I Dream of SKINNY

Hello Monday

2012-02-13T06:58:00.000-08:00

Is it Monday already? I love the weekend for all the extra time I get to myself, for the ability to set myself up for success over the next week and to get in some extra exercise. I love Monday because I'm no longer at home staring at the refrigerator trying to talk myself out of some extra little something. Here's a recap of some of my notable activities:

Have you ever tried Shirataki noodles? I will warn you that they are not for the faint at heart. They have a very earthy flavor that has to be rinsed and rinsed and rinsed before I would recommend eating. I run them under cold water for several minutes, paraboil, add my favorite pasta sauce and some shredded parm and voila! An entire package of noodles is only 40 calories (what makes all that rinsing worth it).

I ate that for lunch on Saturday.

Afterwards, I wanted to go for a run but it was snowing all day long and my neighborhood has a "shovel your own sidewalk" policy meaning there is no consistency on the amount of snow in your path. Instead, I threw on some snow pants and boots and headed out for a walk. My lab (pictured here) is my usual running partner but I also have two very old miniature poodles, Hunter and Bailey. Hunter is 17 and Bailey is 12. These guys are not so equipped to head into the outdoors and in fact Hunter wears a coat around the house just to stay warm. They are also very slow walkers and more interested in the smells around them than getting from point A to point B. My solution is to walk them around the back yard and, when I go for a walk around the neighborhood, they take turns cruising around with me in my Northface backpack! I know, my neighbors must think I'm a complete nut job but the added weight powers up my work out and when we get home he runs around wagging his little tail like he just hiked Mount Everest!

Here's Hunter!

On Sunday I braved the snow; my lab, Coffee, and I went out for a real run. I found my iPod so I was super excited to see what my time would look like on a route I typically do without music. Once I got out there I very quickly realized that running in a few inches of slushy snow is kind of like running on the beach - it's exhausting! I used my music to keep me going the whole way and was excited to find that my time was the same without music on a dry run as it was with music on a slushy run. If only livestrong had a "Running in Snow" activity. I admit, I looked for running on the beach thinking it would be comparable but that's not there either so I stuck with my usual log.

So that's my weekend! Now back to work...

I have several questions for the community at large if you don't mind me asking. Maybe I'll post one a week at the end of my posts. Here's this post's question:

On my current dietary plan I'm eating smaller meals for breakfast and lunch so that I have enough calories left to really feel full after dinner. There is nothing worse than feeling hungry at bed time in my opinion. It keeps me happy and gives me something to look forward to during the day but I do feel like I'm not exactly balanced here. Any suggestions?

Thanks! And see you soon!

Why do all that work if you don't get anything for it anyway?

2012-02-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Saturday!

I went to bed last night feeling like today was going to be an awesome day. I went to bed early, motivated and excited for my weekend weigh in. How I woke up is a completely different story. The first thing I did was run for the bathroom scale. My first disappointment of the day: over the last week of blood, sweat and tears I have managed to lose 0.4 pounds. That's it? That's all you have for me?

Last night my fiancé and I went downtown and had dinner at a new mexican restaurant. I felt so victorious after I had successfully kept my meal within my caloric requirements. I drank water, was careful on the chips and had a vegetarian taco with no sides for my meal. So to come home and not see that effort back was really difficult. I immediately dreamed about a cupcake, finishing off the rest of my birthday cake in the freezer or scooping some ice cream. I know it's unattractive to say so but that old thought was circling "Why do all that work if you don't get anything for it anyway?"

That's the thought that ran me off the road to my goals so many times before. From the outside looking in on a dieter, it may look like a simple calculation. Calories in < calories out = weight loss. From the inside it's decision after decision after decision of better choices. It's staring my worst fear in the face (the one where I'm at the refrigerator, starving, opening the door and seeing nothing appetizing to eat...) and choosing instead of running for a slice of cheese cake to deal with it and eat what I had planned. When I look at just the dietary side of health, I feel like I have to give up a friend. And that's because I do. I give up the thing that consoles me, the thing that makes me feel good, the thing that is always there for me...

What I have to focus on instead is the new friend: exercise! It in many, many ways replaces that old friend with a much, much hotter friend. She does more than just tell me I'm happy covering up all the things that made me come to her. She digs into my psyche, rearranges my clutter and sets me back out into the world in a better place.

Maybe she can convince me to hang on for another week?

Mindful Eating

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Hello Ladies and Gents!

I read this article yesterday on mindful eating and it got me interested in slowing down a little myself. So...

I cooked a meal...

I sat down with it alone at the table...

I loaded up my fork...

I closed my eyes and I took a bite...

I chewed with my eyes close to heighten my senses. I chewed slowly. I took deep breaths to appreciate the smell. I tried to isolate the individual flavors in my mouth. I set my fork down. Took a sip of ice tea and prepared for my next bite.

I ate my whole meal in a similar fashion.

I have to admit that I was quite impatient through the process. I went for a run yesterday morning so I was pretty hungry at the time I ran this little experiment. I forced myself to move as slowly as I could. The whole bowl of pasta took me about 15 minutes to eat. That doesn't sound like a lot but it felt like an eternity. I noticed things I wouldn't have normally noticed like the difference in the texture between pieces of tortellini. I also got to some serious thinking about just what I was eating. Where did it come from? How were those tomatoes picked? How long did they travel to arrive at my table? Do you think the farm that grows those tomatoes also raises animals for slaughter? Cuz that wouldn't be cool... Are these organic?

All in all, it was a great experiment. I was pretty full by my last bite and I tuned into my senses way more than I normally would. It also gave me food for thought. Just who am I trusting to grow the things I put in my body?

What kind of research do you do on the food you consume? Do you think an organic stamp is a reason to trust?

Recommitment

2012-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Good Morning Ladies and Gents,

I have been off the blogger wagon for awhile now and I think it is time to get back on. I gained 19.4 pounds over my goal weight over the last year and a half. And I felt so defeated. Focusing on my health when I was so emotionally beaten did not feel possible. And for me, as much as I tried over that time, it was not happening for me.

OK, let's bring out some sunshine because I have finally turned things around!

I am back on livestrong (it's free!) and I've made marked improvement since January 20th:

What I find remarkable is that even though I am trying to get into healthier habits, they have started to feel natural for me again. When I was in my rut even the smallest of healthy changes felt like I was trying to move mountains; it was just against what my body had in mind for me. Now, I feel in control and happy and that happiness makes everything easier.

