Finally Getting Fit

Hello all!

This past week I have been feeling like I’ve been off track. I was still doing the meal replacement for most meals and eating healthy food for other meals, but I still had that sense of ‘betraying’ myself and not sticking to the course. While I made good choices, I could feel myself getting closer and closer to stepping over a line that would lead me back to unhealthy eating.

The husband and I had a heart to heart about my eating that really helped me to refocus on what I want. I recognized that I haven’t been reigning myself in as much lately as I should have.

Sometimes all you need to re-inspire yourself and get going again is to say your goals out loud.

Telling my husband all about my next goal and how I’m feeling has really gotten me going this week. I’m back on the elliptical every morning, I have my kick ass attitude back and much more.

The goal I am focusing on right now is getting to the 220 mark by my next doctor’s appointment in August. 220 just so happens to be the 100 kilo mark and I’m all about the even numbers and such.

Not to mention how much I would love to walk into that office three months after my last appointment – the appointment where she said I’d have to go on metformin if I didn’t lose at least a little weight by the next appointment – having lost thirty kilos.

It’s going to be tough, but I think I can do it. And if I don’t get there? I’ve still done an amazing job so far.

How are you going?

When I started doing meal replacement, I joined up on the company’s website. It’s a nice place to go to keep track of your stats as well as talking to people who really know what you’re going through because they are doing exactly the same thing you are.

The topic we’ve been talking about a lot lately is our relationship to/with food.

Boy-o did I never have a good one.

Food has served three purposes during my life.

A Way to Feel

I started binge eating when I was about four. Probably earlier, but most of my earliest memories are from about four. Though I didn’t recognize it until much later, I had a screwed-up childhood. I craved food – well, I craved eating until it hurt – as a way to feel something.

A Comfort

When I got into my teenager years (and earlier than that), food became my comfort. Nothing soothed your hurts like a pint of Ben and Jerry’s choc chip cookie dough ice cream while watching your favourite television show or movie. Good nights were pizza nights or nights when we had treats for dessert. Fresh food and cooking from scratch wasn’t done a lot at my parent’s place.

A Punishment

I met my husband online while I was at university and he was the one who began teaching me about healthier food. It’s thanks to him that I started eating more fresh fruit and vegetables. It’s thanks to him that I stopped a lot of unhealthy food behaviors.

But then, after I got back to my parent’s place after uni, I knew enough about food to use it against myself. Whenever I felt the need to punish myself, I’d get a Big Mac meal from McDonald’s and wash it down with a big cup of soda. I would eat sugary things – cheap sugary things with artificial colours probably being the last of worries.

And Now?

I’m finally finding my peace with food. I appreciate the finer things, more nutritional things. I can finally separate out flavours and I have even found a place where I feel great about myself – cooking from scratch in the kitchen.

I get sad thinking about where I’ve been in regards to food in my life, but at least now I can view it as what it is: sustenance.

If there is one word that could some up this past week, it would be: indulgence. While I have stayed on task during the days, a couple days this past week were feast days. While I don’t regret it, I know that I have to dedicate this week to going ‘by the book’ if I don’t want to slip down the (not-so-slippery anymore) slope of eating things that aren’t so great for me.

But when you’re handed a forty dollar meal voucher, it’s hard to pass it up.

The weird thing about being on a very low calorie diet is the fact that these feast days – done with nutritious food and done only every once in a while – seems to benefit me over all. It wakes my body up and gets it to start using things again. Sometimes I gain a couple pounds initially after eating, but then it just comes right back off soon enough and I’m on my way again.

That’s not to say I haven’t struggled a bit with my 230s. It almost got to the point where I was thinking there was some sort of hidden sabotage point, but it ended up not being that. I just got a bit antsy (which isn’t so bad considering I’ve been doing this for nearly two months) and wanted some ‘real’ food. Which basically meant I wanted some meat in my diet.

All in all, it went well.

As for the rock and the hard place…

I know that the pill does not ‘heal’ you if you have irregular periods, but I think I might have to go back on it. It’s still too early to tell because I won’t officially be a week late until tomorrow, but I haven’t even had a sign. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Sigh.

It used to be that all it took was a five pound loss and bam, there you go. Now I’ve lost heaps and it’s looking like I can’t quite manage it by myself yet. I’m going to give it a while longer, but I don’t have much hope at the moment.

