Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to everyone. I'm, as I'm sure many of you are, currently surrounded by foods most delicious and amazing and all incredibly bad for me. There isn't really much I can do about it, both physically and mentally - except for accepting that once Christmas is over, then Christmas is over and it's time to get back to reality and my goals.

For anyone interested the app that I use on my phone for counting calories has expanded itself into a full-blown website dedicated to keeping track of your calories, exercising, and weight along with the social media concept by allowing you to be come friends with others using the program and then sharing what you have put in and what you have exercised and if you have increased or decreased in your weight for that day. The idea behind the social aspect of course is the community, support, and accountability found in sharing what you have done with your day.

The website is: Loseit.com and if you are interested in loosing weight or just being accountable with the food you eat and how much you really do (or don't) exercise I encourage you to check it out. Also, if you're serious about sticking with it I'd love to have friends on the program to help me out as well!

Merry Christmas and here's to a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year!

Heather

Crossroads

Well... I haven't been here for a while - and there's a few reasons for that.

They aren't very good reasons or even particularly legitimate reasons considering what my whole goal and plans were for this blog, but I have them all the same. The past month of November was a struggle and I've gained a lot of what I've lost as far as poundage, and lost a lot of what I had gained as far as confidence.

For a while I watched my company's stock struggle to make it above $25 a share and thought, I know how you feel little stock, you keep going back and forth and just can't make any headway, but over the past two months it's shot up to $33 and here I am still stuck where I was, now disgusted when I look at the stock.

I'm at that point - where most of my life I've stood and said we'll here's another attempt, another diet, that's failed and really this is all to stressful to continue onwards. I'd rather just quit, not deal with my need to eat, and not deal with the unhappiness I feel when I realize I'm eating to escape feeling anxiety or stress or worry. Normally this is the point in which I would throw in the towel and say "Well, that was fun, let's go get ice cream".



Unfortunately two things have happened over the past month of November causing me not to be able to take the easy way out and I am most disgruntled.

Firstly came my husband's boredom. He started watching reality TV on Netflix's and discovered a show called Hoarders, after watching all of those episodes he moved onto Obsessed and had me watch an episode with him about a girl who could not stand her mother's or brother's hands in her line of sight and then another girl who was convinced she was going to kill people.

I'm gonna be honest, my first thought was exactly this: These people are crazy - why am I watching this?

And I was not wrong with that thought, they are crazy, they accept this and want help - that's part of the point of the show, is that they are trying to fix what they understand is both crazy and irrational. If you haven't seen the shows - go watch an episode - it will really open your eyes to humanity. My second thought was a bit of an eye opener, these people cannot help what they are doing, they know its illogical, they know they are obsessed over something that is insane and it is preventing them from have real relationships with people, but they cannot help it. We were watching these human beings subjecting themselves to things that truly scared them and they were in pain. I mean physical, mental, emotional pain - there was no faking, there was no acting; what they were feeling was just so painfully obvious.

I realized that on that scale of craziness, I would find myself and my issues with food. Probably not quite to the degree of those on the show, I'm certainly not about to let myself be followed around by cameras, but I got the irrationalness and the despair that these people felt in never being able to overcome their problems. The conclusions to the Obsessed show were not always happy endings and these people will always have these thoughts, but part of their solutions to moving on is accepting that you are going to have crazy thoughts - that doesn't mean you have to act on them.

Huh? So I can think I need food, crave food (which is really craving the serotonin and quick fix of feeling happy) and still not act on putting the food in my mouth. Well, gee that's an idea.



My second problem in wanting to quit - I have people who love me that I'm pretty sure won't let me quit. They'll keep pestering me and tell me not to put fudge in my mouth.

This means then I'm at a crossroads. I could just say whatever or I could continue to attempt to figure out what I'm doing - and probably in the process will have to work on patience. I really wish there was a magic pill that I could take and wake up 10 lbs lighter tomorrow; the mountain is just really so very tall.

Oh! Horsefeathers...