I have 13 pounds left to go to get my butt back into shape and although that number can be daunting sometimes, I am relying heavily on something I never thought I would be so interested in: pinterest! If you are not on pinterest, send me your email and I will send you an invite. Once you're logged in, search for work out motivation or healthy cooking or health goals and prepare to be amazed! Here are a few of my recent favs:

I try to remind myself of these things one a day or so and when I have a moment standing in my kitchen when I question my resolve, I think about all the women out there posting and posing for these pins and I feel like I'm part of a crowd of women all after the same goal.

Speaking of goals, here are mine:

-Exercise 5x/wk

-Regularly practice yoga and meditation (I <3 this website for private practice at home)

-Journal or blog often

-Track nom nom (food!)

-Try to gear my nom choices towards things that will fuel my body and not just junk that fits into my calorie count

-Never eat fitness calories earned but track them so I feel like a badass

-Love it. Every minute of it.

OK, I'm going for a run now and when I get back I'm going to take a photo and place it here:

Me and my running partner

I really struggle realizing how far behind I am in my fitness than where I was just a year and a half ago but my persistence will be so worth it when I'm on my honeymoon in my favorite bathing suit feeling like a million bucks! (And, when I'm an old, old woman still trucking it out for a mid-morning walk enjoying the later years of my life.) And fitness is one thing that sucks when you're breaking yourself in but becomes SOOOO rewarding once you're comfortable. For me, it's therapy for things I didn't even know I needed therapy for!

How do you celebrate your fitness and remind yourself to keep going every day?

A picture is worth a thousand words...

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Some days I feel amazing. I eat healthy, I want to go for my run, I look forward to cleaning and cooking, and I feel pretty invincible. Other days, I struggle. The overall "aesthetic" of my life seems to be made up of the patchwork that the days form when they meld together in my memory. For extended periods of time I'm up on top and for some periods of time I'm kicking my legs as hard as I can just to keep my head above water. Unfortunately, when I'm sinking, I stop doing a lot of the things I love like blogging, exercise, eating healthy... My post today is a sure-fire sign that the tides have turned and I've found my feet on a sandy beach somewhere.

I recently took a trip to Florida and found myself in the unforgiving sun. New York gets warm in the summer but we're not talking Florida warm and I work (for the most part) in an air conditioned office. My Florida trip was also last minute so I don't think I was rightly prepared when I arrived. I found myself sitting out in the beautiful weather uncomfortable in my own skin and I'm not just referencing the terrible sun burn I got. I'm unfortunately talking about being in tank tops and bathing suits and the horrified feeling that over comes you when you realize that you're not such hot stuff. I suffered through like a trooper but once I got back found myself reliving the experience in my photos:

I might be saying "Mmmm"

Seriously angry about something!

Sun burning

It took me awhile to control my laughter/tears. I'm definitely feeling a little squishy around the edges if you know what I mean. I have been drifting with my weight for awhile but I didn't have the energy to face it. And when you don't have the will, there is nothing to be done but try your best and hope that the tide will turn soon.

Fortunately, as soon as I arrived home I had my feet laced up in sneakers and lettuce in the refrigerator. I am so thankful to be out of the blistering sun but even as the cold weather approaches I know that health is a year round venture.

Bikram Yoga

2011-06-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I have been thinking of posting for days now but I haven't been able to find the focus or the words to get out what I've been thinking. A few weeks ago I decided that I should try new things to try to distract myself from a hyper focus I had developed on my living situation. I moved 8 hours away from home in September last year and I have been waiting for my house to sell ever since. To help the financial aspect of the home on the market, my finance and I are living with his family. The combination of disappointment as the house didn't sell and loss of my personal space felt stifling as the winter wore on. I couldn't find my voice anymore. Instead I kept thinking "this or that will be better when the house sells." My eating habits were erratic, my financial focus was coming and going, and my overall outlook was losing its luster.

As the spring flowers emerged and the sun started shining more brightly, I knew that something had to change. The housing market is supposed to be picking up, but I haven't seen any movement on the house, so something other than the obvious had to change. That's when I decided to try hot yoga. As it turns out the closest studio to where I live is right around the corner. Last Saturday after combing through the website (www.bikramyogawilliamsville.com), I got changed, packed up my yoga mat and headed out. To be honest, I was in nervous knots. Who knew what I would find or if I would hate it. What would I do then? The last thing I needed was disappointment.

I found the studio, walked up the stairs through a brightly painted hallway and found Bikram Yoga. The people there are wonderful and inviting despite the fact that I must be sending off "end of her rope" vibes to all who ask me how I am doing. I smile back hoping that whatever comes next will take me out of my current element. Amazingly, it does. The room is a sweltering 105 degrees Fahrenheit and 40 percent humidity. The room's focus, the poses, are as much as you need or as little as you choose. You can give everything to your mat or nothing at all. The instructor demonstrates nothing so there is no where that your eyes must go during much of the practice. My eyes always find their way back to my face in the mirror. In the beginning I can see the desperation of my situation but by the end all I can see is triumph at surviving the 90 minute class. My towel and clothes are drenched, my limbs are exhausted, and stirring inside me is something that I can't quite put my finger on...

I have found my feet carrying me back to the yoga studio every day since. Today was day 8. Each class is different depending on where my mind is and how much I am willing to push myself. Most days I can push myself feeling relief at escaping my usual thoughts. I am so focused on the poses that I completely forget about life outside of the room. I bend and move without asking any questions like "where will I be when this is over," or "what if I can't keep doing this?" Today wasn't quite as easy as most days. I was struggling with my thoughts and feelings even without bringing them to the surface. They were haunting me. My balance was off and my inability to do what I had done yesterday was frustrating. That stirring feeling I had felt on the first day of class was growing into something more and I wouldn't be able to ignore it for forever. What was it?

I think my emotional capacity to stay calm and focused was losing its potency. And I keep asking myself "Why do I have to have this capacity? Why can't I let the world go and stop feeling such angst?" A 90 minute a day yoga practice is wonderful. But, it is also expensive (the cheapest option with the longest commitment is $100/month when other gyms in the area are $40 per month), time consuming, and challenging. What if I can't maintain my coping strategy?

I guess I still haven't been able to put my finger on what exactly it is that stirs in my chest - at least not in a way that I can verbalize - but I'm at least getting there and working through it. And maybe that's the point with something like Bikram yoga. It's not always about warm and fuzzy release. Sometimes it's about challenging your dissatisfaction, your focus on the negative, and the conclusion that what is must be. Just because a lot of my life benefits from responsible complacency does not mean that my spiritual life needs to be that way. And maybe I am learning that spiritual growth can come from 90 minutes inside a Bikram yoga studio.

