Archive | May, 2010

My Baggage Ain’t Your Baggage

By on May 31, 2010 in emotional stuff, weekend

Happy Memorial Day, all!  I’m not taking today off (I’m currently blogging from work) but I want to start by saying that I am so thankful for all of those who have served in our armed forces, and for their families who have made that sacrifice with them.  Those who have served over the history of our country have made it possible for us to live in a country where we can say what we think without fear of losing our freedoms, and that is a gift.

Weekend in Review

I had a pretty good weekend except for a faceplant into some chocolate chip cookies I made for a party.  Bad news: I ate 8 cookies for breakfast.  Good news: I felt physically sick for about half the day afterward – bloated and just plain gross.  Why is that good news?  Two reasons that I can think of right now: (1) my body is getting used to avoiding sugar or only consuming it in small amounts, and (2) next time I’m tempted to overeat something sugary like that, I’ll have a memory I can point to as a very good reason to stick to TWO cookies and not EIGHT.  Blech.

I made up for it by eating super healthy the rest of the day, even at the BBQ last night, where I had a burger with a bottom bun and lettuce for the “top bun,” 1 tsp mayo, lots of veggies, and a yummy side of fruit salad.  I was babysitting my sister’s FOUR kids last night, and boy if that’s not like herding cats I don’t know what is.  I’ve said before how much more energy I burn when I’m with them (my average calorie burn without a workout is 2,800/day – when I have her kids, it’s over 4K per day with no workout!) but man, they are just a hoot!  I had a great time, got home at just shy of 5am (!), and slept until 11am before heading here to work.

I’m in my running clothes (love working on a holiday!) and will hit either the gym or a trail on my way home, depending on the weather.

Baggage Epiphany

I don’t know if I can really call this an epiphany, but I realized something really obvious that all you smarter people probably knew a really long time ago.  That is, that my baggage around weight is totally different and unique from each other person’s baggage around weight.  (Yes, I know, “duh” – shoot me, I’m slow sometimes!)

I was talking yesterday with a friend of mine who struggled with her weight on a smaller scale for years before she finally, over the course of about 3 years, lost 40 pounds and largely maintained that loss until she had kids.  I remembered yesterday that her then-boyfriend (now-husband) actually told her once that he didn’t think she had the self-discipline to lose the weight.  I asked her yesterday how she dealt with that.  Her response?  “Any time someone tells me I can’t do something, my reaction is to do it just to prove to myself that I can, and to prove them wrong.”

My reaction to my husband saying essentially the same thing has been to get all hurt and mopey and emotional about it; to be offended that he doesn’t believe in me.  And I realized that, as I have shared previously, the reason for that is that I sometimes doubt myself, and hearing him articulate the thing I’m most afraid of – that I can’t do it – really scares me!

Talking with my friend and her husband yesterday reinforced to me a number of things.  First, our baggage is all different.  Second, though – even though my knee-jerk reaction might be one thing, I get to choose how I behave in response to a challenge like this.

So, today I’m choosing

to get over being hurt
to realize that I’m scared
not to punish my husband for my fear
not to punish my husband for my baggage
to start learning to drop my baggage, once piece at a time
to prove to myself that I can do this

What are you choosing today?

Comments { 10 }

Weekend Goals

By on May 29, 2010 in Uncategorized

First off, if you haven’t entered to win some awesome goodies on National Running Day, doooo eeeet!  Check out Tara’s post about it to enter her giveaway, too!

Weekends

I know I’m not alone in that I struggle a bit more with certain things on the weekends.  My biggest challenge on the weekends is getting my workouts in!  Eating healthy isn’t really a problem 90% of the time on the weekend, since I’m the one that cooks and shops for our household.  I just don’t keep junk in the house, and my hubby doesn’t buy it either (thank goodness!).

But workouts?  Yikes, when I am having an “at home” day, it’s really hard to get myself out the door.  And when I’m busy with family in town or social functions, it’s just hard to make time.  Anybody else have the same problem?

I’m going to start setting specific goals for myself on the weekends, kind of like I started doing for each month.  (BTW, May goals recap and June goals post coming soon – maybe you’ll join me in setting some goals for June?)

Anyhoo, so my weekend goals are:

  • Get my Friday workout in before my work day is over.
  • Get my Saturday workout in within one hour of waking up OR go hiking with hubby (this will depend on the weather when we wake up Saturday!).
  • Plan for some movement of the bod on Sunday – dancing, yoga, a walk, some Wii Fit, whatevs.  Just to keep the tush off the couch.

I have to confess I’ve already gotten my Friday workout in (I’m typing this post Friday afternoon to publish on Saturday!), so maybe that’s cheating so I’m taking lots of credit for that, since Fridays seem to be the hardest day to get my workouts in!  Here’s me, patting my own back.  :)

What are your goals for the weekend?
Toot your own horn – how’d you do great this week?

