Fat as Hell…

I’ve been avoiding blogging since my last entry because this week has been, (in terms of eating and taking good care of myself), a disaster.

I’ve gotten in plenty of steps (I’ll post the pictures another time), but that’s really just because work has been madness and has *required* that I run around like the proverbial chicken with no head… I’ve only actually exercised once this week, and even that was short lived and truly half-hearted.

As for food, well… it’s been ridiculous. And I don’t really have any excuse for it.

I’d love to give you a blow by blow, play by play of all the fattening food I’ve put into my mouth this week, but only bits of it remain in my memory.  There’s either been too much to remember or I’ve purposefully blocked the memory.  Honestly, it’s probably a bit of both.

Thing is, last week was such a good week for me.  Full of successes and victories and things that I was anxious to celebrate.  It was, of course, easy to blog about those because it’s always easier to share the things that make us even the teeniest bit proud of ourselves.  But this week has been different, so I’ve remained silent, trying to convince myself that I was just too busy to blog… but that’s not really true.

Then I read this post by BikiniMe in which she talks about some terribly personal things that had also been keeping her away from the keyboard.  In the post she talks about running across “several blogs that have great beginnings and then *poof*, they’re gone.”  And I think she hits the nail on the head when she theorizes that she knows what happened to these bloggers: that after the magical first few weeks when everything seems possible they get “derailed and shamed, unable to write that entry, [until] the blogger slips away and disappears.”

She goes on to say:

So many times I’ve been tempted to do this — just not write about the bad stuff, present only my good, perfect, wonderful, victorious self to you guys because I want to be liked, I want to be admired, I want to be considered an inspiration — but also, I have a tendency to be hard on myself and when I fall down, I tend to think, “Broken! Weak! Imperfect! Not Quite! Less-Than!” and I don’t want to be exposed as an imposter, a party crasher.

BikiniMe’s entry continues in a beautifully brave and personal way… and I would strongly encourage everyone who stumbles upon this entry to go and read hers.

It’s been difficult for me to leave a comment on her post because it’s hard for me to add to what others have said about it without feeling awkward and inadequate.   That said, however, the one thing I can do is follow her lead.  I’m not, by any means, comparing my situation to hers.  But if she can let down her armor and share her story for the sake of keeping the promise to ourselves that we all made when we started these blogs, then so can I.

Although this is my 3rd day of participation, it’s only the 2nd official day of the challenge, and frankly, given the stormy weather we’re currently having in my neck of the woods today, I was worried that I wouldn’t put in a good showing. However, it was a *very* busy day at work today and that, apparently, paid off in the step department.

That said, what’s even more exciting than the numbers I’m achieving each day, are the changes that I’m already making in what I do, each day, just to be sure that I get a few *more* steps in. For example, today, instead of sending several emails, I took a trip down the hall or to another building to deliver said messages in person. I parked as far away as possible when going to a meeting in the afternoon, and instead of sending students to run various errands throughout the day, I was more motivated than ever to get off my fat ass and do them myself.

The thing is, thinking about the overall changes that you have to make to your life in order to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off, can be difficult and discouraging. There’s nothing more daunting than allowing yourself to watch that particular pile of “to do’s” grow into a mountain that seems absolutely impossible to scale. That’s why, whether you’re doing it just for fun or because you’ve got that killer competitive instinct, something like this challenge can be so positive because it helps to prove how simply changing one or two little things can make a big, big difference in your overall attitude and in your ability to reach the bigger goals.  For me… this is just the kind of nudge that I needed.

Of course, I have no idea if it will translate to actual pounds lost, but there’s no doubt that simply moving more is better for you than sitting around — even if you’re not stuffing your face while doing it.

One last thing: I think it’s important to note that even though this a “competition” I really have no clue how many steps the average person walks each day. I know that the American Heart Association pushes the goal of *at least* 10,000 steps a day, which is what I am trying to achieve. I’m sure they’ll be many days when I don’t make it there, but each day that I do feels like a pretty big victory. So, in the end, I’m really just looking at this like a competition against myself. I’m hoping to keep up a strong pace while also maintaining enough motivation to use exercise to pick up the slack on days when I don’t naturally meet my 10,000 step goal.

