I have made no secret of the fact that I have long-standing body image and weight issues.  I’m not going to re-hash them all, but suffice it to say that they’re pretty much as old as I am, and just as stubborn.  Like many moms, I am trying my very hardest not to pass those attitudes along to my children.  I am very careful to NEVER talk about restricting my food or “dieting” in any way in front of my kids.  They see me eat, I don’t make an issue of it one way or another. I let them eat when they’re hungry, I don’t make them clean their plates if they are done, I try to present healthy choices. I never, ever make disparaging comments about myself or my body in their presence. They see me exercise, which makes me happy, and I always talk about it in terms of being healthy and strong and working hard. Never a word about losing weight, getting smaller, or anything like that.

My mother-in-law has long struggled with her weight, too.  She talks about weight ALL THE TIME.  Especially with me, maybe because it’s some kind of common bond? It’s annoying, because even I get tired of talking about it. Yes, we struggle. We wish we didn’t. End of story.  Apparently not. When M and I were first dating and we’d go visit his parents, literally EVERY time we were there, she would talk about how M used to be so skinny. (And he was, almost alarmingly so, but whatever. It was 15 years ago. Get over it.)

Over the weekend, when my in-laws were visiting, my kids found a small framed picture of M and me, taken the night we got engaged. The kids like carrying it around.  What does my MIL say?  “Oh look, there’s Mommy and Daddy when they were young and thin!”

The somewhat insulting nature of that comment (and the fact that I was not “thin” then, either) completely aside, I was aghast that she would talk that way in front of my kids.  And I noticed it wasn’t the only time she talked about “getting fatter” or thinner in front of them, and other related topics of being fat or not.  Now that I’ve had some space to mentally digest it, I am even more appalled, and you can bet I’m going to call her on it the next time she does it.  You can’t always change people, and there are plenty of differences that you have to let slide.  But this isn’t one. I’m livid.

***

I got home late last night and should have gone straight to bed, but instead found myself watching Biggest Loser on the DVR. For any issues I may have with the silliness of reality shows, I love it and watch it religiously. I love to see these people work their asses off (literally and figuratively). I love watching their successes and their unbelievable progress.

Last night was the second-to-last episode [spoiler ahead, in case you haven't watched it yet]. The remaining four contestants were sent home for a month and told they’d be brought back for one last weigh-in and to run a marathon. Basically, it’s a test to see how they can apply the lessons learned with the trainers when they’re at home and on their own. One contestant, Daris, really struggled. Despite losing 150+ pounds in four months and becoming nothing short of an athlete, despite running a marathon in a scant four hours, he actually gained two pounds while at home (the others lost between 9 and 20 pounds in that same time). The food still haunted him.

I know there are people who watched that outcome and screamed at the TV. “You’ve come this far! You’ve lost so much weight! You’re so close to the end! There’s $250,000 at stake!  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF?”

I didn’t ask that.  I already know the answer.  Watching what Daris did was like a punch in the gut.  It was me. I get it.

If you’ve never truly struggled with your weight, it’s hard to understand. I didn’t get fat because I don’t know that vegetables are good for me and cookies aren’t. I didn’t get fat because I don’t know what a portion size is supposed to be.  It’s not because I got a little carried away making all of the Pioneer Woman recipes.  For whatever long-standing reasons, I have a different relationship with food that much more closely resembles addiction than simply a “bad habit.”  Sometimes I’m in control of it, and sometimes I’m not.  But it’s fundamentally different than the person who simply put on a few pounds over the years, or is having a hard time with that last bit of baby weight.  It’s different.

I don’t say that as an excuse.  I am physically able to exercise, I am capable of monitoring my food intake and losing weight.  But just because I can sometimes get the demons under control doesn’t mean they ever, ever go away. I will never not have to deal with this.

And that’s why last night’s overly-dramatic reality show stuck with me. That struggle was so very real and so very familiar.  You can watch the “plea” of each contestant and cast your vote over at NBC if you’re so inclined. It might not be the most eloquent thing you’ve ever heard, but Daris’s breaks my heart each and every time, so I voted for him. It felt like I was voting for me.  His battle is far from over. The truth is that, for all of the contestants on that show, it will never be over. And neither will mine.

You guys were so incredibly nice to me when I posted my big weight-loss success back in January, I thought it would be good to give you an update on my progress since then.

And, by progress, I mean total lack thereof.

Sigh.

Since early February, I have been going down and up the same two or three pounds.  Thankfully, I have yet to climb back into the hated 200s.  But I haven’t broken through 196, either.  I have my exercise to thank and my eating to blame.

Exercise has been going reasonably well.  After some significant leg pain the few weeks leading up to and during my race, I checked myself into Physical Therapy and am off the pavement for a few more weeks.  But I started a swimming class and got a babysitter, so I’m swimming laps and have started taking Spinning classes for the first time in about six years.  I’m working out with reasonable frequency and intensity.

And that’s the only reason I haven’t shot back up.  My eating has been rotten for the last two months.  I could say it started with the stress (and constant presence of M&Ms) of potty training, and that’s part of it.  But I also was taking things for granted before that, not counting as carefully, “getting away with” one cheat after another.  And so, it caught up with me.

The pounds aren’t piling back on, but I can tell I’m on a slippery slope. The new jeans are a little tighter than I’d like, the eating out is getting more careless.  A little less exercise, and the balance will quickly tip in the wrong direction.

So, today I am trying to re-commit and get back on track with my weight loss.  Bill wrote a post on the Shredheads blog yesterday that he may has well have plucked directly from my head.  And today began the April Challenge – track your food.

It’s a little tricky, with my food already weirdly restricted by Passover, but I’m going to do my best.  As of today, my biggest focus is re-upping my water intake and re-committing to my no-eating-after-8PM rule.  I will track my food the best I can, though I’m giving myself a bit of leeway while Passover is going on. Either way, as we all know, the biggest difference is a real awareness of what you’re putting in your mouth, instead of mindless eating and snacking.

So far this morning, I’ve consumed 3 points (I get 25) and drank 24 ounces of water. How do I feel? Well, kinda crappy, as you do when you start restricting again.  But it’s good.

Break time is over, let’s do this.

[This post brought to you entirely by my phone... I'll be back home eventually.]

I had several goals going into Saturday’s race in Disney World.

Goal 1: don’t get swept for not keeping the 16-minute-mile pace. Once I started timing myself, I figured I should be able to manage that as long as I was able to do SOME running (and not break an ankle).

Goal 2 was the one I really had in my sights: no walking. I completed the Couch-to-5K training program, but have started to get some significant leg pain after my runs. And while I finished my 30-minute run, I hadn’t yet made it to the full 3.1 miles.

I couldn’t decide if I was confident or nervous. What if I had dragged my whole family to Florida for a race I couldn’t even finish?

But then I went to pick up my race pack, in true Disney fashion, and got all kinds of excited.

That night, I got to meet my fellow Shredheads, most of whom were running the half-marathon. I got my race shirt, and set it all out for our early-morning start.

The morning was early. On the bus at 5:45. An hour before sunrise. 45 degrees. But the bus was crowded, there were costumes and tiaras all over the place. There were bright lights and a DJ pumping loud music. I jumped and danced to stay warm.

The sun started to come up. We pushed into the starting area. A few hundred feet and a few thousand people between me and the starting line.

Behind us, a preview of what awaited us at mile 3. Pumped.

Fireworks marked the start. It was a mob, but a happy one. We wound around the parking lot and entered Epcot at the one-mile mark, between Mexico and Norway.

There were volunteers cheering us along. Disney characters all along the route, and people stopping to wait in a line 8 people deep to take pictures. Not me. I had a goal.

My pace was slower than I expected. In classic Disney Imagineering, I thought I was close to the finish and the route took a few more hidden turns.

One last turn: finish line. I ran across it. 37:14. Fast? Nah. But I ran it. I ran. The whole thing. 3.1 miles. I earned that silly rubber finisher’s medallion, god dammit.

Alright, so my leg hurt like a motherf–ker for the next two days and I’m still limping down stairs. But I have an appointment with a physical therapist next week. I have another race in May. I’m looking for longer ones. Despite the stabbing pain in my right shin, I found myself jealous of the half marathon runners I saw the next day.

Bring it.

Two weeks ago, my brother’s son was born.  Charlie is my brother’s first child, and my first nephew.  So when I saw a cheap weekend airfare to Chicago, I had to pop out there to meet him (and deliver his quilt in person, of course).

A friend on Facebook teased me, “look out! Newborns are contagious!”

How can you resist the power of the yawning baby burrito?

The funny thing is that, of the various baby phases, I’m not generally a “newborn” person. Cute though they may be, they don’t DO anything. They eat, they sleep, they fuss. Meh.  Fast-forward to six months (or nine, ooh I liked nine months), and I’m all over it.  But newborns don’t do a darn thing.

Well, OK. They inadvertently make really funny faces. And that’s cool and all.

But I will say that there was something strangely appealing, or comforting, or something, about feeling so confident in the presence of a 10-day-old baby.  I knew how to hold him, I knew how to swaddle him.  I knew that all of those weird grunts and squeaks were normal, and not true fussiness.  I knew how to bounce and rock and sway.  I was calm. Laid-back.  I remembered.

Oh, sure. I have the advantage of not being completely hormonal, sleep-deprived, and freaked out by breastfeeding. I was only there a couple of hours. I got to leave. And I didn’t have two 2.5-year-olds to contend with at the same time. I know that.

But I also have the benefit of knowing, first-hand, that these phases are limited in their duration. They come and go. The days are long, the years are short.

Yes, I think I want a third kid. No, M does not.  We are, as they say, at an impasse.  And in this debate, the “no” wins.  I may or may not be able to sway him. It remains to be seen.

One way or another, in my head, I’m giving it to the end of this year. Logic being that, if I were to get pregnant at the very end of this year, that would put a new baby right around my kids’ 4th birthday. Past four, for me, is getting to be too large of an age separation.

Anyways, that’s what has been on my mind since visiting my sweet nephew this weekend. Thanks, Charlie, for giving me baby brain.

Pretty much every day, my kids nap from around 1-3pm. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less (or, as in today, seemingly NOT AT ALL).  But generally, I have a 2-ish hour break in the afternoon.  As most other moms I know, especially those who are at home full-time, I live for naptime. I need the quiet time, I need the break from demands and tantrums.  Delightful and awesome though my kids can often be, we all know it’s exhausting.

As much as I love that time, though, it’s never ever long enough.  On any given day, for any given naptime, here’s what’s probably on my to-do list:

• Sew
• Shred
• Shower
• Laundry
• Dishes
• Blog/Email
• Catch up on DVR
• Sit still
• Read
• Clean
• Cook
• Sleep (almost never)

On a really good day, when I’m feeling efficient and the kids take an extra long nap, I might touch on two of those. Maybe three (Shred, shower, email).  And, obviously, I can only do things during naptime that I can do inside my own house.  I can’t go for a run, pick up groceries, or anything else.

No wonder I feel chronically behind.  If I use the time to exercise, then I’m not getting any sewing done.  If I use the time to sew, I don’t have time for a blog post. I can’t keep up with the very few shows that I like to watch.  And despite getting a Kindle for Christmas, I have spent almost zero time reading.

There isn’t exactly a solution, of course.  Sure, some of those things can be done when the kids are awake (throw in a load of laundry, prep dinner, etc.).  And many of them are hardly necessities.  But still… if only there were a few more quiet hours in the day, right?

Well, OK, two years and five months, but whatever. As of this morning, I am back to the weight I was when I got pregnant. Three years ago.

This goal is only sort of a mid-point to me.  A good goal. An important one.  One that I’m proud to have achieved. But far, far from the end.

Five months ago, I weighed 226 pounds. Two hundred twenty six. There, I said it. It’s out there. You know. I can hardly describe how ashamed I am of that number, not to mention how long I sat there.  And how long I looked like this:

August 17, 2009. That’s me. HUGE. Horrified.  But however long it took, a switch flipped. Time for a long overdue change.

Weight Watchers, EA Sports Active, Jillian Michaels, my gym’s childcare room, the Shredheads, Twitter, and Couch to 5K. Five months. Twenty-six pounds.  And now I am here:

The thing is, I still weigh 200 pounds.  I am still, by all objective measures, fat. Obese, even. I’m way, way heavier than I ought to be. I am not proud of my weight. My body is distributed completely differently than it was the last time I was at this weight. So much more belly, now. And the loss of volume is revealing some rather alarming “twin skin.” I am not happy with where I am right now.

But.

While I’m not setting any speed records on weight loss, but it has been steady. In the 20+ weeks I’ve been counting, I have lost something all but about three weeks.  I am proud of that.  This weekend, I finally was able to buy some new jeans. It took more than 20 pounds, but I went down a pants size. I am proud of that. I am stronger, happier, more in control. I have not purchased a pint of ice cream since August. My kids see me put on my sneakers and say “you have on your exercising shoes!” I am proud of that.

I am proud of this:

And this is why you take a “before” picture. I hate mine.  It makes me want to cry.  But you know what? If I didn’t have it as a comparison, then today’s picture would also make me cry.  Putting them together lets me see progress, however gradual, however slow.

Onward.

I’ve already written about my current exercise/fitness goal, but I also need a new weight-specific goal.  So here it is: I want to have a BMI that is simply “overweight” instead of “obese.”  That’s 21 more pounds.  For a rough timeframe, I think I should be able to do it by June.

Bring it.

It was over four months ago that I began my most recent battle of the bulge. First, it was a wager among friends as to who could lose the most weight in a month.  I won (though I have yet to cash in my prize – dinner on them).  Then, a slightly larger competition amongst other blogging types, Biggest Loser rules (% of weight lost in 6 weeks). I came in second.

And then, in October, I became a Shredhead.  In addition to the ass-kicking provided by Jillian, I found a great support system via Twitter, and that has really helped carry me and push me throughout the fall.  Exercise became a routine. Weekly weight loss became the norm.  If it weren’t for that pesky 2 weeks in Chicago, I might have even made my weight loss goal (I’m close, just a few weeks later than I hoped).

I’ve started to get into a rut, though. A little bored with my exercise routine.  A lot of Shredheads, I noticed, took up running.  Oy, running. I have always hated it. I have always sucked at it. I’ve even tried the Couch-to-5K (C25K) program once or twice, and failed miserably. I’m not sure I made it to the second week.

But that Jillian, she gets into your head.  While still overweight, I’m getting a lot more fit. I started to think about running again. A 5K is 3.1 miles.  I can do that. I can do that.  So I decided to shake it up and do the C25K again. Treadmill, this time, to control my pace. Not that I planned on becoming a runner, but more as a straight physical accomplishment.  Something I should be able to do. Something I will do.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I do better if I have a goal in mind. A fixed point towards which to move.  Clearly, I need a race. One in the vicinity of the end of this training program.  Except, well, how many 5Ks are there in Massachusetts in March?  Seriously, it could be 75 or it could be a blizzard, there’s just no telling.

Enter the Shredheads, several of whom are running the Disney Princess Half Marathon in March.  In Orlando.  Oh… would you look at that… there’s also a 5K as a part of those festivities!  Florida in March is nice, not cold but not too warm….  And would you believe it, kids under 3 don’t need a ticket to get into the parks…?

Last night, I signed up.

I don’t yet know how exactly we’re getting there, where we’ll stay, or any of those other pesky details.

But I signed up for a 5K. In Disney World.  On March 6. Nine weeks from today.

I’m on week 4 of C25K, and that five whole minutes of running is kicking my ass.  Did I mention that there was ONE time, in high school, that I ran a whole mile?  ONE TIME. EVER.

I have lost my mind.  But, hey, I’ve also lost nearly all of my baby weight.  Might be an acceptable trade off.

Staying at your parents’ house as an adult is a weird thing, isn’t it? Some things you see with fresh eyes, and other times you revert back to an awkward preteen.  I’ve noticed some habits working both for and against me this week.

On the positive side, it would seem that 4+ months of regular exercise is actually becoming an ingrained habit.  Oh sure, part of it is that I’m only about three pounds away from my first weight-related goal, and I don’t want to get completely sidetracked while I’m here.  But really, when have I ever brought an exercise DVD with me to (either of) my parents’ house(s)?  When have I ever used the treadmill they have in their basements?  That would be a big, fat never.

And yet, here I am.  I have done the Shred. I have progressed to Week 3 of the Couch-to-5K program (yes, I’m trying to run… more on that later).  I have exercised more days than not.  And I’m glad.

I’m particularly glad, because the flipside is that old eating habits die really hard.  I’ve been reasonably good with my eating these last few months (hence the 3-pounds-from-first-goal thing). But much of my success has come from controlling what foods I have access to. I haven’t purchased a pint of ice cream since the summer. I have baked shockingly few cookies (by my standards). I don’t keep crap in the house, so I can’t eat it.  I have a pretty limited menu, but it works for me.

And then I get here. Without even thinking, I walk into my dad’s kitchen and open the doors to the pantry to peruse the junk food. Cookies. Chips. All variety of things that I don’t ever buy, but find almost impossible to resist when they’re right there in my face. No control over what is served at big family dinners. Dad buys a dozen bagels (from my favorite bagel shop) for breakfast.  Ugh.

I’ve tried to keep some of my go-to items on hand, and have tried to stick to my 8PM rule.  But, clearly, four well-behaved months have not cured me of 30 years of bad eating habits.

But still, I will try to keep fighting the good fight, and not beat myself up too much for what happens here, away from home.  Just a few more days, and I’ll be back in my own space.  In the meantime, pass the cookies…

Yesterday, I left my kids.  My husband, too.  Walked out the door, drove to the airport, got on a plane, and flew most of the way across the country. I ran away. And I’m glad I did.

It was about a month and a half ago that I was nearly crawling out of my own skin with the need for a break. Within a few days, I found out about a quilting retreat and booked the trip before I could have second thoughts. Just what the doctor ordered.

Last week, I was making small talk with a woman at my local quilting shop about the fact that I was looking forward to going on this trip, and made some comment about being just as excited to get away from my kids for a few days.

“You’re so bad!”, she said.

I know she was partly just teasing me, but I also know that there is some truth behind most jokes.  I could tell there was a part of her that was chiding me for being excited to leave my children.  And there was a part of me that was doing the same thing.

I got home from that shopping trip and vented to M. Don’t judge me, lady! Moms need a break, too! Taking care of kids full-time is stressful! M nodded at all the right times, reaffirmed my right to a weekend of my own, and mostly just let the issue drop.

But I would be lying if I said I felt no guilt as I packed for my trip. Part of it, I think, was the fact that I know this all came about as a way to run away. Escape my responsibilities. All of a sudden, I felt overwhelmed. I’m so lucky to have really wonderful, sweet, smart, healthy, happy kids. I’m so lucky that I get to be at home with them full-time. How could I act so thankless and just leave them, as though they’re nothing but a burden?

Intellectually, of course, I know that’s faulty logic. The fact that raising two kids is an enormous source of stress does not negate the fact that it’s also an enormous source of pride and joy.  Being a stay-at-home mom is an incredible opportunity. But even people who work at their dream jobs still go home for the weekend and take vacation days.  This weekend away is an indulgence, but not an undeserved one.

And so, here I sit. In my four-poster bed in a quiet room at an inn in Colorado. Downstairs, the innkeeper is making pumpkin french toast for breakfast. There’s a dozen or so of us who started chatting and sewing and geeking out about fabric from the moment we got here yesterday, and we will spend all of today doing the same.

M is at home with the kids, rocking the “dad about town” thing. He took them to the Children’s Museum, a bookstore, and out for dinner yesterday. Today they’re going swimming (after they get their H1N1 shots). M will be exhausted by the end of the weekend, but everyone is having a great time.

Tomorrow evening, I’ll fly back home. I’ll sneak into the kids’ room when I arrive and be so happy to see their sweet, sleeping faces.  And Monday morning, though I’ll be tired from my late flight, I’ll have a little more energy and patience.

Guilt or no guilt, we will all benefit.

October is done, which means that the October Shredheads Challenge is complete.  I have to say, I’m pretty proud of myself!  With pretty much only a single exception, I stuck to my plan of doing the Shred 3x/week, and going to the gym 2x/week.  I did pretty well on my food/Points, too.** The end result in numerical terms is that I’m down 5.5 pounds from October 1-31, for a total of 15 pounds overall.  Only about 11 more pounds to go on my end-of-the-year pre-pregnancy weight goal. Woot!

The big asterisks on that one was our weekend away.  The food was a total disaster because I made virtually no effort to stick with the plan and just ate whatever the hell I wanted.  The payback was a pound and a half gain. Boo!  It was also surprisingly difficult to get back with the program after I got home. I was feeling pretty defeated for a few days last week.  I think the big difference was that I went whole hog off the wagon that weekend.  Other days that I’ve allowed myself indulgences, they were pretty limited. Maybe a single bad day, or single bad meal, but otherwise I was pretty good.  Last weekend, it was a free-for-all, and I paid for it.  Thankfully, I found my way back to the plan and have erased the gain.

I have noticed something very interesting recently, with regard to eating. We were taking the kids out for lunch at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant (not a good diet choice, of course, but I survived).  As I was sitting on my hands and biting my lip to avoid the bowl of chips, I started to say, “but I’m just so huuungry!”  And then I stopped halfway through my whine and realized that it simply wasn’t true.  I wasn’t hungry.  I’m just not really that hungry anymore.

Obviously, I get hungry.  But not as often as I think I will.  Not as badly as when I first started counting my points (when all you can think about is how fricking hungry you are).  And most of the time, when I start to have the thought I’m hungry, I’m actually not.  I’m munchy. I want.  But that’s not the same as being hungry.

And that, I suppose, is where the larger struggle actually lies.  The hard part of sticking with a weight loss plan is not hunger.  It’s those munchy, snacky, WANT feelings that got you to this point in the first place.

So, I will continue to fight the good fight. Drink more water to stave off the munchies. Exercise or sew or catch up on the DVR instead of eating. Exercise some more.  And exercise a little more after that. There is much more work to be done.