My Reality

Today was not the best of days as far as eating wise.  I tried so hard not to overeat but the more I thought about not eating the more I wanted to eat.  I made it until dinner time where I ended up binging and purging, which I was also try to avoid.  I honestly don't know what its going to take for me to get out of these bad habits.  I want this so bad and I try so desperately to eat good, exercise and not binge and purge but I keep failing.  I just need one good day to get me going and I know I can get back on track.  I had a friend tell me earlier well just don't do it and I said you have no idea how strong the addiction is.  This person was raised to win at any cost and they don't know what its like to have an addiction.  I on the other hand have a very addictive personality so its my reality.  When the thoughts go through my head to eat something I don't need to eat or eat whatever because I know I can purge afterwards I try to talk myself out of it.  I tell myself how bad I want to lose weight, how I want to be healthy and how I'm killing myself with my eating disorders but the impulse is so strong I can't fight it.  Something has to give soon because I can't keep doing this to my body or my mind.  Next time I see my counselor I'm going to tell her this is something we really need to start focusing on.  We are already working on building my confidence and changing my perception of myself.  My counselors philosophy is to "Fake it Until You Make It".  I get the concept but its so hard for me to fake that I have self esteem or confidence when I don't but I'm going to really start trying to work on it.  I'm tired of living my life worrying about what others think about me, if they don't like what they see then don't look.  I've condemned myself to a life of misery and pain by living in a world that I think judges me.  I have to change these negative thoughts into positive ones.  I consider myself to be a very positive person about everything else in my life so why shouldn't I be able to be positive about myself.  I'm a smart, talented, strong, loving, supportive, caring and as my counselor says "beautiful woman".  I just have to buy into that last part.  Until I love myself noone else is going to love me, I do believe that.  How do you find self love when all you have is self loathing?  How can I feel like a such a success in certain areas of my life but such a loser in others?  Why do I care so much about what others think about me, complete strangers that I'm never going to see again?  If I died tomorrow would people really be talking about how fat I am or would they be talking about what a good person I was?  So why should my weight define who I am in my own mind?  As you can see this is how my mind thinks 24 hours a day, no wonder I'm seeing a shrink....lol.  I have to take control of my life, my thoughts and my body, its my time and I'm sick of being controlled by a false reality.  Any suggestions, thoughts, advice or just a plain kick in the butt would be much appreciated.

Fallen Off the Wagon

As some as you may have noticed I've not been posting like I use to.  Well there is a good reason for that I've totally fallen off the wagon.  My mojo is gone, my motivation is nonexistent and my determination has disappeared into thin air.  Am I giving up?.....NO....but I'm struggling bad.  My bulimia has flashed its ugly head so on top of gaining weight I'm struggling not to get back into that destructive pattern.  I'm feeling miserable for what I've been eating and even worse for not having exercised for the last week. 

Sometime ago someone suggested a new eating program called The Eating Clean Diet and I've been researching this alot for the last few days. The premise behind this program as I understand is to eat foods in their most natural states, avoiding anything overly processed.  I'm hoping by focusing on a new eating program and putting my energy into that I can get back on track. 

I've also decided to go off the new medicine that my doctor put me on because honestly I think its doing more damage than good.  Its been along time since I've given into my urges to binge and purge but since going on this medicine I don't seem to have any control over it.  It seems to be giving me this sense of just not caring.  I need to take control of my life again and this is one of the first steps I'm taking.

I know that I've gotten so much support from all of you'll and I'm sorry if I have let you down but I promise I'm doing everything I can to get back on track.  It sure was taking me along time to lose the weight but its not taking that long to put it back on so I want to put a stop to it before I gain to much back. 

Winter isn't a big help right now either.  I'm snowed in so its hard to walk outside with it being so cold and I can't get out to make it to the gym.  I was so looking forward to starting school back to get some kind of distraction in my life and now school is being called off because of the snow.  I'll just continue to hold on as long as I can and make steps to get back to where I need to be thats all I can do. 

Thanks everyone for your support and I am going to start making regular posts again tomorrow in the hopes that maybe that will kick start me into getting back on track.

What's Wrong With Me?

I'm so disappointed in myself right now because when I stepped on the scale this morning it read 217.6 lbs which is 6.8 lbs more than I was weighing a week and a half ago.  I know that part of this is probably because its my time of the month but not all of it.  I have to find a way to get back in control of my eating because it takes forever to get the weight off but it sure doesn't take long to put it on.  I'm trying to get in a more positive frame of mind because thinking like this can lead to a major backslide, I definitely don't want that.  My weigh in day isn't until Friday so I do have alittle time to do some damage control, I just want to get back on track.  I was doing so good, I was positive and in control.  I was eating right and exercising and it wasn't even that hard and then I seperated from my husband and winter came and everything just seems to be falling apart.  What's wrong with me that I can't get back in control?  I know what I need to do and I know what works because thats how I lost the last 36 lbs, I just have to do it.  I hate winter, I'm snowed in right now so no going to the YMCA and its so cold outside so its hard to exercise outside, which I do plan on doing later on today.  The kids are out of school so thats no help where my exercise is concerned.  I just hate when my normal routine is messed up, its just hard for me to readjust.  I guess thats something I'm going to have to work on.  Once the kids are back in school and I start school back I won't have as much time to eat and I'm planning on hitting the gym after class and walking while my kids are at school so things will be better then but thats still 10 days off.  I can't wait until then to get back on track.  I guess I'm just frustrated right now and hoping that typing this post will inspire me someway.  I do have my eating already planned out for today and this is what I'm going to have.

Breakfast- 1 cup raisin bran
                 1 cup skim milk
                 water (16.9 oz)

Snack- 1 cup lowfat yogurt
            water (16.9 oz)

Lunch- 1 slice turkey, 1 slice cheese and honey mustard
            on 2 slices double fiber whole wheat bread
            water (16.9 oz)

Snack- 1/4 cup trail mix
             water (16.9 oz)

Dinner- 1 sweet potato w/ brown sugar and cinnamon
             1 cup roasted broccoli
             1 cup green beans
             1/2 cup corn
             water (16.9 oz)

I think thats a pretty balanced diet plus I'll get in lots of water.  Then I'm thinking of fasting tomorrow because of how easy it was last time I did it.  I just can't have another gain this Friday.  I'm so close to weighing what I weighed a year ago I can't screw up now.  Plus I need to finish this year out with a loss not a gain.  Well I guess thats enough whining. 

A very productive day but what now?

I haven't been sleeping good this last week.  Last night I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep so I started working on some of my household chores I had to do.  I've already cleaned my house spotless from one end to the other which is a great thing but I don't have to be at school today so what do I do now?  Its weird when my husband was still living here I never stayed on top of things like this but now that he's gone I keep everything done.  I've never been so productive before so why don't I feel a sense of accomplishment?  Instead I sit around here moping because I don't have enough to do.  I never thought I would wish to have a job but it would be nice to have something to do everyday and bring in extra money on top of that.  I just can't wait until I finish up school so I can go to work.  I do have to exercise in alittle while and run a few errands so that should take up some of my time but its going to be a long day. 
Changing the subject yesterday I went bike riding with my kids.  Its been a very long time since I've been on a bike and its alot harder than I remember.  Well last night I kept having these pains in kind of a private area if you know what I mean, it felt like I was bruised or something.  I couldn't figure out what I had done to cause this but this morning it hit me it was from bike riding.  Will getting a different seat help this or does it just take sometime to get use to riding a bike?  I wanted to ride again today but I don't know how comfortable its going to be if I try.  I may just do it every other day.