Wednesday

2011-04-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Wednesday and that means weigh in day. This week has definitely had its ups and downs (mostly downs) but it has at least ended on an up! Let's start from the beginning...

Those Peanut Butter Fudge Protein Bars I made turned out to be pretty good:

I did try to take a picture after all but I am unfortunately currently working on a construction site so the photo is complete with concrete and pea stone! Apologies for the poor quality...

I did modify the recipe with sweetened coconut (which I have since been told is a weird combination -- peanut butter and coconut -- but it sounded good at the time...) instead of artificial sweetener, but it wasn't a stellar modification. They just needed a little more sweet, so next time (which may be tonight) I am going for the artificial sweetener. They also served as a great replacement for my usual Odwalla Protein Bars:

I still love my Odwalla and will probably mix it back in with my new homemade version, but the $1.00 (if I buy in bulk) per bar can be a bit much. The protein content on the homemade version is amazing in comparison too.

So, as I mentioned above, I have been outside for the last three weeks:

(Yes, I literally walk around looking like this on cold days...Safety glasses and hard hat required)

which I blame for some dietary challenges. After standing on your feet all day and some days also feeling cold, convincing yourself to stick to your brought from home veggies lunch and pre-thought-out dinner is no easy task. For two days last week I failed miserably. I had actually convinced myself that I deserved a cheat day. The cheat day turned into two as I debated whether I could really do this. Can I really do this? That day ended with a devastating glance at the scale that had actually moved UP since my last visit. Back on track.

So, my new resolve is built on this: I have wanted this for months and feel miserable when I ignore the fact that I need to focus on healthy life changes. To convince myself one unhealthy meal at a time that I don't want health more than I want a ____ (fill in the blank with anything unhealthy) is just letting the best of myself get away. That being said, I've run the numbers and I think putting my nose to the grind stone could take me to my goals in just three months. What is three months in a life time? And imagine how I'll feel in three months! So, resolve back in my corner and I'm going in for round two ~~regardless of what the scale says tomorrow~~. Wish me luck!

Get Ready, Set...

2011-04-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

I had the luck of a short work day today and I felt like a five year old who's parents just told her she was going to Disney World. I started enjoying my long evening by watching trashy tv but that ended abruptly when I started thinking about my health goals (or lack thereof). My significant other is starting a work place "Biggest Loser" competition tomorrow only highlighting how isolated I have been making myself in my negative choices. I know I won't be able to stick to the slow carb diet he's planning on following so I went to the internet to see if I could find something inspirational. I spent a few minutes on weightwatchers.com thinking about their new program before closing the window in a panic about the financial commitment required. I browsed a few other programs before finally landing on the webmd Food and Fitness Planner. Kind of like weight watchers with logging food and everything on the web, but without their points program or price! I entered in all my information and poof...

My estimated calorie intake, exercise requirements and timeline all in a great interface. So, I'm feeling hopeful again and getting ready to start my day tomorrow off on the right foot. I googled some recipes and found this new breakfast bar to try: Peanut Butter Fudge Protein Bar I modified the recipe with two tablespoons of coconut flakes and cannot wait to try it. I must tell you though that there is a reason that there are no photographs. They are not the most beautiful food I have ever made. BUT I will have to come back to let you know whether they are the most delicious.

I also just bought Dreamfield's low carb pasta after a recommendation from a coworker:

I just cooked a few servings with vegetable stock, broccoli, garlic, and my favorite vegetarian sweet italian sausage:

Yum!! I packed everything up in separate tupperware so I can take it in to work and give it all a shot. After all that cooking, I stocked the refrigerator with plenty of veggies and fruit to supplement the rest of my day before I get home.

Amazing what one afternoon focused on myself can do for my future health outlook! Wish me luck!

Go!

Frustrated!

2011-04-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm back with my head down. Things are not off to the roaring start I thought they would be. The truth is, I feel like I'm struggling with my weight for a reason, and deciding that I wish things would be different doesn't make it so. At the top of my game, I would have looked at life through rose colored glasses. I would have kept hope up even when hope felt lost. Unfortunately, I exhausted that enthusiasm about 3 months ago. Since then I've been struggling with the scale:

Don't reach for your glasses just yet. I'll read it for you. 147.6 No, not a terrible number in terms of numbers but when I worked so hard to get to 135 AND set 145 as my "Do not pass go, do not eat anything else every again, and start exercising like a mad woman" limit, it has been tough to see on the scale. I feel like I'm watching myself get into a car accident. There is something I should do, but I'm too slow to do it in time. I was just reading Jen's post about excuses and let me tell you, I am queen of excuses. I am living in limbo waiting for my house to sell (i.e. in my finace's parents house in the mean time), I don't have my own kitchen, I'm working 55-60 hour weeks, and all I ever seem to want is to drown everything in food!

Let's be honest here, I have chosen an outlook on life that is one of many available. I could be focused like many of the women who's blogs I read. I could be setting my heels and getting ready for a fight:

Yeah, that's my fighting face. OK, maybe more like my exhausted, too tired to get up early and blow dry my hair face... but you get the idea.

I know what has worked for me in the past and I have struggled trying to implement it in my current situation, and it is just not working. As of late, I've sort of thrown in the towel. Last weekend I spent all day Sunday in bed reading:

Yes, even upside down its a trashy paperback. I couldn't even be bothered to read something of substance. My latest self care endeavors have included thinking about bringing my office plants (recently gifted from my awesome bf) into my actual office...

Yup, that's my night stand. Still thinking.

So I have to ask, for all the exhausted moms, overworked students, and full time over timers... how are we supposed to make this health thing work when there are situations we can be backed into that don't give us room to breathe, never mind eat celery and exercise!! Don't get me wrong, I know I can and should be doing more for myself for many reasons other than what my scale says. I'm just frustrated!

Not Good News

2011-04-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to think I am going to have to redesign my blog since I have started gaining weight. I feel like I need to start from scratch, go back to where things started, and find where it was that I grabbed control. My circumstances have since changed and control slips through my fingers more often than I find myself holding it. I wish that I had some plan, a means to a better end, but so far I'm just sitting here shocked back into self awareness after stepping on my bathroom scale. OK, let's start with a no more going out to eat rule. Yes. Baby steps. No more going out to eat and a trip to the grocery store to buy salad fixings. Now we're getting somewhere. I'll establish small steps for each week, and every week I'll be further away from where I am now. Eventually, I'll be back where I once was.

