Still feeling "some kind of way"

I think the TMI portion is that I'm PMS'ing (and using too many initials).  I really do have that blah, I don't care about anything feeling that I used to "cure" with overindulgence.  One of the only things keeping me from going down the drain is that I keep coming here and talking to you about it.

But the fact is that I know me.  I'm on the verge of a full-bore blown out overindulgence.  I've been teasing it with some festivities over the last couple of weekends, but I've been managing to pull back and rein in.  Not enough to get back on a losing track, but at least enough to maintain.  And when I'm feeling this kind of way?  Maintaining is like losing.  It doesn't feel like it when I get on the scale at WW and get my little sticker with either no loss or, this week's case, a tiny gain.  But in the back of my head, I know what I did and what I didn't do and I know that I should be grateful that I'm maintaining.

I should be, but I'm not.  I'm mad at myself for slacking.  Just not mad enough to knuckle down and do the work.

Yet.

Here's my plan...  Planned overindulgence.  If I don't leave for CAT deployment -- which is starting to look like a possibility -- then I will be heading to an awesome party at my neighbor's house this weekend to celebrate her birthday.  It's going to be legendary and a great place to really revel in an overindulgence blow-out.  There's going to be an amazing amount of food and beverages.  I'm going to get a work out in before the party so I'll be feeling primed and then it's on.  No holds barred.  No tracking, no fretting just pure overindulgence.  Like a rock star.

Sunday will be recovery.  For obvious reasons, I'm making no real plan.  BUT if I had a plan?  It would NOT include beating myself up for the experience, because I'm going into it willingly.  And then Monday, it's getting back on plan and staying there.

This will mean tracking regularly and more faithfully.  Making sure that I get in at least 2 APs a day.  And planning better than I have been so far.  I've been lucky so far because I'm winging it a lot, but now I'm really fully in the "old weight."  (That's a topic for another blog, I think.)  It's going to be even harder from here and it's not gonna happen until I fully get over this hump.

Ugh.  Such a series of downer posts these last few times.  Hopefully I'm going to turn this corner soon and I'll have some triumphant stuff to post again soon.

Wait again?  Well, whatever.  You know what I mean.  :)

hugs,

Heather

I Walk the Line

Today's blog post was brought you to you by a text-versation with a friend.  (Sidebar: in our techy world, why is there no short word for this?)  We were talking about WW.  She went to a meeting after having missed a week.  She had earlier anticipated a "huge" gain and said that she only gained .2.  Given what we have shared about our habits the last few weeks, I said that I never look at these little gains as true gains and really consider them more like maintaining.  She said I was "wise."  (Look, I'm just quoting in the interest of accurate reporting.)  I joked that, yes, I was in fact a fat sage.  And then further went on to say that this didn't stop me from beating myself up about it and wanting to punish myself with potato chips.  She said "shut up" and told me that I'd been looking amazing and that I should be proud.

And I said -- blog topic!  :)

I AM proud of myself.  I DO feel good about what I'm doing.  But just as my negative behaviors and thought patterns are addictive and enticing, the positive ones are too.  I get to feeling good and very proud of what I've done and how far I've come.  And here's the thing -- I'm not a religious person, as anyone knows, but I do understand why "pride" is a sin.  It leads to feelings of imperviousness.  I feel like I can do anything, accomplish anything -- and EAT anything.  And DRINK anything.  And that is the problem.

I can't.

So, I'm cognizant of the line I walk.  I want to be proud of what I've done and how much better I am looking and feeling.  But I also have to be aware that I have a ways to go until I get to my goal. If I am too proud of what I have done, then I lose sight of how much more I have to do.  But I also can't focus too much on that either because then it seems too big and I feel like I can't get there.  I have to maintain a very steady balance of being proud without being arrogant; of awareness of my successes without letting them cloud my judgement. I want to be "good" (ick, I can't find the prior link but you know how I feel about this) but I also want to be able to have fun and not be obsessing over points all the time.  I need to generally be balanced.  Something I have always struggled with.  I don't like the middle.  Billy Joel's "I Go To Extremes" has long been my personal theme song.

