Making the decision to lead a healthier life 5-ish months ago seemed easy- momentarily. I knew (and still do know) what I wanted- to lose weight and be healthy for FOREVER!!! I was sick of the weight loss battle- my weight was up one month, down the next and I was done with that cyclical pattern. The beginning of weight loss, in my opinion, is the easiest part. It IS difficult in the sense of trying to ignore cravings, and stopping yourself when a binge would usually take place. But it is "easy" in the sense that you have ample amounts of motivation to be healthy and lose weight. I find, in my personal experience, the further along into my weight loss I go, the more difficult it is. Hence, why I always gained back the weight I lost, and then some.
I don't keep "bad" foods in the house- and by "bad" I mean processed, high sugar snacks/cookies/chips/soda/etc...I do have snack foods since I have a 2 1/2 year old- but we purchase whole grain, good-for-you foods. However, any food, when eaten gluttonously, becomes "bad" in the sense that you're consuming far too many calories, no matter how whole grain or low fat something is. (I'm pretty sure the only exception to this rule is celery...) Five months in to my new healthy lifestyle, I am struggling with this. Have been for a couple days now. I eat foods that are good for me, but too much of them. I finally took some time today to figure out why (after all, over-eating is merely a cover up an underlying issue).
I am exhausted, for one, with my seven month old STILL getting up 3-5 times per night wanting to nurse, and spending the last two nights being awake for 1 1/2-2 hours straight in the middle of the night; and when I am this worn down, all I want to do is sleep (which I can't since I have two kids) or lay on the couch and read. When I feel this lazy, it reminds me of how I acted previously- laying lazily on the couch while eating handful after handful of some carb-y snack and I revert back to this mindset mentally when I feel this run down and "lazy". This exhaustion also zaps me of all motivation to work out- because when my daughters' coinciding nap time comes around, the time I usually spend on the elliptical or strength training, all I want to do is go to sleep. Or lay on the couch and eat.
Secondly, I am dealing with a lot in my personal relationships- this puts a TON of emotional strain on me, and what do I want to do when I have a load of emotions just sitting, waiting to be dealt with? I want to eat. Eating is comforting- it's proven to release a chemical in our brain that makes us feel momentarily comforted (I learned this tidbit from a wonderful counselor whom I saw for 2 1/2 years). The key word there is momentarily. When I overeat, whether I overeat whole grain crackers, trail mix, or cereal, I don't feel great about myself afterwards. Maybe for the following five minutes, but after that I feel guilty and frustrated with myself for essentially backtracking on all of my hard work! And the worst part is, the eating doesn't erase what is bothering me- it doesn't solve my problems or heal my emotional distress; all of those issues are looming over me when the sugar-induced "happy"feeling wears off.
So what do I do after two days of poor portion choices? I count calories. Counting calories is a guaranteed wake-up call for me. I write down everything I eat and add it up after every meal and snack (or at the end of the day if my children aren't acting particularly well behaved :)). This shocks me into realizing just how much I am consuming, and how unnecessary it all is. After calorie counting for a week or two (I calorie counted for two weeks at the beginning of my weight loss to get control over my daily caloric intake and give myself a good idea of how much I should/n't be eating) I will stop the calorie counting, BUT at that point I am well aware of how big a portion of trail mix is, or how many calories is in the average handful of pretzel sticks. I know, I know, no one wants to track calories. But that, in my experience, and the experience of those around me, is because people don't want to know how many calories they are eating! Easier to live in denial about how bad it is, than to face the truth. That's why I avoided it! And other family members/friends of mine agree- if they're being completely honest. I used all the excuses in the book too- I don't have time, I have two kids, it's too hard...blah blah, blah. But the truth is, I just didn't want to know how awful it was. I didn't want to see that I was eating hundreds of calories over what I needed to be. In truth, it takes less than thirty seconds to write down what you eat; it takes less than a minute to calculate your totals (unless I do it in my head and not a calculator...then that takes a while); and it's not that hard to look on the back of a product and measure out a correct portion size. I just used all of those things as excuses to I wouldn't have to see the real truth.
