Weighting or a Healthy Mind

It's been a long time since my last post. Back then I was at my ideal weight, I physically felt great and I was in a good emotional space. Unfortunately that didn't keep.

My problem is not that I gained the weight back because I couldn't live the program. I am still in a healthy range. My problem wasn't exercise--I do that more than I do now.

My problem is 100% in my mind.

A lot of it isn't my fault. I was seriously depressed and finally was diagnosed as having a bipolar disorder (See here for more details). All of this really contributed to my "loss" of health. But there is more to this than just my biological issues.

The reality is unless you are actively striving towards health, you are "weighting" for disease. I assumed being at my healthy weight and being physically better than I'd been in years meant I didn't have to worry so much anymore. This summer I realized I was wrong.

In the book my program uses (Dr. A's Habits of Health), the concept of changing habits and pursing health instead of disease is talked about in depth. I understood the theoretical applications of this. I even taught it in Health Classes. I've eaten fairly well. I've picked up a semi regular exercise routine. I monitor my weight and have kept myself in the healthy range. I didn't apply this component to my state of mind until my diagnosis was thrust on me.

I'm actually grateful for the problems I went through this summer and the end diagnosis. It's made me take a step back and review all of my mental processes, not only the ones relating directly to my disease. One of the things I realized is I have a destructive view of my self, particularly when it comes to my health.

I have an underlying belief that I don't deserve good things. I don't believe I deserve to be healthy so I self sabotage. I ruin my sleep schedule by keeping myself up late doing nothing. I will "forget" to take my medicine which will throw me out of balance and cause physical and mental problems. I will delay eating for hours or not eat enough during the day so at night I have to eat a lot to make up for it. Worst of all, I treat food as my "medicine" for problems instead of reaching in and solving the problem. I eat so my brain can concentrate on anything but the feeling of worthlessness I have.

I logically can tell you that I'm full of crap about my worthlessness. I know that I am a talented, kind, and beautiful young lady who is headed towards good things. Logically this is all apparent to me. But because of events in the past, events that stem all the way back to my childhood, my logical side gets sabotaged by my unhealthy emotional mind.

Luckily for me I have an entire program, including Dr. A's book, designed to help me retrain my thoughts. Half of his book is all about this exact process. Every time I've read it in the past I've latched on to the other health aspects of it. I'd think I need better exercise habits or I need a better sleep schedule or even I need to eat better. I always ignored this: I need to have better thoughts about myself and my life.

Until I succeed in this area, until I become healthy mentally, I am "weighting" for disease.

I'm making progress. I have medicine that is helping me conquer the biological aspect of it. The realization that I'm unhealthy mentally beyond my biological problems is a big step. Now I have to learn to believe in myself.

I share all of this not because I want to blab on about my problems, but because I believe I'm not the only one out there who is desperately trying to get healthy but ignoring the most important part: the mind. The next few posts will be about my progress in this direction. I hope they help more than just me.

Are you "WEIGHTING" to get Healthy this Holiday Season?

I've talked with a lot of people about getting healthy in the last several months. My own path to health has inspired some, made others curious, and probably seemed silly to others. But it's started some interesting conversations. It seems like since October I've been hearing excuses for why people are going to "weight" to get healthy.
"Thanksgiving will be hard."
"The holidays are a bad time to start a diet."
"I just have so many family/friend parties, it's too much temptation."
"I don't want to offend people by saying no."
And they all end with "I'll start in January."

My question is simple: Why "WEIGHT"???

The reality is the HoliDAYS are just that: DAYS. Yet I've met so many people who are putting off taking care of their health for 3 MONTHS because of 3 DAYS!!

I overheard on the radio the other day that the average 5 lbs that people used to gain during the holidays is no longer accurate. Now people are gaining 7-10 lbs. And most aren't losing it the next year. That's 7-10 lbs in 2 months every year, not to mention whatever else they gain during the year.

People are "WEIGHTING" to get healthy this holiday season.

Are you one of them?

Every other year of my life, my honest answer would have been yes. I even wrote a poem about it when I was about 12.

I am so awfully bored
I have a lot of food to hoard
So I'll stack it neatly in my room
And dread the awful doom
Of getting fat by gaining lard
So I'll be on my guard
By trying not to eat so much
Though I know it can't be such
I know I'll eat over my share
Even though, in the end, I really will care
It happens when Holidays roll around
And temptation is to be found
Oh, I am so awfully bored
And I have a lot of food to hoard
(Dec 31, 2000)

Yes, as a 12 year old, I was already living the unhealthy lifestyle that got me in the place I was a few months ago: Overweight, unhealthy, and discontent.

