Out with the Old, in with the New..the January/February Edition...

Well, now that January is pretty much coming to a close I thought it would be a bit appropriate to do a bit of soul searching. Okay so really I got nothing too deep on my mind just some reflecting and goal planning for the months past and future. In January I had a goal to lose 10lbs…as of my last weigh in I lost a grand total of 5.5lbs…a teeny tiny bit more than half my goal and pretty much a bit over a pound a week…so I got no complaints. In February my goal is not so much pounds related as it is health related. I’ve decided that for Lent I am going to give up drinking coffee (I know crazy right! Especially for a coffee lover like me. However I find that most mornings I wake up with the feeling that I HAVE to have my morning coffee or I can’t possibly make it through my day, and well the only thing that should have that sort of power over me is God). I’m not much of a soda drinker or a juice drinker, so hopefully this will in turn also help me to reach my first goal of the month, which is to drink at least 64oz of water a day (yes that involves many more trips to the bathroom in the day but for a girl who constantly lives in a state of dehydration it’s probably a good thing I try to drink more). My second goal is simply to walk 2 miles a day (or jog if I feel up to it). I know, I know…that seems like such a pitiful goal for a girl whose done all these races and once prided herself on burning insane amounts of calories per workout, but the reality is this past month I struggled A LOT with getting workouts in (mostly because I had it in my head that I had to go BIG or should just do nothing at all). This month it’s all about just doing something….next month we can build from there.


Alright so those are my goals for the coming month. What are yours?

Jess

my science of emotional eating....

SO if you’ve been reading my blog for any stretch of time you might have noticed that I am the queen of emotional eating. In general I am an emotional person anyway, but I am also not very good at expressing myself and so I tend to turn to food for the comfort that I wish I could find in so many other places. Having been on this weight loss journey for a while now I know that in the long run food never satisfies….in fact usually after a binge all I end up feeling is eaters remorse on top of whatever unidentifiable emotion I was feeling before I turned to food. And I’m an extreme case when it comes to binging. I’m not the girl who eats a bag of chips and feels bad…..no I’m the girl who when on a binge will eat a bag of chips, popcorn, cookies, donuts, and then wash that down with ice cream, pie, and endless amounts of caloric drinks….the whole time knowing I’m making the wrong choice but choosing also in the moment not to care! So the question remains…why do I keep doing this?!?!




Well for one I think it has a lot to do with the fact I already mentioned… I don’t know how to express myself very well. It seems that on top of being the queen of emotional eating I am also the queen of wanting other people to really like me….and so I’ve grown accustomed to being the person who shares what I think other people will accept of me and keeps the rest bottled in (in turn basically telling myself that I don’t even truly believe the whole me is good enough). Those left over emotions eventually build up over time to the point where I can no longer figure out where they are coming from or how to address them…so I do what I know how to do…EAT! Sure in the end it doesn’t change anything….but for a brief moment I can satisfy one of my needs….I can figure out what I am craving…and I can have it. In a very twisted way it makes me feel like I can at least do something right for myself (well maybe it’s not “right” but you know what I mean)!



So where does that leave me? I know what I do…I have ideas why I do it…but yet I have no plans on how to STOP. I don’t want to be this type of person the rest of my life. I know there are much better alternatives out there in terms of satisfaction. In fact one place I find myself turning to more and more is my faith. For me…faith isn’t this flighty concept with a distant God. To me…my relationship with God is the realist thing I know. God is the only person who knows EVERYTHING about me and is still there…He hasn’t turned His back on me…and that amazes me every moment of every day! So why is it that I don’t invite God into my weight loss journey?!?! Not that God can keep me from eating cupcake after cupcake, but I know He is the only thing that can ever truly satisfy…so instead of food maybe I need to learn to turn to him…with not just my life but my emotions (as if the two are truly separate).



Anyway…I guess this is more of a “sort things out in my own mind” kind of blog….but it’s reality….. These are the things I struggle with…day in and day out….without ever really talking about it. Time to open up ….open up the possibility that things can and will be different!



Jess

sometimes you just have to try something new...

Hey there!


So it seems that I have become quite bad about blogging this month. I started off great and then I think life just got in the way….well, either that or I realized that I didn’t have too many “important” things to say and figured I should wait until I do…which as you can see doesn’t seem to be that often. But I guess what that just proves is that I am missing the whole point of this blog… I mean this about sharing my weight loss journey…and my journey to a better, more whole me….and sometimes…well I am just boring (gee doesn’t that just make you want to keep reading!).

