Category Archives: AHA! moments

It feels good to do something about your weight. Doesn’t it?!

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I have always firmly believed that when we truly put our best foot forward in life, we feel happy and accomplished. This philosophy applies to weight loss as well. When we are taking care of the thing that bothers us most about our life… health…money… etc. we get to take giant steps forward to get to where we want to be and need to be.

When I take care of myself, I feel happy. I feel accomplished. I feel good about *me*.

If you have a longer journey (100+ pounds to lose or more), then you have figured out that it takes awhile before you visually reap the benefits of getting healthy. That’s why it is so crucial to focus on how you feel. Ask yourself this: When you get a workout in do you feel accomplished and happier? When you make healthy food choices do you feel that you have gained some of your power back?

There have been a few points in my own life where I felt powerless around food. I would self-sabotage in the name of pacification and before I knew it, I would be staring down at the silver lining of an empty chip bag (kind of ironic how a silver-lining isn’t always a good thing. heh.). There was a time when I would purposely order more food than I could eat from a favorite pizza place and manage to eat all of it (even though I started to feel sick somewhere in the middle of eating all of that food). I enjoyed eating alone because then I wouldn’t have to face up to uncomfortable looks or the off-chance of a snide comment. I also enjoyed eating alone because then I didn’t have to hide how much I ate.

I have started to mentally talk to myself when I feel discouraged. Mental pep-talks seem to help a lot! In a frustrated moment I ask myself… “How can I see this differently?” and “When I look back on this later… what is it about this moment that I want to remember? That I gave up on myself or that I pushed through the feelings?”

Revel in the feeling that you are doing something about your weight issues. Whether you have taken the first step or are on the 50th step in your journey…remember that you are doing something about this. You may not be where you want to be yet. But you are doing it. :)

Weird tales from the scale and getting over mommy guilt

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Well, I weighed myself this morning and found that I lost 2.8 pounds!  Yay me!  So that tells me that I must have been retaining water.  Or something.  Isn’t it funny how the scale fluctuates sometimes day by day?

I did go on my bike ride yesterday as I said I would.  Hubs watched the kids and I went by myself.  I was able to kick out 7.2 miles (1 mile more than I did yesterday).  It was refreshing!  Although, I didn’t really think about anything.  I just let my mind wander and really got into my music.  It was good to be able to go into my own little world.

So this leads me to a couple of questions to any of my fellow moms who may read this:

Do you experience mommy guilt?  If so, how have you been able to get over it for the sake of your journey?

Let me ‘splain.  You see, I am a stay-at-home mom.  I spend 24 hours a day and 365 days a year of my existence with my kids.  I love my kids.  They are my world.  However, I go through phases of mommy-burn-out.  Usually this happens when the mommy-guilt comes on and as a result I stop taking care of myself because I think I am taking something away from my kids by doing so.  (I know what you are thinking…. that’s a good example of Stinkin’ Thinkin’, right?)

The thing is… I am getting over it.  It is not easy to get over (the guilt that is) but at the end of the day I recognize that I need to take care of myself.  If momma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy.  Know what I mean?  And besides, taking care of myself isn’t selfish.  NOT taking care of myself is very selfish.  But taking care of me is as essential to my family’s daily routine as taking care of them is.

And I see the benefit of this new lifestyle, not only for myself but for my family.  Owen (my oldest), is making very good distinctions between what is healthy and what isn’t.  A few months ago, he might have complained that I only packed him an apple for a snack (instead of some crunchy, sugary stuff with a character on the front of the package).  Now, he is excited about it.

The same thing with exercise.  I was a card-carrying couch potato at one point.  My kids had all of this energy and nowhere to put it because *I* was too tired to do fun things with them.  If I couldn’t fence them in (so that I didn’t have to get up, naturally) then I didn’t want any part of the activity.  Now, we go places. We go for walks, bike rides and to the park.  I want to be as active as possible.

Knowing that I am including my family in this is refreshing and makes me happy.  Including them as much as I can (but not so much that I can’t concentrate on myself when I need to) is the sword that cuts the guilt.  We all need to preserve ourselves sometimes and that is OK.

My AHA! Moment of the day:  I always thought that if I did for myself and not for others then that would make me a bad person.  But I realize that I need to do for myself otherwise I won’t be good for others.  And that I am a good person regardless.

Now tell me… do you have any weird tales about your scale?  How do you get over your mommy guilt?

Being fat takes up a lot of personal resources

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I have to be honest. Until I started this journey, I didn’t have a lot of resources. It was a struggle to get up everyday and get the things done that needed to get done.

Things that are seemingly not a big deal for everyone else to accomplish, were definitely a big deal for me. For example, having a messy house to clean is not a big feat for some. However, for me, it was overwhelming. Going grocery shopping was overwhelming. Picking my son up for school on the days where I would rather hole up inside the house was overwhelming.  Being 320 pounds was overwhelming.

The more overwhelmed I got, the more my energy depleted, the more I hated myself, the more depressed I became. I felt incapable and hopeless.

It’s never a good thing when you start to lose hope. It’s never a good thing when you feel in your heart that life will *always* be like this for you.

But then that day came, where I hit the proverbial “rock bottom” and realized that if I didn’t love myself enough to make a fresh start, then I should at the very least love my children enough to do it.  And so I did.  Initially, my kids were my driving force.  When I started to think about giving up, I thought about them.  It killed me to think that I may not be here for them in the future because of the poor choices I had made.  Because of that, I pushed myself to go the distance.

Something happened along the way and I began to want it for myself.  It has been a long time since I have wanted something for myself.  It’s a nice feeling actually.  For a long time, it seemed I was more than content to sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else succeed and enjoy life.  For a long time, I was content on being everyone else’s cute-but-fat cheerleader.

Being fat and depressed took up a lot of my resources.  So much so that I used up whatever of the left over resources I had for others.  I saved nothing for myself.  I didn’t feel like I deserved it.  I was fat and I was punishing myself for being fat… for being less-than-perfect in a society that will rip you down to shreds if you aren’t their version of “normal”.

I did not realize then that in punishing myself I was actually continuing the harmful cycle.  I thought I deserved to suffer.

Now i’m standing here today and life is like a breath of fresh air!  The fog that had been clouding around me for so long finally dissipated and I can see CLEARLY if not for the first time in a long time.

Bobbie mentioned in one of her posts, that her trainer said that we live in a microwave society.  It’s SO true!  Losing weight, especially when you have 50-100+ pounds to lose, is truly a journey.  One that we don’t get to just simply by eating our way there.  Food certainly factors in, but it is so much complicated than that.  In order to give this your best shot, you have to mentally prepare yourself to get there.  You have to save some of those resources for yourself.

In the end, you have to REALIZE that YOU ARE worth it.

And you know what?  I am worth it.  I am more than worth it.