Challenge Update #5
It’s been five weeks of the This Ain’t No Freshman 15, This is the Final 10 Challenge and that means it’s WEIGH-IN time! Before you read my stats below, make sure to check out Jen, Prior Fat Girl’s, blog to see how she’s coming along!
Here we go:
- Starting Weight: 138 lbs.
- Last Weigh-In June 29: 133.6 lbs.
- Today’s Weigh-In July 6: 132.6 lbs.
- Loss since last week: 1.0 lbs.
- Total loss: 5.4 lbs.
- Left to go: 4.6 lbs. by 8/1/09
Here are my daily exercise and calorie consumption stats from last week:
- Monday — 2000 calories, 30 minutes strength training
- Tuesday — 2000 calories, ran 6 miles
- Wednesday — 1800 calories, ran 4 miles, 27 minutes stationary bike, 1 hour Hip Hop Hustle class (see post here), 20 minute strength training
- Thursday — 3000 calories, ran 3 miles
- Friday — 1000 calories, 1 hour strength training
- Saturday – 2500 calories (est.), no purposeful exercise though generally active day
- Sunday – 1200 calories, ran 6 miles
Now, let’s be honest. This past week was flippin’ hard. That one pound loss is a fluke and I just know if I weigh myself later today, I’ll be 3 or more pounds heavier. There were two days, above, where I ate so much more than I had wanted to. It’s not like I gorged on French fries and cheesecake, but I might as well have. Overeating is overeating, even if it’s on whole-wheat wraps and granola or whatever.
Remember I said here that I am going to be more honest? Well consider this blog a confessional because I am going to open up about a few things. **Please keep in mind that if you have or are recovering from an eating disorder, the following will not be helpful to your efforts as I am not a healed “eater” and I don’t want to trigger anything for you.**
Confessions
- Being an overachiever is great in academia, but not so great when you have body and food issues. I’ve read countless times that therapists will say people suffer from eating disorders because food intake is something that can be controlled when the world gets crazy. So, some people exercise their control over food to find stability. I feel like my eating has very little to do with a sense of control. Sure, most days I eat sufficient arrays of healthy, natural foods and keep track of calories to make sure I eat enough depending on my activity level. But some days I lack the control to simply eat intuitively. Some days my food restriction causes me to counter the effort by overeating out of strong feelings of deprivation. This creates a cycle of over-control and loss of control, which really means, some days, I have no control.
- My moods are highly dependent on how pretty I feel. Feeling pretty is linked inextricably to how thin I feel. I know I said I want to be fit and strong. But I want to be fit, strong AND thin. There is nothing wrong with that at face-value. But when it becomes an unhealthy obsession that dictates my moods and happiness, then, yes, there is something wrong with that.
- I resent having to go out to eat if I did not plan on it. If I didn’t plan on going out to eat, it’s not fun for me anymore because it involves so much guilt. That is lame.
- I am in a constant tug-of-war between the intellectual side of me who abhors superficiality and the more aesthetically-focused side of me who wants to be pretty. I often ask myself, “why do you put so much emphasis on how you look? You actually have a brain!” It really bothers me that I care about something so malleable, so fleeting, so subjective, especially when there are truly important things in this world to put my energies into.
- I love exercise, but if I were doing it just because I loved it I probably wouldn’t be doing it as much as I’m doing it. I mean really — look above — there is a day I did a combined total of over 2 hours of exercise.
So why, why in the world, did I decide to share this with you? It certainly isn’t something I wanted to do. But I felt compelled.
I’ve realized that losing weight for some people has to do with simple lifestyle changes. Some people were eating take-out every night and guzzling beers with the frat boys and then an 10 extra pounds showed up on the scale and they were like “whoa, I guess I better stop that!”
Part of my weight-gain was definitely health ignorance — not knowing how much I was consuming and how unhealthy it was to eat fast food twice a day — and bad habits. But I was, and still am, dealing with an emotional attachment to food. This is not something you can just stop “doing” or make a healthy alternative to. This is an ingrained coping mechanism. Sure, I am doing everything I can to de-condition myself and most days I succeed. I know living a healthy life is all about consistency and, by that rule, I am doing well *pats self on back*. But I don’t want to discount the days that I feel like Tantalus — the days I feel like my goals, the harmony with a healthy life I’m seeking, are simply in close reach, but out of grasp.
Is there anything positive to take from this rather depressing post? Of course! If you’re struggling, you’re not alone. The health journey is hard, but worth every moment. My confessions represent the minority in my journey — the majority is filled with triumph. Life is a process of learning and re-learning and that’s what makes it so compelling to be here — to be challenged, to acknowledge the setbacks and to be honest about where we are and where we’ve been so we may better ensure we move forward.
This has been a novel, guys, sorry! Come back tomorrow because it’s GIVE-AWAY TIME!
<3, The Cranky One Who Was Exceptionally Cranky Even to Her Own Cranky Taste
Tags: overeating, weight loss
18 People have left comments on this post
You and me kid, we got so much in common! I never was and never will be the one who can just learn new habits and live happily ever after. No, this is going to be a fight till I die type of thing. Seriously. I will, for the rest of my life have to continue to struggle to push myself never to give up. It will never become second nature, like so many would like to convince me. It will never be one of those things I will naturally do. Sure, I will get into routines…but it is and never was ingrained in me.
