May 27 Weigh In

Hey all!  Yesterday was crazy busy for me, so I didn’t get a chance to check in.  I lost .8 lbs this week!  Hooray for getting back in the right direction!  I’m a little surprised that I didn’t lose more this week because I spent every day that I could (when it wasn’t down pouring) outside walking, and I stuck to my arms routine like a champ.  It’s probably got something to do with drinking fairly heavily on last Friday night, but I’ll take a small loss over a gain any week. 🙂

There’s really not much that stuck out to me about this last week.  I haven’t scheduled in my workouts yet because my schedule right now is flexing around quite a bit with my various side projects, work, and finishing up my thesis.  I’m fitting workouts in at random times whenever I can.  While this isn’t a big problem for me yet, I’m sure that it will become one if it isn’t solved soon.  I’m jealous of people who don’t have to schedule workouts.  I’m sure my life would be much easier if I could count on myself to squeeze in something at random down points in the day, but most of the time I just can’t.  If I don’t have a set time for exercising, I can usually find something more pressing (or justify doing something that isn’t pressing) that will take it’s place.  I have to have a set point in the day where the only priority is getting on the bike or going for a walk/jog.  Fortunately for me, the arm workouts that I do are easily slipped in to 5 minute slots of down time, which is probably why I’ve been sticking to them as well as I have been.

I’ve also been slacking off with pre-planning my meals this week.  Granted, I’ve been picking up quite a few shifts at work lately, so my time has been a valuable commodity, but that’s a fairly lame excuse.  I did know that I was going to be insanely busy this week, and to help abate my lack of meal planning I doubled up on the fresh veggies that I can pop into a container and go during my latest grocery run.  Easy open tuna (packed in water) has also been my friend for a highly accessible and lean source of protein.  While this is a short term fix (portioned goods are ridiculously expensive compared to buying in bulk!), I feel like I can get away with it this week.

My goals for this week are simply to make it through on track.  I’ve got my water bottle attached to my hip, which has helped me get to a gallon of water drank two days in a row (woo hoo!), and I want very much to walk my usual 4 mile route each day the rest of the week (weather permitting, which it doesn’t look like it will).  If I can’t walk, I’ll bike downstairs instead, but it’s so much more fun to walk around the neighborhood and see what all is new.

Only 69 more pounds to go! 🙂

Body Image

Oh boy, is that ever a loaded couple of words.  This is something that I’ve been struggling with pretty much my entire life, but has been particularly salient for me over the past few weeks.  With the apparently astounding “discovery” that Abercrombie and Fitch only sell clothes to thin and “attractive” women (by the way, this isn’t new, it just seems to be getting a lot of attention lately) or the fact that H&M is using a plus sized model (read healthy sized non-model woman) to sell women’s swimsuits I’ve been thinking over a lot about how I feel about my body.  It seems that I go through this once a year, every year, as the temperature starts to climb and skin-bearing clothing begins to make it’s way out of the back of my closet.  I’ve gone from being terrified of the tiniest jiggle on my thigh to not giving a damn about what anyone thinks of my fat rolls and back more times than I can count.  Last summer was a fairly devastating mix of the two: I “liked” my appearance well enough to ignore all the weight I had gained, but I refused to wear shorts or even to sunbathe (a horrible habit, I know.  I do wear sunscreen every time I’m out just f.y.i.  I’m in it for the relaxation, not the tanned wrinkles).

There are days that I look at myself in the mirror and see a stunningly beautiful and confident woman smiling back at me.  These days are gradually becoming more frequent, even when I am wearing a tank top and shorts.  Losing some weight (so I feel physically better) and re-evaluating my ideas of what it means to be beautiful have helped immensely.  But these days scare me.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited at the fact that I am hating on my appearance less than I used to.  It’s healthy and well-adjusted to see that the me in the mirror is similar to the me in my head.  But the fact of the matter is, I don’t know what to do with a body image that is acceptable to me.  I suppose I could go on here about how our culture thrives on telling us how we’re never good enough and there will always be more things that can be fixed, tweaked, shrunk, enlarged, darkened, lightened, elongated, polished, brightened, or otherwise altered.  I could go on and on and on about this.  But the “blame society” horse has been rode to death and beaten, so I will drop my stick move on.  Let’s focus on the self for a minute, specifically myself.

