Beyond Willpower

I think I've mentioned on here that exercise is difficult for me because I have fibromyalgia . Anyhow, for about a month I did really well with exercise. I went from doing about 5 mins a day of lifting very light weights and doing wall push ups to doing 45 mins of dancing and Your Shape Fitness cardio and yoga. For awhile, I felt like this:  This month has been difficult pain wise and it's hard to say, but I think now that I'm gluten free and not due for my monthly visitor for awhile (low estrogen can cause flares), I might be okay for at least a month. I want to take advantage of that. I am seeing my pain doc in February to discuss my lady time pain flares. I have heard  progesterone cream  can help. I also need to get on  seasonique  so it comes less often and lasts a little less time.  After all that I felt a little more like this: Within a matter of days. I had to stop exercising entirely, which undid any progress I had made ...

I re-read what was here and it's such a downer.  That's it. Case closed. The end. 

I have some amazing friends. Most are currently my diet buddies, one or two I want to be my diet buddies, and still others I wish were still my diet buddies. For those who I'd like to follow me on a path to good health and for those who used to and I wish would come back and for those who are frustrated endlessly by their supposed lack of "willpower", I feel the need to acknowledge that it will only come when they want it to. When they wake up one day and staying fat is more difficult than losing weight. When I was at my heaviest (299 lbs) I was pretty miserable. I thought for sure that I would never be able to get myself out of the mess I'd gotten myself in to.  Me at 299 lbs I thought in my most desperate moments,  maybe I'd get "the surgery". My bf was so against it though, and honestly the statistics were not that impressive. I couldn't afford to be one of the huge percentage of people who regained their weight after going through the ...

This post was inspired by a blog I read called  My Effortless Vegan Weight Loss  over at  www.vegansoapbox.com : It got me thinking about my motivations as far as veganism goes. I will say I am not a fan of PETA so with all of their outrageous efforts to convert people, I most likely would have converted sooner if not for them. Seeing this ad did not make me want to 'go veg', it pretty much just made me feel like shit and if I had seen it a few years ago I most likely would have gone and eaten a full order of wings to drown my big fat sorrows. Annoying PETA ad:  When I watched  Food, Inc  sometime last year, I started to get really aware of just how horrific modern agriculture (aka, big food) really is. The changes I made to my diet happened slowly over the course of 2009-2010. After I went vegan  I started buying as much local organic stuff as possible. Food, Inc trailer: So anyhow, I did originally go vegetarian in July 2009 for healt...

So, the new A&E show,  Heavy  premiered on Jan 17th and the weight loss forums have been pretty chatty about it.  Basically it's a show about morbidly obese people who go to this intervention type camp. It's actually kind of gorgeous and I wouldnt' mind visiting. ;)  View the ad:  I honestly wasn't sure how I would feel about it, because I generally dislike weight loss TV shows and 'reality TV' in general. I feel that they are exploitative. A way for thin people to sit on their couches and poke fun at others from the comfort of their home. In general I find reality shows to be similar to circus freak shows. In my opinion The Biggest Loser might as well start filming under the big top: From Tod Browning's  Freaks :  To The Biggest Loser:  I understand that some people are motivated by this show, but I feel it sets most people up for failure along the road to wellness. The exploitation is pretty clear in the differe...

So, today I took this pic of myself when I was leaving for work. Not sure why, I just was in a really great mood and wanted to capture it somehow I guess? 1/19/2011: Anyhow, I posted it on facebook and a few people commented that I looked like I had lost weight. That was nice, but I ended up going into my pics and looked at older ones, like this: Probably sometime in 2008 -- 299 lbs most likely. Not sure what I was thinking with the hair: I remember when I lost 40 lbs in 2009, I had posted a new pic one day and someone commented and said, "When are you going to post your weight loss pics?"  At that point there was 40 lbs less of me in the current picture ! I dunno, it's just devastating to work so hard and for people to not notice at all. I look at these pics here and I see a difference. I guess in the end that is all that matters. Who I see when I look in the mirror. I'm sick of waking up and feeling great about how I look until I see a 1-2 lb upwards fluctu...

~*~*~This recipe is gluten free and vegan~*~*~ As are all my recipes Serves two. UPDATE: 3/17/2011 I have de-spiced this a bit and gave directions for a smaller serving of sauce. It seems I like my food spicier than most! ;) I've tried many vegan alfredo recipes I found online or in cookbooks and I never made one that i liked so much i made it twice. Always looking for something better. Tonight I messed around and created my own. My bf took one bite and he made.... The "O" face. Ha! He named this recipe when he said, "Nothing to say but Mmmm...". EDITED TO ADD: You will have LOTS of sauce left over, you can easily cut the sauce ingredients in half. Oops. What you need:  Here it is, excuse my horrible handwriting. I tried. ;) Here is a pic of stuff I used: Directions: I made the alfredo sauce while the gluten free (bionatura is my fave brand), pasta cooked.   I put 1 pack of mori nu lite silken tofu into the ninja ( my food processor above ), and...

So, I've been On Plan perfectly for almost 3 months. I haven't lost anything for 2 weeks. It's that time of the month though, and mine lasts FOR EV AR, so, who knows, maybe I'll have a whoosh. The thing that has me concerned though isn't that I haven't lost - so much as where I'm going mentally DUE TO the no loss. I've had a history of eating disordered behavior along the other end of the spectrum. I binge yeah, but I also have gone through periods of starvation and laxative abuse. (These things don't work out as well as you hope they will. Also they inevitably lead to binging). Anyhow, not losing for 2 weeks has almost immediately put me into the mindset of -- cutting cals. It's never so simple as oh I should cut by 100 and see after a week where that gets me. It's more like, cut by 300...and if that works, hell, go lower. I know this is the start of something bad. So yeah, I'm worried. I want to be this person: Not this pers...

