shut up and listen to me

Yesterday I felt achy and tired but I had several projects I needed to work on. Ken was home from work because he was sick too. I drove him to the doctor and then to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. We came home and watched TV for a while and I could barely keep my eyes open so I decided to lay on the bed for a while and just "rest my eyes" Within minutes Ken joined me and so did Sadie and Max. Our 20 minutes of resting our eyes turned into three hours of sleep. I thought for sure it would mean that I'd toss and turn last night however that didn't happen. Instead I slept quite soundly. I did the same thing on Monday. I would have done it on Tuesday had I not been stuck in an all day meeting.

So why does all of this matter? I'm the type of person who typically pushes through feeling tired and run down but for some reason my body isn't letting me do that this time. My body is demanding rest. Physically I know my body is lighter but it feels very heavy. Last week I had insomnia and major stress. I barely slept at all last week. I'm still under stress this week but instead of being wide awake and wired, I feel very tired. Ken left for work 15 minutes ago and even now at 6am I'm contemplating going back to bed for a few hours. This is what stress does to my body. This is the aftermath of a high stress week. My body is screaming for rest so for once instead of making excuses I'm going to listen.

Healthy You Challenge Check In Week 17, 2009

Welcome to another week! With only eight months left in the year I'm looking at ways of making the most of the remaining time in 2009! What about you? Do you have a goal for kicking up your fitness level or improving your eating habits in the next quarter?

Moved

Currently Traveling to ONEderland has moved and changed her blog name to Photoblogging to ONEderland http://pattysphotoblog.blogspot.com/



Welcome

Life, Weightloss, and the Pursuit of Squirrels
http://suchipmunk.blogspot.com/

The Best of Me
http://losingel.blogspot.com/

Adventures of Gastric Girl
http://www.gastricgirl.com/

One Day At A Time
http://wwstephanie.blogspot.com/

Trim the Fat: A Journey to a New Mind, Body & Soul
http://savannahraenewbodymindsoul.blogspot.com/



If you'd like to join the HYC please read about it HERE and then email me at healthyyouchallenge at gmail dot com with your blog name and blog URL.


For the rest of us, lets sign in below!

I'm Not That Girl Anymore

Thank you all for your encouragement and support on Saturday. I got so worked up over the whole chair size and fitting into the seat issue that I almost didn't go to class. I'm so glad I faced my fear and found that the seats were accommodating. About an hour into the class I felt a bit of an anxiety attack creeping in but I was able to talk myself down quite quickly. Once I fully relaxed something noteworthy happened: I became the person in the class who asked the right questions and when the teacher asked questions I gave good answers. I even knew a few answers to other students questions that the instructor didn't know. I've noticed this trend more and more in my life and I look at it as a sign on my growing self confidence and self esteem.

Stretching all the way to my earliest memories of first grade I remember never wanting to answer the teachers question out of fear of being wrong and having everyone ridicule me or laugh at me. This fear of being wrong and the need to always be right was a learned response to hearing my parents in their attempts at helping my older siblings with homework. My Dad was particularly harsh and expected us to do well. If we came home from school and had to have a test signed because we did poorly you didn't dare tell him that everyone in the class failed because if you did the standard response was: If everyone jumped off a bridge would you jump off too? There were standards that were expected of us, standards much higher than average.

Over the years I would listen and absorb everything the instructor said but when a question was asked, I would rarely speak up and answer because I didn't want to draw attention to myself, even then I wanted to be invisible and just go about the day unnoticed because unnoticed meant that the bullies would leave me alone. Of course they rarely did and being teased became the normal. Of course I was far from normal. I had a troubled home life and while I didn't talk about, it showed. Other kids picked up on what I was so desperately trying to hide. I had very few friends and I longed to fit in but it would be many years before I felt like I belonged.

Fear of answering questions also led to fear of asking questions. What if I asked a question that was obvious to everyone else? I'd look stupid and they'd laugh. Again not the kind of attention I wanted when I was trying to be invisible and just go about life unnoticed.

Its amazing how all of that can come rushing back to you on a Saturday morning isn't it? I wish I could zip back in time and tell that chubby little girl who felt such a need to be perfect that she sat paralyzed in the classroom that everything was going to work out. I wish I could tell her that this was all just temporary, that these people won't matter in your future and especially that there were other ways to fill the voids in her life and that food would never fill the voids. Of course we can't change the past but I have now, I have this moment and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I can move forward with confidence and know that I'm not that girl anymore.

why do I do this to myself?

I've been hinting at some secrets lately and today is a good day to share. I suppose I was hesitant to share because I was afraid of failure, afraid I wouldn't follow through, afraid of the big purple hairy monster that lives under my bed or afraid of facing the fact that I haven't lost much weight since the start of the year when I made these plans.

I've decided to start taking classes again. I've been dropping in and out of college since I was 17, I have about a bazillion credits but no degree. I met with a counselor and had her pull my transcripts. She asked what I wanted to get a degree in and I said "I don't care, just look at my transcripts and I'll take whatever I'm closest to" She looked at me and sort of gave me a sneer and then she walked over to the printer and took a look at my transcripts and sort of gave a me a weird kind of look and said, "how do you have this many credits and no degree?" I just smiled and said "I'm talented like that"

I missed the sign up for the Spring semester so I opted for a one credit web page design, two weekend class to get started again. This will probably be one of the few classes I take in an actual classroom (more on that in a minute) the rest are offered online and that works better with my schedule.

