Month: July 2016

The new show that I’m currently obsessing over is called My Big, Fat, Fabulous Life. There is a woman named Whitney in it who is 30 years old and 380 pounds. She’s prediabetic, very active, very happy, very OK with being big but also dealing with the realities of health and life issues.  When I started watching the show it was totally as a voyeur.  I’m always interested in watching the lives of people who are committed to making a health shift as in the Biggest Loser, and I’m also interested in watching people who promote healthy lifestyle and body acceptance, especially if they happen to have a weight issue because I connect so deeply to it.  The thing about watching Whitney is that I connect to her personality so deeply. I watch her big, fun personality coming out; the self deprecation, the laughing at her own expense, and the good-natured ribbing that she consistently gives others and herself. Life around her looks like a party. It is clear that she truly cares for the people around her and loves them. It’s also pretty clear that she uses polycystic ovarian syndrome as the crutch for justifying her weight.  She keeps saying she’s big because of polycystic ovarian syndrome instead of saying that her PCOS contributes to the weight.  For me that was exactly who I was and what I was doing when I was 340 pounds. I was laughing a lot to deflect a lot. I teased people constantly, joked at my own expense, poked a lot of fun at myself and accepted myself for who I was and what I was.  I told myself that this is what life was destined to be for me. I was meant to be a big girl.

Like Whitney, what I failed to do was take responsibility for myself.  Like Whitney, I was eating a lot of refined foods like white bread, pasta, pizza, white rice and other truly carb-o-liscious things that pass through you quickly without giving you a lot of energy or satisfaction in return, nutritionally.  Paired with the PCOS, it was a recipe for pounding on the weight at a ridiculously fast pace, but I didn’t see a need to change anything. Like I said, it just felt like my destiny to be the biggest girl in any room.  Like Whitney, the focus of the reality show my big fat fabulous life, I was also consistently active. Bradley and I always went for hikes and walks no matter what my size was. We had a golden retriever and who was very active and Bradley used her as an excuse to constantly keep me moving. He didn’t mind if I was big, but he did want me to be able to live a real life. Whitney is a Zumba instructor who can shake it and move like nobody’s business. In fact, she is the star of a YouTube video called fat girl dancing (posted above).  Watch it and you will know what I mean. I think those of us who stay active but are also heavy can lie to ourselves that if we can move like that we must also still be healthy. As long as the blood work comes back, everything is OK, but like Whitney, I was a ticking time bomb as well. If you happen to watch the show you’ll see her become prediabetic and then even more acutely prediabetic at the start of season two. That was also my wake up call. I had one unusual fasting blood level and my doctor told me that by the time I was 40, if I didn’t shift my diet and lose some weight, I was most likely going to have diabetes.  I quickly did the math and realized that diabetes meant a shorter life, which meant my daughter wouldn’t have a mother for as long as she should, I would be making a selfish choice to stay fat and live a short life and deny her of a mother. Furthermore I would be denying myself the opportunity to see as much of her life as possible before my light went out. On top of tha, weight loss was prescribed to me in order for me to get pregnant. I had to make a choice to either have a family and a life, or to be fat. The rest of the story is obvious.

{yes- these are old 😉}

The funny thing about that is when you’re confronted with a choice of saving your life or staying fat, that the easier choice can be to stay fat so it is incredibly enticing.  For me, I really questioned how important it was for me to have a second baby. I honestly considered having just one kid because the compound failure of failing to lose weight and failing to have a baby was just something I wasn’t sure if I could endure. It wasn’t until I thought of my daughter, who already existed, and for her to be without a mother because I was afraid of failure that I really changed my tune. That, and knowing that I would regret that decision for the rest of my life, were I to choose the road of single kid-dom and fat.  At the very least, I might be thinner and more capable…  So I started.  Even then I had to be private about it. I didn’t tell Bradley that I was starting to lose weight. Instead I lost around 15 pounds before I openly admitted that I was losing weight on purpose.

