Day 7 there was rest

Today is my rest day from the Hip Hop Abs month long challenge. I have never been one that is really big on organized… well much of anything to be honest about it. But I can say whole hartedly that today I'm missing not having a scheduled workout.

That is something that I would have never said in a million years. So what is different this time? What is it that drives me? I'm not sure that I know how to answer those questions but something that Joe Cross said on a segment of Dr. Oz made me stop and think.

“We spend the first 40 years trying to kill ourselves and the next 40 to to save ourselves.” At least that was the general gist of it. I turned 40 last year so this hit close to home for me. I guess this is me trying to make up for the first 40 where I didn't really care about my body or my health for that matter.

Sure I would go on a diet here and there but none of them ever made any sort of long term changes. Finding out that I have issues with gluten made some of this easy, not that being gluten free has been easy it has been anything but. It cuts out a bunch of my favorite comfort foods, bread being the big one.

It is even deeper then just not being able to have the stuff. I have made so many changes in the last few moths that are healthy I don't know if I could go back to eating the way I did just 2 short months ago. I don't like the way processed food tasted if it not all natural it has a weird taste to it. That is not to say that I don't sometimes still eat stuff in excess but it is a completely different type of food. No I will od on organic strawberries and not cookies.

I know that I may never get to be a size 2 but I am very proud of the fact that I have made all the changes that are leading me to see that I can make positive changes that I can see in the size of clothing that I wear. I was able to buy a few things from Old Navy this weekend that were in the ladies section. I have only ever gotten stuff from the men's things, hoodies and what not.

It really brought it home that my body was changing. I hope that was enough so that I don't pull my normal self sabotage. The few times that I did try proved more difficult, due to the fact that I feel so much better without the gluten, and most of my go to foods are all gluten based.

My Merry May Challenge

You hear people talk about how they want to get back to what they weighed before:

College
Having kids
Turning 40
Just to name a few, there are as many before stories as there are people.

I don’t have a before story, partially because I have been overweight my whole life, yes even as a kid. Having grown up know this fact made me steer clear of scales for most of my adult life. So I truly have no idea what I was at my “thinnest”. I know that I have gained weight over the years but exactly how much there is no way to know that. I just know that my clothes got bigger as I moved towards 40.

While I guess I should not worry about this lack of before story it cause a very strange thing to happen for me. Because I have no frame of reference for not being fat the simple thought that I’m making progress towards not being fat anymore cause what can only be described as fear. This fear leads me to start to sabotage the efforts that are producing results. I settle back in to my familiar fat pants and say shucks next time maybe I will make it.

It was not until recent events have lead me to where I am now that I really saw what was going on with this horrible cycle that I exist in. So far due to radical changes in what I can eat I have lost more than 20lbs. It is the most I have ever lost at one time, if I had to guess I would say that all the times I have tried to lose weight over my 40 years I probably have lost 500lbs or so sadly it always comes back with friends. The last time I lost double digits was when I was on weight watchers years ago. I hit 16lbs and promptly quit going to meeting or tracking anything. Shucks maybe next time.

This time I tried really hard to go back to my old habits but not being able to eat anything with gluten in it has really put a crimp in my plan to gain it back. This is a good thing you are thinking to yourself:

What are you bitching about?
I would be totally stoked it I had lost 20lbs.
What is wrong with you?

Not to worry. I had the very similar thoughts cross my mind when this pattern started to become clear. How can losing weight scare the crap out of me so badly? I really don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have some thoughts about it. I have always been the fat person in the group. Even with my friends who were overweight I was the heaviest. So my personality and persona where formed around that fact. I don’t know how to be a thinner person. I don’t have any experience at that and I really don’t do with not having at least base line first hand experience with things in my life. Pretty sure that there is now handy how to books on this subject, if I’m wrong let me know in the comments below I would love to read them.

At this time my fat clothes are too big on me so that makes me look a little bit like a homeless person. The problem being that if I get rid of them and I manage to find a way to sabotage this then I will have to buy new fat clothes and I really hate shopping in the 3’ x 3’ section at nation chain stores (yes Target I pointing fingers at you) or “specialty” shops where everything is crazy expensive. So not only am I still fat but now I’m broke too replacing stuff that I got rid of.

This time I did get rid of a lot of the stuff that is too big on me. My closet space is the size of a phone booth and there is just not room to hang on to ill-fitting items. It was a scary moment to drop them in to the donation box and drive away.

700 words later we finally get to what this post is really about. I am going to be doing the Hip Hop Abs 30 day challenge. I am fairly certain that I will not be taking any of these moves to a club near me, well ever. I dance like a white person, a really white person and I don’t think that Shaun T is a wizard and will be able to fix that. I do home to strengthen my core and have fun with it. I am also not sure I will see abs anytime soon, they have been safely hidden way for 40 years it’s going to take a lot more than just a fun dance fitness video find them.

I was talking with some people on twitter today about what age things start being inappropriate. Here is the link to it. I fall on the side of this debate that do what makes you happy no matter what age you are. Once I hit my goal weight and can stay there for a year I am getting my belly button pierced and new boobs and I don’t care if I’m 60 at the time. Side note I also have my nose pierced, too many holes in my ears and tattoos just for a point of reference in case you needed it.

I may do some videos for update but I’m not really sure yet, tonight is my first workout. I can say that I’m a bit scared but excited to give it a go. Oh I need before photos too. Eck there will be skin showing. Great now I have “Call me maybe” running through my head. And so do you now sorry about that.

Do you have a challenge for the merry month of May? Find me on twitter I’m really good at cheerleading others success.

