233 and ....

My older sister was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and, holy moly,...what a terrible sentence to write.  I don't want to write anymore.  But I wanted to let you guys know that I am still here and still fighting and still struggling and still a heifer with goals that I can still clearly see.  I'm still on the path.

But right now there is a lump the size of Texas in my throat and I can't get it to go away.  My sister has surgery on Friday to see how bad it is and if I can please please just put this out there...that we love her and we need her.  And we want her here with us still.  

Please pray for my sister and if you dont believe in prayer, please put those positive thoughts out there.  

Life is fucking scary.

231.2lbs and the Struggle with Stress Eating

I work from home as a freelancer and, man, it's pretty great.  It's allowed me to be home with my son.  It's allowed me to create my own hours.  And it allows me to work from my living room sofa while still in my pajamas.  So, yeah, pretty lucky.  However, what freelancing does not allow is a sense of stability.  There are times when I am flush with clients, working 10 hours a day and pulling my hair out, but great money was coming in and we were actually able to (oh my god what?!!?) SAVE!!  Then there are times, like now, that clients are nowhere to be found and money is getting tight.  My husband has a great job working as a district manager of a retail company, and he actually loves what he does, and I'm super happy for him and us.  But we also live in Southern California and unless 1 spouse makes into the six figures, you won't be able to live comfortably here.  We have goals and dreams and a kid with very expensive hobbies.  This was 98% of the reason we only had 1 child.  Money is a constant struggle for us.  And we make GOOD MONEY.  It's crazy but it's the world we live in.  So I have to work and help bring in the skrilla and i'm really not bringing in the skrilla we need right now.  

And what a time to not be bringing in the skrilla.  Sheesh.  My mother in law, sweet thing, gifted us a weekend in a very nice hotel in San Francisco as a Christmas present.  It was a really sweet present and very thoughtful and lovely.  What she didnt know is that we are struggling financially at the moment so booking us a hotel in San Francisco 4 weeks after Christmas was not ideal for us.  On top of worrying about paying our bills, we had to worry about scraping together a little chunk of money to get to San Francisco, eat, show our kid around the city, etc.  We ended up having a great time and, what the heck, I even allowed a family picture or two to be taken.  WITH ME IN IT.  God bless FaceTune.

Now we are worrying about my son's birthday, coming up in early March.  He'll be 7 and wants a party with friends at a local indoor playground.  I looked up party prices and it's actually pretty doable if we keep the size of the party small.  And they will allow me to bring in outside food for a fee of $10, so I might be able to save some $$ that way.  

Anyway, oy, yes blah blah money struggles forever.  I know most people reading this can relate.  And if you can't, dang, well count yourself blessed.  I stress alot about money.  We both do, my husband and I.  My husband is the king of all stressers.  If stressing were an Olympic sport, my husband would yadda yadda yadda.  You know how it goes.  But you know what is so funny about my husband?  He stresses so much, but then sleeps like a baby at night.  Like, OUT.  Me?  If i'm stressed I don't sleep.  AT MOST 4 hours a night, if I'm lucky.  Than I wake up all groggy and feeling just BLEH and my only comfort is food.  Lots of food.  Sweets.  Bread.  Bowls of cereal.  Binge binge binge.  I don't even think about it.  There comes a point when I am just so sick of the anxiety and lack of sleep and I can see my husband is struggling too and I just simply start eating and I don't stop until I am physically ill.  

This time around, however, i've been able to keep the binge eating at bay.  Ive been eating a bit more than I should be, portion-wise.  But I am sticking to healthy, low carb foods.  No sugar.  No bread.  No bowls of cereal.  My husband and I have gone through bags of string cheese and mixed nuts and salami on our late-night TV binges.  

I jumped on the scale this morning and am down again, 231.  Super happy although I'm trying not to jump on the scale. I'm trying to just keep going and work and be with my kid and hang out with my husband and not obsess about my weight 24/7.  But then, ya know, I dont know...I think it's okay to kinda obsess with my weight and my health and what I look like.  I've spent so much of my life hiding from myself and I'm kinda done with that now.  