I’m excited to watch Whitney do the same thing. I’m interested to watch her start being more honest with herself about what she’s doing and how she’s contributing to her health. I saw her own, for the first time, that what she eats and when she eats is terrible (sugar coffee/tea all day and one huge meal at night). Right now she has this monster who she’s allowing to have complete control over her life through the vehicle PCOS, but what she doesn’t realize yet is that she can drive that monster.  I’m watching her turn from a person who is determined to live as the legendary healthy fat girl to being a fat girl who is dealing with very real health issues. Just like I did.  She’s having to make very real decisions that will determine the length and quality of her life.  Like I did.  Watching her struggle just brings it all right back and I know what it is to be in her shoes and it just gives me the serious feels.  There might be some eye leakage, too.  But maybe, just maybe, the truth of the matter is that I have yet to shed my entire fat girl.  What’s really going on is that I am still very much Whitney.  I still look at the world through the same lens as before.  I still struggle and fear all of the things I used to.  I still marvel and gasp at the new things I can do, even though I’ve been ble to do them for years now!  I’m proud of her for exposing the life I lead as a fat girl- complete with explanations of chub rub, of chair fitting, of sweating, of having to consider every little aspect ever. It’s been a pretty amazing show to see and connect to.  

And to be clear- I’m not criticizing Whitney AT ALL.  I’m so proud of her and, quite honestly, a bit jealous that she’s been able to be so open about her life and struggles that I feel like I’m seeing myself, except that it’s like I’m seeing myself four years ago.  I’m watching her do everything I do plus a little more.  Her struggles and experiences are alarmingly similar to mine.  I just love her to pieces and admire her moxie like crazy cakes.  

Lastly, the relationship between her and her parents reminds me so much of how my parents and I used to operate when I was in my early twenties, before I was with Bradley.  We were the three amigos, my parents and I.  We’d meet every day, after workout my apartment to go for a 40 minute walk and talk.  Those were definitely glory days and I appreciate the show for highlighting that special time for me.  Love you mom and dad!!!  ❤️❤️❤️

Not a lot is going on…  I’ve been working out and doing my things.  Things like running, walking, eating right, tracking my meals, playing with my kids.  My things.  The things I’m supposed to be doing!  I was posting every day on my blog without saying a lot and realized it was just noise so I dialed it back a little and all of the sudden five days passed!  What the what?!  Ha ha!  In that time frame I got a lot accomplished!

• I found out at my mystery bleeding was nothing meaningful or terrible.  All my blood work came back perfect.
• I saw a band called Love Bomb Go-Go at my local park and was left speechless.  It was a marching band, a party, a live music performance and invitation to join a space cult all in one.  I may have crushed a little on the guy with the trumpet and shirt with all the cut-outs, but whatever.  It was one of the coolest and most memorable performances I’ve seen in a long time.

• The accountability group met up at a local track on the only rainy day of the week, quite by accident, and had a gorgeously productive walk/run.
• I ran a total of about 8 miles, hiked four and got my steps in every day.  I’m averaging out over three runs per week over the last thirty days, so that feels good that the number is on the rise!

• Bradley and I went on a date without the kids, but with the puppy, and ended up at an alternative maker craft fair, followed by a walk all over the UW campus in Seattle, pretending like we were still 23 and in attendance there.  While I never officially enrolled at the University of Washington, everyone I seriously dated or was close friends with went there except me, so it’s my honorary alma mater.  😉 
• I finally registered for the Snohomish River Run Half Marathon.  It’s happening the second week in October and will be my birthday gift to myself for my 43rd birthday (which will happen 20 days later, but whatever)!  My friend, Jessica, stud that she is, is planning to run it again as well, so it will be nice to have her friendly face there for two years in a row.  Plus?  I love the medal and shirt this year!  I just hope I like the fit of the shirt this year as much as I like last year’s shirt.  It is one of the only race shirts I actually wear.

