I'm Not Usually This Deep

(I obviously have a lot on my mind tonight, and this post is long. You may want grab a hot cup of somethin' before you sit down. Or, alternatively, skim read. Or, you know, ignore altogether. Sometimes I get a little carried away!)

Today, I've been sitting back and contemplating the whole weight loss thing. It hasn't been pretty. As I jumped into the shower this afternoon, I caught sight of all the lumps and bumps that weren't there ten years ago and couldn't help but feel disgusted. Not so much because the body in the mirror wasn't a healthy shape anymore, or that it had stretchmarks and sags and droops galore - those things go with the territory of motherhood, unfortunately. It was more that I was horrified that I'd let myself quit so many darn times. That I'd had no self-control, motivation or, well, prod-in-the-rear to keep going. It should be easy to keep all of those things bubblin' away. I've spoken of my concerns before, as they related to my family history - both parents have had heart attacks, with one being fatal. Dad was 50, Mum was 55 and left us grieving. This alone should have been the biggest wake-up call imaginable. I've almost exactly followed my mother's life pattern - two boys and then a girl, beginning at age 18. Mum was 'cuddly' but not overweight until her mid-twenties. She also battled cancer at age 28 - discovered after my birth, which I found out years later (at her funeral in May 06) was very nearly fatal for both of us. I have photos of the two of us in hospital together - Mum for radiation therapy and recovery after her hysterectomy. I could have gone home (Mum couldn't breastfeed me anyway, due to her treatment) but apparently the notion of caring for three children aged 7, 8 and 9 and a newborn who required bottle feeding scared the bejeezus out of Dad and so the nurses permitted me to stay behind in hospital. Mum was in and out of hospital for close to three months, as was I, by her side.

My point is this. At some point in her adult life, my mother just gave up caring about herself. I'm sure the state of her body bothered her - I don't know a woman alive today who is happy severely overweight - but she was always so busy caring for the kids and Dad, not to mention the tag-teaming she did between home and work, that she just got herself plain ol' worn out. It was only later, when she and Dad had separated for the second time, and she was living in the northern part of Australia with my sister and her family, that she began to come alive. She went on a diet. She lost a small amount of weight but having a lowered sense of self-worth for all those years - decades - meant she gave up too easily (hmmm....what's that saying about the apple and the tree? LOL) And stupidly (yes, stupidly!) she continued to smoke. Forty years of that, and (without meaning to sound crass) something horrid was almost guaranteed to happen. And so it did. A lifetime of bad habits and she was gone from us in the blink of an eye.

I thank God for the small mercy - and yes, I consider it just that - of waiting until us kids were all grown before taking her. I cannot possibly fathom going through the death of a mother as a young teen. As it was, I was 26, had three children of my own, and I guess was able to understand the realities of it all much better.

I realise I have gotten way off track - smile - but I figure you're following what I'm trying to get at here? Good, LOL.

I do not want to end up as a mirror image of my mother. Cancer, smoking, obesity - it all contributed to a massive time bomb just waiting to go off. I don't smoke, and I've never had cancer (though I would be lying if turning 28 next week didn't put Mum's cancer at that age in serious perspective for me), but I'm hurtling down that highway of obesity at breakneck speed.

I remember thinking, years ago, that 69.3 kg (then the heaviest I'd ever been - about 153 lbs) was positively disgusting. And now here I am, maybe 5 years and 10 kgs (22 lbs) further down that highway, and I'm ashamed.

Yep, that's it - ashamed.

Again, not so much because of the numerous physical changes my body has gone through - though they ain't pretty either, LOL! - but because I've let it get this far. Because I haven't cared enough to stay the course. Because I've opted for the instant gratification of a chocolate bar over the long-term benefits of being healthy. Mercifully, I haven't yet experienced any major health complications - but then I haven't had my cholesterol checked either, LOL. All I know is that today when I was running around in our backyard playing tag with the kids, it hurt. And when I carried two bags of groceries up our pathetically-modest hill this afternoon after yet another trip to the grocery store, it hurt (I tried reciting in my head the Proverbs 31 verse that mentions 'her arms are strong for her tasks' but it didn't help, LOL) . I don't want it to hurt.

I know what I need to do. I know what a healthy food is, I know about portions, and I know what I need to do in order to reach my goal (exercise more, eat less and better). But I always begin each week with high hopes, high motivation and then seriously fall away into temptation midway through the week. By the time Monday weigh-in rolls around again, the scales are heading north instead of south. People say you shouldn't beat yourself up if you see a gain. Personally I don't think I beat myself up enough! Think about it. Pooh-poohing a gain on the scales, if you know in your heart that you haven't given it all you have (or at least 98% of what you have, LOL!) that week, is like pouring a teaspoonful of water on a forest fire. It ain't gonna do a darn thing, and what's more, the fire's just going to keep on blazing away, devouring everything (or in my case, every sweet thing!) in it's path. However, if you've spent all week arming yourself with buckets of water (ie, exercised and ate well), then you've got the oomph you need to fight the fire. And it's a fire-and-a-half, folks. You can't ignore it.

