Idle hands are the Devil’s Workshop
I made a promise. I made a promise to you all that I would blog at least once a week; and I kinda broke that promise. I was in training for almost two weeks: 8am-11pm, every day. No gym, no running, just 15 hours a day of work.
That being said, I did not overeat: not one day. I was social, went out to the bar a few times with friends, ate a few chicken wings here and there, but I realize now that I did not overindulge– I ate like a human. I can be normal when I want to be, and I can overindulge when I lose that control, that humanity that I cling to so desperately.
I have likened it to alcoholism in previous posts. The way I see it is: alcoholics don’t have just one drink, they have two or three, they don’t drink to get drunk, they drink because they need to in order to survive, its their way of coping with their feelings whether it be depression, boredom, sadness, happiness etc… It is the same thing with overeaters, chronic binge-eaters, and overindulgers. We don’t eat because we’re hungry, we don’t eat to get full, we eat because we are bored, tired, depressed, alienated.
I felt like I gained weight last semester: my jeans were tight, my shirts were tight but I refused to admit it to myself. I wasn’t going to the gym as often as I would have liked, I started eating my peanut butter and jelly again (if anyone sees me eat peanut butter and jelly: count the calories, its like two meals!), and I had just ended a relationship: I was depressed, alone, sad.
I identified this and corrected it; I’m dealing with my problems the right way now. This blog helps me do that. My residents moved back yesterday, and in the middle of my floor meeting I heard this girl say, “Is it me, or does Mike look cuter without the added weight?” I realized then, that I had positively corrected my behavior. Since then, I have received compliment after compliment about my losing weight over winter break– let’s continue this trend.
This blog helps me realize that I can live a real life, one where I go out for drinks after work, and if I have a wing: I can stop at one, and it won’t be the end of the world. I didn’t go out afterwards and buy wings to make, I didn’t order any from the wing place down the street: I had one wing off of a friends plate, and then ate the carrots and celery that she said was “disgusting.” I enjoyed it, I sat there with my beer and had a great time!
I could sit here and list the times that I was a successful individual in a social setting: but you would be like “really now, what’s the point to this?” My point: I’m proud, and I need to set some definitions so that we have a clear understanding for future posts.
Successful Human (n): an individual, who without thought, successfully avoids overindulging and mindless eating.
Real Boy (n): a male, who is able to participate in events or social settings that, prior to the WLJ (weight loss journey), was unhead of.
Amazing (proper noun): Me.
What a weekend
Lazy.
I feel lazy.
I have not run since Thursday when I hurt myself.
Let’s make tomorrow something different.
It’s Amazing what Obesity can do to You
Running, it’s my life.
There was a time when the refrigerator, and online gaming was my life. My life would literally revolve around waking up, making myself breakfast, and sitting in front of my television-sized monitor playing Everquest. Breaks were the worst. While on holiday from school, it was not uncommon for me to not see the light of day, to taste fresh air, because my taste buds were too busy with the overly processed binge-eating business they had become so accustomed.
Now, I wake up in the morning, make myself breakfast and think to myself, “Where is my run going to take me today?” Two years ago, I would have never even attempted the 10 mile run that was my accidental over-the-top long run on Sunday (one that also met @Nike’s #hangoverchallenge and started @FatgirlvsWorld’s #gotheDist 2012 edition).
Yesterday, I was recovering from my long run, and was scheduled for another long run (remember, my Sunday long run was accidental) thanks to my Nike+ Half Marathon training regimen. I swapped out the long run for a short run, and took off. With my exhausted Achilles, and after running 10 miles, I would have NEVER run yesterday.
I’m going to keep going, keep pushing myself, and Nike+ is going to help me with that– this is a new level of my journey, its not just my weight loss, but its more of a lifestyle now…
Its amazing the limitations weight puts on you. I went from being a couch potato, 320 pound, morbidly obese 19-year-old kid, to a 21 year old, almost college graduate, runner (or athlete as I have been recently referred to as by many people).