• Jude and I went on a mother son date.  We painted pottery (he made a Plants Versus Zombie mug for himself and designed the flower motif that I painted on the pot) and then went out to a little cafe for lunch.  I was just kind of making conversation with him, asking him what he likes about summer, what he’s looking forward to, what his best day has been and do you know what he said?  He told me, with tears in his eyes, that this is his favorite day because it was just the two of us and he just loves me so much.  That we never get to do things like this, so today was extra special to him.  I was flabbergasted at his sincerity and sweetness.  That boy.  I’m lucky to have him as a son for life and some lucky girl has an amazing partner in her future.❤️
• Food + tracking + exercise = problem for me…  I find that tracking my food and exercise actually makes me eat more.  I enter in all of my calories consumed, enter in my exercise completed/calories burned and I get all excited about eating something extra! If I could just consume my calories allotted and not eat my calories I’m burning , I might stand a chance this summer. As it stands now, I’m not losing anything.  In fact, I’m still sitting in the 200’s and I’m feeling pretty discouraged about it.  I know how to fix it, but right now I seem to be in a viscious cycle that I’m having a hard time escaping.  On the plus side, I’m exercising my butt off.  On the negative side, my butt is going nowhere as I continue eating and eating!  Just keep swimming, as Dory says!

I don’t know about you, but this whole business of weightloss, diet and exercise was pretty personal to me. It still is, but at the beginning it was almost sacred.  I was afraid of failing, so telling people was terrifying!   When I did finally tell people what I was doing, I was surprised at the responses I got from people who I loved and who I thought loved me.  Certainly, I was held up and encouraged, but I was also warned of potential failures.  I could gain it all back.  I could injure myself running.  I could get started and get derailed.  Many people spoke their own fears to me, laying them on me, one by one, and I absorbed them, worried about them like they were my own before I realized I didn’t have to make their limitations mine, too.  My announcement of my commitment to my health was ignored by some of my closest family members and friends, and still I have one immediate family member who hasn’t said anything ever to me about my transformation.  It hurts and I don’t understand it, but you just pick up the pieces and keep moving forward.  Then there were the people who were competitive.  They would good naturedly say things like they ‘had better get going or I was going to catch up to them’.  They had ‘better hurry otherwise they were going to become the fat friend.’  That before we knew it they would ‘have to keep up with me if they weren’t careful’.  I couldn’t believe what people were willing to say aloud to me as their fears came burbling out.  I could also see, very clearly, how I fit into those people’s lives.  I could see that I was the one who made them feel better by being the incapable, fat one.  If you have a friend who is obese and out of shape, by comparison you look and function better by default, right?  And once I challenged that paradigm, people got uncomfortable and they’d say things.  They weren’t trying to be mean…  I don’t think…

Enough about those people, though, because slowly but surely I’ve been able to create a new community around me.  It’s safe to say that I’ve shed most of the people from my past.  My parents are still in the picture and I have a very few, like 2-3, old friends who remain from my younger years, but otherwise I have a pretty clean slate.  Most of the people who I knew from high school who I am friendly with now are not the same ones I was attached to back then.  The ones I talk to now have all become established as I’ve become a runner and through Facebook they noticed, started talking to me and a foundation of friendship was built.  From there I’ve created and joined a number of running groups that motivate me and give me daily feedback.  

{Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letters G and T, and the number 4.5!}

It’s silly, Facebook and Instagram. I was letting it all go in 2016. I was sick of the fakeness, the judgement and the self censorship I was applying all the time so I wouldn’t annoy people with my posts about losing weight, running, eating healthy, playing with my kids and loving my dashing husband like crazy-cakes! But then I decided to experiment by being that annoying person. I started posting Instagram pictures of my runs because it’s what I love to do more than anything besides be a mom and wife, and in return I started meeting people with similar interest and it became a place I love to visit. I created and joined running groups on Facebook, so now instead of a feed full of ads and grumpy people complaining about the election, I see people sharing funny signs they saw at their most recent marathon, questions about training and celebrating victories. My social media has become flooded with empowerment!  The same thing happened when I started the accountability group.  My feed went from being full of advertisements, random memes and posts about politics to being filled with people’s positive changes they are making in their lives.  I SO don’t get annoyed when people write about their run, workout, diet or other accomplishment.  I feel so happy for the most part!  I may sound overly precious or annoying, but I found Facebook to be a place that I loved that ended up having a lot of rules.  I found that if I kind of started clubs full of people with like interests that it became much more user friendly.  Do you know how different it is to look at a feed full of celebrations instead of complaints?  It’s life changing!  (And if you want to be in the accountability group, friend me and I’ll add you!)

