2,017 in 2017

As I was scrolling through Facebook one day I came across something in my newsfeed that caught my attention. There is this "virtual challenge" that is called Run the Year 2017. Even though it's called "Run" the Year, the purpose of it is to motivate people to get moving. You can sign up to cover the 2, 017 miles yourself or as part of a team. The miles don't have to all be running. You can actually sync your tracking device (fitbit, Garmin, etc) and count your total mileage for the day based on your steps.

You can see where this is going, right? So, yea, I signed up for it. And since I guess I don't tend to do anything small; I'm tackling the 2,017 on my own. That averages to over 5.5 miles per day. Sounds impossible, doesn't it? So, I may or may not hit this goal, but it'll be fun and interesting to reach for the stars.

2012 Cleveland Half

What's one way to help me reach my crazy mileage goal in 2017?? Why sign up for a race of course!

And that's exactly what I did! On May 21st I WILL be completing my 5th half marathon! The last half marathon I did was in May 2012. I hit my half marathon personal best in November 2011. I DO NOT think that I will beat this personal best (at least not yet), but I am so excited at the notion that I am actually getting back out there. And I do feel pretty confident in the moment that I can at least do as well as I've done in 2 of my other half marathons.

The official training has already started. The race is still about 20 weeks away so we have PLENTY of time. IF I can also manage to average a 1.5 lb/week weight loss in these next 20 weeks, I will be within 3 lbs of where I was when I hit my PR in 2011. And frankly, if I can average 1lb/week I'll still weigh less than I did when I complete my full marathon in 2012.

November 2011 Half Marathon

It'll be what it is. My hope is just that I can stay healthy enough during this training so that I can actually cross that start and finish line come May. The last time I signed up for a half marathon I ended up not being able to do it because I was too sick. This time I waited until I have been basically back to 100% for over a year before I even attempted to start running again. Health wise I feel better than I even felt in 2012 when I was training for a full marathon. This is probably pretty close to as good as I felt in 2011 when I started all this craziness. Eating healthy and losing weight (as well as exercising) should only help me to continue to feel good.

2012 Columbus FULL Marathon

Like I said, the training started on Tuesday with a 3 mile run. The re-focus on my food has started today. As I type this I am about to finish off an entire gallon of water on the day! My calories were on point with several left at the end of the day (when counting my exercise calories as well). We all know how this goes though. When I finally get my butt in gear and find my motivation I am RED HOT! The trick is keeping that heat for more than just a few days, weeks, months. There is nothing wrong with indulging once in a while; but this up and down has GOT to stop. I mean, how many years have I been saying this?? But, let's see if 2017 ends up being my year......again. ;)

Welcome 2017!

2017. Wow. How did we get here?

I can't believe I started this blog almost 5 years ago! I obviously hoped that after 5 years I would be at my "goal" weight and having to change the title of the blog. But, alas....

It has been a crazy 5 years and I feel like things are finally settling down. I have found a medication that has now been working for well over a year (**fingers crossed**). I continue my relentless battle with weight loss, but have gotten back on the fitness bandwagon.

Longest run since 2012!

In 2016 I got to a weight I hadn't seen since I started this blog. Unfortunately I welcomed 2017 having gained some of that weight back. BUT, I weighed less on 1/1/17 than I did on 1/1/16 and I am still down just over 20lbs from my highest weight. I'm obviously not happy that I let myself gain back so much of the weight I lost this year; but there's nothing I can do about it now so it's best to just MOVE ON.

I have found some new motivation in getting back into running and it makes me very excited. I found a new running partner and she is helping to get me back to running in a regular basis. She wants to complete a full marathon at least once in her life and I would love to do another one. We are helping to keep each other accountable to meet our goals. I've already told her that I can't do another full at my current weight and I frankly need to lose at least 30 pounds before that full marathon can happen. But, I know I can do this.


I am so hard on myself all the time and am my own worst enemy. I think when I got to my lowest weight in 2016 and realized I hadn't been there since 2012 I was a little disgusted by that. It made me realize how overweight I have let myself stay for the last several years. But this negativity doesn't motivate me. It ends up doing the opposite and I think subconsciously I somehow tell myself I can't do it anyway so I just stop trying.

