Sunday, September 30, 2012

Looks like I'll be praying for some more strength and wisdom. Great message but I didn't hear what I wanted to. Such as life :).

To Be Continued....

Getting ready for Sunday morning service and very anxious to hear what's next in the series, "Rebuilding".  Since I feel something has been left unresolved, I need to know what to do next to move forward. I'm afraid of what I might hear today.  I'm completely putting this in God's hands and praying that I hear what is said clearly.  I am sure that He does not want me feeling the way I do about some things.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Weigh in day!  I hate weighing myself; the anxiety I build up is ridiculous. I usually do it first thing when I get to work, the company scale is in my office, but this morning I had an appointment with my chiropractor and another crucial matter to deal with first, therefore my anxious moments were extended.

Ah, the chiropractor...heaven.  I have grown accustomed to being sore; so much so that when I am not I actually miss it.  I use my soreness as sort of a benchmark so I could determine how tough my workouts were and/or if I did it the way I should have,  For the most part I know how sore and where the soreness should be after most workouts.  With no intense workouts the last 2 weeks I've been sore less and painless. When he was working on me today, I was surprised  that I felt so much of that "good" pain while he was stretching me.  He is awesome; he starts with my feet and ends up at my head.  He worked on me for almost an hour again. I would have to say, that out of the chiropractors I've seen in the last 12 months (a total of 4) he is by far the best. You all just need to go see him!

Got my first intense workout in today at work.  A group of co-workers have been meeting on Fridays during lunch.  One of my favorite things about this wellness program at work is that people will do things, like this, even when the trainer isn't around.  In addition to that, there are people who don't work out with the trainer that participate to.  Reyna, who leads the workout, has been working out and doing crossfit type stuff for a few years now.  I was so excited to see what she was going to throw together.  THEN I noticed she was reading a workout from her phone that the trainer sent haha.  It was pretty funny.  Anyway, she is one of the 2 or 3 best motivators we have right now.  Our workout today was 200 jump ropes, 50 superman's, 50 sit ups, 160 jump ropes. 40 Superman's, 40 sit ups, 120 jump ropes, 30 superman's, 30 sit ups, then 80,20,20 then 40,10,10.  I thought I was going to DROP DEAD but I finished and I wasn't even last.  It felt pretty good to be out there with the group again.  The jump ropes we used today are brand spank'n new.  They are made of a coated cable and even have ball bearings. They even needed to be cut to size, they are pretty awesome...yup and they hurt like a mother and leave marks!  I was pretty excited to use them.

Immediately following the workout I headed back to my desk and sat down.  I was a MESS,  My breathing and my chest felt heavy.  I was saturated, dripping with sweat and my face was the reddest I've ever seen it. Within a minute of plopping myself into my chair and leaning back to die one of our VP's walked in, he stops and looks at me with this face like someone stole his Butterfinger and says, "I hate to even ask you this...But can you tell me where Kelly's BBQ is?"  I just laughed and said, "C'mon I'll show you" but couldn't budge so I just gave him directions.  Kelly's has a great all you can eat buffet...YUM!

My eating was spot on again today.  The entire week has been pretty great.  I feel so much better...no surprise there.  I'm sure if anyone goes through my entire blog they will find the same stuff over and over again.  The only method of diet I'm consistent with is the "stop & go" method.  It's so frustrating. Maybe once I get through the next 5 or 6 weeks I'll be able to maintain consistency or, at the very least, be able to get a grip on my emotions and prevent binging.

That's it for me for the week...happy weekend everyone and enjoy!

Oh, by the way...I lost a total of 9.5 lbs in the past 11 days...happiness!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Within Reach

It's been a busy, emotionally draining day.  At least 4 people came into my office and shut my door to talk.  There's nothing I love more about my job then when an employee feels comfortable enough to come to me and share what they are going through.  Helping them and guiding them through things is such a great reward.  I truly love the way God has me serving people; I really believe that just may be my purpose in this life.

Yesterday my little trainer said we are going swimming for tonight's workout.   He said to me, just like this, "so Maria, how much time can I have with you tomorrow?"  me:  "30 minutes"  Justin: "Great!  We will warm up on the way to the pool and go swimming."  Me: "sounds good."  Turns out he forgot what he said (PHEW!) so we did some other things, one of them being sit ups while he put pressure on my stomach to make it difficult for me to sit up...it was harder then I thought it would be haha.

Since I've been pretty much pain free a good part of this week tomorrow I am going to work out at lunch with my co-workers.  I'm going to  a  chiropractor in the morning so I should be well prepared to handle whatever we are doing. 

