New Beginnings

Hi, all!

Yesterday I was feeling incredibly down on myself because of the episode of BED that I had the day before. I am so thankful that each day offers a new beginning. Even though I was feeling down yesterday, I did not let that impact my day. My husband and I had a busy day yesterday, I had my social security card changed and changed my name down at our bank. These things kept me busy for a little while and of course, homework did as well. It is amazing how different one day can be from another. On Tuesday, I ate 4,250 calories, which is difficult to admit. And then yesterday was a completely different day. I ate 1,885 calories and did not feel hungry by the end of the night. My calories from yesterday were around what I was eating regularly before when I was trying to lose weight. The calorie difference between those two days was another days worth of calories. This journey is filled with ups and downs.

I was also honest with my husband about some of my struggles. This is something that I knew needed to be done, I cannot hide these struggles from him. Since I was hiding my struggles from him, he was enabling my eating disorder. He wanted fast food, yeah I'm definitely down for that. He wants snacks, totally okay with that. Something sweet, yes, please! When I was finally honest with him, he has gone away from asking if I want some fast food or snacks or sweets. He will ask if I want anything but he would grab me something healthy if I asked for it. My husband is wonderful, he is so supportive of me making healthier choices and was there for me on Tuesday night when I was feeling down about myself for the BED episode. I am so lucky to have him.

I suppose it is time to get going on homework. 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~ 

Weigh-In, Recap, Goals and a New Month

Hi, all!

Happy Monday and happy June! It's a new month, which means it's a new beginning and a great time to come up with some new goals. Today is a gorgeous day, a high of 66 and sunny. Don't forget to write out some new goals today and get working toward them. I have so much to cover today because I haven't blogged in a few days. Sorry about that, by the way, over the weekend my cold turned into something a lot more. I'm still feeling pretty under the weather, but I'm trying to move forward with my week.

Yesterday was Sunday which means I had my official weigh-in. My results were not where I wanted them to be, especially as it was the end of the month, but it is what it is.

Starting Weight: 315 lbs

Last Weight: 308.8 lbs

Current Weight: 308.9 lbs

Weight Lost: 6.1 lbs

As you can see, I gained .1 pound, so I'm not all that happy, but it could have been a lot worse. I need to be honest with everyone though, I didn't do as well with my fitness or nutrition this past week and you can see that with my weigh-in. Most days throughout the week, I was under my calorie goal, however, I made some unhealthy food choices. Plus, my calorie burns from my work outs were down a little this week and I know I didn't push myself as hard. Overall, I'm not happy with how this week went but, these things happen. Today is a new day and a new week, so I'm going to try harder.

Now onto my recap of my weekly goals, I actually accomplished all of these except for my weight goal. As seen above, I gained .1 pound, so my goal of losing .5-1 pound was not accomplished. The positive that I'm going to take out of last week though is that I worked out 5 days and had 214 minutes, which is 94 minutes over my goal. Also, I ate within my calorie goal 5 days, which was my goal. Each day I weighed in, tried to stay positive, blogged 5 times and continued to work through my food addiction. Overall, I did pretty well with my goals for the week and I'm going to keep working hard.

Okay, now it's time to recap my monthly goals and share my results. I didn't achieve my goal of losing 3 pounds, but I did lose 2.5 pounds, so that's still a win in my book. I worked out 23 of 31 days, which surpasses my goal and I had 1118 fitness minutes, which is a little more than double my goal. I ate within my calorie goal 24 of 31 days, which surpasses my goal of 21 days. Each day I weighed in, stayed positive, blogged 24 days (double my goal) and continued to work through my food addiction. Although I didn't achieve all of my goals, I do think that I made some good progress in May, especially with my food addiction. I took more steps forward than I did backwards, so May was definitely a good month!

June is upon us, which means it's time for some new monthly goals. My goals for this month are going to be pretty similar to May's goals, but I'm going to tweak them a little bit.

1. Lose 3 pounds
2. Cardio - at least 22 sessions, 45 minutes/session (1000 minutes/month)
3. Eat within my calorie goal at least 21 days (out of 30)
4. Weigh-in daily for weight loss study
5. Stay Positive
6. Blog at least 12 times
7. Continue to work through food addiction

I increased my fitness minute goal because I'm averaging at least 1000 each month. Also, I increased my amount of days eating within my calorie goal. One thing that I like to do when coming up with monthly goals is to take a look at my yearly goals and see how I'm coming along with those goals. I did that today and I already know that I won't accomplish my weight loss goal for the year because I'd have to lose 11.7 pounds each month, so that goal is definitely out. I'm not going to change that goal but I know I won't accomplish it, instead I'm going to push myself and try to lose between 24 and 48 pounds the rest of the year (1-2 pounds/week).

Finally, we're on to the goals for this week, they'll be pretty similar to what they always are, but there will be a few minor changes.

1. Lose .5 - 1 pound
2. Cardio - 4 sessions, 45 minutes/session (180 minutes)
3. Eat within my calorie goal (2300) at least 6 days 
4. Weigh-in daily for weight loss study
5. Stay Positive
6. Blog at least 3 days
7. Drink at least 64 oz of water/day
8. Continue to work through food addiction

Well, there you have it. This has been a pretty long post, so I hope you've all bared with me through it all. Well, I'm off. I'm going to get a pretty light walk in today, even though I'm sick. No more excuses because I won't see results unless I push myself. I hope that you all have an absolutely amazing day, week and month. Don't worry about what happened earlier this year, last month, last week or even yesterday, it's a new day. We each have a new beginning and we need to push forward. 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~