Friday, May 21, 2010

Time Off

I have had a couple really good workouts in a row. Like seriously the best couple workouts I’ve had in ages and I was shocked that after only a couple weeks my body is reacting the way it is. Sure, I’m still carrying around too much extra weight, and I am no where near where I once was, but perhaps my body hasn’t completely forgotten how fit it used to be. I actually smiled the other night because I realized that after only 10 workouts I was able to run for a period of time without stopping. On Wednesday night I got on the treadmill and ran for 40 minutes straight. I then walked 5 and then ran 10 more. I felt pretty dang good about that. For whatever reason I had great energy. Then last night, despite thinking I wouldn’t really be able to hit it to hard, I managed to run for 30 minutes, walk 5, run another 10, walk 5, run another 5. Basically I ran a total of 45 minutes in 60 minutes… Not bad at all. I am improving every day and I do love that.

However, I am debating whether I am going to exercise this evening or not. I have worked out 4 days in a row, putting in all these good numbers:

Monday: 60 minutes (run 45), 5.57 miles, 765 cal
Tuesday: 60 minutes (run 35) 5.25 miles, 700 cal
Wednesday: 65 minutes (run 50), 6.1 miles, 835 cal
Thursday: 65 minutes (run 45), 5.67 miles, 765 cal

I am sure I could take a break today, but I have a fear that come the weekend I won’t be exercising so it’s easier for me to stick to my go to work, come home and exercise routine. I guess it will be a last minute decision.

I am presently sucking on a Berry Fulfilling Jamba Juice so perhaps that will give me a little extra energy? It’s a big maybe, but who knows. More than anything its mind over matter. Not sure what will win out at 5:30 when I get home.

Over the last two days a big change has already occurred in my life. It seems on Wednesday one of my bosses told me that I am going to have to go to part time work for a while. They need to up their cash flow a little bit and they can’t afford to pay me. Not that it’s a big salary, it’s not. I make $12 an hour, but I totally understand. The truth is, I adore my job so I am willing to work with them as they are going to work with me. My schedule will be one week work Monday thru Thursday 8 hours a day for a total of 32 hours. The next week I will work a grand total of 7 hours. This is how much I can work and not have it affect my unemployment for the week. Basically I am going to claim unemployment for that week. My 7 hours will be totally at my discretion. Answering e-mails and phone calls and running into the office once or twice and picking up the mail. I am working from home for the week.

The bottom line is that my salary will decrease a little, probably around $150-$200 a month. Now, when you don’t make a lot that is a lot of money, but I am not in such a bad position that this really affects me that much. I have spent the last year of my life getting myself into a better financial situation so that this doesn’t really hit me hard. I am actually excited. The reality is for the $150-$200 a month I only have to work ½ time. Yeah, that’s a good deal. This is not permanent, so I won’t get too used to it, but for the time being I’m excited. This starts next week. As I have worked full time this week, next week is my first official 7 hour work from home week. I am looking forward to the first week just cleaning the house, being able to exercise earlier in the afternoon and being able to coupon a little more. Honestly I’m not sure how much my lifestyle is really going to change, but I don’t have to go into the office so that is nice.

I almost feel like I’m getting a paid vacation, which is something I don’t normally have. I will however be on their beck and call so it might end up annoying me, we will see. I love my job so it’s worth hanging in there with them thru the next couple months.

I have an hour left of work for the day and then I get to go home and have a weekend, and then a 7 hour work week, and then another weekend. Not too shabby. Chris keeps asking me what I’m going to do with all my free time. I just say, exercise, coupon and keep the house clean. He says, is that it? I say that’s perfectly enough for me. It’s like suddenly I should take up a new hobby? Nope, I mostly am going to enjoy being lazy for a little while before I consider doing anything else.

Tomorrow I plan on organizing the shit out of my coupons, although since I have more time next week I might not be in too big of a hurry, but I definitely have to go to Target, need to hit up Albertsons, probably do a Walgreens trip and maybe Safeway… Just to finish off the deals for this week before Sunday brings on new deals for me.

Also next week happens to be my 31st birthday and my actual birthday happens to be the day Sex and the City 2 opens which I’m pretty dang excited about. And for some odd reason on a random Thursday the 27th my mom has it off and Chris doesn’t have to work and now apparently I don’t have to work so I guess there’s no reason that during the day on Thursday we can’t go see an earlier showing of the movie. It was always my plan to see the movie on my b-day since I really couldn’t think of a more fabulous “gift” for myself.

