Losing it one pound at a time

I feel empowered. Really empowered. What a beautiful thing. As I wrote last week, I lost my job. I feel like God answered my prayers and stopped the merry-go-round for me and said “she needs a break”. I’m off the constant motion and I feel like my clarity is coming back. It is so easy to lose yourself in work, lose yourself in busy-ness and forget about what direction you want your life to take. I was totally in that place. But I knew I wanted out because my life wasn’t going down the path I had hoped for. I was completely stressed out, eating all the time, and from the minute I woke up and started thinking about work until I came home my adrenaline was running high, my heart pumping and I knew it wasn’t good for my long term health. Not to mention it was affecting my kids and my husband - my marriage. I was losing myself and I knew it.

So here I am - suddenly calm and elated. Making plans for my family and my boys…knowing I can take them to their sports practices without worrying about carpooling issues, making my health a priority and enjoying my workouts instead of rushing through them. I’m laughing again. My husband has become funny again. I’m singing in the car again. The worry about work, how am I stacking up, what my managers think….it’s gone. Bye-Bye. I’ve also noticed I’m no longer  hungry all the time. I think I used to eat non-stop because I had constant nervous energy going on and I felt like I had to be doing “something” so if I stopped working on a project at work I’d take a break to eat. I’m excited to see how my body and weight will adjust to this calmer lifestyle.

So yes, I’m empowered. I know that God has an amazing plan for me. I’m not worried about what I’m going to do because everything always, always works out for the best. And He helped me, at 41, get my life back in order. I am so grateful.

On Monday on my way to work I found out that the company I’ve worked for 15 years is closing my division. Thousands of people lost their jobs, including me. I’ve been anticipating this for a long time….actually it’s been about a  year… so I wasn’t completely surprised. I’ve been under extreme stress and anxiety - I had even had a few panic attacks last spring just wondering “if” and “when” this would happen. So when I got the call I was suprisingly calm. I had to call my team together (I manage 16 people who were affected) and had to let them know. It was really, really devastating to communicate this information to people that I truly care about. I have to tell you, they took it really well. The sadest part is that we all really like each other so much. Monday was probably one of the most difficult days I’ve ever had.

Tuesday morning I felt RELIEVED. I knew that I had been stressed, depressed, whatever - and that weight was gone. Sometimes when I wake up I have a song that plays in my head (am I the only one?) and on Tuesday - I swear to you - the song from Oklahoma “Oh what a beautiful mornin’….” was playing in my head. I feel like yes, this chapter is closing but a new and exciting chapter is opening up.

I’ve mentioned before in this blog that my weight gain started after the birth of my third child 3 years ago, but it also happened at the time I accepted a management position within my company 3 years ago. The management position was rewarding because I loved the people I managed, but also extremely difficult and stressful. I’m hopeful that now that I’m no longer in my job and the stress is gone I can get my weight back on track. I’m a major emotional eater, I often joke about the peanut m&m’s in the office that call my name every day at 3 pm. No more m&m’s for me.

The silver lining in my cloud is that now I get to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life! The canvas is completely open, it’s my turn to paint it any color I want.  To all of my buddies, I’d love it if you could send me your prayers and positive energy, I need some guidance about which direction to take. I’m seriously considering starting my own business. I want to be in charge of my own time, have more flexibility with my schedule, etc.  I’m a little scared but also very excited about the prospect of doing what I want to and really changing the direction for the next chapter of my life. And part of that is getting back to who I used to be: calmer, happier and skinnier.

So that’s the newest with me. I hope you are all doing well. More soon.

I ran today. Me. I can’t believe it. I’ve been wanting to run for a long time but everytime I started I would just stop and start walking after about…..30 seconds. I met another mom at my gym and she runs 4 miles everyday. She has one of those runners bodies - you know, lean and long. I so want a runners body. This morning I decided to walk the 1.4 miles down to the beach. I started walking and then decided - I’m going to run. But this time I told myself ” I’m really just walking a little bit faster. This is no problem. I can do this.” and I ran over a mile!!!! Without stopping!!! I did walk home on the way back - but baby steps, right?

Now off to a shower. Running really brings out the stink.

I lost my first four pounds. I don’t know how it happened so fast or if I just weighed in the first time on a really full stomach, but I lost the first 4 pounds. I brought my husband in to see the results on the scale. Here’s what I’ve been eating: breakfast is steel cut oatmeal w/ a sliced peach or nectarine and 5 almond chopped up. Lunch is grilled chicken and a little rice and lots of veggies. Snack is string cheese and for dinner - a big bowl of raisin bran. I happen to love eating breakfast for dinner so this is perfect for me.

THREE MORE MINI GOALS AND I’M THERE!

I weighed in this morning at 150, which is down 2 pounds. My mini goal is 4 pounds, and if I do that 4 times I get my big reward! I am so excited about getting this reward it’s really renewed my focus.

In order to make this deal with my husband, I weighed in to him and it’s the first time he’s seen my weight that high without having another human inside my body. When we met- 17 years ago (holy %hit!) I weighed 112. When we got married I weighed 123. After the first two babies, my new weight was 128. My pre-delivery weight (the “last appointment” before the big day) was 165 all three times. So basically right now I weigh the same as I did when I left the hospital. To weigh in at that number was a little humiliating. But to make me feel better he said he would have never guessed that was my number. I don’t look like I weigh that much. Did it make me feel better - nope. But it did light a fire under my booty that I really want to see my magic 1 - 3 - 6 ASAP.