The pill and needing it to keep my lady bits healthy by shedding lining regularly is the rock. Hating being on anything synthetic but being unable to get the factory working naturally, so to say, is the hard place.

GRRR.

Things have been going great for me over the past month and a half or so. I’m finally seeing weight loss, I’m feeling better about myself, I’m actually happy to exercise… So far, so good.

However, last night I was reminded that not all my demons have been so easily vanquished.

Though I have ventured into the realm of ‘real food’ (non-meal replacement, non-veggies, non-fruit type food) on occasion, I have always kept it bread/rice/pasta/etc free and very light. Mainly meaning I had mostly grilled fish when I strayed. This has been what I feel is a big factor in my sticking with meal replacement.

But last night was the first really hard night for me.

I’m not sure if it was because of time of month coming up (I’ve been known to have HUGE meat cravings the week before TOM) or just some weird thing, but I told my husband all I wanted was a lamb souvlaki or a burger. (We’re talking good quality, good ingredients Australian burger – not fast food crap.) We sat at the pub and all I could talk about for fifteen minutes was souvlaki.

I consider it a victory that the thought was just to have something ‘real’ (which was pretty much any combination of meat and bread that I could think of) instead of wanting to quit the diet entirely. In fact, quitting the diet never entered my mind.

I should change the title to “JM Two”.

In the end, I didn’t have any souvlaki. We got caught up with trivia night at the pub, and we were having so much fun that I wanted to stay there rather than run off an indulge my cravings.

And today? I still kind of want some meat, but it’s not that ‘GIMME MEAT’ type of craving anymore.

Phew. Now only if I could combat every craving with random trivia.

I do this sort of thing on Fiction Scribe when there are a lot of interesting things I’ve read lately that I want to point to. I haven’t really had a need to do so here until things piled up on me this week.

So here we go!

Hanlie at Fertile Healthy has caught the Blah Bug that I’ve been dealing with the past few days. Head over and show her some love.

Cammy at Tippy Toe Diet has a giveaway going on for folks in the US. That doesn’t include me, so I figured I would promote it instead of entering. A copy of Eric R. Braverman’s Younger (Thinner) You Diet is up for grabs.

Foodie McBody at FoodFoodBodyBody put up a post last week that I have been itching to comment on here ever since I read it. Be Mindful, and Don’t Suffer is a post about Foodie’s ‘body philosophy’ for lack of better words. She talks about being mindful, being thankful, paying attention to what you eat and more. All points that I think most - if not all - of the diet plans, systems, etc miss completely. Definitely worth a read.

Why Health Advice on Oprah Could Make You Sick - Yes, there actually is someone out there who isn’t a fan of Oprah. This is a long article on how Oprah apparently doesn’t realize just how much she influences people and how she ‘innocently’ gears her shows to ‘innocently’ support causes she sometimes later denies. All up, it’s a reminder that we’re all different, so no one can be a true, infallible expert.

And there you have it! All the bits and bobs I’ve been wanting to point out over the past week or so.

I am one pound shy of being fifteen pounds down, so I’ll just have to use the 10 pounds gone graphic.

Mind you, I’m proud as peaches over that as well.

Things have been going very well on the diet so far, and not just in the pounds lost. With doing something that takes me away from all food except small servings of fruit and veggies, I feel like I’m finally getting control on the things that eluded me on the ‘eat regular food, just the healthy kind’ sort of diets.

It’s well enough for me to eat healthier. I have been. Heck, I reversed my prediabetes. But – and I think it’s due to PCOS – that wasn’t enough to get me to lose weight. This? Well, this might just be the winner I have been searching for the past two and some years.

I had my first test to my diet this past weekend when the husband and I went away on a mini-holiday. I packed plenty of bars to see me through, trusting that I would know if eating ‘real’ food would mess with me psychologically. But it didn’t.

I indulged myself in small portions of beautifully grilled fish, and I didn’t regret a moment of it. I didn’t feel naughty or even like I was deviating from the diet, really. I paid attention to the first feelings of fullness (which happen just in my stomach now instead of that bloated, all-over feeling of full) and stopped when I needed to without problem. We had seafood the second night, too, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

And yes, I had dessert, too. I had chocolate torte. I know, I know, but if you are going to do it, you should do it with something truly decadent. And to be honest, I gave myself generous spoonfuls to share because it was too big for just me.

