Another Year, Another Time to Try Again.

I came to the realisation the other week that while I'm miserable and hate my working conditions and my family sitch, I don't need to make it worse on myself by also making myself miserable about my size and the fact that I don't fit into my clothes.  In fact, out of the big 3, this is the one I have the most control of.  So I should control it, and be responsible for it. 

I'm gonna get a hold of this eating sensibly and moving meaningfully business.  

I've started relogging in my MFP diary, and I sat down this weekend to foodplan what I was going to eat for each meal & when I was going to cook what. 
     Not gonna lie, it took a while.
   
Thinking about what I wanted when was time consuming.
     I had trouble thinking so far ahead to Thursday & Friday.  I wrote the meal plan out on a sheet of paper, with a basic idea of what I was going to eat for breakfast, morning tea, lunch & dinner.  For example, tonight for dinner I am having tortellini with a spinach based pasta sauce.  I sat down and planned out (as best I could) for a whole week in advance.  Probably took me over 60 minutes.  I got distracted or frustrated along the way too.
     Writing the specific details into my (paper) food diary wasn't too bad.  That only took about 15 minutes for the whole week, given I had to flip back and forth between pages as I realised that I would need to create a recipe for the green sauce, so I needed to list the ingredients for that.  I keep a paper food diary in a notebook so I have somewhere to write down how much everything weighs.  This is especially useful for when I am creating my own recipes and I don't measure out my quantities in something as arbitrary as 'cups' when the food I am eating isn't liquid, like a stir-fry.
     I would love to know how people know how many cups of food they've cooked without ladelling their whole dish from one container to another 1 cup at a time.  For me it's easier to create a 'recipe' listing the raw weights of the ingredients, weigh the whole thing when it's finished, and then create portions based on 100g serving sizes.  Then, when I do weigh out how much I've eaten, like 335g, I know it's 3.35 servings.    I find it a quicker process.
     It was entering everything in advance in MFP that was trying.  Nearly 1.5 hours to enter a week's worth of logging in advance.  I did it though, so that when it came time to log the weight, I could save time during the week, by already having the ingredients/foods already entered and I wouldn't have to search for everything.  It was quicker on my phone too, than the webpage.  Recipes were easier to do on the computer, but everything else went through the phone. 

On Saturday I went to a butcher to get quality mince and chicken breasts.  I shopped at a Fruit & Vege grocer first, before going to Coles to get everything else I needed.  For the first time in a while, I set myself a food budget, and I think I stuck to it.  <--- This is another much needed motivation.  I was finding myself going through Drive-throughs and spending $20-25 for a meal, sometimes three times a week.  I don't have that much free money to just throw away. 

I decided to join MFP's April 2016 Running Challenge.

I have never really paid attention to how much I walk in a month, so I set myself a fairly low goal of walking 30 km this month (~18mi).  I'm trying for consistency more than I am concentrating on distance.

I always start out with good intentions, and walk 2-3 days in a row, and then... fizzle.  I get lazy.  Or find excuses like I don't have time, or I'm tired.  I'm trying to tackle that by taking the time to evaluate: am I physically tired, or mentally tired? Because there is definitely a difference and I need to work on recognising that, and not letting it get in my way.

I'm re-evaluating my goals.  I'm currently at 110kg and I wanted my first goal weight to be 90kg because that's the BMI cutoff between being obese and merely overweight.  I've stepped it back a fair bit and am going for 105kg, because that becomes the distinction between Obese Class II and Obese Class I.  I'll look into setting myself 5kg goals after that.

I've also measured 7 points around my body to keep a track of too, because it's not really about weight for me.  I honestly couldn't care if the scales said 400kg! It's the fact that I don't fit into clothes that really gets me down.  So taking (and writing down!) those measurements and entering them into my spreadsheet is going to happen the first Monday of every month.  I won't share them publicly I think, but I will be graphing them to see what happens.

7 April 2015

Still here. Still not losing any weight.  Still upset at myself for not trying.

It's Easter  break now.  10 days.

10 days to complete a to do list that has around 25 dot points.  Some more urgent than others. But a lot that definitely needs to be done.  Some of it house stuff, some of it health stuff.  Some of it looking after parent stuff.  Which I hate.  I swear I'm going to end up spending more time looking after her, than she ever had to look after me growing up.  If we were close maybe it would be different.  But my mother is a nasty bitter unpleasant woman and causes far more stress than is healthy for me.  And it never seems to end.

