So I have made it 2 weeks without so much as a puff from a cigarette. It is going fairly well. It was a really stressful week at work, but I managed to survive on nicotine replacements. I am pretty stoked about that. The hunger thing doesn't seem to be that much of an issue. I don't feel as if I have gained any weight really. That was always my biggest fear. I would hate to gain weight after I all I have done to lose it.
Sometimes my depression gets a hold on me. It is something I have always battled. I think that has more to do with my money situation. It is so hard to consistently push yourself to do your job 100% all the time when you are payed so little. It can be so demoralizing But, I know that I am on the right track to making my life better. Slowly but surely. I just cant tell if I am stalling in my journey, or if my depression is holding me back from seeing the success I have had. All I can do is keep moving forward. It is all you can do. The other option is giving up and I dont think my heart could handle anymore disappointment.
This whole journey into healthier living is a long and arduous one but I know it will pay off eventually.
It better!
I am turning my life around because my life turned around on me. I am 400 lbs and unemployed. I plan on changing both of that.
Showing posts with label self image. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self image. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Give me an inch... and I will take a footlong meatball parm
The hardest part of any lifestyle change is persistence. It is the single thing that you must have. If you don't do anything consistently you will not see long term results. That's the nature of the beast. That's the reason I avoid using the word "diet". Its connotation leans to a temporary state of living. A diet is whatever you eat. I could be all veggies or all pizza. But it is now synonymous with Lemon juice and cayenne pepper detox bullshit and Super Colon Mega Ass Blaster ridiculousness. As you fine readers know (all 16 of you), Right now I am reading Eat To Live. It is really simple, yet extremely difficult. I posted a while back about the withdrawals I had from not having the chemicals in my body that I was used to. Headaches and irritability, which the latter is just a character flaw. This is a fact.
When I moved to my new place, I knew that it was going to be a struggle. Not because of the food we buy at the grocery store. I am fortunate to live with a bomb ass chick who not only reads this blog, but also eats really healthy shit. The struggle comes from money. I definitely have had to cut out all the workout supplements I was taking. That shit is expensive. It was 86'd with the quickness. $80 dollars for a workout enhancer? Ain't nobody got time for that! NO thank you.
I work for a little mom and pop operation. Its called Starbucks. I'm sure your not familiar. In any event, when the night is over, we have to through away food that has expired. We normally would donate it, but the charity we were giving it to turned out to not be a charity. Womp. So, we have to throw away the food. And by "throw", I mean shove it in a shopping bag, and "away" is a euphemism for my mouth hole. This whole rent and bills shit has seriously drained my non existent funds. So, when faced with an empty fridge, empty stomach, and empty bank account, I need that expired food for sustenance. It seriously kept me alive for a few days. However, blueberry scones and paninis are not on the good food list in Eat To Live. Its not calorie dense or anything. But when you are using food for fuel, you need to get the most bang for your calorie buck. Bread is not good fuel. It is chock full of complex carbs and nutrient deficient. It is also delicious. Like super awesome yummy in my tummy I want it in my mouth always delicious.
So I ate some bread for a couple days. What's the big deal? The problem lies in the crack in my armor, that slip up that reminds my mind of how fucking delicious bread is. It craves it. Its like the addict who has that sip of booze and all hell breaks loose. They are staring at the bottom of a fifth of whiskey and shame.
When you allow yourself to eat the foods that make you crave them, you are just setting yourself up for a struggle.You have to retrain your brain and start the battle all over again. You are shooting yourself in the foot.
This is the problem with the word "diet". Eating to live needs to be an all the time thing. If I let myself have a treat, that opens the door for more treats. Treating yourself because you were great at work that day. Treating yourself because you were horrible at work that day. Treating yourself because it is a day that ends in day. The rationalization are minds are capable of concocting when we want stuff that makes us happy is quite remarkable. The key is to not open that door. No cracks in the armor. Stay strong. Set your self up for success, not failure. Healthy food is delicious, once you break your self the confines of your processed food prison. The freshness is so bright on your tongue. To allow that manufactured garbage to muddy that up is just retroactive. I need to be proactive. No cheat days. No excuses.
