Defining Moments

So today was a defining moment in this weight loss journey. I looked down and what did I see? A chocolate stain on my shirt from a Dairy Queen malt – yes, I did see that. Don’t judge. We were on our way back from Lake Charles and there are two Dairy Queen’s en route. They don’t have those in these parts and I was stressed. 

You got me off track. The important thing I saw was that my jeans are now too big. Only a little, but too big nonetheless. Big enough to need a smaller size even. No more muffin top in these. Now I have to hike them up when I’m walking because they sag like I’ve got urban street cred. 

This may not seem like a big deal, but to me it’s huge! I’ve been going to stupid Weight Watcher meetings for a month and watching what I eat since mid-January. I really do try to get into the WW meetings, but it’s way more fun to internally crack jokes about it. But I do go and I pay attention for the most part. And as abhorrent as I think it is to reward adults with golden start stickers, I still get pissed when I don’t get one. Skinny bitch, give.me.my.sticker.

When I step on that scale every week my stomach feels like it’s going to empty itself in one way or another. (If only it would do that before the meeting, I’d have a bigger loss). I’ve consistently lost weight each week with one exception when I weighed in after a weekend of drunken debauchery and many Miller Lite’s. Even then I only gained 0.2 pounds. That’s practically nothing. Let me take off my watch and try again. 

Hopefully the Easter candy (which will be at LEAST 50% off come Monday…) won’t tempt me too much and Monday evening I’ll show a loss as well. So far it’s been 14.6 pounds lost since mid-January and 9.4 since I started WW. It doesn’t show quite yet to the general public, but I know my pants are too big. And that’s enough for me. For right now at least.

Trying something new. Again.

When I first posted about trying to lose weight it was mid-January. It is now March. So far, I started and failed at the 17-Day Diet. I say failed because I didn’t stick with it. I started, lost about 7 or 8 pounds and stopped. Eating a diet consisting of only chicken, carrots, cucumbers and green beans just wasn’t working for me. (You can eat fish and other veggies on 17DD but my finicky palate will not allow it). 

The good news is that I did not yet regain the 7 or 8 pounds I lost. The bad news is that even though I’ve been at the gym pretty consistently, I’ve not lost another pound. Not even really early in the morning with no clothes on after I’ve peed any additional possibility of weight away. 

So, for about the millionth time today is day one. No, seriously. For real this time. I really mean it. 

I’m hesitantly joining Weight Watchers again. Like the kind where you go to the meetings and all. This is totally not my thing. I laugh at the Jennifer Hudson commercials and the support group mentality. But since being accountable to all of you is not working I’m going to try to go be accountable to the bitch who will be weighing me in every week (she’s probably a really nice lady but unless she’s bigger than me I’m inevitably going to call her a bitch). They should cut the crap and just call these things overeaters anonymous meetings. 

“My name is Kristyn and I’m a cow.”

“Hi, Kristyn.”

“Last week I hit rock bottom. I was willing to sell my body for a brownie.”

You get the idea. (And I am in no way making fun of drug users, recovering addicts, or the AA/NA system as a whole). 

I figure I should pad my initial weigh-in number for this evening’s meeting so we are having pizza for lunch. And probably breadsticks, too. Don’t judge – I’m like a crack head having one last binge before entering rehab. I finally understand the no, no no Amy Winehouse was crooning about…

So I guess I should start practicing my attitude for when I become one of the skinnys. As of today I have 47 pounds to get there. The immediate goal is 10 pounds by Camille’s birthday in mid-April. Lofty, I know, but achievable. This Weight Watchers thing is not a quick fix unfortunately so I’ll be relying solely on the grace of God to keep me motivated. 

In the meantime, I am looking forward to pizza and breadsticks and being entirely sedentary during my children’s nap time today. One last time. 

Back on Track (maybe)

I’m baaack! We have safely arrived home from Disney World – the most stressful, I mean happiest place on Earth. We had a great time, but this was not the typical relax by the beach type of vacation. This was balls to the wall go-go-go the entire time. 

Let me first say that one does not go to Disney unprepared. That, my friends is a death sentence. And I don’t mean book hotel, flight, transportation and show up kind of prepared. No no no. I mean research every square inch of rides and attractions at all four parks for up to a year before arrival kind of prepared. You need to know what rides your kid meets the height requirements for, what rides they may be afraid of, what characters will be at what place at what time and what you are going to wear for the weather. You also need to know what places you could possibly patronize for meals, which parks are most crowded on which days, what time the shuttle to the parks will run and which reservations you need to make while your child is still in utero for the trip you plan to make when he or she is five. This is no joke people. 