I have been calorie counting all day today, and am about to make myself a huge salad for lunch (careful on the toppings and dressing!) and have been chewing gum in between meals and snacks to cut back the desire to binge, and I am feeling much, much better about myself and my weight loss goal again. Sometimes, I make mistakes, let my emotions take control, and allow food to become the solution. But if I work hard again for a couple of days, get myself back on track, I won't have ruined everything I have worked so hard for.
And I look forward to the day when I don't "fall off the wagon" and I don't have to work hard at this...I know hard work now means payoff later...and I can't wait for later...
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Why I decided to start this blog...
Why did I decide to start this blog? You may ask yourself this as you read, and I am here to give you an answer! I chose to create this blog to put my limited, albeit expanding, knowledge of healthy living out there for anyone else who has struggled to lose weight and maintain said weight loss. I don't know if anyone really reads through my posts, or cares. But I have high hopes that some day, someone will happen upon this blog and read it, and it will give them inspiration of some sort. I am most certainly not a trained professional, nor do I consider myself an expert on matters of health; I am merely attempting to put myself, and my stories out there, to give hope to anyone who might need it, advice to those who would like it, and some answers and ideas to those with questions.
I love writing, I love eating, and I love learning how to be healthy. I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life and I know I am not alone in this battle. I don't mind being open and putting myself out there for those who choose to read- I am hoping my stories will help in some minuscule way!
I know I am not a professional, and I am most definitely not trying to get up on my high-horse and talk down to anyone. I am simply a person, going through an experience that I know many can relate to, and sharing my journey along the way. I enjoy writing about the little tid-bits I learn throughout this voyage, and I hope that some of my self-realizations can assist others in the sometimes-difficult path to becoming healthy- for life.
I will always be honest with my struggles, because no one is perfect, just as no weight loss battle is perfect- and I don't want to present myself as someone who thinks this whole "healthy for life" thing is simple. Some pieces of it are less complicated for me, some are much more challenging- I just want to be honest when I write about what works for me, and what hasn't.
I want to share my self discoveries with you all: I recently realized that I had the wrong idea about those who are thin- I believed that all thin people were just born with self discipline (which some are I'm sure!) and the ability to resist eating half a batch of cookies at once. But I was wrong- many people work very, very hard to learn self control, and I was thinking that they had it easy just inherently "knowing" self discipline with food. I know now that, for me, I have to teach myself to stand firm against that extra brownie (or three) and it's not easy. But it's worth it! I know there are a lot of myths out there, in my opinion, about weight loss and maintenance and I am attempting to present my opinion on some of them due to my personal experiences.
So to sum it all up- I just want to share my experiences with anyone who wants to read them and I will be honest and open about this journey and I hope anyone reading thoroughly enjoys themselves and doesn't hesitate to ask questions or make comments! If you're out there, reading, thanks :)
I love writing, I love eating, and I love learning how to be healthy. I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life and I know I am not alone in this battle. I don't mind being open and putting myself out there for those who choose to read- I am hoping my stories will help in some minuscule way!
I know I am not a professional, and I am most definitely not trying to get up on my high-horse and talk down to anyone. I am simply a person, going through an experience that I know many can relate to, and sharing my journey along the way. I enjoy writing about the little tid-bits I learn throughout this voyage, and I hope that some of my self-realizations can assist others in the sometimes-difficult path to becoming healthy- for life.
I will always be honest with my struggles, because no one is perfect, just as no weight loss battle is perfect- and I don't want to present myself as someone who thinks this whole "healthy for life" thing is simple. Some pieces of it are less complicated for me, some are much more challenging- I just want to be honest when I write about what works for me, and what hasn't.
I want to share my self discoveries with you all: I recently realized that I had the wrong idea about those who are thin- I believed that all thin people were just born with self discipline (which some are I'm sure!) and the ability to resist eating half a batch of cookies at once. But I was wrong- many people work very, very hard to learn self control, and I was thinking that they had it easy just inherently "knowing" self discipline with food. I know now that, for me, I have to teach myself to stand firm against that extra brownie (or three) and it's not easy. But it's worth it! I know there are a lot of myths out there, in my opinion, about weight loss and maintenance and I am attempting to present my opinion on some of them due to my personal experiences.