No I’m not dead or in hiding. I realize a few weeks have passed by without any thoughts or updates. I was super busy/lazy one week and then I was ill in bed the next. And maybe I was a little bit unwilling to post. I feel like I’ve fallen off of the horse or lost direction for a moment or two. The respiratory illness left me tired and apathetic. Needless to say, there was no exercising. But today is Monday – and while I’m not terribly thrilled that it’s Monday it seems like a good day to start anew. I wish I had some real learnings to help me prevent this from happening again, but the only thing I have discovered is that I’m addicted to food. I do mean addicted. Like when I wake up in the morning for breakfast I’m wondering what I’d like to eat for dinner. It is a constant stream of thought in the background. At my absolute worst when Dru is not in the house I grab the box of cereal or cookies or whatever else is in the house that’s the least bit appetizing (peanut butter on tortillas anyone?) and eat it, like all of it – and since I can’t cold turkey food and there isn’t a methadone clinic (that I’m aware of) for food addicts and I’m not sick enough to get into one of those scary militant fat camps I guess I just have to do this the un-fun hard way.
I have decided to cut back again on my calories… I was eating 1650, this week I am going to go to 1450. Here are my thoughts on why… according to the many calculations I have done, based on my resting metabolism rate (RMR) and my personal activity level (PAL) only eating 1650 calories should be enough of a deficit to create a negative 7,000 calorie intake weekly into my body (lose 2 lbs). Unfortunately some weeks this works, some weeks it doesn’t. Not because I eat only 1650 calories a day and do not loose weight, but because 1650 feels like a lot of calories in the morning and I trick myself into eating more than I should, then when dinner comes around I’m starving and eat more and often end up above my limit. I snack during the day at work because well… I’m at work, it seems like a good thing to do, but it is causing me to fail at my end goal and to become incredibly unhappy and mad when stepping on the scale, which is not good for my mental health.
My end goal is not to loose weight; my end goal is to be healthy. However, I believe that I won’t be at my “healthiest” until I do in fact lose a significant portion of my weight. Snacking seems to be counter-productive and is mindless.
So new plan – 1450 calories a day, plus at least 30 minutes exercise.
By restricting my caloric intake hopefully not only will I pay more attention to the food I am eating, but appreciate it being all that is necessary to keep me going.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I wish I had great news to report – I did, last Thursday I was supposed to announce I had lost 7 lbs, but then came my birthday and the weekend and a bag of Fun Sized 3 Musketeers. So now I am two pounds added back on to my seven lost shaking my head asking myself what went wrong.
Suddenly my Fun Sized 3 Musketeers aren’t seeming so light and fun. In truth I was supposed to only ever have three a day (which is a serving = 190 calories), but then I had the temptation to eat them and thought “Gosh, this is a temptation, I should remove it from me…” I bet your thinking I was smart and pawned it off to my friends by accidently leaving it at their house. Well you’d be wrong, so very wrong. I ate the whole bag over a span of two days to finish them off and felt rather ill and hated myself rather strongly standing on the scale.

It’s not just my lack of willpower’s fault though, as Mr. Wii Board happily announced to me when I started it up on Sunday…

“Gee slacker, haven’t seen you in a week…think you should get it together and exercise a bit more often? I mean really how do you expect to reach these goals if you don’t exercise?”

Well, ok fine, it didn’t quite say it that way, but I could feel it judging me!

So two months down and I’m beginning to realize this is going to be a very long road. I have such an unhealthy relationship with food, perhaps I need to visit a food shrink? I might have just made them up, but it seems like I can’t be alone, someone’s figured out they can make money off of food abusers like me…