All that being said, we arrived in one piece with minimal disruption to our fellow passengers on the plane. We made it to our hotel and were even allowed early check-in. Only when the hotel clerk mentioned purchasing tickets to the parks did I almost pass out. All this planning and preparation and I had left our park tickets on the counter at home. Seriously. $800+ worth of tickets hundreds of miles away. Thankfully my mom was able to photograph them and email them to me and Hussania at Disney Guest Services was able to cancel and reissue the tickets. Not until after multiple nervous breakdowns on my part, but the day was saved nonetheless. If I am ever to bear another daughter, I hereby swear that she will be named Hussania.  (Thank goodness I’m neutered).

Having ignored the projected crowd volume on Monday, we visited Magic Kingdom (along with every other human being on the planet). Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios, home of the Tower of Terror. Camille is still upset that we did not let her ride it. Wednesday was Epcot – or as Camille says “Effcot”. And Thursday was Animal Kingdom. To all non-English-speaking patrons of Disney World: it will heretofore be required that you learn and understand one English phrase before being allowed admission. That phrase is “Excuse me” which translates to “Get the Effcot out of the way of my double stroller before I run over your sock and sandal covered foot”. 

On to diet news: I had brownies for breakfast this morning. I also had a beer-battered-deep-fried hamburger while on vacation (All hail Dublin!). I had been religiously in the gym until the week prior – I missed the second half of the week due to illness and despite walking literally hundreds of miles through Disney parks, I did not formally work out on the trip. Sadly, it seemed I was getting something that resembled muscles in the weeks I had been training but with only a week and a half of no exercise I have gone soft again.

This makes me wonder how anyone can stay in shape if all it takes is 10 days off to throw you right back into fat-ville. Am I in for a life sentence of constant dieting and exercise? It seems so. Sorry, Dublin. I constantly struggle between a desperate need to be thin again and thinking that it could be worse and I’m not thaaat fat so I should just eat wheat I want and be happy. I see pics of me from Disney and I say I HAVE to lose weight (then I delete the pics where I wasn’t smart enough to hide my body behind my kids and just have my face showing). Then I see pics of other people and I think to myself at least I’m not that big and the size I am is really not that bad since I pretty much eat nothing but garbage and I still don’t have to shop at the fat girl store. 

I swore I’d be back on the wagon come Monday (today). Unfortunately there are Ghirardelli brownies in my house and with starving children in Africa I cannot let them go to waste. My social consciousness has once again foiled my healthful attempts. At this rate they will be gone before the end of the day so that’s good news, right? 

I am going to go to the gym this afternoon and get back into the routine. If I’m lucky and consistent in two weeks I’ll have some semblance of muscle again. I’ll give myself this much credit – since I joined the gym in July, this has been the best attendance record I have ever had (which isn’t saying much, but still). 

I thought I’d start sending the twins to the nursery again now that the trip is over but that place is a zoo in the mornings. All the skinnys are there with their skinny mom-friends. At least in the evenings it’s the people who work and are there to work out and go home rather than have a grown-up playdate near some exercise equipment. I think the new years resolution rush is still happening (hurry up and just give up already! You know it’s coming!) so hopefully come March the crowd will thin. 

Well, I’m off to feed the kids lunch and spend some time on Pinterest pinning craft ideas I know I’ll never actually execute.

Gym Snark

Hello All. The weight loss is sort of at a standstill. I can say this much – carb-free is nearly impossible. Even for only 17 days. Not totally impossible, but close. I’ve pretty much fallen off the wagon yet again (shocker, right?). 

Our trip to Disney is in about a week and I know trying to diet while on vacation is just stupid. I know, I know, just another excuse to put off the inevitable. But really, who diets while they are on vacation? Seriously? The plan is to go 17DD hard core when we return. Tier 2 of the plan is to try and not gain back the 9 lbs I’ve lost between now and then. 

It seems for me to be a constant struggle between wanting to be thin again and wanting to enjoy life. Yeah, yeah, yeah…”you can enjoy so many things about life without eating things that are bad for you”. Shut up. Seriously. Shut the hell up. If I am going to the movies and want to have popcorn or nachos and I enjoy that about the movies then so be it. It’s not fair for people to say what sort of things you should be allowed to enjoy in life anymore than it is for a heavier person to try and get a health nut to eat those things. But alas, enjoying those things has consequences. I know that much. So for now, I am trying to watch what I eat to an extent (no specific diet plan – the vacation, remember?) and enjoy those things in moderation. By moderation, I don’t mean only eating half my nachos – I paid practically a semester’s worth of college tuition for them so I am going to eat every last crumb. By moderation I just mean that I won’t eat them (or things like them) every day. 

