Friday, April 30, 2010

Myself Again

Ok, yesterday was rough all around. Work was stressful, my eating was off, my body and my brain were both exhausted. I didn’t even walk on the treadmill yesterday. I went home, took a boiling shower, put on my pjs and poured a big glass of wine. Husband and I watched a movie and ate pizza. But, after all that and a good 9 hours of sleep last night, the scale was down this morning. I might not have deserved it, but it sure helped motivate me to get right back on track this morning and I'm feeling like myself again.

Breakfast this morning:

1 C orange juice
1 C fresh mango
1 "Muffin McHealthy":

  • 1 Thomas 100 calorie English muffin, toasted
  • 1 egg white (scramble with salt & pepper in a ramekin. microwave 10 seconds, stir, repeat until cooked through ~ 3 10-second intervals)
  • 1 Morningstar Breakfast sausage patty (optional)
  • Dash of tobasco or 1 T salsa (optional)

Usually Friday is my rest day, and Saturday is my long run day, but since I didn’t do any activity yesterday, I plan to do 2 miles tonight, rest tomorrow, and 4-5 miles on Sunday. Weigh-in tomorrow morning too.

I’m so happy it’s Friday! Steven Page, play me out...



Thursday, April 29, 2010

Ugh

Today is the first day since I started that I really feel like crap. Last night I was pretty exhausted and didn’t feel like doing my 3 miler, but I forced myself to get on the treadmill anyway. I mostly walked for 45 minutes, but I did do a few 6mph sprints. I’m really sore today. And, I just didn’t sleep well last night. And the scale this morning was up, which totally pisses me off. I seriously haven’t indulged in anything more than gum and this is my reward. Screw you, body.

So, I’ve decided I’m taking a break for a couple of days – I mean, just from running. I’ll do a short easy walk tonight and then Friday is my rest day. I’ll try to run on Saturday and see how it goes.

I just don’t get how I could have felt so great a week ago and now I’m just totally run down. I’ve been doing great with my water, staying between 1200 and 1500 calories, really working on eating wholesome foods. This just sucks.

Sorry for the grumpy post…

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Great Expectations

Well, the scale was kinder this morning, although still not quite where I hoped it would be. I know that each .2 adds up to a full pound eventually, but it’s really hard not to keep my gargantuan expectations at bay when I’m constantly bombarded with magazines, weight loss commercials, and TV shows (yep, I’m talking about you Biggest Loser), that tout losing 10 pounds in 10 days is possible for just about anyone.

Last night I went to the gym for an elliptical workout. I took it pretty easy and did 30 minutes at a low resistance. Tonight I have another 3 mile run planned. Now, when I say run, I think you should understand that by normal standards, I mean “jog”. I’ve been running 13 minute miles, so by no means am I sprinting or anything. But, to be clear, know that I will always call any movement that is faster than a speed-walk, running.

My goal is to try to have a long run of 5 miles on Saturday. If I can do that, then next week I plan to start doing some speed work to try to get my time down a bit.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Craving support

Hey y’all – I’m just really feeling like I need support right now. I’ve been doing really, really well on working toward my goals, and most days just knowing that I’ve done well sort of propels me forward, but today I’m feeling a little bit in a rut.

When the “when are you due” thing happened, I decided not to tell my husband about it. The only people that know about it are my friend that was there with me and one other friend that I’ve told. And I haven’t said to anyone that I have plans to lose this weight. So, although keeping it to myself (aside from sharing with you strangers) helps me feel slightly less vulnerable, it also makes me feel a little lonely.

I haven’t proclaimed to anyone that I’m “recommitted” or “back on plan” or any of that stuff – partially because I don’t want to jinx myself. But, more importantly, I really have shied away from saying “recommitted” because, I feel like it minimizes my commitment. It makes what I’m doing feel temporary, and emphasizes that I haven’t stuck with it before.

Anyway, I was thinking about going to the vending machine for a Twix, and just wished I had a cheerleader on my side.

Stupid Scale

So, the hazard in weighing yourself every day (even unofficially) is that the scale doesn’t always reflect the truth in what you’ve done in the last 24 hours.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I hit the treadmill for a 3 miler. I did take a little walking break at 2.2, but finished up my last .8 jogging strong. No hip pain while I ran, by the way, so whatever that was about I’ll never know.

