You Don't Belong

It's been a week almost since I've written.
I've wanted to write more and I really need to write more. I think I will schedule three nights per week to write.  Two of those are usually derby practice nights because I hit walls and break through them when I'm on skates.
This week I happened to hit a wall.

 

We had a shortened practice and decided to work on basic skills since our season is over for the year. We started with some knee slides and went directly into time trials. I admit I wasn't warmed up and I was not feeling well. My asthma has been acting up terribly and I was having difficulty breathing even after a five minute break while the first group of girls did their time trials. I was prepared not to do as well as I did last time and that was probably my first mistake.

 

 

 

 

 

Last time I skated 28.75 laps in 5 minutes. The most I've ever skated the whole time I've done derby.  I was proud and a little shocked that I did so well.  So this night I told myself just to make it to 27 and I'd be happy.  As I was skating I felt weak and slow.  My legs were shaky and my head was spinning and my lungs were on fire. I never stopped moving and I did not fall.  

When I finished I asked my counter how many laps I'd done. 23.5.  That's it. I was pissed off. At myself. At my skates. At my lungs. At the world. I sat down to try and catch my breath, brushing off the compliments coming in from the rest of the team for my tenacity and perseverance. I am sad to admit that I never got back out on the floor that night.  I ended up taking off my skates, packing up my stuff and leaving.

I felt so defeated.

I'm not sure if I really lost 5 laps or if the last time it was miscounted and I never ACTUALLY skated over 28 laps. Either way I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Or the face.  Or something equally painful.

I came home and avoided talking to anyone. I went to the shower and I let a few tears shed. I had posted a status saying "I don't know who I thought I was kidding" and said that I was "destined to be fat and slow forever."

Batman finally got it out of me and I cried to him.

I am tired of trying and not succeeding. I am tired of wanting something SO bad and not being able to really work toward it. I'm tired of not knowing what is really holding me back. I'm tired of trying to figure out what to eat and what not to eat on a continual basis. I feel like I should know this stuff and I should be further along than I am. The scale has moved in the wrong direction--muscle mass I can now see since I'm not in the defeated blind stupor I was in that night (hello  my pants are all still falling off me, clearly I'm not gaining fat back.) I just feel....STUCK.

 

 

True I have only been on this journey for three months but in all honesty this battle is one I have been fighting for many years. I don't want it to be a battle anymore. Why do I have to FIGHT to take care of myself? Obviously not reaching those laps was symbolic of so much more that I feel I'm not reaching. I have a few more months to lose 10lbs and I really don't know how to do it.

 

Insert temper tantrum here--I do not want to eat fucking vegetables all the time. Confession: I don't like them that much. I used to like them, when I could choose to eat them because I wanted to and not because I want to lose weight or skate faster or have a lower blood sugar number. I get tired of cutting them up and thinking of ways to make them taste like NOT vegetables.

 

On my way home from derby that night I fought a lot of urgest to stop and get fast food. Why not just eat what I want, when I want? I'm going to die anyway right? Deep down I know I don't want to live the rest of my life being unhealthy. But damn I don't want to live the rest of my life counting calories either you know?

 

After I have had a few days to consider what happened at practice and what's going on with me, I am not feeling quite as discouraged. I know that my expectations of myself may be a little unrealistic. I've always been the hardest on myself.

 

 

 

I have to stop telling myself that I am not athletic, that I will never be thinner or healthier, that I will never be able to pass my skills test.  I have to rephrase and reframe those thoughts. And it's going to be tiring and it's going to piss me off having to concentrate like that for awhile. But eventually I'm hoping that I will be able to work through that and realize that I am all of those things if I want to be.

 

I do belong in roller derby, in smaller clothes, in a healthier place. Right? 



The Cost Conversation

I'm out driving around running errands. It's quickly approaching a meal time, usually lunch but sometimes breakfast if I ran out of the house in a hurry (what mother doesn't feel that way most mornings?)
It's at this time that I have the Cost Conversation with myself.
I've never been a person with a lot of money. I used to have more disposable income than I do right now but when I think about how I could have been saving all of that money it makes me kinda faint. Anyway...
The Dollar Menu, Extra Value Menu, Value Menu, etc....
When I am having the Cost Conversation it usually starts right there.  I mentally calculate how much  money I have in cash or in the bank.  Then I weigh that against how hungry I actually am.  Usually I'm starving so a couple of dollars for a burrito, some chips and a drink sounds like a fantastic deal.
Over the course of the last several years though I've started factoring calories, carbs and fat into the Cost Conversation.
Sure $2.29 is a good deal, financially speaking on an immediate level.
But what is that 410 calories from the burrito and the extra 200 calories from the chips doing to my body? How many carbs am I consuming at one time? How much fat? How many hours of skating or walking or dancing am I going to have to do to work this off?
It becomes a little scenario of the devil vs angel type thing going on at that point.  The devil is telling me I'm hungry, that it's only a couple of bucks, it's only THIS one time, etc. The angel is trying to convince me that it's only a couple of bucks now but how many doctor visits and prescriptions will I have to pay for, how much damage am I doing to my kidneys/pancrease/heart with each bite and so on.
I'm not going to lie---the devil wins out a lot.  Fast, cheap and easy.  That's what everyone likes right?
Well if you stop to think about it, it's about as appealing in food as it is in sexual partners.  You get immediate gratification but you're left with a bunch of crap you don't want to deal with.
Yes I know that there are healthier options out there but let's be honest, the fast food companies jack up of the prices of a lot of those things in order to compensate for the cheapness of the rest of the crap. 
And it takes planning--which I can't do if my stomach is growling and I'm driving a stick shift in stop and go traffic in a construction zone. 
I have to pat myself on the back for basically getting out of the breakfast habit. I'd say I've gone out for a fast food breakfast once in the last four months? Lunch is a little more of a struggle though.
What are some ideas of stuff I can carry that will fill me up, is easy to eat with one hand, and can store well in the car?
I'm counting on you to help  the angel win the Cost Conversation next time!

Commitment Issues?

I am really glad my actual commitment to this health journey is better than my commitment to this blog.
I can't believe we are two weeks into October and this is only my 5th entry. 
As I posted before, I'm really working at making changes that are going to stick.  I'm having some struggles with baking--because I recently discovered that I CAN bake despite what I thought in the past--so I recognize that the holiday season will be a challenge for me in many ways. 
I am still determined to make good choices most of the time. Even on days when I eat a lot of things, I don't eat ALL the things that I would have in the past. I wish that I would have been tracking calories before, when I was eating tons of fast food and processed food. On second thought, I probably don't want to know what those numbers were.
Most days my calories are below 1800.  The most I've logged has been 2200 but those are on roller derby days. I'd like to get that down to 1800 as well.  On those days though I net well under 1600 though so I'm not sure that'd be a great idea.
Activity level has been pretty decent actually. I've gotten a few walks in, plus the roller derby workouts.  I'd like to walk more I'm just getting a little bored going around our neighborhood.  I have to take breaks. I went to a park last week with some friends and we walked a bit. I may head out there tomorrow and walk alone. It's kind of a drive but hey I have to invest in my health.
I think I mentioned before that I received some free products from Influenster.com to review. I've been using this really awesome BB+ cream from Pond's and I've seen an awesome improvement in my skin, especially since I've been spending a lot more time outside and it has SPF in it. My skin was something I was feeling kind of self-conscious about because I really wasn't able to afford products the way I have in the past. I'm glad to see it improving.
I've been needing to spend some time working on my mental health. There is a situation going on with a photographer who hasn't given us some photos we paid for a long time ago. Unfortunately I let this situation get to me and I turn into a person I don't like. The good part of that is the day after I become that person, I take time to unplug and focus on what's really important in my life--my family.  I wish that I could get that message into my head without having to deal with the negativity first, but I am working on it.  We had a wonderful weekend outdoors, hitting up a playground, taking walks, going to the apple orchard and another playground, carving pumpkins, grilling out in our backyard.  It was fabulous.  Even the pumpkins were happy about it:

This one was carved by yours truly. 

 

I felt completely relaxed and rested after the weekend.  Too bad Baby Bug didn't let us sleep and recover. But I'm heading that way now.

 

PS--Today marks 3 months since I started this journey! Thanks for supporting me along the way! <3

Proud

So tonight we did yet another time trial at derby practice. We have to skate 27 laps around a regulation track within 5 minutes in order to pass our basic skills test.

When I started back up I did 24 1/2 laps in 5 minutes, the first night back after two years off.  A month later I did 27 laps in 5:49 (so roughly the same.)

Tonight, by some miracle, I not only surpassed that number but I outskated all of the other new girls who were there.

I added 4 1/4 laps to my own time, doing 28 3/4 laps in 5 minutes. 

I hugged some teammates after that.

I am so PROUD of myself. I have been working hard at getting my body healthier. During our endurance training tonight I kept saying to myself "How badly do you want this? Don't give up.One more lap. One more lap."

