Resolving to commit to an affirmation

Unlike most foolish people, I rarely make New Year's resolutions.  I recognize that they are usually broken and then serve to remind us of yet another way in which we have broken yet another commitment to ourselves.  The only resolution that I make is usually not to make a resolution.  I have NEVER broken this resolution when made.

2012 will be no exception.  This year I committed to getting healthier and working on myself.  I fell down a bit on that job, but I've been reaffirming more lately and intend to reaffirm more after the hubbub of the holidays.  If this happens to fall on January 1, then so be it.  I refuse to look at it as a resolution though, more like a reaffirmation.  Maybe I'm just being fancy with words but I don't care.

I signed up for a challenge on Facebook to move 500 miles in one year.  When I initially signed up, I thought it was literally just moving, and it was only upon the final sign up through Spark People (this is how the group has decided to log its miles) that I realized that they only mean run/walk. 

Ooops.

And the group is a mixed bag -- people like me who are struggling and then your runners who were so pumped from their 5 mile run this morning that they decided to 6 tonight.  Um, what??

I can't try to compete with those people.  I'm not going to compete with those people.  I figure if I am even TRYING to walk (much less run) an average of 10 miles a week, then I'm going to be in better shape and generally feel better about myself.

Maybe I'll see the number on the scale change, but you know what?  Maybe I never will.  I'm trying to think about that in a new way too.  Obviously, I want to be in the One-derland (still hanging around the 210 mark, which is a minor victory considering the holiday temptations that I don't always pass up) but what if I am walking/running 10 miles a week and doing so without feeling like I'm going to die during or after?  Isn't THAT the key thing? 

It's easy to think that here by myself in front of the computer.  It's another to think it when I'm hanging out in a room full of skinny people. 

It's something I resolve to continue to work on, think about, and write to you about!

Since this is likely the last post for this year, I'd like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year!

much love,

Heather

Deep thoughts...

The thing I like about working out is that for that 30 minutes and the afterglow - however long that lasts - I have beaten the fat girl in my head into submission.

Laugh of the day

Sometimes you have to give thanks for the lows

I hate to have even a bit of a downer post on Thanksgiving, but I also feel like if I don't continue to keep it real then I won't continue at all.  Because as I've said in the title, I do have to be thankful for the lows (and I am) -- because otherwise I wouldn't recognize the challenges I overcome along the way.

I think it started because of the overconfidence that developed when I had such a spikey workout yesterday.  This really did a positive number on my confidence, because I was thinking about the 5k we did earlier this year and how proud I was that I was under 17 minute mile.  And now, I'm hovering around 15 minutes.  So, that's down about 2 minutes in an 8 month time span that included like 4 monhts of not working out at all.  As always, I'm taking the NSV's where I can get them.

Then, I was helping my mom make an apple cake for Thanksgiving dessert.  I licked the spoon.  I was thinking about my friend Kiosk and how she'd asked me to be her support network during times when she was making cakes for people because cake batter triggers a frenzy.  I thought hey, one spoonful -- I can do this.  I was thinking about dinner and how, while I am looking forward to the variety of very non-healthy things we will be having, I did not plan to overindulge.  Just a regular plate-ful.  It's just dinner.  I don't need to eat to survive winter, like the Pilgrims. 

But things started slowly drifting downhill.  We hung out with our neighbors, whom we love but do not usually lead me to the path of good decisions.  We are making wine with them and we sampled a carafe.  It has a very high alcohol content right now...  We had Chinese food for dinner, like good Americans pre-Thanksgiving.  I continued to maintain a level of good decisions -- I skipped the lo mein, I ate a lot of broccoli (which I choose to believe is a better decision, even if it is slathered in sauce) and made a very small plate overall.  Fist sized portions of shrimp and broccoli and mostly the mushrooms from a beef and mushroom concoction. 

And then it happened.  We got home.  And I binged.  Like I haven't binged in a very long time.  Opened up tortilla chip bag and strapped on like a feeder.  But then that led to a self-loathing that can only be cured by chocolate.  Found some Christmas chocolate (that would mean it was from last year) and snarfed many pieces of that.  Was surrounded by wrappers and put the chocolate away.  But, I guess I still felt empty because I moved on to a snack sized bread pudding -- which was probably the only somewhat decent thing I binged on since it was teeny portion from Kozy Shack.  And I managed to stop at one.

And I managed to stop.

I headed for bed and made a call to Kiosk to try to talk me through it.  She was immensely helpful, despite being overwhelmed with her Thanskgiving prep. 

And this morning, I forced myself to go to the gym and get my workout in.  (Thank Goodness for 24 hour gyms!)  I have a plan of attack to try to not binge my way through the day.  And I'm going to work on being thankful that I'm capable of forgiving myself for these setbacks while not forgiving myself in to downward spiral. 

It's been a challenging year on the weight loss front.  I have been kidding myself into thinking I could procrastinate on dealing with the food issues.  I still don't know if I am capable of handling focusing on more than one thing at a time.  But, I do know that if I don't at least start trying that last night was just a toe-dip in the shallow end of the tidal pool of self-loathing that can evolve from denying that emotional eating is a part of my life. 

I'm thankful for you sitting here reading this.  I'm thankful that I have people I can call and can talk me down.  I have people who push me to keep trying.  And I am most thankful that I have people who don't judge me when I slide back and still love me and root for me anyways.  I want you to know that I'm rooting for you too!

Much love and gratitude,
Heather

See those spikey things?

That's where I was running! :)

2.0 miles by 30 minutes. Getting there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Exercise your earworm

I have been listening to the same 30 minute-ish work-out list on my iPod for a long time.  Mostly because I've been too lazy to tweak it.  Tonight, I finally got inspired and decided to re-vamp it.  Here's the finished product for your perusal...

Bring Me To Life 3:59 Evanescence    27
Rolling In the Deep 3:48 Adele 21 Pop
Pump It 3:33 The Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business Hip-Hop/Rap  31
Moves Like Jagger (Studio Recording from "The Voice" Performance) [feat. Christina Aguilera] 3:21 Maroon 5 Hands All Over (Deluxe Version) Pop
Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) 3:51 Katy Perry Teenage Dream Pop
Sex On Fire 3:23 Kings of Leon Only By the Night (Deluxe Version) Alternative  35
Jump Around 3:36 House of Pain  Hip Hop  27
Animal 3:32 Neon Trees Habits (Bonus Track Version) Alternative  26
Misery 3:36 Maroon 5 Misery - Single Pop  12
Raise Your Glass 3:23 P!nk Greatest Hits...So Far!!! Pop  5
Stayin' Alive 4:45 Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack  56
When You Were Young 3:40 The Killers Sam's Town Rock  28
Bad Romance 4:54 Lady Gaga Bad Romance   43


The list starts with Bring Me to Life because I first created a target time list when I did the 5k in March.  I liked that it started kind of slow, but that slow guitar riff that builds gives me just enough oomph to push off.  Now, I'm kind of hooked on it being the starting song because I've used it that way for so long.
Rolling in the Deep is a new addition, but I've been wanting to see if it has the right sounds to get me going for a while.  I LOVE Adele, but not sure if she's going to be right for work-out material.
Pump It has long been a regular for obvious reasons.  That's usually when I start my first serious running attempt (I'm working on a running post now). 
Moves and Friday Night are also new additions.  I'm a little anxious about Friday Night because I'm not sure if it's going to be fast enough in the refrain to get me going, but I just get such a kick out of the song that I decided to give it a whirl.  But, I LOVE the Moves song and it hasn't quite been overplaid on the radio just yet. 
Sex on Fire has also long been on the list.  When I first heard this song, it practically wanted to make me write a movie just so there could be a montage of a guy training to this song.  And then I realized that Vision Quest and Rocky have already been made.  Perhaps my movie would be a female version of one of these?  Ooops, no -- Hilary Swank did the chick Karate Kid already. 
Jump Around...  Well, I mean -- I've got the skills, come get your pills??  I am that person in the gym who motions along to this song when it comes on.  Every morning I'm making gun gestures and yes, I have actually mimed "smacking your ho" in that line.  It's 6am, and I do not have time for shame.

