The Struggle is REAL

It's no secret I like my wine.

Sometimes I wonder if I like my wine a little too much. But honestly, it's been really no problem to give up wine so far this month. There has only been 1 time that I can remember where I even thought about wanting to get it and the fact that I "couldn't" have it. But, it wasn't even that much of a struggle. I just happened to be at the grocery store on a Saturday and thought, hmm..I'd sure love to have some wine tonight; but I'm not drinking wine this month so too bad. I wasn't angry; it didn't make me sad; it was just a thought for a second and then it passed.

It's also no secret I like my fast food - specifically McDonald's.

I know there is no doubt I like my McDonald's way too much! I know that any time I try to "control" my intake it spirals out of control. Sometimes it takes months and sometimes it only takes days to spiral out of control. But it ALWAYS does. Even so; this month has really not been overly difficult to stay out of the McDonald's drive thru. Amazing! Right?? I would say it's actually been slightly more difficult to give up McDonald's than it has to give up wine. Sitting here right now I can think of at least 2 (there were probably more) times that I really wanted to just go through the drive thru. But again, it was more the thought process of this is what I would USUALLY do and I made the promise not to do it this month so I'm going to stick with that. It's just that it took a moment of conscious effort to realize that I can't do what I would usually do because I made a promise to myself not to.

On to the 3rd thing that I decided to give up this month (and most of next).......the flippin' scale. 

I have officially decided today that my biggest current addiction is that damn scale! The last time I attempted to weigh myself was Feb. 9th and then I wrote this blog post about how I was going to stay off the scale until my infusion on March 27th. If you recall, on Feb 9th my scale was being funky and the weight was surely not accurate. So, I actually last weighed myself on Feb. 8th. Unbelievably it has been 13 days since I last weighed myself and I think I have fought with myself every morning to not get on that scale. Sometimes I fight with myself in the middle of the day. Sometimes I fight with myself at night. Basically any time that I am in the bathroom and about to get into the shower or it's first thing in the morning (which would be when I usually weigh myself). Man, it is annoying.

The good news is that I think I am losing weight. I went shopping this weekend to look for a different shirt to go with a specific skirt I already have. I ended up buying 2 shirts and a pair of pants because I just couldn't decide. The pants are just workout type pants and I saw that they were on sale so I decided to "just try". They were "only" an XL off the "regular" rack so I didn't really think they would fit. Not only did they fit, but they are so comfortable! And they really fit! I mean, not like they fit OK and they'll fit better when I lose more weight. No! They fit great and frankly will probably be too big in another 10 pounds! I didn't care. They were off the regular rack! And the 2 shirts that I ended up buying? Yea, those were XL's off the regular rack as well! The thought I had Saturday is that if the XL didn't fit I wasn't going to buy it. I think I may stick with that.....no more plus size clothes! If a "regular" size doesn't fit it means I don't get it!

Of course my positive shopping trip made me want to weigh myself even more! But, I have stayed strong and have stayed off the scale. It is going to suck to have to continue to fight with myself to stay off that scale until March 27th; so hopefully the fight will get easier between now and then! And hopefully it will have been worth it and the scale will be friendly at the doctor's office.

OBSESSED!!

Things have been tough lately. But I'm sure you already knew that.

Before we go any farther though; here's the GOOD news: I AM STILL TRYING. I put that in caps more to get the good news through my thick skull than anything else. Remember this lovely post from WAY back in 2012? It was listing my 13 goals for 2013 and one of those goals talked about how I inevitable fall off the healthy wagon in November or December (or October) and sometimes most times can't seem to get back on track until APRIL! It is now 2017 and I will say that prior to this year I have continued to struggle with this particular goal.

The biggest difference this year is I have someone holding me accountable and making sure I get out there to exercise. Because of her I have signed up for my 5th half marathon and it is entirely possible for me to be pretty darn close to "ONEderland" in time for this half marathon.

This is not to say that it has been EASY this year. It's been far from it. I've spent lots of time doubting myself and how I'm choosing to approach this weight loss. I had kind of an "ah-ha" moment today so I figured it was time to blog!

I decided to go back through my food diary to see what I could see about my habits so far this year. That very first week (so from Jan. 4th to Jan. 10th) I lost 5.2lbs. And actually I had lost the 5.2 between the 5th and 10th because I didn't weigh myself on the 4th for whatever reason. During that week I had NO wine, I ate out a total of 4 meals over 3 days (so one "bad" day of 2 meals out), and had only 2 days above 2000 calories. My average calories consumed that week were 1799 and the average calories burned per day was 672.

