This might be the best music video I’ve ever seen. 

I know I haven’t posted in a long time, but I’m doing work on me right now and a lot of it isn’t something I’m able to write or post about. It’s not been the best few months eating or exercise wise, but this blog is about wellness is all categories and let’s just say that things are looking up.

I know we are about fitness and weight loss here in fitblrland, but I wanted to share this video because I think it is important to recognize that wherever we are in this journey, we are beautiful. Trust me, I wish I could tell the me that weighted 120 pounds more than I do now that she needed to learn that she was beautiful and valuable at that size, and that losing weight wasn’t going to make that just happen. 

And, so…. listen, smile, and be beautiful.  

I have a confession to make. 

I have fallen off the bandwagon…. really before the wagon started rolling. 

Partially, my timing was to blame. Mostly, my self-sabotage and apparent desire to gain back the 100+ pounds I’ve lost. 

I started this health kick in the middle-end of this semester. That was my first mistake. My second was Thanksgiving break. It wasn’t so much a mistake as a pathetic excuse for my failure being justified by just one more piece of pie. 

It set off a binge and a sorta “f it, I don’t care”. If you know the binge cycle, you know how I’m feeling right now…. shitty, ashamed, disgusted in myself, too defeated to be healthy again…. 

And weighing in at 293 pounds this morning. I mean, part of that might be something else with water weight or what not (due to the blatant disregard for hydration that happened simultaneously with my backsliding binging)…. but whatever it is…. I’ve somehow managed to gain almost 20 pounds in approximately 2 weeks. 

That’s disgusting. 

And I really can’t get over how much I hate myself. Which is really dangerous. Because the idea of a “fast” for punishment/purging has crossed my mind so many times in the last few days. And that’s dumb. I work in mental health…….. I’m not going to allow myself to become a disordered eater or worst, on the fast track to a disorder that I don’t want to have to deal with. I know my past…. I know what I’m capable of doing to myself and I just don’t want that lifestyle anymore. 

So I’m turning to my fitblr…. that I’ve been avoiding because I feel disgusting and I read other fitblrs and you guys are all doing so amazing and I don’t want to feel more defeated…….. but I’m here. Confessing that I’m a stressed out, unhealthy, binging fatso who really needs to some how get her life in order. 

But for the time being, I think I’m just going to go cry. 

Tomorrow, I am going on a hike. I am going on a hike in the mud trails of Santa Cruz mountain with a water bottle, a camera, a dog, and my ipod. I haven’t hiked since I left High Sierra, and I miss it. I miss getting “lost” in the woods, surrounded by the trees and the silence. LA, where I live most of the time, doesn’t have many opportunities to get lost in nature. 

I’m writing this here so it happens. 

Today was a crappy eating day. Well, actually, it was a very delicious eating day. I basically didn’t eat anything until Thanksgiving Dinner at 6, and then had mashed potatoes, turkey, gravy, the best cranberry sauce in the world, a bit of challah, about a forkful of dressing (tried to save the gluten for dessert). The best thing was, by far, the turkey and cranberry sauce. God it was good. 

My downfall was dessert. I’m such a sugar addict, and pie is my favorite kind of dessert… well, that and ice cream. Which, of course, we had both. We actually had like 5 pies and then my mini-pumpkin pies (there were 17 of us at dinner), so I naturally had to have a bit of most of them (I skipped the mince pie and the chocolate pecan (because I don’t like chocolate all that much). 

Anyway, I’m forgiving myself for a bad food day (at least I still got all my vitamin batches in!) and starting new tomorrow. 

(via fit-and-healthy-for-tomorrow)

roadto224:

So I sit here asking myself … having accomplished some pretty amazing achievements over this past year, how do I best accomplish my goal of losing weight over the next 365 days?

Surprisingly, the answer came quickly.

ACCOUNTABILITY.

One word, six syllables, fourteen letters.

So very simple in its premise.  Because it’s painfully obvious that I cannot be accountable to myself and myself alone.  I need to be held accountable by others as well.

And that’s where you come in dear tumblrs.