This will be my second appointment with this new chiropractor I'm seeing since I came up with this game plan for myself.  I started with him this past Monday. He worked on me for almost an hour.I felt so much better after leaving his office.  My hope is to see him 1-2 times a week until I feel I am in a good place.  I'll probably need him even more when I go back to working with the trainer.  I'm okay with how I've done with my eating the last 2 weeks but disappointed that I haven't gotten in any challenging workouts.

I've decided to add an 18 hour fast to my diet for the month of October.  Aside from other benefits,  doing such a fast really gave my confidence a good boost simply because it was an accomplishment.  It also plays a part, in me becoming more disciplined. I'm focusing on going back to the basics.  The basics being whatever I did, felt, thought when I was consistent and successful. 

That point still seems pretty distant to me but not out of reach.  I was always in such a rush to succeed; I would stress myself out and bring myself down with the fear that things would change before I succeeded.  Now, almost 4 years later, the fear I had is reality, there's nothing to lose, so there's no reason to rush. As I do this I pray that there is patience with myself,more stability and less stress this time around. 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Rebuilding Snafu...

I was pretty excited about the new series they are doing at church...Rebuilding.  This is perfect for me.  I am in the process of "rebuilding" myself for the first time, on my own...perfect timing.  I listened to the message; it was loud and clear.  Basically, you can't rebuild until you confront any outstanding concerns, issues, whatever you want to call it.  How hard could this be?  Shouldn't be too bad.  There are a couple of things I needed to resolve, for myself, to really get into this process.

For me, confrontation is never easy...conversations for that matter can be difficult at times.  I thought about my situation, what I needed to confront and came up with a couple of things that I would need to approach; mostly within myself.  Confrontation, with myself, can even be a chore since I am a big over thinker, I wonder if some of that maybe that I lack confidence and some ability to believe in myself.  So I sorted those things out and, I think, I have done pretty well with them over the last couple of days.  Easy enough, right? Sure, until there is someone else in the situation.

For the most part, I lived my life hiding my own feelings, opinions, thoughts because I have this fear of hurting others even though most have no issue with voicing their opinions to me and I usually don't mind hearing it.  For that I am grateful, except when people are being hateful.  For the few people who can tell me things in a constructive, positive way it has helped me to heal and grow.  I wanted to approach the  situation gently, make it as quick, painless, and positive as possible so I can move forward with my rebuilding plan.

Things did not go as I hoped they would. This is just another confirmation that things just don't go away; when they become contained sooner or later something triggers it and things become blown out of proportion.  I have realized now more then ever that being this way for so long does not help anything or anyone; it eventually makes things worse, harder to deal with, and/or can pretty much disrupt/ruin relationships.

So where do I go from here?  How do I fix this?  I'm at a loss.  I am just praying on it and hoping that next weeks message will be about "Rebuilding after Rebuilding Snafu". 

Moving forward, things are going well...a ton of stress today and not 1 problem with my eating.  Accomplishments are wonderful!


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Really, is it only Tuesday?  I am spent!  TJ and I are so grateful that there is no running around tonight.  We are sitting on the back porch relaxing while the boys are reading.  It has been quite a day, good, for the most part still draining non the less.

Today at work we had 401k meetings; I was anticipating many, including myself, dozing off during the seminar.  I must say the information was pretty darn good and the speaker was very engaging.  We have another session tomorrow, I'm looking forward to it.  We had lots of great feedback on the speaker as well as the material presented.  I must admit, we have a pretty damn good HR department; things were well planned, organized, and executed very well...hope I just didn't jinx myself for tomorrow.

I was a bit frazzled for a good part of the day.  I had to get in my car and just go for a ride to unwind and clear my head.  I was starving at the time but managed to avoid stopping and eating anywhere.  Once I collected my thoughts I headed back to work and ate what I had prepared.  I hate being stressed but there is nothing more rewarding to me then being able to not give into my urge to eat when I'm frazzled, upset...whatever it is I just know that I feel good about it.

Had my first workout with my cute, adorable little trainer today.  First things first, he asked, "mom tell me what you ate today".  After that he took me into our garage (which is a minor disaster right now) and we started our workout.  We started with push ups then sit ups.  I had to cross my arms across my chest when doing the sit ups..let me tell you I could not believe how much harder just crossing my arms made those sit ups for me haha  I kind of felt silly.  After that we hit the rowing machine than lifted the bar.  He threw two 5lb weights on the bar, had me bring from the floor to my chest then overhead to hold for 20 seconds haha.  I did whatever he wanted me to do regardless.  Then to top it off he had me juggle with rags for and eye coordination...which I am apparently lacking in a big way.  Ahhh I just love that kid.

