Whooooaaaa we're halfway there...

It's been a rough last few weeks for a few reasons, my anxiety being a huge cause, but my biggest accomplishment is that I haven't caved to my stress and eaten myself into a coma. I did eat off my Medifast program for 3 days a few weeks ago when we had family in town and also celebrated our wedding anniversary, but I'm back on track and have lost a little bit more.  I'm down 55.1 lbs this year.

You know what that means?

I'm halfway there! I'm halfway to my goal of 110 lbs lost!  I'm REALLY happy about that. Well, who wouldn't be happy after losing 55 lbs, right? I am sure that you can relate if you've ever been overweight that you've spent time feeling miserable and defeated. I'm STILL overweight (technically obese, thanks BMI), but I'm feeling inspired and ready. Ready to meet my goal!

I also started my half-marathon training 2 days ago. Today was day 2. I'm in horrible shape and nowhere near even being able to run a mile, much less 3 blocks. But it's day 2 out of 60 days of training. You have to start somewhere. And I can assure you that when I finish in 19 1/2 weeks I will be moving much faster and further than I am now. The point is I'm out there moving and training. And it feels GOOD when I'm done. It also helps that summer is (ha!) winding down. Not really. It's still been in the 90's the past few weeks here in Denver. But there's hope we might dip to the 80's next week. Heck, when I have to do my 13 and 14 mile training run/walks it will be late December/early January! Then I'll be whining for 80 and 90. (No. No I won't).

The walk/running has helped my anxiety a little bit. I still can't turn my brain off when I do it, but if I can push myself a little more it helps me focus on how much I hate running or how hot and sweaty I am. And even if my brain is over-run with OCD thoughts (which it is, all day long), it keeps me from worrying about how dumb I look run/walking when people pass me by on the busy road we live off of. Lemonade out of lemons, right?

Here's a photo of me when I hit 50 lbs, so 5 pounds ago. Can't wait to post a 75 lb lost pic!

A LONG way to go

I'm not a runner. Not in any sense of the word. Not. At. All.

I also haven't started officially training for my half marathon. Nothing more than walks, and not nearly enough of them. Today I did a 5K with my sister-in-law and one of her friends. I felt bad because I think they probably would have liked to have run it, but I held them up. I ran for a good couple minutes... that's it. And it's been 2 1/2 hours since we finished it and I still feel like I have an elephant standing on my chest.

Yay asthma!

I am fully confident that I can train and be in shape to finish a 13.1. It may be predominantly walking, but there is NO doubt in my mind that I will finish in the allotted time. None. But I just hate, hate, hate that I am unable to run any length of time. I never have been. The furthest I've ever run consecutively in my life is slightly over a mile. My lungs hate me. I hate looking at runners out having what seems to be like a leisurely run with friends chatting and whatnot. I look at them and think "I can do that!" and then I try.

It's frustrating.

But, I'll look at the positives. I am down 49.1 lbs. That's a lot of weight. I walk a LOT faster than I have in the past. I LIKE being active. I am confident that before my 13.1 I will lose at least 40 more pounds. I will move even faster and easier then. And the more I move, the easier it will get. Right?

My official training starts in 17 days. 20 weeks of training. Which means I'm only 22 weeks from the actual half marathon. That's not THAT far away, and I still have a LONG way to go.

Getting real

When I stepped on the scale yesterday morning it said 219.2.  That means I have said goodbye to 5 "decades" of weight. And that I'm down 45.3 pounds. It's starting to get real that I really have lost this weight.

I still have a long way to go. 65 pounds, to be exact. But I'm looking ahead. I'm looking ahead to when I've lost another 4.7 lbs. I'll have hit the 50 lb mark. Still 60 to go, but you know, 50 pounds is a pretty decent start, I'd say.

It was a cool day today in Denver so I wore jeans and a shirt. My "skinny" (the cut of the jeans, NOT my skinny jeans) jeans are now way too big. It was a pain in the butt to be out and about always pulling up my pants. Unfortunately, the next size down is still too small.

