Poor Old Michael Finnigan (Begin Again)

After spending a few days in July attempting to rein in my food choices, I gave in to the usual temptations and pretty quickly went back to my old (usual?) unrestrained habits.  That’s why I’m writing this now while still weighing in around the mid-170s. 

Typically, I’ll make it through a couple of days of following a plan.  I’ll eat lots of veggies and control my portions.  But then, on the third or maybe even fourth day, something will happen.  I might get a migraine and feel much more like ordering a Jimmy Johns sandwich than having a salad for lunch.  Or, I’ll just feel bored and restless as I look ahead to what feels like an endless and hopeless process of never again being able to have what I want.

I forget so easily how my food addictions really do quiet down after a week or ten days of sticking with a plan.  It’s almost like I hit a place where the tide turns and it’s not such a big deal to eat normal amounts and forego the things that will get in the way of success.

I just haven’t been able to get to that place in a long time. 

It’s been five years since I hit my goal(ish) weight of the low 150s.  After reaching my goal, I stayed there for a good while, at least another year.  Oh, the weight crept back up just a little.  I think I gained maybe 3 or 4 pounds.  But always, if the numbers started moving upward, I would “put myself back in food prison” for a few days and bring them back down again.

I worked out very regularly and was basically obsessed with getting my daily vegetables, particularly broccoli.  I would usually run 4 miles at least 3 or 4 days per week, sometimes even 5 days.  I’d have some bad days on weekends where I’d overindulge, but overall, I kept myself under control.

But the numbers crept up.  My workouts tapered off when I took a temporary full-time job.  I lost my zeal for veggies.  I wasn’t able to steam broccoli as easily at work, and somehow, if I didn’t have it for lunch, I’d give up on eating right at dinner.

And now?  Well, now, I’m up 20 pounds from my goal.  My weight has inched up little by little.  I think the 160s were the first barrier.  Then, this move from the low 170s to the mid 170s seems to have done a number on my ability to take off 5 pounds quickly.

The truth is that I know all this far too well.  I have analyzed it too much.  I’ve written dozens of posts here.  In fact, almost all of my posts over the past 3 years have been basically the same – I will talk about watching my weight creep up and not be able to stick with “food prison” long enough to hit the sweet spot of changing my habits and reining in Crazed Addict Fatgirl.

The truth is that I just need to hold it together for 7 magic days, maybe 10.  I need to stick religiously to a plan, with no “days off” on weekends, no “we’ll just order pizza and I’ll restrain myself and only have one piece” rationalizations, no succumbing to the third-day doldrums or allowing myself to fixate on the seeming hopelessness of having to make such lifelong changes.

I just need to do this.  Like an alcoholic in AA, I need to keep my focus small – “One day at a time,” or maybe even one hour at a time.

Maybe even one minute.

Here’s today’s food journal with calorie count:

High-protein Slimfast shake (made in the blender with a new mix I found at the grocery store) (200); smallish banana (100); high-protein, low-carb Slimfast ready-made shake (200); my special salad mix (200); Lean Cuisine pizza (310); nonfat milk (90); prunes (100).  Total:  1,200.

I also worked out today on my stride machine for a half hour.

Success

So, it’s been a long while, more than half a year since I’ve posted.  Not a whole lot has changed in terms of how I’m handling Crazed Addict Fatgirl these days.  After feeling like I’d vanquished her pretty well for about a year – and after maintaining my weight the mid-150s for a couple of years – Fatgirl’s voice gradually came back to reside almost permanently in my thoughts.  And the pounds have gradually crept right back on.

I’m not all the way back to 189.5 by any means, but if Fatgirl keeps up her bad work, it’s not hard to imagine hitting that awful number (and those awful feelings and awful clothes) again someday.  And it’d be a “someday” in the not-too-terribly-distant future.

Sigh.

On the positive side, I did somehow manage to make a concerted 2-month effort this spring, where I “just did it” (old Nike slogan) and immediately got out of bed and worked out for 30 minutes almost every morning before school.  I had to get up at 4:30 or 4:45 to make it happen, but oddly enough, that wasn’t too hard.  I also stuck pretty well with my old eating plan, being very careful to bring vegetables, fruits, and a protein shake with me for lunch.  Dinner would be more vegetables and a Lean Cuisine.  I did actually allow myself a piece of cake or something for dessert on most nights, but I managed to get “down” (in quotes because it’s sad to think of this number as “down” when it used to be horrifyingly “up”) to 166.

Then, I don’t know, I hit an odd place.  The school where I was teaching almost full-time underwent major staffing cuts.  My job was one of those eliminated.  And I’ve discovered this about myself over the past few years:  I don’t process negative experiences very efficiently.  It seems to take me a long while even to figure out that something negative happened – that I was, say, treated badly – and even when I talk a lot about my feelings and try to process my thoughts, I often don’t understand the full scope of the negative experience until much later.

