What you really really want

It's funny how our lives go.

It's funny that the way that society works you have to make so many life decisions when you are young.

They expect you to decide what you want to do with your whole life when you are 18, in the neck of the woods I'm from you are expected to be married and have babies by the time you are in your mid-20s. It seems INSANE to me! I'm 30 and I'm still not sure what I want 100%

I have finally decided what I wanted to me 'when I grow up' but that is about it. Oh, I have ideas about things that I want to accomplish and who I would like to become, but it's all still up in the air. I'm married, but I don't think I know what I want in my marriage either.

There was a time when I was a 25 year old coming out of a 8 year long toxic relationship that I met this boy who thought the world of me. He was nice to me and he thought that I was beautiful and he made me feel like I was worth something. He made me these promises and gave me these hopes for something better.

Somehow over the last 5 years things have changed. He may still be doing his best, but his best is no longer good enough. I'm not content and I refuse to be content settling. I refuse to decide that this is the best that I can do. Maybe he will come along with me and maybe he won't. I'm willing to take it either way.

That's not being crass or cold or heartless about my marriage. It's about being true to me. I spent the years of my life when I should have been discovering who I was and getting drunk with my friends and getting to know new people stuck in a relationship where I was getting nothing and going nowhere. I may be late coming to the game, but that doesn't mean that I should have to play on the reserve team. I want to go in and play.

It's not just about him. It's about me too. It's about me being happy with who I see in the mirror. It's about getting everything that I have always wanted out of my life and not allowing myself to give in to the thoughts that I will always be overweight (something that BTW happened only as a direct result of the poor relationship I was in), I will not accept that I will always be small town, or always have to struggle, or always have to be what someone else expects. I can and I will do what makes me excited and happy.

I have my own dreams. Maybe they aren't yours or his, but they are mine and I can't just give up on them.

Don't allow your present circumstance to cloud your future projections. Look past all the shit that you may be in and see what is up ahead if you just decide to put you ahead of what everyone expects of you.

So,

tell me what you want....what you really, really want.....

The Deranged Easter Bunny Jammies

 

I will make no excuses.

 

I love A Christmas Story.

 

It is pretty much my favorite Christmas movie and when TBS does it's 24 hours of ACS, I watch.

 

All 24 hours!

 

So it shouldn't be surprising that I would eventually find a way to relate life to the story. Oh, there are tons of parallels one could draw, but my favorite is the bunny PJs.

 

We start to treat our life like those pepto pink furry jam-jams. You open the box and think, "sweet Lord, I am NOT putting these on." In the thoughts of Ralphie you won't put it on because you know that it will make your life hell.

 

But then someone says, "But Aunt Clara went through all that trouble to make it and she always sends you the nicest things!" So you put it on to make them happy.

 

You hate it. You loathe it in fact. But you put on that suit with all its undesired traits. Can you see how life is like this?

 

Sometimes we all have a costume that we wear. We put it on only because someone has said that we should to be courteous, or kind, or to appease someone for some reason. I get it. You don't want to step on any toes so like a good little boy or girl you put on the pink bunny and you trudge down the steps to face life in something that makes you wish that your soul would jump from your body.

 

We walk around in this outfit miserable. Then finally, FINALLY at long last we hear this voice. A voice that will be our saving grace. We hear Ralphie's dad, we hear our heavenly Father.

 

Through all the people saying that this is the most precious thing that they have ever seen and commenting on how cute we look, Dad says.

 

"You look like a deranged Easter bunny." Those who made us put on the costume say emphatically "No, [s]he doesn't!"

 

Dad says, "Are you happy wearing that?"

 

We shake heads as hard and fast as we can, no. NO! I'm not happy wearing this!

 

"Do you want to take it off?" he says.

 

We nod.

 

"Take it off!" He says loudly.

 

Isn't that wonderful? Ralphie was able to just go upstairs and take off the bunny jammies. Can our lives really be like this?

 

I think it's yes and no.

 

See, we all walk around in the pink bunny pajamas. We all wear something that we hate. Something that makes our lives hell. Something that makes us want to crawl into a hole and hide from it and from ourselves. Sometimes it's a coat of regret or worry or sorrow, sometimes it's a mask that covers pain, shame, fear, tears. But we all have something. We wear it because "aunt Clara" went through all the trouble to make it.

 

What does that mean? It means that we wear it so that we don't hurt anyone's feelings. We don't tell our friends or family or spouse how miserable we are because it will hurt them. It will put them out. The truth will hurt. They will get mad with us. We will have to start over. It will lead to divorce. It will make us vulnerable. It will show what we presume as weakness.

 

We wear the bunny.

 

But then, oh then, we have our Father who will step in and says, "You look like a pink nightmare." I imagine that my life and my pajamas do make me look like a nightmare. If you could see all of the things that you carry and wear, don't you think that it would look a bit nightmarish? I know mine would.

 

Our father calls attention to the fact that what we are wearing around is ugly.

 

Then He asks the most wonderful question of all. "Do you want to take it off?"

 

Let that sink in....

 

"Do you want to take it off?"

 

Do you want to take off the pain and shame and bitterness and sorrow and regret and fear and feelings of inadequacy? Do you want to stop living in this mask? In this costume? Do you want to lay off all the things that make us look like a nightmare?

 

God gives us the opportunity to take off all those old things. Now, I imagine that Ralphie tore off that whole onesie in like 2 seconds. But for us, it may not happen that quickly. We may start with the mask. Then a sock or a shirt. I imagine that he has to ask continually, "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?"

 

In Lamentations 3:22-23 in the King James Version of the Christian Bible it says:

²² It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions [mercies] fail not.

²³ They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

 

This is one instance that I really like the KJV. "It is because of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed..." so because the Lord is merciful we don't have to wear that pink bunny forever.

 

"They are new every morning..." Every. Morning. So every morning He will ask you. "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?" Everyday we have a new chance to start over. A new chance to make a change and to take off the pink bunny, even if it is just one piece at a time.

 

Ralphie's father and our Father know what is really important. Not that we make aunt Clara or anyone else for that matter happy by wearing a disguise, but that we are happy.

 

I can say that I know that I'm wearing the jammies. Those bunny faces look up at me everyday and torture me. Maybe tomorrow I can pull off one of their eyes or something. Maybe the next day I will throw that fluffy tail down on the ground and stomp it like it was full of bees.

