Fake it until you make it

I have a deep confession to make.  I am a no thrills girl.  Yes, I know....deep and emotional confession isn't it.  I won't lie, I like to be wearing jeans a tee shirt and a big over sized hooded sweatshirt.  That is comfort clothes.  I will also admit that I stretch the dress code as far as humanly possible at work...dressing down just to the edge of where it would be considered too casual.  I like it.....it's me.  Or so I thought.

Today I was having some 'down' feelings and I just decided to dress the part.  The part of what?   Well, I don't know what the part of it was.  I wore the boots that I  LOVE LOVE LOVE.  I knew I wanted to wear them.  They are black...so black pants.  I was scanning the closet for a shirt and voila how awesome would a leopard print look with the pants?   Pretty damn awesome!   I added a black dress jacket and I was feeling good.  I felt so good that in the wild last minute rush to get ready for work (yes, I was running late) I actually took the time to dry my hair!   (unheard of for me!)   I was feeling awesome!  I was feeling on top of the world. I was feeling incredible and all those negative thoughts in my head?  It was a little bit easier to ignore them!

So often I dress so casual and 'blah' because sexy, fun, pretty, fancy....all of the above clothes are difficult to find as a fat person.  It's easier to wear the baggy clothes.  It's more comfortable to wear the casual clothes.  It's better right?   NO NO NO.  I figured out today that how we are dressed really does have a bearing on how we feel about ourselves. 

So my challenge to myself?   At least once a week I am going to plan on taking the time to actually really take the time with how I dress and how I look.  Why not more?  ha ha ha....well lets be honest, when it's 9:15 and I have to leave for work at 9:35 and I haven't taken a shower  yet, well my hair will be washed, clipped up soaking wet and I'll be skirting the edge of proper dress code....it is what it is.  

Why was I running late this morning and in a wild rush to get ready to go to work?  Paula and I hooked up to run.  It wasn't the greatest run.  I struggled with it.  Maybe it was the lack of music (making a note to self to remember to hook up some tunes the next time we run together).  Paula did better with the running but was having some stomach issue, she thinks a side affect of some meds she's been on.  Oh well....we were out there and doing it!!!!

Smiling and happy!

A long way indeed

This morning I had a grand epiphany.  When the news article was in the paper I had made a comment that "with everyone watching, I would be super motivated becasue I didn't want everyone to see me fail".   But I think it's had the opposite affect.  Everyone has read about my worst so why bother???  Or another way to put it would be to just 'get it over with....fail at this losing weight thing and accept the embarrassment'.  Isn't that horrible???   But it's the truth.   And that kind of thinking is sabataging my weight loss efforts. 

Today Todd and I spent some time going through some stuff in storage.  I found two bins of clothes that I had carefully stored.  I pulled out the first pair of jeans and Todd, who was looking over my shoulder made a comment. "What elephant wore those?"   HE was thinking that they were an old pair of his jeans and was trying to be amusing.  I looked at the tag inside and had to honestly answer, "ME".  Yes, they were my pants.   I dug further into the box and I was pleasantly surprised.  The clothes had been all carefully stored away as I gained weight. Ironically enough, I found clothes that I can currently wear...how cool is that?   There were way outdated clothes (can we say "hello 80's") and there were clothes that had to be thrown away and or donated.  There were clothes that I wouldn't wear again just because my styles have changed.    Basically this box was a bin of clothes I outgrew or couldn't bear to get rid of.  Below is a picture of me holding a pink shirt that I absolutely loved.  (Todd commented, "you used to wear that all the time.)   I could almost fit two of me in that shirt!!!

  

All in all the bins were a good find.  I got some 'new/old' clothes to wear.  (and yes, some favorites have made their way into my washing machine) but more importantly, I had a reminder of exactly how far I've come.  Yes, I've still got a ways to go, but I've come a LONG LONG WAY!!!!

I sound like a broken record!

Yes, at the risk of sounding like a broken record I'll say it. I'm not going to have a good weigh in tonight. Nope. Not at all. I actually think I gained about 3 pounds. I had said anything under 5 pounds and I'd be a happy girl! I'm not going to be happy to lose that weight again. However, I feel like I would have been denying myself if I wouldn't have given in and allowed myself anything. The problem was, yesterday I was there in the kitchen and I nibbled and nibbled. Mom had the goodies OUT and in plan view on the table. Not her fault...I should be able to resist.

