Thursday, August 18, 2011

Where Do I Find It?

Ok I know that at least SOME of you have gone through what I have been going through for the past few months so help me out here.  When I started this whole thing in November I did so with an "I can do it, and it's going to be rewarding, and it's going to be awesome" mentality.  '266's' video inspired the hell out of me and I was ready to kick some butt and take names.  Somewhere around February I flat out lost that.  I've been able to catch it for a few days or even maybe a few weeks at a time but for the most part, even when I've had really good weeks where I've worked really hard and ate really well I was literally forcing myself.  Force is ok, it gets the job done, but I am so tired of feeling like I hate doing what I need to do to lose weight more often than not.  I ENJOYED it in the beginning so WTH is wrong with me now?

Well I'm a Scorpio, and Scorps are obsessive people.  We get into something and we throw everything we have into it and then when we get bored with it we move on to something else.  Unfortunately it's not just walking that I've gotten bored with but working out in general and even, dare I say it, blogging.  But I CAN NOT GIVE UP!  I can't!  I never give up on anything so how do I get my enthusiasm back?  How do I remind myself, before I even leave the house or put my shoes on, that going for a walk is going to feel good and be rewarding?  Last night I thought about it and then I thought 'nah, I'd rather take a bath and read a book'.  I HATE that side of myself - the side that can talk me out of doing things that I know I should do even when I know I will feel better by doing them.  Rationalizing bad behavior, I do it ALL THE TIME!  It is so irritating and I can't seem to control it!

I am so angry and frustrated and yet I can't even seem to find motivation from those emotions right now!  I WANT to keep losing weight but I can't seem to get back to wanting to do what needs to be done to lose it.  I'm back to that self-destructive mentality that I had for years before I started this blog where somewhere deep in my mind I'm convinced that I am never really going to get there so it is pointless to try.  There is this little worm-pudge voice in my brain telling me that I was born fat.  He's back!  I want to banish him but I can't figure out how.  I'm not depressed (don't freak bro) I'm just frustrated.  I waited all winter for the sun to come back and now that's it here I hide from it inside all day and by the time it's cool enough out to go walking I've gone into "relaxation mode" and don't want to.  I love the sun!  Stupid effing Vegas temperatures be damned part of me WANTS to go walking in the sun.  But then I rationalize that I can't take Vladdy because the ground burns his feet and if I go without Vladdy it's not fair to him so I should wait ... and then I wait myself right out of going at all.  Will someone please come to Las Vegas and slap the shit out of me?  Please?!

p.s. I'm posting my water in oz now instead of glasses because I was drinking 8 oz glasses but for the last few weeks I've been refilling and drinking 20 oz bottles so I realized that, on average, I've gone from approximately 64 oz of water per day to 160 ... which seems like it might be a bit excessive?  And that might be why I've had a much harder time getting those last two bottles down the gullet at night.  lol  At any rate, I think tracking oz instead of glasses is going to be more accurate.




Food:
140 oz of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1 fish burrito (brunch)
2 small chicken tacos
1 jr. frosty (in a moment of post-workout weakness)
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Daily Caloric Intake: 1,254




Activity:
Yard Work: (30 mins) trimmed the hedges in the front yard with manual clippers, picked up all the clippings and put them in the trash.
Walking: 3.4 miles (6,780 steps) with Vladdy yanking on me the entire time.

10 comments:

  1. I just posted a blog about feeling similar.

    I'm going to go to bed, and wake up, and hope I feel that spark again. I feel like it's all I can do.

    Just try and stay focused on how far you've come. and remember, there is no end in sight, there is no end, this is forever, so you might as well settle in for the long haul and just live it instead of looking at it like you have to lose all this weight. Just live it, the weight loss will follow, and it won't be so much something you feel like you have to force yourself to do for some end result. I'm not normally so annoyingly zen. :P

    It is difficult, this is probably going to be one of the most difficult things we've ever done, but we will do it, whether we're doing it with bells on or gritting our teeth and powering through, what matters to our health and all that is that it's getting done.

    hugs. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up with that spark. Maybe. Maybe you will too? :)

    Another thing is the weight comes off faster earlier, so the longer you go, the slower it starts to come off, the more difficult it is to stay motivated. But, slow and steady wins the race. You can do it. Maybe make a vision collage of your progress so you can really SEE. I have oen with quotes, and pictures, befores and durings, I have little size tags from when I was a 20 and was SO HAPPY to be a 20, now I'm a 16, and need to put those tags up. It helps. It's the little things really. Cuz once you are this far along in the game, that's all you have, are the little things. The big sweeping losses are more few and far between.

    Don't worry though, you got this.

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  2. Forget about the Scorpio traits, that isn't the end all/be all definition of who you are nor your behavior. Motivation is different for everyone. It helps some people to think of exercise as an investment in their future selves. For others the thought of "do it or die" incorporates the fear they need to go. For others they need something thats fun that makes them WANT to. Personally I havent felt like working out and I'm not on a constant routine. Generally speaking my life keeps me on my feet a lot and right now while I get my mentality right on the food aspect, Im ok with just that. When i DO take walks I do them to reflect and give me some time to myself.. sadly now that its summer I dont do it often because I despise the heat but when the weather gets cooler, I LOVE being out there and just walking around. We're all wired differently, but I hope you find what you want to do for yourself :)

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  3. I have always had the same problem.
    :)

    What I do is try and switch-up my focus... from weight-loss, to muscle-gain... from muscle-gain to just eating healthier... from healthy-eating to a more active-lifestyle (not exercise per-se, just getting out and about more)... over the years I've increased my muscle and decreased my fat but I haven't gotten my bodyweight quite where I want it... still about 15lbs over where I think would be ideal for me.

