It's hard to lose weight when you're not even trying

        The first time I gained weight, I was in college. Basically, I was a crazy stressed out student who coped with everything by eating, and eating, and eating. At first, my coping mechanism also included lots of exercise, so I lost weight instead of gaining the freshman 15. Then, I went from being a freshman to a sophomore to a junior, and free time was something I had less and less of, so exercise slowly got cut out and before I knew it I'd put on 70lbs to go from 150lbs to 220lbs. Since then, I have yo-yoed up and down to a low of 208 (Lindora) and back up to a high of 266 (too much food), with my current weight holding strong at 246lbs.

        All this to say... I'm in college again and free time is nonexistent, the going got tough, and guess what? No diet. I was doing SO well for a while there... Eating right, cooking healthy food, storing leftovers to bring with me on busy days, counting calories, and generally writing down everything I consumed so I could watch what I was doing right and wrong. It worked. I went from 266lbs to 242lbs in less than 2 months. But then? But then, here I am now. It's been weeks since I last wrote in my food diary, weeks since I got a proper hard exercise in, weeks since I paid attention to what I was eating. Thanksgiving weekend brought my weight back up to 246lbs and that's where (thankfully) I've held steady for the last few weeks. It's hard to say at least there was no gain, at least I maintained, because I don't even feel I deserve that. I should not have fallen back into bad habits, but I did. The problem is, my bad habits aren't just bad habits. They are well and truly the steady state of my life right now, what my mind still thinks is the norm, and it's going to be very hard to readjust to a new steady state where healthy is the norm and eating like I have the past couple of weeks is simply out of the question. Hard, but doable. Doable if only I tried. I would try if only I had the time. Ahh, and here is the pattern...
Try->DO->Get busy->Give up. On and on in a circle.

        You'd think this is where I say, now, it all changes NOW. Hmmm, seems like I've said that before, about a million times. I'm sick of hearing myself say it, think it even. Also, there is this little problem of I'm not actually going to try again until I get back home for the holidays. I just can't, well, maybe I can, I should, but I wont be. I have two finals standing between me and my flight home on Friday... home to my boyfriend, home to my family, home to my healthy habits? So yeah, I'm here and I'm being truthful. Come Monday my food journal will be filled to the brim with good eats and exercise and health. Right now, I can't and even though that's a choice I am making willingly, I still feel terrible about making it. Monday. I'll be back.

        Dear ladies of the Fall into Fitness challenge, yeah, I suck, and my weight is still 246lbs, but I'll still be weighing in until the end, hopefully you will as well. Even if I did take a couple week hiatus right in the middle there, I want to keep going. I don't want to give up on the first ever challenge I started. :) Stay with me?

Still here, still going...

        I'm still here! I promise to write more soon... I weighed in this morning at 244lbs, so I gained 0.2lbs over Thanksgiving, which seems like I somewhat maintained and for the first time in quite a few years I didn't gain a lot of weight, phew! Not a loss, but not a huge gain either. One eating holiday down, a few more to go!

        I will write more soon... It's too late now to write about flying home for Thanksgiving to all the surprised happy faces reacting to the weight I've lost so far... Or about how hard it was not to give in to the temptations on Thanksgiving, and how I definitely ate more than I have for weeks and more than I should have... I'm sure I'll be facing quite a similar dilemma when I go home for Christmas, so I will definitely write about it then!

        Right now, I'm working on a few projects for school and finals are in a week, so I'm a bit overwhelmed and slightly hyperventilating about it all! Two weeks and it will be over and I can concentrate on exercising and doing right by my body. For now, I am concentrating on school and eating all the soups I pre-made and froze for myself and salads and making these healthy choices so at least my food will remain on track while my mind is going berserk. Wish me luck!

Gym!

I finally went back to the gym today!

I did 30 minutes on the elliptical glider, on Random setting, Level 3. According to the machine I did 3 miles and burned 500 calories (not so sure I believe this one).

Yay!! :) When I was on the machine I felt such a rush, all the endorphins kicked in and I was so happy to finally be exercising in the gym again. Of course when I started I set the machine to 60 minutes and today I was only able to do 30, but you know what? I am ok with that. I went back, I did half an hour. I will keep going and adding on until I can get to that 60 minutes.

Hurt so good

        You know the pain and muscle soreness that comes from a great day at the gym? Abs hurting when you laugh because they have been crunched and twisted and exercised so hard? I like that feeling. I call it the good hurt and I look forward to it-- it makes me feel like I am achieving something through all my hard work exercising. Plus, it's an added benefit to know my body will be burning some extra calories repairing whatever it is that is causing the soreness in the muscles. I can't wait for the good hurt, I can already feel it in my legs from the long walk I took yesterday. Now I just need to exercise my abs, so I can feel it there too.