Furthermore, I started this blog, right here, and have met people through comments whom I respect tremendously.  Paula comments like clockwork and is my girl.  She makes me feel like I have a sister in crime out there!  Same with Jess and Lesleigh!  And whenever a new person comments I always get so jazzed, thinking that this might be a new connection!  If I were under the age of 30 I would probably call them my squad or something!  

I also started seeing Instagram as a tremendously powerful way for me to connect with other runners.  I follow Olympian runners, mama runners, college coaches and  competitors, hikers, adventurers, ultra runners, and, let’s face it, some straight up hotties along with everyone else in between.  As the views from all of their adventures filter in, I am moved.  Moved to run more.  Try harder.  Go further.  Smell more flowers, see more trees, count more blossoms… Somehow I’ve become connected to a bunch of runners in Quebec and we go on rampages of looking through one another’s feeds, admiring and liking the views we share with one another.  I feel part of something.  And it moves me, again and again, when people whom I admire greatly, great athletes who run far and long, when they come back and comment on my slow burn of a long eight miler, I don’t even know why it moves me like it does but I feel so proud.  I feel unexpectedly included.

When Bradley and I stepped away from our negative relationships several years ago it was really scary.  We  felt like we were so alone.  We aggressively pursued friendships and failed, again and again, over and over  until we just looked at one another, joined hands and realized our little foursome is as good as it’s ever going to get and that was pretty stinking good.  But what I didn’t realize at all was that I could have a different kind of meaningful relationship with people.  The connections I have with people now are largely online, yes, but I don’t believe they’re any less powerful.  In fact, I believe that because I can be so intentional that I get more from and give more to the relationships I’ve fostered through networking online.  I suppose if people can meet, fall in love and get married from meeting on Instagram or Facebook, certainly I can allow my online relationships that foster my love of health and running to have significance and importance in my life, too, and it’s nice to know that I’m very much part of a community. I have a greater sense of belonging than I had ever anticipated. ❤️

I don’t want to say this so I will: I need to get more serious about my food.  I’m letting so much slide down my throat  lately that I think I’m building up some bad habits that are going to be hard to break.  For example: tonight my daughter made tacos.  I ate one taco, then a second taco, then I had to sample her seven layer dip that she also made.  It was so good that I had about 12 chips-worth (because it is intended to be eaten on chips, right!?) and followed it up with a cookie.  And a bite of ice cream.  And a promise of an ice cream cone later.  😳 As I was hanging out with my full-of-tacos-stomach, thinking about the ice cream cone that is lurking in my near future, I realized that I’ve got to get this in control.  I’m trying to figure out how much time needs to pass before it is reasonable to have the ice cream.  I don’t have room for it in my stomach but I still want it.  How silly is that?!  And hullo, binge behavior!  I know you well!  Crap.  Not a good thing…  That said, I know that I like to take things slow, so I’m thinking that I’ll get the exercise habit going this week and next week I’ll tackle the nutrition with some solid journaling.  Actually, I think I’ll start journaling tomorrow, if only to learn what I’m really consuming in comparison to my working out.  I think I’m probably doing better than I think I am, but my weight is still up over 200 (203 this morning) so, no matter what, I know there’s some food issues happening.  Journaling my nutrition will only give clarity to the dark places.

Speaking of working out, I am on point for it this week!  Today we did a walk-run.  I was planning on a short, two-miler or so, but Bradley asked to come so I decided to make it a 5k, thinking he wanted a solid workout.  After about a mile his knee started acting up, so he walked and I ran back and forth to him, around him, up a side street and back to him as we made our way home.  I was cranky when we left and by the time we got back home everything was all good again.  I had planned to start Zumba in earnest again but noticed that as soon as I went to a class my lower back started hurting again.  As much as I love Zumba, I’m not sure it’s my thing as much as I want it to be, so tomorrow I think I’ll stick with running, again, except this time I’ll make Gigi run with me!

Title reference?  Didja get it?

Explicit❤️