Over Sensitive?

Last night I was talking to my husband on the phone (since he is always out of town) and I was giving myself a pat on the back from losing weight (because I can't count on him to do it...) and I said:

Me: I am only 20lbs away from my goal weight. I am excited because for a while I didn't think I would make it by the end of the year.

Him: Only 20lbs? That is good. Maybe you'll keep losing after that.

I am probably being over-sensitive, but that comment kinda stung. My mind translated this to: you look like you could stand to lose more than 20lsb. (And for the record, I do plan on losing weight after 145 but I am not setting any goals or timeline on it.)

I am pretty sure I am never going to be good enough for him at this point and there is always going to be some way for him to make me feel like I haven't done enough. It bugs me. He has never really struggled with weight or food issues, what gives him the right to judge me? My mind could go on and on with this if I start to over-analyze the statement.  I am not going to bring it up with him because talking about my weight is not a comfortable topic with him, possibly because it becomes clear that he wishes I was a size 4 kinda girl (which isn't really fair since I was a size 24 when we got married - I wasn't hiding the obese girl in the closet or anything). So help me out - how would interrupt this comment? Would you be offended? Brush it off?

New Terriitory

I have been Obese (such an awful word, I actually cringed when I typed that) for almost as long as I can remember. I remember the time I crossed over the line from thinking I was fat to actually being fat. It was the summer between 3rd grade and 4th grade, I was 10. I knew once I started 4th grade that I was really, truly, fat. I have felt and thought I was fat as long as I can remember but I recognized once I was really, truly, overweight that I hadn't been before. Anyway, I'm rambling, I am sure that from 10 years old on I have been classified as "obese". I never weighed myself, let alone kept track of my weight, so I can't be sure of the exact numbers but I do know that when I got my license at 16 my best guess at my weight was 180lbs (but that was underestimating...so who knows what it was). But now, being obese, is part of my past - it is no longer is who I am. I stepped on the scale a couple weeks ago and it put me in new territory (174.5lbs) I was no longer obese, I was Overweight.

I waited a couple of weeks to celebrate this because I wanted to make sure it stuck before I wrote this post. As of this morning I am at 166.5lbs and figured I was in the clear to call myself overweight. I know I'm not supposed to care too much about the BMI but I do. I love being able to say overweight instead of obese. I LOVE that I finally weight much less than my husband. I love that I don't feel as embarrassed to be out in public like I used to. I love that Olivia could fit on my lap on the haunted mansion ride at Disneyland and when the bar came down it didn't crush her (and it was close, so I know that probably just 3 or 4 months ago we wouldn't have fit together). This is totally worth it. Waking up at 4am to exercise, measuring and keeping track of all food, giving up soda, Starbucks, and juice - all of this is worth it in the end. This feeling. The happiness of knowing I am close to my goal and I am a healthier mother who has the energy for my daughter. She will never have a memory of me as obese because I will never let myself get back there. This is the new me and I keeping it.

Vacation!!

I'm headed out of town - escaping the heat for slightly less heat (seriously Anaheim, 88 degrees???) and going to enjoy a different kind of work - taking a 19month old to Disneyland. My stepdaughter has never been to California, let alone Disneyland, so we planned the trip for once Olivia was old enough to semi enjoy it and not make our lives a nightmare (we'll see on this one...). Luckily (or not so much) my husband doesn't really like Disneyland so he will basically be on Olivia duty. He's already set to take her back to the hotel for naps and hang out with her while Jaci (my stepdaughter) and I go on the rides. I am excited to get away and a little ashamed to admit, excited to eat with less rigid guidelines. Yup, I've been on two vacations since this lifestyle change began and on both I ate less than perfect (not out of hand, but not like I was on a diet) and both times I was successful at not letting it derail me when I was back home. Would it be too cocky to say I think I've figured this diet thing out? YUP. I won't say that but I do think that I've at least figured out that gaining 2 or 3 pounds on vacation does not mean that I have to give up all together and decide to stop eating healthy. I know I will gain a couple of pounds and I am prepared to deal with it. I may have not figured everything out but I am 10 times closer than I was a year ago.

Award

This is my first award!

Cherry on Top Award Rules

Thank the person that gave you the award.

This award was given to me by Ginger over at Ginger is losing it. Thanks you Ginger! Ginger is awesome, she writes inspiring posts and puts it all out there. Ginger always leaves encouraging comments which is awesome, definetly one of the nicest girls on the weight loss blog block. So, again, thank you Ginger - not just for the award, but the support :)

Answer the question: If you had one chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

This one is easy, I would have never gotten fat? Is that possible? I started gaining weight when I was very young (9, 10 years old) - so, maybe never gotten fat would be hard to change. SO I would change how long it took me to start getting healthy. I would go back and start when I was a teenager because lets face it being a overweight teenager pretty much sucks big time (and thats putting it mildly).

