Exercise VS Lethargy

What do you do when you get home? When is your YOU time? What do you really look forward to each day? Me? I love movies, I love reading I love just relaxing. The problem is too much relaxation and not enough movement can cause your body to become lazy. It important to be conscious of what you do each day. Do you work at a desk all day? Do you sit at a computer all day? Even though we may have a ton of things on our plates things like sitting at a desk all day and then coming home to only sit again add to a sedentary lifestyle. That’s why it is important even to set aside 30 minutes each day to exercise.  So you ask yourself, what is your best time to work out?

•     Getting up early before going to work to workout?
•     Working out during a lunch break?
•     Working out after you leave work, so you can relax afterwards?
•     Or working out in the evening just before bed?

The biggest secret here?  Make time to workout, no more excuses make it happen!

I will also admit, I don’t work out. I use to and I know the results I achieved. But now, I simply have trouble finding the motivation to go.  I bought the Wii Fit and the balance board, I used it for a week, and in a drawer it sits. I bought dumb bells, I use them every now and then, but again in a drawer it sits.  Maybe their sleeping  ;P

Learning To NOT Eat Until Your Full

Remember your body takes 20 minutes to feel its full

You should only eat until you are not hungry anymore, when you eat until your stomach hurts – you’ve eaten too much.  Hence this is why eating 5 meals a day is key –if your constantly eating you won’t be hungry and if you are constantly putting food into your body it raises your metabolism. When your metabolism is high, then you burn fat faster (just like running on a treadmill). Eating 5 meals a day may sound like cake (mm cake haha) but really it’s harder than you think.

Food is the fuel for you body. Think of food like gasoline for you car. You put gas in your car to make it run – the same goes for food. If you constantly run your car on fumes then fill it up when it is about to be out of fuel then its harder on your car. The same goes for you body. When your body feels starved then you burn muscle rather than fat, because your body jumps into survival mode and basically starts to cannibalize itself because it’s starving.

Even though life can be busy, we should never be to busy to grab a bite to eat. Even if its an apple or banana.

Also, always sit down to eat. This may seem like a minor, ignorable thing. However sitting down forces you to eat slower, and to take your time eating. If your eating 5 smalls meals a day it may seem like your eating really fast or its not enough food, but it is! Sitting down forces us to take it easy, enjoy our food and eat slower. NOM NOM NOM

Remember: Avoid getting seconds! If you’re eating 5 meals a day then stick to it, eating seconds can throw off the balance of your food intake.  Keep in mind that your stomach has elasticity.  Meaning it can go smaller or larger. So when you get too much your stomach expands but the less you eat at once sitting then your stomach starts going back to it normal shape.  You have the power to make the change, just because your overweight does not mean you have to be like that forever, you can change this!

STRENGTH & MOTIVATION

No wonder our body image is so messed up today, with society saying we should be stick thin while the reality is much healthier and realistic.

I want to talk about strength & motivation. I never really found motivation from magazines, waif thin models that look like they haven’t eaten, I just couldn’t relate to that. There is a difference from being thin to being healthy and slim. What did inspire me were movies, people who looked fit and healthy. Those seemed more tangible to me. I knew I would never be rail thin, so I could never relate to those really skinny models. I could relate though to someone who was fit, slim and looked happy. So let’s face it, what motivates me? I’ve been to the sites and I have looked up which celebrity is my height and similar build (from what I could tell from a picture.) Then I would see them on film and think; okay this is tangible for me. I can relate to this person. It’s not at all about changing who I am or becoming someone else. It’s about finding that common place, finding that image that inspires you, motivates you to become what YOU want to be. Making yourself into what makes you happy.

Don’t Fear Change 

Change is scary AND good! It’s not easy, if it was easy then everyone would be at their ideal weight. So before we can make healthy changes we have to ask Why?

• Why do I want to make these changes?
• What do I need to do to make these changes?
• When would I like to make my goal a reality?

Yes I have been through the ringer, I’ve marked off endless “goal dates” on tons of calendars in my lifetime. Yea here I am, unchanged, goal not attained. The reason? Simply I didn’t stick to my guns, I wasn’t accountable like I should be. I take full responsibility and there is no shame in that.

So what did I do today to help me get to my goals? I bought a head of lettuce; baby carrots and sugar snap peas. I also bought salad dressing and I snuck in croutons.