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda.  Hope you guys are all okay :)

232.6lbs

After I hit publish on my post yesterday, I decided to punish myself and read my posts from last year.  Oy.  Man, I came off...very angry.  And I was at that time.  Just after the holidays.  Exhausted.  Fat.  Broke. And just super super unhappy and looking to blame anyone but myself.  Thank GOD I began seeing a therapist.

Things now are going better for me.  I'm coming to terms with who I am and not letting anyone intimidate me into being or wanting something I'm not.  I'm being honest with myself.  Yes, sometimes I would love to be a hyper-social SuperMom with a ton of kids who bakes homemade zucchini chocolate brownies for playdates and shit, goes to the gym 5 times a week, and always looks amazing.  But that's not who I am and, at the end of the day, thats not what I want.  Its okay not to want those things.  Its okay not to be a people person, and not want a ton of kids, and not know how to bake for shit, and not be perfect. I am so so far from perfect it's laughable and I feel like I spend so much time trying to figure out how to get to that perfect image.  And why? It's not even what I want.  And all it's done is make me hate myself.  I am trying to be honest with myself everyday in everything that I do.  I am trying to come to terms with who I really am as a wife, and a mom, and a daughter.  I am trying to come to terms with what I really want out of life, what would REALLY make me happy.  And some of these things arent following the narrative that I had always written for myself.  So I am trying to get rid of that fucking narrative but, man, sometimes its so hard to accept.  Sometimes I fight myself on it.

Now things are going better for me because I can recognize when I am fighting myself.  And I also recognize that it is me fighting myself, not anybody else.  It's never been about anyone else and I am sorry that I spent so much time angry at other people and blaming them for all my failures.  Yes, people have hurt me and betrayed me and wronged me but in the end I hurt myself by waiting so long to come to terms with it and move on.  I'm the one that kept it all in and fed it, fed it, fed it.  

I'm still angry at those that hurt me in the past.  But I am learning, slowly learning, how to deal with it, be honest about what it is, forgive forgive forgive, and move on.  

My gosh, life is a funny funny journey.

Still Alive and at 231lbs

Yes, believe it or not, I ghosted a blog for the 2,124th time.  What's new, right?  

Okay, so here come the excuses.  Brace yourselves.  This will be slightly boring.

My last post was last March, after my son's 6th birthday party fiasco.  I had been on a roll, seeing my therapist, following the Gundry Diet and pounds were begrudgingly falling off.  Then in April, I lost a client (I work from home as virtual assistant/content writer), and then another, and before I knew it I was back mainlining Oreo cookies straight into my veins.  In May, I picked up two new clients with huge projects and was working about 40-50 hours a week.  June, school is out and I have the 50 hour a week workload but with a 6 year old kid at home now whining every 3 minutes about how bored he is.  Up went my blood pressure and my weight.  I knew I was getting to major heifer status again but dieting and blogging were the last things on my mind.  The only thing I wanted to do when I finally had any alone time was carbs and a Tylenol PM.  By early August, my son had returned to school, my workload had slowed down a bit, and I was at 251 pounds.  My husband was also very overweight and ready for a change, so we decided to just do low carb.  That's it.  No frilly stuff.  No fancy names.  No mission statements.  

We simply cut out bread, pasta, rice, and tortilla related items and things.  And sugar.  We cut out all sugar.  By November, I had lost 20 pounds (see pic on my Instagram account.  should I post it here?  No, its old.  Maybe my next transformation pic, right?)