I'm not going to find the secret to solving this problem through the confines of writing this blog post.  I know this because it's taken me over an hour to puzzle it out and I'm still not feeling like I'm going to find a conclusion.  Take this away though -- when you see me in person, and you hear me being hard on myself know that I am aware that I am doing it.  Know that I want to stop and "make the voices in my head like me instead" (thank you Pink).  And know that many more of them do now than did before.  But, it's a long way to go because I struggle with liking myself devolving into arrogant overconfident cockiness which leads me to be impetuous and fall off track which leads me to overindulging and being lazy which usually eventually leads me to trying to crawl back out of that hole by exercising more, eating better so I can forgive myself and like myself again which devolves into being arrogant...  You get the idea.  


It turns out my line?  It's a circle.  :)


Ever your one and only,
Heather

Saboteur

Feeling a bit bummed and hard on myself.  Thought I'd talk to you about it.

(Before I get too far down the beating myself up on the WWW path, let me acknowledge that, er, biology is in part to blame and it could well be a non-issue in say 5 days or so.  AND this probably has a scosh to do with my spiraling negativity.  But enough of stereotypes and back to my whining...)

I'm still stuck at the line.  Hanging on the verge of the Onederland. I've put myself there in part.  I've overindulged in wine this past weekend.  I'm not exercising as much as I need to.  So, I'm sabotaging myself because I'm close to this line that I'm afraid to cross over.  And how f-ed up is that?  I'm afraid of success.  And the worst part is that I already know this about myself.  I have known this for a long time.  It's part of my girl Peter Pan syndrome.  Here's the spiral.  (If you're a reasonable put together kind of person, you may not be able to follow.  Be thankful that you don't need a therapist, and just move on to either another blog or some other post in this one...)

Once I start being successful with weight loss, that means that I am really going to truly accept that it's my lifestyle now.  I'll have to exercise.  And eat right.  And ask how things are made when I go to restaurants.  And all that crap.  It's the diet* version of being a grown up.  I will have to be responsible for myself and my actions.  Yuck.  I'm just so not a fan of this.  But, that's the reality.  If I am successful at losing weight, then I'm going to have to grow up and be responsible.  I'm deathly afraid that this will mean that I will be boring.  Because I'm already pretty close to boring now. 

*Note on the usage of the word "diet":  Tonight in our WW meeting (aka Fat Church as anyone who ever read my old blog knows), we had a good discussion about how WW is not a diet -- it's a lifestyle.  In my less cranky-pants moments, I not only agree with this but I embrace it and preach it.  But here's the fact:  it takes a long time and a lot of responsibility to get to where that feels more like a valid truth and less like it's a "diet."  Because the lifestyle that got me here is one that is about embracing excess.  Anything less than big is going to feel like a diet for a long time.  It's why I believe so much in Weight Watchers, but also what makes it so hard for me.  The key thing that I have learned in each journey of WW is that the greatest key is moderation.  You really can have anything you want but you either have to have it in moderation or if you ARE going to go "all out" you must recognize that that is a splurge and "pay" for it.  It's a struggle for me because moderation and I get along about as well as Republicans and Democrats.  Oil and water.  Chocolate and beer.  So, if I can't be moderate, then I can't have it.  To the untrained eye, this gives the appearance of being a "diet."  I'm not indulging in things that are considered off limits.  But it's not that I really consider those things to be off limits.  For example, a co-worker brought in Krispy Kreme donuts the other morning.  Did I want one?  Hell yes.  But I calculated the points and it was 6 points.  I just didn't want it bad enough to spend 6 points on a donut.  I knew that it may lead to another donut and then that's at least twice as much.  (Sometimes two of something is more than double the points -- the magic of WW math.)  So, I didn't have one.  Does this mean I'm not going to have a Krispy Kreme donut ever again?  That I have denied ever wanting or needing a donut again?  Not bloody likely.  But I need to know that when these challenges come my way that I can decide not to indulge.

