I’m Not Usually This Deep
(I obviously have a lot on my mind tonight, and this post is long. You may want grab a hot cup of somethin’ before you sit down. Or, alternatively, skim read. Or, you know, ignore altogether. Sometimes I get a little carried away!)
Today, I’ve been sitting back and contemplating the whole weight loss thing. It hasn’t been pretty. As I jumped into the shower this afternoon, I caught sight of all the lumps and bumps that weren’t there ten years ago and couldn’t help but feel disgusted. Not so much because the body in the mirror wasn’t a healthy shape anymore, or that it had stretchmarks and sags and droops galore - those things go with the territory of motherhood, unfortunately. It was more that I was horrified that I’d let myself quit so many darn times. That I’d had no self-control, motivation or, well, prod-in-the-rear to keep going. It should be easy to keep all of those things bubblin’ away. I’ve spoken of my concerns before, as they related to my family history - both parents have had heart attacks, with one being fatal. Dad was 50, Mum was 55 and left us grieving. This alone should have been the biggest wake-up call imaginable. I’ve almost exactly followed my mother’s life pattern - two boys and then a girl, beginning at age 18. Mum was ‘cuddly’ but not overweight until her mid-twenties. She also battled cancer at age 28 - discovered after my birth, which I found out years later (at her funeral in May 06) was very nearly fatal for both of us. I have photos of the two of us in hospital together - Mum for radiation therapy and recovery after her hysterectomy. I could have gone home (Mum couldn’t breastfeed me anyway, due to her treatment) but apparently the notion of caring for three children aged 7, 8 and 9 and a newborn who required bottle feeding scared the bejeezus out of Dad and so the nurses permitted me to stay behind in hospital. Mum was in and out of hospital for close to three months, as was I, by her side.
My point is this. At some point in her adult life, my mother just gave up caring about herself. I’m sure the state of her body bothered her - I don’t know a woman alive today who is happy severely overweight - but she was always so busy caring for the kids and Dad, not to mention the tag-teaming she did between home and work, that she just got herself plain ol’ worn out. It was only later, when she and Dad had separated for the second time, and she was living in the northern part of Australia with my sister and her family, that she began to come alive. She went on a diet. She lost a small amount of weight but having a lowered sense of self-worth for all those years - decades - meant she gave up too easily (hmmm….what’s that saying about the apple and the tree? LOL) And stupidly (yes, stupidly!) she continued to smoke. Forty years of that, and (without meaning to sound crass) something horrid was almost guaranteed to happen. And so it did. A lifetime of bad habits and she was gone from us in the blink of an eye.
I thank God for the small mercy - and yes, I consider it just that - of waiting until us kids were all grown before taking her. I cannot possibly fathom going through the death of a mother as a young teen. As it was, I was 26, had three children of my own, and I guess was able to understand the realities of it all much better.
I realise I have gotten way off track - smile - but I figure you’re following what I’m trying to get at here? Good, LOL.
I do not want to end up as a mirror image of my mother. Cancer, smoking, obesity - it all contributed to a massive time bomb just waiting to go off. I don’t smoke, and I’ve never had cancer (though I would be lying if turning 28 next week didn’t put Mum’s cancer at that age in serious perspective for me), but I’m hurtling down that highway of obesity at breakneck speed.
I remember thinking, years ago, that 69.3 kg (then the heaviest I’d ever been - about 153 lbs) was positively disgusting. And now here I am, maybe 5 years and 10 kgs (22 lbs) further down that highway, and I’m ashamed.
Yep, that’s it - ashamed.
Again, not so much because of the numerous physical changes my body has gone through - though they ain’t pretty either, LOL! - but because I’ve let it get this far. Because I haven’t cared enough to stay the course. Because I’ve opted for the instant gratification of a chocolate bar over the long-term benefits of being healthy. Mercifully, I haven’t yet experienced any major health complications - but then I haven’t had my cholesterol checked either, LOL. All I know is that today when I was running around in our backyard playing tag with the kids, it hurt. And when I carried two bags of groceries up our pathetically-modest hill this afternoon after yet another trip to the grocery store, it hurt (I tried reciting in my head the Proverbs 31 verse that mentions ‘her arms are strong for her tasks’ but it didn’t help, LOL) . I don’t want it to hurt.