That’s how it was with the way my job was eliminated.  When I first received the news, I reacted to it based upon my assumption that the decision was purely one of economics.  The school is having major money woes.  I’d known that for a long while.  But I was so completely confident in the work I’d done – I’d absolutely known, without a doubt, that the school would have been hard-pressed to find anyone else who would have done a better job in my position – that it never even entered my mind that maybe they were showing me the door because they didn’t like me or had thought poorly of my work.  (For anyone wondering, no, I did not receive a poor evaluation.  I was never even evaluated at all, beyond the strange self-evaluation form we were all asked to complete shortly before the job cuts were announced.  Our school has had other upheavals this year, one of which was a change in administrators.  The new administrator at our campus always seemed overwhelmed, so I wasn’t totally surprised that watching me teach didn’t appear to be a priority for him.   Also, his son happened to be one of my students.  Although I felt like the lack of evaluations/observations was unprofessional, a part of me just figured the administrator neglected to do a formal observation of my work because he felt like he had such a good handle on what I was doing just from watching his son’s progress.  But – nobody in any position of authority ever actually watched me teach.  I never received any feedback other than positive responses from parents.)

Then, a couple of days before spring break, the administration announced a special meeting for staff and faculty from all our campuses.  My colleagues began speaking of contracts (or lack thereof) in hushed, frightened tones.  I wasn’t very concerned.  In fact, I didn’t even bother to attend the special meeting.  As I said, I was confident that I was doing a very good job and couldn’t possibly be cut for performance-related reasons.  Plus, I just didn’t see the point in worrying. The reality is that my family and I don’t need my income.  It’s been great for us as extra money that helped to cover our own children’s tuition costs, and I liked the small employee tuition discount, but we won’t be suffering a whole lot if I’m not working.  My philosophy has always been that I’d work for as long as the opportunity was there.  It was an opportunity that fell into my lap to begin with, a door that opened so easily that it would have been crazy to choose not to walk through it, but it wasn’t anything I’d grown irrevocably attached to.

Anyway, I skipped the special meeting.  The next morning, we had an additional staff meeting which I did attend, and our rookie administrator rambled for quite awhile about all the angst he and his fellow administrators (from our school’s other campuses) had been suffering as they’d discussed the upcoming cuts whenever they’d “hold meetings at Chili’s” (a euphemism for when they’d get together for beers, I think) over the past couple of months.

At the end of that before-school faculty meeting, our now-emotional administrator told us to find him sometime in the next day or so to privately discuss our contracts.  I still didn’t think my job would be one of the jobs on the block.  Hadn’t I been assigned, a mere couple of weeks before, the task of writing out my goals for next year and filling out quite an extensive questionnaire about the future?  I’d dutifully spent an hour or so doing that.  If these job cuts had been in the works for at least a couple of months (as the weepy administrator had let slip with his dumb remarks about his Chili’s angst), they certainly wouldn’t have me go to all that trouble for nothing.  Right?

Wrong.

I hate letting things drag on, so immediately after our faculty meeting adjourned, I basically followed the administrator to his office.  He shut the door, took a seat at the conference table, and motioned for me to sit down across from him.  Bad signs.

For some reason, I decided to remain standing, which made what happened next feel even more surreal.  While still seated, the administrator dramatically flung the top half of his body on the conference table as he pretended to slump with sadness.  He uttered the words, “I don’t have a contract for you.”  And sighed deeply, a huge, utterly gigantic expulsion of air.  Ugh.

I stared at him, at what seemed like his not-very-authentic display of pseudo-emotion, and felt, suddenly, oddly detached.  When he stared back at me with dry eyes but uttered the words, “I am so, so so so sorry!” in a weepy sort of voice, I instantly smiled and assured him that it was OK.  Really.

And in that moment, before I’d had time to think about anything, it was OK.  Like I said, it wasn’t like I was thrown into a panic over our finances or anything, although I would have liked to have kept our money situation the way it had been.  I also have never been one of those women who MUST work outside the home.  I’d loved being a homemaker and wasn’t always thrilled about having to be away from home all day every day the way things had been over the past school year.

So it was OK.  Really.

At least at first.

Then I did something that was, in retrospect, pretty stupid.  I offered to teach, in essence, for free.  I said I’d be willing to do my job for a mere tuition discount.

The administrator (I’m sick of using that word, so let’s just call him Mr. Angst) sucked in his breath dramatically once again and then let it out.  “That’s not my decision to make,” he responded.  But then he assured me he’d mention it to his two higher-ups.

I spent the rest of that day feeling numb.  I taught my classes in a fog, looking around in disbelief at the classroom I’d so lovingly and perfectly decorated.  I’d bought so many supplies with my own personal funds, simply because I knew the school was struggling and I hadn’t wanted to add to the burden in any way.  I’d even purchased an entire class set of novels in order to teach a book that wasn’t already part of the school’s collection.  I’d created a year’s worth of lessons for two subjects. And now – it was all for nothing.

I also obsessively checked my email that day, looking for a response from Mr. Angst.  I checked it all that day, and then late into the evening.  I checked it first thing in the morning.  By the middle of the next day, reality started to set in.

Despite the fact that Mr. Angst had told me emphatically that I was not being let go for anything performance-related (that was one question I do recall asking him in the midst of assuring him I was OK), I was now starting to think that my dismissal wasn’t just about saving the school money.  How could it be, when I’d essentially offered to teach for free – and if they’d accommodated me, they could have been assured, during a crisis of declining enrollment, of my own children’s continued attendance there?  How was my offer anything but beneficial for the school?