I've always tried to time it so that song comes at about the end.  Because usually by the end, I am praying for death and need the kick in the pants that it gives me.  So, the last 10-20 minutes are really just fluff in case I want to shuffle.  And because some of them have been on there since the original list. 

I'm really excited to go get started with this one tomorrow, so perhaps I have been remiss in not playing with my lists more often.  On the other hand, I liked the sound association of the other list where I would hear certain songs and just get automatically kicked in to gear. 

Let me know what you're listening to....
Heather

Running down a dream

Sometimes I think my blog should be called how I wish I were a runner. Or Runner Hater. Well, not hater but envier to be sure.

I see people running everywhere. They make it look so easy. So natural. Like anyone could just pick up and sail with their feet over concrete and dreadmills.

Not so.

I really do not believe runners intentionally mock me. But.... In the early morning, when I go to the gym sometimes it seems like the only people on the dreadmill are runners. Sometimes it's a comedy of sorts. I'm the only one on the dreadmill then as people get on around me they're all runners. And yes, it does seem spiteful. I mean, you are nowhere to be found and then fat girl tries to run and you just show up to glide along?? Really?? With long sleeves on and not even breaking a sweat - and you're not mocking me? I just don't entirely buy it.

I fear that this is something I will struggle with for some time to come.
Maybe, probably I will never be a "runner". It just seems so unfathomable. To just pick up and start running. For more than a minute. And not from a criminal or a crime scene.

Maybe, probably that's okay.

But maybe it's not.

I mean, worst case I get in better shape by continuing to try!

Whew

Checked that box today. I wish there was a microphone in my head to record the thought progression from "shit I don't wanna" to "eff yeah I did that!"

The hardest warm-up exercise is getting over the apprehension.


Hmm...iPhone blogging delay. I wrote this yesterday or maybe even Monday.

Starting over

My nose has dried up, thanks to antibiotics. So now so have my excuses. Tomorrow morning I'm back to the gym.

But today? I sloth!

A Whiny Musical Interlude

Even if you're not a musical fan, you probably have heard at least a portion of Maria's gleeful song from West Side Story "I Feel Pretty." 

Yeah, well, my most recent setback has me singing a similar tune in my head, only it goes "I feel lumpy -- oh so lumpy and dumpy and gray!"

I know that I should just keep my head up and my resolve strong, but it's just brutal.  I've got some kind of sinus infection thing (my godmother calls it the Tidewater crud) and I've had a red nose from vacillation between clogged and runny for about a week.  I did make one foray to the gym last week at the on-set, but it got progressively ickier and harder to breathe so I've been pretty much seat-bound since.

And not feeling well also lends itself to less than wise eating habits.  Which means that I'm not doing the best job of controlling my environment and just mindlessly sticking food down my throat to make myself feel better.

Which only makes me feel worse because I can't move either.

Kiosk says that she has all kinds of workout routines planned out so she never has an excuse not to exercise.  I'm not sure how to get around the not being able to breathe through my nose thing though.  Am I just being too wimpy?  Or too hard on myself for not being more of a bad-ass? 

I'm not sure.  But I do know that between my red clogged nose and my general lumpiness, every time I pass a mirror I just try to avert my gaze and get past that as quickly as possible.  Which makes putting on my make-up and doing my hair pretty interesting, I gotta say! 

I'm weighing myself and luckily there hasn't been any upward scale activity as a result of my downward mobility, but I'm just afraid that I'll do like I always do and let this set back set me all the way back. 

I think it's a good sign that I am anxious because I can't exercise, but if I'm not pushing myself to get up and try I'm not sure how good of a sign it is...  I guess time will tell.

Venting,
Heather

Losing Weight: A Battle Against Fat And Biology

A link to an NPR story which has haunted me all week....

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/10/31/141794801/losing-weight-a-battle-against-fat-and-biology?sc=17&f=1128

Losing Weight: A Battle Against Fat And Biology
by Patti Neighmond

- October 31, 2011

Part of an ongoing series on obesity in America

If you're among the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight, chances are you've had people tell you to just ease up on the eating and use a little self-control. It does, of course, boil down to "calories in, calories out."

But there's a lot more to it than that, according to obesity specialist Dr. Donna Ryan, associate director for clinical research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.

It's a popular misconception, she says, that losing weight is "strictly a matter of willpower." It's a gigantic task, she says, because not only do we move through an incredible buffet of food spread before us every day, but we also face a battle with our own biological responses.

It starts when we begin to shed those first few pounds. At that point, "the biology really kicks in and tries to resist the weight loss," she says.

Take 56-year-old Mary Grant, who's faced a lifetime battling fat, beginning in childhood, when her father humiliated her in front of the family by publicly weighing her every Saturday morning and insisted on her trying diet after diet.

In the end, Grant unsuccessfully tried "the grapefruit before every meal diet, Weight Watchers in the early days, when you had to eat chicken livers, the hard-boiled eggs and salad diet, the tomato soup diet, the cabbage soup diet, essentially anything," says Grant, "to get that weight off me."

But the weight did not "come off." It wasn't until after nursing school that Grant was successful in dropping 100 pounds after a medically supervised fast. Dramatic as that success was, it didn't last. Grant gained much of the weight back. Most people do, according to health experts.

And here's why:

When you begin to lose pounds, levels of the hormone leptin, which is produced by fat cells, begin to drop. That sends a message to the brain that the body's "fat storage" is shrinking. The brain perceives starvation is on the way and, in response, sends out messages to conserve energy and preserve calories. So, metabolism drops.

And then other brain signals tell the body it's "hungry," and it sends out hormones to stimulate the appetite. The combination of lowered metabolism and stimulated appetite equals a "double whammy," says Ryan. And that means the person who's lost weight can't consume as much food as the person who hasn't lost weight.

For example, if you weigh 230 pounds and lose 30 pounds, you cannot eat as much as an individual who has always weighed 200 pounds. You basically have a "caloric handicap," says Ryan. And depending on how much weight people lose, they may face a 300-, 400- or even 500-calorie a day handicap, meaning you have to consume that many fewer calories a day in order to maintain your weight loss.

This means no more grapefruit or cabbage soup diets: You need a diet you can stay on forever. For most people, that means high fiber, low fat and low sugar.

But you can fight back against a lowered metabolism. You can "kick" your metabolism back up by exercising every day. One recent study found people were able to burn up an extra 450 calories a day with one hour of moderate exercise.

It doesn't have to be vigorous jogging. You can walk briskly, bike or swim. Health experts recommend 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day in order to reduce risk for heart disease. But obesity experts say if you want to lose or maintain weight, you have to double that and exercise at least one hour every day.

If obesity has touched your life, share your story with NPR and the Public Insight Network. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews

Heather 

Ugh

I've said it before. Easier to stay on track then to get back on it.

Live from the elliptical,
Heather

words of wisdom from Penny on The Big Bang

It's a rough month when Halloween and PMS hit at the same time. >^..^<

Warning: Sassiness can have consequences

Funny thing about that sassy post, it had a bit of a bad outcome.  I was feeling so sassy that I decided to wear my cute boot-shoes (what the heck are those things called?  Booties?  Booes?) that night instead of my more sensible tennis shoes...  That decision was made despite the fact that we had to walk a few blocks back and forth to the metro (we were in DC).  The fashion over function debate that all women face whenever there is an outing.  Yeah, bad decision.  I have wound up straining or pulling or something to my left calf and STILL cannot stand up without a bit of a "unh" that is OH so sexy!

So, consequently, I have been skipping the gym.  Because let's be honest, I'm still at that stage (aka my entire life) where getting a hangnail seems like a good reason to go the gym.  It gets better and easier, but then anything happens and I'm right back to being ready to just embrace fatness again.  To paraphrase Kiosk, most of the easiest, most relaxing times are when I decide to just keep it on.  And I struggle with that a lot.  After the sassy post, we spent some time with Scott's sister, because she was the reason we went to DC.  She is teeny tiny thin and it's impossible not to feel like a dumpy giant next to her.  Even though I knew that it's not even physically possible to be that thin, not that I would ever even want to do the amount of work that it would take to stay that thin -- I just felt frumpy.  And I've been trying to shake off that ghost since then.

