Getting it all our there

OK…it has been a bit. I could sit here and tell you how life has been hard and crazy busy but you don’t want to hear about that. All I can tell you is I have broke a record. I am at my record highest weight. I have had my own personal pity party and a really good cry. Now, it is time to do something about it.

Since I last wrote, I have tried this all on my own. I have tried Beachbody and I have tried Weight Watchers. I have planned, shopped, cooked and worked out. I have meal planned and committed to exercise. I have weighed myself and taken measurements. I have also binged ate, stress ate, broken my workout commitments and had some sleepless nights. I have lost my way only to start all over again. I really want to know why this is so hard?

The thing is, I know why this is so hard. The reason is me. I have an unhealthy relationship with food. And I mean really unhealthy. I use it as a comfort, as a means for celebration, and as a punishment. I use it to mask feelings and to ease anxious feelings. And then there is exercise. I loathe it. Well, I should say that I hate getting ready and thinking about exercise but not really doing it. But more on that another time.

So it seems like this is hopeless, right? Wrong! I am ready. I am ready to be a better me. I am ready to get healthy because in all honesty, I am not right now. I am ready to get stronger and more energetic. Will it be easy? Heck no! Will it be fun? Maybe at times, but not all the time. I will have some successes and some setbacks. I know I have said this before, but this time will be different.

Why will it be different? I only answer I have right now is “I believe”. That is all I’ve got. And who’s to say that I will believe next week. But here we go. I have signed up for Noom again. I have met my coach and completed my first lessons. I have set my first goals. I am going to work hard to meet the goals I set. I am going to feel healthier and stronger. I am going to be fit and fabulous.

Well, I am sure you all agree. 2020 sucked!! I not sorry to see it go. It was filled with health, personal and professional challenges that started January 1st and continued right up until December 31st. These challenges have allowed me to lose focus on my goals and my personal growth. I have lost myself and gained weight. Again!

I hate to start on January 1st. But this is not a resolution. This is a promise so I won’t start then. It is a promise that this year is the year to focus on me. It is my year of personal growth. I promise myself right now this is my year to focus on health, finance and balance. I will ease in starting January 4th. So many people try to change to much too fast and they get burned out. I am not going to limit myself. I am not going to deprive myself too much. I am not going to hold myself to something I am just going to quit in a week. If I do so, I am just going to chalk it up to another crappy year.

What I am going to do is try to incorporate a new healthy habit every week or so. I am still doing Noom. I will draw inspiration from the articles and tasks and quizzes I get on a daily basis. I want get back into the habit of tracking all food and water that gets put in my mouth. I think that is the first healthy habit to focus on. Do that for a week and then slowly change eating habits.

I have also joined a fitness challenge my sister-in-law administers via Facebook and it is perfect. It is easing me in and is not time consuming. The other member are very motivating and I love that. It is the perfect way to reintroduce exercise without much commitment right now.

Personal growth is more than health. It is my year to really work on my finances as well. I really want to eliminate all of my debt. I have really been interested in Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover for a while. There have been times where I have wanted to start the process. I began making budgets last year and have made great progress there. But I have also learned to move money around in that budget when I want something. What I really need to work on is going without in order to pay debt off quicker. The sooner I can master this habit the quicker I can achieve this goal. If I can, I can pay everything off in about 2 years or so.

The last thing I really want to learn to have more balance in my life. If I can work on this, I believe it will help the other areas. What I mean by balance is to not focus so much on work and kids and to make sure I have time for myself. I find I focus on and spend too much time at work. When that happens, the rest of my life is stressful. I struggle with where my attention should be at any given time. My hope is that when I find that balance, I can control my stress, work out, cook meals and focus on my family more. I also want to read more. I find that reading a good book reduces stress and takes my mind away of all of the worries of the moment. I have entered a reading challenge on good reads and have pledged to read 15 books. I did the same thing last year and read 14 out of the 15. I came close but this year I will do it. That should help with stress and balance.

Here is what I am focusing on right now. I will log all meals and water for the next week. I will continue to work on the January fitness challenge. I will continue to work within my budget the meet the goal I have to put toward my first debt. I will set a time that I need to be out of the office everyday this week. This will give me time to work on my goals. Hello 2021! This is my year!!

I have had a hard week. I have had no energy, motivation and have just felt off, almost sad. I have been struggling to figure out what the issue has been. Is it being cooped up without a lot of interaction? Is it the weather?

I think I am in mourning. It sounds silly but I feel that life will never be the same again. I think that the fear that has consumed our lives will be with us for quite a while. The longer it lasts the more it will permanently shape a new normal for us all. Gone are the days of close contact and interaction. We will become a more socially distant society.

