CHA-CHA-CHA-CHANGES!

Personally I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. Mostly because mine never come to fruition so I just gave up on them many moons ago, but I do believe in reassessing and writing down goals. Last year I had a whole list of goals. I did not accomplish all of those goals, but the ones I did I'm really excited about. If nothing else it was a great exercise about setting out intentions and about being specific with them (although in my case this year my lack of being specific worked out brilliantly!).

I will admit that the holidays were a wash. As much as I had managed to motivate myself it deteriorated and was side swiped by foods that I wanted to eat and I'll admit that on my 10 days off of work over the holidays there was A LOT of alcohol consumed.... and NO gym.

So here are some things that I am working on... they are GOALS, not resolutions.

I stepped on the scale Tuesday morning and it read 188 (let me tell you how HORRIFIED I was to see that I had gained almost 10 lbs!). Granted, TOM is supposed to be here any minute, but still. EEK! Time to get my butt in gear!

THIS YEAR I WILL LOSE AT LEAST 40 lbs. That would have me sitting at about 145. I can ammend from there as I don't really know how I will look at this weight because I don't ever remember being at that weight, at least not in my adult life.

I am refocusing mostly on my eating. I was doing South Beach which I like because as long as it's on plan I can essentially eat however much I want, but part of healthy eating is not OVER eating.

For the next month and a half I am not consuming any alcohol. I want to see how it affects my weight loss efforts and it will save money as well.

I am currently taking a month off from my trainer for financial purposes. Working for the state I only get paid monthly and there are 6 weeks between pay checks in December and the end of January. I am not forcing myself to go to the gym 5 days a week but that is the overall goal. 3 at the minimum.

I will go from there. Basically I'm trying to get back on track without causing myself to get burnt out or overwhelemd.

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One of my a-ha moments for this week was that I realized I am not eating enough during the day. By the time I get home (work out or no work out) I am ready to eat the whole house. After a work out I'm thinking about eating the house and my cats.

My biggest meal has ALWAYS been dinner. I have to start eating breakfast and incorporating more snacks into my diet. At the peak of my weight loss I was eating every few hours. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. I definitely need to add more protein into my daily diet as well.

I know I have been going back and forth for so long about whether or not I want to count calories. I did WW before and was successful while I kept up with it. I just don't like the monotony of weighing, measuring and calculating. However, we ALL know that the simple equation is CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. DUH!

I have started posting on 3FC again. That's a HUGE part of my success and accountability, but I do know that I miss the accountability of seeing my therapist. I am currently considering Weight Watchers meetings. I've heard varying opinions on those. Any thoughts?

So yeah -- BACK ON TRACK. I don't want to spend another summer fat and this girl def doesn't wanna be buried in her fat pants!!!

.+*LATER NEVER EXISTS*+.

Mini - Update

I just got home from the gym. After work I went to the gym. Hopped on the arctrainer (my Bff) FOR 20 minutes before I met with my trainer. I forgot my super awesome Polar FT4 at home today in my rush to get out of the house, but the machine said I burnt roughly 250 calories. Then I went and met with my trainer. We didn't do anything crazy (meaning she actually didn't make me do 324803248 lunges or jump lunges which I HATE), but we took our time and she didn't have an appointment after me so we actually worked out for about an hour. We did a lot of squats and some weird leg lift thingies and a lot of upper body work and abs...

Right now I feel FANTASTIC. I feel like I have a handle on things again. I feel like I'm back in the game.

I hope this feeling lasts.

Also, my mom made my favorite soup for dinner. I think she might be psychic, I'd been thinking about it for a few days.

Life is good. I CAN DO THIS!

What's Different?

I have been reflecting on the past year as next Tuesday will mark my one year anniversary of my "lifestyle change." I've done some amazing things that have impressed myself. I have fallen many times and I look back on those things with guilt, but at the end of the day I know I deserve a pat on the back because no matter how much I've struggled, I have overcome and continue to try. I couldn't say that a year ago, much less two or three years ago.

Am I where I want to be? Not hardly, but I have learned a great deal about my emotions, eating better, working out and that I am capable of doing things I never thought I could.