And it's particularly hard to shake the feeling when I'm NOT feeling like going to the gym.  Or when I'm wearing one of my favorite outfits and catch a look in the mirror and think that I so do not look as cute in mirrors as I feel in my head and how grotesquely unfair is that.  Because then my favorite outfit isn't my favorite outfit anymore??  Which means I have to go shopping and who wants to shop when they feel frumpy?? 

One of the things I've really been focusing on to try to shake the frumpiness is one of my epiphanies about what I have accomplished this year. In one of my earliest confessions I told you that my weight was 230.8.  That was when I was getting ready to join Weight Watchers the first time.  Since I have started trying to re-focus, I have been weighing myself daily (more on this in another blog) and I've stayed hovering around the 210 mark.  My lowest this year was 204.  I've been focusing on the fact that I gained 6 lbs back, but I have decided to shift my thinking and realize that despite all of my jumping off the wagon I have managed to keep off 20 lbs this year.  That is 2 pounds a month.  Most people would not be happy with losing 2 pounds a month and I say -- good on you!  If you can lose more AND keep it off for good, that is great.  But I've been there.  I've lost 50 pounds.  50.  That's not easy and (obviously) it's not easy to keep it off.  If I continue to average 2 lbs a month until I get to a size I'm comfortable with, I think that's an average that is sustainable for a lifetime.  Maybe I'll get to a point where I get more focused and want to lose more.  And then, good on future me!

But as for present me -- I'm just trying to find life support to get out of this frumpy feeling and get back to sassssy.

Sassy Cat

I've started enjoying taking pictures again. And seeing myself in pictures. Because even though I still look fat, now I know I will look back and think, "I remember how that felt. Starting to feel sassy again.".

And man, I just want to keep feeling sassy!!

2 miles in 30 minutes

PHEW!

Dreadmill

I keep photos of my dreadmill stats... I used to be good about then going back and logging them, but now I just take the photos out of habit.

Trying to get down to average 15:00 min/mile but have a ways to get there.

Have a great day - I know mine will be at least a teeny bit better now!

:)
Heather

Oh dear. It may be on...

I can blog from my iPhone? Easily??

Shut the front door y'all - there may be updates and sweaty photos now.

Here's one just to get you started...

"So this is what commitment feels like"*

I'm trying to get back in to blogging, as you can hopefully see, but every time I fail at a commitment I made to myself I think, "I don't want to write about THAT!  I can't tell them that happened..."

But I guess that's supposed to be the point, isn't it?  It can't be all running and staying on the wagon and eating rice cakes (:::shudder:::), now can it?  (Shut up, I know it was never like that!) 

It's going to be falling off the wagon and strapping on a bag of Tostito's like it's feedbag (AKA Tuesday) and one day last week where I think I consumed almost nothing but sugar and caffeine.  (That was so bad that I did almost blog about it to get away from the shame, but I was probably too wired to form coherent thoughts about it.)  The question is do I write about that?  Do I want to publicize my descent?  Do I think NOT publicizing it will mean it's not happening?

Well, yeah, I think there's a part of me that definitely thinks that.  Not like an active conscious thought, exactly...  I was talking to Kiosk about her sugar trigger, because she is coming up on a difficult time frame to deal with that.  She asked me for advice on how to deal with it, even though she acknowledged that she didn't really expect me to have any.  (Gee, thanks!)  I suggested exposing herself -- not literally perv.  She has a cake batter weakness because no one is around to see her eating it when she makes a cake.  I suggested invite someone over to her ostensibly to "help" make the cake, but really they're helping by not leaving her alone with the cake batter. 

And then I thought, "doctor, heal thyself."  Because that's my thing.  If I don't blog about my failures, then that's like snarfing the cake batter alone, isn't it?  If I commit to something and then don't follow through, what difference does it make if I'm committing it to myself?  No one is there to see when I screw up.  Again. 

Here are just a few of the things I have recently committed to and not followed through:  not drinking during the week, working out at least three times a week, following the plan at Spark People and you get the idea.  I commit to doing something or commit to avoiding something but the end result is the same: lots of not following through followed by strapping on a bag of Tostito's and the cycle continues. 

The problem is that I can't just not try to commit, because that's not going anywhere good.  So, I think what I'm going to do is just commit to one thing at a time.  Once I've fully embraced that commitment and it's become a habit then I'm going to move on to another thing.  Because right now if I have wine at night, that's a shame spiral.  And if I don't track what I eat, then that's another excuse to have a calorie ball because I'm already in the shame spiral from not tracking it in the first place.  Sometimes I think I make commitments just so I can break them and dive in to the shame spiral.  (Epiphany!)  So, that's not going anywhere good either.  I don't know if this is the best plan towards success.  After all, I still hold a hope that I will end the year in the onederland.  But, I do know that since I have started to get back on track, I have only been successful with one thing at a time.  (Eww, kind of a bit like AA, one day at a time...)  So, I'm going to get back to being regular with the gym and once I have firmly accomplished that then I'm going to work on layering from that.

I will also try to keep blogging as I go.  But, that is TWO things so...  ;-)

Heather

*PS* Note on title:  Because I signed up for Spark People, I have been inundated with motivation emails.  Sometimes they are short parts of board posts from their in-sight bloggers.  This was the title of one that I did a rare save in my inbox so that every time I checked my mail I saw that.  I kept thinking that I too wanted to know what commitment feels like.  But, not in a cheesy annoying way -- in a way that's more kick-ass then that particular post turned out to be. 

A New Auld Lang Syne

     Many people know that one of my blog-spirations is the blog created by Ms. Bitchcakes, because she's a former fat girl who fell in love with exercise.  She also has a blog over at Weight Watchers and a recent post got me thinking....

     In this post, she talks about how a simple question from her allergist gave her the foundation for the inspiration to be a runner.  Something she never thought she would be or do and now she is preparing for the 2012 NYC Marathon.  Now, I don't want to be a marathon runner, but I would like to be able to run.  I have always seen this as something that other people do.  I don't run, because I'm not those people.  And I think I look like a dork.  And I have to breathe really hard and I tend to pray for death.  I mean, I don't call it the dreadmill for nothing. 
     But, you see, I am frequently reminded of a simple question that someone asked me and it's one of the driving forces as I get s l o w l y back into my work out routine.  I alluded to it in this post.  I was still working out at the gym at the office.  I had a disappointing work-out because I was using the dreadmill (that was the change in my cardio I was referring to) and felt like I didn't really get it in.  As I was walking out, my now boss was leaving work for the day.  We didn't really know each other, other then the fact that he hung out with the people in my cube quad...  In fact, I know that this conversation made no impression on him because it was one of those weird after-work awkward pleasantries exchange -- you know the kind you do because the only thing you have in common with this person is that you are stuck walking in the exact same direction to your parking lot?  Made further awkward because someone smells like a gym and someone doesn't?  Yeah.  Anyhoo, what he said was "did you have a good work-out Heather?"  And because he didn't know me, I'm POSITIVE that he was probably only expecting some trite answer like "yeah, sure" -- instead of my response, which was "No, frankly, it was a bit disappointing."
     I'm sure I followed it with something along the lines of, anything's better than nothing or whatever.  But the fact that I responded with expressing my disappointment -- I have never forgotten that.  Because that is a feeling that I struggled to get away from when I was "in it to win it" earlier this year and it's a struggle to get away from now. 
     But, the thing is that when gaining and losing weight is your primary hobby -- every stage is familiar.  After New Year's Day, if you blow that -- well you just declare another day New Year's Day and THAT'S the day by gosh that is really going to be the first day of the rest of my life.
     Except it's not.
     Because the first day of the rest of my life started over 38 years ago.  All the rest?  Well, that's just been my life.


     And today is just today.

It was one of those weird stupid a-ha moments this morning.  "Today is just today."  It's not the first day of anything, it's not the last day of anything.  There's nothing that I do today that is going to necessarily be the beginning -- or the end -- of anything.  Today is just today.  And today I just have to do the best job that I can to not feel disappointed by myself and the effort that I give to this progression.  And tomorrow, I'm probably going to have to do that too -- but that's tomorrow.  I'm going to let that work itself out.  Today is just today.  I'm just going to work on today and the things that I can do today. 