But back to my physical health.

I'm really really over being fat and overweight.  I just want to fit into clothes again properly.

I'm slowly working on the food issue.  I've worked out a fairly good system of making meals and freezing them.  I'm eating a form of dinner at work at 4 o'clock and then only fruit or crackers later at 7pm.   Now I've just got to get back on track with weighing and logging everything.  After all this time, I still find it a time consuming thing to do. It would probably work better if I took more time on Sunday to plan out and log my entire week in advance, just modifying where needed from where I deviated.  Yet another system to set up.  And stick to.

My whole life has been like this. I am full of ideas and plans and projects. I am a great starter of things but not a great finisher. I either get distracted or my enthusiasm wanes. I have so many incomplete hobbies and projects everywhere.  I wouldn't be surprised if they made up around 15-20% of all the stuff I own.  Which I'm still sorting through.  Which is yet another project to work on.  And I've already come up with yet another new project to do. And I can't let it rest until I have more time,or at least a better time because my enthusiasm will wane and I'll be left with this half finished project  that  wont get completed for another two  years.   *Rolls eyes*  This is the way I live my life. Every single day. Does this happen to anyone else? Is it fixable? Is it a learnt behaviour that can be unlearnt?

It's frustrating that's what it is.

The Purge - part 4

So, over the past few days I decided to tackle my clothes.  

I’ve discussed how I find it hard to get rid of things.  That I have strong memories and attachments to my possessions.  To a certain extent, never is this truer than with my clothes.  I love clothes, I really do.  One of my career aspirations when I was a young lass was to be a fashion designer.  And because I have strong memory associations with my clothes, I found it very hard to cull and get of things.   

Even things that I wasn’t sure I would ever wear again. 

The problem was I could remember wearing them, and what went along with that.  I could picture myself standing in the precise spot in my room as I chose that piece to wear.  Every item I picked up, reminded me of people or events.  “Oh, that’s right, I wore that when…” or “that’s the night I met…” or “… always loved this skirt”.  Even other associated events leading up to or after the time I wore that outfit.  One dress that I own, a black lacy thing I got as a Xmas present from my mum when I was 17.  It was my first LBD.  I have a very strong memory of when I was in my second year of uni.  It was March, and I decided I was going to wear it for a friend’s birthday party at a nightclub on Friday night.  I knew which shoes, earrings and make-up I was going to do.  Hair up.  (I went with a gold accessories theme.  I even had gold eyeliner!).  Because the dress had a lyrca liner, it was clingy.  I’ve always been pot-bellied/pear shaped, not much I can do about that.

Except sit ups.

For the two weeks leading up to the party, I was in my room, doing situps right before bed.  I can picture myself laying on the floor, the overhead light was off, but the lamp on my desk was on, illuminating my room.  I remember doing 40 (40!) situps and struggling with the last 2-3.  I remember doing them much slower, and that intense muscle feeling of the slow crunches. 

I remember the small turn out at the club, the drinks I had that night, who I danced with, and going home alone.  My friend whose birthday it was hooked up though – woo! Go him ;-)

*Sigh*

I remember faintly other times I wore that dress, but that memory is the strongest to me.  So of course, I don’t want to get rid of that dress, because it reminds me just how much fun I can have with friends.  And I stupid sentimental (or maybe just mental) part of me doesn’t want to get rid of it yet, because I want to know how I will look in it when I do get back to 68kg.  I’m having a hard time telling myself to get rid of it before hand, because I won’t truly know if I will wear it again until I get back to that size.

*Sigh*

Obviously, that line of thinking was going to get me nowhere.  So I somewhat comprised.  I took those giant plastic shopping bags – you know the ones that are very square when they are full?  With a zip? And I designated one for each size category.  Only what was in there would I keep.

