Frustrated

So as you may remember, a bit over a month ago I started doing some walk/jogging in my VFF's.  The first day I was sore in both my hips.  Eventually the right side was all better, but the left is STILL bothering me.  Any type of movement where I have to lift my left leg, or even sitting for a while makes it hurt.  I just want it to get better so I can workout the way I want to.  Jogging is out since that is how I hurt it in the first place, the elliptical kills me, any walking up hills hurts (which is almost any direction around here).  I'm so sick of this!  I hate that no matter what I do, *something* is always in my way.  I can't afford $50 a month to join the Y where I could have access to a pool to workout.  So I just don't know WHAT to do in order to get in enough exercise. 

Why is it so hard for me?

So hard to just decide to DO IT, that is.  I hear so many stories of people and their success at losing weight.  And for me, it just never really clicks.  I say I want to, I'll try to do better, but in the end I never really do.  My drive to lose the weight is obviously not anywhere near as strong as my drive to eat chocolate.  I want my health to be more important to me than the power that food holds over me, but I can't seem to get to that place in my head where I think of that before I put food in my mouth or make up some excuse for not exercising.

I wish I could wake up in the morning and just decide that I'm going to do everything in my power to reach my goals.  I know everyone has setbacks, but I seem to have them every day, quite often multiple times a day.  I'm not doing everything I could be doing, not even close.  Maybe I decide in the morning that I'm going to have a great day, but by mid-afternoon I've already something to screw that up.  I know that's part of the perfectionist in me, if something can't be dong RIGHT according to my own very high standards, then I just don't try...because you can't fail at something you haven't even tried.  So even though I say I'm trying and maybe even think I'm trying, really I'm not because of my aversion to failure.

Well this weekend sucked

It started on Friday when we went out to dinner, had a big burger and fries, and a strawberry lemonade to drink.  I ordered the light lemonade, but that was about the extent of my trying to save on calories.  Then we went out to dinner again on Saturday, this time chinese food.  Probably better than the burger, but not by much.  Sunday, the 4th of July, we always go eat at Fuddruckers and park in the parking lot of the shopping center there for fireworks.  I had chicken strips, fried of course, with their ranch dressing.  I cannot resist their ranch dressing, it is SO good.  I drench every bite of chicken and french fries with it.  We also had a shake, and some cookies.  And then there was the rice crispie bars and cheerio bars my husband made.  Plus some chips and other crap thrown in. 

*sigh*

Needless to say my stomach felt awful.  While it all tasted very good at the time, it's so hard to remember how crappy you're going to feel afterward.

But it's a new week, and I'm trying to be better.  Not to shabby on the food today, and I did a quick 1 mile Leslie Sansone walk.  Not much, but baby steps.

Yesterday I tried to go for a bike ride.  I say "tried" because it really didn't go very well.  I go for the first lap around the block.  O....M....G.  I thought I was going to die.  I thought I was going to have to get off the bike and walk it back home.  It didn't take me long to realize that the seat was WAY too low for me and it was next to impossible to pedal, no matter what gear I had it in.  So I somehow manage to make it home, and have C adjust the seat for me.

And, off I go again on another lap.  Well, things were marginally better this time.  The pedalling was slightly easier with the seat higher, but I was still having a huge struggle to get the bike anywhere.  If I put it in an easy gear it just felt like I was pedalling and pedalling and pedalling and not getting anywhere.  If I put it in a harder gear it felt like my legs were going to fall off trying to push them, and I still was barely moving.  Plus the seat was still not quite high enough, and the handle bars were too low, so my arms were killing me from putting too much weight on them.

Really, I though I might have a heart attack right there in the middle of the road.  And I kept thinking...I can walk for a long time, I can jog for short stretches, I can go to town on the elliptical for 30 minutes without keeling over, why in the hell can't I pedal this bike around the block even once???  I am convinced something is wrong with this stupid bike.  I even made C get on and ride it so that I could feel better about myself and know that it wasn't just me being seriously out of shape.  Thankfully for my pride, he also had a hard time.

He adjusted the seat and handle bars for me again, but I wasn't about to go another lap.  Just those 2 jaunts made me feel like my entire body was drained of energy.  I've done a lot of hard workouts in the past and those were nothing compared to this.  I've let Jillian kick my ass and that STILL was easier than riding that stupid bike.

So I'm back

I think I did pretty well.  My mom has a whole home gym practically...a treadmill, an elliptical, a Total Gym, the bike attachment for the Total Gym, plus hand weights and a tv/dvd so you can do a video workout or whatever.  I worked out 3 or 4 of the days I was there.  I probably ate way too much, but I know I had way less sugar than I normally would have.  Haven't gotten the chance to weigh myself since coming home because our scale needs a new battery. 

I started out the week paying close attention to what I was eating and when I was full, etc.  After a couple days I didn't really pay so much attention, I suppose that's easy to do on vacation though.  Overall I'm not upset with myself about how I ate when I was there.

