I'm still alive! Which, given that I decided to go to the gym tonight, was not even remotely a guarantee. But I did it, I had a good day of eating, I did a really great hour+ workout. I'm feeling really good at about this! I did not expect to feel this good, granted I'm only 48 hours into this battle, and I haven't even slept off the workout. I can only imagine the soreness I will undoubtedly feel tomorrow. But for right now, I'm riding this endorphin high as long and hard as I can.
In my early 20's I took up jogging, and I loved it; once I build up my stamina, I loved running the roughly 3 miles around my old bus route (why yes, I did still live at home with my parents, because Massachusetts rent is ridonkulis.) But when I was 24, I lost my Auntie Di, who was just my favorite person in the whole world, to Ovarian Cancer, and then 2 months after that, I moved to Virginia to go to grad school. So let me tell you, the grief was REAL, and suddenly I was eating my feelings like I'd been doing it for years. No training wheels required. Plus, I just didn't have the drive to run anymore, it was a combination of that grief and just not knowing or feeling comfortable enough to be out and about alone in my new VA neighborhood. So just like that, I stopped cold turkey, after running a 10K race in July of that year. It was the longest race I've ever run, still to this day.
As a disclaimer, I say "jogging" and "running" but I bet most people out there could have (and definitely still could) walk faster than I was moving. I could go for miles, but there weren't any land speed records being broken. Second disclaimer, I'm (clearly) not a small girl, but I also have NEVER been a small girl. When I was running miles almost every day, I was still about 200lbs, I like to think this is courtesy of my Dad's gene pool. Even for all of the weight I had, I was never an emotional eater. I ate mostly because I was bored and in front of the TV, and as a child who loved reading, I was incredibly sedentary. But I remember the night before we lost Di, being up in her apartment in South Boston, and there was just so much food around (because we all know when someone is ill, people send food), and at one point, I stood up I announced to the room, which was just a couple of my cousins, that it was time for me to start eating my feelings, and from that cupcake on, I haven't stopped. So those 3-4 years when I was running was the healthiest and the smallest I'd been since I was really young, and I fucked it up in a big way.
All this is to say, that this whole getting back on the wagon bit is going to be so hard for me. There is such an emotional component, that I'm sure my therapist is going to love hearing about tomorrow. So today, as I get ready for bed after a great day of eating, and a fantastic workout, I'm going to be grateful that it wasn't as hard as I've been dreading. I know those days will arrive, sooner rather than later, but hopefully the endorphin train will be here to meet them when it does.
What about you, dear reader? Any emotional eaters or people who's track was derailed by grief? Any people riding the workout/endorphin high too?
Good Night Lovies!
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Monday, September 16, 2019
Let's Try This Again
Happy Monday!
I'm back at it again, and by that I mean both trying to blog, and trying to get my weight under control. So, you know, the usual around here. I re-read my old posts and I just cannot believe how similar of a situation I'm in with wanting to be the inspiration I'm missing, but also how far off the wagon I've fallen. If I thought I was heavy 2 years ago, DAMN do I have some news for my older self, and it ain't good.
As of my first "Official" weigh in this morning, I've officially broken the 300lb mark. That is (sadly) not a typo. I weighed in this morning at 300.9lb. And I nearly cried. Though, those tears would have been composed of mostly soda and grease fat from my weekend. There was a great Fair I attended Saturday (Big E for the win!) and then an annual Football Cookout that I attended Sunday that made up my last meal, well last weekend, before this diet started. So, I lived it up! And then the scale refused to lie to me and tell me I was 100lbs soaking wet. That jerk. So now I'm sitting at my desk at work, in the beautiful city of Boston, eating a Smart Ones frozen lunch and being stared down by a banana that got the shit kicked out of it in my lunchbox on it's commute to work. Who knew my lunchbox served as a worse vessel to commute in than the Red Line? (For those readers not from New England, trust me, don't ever ride Mass Public transit if you need to be anywhere on time, or at any high rate of speed, and you wish to be comfortable doing it.) Now that I've naively assumed anyone was reading this, let's move on.
