So, i need to fully admit that i have fallen off the horse. It has been a good couple months since i have written on this blog or payed any sort of attention to my diet and workout plan. Back in March i had a series of personal misfortunes that really spun me into a depression. The day i told myself that it was ok to skip just one workout because i wasn't feeling up to it was the day i stopped all together. The book i had made myself to keep track of my diet and exercise gradually got buried in my "paper pile" and once it was out of sight, it was out of mind.
I am somewhat disappointed in myself because i feel like i have allowed myself to take another ride on the cycle of failure that has become way too familiar for me: start a diet, make it a couple weeks, let something derail you, go several weeks without doing anything about it, then maybe try again. It upsets me to think that if i had stuck with it, i would now have been through my first twelve weeks, and possibly a little thinner. Also because i have had a post halfway written for several weeks now and have not finished it even though i have had ample time and opportunity to do so.
But as the saying goes, if you get bucked off, you need to get right back on. You don't want to let it know it can beat you. So my foot is in the stirrup and i am a bit wiser and a lot more determined.
Several good things came out of this time i have had to "reflect" on my situation. During the past couple months i have discovered even more about supplements to help support the thyroid and adrenals and about using nutrition to balance hormones. Some topics i am excited to write about next are:
Hormone balancing
My experience with going gluten free
The endocrine "Holy Trinity"
Supplements, supplements and more supplements
Energy Healing
A few weeks back, as the my depression began to settle and i was beginning to see light again, i began thinking about my project here. I knew i needed to work out but just couldn't seem to get the fire under me. I prayed a lot about how to fix my body and was blessed with these two simple and loving answers.
Eat Nutritious Food
That may seem obvious but for me it went deeper than you may think. I don't usually eat "unhealthy". Thanks to a loving mother who promoted oatmeal instead of frosted flakes and wheat bread instead of white, i generally never buy food that has been processed beyond recognition and then formed into something resembling something recognizable. I deny my children "fun looking" food for its more nutritious counterpart, knowing that in time they will thank me. Usually if any of the "gross" stuff comes through my door its because Jim has brought it in. (The man literally lived off of ramen, hot dogs, twinkies and toco bell before we got married, and he doesn't deny his little girls anything.)
So what eating nutritious food meant for me was getting a lot more back to basics. I mean everything from scratch basics. If you begin to look at the labels of your food i think you will be amazed, as i was, how much chemical is in everything. I whole heartedly agree with Jamie Oliver when he said "if you look at the ingredients and you get past the first few but don't know what the next ficve are, its not food, its crap!" Things like high fructose corn syrup and all of those "enhancers" and preservatives didn't used to mean a lot to me. I figured that if i had been eating them all my life, what harm could it do me now? WELL TAKE A GOOD LOOK! Lately i have taken to making everything i can from scratch and have found it, if not terribly convenient, easier than i expected and very delicious.
I suddenly developed a strong desire to learn how to prepare vegetables better. I gave up a long time ago on buying fresh veggies because they usually rotted in my fridge before i got to them. Not because i didn't want them or like them, but because i didn't know how to make them part of a meal. Usually i keep bags of frozen veggies to defrost in the microwave and add as side dishes. Thats all well and good, but not good enough. That doesn't help me or my family develop a love for vegetables and fresh nutritious food. I have had meals lovingly prepared by those who know how to season and use God's bounty in a dish, and its delicious! The vegetables arnt an obligatory side dish but an important part to the meal. And thats what i was craving.
I ran to the library and got some books to help inspire and teach me to use more whole foods. I am still in the "learning curve" phase, at the family table i have had some home runs and some definite flops, but i look forward to sharing more of what i am learning and also more about the books that have inspired and taught me the most.
Live An Active Life Style
Once again, this may seem like a no brainer, but for me it hasn't been all that easy.
Elephants are one of the biggest and strongest land animals. They are also very intelligent, which makes them easy to be trained. It is common for a trainer to keep his elephant from wondering off by shackling one of his legs and tethering it to the ground. They start this when the animal is young and weak and unable to break the tether. After a while he learns that the shackle is more powerful and will give up. The grown elephant, though ten times more powerful and completely capable of breaking his restraint will not even try, he already believes that he cant.