After my sweat fest, husband and I made vegetarian tacos and baked sweet potato wedges for dinner. I tracked all my food yesterday and was right around 1300 calories. So, in what universe does it make any sense that I would be the exact same weight as I was yesterday morning? Logically, I think I know that the number on the scale will catch up eventually, but there’s always a little voice that says,

“what if it doesn’t?”

I think I just need to soldier on and know that I am doing good things for my body – and that at the very least, the time that I spend on the treadmill isn’t wasted because every minute I run makes me a better runner.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Weekend Recap

I had a pretty good weekend. I wasn’t very good about tracking my food intake all weekend, but I made some pretty good choices - with the notable exception of my “free” meal on Saturday night. Yeah, Saturday I totally splurged. Mussels with bread and butter, steak with bĂ©arnaise sauce, French fries…and let’s not forget the wine! Oh, it was so great.

Saturday, husband and I planned to do a 5k in the afternoon, but it had been really rainy in the morning, so I didn’t really want to go. And, actually, that was a huge excuse. I was really nervous about going because I don’t really like running outside – I like to know my pace and how much further I have to go, AND I like running on flat terrain, and since I didn’t know what the course would be like, I was really freaked out about it. Also, the 5k was supposed to be a pretty small group. I think only like 50 people had signed up. I much prefer the kind of races where I can blend in with the crowd and not seem like the one person who is the slowest.

But, just because I punked out on the 5k, doesn’t mean I didn’t run! I ran 3.1 miles on my treadmill at home! I felt pretty good right after –a little bit sore, but mostly good. Yesterday though, my right hip was really sore, so I don’t know if I just didn’t stretch it or if I somehow tweaked it without noticing. It’s still tender today, but I want to run again tonight. If it hurts while I run, then I’ll stop to try to avoid injury. Hopefully it’s just a sore muscle in there.

I’m hoping that I can run 3 miles tonight, 3 on Weds, 2 on Thurs, and then a 5 miler on Saturday. I’ll be really happy if I can do that this week.

Have a good Monday!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Weigh In

So, I weighed in this morning at 199.4 - not too shabby for week 2.

Last night, husband and I went out for sushi. I had been pretty conservative with my calories throughout the day, so I would have some extra for dinner. We ordered edamame and I had 10 pieces of various maki sushi. It was excellent.

It's kind of a stormy day today, so I don't know if we are going to go to the 5k or not - I'm not too keen on running in a downpour. So, if we skip it, I'll shoot for 5k, treadmill style :)


Friday, April 23, 2010

It's a Wonderful Life

Yesterday afternoon as I was packing up and getting ready to go home, I was thinking about the treadmill workout I had planned. I was tired and thought about how comfy my couch is. I imagined myself sprawled across the couch with my remote in hand. And I heard this little voice say,

“skipping one workout won’t matter”

And then I had an epiphany: It’s just like “It’s a Wonderful Life”. You know how good ol’ George Bailey thinks that everything would have been better if he had never been born? And then he finds out that all the little actions in his life affected everyone else around him. Well, I realized that every single workout that I have ever done (or not done) has gotten me to where I am today. What would have happened if I had skipped working out the first day that I ran a mile? Would I have never been able to run two? Every time I get on the treadmill, I’m building a base on which to build every future workout. The distance that I go today wouldn’t be possible without the distance that I went yesterday.

And then I went home and ran 2 miles. Atta girl.

In other news, I weighed myself this morning and for the first time in months I am below 200. I won’t post the number since tomorrow is my official weigh-in day. It feels good to see that 1 again though.

So, I’m pretty certain that my boss has an eating disorder. She is very, very skinny and continues to make comments about feeling fat. I’m really worried about her, but don’t know what to do. I can’t believe her family and friends haven’t intervened in some way. I think for now I’m going to keep quiet, but if things don’t start to improve, I might need to talk with HR.

Official weigh-in tomorrow morning and 5K tomorrow afternoon…


Thursday, April 22, 2010

Temptation Island

Yesterday was full of temptations for me. It really was the first day that I had to face a lot of temptation for an extended period of time. We had a work function where lunch was provided. I brought a back-up lunch just in case and was really glad that I did because the provided lunch happened to be sloppy joes. I didn’t know the nutritional info, and since I also happen to not be particularly fond of sloppy joes, it was pretty easy for me to pass up and I had the soup that I brought instead. To round out my lunch, I had some baked Cheetos and some veggies.

