Confession

I'll go head and admit it; I'm pretty proud of myself today.

I got back in Oxford last night, with my car absolutely loaded with stuff, and my fridge completely empty. But no more.

I came home from the grocery today with no fewer than 11 different kinds of produce: salad, bananas, tangerines, an avocado, a mango, green peppers, zucchini, squash, onions, sweet potatoes, and a russet.

I've made my meal plan for this week, there is absolutely no junk food in the house. And tonight? Craving pizza after organizing my schoolwork, setting up my desk so I'll actually use it, putting together a bookshelf (this makes three, now, and I need a fourth), I didn't order a pizza. I made an omelet out of all those fresh veggies I bought.

And tomorrow? Inauguration day. It's gonna be a good week.

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.

Gratitude.

I'll admit, I'm a bit of a grumpus. I complain. I stress. I let things get to me. I try to at least be funny about it, but the fact remains that I'm negative way more than I should be. So I try to be grateful. I'm not as cool as Oprah as to keep an actual gratitude journal, but I am learning to stop and meditate on the little kind actions people take when they don't have to.

I had an optometrist's appointment yesterday (I have the worst vision...I can't see anything clearly if it's not 6 inches in front of my face). I was Dr. Strickland's first patient, and I got into the office even before his office employees did. He greeted me as I came in, and did the most thorough eye exam I've ever gotten. He was more than a good optician, though. He was interested in my life, and talked to me like I was important. I've got a follow-up appointment with him next week, and so he gave me his business card. On the back, there was a handwritten note wishing me the best in my studies, as well as him telling me how glad he was to meet me.

I have a classmate who I've yet to see in a bad mood. I've never heard him utter a mean word about anyone.

Last week, we had a rainy day, and a passing professor (who they didn't know) gave some of my students his umbrella.

Dustin drove 17 hours (round trip) just to spend a weekend with me.

This may be a stretch, but I think that one of the hindrances to my striving to be healthy is my attitude. Failing to recognize the things I should be grateful for regularly tends to put me in a bad mood, especially after a long or exhausting day. When I'm in a bad mood, I make unhealthy decisions. Being stressed and constantly negative is itself unhealthy. I know this about myself: the more I focus on the good things I life, the less significant the bad things are. This is not to say that I ignore the problems in my life, but that I give them the weight they deserve, and no more.

I end with a quote, and a ridiculously cute picture.

The happiness of a man in his life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. -Alfred Lord Tennyson

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.

Note:

If your boyfriend sends you an awesomebox (a care package), it's probably not smart to eat a Little Debbie Nutty-Buddy-Bar before you've eaten anything else.

Also, for future planning, keep a bra and small bottle of mouthwash within reach of your bed, so you'll be prepared when your doorbell wakes you up.

5 Things

5 Things About Me That Affect My Health:

1. I do not handle stress well. (i.e. I use food to calm me down and make me feel good.)
2. If I do not have a plan for every meal, I will not make good spontaneous decisions.
3. If I mess up early in the week, I will most likely bollox up everything else until the new week starts.
4. I celebrate with food.
5. I rely on others to help me make good decisions, and if I am not blogging or talking to those close to me about decisions concerning my health, I am digging myself into a pit of mistakes.

Let's sum it up:
Stress - Plan - Candid Support --> Stress^2 + Bad Decisions = a 1.8 lb gain + a whole lotta regret + Jabba the Hut-like grodiness.

I'm slowly beginning to realize that I can't treat this as a race, a marathon, or even a competition against myself. I'm in this for my health, for my life, for my happiness. (And I am beyond sick of seeing giant 200's on the scale. Why did I buy a scale with such a large display?)