    Today, I did get up and go to the gym.  And I did a 5 minute elliptical warm up and then I got on that dreadmill and I manage to do an under 16 minute mile.  Will I do that tomorrow?  Don't know.  Because that's tomorrow's problem.  Today is just today.  Today I did not drink at night after yet another long day.  I did not have the extra cup of coffee I was starting to get a little too dependent on.  I managed to avoid eating a fair amount of crap.  And today, I got on the scale and decided to stop kidding myself.  Today I stared at my weight and realized that I was kiddding myself before.  Because I've been to the gym a few times, I've forgiven myself a whole host of unacceptable behavior and have actually gained 3 pounds (or more) since I started back.  Today, I decided to forgive myself.

And that was the most important decision of all.  Will I be able to make that decision tomorrow?  Will my work out be disappointing?

Don't know.  I'm stil in today.

Heather

Confession

I've been posting my progress daily on my Facebook page. Today I wanted to send quick blog confirming I fell off the wagon last night. I had 2 glasses of wine and did not get up this morning and work out.

Do I blame it on my stressful job? Sure. Another problem with a rental property? A little. Still not quite successfully battling off Scott's creeping crud? Yup.

Does it matter? I've always had excuses. I always will. I will not fall off the blog wagon again though because of my failures and setbacks. So I'm keeping you in the loop as I fight the fight...

Heather 

As I lay WILF*'ing

So, I'm wilfing around the internet, killing time until I can try to get cracking on a work course that was down for maintenance until 3pm,  I found this awesome article on Facebook from NPR about a book on will power -- of all things!

Sometimes I think that if you just pay enough attention, there are pointers everywhere that tell you that you're heading in the right (or wrong) direction.  The article talks about a new book called, creatively enough, Willpower and it's by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.  (Here is a link to article on NPR.)  These guys studied willpower, and while it's not something easy to study they did learn that it is possible.  The most interesting thing is that the more you use your willpower "muscle", the easier it is to fatigue it.  So, when you're really going to actively engage it, you should make it for something good because too many uses and it gets fatigued easily.

That's right.  You wear out your willpower muscle by the fact that you are using it.  In a way, this makes sense -- you wear out your non-psychological muscles by using them.  But, exercising them also makes them stronger -- and the same thing goes for your willpower!  Brilliant!  Further, exercising your willpower to do anything will lead to better self-control in other areas of your life.  For example, in one study they asked students to actively work to have better posture for a week.  At the end of the week, these students displayed a greater ability to exert self-control in areas that weren't related then students who hadn't been working on their posture.  How cool is that?? 

The reason that this is so cosmically kismet is because I decided to make last night my first serious attempt at having a farewell to indulgence tour.  Meaning, I went out and kicked it old school rock star style to get it all out of my system and, hopefully, enable me to settle into a slightly less rock star daily life.  My current plan is to take a page out of my inspiring, inspired reader (that was this recent post) and cut out drinking during the week.  Since many of you may not be part-time alcoholics, you may not recognize that this is a big deal.  Let me assure you.  It is a big deal.  This was one of the major ways that I saw success earlier this year -- I had significantly cut back the amount of drinking I was doing on weeknights.  As early morning workouts became the norm, the necessity of not over-indulging became more and more paramount.  Also, my job at that point was not at the stressful as hell level, which it has since devolved in to.  (When you hear that there have been tornadoes, tropical storms, or generally any kind of major natural disaster, just realize that somewhere not too far away there is a property claims adjuster eating cheetos and wine for dinner again and promising herself that tomorrow is going to be the day that she stops this behavior.  And usually, it isn't.)

SO.  This is a big step.  It is NOT going to be easy.  Therefore, the only thing I am working on right now is getting back to the gym in the morning and not drinking on nights when I have to work the next day.  I'm not going to start WW or any serious calorie monitoring yet.  I'm going to exercise my willpower muscle a little bit harder by combining these two things and we'll see how it goes.

I will try to continue to document both my success and failure here.

Still trying to think of a catchy sign-off,
Heather

*PS:  It has come to my attention that WILF is not in the lexicon.  Here is my Facebook comment/explantion:  Technically it's supposed to be WWILF -- it stands for "what was I looking for"? It goes something like this. I go on the internet to check my bank balance. Oh, the check to my hairdresser finally cleared. I'm gonna check Facebook and see what she's up to. What? So and so had a clam bake? I like clams. Maybe I"ll make clam chowder, let me find a recipe for that. Clams are really good. I wonder how much my friend in Boston pays for them. How much are tickets to Boston... THAT is WILF'ing. What WAS I looking for again???? ;-)

A reader's letter and my thoughts

 So, I got my first official reader letter over on my Facebook page today.  I'm pretty sure anyone who knows me here knows me over there, but just in case...  I'm a little on the fence about the Roberta Flack reference though.  ;-)

Sarah Bridget:  

Once again - its like you found my letters and read each one out loud. ;)

You DO continue to inspire, you know. Your inspiration isn't all linked to weight. A weight struggler myself, I was routing for you to "stay on the (workout) wagon" when you were away all that time for work because, while living in the hurricane catcher's mitt on the Gulf, at least 2 of my 20 lb weight losses were thwarted (and regained with interest) due to an unexpected jolt in life that messed with all my good behavior. Now, I am at my all-time heaviest.
 

Me: The funny thing is that I did really good while I was gone. I even lost 4 or 5 more pounds. I got down to a total of 25 lost from the 50 I had gained back. I mean, I was halfway back to where I was before -- when I wasn't even done. But still. I can't blame the travel -- I can only blame my butt's deep attraction to my recliner chair.

I joined the Y about 6 weeks ago. I am honestly sad when I look in the mirror. To me, I look like I'm wearing a fat suit makeup job when I put on my makeup in the morning. Should I be able to pinch an inch right under my ear? I feel like I'm losing my eyes under fat -- like people in fat suits look. But even THAT didn't make me take my gym visits seriously!

Me:  First, I know this feeling SO well.  You go out and you think you're looking all cute and then you catch a glimpse in a mirror or worse see a photo and it's just a spiral of depression.  I avoid reflective surfaces.  Sadly, this does not make me less fat.  Second, I have seen recent photos of Sarah and she does not in fact look like she has on a fat suit.  Which leads me to the truth that how we see ourselves is a much harsher, crueler reflection than what most people see when they see us.  It's a slippery slope to keep in check.  You need to realize that you're 1000 times harder on yourself than the people you think are silently judging you, but on the other hand you can't let this knowledge take you to the place of "well, maybe I'm actually very fit and just don't realize it."  Um, no.  That's a bridge too far.

Two things occurred: 2 weeks ago I pulled my back. I've had muscle strain before - but nothing that layed me out like this. I very nearly went to the ER out of fear that I'd slipped or pinched something important. I rested the whole rest of the holiday weekend. Last Friday - while returning to my desk in the office, it happened again and I was down another weekend. I gots shit to do - I can't be that kind of miserable every weekend! 

While I'd been layed up those 2 weekends, the world spent a lot of time remembering the events of 9/11. This, once again caused me to not only think of my own mortality, but also the last 10 years. They have been good to me, but I've gained about 60 lbs. That's too many lbs. My miserable layed up self also got to thinking that if I were ever in a TRULY trying moment like those survivors, in my condition, I'd perish.

So I saw a doctor. I didn't pinch or slip anything important. I pulled a bunch of muscles. I felt like I dodged a huge problem. Visions of surgeries and a lifetime of pills came to mind and I was so relieved that change was still in my grasp. Doc gave me mild muscle relaxers so that I can start to build my core. She told me what machines to find and what execises to do.

Me:  There's so much great stuff in all of this.  I too have gained about 60lbs in the last 10 years and I was no skinny minnie then.  But I was a pretty happy size 10/12.  Okay, more 12 then 10, but whatever.  First, the being laid up was something that Kiosk (who is one of my occasional commenters and the origin of my inspiration to work out in the first place) really hammered in to me in the early days when I kept trying to push myself and being so frustrated that I couldn't do more.  She's been healthy and active for a long time, but has dealt with many times with knee injuries that have left her debilitated and unable to work out.  She says that as bad as you feel when you can't work out as much as you want, what if you couldn't work out at all??  So, your injury -- while it sounds literally like a big old pain in the ass -- was Fate's way of taking your hand and saying -- listen girl, you got to get it together, mmmkay?  (No coincidence that Fate starts with fat, I think.)

