Slowly Returning

Two weeks ago I decided not to be injured anymore. This week I'm deciding to return to exercise. Last week my physical therapist officially discharged me from her care. While I’m still having some tightness and soreness, it’s nothing I can’t live with and it’s not really limiting my mobility or normal daily activities anymore. She told me I could return to normal exercise, but to take it slowly.

I better heed that advice because, let’s face it, I’ve pretty much given up on being physically active in any way outside of just normal everyday stuff you are required to move around to do and PT sessions. When I first began physical therapy, I was still walking briskly and for a couple miles at a time a few times a week in an effort to make up for the fact that I couldn’t run/jog. Around the second week in October I pretty much gave up on that and decided my twice-weekly PT sessions were enough. My feelings of “I’m just going to be hurt forever” definitely fed into this and I’m not sure I really did myself any favors buying into the negative self-talk. Then again, it was right around this time that I started noticing real improvement in my injury, so I could also make the argument that the actual rest did my body good.

Regardless, I’m way out of a normal exercise routine and coming up short on motivation.

Those of you who follow my little Instagram #365daysofchange experiment have probably noticed an obvious drop-off in my activity. When I was no longer able to do the type of exercise I wanted to be able to do, it began to drop lower and lower on my priority list. I also felt incredibly self-conscious about the fact that I was mostly posting about going out for drinks or dinner or simply wallowing in my self-pity over my injury. The challenge or experiment or whatever you want to call it was supposed to be about maintaining daily exercise and activity, not only for my physical health but my mental health. A rest day was supposed to be time for me to meditate or practice some gentle yoga, to bring myself back into focus and relieve stress – maybe plan out meals or just spend some time doing something else I enjoyed. I haven’t been sticking to any of these guidelines I set for myself, I’m not longer inspiring myself and I find it impossible to believe my laziness and self-loathing is inspiring anyone else at this point either. I’ve considered just giving it up several different times, but then I feel like that’s just one more thing I can add to my list of things I’ve never completed/half-assed. So I keep chugging along, making sporadic contributions.

Meanwhile, I sit here and mourn my drive and motivation and wonder if I can blame the shorter daylight hours. The last two weeks have been pretty dark for me emotionally. That depression seems to be creeping back in and I’m not sure if this is just a side-effect of my lack of exercise/physical activity, the approaching holidays and the emotions surfacing over my papaw’s death, if this means I should contact my doctor about maybe increasing my antidepressant dosage, or if this could be yet another negative side-effect of my decision to go back on birth control about a month ago.

…or all of the above.

And speaking of being back on the pill: this is my first month back on and my migraines have already returned full-force, I’ve been nauseous practically all day every day (especially in the afternoon), and generally just feel pretty gross and ill. Not to mention in researching my side-effects the other night, I found that because I’m prone to ocular migraines regardless of being on or off hormonal birth control, I should not be on any type of birth control that contains estrogen as this can greatly increase my risk of blood clots and stroke regardless of age/health. Isn’t that just super? Mike and I chatted the other night and have decided those risks and the side-effects aren’t worth it and we’ll return to using non-hormonal forms of birth control for the time being.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have such an understanding partner.  

So amidst all of this emotional and hormonal turmoil, I’ve done a lot of thinking about how I want to proceed into getting back on a regular workout schedule… and what I’m going to do about my calorie intake.

For the last month I’ve been pretty steadily dropping weight. I had one week where I stalled, but I’m averaging a little more than half a pound a week – which is fine. According to my FitBit estimated burn and my MFP logs, I’m in a 500 calorie deficit right now without even intending to be. Over the last couple weeks I quit worrying about my macros because it was driving me nutty. The only thing I’m really focusing on is my fiber intake. My medication can really ‘cause problems with my gut if I don’t eat enough fiber. We’ll just leave it at that.

So, I guess you could say I’m intuitively eating. I recently joined a Facebook group called “Eat the Food” that I stumbled across through the fitness community I dabble in occasionally. I’m really enjoying being part of the community so far and it’s really making me rethink my relationship with food and weight loss. Right now I think it might benefit me most to put the focus on the exercise – which I’ve had to do a few times in the past – and not worry so much about whether or not I’m eating at a deficit.