When I moved to my new place, I knew that it was going to be a struggle. Not because of the food we buy at the grocery store. I am fortunate to live with a bomb ass chick who not only reads this blog, but also eats really healthy shit. The struggle comes from money. I definitely have had to cut out all the workout supplements I was taking. That shit is expensive. It was 86'd with the quickness. $80 dollars for a workout enhancer? Ain't nobody got time for that! NO thank you.
I work for a little mom and pop operation. Its called Starbucks. I'm sure your not familiar. In any event, when the night is over, we have to through away food that has expired. We normally would donate it, but the charity we were giving it to turned out to not be a charity. Womp. So, we have to throw away the food. And by "throw", I mean shove it in a shopping bag, and "away" is a euphemism for my mouth hole. This whole rent and bills shit has seriously drained my non existent funds. So, when faced with an empty fridge, empty stomach, and empty bank account, I need that expired food for sustenance. It seriously kept me alive for a few days. However, blueberry scones and paninis are not on the good food list in Eat To Live. Its not calorie dense or anything. But when you are using food for fuel, you need to get the most bang for your calorie buck. Bread is not good fuel. It is chock full of complex carbs and nutrient deficient. It is also delicious. Like super awesome yummy in my tummy I want it in my mouth always delicious.
So I ate some bread for a couple days. What's the big deal? The problem lies in the crack in my armor, that slip up that reminds my mind of how fucking delicious bread is. It craves it. Its like the addict who has that sip of booze and all hell breaks loose. They are staring at the bottom of a fifth of whiskey and shame.
When you allow yourself to eat the foods that make you crave them, you are just setting yourself up for a struggle.You have to retrain your brain and start the battle all over again. You are shooting yourself in the foot.
This is the problem with the word "diet". Eating to live needs to be an all the time thing. If I let myself have a treat, that opens the door for more treats. Treating yourself because you were great at work that day. Treating yourself because you were horrible at work that day. Treating yourself because it is a day that ends in day. The rationalization are minds are capable of concocting when we want stuff that makes us happy is quite remarkable. The key is to not open that door. No cracks in the armor. Stay strong. Set your self up for success, not failure. Healthy food is delicious, once you break your self the confines of your processed food prison. The freshness is so bright on your tongue. To allow that manufactured garbage to muddy that up is just retroactive. I need to be proactive. No cheat days. No excuses.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Manwich meal?
Against better judgement, I found my self neck deep in Dr. Oz. In case you are not familiar, Dr. Oz was promoted by Oprah Winfrey. Unlike Dr. Phil, he actually is a licensed doctor in an actual medical field. ( you should wiki Dr. Phil, gross) However, that doesn't mean he isn't a quack, it just means he is a quack who sells his soul to the devil to pay off his student loan debts. If you watch the show regularly, you will find that it is a revolving door of bullshit fad diets and get skinny fast malarkey. Snake oil tonics that blast belly fat! YAY! Anyone who has done an ounce of research knows that you cant target where you lose the fat. He may regurgitate long dispelled myths and spreading false hope, but its sweeps dammit!
That being said, sometimes you can get some great information on the show. Some legitimately helpful hints. But you have to slog through the muck and mire of charlatan hoohah to get to the very few nuggets of nutrition. Today was one of those days.
They had their Hungry Girl on today. Yes that is her stage name. We will get to that in a minute. She was talking about food expanders. I know. Thats not thing. Is that a thing? The idea behind it is, you use a healthy food to beef up your normal food to create bigger portions. Satiety, which she says in a weird way every time, is the key to a sustainable diet. I completely agree. When people ask me for advice I tell them, if you are hungry, you are doing it wrong. You should never be hungry. The key is to eat the right foods so if you eat enough for you to be satisfied all the time, the calories have to be in check. Tons of veggies. Some fruit. This will give you bulk without bulking up your BMI. A good example she gave: use portabella mushrooms to beef up your beef. Grind up the shrooms and mix them in with ground beef to make a huge meatloaf. It cuts down on the calories. Get the picture? Use zucchini noodles to beef up your regular noodles. Its a great idea and has endless possibilities. A person on facebook said she made "rice" by grating cauliflower. GENIUS! I live for stuff like that. But here is where they lost me.