I recognize that my journey is about recognizing limitations and accepting them.

And accepting myself.  Even when I fail.  Like when I hang over the stupid Onederland waiting to fall.   And obtaining the wisdom to know that falling is not proactive.  Leaping is. 

In my head this ended on a pithier words of wisdom note, but I can't quite get that last line right and now I just want to go to bed.  :)

hugs,
Heather

post script

  Now it's 10:49 pm and I'm back home.  I've had several cries.  I'm not going to be able to explain the nervous breakdown to you, though I may find myself trying.  I am not an athlete.  I don't have an athlete's brain.  When I'm letting people down who are counting on me to pull through, it's emotionally crippling.  And then the hamster in my brain gets to be spinning, spinning, spinning and I can't get him to stop.  Because now its not just this set back, it's every single setback that has ever occurred and created this person who is over 200 lbs and can't figure out how to get her act together once and for all.  Or has it figured out, but doesn't have that inner thing to make it happen.  Same end result.

I'm just tired of this mental game.  I really, really want to just be this person who can do things and rise above and reach down to the bottom of my soul and push and all that. 

I don't want to be this fat my whole life.  But not because I don't want to be fat.  It's not really about the fat, it's what the fat represents that I want to get rid of.  If I could be 200lbs but be confident and strong and, I don't know, have self-esteem -- well, that would be the ticket, wouldn't it?

You get that, don't you? 

Some of my readers have never really had a weight problem.  Some of you have.  But it's all the same isn't it?  I may poo-poo your desire to lose 5 lbs, but 5 can just as easily be 50 and no matter what it's this number staring at you that you judge yourself for and examine all of your choices and consider the meaning of life. 

This is what made me start putting this journey on the web to begin with.  Or at least why I continued.  Because it's not easy.  You need to know that you are not alone when you try and fail and try and fail and try and fail...  Maybe you don't care that you're not alone?  Then this isn't the blog for you.  Maybe you don't care.  Maybe you believe that your struggle is different.  And that belief is rightly so.  Your struggle IS different.  You know what makes it the same?  It's a struggle.  It is hard to be healthy.  It is hard to get strong.  You face adversity and haters on every corner.  Some of the haters are even disguised as supporters.  It's a tricky game. 

Maybe I won't ever jump on a box.  Maybe I won't ever compete in a triathlon.  Or be able to run a 5k.  But I'm hoping that I keep trying to dabble in these goals.  Because in doing so, I can only get a little stronger, a little more confident and maybe find that self-esteem that I continue to look for.

Whew....  Emotionally exhausted.

love to you all!
Heather

Frustration Rambling

Part of my frustration with myself is my lack of trying to do something to get my diet in line.  I don't mean go on a diet, I'm against that.  But to start paying attention to what I'm eating, controlling how much I'm eating (and drinking) and getting that under my control once and for all.

I have navigated away from writing about my journey for so many reasons.  I make proclamations (the Twitter experiment that wasn't ring any bells?) and then feel embarrassed that they're out there on the web.  I stopped posting my weight, because it stopped changing.  A major source of frustration, more on this.  I feel like I only talk about minor or major gym victories (too many links to bother here).  And even when I commit to writing more and even dowloaded an app for ever-present phone, I still haven't committed.

I am frustrated with myself.  One of the primary reasons is my weight not changing.  It will occasionally drop a pound or two, but it always goes back up to where it was.  Granted, at least I'm staying there, but I would like to drop a pound or two and then stay THERE.  That's the frustration.  I know I weigh myself too often (every day is definitely not the recommended amount), but I also know that when I don't know every day where it is then I get complacent.  I may have "only" lost 20 lbs last year, but at least that 20 lbs is staying off no matter what!