While I’m enjoying seeing the number on the scale move again, I’m also disappointed to find that I’ve lost a lot of my strength. Doing simple things like carrying the groceries in from the car, or hauling laundry (and toddlers) up and down the stairs just aren’t as effortless as they once were. I’m trying very hard not to let this discourage me too much since the only thing that will accomplish is my putting off strength training even longer as I buy into the “what’s the point?” mantra. I’m trying very hard not to let that happen.

My goal for today is to do some kind of strength training, no matter how brief. It will also be hard to keep myself from charging right into the whole thing and causing my injury to flare up. I’ve just got to take everything slow and steady. 

Okay, okay, okay...

Goddamn, I've been all over the place lately. I've begun drafting no less than three updates over the last 10 days and haven't managed to get a single one up here.

If you read my last quick and dirty post, you know I've been under quite a bit of stress and worry lately. Adding to all those stresses and worries, which I don't think I mentioned, was this looming hard deadline at work. October 15th. For those of you not in finance/accounting, this is the final tax deadline for any business that operates on a calendar year. Work has been very, very tough for me. There has been lots of crying in the bathroom, lots of threatening murder, lots of tension, lots of short-tempers, lots of going to bed without my husband (because we work together and he has had to put in an ungodly amount of overtime - I'm a little "luckier" because I act in more of a support role for these deadlines). 

It's over now. Thank GOD.

So for the last couple weeks I've begun struggling a lot with body image again. (Shocker!) I've been doing quite a bit of stress eating, and these last few days, stress drinking. All I wanted to do last night was staying up drinking beer all night. Fortunately, I'm a responsible adult, so I didn't do that. But I did stay up until after midnight watching television.. because maybe I'm not totally an adult. 

I'm digressing... so, yes, feeling down on my bod, eating all the tiny candy bars at work because of stress, feeling very defeatist and playing a lot of the "you'll never be where you want to be with your weight/body composition" monologue in my head. The fact that I'm looking at likely another month of PT for my piriformis syndrome, helps NONE. ...but my physical therapist's office is connected to the gym I used to belong to. I spend roughly 30-40 minutes in that gym doing my various warm-ups and exercises for my PT. I realized today, man, I miss the gym. And it occurred to me: this is where I restarted my weight loss/health gain journey after Nolan was born. I also realized that I just happened to be wearing the same t-shirt I wore on that first day back at the gym. And so this happened:

Top: 01/25/2012
Bottom: 10/16/2014

The locker room has been remodeled since that first photo, but that's the same mirror at the same gym. 

I've said it once, I'll say it a million more times: PICTURES ARE SO IMPORTANT TO TRACK PROGRESS!!! To be honest, lately I've felt like that body in those top pictures. I've felt like that for a few months now. It's been a long time since I've truly been proud of my progress. I get locked up in this mindset of "It's been four years, it's been four years..." Yeah, it's been four years since I realized, "Well, damn, I got fat.", but I never cut myself a break for going through a pregnancy during those 4 years. I grew a person inside of my body beginning 5 months into this journey. So, really, January 25, 2012 was my real start date. And there has been progress. 

Yes, this injury is setting me back. Yes, the recovery will still take me weeks (maybe a month or two) more. Yes, it's been a struggle to not be completely and totally depressed over the whole thing. But the reality of my situation is that I will fully recover. I will be able to return to heavy lifting and running and doing whatever the hell I feel like doing for fitness purposes! It may not be until January, but I will get there. I will, I will. 

Now that I've essentially given myself a pep talk on my body image, we must address the food thing. 

When I first jumped back on the weight loss bandwagon after Nolan was born, I was eating roughly 1400-1800 calories a day. I was losing weight doing this. I was sometimes going to the gym, but mostly just walking. A few times a week. Inconsistently. I was at probably 40-45% body fat. This is probably why I was able to eat almost nothing on some days and still feel okay. My body had plenty of fat stores to pull from. 