I guess it’s the lifestyle of an :pause: athlete… is that what I am now? How can I go from being Obese to being an athlete? I guess this will be a blog post later.
2012 is going to be a pretty amazing year. I’m going to kick ass, and reach my #GotheDist goal, and the number of goals @NikePlus has set for me, and I guess, other athlete things…
Some day soon I’ll have to do a review of Nike+, and discuss how it’s keeping me in shape, and my feet on the pavement and how it helped me go from my computer seat to athlete. I’ll do that after 1.19.12– I think there is an update coming out.
Running and Binge Eating
“There is no time to think about how much I hurt; there is only time to run.”
Yesterday, following my accidental 10 mile run, my Achilles was hurting. That’s not going to keep me from running my 14k today.
I’m also keeping track of my food consumption because, after all, my ultimate goal is to lose weight.
Binge eating is the one thing that probably plagues me most. And undoubtedly I’ll post again about that evil little green monster that’s in the fridge pointing to what I should eat, and how much of it I should eat.
This goes back to my running though. I binge ate on Saturday and today my run suffered, despite running farther than usual, my run suffered. Tomorrow I know it will be better and I know I’ll feel better because tonight I didn’t binge eat.
I truly believe that binge eating is an illness and I am working on conquering it. Much like alcoholism or drug addiction: binge eating controls individuals behavior.
With no time to think about pain: I’ll avoid binge eating, and ice, compress and elevate my foot so that tomorrow my run is going to be great!
#GoTheDist2012
I am a runner, so it only makes sense that my #gothedist modality is running. I was supposed to run 10k today for
My marathon training, but Robby (@Fatgirlvsworld) yelled at me for using kilometers, so I was changing my distance from kilometers to miles… Except I forgot to change the 10 to a 7. Needless to say I ran a 15k today in 1hr 5 minutes.
We’re told all of our life that we need to shoot for the moon, because if we miss, we’re amongst the stars. We now know that’s not true, as adults. If you miss you’ll be floating around in space around the moon, with no control over where you go. But the message behind it still rings strong.
I am not shooting for the moon, I’m going for Pluto- my GotheDist challenge is to run 2800km in 2012. I joined the Nike+ challenge of running 2012km 2012 too. Either way: I’m gonna try to kick ass!
2012 Resolution?
Let’s start fresh, let’s not talk about what we’ve missed, or how far I’ve come: mainly because I don’t have time to fill in the blanks, and I don’t want to prolong this blogging anymore.
It’s a new year, and I will continue my hardest to reach my optimal level of fitness. By the end of 2012, I will have run a dozen or so 5k races, 2 half marathons, 1 marathon, and 1 relay. I will have completed one semester of law school, and I will be on my way to being the healthier me that I so richly deserve.
I will participate in Robbie’s #GOTHEDIST challenge, by running 2800KM (1740 miles for Americans as Robbie points out), and I will reach my goal. Upon doing such, I will begin training to participate in the Boston Marathon.
My first timed 5k, what took me so long?
8:57AM: @Tidbits_of_tara Morning yoda guess what
That is what I typed to my inspiration moments before stepping into the line. I stood, anxiously waiting, fidgeting with my clothes and headphones as I glanced over my shoulder looking for my friends who were not that far behind.
9:18AM: This one goes out to my Yoda, @tidbits_of_tara and anyone else who helped me on my way. http://plixi.com/p/93317467
That’s the right link, you see it—that’s a bib. 185. I began to panic, Tara had tweeted me back challenging me to a sub-30 number. I was running with two track coaches and someone with the same experience as myself. What if they outran me? What if I finished last? What if… What if… I began to doubt myself.
The first mile was easy, a little bit too easy: it psyched me out, not only myself but the two cross country track goddesses I kept pace with. Hildie and Heather were both running with me, and I was keeping their pace. At the water station (uhh the only water station on the whole 5k was at mile 1— I wasn’t thirsty AT ALL, but I was around the 2.2 marker). I began to slow down, the road became dirty littered with rocks and such and I was not coordinated enough to keep my pace. I slowed down and then kept that pace. They finished ahead of me.
