Why I am NOT deleting this blog...

I have a pattern. Shocking, I know.

My pattern has to do with how I handle failure. You see, I'm a lot like every fat chick you've ever met. I'm afraid to fall flat on my arse. Not just 'cause it would hurt (uh, but it would), but because getting up is not a pretty sight.

I've already talked about how I was thin through high school and college. I even lost all the extra pounds I packed on in adulthood once. That lasted about 15 minutes. Seems like it anyhow.

When I lost the weight, I was at a previous job. A job where I made a lot of friends, was enjoying my work. I left to move up in the world, to take a promotion at another place of employment. I was already starting to gain the weight back, but I wasn't back to buying clothes at a tent supply store yet.

It's been four years since I left that job. And I. Have. Not. Been. Back. That's sad, frankly. I've avoided social gatherings that I would have loved to attend, because I don't want them to see that I failed. Take my timeline a bit further back ... to high school. I have a lot of friends I keep in touch with from back east, where I am from, via Facebook. They see a close-up of my face ... never the whole bod. I never appear in photos with my family. When I go home to see my family, I don't advertise that I'm going, because I don't want people to see me. If they do get wind of it, I go out of my way to lie to them and say that, sure, I'll be there ... but I'm booked solid with things to do while I'm there. Why? Because I don't want them to see that I have failed. Why taint their memory of a thin me with the gruesome reality?

I'm coming up on a year soon with this blog. Started in August 2009, and in November 2009 and February 2010, I came back with a vengeance. I will be motivated! I will do the work! I will lose the weight! And then I fall off the plan wagon.

Pre-blog, I used to keep journals about my weight loss journey(s). I'd start out strong, lose a few pounds, then go back to my evil ways. The journals would fall down into the abyss between my nightstand and bed. I'd dig them out (usually when searching for my glasses or an earring), dust them off, and ... rip out the pages I had written on.

Why? So I didn't have to read about my failure. And so that others, if they so happened on my journals, didn't know that I had failed.

So--I'm not here today to announce grand intentions. I'm not going on a bandwagon to say that I've figured it out, that I've made a decision to choose health and activity instead of junk and tv-watching.

I'm here just to say that I'm not going to delete my blog. I'm going to have to just be OK with leaving it all out there, for people to count the months between blog entries and count how many pounds I didn't lose.

That's actually a heckuva start for me.

Months Flown, Pounds Found

So here's the thing. When I've journaled in the past about weight loss, and then fallen off the wagon (and then got dragged behind it for a few miles, then left behind, then ... well, you get the picture), I normally press "re-set."

Re-set, to me, means a complete do-over. I tear the journal pages out and shred them, black out the goals I had set, re-stock the fridge and pantry, and generally just try to forget my failure. Again.

Not this time. I am more than a little chagrined to look at my initial blog entry here, from wayyyyy back in August, see my gasp at hitting 229 lbs.

Truth time? Again? Right now I'm at 247. I'm darn near an eighth of a ton. It's probably not healthy to look at it in ton fractions, but I'm trying to scare myself a little.

I've been noodling around with different options, reviewing all of my diet gains and losses, looking for the next road to travel down. I know that what is most important is that I find ME again in the process. I've taken a couple of classes on raw foods, and as a family, we're really enjoying some of those recipes and techniques. Can I go 100% raw (which also means vegetarian, of course)? Probably not. At least not yet. But I figure that getting way more natural, unprocessed foods into my body can't not be healthy, right?

Who's with me? Heck, I'm a little more worried about making sure that I'm with me, but the more, the merrier!

I am not who they think I am.

I was at a workshop this week where we were asked to do a short free-write based on the prompt "I am not who they think I am." No other guidance than that. I rolled my eyes, hating this type of touchy-feely crap. but as soon as my pen touched paper, I ran with it. Here's what came out:

I am not who they think I am. I am weak. I am afraid. I am a person behind a person. I am looking for me, the one who can be comfortable in her own skin. My relationships surround me, but they don't all get to see me. I don't let them. I am on a journey to myself. They say that it's not the destination, it's the journey. Nope. I just want to get there. I want to plant my flag in the soil that is me, the me within. Who I am. Wherever that is.

Even though the workshop didn't have anything to do at all with weight, self-esteem, or any of that inner/outer self stuff, I knew when the first words were written that I was speaking of my weight loss journey. I've been thin before. Four years ago I visited size 8. Didn't stay long, though. I got cocky, careless, and ate my feelings and stress. Sooooooo much to learn.

Time to hit the road. I've loaded up the car, pulled out my map... just gotta check the tire pressure, windshield wipers, traffic, look for gas stations ... wait, where are my keys???