And you know what was so funny?  I believe we started the diet on August 13th and, man, that was such a busy time for us.  My son had just started 1st grade, which is a total big deal, right?  And his soccer season had just started.  My husband's the coach, I'm the Team Mom, so that kept us super busy.  Then my husband left for a work conference for a week, which is always a super big bummer. And I was dealing with all of that you know, plus work, and keeping the house clean, keeping my kid alive and fed, remembering to shave my legs, spending time with family and friends, Halloween, my birthday, yadda yadda, and through all of that we stuck to our list of foods to eat and just...kinda did it.  It was hard and there were times where we cheated and ate things we shouldnt have, but we always just kinda wiped it clean and kept going. Before I knew it, it was November and I noticed that my clothes were fitting a bit loose and everybody kept saying how much weight I was losing and I was like, "Yeah, thanks, i've only lost 10, 13, 15, 17, etc...'  But then one day I was getting dressed and I remembered the picture I took back in August when I was at my highest weight, 251.  I wanted to see if I would be able to see the difference and OH MY GOSH what a difference. I immediately sent it to just about everybody I know.  20 pounds doesnt seem like a lot until you see a before and after and are like, Holy.  

Anyways, I was fucking pumped.  Excuse my language, but I was fucking PUMPED.  I haven't lost more than 10 pounds since before I was married.  Man, I got married and steadily GREW.  So losing 20 pounds was a HUGE deal for me.  

And then the holidays hit.  But no no no, I did really good. I did.  My first post-holiday season weigh in was on January 2nd and I was at 235.6.  

Today is January 15th and I am at 231.2 and on it.  On it. The thing is, for me, not overthinking about how to lose weight and just DOING it worked.  I am a meat and veggie lover, so therefore, the low carb diet kinda just made sense for me.  But I didnt want to over-complicate it in part, because, I didnt want to scare my husband away.  I wanted to simplify it so it was doable and we didnt have to think about it.  

For breakfast we have protein shakes, protein bars, coffee, cream, eggs, avocado, cheese, and meats.  For lunch we have simple tuna salads, egg salad, salami/cheese/veggie plates, eggs and bacon, veggie omelettes. For dinner, we grill steaks, chicken thighs, chicken sausages, salmon, mahi mahi, any meat I find on sale.  We eat sauteed/steamed veggies every night. Tons of them.  Snacks are dark chocolate and almonds, beef jerky, nuts, cheese, and the occasional pint of Halo Top (honestly though when it comes to ice cream, i'd rather just hold out until a cheat day and have the real thing).  I've kept it super simple for us and it works and its working and, my gosh, finally.  

But no no, I always say that.  OH FINALLY I FOUND THE WAY!  And then I come on here and write and write about how this is it, THIS IS IT!  And then, blam, my fish dies or something and I'm back browsing Taco Bell's menu online.  

And, really, that was why I stayed away from the blog.  I always write.  I love to write.  This blog, writing here, always brings me so much happiness even when the subject I'm writing about has given me so much pain.  But I didn't want to come on here and make another public promise to myself and my life, and have all you be the witness to it, only to ghost it again when my stupid plans don't work out.  

Anyway.  So, yes, I am here.  Doing good, but still trying.  Still a wife.  Still a mom.  Still a silly girl.  Still a heifer.  And still on instagram and MyFitnessPal so follow me there too!

And to the wonderful people that still follow this little blog, and to the new ones I see, and to Anna- thank you for reading.  Thank you for listening.  

(oh and by the way, my husband has lost 45 pounds since August.  What an asshole, right?!)

-

I've broken up with the scale.  Ehhh, okay maybe not a solid break-up.  But we're definitely taking a little break.  I think we need some time apart.