I finished strong, sprinting the final two tenths of a mile, neck to neck with some woman who wanted to beat me (yeah—I kicked her ass). I saw the clock: 27:19. I was so happy, I had never timed anything less than 28 minutes. I nearly immediately texted Tara, my yoda: 27 minutes!!!!!
After pictures and talking, we walked back to the car. I took my own car so when I climbed in, I began to cry—I threw my oversized Aviators on my face to hide the tears and eagerly waved bye to my running mates. All day long I believed in myself, I ran a 27 minute 5k, that was definitely sub-30.
At 7:00PM I was making dinner, and my phone dinged. I checked it, and it was an invitation from Erica (my running partner pictured below) to run another 5k the following week—I accepted. Then again, Hildie had sent me an invitation to run a 5k the following week—I accepted. The invitations kept coming. My phone dinged again at 7:30, this time I was full on ready to shell out another 15 dollar registration fee, the subject line was “TIMES POSTED,” I immediately clicked. Scrolling through my iphone faster than it has ever gone before, I found the 27’s, something was wrong: I wasn’t listed. I couldn’t find my name, my bib number, or anything. I scrolled until 31:11, and I found Erica. I thought to myself, I finished before Erica. I scrolled to the top, and found Heather at 24:56, and kept scrolling, Hildie at 25:46, and finally: My name at 26:46!!! I ran a 5k in 26 minutes, 46 seconds.
I immediately texted Tara.
Tara, you are my Yoda, you have taught me so much, you have been here through it all, I have connected with you, I love you.
Val, Sharla, Megan, everyone else: you are amazing, you support me so much!
Molly, Jess, Robbie: Where the hell are you and why can’t I get an AMEN!
Binge Eating
“He who makes paradise from his bread makes a hell from his hunger” Antonio Porchia once said. Moderation is the most difficult thing in the world. Everyone talks about weight loss being difficult, but when I was actively losing weight for the last year, I abstained from nearly all of my desires. I wouldn’t eat peanut butter, I wouldn’t eat pasta, and I wouldn’t eat anything fried. Now, I have moved into what I call my PWLJ, my passive weight loss journey, and I am eating those things, and sometimes moderation isn’t the easiest thing in the world, hell: most of the times it isn’t anywhere close to easy.
I don’t have any tools, no words of advice, I just have the cold heard truth: emotional eating, binge eating, mindless eating is a horrible thing that we are going to have to live with together. We will just have to learn how to work through it. I find that I want to binge eat when I have nothing to do, when I am bored, when I am alone. If I am with someone, if I am sharing a room with someone I do not binge eat, I eat as if I were a normal human being, satiated with what is in front of me, not looking around for food like a mad man.
My latest uncontrolled feakout?: Three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, followed by General Tso’s for lunch, and a BBQ Chicken wrap with French fries for dinner, and an ice cream sunday for dessert. This happened the day before I was going to weigh in for my reality check. (CONFESSION ALERT) I stepped on the scale and saw 185lbs. I could not let you all see that, because that wasn’t where I knew I was the day before, I woke up weighing 180 pounds, I knew I weighed 180 pounds. You need to find what emotion binds your binge eating. I have three emotions that control my binge eating: feeling alone, feeling helpless and feeling like a failure. I usually have to have at least two of those feelings to binge eat, or at least feel like binge eating, and when it’s a trifecta: watch out!!
