I'm just going to dive right in and confess that it's not going well. It started pretty well, and I lost five pounds. But for the last two and a half months, I've been losing and re-gaining the same additional three or four pounds... I just can't break past the ten pound mark.
I'm not consistent and I know that's why I'm struggling to lose weight. Also know that the stress level is the key factor in my inconsistency. I'll have a few good days - low stress at work, eating homemade healthy foods, exercising, sleeping well, and feel pretty good about it. But then I have a hard day at work and I'll eat crap so that my physical body feels as bad as my mental state. I know I shouldn't eat the crap but this is an old, old bad habit. So right now, instead of shaming myself for doing it, I'm working on recognizing when I'm doing it and being gentle with myself. (Hello #emotionalbraintraining skills!)
I also caught myself over-eating the other night when we were out to eat. We were at a little local Thai restaurant we recently discovered. I had ordered a light, fresh chicken dish. I was listening to my hunger cues... and telling myself that I "should" take half of it home for lunch the next day. At the end of the meal, I had left enough to be a satisfying meal for my lunch the next day. Then my husband reached over and stabbed a big piece of chicken and I thought "well, that's not enough for a filling lunch and not enough for leftovers, so I might as well eat the rest." Seriously, that was my thought process.
And I got so mad at my husband! I snarled at him the way her snarls at me when I eat a piece of his pancake (that he'd told me I could have before we started eating). It was ugly. I know I shouldn't have reacted like that. We had been sharing and it was fine.... until it wasn't. I'm still a little mad at him for eating that piece of chicken, but I'm more disappointed in myself for not using my "oh well statement" I created with Noom several weeks ago. I should have just let it go and said "oh well," and left the rest on the plate anyway. But I didn't, I ate it and then I beat myself up because I "should have" known better and "should have" done better.
The other thing I'm "shoulding" on myself about is that when I first started this blog 10 years ago, all I had to do was start walking, logging my food, and the weight just melted off. I'm fighting the harsh inner critic that keeps telling me "you should be doing better. You should have lost more weight by now." I end up feeling defeated and ashamed.
So what's the cure....? I believe it's mindfulness. And I'm really, really trying hard to be more mindful. However, when I'm extremely stressed and tired it's really hard to be mindful. My job is creating too much stress in my life and it's affecting many other areas of my health. Something has to change.
And until it does change, being mindful is going to be hard, but I'm going to give it my best shot. So friends, be mindful... and when being mindful is hard, don't should yourself.
Since March I've been struggling with health issues and convalescence. During that time my weight fluctuated a lot. I did fairly well keeping the weight off while I was sick because I didn't have much of an appetite. However, afterwards, while on the road to recovery (convalescence) I started eating more again, though I didn't have the energy or strength to get back to my usual physical activities. My weight started to creep up, my waist line got softer and a little fuller. I didn't look or feel like my healthy self.
The physical stress started to lead to mental stress, and on top of that piled usual end-of-the-school-year stress at work. I felt like I was in a downward health spiral as the weight didn't go down and the stress went up. I was battling a depression because of things.
Though I felt physically better, I wasn't back to where I was before the illness and needed to remember to give myself time to get there. During my depression I struggled with feeling like I had regressed to where I was a year ago, before my running and before my months of hard work with my trainer. I kept beating myself up. I talked with my trainer and my psychotherapist to help get some perspective. I wasn't giving myself compassion and love during my recovery time.
So I took a snapshot of my weight loss journey and kept it on my phone as a reminder of how far I've come. Yes, the past few months have been a struggle, but I needed to remember how far I have come and remember that it was only a minor setback, not a total loss.
The past few weeks I've really rededicated myself to better eating and physical activity. My trainer and I have tweaked some things on my nutritional goals. I was frustrated at not seeing anything different after the first week. This week, though, something happened. After two weeks of hard work, something shifted.
I knew last night that my body was feeling different. My clothes felt different and looked different on me. And this morning the scale reflected what my body had revealed the night before. The weight is shifting. And just a small change, but it's spurring me on to not give up. I just needed to keep focused on my goals and the things that would get me there: a good night's sleep, moving more, eating well, drinking plenty of water, and lowering my stress by doing things to take care of myself. It can all be summed up by a favorite quote I've seen and shared before:
Two years ago I began this journey to better health, not knowing that I would have a blog with followers and be inspiring others. I began this journey so that they way I felt on the inside would be reflected on the outside. I began this journey to get back the person I wanted to be but had lost. I began this journey because I knew I needed to change so that I wouldn't end up with the health problems of other, older members of my family; I wanted to choose a different path.
