Thanksgiving Comebacks

OK, so "National Pig Out Day" is ... TOMORROW.  (Yikes!)

What are YOUR plans?

Listen, don't freak out.  It IS possible to stay OP on Thanksgiving.  It's all in your mindset.  Here's some tips that have worked for me:

1).  REHEARSE the day ahead of time, in your mind.  And by that I mean, think about the food pushers and what they will say, and what you will 'Come back' with....Here's some examples:

- "Are you EATING this year?" (this from my mother...the Champion of Food Pushing! LOL)....
  My comeback?  "Sure, Mom....I'm eating...I'm just eating what -I- want to eat, that's all."

- "Oh for Pete's sakes, it's only ONE DAY!" (again, from you-know-who!)
  My comeback?  "For normal people it's only one day, sure.....but for me?  That will morph into the weekend!  I am a food addict. That's the truth and I'm dealing with it.  So please respect my wishes and leave me be!  I'll be FINE, I'm NOT starving, LOOK!"  (and then I point to the huge pile of lettuce and turkey and green beans on my plate LOL).

- "But you look GREAT!  WHY do you still have to DIET?"
  My comeback?  "Thank you!  But I won't STAY looking good unless I watch what I eat.  EVERY day."

Adventures in Spinning Part 1

 
Good morning, everyone!

I want to talk this morning about my first ever Spinning class.

Because there are a lot of lessons contained within that first experience;  lessons I've learned and am more than happy to share, despite the pain and humiliation that I went through to learn them!

Let's back up a bit....to two years ago.

I had been working out pretty consistently by that point, at a local co-ed gym (incidentally, I started at Curves, the women-only gym, because I was too embarrassed to show up at a regular gym, being at about 300 lbs at that point.  Curves is a great place to START an exercise program, because it's a caring, supportive environment and the workout is only 30 minutes and do-able, even for those who haven't exercised in a long long time, and even for those who are morbidly obese, as I was when I started).

And I noticed the Spinning classes, because they were 'front and center' of the gym, in a glass-enclosed room, all these people on the stationery bicycles, pedalling like mad, and they hooted and hollered and it looked like they were having a GREAT time.  The music was pounding, in short, it looked like FUN!

And I thought, "What can be so hard?  It's just a bicycle...you LOVE riding your bike".

So I decided to try it.

Well.....once I got into that room, everyone noticed me of course, because I was 'new'....and unfortunately for me at that time no one thought to introduce themselves or attempt to help me in any way....I was on my own.  So I did my best, I wasn't sure about it, but I picked out a bike (way in the back) and sat down and UGH, the seat on the bike was so SMALL and HARD....how was I going to stand it?  But oh well, I was here anyway, I was going to do this thingee, right?

The instructor came in, the music started, and off we went.

Well....within 10 minutes I was gasping for breath....I thought I was gonna DIE.  Seriously I could NOT catch my breath.  And my butt was killing me from the teeny-tiny hardasarock bicycle seat, and the instructor was screaming up there 'Go go go!' and the others in the class all looked like they were out of breath, too, but they kept going, they seemed used to it, but I was APPALLED.

I seriously thought I was going to pass out.  I could NOT catch my breath.  I stopped, gasping.....I nearly collapsed....and I knew I had to get out of there.  This was NOT for me.

So I staggered out of the room in the middle of the class, totally HUMILIATED.

Everyone watched me....and the instructor called out, "I hope you're going to cool down"....and I nodded meekly thinking "Cool down?  I'll say cool down....as in COLLAPSE in a HEAP!".....and I made it out of the room and went into the nearest restroom, found a stall, sat down on the toilet seat and caught my breath while angry, frustrated TEARS rolled down my cheeks unfettered.

I had never felt so miserable.  So out of place.  So.....SMALL.

I couldn't do this class.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  In fact it was the hardest thing I'd ever DONE.

What was I THINKING?  How could I be so STUPID?

Thoughts like these paraded through my brain.....and I cried and cried, silently, because I was no good, I would NEVER be any good, I couldn't do it, I was too fat and too old and too out of shape and I was an IDIOT for even THINKING I could do something like that......

And then I dried my eyes and took a deep breath and went home, determined NEVER to do that again.

When I look back on that now, I can STILL feel some of the hurt and humiliation I felt.

The sad part was, had anyone been nice enough to introduce themselves to me, and HELP me, and tell me I didn't 'have' to do everything at the same speed and resistance as the instructor since I just started, for pete's sakes....maybe the outcome would've been different.

But on balance?  I'm glad I went through that terrible experience, because it made my VICTORY over Spinning class, a few years later, all the sweeter!

Next time....I'll talk about that victory.

Suffice it to say?  EVERYONE screws up when they try new things sometimes.  We go in the wrong direction, believing it's right.  But we learn the hard way.

You won't always take the right road....but you DO get 'credit' for trying...because all those experiences DO add up in your life and you remember them and learn from them.

And learning is the point.   We need to take chances in order to learn, and to grow in terms of experience, maturity, and figuring out what works best for our particular bodies in terms of fitness!

Sitting on the couch, 'safe', is never going to give you the body you want.  You HAVE to take chances once in awhile.  And maybe it won't be perfect.  Maybe it will be just as disastrous as my first experience with Spinning was....but at least you're OUT THERE, TRYING!

If you never try?  You'll never know what you can do!

Keep on keepin' on!

Linda

On Family, Support, and SLUDGE!

Do you have a family that eats sludge?

LOL...most of us do, right?  I mean, 'normal' people can eat junk food and still stay slim.  My own husband can eat ONE -- I swear! -- Reese's peanut butter cup, and SAVE the other one.

This is a totally foreign concept to me.  I mean, there is NO WAY.  No way on God's green EARTH that I'm going to put that second peanut butter cup in the drawer and 'forget about it'!  It would haunt me, call to me, wake me up in the middle of the night, until I devoured it.  LOL.

As a food addict and a sugar addict, life with me hasn't always been easy.

My husband has had to deal with having things suddenly 'disappear', if I was in binge mode the night before.  Entire jars of Skippy vanish, along with a corresponding jar of strawberry jam.  If there are cookies, cakes, pies, anything like that around?  They have a life expectancy of about 10 minutes in my home. LOL.

I once went to a Christmas 'cookie' party that my sister throws every year (I have since talked with her about this and declined, PERMANENTLY, and honestly told her I cannot do it, I cannot sit there surrounded by cookies and stay on my program!) and brought home a big baggie full of cookies for my husband.

Or at least, that's what I TOLD everyone.

It really IS a lifestyle!

When I first started the Medifast program back in 2012, everyone kept telling me to stop calling it a diet.
"It's NOT a diet, it's a lifestyle", they said.

 OK.....whatever you say....I played along, but inside I was thinking "But wait, it IS a diet, I mean it's a method of eating, right?  The true definition of 'diet' is a preferred bunch of foods that people eat...for instance Eskimos eat a lot of whale (ugh), Japanese eat a ton of fish, etc.  Right? 

So it IS a diet, really.  OK OK, so it is...but people told me, "You can't have the attitude that this is a diet, because when you do that, when you go OFF the 'diet', you'll regain the weight because you won't change your eating habits".

OK, OK....I get that, too.  Gotcha.

It's not FAIR!

I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week -- no biggie, just a bad cold or virus, but I feel weak and tired all the time and I keep getting chills/fever/chills/fever UGH. 

I know it's just a virus, it will pass...I'm FINE, really.  But whenever I feel sick, I also feel like, well -- like feeling SORRY for myself and EATING! 
 
Ever get like that?

You get to thinking, "It's not FAIR!" ... and then that becomes an overall sense of unfairness about your weight-loss battle. 

"How COME I have relatives and friends who can eat and eat and never gain an ounce?  They seem to live on Starbucks and they eat all out the time, and post pictures of what they ate out last night on Facebook ARGH.....and yet I gain weight if I simply THINK about having a donut, for pete's sakes?"
I know, I know.  It's not fair, is it?  NO WAY is it fair.  You're a good person, right?  You deserve all the finer things in life, right?  Well, at least you deserve some COMFORTS, right?

I'm going to get this weight off, or DIE trying!

Those are the very words I used when I started this program back in Feb. 2012.

I remember it distinctly. I was surfing the net, looking for info on gastric bypass surgery.
Having tried EVERYTHING to lose the weight, I was still hovering around 230 lbs, despite lowering my calories down to maybe 1200 a day (?) AND exercising!  

I just could NOT seem to lose any more weight.

And I was totally disgusted with myself. 

I had HAD it with being fat.

So I happened to land on the Medifast website, having clicked on an ad somewhere along the way.....and I could see it wasn't going to be easy, living on 'packets'.

But I turned to my husband and I said, "This is IT.  I've HAD it.  NO MORE DIETS.  I'm going to commit to this for one solid month, and if it doesn't work, I GIVE UP. But I am going to give it my all.  I'm gong to get this weight off or DIE trying!"

And after an amazing Week One, when my body went through all sorts of changes to get into ketosis and the weight started dropping off like crazy, I realized....there was something to this.  So I got even MORE committed.

And that commitment is something that I've turned to, again and again.

Epic Fail/Fall?......or....Learning Opportunity?

Last night I did something really, really, STUPID.

(hey, I'm not perfect, either! LOL....we are ALL 'works in progress'!).

I had an epic fail...or fall...however you want to phrase it....but as usual, it was my OWN darn fault!

And it didn't even start last night.  It actually started about 3 nights ago....had I been wiser (and I am now!) I would've 'caught it' before it caught ME.

You see, what I did was....we had too much skim milk in the house (I know, this is NOT the end of the world, right? LOL)....no seriously...hubby is the only one who drinks it, because I do the Almondbreeze unsweetened vanilla milk thing now on my cereal and in my coffee....less calories, more protein....and it tastes good!....and therefore I only buy it for him, for use either on his cereal or when I make him macaroni and cheese.  (And believe it or not, that is NOT a trigger food for me.  So it doesn't bother me).

Well, I decided....FOOLISHLY, as it turns out...(from an old habit growing up, my mother would do this)...to make PUDDING out of the extra skim milk.  After all, when you make pudding, you need 2 cups of the stuff, right?  So I asked hubby, "If I make you pudding will you eat it?" 
"Depends", he said.  "What kind?" 
"I don't know...chocolate?"  (he shook his head).
"Butterscotch?"  .... "Yeah, I'll eat that", he said.

OK.  So I made the pudding one night while cooking dinner.  No biggie. And I decided to put it in two large custard cups making 2 large, 2 serving servings.  He's a big guy, no big deal, right?  Plus I won't have to look at 4 custard cups all week and maybe wind up throwing them out, etc.

My husband is NOTORIOUS for leaving stuff go bad in the frig.  I should've factored that in.

But NOOOO.....I had to go with it, right?

So I make the pudding, stick it in the refrigerator, and it proceeds to sit there, mocking me for the next 3 days.  While hubby made NO attempt to eat it.

I reminded him....and reminded him again.  He kept promising me, 'leave me be, I'll get to it when I get to it'.

Well, he's a NORMAL eater!  It doesn't bother him that it's sitting there.  Not one bit.

But not me!  Oh NO! 

So last night I'm getting ready for bed....I'm tired...I'm in pain...long day, exercise at the gym, etc., and he's in bed already....and that stupid pudding starts talking to me. 

"Linda....I'm here....oh for pete's sakes, 1 BITE won't kill you!  Just to see what it tastes like".

(ever say that to yourself?  As if suddenly the food was going to taste differently from when you remembered it....or that you had to 'refresh' your memory....give me strength!!!)

So I resisted and resisted and then.....I caved.

I knew one bite wouldn't cut it.  I mean, seconds later I'm thinking, "He's never gonna eat this, with one bite taken out of it!  I might as well finish the whole thing.  There's still a whole other custard cup full he can eat".

So I ate it.  And then....the dam burst.  Like it ALWAYS does.  I try to walk away, I really do.  But suddenly it seems as though the chains are OFF and it's PARTY TIME.

UGH.

I don't want to talk about the rest.  Suffice it to say it was NOT pretty and of course, as usual, 5 minutes afterwards I hated myself. 

I knew I 'blew it'.  I'd been good all week, and now who knows what the scale will say when I weight in tomorrow morning.  If I'm lucky, it will be the same weight.  If I'm LUCKY.

And I WANTED it to be LOWER!  ARGH!!!!

WHY do we do this to ourselves?

Because ONE DOES HURT.  Every single time.  And I have to learn that lesson....and you do, too...!  OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again until you finally figure out ALL your triggers....and even then you have to be on the lookout for new ones!

I am using last night, NOT as an 'epic fail or fall'....but as a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY.

I will no longer make things 'for my husband' when he doesn't ask for them and doesn't need them and I know darn well they could be triggers for me.  NO WAY.

I don't care HOW much extra milk we have in the house.  So I pour it down the drain!  Better in the sink than on my BUTT.  Right?  LOL

Live and learn....remember that.  Every time you fail it's an opportunity, NOT an 'epic fall'.

OK?  DO NOT USE THOSE WORDS to describe it to yourself.  It's not an 'epic' anything.  It's just a learning opportunity. 

This morning I woke up and opened a packet of MF berry cereal and started ALL OVER AGAIN.

Like I've done countless times in the past.  And like I will CONTINUE to do;  until I get this RIGHT.

Wishing all of you a great weekend with NO binges! 

Linda Leiby
Alias Catlover77
Certified Take Shape for Life Health Coach
angiecat6@comcast.net

On...PRIDE...! ...and taking care of Yourself

One of the things that amazed me the most when I first started my weight loss journey for 'good' (when I finally got committed enough to really DO IT), was the immense feeling of PRIDE I got when I had a few weeks under my belt in terms of staying on my program.

It seemed the more I stayed on program, the prouder I got, as the pounds finally started to come off. And I found myself staying on program even through family events, holidays, birthdays, eating out, you name it. It got easier and easier to just say 'NO'. Matter of fact, since I'm generally around the same group of people -- family and friends -- they all started to get used to the fact that I would smile and shake my head, "No, thank you". And they started to just leave me alone because they could SEE the results for themselves. And not just physically....but in my entire countenance. The pride in myself just SHINED through!

There's a lot to be said for that!

I mean, isn't it funny how we can get so caught up in our day-to-day lives, just trying to keep all our respective balls in the air -- job, family, friends, you name it -- that we neglect OURSELVES in the process? And I don't mean in a big way, either. I mean, the little things. Like maybe taking an hour one night to announce "I'm going to take a bath...unless the house burns down, please let me be" (LOL) and closet yourself in my bathroom and sink into a hot bubble bath, maybe with a new scented body wash or bath product, maybe with a candle or two for ambience. AHHHHH......nothing like it.

On... MOTIVATION!

How do YOU get motivated?  How do you STAY motivated?

Most of us start a plan like this because we've reached 'rock bottom'.  Usually it's something, something relatively minor in the overall scheme of things, but MAJOR to us, that causes us to finally take NOTICE and realize that we HAVE to DO SOMETHING to get the weight off.

Everyone has their own story.....a lot of the ones I read have to do with people being in amusement parks with their kids, and being unable to fit into the seats on the rides...(how embarrassing!).....or flying somewhere and they couldn't get the airline seatbelts all the way around them (mortifying!).

That kind of thing.

For me?  I had wound up in the Emergency Room thinking I was having a heart attack....it turned out to be simple angina, thank heavens....but it really shook me up...and in the process a Nurse took one look at me, and said, "Hmmm, I may have to get out the BIG SCALE for YOU".

My mouth dropped open.  Obviously this wasn't a very nice thing to say (and the way she said it wasn't nice, either), but it made me finally stop and THINK.

The next day I decided I was either going to find a way to get this weight off myself, or I was going to go for gastric bypass surgery, because I had HAD it with my weight.

That motivated me to join Medifast....and the rest is history, of course....

BUT....!!!!

Once I got to goal, and the compliments stopped, and I got 'used' to being slim, I also started to creep up in my calories...a little here, a little there....and pretty soon I was gaining again.  

Fall back?

We 'fell back' with the clocks this morning...technically it was last night, but hubby and I go to bed early so, we did it this morning.

It's blustery and cold here in the NE.....not a pleasant day out there. Very grey....leaves are falling all over...and 'peak' of autumn leave colors is over. It was gorgeous for awhile around here, though. (I live in RURAL NJ....not Newark! There's a farm across the street).

I feel GOOD this morning....lighter! I'm very happy and proud of myself and how I did yesterday....I kept to my calorie goal and that means I ate LESS than I have been, which means, hopefully, I'll lose weight this week. We shall see. Weigh in day is Saturday mornings. I'm keeping busy with my fingers on the computer, on Facebook, blogging and commenting and playing (stupid but they are addictive!) games like Candy Crush Saga LOL...

Hey, whatever WORKS, right? If I keep my hands and fingers busy and my brain occupied, that's 99% of the battle won, right there.

Otherwise.....boredom and too much time on my hands = wanting to EAT.