July 2016 - A Weight Loss Adventure

Week 8: Support Is Essential

July 23, 2016 1 Comment

Week 8: If you think you can do it alone… Think again! I have tried so many times loosing the weight on my own and I would be so excited when people would notice the difference but once I got the compliment I would fall back into my old habits.

This time it is all about making my surroundings aware of my plan so they have a chance to support me and be my cheerleader when I need it the most. I am a person who does not have a lot of friends but the ones that I do have, I cherish and I don’t know where I would be today without them.

I love my family and I love my husband but there is nothing like having a friend – a true friend, who will be there for you even when you are being ridiculous, silly or in need of a good verbal spanking.

One of my best friends here in the States moved from Florida to Missouri. She is the quintessential woman of strength. With other words, Shelley is AMAZING! Another best friend of mine, Claudia, fabulous and ‘I am not sure where I would be in life, if it was not for her’ kinda friend, and I decided to trek out to Missouri for a visit.

One of our better ideas, if I may say so myself. It has been a bit of a stressful time, with work, moving, starting the blog and I could go on. Not until I sat on the front porch of my friends, from now Missouri, with a glass of wine in my hand did I realize how badly, I needed a small vacation where I could shut off from the hustle and bustle from daily life and just kick back and enjoy.

I was on vacation and I was going to enjoy so I decided to have 1 day of just eating and drinking until I could not stand and another day where I would control my portions a bit more but still enjoy the yummy barbecue they have around these parts. It was close to Kansas City and summer time. Perfect for barbecuing. To not completely destroy my last few weeks hard work I also wanted to get a workout in (ideally two but that would have been pushing it).

It is in those times that you realize how amazing your friends are. They went on a workout with me. How amazing is that. In the hot sun of noon they went to the local college football stadium and worked out with me. It was a tough one. The day before we had been merrily drinking and eating the entire day away and I must admit I was a bit hungover Saturday morning, yet they were dressed and ready to go.

THIS is the type of support and motivation you need at times. People, who are willing to do the hard work with you even when they really do not want to but they love you enough to do it and support you. To Shelley and Claudia, I know you are reading this blog post… I love you and appreciate you! Thank you for the talks, the support and your thoughts.

So my advise to anyone trying to loose weight. Lean on your friends and loved ones when it is tough and good choices are hard to make. And as you can see, just because you are traveling, there are no excuses not to work out!

xoxo

My Journey

Week 7: Time To Concur A Fear

July 12, 2016 4 Comments

Week 7, this week I will skip the pictures besides from my number above. As you can see I managed to loose almost 2lb (1kg). I am pretty proud of myself. 2lb includes 4th of July celebrations and my husband and I’s three year anniversary.

This week will be about me facing or at least acknowledging my fear of loosing weight. I know this sounds odd but hear me out.

First of all, when it comes down to loosing weight, I am the one who needs to do it. I am the one putting food in my mouth and I am the one making the choices about what I put in and digest. I am also the one who makes the decision about when to go to the gym and how long and hard that workout needs to be. I have talked myself into eating things I should not and skipped the gym when I shouldn’t and I will probably keep doing that until the day I die but if I could just somehow be okay with not using food as an excuse or a tool. A tool to hide from the world, a tool to not reach my full potential that would be a wonderful day.

Like most people who are overweight, obese or just think they weigh a little too much, I have tried so many different things. Here are just to mention a few:

Electricity through my body (which my mother brought me to as a teenager)
Diets (the amount of diets a innumerable at this point but I tried the first with my mother, cabbage diet I believe was the first one, then the Atkinson diet and I could go on and on and on)
Well meaning suggestions but somehow they always came out cruel (my aunt and uncle thought it appropriate to tell me every time they saw me that I should bike more, did I mention that I biked at least 7miles (10km) every day as a teenager? They were convinced that then I would loose weight – they believed me to be overweight – mind you that I was technically not overweight, I just looked that way. I was 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meter) and weighed between 132 and 143lb (60-65kg))
I tried starving myself (No one really noticed that I did not eat. I would sit with my mother and my step-father at the very small table, yet they never noticed that I sorta just bounced the potato back and forth, would pretend going for seconds and sit down with even less than when I got up to get seconds and then bounce the potato back and forth again, as if I was still eating – mind-boggling today but I did not think of it back then).
I tried trowing up after every meal or at least whenever I had a meal and that would usually only happen once a day (this lasted for almost a year and a half and I was never as skinny as then (120lb/55kg), although probably not the most healthy).

