The art of the search and thinking before you leap.

I am wondering why people don’t do a quick search before they scream a question for the whole world.  I have been guilty of this however my guilt is because I wanted personal opinions not answers.  To often lately I see people posting one of two things. The first is they post the same questions over and over again like “COFFEE?”  It was posted everyday for 3 days by different people.  I don’t think anyone responded to two of them.  If they wondered why it was simply because people hate saying the same thing over and over again.  Its nothing personal its just human nature.  The search function on the my Medifast message boards is as good as a simple internet search.  You can pull up anything.  I was having problems with a rash and wasn’t sure if anyone else on MF was suffering as much as me.  I searched it and found it had happened to others.  Woot!  Searches are good not bad.  May save you from a flame from people who live by drama.

The second post I have been seeing a lot is the ever so subtle attention getter “ITS MY FIRST DAY AND I AM GOING TO QUIT.  I HATE THE FOOD”  Or “ I LOST 10 POUNDS IN MY FIRST WEEK AND I HAVE A STALL THE SECOND.  I ONLY LOST .5 POUNDS”  Its posts like these that make me want to shake my head and hug the poster.  I have been a firm believer my entire life.  If you have nothing good to say don’t say anything at all.  I find I don’t say much anymore.  I want to inspire people.  I want to help people.  But I refuse to be a part of a pity party.  Say the “food hater” only needed to lose 30 lbs.  I am not saying this is not awesome.  But I am saying please think before you post.  Those of us with over a hundred to lose may not say it but we think you have it easy.  And the person who thinks 10 pounds in 2 weeks is not enough of a loss should really read posts about the people who lose maybe 4 pounds a month.  I have never seen a complaint from a turtle.  And admire them more for it.  I see the complaints about plateaus and the rants make me laugh.  Why?  I just went quietly thru a three week stall.  I didn’t rage about it.  I did every thing your supposed to do to try and get out of it.  Venting IS therapeutic but only if the poster understands that the repercussions to said vent is a flame or being ignored.  I for one will not flame but I will ignore.  I am not condemning everyone to my post only those who seem to be habitual self loathers.  If you lost 10 pounds in a week and wanna quit.  I wont stop you.  I find there is strength in what we are doing.  We are strong enough to admit we needed it.  We were strong enough to open the box.  We were strong enough to try the first meal.  Lets stay strong and give it a good honest try and then rage if you don’t lose or it still tastes like crap.  Think before you leap our mothers always used to tell us as kids.  Its something we also need to learn as adults it would seem also.

I don’t want to apologize for my blog but I don’t want to hurt someone with it.  My personal opinions are just that.  Opinions.

HUGS!!

Let the good times roll!

Vacation

From reading message boards and blogs I see that this is a very pivotal time for the MFer.  I am about to have a fantastically active vacation with friends I have not seen in years.  I am switching over to the 4 & 2 for a few days while they are here because I will be walking all day the whole time they are here.  I am really looking forward to this.  I have been exercising everyday and loving it.  But my fear is in the temptation to cheat.  I have seen people go so far off the reservation they were on an entirely different planet and sort of quit MF.  I don’t want that.   I am peeing my pants in fear of it.  I am very true to the program.  I stuck with it thru the holidays.  I stuck with it on the very slow weeks and I stuck with it when I was on my three week plateau.  But this is freaking me out man!  I think its the fear of the unknown.  I kept that fear throughout the holidays and it served me well.  I lost weight the entire two months.  I will use the fear to keep me in check!

Speaking of fear.  I had it on Sunday at an event I went to for a group I volunteer for.  I was watching my fellow MFers cheating like it was going out of style.  I don’t worry overly about them because every week they are blessed with aswome weight loss numbers.  But NOT ME!  Nope I look at the damn food and I gain an ounce for every second my eyes linger overly long.  I am no longer a follower.  I am now a leader.  I lead by facing my fear head on.  I lead by following the program as it is to be followed.  I lead to lead.  I refuse to let myself be conquered and dominated by food.  I lived that life way to long and suffered for it.