When I feel like what I'm doing isn't good enough I try to find ways to show myself that they actually ARE good enough. Pictures are a great way to do this. In June 2015 we went to Disney and I was pretty close to my absolute highest weight. I had JUST started on this new medication and hadn't been off of steroids for all that long. I still had all the steroid puffiness; not to mention the weight gain from the emotional aspect of being sick. I basically hate looking at the pics from that trip; which is a shame because we get so many cute family pictures during these trips.

Well, over the summer we ended up booking our next Disney trip for December 2016. I started nutrisystem in June and was hopeful it would help me be around 200 lbs for this next trip to Disney. Yea. That didn't happen, so automatically I want to be hard on myself and basically tell myself what a failure I am. But this is exactly what I am trying to STOP doing. When I looked at the pictures from this trip I was actually mostly happy with them. Sure, I don't weigh 200lbs and I'm still very overweight; but I can look at them and see the improvement over the last 1.5 years. I decided to make a side by side pic comparison. I purposely brought and wore the same tank top as last year. The difference is amazing to me.

I don't have to tell you which picture is from which trip. To me the shirt even looks different. I can see differences from my head to my toes. I can't believe this is "only" about a 20 pound difference. I don't know when we're going to Disney again; but I do hope that I can add another picture to this comparison and see even more differences. Sure it would be great to be at my "goal weight", but it would still be cool to just continue to see differences.

So here's to 2017 and another year of my continued journey to "just fit".

So Much To Say

Usually when it's been this long between posts it means not so great things for me. It means that I once again have fallen off the wagon and am sick of posting the same old blog posts talking about how HARD it is.

My last post was June 17th when I was talking about good things with my weight loss journey and also annoyances with sizing for women's clothes. At the end of that post I was talking about the fact that I had reached a number on the scale that I hadn't seen since before 2013 and that I was only 2 pounds away from another decade.

Forget about how different I look...what the heck happened to my babies???

On July 16th I posted this comparison picture on Facebook. I did it because I am working on re-training my brain. I need to work on my self-esteem when it comes to how I SEE myself. I have a pretty good self-esteem when it comes to lots of things; just not with how I look.

I am so hard on myself all the time that eventually I just decide I must not be worth it. I don't think this was ever my conscious feeling; but clearly that is what has been happening over the last few years. There have been so many times when I've been losing weight and at some point I start to feel like it's not enough: not fast enough, not enough weight lost, etc. And obviously, this causes me to get frustrated and just give up completely. And yes, to be fair, I was quite sick between 2013 and 2015 and that was when I struggled the most with my weight. I had to fight every day just to function and had no energy left to fight with myself about what to eat (not to mention having the energy to actually exercise). BUT, it's not like I've only struggled with my weight since getting sick in 2013. I can acknowledge that as one reason why I've struggled so much over the last few years; but it's not the only reason.

2014 - Whole30 days 1 and 31

I am FINALLY feeling better with my health that I have the energy to fight the healthy living battle. It's amazing what you can do when you don't feel like you need to fight just to get through your day. I would say that I re-started this journey in Sept 2015. Yes, I took a hiatus from about December - March, but I never gained back all my weight so I am still seeing Sept at my "start date" for this time around. However, when I think about the amount of weight I've lost I naturally go to my highest weight I've ever recorded on April 22, 2014. That was the day I started the Whole30. Want to hear the really good news?? I have NEVER seen that number again! I lost over 16 pounds while I did the Whole30 and never gained it ALL back. This is actually pretty amazing for me. So, really, I started this journey on April 22, 2014.

Start date doesn't matter. The fact that I never give up is what matters. Every time I feel like I have given up I eventually realize I haven't because I get started again. I could go through old blog posts and count the number of times I said "this time will be different" or "this time IS different". So, I am not going to say that this time is different or will be different. What I am going to say is that for the first time in a long time (since probably 2011), I really feel like I might succeed this time. I am really feeling like I can keep this going indefinitely (which is what I need to do since maintaining is not any less of a battle than losing). Maybe what is helping is watching my mom go through her transformation of late. I know I mentioned it before, but she has lost somewhere around 50 pounds. It has probably taken her over a year to do it, but it feels like it happened over night (perhaps not to her).

