I DID IT! I FINALLY DID IT!

After extensive research, deliberation, and  buyer anxiety I pulled the trigger and got this treadmill.  The Precor 2.3 !  I have a lot of plans for this baby, mainly watching tv and walking/running.  Also I got around the $200 delivery charge because I  bought through Amazon.com! Now in the next 5-7 days I will pull my back out by bringing this hunk of love in my living room and setting it up myself!

I am proud of myself for finally buying this, however I will miss you cash money. You served me well.

Veggie Enchiladas!

Click on the image, I dare you.

Also this. Is. Good.

celebration

I am now at my lowest weight for as long as I can remember.  I think I weighed less at my wedding in 2008, but I don't have any record of it.

So as of today, I weigh 216.6!

Normally I celebrate with food (stupid thing to do because I tend to celebrate a lot,) but I don't want to do that today.  I think since I'm only 16 pounds away from another milestone, I'm going to just celebrate it by being full of pure joy today.  In 16 pounds, I'll celebrate in a larger way.

Cheese or no Cheese?

Thoughts?

Balancing Life

In case you haven't read it, go read Megan's awesome post about playing to your advantages.  It's really inspiring, and I feel it fits well with what I'm going to talk about today, which is priorities and balance.

Ironically, I started this post about two weeks ago, and I didn't finish it.  I didn't prioritize it over other things.  Looking back at the draft, it was sounding kind of negative, so I'm glad I didn't publish it for you to read.  It's amazing how when you don't have your balance right, it can spill into other things.

But onto the meat of the matter.

If I had to pick a specific title for my spirituality, I have to say that I'm Buddhist.  However, I'm not a very good one.  I don't practice as often as I should (practicing in general isn't a trait I've been able to pick up yet), and I know that I have so much more to learn before I feel like I honestly could say I am a Buddhist.  Nonetheless, the teachings of the Buddha are good for everyone, no matter your faith, and I feel that they help in particularly difficult times.

Chances are, you are in difficult times.  Weight gain does not come out of nothing.  You have a larger problem you need to deal with beside the difficulty of getting the balance of calories in vs. calories out.  I'm not saying that you were necessarily traumatized as a child or that you even necessarily have poor self esteem.  The reason we gain weight can be as simple as not following the right path.

The Right Path is one of the founding tenants of Buddhism; in English, it is often called the Noble Eightfold Path.  In simplest terms, it is a checklist for balance.  Balance is what we all need.  With balance, things fall into place.  For health, it means you will eat correctly and get the fitness you need.

We all live busy lives.  We all crave for more time, more inspiration, more motivation.  This craving, however, brings suffering.  Whether it is emotional or in the form of fat, craving brings suffering.

Yet, while we do not want to suffer, it is hard to shake cravings.  As fat people, we know that it is hard to listen to your head when your body craves.  This is why the Buddha teaches how to create balance.

And balance starts with correct priorities.

We all have different things to juggle, and these are my balls, in no particular order (yet):

1. work
2. sleep
3. driving to/from work
4. eating
5. eating well
6. cooking
7. working out at the gym
8. working out at home
9. watching tv
10. hanging out with friends
11. cleaning my house
12. washing dishes
13. washing laundry
14. folding laundry
15. showering
16. maintaining my house/yardwork
17. grocery shopping
18. other shopping

I probably forgot some, but those are the major ones.  EIGHTEEN!  No one can juggle that many balls without letting some drop.  Heck, the world record for literal juggling is 13.  So, we have to prioritize.

When I started this post a couple of weeks ago, I was a wreck.  I was working 45-50 hours a week, plus I don't know if you noticed, but I also included "driving to/from work" as a ball I have to juggle.  For some it's not much of a ball, but for me, it equaled about 3 hours of my life every day.  It was taking away things that my heart said I should be prioritizing over money.

So, I took the plunge and quit my job last week.  I have to say that since last Tuesday, I haven't felt better.  I decided to give the Right Effort.  I am now prioritizing life over money.

But that is my choice.  I am not encouraging any of you to go quit your job.  It is a serious matter that takes much consideration.  I couldn't do it without having a partner with a job because unlike Buddhist nuns and monks, I could not live without material things.  I could not ask my neighbors for food.

Yet, I must be honest: it feels great to have the golden handcuffs off.  Now I feel like I can truly prioritize my health and the health of those around me before money and all the stress that comes with making money.

But what about you?  You probably have a job with its stressful demands.  You may have people depending on you to provide shelter, clothing, and food for them.  So you have to make money.  However, I want to ask you: are you working harder than you should be?  American society is driven by always bettering your career so that you can make more money to buy more stuff.  But what if you're already making enough money?  I'm going to say something that bosses would hate to hear: you should only do enough to keep your job, not any more.

It is my personal belief that you should not need to check work email at home.  Home time is for yourself and your family.  Not work.  You should not need to think about that report your boss wants done.  You should not need to think about how that presentation went yesterday.  Putting yourself in the Right View will help you see what is important so that you can start to balance.


This post is already too long, so I'm going to end it here.  I know there are thoughts dangling all over the place, but sometimes there's beauty in stray grey hairs.

Katie

P.S.  One grey hair I want to pluck, though: I want to make it clear that I will one day return to work. Later this year, I'm going to re-enroll in school so that I can get more training for a career, but in the meantime, I'm prioritizing health over money.  I will one day have to figure out how to balance health with work again, but I have confidence that it will seem like less of a mountain when I am maintaining health, not making it.