After a while and after beginning some strength training, I upped my calories. My weight maintained higher than where I wanted it, but my body composition began changing pretty drastically. At some point over the summer of 2013, I was likely under 30% body fat. I could "afford" to eat more. 

Last fall when my grandfather became ill and began his battle with cancer, I sort of told diet and exercise to kiss my ass, began sinking further and further into the depression I'd already been battling for several months, and I began eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it and would occasionally do a workout or take a walk, but mostly didn't exercise at all. I told myself I was "taking the pressure off" - that I was just going to focus on Be Healthy, Be Happy, Be Active. Which, in reality, became: Lie To Yourself, Lie To Yourself Some More, Deny Deny Deny! 

Thanks to the TimeHop app, I've realized I spent nearly all of last Oct-Dec sick. Something was not right. But even with the amount of junk food and the lack of exercise - I maintained my weight. I think I maybe gained a total of 3 pounds over the entire winter. We're talking from October until March-ish... possibly April. That's nearly 6 months. I began #100daysofchange in March, starting exercising daily, and started making an effort to be a little better about my eating but was off and on about tracking. When I did track, I was hitting right about 2500/day. This may have been slightly higher than maintenance, but not by much. And certainly not since I got serious about exercising daily with my #100daysofchange challenge. 

...and then something happened. The more I increased exercise and kept my calorie intake at "maintenance", the more I gained... until September 3rd, 2014 when I stepped on the scale at my doctor's office and saw "199" staring me in the face. A little over a week later, on the 12th, my own scale at home first thing in the morning and totally nude read "199.8". 

I freaked out a bit and dropped my calories under 2000. I lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks. And haven't lost anything further since despite trying to remain as active as possible (regular walks, my PT workouts, etc.).

What I have been forgetting, though, is that my muscle mass isn't what it was, say, last summer. Or even last October. My body fat percentage is likely close to 33%, which puts me firmly in the "obese" category. Finding a calorie goal that is a realistic deficit is going to be difficult now. And it may mean just being hungry. 

I just don't do well with hungry, y'all. 

So I've been doing some research, because that's what I do when I need to know more about something and feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of contradicting information out in the world regarding diet. I've bounced around on a lot of different things. But because I like to eat plenty of things and because I also likely to eat everything from salads and salmon to french fries and Blizzards, I started looking into If It Fits Your Macros. I ran some numbers for myself using their calculators and was honest in marking myself as "overweight". This puts me right around 2,000 calories/day. TDEE minus 15%. But, more importantly, I need to be hitting my macros of roughly 50% carbs, 35% protein, and 25% fat. This will be the part that will take some getting used to, but I've stumbled across some tools to help me out. 

(As a sidebar real quick: my husband has recently started an exercise program and has finally become interested in trying to track food/make sure he's eating enough of the right things to fuel his fat loss while maintaining his muscle-mass. While I'm incredibly proud of him, I'm more proud of myself for making it very clear to him that I was struggling enough with my own food issues and could not exert the energy to meal plan for both of us outside of dinner. I pointed him in the right direction and am hopeful that he'll start taking it seriously and making better choices overall.)

So that's where I am. I am fat, I am injured, I am frustrated, I am hungry, I am confused. But I am still learning and trying. Sometimes that's all you can do. And you can't get to Success if you don't first start with Try. 

What's up with me right now

Well, I started drafting a substantial update last Wednesday, but never could focus long enough to finish it or polish it and getting it posted.

Good thing I started writing it, though, because if I didn’t have that discombobulated draft I couldn’t even begin to tell you anything that I was thinking/feeling/doing last week.

Wednesday was a major roller-coaster of emotion. I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night which led to a grumpy mood Wednesday morning, which led to me griping at my kids, which led to my kids being in a bad mood. Coming in to work added to my irritation when my usual 30 minutes of peace and quiet in the mornings was interrupted by everyone deciding to come in early. My brain was all over the place, I had a rough time focusing. I kept thinking of all the chores and errands I needed to accomplish/could have been accomplishing in place of being stuck at work. Oddly enough I managed to get tons accomplished work-wise. I have no idea how. Even though I was unable to take my lunch hour, I was still able to take a walk in the afternoon and that definitely helped. Unfortunately the chaos just continued in the afternoon and after I returned home at the end of the day.

