Actions speak louder than words.

 

So, most of my posts have had a very positive spin on them, because I feel like whatever you want to achieve you should be in that mind frame of success. Also, they have been things that I have learnt through the many books I’ve read, and through my own experience. However, this week I’ve really been thinking that my actions really aren’t matching up with my words. Since starting this I have made a lot better choices, and I have been doing a lot better than I was before, but it’s still not right. I feel like you do the best you can with what you know. But, that stupid tool we use in our brains, where we justify things that don’t logically make sense, are starting to drive me mad.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t eat a perfect, well-rounded diet, where I eat 3 proper, nutritional meals a day. Especially right now when next week are my finals, I usually run off of coffee in the morning, with a piece of fruit, and then snack on baby carrots and grape tomatoes, and maybe have a greek yoghurt for “lunch”, and then dinner time I probably eat too much. I don’t eat unhealthy food, in fact I have healthy food, just too much of it. Some of the main things I eat for dinner are a homemade pizza where I use a minimal amount of flower, and minimal amount of cheese. I also do it half-half, because my husbands side has salami, tons of mozzarella, and other bits, but my side is made with minimal cheese, and more feta cheese with spinach. That’s all my side is, spinach and some feta cheese. Otherwise I do eat corn-tacos often too. I cook lean beef pieces with minimal oil, and only seasoned with salt, pepper and lime juice. Then I load them up with lettuce, tomatoes, and onion, and some cheese and salsa. This week I have cut out dessert. I’m no longer eating anything sweet in the evening, but I have been eating popcorn. I also felt like I completely failed yesterday because I had a banana for breakfast with black coffee, then a greek yoghurt around midday, and then after getting home at 5 I went and got some chicken pieces from KFC. I actually logged my food yesterday and my total still came to 910 calories total.

So, it may seem like I’m starving myself throughout the day, but it’s more of a, forgetting to really eat, and not having the motivation to eat when I have so much school work to cover. But the fact is, if i’m trying to reach a goal of being healthy, fit, active, and toned, I shouldn’t be eating like this. My calories are usually way under my limit, but I’m not losing any weight. That makes no sense to me, except I attribute it to drinking tons of water, and the large amount of squats I’m doing is creating more muscle mass. But the other day when I was at the grocery store my brother-in-law was behind me, and I saw what he was buying, and then what I was buying, and it was like this wall of denial and justification evaporated and I was left with the reality. There he was, the guy who amazingly lost 50lbs and has completely turned his lifestyle around buying a few vegetables…and then here I am with my shopping basket. It’s not even that I was buying horrible food, in fact I was buying ingredients for tacos, but I also had some unhealthy snacks too, and it just basically made me see the difference between someone who actively makes choices to eat healthy, and someone who is only doing it half-heartedley.

When I look at what I’m doing, I see that:

1. I need to eat the lightest meals around dinner time instead of not really eating all day, and then having a large meal for dinner.
2. I need to exercise more. I don’t walk as much as I should because I don’t make enough time for it, and I like to take my dog with me. The problem is my dog is a Chihuahua/Terrier mix, and so he’s frightened of his own shadow. Taking him for a walk can be an ordeal and I end up carrying him for a part of it. Mostly though, the fact that he doesn’t keep up a good pace means I’m not getting a workout from it. But any exercise is better than nothing right? My walks usually last 45 minutes and involve a lot of inclines.
3.  I should eat proper meals during the day. I don’t know if how I eat during the day is terrible, it’s just I could probably eat more. Snacking on veggies probably doesn’t constitute lunch. When I get on a roll with my algebra or one of my papers I turn into a mad scientist who doesn’t leave her lab (computer). So before I know it 11am turns into 3pm and I realize I haven’t eaten anything.
4. My husband and I don’t have kids so our lifestyle is very lax. Too lax. I’ve often told him that we live like a couple of teenagers. I’m not saying we sit around smoking pot, and then eat Cheetos. It’s just that we don’t have to do a proper grocery shopping, or sleep at a certain time, or have certain food in the house like milk and bread so our children don’t get taken by CPS. Basically, we need more structure, and to grow the fudge up.
5. I need to do more core-strength training. I have to make time for crunches, weights, squats etc.
6. I can’t use every hiccup as a reason why my diet can go on hiatus. This week I had a medical issue come up, and I currently live in the U.S. so you can probably assume I have no health insurance. But, no need to fret, Obama is coming to the rescue…………..Back to reality though, stress is more reason to find BETTER ways to cope than drinking like a sailor and eating like Honey Boo Boo.
7. Just because I don’t look like Adriana Lima in week 2 does not mean what I’m doing isn’t working.

So I think it’s time to stop sailing my little canoe down the river of denial and get my shit together.