I know what I need to do. I know what a healthy food is, I know about portions, and I know what I need to do in order to reach my goal (exercise more, eat less and better). But I always begin each week with high hopes, high motivation and then seriously fall away into temptation midway through the week. By the time Monday weigh-in rolls around again, the scales are heading north instead of south. People say you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you see a gain. Personally I don’t think I beat myself up enough! Think about it. Pooh-poohing a gain on the scales, if you know in your heart that you haven’t given it all you have (or at least 98% of what you have, LOL!) that week, is like pouring a teaspoonful of water on a forest fire. It ain’t gonna do a darn thing, and what’s more, the fire’s just going to keep on blazing away, devouring everything (or in my case, every sweet thing!) in it’s path. However, if you’ve spent all week arming yourself with buckets of water (ie, exercised and ate well), then you’ve got the oomph you need to fight the fire. And it’s a fire-and-a-half, folks. You can’t ignore it.
I’ll often go through spurts in the beginning of the week, let’s say Monday through till Wednesday or Thursday, where I’ve indulged in a naughty food, or skipped my ‘daily’ (ha!) walk, or done something else to take the water away from my fire-fighting kit. And I usually tell myself that it’s no big deal - get right back on that fire-engine the next day and all will be well. But it’s not. Allowing myself that leash is as good as saying “Oh, I’ll fight the fire next week.” The problem with that approach, at least for me, is that the fire will inevitably be raging higher and hotter than it was before. Small, instant gratification for a bigger fire (ie, more kilograms) to fight in the long run. Doesn’t make any sense, does it?
When I went through my ‘100 miles in 7 weeks’ phase during the May Day Weight Loss Challenge’, the first week was h*ll. I hadn’t exercised in eons and my shins were (ironically!) on fire continuously, even when I’d sat down for the day. It hurt! But then the next week got better. My shins only hurt every other day, LOL. And by the end of the third week, they didn’t hurt at all. After that, I kept racking up the kilometres and seeing that number rise, and knowing I was on a ’streak’, was all the motivation (ie, water) I needed to fight the fire of motivation. Melodee of The Amazing Shrinking Mom, wrote recently about ending her fourteen MONTH streak of exercise! This woman is my hero, LOL. I understand a little about what she must have felt though - albeit on a much smaller scale. Once she started, the motivation to keep going must have snowballed from one day to the next until it felt almost irrational to not base her day around exercise. When I was walking, I found a ‘zone’ and coasted. Exercise was easy. I pushed myself to go further, often walking 6 ½ kilometres (4 miles) every day - totally unheard of before my streak. I got anxious when I wasn’t able to walk. I got snooty and snappy, LOL.
Whatever happened to THAT girl? LOL.
So I know the mechanics of weight loss back-to-front and sideways. I am not a fad-dieter. I know the ins and outs of healthy eating. But obviously I have a problem filling up my water bucket enough so that I feel I have the power to fight temptation and all the other struggles that go along with it. People who have never been overweight don’t fully understand this, God love ‘em. My Hubs is one of those. He’s 100% supportive of me trying, but he gets frustrated with each new spurt of energy, each new laminated food chart on the fridge, each new ‘failure’. He’s been preposterously thin all his life, and has always lamented his inability to put on weight, so it’s hard for him to fully grasp all of this. Today though, I found a neat site that delves a little deeper into the emotional/motivational side of weight loss. Reading through the site, I have renewed hope. The site is called Bringing Healthy Back (you can also get to it via the button at the top of this post) and a few posts stood out.
This one, about setting daily goals and the art of self-discipline as it applies to weight loss.
This one, with some really concrete mind-pictures. My favourite part:
I’m going to ask you to stop and think about how you rationalize your food choices for a moment. Compare them to something other than food and see if it makes sense to eat this way.
If you had a bad day would you go out and spend $3,000 to feel better? (Then why are you eating 3,000 extra calories?)
If you were sitting around the house bored, would you run out and buy three new cars? (Then why are you eating three extra helpings of mashed potatoes?)
If you had a day where you realized you were totally disgusted with your own appearance, would you ask your family members to leave and never come back? (Then why are you cutting out whole groups of foods from your daily diet?)
If you went out to dinner and the meal was going to cost you over $100 would you eat more than if the meal was going to cost $5.99? (Does the cost of the food determine how many calories you will ultimately consume? Does it change what you order?)
If it is a special occasion and there’s cake and ice cream and they are both your personal favorites would you convince yourself to eat more than one serving because you don’t know when you’ll have another chance to eat them again? (Would you buy six pairs of pants if you only needed one because you can’t be sure that they’d still be there on the rack next week?)
The revelations of why you eat the way you do can be totally skewed over time because our thinking about the “rules” for food has become totally skewed. Once we look at why we eat what we eat then we have to figure out how to change it - and that’s where self-discipline comes in.