I have been racking my brain to see what is different about where I am on my journey right now and where I was one year ago. A lot of things have changed. A lot of things aren't where I want them to be... so, I ask myself, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

A year ago I KNEW that if I didn't get a handle on my emotions that emotional eating would continue to take over my life as it has for the majority of it. I knew I would continue gaining weight and that I would continue to be obese for the rest of my life. Essentially, I would end up like my father. My father strugles with heart disease (that runs in my family) and is a borderline diabetic.

I KNEW that I had a serious sugar addiction which caused my binges. I KNEW that I wanted that to stop.

I had a fire somewhere within me. I KNEW that it was important to start therapy. In fact, I remember when I intially emailed the therapist I was thinking about going to see that I told her "I'm ready to grab this by the horns..."

Where'd the horn grabbing motivation go?

Yesterday, after a great convo with the man that is ALWAYS in my corner (my friend Matt), I realized where the motivation went...

I haven't been LOSING any weight since July. That kind of takes the fizz out of your soda when you stop seeing the scale move yet you're going through the motions. It makes you tired. It makes you want to give up because you're doing SOME of the work, but not seeing any results.

So what is my stumbling block, again, what's DIFFERENT?

I haven't been planning my meals. It used to be on Saturdays I would get up, go the gym, peruse some recipes online and figure out something to cook on Sunday for the week. Typically I would fix one big meal (as I was cooking for myself the majority of the time) that would be lunch/dinner until at least Wednesday. Sometimes I would also cook a smaller meal to change it up because eating the SAME thing for 3-4 days KILLS me.

I haven't been eating breakfast. I know this may be a shocker to some of you... I've NEVER been a breakfast person. In fact, I don't like getting up any earlier than I have to. This morning I woke up at 6:10. Took a shower and was out the door by 6:35. I'm not hungry in the morning. If I eat too early I have to choke my food down and it makes me feel icky. I used to eat breakfast AT WORK between 9-10. Then I would be hungry again around 12-1 and I would eat lunch. I KNOW how much of a difference this makes with jump starting your metabolism because if I don't eat anything in the morning I can easily go until late in the afternoon before I eat lunch.

I haven't been tracking my meals. When I did WW I wrote everything down religiously. I KNOW that it makes a HUGE difference in what you eat when you write everything down. Even if you aren't tracking calories or points, there are some things you think twice about eating because do you REALLY want to write them down?!

Something else that really hit me hard in my convo with Matt was this...

"Stop being scared of your own abilities and just let go."

HOLY SHIT! He hit the NAIL ON THE HEAD.

As someone with OCD and a perfectionism complex combined with a procrastination complex I often find that there are things I really want to accomplish, but I don't do them because I am too afraid of my own failure. If I look back on the past year I have had a lot of what I would consider "failures," BUT I'M STILL HERE. I'M STILL OVERCOMING, I'M STILL WANTING TO STICK WITH IT. I just need to get my head out of my ass and START DOING IT AGAIN.

What's the famous quote?

"The only real failure in life is the failure to try.”

I keep saying "oh man, I'm not in therapy anymore, I'm so bummed." The truth of the matter is that I was given ALL of the tools that I need to learn to deal with my emotions, I have a great support group and I have all of the resources in the world to manage my compulsive over eating/binging. There's really no room for EXCUSES....

LATER NEVER EXISTS, right?

Again, Genius Friend moment brought up that I can't do HALF of the work during the week, play ridiculously hard on the weekend and expect to see results. You have to do ALL of the work during the week and if you play hard on the weekend that means you will MAINTAIN. I think I've proven to myself that I can do that, now it's time to prove to myself that I can get the rest of this weight off.

And my own light bulb moment that went off again - WHY AM I SO AFRIAD OF GETTING OFF THIS WEIGHT? WHAT AM I AFRAID TO SHOW PEOPLE, rather than hiding behind the "fat girl facade" so that I can make excuses for people not being interested in me or not wanting them to get close to me. That's all of my own bullshit. I have a great personality, I'm a VERY cute girl... people like me or they don't like me and losing weight isn't going to magically fix any of life's problems. In fact, it may create some more that I haven't experienced before.