Now if this weather would just cooperate with me. It’s downright miserable outside right now. Pouring rain. It is depressing and makes me want to snuggle up and eat. Bad weather! I guess my body is leaning towards no exercise, but we will ultimately see. If I go home at 5:30, Chris doesn’t get home until 7:00, and that really is a danger zone with eating for me which is probably why I developed the healthy habit of working out when I get home to begin with. I know I don’t want to eat when I get home because I am already a few extra points high for the day. I did stop for that unplanned Jamba so there is 2 extra points I hadn’t budgeted for. I am feeling the munchies and don’t need to turn my 2 over into 10 over. I am sure I can survive.

I am happy it’s the weekend and even more happy that I get some time off. Yeah!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Unexpected Expectations

Just have time for a quick little update as work has been pretty busy today. I have lots to do and as per usual not really enough time to do it in. I am finding these last two weeks with the whole trying to balance this weight watchers stuff with exercise and with my obsession for couponing that something has to give. I know this is not an unusual or foreign concept to anyone, just a reality. I can not give two major things in my life, that being weight watchers stuff and couponing stuff 100% off my focus. They each suffer a smidge. I have been focusing really hard on the healthy stuff lately and therefore have mentally set aside Saturday in my brain to refocus on my couponing efforts. I will clean out the coupons, clip coupons, prepare some deal scenarios, and do some shopping. Saturday is that day. I am just muddling along until then. Sunday I have another wedding shower to attend so again with the time being stretched thin. At least this one is not at my mom’s house so I can leave whenever I want and don’t have to clean up after it, or prepare for it, etc. So that should make the whole experience better.

Anyhow, I haven’t posted for a couple days so I should point out that Monday night I had an AMAZING run. I suspect that’s because I took Saturday and Sunday off from exercising so not shockingly Monday I was totally in the grove and felt great. I think that particular hard work paid off, or rather my work all week because I have to say I was completely totally shocked yesterday when I went to weight watchers and got on the scale to see that in my second week I had again lost 4.4 pounds. Yup, two weeks in a row losing 4.4 pounds. The leader just looked at me and said, “How’d you do that?” As if there was a secret I wasn’t sharing or rather I must have gone out and had lypo performed during the week, but only enough to remove a few extra pounds… Like I completely know the answer to that. The only thing that sprung to mind and I quickly blurted out was “Well, I am a runner. I love to run.” Not that I can come anywhere close to what I was doing previously. I feel fortunate when I can string together 10-20 minutes of running non stop in a row. I tend to run for 10-20 minutes, walk 5, run 10, walk 5, run 10, walk 5, run 5, walk 5… .etc. Anyhow, the reality is that I am a runner and I suspect that it is definitely this love that keeps the scale moving in a positive direction.

I was moments away from hearing the typical, you shouldn’t lose so much weight so fast speech from the leader when she looked at my numbers, heard me say runner and then decided to instead say, “We need to monitor this to make sure you aren’t losing to fast but we will see how you do next week.”

I wanted to blurt out and perhaps depending on how next week goes I will, look lady this is my fourth official time, probably 10th unofficial time restarting this program. This lifestyle has been engrained in my brain for 6 plus years. I know my body, I know what it can handle, I know how it reacts to things. I’ve got this covered. It’s really not a criticism of the leader I completely know she is just doing her job, but losing 4.4 pounds two weeks in a row is okay for me. I don’t honestly believe that next week will bring anything close to that. To be honest I was pretty shocked myself. I was expecting 2-3 pounds. 4.4 was a nice surprise which I will gladly take.

I have been weighing myself but depending on placement in the room and a variety of factors there is just no consistency and therefore I have chosen to let it go. I check in, but I am not anally comparing, making notes and charts or any such compulsive behavior. I am just letting it be, which is nice. Especially nice when you are so pleasantly surprised at weigh-in.

That means I am down 8.8 pounds. I have set a mini-goal that might be unreachable, but I think honestly I can do it. I can do anything I really set my mind to. My cousin is getting married July 10th. I want to have lost 25 pounds by then. This means I would have 16.2 pounds to lose in the next 7 official weigh-ins. That’s a little over 2 pounds a week. Yes, high on the scale of expectations but possible for me. The sad truth is that only puts me half way to my goal. Yup, would still have another 25 plus pounds to lose, but I am not thinking that far ahead. One freaking weigh-in at a time. Except for the 25 pound goal in 7 more weeks. I can manage that and it is nice to have goals.