Soooooo, deep breath....the classroom. Yes I'm sitting here at 6:14am in the comfort of my home and my class starts at 8am and I'm focused on the classroom. Why? The chairs of course. I was able to peek through the window one day and see that the computer stations had normal computer chairs with arms, however I wasn't able to gauge the size of the seat. They looked small. Very small. Its a school, they have budgets, they aren't going to splurge on ergonomic adjustable chairs. They probably don't care that my ass is wider than the average ass and at right this very minute I'm contemplating putting a wrench and a screwdriver in my bag just in case I can cast a spell over the entire classroom that renders them motionless and frozen in time so I can whip out my tool kit and remove the arms of my chair so I fit comfortably and don't have deep vein thrombosis from sitting too long squeezed into a chair or that I'm having major anxiety building right now over it and the newsflash of...local woman dies in classroom because her ass was so big....or that I don't even care about the run on sentence I'm typing right now or the typos I'm making as I type and if you know me you know thats HUGE because typos really really really bother me and.....breeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaatheeeee.

Once again I'm kicking myself that I'm still stressing over fitting into a seat. I'm stressing that its still an issue in my life when its been an issue in my life for the past 20 years. I'm kicking myself because I've vowed over and over and over again to finally "do something" about my weight so this wouldn't be an issue in the future. I confess that when I signed up for this class I did the mental calculation in my head and said: 12 weeks...I can lose 10 pounds a week can't I? Hmmmm, how about five pounds a week? Hmmmmm, even if I only lose two pounds a week thats 26 pounds right? Well I haven't lost 10 pounds a week, or five or even two. Instead I've yoyoed up and down and I probably did lose 50 pounds but unfortunately it was in the lose 10, gain 8, lose 12, gain 10....you understand that kind of math too?

I hate that I've put myself in this position again. I've contemplated dropping the class and just taking it online but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go in there and squeeze my ass into that seat and one way or another I'm going to sit there for 8 hours and learn.

Of course this will spur me to action short term but then somewhere along the way I always seem to take that wrong turn and end up lost again and forget the bruises on my hips from the seat, forget the pain and humiliation and numb them all away with food....again...and again......and again.
 

Deep breath, breakfast and off to face the seats. I'm excited about formal education again. I'm excited to finally have that accomplishment. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, mistakes of the past can stay in the past, I can't correct them but I can work on making the future better and brighter. For the record, there is no big purple hairy monster living under my bed, I was just seeing if you were paying attention.

Fighting the stress monster

Somewhere along the week I seem to have lost my shield of resistance. Without going into details, its been an extremely stressful week on the job front for Ken and when he stresses I take it all on board with him. We’re hopeful that things will work out in his favor and good will triumph over evil but you know that stories don’t always end that way. Those of you’ve who’ve been reading the blog for a while know that we’ve had the rug ripped out from under us so many times that I’m reluctant to place any faith in his job but I do have a tiny glimmer of hope but at this point it could go either way.

The good news is that I haven’t turned to food to calm my stress, at least not too much. I’ve probably overeaten at several meals but I haven’t binged. The bad news is my body has been feeling the effects of the stress and right now I feel like a herd of baby elephants are dancing across my body. Stress is a beast!

My one bit of paradise this week has been the dog park. Sadie and Max have finally found a group of dogs that welcome them to the pack and don’t bring out fear aggression in Max. Max is the short one and while he weighs in at 47 pounds, he can walk under most of the dogs on the large dog side of the dog park. This is an older picture but as you can see the big dogs are always fascinated by Max and look at him and aren’t quite sure what to think. You get the idea

but it usually ends with Max running for his life

So finding a nice group of dogs has been a lot of fun for them. 




As for the scale, its in hiding. I haven't stopped trying to lose weight I've just decided to step away from the scale for a while. I might weigh in next week, I might weigh in next month...oh wait, next week and next month intersect on Friday. :-)

hmmmm

For some reason my blog is visible in Mozilla Firefox but only the header and background load on internet explorer. I'm looking into the issue now.

UPDATE:

Thanks for all of your emails about not being able to see my blog. I found out the problem was only with viewing through internet explorer.

I typically write all of my blog posts in word and paste them into blogger and apparently one bad line of code resulted in NONE of my posts showing in IE.

I've fixed this now and HYC check in can now resume. Phhhhhhewwww, I'm so glad that was an easy fix, I was about to hit the PANIC button!

Healthy You Challenge Check In Week 16, 2009

Welcome to another week of the HYC! I’m so glad you’ve decided to stop by. 16 weeks into the year…time is flying by! I can’t believe in 36 weeks we’ll welcoming 2010! Doesn’t Y2K and the new millennium seem like just last week?

Don’t forget to log back into the Pound For Pound Challenge and submit your results before May 5, 2009 so your pounds lost can be delivered to a local food bank. As a reminder, if you aren’t interested in the weight loss portion of this cause you can still contribute to Feeding America by visiting the Pound for Pound Challenge site.

Welcome!

Cute Cynical Chubby Girl

http://cutecynicalchubbygirl.blogspot.com/

my thinspo
http://mythinspo.tumblr.com/

Nothing Is Too Hard

http://www.withgodnothingistoohard.blogspot.com/

Julie's Weight Loss Challenge
http://challenjulie.blogspot.com/

The World's Dresser
http://theworldsdresser.wordpress.com/

If you'd like to join the HYC please read about it HERE and then email me at healthyyouchallenge at gmail dot com with your blog name and blog URL.


For the rest of us, lets sign in below!

Learning to nurture

In my journey to understand why I binge eat I’ve explored my past and looked at a lot of reason why but I could never figure out why behind the action of binging. Yes there are traumas but why turn to food? Why binge eat? Why use food to fill the void?

