I just tried on a couple of dresses I bought for a wedding we have coming up in April. I ordered both in a size 10 to use as motivation to get back in high gear to lose the last 25lbs I have to go. I was happy to find that one of them zipped up to my mid back [I couldn’t zip it all all a month ago], and the other I got on and off with ease. It’s a little snug, but if I had to wear it today, I wouldnt’ feel bad in it at all. So I know in a couple of months I’ll feel like a rockstar in it. My first ‘little black dress.’ Sometimes I sit back and still think, “wow…” at moments like this.
Since starting a new job back in late June, my weightloss on the scale as almost stalled, but I’ve been keeping up my workouts and have increased my activity level, so I’ve still noticed changes in my body. I also got myself a treadmill for Christmas and have enjoyed doing interval workouts on it, alternating between doing incline intervals at a fast paced walk, to doing sprint intervals. The first time I ran on it I was at a 5. Now I can sprint at a9.5 and am hoping to hit 10 today. Which blows me away. It only goes to 12. lol…
I’m still wearing the body bugg, and I promised myself that even on days where I don’t eat as well as I could, I’m still going to write it all down and track all the calories – which has been a motivator for me. For the past few weeks I’ve been indulging too often in chocolate and seeing all those extra calories staring back at me has made me angry – which makes it a lot easier to tell myself NO when a craving hits.
After 5 months of hell at this new job I’m finally not hating it and feel like I have the mental capacity to start focusing on my diet again. Sometimes life throws you speed bumps, but that doesn’t mean the journey stops. I’ve learned that I no longer use food as a crutch when I’m stressed. Now I workout or I read. I indulge in my new addiction – vampire romance books. Cheesy, I know, but I love them and they don’t add fat to my hips! And believe me, my husband benefits from them as well. [wink, wink…].
My next challenge is visiting my mother in a few weeks. Since she had the stroke she was motivated at first to change her life, but she’s gradually slipped back into all her old, bad habits. She’s been obese since I can remember… She’s done better with eating, but she still hates exercise – in ANY form – and has an excuse for any suggestions I give her. She also uses my grandmother’ deteriorating condition as a crutch to not ever leave the house or even get on the computer to keep in touch with friends via email. It’s like she’s almost agoraphobic, like she’s a dead person waiting for life to catch up to her mental state. It’s depressing and so frustrating – and I’m going down for 5 full days and I know it’s going to be tough. Because she’s back to not going to the doctor, and if anything happens to her, my grandmother will be alone and she’s too far gone to even know how to call anyone for help. It’s scary… and I know my mother expects me to drop my life and fly down whenever she has a problem, which isn’t fair to me, or even feasible for me anymore with this new job. My last job was much more flexible… and I have bills to pay so I need my job. When I go I’m going to have to have a few tough conversation with her and hope to shock her into take responsibility for the situation and top waiting around for someone to take care of her. The worst part is – she’s fully capable. Aside from a bit of short term memory issues, she’s fine physically and mentally, but it’s like the worst parts of her personality were amplified after the stroke. That needy, childlike, rebellious, self-destructive, self-hating side of her is in full swing. It’s also the part with the massive chip on the shoulder that feels the word owes her something because she had a shitty childhood. Well, she’s 66 now, so I think blaming her childhood is a little ridiculous now. She’s been living an easy life for the past 15 years, not having to work, just taking care of her parents. It wasn’t always a picnic of course, but it’s like now she expects me to drop everything and do what she did – give up her life and go move in with her like she did with her parents. Except she already had her kids, they’d grown up and moved out and she had no other choice because her money ran out and she had no place else to go. I haven’t had kids yet, I’m 30 years younger than she was when her parents’ health started to go downhill and I refuse to give up my life. I love my life and I have a lot more of it to live and her expecting that of me defies reality and is completely selfish.
Anyway… the emotional challenges don’t seem to ever stop. Now that my job isn’t killing me I know there’s a new crisis on the horizon with her and her health. I don’t even think about my brother’s health, it’s so depressing. The guy’s 35 and he’s losing all his teeth already. He had a stroke last year, is diabetic, has lost all feeling from the knees down, has had surgery on both eyes [due to damage from high blood sugar], had to have arteries replaced in his legs… it’s just never ending. Both he and my mother are two peas in a pod. Both of them could have prevented all the BS they’re going through now if they’d taken better care of themselves. But somehow it’s everyone else’s fault but their own. I don’t have time for that. I worked hard to get over all my own issues – mental, emotional and physical. Every day is a struggle but I do it because I want better for myself, my husband and someday I hope to be a good example to our kids. Time to get off that crazy train and break the cycle.
Exercise[The]Demons 