I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE because I feel like for the past few months all this "blog" has been is me bitching about what I need to do and how things aren't going to the way I want them to and this is what I'm "GOING" to do, but none of that has happened.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing consistantly and expecting a different result every time... apparently I have been IN-FUCKING-SANE for the past 6 months. (Come on, I had a good laugh at that, you should too).

I tend to get overwhelmed making big plans for myself... I look at the list (like I made during my last post) and think "oh man, that's SO much to change." For now I know that I WILL START PLANNING MY MEALS again and that I WILL START WRITING DOWN WHAT I'M EATING. Of course, I'll be at the gym, but for right now I can't promise you 5 days a week. I just know that as Jen over at Prior Fat Girl says...

I will take it

"ONE BITE AT A TIME. ONE STEP AT A TIME."

UH WTF....

I'm not really sure what happened yesterday, but my eating started to go downhill an then it just snowballed from there.

I will admit, I have not been well prepared with my meals lately. Especially since it's the end of the month - this month has had 5 weeks in it - and because I live the life of a rockstar (i.e. acting like an idiot and not saving money the way I should) I am ALWAYS beyond broke by the end of the month (which is another thing I really need to work on).

I rarely eat breakfast which is another big problem I know I need to fix. I'm never hungry in the morning, but in order to get my metabolism going I HAVE to start eating something in the morning.

Yesterday I ate:

a pack of cheese crackers
an apple with sunflower butter (simliar to PB)
a lean cuisine lasagna meal
1/2 of a protein bar
some potato chips when I got home
almost a whole package of saltine crackers
thai soup w. pork and noodles for dinner
a peppermint stick
then I woke up in the middle of the night and ate MORE potato chips and 2 more peppermint sticks
Oh yeah, I also had a piece of caramel/white chocolate dipped apple that my mom made

Now, I probably would have been okay had I not gone downhill with the chips, crackers and candy.

I was ready to eat my arm off due to my workout, but I was just out of control.

TOM is here so that certainly didn't help, but I KNEW what I was doing and just couldn't stop. Now I feel like crap emotionally and physically.

UGH. Fuck compulsive eating.

I wanted to post this just so I could put it out there. It happens and I know that it's over and done with and I can't change it now so I shouldn't beat myself up, but I have all of these plans for what I WILL be changing and I feel like I keep standing in my own way.

RAHHHHHH. /rant

Pick up the phone....

I put a call out to some of my accountability partners. I emailed them part of my post from yesterday saying what I WILL be doing to get back on track and how I will be continuing to work on this journey.

Another one of my friends had basically outlined what she will be doing between now and Christmas. Can you believe it's only 8 weeks away? HOLY COW! Also, December 14th is the one year anniversary of my starting my lifestyle change. It will be interesting to do a reflection post about how my life and health has changed since that time. All I can do is give myself a big pat on the back for sticking with it. Even though I've had my ups and downs, my really on point days and my really off days/weeks. I'm still standing and if I get knocked down, I'm still getting up. Even if I have to crawl a little. Even if I need a helping hand.

Now, I am NOT looking forward to the food fest known as Christmas time where I work. It seems to be inundated with candy, treats, and more candy and treats. I've said it before, I'll say it again -- teachers like to eat and I have never seen a group of people eat more food in my life. I DO remember however, that I made it through Christmas at work last year. I mean, who decides to start a diet/lifestyle change AT CHRISTMAS? My crazy ass. I know I can get through it. I just need to keep my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.

With all of that being said here is my plan for the next 8 weeks. It also includes my planned diversions.... notice - PLANNED.

Here we go:

I am planning on ONE off plan meal this weekend which will be Sunday night at the Vortex. I am planning on going to the gym both Friday afternoon AND Saturday morning, mind you, that will be 5 days for this week, but I wasn't planning on Saturday originally. I may also try to extend some of my workouts to an hour or so vs. 45 minutes to add in a little extra.

Next week (11/1-11/7) I will be on plan the entire week, and make up for the extra drinking I will be doing at the wedding on 11/06 by going to the gym (again on Saturday for a total of 6 days). I will try to make the best choices possible as they are serving heavy hors doeuvres.

The following week (11/8-11/14) I will be on plan the entire week. I will try to extend my gym time as the next weekend is my birthday. I will eat, drink and be merry on my birthday weekend. I will not beat myself up about this. Monday morning I am back OP 110%.