The struggle I have, now more than ever, is to figure out what this means to me. How to live without controlling every aspect of my health down to the calories I eat. Because if I don’t track my calories & how many days a week I work out, I am 100lbs overweight. I’ve already proven that. Now, the trick is to figure out a happy medium which suprisingly enough, seems to be trickier then losing the weight itself because now I have to lift up some of my environmental controls and allow myself to have more freedom. Having more freedom sounds great but let’s face it – this is a point which people seem to regain their weight back and to me, that does not sound like freedom.
alrighty, enough of my ranting. Just know Annabel, the fact that you are experiencing it means your not alone. By sharing our struggles with each other, we can talk ourselves through it and know we are okay
I struggle with the same exact attitude, and it’s not easy. I hate it! I hate that it occupies so much of my time and thinking and takes over everything else in my life. I’m working really hard to break this habit, but like you said – this emotional attachment to food is not something one can break easily. I hate that I eat healthier than majority of people in this country and still struggle with weight. I hate that so many people can eat like crap and enjoy it, while I beat myself up over it. Anyways, keep going! You ARE an inspiration, and you will get to your goal weight. But give yourself some slack too. Mental health is important too!
Hey, how come the names of your commenters don’t come up? Just wondering… I like clicking on commenters’ blogs sometimes and be nosey
I guess it sounds weird, but it’s “reassuring” to see that successful people like you, who have managed to lose and keep off their extra lbs are not “perfect”, and still struggle from time to time.
That being said, of course I’m sorry and I hope you dust yourself off and keep going. You really are an inspiration <3
Way to go, girl. It’s hard (I know). I had a major binge yesterday. I’ve been yo-yo’ing weight despite all the exercise I do. Hang in there. You can do it (you’ve come this far, after all!).
I pretty much could have written your “confessions” word for word. You are definitely not alone.
And the poster above who wrote ” I hate that I eat healthier than majority of people in this country and still struggle with weight.”. Boy, oh boy is that EVER me! I hear other people say oh I had some wine, chips & burgers this weekend but thankfully it didn’t show on the scale. I know for me, that would show by a few pounds easily. But it is what it is, it’s the cards I’ve been dealt. I can whine about it, but that won’t help. I can give up, but that will make me miserable. So I must live the what I’ve been given and manage it accordingly.
Great post! Congrats on your loss this week.
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Congratulations on the loss! And yes, I hear you… Change is hard and letting go is harder. Not impossible, but definitely not something that happens overnight. And I don’t think we can ever be complacent… Still, you’re an inspiration!
Thanks for sharing that with all of us. I am trying so hard to not have an emotional attachment to food, but often I find myself overeating… it’s a battle.
Everything you’ve said above, I relate to 100%. I often feel like the only way I can stay slim is to be obsessed, and I’m not enjoying being obsessed, but I’m afraid to let go of that and regain the weight (I’ve lost nearly 50 lbs). I keep telling myself to eat intuitively, but for me that seems terrifying because I often feel I don’t have an off switch one I start to eat certain foods – and you can’t say you’re eating intuitively if you are avoiding foods out of fear. Or can you? Somehow I always have an excuse not to take the step of finding out if I CAN do it – right now its my holiday, I’m off on a cruise in 4 weeks and don;t want to gain beforehand. And yet deep down I want to be normal, and sometimes wonder if being a small amount overweight but with a healthy brain might not be a better way to live…
I so needed to see this today. I did sorta the same thing (had a little more to eat/drink than I should have), and I ended up with a 4.8 lb gain from Thursday to today and I am BUMMED even though I *know* it’s not gonna stick. I just feel lost and I have no idea what it’s going to take to get through these last 15-20 lbs sanely. I’m sorry you’re feeling the same way, but at least we’re not alone, right?
I did not find this depressing at all. I found it insightful, truthful & quite honestly, many are going to feel the same way… including me!!!
I have always had an emotional attachment to food & I look forward to every meal I am going to eat whether it is healthy or my treat.. sometimes I count down the minutes too!
I have had my weight off for many years but I have never lost my love of that fattening food I used to eat. I know “they” say you do, but I never did… I always say that if I know I am going to die, bring in all my fav foods & I am eating them!
Like you, I like looking fit with muscles. I like that I am looking decent for my age. I do work out for that…. too look better & for the health. I am not “pretty” by any means so I rely on being fit to help me feel better about myself. I know that should not be but it is & I accept it & know that I have to get to a place where I feel good about me whether I am fit or not.
See, your honesty got a confession out of me.. you are not alone!
You don’t have to “want” to be pretty… I’m sure everyone tells you this, but I am going to say it again, honey you are gorgeous. You are stunning. Obviously it isn’t easy for you to stop worrying about that aspect, because if it were you wouldn’t. I hope you see what everyone else sees every day. A beautiful woman with amazing talent. A true gem.
the feeling is mutual. after my two competitions, i plan on really focusing on NO calorie counting and exercising when i WANT to (which is the majority of the time anyways) but i want the pressure to be gone and i want to just be able to stay in shape and not worry over EVERy calorie and EVERY meal i eat. i love healthy foods, so i don’t know why i make it such a project.
Bellie, this is such an amazing post, BRAVO!!!
We all feel this way at some point and we ALL have these battles with food, its just a matter of admitting it or not. Any woman that says she doesnt is just straight up lying or in serious denial
Thanks for the wonderfully brave post, you should send this into magazines bc readers need to know they are not alone in their struggles with weight, food, emotional eating, and wanting to feel pretty/thin at the same time…
I too completely related to your confessions, especially about the eating out and the loving exercise but doing more than I would if I didn’t HAVE to do it. And the bit about being frustrated/feeling vain for caring so much about how look. I feel like I will be fighting a battle with food for the rest of my life, and that depresses me, but I don’t know what the solution is. How do I look at food in a normal way? I’ve never done that, so I don’t know what that “normal” is. Hmm…
I definitely resonate with everything you said regarding overeating. I just began my own blog to help calm the storm and keep track of my habits.
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