Guess who is taking my gym visits seriously? AND - I'm not drinking during the week. That's MOST of my calories, really...sadly. I really miss it, but tomorrow is Friday. I'm not doing WW - but I have and I know it works. I'm using Livestrong.com's MyPlate. Its similar to WW online, only free.

Me:  Yeah.  The whole FEBOC (favorite evening beverage of choice) nightly has gots to go.  I was all gung-ho after your note and then I thought, you know it's Thursday -- who am I kidding here?  So, we'll try that next week!  That's definitely been my biggest issue all along, because my job is so friggin' stressful.  But, there are other ways of dealing with that then turning off my brain.  One of my favorite Twitter posts recently was something like "drugs and alcohol are bad, but feelings are worse."  SO true!! 
That's what I'm doing! Keep blogging, lady, I enjoy your posts. And NO one is judging you.

Take care,
Be well,
Sarah



And on those notes on this note, I'm out of here...  Thanks Sarah for being inspired and being inspiring yourself!  It is too bad that Ptown is like another country.  ;)

Keep on looking for good sign offs....
~Heather 

Fake it til you make it

So, I don't really feel like blogging.  "Thanks for boring us, Heather -- we'll switch back to Fox News..."


Wait, I just meant that I don't have much to say.  For so long I was on a roll, I was called inspirational -- more than once, and not by my mother -- so, that's a thing.  And I feel like now, I need to be on a roll and being inspirational or something in order to write stuff.  But here's the thing (write this down).......

Life can really suck sometimes.  It's not always easy to be motivational.

::phew::

 I feel better.  Don't you?  No?  Shit, well there I go again not being inspiring...

Therein lies the rub.  This summer when I had the Summer of Lovehandles (tm) in progress -- I DID think about "you" -- whoever you are.  Random Blog Readers.  I thought, "Those RBR are going to KNOW I fell off the wagon and they are shaking their heads, silently judging me."  And, well, I did a fair amount of that on my own.  Along with a lot of promises I knew I wasn't going to keep.

That's the thing with being fat and being inside the fat....You make a lot of promises publicly and privately that you know you're not going to keep, but still keep making them.  Because ONE DAY, it really IS going to be the last day you make that promise.  Now, maybe it's because it's the day you get hit by a bus or have a nasty heart attack, but hopefully it's because you've come to terms with your own mortality and decided hey, I don't want my hobby to be losing weight -- I want it to be keeping it off.

Because this losing and putting it back on?  For all of the novelty at the beginning???  Boring for the long run.  Depressing to face going to yet another WW meeting as a "first timer" -- I mean, it's my what time around?  How many times am I going to literally put lipstick on this pig?? 

I wish I could be as committed as Bitchcakes -- her last time she knew was her last time because she was going to stay until she finished.  And the thing for me is that I preach WW to everyone I know who's thinking about it because if you do it, it freaking works!  And, like I said, it's real.  You can fall back on the basics and even when you're sliding know enough to prevent a landslide.

Anyways...  This is another stream of consciousness posting.  I DO know that my desire to blog correlates with my desire to do this thing and that's a positive change.  I've been to the gym 3 times in under a week, which is sad but HUGE for me in comparison.  I'm faced with bad decisions by the hour and am inching towards making better ones (again) all the time...

I'll try to be better about posting.  You try to be better about... what?  What are YOU going to do?

------Heather

Tip-toe

So, I thought I was back in June, but clearly that was not the case.  Maybe I'm not back for good, maybe I am.  Let's just take this one post at a time, mmmkay Pumpkin?

My running joke has been that this was the Summer of Love Handles.  (I'm not sure if it can be called a joke if no one but me thinks it's funny, but whatever.)  And while I have been bad, (you know how I feel about this) I haven't done as bad as I would have thought.  The last time I wasn't too chicken to get on the scale, which wasn't TOO long ago, I was still at the 20lb loss I was before I left for CAT duty.  This is good and bad, since at one point I had gotten to a 25 lb loss -- but still not going over that, that's pretty good. 

I'm not sure what I can attribute the fact that it wasn't a complete backslide.  I like to think that I maintained some discipline regarding eating and drinking habits -- but I don't know that this was the case.  I still drink a fair amount of water, but not the 100 ounces I was up to before.  I still try to eat fairly decent food most of the day, but nighttime I frequently fall off the wagon both eating and drinking wise.  And then there's the exercise.  Of which there has been next to none. 

Now, Summer's almost over and I'm ready to move on.  I'm ready to get back on track.  I went to the gym this morning for the first time in forever.  This was HUGE for me.  It was really hard for me to start going to the gym in the first place this year earlier.  That was a big hurdle of fear and intimidation to overcome.  Back then, Scott always tried to tell me that no one cared what I was doing -- they were there to do there own thing.  I may have even posted his oh-so-delightful bathroom analogy.  Turns out, no one pointed or stared or laughed.  I got up at the crack of dawn and "only" did 20 minutes on the dreadmill.  I try to undermine the 20 minutes, but frankly I'm proud.  It's 20 more minutes than I've done in a while and hopefully it's a step (ha ha, step get it?) in the right direction.

And so is blogging again, right??  So, no promises that there will be tons of posts but I'm getting my toe back in so follow me again for updates!

Seriously, where the f* have you been...?

Hello....  hello...?


Yeah.  I stopped blogging.  I know.  I'm the one who did it, so you don't have to keep telling me, okay? It's kind of like people telling me I'm funny, like I don't know.  Most of the funny things I say, I say to amuse myself and I'm delighted if you happen to be amused too.  ;-)

If you had to guess the reason for the absence, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard. I fell off the wagon -- hard.

I had a big heaping, nasty tasting dose of reality and let me just tell you kids -- it ain't for suckers.  Staying on any kind of exercise or diet routine is difficult under ideal circumstances, especially since I was never someone who self-motivated well.  So, trying to stay on track while I was gone for so long and then returning home to bumps in the road...

I wound up being on CAT duty for about 5 weeks.  I returned home on May 23.  I worked out twice the entire time I was gone, but I did try to watch what I ate.  During the last part of my duty, I was sent to learn how to adjust hail damage claims so I was climbing a lot of roofs and much more active then if I was doing what I did in the first half of my duty.  This contributed to me not only being able to maintain what I had lost up until I left for CAT duty, but also managed to drop another 4 lbs.  I attribute this in part to the decision to purchase a scale when I arrived at my last destination so I could stay on top of my weight. 

Upon returning home, I had a multitude of excuses for why I couldn't go back to the gym right away.  I planned to go right after Memorial Day, treating Memorial Day like the New Year's Eve of summer I called it...  Then over Memorial Day weekend I got horrifically sunburned and the idea of putting on tight clothing and exerting myself (one of my worst burns was the top of my feet -- where I neglected to put suntan lotion) was just too much to bear.  Then when I just had started to recover from that, I developed some kind of summer chest congestion with difficulty breathing and a lovely cough and stuffed nose.  Can't really exercise if you can't breathe...  When that finally abated, I frankly just had a bad case of the lazies.  I was already out of the habit and finding the will again was getting harder and harder.  And THEN -- my mom broke her hip and there was/is hospitals, rehab, drama which lends itself to a whole lot of drinking and not a lot of exercising.  Sure, it's a great tension reliever -- if you can make yourself go!!

SO.  Here we are, now a full month that I have been home from CAT duty and still not back at the gym training for that triathlon.  I have still maintained a minimum 20 lb weight loss and fluctuate down to almost 24, but not in the Onederland yet.  I want to be healthy and I want to be active, but when life bitch slaps you around it can be super hard to get motivated to get back on track.