 

Everyday I want to remind myself that my Father is asking, "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?" Everyday I want to try to peel off a piece of the dreaded pink bunny.

 

So what about you? Are you happy wearing that? (Whatever 'that' may be for you) Do you want to take it off? We are coming quickly to the start a new year. Let this be your year. Let this be the year that you take off the bunny pajamas that you have been wearing for years because Aunt Clara may show up. We cannot truly LIVE our lives wearing those jammies. We cannot be who WE are, we cannot be happy, we cannot be fulfilled, we cannot be all that we were made to be if we live our lives wearing a costume filled with all the things that make us ugly and afraid.

 

If you need to lose weight, well try your hardest to do that. If you need to be true to you, do it. If you need to end a relationship even though it will be scary, you need to take off the bunny suit. You will never be happy with it on.

 

And remember. If it all doesn't come off today, tomorrow our Father will offer new mercies, and He will ask again if we are happy in our costume, and He will offer again to let us take it off.

My hope for Snow....

A Long December...Counting Crows

The Return...for Snow

Well sweet darlings has it been a while?

Yes.

Yes it has.

And yet, here I am again, back to blog once more. Back to start a new adventure in this beautiful/mad/crazy thing that I call my life. It's both good and bad, but it is what it is and so we can only roll with each day as it comes, eh?

It's Christmas my bloggites and it's a unique kind of Christmas. It's the first Christmas without either of my grandmothers. It's not a great feeling. I'm not much in the spirit. It's not like December was always a wonderful month anyway. Let's face it. It's usually cold, windy, gray, and otherwise miserable. We eat things that taste good but make us feel like garbage, we spend too much on things we or no one else needs, we pine away over all the things that we would get people if we only had the money. In fact the only respite that we have is usually snow.

I love snow.

Some people don't. But I love the beautiful white after seeing what is usually gray for so long. It gives me hope for something better. For something new and fresh. It's like a blank canvas and you can paint it with anything new that you want. (Ok, so maybe that was a bit dramatic.)

December 04 I lost a great friend in a car crash. December hasn't been the same since. Now spending a Christmas without my Granny and my Mamaw has made it even more of a bummer.

Christmas is an ending and it is a time to usher in a new beginning. It's so cliché really to talk about new beginnings happening in January, but it's true. It's a chance to reinvent who you want to be. With the blank canvas of the new snow you have a reason to believe that the new year will be the same. A blank canvas. A new chance to do something different, to be something different. December can be a time to celebrate that you made it. You made it another year, you survived!

I've tried hard to not be a DebbieDowner this season. I work as a nanny and so I took time to get the kids I watch something special, things that they said they really wanted and that was a bright spot in my holiday season. But it's not the same. I've grown tired of just making it to another Christmas. I've grown tired of the gray the low funds the hum-drum that has become day to day.

I want snow!

I want to look out on the landscape like it was the landscape of my life and see only the white, blank canvas. I want to see it fresh and clean and spotless and empty. I want to dot it with redbirds and footprints to uncharted places. I want to make snow angels and leave snowman tracks that lead to a new friend. I want the wonder, the sparkle.

I want snow to fall over me.

I want a blank canvas.

It's Christmas Day and I feel largely uninspired about the season and about life in general. That is a piss poor way to be, especially at Christmas.

I just want a few flakes.....

followed by a blizzard!

Self Talk

Here's how the conversation with myself goes.

I can do this
you can't do this
but i'm strong
not that strong
I like to exercise
but you can't because of your size
I can do some things
but it will be hard
I won't quit
you will quit
i'm motivated
but you're weak
i'm not weak
when it comes to this you are
no I want this. I can do this
you can't do this
i'm strong
not strong
i'm determined
you will fail

If you talk to yourself like this how do you ever expect to make it? I don't know. I haven't posted in a while, things have been a little crazy I've been off kilter.

I'm around 315 or something. I have been depressed and it has showed in my eating habits and my, well, everything habits. But every time you stop you have the option to start again and try again and that is what I will do. Soon I will just choke the voice in my head out.

If I Ever Get Out of the Hole

Weight 310.6


I've been around 310 and such for weeks now. I'm in a funk. It sucks. The spirit is willing, but the body and mind aren't working together. Suffering from depression is really something that will make your whole life cloudy. You literally don't want to do ANYTHING. I want to get back out there, but you get so depressed and so down that you just are devastated about what you see in the mirror and you think you can never change and you can never get any better. You will never be what you see in your head and feel in your heart.

You feel hopeless, helpless. I'm looking for a job, I'm trying to deal with school and a spouse that is miserable and wants to leave his job, I'm trying to eat better, to do this exercise thing, to train for this 5k and all the while all I think about is how I'm worthless and lazy and unhappy...

I've been trying to read my Bible more and pray to get some help, some answers. It's about all I can do at this point.

But tomorrow is another day to try and climb out. And trying that is just what I shall do.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Weight: 310-ish


I always loved this line from the song "Closing Time" by Semisonic, it's true, very true. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

We start things a lot. We start and we lull and we start again. We backslide, we get down from one thing or another. It happens. Sometimes we give up but then find a reason to start again. We get discouraged we get depressed, we get down...and then we get up again, we try again, we start again, we get back on the wagon.

It's hard to see people who have done it and you think to yourself, "what is the difference between them and me?"; "why can they succeed and I can't"? The thing is we are human. We deal with depression we deal with setbacks, we deal with discouragement. It happens.

Changing your body has to start with changing your mind and maybe even changing your heart. I struggle with depression. I have for a number of years. My problems started in that bad relationship. I became depressed, I started to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. It sucked then and it sucks now. What I need is to be back on pills. The pills were good, they helped. Unfortunately we lost our insurance and so I can't get back on the pills. :( My hopes are that will change eventually. But so here's the deal- I can start on something, anything, that I really want and I enjoy and before I know it the life is being sucked out of me. The desire to do this to do anything is just zapped out of me. I have no hope, no desire, no gumption, nothing. It sucks. It sucks ass in fact.

And so, you get stuck in this downward spiral, this circle of hopelessness. It's like swimming in a whirlpool. You want to get out, you try to get out, you swim and swim and swim and you just keep getting sucked down. That's how I feel all the time. It's like there is a disconnect between who I want to be and how I am and who I keep falling into being. I don't think I'm crazy, but I feel like it a lot of times.