For the past few years it has been hard for me to be physically active. Instead of giving me energy in would take it. Instead of releasing stress in became the source of it. Instead of losing weight, i gained it. Often it was painful and exhausting and left me worse than when i began. After a while i began to fear being too active. If i was having a good day (good day being defined as a day i was able to get out of be and do at least one chore) i didn't want to mess it up by using all my energy on twenty minutes of jogging. Even well into my progesterone treatment, this has been the case, so eventually i gave up. I began to believe that i couldn't work out.
I am somewhat disappointed in myself because i feel like i have allowed myself to take another ride on the cycle of failure that has become way too familiar for me: start a diet, make it a couple weeks, let something derail you, go several weeks without doing anything about it, then maybe try again. It upsets me to think that if i had stuck with it, i would now have been through my first twelve weeks, and possibly a little thinner. Also because i have had a post halfway written for several weeks now and have not finished it even though i have had ample time and opportunity to do so.
But as the saying goes, if you get bucked off, you need to get right back on. You don't want to let it know it can beat you. So my foot is in the stirrup and i am a bit wiser and a lot more determined.
Several good things came out of this time i have had to "reflect" on my situation. During the past couple months i have discovered even more about supplements to help support the thyroid and adrenals and about using nutrition to balance hormones. Some topics i am excited to write about next are:
Hormone balancing
My experience with going gluten free
The endocrine "Holy Trinity"
Supplements, supplements and more supplements
Energy Healing
A few weeks back, as the my depression began to settle and i was beginning to see light again, i began thinking about my project here. I knew i needed to work out but just couldn't seem to get the fire under me. I prayed a lot about how to fix my body and was blessed with these two simple and loving answers.
Eat Nutritious Food
That may seem obvious but for me it went deeper than you may think. I don't usually eat "unhealthy". Thanks to a loving mother who promoted oatmeal instead of frosted flakes and wheat bread instead of white, i generally never buy food that has been processed beyond recognition and then formed into something resembling something recognizable. I deny my children "fun looking" food for its more nutritious counterpart, knowing that in time they will thank me. Usually if any of the "gross" stuff comes through my door its because Jim has brought it in. (The man literally lived off of ramen, hot dogs, twinkies and toco bell before we got married, and he doesn't deny his little girls anything.)
So what eating nutritious food meant for me was getting a lot more back to basics. I mean everything from scratch basics. If you begin to look at the labels of your food i think you will be amazed, as i was, how much chemical is in everything. I whole heartedly agree with Jamie Oliver when he said "if you look at the ingredients and you get past the first few but don't know what the next ficve are, its not food, its crap!" Things like high fructose corn syrup and all of those "enhancers" and preservatives didn't used to mean a lot to me. I figured that if i had been eating them all my life, what harm could it do me now? WELL TAKE A GOOD LOOK! Lately i have taken to making everything i can from scratch and have found it, if not terribly convenient, easier than i expected and very delicious.
I suddenly developed a strong desire to learn how to prepare vegetables better. I gave up a long time ago on buying fresh veggies because they usually rotted in my fridge before i got to them. Not because i didn't want them or like them, but because i didn't know how to make them part of a meal. Usually i keep bags of frozen veggies to defrost in the microwave and add as side dishes. Thats all well and good, but not good enough. That doesn't help me or my family develop a love for vegetables and fresh nutritious food. I have had meals lovingly prepared by those who know how to season and use God's bounty in a dish, and its delicious! The vegetables arnt an obligatory side dish but an important part to the meal. And thats what i was craving.
I ran to the library and got some books to help inspire and teach me to use more whole foods. I am still in the "learning curve" phase, at the family table i have had some home runs and some definite flops, but i look forward to sharing more of what i am learning and also more about the books that have inspired and taught me the most.
Live An Active Life Style
Once again, this may seem like a no brainer, but for me it hasn't been all that easy.