A big adjustment

Ever since my husband moved out I just can't stay busy enough.  I get bored so easy and boredom leads to eating.  My house is spotless, I have all my errands and phone calls caught up and I'm running out of things to do.  When my husband still lived here I seemed to stay busier I guess because I had another person to take care of.  Its just a big adjustment to get use to.  It feels really good to accomplish so much but now what? 
Especially on days like this when its rainy outside, I can't exercise, I can't take the kids anywhere so I'm stuck in the house bored out of my mind.  I try to watch tv but its just not interesting to me, I'm not really into web surfing so besides updating my blog theres nothing to do on here, and I spend time with the kids but they go to bed at 8 so that still leaves a long night ahead of me.  Any suggestions on things I can do to keep me busy?  It just seems like over this last week I've lost some of my willpower and motivation to lose weight and I don't want to start going backwards.  Its hard to get my mind in the right state when my life seems so unbalanced right now.  I don't like being alone, I don't like being single, I'm lonely but not ready to move forward.  In the middle of December I'm out of school for four weeks and I'm really worried about this because then I will have even less to do.  What am I going to do with all my time? 

Emotional day

Todays post is going to be kind of short, it has been a really hard day.  This isn't something that I have shared with many people but things haven't been to good between my husband and myself pretty much since we met.  We dated for about a year before we moved in together and then after about 2 years of being together we split up only to get back together with the hope of working on our relationship.  Things really didn't get any better but we got married anyways in 2006, in February of 2009 we split up again.  We both went through seperate counseling for issues we were having and I believing like I always have that I can change the world thought that if I changed the behaviors that caused problems when we were together before that I could save our marriage.  March of 2010 we decided to give our marriage one last chance and things were better for awhile but we are just to different to make things work.  He is the quiet, stay at home, wanting peace kind of person and I'm the outgoing, want to experience life kind of person.  Last night we talked and we both decided we weren't happy and it was best for us to go our seperate ways.  He moved out today and even though I know its for the best its still hard.  I haven't really eaten much today because I'm not that hungry and kind of stressed but I am going to walk in a few minutes just to relieve some of the emotions I'm going through.

Breakfast- 2 packs instant oatmeal
                 1/4 cup chopped mixed nuts
                 water (16.9 oz)

Lunch- veggie burger, no mayo, no cheese (Burger King)
            small diet coke

I'm going to walk now.  There will be no picture of the day for my challenge, I think I deserve a pass for the day. 

Feeling Blah

Do you ever have those days where you just feel blah?  Thats what I'm going through today but its my own fault. 

Yesterday I decided to get up early and drive to the mountains to take pictures.  Halfway to the mountains I realized I have forgotten to take my depression medicine.  I know better than this because this is what happens when I miss taking my medicine on time.  By the time I got home yesterday I had a giant headache and I felt all floaty headed.  I took my pill as soon as I got home but it will take a few days to feel better.  I couldn't sleep last night so I ended up staying up all night and then I slept most of today.  I did manage to drag myself out of bed and run some errands but I hate feeling like this. 

Its scary to be so dependent on a pill to want to live your life.  I will never consider going off of this medicine though and I hope nothing ever happens that I have to because honestly its the only thing that keeps me going.  I truly believe this medicine is the only reason I have been able to go back to school, to lose weight and to just manage normal daily tasks.  It helps me think rationally, stay focused and keeps me motivated. 

I told my husband earlier that I needed to figure out someway to make sure I take my pill the same time every morning.  I usually remember but when i don't I pay the price.  Does anyone have any suggestions to help me remember?

I have also started taking a multivitamin and need to make sure I take this everyday to.  I am having issues with this though because I have difficulty swallowing big pills so I have been splitting my multivitamin up and taking it like that, does anyone know if this is ok to do?  I looked on the bottle and it doesn't say you can't take it this way.

I am forcing myself to exercise later today because I know this will make me feel better.  I wish I could just stay in bed though.

What is different?

This morning started with my husband going out to pick up breakfast for the family.  He had asked me last night before we went to sleep if I wanted him to go get breakfast for everyone and I said that was fine but I didn't want anything.  Well this morning he started being a food pusher again asking me why I didn't want anything....did I think I was to good to eat food like that....that I had the rest of the day to work it off.  I said no I just wanted to eat the healthy breakfast that I had planned to eat and no it wasn't that I thought I was to good its just that eating that kind of food makes me feel bad.  If that wasn't enough to make me cave into eating everything in sight then my kids have been so out of control today.  Sometimes I think having 3 sons is going to drive me crazy.  I have tried every discipline method there is and nothing seems to work.  I know alot of you are parents what works for you?  I just get so tired to listening to all the whining and fighting. 