The more I thought about all of this, the more off-kilter it all started to seem.  I know this will sound arrogant to some people, but seriously, I know I am very, very good at what I do.  I was by no means perfect (who is?), and of course if I could have taught those classes again, I would have done some things differently, would have found ways to improve.  But…I’m a good teacher.  That’s how I got the position in the first place – I had worked as a long-term sub at the school, and the previous administrator had actually fielded calls and emails from parents requesting that I be hired on permanently (some even suggested that I ought to replace the teacher who had been out on maternity leave), that when a different position opened up, the administrator had called me and offered me the job without ever even posting it publicly.  (It’s a private school – they can do that.)

What cash-strapped school with declining enrollment would not want to accept free staff and in the process ensure that they’d be able to hang on to the staff member’s children as paying students?

Meanwhile, in addition to being pretty blown away by the knowledge that my job was gone, I was also wondering about some larger decisions that the administration had just announced.  Due to a number of factors, the biggest of which was declining enrollment, they could no longer sustain multiple campuses.  Rather than consolidate and relocate to the largest and most desirable property, they were planning on selling everything, finding a totally “neutral” location, and building a new campus from scratch.  Considering that money was tight and nobody seemed to know how to go about fundraising, and considering that even the sale of multiple campuses would run about $15 million short of what would be needed for the new property and new construction, I was having a really difficult time having faith in the administration’s judgment.  Everything – what they were going to do, how it was announced, the supposed timetable for this process, and the accompanying lack of concern about maintaining enrollment in the interim – seemed terribly short-sighted.

And one of our children was set to start high school there.  Why would anyone want to go to a high school that was cutting staff and classes while raising tuition…a school located in a very difficult-to-get-to, junky part of town…with a freshman class probably numbering around 30 students…when they had no idea where they might be located 2 or 3 years from now?

I’d had such a deep loyalty to this school, such a deep belief in its mission, such a confidence in its long history, that facing all this upheaval was almost like watching something die.  Losing my job and not having anyone respond to my offer to teach for a tuition discount had caused me to lose all faith in the administration’s ability to think clearly and do the things that would benefit the school.  Overnight, my husband and I were compelled to rethink all our assumptions about what would be best for our children’s education.

In the days in which I was processing all this, my exercise routine just went out the window.  First of all, I had this thought in the back of my mind that spring break was coming up soon, and I would have all the free time to exercise whenever I felt like it, without having to get up at 4:30 a.m.  And then, as my future status as an unemployed person began to sink in, it quit feeling necessary at all to cling to such a rigid schedule.  I quit getting up at 4:30 a.m.  I also quit sticking with my healthy eating habits.  Over spring break I willfully over-indulged in my favorite foods and even had some wine.  It was a way to escape my growing dismay and even anger over what the administration was doing to the school I loved…and also, what they had done to me.

It was hurtful to realize that nobody in the administration had cared enough to observe me in the classroom or provide me with any feedback at all before showing me the door.  And when I did not receive any sort of response from Mr. Angst or his higher-ups even after we’d returned from spring break, I finally realized how little he and the rest of the people in charge cared about maintaining any sort of positive relationship with me.

I don’t usually have an easy time with face-to-face confrontation, but after two weeks of growing awareness of how wrongly my layoff had been handled, I finally went into Mr. Angst’s office one morning, shut the door, and told him my offer was off the table.  I also did express my amazement that nobody had bothered to at least thank me for making such a generous offer…and that nobody seemed to be at all concerned about keeping my kids (who are well-behaved good students) (they have to be, their mom is right there watching) at the school.

I’d always thought Mr. Angst was a nice enough guy, one of those people who will say whatever it takes to keep a conversation pleasant.  His response to me on that day was just more of his typical “make-nice” positivity, which ended up feeling totally meaningless and insincere.  He fumbled and faltered a little as he made excuses for the administration above him.  His remarks actually revealed he’d never even relayed my offer to his bosses.  He then said he had a meeting with them that day and would mention it.  I said, “Oh, it’s OK – don’t bother.  I have changed my mind now.”  And then I left.

I felt somewhat better after having confronted Mr. Angst a bit.  I even asked him, in that impromptu meeting, why he’d asked me to complete all that garbage about goals for next year, if he and his fellow administrators had been “meeting at Chili’s” for two months and wringing their hands over upcoming staff cuts.  He responded by insisting that he hadn’t known anything about the job cuts until just before he told us.  I’m pretty sure he lied right to my face when he said that.  Even if he hadn’t settled on me specifically as one of the teachers to let go*, he had to have known the cuts were coming.  He himself had slipped at our faculty meeting and said as much!  Despite his pleasant demeanor and seeming niceness, I was getting the sick feeling that the guy was a liar.

At that point, we had two more months of school left to endure.  I had to muster up the energy and enthusiasm to do my job just as I’d always done it, even as I was mentally dismantling my lovely classroom every time I stood up in front of the class.  I had to soldier on and make lessons, create assignments, and get excited about my lessons each day, even as I had lost all confidence in the school’s decision-makers and knew that I’d never be needing all my newly created materials again.  It was very difficult.

