Day 80 -Tuesday March 20, 2012

I'll be losing my job around January 10, 2012.  I'll look for a job internally and hope to find one till I can take the early retirement but a lot of people were layed off.  In the last 18 months I've not seen a lot of great matches.  With a little over 2 years from the announcement to the reality of being jobless, I've kind of been in limbo- I need the severance to pay for schooling and the unemployment to live on for at least part of the schooling.  You try to streamline bills, pay down, pay off, and whatever to prepare.  It's been a crazy busy 18 months but you do what you must- there is severance and stay bonus at risk.  Now as the time runs down, I decided it was time to put me first as much as I can.  Menopause, thyroid not working in the normal range, stress, losing exercise partners to new jobs, trying (and sometimes failing) to keep in touch to people that have been dear to you for 15-20 or more years. 

I ended up investing in a personal trainer for a small group.  There will be 6-8 of us and our trainer works with us for an hour twice a week.  I also got a Body Bugg (Think the Biggest Loser).  I've followed "diets" or food plans without the results I've wanted.  It's been a cycle of being really strict for weeks and losing little -none or even a small gain so then "why try".  I hope that the change in routine will will help get my thyroid improving rather than this continually increasing the medications.  I hoped the Body Bugg might show where things aren't working as I would expect.  I'll charge it this weekend and start it on Monday April 16.  I'm hoping the personal trainer can review the diet and exercise from that site once I set it up.  Meanwhile despite what the Doctor and wellness staff have offered up, my trainers suggested eating seems to have a bit of a twist.  I hope her access to the info will keep me doing my exercise and food consistently.  Who knows maybe I'll lose more than the 8 lbs I hope for in 8 weeks and invest in another 8 weeks   :)

At this time I was discovering SMASH journals.  I need to catch up scrapping but also find there is this inbetween place that doesn't need page protectors or necessarily all the bells and whistles.  It's just a place to record where you have come from much like a journal.  A place to cram in the dress I want when I've lost weight or a silly thing that made me happy.  Not necessarily something you have to record in daily but you could.  I might just put a page in the various things as I go and fill it up over a year or so.  Or you might have something to fill it all at once.  For this 8 weeks of finding some balance- eating enough, not too much, getting the right amount and type of exercise, enough sleep, and working with the persoanl trainer I want to record the journey.  Another tool I hope to keeping at it.  Here is the SMASH I started for this and a smple of the first page.