Seventeen Again...

HOLEEE SHIIT, you guys.  You GUYS!!  I haven't posted anything...ANYTHING...since January.

JANUARY!!!

Ok, so I knew it had been a long time, but holy crap-oly, I didn't think it had been almost .75 of a year!

Wow.

Just.  Wow.

Okay, so, I'm a terrible friend.  Even with my blog.  Like, I don't call.  I don't text.  I don't email.  And apparently, I don't write either.

Hey!  Hey you there!  Talk to me!

It's been a bit of an odd year for me.  I have been on a weight loss journey for almost 5 years now, but in 2016 have gained about 5-10 lbs that I can't seem to get rid of.  I've been a little stressed at work.  It's been quite topsy-turvy there, so yeah, there's that.  My oldest daughter is almost a teen, like a real, true, omg teen.  We're going through shaving and phones and hanging out with friends.  At the mall.  The little one is growing up too, finding her voice, even through her continuous mouth gear.  And Tony has been a bit stressed too.  Then there is also the whole election thing and everything else that is going on with this country.

There have been good things, great things too!  We went to Seattle and I took the girls to Kansas for Spring Break.  Mia is going to be a flower girl.  ANNNDD, we built a deck (finally)! 

All this to say that I have been feeling a little, uh, different lately? Not different so much as, maybe, reminiscent of another time? I've been feeling like I'm going through my second seventeen.  Does that make sense?  No?  

When I was seventeen was the first time I started to gain some confidence in myself.  I started to trust myself.  I started driving and gained freedoms.  I explored different ways to express myself.  And, it was a big election year (when I turned 18) too.  I was figuring out who I was, what was important to me, and how to express that.

Super Mario fun

Now, I have more confidence than I think I've even had.  I feel more beautiful today than I ever did before.  I trust my decisions, and am not apologizing for who I am.  I am finding my voice, again.  Or retrying it on for size.  My kids are getting older and are leaving me alone, so I am finding time do things like read, or watch tv, or play on the computer and catch up on news.  I am finding my political voice again.  I am finding that I have views, and opinions and beliefs and I am feeling like I can and should express them - at times.

New Tattoo

I am a feminist.  To the core.  I am thoroughly enjoying how people are turning views on their heads, and making my mind widen.  I want to see and understand peoples points of views, but not falter in my own.  I'm finding that not only am I able to do that, I can listen to what is being said and really have discussions with them.

I am loving being seventeen again.  I feel good about myself and am learning to accept myself.

I can accept myself, but not licks from the dog.

Working on me...

I've been working on myself this past year, and there are some things I am continuing to work on.

I am working on losing weight.  I am working on the many mental aspects of losing weight.  Negativity towards my tracker, jealousy of people that hit their weight loss goals, anger and frustration at the scale, at plateauing.  Weight Watchers recently changed their point system.  Which caused me to start to tailspin backwards through all of these feelings.  So, I gave myself a break.  I gave myself a vacation.  And you know what?  I gained a whopping 1.6 lbs over the holidays.  Not 10 or 15 pounds.  I'm over the moon!  I'm using this positivity to attack the new system and get it working for me.

I'm working on me time.  I'm working on taking pictures again.  I'm working on not being depressed from January through March this year.  I purchased a camera cleaning kit and have tried to use my DSLR camera again (pictures below).  My subjects are generally animals since they can't tell me not to take their picture.

Charlie Reflection

This is how JoJo rolls while I work

I'm working on staying positive through these winter months.  I have a tendency to get depressed and hang out on my couch.  And eat.  And gain weight.  I heard from someone in medical school that one way to combat this seasonal depression is to turn on all the lights and bombard yourself with brightness.  So, I purchased a couple of extra lamps and have been enjoying the light in my house.

Got a Kindle for Christmas.  This is my new view

I'm also reading.  I've just started Harry Potter again.  I read the entire series over the summer, and have just finished all the movies.  I'm reading the books again to savor them and to prepare to say goodbye to the characters.  I devoured the books so quickly this summer, that I am excited to slowly wade through the series again.

I call this one, "Deep Cat Thoughts"

I'm also trying to blog/write more.  This is a consistent goal of mine, and I am trying to learn from the past and to attempt one post a week.  As my children are growing up, and I'm less inclined to talk about them, you may start to get my opinions a little more.  Or not.  We'll see.

OMG!  SHE LET ME TAKE HER PICTURE!

In my Weight Watchers group, my leader once said to work on what comes easy to you when you start to spiral or make bad decisions.  For me, easy is exercise (hard is watching what I eat).  I am attempting to stay active.  Running is happening once to twice a week, but walking is happening most other days.  I am trying to get 10,000 steps a day (although my Fitbit crapped out on me this week - waiting on a replacement).  This is one of the best me times I have, whether indoors or outdoors, I can be alone with my thoughts or catching up on TV I don't get to watch otherwise.

Breakfast smiles

Working on me includes "Me Time", lights, smiles, writing and pictures.  What will you be working on this year?

The man say, "Coffee.  Good."

Cuddly kid pics

Because I can...

