Month: February 2012

Learning to love ourselves

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Another blogger wrote today about people who say negitive things about overweight people, many times disquised as advice.

I do not know why people are so critical of overweight people. It seems to be the last allowed prejudice.  Many feel it is okay to tell someone they need to lose weight and tell them they eat too much and do not understand that damage they are doing.

Many overweight people struggle with self esteem. Sometimes caused by the weight and sometimes the self esteem issue causes the weight. Either way, the people that suffer from lack of self esteem have trouble getting incentive to lose weight , the food has for many become t hier comfort and the more uncomfortable with thier body they are, the more they turn to food. It often becomes  a vicous cycle .

What I want people to understand that are not overweight and have never been overweight and feel good about themselves. They are often asking someone to fight hard for someone they do not love very much. If you do not think you deserve to be happy, or deserve to be thin,  you are not going to be willing to do what it takes to work  to get thin. That causes discomfort, and the food which helps you to bury the discomfort is now going to be taken away. This can cause panic and depression in a person who is suffering with this and often is just not sustainable. Think about it this way. If you do not love yourself, and  you do not feel deserving, you are not going to be willing to fight to get the things y ou do not feel you deserve. Who is going to fight for someone they sometimes even hate or despise ?

We need to concentrate on why someone does not love themselves and teach them why they are loveable, just the way they are. Fat or thin makes no differance in our worth as a person and if  more people who tell the people they love or even just work with and know, how wonderful they and what they admire about them and help them build themselves up, they would want to do the hard work that comes with losing weight. They would start to love them selves and care about themselves and want to fix those things that are not right in thier life, without you telling them too.

Lets be clear. I have never myelf met an overweight person who wanted to be that way.Okay  I do know there are some people out there who love being  heavy  and are happy that way and love themselves heavy , and that is not the issue here. I am talking about those people who do not want to be overweight but just cannot seem to overcome the to them unsurmountable work it takes to get to goal. It is not an easy thing to do.

I have often said when you are over a hundred pounds overweight and starting a diet, it is like trying to go up 100 stairs with one hand and one leg tied behind your back.  Scary and seems impossible. But once you are invested emotionally in yourself. You see the beautfiul person that you are, and that fat or thin  you are worthy of being loved and cherished and also , you are worthy and deserving of being slim and healthy too. At that point you can see yourself reaching goal, you can see yourself happy and slim and the work does not seem overwelming anymore. That stair case seems less scary .  Hard yes, momenets it seems impossible, yes, but you are willing to work through those bad moments because you know that is all they are. Bad moments.

So, if we can just teach our thin friends that they are not helping by saying “constructive ” things , that overweight people  know they  need to lose weight , and they  know they  are too heavy and have health risks because of it.  Instead they should show thier friends they care.  Tell tell them  what  you admire about them and how much you like them. What their strengths are and how beaufiful they are.  Show jthem they  matter and that you are glad they  are here , fat or thin. Love them  unconditionally .

Not many people are willing to fight for someone they do not love or care about, so you are just ingraining that feeling of being unworthy every time  you tell a heavy person what they should be doing. It makes them feel like a failure and it is humiliating.

We are all worthy. We are all beautiful. It took me a while to see that, but now I am happy with who I am and I am now willing to work to be healthy because I deserve to be healthy and strong and fit. I deserve to have energy and be able to do all the things I want to do.

So, lets just help each other love ourselves. Nothing is more important for so many reasons.  We are all wonderful, beautfiul and deserving of good things.

A nice day

/ stephiesbeadsandbaubles.com / 3 Comments

I had a great first day back on track and today is my second day !! I forgot to get on the scale but that is fine !!

I had a great day of eating healthy and found a great site called Spark People where they have so many wonderful tools !! You can track your excercise and eating and there is a great communtiy there and I am very excited and looking forward to having fun while I lose weight.

I have committed to a minimum of 15 minutes of walking a day. I am going to shoot for more, but no less than 15 minutes a day. I have enough time in my day to walk for two hours, so there is absolutely no excuse I can honestly come up with to not walk my minimum 15 minutes.

I made up some turkey patties last night and are they good!!!  I mixed t hree pounds of ground turkey with four egglands best eggs for the omegas and some Mrs Dash and a bit of organic sea salt and some garlic salt and cooked them in my cast iron pan. I think they are my new favorate food !! The egg gives them a light texture and the flavor is so wonderful !! Love them !!