I got really down on myself and was incredibly stressed out. I wanted to emotional eat like it was my job. It was a bizarre reaction and a feeling I didn’t really know how to deal with. Normally when I’m stressed or depressed food becomes my last priority and I just don’t have much of an appetite; I was feeling this way earlier this month. But this day the desire to binge came on strong. I don’t know how to explain it. It was all I could do not to eat the 4 cupcakes on the top of my fridge and then move on to the 2200 calories worth of pie I had baked earlier in the week. (More on the pie later.) I ended up having one cupcake, a few oreos, and then some fruit and kettlecorn – but I went to bed that night “hungry”. I use quotes there because it wasn’t stomach hunger, it was emotional hunger. I’m 100% sure this was all me trying to punish myself for one thing or another. Punishment seems to be a trend of mine lately. The negative self-talk came on full-force the next day, with the usual mantra of, “Well I guess I’ll just be fat forever since [enter ridiculous illogical reason here].”

It’s funny how the pie began as a stress reliever; the process of the prepping and mixing, the quiet of the house as the kids slept and Mike was out for the night, listening to some quiet music while doing it all, only for the end result to become a bane on my existence.

I made the mistake of entering the recipe into MyFitnessPal to calculate the nutritional information, which came out to 450 calories a slice. Steep, huh? I think I subconsciously told myself I couldn’t eat any pie. Period. Look at the calories, look at the carb count, look at the sugar. I couldn’t possibly eat any of that pie. So, of course, I immediately wanted to eat the whole thing. I briefly debated at 3am one morning going down to the kitchen and eating it straight from the pie plate in the light of the fridge. The pie just perpetuated my negative inner monologue. I even wrote on Facebook a couple days later, “I don’t want to be a big fatso, but I also want to be able to eat all the delicious things whenever I want them.” It amazed/amazes me how I could go from “There’s no reason I can’t stick to a caloric deficit and good food choices for 6 weeks. 6 weeks isn’t long at all.” And then proceeded to stay within my deficit only 50% of the time – if that. That’s not a real spectacular track record, and this is what leads me to feeling like I better learn to love this body that I’m in because I sure as shit can’t seem to change what it looks like or how healthy it is. I don’t want the stress of tracking all my food, but I also feel like I’m not capable of eating intuitively and healthy and at a deficit right now. Not that I’m eating particularly healthy right now, but at least I’m aware of how poorly I’m eating… if that makes sense…?

I also told myself last week that I would get back to strength training no matter how beginner the program needed to be. That hasn’t happened. Not even come CLOSE to happening. I did plenty of walking and a little bit of running, but shin splints derailed me pretty hard core with any real running action. Then I woke to a little back pain Saturday morning, which quickly morphed into major back pain Sunday morning. Tuesday I did all right and since my normal tennis date got rained out, I took about a 30 minute walk with my dad instead. Apparently that wasn't smart, even though it felt good. I woke up this morning (Weds) in lots of pain. The longer I was awake and moving around, the worse it got. I couldn't sit or lie down. The only thing that felt okay was standing or walking, and even those options weren't great. I could get in my car to drive into work. I had shooting pain going down my right leg and my muscles and tendons felt so tight they might snap. I started flipping out and crying and my husband took me to the doctor. I have a round of steroids to take now and was giving some muscle relaxers. I haven't actually taken the muscle relaxers yet.. I'm a little scared of them. Tonight at bedtime I'll likely have to, though, in order to be able to get any relief or rest. This is just adding to my less-than-stellar mental place and I'm struggling with keeping a positive outlook and have found myself getting caught up in the thought process of "I'm going to have to deal with this pain forever" several times today. My doctor seemed to think this was kind of a freak occurrence, and I'm hoping for the same. 

