What I learned on vacation

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

I learned that all the ups and downs of the last year were worth getting to this point. The fighting, the tears, the highs and the lows. I am able to live a normal life now and I am no longer afraid and stuck on the sidelines. I learned that stress is my biggest obstacle to a healthy life and learning to find balance is my number 1 focus for the next several months.
My first day back to work and not one craving or desire to eat unhealthy. Nothing. It was easy. Yesterday, it was still easy but had a few craving and a little too large of portion of chicken for dinner but still good. This morning started with several calls from clients with problems and almost culminated in me eating a slice of cake. I threw it in the trash after 1 bite but I had barely even been aware I was eating it. That seems to be the thing with me. Mindless eating to cope. So at this point one year in I am very much aware that this will be a life long struggle for me but I am not going back. I will continue to struggle. Giving up is never an option. I will never go back to existing instead of living because it is easier and hating myself for it. One of the most valuable things I gained this year was learning to love myself and finding my self esteem. What is better than that?
Now onto stress management. Maybe I will like yoga....

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Mourning my boobs

Sunday, July 17, 2011

One of the first places I noticed the weight loss was in my chest. At 345 pounds I wore a size 46/48 E. I was in denial they were that big and wore bras too small and had major spillage. Part of my size denial was not buying bras in the correct size so I didn't have to face how large I had become. As I shrank smaller and smaller so did my chest until the point where my bras were as ridiculously huge as my old clothes. A good bra can change how clothes fit and how we present ourselves so this weekend I decided to finally invest in some that fit me correctly.
The size shocked me. I have lost 4 cups sizes and 4 band inches. FOUR! It was a bit shocking and upsetting truthfully. When you are morbidly obese it is desexualizing. You aren't often treated as a woman. Having big boobs was one of my only ways of feeling like a woman and feeling sexy. I know I am not alone in this. Cleavage attracts attention, usually not the good kind, but it was attention and I craved it. Accepting my smaller size is part of this life change and it is a little hard. The more attention I am attracting for me, not just my boobs, is overwhelming and sometimes I feel like I don't even know how to deal with it socially. I get embarrassed sometimes.
I don't have the fat to hide behind anymore and I had not realized how much life would change socially. I thought as I lost weight it would get better, easier. Don't get me wrong. Things have gotten better in many ways, but the adjustment to my changing body and the changes to my social environment have been more difficult than I imagined they would be. It is an every changing process of saying goodbye to things that were a constant and adjusting to the new.

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Vacation is coming and remembering why I am doing this

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Tomorrow at 5 PM I am officially on vacation. To say I am excited would the understatement of the century. The last truly significant time off I had was my grandmother's death and then before that a week off last summer. I NEED A VACATION. My honey and I both are off from all of our jobs for 9 days. YEAH! So now that I am eating healthy and have my spark back etc I am faced with vacation. What is life without a few bumps in the road? Boring.
I have been thinking about it all day and the plan of attack is... Whenever possible I am packing granola bars, whole fruit and water bottles in the car. Monday is Six Flags, it scares me to even say that honestly and they all but frisk you at the gate for contraband (aka food they can't rip you off for) so I will stick to water and hunt for the semi healthiest option I can find for lunch. There has to be something that won't be ridiculous. We will be doing plenty of walking all week so that should cover any extra calories and I refuse to spend my life obsessing anymore over every single calorie because it isn't healthy to obsess too much in either direction. This about freeing myself from food slavery in both directions, overeating or controlling my eating. I am truly amazed by people who can "just stop" eating when full or "forget to eat all day". Can say that rarely happens for me.
We actually like to cook at home better than most restaurants considering he is chef and I am a killer cook so most nights I will just grab local seafood for the grill. Alcohol consumption will most likely be my biggest obstacle. I don't drink heavily but a couple of glasses of wine can really add up quickly if I am not careful. I usually only drink alcohol on the weekends but vacation is fair game. Going to have to keep on top of that .
It feels good to be excited about this again. I was trying to think of what made this click for me and I realized what it was. Yesterday morning I was hunting for a skirt for work so I grabbed something out of the give away pile figuring how big could it be. When I put it on it was absolutely enormous. So huge that I was at least 6-7 inches from the waist band. I had forgotten. I think that is how we slip back into regaining weight. You forget how big you were to begin with. So if you need a refresher go grab those clothes you are saving for your before and after pictures and put them on. You will instantly remember why you are doing this.