God was very faithful to me during this time.  Because of His constant help, I managed to do such a good job of remaining steadfast and doing my job with the usual excellence that almost no one knew I wasn’t coming back the next year.  The students were shocked when someone asked me a question toward the end of May about whether or not I was returning.  When I gave them an honest answer – “No, I did not get asked back due to job cuts” – they couldn’t believe it.  Somehow, despite my dismay over the school’s leadership and what I perceived as the dishonesty and insincerity of Mr. Angst, I was able to finish the year well.

But throughout that time, I lost my zeal for getting up in the morning and exercising.  I also sort of gave up any vigilance with food.  These weren’t conscious choices.  It was more like I had so much going on in my thoughts that I just didn’t care about fitness, even though that was a very dumb thing to neglect.

Then we went on a family vacation after school was out.  More good food, ever-increasing resistance to limits on my portions and my pleasures, more times when I’d have a glass of wine with dinner.

I’m now in the 170s.  Again.  Only, it’s the mid-170s.  Crazed Addict Fatgirl has been an almost permanent resident in my thoughts whenever I’m thinking of resisting a temptation.

But…

That’s got to change.

So here I am, thinking of success, ready to embrace that old mindset where I don’t give myself a whole lot of choices or options during the first couple of weeks.  I’m ready to fight through the third and fourth and fifth days of a diet, those days when Fatgirl tries to convince me that I no longer care about anything but food and “still look good” and “am not that fat anyway.”

I’m ready.

——————————-

* For the curious, I have developed a theory about why I (and at least one of the other downsized teachers) were the teachers Mr. Angst chose to let go.  And why Mr. Angst never did anything about my offer to work for free.  In addition to taking on the administrator’s duties during the previous year’s upheaval, Mr. Angst continued working part-time as a teacher.  He taught one of my kids, in fact, which is why I know that he absolutely and utterly shirked his duties.  Oh, I realize that Mr. Angst had taken on way more than he could handle.  I did feel sorry for him…but only to a point.  He may have had way too many responsibilities, but he’d had designs on getting into administration for years and volunteered to attempt both positions.  Besides, the fact was, his principal duties merely gave him an excuse to take his usual teaching style to a whole new level.  He’d always embraced a totally loose, unstructured approach in the classroom (crazy, considering he was teaching math) anyway, where he’d pluck various lessons from different places in the textbook with little order or method to his instruction.  He never assigned homework and rarely posted grades or gave graded tests.  Most of the time, a typical math class would consist of Mr. Angst’s merely telling the kids to go through a unit of the textbook on their own.  Then he’d let them “work” anywhere in the building while he sat at his desk and played computer games and responded to email.  Once my child came home from school with a math test which Mr. Angst had handed back – ungraded – and told the kids to grade it themselves and figure out for themselves what they may or may not have done wrong.  Talk about frustrating!

Mr. Angst knew about my kid’s unhappiness because my kid took him aside one day and begged to be taught with more direct instruction.  My kid actually spelled out to Mr. Angst that they were super-worried about not being prepared for the next year’s work…that they were totally confused…and that Mr. Angst’s teaching methods were not working for a large segment of the class.

Additionally, Mr. Angst frequently did not show up for class or, if he did show up, arrived very late, 15 or 20 minutes into the period.  One of the other teachers who also was not asked back happened to be the person who coordinated support services for some of Mr. Angst’s students…and happened to be the person Mr. Angst had unfairly relied upon to just step in and pick up the slack when Mr. Angst was too busy to be bothered to show up and teach his students.

It’s my theory, now, that Mr. Angst eliminated both of us at least partly because we made him uncomfortable.  Each of us in our own way reminded him of all the terrible slacking he’d done that year as a teacher.  He likely suspected that we had lost at least some respect for him as a fellow educator – and that knowledge must have made him believe that we wouldn’t be totally “on board” with whatever he would do as an administrator.  He no doubt believed that neither of us shared his teaching philosophy.  He was certainly aware that my own approach was radically different than his. I assigned (and graded!) his own son’s homework.  Grades in my classes, even for lengthier essays which required way more of my time to assess, were always posted as soon as possible.  I had definite structure to my classes.  The kids actually enjoyed my routines and seemed almost relieved to get a break from too much “creativity” of the sort embraced by Mr. Angst.

I think when Mr. Angst cast about for the person he’d most like to not have to deal with any longer, I was probably at the top of his list.  So my position was one of the ones eliminated.  And Mr. Angst did not want me around, even if I were working for free.

That’s my theory now, after having had three months to think about all this.

Changes

I decided to change this site’s theme, in part because I want to feel like I can make a fresh start with my efforts at fitness.  It can so easily feel like I take a step forward and then two steps backward, like I’m just rehashing the same old stuff.

A few months ago, I once again started working almost full-time.  I no longer have virtually unlimited time in the mornings to go on 4-mile runs.  Instead, I have to figure out ways to fit my workouts in around my schedule.  For awhile, I was trying to come home from work and force myself to immediately put on my workout clothes and “just do it,” as the old Nike slogan would say.  Sometimes this seemed like it was working.  It wasn’t completely impossible to make myself work out in the afternoons, as long as I didn’t allow myself to sit down first.