I am definitely an ambivert. There are times where I want to be with nobody else but myself. I don’t have the energy to be social. I just want to be alone. But there are other times that I want to be around people. I want to be at concerts, bars, parties and family functions. I want to talk in person and give my friends and family a hug or a kiss on the cheek. I want to all be in the same room and not on a computer screen.

I also want to be able to go a store and be able to browse. I want to be able to pick up fruit and not feel guilty about putting it back down. I want to be able to try on clothing. I want to be able to chat with customer service employees. I want to be closer than six feet.

I want to be at work. I want to be there with patients in the office. I want to not have to worry what they have touched and what now needs to be sanitized. I want to talk to them without a mask on and not have to worry about how many people are in the office at one time. I worry about the new reality of temperature checks and who could secretly have coronavirus.

I know that this sounds like a whole lot of whining. But I need to mourn what will probably never be again. I need to face these emotions so I can learn to embrace what is new and will become normal. I need mourn in order to move on.

So much has changed in the last month. COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on every aspect on people’s lives. Everything has been uprooted domestically, professionally and financially. Instead of a life filled with routine, it is filled with with uncertainty. But if you look, there are positive things that have happened.

If I look past the anxiety and uncertainty, I have been gifted a unique opportunity. I have been given the gift of time. My biggest complaint before that not having enough time. My world was consumed with work, kids schedules and mundane tasks. I felt exhausted and frazzled all the time. What COVID-19 has caused many of us to do is slow down. I have more time for me. I am not talking about time to clean our closets, paint rooms and work on projects. I am talking about time to do things for myself. I now have the time to work out and go for walks and not feel guilty. I have the time to read books and try new recipes. I have the time to find myself again. I have spent so much time being a wife, mother and a professional that I get wrapped up in that.

I have also had time to reevaluate finances and where I can make changes to better use our money. I have had the time to truly look at every line on the budget and figure out what is most important and what we can live without.

All of this time has made it easier to make a plan to lose weight. I get to plan out my week for meals and schedule exercise. I get to cook and go for long walks. I love that I have this time. But there is a flip side. That is, all of this time leads to boredom. Boredom leads to too much snacking. Snacking leads to way too many calories being consumed. Too many calories makes the scale move in the wrong direction.

The scale has not been kind the past few weeks. I have had to put her in the corner for not being nice to me. I know that it is just a number. I know that I am working out more than I used to have time for. I know that I am gaining muscle and it weighs more than fat. I know all that. But I need to see some improvement in that number as well.

Now that I have the exercise part of the equation in a routin,. I really need to commit to food journaling better and getting my calorie consumption better under control. I want to commit to logging my food as I eat it. That is my goal for the week. I need to get better at that. Sometime I have already gone over the calories before I even realize it. This will help me make more conscious choices. I am working hard at building the muscle. I need to get rid of the fat so I can see my progress.

Also, I have booked my trip. So the end is in sight. I need reach my goals by January. I know that I can do this. I have come so far already. Not giving up by now is huge. I am going to make this happen.

I am now finally feeling better. I need to get back in the game. I have tried to be good. But it has been a challenge. Weight loss is hard on a good day. It can be next to impossible when you are not 100%. So it has been slow going the last 6 weeks. OK let’s be real, the holidays have been hard too. So for the last couple of months, it has been hard.

No more excuses. The time to get serious is now. I am going to tackle my relationship with food first. I will log all food and strive to make good choices this week. I am also going to try to go to the gym three times this week and do 30 minutes on the treadmill. I think that this is a good start. I am committing to this right now. I am going to lunch with Paul’s family and am going to look at the menu as soon as I am done. Good choices start there.

I am also going to make my first training appointment this week. I am really excited to add this component to my health plan. I sometimes will get at the gym and become overwhelmed and I think having some guidance will help immensely. Also, having an appointment will be more of an incentive to get there.

Getting all of my thoughts, feelings, and apprehensions out into the world is really helpful. I find the release helps me to focus on what I need to and let go of what holds me back. Also having my goals out there allows me to hold myself more accountable. I know I am not the best writer and sometimes my thoughts are not fluid. But it is not about what people think or about inspiring others. It is about moving forward with my own goals and using this tool to help me get there. I am writing this for me, not anyone else.

So, it has been a while. I have missed this. Getting my feelings on paper is so unbelievably helpful. It is a tool to get all of the emotions that are tough to express to others. And right now, there are some that need to be released.

I am really frustrated and stressed. I had this great plan in mind. I got my relationship with food under control first. I added exercise and joined the gym I am surprised that adding the gym to my regimen was easier than I thought and for the most part I really enjoyed it. I was making amazing strides in my weight loss. I was getting my sleep and stress under control. I was feeling good. The holidays came and went and during that time we went on a cruise and I did lose not during that time but I didn’t gain much either and I stayed active and I saw that as a win. I know things in life will happen like vacations and holidays and that food is a big part of that for me. I am learning to embrace it and not see it as a negative. I am learning I then need to work harder around those events and not shy away from them. I think it has been a part of my success this time.

