Food for Thought

Decided to set an alarm and get up for a Hot Yoga class this morning. Boy, am I ever glad that I did! It was tough, and totally a mental push as well as the physical, but I so needed it.

The instructor started and ended the class with what she called "Food for Thought" and the theme was "connection". She asked if it was possible to be completely surrounded by others and yet feel lonely, isolated, and alone in thought. She said that without making connections, we could be surrounded by people, busyness, the hustle/bustle of life, with lots of family and friends and yet still we feel like we are alone in our thoughts - that we are the only one feeling this way or thinking these thoughts. She mentioned that we are able to completely change our outsides (something that I am now desperately trying to do) and she'd even help us to do so, but that we need to be aware of our "inside" as well. She challenged us to connect to ourselves and our thoughts and then suggested sharing these thoughts with others and reaching out to make connections. It was just what I needed to hear today and this week while I'm beginning this journey... again! 

In the spirit of her challenge, I will share my lonely thoughts:

I am constantly surrounded by supportive friends and family. I have amazing students and youth that I work with, and strong friendships. Yet I still have days where I feel alone. I think a lot of this loneliness stems from being a 34 year old single woman without a family of her own. I don't have that person to come home to at the end of the day. I have my fat Honduran cat named Suki (who is also now starting a diet - more on that another time). I don't have anyone watching what I eat at home - no one to keep me from sitting down to Netflix with an entire bag of chips. My biggest fear? That I'll end up alone forever with 6 cats... ok, not really, but sort of. I truly fear that by the time I find "my person", I will be too old to have children of my own. [sigh] My anxiety doesn't help these lonely thoughts go away...

So, for now, I try to distract myself from those lonely thoughts and choose instead to make connections and be present in the moment. I will keep working on the "outside" in the hope that the "inside" starts to strengthen as well. 

Here I Go Again On My Own...

I've decided to try something new. I have a knitting blog and I used to love making posts. I haven't blogged in awhile but I think I maybe need a place to voice my struggles as well as my victories. I also need to held accountable, and while sharing photos and my specific weight makes me very vulnerable, I think it's what I need to do to ACTUALLY stick with it this time.

I've never been "thin". I've always battled with my weight. When I think about why, I think eating has always been a vice for me. I'm an emotional eater and I know it. When I feel sad or down, I feed my feelings. Even when things are going well, I celebrate with food!

I've tried dieting a few times:

Serious Diet #1: Weight Watchers
Starting Weight: 185.8 (Sept. 4, 2002)
Ending Weight: 153.0 (Apr. 22, 2004)
Weight Lost: 32.8 lbs
My first time was in 2nd year university. My mom and I joined Weight Watchers. We started in September. By December of that same year, I was already down 30 pounds. I lost the weight fast. I also remember feeling hungry all the time, and eating mostly salads and "0 point WW vegetable soup". I managed to keep off the weight for almost 2 years (as I was still attending WW meetings) but then stopped going, and went back to eating badly.

OTHER ATTEMPTS (Which meant FAT photos and rarely the skinny result ones!)

2007

2011

2012

Serious Diet #2: Lose It! (phone app)
Starting Weight: 201.0 (Sept. 13, 2015)
Ending Weight: 170.5 (Mar. 29, 2016)
Weight Lost: 30.5 lbs

A friend recommended this app to me. You record your eating and count the calories. It provides charts and graphs, and gives you little rewards. I also liked that it tracked my activities and was synced with my Fitbit so that if I burned a lot of calories that day, it gifted me extra calories to eat that day. It was tough but it worked and I never felt like I was depriving myself in the same way I did when I was on Weight Watchers. If I went out for dinner with friends and wanted pizza, I ate pizza. I just made sure that I documented it.
This seems to be the biggest thing for me - WRITING DOWN WHAT I PUT IN MY MOUTH. When I document my eating, I am not as tempted to snack or grab random things from the fridge when I'm bored.


INJURIES
Over the last few years, I have been told by doctors why I tend to sprain my ankle once a year, and why my knee acts up. I have been dancing since I was 5, so I always called my bad ankle my "bad dance ankle". The injuries usually occurred due to dancing and my knee that would act up, I always believed was just over-compensating for my bad ankle.
While training for a half marathon (in 2013), I could no longer run without pain in my ankle. I decided to have the doctor investigate instead of saying it was just a reoccurring dance injury. In January 2014, after years and years of sprains, months of doctor visits, xrays, ultrasounds, an MRI, and a visit to an orthopedic surgeon, I was told I had torn and pulled ligaments in my ankle that never healed properly and the only thing I can do is physiotherapy... for which I have no coverage.
In October 2016, my knee was giving me problems again. I was performing in a show where I was dancing in 3 inch character heels, and after rehearsal one night, I could barely walk. I went for xrays and an ultrasound and nothing showed up so my doctor called it "chronic overuse" and denied my requests for an MRI. I sought out the opinion of a second doctor and this time he sent me for an MRI. The results came back in January 2017, and I discovered I had a small meniscus tear that could have been there for years and flares up from time to time. It's not a big enough tear for surgery, in fact it's more of a frayed meniscus in several spots. More physio which I can't afford 3 times a week with no health benefits.

NOW
Once I reached 171 pounds in March of last year, I stopped tracking my foods and starting eating again. It wasn't so bad when I was exercising, but when things got busy and I didn't have time for gym, I started gaining the weight back. It fluctuated and was only a little bit here and there, so I didn't notice at first, but once I did start to notice, instead of getting back to the gym or getting back to my tracking, I ate my feelings. I felt gross and bad about myself. I felt lonely and swore that this was the reason that I am still single after all of these years. So instead of getting to the gym, I would sit at home with a bag of chips or a tub of ice cream. I used my injuries as excuses that I couldn't work out. I work so many jobs that I'm often tired and after working 12+ hour days, I didn't feel like going to the gym. I took an online course this Spring that had me living at my computer whenever I wasn't working my 5 jobs. I had to dig back into the bag of "fat clothes" that I was going to donate.

TODAY
I am tired of hating the way I look in photos. I'm tired of feeling gross in clothes that no longer fit me. I don't feel good about the way I look and I'm not willing to put myself out into the dating world when I have no self-confidence in the way I look. More importantly than what the scale reads, I just want to feel healthy again. I need to get back to the gym and get exercise. I need to feel good in my own skin.

Serious Diet #3: Lose It! (phone app)
Starting Weight: 200.5 (July 2, 2017)