I think splitting my energies between weight loss and couponing are going to help me out this time around. I can’t get 100% crazy about either and it actually puts me at a normal level with some of my behaviors. That is nice for a change. After weight watchers last night I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a few items and then headed home where I started out pretty pitiful on the treadmill. Took a break, and came back to it later to finish up a nice solid 62 minutes, 35 of them ran, 5.25 miles, 700 calories burned. That is a solid workout for me. I am considering solid anything around 5 miles.

The best part is that while I can’t actually see any difference in my body in these two weeks (I am not surprised or worried about this fact), what makes me happy is that I am starting to see the return of my calve muscles. The ones that I used to love so dearly, the ones the showed I was a runner and strong. Well after only two weeks they are starting to return and that puts a smile on my face. Imagine what I can do when I get rid of this extra 50 pounds I am carrying around. Imagine how my body is going to perform…. I am looking forward to that.

After my workout I had wonderful delicious spaghetti with bread. So freaking good. I have to say I am loving ground turkey with a passion these days. We ate dinner while watching Lost. I am so sad that there is only the finale left. It has been so good, probably because it is explaining and leading up to the finale. Anyhow, I heart my Lost characters and will miss them tons.

Tonight’s agenda is home, run some, (we will see what my body will let me do after two days of solid workouts in a row), shower, change the bed sheets, do some laundry, clean up the room a little, Not sure what’s for dinner. Maybe a quesadilla? Perhaps a wrap of some sort… I have like 30 packages of whole wheat mission tortillas I got for free a few weeks back. So anything with tortillas floats my boat.

I find I am most calm and peaceful with myself when I have these set routines. I never feel happier, better, or more alive than when I am exercising and working towards good health. I don’t know why I ever give that up.

Monday, May 17, 2010

New Shoes

I just did something out of character for me as of late, I made an online purchase for something. I bought myself a new pair of workout shoes. I like to start out with a good fresh clean pair of new shoes, so I went ahead and purchased these:

I should be getting them in a couple days. I really like New Balance and I think these are pretty cute. I also think its good to have 2 pairs of workout shoes to rotate thru. I might feel guilty later about this purchase but I just know that I needed something new for me. It's hard to get too upset about buying workout shoes. I have lots of pairs of old ones that are nasty and worn. I think its important to keep fresh shoes on your feet for working out. I can't wait to get them. They are New Balance WR378, for what that's worth. I just like lightweight shoes with the mesh top so that they breath well. I guess this is my special treat for going back to weight watchers and exercising again. I must use them now, but I have no doubt I will.

Puffy Eyes

I feel like I blinked and missed the entire weekend. I am back at work today and I feel like I am just picking right back up where Friday afternoon left off. Funny how that happens. With the exception of being so downright tired that I ALMOST called my bosses and didn’t come to work today. This would be the very first time in a year and a half, almost two years that I would ever have called in sick to work. I have taken days off but they were all pre-arranged ahead of time. I have never once woken up and decided not to go to work. When I worked at the school district I would do it quite often, but then again I actually had sick days so it was more acceptable. I don’t work, I don’t get paid these days and I rather like my financial plan I have worked out which requires getting paid all my money. So there you have the real reason I haven’t ever called in sick to work.

Anyhow, this weekend went by in a blaze and I am going to omit a lot of the nitty gritty, or rather the stuff that is not for sharing. The bottom line is this, Friday after work I went home and I ran. It was one of the first hot days we’ve actually had here in Oregon in a while and my body was not used to that heat. Then put me in a small bedroom with the door shut, with the treadmill going, TV on, one small fan and pretty soon, with all the sweating, bring on heat stroke… Okay, just kidding, but I did realize too late that this was not the brightest plan. When I got off the treadmill I did want to pass out. I did 60 minutes, ran 30 of them, for a total of 5 miles, 635 calories. I showered where I made sure the water was actually cold so that I didn’t pass out in there and hit my head or something stupid. Got ready and headed over to my mom’s where my sister and her boyfriend were. Three of my cousins actually came over, my cousins who are like brothers to me. We hung out for a while. We had bar-b-que dinner. Chicken, bread, vegetables, potatoes, the whole works and it was lovely.

Saturday was a blur. Seriously a blur. There was a distinct lack of sleep Friday night which made my Saturday one tired groggy blur. My other sister and her husband from down south came up with their kiddos and somehow by the afternoon I was hanging out with the kids, playing. They dropped off their kids and headed up to visit my brother in laws family while my mom babysat for the night. I adore those kids. They are perfect. While, they are children and therefore by nature not perfect, but I love them anyway. I was just exhausted the whole time. Saturday was not perfect eating wise, but it wasn’t horrible either. I did have some Panda Express where I chose the healthiest possible option of mixed veggies, mushroom chicken and veggie spring rolls. I snacked on cereal straight out of the box which is always a down fall for me. At least it was corn flakes, which are relatively okay for you. Nothing frosted or sugared. I didn’t measure as my hand just went into the box for scoops. I counted it as 4 points (2 cups worth at 110 calories per cup). There was no exercise as it proved hard enough to just keep my eyes open.