Anyway…this past weekend I actually did do some exciting things and so I thought what the hay, let’s share!

First thing first…I had my second cooking lesson on Friday (yeay for friends willing to put up with my endless naïve questioning about such things as “Why is the water gurgling” and “When do I season”)! This week’s lesson was all about couscous, the perfect veggie mix, and chicken (my first lesson was on fish and risotto). On top of that I spent a good hour in the grocery store getting taught the importance of eating fresh and all the great things you can find in just the produce section (it was kind of like being on “Take home chef”….well without the really hot Australian guy)! Anyway this week’s lesson was extremely important too because it all boiled down to me being able to make an entire dinner for my parents for their anniversary without any help (which I did today). I gotta say watching people cooking is so much easier then actually doing it. The very process of throwing a little of this and a little of that into a pot and coming out with something that tastes even remotely good, pretty much overwhelms me (let alone it never quite works out for me)!

Anyway it turns out that my father accidentally ate my left overs from my cooking lesson, which I had thought I had done a good job of hiding but apparently didn’t…and so today at the last minute I ended up having to combine the two lessons and came up with a dinner of salad, lemon chicken, mushroom and onion risotto, and a veggie mix of snap peas, red peppers, onion, and mushroom, with a key lime pie for desert (which was only a little tart cause I used too much limeade…a rookie mistake..hee hee)! Considering my father is a chef (well former chef) I considered it a job well done when the only thing bad thing he said was that the chicken was a bit cold (which it wouldn’t have been if he had come home from church on time)! Now I think it’s time to try conquering some of the recipes in all the cookbooks people have been sending my way (see picture to the right).

Oh and for another moment of excitement in my life….today I followed the words of Jillian Michaels and “Felt the fear and did it anyway”! Basically I am not really good about ever really wanting to put myself out there. I like the idea of change but the footwork…or actually the idea that the footwork could actually lead to my rejection….usually holds me back from actually doing anything to really change my life. Well lately I’ve been having a difficult time with accepting the beliefs of my church and so I’ve been thinking a lot about checking out this other church that I pass every day on my way to work. All week I planned that today would be the day I would do that since I was planning to spend the weekend at my parent’s house and the church is seriously 5 minutes from their door. Well when it actually came time to go this morning I was so nervous about it. I mean it’s not like anyone invited me to go or like I had a good reason for just showing up. I figured I would stand out like a sore thumb and I wasn’t really sure if it even was the kind of church I would truly feel comfortable attending (mostly because I knew very little about it). Anyway I almost completely convinced myself to skip church and hang out at the coffee shop for the morning, when I realized that I couldn’t do that. It’s like I had this moment where I felt like I was deciding to shrink back into this old lesser version of me or I could choose to just put one foot in front of the other, put myself out there, and see what happens. So I went and I loved the service (actually it was probably the first time in almost a year where I truly felt the presence of God in a service) and was really glad I went (even though as I was leaving the pastor stopped me and it turned into a really awkward conversation on my part).

Anyway…this is turning out to be a very long post (I guess that’s what happens when I don’t blog for almost a week). I’ll fill you all in on some more fun stuff later.

Jess

Week two gut check...

So I don’t know what happened last week….actually I do. I was so gung-ho about my first weeks weigh in that I think I pretty much let it go to my head and started thinking that I didn’t need to work as hard or watch my calories as much and wouldn’t you know it, I stepped on the scale Friday morning having gained two pounds (ugh)! Well that pretty much sucked, but it was also the gut check I really needed to remind myself that weight loss isn’t an all or nothing thing. You don’t burn yourself out in the first week if it’s not going to be sustainable for the next week and you don’t think that just because you lost weight the first week means you can slack the next. Ultimately this is about life…and that’s no way to live. So this week it’s been all about getting back on track in terms of creating a healthy lifestyle that will work in my every day, day to day operations. And guess what? As of this morning I was already down three pounds which means I am inching ever so closely back to being under 200lbs and I’ve also lost the weight I gained last week plus another pound bringing me to my lowest weight in over six months…whoo hoo! Only a few more days to weigh end so it’s no time to get cocky now…but it’s nice to know I am heading back in the right direction!!!

Jess

Step one....Admittance.

Hey guys!


