3 Months Ago

Like everyone else in the world, I really don't know where the time goes anymore. The days run into each other when all you do is sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, you catch my drift. Then again they run into each other if your life is one big ball of excitement too, I suppose. 

Things aren't really moving along like I'd like them to. I have my steady weeks at the gym and my weeks where I don't make it in at all. My meals this week have been delicious and terrible for me. I've had ice cream just about every night for dessert this week because, again, I feel like I have to have something sweet each time I have a meal. Last night was the exception when I had a cup of tea instead of dessert. I really should stick with the tea. 

I was in a car accident with my Dad and sister over the weekend and have been instructed to stay away from the gym this entire week and maybe longer. It's almost laughable right? We were very lucky not to be injured more than we were and I'm thankful for that, but really? I don't need another set-back here!

On the bright side, I'm going to be traveling to Indy at the end of the month to audition for The Biggest Loser and I'm super excited. Do I think I'll actually make the show? Um, YES! We probably won't in real life, but I think I have as good a shot as anyone. I've got a sob story and a good face for it! I'm also sending in a video. I'm also going to do my community's version of the BL as well. It starts next week and goes until mid-April. The person who loses the most amount of weight wins $500, so why not try it. I did it last year and didn't lose a single lb. This year is still different. It's still THE year and it's not too late. I'm not saying my losing weight is dependent on this show or that competition, but it's the magical "m" word that I'm always looking for and would take from any place I can get it. Motivation. 

Oh, one more thing. This is a blog to put all my stuff out there right? Well, I weighed myself 2 weeks ago tomorrow and I was at 296 lbs. That's a gain of 10 lbs since I started this blog which was exactly 3 months ago. I don't see how that could be possible, but there it is. I'm not weighing myself again for a few more weeks at least. I think if I was at or over the 300 mark, I don't even know what I would do or think. 

More to come soon....

Backwards

I can't seem to get back in the flow of things lately. I did great for a week. I was eating multiple small meals and healthy snacks during the day. I went to the gym 4 times which is crazy for me. I felt hungry everyday, but not uncomfortably so, more like I was successfully shrinking my stomach. I got full much faster than usual. Then came last week and that all went to hell in a hand basket. I've gained 4 lbs total since Christmas, one of which I gained during my "good" week. It's discouraging to say the least.

I've recently discovered a group of weight-loss blogs that I'm keeping up on that are full of good tips and advice. I've gotten more recipes together, none of which I've tried yet. I watched "Heavy" on A&E last night and just thought to myself, my gosh, that is me. One of the people on their actually weighed less than I do now when the 6 months of weightloss training and nutritional guidance ended. It's incredibly scary to me to think about getting to the point where I can barely fit in a car, a seat in a plane, or even walk. I feel like I'm almost there now so what is my problem?

When I went to visit my best friend Amy in Boston in September, I remember latching the seatbelt on the plane to the very last notch. And it was tight. I was horrified when I got there and we walked so much around the city that I thought I would literally start bawling because of the pain in my legs and feet (granted I was wearing horrible shoes, but still). By the time the last day came of the trip, we were sitting and resting more than we were walking. I had such a great time, but I can't deny that my inability to be mobile severely affected the success of the trip.

I constantly look at myself in the mirror these days and instead of being grossed out, I'm just shocked. Not even by how I look, I've gotten way past that point, just shocked that I still don't have it in me to change. I cannot identify the problem no matter how hard I try. I can't reteach myself to think, eat, grocery shop, exercise and live, on my own. The blogs, shows, recipes, work-out DVD's and everything else isn't going to change that. I would love to be able to do this with kind words and support, but that doesn't get me to the gym. 

The one thing I did pick up from that show, was how much I need to address the psychological aspects of this process. It's not something I can just look into or put off anymore. I'll need some serious luck finding someone who specializes in what I'm looking for in this area of the universe, that's for sure. I also need a physical trainer that will work for only me and for free, any takers?