I had to be little bit sneaky with the 12/14 because I had so many that I wanted to hold onto.  Casual wear, going out clothes, smart casual, fancy dress and costumes and most important – smart dressy clothes for work.  Skirts and button through shirts and dress slacks.  All the classy elegant things I would love to wear to work, but just don’t work now at my size.  Things that would make me look the part and fit in a little better with how our general director wants us to dress. Things that are made of cotton and require ironing. : D   Anyhow, because they were the clothes that I had the most of, I cheated a little bit and put some of the smaller ones into the 8/10/12 bag.  And then I used some vacuum storage bags for the rest of it.  And I mean, I did think about some things as I was packing them in.  Like do I need a red jumper (long sleeves), red jumper (elbow sleeves), red knit vest (external pullover vest, not undergarment vest), red 7/8 sleeve t-shirt, red short sleeve t-shirt and a red “falsey” jumper – the ones with a fake button shirt under them?  They just have the collar and cuffs of the shirt sticking out.  The rest is just the jumper.  [Oh!  A jumper is also known as a pullover, or a sweater.]  I don’t even wear red very often because it clashes with my skin tone.  I questioned what I was doing as I sat them together in the one pile.   But I put them in to save because, how am I to know what colour will be in fashion and whether I’ll even like those things when I get to that weight? 

As I said, I love clothes.  I also happen to be one of those people that have a huge variety of clothes, depending on mood.  And I wear colours daily.  I’ve had numerous people comment on the fact that I always wear bright colours.  I would probably go as far as to say I think my clothes are the type that people describe as “loud”.   Attempted a monotone wardrobe once.  Couldn’t make it more than 6 days before I caved and wore something with bold patterns.  My bestie on the other hand?  Black, offwhite/cream, occasionally red, and a very particular shade of bluey-teal.  She’s starting to introduce a light baby pink in the last 18 months.  That’s it.  That’s all she’s got.  Her mum and I have tried over the years to bring in other colours or styles, but it just doesn’t stick very long.  Lol.  Kind of opposites there huh?  : )

Well, anyhow.  Sorting out my clothes is a big job.  One I’m still working on.  And I think it’s going to have to wait until I get back from Xmas break, because today I need to go to the shops to get my last minute Christmas gifts and tomorrow, I’m driving to Mum’s for Christmas.  Should prove interesting.

The Purge - Part 3

I don’t know what it was that made me want to start on the clothes, but I went through and decided to sort, bin, donate or wash, a whole lotta clothes.  Not all of them yet, but I’m on my way.  In particular, I decided to sort clothes into approximate size range. 

 

• ·         8/10/12
• ·         12/14    
• ·         16/18                    
• ·         18/20/Just one size too small. 

I am expecting that most of the smallest clothes will no longer be fashionable and I will donate a lot of them.  Most of those I haven’t seen since 2008, they’ve been packed up somewhere most of this time, and that was when I started to gain weight.

Funnily enough, I thought that when I split up the clothes into those size ranges, it was because I could associate them with certain time-frames of my life.  Small -> second & third year of uni.  12/14 --> high school, rest of uni/early twenties.  My normal.  16/18 --> 2010/2011.  18/20/JOSTS -->  All those clothes I bought because I was going to lose weight soon…

But when I looked at the four piles, I started thinking in terms of kilogram weight and realise that those four size piles kind of match with weight goals I have in my head.

18/20/JOSTS	95kg
16/18	85-90kg
12/14	70-80kg
8/10/12	65kg

My Ultimate Goal Weight is to get back to ~70kg.  My average-normal was 63-68kg.  10 years ago. *shrugs*

The current goal weight I am working towards is 90kg.  90kg is what I was weighing in 2010-2011.  That’s 16kg off from where I am as of this morning.  During the year, when I had a really good run of discipline and logging, I made it down as far as 98.1 kg in May – only 1.1 kg off from my “starting” weight back when I began the blog in 2012!  At 90kg, I can picture myself in the clothes that I was wearing.  I still have memories of pulling them out of drawers or from the wardrobe and putting them on and accessorising them.  It’s a tangible, actual goal because it’s one that I can remember.  Remember feeling how fat I was.  And yet, I know now, that I got fatter.

At 90kg, I can start to wear the 16/18 size clothes.  16/18 is the crossover size range between normal and plus size clothing.  At 90kg, I am a size 18, but could try some 16s, especially the older (non-vanity sizing) ones.  

90kg also puts me at lower end of BMI obese classifications.  Under 90kg, I am only overweight, not obese.  I know that the BMI shouldn’t be the defining point of health, but as it stands, it is a measurement/calculation that is widely spoken about and is accountable and comparable.  At 90kg, I am putting less pressure on my joints, my lungs, my heart, my kidneys, all of it.  So surely that’s a good start right?