She said that a woman could do this just to fill out her meal with healthy expanders. Not her hubby's or her kids.
Um, insert the record scratch here....
What the cock is that shit? Why wouldn't you want to make the healthiest meal possible for your family. I am already irritated that a successful woman is still chaining other women to the stove for all eternity. Skinny pretty people love a goddamn stereotype. But then to throw in this whole "cook your man what he wants, not what you want" nonsense? He should eat what you were nice enough to cook for him. Its the least he could do for keeping that glass ceiling shiny and oppressive dangling above your stove. Better yet, tell him that he can only eat 70% of what you get and see how quickly your pay starts to rise.
But that got me to thinking about the dynamics of gender in the way we eat. Guys pig out, girls eat like birds. Guys dont get fat like girls do. LIES! If a guy is 20 pounds overweight, its cute. If a girl is, she is a heifer that is to be shamed! Well after you fuck her and tell everyone she took advantage of you. 20 pounds overweight is the same either way. Guys are allowed to love all you can eat buffets. WHY?
Healthy foods are healthy because they cause great chemical reactions in your body. Ridding you of toxins, sustainable energy, proper nutrients. Everyone should eat that. If I was legally allowed to marry (ehem) I would gladly cook for my hubby. SO I would know that he is getting the proper nutrition.
The notion that men are just drooling primates eating transfats all day is just as sexist. Some of the fittest guys I know eat a diet you would think is weak. People have this misconception that the paleo diet consists of finding a gazelle at your local park and sharpening your flint tools to get your friend Ort to help you kill it and eat it while its soul is still trying to escape. In fact its similar to Eat to Live. Lots of leafy green veggies, fruit limited nuts. No gluten, carbs, sugar. Healthy men eat the same stuff that healthy women eat. Because we are both human. A penis is not required to digest spinach. I promise.
All of those ridiculous commercials that we see, like the HungryMan tv dinner, or activia yogurt (because only women need to poop) are just a ploy by food companies to make you buy gender specific foods. Which in and of itself is just laughable. Its like Lady Gilette razors. WTF?!? Razors shave differently for men and women? Normal soup for mom, and SUPER BEEFY EXTRA CHUNKY MAKES YOUR DICK BIGGER CHOWDER for dear old dad! The whole idea is gross. Just eat food that is delicious and natural. Stop buying into the hype of food companies. Their is no gender test for delicious.
I think that Hungry Girl should change her name because it steeped in shame. AWW, she is hungry but she cant eat food because she isnt a man. So super grossy gross. I cant. End Rant!
That being said, sometimes you can get some great information on the show. Some legitimately helpful hints. But you have to slog through the muck and mire of charlatan hoohah to get to the very few nuggets of nutrition. Today was one of those days.
They had their Hungry Girl on today. Yes that is her stage name. We will get to that in a minute. She was talking about food expanders. I know. Thats not thing. Is that a thing? The idea behind it is, you use a healthy food to beef up your normal food to create bigger portions. Satiety, which she says in a weird way every time, is the key to a sustainable diet. I completely agree. When people ask me for advice I tell them, if you are hungry, you are doing it wrong. You should never be hungry. The key is to eat the right foods so if you eat enough for you to be satisfied all the time, the calories have to be in check. Tons of veggies. Some fruit. This will give you bulk without bulking up your BMI. A good example she gave: use portabella mushrooms to beef up your beef. Grind up the shrooms and mix them in with ground beef to make a huge meatloaf. It cuts down on the calories. Get the picture? Use zucchini noodles to beef up your regular noodles. Its a great idea and has endless possibilities. A person on facebook said she made "rice" by grating cauliflower. GENIUS! I live for stuff like that. But here is where they lost me.
She said that a woman could do this just to fill out her meal with healthy expanders. Not her hubby's or her kids.
