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Friday, July 29, 2011

Perception

I hit the gym this morning for the first time this week. I didn't have a lot of time, so I hit cardio - I know I can do weights at home (well, I CAN do cardio, too - but weights are easier to get done at home and less time consuming than cardio), since I haven't run in two days. Usually, I get 1.5 miles on the elliptical with intervals in approximately 21 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself finishing my 1.5 miles with about a minute and a half to spare. I don't know if it is because of the running, but I like it! Since I haven't been seeing much movement on the scale, I am happy to see differences in fitness like such. Also, the cramping in my calf went away. :)

But anyways, back to the gym - I used to have a really hard time going to the gym. I have never been overly self conscious, but any person who has spent any amount of time being overweight can often tell you that you develop a complex. Oh em gee, is that person looking at me? What are they thinking? Why aren't they even sweating at all? I wish I could go as fast as they are. They are probably mentally berating me for being so fat, so slow! - and that's only what happens in the gym! It's almost as bad if you're in public eating healthy - That person is probably thinking 'Look at that fat slob - if they would have learned to eat a salad years ago, they wouldn't look like that now.' - and then if you're in public treating yourself to something that's not as good for you - I can just hear him saying now 'Come on, Tubby, shovel it in! Your fatness is your own fault.'

In reality - I don't know if that's what people think, but that's what my mind tries to tell me that they're thinking when they see me in public. In all reality, I suspect that guy at the gym is too busy watching himself lift in the mirror, that lady at Subway is too busy counting her own calories, and that teenaged boy at McDonald's is too busy texting his friends about the latest video game release to really be thinking those things... so why does my brain tell me that they are?

And the silly thing is that, as a general rule, I don't think those things about myself. I don't think things like "fat slob", or "lazy" (okay, well, I am lazy, and I've admitted it, but you know!) when I think about myself. I don't know if society has programmed me to think feel that way or if there is some intrinsic inner working of my own that has this thought process genetically hardwired into me.

What I do know is that sometimes, I feel like wearing a shirt with a picture of me before I lost the weight I have so far so that people can see how far I have come instead of how much farther I still have to go! My body is a pretty incredible machine to consider - from where it came to where it is now and where I know it can go. A friend of G's who has lost an incredible 185lbs and recently been featured on Bob Harper's Facebook page posted something to the effect of "you must push the mind to push the body". It's a learning curve, but I think by identifying it, I will eventually get there.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Forming a habit, and taking responsibility for myself...

So I ran the 2.9km again tonight (in 31 minutes, shaving 4 minutes off of my time!) - this time, my buddies included my Morrie, and then also these two - Shay and her labracollie, Psyche.

I won't lie - despite the fact that there are 8 years between us, Shay is one of my best friends. I think the age difference has helped me to appreciate watching her grow up and mature and develop into a member of society that I am proud to have had a hand in raising. Anyways - she's looking to loose a few pounds that crept on during her senior activities in school this spring, and having someone at home to do this with me is very helpful.

I was a wee bit apprehensive because it was almost dark by the time I finished visiting with my friend, Tiffany, who is visiting from out of town and got on my running duds. The stretch of road that I have chosen to run on is known to have a moose or two on it and there have been bear spotted there as well. Fortunately, we only saw four ducks (which made me scream) and a beaver (which made my Shay scream) and were not run down by any angry mama mooses, which, I would say, makes this a resounding success!

I did intend to run this morning before work as I had what amounts to possibly the worst meal ever (short of eating a half-dozen KFC Double Downs) at Pizza Delight last night and felt terrible afterwards (trust me, my body is still trying to dump all that grease and fat out of my system and I still don't feel quite right!) but didn't get the chance to run because we got home from town so late that the chores needed done and I didn't have any help - and well, by the time that the chores were done, it was so late and I was so caustic that bed was the best idea.

You see, I think that half the battle with this weight loss thing is the mind game. The emotions, the negative self talk, and the internal dialogue that you carry on inside without ever exposing can be the most damaging, not just slipping up and having McDonald's for supper one night on the way home from work. Once you start down the slippery, toxic slide of negative talk, you're pretty much a goner. Trust me, I false-started many a weight loss journey prompted by the negativity and ended up in a firey blaze at the end, without having lost any weight - or if I had lost it, without being able to keep it off. Interesting, huh?