When we are children the adults in our life have the job of providing the basic needs. They have the job of nurturing us until we are able to care for ourselves. I recently talked to a friend who was upset over a relationship issue and especially upset because she couldn’t turn to her Mom for support and advice because her Mom refuses to give her that support.

In that moment a light bulb went off in my head. I never dreamed of turning to my Mom for that kind of advice and support because my Mom never provided that sort of nurturing. Instead I turned to my girlfriends for relationship advice and trusted older friends and confidants. Yes I absolutely should have been able to turn to my Mom but I never did because she never provided emotional nurturing, her nurturing typically came in the form of food. The one type of nurturing my entire family exceeded at was nurturing with food.

As a child I learned to fill the emotional voids with food. A bowl of ice cream was the cure for every problem. Is it any wonder I still turn to ice cream when the going gets tough? Food was at the epicenter of every good thing in life and every bad thing in life. At weddings and celebrations we ate, at funerals we ate. Our world revolved around food. When I had emotional traumas that I couldn’t talk to my family about, I comforted myself as I had been taught with food. When I had to keep secrets I filled that void with food. I spent so much time looking for the reason why when it was so simple and right in front of my face the entire time. But just as I came to this realization I read a wonderful post.

Lyn at Escape from Obesity had a fabulous post recently about coping. She said something that really struck a chord with me: 

There's enough ickiness and unhappiness in life that we really should only have to live each incident once. Dragging unpleasant events up over and over in one's head, worrying, fretting, wishing one could change the past, is really counterproductive. I have found that it's a good thing to *learn* from the past, but not to dwell in it. After all, the only moment we have for sure is the one we're in right now.

I have spent the past two years searching for the reasons why I binge eat and I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the past and reliving the unpleasant events but she is right, living them once was enough and dwelling on it too long is counterproductive. I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on the past but I’ve let myself get stuck in the dwelling for far too long. I needed to digest this realization and use it appropriately.

I do think its healthy at some point in this journey for people who don’t know why they binge eat to look at the path that led us to where we are today but not to linger too long in the past because living in the moment is so much more rewarding when you don’t have to bring the past along for the ride.

I’ve blogged  in the past few weeks about letting go of anger, self punishment for past failures, the power of positive emotion and slaying the binge monster. I’ve looked at those emotions and I’ve looked at the road I’ve traveled and you know sometimes reliving a bad experience can help you see that you’ve moved on and that you’ve learned to cope with that type of situation in a healthy way but sometimes replaying it keeps you stuck emotionally. You can spend years stuck emotionally and realize that life has passed you by. The trick is learning how to balance it all.

I’ve blogged countless times about feeling like I’m swirling around a black hole and trying not to be sucked in, I now know that the black holes in my life formed from using food to nurture. The black holes want to be filled with food but no amount of food in the world will ever fill that hole. I’ll say it again: no amount of food will ever fill the black hole or voids in my life. I’m looking for new ways to nurture myself.

What are some of the nonfood ways you nurture yourself?

sometimes it pays to be clueless

Ken has been nagging me for ages to go to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa for a while now and since we were technically having our "date night" during the day I thought why not. He was worried that he wasn't dressed up enough because his only experience has been with European casinos that have a dress code. I assured him that Florida casual applied at the casino so off we went.

We really aren't gamblers. I've been to Vegas a few times when my company had an office there and I took my Mom to Atlantic City once and another time I took her on one of those day trips where you fly to Buloxi Mississippi for the day, gamble and fly back that night. Ken has only gambled in the casinos in London and Monte Carlo. Typically lottery is the only gambling we do.

We forgot to stop at the ATM before we got there and yes they have ATM's there but I'm far too frugal to pay the service charges so I said to Ken that we could spend whatever cash we had in our pockets and when it was gone we had to quit, no more.

We emptied our wallets and together we had $47. Not a lot but I was willing to walk out of there having lost that $47 and although I knew it would hurt, I knew he'd have fun and he deserved a little bit of fun because he's been working so hard since he started this job back in September.

We walked around for a while just looking at all of the machines and stopping to watch the poker talbes and the black jack tables too.

Finally I found a machine and I said I’m trying this one. At this point Ken realizes that Florida’s clean indoor air environment does not apply here and smoking is permitted so he left me at the slot machine while he wandered off to find the cigarette machine that charges $6 for a package. OUCH!

Anyhow back at my slot machine, its not like the old days when I’d go to Vegas on business and play the 25cent slots. This machine took bills and gave you credits, no coins fell from the machine if you won, instead the little ticker ticked down your credits as you lost. I put in $10 and pressed a few buttons, I won a few dollars and I kept pressing the MAX BET button and then after a few plays I watched the credits roll up….$10…$20…$30…$50…$89.50!! Woohoo I was on top of the world. I quickly pushed the CASH OUT button and told Ken I quit; I was done, no more. He said with sad puppy dog eyes…I haven’t even had a chance to play yet so I told him to pick a machine.

He sat in front of one and quickly lost $10, he put in another $10 and played for a few minutes, winning some, losing some. He was at $16 and I was thinking, take the $6 but I bit my tongue and thought let him play, let him have fun. A few more spins and something happened. I’m not even quite sure what happened. He won something and got a bonus spin and the bonus spin kept spinning and saying double up and one up, and then double up again and I’m not sure how many times it did this because we were both looking at each other trying to figure out what was happening and if it meant he was going to win something good when it finally stopped spinning on payout and we looked and saw his credit had jumped from $16 to $516!!! I was really happy for him but it sort of put my $89.50 to shame.