The week and a half of (11/15-11/24) I will be on plan the entire week. I will go to the gym my regular 5 days and try to fit in some extended time if possible. I will eat, drink and be merry on Thanksgiving. I don't actually think the day itself will be that bad. It is with my immediate family only and we are doing all of our favorite foods and seafood this year. Then again, there's my mom's sweet potato pie that I will fight someone over. :)

11/25-12/25 I will continue to be on plan with my plan. :) Christmas I will allow myself to eat, drink and be merry. I can make up for the difference that week with an extra day at the gym or extended time AT the gym.

Then we have new years where I will probably go to the gym an extra day to make up for drinking ON NYE.

So yeah.... when you break it down like you did it doesn't sound that bad. :)

Let's Get Real....

Wow, I thought a month going by was bad.... um how about THREE months sailing by. I've become one of those people. One of those wanna be bloggy people that just suddenly trails off when times get hard and you dont' really want to face yourself or anyone else and it's easier to hide behind the excuses than it is to type it out.

I started this blog for myself. Let's face it. I only have a handful of followers (and thank you for that, dear readers!), but this was really about trying to keep myself accountable.

Accountability: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions

I will take responsibility for my actions, but it's just been such a slippery slope.

I checked in over at Mrs. Fatass's this morning and one of her posts really struck me. It jumped out and I let out a sigh of "holy shit, that's exactly how I feel right now." It's about comebacks and feeling like we just don't have any fight left in us and somehow we dig down and there's a second wind there and we just have to remember to keep pushing through, no matter how hard we've already fought. Go check it out.

I haven't been posting on 3FC. I haven't been talking/emailing as much with my support buddies. Excuses aside we're all really busy. The beginning of the school years are the most hectic time and I guess I just fell into the lackadaisical way of life.

I never understood before why people who have been on their lifestyle journey say "I'm tired.... I'm just so very tired." Now I do because I've been at that point. I'm tired of eating well, I'm tired of going to the gym, I'm tired of feeling bad about going out drinking with my friends because it negates all of the work I've done during the week. I'm tired of being obsessed with food. I'm tired of waking up at 2am and wanting to eat everything in my house even though I AM NOT HUNGRY. I'm tired of not seeing the scale moving.

That's part of what being a compulisive overeater/binge eater is about. It is so very fucking frustrating. I will NOT be hungry, however it's like I'm on autopilot and will stuff my face. Over the past year I have become more aware of this because of my therapy, but sometimes even though you "wake up" in the midst of it you keep on doing it anyway. It's a vicious cycle.

I had been thinking of switching over strictly to calorie counting from South Beach. Here's the thing though, I've been frustrated with wanting to eat sugary things, with wanting to eat potatoes (one of my major vices haha!), etc. I figured if I do calorie counting I don't feel deprived of those things. I know that the basic equation of weight loss IS calories in vs. calories out, but in my test runs here and there I have noticed this. The thing I LOVE about South Beach is that I don't have to weigh my food, I don't have to add up numbers at the beginning/end of the day. I can eat as much of it as I want (although let's face it, we need to be within reason) and I can still lose weight. I DON'T have the sugar cravings and I DON'T HAVE THE BINGES nearly as often. Since I've been doing more portion control and adding in things that are NOT on South Beach and trying to simply watch calories I have been waking up in the middle of the night and eating. I have been CRAVING, CRAVING, CRAVING sugars, sweets and junk food.

Now, I cannot simply blame adding sugar into my diet for the binges and the eating. There is a much deeper side to this story as well. I have been in therapy for the past 10 months with an AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING woman who not only lost over 120 lbs and has kept it off for 6+ years, but is a compulsive over eater/binge eater as well. It was someone who could really understand where I was coming from and this led me to be incredibly comfortable with her. I felt like she was more of a friend than she was a stiff doctor. When I began seeing her a year ago she had told me there was a possiblity she would be moving which I was fine with. She was up front so you can't hate on that. So a few weeks ago she broke the news that she had finally sold her house and even though I was very excited for her and the journey she was getting ready to take off to I was very surprised at how much if affected me. I actually got a little choked up when she told me. I'm not sure which was more surprising, the fact that she had sold her house and was moving so quickly or the fact that I was emotional about it. Probably the latter.