But when the time changed last month, it got to be more of a challenge.  Going for a run outside when it was turning to dusk did not have any appeal.  Then the weather got colder.  I also wasn’t a fan of all the time it felt like I was wasting on showering twice.

I’ve been trying lately to work out in the mornings.  I’ve had a couple of successful days, where I’ve managed to get everything done in the morning before leaving the house, and where I haven’t been completely exhausted too early in the evening.

I’ve also had some success with adding vegetables back into my daily life.

I just need to make these habits more automatic again.

I don’t like feeling as though I’m not as fit as I used to be.  I’ve been noticing that I’m sometimes almost breathless when I run upstairs.  I haven’t had that happen in a long time.

Anyway – new look for this blog, fresh start for my fitness outlook.

 

October Surprise

I’m snickering at the title of this post.  It has nothing to do with the usual meaning of “October Surprise” (as in something to do with the elections).  No.

Instead, when I checked this site, I was surprised that I hadn’t updated it since June.  The past several months have gone by very quickly.  I’d thought I’d posted a few times later in the summer, but I guess my memory was playing tricks on me.

The reality is, I started working again (outside the home) and have lost what was left of my vigilance with respect to working out.  Sigh.  I’m having to find new ways to fit exercise into my schedule, which already feels way too busy.  I no longer have entire long mornings to go on leisurely 4-mile runs.  Instead, if I do work out, it ends up being crammed in, either hastily in the morning on the treadmill, or after work in the afternoons.

I’ve also fallen off the wagon in terms of incorporating fruits and vegetables into my diet.

There’s no real excuse.  I wouldn’t even say there are reasons, beyond the fact that I’ve gradually slipped out of my hard-won healthy habits and slipped back into my old habits.

I’m reading a great book right now, though, that is making me feel an odd sort of new hope.  The book is The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg.  Considering how the subject matter – research into how habits are formed – could easily be dry and boring, I am amazed at how entertaining and engaging the book has been thus far.  Also, its main message – that habitual behavior takes on a life of its own, creating new pathways in the brain involving pleasure and reward centers, which then help to perpetuate the new habit – is one of hope.

For me, getting in shape and losing weight have always been about turning the tide of my habits…of sticking with reduced portions, vegetables, and exercise until those things take on a life of their own.  I spoke of it as momentum before.  The Duhigg book confirms my thinking.

So I’m working on some new habits.  Right now, the big one is to work out again, either first thing in the morning or right after I get home from work.  I had success on Friday.  I am going to do it again tomorrow.  I also made plans for what I will eat tomorrow (another suggestion in the “Habits” book).  I cut up some carrots and have them ready to take with me.

My “October Surprise” is that I’m back and going again.  I called this blog “Fitgirl4Life” because it is a lifelong process.

Wednesday

Awhile back, I started to feel more motivation to at least try to take off some of the 10 or 15 pounds I have put on over the past couple of years.  I want to fit into my good summer clothes again.  The last 6 pounds or so have made the difference between being able to wear those clothes comfortably and not being able to wear them.  It’s not just the pants, either.  I own several really great swimsuits that still do fit, sort of, but not nearly as well as they used to.

So I want to be able to wear my better summer clothes again.  I am also in touch with reality enough to know that if I don’t do something now, I will very likely end up back where I used to be, completely out of control and out of shape.  Ten pounds all too easily become 20, and then 20 become 40.  Weight creeps up.  I really don’t want that to happen.

Those are not really new sources of motivation – but what feels like it might be a bit different is that I’m starting to feel, once again, that getting back into a weight-loss groove is doable.  I am focusing more on just getting through each set of good choices.

Right now, if I look too far ahead, I can feel that same sense of impossibility that I had way back in March 2008, where the idea of giving up all my favorite foods and over-indulgences seemed like a completely hopeless goal.  Somehow, though, I made it through something like 5 days or a week of rigid food prison, where I made only good choices and did not overdo on anything (using Lean Cuisines for my dinners really helped with the portion control).  And once I got through the first week, each better choice became a little easier, until I reached the point where sticking with my plan and making good choices became something of a game.  The pounds started to melt off, and I was able to lose most of my weight within just a couple of months.

So I’m just focusing on making it through each day.  I’ve made it through three days thus far, and really, the past couple of weeks haven’t been terrible.

I’m facing a temptation tomorrow, though.  We have to go to a birthday party, and I already know that they will be serving my very favorite pizza, along with a Dairy Queen Blizzard birthday cake.  My plan is to eat a big plate of raw vegetables – carrots and cauliflower – before starting on the pizza.  And I may or may not have a piece of the Blizzard cake.  Not sure about that one yet.  I’m going to try to limit myself to just one piece of pizza, too.

Here’s what I ate today:

Cereal mix (150); milk (90); grapefruit (70); Slim-Fast shake (190); broccoli (70); tomatoes (100); ranch dressing (100); small frozen yogurt (100); steamed green beans (80); Lean Cuisine (310); milk (90); Yoplait yogurt (100).  Total:  1,450.

I ran 3 miles on my treadmill.  Right now, that is the most intense workout I can do.  There’s something so tedious about focusing on keeping my balance and maintaining my pace.  I’d really prefer to run outside, but it’s just been too hot and the sun has been way too intense.