Staying at home has been more stressful than anticipated.  Not that my kids are too crazy (although, they are a bit nuts), or that I've set myself up to do too much (I have been doing a lot), but it's the food that stresses me out.  Seriously.  

I love food.  Food is my favorite.  But, it makes my jeans tighter.  It makes my muffin top fluffier.  It comforts me and stresses me out all in one.  It makes me question my willpower.  It makes me question my determination.  It makes me give up on myself.

I have a good routine when I am working.  I have a good routine when I am on vacation.  But, put me at home for a week, with holidays built around eating, and I lose it.  I lose my drive to exercise.  I'm tired.  I overeat.  I can't relax.  I beat myself up for all of my choices.

I want to sit, and binge watch NCIS.  And also to not feel bad about that decision.

I want to eat only when I'm hungry.  I want to make good choices about the food that is in my mouth. But, one bad decision can send me on a spiral of bad decisions.

I have tools to help me with these decisions, good and bad.  I am able to stop and track my food.  I can exercise while watching NCIS (thank you Netflix and a treadmill).  I can move the food to the bottom shelves of the fridge, so I don't eat them first.  I can distract myself from eating by losing myself in other tasks.  I can write about what is actually stressing me out.

The holidays stress me out.  Family.  Shopping.  Cooking.  Working. Activities.  Animals.  Projects.  All that have a non-moveable deadline.

And, the weather has changed.  I'm inside more.  It's cold outside.  It's raining or snowing or cloudy or foggy.  The sun is out when it's even colder.  I gain weight every year between January and April.  For some reason, these are the worst months for me.  

I have a tool.  I am aware.  I can work on this.  I can make better decisions.  I can stop feeling victimized by food and stress.  I can make the decision to not feel bad about the decisions I make.  I can sit and enjoy some binge watching and eat a salad or an apple.  I can run or walk on the treadmill, or use one of the many exercise videos I have.  I can take the dog for a walk - even when it's cold because being outdoors everyday will make me happy.

Today is a new day.  I will feel better about myself today.  I will move the leftovers from Thanksgiving to the dark bottom shelf of the fridge.  I will move the ice cream to the back bottom of the freezer.  I will throw away the store bought cookies.  I will write down a plan for food today and stick to it.  And I will distract myself with cleaning and re-organizing kitchen cabinets.  I will find a way to exercise today.  And I will go outside in the cold and rain and walk the dog.

Because I am strong.  Because I make the decisions that can adjust my destiny.  Because I can.

My clouded vision....

In my Weight Watchers meeting, the other day, we were asked to think about making vision boards.  Basically, what we envisioned the future to look like, hitting our goals.  So, naturally, being against writing down goals, I skipped the next meeting so that I wouldn't have to build a vision board.  I probably shouldn't have skipped the meeting, but, I was at a loss.

I'm not sure what I want to happen.  I'm not sure I can envision hitting my weight loss goal.  I can't foresee what I will look like (really - that much different than today?).  I've been thinking about this, and letting it play in my mind.  Some of the things that I've come up with are:

1. Less tummy rolls when I sit.  I can wear a fitted shirt, but I see the rolls in pictures, in store windows.  I feel the uncomfortableness when I sit and have to pull the waist of my jeans up and over my rolls, at least so some of them can be hidden.  I see the belly in the jeans when I look down when I'm reading.  If I make it to my weight loss goals, will that be gone?  Or just smaller?

2. I overeat.  A lot.  Especially when I'm at home all week, with a small child that is not sleeping at night and is going through Tylenol/Advil withdrawal.  When things are happening beyond my control.  When the food is just nearby.  When I sit on the couch to read.  My body says it's full, but my mind sees this as a challenge.  How much can we eat?  So, if I hit my weight loss goals, does this mean that I will have learned how to stop over eating?  Will I stop craving chips?  Will I stop thinking about food as much as men think about sex?

3.  Then, there are the after effects of eating too much.  If I hit my weight loss goal, and I overeat, will I still feel the shame of overeating?  Will I ever get over the shame I feel for the way I eat?  Or the shame I feel for the way I look?  I'm not perfect, why do I feel like I have to look perfect?  Why do I look on my daughter with shame, like the way that she looks is a reflection of my poor parenting?  Do other mother's feel the same shame?  When your kids ask you to eat pretzels, or popcorn, ice cream, doughnuts, do you immediately tell them no?  Do you emphasize that these are treats and shouldn't be eaten all the time?  Do you let yourself have treats - without shame?

4. I hear people talking about how you won't be happy when your skinny, if you're not happy now.  Weight loss won't make you happy.  But, will it make me more confident?  I've lost 80 lbs, and I feel no more confident now than I did before.  If anything, I feel less confident.  Maybe because I'm closer to my goal now, so that when I see that I'm not there yet (store windows, mirrors, pictures), it's more of a blow to my self-image than it was before I got to where I am now.  Will I just find something else to obsess about?  Gray hairs? Wrinkles? 

I guess I'm still working through what I would put in my vision board. It looks like I have some questions to answer.  Maybe in finding these answers, I can find my vision.

Reworking my goals...

I have had a long time to mull this over, to try different things, like well over a year, I'm talking.  More than enough time for some things to get through the thickness that is my skull.