On the other hand, the following week was when things started going in the opposite direction. The first 2 days of that week (so Wednesday and Thursday) were still great. Calories were well below 2000 and calorie burn was over 700 both those days. Makes sense since I hit my lowest weight of this year on that Friday Jan. 13th. It all went downhill after that. So, for that 2nd week I had wine 2 days, ate out in some capacity EVERY single day that week (!), and had 4 days over 2000 calories. I worked out a lot and burned more calories, but overall I got complacent (already!). In the end, I still did lose weight, but it was a total of .2lbs from the previous Wednesday...and it was UP from the lowest weight that I had hit on that Friday. In all honesty, things went down hill from there. The next week I didn't fully track 3 out of the 7 days! When I did track, I was above 1800 calories each day. It's no wonder I gained 2 pounds that week.

What's so interesting about all this is I was SO upset about gaining that weight because I lied to myself so well that I actually believed I was still doing everything right! I wasn't. I may have felt like I was doing everything "right" because on the days I tracked I kept my calories in the range MFP indicated was "OK". But I still didn't fully track 3 days that week and ate a lot of calories on the days that I did track!

The positive of me being obsessed and continuing to analyze my "data" is that I now feel better! I feel like I know what I have to do and I feel like I CAN do it! I already took care of 2 of those biggest issues with my pact to have NO wine or McDonald's throughout the month of February. I feel more at ease that if I continue to honestly track my food, I can manage 2 days a week with slightly more calories (above 2000).

I made the statement in my last post that I was going to stay off the scale until my next infusion. I have NOT gotten on the scale since then. It's so funny to me because it has been harder for me to stay off the scale for 5 days than it has for me to have no wine or McDonald's for 14. 😆For now I plan to stay off the scale. I don't currently trust my scale so I'm afraid it may do more damage to my psyche than it's worth right now. HOWEVER, I like that I was able to look at my food diary and compare it to my weigh-in's from week to week. I feel like I'm going to want that again in the future to see patterns or trends in my journey. But for now I will leave it as it is and TRY my best to stay off the scale. And when I do re-introduce the scale into my bathroom I will try my best to do a once a week weigh in.

Until next time.......oh, and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY everyone! 💖

Death of a Scale

The DREADED scale. I hate the damn thing. But yet I can never seem to stop using it!

The scale has been causing quite a commotion with me lately. If you've been around here for even a second you know I have a love/hate relationship with my scale. You know that I go back and forth with how often to weigh myself. Back in 2011 when I lost about 40 pounds I weighed myself almost every day for about 29 weeks! That's crazy, but clearly it worked for me at the time. I look back at those numbers now and wonder how I didn't let it get to me. I probably did, but I don't remember it. I didn't lose the weight quickly either so it's not like the number was going down every day or anything. It would go down, then up, then maybe up some more, then way down, etc. 

So when I decided to get down to business this year I thought I'd weigh myself every day again. It was going really well for the first 13 days of the year. During that time the scale was pretty much dropping every day. I think it stayed the same for 2 days during that time, but then after it stayed the same for 2 days (and then barely changed the 3rd day), it dropped a full pound....on Friday the 13th of all days! Perhaps THIS was the whole problem because the annoyance starts there. I decided to use Friday's as my "official" weigh in day. I like doing Fridays because it sometimes motivates me to stay on track over the weekend; and if it doesn't I have 4 days to be really good before I have to officially track my weight again. 

Well, I continued to track every day and keep my calories in the range My Fitness Pal recommended. There were several days I had LOTS of calories remaining on the day (some days even over 2000 because of how much I burned)! But alas, the scale was creeping up EVERY single day. By the time I "officially" weighed in on the following Friday I was UP 2.2 lbs from the previous Friday. Needless to say I was NOT happy. The next week my calories were high, but still within their recommendations and by the time Jan 27th rolled around I was UP yet again. It was "only" .4lbs, but it didn't matter. That was the same Friday I got up and went to Jazzercise with my friend at 5 AM! I sat in her car and cried on the way because I was SO upset about the damn scale. 

Enter my last post and the thought that something needed to change for February. Due to the fact that I let myself have a TOTALLY free Jan 31st (and perhaps a few days before that as well), I started Feb 1st weighing MORE than I did on Jan 1st! I knew this wasn't actual weight gain because there was no way I was eating that many calories more than what I needed. Anyway, I was right because after just one day of eating better (no fast food and mostly whole foods), the scale went down 4.6 lbs! It went down again the next day and since that was a Friday, it was down .6 from the previous Friday. I was feeling better about this until the scale started going up again last Saturday. I was mad because I tracked my food on Friday and even though I ate over 2000 calories, I still had over 900 "remaining" according to MFP. The scale being up Saturday threw me into a tizzy and I ended up eating around 2700 calories on Saturday - and that was on a day I did NOT exercise so I was OVER my calorie range by more than 1000 calories. I got it back under control on Sunday, but the scale was still moving up. Ok; but then, again, with one good day it dropped back down. I was starting to think I could handle stepping on the scale daily and just taking a mental note of what the trends are. But then when I had a day that I ate 1748 calories and had 1095 remaining and was UP the next day (yesterday); I was once again NOT a happy camper. 

