I still believe…

I’ve been hibernating over winter, and now that spring is here I am back.

I have a situation.

I share space at work with three other women.  Two of whom, like me, are fighting the weight battle.

By nature, I’m not a competitive person.  I avoid confrontation.  I dumped my last boyfriend via phone then stopped taking his calls.  My current situtation is no doubt karmic payback for this.

The situation is this, the youngest girl ( she is 24 I am 30) I share space with is constantly talking about her diet.  Constantly.  Every morning I get an update on what she ate the previous night.  She mentions her exercise plans incessantly.  She talks about the grams of fat in what she’s eating.

I want to be happy for her that she is trying to make good choices, I want to support her in her struggle to be motivated, but mostly I just want to punch her in the face.

I firmly believe (despite the fact that I’m typing this right now) that the only person who care about your diet and the only person who should be privy to your diet is you yourself.  It is not a topic your friends and coworkers want to hear about.  If you lose twenty pounds and get complimented, you might say in a blase tone of voice, “oh yes, I switched it up a little”, but that’s it!  We are inherently self-absorbed!  Its just a fact.  If you there is a true physical change, people will notice, you will be polite and the new reality of your life will continue.

Fact: There are limits to my patience and my sympathy, especially when I am struggling with my own choices.

I don’t want to be the nasty, petty person who, because she constantly brings it up, actually does start mentally judging her choices (egg salad from the cafeteria, really?!  A huge bowl of cheesy, creamy risotto, are you kidding me?).

First, because that is not the kind of person I want to be and second because why am I wasting my precious time on this person?

Its frustrating because she has this sort of verbal diarrhea.  I know more about this girl’s love life, health problems and family problems than anyone who is a coworker really should. She is constantly talking,  I can only turn my Ipod up so loud before I start to worry about future hearing loss.

Am I wrong to think that some things should be kept personal?  I would love to hear about her date with her boyfriend and how she hopes hes going to propose without the interjection of exactly how much she ate of what!

She drives the other women (and me) in the cube crazy as well because she is always passing judgment on what we eat as well (Oh, I never eat starch for dinner.  I hardly ever eat meat, I can’t believe you do!).  I want to have an enjoyable coffee break discussing what we did the previous night and what we cooked and she turns it into a weight loss meeting!

I have a limited amount of sympathy.  She talks incessantly about her clothes being looser.  I haven’t noticed.  Am I a bad person for wanting her to shut up about her diet?  You can’t fish for compliments, if you do it isn’t a compliment!

I’m definitely a WASP.  I believe there are certain things that one talks about in public and things that are private and only for intimate acquaintances, she clearly (based on my unwelcome knowledge of her family criminal history) does not.

I know myself and I know that at times I’m too protective and too closed off because I’m scared of being hurt.  I’m usually the listener in the relationship, who tries to build up my partner but I expect the same in return.  If there was any sort of reciprocity in her interactions, I would be able to tolerate it better, but its always about her.

I can’t move where I work, so I just have to bite my tongue, but any advice would be welcome from anyone who has had similar experiences.

I’ve lost weight before, but have never been at this weight before or even in its neighborhood honestly so I’ve never experienced this before but the instant I broke the 170’s its like my body’s thermostat broke.

I’m always cold.

I was wearing wool pants and cashmere sweaters in August when everyone else was in tank tops and capris at work.  I don’t know what to do besides wear more layers but its getting kind of ridiculous.  I actually had my outdoor wool coat on at work for two hours before I finally felt warm enough to take it off.  My hypochondriac cube-mate who is always sick (getting sick, recovering from being sick, on the verge of death etc) who is usually more than willing to corroborate and commiserate with other people illnesses, was like dude, its really not cold in here, what is wrong with you?

Sigh.

High point of the week, seeing my mom for the first time since Christmas.  The first thing she said (besides move back to Ohio, please please) was wow you’ve lost so much weight.  I don’t see it (body image thing rearing its ugly head) but its nice to hear from someone who I genuinely love and respect and who knows me.

Its difficult to navigate lifestyle change when there are so many positive and negative influences vying for my attention.  Its difficult when I want to be young and hip and do what young hip people do, but as I’m doing them realize they are not beneficial to my figure.  I went out for wings and sangria with one of my roommates last night.  I had an awesome time but there was that voice in the back of my head saying, are you sure this is the right idea?  Are you sure you want to eat that? Drink that?

I want to be able to live a fun, happy and healthy life.  I don’t believe that any one of those three things is any more important than the others.  I don’t want to be skinny and miserable.  I want to keep the friends that I have, I worked pretty damn hard to make and keep them, but if they aren’t conducive to healthy living, what do I do then?