I'll often go through spurts in the beginning of the week, let's say Monday through till Wednesday or Thursday, where I've indulged in a naughty food, or skipped my 'daily' (ha!) walk, or done something else to take the water away from my fire-fighting kit. And I usually tell myself that it's no big deal - get right back on that fire-engine the next day and all will be well. But it's not. Allowing myself that leash is as good as saying "Oh, I'll fight the fire next week." The problem with that approach, at least for me, is that the fire will inevitably be raging higher and hotter than it was before. Small, instant gratification for a bigger fire (ie, more kilograms) to fight in the long run. Doesn't make any sense, does it?

When I went through my '100 miles in 7 weeks' phase during the May Day Weight Loss Challenge', the first week was h*ll. I hadn't exercised in eons and my shins were (ironically!) on fire continuously, even when I'd sat down for the day. It hurt! But then the next week got better. My shins only hurt every other day, LOL. And by the end of the third week, they didn't hurt at all. After that, I kept racking up the kilometres and seeing that number rise, and knowing I was on a 'streak', was all the motivation (ie, water) I needed to fight the fire of motivation. Melodee of The Amazing Shrinking Mom, wrote recently about ending her fourteen MONTH streak of exercise! This woman is my hero, LOL. I understand a little about what she must have felt though - albeit on a much smaller scale. Once she started, the motivation to keep going must have snowballed from one day to the next until it felt almost irrational to not base her day around exercise. When I was walking, I found a 'zone' and coasted. Exercise was easy. I pushed myself to go further, often walking 6 ½ kilometres (4 miles) every day - totally unheard of before my streak. I got anxious when I wasn't able to walk. I got snooty and snappy, LOL.

Whatever happened to THAT girl? LOL.

So I know the mechanics of weight loss back-to-front and sideways. I am not a fad-dieter. I know the ins and outs of healthy eating. But obviously I have a problem filling up my water bucket enough so that I feel I have the power to fight temptation and all the other struggles that go along with it. People who have never been overweight don't fully understand this, God love 'em. My Hubs is one of those. He's 100% supportive of me trying, but he gets frustrated with each new spurt of energy, each new laminated food chart on the fridge, each new 'failure'. He's been preposterously thin all his life, and has always lamented his inability to put on weight, so it's hard for him to fully grasp all of this. Today though, I found a neat site that delves a little deeper into the emotional/motivational side of weight loss. Reading through the site, I have renewed hope. The site is called Bringing Healthy Back (you can also get to it via the button at the top of this post) and a few posts stood out.

This one, about setting daily goals and the art of self-discipline as it applies to weight loss.
This one, with some really concrete mind-pictures. My favourite part:

I’m going to ask you to stop and think about how you rationalize your food choices for a moment. Compare them to something other than food and see if it makes sense to eat this way.

If you had a bad day would you go out and spend $3,000 to feel better? (Then why are you eating 3,000 extra calories?)

If you were sitting around the house bored, would you run out and buy three new cars? (Then why are you eating three extra helpings of mashed potatoes?)

If you had a day where you realized you were totally disgusted with your own appearance, would you ask your family members to leave and never come back? (Then why are you cutting out whole groups of foods from your daily diet?)

If you went out to dinner and the meal was going to cost you over $100 would you eat more than if the meal was going to cost $5.99? (Does the cost of the food determine how many calories you will ultimately consume? Does it change what you order?)

If it is a special occasion and there’s cake and ice cream and they are both your personal favorites would you convince yourself to eat more than one serving because you don’t know when you’ll have another chance to eat them again? (Would you buy six pairs of pants if you only needed one because you can’t be sure that they’d still be there on the rack next week?)

The revelations of why you eat the way you do can be totally skewed over time because our thinking about the “rules” for food has become totally skewed. Once we look at why we eat what we eat then we have to figure out how to change it - and that’s where self-discipline comes in.

Doesn't that just make you want to sit up a little straighter, and quaff down another glass of water? LOL.

I have NO doubt whatsoever that the scales will throw back a few fireballs when I weigh-in tomorrow morning. I won't even list the junk food I've consumed this weekend, it's too embarrassing. And I'd like to imagine I'll spend the next two or three weeks building up my water (ie, motivation) so that in a little while I'll be fighting the fire and back in 'the zone', but I can't promise that either. Experience tells me I'm not all that good at weight loss, LOL.

All I can do is try to keep my eye on the fire and try not to let it get too out of control. Then, if I manage to put out a few flames, great!

Cheers,
Lizzie