I came to the conclusion that this is so hard for me because it IS all about that damn number for me. The whole "wanting to just be healthy" thing doesn't do it. It doesn't do it because if you take away my weight number, most of my other numbers are healthy. I exercise anywhere from 6-8 hours a week. I have completed several races at over 200 lbs (MOST of them actually. I think I only crossed 2 finish lines weighing less than 200). So, clearly to ME, being "healthy" means being at a "healthy weight". And, as much as I maybe don't feel the need to weigh 150 pounds; I certainly feel the need to weigh less than 200 pounds. And I DEFINITELY feel the need to weigh less than 225 pounds! So this is what I tend to focus on. If I feel like I'm doing "everything right" and the scale isn't cooperating I let it completely derail me. 

I was in a FUNK yesterday. Again, the scale dictated my mood and I HATE that. I thought about staying off the scale today but then I got on it anyway. A funny thing happened....it went crazy on me! It took forever to decide on my weight and when it finally did it was WAY off. I mean, I'd be happy if I actually DROPPED 8 pounds from yesterday; but somehow I don't think that happened. I stepped on it again (just to check) and this time it just kept scanning through the numbers and just turned off. I decided it was divine intervention. Someone is telling me that I need to get off the stupid scale! But it's not that easy. It's not just about getting off the scale. It's about actually BELIEVING that if I eat better and continue to exercise the number on that scale WILL eventually go to where it "needs" to be. The fear is that if I'm NEVER getting on the scale I will be more likely to think that I can maybe "get away" with eating too much because I feel like my clothes fit better or I'm happier with how I look or whatever. 

The McDonald's and wine fast for the month of February is going well. I feel like when I make a declaration on here I'm more likely to do it. I've actually had very little problem (so far) keeping my McD's and wine fast (even through all this frustration). Now I'm thinking that perhaps I should tack on another goal for the month of February (and most of March) to STAY OFF THE SCALE. I'll be weighed when I go to my next Entyvio infusion on March 24th. This is not going to be easy and I may not succeed; but this is my goal. It's not JUST about staying off the scale though. It's about actually working on making a shift in my brain to trust the process. To know that as long as I stay the course the scale will eventually show results. 

So that's where things are at for me. We'll see how this new challenge goes!

Time to Get Serious

January is over and although my activity was on point and I FELT like my eating was pretty darn good; it wasn't where it needed to be. I went into January with the idea that I would track my food and exercise on MyFitnessPal and as long as my calories stayed in my range I was good to go. The problem with this was that I was burning so many calories it was EASY to fit unhealthy food into those calorie ranges. I mean, there was at least one day where I ate over 3,000 calories and still had several hundred I "could" have eaten.

Breakfast 

Most days I would say I ate between 1900 and 2500 calories. But, I don't necessarily think it was the calories so much as where they were coming from. I was eating a LOT of fast food during the month of January. I was steadily losing weight between January 4th (when I started) and January 13th when I hit my lowest weight on the month. By Jan 13th I was down 6.6 pounds. Starting on Jan 14th my weight started going in the other direction. Looking at my food diary I am still a little frustrated because there were plenty of days when I had over 1,000 calories "remaining" according to MFP. But, I don't think I ever ate less than 1900 calories on any given day; so it wasn't like I wasn't eating enough. I often like to try to convince myself I'm not eating enough, but I think that would only be true if I were eating less than 1200 calories.

I was quite upset last Friday when the scale was up over 2lbs from the previous Friday. I was literally in tears to my friend and decided at that point something had to change. I made the decision to challenge myself with 2 very important things for February.

Lunch. I just LOVE the avocado, bacon, turkey roll-ups

GOAL #1 = NO WINE

GOAL #2 = NO MCDONALD'S

I am not yet making the decision to go completely fast food-free, because it really is McDonald's that is the trigger for me. I significantly cut my wine intake in January so that shouldn't be as big of a deal. But, in a month of trying to lose weight I still ended up eating McDonald's TEN TIMES!!!! Not OK.

After doing that soul searching and making that decision I started thinking more about what I can change. For February my two main focuses will be on the above goals. However, I also decided that I am going to try to keep my calories between 1500 and 2000 every day; regardless of how many calories I burn. Well, not regardless. Basically on days I burn lots of calories I can eat up to 2000 if I feel the need and on days that I don't burn as many calories I want to try to stay closer to the 1500 mark.

