Coaching Liz - 174.0

I had an interesting revelation during my bike ride this weekend. I need to believe in me, for real. I need to coach myself through the finish line, here. I think I am the only person who, up until this weekend, didn't believe I could get to where I want to go. I told myself that was cr@p thinking and that it is time I changed my mindset. Here's what came from the planning session I had for myself while on my ride:

• Set up a consult with Kirsten to talk nutrition. (sent her an email)
• Get back to 3x cardio per week. (This week that looks like a Tuesday night spin, Wednesday night run, Friday afternoon barre class)
• Get the MOST out of my training sessions - so that means, arrive 15 minutes early to warm up and stretch. Tell Brian I need to work hard. Give him feedback on the last workout.
• Stretch more.

And just like that, I am now Coaching Liz and I will get her/myself to the finish line. I can do this, and I will.

Case in point: I just got back from lunch with my work friends. We like to go to this pizza place that has lunch specials - salad and a slice, or two slices. I usually alternate between the salad/slice special or a side salad with a side of meatballs. Before we got there I was planning on the salad/slice special but then thought about my food intake today and decided to go the healthier meatball/salad route. When I went to order, they were out of meatballs. I was crushed... my healthier option was not an option! At this point, I really didn't want the slice. I almost ordered it, but then decided to just get a bigger salad instead, no slice. Go, me!!

Well when they brought out my salad and also a free brownie for the inconvenience - and I passed that tasty treat right along to my coworker. Again, GO, ME!!

My lunch was really delicious and I'm not hungry at all!  I am so proud of myself! **WINNING!!!!**

yesterday's train wreck, and rejoicing

I got home from work yesterday and immediately ate Easter candy. A lot of it. Then I had bites of leftovers, which were equivalent to a whole dinner's worth of calories. And then I went out for pizza with DH. And then we came home and ate key lime pie.

The good:
1) DH and I agreed before we got to the restaurant that we'd only eat one bread stick each. I wanted to eat more, but I stuck to just the one.
2) I knew I was on a binge. (I hate even writing that out.) I pretty much identified my trigger (messy house / no time alone with DH / feel like a bad sister/friend).
3) I tracked it all.
4) Today is planned out.
5) Read connect and saw from Father John that while it is hard to get on track, we should stop and rejoice in all we have accomplished, and we will turn it around.

So. The funny thing is, I didn't want to stop myself. I wanted to just... let it happen. I actively chose to drive the train off the track. And this is kind of weird, but even now, I don't feel badly about it. Like, there's no shame or regret. It was all delicious food, and I enjoyed every bite. And I just don't feel like beating myself up about days like that any more. Of course I don't want to make that a habit, and two days in a row could easily become three.

But really - let's rejoice for a moment. And let's think about what I have accomplished.

I used to be 212 pounds (before I stopped stepping on the scale). I was probably at 225 pounds when I moved to Colorado to end my stretch of unemployment in the Rockies that winter. I lived with a friend who had lost a lot of weight on Weight watchers. She showed me the ropes.

When I moved to Atlanta, I tried to keep up what I had been doing with the roomie. I decided to spend the money and actually join Weight Watchers - their scale said I was 208.2 pounds. I lost thirty pounds over the next six months.

I hired a personal trainer and started changing the composition of my body.

I met a friend who introduced me to real weight training - I lost inches. I think I was 180 pounds when I was wearing that teeny black bikini on South Beach for her bachelorette party. I had really great abs!

I stayed right around the 175-180 pound mark. Then my dad died. I cut my hair short and went to Paris for work, and hated how I looked in this photo of me wearing this pair of gray pants. I still have those pants, they are very loose on me now. And how I looked had more to do with my grief than my body shape.

I moved to Colorado to be with a guy who loved me, but not himself. We were doomed and I knew it. I gained weight, about 15 pounds. I had a stressful job, I was trying to make new friends, my roommates drank all the time and were not nice drunks. So I joined the triathlon club and went back to WW meetings. The weight came back off and I met a way better guy who loved me just as I was. More weight came off.

We got married, and for a very brief moment surrounding our wedding I was down to 168, but I went back to 177ish - I spent most of the past 10 years somewhere in the five pounds between 177-182. Last summer, I got down to 174 and for the most part during the past six months I have managed stay under 175. My last weigh in I was 172.

The number is just a number. I probably look better now than I ever have, including on my wedding day. I am smaller, based on how my clothes fit. I think that is really part of the stress - I need all new clothes. It's crazy.  But yes, from 208.2 to 172.0... that is 36.2 - thirty-six point two - pounds. That's a lot! And I look really amazing, I am happy with myself. I am proud that I have kept the weight off for so long. I am excited about how keeping myself lighter allows me to RUN again, after a knee injury!

I look forward to losing the last of the weight so I can be even faster and lighter on bike rides, runs, hikes, whatever I want to do. I love looking like a normal person in photos. I'm really grateful I did this for me. This body has done a good job transporting me for the past 40 years. I want to keep it in the best condition I possibly can so I can enjoy the NEXT 40 years. Truly, my body has taken great care of me and done great things for me, now I want to return the favor!

So yes, I will rejoice and be glad. This is the day and the body that the Lord has made, I truly am rejoicing in it and am so glad, so very, VERY happy that I am able to enjoy it. Today I intentionally wore my work pants that I can take off without undoing the zipper or buttons. I am grateful that Father John said we should rejoice in what we have accomplished - doing so really does turn things around.

I had a really bizarre dream the other night about going up a very big, steep hill. It was along the road my friend and I were walking, and it was almost straight up. The road until then had been pretty flat up until then with a few little ups and downs but this hill was just a big WALL in front of us. We did it, though. Up top I turned to look back over the edge and I busted out laughing at my friend. I said "Oh my God, I would NEVER turn around and go back down this! It must be just a one-way, there is no way you can go down, it's like falling off a cliff!" And we kept on walking.

So I looked the dream up and apparently it means I have a big challenge in front of me (represented by the hill) which I am able to conquer (because I did get to the top of it). Of course I immediately thought it was weight-loss related and that my hill was the last 8 pounds I have left to lose before I get to goal and be a free member at WW... these pounds certainly are a CHALLENGE. But I really DO have everything I need to do it - the dream interpretation also said that I have everything at hand to be able to complete the challenge. So basically now it is JUST DO IT.

Easter was this weekend. We did a lot. Workouts, skiing, beignets, candy, cooked Easter dinner, drank, had fun. I ate whatever I wanted all Easter Sunday, including LOTS of sugar. LOTS of calories. And today so far I am back on the wagon. Had a weights workout, planned my food for the day, getting it done. The hill IS steep. But I can do it and I will, one decision/step
at a time.

sh!t happens... 167.2

I went to a bbq on Saturday and ate A LOT of food - like, waaaaaaaaaay overate. I was pretty irritated with myself but then, well, first bbq of the season, I'm not prepared, it happens, right? Learn from it and move on. Of course I was super uncomfortable for the rest of the day. We went to the baseball game and it was good that I walked a lot because man, I felt terribly.

By Sunday morning I didn't feel much better, but at least my digestive track was moving pretty well to get it all through. And then maybe it was moving a little too well... and then all of a sudden that afternoon everything started coming out the back end - and it just kept on coming! It went on for a good 8 hours. I don't ever remember having *that much* gastric distress. Clearly it was more than just a response to overeating the day before; my body was definitely trying to rid itself of something. We had to cancel dinner that Sunday night for obvious reasons. I sent my friend a toilet emoji, she was like "S*** happens!" It does, indeed.

Now it is lunchtime on Tuesday and I'm still not normal. These past two days I have eaten chicken broth, a banana, some shredded wheat and wonton soup (maybe not the best choice there with the wonton soup, also some chinese fried noodles - just say no to that stuff when things aren't right in the innards!) I still felt badly last night, and had a terrible headache from no caffeine so DH made me some green tea which did help. I had some with my shredded wheat this morning, and at work I got a bottle of coke, I'll drink half of it today. Things are starting to solidify, slowly... but man, what a cr@ppy way to spend the weekend. Literally.

Anyhow, I'm down to 167 - four pounds, that's kinda nuts. I'm definitely dehydrated and undernourished, so I don't want to stay that low right now, but it is really amusing that you can lose so much weight so quickly! I am always surprised at how much stuff is actually in my intestines. I mean, it all came out... and then some. It's amazing that your body has this response to some things, too - seriously, it's like all of a sudden something in there pulls the "EVACUATE! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, EVERYBODY OUT!" alarm in there and bam, out it all goes. Of course, it takes at least 8 hours to do so, then the next couple days to clean up any stragglers - gross. I'm happy I'm on the mend now.

So yeah, lost four pounds with one intestinal bout, so now I really am just one stomach flu away from my goal weight! Definitely NOT the way I want to lose the last few pounds. YIKES.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

finding the why and just one pound - 171.4

This little graphic shows what happens when you have a solid REASON for losing weight. I stole my "why" from someone else... a substitute WW leader! She said that her "why" is 'to be the best cyclist she could possibly be.' And my thought was I want to be the same thing! And if I were LIGHTER I'd be BETTER! Et voila, my why. In any case, that was the beginning of March, and oooh lookee what happened there! -5.4 pounds on the WW scale. Go, me.

I am currently nine pounds from goal. I think it will take a lot of hard work to get there. I am going to do the work to get halfway there this month, but I really don't want to focus on all nine pounds. I want to focus on just the next pound. On Friday I was 173 on the WW scale. I am focusing on 172 this week. That's it. Planning, sticking to the plan, tracking and working out as needed to get rid of just. one. pound.

So in other news... I am in excellent ski shape, we went last weekend and it was beautiful and really easy for my legs to carry me down. I think that's partly because I am LIGHTER than I was last year, and also stronger thanks to the BASE workouts I have been doing. Our house is getting back to normal, it's almost done, I just need to put everything away, now. It will be really, really nice to enjoy it this summer. I would like to put in a pergola... but I digress. We really did a lot of work this weekend painting, moved things around, etc. Knocked myself out pretty well.

Work is... on the up. I got my boss to agree to my PMP certification where the company will pay, but I still need to buy/use vacation to attend the course. Works for me. Terrible project ended, fun projects coming up. So... for now, it's OK. I have little motivation, though. I am not sure what to do about that. I go to the office and just want to eat all the things. I don't do that, of course, but I want to. But that will not get me to my just one pound and being the best cyclist I can be, now, will it? I think I'm mad at work taking over life. Like, I really want to go to Moab instead of go see this training thing. It directly interferes with how I want my life to look. However, I really want to be able to fund my adventures, so perhaps it's not so bad.

Happy Snowy Tuesday in April, everyone.