This morning I was hoping to go out running before the husband left for work but the baby didn’t sleep well last night so neither did I.  I ended up sleeping until after my husband was gone.  I figured I could run inside, but the baby did not want to go to sleep.  He finally went to sleep and stayed asleep so I actually did the first cycle of the couch to 5k program which I had started before I got pregnant.  I’m really excited to finally get some exercise done now that I’m allowed to and that I actually found a way to do it while I’m home with both kids.  Now I just need to see if I can shower while I’m alone with both kids!

Anyway, I’ve been lurking around a little and reading some blogs and here and overall not doing anything productive in the fitness department.  I have definitely exercised my brain as far as the excuses I’ve come up with to keep from getting back on the wagon, like “I don’t want my husband to use pumped breastmilk while I’m out running because then I won’t have any saved up when I go back to work,” or “If I don’t give in to this craving now then I’ll just do it later and screw myself up bigtime.”  The fact is, my husband can deal with a crying baby for 30 minutes and I can feed him when I get back, and if I keep indulging just one last craving, I’m never going to get back on the ball, and I’ll weigh a million pounds!  I can already see the effects of the choices I’ve been making, and I don’t like them.

So now is the time to suck it up and put some work into me.  I can do all of this, I’ve done it before, and I felt great when I did.  No more excuses, no more laziness, and more importantly, no more fat!

I changed my weight ticker and start date also.  Just changed my start date to today.  I changed my weight ticker because I had an analog scale when I started here, found out it was off by like 10 lbs when I went to my first prenatal appointment!  Since then I have purchased a digital scale that agrees with the doctor’s scale, so I just used the weight I’m at now on that.  I have lost all of the baby weight that I gained and then some.  I gained 16 lbs and I’m already down 21, so I’m really happy with that!  I just wish I wasn’t so jiggly now, but once I can start exercising again, that will be taken care of.

Sounds like the little guy is waking up for his next feeding, so I’m going to cut this short.  Can’t wait to get back into the swing of things, and thanks to all my buddies for the messages while I was gone!

Anyway, I can’t wait to get back here and start really exercising and working on getting back into shape.  I’m glad to see that some of my buddies are still around and still keeping up with their weight loss, or at least working at it.  Can’t wait to really join you guys again!  Have a great night!

4) What am I hoping to achieve in the end and how do I think it’ll change my life?

As far as what I am hoping to achieve at the end of my weight loss journey, there are a few things.  The biggest is, of course, being healthy.  I want to make sure that I’m around for a long time and that I live a good quality life.  I am hoping to be a good role model for my son and help him make healthy choices so he won’t face the same battles with his weight that I did with mine.

Then there are the little things I’d like to achieve, the stuff that may seem inconsequential to other people, but that will be huge victories to me.  I want to be able to feel comfortable with the way I look in a swimsuit, so I can take my son to the pool in the summer.  I want to be able to wear my wedding ring again.  I want to be able to shop anywhere, in any store, and not have to worry about whether or not they carry plus sizes.  I want to send pictures to my parents and not crop myself out of them because I can’t stand the way I look.  I want to put on my husband’s shirt and have it be huge on me, instead of fitting me tight.  The list just goes on and on.

Now how do I think this will change my life?  Well, it already has.  Since I’ve started losing weight, I feel better about myself.  I feel happier because I’m doing something for me, and I’m doing okay with it.  I have realized that I am capable of stuff I never dreamed I would be able to do.  I have realized that I have the power to change things I don’t like, that I don’t just have to sit here and take it.  And I think the best is yet to come.

Okay, a note:  somehow I managed to screw this up!  First two pics are where they should be, then there’s one from the second set of pics, then the third set of pics, then the second one from the second set of pics.  I would fix it if I could, but it’s beyond me!!!

Now, I get to do the second part of my assignment.  My question for today is:

3- What am I doing now that I can change to bring me closer to my goals and make me healthier both emotionally and physically?

This one is probably a little harder than the last one, not because I don’t know the answer (I do know it), but because it means that I have to admit where I’ve been coming up short and really face the music about the effect that it’s having on my weight loss.  I guess it wouldn’t be so hard if I wasn’t already in a down mood, but I have to deal with it regardless, so now is as good a time as any.

I know I have done some stuff right so far.  I’ve lost 31 lbs since I joined here on July 31st.  I have definitely made exercise a part of my life now, which I really didn’t think was possible before.  I have even started running, something I never expected to be able to do again since I had previously failed at picking it up again when I was much smaller than I am now.  I actually feel awful when I skip planned workouts, like I’m letting myself down.  I never expected that to be the easiest part of my journey, but it has been.

The part that I struggle with is the eating.  Emotional eating has always been a big issue with me, and even though I feel more in control of my emotions than I did 4 months ago, I know this is something I struggle with.  Another thing I tend to do is eat when I am tired.  And I always feel tired.  I know that I never get enough sleep, but there’s a variety of reasons for that, and unfortunately these are not things I can change on my own.  I know that I turn to food though when in reality all I need is a nap or a good nights sleep.  Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a damaging thing if I would just make better food choices.

My eating has actually changed a lot since I started here, but I know it is not enough.  I eat much less fast food than I used to, but I still eat it.  I eat smaller portions that I did before, but they’re still bigger than they need to be.  I definitely eat more fruits and vegetables, but I still eat a lot of calorie laden sodium filled pre-packaged processed foods too.  This is where I need to make some changes.