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Doing this my way

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

I have discovered the secret of my struggles. Want to know what it is?

I have been dieting. Yup, I said it. Dieting. DIE with a T. I have been doing everything I "should" be doing and you know what? It sucks.

I HATE brown rice, there I said that too.
I despise whole wheat pitas, BLASPHEMY!

Don't get me wrong, I love a nice slice of whole grain bread but just not in pita form. I have been living with a list of good and bad foods. Good and bad behaviors. Good food day= loving myself and being correct. Bad food day=feeling like a big fat miserable failure. The more bad days I have had the more difficult this has become. I was living in a world of no treats allowed at all. Forcing down foods I hate because I should. That goes for you Stonyfield organic yogurt that has the gooey texture of wallpaper paste and makes me gag as I am writing this. I was so caught up in doing it the way I had forced myself to believe I should that I lost sight of doing this because I want too.
I packed my breakfast and lunch today all full of things that I love. Greek yogurt, Kashi go lean cereal (I swear, I really do like this ), summer melon, albacore tuna and chopped veggies from a crudite I had at my cookout this weekend. I was feeling good about myself. Then work put out lunch and it was this awesome falafel bar with our amazing hummus and a gorgeous salad, white pitas and fried falafels. I wanted a pita like nobody's business. I love me some pita. I stopped and looked at it wistfully and then thought "why am I doing this to myself?". Eat the flippin pita and enjoy it. Why are you letting some diet idea stop you from eating something that is perfect fine to enjoy. I stuffed that half of a pita full of veggies and the tuna and some of the yogurt dressing they had on the side. I did choose to not eat the falafel because it was fried and I did that because I wanted too. My lunch was around 350 calories and I felt great.
That was my aha moment. I was living in a land of deprivation and self loathing and had lost my spark because I was doing so. So there it is. Ate healthy all day because I wanted too and have not been hungry and not felt deprived. I have learned I need a small treat most days and when I do that I don't feel like I am dieting and it works for me. I am ok with that. So there it is. Do it your way and this will work for you. There is nothing wrong with that. I eat clean because I enjoy and don't judge anyone else for not doing the same. So tell me, what works for you?

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Feeling overwhelmed

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I just have too much going on in my life. Work has some issues and out of respect for company privacy I can't talk about it but it is very serious and everyone is on edge. I am not sleeping, not eating well, not working out. A whole lot of not doing what I want to be doing. What I am having a hard time understanding is why. I get up in the morning and am determined to have the day I want and then I get to about lunch and it starts to slowly unravel. Some days are worse than others. Today I did great until about 3. Then I ate 4 mini cookies. They were about the size of a silver dollar each. I debated telling you all this but I wanted to be honest and I hid my addiction for so long that I can't do it anymore. As soon as I ate the cookies I felt calm and then angry. Angry with myself for letting the addiction win again. Please Please Please don't send me messages and tell me it is ok. It is not. I do believe treats are part of a healthy diet but it is the way that I am doing the eating that is not the healthy part. There is nothing healthy about obsessing all day and then sneaking around to eat something. The feeling ashamed.
I do believe part of this is that I am exhausted and I am eating to compensate for the lack of energy. When I work out I have more energy but I always seem to put that on the back burner. I will make time for everything in my life but what makes me feel better and is healthy. I am out of balance and having a hard time figuring out where I need to start again. Maybe this is about going back to stage 1. In fact that is exactly what I need. To start over and forget all the shame and drama etc and just do what I want in my heart and get the job done. So here I go. Right now is the first moment of losing the next 50 lbs and getting in great shape.

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