This week:

1. No eating out
2. Eat salad for lunch
3. Carry water every where I go

Here I go...

Why So Blue... All the Time?

2011-01-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

Just before New Years day, I came to terms with the reality of my weight. I stepped on a scale for the first time in a very long time. While I stood there looking horrified at a much higher number than I had hoped for, I had a hundred excuses on the tip of my tongue. I am still living in a temporary situation with family waiting for my house to sell. That means that I still don't have my own kitchen or my own refrigerator. I have used my circumstances as a reason to eat out more than I normally would and as an excuse to make quick trips to the grocery store for one meal at a time shopping. Although all my other excuses are valid arguments (and I have to work on them too) my greatest challenge is an emotional one.

I always considered myself an emotional eater. I used to contextualize the situation though. I'm an emotional eater because when I go through something especially trying, I don't know what to do with the feelings so I eat to feel something different. Just recently, I've taken my view of the emotional side of eating out of context. I was sitting and watching tv thinking that I should go to bed when it dawned on me that I didn't want to because of the quiet space between awake and sleep. I felt bad in that space and I watched tv to avoid having that interaction with myself. I can't completely escape my feelings with tv -- that's why I eat. The worst part is that I look back on my day, my life, my circumstances... I have nothing to feel badly about.

If I think about it long enough, I realize that even if I don't have anything to feel badly about, I will find something in my past and I'll pick it apart searching for something. I don't know what I'm looking for or why I would seek out negative emotions. Sometimes it isn't even a particular memory I'm experiencing when a foul mood strikes me. I wouldn't call myself depressed by any means. I think I go through all the ups and downs of a "normal" person. For whatever reason I haven't learned to metabolize the feelings. I sit in them stewing without really being conscious of what I'm doing until a few minutes later I think "Gosh, why do I feel this way?"

I've been working really diligently at being healthy as of late (with the rest of the resolutioners) and as I reflect more I'm starting to think that maybe my coping mechanism for these feelings needs to change. I know, that should have been obvious, but I guess I never learned any other way of being. So, task 1. go to bed and task 2. reassess my coping mechanisms in the morning.

Good Night All!

P.S. Google "blues before bed" and find this great site

Hiding From Halloween Candy - Unsuccessfully

2010-10-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone and Happy Saturday!

I am having the toughest time. I have far too many excuses and not enough success-notches in my belt to feel confident anymore. At moments like this, health and weight management feel like very slippery slopes. I am still living in a temporary situation with family waiting for my house in Vermont to sell. I don't have my own refrigerator or my own kitchen. I know that there are a hundred things I could do to defeat my circumstances and stick to my health goals but they don't feel feasible to me right now.

When I got back on track with my health after college I vowed that I would never be one of those people who lets themselves go when life gets overwhelming. I regret to say that I definitely feel like one of those people. I haven't weighed myself since I moved in early September but I don't imagine that its pretty. I have gotten into one of those habits where I finish dinner and then I crave something else - not something healthy. I give in and hit the grocery store or my candy collection to drive off the craving. Before I know it I'm into nightly candy eating and my pants feel tight.

One of my favorites...

No, it doesn't help that Halloween is right around the corner and candy seems to be everywhere! So what am I going to do? What do you do? Could I continue to make excuses and just fall until I eventually come back to my senses (or not?) When I look at it that way, no, I can't just let myself fall into this. I need to do something different. But how can I when I feel like I'm already doing too much?

Well, how does anyone? I don't even have kids and I'm complaining. I read a lot of blogs of mothers who pull themselves up either early in the morning or in the evening to do their workouts even when they feel like they have no energy left after working, going to school, and/or taking care of kids every day. I'm going to revisit those blogs today to find myself some motivation...

Letting Go of My Scale

2010-10-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

My personal life just picked up and left! That's right, I am no longer in Vermont. I am officially a resident of Buffalo, New York. I have so much to tell you all about that I didn't quite know where to start. So, I decided I'd start where I left off: with my health. Later, I'll expand on making the decision to move to a completely new place and how that process went down. You know you've thought about it. So what does it take to actually do it? I'll let you know in my next post.

Back to the topic at hand: My scale.

I moved September 4th and I have not said "hello" to my scale since then.

(Me waving goodbye to my scale)

Granted, at first it was a necessary restriction as I did not know where my scale was, but while pawing through my collection of boxes still in the garage the other day I spotted it. And then I moved on to continue looking for what I was really after.

The jump for me has been horrifying. I have always been an every-other-day weigher (if not daily) because I was terrified that if I stopped my diligent tracking, I would expand back to the size I was in college. Pretty soon, the paranoia really did settle in for me. I was certain my pants were feeling tighter than usual (or were they?) I gave my scale so much control that I didn't even know how to gauge my size without it. And isn't that true for a lot of people? You lose weight and you still feel fat, and when you gained it in the first place you never even noticed how big you were until you woke up one day to see that you were in the obese BMI range. OK, maybe that was just my experience, but I like to consider it universal.

I did eventually calm down as time passed and my clothes still fit. I mean, if I was gaining weight at the exponential rate that I believed I was, wouldn't I be busting seams by now? Without my focus on weight, what would I have to gauge my progress? Here's the good part: without a number on the scale, I found that I wasn't able to hedge my bets the same way I used to. I would logically work my way through "OK, if I ate this "bad" food last week and I didn't gain on the scale, then I can do that again. It was like the scale was literally policing my eating and exercise. Without it, I have to police it myself. Well, OK, I don't have to. I choose to in order to still consider myself healthy.

This is where I was startled to realize that I feel down into another layer of conclusions. My idea of "healthy" used to be based on what my scale would let me get away with. No joke, Ladies. If it didn't make me fat, it was healthy. So, what I'm really saying is that I don't know how to establish food and exercise boundaries myself. I don't choose what to do based on what makes me comfortable, I choose what to do by compromising between where I'm comfortable and what the number on my scale reads. So when I sit down for dinner at a restaurant, I pick up the menu and think "OK, I didn't eat too much today so I can have the pasta," instead of "I want to be good to myself and body so I'm going for a yummy salad."

I know we all have a balancing act to do whether its between the scale and your comfort or your health and comfort is really the kicker for me here. I think I was balancing on the wrong things. I'm not saying I have this figured out because I'm still making the wrong decisions more times than not and I'm still spiking my sugars if I think I can get away with it. I'm just saying I realize that I need to get my mental strategy straight so I queue the right thought while sitting at the dinner table or debating if I should go for a run.