I started my husband on a good eating plan today as well.  A friend and I were talking about diet and nutrition and when we started talking about what he takes to work a day, we realized that he was eating way less food than he should. It was his choice to take the healthy but  meager lunches he was taking and his work day was such he was eating his breakfast and lunch five to si x hours apart. Breakfast at between four thirty and five am and his lunch at 11. Thati s set by the company.  I added in a healthy snack for him to eat just before work at six forty five to seven ,  and then added to his lu nch and dinner, he works a 12 hour shift so eats twice at work and then added a good   healthy snack for his hour long drive home so he is not starving when he gets home. He eats his last meal at 3 and by the time he got home at 8 and took his shower it was eight thirty pm and and  he was starving and wanting to eat whatever he c ould find. Now we know why. A combination of not enough calories all day and then his last meal at 3, so I think I have his calories up today, but probably still not enough for him as he works a very physcial job. I told him it will take us time to get to the right amount but hopefully he will not be as t ired as he has gotten lately and will not be starving when he gets home, poor guy, I feel so b ad for him. He was eating what a average woman should eat on a reducing diet and he is a 260 pound man with a physcial job. So, that was a lesson to me on how you can not lose and gain on too little food for your body. He was eating very healthy, but way too little food.

So, now we are both on board with healthy plans and I am excited to see how we both feel as time goes on .

 

New year, new start

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It has been a w hile since I posted and no, I never did the 100 days of real food, lol !!

I am still in the same postion weight wise as I was at the time of my last post. I am at 253 and seriously need to get about half of me gone.

I found a wonderful blog, called Slim Down U and the author also faced a weight issue and went on to lose 125 pounds. I find her quite inspiring and realized that blogging would help me as well.

I find I am an emotional eater and it really does not matter what emotion is driving me at the time. Anger, sadness, happiness, frustration, boredom, all are feelings that drive me to eat and lets get real. When I emotionally eat, it is not carrots and celery I am eating. It is ice cream and brownies and chips and fast food. I have never been upset and said, oh, I think I am going to eat a salad. I want a fatty, sugary food to bury my emotions in.

I am not really sure why food drives me like it does. I was a very thin child, never had any real weight issues until I started having kids. I lost most of the weight with our first, Ryan, Then after Tracy got back down to around 140, not quite the 125 as I was after Ryan. Although I started at 118 before I got pregnant with him. After Nikki I never saw below 160 and after Cameron  176 was new lowest and by the time he was seven and I was 36 I was over 200 and sitting at 204 and in the 22 years since he was born, I have been as high as 257 and as low as 220 but have stayed for the last few years in the 245 to 253 range which is awful. I am grateful I did not go up even more, but I am ready to face this challenge and learn to overcome my issues with food.

I am prediabetic and on metformin to help me keep my blood sugar down, and today I was happy to see it is 95. I wish it was 95 off meds and I am not sure if the meds are the reason it is lower. But I am assuming it is. I have not been eating good enough to change my blood sugar.

My endrocrinologist says I have metobolic syndrome and that the belly fat I have causes hormonal changes in my body and that the belly fat is very differant that the fat on the rest of the body. It causes a lot of my blood sugar issues and makes it much harder to lose the weight. It causes my cholestorol to be too high and my blood pressure is up slightly too. All these situations will be gone once I lose some weight, probably only about forty or fifty of my pounds gone will probably start to reverse the health issues.

It is time to get up off my behind and walk. Excercise helps diabetes almost more t han diet, and yet, I have not done it.

So, today, I am goign to start this journey and take slow and steady steps. Walk every day, even if it is only 15 minutes and build it up. Start eating better and eliminating the  bad stuff and do not beat myself up when I make a mistake but work very hard to find a way to lose this weight AND keep it off that works for me .

So, almost two full months into this new year, I am starting my journey. I plan to be successful this time and take it day by day and be loving to myself and not beat myself up for not being good enough. I have come a long way in my thoughts about myself and I do not have, and never really did have the self hate that many overwieght people have but I have been hard on myself and would beat myself up for not doing good enough.

Most people know that positive reinforcement works better t han negitive, yet we are so negitive towards ourselves . We would never tell a friend or loved one struggling hard with weight the things we can say to  ourselves. So, I am goign to love myself through this and make sure I understand I deserve it and I can do it.

So, heres to day one and a fresh start to finding the new me !!