Without fuss or anything else, I’m back on the diet. Just like that. Amazingly, no pounds heavier, either. I credit that to the exercise we got while out and about, the high quality of food (everything made from scratch), and listening to my body so I stayed with appropriate portion sizes.

I feel so incredible. I’m hoping to be able to get to the 230s (which I haven’t been in since…at least six years ago, maybe more) by my birthday in August, but I’m not putting pressure on myself to do so. I just hope and work towards it. Woohoo!

How is everyone else doing?

After talking to my dietician (and my awesome friend Jenera) about possibly trying meal replace to kickstart my stubborn pounds, I began to feel more and more comfortable with the idea. With starting to get my digestion started, I figured this would be the best time to start meal replacement as well – just to get everything on the right track.

As I’m sure most of you know, the stinky part about meal replacement stuff is that it’s pretty expensive to go buy a box ‘just to try’. If it turns out to be gross, then you feel doubly bad about the whole experience. Thankfully, my dietician was kind enough to give me free samples of a fairly popular line of meal replacements in Australia.

As it turns out, they’re edible. More than edible. They’re pretty damn good.

As my dietician said, the main hurdle is getting over the psychology of it. That bar (or shake, or soup or dessert) is your meal. Period. Nothing else with it (except a little bit of essence here or an added spice there for flavor – one of the reasons I like this brand). Getting past that ‘need’ to eat a heap is hard.

I discussed it with the husband. My main concern, of course, was the expense. Even at the discount chemist, spending that much on myself seemed a bit… excessive. The prices aren’t bad – I can’t get a regular shake for just over a dollar, that’s for sure.

But, we broke it down and yes, it seems expensive because we’re buying it all at once, but we’ll actually save a bit of money. How? Well… I won’t need any additional food besides a small amount of veggies (having a cup of veggies every day is an absolute must with this plan). We won’t save heaps, but we will save.

While my dietician didn’t say I had to do the ‘intense’ phase, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. The intense phase lasts twelve weeks, but I am going to go for a month (until the end of June) and then check in then. If I’m doing well and feel I can keep it up, I will.

I am a bit nervous about it, but I need this so badly right now that my confidence is overpowering my fear. Plus, there is so much variety (more than I usually see with meal replacement stuff), you’re allowed to add spices and essences so you don’t get sick of the flavours, plus – until I reach under 100 kilos – I get a serve of fruit every day. That’s in addition to the must-have serve of veggies with a little bit of olive oil.

I’m looking forward to being fit.

May I just say that I enjoy seeing my dietician much, much more than I like going to see the doctor’s I have seen otherwise. My dietician is very nice and pleasant to talk to.

I wasn’t originally planning to go back to the dietician, but an appointment practically fell in my lap so I took it. Given how unsatisfying my doctor was in answering my questions, I hoped I would have better luck with my dietician.

Have I mentioned how nice Dr. E is?

I had all sorts of questions about specific foods, GI, exercises, portion sizes, and more. Dr. E handled them all with care and dismissed nothing until I fully understood what she was saying.

Given my lack of weight change, she suggested I examine my exercise first. I’m now putting in the time, but the intensity is just as important. I think I’m doing okay, but I’m adding in some extra time as well as making sure that I’m puffing a bit while exercising.

Because I have a hard time eating breakfast in the morning, I asked her about the possibility of meal replacement. She seemed stunned that I would bring that up as an alternative voluntarily, but she also thought it would be a great idea – and not just for breakfast.

They had just had a shipment of meal replacement stuff in, so she gave me some soups and shakes from a specific line of meal replacement stuff as well as a brochure to introduce me to the program.

I’ve been looking at the program, but that’s for another post.

All in all, it was an excellent appointment where I got all my questions answered.

I go back in August to check in again. Hopefully I’ll be a good amount lighter by then!

I have to say that I can already tell that stopping posting my weight stats on here for right now was the right thing to do. The feeling isn’t incredibly massive, but I do feel like a stress has been taken away. And it’s not that I don’t think you all understand the highs and lows; it’s all in the craziness of my own head.

That being said…

Things have been going pretty well lately. The doctor’s appointment revealed some good news – which I’ll talk about in a later post. I feel like I am getting closer to the core issues I have with food, appearance, eating, etc.

