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.

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…

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.

In the last 7 weeks, I have lost 11 pounds.

Pants that were downright painful to wear are now reasonably comfortable. I bought two pair of size 18 jeans from Old Navy and have to return them because they’re too big.  My rings (the ones I paid way too much to resize almost a year and a half ago) are loose.

I am not eating ice cream or cookies. (Except my nightly 100-calorie Klondike bar.)  I am drinking a ton of water, at least one glass of milk per day, and very little Diet Coke.  I am in some food ruts, but at least I know they’re my go-to points-friendly items.  I still need to work on getting more fruits & veggies.

I have a routine that gets me real, hard exercise five times per week: two days at the gym and three days of Shred at home.  Wednesday and Saturday are my days off.  I won’t say the Shred is getting easier, but I no longer feel like I’m going to die, and am getting closer to being able to do all of the reps.  And I am in love with my time at the gym, even if they had to come get me to change Daniel’s diaper today (after which, he went right back to playing and I got to finish my workout).

I feel a little better. I feel a little stronger.  Somewhere, under all of that fat and twin skin, I think I may actually have an abdominal muscle or two.  Still weak, but it’s there.

I’m happy about this. I’m proud of it.  But I am not throwing myself a party today.  There’s too much yet to do.

If I keep up my 1.5 pounds/week average, I can just squeeze out my goal of hitting my pre-pregnancy weight before the end of the year. 15 more pounds to go.  But even then, there’s still a long, long road ahead.

There’s a part of me that has to get a little bit mad in order to make this all work. I’m glad that it’s working, but I have to be a little ticked off to work even harder.  I also know that, for as decent as my motivation is right now, the time will come when it is going to wear off. I’m going to get lazy, sidetracked, off my game. There will be setbacks.  So I feel like I have to make the most of what I’ve got at the moment.

I’ve been pretty good about sticking to my “no eating after 8PM” rule, and good when I’m out and there’s food available (like last night, at a twin club meeting, someone bought a whole bunch of cookies for the table and I didn’t touch a single one).  It was a little easier in that I was talking to a few of my friends about weight loss and exercise, and said out loud to them “I am not eating any of those cookies! Please smack the hell out of my hand if you see me reaching.”  And because I said it out loud, I actually didn’t feel even the least bit tempted.

But do you know how the ass-kicker (Jillian?) inside my head responds to these situations?  Do you know what phrase always runs through my head at times like this?

“I am not fucking around here.”

There’s too much work to be done.  I am not fucking around here.

I told you I had to get mad.

First of all, might I mention that I have a guest post up at Loser Moms? It’s about my first attempt at the 30-Day Shred DVD, and how it almost killed me.

My efforts at weight loss and getting in shape are going well, even if I sometimes wish it would go faster.  But I have set myself some medium- and long-term goals that I think will be a challenge but are realistically doable.  The first goal is to lose my remaining 16 pounds of post-pregnancy weight by Christmas.  It’s a mental milestone for me, as it was just after Christmas, three years ago, that I learned I was pregnant (and, thus, when the “baby weight” ticker started going up).  It’s not a given that I’ll achieve it, but it can be done.  For extra motivation, I know my dad wants to hire a photographer for a new above-the-mantel family portrait while we’re all in Chicago for the holidays. I don’t want to be embarrassed every time I see that picture for the next 5+ years.

My long-term goal for weight loss is to get to my wedding weight. Before you scoff, I assure you that I was not a skinny little thing that day. I was still technically overweight, and I was wearing a size 12 (I think I had one or two pairs of pants in a 10, which I was very psyched about).  Anyways, that number is 35 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight.  So 2010 is all about that 35 pounds.

As for sticking with the program, I am finding the mob mentality group support and competition to be a helpful external motivator.  I believe I was the winner for our 30-day mini-Biggest-Loser challenge among friends, and the Loser Moms competition still has two more weeks remaining (no idea how I compare to other participants, but it helps motivate me to think that I have a shot at winning…).  And as I was thinking about jumping on the Shredhead bandwagon, anyways, I was eager to join their October challenge.   The framework is broad, just do the Shred regularly, try to eat well, and see results!  So, here’s my plan:

For food, I am continuing on Weight Watchers. The points have never done me wrong, so I’m sticking with what works for me.  I will also continue my “no eating after 8PM” rule.  Just having that self-created rule in the back of my head really helps to curb the all-night grazing that I am otherwise tempted to do.