I know it’s not where I should be in all this, but it’s a step in the right direction at least. I also know that eating this way will make me lose approximately 5 pounds a year if I’m lucky. I know that I am going to have to hard core diet to lose the now 41 pounds (yay! It’s no longer 50!) I need to lose. My hope is that once I lose the weight I will be able to just be conscious of what I eat and maintain it. Is that too much to ask, Mother Nature? 

In the meantime I have been working out like a maniac! I’m still doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women regiment with cardio added in a few times a week. I’m very sore pretty much all the time, but I’m going to take that as a sign that something is happening. My husband swears that he sees a difference in my thighs – not so much the size of them but that they are less flabby (my words, not his….he knows better). I don’t see it yet, but then again I’m trying not to get too hung up on “results” with this like I do with eating and the scale. I know I feel good when I work out and I don’t mind it as much as I used to. 

It’s amazing how on a rainy afternoon you just don’t feel like driving all the way to Baton Rouge to go to the gym but then your kids start to get fussy and you are out that door in a flash. I am hoping to start bringing the twins back to the gym nursery again after our trip. That means working out in the mornings, which I prefer. Hopefully all the skinnys at the gym will stay home with their sick kids so mine don’t catch illness there. 

I shouldn’t hate on the skinnys – I hope to be one someday. It’s just hard watching them at the gym all chatty while they are running the track. Let me tell you: there is NO speed above “leisurely walk” where I can chat with a buddy while jogging. I don’t have breath to spare to talk. I barely have enough breath not to fall out on the floor. Same with the elliptical machine or anything else for that matter. My attitude is that when doing cardio, if you can still hold a conversation then you aren’t doing it right. (Visually I see them and figure they must be doing something right if they look like that and I look like this, but I guess the ability to work out at a leisurely pace is a privilege earned by the thin.) Meanwhile I just give them the stink-eye as the sweat literally pours off my fat ass. It’s the price to pay, I suppose. Maybe one day I can turn in my baggy t-shirt for a cutesy little matching set of lycra gym clothes and hang out with my buddies at the gym and talk about how fabulous we all are that we are all here and health-conscious. 

“Oh, you know me, Barbie! I never miss a day at the gym! I mean, little Timmy has a highly contagious, deadly strain of Ebola virus, but I brought him to the nursery anyway! I’m only hurting him if I don’t stay at my healthiest!!”

“Oh, of course, Muffy! We must keep our bodies in perfect condition so our much older husbands continue to financially support us and we can be the trophy wives we promised to be! Did you know I am 45? Thanks to the surgeon I don’t look a day over 23!”

“Oh, Barbie, don’t you just love my new Nike exercise clothes? They are all hot pink and size XXS! I even got the matching sports bra so if I get too hot I can just work out in that!”

So yeah, I’m a little mean-spirited when it comes to this. In all honesty I have about a hundred of these imagined conversations I play in my head. It’s hard to be one of the bigger girls at the gym. It’s hard not to feel like everyone’s looking at you funny. Who am I to judge? But it’s easier to think mean thoughts in my head about others when I’m already thinking mean thoughts in my head about myself. The things I imagine them thinking about me are really just the projections of what I think of myself. Those skinnys could be just like me but only on the other side of the struggle. Or I could be right and they could be Muffys and Barbies. Sometimes, though, there are the nose-in-the-air types who are rolling their eyes because you are on the machine they want. For those, I have one thing to say: I may be fat, but you’re old. I can get skinny. Do the math. 

Oh well….what’s a good workout without a little snark.

I finished the Half - but I'm still fat

Well guys, I did it! I finished my first (and likely last) half marathon! I’d be lying if I said it was easy. It was harder than childbirth. For that matter, it was harder than pregnancy. With twins.  In the summer. 

The race began at 7:00 am last Sunday in front of the state capital. It was cold. Scratch that – it was freezing! 35 degrees out and you’re in that place where you don’t want to be cold now, but when it warms up as it always does in South Louisiana you don’t want to be hot. Some people literally just threw their outer layers on the ground as they ran, but this fat chick has a very limited wardrobe and I’ll be damned if some homeless person is going to get my Under Armor knockoff pullover from JC Penney! I smartly did not wear my fleece lined running pants (boy was THAT a mistake when I ran the Goldenfliers 5 miler in November). 

In any event, I ended up meeting some super nice slow paced gals like me! We off and on ran together throughout the entire race. I vaguely remember their names as being Sarah and Jamie but who knows. Sadly, we did not finish together and I have no way of contacting them to see how they did. I hope they finished strong! 

