I'm a lying liar!

I'm sure most of you probably anticipated this.... but: my venture into sobriety lasted all of 48 hours. After a lengthy talk with my husband Friday night (about many different things, not just the drinking thing), he at one point said, "Why are you doing this? I'm sorry if this is rude, but I think it's dumb. It's a total overreaction to one night." At first I was all, "Are you enabling me?!?!", but then quickly realized Mike isn't one to enable anyone about anything and if he truly thought I had "issues" with my alcohol consumption he would have told me a long time ago. He made a good point in that I over-drank, I drove when I didn't have any business driving, and it scared the shit out of me. That's not my norm. I don't get wasted and get behind the wheel. Clearly bad decisions were made and I'm lucky that I didn't hurt myself or anyone else. But Mike made the point that I'm totally capable of limiting my intake when I choose, that I rarely drink to get drunk, and that this "challenge" read more like self-punishment than self-improvement. 

That really rang with me. That's exactly what this was. This wasn't going to make me a happier, healthier person. It was just another thing to torture myself over, to be miserable about. It was dumb. It was dumb because I was lying to myself (and you) about the reason behind it.

So I dropped it. I’m dropping it. I had a few drinks Saturday night. It was fine. I didn’t drink to excess, I didn’t drink to be drunk, it didn’t make it any harder to get out of bed the next morning. I didn’t feel the need to have any more than what I had. I didn’t feel the need to drink again Sunday night. It just was what it was. And it was fine.

I’m a lying liar and I’m not going to quit alcohol for 30 days. I am going to be conscious of using alcohol to self-medicate and be sure to set hard limits for myself if I must drive. If I feel like I’m drinking because I don’t want to feel feelings anymore, well, that’s probably a good night not to drink.

Now, back to our regularly schedule programming: 

I recently returned to two old frenemies, MyFitnessPal and FitBit, for a daily dose of reality. I haven’t done any type of strength training in over a month and my adventures in cardio lack consistency. What’s left? Diet and steps. So I’m tracking it all again. I had gained weight. (Imagine that. Drinking tons of beer and eating whatever the fuck you want while not maintaining a decent exercise routine leads to weight gain. Who would have thought.) Not a ton of weight, but roughly 4 pounds. Clothing still fits the same, measurements are roughly the same, but I’m a little mushier than I was and would like to be.

Okay, let’s be honest: I’ve been a little mushier than I want to be for a while now. And while it’s excellent that I’ve had weeks and sometimes months of feeling really honestly good about myself as a person and the body that person lives in, it all eventually comes back around to feeling like I'm too heavy. And sometimes too big. And really none of that can change without a diet overhaul. And it's easy to eat a bunch of junk all the time when it's not staring you in the face in the form of a food journal.

As I spoke about in last week's utterly depressing update, I've had very little interest in food lately. This (bright-side) has made it relatively easy to make healthy choices since I have zero fucks to give about what I eat since nothing tastes delicious or happy these days. ...not that food should taste "happy"... but... "worth it", I guess. Except Oreos. Oreos always taste worth it. And other cookies... and ice creams... but I just try not to keep too much of that around lately. I've been living off a lot of Greek yogurt, fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, giant salads, homemade vinaigrette, and salmon. Lately it's been very easy for me to under-eat, and I get hungry... but nothing really seems appetizing. Or I can't possibly be bothered to cook or fix myself something because sitting on the couch staring into space feeling sorry for myself is just so much more fun. The above list are all things that are quick and easy for me to make and therefore motivate to eat. Bonus that most of them are healthy.

So, I'm tracking calories/food journaling again and I received my replacement FitBit about 10 days ago and have once again returned to loyally wearing it day in and day out. So far I have yet to become completely obsessed with my step count and have not yet allowed that step count to determine how I feel about myself and my life. Key word here is "yet". I hope I can keep a healthy mindset about it and allow it to do its job in assisting me in my getting healthy process without taking over my every thought and feeling.