Suffice to say, none of my strategies were a huge success. I am obese and I have never weighed as much as I do now. Which leads me to think, that I am going at this weightloss thing the wrong way. If I look at what I have already gone through and if I ask myself, why do I feel the need to hide, that might lead me somewhere. If I could crack the code of WHY and combining it with a little bit of love and respect for myself, no matter what other people think, then I might get somewhere.

When I read this, I sorta wanna cry… I seems a little daunting and just the fact that I have to realize that I really do not like myself, I don’t love myself and least of all my body. It is a shame as I do think I am a good person who cares. I try to do my best every day, I just get hard on myself and question why I feel the need to point out every time I fail, instead of giving myself a pad on the back and tell myself that I did an amazing job and be proud of the good choices that I have made instead of getting down on myself for the bad choices that I make.

Perhaps, it is time for some soul searching and figuring out why I feel the need to hide, why I am so hard on myself. I already have an idea of some of this but I think that is what some of my posts will have to be about. Brutal honesty. The good, the bad and the very very ugly.

I will have to apologize as I know that I might hurt some people along the way but I think the only way to the other side is through and that is not a time to be considerate and think about how other people feel. It is time that things are about me and what I need to do in order to heal and get the most out of life. I owe it to my husband, I owe it to my family and I owe it to myself, most importantly.

Be on the look out for the next weekly post!

xoxo

My Journey

Week 6: Moving Chaos

July 4, 2016 3 Comments

Week 6, I have to apologize for my absence. In the beginning of June (right after my last post) we were told that our lease was up and it was time to move out. If you are a friend who are or have lived in New York you know the challenge of finding an apartment here in New York so everything was set in to finding an apartment and thus, my blog suffered.

But I am back! Not much lighter but considering the circumstances I am just happy that I did not gain. I went down to 239.4lb (108.59kg) which was a loss of .6lb (0.3kg). It was a time of eating out and stressing. First with finding a place and then having to move and live among moving boxes for the first week.

After 2 weeks of intense searching we found the perfect apartment and I am living without a roommate (I do not consider my husband my roommate 😉 ) for the first time in almost 8 year. It is a miracle! Never thought that was going to happen. Apartments here in New York are expensive and often small if you do not look in the right neighborhood. We were lucky enough to find a rent stabilized apartment in our favorite neighborhood and we only had to move 3 blocks away. Yay! It is still quite an increase from what we used to pay but we thought why not? We can afford it now and we have lived with roommates for a long time. My husband has lived with roommates even longer than me (coming up on 10 years). It was time for a change.

So here we are after packing and moving and spending a few days looking for extra furniture and unpacking. You do not really realize how much crap you have until you move and we have agreed that nothing gets put away unless we have both gone through it as we need to get rid of stuff. There are boxes that has not been opened the past 10 years so who knows that is in them. I dread the day we get to those boxes. It is going to be all Yankee and ex-girlfriend memorabilia. Just found a pillow case with “Mike, I love you! – Name of ex-girlfriend. Eak! Well suffice to say.. said pillow case is no longer with us.

Here are a few pictures of the chaos that is our home at the moment:

The kitchen is the most sorted room so far. We picked up a kitchen cart yesterday which is not in the picture But it will be located be the window you can see on the left side.

Our new entry way. With a tall closet and our buffet table (currently holding all of my empty bags). Should be nice once everything is set up so in a couple of month you will see the final result. I hope!

Our living room. Some has been set up but as you can see it is mostly holding all of the stuff that we actually have to go through. Mind you we have already gone through roughly 10 boxes worth of stuff and we have thrown out 4 box, 3 boxes to give away and we have kept 3 boxes. I like how we are headed with this sorting.

My challenge now is to find days where I can go to the gym and still have time to cook, unpack and so forth. I do have long work days so time can be challenging. Especially, when I insist on at least 7 hours of sleep. But I hope with summer Fridays (every other Friday I get off at work) that I can eventually make a dent in all this stuff.

I must admit. I have not had the great start to my weightloss that I thought I would have but at least it is a weight off my shoulders finally having my own place and I now have a chance to fulfill my need for nesting. I am female after all…

XOXO