Picking My Battles

Making new habits is simple.  Simple because you only have to do something for 14 days until it becomes a habit.  Unfortunately, making new habits is not easy; if it were easy, we would all eat healthy food, exercise, and have tidy homes.  I have been making great strides in the exercising more area.  I have also been doing a better job of self-care (daily showers!), getting more work done, only letting laundry go two weeks before getting done, doing at least one load of dishes a week, and keeping up with bills.  Given that I am forever fighting the urge to want to do anything besides hang out under the covers all day, I think I've been VERY productive.

I admit that there is a LOT more that needs to be done, and many more areas for improvement.  However, there's only so much energy to go around, and fighting myself all day every day uses most of that up.  The result is that some things have to slide.  My main area of failure--healthy eating.  It's never been much of a priority for me to begin with and--let's face it--I'm still grieving and food is one of my main comforts.  Moreover, having added exercise to the mix, my bad eating will not be *as* problematic, and it sure as heck beats out-of-control-spending.  So, I'm not working on the food stuff.  Not yet, anyway.  Instead, I'm picking my battles.  I know me.  If I try to take on too many things at once, they will all fail.  Each one will receive less of my attention than it needs to be successful, and I will quit them all.  I have chosen to focus my energy on self-care, exercise, and work.  These three things are my top priorities.  Once I have managed to get these things to the point that they are automatic, I will attempt adjustments in my other bad habits.  It's not ideal, but I would rather succeed at adding exercise than fail at changing both food and exercise.

And, at least on the exercise front, I am proud to say that I am making progress.  I have completed seven workouts since the first of the year; my scale told me I am 9 pounds closer to my goal weight; and I am able to exercise for longer before feeling tired (although the whole back pain thing has been putting a cramp in my efforts).  It's not a perfect plan, but I am not perfect--in fact, I'm actually working on remembering that perfection is unattainable.

This is my truth.  Your mileage may vary.

Eating My Way Fat

I am fat.  This is pretty obvious, but it's still hard for me to admit.  I wear my weight *very* well and know how to dress it to hide it.  I'm not saying I don't look overweight; I do.  I just don't look as heavy as I am.  Even my docs say I don't look that big.  But this year is about truth.  The truth is, I take lots of pictures and find the ones that I think make me look smaller.  I know I've always done that to some extent--picking pictures that make me feel pretty, or at least prettier--but one of the things about finding my truth is peeling back the layers, removing the veneer, and exposing myself.  I need to look at things in the hard light of day.  So, here it is.  

I weigh 265 pounds.  My BMI is 38.  I was startled to discover that I am only a few pounds away from a classification of "clinically severe obesity".  I am already at an increased risk of diabetes, not just from my weight, but having had gestational diabetes--twice.  I am also a comfort eater.  I eat to make myself feel better.  I eat to reward myself for a job well-done.  I eat when I'm bored.  I love sugar and fat.  There are times I can eat just a little of something "bad," but more often than not, I cannot control myself.  I have come to understand the struggle of addiction.  I *know* I shouldn't eat something.  I *know* I will hate myself after I eat it.  I *know* I will feel miserable when I weigh myself.  I *know* it's bad for my health.  None of that stops me from shoveling it into my mouth anyway.  The more difficult thing about food addiction is that there is no going "cold-turkey."  No complete abstinence.  You can't rid your house, or your life, of all food.  You also can't just stop going places where it's available.  Food, particularly junk food, is ever present.  You *have* to find a way to moderate yourself.  This is, and has always been, my biggest struggle.  

In the past, the solution for me has not been to stop eating the junk entirely.  Rather, I would exercise to compensate.  It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than my current combination of eating crap and *not* exercising.  So, I'm going to make time for exercise.  I have chosen to motivate myself by signing up for a mini-marathon in May.  That's 13.1 miles.  I have done 3 half-marathons before, so I know I am capable of doing it.  It's just a question of getting my body back in a condition to get it done.  And, to keep myself moving forward, I am already verbally committed to do another one next January.  My plan will be to complete at least two half-marathons each year to keep myself in better health.

In the process, I expect I will release some weight (I call it releasing instead of losing because I usually end up looking for things I've lost).  According to the BMI calculators, I should weigh no more than 173.  That's 92 pounds from where I am, and a weight I haven't seen since I got married.  Since little goals are easier to achieve, I have set myself the following benchmarks:  240, 220, 200, 180.  At each benchmark, I get to reward myself, but not with food, or a day off of exercise.  I haven't figured out what my reward will be yet, but I have some time to figure it out--about 25 pounds worth of time.

Here's the thing.  I want you to hold me accountable.  To those of you who are friends on Facebook, I will be posting my workouts using Map My Run.  If you think I have started slacking, feel free to call me on it.  I will post a starting picture and then at least a monthly picture.  I will also post updates here.  Since my word this year is truth, my plan is to post the good and the bad.  I want to be honest about my struggle and how I'm trying to make myself better.  So, that's part of my plan for this year.  Stripping away fat; stripping away layers of camouflage; and finding the true me hiding underneath.  I hope you'll join and support me.

Me at 265:

Sweating to the Movies

Today I went out to lunch with two of my good friends.  We used to all work together, but now that we all work different places, although we're all still downtown, we have a standing date for lunch together once a month.  Today's lunch was different for me, however, because in between our last lunch and this one, I had both gotten pregnant and then lost Oliver.  I had emailed them when I got the good news, and Facebook provided them with my grief, but I never got to share my brief joy with them personally.  We talked about many things and I managed not to cry when I answered their questions and told them what had happened.  And I had pie, which almost always makes me feel better.  As we were heading our separate ways, we talked about wanting to go on runs together and making plans to try and do a 5k together sometime.

Many moons ago when I lived in Texas, I would run/walk a 5k every weekend.  I did a few after I moved to Michigan and even managed to complete three half-marathons while I've been here.  But I haven't done anything like that recently.  Today I was reminded that running makes me feel better--this was even easier to remember given how beautiful the weather was.  Anyway, I was also aware that I had put on a fair amount of weight eating things like pie, biscuits, jellybeans, m&ms, and various other comfort foods to make myself feel better.  So, tonight I bit the bullet and got back on the treadmill.  I only walked 1.25 miles, but I also walked to and from lunch today which was about 1.5 miles round trip, so I totaled 2.75.  Go me!

Walking on the treadmill is not terribly interesting, however, so I use my portable DVD player to either watch movies or hook up my iPod for some tunes.  Because I had just swapped out my VHS copy for a DVD (I hear you snickering), I decided to watch Prince of Egypt.  I LOVE that movie; especially the music.  I haven't finished it yet (because I didn't walk long enough for that), but I did learn a few things during the parts I watched.

1)  The music is still amazing.
2)  Watching that movie as a parent is an entirely different experience.
3)  I cannot imagine having the strength or courage or living with the angst of placing my child in the river and leaving its existence to God.
4)  I totally get why a woman pulling a baby out of a basket in the water would want to keep it and raise it because I understand how you can love a baby from the moment you pick it up and never want to let it go.
5)  I cannot fathom the mental disconnect it takes for anyone, pharaoh or otherwise, to decide that killing children is okay because the children are slaves, or a different race, or the wrong gender.

I knew that being a parent would change my life, but I find myself discovering almost daily that there are so many more ways in which being a parent has reshaped or altered experiences that I thought would remain fixed.  What new lessons or experiences will I get from other pieces of the movie?  Only the shadow knows...  Well, okay, maybe not.  But, it does create an interesting incentive to keep on working that treadmill.  And, hey, there's the added bonus of getting back into shape in case we decide we want to try again.  Funny how that works.