Working Out Like a Girl

I've been blogging for a year now, and there have always been way more women weight loss/health bloggers than men. And dieting has been a traditionally female thing to do. Not that I think it should be. In fact, I think dieting and exercise for the purposes of losing weight has been so cast as something only women do that men are hesitant to pursue weight loss, especially publicly. I can't think of many reasons why there were so few men at Weight Watchers meetings when I was a member a few years ago (women often came to the meetings with their daughters, sisters, and female friends, but almost never their husbands or brothers or sons). I can't think of many other reasons why there are only two weight loss blogs authored by men on my Blogger, and one of them (there are more, I'm sure, but I haven't stumbled across them yet). And this has to be the only reason that I'd have a conversation like this with my fiance (I'm in the green bubbles, he's in the grey ones):

Since he thinks Jillian is girly-girl dancing around, I can. not. WAIT. for him to try her workout. Dustin is going down.

Road Trippin'

Okay, the paper is almost done, the novel is being read, and all I have left to do this week is turn in said paper and teach said novel. Friday morning almost here! Travel day. I get to go home to my family, to my boyfriend, to a beautifully brined Turkey and delicious stuffing. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, especially when I haven't seen my boyfriend in a little over a month, and my parents and brother in over three!

The downside? The drive. Oxford is about 8 hours (480-something miles) away from Augusta, and I have to go through both Birmingham and Atlanta. Pretty much the rest of the way is farmland.

But I cope. I've got my road trip music (satellite radio is the *best!*), I'll have my cats in the front seat next to me (in their carrier), I'll be wearing comfy road clothes, gas is back down to the $2 range across the southeast, and I've got a few quarters saved for a diet coke.

One problem. Road food. I'm pretty good about not stopping for fast food. The fact that I try to hit the road before 7 helps curb that temptation a lot! By the time I get to Birmingham, it's still to early for lunch, and when I hit Atlanta, I've only got two hours before Augusta, so I might as well wait for the meal Moms cooked for me. But here's my downfall: when I stop for gas (I drive a Japanese economy car, so I only have to stop 2 or 3 times--I can get to Augusta on just a little more than a tank), but at each stop, I tend to buy chips, a candy bar, maybe an ice cream cone, and a diet soda. Whoah! That is far too many bad calories in one completely inactive day. Plus, it leaves me feeling more groggy than driving past 8 hours of farmland does!

So what do I pack? What do you guys rely on for healthy, energizing road food?

Family Ties

I just got off the phone with my mother. Who was slightly inebriated. After drinking half of a margarita. The other half she spilled on my dad's lap. It was a 20-minute conversation that I spent listening to her laugh hysterically. About what? I have no idea. But it was funny.

We do a lot of things like our mothers. I, thank goodness, require just a few more drinks (read: one full margarita, instead of half) to be slap-happy drunk, but once I get there, I, too, laugh like a moron at everything I see. If I can't be a happy drunk, I don't want to be a drunk at all. My mom and I are fabulous together on the rare occasion we drink together (a shared bottle of muscadine wine and you've got yourself a show).

But I'm not just a happy drunk like my mother, I clean like my mother. I cook dinner like my mother, and wash the dishes like her. I argue like my mother, I laugh at the same jokes my mother laughs at. But I eat like my father. That is to say, mindlessly. Anything in front of me is fair game, unless of course, it's healthy.

We all gain weight pretty much the same way--slowly, consistently, and with little notice until one of us points at each other's asses and says, "Hey, your ass is HUGE!" Well, my dad and I get our bellies pointed at; my mother, her ass. We're apples, she's a pear. Together, we're a veritable fruit salad. (And my brother? He's the toothpick we all hate.)

There came a time when I decided that I didn't want to do everything the way my dad does. I stopped going to his church in favor of finding my own. Dad still pretends to be disgruntled when I announce that I'm one of the bleeding heart feminist liberals he hates so much (even though he's voting for Obama next Tuesday!), and he can't understand why on earth I gave up my biology major in favor of studying American Literature (we won't even get into how amazed he is I'm going to Ole Miss when he graduated from Mississippi State--the rivalry is FIERCE, and their game the Saturday after Thanksgiving is going to be funny as hell).

So, if I'm okay with voting, worshiping, and thinking very differently from my parents, why do I insist on keeping up their unhealthy habits? My dad eats because food is there--for this reason, I don't keep unhealthy foods in the house. When I do, they're gone within days. My mom eats because she's stressed or upset. I'm breaking this habit, but I need to learn to work off my emotions with some other constructive activity. Neither exercise, and I quit working out about a month before I moved to Oxford. And why? Because I'm busy, or I can't afford it, or ice cream tastes really good. The same reasons my parents give. It's time to break the chain.

Owie.

I realize I've been a bit inconsistent with the blogging lately- I apologize! I finally got caught up with last week's schoolwork, only to have the kitties chew through the cable to my power adapter for my laptop, so I couldn't use my laptop, even though I had the time.

I did weigh-in this morning, and it's been falling steadily (by .2 lb increments) all week, so I am lighter this week, but by how much, I can't say. I don't remember!

Unfortunately, emotionally, I'm not much better off. I do want to thank Inny, Crystal, Karyn, and Kathleen for the positive vibes sent my way on my last post. I'm trying!!!! I've been trying to stay strong, trying to keep my mind off how much I miss Dustin, but it's not working. In fact, today, I'm pretty much losing it, which I hate to admit. In class tonight, just in passing, a classmate mentioned talking about our assignment with his wife. Seriously, I almost lost it, right then in there. And he only mentioned talking about his homework!

I finally got my new power adapter in the mail this afternoon when I got home from class, so of course, the first thing I do is get on Skype and start a video chat with Dustin. I *REALLY* lost it then. I can't help it! Tonight was his mom's birthday, so their whole family have been enjoying a night of celebration. I want to be there. Or, I want them to be here.