It’s always weird when you’re trying to dredge up memories. There are reasons the memories were hidden in the first place, so you run into all sorts of interesting road blocks along the way. Anything from uncomfortable feelings to convincing yourself of things (or trying to) can pop up.

Self-examination is also never easy. Nobody is perfect, so facing your hang-ups is hard. But I’m keeping on with it because I know I have to.

On the physical side of things, I’m working on waking up my sleepy digestive system. I’m eating even more veggies than ever and I’m taking a herbal blend that is supposed to help with bowel function. (I feel kind of weird talking about all that, but it goes part and parcel with things…)

If that doesn’t help, I’m going to go the meal replacement route (just one meal replaced a day, no worries) to help me stay steady while I get my head stuff worked out.

Interesting times ahead…

I hope all of you are doing well.

Well, in my time zone it’s actually day six and I’ve already done my morning and lunch time exercises. But I don’t think that’s a big deal.

Things are going great and I’m so incredibly happy with myself. I thought doing all this with TOM going on would make things extra difficult, but it really hasn’t. I can’t tell you just how happy I am.

I keep saying to Mr. JM, “I know I’ve only been doing this for x days, but…”

The ‘but’ is followed by how happy I am, the little successes I’ve had with resisting temptations, how my view of myself is improving etc.

A little voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me this excitement will end. I’m a ‘starter’ by nature. Let me start things up, get them going and you can take them from there. That little voice has been reminding me a lot about that and has also been reminding me about the times in the past when I’ve gotten off to an exciting start only to trip up.

But the thing is, I reckon I need to embrace the enthusiasm for no matter how long it lasts. Who cares if I’m a starter? That’s a part of life. I just need to learn to be a runner when my enthusiasm for starting starts waning.

Do I sound crazy yet? Hehe.

I really am just very happy right now. I haven’t skipped any exercise sessions, I’ve completely cut alcohol, I haven’t even thought about chocolate (though I usually ‘need’ it at this time), I’m looking even closer at labels and – AND! – I’m cooking more.

Everything is looking up, and it all started with finding the exercise routine that is right for me.

Woot!

I went to the shops yesterday because I wanted some ingredients for a new recipe I was trying out. (Which was pretty darn good for my first attempt, if I do say so…) As I was wandering the shelves just to see if there was anything else interesting enough to pick up, I spotted the peanut butter section.

Now, I realise that peanut butter isn’t the best thing for you. However, paired up with some Vita Wheats (healthy crackers) and sliced banana for an occasional afternoon snack? Just peachy! I’ve been having cravings for peanut butter lately anyway, so I figured I might as well work it into a healthy snack.

Did I buy any peanut butter? Heck no!

If there is one awesome thing my husband has taught me, it is to read labels.

I couldn’t remember which brand of peanut butter didn’t have any additives in it (peanut butter should have three ingredients: peanut butter, vegetable oil and salt (sometimes no salt)), so I started reading labels. Lo and behold, out of all the brands on the shelf, I could not find a single jar of peanut butter that didn’t have sugar added.

GRR!

Before anyone tries to tell me sugar in peanut butter is standard, stop. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but in all my time in Australia, I have never eaten peanut butter with sugar added. Never.

I suppose it’s just the way of the world, but I’m really disappointed. Sugar has made its way into all peanut butter now, too? Blah. I don’t want to spend twice as much money on the so-called ‘health’ peanut butter either, so I guess I’ll just have to do without.

Grrr.

On a funnier note:

Today I went to the shops for my lunch break to get some sushi. Of course, being the week before Easter, it was packed. (Easter is not Christmas people! Half of you don’t even believe in the religion that celebrates the day!) At one end of the food court, the people from the gym were taking advantage of the crowds and giving away gym deals.

As much as I tried to keep up my ‘zoned out shopper’ face, one guy practically walked into me to get my attention.

I said, “No thanks, I have an elliptical at home.”

He nodded knowingly but almost seemed to pout at the fact that you can’t argue someone who already has gym equipment into a gym membership.

Just then some blond little chickie practically bounces over and hands me a chocolate Easter egg.

“Take one of these!”

Then she ‘bounces’ away.

I look down at it and can’t help but think: “Yes, get me fatter because my elliptical at home won’t be enough! I’ll have to get a gym membership!”