What do you think? What do you balance on? And how far outside of your comfort zone will you go to reach a goal on the scale?

My future goals: Implement "health" standards for myself without the scale!

Does Anyone Ever Get to the Finish Line?

2010-06-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Ladies! I've been off the blog-o-sphere for some time now, but I'm back and with a vengeance. I'm back to answer the question: Does anyone ever get to the finish line? I've seen a lot of posts about how health is a continuum and a constant work ~~in progress~~ of art. My years down this path can certainly attest to that. However, at this very moment, I find myself sitting comfortably on the other end of the finish line.

Literally:

That's me after finishing the Buffalo (New York) Half Marathon.

Running the streets of Buffalo with City Hall in the back ground.

Me waving.

It's hard to explain the way I feel right now. I had been training for what felt like forever and certainly having my little emotional moments as I passed milestones (first a 5K, then a 10K, then 11 miles...), but to actually finish what I set out to do is a completely different kind of emotional moment. I ran every step of that 13.1 mile race and, Ladies, I am here to report that there is a finish line. Keep pushing and don't stop until you reach it, no matter what anyone says, because there's a whole world on the other side.

Discouraged

2010-04-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

Thank you for the feedback on my make-up disaster. I have been making some modifications to the routine and will be back for an update post shortly. I'm really working on the routine as something I would like to incorporate as I start looking for a new job (anticipated for beginning of June?) so I have some time to nail that down.

In the mean time, I'm still floundering about like you wouldn't believe. On Sunday I ran 8 miles clocking in an average of 12 minute miles. I was so excited and impressed (especially since I felt like I was crawling the last two miles). Then, I got home and felt the sharp pain in my left foot. Ut oh. I think I have a minor strain and I was really hoping it would be gone by morning. I tried to stay off my foot for the rest of the day and I took some advil before going to bed. When I woke up this morning I was so disappointed to feel the familiar sharp pain as soon as I started walking.

So this foot injury comes at the worst of times. I'm super stressed and need to exercise. I have a half marathon planned for end of May and this is my last month to get in the last two miles (you're supposed to complete 10 miles before attempting the 13.1 of a half), AND I just discovered this morning that a pair of my pants don't fit any more.

Now I can argue that the extra weight on the scale is due to any number of things, but when the pants don't fit anymore, its a sign. And not a good one either. My cookie eating, diet rebellion days are coming back to bite me... big time.

When I think about how to get back on track, I feel entirely lost. I feel like I've tried everything and my body just isn't willing to cooperate.

So, I've started reading "Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me":

The book reads a little bit like a New York fasionista has taken you under her wing and giving you all her directives for living a graceful life. Since my life is so ungraceful, I do take a tone of "shame on you for not living at a higher standard" from the text, but I think I need that for motivation. The book has me learning how to use bleach to whiten my whites (and boy are they looking better! Too bad I got bleach on the brown sweater I was wearing while trying this little experiment...), iron my dress shirts, and attempt to wear socks that match my outfits. No, those aren't suggestions in the book - they're in fact at a level lower than Van der Post's suggestions, but I'm taking baby steps here.

Anyway, that's all off track. What I was going to say was that the title made me stop and think about what I had learned from my mother. What I learned was this: "Dream. Dream beyond your circumstance, beyond what other people may have decided for you, beyond what you may even believe about yourself. Put your nose down and step on the gas pedal. And what ever you do, don't look up until your out of the weeds."

Unfortunately, I'm right in the middle of that process. I'm still in the weeds. And I made the mistake of looking up. It makes me want to cry looking at where my life is knowing how hard I feel like I'm stomping that gas pedal. The world around me still looks like its passing by in tiny, tiny little steps. Success is coming in equally small steps, if at all. It's incredibly frustrating to dream the dream and know so vividly where I want to be... and to not be there yet.

To get where I was headed with all this, that thought makes me harden my resolve for weight loss, but again, how?! I know the outcome I want, I know how desperately I want to get there, but I can't seem to get my hands around how I can make that work. And in the mean time, I'm in the WEEDS! watching my weight loss success slip ever so slowly back towards the oblivion...

So, I've decided to do what I've always doled out as advice to others: Focus on your life before and after those hard-to-get-through events. Like when you're posting after that terrible binge or maybe even a bite of something you knew you didn't really want to eat, that's when you should focus the most on "your work" - on you. Because its only when you can fill the voids by living your life that you stop trying to fill them with food.

Today was a terrible eating day for me. I skipped lunch, I ate a huge dinner, and then came home after an evening meeting and ate cookies to feel better. But now? I'm going to wash up and settle into bed in some comfy PJs and spend some time reading more of Ms. Van der Post.

Needed: Makeup Help!

2010-04-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

OK Ladies, those of you who regularly use make up, I need assistance! Desperately... So I went to the hair dresser with my boyfriend and while I was sitting there I was thinking "I should get my eye brows and make up done so I can do it better myself in the future." Then I started contemplating the cost and decided that I should go to the store and pick out some new make up. So I did. And I came home and tried it out and knew immediately that I had to have made some wrong choices, because it doesn't look at all what I thought it would look like.

So, I took progressive pictures as I applied the make up:

First layer of foundation.

Powder on foundation.

Final look. The lipstick color is all wrong. This is after I wiped off most of it. It's like barbie pink.

So someone tell me what I did wrong and tell me how to do it right!

Stupid Scale...

2010-04-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

The trouble with control is that once you’ve lost it, it is difficult to locate, trap, and train for use again. On Tuesday, I awoke excited for the day. I checked my immediate memory and sure enough, I had been in control for another day. That made 14 total days of being relatively in control. I thought back to the list of things I had cataloged in my mind that I knew I would need today and I recalled the list. OK, first things first – weigh in! Week two of my iChange adventure was coming to a close and I was excited to see what progress I had made.

I grabbed some clothes for my day and ran down to the bathroom to change and use the scale. I hopped on and waited patiently for the number to come up. Then it was there: 136.2, the same number that had been there a week earlier. Bummer.

I recalled my list of things to do again and set about getting ready for work. But I never really recovered from that moment.

I read a lot of blogs where women talk about how unjust it is to boil our success down to a number on a scale. After all, this is our lives we’re talking about here, our health, and that’s more power than any gadget should have. My week of control was a success for my health and a success for my self-esteem. But you know what, it felt like I had studied my semester away, sat for the final exam and still didn’t receive a stellar grade in the class. Yeah, OK, maybe I’m a little dramatic – it was just a week – but this is really where my mood was headed.