I have my first of 3 5Ks this month coming up Saturday night. I'm not prepared in that "I need to run 3.1. miles" way, I'm more in the "I'm going to walk this with some running thrown in there here and there". Besides, they're all fun runs. FUN runs. (And trust me, I'm nowhere near that part where I wake up and think - "you know what would be FUN today? A run!"). Even the 10K that I signed up for in November is a fun run. And I get pumpkin pie at the end. Dude, I would easily travel 6 miles for a piece of pumpkin pie. My training for the half marathon starts in less than a month. I'm about to get really active.

Like I said, it's starting to get real!

Small Things

One thing I posted about in my Facebook group was something called NSV - Non-scale victories. What are they? Well, it's when the scale may not have moved much, but you're able to do something you weren't in the recent past. Now, I've lost a lot of weight in the last 2+ months so that has had a lot to do with all of my victories. But there are things that have no bearing on the scale.

Things like shaving 4 minutes off my miles - almost 5. Yeah, it helps that I've lost just about 40 pounds, but if I don't go out and actually take walks or jog, that doesn't matter. I'm sleeping a little bit better. Some has to do with my thyroid being under better control, but as you may know, sleep apnea is something that affects many overweight people. I would not be shocked if I had it for a while as I would wake up a dozen times a night and never wake up rested.

Old Navy recently had a sale on gym shorts for $5. I bought 2 pair, an XXL and an XL. Initially the XL were too tight and the XXL fit just about right, perhaps slightly loose. Well, about a month later the XXL fall down. They don't have a tie at the waist, so for a while I just safety pinned them, but today I tried on the XL and they fit pretty much perfectly. I'm glad I only spent $5 on the XXL!

I went shopping in my basement last week. The sad thing about someone who has binge eating problems is that they often gain and lose quickly and go through many sizes. I have pants from size 10 to size 20. I don't know if I'll ever be in the 10's again, but I have plans for my 12s. As of now I'm down one size. It's a little sad just how many clothes I DO have in my basement. But I just haven't been able to bear getting rid of some of them, even if I was 3 sizes bigger. Deep down I've always had faith in myself, just difficulty getting it moving.

I'm officially signed up for the Tinker Bell half marathon at Disneyland in January 2014. Right now I'm at that 16 minute mile which consists of running 2.5 minutes of it and walking the rest at 3.5 mph. In talking with my BFF, who is also doing it, we're planning on alternating run/walking. My asthma makes running difficult, but it's not going to stop me.

My results as of today? Down 39.3 lbs since March 4th and 35.7 on Medifast since May 6th.

Food is my drug

This post might end up being all over the place. I think I'm just going to write, and you can try to make sense of it all.

The title of this post says it all. Food is my drug. I can't tell you WHY, not really, but I can tell you WHEN.

I lost 30 lbs about 8 years ago. I went from 176 to 144. I had been in the 140's in high school and then the majority of my adult life had been about 155-160. I always felt "fat", though all of those are healthy weights for my height. There were a few patches in college where I gained weight, but I was able to lose it pretty easily between softball and watching what I ate. I had gained roughly 20 lbs over 2 years in my late 20s due to a lot of beer, takeout, and not being nearly as active as I should have been. Was I overweight? Yes, according to the BMI charts, but really I didn't LOOK bad. (Looking back, of course).

Once I hit that goal weight, I moved from California to Colorado. I had done it on Weight Watchers, and rather than joining up here in CO, I figured I could maintain the weight loss on my own. I did fairly well for a few months, but then my "cheat days" became more frequent and I didn't bounce back as quickly as I could when I only would take one day a week. I struggled for about a year to keep the weight down so I would fit in my wedding dress, and I managed to weigh in at 159 on my wedding day. Then we went to Vegas on our honeymoon and ate and drank our way through a week there. It pretty much spiraled out of control after that. Within a year of our wedding, I had gained about 50 lbs.

I'm not one of those people who eats when they're sad or depressed, so I can't blame that. I just eat. Like I said, it's my drug. It makes me feel good. I LIKE food. I LOVE food

Yet somehow I have this amazing control right now over what I'm eating. I'm able to focus and this past 2 months I have lost 30 lbs. I have no idea how I'm managing that.

I know HOW to eat. I know what I shouldn't eat. I know what I should eat. But just like any other addict, when you crave your drug, you go after it. And the thing about being addicted to food is that you can't just STOP eating. Alcoholics and drug addicts can structure their lives so that they don't encounter as much temptation. You can't just NOT eat.