Don’t Fear Croutons! – Changing Eating Habits Food really isn’t the enemy, even the bad stuff. However food in the wrong hands makes it the enemy. You can eat junk food each day – but not a whole bag of it. It’s moderation that is key, yes yes, everyone has said this before and I am sure I can feel your eye roll at this moment. I went by the whole size of your fist per meal; this only works if you eat 5 smalls meals day. So one of my goals is to change how and when I eat. Essentially the right way to eat is 5 meals a days, small ones, spaced out anywhere from 2-3 hours between each meal. This way you are never hungry and this eliminates the drive to binge eat or eat a meal that is too large in one sitting. Now I can sit here and rattle off story after story of “our society makes us fat.” That’s really not true, its us who don’t make healthy choices and over eat or eat too much of a bad thing that makes us this way. Again, I take responsibility. Taco Bell did not hold me down and say eat our delicious burritos OR else – nor did any other fast food establishment. It was we, instead of sampling the bad we dove head first into it. We openly super sized that meal, we fell for the Dollar Menus. Yup those places are only in business because so many people are getting their daily meals from there. Fast food is really meant to be fast when you just don’t have time, once in a while.

I have an eating problem, there I said it

When I do eat its usually a large meal at the end of the day because I am busy and then I get snacky because I haven’t eaten properly and I snack late in the evening.  The problem being I eat till I am full and then when that it wears down I snack, therefore not really burning any calories and carrying all this excess fat on me, blarg!

So how do I change this?

I want to make an online food journal.  I want to chronicle my needs, wants, and missteps. Oh and I know there will be missteps! However, that is the best part I want to come to terms with how I eat, the good and the bad, this is my first goal.

My next goal is exercise. Oh and to say I have lost the motivation for exercise is an understatement. Let’s be honest I have become so lethargic, I remember thinking when I first moved into my apartment, “Oh they have a gym!.” I have probably used it a totally of 2 weeks in a 2 year period.  To find motivation is my next big step.  Raise your hand now if you have gone to the virtual self-creator and made that digital doppelganger of yourself with your current weight and then your goal weight. Yup that’s me, I’ve done that about 100 times now.  Its funny how the digital me carries my weight better too.

My next step is establishing my goals: My ideal weight, lets say between 120 – 130 lbs for my height. Dress size, between a  4 – 6.  So that puts me at losing 100 lbs. WOW yea I never thought that I would be 100 lbs over weight, just focusing on that number makes me ask myself, Why?

A big challenge for me would be finding a proper gym, so exercise wise running around on the sidewalk would probably be my best bet. My goal is to exercise at least 30 minutes a day 5 times a week.

Accountability:

My biggest challenge is being accountable for my actions.  What I eat, when I eat, and when I exercise. My motto: “Don’t be a beanpole – be healthy!”

“I am a complete coward.” Truth?

230 lbs - the horror!

Who am I?

I created a blog to help me with my weight struggles, bring focus to my goals and perhaps if I am really lucky inspire others on their journey too. I am 28 years old, female, 5’5 and 230 lbs. Wow 230lbs. Its not really the number of my weight that got me, it’s the fact that I am saying it clear as day to someone that is not myself. I won’t even let my fiancé see my weight.  But it’s clear that I need a change – I want a change but life can get in the way.  At least that has been my excuse for the past 2 years, even before that.

So to be begin, and this is really something that I have never told anyone so naturally the best way to reveal it is through the internet to potential millions of strangers right? Ha! Well let me go straight to the beginning then….

My first awareness of weight came to me in the 1^st grade, freaking 1^st grade can you believe that right?!  In the first grade my biggest concern needs to be if Barbie will be wearing purple or blue on her date with Ken, not my freaking weight. But I digress, I was standing in line and a girl came up to me. I was wearing a top my grandmother had bought me and I loved it, I was 8. This girl my age comes right up to me and says, “Wow your really fat, that top looks so small on you.” In that moment my world literally came crashing down. I had no recourse. I am quick witted luckily and I said to her, “Oh your wrong this is how this top is suppose to look.”  I remember walking off, and seeing the glances of my classmates looking back at me in line, whispering. It was in that moment that little girl, unbeknownst to her put a rather large crack in my Barbie dream house; video game infested little pink world.  I cried once I got home and ran up to my mother and told her, “I never wanted to wear that top again!” and I never did.

