Mind your words

The mind is a crazy, mixed up thing.  Well mine is anyway.  I have a tendancy to remember all the shit stuff and have a hard time remembering all the good stuff.  I'm reminate on stuff constantly.  In laymans terms I am Stewy Mcstew.  I find it really  hard to let stuff go and negative words have a way of drilling down into the depths of my psyche and taking up residence.  It's something that I really need to work on. 

 An article on Psychology Today says:

The environment that children are raised in molds not only their mind, but also their brain. This is something many long suspected, but now we have scientific instruments that show us how dramatically childhood experience alters the physical structure of the brain, and how sensitive we are as children to these environmental effects. Words--verbal harassment--from peers (and, as a previous study from these researchers showed, verbal abuse from a child's parents) can cause far more than emotional harm.
 

My biggest struggle and thing that plays on my mind constantly is my weight.  Something that my mother would constantly comment on. As well as the volume of food I was consuming while a child.  I wasn't a massively overweight child but yet every hairbrained diet that my mother went on, I was put on as well.  From about the age of 8.  At least that is as young as I can remember.  My mother is overweight and has always always been overweight.  Yet if we were to say anything about her weight, it was the end of the world. It still is.
 

Through my teen years I really struggled with the whole putting food in my mouth and not feeling guilty about it.  To the point where I started starving myself.  My mother was oblivious. Acting dumb whenever my Dr or Psychiatrist mentioned that I hadn't been eating.  From the age of 14 until 18 I only ate one meal a day.  I rarely if ever ate at school.  In Grade 12 I lose 25kgs in 3 months and she didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Even commenting when seeing me eat that I 'better be careful or you'll put all that weight back on'.  To this day I still tell myself that I 'deserve' to eat when getting something out the fridge. There is always an internal dialogue going on when it comes to food.
 

One would think that someone would learn from their experiences with their first child. No, not my mother.  I have just come back from two weeks staying with my parents and my 13yo brother.  My brother got all the good genes and is a bean pole.  By no stretch of the imagination is he overweight.  He is taller than me and so at his weight is well within his healthy weight range.  He's a grazer, I don't think I have ever seen him eat a big meal in my life.  While he was rifling through the fridge one day mum says to him 'Stop eating, you're going to get fat'.  My brother is a lot like me at that age.  He takes things in and stews on them.  What was his response to mums words? He went for a 2 hour walk.  Mum thought this was hilarious saying that he takes things so literally. 
 

Children's minds are so delicate.  Please be careful what you say.  You never know how deep they are burying the harsh words you use.   

Mindless

So last week I started 'another' weight loss challenge.  The eating effort in the first week was dismal.  I ate take aways most of the time.  A week long gastro bug was my only saviour so I lost 2kg. Gastro bug has gone now, so I really have no excuse.  

It's really become apparent that there seems to be no communication between my hand and my brain.  It seems I am binging. Eating until almost bursting point.  Eating until I can feel my stomach hurt.  Then having a few more mouthfuls, just to be sure.  

I have put on 40kg in the last 12 months.  30 of them being in the last 6 months.  Nothing fits and I am getting closer to having to only shop in specialist shops.  I haven't been this heavy since I was pregnant.  

I have started a food diary to try and keep myself accountable.  I think that I need to stop buying processes stuff.  Both for Dyllan and I.  The trouble with it, is that it requires no preparation so its 'no drama' to eat an entire packet. There is no effort involved.  If I have to make all my food, then I will be less inclined to eat more than I have to.  

This has to stop. I am sick of looking in the mirror and hating what I see. I am sick of none of my clothes fitting.  I am sick of having no energy.  I need to change this.

Deprivation

Over the course of my obsession with food and weightloss, I think that I have read just about all literature and heard every line about how to achieve wellness.  A comment today sat me on my arse and made me think hmmmm.

What was that comment you ask? It was a reply to a post on an online forum about healthy eating that told the poster if she wanted to ensure her diet was healthy, then she needed to go through her cupboard and fridge and throw out the junk.  That wasn't the mind blowing statement.  This was: If you think it's bad for you, then you shouldn't be giving it to your kids either.

MIND BLOWN

We have it ingrained into our head that the kids need to eat healthy blah blah blah but whenever mummy or daddy goes on a diet, they don't eat the same food because we don't want to have to 'punish' them or deprive them of anything.  

I ask you this however.  What are you really depriving them of?

By removing junk food as a staple food item you are depriving them of the likely hood of being an overweight adult, of having high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes 2, heart attack...the list goes on. 

Doesn't seem so bad now does it?