So once I start down the path of the Sneaky Hate Spiral, the best thing for me to do is sleep it out. Or ride a horse. Since it was almost 10:30 at night, the best option was to sleep it out. I set my alarm so I could get up before work at 5 and run then, but once 5 rolled around, I reset my alarm for six and got more sleep than I have gotten in quite some time. It felt good, it was what I needed. Interesting thing about sleeping is that if you do it while you're trying to lose weight, it's easier to lose the weight. There are studies to back this up, I promise, I am just too lazy to find them on the internet!

Now I am looking forward to a second night run in a row with the boy-hereafter-known-as-"G" tomorrow night - again back to a flat spot, which is good because I'm experiencing some cramping in my left calf (this was originally a pain that was a blood clot scare back in March but could currently be a healing muscle tear, but no doctor can really give me a straight answer). I am looking forward to it!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Twisty Turnies

That's what I call it when you set out with a plan and through a variety of incidents not completely your fault, your plan gets tossed aside but is replaced with something either equal to or better than what you originally hoped for.

Such was my day today. I had a nice lie in and the house to myself (well, and the 70lb border collie/lab cross who demanded to be the little spoon), a nice breakfast that fueled me up for what I hoped was one heck of a going over by Jillian Michaels via my Frontside and Backside videos that (surprise, surprise) have killer exercises specifically to target either your frontside or your backside. For whatever reason, while I consider myself to be reasonable adequate when it comes to technology, the television-to-dvd-player-with-satellite-and-vcr baffles me to no end. Today, of all days, I just could not get the darn contraption to play a dvd.

Second plan! My laptop has a dvd player, I would just pop it in there and set my laptop up on a stand so it was an appropriate level. This is the first time I had tried to play a dvd in my (new to me) laptop, so imagine my surprise when sounds akin to a cougar that has pulled its prey into a tree started coming from my laptop... eeeeeeeks.

Fine then! I have to go with conventional, "real life" exercise, in the fresh air. I was reluctant... It was pretty warm... I would get a sunburn... I'd get so far from home and then be too tired to come back... Flies would bite me... My iPod was dead so I had no tunes to motivate me... I couldn't run if there was a car coming by! Trust me (and ask anybody who knows me), I can be the entire royal court when it comes to making excuses. Today was no different, but grudgingly, knowing that if I didn't work out then, I wouldn't get to work out later, I tied up my shoelaces, filled my water bottle, and grabbed my trusty companion, Morrie:

The running buddy is a 5 year old Miniature Australian Shepherd - they're a herding breed, so generally known to be high energy. Though he was not originally intended for me, Morrie has been my right hand man since the day that my parents arrived home with him at 2am and dumped him on the bed where I was sleeping and he pinned me down by my hair and washed my face - the rest, they say, is history. Good ole Morrie would do anything for me and with me... except run 2.9km, apparently.


That's right, the path was a 2.9km, mostly uphill ramble. I know this picture is tiny (I took it with my not-a-smart-phone) but try to understand my vision here. I was at the end and turning around and the red dot on the horizon, that's where I had to go back to. I chose this route for a variety of reasons, even though I could have traveled a different route which would have had -slightly- flatter terrain. Most importantly - not a lot of houses to see me coming by. Secondly - not a lot of dogs that might run out of their yard and attack the fluffernutter, and thirdly - there is a stream at the 1/4 mark where I could give Morrie a proper drink and chance to cool down. It was on our way back at this stream that he started to lag behind. Just tired, and lazy - a lot like me, but he doesn't have as much weight to lose! It soon became more that I was dragging him than him keeping up.


Fortunately, I was wearing the most psychedelic outtfit possible and my sister, as she was coming home from a dog trial, saw me and drove down to say hello. Morrie begged his way into the air conditioned car and drove home with her while I jogged another telephone pole length uphill and then briskly finished off the trip back home. The last 1/4 of the trip, I kept thinking to myself "I can't wait to get home and blog about how I was able to motivate myself, for once!"