Why do I feel a twinge of panic when I see beauty and confidence in myself?  Of course, there is the fact that this is unusual for me and this is a common reaction to encountering something unusual.  But there’s more than that going on.  I’m scared of becoming complacent.  There’s a war raging on within the depths of my subconscious that has been bubbling over into my conscious lately.  You see, there are two side to me. The first side has been largely silent, but powerfully controlling my mindset.  This is the little girl who is telling me that I need to buy into at least a few of societies rules about beauty and appearance so that I have friends and people who care about me (absolutely ridiculous sounding when I spell it all out, but that’s the root of it all).  The second side is straight up feminist.  She’s been screaming at me over the past few years to fuck society’s unattainable standards; so long as I am happy, who cares what anyone else thinks? I’ve done a good job of shutting the little girl in me out, and listening to the screaming feminist, not because it’s the right or empowering thing to do (which I think it largely is), but because it’s the easiest thing for me to do.  I’m lazy by nature.  I say that not as a self-put-down, but as a statement of fact.  If I can find a reason to justify sitting on the couch and morphing into a sedentary blob, I will latch on and ride it as long as I can.  And I did.  That’s how I got to be 242lbs, unhappy, and in complete denial about what was making me unhappy.  I’ve since lost about 30 lbs, and am much happier about how I physically feel, which has lead to a greater happiness about myself in general.  But I’m worried about latching on to the complacency that I found before.  I truly do believe that beauty standards for women (and men) are ridiculous, unattainable and should be shirked if at all possible.  But I’m worried that I will eventually come to use that as an excuse for unhealthy habits again.  I’m worried that I will become blinded by confidence and backslide on all the progress that I have made.  That is why I panic when I see confidence in my smile.

I’m not sure that this war within me will ever resolve itself.  I hope with time, I will learn to strike a balance between my two sides.  Confidence in body image is a life-long struggle for many, regardless of our weight, shape, general beauty, or other factors.  I’m sure there will be times when the little girl speaks louder than my feminist, and I know there will be other times where my feminist side drowns out the little girl within me.  Hopefully, I can find a way to interpret their messages in a healthy way rather than following the easier path to self-destruction that I’ve walked before.

Weigh In May 20th

I gained another pound this week.  I’m a little frustrated because all things considered, I felt like this week was a fairly good one.  I watched what I ate most of the week (this weekend excluded, which I will get to momentarily), spent most of the week outside walking, gardening, or otherwise moving around, and drank plenty of water.  I’m fairly sure that this weekend was what tripped me up.  My fiance and I went to visit his family and celebrate our nephew’s third birthday (I can’t believe he’s that old already!!!).  Now, while I love his family, and very much enjoy visiting them, it is always a food nightmare for me when I go. For some reason, I always seem to forget my Brita bottle for water whenever I travel, and my fiance’s family uses well water (which tastes pretty awful and isn’t all that healthy to drink). So I end up gulping down on their amply stocked non-diet soda (not that diet is much better for you, but at least the calories aren’t there).  And the food choices aren’t much better.  We usually eat out for most of the meals when my fiance and I visit (excluding holidays of course). I think I’ve blogged about this in the past, but when eating out in their small town, the options are gas station food (and pizza from the gas station) or driving to another nearby town for mom-and-pop-diner food (delicious, but absolutely calorie laden).  So I mostly drank soda and ate potato chips, pizza and birthday cake this weekend.

