Losing Half, Gaining More

I’m still here. Not making the best choices, but being conscious and mindful.

Trying to come to terms with how much time and effort I really need to put into this. Struggling with spending so much time focused on my weight/body/food choices when there are people in the world who have their children crying for food and they don’t even know where they’ll be able to get them food, let alone how they’ll pay for it.

Yet, I need to get my health in check and to a more normalized weight so that there’s less stress on my body – my joints, my feet, my organs, my hormones, my emotions…but then I go back to feeling completely self-absorbed to spend so much time obsessed with this.

If you’re out there Readers, what do you do for yourself to create a balance between obsession and making health and the assumption of taking care of yourself a part of everyday life? I could use some input!

p.s. I’m still working on a list of 101 Reasons I’m Happy Just the Way I Am Today – care to join me?

I haven’t updated in forever – mostly because my kids are keeping me on my toes and the holidays needed lots of prep, but also because I’ve been trying to stay away from the computer more lately. It’s good for my mental health. I’ve had a few requests for a post, so my apologies for the absence. You know when you just feel overwhelmed and have to let things go? Yeah ~ I’m always the first thing I let go. The time I spend focusing on accountability for what goes into my mouth, time planned for exercise, time to get my hair cute, time to buy myself cute clothes that fit well and make me feel good about myself…it’s always the first stuff I let go.

I started a part time job a couple of weeks ago and it’s sort of thrown me for a loop. It’s so good for me because it gets me out of the house and away by myself more, plus it’s a bit of extra money. But it has also been unexpectedly unnerving because I’m working in retail(in a store where I used to be a manager) and I work with a lot of teen/college-aged girls who are CONSTANTLY talking about being fat, their hair, makeup, clothing, being fat, working out, appearance and working out. It’s mind numbingly boring to say the least, but also just so disturbing. To see such distorted perceptions(and where I started) is just so very sad. I see how much time and energy that these girls are literally wasting on worrying about looking perfect when every single one of them is an intelligent, attractive person with so many more facets than just their looks and so many other things that they could use to focus that energy of self deprecation.

I want to shake them.

Then I want to shake myself.

For being there at there age and never getting past it. For letting it get to me so much that I’ve binged like I have not in a really long time. For letting it take me to that place of shame and anger and self-consciousness when I’m around all of them.

So, all of this just to be honest. I’m struggling. Surprisingly, it’s not so much because of Thanksgiving. I spent so much fantastic time with family and friends and the food took such a back seat to how wonderful it was to be with so many people I never get to see! Plus, honestly, I’m not fat because I enjoy a Thanksgiving meal once a year. It’s the other meals when I eat too many servings, too many meals that weren’t even needed in the first place, too much mindless easting, too many binges because of overwhelming emotions, too many choices that aren’t giving my body the nutrition it needs and not getting up off of my tush and getting moving enough on a daily basis!

Do you ever just get so angry at yourself and need to walk away from the norm a bit? I’ve been feeling that lately. Angry and upset with myself that I’ve gotten myself to such a position that it takes so much out of me – physically, emotionally, spiritually – to keep up with getting myself to a healthier place. I know that this is all one day and one step at a time, but there have been so many days lately that I just get upset with myself for being where I am in the first place. I know, I know – not much I can do about that now an whining about it isn’t changing anything. But I don’t mean this in the sense of just a small, “Oh poor me, I’m so fat” sense.

Here’s what I mean: there are so many things in my life that seem so much more important. I’m not saying my health isn’t important – God only knows how blessed I am to be happy and healthy as a whole. There are just so many things that matter to me that I want to focus my time and energy on, but I only have so much that I can do in a day. My family comes first and with two little ones, it doesn’t leave a ton of extra time. So I get angry that I even have to spend so much time and energy on something like weight loss and I’m really working on changing my habits so that I don’t feel such a dividing line between “weight loss” and the rest of my normal every day functions. I’m working on how to really incorporate the lifestyle changes I need so that they just become a norm and I just assume that I need to take care of myself and eat well and move my body, just the same as I need to brush my teeth and take a shower and make sure my kids eat healthy every day.

So that’s where I am. Sorry for the absence and sorry that this post is sort of all over the place. It’s a journey and mine is involving a lot of quiet contemplation right now and that hasn’t led to a ton of posting on here. I’m working on meditation in my life – I need more spirituality for a million different reason, but most of all because of the peace I know it brings to me.