This year is different though. I'm at my ideal weight. I am healthy. I'm happy with who I am and where my life is headed. And I'm not going to let 3 little days get in the way of me staying this way!

Thanksgiving is a good example: I was so motivated by being almost where I wanted to be weight/size/health wise that I stuck to my program like glue. My family thought I was a little crazy, but I did it. And when everyone else was sitting around lethargic or complaining about stomach aches, I was bouncing around feeling great. That next week, I lost the weight to put me where I wanted to be and I moved from being on the full program to being on transition.

Even though I'm not on the full program anymore I'm not worried about Christmas/New Years. I know that they're just days. Even if I "mess up" I'll be in a better spot this New Years than I was even as a 12 year old (and by the way, I only weigh 10 lbs more than I did then--I definitely wasn't healthy!!). I stopped "weighting" and started living.

What are you going to do?

The Best Birthday Present

Technically, it's my birthday. It's been my birthday for 1 hour and 37 minutes as I write this. I'm officially 23. Yay for birthdays! But more so than any birthday for the last couple years I'm excited for this one. I get a chance to start out on a new foot, begin again, and live healthy. It's a good feeling. And as part of that good feeling, I wanted to share with you guys a story of how miracles happen, and dreams come true....



Ever felt that way? I sure have. Scales used to be...scary. They even have a scary name. It reminds me of lizards and snakes and dinosaurs. And if you've ever heard a little kid talk, scale can sound a lot like scare...

But today the tears I felt like crying were tears of joy. I'm sure you want to know why, but first I have to back up.

Remember that workbook I mentioned a few posts back? It's helping me retrain my thoughts about food and habits and goals and health. In one of the first lessons it asked me to put down goals. One of my goals was to be 125 lbs and in size 6 pants by my birthday. At the time, my birthday was a couple months away so the goal seemed achievable. It was just a goal anyways. I don't normally actually reach my goals. Especially not health related goals.

Well, the last several weeks, my weight loss has slowed down a bit. Most weeks I lost maybe a pound. Some weeks the scale said the same thing. I knew I was losing inches, but my weight wasn't reflecting. And most of the inches weren't in my legs/bum, so I was still in size 10 pants. Last week I weighed in at 129.

So Sunday I was flipping through what I'd already done in the workbook and I saw my goals. I reread them and laughed because there was no way in heck that I was going to get to size 6 pants and be 125 lbs by my birthday. That was 5 days away. Not happening. I then promptly forgot the experience.

On Monday I got on the scale to discover I had lost 4 lbs! 4 lbs in one week! That was more than I'd lost any week but my first week on the program! I was so excited to be down 4 lbs I didn't realize the significance of the scale saying 125.

On Wednesday my sister commented that my pants were too big. I saggy bum syndrome (you know, when the bum of the pants is bigger than your bum). I laughed about it and said I didn't have any size 8 pants so I was just going to have to have saggy bum for a while.

Thursday morning while getting ready I had a spontaneous urge to try on my jeans from my box of too small pants. They fit. They're a little tight, but they fit. They're size 6.

Even then, the importance of this didn't dawn on me. I rushed out the door and about my day. Because I'd been running late, I didn't get to take a shower until the afternoon. It was the first time I'd had a breather all day and my brain wandered through different things that had happened to me and then, FINALLY, it clicked. A few tears might have trickled down, but it's hard to tell in the shower. I know I felt like crying. A lot.

I had reached my goal with less than 24 hours to spare.

Call it a blessing, a miracle, fate, karma, the universe, whatever you want, it was pretty amazing in my opinion. Dropping 4 lbs almost 2 sizes in less than a week was probably the best birthday present I'll get this week. Not because I'm thin, but because it proves I can do it. I can achieve my goals and get healthy. I am officially DOING, not "weighting." It's a good feeling. I am starting the 24th year of my life as a new, healthy me.

I make my pants look fat

Currently if my pants asked that question, the answer would be yes. Why? They are too big for me. Much too big for me.

A few years ago when I was at a fairly healthy weight, I was in size 6 pants. I didn't gain the weight overnight and as it slowly added on I slowly stretched my jeans out. I forced myself to wear the same small pants as long as they would fit me. Then I caved and bought a couple of pairs of pants. They were all size 10's. Problem was, none of them were jeans (I still wasn't willing to admit I wouldn't fit into that favorite pair tomorrow) and I didn't stop there. A few months later I caved and bought one pair of size 12 jeans. Another couple months and I bought one pair of shorts. I refused to buy more because I refused to admit I was that big. Yet I still did nothing to lose the weight.

