Getting Back to the Journey

So I realize it's been over a month since I last blogged and for that I would like to apologize.  I promise though it was not for lack of trying.  I started a new job a little over a month ago and I've been working full-time, but instead of sitting down all the time like my last job, I was on my feet a lot more which as I had mentioned, really affected my feet and I was dealing with a lot of pain from them.  The other side effect, being absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, was a result of a combination of running around a lot more than I was used to and trying to learn a lot of stuff in a short amount of time.  So I would get home from work, eat, feed my dogs and cats, and pretty much crash.  I did try to blog a few times and inevitably woke up several hours later with my cheek pressed against the keyboard and a long string of letters and numbers filling my screen.  So to an extent, I guess I gave up.  So where am I now?  Well, I haven't lost a ton of weight, a little under 10 lbs actually.  I've been quite disappointed with myself for not doing as well as I would like.  Part of the problem is that I went really hard at it in the beginning and I think I basically burned myself out.  So to an extent, I'm starting over, but at a slower pace.  Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint.

Time to Decide

 Today was a day of decisions.  When I woke up this morning, I felt completely sick to my stomach.  I felt awful.  The reason?  Well, last night after going to a play with a couple friends, I ended up going to a local pizza place and getting dinner and completely overeating.  It wasn't a binge, I was just hungry and tired and wasn't really thinking straight.  Looking at that decision by the light of a new day, I was furious with myself.  Yesterday wasn't one of my better days.  I woke up a bit later than I meant to and then suddenly remembered that I needed to gas up my car, so I shoveled down a leftover waffle with some watermelon and ran out the door.  It was hardly a satisfying breakfast so I picked up a bag of mixed nuts at the gas station.  I WAS proud of the fact that I chose the nuts over all the unhealthy junk food you normally find at gas stations.  I figured the nuts were a bit healthier and they would help keep me from getting too hungry before my lunch.  For lunch I had my leftover fajitas which tasted fantastic and filled me up and helped to energize me a bit too.

But by the time I got off work, I was exhausted.  I was still struggling with getting to sleep at night so I hadn't gotten near the amount of sleep I really needed.  When I got home, I was rushing around trying to get changed, feed my dogs, feed my cats, and generally just get some of the things that needed to get done done before heading to the play.  When I started looking at something to have for dinner, I found that we didn't seem to have a ton of leftovers and I would have to fix something.  I wasn't feeling terribly hungry and since I didn't really have time to fix anything if I didn't want to be late, I decided to skip dinner.  Worst decision ever.  The play was a lot of fun as was getting to chat with my friends afterwards.  It was just after nine when I started heading for home.  I was so tired, but I was also very hungry by this time.  I had no energy to fix anything at home and that's when I thought about the pizza place that wasn't too far away.  So I headed over there and ordered way too much for one person to eat, let alone someone who's trying to eat healthy, and ate it all.  Like I said, I wasn't bingeing, I was just hungry and I really overate.  When I got home, I completely crashed, but my stomach started bothering me during the night and woke me up a few times.

And like I said, this morning I was severely pissed off with myself.  I had been doing so well and then I blew it.  And what really ticked me off was that it had so NOT been worth it.  I couldn't remember what it tasted like, nothing.  I just knew I had eaten a ton of food that I didn't need and I felt like crap.  At that point I had a decision to make.  Generally when something like that has happened to me, I throw my hands up in the air and give up.  So this morning I had to decide if I was going to let one bad day make me give up.  I'm sorry to say that at that point, I wasn't sure.  I was frustrated, I was still tired and I had a long day ahead of me.

Food, Family, Success!

So before I get into what happened with my day, I wanted to talk about a few things.  First of all, I decided to check how far I had walked yesterday and how long it had taken me.  I figured I had walked maybe a mile and it had taken probably about thirty minutes.  When I checked I discovered that I had actually walked almost TWO miles in about thirty minutes!  I was stoked!  I had no idea it was quite that far, so I felt even more accomplished.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is just a little bit about my relationship with food and how that contributed to where I'm at now.  Growing up I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on my dad's side.  My grandmother did not like to cook, but she would cook for me because I'm her only granddaughter.  The problem was that since she didn't like to cook, she would fix a lot of foods mostly out of a box or can and they were very unhealthy and fatty.  If she fixed a vegetable, it was generally smothered in cheese.  My grandparents on my mother's side both liked to cook and it seemed they were under the impression that people who came over to eat were going to starve.  My grandfather is from Italy, my grandmother from Venezuela.  They cooked a lot of Italian food which means a lot of pasta which was positively divine because it was homemade and it was very easy to eat a lot of it.  They fixed healthier meals than my other grandmother in that they usually made a large salad and some other vegetable.  My parents generally cooked slightly healthier food, but it wasn't as much of a priority.  As I mentioned before, I was at a healthy weight as a child so it wasn't such a big deal.