So it all starts with the child in me kicking and screaming. I deserved a better number. Yeah, I can keep working hard for another week and hope that I’ll see double the reward next week, but what if I don’t? What if I’m just not capable of getting to my goal? Haven’t all of my attempts been proof of that?

Better eat some curly fries. That will give me instant gratification and reward for my efforts. Oops, now I’ve ruined my diet. Well, you know, it wasn’t working anyway. And eating junk food really feels good right now. I have two jobs, a presentation due for school, and way too much stress. I know what will make this all better. Ice cream and Swiss Cake Rolls.

You can see where my life went from Tuesday to Friday. Four days of garbage eating and self-indulgence. Because when I worked really hard, it didn’t pay off. And now I can’t start again, because it won’t pay off either.

Sigh… This is how I end up diet hopping. In hopes that eventually I’ll hit on a diet that will really pay off and I’ll stick to it and reach my goals and everything will be wonderful. Too bad that never seems to happen…

I’m feeling fed up with my cycle but I’m also feeling like there’s a reason why I keep getting caught in the cycle. Something about this dieting thing isn’t working out for me. It isn’t about the food. It’s about the stress and the lack of support I feel. I’m doing just fine. My career is headed in the right direction, I’m at a healthy weight, and I have none of the signs of a person in trouble. Yet, I feel emotionally like a person in trouble – I don’t mean serious trouble, but I mean stressed out and definitely lacking in the support department. No one takes you seriously when you’re complaining about eating issues while standing there at 135 pounds. No one takes you seriously about career stress when you have a great job. No one takes you seriously about academic stress when you’re working on your masters in engineering.

Does it sound stupid even as I type it out? Absolutely. But is it what I’m really experiencing? Absolutely. So maybe the message is to stop feeling so stressed about things that are obviously “under control” by all outside definitions? I don’t know. All I know is that for now, my system is feeling broken even though its still functioning…

Worst Before Pictures Ever

2010-04-02T16:54:00.000-07:00

OK, ladies, I just took the worst before pictures ever. I should be on the TLC show "What Not to Wear." In my defense, I was trying to wear something snug that would show the good, the bad, and the ugly. On the bad and the ugly, I was successful.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that you don't look anything like you wish you did? Not just body image-wise but also fashion and up-keep-wise. That moment for me was looking at these photos. Sigh, its ok. I will work on this. Maybe this weekend I can spend some time giving myself a makeover of sorts? I'll post some pictures of make up and hair ideas and you can all vote and let me know what you think? YES... Please!!

And the dreaded pictures:

For the clothes, I have a gift card to the fashion outlets at Niagara and I will be shopping in the coming months. My best friend is the perfect mirror for me and she's conveniently coming next weekend! Maybe she can give me some pointers...

The weight issues? I'm under way on iChange.com and you can join me there, too, for free!! Just click here.

Sweeten the Pot - Contest!

2010-03-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

So if you haven’t heard yet, we are gearing up for a free iChange challenge over the next thirty days. While contemplating this challenge, it occurred to me that there should be a prize. Who doesn’t need a prize right? So, here’s the deal: If you’re interested in joining, please sign up in the next 5 days before the close of our group on iChange by clicking here. Participate over all 30 days. At the end, let’s regroup here and post our results in percentage of weight loss in the comments. I’ll choose two winners: the greatest percentage of weight loss winner and a second random participant. We're on honesty policy here with reported percentages. Sound good? And easy? Winner takes a free year’s subscription to Shape Magazine:
Note: I'm getting the same deal as all of you - free iChange, no payments for my posts, and I'll be buying prizes with my own funds... just in case you were wondering...

Unfortunately, this limits the contest to residents of the lower 48 States.

So, I'm all set up on iChange and loving it so far. Tonight, I'm planning out my eats for the next week and taking some measurements. I'm even going to take a before picture -- in what I don't know, but something decent for sure. Any ideas of what's appropriate? Cuz, you want to be able to see a change if there is one, but I'm also not showing up here in my skibbies if you know what I mean.

I've got to swallow my pride here to post my starting weight... 138.8 pounds! Eek... OK, now let's pretend we didn't see that and continue the upbeat momentum I was working so hard on...

I hope to see you all there!

A Challenge For You - No Credit Card Required!

2010-03-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

OK guys, I’ll admit it – I’m jaded by weight loss efforts. I’m having a tough time sticking to anything and I’m frustrated. I’m clinging to the blogger community in a haphazard attempt at not losing sight of my goals. I love reading about everyone’s journeys (which all, by the way, seem to be going better than my own), but I just can’t seem to get it together. I need a kick start but browsing diet books at Borders just doesn’t seem to be doing it for me anymore. I start reading and by page 5 I find myself thinking, “I’ve heard this before, and maybe if I still believed it, there would be a small chance of this working for me…”

In a strange twist of fate, Jen at iChange, offered a 30 free trial with a nutritionist. I’m sure you’ll all read about it at The Sassy Pear's blog but just in case, here’s the description:

About iChange
iChange is built on the idea that, "it's easy to know what to do, but it's difficult to do it." Most diets and weight loss programs fall apart because they are self-directed. You know the rules you are supposed to follow, but you find that after a few days or weeks, it becomes impossible to stick to them. That's where iChange does things differently.

It's About Accountability
We are funny creatures. Most of us find it a lot easier to disappoint ourselves rather than a friend, family member or someone whose job it is to watch out for us. Without these important people in our lives, few of us would ever be able to tackle a major life change. The power of personal accountability is the primary reason that so many addiction recovery and personal change programs rely on counselors and strong support groups. With these people in our lives, difficult goals become achievable and the process becomes much more rewarding, fulfilling and fun.

So here’s the challenge: I’m wondering if any of you would be willing to join a group with me? Whether you're flailing around in weight loss vain like me or just always wanted to meet with a nutritionist for free... I need accountability and I love community, and I’m so totally excited about working with a nutritionist! The free 30-day trial is extended to all of you by clicking this link:

http://www.ichange.com/partners/idreamofskinny

The best part? I just registered and the website didn't ask me for a credit card!! Need some other motivation? Go to ichange.com and read through the list of "Today's Achievements" and prepare to be green with envy... lotsa people dropping weight. I want to be on today's achievements!