The Egg-Roll

Yesterday after church I found myself at a delicious Chinese restaurant staring at a menu. I asked my husband what I should get that would be healthy. I wasn’t a fan of his answer. I decided on a cup of Hot and Sour soup, white rice, steamed vegetables, and two crab cheese rangoons. I didn’t think I would be very happy with my meal, but I actually enjoyed the vegetables. I added a little soy sauce (yes I know, Sodium! But one can only ask for so much) and thoroughly enjoyed the veggies and rice. When they brought out the main entrées an egg roll was on my plate in place of the rangoons. I politely asked if they were out of crab cheese rangoons. They weren’t, our waitress had simply forgotten. So she brought out another plate with my two crab cheese rangoons and left the egg roll.
I, being the strong, self-willed enabler, placed the egg roll on the second small plate and left it to the side. I would take crab cheese rangoons over egg rolls any day, rangoons are the reason I like Chinese food. I might potentially even judge Chinese restaurants solely on the quality of their rangoons.
Anyways. The conversation moved on as we all ate and was so engrossing I can’t even remember what it was we were discussing, but I’m sure it was ridiculous as our best friends were sharing the table and often our husbands start off on something crazy.
And then it happened, I had happily eaten my veggies and rice, slurped my yummy Hot and Sour soup, and savored the rangoons. My hands then went towards the Egg Roll. I tore it in half and was about to place it in my mouth when I heard a voice from on high:
“You didn’t order that for a reason”. I looked around guiltily and then realized the voice wasn’t “from on high”, it was next to me in the form of Bethany who smiled and reminded me she wouldn’t bother if she didn’t love me. Mmhmm. I sighed and offered up the egg roll. Dru, my husband, quickly added it to his bowl of food and I sat there wondering why I was about to eat something that I didn’t even want.
How am I supposed to fight against an addiction when my mind is working against me and I’m not even aware of it?

How many empty calories have I eaten simply because food was in front of me?
Or because I was bored?
Am I even tasting the food?

Struggles

After counting my calories for three weeks and watching how quickly some foods add up and how easily it is to go over the amount of calories you are suppose to eat in a day I am dreadfully disapointed in the calories burned during exercise versus calories eating enjoyable food.

Its complete crap.

I suppose if I recieved more enjoyment from exercising I might feel a little compensated. But I don't like exercise, not really. I like the idea of exercise and even the theory behind it, but when it comes right down to it - I would rather sit down and read a book and perhaps eat a bowl of ice cream. (I realize some of you are hands raised "Oh, Oh I know your problem!" - Don't bother. I am fully aware its better to exercise than sit with yummy ice cream and a good book and I am trying to do more exercise less ice cream, but you (Royal) informing me that I can't eat ice cream doesn't help, just pisses me off - and I accept all childishness) So anyways, I'm sitting here wondering why exercise just doesn't pay off in my mind - workout for an hour burn 300 calories, eat wheat pasta and mozzarella cheese gain 300 calories...


Thankfully I have discovered the Wii Fit which is not exercise, but likes to tell me how many calories I burned after I'm done playing. I often am gross and covered in sweat when I'm done playing so I feel like I did something worthwhile and enjoyed myself at the same time. Still not as good as reading a book, but much better than exercise.

So... do you do anything special to trick yourself into exercising? Or are you one of those truly disturbing people who like exercise (more power to you - I only wish I had that kind of mojo!)

Pressing On

Minus 2 pounds. That’s all I have to show for my first month of attempting to be healthier

(Below is an exert of a conversation with myself)
Me1: *sigh*, louder *sigh*, louder and brazenly disappointed that you hear on the other side of the room *sigh*. This is unfair.
Me2: But aren’t you now exercising almost daily and most days with a friend?
Me1: Well.. I suppose
Me2: And haven’t you successfully and consistently counted your calories for almost a week and a half – even the weekend – even the five pieces of pizza that you are now aware you should never ever eat again no matter how many decks you are working on? This has to be a record.
Me1: Ya, but see…
Me2: And really aren’t we looking to develop positive behaviors?
Me1: But I want to just wake up and magically have obtained all of my weightloss and healthy lifetime goals.
Me2: That’s very sad for you.

I’d continue with the conversation, but Me1 feels the need to wallow and be sad for a bit longer. On the bright side, I have made some real changes. My crazy, wonderful friend has faithfully shown up each time to exercise. My very patient husband has started measuring more (at least telling me how many handfuls) of food he dishes out when cooking. I am using a great tool on my phone called LOSE IT!, which helps me keep track of my calories eaten, calories burned, and sends out a weekly summary to anyone I add which tells them how I did for the week. It gives me that accountability that I know someone other than myself (who is really good at making excuses) is looking at what I enter in. It also means that if I cheat and decide to only add three pieces of pizza to my daily calorie intake instead of the five… it means I’m lying. And then I’m lying to people that care enough about me to willingly accept a random e-mail once a week that says what I’ve eaten for the week. And that would be really low of me.