So to sum it all up- I just want to share my experiences with anyone who wants to read them and I will be honest and open about this journey and I hope anyone reading thoroughly enjoys themselves and doesn't hesitate to ask questions or make comments! If you're out there, reading, thanks :)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
My journey so far...
About five months ago, I made a very conscious decision to change my eating lifestyle. I, like many I know, have always struggled with weight maintenance. I would get down to a great weight, then gain it all back, plus some. Story of my life. Until now.
Let's start from the beginning. I began gaining weight after high school. During the course of a bad relationship I put on forty pounds- which I then lost after the tumultuous breakup. Being single again, I took time to "find myself" if you will, and spent hours at the gym after work, getting in the best shape of my life. After some serious "single time" I met someone, a man who is now my loving husband. But we all know what tends to happen when we fall in love- you want to spend all your time with that person, thus neglecting the gym for lying around watching movies, cuddling, and EATING. I put on twenty of the pounds I had lost. Then, after a quick wedding (I'll delve more into our relationship in another post- but for now just say, he was in the Army, deploying in less than a year, so we decided to do it quickly) I put on over 70 pounds with my first pregnancy. SEVENTY POUNDS. I was well over 200 at that point (I'll take the chance to insert that I'm 5'8"), I think I was 245 if I'm remembering correctly. That's waaaaaaay more than the average female is supposed to gain during pregnancy. The "average" weight a pregnant woman is supposed to gain is around 30 pounds, less if you're overweight. So I doubled that weight, plus some. My daughter was two months old when my husband deployed to Afghanistan. I initially lost some weight with my post-partum depression plus the depression from my husband leaving. Once the initial pain of him leaving was lifted, I started emotionally eating, which didn't help me lose any baby weight. The only reason I didn't gain even more weight was because I was breastfeeding and produced tons of milk (for those of you who don't know, you burn an average of 500 calories a day breastfeeding, more in my case since I WAY overproduced). I was living back with my parents to save money and pay off our car, and credit cards for the beginning of his deployment, so I did not have many healthy eating options, as my teenage sister still lived there and my mom kept the house supplied with ample sugary "easy" snacks.
My husband came home on R&R after four months and I was down to around 190 pounds. I gained back a few while he was home, lots of eating out, and then for the remaining nine months of his deployment, I lost almost thirty more pounds. I ate less, ate very few carbs, and did lots of working out- at the gym I did cardio and weight training, at home I did P90X. Once my husband came home, I quickly, and I'm talking within four months, gained twenty pounds. I stopped working out and eating healthy because I LOVE cooking and baking and wanted to make him many delicious things since he had been so deprived of tasty foods for a year. I stopped working out since I wanted to spend every waking moment with him. After gaining that twenty pounds back, I was at 185 and we decided to have another baby. I "only" gained 50 pounds this time, which put me back up at 235.
After I had our second daughter, we moved from Colorado, my home for over 18 years, to Ohio, where I had never been. I took the move really hard- I had an incredibly difficult six-week old and a 2 1/2 year old and I was exhausted, still hormonal from having a brand new baby, and missing my family and anyone/anything familiar. I ate worse than I ever had before- I would eat a king size pack of Reese's on my way home from the grocery store, then eat half of a red velvet ice cream cake later that night. Plus five pieces of pizza for dinner, soda, and who knows what else. I had veered completely out of control. My moment of realization came about a month later when my mom was out visiting. I was attempting to get dressed for a date with my husband, when I finally looked in the mirror. Up until that point, for the whole two months I had been in Ohio, I hadn't looked in a full length mirror. We were living in a hotel for a while that didn't have one, then once we moved into our home, I had just avoided uncovering the one we had in our bedroom. And when I looked into it that day, getting ready for our date, I realized I still looked pregnant. Really pregnant. And I was just so angry with myself for letting myself go yet again that I decided to make a change. I decided that day that I was done with binge eating and junk food.