Are you a fine print reader? Want to know just what you're getting yourself into? I'm the same way, don't worry... here are the fine print details:

30 Day Challenge Test Details:

Here is your Private Group Link: http://www.ichange.com/partners/idreamofskinny Please feel free to post this link to your blog and/or send it directly to your interested readers.The link will take you and your readers to a registration process where you/they can sign up for the test program

There is a 7 day window from today to register your group. After that registrations will be closed.

Once sign-up is complete, you will all be in a private group that will be headed up by Diana Young, one of our Registered Dietitians

The program will be a 30-Day Jump Start Challenge during which time Diana will give you and your readers a nutrition plan and set of guidelines with the goal of starting a healthy weight loss program of ~2 pounds per week.

Please remember to give Diana any information, food allergies, health issues or other reasons why you might need/want a more modified program. We have a private message function that will enable you to do this really easily.

It will be absolutely FREE for everyone in your group. After the 30 Jump Start, you and/or your participating readers are free to continue with the nutritionist led program for $19.99/month, but there is absolutely no obligation to continue. We are interested in getting feedback about your experience at this point.

You and your group do not need to disband after the 30 day challenge. The groups functionality of the site is a free feature available to all members so you'd be welcome to continue, as a group (without the nutritionist) after your 30 day Challenge.

I have included a link to your, Nutritionist, Diana Young’s, iChange profile below.http://www.ichange.com/user/diana

Pretty cool, right? I love that they tailor make a dietary plan for you (given my vegetarianism, this is much appreciated!) I'm going to close my eyes and jump in and commit for 30 days. Worst case scenario, I'm right back where I started at the end. I still have a glimmer of hope that I'll miraculously find what works for me. I'll let you know how that goes...

I hope you'll all join me! Coming tomorrow: my start stats!

Light as a Feather, Heavy as the Weather

2010-03-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

I remember an obsessive relationship I once had with music in high school. I had a basement bedroom for a few years and I used to turn off the lights, light a candle, blare my favorite cd and shut out the world. I also used to journal nightly, make collages of whatever interested me in the moment all over the walls of my bedroom, and talk for hours on the phone. I don't know how my mother put up with me, but I also don't think I would have survived all my emotional turmoil without my music. It's funny how cyclical life is sometimes as I've shut myself up in my bedroom blaring my latest favorite cd --

-- and yes, lighting a candle sounds really good right now.

Some times my emotions just boil over and I lose it. That used to be raiding the kitchen for whatever I could get my hands on. If I can turn to my favorite cd to cope instead of food, I consider my old high school habits an improvement.

It's probably time I accepted that life won't always be lollipops and rainbows but for some reason it still startles me when I'm thrown a curve ball. I have this sense of entitlement. I've worked hard, I've taken the harder path more times than the easy one, I've pushed when I had no energy left to push because I wanted a better life for myself. When it still doesn't come easy after a few years at it, I want to stomp my feet and scream... and have a cookie... or a pint of ben and jerry's. But who am I really helping when I bury myself under the weight of all that food?

I tend to believe the best about weight loss. I truly believe that my "true" self is me at my goal weight. I believe there I can live my life to the utmost of my potential. If I really believe that, then why wouldn't that come first? Well because emotional turmoil can do terrible things to a woman... When weight gain is an emotional issue, and I know it, and I keep fighting it, and it fights back... is this the crack? Something had to give right? Maybe it was my sanity, but I prefer to believe that if we rely on an unhealthy habit to save our sanity and suddenly force ourselves to stop, we'll eventually build new mechanisms to sustain our sanity... right?

...Or will we just go crazy?

Oy Vey!

2010-03-28T18:46:00.001-07:00

Tonight's title is for my best friend (who also happens to be jewish) who is moving to Wales today to pursue her dreams and become a doctorate. I couldn't be more excited and proud of her!! She dares to do everything I never had the gusto to do...

So, on such a joyous occasion for her, it is, of course a day of mourning for me as we are soon to be parted by the Atlantic Ocean. No, of course we haven't exactly been in close proximity since our undergraduate days, but we were at least on the same continent! I am somehow overwhelmed by the increase in distance. It's beginning to feel like quite the island I'm living on here. I'm grappling for sanity in all honesty and feeling quite sorry for myself.

Let's get down to the real issues here... Every part of my life, including my friendships have become quite difficult as of late because I am completely miserable. Here's the short of it... I graduated school and moved home. I searched for months for a great job and was so thrilled when I landed one! The only issue? It was an hour from my Mom's house. So, as every parent dreams, out I went into the world. I got an apartment and then a home in a tiny town in Vermont. At first, things were just wonderful. My boyfriend moved in with me and he found a job, too. My job was going really well and I was promoted after just a few months. I started advancing my education and low and behold they offered to pay for it!! We set up an agreement that each class they paid for, I would be on the hook for four years following the completion of the course or I would have to repay them everything.

Fast forward to the downward spiral of the economy. I was first approached by the owners of our company to let me know that the company wasn't doing so hot and that changes were underway. A few days later I got an E-MAIL!!! asking us to take voluntary pay cuts. This should have been the first sign... Next, I submitted my paperwork for my next semesters classes and the reimbursement check didn't come. There was no meeting, no "So sorry we made you promises we couldn't keep", not so much as a casual warning. They just stopped paying for my classes... 1/3 of the way into my graduate degree... But I was already committed to either work for the next four years or repay the thousands they had covered... Then came the request for us to pay for 30% of our health care... We never had any retirement contributions so that was essentially the end of our benefits...

You get the picture, right? And boy is it ever ugly... So why don't I just leave? No, I don't have the money to pay them back for my classes but don't forget, I live in a tiny town in Vermont where I BOUGHT my house. And the housing market is in the garbage... As you can imagine, there aren't many jobs out there right now either...

Long time readers know that we've decided we're moving out of state but now I have to coordinate all of this... the selling of one house and the buying of the other, the quiting of one job and the searching for another, the completion of a graduate degree and licensing while switching positions? The timing is very difficult and I still have to pay them to leave...

While my stress builds, the number of "OMG, that's so awful" conversations I can survive diminishes... And I can't expect any other reaction from my loved ones, but really... how many times can I ask my boyfriend to listen to me tell him how horrible all of this is?

So dear readers, I apologize that you too will hear my story all over again, but I have no one left to tell... My life is consumed by the fact that I'm sitting here waiting... Waiting for my TWO YEAR paycut to end, waiting for the pieces of my puzzle to fall into place so I can finally escape (not set to actually happen until December), waiting for something/anything to change... I feel powerless in achieving my personal goals while in this stupid limbo... But maybe focusing on my health is just what I need?

