Creating New Habits

Since weekends are free-write opportunities from BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo, I’ve decided to talk to you about creating some new habits.

Today I went to Bulk Barn (a bulk food store in the great land of Canada in case you’ve never been) and FreshCo (a grocery store), and I purchased a great deal of ingredients to make smoothies for my breakfasts.

Typically, my habit on a weekday morning when getting ready for work has been to get up, give myself about 8 minutes flat to get ready for work (usually meaning I skip breakfast), and then hitting the McDonald’s or the Tim Horton’s drive thru on my way into work so that I have food in my tummy.  This isn’t a habit that’s good for my body (which I’m trying to love and respect), or my wallet (and I’m trying to pay OFF debt, not spend needlessly).  So to break this habit, I decided that if I have all the ingredients prepped, ready, and on hand for smoothies, I’ll be able to assemble in advance and then just blend either the night before or first thing in the morning, and drink on my way into work.  The mere minutes it will take to blend the smoothie up if it’s already prepped will likely be fewer than I usually spend sitting in a drive thru line.

So I took some pictures of my ingredients artfully lined up on my counter.

I also included, for your viewing pleasure, a picture of another new habit I’d like to start — cooking with my crock pot.  Today for dinner I roasted a chicken, some carrots, and some sweet potatoes, and now I have at least two meals’ worth in leftovers… plus it was delicious and my house smelled amazing. I took a picture of the spices I used to spice up this delicious feast (plus I also used ground sage, but it’s in a big in a ziploc bag and that’s not pretty now, is it?)

And I threw in a shot of how nice and clean my fridge and freezer look since I purged them of all things junk!

And finally, I’ve included a picture of the most ridiculously named trail mix EVER.  Really, Bulk Barn?  Really!?

Do YOU keep your resolutions?

Do you?  Do you keep your New Year’s Resolutions?  Cuz I sure don’t.  BlogHer‘s NaBloPoMo prompt for today asks that question.

My answer is an unequivocal “no.”  I suck at this.  Here’s hoping this year’s Real Solutions (follow the link to read my resolutions for 2015) work out… that’s partly why I’m blogging my way through this….

In news on that though, I have discovered that I love smoothies!  Got any recipes (healthy ones) that you’d love for me to share?  I’ll review them and give you full credit if you share…. *smiles sweetly*

 

2015 Real Solutions

Well, I guess the best way to grab hold of some readers and draw you into my new blog is to start a NaBloPoMo hosted by BlogHer — so here I am, where all month I’ll be talking about habit.  I think it works pretty well with the 125 Pounds to Freedom theme, don’t you?

I’ve never been very good at keeping resolutions.  I make them every year, and they’re pretty much the same every year.  The thing is, I have to make the same resolutions year after year, because every year December rolls around and I realize that I haven’t lost any weight (and in the last two years I’ve gained a bunch), I haven’t gotten closer to God like I’ve wanted, I haven’t read my way through the Bible like I’ve wanted, I haven’t read more books and spent less time on Facebook…. I get about 2 weeks into January and say ‘screw it, it’s too hard’ and I move on.

I saw a friend post to Facebook a picture the other day that said “My goal in 2015 is to accomplish the goals of 2014 which I should have done in 2013 because I made a promise in 2012 and planned in 2011.”

I think this is true for many of us… I know many friends who just don’t bother making resolutions anymore because they know two weeks into January they’ll stop using the gym membership they now have to pay the entire year for or some other similar situation.

 

In 2014 I went on a journey to love my body.  I’ve had a really hard time with that, being overweight/obese most of my life, and even for the year when I wasn’t after I dropped 90 pounds in a school year, I was still very insecure and still found reasons to hate my body even though it was just fine.  I look back at pictures now and wonder how I could ever possibly have thought I was still fat in 2010, but I suppose that’s the thing about disordered thinking/eating patterns.

I reached that point somewhere in 2014 where I did learn to love my body for what it was — every roll and curve, I was fine with it.  But that being fine with it made me not care to take care of myself, and is that really love?  I was thinking the other day that if I had children, really showing them love would not let them sit on the couch all the time on Facebook while watching TV and eating snack after snack that isn’t good for them, often skipping meals altogether because they’ve filled up on snacks.  I may have learned to love how I look, but I didn’t learn to love myself by showing myself the respect I need in order to attain healthy goals.

 

So in short, a different resolution for 2015.  And hopefully it’ll be a Real Solution to my weight problem, to my food addiction (which causes the weight problem, and one can’t be fixed without the other), the amount of time I waste on Facebook, and my lack of desire to exercise.

I’m going on a journey with God, my Creator, to see what He sees in me.  I know that respecting my body will lead to making all around better choices, but I know that I can’t do that without God.  I won’t have the strength or the willpower to accomplish this goal unless I’m relying on God to intervene in my tendency to use food for comfort/celebration/a cure to boredom/anything really.

I’m going to accomplish this in a few ways.  Some are tangible and others are just going to have to be trusted that I’m doing them.

1. I’m going to make intentional food choices, where when I feel like eating terrible snack food or eating out instead of making something remotely good for me, I will give it to God.
2. I’m going to get more exercise.  I’m going to use my gym membership more often, and I’m going to walk my dog more often.
3. I’m only going to drink water, I’m only going to eat out on special occasions (and it won’t be fast food), and I’m going to only eat when I’m hungry (and keep healthy snack options in the house while keeping the bad ones out).
4. I’m going to pray, pray, pray, pray, pray… because I can’t do this alone.
5. I’m going to do a 60-day devotional that should point me on the path toward relying on God instead of food in every aspect of my life.  (details below).
6. I will leave the scale alone except for once a month when I will check — I will keep my clothes as the marker of my success/failure.  The last time I tried hard to lose weight, I was a slave to the scale and any gain at all made me go crazy.  I will not do that to myself this time.

