New year = blank slate?

I always feel like I should start off the New Year trying to make some profound change in my life. I guess on some level I am a victim of movies and other fiction. At midnight something magical is supposed to happen and life will be changed for the better. The reality? I was standing behind the bar last night slinging drinks with my cousin, thinking "God, it's midnight, these people need to finish up and go home." The world didn't change, my life didn't suddenly get better and none of my problems magically went away.

What do I want to acomplish in 2014? Pretty much the same thing I want to accomplish every year. What can I say? My life is a work in progress.

1. Reduce debt - My finances are a mess. I owe a scary amount of money and the numbers just don't seem to get any smaller. My debt actually went up by 17% since December 2012, but admittedly I did acquire a new-to-me vehicle in that time. I'm still panicked and stressed by the numbers, but I have a plan in place. And I'm moving at the end of this month in an attempt to lower my monthly expenses. We'll see how that goes.

2. Get healthy - I've been a large girl forever. I want to be a small(er) girl. It's a battle and I had a very rough year emotionally. I went off the rails last March and never really got back on. I've rejoined Weight Watchers (although not been actively following the plan over the holidays), but will once I get back to a routine. I also want to renew my gym membership. I don't think I'm ready for classes yet - kickboxing is intimidating when you don't know if you can make it through the class without keeling over and gasping for air in the foetal position.

3. Socialize more - This one is always a challenge. I am not an outgoing person. I like having people around, as long as I like them and they respect my space. Right now, I have two roommates who are exactly the same so it's working out well. Except that I get home from work and spend the evening hiding in my room playing World of Warcraft. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not exactly a booming social life. I want to socialize more. Well, really that means date. My last date was about a year and a half ago. Wow, when I write that out, it just seems sad and depressing. Unfortunately, my odds of dating in my town are slim. It is populated with (as I like to call them) rednecks and rigpigs. It can be done, but it gets a little harder when the average age of single men is 25 (I'm 36) and looking for skinny blondes with big boobs. I may or may not be successful, but I will try.

4. Relax more - I fully admit that I have a Sunday routine of going to church and then heading in to the office. I may or may not be productive, but I like the quite and solitude of being in the building when no one else is around. I think it comes from years of working nights in a call centre. With too many people are around, I get less productive. I also have a tendency to feel restless when I'm at home with nothing concrete to do. That may be a carryover from entirely too many years of university. I have a tendency to feel like there's something I should be doing (even when I'm home for Christmas vacation, but that's a rant for another day). I want to have a life. Or at least a reasonable facsimile.

5. Finish projects - I have a half-finished scarf from over a year ago. I have a half-finished outline for a writing piece for a while ago. I have a half-finished scrapbook from a trip I took back in 2004. Get where I'm going with this? I want to clear the on-going projects that I plan on getting around to someday. This, of course, may contribute to the feeling of having something I should be doing.

6. Declutter - I am a packrat. Both of my parents and my sister are packrats. Although I come by this honestly, I hate being this way. I need to pare down my belongings - especially my books and that hurts me to admit. I just have so much crap and I can't even say that I'm keeping it for sentimental reasons, because I don't even know what I have anymore and I'm not enjoying what I do have. And since I'm moving from a fairly sizeable bedroom to a one that is 9'x9', this may be the kick in the ass I need to start cleaning house.

7. Blog more - Whether or not anyone ever reads what I write, I feel better writing it down. In 2011, I posted on my Livejournal account every day. It was usually the most random stuff that was of no interest to anyone but me, but I posted. In 2012, I posted on it six times. I didn't post there at all in 2013. I posted here four times in 2012 and none at all in 2013. I think this needs to change. Along the same vein, I think I'd like to get back into journaling more. I got to the point where I wrote about a bad time in my paper journal and haven't been able to pick it up again. That needs to change as well.

There's a lot more that I want to do, but if I make my list too long or nitpicky, then it becomes the world's biggest to-do list instead of the incentive to change that it's meant to be.