There.  My shameful confession is out.  I’m not ashamed that I drank non-diet soda or ate potato chips and cake, but I’m not proud that they comprised the overwhelming majority of my diet this weekend.  So what am I planning to do about it this week?  Well, I’m going to get back on track.  Slip ups happen.  They happen with me more than I’d like to think about, but one of the things that I’ve learned on this health journey is that it’s not the amount of times that you slip and fall that matters, but rather the amount of times that you pick yourself up and get back on track after.  I’ve already walked around my triangle (I still can’t bring myself to call it a block when it isn’t) which is a little over a mile and worked my arms and shoulders this morning.  I’m 40 oz of water in already (think I’m going to shoot for a gallon today), and I’ve got some “fresh” green beans that I’m going to saute in a tiny bit of canola oil with some mushrooms for lunch.  I’ve got to devote some time to my thesis this morning, so tomorrow I’ll probably spend the day planning my meals for the rest of the week.

Among my usual fitness goals that I am aiming to maintain this week, I have a goal of stockpiling some healthy recipes that I can easily make and that I can convince my fiance to partake in as well.  I’ve successfully transitioned him over to skim milk, lean ground turkey and venison (which is awesome if you or someone you know hunts; otherwise it’s quite expensive and difficult to find)j.  Now I just need to get him into the green veggies (which apparently “is what food eats”).  I am so very successful at staying on track when I plan out meals ahead of time, so if I can find a way to streamline that this week, I know it will help me in many weeks to come.

Only 70 lbs to go! 🙂

May 13 Weigh-In

Hey all!  So after taking a month off from blogging, I’ve kind of lost track of what week I’m on, so I’ve decided to switch up my weekly check-in titles.  The way I figure, this change I’ve started is not a temporary thing, but rather a lifelong process.  It won’t be finished in a number of weeks, so why keep track anymore?

So this week has been a little off schedule for me and I didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday or Monday, but I have been keeping on track.   I gained a pound on Monday when I weighed in.  Not the happiest moment of the day, but I’m still under 210lbs.  This past week, while I’ve been more active (doing a little more than sitting at a desk for 8-12 hours a day), I haven’t been hitting the cardio as hard as I should.  I have been sticking to my arms workout, however.  I can absolutely tell that it is way past time to be working on my upper body!  Just doing a small amount of reps with soup cans (they’re the value size.  They weigh about two pounds each and are WAY less expensive than two pound dumbbells that I will hopefully grow out of very soon anyways) is killing me.  But it’s pretty obvious that my arms and shoulders need the work, so I’ll stick to it.

I’m planning on getting out to walk as much as possible this week.  I’ll be babysitting for a friend off and on this week, so I plan on taking the little boy to the park and on long walks on the nearby nature trail (it’s paved and a beautiful walk) as much as possible.  It is my goal to spend every single day outside as much as possible.  I bought a great stroller last summer at a garage sale that has a ton of storage room underneath, so there will be plenty of space to pack lunch, water, blankets and toys.  I’m really excited about getting out and enjoying the weather with this kid!

Sometime this week I am going to purchase a summer pass to a local public pool.  I know that when the summer heat sets in I won’t be as diligent about running or even taking long walks as I should be. That being said, I’ll need to make up for it somehow and seeing as I’ve already got my super cute swimsuit in my closet, I think I’ve got my summer cardio replacement.  When the pool opens in June, I plan on making it over there at least three times a week.  I’ve decided that I’m not afraid of how I look in a bathing suit (even though I’m not exactly pleased about it just yet), and my fear of what I think others are thinking about me is not going to stop me from exercising and enjoying my favorite summer activities.  If I’ve learned nothing else from my experiences these past months at the gym, it is that no one really cares because they are busy with themselves.  True story right there. 🙂

So goals for this week will be to spend as much time walking outside as I can, stick to my upper body routines, drink water like it’s my job, and get ready for all the fun summer activities I’ve got planned like swimming, hiking, canoeing, biking, and camping!  I absolutely love this time of year and am ready to jump right in!  Only 69 lbs to go! 🙂

Back in the Saddle Again

Hey everyone, I’m back!  Whew!  What a month it has been!  I spent the month curled up in my office at school and at work.  But all that hard work has paid off because finals are done and I’m staring thesis work dead in the face (I’m actually looking forward to thesis work for those of you who were wondering).    The time has come to get back into my wellness routine, and I couldn’t be more excited.

