Direction Change

So I'm changing lanes a little bit.  I'm not sure why exactly I started this blog but as is apparent from my lack of entries, it wasn't doing what I needed it to do.  I need a place to vent and a place to track my progress, and I wasn't making it work for me.  Therefore, I'm going to pick one thing and focus on it.  Something that is constantly on my mind, that constantly worry about and that affects my everyday life is my weight loss journey.  In a way it fits perfectly into the title and assumed theme of this blog.  It was a long forward journey for me and I still have a ways to go.  I don't know that anyone would read this or that it would help anyone but even if it's just for me, that's enough. 


Let's start from the beginning.  The beginning weighed 240 lbs and was a single girl who lived off patty melts and french fries dipped in ranch from the chow hall in college.  See below:

You have no idea how hard it is for me to look at that picture, let alone post it on the internet?!?!  The funny thing is, when I was that big I didn't feel fat.  I felt like me.  I had/have big boobs which always got me attention regardless of how fat the rest of me was so I never felt ugly.  It wasn't until I started losing weight (after college and I got away from Patty Melts) that I started developing what I truly believe is a mild case of body dysmorphic disorder.   But I digress.  Going back to 240 lb me.  I had tried everything to lose weight.  I'd tried the cabbage soup diet, Atkins, the color wheel thingy, everything.  The only thing I hadn't tried was eating right and exercising!  One day in 2006 my mom told me about an OTC pill that was FDA approved and was supposed to help you lose weight: Alli.  I thought it was worth a try and bought some.  The catch was you had to actually eat properly or you might experience "leakage".  So I ate 1600 calories or less every day, kept track, and discovered I loved the classes at my local gym.  I spent at least 2 hours a night 6 days a week taking classes and working out.  The pounds started to fall off, 3 lbs a week.  I was proud of myself but I noticed that I became more obsessed with it and when I looked in the mirror I still saw the "before" picture.  I will admit that Alli stopped working at about 170 lbs and I got stuck.  In order to kick start myself I replaced lunch with a Herbal Life Shake with a banana in it.  Suddenly I was in the 160s and there I stayed, somewhat content for a while.  My ex boyfriend and I did Couch to 5K and I ran in my first 5K which I was immensely proud of.  Even running at least 3 days a week I couldn't get into the 150s.

Then the best diet tool of all fell into my lap: a broken heart.  My ex broke my heart and I didn't eat for days.  All of a sudden I was down to 153, not healthy but totally worth it!

  And there I stayed, even meeting the love of my life who is the world's most proficient crash dieter, and 'forgetting' to count calories.

 

  I still wanted to get to my ultimate goal of 140 where I would have lost 100 lbs but I haven't yet.  I fell victim to "love chub".  Up until this past Thanksgiving I stayed around 155 then I went to visit family in Atlanta and got my favorite:

 KRYSTALS!!! 

So here I find myself back on the weight loss wagon with a new FitBit to keep me company.  I have absolutely no willpower at all when my boyfriend wants pizza and I need to be eating salad but I keep looking at how far I've come and where I want to be: BIKINI!  Along with the sign on my fridge that says:



NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS

I try to remind myself that I'm doing it not just to look better but to feel better too. 

Playing Catch Up on my 30 Day Challenge

Day 9: How You Hope Your Future Will Be Like

I pray every day for a long, happy, healthy life with Brandon.  That we can figure out our financial situation, that we can live within our means but comfortably.  That we will be a good influence on Molly, that I will learn to love her as my own.  That I will fulfill my professional dreams, that I will do something I'm proud of.  That we'll buy a house somewhere off the beaten path and enjoy life and not take it too seriously.  I hope that my mom will move to MO so I can see her more often.  I pray that I'll put good energy out into the world and that good energy will come back to me.  I just want to live life to the fullest and learn how to not sweat the small stuff.  As Brandon always tells me...I just want to relax.

Day 10: Discuss Your First Love and First Kiss
These aren't necessarily the same person.  By far my first love was Michael Shaffer.  We were fifteen and I had never felt that way before.  He loved me for everything I was and everything I wasn't.  Or as much as you can love someone at fifteen.  But we were intense.  We spent every waking hour together or on the phone.  He opened my Dr. Pepper's before dinner because he knew I liked it better flat, he wrote me poetry, and bought 10 packs of flavored Mentos then took them all apart and put together one pack of just the purple ones because they were my favorite.  He made me feel complete and he made the beginning of high school great.  He was a big part of me and how I came to understand love and I'm grateful for him.  We still talk and check on each other's family.  I wish him nothing but the best.

I honestly don't remember my first kiss.  I would say my first "real" kiss came from the son of one of the ladies at daycare.  I developed a lot faster than most girls and while I'm no looker now, I turned heads when I was younger.  He was significantly older than me but I remember that we kissed while on a skating field trip and I thought I was the be all end all with the older man checkin' me out!!

Day 11: Put your iPod on Shuffle and list the first 10 songs.
I don't really use my iPod, so I'm going to pull up iTunes and do this:

1. Tall Tall Trees-Alan Jackson
2. Bonafied Lovin'-Chromeo
3. On My Way-Ingram Hill
4. All I Want (remix)-Toad the Wet Sprocket
5. I Play the Road-Zac Brown Band
6. Sooner Surrender-Matt Nathanson
7. The Christmas Song-Nat King Cole--I love love love Christmas music! :-)
8. How Far We've Come-Matchbox Twenty
9. New Kind of Cool-Rescues
10. All I Want to Do-Sugarland

That is actually a pretty good representation of my tastes.