Lately I find myself wanting to schedule changes. "I'm going to quit drinking for 30 days!" (lies and fibs), "I'm going to get up and run every morning!" (so far, not happening) "I'm going to sit down and write a whole album's worth of new songs in a week!" "I'm gonna keep a notebook with me and write down positive thoughts everyday!" "I'm going to schedule lots of events to keep myself busy and distracted from hating life so much!"

While my intentions are really good on all this stuff, I also know this is a guaranteed way to make me feel horrible about myself. That's a lot of stuff. And realistically, I will probably only accomplish maybe one or two of those things (or none at all), and then feel like garbage for not doing everything I set out to do in whatever imaginary time-frame I've given myself to do them. (I don't have a time-frame for most of those things, but that doesn't mean I won't feel like I've failed them 4 days from now when I haven't done any of them -- or even a year from now, for that matter, having accomplish 2 or 3 of them.)

I'd like to think I'm trying to take my #365daysofchange challenge seriously by coming up with these accomplishments and activities I've set/scheduled for myself, but it doesn't come from that rational place - it comes from a distraction place. If I can't be happy or "live in the now" or rediscover my joy, then I'm sure as shit going to just keep myself so busy with social activities and "projects" that I don't have time to think about the fact that nothing is fun or exciting anymore. Instead I can just be focused on being busy and stressed out!! Because that's healthy!!

Anyways... so, bonus, I did realize I exercised every weekday last week. I ran Monday, tennised Tuesday, took a good walk Wednesday, ran again Thursday night, with another good walk Friday. I keep thinking to myself, "Maybe you should go down to the basement and lift some of those heavy iron things..." and then I'm like, "Nah, I'm good." I don't know what my deal is there. I've always loved strength training, but for some reason I've got it in my head lately that it "betrayed" me somehow. I'm sure that is partially a scale-weight response. It's also easier to blame the strength training than to blame myself for the inconsistency. I'm sure as the weather gets cooler and the daylight hours shorter (I'll talk more about that in a moment, too), I'll find myself gravitating less and less to my outdoor runs and more and more to the warm confines of my basement and the weights that live there. Right now I want to focus on consistent runs (if for nothing more than the mental health benefits), and consistent diet/calorie deficit.

I haven't done this in a long time, but here are my current stats:
Weight: 195 lbs on 8/2/14
Bicep (flexed): 12"
Bust: 38"
Under bust: 34"
Natural waist: 33"
Waist at navel: 37"
Hips: 44.5"
Thighs: 26"

And photos:

It is almost mind-boggling how quickly I pack on fat. These photos are a major departure from where I was at the end of my 100 day challenge, merely two months ago. Granted the lighting was more flattering from my 100th day, but I have the outtakes from those photos and even the "bad" ones are better than these.

I'm sick of being in the 190s. If I'm not going to increase muscle mass, I need to be closer to the 170s. That's just all there is to it. Pushing my body out of this set point is gonna be tough since I've been maintaining at this weight and general fat percentage level for a while. I'm hoping getting back to basics will get it done, but it may take a while to figure it all out. And some serious dietary discipline on my part.

My main concern at this time, however...  I mean, I don't know if y'all know or not, but winter is coming. And I don't mean that as a Game of Thrones reference, I mean it quite literally. We are just a handful of weeks away from the return to hoodie weather and 6pm sunsets. And I can.not.deal. I'm terrified and am having increased anxiety over the approach of fall and winter. It didn't even get warm here until June. And we've had maybe two weeks' worth of actual hot weather. All and all it's been a pretty mild summer, as my a/c bills can attest. This is a bunch of malarkey. Summer should be hot. And winter snow storms should not linger into April... much as low temperatures of 30s and 40s should not linger on into June. Not in Virginia. In Maine? Wisconsin? Winnipeg? Sure. Not here. No siree, Bob! ...moving to Florida is looking more and more appealing.

100th Day and Beyond!

