Starting Over. Again.

I may have to go back to tracking, ugh.  Not forever, but to get myself back on track because I've been crazy again with my eating.  Late night snacking, no portion control, candy, you name it.  Why?  I don't really know.  I think maybe it's because I feel good about how I look and I don't have those 'I really need to lose weight' thoughts chasing me.  I think it was easier when I was heavier and had more weight to lose, because I was really, really motivated.  I made it into the healthy BMI range and I think I gave up.  I still have 20+ pounds to go, and I do feel like I'm still carrying around excess weight, so giving up now really isn't an option.  Plus, weight aside, I know how much better I feel when I eat right, and I know how energized I am when I get regular excercise.  I can't let myself get sidetracked again because this is about my health and that is the top priority.  I need to treat my body with respect and give it what it needs, and everything else will come with that.

I left home early this morning to go to the gym (new development, free gym membership through work!) where I powerwalked with a high incline, then did the stairmaster, and back to the tradmill before rushing off to work.  It was great!  I ate my breakfast of oats, dates, PB, and walnuts and now I'm snacking on grapes - delicious!  Why do I even think that crap food will make me feel better?  THIS is what makes me feel good!

Comments and other good stuff

Comments now work, just in case anyone out there in the crazy large world of blogging finds their way over here and wants to say anything :)

I made a decision - I am going to be a weekly weigher!  I weighed myself this morning and that's it until next Thursday.  I'm taking a cue from Syl and hiding the scale, although I don't think I can hold out for a month.  Maybe, we'll see, but I'm taking it one step at a time.  Obviously, I'm stressed out, and I started thinking that maybe weighing myself every day isn't helping that.  I need to focus more on 'me' and how to relate to food in a healthy way rather than thinking of food with a weight loss mindset. 

I've been doing good with not tracking - I eat basically the same amount, but I'm not stressing out at the end of the night about whether or not my calories are on par with the all powerful DailyPlate.  It's working really well so far, I've still been losing weight (although my little candy freakout didn't really help at all), but if it stops working for me (I start gaining weight or something) I will definitely go back to counting and tracking.  I think that the 6 months of almost daily tracking really helped me get an idea of what I'm eating and correct portion sizes and that is what has enabled me to not need to track currently.

Yesterday, I was really healthy with my meals, but I did not exercise.  At lunch I chose to read a book and at night I chose to knit instead of doing some cardio.  That's fine, I can make choices, and that worked for me last night.  This morning however, I was feeling the need to exercise and it started my day off great!  I did some Sparkpeople videos, a mix of cardio and strength training, and I think I'm going to take a long walk during my lunch break. 

I feel a million times better than I did at the beginning of the week and I think a lot of that has to do with some of the stuff that was majorly stressing me out being resolved, but I really think that my negative changes in behavior kept brought me down even more and when I started eating right again that helped bring my spirits back up.  If only I could remember this kind of stuff when I'm headed down the rabbit hole into stressville.  I need to remember to come back here and read this and not give into the temptation to eat my feelings next time stress hits because it just makes me feel worse.

Comments

Hmmm, for some reason the comments aren't working.  Heather at HEAB clued me into this a few weeks ago and I thought I fixed it by getting rid of the word verification.  Just tested it and NOPE!  Must figure this out...

Feeling Better

So, I feel a little more normal now, but the majority of that is most likely related to one of the things that was majorly stressing me out being mostly resolved as of this morning.  Why do I have to be one of the 'I eat crap food when I'm stressed people' and not one of the 'I exercise and feel better because of the endorphins' people?  Maybe the exercise people are really the food people who have trained themselves?  Will I always be a food stress person?  Can I overcome that, can I switch over?  I hope so, and I'd really like to.  I wonder if there's a book on that or something...

Bad Days

I feel a little better now, but I've got a massive stomach ache and I'm royally pissed at myself.  Why?  Because for the past three nights I've eaten my sorrows in the form of complete crap, mostly candy, and I hate that I did that.  I've hit a wall with all of the stressors in my life and I just lost it.  Totally and completely lost it.  I know how it happened, I was stressed to the max about things I cannot control and I can control what I eat so I did that.  I didn't control it in a healthy way, of course.  Why do I turn to crap food when I feel bad/stressed?  It doesn't help me with my goals and it doesn't even leave me feeling good.  I went from feeling like I could accomplish anything on Friday to feeling like the weakest person on the planet today.  I know that I need to cowgirl up and dust myself off but right now I almost don't want to.  Today I will eat healthy and get in some exercise tonight, but I don't really feel like it, and that is what I hate.  I want to want to eat healthy and exercise, like I did before, I just don't know how to break out of this funk and stop stressing out.  All I know is that this is not a solution to my problems and it's not helping me out at all.

I did it!

I did something I never thought I'd do.

I did something I joked about never doing my whole life and instead of doing something about it I figured I'd never, ever do it.

I did something that even when I started working toward it seemed unattainable.

I did something that some people (including my husband) may not fully appreciate the amazingness of.

I RAN A MILE!

I can't even believe it, and I'm still a little in shock, but most of all I am SO proud of myself!

I have never run a mile.  Ever.  Not in middle school, or high school, or when I played tennis or soccer.  When I was younger, I had a big growth spurt that messed up the growth of my knees so if I ran they would bang together and cause swelling and bruising.  That created a big note for P.E., and combined with pretty bad asthma (that I, again, had a note for) meant that I never had to run the mile.  I enjoyed not running the mile, I loved that I didn't have to do it.  In high school I didn't have to take P.E. because I was on the tennis team and when we had to run before practice I'd totally fake it because we ran around the school and out of sight.  Whenever I had to run, I'd sprint, and I was actually pretty fast, but I couldn't sustain it.

Yesterday, I did it!

The reason I'm so shocked is because I have not been very dedicated to my C25K program and I don't think I've ever tried to run for over a week because of the heat (excuses, excuses).  I went out on my lunch break with the intent to walk around this old track by work. 

I walked 1/2 mile and suddenly had the urge to run, so I did, with no timer or goal or plan.  As I passed 1/4 mile I still felt good, so I kept at it.  I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great to run 1/2 mile?  I couldn't believe it as I was running.  I couldn't believe I was still moving and I didn't feel like dying.  At 3/4 of a mile I could feel myself wearing down a bit, but the fact that I was still running made me feel amazing.  Amazing!

As I passed the mile point I was literally talking to myself, congratulating myself, telling myself how proud I was.  Thankfully no one was around, but really, who cares?  I honestly don't know if I've ever been more proud of myself. 

I know that to a lot of people running a mile is just a warm up, and I hope that someday I will be one of those people, but right now I feel so amazing for accomplishing something I truly never thought I'd be able to.