Confessions of a Bulk Eater

So, not only did I go to the gym this morning and run/walk a 5k loop on the treddy, I went BACK this evening after work and had a session with my trainer. We did legs again… I can’t walk. Man, she kicks my ass every time, but that’s a good thing!

Food was good.. I am so proud of myself and you’ll see why. I’m counting points again btw.

Breakfast (after running): Peaches and Cream Oatmeal: 1/2 cup oatmeal, 2 tbsp f/f milk, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1/2 cup sliced peaches — 4 points

Lunch: 2 slices whole wheat bread with 1/2 cup chicken salad - 6 points; 1 cup taco soup - 1 points; s/f jello - 0pts

Dinner (after gym): we met Jake’s dad at Tony Roma’s for dinner. I had just come from the gym so I was hungry, but wasn’t. I had a house salad with fat free Italian dressing - 1pt b/c of the cheese on it (very little)! That was it!!! I did have 2 of Addison’s fries and a small piece of her chicken strip, but nothing to really add points. I just ate another cup of taco soup so another 1 point.

Let me repeat that though — we went out to dinner and I had a house salad with fat free Italian dressing. And did you notice any snacks?! NOPE!!! No sirree!!! None, nada, no way!

WOO HOO!!!! Okay, it’s only one day I feel good about it this time. Fingers crossed!

I did it. I made it to the gym this morning. I jumped on the treadmill, put it on the 5k loop and started off. I did one of the C25k podcasts just because it has been awhile since I’d been to the gym. I did week 3… then I kept going. I wanted to do a week of the podcasts just go get back into it, but I think I can do week 4 for a few days and be ready to go from there. Week 3 was almost too easy.

Anyway, my friend and I are going to start meeting at the gym at 5am now. I figured if I know someone is going to meet me there, I’ll be more apt to get up and go.

Ah, August, how I love thee. Not only are you the hottest month of the year for us, but you also bring us the most hurricanes. In fact, you pretty much bring us our only hurricanes. So here we are again. One week and 4 years after Charlie barreled through Florida and made my life hell (I quit Home Depot 2 weeks to late) here comes another one on the exact same path. So my son will start school tomorrow and then probably won’t go on Tuesday b/c of the storm… lovely.

Oh well.

I plan on getting up and getting to the gym tomorrow at 5am. Hubby and I talked and we are going to do a trial run… although tomorrow I will come home and take my son to school since hubby has an appointment at 7am. I am back on track tomorrow. I made a menu for every meal for the entire week and went grocery shopping today. Of course, if Fay hits us and we are without power, it will be all for naught. Only I would shop 2 days before a hurricane hits and not get ANYTHING for supplies. Oh well. I’m more worried about weight loss than a stupid hurricane.

I am not. I am back in my funk. I thought this past weekend might shake me out of it, but although I had fun, I think the fact I was on the edge of irritation with the girls all weekend really didn’t help. Not to mention the fact I saw a picture that was taken with my camera and it totally depressed me. I immediately deleted it. I am trying to figure out what steps to take. — Okay, that’s stupid.. I know what steps to take, but I am sort of feeling overwhelmed with the whole thing. I need to find a way to get more gym time and if that means I have to get my ass up at the BUTT CRACK of dawn every morning and be at the gym by 5 so I can work out for an hour before work, then I may just have to do it. Hubby will have to suck it up and take both kids to school, which isn’t a big deal since the elementary school is a mile from us and he has to drive right by the daycare to get to his work. Then I can go at night as well when I have a training session. Going only at nights right now sort of stresses me out because we get home later and we really don’t eat all that healthy on those nights, which is so STUPID since we are coming from the gym.

Anyway, I’m still here…. still thinking… still wanting to get back on track but just can’t seem to find a way to do so. Help me hang in there, ladies!

Woah… what happened to the blogs while I was gone?!

Anyway, I am back from my weekend of rafting! We had a great time, although I feel as if I was dropped into Girl Hell. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s just say that I am not much of a girl and the rest of them were. It was a tad bit irritating. Especially when one had to blow dry her hair before we left to go rafting. Really? Seriously? What’s the point?

Anyway, I have so many stories and it would take me SO long to type out the whole weekend so I may tell a story every few days. They are humorous.

I now have to recover from the weekend and get ready to get back on track. I am still feel like I am still in a dark place, but I have the desire to get back on track. I think that is a good thing! I have made 2 personal training appointments for next week already. I don’t know if I’ll get to the gym or not this week, but I am going to try.

On the house front: we made an offer on the house and the seller counter-offered but did not take much off the selling price. We counter-offerered (counter-counter offerered?) with a little more but they still wouldn’t budge. We have decided to walk away at this point. We could afford what they are asking (and staying with) but it would be tight. We don’t want it to be tight. So we are going to keep looking. I am a little dissappointed because I was truly in love with the house, but I feel if we had decided to accept it, I would have been so stressed out about money that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. SO…. back to sqaure one.

First off, thanks for all the support over the past few days. Although I am not out of the dark place yet, I have a feeling I am slowly coming out. Why do I think this? Well, I have been scouring the internet food blogs for yummy, healthy recipes and am getting excited about trying them.

Secondly: I think we may have found a house. We are going tonight to look at one we saw last week that I absolutely loved just to be sure, but we are more than likely going to put an offer on one we found last night. It is a 4/2 with a pool in a decent neighborhood. My son wouldn’t have to change schools for elementary, but it puts us in a better school district for middle school (in you know - 5 years). We’ll see. It’s a short sale so there are a lot of variables and we may be waiting awhile to hear. Totally terrifying!

Thirdly: I will be MIA for the next few days. I am leaving at 6am (WHAT!!) yes, 6am tomorrow morning for a white water rafting trip. My best friend growing up is getting married in 2 weeks and she has planned a “bachelorette weekend.” The bride-to-be, her 2 SIL’s and myself will be driving up to TN tomorrow and picking up her fiance’s sister and cousin at the airport in Knoxville. We will then be going to a cabin somewhere up there. Saturday is rafting day and Sunday is hanging out day. Monday we drive home. I am going to bring my running shoes (and socks!) and maybe find a trail or something on Sunday. If I can’t, I’ll just walk and explore. I LOVE the outdoors (except when I have to sleep in a tent and it is nighttime) and am looking forward to exploring the terrain.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

I am starting to freak out just a little. Remember in a previous post, I said hubby and I are starting the home buying process? Well, I am really starting to freak out about it. It scares me to NO END. I’ve been doing some reading on the internet today (work is slow) and I am just getting more and more freaked out. Perhaps it’s like looking at medical websites when you are sick and determining you have some fatal disese when really you have a pulled muscle. I know these web articles really lay out worse case scenarios, but it still frightens me. And I feel my fear is grounded. We live in Orlando which had a HUGE housing boom over the past few years. It has now quickly downturned, which is why it is a buyer’s market and prices are quite low becuase people are losing thier shirts and walking away from properties. Hubby and I are finally at a point in our lives where we could safely afford a house… right now. I work in the construction business and have survived 6 rounds of layoffs over the past year. It could be my turn tomorrow. Hubby’s job is a little more secure, but he is the new kid on the block there and if things were to happen, he could be the first to go. Of course, that could happen if we were renting too, but we wouldn’t have a mortgage over our heads.

We don’t have the money needed for a 20% down payment which means we need to get the money from somewhere. We have talked to the mortgage company and there is a company we can get down payment assistance from, but it’s only 3%. With an FHA loan, we can use 3% but of course that makes our monthly payment more and that’s not including tax, insurance, any H/O Assoc. fees, etc. His parents have said they would help us but can’t give us a straight answer on how much they would give us. I guess they want to see what the numbers are, but I feel they should just give us a number so we know how much we have to work with. Like if they were to tell us they’d give us $10,000 we would know what what sort of price we should look for (this would be somethign we’d have to pay back to them of course). I feel that if they are waiting, we may find a house we like, and then them tell us they will only give us $5,000 and we’d be screwed with the higher monthly payment. Hubby and I know our limits. We have been pre-approved for a certain price but we know there is no way in hell we could afford the monthly payment on that amount. We are looking at things at least $70-80,000 lower than that - so we are doing some smart things.