With my family, primarily with me, my mom, and her parents, food is the way we show our family and friends that we love them.  My mom's parents were never very open and expressive about their love.  It just wasn't their way.  They showed their love by fixing amazing food and encouraging us to eat helping after helping.  My mom likes to cook for our family because the time and effort she puts into it shows how much she loves us.  I'm the same.  When my friends come over to my house on Monday nights when I host, I have a tendency to fix something more elaborate and complicated because, as I've also mentioned, I'm not good at communicating and that's how I show them how much I love them and how much their friendship means to me.

Gonna Fly Now

So I planned on posting last night about my first official day of starting to lose weight, but I didn't get home till late and with having to get up early for work the next morning I decided not to, so this might be a little bit of a longer post.  I know my first post was on Sunday, but I actually didn't start until yesterday just because my parents and I already had plans with the family that did not include eating the healthiest of food.  That's not to say that I totally pigged out.  I'm actually really proud of the fact that I think overall I did pretty well.

Yesterday was my first day at my new job which I was really excited about.  I actually got up an hour and a half before I had to leave which means I actually had time for breakfast.  At my last job I never ate breakfast.  I would either wait till lunch or get a burrito from the cafe.  With not knowing what to expect though and wanting to make sure that I didn't start bingeing later on because I was so hungry, I wanted to make sure I started off my day right.  So I had some leftover egg scramble with a bit of guacamole, a single piece of bacon, some watermelon, and a large glass of water.  At work, which I think I'm going to really enjoy, I was standing a lot, something I haven't had to do in almost a year and a half.  I have plantar fasciitis and being on my feet for a long period of time makes it flare up.  Plantar fasciitis is generally described as inflammation of the plantar fascia of the foot which is a band of connective tissue running from the heel to the base of the toes and supports the arch.  So after standing for a few hours, my feet started hurting terribly at which point it was pretty much a matter of just grin and bear it, but it made walking painful and difficult.

I hadn't had time to pack a lunch unfortunately, so I went over to the Dion's nearby and got a Caesar salad.  One of my goals to start easing my way into the weight loss was to stop drinking soda.  It is just so unhealthy and I figured it would make a difference if I started with it.  However, since my stomach was feeling a bit queasy, probably from nerves, I did get a medium sprite because it generally calms down my stomach.  I was a bit frustrated at needing it because I had switched purses and didn't have any kind of medicine whatsoever that might help, but I figured it was a one time thing and it did help my stomach so I was grateful for that.

It's Time

"Eat less and work out."  If I ever mention my struggle with my weight, that's generally the response I get.  It sounds so simple, so straightforward, but for me, it's really not.  Food is comforting, its something I can rely on to taste good.  And working out?  I wear flats or flip flops perpetually because I have trouble breathing when I bend down to tie my shoes.  The idea of walking for any distance let alone trying to run is daunting.  The majority of my friends are thin, weight is not something they've ever struggled with.  A number of them even enjoy exercising, running a mile is nothing for them.  For most of them, my struggle with weight is probably quite perplexing.  But for me, it's something I've been dealing with my whole life.  In elementary school and middle school, I was the "loser", the one everyone else liked to make fun of and tease because I was weird and a different size.  I just didn't quite fit in at school or the church my family attended.  But while I loved food even then, I was constantly active with a required PE class and playing volleyball and basketball.  But when my family moved and my mom started homeschooling me, I became less active and the weight started piling on.

My lowest weight as a teenager/young adult was in my sophomore year of high school when I weighed 160 lbs.  By the time I graduated I had gained over 40 lbs. College was a nightmare for me.  From morning to till evening there was an all you could eat buffet in the cafeteria and most of it was about as unhealthy as you could possibly get.  Despite the fact that at that point I could be considered more curvy than anything, I felt fat and I wasn't comfortable working out in the gym which was usually filled with with toned and trim football and volleyball players.  My boyfriend wasn't much for working out and didn't generally want go with me so my exercise consisted of walking around the relatively small campus which wasn't much exercise at all.  I broke up with him in my second semester of college.  Despite the fact I knew it was the right thing to do, it was an incredibly difficult decision.  What made it even worse is that afterward I found that I had been so caught up in the relationship with trying to make things work out, that I hadn't really made any friends and I was completely on my own.  I quickly became depressed and food became my comfort.