There's gold ahead...there's golden dreams.

Day 20 without looking at the scale and it’s beginning to get to me. I’m caught in an awful predicament where without it…knowing the number I mean, its becoming difficult for me to track progress. I don’t know if what I’m eating is enough. Or if I’m eating too much. I’ve never been into counting calories because I fear I’ll become obsessed. So I roughly judge it. I’m not sure if I’m working out too much and sending my body into starvation mode and my body is holding onto everything I’m eating. I try to use the “I eat when I’m hungry” approach….snacks has never been my thing since changing my lifestyle. In fact, eating lunch today I realized that what I had in front of me was something the old me would have considered a snack. Crazy when you start to notice those things, huh?

I’ve been pretty good at planning my meals lately too. Not crazy about it, but when I wake up it’s pretty easy for to think about what I’m going to eat during the day and it’s worked out pretty well. Can I go another 10 days? Sure. I know I will. Can I go another month after those 10 days? Possibly. It’s something I’m still debating now…pushing the date to the end of February. Will I go crazy doing it? Absolutely. I’ve been trying to do some research online too, finding out what my calorie burn should be…coming up with many different answers wherever I go, leading me to believe that I’m working out too much and not eating enough, starving my body. But I don’t know this to be true because I refuse to step on the scale. Again…with the mental games I play with myself. Someone should just tell me to relax.

Driving to the gym today I thought a lot about insecurities. Those silly little thoughts that haunt our daily lives. I can’t think of anything worse than not feeling comfortable about the body in which you reside in. Yet I am…along with most everybody I know. Nobody ever wants to talk about it openly..and who would blame them? Who really wants to discuss hating yourself and what you’ve singly handedly done to yourself? My insecurities are slowly starting to go away though. Now this is something I can track. I know that I can actually look at myself in the mirror and semi-like what’s staring back at me. I’m not wearing clothes to hide or cover up parts I hate, and not constantly tugging or fixing my clothes as I walk or sit down.  I have a collarbone, that I’ve never seen before, and I catch myself touching it daily. I’ve allowed for a few full body pictures to remained tagged on facebook. And I embraced being the only girl lifting weights at the gym the other night, focusing and breathing, while the guys all looked at me and judged. Hey…if that’s progress, then I’ll take it.  

"You have to make it a battle to make yourself better everyday"

10 days into the no-scale club. I'm doing good so far! I hid them both (yes I have two scales...don't judge, long story) under the bathroom sink. Hid meaning...of course I know where they are, but they are out of my vision, so it's much easier.

I've got a lot of people reaching out to me the past couple weeks; telling me how good I look, sending out all sorts of virtual compliments, talking about different food, what I'm eating, what I'm not eating, asking me questions about what I've been doing specifically, wanting to know "my secret". One family friend even said the new pictures of me brought a tear to her eye, and has motivated her to get serious about getting healthy! That's nuts to view me as a motivating person, when I still see so much more improvement I want to make in myself. Makes me think of a line from my favorite musician, Bryce Avery:

"Do you feel the weight of the world singing sorrow? Or to you is it just not real? 'Cause you got your own things..yeah we all have our things I guess"



So what is "my secret"? I don't think I have one. Since I've never talked about it before...let's chat now. I pretty much stopped drinking anything but water, coffee (black, 2 splenda!) milk, occasionally juice. No more drunken alcohol binges..that helped a lot, and of courseeee it's way more healthy and safe. I started doing research on food, reading memoirs and books, not about diets, but about people's journeys. I started to feed my body intelligently, eating foods that I know will fill me and not be crap. eating breakfast. not eating carbs in every meal. eating way more fruit, and even more vegetables. If I can help it, not using butter, not using salt, not eating anything fried. And of course I started working out and doing cardio. pretty much daily. I think that the changes I've made aren't rocket science. I've always known what it took to loose weight and be healthy, I just never did it. Which is a WHOLE other blog post. hah. ;)

I think I made a huge milestone tonight. I got some pretty upsetting news while at the gym, work related. Nothing I wish to talk about, it has nothing to do with me directly, but it's something that brought up some anxiety levels on the drive home. I immediately started craving carbs, and lot of them. Fortunately for me, I had already discussed dinner with my mother and she made a nice potato and egg omelette. So...I got my carbs but not the pound of pasta I really wanted. I ate my normal dinner amount, was satisfied, and thinking about the upsetting situation I'm going to have to face tomorrow morning at work, I walked mindlessly into the kitchen and went to get more. I stopped myself as i lifted up the lid. Am I hungry? No. Am I trying to fill some sort of void in my stomach about tomorrow? Yes. As soon as the thoughts ran through my head I put the lid down, walked into my room, and started to type.

To the people out there that has reached out to me: I'm glad that you have. To be honest, it's still difficult for me to accept it, and take on this role. I know I must sound awkward and uncomfortable when I talk about it, but just know that it does mean a lot, even if I can't express it in the moment. I end up thinking about the words you all say to me daily, and have gotten me through my workouts the past week or so. And finally a shoutout to that same gym employee as before that walked by me mid-workout yesterday and said "you're the only person that I see here everyday...that's what I like to see". 

I need a distraction.

I'm not hungry. I'll say it again...not hungry! I'm just bored. I just got home, and I'm bored, and do not need to eat anything, so I'll write to distract myself. Maybe drink a ton of water too. Let's recap on the week, maybe this will help me out tonight...enough for me to get over this..rough patch I'm having at this moment.

The week went pretty well. I was sort of errr....challenged? by a few of my friends at work earlier this week. I was bitching about my frienenemy 6 lbs to a few of the guys I work with and by the end of the conversation I decided to try out not weighing myself for a while. And by a while I mean a month. I've gone for a few weeks before, here and there when me and the scale wern't seeing eye to eye. I even had my friend take it out of my house and keep it in his car for a few weeks! But I want to try it for real this time. I think they're advice to me has some merit-that if I keep looking at the number it's going to eventually break me down...especially since I seem to fluculate a lot these days. My only reservation? I'm so close to 100, and I won't be able to know when it happens! Maybe it will within this next month...maybe it won't. Guess we'll find out in a month....I'll try and stay strong on this promise to myself.

In other news...went back to Zumba this week again, loved it..again. We had a ridiculous blizzard in the middle of the week and I was so proud of myself for not only going out shoveling for a good hour...but I also managed to get out of the house and go to a spin class in my town. I haven't done spin in forever...and since I wasn't trekking it to my gym in the middle of a blizzard, I stayed local. Downside was it was pretty expensive and my bum was nice and sore the next morning...but I was glad I at least got out of the house and did something productive.

That helped. ok, yes, I feel much better now. Gonna climb in bed and get toasty warm. And to think...I didn't really feel like writing at all this week! I'm glad I decided to :)

"If you keep looking at the number...it won't end"

Wise words said to me from a coworker a few weeks back. I've been gaining and loosing the same goddamn 6 pounds for about a month. I'll loose it, feel good about loosing it, relax and breathe for a little, and then it says "ohh chrissy...you missed me? I'll come back!" and throws a big fuck youuu to me. I know that when I loose it, I of course feel better and feel like I'm in a much better place..and that's my problem. There should be minimal or no wiggle room when it comes to this stuff. But then the other part of me thinks...okay you're not going to be doing this forever, there's going to be a time where you're just maintaining, so you need to start being okay with it now. and then the 6 comes back. see my dilemma?
This is coming at such a crucial time for me too. I've talked about the mental thing in the past posts...but really...is this mental? Am I afraid of hitting that 100 and am subconsciously sabotaging myself every time i start to get close? What's going to happen when I get there..i will get there, but what is it going to take for me to stay motivated enough until it does? I was so much more focused months back. I need to figure out what changed.

Not to say that I'm sitting here like a sad panda. I'm not! On a random whim I dyed my hair last night. Cut it too. I didn't think I was going to like it...but it's sort of growing on me now.

"another chance to turn it all around. and do not save this for tomorrow; embrace the past and you can live for now"

New Year, Keep Going.

I’m defiantly starting out this blog with some good days. Almost seems good to be true, but I’ll take it. I’m feeling good, and as much as I don’t like that whole “new year, new start” I can’t help but use that mentality to motivate me. Maybe I’ll just call it “new year, keep going”.

 I’ve never been much of a runner. In fact, I’m not a runner. I pretty much despise the treadmill, and try to avoid it whenever possible. There was one day, maybe months ago, and I was able to bring myself to run without stopping for forty minutes on a pretty good pace-MONTHS ago. And since then wasn’t able to even come close it again. All mental? Absolutely. Something snapped in me after an awful day at work last week and I was able to surpass that time and pace. And have continued to. Don’t get me wrong-I still despise the treadmill, and probably will continue to. But, it’s nice to know that I’m getting better while being on it. As I walked out of the gym today the guy behind the counter said to me “Have a good night, I’ll see you tomorrow!” When I turned around to say thank you and smile, he said “Yeah…tomorrow. How’s that for motivation?!?”  

So…I may not love the treadmill. What I do love though? Was my first ZUMBA class tonight. Considering that I have years of dance class under my belt I assumed there was no way I wouldn’t love it. And as much as I dislike having a “workout buddy” (I enjoy sweating solo), one of my best friends was there to get in his own workout, and (pun intended) it worked out for both of us.

Zumba was a blast. Hands down. It was hard. I was sweating buckets, but didn’t even realize how much I was moving because I was having that much fun (just like the infomercials!). Ohh sure, there were some moments where I had no idea what I was doing, but the dancer in me kept moving, and I got back on track. I think what really got me was that I’m so used to counting in 8steps, and then wanting to switch to a new step, but it wasn’t like that. Hopefully I’ll get used to it. I got the footwork down, had a little trouble with my arm movements, but I think I did pretty well for my first class.

I made the choice to skip watching the season premiere of The Biggest Loser tonight to go to Zumba. Coming from the same girl that wouldn’t ever hang out with anyone on Tuesday nights in past seasons of the show, I think that’s a pretty big deal for me. Hey, there’s always Hulu. And who wants to watch people workout on TV when you can actually go and workout?

I have a feeling I’m going to be all sorts of sore tomorrow morning.

"You're Joinin' This Program Already in Progress"

I started to “write” my first blog post a few hours ago. Started talking about the past, and where I WAS, to help whoever is reading this have a better understanding of where I’m coming from. Then I got severe writers block. Then I just stopped. And deleted. Because really, that’s twenty-three years of negative things that aren’t me anymore. Or things I don’t want to focus on. Sure, they’re important, and I’m not going to bash that and whine about my life 15 months ago because I was manageable. Not happy, not overly upset with life but just…going through it the way I thought I should and accepting it. Long blog post short, I decided to change that a little over a year ago. And here we are. I say that you’re joining this program already in progress because I want to write about where I am now, where I want to be, how I’m going to get there, and the things that will inevitably come up and create a barrier.

            I always had this secret promise that I made myself about my body. That it was the only thing that was mine, and that I’m inevitably the only person that can choose what I want to do with it and who I want to...share it with…if you know what I mean. I made the choice to change it. I’m still making that choice to change it.

So I’ll start with where I am now. And as difficult it is for me to type the words, I will. I’ve lost ninety pounds. I’ll say it again. I’ve lost ninety pounds. Again…deficit of 90lbs. I even put the actual number 90 instead of writing it out. I need to keep saying it. Maybe if I keep saying it I’ll start to believe it. Maybe my mind will catch up to where my body is now. Maybe I’ll start to give myself more credit and not just blow it off and get uncomfortable when people compliment me. Maybe saying it over and over again will remind me that I haven’t gained ninety pounds, but lost it; that I’ve changed a little bit. My hope for the rest of these blogs isn’t for you. It’s for me. It’s for me to maybe hold some accountability for myself and keep me motivated when on nights like this when I’m stuck in yet another plateau. Or to at least, put my thoughts...somewhere that aren’t in my head. There will be posts where I’m sure I’ll be emotional. I’ll have bad days, I’ll have okay days, I’ll have amazing days. I won’t go to the gym and will be absolutely fine with it, and days where I’ll feel awful about it. I’ll eat too much, or I’ll be unsure if I’m eating enough. I’ll feel accomplished when the scale goes down. I’ll get pissed when the scale goes up. Or god forbid, stays the same after having an amazing week. It will all happen. I’m prepared for it, because I’m more than halfway through this program.

Sorry that you’re joining the party late. I can only move forward. Feel free to stay for the rest. It will only get better, and everyone knows the after party is always the best part :)