Between living with a food pusher and feeling like I'm living in a war zone I'm stressed to the max.  The reason I put the title "What is different?" is because thats what I'm wondering what is different this time? Before I started this weight loss journey a day like this would have had me eating everything I could get my hands on to sooth my stress.  Have I learned to deal with these situations?  Have I learned to face my emotions and not bury them with food?  Have a I got to a point where I just can't take being fat anymore?  Could it be the medicine I'm on?  Why do I want to know what is different?  Because I want to make sure I never lose the willpower, motivation, determination or just personal growth that is keeping me going.

I am going to lose the weight this time I have no doubt about that but when you change so drastically over such a short period of time you have to wonder if that change is permanent.  I guess only I can decide that though.  Maybe its the willpower that I gain from other people's negativity.  Maybe its my determination to change my life and make my familes life better.  Maybe its the motivation to be healthy and happy finally.  Or maybe its just my own personal growth to face my fears and overcome the things I have allowed to hold me back.  Whatever it is I'm thankful that I've finally found what it takes to succeed.

Don't feed that emotion!!!!

One of the hardest things I have had to overcome on this weight loss journey is learning how not to feed my emotions.  I won't go into detail because it is a personal situation but lets just say right now I'm so angry I'm seeing red.  When I'm feeling like this the old me wants to just pig out and make myself feel better....at least temporarily.  The new me has a new philosophy....I'll be damned if I let the person who upset me like this win twice.  This person would love nothing more then to see me stay fat and I refuse to give them that satisfaction. 

It's so hard not to give into that voice thats telling me to eat a whole package of cookies or a gallon of ice cream or hit a couple fast food restaurants but I won't give in....not this time.  I know what that leads to for me.  First I binge and for alittle while I feel really good because the food makes the pain go away but then the guilt sets in.  After the guilt comes the voice telling me I can fix what I've done wrong by purging.  Its like an addiction and the pull is so strong but you aren't going to win this time.  I am way stronger than I use to be and I'm going to be happy and healthy no matter what that takes. 

I think my life is finally on the right path and along with the baggage of losing all this weight there is other baggage I need to take care of.  Have you ever felt like there were things in your life holding you back from your true purpose?  This journey to lose weight is about so much more then just the pounds.  Its about healing on the inside as much as it is about the oustide.  I've allowed so much damage to be done to me from emotional, to physical and even mental.  Its time for me to take my life back and be who I was meant to be.

Overwhelmed

Sometimes I feel like I'm so on top of things and then for some reason I get behind and I become overwhelmed.  Thats how I am feeling right now, like there are never enough hours in the day.  I've noticed even my blogging has slowed down over the last few days because honestly I just haven't had time to post much.  I'm the type of person who likes routines and normalcy.  When something happens and throws a wrench into my plans I just loose all sense of direction in my life.  I'm sure most of you have read that this weekend someone went to an ATM in Canada and withdrew all my money.  Well that money was suppose to pay my bills and buy groceries and now I have had to put all that on hold until I get my money back, which the bank said today would be 1-2 days so thats good.  But it seems like my world has been turned upside down right now.  I do things a certain way, at the beginning of the month I pay all my bills at one time and I grocery shop for the month well here it is the 5th and I've done none of that.  I don't know why I have such a problem with dealing with bumps in the road.  Thank God it hasn't effected my eating or exercise but in every other area of my life it has.  It seems like I can never get ahead on anything I'm always struggling to catch up.  Between cleaning house, running errands, appointments, school activities, college, homework, eating right and exercise I'm overloaded.  I guess this is just my OCD kicking in again and feeling like I have to accomplish everything on the millions of lists I make.  And even when I do get things accomplished its never quite good enough.  I'm hoping once I get my money back in my account and then next Friday is the last day for one of my classes maybe some of this stress will ease up.  I have such a huge headache right now because I know how much I have to do this next week.  Probably the best thing to do is look at this just like I look at my weight loss journey, I need to just take life one day at a time and quit thinking about how much I have to do tomorrow or next week. 