I like to consider myself a spiritual person. The bad thing about that is that I don't often practice what I preach or what I know to be true. I talk about trusting God, I tell people to turn it over to God to trust him with everything, but I rarely do that myself. So I start to reflect on why. Well, I think for a lot of time in that bad relationship I wondered where God was. Why He was letting this happen, why he wasn't helping me or stopping this. I guess in a lot of ways I lost, not my faith, but my trust. I forgot that I can TRUST God to take care of, well, everything.

I know that I need to get back to that childlike faith that we all so desperately desire. But it's hard. It's hard to just sit back and be like, "Ok, God take care of this thing." But you know maybe that is what I'm lacking. Maybe that is what is holding me back maybe that is what keeps me hopeless and helpless. I know that I have the desire and the ability to do this thing, to be this thing but I have been unsuccessful.

So I guess it's time to let another beginning end, and a new beginning begin. One where I will try to heed my own words and really just turn it over 100%. Will it be easy, no. But all I can do is try...and all you can do is try. You will get better, even if just a little better everyday.

Life really IS like a box of chocolates

I haven't weighed in a while. I have no desire to....



     You know, life really is like a box of chocolates. You never really do know what you are gonna get. Well, unless you get one of those boxes with a "candy map" on it that lets you know what is where in the box. But even then it's pretty much a crap shot because you have no idea what the crap half of the stuff means (what the crap is Roman Nougat anyway??). So you still end up with bitten into pieces of saliva covered gross chocolate in the trash, on your hand, a napkin, the floor, whatever. Seems like just when you get all excited that you have a box of chocolate, you get the gross piece of candy, and that sucks.

     I have gotten to where I can feel it coming on. Those depressive times. I know that they are coming and try as I may there is little that I can do to stop them. Eating healthy, exercising, and depression are not friends. They do not go together at all. I don't think that I am bi-polar because my manic isn't that manic, but I know when the depressive state in setting in.

I eat.

Like, everything! Partial to junk, but will eat, and eat, and EAT. I don't care about carbs, calories, fat, or that it was meant to serve 6. I will eat it.

I don't want to shower.

Look, I know that is gross. I'm not happy about it. But when I'm having these episodes, showering seems like such an undertaking. I have ZERO motivation to do it. I want to sleep, watch TV, generally do NOTHING.

I don't want to exercise.

This includes pretty much everything. Running, walking, yoga, working outside. Nothing seems like something worth doing.

So you can see where this cuts into any type of get healthy program. I eat and I don't exercise. I dread when I step back on the scale. I will have to try hard to not let the number that I see get me depressed even more to the point that I really give up.

Sadly depression is a part of my life and it has been for a while. How can you describe to someone who has never had to deal with it the feelings of hopelessness and lifelessness that overcome you. I mean there is literally NOTHING that seems enjoyable to me when I'm going through these times. The worse you feel, the worse you feel. Imagine being chained to a wall in a dark room. The more you pull on your chain, the shorter it gets and the shorter it gets the more hopeless you feel that you will never get out. This is what it is like.

Slowly but surely I start to get out of it. I start to get back into the old me. I get back some motivation to you know, live. But it's not easy at all to get there.

There are people that say that its the Devil trying to get me down and I would say that I agree. Because it seem sometimes that it happens when I feel the best. Anytime things start to go good, something will get you down. It's a way of life for many people friends. I'm one of them.

Life really is like a box of chocolates, you finish your Tampico (the toasted coconut cup things) and it is great and then you get a caramel and it is really good too, but then you bite into some gross nougat thing or a chocolate covered cherry and you gag. See it means that things are going really good, pretty good, and then something bad can come along and turn you off from chocolate (at least for a while...) But you eat chocolate again. Life has to be like that. When things are going great and then get pretty good and then bad, you can't just stop having life...you have to treat life like a box of chocolate and just get out your map (the Bible, perhaps, or whatever you find guidance in) and find a better piece. Sometimes you may have lost your candy map, so you just wait for something better to come along.

But things will change. You will get yourself back. I'm not going to quit just because things have gotten hard this time. I'm not going to just fail and wallow in my failure. It may take a while, but I'll be back to me again.

You Can't Be a Bird All The Time

Weight: 311.0

     When did we make the word 'diet' synonymous with what we aren't eating? Your diet I what you do eat, but we have made the word diet stand for not eating certain things. It's strange to me. Dieting is not a way of life. We weren't meant to be on diets keeping things from ourselves for our whole lives. I mean, what fun is that?

     There will be days on you journey called life and on your eating better/healthier journey when you, you know, don't. There will be days when you want a Great American Cookie Company Cookie while you are out with your sweetie, there will be days when you just want to eat tortilla chips and cheese before you eat your burritos at the Mexican place some days you won't be on a 'diet'.

     I guess though you need to be aware of when those days are. This morning I was pretty bummed to see that I gained weight. I mean I did eat some fast food yesterday, it was carbalicious, but I also drank a gallon of water and did my C25K. It was only a few tenths of a pound, but I was still upset. So all those things I just talked about, I did them. How do I feel now? Pretty much like garbage. I can't imagine what the scale will say tomorrow and I don't want to. I know that it will be devastating. Tomorrow is a run day, tomorrow will have to be a strict eating day too it appears to try and make up for today. It seems that this is the game that I play. One day I'm a rabbit and the next I'm a hippo.

     That seems to be the most frustrating thing for me. You can't be a bird all the time. You can't be restricted all that time (at least I can't). Maybe that is my problem.

     I'm always playing catch-up; make-up with myself. I have a really good day, I have a bad day when temptation is bad, or when I'm feeling down and I over eat or eat garbage or woolf things down and I act like I have no cares in the world with food. It's not a good way to be, I understand this, I know this, but it doesn't seem to matter to me because I still do these things.

     I am starting to really believe and know that I can't do this on my own. I will have to have God help me with this because it is a battle that I have been trying to fight and I have been failing miserably. I want, no, I need to get a handle on myself. I want the outside to fit the inside. I'm tired of feeling like garbage and not being able to live my life on the terms that I want. Who' with me on this? Who else is tired of feeling like you have to be a bird all the time?

     There has to be a happy medium, there has to be a place where you get in your mind that you can have it both ways. That you can have that cookie, but don't have three; where you can have chips, but not a basket full.

