It happened

I've been at this eat healthier thing for two weeks now and I suppose this was going to happen sooner or later, but it happened today. I mindlessly ate three Fiber One bars today and now I'm stuffed. It was totally the old bar and junk food eating me back for a visit. Of course I have been beating myself up for it but I'm not getting carried away.

I'm not letting this derail my efforts. I'm getting the bars out of the house. It was a mistake to think I could have them in the house since bars (certainly not Fiber One, though) are one of the bad habits I gave up.
This brings up some stuff I need to think about, though.

I need to explore further why I use food in an unhealthy way. Today was a very long day here in stay-at-home-mom-land and the time was crawling unbelievably slow. This was a case of me eating out of boredom or nothingness, kind of an anxiety response to a painfully long day. I'm going to keep working on eating mindfully and just move on from today's choices. Definitely I'm learning to navigate these waters as I go.

Burst Into Summer - Week 3

It's been a good week overall. I lost four pounds this week! That means a total of nine pounds. I stayed away from junk all week, snacked on healthy stuff and kept drinking at least 100 ounces of water a day. Also big news this week is I added exercise in the form of my recumbent bike (formerly known as tote bag and miscellaneous crap holder). I've done 45 minutes today which is a huge deal for me. I'm doing it on no resistance at this point; I'll add resistance at some point but for now I'm able to ride without a bra on if that tells you anything!

My subject line is a bit misleading today. I've only been at the challenge and this journey for two weeks but I decided to make it consistent with the Burst Into Summer Challenge I'm doing over at shrinkingjeans.net.
Thanks for listening to my good news!

Adding exercise

Today is a good day so far. I noticed the scale not moving too much the last couple of days which implied to me that the weight isn't just going to keep falling off because I gave up junk food two weeks ago. Since my Zumba DVDs aren't going to be here for awhile yet, I broke down and got on the recumbent bike that's been gathering dust in here for years. I've gotten on it twice for a total of 25 minutes. I'm not riding it in a way that's giving me a fantastic workout, but what can I say but that I am the queen of the baby step!

I'm reading a book by Susan Albers called Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food and I'm really enjoying it. She talks about learning to be mindful in the mind, body, thoughts and feelings as all of that relates to food and eating. She talks about becoming aware during the process of eating and that has really resonated with me. Anyway, good read so far.

I'm off to have a good rest of the day and I hope you do the same!

So far, so good

Life is going well the last couple of days here in my world. I got through the bad day last week when I was so deeply grieving my junk food and those feelings have been pretty manageable since then. There is no way I'd have been able to give up the junk food if I wasn't drinking so much water. I'm drinking about 100 ounces a day and actually loving it. I still have about one full caffeine-free soda a day.

Because I know that this weight isn't going to fall off forever just because I gave up my 1,500 extra calorie a day junk habit, I know I need to start getting some exercise. I have a recumbent bike but that's about as much fun as a trip to the morgue, so I decided on something else. I ordered some Zumba DVDs from Amazon yesterday and I'm super excited for them to come. It may be a couple weeks before I can use them since we're heading for NC in a little over a week but it looks like fun.

Then my biggest challenge is going to be finding the time to actually do the videos (I guess calling them videos dates me, huh?), but I'm sure that's a challenge that everyone trying to make positive health changes deals with. I'll have to wait until Dave gets home from work and then I'll escape to the bedroom to zumba.

Also on the positive front is that I joined an online challenge at shrinkingjeans.net where teams compete to see who can lose the most weight over an 11 week period. I only have one person on my team so far but were expecting more soon. It's just something additional to keep me motivated.

My foot hasn't healed as fast as I'd hoped and it looks like I won't be able to go swimming during our trip to NC so that stinks. Now my biggest question is will I be able to go if I'm not yet in a tennis shoe. I'm off IV antibiotics now and on oral antibiotics so hopefully I'll be able to put this ordeal behind me soon! Wish me luck!

Grieving the food

The first five days of giving up the junk habits were relatively easy compared to the last few days. I feel like I'm in mourning for the Oreos, bars and high-cal drinks that no longer live at my house. The first handful of days it was all very new and I was caught up in it. Now life is just moving along and I'm doing it without my food crutches. I'm limping without them.

Does anyone else feel this way? I've been reading some blogs by people who have worked hard and lost a ton of weight and I wonder if they dealt with the sadness of not having that trusty old companion of food.

I confess that I'm going insane being home with the boys out of school for the summer (they start kindergarten in the fall but were in preK) and I used that junk food to measure time and to cope. Measuring time now involves watching the minute hand crawl around the clock whereas I used to break up the day with my junky snacks and that made the time go faster. Now I feel tortured by how slow it's going.