That's it for me, I have literally thrown in the towel de jour; I need to rest my tired head and work on blocking out whatever might pop in there that will keep me awake tonight. But before that, I need to prepare some meals for the next couple of days.  I just need to keep moving forward...

Monday, September 24, 2012

What a day!  I am so  glad to be home in bed.  It was a good day for the most part;  pretty emotional and sort of frightening at times but its all good.  It ended well to; we were out to dinner with a great group of ladies.  It was so nice to see them.  I have missed seeing them and working out with them, I just didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them tonight.

The weekend went well.  My nephew was in town for a wedding.  It is always so great to see him.  He really liked it here...hopefully he will come to visit more often.

My first week on my own was definitely a success.  My eating was great during the week...absolutely perfect.  The weekend, I did cheat but it was planned.  My body feels better...it is probably 80% pain free.  I hated not working out last week but it was something I felt like I needed to do.  I'll start working out again this week.  We have a workout planned for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Now that I feel good, I'm going to ease my way back into the more intense workouts.  The best way I know how to keep the pain levels low is to  stretch and roll.  I feel like I'm sort of starting over, again. 

Whatever the case is, no matter how many times I fail at this, even when I gain a ton of freak'n weight, I've been able to jump back on track.  This past year threw me completely, I really thought that was the end of this journey for me.  I really thought, for a while, that I would be back up to 325lbs. again sooner than later.  Eh, not any more.  I'm feeling better, more positive, a little bit more confidence.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Give me a D-E-F-E-N-S-I-V-E

Yup that was me today defensive and my poor husband walked right into the line of fire. It's really no way for either of us to start our day.  We had a disagreement very first thing in the morning.  He came to my office later on in the day and asked if we would be having lunch together and I said, "yes, I don't hate you enough not to have lunch with you" ha ha and smiled..I hate it when  get like that something tells me he does to.  I'm so grateful we are both able to get past disagreements very quickly.

So what was my problem anyway; I was having back spasms while I was driving to work.  I was pretty baffled, I had no idea why that was happening and why it had to be so darn painful.  The spasms eventually stopped which caused my attitude to subside.

I'm also dealing with an infection from darn cyst that broke a couple of weeks ago while doing burpees, of all things haha.  The doctor wants it to stay open so I can keep it clean but it keeps closing so I have to open it up again...it's just silly at this point.  If it doesn't clear up in another week or two I'll have to go back to the doctor so he can remove it...fun fun fun.

Although it was a somewhat painful day it all turned out well as it always does.  I rushed home to get the house straightened because my nephew is coming to spend the night. He is in town for a wedding.  I am so excited!  He'll stay with us tonight then head to his hotel in the morning.  He'll spend Sunday with us before he heads back to Florida.  He is out for a while now with my husband; they are at a kickball game then heading to the airport to pick up a friend.  I think the cure for the case of my blah's today was to be at home with my family.

I was able to maintain my emotions and my eating today regardless of the pain and my mood.  Therefore it was a very SUCCESSFUL day!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Still going pretty strong today.  I had anxiety again today during the time I would usually workout..I'm accepting this as a positive feeling though; I miss it and that's a good thing.  I don't have this feeling of "I'm so glad I don't have to workout today."  I needed to go out to the workout to speak to our trainer; we ordered new jump ropes that came in today; before we cut them to size I wanted to get his approval.  When I opened the box with the jump ropes I was thrilled; it felt like Christmas.  Then I thought hmmm it will be a while before I can use these; 2nd thought was, eh I'll just take one home to use when I do my workouts this weekend then return it for the group workouts during the week.  I was debating whether or not I should interrupt the workout to show our trainer the jump ropes.  I wasn't sure how I would feel walking outside.  Knowing how much I miss it after 2 days, I was afraid that I would break down and want to get right back into it...then I saw them working out with sandbags, that put an end to worrying that I might want to go back sooner then I planned ha ha (not really but...)

Eating is going REAL well. I'm simply applying everything I was taught over the past 4 years.  Today someone, from our group, asked me what kind of diet I was doing.  I was a little dumbfounded and thought why would I eat any other way then we've been taught since we started our Wellness Program.  My weight gain had nothing to do with the way of eating we were taught, it had everything to do with me and how I handled myself.

I set a weight loss goal/incentive for myself today.  I decided I will return to the group workouts when I lose 20 lbs or after 6 weeks, whichever comes first. Does it sound silly to you?  Probably so ha ha, but this is about me wanting something for myself, this is how I'm motivating me.  I am ready to become my own cheerleader!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Moving Right Along...

I have to say, it just blows my mind when I look at my blog stats to see how many people read it in the US and other countries ha ha...anyway...