Um, insert the record scratch here....
What the cock is that shit? Why wouldn't you want to make the healthiest meal possible for your family. I am already irritated that a successful woman is still chaining other women to the stove for all eternity. Skinny pretty people love a goddamn stereotype. But then to throw in this whole "cook your man what he wants, not what you want" nonsense? He should eat what you were nice enough to cook for him. Its the least he could do for keeping that glass ceiling shiny and oppressive dangling above your stove. Better yet, tell him that he can only eat 70% of what you get and see how quickly your pay starts to rise.
But that got me to thinking about the dynamics of gender in the way we eat. Guys pig out, girls eat like birds. Guys dont get fat like girls do. LIES! If a guy is 20 pounds overweight, its cute. If a girl is, she is a heifer that is to be shamed! Well after you fuck her and tell everyone she took advantage of you. 20 pounds overweight is the same either way. Guys are allowed to love all you can eat buffets. WHY?
Healthy foods are healthy because they cause great chemical reactions in your body. Ridding you of toxins, sustainable energy, proper nutrients. Everyone should eat that. If I was legally allowed to marry (ehem) I would gladly cook for my hubby. SO I would know that he is getting the proper nutrition.
The notion that men are just drooling primates eating transfats all day is just as sexist. Some of the fittest guys I know eat a diet you would think is weak. People have this misconception that the paleo diet consists of finding a gazelle at your local park and sharpening your flint tools to get your friend Ort to help you kill it and eat it while its soul is still trying to escape. In fact its similar to Eat to Live. Lots of leafy green veggies, fruit limited nuts. No gluten, carbs, sugar. Healthy men eat the same stuff that healthy women eat. Because we are both human. A penis is not required to digest spinach. I promise.
All of those ridiculous commercials that we see, like the HungryMan tv dinner, or activia yogurt (because only women need to poop) are just a ploy by food companies to make you buy gender specific foods. Which in and of itself is just laughable. Its like Lady Gilette razors. WTF?!? Razors shave differently for men and women? Normal soup for mom, and SUPER BEEFY EXTRA CHUNKY MAKES YOUR DICK BIGGER CHOWDER for dear old dad! The whole idea is gross. Just eat food that is delicious and natural. Stop buying into the hype of food companies. Their is no gender test for delicious.
I think that Hungry Girl should change her name because it steeped in shame. AWW, she is hungry but she cant eat food because she isnt a man. So super grossy gross. I cant. End Rant!
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
A new lease on life.
So this weekend was a big step for me. I finally worked my ass off to get to the place I need to be in order to move out. I was stuck at my parents house for 2 1/2 achingly long years. They were tremendous to me during this time of unemployment and fatness. They were so amazing in helping me along this journey. I truly am blessed to have such supportive family. I really am lucky.
As I enter into this new era of my new life, I am a bit weary of what this means for maintaining my exercise and eating regimen. My current eating method comes along with an extremely hefty bill. The cycle of bad choices and easy meals plagues our society. It is a very real thing that I have seen destroy peoples lives. The cost of produce is extremely high compared to the cookies and shit food that we eat everyday.
But I am a fighter. I have come too far to let this trip me up. If this were an easy journey, this blog would be really boring. Well, it could be boring to you anyways but that is a matter of taste. If you dont like it, you have none.
In any event, I have to sign my lease and whatnot, go to the gym, go to the grocery store and figure out where to put the 13 almost empty jars of hair junk that I couldnt throw away because I am apparently a hoarder. So this is a short blog post. Sue me. Well, dont sue me. I have to buy my weight in kale. I need that money.
As I enter into this new era of my new life, I am a bit weary of what this means for maintaining my exercise and eating regimen. My current eating method comes along with an extremely hefty bill. The cycle of bad choices and easy meals plagues our society. It is a very real thing that I have seen destroy peoples lives. The cost of produce is extremely high compared to the cookies and shit food that we eat everyday.
But I am a fighter. I have come too far to let this trip me up. If this were an easy journey, this blog would be really boring. Well, it could be boring to you anyways but that is a matter of taste. If you dont like it, you have none.
