Back on Track With a Couple of Last Straw Moments PART 2

Last Straw Moment #2
I was able to keep the weight off but I wasn't at my "goal" weight. My social life blossomed and I was very active in school the next few years. I was assistant director of the women's center, the vice president of the Clown Alley on campus, and so on and so forth. Every time I went somewhere there was food. Most of the social time spent with friends was eating. I put on some weight but didn't think to much about it because it was "only 5 pounds" (It was really 10 pounds). By the end of my junior year I was starting to feel a little junky but I chalked it up to stresses of responsibility. Senior year started-I became the director of the women's center and I had gained most of the weight back. The year started and I was pulling double duty with 18 credit hours, two jobs (women's center and student coordinator at the health center), campus ministry responsibilities, life groups, homework and preparation for graduation, all of it. The biggest stressor was the women's center because my board and I weren't clicking like we should have and the stress was unreal. This last straw moment I call the F*@# It Moment. I was walking to my office and just gave up. I literally stopped in the middle of the brick walkway and said F*@# IT! out loud. If I was going to be this tired and stressed every day I was at least going to find something that made me feel better because as I had convinced myself "I deserved It". So I turned around and went directly to the Hardess in the Union. So I didn't look like a typical fatty I stuffed the bag into my back pack and headed to my office. I dropped off the food and walked next door to the Starbucks (they built a free standing Starbucks in the middle of campus right next to my office) and got a Venti White Mocha Latte and ate all of it at my desk. This is how I ate every day for the rest of the year. Total weight 226 pounds. I told the cap and gown people that I was 200 pounds thinking that I weighed a lot but didn't look that heavy (DENIAL DENIAL DENIAL) and that maybe I would lose 5-10 pounds. I lost 4 by graduation at the end of April 2008 but my gown was a little tight and it was hotter than a mofo in the Tally Civic Center. I realized then that I had let myself go. By that time I had also stopped wanting to hang out with anyone and avoided many a phone call to go out because of the way I felt and looked. Not good.

I moved back home in August after graduation and lost 12 pounds from the stress of living with my mother. February 2009 I got a job filling in for a PE teacher and felt like crap because I was the fat PE teacher. I don't have a car so I ended up walking most places (riding the bus and walking to my destination or walking to and from work which is a 10 minute drive but a 90 minute walk) and lost 12 more pounds. I was also too tired to eat like had been eating when I got home. Walking to and from work and being out in the hot sun was enough to put me into a coma. Working as a PE teacher woke me up to the fact that I was completely out of shape. Most things I tried to get the students to do on the field I couldn't do without getting winded so I didn't and to me that was embarrassing. During the summer I worked at the same school as a camp counselor and I refused to do any physical activity with the kids because I was afraid of anyone seeing me out of breath or super sweaty. CRAZY!!! It made me realize how I have been holding myself back from succeeding after college because I am afraid of how people would perceive me becuase of my size. I was also pretty bitter. Unable to find work and living with my mom (we don't get along) made me think of all of the crap I have been holding onto from the past.

I realized that this is no way to live. I also realized that I am fat now but that doesn't always have to be the situation. Losing weight isn't just about becoming a stick. It's about bettering yourself from the inside out and I can see that now. I am focusing on making myself stronger, physically and mentally. I have been working on ways to deal with emotional and mental stress in other ways besides food; I am learning to let go and not allow stress and doubt to deter me from reaching my goals-weight loss and otherwise.
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So this weekend I reworked my workout schedule for the month so I won't have to worry about figuring out what to do for the day-I'll just do it. I have also tried to rewrite a list of things I would like to do. You know all of the things you leave off the list because you don;t think that YOU could possibly do them...

Back on Track With a Couple of Last Straw Moments PART 1

It's been a rough week. Motivation has been down and while I have been exercising I have not been in it to win it. Eating has been a mess and all over the place, and...I didn't exercise at all on Sunday! GASP! But I am back on the wagon.

I know this is a long post but I have to take the time and remember and acknowledge how I got to where I am now

I had to do a lot of reevaluating this week; I had to remember why I was working out in the first place which led me to remember what BitchCakes called MY LAST STRAW MOMENT (click the link to her page to read her last straw moment documented back in 2007). I have 2 last straw moments.