Stay tuned.

The first thing my 10 year old  son said to me this morning was, “Mom, do you know what today is? It’s D-Day” and he proceeded to tell me all about it. He was home sick today and was glued to the History channel watching what happened. It really is so hard to watch, especially having 3 boys and everything. But I was proud of him for spending his time while he was sick, learning about sacrifices other people have made so that he can have the life he has right now.

That has nothing to do with my blog today, other than I’m just a really proud Mom and so lucky to be his.

So I’m sitting on my couch after eating a fairly healthy meal of grilled mahi mahi and steamed cauliflower. My 3 year old walks up and asks me for some cookies. I grabbed 2 for him and…..well…… 6 for me. I’m eating them mindlessly and then afterwards I’m just thinking to myself, “I am so done with this”. For the last 3 months I’ve been amazingly unfocused and unmotivated. Oh I get motivated, for about 36 hours then I blow it. I’m just tired of doing it to myself. I started looking around on different weight loss websites and thinking that I’ve got to come up with some really good reward because the whole reward thing seems to work for people who have had success in losing weight. So I came up with one and I shared it with my husband. Here’s the deal: if I lose….WHEN I lose 16 pounds I get it. No strings, I just get it. I’m not going to share it with you right now but it’s something just for me and I’ve wanted to do it for about a year. I always feel guilty spending money on myself but WHEN I lose these 16 pounds I won’t feel guilty at all.

I think the best way to accomplish this goal is to break it down into 4 mini 4 pound goals. It seems much more attainable if it’s just 4 pounds. I’ve done 4 pounds quite a few times, in fact I’ve even done 8. So I feel that this is something realistic. I am DETERMINED to get this weight off, once and for all, before my 42nd b-day. I’ve been carrying it around for …..how old did I say my youngest was….oh yes, about 4 years. Yikes. (I just noticed there are a lot of 4’s in my plan, wonder if that’s a coincidence. ) Back to my plan….I’ve got to workout daily to burn 500 calories, I’ve got to stay away from sweets, bread, chips and crackers. If anyone out there has any additional ideas to get me to my 4 pound mini goal, please let me know. And, I’ll keep you posted, four-sure.

Okay, I need your help. I am way, way, way off from my goal that I set back in December. My goal was to lose 25 pounds, but clearly I haven’t done that. I really wanted to be able to hang out at the beach with my family and look good in a bathing suit. So - I’ve got to re-focus. I need to lsoe 20 pounds. Please send me your best ideas - calorie savers, etc that I can use to drop this weight. I do enjoy working out but have to admit I’ve been sleeping in the last 2 weeks instead of hitting the gym. I will head back to the gym tomorrow and look forward to any ideas you can send me!

It sort of feels that way. All of that mad motivation I had in January kind of left me.  I need it back! I’m geting back on track but I have to say - it’s not with the same zest I had before. I really want to get this weight off…I can’t tell you how badly. Any ideas?

After taking about 6 weeks off I’m back. I don’t know what happened….started off with just getting too busy at work. My company was part of an acquision that happened nearly 2 years ago. It hadn’t been too bad until last summer when the lay-offs started. Since then I’ve been on pin and needles hoping it doesn’t happen to me. I mean, if it did it wouldn’t be the worst thing because I would get a really great severance package - but what then? I’d been with my company since 1992 and it’s really all I know. This constant fear of losing my job had just turned me upside down. I hadn’t been sleeping - I was a mess and I just didn’t want one more thing on my plate. I stopped going to the gym and getting on buddyslim - I just hibernated. My kids had spring break last week and I went back home - to Arizona. I spent a week with my family and friends and I got my perspective back. I got re-focused. I got back on Friday and I feel like myself again. I checked the scale - convinced I had gained weight, but I didn’t. I spent Friday night at the gym and have exercised every day since. I’m getting back on track and starting to take more vitamins and supplements. I’m drinking less coffee and more v-8. The v-8 makes me feel better and gives me a lot more energy than my ultra-strong coffee. I’ve got to get back to taking better care of myself and letting go of these worries. 

That’s all for now. Thanks for listening!

I was in the office last week and one of the gals in my office said, “Lise, you look like you’ve lost some weight! What have you been doing?” I said, “it’s so weird. When I eat less, I lose weight.” I swear, as stupid as it sounds, this is what has worked for me.  I never had a weight problem until I had my 3rd son. I was 38 and convinced that the weight would fall off before my 6 week follow up visit with my OB. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen this time. I had all sorts of excuses….my age, busy with my 2 older boys,  metabolism, thyroid, I even did a sleep study because I thought I might not be getting enough  oxygen when I was sleeping - hence a weakened metabolism. Turns out it was a lack of willpower and too much food. I finally decided I had had enough. I was tired of disappointing myself. I decided to make small changes so I wouldn’t miss my favorite (mexican) foods too much. I did quit drinking beer and pretty much alcohol altogether. I don’t miss it.  I still get to eat mexican food, I just skip the cheese and guacamole and stick to chicken and corn tortillas - and load up on the lettuce and tomotoes. I also bring food to work so I don’t have any excuses to eat poorly. And, I eat a snack at 3 pm so I don’t go home starving and eat like a madwomen. I’ve lost 9 pounds so far and I am so proud. I’ve been able to wear clothes in my closet that haven’t seen the daylight in 3 years. I want to get down to 132, so I have another 16 pounds to go but at this rate I’ll be there by summer. I’m just doing it one pound at a time, but it adds up.