For exercise, the main thrust of the October Shredheads Challenge, my plan is this:

• Tuesday & Thursday is gym day (Day 2 was at least as awesome as Day 1… it’s a whole new world opened up to me!). I’ll do at least 30 minutes of cardio, some core exercises, and possibly some weights.
• I will do the Shred DVD three times per week: two weekdays and one weekend day.  And who knows, maybe by the end of the month, I’ll actually be able to complete the entire 20-minute workout (OMFG it’s haaarrrrdddd!). Oy.

That adds up to five days of exercise per week, which is darn good if you ask me.  I used to exercise like that, way back before I got married and moved away from the greatest gym ever. It’s really, really nice to be active and doing something for myself.

So, what about you?  Are you going to join the challenge?  Do you have your own fitness goals going on right now?

So, today is Day 30 of my challenge with Nancy and our friend Amy, as well as Day 30 of my first go around of the EA Sports 30 Day Challenge.  All in all, a good month!

For the personal stats, I’m down 5.5 pounds. Not too shabby. Probably enough to win our three-person challenge. And, you know, better down than up.  But I can’t lie, I wish it was more. I wish it would be easier, or at least faster. I know that slow and steady is the way to go and all of that, but 5 measly pounds seems like such a drop in the bucket when I’ve got soo much more to go.  But, alas, it’s a start.  My approach this month was to count my Weight Watchers points as best as I could, and complete the 30-Day Challenge on the EA Sports Active game for the Wii.

The EA Sports 30-Day Challenge was definitely worth doing. I managed 19 of the intended 20 workouts (I’ll do #20 tomorrow, on day 31), and they really are workouts. Real squats, real effort, real sweat.  And I have to say that I noticed a difference from the first day to the last.  Now that the 30 days is up, the workouts feel easier and I’d definitely be ready to move up to the medium level (I did this month on “easy”).  Jump lunges still suck in a major way, but most of the other exercises feel easier than they did a month ago.

Nothing’s perfect, and there were times that the game seemed to not quite pick up on what I was doing.  It took a while for me to figure out the right way to do the fast kick-ups and have them recognized in-game, and as Nancy pointed out, it means that you look like Phoebe Bouffet going for a run.  Sometimes the tempo is a little weird.  But overall, I love that the workouts are programmed so you don’t have to choose individual exercises, and the interface is pretty darn nice.  I’m a little done with it for the moment, but I could definitely see going back to it after trying something else for a little while.

So, anyways, month 1 is up, but the Biggest Loser challenge on Loser Moms is still going strong.  The competition and desire to win actual money help keep up the motivation, I cannot lie.  Going to try to be good over the weekend while we spend time with M’s family for Rosh Hashanah, and I think that I’m going to start taking my licks from Jillian when I get back. I hear it’s rough, so think strong thoughts for me.

So, I’ve completed my first week of our little weight loss challenge, and it’s a bit mixed. I’m enjoying the EA Sports Active game and its built-in 30-day challenge quite a bit.  It most definitely gets me working hard and sweating, though I do wish it had at least an option for some guided stretching.  The down side of the week is that my plan of “just try to eat better” was not super effective. Shocking, I know!  That someone with life-long struggles with food and weight would have difficulty in simply “eating better!” Heh.  So, I’m back to counting my points with Weight Watchers, which is kind of a drag but really works.

But I decided I needed just a touch more motivation, and I found it over at Loser Moms with Sarah and Devra. They’re running their own Biggest Loser contest, and they’ve put their money (well, all of our money) where their mouths are. Everyone who wants to play along chips in $10, and the person who loses the most weight (percentage-wise) between September 1 and October 15 gets the cash (I think some goes to the runner-up, too).  I think they’re still open to new participants, so jump on in with me, would ya?