Archive | emotional stuff RSS feed for this section

Random Thoughts

By on December 27, 2011 in baby, beauty/beautiful, body, emotional stuff, self-image, weight

It used to be that I had tons of time to think and write blog posts, but as I’m sure all of you know (whether from experience or because it’s obvious!), having a baby cramps my blogging style takes up a lot of time.  So I find myself cramming almost everything I used to do with my free time into 60 minutes each work day…my commute.  (I still haven’t figured out how to work out during my commute, but more on that later.)

I was driving the other day thinking about a few things, including the fact that I’m nowhere near my goal weight and that I’ve actually gained a few of the pounds I lost right after giving birth.  And I realized that as badly as I want to start losing weight again and as much as I wish that I hadn’t gained those few pounds, I am not berating myself.  I don’t feel like crap about it.  It’s not the end of the world.

Let me say that again: it’s not the end of the world.

Being heavier than I want to be does not make me a bad person.

It doesn’t make me unworthy or unloveable.

And then I realized that one of the side effects, for me, of motherhood (and I think being in a healthy, loving marriage has also contributed to this!) is that I am learning to love myself and my body just as I am.  Oh, sure, there will be days when this doesn’t feel true.  But you know what?  This body grew my little girl for 9 months, nourished her, kept her safe, and brought her into this world (with a little help)!  Damn if that is not the coolest thing ever.  So how could I possibly hate this body of mine?

The answer is that I can’t.  Not right now.  And that’s a new and amazing thing for me.

What events in your life have taught you to love yourself and your body regardless of its current condition?

Gratuitous baby pic:

Comments { 12 }

Never Say Never

By on June 22, 2011 in emotional stuff, pregnancy, running

Or, the post that was entitled, “Hanging Up My Running Shoes.”

I had a tough experience the other day; I went out for a run and 2 minutes into it, my round ligaments started to feel sore.  I’m pretty in touch with my body these days and I’ve been really good during my pregnancy at listening to it more.  (Note to self: hang on to this habit once the baby is born!)  So of course I quit running and walked instead.  And it was a great walk with a friend, about 4 miles or so in the warm sunshine.  Good company, moving my body, sun on my face…what more could I ask?

Instead of enjoying that, though, I started to throw a little big-ass pity party for myself when I got home.  Did this mean that I was going to have to give up running for the rest of my pregnancy?  How can I call myself a runner if that’s true?  What would people think?!?

Screeching halt.  What would people think?!  What do I care what people think?!  And why was I turning a one-time experience into an end-of-the-world scenario instead of just treating it like what it was – a run that wasn’t meant to be?

Oh, yeah.  Pregnancy.  Hormones.  Fatigue.  As unaffected – mood-wise, I mean – as I mostly feel by being pregnant, I’m not.  Unaffected, that is.  And that’s okay.  And it’s okay that I didn’t run.  It’s even okay if I don’t run again for the rest of my pregnancy.

I’m not saying I won’t run again for the next three months; I’ll give it another try or two and see how my body responds.  And it might be just fine for me to keep running until…well, until.  Until my body says “stop.”  Or the other day might have been my body’s way of saying “no more, hon…give it a break” until the baby is born.  We’ll just see.

You know what else?  Whether I run or not for the duration of this pregnancy doesn’t make me a runner…or not.  What other people think of me doesn’t make me a runner…or not.  Being a runner isn’t about speed, or distance, or how often you do it or whether you need to take walk breaks or anything else.

Being a runner, for me?  It’s about loving it.  And missing it when I can’t, regardless of the reason.  And knowing that running will be a part of your my life for as long as I want it to be.  And also understanding that as life changes and evolves, so can running.  How you do it, when you fit it in, what it means to you…running is the least-static thing on the planet, which is a good thing because life?  So not static.

So what makes you a runner?  And how do you keep from turning one bad run into the end of the world?

Comments { 10 }

What’s Your Motivation?