The race went through downtown Baton Rouge, over the big overpass on North (twice!!), through the garden district area, down sorority row, around the lakes and through parts of the Lakeshore neighborhoods and back downtown for the finish. It was supposedly a scenic route that showcased all the beauty Louisiana has to offer – I wouldn’t know. Had I been driving the 13 miles I am sure I would have thought it lovely, but as it was I was in survival mode and not sightseeing mode. 

There were water stops every mile or so. Big props to the LSU Lacrosse Team (who knew LSU even had a Lacrosse team) for being so enthusiastic at mile 11. And high five to the group by city park (can’t for the life of me remember their name but it was some women’s athlete foundation) who made me cry with their “Pain is temporary, Pride is forever” poster. 

Around mile 9, I started to get blisters on the arch of my right foot and between my toes. This sounds pitiful, I know, but it hurts worse than you’d think. I was practically bleeding into my socks by the end and unfortunately had to walk more than I planned near the end. Once I hit the 13 mile marker I figured I’d give the last 0.1 miles (it’s soooo much farther than it sounds, really) all I had. I’m no runner, this much we all know. I have short legs and I am sort of round in shape, but that last stretch I felt like I was in the freaking Olympics. At that point it became much less about surviving and more about doing it for the people in my life who can’t. I went from being oblivious to all my surroundings to seeing every leaf on every tree and every crack on the pavement. And in that last stretch I thought about my friend Amanda who I miss so much every day. And I thought about my friend Brandy in Tennessee who is dealing with so much more than any of us could ever have the strength to handle with the grace that she does. These are women who are the same age as I am who have really had trials in their lives. And in those moments, all the times I felt sorry for myself were gone and every second when I thought I could never do something like this was over.

 

You always hear people ask “Why do you run?” and hear people answer with “Because I can.” I never got it before then. Sure, I can eat an entire pizza but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it (or am I?). But it makes so much sense now. It really is so much more than a physical journey. It’s a spiritual one. At least it was for me. It didn’t start out that way – there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears – but somewhere near the end of the 13 miles it began to be a lot less about time and more about just finishing it. And I did. 

Remember how I mentioned before about running one lap around the gym and checking the scale to see if I lost any weight? Well even after running 13-mother-effing-miles I still hadn't lost any weight. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that my little mind thought, "Kristyn, it's ludicrous to think that running a lap will result in weight loss. Don't be silly. But maybe 13 miles...."   Wrong.

In food news (my most favorite kind!), the diet is….well it is. I’ll say this much:  the 17 Day Diet works. All diets work, really, provided that you stick with them. That’s the catch. I hate hearing “such and such diet doesn’t work”. If you’re saying that you probably quit it and that’s why it didn’t work. A better way to say it is “such and such diet was not a good fit for my lifestyle”. That is a more accurate statement. Weight Watchers isn’t something that fits my lifestyle – I’ve seen it work over and over again, but it just doesn’t integrate with the pace of my life now. Anyway, the 17 Day Diet promises fast results and it delivers. I started it on Tuesday last week and by Friday I had lost 7 pounds! At which point I promptly fell off the wagon and ordered pizza for dinner.

Even eating like crap (albeit in moderation) all weekend I maintained 6.6 of the 7 pounds I lost. The thing is it’s hard. Like real hard. Part of that is because I don’t eat a wide variety of foods. The staples of phase 1 of this program are chicken and fish. Guess what. I don’t eat fish. At all. So nothing but chicken and veggies for 17 days? I’ve modified it somewhat to be a cross between Atkins and 17DD and I’m still seeing losses though not as quickly. I’ve been cutting waaay back on the carbs but not cutting them out completely and I’m having lean beef sometimes instead of just the chicken. But it’s still a step – no a leap – in the right direction for me. We’ll have to see how bad I do when we go to Disneyworld in a few weeks…perhaps all the walking will counteract some of the eating??

I also started the program outlined in The New Rules of Lifting for Women yesterday. I finally stopped being sore from last weekend’s race and now I’m sore all over again. But it promises to tone and sculpt me so we shall see! I really missed going to the gym (no screaming kids there) so it was a nice reunion yesterday. Of course the workout regiment builds muscle, which - say it with me, everyone – weighs more than fat. (I swear I am going to punch the next person who says that to me.) I’m likely to see the scale stall if not go up at first but I’m trying not to let that deter me. It’s a catch 22 to get on the scale every morning. On one hand I want to see the loss so I can feel good about how well-behaved I was the day before. On the other hand, not seeing a loss or worse yet seeing a gain will throw me into “why am I working so hard for nothing I’m going to eat 1000 calories of cheese” mode. I’m thinking I need to stay off it for a while. After being so good yesterday I went up a pound this morning. Seriously?