I can't pick six, I want to give this award to everyone that reads my blog :)


In non-award news, I woke up this morning at 4:15 to get my 40 minute run in before I had to go to work and it was easy. Easy to get out of bed and easy to finish. IS it possible that I am approaching healthy? Can I really run 3.3 miles without too much complaining? Remember this? I am really happy I have this blog to help me remember how far I have come so that I don't give up.

Venting

Being a step mom is hard. It makes me want to eat. A lot of people don't understand how difficult it is to be a quasi-parent to a 12 year old girl. Its hard to understand unless you have to do it yourself. My husband is out of town Monday - Friday every week for work and her mom is out of the picture (has been for years) and so it is left to me most days to be the parent and its not easy. I am constantly worried that decisions I make will mess her up - I sorta feel its OK to mess up a child I brought into the world, but someone else's? Not so much. She's failing classes in school (8 weeks in) and I don't know how to handle it. This is not something new, I have been married 2 years and both of those years my husband and I  tried different things (grounding, tutoring, workbooks, rewards for motivation, counseling) to try and motivate her to at least pass her classes. But this year I am by myself with my husbands daughter and she is still failing and now I feel like its all my fault. This year I checked her homework every night, made sure she got all of her "stamps" (the teacher stamps their notebook if they turned in their homework and were organized and on time for class) and she still did not do well. I feel useless and depressed. I'm at a loss and I want to bake and eat, so instead I am venting - to you, my blog. Because I can't turn to my best friend food anymore.

Emotional Eating

Bad stuff is happening and it makes me want to eat. Not fruits and vegetables, JUNK. Its not even bad stuff that is happening directly to me, its just in the peripheral of my life and yet I still feel like I should eat. Where does this come from? Why can't I be one of those people who loses their appetite when stressed or depressed? At least I am recognizing it and staying clear from junk food which means I've come a long way. However, my first instinct is still to turn to food to make it all better (for a mili-second) - will this habit ever go away? Probably not, I am sure I will battle this for life and  I can only take it one day minute at a time.

Obsessing

I am getting obsessive about my weight loss. Some would consider this a good thing, but not me. I am constantly counting my calories and checking multiple websites to determine how many calories I can eat because I don't trust just one (or two, or three...). I am exercising a minimum of an hour and 15 minutes a day and I have gone to countless websites to find out how many calories I am actually burning (and the difference from site to site is huge). My point in all of this is not to brag at how awesome I am doing (because I'm not - the 1000+ calories of cupcakes over the weekend is proof of that), my point is that I don't like how obsessive I have become about my weight. Whether I am doing good or bad on any given day - something about weight loss is consuming my mind. I am constantly checking and double checking whether I am doing good enough, or if its been a bad day, checking to see how bad the damage might be. I wake up and I am instantly excited or anxious to get on the scale and see what it says. The number on the scales consumes me - sometimes putting a damper on my entire day if I don't see the number I want to see. I would like to say that I have figured out a way to change this. To not let the scale or calories intake run my entire life. I don't know how. If I stop focusing on it so much I have this HUGE fear that I will fall back into old habits. I know the minute I stop weighing myself daily is the moment I have given up altogether. I have been here before. I am 1.5 away from my lowest weight ever because last time I got to this point something clicked and I just stopped dieting and over time gained back all 85lbs I had lost. I need to find a middle ground between caring too much and not caring at all because the obsessing is exhausting me. Any tips, thoughts, help, experience? I need it.

Cupcake sabatoge

My weekend started out good, no Great. I completed my longest run ever - 7miles (84 minutes of running) and I felt completely empowered by my ability to complete such a long run. So I rewarded myself. My husband and I were about an hour away from our house watching my sister complete her 4th (I think) triathlon - she is a rock star, she finished with all the super athletic people - anyways, I am getting off track, where was I? Rewarding myself, right. So on our way home we stopped at death by sugar otherwise known as Sprinkles. I was going to get one cupcake and share it with my daughter. So I picked my favorite flavor (vanilla, vanilla) and that was that. Except they had a Banana flavor that I have never had so I had to get that one to try. I did pretty good. I split the banana cupcake with my husband and daughter, ending up with only eating a 4th. Good for me. Then later I split the vanilla with my daughter, another ok choice. But I was left with a box of three cupcakes sitting in my kitchen - how you ask? My husband picked three for himself, yup three. Then when it came time to eat them he just didn't feel like it (spoken like a person who has never had to give up any food and diet) so I had another half of a chocolate chocolate cupcake and a quarter of a back and white cupcake. Holy Cupcake overload. I am pretty sure that any good I did my body by running in the morning was completely wiped out by all the sugar consumption. This has started to be a pattern ever since I kicked up the amount of exercise in a day - I feel like I can eat more and not more fruit and veggies, but junk. Not good. I have no idea how to fix this. No proclamations of No More junk starting today, I would like to say that but I am tired of using this blog to spout out affirmations that I might not stick to. I am going to try no more junk starting today and I hope I can do it, but no promises.