I don’t think I realized how much my #100daysofchange challenge would affect my life when I first decided to do it. In fact, I was sure I’d get 2 or 3 weeks in and just stop. Thankfully, and surprisingly, I stuck with it. Incorporating Instagram and the daily photo inspired me and kept me accountable in ways I didn’t expect – and so much of that is thanks to all of you who began following my progress.

I still have a long way to go, but I’m pretty proud of where I am right now in my fitness goals and body image.

So, what now? Well, that’s an excellent question. I want to keep going, there’s no question about that. Clearly this whole “post photographic proof” thing is benefitting me in keeping with my goals. My ultimate goal for this project was to do something active every day. While I had rest days and/or travel days here and there, I was probably 90% on-target for physical activity. That ain’t bad. But this project was simply that: physical activity. I made mention a couple times of “oh, and I’m going to try to do some things here and there for my mental health also!” but I didn’t really, with the exception of taking rest days when I knew I could really benefit from them both physically and emotionally.

The truth is, even after 100 days of making exercise a habit, eating decently, not obsessing over calories, and breaking my unhealthy bond with the scale – I’m still dealing with some pretty serious depression, stress, and anxiety. I think part of me (a bigger part than I realized) thought as long as I was treating my body well with exercise, good food, and plenty of sleep, I would be “better”. That changing my lifestyle would have this almost magical effect on my mental health. This is not to say that maintaining physical health doesn’t help – it helps. It helps immensely! Especially making sure I run at least once or twice a week. But despite my runs and my lifting and my food choices and my sleep habits, lately my anxiety has just been getting worse. I’ve had 3 panic attacks in the last 8 or 9 days, one of which lasted nearly 3 hours and almost sent me home from work. I feel like I keep repeating the same thing to myself every few weeks, “Something’s got to give/change”. Aside from selling all my worldly belongings and leaving all my friends and family to go start a new life someplace not here, there’s only one thing I can think of that I can do to really change my life: leave my job.

I think I sometimes forget how long it’s been since this unhappiness started. It’s been 2 years. And it’s been 10 months since I said I was going to change my life and get out of my current job situation. I’m clearly a liar as I haven’t done ANYTHING up to this point. And while things got a little bit better for a little while (a very little while), overall things aren’t changing and overall I’m not sure that any amount of change in my current environment would make things better. Now I’m faced with additional responsibility on top of what had already pushed me to a mental breakdown last September and a borderline suicidal place by the end of December. On top of that, I’m beginning to feel solely responsible for everyone else’s stress and happiness – which so far continues to manifest in my continuing to hate my life (and myself) in order to make everyone else happy and/or content. In reality, I think I’ve probably always felt that way, but I’m just now becoming aware of how much I feel it.

In light of these things, I want to really challenge myself to change many different things about my life and lifestyle, and I'm going to give myself another 265 days to do so. I was playing around with a bunch of different tags, but I think it might be best to just stick with #365daysofchange. Simple and to the point. I'll continue my near-daily physical activity and overall physical health stuff, but also set some goals for whole-life changes - new job, maybe go back to school - basically find something I love, or at the very least enjoy, and pursue that as a career. I have 9 months. If I can grow a fully formed human being inside my body in 9 months, surely I can decide what I want to be when I grow up and begin working toward it in 9 months. But my main goal is to reach that 365th day feeling better about my life as a whole. 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...sort of?

I’m not really sure how to start this one off, so I’m just going to kind of brain-vomit here for a minute:

It seems that the more depressed I get over certain aspects of my life, the more positive I get about my body image. I don’t know how to explain it really, but I’m struggling so much with making some major life choices and am adhering more and more the mantra of “life is too short to be miserable” – and while this isn’t magically dissolving my depression since I haven’t actually made any decisions yet, it has made me realize that being overly fixated on my body image and being unhappy about how I look is ridiculous. The fact of the matter is, I like my body just fine. It’s a pretty good looking body. It’s a pretty well-functioning body, too. 6 months ago, when I went for my first physical/check-up since I was a teenager, I was a healthy person. And in the last 6 months I’ve made several BIG changes that are only adding to my health: quitting smoking, eating out less often, drinking alcohol less often, getting 7-8 hours of sleep regularly, and being more active and/or exercising on a daily basis.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t still things I want to change about the way I look – there are. But I’m learning how to let go of those aesthetic (and scale weight) changes as my main focus and putting more emphasis on how things make me feel and how they affect my physical (and mental) health. Am I going for a run because I feel like I have to in order to eat that pizza/drink that beer/have that ice cream, or am I going for a run because it makes me feel good/clears my mind/boosts my mood? Am I doing strength training to get “awesome abs”/”toned arms”/”dancers legs”, or am I doing it because it makes it easier to lift my toddler/boosts my metabolism/makes me sleep better?

More and more I’m doing my chosen type of exercise for the health benefits, not the what-my-body-looks-like benefits. And the fact is, my body composition will change as I continue to do these things and one day I may wake up and realize that doing things for my health has also improved my body aesthetic – but that is quickly becoming just an added bonus and not the main purpose of all this time and energy I put into fitness.

…as far as counting calories goes, I’ve all but given it up. I will still log my food – sometimes daily, sometimes just a couple days a week - but I don’t really stress over the calorie count anymore. I’ve raised my “limit” to TDEE, and I’m making sure my protein and carbs are where I want them to be. Probably the biggest change for me and my relationship with food is now when I eat “junk” or sweets I make sure to ask myself after the first bite if I really want it. If that first bite isn’t as delicious as I want it to be, more and more I’ll choose not to eat any more of it. I’m maintaining my weight while my body composition continues to change, and that’s okay. I’m happy here. And thank goodness! It’s hard enough dealing with all this depression, stress, and anxiety without the added pressure of hating my body all day every day. I was in that place over the winter and it was pretty terrible and crushing. I’m working really hard to maintain this body positivity while wading through the rest, and it feels so wonderful to give myself a break from the abuse and negativity.

Now for something completely different:

#100daysofchange will soon be coming to an end, and I’m kind of freaking out about it. It’s been such an amazing tool for me and an excellent way to hold myself accountable. Thank you to everyone who has been following (and participating) in this little project! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve decided I want to extend this challenge for myself. I want to make this a year-long project. I’m still coming up with a tag for it, but it may be as simple as #365daysofchange or something similar. I’ll be sure to make the announcement once I’ve made up my mind.

Just a picture?

Before we left for vacation I was feeling a bit down on myself. I've been in a scale-weight plateau for 18 months and was feeling like I was working hard for nothing. My vacation and the pictures we took there put me in a much better mood about my body image. Away from the stress of work/home (mostly work), I was able to see how awesome my body is. Also, something that was able to walk/sometimes run around for 12-14 hours a day for 5 days without too much complaining seems pretty amazing. I started feeling grateful and good about my body. I started really appreciating my body.

Appreciation is nice, but aesthetics are also nice... as shallow as that may be. This is where my daily #100daysofchange pictures come into play. I was feeling like I wasn't make any progress... and then while scanning through some photos, I noticed this:

In case anyone out there isn't good at calculating time...  that's approx 2 months. THAT IS A MAJOR DIFFERENCE!!!

Clearly the time and effort I'm putting into strength training is paying off and I may be finally reaching a point where scale weight means nothing to me anymore. It's all about body composition and building muscle.

Another positive this month: I posted this to my personal Facebook page the other day, but I'll share it here as well. It's been 74 days since I quit smoking, 33 days since I "cheated" and had a cigarette (one of only 3 since quitting), and 26 days since I used my e-cigarette.

I started up the Girls Gone Strong level 1 program on Monday - my back did just fine and felt so much better after finishing the workout. However, I'm dealing with some pretty bad post-vacation depression and managed to pack a lot into my social calendar for the week - all of which coincides with my usual workout time. I realized that my motivation, dedication, and willpower are not where they need to be and it might be a good idea to just let myself adjust a little bit. I've still been taking daily walks, and I'm committed to starting "for real" either over the weekend or Monday. It definitely helps to see the above picture! That's motivation to get back to it for sure!