Sunday was yet another cousins wedding shower at my mom’s house. The morning was spent cleaning up and preparing foods, and getting ready. I tried very consciously to not indulge in foods. As my mom is on weight watchers with me the food choices selected were veggie and fruit platters so not bad. The thing is, I like fruit quite a lot, and it does have calories. But honestly, snacking on berries and watermelon just isn’t that horrible of a thing. I avoided the punch that had calories and instead drank zero calorie flavored fresca soda. I did eat lots of fruit. Then for the “cake” we had angel food cake with low fat whipped cream and berries. Not too bad of choices either. I just had the one piece and it was mighty good. Again no exercise.

Hanging out with my family can prove to be difficult on the eating front as after the exhausting day my sisters wanted pizza. I love pizza. I mean who doesn’t love pizza? I went with my sister to pick up the pizza. (We headed to Walgreens first to get a couple deals for the day that we didn’t get to do in the AM) Sunday is usually my serious couponing/shopping day. Anyhow, I had to go into the pizza place with her and it smelled delicious. On the car ride back with pizza smelling up the car, I was like you had to take the WW girl with you on your pizza run :) But honestly it was fine.

We came back home and I did have a piece of pizza. One small piece of pepperoni and mushroom pizza. It was what it was and it was really good. But I only had one small piece so you know, not too bad.

Again with the tired so I didn’t exercise. Weekends are hard on the exercise front, especially weekends with so much family around. It just usually doesn’t happen. That is part of life and that is fine. But I am still exhausted. The weekend was non-existent. The house is a mess, clothes need to be put way, rugs need vacuumed, etc. But I also REALLY need to exercise tonight. I also totally want to sleep for days, but hopefully soon I will start to wake up some.

I can’t believe its Monday already and I seriously feel like the weekend didn’t happen. I closed my eyes and suddenly its Monday. I have no idea what the scale is going to do. With that said, its not as if I haven’t been scale hopping, I have, but if you don’t remember the last numbers and you aren’t sure what the actual number is compared to the weight watchers numbers and if it depends on the time of the day and clothed vs. Naked then all the numbers are really pointless. That is about where I’m at. I have no idea what the number is as I have seen so many different numbers and sometimes my scale gives me a really bizarre number depending on where I place it on the bathroom floor, floors must be uneven or something, as it can read 10 pounds different depending on placement. There really is no way to judge accuracy. Therefore, tomorrow evenings weigh-in will almost be a blind weigh-in as well. However, I am guessing somewhere between 2-3 pounds. Given the lack of motivation and energy the past couple days I am sure that is fine. I do plan on having a good day today with everything, so maybe that will help some.

That’s about all I got for the day. Just want to wake up and find some amount of motivation.

Friday, May 14, 2010

I Shall Believe

I feel like the last couple days my heart hasn’t been 100% invested in this weight watchers thing. Sure, I’ve been doing fine point wise, but I don’t think I’ve been eating the healthiest foods in general. I can feel it. My body knows that I’ve been slacking. Tuesday night I had a great run. Then Wednesday my body started stressing out on me and Wednesday night I managed an okay run… I did do 5 miles, not all running, only about ½ running. Whatever it was fine. But then yesterday I woke up not feeling all that well and I had zero energy all day. I am thinking probably a combination of lack of good food choices, lack of good sleep, and too much stress on the system. I was just beat last night and all I could manage to do was walk for 30 minutes, 2 miles, 200 calories burned. Less than impressive. But at least I did something, right?

My body is really craving a great weight watchers day. Probably as much for my physical well being as my mental well being. I need something to be proud of. I need a good day to log in the old memory bank to go, oh yeah, you can and are successful at this. Like I said, I have not gone over my daily points, I have exercised some, so yeah its all fine, its just the quality isn’t there and the stress level has increased the past couple days.

Here’s an interesting thing to note…. I have spent the last year of my life eating my stress to the point of an extra 50 pounds…. Yeah, there’s your first clue that things are really not right in the world of Emily. 50 extra pounds…. You can probably make an educated guess as to what my actually number is but that’s really not the point. In one year, I ATE every negative thought and feeling and walked away 50 pounds heavier which made my brain feel 50 pounds worse. I would hate my body in the mirror, hate what I’ve done to myself, cry, and then promptly eat more. I felt helpless yet again. Worse than all that I have retreated from society pretty much fully. When I weigh an extra 50 pounds I do not want to be out in the world. I judge myself too harshly.