Then the cake came out. I’m not going to lie to you – it looked fucking good. The woman next to me had a piece and I could smell the heavenly chocolaty frosting. But, I stayed away from the dessert table all together and had one mini Three Musketeers instead. I think those minis are like a half of a normal bite, but I stretched it into three bites.

After work, I went to the gym and did 15 minutes on the elliptical and 30 just walking on the treadmill. I was actually just under my calories yesterday, and I was definitely feeling wiped out when I was on the elliptical.

Every month, my husband and I have a get together with some friends at a bar downtown. Usually we have dinner there and a couple of pints of beer, but last night I ate before I left to meet them and while I was there just had one glass of wine. And that was tough. I was seeing people getting plates of fries and big soft pretzels and pint after pint of beer. The smell of it all was really hard for me, but I resisted.

I feel like I should have been ecstatic about my willpower yesterday, but honestly, I am so used to cheating and feeling guilty about it the next day, it’s like my brain doesn’t really believe that I didn’t actually splurge on anything. I’ve had to kind of remind myself that I didn’t have that piece of cake, even though I imagined vividly what it would be like if I had.

This weekend, husband and I are going to run in a 5k and then meet a friend for her birthday dinner. That will be my “free” meal for the week and I feel like I’ll really deserve it after making sacrifices yesterday. It’s kind of nice to have a free meal to look forward to. And it helps me discern what temptations are “worth” straying from my goals.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Brain Power

I am noticing that my brain is definitely sharper these days – like first thing in the morning, my brain is awake and I’m remembering to do little things that my foggy head couldn’t remember to do two weeks ago. Just little things as I’m getting ready in the morning.

I’m also noticing that I am thinking so much about my goals that it has been hard to concentrate on much else – especially at work. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to eat and what I’m going to do when I work out next. I have a feeling that as these things become more routine for me, I won’t need to focus so much brain power on them.

I had a good run last night – I did 2 miles. It felt really good. I tried to stick to my 1 hour of cardio goal, but ended up only doing 40 minutes. But, I’m really happy with that anyway. And tonight I have an elliptical workout planned at the gym.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Drama Queen

Good morning, everyone! Yeah, I know that no one reads this blog, but maybe one day someone will – like it’ll pop up in a search or something and someone who loves hearing other people blather on about their neuroses will be so happy to find a blog such as this.

I kind of broke down and told one of my other friends about the “when are you due” thing. She’s one of my closest friends, and out of our group, she’s definitely the mother hen. She’s so compassionate and gives great advice. I’m glad I told her, but it wasn’t easy or fun. Of all emotions to feel, I despise feeling embarrassed, so to relate the single most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me is really a struggle.

Anyway, I made it through the weekend just fine – made some good choices. One of my biggest struggles was getting all my water in, but that’s really no big deal. One thing I want to focus on is really starting to amp up my activity. I feel that I should be getting in at least an hour of cardio a day, so I’m going to start focusing on that. Tracking on SparkPeople continues to go well and I’m doing a good job keeping up with it.

I’ll close with a fairly short post today, but I just want to say that I know that in the grand scheme of things, my struggles with my weight are miniscule in comparison to the problems that other people have. I know it may sound trite to describe someone mistaking me for pregnant as one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. I do tend to be a bit of a drama queen, so please don’t read this blog and think that I’m not grateful for the many wonderful things in my life. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful home, a secure job and loving and supportive friends, but my weight problem seems like a dark cloud that is always above me. And I am fortunate enough to have the ability to change it.

One last thing: Julie Moss was featured on my Radio Lab podcast (Limits) yesterday. I had never heard her story before, but it is at once heartbreaking and inspirational, so I’m posting a clip of her here for you. If you have time, look up the podcast to hear her whole story. Have a good day!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Body image

Back in the day, when I would start WW for a while, give up for a while and then re-start, I became accustomed to having a huge loss in the first week. Of course, they say that most of it is water weight, but still, getting on the scale and seeing a 6 or 8 pound loss in one week feels damn good. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed this doesn’t happen to me anymore. Even though I *know* that a near-three pound loss in one week should be celebrated, I really can’t let go of my expectations that I could do better.