Regularly Scheduled Programming

I went through some serious mental shifts and changes about certain things over the weekend that have led me back around to putting together a regular training schedule and recalculating calories.

My FitBit bit the dust last week. I still haven’t been able to figure out what the deal is (and I still haven’t emailed customer service to see if they’ll replace it – for free). I spent 2 days using Argus, but the battery drain on my phone became too much of a hassle for me. So right now I am fitness tracker free!  It’s weird and is taking some getting used to. I’m finding it difficult to stay in the mindset that uncounted steps are still steps and still count toward total daily energy expenditure!

Okay, so no fitness tracker... and THEN, I pitched a fit and didn’t count calories over the weekend. Stepping on the scale Saturday morning to see “195” glaring back at me pissed me off. Logically I know that my junk-food-Friday (within calorie goals and macros, though – IIFYM my ass) had everything to do with it (high sodium = water retention), but I threw a temper tantrum over it anyway. I ate plenty of fruits and veggies (and 7-layer dip) over the weekend, and didn’t give totally over to that voice in my head telling me to eat all the candy/chips/ice cream because uncounted calories don’t count… and then last night I decided, well, maybe I should just run my numbers using a TDEE calculator online suggested by the EM2WL community and go by that for a bit. So I did. New goal: 2250, no eating back exercise calories. So don't be surprised when you see all those "1" calorie burns coming through from MyFitnessPal.

Now, of course, I’ve picked a terrible time to do all this since we leave for Disney in about 2 weeks – and those 8 days of travel will completely throw everything out of whack. While I know we’ll be doing a TON of walking down there, it’ll obviously be a rest-week from any strength training (outside of hauling Nolan around) since we’ll be super busy and probably exhausted. I'm getting a little concerned that we may end up feeling like we need a vacation from our vacation! But I'm excited nonetheless. :)

So the program that I'm following is specifically geared toward fat loss, which is really what I need most in my life right now. I got a lot of my tips from GirlsGoneStrong.com, as I love, love, love Molly Galbraith and Jen Sinkler! For next several weeks (except Disney), I'll be doing straight strength training 3 days a week, Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) 2 days a week (I'm choosing to do these after my arm/leg workouts, but they can be done on separate days), and 2 days of Moderate Intensity Cardio (MIC - keeping heart rate between 120-150bpm for 30 minutes). The schedule I have set up right now is for Monday-Friday, or taking Thursdays and Sundays off. I'll probably bounce back and forth depending on what's going on in life.

It would seem that this schedule might interfere a bit with the purpose behind #100daysofchange, since the point of that was to do something physically active every day. Well, I've already thought of that, and I've been making so many changes in my life outside of physical activity. On my "off" days I'll take a leisurely walk, maybe talk about a healthy meal choice, or do something good for my mental health (yoga, meditation, journal, or garden, for example). I end up doing this a few times a week anyway just because sometimes life gets busy, so nothing will really be all that different - and most of those things are physically active anyhoo.

I started the program last night and got some arms and MRT in. Today was supposed to be my moderate cardio, but the weather is completely screwing me over there. It's only 46 degrees right now. What the hell?! AND rainy. I'll probably play some Just Dance on the Wii... or run circles with my toddler playing "monster". Either will do.

I just need to remind myself that consistency is important (especially with diet), and start looking at things in a long-term perspective (where will I be in a year? What about when I'm 40?) and working toward goals that will benefit me in 20 years just as well as they're benefiting me today.

My rocky relationship with running and the fat on my body

At some point last summer I started running. I don’t know why. I’ve always kind of hated running. I would run every once in a while as a teenager, just because that’s what people did to stay in shape, right? My mom and dad have always been big recreational runners. My mom used to get up at 5am everyday to run when I was little bitty. That and Jane Fonda aerobic videos was how she lost her pregnancy weight after I was born. My dad still runs on-and-off throughout the year for weight loss/maintenance, but also because it’s a mental release for him. He’s always told me he does his best thinking on a run and feels so much better emotionally after running. Throughout my running experience I’d regularly been plagued with shin splints and similar injuries, plus I never really experienced the “runners high” probably because I was very active in my everyday life anyway and was just “high on life” most of the time. Essentially there was not much that drew me to it other than a great-big Fat-And-Ugly Attack. Then I’d throw some sneakers on and go run a couple miles and feel like I did something healthy for myself.