So who cares if I still haven't lost all my weight by a certain date? And frankly, what does "all my weight" even mean? What arbitrary number am I trying to get to and why? Because some chart tells me that is what I "should" weigh? What I know is that I want to weigh less than I do now. I want to be able to run faster and farther. I want to be able to buy a women's cut shirt (even if it is an XL) and not have it be skin tight. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin when I do wear fitted clothes (which is frankly already happening).

October 2012 - Columbus Marathon

Today; in this moment, I am proud of myself. I am proud of every step I take each day towards reaching my goal. I am proud when I am able to find some balance and still indulge while continuing to lose weight. I am proud that I am able to see the many positive things that I am doing and that are happening with my body and mind. I realized today that the number on the scale this morning was pretty darn close to where I was when I crossed the finish line of my first full marathon! And, to touch on what I was talking about in my last post; I have hit a new decade and am almost halfway through this one to the next. As of getting on the scale this morning my weight is 34+ pounds lighter than it was on April 22, 2014 when I weighed my absolute heaviest. I am feeling positive and confident. I'll take it!

Strong vs. Skinny part 2

I do have lots of positive things to say in today's post; but first I have to just air out some annoyances.

I posted back on April 20th  about how I was frustrated while watching Dr. Oz because they were talking about that new show called Strong. The basic idea of that post was that I think these shows are just feeding into the thought that women are supposed to be skinny and being strong is great; as long as you're skinny and strong.

So today I was feeling SO good after getting on the scale this morning. I've been feeling pretty good lately and know that even when my scale wasn't really moving; it would at some point because I was staying below 1500 calories every day (except last Sunday). The scale rewarded me today for my hard work (but I'll get to that a little later).

After a pretty awesome jazzercise class with my daughter, we decided to go to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy some Cleveland Cavaliers shirts. The only shirt I have is a long-sleeved shirt and since it's now June that isn't really helping me cheer on the team in the Finals. I have been meaning to go to Dick's for WEEKS now and just hadn't gotten around to it. Since the Cavs won game 6 last night I decided I had to make it to the store now! Mary was wanting a shirt too so we went on our way home from jazzercise. I had seen some of the Adidas brand shirts online and I thought the woman cut shirts were cute. A nice v-neck and just a little more feminine than a regular, unisex t-shirt (but preferably not SKIN TIGHT).

Here's my first thing: I knew going into this that I would for sure need a 2xl in the woman's cut and even that would probably be more fitted than I wanted. This annoys the CRAP out of me! What are we telling women and young girls in this world about the size women should be? Now, I am not delusional about my size. I know that I'm a big girl and I frankly think it's appropriate that I would need a 2xl. But I also think a 2xl should fit me and not still be tighter than I want it to be. I think the double standard of the size of girls vs boys is ridiculous. I saw this awesome post on Facebook once where a guy put on his girlfriend's "extra large" shirt. This shirt was absolutely skin tight on him and he is maybe a medium. A MEDIUM!!!! There should not be that big of a difference. He also stated how she was in no way "extra large" by any definition.

Ok. The next thing that ticked me off was the fact that we went to Dick's to find shirts and they only carry up to XL in the ladies cut. I believe they went up to 2XL in the men's cut. This annoys me because I KNOW that Adidas made these shirts in 2XL in ladies. I don't think I've ever seen Dick's carry a size bigger than XL for ladies. I guess us big girls aren't wanted at Dick's. That's fine. I can take my money elsewhere.

What's annoying is us big girls have to start somewhere. If there aren't workout clothes to start in, how are we supposed to do what we need to do to get healthy? And I can guarantee you that even when I lose all my weight I would probably still only fit into an XL if it's a women's cut.