FFS Friday 20th January 2012

Here we are again.  It's the verbal diarrhoea known as FFS Friday.  It is quite possibly my favourite time of the week because I get to ranty rant and it's the norm :)

This week the weather has been insane! I wish it would just make up it's mind.  On Sunday we were in jumpers and tracksuit pants (oh so glamorous) and right now I am naked and still sweating!  FFS

I bought Mini Man a new lunch box on Tuesday for $13, opened the Kmart catalogue this morning and the same lunch box is in there for $9.  This happens every single time. FFS

My house looks like a bomb has hit it.  Every. Single. Day FFS

I told my psychiatrist that I am not really coping with my son and don't feel a great deal for him emotionally.  His response? To tell me he thinks it might be time to discharge from the Mental Health Service. FFS

After I specifically told them not to, Daycare let Mini Man have a sleep.  He stayed up until 3am! I am not paying these people for him to sleep away the afternoon FFS

When I got to Daycare they were playing tag in the play area.  Did I mention that it's been stinking hot here?  They had no drink bottles with them, or access to drink fountains.  Did I mention it's been stinking hot here? Mini Man's first word to me? Drink! He proceeded to drink 400ml of water in the space of 10 minutes.  When I rang to complain, they assured me that he had been given water.  Bullshit FFS

The welfare system in this country, most of the time sucks balls.  So many innocent children are suffering needlessly because of an overworked, underfunded system.  These are innocent lives we are dealing with FFS

This week I started 'eating healthy' and I am failing miserably and old habits are dying hard.  FFS


Make sure to head over to Dear Baby G and show some comment love or if you feel like having a ranty rant, then go ahead and link up your post.


Happy Friday!

This sounds familar

Here we are again.  I'm trying really hard to not make this into a  'resolution' thing because I am doing this for longer than that.  Christmas binging hit hard and 4kg found it's way back to me.  The realisation came when I put on my 'fat' pants and they were tight.

TIME TO DO SOMETHING SISTER.

I'm doing one of those controversial 'shake diets' and not really telling anyone in my 'weightloss circle' about it.  I spoke of an interest to do it a few months ago and was met with 'it won't last', 'you can't keep the weight off' blah blah blah.  My answer: I'm doing what works for my situation and at the moment, having meal replacement shakes is it.

I'm a pretty lazy person (ha! there's the understatement of the year) and that usually leads me to either not eat because I couldn't be bothered making anything or eat crappy zap in the microwave foods.  At least with a shake, it's easy AND will help with weight loss.  

So starting tomorrow I'm going to weigh in, measure up and start again.  I will try not to have an negative emotions towards the number that is going to be on that scale...instead think of the steps I am taking to reduce that number.

Next week I restart at the gym and getting back into my routine again.  Holidays are over and it's time to get real.

Wish me luck!

A little compassion ploise

One of the major things that stopped me from going to classes at the gym was that I didn't want to be the fat chick struggling through the class while all the gym bunnies breezed through it.  How I was wrong.  You know what? I am glad that I am wrong...at least at my gym anyway.

There is one woman who goes to most of the classes I go to and to me she is so inspirational.  Not because she is a size 8 gym bunny but because she is overweight and is actively doing something about it.  She has been doing double classes, struggling through them but still coming back anyway.  By her own admission she still has a lot of weight to lose but I admire her for getting out there and doing it.  She can't always do all of the exercises but she does them to her level and that's the most important.  We all have to start somewhere.

What I am not happy about is comments that other gym goers have made about this woman giving it a go.  One in particular that got my back up was 'she can't even do things properly. Why does she bother?'  She is probably 'bothering' for the same reason that everyone starts exercising, because she wants to be a healthier version of herself.  There is a bit of a 'culture' surrounding the gym scene that it is only for skinny, fit people and this persons comments just help to cement this misconception.

Just as I said thin people exercise too, this goes both ways...unhealthy, unfit, overweight people use the gym too.  There just needs to be a bit more support for everyone who gets out there and 'just fucking does it'. 

Here's a scary thought....

On the weekend I learnt a few things about the food I 'love' and just what it takes to burn those 'loves' off.  I also learnt that a good rest is vital for walking up a mountain....a hangover is not.

So this.....

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=

I also discovered that if I want to enjoy my Grand Angus with Large Fries then I need to do a hell of a lot of exercise to stay in front and still lose weight.  A Grand Angus and Large Fries is worth 1085 calories....today I did a pump class and walked 6km while pushing Mini Man and burnt 1248 cals....Scary isn't it.

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Equals the same calorie intake as:

+

+

Scary isn't it....

Hello my name is...

Hello my name is Teegs and I am a daily weigher.  *Hi Teegs*

Thanks to my disordered eating past I have gotten into the addiction habit of weighing myself daily, multiple times a day.

I justified it to myself by telling myself that I was doing it to keep myself in 'check'.  All it was doing was making me unhappy.  After seeing the number go up I would mope on the couch eating chocolate.  

The truth is daily weighing has never been helpful....no matter how many times I told myself it was.  When I was in the midst of my disordered eating, seeing the number bigger the next morning would prompt me to eat less and exercise more.

This week I made it my goal to only weigh in next week when our official weigh in for the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation.  

It's a lot harder than I thought.  I didn't realise how ingrained it is.  I had to hide my scales because it was such a habit that I jumped on them, that I did it without thinking.

I didn't realise how anxious it would make me feel too.  Even though I know that I am sticking to the meal plan and exercising I am still worried about the result.  

So here's to sticking it out for another 5 days and not caving in.  To all the daily weighers, stop telling yourself it is helping if it really isn't, bite the bullet and stop weighing yourself daily.