SGitW: Summer 2009

Progress!

As of tonight, I've officially lost 8.6 and 7.5 inches pounds in the last 17 days.  That's good, right?

Angry Day

To me, there is nothing more disappointing than really believing that something will go well, and have it go tragically on its ear.

That might be a tad dramatic.

I had a bad day at Summer School yesterday.  So, I decided that today would be better.  I would not let people get to me, I would be in control of my feelings & emotions, and today would be better.  This did not happen.

You see, I am a big believer that we control our mood.  Happiness is a choice.  I choose to not be crabby and to let the little things that don't matter roll off my back.  But today, the universe appeared to be conspiring against me.  If I allow my thoughts to go toward the general direction of My Morning, I get chest pains.  Actual real chest pains.  Not good.

When I left the school, I went directly to the gym to work out some of my frustration.  Then, since that did not work, I came home and listened to my Self Hypnosis CD, hoping that it would help me relax.  And it did.  Until I made the mistake of thinking about it again, planning for my day tomorrow, etc.  I'm angry again, my chest hurts, and I'm not happy about it.

The upside, I suppose, is that if I listen to that CD every time I get worked up, maybe the permanent weight loss thing will get firmly rooted in my subconscious mind.  In fact, I think I will go listen to it now.

Hunger Cues

A couple weeks ago I went to the gym with my brother, Tom.  On the way there, he and I were talking about how I am progressing with my lifestyle change/way of eating/diet/whatever you want to call it. He commented that maybe I have to eat this way forever if I want to maintain a certain physique.  He's right, of course.  You can't lose weight by carefully watching every crumb of food that goes in your mouth and then expect to maintain that loss by going on the All Chocolate Donut Gem diet.  That makes no sense. And as much as that is true, and as much as I know that monitoring what I eat is a big part of what I need to do, it's really more of a piece of a larger puzzle.

I have had issues with food since I was about 10 years old.  I eat when I'm upset or bored.  I go through cycles when I care so little about what sort of nutrition I am putting in my body that I just eat and eat and eat junk and treats and nothing healthy.  The food, even the things I think I love, doesn't even taste good.  Eating makes me feel worse, but I don't stop.

From mid-February to early June of this year I put on another 15 pounds purely by not caring what I was eating.  Chocolate donuts for breakfast.  School lunch or something even less nutritious a few hours later.  After school snack (not an apple). Fast food for dinner.  Stopping at Starbucks for a Latte and a cookie or something else with 700 calories when I was in Target.  Basically killing myself with food.  My clothes got tighter and my self hatred came out in full force.  I was probably eating close to or even in excess of 4000 calories a day, some days. 

The result of the kind of championship eating I was doing was losing my hunger and fullness cues.  I would sometimes eat until I could barely swallow more food.  Then, I would eat something else a little while later, when there was no way I could possibly be hungry. This is a big problem.

I knew something had to change, so when I started talking to one of my girlfriends about how a bunch of us were struggling to lose weight (although technically I was not really even trying), I had the idea that we should do a friendly competition.  I know myself well enough to know that I am most inspired by to prospect of "winning" even if there is no tangible prize.  I officially started my changes on June 8th.  Back at the gym.  Counting carbs.  Counting calories (even though you really aren't supposed to when on the Protein Power plan).  Taking those extra minutes to ask myself if I am really hungry before I put food in my mouth.  Chewing gum or drinking something if that will satisfy me just as well as food.  All the stuff that I'm supposed to be doing, I'm doing, yet that same problem is rearing it's head.  My hunger cues are still ALL out of whack.

Rather than eating all the time, I will go hours without a bite.  I will look at my food log and make the connection that maybe the reason I feel awful at 4:30 pm is that I have eaten 550 calories since 6:00 am and burned 340 of them at the gym.  I am sure that I am feeling hungry, but my brain doesn't trust that feeling.  And since I can push it down, or just take a nap (summer vacation!), it now takes effort to remember, "Oh yeah.  You CAN eat.  You need to."

I'm not trying to say that I've gone from being a binge eater to a borderline anorexic in two weeks or anything.  I am saying that the hardest part of all of this is figuring out what my body needs and when it needs it.  To continue with the progress I'm making, I have to navigate this unfamiliar sea of exercise and nutrition and balancing the two.  I don't just want to be down to my "skinny" weight.  That's not enough.  I want to be healthy and strong and feel good.  I want to be confident in a way it's hard for me to feel when I'm uncomfortable in my skin.

So, while my brother is right that I will likely have to continue eating this way, or some variation thereof, for the rest of my life, it's not the only battle I have to face.  Like just about everything in life, it's more complicated than that... more involved.  It's certainly not more than I can handle, but it's not as easy as just changing what I eat.  I have to change a lot of things about how I live my life, and I think that is really the hard part.

Maybe I'll remember it later...

I thought of something I wanted to write about earlier, but like most things, I have totally forgotten what it was.  It was insightful, though... I promise.

I have been exhausted for the last few days, but with any luck I will be back to normal tomorrow.  I hope that's the case anyway- since I am planning to get back on my work/gym/stuff around the house schedule that had me feeling so great.  Staying home and sleeping does not exactly inspire feelings of pride in one's accomplishments, you know?

Vacation Week 1

 I wrote this post on Monday, then my browser crashed and I was so disgusted that I hadn't even opened TypePad since.  Today I thought I would try again, and lo and behold, my entry had been mostly auto-saved.  See?  Miracles do happen!

______________________________

For the first week of summer vacation I stayed busy and did something (most of it work related, sigh) every day. Today, summer school began, and while it is only from 8-12, I still came home more exhausted than I was any day last week. That may have had more to do with getting up at 5:30 to go work out before work that summer school itself.

One thing I started doing last week, or rather, restarted doing, was going to the gym.  In the last 8 days I've been 5 times.  I have been focusing on getting my body reacquainted with exercise and just been doing about 35 minutes of cardio (elliptical machine) each day.  In a week or two I will add in strength training or some group fitness classes, but for now I am just trying to get myself used to wrestling myself into the sports bra and heading out the door.

I've also been back on the Portein Power way of eating, and I feel fantastic.  I am focusing on lean meats and veggies and have not eaten a pack of mini chocolate covered donuts in about 11 days, which might not seem long to you, but let me tell you that for a while there I was having about 4-5 packs a week.  They are probably ready to call in a Missing Persons report at the 7-11 on the corner, since I'm not in there every morning getting the breakfast of champions.

The thing is, I know how to lose weight.  I just have motivation issues.  What I need is a competitive situation.  If I know that I am trying to lose more weight than another person, well then, it's on.  So, last Tuesday I started a miniature version of The Biggest Loser with 3 of my girlfriends.  We all weighed in and took measurements and sad "before" pictures.  Every 2 weeks we are getting together to eat a healthy dinner together and weigh in.  I even made a spreadsheet in Excel that calculates the percent of total weight that has been lost and how many inches are gone. Wish me luck, because I want to win and be back to the old me.  The one that looked like this:

When I look at that picture now, I think about how good I looked.  I was wearing shorts!  My arms... they look nice!  But I remember at the time thinking how awful I still looked and how I wasn't good enough.  My hope, when I get back to the weight I was in that picture, when I look like that again, that I will appreciate it and feel good about myself.  That I will enjoy it.