    The latest switch I'm probably starting on Sunday (with my family) is to migrate (very slowly, probably over several months or longer) to a raw-food diet (or, at least in large measure). Our current plan of attack calls for following a raw-food diet Sun starting at lunch and going to Friday morning, except dinners during those days will be healthy-ish but not necessarily raw (raw if we are liking it, not raw if we are getting sick of it). Friday from lunch through Sunday morning will be more-or-less eat-what-you-want.

    We anticipate, over several months, refining this (hopefully) as our taste-buds adjust in order to (hopefully) allow us to enjoyable follow about a 70% raw food diet over the course of a week and the weekend 'cheat' meals to migrate from junky-ish to more healthy choices (but not necessarily solidly raw on those days).

    I have 1 co-worker who eats a largely-raw diet (and total vegan) and another who ate totally raw for 1 year (but not vegan). Both lost about 30-40lbs and had to go out of their way to stop from losing more weight than they wanted -- in fact, the 100%-raw guy ultimately had to stop following that diet because no matter what he did he couldn't keep losing weight. Both are very skinny guys (but no sick-skinny, they look healthy even the vegan guy). Both said they eat as much as they want, they just avoid certain foods their diet doesn't allow.

    You may want to consider going on a raw food diet for a while and see what happens.

    (b)

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  4. What is a raw food diet? Isn't that just no processed foods? If that's a correct assessment than I would say that aside from my Healthy Choice lunches and Fiber One bars I was doing a relatively raw food diet when we were cooking at home a lot. Now that we finally have the house in order we've started cooking at home a lot again. We buy our deli meats direct from the deli instead of in pre-packaged containers, cook with meats and veggies, etc.

    Or am I just way off on the definition of "raw food"?

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  5. Hi!

    I've been following your blog and I found it so interesting, as I personally like statistics and change pictures.
    I personally did a statistical experiment, as my BMI approached 30...how much I can lose in a month...so I lost about 22 pounds...in 26 days, with an awful lot of exercise and effort..but then the lost stopped.

    I can related to your motivation problem.

    I feel the same, especially that after one month i haven't lost one pound. So one day, I said to myself..."I give up", bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate (my first alcohol drip in months), cooked some rice (first refined carbs in months) and gone wild..

    The second day result? -2 pounds! and -1/2 inch on my waist. I was over the moon! So i started dieting again, but excluded working out, I just have better things to do with my time.

    I've adopted a raw food diet myself, which consists in mostly...salads...and raw foods, nothing prepared a heat temperature higher than (i think it's 115 F, which is considered to destroy the healthy vitamins).

    The only cooked thing I have at the moment is meat.

    Anyway, if you want to find out more about this, try this funny blog http://castlegrok.com/the-rawfood-200/

    I wish you all the best,
    Ana from Romania, currently in the UK

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  6. raw food means not cooked (or not heated above 104 degrees F.

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  7. Oh raw in the literal sense! lol I'm a dork. I'm all thinking of it in modern rhetoric and ya'll mean straight up, good old fashioned raw. LOL

    That's funny. I feel dumb.

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  8. p.s. I LOVE raw food. I always order or cook my steaks so that they're practically moo-ing. Aside from fish burrito's (which I am now totally addicted to) the only way I will eat fish is raw, with our without rice. And the only veggies I prefer cooked are artichokes. If you've never eaten a raw asparagus I HIGHLY recommend it. I love them cooked but they are even better raw.

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  9. So we officially started (our version of) the raw food diet this morning.

    1) We did allow ourselves our morning joe, but with Stevia instead of sugar, and a splash of soy milk... I know it's not raw at all, but I doubt I'll ever be convinced to give up my coffee -- and if I can get 80% of the rest of my day under control, I doubt very much my morning coffee will have any significant impact -- plus coffee has it's own plethora of health-benefits.

    2) Breakfast is a fruit-smoothie made with frozen OJ (for now, planning on buying a juicer once we can show some commitment) and an actual banana, blueberries, and raw egg. This is pretty much raw except I think frozen OJ is irradiated which means it's technically cooked.

    3) Morning snack is almonds (de-shelled but with skim remaining) and an apple. The almonds I'm pretty sure were steamed during the de-shelling process so they probably aren't raw either; plan on looking for raw online at some point... again, once I can show commitment)

    4) Lunch is avocado, a packet of super-greens drink, and pineapple (sliced, not from a can).

    5) Afternoon snack is greek yogurt and cashews (same problem as the almonds, for now)

    6) Dinner will be whatever we want; tonight's a family BBQ at Mike & Jeri's so I might get lucky and be able to order a rarish-steak... but if all they have is hamburgers, so be it for now.

    Yeah... def. not 100% raw... trying to ease into it before I lay out alot of dough on a juicer and spend time hunting down actual raw nuts and stuff.

    Just a sampling. If anyone here has tips on how to get raw foods easily here in America, I'm all ears. As I started looking into this I learned that a lot of "raw" foods in the typical store aren't actually raw... they've been irradiated, which theoretically is as bad, or worse, than cooking (from the perspective of the raw-food argument, which is that you basically *need* to eat food with living organisms in it and irradiation is designed to kill them).

    (b)

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  10. Since you recommended the coffee press (which I am now attached to in an almost unnatural way) I will recommend something other than a juicer to you. Get a Ninja! It does what juicers do but has a million other uses also. You can just pop the ingredients in for pico or salsa and blammo - it does all the work. You can put your veggies and fruits in and it will juice them for you. It's a blender and a juicer and it's compact so even if you don't make a long-term commitment to the raw food diet you will still find many uses for the ninja and it won't take up counter/kitchen space like a juicer will, plus it's REALLY easy to clean. We got ours as a house warming gift from one of my blog readers and we use it pretty much daily for one thing or another (Snackers has become an ice cream shake-a-holic)!

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