After a few high fives we decided to just relax and have fun. We agreed to put our original investment back in our pockets along with $400. We played for a few more hours and walked out of there with $460 in profit. Not bad for an afternoon of play!

Of course we won’t be regular visitors there but once every few months we can spend $20 each and go and have some fun. I know we won’t always walk out ahead of the game but this time we did but its worth it to see the look on Ken's face when we do win. I joked with Ken that there are so many overhead cameras and we walked around for so long they zeroed in on us and said: look at these two, they are completely clueless, set the machines to win so we can see their reactions. Its probably a little game that they play in security and right now they're watching it over and over again laughing their asses off.

And the world may start to spin again

On Wednesday morning I left my home at 4am with Ken to drop him at the airport for another work trip. When I returned home and opened the front door Sadie and Max ran past me and straight to the car and ran circles around it looking for Ken. I had to open the door to prove that he wasn’t hiding inside.

I felt so guilty for running errands later that morning that I came home and took them to the dog park. I thought if they were exhausted it would make his absence less noticeable. It worked until about 8pm when they started to smother me and fighting to sit on my lap…100 pounds of dog and slobbery kisses. What fun! Then the window watching began. Nose through the curtain and high pitched whimper/sighs…pining endlessly for him, their hero, their Dad.

They only know of their heartache of missing him, they don’t know of mine. They don’t know that I’ve told myself that the grocery store was off limits while he was gone because I didn’t trust myself not to binge. They didn’t know how much stress I felt struggling to keep my eating in check. I had free reign on the kitchen, I had money in my pocket and a world of food waiting for me. They didn’t know that the binge beast was calling to me, tempting me, begging me to use food to fill that void and to try and quench this endless hunger and I used them to help me silence the beast.

I put them to bed with expectations of crying all night long, if they cried I didn’t hear them. My weeks of insomnia caught up with me as I slept like a princess in the middle of the bed. Of course when got up and let them out of their dens and they charged to the bedroom to look for Ken. I opened the back door completely forgetting I had set the security alarm. So I ran over to the key pad and deactivated the alarm while Sadie and Max searched the back yard for Ken. They returned in time to find me standing by the front door and they gave me that look of disgust and ran to the window to see if they could catch a glimpse of Ken because they were certain I had let him out the front while they weren’t looking. I opened the front door and allowed them to inspect for Ken, they returned to the house empty-handed but still determined, they waited in the kitchen by the door to the garage certain I had hid him out there.

Another day of guilt, another trip to the dog park, chilling at the coffee shop on the patio getting all of the “oh they are soooo cute” rock star treatment and then home again. Was he there? Of course a search of the house was in order. Still no Ken. And they look at me with suspicion because I was the last one seen with him. Distractions and fun for them but honestly I have to say it was therapeutic for me.

Car door…OHMYGOD ITS HIM ITS HIM ITS HIM!! Wrong again puppies, calm down its just your Auntie, they barked with excitement and when she came through the door instead of the normal where are the treats greeting, they charged past her back out to circle the cars to say where is HE? So maybe it’s a conspiracy maybe the two of them are in on it together. They are both here but HE our most favorite human of all, is gone….still….sigh, whine, sigh, sulk.

I told them to guard the house as I left for the airport to pick up Ken on Thursday night. I can’t remember the last time I was out later at night driving by myself. I always said I hated driving at night but last night it felt good, I was going to get my honey.


We pulled up to see two little black furry faces waiting in the window but they couldn’t tell he was with me, they remained silent. As I fussed with the keys to the deadbolt Ken spoke up and said “let me help you” and with the sound of his voice confirmation that HE was on other side of the door and the circus act began, HE was home. All was right in their world again and in mine too.



Note: If you aren’t familiar with the story of Sadie and Max and why Ken is their hero, you can read their story here or if the link won't work for you, http://guppers.scalejunkie.com/2007/12/sadie-and-max.html

Rules are for other people

On Monday’s Face Time over on MizFit she had a great video post about personal catch phrases. You all know MizFit right? If you don’t you really need to spend a few weeks reading through her archives, you can thank me later. Anyhow, she asked for your personal catch phrase and I realized that my personal catch phrase sounds arrogant on the surface: Rules are for other people. But its not and I thought I’d post about it to explain further and you might agree.

When we were first married my husband’s whole attitude about life and the world slammed into mine with sharp contrast. I was always a follow the rules kind of person and he was always more adventurous. Together we create a nice balance, he's pulled out my adventurous side and I've tempered his adventure with some common sense.

His typical response to a DO NOT ENTER sign would be to walk right in. If it says use other door, surely they must be talking to someone else. He’d do what was most convenient for him. Why should he walk all the way down there when there was a door right here?

 It was Bonfire Night  and there was a festival going on in the park along with concerts and fireworks. Needless to say parking near the park was next to impossible. Just across from the main entrance beside a row of closed shops there was a small alley that was empty and he pulled the car up on the curb and created his own parking spot. When I told him he couldn’t park there because it didn’t look like a parking spot he assured me he could, it didn’t say NO PARKING. I argued that common sense says you can’t just park there and just because it didn’t say NO PARKING didn’t mean that he could park there. I said “do you think rules are just for other people?” He kind of chuckled and said, “sometimes they are”. From that day on the saying rules are for other people became our catch phrase whenever we did something against the grain. That night when we returned to the car there was a police officer standing on the corner and I said to Ken that we’d probably have a parking ticket on the car that is if the car was still there at all. When we turned the corner to walk down towards the car…the ONLY car parked down there the police officer shouted to us “is that your car?” and Ken replied that it was. I thought OH HERE IT COMES, he’s going to yell at us for parking in a no parking zone, we were going to be in BIG trouble now... The police officer said “nice rims mate…which way are you headed” Ken told him we needed to go the opposite way across the flow of traffic and the police officer replied with “no worries, I’ll see to it that you get across”  Nice rims, I'll stop traffic and let you go where you need to go....That’s it? No warning? No ticket? No towed car? Apparently there are times when rules aren’t so much as rules but more like guidelines.