So this week I have proven once again that I am a total food addict. I don’t know what it is… I can do great all day and then I get home at night and I’m like a ravenous beast who can’t possibly get enough food (and it’s not like I’m really starving or like I’m truly hungry because usually the stuff I go for is CRAP with a capital C!). I mean seriously it’s kind of like an alcoholic who just has to have that one last drink (except of course the last drink is never the last drink until they hit rock bottom)… I am pretty much addicted to food and since I can’t just stop eating I’m kind of stuck (sometimes it really sucks that I am such a black and white person)! To top this off I have seriously only had one good workout this week…one…and we are six days into the workout week. I can pretty much assume from that assessment that the scale isn’t going to be all that friendly to me this week…but I guess I deserve the snub since I really haven’t put in the work.

I guess in some sense it’s time to go back to the drawing board….I mean I obviously need to eat enough to get me through an eight hour work day and a one hour workout, but not so much that I’m compulsively overeating like food is going out of style at the end of the day. To help I’ve done a bit of research on the topic of overeating and one of the number one things they say to do if you find yourself doing this is to tell someone. Again I guess it’s kind of like an alcoholic who can’t defeat their addiction without first admitting there’s a problem. So I guess that’s what I am doing here… I admit it…. I am a food addict…at times I overeat just because (I know there’s got to be more to it than just because it tastes good to me… I mean I wish I was like some of my friends who don’t crave crap anymore and don’t enjoy eating it, but that’s not me…)…but no matter the reason it needs to stop! I will not go thru another year gaining and losing the same ten pounds over and over again like I have the past six months. I will find a way and I will move forward (so if you got any ideas or tips feel free to help a girl out okay?!)!

Jess

Down to business... Week 1 weigh in results...

Hey there!!! Okay so unlike last night when I said I was going to be short and then wasn’t … tonight is just a drive by post.

So today was my first official weigh in of the New Year and guess what?!?! I lost 7.5lbs!!! Whoo hoo!!! In my mind I can rationalize away all the reasons why I lost such a large amount of weight and make it seem like no big deal, but instead I am choosing to celebrate it!!! I worked hard this week and chose to make healthier decisions when easier, less healthy ones were always avaiable!  I deserve this!!!  In fact I’ve even decided to take it one step further and use this week’s weigh in as motivation to prove with next week’s weigh in that this wasn’t just a fluke (if that makes sense). I will have another good number next week and I will be out of the 200’s once again and for all times sake by the end of this month (and hopefully sooner).

And for all you math geeks (I mean genius’s) out there here’s the breakdown of my weight in:

Starting weight: 214

Current weight: 206.5

Lbs lost this week: 7.5

% of weight loss: 3.05%



Night all =)

Jess

One of these days it was bound to happen....

Hey there! So quick note from me tonight because I really need to head to bed (I have to work in the morning and it’s getting late), but I was quite proud of myself so I wanted to share something I did today. So in my mind I am a great cook…I picture myself on stage cooking with the greats like bobby flay and Curtis stone (although as you can see although I enjoy cooking my knowledge of actual chefs is limited)…concocting some amazing meal out of scratch that wows the world. In reality though I can make some decent eggs and a few varieties of prepared chicken breast but that is about it….that is until tonight!


So I had the day off from work today and so I planned all day to make dinner. I wanted to make something healthy but tasteful and I wanted to be able to actually make it correctly. I ended up googling a recipe for turkey burgers online this morning though and since I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted I just decided to fudge it and come up with something of my own based on a memory of something I once saw on Rachel ray (years ago my BIL use to watch Rachel Ray every night and I use to comment on how funny I thought it was…who knew something from that show would someday be useful to me).

Well after the morning relaxing at Fivebucks (affectionately named that cause it costs you an arm and a leg to have anything other than coffee there) I headed to the grocery store to pick up my ingredients, then I did some prep work and after some time to relax I spent another 30 minutes in the kitchen creating this beauty (see pic to right)!!!

That would be a homemade garden salad filled with red leaf lettuce, snap peas, tomato, strawberry and parmesan cheese and topped with balsamic vinaigrette. Then you have a homemade turkey burger with feta cheese, tomato and garlic mixed in and then topped with lettuce and two slices of turkey bacon and all on lightly toasted piece of wheat bread (a sandwich totaling about 360 calories) and on the side we have homemade sweet potatoes fries lightly seasoned with garlic, pepper, and sea salt!

So all together the meal ended up being about 710 calories but since I missed lunch (I know horrible but by the time I got home and prepped the food, then put on laundry, cleaned the kitchen and cleaned two bathrooms it was already an hour before dinner so I just figured I might as well wait) I wasn’t too upset about such a high calorie dinner. Plus….and here’s the best part… it was actually really tasty!!! Go me (hee hee…yes I am self bragging here).

Anyway that’s a bit of a triumph for me and since I don’t want this blog to just be about working out and my emotional side (cause let’s face it I do a lot of…let’s just say venting…on here) I figured this would be the perfect thing to share!

Jess

Well so much for being short….but PS… my mom had surgery tonight to remove some nodules in her neck and her thyroid. She made it though surgery and is fine but they told her tonight that some of the nodules look suspicious so they are sending them off to be tested. Now considering we are now just coming up on the one year anniversary of my BIL’s passing from cancer in his NECK…we are all a little on edge…so prayers would be greatly appreciated!!!

An Underlying Confession…

So the other night my sister and I had one of our talks...the kind we have every few months when one or both of us realize that something is not working and our living situation has gone to the pits. It was a good conversation...different than I expected but good. Surprisingly in the midst of our conversation I made a confession that I don’t think I’ve spoken out loud all year…and that is that I’m just not happy. I realize now looking back on the conversation that my comment could have been taken a million ways but really what I meant was I wasn’t happy on the inside and no matter what we change in our relationship that fact will never change unless I do something about it.

The reality is I haven’t been happy for a while and honestly it stems from not being comfortable in my own skin. When I was my heaviest at 310lbs I was super unhappy. I would cry myself to sleep and felt alone in the world. I hated who I was and who I was becoming. But I never expected to still feel that way after losing over 100lbs. Yet here I sit still 102lbs lighter than I was then and still not satisfied. In fact I think that’s why I enjoy the concept of “abundant life” so much….this idea that every moment in life can be so full that it’s bursting at the seems and you can’t help but lose yourself in the pure emotion of it all. That’s the kind of life I want to lead…but I can’t…cause I’m stuck in this overweight body that holds me back from being as confident and forth coming as God created me to be.

That’s why this year I am eagerly looking forward to working on all aspects of my life. I’ve started a wall of thanks in my room where each night I write one thing I am thankful for so that every day I am reminded of the good things I have in my life. I also started reading my bible consistently again and really spending time remembering who God is and what he’s been/done for me. And today was the first day this year that I got in a real workout (not one of those cheesy ones I tend to do when I’m not sure what to do) and reminded myself that I have the power to change anything in my life…I’ve just got to be willing to put in the time and effort.

I believe this is going to be a year of restoration for me. A year where I am reminded of the true joy I once knew (and not just because I was skinnier but because I was finally being myself and living life) and an opportunity to not only love myself more but to find that joy unspeakable that I know God has promised me!

I am not sure where this journey will lead…what it’s going to look like or how in any way it will play out…but I am committed to being honest and to sharing from the heart where ever I may go. So maybe this is a few days late…but here’s to 2010!

Jess

Off to a rough start...

Hey there!

SO it’s day two into the new year and guess what?!? I’m sick! How annoying is that! I had all these plans for what I wanted to do in the new year and what goals I was looking forward to reaching …and two days into the new year I’m stuck in bed wishing for death (okay so maybe not really for death…but the way I was feeling this morning I could have at least gone for my mommy)!

Anyway I guess the good thing about having time to rest is that I get to think about all the things I am normally too busy to think about. For instance today I thought a lot about what I want in the New Year…or maybe more so the things I don’t want. Last year was a hard year for me….my life changed completely and once again I found myself in that place where I came last. I am done with that! I love my family and I love being there for people but this year I’m going back to focusing on me! Don’t get me wrong I’m still gonna give, just not at the sacrifice of myself anymore…cause I matter too (you know)!

So some things I decided that I am done with in 2010 are… feeling bad when other people don’t understand why I focus so much on my weight loss….Letting other people treat me bad and just taking it cause I’m afraid of losing another friendship (albeit a crappy one) in my life….stressing over things that I cannot change (even if originally I made the bad decision or mistake to bring it on)….trying to figure out how other people are feeling and where they are coming from when they are unwilling just to tell me (I’m not a telepathic people…I can’t read minds so please just be real)….And complaining about situations that I am not willing to change (I need to remember that nothing is going to change unless I make it, so unless I’m willing to put in the work or take the chance I need to stop complaining so much).

So I don’t know, maybe that’s a bit of a pessimistic outlook heading into a new year, but in some sense I think it’s good…I mean half the battle of knowing what you really want in life is knowing what you don’t…so in some sense I guess I’m half way there!

Jess