This is late, but whatever. I’m down 1 pound since my last WW weigh in on here. One pound in two weeks. Awesome.
Excuse me while I whine. A lot.
I’m tired.
I’m tired of thinking about what I’m eating.
I’m tired of thinking about what I’m not eating.
I’m tired of working out after working a full day at work.
I’m tired of having most of my day committed to work, grocery shopping, cooking, working out, etc. – being fit and eating healthy is time consuming.
I’m tired of people questioning my food decisions, and I’m tired of explaining them. I’m also tired of the comments about how impressive my wise food choices are.
I’m tired of hearing about how much weight other people are losing while my scale barely budges.
I’m tired of being fit and active and being a healthy eater requiring so much effort. Does it ever get easier? And if it does, can that happen already?
I’m tired of people talking to me about getting fit and eating healthy and then doing nothing about it. Please stop wasting my time. My advice is free, and I’m happy to give it out, but don’t ask unless you plan to make good use of what I’m saying.
I’m tired of being unhappy with how I feel and look.
I’m tired of feeling helpless or that I’m not doing enough because the results I’ve seen have taken forever to show up, and I still have so far to go.
I’m tired of people judging me and my efforts because I’m “not that fat.” You’re right, but I’m doing this so I don’t ever get “that fat.”
I’m tired of my weight being my main focus.
But for being so tired of all this weight business, I’m still not to the point where I’m too tired to continue. For that, I am grateful.
I just finished reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger.
It’s times like these that I wish I could eloquently put my thoughts into writing, but it’s something I’ve always struggled with. I’m not sure if I feel too much for my words to explain or if I just don’t have it in me to find the right words to convey how much or what I’m feeling.
In short, this book was amazing. It’s a brilliant love story, a genre that I’m not quick to choose, but choosing to read this book is a decision I wish I had made sooner.
Too often I take life and love for granted. Too often I go through the motions of my day without appreciating the wonderful life I’m living and the amazing man I’m sharing my life with. At the same time, this book has made me feel guilty for not treasuring each moment of my life to this point and hopeful that I can, in the future, learn to truly enjoy and appreciate what I have.
This book is being made into a movie that is scheduled for release in December of this year. Part of me is anxious for its release so Rob can experience the story I just spent my week reading (since he’s allergic to reading books), but another part of me is reluctant because movies so often come disappointingly short of the books on which their stories are based. I hope the screenwriter and director fell in love with the story as much as I did and wish to preserve and present it as accurately as possible.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves, who has loved or is hopeful of love. I wouldn’t be surprised if “The Time Traveler’s Wife” becomes known as one of the great stories of our time.
I’ve always struggled with self discipline. In fact, you could call Classic Me self-indulgent. It hurts to type that, but it’s the truth. I’ve been trying really hard to become more disciplined, though, and something I heard Dr. Laura Schlessinger say on her show yesterday has been on my mind since.
A listener called in for tips on self discipline, and Dr. Laura’s advice was simple. She said, instead of focusing on how doing whatever you need to do makes you feel, imagine how you’ll feel later on A) after complete what you need to do or B) after you skip it.
I know I always feel great after working out. Even my crappy workouts leave me with a good sense of accomplishment. With this thought practice, it’d be able to discern between not doing something because you truly don’t feel up to it (either from illness or exhaustion) and just being lazy.
I again tried to convince myself to skip yesterday’s workout, but I had heard Dr. Laura’s advice as I was pulling into my driveway, and her voice was fresh in my mind. The lazy butt in me putzed for a while until I finally sucked it up and worked out.
And you know what? I felt great.
I’m planning today to apply this way of thinking to that laundry that I’ve been putting off all week. It’s always something with me!
I’m not really following Weight Watchers anymore.
I don’t want to be tied to counting points (or anything else, for that matter) for the rest of my life. I know I won’t always write down everything I eat.
When I lost 30 pounds on Weight Watchers before, I was meticulous about counting my points all through my weight loss. But once the weight was gone and I maintained it a bit, I quit counting. The problem was, though, that I never learned what to eat. I chose my food solely on its points value.
This time around, points have taken a backseat to healthy food choices. I do still follow Weight Watchers’ general points plan, and I always have a rough idea of how many points I’m eating, but I’ve given up on eating numbers and am eating food instead.
A huge part of my decision to only loosely follow the Weight Watchers points has to do with what I was able to eat and lose weight last time versus what I’ve tried to eat still and have seen no success with. I’m afraid that *choke* age has started to affect my metabolism. During my first go-round with Weight Watchers, I could eat as many carbs and as much sodium as I wanted and still lose weight as long as I stayed in my points range. This time around, I’ve had to keep my carbs and sodium in check on a daily basis. If I have too many/too much, the weight sticks to me.