When I started seeing numbers above 200 on the scale, I was kind of thinking that it was no big deal because I was “just a little bit over 200, a mere few pounds” and that it would be really easy to get under again. And the fact that I didn’t lose enough in my first week to get back in the 100s, just affirms to me that I need to accept that I was firmly above 200 pounds. That it wasn’t just water weight that had pushed me to that 200 number.

Even though I’ve known that I’m obese for quite some time now, I’ve never thought that I looked that bad. Like, sure, I’m obese, but I’m not like orca fat. But, then last night I was watching “Friends” and Monica and Ross were talking about how they used to wrestle as kids and Monica could always pin him. And Ross (who is a whiney bitch, by the way) retorts with, “You were 200 POUNDS!” Everyone talks about Monica as being grotesquely overweight when she was a kid, which leads me to the natural conclusion that the majority of society must see 200 pounds as grotesquely overweight. And that’s how much I weigh.

So, I’m trying to reconcile my own body image with how others must view me. I feel like it’s apparent that I haven’t had a true sense of what I really look like, or even what a healthy weight looks like. So, I’m going to point to two other weight references in the media. First, have you ever seen the movie “America’s Sweethearts”? In it, Julia Roberts’ character is referenced as having recently lost a LOT of weight. They kind of go on and on about it, so you get the idea that she must have been huge. And then, Catherine Zeta-Jones says, “She lost 50 pounds.” I’ve only seen the movie once in its entirety, but I can hear Zeta-Jones’ voice clear as a bell in my head as she recites that line. Now, look at Julia Roberts. How much would you guess she weighs? She’s tall, so I’m going to just take a stab that she weighs about 125. So, if she had lost 50 pounds, that would mean she weighed 175, which is 30 pounds lighter than I was last Tuesday.

For my second media reference, I’m going to look at one of my favorite TV shows, “The Big Bang Theory”. As I’ve tried to lose weight, over most of my adult life, I’ve had in my head that my “ideal” weight is about 135 (I’m 5’4’’, so that’s not totally unrealistic). So, I’ve thought that if I actually weighed 135, I would be considered thin. Enter Penny. There’s an episode where Sheldon tries to guess Penny’s weight and he guesses 120. Penny is obviously insulted when she replies, “One-twenty?!” My thought here was, “Penny thinks that 120 is fat! And my GOAL is 15 pounds higher than that!”

But, my whole point here is that they write these shows to try and identify with the majority of the audience. So either, the show writers are failing miserably and don’t realize that the majority of their audience can’t relate to the idea that someone who is 5’10’’ and weighs 175 is FAT, OR the show writers are spot-on and I am, in fact, the minority. This would mean that everyone else around me sees me as obese and gross. Has my mental image of my how I really look been so clouded?

I’ll close today with a quote from the above referenced “The Big Bang Theory” episode:

Sheldon: Oh, I’m sorry. Did I insult you? Is your body mass somehow tied into your self-worth?
Penny: Well, yeah.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Weigh In

Happy Saturday, everyone!

I weighed-in this morning and...drum roll please.....202.8. Not too shabby.

My plans for sushi last night changed when my friend cancelled our date. So, my husband and I went over to another friend's house to hang out. He grilled some hamburgers and we played a few video games. It was a nice relaxing night. I kept my goal in mind and was pretty careful about how I ate and I logged it in SparkPeople as soon as I got home. I ended up being about 150 calories over my "goal", but I think that's pretty darn good in comparison to what I have done in the past.

My plan for today is to get our treadmill set up and go for a run. Hopefully I will continue to see the scale numbers go down!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Finally Friday

After pouring out my heart to you yesterday, I feel like I should keep today’s entry pretty short - for all our sakes.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the gym with little internal struggle over it and did 10 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the elliptical. I’m still really sore from my Wednesday night strength training class, so I’ve decided to take today off from activity. My plan is to run tomorrow, hopefully more than just .5.

Food wise, I’m still doing pretty well. Tonight I’m meeting a friend for sushi. I’m hesitant to make tonight’s outing my “free” meal because I don’t want to see a discouraging number on the scale tomorrow morning and I’m pretty sure that my husband and I will go out to dinner tomorrow night and I’d like to save my freebie for that meal. So, I plan to go pretty easy on the sushi tonight.