Groundhog Day

Hi. Me again. It's been two and a half months since my last entry. And boy, have I ever sinned.

Before I get into today's story, let me get this out there into the universe ... today when I woke up, I weighed 243 pounds. Technically, I probably weighed more than that, but I refuse to weigh until I've tinkled. Every little bit helps, right? So I was bummed, of course. Huge number. Biggest I've ever seen on my home scale.

I tried something new today. I decided that I needed a person. Someone who knows my number (243 ... gasp!) and can therefore appreciate when I've dropped a few or sigh along with me when I've gone the wrong way. Someone who I can be accountable to. Someone who won't judge me, 'cause she's dealing with the same issue. Not my husband, or my son. My weight loss counselor knows my number, but she doesn't really count. She doesn't love me the way my person loves me. I called my sister.

I shared my number with her, out loud. It scared me. 243 pounds is a BMI of 41.7. Both numbers are equally frightening. What's scarier, though, is the possibility that I'm now closer than ever to being 250 pounds. That's an eighth of a ton. What?!?!

I've spent much of my adult life looking for the trigger, the epiphany... the moment when I finally realize why I should lose weight, the motivation. And it's bothered me that it's never really one thing. But I think what I'm learning -- finally -- is that in order for me to conquer THE BEAST I need to have an epiphany every single day. Maybe more than one. Whatever it takes for me to realize that I've never done anything so bad in life that I need to punish myself with poor health... that I'm worth good health, and my family is worth it, too.

Today's revelation? Just that ... that I can have as many as I need to get on track and stay there.

Putting an APB out on my motivation... again

The month of August has really sucked big-time for me. Home life has been crazy, work life has been crazy ... heck, my driving life has been crazy.

And I've gained 7 pounds since July 31. SEVEN pounds!!!!!

I know me. If I could just get on board with this plan and really give it 100% for two or three weeks, my natural drive to succeed with it would really kick in.

Come on, come on, come on!!!!!

Motivation Found?

I was cleaning out my closet and found this belt. It came with a pair of pants I bought in late 2005, size 10. For kicks and giggles, I decided to see how far it goes around my waist now. I guess it should be some consolation that you could at least see the ends of it ... even if they came nowhere near meeting.



It's not a glamorous belt, just kinda cute. I've used a lot of tools as motivation ... photos of myself in a thinner year, size 8 pants hanging on my bedroom door, lists of reasons to lose the weight, and soooo many more.



But maybe this silly little belt is just what I need to "whip" myself into the state of readiness I need. Stay tuned.

PLAY With Your Food!

In church today, I saw a little girl eating Cheetos.

First, I was driven mad by the fact that a) really? Cheetos? and b) they were so loud during the service. But as I watched her eating her cheesy snack one nibble (a rather loud crunch, really) at a time, truly enjoying each tasty morsel, I found myself remembering a time so many years ago when I really tasted a Cheeto.

Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty o' Cheetos in my day. I mean, have you read my other posts? Clearly I've partaken of a Cheeto or a million. But when I eat something like that now, I mindlessly inhale them. Like my snack mix the other night. Watching So You Think You Can Dance, I nearly polished off a honey-flavored snack mix bag that had seven servings in it! Did I really taste the honey-baked goodness? Not so much.

I find myself constantly harping at my son to stop playing with his food. He wiggles a french fry, pretending it's chasing his carrot. He dangles a donut from his finger and and nibbles around and around until he breaks through to the hole in the center. {Yes, we're trying to get away from donuts and french fries altogether these days!}

But in the time that he has taken to enoy a donut, I could physically polish off four and not really even taste them. On the rare occasion that I would take him to the donut store, he would pick out one cake donut and a few donut holes. I, on the other hand, would select a muffin, a croissant, a cinnamon roll and maybe a whipped-topping delight. Don't panic... the muffin was for my husband.

By the time my carb-laden delights were history, my son would be mostly through his one donut, and might have picked up one donut hole. But he would always leave something behind. And I can guarantee that he enjoyed his breakfast way more than I enjoyed mine.

So I think I need to figure out how to get back to playing with my food. I can remember my mom giving me a pack of Starburst candy on a road trip. Instead of eating it, I would unwrap one of each color at a time and use it like Play-Doh. I'd make a penguin, a turtle, a caterpillar ... and then eat each creation one at a time. The candy could last me for a couple hundred miles. A pack of Starburst now would last me about eight minutes, and that's being generous because of the occasional wrapping snafu.

So come on, peeps ... PLAY with your food! Enjoy it! Savor it! Take your own sweet time with it! And maybe by the time you're done with one tiny little thing, you'll have gotten your fill and your brain will be alert enough to tell your mouth to shut itself.