Saying goodbye to an important man...

Dear Readers,

I know you probably got really excited about my regular updates on somewhat interesting topics and personal struggles/experiences.

I’m sorry to have disappeared these last 8 days.

I just returned last night from an emergency trip down to Arkansas. My maternal grandfather unexpectedly passed away on July 17^th after suffering a major stroke. This came as a pretty big shock to my family as he had just beaten lung cancer a couple months ago and we were all hopeful that he would continue to regain weight and strength and be with us for a few years longer.

I left before dawn Saturday morning to be with my mom and her family and attend the funeral services – which were beautiful. My dad gave a wonderful eulogy that part of me wishes I had somehow recorded, even though that probably would have been inappropriate. My cousin, Jill, and I spent some great time together and bonded in a way we haven’t done since we were children. We even went running together a couple times and took a long walk one night - all of which proved very therapeutic for me.

While it’s a very sad time, everyone remained positive and upbeat and talked of happy memories and told funny stories – there were lots of tears, but more laughter, which I think speaks volumes about my Pa-paw and the life he lived and the memories we made with him. It was hard to leave yesterday and come home, even though I missed Mike and the kids a bunch. 

I left my copy of the obituary in my guitar case (Jill and I sang at the funeral service), which is currently still at my granny’s, but I intend to share that once it comes home with my dad and sister on Saturday. Granny did a wonderful job putting it together. I’ll also find a photo to post.

I wish I could put together a bunch of wonderful stories to share with you all, but I’m just not ready to do that. I’m struggling a bit with how to feel/how I do feel/how I should feel. I think in a lot of ways it’s just not real to me yet. While this isn’t the first family member I’ve lost, it is the first family member I’ve lost whom I was incredibly close to. My mom’s parents were like an extension of my parents – they were more than grandparents for me. And I think I’m just a little bit in shock right now and I’m afraid it may be coming across a little bit to my friends and family like I just don’t care or am in denial or something. I’m not. I’m just… in feelings limbo right now. Sometimes I’m really sad, sometimes I’m really numb, sometimes I just don’t want to talk about it, sometimes I feel at peace with it – as if something is telling me “it’s okay, it was time, and it’s okay”. I’m sure at some point in the near future it will all get very real for me and I’ll have a bit of a breakdown. Then again, maybe not. Maybe I’ll just be okay and have my own quiet mourning period.

For now, things will likely be “business as usual” on this blog and my other social media outlets, as well as in real life. This doesn’t mean I don’t care and it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m okay or unaffected. It just means I don’t know how to feel so I’m just going to do the things I normally do and see how it goes.

Thanks for reading,

Jess

Conflicting Feelings

This past weekend I flew down to Little Rock to celebrate my other grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary and spend time with friends and family. I had a great time!

So, while the weekend was lots of fun, I am feeling weird about indulging my vices unashamedly the entire trip. I feel a little guilty now, after-the-fact, for the copious amount of beer consumed, the ridiculously late nights out with my cousins and friends, the amount of sugar/refined carbs eaten, and the few cigarettes that were smoked.

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. Maybe these feelings are all just the side-effect of too much alcohol and too little sleep, which we all know puts me in a speedy depression cycle. But, really, the bottom line is: there are a lot of things about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally that I still want to change. That still need to change. And I'm starting to wonder how much longer it's going to take me to get there. Time is flying by faster than ever and I feel like I'll quickly run out of "quick fixes" as I age. 30 is still young, but I'm not going to fool myself and act like I have "all the time in the world" to create good habits in place of bad ones or that my metabolism will just magically function the same way for the rest of my life allowing me to "decide" at any time to go ahead and lose the weight, shed the fat, build the muscle, etc.

I've been thinking a lot on changing my diet the last couple weeks. I feel like I eat fairly well most of the time, and there's not really a whole lot wrong with eating/drinking junk while on a vacation or a trip, but I think sometimes I lie to myself about how well I really eat overall... and I'm now having a bit of an epiphany about my expectations for weight/fat loss while I continue to make iffy diet choices on the regular. I'm sure some of you are sitting there thinking, "Well, DUH, Jess." And, honestly, this is something I've known in the back of head for a very long time now - but sometimes it just takes a while to admit something to yourself. Nobody likes to be wrong. But there were some realizations made when it came to food/beverage choices, and one of them was a little terrifying as I realized how wonky I felt after eating a carb-heavy dinner followed by a large amount of dessert on top having been sipping on lemonade all day. Part of me wonders if I might be pre-diabetic. I'm supposed to go back to my doc this summer to have my triglycerides rechecked, and I think I probably need to go ahead and request a glucose test, too. While I think some of this wonky feeling was just in response to heat and exhaustion (the a/c was broken in the room where the anniversary celebration was held, it was 100 degrees outside, plus I'd played nearly 2 hours of tennis, followed by a run, followed by lying in the sun poolside for a few hours before heading to the dinner celebrations), it certainly can't hurt to be proactive on this front.

In regards to this diet stuff, part of me is still really drawn to the idea of Paleo/Primal, but I also know that it's too restrictive for me to maintain and that could very well end up in a breakdown/quit-everything cycle and derail a lot of progress. I don't want to yo-yo. I want something sustainable. The obvious choice would be to just, y'know, eat sensibly. Eat mostly leafy greens, vegetables, and lean proteins. As I've discussed at intervals for the last almost 2 years, I need to learn how to commit. To make and keep the promise to myself. I'm just not very good at it. I was so excited for #100daysofchange to completely change my life. I mean, that was over 3 months of doing something for my health everyday. And, yet, here I am only a month out (I can't believe it's only been a month - it feels like much longer), and I've completely started slacking off on my "commitment" to doing #365daysofchange. I feel like I've quit holding myself accountable and am almost ready to give in and stop doing it altogether! Except that I know that certainly won't get me where I want to be.

I guess I just still haven't found something that really resonates with me. Aside from diet, exercise has dropped waaay down on my priority list. Spending time with Mike and the kids and sleep have become top priorities, and sometimes I feel like I can't do a workout and get adequate time with my family AND get a good night's sleep all at the same time. This isn't true, but it feels that way right now. I've wanted to try to get my workouts done in the mornings for a few years now, but that's kind of gone down much like I wanted to quit smoking for like 5 years and was only able to actually make myself do so 4 months ago. i.e.: it's not happening for me at this time. So maybe in 5 years, when my kids are older and require less time/energy, I'll actually be able to be that person that does the 6am workout every day without it making me hate life.

...or maybe it'll just get a little easier to get in the evening workout. Whichever.

Really what it all boils down to right now is that I'm being really down on myself and instead of using that frustration to push myself to do something, anything to get back on track with diet/exercise, I'm instead just wallowing in self-pity and talking down to myself in my head all day long. I'm that chick that talks a big talk but can't walk the big walk. I think a lot of my frustration is coming from the lack of result... except that there hasn't been a total lack of result, as evidenced here and here. But even reading back over those (the last from only about a week ago!!), I'm still sitting here thinking, "Who cares? I'm still a fat fatty who can't remain consistent with anything and therefore won't ever accomplish any kind of real goals."

And that's really the rub; I use my physical fitness progress and ability to commit (or not) to these health goals as a barometer for every part of my life and myself. I gauge every aspect of my life by whether or not I'm succeeding at this. I'm not entirely happy or successful at anything else in my life and so I focus a lot of time and energy on "health", and when I feel like I'm failing at that it just serves as a reminder of how I'm failing or have failed at everything else I was going to be or do by this point in my life. 17 year old me would be pretty shocked at how life turned out. But, then again, 17 year old me didn't really know what direction she wanted to go in either -- she just had faith is would all turn out amazing somehow. She thought, I'm smart, I'm talented, I'm pretty; I can do whatever I want in life. Except she/I didn't... So now, instead, I focus on controlling my body - except I'm not very good at controlling it, and it just reinforces all those feelings of inadequacy I've had since 19, when I realized how much I was fucking up my life and felt powerless to change anything.

Clearly I have a lot more going on in my head right now than I realized when I first sat down to draft this update...

So I'm floundering. That's the basic gist. Yesterday I ate well, today has started out pretty well. I had no physical or emotional energy for any type of exercise last night. And I can't make any promises for tonight, either. It's a beautiful day and I will be taking a walk at lunch. Baby steps, I guess.

I'm sure in another couple weeks or month or two I'll be posting about how much I just looove my body and my good habits and how awesome I'm doing -- and then in another month or two it'll be right back around to this slump and self-pity. Maybe it's time to admit there some sort of cycle to it all and there may be a bigger problem. I guess we'll just have to see, eh?

Perspective!

Pictures are amazing. I regret all the time never pursuing the photography classes I could have taken during my brief stint in community college... I love photos. And I love how much of a tool they've become during this whole health and fitness thing I've been doing.

For the last several days I've been "feeling" fat. I've had to consciously tell myself over and over "Fat is not a feeling, it's a part of your body, a necessary part of your body that allows your brain and reproductive organs to function - among other things."

I'm still having a hard time believing myself. I spoke the other day about recently becoming fixated on the aesthetic value of diet/exercise vs the health benefits - and I've been seriously down on my body because of it.

But, then today, as I was perusing through some photos on Facebook to participate in that internet pastime of "Throwback Thursday", I came across this photo:

(In case you're wondering, I had just smashed a spider than no one else in the room (including the 8 men) was willing to kill -- hence the face of "ick" and the holding of a shoe.)