Ok, that’s all – I weigh-in tomorrow morning and will keep you updated. Thanks for reading!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Therapy Session

Ok, so there are a couple of things I’ve been thinking about. First, the concept of a “free” day. I’m really scared to allow myself to do something like this for fear that I won’t be able to get back on track. But, the thing is that on the weekends, my husband and I like to do things around town and often those things we like to do involve food and drink. We eat out at restaurants at least once per week, where I generally let myself order whatever sounds best. And I see now where that habit has gotten me. So, I’m kind of torn between wanting to live a normal life, enjoying eating out once a week and wanting to be strict about following my plan. What I’ve decided is that instead of a “free” day, I will have a “free” meal – one meal per week that I don’t have to track if I don’t want to. And if, down the road, I find that this isn’t working for me, I can make adjustments then.

The second thing I’ve been mulling isn’t quite as easy. I really want to understand why I let myself get this way. It’s not as if I woke up one morning and I was fat all of a sudden. I have a whole lifetime of memories about my weight/body image:

· Age 11 – become self-conscious of my large breasts
· Age 12-13 – I have a memory of standing in my bra and underwear in front of my mirror and thinking that maybe I had a pretty good body, but could probably lose a few pounds
· Age 14 (~140) – wanted to lose 15 pounds so I could wear a body suit like my tiny best friend
· Age 15 (~145) – wore a corset under my homecoming dress, worried my date would feel it
· Age 16 (~160)– first time on a formal weight loss program (Jenny Craig) – the center closed after I had been on the plan for a few months - I resumed my unhealthy habits
· Age 17 (~170)– first love called me “chubby” during a make-out session, broke my heart 1 month later (still not entirely over it)
· Age 18 (~180)– first year of college, I tried not eating for two weeks by claiming I “just wasn’t feeling hungry”, lost a pants size and resumed eating
· Age 22 – (~180) senior year of college, I resolved to lose 50 lbs before graduation to look good when my dad saw me for the first time in 9 years. Didn’t follow through.
· Post college (~180)– started and stopped WW at least 4 times with no significant progress
· Wedding – lost 25 lbs right before my wedding ( 155 lowest weight since age 16)


And now, since my wedding (4 years ago), I’ve gained 50 lbs.


So, why didn’t any of the previous times I’ve lost weight (or thought about losing it) work? My first instinct is that I’m lazy, but I don’t suppose that is a very good answer. Is there something more than that?


I do have a theory, but first I should share a couple of things – 1) I have really bad skin. The kind of acne that gets you pity stares in public. It’s a million times better now than in high school and college, but still it’s pretty embarrassing to be getting teenager zits when you are in your early 30’s. I will never forget the time when I flew home to visit my mom after college and when I got off the plane, the first thing she said to me was, “What happened to your face?” Thanks, mom. Missed you too. 2) I hate my breasts and always have. I think they are obscene and ugly. I’m not really sure who thinks that girls with big boobs like them, but it seemed that everyone thought that they were just grand, and I should be so grateful for them. But, I hated them. And since I was so overly sensitive about them, my good friends teased me about it in high school.


So, this is my theory: I was an only child raised by a single mom and around the time I was 11 or 12, she got a boyfriend (who I didn’t get along with) and I became extremely isolated and lonely. To comfort myself, I would come home from school and make cinnamon toast and milk. I’d start with two slices and eventually worked my way up to eating almost a whole loaf of bread in one sitting. I think that this is how food first became my “friend”. I learned to associate food with my emotions. And I think this was right around the time that I was pretty uncomfortable with people noticing me (my face and my boobs), and so I think that I kept on eating for comfort, and built up this little protective shell all around me. And I think I got really emotionally comfortable in my shell and I carved out a personality for myself which revolved around being the fat girl – being the girl who wanted things, but never got them; the girl who stared things but never finished them. I see this not only in my weight issue, but in my career, and my relationships as well.


I think that my relationship with my parents is also a factor in all of this. Not that I’m blaming them, because I’m an adult now and I make the decisions about my health, but I think these aspects are important to note. I don’t have a relationship with my father and have felt that he didn’t love me because I wasn’t good enough. My relationship with my mother is complicated and probably not healthy, and I place a lot of blame on her for the decisions she made when I was growing up. But the crux of it is that I’ve never gotten any optimism out of either of my parents – never any sense of “you can be or do anything that you want without judgment”.