The last few months have not been a walk in the park, but they haven't been so awful I can't stand them. I make sure half my plate at dinner is covered with a vegetable or a salad, which I eat before my protein or carb. I only eat whole wheat pastas, brown rice, and other whole grain carbs. No white breads or rice for me. I eat lean proteins, and in moderation. I started tracking my calories for a couple of weeks to see how much I was really consuming. I have an elliptical (nothing fancy, one we found on craigslist for $400) and I work out 3-5 times a week (five times more often than not).
I have lost 51 pounds as of three weeks ago. I am down to 184. I don't have a scale at home. I had weighed myself when I was home in Colorado for the holidays. I was terrified to stay at my parent's house during the holidays especially because of all of the bad food. I learned to eat sweets in moderation. I still love chocolate. I still make mistakes. But then, after I have had one or two too many cookies, I make my next choice a healthy one. I just recently started to bake again. And now, after I've had one or two delectable warm cookies straight from the oven, I freeze the rest so I can pull out a small amount at a time.
Losing weight, for good, keeping it off, isn't easy. There is no "secret". It's hard work, learning to have control over food, pushing myself to exercise when I don't want to, realizing healthy food can be delicious, learning to love vegetables...but it's all worth it. My face and arms don't look so chubby in pictures anymore, so I am now included in pictures with my girls instead of taking pictures of just them. I am not as "tired" all the time (although my seven-month old still isn't sleeping through the night) and have more energy for my husband and kids. I fit back into my old jeans again and am not just wearing "stretchy" pants every day.
I still have a ways to go- I would like to lose forty more pounds or so to get to a comfortable weight. Even when I was in the mid to lower 160's I still had some weight to give. I don't want/need to look like a stick, but I want to be healthy. To not jiggle in multiple places on my body. To be able to wear things that don't cut in to my "love handles". I have a long term goal though. I don't expect it to happen overnight or in a month or two- when I started my weight loss, I gave myself a year to get to a goal weight. I don't have an exact number in mind. I'll know it when I get there.
These changes take time. So don't be discouraged! And don't try to do everything at once! I built up habits over twenty-plus years and I don't expect them to change immediately. I realized that every single diet I did had failed because it wasn't realistic. I would lose some weight then gain it all back, plus some. I know now that a LIFESTYLE change was necessary, not some diet that would never stick. I had to decide- be healthy for forever, or binge eat, on and off for the rest of my life and keep being fat, then thinner, then even heavier, then thinner again....and I chose to be healthy. I CHOOSE to be healthy. Every day.
Let's start from the beginning. I began gaining weight after high school. During the course of a bad relationship I put on forty pounds- which I then lost after the tumultuous breakup. Being single again, I took time to "find myself" if you will, and spent hours at the gym after work, getting in the best shape of my life. After some serious "single time" I met someone, a man who is now my loving husband. But we all know what tends to happen when we fall in love- you want to spend all your time with that person, thus neglecting the gym for lying around watching movies, cuddling, and EATING. I put on twenty of the pounds I had lost. Then, after a quick wedding (I'll delve more into our relationship in another post- but for now just say, he was in the Army, deploying in less than a year, so we decided to do it quickly) I put on over 70 pounds with my first pregnancy. SEVENTY POUNDS. I was well over 200 at that point (I'll take the chance to insert that I'm 5'8"), I think I was 245 if I'm remembering correctly. That's waaaaaaay more than the average female is supposed to gain during pregnancy. The "average" weight a pregnant woman is supposed to gain is around 30 pounds, less if you're overweight. So I doubled that weight, plus some. My daughter was two months old when my husband deployed to Afghanistan. I initially lost some weight with my post-partum depression plus the depression from my husband leaving. Once the initial pain of him leaving was lifted, I started emotionally eating, which didn't help me lose any baby weight. The only reason I didn't gain even more weight was because I was breastfeeding and produced tons of milk (for those of you who don't know, you burn an average of 500 calories a day breastfeeding, more in my case since I WAY overproduced). I was living back with my parents to save money and pay off our car, and credit cards for the beginning of his deployment, so I did not have many healthy eating options, as my teenage sister still lived there and my mom kept the house supplied with ample sugary "easy" snacks.