If you've read my previous 2 posts, you'll know that the last time I attempted this was 3 years ago, and I was living in a different state, since then, I've high-tailed it back to Massachusetts, mostly with my tail between my legs, and I left an incredibly terrible relationship. I didn't realize how toxic it was at the time, but now with the gift of time and space, Dear God no wonder I was so miserable. But seriously, getting out of that relationship, and through the ensuing years, I relied heavily on food to make me feel better, to fill that gap for companionship, and any space that might have remained available in my pants size. The term "Emotional Support Taco" is a thing at my house, and since I live with roommates, I'm not the only one who says it, though I am the undeniable creator of the term, and the movement. I live too close to a Taco Bell for comfort, and the scale reminded me of that this morning. But I'm ready for some healthy change. ...I hope. I have a new job that isn't nearly as horrendous as my last gig (where I worked for a verbally abusive person who thought because they MD tacked onto the end of their name entitled them to treat their workers that way), I've gotten back into therapy for the depression that I've been pretty solidly entrenched in since my college days, and I've found a wonderful partner who I love and adore, and who is also going on this health trip with me. So the goal is not to scare him away when the inevitable Starving-for-Chocolate-Monster rears her ugly head. But only time will tell!
If you've made it this far into my babbling, I applaud you! I'm hoping to use this space to talk, about a little bit of everything, the struggle, the success, the process, and maybe give and get some good book/Netflix/Podcast recommendations along the way. I'm going to try to update this place and be here more consistently, really sharing myself, I want to be able to be myself through this whole process, journey, spiritual awakening, or shit-show of a diet. So get ready for some GREAT Dad jokes, some weight-loss stuff, and definitely the mouth of a sailor.
See you around!
I'm back at it again, and by that I mean both trying to blog, and trying to get my weight under control. So, you know, the usual around here. I re-read my old posts and I just cannot believe how similar of a situation I'm in with wanting to be the inspiration I'm missing, but also how far off the wagon I've fallen. If I thought I was heavy 2 years ago, DAMN do I have some news for my older self, and it ain't good.
As of my first "Official" weigh in this morning, I've officially broken the 300lb mark. That is (sadly) not a typo. I weighed in this morning at 300.9lb. And I nearly cried. Though, those tears would have been composed of mostly soda and grease fat from my weekend. There was a great Fair I attended Saturday (Big E for the win!) and then an annual Football Cookout that I attended Sunday that made up my last meal, well last weekend, before this diet started. So, I lived it up! And then the scale refused to lie to me and tell me I was 100lbs soaking wet. That jerk. So now I'm sitting at my desk at work, in the beautiful city of Boston, eating a Smart Ones frozen lunch and being stared down by a banana that got the shit kicked out of it in my lunchbox on it's commute to work. Who knew my lunchbox served as a worse vessel to commute in than the Red Line? (For those readers not from New England, trust me, don't ever ride Mass Public transit if you need to be anywhere on time, or at any high rate of speed, and you wish to be comfortable doing it.) Now that I've naively assumed anyone was reading this, let's move on.
If you've read my previous 2 posts, you'll know that the last time I attempted this was 3 years ago, and I was living in a different state, since then, I've high-tailed it back to Massachusetts, mostly with my tail between my legs, and I left an incredibly terrible relationship. I didn't realize how toxic it was at the time, but now with the gift of time and space, Dear God no wonder I was so miserable. But seriously, getting out of that relationship, and through the ensuing years, I relied heavily on food to make me feel better, to fill that gap for companionship, and any space that might have remained available in my pants size. The term "Emotional Support Taco" is a thing at my house, and since I live with roommates, I'm not the only one who says it, though I am the undeniable creator of the term, and the movement. I live too close to a Taco Bell for comfort, and the scale reminded me of that this morning. But I'm ready for some healthy change. ...I hope. I have a new job that isn't nearly as horrendous as my last gig (where I worked for a verbally abusive person who thought because they MD tacked onto the end of their name entitled them to treat their workers that way), I've gotten back into therapy for the depression that I've been pretty solidly entrenched in since my college days, and I've found a wonderful partner who I love and adore, and who is also going on this health trip with me. So the goal is not to scare him away when the inevitable Starving-for-Chocolate-Monster rears her ugly head. But only time will tell!
If you've made it this far into my babbling, I applaud you! I'm hoping to use this space to talk, about a little bit of everything, the struggle, the success, the process, and maybe give and get some good book/Netflix/Podcast recommendations along the way. I'm going to try to update this place and be here more consistently, really sharing myself, I want to be able to be myself through this whole process, journey, spiritual awakening, or shit-show of a diet. So get ready for some GREAT Dad jokes, some weight-loss stuff, and definitely the mouth of a sailor.
See you around!
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