So one night while I was dog-sitting, after getting back from a walk with Rudy and Casey, I was thinking about how easy it was to fit a little walk into my day. And I wondered why I didn't do that more often since it was so simple. Like a snowball rolling down the hill collects moment and mass, my idea transformed as I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and started a timeline.
I knew I needed to lose close to 100 pounds. I thought about 5 pounds a month sounded like a reasonable weight loss goal, so I believed I could reach my goal by the same time the next year. I drew out a timeline and marked out my end goal, and all the months between now and then. I started adding in my weight loss goals along the timeline.
But I knew I would need to do more than just want to lose the weight, I needed a plan for how to get there. And I also needed to improve some other areas of my life- flexibility and strength (because muscle helps burn fat and toning and firming will help my shape. Little by little I thought about small changes I could make to the way I ate and my physical activity each day. I had done Weight Watchers off and on since high school, taken sports medicine classes, and worked with a personal trainer in the past, so a lot of the basics I already knew - I just had to apply them.
December 2014
And so my journey began. Eating better breakfasts in January. Adding more fresh fruits and vegetables in the spring and summer. Trying new soup and stew recipes in the winter. Stretching. Yoga videos for some stretching. Wall push-ups. Then increasing the angle of the wall push-ups. Then moving to floor push-ups on my knees. Walking longer. Walking faster. Walking hillier routes. Every month I tweaked everything a little.
And the weight started to come off. I started to feel more vibrant and alive. I started to feel more my age, younger even. My shape was changing and I felt great.
When I moved to Salt Lake City a year and a half ago, the apartment complex had a fitness center I could start using. Before everything had been walking outside and body weight or 2# dumbbells. Now I could increase the weights because the fitness center had variety, and I could walk on the treadmill or use the elliptical machine. And my shape kept changing and my fitness continued to improve. I met my weight loss goal, but more importantly, I improved my quality of life because I could now do again the things I loved- chase my niece and nephew around the yard playing football at Thanksgiving, wear age-appropriate clothes that flattered my figure, and come out of my shell and get involved in my community again.
Merry Christmas and Happy 2nd Anniversary! December 2015
This past summer, I joined a "real" gym so I could attend classes like yoga and kickboxing. And, because I had become a runner, run on a treadmill in the summer heat and winter cold. I don't like to run in extreme temperatures - yuck! I completed my first ever 5k race in July, and then two more later this summer. Setting my sights a little loftier, I completed 10k training, but haven't done a race yet (the running outside in extreme temperatures thing), and am now moving on to half-marathon training with the help of a personal trainer.
On vacation at my grandparent's house in Denver, it's too cold to run outside, so I'm back to my roots - walking outside. And a yoga video (per my trainer's instructions!). I feel vibrant, healthy, beautiful, and comfortable in my own skin. My body isn't perfect, but my body is pretty amazing. It's come so far on this journey and all the awful things I'd put it through in the past. I'm now taking better care of it and thanking it for carrying me this far. I need it for the next 60-70 years! Happy 2nd anniversary to me, the Urban Hiker Girl!
I started mentally processing what my plans for Thanksgiving would be a few weeks ago. For the meal that is. What and how I would eat. When and if I would exercise. Nothing completely definite yet as I will be a house guest so it can be hard to say for sure what the menu will be or what the day will hold, but I know what I can and need to do to take care of myself: limit the carbs and sweets to my body feels good. Try to get physical activity/movement in as able.
I also decided that this was a week that I was going to try to just hold steady. Sort of practice for when I reach my weight goal of maintaining it. I had a big loss last week so it would only be fitting to maintain, and in light of the holiday this week it seems even more fitting to not try to push myself too hard to lose weight, but to just try to hold steady.
So, this morning I changed my settings on my food tracker to "maintain current weight" and it automatically upped my calories. I get about an extra 800 calories more than what I'd been eating to lose 1.5 lbs a week. Wow! I'm already planning to conserve calories the day before and after, therefore allowing myself to enjoy all the food I want on Thanksgiving day without fear of going over my calorie goals. I am also going to listen to my body and not over eat. There will be leftovers. I can always have more later (except our GBC- that always goes quickly so I hope we make lots!). Listen to my body. Eat slowly so that I can enjoy the food and so that I can gauge how full I'm getting or if I still have room for one more helping.
I know that some of these goals are vague and may be hard to keep, but I've still got a few more days to solidify things and giving myself freedom from worry about calories and weight loss/gain feels very significant for me. I feel proud that I'm taking care of myself this way.
