Proud of Me

Back about 16 or 17 years ago, my best friend and I decided to try hiking to the big white Y on the mountain-side in Utah County, Utah. It's a west-facing mountain, so for most of the day it gets full sun and very little shade. My friend and I didn't take water, and we started at about 11 am on a typical hot, Utah July day. This was a mistake!! We got about 2 turns into the hike (maybe 1/5 of the full distance, if that) and we said "Forget it!". It was steep, it was hot, and it was HARD. I never went back to try again.

Fast forward to yesterday. I'm now 33 years old. I have spent years being in the worst shape of my life, but over the course of the past 6 months I've been working to change that. I will admit that I felt nervous when it was first suggested that we have a family hike to the Y. Nervousness, interchanged with minor dread, rocked me for a few days. I knew I was in better shape now, but I still remembered how difficult it had been for me the last time when I was much younger.

Then yesterday as I was standing on the slope of the mountain, there on the painted white rocks that make up the Y, those feelings were completely absent. Instead, there was only elation. SUCCESS!! I don't get that feeling very often, and I don't feel proud of myself all too much. But in this case, I just wanna scream I DID IT at the top of my lungs. :)

On top of my high horse...

...all covered with cheese...

I can't be an "inspiration" yet. I don't want to be labeled "good example". Because when it comes down to it, I'm struggling like crazy this month. I got through the year-end holidays with no problem, but trying to avoid the chocolate around Valentine's Day has been brutal. In other words, I haven't been avoiding it very well!

Blah! Tracking sucks right now. I know I gotta do it but I'm being a baby about it. Okay okay okay okay. *breathe* Gotta get 'er done.

Some of the secrets to my success

I have to be honest here: weight loss isn't exactly easy. There are a bunch of reasons why weighing your food and tracking your calories just doesn't fit into hectic life, which we all typically seem to have now.

So here are a couple of tidbits that I have found which are making the journey a bit easier. These are the things that have always been obstacles for why I couldn't start my weight loss.

1) Do it with a partner - this seems to be key in the success stories I have seen, and I know it has been crucial for me. This person is doing the same thing you are, so it is exciting for them too. I find that on my hardest days, it's nice to have someone say "Keep going! You're doing great!" Then when Lee has his hardest days, I usually have the motivation he doesn't, so I can say to him "Keep going! You're doing great!" Motivation, accountability and celebration all seem to increase when you have a partner involved.

2) Make time (for yourself) - the thing I have learned is that it takes time for this all to happen. Time to price out the best values on healthy foods. Time to pre-weigh foods for easy access. Time to talk to people about calories or weight loss, or read articles. Time for the results to show. Time for the habits to form. The crucial thing is that you need to be able to focus a good chunk of your time to this process, for the prep work and for the daily grind and for the final results. So make and allow yourself time - it is totally worth it. For myself, I need to work on the goal of making time to exercise in some form, but I'm not quite there yet. :)

3) Allow yourself goodies - it seems counter-productive, but the idea of total deprivation doesn't sound very appealing to anyone. The trick that has made my weight loss successful this time is budgeting my food. Budgeting means that you will stay under a certain calorie mark every day, so if you want to eat a treat and you still have calories to spare, GO FOR IT. Lee and I actually split a big ol' cinnamon roll for breakfast yesterday morning, and I didn't feel guilty! I could only get through 1/2 of my 1/2, since I knew about how many calories I was taking in and I couldn't stand it. So I might've had guilt if I would've finished it, but who knows? Point is, have a treat and savor it. Enjoy it. Make it really count. Then get right back to eating the low-cal nutrient-packed foods you should be eating!

4) Give yourself credit - my main goal is to feel better about myself, so even if I didn't quite reach a goal I'm shooting for, I still give myself a pat on the back for what I WAS able to accomplish. So what if I didn't lose 10 lbs this month? I lost 9, and that's still very very cool (actually I might still hit my -10 lbs goal). It's all hard work, and it all deserves a little credit. When you reach a goal, give yourself lots of credit! You did it! Now...what's the next goal?

Okay so I don't mean to be up on a soap box about this, since I am not really the best example of taking care of yourself. But (to my credit!) I am working on it and have been really proud of the little I have accomplished in the past 62 days. I know this is a life change, not a diet. I know I'll never be able to eat a cheeseburger mindlessly, without thinking about how many calories it is.

Change is hard, but it CAN HAPPEN! Love.

My blog, my place to geek out

Since I am fairly certain that I am starting to bore the people in my life with talk of calorie-counting, I decided to take some of my internal discussion here. Until I am censored or restrained in some way, I get to use my blog how I want! :)

Man. I love the website that I am using to track my calories. It's called Livestrong.com, and it's the site for Lance Armstrong's foundation. Why do I love it? Because it's a melting pot of people who are in my same boat. People who have been overweight, have had the light-bulb moment in their own life, and have made changes. People who work hard and struggle through the fight to drop pounds. The stories are GREAT inspiration for me. I love the personal stories with pictures of the transformations. Keep it up, Livestrong!! I have a hard time finding issues with the site to complain about, since I'm realizing that this free site is key to many people's successes. Right now it's definitely key to my success!