My experience with running last year was very different. I invested in some good shoes, took it easy, and learned to run more on the balls of my feet and less slamming my heal into the ground to avoid the shin splints I’d regularly suffered. I did mostly intervals on my runs as I was dabbling in the “Primal” way of exercising at the time, but realized very quickly that sometimes I just really enjoyed a steady-state run for a little while. It was my time to be alone with my thoughts (and my music), and I understood for the first time in my life what my dad meant when he talked about that mental release during a run. I guess maybe that is similar to the “runners high”. It definitely boosted my mood, as well. Considering the depression I was/am currently battling, this was/is obviously a great side effect.

While I didn’t run regularly (or at all, really) over the winter thanks to the Polar Vortex, I definitely missed it a lot. I signed up for my first 5K a couple months ago (as most of you regular readers know), and since the weather has started to thaw out a bit I’ve been trying to get out at least twice a week in prep for my race. But what I realized last night is: running is making me feel my age. I can feel all the aches and pains in my joints that I never experienced in my 2+ years of on-and-off weight lifting. And I don’t think I like that.

(Full disclosure: I did experience some lower back pain over the winter due to poor squat form, but once I corrected my form the pain quickly subsided.)

Another thing I don’t particularly like is feeling the fat on my body jiggle around when I’m running… which is something I’ve noticed more of lately. Special thanks to those fat stores I put on over the winter while slacking on my diet and my exercise… A friend posted on Facebook yesterday about being frustrated with what she called “saddle bags” – but essentially she just meant having hips much larger than your top, making it hard to find or make clothing that fits properly. This term must have gotten stuck in my brain, because last night as I was getting in the shower, I started noticing that I have actual saddle bags; these really not-fun little fatty pockets on my hips that I’d never really noticed (or chose to ignore) before. Some of you may be thinking, “WHAA?! No! LIES!”, but they’re incredibly easy to disguise by simply wearing some kind of clothing! So of course you wouldn’t have ever noticed them in the photos I post here, or even in real life if you saw me – because I’m generally not nude. But what I also noticed is that I’m starting to slim up and firm up everywhere except where I most need/want to, which of course is my lower belly/hip area. These are always the last fat stores to go – especially in women of child-bearing age. Whomp, whomp. But there IS progress happening.

I keep thinking to myself, “Self, just commit to your strength training and HIIT and be a little smarter with your food choices – the fat will burn off.” And just about every weekend I think to myself, “Starting this week I’m going to avoid processed food and be really on point with my diet.” – and then I’m not. But I also realized that eating for my training is much like my wanting to quit smoking or wanting to get more sleep at night; I wanted and “tried” to do these things for several years, but it really just didn’t click for me until this year. “Dieting down” may not click for me for a while longer, and really the most disappointing part of that is I will have to purchase shorts in a larger size for this summer. I’m trying really hard not to let that push me into a deep depression, because it’s really nothing worth being depressed over right now. I’m on the right track. I need to just let this serve as reminder to keep on top of my diet/exercise moving forward, and not give myself a 3-4 month “break”. I honestly think the largest part of this equation is going to be returning my focus to lifting and move away from steady-state cardio. Last spring/early summer I was exercising less than 3-4 times a week, doing minimal cardio, and lifting lots of weights – this seemed to agree with my body, although it was around the same time that I started falling into a really deep depression. I think once I wrap this 5k, my runs will be strictly for fun/mental health, mostly intervals, and mostly short distance. This will better benefit my strength training and fat loss while still offering me the mental health benefits of a run.

The Big Quit

I keep promising a real update and then I keep getting distracted by life.