Each and every day, I pledge to hold myself accountable to you by posting my daily food and exercise choices. 

And what better day to start than Thanksgiving.

Because tomorrow I will be giving thanks for each and every one of you.

And maybe, just maybe, exactly 1 year from today, I’ll be giving thanks for all that I wish to achieve.

Amen to that. I look forward to seeing how it goes, and for being reminded everyday of my re-commitment to health. You got this! You are an inspiration as to how to get healthier, stronger, and now leaner! 

Sorry, long post. But I wanted to remind myself of this, when the time comes that I want to stop or give up or go back to what I was doing which was “less work”… it also happened to be much less life. 

Tomorrow will mark a week since I found my health lying in a huddled, disgusting, gluten-drenched mess in the corner totally disregarded. It’s been a week since I decide to pick it up, dust it off, and start this process all over again. But this time, with dedication, transparency, no shame, and a crap ton of vitamins (more on this a bit later). 

I’ve lost ~9 pounds this week. Which is incredible. Every first week is like that, and I’m not expecting to lose the next 100 as fast as I did the last 100 pounds. It’s going to be a process. And I’m excited to see that this process of healthier eating and such is working. 

But I’m not doing it for that. 

I’m not doing it to fit into size 12 jeans. Though that would be incredible. 

I’m not doing it so I can be attractive for a man. Though if it happens, great. 

I’m not doing it to look better in pictures. Though that’s always a plus. 

I’m doing this because my life depends on it. And it is making me feel healthier already. I have spend over a year ignoring the fact that I need to take large amounts of vitamins a day to make up for my GI tract stuff. I’ve been ignoring my levels and my labs, and the fact that my bones aren’t always going to be 20 year old bones and that the calcium I’ve depleted from them isn’t going to just go back on its own. And now I’m not ignoring those things anymore, those things that’ll keep me alive. I’ve taken every single batch of vitamins, every single day, for the last week. Two more weeks, and this’ll be normal habit. 

I can already see that it is working. 

I have wrestled with severe headaches for a year now (coincidence? yeah, apparently not). I have taken Excedrin migraine medicine everyday for a past year. Every day. Often twice a day. And that just sort of kept them at bay, the headache still present but the other migraine effects were manageable. 

For a year, I’ve just dealt with these. Not really thinking much of it. Two months I came to the realization (when I was buying yet another bottle of Excedrin) that I had taken it every day for the past 10 months. I have Excedrin bottles, actual full size bottles, in my backpack, purse, toiletries bag, gym bag… I have been tied to the stuff. It is was my lifeline to survive through the day. I realized this two months ago… yet I kept on dealing with it. 

Now, don’t ask how I thought I was healthy and fine with this going on… I honestly didn’t think about it. I just managed it. 

Until last thursday. When I didn’t have a headache. For the first time. In over a year. All day, I was actually feeling a little anxious because I couldn’t quite place what was “wrong”. It was only until later that night when I realized (even after crying and being an emotional mess) that I hadn’t gotten a headache that day. 

I didn’t trust it. I was like, well, that’s lucky I guess. 

But I did the same thing the next day. I drank over 60 oz of pure water. I had no coffee. I cut out all soda. I took all my vitamins. I avoided gluten as much as possible. I tracked all that I ate. 

No headache. 

I told a close friend that I still didn’t trust it. That I didn’t want to jinx it or think that they had gone away for good. 

Now, a week later, and I’ve been free from headaches (and Excedrin) for 6 days. 

That’s the reason I’m doing this. That’s the reason I’m dedicating my life to tracking what I eat, and drinking water even when I want diet soda. That’s why I’m not going to gorge myself on Thanksgiving, and why I don’t need to buy those christmas candies, and why I will pass on the offer for another glass of wine. 

Because this is my life, and I wasn’t meant to just manage living. I was meant to thrive, to live deep, to live free. A commitment to health isn’t a ball-n-chain. It’s an opening of a cage I’ve sat in too long, content with not singing. Content with headaches. Content with all this gravity weighing on me. 

No more. 

I’m doing this…. for me. 