I set myself a goal recently.  My goal is to lose 1 lb a week, until I reach my goal.  AND.  I am determined to reach that goal this year.  For the past 2 years or so, I've been maintaining - gaining a little, losing some, gaining it back, losing it, etc.

This has been going on for about 2 years.  You can imagine that the non-movement of the (literal) needle on my scale is... frustrating... to say the least.

I have tried different things (eat more, eat less, less carbs, more veggies, more exercise, less exercise, some treats, no treats, blah, blah, blah).  These changes have all gotten me to a place that I can maintain.  A place that I stress so much less over my weight loss and the scale.  And, I am not looking to change that, to start stressing again.

What occurred to me, recently, was that I focus so much on the exercise, on being more active, because that was easy for me.  I've always been athletic, and I know that practice and diligence and hard work and a little push and determination will go far when it comes to physical activity.

Now, I need to apply that same diligence, hard work, practice, determination and little pushes to my eating habits.

I give myself too many passes on my eating.  I am an emotional, stress, binge, mindless over-eater.  I know what I am doing when I over-eat, when I binge, and I still let it happen.

I'm not thinking that I can just stop it.  Or somehow exert control over this.  If I could control these habits and behaviors, I would never have gotten to over 250 lbs.  First, I want to identify the things that I let get out of control.  Then, I want to learn how to take myself away from the temptation and refocus my mind on something else; distract the craving.

Some of the habits I can already identify are:

1. Eating off my kids plates.  I always think bites don't count.  They do count.  And I don't need their food anyway.

2. Binging at home.  The return of the bottomless pit.  I need to find a way to distract from this, to get out of the situation.

3. Eating while reading or watching TV.  The problem with this habit is that it would be really nice to distract myself with books or TV (without eating at the same time).

I'm sure more habits will be identified, but I think I have a good start.

C'mon eating habits - we're going to get in shape!

My intentions...

The start of a new year brings us a fresh new beginning.  We haven't ruined this year yet.  We have another chance to be the person we want to be, to change the things that we dislike, whether about ourselves, or our surroundings, or our situations.  I've been reading much about finding and holding onto happiness this year, and making positive changes in our lives this year.

I have been writing daily about #selfpositivity2015.  This is a way for me to reflect back on my day, and find good in the choices I made, the way I handled a situation, the steps forward I take.  It's also a way for me to combat my own very negative mindset.  You know that mindset.  It harbors that voice that tells you that you should have eaten an apple instead of that brownie.  The one that berates you for only running a half mile when you did 3 yesterday.  The one that tells you about how bad a mom you are because you just didn't want to be around your kids today. 

Yeah.  That voice.

I need it to be quieter.  I need to hear good about myself.  I need to feel good about myself.

One of the ways that I am working on myself is my daily "to do" list.  This started as a way for me to get a handle on busy days, and not forget the things that need to get done.  This week, it morphed into a tool to help ground me.  I had a few minutes to reflect quietly and was not proud of the recent way that I was treating my kids.  I didn't really want them near me, and I made sure to try to keep them away.  In pushing them away, I got angry, they got angry and hurt, we were all crabby.

This was something I wanted to change.  So, I wrote to myself that I wanted to not yell at my kids, to spend quality time truly enjoying them, and learning about them and loving them.

Writing that down helps me to focus my intent.  My intent to be a good mother.  So, that little notebook that I carry around, is a great 'to do' list keeper.  But now, because I need that help, it's going to be a way to reflect on how I want my day to go.  Whether focusing on my maternal skills, my wife skills, my Tara skills, or my friend skills.  I will be attempting, daily, to make my intentions clearer to myself.

Self Positivity 2015...

As I sat down to watch yet another episode of "New Girl" on Netflix, on the computer, it occurred to me that I could actually blog instead of just thinking about blogging.  Then, I would have time to watch more episodes on Netflix when I was done.  So, here I am writing.  :)

I was journaling the other night, going over and over the Holidays.  What did I do wrong?  What did I do right (if anything)?  Was I ok with gaining the almost 10 pounds?  How was I feeling physically?  It occurred to me, that I routinely harass myself about my food choices.  I do everything I can in my head to tell myself how much I suck.  I berate myself over the littlest decision and constantly focus on the negative.

I started to write about how what I really need is positive reinforcement.  I love to be praised, and usually am able to see the good in my work when I am being praised.  Plus, it starts to feel less like work and more like something I enjoy doing.

After surprising myself with a journal that noted my need for positivity I started thinking about how I can add positivity into my internal self.  Brilliantly (at least I thought so), I had the idea to tweet/FB/instagram a hashtag so that daily I can note the things that I do that make me feel good about myself.  The coolest thing about this is that I can look back over the year to see what I was did well.  AND, as a bonus, I'm hoping that other people will join in and use this hashtag so that we can all share our positivity for this year.

 

If you'd like to share anything about yourself that you feel good about, any choices you made, any hugs you gave, anything at all that you did that and know that made you feel good about yourself, please feel free to post it somewhere and use the hashtag #selfpositivity2015.

Here's to a great year, with a whole lot of internal positive reinforcement!