Dinner - Beef Stew

I was also re-reading a lot of my posts from when I did the Whole30 back in 2014. There were plenty of things I ate during those 30 days that I really enjoyed. I KNOW that if I focus more on whole foods to fill up those 1500 calories I'll have an easier time staying in that range.

Today was a pretty good day. I ended my calories right around 1600 and ate all whole food today. I was definitely hungry today so that kind of sucked; but I dealt.

YUMMY snack!

I do enjoy healthy food. I like eating turkey with bacon and avocado with veggies as a side. I enjoy the raspberries with walnuts as a snack. My breakfast wasn't anything that made me feel deprived. I mean, I had a sausage patty, over-hard egg and a slice of cheese! So why don't I eat like this all the time? WHY do I want to be able to eat crap on a daily basis? It really doesn't make much sense.

For now the journey continues. We'll see how February goes with these new goals put into play. Oh, and in case you're wondering; after being down 6.6 lbs at the start of the month I ended up weighing in this morning UP from Jan 1st! ARGH! But, to be fair, I ate and drank last night knowing that I was going to be more strict with myself this month. I'm guessing that water weight will come off pretty quickly. Hopefully February is a better month for my weight loss!

Blessed

It's been an interesting week.

So, I resumed tracking my calories on MyFitnessPal on January 4th. That first week and a half was great and by Friday the 13th I was down 6.6 from my weight on January 1st. Needless to say I was quite ecstatic with this.

Last week I was exercising like a fiend. It wasn't necessarily on purpose, but more so because that's just how my workouts happened to fall. Here's what my week looked like exercise-wise:

• Sunday: Walk 3 miles (I didn't have anything on the schedule Sunday, but I decided to just walk on the treadmill leisurely). 
• Monday: Run 5 miles in the morning; an hour of Jazzercise in the evening.
• Tuesday: Run 3 miles in the morning; an hour strength class in the afternoon. 
• Wednesday: Jazzercise in the evening.
• Thursday: Run 3 miles in the morning; strength class in the afternoon. 

If you're counting, that's 8 workouts in 5 days. Needless to say I was burning tons of calories. MFP adds those workout calories to your daily target so my target was pretty insane most days. I didn't even come close to eating all my "allowed" calories on the days that I ran and did another workout. 

You can imagine how incredibly frustrated I was when I saw the scale creeping up during the week. By Friday (the day that I had decided to be my "official" weigh in day) my weight was UP 2.2 pounds from the previous Friday! W.T.F!?!?!?! 

Ok. So LOGICALLY I KNOW to just stay the course and it will come off. My body will catch up with what I'm doing and I'll have a great week where I just drop a bunch of weight. I also know that working out as much as I did this past week will result in some major water retention (especially since I incorporate weight training). But none of that makes it any easier to see THAT much of a gain when you feel like you've been working so hard. 

That dreaded scale. I've blogged about it several times before. That scale can sabotage me regardless of how I'm using it (every day, once a week, attempting to do once a month, etc). Seeing those numbers go up this week made me once again think that perhaps I need to just stay off the scale for a while and focus on what I'm doing. IT'S JUST SO HARD!! I mean, I am doing this because I just like how I feel when I'm more active. But, I also want to lose this damn weight. I want to see what I can do fitness wise when I'm actually at a "healthy" weight. That makes it hard to NOT focus on what the scale is doing. 

But then today happened. 

I got up early and met my friend for our weekly long run. We had 6 miles on the schedule today. I haven't done 6 miles since 2013. And frankly, I think in 2013 I got to about 7 miles into my half marathon training when I got sick again and had to make the decision to NOT do the Columbus half marathon. 

I told Leslie that we had to plan for at least 1 1/2 hours to get the 6 miles done. I haven't been too happy with my run times lately and I didn't want to expect any more for this one. I was also thinking that in the past I had taken close to that time to finish a 10k so it seemed appropriate to me. You can imagine my excitement when we finished in 1:24. 

But it wasn't even just that. I was actually able to put aside any negative feelings I was having before this morning and feel GRATEFUL that I was ABLE to get up early this morning and run these 6 miles. Was it tough? Of course it was. But I can't express how awesome I felt at 8:30 this morning when I completed the first 6 miles since 2013. What the scale says no longer mattered. I go back to thinking; man, look at what my body CAN do! 

I am sure there will be more times when the scale ticks me off. For today though, I don't care what that scale says. On to next week. The only day I have 2 workouts in one day will be Thursday when I am scheduled to run 3 miles and then have my workout class in the afternoon. Hopefully the scale will decide to reward me for my continued efforts. In the meantime, my official half marathon training starts this week! 17 weeks and I WILL be crossing the finish line of my 5th half marathon. An enormous thanks to my friend, Leslie....without her I wouldn't be where I am today and I wouldn't be talking about my 5th half marathon in 17 weeks either!

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".