I don't know what to do about this grieving but I hope just getting more days under my belt is going to help.

Week one results

Simply dropping the junk out of my diet and adding some water in its stead resulted in a five pound weight loss over the last week! Remember that I was taking in an extra 1,500 calories a day in junk? In the last week the only junk in my diet was one caramel frappe.

I'm excited but pretty subdued. I know this is a honeymoon-type effect of omitting the junk and the weight isn't just going to keep falling off simply because my body is so happy to be treated better.

I've been waiting until my foot wound heals to start walking, but I'm sitting here looking at a perfectly good recumbent bike that could be used in the meantime. My goal for this week is to add the recumbent bike to my day at least a few days during the week. I'm going to wait until the picc line for the IV antibiotics comes out tomorrow afternoon before I even think about adding anything tht will make me sweat (and therefore make me need a shower which is quite difficult when I need to wrap my foot AND my arm).

I looked at my wound a couple of days ago and it looks like it's healing nicely so I hope the doc agrees. Our vacation to North Carolina is still set for a couple weeks from now, I just hope that I'll be given the green light to go swimming even though I dread with morbid fear the thought of showing my body to anyone, even though I'll be covered with a t-shirt.

I know that the remainder of my diet is due for an overhaul and that's causing me some anxiety I'm sure I'll post about at some point. But I'm not going to even think about my diet until returning from NC in the middle of July. That'll give me a good month where living without the junk food crutches, drinking more water, and incorporating some kind of exercise will take root before I add new stress of changing what I eat.

For today I'm just going to be proud of myself for what I've done so far.  Thanks to anyone who is following along!

A pleasant result from a bad choice

So yesterday I had one of my food crutches. I was with my boys and something had happened that made me both mad and sad. Fighting back tears because of what had happened, I pulled into McDonald's and ordered a caramel frappe. This is one of my hot button items - a cornerstone of the four bad habits I'm trying to give up. I then took it home and escaped into it for the hour it took me to drink it.

In the past, this would've been enough to derail me from my plans of being more healthy and losing weight. It would have served as the first domino to get pushed over that then knocks down one domino (positive resolution) after another. Within two days I'd be back to everything I'm trying to give up.

This time I'm giving this slip the perspective it deserves. Its not the end of the world and it shouldn't be the end of my positive life changes. I simply had a caramel frappe in a moment of emotional frustration. I'm trying to treat myself more compassionately that I have in the past. I haven't beat myself up over this, haven't called myself a failure. If I were really going to look at the bright side, I might say the caramel frappe was actually a good thing because it gave me the chance to treat myself better than I have in the past. So while I'm not happy that I had one of the items I'm giving up, I am happy with how I've handled it.

The depression motivation

I've struggled with depression since childhood. Not the low-grade, ride-it-out kind of depression that many people deal with; it's the deep chronic kind that doesn't respond well to medication. This means that instead of one or two medications, I take four anti-depressants - a cocktail that is currently working to keep me minimally engaged in my life.

I even recently took the drastic step of having TMS treatments for the depression. TMS is an FDA-approved treatment that involves sitting in a chair for about an hour while a series of magnetic pulses zap a particular area of the brain. You do that five days a week for six weeks.  It is a huge commitment of time and a VERY significant amount of money and it is not covered by insurance. But I was willing to do it if there was a chance it would help my depression. I'm glad I did it because there has been a positive change, though it wasn't the dramatic impact I was longing for.

So many studies have linked poor diets to depression and it dawned on me as I was forking over all that money for TMS, that maybe I should try changing my diet as well. This was a daunting thought - less daunting than the TMS commitment - because I've tried countless times to lose weight to no avail and then I just end up feeling more depressed because I failed. But I just had the nagging feeling that if I was desperate enough to spend that money and invest that time, maybe I was desperate enough to give changing my eating one more try. It wasn't enough of a sentiment to cause change on it's own, but it's rattled a round in my brain and combined with the other motivations to lead me to where I am today.

Its been five days since I cut out a bunch of junk from my diet, and the change in my depression is noticeable. No, I'm not ready to run to my shrink and start cutting medications, but I am inspired to keep up with the changes!

A bit different this time

This initiative to get more healthy is definitely starting differently than it has in the past, and I think the way I'm approaching things this time is promising. Historically I have tried to make a change by trying to alter everything. To go on a diet, drop all the bad habits, to start exercising, to change the way I feel about myself and so on. It's proven too much for me to tackle all at once, and for the first time I'm going to do this in manageable steps.

