Three Realities, One Truth

As I was fighting my way through traffic to get to a doctor’s appointment the other day I had a thought. Well, I had two thoughts. The first was allergies and driving do not mix well, every time I sneeze and my eyes water while I'm speeding down the road, I'm pretty sure I'm riding the line between life and death. But, the second thought was “I'm an idiot.” And here’s why:

There are three things that are currently true about my life. My three realities that consume so much of my thinking energy I should be making a salary.

My first reality is that I'm fat.

Yup. I used the F-word. Fat. Fat. Fat. Sure, you could say I'm overweight but really, I'm fat. Or, to make my mum happy, my body is fat (because, I'm Angela and fat isn't really an identity… but for me it kind of is.) At 5’4 inches, I weigh north of 200 and south of 245. When I got married almost 10 years ago, I weighed 145. Two kids, too many fast food meals and a desk job later… well here I am. I don't like being a fat person. I hate it. I hate myself for getting this way.

My second reality is that I can’t afford what I want to do:

I want to take vacations every year. Particularly to Disneyland and the beach and fancy schmancy hotels. I don't care if I don't live the fancy life the rest of the year, but on vacation, bring it on. I want to live in a house. We live in a pretty nice apartment complex. It’s quiet and the neighbors are nice enough. But I hate that we don't have our own space. I don't like having to tiptoe at night so we don't disturb anyone. I want to paint my walls and make my kids mow the lawn. But, we can't afford it. Are we broke? Not really. We have debt that we are trying to pay off. Much of it comes from the 8 months my husband was unemployed/working at a dead-end-job for less than $9.00 an hour. The problem is we don't really budget and we spend far too much eating out.

My third reality is that I’m pretty damn unhappy:

It’s true. I love my husband. I love my kids. But I feel like this dark cloud smothers all of that. When I think about why I'm unhappy it’s because (and here’s where the I'm an idiot part comes in) I’m fat and I can’t afford to live the life I want. Yikes. It also hit me that I have one problem that’s tied to all three of my realities, I eat out way too much. It’s not even that I'm too lazy to cook. I don't mind cooking really, even on super busy days it’s not impossible to toss something into the crock pot. I know how to cook healthy or at least mostly healthy dishes. It’s just easier to eat out. Also, I'm an emotional eater. I get bored, pass the chips. Feeling stressed? I'll take that cookie. Not only do I feel emotionally comforted with my food, I feel like my life is better when we can spend money to eat out.

One Truth:

This is going to sound really weird, probably. But, I think if we're sitting down together as a family eating out, which must mean life is good. That must mean everything is okay because we can eat out like normal people. I told you, it isn't rational. But, it’s just what I think and while it’s usually subconscious, sometimes it’s not.

There are a few other things I could do to make my life a little easier, but I had this thought in my mind that this really is a huge problem for me. A stressful day with work or the kids is a huge trigger for me. And when we head out to do something fun, I feel like it has to end with a good meal. And sometimes, that’s fine. Hanging out with friends? Okay. Planning a meal out with a fun activity, cool. But eating out whenever we step outside: Not okay.

Now that I've figured that part out, I just need to figure out how I'm going to nip that habit in the butt. Of course I’ll need to find my emotional blanket elsewhere, but I feel like this baby step change could make a huge difference… Have you had to give anything up to make your life better?

Telling Nasty Nelly to Shove Off...

http://www.dearlydepartedtours.com/

I am starting week three of T25. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's a Beachbody workout program that takes 25 minutes (really 28 with the cool down). It's not very long but it's also not very easy. And as a woman who has a lot of weight to lose it's almost torture. Fortunately, I have a good husband who sweats his duff off alongside me and kind neighbors who endure a half hour of stampeding overhead.

It's hard. It's short but it's hard. So I should be proud that I've managed to stick it out for two full weeks and I have enough motivation left to keep going into week three. I should be happy that I've lost almost four pounds in the last two weeks without starving myself.

I've made small changes (like actually eating breakfast) and opting for healthier dinners. It really hasn't been nearly has painful as I thought it would be. But instead of being excited after I got through my workout today, I was bummed. I just kept thinking, 'What if I'm not doing enough?" "I'm not working hard enough."

