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.