This especially made me angry today of all days because I was feeling REALLY good about myself. When I got on the scale this morning I saw a number I haven't seen since before 2013! The number today put me at 18.8 pounds down since March 20th; 11 pounds down since June 1st; over 25 pounds down since this time last year; less than 2 pounds away from a new decade; and lighter than I weighed when I completed my first half marathon in 2009!! Things are going well. I feel good and continue to feel motivated. I will do another post on a specific update about Nutrisystem....what I like, what I don't like, where I'm planning to go from here, etc.

1st week COMPLETE

I think it would be funny (or not) to see how many times since I started this blog in 2012 I had a week 1 weigh in. But, like I've said before, that means I haven't given up yet!

So, last week was week 1 with Nutrisystem. The program they have now is called "Turbo10" and in your first month's package they give you a special week 1 program to "jumpstart" your weight loss. They give you 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, 7 dinners, 7 turboshakes and 7 nutricrush shakes. You basically eat one of each of those things a day plus 4 servings (at least) of veggies and 64 oz of water. You are allowed to eat as many veggies as you want, but are supposed to get at least 4 servings. By yesterday I was actually even forgetting to get all my 4 servings of veggies in because I wasn't feeling overly hungry in between meals - awesome!

I decided to start tracking my food on sparkpeople again because that is the website I was using when I lost alot of weight in 2011. So, I quickly noticed that OF COURSE you'll lose weight in the first week because you aren't even eating 1200 calories per day! Yes, I know that eating less than 1200 calories for an extended period of time is not good and TRUST me when I say you have nothing to worry about! This was one week and I can not WAIT to go back to eating more calories on a daily basis!

Having said that, however, I will say that this first week really wasn't THAT bad. Perhaps it's because I had been fasting for 2 days per week so I was getting used to dealing with feeling hungry for a finite period of time. I knew that if I was hungry I would get to eat again in a few hours so it wasn't the end of the world. No one likes feeling hungry; but if we just chill out and realize we WILL in fact get to eat again (and soon) it's easier to deal with.

I was most proud of the fact that I followed the program almost perfectly for 7 days. I only say almost because I made caramelized onions and peppers a lot. I would cook them in oil and sometimes a little butter too. BUT, I was counting that in my tracker and even with that I was still ending most days around 1030 calories. I was all excited about being able to actually EAT today. What's funny about that is I ended the day right around 1330 calories and that included going to get ice cream after my son's baseball game! I chose the strawberry lemonade and watermelon sorbet with a few tiny chocolate chips. OMG it was SO good....and only about 100 calories since it's non-fat, non-dairy sorbet.

So are you wondering how well I did with my week 1 weigh in today?? Well, needless to say I was quite happy this morning. I have NEVER lost this much weight in one week. My total loss for week 1 was 7.8 pounds!!!! That puts me at a total of 15.6 pounds lost since March 20th and about 22 pounds lost since this time last year. I am absolutely not regretting having made this decision anymore. It did exactly what it needed to do and reignited my spark. I am feeling totally determined and confident that I CAN do this (again) and this time all the way to maintenance! Only time will tell and I'll be embarrassed if I eventually have to eat my words; but I won't EVER give up and that's all that really matters.

On to week 2.......

Small Changes = Big Successes

I wrote a blog post not so long ago about how I was no longer focusing on how fast I could lose this weight, but doing it in such a way that I could sustain it forever. You might be wondering why I then decided to start Nutrisystem and have a very strict week to "jump start" my weight loss. I've been sort of wondering that myself.

I've been thinking about why I made such a drastic decision to start a relatively restrictive program when I've been saying all along that I don't do as well when I put pressure on myself. The fact of the matter is I haven't done all that well, period. I can give whatever reason or excuse I want to, but I've fluctuated between 230 and 250 since 2013. Obviously what I've been doing isn't working. What I implemented in September WAS working; but it stopped for whatever reason. I should say, I stopped...for whatever reason. I think it comes down to the fact that I will always stop for some reason, for some amount of time. I think in reality almost everyone does. The difference is how long they stop for and how much "damage" they do when they stop. And perhaps THIS has to be the difference for me. 

In that blog post I said that there are times when food fuels your body and there are times when it just fills your stomach with not much nutritional value and that has GOT to be OK sometimes (for me at least). I still believe that to be true. However, I think I'm starting to realize that that is a great way to MAINTAIN my weight. And frankly, even though it has fluctuated by as many as 20 pounds; I would say that I've done an OK job of "maintaining" my weight for the last 3 years. I'll tell you what; if I can manage to fluctuate between 160 and 180 for the rest of my lift I will TAKE that and RUN! I clearly need to figure out how to get there because I think I have this "maintaining" thing down pretty well. It would also be nice if I could figure out how to not have it take 20 pounds before I decide I need to stop gaining weight!

So here's what I think is great about having made the decision now to try NS: My scale registered as low as 227.4 back in December; but only for a second before I was back up above 230 again. When the scale read 229.6 back on 4/29 and then 229 on 5/6....and STILL 229 on 5/13, I felt pretty determined to not let it go back up. BUT, I could feel myself slipping. I got out of focus due to my life circumstances and could just tell that getting myself re-focused wasn't going to be easy. Hence, I actually think making the decision to make a drastic choice like Nutrisystem was the smartest thing I have done in a LONG time. I made the decision towards the end of May so I had decided I was going to start June 1st because I wasn't going to challenge myself even more by starting on a holiday weekend. This allowed me to have about a week "off" with no guilt and without going too far backwards before starting again. My starting weight for Nutrisystem was 232.8. I was actually totally happy with that since I pretty much wasn't doing much for the majority of May and definitely went overboard eating and drinking the last few days of the month. So, not only did I "only" gain 3.8lbs;  but I knew a lot of that was just bloat and water weight from the days right before starting. Case in point...in one day on Nutrisystem I was back down 3 of those 3.8lbs.  

The fact that this time it didn't even take me gaining weight to realize that I needed to do something different to kick things into gear is awesome. I felt myself losing my focus and really didn't want to move backwards so I did something about it. Yes I went back above 230; but only for a second and only because I knew that I was going to be doing something strict so I was pretty confident whatever I gained would be lost quickly.

So  maybe I use NS for the next 2 months and then move to something else. Maybe I decide I really like it and the weight is just melting away so I stay on it for the next 6+ months. I don't know yet. But what I do know is that I'm no longer embarrassed about making the decision to try something else. I'm actually proud of myself. I'm proud that as soon as I felt my focus wavering I did something to get that focus back.

In the end I'm not changing my tune from that blog post. I still think I need to figure out a way to eat that will maintain my weight loss once I get there. I'm just realizing that I need to get there before I can worry about how I'll maintain it once I'm there. I'm not necessarily saying I need to focus on losing the weight fast or anything. I'm just saying maybe I can deal with being a little more strict now (which, in turn would likely lead to faster weight loss), so that I can get to the point where I am learning how to maintain.

Until next time.......

Impatience in NOT a virtue!

It appears I have a LOT to say today. Consider yourself warned for an even longer than usual post!

You know what is really funny? Reading through my old blog posts one right after the other. It is hilarious how often I contradict myself or change my tune. It's great how many times since 2012 I've said that THIS time is going to be different. I do like that one time I finally said I have no idea if this time will actually be different.

So, I left you last with my post about maintaining through a difficult time. Initially I was perfectly happy with maintaining my weight. The problem was (is) that it is always a slippery slope for me when I'm no longer focusing on a certain strategy. The strategy may be to eat healthy 4-5 days out of a week and not focus on the weekend. It may be to calorie count all the time and try to stay under a certain number of calories. It may be to fast a couple of days a week and then eat to maintain the rest of the time. Whatever it is, I need to be following some sort of a plan. When I start to fall short of whatever plan I'm on at the time, I obviously lose my focus and start to slip more and more.