I am majorly in need of more exercise in my life. I need it for weight loss, but I need it so much more for my mental health. Why is it that we spend so much time and energy on the things that aren’t good for us and avoiding the things that we know will make us feel good? Eating a bit less…getting out for a walk…Taking an extra 15 minutes to spending quietly…taking a few extra deep breaths…

I’m realizing more and more that so many things are tied to this all or nothing obsession with things being perfect. This applies so much to exercise. I have this idea in my mind that I need to run and I need to do intense workouts and it all just seems so overwhelming. So what do I do? Nothing! Literally. Yes, I do need the big workouts. But I also need ANY movement of my body!

So, as I was blog hopping, I found this post by simpledaisy and this quote really sparked something for me:

“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.” ~ Paul Dudley White

SO TRUE. So so so true. I love the word “vigorous” in there. It conveys strength and energy and just taking a huge deep breath – all of the things that we need to gain from exercise and using our bodies. I spend my time not exercising and not just moving my body nearly enough out of the {ridiculous} fear of not being capable of doing the unrealistic goals I have in my mind when I could simply be taking a walk daily and doing something more than nothing!

So, I’m setting a goal of getting out for a walk every single day. Even if it’s 10 minutes to take my kids to the park and back or just go around the block, it will be fresh air and good for me mentally and physically. Plus, we all know that the biggest challenge is taking the first step. Getting out there every day inevitably leads to increasingly more steps and more energy and it can just potentially snowball from there into incredible workouts.

First, though, I just need to go for a walk. One step at a time.

I’m starting this post 11/2/09 and I will publish right away and update until I get to 101. I’m including only positive statements – nothing that’s positive, but even hints at self-deprecation (I like __, but…; I love __, even though…). Feel free to create your own list and link to this post – I’d love to add links below my list of all of the positive things that others have to say about themselves!

11/10/09 – I’m changing this to a list of reasons I am happy just the way I am TODAY(with special thanks to Ivory for the bigger inspiration;) I do believe that I could think of 101 Reasons I Love My Body, but I think that it’s just so much more important to focus on a larger picture of why we love ourselves JUST AS WE ARE – body, mind and spirit. My body is only one piece of the puzzle that makes up “me.”

1. I love my freckles.

2. I love my hair color – no one else has a color quite like it.

3. I love my hands,

4. Especially my strong, nice nails.

5. My breasts are LARGE and have more than provided milk easily for my two beautiful babies.

6. I love that my legs are so strong and sturdy.

7. I love the way my body feels when I stretch.

8. I love that my body nourished, grew and blessed me with two amazing children.

9. My body is a soft, warm place for my kids to snuggle.

10. I have nice feet.

11. I like my pale skin.

12. I love how I look in any shade of pale aqua or blue.

13. I love how I feel about myself in the evening when I’m rocking my kids and inhaling every morsel of their sweet baby scents.

14. I love that I don’t often feel the need to defend the way I feel about things – if I care about, I know that what I truly believe in my heart is what matter, not how someone else perceives it.

15. I care about more than just my weight. At the end of the day when I’m alone with just myself, when I’m with my kids or my husband, I’m proud of the human being that I am.

16. I love that this body has carried me through everything in life so far and I’m still going and so very blessed.

17. I love that this body carried me to Haiti and allowed me to see more of the world than I ever imagined.

18. I love that this body (AND MIND) have allowed me to try to understand on a daily basis how I can be grateful and conscious of how truly blessed I am when I think that things are getting difficult.

We seriously need to do this more! It was a gorgeous fall day on Sunday and it was so nice to get outside together. This is my favorite sort of exercise and, sadly, I don’t even slightly do enough of it. It’s kind of sad, but during the week I’m always really hesitant to take the kids out by myself on a walk like this. The paths are desolate and I *know* nothing would happen, but it’s still sort of unnerving. I try really hard not to let anxiety get the best of my in parenting, but this is one instance where I can’t shake it, which is sad because increased exercise of any kind would be a huge improvement for me. For now, though, we’ll stick to walks in the neighborhood when we’re not all together – that’s definitely something more than nothing!

And we didn’t forget the little one – he was just in his own happy spot: