What Now?

So here I am. Back to where I was when I started working out at Living Lean. But that's actually not at all true. The number on the scale is back to where it was when I started at Living Lean. But when I started at LL I can guarantee you that I was not lifting the amount of weight I am lifting now. I am so much stronger than I was 2.5 years ago and that means something. 

2019            vs.         2020.
There is a 30+ pound difference in these pics. But honestly, I don't see it and that's a good thing.  

You all know that throughout my entire journey I have struggled with feeling like what I'm doing is not "good enough". I have done so much soul searching over the last 6+ months that I feel like I am finally starting to get somewhere. I never felt good enough because that number on the scale wasn't where it's "supposed" to be. I didn't feel good enough because I never got down to a "small" size. I never felt good enough because my stomach was never (nor will it ever be) flat. The fact of the matter is that we live in an incredibly "fat-phobic" world. We live in world where people think they can LOOK at you and determine if you are healthy or not. They assume that if you're thin you are healthy and if you are fat you are not. So what I really wanted was to finally feel like I looked like I was "healthy". The problem with that is I was never going to reach that goal. If my goal was to actually BE as healthy as possible I was already there. 

Pic from April 2019

Like I said in my last post, I was already struggling before this stupid pandemic with my weight loss. Maybe the real issue was that I was really in a great place, but I was reaching for something that wasn't going to be attainable. I saw myself as not doing something right because I was up about 10-15 pounds from my lowest weight that I had hit in May 2019. What I didn't see, is that between the end of May and January 2020 I had basically maintained my weight. I felt great. My behaviors were healthy. I was working out 6 days a week. I was eating mostly healthy while living my best life. BUT, the thing that was missing was me realizing that where I was was good enough. I felt great. I was increasing my strength all the time in the gym. In May I had run my fastest 10k. But all I saw was that I still wasn't 150 pounds. I still couldn't even get back down to the 175 I had hit in early May, so therefore it wasn't enough. When you're feeling like what you're doing and have done isn't enough it gets tiring. 

Running my fastest 10k - May 2019

 These last 6 months have been spent with me really trying to figure out what I WANT in this life. The problem is, I honestly don't know what I truly want. There is a part of me that really just wants to LIVE. I want to accept myself and  my body and know that my worth is not equal to some number on the scale or what my body looks like. I just want to do the best that I can do. I don't want to have to overthink what and when I'm eating. I want to just listen to my body and eat when I'm hungry and stop using food as anything else. 

And realize that I can still do amazing things

But then, I miss how I felt and (especially) what I looked like last year. But, I'm starting to realize that losing weight is never going to fix my own body image issues and it's not going to help my relationship with food. The only thing that is going to help that is for me to work on accepting myself wherever I am and realizing that what I want is to be as healthy as I can possibly be - and that means my MENTAL health as much as my physical health. Weight does not equal health. Now, I'm not saying that where I sit currently is healthy. It's not. But, I would say right now I'm not healthy because my mental health is not in a great place and therefore, my behaviors are not ones that support a healthy life. My health not being great right now has the LEAST to do with that number on the scale. And, it is possible that I can increase my healthy behaviors with little to no weight loss and that has got to be OK. If my only motivation to have healthy habits is to lose weight than what happens when my body stops losing? 

I've really been working on accepting myself as I am right now. I still go back and forth between what I really want to do, so sometimes I still track my food and sometimes I don't and just try to be more mindful about what I'm eating. I am working on not having wine every single weekend. Sometimes I feel like I'm making great strides. For example, in the first picture in this blog I honestly do not see a 30+ pound weight gain between those 2 pictures. And when Mary wanted to take pictures last night before our fancy dinner out to celebrate our anniversary; I didn't hate what I saw. Actually, I was able to look at the pictures and think they were really good pics. 

Right now this continues to be my main focus. Do I still want to lose weight? Yes. That's not going to go away over night. But, I am working to not care about what I weigh or what my body looks like. The focus needs to be taking care of myself so I can be the healthiest version of me. 

 

REALLY 2020???

 I don't even know where to start. And if you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that means this one will be a LONG one ;) 

To say I've been struggling this year would be the understatement of the century. 

I have NOT handled this pandemic well at all and I seem to continue to just dig my hole deeper and deeper. 

Well then......

So back in February before everything went to shit, I was already struggling with my mentality regarding this journey of mine. I posted about how I was really wanting to work on my mindset and that I wanted to focus on fixing my not "good enough" complex. Mid-January I blogged about how I was going to try to start eating to just be as healthy as I "want to be in that moment" and no longer worry or stress about hitting a certain number on the scale by a certain date on the calendar. I basically wanted to work on not tracking my food but still doing what I needed to do to lose the weight. 

Then, less than a month later I blogged about how I need to stop worrying about what is "right or wrong" in how I go through my journey and just do what works best for me. I decided that I was back to tracking and trying to lose weight. We were 40 days away from our Disney trip.......and 31 days later everything changed. 

Saw these on a walk

This particular Disney trip was special for us because Mary turned 16 on March 1st and we were bringing her best friend with us. I remember walking with her mom the first week in March and she asked if I was concerned about this whole "coronavirus" thing that the news keeps talking about. I said that I really wasn't because Disney is already one of the cleanest places I've ever been and that we would take extra precautions, etc. I then said that our plan was that we were going to Disney unless they closed it.....famous last words, right?

I celebrated my birthday on March 11th and on March 12th we found out that Disney was closing and our trip was obviously canceled. It was more than just our vacation getting canceled. It was the total and complete uncertainty of everything going forward. Disney closing?? WHAT? Disney never closes. This must be serious and scary and crazy if it is making a place like Disney close! But, I couldn't even logically think of that. In the moment I was just so sad that our trip was canceled. 

The kids didn't have school on March 13th because it was already a planned day off (teacher work day or something like that). In the end that was a very good thing because we took Mary to take her drivers test and she passed! Poor girl got her license on that Friday and very quickly had nowhere to go. By some time that day we got the message that Monday would be their last day in school and they would basically get an extra week of Spring Break and then go to remote learning. By the end of the weekend we were told that the kids actually were NOT having school on Monday and that they would be able to come in to get whatever materials they needed. 

This was all just so crazy. I let myself wallow that first week because I was just really upset with the fact that our trip was canceled. Well, then the next week was actually Spring Break and we were supposed to be at Disney so my wallowing continued. The spiraling had begun. 

I can't even express the things that I was feeling during this time. I was only leaving the house once a week to go grocery shopping. I bought so many things that I wouldn't usually buy. Part of that was because things that I would usually buy weren't there; but a bigger part was that I think I felt like if the world is ending what the hell does it matter what I eat? Clearly, depression and anxiety were settling in. 

Amazingly enough I did keep working out. Living Lean was streaming workouts through zoom and I was still doing those 3 days a week. Not only that, but they let members come and "check out" some weights to use at home. But it wasn't the same. The workouts were plenty hard (frankly they felt harder half the time); but they were becoming something I "had" to do rather than something I really wanted to do. But I knew that if I stopped working out everything I was feeling would be even worse. Although, considering how bad I felt during this time I can't even imagine how much worse it could have been. 

So yeah, it was hard. I didn't handle it well. I numbed myself with alcohol a lot and if I wasn't drinking I was probably eating; and I was often doing both. So now I'm here. I've gained back everything I had lost since 2018. I'm still down from my highest weight, but I am not happy with where I'm at and I am not happy with myself for doing this again. And yet, I'm still struggling. 

But I think this is a good place to stop this post. I definitely have more to say (go figure); but I think it's better for a separate post.