I am also terrified of the responsibility. And that probably comes off sounding babyish or whiny, but right now in the apartment, if something is broken someone else is responsible NOT ONLY for the monetary part of fixing it but also the TIME AND EFFORT of fixing it. Hubby and I both work outside the house 40-50 hours a week plus we have 2 kids. Our time at home is precious. I’ll admit that there are times we don’t do the laundry, or vacuum, or clean the bathrooms, or anything else that needs to be done (excpet the kitchen - that HAS to be done!!) In fact, he complains when we have a weekend day where we only do chores. What is he going to do when we get into a house and now something has to be fixed… or we have to do yardwork (that is a weekly thing in FL most of the year). I want to rest and play as much as the next person, but I know we will have less of that if we buy a house. What if the roof collapses in the next hurricane — or worse, a TREE comes through our roof?! That is a worst case scenario, I know. But what about when the a/c breaks or somethign like that. Who is responsible? We are.

Yes, there are advantages to owning a home, I know. I need a yard for my kids, but we can rent a house and get a yard. Ugh..

Like I said… FREAKING OUT!!!

Anyone ever see Monty Python? All this freaking spam in the comments is getting a little ridiculous!! I thought changing the rules on my comments would help but somehow it’s still getting through. I mean, there is a time and a place to learn about hand jobs and animal sex, but I don’t feel like a diet blog is one of them. Just sayin’….

I am slipping further into the dark place. I can tell. I was venting to my friend on the phone tonight and I was starting to feel the urge to cry. I’m not a crier. Well, I take that back. I HATE that I cry at the stupidest things. It tends to happen when I am overwhelmed. It happens sometimes at work. Anyway, I started to have that feeling. It didn’t happen but I can feel myself slipping into the darkness. This is not good. When I get to that place I stop caring. I don’t want to stop caring about this weight loss… Even if I’m not necessarily doing anything drastic to lose the weight right now, i don’t want to stop caring. Caring is what keeps me at least going to the gym. Caring keeps that voice in my head that says “You shouldn’t eat that.”

I can’t even really explain why I am in this place. I guess just all this thinking and restrospective. But I’m not going to stop. It needs to come out or I will just keep sabatoging myself. I was thinking back to my memory yesterday of my mom just totally squashing my excitement over being able to buy a normal size (18 - normal in my mind) pair of pants and I think some of the tendancy to sabatoge comes from that. Perhaps I feel I don’t deserve to be thin. All my life I have been the “big girl”, the “fat friend”, the “athletic girl”. I’ve never been the “pretty girl”. Sometimes I don’t even think I deserve to be married to my husband. I wonder if he really does find me attractive. He says he does and he tells me I am beautiful but I never believe him. He gets mad when I can’t accept it. I just don’t see myself that way. I can’t accept any compliment someone gives me. Not even a simple “thank you.” I just don’t believe what they are saying. When you’ve been labled other things your whole life, it’s hard to accept when someone tells you the exact opposite. I remember trying out for the cheerleading team in…hmm, I guess it was 9th grade. I went to a small private school and we were just starting a cheerleading program. Before you tease me for my cheerleading wannabe-ness, I have to say… I am NOT a girly girl and I should have KNOWN that I wouldn’t be chosen. I can’t even do aerobics correctly or gracefully and I was going to try out for cheerleading?! HA!! Anyway, all these beautiful SKINNY girls came to the tryouts. And then there was me. Me with my short hair and glasses…and probably braces. The basketball coach was one of the judges and she said that she didn’t want to lose me off the basketball team and that’s why I didn’t make it. Yeah right. I didn’t believe it then, I don’t believe it now. It was a small school. Everyone knew who tried out and who didn’t make it. And why.