I currently got some good news also.  I may be selling my grandmothers house.  I am super pleased by this because I finally can move on with my life and stop dwelling on the past.  Maybe I can finally stop seen a therapist.  Would be nice.  I have been actively trying to get my Mother, Grandmother and brother out of my life.  The problem with that is two are ghosts that haunt me and the other consistently pokes me when I am down.  When the papers are signed I have every intention of telling my brother to kiss my skinny butt.  He is no longer wanted in my life until he realizes the wrongs done to me by all of them.  He never will so this is forever.  Thank god my husband agrees with me.  He has seen what hell they put me thru.  Both when all three were alive and after they passed.  And my brother is just perpetuating the abuse.

Looking forward to the future.

I feel like a hero again.

I say it and I see other people say it.  But it is true.  Its all about the little things.  But first is my failure/victory.

My failure was I ended up on day 12 of my 21 day challenge and couldn’t do it.  I was sicker then a dog.  I couldn’t move I even left work after being here an hour and half.  However the three days I was down got my system working and after 3 weeks I lost almost 5 pounds (a record for me).  I am finally officially out of the  200s where I was residing for those three weeks.  (pure torture at 200 exactly).  So here I am doing my silly lil Jig called the “Jig of the 190s!”

Now yesterday I had an event/meeting with the group I am a part of for a ferret non profit.  And they had cake, brownies, fruit, and a crumble.  Sigh.  Was really eyeing the fruit but didn’t give in.  Its amazing how badly I want something that is good for me and I cant because that is cheating.  I mean honestly how many people would thing eating fruit was “cheating”.  I giggle every time I think about it.  My power of the sniffer was working in over drive.  All I could smell was the sweat smell of frosting.  I honestly don’t find it appealing anymore.  Its not my first win over my battle of food addiction.  Nor will it be my last!  But it sure does give me a smile and a fuzzy feeling when I can count myself the winner.

Things that make me go GRRRRRR.

Boy its been busy.  And I have neglected my blog duties.  Just as an update I am on day 11 today of my 21 day challenge.  I have officially done exercise for 10-20 minutes every day.  No mater how sore I was.  I am amazed I have not given up.  I just proved to myself how badly I want this. (patting myself on the back!)

But the main reason for my blog was of course to get more crap off my shoulders.  Sometime unloading your stress in a more constructive way helps like writing it down rather  then say....beating someone up or shouting at that person at Dunkin donuts that messed up your coffee order.  And in my line of work I deal with a lot of short tempered stressful people that you want to just pound in the head.  So this writing really helps me out oddly enough.

Well I have bee in my ugly plateau for a few weeks now.  I’m not overly stressing out because I know its normal.  And I know how to deal with it.  I am so for doing everything I am supposed to do I am just waiting for it to finally break free and lose again.  I have approached my coach several times in the last few weeks.  I am extremely frustrated because I keep asking for help and I get none.  And the only help I need was kind words.  Understanding words.  Something to keep me inspired and to keep going.  He has missed three of our calls.  When I point it out on his FB page he then blames his computer.  Do you really have that many customers that you cant remember after 5 months of weekly calls at the same time?  I sent emails and explained why I needed to talk and he ignores my request for help to talk about whether I found a new client yet.  I mean after all its only three months since I started coaching I should be doing better.  I have explained that I don’t want to go crazy with a million people to help.  I am busy trying to help myself.  I was just doing this so I can share with others.

I finally had to reach out to one of his other clients and who also happens to be my MF BFF.  We started the same day and really had a connection.  She let me vent and I felt better.  It wasn’t that bad.  Shesh!  I don’t know if he thinks because I am a coach its not a big deal because I know what to do.  But it obviously ment a lot to me.

Any who.  Here I am stronger and focused on the road ahead.  I am so proud of myself.  I truly am.  My husband just celebrated a birthday ( he is one billion years old...lol ).  I didn’t want his birthday to overly suck because we cant do what we normally would have.  I bought him his favorite.  Carrot cake.  Happens to be one of my old favorites too.  I say old because I don’t even miss it.  Smells good but it doesn’t call my name anymore.  I will admit the day I brought it home I started to rationalize it.  If I eat a quarter of a serving I can still be ok...LOL!  No worries I didn’t do it.  My husband looked at me and I said “yes I know.  I am talking myself into having it”  I cooked a MF brownie instead!

Now if only I can be a loser again!