So… here’s to pressing on and to the month of September.

Momentum

Once you’ve got it, caught that bug, the fever and chills, you begin to feel impervious to distractions or problems. The world (or at least that surrounding you) begins to click back together and you know you can accomplish anything. Daydreams shift from scenarios and fantasies outside of your world to the future improved you. The skinny or smarter or better you. The happier or funnier or more-likable you. The you with more money, more time, more patience. Momentum is the fuel that gets you up for 8 am classes at school and it’s what can get you through long sunless Michigan winter days in the office. Momentum is the awesome video montage in every movie with the corny soundtrack that grabs you.

Momentum gives your motivations something to snack on the roadtrip towards your desired destination.

It precipitates itself around you and others begin to feel it too.

I feel it. I’m beginning to breath it. Now I just can’t loose it.

Some Assigned Reading...

Time Article discussing Organic Foods.

Haiku

A friend at work is into Haiku's and hosts Haik-uesday. Its been making my noodle think...


Family and Friends visit
Yummy foods are everywhere
Oh, Diet-Schmiet

On another note, turns out when I know someone isn't coming Friday morning to exercise and there are people sleeping in my basement I have no ambition or desire to exercise in the morning. Not that I don't want people to visit, just maybe in the future I'm going to sign you up for calisthenics at 6AM :-D.

Can't say I didn't give fair warning!

"You need to work on your balance" - Wii Fit Plus Male Trainer

So perhaps one of my goals should be posting on time...

I am proud to report though, that great things are brewing at the headquarters of Me Getting Healthier. This morning my alarm went off at 5:45 am and after lying in bed long enough to finish listening to the song and remind myself why I was being rudely awakened so early I jumped (um... well I really rolled over and then nearly fell, but jumped sounds better) out of bed. About half an hour later a rather dedicated or perhaps slightly crazy friend came over and we then preceded to the basement to exercise.

Amazing, astonishing, and really a bit disgusting. I dislike the morning incredibly.

But I have either a really crazy or very dedicated friend, or both.

She approached me after my last post with a thought, that perhaps I would wake up if I knew someone else was waiting on me. A reasonable hypothesis. This of course meant she had to wake up too, which is less fun on her part. We've decided to meet at 6:15 at my house Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to exercise. We're shaking it up a bit, changing out Cardio videos on Mondays, using the Wii Fit on Wednesdays, and DDR Fridays. The idea being that if its varied enough we won't get tired of it and stick to exercising and waking up early longer.
Tuesdays and Thursdays seemed like good days to meet for lunch and walk somewhere. So if anyone else feels like walking...

I have to admit, waking early and exercising does give me that smug sense of Hah! I exercised!. At the very least, if I took the effort to wake up and exercise, I am much less likely to cheat on my diet.

So that's one piece of the puzzle that seems to be falling into place. Now for the eating portion. The little annoying Wii board avatar this morning told me I needed to eat less.
It is suprisingly blunt.

So that's where I'm headed. Over and out.

Learnings

So I have learned somethings about myself and diets...

A. If there is bad food and good food in the house, I will eat the bad food. Every time.
B. If we go out to eat and there is a buffet, I will eat more than I should. I like buffets.
C. It's easy to make excuses for things when people are visiting.
D. If it's your husband's birthday and he decides he's going to eat whatever he wants, the whole weekend, I will decide that rule applies to me as well.

With all that said I feel more empowered in moving forward. Or rather when you're backed up against a wall you really can only ever move forward.

What I'm most interested in is figuring out how to create the motivation to wake up in the morning early enough to exercise. I have done this in the past, I know its completely possible, but I simply can't find the desire to pull myself out of bed and face the day. I am a fan of my bed - its the most comfortable, wonderful piece of furniture I own, maybe I need a crappier one?

Any ideas???

In the Begining...

Today, in the world of Me-on-a-diet, went reasonably well. There were no grouchy "I hate life" moments or "Ugh... I hate this stuff" or my personal favorite... "when I'm done dieting I'm eating an entire bag of rye bread chips". (Yes, they make bags of just the rye bread chips that come in Chex Mix).