I won't lie. I'm pretty dang proud of myself for doing any amount of running without someone there to prod me along. I ended up completing 2.9km in 34 minutes. I would say that I ran or jogged approximately 1/4 of that and even did some of it uphill. I just kept thinking to myself "Don't stop." and somehow, that managed to work. Overall, I have to say... proud of myself. (The boyfriend (hereafter known as "G") also ran today - almost 5km himself - so I am pretty dang proud of him, too! Even though it did take some convincing for him to concede that my 2.9km equaled his 4.93km because mine had hills and his didn't!)

I don't want to write this entry...

... but it's pretty clear that I have to. I have been at more or less a stand still (with a 8-10lb gain) for about a year, but I haven't worried a lot about it. I have been engaging in lots of summer vacation-y type behaviour over the last few months and I got on the scale this morning to find my weight at 262.6. At my lowest, I went down to just under 250, which was a huge goal for me. I am disappointed in myself. I feel like I have made many excuses out of convenience for myself. I don't hate myself, though.

And I think that's where the whole success factor thus far has come from. I have gained 13lbs. But I have also still lost 62lbs. I have the tools to lose that 13lbs and more again, I just need to employ them. I might need a little help from my friends.

My biggest issue? Eating, clearly. I consider myself to be moderately active most of the time - I go to the gym on average twice a week and engage in chores in the barn. Sure, I work in a sedentary job, but the farm does help to offset that by times. It's the food.

For example, the other night, I was awake a little later than the rest of the family - I made the mistake of not heading upstairs to my bedroom with my laptop, but sat downstairs in front of the tv (a practice which drives my family insane because I am never fully paying attention to one or the other, particularly when we are watching a movie). Around midnight, I went into the kitchen because I wanted a lil "sumthin' sumthin'" - no big whoop, usually. I know a lot of people are strict about not eating after 8pm but I am a big fan of "if I am hungry, really, truly hungry, I feed myself. Even if it is midnight.

For a reason unbeknownst to me, there was a box of a half a dozen Tim Horton's donuts in my cupboard. This is like torturous indecency. Baked goods are my biggest downfall. Trying to be halfway decent, I cut a honey glaze in half and ate that. I then realized that what I thought were gross raisin-laden donuts (I have a completely different entry about how raisins DO NOT belong in sweet baking!) were actually Boston creams with the chocolate on top melted off due to the heat wave we've been experiencing. So I ate half of that, too. But before I FOUND any of that, I had had a dulce de leche Jell-o pudding cup (only about 60 calories, pretty decent and purchased with the intent of being something to satisfy the sweet cravings I have). So yeah, without even thinking about it, I packed away about 400 calories at midnight. NOT my intent. I fixed the donut issue by putting the remaining donuts into the fridge. Cold, hard donuts are not appealing to me and I can only hope that, by decreasing the level of appeal they have, I can decrease my chances of stuffing anymore in my mouth at all. I do much better when nobody brings this stuff home at all.

So with all of that said - the tools that I know I can employ to combat THIS issue is identifying it in the first place, then at least going to my bedroom in the evenings when I sit up toodling on the internet - as I mentioned before, I am lazy, so if I can make it more effort to get to/find the food, then it makes it easier to avoid it.

I have always said that I don't have a bad emotional relationship with food. I just have no willpower. Definitely a self improvement tactic to work on. The good news is that I have a lot of resources around me to help me become motivated and push myself - friends Erin & Carina are both on this weight loss wagon, as well as my sister, and then of course, the military recruit boyfriend (did I mention that he made kabobs for me? Delicious, wondrous kabobs! I will have to post a picture of them!). I have no reason not to succeed except myself. I can sometimes be my own worst saboteur... but I am learning, little by little, in the various parts of my life, not to allow myself to sabotage myself from happiness and the things that I want - case evidenced by the perfectly healthy, normal relationship I am carrying on with one of the nicest guys I've ever met -- I used to be a self destructive drama monger who wasn't happy unless I was experiencing some kind of torturous emotion. I have a long way to go... but I will get there. I have the tools. :)

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Whew!