BUT, I have some NSV's -- found a pair of white capri pants that fit and look good (any fat girl will tell you how hard this is), planning a VERY active vacation that we leave for next week and have generally maintained fairly good eating habits -- except for the drinking.  My new resolution is to get back to the gym when we get back from vacation.  I'm ready to get back in the habit and treat myself right again.  Some of the motivating factors have been the handful of people who do read my blog and tell me how motivating they think I am and how much they appreciate my sharing what I'm going through.  That really means a lot to me and helps me get focused on what's important -- ME!  And also, friends that I have that are in the same boat.  I had a chat with a girlfriend at work today who was beating herself up about how much she's let herself go and how unhappy she is with where she is.  She finally joined a gym and has started going.  And I basically told her (and now, you -- my 4 readers) -- forget the past.  It doesn't matter.  You are wasting energy beating yourself up for basically being a human female.  Life happens and when you have a lot on your plate, you want to put a lot on your plate!  Just accept the fact that you made these mistakes and then find the way to move forward and congratulate yourself for any step you take in the right direction.  Even if you "only" went to the gym one day this week, that was probably one day more than you went the week before.  And I bet one more day than you really felt like going -- am I right?  But you went anyways.  THAT'S the point.  Every teeny tiny thing you do does count -- it may not make the scale move quickly, but it's a step in regaining your confidence in yourself that you can do this thing.

Because you know what, we CAN do this thing!  Now get out there and let's kick some ass...  I mean, after I get back from vacation...

A Complex Love

Well.  It finally happened. 

I miss working out.

So, here's an update since my last real post 13 days ago.  Last Tuesday, my former boss asked me if I wanted to deploy for CAT assistance (more on what this means) the next day.  Since I had already volunteered to be on the "go" list, I said yes.  The day before, I had completed two work-outs and had aggravated a weird strain in what my grandma used to call your "giddy-up" -- this is the tendon area between your groin and thigh.  I decided to skip my Tuesday morning workout because I was still sore and I figured  I would just go after work.  WRONG!  After work, I was then relegated to running around packing and trying to decide what to bring for an indefinite period of time for CAT duty.

CAT duty means catastrophe duty.  When something catastrophic happens (like the tornadoes that have hit so many parts of the country), insurance companies deploy adjusters to assist in adjusting claims.  It's a very stressful time because you don't know the area, you don't know the situation and you are meeting people after they have been through some of the worst disasters that have ever happened to them.  You're on the road a lot and when you're not, you're in your hotel room working on estimates and calling customers.

Needless to say, it is not conducive to a healthy lifestyle.  Especially if your hotel does not have a gym.

Which mine does not.  Now, people who are truly dedicated to the lifestyle would have found a way.  But, I'm just not a big go outside and find a path to walk/run in an unfamiliar area.  On a side of town that I'm not convinced is the "good" side.  Off of a main 50 mph road.  So, no -- I'm not that dedicated.  I did recently decide that I could just walk/run circles around the hotel, because how is that different than doing it around a track?  But, I just figured that out today and I just didn't get very far in that process.

So, I miss working out.  A lot.  So much so that I came up with the crazy idea that the goal I really want to work towards is being able to do a triathlon.  I told Scott this and he mocked me -- because I can't even swim.  That's why it's a goal you work towards -- like a Masters degree.  It takes time to get to, but if I can work towards being able to accomplish it then imagine what good shape I'd be in.

Anyways, as much as I dreaded the gym for various reasons -- I miss the tedium of the elliptical and the dreadmill.  They gave me confidence in myself and confidence that I was working towards a healthier lifestyle.  I'm trying to be good here, but it's impossible at night when we get together because it's drinking friendly. 

The CAT is excellent experience for me and the direction that I want my career to go, but I hope I can get back home to my routine and my cardio soon!

Hit 20lbs right before I leave to go to Fayetteville...

Bonus Pack: Three mini-blogs for the price of one

The Scale Photo

   Obviously there are not a lot of people who are willing to post their scale on the WWW, much less if it is over 200 pounds.  But, for those people it is perhaps because they are going in the wrong direction or they didn't start a blog dedicated to their fat (or the losing there-of).  And in either case, good for them!  Me, I was pretty f*ing happy to see that number on the scale this past week.  I first realized it was heading in that direction when I had a 213 weigh in the day before, but I was getting flukey weigh-ins under the 215 I had been stuck at and didn't want to believe it.  Then it dropped again!  My first week on WW showed a loss of 6 pounds.  A very exciting change! Non-scale victories (NSV) are great and all, but who are we trying to kid?  Actually, some day I really need to blog about the little song I sing in my head.  There's this old song by Johnny Cash called I've Been Everywhere (you've probably heard it, it was even in a commercial once).  I have a song I sing in my head to this tune that goes "I've Been Every Weight."  Actually, that would be the whole blog, so I guess I don't need to write it now...

Anways, I don't know if it was just time for the weight to start moving, if it was the first week of WW or the thermogenic but it was nice to see some change.

You're taking WHAT?

Yeah, I started taking a thermogenic.  It's something they encourage you to do as part of the Body Challenge, but I'm pretty against that stuff in general.  In fact, more than a few people approached me after reading my plateau related laments and mentioned cleanses or cleansing diets or something else of the sort.  If you are reading this as one of those people, I want to say that I really appreciate the sentiment behind the offer and the reason that I didn't respond was because of the above statement.  I really only want to do things that I can sustain long term.  Any kind of cut this, cut that, drink this, et cetera thing does not appeal to me.  The reason why I am such a fan of WW is because it really works and really helps me figure out a way to eat that works for me.  Consistently.  It gives me a road map to follow to eat in the real world.  And yet, here I am taking a thermogenic.  Without even really researching it or anything.  I feel like a hypocrite, but it's hard to feel so much like a hypocrite that I want to stop taking it!  My current plan is to keep taking it until I hit the Onederland and then go it au naturel for a while to see if it really does make that much of a difference. 

It definitely makes a difference in how much I pee, I can tell you THAT much!  I mean, sure, I'm drinking close to 100 ounces of a water -- or more -- a day, but I have been doing that for a while and I wasn't peeing twice an hour!  Yikes!!

ATTENTION: SHOPPERS

So, other news.  The shopping expedition.  That did not go as well as planned, but oddly it was not the soul sucking depressing event that it normally is either.  I am now pretty firmly between sizes, and it depends on the store which sizes I'm between.  I bought two dresses in a store I hadn't been able to fit in anything for a while, so that was a plus -- even if it was their biggest size, who cares?  And I had to go on size run a few times because the size I brought back to the dressing room was too big -- but the size down was still a bit too small.  I also did some shopping in my own drawers and have been able to fit into two pairs of pants that I haven't worn in a while -- that's a bonus!  My size 16 jeans that I have been so excited about getting back into now get loose the day of the first wear after wash instead of the next time around.  Still can't get into the 14's (I know, I tried on Saturday), but I can get them on which is a HUGE step. 

Let's Get Physical

Unfortunately, exercise news is not as exciting this week.  I am under siege by allergy creeping crud and just did not want to go this morning or after work.  Maybe if I go sweat it out I can release some of the pollen demons, but it is hard to convince myself of that when it feels like someone ran a rake down my throat.  And I just keep running into these bouts of lame work-outs.  Do you know the kind I mean?  I get up and get going on the dreadmill and then can't finish and have to switch machines.  At least I'm getting cramps in different parts of my legs, this is some sort of progress right??  And I have worked up to being able to do level 4 on the elliptical, which makes me feel like a Rock Star since Scott can't even do the elliptical.  (I know, it's rude to mention but he can RUN which is way harder than the elliptical, IMHO). But, there's only so much ellipticalling you can do without getting bored.  Which is usually the thing that brings me back to my nemesis the dreadmill (I WILL conquer you!).  It's funny, because I climb on and make all of these vague promises to myself about what I'm going to do.  "Okay, Heather you are NOT going to try to run at the 5 minute mark, you are going to wait until the 10 minute mark because you've been trying to go too soon..."  Or I say I'm only going to go 30 seconds instead of a minute or I won't run at all or I'll do incline intervals.  I do not stick to any of it -- I just get so bored.  I mean, the elliptical isn't super-exciting either, but I don't get bored.  I think it's because I do a program on the elliptical and then do my own intervals within that program.  Like I'll do the fat burner program but then every few minutes I'll push my RPE (warning: this link takes you to a ton of information about target heart rate and rate of perceived exertion) to 10 for the duration of whatever cycle I'm in.  My RPE at 10 puts me between 120 and 130 strides, depending on where I'm at with my workout mojo, whereas when I'm at average work-out (RPE of about 6 or 7), I'm at 106-113. 

