I haven’t stopped reading blogs and I haven’t given up my healthy lifestyle.  I just had quite the year.  I didn’t stop on purpose, it just kind of happened.

I’m not comfortable blogging here anymore, so I’ve moved.  I recently started a new blog and if you are interested in reading it, please email me at dust_cover [at] hotmail [dot] com and I will send you the link.

I figured I’d put this up here, just in case anyone ever checked to see if I’ve updated.

Catch you all on the flip side!

I have every intention of blogging more in the coming year.  My life is settling back into a routine – the move is out-of-the-way, my relationship is steady and calm-like (in a good way), family stuff is sorting itself out and I’ve managed to hit the gym a few times in the last couple of weeks.

My weight was up a bit (7 lbs – those darn 7 lbs!) when I did my December weigh in last week, but I’m trying not to worry.  I have moments where I feel intensely discouraged, and then sane moments when I sit back and recognize the truth: it’s the holidays.  It’s the time of year where I’m so busy that meal planning and cooking for myself is infinitely more difficult.  It’s the time of year where parties are a-plenty and yummy treats are being offered at every turn.

Gaining weight is not good for my brain.  Even though I know it’s normal and even though I’m still trying to make the best of EACH INDIVIDUAL SITUATION, gaining weight makes me feel like a failure.  I’m reminding myself that I’m not a failure by any stretch of the imagination, I’m banning negative self-talk and I’m getting through. 

At this time of year, it’s what I can do.

So in that spirit, I wish you success over the holiday season – but I urge you to make it the kind of success that is healthy, mentally.  Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not perfect because you can’t be.  You can only be you.

Things in my life are so awesome.  Not good, but awesome.  Blogging has taken a bit of backseat because of that.  I might apologize here, but I’m not going to.  I love to blog, but not at the expense of living my real life.  I do miss you all, and I plan to get back to regular blog writing as much as possible.

I’m still maintaining my weight loss – I was within two pounds of my goal weight at my November weigh in and received Lifetime membership at Weight Watchers.  I am so proud of myself.  Sometimes I pull my Lifetime card out of my wallet and just stare at it.  It’s still like some kind of dream.

Another dream come true is that I have been hired by Weight Watchers!  The territory manager for my area approached me one of my weigh in days and asked me if I would be interested in becoming a leader.  OF COURSE I SAID YES!!!  I’m so excited.  I’ve completed my two days of leader training and my mentoring sessions start next week, along with the launch of the new program in Canada.  I’m so excited about the new program!  I’m not really allowed to dish the details but it’s amazing.  It is such a SMART program and I truly believe that when members get on-board with it, they’re going to love it.

I have finished my house – all the painting is done and all the unpacking is complete.  My room mates and I hosted a very successful housewarming party two weeks ago and celebrated being home.  It was very nice.

I’m also in love.  It’s new and exciting and terrifying, all at once.  I’m not super comfortable sharing all the details of my personal life online, but rest assured, I’ve never been happier.  I’ve never felt this way about anyone in my entire life.

My only complaint lately is my fitness routine.  I’ll admit it, I did really well when I first moved – I was managing to hit the gym or run around outside at least two or three times a week.  But then, the holiday season started, I started feeling like I had no time for myself and poof!  No more workouts.

I miss being fit!  And I can definitely notice a difference in the way my body looks and feels – even though I’m the same weight, eight weeks of not moving enough has left me feeling…softer.  Or something.  I don’t like it.  So, the plan to get back to my old ways (funny, my old ways USED to be the way I’ve been living lately) right away.  I’m headed to spinning tonight and Thursday and I’m all set to hit yoga on Saturday.  I figure I’ll get three sessions (two cardio, one strength or flexibility) in per week until after the holidays and then I should be able to do a bit more.

Tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of me changing my life.  It’s been a wild two years, and there were some dark times, but it’s all been worth it.  I’m the best “me” I’ve ever been.

I was down a pound on Tuesday, but I’m sure I’ll be up this week.  It’s Canadian Thanksgiving and there was turkey.  And sweet potatoes.  And pumpkin pie.  And apple pie.

I’ve been eating mostly well throughout the rest of the week, but the scale doesn’t lie and I still have been too busy painting and unpacking to make it to the gym.

How’s this for the lamest check-in ever?

It’s behind me.  I’ve been binge-free for two days now, which to me is more important than hitting my calorie target.  I attended my step-fathers funeral yesterday and managed to indulge in some baked goods from the sweet tray, but I had anticipated this and eaten very lightly prior to going.  I counted what I ate and I’m satisfied with how I managed a pretty stressful event.