What can I do to change this?  First of all, I need to stop with the fast food.  Altogether.  I actually did pretty good with this at the beginning, but then I allowed myself some leeway because I was doing good.  I need to just say no to meals that can easily be 1000+ calories.  I need to get my portion sizes in check, by actually measuring foods instead of just eyeballing them.  And I need to give my son his own portions, rather than figuring he’s going to eat so much (from the same dish as me) so I’m actually only eating X amount of calories.  I need to cut down on my pre-packaged foods.  I’ve realized that cooking doesn’t need to be really difficult or time consuming, so I just need to work on doing more cooking at home.  This will be better for everyone, not just me.  Oh, and cheaper too!

I know I can do this stuff.  The problem is, I know it’s going mean that I’m going to suffer a little.  I’m not going to be able to have everything I want.  I’m going to actually have to work for it.  And in a way I guess I’m afraid of failing too.  I guess I think if I never try at all, that’s better than trying and not being able to do it.  I’ve let that mentality stop me with a lot of stuff, and it’s time to eradicate it.  I know what I need to do, and it’s time to just do it.  Now.

1) Why did I gain the weight or what prevented me from losing it sooner?
2) What am I prepared to do to change that?

Well, here goes.

There seems to be about half a billion reasons why I gained weight.  I think the first time I really porked out was in 1st grade.  My dad was having a lot of health problems, which meant many late night trips to the ER for him and my mom, so my sister and I got dropped off at Grandma and Grandpa’s while our parents were at the hospital.  Grandma and Grandpa were firm believers in solving problems with food, so I learned to eat when I was upset about Dad, and the food would make everything all right.  My dad’s health problems continued, and so did my weight problems.  When I was 9, my dad passed away.  He was only 40, but he had so many health problems due to diabetes.  So I continued to eat to kill that pain.

My weight problems continued, I remember getting weighed in gym class in 5th grade, and I weighed 105 lbs.  Yes, in 5th grade.  It was awful.  It get better for a while.  In 7th and 8th grade, I was on the track team, so I did a lot of physical activity, plus running which I loved.  I don’t know how much I weighed at that point, but I do remember being in double digit sizes even though I was very active.  I was still insanely fat compared to my friends who were all twigs.

I didn’t participate in any sports in high school, so my weight climbed again.  I remember getting on the scale at home one day and I was at 196, but I don’t even remember how old I was at that point.  My first brief stint in college wasn’t much better, though I was eating less because I was poor, and spent a lot of time barfing because I drank to an excess almost every day.  Eventually, I dropped out, changed my ways, and got a physical job in a factory where I worked building industrial fans.  Lifting those suckers all day every day really helped out, and I stepped on a scale at a party (I didn’t even own one!) and I was at 140 lbs.  That was about 10 years ago.

I moved to Chicago with my sister right around that time, and I spent a couple months unemployed so I just sat around and ate since I didn’t know anyone.  I got up to 170 lbs when I went in to get my physical for work, which was about 5 months after I weighed in at 140.  I think my weight stayed in that range for a while, until I started dating my husband.

It seemed like all my husband and I did together was eat.  Well, okay we did other things, but eating was always a big part of our plans.  I learned to just eat and eat and eat with him, and I really packed on some pounds.  After a few years, I got up to 246 and was totally disgusted with myself.  I changed jobs and started walking partway to and usually all the way home from work, and my weight dropped again, though not a lot.  Then we moved to Wisconsin after getting married, and I didn’t walk nearly as much anymore.  Of course, I hardly ever left the store I worked at, so most of my meals became stuff I could buy at the store (it was a drug store) or fast food on my way home from work.  Not a great combo.

When I got pregnant with my son, I weighed 223 lbs.  I actually lost 4 lbs early into the pregnancy, mostly because I was watching what I ate.  I didn’t mind putting insane amounts of nutritionally void foods into my body, but when those same foods were going to feed someone else, I couldn’t handle it.  Two days before my son was born, I weighed 241 lbs (he was a 9lb baby).

I remember eating the small portions of bland food in the hospital after my son was born, and those tiny portions were more than enough for me.  I hoped that I was changing my ways, but with lack of sleep and issues with breastfeeding, my eating took a turn for the worse.  I would spend all day with a baby attached to me, and if I tried to detach myself, he would scream his head off.  I learned to eat only what could be easily cooked with a baby attached (mostly microwaveables) or things that were ready to eat with zero prep (which ended up being lots of chips and stuff).  I would then wolf this down before he stopped eating and started crying.  I don’t think I tasted anything for like 2 months, but I did pack on some weight.  I kept those same habits even after I stopped breastfeeding, and that got me where I was about 4 months ago, 250 lbs.

As for what I am prepared to do to change a lifetime of emotional and other crappy eating habits and a lazy lifestyle, well, I’ll do what I have to.  I know exercise 5 days a week most weeks.  Though I’m not always good at it, I try to eat healthier foods.  I eat more fruits and vegetables than I think I ever have.  I have given up sweets and pop because I can’t seem to master moderation with them.  I try to pay attention to how I’m feeling and why when I sit down to shovel food into my face.  And I remind myself that there is a little man that sees everything I do and learns by watching me.

Well guys, that’s my story.  There’s more to it, but that’s the basic.  I’m already afraid to see how long this thing is going to end up being.  Thanks for taking the time to read it!