This is not a flattering photo. In fact, "not flattering" is probably an understatement. But it is an accurate photo of what I looked like. This was April of 2010. This is right around the time I started to realize my body didn't look the way it used to and that I wasn't treating it very well. I honestly feel like I look pregnant in this photo. And, coincidentally, I was 10 lbs heavier than I had been on my first child's due date when this photo was taken.

But this photo helped me realize something: I've come a loooong way. Here is an equally unflattering photo from this morning:

(No, that's not my bellybutton poking out - just the waist of my jeans being obnoxious.)

As you can see, I still (when I'm not standing up straight) look a little pregnant - BUT this is a massive improvement. I mean, I think so anyway... I guess you guys don't have to think so. ;)

What's even more amazing is that the scale-weight different between these photos is only 20 pounds. I feel like it looks like a lot more than that, but maybe I'm just bias.

On a positive note, I will say: My hair looks fricken fabulous in that older photo. Shiny and brilliant!

I still have some I want to do and possibly need to do for health reasons, but overall sometimes I need to take the time and step back and realize my body aesthetic is just fine. It's pretty close to where I want it. And, hopefully, another 4 years from now I can look back and say, "Look how far I've come!" again.

100 things inside my brain

I’ve had so many topics bouncing around inside my head the last several days. I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just going to write and see what happens…

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my confidence and security in my body, my lifestyle, etc. It’s amazing how quickly/easily things can change! The end of last week saw me suffering through some serious self-esteem/body-image issues. I sat down to write about it about 6 different times and could never get it finished and posted. Some of it no longer applies, but I’m going to pull some pieces out of those almost-updates and stick them in here to try to come up with some kind of a coherent explanation of what’s going on inside my head this last week or so.

First things first: I’ve lost just about all my motivation for exercise/workouts. It’s not just one thing or the other, it’s everything. Lifting doesn’t sound appealing, circuits don’t sound appealing. Running? Nope. Just a little walk? Maybe. But only if it happens in the middle of the day and prevents me from having to do work, y’know, at work. Tennis has still sounded fun and been fun – that’s the one thing I’ve done for purposeful exercise in the last 10 days. But my dad is my usual tennis partner, and I can’t expect him to be available to me every single night. (Or can I? Heh.)

At first I was thinking maybe I just was a little burnt out. Maybe it would do me some good to get a rest week in, focus on getting things ready for our 4^th of July BBQ we hosted for a few friends, take some time to relax with Mike, do some reading, some writing, etc.

That was all well and good for the first few days. By last Wednesday, though, it became clear that I was stuck in a pretty serious case of the I Don’t Wanna’s. I began drafting a blog update, saying how all was not lost, that I could just make myself get the workout in that night, put the damn candy down, resolve to make better food choices and carry on my merry way.

…but then Mike was having a bad day. Work was putting a lot of pressure and stress on him and he was feeling bad about how he handled some things with the kids recently. I didn’t want to add to that pressure by asking him to take on full responsibility for dinner and both kids bath/bedtimes so that I could get my 45 minute workout in before showering and leaving for trivia… so I didn’t. I skipped the workout, telling myself that I could get back on track Thursday evening – which would be better anyway seeing as we would be hosting people Friday night and there would be no workout time anyway. I did tennis Tuesday, so then regular workout Thursday and again Saturday and BOOM! Back on track! Back on program! Back in the game!

Do I really need to tell you that none of that happened? Sigh.

I will give myself some props for getting to bed at incredibly decent hours all weekend, which is phenomenal considering this was a holiday weekend. I even stayed home all weekend. I laid off the booze. I spent a lot of time with my kids and my husband. These were all good things, all positive things. I will say I walked to and from our local farmer’s market Friday, and to and from the little playground near our house Sunday. Not to mention all the cleaning I did Friday and Saturday. I did things, I was active, I just wasn’t “working out”.

Sunday afternoon/evening I started feeling the familiar pangs of depression creeping back in on me. I acknowledged it, mentioned it to Mike, and then went about the evening as normal. Monday morning I woke up feeling pretty decent. My mood seems a little more level today and I’m holding onto that and trying to keep it going. I’ve been pretty up for a couple weeks now, and I’d like things to stay that way. I’ve gotten into a good groove at work, and while I still think there are some changes I’d like to make in my professional life and career ambitions, right now things are feeling quite a bit less hopeless than they were back at the beginning of June. I worry sometimes I’m becoming complacent, but as long as I’m not entirely miserable maybe complacency isn’t so bad, right?