Doesn’t that just make you want to sit up a little straighter, and quaff down another glass of water? LOL.
I have NO doubt whatsoever that the scales will throw back a few fireballs when I weigh-in tomorrow morning. I won’t even list the junk food I’ve consumed this weekend, it’s too embarrassing. And I’d like to imagine I’ll spend the next two or three weeks building up my water (ie, motivation) so that in a little while I’ll be fighting the fire and back in ‘the zone’, but I can’t promise that either. Experience tells me I’m not all that good at weight loss, LOL.
All I can do is try to keep my eye on the fire and try not to let it get too out of control. Then, if I manage to put out a few flames, great!
Cheers,
Lizzie
A Moseyin’ Round The House Kind Of Day
Our fridge broke down over a week ago. This was a serious calamity, let me tell you. After doing the Phone Call Merry-Go-Round for an hour, I finally reached the business contracted by the manufacturer to fix their products while they were still in warranty. I guess I should be thankful that the ol’ girl had the presence of mind to break down now, and not in two weeks when the two year warranty expires, but that’s a small comfort when you’re forced to shop almost daily.
Hubs’ parents loaned us their camping fridge, thank goodness - without it, we’d have been forced to rent a fridge while we waited the TEN DAYS it was going to take a service person to come out. But the camping fridge is this itty bitty thing and so we’ve not been able to buy more than the bare basics in the way of milk, fruit and veg, and dairy. We drink a lot of milk around here and so between that and eggs and fresh produce, the local supermarket is getting a real workout. Last week, as I signed for my credit card purchase (buying groceries on credit isn’t as crazy as it seems. Here’s a description of how we’re currently doing it - we never did get around to the cash-only grocery budget described in that post though!), instead of comparing it to the signature on the back of my card, the girl simply waved me through and said ‘Never mind that, I know who you are’. Well, ahem.
September’s Financial Spring Clean ends today. I’m a bit behind in my spreadsheet updating - I have a wipes container filled with receipts I’ve not yet inputted - but some time in the next couple of days I’ll post about what I discovered, along with a few key totals (not everything…a girl has to keep some secrets!). I’ll also post a PDF link to the document I created to track all of this (totals removed of course!) so you can see how I laid it out. This time around, I cut myself some serious slack and forewent my usual complicated spreadsheets. I just made up a Word document and added everything with a calculator instead of having the spreadsheet do it automatically. The end result was a much cleaner, simpler and more user-friendly document. Once I’ve filled in the final totals (I have to check some banking details online), I’ll print this off, slip it into a sheet protector, and file it under “Financial” in my Home Management Binder. Then do it all again in October. Originally I was just going to take September as a ’snapshot’ of where our expenses were going but this re-working into a simpler system has made it a lot easier to keep a track of expenses permanently.
The rest of today holds ANOTHER trip to the supermarket, this time with the kids in tow (gosh, how I love school holidays, LOL), baking cookies or some such thing, then a simple dinner with just me and The Piglets. Daddy is working afternoon shift and won’t be home until late.
Oh, and progress! I de-cobwebbed my laundry room yesterday! One of the best things I ever got Hubs to do for me was to install a row of sturdy wall hooks up in the laundry room. It’s amazing how I lived without these! Oftentimes this past winter we’ve exploded into the entry area, our raincoats dripping wet (we don’t have a mudroom) and though we have a coat rack right in the (tiled) entryway, there’s really no place we can hang wet dripping coats without creating a mess in this high-traffic area. Dum-dum-dum-DA! Enter these hooks. If the coats drip, it’s no big deal, because the laundry room is out of the way and a ‘wet area’ anyway. Between two hooks makes a perfect resting spot for my Swiffer-like wet/dry mop. And I can hang up smelly swimming bags. They’re so handy I’m going to ask Hubs to buy and install two more sets - one next to the original in the laundry room (I love me some hooks!) and a set near the front door so I can get rid of the clunky coat rack altogether. I also have a nifty little gadget similar to this one hanging on the back of my laundry door:
I’m trying to get into the habit of hanging clothes immediately from the dryer but it is difficult when you have a small space with no table or hooks to do the folding/hanging. This kind of rack holds two loads worth if packed tightly, and I no longer have to lug a basket of dry washing through to the other end of the house or worse, to our bedroom where it would inevitably be dumped onto the bed :)
Gosh, look at the time. The kids will have me drawn and quartered if we don’t bake cookies today, LOL.
*Edited to add ~ It just occured to me as I was re-reading this that the bit about the wall hooks sounded suspiciously like a ‘pay per post’ spiel. Just so you know, I don’t do PPP, and never will. I’m also anti-blog ads. But that’s just my viewpoint - I haven’t one iota of a problem with you folk who do use PPP or ads, LOL!