Last night, I had the trifecta, the mother of all binge eating cravings. I wanted something, I didn’t quite know what it was, but I wanted to EAT! I behaved myself, I ate salad for dinner with my friends (knowing that being with people would curb the cravings—and it did, for a little while), then they were going out on the town. Being an RA, I can’t go out with my residents (3 of my friends are my residents), risking bringing destructive behavior back into the dorm, never mind me coming back drunk with three other trashed individuals. I went back to my room. Uhoh, the cravings came back. I really wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like REALLY bad. If I had a jar or peanut butter in my room, it would have been gone, completely gone. Then, I kinda wanted to order Chinese food. The craving grew, I saw a P.F. Chang’s commercial, and the craving exploded, I began searching my room for the menu for Chinese food—I was going to order, until a knock rescued me. Someone knocked on my door and distracted me for about an hour, thank you Super Resident! I went back to my room, it now being around 11PM, knowing I had to wake up for the 6am shift at the desk, I decided to go to sleep. I laid in bed thinking about food, all sorts of food, ice cream, peanut butter, lasagna, all the take out places that delivered this late at night, the pizza smell coming from the lounge on my floor—I thought about all of it. I fell asleep, and awoke this morning laughing at my binge eating problem. While recounting it, I do feel like it is a joke, but now I am positive that others feel the same way, they have cravings and they give in, perhaps not binge eating cravings, but they have those cravings, and they break diets for some people—not for me, trust me, I don’t always so elegantly avoid catastrophe, but I did last night, it was my success story.
Do me a favor, and if you have a binge eating problem, find a way to work through it. My emotions directly impact what I eat, I can’t always feel successful, I can’t always surround myself with my friends, and I cannot always feel in control—its life. Find your catalysts and the best ways to combat them—you won’t believe the difference it makes. The leading articles on the study say that it’s the all or nothing mentality that puts you in such a place—the place in which you need to binge, I found that I would still binge even when I occasionally gave in to my cravings, so I am going to try and balance my cravings and my life, let’s see how this goes—it fits into my life style changes, not diet changes.
Well, maybe I do have tools 
Yes, there is a wrong way to Diet
I HAVE MAINTAINED
You heard it right folks, I have maintained. I need to speak a little about healthy lifestyles before I reveal my weight though. It is important to realize that sometimes goals can get in the way of what is really healthy, what your body needs. Your mind is so caught up on the goal you want to reach that you forget what your body needs to survive. You forget the fact that there is such a thing as unhealthy weight loss.
Obesity is a problem, a huge problem and poses significant health risks. More people are Obese right now, today, than every before. Getting down to the ideal weight is healthy for you, it is a monumental task, a worthy goal, but the means by which you accomplish this goal is just as important as deciding to lose the weight. I have discussed changes in lifestyle before and how diets you buy off the internet, or diets that encourage eliminating entire food groups, or limiting yourself to only one food group are ineffective and simply a means of yoyo dieting. But, what if you do everything you are supposed to, monitor your calorie intake, exercise, eat healthy—and you’re dropping the pounds too quickly?
I dropped weight too quickly, especially in the last few months of my active dieting. I was working out at the gym, burning incredible amounts of calories—and I was not compensating for that in my dieting, I was still eating a low calorie diet. Some days, I would end the day with a nearly 2,000-calorie deficit. I knew this was wrong, but I loved the progress I was seeing on the scale.
This is not healthy weight loss, which contributes to the rise you will see on the scale. This rise was almost immediate after I began the maintenance portion of my LCJ (adopted from Tara). When I started eating normally, exercising normally just to live, I noticed a rise in my body weight up to 182lbs, I was able to maintain this, and just recently got down to 180.6lbs. I am proud of this, I maintained through the holidays, through the beginning of another semester, most importantly through the exams of last semester. I kick ass, and you know it!
I am starting a new portion of my life, the Life Changing Journey Check In. (LCJCI for short) I will check in 5 times throughout the semester, over the next 15 weeks and let you know how I am doing on the scale, I am going to post on the blog more often, and I am going to stay committed. I am not happy with myself right now, I am still overweight, I am still flabby, I still don’t have muscle. I am going to drop another 30 pounds, I am going to build muscle definition, I am going to be Happy!
January 2010- 320lbs
February 4, 2011- 180.6lbs