Of course I must qualify this by saying that we’d never do anything that would put anyone else or us in danger nor would I endorse anyone else doing something that would endanger themselves or others. I completely understand that sometimes do not enter means do not enter. There is a difference between rules and laws and we do know the difference. Instead I used this as a way to get myself to lighten up and not always be so strict and uptight about every little thing in my life. Sometimes breaking the rules leads you to make new discoveries. If we always do things the same, how do we ever improve? One size does not fit all.

Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something but wanted to prove everyone wrong? When I was a little girl, my Dad had a very bad accident that left him disabled. He was told he’d never walk without braces on his legs and a walker at best. My Dad didn’t accept that answer. Back then they didn’t have all of the physical therapy that they have now available but my Dad fashioned his own. We fabricated weights out of bags of sand and attached them to a pulley system with rope to strengthen the muscles of his legs left weakened from four months in a hospital bed. It was crude but it served its purpose. Eventually my Dad walked with crutches, then with a cane and occasionally he’d walk without a cane. He didn’t accept the rules and limitations the experts put in front of him, instead he forged his own path and pushed his body to the limits he knew he could push. I watched first hand as my Dad broke the rules. Maybe breaking the rules and thinking outside of the box was a quality that was in me all along and I just needed Ken to remind me.

When I’d find myself saying I can’t do something because of my size or physical limitations instead of accepting defeat I’d say: those rules are for other people, and then look for my best solution. Even with the Healthy You Challenge, its not about meeting up to the same standards, its about challenging and pushing yourself to be the best YOU. When I’d find myself stuck looking for a solution, instead of following the set rules, I’d experiment with other methods, be this with my crafting projects, cooking or exercising. I can’t do a normal pushup on the floor but I was able to do one against the wall and now I’m able to do them against the countertop. Eventually I’ll move to doing them on the floor but if I had accepted defeat instead of finding a way to work around, how would I build the strength to move forward. I’ve had to improvise while making crafty things and sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes it’s a miss. Cooking is another area when I break the rules and use what I have on hand. I have to say I’ve had more hits than misses. Its all trial and error, its learning from your mistakes and moving forward.
 

When it comes to diet and exercise there are endless experts recommending that you follow this rule or that rule and sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn't. I know what works best for me and my body, I know that sometimes rules are for other people. 

Healthy You Challenge Check In Week 15, 2009

Hello everyone and welcome to another week of the HYC! Lately I've have several requests to join the HYC from blogs that are of a commerical nature or news blogs. Some have been informational articles and have had offers of free ebooks if you sign up on their mailing list. Often the free ebooks are segways to paid memership sites and honestly the HYC wasn't created to be a sales platform, it was created so that like minded bloggers can give and recieve support. I've updated the information about the HYC and I wanted to share with all of you the new wording that has been added:

The HYC is a safe place for people to share their personal journey to a healthier way of life. Because of this, only personal blogs will be added to the blog roll. No commercial blogs or news blogs will be admitted. The HYC is not for bloggers who just want to link their blog to a site to gain exposure; you have to be genuinely interested in giving and receiving support. 

I also need to add that your email address and personal details from your email will never be shared. I will only list your blog name as you request it to be listed, I'll never use your real name unless you request I use your real name.

WELCOME!

Strength & Vigor
http://strengthvigor.blogspot.com/

Nutwiisystem
http://www.nutwiisystem.com/blog

If you'd like to join the HYC please read about it HERE and then email me at healthyyouchallenge at gmail dot com with your blog name and blog URL.


For the rest of us, lets sign in below! 

Slaying the binge monster

I’m working more towards taking the guilt out of eating and realizing that restricting leads to binge eating. I know that a craving for specific foods is typically a response to an emotional cue whereas hunger can be satisfied by any food. I always found it infuriating that my husband who is naturally thin would give me a big fat IDON’TKNOW when I’d ask him what he wanted for dinner. Or he’d say that he wasn’t hungry yet. I blamed this on him being a man. I told myself that he didn’t realize that meals take time to prepare, that you need a specific list of ingredients, take something from the freezer, and prepare the food in a specific sequence so that it’s all ready at the same time. I thought he just didn’t get that for the longest time but now I'm the one who didn't get it. He only eats in response to hunger. He doesn't eat because the clock tells him to eat or because food is there, he eats when he is hungry.
 
I’ve started keeping a notebook on hand and when I have a craving for a specific food, I’ll write it down and write down any memories associated with that food. I also look at what was going on when that craving occurred to figure out the cue. Typically by the time I go through this process I realize that I no longer want the food but if I still want the food, I’ll eat it. Yes, that’s right, I’ll eat it and not a substitute for it. I keep portion control in mind and try to buy the smallest serving size possible and tell myself that if I want more I can have more but only after I finish the first serving.

I realize the other day that when we have pizza, I automatically grab two or three pieces depending on the brand and what will fit on my plate. I grab the pizza for several reasons: habit and laziness. I don't want to go back to the kitchen to get more if I want more so I loaded up my plate the first time. Then once its on my plate the old “clean your plate” mentality starts to sing its song and we all know how that song ends.

