Breaking Point

The celebration was short-lived.  This past Saturday, I weighed in and just wanted to slap myself.  I gained back exactly what I lost last week, so back up to 211, for a gain of 2.2 pounds.

*sigh*

I am beginning to believe I will never get my act together.  I am the fattest I’ve ever been, my clothes don’t fit, I look terrible, I feel awful, I have pain in my joints and feet and back, and still I’m not motivated to keep at anything that will help me lose this disgusting extra weight.  What the hell is wrong with me?

Yes, I’m feeling very frustrated today.  I feel like a beached whale.  I feel frustrated, disgusted, angry, and ashamed.  How did I do this to myself, and how do I keep doing it?  I am not a stupid person.  So why am I acting so stupid in this one piece of my life?

It doesn’t help that this week, I not only have my second job to contend with, but also a work event in the evening later this week.  All of that means very little time for workouts, or sleep, for that matter. I’m so sick of not being able to do what I want to do, what I need to do, because of obligations I don’t even want to honor and things I don’t even want to do.  I don’t want to attend this work event, and I am sick to death of working two jobs.

If you can’t tell, I am not in the best of moods today.  I keep saying something needs to change, but nothing changes except my weight keeps nudging up.  Something has to give, before my sanity does!

Finally!

I’ve been steadily gaining weight each week and moving so far in the wrong direction, I was starting to think it will be impossible to find my way back.  So I was beyond happy when I weighed in Saturday morning to a 2.2 pound loss!  FINALLY!

I have a very long way to go, and that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.  But it’s a start.  It’s the turnaround I needed.  It’s the U-turn from gaining to losing that I was having trouble finding.

Last week I requested a cut in my hours at my second job, so this is my first week not working most evenings on top of my day job.  No excuses this week!  I am going to work out and aim for two more pounds gone by Saturday’s weigh-in.

Sunscreen

This past weekend, when we took a spontaneous trip to the beach, I was itching to get into the water, which is unusual for me.  I’m typically like a cat, not terribly fond of water (nor of sand, or salt water in my eyes), but it had been a while since I’d been to the beach, and the waves were irresistible.

We staked out our spot on the sand, and I whipped out the sunscreen and made sure the kids and my boyfriend were doused in the stuff, issuing reminders like “Make sure you get your ears” and “Add some more to the back of your neck”.  I checked to make sure everyone had put enough on so we wouldn’t be heading to the ICU with third degree burns, and when I felt assured that no one was going to fry like bacon, we headed to the water.

There was just one problem.  I spent so much time making sure they were properly doused in sunscreen, properly protected, that I got distracted and never applied sunscreen to my back.  It dawned on me later, and one of the kids helped me put sunscreen on my back, but it was already too late.  The backs of my shoulders and across the top of my back are a lovely shade of red, painful and itching already.

The other day, it struck me that the sunscreen story is like an analogy of my life and my weight struggle.  Without realizing it, I put aside my needs to make sure others were taken care of.  I didn’t realize I was doing it, and I didn’t choose to do it, but I paid the price for it.  It wasn’t the kids’ faults, or my boyfriend’s fault, but it is a pattern and a behavior that I need to pay more attention to if I want to be successful in losing weight and taking care of myself.

Lesson learned: there is nothing wrong with taking care of my family.  But when I do it at the expense of taking care of me, there is a huge problem. Taking care of me needs to be as much of a priority as protecting and taking care of the people I love.  I am reminded of that every time I rub aloe gel into my crisply-burned, well-done back!

Rock Bottom

I am floundering around.  Struggling is not the word.  Drowning and grasping desperately at anything to keep me from falling even further.

I weighed in on Saturday: 211 pounds. Officially my highest weight ever.

We decided to take a spontaneous trip to the beach with the kids this past weekend, so on top of seeing that horrible number on the scale, I had the joy of trying on swimsuits too.  Yay!  I don’t own one for obvious reasons.  I still don’t own one.  After struggling to even get the damn thing on, I thoroughly hated how I looked in it.  I bought a tank top and shorts instead, and I wore that into the water.  I still looked disgusting, but it was far more comfortable than tight, clingy Spandex and straps.

It’s time for less talk and more action.  I keep saying I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that, then I keep doing exactly the same thing and keep gaining weight.  I am going to write down my plan for finally getting started on losing this weight.  Then I will post it here.

Highest Weight

My highest weight ever was 210 pounds.  I remember seeing pictures of myself at that weight and cringing.  I am not terribly tall (okay, I barely broke 5’3″), so extra weight is glaringly obvious on me. Seventy extra pounds?  Pretty freakin’ obvious.

Last Saturday, I weighed in at 209.4 pounds.  Barely half a pound away from my highest weight ever. It was sobering.  And horrifying.  And depressing.

I can’t believe I am back to my highest weight.  I can’t believe I let myself gain and gain until I look and feel like this again.  It’s beyond embarrassing.  It’s mortifying.

*Deep breath*  Okay, so this is my new starting point.  I’m not happy.  I hate how I look.  I hate how I feel.  I’m shocked I let myself get back to this weight, but standing around feeling embarrassed and dumb-founded isn’t going to change anything.

Speaking of change…something needs to change. A lot of somethings need to change.  Going through the motions of logging food online and working out when the mood strikes clearly isn’t working for me.

I need to put serious thought to what worked for me before and then make some changes to get back to that.  If a paper food diary works better, then screw the smartphone and the fancy website!  Back to paper it is.  Weekly weigh-ins, blogging more often, no-excuses workouts.

This would be so much easier if I had a less frenzied schedule, but life is what it is, and I need to work around it, because life sure isn’t going to bow down and ask me how it can accommodate me better, right?

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