Month: December 2013

210

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I made my Christmas weightloss goal yesterday! I weigh 210 now!!!
I’m pretty positive I’ll be making my goal of 200 by Jude’s birthday, and I really wish I had taken that diet bet now!

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It must also be noted that I put my running shoes on again today for the first time since the day before vacation. That’s only two runs in December, people. I need to get back on the roads. It felt good to run today and it was lovely to be greeted by Christmas lights. Gotta love the extra sparkle when it is so dark out this time of year.
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Related but not the best news…
I had to own a hard truth to Bradley while we were in Disneyland.
Before we left for the trip things were pretty crazy. I had to pack, get four days of lesson plans ready, finish up our Christams shopping and decorating, wrap all of our Christmas gifts, bathe the dog and work is crazy (CRAZY!!!) right now between kid issues, family communication and workplace politics… So one night, I forgot to eat dinner. I realized this right as I was going to sleep and just decided one skipped meal was not a big deal. The next night my brain got a little nuts, remembered that I had not suffered at all the night before, and even though I knew it was a poor choice, I was weak and decided a banana would suffice as a dinner. The next night I wanted to skip dinner, ate very little again and I was starting to notice a pattern.
The food addicted side of me is such a submissive while my controlling diet side, boy, when I get the ball rolling I can be really hard on myself. Really extreme. Super determined. So, I started exchanging one bad food consuming pattern (over-eating) with another one- starving myself.
I got to Disneyland and, when I’m on vacation, I can sort of get lost and not pay attention to the basics- like, rest, food, water, the bathroom. And honestly, my brain was kind of digging it and I started hearing myself intentionally thinking about how awesome it would be to return from vacation lighter than when I left, so I stopped eating much at all. At the end of day two I had eaten less than 600 calories, the day before wasn’t much better and I was feeling super excited about this new iron-grip control I had on my diet.
Except I knew it wasn’t right. I know that I don’t want to replace obesity with anorexia. When I was a kid I lost 80 pounds during my junior year of high school by subsisting on a diet of apples and diet coke. My school lunch was half a sandwich, half a carton of milk and 3-4 grapes. Otherwise I ate almost nothing. I once heard Richard Simmons talk about this issue, that fat people can become anorexic when they feel the power of having control. I had it then and I’m pretty sure I was on the same path last week. I’m pretty sure I could get there very easily now.
So I told Bradley what I had been doing and he got all Papa Bear on me and told me he was taking over my diet. When I started panicking and crying over the idea of losing control of my food, I realized how quickly this train of thought had taken over and dominated my dieting. Bradley made me eat 2000 calories the next day. It was really hard and it felt like I ate all day long. When I ate junk, 2000 calories was easy to consume. Eating healthy foods to reach 2000 is like eating nonstop, but it helped me to see how little I was eating and to realize how much I can eat and maintain or lose weight.
After that day, things were better. I decided to go ahead and eat whenever Bradley offered something and I was able to kind if get out of that cave. Again, I write it here as a reminder. I want to lose weight, but I want to develop good, healthy habits along the way. I’m glad I’m at 210 now, but I need to continue doing it with tried and true healthy methods with no other options.

Disneyland!!!

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Perhaps, just possibly, you may have noticed a lack of posts lately. That’s because I have been in DISNEYLAND! Yup. Dreams come true and magic exists. People ask why we go Disneyland and nowhere else all of the time for our big vacations. For us, it’s just easy. Like, you get there and it’s pretty straightforward once you figure out the learning curve of food, hotels, passes, fast passes… You know the fine points of visiting a place a lot, it’s just easy to go there. We know what we can eat, where we can stay and what there is to do. We have a bit of anxiety surrounding travel, so familiarity is nice. It’s just a happy place for our family.

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I had a few non-scale victories while I was there:
One, I could wear pretty much anything in the park except kids clothes. I tried a lot of things on and was mostly discouraged about buying anything since I’ll likely shrink out of it before summer. While that seems really nice – and it is in the bigger picture- it is difficult and discouraging to spend 65 bucks on a sweatshirt knowing full well that it will be huge on me by the time summer rolls around. Instead, for the first time ever, I was able to buy matchy-matchy jammies with my daughter! She was a size extra small and I was a large. The last time I was in Disneyland I could wear very little there. It was pretty fun to have the world open up so wide.

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The other thing that was really nice was that I didn’t have to worry at all- like AT ALL- about fitting on rides or making the boats tilt. I didn’t have to worry about being the fat girl next to the skinny person all up in their personal space. Furthermore I fit in the plane seat with seatbelt to spare and I was able to put the tray down without it resting on my thighs or belly. I was able to walk down the airplane aisle without turning sideways and my hips did not even touch both sides of the aisle. It was pretty awesome.

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The best thing, however, was that my feet never hurt or ached at all. My legs feel totally normal and we walked between 7-12 miles per day, not including the line standing. My back is not all strained and painful and my hips are fine. I was able to run, walk and stand everywhere in line with no pain, no problems. One night we went and saw the World of Color. I put my 80 pound kid on my shoulders and about died- it was amazing to put weight back on. My feet were aching like mad after ten minutes, my spine felt horribly compressed and my knees and hips hurt. It is amazing how much extra weight I was willing to put up with for so long, and the resulting pain and health was such a high cost.

I don’t say stuff like is to be pointed to other people. I have to tell myself these things and document them so when I feel weak or apathetic I can turn to these reminders to keep going. Giving up is easy when you can overlook what you really know, and what I really understand now is that my life feels more comfortable and easier when I weigh less.

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I also got a dinglehopper. Yes, my life is complete.
You have no idea how much I love that thing. No idea.