I'm very lucky though. While I was eating, I knew that on Tuesday, I would be jumping right on the wagon and going full fledged with this eating thing again. Even as I shoveled in food (ok, it wasn't that bad.......nibbled on food) I knew that it would be a different story on Tuesday and everyday thereafter. So, how has Tuesday gone thus far. GREAT! I've eaten responsibly and made it to the gym for a great workout this morning!

I think the big thing was that I realized that I could wear another pair of pants from the 'not yet' drawer! So all day yesterday I was wearing something that previously was too small. It fit...COMFORTABLY! That is such a great feeling! And it helped me mentally be ready to and looking forward to getting back on task! The other thing is that I'm getting ready to help lead this summer weight loss challenge. SO I know that I'll be thinking about weight loss a lot!

I'm going going to take this weigh in tonight, file it and come back in the next weeks and regroup, relose and get back to the losing life!

Wednesday!

It's been a pretty good day. I was a little worried when I started the day. I woke up and felt like actually cooking a breakfast. (We usually do breakfasts on our own...and I usually do cereal). So making chipped beef gravy was not a good way to start the day. I plugged my recipe into the recipe builder to see where it would fall. I was actually shocked....it wasn't too bad. (Of course I use skim milk, and a while back I had already started making it with a heck of a lot less butter anyway). So, we had breakfast and only spent 7 points total (Man, gotta love Weight Watchers/Natures Own bread lines...low fat/low calories/high fiber)! For lunch I ate healthy, mostly fruits and veggies and one lite string cheese. My mid-afternoon snack was my yogurt (fat free of course) and strawberries. I was trying to be oh so careful because Todd had asked me to prepare Chicken Enchiladas. OUCH....can we say nice rich comfort food??? Once again, quite a while ago I had switched to the low fat versions of whatever ingredients I could. I figured out that with the adjustments it would be 5 points per enchilada. I figured I would be happy with 2 enchiladas. (I was.) But, because I knew I would use 10 points just for that, I knew I had to be careful. I managed. I also made some No Pudge brownies. Yum...they are excellent! I would highly recommend them...we actually had the Raspberry Brownies! Yum yum! I cut the brownies into 6 instead of 12...and that made the point value 4 for each brownie. So...when all was said and done. I was only one point over. I'm happy with that...especially since I exercised and earned 4 APS!

I'm so close to my 10% goal! I am determined to make it at my next weigh in. In fact, I'm so determined that I want to not only lose the 1.6 pounds to make my 10%, I want to lose 2.6 to make my 25 pounds lost goal!

I've noticed that I've been apologizing to Todd lately for being so single mindedly focused on losing weight and exercising. He seems to be ok with it. However I do worry that I'm focused that other things will suffer. And my marriage is one thing that I am not willing to sacrifice!

I actually enjoy cooking at home.....why we eat out so much is actually a mystery to me. I know I do enjoy eating out sometimes...but the rate that we do it...it's way too much. I'm really going to make a concerted effort to cook more at home. I know that if I stand firm and don't waver on eating at home, that TOdd will not mind. Oh yeah, there will be days where he just wants to get out (He works from home.....or technically we live at his business...lol) but for the most part, I want to eat at home!


Oh one HUGE exciting thing that happened to me in conjunction with the wedding this past weekend. About a month or so ago, I went through my closet and cleared out everything that was super big on me. I at that time was a solid 20....with the 20's being loose but not yet into the 18's. Well, I got rid of all my 'fat' clothes (that's my term for the clothes that are on the way out because they are too big.) I was all tickled. It left me with 4 pairs of casual/dress pants. Lucky for me I only need jeans and tee shirts so I don't need to have dress clothes for work...and then casual clothes for everyday living stuff. Anyway, I knew I had that wedding to go to. So I was ok...afterall I had these dress pants in the closet. Saturday rolled around and I pulled them out of the closet and LUCKILY tried them on early to decide which to wear. Does the word CLOWN pants bring anything to mind? These pants were huge on me...they literally made my bottom half look like a big round ball (the hem rested on the floor and the legs ballooned out). I was in a panic!
I had nothing to wear for a wedding that was in 2 hours! Luckily I
remembered a plastic bin full of stored clothes from COLLEGE that I just
couldn't bear to part with...and found a pair of pants....unfortunately they
weren't too dressy. But at least I founds something other than blue jeans!