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed and what do you do when you feel this way?  I'm just scared that feeling overwhelmed like this I might start slipping on my eating or exercising and I don't want to do that.

Stressful day

This is going to be very brief because today has been such a sucky day.  First off I have a photography assignment due tomorrow that I have been trying to complete all weekend and I just haven't had much luck finding the kind of pictures I need to take.  Secondly, my husband and myself got up this morning to go to the mountains and he decides his breakfast is 2 honeybuns and then he stops by Hardees and gets a egg & cheese biscuit and a biscuit & gravy.  Now if thats not bad enough to eat all of that in front of me then he precedes to ask me numerous times if I want any.  Then on the way home he suggests we stop at Bojangles and get something and I said that I'm not eating fast food this month I've already told you that many times..  Thirdly, we argued all the way to the mountains and all the way home.  And lastly, I come home to find out that someone had cleaned out my checking account.  I live in North Carolina and someone used my debt card in Canada and they also had my pin number.  Now if thats not strange enough my mom called to tell me just last night that someone had cleaned out their account to.  So you can say this has been a pretty shitty day and if all that doesn't cause me to overeat then nothing will.

You have such a pretty face

I will give you a little background on this story.  Growing up my grandmother use to watch us while my parents worked and then when I got alittle older we lived right next to her so we were always seeing her.  My grandmother wasn't a bad person and she took good care of us but of all the people in my life that have made me feel bad about myself my grandmother was the worst.  She would always make the dreaded remark, you know the one....."you have such a pretty face if you would just lose weight".  Why is it people act like thats a compliment or that they are doing you a favor by pointing out how fat you are.  I assure you we already know and we don't need to hear it from anybody else.

About 10 years ago my grandmother moved away from here so I don't get to see her that often now.  Well she is staying with my parents for the next three months and this is her first night here so they decided to take her out to eat.  My kids went with them and my husband and myself stayed at home.  I ended up going to pick us up some take out at the same place my parents were going out to eat with my grandmother and as I was walking out from picking up my order they were getting out of their vehicle.  Now I haven't seen my grandmother in probably 6 months or more and when she saw me today you would expect her to have said hi and hugged me or something like that but what did I get?  The first remark out of her mouth was "Oh Christina"....I knew what was coming after that but luckily so did my mom and she said momma don't.  I went right back to my childhood of my grandmother making me feel like the ugliest duckling in the pond.  In that one second all the hardwork that I had done over the last 5 or 6 weeks was gone.  I was that same insecure person I have always been.  I couldn't wait to get in my car because I felt like I was a giant blimpe standing in the parking lot with everyone staring at me.

As soon as I got in my car I called my husband and he got to hear an earful about what had just happened.  Rest assured that as awful as it sounds my grandmother will not be seeing me much during this visit.  She has been called out on this many times before by mom who has told her if she doesn't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all.  And in her defense she does have alzehiemers and dimensia but I can't deal with the feelings she brings out in me.  I'm going to strong right now to let someone tear me down and possibly sabotage my weight loss journey.  I have to think about myself right now.

Well I better get to my exercise before it gets dark outside.  I'm sure alot of you have people that bring out these same emotions in you, what do you do about?  Just stay away from that person? 