Tiny steps in the right direction

After two weeks of exercise and carb cycling I am finally down half a pound.  Not sure if this is a true loss or just a fluke with the scale..lol.  What ever it is I’m fine with that.    I am on day 8 today out of 21.  Boy am I regretting this personal challenge.  I could hardly move yesterday but I did my exercise.  Today is a bit better.  LOL I better have a butt you can bounce quarters off of when this is all said and done.  My whole core was on fire yesterday.  So marching up and down my stairs all day was a great way to shrug it off.





I also split my meal.  I had my lean for lunch and my green for dinner.  I loved it!  My hubby did too.  He got to have burgers with the works by himself..lol.  I have also tried spaghetti squash for the first time and I really want to make that into a vegan pasta.



Then on Friday I had an employer retract a rejection letter and ask me if I can come in for an interview!  Things are starting to look up.  Woot!!



Now I would like to sign off with “three cheers for buns of steel!”

Wow. I mean WOW!

I am so attuned to some things now.  The longer I am on my journey the more I notice.

The other night I was talking to my husband about this.  I am hyper aware of what other people eat now.  Before I wouldn’t care or notice unless it smelled good.  No the majority of foods smell bad and not only that they don’t look appetizing.  But I also now notice what people are REALLY putting in their bellies.  I am shocked because the person eating it is oblivious at what they are doing will eventually kill them.  And my god the amount?  I used to be them.  Did I reallllly eat that much?  Did I really eat that crap?  Yes...Yes I did.  What a shame.  I remember not that long ago  (only 12 years)  that I was a size 0 and I let myself get to a 20 before I did anything about it.

My Wow moment was this morning while listening to the radio.  For the first time in my life I was so heated I wanted to kick puppies  (don’t worry I never would)!  Some ignorant woman called and told the entire state of MA that anyone bigger then a size 2 – 4 should pay more for clothes because they are fat.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  And she was rude beyond belief.  I wish I had it recorded so I could embed it into the blog because you have no idea how insulting she was.  Some girl called and said she was a raw vegan and worked out everyday and she was a size 12 and  by no means fat.  So the Mrs. size 2 told this girl to eat a donut and to “get off the phone fatty”  I kid you not!

I am still heated by that lol and not because I am fat but by the pure ignorance she displayed without a care in the world.

Jazzercise among other things.

Day 2 of my fitness challenge is DONE  only 19 to go.  As if you couldn’t tell from my title.  Yesterday was my 80s flash back.  JAZZERCISE!!!  Woot.  I shimmied, I shaked, I bounced and I swayed.  And I loved every effing minute of it.

Tonight of course will be day three and I am going to do kick boxing.  I love the varied work outs.  I will never be bored.  Variety is the spice of life after all (well in some things ;) )

I had a bitter sweet moment also.  I have been coaching since January and have opted not to announce it because I felt it was better starting out helping friends.  Well my first two customers are dear friends of mine and they have kicked my butt so bad as far as weight loss goes.  They are actually getting ready to transition.  I wanna cry because I will miss sharing this with them.  Even though I will still share with everyone my success.  But its just not the same thing.  I do have a new client starting up in a few weeks.  I am so excited about this because she seems so excited.  She has been reading and investigating and  doing a lot of soaking in.  She is going to kick weight loss behind too!!

The worse part is my coach wants to me to get more clients.  Which I have tried but I feel that if you build a field they will come.  Not push and they will join.  I feel like I am starting to push and its just not me.  Yes I would like this to be my full time job.  And if anyone has read my blog in the past knows I despise my job. Which I think is contributing to the slow weight loss sometimes.  Even though in the grand scheme of things my weight loss is very much in line with others who started at the same time as me.  But that’s neither here nor there.  How do you start a business when the business just isn’t there yet?  I feel that he is merely looking at his bottom line and not his client that is also coaching at his encouragement.

Maybe what I am looking for is I feel used.  It has gotten to the point that we lost track of me and he only wants to focus on MY CLIENTS that I don’t have yet?  Two weeks he has missed my calls and two weeks I send him an email letting him know I am personally trying to push thru some struggles.  And two weeks the struggles are shoved aside for the money in his pocket conversations.   