 

Summer Eating

I find that it’s easier to eat well in summertime (even though it’s still spring), because you don’t crave warm, comfort food as much. Now that it’s getting warmer what helps me to stay on track is to pre-prepare food so that it’s easily accessible, just like junk food is. At the beginning of the week I wash and prep grape tomatoes, baby carrots, and celery sticks and put them in Tupperware containers. Doing things like that really helps because when you get hungry you can easily just go to the fridge and get these snacks, instead of looking for junk. I LOVE grape tomatoes especially, they are so good!

 

All three of these are full of vitamins too like vitamin A and C, as well as magnesium, folate, phosphorous and fiber. The only problem I have with these healthy snacks is having to share them with my miniature dog who has a thing for baby carrots.

Warmer weather also makes salads more appetizing, and I love mixing up my salads to make them more interesting. I’ve found that making healthy food seem like something I actually want to eat, makes it easier to choose over heavy, calorie-laden food. Now that mangoes are coming into season I love adding them in salads because the mixture of sweetness and tartness is really delicious. I don’t like store-bought dressing because there are too many ingredients on the label, so I like to make my own simple version of either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, and a bit of olive oil.

MANGO SALAD

Persistence

One of the hardest things to deal with when trying to achieve any goal is realizing and accepting that it’s going to take time. Most big things you want to accomplish do not happen overnight, or even in just a few weeks. For me it’s hard to accept how much longer I have to be in school for, or how much longer it will take for me to lose weight, or get over some of my other “flaws”.

One of the stupidest things I do when I’m trying to lose weight is get frustrated when I don’t look like the “After” picture by week 3. You know when you’ve been eating really well and working out, and you feel lighter, but then you weigh yourself or look in the mirror and you’re like, what the #$@! I always have to remind myself not to weigh (excuse the pun) too heavily on the number on the scale. I think you see physically that you are changing before it’s reflected on a scale. Or at least I tell myself that to stop myself from falling into a dark depression!

But what I tell myself is the story of the train. I don’t know why I chose a train, but whatever. When you’re working on a goal it really is the difference between being a train that is parked at Central Unfulfilled Station collecting cobwebs, and being the train that is moving along, slowly, but getting closer to its destination. Which one of those trains is going to reach the ultimate goal?

So, even though that is the lamest story ever told, the visualization of it really keeps me on track. Excuse the pun.

When you really think about it, how long it takes for you to get to your goal is nothing compared to the scope of your lifetime; and what’s more, all the years you’ve been unhappy. How many things would you have accomplished if you had just stuck to them and not given up? It could be completing a book, losing the weight, making a movie, or opening a business. A lot of times I stop and think, If I had stuck to the diet I started 3 months ago I would have been at my goal weight by now. I often mark in my calendar when I expect to have achieved my goal, so when I get to that date and see I’m still at square one it’s pretty disheartening, and eye-opening.

 

The Vulnerable Hour

I haven’t been able to write anything the last few days because I have been busy with work. My work schedule is erratic and I don’t work the same hours each week, so it is hard to plan things. I also have to balance in my school so things can get kind of hectic for me. One of the hardest things is definitely trying to stay on the right track when you are in vulnerable moments. All weekend I have gotten home from work late, especially on saturday when I got home at 11pm. Not only does an erratic schedule make it hard to stay on track, but my actual job does too. I work retail so not only am I on my feet for hours and running back and forth, but I have to deal with all kinds of people. I actually do enjoy interacting with people and I always try to be really friendly and bubbly, but I do come across my fair share of completely self-centered people. I think anyone in retail or waitressing could have a blog dedicated to all the people you come across and the strange things they do. But on top of that the drive home can also add 30minutes to an hour of traffic. The mix of retail work and being stuck in California traffic are enough to make me want to go home and drink heavily. Over the weekend I did break my no alcohol rule and drank some wine, but I did stick to eating healthy.

Another vulnerable time for me is eating out with other people. It sounds stupid and anti-social but I really try to avoid going out to eat with people from work, because they tend to want to go to the most unhealthy places. On sunday I ended up going to lunch with a lady at work and she chose a 50s style diner. Can you imagine what options you have at a 50s diner? That wasn’t exactly the most health conscious era. You have the option of all American food like hot dogs, burgers and fries that you can wash down with a calorie laden milkshake. Or you can wash it down with a soda that didn’t have enough sugar to begin with, so they spoil you by adding extra cherry flavored syrup.