More From “Made To Crave”

I’ve talked before about Lysa TerKueurst’s book, Made To Crave.  I’ve mentioned that I’m not quite sure what to make of attaching spiritual significance to the notions of food and controlling one’s eating.  I’m especially uncomfortable with the notion of making overeating a sin, even though yes, I know, the Bible has plenty to say about the sin of gluttony, and how self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one who gets motivated through negativity, but I’m pretty sure that if I made myself view binging on a bag of potato chips as a sin against God, it wouldn’t actually make me any more likely to stay on the wagon.  It’s not that I don’t want to avoid sinning.  I do.  But when Crazed Addict Fatgirl takes over my thoughts, she’s so out of touch with reality anyway that adding a spiritual dimension to her suggestions wouldn’t help to make them any less irresistable.

Sigh.

Plus, I guess there’s just something so heavy and downtrodden about feeling like blowing my diet also then means I’ve blown it with God.  I’ve had weight loss success only when I’ve separated myself from the “deeper” aspects of food and just focused on the mechanics of making the next better, healthier choice, rather than heaping more and more baggage onto the process.

Nevertheless, Made To Crave is a thought-provoking read.  I actually bought the accompanying devotional, and I have to say that it was pretty funny when the chapter I read yesterday happened to coincide perfectly with what I’d been thinking about my weekend food choices.  I wouldn’t exactly say I’d gotten into a perfect, mindless groove of choosing vegetables and ignoring foods I know would be problems.  But I’d definitely had a better week last week.  Over a few days, I’d made veggies more of a habit.  I was more thinking, more purposeful, about my food choices.  I exercised more frequently.  Even on Friday, which is typically when my resolve weakens and I deliberately throw restraint to the wind, I made a point to plan a meal that was very balanced and featured healthier choices that don’t present a problem for my self-control.

On Saturday, I had to take one of the kids to a birthday party, where they had a buffet table with different kinds of pizza, a fruit tray, and veggies.  I actually was very self-controlled and took one smallish piece of cheese pizza and a handful of baby carrots.  Later, when cake was served, we were about to leave, so I just declined a piece.  I was feeling really good about that.

But then, when we got home, I found myself so incredibly hungry that when my husband suggested picking up takeout from Chili’s, I succumbed.  I ordered crispy chicken tacos and ate the entire thing, including black beans.  I also had a couple of pieces of the southwestern egg rolls.  All of this was really bad.  Yesterday wasn’t any better.  I had a huge lunch, a large container of frozen yogurt for a snack, and then half a bag of chips and a large glass of wine as an evening snack.

I was pondering how I’d thrown my restraint out the window over the weekend, and how yet again, Crazed Addict Fatgirl’s voice had taken hold of my thoughts and told me that I’d just start over on Monday.  That had seemed so reasonable to me at the time.  But…obviously…how stupid!

So it was especially weird/coincidental that last night’s chapter in the Made To Crave devotional said this:

“I’ll start again on Monday” are the ill-fated words that I’m certain have passed through every woman’s mind since the beginning of time.  Whether it’s an excuse regarding our diet, exercise, temper, or devotional time, this phrase cycles through our lives on a regular basis.  Or, is it just me?

For example, on a Saturday morning, I head down to my kitchen vowing to do better, eat healthier, and make good choices, only to have my resolve melt like the icing on the cinnamon rolls my daughter pulls from the oven.  So I conclude the weekend is the worst time to begin eating healthier and I tell myself, “I’ll start again on Monda.”

However, I find myself nagged by the subtle feeling of defeat, disappointment, and frustration.  This crushing cycle of powerelessness that I’ve come to hate continues.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wander around on a fruitless path unable to enter into the abundant life God has for me.

Today I challenge you to start a new cycle of making God your focus, rather than food.  Each time you crave something you know isn’t part of your plan, use that craving as a prompting to pray.  I crave a lot.  So I’ve found myself praying a lot.  Potato chips and brownies now prompt me to pray!  God gave us the gift of prayer to turn our times of desperation into relationship opportunities with Him.  This cycle is far more promising than distancing ourselves from His goodness with our own sense of self-loathing and defeat.

For example, when we make God our focus, we can wake up in the morning and say “God, I want a biscuit this morning.  Instead, I’m eating poached eggs.  I’m thankful for these eggs, but I’ll be honest in saying my cravings for other things are hard to resist.  But instead of wallowing in what I can’t have, I’m making the choice to celebrate what I can have.”

What better way to live than fully in today rather than always looking to start over on Mondays!

Weird coincidence, eh?

Even weirder, my church has been going through a series on prayer, and I’ve been thinking more about prayer anyway.

Perhaps God is trying to tell me something?  😀

Another Day

I followed my plan today, mostly.  My only glitch was that I fixed sloppy joes for dinner and ate more of that than I should have.  I was fine with just one, but when there was a half left over, it all had tasted so good that I was momentarily powerless to resist.  But in the past, I’ve managed to still come up with a weight loss after eating sloppy joes…so, maybe it won’t disrupt my momentum.