Of course that wasn’t the case, but come on. You’re a gym! Promoting health and all that? You’re handing out chocolate? (And they were decent sized ones too, not those measly little bullet pieces of fake chocolate crap.)

I know carrot sticks wouldn’t have gone over that well, but try giving away meal on the go bars or granola bars. Something at least dancing under the mask of being healthy. Chocolate? Come on.

Your PR section is crap people! CRAP!

I mentioned in a previous weigh in how, even though it costs a little more, I am getting the individual serves of things instead of buying bulk containers. As someone with binge habits in her past, having the individual serves can be the difference between eating and getting on with life and struggling with that urge to eat more than I need.

But, like with a lot of things, people who haven’t been through the same experiences you have don’t always understand why doing something as simple as getting a bowl of yogurt from a big tub of yogurt could be hard.

My husband and I were buying groceries and, while he reached for his usual big container of yogurt, I went for the six pack of individual serves.

He looked at me and asked, “Why don’t you just get a tub?”

I explained to him that it was hard for me if I used t a big tub, so for the time being, I wanted to use individual serves. I didn’t explain myself well (hello, public grocery store, people wandering by), but I made it clear that the individual serves are just something I need right now to stay on track. He didn’t look all that impressed.

To my husband’s credit, he realized it was important to me and just said, “Okay.”

Therein is one of the reasons I love him. He doesn’t know what it’s like for me to stand with a big tub of yogurt and have that voice needling, “Just a bit more, it’s okay.” And yet, he trusts me to know what I need when it comes to these things. He may disagree and he may not like spending the extra money, but he does love and trust me.

After that, though, I re-realized that no one can do this stuff for you. You need to do what you need to do, and you also have to stand up for what your needs are. Even if they may make you feel silly, if they get you to where you need to be, then why not do them?

Oh, boy.

It’s only day two for getting back to healthier, regular eating and exercise, and I’m already trying to sabotage myself.

On one hand, it’s probably a good sign. The voices of temptation and sabotage popping up this early means I’m on the right track, treating myself right and doing the things I need to do for a healthy body. But, as you can imagine, it’s also a pain in the arse to have to deal with that stuff already.

Giving myself flexibility in my menu has turned out to be the best decision I could have made. Not only do I not have that invisible ‘must eat this’ pressure, but I have also discovered some awesome snack alternatives (tuna! Tuna in a can! With Vita Wheats! Yum!) that I wouldn’t have tried had I stuck strictly to the menu.

It’s hard to be facing my demons so quickly, just when I’m getting my feet under me with a new plan, but like I said – it must mean I’m doing the right thing.

Today when I went to pick up some groceries and new shoes, the moment I stepped into the mall I felt bombarded with tempty thoughts. You know the ones:

“You could have just one.” “No one would know.” “You don’t HAVE to write EVERYTHING in your food diary.”

I battled those thoughts with the usual ones, but surprisingly, the one that seemed to work the best (but hasn’t in the past) is: “I need to prove to myself that I can do this.”

After I thought that, I got distracted with other things. I was tempted again a little in the grocery store, but I just stocked up on some yummy tuna and got a ‘yogurt to go’ to try as a treat.

So here is do one day won, and many more to come.

Do you know how many cups of coffee it would take to kill you? How many 7-Ups you’d have to drink do off yourself? How about chocolate milk?

You don’t drink anything but water? Well, do you know how much unsweetened baking chocolate you could eat before kicking the bucket? How about how many Hershey Kisses you can eat before taking the long walk?

Do you know how many ways there are to say ‘die’?

I’ve found an interesting site where you enter in your weight, pick your product and click to find out how much of it you could consume before it kills you.

Death by Caffeine may seem like a morbid kind of site, but it’s also quite interesting.

For instance, I can have this much of these products before I croak:

17199 Hershey Kisses
143.32 cups of Java Chai
2866.50 Kit Kat Bars
343.98 bottles of Lipton Iced Tea
4299.75 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
687.96 cups of Green Tea

The thousands of Hershey Kisses is kind of funny, but things that only take around 100… Well, it makes you think about what is in that stuff that it takes so much less to kill you than other things.

I’m not just being morbid, though - I promise. When I see this, I think not only about the entertainment side, I think about how much crap we can do to our bodies before they kick out. It’s pretty impressive, but also pretty scary that people are pushing those limits.

Anyway, I hope you have fun with the site. It’s interesting in a weird, weird way.