So that’s my theory right now. I still don’t really understand how this emotional stuff gets all twisted around in the brain, but I guess no one really does. It’s really scary to think about unraveling the self-image I’ve had for at least 20 years – and it’s really terrifying to think that one day, food won’t be my comfort anymore. I feel sad about it – isn’t it crazy? I actually feel sad thinking that one day I’ll be so healthy that binging on pizza won’t make me feel safe and cozy.


Well, this has been a great therapy session – sorry for the super long post, but I needed it. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Soreness

So, I’m happy to report that after walking for 30 min on the treadmill, I did go to the strength training class last night and it went pretty well – I mean, it was hard, but I made it through the whole hour. I am seriously sore today, though. Even though today will be my fourth consecutive day of workouts, I still want to get some cardio in today, so I plan to go to the gym after work for an elliptical workout and then some much deserved time in the sauna.

Tracking food on SparkPeople continues to go pretty well. I’m nervous about how I will do with it over the weekend, but as it’s going right now, I like it a lot better than WW. The thing with points is that they are so easy to remember, once you assign a point value to a food, you always think about the points every time you have that food. But, calories are harder numbers to remember, so I feel like I am making choices based on healthier foods in general, rather than foods I know are just low in points. And the way the SparkPeople nutrition tracker is set up, I’m definitely thinking more about the nutrients that are in my food too.

I have another happy thing to discuss today – I finally got my period. Almost 2 months to the day since my last one. All of a sudden, a light bulb has come on for me & I’m now pretty convinced that I’m only ovulating with one ovary. About two years ago, while I was on the pill, I started to have some cramping and discomfort on my left side. It was pretty intermittent, but worried me enough to see my doctor. She thought that I was constipated and never discussed with me the possibility that it could be a cyst. Since the same cramping, uncomfortable feeling has continued to happen every now and then in the same spot, AND since I’m only having a period every other month, I think that it’s a cyst and it’s preventing me from ovulating on that side. So, I’m going to try to make an appointment with a new doctor and see if we can get this taken care of. And, you know, maybe since I’m not a medical professional, I’m wrong about this, so at the very least maybe we can figure out why my periods are all screwed up.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Hesitations

I had to pop on this afternoon because I’m starting to feel my early resolve waning. So, it’s been 3 days since someone mistook me for pregnant, I’ve had 2 ½ days of eating well, getting activity, and I’m scared that it’s starting to slip away already. Seriously, what will I become if “when are you due?” no longer motivates me to lose this weight? What is it going to take to make me change?

So, tonight I had planned on going to a strength training class after work. But, as the afternoon goes on, I just don’t want to go. I’m nervous about going, yes, but also I’m just feeling tired. I’ve been trying to bargain with myself to get out of it. It just kind of sucks because the class isn’t until 5:10, and I’m done with work at 4, so since I don’t really have enough time to go home and come back, I still have an hour to kill.

Ok, just writing this makes me feel a little bit better. I don’t want to make any more excuses. So, what I’ll do is stay at work just a few minutes late and then go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for a half hour or so before the class starts, and then give the class a try. Good choices aren’t always easy choices.

Making progress

Well, I actually have to say I’m feeling noticeably good today. I feel like I have energy and am feeling much less emotional. I’m positive this is directly related to eating better, getting activity in, and drinking lots of water. It sounds awfully simple, doesn’t it?

A while ago, I was reading a book where the author discussed how being hungry isn’t the end of the world and you should let yourself experience hunger. I think that to an extent, this is true, but often I don’t realize I’m just hungry until I’m starving. And getting to that point often leads me into a binge. And since I want to avoid binging, I want to avoid getting hungry. But, I’m realizing that maybe I should learn how to manage my hunger (regardless of the severity) without binging.