I have had this talk with him before that its me then the clients.  I was after all his client first then his client/coach.  I never want to do that with my clients because the reason they are doing Medifast is to lose weight.  They reason they went with TSFL was for the coach.  Their is defiantly a disconnect.  And I see it.  I love my coach for the help I have gotten but I think I see the part of the coaching I don’t like.  I am not doing this to line his pocket.  I am doing this to help others.  I will try to focus on this and ignore the rest.  I can after all learn much on my own and have found ways to keep my positive attitude positive with out the help.  Its just sad that I have to do it this way.

I feel better after getting this out of my system.  There is a lot to be said for opening up.


Hugs!

I just had a “shake my head moment”

I love how some people think they can call people fat and think that the room in general will not be offended.

The fact that the skinny bitch of the office who also happens to be a  corporate manager thinks its ok to talk about someone’s weight in the lunch room where many of us are over weight and are sitting there trying to eat.  It baffles the mind.  And this is the same woman who has denied that fact that I have lost the weight I have.  SIGH!

A few years ago she asked a girl who had gained some stress weight if she was pregnant.  The poor thing was in tears that day.  Now this same (not pregnant) girl  happens to own her own fitness company and teaches Zumba in her free time.  You would think she would learn her lesson because that remark started a down right office war.

All I can do is sit here scratching my head and sighing.  Because (catty moment here) the princess with the  widening behind wont be so lackadaisical in her comments in a few years!  Mark my words.  I have seen what she eats and seen what she does.  She will be joining us FAT people in MF in a few years!!!

My 21 day work out challenge.

I got a frowny face from someone for doing this.

I have dubbed my husband “THE ENFORCER”. He is to nag me if I don’t work out. I am challenging myself to work out at least 15 min a day, Everyday for 21 days straight. I am doing this to form the habit. I have been very politician like and waffling between exercise and no exercise. And I am trying to get out of that habit. And I know in order to maintain I will need to have good habits in place and the time to start working on that is NOW.

The work outs for the 21 days are a low impact cardio. I found a perfect DVD from Sparkpeople and its fantastic. After I do the 21 days of habit forming work outs I will then go to every other day for 30 minutes each work out. Again nothing like the “insanity” work out. I may opt to take weekends off so my work outs would be three days a week. I still have not formulated my plan of action that far in advance. My goal is when I hit goal and half way done with my transition I can slowly start to train for a half marathon. I want to work on my “Skinny List”.

Is this extreme? I don’t think so. Had I said that this was a 45 min intense work out and harder then the “Insanity” work out I would say yes. But the idea was min to do this so I may have a biased thought process going on.

Regardless of today’s frowny face I know it was done out of concern that I am pushing myself to hard. I respect this persons opinion and I probably would have frowned too had she come up with this hair brained idea. However as far as challenges go I fear mine is tame compared to some I have seen. So totally doable.

Last night was night one and I only have 20 left to go. Not bad at all I think!!

HUGS!

Is that cheating?

I always feel like I am cheating.  It never fails.  I try to keep my body from a stall so every now and again I will do something to kick start my metabolism.

I eat part of my lean green for lunch....(shock and awe).  LMAO!  I do this a few times a month.  I will order a lunch...feel guilty...eat a portion of said lunch with a chai or something...And feel guilty.  I will go home..eat the other half of my lean green...and feel guilty.  I honestly don’t know how to stop it.  Its irrational but it happens none the less.

I have struggled with this since I started in October.  I have no clue why my brain equates this little deviation from the norm as a cheat.  I am scared to death of cheating.  I keep track of every morsel that goes past my lips.  I know that cheating is nothing I should beat myself up about either.  It is something that my coach has always told me.  If you fall off the wagon just pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and hop back on for the ride.  It is something that I also convey to my friends that I coach.  I know better!   

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not into self flagellation or anything.  It only happens when I do this.  It usually passes the next day and I don’t think twice about it until the next time I do it.  I just don’t like the way my brain is processing the information.

Maybe part of it is that everyone who sees me order gives me the look.  Like yeah she isn’t on a diet...Look at her.  She is up to her old self again.  As if they couldn’t see the shrinking waist line of more defined figure when I stand sideways.  (Side note.  There is one person in my office who still swears I am lying that I am 14 pounds away from 50 lost.  She insists I haven’t lost a pound.)

I know its crazy.  I know I sound insane sometimes.  But I am who I am.  Flawed and mentally confused.  I guess I will pick myself up and dust myself off and get back on for the ride.  Because it has been awesome so far.  I don’t want to miss any of the sights

The Tiny Goals we never mention.