Comments { 14 }

Listening to my Body

By on May 28, 2010 in Uncategorized

First off, if you haven’t entered to win some awesome goodies on National Running Day, doooo eeeet!  Check out Tara’s post about it to enter her giveaway, too!

Now, what does it mean to listen to your body?

No, really, people – I’m asking y’all because I want to know what you think!  So, pretty please, hit me up in the comments with your answers, while I continue to blather on thoughtfully post on this question.

You may remember that a while back, I took some time off from counting calories and committed to living within healthy guidelines and listening to my body.  We’ve all heard of intuitive eating (which, contrary to popular belief, does not mean eating whatever you want) and there are a gazillion books on this and related topics.

Today I’m not thinking about this in terms of food, however.  I’m thinking about exercise.

When I do not exercise regularly, here’s what my body tells me:

  • My back hurts;
  • I can’t sleep;
  • I have low energy;
  • I feel lethargic and sluggish regardless of how much sleep I get.

When I do exercise regularly, here’s what my body tells me:

  • Hey, no back pain!
  • I sleep like the dead!
  • I have lots of energy, so much so I annoy people sometimes!
  • I feel alert and focused, even if I’m operating on a little less sleep!

My point is that we really can trust our bodies.  My body tells me when I need to exercise.  It also tells me when I need a break.  It tells me if it likes the quality of the food I am feeding it, or not.  It also affects my mood, letting me know that my physical being and my emotional/mental/spiritual being are all ONE; all connected.

All this lip-service we I give to listening to my body?  It’s not worth much unless I actually follow-through and act on the wisdom my body is giving me.  And right now, my body is screaming at gently nudging me to get out and get moving.  So, that’s what I’m gonna do.

What does it mean to you to listen to your body?
Are you good at listening to your body?
Does what your body tells you sometimes annoy you because it really, really, really does me!!!?

Comments { 5 }

Clarification and Proving a Negative

By on May 27, 2010 in Uncategorized

Hi all!  Happy Thursday.  I wonder if Thursday feels bad that the only love it really gets is because it’s the day before Friday??

Clarification

I realized that my National Running Day post was not as clear as it could have been about the giveaway!  So I’ve updated the post – head back over there via this handy link here, read the “how to win” section at the bottom, and comment/plan accordingly!

Proving a Negative
Warning, warning – Epic Post Ahead!

As I was falling asleep last night, I had some interesting thoughts related to this post from a couple weeks ago.  I continue to struggle with how my weight and my marriage affect each other.  Truly, just about everything in life is connected in one way or another.  When my weight loss is going well, I feel better about myself and therefore am a happier, easier spouse to be with.  When my relationship is in a rough patch, it affects everything in my life, even my energy level and my workouts.

That’s sort of peripheral to the thoughts I was having last night.  Bear with me here as I kind of realized maybe this was important a few second before I fell asleep, so I’m not sure how well I’ll articulate myself! 

One of my fears in life is being left by the people I love. It’s not rooted in my childhood, as I wasn’t left by anyone as a kid (either by death or by choice to leave).  In my early 20s, though, I had a very dysfunctional relationship that lasted 3 years and then ended very abruptly.

How abruptly?  This man (we’ll call him douche bag for convenience’s sake) who had been a part of my life for 3 years just…disappeared.  Stopped calling, stopped e-mailing, stopped visiting.  And didn’t even do me the courtesy of telling me that the relationship was over.  I didn’t understand at first, so I called a few times, but after a couple of days it became obvious and I was absolutely shattered.  It felt so horrible, not so much because the relationship ended (I’ve come to view that as a blessing, because I wasn’t strong enough to end that relationship myself and yet it was so unhealthy that it needed to be ended), but because I had no closure.  I wasn’t given a reason why, or the opportunity to say goodbye.

It was like he had decided that I wasn’t even worth saying goodbye to.  That I didn’t deserve the opportunity to say goodbye, that I didn’t deserve to know what or why or even just that it was over.  And for a long time, I let his poor judgment and what I perceived his opinion of me to be (unworthy) to be true in my own mind.  And the dumb thing is that I don’t even think that’s why he did it!  I think he couldn’t handle the idea of ending it like an adult, so he did what he had done his whole life – he ran away.  Still, though – that’s not how it felt back then.  Back then, it felt like he was making a statement that I wasn’t even worth breaking up with.  For years, I let that belief seep in to how I saw myself.

Fast-forward to today, and part of my emotional baggage in life is fear of being left.  I also hate when people don’t return phone calls, because his not picking up the phone felt like a form of control and punishment to me at the time.

You might be wondering when I’m going to get to the point.  I’m kind of wondering that myself.