B is for Bindle -A to Z Challenge

A to Z Challenge Word:

A bindle is the bag, sack, or carrying device stereotypically used by the commonly American sub-culture of hobos- via Wikipedia

That random word for today is brought to you by the wonderful folks at Titus Podcast. I was on a listening marathon this last week, this was one of many things that I found funny.

Now the rest of the post:

I’m would classify me as someone who self-sabotages. Mostly when it comes to weight loss. I have been fat my whole life. This means that I have always been on some sort of diet, starting in my late teens. It also means that I have perfected the yo-yo diet to a T.

Every time there is even a little bit of success in this process I silently have a freak out and do anything that is opposite of what I was doing to get the results. Thus leading to me gaining all the weight plus back.

About 6 weeks ago I started juicing. No not the kind that will give me backne or roid rage and keep me out of some random sports hall of fame. No I’m talking about turning raw veggies in to juice. To date I have lost 20 lbs plus I feel awesome.

And here comes the old habit of screwing thing up for myself. I guess what is different this time is that I know that I’m doing it. So that means the key is to stop it before it happens. As I said I feel great better than I have in years why in the world would I want that to go away? Not that it isn’t about the weight loss but even if it didn’t produce any more weight loss I think the way I feel would keep me juicing. Speaking of that I need to go do that now so I will wrap up this post.

Photo of the day:

Body in the dark for A to Z Challenge

Love/hate yeah that pretty much sums it up

Love heart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can say that I have a love/hate relationship with my body. Most of the time I’m all about Team Love, with the I’m perfect without changing a thing. Why the hell would it want to be conform to unrealistic standards of what is beautiful. Eff that I am perfect just like I am right now.

But then…

The ugly step sister of Love shows up and it is not a pretty sight. There are tears and anger over the fact that nothing in my closet seems to fit right, so how it must be all the clothes fault…right? When it is all about Team Hate I am just a lazy fat person who buys in to all the negative talk that the crazy in her head can dish out. The kicker here is the same clothing in the evil closet of doom where the same ones that just a little while about I thought I was all that and a bag of chips.

So what changes?

Quite frankly I have no fricken clue what sets me off on the down hill “i hate you” ride. I whole heartedly believe that I don’t have to be a size 2 to be beautiful. I don’t have to wear makeup or have the latest in fashion clothing to be beautiful. But there are times that I am totally disgusted with the way I look. This tends to confuse and enrage me when it happens.

Negative Self-talk, where does it come from?

We are fed negative self-talk from well-meaning Doctors , friends even strangers will have a word or two to share with you. “Why yes Dr. I know that I am obese because my clothes in the clothing stores are way in the back in a very small selection of styles and colors or at expensive specialty stores. Oh and I have a mirror thank you very much.” As a person of above average weight I am fully aware that I am not like everyone. While this is where I should say that just means there is more of me to love, all I hear in my head is mean thing that I would never say to another person because it would hurt their feelings. I guess my feelings don’t count.

So now what?

This downward trip I have decided to give the 17 day diet a go. I read a great post by @GailtBreen about the 3rd cycle of the 17 day diet. I had not heard of it before reading her post. So I bought the kindle version of the book and pretty much read the whole thing in one day. While it was nothing that I didn’t already know from 30+ years of the diet merry-go-round it was packaged in a doable format. I can do anything for 17 days… right. While this may all be a bunch of hooey I am going to give it a go I have nothing to lose.

I start today! It is Day 1 of Cycle 1.

Do you have the same sort of relationship? How do you deal with the down swings?

Getting my curves back

Today standing in front of the floor length mirror in the bathroom at work I noticed that I am starting to get my curves back, well they are not totally back but they are looking better then they have in the recent past.

What is working you ask, well the second week of December I rejoined Weight Watchers. Yes, rejoined, I was doing WW back in 2007 and after about 16 lbs dropped I slowly stopped participating. I know it was working, what the hell was I thinking? All I can figure is that it was just not the right time.

After our family photo was taken for our holiday cards, I was less then impressed with how I looked in it. Four hours of working with a photo in PhotoShop makes you notice all the unpleasant things in it. I disliked it so much so that I re joined the next day, now please understand one thing, I have always been overweight, my whole life. So I am not expecting to be “skinny”. Hell I don’t want to be skinny that is not really a good look, well in my opinion. I feel that women need soft curves in all the right places.

Mine where starting to look less like curves and more like I was wearing a ski parka all the time. I want to show them off. I love the way I look when my clothes skim along the curves in just the right way, I feel sexy. I like that feeling; it is slowly coming back as I find them again. Who doesn’t want to be sexy?

While I would really like the number on the scale to be much smaller then it currently is, I still will never be skinny. That means this is not all about the numbers for me. It can’t be otherwise I am setting myself up to fail again. The numbers will change, of course but I do not want to define success or failure by those numbers. In the past I would have and maybe that is what pushed me to quitting even with the “success” I was having. It was not enough or not fast enough, compared to other people. Well you know what I finally understand? I am not other people. After 39 years on this planet I finally get that. There is only one of me, I am sure there are a few people who are grateful for that fact. (You know who you are O.o)

So while I am going through this process I want to share but I am not going to post numbers, I think that would contradict what I said about not being defined by them. I guess what I am going to post as a way of updates are some of the changed that I have made, that is helping me work towards finding my hibernating curves and get rid of my perma-parka.

Good luck on your New Years changes that you maybe making.

caution curves ahead

justalittlesnarky

Anti-Niche= good at many things, not an expert at any of them but having a great time all the same.

Tag Archives: Weight loss

Day 7 there was rest

Like this:

My Merry May Challenge

Like this:

B is for Bindle -A to Z Challenge

A to Z Challenge Word:

Now the rest of the post:

Photo of the day:

Like this: