I’m Still Here… barely

I bit off too much. I tried doing too much too quickly and became overwhelmed. Not knowing what to do, I stopped writing. My roommate left, I promised a half marathon (and didn’t do it), the 5k stressed my body out (because jogging at 300 lb. apparently was NOT the best idea I’ve ever had), I went on vacation (where I was miserable and spent more time sitting on my ass than I could even begin to tell you), school started again (early mornings means Mocha-Time!), and my participation level in the film festival is about to rise exponentially. That’s what has gone on in the last month and a half.

However, today is a new day, and I’m still here. Everything that was true about me in May, that was true about me in June and July is still true about me today. I feel fat. I don’t like the way my body feels. I don’t know how my body looks because I’m in such denial about it. Everytime I feel good, I eat. Living alone now, eating in a quiet house is pretty much the last thing I want to do. So I turn on the television.

I think I was too broad in my attempt last time. Any loss was good loss, and any progress was progress. Eating mindfully is a gift. I felt better about myself, I was less hungry, I ate what I wanted without feeling guilty, and I lost weight, just like I wanted.

What I’ve realized in the last week, even though I’ve only gained three pounds this month, I could have lost three. I could have lost more than three. I chose not to go down that road. I made a very clear and contentious choice to eat mindlessly, to not exercise, and to break every rule I had made for myself because I didn’t know what else to do. “Its only one more day, its only one more week. Why try again when you know you’ll just fail. You have so much stressful events coming up- wait til they’ve run their course.”

My stressful events are only going to get more stressful in the following months. I’m working full time, attending college full time, and volunteering about 10-15 hours a week. Focusing on my weight could very easily be the last thing on my mind.

Its not though. Have you ever had one of those “life changing events” where you promised yourself up and down you’d lose the weight, you’ll do it by that date, and everyone will be so amazed… but you didn’t, and life didn’t stop. Then you look back and you wondered how everything went wrong because you would still swear up and down that “you did everything you possibly could” and nothing changed, except if you were really honest with yourself, instead of trying to lose weight, you just ate worse and behaved worse than usual?

I don’t want to do that again. I know one day when I look back at these pictures, I’m not going to be very happy with what I see. But I have a chance to look better then than I do now.

I miss talking about being fat with people who understand. So, I’m back.

New Rules:

1) Haven’t come up with them yet. ha.

Todays weight: 311.5

Currently Reading:

And, I’m back!

Last week was full of amazing views of really awesomely huge trees, millions upon billions of gallons of water (none of it drinkable)…. pictures to come later. It was also full of eating out every single meal, very little walking, and almost a complete return to the person I was before.

This weekend is the half marathon, and well, I don’t think I’m going to go. I know I can walk 8 miles. I don’t know that I can walk 13. Not yet. Maybe I can.  I don’t know. Tomorrow is the last day to register, and I haven’t yet. There’s a possibility that I’ll register for something smaller, and more attainable. Not that walking the half marathon isn’t attainable. I’m worried with all the stress I’m bringing into my life, walking this will aggravate my body in a way that will make everything else even slower to recuperate from.  I start school full time next week. I have a rent I can barely afford, bills that seems to only get higher, and more and more responsibility thrust upon me with the film festival. Of course, this is the way I wanted it-  I wanted to be busy and with very little time to think. But I’m already exhausted just thinking about all the things I need to take care of, and most none of them have even begun yet!

Wish me luck!

Vacation with Mother

Its been a while, eh? I’ve been busy, trying to eat well, deal with living on my own for the very first time ever, and right now, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Northern California, watching the light fade into fog, listening to my mother snore, and curiously wondering the fate of this beautiful state. This blog used to be dedicated to politics and other junk media before it started to bore me. Specifically, I wrote in here quite a bit regarding same sex marriage and Alaska politics.

I am for same sex marriage, and unions, and love. I think two people loving each other is a beautiful thing. Judge Walker the federal judge who overturned Prop 8 today seems to be a very brave man. I surely hope this doesn’t go the way of all the other failed attempts to legalize gay marriage. That’s all I have to say about that today.

As for my eating, I think I’ve been doing well. We went on a couple of walks today. One was hardcore (even though the trail was marked as moderate) and I didn’t actually make it to the end. It started out relatively easy, but once we reached the bench, it started going down very steeply and muddily in all most a spiral. Off in the distance, I could hear the waves crashing onto the shore, and I knew if I just kept at it a little longer, I would be rewarded. But the trail wouldn’t let up, and it was raining, and I just had to turn around. Of course I was a little disappointed I hadn’t finished it, but climbing up from where I stopped was so intense, I had to stop every 10 feet to catch my breath. It was a good thing I stopped where I did, because just when I was about to reach where I had left my mom, I saw her working her way down the trail.

My mom broke her leg last year. Her thigh bone snapped then shattered, and there’s 17 pins and a titanium rod holding it together now. She is also overweight like me, (I’m over weight like her?) and has really bad arthritis in both of her knees. She sometimes uses a cane, and can’t really walk for more than 15 minutes at a time. Each step she takes is a terrible terrible struggle. Her going down that trail might have made toss in her towel, no joke. It was brutal. Gorgeous, but brutal.

She’s also done all of the driving because I never learned how. It was interesting  to see her when she wasn’t in control of the situation. I don’t think I realized how much she needed to be in control. I always felt like she didn’t have control over me, but my opinion is starting to change a little. We got in a sky tram to view the Trees of Mystery and she almost vomited because she didn’t have control over the situation. It was weird.

We also had a fight about food. At the restaurant yesterday, I ordered a 1/4 rack of ribs. She then told the waiter to make it a 1/2 rack because she might want to eat some later. She insisted. I didn’t want all that meat. I wanted what I wanted. There was good chance that I wouldn’t have eaten all of the 1/4 rack because I wasn’t really that hungry. But instead, she won, and we didn’t talk for all of dinner.

Have you ever had to fight your own mother for food? I felt like I was 5 years old again, disappointed to open the fridge after school, expecting to see my dessert from the night before, just to realize it had already been eaten. This happened all through out my childhood. If I didn’t eat it first, if I didn’t eat it all, then there was a good chance I would never have the opportunity to eat it again. We were poor. There were many many days when we just didn’t know where our next meal was going to come from.

I hate feeling that way. Its just food, and more can be obtained. I know this now. But sitting in that restaurant, with my back to everyone (so I wouldn’t make faces or stare at the other guests, because that’s what I did when when I was a child- don’t all of them? This two year old was totally flirting with me today at lunch!), not being allowed to order what I wanted to order, made me flip my lid. I followed the beach back to the hotel (which was something I needed) which was about a mile away, and tried to work out my anger. As soon as I got to the room, my mom left. She couldn’t be around me either.  (This is all figured out and water under the bridge, by the way)

(That’s my “I’m stressed and I don’t know what to do next!” face)

I’m about to go to bed, we have another long day of driving and not much else tomorrow. We’re going up the hwy 101, and going to stay the night in some small town off the ocean in Oregon, before finally making our way “home”. I don’t have a home in Oregon anymore. Its weird to say that. The only home I have is the one I’ve created for myself in Alaska.

Okay. I’m getting a little too off topic. I must be super tired . Until next time, friends.