Ups and Downs

Hi, all!

Happy Monday! How are you all doing today? I’m doing okay, last week was incredibly busy and filled with many ups and downs. Honestly, I’m really glad that it’s a new week and I get to start fresh. This week my goal is to not eat out at all and eat at or a little below my calorie goal each day. I really need to get my nutrition under control and begin making healthier choices every day.

I began last week by doing quite well, Sunday and Monday my calories were quite low and Tuesday I was about 100 under my goal. At that point, I was feeling good about myself and how well I was doing, but then that changed on Wednesday. I had a long day of class and I talked to my best friend when I got home and then I was feeling sort of hungry. Instead of grabbing one of the snacks I keep in the house for occasions such as this, I went online and ordered a big pizza and a few other things. I ate a little of it that night but saved the rest of it for the next day. On Thursday, I was feeling really down about what I had done the night before and wanted to just throw the food away but I can’t really afford to do that. So, I came up with a plan to eat the food that I had bought but make it fit into my calorie range. That planned worked until the afternoon because I had an incredibly stressful morning and then I let my stress take over and I pigged out on the pizza. That day, I ate 7 slices of large pizza and then I had a few other things in the evening. I honestly don’t know how many calories I ate that day but it happened. Friday I decided to start fresh and I did well, I was about 160 calories under my goal for the day. Saturday came around and I was having a fantastic day, I was ahead on my to-do list, my dinner was in the slow cooker and I was on track to being at or under my calorie goal for the day. Around 4 PM I was starting to get hungry and again, instead of grabbing a snack I ordered some food. I ate more than I needed to again and felt unsatisfied after. At that point, I saw how easily my nutrition was consumed by my stress and boredom, so now I’m trying to focus more on my nutrition and making healthier choices.

The few days that I ate too much led me to gain weight for the week. Yesterday I weighed myself and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. I gained a pound last week because of a few bad choices. Last week I sabotaged myself, which is hard to admit but it’s the truth. This needs to stop, now. I know that I won’t be perfect with my nutrition all the time and sometimes I’ll make unhealthy food choices and that’s okay. The thing that I’m trying to do right now is have more healthy days than unhealthy. When I do have an unhealthy day, I am going to try and not eat so much. I went and got groceries yesterday and I made sure to grab a few different types of snacks, so that if I am craving a certain thing that I can eat a little of it and not binge on it.

Well, this is where I am signing off. I have class tonight and I have a few things to get done this afternoon before I leave. I hope that you all have an amazing week! Until next time!
~Sara~

2016, New Year, New Me

Hi, all!

Happy Thursday! How are you all? I haven’t written in so long, so I’m not sure if anyone is still listening. My last post was in August, which means it’s been five months. Honestly, though, I haven’t been posting regularly since the end of May/beginning of June. There are a variety of reasons that I haven’t posted in so long, including that grad school has kept me insanely busy and that sometimes things simply were not going well, so I didn’t post. I have definitely had my ups and downs over the past five months, no doubt about it. My winter break just ended and so many times I thought about posting. I had all of these thoughts in my head about what to say, but I never wrote them down. My problem is that I have so much to say and sometimes I don’t know how to articulate those thoughts.

On Monday, I returned to Seattle after spending 3 weeks in Wisconsin with my family for my winter break. It was a wonderful trip, I didn’t realize how much I missed my family until I saw them again, it was definitely bittersweet coming back and having to leave again. After being back with my family for a few weeks, I realize that after I graduate, I may want to return to Wisconsin to work. The time that I have to make this decision is far from now, so I definitely have some time, however, it is something that I will be thinking about a great deal.

Yesterday, I began my second quarter of grad school. It is hard to believe that I’m a quarter closer to being done, only 10 quarters left. I know that my time at SPU will go by quickly and I need to learn as much as I can from my professors and colleagues. It seems like I just started college and here I am with an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree and working toward my master’s degree, time flies. Honestly, it feels like I just graduated from high school and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At the same time, it feels like high school was so long ago, which, depending on your definition of long, it has been. By the end of this school year, I will have been out of high school for 8 years, which is a scary thought. Nevertheless, here I am almost 8 years later, in grad school, with two degrees under my belt already. Life is definitely a journey.    

Now it’s time in this ridiculously long post, to share some of the not so positive things that have happened over the past five months. I wish that I could say that everything in my life is perfect and that I stayed on track with my fitness and nutrition over the past months. Sadly, I need to report the exact opposite. I have not made healthy food choices and I have done a very little exercise. This has caused me to gain back all of the weight that I lost and then some. It is really hard for me to admit this but my weight is up to 321, a new high. I promised myself that I would never see a ‘3’ as the first number of my weight again, but here I am. For a while, I simply stopped caring and let my food cravings take over. I didn’t step on the scale and I avoided looking at my body, besides seeing if my clothing looked okay. Then when I was in Wisconsin, I went to the doctor and I had to step on the scale. I knew that I hadn’t been doing well but I never thought that I would have gained so much weight. When I saw that number on the scale I almost cried because never in my life did I imagine that I would weigh 321 pounds. At the rate I was going, I was just killing myself slowly.

To be honest, I have been really struggling with my food choices. Food has taken over my life again and it is so hard to try and stop. There have been days where I would try to make healthier food choices and I did for part of the day but then toward the end, I was just so hungry. It goes to show how many calories I had been eating, though, it was a very high number. So, I am now trying to plan out meals that are lower in calories and have healthy ingredients. I am hoping that if I eat lower calories foods I’ll be able to eat more of them and that will trick my body into not being so hungry. For Christmas, my mom gave me her old crock pot, so I’m searching for a lot of healthy recipes. I know that doing some meal planning will help me each day and also will help me when I am grocery shopping. I’m hoping that it will help me stop buying all these foods that I don’t need for my meals.

I have written out some weekly, monthly and yearly goals, so that is a step in the right direction. At this point, I’m not going to share my specific goals because some of them are quite personal, but I will share my major goals. I need to simply make healthier food choices, reduce my calories and start working out more again. My most important goal is to break the unhealthy habits that I have created. If I don’t break these habits, my health will deteriorate. My health and life are more important and precious than the foods I desire.

Well, there you have it, I have shared everything that I need to. Life is about to get busy again because my classes have started up again, but I promise that I will start posting on a regular basis. I don’t know how many people read my posts but I hope that my honesty can help at least one person continue on with their journey. If nothing else, sharing what I am going through helps to keep me accountable and that is definitely something that I need. This is a long and hard journey and I need to keep myself going strong along the way. I hope that you all are having an absolutely wonderful beginning to your new year! This New Year is a clean slate for each of us and we can start over. Honestly, I believe that each day is a new beginning and we can become whoever we wish to be, all it takes is a little hard work and perseverance. We can do this! I promise that I’ll post again soon. Until next time!

~Sara~ 

Progress, not Perfection

Hi, all!

Happy Tuesday! How are you all doing today? I'm doing fairly well and I'm enjoying this new week. It's the final full week of the month, how are you doing on achieving your goals? My goals are going well thus far, especially the monthly ones. :)

I began writing a post yesterday and I was going to write about how wonderful my day was going and talk about the week ahead. Well, that didn't happen because I received some unwelcome mail that turned my day quite negative. Thankfully I have everything all worked out, as of last night, and I was able to stay on track nutritionally. After receiving the piece of mail, I started applying to jobs around here and, amazingly enough, I have an interview tomorrow morning and I just applied yesterday. I'm hoping for a positive outcome to this interview because it would help my situation a lot!

Although yesterday was not pleasant throughout the day, I have something very exciting that came out of it. During the troubled time, I did not turn to food to help me work through it. Typically, I would have turned to food as soon as I received the piece of mail. I would have eaten a large quantity and done so throughout the afternoon and evening. I've gotta tell you, I'm incredibly proud of myself for not turning to food and sticking with my nutritional goals. In fact, when this happened, I didn't even think about turning to food. At all! I didn't turn to food, that is SO FREAKING AMAZING! This means that I'm making progress with my food addiction and that makes me so dang happy. This kind of thing may not always happen and I may turn to food sometimes, but this is progress. I'm not perfect, but all I can ask for is that I continue to move forward.

Okay, now that I have all this news out of the way. Yesterday I did really well both nutritionally and with my fitness. I was under my calorie goal by a couple hundred calories and I had a 41-minute walk. For some reason, my legs were feeling sort of fatigued, so I didn't get to walk at the level I normally do. But, a workout is a workout.

Well, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my afternoon. I hope that you all had a wonderful Monday and your Tuesday is even better. Until next time!

~Sara~

Mindset

Hi, all!

Happy Monday! How are all of you doing today? It's a pretty dreary day here, but I love it and am thankful nevertheless. Today marks a new week and we get a chance to begin new. So make some goals for yourself, get a workout in and make healthy food choices.

Yesterday I did not have a good day nutritionally, honestly, my whole weekend was full with unhealthy food choices. Today is a new day though and I will make healthier choices.It would be incredibly easy for me to just give in and continue making unhealthy food choices, however, I am choosing to be healthier. I see a difference in myself because before I would be eating the amount of calories I did over the weekend, plus many more. Honestly, I was eating at least 3500 calories each day, and that was probably a lower estimate. Now I feel sick to my stomach when I eat even 3000 calories in a day. What a difference! It's no wonder why I had no energy and felt incredibly lethargic before. Something that also contributed to that was the fact that most of my diet was carbs and fat, I did get a bit of protein, but only if there was some protein in those carbs and fats. When I look at the facts, it is amazing that I only weighed 315 pounds at my highest. If I would have continued on that path, I have no doubt that I would have eaten myself to death. I'm incredibly thankful that I decided to change my fitness and eating habits because I feel so much healthier and happier now. Who knows where I would be right now if I didn't make that change.

Today has been a wonderful day so far. I'm on track with my nutrition and I had a great 68-minute walk, with weights. This week and next week I'm set with a bunch of delicious food, even some for evening snacks, that will help me stay on track. Although some of the dinners are a bit higher calorie, I will make sure to stay on track and eat those higher calorie meals with moderation. Honestly, moderation is my goal. I will eat higher calorie foods sometimes, even unhealthy foods, but I will make sure that they fit into my calorie goal and I will only eat one serving of them, instead of multiple servings. I'm not going to give up the foods that I love, simply because I'm trying to lose weight. I'll lose weight while still eating my favorite foods, but they'll be healthier versions of them or smaller portions.

While I was writing this post I realized something that I need to stop. In my mind, I kept on say bad food choices instead of unhealthy food choices. This is something that I need to reevaluate in my mind because unhealthy and bad are two very different things. It's all a part of overcoming my food addiction and gaining a healthier relationship with food. If I see a food as "bad", that has a very negative connotation with it. However, if I say something in unhealthy, it means that it does not have a lot of health benefits. In my opinion, something being unhealthy is much better than something being bad. I'm going to work hard to change my mindset because it will help me a lot in the future.

Okay, I'm off to get some things done around the house. I hope that you all have a wonderful day and evening. Until next time!

~Sara~