[teardrp4u21]

Hey all!

I'm fairly new here. I recieved my Phen a few weeks ago, started taking them every 3rd day two weeks ago and last week started taking them everyday....however, have yet to do any measurements or buy a scale. I really would like to do that this week so i can commit myself and so I can keep track of my bragging rights.

A little about me...hmm....well....my name is Dana, I currently live in South Milwaukee, WI and I'm 24 (25 in december, eek!!!!). I moved here from my dream city, that I only got to spend a year in, to live with the love of my everything, Nick. He is everything I could ever dream up in a man, and then some. He loves me without condition, challenges me every day. We've been together a year as of Sept 11 (i know, horrible day, but he can't ever forget our anniversary :-p). He came out of nowhere and invaded my soul, I wouldn't change my life with him for anything. we have plans for marriage in the future, i sure can't wait for the day we get to pledge our commitment to everyone! He has a 2 year old son (i have no kids so becoming a part time mommy is becoming an adjustment. he's a little on the slow side, we're almost positive he has a form of FAS...it's such a task) that he had with his ex wife...well...almost ex. see, she's pregnant with her new bf's baby, so that's on hold for now. The money really sucks, you need it in order to get a fair divroce especially as a father. Hopefully she'll be a tad more cooperative than she has in the past. If she wasn't such a pain in the ass, they could get this divorce for free since she's on state aid...but! whatever. The stories I could tell you about this woman are just....WOW! I"m sure in reading my journal, you'll become familiar with the frustrations we deal with daily. She's due in November, hopefully by the end of the year they'll at least have the divorce filed. New relationship, new city, many challenges. I haven't had a job here that's lasted more than a month. It's really very discouraging since everyone says I have amazing skills, but noone wants to hire me. I'm trying very hard to keep my head up and hope for the best. the past month has been really difficult, partially why I put off starting the Phen thing. On Sept 10, Nick was on his way to drill (he's in the national guard) and totalled my car. Thank god he's ok, there were no other cars involved and it so very easily could've ended with him rolling down a very large hill and not being here with me. I had no insurance on the car, so we're are STILL searching for a way to get a car. with him working for a temp service, and me on unemployment...it's a long, hard road. end of sept Nick's gpa died. He spent that sat-wed with his family in texas dealing with all that. he came home, got sick from all the stress and then that weekend went to drill. this weekend was the first weekend I have been able to spend with him in what seems like forever.

I should probably get to my weightloss goals, eh?

well, i've been overweight most of my life, no wait...all of my life. in high school i was in 200's. the summer after high school, i was introduced to ephedrine and lost 30 lbs in a little over a month. i was able to mantain the weight of 180 for a few years. i did go back up to 200 a couple years back, went back down to 193 on WW. was very discouraging, i lost more inches than lbs on WW, but it took a lot more work than the ephedrine did. basically that did what i'm finding the phen to do for me. gave me a ton of energy, and the need to not eat everything in my cupboard. as soon as i quit WW, i went back to my old things i liked to eat. Eating lots of fruits and veggies, veggie burgers and all that jazz just isn't my style. i can't afford to eat a tonof healthy. my lifestyle doesn't fit into it. My goal is to do my Turbo Jam (best excersise routine/program EVER!!!) every day (maybe sunday's off) and to watch my proportions. I am a firm believer in moderation. i believe it can work, it will work. that's how i was always able in the past to loose my weight, and quickly. i'm trying to cut out all soda, however that's not quite so easy. however, i'm going to make the switch to Sprite, which i hear is better than Mt Dew. I am also a believer in letting yourself have what you crave ever so often as well..ya know..moderation. so maybe a mt dew once a month wouldn't hurt me any. :-p. i'm trying to go about this very realistically, in terms of what will really fit with me and will actually stick. i just need to find that term "moderation" that i let myself forget. being with a man who looks you square in the eyes and says i'm beautiful no matter how big, dirty or grundgy i look...makes one pick up those things we once deprived ourselves with. food has always been a big part of my life, and always will.
this past week, i've tried eating something for breakfast and then dinner. dinner normally is higher calorie, just because all day i forget. 6 meals a day, don't really work for me, never has. my life has always been about food, the ability to forget about it sure is a nice one.

wow, i think i've rambled on quite enough, lol.

[Thininside]

Welcome Dana, I am sure that you will have great sucess with the phen. Your life will get back on track soon I am sure. Sounds like you have a good guy on your hands, dont let him get away. Keep posting so we can all stand around and cheer you on. Thats what we do best here. Have a good day and we hope to see ya back soon.

[rainbow_tears]

Welcome to the boards, looking forward to getting to know you
x

[susanpesek]

Dana! Welcome, Sweetie-Pie! You'll be loved, accepted and encouraged here every day so come often and read and when you are able, post to us.
:p You have quite an interesting story and I can see you have some of the same economic problems I have had, and that many of us have had or are having. You guys will get through this, but you MUST expect more of yourself.You must treat yourself better!
:( You've been selling yourself short. Your 'style' of eating is what got you to the place where you sought this forum and the extra help, just like we all did!:p
So, first, own up to the fact that you CAN do anything you set your mind to doing. If your goals can't reach past a smaller portion of cola, hamburger and fries, you will probably lose weight but you may well have to repeat this process next year. And the next. And the next. And the next.
Determine that THIS will be the last time in your life you need to lose weight, and start expecting to learn and then APPLY what you learn. NOW GO GET 'EM, TIGER!!! G-R-R-R-Rrrrrrrr!