So how are you supposed to stay on track when you are in those vulnerable moments, where you’re so exhausted, or frustrated, or angry, or even depressed that you just don’t care? If I have a long day at work and then I’m stuck in traffic for an hour, I just want to come home and throw my plans in the trash! But that’s when you see how determined you are to stick to your goals, because the fact is life for most people is usually chaotic. In those vulnerable times I just had over the weekend I had to stop and tell myself, “I really want this. I really want to achieve my goal, and if I let myself go offtrack I know I won’t be happy with myself tomorrow”. Knowing that giving in at that vulnerable time will mean just delaying your goals even further can really help to make you aware of what you’re doing. I did allow myself to have 1 or 2 glasses of wine, but I felt like that would be better than carbo-loading on chips or some other junk food. I have to admit I was still frustrated that I drank because alcohol is a diet’s worst enemy. When you drink alcohol your body has to work on metabolizing the alcohol in your body and stops burning fat, or metabolizing any food you’ve eaten. That’s a terrible thing when you’re trying to lose weight. At the same time I am suprised that I didn’t turn to eating mindlessly after work, but I am just determined to succeed this time around. I have a quote on my wall that says,

That quote helps me stay on track because the worst thing is waking up the next day and beating yourself up, wishing that you had just gritted your teeth through the temptations of giving up and held strong. Even when I went out with my friend for lunch, I was the only person in the 50s diner ordering the grilled chicken salad with no cheese. Even though I felt like the whole restaurant stopped to stare at me, mouths gaping open, I was not about to eat my entire day’s worth of calories in a greasy burger. And even though my friend sat across from me eating her second round of fries (they were unlimited at that restaurant), and I’m sure rolling her eyes at my order, I had to stick to my goal.

We can’t even comprehend what we’re capable of.

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”

-Thomas A. Edison

With whatever goal we may have, especially one where you’re going to change your appearance, you can’t even comprehend what you’re capable of, or what your life will become. I say that because the first time I lost the weight – and god I am starting to sound like a guy talking about his glory days in high school when he was going to go pro with football – my entire life changed. That is the reason why I never accept it when my delusional, fearful self-talk tells me I’m okay just the way I am. Even though I’m no supermodel I am a pretty average weight for most women, so I keep trying to tell myself that I look fine and don’t need to change. It also helps your delusions when you have a partner that tells you you’re beautiful and you don’t need to change. Although it sounds sweet, and it is, it is also a source of frustration for me. You know when your partner says you look good but you know you’re not at your best, and what you’d really like is someone to push you. It sounds ridiculous but I have tried to get my husband to tell me the truth about my body because it would push me to work harder. Unfortunately, the fear of a woman’s wrath is too far instilled in most men to undertake that mission. So it is up to me.

Everyones goal weight is different. Everyone has that weight that is ideal to them, and that they picture to be how they look and feel their best. Not everyone is supposed to be size 2, or 4, or even 8. For me I have always felt best when I was around 125, and I am more used to Australian sizing so fitting in to a size 8 jean was my ideal size. When I got myself down to that size a lot of things in my life changed, especially with how people treated me. I know how you look is largely your own perception. Of course you can’t deny what size you are, but depending on your confidence your experience in life, and with others will vary.

Of course part of my experience was that I lost friends. I have found that you really see who your true friends are in the important times of your life, whether it’s a sad time or a time for celebration. Those are the times when people tend to show their true colors. A lot of my friends stopped talking to me and inviting me places, which made me confused. But a lot of people get bitter or jealous when others are doing well because they don’t like how it makes them feel. This is especially true if you’re a woman, because women are brutal and extremely competitive with each other. My best friend at the time told me she was jealous and hated that I was thinner than her, and this was a girl who had been tiny her whole life. I am guilty of that myself because I had a friend lose about 50lbs and they just look completely different! And at first I was so jealous and even angry because I didn’t want to be the only one who was overweight. Misery loves company! But instead of being jealous, I used them as motivation and as a tool for how I could be successful too.

But how others in life react is not important, its about how your life goes from being in black and white, to full color. When you accomplish something that you always dreamed about, it really is like someone just turned the light on in your life. It sounds really corny, but that’s what it’s like. That’s why I included the quote above. When you accomplish something big, not only does it change your life, it removes the blinders from your eyes and just makes you wonder what else you could accomplish. Have you noticed that? You get to your goal and you’re like, “Wow I can’t believe I actually did it! What should I do next?” You just want to think bigger and better.

When I accomplished my goal I went from being completely crippled by my anxiety disorder and hating anything social, to accepting all invitations and loving being around people. I went from being the girl who wanted to leave as soon as she got to the party, to being the one who didn’t want to go home. Even the freedom to dress how you want is life changing. When you can wear the things you love and know that you look good in it, it’s like you’re finally able to truly be yourself and show that to the world. When you’re not happy with yourself, it’s like everything you do is an attempt to hide yourself and shield yourself from the world. That is a very sad place to live in. So that is what I keep reminding myself of when I want to just revert back to my old habits. I think about all the things I don’t do, and avoid because of the place I’m in. And then I think of all the things I would do, and all the opportunities that would open up and the life I would have if I actually lived more purposefully and worked a little harder.