Here is what I see as the three MAJOR obstacles to overcoming this plateau I seem to be rooted in and figure out the way out.  One, I need to be accountable for the food and beverages I am consuming.  I know about how many calories I'm burning a day, but I don't know how many I'm taking in because I am NOT being honest with myself.  But for whatever reason I seem to chronically allergic to starting tracking again.  I have at least 3 apps in my phone for this as we speak and can't seem to do it.  Action plan:  I'm going to try to kick it old school and write it down in a little notebook.  I'm going to try to start just by getting in the habit of writing things down without measuring like I will eventually.  The first step is just being honest that I'm eating whatever I'm eating or drinking what I'm drinking.  I will start tomorrow morning.

Two, I need to branch out my exercise.  I cannot continue to only do cardio all the time and expect to see any changes.  I need to start incorporating some strength training if I really want to see my body change the way it was starting to during the body challenge last year.  I am weighing options on how to attack this, but I think ultimately I am planning on getting a personal trainer for a while to start kicking me in to shape. 

The biggest obstacle?  Me, of course.  I still do not believe that I am meant to be a healthy, active person.  I feel doomed to a life of couch potato-dom and can't seem to turn my mental game around.  Any tips on an action plan here would be greatly appreciated.  How do I get my head engaged and believing that I can physically do more than I do -- and motivated to try and do it?  Because right now, the mental push-ups I have to do to go back to the gym after missing a few days are incredibly rigorous and remind me me of just how weak that mental motivator muscle still is. 

That's all for now -- lots of love!
Heather

"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

More on the brain

Here's how I know the brain is willing -- I have a kind of looking forward to exercising mental outlook. However, it's not the "I can't wait to get to the gym!" feeling that I thought would happen. It's more "I can't wait to get to the gym so I can get that OVER with!"

But, that's better than nothing, I know.

I had this talk with Scott the other day about how weird it working out at my work gym because unlike a "strange" gym, I know the people working out and feel weird being around them. I said it's like elevator time -- this uncomfortable span of time hanging out with people and not really talking to them. He said that it's more like bathroom time. Still uncomfortable, but you've got business to do while you're in there so you just do your business in close proximity to other people and move on with your life. So, sometimes you're going to do things that are embarrassing but you just have to do them and get over caring that these people are there.

That helps, oddly.

It was how I managed to do a full 30 minutes on the elliptical last night! Yay! (Again, I don't always want to be "I did this much cardio, this much blah blah" but sometimes I just can't help it!) I was very much impressed with myself. I even got some strength training in from patting myself on the back, ha ha.

I didn't think I was going to make it, but I was saved by music again. I'm still working on trying to get the right blend of music while at the gym and that's hard with the obscure blend of music I have here, you have NO idea. So, while I'm on the elliptical I'm almost at the 20 minute mark and I just want to quit. I'm rationalizing, I've done 20 minutes and therre is NOTHING wrong with that. And I do really believe that, because 20 minutes is better than 0 or even than 10. And then, I can't hear any music. I'm like, oh great my stupid ipod is on the fritz again. Then I realize it is the slow, torturous build-up to Troy by Sinead O'Connor.

I know, right? The phoenix from the flame, hello?!

Of course, if you don't know this song, this post will mean NOTHING to you, and I'm sorry. And really, if you first hear this song over the age of 16 I doubt it will mean anything to you. But because this was THE high school angst song and it has this burning slow build-up to this crescendo of love and hate and jealousy and just sheer I'm a fricking survivor and I'm going to do this thing if it is the last thing I EVER freaking do in my life...

Needless to say, it was EXACTLY what the fates ordered to push me to the end. After that was over, I didn't look at the last 5 minutes as being challenging at all. It was just something I had to do because I was still standing.

The Phoenix from the Flame is OUT!
Heather