I’ve been so angry and frustrated by my body’s absolute refusal to cooperate with the normal calories in/calories out adage. As I said above, I haven’t been super compliant, but even with my “cheating” I should have still seen a pound or two of weight loss over the last month – but there’s been nothing. At the doc this morning I weighed in at 200 pounds. Now, I understand I’d already eaten breakfast and I was wearing all my clothes, jewelry, had my phone in my pocket, etc. But it really hit me hard to see that number. And I guess I need to get over that feeling because it isn’t going to change without the hard work and sacrifice that I’m obviously not committed to making at this time. The fact of the matter is, my hormones and general body chemistry are working against me right now. I’m not helping myself by continually over-indulging in sweets and alcohol and other simple carbs. I’m not helping myself by avoiding strength training and over-doing cardio to the point of injury. This round of prednisone certainly isn't going to help anything and I'm hoping it won't affect my appetite like I've seen it do to friends and family who have had to have short rounds. But, honestly, if I gain 5 pounds and never have to experience muscle pain like this again, it might be worth it. 

While suffering through the worst shin splints I’ve ever had and now this back pain, I’m slowly coming around to the realization that I need to slow down and take it easy. I need to be better to my body. Yes, there was a time where I was in decent shape. That time is not now. I’m not doing myself any favors by rushing into things and causing myself injury. I’m not benefitting from this sort of behavior in any way. I think it’s just its own form of self-sabotage. Until I’m 100% healthy (including this never-ending cold-that-is-now-a-sinus-infection), I need to focus on walking instead of running, making sure I’m doing some gentle stretching/yoga daily if possible, and a beginner strength routine starting with body weight and working up from there once my back can handle it. I put a calendar together for myself last night, but I'm afraid today's back issue may derail a lot of that. I'm not sure I can do even the basic yoga poses I had planned for myself for today, but that's okay. It has to be okay, because I have to let this muscle inflammation heal before I can attempt to do any kind of regular exercise other than walking (although maybe even that, since walking seemed to be what irritated this flare-up further).

All or nothing?

So, I’ve been sitting here wondering to myself why I just can’t seem to make the scale move, and basically what that comes down to is this: I’m an idiot.

Here I’ve been feeling like I’ve been doing “pretty well” with my calorie/macro tracking, deciding that one (or two or three) high-cal days aren’t “hurting anything” because in my head it somehow magically balances out… but as I said, I’m an idiot.

My ass has essentially been eating at maintenance the last few weeks. Which is great in the sense that that means I’m no longer eating ABOVE maintenance and therefore no longer continuing to slowly gain weight – but it does mean that the scale and tape-measure are going to continue showing me the same results each month because I’m not putting myself in a deficit except maybe 3 days a week.

Now this is where it all gets a little tricky. A couple weeks ago I dove back into regular exercise pretty hardcore. I went from running once or twice a week and playing tennis once a week to running 3 or 4 times a week, playing tennis, and now this week reincorporating strength training. This may be TMI, but I’ll tell you my menstrual cycle is a wreck and doesn’t know what to do with itself, which is a pretty tell-tale sign that my hormones are going nuts. So while I’m regularly eating anywhere from 2500-3000 calories a day when my deficit goal is to eat between 2100-2300, the reason I’m eating that higher range is because I am all of a sudden starving all the time.

Now, I know I recently wrote that my appetite had been crappy and it was making it easier to eat less and eat better – but clearly my appetite has come back with a vengeance. I wish I could say it’s because my emotional health is doing better, but it’s not. In fact, some days I wonder if I’m worse than just a week or so ago. So the only thing I can figure is that increase in physical activity = spike in hunger and appetite. This is kind of a “duh”, but I just can’t believe with the amount of fat I packed on over the summer that my metabolism has somehow magically sky-rocketed into the 3,000’s TDEE level requiring me to be able to maintain a deficit while eating roughly 2500 calories a day. I mean, that would be nice and all – but it just doesn’t seem very realistic.

As most of you know, I recently started using the FitBit Flex again. According to that, with my increased activity levels over the last 2 weeks, I’m rocking about a 2800 calorie TDEE. Fine and dandy, but even so, I should not be “starving” at a 2100-2300 goal range. That’s ridiculous.