I fiddled around throughout my morning and almost didn’t feel like I had time to work out.  It was a nice day here and I wanted to go for one of my 4-mile runs, but when time got away from me, I just ran the mile loop around my neighborhood.  I was going to try for 3 miles, but by the time I’d finished 2, I knew that I’d better go home and shower so I could take one of my kids for an orthodontist appointment.  Two miles is a pretty lame workout for me, but at least it was better than nothing.  And I did run the first mile pretty quickly, without slowing down or stopping.  I think I did about a 9-minute mile, which is good for me.

Here’s what I ate today:  South Beach bar (160); grapefruit (70); yogurt (100); Slim-Fast shake (190); cauliflower (60); carrots (80); ranch dressing (80); large glass of milk (160); sloppy joes (600?).  Total:  1,520.

We’ll see if the scale reflects any change.  I wonder if I’m getting some momentum going.  I’ve been praying that God would take what little resolve and desire I have and strengthen it, and once again today, it seemed to work.  I mean, although I could easily have been tempted to have a big lunch after the ortho appointment, I didn’t.  I came home and dutifully had my veggies, because they honestly sounded good to me.  I did not break out the chips tonight (I was really too full from dinner).  Those were good choices.  If I can just get enough good choices going, I will feel better and the pounds will start coming off again.

Adding Veggies

I have no real progress to report in terms of weight loss.  I’ve had a lot of difficulty sticking with any sort of plan for any length of time.  Nothing new there.  Sigh.  I will have a couple of “good days” where I feel motivated to try, where I remember to make good choices, where I try to just stay in the moment and not allow myself to fixate on using food for entertainment.  But then when that initial bout of extreme hunger hits, and an idea for complete indulgence enters my thoughts, I will find Crazed Addict Fatgirl almost giddy with excitement.

Oddly enough, the excitement is for how I will (supposedly) resume my restrictions the next day, after the indulgence.  Like somehow my resolve won’t be wiped away by pigging out on pizza or eating an entire entree of 3 crispy chicken tacos from Chili’s…or facing the 2-pound weight gain that will inevitably follow the next morning.

I can’t even remember anymore what it was that kept me on the straight and narrow long enough four years ago to get some momentum going and keep my motivation so that I actually took off weight.  I think it was the novelty of this blog, of starting something and knowing that a few people were looking and observing and would know what a loser I was if I just threw it all away.  I also had felt sort of desperate, where I knew I was on the edge of being obese, with no normal-sized clothes that would fit me.  So I stuck with it, and suddenly, after a week or two, it got a lot easier.

I’ve been focusing over the past week on adding more vegetables into my food choices.  Despite my vows to the contrary, this has been one of those habits that too easily has fallen by the wayside, and once I ditch the veggies, I find that I have also ditched anything resembling portion control, restraint, and balance.

I did this on Monday, when my husband made the most awesome pulled-pork sandwiches EVER.  I ate a full plate of carrots and cauliflower and then managed to restrain myself and have only ONE sandwich rather than two (which is what I had last time).  I also ate none of the chips that were available.  And it didn’t seem that difficult.

Yesterday I had veggies, but then I came home from a meeting and had to fix a steak dinner for the family, complete with my favorite garlic bread and Caesar salad.  Yes, it was foolishness, but honestly, in that moment, any shred of resolve left my mind.  I forgot completely that I even cared about trying to lose some pounds and get back into my good skinny clothes.

I actually prayed yesterday that God would take the little bit of resolve I do have and work with it.  And something of a miracle did occur today.

My husband was going to a baseball game this evening, so I knew that the kids and I were on our own for dinner.  I had it in my thoughts to go out and get something really indulgent for “linner” for us…something like Five Guys burgers and fries, or maybe my favorite tacos from Chipotle (and unfortunately, I’ve gotten in the habit of overloading them with ingredients and eating all three tacos rather than just two and some broccoli as I’d done before).

Yet oddly enough, as I contemplated the possibilities, it suddenly seemed to me like I wanted to have vegetables and a Lean Cuisine for dinner instead of some big non-restricted meal.  So that’s what I did.  The kids had their own favorite choices, but I had a Lean Cuisine and a plate of broccoli and tomatoes.

I haven’t been hungry tonight, despite finishing my food at 5 p.m.  I haven’t obsessed about the chips I know are in the pantry, or how good they’d be with a glass of wine while we watch TV.

I’m praying this mentality will continue.  I can vaguely remember that it relatively quickly becomes not-so-hard to think like this…to add veggies…to exercise restraint…

And I really do want to fit into my good clothes again.  A little more than 10 pounds would do it.  I can do that.  I had this moment of thinking that I’d like to lose 10 pounds by my birthday, which is a little less than a month away.  I’ve done that before in that time frame.  If I focus, I could do it again, or at least start myself on the way, getting pretty close to that goal.  I think I’m going to try.

Four Years New

I’m still here, still working out.  But I’m also still having the same ongoing issues with having ditched the vigilance – the perpetual sense that every choice mattered, every day – that brought about my original 30-pound weight loss.

I’ve too often fallen out of the habit of making sure I include veggies every day.  And I have to say that after about 3 years of attempting to “get back in the saddle,” only to fail time and again after a day or two of “food prison,” I’ve also fallen away from having healthy attitudes about food.  Way too often, I have this attitude of throwing off all restraints – of not even making myself think about what I’m eating.  And if I do think about it, it will usually be Crazed Addict Fatgirl who does the thinking.