Has anyone had a tiny lil goal that they achieved and never mentioned becasue it was to TMI, just not work a flame on a post? Lord knows I have had my fair share.

I no longer need a bra extender. Believe it or not I ran around and told everyone that one..lol. I have no shame.

My back flap is slowly going away. I so want to take a pic of that..lol.

I am now able to wear size 7 underwear down from size 9.

My TOM is now regular. And short again

I can cross my legs and not feel like im cutting the circulation off.

And today I had to wash something off my foot and didnt want to turn on the shower. I managed to lift my leg into the sink and had wiggle room. :) WOW!

Yeah life is good when you can see the little things and wish you can make them bigger. I mean the only people that understand me is the people who have walked down this path.

I say sing it my brothers and sisters. Sing it the heavens. Tell the world you can touch your feet again. And do it with pride. After all those skinny bitches who never had to worry a day in their lives will never understand what the majority of humanity deal with to do that again.

Keep on going and keep on being inspired. Becuase all your tiny goals should keep you going for a long while!!
Hugs!!

My dirty secret!

I really hope I don’t offend.  Not my intention.  But I see posts sometimes that make me mad.  I don’t flame but a few of the ones that make me mad bring out the flamer in me ( though I have not succumbed to the temptation to do so).    I hope I am not the only one who feels this way, because if I am I will feel even worse for this blog post.  And since I am only staying true to myself by being as honest as I can (which helps keep me focused). I have to bring my dirty secret to life.

(deep breath)

I hate when people complain about how little weight they lose.  There I said it!  Its out in the air now.  My dirty secret is secret no longer.  I hate when people complain about how little they lose.  Really now!  I read a post early about someone who honestly was upset because they didn’t lose enough weight in one week and that person after 7 weeks ONLY lost 37 pounds!  This was not going fast enough.  They should have lost 20 pounds in one month!  REALLY???

I consider myself lucky that I am at 37 pounds at that is in 20 weeks!  I am no rock star in the weight loss category by far.  I have my yes weeks and I have my no weeks.  All the while being %100 ON PLAN!  Do these people not read the boards and see other peoples tickers?  REALLY!  I see them everywhere and I know I am in line with most people who started around the same time as me.  Can they not see how silly the complaint is?  I understand the feeling of not losing as much as you want, by why complain if you lost?

Now lets be honest with ourselves.  How may programs out there let us eat and still lose, while not exercising to boot?  Not many.  And then lose and you get to eat good food and not exercise?  I have no clue.  Because this is the only one I found that does that. 

I wish everyone would take a breath,  Put their thoughts in prospective and then honestly say “I lost weight!  Woot!!”  And carry on they way they were.  Because honestly if they can lose like that!  Then they are obviously doing something right!

To help or not to help. This is my question.

I have been thinking on this for awhile. It has actually bothered me. I had a friend. (please note the word had) Who would complain with me all the time that we wanted to lose weight. I was the only person who has started and has been successful to date.

When I first started MF and was down my first 15 pounds she was encouraging. I think because I was still in the “iffy” stage where I can fall off the wagon at any minute. Once I hit past that all the sudden my whole attitude changed. I became a B. I have reflected long and hard on this. I have only been excited about my weight loss and when I was approached by her I explained it in detail so if she chose to do so she could do this too. After I told her about MF. I heard her talking to someone about me and my stupid diet. I chalked this up to envy. I am by no means a bombshell. I am merely going back to what I was before I became complacent.

So now when I walk past her I am either ignored or offered her table full of treats. I have not seen a healthy piece of food pass her lips. And that is in 5 years that I have known her. All she buys is chocolate, pizza, chips and she grazes all day on it. I never wanted to say anything about this before because I fear that I would be branded as judgmental. I am mental but I judge what she eats countered with the words that have come out of her mouth. You want to lose weight, You want to eat trash. How can you do both?

Now we are no longer friends but I still want to help. I know I will be rebuffed as it is obvious from her actions if not her words that she doesn’t want it from me. I would like to consider her a friend again. However I do not stand by someone who wants to sabotage me, insult me, and because I have made an effort in my life to become a better person, be harshly treated.

So now I am left with helping by doing it. I will walk my walk just as I talked my talk.