I’m incredibly frustrated right now. I struggle with consistency – in fact, it’s the one thing I’m consistent with – but I feel like during the times that I am consistent I should see some sort of progress. Sometimes I am consistent for months at a time! And still, nothing. Consults with my doctors over the last 8 months don’t show any type of hormonal imbalance, thyroid issues, pre-diabetes, etc. – any and all of which would be a reason that I find it so difficult to lose weight/fat. It makes me feel like I’m a just a lazy fatso with no self-control. I get caught up in this feeling of “it’s so easy for everyone else”, except I know that it isn’t. Everyone has their struggles. Everyone has to decide which sacrifices they’re willing to make. Then I think maybe I’m just not willing to make the necessary sacrifices. That is both true and untrue.

I wonder if my self-sabotage comes from a punishment place. I also wonder if my recent increase in exercise comes from a punishment place, as well. Part of it is definitely coming from a fear place. I’m terrified if I stop regularly running (at the very least) I’ll slip into an even deeper depression. About the only time I feel “good” these days is the 2 hours after a run or tennis - I honestly don’t remember if I got the same endorphin high after doing my strength circuits the other night. This is probably another reason why the impending winter is terrifying me. What will happen if I can’t get that regular cardio in? On top of my normal S.A.D.? That just seems like an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

So back to the food thing for a moment… I’ve decided effective immediately, I’m going to start following the Eat More 2 Weigh Less philosophy. I’m going to stick to my 2300 calories, unless I have an extremely high burn day. If at the end of 6 weeks I’ve seen zero change in either weight or measurements, then it’s time to adjust a little bit. There’s no reason I can’t do this for 6 weeks. It’s just really not that much time. I’m also thinking about getting back to either New Rules of Lifting or Female Body Breakthrough for weight training, since EM2WL strongly recommends heavy lifting.

Speaking of lifting… as I mentioned a couple paragraphs up, I did some strength circuits the other night. For those of you that follow my Instagram account, you know this nearly killed me. I’m back at square-one strength-wise and it’s got me feeling really dismayed. I am still sore from that workout and almost everything was simply bodyweight… the weighted exercises I found myself having to resort to my 8lbs dumbbells. This is what happens when you quit completely for a couple months and then ramp up the cardio. In Bro Speak: you kill gains. My gains are so dead right now. What’s even more upsetting is that I know I won’t be making very many new gains eating at a deficit… but, honestly, right now I’m in a real “run it off then bulk it up” mentality. That I can most certainly tell you comes from a punishment place. I love the running, don’t get me wrong. I already talked about how it helps keep my already-low mood somewhat stable. But I am feeling very “fuck it” right now with strength training. I want faster results, man. I couldn’t tell you if running with actually do this for me, since when I was training for my 5K I was holding fat like nobody’s business, but I’m really wanting to see some change on the scale.

I know, I know. Scale isn’t everything. I feel like I practically invented that mantra within my social circle. But right now the scale is everything to me and I want to see it move, damnit. And if that means I’m “skinny fat” at 170lbs, then so be it. If that means the scale bumps up to 180 when I start working toward strength gains and muscle hypertrophy, I’m okay with that. But right now I am so sick of flirting with 200lbs. 195 is too damn close. I’m over it. I can’t see that number anymore. It’s driving me insane. I can’t get right with it.

I wish I could say this talk is coming from my Deep Dark Depression Place, but really I think I was just lying to myself when I wrote that I could be “okay” with this weight and body aesthetic for the rest of my life. Who knows anymore?! Maybe I’ll start an anti-depressant, find a therapist that works better with me and offers me the tools I’m looking for, and get right with myself emotionally and all of a sudden love the hell out of this body I’m in. Part of me hopes that happens. But right now, punishment or not, something’s gotta give. And it sure as hell isn’t my mental state, so it may as well be my physical.

I’m not trying to say that being skinny or “cut” or whatever is going to magically make me happy or lower my stress levels or make me love my job more or make my kids behave better or make me more money, but at least I won’t have to feel so guilty about being fat anymore. At least that will be one thing I can cross OFF of my List of Failures.

