Just plumb wore out ya’ll!
That was my attempt at a Brittney Spears impression. LOL.
I sat here this morning staring at my computer. I wanted to blog. Badly. I looove to blog. Always have. Have always blogged for myself. As an outlet for my many chaotic thoughts. But today, I just didnt know what to say, yet felt compelled to say something…
I often feel I dont have much to say. Because I keep going around in circles. So if I blog continually about the same thing, I sound like a freakin broken record. Yet, to not blog, makes me feel, well, incomplete. Its a very strange thing.
I sit here this morning angry.
I am angry at myself.
And no, not the whiney, self destructive, pity party that I think we all do from time to time…Today I am honestly and truly angry.
I am not a stupid girl.
I am not a genius, by any means, but I am bright. I am educated greatly on the ins and outs of fitness and weight loss. Hell. I have been on this journey for so many years, you would think I could write oodles about it.
I am stubborn.
I am resourceful.
I am feisty.
I NEVER let people tell me what I can and can not do.
And I succeed at most things I truly put my heart into.
I have accomplished a lot in my 36 years, and I am very proud of where I currently sit in this thing we call life.
So, why, please, can anyone tell me, why true, everlasting, weight loss, remains elusive??
People. Its not hard. Truly.
Every single one of us here knows the math.
Eat less. Exercise more. Period.
All these diets. No matter which one you are on. Atkins. Jenny Craig. Weight Watchers. Even Bariatric Surgery. The math is the same. Smaller portions, which equal fewer calories, and exercise.
Sure. You can do one or the other, and be succesful. But to be a long term, permanent, HEALTHY success, you need both.
Pills dont work. Shakes dont work. There is no magic pill. There is no way you can simply wish the weight away….
Fewer calories and Exercise.
To see it. To read it. Its ever so simple.
For me, personally, I have found great success. At my lowest, I had lost over sixty pounds. Hit 179 from 243. I did it. I was successful. I did it the simple way. The cheap way. SIXTY POUNDS!!! What an acheivement to be proud of…
I stayed at or around 1200 calories per day. Wrote down every calorie that passed my lips. And exercised 5 days a week for about an hour. Simple, eh???
People. That part was not hard. Honest.
Once I hit my groove, I just did it. And honestly, I was rarely hungry. I rarely cheated. And I lost about 1.5 pounds per week. When I am on it, this is how it goes for me. Nothing distracts me from my goal.
But for some reason, I allow life to abduct me from my weight loss journey. And I dont know why. And I am angry at myself.
I dont feel good. My pants are tight yet I refuse to buy bigger. Food brings me no comfort. Yet, I continue to mindlessly eat it in high stress situations. Sure. I have a lot going on right now. But in reality, who doesnt? Dont we all have our battles?? Yes. We do.
So why cant I put myself AND my weight loss journey at the top of my priority list?? It doesnt take any more time than NOT doing it. The people I love support it. So I cant even blame them.
ITS ME…Its all me.
When I have had a bad day at work, I eat. Even if I am not hungry.
When I am stressed, I want to go home, get in my pjs, and curl up in bed.
When I am at the gym, I feel great. Even if I am not losing weight, I feel great. I like how my body feels and looks, when I exercise, no matter what my weight. Yet, getting to the gym lately is an every day mental battle.
And I am wore out.
I recommited to this journey in August. Truly want it again. I know how its done. I have the tools. I have the power. I know what success feels like, and how crappy failure feels. And I know I want it. YET. I cant seem to continually and consistently, execute it.
This week started out GREAT. Three days of exercising twice a day. Keeping up on my little goals.
Friday night hits, and failure occurs. Due to a busy work day, I skip my lunch, and my lunch time walk. This makes me STARVING by the time I get home. So not only talk myself OUT of the gym, I talk myself INTO going out for dinner. Ribs. Steak. Bread. Butter. Need I go on??
And today, I now deal with anger. Disappointment. Failure.
I looked at some old pictures of myself this morning. At my highest. And then, as I am now. Trust me. Even with just forty pounds gone now, I still look and feel, ten times better than I did back then.
But I want more. I have always wanted more.
I have never yearned to be what the books say I should be. 132. I have never yearned to be a size 7. I have always, only, yearned to look and feel good. Whether that ends up being 170 or 145. I know I will know when I get there.
So this morning I asked myself honestly “Dawn, what the fuck is your problem?” and I have no answer buddies…I am tired of being off the wagon more than on. I am tired of seeing new people come here and drop 50 or 60 pounds in a few months, while I sit here still babbling about my struggles. Tired of saying I am going to do something than fail to do it. Tired of talking about weight loss. Thinking about weight loss. I am simply tired…
I dont know what the answer is to this rambling blog. I only know I had to put it in writting for myself. I know that after the anger will come action. And after the action will come success.
The math is ever so simple. And we ALL have that knowledge.
There is NO MAGIC in weight loss. NO QUICK FIX. There is only action and then success.