In any event, I have to sign my lease and whatnot, go to the gym, go to the grocery store and figure out where to put the 13 almost empty jars of hair junk that I couldnt throw away because I am apparently a hoarder. So this is a short blog post. Sue me. Well, dont sue me. I have to buy my weight in kale. I need that money.
Friday, November 9, 2012
The vote rocked!
This is not a political post. So you can calm down. This blog doesn't deal in such heavy shit. Well, besides my heavy ass. This is about my voting experience at the polls on Tuesday.
I walked into my old elementary school to vote. This is the first time I have been inside it since I was in middle school. So about ten years have passed. (just let me) I always think it is so weird to go back to a childhood place only to see how much smaller it is. Your perception is all out of wack. You feel like Gulliver surrounded by the town of Liliput. In my minds eye, the tiles on the wall were supposed to be at my nose, not my waist. I got me thinking about how I view myself during this weight loss process.
I have touched on this before on my blog. I dont see myself any differently then I did 200 pounds ago. Well 216, but who is counting? Oh thats right, ME! I am still the pear shaped unloveable behemoth that was so fat he couldnt fly on an airplane. Sitting in a theater seat was a battle of my love for theater versus my tolerance for pain as the arm bars dug into my hips. I would have bruises on my legs for days. I dont talk about that often because the bruising on my ego is still there. Clearly. The shame you feel when you bump a table when you are trying to squeeze through to your seat, when they have to move the table so you can sit at a booth. The glances of disappointment when you request a table with chairs because everyone else wants a booth. It still freaks me out when I go to a diner. I assume I cant fit. This all stays with me. It haunts me.
This is why I encourage everyone to be honest and tell people if they look like they have lost weight. We see ourselves everyday and the loss is lost on our eyes. So... what does this have to do with voting? I walked up to the sweet old ladies at the polling station. I had forgotten my voter registration card. The lady asked to see my ID. I gave her my license. She asked me my address. Standard fair. But then she kept looking at me and then down at the license. She didn't believe I was me! I told her that I had lost quite a bit of weight and she said " You sure did!" She then proceeded to show my license to the other workers. They were all floored. It is moments like that which make it all worth it. The ghosts of my past are haunting me less and less. Eventually they will be gone. I hope.
I walked into my old elementary school to vote. This is the first time I have been inside it since I was in middle school. So about ten years have passed. (just let me) I always think it is so weird to go back to a childhood place only to see how much smaller it is. Your perception is all out of wack. You feel like Gulliver surrounded by the town of Liliput. In my minds eye, the tiles on the wall were supposed to be at my nose, not my waist. I got me thinking about how I view myself during this weight loss process.
I have touched on this before on my blog. I dont see myself any differently then I did 200 pounds ago. Well 216, but who is counting? Oh thats right, ME! I am still the pear shaped unloveable behemoth that was so fat he couldnt fly on an airplane. Sitting in a theater seat was a battle of my love for theater versus my tolerance for pain as the arm bars dug into my hips. I would have bruises on my legs for days. I dont talk about that often because the bruising on my ego is still there. Clearly. The shame you feel when you bump a table when you are trying to squeeze through to your seat, when they have to move the table so you can sit at a booth. The glances of disappointment when you request a table with chairs because everyone else wants a booth. It still freaks me out when I go to a diner. I assume I cant fit. This all stays with me. It haunts me.
This is why I encourage everyone to be honest and tell people if they look like they have lost weight. We see ourselves everyday and the loss is lost on our eyes. So... what does this have to do with voting? I walked up to the sweet old ladies at the polling station. I had forgotten my voter registration card. The lady asked to see my ID. I gave her my license. She asked me my address. Standard fair. But then she kept looking at me and then down at the license. She didn't believe I was me! I told her that I had lost quite a bit of weight and she said " You sure did!" She then proceeded to show my license to the other workers. They were all floored. It is moments like that which make it all worth it. The ghosts of my past are haunting me less and less. Eventually they will be gone. I hope.
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