My Grim Outlook

The past couple of days have been very busy for me. Turns out occupying my time with production keeps me away from the fridge (for longer intervals anyway). So, for the most part things have been good. Today I had a job cleaning our rental apartment and I was breaking a sweat (which is a rare occurrence for me). I had a little bowl of captain crunch cereal with some 2% milk. I usually drink skim or 1% but we ran out. Then I had 3/4 of a mountain dew. I wasn't too hungry when I came home but I looked in the fridge out of habit. Later I popped in 2 bite-sized shortbread cookies while dinner was cooking: shrimp stir-fry and rice. It was a much smaller portion than I usually gobble down and I felt rather satisfied. My sister-in-law later forced me to drink a delicious glass of white wine and I topped it off with one chocolate covered macadamia nut. So, not the most nutritious day but overall I think I did rather well considering I can sit down to 3 hearty meals plus snacks in between. My hope is tomorrow will be a more health conscious day without focusing on quantity only.

I'm still not excited about exercising even though I had a scary vision thanks to a woman working at the laundromat yesterday. As laundromats can have that time slowing effect as you literally wait for water to dry, I found myself observing every little thing. I noticed this older woman, maybe in her 60's pulling out clothes from a dryer and saw she had some nice legs for a woman her age. She was wearing shorts but the large top half didn't match the bottom, like she was 2 different people. She reminded me of me. I have an apple shaped figure (which according to Dr. Oz means trouble) and I've gotten a lot of compliments on my legs over the years...especially from my husband. But the other 2/3rds of my body is disproportionate to my apparently sexy stems. I thought that she could be me someday if I don't do something about my weight. That's definitely not a future I want to look forward to.

To make matters worse, I was flipping through the channels yesterday with my 2-year-old and I paused on the "Shimmy" program on fitTV aka belly dancing. My son says, "Go, mommy. Go do it." So, I obeyed and like a toddler had the attention span of 5 minutes until it went to commercial. I did like it so maybe I'll try it again tomorrow...for 10 minutes.

Why I Eat

Mostly because I'm hungry. But also when I'm bored, frustrated, sad, moody, anxious, happy, the list goes on. It's not just comfort foods that comfort me, it's all food. I need to ask myself, why do I need so much comfort? Frankly, I think I get enough comfort in my life and it's like money, the more you have the more you want. I'm just plain greedy with my desire for food. Maybe if I have an action plan for doing other things instead of stuffing my face when I'm feeling emotional that would be helpful.

I love to do so many things and a lot of times I'm overwhelmed by everything that I turn to food because it something I can start and finish in one sitting. I have all these responsibilities that I'm juggling that I can't even afford to blink. Food is simple and makes me feel better. My guess is if I can organize all the chaos in my life I won't feel so overwhelmed.

Here's some things I could do when I'm feeling like I need to do some emo-eating:

Journal, read, garden, play with my kids, nap, scrapbook, organize paperwork, clean, call a friend, sew, build my business, paint my nails, laugh.

I need to see how much food occupies not only my stomach but my time and my mind as well. There's so many more productive things I can be doing rather than thinking about what I want to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between.

Today, I had no desire to exercise. I tried on a pair of shorts I used to wear a lot a few months ago and can't zip up anymore. I didn't eat until 11:30 in the morning and had 3 pieces of leftover chicken katsu, a handful of rice and a spoonful of macaroni salad. Then, I ate 2 handfuls of pistachio nuts, a couple of macadamia nuts and 2 spoons of haagen daz butter pecan ice cream. Looks like I'm literally going nuts! For dinner I had a cup of rice and some richly butter basted turkey breast and a slice of dark meat with a bacon-potato salad and a little heap of canned corn. As I'm writing this I want to open up the new pint of ice cream I bought before new year's. But, I'm going to resist the urge and finish my glass of ice water, take a shower and cuddle up with my husband and baby boy.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get up the nerve to do some yoga.

Fat Again In Twenty Ten

Ugh! Here I am starting a new year with the same old resolution: Lose weight. I've thoroughly enjoyed our Thanksgiving & Christmas feasts & festivities and now my fat pants don't fit. I refuse to buy any new clothes in a bigger size because I know it'll just encourage me to fill those out too. I'm a good 20lbs overweight and have been for a long time. I'm 31, married with 5 kids. I absolutely despise exercise and love food especially the salty, fried, cheesy carb loaded kinds. I'm hoping to change my lifestyle and not just lose the weight.

It's been really hard because I fool myself when I'm hungry that I'm not that fat. But, when it's Saturday night and I'm getting ready to go out with my husband I hate trying to squeeze myself into bulge revealing outfits. I have some serious bipolar feelings about my weight & body image. If I'm not looking directly in the mirror, I think I look thinner than a lot of other women in the world. Then I pass by a store window and see my reflection and deny that the fat person looking back at me is well, me.

So, my hope is this blog will help me to come to terms with the truth and stop living in denial. I'm fat and I need to get healthy. Especially for the sake of my family. I don't want to be carrying around this extra weight any longer and really want next year's resolution to be anything other than losing weight. Maybe getting out of debt!