We'll see how I manage with these.

Hitting the Wall

As of late, I kinda feel like I'm failing. Admittedly, I do tend to feel like crap during the winter months. This year has been particularly brutal. Whether it’s because I’m away from home for the first time in about ten years or because days are unbelievably short in northwestern Alberta, I don’t know. 

I’ve kind of given up on eating well. I am so broke right now that I tend to live on toast and pasta, occasionally popcorn, with random bursts of Subway or McDonald’s when I need “real” food (and I use that term loosely). I have yet to figure out how to eat well on a budget. I know I’m not getting all the nutrients I need and have no idea how to make it better. Well, aside from buying decent groceries with the money I don’t have. The only upside to all this, is that I am still going to the gym regularly (minimum of 3-4 times per week). 

I also feel like I’ve been doing an excessive amount of whining lately. Whether it’s amount money, lack of motivation, work, or anything. I hate whining. It doesn’t really serve a purpose, it doesn’t solve the problem, and yet I can’t seem to help doing it. Drives me nuts, really. 

I also hate the excuses that I’ve been spouting lately. Example number one is up above. I hate blaming my lack of decent groceries on lack of funds. Yes, it is how things are right now, but it doesn’t have to be. I just haven’t figured out how to fix it. 

I hear myself spout excuses at the gym as well. I’m not just overweight, I am considered to be Class 3 Obese (the highest that there is, which puts me in the same category as people who need to be removed from their homes with mechanical assistance. It is hard for me to do the same things as smaller people. During kickboxing, the instructor has us running up and down two flights of stairs multiple times. I can get maybe two trips up the stairs before my knees can’t handle it any more. My body just does not have the strength to propel itself upwards at that point. It’s not that he’s not understanding when I can’t do it, I just hate the fact that I have those limits. It feels like an excuse because it is my fault that I am in the shape that I am. 

Yeah, for someone who hates whining, I feel like I’ve just done a whole lot of it. The bottom line is that I’m feeling beyond frustrated with myself and circumstances and am not really sure how to make changes.

Motivating myself

I am finding it so difficult to motivate myself to eat healthy or to be active right now. Honestly, if it weren't for a friend of mine, I wouldn't make it to the gym at all lately. I think a lot of it has to do with winter. I never seem to have any motivation at all during the winter and the super-short days in Northern Alberta don't help at all.

I gained this week. I know why it happened and it is entirely my fault. I ate everything I shouldn't and skipped more meds than I took. I eat bad and don't drink enough water, I gain. I stop taking my meds and my body stops processing food like it should, I gain. It's a simple enough formula, but I still can't seem to get it right.

So I've decided that I need concrete stuff to focus on. I don't know if I'd call them goals, achievements or what, but they're stuff I want to work towards.

1. I want to be healthy. My family history is standing against me right now. My dad had his first heart attack at age thirty. He had a few more before passing away at the age of forty-five during bypass surgery. Both of his sisters have heart problems - one aunt has had two heart attacks and the other has angina. And from my mom's side, she's prone to skipping beats and may require a pacemaker at some point. I would like to buck the family trend.

2. I want to sit in an airplane seat without crowding the person next to me or needing a seatbelt extender. I can squeeze myself into an airplane seat but holy crap it is uncomfortable and awkward. During the flight, I've got my arms pulled in as much as possible, I try to will my thighs smaller but yeah not happening, I keep the needed items as close as possible (ie. ipod and book) so I don't move around too much, and I do not get up from the seat at all. And because I keep a lot of weight around my midsection, I can't get the seatbelt around me. I used to ask for an extender and I always hated that. I just felt humiliated. So last spring on the first of ten flight segments (covering two round-trip visits), I swiped one. I've ended up using it a lot since then with the move out here, work travel and flying home at Christmas. I can't wait to retire the damn thing and return it to the airline.