Elephants are one of the biggest and strongest land animals. They are also very intelligent, which makes them easy to be trained. It is common for a trainer to keep his elephant from wondering off by shackling one of his legs and tethering it to the ground. They start this when the animal is young and weak and unable to break the tether. After a while he learns that the shackle is more powerful and will give up. The grown elephant, though ten times more powerful and completely capable of breaking his restraint will not even try, he already believes that he cant.
For the past few years it has been hard for me to be physically active. Instead of giving me energy in would take it. Instead of releasing stress in became the source of it. Instead of losing weight, i gained it. Often it was painful and exhausting and left me worse than when i began. After a while i began to fear being too active. If i was having a good day (good day being defined as a day i was able to get out of be and do at least one chore) i didn't want to mess it up by using all my energy on twenty minutes of jogging. Even well into my progesterone treatment, this has been the case, so eventually i gave up. I began to believe that i couldn't work out.
The fact is that i am powerful. I have the power to cast off my shackles, i have the power to accomplish anything i put my mind to.
When i visualize myself they way i want to be, it is always as a fit and thin woman, but also an active one. I visualize myself doing things i want to learn like, aerial silks, and things i love to do like ballroom and belly dancing. I imagine all the things I'm going to do with my girls, hiking, canoeing, doing yoga on the beach. I want to be able to jump horses again and I have this dream of the the girls and me competing in horse trials together. I see myself running and plying with them. To me this is what it means to live an active life style. Forcing myself to do twenty minutes on the elliptical (though i was proud of myself when i did) and then laying on the couch for the rest of the day was not cutting the mustard.
When i received this revelation, i began to think of things i could add to my weight loss routine that would be more fun and keep me more active. I decided to start using my yoga and dance instruction tapes because that was stuff i wanted to get back into anyhow. But my heart just wasn't into it. One week went by, then two, and i hadn't done anything. I was just afraid to be active, afraid to work harder to loose weight.
Luckily a lot of that changed when a friend invited me to go walking with her. I figured, what the heck? I can walk, for crying out loud. It was a nice little workout, we did two and a half miles easily. I was being active, with no alterier motive, and i felt fantastic afterward! We did it again and i couldn't believe how great i felt the rest of the day. For my Mother's Day present, my husband and children gave me the most incredible bike and i had been looking forward to a sunny day to really put it to use. I took it out for a long bike ride on a day that we had to reschedule our walk and came back feeling fantastic.
That was just a few days ago. After that ride i got a crazy idea. I decided to do something i always thought would be cool to do but never thought i would have enough courage to go through with it. I decided to do a triathlon. The idea was crazy (me? an obese stay at home mom? don't athletes usually do that sort of thing?) but it just felt so right! As soon as i got home i looked up where some might be in my area and found one that was right up my ally. It takes place the end of August and is a 500 meter swim, 10 mile bike and 3 mile run.
I think maybe the reason this feels so good to me is because its not about loosing weight. Its about being active, about being the person i want to be now and about finishing the race. Even if I'm dead last, when i finish, I'll know that i have also accomplished.
Maybe my brain works differently than most, but sometimes i learn best buy doing first. Case in point, for years i tryed to learn how to crochet, i read books, had friends try to teach me the different stitches but all i ever came up with was a tangled knot and a ball of frustration. One day i was given the pattern to crochet a baby hat. With that pattern and a small pamphlet to interpret the abbreviations on it, i finally learned to crochet. After one hat came two and after that i was able to crochet anything else, all i needed was a project.
I think doing this triathlon is a lot like that for me, psychologically. I know i can run three miles, i know i can bike ten, today i proved to myself that i can swim 500 meters. The project is learning to do each one with out rest and then being able to put all of them together. I'm not going to think or worry about loosing weight. If it happens, that will be fantastic, i would love for that to be the case, but its not going to be my focus. My focus and goal is to be active and finish the race.
So, finally feeling awake and refreshed about life and with all of this in mind, i am ready for the next twelve weeks of my goal to be fit, thin, and healthy by my birthday in December. Only this time the twelve weeks will be geared toward training for the triathlon and focused more on the "fit and healthy" part and less on the thin.