Anyone who knows me "IRL" knows that my boyfriend is a recently accepted navy recruit - we're both a little out of shape (okay, for me, a LOT) and so he is trying to get ready for his departure for basic in November. Being the good, supportive girlfriend that I am (right, honey?), I agreed to go for a walk/run with him last night. I suspect that this will eventually be a full blown run to beat our time and all of that other intense stuff that runners like to do, but for the time being it was about 50/50 high speed walk with some jogging, running and a bit of sprinting.

I don't like running. I'll just come out and say it. I don't like it because I have so much extra weight hanging on that moves when I run, it's uncomfortable. Nevermind how discouraging it is to have lost 65lbs and still be so unfit and uncomfortable with all the extra weight that I'm packing. I would not run by myself. Occasionally, I will do 2/8 minute splits on the treadmill at the gym doing a leisurely jog, if there is nobody else in the women's cardio room - and by 2/8, I mean 2 minutes jogging, 8 minutes walking, ha!

It's funny then, that considering my discomfort with jogging or running, I actually enjoyed myself. I work so much better when I have a buddy - having someone there who might have the personal determination or willpower to push themselves just a LITTLE bit further than I can push myself on my own. I am a highly competitive person, so if someone is going to go a little further than me, I can likely pull out what I've got and match them, at least. This kind of motivation works well for me.

I have had to figure out, over the last few years - since I did start with the idea of losing weight way back in 2006 - what works for me. The whole basis of this blog was that negative self image and self deprecating talk didn't do anything for motivation. Competition, accolades and positive encouragement are the best for me. I like for people to commend the things that I do, to tell me they're proud, to be impressed by what I can accomplish for a gal who is still swinging around 260. I like for someone to challenge me to beat them, to push me by example, not to just tell me "go out there and do it while I sit here". Those are truly the things that push me to be my best.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Rant of the Nutritional Information variety...

So... I have had this blog since May 25th... so almost 2 months, with the intent to get my weight loss journey re-amped and get moving again... and I keep telling myself "as soon as I can blog about the everyday side of things, I will be much more successful". Well, 2 months later, here I am. And the reason? Quiznos. Damn you, Quiznos!

The driving force behind this need to write? They don't have their nutritional information readily available on the web. I bet you can probably go in to a store and ask for nutritional information, and get a weird look from the girl behind the counter who smells suspiciously like patchouli (true story!), and then know what you're eating, but come on - this is 2011! Nutritional information needs to be readily available, DIRECT FROM THE SOURCE, by simply googling "Quiznos Nutritional Information". You shouldn't have to twist around, bend backwards and scan through the Google search results with your head upside down to find what you're looking for. I'm serious, I feel that this (well, not Quiznos in PARTICULAR, but fast food chains in general) is a driving factor behind obesity. We don't KNOW what we're eating. It's not EASY to find it.

Obesity aside, I am a lazy person. Even if I weighed 90lbs soaking wet, I WOULD STILL BE LAZY. Make it easy. It kind of makes me feel like a restaurant chain that DOESN'T have their information easily available online is trying to hide something. THAT bothers me. There is already so much crap in our food hidden behind the mumbo jumbo of long names that we can't pronounce and so, therefore, ignore (see above re: laziness) that to make it like a freaking hunt for water in the Sahara to find it feels an awful lot like sneaky treachery. That's all I'm saying. I WANTED to log my food on LoseIt! today, but the quarter of a BBQ chicken flatbread pizza that I ate today has screwed those numbers by a long shot.

Take a note from a good restaurant, Quiznos. If you want to be considered in my rotation of "somewhat-good-for-me-food-that-I-allow-myself-to-eat-when-I-am-not-at-home", take a page from the book of Pita Pit, where you can even add all of the toppings, etc, and then it calculates the TOTAL of your meal! Talk about easy! So now I don't have to add things in my head, the website DOES IT FOR ME. Brilliant. Pita Pit tastes better, too. So today, Quiznos, I bite my thumb at you.