So this week I challenge any of you who are struggling with binge eating to do the same. Write lists of foods you want to binge eat and write the memories associated with that food. If you decide to eat, take just one serving and assess how you feel after that one serving. I know it takes time but we can slay the binge monster.

Somewhere in Florida on a Saturday evening

I should start this by saying that I haven’t had much sleep this week and I’m beyond bitchy tonight.

There was a knock on the door and I peeked out the window to see a very young man in a Verizon shirt with a bunch of brochures in his hand. Ken was busy killing aliens so I answered the door with assistance from my ferocious guard dogs who barked with their really big mean dog barks.

Me: hi

Him: (taking a step backwards afraid of the dogs) they aren’t viscous are they?

Me: why yes, yes they are

Him: I don’t want them to eat me or anything

Me: (thinking WTF? But serious voice) they haven’t had dinner yet so its not out of the question

He takes another step backwards.

Him: I’m with Verizon…..ummmm….you know the phone and cable company…

Me: and?

Him: have you ever heard of Verizon?

And then the voice in my head is shouting…WTF? Does he think I live under a rock? It’s impossible to watch TV, turn on the computer or listen to the radio and NOT hear a Verizon commercial. I’m thinking I need to be nice to this man, he knows where I live but at the same time I’m thinking how condescending his tone was.

I’m pretty sure at this point I rolled my eyes. Shouted at the dogs to be quiet, they hadn’t had dinner yet but there is no way I’m letting them take a bite out of this dumbarse.

Me: Verizon? No, I can't say I've ever heard of Verizon

Him: We provide telephone, cable and internet services….

Me: Well we have one of those telephone things but we don’t need no cable, we have an antenna and I’ve never heard of that internet thingy before

Him: Ohhhh, the internet allows your computer to view websites, check your email and you can even watch TV shows online. You can keep up with what’s going on all over the world.

Me: What’s a website?

Him: Ummm, well...ummm, have you ever seen something that starts with the letters w-w-w?

Me: w w w, hmmmm, maybe I have? What does w-w-w stand for?

Him: nothing, its just the letters they use to represent the internet

…queue Ken laughing in the background. Calm and serious isn't working, lets try paranoid and suspicious

Me: We don’t have one of those fancy computer things, I don't trust them

Him: Oh you should get one, they make it so easy to keep tabs on everything

Me: Keeping tabs? Are you with the CIA? Honnnnnnnneeyyy, get out here, this young whippersnapper is talkin horseshit to me, something about some intersomethingorother, I think he’s a SPY!

Ken: honey be nice

Me: (sulking) do I have to? :::::long sigh::::: Verizon has been my phone provider since the early 90’s and I got Verizon internet service for the first time in 1999…I don’t suppose you were even born then were you? If you would have looked in the front yard you would have seen the big ugly gray VERIZON box in my front yard AND if you would have looked on the side of the house when you walked up you would have seen the satellite dish so we have the TV end of things covered too. And by the way www stands for WORLD WIDE WEB, how could you not know that? And...
 



…and at this point he turned and ran away. Do you think it was something he said or something I said? I hope I get some sleep tonight. In the mean time, please don't drop by unannounced.

Breaking up my dysfunctional relationship

In my journey I’ve learned to look at food differently. I’ve been on every sort of diet and nearly every “diet” restricts foods. You can’t have fruit, you can’t have carbs, you can’t have fats, you can’t have this, you can’t have that and chances are, your favorite foods are pretty high on the “can’t” list. So I changed my mindset and I told myself to get on board with the new catch phrases like “everything in moderation” but you know I can take a harmless phrase like that and twist it and turn it until it reads “eat whatever you want to eat, whenever you want to eat it and start over tomorrow” and well, we all know that wasn’t working for me.

Its bad enough this has to play out in my head but it spilled into my personal life too. Phone calls from my husband at the grocery store asking what kind of bread are I’m eating this week if I’m eating bread at all or if I’m allowed to eat fruit and then trying to rationalize why I’m not allowed to eat fruit when he asks what’s wrong with fruit?

After years of distorted dieting I’ve had to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Yes certain foods are bad for your health, certain foods are loaded with sugars but the breaking point came after I ate two pieces of fresh baked bread. Who would have thought that fresh baked bread could cause so many emotions and so much guilt? I found myself rationalizing the bread and telling myself that I’d need to skip lunch to “make up for” that bread. And then I hear a voice in my head saying I should just never have fresh bread in the house because its too tempting and maybe I should just avoid all breads. Guilt over bread. And while that might not sounds so bad, replace the bread with fruit and that is exactly what I did to myself another day because I had too much fruit in a day and I should only have two to three servings per day and I’ve had four and and and...and enough already! Why do I have such a dysfunctional relationship with food? Why do I give it so much power?



I had coffee with Natalia the other day. We talked about the guilt that foods can make you feel, how the scale doesn’t need to have power in our lives and how learning to listen to our bodies natural hunger cues is so important. I know that when I fuel my body with certain foods it feels fabulous but sometimes I just want a cookie...just one cookie. But I deny the cookie for so long that I end up ordering 6 cookies (or more) and eating them all even though after one or two I don’t really want anymore. Some perverse thought in my head is screaming that I may never have cookies again so I had better eat them now and you know what? I told that voice to shut up.