I’m not exactly proud of many of the choices that I’ve made this past month in the realm of my physical well-being.  I think I formally worked out maybe two or three times.  I fell out of the habit of pre-planning my meals for the week because the weekends (when I usually have some free time to do this) were spent in my office at school or at work.  Because of this, and the last-push-of-the-semester stressed out emotional eating, I made more than a few poor food choices, and was sure that I would have gained at least a few pounds after this month off.

However, I did make a few good choices too, that I am absolutely intent on keeping up because they were so easy to keep in my life (even for a stressed out grad student at finals time!  That says something!).  I started parking in the back of the parking lot at school.  I already park in what’s called the B lot (which is for commuter students who don’t live on campus) which is the cheap commuter’s lot.  That means, the lots are usually on the outskirts of campus to begin with.  By doing this on a regular basis (except for the day last week when it snowed.  Yup, snow in Iowa in May.  I love this state with my whole heart, but sometimes… well, sometimes I just… don’t) I added an extra thousand steps to my normal amount of walking each day (and avoided the parking battles that occur near the front of the lot).  I also stopped taking the elevator as often.  Climbing three flights of stairs to get to my office really isn’t as hard as I thought that it would be, and I’m glad they aren’t intimidating me anymore.  And finally, I drank water like I was getting paid for it.  I have a Brita Bottle that all but eliminated my excuses for drinking anything but water.  It was easy to slip into my backpack side pocket, filtered out the nasty metal taste from the fountain and sink water in my office and work, and allowed me to refuse to buy any soda or overpriced bottled water.  In fact, with a few exceptions that I can count on one hand, I drank either water or black coffee exclusively this whole month (I’m convinced it is a physical impossibility to survive the last month of the semester without coffee).

So, expecting the worst this morning, I hopped on the scale and waited patiently until the numbers 208.2 flashed up at me.  For those of you who aren’t keeping track at home, that’s a 2ish pound loss for the month!  Just to double check, I stepped off the scale, went and started my coffee and came back and it read the same thing!  Hooray!

So the plan for this month is to start working on toning my arms.  You may recall that was my plan for last month.  However, two half-assed workouts don’t really cut it for me, so I’m going to start up again.  I want my arms looking in tip top form for my wedding photos this coming September.  I’m also going to implement a few things that I learned on my month hiatus to try to simplify my life:

1: Water is my friend.  Water is my body’s friend, water is my mind’s friend, and water is most definitely my wallet’s friend. Drink and be merry.

2: Those extra steps make a difference.  I’m planning on cleaning my house this next week (all those little things that were put off because I was too busy have finally added up to the point I can’t stand it any more).  I’ll be taking one armed loads up and down stairs (which means more trips, and less chance of dropping things).   I’m also going to be watching a two year old boy for some friends of mine this month on the days that I don’t work my other job.  I’m lucky to live near a park and a recreation trail.  Every day that it’s not raining, he and I will be at the park or on the trail.  I spent too much time cooped up inside last summer (body image stuff and it was SOOOOO hot and dry!) so I intend on soaking up every single day that I can this summer.

3: It’s summer, it’s OK to eat ice cream.  “Slip-ups” aren’t.  No one is perfect all the time, myself included.  And the thing is, treats keep you mentally healthy, and if kept in check, won’t ruin your weekly weigh-in.

4: Workouts are my friends too.  Break time is over.  I’m going to get back into the routine of strength training, especially my arms.  Workouts make me feel good, mentally and physically, and are obviously good for me.  I need to work that routine back into my life, especially since I would like to be in my 180’s by September (which means that I’ve got to do more than causally try to lose weight).  I was lucky to not have gained weight this month and I would like to honor that luck by moving forward with my weight loss.

Can’t wait to fill you in on how this is going on Monday!  Only 68.2 lbs to go! 🙂