     As far as birds go, I'm more like Big Bird than a finch. Humph, I'm more like Snuffalupagus than Big Bird, but anyway. One step up two steps back is the story of my eating life. I'm always don't good and making up for doing bad. I get so frustrated and I know that many of you may feel this way too.

     Just remember that you can't be a bird all the time. You will have days when you eat things or quantities of things that you shouldn't, but don't be like me, don't let those days get you down because those days will come. Maybe you will feel depressed, maybe your best friend will be getting married and so you will have cake and her reception candy buffet and all the free drinks that she is serving, but one day doesn't have to get you off track. One day when you don't have a loss doesn't have to send you into a tail spin. Remember that our bodies change from day to day and those changes can show changes in our weight that aren't even due to anything that we did or didn't do or eat. Your life is full of one days, of new days. So treat each one like a new day and instead of being upset about what you did or didn't do or lose yesterday, be positive about what you can do or lose today. Today is a new day to start over, today is a new day with new decisions. I can't take back eating those cookies (well I could puke or something I guess but who wants to do that. I mean, I don't enjoy barfing let alone barfing up pecan cookie and Starbucks) but I can control what I do tomorrow.

     And tomorrow.....I will be a bird. (or at least be more like one)

Tell it to Move

Weight: 310.4


Yeah, so I took a few days off...big woop. I did that from my eating habits and things too, my backside is STILL hurting. You know, from falling off the wagon.

Look, I have realized that the time for excuses needs to be over. I have made excuses for a lot of things for a long time and I need to get over it. Face it, sometimes eating right can get laborious. Especially when you are just trying to change our eating patterns. Pizza is delicious, cookies are like Pringles (you can't have just one), sometimes eating out is soo much easier than cooking, and sometimes you just want some pancakes!

I think I dealt with all of those the past week. Hey, it happens.

But, I have gotten back into my C25K training and, gasp, even signed up to take part in a 5K. Well, I figure that since it cost money I would feel bad for not doing it. I even told people about it so now I have some accountability. So I guess my training starts now. I have confidence that I will definitely be able to finish, I mean I have hiked farther than 3.1 miles. I have never jogged/ran that far, but we will see how it goes.

Also I have been feeling like garbage, so thirsty I could hardly stand it. So I did some research. According to my weight, I should be drinking like, over a gallon of water a day. Sooo....I got me some gallon jugs and I marked them with times so I can be sure to get in at least a gallon a day. I pee 800,000 times, but a few days in and I already feel a little better.

See when you are making a change in your life, be that eating better or learning to trust God for things there will come times when things get in your way. When worry sets in, when Ben & Jerry's is on sale B1G1, when what may be a molehill becomes a mountain to you. I heard a song on the radio the last two days, a Christian song, that says, "This is only a mountain, you don't have to go around it, tell it move, it'll move, tell it to fall, it'll fall.." or something like that. It's a lovely song. That got me to thinking, you know the Lord tells us that if we have faith even the size of a mustard seed (which is VERY small) then we have faith enough to make the mountains move.

But we don't believe that. We think that miracles are things of the Bible. Now healing doesn't really count because we don't do that directly. We pray to God and God handles the healing if it is in his will. I'm not sure that I believe that anyone can be healed if it isn't in His will for them to be. Why don't we still believe that we can move mountains?

Why don't we believe that we can tell ourselves that we don't need that candy bar or that we don't need to eat again at 11PM. Food can be your mountain. I guess in a way it's mine. It's that one thing that has always gotten in my way because I turned to food, and I love food. I love good food, cooking it, eating it. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to know when it becomes a hindrance for you, when it becomes a mountain and not a bear claw.

So I challenge you what I challenge myself. Tell it to move.

I believe that the Devil can and will use ANYTHING to destroy you if he chooses to. I believe that he will put desires or fears or thoughts in your way. He can make anything a mountain to you. He can make food or alcohol or internet games or plastic surgery...anything, anything. So when we get those mountains in our way, why don't we just tell them to move! Say, "Get behind me devil!" "Move mountain!"

Now I know, I know that is easier said than done. I mean if it was easy would I be big as a house? Umm, no. But you can try, and maybe your faith will move a pebble one day, a stone the next, a boulder the next.

If you have a mountain in front of you today, whether it is addiction to drugs or food or whatever, if it is facing unemployment or divorce or loneliness; tell it to move. Maybe you will have to say it two times or ten times or ten thousand times, but try it. I will, and lets just see how many mountains we can move.

The Aroma of Your Heart

Weight: 311.0
(Did not weigh at same time, may not be accurate)


If you haven't seen the movie "Facing the Giants" I highly recommend it. Even though it is probably classified as a 'Christian' movie it's great.

Something in that movie that has been on my mind today is a scene where the coach (Grant Taylor) tells his football team that "your attitude is like the aroma of your heart; if your attitude stinks, your heart's not right."

There is a lot of truth to that and not just when it comes to dealing with others, how you treat yourself counts! Today when I weighed it showed a 0.8 pound weight gain. It may or may not be accurate I didn't weigh at the same time of day and I had eaten something too. Did I feel a little down on myself, yeah, actually I did. I did feel a twang of disappointment in myself for sure. I could have lingered on it today, but I didn't. It was 0.8 pounds....it could be due to a lot of things that have nothing to do with what I ate. Today was a new day.

Most people don't think at all about their attitude toward themselves you know, being important. But if you don't have a good attitude toward yourself, then you may as well give up because you have already doomed yourself to failure. The saying holds the same even if it is about yourself. "If your attitude stinks, your heart's not right".

"But Charlie," you say, "It's just my attitude toward myself, who cares?"

Well, you care! God cares, the people around you who love you care. I have dealt with it too, you start to think that you're nothin' and so you don't feel worthy to do things for yourself. You don't think that you deserve good things. So you think, "I don't deserve to spend that money to get myself new clothes/ haircut/ nails/ food, etc". Being overweight can do this to you and make it even worse. I mean lets call a spade a spade we live in a society where if you are fat you have no worth to society. (Not including those BBW loving societies that as an obese woman, even I find strange.) You are looked down upon, you are passed over for opportunities, you are treated as second class. This doesn't just happen to overweight people either but that is another story.

So you are told by society that fat is gross (and I mean, hey, it is); you are told that if you aren't a size zero you are not and have no hope to be beautiful, you are worthless and you are a festering pus sore on society's butt. Eventually you start to believe that. If anyone hears something about themselves enough they can start to believe it. So you get a bad attitude about yourself and so you quit trying.

What does this have to do with our heart being right? Now my blogs aren't going to turn all preachy, but hang with me a minute here. When you have beauty and love in your heart, it will show in your attitude. See a good attitude isn't something that is JUST shown on the outside, it's something that starts on the INSIDE. See we see ourselves like we see ourselves. We see ourselves being overweight, having a big nose, bad skin, small breasts, fat thighs, thick ankles. and a host of other things that we can look at ourselves and classify as "wrong" or bad. But God doesn't see any of that. He sees us like He made us; in HIS image. He sees us a beautiful no matter our weight or hair or eye color or pant or dress size! So if our heart can get right (with God) then we can start to see ourselves as He sees us and we can change our attitude toward ourselves!

When you start seeing yourself how God sees you; you will totally change your attitude about yourself. I don't know if you are familiar with the VeggieTales movies, but these are little biblical stories told in a way that kids can understand by vegetables. (Headed by Bob, the tomato, and Larry, the cucumber). In one VeggieTales short film a story is told a la Dr. Seuss about the Snoodles. One day a new little Snoodle comes into being (from a tower in the square) and he is wondering what he looks like, what he is there for, and all sorts of questions. As he looks to the people around him they only tell him about the ways that he is failing or not measuring up. Finally in an attempt to get away from all these mean people he climbs the tallest mountain in their little land and he meets a man there (God). This man paints a picture of the little Snoodle and in the picture he is big and strong and flying high! The little Snoodle doesn't understand, but the man tells him that he painted the little Snoodle as he sees him, that he knows how amazing he can be because HE made the Snoodle! When the Snoodle removed all the bad things that the other people had told him from his backpack he was able to stand tall, and when he put in the pack the picture of how the man saw him, he was evening flying!

Your attitude is the aroma of your heart.

That includes your attitude about yourself.

If you think that you deserve better, then you will try to give yourself better. If you count yourself out, then you will never get where you are going.

How do you smell?

Wine & Cheese

Weight: 310.2
C25K Wk 1 Day 2

Sounds good, huh?

Wine and cheese. Merlot and Brie.

But then you get to the party and find that they are serving Mad Dog and generic spray cheese. Not the good Kraft stuff, but the like Clover Valley kind.

Lots of things sound better or look better on paper than they are in real life. On paper the Cabbage Soup diet seems great. Hey, I love cabbage soup, and you can eat all of it that you want? Oh, YES!

But then you find out that you can really only eat cabbage soup and bananas and you are like, "What the crap am I supposed to LIVE off of???" I mean, yeah, you may lose a lot of weight but that's because you are STARVING!

Even relationships can be like this, mine was. They say that when you are in a content relationship that you will often gain weight, something about being happy and comfortable. I suppose that can be true. But for me it wasn't. It may have started that way but soon it became eating because I was depressed and miserable. On paper and in public we tried to make our relationship look as functional as possible even when I was thinking of extreme measures to get out of it. I made pretend like things were rosy.

But they had gotten bad. I had curfews, I had to check in. It was bad. My school work really suffered and eventually I had to drop out. I was devastated. When that happened I certainly wasn't allowed to be at home alone so I would have to come to his house and stay and do his chores. I was miserable, I was more than miserable. I had given up hope on just about anything and everything. Friends that I had had my whole life and some of my best friends I lost touch with I had to let go because they were men or because he didn't like them. I lost touch with my family, I lost touch with God, I lost touch with everything and everyone that I cared about.

We went on a vacation (against my better judgment). It was miserable. I slept on the floor of the hotel because I didn't want to be near him. One the way home I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that tugging at my soul that I hadn't felt since the day that I went forward in church and was saved. I had  to do something, to say something or I would bust. So I did.

I asked how long we were going to go on like this. I was miserable and I was pretty sure that he was too. It didn't go over well, I expected that. The trip ended with him leaving the 9mm that we traveled with in my passenger seat and telling me that "I may as well kill myself because I would never get away from him".

I had lived this lie for like 6 years. This lie that looked so great on paper but beyond the paper it was Hell. Pure Hell.

Why do we advertise wine and cheese when we know that we will be serving Mad Dog and generic spray cheese? Why do we feel like we have to offer ourselves up as some flawless entity when we know that we are anything but?

This fuels our unhappiness with ourselves and with life because we have no one that we feel that we can show our true selves to. It's hard, it's really hard, but we have to stop feeling this way. Now I'm not saying to just open up to everyone, you can't do that, and you shouldn't. You should pick the people that you trust very carefully. But you can find someone that you can trust to show your true self to, even if at first it's just God or whatever deity (if any) you believe in. Don't be afraid to be Mad Dog and not Merlot.

Amy Grant has a song out called "Better than a Halleluiah". It says that even in our misery and our sorrow we can cry out to God because sometimes us crying to him for help is more of a joy for Him to hear than a Halleluiah. You can be the Mad Dog and still be loved and accepted.

Acceptance of ourselves will eventually make us happier people who want to be happier people. So the better that you can feel about you, the better you will want to feel about you, get it? Once you start making decisions that better your health or your well being, you will want to make more and it will snowball for you.

So whether is aged wine or gas station malt liquor make the best of it and enjoy it for what it is. The food may be crap, but you are among friends and you are alive and that is something to celebrate no matter what is going on in your life. There is someone who would take your place in an instant.

Raise your Solo Cup friends.....

Round IS a Shape

Weight 312.4

     "I'm just exercising to get back into shape."

     Exactly what shape do people want to be in I wonder. Look, honey, stick figure is NOT a shape. It is a like and I don't consider a line a shape, it's a line. About as precious are the body type shapes: pear, apple, hourglass, banana, papaya....okay, maybe not those last two. I'm just saying I am in shape...in A shape at least. Round. Round is a shape.

     I guess I should be thankful that even after my buffet experience last night I still managed to pull off a little bit of a weight loss. Look people something is better than nothing. Nothing is better than going backwards! It gets so frustrating when you step on the scale after you have starved all day and done 45 minutes of cardio and drank enough water to make your eyeballs feel like they were floating in your head and your bladder wonder what the crap was up with you; and see that you lost......

drumroll please......

NOTHING!