Before we left the mall I told Nat that I wanted to have a cookie and she walked with me to get one. I was sort of overwhelmed by the selection and had to search for the price for just one single cookie. Marketers aren’t stupid, they set up the menu so it’s easy to find the combos and the higher priced items and not see what you’re really looking for, we as consumers always want the best value for our hard earned money. As the girl behind the counter just stood there looking at me waiting for my order the part of my brain that has been wired to be polite and not keep people waiting made me feel rushed. Had there been people behind me in line I probably would have felt even more pressure. I knew I only wanted ONE cookie so I just told the girl I wanted one of those and of course she questioned “just one? Thankfully she didn’t start listing their promotions, telling me about all of the value of buying cookies in bulk because it might have been a bit too overwhelming.

I took my single cookie, secretly wishing that I had bought the three cookie pack and I started to eat it as Nat and I browsed the kiosks. I focused on the taste in each bite. It was delicious and quite sweet; as I ate more it tasted even sweeter. As I put the last bite in my mouth I remembered thinking the sweet was overwhelming and I was so glad I didn’t get the combo value pack. One cookie was enough. I enjoyed that single cookie without guilt.

Driving home I could hear a hint of the old me in my head saying I’d need to skip lunch because of the cookie but instead I turned up the radio and sang along and quickly squashed that voice. I had a healthy breakfast that morning, the cookie replaced my mid morning snack, I could still go home and have a healthy lunch. It was JUST ONE COOKIE and it wasn’t a magic cookie, it didn’t have super powers. It didn’t control my mood for the rest of the day. I didn’t feel guilt over eating a cookie. Now shut up and sing along, this is a really good song!

We all need to find our balance. I know that my relationship with food is distorted and I’m taking the steps to make that change. Food gives my body energy but I don’t have to give it any power over my life. Hey voice in my head that encourages me to binge eat: our relationship is dysfunctional and we're breaking up. I'm so over you! 








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Because its Friday and I haven’t weighed in for a few weeks:

Weight loss since last weigh in: 6.7 pounds
Total for 2009: 20.8 pounds

Its in the kiss

The other day I was so tired I went back to bed for an hour or so after Ken left for work. Sadie and Max typically sleep in their crates at night but if I take a nap during the day they are happy to crash out on the bed with me, that morning was no exception. Have you ever had a dream that was so real that when you woke up you weren’t sure if it was a dream for a second or two?

In my dream, Ken stopped back at the house after going into the office. I didn’t realize he came home until he was standing over the bed and giving me a kiss. In the dream he explained that his work schedule got rearranged and instead of jobs to the south, he had been assigned a job to the north so he thought he’d stop back by the house, refill his coffee cup and steal a kiss or two. He told me to stay in bed and he’d call me later and then he gave me another little kiss and left. It was just a sweet little dream and something very typical of Ken, not out of character at all. Weird that I wouldn’t hear him come in the door because the dogs would have gone nutso because they were happy to see him jumped up and down and slobbered all over his face but hey, this was MY dream. So I told Ken about it:

Ken: awwwwwhhh how sweet

Me: it just felt so real, you being there and the kiss and everything

Ken: you do realize that it was probably Sadie slobbering on you as you slept; you know she loves to give kisses slobbery kisses

Me: Way to ruin a sweet dream

Ken: (laughing) was it just a kiss on the lips or was there tongue in your mouth? If there was tongue in your mouth it was Sadie for sure, but just a little kiss on the lips, then it was probably Max.

Me: Oh you’re probably right, when I woke up later Max was laying with his head on the pillow next to me, he could have heard me mumbling in my sleep and licked my mouth to see what was going on.

We laughed for a second and I reflected on the dream for a minute and the reality of what probably triggered the dream.

Me: Ewwwwwwwwwwhhh I can't believe I got dog slobbered in my sleep and thought it was YOU!

Healthy You Challenge Check In Week 14, 2009

Here we go! Another week, another chance to make progress towards your healthy goals. Are you ready? I know I am!

WELCOME!


Ang
http://getfitby40.blogspot.com/

Currently Traveling to ONEderland
http://pattysweightlossjourney.blogspot.com/ 

If you'd like to join the HYC please read about it HERE and then email me at healthyyouchallenge at gmail dot com with your blog name and blog URL.


For the rest of us, lets sign in below!

Self punishment over past failures

Another binge, another failed diet, sliding down another rung on the ladder. The wave of panic that runs through your stomach followed by self loathing and the never ending guilt.

No I haven’t binged or failed on my diet again but in the past I've let little things throw me off track. I recently saw a photo of a friend who I haven’t seen in quite a while and she looks phenomenal. Some of you might recall me telling you about Mrs South who I encouraged to start her own weight loss journey and I posted how she had lost so much weight. They have since moved away but she emailed some family photos recently and she looks phenomenal. She reached her goal and hit the 100 pound weight loss mark. I’m so happy for her. She has expressed her gratitude so many times to me for giving her that push in the right direction when she felt bad about not being able to keep up with me who was so much bigger while walking around the block.


I’m genuinely happy for my friend but it set off a spark of realization in my brain. Sometimes I punish myself by saying: If I had stuck to my plan back then I’d be so much closer to my own goal by now. In the past it has gone beyond negative self talk to self punishment. When I take a negative situation and binge, I'm punishing myself. If I allow this mental beating to go on, I'm punishing myself. Instead of doing that this time I told myself there is nothing wrong with the progress that I’m making. I haven’t weighed in for a few weeks but I’m going to weigh in this Friday and share my results. My clothes feel good, my retail therapy on Thursday was successful and I fit into a size smaller than last year comfortably.


While this might seem insignificant to some people, recognizing that pattern in myself is an important part of change. By stopping to realize what I was doing I’m telling myself, yes, I could be further along but I’m not. Let it go and move forward from here. In the past self punishment might have led to a binge but taking control of the situation as soon as I recognized the pattern let me avoid going down that path again.