And of course, me feeling miserable means I want to stuff my face. Thank goodness I don't have any more junk in the house, because I could seriously go for some ice cream and Doritos right now. I'm trying to convince myself NOT to go to the grocery store for that junk! It's like I told Dustin tonight, when he asked how eating bad food makes sense to me when I feel bad (oh to not be an emotional eater!), "If I can't be happy on the inside, I want to put happy in my mouth." Which sounds dirty, I just realized. But that's really how I'm operating right now. I feel a little stress, a whole lotta missing my hunny, and all I can think about doing to ease the misery is moose tracks ice cream and cool ranch doritos.

Ack, I grumbled and mumbled again. I promise some happiness for my next post!!!

10%, Gone. Forever. Amen.

If I were a Weight Watchers member, I'd be getting a token of some sort. Since January 1st of this year, I've lost a total of 21.6 pounds, or just a tad bit more than 10% of my original body weight of 214 pounds.

I'll never forget that day I visited my doctor in December. It was for my yearly ladies' exam, and as much as we all hate those, I've got a really awesome OB/GYN. She's non-judgmental, honest, and is always open to listening to my health needs. It had been a long, hard semester. I'd be graduating in the spring, and I was busy trying to put together all my grad school applications, write my honor's thesis, keep my apartment from falling apart, trying to keep my job together (I was the secretary for a small church that had a terrible pastor for only 6 months. I got all the reverb from those miserable 6 months). I'd been gaining weight steadily since my last bout with Weight Watchers in 2006. I'd been with Dustin for about 8 months, and the evidence of our many restaurant dates hung uncomfortably on my middle. And more, I was feeling, emotionally, miserable. I was happy with school, and head over heels in love with Dustin, but I was beginning to let my self-esteem slip back to middle-school levels, which is to say, really, really bad. I was irritable, easily frustrated, and completely dependent on others (mainly Dustin) to keep me happy and thinking positively about myself.

I shouldn't have been suprised when April (my ob/gyn) told me, rather frankly, I needed to watch my weight. She asked me how I'd been eating, how I was handling my stress, and after I told her how I was doing pretty miserably with both, she matter-of-factly told me what kinds of foods I should be eating and that it would help me both physically and emotionally to find an outlet for my stress. I cried as I left her office, feeling like I'd completely failed myself. I kept replaying the nurse's face as she scribbled my weight on my chart. She didn't grimace or scoff, but I was horrified, more at myself than what she thought. 214 was the heaviest I'd ever been, and I realized how quickly that number could continue to rise.

For a month or so, I continued to beat myself up, aware that I needed to change my habits, but not ready to do anything about it. I don't even know what snapped in my mind, but Dustin and I started going to the gym at our school together. I began using the Weight Watchers system as a rough guide for my diet. I started this blog, and reading others. I joined SparkPeople.com. And the weight started coming off. More importantly, I was feeling so much better. So much healthier. So much more alive.

Towards the end of the spring semester, my upcoming graduation (and all the stress entailed) consumed my energies, and I let myself slowly slip away from all my progress. The 15 pounds or so I'd lost since January were slowly adding back on. I was preparing to move to Oxford, Miss (to go to Ole Miss for my Masters), and I just didn't think I could handle both trying to lose weight and preparing for grad school. In these three or four months, I continued to read blogs and I usually cooked healthily at home, so I only gained 5 or 6 pounds back.

Slowly, I'm learning that my goal is not to lose weight. It's not be a size 10, or to be skinny, or to even look sexy in a swimsuit (although those things must be very, very nice). I want to be healthy. I want to be vibrant and alive throughout all of my life, and I want my life to be long. I want to enjoy all the days I get to spend with Dustin and my family and friends. I want to feel confident in my body; I want it to reflect the beautiful and spunky person I truly am. I feel held back by the condition I've let my body come to, and I want to let myself grow out of it. So really, although I typically talk about this blog as a weight-loss blog, it's really not that. It's about letting myself grow.

Week 8 Weigh In (and Friday Night Excitement!)

Okay, the weigh-in first. Due to some serious lack of motivation last week, I didn't weigh in. This week accounts for both last week's losses and this week's. I'm down to 197.6, a total of 13.4 pounds lost. I'm truly surprised by this, because I've been really slacking. For week 7, I wrote down a total of 3 days. 3. I've had cookies and brownies for lunch and breakfast several times. And last night, I had a Blue Moon, and 2 1/2 glasses of champagne.

The reason for the champagne? I got into Ole Miss' Masters of English program! They couldn't give me any financial aid just yet, but I'm supposed to wait until later in the semester to find out if any will open up. Even if it doesn't, the tuition is fairly cheap (even for out-of-state) and it's definitely do-able. I just need to figure out if I want to do it. It's amazing what you think you're ready for, and then once the possibility opens up, the gravity of your decision kicks you in the gills. Going to Ole Miss would be a huge move for me--my family and friends and boyfriend would be 8 hours and a drive across Alabama away. I'd be committing myself to at least 2 more years of thesis writing. I've been a ball of nerves since last night when I read the letter. I've got a big decision ahead of me, and I would really appreciate any thoughts / prayers / karma / energy you guys could send my way. At this point, I could go either way with my decision and I don't know which way is the right way. This is making me want lemon-peppercorn french fries.

After I got the acceptance, I called my mom, thinking I sounded totally chill, and told her that Dustin and I would be stopping by for a bit. "Sure," she said, "we'll be here." She opened the door, we sat on the couch, and I told her and my dad I had something to tell them. My mom didn't look the least bit surprised, and once I told her I got in, she looked even less surprised and brought out the bottle of champagne she'd had on ice since she got of the phone with me. How do mothers do that?