     How can this be? you wonder. We all have a sweet spot that some would claim is as elusive as Bigfoot or Nessie. What works for me may not work for you. I mean there are things that are good for everyone. Eat less, move more, drink more water, don't eat a whole pizza by yourself, ice cream is not a food group, things like that, but really it's about finding what works for YOU. Your body isn't the same as my body, your genetic make-up isn't like mine either. I suggest getting the book "Eat Right for your Blood Type" and giving it a read. You really only have to read about your blood type so the library would be a good place to look for it. Hey, it WORKS and it is real.

     My Dad used this method and he lost a lost of weight and I admit that I feel better when I eat the "highly beneficial" on my list and not the "stay away" foods. I'm a type O. I hold weight on my stomach, I'm the ancestral blood type. This means that my body hates carbs, dairy, and pretty much anything that isn't something that you can hunt or gather. You know what...it's for real. I've been trying even now to eat foods on my beneficial list. I also try to stay gluten free.

     But didn't you just say that you had pizza last night? I did. No one should have to live their life never having the things that they like. I don't like the word diet, I like eating better and sometimes you get to just eat what you like because you like it. Who cares if it is good for you, you know? Life isn't and shouldn't be about restrictions, it's about living and for me living involves eating and enjoying my eating.

     Then there are those times you get on the scale and you have done all of these things and you see that you have GAINED weight!

     Once you pick yourself up off of your bathroom floor and dry your tears because you are starving, think about this. 1- you shouldn't be starving. Sometimes you may need to eat 6 or 8 times a day-small mini-meals if you will (see the Body for Life diet); 2- are you a woman? Is it near that time of the month? have you been eating a lot of salt? 3- something MUST be wring with your scale!

     Don't let these days get to you. As I said before I am not a counter or even a food diary writer, but I do try to take note of what I eat or what I do so I can see on the scale if that is working for me.

     Round is a shape. It's great for rings, cookies, cakes, pies, wheels, but not so much for your body. No one is asking you to be a stick figure either. Your body shape can have a huge impact on your health and so you should be aware of it. Losing weight is about having a fuller life, a more enjoyable life, more lifey than when you were heavy. I'm tired of being round. I'm not that jolly like this for sure. Maybe you are tired of being round too. Great! Today is a great day to do something about it. The good thing about being round is that you are good for rolling and you can roll on down the road to something better...

Dawn of Death

Weight: 312.8

     I don't count my calories. I don't count fat. I don't count carbs or points. I did the Weight Watchers points. It is very effective. But look, I don't have time for that mess. Every week I try to plan meals. How do you think that goes over? Right! Not too good! I'm not a planner, I'm not a counter. I'm more of a 'man I need to eat something; oh crap it's dinner time' kind of person. I don't do counting. I have no time for that mess.

     That doesn't mean I don't try to be aware of what I'm eating. (I try to pretend that I am still ignorant about how many carbs are in Starbucks drinks) I don't think that you can really enjoy your life counting. I'm not a math person either. So I become aware. If I'm getting Starbucks, I skip the bread another time, or the pasta another time. It's about balance. Balance.

     I suppose that it makes little sense for me to be talking about balance and being aware and weight 312 pounds. I know. It's like Willy Wonka giving a speech on avoiding cavities. But I haven't always been this way, and I have lost before and I know how I did. I deal with depression a lot and when I get into one of those depressed states I eat bad, I don't exercise, it sucks. When those times come the weight comes back, usually with a vengeance. I know what I should and shouldn't do. If you think about it you probably do to. Now the key is just for us to, you know, DO IT!

     I know what got me here - bad decisions - a LOT of them. They started when I was 17 and to be honest they never stopped. See I met this guy on my 17th birthday and he was cute and nice and he treated me good and he gave me attention and he thought I was attractive and I fell in (what I thought was) love. He asked me to marry him when we had been dating only about a month, and I said yes and that started an almost eight year relationship. Things were peachy at first, about the first year, other than the fact that he wasn't keen on me playing sports, he wanted me to be with him or whatever...so I quit playing ball. This was the biggest thing that started my poor health decisions. Then the more I was around him I picked up his eating habit and they were horrid. My senior year I gained about 80 pounds. That was pretty devastating. But it didn't stop there. It got worse, much worse. I went from like a size 16/18 to a size 24.

     So these bad eating decisions was the start of my problems. It sucked. It still sucks. I still wonder why I let that happen. Why? Bad decisions.

     The good thing about decisions, even bad ones? You have to make new ones everyday. Everyday you have to make new decisions and you have the chance to make better decisions. You have the CHOICE to do what you think/know what you should and not do the things that you know are bad decisions.

     Today you can make a choice. You can make a choice to stay like you are and keep doing what you are doing, or you can make a choice to, you know, do something else.

     I had a pretty good day today. I ate pretty good. (Note: I have a huge sweet tooth, in fact I think it may be teeth, so I always try to keep some Adkins goodies on hand to help with that). I did Week 1 Day 1 of the C25K plan (that's couch to 5k) I was on week two before my injury started acting up, so I started over. For dinner though we went to Pizza Inn. Buffets are a fat persons napalm. You always want to eat more because you want to feel like you got your money's worth. This happens to me, and it happened to me tonight. The good thing is that usually the pieces are smaller (this is an excuse - but it is true.) Today I made some good decisions, perhaps some not so great decisions, but tomorrow is a day to make the decisions again, and I can choose if they will be good or bad.

     Every dawn is a new chance for the dawn of death. The death of the old you, of the bad decisions, of the depression and pain and suffering. Today was a new dawn of a new day to try to put my old habits to death. Tomorrow if I'm blessed with it will be a new dawn and a new day of death.

The Beginning is the End of the Beginning

Beginning Weight: 313.2
Hips: 60
Waist: 55
L Arm: 18
R Arm: 18.5
L Thigh: 34
R Thigh: 34.5
Stomach: 10


     Well a few weeks ago I was about 5 pounds thinner. But a knee injury sidelined me for a few weeks and I don't know if you are like me, but when I get sidelined I get mouthy...as in I snack and eat crap that I shouldn't eat anyway. But today is a new day, today is a day to start over. In two months we are having a family vacation, in one month I have a photo shoot scheduled, I would like to not be, you know, gross for this. For either one of these.

     The first time that I saw the scale go above 300 I freaked. I cried. Then I think I ate a pint of ice cream. What a wonderful way to say "hey, I hate being fat", right? After that I kinda lost hope, I didn't really care anymore. I think at my highest (which wasn't that long ago) I was 320 or something. I was even more miserable then than I am now. So I started to exercise and eat better, I think I did Body for Life. Which totally works but you have to eat so many times that it was really hurting our food budget. Plus, let's face it, healthy food is super expensive and when you are poor, well, that can be problematic.

     But in any case I lost like 30 pounds or something. I mean I was down to like 274 or some crazy number like that. Then we had a life changing event. We had a fire. We were in a motel for a month, we were unable to cook or get real groceries for like 6. Needless to say I gained that weight back. When you eat what you can, well, that is an excuse, but it was a rough time.

     I keep wondering why I can't just do this. I keep wondering why I'm such a failure. I come up with a million and one reasons, excuses I guess are more like it. About our financial situation, not having time, blah, blah, blah. You know where that has gotten me? Pretty much no where. Let me side track a moment to say this. I am convinced, CONVINCED that I have PCOS. I have been tested before and the doctors told me that my counts were within normal levels. Not that there was no way I had this, but that it was normal range. However, I have like every, single symptom..so, could that be a reason that I'm having a hard time, it could. But I have no confirmation of that and so I can't use it as a reason or an excuse.

     What I do know is that when I turned 30 something changed. Something changed in me and I thought to myself, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be like this anymore. I'm a psych major, so I guess that I realized that I'm not the kind of person that would give someone therapy and give a shitake about what happened in their past. The past is the past and your future hasn't happened yet. YOU decide where it is going to go. I should take my own advice. I should realize that what started all this happened over 10 years ago and I need to get the eff over it, you know? I can't go on like I am now.

     So what happened you ask? It's a long story and it can't all be told at once, but I will share it a little at a time. The point of today is just to say that the excuses have to be over. The buts and the wells and the ifs and the blah blah blahs have to stop. They have to stop. They must stop. Today was vacation today and tomorrow is business day. Tomorrow we get down to business. Tomorrow saying 'tomorrow' will stop and it will be today, it will be now. I will do what I have to do to make yesterday yesterday and the next tomorrow brighter.

     Will it be easy? Certainly not. Will I like it? Probably even less likely. But it will be reality. So this beginning is the end of the beginnings. This is the beginning of something that will continue on and on. The last beginning. Or perhaps the first of many because everyday is a new beginning. Everyday is a chance to make the right decisions. Now there is nothing to it but to do it I guess.

"If I'm fat Stewie's fat too because we wear the same size onesie!" - Peter Griffin of Family Guy

    

     One of my favorite episodes of "Family Guy" was the one where Peter went to the doctor for a physical and the doctor told him that he was in good health except for the fact that he was fat. He was like, "What?". The point was that he was acting like he had no idea that he was fat! He was doing things that he thought was prove that he wasn't fat, like hula-hooping (it gets stuck on him); Brian shows him that he is so big that things go into orbit around him; he put on Stewie's onesie (hence the quote that starts this blog).

     It's funny, this episode because it seems sometimes that we are beginning to live in a society where people are getting like Peter Griffin, like they don't know that they are fat. Maybe it's because obesity is becoming such an epidemic in this country that you can see it everywhere. It's kinda funny that a fat person (me) would be talking about people being fat, but the truth is as I have said before I live under no illusion that I'm not obese. I'm probably bordering on morbid obesity actually. It sucks. I have said that before too.

     Our church recently got new seating, theater style seating. This means that we no longer have pews but we have individual seats like at the movies. This morning I was going to sit down and made the comment to my husband that I wanted to sit in an aisle seat (then I could straighten out my leg); the man in front of us turned around to my husband and told him "If you notice these seats are numbered. The ones numbered with a 21 are the biggest. If you find one of those, your wife may be more comfortable." I just sat there, a bit dumbfounded. I mean I was right there. My husband asks, "do you want to move?" I said no I was fine followed by "wow".

     This man's wife was also heavy, maybe he knew what it was like, I'm sure that he was just trying to be helpful. But there are few things that make you feel worse than having some one point out to you that you are fat. I mean, it's like Peter, you feel like saying, "What? Me?" Then there are those times that you get labeled as being fat when maybe you shouldn't be labeled that boldly. This happened to me as well. We were at a local theme park and got on a boat-type ride. The man gave me an extend-a-belt thing for my Velcro seat. Was it needed? No, not really, it was a boat ride. Did it make me feel about as big as an elephant trying to hide in the corner? Indeed, yes, it did.

     I guess that the point that I'm trying to get at is that if you see a fat person, we don't need you to tell us that we are fat. Even if you are saying something that to you is helpful, don't. You aren't making things better, you are making them worse. Even if we are one of the "fat and happy" crowd (rather fat and proud) who are ok with who we are, how would you feel if we were like, "you know I know a GREAT plastic surgeon that can fix that nose" or, "a good dentist could take care of that overbite." You would feel like crap is what you would feel like. Fat people DO NOT need non-fat people to tell us that we are fat. Period. We know. We know that you know.

     I just had another example come to mind about this. I used to date a guy that was a big guy. I mean bigger than me in size and girth. I went on a trip with him once to deliver a car that one of his friends was selling to his [the friend's] aunt. While eating lunch with this woman (who wasn't skinny...and actually I was a lot smaller then too) she looks across the table at me (not him) and says, "If you ever decide to get bypass, I know a great doctor you can see." His friend is pinching my leg under the table as a way to remind me not to come up out of my seat and go redneck on this old hag. I smile, say some kind of BS pleasantry and try to shrug it off.

     Things like this are hurtful and unnecessary. We really do not need anyone to remind us that we are fat.

     Tomorrow I will start to chronicle my journey into a healthier (and perhaps skinnier) being. I'm tired of missing out on my own life. I'm tired of letting things from my past affect my present and my future. I'm over this. I'm over being fat and 'happy'. I'm not happy, but I think that this will help me be happier. I know that things like this, meaning your body image, cannot necessarily affect your idea of your self worth, but I believe that anything that you can do to make you feel better about yourself will help you feel better about your life.

     Until then I leave you with the mental picture of a 300lb woman in an infant onesie.......yeah, take that to bed with you.