Oh, did I mention that my running partner for my May half marathon just informed me she hasn't been training and isn't even registered for the race? I'm still running that race. If I have nothing else, I have that finish line ahead of me and I'm bent on crossing it.

Off Track...

2010-03-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! And how are we all doing? It’s been awhile for me since I left my nutrition plan... (and when I’m not on my nutrition plan, I’m of course, hiding from the blogger world)… It just seems that nothing I do works. I just can’t seem to get my last 10 pounds off. My justification for quitting yet another plan was that I would start working on moderation. I started this “moderation” idea after I had eaten myself into bad habits. I start with an oven baked pizza for dinner followed by ice cream for dessert on Friday and by the next week I find myself at the grocery store filling my basket with more pizza, more ice cream, and whatever other sugar rush I can get my hands on. It doesn’t take too long on that kind of diet for a girl to realize that she desperately needs moderation.

So, Plan B. I’ve been making grocery lists, packing lunch, and skipping the frozen pizza section in the grocery store. My moderation plan also includes a few other life-habits that I picked up and has somehow stuck: regular exercise, drinking extra water, and living on a budget! My idea of regular exercise is not a three time a week trip to the gym like it used to be. Now I mix my gym visits with running outside (yay to nice weather!), hiking, and walking the dogs. I’m learning that in order for it to count as exercise, it doesn’t need to be high intensity. I’m still training for my half marathon with regular 3-5 mile runs, but I’m not at all where I should be with it.

My budget has been working amazing!! So before I used to keep a running tally in my palm with my bank account information using a program called Pocket Money. Well, spending until I have a few dollars and then financial-fasting until my next pay check is no way to live. Pocket Money really falls short in the budgeting world in my opinion (although every expense goes into a category, there is no way to see what you budgeted v. what you spent without running a “report” which is just annoying). So, I downloaded Quik Budget, which works with Pocket Money to create “wallets” for each of my budgeted expenses. Every week I have a payday, which refreshes a set amount of money into my wallets. I can set the amount, how often, etc. Amazing! I have accounts set up for EVERYTHING from dental costs, gifts, groceries, insurance, and car expenses. I take my total annual expense for things like dental costs and divide it up by the weeks in the year and that’s my weekly budgeted amount. The wallet grows until I have to get my teeth cleaned, for example. If I have to spend the money before I’ve got enough in my wallet, the wallet shows a negative balance that’s offset by each payday so I know not to spend anything that’s not absolutely necessary out of the account.

I now know exactly how much extra I have and can make extra payments on my student loans without worrying about covering the rest of my expenses. I’m driving slower to conserve on gas and clipping coupons to cut my grocery expenses. If it’s not absolutely necessary, I don’t buy it. What a relief to finally have control in some aspect of my life…
So that takes us back around to the things I’m not really controlling all that well. I’m nutritionally doing OK but not phenomenally. The scale still reads 11.4 pounds above my goal weight. I’m doing OK with exercise, but I’m not perfect. I’m distracted with a recent trip to visit my Mom (for five days), two graduate classes, house improvements (I’ve been doing masonry work, ladies!), and work. I need a swift kick to get me back on track but at this point I’m not sure where the track is anymore. Any suggestions? I could really use some uplifting success stories!

Paradigm Shift

2010-02-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago I decided I should start writing more to alleviate some of the stress I've been feeling about life in general. I picked up my old journal and started in. It was a few pages later that it suddenly occurred to me that in my mind I was living in a parallel universe. I had this whole "other me" imagined perfectly. I was at my goal weight, I had more energy, my baggage was a lighter load to carry, and I was happy all the time. I always go to that parallel universe when I feel like the task of losing weight is impossible. It keeps me trying - that and the alternative parallel universe when I'm obese and can't get off the couch... because downhill is a very slippery slope for me and it would only take a few years of saying "Who cares" to wake up and find myself there.

Anyway, the point is that I realized that I didn't have to live like this. And who would want to?

It has snowballed into a paradigm shift in my life. I've stopped thinking about myself as the struggling food addict and started to see the permanent path to a healthy life. I don't want that other me to live in a parallel universe. I want to live my life the way I envision it here and now. Because if not now, then when?

Yes, I'm afraid of failure and, perhaps even more so, I'm afraid of success. But what I'm really motivated about is not continuing to do this floundering where I say I want to reach my goals but never actually do, where I say I want to be healthy, but then don't actually want to do the work it takes to get there, where I say I'm trying but I'm really trying to get away with as much as possible, where I want the goal but I want the food more...

I'm sick of being in that place. I'm sick of choosing this, because as much as I say I'm not, I am making a choice every time I let myself slide. Weight loss is a choice. Living my life the way I dream of living is a choice. And not letting myself get there because of my affection for peanut butter is a choice that I am choosing to abandon.

I'm going to face the fear that seems to be crippling me. I'm staring it down. And I'm changing the way I think about myself. I'm changing the way I think about life. I should be perpetually living, not perpetually eating.

Ah Yes

2010-02-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Now I remember how good on track feels. It feels like its been a long time since I was comfortably settled in here, and I'm still feeling a little uneasy. I still wake up initially thinking that ice cream should be considered part of a healthy breakfast and slowly talk myself down to a bowl of kashi go lean. The worst time of day for me is right when I get home from work. I always want something to help me unwind and forget about my day. Vegetables are not unwinding food. You know what is an unwinding food? Ice cream! OK, OK, so I talk myself down again and somehow manage to keep myself out of the kitchen for the rest of the night. I wake up the next day feeling so proud of myself!

Then I realize that I'm going to have to repeat this process over and over and over and over again until it starts to feel easy.

OK, so let's just settle in for the long haul and accept fate. This is it. Sometimes you have to be uncomfortable. There are worse places to be uncomfortable like...

... when you've over eaten to the point you feel uncomfortable.
... when you wake up the next morning after having over eaten and remember what you've done.
... when the scale tells you the damage over what you've done.
... when your doctor takes that stupid BMI chart and announces that you'd better start exercising a little more.
... when you have to turn down the treadmill because you can't breathe.
... when you look in the mirror and sigh.
... when you know you deserve to be uncomfortable because you didn't eat it instead of because you did.
... when you know you've never really done your life justice because you don't want to feel uncomfortable for a little while.

I could go on, but I think we all get the idea. Today is day two of my uncomfortable streak and I intead to keep pushing.