Friday, July 24, 2015

Mini Goals

Every successful endeavor starts with a strong plan of action. For the past 2 to 2 1/2 months, I've had pretty much zero course of action where losing weight is concerned and, well,  it shows. Right now the scale hates me, and I, it. We have a very complicated relationship.

I'm sitting firmly at a quarter pound under 230 right now and I want to scream my head off. I'm so insanely angry this is my reality. I'm even more angry at how hard a time I seem to be having at changing this reality. Considering how much I loathe it - it should not be this hard to change it. Right?

Every single stinking time I seem to find weight loss momentum, I allow something - anything - to throw me off course. This has been my history from the beginning of my dieting days way back when. It's not appropriate to say I yo-yo diet, because that would imply that, at some point, I hit a goal and then bounced back and regained what I lost. Truth be told, I'm usually eons away from my goal before I bail ship and the pounds start creeping their way back on. I must be a very good host to those fat cells, that's all I can say. I sure feed them well, anyway.

Yesterday after I posted, I did a little Throwback Thursday and went back to revisit my old Sparkpeople page. I created it in 2007 and weighed roughly 24 lbs less than what I weigh now. I'd kill for that weight right about now. While I know living in the past doesn't help my future, those pictures did inspire me to firmly plant my ass back in the saddle today. And I'll stay here for as long as it takes.

Which leads me to that aforementioned plan of action. Other than my marriage, I'm actually quite terrible with long term commitment to most things. I need to aim for smaller goals so that I'm not staring this huge 90 - 100 lb monster of an obstacle in the face. That's right -  the one that's looming between me and my future healthy self. It's too big, too ominous, and too depressing to take on all at once, so smaller weight loss increments are going to be my focus right now.

To begin, I'm aiming for another 10 lbs. Since I began this journey in January, I had been slowly losing until my surgery. In May, right before my gallbladder hit the skids, I was down to 225.75, a slight increase from my lowest weight through this most recent journey, which was 224.5. I'm still only 4 lbs heavier than my pre-surgery weight but it still pisses me off that I allowed myself to slip back to this point. Part of my anger stems from knowing that had I not decided to take back control, I could easily allow myself to slide all the way back to where I started in January. I'm angry that after all the dieting I've done in my life, I'm still doing the same stupid things.

10 lbs is, in my opinion, a very obtainable goal. But how am I going to do it? This morning I spent more time than I should have Googling the shit out of "clean eating for weight loss". I found a few food blogs where people posted pics of their standard daily meals and honestly? It all kind of looks culinarily void of excitement to me. Which I, perhaps mistakenly, interpret as also being void of taste. Anyway, I quickly realized this is certainly a bad way to start thinking so soon into my weight loss recommitment ceremony. So, I abruptly halted my search and thought about what I might be able to do realistically, given that I enjoy cooking and cannot for the life of me imagine myself making a meal out of simply raw almonds, a small banana, and wilted kale. Gag me with a friggin' spoon, will you?

What  I learned from my pre-op eating is that clean eating is what you make of it. It means different things to different people. I don't doubt that if I strictly followed some pre-formulated meal plan and removed all wheat, gluten, dairy, artificial sweetener, and alcohol that I would lose weight. As a matter of fact, I know I would. I also know that I'd probably last as long as a snowball in hell on that plan. Call it lack of willpower. Call it lack of truly wanting to lose weight...Call it what you want - but I know myself and in order to do this long term, I have to figure out a way to be successful that is not going to drive me to murder or suicide. Removing alcohol and cheese from my life? Yeah, I don't think so.

My eating essentially has to go back to basics. Lean protein, veggies, fruit....get rid of the processed crap. It's all the things I talked about before my surgery - and I need to treat this lifestyle plan in a similar manner. The indigestion attacks may no longer be an issue, but I have to pretend like they are. In other words, eat like I have a problem, even if I don't. Except - I do have a problem. It's called obesity. No one needs Salt & Vinegar Kettle chips in their life, especially me. Fact. Meals should be kept simple. The easier it is to prepare, the more likely I am to stick with it. I like the sound of it already.

Now that I have the eating sort of figured out, I need to address the other elephant in the room. Exercise. Simply put, I don't really do any regular form of it, as embarrassing as that is to say. At best, I am inconsistent with yoga. It's not enough. I'm well aware. I need to get out there and burn some calories and typing at warp speed on my Mac while sitting on my ass doesn't burn the calories you might think it does. Thirty minutes a day, Saturday through Thursday, with Fridays off if needed. It doesn't matter what I do, just that I do it for thirty minutes. Yoga, walking, swimming...all perfectly acceptable activities. As I move toward my next mini weight loss goal, I'll increase my exercise time, but for now - it's 30 mins, 6 times a week. No excuses.