Learning to Play to my Advantage.

I relearned the fact I love to play competitively.   For instance the other day I was on the treadmill with my incline set at 10 going 3 miles an hour.   After about twenty minutes in to my workout, a girl came up  to the treadmill next to me at put her incline at 13 and was walking 3.5 miles an hour. You better believe I put my incline at 13.5 and went 3.6 miles an hour!

There is a girl in my biggest loser group that has lost 36 lbs in less time it took me to lose 8lbs. She looks great and I am completely happy for her. Still, I want what she has! So now I am completely determined to win this session, mainly to beat her. I know that being competitive is on the brink of superficial. Still, I decided that anything that gets me going is to my advantage.

This is what this post is about: Playing to your advantage.

I find this to be pretty obvious. If you are an internet person, find a community or blog that you enjoy.  If you have a dog, and you have already walked it today, chances are it wants to go again.  Do you get inspired by reading books about spirituality? There are hundreds on the subject, but how about writing your own? Start a journal.

So often we play things to our disadvantage. "I'm a carb person,  chocolate person, beer person, couch person" and we create an identity by our weaknesses and it make default excuses.   I am not an example of excellence on this subject my any means. "I'd go completely vegan except I dont want to give up [yogurt, cheese, fish]."    I am too busy, I work too hard, I don't want to work any harder.

In reality, there is no limits to our potential. Don't we all know this? We do.

My strengths include Katie, my own inner drive, and having a competitive spirit. I know this because deep down I feel confident and I deserve it.

Besides, I am going to kick that girls ass!

Okay, now that I have slept on it, I feel significantly better about those pictures. I have a long journey and that's been no secret. These pictures are just a reflection of how much more work I have to do and how my attitude needs to be more committed. I am not going to lie, I haven't made too much of an effort the last two weeks of January.  Day to day, I felt unable to work out and ate on the go from my busy busy schedule. Now that the play is over, I have no excuses!

Katie! That was such an inspiring post. You look great already and you are going to look even better if you keep up the hard work.

I am not happy with these photos. I feel an extreme disconnect between what I see in the pictures and what I think I see in the mirror. Yikes.  Yiiiiiiikes. I must admit, I kind of hate these pictures but it will give me fuel to work that much harder.  I need to work harder. I need to track my eating more. I need to snack less. With all my work outs it feels as if I am only maintaining this weight which is slightly disappointing.  What's hard is breaking old habits.  I find myself 'munching' too much because I eat pretty healthy during the day and I ruin the progress around ten at night.

UGHHHH.

A Tortoise Journey

Like an increasing number of people, I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember--far into my childhood.  Without any sort of guidance as a child, I did not know what a healthy weight was, and so I was convinced I was fat.  It become particularly bad that fateful year when the school nurse came to weigh us all, and I was over 100 pounds.  I knew I must be a whale.  Chances are, I was just growing like any normal child, but society had made me think that 100 pounds was not the right weight for a girl.  I was still years away from being an adult, and didn't adults only weigh something like 105 pounds?

Soon I also went into puberty, and unlike many of my other female classmates, I grew breasts--large ones.  My friends started making fun of them.  It fueled my growing depression about my looks.  I probably would have gained an eating disorder if it hadn't been for thorough education about how anorexia is not healthy.  If only they had taught us about what is healthy!

When junior high came along, I started having more access to poor food choices, and I started gaining the weight I thought I had.  By my late teens, I was overweight, but not by much.  Yet, the depression still loomed.  I wasn't rail thin, and I did not have the knowledge of how to lose the few pounds that would have classified me as healthy, so I continued to eat poorly.  When I went to college, I also started exercising less.  So the weight bloomed.

As an adult with a job, I had enough money to choose time over health--meaning I ate out a lot.  My weight continued to go up.  At least now I knew that I was definitely needing help, and so I started learning about nutrition and fitness.

Yet, knowledge is only step one.

My mom and me in June 2011.  I'm around 231 pounds.

Step two is actually acting upon that knowledge.  I started step two last April when I hit my highest weight of 242 pounds.  I had the (mis)fortune of losing my job then, and with all this time on my hands, I knew I should take advantage of it to get healthy.  By June, I was down to 231.  By November--220.

Then I got my job back.  Since then, my weight has stayed the same.  Thankfully it hasn't gone up.

Next Friday is my last day at work again (I'll talk about that in another post), and so this is another beginning--hopefully the last for losing the weight so I can focus on other beginnings.

It's been a long journey so far, and it still isn't close to over.  I am definitely a tortoise, but that's a good thing.  I'm likely to keep it off.

To mark this rededication to losing the weight and getting healthier, I've taken some "before" pictures and made some measurements. 

February 4, 2012. 219.4 pounds.

Height: 5'6"
Weight: 219.4 pounds
Waist: 40"
Hips: 48.5"
Thigh: 29"
Upper arm: 16"
Pant size: 18 short

Photos are deceiving, though, so I'm including a picture of my outline below.  That really hits home, if you want to try it.

NEVER AGAIN.

So here we go again, one stubby tortoise leg at a time.  It was a nice break, but I'm not going to get to the top of the mountain by sitting in the same place.

Lots of love,
Katie