~*~*~This recipe is gluten free and vegan~*~*~ As are all my recipes Basil red pepper pasta with veggies: ( this is made with gluten-free, bionatura pasta, but can be made with whatever type of pasta you like): What you need: 1 serving of pasta (about a half cup dry) Half a yellow squash Half a zucchini 1/2 Inch thick slice of onion, chopped These were all done to taste: Garlic salt Black pepper Crushed red peppper Basil ( lots of it! ) 1 tbs oil Directions: Saute veggies in .5 tbls oil Boil pasta and drain Add veggies to pasta Add .5 tbls oil to pasta with the veggies added Season to taste. ( I use about a .5 tsp of garlic salt, 1tsp of red pepper, a dash of black pepper and .5-1 tbls of basil. Im a basil fiend. ) The finished product, again: I make this after work all the time. Its a fave. :)

So last night my bf says, "You look smaller. Your hips look smaller." I kind of disregarded it because my hips are normally one of the last things to go. ha. I'm pretty 'curvy' in general. ( my pics ) So this morning I decided to take my measurements again. I haven't taken them for awhile. I sadly don't think I took 'starting' measurements but I did take some a couple months ago. So, this is how much I've lost!: I've lost 3.5 inches off my bust! I've lost 2 inches off my waist I've lost 2 inches off my hips At the very least it's nice to see that I'm losing uniformly in regards to my current body shape (hourglass) cuz I would hate to lose the one good attribute to my body! ha.  My bust is generally 6 inches bigger than my waist and my hips are 9-10 inches bigger than my waist so my loss keeps all that in check. haha. ;)

Well, i thought it would be fitting to eat a salad and watch a documentary on obesity while i did my collage. Also my cat wanted to help. :) Here are a few pics of the finished product :    Everyone should check out the documentary Killer at Large.

I've decided to finally make an 'official' vision collage. My fridge has had quotes and pics and such on it for weight loss motivation for just over a year. But I was slacking. I'm gonna put stuff like motivational quotes, pictures of myself from now, before, and in 2004 when I was about 70 lbs thinner, little happy sayings and smiley faces. It'll be a good time. I'm gonna put it on my cork board. I'll do the top half maybe? Or the side? And use it more like a timeline. Maybe fill it all up and change it around as I lose and other things become important? I don't know. I just know I feel like this will be something important for me. My cork board currently has all this stuff on it: It's mostly really old stuff I'll be packing away in my memory box, that stuff is old me, it's time for new me. :)

So, I was trying to get into this study that focuses on diet and exercise that they are doing here in Pittsburgh. Anyhow, they did a bunch of blood test... I got my results!  *and this is what my face looks like right now!* They aren't too bad! I wish they were SLIGHTLY better...but...even though I was veggie for over a year, I was just recently vegan, so hopefully when they redo the test results in 6 months some values will be better.   These are fasting results: My sugar was 111, a little high, it needs to be between 70-99, but down 13 points from it's high. BUT: My A1c was only 5.5! Which is good! (three month reading of sugar) My cholesterol was slightly high at 209, needs to be below 200, and my HDL (good cholesterol) was a little low at 44. Needs to be 59+. She said exercise would help.  Triglycerides were good at 110. My two of my thyroid readings were good, one was slightly high, the T4, at 12.6. Should be between 5-12. She said it's not signific...

Breakfast was light today. Ha. Im hoping to get bf to go to lunch and a movie with me. I want p.f chang's Buddha's feast! Veggies, rice, and tofu. Mmmmmm :) this post is mostly me just seeing if the blogger app for my phone works. ;)

I've never been successful with weight loss. It's difficult to even try and imagine yourself a success at something that you've tried and failed so miserably at so many times in your life. It doesn't feel real. But, you've got to start somewhere. I'm keeping a list of my small successes and milestones. I figure the only way to get to feeling like I am a success at this, is to keep track and give myself a pat on the back for even the smallest success. They will all add up. 1.) Remain binge free for 30 days-- CHECK!   2.) Lose 20 lbs -- CHECK!   3.) Make exercise a part of my life -- CHECK!   4.) Stay 100% On Plan throughout Thanksgiving. -- CHECK!   5.) Get back down to the weight requirement so that I can use the elliptical (250 lbs) --   6.) Get back to my (2nd) shocking high weight, 275 lbs-- CHECK!   7.) Get back to my FIRST shocking high weight, 260 lbs! -- CHECK!   8.) Remain binge free for ANOTHER 30 days! -- CHECK! (60 days down!)   9.) ...

I can't tell you how many times I've embarked on a new Way of Eating and said to myself, "This feels like it'll be it, this feels like this will be the last time I have to do this." Only to fall 'off the wagon' a few months later and disappoint myself once again. If you have a weight problem, I'm sure you've been there. I won't say this is the last time. Talk is cheap anyhow. 2008 is when all of the changes started to happen that brought me to where I currently am. I was sitting in the docs office, thinking about how I thought I weighed 275 lbs. Below is a pic of me actually at 275 lbs. I dreaded the scale. Then I thought wow, these jeans are a little tight...When they weighed me I weighed 299 lbs. That day, everything changed. It had to. First, I was devastated and of course against my better judgement I met my bf at Quiznos and pigged out. He asked how the appt went, but I didn't want to talk about it. Me at 299 lbs That night...