I'm feeling better. So far, this plan sounds promising, and I am excited about turning myself around and being back on track. Let's see if the scale and I can make peace next week.

Stay tuned...
















Thursday, July 23, 2015

Battlegrounds

The battle of the bulge starts right here...

I spent some time yesterday with a friend who is suffering terribly. Suffering is a strong word, but it's appropriate here. It wouldn't be accurate to say she's going through a "rough patch" or having a "tough time" because the truth is, she is battling cancer and has been for many years. If that doesn't constitute suffering, I don't know what does. She recently had back to back surgeries to first remove tumors, and then complete a painful skin graft. Radiation has left the skin on her chest as thin as tissue paper, inhibiting its ability heal on its own after making the necessary incision for the first operation. She is in deep pain -  both physically and mentally.

One thing about this friend that I do know is that she is one tough cookie. This woman has been through hell and back and despite all that she has been though, she has always maintained a sense of humor and relative optimism. That's not to say she's all rainbows and butterflies all the time. Not at all. But for the most part, looking at her, you would not believe just how sick she is. However, yesterday I saw the tremendous toll this is all taking on her. I saw just how exhausted she is of fighting for her life. 

As we talked yesterday, we spoke about the unknowns in her life right now. I asked her what she was most afraid of. She confided to me that she is petrified of not ever getting her life back. To see the fear in her eyes and sadness on her face was heart-breaking. Her statement was enough to nearly knock me to my knees. It made me go home, kiss my husband, think about my own life in the present, and ask myself why the hell am I not more concerned about my own health? Why, after years of being fat, am I still losing my own personal battle with weight? When, pray tell, am I going to get my own life back and be the person I feel that I am on the inside?

Good question.

Let me preface the next part of this post by saying I'd never in a million years compare having cancer to being fat. Those two conditions aren't even on the same plane. However, seeing someone I care about fight a disease they have no control over made me realize that life is the biggest, most fabulous gift I'm ever going to get and I'm stupid as hell if I choose not to live it to the fullest. Obesity, while classified as a disease by the American Medical Association, is a condition which can be controlled. It doesn't require drugs or medical intervention (most of the time). What it does require is a sincere willingness to change unhealthy habits and the balls to take a good hard look at one's self to determine what isn't working and be committed to fixing it. 

I feel like I constantly go round and round with this train of thought. It's not as though I had some type of epiphany yesterday or anything. But sometimes, something jolts you back to reality and forces you to refocus. I guess that's what happened to me after seeing my friend. 

Sure, I'm sick and tired of fighting the fat war. But here's the ridiculous thing - I have the ability to end the war anytime I want. I've just chosen not to. So far I've only chosen to stock up on an ammo of good intentions only to trade it for some fatty diet-illegal contraband. A donut here. Some chips there. Throw in a piece of pie for good measure. And (not so) suddenly, I'm (once again) trapped behind scale-crushing enemy lines. I've been here a while and frankly, I'm not digging the accommodations. I need a good strategy so I can start tunneling my way the hell out.

I know I talked about starting over in my last post and I suppose, in a way, I am doing that. Before my surgery I was tunneling out, little by little. I felt like finally, I had created a solid path of healthy eating, albeit forced upon me by my revolting gallbladder. Post-surgery, without the medical condition to keep me on the straight and narrow, I plummeted back to the days of yore, choosing to forget the assured consequences of those actions. In other words, I chose to go back to war with myself, trudging through the battlegrounds created by my idiotic decisions regarding enemy number one - food.

I hate viewing food as the enemy, especially because it SHOULD be my ally. And it would be my ally, if I would only allow it to be. After all, I need it to survive. At some point, making peace with it sounds like a good idea. I'm continuing on working on how to do that. How to say no to the wrong stuff and yes to the right stuff. How to stop gratifying myself with quick fixes and impulsive choices. I have to keep reminding myself - over and over and over again - that I DO have control of this. I'm fortunate and I need to remember that. This is NOT a situation where I am helpless... I just need to figure out how to help myself. Consistently. Correctly. Confidently.

Back to the drawing board, as they say...






















Thursday, July 16, 2015

Unexcused Absence

Funny how life moves at warp speed sometimes.

One moment it's May 13 and I'm hooked up to an IV, writhing in pain in the emergency room awaiting emergency gallbladder surgery. And in the blink of an eye the calendar screams at me that it's July 16 reminding me my precious summer is half way over.  I really shouldn't complain - I have just returned from 11 glorious, sun-drenched days at the beach. Or heaven on earth as I like to call it.  However, time stands still for no one. It seems an additional 4 lbs have taken up residence on my ass since my last weigh-in (in APRIL) and frankly, I'm none too happy about it. Between you and me, I'm thinking of suing Candy Kitchen.  Is it even possible to testify against dark chocolate covered sea salted caramels? They're at fault, after all.