Like, awhile back, when the weather was bad and I’d been fighting off a migraine and feeling a little nauseated, I discovered how very convenient it is that the sandwich place Jimmy Johns delivers.  Yeah.  They’ll deliver a single sandwich.  I discovered that one of the greatest ways to get over any headache-related nausea was to feast on a gigantic roast beef sandwich.  I’d eat a huge sandwich and also scarf down a bunch of barbecue potato chips and guzzle large glasses of Diet Coke…and while I wouldn’t really feel better in the end, there was a lot of momentary pleasure.  It did alleviate my nausea and my headache for whatever reason.  And of course, it also worked as a distraction, a way to break up the day and do something that felt slightly daring and rebellious and totally self-indulgent.  I mean, how bizarre is it to get lunch takeout delivered just for yourself?  (Yeah, I know – it’s not that bizarre, I guess.  But for me, in my world, it feels bizarre, like a funny little secret that the kids and the hubby don’t have to know.  Although I’d usually end up mentioning it to my husband.)

Anyway, my diet journey started 4 years ago, back in 2008, and it started – the ONLY way I could experience any measure of success – with total vigilance and complete restriction.  I stuck religiously to a homemade Jenny Craig-style plan, with specific entrees for specific days, certain amounts of fruits and vegetables, and specified servings of dairy products.

I took off about 25 pounds or so in a relatively short amount of time, maybe 3 months at the most.  I also began working out more religiously, 5 days per week or even 6.

I have maintained my workouts, for the most part.  But after I reached my goal weight, I became much less vigilant about my plan.  It’s not hard to track my gradual decline in self-control.  And ten pounds have crept back on.  I continue to hold off the really bad weight gains by coming back periodically to having a few days in a row of self-control.

But I would like to get back to where I used to be.  I would like to embrace healthier choices and normal portions (normal for a skinny person), rather than my extreme over-indulgences.

It doesn’t feel good to know that my swimsuits aren’t going to fit very well this summer.  They were a little tight last summer, a little uncomfortable, and I did not look as good in them as I had ten pounds ago.  I’d like that to change.

So I’m back at it again.  This doesn’t sound very exciting or enthusiastic, but it’s the best I can do.  The old ways from 4 years ago are, sad to say, new again.  They’re once again unfamiliar and difficult.  It’s hard to make myself think about my choices, think about portion control, think about resisting too-big amounts of my favorite foods.  For that matter, it’s hard to think about making myself give up some of my favorite foods, at least for awhile.

But it’s what I have to do.  I don’t want to be really overweight again.  And I know this is what it takes.

Weekend Update

Well, like I said, Friday night went OK.  Yesterday was just…well, I don’t know what was up.

I felt fine and yet was completely unable to get motivated to do anything.  I wasn’t particularly sluggish or lethargic physically…as I said, I felt fine…but I had no mental energy to force myself to get off my chair and do much.  I had a ton of laundry begging for my attention, and I also had every intention of going for a run.  It was a beautiful day here yesterday.  But none of that happened.  Instead, when I went upstairs to change into my workout clothes, I ended up lying down for awhile (“to read”) and eventually ended up taking a nap and ditching the workout altogether.

The day continued in similar fashion after my nap.  When I woke up, I just felt irritated and out-of-sorts.  And hungry.  My husband had put some racks of ribs on the smoker for a couple of his buddies who were over working on a car.  (Wow, don’t we sound like rednecks?  😀  The good news is that the car was never up on blocks, and its owner made the modifications with Hubby’s help and was on his way late yesterday afternoon.) When I’d come downstairs from my unplanned nap, a platter of ribs was sitting on the counter.  Instead of at least having veggies first, I poured myself a large glass of Diet Coke and ate something like 5 or 6 ribs.

Later, I didn’t feel like making any effort at all to pursue healthier choices.  The whole family sort of snacked on ribs the rest of the day, so all I fixed for dinner was a couple of new frozen pizza-ish things – “Dippin’ Strips.”  I ate 3 or 4 of the strips of the one that was like a cheese pizza, and of course I poured myself a glass of wine – because it was Saturday night and “I deserved it.”

Whatever.

After that, when husband told the kids he’d take them to Dairy Queen, I asked for a medium peanut butter cup Blizzard.  I just didn’t care at that point.

And that’s the way the day went.

Oddly, I didn’t wake up with a huge gain today.  I’m still in the high 160s, but I guess overall I didn’t eat as much yesterday as it felt like I did.

Today I woke up with renewed energy and commitment.  We ended up skipping church (we’d discovered that the regular pastor wasn’t speaking, and neither of us likes the assistant pastor’s preaching at all and couldn’t muster up the motivation to get ready and go) (yeah, we’re terrible).  So I went for a 4-mile run instead of church.

I’m committed to moving forward, forgetting my bad attitude and behavior of yesterday, and pushing on so that I can see a lower number on the scale.  I would love to get “down” to 165 this week.  I think it’s possible if I just stick to my plan and don’t even open the door of my thoughts to the possibility of cheating.