It's like this constant battle in my head. I know I'm making good changes and I know I didn't get fat overnight so I'm not going to get healthy overnight either. I know there are more things I can do to be even healthier, and I am working on it. But, it's still so easy to belittle myself and my efforts. It's really hard to keep that Nasty Nelly voice out of my head.

Maybe I'm not perfect yet but I'm trying. I feel like part of the reason I (and maybe other women too) keep losing this weight battle is because we are setting our expectations too high and we don't give ourselves enough credit for what we can do. It's just so much easier to berate ourselves for not being good enough than to actually be proud of ourselves for doing something so seemingly small.

My mom made a comment about this earlier that stuck with me, she said that our brain learns habits. It retains things we repeat (like tying our shoes and feeding ourselves). When we repeat an action often enough it becomes lodged in our brain. These repetitive processes can actually change our brain. So if I've been telling myself I'm not good enough or not doing enough often enough (and I can assure you I have), my brain actually thinks it's true. I don't know if I can ever fully reverse the damage of lousy self-esteem, but I'm pretty sure I can repair the damage.

I'm making a goal to replace all of my negative thoughts with a positive one. So when I think, "Well, that was a great 25 minute workout, but you should probably be doing something more," I'll replace it with "I got through that 25 minute workout and I am still standing. Hot damn."

Do you have any tricks to staying positive?

To be or not to be.... Fat

Photo courtesy of harmonyharbor.com

The other day I went to the store to get a pair of jeans and they didn't have a single pair in my size. Not one! Now, I know that I am overweight and it is something I am making a conscious effort to fix, but I think it’s silly that stores don’t carry anything larger than a 12. It’s embarrassing. I walked out of the store in tears, tired of being fat.

I have been reading a lot of blogs today about weight loss success stories and tips people have for sticking with it. I have wondered for a while what the difference is between the person who is able to succeed and the person who doesn't.

It can’t be that one person just has better luck. We all have crappy things that happen to us and often the people who lose a lot of weight have suffered far worse than those who can’t seem to hack it.

It certainly isn't money. A lot of people lose weight using nothing more than an outdoor track and their own body weight.

I had a wake-up moment yesterday, in which I think I figured out the major difference between the people who successfully get healthy and those who keep failing. My husband and I hit the gym yesterday for the first time in a while. I was pretty pumped up about my work out until I came home to shower. I stripped and was standing in front of the mirror and it just hit me: Losing the weight I need to is going to take forever, and wham! Just like that my excitement and adrenaline rush dropped through the floor.

It didn't seem to matter that I figured out how many pounds per month I needed to lose to meet my goal (or that the goal was pretty doable), it didn't matter that I’d busted my arse on the elliptical and it didn't matter that I’d given up soda. I was fat and the weight was not coming off easy.

When I told my husband that going to the gym made me feel even fatter, he responded that I was “looking at it the wrong way.” He told me, instead of focusing on how far I still have to go, that I should be focusing on what I already accomplished. I went to the gym-for the first time in six weeks and I didn't die. I haven’t had soda in 53 days. We haven’t eaten out in 36 days.

What I think the difference is between people who successfully lose weight and those who keep failing is that those who finally succeed do so because they start focusing on the right things. Instead of focusing on what they “can’t have” or how much longer it’s going to take, they really focus on what they are going to get in the end.

No, I can’t have my Dr. P. No I can’t snarf down pizza for late night snacks and no, I can’t sit on the couch for hours on end and expect to lose weight. Yes, it hurts like mad to work out. Yes, I cry because I’m an emotional eater and I am no longer eating to get rid of my stress and it’s an embarrassingly emotional issue for me. Yes, it’s going to take a full year for me to lose the weight I want while maintaining a lifestyle that is doable for me.

I know that I am capable of a lot more. I just never finish anything because it gets to hard or too stressful. I know if I can just lose this weight I’ll know that I can do anything, and my hope is that boost of self-confidence will help me make improvements in other areas of my life.

So my goal this week is to stop the self-sabotage. Stop quitting before I really get going. Stop making excuses to avoid the long journey and just do it. Like I tell my girls: Suck it up Buttercup! It’s time to put my big-girl pants on so I can fit into little girl pants!

In what ways do you find yourself sabotaging yourself when it comes to finishing a goal?