been working in the Biloxi area since Set. 2007 and commuting from New Orleans almost daily. That night we decided to go to Ruth Chris Steakhouse for dinner since our son was with his grandfather...for the next week! We went with a plan and I'm proud to say that we were able to stick to it. Once nice bottle of red wine (2003 Lancaster estates) we'd split the lettuce wedge and broccoli au gratin but each have our own steak...no desert, no appetisers, nothing but what we ordered and it was awesome!

I received my food shipment on Thursday and am happy to report that it arrived in much better shape than previous shipments. The food was stacked properly and still had ice crystals between the packaging so I know it was still frozen. I had Friday off so that morning we got up early and drove the trailer to MS and had it unpacked (with help) within 30 minutes. I was able to stick to the program pretty well throughout the weekend and even walked Saturday and Sunday morning on the point. I was able to enjoy some boiled shrimp, roasted pork and sausage from the feast but managed to avoid all of the sweets except a few slices of ice cold watermelon. I'm down to 224 now so that's 34 pounds. I missed walking Monday and today but am hoping I feel well enough tomorrow to get back on the plan. Well, time for lunch and some more medicine.