I did notice some things though that may have given me some insights into the way I am and how I think about myself.  Most of them had to do with behaviors of my mother.  Things that maybe I picked up suboconsciously, like never really wanting to get involved in anything.  Not sure if it is a self-confidence issue with her, or if she thinks she's too fat.  But she seems to sit on the sidelines of life and watch other people.  Which is a lot like myself.  She also seems to play the "victim" a lot.  For example, she'll be having trouble with something (oh, the trash can for example, it could be anything)...after struggling for a bit she'll get all frustrated at my step-father like it's all his fault and he should have noticed and helped.  Not sure yet how that could relate to me, still thinking on it.

Back to where it all began

On the 21st, my 2 youngest kids and I are taking a trip to MN to visit my family.  I'm super excited about going, I can SO totally use a vacation!!!  But it's also a scary thing on the weight loss front.  Several years ago, back when I only had 2 kids and more time and energy and less mess and exhaustion, I lost 50 lbs.  This miracle happened *right* before I took a trip back to MN to visit my family.  I've never seen that weight again.  I started gaining it back and never have been able to lose any significant amount since. 

I'm sure there is some deep pyschological reason for that having to do with buried feelings and whatnot.  Whatever it is, it sucks!!

The last time I was there was when my youngest child was 2 months old.  A bunch of pictures were taken, pictures that I'd like to burn.  Unfortunately, I am not able to burn them from my memory.  I looked awful.  Now I know, I know, the whole "just had a baby thing" was certainly in play with my sagging abs.  But seriously, I am disgusted by what I looked like.

Problem is, I probably don't look much different now.  That was just a couple weeks after I had the awful Mirena IUD put in and subsequently gained 30 lbs.  I've only lost 24 of those 30 lbs, so I'm still heavier than I was in those horrid pictures.  Not looking forward to seeing any pictures of me this time.  *sigh*

I want this time to be different!  I have no control over how I'm going to look in the pictures this time, I am how I am and can't do anything to change that in 4 days.  But hopefully I won't look *quite* as bad as I did 2 months after giving birth.  And hopefully I will be able to come home from this trip and still continue losing weight.  Er, well maybe start losing weight again would be a better way to put it since I'm still stuck where I am.  I just don't want anything buried in my head from the past to come back and derail me again.

I am hoping to get in some exercise while I'm there, and I'm going to continue being aware of why I want to eat and if I'm truly hungry, and being aware of when I'm full and stop eating.  I feel like I'm making baby steps in those last things, but I'm slowly getting there.  Those things should be enough to get me through the week, and then I can work on the after effects when I get home.

Success!!

No, not the kind you're thinking of or the kind I'd prefer.  This success did not come on the scale or the measuring tape, it came in the form of......taking a walk all by myself!!!

I appreciate the dog's need for exercise, and I appreciate my children's need for me to show them that exercise is important for their lives and their health.  BUT...

I really rather prefer to exercise on my own.  If they are talking to me or tagging along on my walks it slows me down and takes my attention away and I really don't get as much out of the workout as I need to.  And that's one of the biggest problems contributing to my weight, right?  Putting other's before myself all the time.  But how do you tell them "no, you can't come and get some exercise yourself"?  Ok, kids, I want you to practice what I preach, but just not at the same time as me?  It just feesl fundamentally wrong as a mother to discourage your children from doing something good for them, so I grudgingly let them come along. 

Last week I always had 1 or 2...or 3 or 4...small life forms along with me.  So this morning, even though it was earlier than I would have liked to get up, and even though my throat is sore and my lungs are hurting from a deep cough I've had now and then, I almost jumped out of bed and hurried to get out the door before one of them woke up.  I even made it back home before any of them began to stir!!

If I can't have the big things, at least I can enjoy the little things in life!!

Ahhh, the pain!

I hate that saying "no pain, no gain"...I certainly can gain quite painlessly.  What?  That's not what it means you say?  Dang!  Well in that case...I certainly am a huge wuss when it comes to the pain from working out, I hate it.  I can hurt myself, give birth with no meds, whatever, no problem.  But give me sore muscles from working out and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry for my mommy.  I'm not sure what's different about it, it just is and I don't like it.  I realize that it's a necessary evil (at least at first), but I still don't like it. 

So I've decided that if this week is any indication, I've either become hopelessly out of shape, OR I'm making some gains with the small amount of running I've been doing.  With the except of Tuesday when I did a ton of errands, I have gone walking every day this week for 20-30 minutes each time, with some short stretches of running thrown in here and there.  I've been doing all of it wearing my Vibram's.

I'd read a lot of websites about barefoot running and they all cautioned against doing too much too soon when you start.  But I *thought* I was pretty used to walking barefoot since I hardly wear shoes around the house, and I've gone on 20-ish minute walks in them before, and worn them on the elliptical, as well as worn them out walking around stores or the mall.  Never had anything more than a bit of calf soreness before.  Plus my walks this week haven't been huge calorie burners, even with the running thrown in I've barely broken a sweat.

But for some reason, I am sore!  Not all the time, just when I stand up after sitting or when I climb the stairs.  I swear I must look like some hobbling arthritic old woman.  It's not like any other pain I've felt from exercise, this pain is way up high at the tops of my thighs and in my hip joints.  It doesn't hurt much while I'm walking/running, just all the rest of the time.

I don't know if it's from doing too much too soon barefoot, or if my form is wrong for being barefoot, or if it's just plain that I'm a 30-something fat woman trying to run for the first time in her life.  With my luck, it's proabably all of the above.