So far I'm still focusing on dropping the four bad habits I spoke of in an earlier post. I haven't tried to change the meals I eat yet. Dealing with the emotions involved in giving up my food crutches - the bars, oreos, the high-calorie drinks - is enough for me to deal with right now. The weather here in Texas right now is blazing hot, and when I find myself driving past Mcdonald's in the afternoon I feel a pull to stop and get my caramel frappe. I've resisted, and it's been easier than I thought it would be, but it's still hard.

Basically, I'm giving myself some time to get comfortable being without my food crutches. 'Im pretty happy with how it's gone so far, and proud of myself for how I've done. It's helping me a lot to write about this stuff and I'm sure that's part of the reason I've had such a good few days since giving those things up.

I've started drinking water in place of all the caffeine free Diet Dr Peppers I consume all day long and it feels really good. It's a small step but it's a good one. Tomorrow's task is to find some healthy snacking options and get some on hand for the week ahead.

The spectator motivation

As I've gained weight I've retreated further into myself and pulled away from the world around me. I avoid social situations because I'm embarrassed about my size and appearance. I avoid physical situations because being physically active is harder on my feet and knees than it used to be. It would be one thing if I was single and childless, but I have a great husband and two very active little boys who have to deal with my issues.

Basically I've become a spectator of life instead of an active participant. While this is manageable at this moment, it's not fair for Dave to be the only one taking the boys out and about to experience the world. The boys start kindergarten in the fall and they deserve a mom who isn't too embarrassed to volunteer at school or chaperone a field trip now and then.

The solution is two-fold I think. Yes, I need to change the way I've been treating my body so I can be more comfortable. But I also need to get out of my head so much. I spend so much time obsessing about my body and size, but I need to realize that other people probably don't give my body a second thought. And frankly, the people who matter don't care what I look like. It's going to be interesting to see which thing I have more trouble with - changing my body or changing my head.

On a practical note, I've got to give some more thought to snack foods.  Now that I'm giving up my four bad habits, well, I'm hungry.  This plan of getting more healthy is going to go off the rails pretty quickly if I don't proactively address the question of okay so now what am I going to eat instead?

The diabetes motivation

I had foot surgery on May 5; it is over five weeks later and the short version of the story is that I ended up with an infected wound that has required frequent (twice a week or more) doctor visits and twice-daily IV antibiotics. It has caused limited mobility and plenty of pain and discomfort. This has all left me with a glimpse into the future.

I carry nearly all the risk factors for diabetes, not the least of which is this extra 80 pounds. Diabetes scares me but it's all been pretty abstract until now; it's been enough to be on my mind regularly but not enough to motivate me to make any changes. But now I feel a bit differently since I've had to deal with one of the most common diabetic struggles - a non-healing foot wound.

I've gotten a sliver of a taste of how disruptive this aspect of diabetes can be (I'm not saying that my little foot wound is in any way as bad as having a devastating illness). The deadliness of diabetes is still pretty abstract to me, you know, the fact that it kills people.  But the quality of life changes this simple foot wound has caused has resonated with me. Does this mean I'm more afraid of inconvenience than I am of dying? No, of course not. But the inconvenience has been made real to me, and if that's enough to help motivate me to get healthier, then I'm just fine with that.

Bad habits

This isn't going to be a traditional, pull-the-trigger one day and change my eating habits. No going on a diet here. I've done that countless times and all it gets me is more pounds. I'm not signing up to fail yet again. I'm going to make small changes over a long period of time. Exercise will be important but that will be added later; I'm currently dealing with a wound from surgery that is infected so that has me sidelined for awhile.
I don't plan on counting calories but I am going to mention them from time to time because I think it's important that I be mindful of them.

I've identified four habits that have become ingrained that I'm going to change first.

• I eat an average of six Double Stuff Oreos everyday. That's 420 calories a day.
• I drink a large caramel frappe from McDonalds about five times a week. That's at least 500 calories a day. 
• I eat at least one but often two Zone bars a day, to the tune of 220 calories each.
• I drink a Starbucks vanilla frappe in the bottle every day; that's another 200 calories.

It's no wonder my weight has literally exploded when I look at those numbers; my bad habits are adding almost 1,500 extra calories to my diet every day.  This is in addition to normal to higher-than-normal sized meals. Elimating these three habits are the first key to finding a healthier balance in my life. I've gotten rid of the Zone bars, Oreos and Starbucks frappucinos from the house so those are the first two habits to go. Now I've got to figure out what, if anything, to replace those habits with from a healthy snacking perspective.

Since today is Thursday, that's the day I'm going to use as my day to weigh myself. I'm not going to post my weight here but I will post any pounds lost or (horrors) gained.

Next step is for me to put into words my motivation for getting healthier. Why is this time any different than the dozens of others?