 

A couple years ago I read a book by Lysa TerKeurst called Made To Crave.  It was very challenging and left me with a lot of goals and ideas, but like with many things, I lasted a week or two and didn’t form lasting habits before I got bored.  I was poking around on Amazon the other day and found that she has a 60-day devotional to go along with that book, and so I ordered it.  I’ll let you know how it is as I go through it 🙂

 

Those are my 2015 goals.  What are yours?

125 Pounds to Freedom

If you’ve read the “A Little About Me” section of my blog, you’ll know that a lot of factors in my life have led to wanting to control something and lose a lot of weight — and I did, but then I gained it all back and more because I didn’t do it properly.  I’m writing to you as a 30 year old, 5’7″ woman who weighs 275 pounds.  Read the whole story here.

Further to that introduction, I’d like to tell you, my new readers….

I want to lose weight because:

• currently when I sit on/in some chairs, they’re very uncomfortable because my hips are too wide for them, and I used to be able to sit criss-cross on the front seat of a car.
• sometimes when I sit on cheap/poorly made furniture, I wonder the entire time I’m sitting on it if it will actually support my weight (most lawn chairs, haha)
• I get winded by the time I reach the top of a flight of stairs and I used to be able to run 8km without stopping.  I loved running and the chance it gave me to pray, think, and clear my head of all stress…. but at my current weight I’m not sure I could run for 30 seconds if I tried, and it wouldn’t be very fast — my cardio endurance couldn’t do it, and my joints would certainly cry out in pain.
• I have stretch marks all over, and I’d like to stop adding to them.  They’re battle wounds and I’ve come to terms with them, I’m not hating on myself, I just think it’s time to stop.
• My blood pressure is higher than it should be for an otherwise healthy 30 year old woman, and I’d like to live a long and happy life.
• I have a little bit of anxiety about a plane ride in March to Florida because I’m afraid that the seats are going to be suuuper uncomfortable because of the width of my hips.
• My thighs rub together, and while they always have (even at my thinnest), it’s not currently comfortable and it’s always noticeable.  I’m wearing through the seams on my jeans, my leggings pill, and I’d just rather my thighs be smaller.  I’m good with having tree trunks for legs, because they’ve never really been proportionate to the rest of me — I carry a lot of my weight in my thighs, but it’s gotten to be too much.
• I’m in a relationship where I’m starting to consider whether or not we could head toward marriage.  For me, that means a wedding and kids could be coming, so….
  • I don’t want to have to shop for wedding dresses in the plus sized section.  It’s hard enough to find the jeans you want but they don’t come in your size… or a shirt…. but I want the freedom to order the perfect dress when I find it without worrying that they don’t make it to fit my body.
  • I don’t want to enter into a pregnancy 125 pounds overweight.  I can’t imagine that more weight gain would make any of these factors any easier.
  • I want to set good, healthy examples for my children so that they can grow up and live healthy, active lives — and I can’t do that from the place I’m in.
• Finally, I want to stop buying clothes.  I have enough bins of clothes I’ve grown out of sitting in a closet in my basement that I wouldn’t have to go shopping at all as I lose weight.  I have clothes I loved.  I have jeans, especially jeans… that I miss because I grew out of them, and while I know I can look great in the clothes I have now, I’m just tired of spending money when a bit of discipline would make that unnecessary.

 

Why do I want to blog about this?

I want to be healthy.  I want to be able to run if I want to.  I want to set a good example….. and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I figured that since these thoughts are ones I haven’t shared with the people who inhabit my life space, I’d find better common ground if I started by sharing where I’m coming from anonymously over the internet.  I have accountability partners in real life as well, but at least this way I don’t have my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and closest friends all reading about the deepest parts of my struggle to manage my eating/exercise habits.

 

What’s the plan?

Make wiser food choices — cook my own food, eat a lot of vegetables and protein, cut back on a lot of refined sugar, BUT not agonize over a misstep or a wayward piece of cheesecake.  Life happens.  I don’t need to be stick thin, but I do need to manage my habits.

Stay conscious of the reasons that I’m eating — is there something in my life that’s stressing me out?  Even eating carrots in that situation isn’t healthy.  I’m going to need to rely heavily on God in this, especially in those times when I want to eat just to battle emotions I otherwise don’t want to battle.

Exercise — I got a gym membership again… I have a gym buddy!  Now I just need to go haha.  And I need to walk lots and lots.  Right now I can’t run, but that day will come.

And finally, the biggest one for me…

Avoid concrete goal setting — I know, the name of my blog is 125 pounds to freedom.  I hear you.  I don’t have a plan of how much I’d like to lose by a certain amount of time.  I’ve found that all that does for me is make me obsess over the scale and then make unhealthy choices in the opposite direction.  I want to lose somewhere between 100 and 125 pounds, and however long that takes is OK.  I will not freak out if I’m not losing 2 pounds a week because, quite frankly, I think I’m going to put the scale away and not look.

 

I’m going to post in here along the way — I’ll share recipes I concoct, thoughts, tips on things that have helped me, and more.  But know this, I want my health back, and no one but me can get that back, so I’m gonna go take it!  Will you follow along with me?