Day 12: Bullet Your Whole Day
*Got up at 7:15AM
*Worked from 8:00AM-4:15PM
*Went to the library to return one book and check out another
*Dropped off the mail at the post office
*Arrived home and did a Jillian Michaels workout video
*Showered
*Ate dinner with Brandon
*Currently waiting for the Braves/Pirates game to start due to a stupid rain delay
*Going to bed

That's all for today, I'll see if I can't get caught up on everything tomorrow.

G'night!

30 Day Challenge: Day 8-A Time You Felt Satisfied With Your Life

Day 8: A Time You Felt Satisfied With Your Life

Right now.  I will be the first to admit that we have a lot of work to do before we are financially where we should be and where we will be comfortable, we are definitely behind in that regard.  But I feel like I have been searching my entire life for this man and this life and this happiness.  There are goals I still have that have been put on the back burner in order to make it day to day.  But I believe that I will get back to school for OT and we will get on our feet financially and we will settle into our lives.  I know that eventually we'll get married, which weighs on me, and we will work toward our goals together.  I can honestly say this is the happiest I've ever been, and even the way it came about was a stroke of luck...or perhaps we were on those converging paths all along.

30 Day Challenge: Day 7-My Zodiac Sign and If It Fits Me

Day 7: Zodiac Sign

Capricorn Personality

Capricorn people are very ambitious individuals who are born to achieve. Their life motto is “I Attain”. People born under this sign of the zodiac have a single goal in mind and that is to leave behind an assortment of achievements for which they are revered. Capricorn individuals may have a negative trait of being overly materialistic as their drive for success often gets them into this habit. These individuals are extremely hard-working and disciplined with high endurance and perseverance. Capricorn people are passionate about their goals which enable them to achieve so much in life. Many a times their seriousness turns to pessimism and they have a weak sense of humor.

First of all, I have a tattoo of my Capricorn symbol on my back because while I disagree with the statements above I do believe I fit the general outline of how Capricorns act.  I am driven and stubborn and have tendencies to be negative and self-defeating. 

Overall, I'm most definitely a typical Goat or Capricorn.

30 Day Challenge: Day 6-30 Interesting Facts about Myself Part 1

Day 6: 30 Interesting Facts About Myself

This is gonna be tough, because I want them to be actually interesting.  But here we go:


1. If I could go back in time and marry a movie star it would be Paul Newman, circa 1958.
2. I have to have captions on when I watch movies or TV even though I'm not hearing impaired.
3. I love bad reality TV-Big Brother, Survivor, anything on Bravo...the works!
4. I'm a bibliophile.
5. I have serious serious body image issues. 
6. I have gone from 240 lbs to 156 lbs, and it will never be enough.
7. My cat Hiro is like my kid.

8.  Even though I'm with the love of my life, I feel so inadequate because I'm not married yet. 
9.  I have determined through helping raise my boyfriend's child that even though I have no interest in having kids and actually don't like them very much, I am quite a good (although firm) mother. 
10. My mom is my absolute best friend, I absolutely couldn't live without her and I miss her every day.
11. I'm still in awe of the fact that I up and moved halfway across the country and it's the best thing I've ever done.


This completes part one, because I can't think of anything else right now. :)

30 Day Challenge: Day 5-A Time You Thought About Killing Yourself

Day 5: A Time You Thought About Killing Yourself

This is easy...I've never seriously thought about it.  I went through a slight melo-dramatic phase in my teens but I have been very very blessed in my life with my family, friends, and things that have happened to me. 

Life rules...I think I'll stick around!

30 Day Challenge: Day 4-Your Views on Religion

Day 4: Your Views on Religion

My distrust of organized religion started when I was a child and was made to attend a very very conservative Southern Baptist church with my grandmother.  I loved the singing but then the preachers, only men of course, would spend the next hour or so hollering and yelling about fire and brimstone and how we'll all burn in hell if we aren't "saved". 

Women weren't allowed to speak and weren't allowed to wear pants, because this obviously would hinder in our worshiping of God.  When I asked my grandmother how I was supposed to know it was time for me to be "saved", she told me I'd get a heavy feeling in my chest and I wouldn't be able to shake it, I'd feel like something was wrong.  Then I would know I was 'lost' and needed to be 'saved'.  The only thing more opaque than that was the way the act of saving was accomplished.  Once someone felt this heaviness they would go up the the altar at the front of the church and kneel and pray and pray and pray.  This would go on for hours, late into the night.  All members of the congregation would kneel around them while the men preached and we sang and prayed.  Having never experienced it myself I'm not sure how one knew that they had been saved but eventually after enough praying a feeling of lightness and relief would spread over you and the uncertain feeling in your heart would dissipate. I never understood it and never agreed with it.  But since I was made to go and made to attend revival, that's church three times a day for seven days in the summer, by the time I was old enough to drive I'd had enough. 

I shunned church and God and religion all together, even judging those who held so tightly to such an outdated idea...until I moved to MO.  I felt like things were coming together for me, that my life here was going to be what I was looking for but that something was missing.  My sister's friend invited us to attend her church, which was in walking distance of my apartment, and check it out.  We did and, surprisingly, it felt like home.  The people were great, everyone was welcoming, there was free doughnuts!  The only thing that tripped me up was this idea of Jesus.  I, without a doubt, believe there is a higher power up there.  If you want to call him God, Allah, Buddah, whatever it doesn't matter to me.  I pray to a higher power for strength and guidance.  I just couldn't get past the idea of him.  Regardless, it was great but still a little too Jesus centered for me.  I also attended a Unitarian Universalist  church and I loved it, it was everything I was looking for...just too far away. 

Lately I've been feeling that something was missing again, wanting to find a church that is just right.   Something non-denominational that fits me.  It would make me feel more connected to my community and would be a way to get involved.  I suppose I shouldn't quit looking because I know there is a church that would feel right and would have everything I need.  Maybe this will be my personal pilgrimage.