Now to start going all over the place with stuff, since I can’t really decide how to segue…

1) I’ve been on this candy kick for a couple weeks now. At first I was like, “Oh, well, my period. Because: female things. Hormones. Okay, cool.” But the thing about sugar is: it’s kind of addicting. I’ve been consciously trying to scale back on the sugar intake, but I think my recent obsession with fruit hasn’t helped much. Yes, it’s naturally occurring sugar mixed with healthy fiber and vitamins/minerals – but it’s still sugar and I’m still overloading myself with it, processed or not. I began thinking a lot about Primal Eating last week. I read The Primal Blueprint last summer and it all made sense to me. Now, I’m well aware of the recent evidence that’s come out against these gluten and grain-free diets. I’m all about everything-in-moderation because my #1 sabotage trigger is to start telling myself a certain type of food or activity is forbidden. But, with that being said, I also know it certainly couldn’t hurt me to choose leafy greens and vegetables over grain-based carbs more often. So over the weekend I started trying to do that. I bought lots of salad greens and veggies and have made myself big salads the last couple days using just plain old olive oil and white balsamic vinegar for dressing. When I wanted to snack Sunday night I went for the carrots and hummus vs the cheese and Townhouse crackers. Bit by bit I’m going to reign my food choices back in. I entertained the notion of starting to log calories again for a brief moment – I even put my breakfast in yesterday morning. But by the time I got through lunch, the idea of logging everything again brought on some serious anxiety. I don’t know why. Maybe a feeling of “failing” at intuitive eating. I think I still need to leave it alone for now. This wasn’t months of poor eating choices turning into habits… this was 2 weeks of eating more sweets than I probably needed. Not going back to counting just yet.

2) I’m becoming really fixated on aesthetic vs health and it’s driving me to a dark place. I get hung up on the way these fitness professionals/models and athletes look and I wish that were my body. But the thing is I know the strict discipline that goes into looking like that – the bland diet, the hours of training, etc – and I know that I’m not interested in making the sacrifices I would have to make to “get there”. Because the thing is, you can’t look like that 365 days a year every year for the rest of your life. Existing on sweet potatoes, broccoli, and chicken breasts gets old pretty quick. I love food, I love beer, and I love being really lazy sometimes. I also love the way I look and feel in my body most of the time. I’m not sure where this pressure on myself is coming from right now, but it’s making the idea of getting back “#onprogram” stress me the fuck out. I’ve also found myself shying away from my runs because I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that any cardio that isn’t specifically metabolic training is just “making me fat”. Don’t even ask where that came from. The “sweet spot” is supposed to be between 10-20 miles a week before you run the risk of your metabolism being affected negatively (depending on myriad of other factors as well!!) – and I’m not even hitting 5 miles most weeks (or ever). I think this is one of those situations where I’ve over-educated myself and now that education is attacking my psyche. I need to calm down and remind myself what it is I really love doing. If that’s a “program”, great. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve never been good at sticking to a program for longer than 4-6 weeks. #100daysofchange began with doing something a little different every day or every couple days to keep myself interested and active, and I lost that toward the end.  I think I forgot it until now. Maybe I just need to go back to that. Do some strength, do some cardio, do some HIIT/metabolic training, and do it a little differently every couple times to keep it fun and interesting.

3) Weight loss. I made the mistake of stepping on the scale about a week ago. I don’t know why. It was Sunday afternoon (afternoon = never a good time to weigh yourself anyway), I’d been drinking heavily most of the weekend, eating TONS of salty junk food, barely sleeping, and generally not taking very good care of myself. On top of being right in the middle of my period, so natural water retention even without all the other crap. The scale read 199.8. I flipped out a little bit. It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter. My clothes fit and look better than they did 6 months ago, my body composition continues to change and shift toward more muscle mass… 199 doesn’t mean anything. Except, in that moment, it meant EVERYTHING. I think this is where everything started; the avoiding exercise, the persistently in giving in to my sweets cravings, the general lack of enthusiasm for my health and fitness. After all, what’s the point if the scale isn’t moving?

It’s so stupid.

For me, seeing the scale move ceased being “the point” of this whole thing months and months and months ago. But I think a big part of me thought that by being active and eating healthier, by putting in the time and energy, it would continue to move down as the months passed. I haven’t been doing what I would have to do in order to push through the plateau. I’m not willing to at this point. That’s okay. But it’s not okay to think I’m a worthless person because I may teeter right around 200 pounds for the rest of my life. Being 20 pounds heavier than I’d like to be doesn’t define my worth as a human being. But I forget that all the time. It’s very sad, really. I should be kinder to myself.

So where do I go from here? I honestly don’t know.

Here’s what I do know:

• My mental health will suffer greatly if I stop regularly exercising - my day-to-day lifestyle just isn't active enough to drop purposeful exercise
• My mental health will suffer if I don’t continue to focus on a healthy diet
• Feeling sorry myself won’t make me leaner, in fact it will likely have the opposite effect

So, there we go. Good food and a good sweat have to be non-negotiable for me. 

Post-draft update:

I made myself go do some running intervals last night. It felt really good. I'm tired as hell today, but looking forward to tennis tonight and maybe some more running intervals tomorrow.