Thursday, February 25, 2010

Happy news taken advantage of...

Weigh-in was yesterday and I was down 3.6 pounds! How cool? It felt great, but there's such a long way to go which is the ONLY reason why I could have possibly decided to eat the day away. Seriously. I consumed over 60 points worth of food yesterday - and yes, I tracked them ALL!

Today, the eating is right back on track but I woke up in a terrible mood. I texted my hubby that I needed a pep talk - and I know I was just generally dragging. It has been a very hard week at work, and I might have eaten a bunch of snacks yesterday thinking, "It's been a hard week...what the hell..." I even questioned myself as I was eating - Do you really want that? And I replied, "Yes - I do!" Then when I asked why to myself, I replied, "Because I like it! It tastes good..." Ugh ---

I think the good news might be that I'm having these conversations with myself and reflecting. I had a conversation with a student today about how much I wish I would have had conversations like that with myself year and years ago. The big thing is, I mustn't be upset and uptight about A) my bad day and B) my resentment of not getting my sh-t together sooner.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Weight and Fat Talk

Ok, so this week, Caitlin wrote a post about fat talk. I am the queen of fat talk. Most anything that went wrong from college on, I blamed on me being fat. For a long time, when things didn't go right, I was convinced it was because I was fat. My life had changed a lot. I graduated, got married, started my life as a working adult - anytime anything went wrong, I really worked hard to find something to blame, and my weight was it. This has since subsided. When things go wrong now, I get low. Really really low and just generally feel bad. When I see myself in the mirror, I think that it's not the way I feel - I feel so much better than I think I look. However, losing weight is about so much more than the way I look.

But I do want to look good. I want to look really good. Do I think things will get better when I look better? No. There are many emotional pieces I have to take care of too.

While I want this blog to be a healthy living blog, I also want people to see that I am losing weight and doing it in a healthy way. I am an almost 35 year old woman who has been dealing with being overweight my entire life. Literally, at the age of 8, it was suggested I lose weight by my gymnastics coach (and he was right!). It's time for me to conquer this and I'm really ready to do so!

So, I decided to post my weight and weight loss. Just once a week. I'm not going to talk about it obsessively, but I am going to do it!

Here goes:

In June, 2008, I weighed 245. This weight was taken a couple of weeks after A2 was born.
On March 25, 2009, I was at 212.2. That was the lowest I got in that first year of trying to lose weight.

This past week, when I rejoined Weight Watchers, February 10, 2010 I was at 229.

Currently, my weigh-in day is Wednesdays. I might change that. I'm not sure. So, this past Wednesday, when I weighed in after just a couple of days of counting points, February 17, 2010I weighed in at 226.2.

That's a total weight loss of 2.8 so far! Whoohoo!

2010 Polar Bear

Yesterday, after an exhausting week, I met my buddies downtown and we embarked on the 5 mile Polar Bear. It was a fun atmosphere and the weather was a perfect temperature, but I was tired and not really feeling it!




We started off well. In fact, the first mile seemed to go by pretty fast. One of my friends had to keep stopping to tie her shoe. At a mile, she wanted to walk - which I was fine with. As much as I want to keep running, I also want to keep my knees healthy. So I was happy to walk and run with her. Our other friend took off. She's in great shape and was ready to take off. I was so fine with that!

We walked and ran our way through the whole race. I was so tired. My whole body felt heavy and my legs felt like lead. I was having a terrible time motivating myself, but we made it through and crossed the finish line in just over an hour five minutes. Interestingly, this was the same time as our 4.5 Drumstick Dash, so all said and done, progress has been made! Here we are at the end of the race.



In the end, I love races. I love participating in them and being part of a crowd of people who are working to live a healthy lifestyle. I am significantly overweight. (post to come on that), and have a long way to go. The mere fact I am out there running at all and keeping up a 13:15/mile pace is nothing to feel bad about. It will improve. I will improve! Today, I'm feeling great. I was sooooooo tired last night and slept hard. However, I woke up this morning, didn't feel sore and am in a good place - working hard to make good food choices on a day I'm home getting stuff done around the house. Those tend to be snacky days for me - so I'm going to make good choices with the snacking and continue to feel good about myself!!!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Exhausted...

Man am I exhausted. The husband was gone for 6 days, the kids and dog woke up everyday between 5 and 5:30, the week has been insane and I am exhausted. HOWEVER, I've had great eating days, made awesome choices, passed up things like donuts in the office this morning, AND, we hired a new teacher so my life is slowly going to get back to normal. :) Tomorrow, I'm going the Polar Bear Run. I'm doing the 5 mile run and I'm excited. I've decided to stick to a run/walk method to help with my knees and switch up my strength training a little bit. More on that as I talk about it. So, even though my head is heavy, my heart is full - and that is a very good thing!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Snow....again!

Seriously? I had my run/walk all scheduled for this afternoon - I'm off from work today and had plans to have the kids take their naps at my mom's (have I mentioned my hubby is out of town for 6 days? - We're in the middle of it right now....) and I would go running from there--- and now it's snowing - again! With my concerns about my knees and foot (I have a history of tendonitis in my left foot that flares up - often), running in the snow and un-shoveled sidewalks is not my idea of fun...UGH! I attempted it on Sat. and it took forever as I was being so careful.

I love winter, but not when I'm trying to be healthy!!!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

So Much..

There is so much going on in my life. The past couple of weeks have been intensely hard for me as I have been going through a lot emotionally and therefore physically. 2 weeks ago, I did a 4 miler with 3 friends. We had a ball. I felt great. Then, it snowed a bunch and my ability to run outside became pretty hard. We don't have a membership to a gym - I could go to the Y (where we put our membership on hold for the winter) and pay, but to be honest, at the end of a really long day, it's just not where my motivation is. Additionally, I'm struggling a little bit with my knees. They just ache, and I know that has something to do with wear and tear on them, but also this weight I've been carrying around for 2 years now.

Motivation. It's become such an interesting word for me. I find, lately, that I am motivated to do very little. I do what I have to do to be a good educator and mother, but it stops there. I haven't been taking care of myself, I'm gaining weight - more on that in a minute - and therefore feeling horrible about myself. And I mean horrible.

This has to change. This has to get fixed. I have to figure out what to do about it.

So I am. Tonight, I rejoined Weight Watchers Online, and will be consistent with tracking and thinking about what I'm eating. In the past, when I have done WW, I have been successful. Really successful. The emotional stuff has been what has kept me from A) keeping it off and B) being successful since I had the babies. The emotional stuff has to be conquered by me. This is going to be so hard - but has to be done before A1 and A2 get old enough to realize their mom is a quack :) I don't want to be a quack - and I don't want them to have secret talks about how crazy their mama is!

I have to prioritize myself. I just have to. I have to stop sabotaging myself and looking to create a problem. I know how to eat well and lose weight, but I'm not doing it. This time, by joining, I'm kind of at an all time low (emotionally, definitely not weight-wise!). I'm hoping I can bring myself back up - to feel happy. To be proud of myself. Not me as a teacher or a mother, but as just me. I want to look at myself and see someone who is happy. I"m not saying I have to be skinny to be happy. That's pathetic. However, I don't feel good about me. I don't feel happy. I don't feel like a 35 (almost) year old - I feel like I"m about 60.

2010 is my year to make some stuff happen. I hope I can record it all here!