The week before my son's birthday party was a stressful one.  Yada yada, if you read my last post you know the deal.  I was still eating low carb, no sugar but I was not working out.  I was also PMSing and very stressed and emotional.  I probably ate too much.  Nevertheless, I thought it a good idea to torture myself by jumping on the scale every morning and grew more and more horrified at what I saw every day.  One day I was up 4 pounds, the next day I was down 2, and on went the week.  Last Monday I woke up feeling exhausted but happy that his birthday weekend was finally over and our life would get back to normal.  I resumed my daily workout plan and started to feel better.  Again, I was jumping on the scale every day.  By Thursday it hadn't budged and by Saturday it was up again.  I spent this weekend super depressed and disappointed in myself.  On top of all that, my kid was sick and I always feel so helpless when he feels ill.  I felt like a fucking heifer and did what I do best when I am feeling down:  I binged.  Cookies and soda and chips and Pillsbury biscuits.  By Monday morning my kid was feeling better, but I was down in the dumps.  I spent all day with him on the couch and didnt even bother cleaning.  I made sure to eat well, but I still felt really depressed.  

This morning I woke up feeling determined.  My kid was well enough to go back to school and, after dropping him off, I decided to take a 2 mile walk at the park right next to our apartment.  I left my headphones at home and thought it would be good to just walk and talk to myself and figure out what I was doing wrong.  And by my 4th lap around the park, I had it all down.

First off, I am not following a ketogenic diet.  I am following the Gundry Diet.  I think the person that has lost sight of that the most is me.  The Keto Diet focuses on very low carbs and high amounts of fat.  However, the Gundry Diet is a lowfat diet that is also low carb.  Dr. Gundry asks that we focus on lean protein and nutrient-dense, non-starchy veggies.  Fat should be eaten throughout the day, but in small portions.  

The first two weeks I was all about the Gundry Diet.  I read and re-read the book twice within the first week and knew the plan inside and out.  I believe I lost 5 pounds that first week alone.  However, once I started posting to my weightloss IG and got all caught up on making friends there, I noticed that my diet started to change.  I started following lots of keto IG accounts.  These men and women were losing tons of weight by following strict ketogenic diets and, man, their daily food pics looked great!  Bacon and cheese and avocado and cream and......

Without really even thinking about it, I strayed away from Gundry's diet guidelines and began purchasing and making the foods I saw being cooked on all these keto IG accounts.  On top of that, I was still eating lots of veggies which upped my carb intake...which is fine on the Gundry diet but not okay on the Keto diet.  

So for two weeks I was eating lots of fat and a percentage of carbs that were okay on a low carb diet, but not a Keto diet.  And that's why the weight was stalling.  And I felt like shit.  And I'm still a heifer.

And,well, here I am.  Still a heifer.

But I am a heifer that had a total "a ha!" moment today and have since corrected it.  I am following the Gundry Diet.  Low carb, lean protein, lots of veggies, small portions of fat.  My IG will no longer be full of cheese and bacon and avocado and red meat.  You'll be seeing a lot more greenery and a lot less grease.  

And then maybe that scale and I will kiss and make up soon...

242.2lbs

Yesterday marked one month on the Gundry low carb diet.  In one month, I lost just over 6 pounds.  I was on track to losing at least 10 pounds, but then last week hit and, oh, it all went to hell.

So if you guys dont follow me on Instragram, you are probably unaware that my son's 6th birthday party was this past Saturday, March 10th.  About two weeks ago, my husband broke the news to me that he had to take a last-minute business trip to Florida from March 4-9th.  Terrible, terrible timing.  I was on my period, I hadn't done ONE THING for the party yet, my in-laws were coming in on the 8th, and it was (SURPRISE SURPRISE!) expected to rain on the day of my son's party, which was to take place at a park.  To say I was drowning in stress is an understatement.  

I am a classic example of a binge-eater who eats her feelings and, my gosh, did I experience a whole ton of feelings last week.  However, I did try to keep my eating on point and I succeeded for the most part.  That is, until my in-laws came into town on Thursday.  I am not going to go over what I gorged on from Thursday afternoon until Sunday night, but it was brutal and contained a whole lot of carbs.  And alcohol.  

I woke up Monday morning feeling terrible, exhausted, and depressed and I stepped on the scale thinking I would be back up to 248 pounds easily.  But, nope.  242.2lbs. I was super relieved and thankful.  I also felt really disappointed in myself for giving into temptation, even when stressed, and binge eating the hell outta this weekend.  It was like everything that I have been discussing with my therapist went in one ear and out the other.  