Exciting stuff, right?  I found something even more boring than the dreadmill!  Listening to myself whine about it!  Ugh!

Anyways, I will try to post more regularly so it's not always 3 blogs in one, but don't hold your breath.

Seriously, don't -- that could add an extra ounce on the scale.  :)

hugs,

Heather

Blog coming soon!

The Good, the bad and the Unfashionable

Well, Spring is springing.  This is a season that gets most people excited about warm weather on the horizon and the chance to bust out their toes and revel in the freedom from turtlenecks.

Most people, but not fat people.  Or not this fat person anyways.  Maybe you are not affected by the change of seasons.  Maybe it doesn't create the same level of heartburn in you that it does for me.  If not, you may want to peruse other blogs and pop back in at the next entry...

Since 2004, when I first started caring about the extra weight that I carry, the change of seasons traditionally induces a sort of panic.  What the heck am I gonna wear?  Usually I am in some sort of weight adjustment, up or down and nothing in my wardrobe is appropriate.  Too tight or too small or just too "what was I THINKING?!" 

In fact, I have quite a lot of "what was I thinking" in my wardrobe.  Things that I purchased just to get through a season, to fill in gaps.  They are quickly too small, too big or just too blah for me to want to wear -- and yet I hold on to them.  If I emptied my closet and drawers of all of the clothes I have purchased to try to survive another temperature change, I would probably have all kinds of additional storage space.  That's not even addressing the containers shoved under my bed.  (But this is perhaps fodder for another blog of the future -- Inside Heather's Disorganization.)

Shopping results in a lot of frustration, particularly when I am in a transitional phase either up or down.  Nothing seems to fit right and Lord knows I am not going to find a tailor, much less pay them to alter a $30 pair of pants.  And I'm not going to spend more on "good" pants when I know that this time I am going to get down to (name current desired size) once and for ALL.  So, capris bring with them the humiliation of too tight in the thighs and too loose in the waist and the joy that is my cankles.  Skirts must be flame retardant in order not to catch on fire from my thigh friction.  Dresses are frequently sleeveless and my arms haven't been much to write home about.  Not to mention the material that these adorable dresses are made of frequently are dead give-aways that I am a lady who does not glow but sweats, thank you VERY much!  Tank tops?  With these boobs?  I think not.  Even shoes are menacing.  The adorable espadrilles that were so popular last year have those laces that go up your calf and just look like a giant neon sign that says "CANKLES ON BOARD". 

I have a shopping event coming this weekend.  While I look forward to spending time with my girlfriend, the time in the dressing room is looming over me like a dark cloud.  But since I'm writing this in April wearing a turtleneck because of the lack of dressing options and the blessing of a cooler day (I'm not going to lie -- climate change is friendly to the clothing challenged) it is time to find some transitional options.  I'm hoping to find some options that are both budget friendly and more representative of usefulness through the summer, but I'm guessing I'll leave with a maxi dress to wear to Sertoma and a renewed vow to get more serious about adding extra workouts to my week.

Happy Spring anyways!

hugs,
Heather

Non Scale Victory

I just learned (or relearned, as I may have heard it and forgot it) this term from my friend Kiosk today.  I have definitely been in need of this as a focus, as the scale continues to punish me.

I have stubbornly stayed in the 215 range for a while now.  I'm a little up, a little down but my confidence is waning.  When I first got into this range, I thought that it would be no problem to be in the onederland by my birthday (May 11 -- shop now, supplies are limited!) and now I am beginning to doubt the achievability of this goal.  I really wonder if there is going to be any progress at all.  It's really hard to stay motivated when you're working out and eating right and nothing is changing. 

For a while now, I have been loosely focused on these NSV's without being cognizant that this is what I was doing.  Things like dropping a jean size, finishing a 5k or now being able to do 30 minutes on the treadmill.  It is a constant, constant struggle to remember that these goals were incredibly recent in coming around.  I look at the date on the first time I hit 215 and it was March 11, which was about 3 weeks ago.  In the meantime, I'm constantly trying to get in more exercise and I have to imagine that my previously perpetually lethargic body is like "wtf is she trying to do to us??"

SO.  NSV's may be the only thing I have going for me for who knows how long.  I can NOT and WILL NOT let the scale be the determining factor in moving forward with changing my life.  If I stay at 215 for the rest of my life, but I can climb Mt. Everest -- isn't that the key thing here?  Isn't THAT what I'm trying to accomplish?

Well, yes - but I would really like to be able to wear a bikini one day too...

So, I don't have any new NSV's to post for you today yet, but I will definitely start looking for these things to keep me going and keep going forward.

Also, yesterday I joined Weight Watchers again!  Yay!  I'm glad to be back at home with a plan I understand and the group support the provides more insight than "eat lots of chicken".  (I love my trainers, I do -- but this plan was not going to cut it for me.) 

I'll have more on my thoughts related to going back to my WW peeps and more -- later!

big hugs,

Heather

The Bad Things

I mentioned in my last post that I had been to a birthday party and ate bad things, and teased that there would be a future post on this topic.  Since I ate a chili hot dog for lunch, this seemed like a good time!  :)

While I have been overweight for some time, I did not start doing anything to actively correct that until 2005 (see The History of this Fat if you'd like the full rundown).  That was the first time I joined WW and paid attention to what I was eating.  Since I started this blog (and my new life), I have been trying to monitor what I eat and make better choices.  You know that I cheat frequently, since I have written about our "blow diet" Saturdays.  You also know that there isn't much formality to how I monitor my diet, I'm more focused on being active.  But, still -- I find myself saying things like I ate bad things.  This is something that has always driven me crazy when I've known other people dieting.  I remember an Oprah episode where she had some gourmet baker on who had made this amazing cake of some sort, and Oprah wouldn't even eat a bite because she had a dress she had to fit in for an event and didn't want to mess around.  I mean, one bite?  Walk 5 more minutes on the dreadmill, then.

Again, I get into the slippery slope.  I knew that I was going to have a chili hot dog for lunch, so I did account for that in my calorie counting for the day.  But, I also knew that today I'm planning on adding my second work-out and taking a Zumba class tonight.  I knew that there was room for error.  I do try to make much smarter decisions than I did in the past.  But, when I do eat something that is NOT healthy, I really try not to quantify that as "bad."  The food itself isn't "bad" that is a value I ascribed to it when I chose to eat it instead of a bowl of carrots.  Really, I'm "bad", I'm making choices that are not best for me.  I'm trying to balance this need to lose weight with the reality of the world we live in.

Actually, I watched The Biggest Loser last night for the first time in a while.  I had been feeling kind of blue about my progress and was unsuccessful in even writing a blog post that encapsulated how I was feeling.  I just wanted to watch a show where there were people who had further to go than me and see their progress.  It's always been motivating in the past for me.  And last night's episode proved to be a mixed bag of motivation.  There was a team that was given the opportunity to work on their own to try to get back on the ranch.  They had been working out for the last 13 weeks, or whatever, at home and doing their own thing.  The mother/son pair had lost a combined total of 75 pounds.  (One of them needed to beat 91 pounds in order to beat someone who had the highest percentage of total weight loss.)  So, that was kind of amazing to see that one woman had been able to lose 45 pounds on her own in the amount of time that it's taken me to lose about 15.  Amazing and depressing, actually.  Then, there was another team that lost a challenge and had to go off the ranch for a week.  They got a $1000 to use for food, gym memberships and luxuries.  They chose to spend that allocation on some smart choices -- buying their own food, gym membership -- but then they made some not-so-wise choices like getting massages instead of having their personal trainer from the ranch come and help them.  Needless to say, they lost almost no weight and one of them was sent home.  And they had everything in their toolkit to go off on their own and be successful!  They had been working out and eating right like it was a full time job and still failed when they had to do it on their own.