By on January 31, 2011 in determination/motivation, emotional stuff, health, hope/inspiration, weight

I’ve had this draft sitting in my “posts” folder for a while and for some reason, I found it hard to write this post.  Why?  I’m not sure, but maybe it’s because I’m in a kind of “limbo” right now with respect to the source of my motivation.  For a long time, I was motivated by feeling like crap about myself.  It’s easy to “want” to lose weight when you’re 100+ pounds overweight!  Ironically, though, the more weight you lose, the less motivated you may become if “not being fat” is your motivation.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my motivations are with respect to weight.  And I realized that it’s really not about my weight anymore.  Although I do still want to lose more weight – a fair chunk, actually – the way I feel now is amazing, night-and-day better than how I felt for all the years I was morbidly obese.  There’s a quote I’ve heard that I will proceed to totally butcher here that gets my point across, and it goes something like this: change comes when the pain of your current circumstances is bad enough to make you move from point a (here) to point b (anywhere other than here).

Well what happens when the pain of here isn’t so painful anymore?  You’ve gone from shopping in plus-size stores/departments your whole life to buying clothes in the “normal” stores or at Costco.  You’ve gone from pain in your lower back or knees or feet or all of the above to feeling vital and healthy.  No longer do you struggle to sleep well because of breathing issues or back pain.  And so on – the benefits of the weight you’ve lost are outstanding and lessen the urgency of the need to lose more weight nowquickfastandinahurry!

That’s when the real, lasting reasons for weight loss kick in.  Or when, as has happened for me, weight loss is no longer the goal.  You discover what really makes you tick.  What exercise you love.  What goals you’re dying to achieve.  And the journey becomes less about a number on the scale every day/week/month and more about you becoming the best you that you can be.

It’s not about your spouse.
It’s not about your family.
It’s not for that guy/gal you might meet on Friday night.
It’s not about looking a certain way for anyone else…or at all.
It’s not about your high school reunion.
It’s not about what others think of you.

Instead…

It’s about you.
What you love.
What YOU think of you.
Who you want to be.
How you want your life to look, forever.
Has to be for you, for your life, forEVER.

So, yeah…that’s what I’m thinking about these days.  And I don’t have any answers really, except I know this journey has become a whole lot less about weight loss and a whole lot more about what I want to be.  The life I want to live.  The example I want to set for my future kids.  And the memories I want to cherish when I’m 100+ years old and finally about to kick the bucket.  And I have a feeling that what will matter to me then is not the number on the scale, but the love-joy-connection-community-adventure -ful life that I will have lived.

How about you?  What’s motivating you right now?  Is that motivation going to be enough to get you through this life-long journey?

Comments { 5 }

Being Fat is Easier

By on January 24, 2011 in emotional stuff

Now that got your attention, didn’t it?!  Bear with me for a moment here and I’ll come to my point pretty quickly.

Last week I was watching The Biggest Loser, which I’ve watched for years – maybe since the second season or so?  And I was having a rough day, and I’ve been tired a lot lately, and so a big part of me just wanted to stuff my face while I was watching TV.  ‘Cause that’s my self-soothing thing, you see.

As I wrestled with that desire instead of just going to bed like I should have done, I thought about how ironic it was, that I spent so many years watching The Biggest Loser, a show that is all about helping people lose weight, while shoving food in my face.  Wishing I could be them.  Wanting to be on the show, or at least to lose the weight.  Wishing, hoping, wanting…but not doing anything to make it happen.

And it occurred to me last week, that I could certainly choose to pull out some insertunhealthysnackfoodhere and eat while I was watching.  More, it occurred to me that on so many levels, doing that was so much easier than what I’m doing now.  That’s why I did it for so many years, don’t you see?

It was easier to sit there and hope-wish-ifonly all the good things I saw the contestants experiencing…and long for those things for myself.

It was easier to sit on the couch and make things worse with my terrible food choices, than it was to face my demons and start down the road of doing this work.

I still struggle with moments where I just want to “numb out” in front of the TV with my food.  That particular combination of behaviors is my drug.  But the less I do it, the more I realize…

…yep, this is hard.
…it really sucks sometimes to do the healthier, harder thing.
…sometimes nearly always my “old ways” felt easier than my new ones.

BUT

…easy doesn’t necessarily mean good.
…I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything.
…the harder I work at all of this, the easier it gets over time.

So, yeah…sometimes, it really is easier being fat.

But I am here to say shout from the rooftops that it’s soooooo not better.  And better is where it’s at, friends.

Comments { 13 }

Something to Chew on…Healthy Living is more than a diet and an exercise plan

By on January 5, 2011 in Betsy, emotional stuff, guest post, health

Without further ado, please enjoy today’s guest post from our friend Betsy!