Today I am down 16 lbs. The only time I remember being this weight is around the time I was pregnant with my first child. I was very nauseous and could hardly eat, so instead of putting ON weight, I started dropping weight. My doctor was okay with this, since I had plenty of weight to lose, and the baby was very healthy. I ended up dropping about 10 or 15 lbs (I cannot remember exactly right now), and then once the morning sickness tapered, I gradually put that weight back on. After having the baby I immediately dropped to a weight that was 20 or so lbs less than my pre-pregnancy weight. Of course, it didn't take long to put those lbs back on, plus several more on top of that.

Now I am back at that (post-pregnancy) weight again, only this time it was from making good choices and staying focused on the goal. I'm wearing a clothes size that I think I wore in high school (and was still heavier than most people around me). It's nice to see the scale number gradually decrease, but the best part is when I can fit comfortably in clothes that I had to store away.

2011 is my year. Before I turn 34 years old this November, you can bet that I am going to make myself proud of myself. I'm ready, and I AM STOKED.

Love.

Another chapter of the saga-

La: finding myself within myself

Today is a good day for me and my boyfriend. This morning both of us hit 10 lbs of weight lost!! We have been counting calories for 4+ weeks now, since December 1st. We are both still excited and motivating each other, and we're feeling better than we have in months. It's a good day.

I need to write today and contemplate again why I am doing this. I simply am doing this as an exercise to keep myself on track and to not lose sight of the big picture. I do this because behind me right now there are donuts sitting on a table (someone brought in "late treats") and they look freaking delicious. Fortunately for me, they are BEHIND my back. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Yep.

Why am I doing this? Well. I'm sick of clothes fitting weird. I'm sick of my back hurting, and I'm scared that my knee has begun to have regular pain too. I'm tired of not fitting into seats in certain places.

I want to be fit enough to do anything I want to do. That's the real reason. As a female, a Sagittarius, and a lover of all things new, I daydream about adventures that I want to take. I want to hike to cool places. I want to hang glide and do other fun special-equipment activities. The only that has ever stopped me from being as adventurous as I want to be is my weight and how much of a struggle it is to be active.

I am gaining a new point of view about food: it is my sustenance, not my source of comfort. I eat now to nourish my body, not because I'm bored or because something looks good (damn donuts). That is a great achievement for me!

So I write because as I open myself up publicly, I believe I will be held more accountable for keeping up with my progress. Oh, I need to take a before-picture too, because I'm going to look very different here over the next few months. Maybe I'll be brave enough to post that before-picture publicly! Baby steps, Laura.

:)

Not starting a new blog

A little while ago I was very gung-ho to start up a new blog. A fresh face. Let the old La slip into the past.

But I started reading some old posts and realized something: I love this blog!! I love my blog peeps (old and new). This blog is my past and present. Regardless of where I have been, I'm still HERE now. Instead, I'll just update my profile picture to look more like me now.

*whew* Now that's a relief, isn't it?!

Hey, are all you RSS viewers still out there?

Remember that one time?

So long, long ago I posted a blog entry where I announced that I had officially received my "you're no longer a momo" letter (the post is called Finding a daily LIFE). At that point in my exit from the church I was concerned mostly for my children, especially since they are growing up here in Utah County. I felt like other kids might be mean, or might shun them.

So. Here it is, almost 4 years since that post. My first-born is now 10 and in the 4th grade, and my baby is 5 and taller than all the other preschoolers. How is their life here in Ut. Co., you ask? Well.

I would say that for the most part, not being LDS hasn't directly affected them too harshly. L has friends that she plays with at school, and B fights with the other boys at preschool. I do have a concern though, and I mostly blame the COMMUNITY of Mormons for it, rather than the church itself:

Every day I hear kids outside playing and laughing and having a great time. L knows some of them from school, but none of them come over to ask her to play. During the summer all the kids (mine, plus my "step"-children) would participate in Night Games, but only if one of them got the courage to go up to the neighborhood kids and ask if they could play. Now I realize that part of the distance between the neighborhood kids and my kids could have something to do with the fact that my kids aren't here at our house all the time - they get carted back and forth between here and their dad's house. But they are here about half the time, and those kids go to school with my daughter, for crying out loud.

I have seriously contemplated taking my kids to church again, just so they can be more accepted by the neighborhood kids. I am pretty sure this is a church-related issue, because even the parents of the neighborhood kids make very little effort to be friendly (no wave of the hand from them!) towards me. They speak with Lee some, but mostly regarding church issues (his 15 yr old son does participate in church).

*sigh* Is it really worth going back to church just to have a little acceptance? Or do I need to once again peruse the exmo community for children of like-minded parents? I just don't know what to do, but it sure does bite when neither of my neighbors will say Hi to me, let alone wave. I assume it affects my children less than it does me, since they don't really know what they're missing.

I miss the community and camaraderie of being LDS. It seems that you have to BE one to get that perk, though. Whatever.