Plotting and planning

It's New Years Eve and I'm sitting at work for my final four hours of work for the year 2012. New Years is the perfect time to sit and look back at your life.  It's the time to ponder where you are, where you've been and where you want to go.  It's an opportunity that we actually have each and every day, but the new glow of a fresh year sparks the fire within most of us.   I think New Years Resolutions are great.  I set one back in the beginning of January 2006.  It was January 5th and I vowed that I would change.  That blog post changed my life.  I DID change.  And I loved the change however I slipped.  In the more recent years I've had detailed and grandiose plans for change.  I was a flamboyant failure the years I made grandiose goals. 

So I started thinking about this years goals.  And I came to the conclusion that yes, sometimes New Years resolutions are reached,  but many times these goals turn into failures in our lives.  I don't want failures.  I do not want to set myself up to fail...and I will not.   So i am not setting any New Years resolutions.  Nope.  Not gonna do it!  Could I let it pass without something in the works?   No, definitely not!

So my plan.  I joined a virtual trip across the States.  I'm starting in Yorktown, VA.  Every time I do activity I will enter it into the site and it will tell me how far I've walked total.  It will even apparently show me a picture of where I am in the trip.  How cool is that?    I do not have any goals to make it to a certain point by a certain day.  It is simply going to be a cool way to track my progress. I am going to cheat a bit.  I plan on counting exercise as 1 mile walked for every 20 minutes of exercise.  So an hour of zumba will be 3 miles.  :-)  I found a free app for a pedometer on my cell phone.  I have numerous pedometers at my house, but they are usually sitting in a basket on my bathroom counter, not doing me any good when I actually take a walk.  Ooops.  I ALWAYS have my cell phone with me.   Just search in the app store for BIDMC Pedometer.  I have done preliminary tests and it seems to work pretty well.  There are also apps such as mapmyride/walk and cyclemeter out there that work perfectly using your gps. (I am excited about the pedometer though because some places I walk doesn't get good cell reception so GPS doesn't work!)

So I've asked two friends via email to join me on this walk because yes; you can have virtual walking partners!  If you would like to be a virtual walking buddy visit the website exercise.lbl.gov, sign up and then find me.  You can find me one of two ways.  My id number is 72446 but you can find me under my name, which is MaryFran and my last name is simply an S  (in case you need it, birthday is 12-10-1972)  walk with me.  No goals in mind (it will ask for goals but I'm not worried about them) just friends helping each other exercise...virtually. 

If I'm exercising, I know that I tend to eat more healthy foods and in better quantities.  If I am exercising AND eating better the weight will fall off on it's own.  There is absolutely no need to set goals.  The weight will come off in it's own time.  I'm good with that!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Body Image

I hate my body as it is right now.  Yet, I'm still quite a few (about 65) pounds lower than my highest ever weight.  I didn't hate my body at that higher weight.  I didn't lament about it. So I had a belly.  SO my thighs jiggled.  Big whop.  It didn't bother me.    I was comfortable in my own skin. I knew I was overweight but I was comfortable.  My self worth was secure.  I liked me for me.  I liked myself and I was confident in saying, "To hell with anyone that doesn't like me because I'm fat, I wouldn't want friends like that anyway."

I started losing weight simply because I wanted to.  And I found a whole new world.  I found a deeper level of confidence.  I found energy.  I found really cute clothes.  I was in my glory.  But was I happy?  No, for the first time ever I looked in the mirror and I saw a fat body.  Really?   I looked in the mirror at 315 pounds and I was at peace, yet when I looked in the mirror at 180 I saw a fat hog?  What came over me?  How could I not see it?    I will back up and say that I did see it in pictures.  There was  notable time when I was looking at a picture and I actually started questioning my husband about a thin woman in his studio and why in the world he had his arm around her.  Uhhhhh yeah, the girl was me.  So I could see that the girl in the picture was a skinny mini (I was and NEVER will be rail thin...but 315 to 180 is SKINNY)   Why could I not see it when I looked at myself?   My self confidence in myself was strong but my happiness with my body had wavered.

I maintained that lower weight for a while.  I was happy.  I loved the clothes I as able to wear and was amused to see that my style is totally different than I always thought it would be.   Fun stuff.  However, remember my happiness with my body had wavered and things were not copacetic within me.   I hadn't learned the proper life lessons needed to maintain my loss.   Looking back, it should have come as no shock that I gained weight.  I gained  lot of weight. I've got another mountain to climb to get back into my cute clothes.  65 pounds, give or take.  It's not pretty.  As my weight has increased so has my dissatisfaction with my  body.  My previous satisfaction with where I was and comfortable in my own skin when I was at that much higher weight did NOT return.   I honestly didn't expect it to.  I tasted what skinny feels like and I liked that taste.  I want that back.