Anyway, thanks again for FBM for stoking the fire under my butt. I think this is exactly the kind of thing that makes having a “blog community” such a crucial part of doing this. I might’ve been able to do this alone… but geez, it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

Tonight my husband had to be away for a work related dinner event. He asked me if I wanted to come along, but I wasn’t really into it, so I “took a rain check.” Those kinds of events aren’t all that exciting to me and unless he a) really wants me there or b) “everyone else is bringing their spouse,” I usually duck out.

Anyway, because he was going to be eating at his swanky banquet type affair, I decided earlier in the week that I was going to make pasta. My husband is not much of a pasta fan — especially the whole wheat variety that I’ve recently forced him to endure — thus pasta has become the kind of thing I treat myself to when he’s not around. So… using some left over ingredients from the frittata I’d made earlier in the week, I rustled up a nice little sauce to have with my pasta. I put the pasta on to boil and 10 minutes later — voila! Dinner.

There were two problems, however:

First: I made too much. I really made enough to constitute what should have been 2, maybe even 3, (large) servings. Even as I was cooking it, I knew that I should cut back. But I didn’t. I proceeded forward, telling myself that I would just store half of it away for another meal.

Which leads me to problem #2

Second: I didn’t even really want it. All week long I’d been psyching myself into Wednesday being pasta night, but then when the time came, I was really in the mood for something else. What I wanted was a burger and a bowl full of the doritos that had been taunting me from the pantry all day long. But instead, I made and ate my first, perfectly healthy (albeit a bit large) portion of pasta.

But then I wasn’t satisfied.

So, I ate another. As though somehow *more* of the food I didn’t want to begin with would somehow satisfy my craving.

A little while later, when I was already feeling bloated and defeated, my husband walked in and proceeded to regale me with the story of his evening. Turns out he spent most of the night conducting the “business” aspect of the function and never allowed himself a chance to eat. So… he was starving. He asked me if I would just fix him a tuna sandwich.

Sure, no problem.

But then for reasons I cannot even begin to comprehend, I made myself a sandwich too. And ate it. Even though I was not even remotely hungry.

But wait. It gets worse.

Then my husband broke out the doritos and even though I wasn’t hungry — even though I literally thought I might throw up from feeling more full than I’ve felt in ages, I ate some doritos. Though I didn’t count them, I’m chalking off my portion at about a dozen.

And here’s the thing… after a few chips, I felt complete sated. It was like, finally, my body was saying “see… if you’d just given me those in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, girlie.”

Of course, now I just want to smack myself in the forehead because, well… duh!

I don’t know about you guys, but it’s like sometimes I get so caught up in the world of what I think I “can’t” have that I forget that it’s ok to have cravings and that it’s even ok to give into them. All day, I knew I didn’t want the pasta, but I ate it. And then I ate more of it…. convincing myself that eventually I’d get full and then I wouldn’t want the thing that I’d really been wanting all along. When, in reality, had I just broken down and had a few chips earlier, I’d have likely been just fine. An now, instead of sitting here feeling as though there’s a very large boulder lodged in the pit of my stomach, I’d be curled up in bed dreaming of the brand new (and fucking beautiful, I might add) necklace Paola’s going to give me once I lose 75lbs. (Yes. She does rock that much).

In the end, I didn’t really go that far over my calories for the day and, the truth is, I don’t really feel that bad about the fact that I didn’t stick to my “plan,” or whatever. Rather, what really ticks me off is that I didn’t listen to what my body was telling me. That, after all this time, I haven’t learned that I’m never going to make these changes permanent if I base my eating decisions on trying to fool myself into feeling satisfied. It bothers me that I’m still making these kinds of mistakes.

And I know, Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that, but I’m not an idiot. And what’s more, I think it’s ok to have high expectations of myself. I know better. Or at least, I should.

One good thing to report, however, is that overeating tonight has proven something to me that I might not have otherwise believed to be true about myself. When I examine the facts of what I ate tonight: 2 bowls of pasta, a tuna sandwich and some chips (all in the span of about 3.5-4 hours) I kind of have to laugh. There was a time when that kind of meal was the norm. Maybe not that combination, but surely that portion size. And what’s more, not only was that normal, but it was *so* normal, in fact, that my body wouldn’t have thought twice about having to store and process all that food. The old me never would have felt the way I do now.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that even if my brain is still playing catch-up, my body has figured out how the new me is supposed to work. It understands that giant late night portions are no longer part of our game plan… and that we no longer go back for seconds. My body has figured it out. It’s just the rest of me that insists on riding the nutritional short bus, as it were.

*sigh*