In all seriousness, I've already given myself the proverbial 10 lashes with a wet noodle over how long it's been since I've blogged. And I can't "Candy Kitchen coat it" no matter how much I'd like to - there is no excuse for it other than my sheer, unrelenting lack of dedication regarding all things for which this blog stands. In case you forgot (as it seems I have - a-hem), I mean healthy eating and losing weight.

I don't pretend to be a soothsayer, but I'll be damned if I didn't predict my unfortunate relapse into eating craptastically post-surgery. Everything I had voiced and feared would happen once the gall bladder and I bid our adieus, did. I went from convent-like abstinence of all foods unholy and bad for me to triple X-indulgences of the culinary kind. Inevitably, it caught up with me - not just in those 4 lbs but also in the way I feel. In the world of dieting, what I did was akin to taking a swan dive off the top of the Empire State building. To not expect repercussions from that would be moronic.

I don't want to make light of my 4 lbs, but I'm actually surprised the gain wasn't more catostrophic. I also suspect that at least 2 or 3 of those pesky pounds meandered to my midsection during my vacation alone -  which isn't unheard of for many people, chunky or not. Again - it's 4 lbs - not 14, not 40 - so I'm not going to get my Spanx in a twist and spend a tremendous amount of time lamenting how or why this happened. It doesn't take Nancy Drew to solve that little mystery. The focus now has to be on how to stop this fat train from barrel-assing down the tracks any further. Where is Superman when you need him?

Last night, I returned to yoga, which is a promising start in the right direction. Sometimes you don't know what you're missing until you're reunited with it after an extended absence. (Insert the song "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb here. 1978, I miss you.).  Anyhoo - I was disappointed that our regular instructor, Erin wasn't there - I was looking forward to her challenging me after being away for so long. Honestly, I was a little nervous getting back to it. I thought my body would revolt in some way, shape or form. I'm happy to report, I made it with no major issues. We had a sub who was good - but her style lacked the guidance and intensity I had grown used to with Erin. I still enjoyed it very much - it was relaxing and gentle - which is maybe what my body needed to ease back into it -  and I've vowed to continue on for the summer. My goal for yoga practice is twice a week.

I've also recommitted to weighing myself each day. I know, I know...there are mixed emotions on this one. The scale, while a scary beast for some, is truly my friend when I think about it. When I need to hear the truth, she gives it to me - no matter how devastating the news. Like you'd expect from a good compadre, she tells it like it is and does her best to keep me honest. The information she gives isn't meant to hurt me - it's there to help me. To encourage me to keep going. To motivate me to stay on track. What I choose to do with that information is entirely up to me. The scale only delivers the headline; she doesn't get pushy about how to write the rest of the story. That's entirely my bag. Being in the dark about how much I weigh is detrimental to this entire process. Three months is waaaaay too long. In staying away from the scale, I realize I only hurt myself. Avoiding her since April was a mistake. I won't do it again. Pinky swear! It's just you and me, Scale! Total BFFs! Ok, not really, but you get the idea.

As for the eating, what can I say? I'm angry that I still treat sugar like heroine sometimes. Donuts in the car this week? Check! Conquering my cravings for sugar is, without a doubt, my Mt. Everest. Seriously - what is it about the white stuff that has such a choke hold on me? Yes, it's addictive. I'm certainly not the first person to make that claim. I just wish it wasn't so....so...I don't know. Delicious?? Comforting??? EVERYWHERE I LOOK???? Le sigh...One day, I'll figure it out.

Every time I jump back on the health-kick bandwagon, I start thinking about what inspires me. This time is no different. Personally, I love the diet quote that says something like: "Being fat is hard. Losing weight is hard. Choose your hard." That's about as in your face as it gets as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who has ever struggled with being overweight and has tried to lose weight understands exactly what that quote means. Life as an overweight person is never easy. The older I get, the more difficult it is to haul the load so to speak. It is, as the quote states, hard to be fat. On so many levels. Too many to count or get into with this post. I have known this for most of my life - and perhaps that is why no matter how many times I take that aforementioned swan dive from atop the Empire State Building, I always go back inside and try to climb my way back to the top. The climb, as it turns out, is also very hard. But if I had to compare the options of staying where I am or continuing to climb, I'd say choosing to climb is the better deal - each and every time I do it.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that I acknowledge the last few months have not been the most spectacular part of this little journey of mine, but that's ok. There's no tears, no self-abuse, no regret. (Ok - maybe a little bit of regret). But when the sun goes down today, I'll know which hard I have chosen and that it's the right one. For me.

You heard me. I'm back!