I have some really stressful things coming up, I’ve got to finish packing, I’m moving and there is still a ton of work left to do on the  house.  But I’m going to get through it.  I’m going to focus on the small moments, rather than the big picture, and I’m going to make it through this.

I will not use my stress as an excuse to binge eat.  I’m making this statement here so that I can come back and read it if I need to.  That is going to be my focus.  I can’t expect that my eating is going to be perfect in this topsy-turvy time, but if I can just get through this without binge eating, I will be proud and satisfied.

Wish me luck.

I feel like a bad blogger lately.  Worse, I feel like a bad WEIGHT LOSS blogger lately.

My life is a bit messy right now and it’s definitely having an impact on my ability to live a healthy life.  I don’t like it.  At all.

The biggest thing that’s going on is that I’m moving.  Yay, right?  Except that the problems began when my roommates and I started house hunting.  I am moving to the small city that I work in, to save myself a two-hour round-trip commute every day.  I had the idea of moving in the back of my head when I took this new job in April and I wanted to be living here before the snow started to fall and the drive got REALLY treacherous. 

We began house hunting.  It meant staying very late in Brampton, which meant either missing dinner, eating dinner at 11 pm, or eating out.  I ate out a lot.  Now, I hit maintenance during this period of eating out constantly, so I was making some good solid choices, but still.  I don’t like to eat out.  It’s a bad habit I had to work hard to break, and I find that falling back into one bad habit has a nasty way of leading back into OTHER bad habits.  Just me?

My roommates and I found a place.  We signed the lease, we divvied up the bedrooms and we prepared to move in.

Moving is stressful. 

We wanted to paint basically the entire house before we moved in – to make it ours, and to not live in a white box.  There has been many late nights (I’m so tired these days that I feel like I’m walking through water at all times), lots of takeout and many, many decisions to be made.

I haven’t been making the best ones.  My eating these last two weeks has been pretty atrocious.  I have been eating the things I want, but are not so good for me.  I have also had some run-ins with my old friend, the binge.  I am a compulsive eater, I know this, but it always surprises me to find out how hungry I am when I’m stressed out.

Then, on Friday, my step-father passed away.  He was 49 and had a massive heart attack.  We have a complicated back story, which I would like to talk about here someday when my life calms down enough for me to really reflect on what happened, and I dealt with his death by staying calm and supportive and strong for my family.  I held hands, hugged, and was the shoulder to cry on for many people. 

Then on the two-hour drive home, I went through a McDonald’s drive-thru.  I knew I wasn’t hungry.  I knew I was eating because I was sad and angry and hollow.  I did it anyway.  I got a Big Mac and french fries.  When I was done, I had an ice cream cone.  It was not my finest moment.

However, while I was eating my ice cream, I realized something.

I use stress as my EXCUSE to binge.

Here’s the thing: I”m not certain that I binge because I’m stressed, or I use the excuse of stress to have a binge.  I enjoy bingeing.  It’s so weird to say that, but it’s true.  I like giving myself permission to eat large quantities of food that is not good for me.

So while I was driving through the drive-thru, I wasn’t panicked and wanting to eat.  I was thinking that the situation I was in, the moving, the death in the family, the new relationship I’ve started (oh yeah, there’s that huge stress too, even though it’s a good one), it was all stuff that would lead to anyone to have a mental breakdown.  Being me, I deal with my mental breakdowns by eating.  Therefore, a binge was in order.

Yeah.

I need to figure this out.  I’m determined to be within two pounds of my goal weight in three weeks so I can hit maintenance.  I’m weighing in today (I skipped last week – the first time I’ve deliberately missed a weigh in since I started Weight Watchers in Dec ’08) and I’m going to see what two weeks of eating whatever, whenever and never making it to the gym has done to me.

It won’t be pretty, but I will face it and move on.  I am stronger than this and I am worth the effort it takes to make my life better.

I’m scarce around these parts lately, I’m in the midst of some big changes in my life, which I really do want to share with everyone, but I’m so busy! 

I will post again by the end of the week with a proper update, including how maintenance is going. 

In the meantime, I hope everyone is having a good week!

I HIT GOAL AT WEIGHT WATCHERS!!

That’s right!

I have no idea how I managed to lose 7 lbs in two weeks.  I had an enormous loss last week and went to my weigh in anticipating staying the same or even a small gain.  Again, I didn’t eat on a schedule.  I didn’t binge eat, I didn’t plan for every single solitary thing that MIGHT happen.  I just did my normal thing.  The thing where I feel like I’m just like everyone else.  I may even have done a thing where I went to a dance club and had a few too many beer.