Cheers,
Lizzie
My Sewing Machine’s Name is Hank
(© Cute Colors)
For the crafty amongst us, I’ve thrown a whole lot more links up in the Craft section in the left sidebar if you want to go take a browse :) Most of these are beginner-level and quite a few use fleece (just about the easiest beginner material to use, in my opinion). Head on over to check them out and then if something strikes your fancy, post in the comments!
I’ve had a ball doing the rounds of the ‘Net tonight and stocking up on ideas - mind you, I don’t have the time to sit down and do most of them, but we’ll just gloss over that snippet for a moment, LOL. Question (and a somewhat delicate subject) for you all - what’s the consensus on sewing your own cloth pads? I’ve been intrigued with the idea for quite some time and I have several links stored up someplace (a great one was found tonight) - would you guys like me to include these in the craft links? Most people I’ve spoken to are either all for the idea, or can’t see the point/think its too icky. I made myself up a prototype a while back and, well, wore it to test it out and it was just about the most comfortable I’ve ever been . But I haven’t taken it any further. You’re either going to love the idea or hate it, LOL.
Also, if you want to drop a link in the comments about other sites you know of which offer free patterns, then I’m all ears (eyes?). I’ve been to all the major ones I think. My taste obviously runs fairly beginner level - Hancock Fabrics, where I snaffled a good many of my links from, has been about the best source I’ve found for simple, yet useful items for the home and kids. I lean more toward the sewing side of things too. So chime in!
P.S. If any of you go getting the crazy notion that I’m a ‘hippy chick’ because I mentioned cloth pads, rest assured I’m not, LOL. I kind of view them in the same category as sewing your own cloth diapers. And most of the gals I’ve come across online who are into the diaper sewing consider it a natural progression to move on to cloth for Mum too :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
I’m Sure I Left My Brain Back In May…
A big congratulations to me - I’ve finally finished the last assignment leftover from last semester! Now I just have this semester to worry about (which is already half over!)
But hey - yay me!
Also, this is totally blogworthy material folks, LOL. You have no idea how big of a dark cloud this has been, following me around and throwing down weedy roots in other areas of my life. I am so glad that one’s over :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
Social Butterflies
We were beginning to think that our children had outgrown that ‘must invite every single little person I’ve ever played with in the school yard’ phase when it came to birthday parties. For the entire year so far, the three children have been invited to just two parties collectively, both of which we were unable to attend.
Someone obviously opened the floodgates this past week because we’ve received not one, not two, but FOUR birthday party invitations - three alone for my socially confident 5 year old daughter. Oh. My. Gosh. When it rains, it sure does come down in hurricane proportions, doesn’t it?
Thankfully, I’ve been on the ball this year and have picked up various low to mid-range gifts in sales that I’ve put away specifically for the rush of birthdays I knew was bound to happen eventually. Stuff that popped up during incredible sales (like 70% off). I just bought a half-price Tamagotchi for my daughter’s birthday present in a couple of months and because they were half price, I picked up another to put into the Gift Drawer. This would be considered a relatively ‘high end’ gift - lots of ‘bang for the buck’ - but I’m just happy I grabbed something cheaply!
Tomorrow begins the stretch. We have a McDonald’s party, a picnic at a large outdoor playground (the whole family is invited to that one), an evening party which I gather will involve dinner and a movie at the birthday girl’s house (all very tame and fully supervised), and a Dora/Halloween dress up get-together. So far just one of The Piglets has had their birthday this year but we’ve had a standard choice for celebrating for a while now. We can either have a ‘party’ (and there are various ways of doing this from McD’s through to an at-home-with-fairy-bread deal) or the birthday child gets to choose the entertainment for the family for the day. They choose the activity, the dinner (usually takeaway…and I’m all for that!) and a cake from Mum’s super-dooper children’s cake book. I’ve made castles and treasure chests and snakes until my knuckles have developed arthritis from weilding the icing knife, LOL. But its a tradition now and I love to do it. I must admit though, we tend to steer them ever-so-gently toward the ‘family outting’ side of things. It takes an enormous weight off my shoulders.
From here on out, we have birthdays and celebrations coming out of our ears, LOL. In our immediate family of Mum, Dad and three kids, the first cab off the rank is Boofah in July. Then a break (filled with birthdays of extended family) and Mum’s next in early October. Master J in November, and Dad and Miss Moo (and of course, Christmas) rounds off December.
December is not a cheap month.
Cheers,
Lizzie
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