Anyhow, back to my point. My point is the last week and half I haven’t been able to eat my stress because I simply won’t allow it now. Do you know how my stress has decided to manifest itself? First, one day this week I bit my upper lip, kept biting it all day to the point that by the end of the day it was swollen and puffy. Nice.

Secondly, for the past month I think I’ve developed a stress eye twitch. It has dramatically increased the last week and a half. I can’t eat my feelings so my body is twitching my eye. Nice. I think basically I am stressed and I just need to badly to complete a really good sweaty solid run to pump up my spirits and release some of my extra tension. I was just too tired and defeated last night to even attempt it. Maybe tonight? I say maybe because my youngest sister and her boyfriend are coming. She lives 4 hours away and she is coming to stay with my mom for the weekend. Her boyfriend just got back from a year of duty in Iraq. Yup, he’s a soldier. Anyway, he’s a great guy so it would be nice to go see them. Even if my body is really craving a solid blood pumping run. Of course I am craving that this minute, but we will see in 7 hours how I really feel. That’s a long time from now actually.

I heard Jillian say it on The Biggest Loser and I know it’s true, our bodies don’t perform well when we are under stress. The scale is not kind to stress. So on top of all the drama, which really never does seem to leave my life, I will have to endure whatever the consequence is on the scale for all this drama. And maybe I’ll even have a lovely eye twitch to go with it :)

Anyhow, I am determined to make today about better choices. I am a smart educated almost 31 year old. Wow, my birthday is now less than 2 weeks away. I am going to be freaking 31 years old. I am not married. I am fat. While I have made tons of positive strides this last year, I still feel like I have a long way to go to finding my happiness again. I am sure I will, I am sure the waters will be quite mucky but I think I can. I am strong and capable. I can do this. I need to remove the negative influences in my life. I need to clear my space to only allow positive happy thoughts to get in. I need to run. I need to run, not away from my problems, but towards them. I need to battle and conquer my demons once and for all. I’m getting to old for this shit. I deserve to be happy, healthy, and the best possible version of myself.

I CAN do this.

I want to look in the mirror and smile again. I want to be able to run my hands over my body and not want to puke. I want to get rid of the gut. Ugh, the spare tire is exactly where all the fat goes for me. I am sure I can manage thru this weekend just fine, I just want to eat healthy foods and exercise. Is that too much to ask? We will see.

“Not everything is going to be the way you think it ought to be” – Cheryl Crowe, I Shall Believe

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Fourty dollars to weigh

Well now, week 1 is officially behind me. I lost 4.4 pounds. This is a good solid week 1 number. I’ll take it. If you consider how much yo-yoing I’ve put my body thru its pretty amazing that I can still manage that. I’ve just got to keep going along doing what I’ve been doing. I will say I’ve decided that my meeting is AWFUL and after giving it a two week try I am now officially saying I will no longer be staying. It is like ½ an hour of pulling teeth. It’s that bad. Yeah, I could always try and find another meeting, but hell this time works for me so I’ll just go and weigh-in and be done with it. It’s always an amazing concept to me that I need to pay someone $40 a month just to weigh me. Why can’t I do it on my own with my own scale? Truly bizarre as I’ve realized that clearly I can’t do it on my own. I need that accountability. $40 a month down the drain. But at least it’s getting me to commit to this finally after a year.

Last night I was tired after my meeting but decided that I was going to exercise anyway. I figured that hopefully I’d start exercising and feeling better and I wouldn’t be so tired anymore. I also figured if I was still that tired then I’d just stop. Basically Monday night I had a bad workout. I could only manage to do 30 minutes and that was all I had motivation for. I figured it was fine. But last night once I got on the treadmill things definitely picked up. I ran 45 out of 62 minutes, did a total of 5.5 miles, 750 calories burned. I kept my workout clothes on intentionally and later in the evening, before hitting my shower, I got myself on there for 15 more minutes. I just wanted to run 1 more mile. So yeah, a total of 15 min, 1.25 miles, 175 calories. Pretty good for an evening especially with this out of shape body. But I’m working on it and just feel happy that I can accomplish as much as I do. I know not everyday is going to be these good of workouts so I’ll take them when I get them.