Hopeless

What do you do when you are starting to feel like losing weight is hopeless?  I'm not at that point yet but I keep asking my husband how come I'm not losing much weight when I'm eating right and exercising.  I know its better to lose the weight slower because then you have a better chance of keeping it off but it just feels like the scales not moving.  I'm still determined to lose weight so I'm not giving up but I do have that fear that one morning I'm just going to wake up and say screw it I'm tired of working so hard for nothing.  I read other peoples blogs and I know I should not compare myself to them but they are losing 2 or 3 lbs a week.  My weigh in is tomorrow and right now I don't even think I'm going to have a loss this week.  I just don't get what is stalling my weight loss.  I know as you get older your metabolism slows down but just a year ago I dropped 40 lbs doing Weight Watchers.  I compare how I eat now to how I ate 2 months ago and it is a tremendous difference.  Could it be the medicine I'm on, my doctor did do some blood work to make sure everything is working right but I haven't gotten the results yet.  I'm going to call her tomorrow and see if I can find out.  Its never been this hard for me to lose weight before.  I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome years ago but once I got down to a certain weight that didn't seem to be an issue anymore but I'm wondering if its not back now.  I haven't had my period now in a couple of months but there is pretty much no chance that I'm pregnant because I got my tubes tied over 7 years ago.  Maybe my PCOS is back and that can make it harder to lose weight.  If I could just figure out what is standing in my way then I can change it but I have no idea at this point.  I know that I'm not exercising as much as I should be but I've lost weight before without exercising at all.  Its like trying to find a needle in a haystack as to what is going to work for me.  I feel like I'm just being such a complainer but never in my life have I put so much into to losing weight only to get so little in return.

One of those days

Well my day started off pretty good.  I had the house all clean and got the kids off to school and I didn't have school today so I was going to use this day to just relax.  The first thing that went bad was I had to go to the doctor for my yearly physical which is never fun.  First you have to go through all the steps of preparing, such as shaving your legs which as an overweight person isn't easy.  Then I get to the doctors office and the first thing they do is weigh you.  Of course by their scales I had only lost 4 lbs instead of 7 so that was depressing.  Then you go through all the doctors questions and your examine which I didn't mind as much as having to weigh.  My doctors pretty cool about my weight though because I told her how I was eating right and exercising and how I had started this blog which was very motivational to me.  I've been going to this doctor for a very long time and she knows all about my history of bulimia.  She was very proud of me for starting a weight loss program and also for going back to school.  We also talked about how well my depression  medicine was working and how my bulimia was gone so I'm definitely staying on my medicine.

After the doctor visit I stopped by the grocery store and bought a bunch of fruits and vegetables so I had healthy stuff in the house to eat.  I came home and layed around and got bored so I feel like I was doing alot of snacking. By the time dinnertime was here I don't even think I was hungry I just ate for the sake of eating.  That feeling of being to full and putting myself down for eating to much made me feel miserable and like I was just a big screwup.  I wasn't even going to exercise because of feeling so down but I managed to drag myself outside and walk thirty minutes with my husband.  Thank God I did because I do feel better now and on top of that I come back to so many nice comments on my blog which really cheered me up.  I guess my day wasn't that bad after all; I'll just have to make tomorrow a better day.

It was a long day!!!!!

I don't know about any of the rest of you trying to lose weight but there are so many things that can throw me off. I try to be very organized and set a routine so I know how each day is going to go. The night before I make out my to do list for the next day so that I can schedule my day. I like having things just so, most people who know me say that I'm obsessive compulsive and I agree with them but I don't see that as a bad thing. I have had to overcome some of my obsessiveness such as having to have a perfect eating day. I use to believe that if I ate one thing that was not on my good food list then the whole day was blown. This led to many days of my life just being thrown out the window as far as weight loss was concerned. Now I just try to do my best everyday and I allow myself to have foods that I use to consider a bad food such as chocolate or pizza but I have to control the portion size and make sure that I plan the rest of my day around that food so that I don't overeat. Today was an especially hard day for me. I took two sleeping pills last night and for some reason they hit me pretty hard. Well this morning I was so tired and I've been that way all day. I did manage to get up and clean the house and fix dinner but that was about all. When I lay around and don't stay super busy then my mind starts thinking about food. I was hungry all day long but I still tried to eat healthy. I just don't like having days like this because I'm afraid its going to trigger a series of days like this and I'm going to lose all sense of control over my eating. I guess we will see what happens tomorrow, I'm going to get a goodnights sleep and I have school in the morning so that should help make my day go by faster. I did decide not to exercise tonight because I am so tired and part of me is disappointed in myself for not doing it. Hopefully I will be back to my old energetic self tomorrow.