I stepped on the scale and the number came up:

I just stood there.  In shock.  I honestly thought I had been struck dumb.  It was…bizarre.  Then, I said (like a moron), “I think I just hit goal”.  There was literally no one else in the Weight Watchers except me because I’ve been going to weigh in on my lunch hour.  The receptionist looked down at my file and agreed that I had, indeed, hit goal.  I jumped off the scale, turned in a weird circle (like a dog, how amazing) and then ran around the counter and hugged the receptionist.  I then burst into tears.  I literally could not stop crying for about ten minutes.

She took this picture of me:

I stood there for another few minutes and then I left.  I’m waiting till next week to get my At Goal key chain thing because I want to go to my regular meeting and get it there.  That’s very important to me.  I need to celebrate and share with the wonderful people who were there for me and supported me all along this thing.

I feel…incredible.  It’s made all the more sweeter by the fact that I feel like I had a real breakthrough over these last few weeks.  I’m not saying that it’s not going to be work to keep the weight off, but I don’t feel like it’s going to be impossible or that it’s going to be a constant battle.

I feel like I know how to really listen to my body.  I’m sure that there will be days when this is harder than others, but I feel like I can do this.  I feel like I can be normal.  I’m going to continue to follow Weight Watchers, counting points and tracking my food.  I’m going to continue doing all the exercise that I love so much: running, biking, hiking, spinning, yoga, Zumba etc.  I’m going to continue to live my active, healthy life.  And I’m going to continue to be happy.

I’m going to continue to blog here – I love writing about the things I’m doing and I’m also really aware of how much accountability was gained by posting.  I also feel like blogging is a weird kind of therapy.  I work out my issues while I’m writing.

In the meantime, I leave you with these two images.  One was taken a month before I started this and the other was taken last Saturday.  They speak for themselves:

I must have looked pretty crazy.

First, let me explain.

I did something to my knee last Wednesday when I was running.  I’m not sure what I did because I figured I would see a doctor only if it got worse.  It didn’t, it just kind of ached inside.  I took basically the rest of the week off from the gym, only hitting yoga last night.

Every morning I would evaluate how my knee felt and it never felt 100%.  I don’t want a real injury that will sideline me, so I took it easy.

I listened to my body.

I also decided that this week I was going to count points, but I was going to do it in an intuitive eating-type fashion.  I did not eat on a schedule, I ate when I was hungry.  It’s so revolutionary! 

I was extremely busy this week with friends, which helped stave off the loneliness that I’m pretty sure is at the root of my binge eating, but we did stuff that I would might have said no to before I made the conscious effort to relax and just let the weight loss happen.

I went for sushi one night last week.  I went to a patio and had a regular beer (as in, not light beer).  I shopped, attended a concert, found the word’s best cookie and just lived my life as I feel a “normal” person would.  Normal, being someone who does not suffer from compulsive and binge eating.

I lost 4 lbs this week.

4 LBS!!

This is why I had a complete laugh attack upon viewing the number on the scale.

I keep having to relearn my own lessons over and over: weight loss is mostly mental.  I’ve said it again and again, but I keep forgetting and then reminding myself. 

In this spirit, I”m not going to make a big deal of this loss.  I’m just going to keep living my life in its current healthy fashion.  No celebrations, no giant declarations of momentum, no planning for the last of the pounds to come off. 

Just my life.

I’m up a pound this week, which is annoying but I’ve accepted that I’m sort of in a plateau.  I’m choosing to do this Bitch Cakes-style and reframe the crap out of it.

I’m choosing to think of this back and forth, so close to goal, yet so far away as a way to practice maintenance.  I’m still doing all my healthy things – eating right, getting lots of exercise and taking care of myself.  It’s just not happening for me.  Oh well.  It could be worse.  Bugging myself about it and drafting plans to get through it was not working.  As I mentioned a week or so ago, I’m just going with the flow on these last pounds.

That’s part of my transition I think.  I need to be getting my head around the idea that this is life.  It’s real and present and it can’t be avoided.  I don’t live in a bubble and I don’t think that any of you do either. 

Whatever this is, I’m not flipping out about it anymore.  It was driving me crazy to obsess over these last pounds and I’m just NOT DOING IT ANYMORE.  They’ll come off.  It’s just a matter of time.

I’m exhausted today – I took the night off and am headed up to have a hot bath and wear some kind of facemask.  I’m going to curl up with a good book, ignore the pile of dishes and go to bed early.  I’ve earned it.