As I lose the weight this time I don't know how I will combat this tendency that I displayed about not seeing myself as a thin person.  I don't have the answers.  However, I do now realize that fat is not the happy place of my earlier life.   

Fat is not for me any longer.  I'm choosing to live thin.  If I look in the mirror and see a fat chick,well so be it.  I like the energy, the confidence and the feeling of good health that swirled about me.  Body image is just that.....it's an IMAGE that my mind has conceived.  It is not a real thing...it's a perception.  I'm no longer going to be constrained to those perceptions! 

Post Christmas Haze

December is crazy.  Christmas parties and continual birthdays (it's a big Birthday month in my family).  I failed miserably with my quest for living a healthy lifestyle this month.  I have no excuses.  I just didn't do good.  I saw the chocolate....I ate the chocolate.  I thought about cake and I ate the cake.  I had absolutely no self control.   No excuses. 

I feel miserble, bloated, icky and just in dire need of losing this weight!!  Welcome to Post Christmas Haze.

The year is rolling to an end and I have been thinking about my plan.  I am NOT waiting until the new year to start.  I started tracking this week.  It hasn't been pretty.  I haven't stayed down where I like my calorie count to be.  But at least I am being honest with my eating.

Exercise.  Exercise needs to start happening.  No excuses on that either.

I have started thinking about my 2013 goals.  I want reasonable doable goals!  Attainable goals.  Because I am going to ROCK 2013!!!

I LOVE ME

I was talking to my niece and nephews the other day.  Somehow the subject of gymnastics came up. (not surprising as my niece is on a competitive gymnastics team...and she LOVES it).  I remarked that my nieces body is pure muscle and that was awesome.  (when you cuddle with her you are cuddling with a little muscular girl).  She looked at me and got the most blissful smile on her face and said "I love me!"

Out of the mouths of babes.  This is how we should ALL be.  We should be this way for ourselves.  Like us for who we are.  Like us for what we have done for ourselves.  Like us for the person that is inside.  If we all practiced the "I love me" mentality, it in theory would be easier to lose weight.  We do things for the ones that we love.  Who wouldn't think about giving up something for a person that they love with all their heart?  I would gladly forgo something for my loved ones.  Yet I won't forgo the momentary pleasure of food for myself?   Do I not think I'm worth that effort?  I won't drag myself out of bed a bit earlier to exercise.  Do I not think I'm worth the effort????  

That is where I am wrong.  I am a wonderfully made woman.  I am worth EVERY OUNCE of effort that is put into making me a better person.  I LOVE ME and I need to start acting like it!

This world would be a MUCH BETTER PLACE if everyone took the "I love me" mentality!

Turning 40

Turning 40 has been a difficult proposition for me.  As the date grew closer, I struggled.  I know that it's just a number.  I know that i'm the same person at 39 that I am at 40.  My problem came with the introspection that one does at milestones.  The big change to a new decade is one of those milestones. .....sometimes it's just the 'new year' reflection....it can be anything.   I started reflecting on where my life is.  I thought back to my hopes and dreams and where I wanted my life to go.   I found out that where I wanted my life to go and where I am are two different things entirely.  Life took some very divergent paths.   Changing course isn't the worst thing in life. I know that.   The problem is that my paths left me in a place that I do not like.  My path also dropped me into a plae where there are seemingly no way out of.  It's 'accept' situations.  Most everything I have absolutely no control over.  One of them is the teaching situation.  Yes...I still despair about the loss of my dream. (and I HATE when people try to say that that option is still open to me.....it is NOT open to me...when it's suggested and I even think about it, it restarts the nightmares, the health issues, etc etc etc) I also despair about the loss of my dream of having children.  My life has huge voids and nothing has ever taken the place of these dreams and one or two other dreams that have been trampled and killed.  I'm in an unhappy place and I don't know how to fix it.

There is however ONE thing that I do have the power to fix.  That is my weight.   That is the motivating factor behind my push recently.  Idon't have power to change anything except myself.  I can take steps to try to change the direction on SOME of the things...ie really dig in deep and search for a new job...one that pays better to help the financial situation....but for the most part there is nothing I can do.   Except for my weight. 

I am happy to say that my 4 day weekend birthday extravaganza (the home kitchen was closed, we ate OUT every meal...well except for some quick breakfasts) only caused ma a one tenth of a pound gain.   And I'm thinking that there is some water retention going on as I drank next to NOTHING this past weekend.  At least I hope.  :-)   Either way, i'm hot on the trail of weight loss for this upcoming week.....as a newly minted 40 year old.