Good news: I finally broke in the new walking shoes, am loving them (Mizuno’s anyone?).  Good news: am maintaining my weight, not losing like I was hoping, but I’m not going to discount that keeping weight off is just as hard as losing in the first place if not harder.  Good news:  My size 12 pants felt comfortable around the thigh today.

So its been a while since wrote, since I’ve basically been exhausted all the time.  Its so physically, mentally and emotionally draining to be back on my feet 8 hours a day working my old job with my old coworkers.  As annoying as I sometimes find my new ones, they are a head and shoulders above the old ones.  Its not worth giving any more time to the sheer pointlessness of it all, but I will have to admit that I haven’t made the best choices.

First sign there is something wrong:  I started drinking again.  Before everyone thinks I’m an alcoholic, let me say that by drinking I mean having one or two Michelob 64’s or a bottle of hard cider with dinner.

However, diet wise, alcohol was something that I had cut out completely as being empty useless calories.  I feel kind of like I’m letting myself down, but I’m so upset and stressed out from having to deal with everything that having a glass of beer seems like a nice thing to relax.

Second problem:  My schedule is a lot more fixed and random at the same time at my old job which means I have to eat when I have time to eat, not on my schedule and when I am hungry.  I haven’t been making awesome food choices either.  There was sheet cake at work today.  I had two pieces.  I can honestly say that it was delicious and satisfying, but again, did I need two pieces?

Third problem:  I was doing pretty well at the working out twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  Since I have to be at work and working at 7:00 am, I’m not doing the am work out, and since I’m so tired by the time I get home, I’ve been fumbling the evening workout.

So basically, I’m just trying to hold myself at a steady state until I can get through this week and get myself back on track.

Positives:  I bought new running shoes.  After being on my feet all week, and went for my hike then spent all Labor day weekend regretting it because my hips and my ankles were killing me.  So Saturday I bought a pair of Mizuno’s from Runner’s World.  I did the whole walk on the treadmill thing video imaging.  I didn’t think that I would really be able to tell the difference, but I tried this pair on and all the sudden my hip pain went away like magic.  Awesome.

I cooked ahead for the week so that I don’t have the excuse of having nothing to eat to allow myself to get takeout.

I only have three more days.

So this morning, I woke up did Turbo Sculpt and was in an awesome mood until my boss let me know that for the next two weeks I will be working back in my old division.  Now there is nothing wrong with my old division and old job, but there is a reason why I transferred as well.  I’m much happier in my new position.

There is nothing I can do about it besides be a gracious member of the team, do my work, keep my head down and at the end of the two weeks hope that’s the end of it.  I know this logically, emotionally however I want to eat.

a. has nothing to do with b. which is at the heart of emotional eating I guess, but all I can think about is all the different things I could be eating right now that would make me feel “better” about all this.

F@#%#%%.

So I’m going to eat my planned dinner a little early so that I don’t have to be physically and emotionally hungry at the same time.  Of course its raining so I can’t really walk outside either.

I’m trying to hold onto the good positive feelings I felt this morning.

So I’ve never been a runner.  I’ve had no desire to try it, still traumatized by the 13 minute miles in high school where I would literrally be the last person in.  I wasn’t fit then and it spoiled the idea of even trying to do it later on.  So when I got the latest Women’s Health  (I swear I haven’t paid for it in a year and yet they keep mailing it to me) and its article on A Beginner’s guide to Running, I decided to give it a try.

So this morning on my walk I ran some intervals.  1/2 lap walking, half lap running (well jogging I guess).  I was fully expecting it to be horrible and to give up after the first attempt.  Shockingly it wasn’t.  It wasn’t easy, but I did four intervals (I can do this, I can do this, I can do this = my mantra).

Conclusions:

1. It gave me a nice feeling of accomplishment to face the nemesis of my youth.

2. If I intend to do this regularly I need to get running shoes.

Does anyone else ever feel that way?

I hate that I’m competitive with my cubicle mate about weight loss.  There are a lot of things about her that are annoying (I’m sure she would say the same thing about me), but I hate myself for feeling good about doing better with the whole weight loss thing than she is.  Its not like there’s a cash prize at the the end (or an end really) so why do I feel so successful when I make good choices and she eats a candy bar?

We’re not workout buddies or diet buddies, so I’m certainly not going to say anything.  I guess everyone has a tipping point where it stops being a diet and starts being a necessary lifestyle change.  Maybe she’s not there yet, but since our desks are separated by a flimsy barrier only just, and I have this problem where I can’t stop myself from talking about food, that we end up talking about what we ate and how we exercised quite a bit.  (Food porn = discussion of the food you would eat, if you could.).  So its kind of impossible for me not to know that she’s trying to lose weight and for her to know the same about me.  The only person I should care about is me, and I know that but its hard.  Ideas anyone?

A third woman in our cube is pregnant.  She always has snacks.  She had a bag full of dried fruit today and gingersnaps that she was trying to share.  It was so hard to turn them down.  I really wanted some.  I ate my 100 calories of almonds instead, but ugh dried pineapple.

