My march to victory

Hello,
After taking the weekend off to mentally prep for the next four months, or as carlos likes to say 'hop back on the Krab'...I realized that I was 226 in the morning and 229 at night. Of course, I feel good about that number....now. But I remember the last time i looked that number in the face. It was 2005. I had just found out I was pregnant. I was so scared because I knew I wasn't at a healthy weight. I KNEW that would make my pregnancy soooo much harder, it would increase my chances of toxemia and other complications. I didn't want to be pregnant. Oh, don't get me wrong. I wanted the baby, just not the pregnancy. It didn't matter, within a month and a half, I miscarried. The doctor told me "Maybe if you lost some weight, you would be better able to carry a pregnancy'. Did I lose weight? No. I spiraled into a deep depression. I felt I had 'killed' my baby. It doesn't make any rational sense, but you couldn't tell that to My negative thoughts. I never stopped to consider that maybe it wasn't my weight, that maybe it was hormonal, or one of many other things. It's funny how your insecurities latch on to the one probability guaranteed to make you feel like crap. I gained weight from there. I don't know what weight I started at. I started on May fourth of this year. I visibly lost weight before I ever hopped on the scale. When I weighed myself on May 18th, I was 262.4 lbs., 33 lbs heavier than before.
When I saw 229 tonight, I realized that instead of feeling defeated, I felt victorious. It's amazing what a change of mind can do. I am now on my way to under 200. I feel nervous. I have tried to get under 200 before, right after I had my youngest. I don't even remember now how long I tried. I know that I worked out like a demon, cut my calories to 1200 and I vividly remember stepping on the scale and seeing my weight GO UP. This was before I knew that you could kill your metabolism by lowering your calories too much. This was when I expected every drop to be a five pound drop, that my weight would melt off like ice in a thaw. I was younger and more impatient. Now I know that life goes on, weight loss or no. That I can spend every day worried and anxious or I can spend each day doing what needs to be done. Getting older has it's advantages. I haven't been under 200 lbs in eight years. Under 190 in nine years, under 179 in 11 years..under 156 in 13 years. I remember all these mile stones. Before, each number was a humiliating defeat, this time, it's a march of victory. I hope everyone had a very good day.
I will be logging in tomorrow with details, calories and such. I am so glad you guys are out there. Somehow it makes this easier.
Hugs,
Chris

It's a fine line....

between Dramatic and Poorly Planned.


I was watching, (yes I said watching) Ted Kennedy's burial on the t.v. the other day. The Kennedys usually do these things up right. I speak in particular of John F. Kennedy's funeral. Buried in Arlington at dusk. His widow and his brother standing in front of his plot, then lighting the eternal flame. Then there was Ted Kennedy's funeral, Which, By the end, looked something like this:
Only with less light.

I have only this to say...if you are going for symbolic, pitch black is bad.
Did noone think to bring flood lights, a flashlight, a candle perhaps.....
My favorite part was the fox news anchors opining on what would be the iconic moment of the day, talking about the probability of the honor guard folding the flag etc. All the while, we can't see a blessed thing, and neither could the poor child on tv crying "I can't see anything". My advice, next time...try something closer to noon or barring that, spring for some ambient lighting. Just saying. Funny how life (and the cycle of the universe) can pop the bubble of iconography. Well, Tommorrow I start (one day early I guess) my run for the border....under 200. Hope all is well with you guys.
hugs,
Chris

do goodery

Well, not much to report on the diet front. I have upped my calories over the weekend because starting September 1rst I am making my four months to under two hundred run. Right now I am at about 226. I started this journey at 262.4.....I am only 27 lbs shy of 199. I have already lost 36.4 lbs. in 105 days, I can lose 27 in 122 days. I haven't been under two hundred in over eight years. This will be my Christmas present to myself.
Today was another chapter in my self improvement program. I took two girls from my troop down to angel food to hand out low cost frozen and fresh foods. It was only an hour, and it's only once a month...but I enjoyed that alot more than hanging out at walmart. No wonder people are always going around volunteering. I felt like I actually spent a productive morning. I start at the gym two days a week this coming week. I am going in the afternoons with my oldest daughter. The other four days will still be walking. I plan on upping my gym days to three in october and four or five in November. By December I will be going daily cause it will be way too cold to walk outside through about march. Better to ease in to the piranha pool than jump in head first, I always say. Hope everyone is doing well. Tommorrow I go grocery shopping for this coming week. I am pumped to say the least. Ready to go. Hope everyone out there is taking this one pound at a time.
Hugs,
Chris