Last Straw Moment #1
I was starting college in 2004 which should have been an exciting time in my life but all I remember was going to freshman orientation over the summer and feeling like garbage the entire weekend. The first thing I noticed when walking into the ballrooms at Florida State were all of the tiny girls everywhere. I now see that I was in denial about my size. I had done ballet for 13 years so I was never really big but I thought I was compared to all of the waifs I danced with. When I stopped dancing I put on the pounds by eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I mean I would pile chips on a plate and by the end of the night have eaten the entire family size bag! I ate them and other snacks like it (crackers, oreos and other cookies, etc.) on a large plate because as long as I wasn't eating from the bag or carton I wasn't really overeating. YEAH RIGHT! Needless to say by the time I graduated from high school I was 195 pounds and very puffy looking. I kept telling myself that I was in fact bigger but I wasn't as big as [insert name here]-I just wasn't that fat. I even bought THE FIRM system I kept seeing on tv so I could, you know, "tone up a bit". But I wasn;t just a little bit bigger...I was FAT. I didn't start getting real about my problem until I graduated.

Aside from the fact that I was one of maybe 3 other larger females in the ballrooms I could no longer deny the physical condition I was in. I am from Central Florida so the ground is flat. In Tallahassee there are hills everywhere! What should have been a leisurley tour around campus turned into the most exhausting excursion I had ever experienced. I was already very uncomfortable standing next to all of the petite girls. We had yet do move and I was already sweating! As we trekked up hill after hill from building to building twice I thought I would either pass out or just dip out on my group and catch up with them somewhere later down the line. I though it can't be! I'm in great shape! OH THE LIES WE TELL OURSELVES. By the end of the weekend I wanted to do nothing more than go home and never leave the house. I was hideous! But that event only made me depressed about the way I looked and my size and made me eat even more. I started school at FSU weighing 195 pounds. The first semester I spent avoiding my weight issues by focusing on classes and enjoying my freedom. But I wasn't enjoying it at all. I spent all of my time alone in my apartment watching tv. The thought of joining anything was simply out of the question. What would people think with me the big girl crashing their meeting. Going to the gym was laughable. I told myself fat people can't go to the gym (at least not at Florida State where everyone in the gym is there for maintenance). I even started scheduling classes around tv shows. That's when I knew there was a problem. By the second semester I was even more miserable. Spring break rolled around and I remember thinking "people are making plans for spring break and all you can do is go home beacuse you've secluded yourself from the real world beacuse you think you're too fat to be accepted". Home isn't somewhere I wanted to be (there are a whole host of family problems I can't easily talk about without becoming angry so I won't). Something had to be done. So I spent Sunday making a list of groceries, Monday greocery shopping, and started on Tuesday. Like Oprah said let today be your Monday...so I did. I started using Slim Fast as a way to monitor my portions. I did eat real food with the Slim Fast like the directions say to and I strated using my FIRM system. Except I thought that the workout schedule included wasn't enough. Week 1 on THE FIRM I used soup cans because I didn;t have weights. Week 2 I got weights and added NAC Body Parts to the Schedule so instead of taking days off like the schedule suggests I I alternated between the two. By week three and beyond I was doing THE FIRM Cardio Sculpt and NAC Body Parts EVERY DAY. If I missed a workout I would tack it on the next day so if I did only Body Parts one day the next day I would do Cardio Sculpt, and then Body Parts TWICE! Yeah. obsessive I know but I thought that I was ugly and fat and since ugly isn't easily changed I had to lose the weight. THANK GOD I no longer think like that but I was able to lose a substantial amount of weight and thought I looked pretty good.

Weigh In #1

Good News! I lost 8 pounds and a total of 14.75 inches! I am glad that I was able to lose the 7 pounds I had hoped to lose but I am more excited about the inches I have lost. I can't believe it!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!! In the next 30 days my goal is to lose another 5 pounds. I am glad I am trying to do this the slow and steady route; As stated in yesterday's post I'm not expecting to see Biggest Loser numbers on the scale so I am not setting myself up for failure. I have to remember that the weight will not come off in a couple of months and that if I am going to succeed I need to be able to take the highs and lows in stride, keep on moving forward, and set myself up for a life full of healthy change. Now repeat that for another 330 days...

Keep On Keeping On

This morning I was pumped about adding something new into my exercise rotation (yoga) but as the day went on I found myself feeling really bad. I've been eating like crap (not a lot just a little but even a little can make the excuses come rolling in and before you know it I'm in my room for 4 days with a basket full of junk food...I mean...hypothetically...) and I really didn't want to work out. I was so tired but I pushed on and did it anyway:  Jillian Michaels' shred 1 and Kendal Hogan's Boot Camp Calorie Burn.

 Now I am watching THE BIGGEST LOSER and the YELLOW TEAM made it back onto campus. I have to say that the weight loss the yellow and blue teams have been able to acheive is INCREDIBLE. Cherita and Victoria (mother and daughter) lost 63 pounds in 30 days! 24 and 30 pounds respectively. AMAZING! Oneil lost 51 pounds and Sunshine lost 25 pounds. AMAZING!

Watching this episode I realize that I am able to push myself harder and farther than I think I can go...hopefully...weigh in #1 to come Friday! Motivation!

I did It!

Today I spent away from home and had to make some serious food decisions. I was pretty pissed when I didn't have a chance to eat breakfast and even more pissed when I found myself ready to gnaw my arm off at 1pm. My mom and I decided to get Quiznos but it didn't work out. The food was not good and if their is anything I have learned to do is to not eat food just because it's there so we didn't eat it. However, it was to be another 2-3 hours before we actually ate anything. Earlier in the day (around 12) I did have a 100 calorie cookie thinking it would tide me over for at least 30 minutes until we got food but...
Anyway, we ended up at a KFC. In the past week when eating out I have gotten KFC's 395 calorie meal even though it killed me to have the mashed potatoes and green beans with grilled chicken instead of original recipe with a double order of potato wedges or potato wedges and mashed potatoes (double starch I know but it was so damn good who cared? The only thing I cared about was the fact that I would run out...) but I have to figure that every decision I make counts towards or against my goal so I opt to choose wisely. But today I got a popcorn chicken kids meal with potato wedges and-a soda! The soda, though was a snack size (smaller than the small) and I filled it up with ice so I only got around 8 oz of Dr. Pepper (100 calories). I also had a fun size peanut M&Ms pack I got from a little boy taking donations for his church outside of one of the stores we went into which was only 90 calories. When I added up all of the calories in my meal and extras which included one of my mom's regular crispy wings (she waited 20 minutes for crispy instead of original recipe and they gave her an extra wing) and 2 honey mustard sauces (I put honey mustrad on everything) it came to 1400 calories exactly! I shoot for 1400-1500 calories a day. Before I sat down to write this post I did have another one of those 100 calorie cookies. I did, however, come home and workout instead of going baack out with my mom:  30 minutes on the elliptical, Less is more cardio with Cindy Whitmarsh-30 minutes, and Incredible abs also with Cindy Whitmarsh-20 minutes. As mentioned before we have exercise tv at home and my mom has an elliptical in the kitchen (she has the most random stuff in the most random places...and she doesn't ever seem to throw anything away. We have had that elliptical for a while but it needed batteries for the display to work and for the resistance levels to function so it has been sitting in the kitchen untouched for the past few years. That's not true. When I moved home we did use it to hang clothes when they needed to air dry. We still do but now I also use it almost daily to workout :-). I got new batteries for it when I started working out again so I am able to track my calories and stuff on it. Yay for small victories!

The Biggest Load of $#@!

WORKOUT TRIALS

In addition to my daily 30 minute trek on the elliptical I also do an actual workout so that I get in cardio and strength training. I would have done Kendall Hogan's Bootcamp Cardio Burn which I love but I have been doint that workout in lu of the elliptical on the same days I do NAC Body Parts. So in I took this free space on m y calendar as an opportunity to do something new. Because I conveniently have Exercise Tv today I tried to do The Biggest Loser Bootcamp exercise (it is on exercise tv) with Bob Harper. LAME! So I tried The Biggest Loser Power Sculpt with Jillian Michaels. DOUBLE LAME! I love to do Jillian Michaels Frontside, Backside, all of the Shreds and Boost Metabolism, No more Trouble Zones workouts because they are challenging and they are very structured. I have to say that these two Biggest Loser workouts are sloppy. The actual moves, what Bob or Jillian have you do is not the problem, but the actual structure of the workouts are ridiculous. Bob's wasn't so bad. Come to think of it not that bad at all. I simply found myself bored and didn't feel like I was getting the burn I needed. Jillian's workout however, was hard to follow because all of the participants (all Biggest Loser contestants and winners) were out of sync and you could tell that many of them were unsure of how to do the actual exercise (which is strange because they have lost weight doign these exact moves- or so we think). Some of them seemed to have good form and were ata steady pace but the rest of them were all over the place. Overall it was hard to find more than three people at a time who had the same form and were going at the same pace. Jillian would say okay we have five more and in that segment you would have some then do five while others did eight, and another did six. I almost couldn't take it!