When I started my health program, my size 12's were too small on me. I had to squeeze into them. I probably should have been in 14's.

Remember that one pair of 12's? They drown me. I have to buckle my belt 3 notches smaller than I did before and the jeans look baggy. Even the 10's I bought are getting big.

But I skipped buying size 8's on my way up, so I don't have any for my way back down.

My thighs still don't fit into my size 6's and I'm stuck trying to decide what to do. Do I walk around wearing size 10's that are too big and not wear any jeans until I lose the weight or do I cave and buy some size 8's so I feel attractive as I lose the weight?

I hate the idea of buying size 8's because I'll only be in them for a few weeks and I"m cheap. On the other hand, my once wonderfully fitting pants now hang lose on me. I don't look attractive in them. I look...wrong. Like I have no butt.

Yes me, the girl with the big butt looks like she doesn't have one in her pants.

I'm almost starting to wonder if I could healthily fit into a size 4 someday.

Don't worry, my goal is health. I will stop my weight loss journey as soon as my body is where it should be. If that's a size 6, I'll be plenty content. If it's a size 4, that's great too! Either way, I will be healthy. No more weighting for me!

No more FATigue for me!

As a woman, I am grateful I didn't live 100 years ago. I have always thought this was true, but a little while ago it really sank home. I got to wear a Victorian Era dress. It wasn't one of the crazy beautiful ones. It was more practical. More like what the rich ladies would have worn on a day to day basis--not to parties. And let me tell you something: it was HEAVY! I didn't even have all the proper under clothing, but it was heavy. I only had one petticoat and then the actual skirt and then the top. Yet I felt like I was carrying around an extra 20 lbs. (It was probably closer to 10). Don't forget the fact I burned up! It was HOT in all those layers! I thought to myself: Man, I'm lucky I live today when I can go outside in Bermuda shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops and be considered conservative.

You may be looking at the above comic and my last paragraph and wondering what they have in common. The answer is simple. Being fat is like wearing around a lot of layers of clothes. It adds extra body heat. It weighs you down. Literally. If you had to carry around 20 lbs all day, you'd understand why you feel exhausted, yet we often forget that extra body fat is exactly that--extra weight we're just carrying around. Why do you think people who struggle with obesity end up with bad joints and feel like they have no energy? How can you have extra energy when you're carrying around all this extra weight?

My Health Coach posted this picture the other day:


This is what 1 lb of fat looks like.

Say you're only 14 lbs overweight. That means you have 14 lbs of that stuff you're carrying around every day. Just like carrying around all that extra clothes. Except not near as cool looking (and I honestly think, much grosser).

We all need a certain amount of fat to live. Matter of fact, fat holds your kidneys in place. This is one of the reasons people who are anorexic are at risk for kidney failure. We can't get rid of all fat and survive. But why carry around any more of it than we need?

This is another reason why even though I know so many people who weigh so much more than I did I stopped "weighting" around and got on the healthy bandwagon. I don't want to carry around an ounce more weight than I have to.

I've lost 14 lbs in 5 weeks on my program. And honestly, that's not the best part. I have had IBS for years. It hasn't acted up once since the first week of the diet. My bad days are where my good days used to be emotionally. And I have SOOO much more energy. For a few weeks, I was waking up by 8:30 am without an alarm clock (unheard of for me).

Just like I was relieved to pull that dress off at the end of the day, I feel so relieved to not have those extra 14 lbs. I'm not done with my "get healthy" journey, not by a long shot. But these last 5 weeks have taught me so much about my body, who I am right now, and who I want to be. No more needless weight. No more unexplainable FATigue. And no more Weighing to be healthy.

Healthy For Life--not just for the duration of my diet

The problem with a lot of weight loss programs is they are a lot like using a hairdryer on a snowman. The pounds melt away quickly, often at the cost of over all health. And then most people just put the weight back on once the diet is done (once the snowman stops using that hairdryer, another snowstorm is just gonna add it back on). That's why I've shied away from diets.

My goal is to be healthy. I can't be healthy if I'm overweight, but damaging my health to get skinny seems just as bad. And if I go through all the trouble to lose the weight and get into a healthy range, I don't want to just gain it all back again. I want it to be gone for good.