Now, you can call it schadenfreude if you want, but I took a lot of encouragement from that.  Losing weight, getting healthy, changing your life is hard, hard, hard!  If someone who has been doing it as a full time job can't do it when they lose their support net, then someone like me has an uphill battle to face going it virtually alone.  Whose best current food plan has been to "eat lots of chicken."  Yes, I have Scott -- thank GOD -- going with me, but there are still bumps in the road even if your partner is in with you. 

Anyways, I veered off of the bad things topic that I started -- as I tend to do.  The long and the short is that it's not the food that it's bad -- it's the choices that are bad.  I can't keep making the decisions I made in the past, they're not going to help me get where I want to go.  All I can do is keep looking to the future and don't be caught off guard by too much cake and wine and not enough chicken. 

After all, if I keep working at it, eventually the number will follow the work. 

I HOPE!

hugs,

Heather

Weekend update

(insert catchy theme music)

As usual, some highs and lows to report.  Yesterday was, of course, body challenge  workout day.  Last week, we had the workout from hell, so I had been feeling a lot of trepidation going in to this one.  But, the most awesome thing happened in the beginning.  One of the guys from the challenge said, "Hey, I think that we have a problem motivating each other because we've been doing this all this time and I don't even know half of your names."  So, we went around the room and did a name refresher and then during the workout we were able to yell (or grunt or cry) out each other's names and give each other moral support.  That was really cool.  Then after our workout, which didn't feel quite as horrible as it usually does, one of the take-charge type women in our group said, "Hey, anyone want to hang out afterwards and talk about how things are going?"  So, several of us did that and that was also very uplifting.  Like WW and how everyone talks about the challenges that they face.  Scott and I left feeling quite inspired.

But, then we went to a birthday party and ate "bad things."  This is a post I will be writing in the future, because this plays into a lot of the diet related issues I have with weight loss.  Then that night I hosted a Lia Sophia Jewelry party.  I made the statement this week that I was not going to drink until Sertoma Spring Fever, but unfortunately I did fall off the wagon last night.  I will say that I did not leap off and that I pumped the brakes FAR more than I have on previous Saturdays.  But, a house filled with women drinking plus the availability of red wine made it far more difficult for me to abstain.  Still, and I know that I'm rationalizing so give me some slack -- I drank a LOT of water first and did not drink to the point of fuzziness.  I even drank water in between. 

And when I got on the scale this morning, it was the same as it was yesterday -- which usually doesn't happen on a Sunday morning.

SO.  I am once again renewing my commitment to try to stay on the wagon until Sertoma.  I'm feeling recharged by my group at the gym.  And I'm ready to go run... some errands with my husband!

Enjoy what's left of YOUR weekend!

Dear Future Heather,

Today, you officially dropped to a size 16.  Sadly, your efforts to make this a federal (or even a state) holiday were not successful -- but nonetheless, it was a big day to you.  You posted this update on your Facebook page (just that you dropped a size, not the giant number) yesterday, but you didn't really believe it until today.  Second day in a row made it official, I guess.  As you read this, Future Heather, you may not fully remember how exciting it felt to be able to get back into that size.  But here's how it felt:  it felt like the promise of everything I've started working towards was starting to fall into place. 

But this day, Future Heather, it came with a setback.  Do you remember that?  Do  you remember striding proudly in for your second workout of the day and...  Well, let's not the time color our memory -- truth is, you did not want to go back for the second workout.  You tried 17 different excuses to rationalize not going after work. But then, you walked out behind some women talking about how their WW meeting was shrinking in size and how they hope that the second half of their session goes better than the first.  And you, in your weird wisdom, decided to take this as a sign of the push you needed to do the right thing.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a great workout.  The dreadmill came true to its name again and showed its fangs.  You got so winded you couldn't finish even your 30 minute walk.  You finished your workout on the bike, which at this stage you feel is giving up.  Technically, it was 35 minutes of cardio, but you felt like it was a setback.  (It wasn't, you know -- even these little steps brought you to wherever you are today, Future Heather.) 

I think about you a lot.  I know it's weird, because I haven't met you.  But, I think about what you'll look like and what you'll be able to do.  I think about how much fun you must have shopping a lot.  I wonder what kind of activity you've started enjoying.  I'm really anxious to know if you ever defeat that dreadmill dragon and are able to really, truly run. 

I'm wishing you all the best Future Heather -- thank you for burgeoning in me and turning me into you!

Love,
Past Heather

Highway to the Comfort Zone

First, and foremost, a few people have come up to me recently and mentioned that they enjoy my blog.  I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that!  It does inflate my ego, which may be negatively affecting my scale results -- but it is what it is.  Seriously, thanks for the compliments -- it's nice to know I'm not whistling in the dark here.

But, then again, if you're trying to lose weight, have lost weight, decided to keep it on -- no matter where you are on your journey, you're not really alone are you?  There is ALWAYS someone who knows what you're going through and isn't shy about telling you.  As a favorite song line goes, "there's always someone with a big nose who knows and trips you up and laughs when you fall."  There is both comfort and frustration in that, don't you think?  On the one hand, it's really nice to know that you only have to take 3 steps to run into someone who has been on some part of the journey that you are on -- but on the other hand, sometimes you wish they would just shut the f* up.

Maybe that last part is just me, I do tend to have that part of my personality.  Smile and nod, but there's a part of me that wishes you would just shut up.  I mean, not YOU!  :)

As an example, as Scott and I got ready for the 5k there was a morning where I was once again trying to put some running into my walking regime.  As the 5 minute mark grows close for the interval, I really think that part of my heart rate increase is strictly the fear that accompanies what an idiot I feel like whenever I try to run.  I try to make it for a minute, but most of the time 30-45 seconds is doing pretty good.  One morning after we had worked out together, Scott made a comment that he was "disappointed" that I only had a few seconds to go to make it to a one minute mark running and I stopped.  I remember letting this remark fester for a while.  But, I finally thought, you know -- for all he knows, I was shooting for 30 seconds and overshot what I trying to accomplish.  So, whatever.

An acquaintance was talking to me (gossiping) about the weight loss efforts of someone else we knew.  She surmised that this other person simply wasn't challenging herself enough.  That she was using excuses and not trying to push herself harder.  My comment was that no one can make you be ready but you. 

But, I don't think she took what I meant in the spirit that I meant it.  But, it goes along with the comfort zone issue that I talk about frequently (here's one example).  It's a very fine line between being comfortable with your routine and knowing when to step it up.  See, for me, this conversation with this lady was one of the secondary factors in my decision this week to start stepping up instead of sitting down.  (The primary was a rougher than usual weekly challenge.  LOTS of intervals and pressure to "reach for the moon, because if you miss you still get a star."  I should've written a blog entry on this experience, but let's just say the pain and near humiliation was seconded only by the Mt. Trashmore work-out also linked above.)

Because, I thought that someone could just as easily have this conversation about me behind my back.  And while I don't entirely care what other people say about me behind my back, it was frustrating to me because I realized it was true.  I haven't been challenging myself more.  I've been self-congratulatory about getting up at dawn to go to the gym and for all of my recent accomplishments -- despite the fact that the scale is not going down and I'm regularly having a blow diet celebration every Saturday.  Despite the fact that I do NOT like to pick things up and put them down -- that's  another Heather Lee, thank you! 

So, today I had my first post-work workout and hope to continue this for at least 3 additional weekdays weekly.  I am also going to make a very strong effort to try to stay completely on the wagon until Sertoma Spring Fever.    (If you've never been to this event, Scott describes it as being like an outdoor open bar wedding reception to celebrate Spring.  I say it's Christmas for drunks.  Either way, it is a TON of fun!)  That's 25 days of no drinking.  That is a lot of awareness!  But, I may be up to the challenge.  We'll see.  There are many challenges along the way, but think of the benefit!

Because here's the thing, there are only 43 days until the body challenge is over, and 7 days after that is my 38th birthday.  My goal is to be in the One-derland by my birthday.  If I get off this highway and get into the challenge zone then that is a highly achievable goal.  50 days to lose 15-ish pounds -- that's an average of 2 a week.  Wish me luck!

Taking the next exit to overdrive,

Heather

PS -- Funny thing though, even though the scale isn't moving much, I'm millimeters away from dropping a jeans size.  So, I know things are working -- just got to get it all together!