I remember when I was younger, about 6 and visiting my grandmother. She would give me these enormous servings of food.  I remember her saying; “Don’t leave any food on your plate.” I was so small I had no idea and well my Grandma was being a Grandma.  But those are some of my fondest memories, my Grandma’s yummy food, eating way too much and us sitting playing games together, oh if those moments could last forever.

My point thus far? Is that we are so blissful in our lives until one obnoxious little girl comes up to you and points out that she thinks your fat, then everything changes especially for kids.

So my life teetered on, but I became so apparent of my shape at this point. I tried to forget about what happened but it was too late, all the other kids in my class wouldn’t. So on a regular basis I was called the “Fat girl” or the “chubby one.”  I never felt pretty I just always felt fat.  Even now I look back at pictures of me as 8, I don’t see a fat girl not even a little bit. But try telling THAT to the girl in the picture, I was so convinced that I would be fat forever.

I had no idea about anorexia or bulimia. I tried not eating but my mother put a kibosh on that quickly. “You have to eat”, and my mom was right, still is about that at least. You HAVE too eat. The bullying at school became pretty bad, and it even spread into the after school program I was going too.  I was a tomboy so my friends were boys and we would climb trees and play tag and I was really active. However I had girl bullies – like mean girls times ten.

We had lockers and I would put my stuff in there. One day I found these girls going through my things. I had a book in there that my Uncle had bought me and I was reading it. When I caught them in my stuff they were throwing it back and forth over my head like monkey in the middle. I never wanted to punch some one so bad before. So I took a deep breath and tried the diplomatic approach, I told them that it was a present and to please not to throw my things around. They laughed drop my things on the floor, and took the book and ripped it in half.  One of the girls even stole a watch out of my locker, went swimming in it, and then gave it back to me. Her comment you ask? “Oh here is your watch, it doesn’t work anymore, I swam in it.”

I had told my mom about all these incidents and she complained to the supervisor of the center. But like they always do, they dismiss it, or say its just kids being kids. It finally got to me really bad one night. I remember waking up and going into the kitchen and picking up a knife and thinking what would happen if I put in my stomach? Morbid right? I wasn’t suicidal; I just wanted the fat to go away. I wanted the bullying to stop! I had a happy life, I wanted friends over, but I thought if I could make the fat go away then they would leave me alone. No I didn’t do anything to myself but that was a wake up call for me about my weight and how people viewed it, just at only 8 years old.

Not too long after that night, I decided I had it with these bitches. So I started swimming after school. I was getting more confident and trying to ignore the bulling, it had stopped for a while. The bulling started spreading to other girls though, and other groups. I was in a theater class one day and the entire group of girls decided to bully up on my “character” by saying I was gross and fat and ugly. I immediately told the teacher about it, as she sat there and witnessed it, she told me to deal with it. So I looked her straight in the face and said, “Really? Well I am not going to be in this anymore, you deal with that.” I was getting mad, I was completely done with the bullying and I was fed up with the teachers dismissing it. At this point my respect for teachers was dwindling too. In my eyes I knew that they could help, I was begging them for it, but they did nothing.

Then one day I was swimming as usual and one of the original bullying bitches came up to me. I was wearing a bathing suit of course, I didn’t feel confident in it but I always tried to put a game face on and ignore people. The girl approached me while I was swimming and says to me, “You see those rolls on your stomach, well that is fat, that means you’re a fat ass.” I said to her, “Really? Well you have those rolls too, so I guess that means your fat too.”  I immediately swam away and it took me a minute to realize what had just happened. I had told her off I was so warm and fuzzy that day. That is when I knew that I had the power to change things, I didn’t need a teacher I could do it myself! After that they never really bothered me again. Sure there were whispers or snares. I ignored them of course, I just didn’t care!

Let’s fast forward to middle school, middle school was as you expect. You would fit into one of two categories if you were slightly over weight, a Lesbian or a slut. Both meaning no one would ever date you period. I remember people, especially boys, would tell me that they would,” love to take my face and put it on someone else’s body.” It really resonated with me because I would hear comments like that all the time, “how your face is lovely but…” I wore baggy jeans, baggy shirts, sneakers and chokers. I dyed my hair crazy colors because what else am I going to do on a Saturday night right?! I had a few friends and that was it.  The subjects I loved were theater and art. They were the only two classes where I could really throw myself into them and not feel like I wasn’t apart of something. I knew a lot of people but weren’t friends with any of them; I kept to myself, which was fine by me.