I also know that during this journey that there are times that motivation will be high and those times will be easier. And then there will be other times that it will be unbelievably difficult and motivation will be almost non-existent. Now is one of those times. I have been sick off and on since New Year’s Eve. I have had a horrible cough that has not allowed me to go to the gym. I have been frustrated. Getting sleep has been difficult. Work has been super busy and I obviously have not been 100%. I am far, far behind. So stress has been a huge factor. This is a perfect storm for a lapse. And there have been mini lapses. Full confession, I had chocolate cookies yesterday that I stress ate. I had chocolate donuts for breakfast. It can be hard.

Here is the thing. I still think about what I want in the end. I still have my big picture in mind. Life is full of roadblocks. Should I let a roadblock stop me from achieving what I want? The only failure would be to give up all together. I can still do this. Every minute and every meal is an opportunity to succeed. Every slip is an opportunity to do better. So as hard as it is and as challenging life can be, I want this to be a life long change. I want to better myself. I want to be an inspiration to my kids. I want my husband to be proud. I still want to do this!

So what is next? Right now, I am working on getting my emotional eating back under control. I have been advised to wait until my cough subsides before I can start going back to the gym. I feel like I am getting there but not there yet. I need to take the time to get my stress levels under control again. And once those happen, I hope sleep will fall in line. And then my motivation will peak again. I am not giving up.

I am now in the midst of my tenth week. I have never committed to weight loss for this long. What is different? I have not restricted myself too much. I an not rushing to get there. I am not making my regimen so hard and restrictive that I will quickly abandon it. I hate to use the tortoise and the hare analogy but it is the best to describe this journey.

I have always tried to be the hare. I want results NOW! I think that is human nature. I want to instantly see how all of this hard work is making a difference. I would drastically restrict my diet. I would do this for a few weeks. I would lose a couple pounds. My clothes would still fit the same. No one would notice. I would want cake, wine and a bag of potato chips. All at the same time. I would cave and binge. I would then feel like a failure and throw in the towel. It’s too much work for not a lot of results. Or so I thought.

I am now the tortoise. Like I said before, I am in my tenth week. I have lost 12.5 pounds. It has not been instantaneous. It is a journey with ups and downs. This time around I am not fully restricting myself. I have had nights out with friends. I have had a glass of wine, pumpkin cheesecake, and Mexican food. I also have learned that the scale may go up slightly when I make a choice like that and it is not failure. It is a part of life. If I choose to treat myself, I have also learned that I have to make different choices around that. I need to eat less calories the meal surrounding that treat or work out a little more.

There are days that far I surpass the amount of calories I should eat. In the past, I would have seen that as failure. I would have aborted my plan and went back to my unhealthy habits. In that moment, the cake would seem so much more gratifying. It would give me such positive emotions. But those emotions would be short lived. Negative emotions would then creep in. This would start a vicious cycle of my eating to feel those positive feelings, which would then make me feel like I failed. I would then abandon my weight loss attempt.

I have learned this will take time. I have learned that I will slip. I have learned that some days my motivation will suck. But the good news is I know that I can get past it. I have learned that I do not need to rush to get there. I have learned that slow and steady is what I need to be to win.

So…I joined a gym. Again! I wanted to. Anyone who really knows me knows this is not normal. Well, in reality, the idea of it is normal. The idea of it is not bad. The action of doing it is what is not normal. Talking myself into going is so hard. What I am really realizing is that when I go and workout, I see more progress on the scale and I feel so much better. So how do I find the time?

Finding balance has always been hard for me. I always seem to put myself last. I always take on too much. Then, I get overwhelmed and things go by the wayside. My fear is that my weight loss will go by the wayside. Why? Because it is hard and so much work. And so much time needs to go into it. I am so afraid that future me will throw in the towel like I always do.

Here is the good news though. I have been on this journey nine weeks. Nine whole weeks! That is so much longer than I normally commit to myself. What is different? I have taken it one step at a time. Each week I have built upon what I have accomplished the week before. Adding the gym is the next step. I have learned to be more mindful with food. Now I want to be more mindful with exercise. How do I feel going in? How do I feel while doing it? And how do I feel when I leave?

How am I going to find the time? I am going to sit down today and schedule it in. I am also going schedule it with Paul. My goal is to get there four days this week. I can do it. It is going to make a world of difference in helping me reach my goals. I can do this and it is going to be fabulous!

I am a working mom with two teenagers in my early 40s. I manage a busy optometry office. My job is demanding and stressful yet unbelievably gratifying. I am always on the go outside of work. How can I possibly fit in meal planning and workouts? Here is my journey.