Sticking With It

Well I've made it 6 days without binging or purging and it feels so good to be in control.  Its been a rough week though between the stress of starting school, being bored and stress in my personal life but I'm hanging in there.  I'm staying ahead in my school work, getting the house clean and making out schedules to keep me on track with everything.  The bad thing is I go through this pretty regularly and it never lasts long but I'm going to try to keep it going this time.  I love having routine in my life and knowing what I'm expected to do from day to day.  I've even started to get help from the kids around the house without an argument which is really nice. 

What I don't understand is why if this feeling is so good why do I switch back to my old self?  Is it laziness or do I really have some kind of issue with sticking with things or maybe a combination of both?  Do you find this pattern in your life?  How do you stay on top of things and not become overwhelmed?

Stress

I know stress brings on eating but have you ever been so stressed you don't feel like eating?  Thats the way I feel right now.  My stomach is in knots and I can't even think about food and the weird part is I like it.  This is one of the few times in my life where I feel like I have control over food and I'm scared when the stress leaves my life so does the control.  How do I keep the control?

I know stress isn't good for you so I can't stay stressed out all the time but I like the way I have been eating.  I've been eating out of necessity instead of boredom or to stuff down my emotions.  It feels so good to be in control and I want to keep it this way.  Any ideas?  Have you ever been this way before?

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.

Recommitment

Life can get so hectic that we forget about our own needs to worry about everyone elses.  That's where I feel like I'm heading lately.  Between going to school, cleaning, cooking, raising 3 kids and all the other random stuff that comes along with being a mother and wife I'm stressed to the max. 

I'm still eating right and exercising but it just seems like I'm losing some of my momentum.  I'm going through the motions but I'm not really focused on what I'm trying to achieve.  Maybe thats a good thing, maybe that means its becoming habit and I don't have to think about losing weight every second of the day but if thats true then this is a new experience for me. 

It's hard to keep going on this journey when you are surrounded by people who really don't support you.  I know there are people around me that are secretly wishing I would fail once again.  To those people I say KISS MY BIG FAT ASS because your negativity only gives me strength and determination to keep going.

I wrote this post to remind myself why I started this weight loss journey.  It's my time to put myself first and to become who I know I can be and I refuse to let anyone or anything stand in my way.  I will not spend one more second of my life damaging my body, mind or spirit.  I love my family and I will continue to do everything I can to take care of them but I need time to take care of myself to.  Like the saying goes if momma ain't happy nobody's happy. 

I am recommitting myself to my weight loss goals and to everything I'm trying to accomplish, not only for myself but for my family to.  I need to get refocused on what's most important right now and stop letting everything else stand in my way.  Screw the people that don't support me because I don't need you to succeed.  I'm the star of this show and its time for me to shine.

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.

Stress Eating and the Festival

As I posted yesterday I was going to the Renaissance Festival with my son today.  I got up this morning and got the kids ready and drove them to school.  We waited in the classroom for awhile waiting on the bus to get there to take the kids to the festival.  It arrived and the kids were loaded on the bus and all the parents had to drive themselves.  Now the plan was for us to follow the bus or at least we thought that was what was going to happen.  As soon as the bus pulled out of the park lot it was gone, luckily I pretty much knew where I was going and I was behind another parent driving there and had two more parents behind me so I figured everything would be fine.  The first 30 minutes of the drive were ok until we got into a busy section crossing over the interstate.  Lets just say that a trip that was suppose to take us like 58 minutes turned into about 1 hour an 45 minutes.  The traffic was so lined up and of course I ended up in the back somehow and everyone else ran off and left me.  I was so stressed out the whole time wondering how I was going to find my son once I got there and how long the bus had already been there waiting on us.  This was my first bout with stress eating since I started this blog.  My anxiety was so high and thats when I remembered I had brought me a small bag of nuts to snack on, I pulled those suckers out and start popping them like pills and about halfway through the bag I realized what I was doing.  The scary part was that it was actually calming me down, I don't want to have to depend on food to do that.  So finally I arrived at the fairgrounds. Before leaving the school I had asked the teacher how I would find them once I got there.  Well she answered we will all be parked together and she was right about that, about 100 white buses scattered over acres of the fairgrounds.  Luckily I spotted another parent from my sons school and asked her if she knew where they were located and she said she had just talked to the teacher and they were just pulling in.  Don't ask me how but all my worrying was for nothing because all the parents made it there before the bus did.  So I went and got my son and we enjoyed ourselves at the Renaissance Festival. 

Here are some pictures of our day at the festival:

As soon as we walked through the gate this was the first thing I seen but I just kept on walking.

The King and Queen of the Renaissance Festival.

My son enjoying his giant turkey leg which we shared for lunch.

One of the shows we watched....juggling fire...scary.

Josh and the fairy princess....I think he really liked her.

They had so many cool buildings that really took you back to the Renaissance period.

 Josh enjoying his chocolate eclair....I did sneak one little bite.

At least all the stress I went through on the way there was worth it to spend a fun day with my son.



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.

Stress

Today has been a really stressful day.  First I wake up and find that I have lost no weight this week so I decide to go buy a new scale but first I have to go to the doctor and have blood drawn.  Now I hate needles but its never as bad as I imagine it to be.  So I go to the doctor and leave from there and run and get a scale.  Well that was one good thing in my day because the new scale says I have lost a pound.  The rest of the day consisted of cleaning the house, doing my exercise for the day, fixing dinner, and studying for a photography test I have tomorrow.  By this time the kids are home from school and I always have them do their homework first thing which becomes an all out battle with usually one of them.  Today it was my youngest so I made him go to his room and think about why he should have just listened to me and done his homework.  We then have dinner and I wash up all the dishes.  I then spend the next hour still trying to get my youngest to do his homework, during which I'm still trying to study for my test.  As you know I have 3 boys and the oldest does not get along at all with the two younger ones so most of the time its a screaming match around here.  I've tried so many times to get things under control but my kids just don't respect me.  Oh they are wonderful in school and for everybody else but for me its all out hell around here.  Well I sent all three to bed early, the two youngest ones because they don't get up in the morning for me without yelling and pitching a fit and also when bedtimes get here they find any reason to keep coming out of their room.  The oldest was sent to bed early because he tries to play parent and tell me what to do.  On top of that things are really stressed between my husband and myself because he doesn't believe I am disciplining the kids good enough which I agree with but he has no idea how stressful things are on me.  I feel like I am peacekeeper, referee and judge in this house.  So all the kids are mad at me for punishing them and my husband is ill with me because I sometimes take my frustration out on him.  On top of all of this I'm still trying to study for a test tomorrow which I'm really stressing over.  Another thing I am obsessed over is making really good grades.  I try to divide myself among everyone and everything but sometimes I feel so stretched thin that I don't know how much more I can take on.  I've went back to school to try to make a better life for me and my family but with little support and encouragement from anyone.  Plus trying to eat right and exercise and take care of a family and home.  As you can tell I'm just a little stressed today, but my main point of this post is that usually when I'm stressed I want to eat.  Eat anything in sight, but mainly sweets......chocolate, ice cream, cookies, cake....anything you can think of.  But its different now my focus has moved off of food, I guess thats a really good thing but I do feel like I'm missing something.  Now I have to deal with this stress in some other form.  I literally feel like my head is going to explode, I guess this would be a really good time to exercise but I've already done my exercise for today.  Time to find some new ways to deal with stress, any suggestions?