Let’s be rational here.

So, I’m not really sure how to organize what I write about, so it may be quite random. But, since I committed to getting healthy and working towards my goal weight, which was 2 weeks ago, I have lost 7lbs. It may seem like too much weight to lose in 2 weeks but in the initial weeks you tend to suddenly drop a bit of weight because you go from eating like a competitive eater, to a normal person. Or at least that’s the case for me. I haven’t been as hardcore this time around as I was the first time I really got into my health. The first time I went so hardcore that I basically just developed the opposite eating disorder. It wasn’t one of the more common ones like anorexia, or bulimia, it was more about being totally addicted to be healthy. It sounds odd that, that would be an eating disorder, but when it interferes with your life because you refuse to eat out with people then it starts going down that route. I refused to eat anything with oil in it, I completely cut out carbs, I would never eat candy, and a “treat” for me was getting to eat cashew nuts. Yeah…that still doesn’t sound terrible, but if you know anything about nutrition you will know that the body needs sugar, fat, protein, and carbohydrates. You don’t even have to know about nutrition to know that!

One of my classes at uni was for nutrition, and one of our assignments was to track our food in the SuperTracker program online. That website allows you to see whether you reach your daily nutrient intake, and I ended up just completely forging my food log because I didn’t reach any of those quotas! I’m 99.9% sure EVERY one in that class handed in a report that read, “Yes, I totally eat 3 proper, nutritious meals a day with the perfect amount of dairy, protein, and vegetables.” I kept logging in that I had eaten 3 cups of vegetables (which who measures vegetables in cups?), and the logger still said I wasn’t even half way! Of course it did say that I was OD-ing on protein, because I do love my meat, but I’m anemic so….that’s my excuse.

Anyway, this time around I am trying to just be more rational and understand that the Atkin’s diet is a craze that should remain in the 90s, much like the clothes. I’m not even sure if the Atkin’s diet is from the 90s…..My nutrition class just really made me understand the importance of carbohydrates in giving your body fuel, just like it needs oils and sugar. But more importantly, the reality is that once you make food what it should be, which is purely fuel for your body instead of resembling something more like narcotics, then you begin to eat properly. For me overeating is how I deal with anxiety, and more so its about the habituated behavior. And one thing I’ve learn’t is that you can’t just eradicate a bad habit, you can only replace it. With any change you want to make you can’t just change that one aspect of your life, success really seems to come with rearranging your life so that all things are in alignment with your goal. For me with eating it has been about changing when and where I eat, how I spend my free time, and choosing better ways to relax and deal with anxiety.

Tomorrow never comes.

Everyone has their own goals that would make their life better in their perspective. I love talking to people, meeting people, and learning about who they are and what they’re passionate about. I probably get annoying to people because I am very open and upfront, and just outright ask them personal things. I have a lot of goals I am working on like getting my degree and attempting to save money to travel as much of the world as possible. But one of the biggest goals I have right now is to get back down to my ideal weight. Since I moved to the U.S several years ago I had a really hard time leaving everything I knew to just about be completely independent at 21. From there all my bad habits of eating poorly to deal with my anxiety came rushing back to haunt me on a daily basis. So, very gradually I gained a good chunk of weight that became harder and harder to lose. And it’s frustrating because before I moved out here I had changed my entire life and worked my tooshie off to get down to 125lbs and in the best shape of my life. I worked out daily, and ate a very healthy, clean diet. So you can only image how devastating it would be to gain 40lbs and absolutely hating the way you look.

When you gain weight you just feel uncomfortable with yourself, heavy, and fatigued. That’s pretty obvious.

But, it just gets to be a self-destructive cycle of: I’m depressed about my weight, I need to lose weight, I’m depressed though so I’m going back to old tricks, crap I shouldn’t have done that, now I’m still overweight. The worst thing for me is procrastination. I think the biggest reason why I haven’t lost the weight in the several years I’ve lived here is because I keep putting it off. I keep saying it’s not a good time to start, and that I can start next week, or tomorrow, or when Jesus returns. But it never happens. Tomorrow never comes.

It’s definitely related to a lot of other things too like not having a support network around me. The only person I really have in my life right now is my husband. Everyone else I know is back home. I think being so isolated is what makes it easy to just get into this naive frame of mind where you keep deluding yourself and saying, “You know what, I’m not HUGE though. I’m not AWFUL. It’s not THAT bad.” You’re looking in the mirror at yourself sideways, sucking in and going, “I look totally fine!” Yet at the same time you’ve become all but agoraphobic and your life is akin to that of a hermit crab. I think that’s a red flag….