Monday I was definitely feeling a binge coming on. When I got home from the gym, I was famished. I had some cantaloupe and a Kashi bar for an afternoon snack around 2:00, but by the time I got home around 5:30, I really wanted to raid the cupboards and eat everything I could before my husband got home. I’m a very creative binger. Even if left with fairly healthy things in the house, I will MacGyver them into fodder for a binge. I have made impromptu cookie dough in a cereal bowl with butter, sugar, flour, and vanilla. Sometimes, I’ll take my reduced-fat Skippy and add melted butter and powdered sugar to it to make a frosting type thing that I eat by the spoonful. But, on Monday, definitely still fueled by Sunday’s incident, I had the willpower to not go there. Instead, I drank a big glass of water with lemon juice in it, and I had one slice of bread with 1 T of peanut butter on it, and then I stepped away from the kitchen.

Logging my food into SparkPeople has been really good. I’m pretty impressed with the wealth of food items they have stored, and I’m a lot more conscious of my protein, carbs, and sodium than I ever was on WW. Yesterday, I had a high-protein snack in the afternoon and I noticed it definitely helped keep me satisfied until dinner.

Yesterday, I stepped out of my comfort zone and attended a yoga class during the lunch hour. I’m happy to report that it went pretty well. I think I did most of the poses correctly, and I definitely felt like I got a workout, so that’s really good. Tonight, I’m going to a strength training class after work…also nervous about this, but every day, it’s going to be easier, right?

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Weighing In

There is an irony to my story that I haven't told y'all. You see, I suppose you could say I am trying to get pregnant. More accurate is that my husband and I are no longer trying to NOT get pregnant. It's turned out to kind of be a pain in the ass. I figured I'd go off the pill and have a weird cycle for a couple of months and then the "trying" would really start. But, I went off the pill last May and haven't had any regularity since. My doctor doesn't seem all that concerned. As of now, I haven't had a period since February.

So, anyway, I was lying in bed on Sunday night, wallowing, when I realized that my boobs had been particularly tender. Then, I thought, “Wow, is it possible that I could be pregnant?” I launched into this all out fantasy where I take the pregnancy test in the morning and it’s positive. I imagined how I would tell my husband and then go into work with a bounce in my step, eager to tell my friend that ‘lo and behold! the pedicurist was right! I look pregnant because I am! Yippee!’

But, it was negative.

I was so preoccupied with taking the test yesterday that I forgot to weigh myself for posterity, so without further adieu….205.6 is the ugly truth from this morning. My weigh-in routine is first thing in the morning, empty bladder, pjs on. And I’m one of those people who weigh pretty much every day, but never more than once per day.

The last several months I’ve been weighing and not really thinking too much about the number. I wasn’t watching what I ate and exercising pretty infrequently, so the number would come up, I would take a passing notice and move on with my day. This is not to say I was happy with the numbers I was seeing, but for the most part I reserved judgment about them. I feel that now the time for reserving judgment has passed.

I have a friend who tells me I am my own harshest critic. This is true. I definitely feel that I need to hold myself to a higher standard than everyone else. I’m not an all out perfectionist, but the perfection tendencies that I DO have, hold me back. Especially with running – I often will run and feel like I’m not going far or fast enough, so then I’ll quit for several weeks (or months).

Yesterday, I stayed pretty well on track. I logged my calories on SparkPeople and went to the gym after work. I’m trying to tell myself that each day I go to the gym will be more comfortable than the last. I try not to look at anyone, lest they look at me. At the gym, I walked/ran on the treadmill. About a month ago, I was running 2-3 miles fairly comfortably, but then I took a hiatus from all activity. I guess I was expecting that I’d be right back at the 2 mile mark, but I was struggling yesterday. I pushed myself to jog .5 and then I walked the rest. But, it will get better, right?

Today I’m really going out of my comfort zone and going to the gym over lunch for a yoga class. Ate a good breakfast today (bumped up the protein by having an egg white on my English muffin) and have healthy meals planned.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Little Lies

I just saw the friend that was with me at the salon yesterday. She feels really terrible about what happened. She doesn’t really know what to say to me. She kind of tries to make me feel better by telling white lies, “She’s crazy for thinking you look pregnant”.

I feel like I can totally understand why the pedicurist would think I was pregnant. First, we were talking about our friends' pregnancies, so if she just listened to half of the conversation, I can see how she might think one of us was. And then she probably noticed my huge belly - which I really can't hide when I'm sitting down - and my recent acne break out, AND my huge boobs. I totally get why someone would think I was pregnant.