monuments to sputidity

Hey all,
I looked and looked for a cartoon that has always been my favorite, it is this picture of a guy carving "I'm not sputid" in stone. Basically, a monument to his own 'sputidity'. I couldn't find it, (which is disappointing given that I could find a picture of a specific caboose in podunk michigan. Anywho....) Whenever I think of it, I laugh. Sometimes I look at how some people choose to exist, and think that someday they are going to look back at the life they carved and see then what was so obvious to everyone else, the glaring flaw that kept them from being the type of person they could have been. But by then, it will be too late to change it. Their sputidity enshrined, their legacy set. Take the death of Ted Kennedy. Whatever else he may have done, the one blot he can't shake is that night in chappaquidick. There were alot of little moral failings that led up to that night. Alot of other roads (pardon the pun) that he could have traveled prior to that fateful night. But what happened, happened. There is no erasing it. He has done so many serious and important things in his life (this coming from a conservative, no less) but his legacy will always be tarnished by One Big Mistake. He went on from there, became senator and I think, probably learned from what happened...but never shook it. Why is this on a weight loss blog. Simply put, about fifteen years of my life have passed since I have become overweight, then obese, then morbidly obese...I don't want to continue to have my life defined by something that is within my control to change. I have started down the road to change many times before, and then got lost, drove off a bridge and bam, back to where i was or higher. Up to my neck, in fact (or is that fat?). I have built my own monument to spuditity, it's my body. I am taking a jackhammer to this monument. One healthy meal here, one long walk there, five pounds here, ten pounds there.... and before you know it, I'm not stupid...anymore.
well, logged 1710 calories and a three mile walk.
Hope you all are doing well,
Hugs,
Chris

The upside of adversity

Today I want to talk about adversity. I posted before about growing up in a bad environment. I know it all seems bad, or sad, but really it wasn't. Sure there were bad parts. Large swaths actually, but in between I learned alot about how to deal with bad situations. I learned early that knowing how to do for yourself is always a positive. I watched my mom garden (1 acre), make our clothes from fabric that was given to her, build a bunk bed with a bunch of two by fours and plywood and a skillsaw (which she later admitted she had never used in her life). I remember going into the woods and loading up firewood, then stacking it. This was far and away my favorite chore. I loved the smell of fresh cut pine trees. It was always in autumn and the air was fresh and had a bite to it, all the leaves had changed color. There were purples and reds and yellow and evergreens. We stacked our wood criss cross cause that way it would dry out. We had an awesome wood stove (that my mom bought by convincing the local ace hardware to start a layaway program just for her...lmao) that put out so much heat that it would melt my moms fancy candles right through her cast iron filligreed shelves. Of course, all that heat stayed in the living room. In the halls we would have frost creeping up the walls. We would sometimes have to use a blow dryer to unlock our doors because they had froze from the inside,,,lol. In our bedroom (me and my brothers shared one) it was so cold in the middle of winter you could see our breath. We would get under the quilt our mom had made out of (no joke) old clothes. We loved those quilts. It was warm under the blanket and cold on our face. I talked to both my brother's and we still love to drive, in the winter, with the heat on full blast on our feet and the window of the car cracked. I think it reminds us of home. One year when our water pump (we had a well) froze then burst we had to walk a half mile down the road to haul water to heat on the wood stove for baths. We did that for a couple of months until my mom got up the money to get the water pump fixed. At one point we had to cut up some old furniture to burn in our woodstove because we had run out of propane AND firewood. I watched my mom make do with a pinto with no rear window, to this day I remember feeling embarrassed sitting in the grocery store parking lot in that car, watching all the people with their fancy (i.e windows intact, radio inside and perhaps even a heater) cars pulling up along side us. I know I said I felt adopted. In a way that was true. I wanted SUCH different things than anybody (except my little brother) in my family wanted. LIke I watched the news from 1980 on. I was six and loved walter cronkite. But it doesn't take away from the fact that I have great respect for my mom. When that stupid pinto would break down, she would walk, 12 miles, to work. Then she would walk home, clean, cook dinner and never ever complain. At least not to us. At her crap pay of 3.35 an hour, we always had food, clothing, shelter and heat and we NEVER missed a Christmas. In fact, those quilts were Christmas presents, we didn't know what they were made out of until my mom told us later that they were "he who shall not be named's" clothes. She cut them up and made a crazy quilt with them. That was my mom in a nutshell. We learned to do without. In fact, I am better doing without sometimes than doing with. I know how to do that. I watched someone do it, superbly. With our government rice, she made geese from fabric that she found in the bargain bins, she would stuff them with rice, call them doorstops, and she sold them. I think my favorite memory is when our septic system had reached its limit and it backed up into our trailer and my mom stood there looking at it. I asked "Is it bad". My mom said "it couldn't be worse"...then no joke, our roof fell in. on her head. She stood there, and then started laughing. She looked at me and said, "never say it couldn't be worse". I never have. I had a friend say to me once "you don't know how to fall on your face". That's right, because to do so would say that I hadn't learned the lessons my mom taught me. That whatever else happens you don't give up, you keep plugging. You keep whining to a minimum (if at all) and you do everything you can to never let down the people who count on you. This can make me a hard *ss at times, I know that. But when you watch someone do so much with so little, it really blows your excuses out of the water. Once I realized that I was selling my kids short by destroying myself physically, that I was giving them bad habits. I realized that I needed to pull my head out of my rear. I have been given SO much. I have a husband who works so I can stay home and raise my kids. I have a home with a good roof. ( a leaky water heater but anyway....lol) I can buy my kids fairly new clothes, get my food from a store and my car has all it's windows..PLUS a heater...Plus air conditioning. Pretty good. So what's the point? You can let adversity stop you, or you can let it make you. Be someone you can be proud of.
Calories yesterday 1400, calories today 1650 plus a 3.5 mile walk.
Go knock it out of the park,
Hugs,
Chris

phobia defied....