With my son's birthday party came the obligatory pictures.  I try to stay out of each and everyone of them and, thankfully, my family knows I hate taking pictures so they usually point their phones in the opposite direction.  But I caught a glimpse of myself in the background of one picture and, oy vey, it was brutal.  It was absolutely brutal.  I let myself be sad and depressed for a bit and then I made myself get over it because I knew that this is a new day and I wasn't going to give up.  I'm not going to give up on myself, and give into that heifer in that picture. 

I'm going to fix myself.  I am my project.  And it's actually pretty fucking exciting.

243.2lbs

I never had weight problems growing up, but I was always a binge-eater.  

I distinctly remember eating 8 pieces of pizza during a family party when I was 10 years old.  There were boxes of pizza on the kitchen table for all us little cousins and everybody was outside hanging out.  My mom served me one piece for dinner but after, while playing, I couldnt get my mind off wanting another piece.  So I slipped into the kitchen and quickly ate one while nobody was looking.  And then I went back and ate another, and another.  I ate them quickly so I wouldnt get caught.  I hid, like a true binge eater.  8 pieces later, I felt sick. Then, and only then, did I figure I had had enough.  

Softball was my life.  Me at 14 years old, 1994.

When I was 11, my best friend joined a softball team and asked me to join with her.  Although an active kid who loved to play outside, this was the first sport I tried.  And I loved it.  From that spring on, softball was my life.  I played in a bobby sox league until I was 13 years old and then joined a year-round travel ball club. Softball kept me busy, and it kept me fit.  My mom kept a stocked pantry for me (my sisters were grown and gone); cookies and chips and juice and snowballs.  But she also cooked very healthy dinners.  Baked chicken and grilled vegetables were a staple in my house.  I grew up loving vegetables.  But I also loved sugar and bread.  Donuts and pastries were my favorite.  I was a normal kid who would occasionally binge eat.  If left to my own devices, I could polish off a whole box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts in one sitting.  I did that often.  Thankfully, I was playing softball at least 3 times a week so I never gained any weight.  I stayed lean and strong.  

I took my binge-eating to college with me.  My freshman year was hard for me.  I went to San Francisco State University, and all my family and friends were in Los Angeles.  I was deeply, deeply homesick.  And I ate.  On weekends when my dormmate was away, I would order large pizzas and tons of chinese food for myself and eat it all.  I would wait until the middle of the night, when I knew the other kids on my floor were asleep, to sneak off to the trash room to throw away all evidence of my food binges.  Again, I hid.

I have spent a lot of my life hiding my eating.  

At 24, I got my first office job.  Working in an office environment was great.  I loved my little cubicle, loved my coworkers, loved my job.  I also loved how much junk food was constantly being brought into the communal kitchen by kind coworkers.  Every morning somebody would bring in donuts, pastries, mexican pan dulce, cake, bagels, and cookies.  Bread, especially sweet breads, are my absolute weakness.  Every morning at work I would have coffee and some kind of pastry for breakfast.  Then me and a coworker would walk across the street to the strip mall and eat at one of the fast food spots there.  After lunch, I would come back and eat another pastry for my afternoon snack.  I didnt think anything of it because this is how I had always eaten.  But now I was 24, not 15.  And I was sitting at a desk 8 hours a day, not playing softball 10 hours a week.  I started putting on weight.  And the more weight I gained, the more I ate.  My job was in Downtown L.A. and at the time, I was living with my parents in the suburbs.  L.A. traffic is brutal and my commute time was at least an hour both ways.  Sometimes I would be so "hungry" (aka stressed, sad, just generally emotional), that I would hit up Jack in the Box before I got on the freeway and buy two tacos and a small coke.  I would eat that "snack" while driving home.  Before I got home, I would stop at a large trash bin at the liquor store down the street from the house to throw away my Jack in the Box wrappers (hiding). Then I would go home and eat a full dinner with my parents.  