Before you walk away thinking I’m on a low-carb diet and that’s the key to losing weight, let me explain to you that I’m a carb addict. I eat a lot more carbs that what is recommended by the glorious food pyramid. When I say I’ve lowered my carb intake, I mean that I’ve lowered it to a normal-person level, far below my normal level. I’m by no means on a low-carb diet. Believe me. Been there, done that, hated it.
As for sodium, I ate lunch-meat sandwiches for lunch and frozen, prepared meals for dinner (think Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, Smart Ones). Those two meals right there have astronomic amounts of sodium. Sure, they make it easy to keep the calories and fat down, but the sodium creates bloat. Plus it’s not good to have that much sodium in your daily diet.
The other part of my decision has to do with my attention span and the amount of focus I can or want to put toward what I’m eating.
This has been a major life change for me. I’ve given up my past life as a lazy ass and focus more on being more active. I focus more on choosing healthier foods. And because I’m so strongly focusing on those things, plus work, hobbies and personal relationships, I don’t feel I have it in me to fully focus on calculating every piece of food I put in my mouth. It’s hard work. It’s exhausting. It’s time consuming. I know I won’t care to do it forever.
So instead of thinking only about points, I focus on healthy choices and healthy portions. I couldn’t have gotten to this point, though, without a program like Weight Watchers.
As someone who struggles to stay motivated to keep up with a fitness routine and healthy eating habits, I know I will be able to benefit some crappy day from what’s in my head this morning. Maybe someone else can, too.
I knew heading into this weight-loss quest that, once I got rolling and the pounds started dropping, I’d have no problems keeping it up.
Yes, I remember my recent post about fear and sabotage. Believe me, I remember. The thing with that, though, was it was a moment (period of time?) of weakness. I was frustrated because the scale wouldn’t budge despite the fact that I was working out, and I took out my frustration and fear that I was surely failing on whatever food I could find.
Like I wrote then, though, I’ve moved past that.
So about motivation. I know I started blogging about losing weight on here with the intention of rewarding myself with things when I hit certain goals. Things, though, can’t make me feel any better than I do right now.
Why?
First, the scale this morning (yes, still checking it every day) read 151.2. I can’t even remember the last time I saw that number. I know it’s been at least three years (awful to think about, but this is positive time).
Each pound I drop puts me that much closer to my goal. Not only am I losing weight, but I’m losing distance from my goal (I hope that makes as much sense to you, reader, as it does in my head). And strange as it seems (or maybe just strange to me), the lower the number on my scale reads, the more I want – truly want – to work out.
Take yesterday, for example: The morning scale reading was 153.2 – fine. When I got home after work, I was thisclose to talking myself out of working out. I was tired. My allergies were bugging me. Relaxing on the couch with a book sound so much more appealing than breathing heavy and sweating. But since I always change from my work clothes when I get home, I hopped on the scale after undressing and before I put on my comfy clothes. I know I normally “gain” at least 2 pounds from morning to night. I don’t know what it is – water, food, whatever – but it’s normal. But yesterday afternoon, the scale read 154.0.
So my logic said that number should have been higher, and since it wasn’t, my body must have been doing what I’ve been begging it to: It was shedding weight. And if I was lower than normal without working out, a workout would push my body even further.
So instead of comfy clothes, I changed into my workout clothes and hit the elliptical.
And I saw the results this morning. I’m now 3 pounds from weighing 10 percent less than when I started losing weight. I’m also 6 pounds from being within the normal BMI range. Those numbers are hardly daunting. They’re quite achievable, in fact. I’m not really close to my finish line – more like half-way there – but I’m at least close to some really great check points.
Another part of what motivates me also gave me a boost this morning is just how I feel. I notice that there’s less of me and that my shape is more attractive, and that makes me feel awesome.
Again, I’m far from where I want to be, but I’m also so far from where I was. I don’t feel fat. I don’t feel thin, but I don’t feel fat. I feel normal. I feel like I blend better with the normal-looking crowd – the ones who walk through life without drawing any judgmental stares from other passersby.
Today I’m wearing a pair of form-fitting black pants and a not-baggy sweater. You can definitely see my body in it, and that doesn’t bother me. Before I started losing weight, the purpose of my clothes was to cover up all the extra chub I was carrying. Today, my clothes are meant to compliment how good I look.