I didn't jump out of bed to exercise, unlike my husband, but I did get up, weigh myself and drink a SlimFast (which is currently replacing my normal peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and went to church. I did eat the left over Chinese food from last night for lunch, but there wasn't much and my husband started his Caveman Diet today and didn't want to waste food. Maybe not so great.
Dinner was half a chicken thigh and then zucchini, carrots, okra, beets, and parsley (the whole plant, roots included). I learned today that I actually like okra and beets, which was surprising. I thought I hated them. So much so that still upon hearing their name I want to pull a face, but I can't now because apparently I like them.

My husband and I also went for a 25 minute bike ride right after it rained today, which was great because it cooled off significantly, but bad in that you had trouble breathing as the air was rather heavy. All in all I give today a thumbs up for the start of the diet. I've certainly had worse.

Memories of the Curve's diet where I had to eat eggs and sauerkraut come to mind...

The true test will be tomorrow around three o'clock at work. When I am very hungry and potentially grouchy. I am not the most gracious dieter, being addicted to carbs and all. I also tend to become defensive over being told I can't eat certain foods. I might not have even wanted a milkshake, but now, because I'm on a diet I do. Plain and simple. Oh and birthday cake ice cream with sprinkles would be nice too. *sigh*. I'm going to go and read now and not think about food any more.

Some Thoughts

I went to bed last night at 9 o'clock - I therefore did not eat anything after dinner (minus a Starbucks mocha light - which clearly doesn't have enough caffeine in it because I then went to bed) I have found an incredibly impractical solution to avoid eating at night.

I did at least manage to wake up at 6:30 and then make it to work at 7:30. Getting to work this early (as opposed to 8, 8:15) always makes me happier.

I'm still working on my actual game plan - so no judging until I figure it out, although I think it will involve a lot of repetitive food at first.
My original plan was to pay someone to walk around with me daily and slap the ice cream/fifth piece of cheese/macaroni and cheese food out of my hand and hand me a carrot. I would eat the carrot. I even like carrots, I just don't grab them first. My husband informed me that we couldn't afford to pay someone to do that.

So plan B involves teaching myself to like eggs and eating mostly the same thing each day. The idea being that I eat around 1400 to 1600 calories daily, find other activities other than eating to do, and find 30 minutes of walking or biking (easiest part - sadly). The teaching myself to like eggs decision comes mostly from being tired of the looks of disbelief when I explain I do not like eggs and apparently they're healthy. My scheme is a bit Amelia Bedelia in nature; I thought if I start making scrambled eggs in the morning and add a lot of ketchup then I could at least eat the ketchup drenched eggs. If I start lessening the ketchup potentially I'll convince myself that the eggs taste good as well. I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow.

Getting Started: The Game Plan

I've been on the fence for a while.
Potentially because I know some people who blog and it seemed like the cool thing to do or perhaps because I really want to keep a journal, but am really to lazy to write things out. It always felt a bit silly, my urge to blog that is, and I wasn't quite sure what I would even talk about or how anyone would find my ramblings even interesting.
I've decided though, that this is for me - not for you whoever you are. Which means I'm not going to worry about grammar or opinions or covering up. Maybe everyone else out there has already figured this bit out and I'm just really slow to the party, it wouldn't be the first time.
This is a blog about my health. About my weight and my migraines. About the anxiety I feel when walking into a clothing store. About my inability to wake up before 7:30 am for any length of time and about my desire to climb a 45 story "sand dune hill" in Northern Michigan.
I'm tired of saying "well next week I'll be better" or "perhaps next month I can start exercising in the morning."
I've got the theory down; eat lots of fruits and vegetables, stay away from empty carbs and soda. It's just so hard. I eat when I'm stressed or sad or mad or frustrated or scared or nervous or excited or .....
well see my point - part of this journey is to find not just a substitution, but a solution to my desires to eat and eat for no reason other than I'm feeling something uncomfortable.

So I'm going to take a stab at it - and August 1st being a Sunday seems like a good starting point.
So if this seems mildly more entertaining then what you were about to do (or perhaps you just like me enough to find this entertaining on its own) then I invite you to join me as I attempt to figure all this healthy-being-stuff out for me.