Moving on isn’t easy but the changes I’m making in my life are worth it because I’m worth it. I’ve been punishing myself for my weight and for past mistakes for years. Guilt over past failures can linger and hide in the cracks for years and start the self punishment cycle in motion. It can suck the happiness out of your life if you let it. Don’t let it. Recognize it, take corrective action, let it go and move on.

Just call my dentist Dr Jekyll

I thought I had found a really good dentist but today I realized I found a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. My first few visits were very good. Everything was explained in a clear and concise manner and when we discussed the financials of it all and I explained how we were just getting back on our feet after several rough years, he said it wouldn’t be a problem to do the extensive work in stages.


I had two teeth that needed crowned right away, one that I had a root canal on a month ago or so and another right behind that had a section break off. He agreed to do the build ups and told me I could wait up to a year to put the crowns on, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and told him it would probably be three to six months but it was good to know I had that time cushion and scheduled the appointment for the buildups and they let me know I'd be there for two hours.


I went into the appointment filled with anxiety because I knew two hours of having my mouth open would result in days of jaw pain. When I arrived I let them know I was feeling very anxious and the dental assistant (who was absolutely wonderful through all of this) reassured me. The doctor came in and gave the novocaine injection and was quite rough about the process, unlike the time before where I barely felt a thing, this was sharp painful...the anxiety started to build more. He started working and everything was fine, I started to relax and then all of a sudden out of nowhere came a very sharp and intense shooting pain and I flinched, a normal and natural reaction to very sharp intense shooting pain…at least in my body.


He stopped what he was doing gave a long huffffff of an exhale and started speaking to me in a condescending manner telling me that the instrument in my mouth was spinning at 6000 rotations per second and I was very lucky because he had nearly hit my lip and the result would have been a lot of blood and pain, stitches and possible plastic surgery. He told me how lucky I was that he was so skilled and then repeated the whole blood and stitches thing. It felt like his little speech went on for 10 minutes when in reality I know it was only 3 or 4 minutes of explaining how my lip was nearly severed but he saved it because he's so awesome and wonderful.


He injected more novocaine and left the room. My tongue probed the area and I knew there was an even bigger hole in my tooth than when I went in there and I fought my instincts to get up and run out of there. I knew when the numbness wore off I’d probably be in very intense pain. I was visibly upset and the assistant tried to reassure me. I told her my reaction was normal and I understood the instrument was powerful so he could just check his ego at the door and do his job and not be such a jerk over something that was a normal reaction to pain. Anyone else in my situation would have jumped when he hit the nerve too. I stayed. Against my instincts and better judgement I stayed. I'll never ignore my insticts like that again.



What followed was numerous clanks of the instruments against teeth he wasn’t even working on. Tears starting flowing from my eyes because I’m feeling totally vulnerable and totally freaked out at this point. Then he hit my lip with a tool and I thought it was the one what was going to make the blood fly and require stitches, with my lip numb I couldn’t tell if I was cut or not. I wasn’t but I didn’t know that and a full blown anxiety attack set in. My whole body started to tremble uncontrollably and the tears are flowing nonstop from my eyes. I wanted to ask them to stop so I could catch my breath and pull myself together but he didn’t, he just kept going and kept banging against the other teeth.


I knew I had to do something to control this anxiety so I tried to tell myself that it would all be over soon and something happened. My body and my mind seemed to detach from one another. Its so hard to explain this feeling. They were telling me to open and close my mouth but I didn’t hear them. The dental assistant would tap my mouth to signal me to close and rest my jaw. He gave up saying open or close but instead just jammed the instruments towards my mouth. I have had a lot of bad experiences at the dentist but this was by far the worst.


To add insult to injury when he finished he told me I’d need to set up an appointment for two weeks from today to seat the permanent crown. My head was still quite out of it but I reminded him of our discussion that I’d have it done in three to six months. He assumed it was because I was going out of town and said “no problem” but if I could get back in two weeks it would be for the best. He was quite Dr Jekyll like when he was saying "no problem" When I reminded him that the reason I couldn’t come back in two weeks was financial, Dr Jekyll became Mr Hydes’s uglier, meaner and even nastier evil twin. When his head whipped around I half expected pea soup to fly from his mouth and he barked at me: "then WHY DID WE DO THIS TODAY IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT?" I said because thats what we agreed on and he said "WHY DID YOU LET ME DO IMPRESSIONS? YOU'LL NEED ALL NEW IMPRESSIONS" and I tried to say calmly that I am not the dentist and I don't know what all is involved or why he was doing what he was doing and its not my fault if he didn't note in my chart what we had arranged and decided upon. He STORMED from the room. Honestly I half expected him to lay down on the floor and kick like a spoiled child having a tantrum. By then the tears were flowing again. I just wanted out of there; I wanted to go home and hug my puppies until the world felt safe and better again. As it was I had to pull over twice on the 5 minute drive home because I was shaking so badly.


Instead of paying for half like we agreed, I only paid for what he did today and when I'm calmer in a few days or next week, I'm going to call and ask for my records and find someone else to finish up these crowns. There is no way in hell he's touching me again.

Light and Breezy

The past few days have been very heavy emotionally for me. I'm working through a lot of issues and I need a little bit of a break from the process. I wish I could say I was spending the day on the beach but I'm not. Instead I'm spending two hours in the dental chair this morning preparing two teeth to be crowned. Doesn't that sound so very royal......

I hope you all have a wonderful day! See you tomorrow.