It’s official. It is January 5th and ten days ago I reached Resolution Overload. Now that’s a pretty easy place for me to reach because I loathe Best of lists and Best of TV shows and Year in Review articles and news stories and Top 50 lists. I also quite despise New Year’s Resolutions and I go out of my way to NOT contemplate my life or my past actions at this time of year. But I tend to be contrary so this should not come as a shock to anyone.

But just because I don’t spend this time of the year assessing what I did or didn’t do during the previous 12 months and thinking what will be in the coming ones, doesn’t mean that I’m not striving to live a healthy life, or that I don’t have New Year’s rituals. I am and I do. While most people are drafting their list of resolutions, I’m preparing my home and mind for the New Year by purging the junk and unused stuff from the drawers, cupboards, closets and cubbies of my home all the while repeating this: “I’m cleaning out the closets of my mind.”

Yeah. That’s right. I clean out my closets, cupboards and drawers annually. But it gets worse: some years I’ve been known to do this every six months. I’m a bit of a neat freak and down on clutter, so when the drawers of my home are stuffed full and the cupboards are unorganized my mind gets muddled and I find it challenging to get stuff done and focus my energies outward.

You can always tell when I’m stressed out or not processing my emotions because I physically manifest that stuff by letting the house get messy. And that only serves to bring me further down and seek further hiding from my feelings by taking shelter amidst the piles of magazines, mail, receipts, laundry, and cluttered drawers.

So purging the house of clutter, and repeating my mantra, is my healthy living New Year’s ritual for tossing out the old and making way for the new, both physically and emotionally. I find comfort in sorting through the utensil drawer and getting the numerous spatulas, eggbeaters and cheese graters neatly reordered. And I know for a fact that I breathe more easily once I’ve purged the only-worn-once-in-the-past-year clothes from my drawers and closets. If I haven’t worn it, into the donation pile it goes.

This annual purge leads to discoveries. Like just the other day as I was stuffing clean towels into the linen closet and they were toppling out onto my head, I discovered that we have 17 sets of bath towels. That’s 17 body towels, hand towels and washcloths for two people. Huh. That struck me as a bit excessive so I selected a few sets to donate, stacked up the older ones to move to the garage for car washing, and the really old, ratty car wash towels were relegated to the status of “rag.”

This excess of towels got me thinking about how many duplicates I have tucked away in my emotional self-sabotage toolkit. How many ways of talking myself down do I have at my disposal? How many thoughts of my not being worthy are lurking in my mind ready to leap to the forefront of my consciousness the moment I’m feeling good about myself? How many ways to stop myself from trying something new are stashed away in my devious mind ready to unleash them when I say yes to FitHub’s camping invitation?

Yeah, there are way too many of them to count and that depressed me and since I don’t like being depressed I turned that around and asked myself, “How many duplicates do I have tucked away in my emotional self-care toolkit?” An extended silence followed but as I continued sitting there amongst the piles of towels I began to hear a quiet, tentative voice repeating, “I am worth the effort! Go me! I am a strong, beautiful woman! I am healthy and happy!” And the more I paid attention to this small voice, the louder it grew and the stronger and more assured of myself I felt.

Naturally, this led me to another thought: I am what I focus on. Hardly a revelation but it is one I repeatedly forget. I get back what I put out. If I dwell on the fat, lazy me I will remain fat and lazy. If I focus on the chocolate, I will eat the chocolate. Whereas if I focus on the strong, determined me – I will be strong and determined. If I focus on the carrots – I will crave the carrots. (Who am I kidding? I’ll still crave the chocolate but I’ll eat the carrots instead.)

So you see all of this cleaning and organizing of stuff, also serves to clean and organize my mind and spirit. And without this cleaning and organizing of stuff and mind and spirit I would find it more difficult to focus on my other healthy living habits like eating balanced meals, exercising, choosing activities that make me move my body, and making time for myself. So for me healthy living is more than an exercise plan and diet, and this annual purging serves to maintain a level of sanity in my home so the remainder of the year I can focus on my body and mind. Now it’s time for me to put away the towels and tackle the kitchen cupboards. I wonder what I will discover?

How about you? Is your self-sabotage toolkit better stocked than your self-care toolkit? If so, what will you do to turn that around? Do you think healthy living is just about exercise and diet, or does it extend into all aspects of your life?

Comments { 3 }