Its been sort of a bitter realization that this really is going to be a lifetime.  There is not going to be a finish line.

In good news, I weighed in at 171.2 this morning (naked after pee naturally) which put me in a good mood and gave me a little bit more will power all day!

I had yoga today!  It was such a good class in that I actually left it feeling flexible.  I manage to do all the poses (expect shoulder stand but come on!) and it didn’t hurt, I wasn’t stressing about them.  I could feel the stretch and it felt okay as opposed to torture!  Yeah!

Tomorrow is my weigh day and I’m nervous about it.  I’ve been working out consistently but I also think I’m eating too much.  Not ridiculously too much, but like 200 calories too much which is enough to derail weight loss.  I guess I’ll know tomorrow when I weight myself.  Whether I’ve lost or not, the yoga feeling good is enough of a victory for this week I guess.

Update:

Just started using Fitday and am definitely eating too much for my activity level.  Good to know…

I did Turbo Sculpt this morning, then walked along the canal towpath for a little over an hour after work.  It put me in such a good mood.  I’m not sure if its endorphins or just feeling like I accomplished what I set out to do today but I feel good.

I’m working on not being vain.  I’m not sure if that’s the right way to describe it, but I don’t want to be that person who is a. always talking about their diet/what they eat or b. that person who is always talking about their workout.  Sometimes however its like word vomit.  In my head I’m like stop talking don’t you see that person’s eyes glazing over, but I just keep talking about it.

Today as I was walking I realized that somehow, me the person who has never played a team sport, didn’t belong to any teams in high school or college and dreaded gym, can say in all honesty that working out is a hobby of mine.  That makes me happy too. I used to hate being outside, and while I still hate being sweaty and the bugs, I’m actually worried about not being able to walk once it starts to snow (five months from now! Ha!).  Oh how things change.

Oh well.  So happy.  Nothing super special happened,  I’m just in a good mood!

I hope everyone else had a good day too!

I’ve always been overweight.  Since I’ve been 8 or 9 I’ve always weighed too much.  Most horrifying word that you can ever use to describe a young girl: husky.  Yes, that would be mother who used that delightful adjective.

The other thing you should know about me is that I love infomercials.  Seriously.  The best part of the weekend is eating breakfast (today: ham sandwich (Wh. Wheat bread 1oz ham, mustard), peach, Oj (blended with half scoop whey protein and ice)) in front of the TV and watching infomercials.

Third point would be that a lot of my friends are heavy too.  Not all of them, but some of the people I’m closest to aren’t skinny minis.  That’s an entirely different post though.

All three of these things come together like this:

One of my heavier guy friends who lives in Arizona (I live in NJ) recently started P90X.  When I say heavy I mean morbidly obese, his doctors told him he needed to do something or he would be facing diabetes and a whole host of other negative outcomes.  I love the P90X commercial, it gets you really pumped up, the trainer is ripped, everyone in the testimonials is ripped!

I’m down almost 50 pounds from where I was when I got home from the Peace Corps (that’s where we met).  I’ve done it slowly.  I walk a lot.  Its only in the last ten pounds lost that I’ve added the Turbo Jam videos and really started focusing on toning.

Why?  Because I wanted to succeed.

To quote Ice-Cube, “Life ain’t a track meet, its a marathon.” If you know you have 26 miles to go, are you going to burn up all your energy and drive in the first mile?  No, you start slow, you take your time, you find your stride and at the end in those last few miles, you punch it up.

If I started out when I was out of shape, overweight, depressed about being overweight with some highly regimented and regulated system, I would have failed.  Its as simple as that.

There are days when I can barely make it through the TurboJam video now, and I’m in much better shape.  It kills me to read on the forum people who have so much weight to lose asking if these video systems are right for them.

I’m not a professional but I’m going to say, no they are not.  Not if you aren’t willing to take the time and move slowly.  Not if you are looking for a miracle solution.

The best part about exercising for me is the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling that yeah, it was hard, but I did it.  If you start out with something too difficult, unless you are the exception, you will get frustrated and you will stop because you won’t be getting that reward that is success.

I want to shake my friend (who has already injured himself) and say, start by walking.  Its easy.  If walk enough (30 minutes at a moderate pace a couple times a week) and manage what you eat, you will lose weight.  That’s how those 50 pounds came off.  And it felt good.  And I didn’t injure myself.  And I got myself into a position where now I can think about doing one of those toning video systems in the next 20 pounds or so.

I didn’t get fat overnight.  I’ve been working at that for the past 20 years.  I don’t expect to hit a healthy weight overnight either.  Its going to take time.  Lucky for me there are plenty of sidewalks out there for me to explore.

Thanks for letting me rant.