Another thing I carried around for a long time was the lie that no man could love a woman who is 100 pounds overweight.  I was overjoyed when I found that man douche-bag in my early 20s because not only did he love me, he thought I was beautiful and smart and he told me so and he pursued me like I was a treasure.  And I thought I was, too – but only because he thought so, and only while I was with him.  I fell into the trap of viewing my value and beauty and worth as a result of being in relationship with a man.  And when that man left, so did my belief that I was worthy.  I bought into the mistaken belief that I would never find another man to love me.  (Never mind that clearly he didn’t really love me, otherwise he would have at least had the respect to end our relationship with some dignity!)

Now I am loved by my husband, who met me when I was 100 pounds overweight; who pursued me and asked me to marry him and who loves me enough to talk through really heart-wrenching, emotional, difficult issues like weight and body image and self-love with me.  Which is a big thing, given how uncomfortable it all makes him and how much he avoids anything resembling confrontation.

I’m learning, slowly, that he is not going to leave me.  But there’s a part of me that will always feel like the fat girl eventually gets left.  And if I stay fat and I get left, I can blame it on my fat.  But if I lose the weight and become healthy and fit and I still get left?

Well, then there’s nothing to blame it on but me.

There are no guarantees in life and I really hate that.  I want to know what to do so that I can guarantee the success of my marriage long-term.  Because that would mean some part of this life is within my control, and I like being in control.  But I’m not, and I can’t be.  It’s not possible to know the future, to control what life throws your way, or to guarantee that nothing bad will happen.

Another twisted thought process I have goes like this: My husband loves me even though I’m fat.  But does he really?  And if I lose weight, how will I ever know?  If I stay fat and he stays with me, that will prove he loves me for real.  But if I lose weight and he stays with me, I’ll never really know if the loves me unconditionally or if he stayed with me because I lost the weight.

Seriously?  Someone could write a book about all this dysfunction-up-in-the-head.  And I don’t even realize I’m thinking this way most of the time.  So that’s where you (here I am talking to my blog as if it’s an animate being again) come in, dear blog.  I type all this stuff out and put it in black and white to help me understand my own flawed, imperfect, and yet beautiful and worthy self.  And you, dear readers…well, you help me understand I’m not crazy because no matter how whacked I may be, someone out there always says, “I understand. I’ve been there. You’re not alone.”

So here’s what I know, and what I’m learning: I’m one messed up mo’ fo’.  I’m getting better.  No person can define my self-worth and my value – those things are intrinsic in me as a human being.  I am beautiful and worthy and lovable simply because I was born.  I don’t need to earn anyone’s love.  I most certainly do not need to adopt anyone else’s opinion of me – that is giving away a little piece of my soul.

Something else I’m learning is that it’s not fair for me to saddle my husband with my baggage.  Douche-bag didn’t love me and he left me.  That is his fault and his shortcoming – not my husband’s.  It is not fair for me to use my history as a lens through which I view my husband’s love and our relationship.  I keep telling my husband that he can’t punish me for his baggage/past (briefly: his ex-wife gained over 100 pounds and told him if he didn’t like it he could leave, their marriage failed for that and other reasons, which makes him afraid that the same thing might happen with us).  I guess I need to take my own advice, huh?

Comments { 6 }

National Running Day Challenge!

By on May 26, 2010 in Uncategorized

Hey, friends!  Welcome to the National Running Day Challenge, co-hosted by the bodacious Tara.  Check out her post today to read more about the Challenge and see what great goodies she’s giving away to a lucky winner!

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself, goodies?!  Yes, that’s right – goodies!  For all who sign up and participate in the challenge, which will take place on June 2, 2010, there will be a drawing for prizes!

Tara is giving away this:

I am giving away this ($10):

and this:

So, not only do you have National Running Day as motivation to get out and run on June 2, you also have the allure of great loot x 2!!

What do you have to do, you ask?  Run a 5K?  Run a mile?  Well, we wanted to encourage as many people to participate as possible – rookies and old hands alike.  So for this challenge, you set your goal.  The only requirement is that is must involve running on June 2, 2010.

I am going to run a mile as fast as I can, and then I’m going to go on to run a 5K. Tara will have her own goal.  And y’all will have your own goals, too.

New to running?  Maybe your goal will be to get out for 3 miles and run 60 seconds at a time sprinkled throughout your workout.  Maybe you’ll run a mile, a 5K, or a 10K.  Maybe your running goal will be to do it barefoot or to PR (personal record) at a particular distance.  Whatever it is, let us in on your plan.  And on June 2, come back to tell us how you did.

Here’s what to do to win:

  • Comment here about what you’re going to do to participate;
  • Follow me on Twitter and tell me about it in another comment;
  • Link to this contest on your Twitter or blog and tell me about it in another comment;
  • Come back on June 2 to let us know how your NRD commitment went!

Everyone who does any combination of the above including reporting back on the June 2 National Running Day post will be entered into a drawing to win the above-pictured loot.

So, what’s your running challenge going to be?  Do tell…

Comments { 31 }