Prior to my mother in-law's death I had started a new plan. I hadn't discussed it on the blog because it's kind of a controversial way to lose weight and I didn't feel like having to defend my decision. I had done a ton of research on it prior and was confident it was a good decision for me. And I still think it wasn't a bad one. I followed IF (intermittent fasting) for about a month. If you google IF you'll find lots of information on it and lots of different programs you can follow. The one I followed was called Eat Stop Eat. Basically I was fasting for 24 hours 2 times a week and then eating to maintain (so like 2000 calories) on the other days. This was working quite well for me. I lost almost 9lbs in the month that I did it. But then my mother in law died and I lost my focus. I was back in that limbo phase of not really doing anything, but still kind of trying to lose weight. That's not a good place to be.

On Mother's Day we got together with my family and I saw my sister after she had been on Nutrisystem for about 6 months. I have not seen my sister look that small in a long time. So my mom looks awesome because she's lost a bunch of weight and my eldest sister looks great because she's lost 30+ pounds and then my other sister has also lost about 30lbs since the beginning of this year. Obviously as I was still focused on dealing with Marty's death I wasn't concerned about any of this at this point.

Fast forward to the days after the funeral and the need to get things back to "normal" and I found myself researching Nutrisystem. I have tried MANY weight loss programs. Basically ALL programs work for me (and for anyone for that matter) as long as you're able and willing to work them. It's finding the program (or programs) that will continue to work for you forever. I think what I'm finding is I may need to forever change things up a bit to keep me from getting bored or something.

Sorry for the language but this one was too perfect!

The IF was working great and I was happy doing it. But, I found myself slowly eating more and more on my eat days. It was likely just because I lost focus, but when I lose focus on the program I'm currently doing I tend to find it hard to find that focus again. I felt stupid (and still feel stupid actually) even considering doing Nutrisystem. I mean, I keep trying all these new things and NOTHING seems to work for me. Why would I think that this would be any different? And it's not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. I have never done something like Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig before because I refuse to cook and eat separate meals from my family. But when I was talking to Drew about it I thought perhaps that's part of the problem. I'm not willing to try something that might actually work for me because I'm too focused on taking care of everyone else but me. So what if I use Nutrisystem to lose weight and the rest of the family needs to fend for themselves for a few months? If it means they have a healthier, happier mom/wife isn't it worth it?? What appealed to me about Nutrisystem was the fact that I wouldn't have to think about it. They send you food and you eat that food along with fresh fruit/veggies and you're good to go.

Drew told me that if I was going to do it he would do it with me. That made me feel a little less stupid because it made me feel like he at least was supporting me and not thinking I'm being ridiculous by trying yet another weight loss program. I justified the price by taking it out of our food budget for the month and hoping that the rest of the groceries I need won't push us too far over that budget.

Remember this. Always keep looking for what works for YOU.

On June 1st we officially started Nutrisystem. With the Turbo10 program the first week is VERY strict and it's designed to help "jump start" your weight loss. I am back to weighing myself every day because I realized that when I lost all that weight in 2011 I weighed myself EVERY DAY (minus a day here and there) for over 6 months! I stopped weighing (and recording) my weight every day and I gained the weight back. When looking at my numbers from back then I realize that the number on the scale each day must not have bothered me because there were days I was up multiple pounds in a day....and I just kept going. So, I track my weight daily again, but I also plan to look at my weight on a weekly basis (since the daily weight fluctuates so much). I started Nutrisystem on a Wednesday so that means Wednesday's will be my official weigh in day.

I have not yet decided how long I am going to stay on Nutrisystem. I have to do it for at least 2 months because you basically get a "discount" when you sign up for the auto-delivery program. If you cancel after only one month you end up having to pay a $99 fee since you are paying back that discount. It's expensive enough that I refuse to pay that extra $99. So, 2 months at minimum. My guess is Drew probably won't need much more than those 2 months so perhaps he'll stop after that and I'll keep going for a little while. Perhaps 2 months on this will be the kick start I need to get myself back into the habit of not only counting calories, but keeping my calories around 1500 a day (which is about where I was in 2011 when I lost weight). I know I don't NEED Nutrisystem to do that since I've done it in the past. But, if it helps to get me totally back on track finally (after 5 years!) then so be it!