Fat and Happy

     Anyone that tells you that being fat doesn't make their life harder is a liar. Look I'm just calling a spade a spade. They are a liar. Being fat makes everything harder. It makes getting accepted harder, it makes feeling good about yourself harder, it makes shopping, rollercoaster riding, beach trips, everything (!) harder.

     As cool as it would be to say that I had a documentary on TLC about me and how I couldn't get out of my king sized mattress that sat on the floor and clothes wouldn't go on me and doctors were coming across the country to help me that isn't what I want to be known for. But a moment came (around the time I turned 30 a couple months ago) that I was like, "Dude, that could be me". It could be ME! It was scary. When I saw my scale tip 300 the first time I almost broke down. Then it climbed, it climbed some more. I felt worse and worse and worse.

     This brings me to the next lie that we fat chicks tell. "I'm fat, but I'm happy." You may be saying to yourself that this isn't necessarily a lie. I suppose that it isn't ENTIRELY a lie. But it is a lie. Don't tell me or anyone else that you are HAPPY not being able to go shopping with your best girlfriends, or share their clothes. Don't tell me that you are HAPPY having people look at you with disgust and treat you with disrespect because of your weight, don't tell me that you are HAPPY not being able to wear the latest fashions or fashion trends (A&F NOT INCLUDED), that you are HAPPY feeling like a failure when that scale number climbs or when the doctor brings up your weight again, or you can't go on a rollercoaster or sit in a certain seat or fit by someone in an aisle at a theater or church or plane, don't say that you are HAPPY knowing that you are at higher risk of heart attack, high cholesterol, stroke, cancer, premature death, and sugar (that diabetes for you folks that don't have the word ya'll in your everyday vocabulary).

     If you are so happy, then why do you still do things that you know are bad for you? My best assumption is that no one is ever in denial that they are fat. You know if you are fat. If you have eyes or a mirror or the sense of touch you can know that you are fat. I'm not in denial that I am fat. I know I'm fat. I know how I got fat and why I've stayed fat. I know what I need to do to try and not be so fat.....

but I don't really do it.

Why?

     Because I'm NOT HAPPY. See I think that you can get into this depression, this funk. Let's say you want to do ZUMBA. But you are really obese so you can't do all the moves and you get out of breath after only a few minutes, so you feel so embarrassed about letting the people who for some reason are still in the class even though they are DONE because they already weigh like 80 pounds see you like this. So you quit. You feel bad that you quit and so you eat a pint of ice cream. See people who are fat like me are so happy that they find reasons to 'celebrate' all the time! I got an 'A' in my class, lets get some cheesesticks; I failed my class, how about a pint of Ben and Jerry's. My dog pooped, I sneezed, the sun came up today, there's a squirrel....lets eat, lets snack, lets, lets....WOOOOO!!!

     See we get this high from eating and from controlling our food and we equate feeling good=happy and that's not the case. You feel good when you eat because of chemical reactions in your brain, not because it makes you happy. How many times, honestly now, have you eaten something and felt like complete crap afterwards? Umm, hum...yeah. You know the truth here don't you

     I think if you are so happy in your life, why not get healthy so that you can, you know ENJOY more of your life. How much joy comes from having to feel like you are on the sidelines because of your weight? Not much. I say this because I know this. I live this everyday.

     Being fat doesn't make me happy. This doesn't mean I hate myself or who I am. But I am anything but happy about what I am. For me there have been no tests that conclusively show that I have a medical problem that is making me be heavy. I know that my thyroid is low and that may make it more difficult, I know that I deal with depression and that does too. I know that I have old injuries that give me pain that affect my ability to exercise. I like to pretend that I don't eat poorly, and for the most part I don't. I don't really do Coke's or things like that, I love fruit, veggies, and healthy food.... I also love sweet tea, Starbucks, and ice cream. I'm not happy being fat. I don't think that the me that I go through this life as is the real me. It's not the me that I want the world to see.

     Fat and happy. I don't buy it. Fat and focused is more like it. Focused on trying to convince everyone that you don't mind being one of the last things that it seems PC to look down on people for. Focused on pretending that you don't mind the looks, the whispers. But what if instead of being focused on proving to everyone that you were happy you decided to focus on getting happy.

     Find one thing, just ONE THING, that you would like to get healthier for. Just one. Focus on that. Maybe it's your baby, your niece, your nephew, your spouse, your ailing parent, yourself...one thing. Focus on that one thing. Use that thing to make you happy and then just be happy instead of fat and happy.

 

The, er, welcome

     Well imagine that, another blog about a fat girl trying to become not such a fat girl. I know what you are thinking, wonderful.

     Hopefully I won't disappoint.

     So what can I say bout myself? Well I won't give everything away at once. Let's start with what started me doing a blog:

1- Accountability. I guess that I felt like by posting here there will be a real record that says either that I suck or that I am doing something kinda right. And anyone can see it.

2- I'm a loudmouth a lot of the time and so what better way to get my loudmouthery out that to use a blog and then talk about how I'm fat.

3- Let's face it, fat people can be kinda funny.

4- Maybe I can help someone else.

     Now, you may wonder why I finally came to that moment in my life when I thought to myself you are just a few MickeyD's sweet teas and gelato pints away from having your own TLC Special. (Humm, I wonder how much money they pay those folks??) I told my husband once to make sure if I ever couldn't walk around the Walmart that he just not take me; don't just take me and let me use the Rascal that they provide because I see you people that are just too big to walk around using it. Now, really, I understand that some people have medical issues and that is fine...some people are just fat. While I'm on that subject lets just talk about being fat. I'm not stupid about my fat. Being fat doesn't give you a free pass to eat enough food to keep an African village alive for a week, it shouldn't be a lifestyle. While I appreciate the fact that my husband loves me the weight that I am (no matter what that is) I do kinda wish that sometimes he would be like, "Baby, are you sure you need that Frappuccino?" or "I would have liked to have some of that ice cream/brownies/etc too" or even the ever popular "PUT. THE. FORK. DOWN!" 

     Okay, so yes, I may have punched him a couple times if he said that or made him walk home from the eatery or sleep downstairs or in a tent in the yard...but, sometimes you need someone to just be truthful with you. I want him to be like 60% Jillian Michaels, 30% Bob Harper and 10% Allison Sweeney. Or something like that anyway.

   So I guess that is enough of a welcome, you will come to find that most of my blogs will have no real direction and will largely be my ramblings that try to end in some kind of a point.