Then we skip to college. I had fun in college. I was busy and I was getting my weight under control. I had slimed down to a size 8, around 150lbs and I was so happy. I could catch the moon! Even after all that I still looked in the mirror and thought, wow I need to lose weight. But even looking back at pictures of me, again I just wasn’t fat; I knew it was all in my head.

Then I started seeing someone for about 2 years. To put is mildly he was a dick. A utter and complete dick, they write songs about how much of a douche this guy was too me.  It got so bad with him that everything I had worked for crashed down around me. I lost my job, and everyday he would remind me of how lazy I was because I couldn’t get another job fast enough for him. I am a decent cook but whenever I was around him and tried to cook I would mess something up. He would then tell me I am a horrid cook and he would say that if he were to tell me I was a good cook then he would be lying, and well he doesn’t lie. At a size 8 he called me fat, said that he couldn’t date me because he was afraid I was not healthy enough for him.  This coming from a guy weighing 300 lbs. Yes I know why did I date him? Why does anyone date someone they aren’t attracted too? I just thought why not one day, and before I knew it I was stuck right in the middle of this jerks mental abuse. It wasn’t pretty. I had stopped eating in front of him completely. I just couldn’t do it anymore, he wore me down. The fight had left me, and I know why, because I just didn’t care anymore.  I didn’t love this guy and he clearly never cared about me otherwise he would not had treated me this way.  So one day it finally ended and I was so happy. It was like waking up from a bad dream – hella beast douche nozzle was gone!

So I did what any person would do, I went on dates! Oh did I EVER!  I got my confidence back so quickly, it was a natural high. I had never felt so good and felt so appreciated and then it all changed for the better. One of these dates was my future fiancé. We met and as they say the rest is history!  I was ME once again and I could be relaxed around another person again, I could eat in front them too! Everything has been bliss since we met – however this bliss and comfort then grew into an ever-expanding waistline, something I would not thought possible but makes perfect sense. I had gone from being bullied for being fat then finding happiness and paying the price of a large waist line.  What?! So here I am now, at the biggest I have ever been, happy as a lark and as big as a elephant right?

As I started becoming heavier I realized that my pictures became more like close ups of my face. We had gone on a trip to Louisiana and I was flipping through the pictures when we came back and seeing all these fantastic shots of my fiancé in front of historic buildings, posing with people and then here I am in every shot it begins from the shoulders up or extreme close-ups of my face. There was one full-bodied shot, but I didn’t like what I saw so I buried on the bottom of a digital file somewhere. Almost all our vacation photos consist of him out and about and me in a car, behind a fence. Anything that would obscure what I didn’t want to see, me, and what I truly had become.

Then one day I looked pass that and I posted a photo of me to Facebook. No graphics, no crazy poses just me smiling. This is something I had avoided for a long time, seeing as I was afraid of what people would say. In actuality I just didn’t want to hear it or face it, but secretly I do. I want to be yelled at and told that I need to change and that’s exactly what happened. With minutes a friend I had known for years replied and said to me that it wasn’t healthy for me to go on like this, that I would need a walker by the time I’m 50. I was upset by it at first and my fiancé defended me, but then I thought about it and I was happy. I was so happy that I knew at least one person who could tell me unflinchingly that I needed to change. That they cared enough to say it, but not to say no one else cared, they did. But this person came right out and made no bones about it, it may have been brazen and straightforward but the truth was clear I needed help.

I would look in the mirror every morning and not see a blob of a person but me. Then I would take a picture of myself and it was like looking at a stranger in my clothes.  I finally said you know what, “F*%k it!”, I want to see it , I want to see me! So I did a video of myself, just standing there, in jeans and a t-shirt nothing fancy.  I had my fiancé record it and after a minute I forgot the camera was even there so I was myself and relaxed. I then sat back and watched it, I didn’t recognize myself.  In my mind I still see that size 8 person, I had gained so much weight so quickly that I really had not had time to connect it to my perception of myself. I watched the video and felt sad and then upset. I don’t remember over eating, I don’t remember doing this to myself I looked so different. The fact that I stopped taking full body pictures of myself only made it worse. It did not allow me to face my demons, and instead enabled me to make it worse.

The truth was simple; in my comfort I had let myself go.

So where do I go from here? Its simple but not easy but I have to try to REALLY try.  I am doing this for myself, it may be selfish but the weight battle is.  What’s my first step? Well here we go!