I had the thought – is it actually good that this happened to me? It IS getting me to think about healthier choices. Am I going to want to thank her down the road for honestly telling me what my friends and family could not? But really, it doesn’t feel like a good thing at all– even if it spurs me to lose weight, I am so ashamed that this had to be the thing that did it.


Cautious

Do you ever feel like the world should just stop turning so you can rest for a minute and get a grip? It seems unfair that I feel so awful and yet, life continues on like normal for everyone else.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I just had a lot of stuff running through my head. I wish I could transfer all the nervous energy in my brain to my body to convert it into a super fat burning machine.


I did take some little steps last night to help me get on the right track today: I prepped a bunch of fruit and veggies to take to work for snacks this week. I planned my lunch (I’ve been eating out a lot at work lately). I got out my gym bag and put clean workout clothes in it. (This is actually the lame excuse I have for not going to the gym since January – I took my sweaty workout clothes home to be washed and it took me about a month to get around to washing them, and I never put them back in my gym bag to take back to work. I feel really stupid that I let 3 months of potential workouts slip by because of this.)

Going to the gym actually takes a lot of courage for me. I just never feel like I fit in.

This morning I ate a pretty good breakfast at home and I’ve already drank 32 oz of water. I’ve done the “starting over” thing so many damn times, I feel kind of on auto pilot about what I am supposed to be doing.


I’m mulling over going back to WW. I’m really not crazy about it. I mean, I’ve been to all the meetings before, but maybe I really do need that accountability. For a while, WW was like my church. I would go every week and listen to the sermon. But, that got really old. Maybe I can just go and weigh-in and skip the meetings if I don’t feel like staying.

So, how am I feeling? Aside from still reeling from embarrassment, I’m feeling very cautious. I don’t feel optimistic and I don’t really want to. I’m afraid that I will lull myself into a false sense of success.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Cardinal Rule

Well, it finally happened. I've been overweight for 17 years, obese for at least 10 of them. I suppose it was bound to happen, although I thought by now that everyone (at least every WOMAN) knew the cardinal rule:

Unless a woman says to you, "I am pregnant" OR is actively giving birth before your eyes, never, NEVER, ask her, "So, when are you due?"

My friend and I had a nice appointment at the spa today for pedicures together - just for fun. We had been chatting about two of our friends that are pregnant, so, the pedicurist probably misunderstood that we weren't talking about my own bulging belly when she asked the dreaded question.

I'm a people pleaser, so my first instinct was to quell her embarrassment and tell her, "that's ok...no really, it's no big deal". My friend and her pedicurist laughed nervously to try to lighten the situation. My face was bright red. I swallowed my tears and smiled graciously.

Thankfully, it was toward the end of the appointment, so we were out of there soon after. I tipped her 15%.
My friend tried to comfort me. She said, "That's ridiculous. You don't look pregnant." But, of course, I know I do.

The tears didn't really start to flow until I was about half-way home. My shame and anger trickled down. I imagined what I should have said or done instead. Perhaps I should have just kicked her in the mouth. Her teeth weren't that nice anyway.

When I got home, I decided not to tell my husband what happened. As someone who has never been fat, someone who doesn't understand what food cravings are like, someone who doesn't see any emotional connection to food, as kind as he can be, he simply cannot understand how this one comment cuts me to the core. I'm so ashamed of him seeing me in this light.

I told him I didn't feel well and went to lie down. I sobbed into my pillow and thought about last week - I ordered a dress from JCrew (did you know their largest size is a 16 AND they only carry up to size 12 in stores?) and when it arrived, even with my Spanks on, I couldn't get it zipped. It's a beautiful color and I would look great in it - if it fit. I thought about how I signed up for a YMCA membership in November and have gone only a handful of times. I thought about how I'm embarrassed to go back to Weight Watchers. Bob Harper's book "Are you Ready?" shouted out at me from my bookshelf. "The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution" gathers dust on my nightstand. My treadmill is folded in the basement.

I thought about all of my missed opportunities. Every day that I've chosen to sit on the couch instead of exercise. Every time that I "treated" myself to unhealthy food. All of my excuses and tomorrows. I am so angry at myself. And I feel like I'm in such a deep hole that I don't even know where to start to climb out.

I want to say, "OK, today is my fresh start! THIS is going to be the time I do it!" but I really don't feel that optimistic. I'm sad. I feel hopeless.