HA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Take that fear of being seen and fear of people in moderately large numbers.
I have said that this year was a year in which I wanted to push myself a bit. Well, I have started doing that by becoming troop leader to my daughter's girl scout troop. I have a problem talking to more than one person at a time, I am not sure if this is a product of growing up in the country with relatively few people around or if I am just not a big fan of groups. I did it though. Today was the first meeting, seven girls and eight or nine adults. Normally I hide in the back. But because I am the troop leader, I had to stand up there and *gasp* talk to people. I could feel myself breaking into a sweat a couple times, talking too fast a couple times and losing my train of thought a time or two. But, nothing too noticeable. Somebody even said that i was 'well organized'. My level of organization was of course, in direct proportion to my feeling of impending ineptitude. Now only about 20-22 troop meetings left to go.
This is one of my character flaws that I have been wanting to work on for a while. I never put myself forward. When this opportunity presented itself, I found my mouth forming the words "I'll do it". Panic ensued, items were collated and lists were formed. That's okay, because I am tackling it like I do everthing else when I set my mind to it, head on. I hope I am better for it by this time next year.
What sorts of fears do you need to tackle?
Walked 2 miles after the meeting and am at 1200 calories so far...we'll see.
Hugs,
Chris

:The "C" Word

Noooo, not that one. dirty minds. I am taking about CONSISTENCY. The less sexy counterpart to commitment. Why am I talking consistency? Because consistency is the only way you will lose weight. I was reading a blog a few weeks ago. This individual would have a great week and then have a 12000 calorie weekend. During the week this person would have a 500-800 calorie daily deficit. A pretty decent total. But that weekend total completely blew away his week day loss and not only was he not losing, he was gaining. He was frustrated, very frustrated. The thing is, it really is simple for about 90 percent of us. Calories in, calories out. Say he burns 2500 calories a day. During the week he eats 1800. (that's generous) so, 700 calorie deficit. On Saturday he eats 6000 cal. , on Sunday, an additional 6000 calories. So, 12000-5000=7000 excess calories. After that binge fest it would take him 10 days of calorie deficit just to break even. Now, before the lot of you trundle off muttering *good GOD, how can anybody ingest 6000 calories a day* Here's a little list from some of our favorite restaurants.

McDonald's French Fries
small: 231 cal.
Med: 380 cal.
Large: 500 cal.

Big Mac: 540 cal.
large coke : 320 cal.

so large fry, large coke, and large french = large person (1360 cal.)
I used to go to chipotle until I found out my chicken burrito with rice, chicken, fresh tomato salsa and cheese totaled a whopping 1240 calories.

1 on the border spicy chicken chimichanga WITHOUT THE SIDES (I hope your sitting down)
1160 KILLING CALORIES.

One piece of fried chicken.....about 500 calories, not counting sides like mashed potatoes and coleslaw.
Let's not talk about rice. 1 cup 205 calories.
2 Oz. pasta 210 calories
1 CUP pasta sauce prego 180 calories
40z. hamburger 93% lean 230 calories.

1 cup hagen daz ice cream 540 calories
1 Tablespoon of sugar 45 calories.

I will stop now. Let's just say you can be trucking along, trying to eat healthy and your day could end up looking something like this.

1 cup Quaker granola 420 calories
1cup 2% milk 122 calories
1 apple 80 calories

2 cups coffee
4 T sugar 180 calories
4 T half and half 80 calories

Lunch
2 slices whole wheat bread 200 calories
4 slices ham 120 calories
2 slices cheese 200 calories
1 banana 100 calories

Dinner
1 to 1.5 cups of rice 250 calories
6 oz. Steak 320 calories
1 cup broccoli 55 calories
1 T butter 100 calories

Desert
1 cup ice cream vanilla 280 calories

That my friends was a 2507 calorie day. A woman my height (5'3, at 35 years of age, at 135 lbs) needs about 1350 calories to maintain that weight without exercise. With exercise I can add maybe 300 calories on the day I move...maybe 400. My grand total for any day would be 1600 to 1750 calories a day. If I over ate like that daily (or worse) I would be over consuming by about 800 calories a day. In five days I could gain 1 lb.
Even if you were just 100 calories over, in 35 days, you would gain 1 lb. In one year you would gain 11 lbs. Through the power of CONSISTENT overeating, in 10 years you too could be like me, over 100 lbs overweight.
Here's the rub, it's alot easier to not pay attention and overeat, than to pay attention and under eat. That is why I count my calories and I measure my food, all of it. It isn't hard for anybody to go over their daily allotment. A cup of ice cream here, a bowl of popcorn there, next thing you know, they are fitting you for a pacemaker. So, don't go for the big deficit. Go for the consistent deficit. The one you know you can handle. You will get there, but in the mean time you will be learning portion size, calorie totals and the like. So, whether it's one hundred, five hundred or a thousand, make it consistent.
Yours in consistency ( and occasional boredom)
Chris