Wow - That's Been An Interesting Day!
Got a coffee? Wine? I'll wait a sec while you go and do it, this could be one of THOSE posts where you need it if you have any intentions of reading right through to the end. In fact having said that some of the things I'm about to say are a bit hard to admit to even for myself and it is making me consider going private with my blog, something I thought I would never do, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!
But first things first, TOM arrived today and I have to admit I was embracing myself for quite a small loss as my watch in particular was feeling quite tight, so I was pretty proud to jump on those scales to a loss of 1kg - that's 3.4kgs in 3 weeks now so i'm definitely on track for my goal of losing 10kgs in 10 weeks :-) Definitely a positive!
So all this saga that i've kept you in suspense about all started at lunch time yesterday! I went to work as per normal, wearing my pedometer, early start, all my snacks, breakfast and lunch supplies all packed as well as my exercise clothes! So lunch time rolls around and I get changed and head out for a walk on my own, even though I had planned to take the dogs for a walk once the kids went to bed I was determined to get my pedometer reading as high as possible (for interest sake I finished on over 14,000 steps and 6 bonus points).
As I was about three quarters through my walk I walked past a group of shops which include Contours! No surprise there, I walk that way all the time, but for some reason yesterday it had an effect on me, I started thinking how easy it would be to have joined Contours instead of Pro Fitness so that I could just head down there during my lunch breaks ... the seed was planted!
Over the course of the afternoon I started second guessing things about my weight loss journey, my results so far, whether i'm doing the right thing for me, the right thing by my family and whether there was anything more or different I could do to achieve a better result. When I start thinking it can be a VERY dangerous thing! But anyway, I can't even begin to tell you how much went through my mind over the next hour or two.
And before I knew it I had formulated a plan! I had rung Contours and asked them if they did weigh ins and took measurements - THEY DID! And suddenly I was considering the possibility of giving up Weight Watchers and spending that money per month on doing Contours AS WELL as my gym! Now a brief update for those who don't know - I work 45 minutes away from home, therefore whatever decision I make about a gym doesn't fit in regards to going to the same place on weekends/nights and during my lunch breaks. I decided to be honest with myself in the fact that I do (and possibly always will) feel intimidated in the weights room at Pro Fitness, on most occasions i've been the only girl in there surrounded by as many as 15 or 20 men! I don't have an issue in the cardio room, in fact i've gotten my cardio up to an hours duration on 5 different machines (an achievement i'm quite proud of). So I figured it would be a good balance - I would go to Contours during my lunch breaks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays doing weights there and do an hour of cardio on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. It had a great bonus on my family life (as most working mums would agree it's VERY hard to find time for yourself without feeling like you're neglecting your family in the process), in that come April I will be working a permanent 9.30am - 2.30pm shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Lachie goes to Kindy - so I would have the benefit of being home at 3.30pm, spending a good 4 hours with the kids and then go to the gym once they went to sleep at 8pm.
I wonder now if that wasn't more of the reason that this ideal appealed to me. I would say that by last night (after running my thoughts past Kazz) I was about 95% sure I would take this path and move away from Weight Watchers. Nothing wrong with the program - I just can't help but think that it was more about the food and the success I was achieving at present was more about the exercise! The thing that has been bugging me was that before tonights loss I had lost a total of 8.8kgs in 6 months - and I lost 8.2kgs in my first 8 weeks! And yes I know this is where I need to practice what I preach (i'd be the first person to tell someone else to focus on the total loss). I know that the two biggest benefits I get from WW is the accountability for weighing in and the tracking option with eTools.
Obviously with my new plan the accountability was taken care of and as for the tracking I had two options I could follow. I could continue to use the weight watchers points system and track via a spreadsheet or I could change things completely and start counting calories using the Calorie King website ... last night I was excited about the whole idea and as I said I was reasonably confident I was going to do it and I was looking forward to my free trial this Friday at Contours.
So off I went to the weight watchers meeting tonight and was reminded again about how annoying some of the changes were - 3 lines with only 1 set of scales etc! Anyway we (myself, Tina, Tania and Karen) stayed back after the meeting and had a chat to the leader - Tina told her that she had cancelled her membership to join the gym and I completely support and understand Tina's reasons for her (thought as i've said to her I was going to miss not catching up with her on Tuesday nights) and I started speaking to the girls, and our leader Tina about my plans and why I wanted to do them and before I knew it I was getting so emotional.
I don't think I even realised how much some of this emotion was affecting me - my biggest frustration came from the fact that the numbers aren't dropping as quickly as I would like or more importantly as quickly as i'm capable of losing. I don't have unreasoanble expectations, I believe in planning for the lower end of the spectrum of 500 grams per week but even that means I should have been able to lose over 13kgs by now (which incidentally would have given me my 10%) and I started talking about how I have a time limit ... that's when the emotion set in.
I am TERRIFIED of my son living my life, my daughter living my life and enduring the pain and torment that was normal when I was a child. You see unlike so many people on this journey I don't have a skinny photo to look back on and aim to get back to as i've NEVER been skinny! I've been fat all my life, from the age of a toddler right through my school years and all through my adult life and i've lived a life with a great feeling of worthlessness and massive levels of self esteem issues because of the constant torment and teasing that I grew up with as a result of that weight! I've hidden behind it, cursed myself because of it, blamed it and yet continued to feed it year after year - I don't understand why, I can only imagine it comes down to the fact that somewhere deep inside me is the attitude that i'm not worth the effort it takes to lose the weight. Some of these issues are things i've hidden away from, i've never talked about and maybe that's half the problem in itself, maybe I need to admit these things, not to anyone reading this blog but more importantly to myself.
I was one of those people that would walk down the street in tears because of the comments that someone in a passing car would shout at the window - complete strangers thought they had the right to tease me, just because I was fat - some 20 or 25 years later that still hurts, and no doubt they forgot all about me 20 or 25 seconds later not thinking (or perhaps not caring) about the impact that would have on me so far into the future. Now i'm an adult, i'm still battling this issue and the demons that result from it and in 15 months from now my gorgeous baby boy will start school and my worst fear for him is that he will be the subject of bullying, not because of anything he does or doesn't do himself but more because he's the kid with the fat mum! The fear of that happening haunts me often and I want better for my son. That in itself has motivated me to achieve so much in the last 6 months because i've said before and i'll say it again - even if the results aren't showing on the scales i've come a massive way in regards to my mindset and exercise focus which are just as important as the food choices.
Then I think back to soon after Lachie was born - I went back to weight watchers was doing quite well, joined Fernwood and loved going to the gym again and allowed myself to be talked into the Slimplicity program that they offered. I don't know why I chose to move away from weight watchers when it was working so well for me but I did and it all went downhill from there - so the lesson learnt from that experience was if it's not broken, don't fix it! That made me realise that no decision could be made about this until I was 100% sure of what I wanted to do.
Few things have had an impact (positive or negative) on me as the teasing and tormenting that I endured through the early years of my life! I mean I left school at the age of 15 because of the bullying, especially when a lot of that bullying had been led by a former good friend of mine. I've fought so many demons - not only from others but also from my own thoughts and fears and I know I take things to the extreme in regards to being self conscious about things that just aren't happening and that's a whole epic journey of self discovery in itself!
And yes i'm digressing! My point i'm going to make is that Tina (the leader) had a profound impact on me, she showed a genuine interest in what my issues were and pretty much told me to ask myself how serious I was and get on with the job! She was quite blunt about it actually but that's exactly what I needed, and it made me realise what a battle lies ahead of me - not in the food, not in the water consumption, not in the exercise - i'm so far in front of those areas it's the mindset that I still have to work on - as much as i feel i've made progress i don't think you can undo 30 odd years of negative self talk in 6 months.
The support I got from Tina, Karen, Tania and the leader Tina was AMAZING - what a fabulous bunch of people! A weight watchers meeting isn't exactly the ideal time to burst into tears but lets face it who else can really understand these issues?
I walked in all but convinced I was moving on from weight watchers and walked out not having a clue what was right or wrong for me. Part of me thought I should stay, part of me wants to go and I started thinking I owed it to myself to wait until after the trial on Friday. But since i've been home i've come to another conclusion all together - i'm following what i said earlier in this post "if it's not broke don't fix it" so for the time being at least I won't be going anywhere. Contours can be an ace up my sleeve if I need it but I think there's a lot more benefit in me doing what I know as second nature and dealing with some of the emotional side of this journey, challenging the demons that arise and shooting them down one by one.
Because reality tells me that I can definitely be about 90 or 95kgs when Lachie starts school, that's not goal weigh but it's a bloody lot closer to it than where i'm at now and it only has to become an issue if I let it be one! Let's not forget that if I portray my weight as a negative that i'm worried about and he picks up on that he's going to see it as a negative too and that's not the path I want him to be set up on. I also have to think further down the track, I have a daughter now too and I don't want her walking the path i've walked for so many years.
Sure I could get greater results doing something else, or I might not, I don't know what the future holds but I do know that tonight during that talk with my leader she made a comment so profound that i'm focussing on it at the moment. She told me to really think long and hard about how desperately I want this and how far i'm willing to go to achieve it because at the end of the day no one can motivate me to do it - only I can!
So how much do I want to succeed on this weight loss journey? I want it more than anything i've ever wanted before! I don't like who I am, some will say that's a problem in itself because unless I learn to like myself I won't feel I deserve this, maybe that's true, maybe that in itself is an issue I need to deal with. I know that losing the weight won't automatically make everything fine with my world, I have some deep scars that I need to address, some demons that need to be faced and some battles to win but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.
So basically i've spent the last 36 hours going from a happy weight watcher to someone who wanted a more exciting path, to an emotional wreck back to being unsure to not changing anything at present - does that even make sense???
Yes, there's still so much work to be done and I couldn't do any of it without the support of the amazing people out there who support me on facebook, read my blog and particularly to those lovely people who have become friends of mine over a number of years in real life - you always have had an impact on my life and no doubt always will.
As to the gym - well i think the best thing for me to do at present is to walk away from the weights room and focus on the cardio for a few weeks - I think the weights will become a big part of my plan once I lose 10% - it's a pledge I can make to myself but until then i will do 60 minutes of cardio 3 times a week, 1 aqua aerobics class and 10,000 steps a day!
So if you're still reading well done! Please feel free to leave a comment, what would you do if you were in my situation - I appreciate your feedback!
But first things first, TOM arrived today and I have to admit I was embracing myself for quite a small loss as my watch in particular was feeling quite tight, so I was pretty proud to jump on those scales to a loss of 1kg - that's 3.4kgs in 3 weeks now so i'm definitely on track for my goal of losing 10kgs in 10 weeks :-) Definitely a positive!
So all this saga that i've kept you in suspense about all started at lunch time yesterday! I went to work as per normal, wearing my pedometer, early start, all my snacks, breakfast and lunch supplies all packed as well as my exercise clothes! So lunch time rolls around and I get changed and head out for a walk on my own, even though I had planned to take the dogs for a walk once the kids went to bed I was determined to get my pedometer reading as high as possible (for interest sake I finished on over 14,000 steps and 6 bonus points).
As I was about three quarters through my walk I walked past a group of shops which include Contours! No surprise there, I walk that way all the time, but for some reason yesterday it had an effect on me, I started thinking how easy it would be to have joined Contours instead of Pro Fitness so that I could just head down there during my lunch breaks ... the seed was planted!
Over the course of the afternoon I started second guessing things about my weight loss journey, my results so far, whether i'm doing the right thing for me, the right thing by my family and whether there was anything more or different I could do to achieve a better result. When I start thinking it can be a VERY dangerous thing! But anyway, I can't even begin to tell you how much went through my mind over the next hour or two.
And before I knew it I had formulated a plan! I had rung Contours and asked them if they did weigh ins and took measurements - THEY DID! And suddenly I was considering the possibility of giving up Weight Watchers and spending that money per month on doing Contours AS WELL as my gym! Now a brief update for those who don't know - I work 45 minutes away from home, therefore whatever decision I make about a gym doesn't fit in regards to going to the same place on weekends/nights and during my lunch breaks. I decided to be honest with myself in the fact that I do (and possibly always will) feel intimidated in the weights room at Pro Fitness, on most occasions i've been the only girl in there surrounded by as many as 15 or 20 men! I don't have an issue in the cardio room, in fact i've gotten my cardio up to an hours duration on 5 different machines (an achievement i'm quite proud of). So I figured it would be a good balance - I would go to Contours during my lunch breaks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays doing weights there and do an hour of cardio on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. It had a great bonus on my family life (as most working mums would agree it's VERY hard to find time for yourself without feeling like you're neglecting your family in the process), in that come April I will be working a permanent 9.30am - 2.30pm shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Lachie goes to Kindy - so I would have the benefit of being home at 3.30pm, spending a good 4 hours with the kids and then go to the gym once they went to sleep at 8pm.
I wonder now if that wasn't more of the reason that this ideal appealed to me. I would say that by last night (after running my thoughts past Kazz) I was about 95% sure I would take this path and move away from Weight Watchers. Nothing wrong with the program - I just can't help but think that it was more about the food and the success I was achieving at present was more about the exercise! The thing that has been bugging me was that before tonights loss I had lost a total of 8.8kgs in 6 months - and I lost 8.2kgs in my first 8 weeks! And yes I know this is where I need to practice what I preach (i'd be the first person to tell someone else to focus on the total loss). I know that the two biggest benefits I get from WW is the accountability for weighing in and the tracking option with eTools.
Obviously with my new plan the accountability was taken care of and as for the tracking I had two options I could follow. I could continue to use the weight watchers points system and track via a spreadsheet or I could change things completely and start counting calories using the Calorie King website ... last night I was excited about the whole idea and as I said I was reasonably confident I was going to do it and I was looking forward to my free trial this Friday at Contours.
So off I went to the weight watchers meeting tonight and was reminded again about how annoying some of the changes were - 3 lines with only 1 set of scales etc! Anyway we (myself, Tina, Tania and Karen) stayed back after the meeting and had a chat to the leader - Tina told her that she had cancelled her membership to join the gym and I completely support and understand Tina's reasons for her (thought as i've said to her I was going to miss not catching up with her on Tuesday nights) and I started speaking to the girls, and our leader Tina about my plans and why I wanted to do them and before I knew it I was getting so emotional.
I don't think I even realised how much some of this emotion was affecting me - my biggest frustration came from the fact that the numbers aren't dropping as quickly as I would like or more importantly as quickly as i'm capable of losing. I don't have unreasoanble expectations, I believe in planning for the lower end of the spectrum of 500 grams per week but even that means I should have been able to lose over 13kgs by now (which incidentally would have given me my 10%) and I started talking about how I have a time limit ... that's when the emotion set in.
I am TERRIFIED of my son living my life, my daughter living my life and enduring the pain and torment that was normal when I was a child. You see unlike so many people on this journey I don't have a skinny photo to look back on and aim to get back to as i've NEVER been skinny! I've been fat all my life, from the age of a toddler right through my school years and all through my adult life and i've lived a life with a great feeling of worthlessness and massive levels of self esteem issues because of the constant torment and teasing that I grew up with as a result of that weight! I've hidden behind it, cursed myself because of it, blamed it and yet continued to feed it year after year - I don't understand why, I can only imagine it comes down to the fact that somewhere deep inside me is the attitude that i'm not worth the effort it takes to lose the weight. Some of these issues are things i've hidden away from, i've never talked about and maybe that's half the problem in itself, maybe I need to admit these things, not to anyone reading this blog but more importantly to myself.
I was one of those people that would walk down the street in tears because of the comments that someone in a passing car would shout at the window - complete strangers thought they had the right to tease me, just because I was fat - some 20 or 25 years later that still hurts, and no doubt they forgot all about me 20 or 25 seconds later not thinking (or perhaps not caring) about the impact that would have on me so far into the future. Now i'm an adult, i'm still battling this issue and the demons that result from it and in 15 months from now my gorgeous baby boy will start school and my worst fear for him is that he will be the subject of bullying, not because of anything he does or doesn't do himself but more because he's the kid with the fat mum! The fear of that happening haunts me often and I want better for my son. That in itself has motivated me to achieve so much in the last 6 months because i've said before and i'll say it again - even if the results aren't showing on the scales i've come a massive way in regards to my mindset and exercise focus which are just as important as the food choices.
Then I think back to soon after Lachie was born - I went back to weight watchers was doing quite well, joined Fernwood and loved going to the gym again and allowed myself to be talked into the Slimplicity program that they offered. I don't know why I chose to move away from weight watchers when it was working so well for me but I did and it all went downhill from there - so the lesson learnt from that experience was if it's not broken, don't fix it! That made me realise that no decision could be made about this until I was 100% sure of what I wanted to do.
Few things have had an impact (positive or negative) on me as the teasing and tormenting that I endured through the early years of my life! I mean I left school at the age of 15 because of the bullying, especially when a lot of that bullying had been led by a former good friend of mine. I've fought so many demons - not only from others but also from my own thoughts and fears and I know I take things to the extreme in regards to being self conscious about things that just aren't happening and that's a whole epic journey of self discovery in itself!
And yes i'm digressing! My point i'm going to make is that Tina (the leader) had a profound impact on me, she showed a genuine interest in what my issues were and pretty much told me to ask myself how serious I was and get on with the job! She was quite blunt about it actually but that's exactly what I needed, and it made me realise what a battle lies ahead of me - not in the food, not in the water consumption, not in the exercise - i'm so far in front of those areas it's the mindset that I still have to work on - as much as i feel i've made progress i don't think you can undo 30 odd years of negative self talk in 6 months.
The support I got from Tina, Karen, Tania and the leader Tina was AMAZING - what a fabulous bunch of people! A weight watchers meeting isn't exactly the ideal time to burst into tears but lets face it who else can really understand these issues?
I walked in all but convinced I was moving on from weight watchers and walked out not having a clue what was right or wrong for me. Part of me thought I should stay, part of me wants to go and I started thinking I owed it to myself to wait until after the trial on Friday. But since i've been home i've come to another conclusion all together - i'm following what i said earlier in this post "if it's not broke don't fix it" so for the time being at least I won't be going anywhere. Contours can be an ace up my sleeve if I need it but I think there's a lot more benefit in me doing what I know as second nature and dealing with some of the emotional side of this journey, challenging the demons that arise and shooting them down one by one.
Because reality tells me that I can definitely be about 90 or 95kgs when Lachie starts school, that's not goal weigh but it's a bloody lot closer to it than where i'm at now and it only has to become an issue if I let it be one! Let's not forget that if I portray my weight as a negative that i'm worried about and he picks up on that he's going to see it as a negative too and that's not the path I want him to be set up on. I also have to think further down the track, I have a daughter now too and I don't want her walking the path i've walked for so many years.
Sure I could get greater results doing something else, or I might not, I don't know what the future holds but I do know that tonight during that talk with my leader she made a comment so profound that i'm focussing on it at the moment. She told me to really think long and hard about how desperately I want this and how far i'm willing to go to achieve it because at the end of the day no one can motivate me to do it - only I can!
So how much do I want to succeed on this weight loss journey? I want it more than anything i've ever wanted before! I don't like who I am, some will say that's a problem in itself because unless I learn to like myself I won't feel I deserve this, maybe that's true, maybe that in itself is an issue I need to deal with. I know that losing the weight won't automatically make everything fine with my world, I have some deep scars that I need to address, some demons that need to be faced and some battles to win but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.
So basically i've spent the last 36 hours going from a happy weight watcher to someone who wanted a more exciting path, to an emotional wreck back to being unsure to not changing anything at present - does that even make sense???
Yes, there's still so much work to be done and I couldn't do any of it without the support of the amazing people out there who support me on facebook, read my blog and particularly to those lovely people who have become friends of mine over a number of years in real life - you always have had an impact on my life and no doubt always will.
As to the gym - well i think the best thing for me to do at present is to walk away from the weights room and focus on the cardio for a few weeks - I think the weights will become a big part of my plan once I lose 10% - it's a pledge I can make to myself but until then i will do 60 minutes of cardio 3 times a week, 1 aqua aerobics class and 10,000 steps a day!
So if you're still reading well done! Please feel free to leave a comment, what would you do if you were in my situation - I appreciate your feedback!
posted by Tania | 10:29 PM
8 Comments:
Tania, this will be discussed on Saturday but I need to read it again. I agree at present it is working and I think you have to do what you feel is right, you can always go down the other path at another point in the journey. I wasnt teased at school, my weight arrived at 30 but we do need our children to know we are more than a body as well. You are more than a body as well. I hope the new meeting format was discussed with Tina
I think only you can answer that question, I agree if it isn't broken then leave well enough alone. The exercise with the cardio/aqua sounds great for now..... review it in a month and see how you feel. Have a happy day :-). I am a bit like you do I restart WW, or do I use the money towards a PT... still thinking on that one...
Tania, what an amazing honest post. Demons and the mental side of this are 99% of the journey as far as I can see. I still have a bad relationship with food at times, and I am nearly 2 yesrs into this whole trying to lose weight thing. It taes time to deal with these issues and work through them. You need to give yourself that time, and space to do that.
As for the gym verses weight watchers, as you know I moved away from ww, but part of that was on medical advice as I was having issues not getting enough fat in my diet. I am still not sure if it was right for me. I liek counint calories, but is it right who knows. I do however love my trainer. She is oretty awsome.
Whatever you choose, you can always unchoose it too.. as that is how life works.
Vic
Tania - I agree with what the others have said - only you can make this decision and you need to do whats best for you.
In relation to the weights side of things...i will say this...fiona always tells me you only need 1-2 resistance training sessions per week unless you have a specific interest into getting into the weight training side of things. There are lots of ways to do resistance work at home....get a fitball and put it in the small of your back and do squats, wheneverr climbing stairs climb 2 stairs at a time and dont hold on to the rail (no idea where this idea came from! haha), practice pushups (maybe start by doing them against a wall...then progress to against your kitchen bench etc), plank position etc etc. If you want both my jillian michaels & michelle bridges book has resistance exercises you can do in your own home with very lil equipment. You could simple pick one exercise for arm, one for chest, one for legs etc and then do 2 sets of each or another alternative would be Jillians beginners dvds...theres a front and back one which is a circuit based with cardio and resistance exercises (working with your own body weight is a good way to do resistance stuff), also what about at aqua you are going against the water so that would involve some resistance work and you could always stay behind and do some things like...go in the deep end and just tread water or do laps but use just your arms or just your legs...both would help tone. I dont think you specifically need weight equipment at this stage to tone up...and since their weight room does make u feel uncomfortable maybe do this till your contract ends and then maybe look around at other gyms you may feel more comfy at.
kazz =]
WOW! Mammoth post!
You've gotta go with your instincts... sounds like you're nearly there as far as what you want to do! I gave up counting points a long time ago. After years of self counselling, I'm finally at a point where I can keep forbidden foods in the house and they can stay there for weeks! It's the head that needs the work the most! Otherwise we'd all be skinny with no food issues! ;)
Good luck with your decision!
K :)
What a huge dilema for you. I just hope I could help. You know I am only a phone call or a coffee away if you ever need to talk anything over. You have my unconditional support.
We are so lucky to have one of the most supportive ww leaders ever and she will always be there for us. Unfortunately no-one can make this decision for you like no-one can lose the weight for us.
I agree though. You are doing so well with your exercise and weigh ins so why change things??
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
great post. I would love to follow you on twitter.
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