Once upon a time I was a circuit coach at a women's only gym. I tried to help ladies lose weight (all the while pretending I didn't need to). One 70 year old lady there told me she didn't lose weight. She BURNED FAT. "If I lose weight, I'm bound to find it again. If I burn fat, it's gone for good." I liked her idea. I didn't want to just lose weight to find it again somewhere down the road. Diets seemed like a system of losing weight, not burning fat.

This program I'm on is different. It's goal? Help you develop "Habits of Health". Almost immediately I was in what they call the "fat burn" state (sounds a lot like what my elderly friend said). Honestly, that part is much like many HEALTHY diets. It's the purpose behind the program and what happens when you reach your goal weight that change things.

Like I said, the purpose of the program is to help people develop healthy habits FOR LIFE. So, it doesn't end when you reach your goal weight. Really, that's just the beginning. When you reach your goal weight you enter the transition period. It helps you take the habits you've been developing on the diet and put the food you eat day to day in there--but healthily. Once you've "transitioned", you'll be eating healthy normal food instead of their program food and MAINTAINING your weight and healthy habits. It's not about losing weight, it's about getting rid of the old habits of disease and replacing them with habits of health.

Weight loss is just one of the benefits.

And I've benefited. As of Sunday I am 12 lbs lighter than when I started. I've also had to buckle my belt tighter twice. That means my waist is a good 2 inches smaller. My face looks thinner. My chest is smaller (sigh), and I'm almost ready to go down a size in pants (my thighs aren't sure they want to let that fat go away--but like it or not, there it goes!).

I have more energy than I had before I started this program and I eat better. I eat 6 small meals a day, more vegetables than I did before, and I feel great. I can't imagine going back to how I ate before. Thinking about it makes me feel sick.

The point of this post isn't to be a commercial for the program I'm on (note I never mentioned the name of it). It's to say that while I don't want to be a snow-woman who feels she has to torture herself to be skinny I'm done "weighting", and I'll never "weight" again. I'm developing healthy habits NOW, habits for life so I never have to look at myself in the mirror again and realize I'm on my way to being obese.

My subconscious thinks I'm fat

....and that I'm going to fail in my goal to be healthy.

I'm not kidding.

Over and over I keep dreaming that I fail. It starts out small (just like it would in real life). I eat something not on my diet. And then I have another. The next day I have more. Soon, I'm not following the diet at all. Instead of losing weight, I'm gaining it again.

All of them aren't that drastic or detailed, but when I wake up, I feel fat. I feel like I'm already a failure. Before my last weigh in (I do it once a week right now) I was terrified I had GAINED weight instead of lost it.

When I picture my body in my mind, it's bigger than it really is. As I get dressed in the morning, I expect to not fit into my pants right. Some days I wear skirts just so I don't have to think about pulling my pants over my thighs.

None of these started as conscious thoughts. When I jumped into the program, my thoughts were so focused on the idea of success. I knew I had the willpower and motivation to succeed. I never doubted that I could do it until the dreams started. The first one didn't make me doubt, but after several of them, I can't help but finding myself wondering if I just don't have what it takes to succeed.

And how do you tell yourself you can lose weight when your body is determined that it's fat and it's going to stay that way? Not because it wants to, but because it doesn't think it can do anything different.

Sitting here today I know all of this stems from fear. I'm afraid of becoming like my sister. I'm afraid of being 30 years old and 300 lbs. I'm afraid that if I don't succeed now, I'll end up like my dad, almost 60 and fighting diabetes and sleep apnea in a nasty cycle of not being able to lose weight. Or I'll be like my mom, always busy and moving about but still over weight. If my mom couldn't lose it, how do I expect to?

The answer is simple. I'm not them. I'm 23 years old and I'm staring NOW to combat these problems. I'm not going to 'weight' until I'm diabetic before I start eating right. I'm not going to 'weight' until I'm 300 lbs before I dedicate myself to losing weight. And if I am doing everything I can to lose weight and be healthy and I still am overweight and sick, I'll go see a doctor, not just 'weight' for my body to sort itself out.

I am optimistic and motivated. I've decided that instead of giving in to my fears, I'm going to combat them. I realize that while weight may not be the only sign of healthy living and should not be the end all goal, weight matters. And I will fight the weight. I will become healthy now.

I'm done 'weighting' for my fears to be proved right. I'm done 'weighting' to become like my sister, my dad, my brother, or my mom. I'm going to be me. And I'm going to be skinny and healthy.

I'll prove my subconscious wrong.