…I’m sorry. This got kind of real dark real fast, and I didn’t intend that to happen. It ain’t all about skinny, it’s mostly about healthy. But it’s some about skinny, too. Just like the smoking and the drinking if driving, this needs to be a non-negotiable for me. I can’t give up on myself just because it’s easier to eat mini candy bars at work all day and follow that up with some Oreos or maybe Dairy Queen at night. Talk about punishment. Fuck. I deserve better than that. I deserve to eat those things sometimes because I really want to eat them, not because “I may as well”.

I deserve to be healthy and happy. And if I can’t be happy, I can at least make my best effort at healthy.

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?

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. 

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. 

Flipping out and finding solace

Okay, I know it’s only been 3 weeks… but I had been eating at maintenance (or doing a “refeed”) from November to the beginning of March, so I’m feeling like a 15-20% cut from TDEE should be leading to SOME weight loss. SOME.

I lost 3 lbs the first week back counting calories, and have proceeded to lose nothing in the last 2 weeks even though I’ve stuck to the same types of foods, the same calorie range, and have increased my activity significantly. I began my first week of #100DaysOfChange doing mostly yoga and dance games on the Wii. My second week I jumped back into lifting and running with a couple of active rest days (ie: yoga).  

W. T. F.

While I do not in any way expect to lose 3lbs a week, I do expect to lose something. Hopefully I’m burning fat. Alllll the fat. And just holding water in my muscles making the scale stagnant.

I took measurements on Saturday, and those are mostly the same as they were a couple months ago. Very, very, slight changes. Like a quarter of an inch or less. I’d post them, except I forgot to write them all down. I’m so smart. I do know my natural waist was down to 32”, but my waist-at-navel and hips haven’t changed which is where I had gained some fat over the winter. I’ll retake this weekend and actually record them this time!

So that’s frustrating. Plus I’ve been really hungry over the last week and have no PMS to blame it on, and this plus the above frustration is leading me to want to say “fuck it” to calorie counting. Again. But I know I’m being incredibly impatient and need to get over myself, so I hope this little vent will get it off my mind and allow me to plug along. Maybe I’ll have another random 3lbs week this week and it’ll all just balance out!

I struggled a little bit on Sunday and Monday this week to get the workout in. I stayed out way too late Saturday night and it set me off on a bit of an emotional tailspin and threatened to push me back into bad habits. Live and learn. Unless it’s a truly special occasion, this girl needs to get her butt home and in bed around midnight. No excuses. I’m feeling much more motivated today and am looking forward to getting home and getting a good, tough workout in followed by a long, hot shower, some tv with Mike, some reading before bed, and asleep by 11:30pm. I can’t wait and I love how my priorities are changing to put me in this headspace.

Now to totally up and change subjects: I said in my last update that I would post progress pictures soon. These were taken mid-February a couple weeks into Female Body Breakthrough before I had my breakdown (see what I did there?) and quit exercising for nearly 2 weeks.

Quite a bit of difference from my January 12^th photos I talked about and posted a couple months ago.

I'm still not close to where I had been around Fall of 2013, but making steps. I can’t say enough about how #100DaysOfChange is, well, changing my life and my perspectives and my goals. I know I just said Sunday and Monday were rough, which they were, and that’s to be expected every now and again – but overall I am absolutely loving choosing something to do for myself every day, taking that picture to prove to myself that it got done, and the love and support I’m getting from my family and friends. Probably the most exciting thing about it though, is the fact that I can feel myself slowly pulling through this depression. There are still bad days/weeks, there are still some moments where I wonder if I’m just becoming numb to the things that stress me out or make me unhappy (I’ve felt this way a lot this week which I think may be stemming mostly from my sleep schedule being disrupted) - but when I get home in the evening and choose the workout I’m going to do for the night, I feel great about that decision and I feel great while I’m doing my chosen activity. I’m in my own special place inside my head. It is my time and my comfort space. I don’t worry about my job or my kids or my chores. I just think about me and how I’m improving my life and my health. It’s really great and I just hope that it will continue to be that for me, and right now I’m going to relish in it and try to ignore the scale.