3. I would love to be able to walk in to a "normal" store and shop for clothing. There is one store I can shop in locally. I wear a 4-5x or a size 32. Pennington's is the only store to go up to size 32 and their selection at that size bites badly. Addition-Elle tops out at size 28. Cotton Ginny Plus tops out at size 26 - it's been years since I've shopped there. How nice will it be when I can walk in to any store and buy something in a smaller size?

4. I want to be able to physical stuff that I haven't been able to do in years. Stuff like a cartwheel. It's been probably twenty years since I've been able to do one of those. Maybe once I've lost weight I won't be able to do one, but it'll be because I'm old, not because I'm fat. :) I want to be able to ice skate again. Because of my size, I find ice skates to be super uncomfortable. To concentrate that much weight on two blades causes a lot of pain after five minutes.

5. I don't want to hurt any more. My knees hurt. My feet hurt. I always wake up with headaches and muscle aches. I've done a lot of damage to my body over the years. My knees ache when I climb stairs. I broke my foot when I was in high school and excess weight puts a lot of strain on the area. I fully expect arthritis and other problems as a result of the break, but I don't need to exacerbate the situation.

6. I want to go home this August for my cousin's wedding and be different enough that my family will take notice. I'll admit it, I hold some bitterness towards my family. Not my immediate family (my mom and sister are beyond awesome), but towards the cousins and aunts and uncles. I don't have many fond memories of them and what I do remember is them making me feel bad as a child, either through the guise of "helping," or just being childishly malicious. It certainly won't be a complete journey in six months, but I hope I can make enough of a change to make them say wow.

7. I want to wear heels. It may sound silly, but I can't wear heels. I had a guy friend tell me once that I was being silly. I had to explain load-bearing weight limits and how it's not good for me or the shoe to exceed that limit. Like the aforementioned skate, when you put that much weight on a skinny heel and the ball of your foot, it hurts a lot. And it's a lot of strain on the ankle. I wear mid-heels that are super chunky and I still manage to roll my ankle under the strain.

These are only some of the things I want to strive for/accomplish/etc, but they're a start.

Being Fat

I`ve spent a lot of years hating myself because I was overweight. I never felt beautiful. I hide from crowds. I don't date because it's easier to be alone than be judged by someone you have hope for. Basically, I feel like I've had my life on hold. Thirty-four years old, and I've been in a holding pattern of sorts.

And why? Because I've been afraid of being shuned or mocked. Because I didn't fit the ideal of society, I let myself believe that I wasn't worthy. But you know what? I am damn worthy. I'm a nice person. A bit jaded and bitter, but still nice underneath. I'm a good friend and a good person.

It's taken some time to figure it out, but being fat doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me unlucky in the area of metabolism and genetics. Combine all that with self-esteem issues and crap coping methods and you have the story of my life.

I refuse to be shamed any more. I am making better choices in my life, not because society tells me I need to, but because I want to. I will never be the Beauty Queen and I'm okay with that. I do, however, have a family history rife with heart disease and diabetes. I refuse to be dead from heart failure at forty-five like my dad. Although it is unlikely I'll have children to leave behind, unlike him.

I've been doing Weight Watchers since October 26, 2011. I've had a few ups and downs and am currently down a total of 12.6 pounds. It's a good number, but sadly very small in comparison to what I need to lose. I'm about 5'6" ish and according to Weight Watchers, my ideal weight is between 124 and 155 pounds. I haven't weighed 150 pounds since I was ten. Right now, I weigh 363.2 pounds (having started at 375.8 and lost 12.6). That leaves me a minimum of 208.2 pounds to lose.

That's a scary, scary number. But it is doable. I just need to stay focussed and motivated. Baby steps.

A New Home

I am of the mindset that it is very theraputic and cathartic to write things down and get it out of your system. Everyone needs somewhere to rant, cry or just say something important.

I struggle with my emotions a lot. I'm broke, overweight, seriously lonely (yet highly anti-social), prone to general pissiness and I tend to feel very overwhelmed by times. So I write what are often long, rambly and disjointed posts. It really doesn't take long to learn to tune me out. :)