The Heat Is On

I hate summer.

I hate being hot.

Wearing clothes that are comfortable for the sake of the heat, but show my arms and legs and aren't exactly "cute"
Tying my hair up and away from my face to keep it from sticking to my sweaty neck and forehead
And sweating... oh god... sweating profusely in public while other girls wearing much more fashionable clothes and have their hair down and dance and run and remain dry... it's not fair!!!

I spent the weekend at an outdoor music festival and I kept hearing myself say "It's not fair"

It's not fair...

It's not fair that I have struggled with my weight since puberty
It's not fair that I have always felt like I was surrounded by friends and family that are thin and beautiful (not saying no one had struggles too... but, not the same magnitude as me, perhaps?)
It's not fair that I hated high school, pool parties, outdoor events, shorts, sundresses, the sun, the entire outside since grade 8 because I thought I was "too fat" to fit in with others...

The last time I remember being outside in summer and being happy was when I was twelve... then one of the girls at school said I had big thighs... and it sometimes feels like that moment started this whole effing snowball... and then, hearing "it's not fair" answered with "life's not fair" and, basically, "it's your fault"... How could I stand against that?

So I made a way to stay off the ground... and how's that working for me?

I am so tired of this crutch... this tirade of thinking that making things fair means making deals with myself like, "I can do ___ when I'm thin":

"I'll dress more fashionably and buy better quality clothing when I reach my goal weight, so Old Navy is fine, for now"
                     I've worn Old Navy, almost exclusively, since 1995
"I'll have such a nice garden when I'm not embarrassed to be in crawling around in the yard"
                    I've never had a garden and I've had a yard of some sort for most of my adult life
"I'll wait to think about starting a family until I've dropped about 50 lbs"
                    Speaking of adult life, I'm 35 years old so... technically, time's running out on this one

Looking back on the big weight loss attempts of the last 10 years has me thinking, "what is it going to take to stop gaining 5-10 lbs a year and start losing the weight?"

I feel like I have made huge strides in the way of permanent change with my relationship to food in the last few weeks, and I know I have room to improve when it comes to being active, but I've been here before... and I am looking forward to a day where I can complain about something other than how my weight affects whatever situation I happen to be experiencing at the time. :)

I can only hold on to hope that this time is different because it does feel very different. It will be slow, but steady and I believe, for me, that is how to make it through to the finish line and stay on that side of the tape.

It's a marathon... and it's going to take a lot more sweat...

Light As A Feather

After a less than awesome weekend, I felt that I was in need of a hot bath and a good cry last night... Instead I stayed up too late making pasta... (The rule is: If I want pasta for dinner I must make it myself.)

A lot of things are up in the air right now and I just want to feel my feet on solid ground for more than a minute...The more personal side of life should level off soon, but I really want something to be constant and unchanging... huh... I just answered my own unasked question... I need to get my butt back in church... Jesus is the epitome of constant and unchanging.

Quick digression: why, when you're upset and feeling lost, do people think it helps to say "everyone has problems" to comfort you? The high probability that everyone goes through tough times pretty regularly is not comforting at all, because I'm not everyone... for all I know the other people in my life are just in my head and I'm actually strapped to a chair somewhere in a space castle while more advanced beings watch my hallucinations projected on a screen like prime-time TV. TNT Mel Knows Drama... Well, that was a much longer and much weirder digression than I intended... oops!

In good news, it has been almost a month into 2015 and I have stuck to my "Cooking Monday through Friday" guns. I'm really loving this... I'm making tons of new recipes and learning a lot of new cuisines and techniques. Tonight is Thai; Pad See Ew (not yucky like the name suggests... it means "cooked in soy sauce") with fresh, homemade noodles!

Boot camp finally came around to my biggest fear... and the deadlifts I was so afraid of were stupid easy. This is probably because my only muscles happen to be the giant ones in my legs... At any rate,  the girls in my group were shaking like little chihuahuas in the snow as they lifted, but they said I lifted the 95 lb bar like it was a feather.

I really like the strength part of boot camp. Now I just need to figure out how to breathe better so I don't feel like passing out during cardio. I'm making incremental progress and think I am still on track to add Friday's class by April or sooner.

The best part of all of my struggles to stick to the plan is that it is working without feeling like much work. My clothes are starting to fit better, I feel stronger, and I don't feel like I'm missing any of my favorite flavors and textures in my meals. I even had pizza over the weekend and anyone that knows Detroit style pizza knows there's no healthy way to make the doughy, cheesy, greasy goodness. I had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast in the morning and saved my stomach real estate for a ton of salad and a piece and a half of the deliciousness that is Buddy's Margherita pizza and that was brunch... Since that was pretty filling, dinner was a little piece of veal from Saturday's leftovers. Normally I would have loaded on eggs, bacon & potatoes for breakfast, eaten pizza until I burst for lunch, and then forced another full meal down for dinner. Being more aware of my hunger signals and going into the war zone restaurant with a game plan helped a lot. 

Hooray for small, sustainable, permanent changes, ya'll!

Ramble On,

Melissa

New Start and Preparation

The new start date for my first Whole30 is September 1st. It just made more sense to use the entire month, plus I am hoping to go to a wedding in Chehalis, WA on Oct 5th and don't want to end up shocking my stomach with wedding cake. :) 

I'm making a big pot of chicken soup this weekend, along with pre-cooking a bunch of veggies, sides, bacon and a whole roasted chicken to cut up and freeze for salads later.

I also printed the Time Line to help me recognize the phases of the withdrawal from processed foods.

You can look it over here. It's pretty funny: http://whole9life.com/2012/06/the-whole30-timeline/