I feel the EXACT same way you do. I feel your frustration to the core. I don’t have any advice you haven’t already heard. I just know we can do this, we will be successful. I don’t know why it has to be so freaking hard, why my emotions play into what I eat. But we just got to keep going, keep learning, we have no other choice.
Dawn,
I love your blogs, they are so real, and share what most of us feel so much of our lives. Your outlook is healthy, you are brillant. You want to be where your body is healthy, even if it is not the textbook 132 pounds. Maybe, when you were 179 that was where your body wanted to be. What happened at that weight? Did you get discouraged or allow emotional eating to get ahold of you again? It would be interesting to have you go back to the journels and see if you had any life changes when you started to gain back. I oftan look through my blogs to see why some weeks I was a success and others seemed to be gaining. All I know is you are not a failure your attitude is awesome, you know what you need to do. You are having a lot of stress with the job situation, meeting the kiddies, but don’t allow that to keep you from getting back into the gym and cutting your portions down. We are all here for you 100%
I think this is how all addicts feel. And we are addicts. As soon as we let our guard drop… the addiction takes over. It is something we have to live with, just like an alcoholic lives with their addiction. Somehow (actually we know how…by rewarding ourselves with food) the pleasure/comfort paths in our brains become ‘hardwired’ to reaching out to food for satisfaction. It takes years of retraining to end this kind of behavior. If you picture your brain as a dense wood, and you travel to the other side to visit grandma everyday…eventually you will wear a path through the woods and that’s the way you’ll always want to go. It’s much easier than breaking through the brush to go a different way every day. That’s how it happens…. it takes a lot of effort to create a new path to get where you want to go, but it can be done. Just try not to go back to that old path, because every time you do, it is harder to get off it. That is why slow weight loss is more successful. You have given yourself time to ‘rewire’. Impatience is the enemy, lurking in the woods, just waiting for you. BOO! lol
Thanks guys…
Steph, yes, once I het 179, that is when my marriage began to crumble. I changed jobs. Lost a friend. Yadda yada yada. So I know why I started gaining it back…
I just cant seem to stop it now…
I have a new man who I adore. I have lots of new and exciting changes ahead. Scary stuff, sure, but I know I will be fine when the dust settles…
Just dont know how to get my act together these days…
I am still angry, but I hope to channel that anger into action here now…
Dawn,
My heart just breaks for you, although we’ve all been there. I’ve often felt like a dog chasing my tail…round and round endlessly, losing and gaining the same 10 pounds 100 times.
I think weight loss is a WORSE addiction than alcohol or smoking. Those you just give up and once you do, you are DONE. Not so with food! We have to learn to moderate, which is a much harder thing.
I wonder if maybe you need a new goal? Sign up for a bike race or 10K in the spring or join a hiking club. Check out www.active.com for what’s going on in the next year in your area. Maybe you just need a longer-term goal to kick-start your motivation.
I do love what Sandy said; we need to get back to the path that worked for us in the past. Get our weight-loss on autopilot. It worked before, we can make it work again. We can do this!
Dawnie—every single emotion and thought that you wrote about today is EXACTLY how I felt about three weeks ago—I too was ANGRY at myself—like you, I lost weight in the past—my best adult weight was 165 in 2001—I looked great and I felt even better than I looked—I ran my first marathon—yes, life was good—and then I gained it ALL back and then some!! I have been on this journey so to speak since March 2006 when I joined Buddyslim the first time—I have had my ups and downs—in October of 2006 I reached the best weight since that first time I lost it—and even then, it was worlds away from my best time–195 lbs. In the last three years I have gone up and down the same 10-15 lbs. One day it ocurred to me, that this is B^%^&*)@T!! I KNOW better than that—I was angry—I let myself FEEL angry and then I decided to Hell with it and here I am…doing better than I’ve done in the three years that you’ve known me! Sooooooooooooo, what I want you to know is that maybe, just maybe, this is exactly what you need, to be and to get angry—maybe this is the last step before you FINALLY get it. Sure, we want it…..but how much are we willing to sacrifice to get it? Hugs to you my friend—and do know that you are NOT alone!
Thank you Jo…
All of you really…THANK YOU…
I will get my act together…I MUST…
Dawn…I could’ve written this blog today. I am so pissed at myself for how I’ve behaved this last week. I am afraid to step on the scale, but I know it’s going to show at least a 5 lb gain. You are not in this thing alone, and OMG how angry it makes me that I KNOW damn well what I need to do to lose weight yet I don’t do it? It isn’t hard. It just takes consistency, time and dedication to the task at hand. Now let’s take this anger towards ourselves and turn it into WIN! I KNOW you can do it, just as I KNOW I can do it. No more bullshit, no more excuses, let’s just get it done. Let’s once again let nothing stand in our way!
Wow Dawn there isn’t a dang thing I can say here that hasn’t already been said. Just know that you’re in my prayers. I know that’s probably not what you are longing to hear from anyone but you are. I’m sending all my happy thoughts