4 More Days

The fitness challenge begins in 4 short days.  I have to say that I'm glad I have been preparing for this for a couple of weeks.  It has enabled me to lift the required amount before even starting.  I lifted 31,875 at the gym today.  Doing that 3x/week has me very close to the 100,000 required.  Yay, me!  It's the pushups that are going to kill me.  Seriously!  I may have a heart attack during them.  Ah, I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. 

Now, obviously I haven't been talking about food addiction too much because I'm just getting back here, but it certainly is background radiation.  The benefit of working out so damned hard is that I don't want to go ruin it with a milk shake or chocolate.  Eventually, I hope that the working out gets rid of the will to come back home and go to sleep.  That's a product of depression, which could be caused by my weight.  Time will tell.  I recently tried an SSRI again and promptly came right off of it due to headaches and sexual side effects.  I don't think that will ever be a solution for me, so I have to deal with it in different ways.  But I digress.  The food addiction is coming into play more because I had all the fluid taken out of my band.  I was having huge issues with GERD and had to have it all taken out until it resolves.  If it doesn't resolve I will likely have to have it taken out.  Personally, I am enjoying eating meals again without having chest pain.  It's made me less inclined to eat unhealthy foods as well.  One would have thought I'd make a beeline for a cheeseburger after and it's been over a week with no urge to do so.  Again, time will tell how this all plays out.

On Saturday, the 1st day of the challenge, I will post a pic of my virtual model.  On April 7, when the challenge is over, I will post another.  Should be interesting.

Getting Prepared

Well, I've been off the wagon for some time.  I'm getting ready to do a fitness challenge.  I'm dragging my husband along, too.  I use the word dragging because he is sluggish to the idea, when I'm pumped.  You see, one of my husband's problems is blaming HIS weight on ME.  He doesn't do it intentionally, but he certainly deflects enough to attempt to make me feel bad for it so he doesn't have to.  I have a hard enough time carrying my own weight, pun fully intended.  Anyway, I'm frustrated and almost wish I hadn't enlisted him.  It's like trying to kick depression when you're walking around one of those "dark cloud" people.  You know who I'm talking about.  Glass 3/4 empty people.  But, I want to have a place where I can log my work.  So, I'm back here.  The challenge begins on the 1st of the year (2011).  This is NOT a new year's resolution, though.  This is an attempt to get more physically fit.

The challenge requires:

Walking: 12,000 steps daily. I must wear a pedometer at all times and it's electronically capable of downloading info directly to the computer.

Calories:  Maintain calorie consumption at 500 calories below metabolic baseline daily.  Right now that means that my calorie intake should be around 2000 - 2500 calories per day.

Situps: 100 daily. Will do different stomach muscle exercises each day to give adequate rest in between.

Pushups: 100 daily. This may kill me.  No, really.

Resistance: 100,000 pounds weekly (I lifted 20,000 on Thurs.). I will work my way up to 3 sets of my circuit instead of the two now and add weight where I am not as challenged.  If I do that 3 times per week, that should be 100,000 pounds lifted.

Weekly challenges: varied and must be presented with photographic proof (yes, really).  The first challenge is a local 5k run and 2k fun walk.  I'll be doing the fun walk.  There's a clue that the next one will be bowling.  I went bowling with my brother and nephews a couple of years ago and did horribly, so I doubt I'll be getting many points for that, but it should be fun.

There is absolutely no way you could come out of this in the same or worse health.  This is quite an adjustment from the norm for me.

My mantra:
Breathe deep.  Drink lots of water.  Have fun!

Hiatus already?

Sometimes posting here can be very difficult.  This is mostly because this is my secret, so I need privacy to do so.  But then there are those other times, where I've likely gone off my diet or ingested something that is bad for me, emotionally and physically. Then there are times that life is just so busy that I don't have the time.  I would say the last week is a combo of all 3.  Now for updates...

I didn't post last Saturday on my weigh day, but I lost 6 pounds my first week of the diet. I felt great and hopeful about the future.  Then I put on my protective hat, found food and subsequently only lost 1 pounds this week.  Now, to sum it up, that means I've lost 7 pounds in 2 weeks.  Not shabby at all.  I'll take it and use it to motivate me into the future.  The problem is, that I ate some really high fat, high sugar foods and now I want them badly.  So, I'm almost back to square one.  Eating FEELS great.  I am so satisfied when I do so.  Satisfied but ultimately unproductive.  I need to be productive in my life right now because a lot of things need to get done around this house.  I mean, the house has not been painted inside since we bought it 5 years ago.  Not cool.  But just basic cleaning right now takes a bit of precedence.

Anyway, I think I'm going to leave it here for now so I can get to work.  I'll update my virtual model every month.  I figure that will show more results. 

I promise to be here more often.   You know, for all the people who don't read this.  LOL  I crack myself up.

Great Day!

Lots of good stuff has happened today and I'm thrilled about it.  One thing is that I had a great workout.  The other is that I've reached that point in the reduced calorie diet that I actually feel more energetic.  Thank G-d for that!  I've been way too unmotivated for too many days.  Anyway, that's today's report.  I weigh myself tomorrow at the one week point.  Excited to see how that goes.

This ought to be fun!

I've decided to post my virtual model as a means of gauging my progress of losing weight.  Again, my sole reason for being on this journey is to face the fear of being thinner, not for looking better as being thinner.  I'm not sure if that makes sense to everyone so I'll try to elaborate.  Losing weight will obviously make me look better.  That's a given.  That's not why I'm losing the weight, though.  While I feel like the law of averages will equal out and I'll eventually have issues with health, THAT is not even why I'm doing this.  I'm doing this to confront my demons...and boy are some of them nasty.  The hideously unfortunate part about this is that I am not just dealing with weight issues as a result of avoiding emotional issues.  I, as is stated multiple times on this blog before and in the future, am addicted to food.  So, I'm dealing with two very difficult aspects of this.  Jeez...wouldn't one have been enough?  Anyway, tangent over.  Here is my virtual model.  Let's see how she changes over time. 

Just to let you know, this is actually a pretty good representation of how I look in real life.

BTW

Doesn't that family in my header look happy?  I swear when I come to this blog sometimes I feel like slapping the shit out of each one of them.  Sadly, it's because I want to be one of them and will have to work for it, instead of it being automatically granted.  I hope at some point I feel that this is worth it. 

Defeated

That's the sense I have today.  I didn't write yesterday because I was feeling kind of squashed, like I may have had a virus coming on.  Because of that, I catapulted off the diet a bit.  Though, admittedly, I watched my intake to the extent that I didn't exceed 1200 calories.  It just wasn't as much liquid as usual. 

I feel more rejuvenated today and was back to the normal plan.  I am not as hungry as I have been, but part of that is just a feeling that food has me.  It's that feeling that addicts have when they realize that they don't have the control anymore and may not have ever had it.  I am such a control freak that I adore the sense of control, so it should make sense that I'm feeling defeated.  Someone took my security blanket, damnit!!! 

I think the worst thing about being in the field of psychology and having any issues like this are that I can intellectualize this experience down to the last detail.  Unfortunately, that doesn't do a damned thing to help the way I feel emotionally or physically during this process.  I feel the same way about watching films like "Food, Inc."  I completely agree with the premise of the film and changes to diet that should be made for the sake of myself, my family and everyone else on this good, green earth.  But I have the "Dug" syndrome.  What the hell is the "Dug" syndrome, you ask?  Well, because I have young children I am subjected to a plethora of PG movies that are requested over, and over, and over, and over, and...well, you get the point.  Anyway, the movie "Up" is a big fave right now.  There is a character, a dog named "Dug," in the movie who can talk and like most other dogs is fascinated/obsessed with squirrels.  Thus, he can be in the middle of a topic and if he sees a squirrel even out of the corner of his eye, he shouts, "Squirrel."  Well, I feel the same way about food.  I can be watching "Food, Inc." or intellectualizing anything and all of a sudden, "Cake!"  Again, I talked about pathology in the beginning.  This is the characteristic of an addict.  The moving around of things in their world to revolve around their substance.  There's a tad of OCD to it.  I've been on many diets before and behavioral interventions and I have never gotten past this point and my realization today is that I may never do that.  How about that?  I can't get rid of it.  I have to live with it knowing that I take it with me everywhere. 

Yeah, defeated.  I think that fits today like a glove.