A New No-Resolution Year

I'm back from the holiday hiatus! Actually, the absence was a lot less about the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and much more about my overall lack of energy and almost flat-lined brainwaves. I literally felt like I was barely going to make it through the rest of this pretty horrid year. Despite having a lovely Christmas with family, New Years' was what I couldn't wait for (and not because of the adult beverages!). I know there's nothing magical about a new year. You don't become a new person and the problems you had before do not cease to exist with Jan 1st coming along. Even so, I felt so good about the future after ringing in the new year with friends. It was like walking outside in the bitter cold and a gust of wind snapping you awake. I felt like this was it. It had to be the year when everything changed.
Bad luck (or maybe karma from another lifetime?) never strays far from us though and a new year could not prevent us from being side-lined in at least one way. However, we have chosen to not take the situation as a negative and just go with it. I tetered on the edge of throwing up my hands and saying ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! and just throwing in the towel. Throwing in the towel on January 3rd is really not the route I want to go for a bright, new and shiny year. I promised myself no new years resolutions just overall change.
So, I'm back to focusing on the things I can control in my life. That being my food intake and exercise for the time being. Since the new year I've been doing really well for my standards on watching what I eat. Portion control has been a biggie. I'm admittingly hungrier than usual, but I also get full faster and from smaller amounts of food. I've been doing this for 5 days and I've been able to shrink my stomach and hopefully keep it that way. I'm eating healthy snacks throughout my day. It helps to be able to go on a $215 grocery run and stock up on good things to eat. Will I get to continue doing that? Probably not, but it's a start. It's more expensive to eat healthy. Period. Sucks!

I've also been going to the gym. Have I been in everyday and doing kickbutt workouts? No, but I'm doing something consistently so far, and I'm proud of that. Here's where I need the help. I get so bored at the gym, that I want to just tear my hair out. I need some fun music to keep on my IPOD for workouts.

Think sexy-bounce-to-the-beat music like Beyonce, the Pussycat Dolls or Rhianna. I love that kind of stuff for workouts. I imagine myself as those ladies and that's bigtime motivation. I also like various tempos and styles for other parts of my workout, but for cardio--mostly tasteless and sugary pop music.
So, let me know what music motivates you, please. Cool-down, cardio, anything, I want to know!


Here's to a very happy and healthy NEW YEAR!

sleep mode

My apologies for the lack of keeping up with you, dear blog. Things have been more hectic and stressful then usual and I really had to force myself to sit down and write today. You'd think with all the frustration and negativity going on in my life from just about all sides, I'd have a lot of steam to blow off huh? Not the case for some reason

.

I need some downtime and relaxation now more than I think I've ever needed it in recent memory. I keep telling myself that if I can just get through the rest of this year, then I can start fresh in 2011. Right now, I'm sucking at everything and that is not just me being hard on myself. 

I've committed to a lot of things recently: being a CASA volunteer, starting to live a healthier lifestyle, researching what it is I want to do next professionally, pursuing my master's, being better with finances, etc. I have not been putting nearly 50% of myself into any of these things. Even my day to day activities at work and at home are suffering. I'm not sure when life became all about just barely getting through the day with my sanity, just to start the whole process again the next day, but it's happening now and has been for awhile. I just need time. Sweet, precious, unattainable time. Not even time to do it all, just time to think about it all and get my priorites straight. I need a plan and I need one now.

One might look at this and think whoa, sister, it may be time to get on some meds. I've been on some meds and I'm not nearly to the point I was when I needed them. This is me realizing that I might be going down that path again.

I think I've decided to do the best I can possibly do right now which is: take the rest of the year off. No more thinking about any of the above on a constant basis. I'm ready to say goodbye to this year and good riddance!

Starting small

I'm done whining now. Cue applause! I whine a lot when it comes to all of this and I've accepted that this is just part of the journey. Set-backs and whining come with it. I'm brushing all of that off and I just have to say, I might be very unlucky in a few areas of my life, but having great friends is not one of those areas. Throughout all of the rough areas in my life with family, finances, love (until I met Joshua, of course), school, etc--I've always been very fortunate to have a lot of strong friendships. Friends have often been the one and only thing to get me through some of the really bad stuff. It makes me so happy to have the support of so many friends right now with all of this. Emails, comments, phone calls and letters have been very important to keeping me going. I'm actually going to print off a lot of the written stuff and keep it in my book, just to remind myself to hang in there. 