Well, I’m about to leave for Thanksgiving break (after two more classes) but since I’ll be out of town & not near my scale again until Monday… I thought, why not just check & see where you are now & then after thanksgiving. Well, hey 276 (…. point eight). 

So, it’s a total of 8.7 pounds lost this week (this is an edit, because I’m really terrible at math). Not to shabby. It was snark week, so I’m not entirely sure I trust any or all of this, and like I said before… I won’t really trust that this is actually helping me lose weight until I hit the 260s (but, even if I don’t… I’m stickin’ with this… see the next post for why). 

Now if I can maintain or even lose weight over the break, it shall be a miracle (and a testament to my willpower).

I think one of the things that less gravity means to me is my emotional health. My emotions and my battle with depression has everything to do with my weight loss and my goals at health. I may have lost 100 pounds in the last year, but I’ve also overcome clinical depression. I don’t want to ever forget that. I don’t want to forget that this is not just about me being thin or looking good or running a certain number of miles. It’s about me being healthy, having less gravity weighing on my body, my heart, my mind, my soul. 

Today, I got sad. Really sad. I had a friendship that used to be a best friendship, but that has been on the rocks for a long time… finally fall apart. I am no longer the maid of honor at their wedding. In fact, I’m no longer going to their wedding. It is a hard thing to break-up with a friend. It really feels that way, but in some ways… a little bit worse. 

On top of that, I’ve been dealing with a bunch of stress about graduating or taking another year, dealing with whether I’m called into ministry, and a whole other slew of things. 

But you know what happened today? 

I listened to good music. I texted a mentor for prayer. I turned to a good friend. I shared a few tears. I cooked a very healthy dinner. I made a decision. I allowed myself to get sad for a little while and then, decide to not be sad anymore. 

To live in the freedom to feel, to really actually feel, to cry, to not just stuff and numb and carry everything buried down inside is so incredible to me. And to be able to decide, “that’s enough”, and have it really be enough - have it not be about hiding my emotions, but carrying through, saying, “ow, that hurt… but it’s not going to ruin me.” 

That’s where I’ve come after all these years. 

I have miles to go with healing and emotional wellbeing and maturity. As we all do. One of my favorite quotes is, “we are all either in recovery from something or in denial.” 

I love that I’m not in denial anymore. I’m here, I’m letting other people read thoughts about my weight and my issues and my thoughts that I never thought I’d be able to share. I feel like just in the practice of sharing these thoughts… I feel like I’m freer. 

Like there is a little less gravity weighing on me. 

Well, I don’t know if I’ll believe that I’m truly losing weight until I hit the 260s (never been down that far)… Buttttt, I weighed in today because last night’s eating left me feeling disgusting. I’m not sure if I was hoping for a higher weight so that I could really drill it into myself that it was a no-no, or a lower weight for motivation to keep trying & not just be all whatever with my eating (articulate, I know).

Anyway….. I got on (after a pre-scale pep talk) and:

Starting Weight (round 1): 389.6 pounds
Starting Weight (this round): 285.6 pounds
Current Weight: 282.4 pounds

Losing 3 pounds isn’t terrible. I would love to have had a bigger drop, but let’s be real, I haven’t been eating fan-freaking-tastically. That’s going to (continue) to change.

Anyway, I think the gluten reaction is almost completely out of my system… Thank God, that was brutal. I was literally in so much pain I was considering the ER…. which is ridiculous, considering that I used to eat gluten everyday in copious amounts. Apparently just a short break from it & it’s WW3 in my GI tract. Which is fine by me…. GLUTEN BE GONE!!!

I won’t lie. I love this picture. I love this person I was when I was carefree. I was heavier, much heavier in this picture, than I am now. And yet, I had confidence. I could be absolutely silly and prance in the lilies and be a giraffe because that was what I wanted to be that day. 

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of what I love about myself, who I’ve been created to be. This is one of those glimpse. No matter what, no matter how much I weigh, or how strong I am… I never want to lose sight of this person who had no idea a picture was being taken at the time, and just was. This is when I am most beautiful, I believe, to myself, and I hope, to the world. This is who I want to be, even as I continue to lose over half of me.