I’m not sure where I was going with this. You were warned that these posts are not going to make much sense. Oh yeah, the dark place. My husband was wondering what is going on with me, but I don’t even think I can explain it to him. I want to becuase we’ve had communication problems in the past and I’ve been working on being more open but how does one explain something to someone when she can’t even explain it to herself?

I had some random thoughts today as I pondered this whole weight loss thing. I wanted to write them down so I could come back and revisit them later if needed. Not that I am going to rehash every single thing that happened during my childhood, but I think it’s good to remember where we came from so we can see the postive changes we have made.

I remember my grandparents calling me “chubby”

I remember in about 4th grade not wanting to wear a certain shirt b/c it made me look fat and my mom forcing me to wear it. I can still see the shirt. It was purplish and I can see the way it fit across my stomach (which in 4th grade couldn’t have been that bad) and I still hate it. I think I see it everytime I put on a shirt that fits a little too tight.

I remember when I started losing my weight (at 26 years old) being excited that I was able to buy a pair of pants from Old Navy (a normal store!) and my mom saying… well, they are cut larger sometimes. Thanks for the support, mom.

I remember shopping with friends and basically standing around looking at clothes I would never be able to fit into while they shopped. Never once going where I could fit into something. I felt a little left out. I didn’t know then about stores such as Lane Bryant (didn’t discover that until later) In fact I don’t even remember where I shopped for clothes in high school.

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In an unrelated note, I did go to the gym today. I didn’t want to go, but I went. It’s hard to get back into routine.

How to begin? Well, let’s just say the past few weeks have not gone well for me. July SUCKED!! Between deaths and childhood phases and illness, I have been totally off track. I’ve been more consumed with taking care of others than taking care of myself. And that’s okay, there just needs to be some balance. I mean, of course I am going to do what needs to be done to make sure my kids are okay and the baby gets back to where she needs to be, but I need to balance that with some time to take care of myself. As much as I’ve been going to the gym over the past month or so (although not so much the past few weeks) I haven’t really been taking care of myself. I haven’t been fully aware of what I’ve been putting into my body. I’ve been really scattered over the past few months about that actually. I used to meticulously plan out what I was going to eat each meal, each day, each week. I don’t know when the last time I sat down and did that. I think I got a little burned out, but I also got lazy and complacent. I stopped taking the time to care for me.

I had a visit from some old “friends” this morning. I’m sure some of you have the same “friends”: self-hatred, disgust, despair. Those little voices that get in your head and tell you that you can’t do this, you’ll always be fat, you’ll never be able to get to goal so why don’t you give up….. You all know them. The reason these three came along? Well, my pants are fitting a little tighter this morning. It’s my own fault, and I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t. I never am. They hit me full force. Actually, self hatred hangs around all the time. Confession time: Did you know that I cannot look at myself in a mirror? I will take a few fleeting glances, but I cannot stand in front of a mirror and look at myself. I haven’t been able to do that for at least 3 years now. If you were to meet me and talk to me or interact with me, you would never know that I have such self-loathing. I want to change this. I’m just not sure how.

I started this blog to track food, to be accountable to someone - even if it was just the world wide web and no one ever read this. But a funny thing happened. I met a wonderful group of women. You all know who you are, but you guys have touched me in ways you don’t even know. I still want this blog to be a type of accountablilty, but I need to do some “housecleaning” first. I have issues — mental blocks if you will — that somehow derail my weight loss train (a horrible analogy — I sincerely apologize). I have to find a way to break through them and come to terms or I will never be able to lose this weight — or keep it off. I sabotoge all efforts I make and I have to figure out why.

So, that being said, this blog will not be about food journals or working out for awhile. I’m going to use it as a journal to try and figure out my feelings. I will still be dieting and such, but I need to have an outlet to get these feelings out. I need to figure out a way to eat better…healthier. I could limit myself to 1500k a day, but if I’m not eating the right things, I won’t get out of this rut. I’ve been doing some research about “Clean Eating” and i may try that. Who knows…. I first have to work on my inner demons.

So read if you dare! Most of the posts will probably be long ramblings making no sense… stream of conscienceness if you will… As long as you promise not to call the men in white coats on me!!