After speaking with a couple of said friends, I have decided to set several very small goals that I feel like I won't so easily break all of the time. If I do, tomorrow is another day to try again. Here is what I've come up with to start with:

1. Make one healthy complete meal for dinner each week (one that I make, not Josh)

2. Have one day a week where I can eat whatever I want and not stress about it one bit

3. 30-45 minutes of cardio two times a week

4. Eat more veggies

5. Zero fast food

6. Research counselors in the area

7. Research various exercises I can do at home

8. Use small plates

9. Single helpings only

10. No food after 7:30pm on the weekdays

I'm going to try this for 2 weeks and come back to it to re-evaluate and see what I can increase and what is not working for me. I'm going to start this on Sunday because I always choose Mondays for my start dates on things and I don't know why. I'm going to have a weekly check in with my good friend, Angie to keep my focus.

Here's to small wonders...

Thanksgiving fail

I think the title says it all right there. I only had phone internet this week while we were back home for the holidays, so that is the reason for my hiatus. I really had to force myself to sit down and admit my wrong doings on here but here we are.

So I kept the grazing to a minimum, but I ate tons and tons. Most of the week it was only one large meal a day that we had, but oh my what a meal it was. Lots of starches and sweets. I barely moved all week too. I couldn't even hold out for some massive shopping on black Friday. I look and feel digusting and just all around at a low point. It didn't help matters that this was probably one of the worst holidays I've had recently in terms of family drama. I feel like I need a cleanse of some sort. I need a sauna, some kind of nutritional cleanse, multiple days in the gym and to rid myself completely of negative, self-involved people. All of which seem unattainable to me right now.

I feel overwhelmed, unmotivated and uninspired by life in general at this time in my life. Maybe it's the holidays. To quote one of my favorite movies, Untamed Heart, (I'm a Christian Slater fangirl) "It's not right to feel sh*tty this time of year, but ya know everybody does".

Psycho-analyze this

Two blogs in one night is probably never going to happen again, but as I'm sitting here in our apartment with the windows open and the wind blowing like crazy (tornado?), I feel like I should write again, so I'm going with it. 

The holiday season is very bittersweet for me, mainly for one reason. I don't really get to see most of my family members. With my dad working out of town and moving from place to place, it's hard to narrow down and time and date to spend time with him with all of us girls. There is also the issue of him not appreciating my husband for the wonderful person that he is, but that is a whole other can of worms we won't go into. I haven't spent the last 2 or 3 Thanksgivings with my mom for obvious reasons and it looks like this year will be no exception. 

Without going into the long and drawn out story of my life, let's just say I've spent a great deal of it on the receiving end of a very negative and controlling force. As a child, you aren't able to exactly choose who is in your life and who isn't. I had a lot of freedom to do what I wanted as a teenager, but I didn't have the ability to get away from people who consciously tried to break me down to feeling like I was worth nothing. However it appeared to those around me, to me, it was abuse. Extreme psychological and emotional abuse. I feel like I lived in a household where I couldn't control anything around me. It's only natural to me that maybe food was the one thing I could control in my own home. Meals were always good and plentiful in my house amid the constant chaos. Of course, it was a comfort too. I'm not a "sad" eater, I'm a "happy", "sad", "angry", "excited", "bored", basically any kind of emotion,eater.

Things are a lot different in my life now, although they didn't have to be. I chose to remove myself from that situation and not look back or give it. I'm beyond proud of myself and I know how far I'm come from the child that I was going through all of that. I also know that if someone dug into the issues I have even slightly, a lot of emotions and thoughts about the past would be at the root of it all. That is scary to me. It makes me think that exploring therapy as an option would just be back-peddling. I've dealt with this part of my life by being resilient and rising above it. Turning away and not getting sucked into the black hole of it all has needlessly cost me so much. It's been painful and heart-breaking, but it's something I had to do in order to be the person I wanted to be. Really, it's what I had to do if I wanted to just plain be okay. 

I'm afraid delving back into it would just be another set-back. No, I do not care enough to go up to this person and be like this is what you did to me and blah, blah, blah. Closure, let's be friends--I don't think so. I'm not harboring hate, I just have no interest in it at all. It's like the idea of playing video games. Do I loathe playing video games? No. Is my life missing something because I don't play video games. No. Will playing video games bring something spectacular into my life? No. There's just zero interest. Life is waaaay too short to bring anyone less than spectacular into your life (something I got from Ms. Angela Dawn Huxford) and I'm not about to start doing that now.  Basically if you are less than amazing, you can go on your way and I can go on mine.

So after that rant, I'm torn on what to think about therapy. I do think I need professional help with several issues, but at what cost? Let me tell you one thing: I'd rather have a short life being fat  than have a long life of being thin if it compromises the person I am right now. Period.