My husband came home on R&R after four months and I was down to around 190 pounds. I gained back a few while he was home, lots of eating out, and then for the remaining nine months of his deployment, I lost almost thirty more pounds. I ate less, ate very few carbs, and did lots of working out- at the gym I did cardio and weight training, at home I did P90X. Once my husband came home, I quickly, and I'm talking within four months, gained twenty pounds. I stopped working out and eating healthy because I LOVE cooking and baking and wanted to make him many delicious things since he had been so deprived of tasty foods for a year. I stopped working out since I wanted to spend every waking moment with him. After gaining that twenty pounds back, I was at 185 and we decided to have another baby. I "only" gained 50 pounds this time, which put me back up at 235.
After I had our second daughter, we moved from Colorado, my home for over 18 years, to Ohio, where I had never been. I took the move really hard- I had an incredibly difficult six-week old and a 2 1/2 year old and I was exhausted, still hormonal from having a brand new baby, and missing my family and anyone/anything familiar. I ate worse than I ever had before- I would eat a king size pack of Reese's on my way home from the grocery store, then eat half of a red velvet ice cream cake later that night. Plus five pieces of pizza for dinner, soda, and who knows what else. I had veered completely out of control. My moment of realization came about a month later when my mom was out visiting. I was attempting to get dressed for a date with my husband, when I finally looked in the mirror. Up until that point, for the whole two months I had been in Ohio, I hadn't looked in a full length mirror. We were living in a hotel for a while that didn't have one, then once we moved into our home, I had just avoided uncovering the one we had in our bedroom. And when I looked into it that day, getting ready for our date, I realized I still looked pregnant. Really pregnant. And I was just so angry with myself for letting myself go yet again that I decided to make a change. I decided that day that I was done with binge eating and junk food.
The last few months have not been a walk in the park, but they haven't been so awful I can't stand them. I make sure half my plate at dinner is covered with a vegetable or a salad, which I eat before my protein or carb. I only eat whole wheat pastas, brown rice, and other whole grain carbs. No white breads or rice for me. I eat lean proteins, and in moderation. I started tracking my calories for a couple of weeks to see how much I was really consuming. I have an elliptical (nothing fancy, one we found on craigslist for $400) and I work out 3-5 times a week (five times more often than not).
I have lost 51 pounds as of three weeks ago. I am down to 184. I don't have a scale at home. I had weighed myself when I was home in Colorado for the holidays. I was terrified to stay at my parent's house during the holidays especially because of all of the bad food. I learned to eat sweets in moderation. I still love chocolate. I still make mistakes. But then, after I have had one or two too many cookies, I make my next choice a healthy one. I just recently started to bake again. And now, after I've had one or two delectable warm cookies straight from the oven, I freeze the rest so I can pull out a small amount at a time.
Losing weight, for good, keeping it off, isn't easy. There is no "secret". It's hard work, learning to have control over food, pushing myself to exercise when I don't want to, realizing healthy food can be delicious, learning to love vegetables...but it's all worth it. My face and arms don't look so chubby in pictures anymore, so I am now included in pictures with my girls instead of taking pictures of just them. I am not as "tired" all the time (although my seven-month old still isn't sleeping through the night) and have more energy for my husband and kids. I fit back into my old jeans again and am not just wearing "stretchy" pants every day.
I still have a ways to go- I would like to lose forty more pounds or so to get to a comfortable weight. Even when I was in the mid to lower 160's I still had some weight to give. I don't want/need to look like a stick, but I want to be healthy. To not jiggle in multiple places on my body. To be able to wear things that don't cut in to my "love handles". I have a long term goal though. I don't expect it to happen overnight or in a month or two- when I started my weight loss, I gave myself a year to get to a goal weight. I don't have an exact number in mind. I'll know it when I get there.
These changes take time. So don't be discouraged! And don't try to do everything at once! I built up habits over twenty-plus years and I don't expect them to change immediately. I realized that every single diet I did had failed because it wasn't realistic. I would lose some weight then gain it all back, plus some. I know now that a LIFESTYLE change was necessary, not some diet that would never stick. I had to decide- be healthy for forever, or binge eat, on and off for the rest of my life and keep being fat, then thinner, then even heavier, then thinner again....and I chose to be healthy. I CHOOSE to be healthy. Every day.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)