So I already talked to you guys about my #100DaysOfChange that I’m doing with some assistance from my Instagram app, and that is going really, really well. I’ve made lots of changes not only regarding exercise frequency and general fitnessy stuff, but also a lot of general health changes that I am really proud of. Here are just a few of those things:

• Gave up regular consumption of caffeine/ soda with lunch
• Cut waaaaay back on alcohol consumption/stopped drinking wine altogether to help with migraines
• Stopped birth control pills to see if this will help with my migraines
• Increased fruit/veggie intake to include at least one serving with each meal/snack
• Made an effort to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night

And most importantly:

• I quit smoking

I am 16 days in. I had one cigarette last week and it was disgusting, and took a couple drags off of one the other night (I know, I know – DUMB) which was equally disgusting. But 1.5 cigarettes in 16 days is pretty damn good. Both “breakdowns” followed quite a bit of alcohol consumption, so this is just more fuel to not drink heavily. I will also say, though, that hangovers are pretty much non-existent for me since cutting out smoking. Turns out all this time I was having a cigarette hangover and not an alcohol hangover. Bonus!

I did pick up a disposable e-cigarette the other night for those times where I’m having drinks and/or hanging out with smoker friends and get the urge to smoke. But after reading this article (go here) I’m not sure that I’ll be using that very regularly… or at all. As the mother of a 2 year old, I’m not trying to have him get into my purse, bust this thing open, and get nicotine poisoning. No way, Jose. Talk about motivation to just be done with it all. This is it, for sure.

I think I finally realized last week that I no longer define myself by drinking and smoking. Those things don’t make me unique (at all) and definitely don’t define who I am as a person/mother/wife. As I get

closer to my 30th birthday I think I’m sort of coming to grips with mortality (as cliché as that may seem), not just my own but that of the people I love. I’ve been reading a lot about the effect of fat (saturated or otherwise) in the diet, and found I should be much more worried about my smoking habit than my occasional food indulgences when it comes to heart health and avoiding heart disease. For some of you this may seem like a giant “duh” statement, but I think I always downplayed the health effects of smoking to myself. I justified a lot. I feel like I can’t justify any longer. My grandfather’s recent health problems brought a lot of this to the forefront for me, and while things are going really well for him and his healthy is improving, I can soundly say I would like to avoid living through the same experiences in my old age.

With all these health changes also comes a very base hope of: maybe this will make my weight loss easier. Birth control pills can cause weight gain and also make it hard to lose weight due to complicated hormone function, plus smoking increases cortisol production and fat storage due to all the fun chemicals in cigarettes effecting hormone function. Not to mention smoking can increase your risk for depression – which I already deal with.

But speaking of weight loss: Mike made a good point the other day when he said to me, “But you’re not trying to lose weight. This isn’t about weight loss, it’s about getting healthy overall. Weight loss is just a possible pleasant side-effect of all of this.”  That is sort of true. I’ve gone through phases. Right now I’m in more of a “sick of seeing 190-something on the scale” phase, and less of a “I love my body and just want it to be healthy and awesome” phase. While I’m still being smart about how I go about losing weight, I am frustrated to find myself at a 500-800 daily calorie deficit while eating fairly “clean” with absolutely no movement on the scale so far. That’s not even mentioning that daily exercise, and the fact that I’m doing fabulous with my protein intake and mostly avoiding heavily processed carbs. I think I may have to come to grips with the fact that I may achieve the body I want… and still weigh close to 190lbs. And I have to be okay with that. I’m still working on it. I’m seeing big changes in my body composition in the last 20 days, and I imagine that will continue. If I can get rid of the belly fat and feel awesome in my clothes and weigh 190lbs, that’s totally fine, right? Well, it should be. That’s all I’m saying.

Enough focus on (poor) body image for now…

So, yes, I’m super proud of myself for my recent accomplishments. I feel like I’m well on my way to completing my “future self” list, and that’s awesome. 

I'll be posting some progress pictures soon!