Gettin’ Fine in 2009

Well, so far, not so good.  I still haven’t gotten to the gym — not even once.  And now the entire month is gone.  I actually drove BY my usual parking spot there twice this month, but both times it was incredibly packed.  That gave me just the excuse I needed to keep right on driving.

It’s funny; I’m finding myself in the same state of mind I was in LAST year at this time, as my 50th birthday approached.  I had vowed to start working out early in the year, so there’d be no pressure, and by the time I hit 50, I’d just happen to be FABulous.  Then the days started ticking away.  Just like last year, I keep recalculating how much weight I could lose by such-and-such-a-date if I start right NOW.  (Did I mention I weighed 221.5 pounds this morning?  That’s UP from where I started the year.  My eating is still completely, utterly, and ridiculously out of control.)

Anyway, right now I figure there are 6 full months to my 51st birthday.  That’s about 25 weeks — at 2 lbs a week (which is about what I tend to lose averaged over time when I’m making an effort), I can STILL be down 50 lbs by then, to about 170 — and that would be less than I weighed on my wedding day in 1997, so that’d be great.  And then by Christmas I could lose another 20, which would put me at about 150, which would be AMAZING compared to what I am now.  So I feel like it’s “still ok”; I’m not out of time yet.

Then I chastise myself for calculating dates and weights, weights and dates.  What is the point?  What’s with the focus on dates?  I’m not supposed to be “dieting” anyway — I want to make permanent lifestyle changes — those don’t END.  So I keep having to catch myself doing that “stinkin thinkin”.

I need to get down to the business of just making those small changes, and keeping on doing them, dates be damned.

God, I’m boring even myself.  Usually when I sit down to write, it’s because have some stuff I think is interesting in mind to write about.  But once I start, everything gets all jumbled together in my mind, and I go off on tangents. 

I started this blog just to track my state of mind, how I was eating, and how I was exercising as I went through the process, which I assume will be long.  But I forget that sometimes, too; I find myself trying to write for an audience instead of just for myself.  Maybe that won’t work.

Maybe I’m feeling jumbled because it’s Friday night, after another lonnnnnnnnnnng week at work, and heaps more family stress.  I’ve finally realized there’s a strong correlation between how stressed I feel and how much junk food I want to eat.  I have an alcoholic brother, and I’ve seen recently realized how much we’re alike.  He’s supposed to go into rehab tomorrow, so he’s been binge-drinking all week — just like I do my “last suppers”.  When he’s stressed, he runs to booze; I run to carbs.  We all comfort ourselves in our own ways.  And the results of both hurt us, though maybe in different ways.

On a different note, I have a new idea for a goal I can shoot for, that might be more motivating than just “I have to get to the gym regularly”.  I’ll write about that next time. 

Well, here it is, the 6th day of January.  That means 6 opportunities(-ish) to have been to the gym to start gettin’ fine, and how many have I been there so far?  Zero.  I made it out for a 10 minute walk today, but that’s all I’ve been able to muster so far. 

It really hit home for me today how much the stress of my job weighs me down.  It makes it hard for me to get up in the morning, then it sucks energy out of me all day.  I’m too busy during the day to break away, usually, and by the end of the day it’s a real struggle to motivate myself to do anything other than get home to the couch and some terrible reality TV.  

I was happy today, though, that my urge when I was really feeling drained was to get out into the fresh air (even if it is in the 20’s out) for a walk, instead of heading to the vending machines. 

So I’m not giving up–don’t worry.  No way.  This is just a little stumble out of the starting blocks.

I’m just admitting that it was a lot easier to TALK about becoming a workout fiend than it has been to actually DO it so far.

One encouraging thing did happen today–my trainer Krystine emailed that I have 5 or 6 sessions left with her!  I skipped them in December, thinking that being a no-show would case me to forfeit them; but luckily, she said she’s not going to let me quit.  So I have that to help me get jumpstarted. 

My PC at work was attacked by viruses over New Year’s, meaning I had to start rebuilding it from scratch.  This is a huge pain in the butt; I’ve already spent 2 full days on it, and I have lots more stuff to install and configure.  I’m hoping that once THAT’s done, I’ll at least be able to leave the office a little earlier (and my stress level will go down enough) so that there will be time to go to the gym after work and still not have to fall immediately into bed once I get home.

Well, this wasn’t a very interesting entry — it’s late, and I’m probably rambling — and last night I got home too late to write anything at all.  But at least I’ve gotten a couple of thoughts down so I’ll remember how I was feeling when I look back a little later.  That’s the point of this for me.

I was just out walking around in the grocery store when it occurred to me there are so many parts of me that hurt now that didn’t just 25 lbs ago.

My foot — I have myself a stress fracture WALKING for exercise a couple of summers ago.  When I had the 25 lbs off this past summer, the foot didn’t bother me at all.

My back — my lower back aches constantly now, probably from having to support my gut.  Sheesh. 

My knees — this is the biggest one.  My knees “click”, loudly, whenever I get up from a chair.  They always seem to lock up tight, sort of freeze into position, whenever I’m sitting in one position for more than a minute.  This completely went away when I lost the 25 lbs.

“They” say that losing just 10% of your body weight makes a huge difference in the way you feel.  I’m living proof. 

Can’t wait to get back to that place!

Whew — first day of eating like a normal person is over.  I did it!!  It wasn’t as hard as I feared, probably because I kept so busy all day.

I finally got my room rearranged, to give myself a new environment for my fresh start.  Having that done feels like a huge weight is off my shoulders.  I can now find all my clothes (ie, the Ones I Can Breathe In Now, the Ones That Might Fit In a Month, the Ones I Wear To Work Out, etc).  A bunch of “Don’t Kid Yourself” clothes were moved to the basement, as I’m not anywhere near ready to wear ‘em.  (Does anyone else try to keep all the clothes from every size they’ve been in the last 10 years in their closet/dresser/room and finally get overwhelmed by them all?  That’s where I was.  It made it even harder to get up in the morning, knowing I’d have to paw through them all looking for something to wear, then realizing I have all these stupid clothes and STILL nothing to wear because nothing fits.)

Hey–I just realized that I’ve used the word ’stupid’ in 3 of my last 4 posts!  I wonder what that means about my internal self-talk.  Probably a subject for another post, another day.

I didn’t make it to the gym after all; life kinda got in the way.  But I still got lots of physical activity in, moving beds/chairs/boxes, bending over, lifing stuff, trekking up and down the basement stairs, etc.  Plus I took a little time to string popcorn and cranberries and hang them on a tree “for the birdies” with my 3.5-yr-old nephew, Jayden.  Time spent with him is as beneficial to my  heart as any trip to the gym.  :-) 

Just for the record, here’s what I had to eat for the day:  a small ham sandwich (with still-leftover Christmas ham); some birdie popcorn; ONE (I emphasize that because it’s a big victory) mug of homemade pea soup; and about 15 fresh cherries.  I’m going to do just “normal person” eating, rather than trying any particular diet.  For me, exercising helps the food take care of itself, so I’m focusing on getting into that groove first.

I’m off to the grocery store to get some salad stuff for my lunches this week.  A hearty green salad with red peppers, almonds, grapes, and black beans, and maybe a little sliced string cheese, makes me feel like I had something yummy and keeps me full all afternoon.

Ha!  My sister sent me a photo today that I’d emailed her a couple of years ago.  My husband wanted to capture the sight of our 4 small dogs (yup, there are really 4 there–look again) huddled around my feet one day during a thunderstorm, as I stood at our kitchen counter.

What an eye-opener; why, my legs are even lovelier from the back than they are from the front!  I’m sure the hosiery companies will be knocking down my door once they take a gander at this:

I feel sick.  I’m done fooling around.  I think I’ve finally eaten myself silly (”eaten myself stupid” might be more appropriate).

I took measurements last night.  Remember when the ideal woman’s figure in the old days was said to be 36-24-36?  Uh huh … well, I’m EXTRA ideal–more like 47-41-51.  And my thighs are 8 inches bigger than my WAIST was when I graduated from high school!  Wow.  Hard to imagine I was ever that tiny.

I had myself convinced that it was never going to be possible to make my thighs look good no matter how much I worked out, until I saw Sandrelle’s Before & After photos. Wow, huh? What an awesome job she’s done.

I’m glad she posted all those. One never knows who’ll be inspired by something we put out there, embarrassing as it might seem.

So tomorrow’s The Big Day–I’m going back to the gym. On a Saturday, no less. Now that the fooling around is over and the real work is staring me in the face, it’s a bit scary. I’m not sure why … I’ve done it before and know I can do it, even better this time … but still, it’s scary.