Running Mojo

Starting last night as I was riding my stationary bike I was already dreading getting up today because I knew I had to run for 50min - yep, I still don't really enjoy running. Except this morning. I got on the treadmill and started running and its not that I loved it, but it wasn't that hard to run. I finished my 50min no problem and probably would have kept going if not for the fact that I needed to get to work. It was awesome, running is so much more enjoyable when I am not constantly looking at the time and calculating how much longer I have. I can only hope this lasts through Saturday because I have to run for 80 minutes!! That seems impossible to me. Children's movies aren't even that long because that would be too long to hold their attention. Scary. But maybe today's mojo will last - who knows maybe I will even like running from now on....One can dream right?

Fighting the Panic

So I let the holiday weekend get the best of me and ate, and ate, and ate...you get the idea. This morning when I weighed myself it was not good, not really a big surprise, but still the Panic set in. I immediately felt like I am never going to meet my goal weight, that I have no self control, that I should just give up and keep eating because I am not making progress (this week...). I used to let these thoughts take over and completely sabotage me and, believe me, they are getting to me now but I am not going to quit. This is the problem with setting a deadline. I set a deadline to be at my goal weight (145lbs) by the end of the year which I thought was a reasonable goal and it is, if you are 100% all the time eating perfectly and I'm not. No big deal really, but I make it into a big deal because I might not make my goal by my deadline which means I'm a big fat failure, not really but that's what I tend to think. I am spending the morning trying not be down on myself and trying not to talk myself into giving up.

That's why I am happy that I started this blog. I have put my weight loss journey out there for everyone to read and it helps me to keep going. Reading other blogs and know that people have the same struggles and have succeeded inspires me. If I had not figured out that this whole blogging community exists than I am pretty sure that I would have reverted to my old ways and would have given up a while ago. So, thanks, for reading my blog and encouraging me or writing your own blog so that I know I am not alone in this struggle. For helping me to not give into the Panic and give up.

What am I Doing?

Now that it is noticeable to other people that I have lost weight I get this question a lot and the stupid thing is is that I never really have a good answer. I say something like eating better, exercising - you know standard stuff, but really it is more than that. Here is what has lead to success (so far):

• Eating better:
•  Keeping my calories between 1400-1700 everyday - Weighing all my food on my digital scare to make sure I am not going over a serving size
• Eating whole grains - cutting out wheat flour (I buy/make spelt bread)
• Cutting out processed sugar - if I bake something (i.e bread I use natural sugars: Succant, Date Sugar, Honey, etc)
• No dairy - my body just doesn't like dairy, plus cutting out cheese really cuts out a lot of calories, this is difficult as sometimes I want to try making a healthier pizza, but cheese is just not on the menu these days
• Nothing to drink but water & tea - No juice, no diet/regular soda, no espresso, no alcohol

• Exercising
• I didn't actually get serious with this until about 3 months in - I think you have to take on one major change (diet or exercise) first so that you don't get overwhelmed right away
• Setting a goal - I decided I wanted to run a 5k and started by completing the Couch to 5k, this gave me something to stick to
• Keep setting goals - I decided to motivate myself to keep running to sign up for a 10k and the Ragnar and so I have a set running schedule by following the Ragnar training program
• Making sure I fit in either the exercise bike or running everyday, for at least 40 minutes minimum (I have recently kicked this up to a minimum of twice a day for at least 35min)

• Rewarding myself:
•  Different rewards I have given myself
• Manicure/Pedicure
• Nook
• Running Shoes
• TV for exercise area
• Rewards to come
• New Makeup
• Trip to New Orleans
• $1000 clothes shopping spree (this is my reward for maintaining my goal weight for 6 months)

These are the main things that I am doing to make sure I succeed. I have never gotten this low in weight without following a 'crash' diet and it feels awesome. I feel like I will be able to reach my goal and maintain it because I am not completely depriving myself of things I like and it feels empowering.