Why am I here? This is something you may be asking yourself - hell, I ask myself this all the time. However, I am here, writing this blog for a very specific purpose. I am here to hold myself accountable. I am here to publicly announce that I am an addict. There, I said it. I am a self admitted food addict.
I will sneak and get food. I will meet someone for lunch and stop somewhere else on the way home for ice cream or a medium french fry (not all the time, but it has happened more than once). I plan my day around food. My next meal and the meal after. I have cravings that are unreal and nothing can stop me from (eventually) getting what I want. I know the cafeteria menu at the hospital I work for and look forward to mac and cheese every Friday afternoon. I will eat the fries out of my boyfriend's side of the take out bag then give myself the fuller carton once we are home so I can have as many as there are possible to eat.
Carbs, sweet glorious carbs. You are my greatest weakness. I love you in potato form. I love you in bread. Pasta you look better than you ever have. I love you in any lovely packaged way there may be to have you. But, this is it. We are breaking up. You have taken control of my life, my body, and soon enough my health if I don't do this. It's not you, it's me.
This is my very public declaration that I have had enough. I am heavier now than I ever imagined I would be in my wildest dreams. I'm heavier now than I ever imagined I would be when I am pregnant in the future. This is ridiculous. Enough is enough.
The last year and a half has brought me to some realizations:
1. I am capable of almost anything I set my mind to. I have found a new job and moved. Become successful at said job. Made new friends. Finished my second of two half marathons I had signed up for. The second one I literally did no training for after the first one - which I trained as much as I could tolerate at the time. Yeah, I walked the entire second one but who cares? I finished.
2. I have a wonderful family and support system. However, my family also loves food. We love to eat. Like many families it is how we celebrate and it is the focus of many get-togethers. Where will we eat? What are you bringing for Thanksgiving dinner? This has got to stop for me. Really, we should and could all stand to re-evaluate what we're eating and how much of it we are eating. I'm not saying all of my family is overweight or unhealthy but lets face it guys - most of us are. I suggest as a family we do something about this as well.
3. I am only 25. I should not be huffing and puffing my way up the stairs. I should not be able to feel pressure in my neck at night when I lay down to sleep or after huffing up the stairs knowing my blood pressure is high. I'm also a nurse for God's sake. I am a terrible example for my patients. I am a surgical RN who works with the cardio-thoracic team. The team will be cracking my chest one day if I don't change my life. Probably sooner than later, too.
4. Again, I am capable of almost anything I set my mind to.
This will be a tough upcoming year. My dad suffers from Huntington's disease and is in his late stages of this 20+ year battle. We have family celebrations also coming up. The first being the birth of my niece this next month and the graduation of my younger brother from high school this spring. I have decided in October I will participate in my first full marathon. Yes, you read that right. A FULL marathon. 26.2 miles. Yikes. On my 26th birthday which I feel is very fitting. That gives me 292 days from today to train for this bad boy.
This is the part where I need your help. I need all the support and positive thoughts I can get. I am on a journey to last a lifetime - this goes so much farther than marathon training. I am changing my life. I am officially 100 pounds over the top of the "healthy" weight scale for my height. I've fooled myself and made excuses for myself the last several years, the higher my weight would climb, that those "scales" didn't take into account bone structure. That I was "proportionate" in my body size - meaning I wasn't one of those girls who had a big belly and little legs or no upper body and big thighs. I was solid all over. This, again, was a terrible excuse.
I am 5'4" and I weigh 245.6 pounds.
This is the beginning of the end of my food addiction. I am very much aware and believe that once an addict, always an addict, no matter what the drug of choice. I am prepared for a life long battle against food and I plan to win. Sure, I realize that I can't live off of salad the rest of my life. I know that thinking that way will only lead to failure. It's about making healthy choices, eating in moderation, and even allowing an indulgence every once in a great while. A special dinner for a birthday. A drink with a friend. However, I no longer can accept a cheat day or a cheat week. A cheat meal/dessert/drink every now and then, sure. Again, the previous day(s) or week(s) off were part of the old mind set.
We move to our new apartment on January 8th. Once I'm back on the ground floor I plan to start again a round of P90X (apparently downstairs neighbors do not like 240 pound people jumping around above them). I have a 30 week marathon training schedule that I will follow after that. I need to get some weight off these knees before I can think of actually running any distance. With that said, I fully understand I will likely not be able to run the whole marathon. I am a fan of the walk/run training method that I chose for my first half marathon and will be following that with the training schedule. I have new shoes, new training clothes, an 8 month old husky pup who loves to get outside, and goals.
My official 2013 goals:
1. Finish the marathon. Also, finish a half marathon at the appropriate point in my training schedule (if there is one within good distance from here and it falls in the schedule. I don't want to try to do one of those again if I'm only built up to 5-6 miles and hurt myself or feel overwhelmed and want to quit).
2. Run/jog a 5K start to finish. No walking.
3. Lose at least 50 pounds for the year. Total goal for weight loss is 90 pounds (153).
4. Track my food.
5. Quit sneak eating.
6. Quit drinking pop.
7. Learn new, healthy recipes that even Kyle will enjoy. He's one of the pickiest eaters I know!
8. Take the time to cook. Reduce the amount of times we eat out substantially.
9. Finish the whole 90 days of P90X. Last time I did it I only got about 6 weeks in and I ended up brushing it off with a schedule/job change. It was doing wonders and I could see results and that didn't even keep me going.
10. Keep only supportive people around me.
There we go, folks. I intend to use this blog not only for accountability but to hopefully share good progress as I go along. I plan to take pictures weekly and once I feel comfortable enough and hopefully seeing some results in comparison, I will eventually post them. Hopefully there will be a nice "before and after" snapshot at this time next year.
Thanks to everyone who may read this in advance for the support. I'm going to need all I can get. Here we go.