It’s hard to consistently be motivated I suppose. Oh, don’t get me wrong I’m not at all tempted to eat crap or anything right now. I flipped the switch so to speak where it’s not even something I am considering. It’s like all unhealthy food is dead to me. It’s a game. I think I must secretly be a crazy game player. I like number games played out in my head. Points, dollars, coupons. Oh yeah I’ve become a crazy coupon gal. I get pretty much everything for free and don’t want to pay a dime for any product these days. It’s crazy. I have a mathematical brain that can figure out deals and of course foods and calories pretty damn well. It’s scary how good I can be at things at times. It does scare me because I know inevitably I will crash and burn because my levels of intensity are not something that can be kept up long term. There has never been a single project my entire life that I could keep up at the crazy pace I usually set for myself. It’s always a race to finish because I’m afraid I won’t finish if I don’t give it my all because my momentum always wears out.

The fortunate part is, I’ve always been able to accomplish my ww “goal”, I just can’t keep the weight off. Hell, maybe this time, right? Wonders never do cease. I mean for the first time in my life, over the past 9 months, I have somehow managed to get my finances in the best place they’ve ever been in. I am NOT a finance girl. I am a spend everything I’ve got girl, but over the past 9 months I’ve managed to change that. I have been so good with my money. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not have a lot of money. I don’t make that much money and certainly there’s not that much to go around, but I’ve been able to save a little money for the first time in my life. I feel a great sense of accomplishment over that. So I suppose change really is possible. I’d say if you really want it, it’s possible. I don’t know why after 30 years of my life I was finally able to make such a drastic change, but I did. And I am the better for it.

Anyhow, someday I’ll explain my couponing ways, but that’s time consuming and difficult and honestly might make me sound like the OCD girl I am. (Obsessive Compulsive). Another time perhaps. All I can say is that I wanted some breakfast bars of some sort, and this week, starting today, Safeway had Kashi Go Lean bars on sale for $2 a box, and with coupons, and then buying another product that made money I was able to get 4 boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and 4 boxes of Kashi Go Lean Bars for $1.00. I will get rid of the Corn Flakes but I kind of needed to buy them to make the Kashi cheaper. It’s a complex story. The end result is I paid $1.00 for my 4 boxes of bars. This is probably why my finances are in the best shape of their life, because I get most all of my stuff for free or very cheap.

I am thinking about hitting up Jack in the Box or Wendy’s for a lunchtime salad. Haven’t had a good yummy hearty salad yet since on weight watchers and I think it might be time. We will see what tonight brings in terms of motivation for my treadmill time. It’s always a challenge, but for now I’ll just take my 4.4 pound loss and keep going.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Successful weekend

It’s Monday morning and I am actually feeling pretty dang good. What a difference one week makes. Seriously. Okay, it hasn’t been an entire week yet, but pretty close. These are the things I am most proud of over the last couple days.

1. I have NOT gotten on a scale even once. I have zero idea what my weight is and that actually makes staying on program and not hating myself easier. I know I’m doing well and I have no scale to tell me differently.

2. I had major panic/phobia that I was not going to be able to exercise. It has been a year but I am doing much better than I thought.

3. The quality and quantity of my evening dinners has been most impressive and leaving me feeling satisfied and like I’m not even dieting.

So now I want to elaborate on my three points above. The first is that I have never done weight watchers without massive scale hoping. I am not saying it’s going to continue this way my entire journey but I am enjoying the excitement of not knowing what the scale is actually going to say and just riding the high of doing good for my body. Yeah.

Now the exercise stuff. I think I told myself I wasn’t going to focus on exercise this week because I didn’t know how hard the food stuff would be and I didn’t want to disappoint myself. Now by no means am I anywhere near the physical shape I was a year ago. Yes, it really has been an entire year, but I am here to say that anyone who thinks their present weight should/would/can/will stop them from exercising is wrong. I am proof of that.

I weigh far more than I should. FAR more. So much that I am embarrassed to even admit it. I am not my heaviest weight ever but I am close enough that it could bring tears to my eyes if I hadn’t known I had done it to myself. If I didn’t believe in my heart that I was going to reverse this I probably would be crying my eyes out knowing the scary number. Anyhow, the point is I am heavy. Heavier than one who ran their heart out a year ago. But when you gain weight, your insides never really change. My insides still have all the passion and desire of a bonified runner. A dedicated exercise enthusiast who loves the run. I love running, I love running when I’m smaller, and I love running when I weigh more. I just love to run.

It’s hard. It’s hard right now. It won’t be this hard forever. As the weight comes off and my endurance builds up it WILL get easier. I am looking forward to that. The only thing that made me want to cry last night after working out for the third time in four days was once my Garmin downloaded all my exercise data to the computer I got to see all my fitness charts from a year ago and I was DAMN good at this. When you are neurotic and living it you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone. I had no idea who good and how amazing what I was accomplishing was. I wish I hadn’t let that part of me go, but I will get her back. I wanted to cry because I saw all those numbers and that made me really sad. But I can’t dwell on the past, all I have is the present and the future and I will get her back. I know it.

Last night I was determined to enjoy myself. I ended up doing 65 minutes on the treadmill, where I ran 45 of that. This felt amazing. I did intervals a lot. I started out running a solid 15 minutes, 5 of walking, 10 running, 5 walking, 5 running, and so on. I was amazingly proud of what I accomplished. 5.5 miles and 750 calories burned. I loved every moment of it. Despite all the extra weight I’m carrying around making it harder on me, I enjoyed it. This is how I know I will find me again.

The last couple nights my dinners have been amazing. The fresh artisan French bread at Safeway is only 8 points for an entire loaf. This means you can have a quarter of this long piece of bread for only 2 points. I have been greatly enjoying this! It is amazing with a little I can’t believe it’s not butter then garlic salt. Delish. This goes even better with spaghetti with healthy ground turkey. Wonderful stuff. The amounts of food are generous and filling.

Can you tell I have some excitement for this right now? I am going to roll with it and enjoy the moments of healthy high. I am heading out the door right now to run errands. Oh, life is grand, Can you see the exercise high is already making me happier!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Broken Record

Are you ready for the broken record? I mean, it just keeps replaying the same moment over and over again. Last night I got on the treadmill because I was actually knowingly deluding myself thinking that I wasn't going to exercise until next week. Yeah, that was never going to happen. And yeah, it was hard. Yeah I could tell I have tons of extra weight I’m packing around. Yeah, it wasn’t a glorious mighty run. But it was good. It was REALLY good.

45 minutes, I ran about 20 of those minutes, did 3.5 miles. Burned 415 calories. My garmin does still work. Yeah, it took me about ½ an hour to get reacquainted with the features, change a battery, etc., but it was worth it for the data. I am a data queen. Anyhow, the best part was suddenly, here comes the broken record, I instantly felt like me again. I felt amazing and alive and great. It is hard. It is never easy to exercise, but it is that good kind of hard. I can honestly say that the exercise high I got after I had finished was the happiest I’ve felt in a year. Yeah, I quit exercising about a year ago and until that moment last night didn’t remember how much I NEED that in my life. How good it makes me feel and how despite my best efforts to duplicate that rush, I am in fact unable to mimic the true high I get from a good sweaty workout.

I cried. Yes, its two fold. Sure I cry at a drop of a hat, but I cried on the treadmill because I was so happy to be on the road to me again. I also cried because I embarked down the Biggest Loser path. You see, I have always steadfastly not been able to watch a moment of the Biggest Loser while not exercising. Just something engrained in my head. So needless to say, I haven’t watched any of the current season. They are all there, on my DVR box, mostly taunting me. I had always planned to save them for when I decided to finally get my ass back in gear. I now the seasons pretty much almost over but how exciting to have the entire thing to watch. And yes, I cried. I can’t help it. So many moments made me want to cry, coupled with the reality that it has been a year and I’m finally finding myself again. Yeah, tears.

I hate that I seem to forget how much I need this in my life. I hate that somewhere along the line it becomes work and in my head an impossible task. I only need to do it to realize how important it is to my emotional well-being. I find many other things to pass my time, pretending that I can live my life and am happy being fat. It just isn’t an option for me. I muddle thru well enough, but ultimately I turn into a social recluse, I am uncomfortable in my own skin and I retreat. I hide away because my own guilt is too much to bear. I don’t care if someone is overweight, but I care how horrible it makes me feel.

This is day 3 of being back at it and I feel a huge sense of relief and contentment because I don’t go down this path without being successful. I will find my way back to goal weight and back of running long distances. I will find my way back to the me I happiest being. I love the girl who comes home from work, slips into her workout clothes and goes for a run. I love the girl who isn’t so ashamed of her body that she has actual confidence in dealing with the rest of her life.

I think I’ve said all these things a million and one times before. I mean, I realize this is officially the 4th time I’ve restarted weight watchers. And did you know on all 3 previous attempts I did make goal weight. I just could never make it stick. I won’t promise it is sticking this time, as its only day 3, but I am certain that in time I will make goal weight again. When I put my mind to something I achieve it. I have always been capable of that.