[tatiana40]

Dana,
A lot of information and a lot of great potential. You do have great customer service skills. Have you thought about applying for jobs at bridal stores? Show them your planned wedding ideas, share your dreams, and let them see how good you are in creating something inique.
Good luck with your weight loss!!!
XOXOXOX

[teardrp4u21]

nyquil gelcaps are my new drug of choice, i seemed to have caught a lesser version of nick's cold from hell. i slep like a damn baby last night, so much so i didn't even wake up nick, not once. (normally he wakes up when i roll over ext, though why he's not used to sleeping with me yet, one will never know. obviously, the boy doesn't do change very well in certain areas).

we went to go see zack again today. it's good to see HUGE amounts of improvement in him. he's got at leat 50 words in his vocabulary and he's even trying to say sentences. it's leaps and bounds from even a month ago! it's nice as well that nick FINALLY took the initiative to be a dad even with circumstances not being perfectly the way he wanted them. it's now where we'll walk in to see him and zack'll perk up and say "daddy!!!!" and then turn to me and say "dana!". nick was so worried about being the "perfect" dad and having the "perfect" situation to start being one, he forgot that kids just don't care. all they know is that you spend time with them. they could care where it is, if they have their own room, or even if it's a cardboard box. the conversation with his dad while down in texas a couple weeks obviously snapped him back into reality. i can finally let go of the anger for staying in a city that i hate so he can be by his son he would only see a couple times a month. as long as he keeps this up, my complaints are done. his ex wife and i had a good talk tonight. it's good to get to know her as she is now, versus the amanda that nick knew. i think a huge part of her problem was that nick WAS such the part time dad. true, she's not the perfect mom blah blah blah but, i plan to spend the rest of my life with nick and that means her as well. it was good to talk to her on a human level tonight. i really do think she appreciates all the effort coming from the both of us, and this means only better things are coming. nick is hanging onto the old amanda too hard. i'd like to get to know the girl now and offer a different perspective and hopefully snap him back into reality. they took a lot of misinformation from a lot of other people and never really actually TALKED to eachother about their issues, even after they split. they are both still hurting and i wish they would just take the initiative to maybe just go to dinner and make peace with it all.

the past couple nights we've spent with nick's friend pete and tonight with pete's gf ashley. it's good he's finally make an effort with nick again. and it's nice to see nick happy that he wasn't forgotten about. last night we went to visit with zack and then sat here and watched the bears game while playing poker. tonight was bowling after visiting zack, and tomorrow is a movie and we're going to go see pete's new apt. looks like thursday will be our only night off since Joe and Katy are dropping off their baby Austin here Friday afternoon till sunday night. should be fun too! i love babies.

i started calling people who had positions open in milwaukee, rather than just sending my resume and it paid off :-). tomorrow i have an interview with a staffind service that has a ton of positions open dealing with general office and call center. all are 1st shift, mon-fri and all start at least $10/hr. i told her about last weeks incident at Seek (they told me i couldn't be helped because of my employment history), and she said that wasn't a problem. as well as the skills were there, she does some creative decorating in my resume :-p. she sounds like someone i'll get along with, so i'm going tomorrow with some high hopes. i do have the skills, i just don't have the employment history to back me up. certegy was my longest held position, and that was a year. but i have the skills coming outta my bum, so hopefully i'll be well on my way tomorrow.
nick also talked to his supervisor today about his chances of getting hired on and he was told he was elegable (sp?) as of dec 5 and there were positions in leadership opening up and he should start taking some classes at MATC so he could be considered. i'm happy he found something he likes and can become successful and climb the latter at.

one year from jan will be nick's last drill! yay!! i hate him working for a government that i despise. i support the crap outta our troops, they're over seas and on our boarders doing the governments dirty work, not really knowing what they're doing in either place. i watched a very interesting Oprah (shuddup i'm unemployed) where she had an author from the new york times on and discussed everything from Iraq to hurricane katrina. in the past, i've basically ignored all that political crap but after that episode, i just got pissed. tomorrow while i'm out, i'm buying the book and i recommend it to anyone who's interested in what ACTUALLY happens behind the scenes of all this crap. highly recommend "the greatest story ever sold". looking to be a good read, and scares the hell outta me that this man in today's society can get away with this. astonishing more like it.

weight loss is so hard to focus on right now. with this cold, working out just isn't an option, i get 5 min in and i can't breath. i wake up and i take my pill and then forget to eat until Nick comes home and asks what i want for dinner. because i haven't been able to pull myself outta this house during the day, grocery shopping has gotten done, so a lot of eating out has been done. i keep hoping i'll snap back into doing some serious changing when this damn cold goes away. the stress of needing to get a car and find a job makes it really hard to focus. any ideas? tomorrow after my interview im going to stop at walmart and pick up a scale. hopefully that'll motivate me to where i need to be.

wish me luck tomorrow!! hopefully i'll be well on my way to employment and finally committing myself to the process.

[tatiana40]

Good luck with that interview! Chin up and smile, you have everything to succed!
XOXOXOX

[dreamy039]

Just wanted to say hi * welcome to the site
Oh yeah good luck on your interview....you will be great.
Dreamy