        Lately I've been feeling a different kind of good hurt, and I have to say it both makes me feel good and scares me. We all know that in order to lose weight we have to take in less calories than we burn, etc. Well, even with eating 6 times a day I am now taking in very much less calories than I was just a few months ago, and for the last 8 years. This has meant that almost every morning I wake up with a slight gnawing in my stomach. Sometimes I feel it during the day too. But it's not a horrible pain, like I used to get when I hadn't eaten all day and my body was asking for the one large meal a day I was scarfing down. No, this is more of a constant empty feeling, but not bad empty. I am not over full. I have not felt the extreme discomfort that comes after eating way more than is ever necessary for a long time now and I never want to feel it again. What scares me though is that I am getting used to the gnawing empty feeling. I am actually looking forward to it, and happy to feel it. I have started to equate this feeling to the weight loss, which really, it is. The less I eat, the more I lose. I am, however, scared that this will take me too far into the other direction. Back into the place of disordered eating... but the other side this time... Eating too little, starving myself because it feels good and the weight loss feels so great! I know that knowing is half the battle and I have to keep myself in check now. Make sure I am still getting in all my meals, make sure I am eating no less than 1200 calories a day, and make sure I don't stop eating because the weight loss feels so good. That will surely end badly, and I've adopted this lifestyle change to be healthier, not make my health deteriorate more!


***

        On a lighter note, today starts the first day of the Looking to the Future Christmas Challenge, and I am happy to report that as of this morning I am 242.6lbs. My goal is to lose 12.6lbs by the end of the challenge (Saturday December 26th), bringing me to 230lbs and also making this the first Christmas holiday I weigh less after than I did before! :)

This is actually working!

Fall into Fitness, Week 3:

Current weight: 243.8lbs !
*Weight lost last week? -5.6lbs !!
*Goals for this week:
AGAIN, nothing much different from last week because I never got to the gym. I have been stressed with life as a student, studying for midterms, doing projects-- so basically I was just super strict with my eating and got in exercise when I could-- through walking everywhere and dodgeball (I play on a team 1 night a week, so much fun!).
- Make sure to prepare meals in advance when I know I wont be at home all day.
- Write down everything I eat and any exercise I do. (Once again, at the beginning of the week I dropped the ball on writing things down. I will be better about it this week because I've gotten back in the habit.)
- Try to go to the gym at least 3x by the end of the week. I MUST! (No gym last week, just walking and dodgeball.)
*Wins from last week... I definitely got back to eating healthy meals I cooked for myself. I brought leftovers for lunch and ate very healthy foods all week. That said, I really REALLY need to get back to the gym. I can feel my body and willpower reverting back to non-gym status. I am going to start tomorrow morning at the gym, see if I can nip this anti-gymness in the bud. I'm so glad I lost a big number this week, and I think I can do it again, or at least keep losing, as long as I go to the gym. I need to be preparing for the following week and how tough my first Thanksgiving on this lifestyle change business is going to be. I hope to bring tales from going to the gym next week! :)

I had the swine flu! I couldn't exercise... I still lost weight?

Fall into Fitness, Week 2:

*Current weight: 249.4lbs
*Weight lost last week? -4.2lbs
*Goals for this week:
Nothing much different from last week because I still have the lingering side-effects of the flu I'm shaking off!
- Get back to eating healthy meals I cook for myself. (I spent last week eating soup I bought, not necessarily the healthiest...)
- Make sure to prepare meals in advance when I know I wont be at home all day.
- Write down everything I eat and any exercise I do. (I dropped the ball on writing things down. I will be better about it this week.)
- Try to go to the gym at least 3x by the end of the week. (I am still congested in the chest but hopefully that will pass in the next day or so.)
*Last week... I'm super excited I managed to lose 4.2lbs! I really need to get back to exercising. My body is actually craving it! Unfortunately I still have this cough and running isn't helping it any, so I haven't been to the gym or out for a run in a couple of weeks now. :( I can feel my body going back to it's couch-potato state! This is not good. Also, I felt too weak to go do the 5K last Sunday morning. Double :( At least my weight is down this week and I know what I have to work on for next week!

Should I do it?

        So I signed up for a 5K that's going to be this Sunday... Here's the problem, I haven't exercised since I got sick soon after my last run, which was, oh October 27th! Add to that the fact that I only did 20 minutes of non-stop running that day... and only managed to run 1.5 miles in that time. I'm not sure I can go out on Sunday and double that distance... Should I do it? I've been sick, but I am feeling better, still congested, but better. Should I attempt this? I'm thinking of going and starting the run for the first 20 minutes, since I know I can do that, and then alternating between a walk and a run until I cross the finish line. I hope I can do this!