This is going to sound weird but I feel a little abandoned. Both she and my chiropractor moved (although I was able to hunt down my chiro and he is in the same area YAY!). I felt like the 2 people who have done the best work on me both up and left and what am I supposed to do now? I have all of the tools I need to be able to control/overcome/manage my binge eating, it's just a matter of using them, but I def feel like since all of this went down and my schedule changed, etc that it's gotten out of control again.

I've been really great at maintaining, but I need to remember that I can do that when I reach my goal, which I am not at now. I need to remember that it's okay to have a planned diversion here and there, not EVERY weekend. I need to remember that there will always be a party, a graduation, a birthday, a camp out, a wedding, a Friday funday, sporting event, etc. etc. That does not give me a "get out of jail free" pass every single time to do as I please.

I KNOW these things, I've written about these things, I am aware of these things, but I need to start DOING these things.

So here is part of my plan:

*I need to will start planning out my meals again.
*I need to will start writing down EVERYTHING I am eating because it makes me think twice about what I am eating. (I have a handy food journal I bought that I have YET to use.)
*I need to will find a support system again.
*I need to will start going to the gym more consistantly - meaning 5 days a week.
*I need to will start doing weight training 3 times a week (meaning doing it even when I don't see my trainer).
*I need to will be doing 45 minutes of cardio 5 days a week. Which means if I only get in 25 minutes BEFORE training I still need to make up for the rest AFTER I'm done with my trainer.
*I need to will drink more water.
*I need to will drink less alcohol.
*I need to will start making SMALLER goals for myself. (ex. Instead of the goal being 170. I need to will make the goal 175. Instead of saying I'm going to go to the gym 20 times a month, I need to focus on the week at hand so I don't get overwhelmed.)
*I need to will start using my daily quotes/affirmation cards every day to help keep my eye on the prize.
*I need to will reward myself with things that do not involve alcohol or food, however at every 10 lbs lost I AM allowed to have a planned diversion meal. This is to help "reset" my body which my therapist suggested and told me I'm allowed to do. This is for ONE MEAL ONLY.
*I need to will go out of my comfort zone and start doing some classes here and there at my gym or going swimming. That was one of the reasons I wanted to go to the gym I'm at in the first place. I love my gym, but I'm shy and a little chicken when it comes to wanting to go to the classes because I feel like I'll look like an idiot.

Sorry for the novel people. I had about 3 months of shit to get off of my chest. :)

What will YOU start doing?

Um A month? Seriously?!

Wow. I had no idea it had been almost a whole month since I updated this thing.

The basic run down is this - I work for the school system. From the beginning of August to the end of September is our busiest time of the year (to put it mildly). The opening of the school year is SO hard and entails more than I could have ever imagined since I, prior to 2.5 years ago, had never worked in a school system or cared much about it.

I have realized (once again) that my weight loss is mostly foiled by my weekends. I can eat great on the week, work out 4-5 times a week (or lately 2-3 times..oops) and then I throw it ALL away on the weekend. I had bounced up at one point (after a wonderful long weekend at the beach that was no lie full of carb loading and beer) to 185.

I am happy to say that this morning the scale gods finally decided to have mercy upon me and I actually saw 178.8. Granted, I haven't been eating as MUCH as I should, but I have been completely on plan and it's probably okay because I haven't been working out really over the past week and a half.

I go BACK to my trainer tonight. She was on vacay last week, I had to cancel on Tuesday because I had too much work to do (poor planning on my part once again) and I know she is going to kick my ass.

The plan is that next week I will resume the 5 DAYS A WEEK at the gym with a more regular schedule including finally hitting up some of the classes I have yet to take advantage of at my awesome gym.

So here we go again.

I have 30 more lbs to lose to hit my first BIG goal and will be able to lose from there what I feel comfortable with..... By my birthday? Perhaps. By Christmas?! DEFINITELY!!!!

I hope you all have continued to do well on this journey. If there is one thing I have learned its that maintaining should be doable.... I have been getting lots of practice. LOL.