Day 2 on my own is going well.  Today was the first workout I missed since I decided to make an attempt at gaining my independence.  It was tough...there was a definite void in my day.  The fact that I wasn't sweating and smelling myself while at my desk at 1PM was a pretty uncomfortable feeling.  My day was kind of dragging and my anxiety level was elevated mid afternoon.  I really missed it.  Crazy how you can grow so attached to something like exercise.

The nice thing is that I had lunch with my husband.  It's only 30 minutes of time spent with him, but its 30 minutes of just us catching up on things with no interruptions.  This is also a great way for me to keep my eating on track...although he did make it known to me that it is National Cheeseburger Day ha ha.  As long as we don't leave the building we are safe from the dangers of fast food and we will eat the lunch we packed from home.

I begged my husband to please help me get back on track.  I think it's hard for him at times to stop me from eating, especially when I'm upset or anxious. He knows food is my "drug", it's what comforts me.  I hope that I will soon be in a place that I can celebrate the little and big things in life, enjoy food and drink as we celebrate but do it when there are no emotional attachments to food involved...if that makes any sense. 

He and I grabbed a bite to eat out last night.  We purposely decided on a place that had good salads.  We did great with that simply because we had a plan and didn't stray from it.  I'm pretty proud of my first and second day so far; I also know the first few days are easy for me.  It's the weekend and getting through the 4th week I fear , which is when I usually fail my self. 

I'm keeping a food and exercise journal; I'm also making some other notes as to how I feel physically and emotionally.  One of my goals is to come up with a "distraction" for when I feel a binging episode coming on.  My initial idea was to just go in the garage and jump on the rowing machine and do sprints.  Love that thing!  I haven't been faced with the urge to binge yet...I'm praying it stays away from me.

My trainer posted a video last night that triggered some emotions.  I'm know he posted it for laughs only but I found more than just humour in it.  I laughed, then I went into over thinking mode because I was able to completely relate to everything the girl in the video said and what was said back to her.  What hit me pretty hard was when she said something about being bulimic and the guys response was "stop it!"  I wish eating disorders were that easy to stop.  Maybe some people can just stop at any given time, I don't know; I do know a few people who battle with eating disorders for life.  So I'm going to post it, because it is good for a laugh, and if you me, chances are you know how well I fit this ladies roll from being in therapy, bulimia, to feeling like people think I just need to "stop it" right down to all the excuses I would make.  This was a good video for me to see, it was sort of like an "out of body experience ha ha.  It turned out to be a pretty positive moment for me. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Tej0297wk

I really enjoyed talking to Justin today about how my eating was today.  We discussed on our way home from his Karate program.  While I was cooking dinner this evening he came over and said, "alright let me see what you got cooking over there."  Ah that kid makes me smile; I just love how this kid loves me.

After only 2 days I have a good feeling about things simply because I started taking care of myself again.  I'm hoping I will be able to get rid of that worthless feeling I have and fix my broken spirit when it comes to exercise and nutrition.  I do believe I will succeed!.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Here I am again...

This is for you Jennifer...just because I was thinking it and you said it today :)

Here I am, back to square 1.  In the past 12 months I have lost focus, regressed in my workouts and gained weight.  It's been a tough year I have a lot of work to do on myself mentally and physically.  My biggest problem, I believe, was that I became too dependent on my support system, which has changed throughout the years, but has now diminished quite a bit.  Please don't take that as an excuse, its really not, its more of a realization.  So how do I fix this?  I have a plan, I'm not so sure it's the right thing to do or not, but I have officially started to work on myself with just the support of my boys for the next 4-6 weeks.  This may not seem like a big deal to anyone but for me it is.  I want to do this until I know I have the confidence to do this without anyone else.  Once I have gained this confidence I plan to go back to the group at work then I'm hoping to go back to my one on one training in January.

In the mean time, I have officially hired a "personal trainer" who will be paid in a video game every 2 months.  The deal is that he has to workout with me.  Yup, he can run the workouts, make them up, I can tweak them; it will be fun, frustrating, and tough all at the same time.  After the 1st official day he sat down and asked me what I ate.  I'm thinking together my sweet little 10 year old and I can support each other to reach our goals.

For the next few weeks I'll be seeing a chiropractor to help with all the tightness, pain, etc that I've been having daily in a addition to doing mobility stuff.  Pain has been one of the toughest things for me to deal with. Ya I can work through it, but its just a matter of time before it gets into my head and discourages me.

There is much to be done!  I am leary about being on my own...but here I go.  Praying things go well for the next few weeks. I really need to convince myself that I have some worth so I can stay on track and finish the damn journey once and for all.

There you go Jen...how was that haha.