I can't tell you why this started happening. Prior to 2005 I never dealt with overeating the way I do today. I need more than a nutritionist, I need actual therapy. There's rehab for drug and alcohol addicts, but it's very hard to find that sort of thing for people with food addictions. Worse yet, it's hard for you to find it that's covered by insurance.

I'm not worried about not losing weight now. I know I will meet my goal. I have no doubt. But what I am TERRIFIED of is not being able to maintain it. I've failed before and I'm scared of failing again. I know I need help, help past the part of losing the weight. Help with the mental aspect. It's more than just meeting with a nutritionist. I KNOW what I should and shouldn't eat.

I hate that I have this looming over me. I'm feeling so positive about the success that I've had so far, and determined to get the job done. But then what?

Winning!

Today I was Googling things that weigh 30 lbs. Why? Because that's how much weight I've lost so far. Yeah, I'm pretty happy about that!

One of the things that I found that weighs approximately 30 lbs is this:

That's a World Series trophy, in case you weren't quite sure. That's also a photo of the first one my favorite team, the Oakland A's, won in Oakland in 1972. They also won one in 1973 (the year I was born), 1974 and 1989. They won 4 in Philadelphia, too. You're welcome for that little lesson on Athletics history.

Crazy enough, as I said, the A's have won 4 championships in Oakland. I'd love if this year was #5, but I digress. Anyway, 4 trophies = 120 lbs. I technically have 110 lbs to lose total, but if I lost a full 120 lbs, I would weigh the same that I did in this photo: 145 lbs.

Look at me all being skinny and drinking beer. We shall meet again someday, old friend.

The thing is, even when I was "skinny", my body structure doesn't allow me to be SKINNY. Those are size 10 jeans and the top is still a large. I still have the jeans. Probably the tank, too. 

Anyway. 

This thing also happens - when you lose weight, you move better and your body hurts less. 30 lbs ago, I could only walk at 3.0 mph for 3 or 4 minutes at a time or else I'd get ridiculous shin splints and horrible hip pain. I was 39 going on 79. I averaged a 22 minute mile when I walked, and I usually couldn't go much longer than 50 minutes - which was barely over 2 miles.

Yesterday I walked just over 2 miles in 37 minutes. An 18 minute mile. Now, that's still not fast enough to do the Tinkerbell Half Marathon completely walking (I believe you need to maintain a 16 minute mile), but I've already cut 4 minutes off my mile. I've only got 2 to go. Oh, and I walked those 2 miles pain free. I could have walked longer and further, but I didn't have enough time to do so.

So yeah, I'm winning. I've already won the war against one World Series trophy, and I've cut 4 minutes off my mile. I've hit the 30 pound lost mark, which earned me a reward - a Le Creuset dish. Now I need to think of a reward for hitting 40 pounds. It won't be long!

New Clothes!

Ok, not really.

Sadly, I have a basement full of garbage bags and Rubbermaid containers of clothes that are too small. Because of this, new clothes aren't really a reward for me, because I already HAVE so many clothes that fit as I lose weight. But I guess you can say I can go shopping in my closet (or basement. Semantics).

So, I did that - because I've lost enough to fit back into my jeans I was wearing last fall. And that is pretty rewarding. I mean, in a way it's rewarding because YAY! I'm down a size! But it doesn't in any way, shape, or form mean that I am at a healthy weight or thin. It just means I'm getting close to the weight I maintained for about a year or so. I felt incredibly self-conscious at THAT weight, so you can imagine how I felt when I was 23lbs heavier than I am now.

But I do admit, I have a little boost of self-confidence knowing that I AM down that size. I know I don't look great, or even good, but I FEEL better.

A few weeks ago I blogged about how I wasn't sure I could do this Medifast thing. But I'm rockin' it. Do I love it? No. Do I like it? It's ok! I had a rough start because I also started on Metformin at the same time and dealt with a lot of the icky side effects that come with it (bloating, diarrhea, nausea). That's all subsided and I'm feeling good. While "normal" food looks good, I don't have the urges for it anymore.

Except for the fact that I dream about food.

Yeah. I dream about cheating on my weight loss efforts. For real. Usually with something pretty bad for me. But when it comes to real life, I don't. I haven't. I'm almost even nervous about doing it when I PLAN on doing it in 3 weeks. I'm that focused. But success feels good, you know?