That's before I knew we were doing time trials tonight. 

I started to doubt my ability but I stopped myself. I told myself my body was strong and I could finish. I just needed to shave off 49 seconds. I told myself that even if I shaved off half, I would be proud.

I exceeded my own expectations.

How's THAT for motivation??

Perception

I've been thinking a lot about body image recently.

When I first started this blog I posted a picture of my husband and myself emerging from the water after a swim in the lake in Tawas. It was that picture that inspired this whole adventure.

I did not know I looked like that.

I find this strange sometimes because I'll be watching something and see a really large woman and think I must look like she does when she's eating or naked or running.  I'm talking HUGE woman here though. Women who easily would be able to get on The Biggest Loser or Extreme Weight Loss.

I've heard of body dysmorphic disorder before.  I hear about it a lot with people who have lost significant's amounts of weight or even women who never were heavy but suffer from anorexia or bulimia. 

Definition

By Mayo Clinic staff
Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw in your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone.
When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. Your perceived flaw causes you significant distress, and your obsession impacts your ability to function in your daily life. You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures or excessively exercise to try to "fix" your perceived flaw, but you're never satisfied. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity.

So I haven't approached that level of obsession. But I wonder if I will ever see myself as thin? Even if I drop another 50lbs, I wonder if I'll always feel like the fat girl and always think I have to do something about it.

For awhile I worked very hard at not focusing on my appearance because of my daughter. From the time she was 2 until last year I really didn't talk badly about my body. I never used the word fat in front of her and we have talked numerous times about how bodies come in different shapes and sizes and healthy is more important than size.

After having my youngest child though I was suffering from PPD and was very discouraged by my appearance. It took me awhile to get down to my prepregnancy weight but even after that, everyone who has had a child knows that your body becomes shaped differently. My hips are wider and after being inactive for a year, my legs were jiggly and my butt was jiggly where all had been firm thanks to roller derby.  I began making comments and becoming distressed about things that just do not matter.

That's right. They don't matter.

My husband loves me and thinks I'm gorgeous and sexy and he always will.

So I guess it doesn't matter if I ever see myself as a skinny person. Maybe I never will be.  But I know that I will be healthy.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I have to admit I've been tempted. I've been tempted to try and amp up my "dieting" and do tons more exercise so I can see some pounds melt off.
I'm feeling good. People are noticing my weight loss. The size of my clothes is creeping down (I bought a shirt at Salvation Army without an X in the size!) The number on the scale is creeping back down.
But really, I want this to be a lasting thing.
I want that weight gone forever.
And I know if I try to take it all off really fast, that's not sustainable for me. Right now I may be able to work out every day for an hour or two (if I do it during naptime!) but when I go back to work I can't. I may be able to eat only 1200 calories for a short while but that's not everlasting. Eventually I'll want to eat more food again.
So I'm going about this with the goal of making the changes stick.  I'm slowly changing bad habits into good ones. I'm slowly redefining normal activity for myself. I'm slowly replacing bad foods with good ones.
You know what they say.  Slow and steady wins the race!

PS--I promised a body image entry awhile back, before my shocking doctor visit. That entry WILL be posted tomorrow night, I promise! No really...I promise.

Seeing The Benefits

The nurse called from my doctor's office today. They received the results of my bloodwork. I was prepared for them to tell me I needed to go to the hospital to bring my blood sugars down to a safe level.
I was pleasantly surprised when the number was actually decent.
I referenced a test called hba1c.  That's where they draw your blood and check the average of what your blood sugar has been running over the last few months. For you nerd types, this link to Medline will explain the test. It also explains the results. I'll copy and paste that part:
An HbA1c of 5.6% or less is normal.
The following are the results when the HbA1c is being used to diagnose diabetes:

• Normal: Less than 5.7%
• Pre-diabetes: 5.7% to 6.4%
• Diabetes: 6.5% or higher

If you have diabetes, you and your doctor or nurse will discuss the correct range for you. For many people the goal is to keep your level at or below 6.5 - 7%.

So my last one taken in March was somewhere between 9 and 11. I can't recall exactly. I think it was in the 9 range.  My best one ever was 5.6% a few years ago when I was much healthier. The number given to me today was 7.8%

I think I about fell out of my chair. I am sure the doctor probably did too.

I haven't taken any medication in quite some time so the decrease in that number from March until now was done purely by changing diet and exercise.

It's good to see results like that. Sometimes you wonder if what you're doing is paying off at all really. 

It is.  Keep going.