One time, my mom went into my room while I was at work to look for something.  She peeked under my bed and found a large garbage bag full of fast food wrappers I was hiding.  I would sneak off to McDonald's at night after my parents went to bed.  After I was done bingeing, I would hide the wrappers in this trash bag under my bed.  When I got home that night, I found the garbage bag on top of my bed.  My mom never said anything and that made it so much more worse.  

After about a year at my office job, I finally made enough money to afford my very own apartment.  Which made my binge-eating so much easier and more frequent.  I didnt really know how to cook anything other than spaghetti and Kraft Mac n Cheese.  I ate fast food almost every night and because I lived alone and nobody could see exactly how much I was eating, I would buy 2 combo meals and save one for my late night binge.  I was an adult now doing adult things.  My stress and anxiety levels were higher than ever, so I ate so much more.  Whenever I was overtired, overstressed, and overworked (which was often), I ate.  I ate whenever I felt any emotion, even happiness.  I ate constantly.  

By the time I was 26 years old, I weighed 185 pounds.  I felt terrible.  I looked terrible.  My self-esteem was minuscule.  So one day at work, I googled "weightloss plans".  After researching for a couple of days, I decided to try my hand at this new "clean eating" thing that was all over the internet. This was 2007 and The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno had just come out.  I bought it, read it that weekend, and by Monday I was eating clean.  I cut out all fast foods, fried foods, and sugary drinks from my diet.  I switched to whole wheat bread and brown rice. I taught myself how to cook simple, healthy meals: chicken stir fry on top of brown rice, ground turkey meatloaf patties with a sweet potato, baked salmon and quinoa.  I started packing my lunches everyday, and filled my desk drawers with healthy snacks.  I drank tons of water.  And I joined a gym and began working out almost everyday.  That first month, I lost almost 15 pounds.  I would go on to lose more than 40 pounds total in only 4 months.  I felt great, I looked great.  I loved my new lifestyle.  I loved eating healthy, loved nothing more than a good run on the treadmill.  I weighed about 140 pounds and maintained that weight for 2 years.  

In 2008 I began dating my husband.  By 2009 we were living together.  My husband had the metabolism of an ant and could eat whatever he wanted.  So, I ate what he ate.  And I began to gain weight.  By my wedding day, June 26, 2010, I weighed in at 164 pounds.  I was a little heavier, but I still felt great.

It all went down from there, weight-wise.  I was happier than ever, married to my best friend.  You know the phrase "fat and happy"?  Yep, that was me.  By the time I became pregnant with our son in late summer 2011, I weighed 200 pounds and then went on to gain over 60 pounds during pregnancy.  

I told myself I would lose the weight after having the baby, but I never did.  Although I was never diagnosed, I now believe that I suffered from postpartum depression for at least a year after I had Grey.  I was deeply, deeply depressed.  I felt angry everyday.  And I was exhausted.  So I ate.  And I ate.  And I ate.  

In the last five years, my binge-eating has been pretty constant.  If I run errands and there is a fast food restaurant in the same shopping center, I will hit the drive thru and quickly eat while running errands.  I secretly like when my husband works late because that means I can have a binge after my son goes to bed at night and hide the evidence.  Terrible.  

Thankfully, as you've read in previous posts, I am getting help and things are looking way, way up.  I feel great.  But I still have issues with food.  Like a true addict, I am still addicted to food.  I'm just working on finding other ways to make myself happy.  I haven't binged in weeks, but I can't promise that I won't binge in the future and I don't want to.  I don't want to put pressure on myself like that.  One day I might be feeling terrible and turn to a box of cookies for comfort.  And if it's okay if I do.  Until I can learn to completely turn that need off, I need to learn that sometimes I will fall.  I need to learn how to pick myself up right after, dust myself off, and start over.