After that fiasco I did do Cindy Whitmarsh's Incredible Abs 2. I have to say that it is hard but is without a doubt my new favorite thing. I usually abhor working on my abs and they often don't get individual attention like the rest of my trouble zones.

I love her and all of her workouts!

Stronger than Yesterday

Working out has been a success. I have not been focusing on the scale but have been focusing on how I feel each time I work out. I am getting stronger and I like it! I am trying to make it through the month and see if I have reached my goal to lose 5 pounds. 5 pounds is a reasonable goal in my mind because if I try to go for more than that I end up trying to push myself way to hard and burn out, then give up. Also, if I am able  to take this one day at a time I am able to acheive so much more. My fitness goal is to be an athlete. While watching the biggest loser and watching Jillian run out of the weight room makes me want to acheive more physically. Right now I am not able to run...anywhere. It feels ackward and weird and I get winded and start breathing like I'm having an asthma attack and I don't have asthma. Everyday Counts!

Fast Food Is NOT Calorie Free

As mentioned before I LOVE FAST FOOD!!! I always believe that when eating out you should go for the whole shebang:  GO FRIED OR GO HOME! In other words why pay for something like a salad when it is a meal that is easily duplicated at home? If you're making the choice to spend money on a quick premade meal it should be something that you cannot make on your own, a tast you are unable to duplicate. Also why not go for the extra [insert your favorite menu item here] when it is most likely only going to cost you pennies extra?!

BUT TODAY I TRIUMPHED!!

I did eat a sausage biscuit this morning (it is the weekend)..but just a sausage biscuit, no egg, no hashbrowns- (I have to mention here that fried potatoes of any kind are one of my absolute favorite things in life. Not just in the food category but in life!) to which I would have ordered an extra 2 for $1. Triumph! Then later in the day I made it to a Chik-Fil-A where I debated between the grilled chicken sandwich or the regular chicken sandwich. I got the original deluxe (lettuce and tomato added) but then did something I would have previously thought incomprehensible:  I exchanged the waffle fries for...a fruit cup. The only consolation for this action was the fact that the small fries has 280 calories. The fries that comes with the meal is a large so who knows how many calories would have been in that one. The fruit cup was a mere 70 calories! SCORE! I did have my next favorite thing that may have slipped me up and made my chest hurt with guilt as I ordered it:  Dr. Pepper (to me this magical concoction of 23 flavors is like the crack of the carbonated beverage world to me). I did not get to drink it however because I ended up going to the mall and leaving it in the car where it became a watered down mess. SAVED!

It is important to note that Dr. Pepper and fast food are not in fact a staple in my diet which is why my go big or go home philosophy always made a lot of sense to me. I would always go for the fried option when I could because I believed a grilled, seared, broiled whatever would not satiate my cravings. I have come to the conclusion that:

1) Although I do like the fullness that comes with food I like the taste of food even more and thus always seem to gorge myself on the wrong stuff

2) I always trying to put down as much as I can because I would have it in my mind that if I did not buy or accept the fried, sugary whatever when it is offered or available that I would not be able to get more of it later. Does that make sense? Most of the time I do not have the funds to just buy exorbitant amounts of cookies so I would eat whatever I was could when offered...especially if it is FREE! Other times (when I was making enough money to support my bad habits) I would buy whatever I was craving and eat it all in an absurdly short amount of time and simply replenish as I ran out. In those times I would always grab foods I liked when I saw them whether I needed it or not. I would then wait for an optimal time in which to eat all of it. This would ususally be at home in front of the tv or alone in my office watching movies on the computer.

3) I am an severe UNDERTASTER (for more information check out http://dietshmiet.com/are-you-an-undertaster-or-overtaster/ for an easy test to see if you are an over or undertaster. I found out I was an undertaster in biology lab in college; an experiment using iodine and litmus paper). This means that I:

"usually like fruit and veggies, but many under-tasters have a lot of cravings, because they can never really seem to satifsy their palate."

I need lots of seasoning or salt or sugar in order to really taste the food.  Because of this I tend to confuse adding more seasoning to my food with eating more and more to get my craving for taste satiated. It does make sense that I would say that I love the taste of food.

With all of this in mind I have to trick myself into better habits before they become common place. For now I am resolved to make healthy choices when dining out no matter how painful I think they are at first. While I have told myself that I am wasting money by getting the healthier option (which may cost me more monetarily) or not practicing good economical sense by not ordering the up size or extra side from the dollar menu I have to acknowledge the fact that in the long run the so called "bargain" choices are in fact the more costly (to my health) in the end. I mean come on! Have we learned nothing from Morgan Spurlock?