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m not even sweating the weekend, my resolve is that good right now. I am so excited to have a nice loss on Tuesday that eating something I shouldn’t isn’t even an option. That is the great thing about the first week; it’s always new and exciting. I am going to ride this high as long as I can. God knows it’s going to be quite a challenging summer for me in terms of events so I need all the momentum I can get. I have two cousins weddings this summer, going to be big old parties, my youngest sister graduates from college on June 5th. Chris’s birthday is May 25, mine is May 27. With those weddings come showers and parties. Next weekend is Weddings Shower 1. The following weekend is wedding shower 2. I will manage thru it, because this is the person I am happiest being. The one who cares.

I am just afraid of how my body is going to react to all the abuse I’ve put it thru over the last couple years, the yo-yo train of weight and of course I am now in my 30’s. I am not 24 like I was when I first started weight watchers. My body is older and put up with a shitload more abuse over the past 6 years. I haven’t been worried about what the scale will say, but that’s probably because I’ve been doing good and NOT weighing myself. I actually don’t even have an urge to weigh myself yet. So that’s a good thing. I am bound and determined to keep it that way until Tuesday night’s weigh-in. The anticipation will keep things exciting and fresh and keep me honest with myself. No cheating myself out of things I need for fear of a scale. It’s good to be a little older, wiser. It’s quite honestly GOOD to be back.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Protocol Child

Last night was actually successful. you see the past couple weeks I said I was going to go to weight watchers on Tuesday and somehow completely managed to avoid it. I went last night. Probably spurred on by the notion that mom was going with me and I had told my sister Jen and Chris that I was going. I don't fail when I decide to do things. That is both good and bad. It is often my downfall. The point is. I gave up a healthy way of living a year ago and never looked back. The scale showed that year long break. I knew it did. I'm not retarded.... Well, kind of because it’s awfully retarded to gain back all the weight you've lost and keep losing and gaining... but nonetheless the point is I know I've gained it back. Now I know that I will take it off again. Just as sure as anything, I have decided for whatever reason to do this again so I'm going to do it. Once I decide to do something I somehow do manage to accomplish it.

I am also not going to delude myself. This is going to be much harder this time because I am almost 31 years old. I have fucked with my body repeatedly and it probably will show me no mercy. Up, down, exercise like a mad woman; eat like a mad woman.... no consistency. My body is a mess internally because of it, but a girl has got to try. I am not going to say the number out loud yet, but I am sure I will at some point. Just give it time. I did sign up for the monthly pass, so I am fully committed now :) I have my 3 month journal and I'm all set. Well kind of. Haven't exactly decided yet what foods I should be eating. That might not come until this weekend when I can fully give it some time. Until then I will muddle thru with a Subway lunch run or a Wendy's salad or something to that affect. While I have given up this life for a year, it is so engrained in me that its old habit to know what I should be eating. I have points memorized in my head floating around all over the place.

I can and will do this. I have to. For the last 3 months I've just been saying to myself, "I just want to be me again." I am pretty sure that me I'm referring to is the healthy, happy Emily who runs and eats well and likes her body and therefore takes care of herself, and wears cute clothes and cares about her hair and makeup. That girl checked out a long time ago and I want her back. She is the best version of me and I really do miss her. I'll find her again. I am certain of that.

I have willpower, control and motivation like you wouldn't believe when I decide that is my priority. It's time.

I am determined to not step on any scale this week. I don't want any of that messing with my crazy head. I did learn that much last time around. Just let the meeting scale guide me. I don't need to let crazy weekly numbers pull my focus. At least for now, none of this I weight X amount in the mornings naked, I weight X amount mornings clothed. I weight X amount after work clothed, X amount naked... X amount after exercise, X amount after dinner.... well, you get the point. Those numbers are all pretty bogus. The official number is the one written in that book and that's all that I care about for right now.

I can do this. I want to do this and that is a phrase I have not uttered for a while. It's going to be okay. The protocol child has returned.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Return of the Dead

Tomorrow after work I will go to my first weight watchers meeting in a very long time, probably a couple years. Yup, I HAVE to go back, self loathe and pity are not pretty on Emily. I have avoided the truth of the scale for a year. The truth of the scale is horrific and its time to do it. I have made plans to attend with my mom so that I don't bag on it. I will go back even if my heart isn't fully in it yet. I am praying my heart will suddenly be excited when I walk in the doors. But enough already with the way I've been living and more importantly the way I've been feeling. I think we will start off week one with simply focusing on not eating everything in sight before I attempt any form of physical activity for the sole purpose of exercise. Yes, its been that long. It's time to find me again.