December 2015 – Yoga Pants Diary

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015

Step Two: No Alcohol

Oh boy. This might be a tough one.

I have never been much of a drinker. Alcoholism runs pretty deep in my family and I’ve always avoided consuming too much. I’ll go out for Girl’s Night Out or have a few when friends and I go to watch fights but it’s not routine. I don’t keep wine or beer in the house. I can go out and have no drinks or too many drinks. (which I always regret)

But lately, there’s been so many events that I find myself excusing a drink here and there and then everywhere. Everyone wants to meet for a drink or is serving drinks at their get-together.

For some people, giving up alcohol would be the end of the world. For me, it’s just going to be inconvenient and not very fun 🙁 I have signed up with USA Boxing to be an amateur boxer this year. (more on that later…..) They require you to sign a code of conduct against performance dampening activities like alcohol and tobacco. While this is a perfect reason to cut out alcohol, I’m excited to do it for the calories as well. I know there are a lot of opinions out there on alcohol, wine especially, but I’m just saying no for the next few months at least. I don’t need it and it’s just empty calories. I went my first whole year of weight loss without a drink, I know I can do it again.

So over the next few months, I’m going to figure out how to meet for drinks without having a drink and how to get through social meet ups without ordering a cocktail. Who wants to join?

December 30, 2015

Step One: No Sweets January

Yesterday I wrote about my feelings of having lost some control over my eating (click here if you missed it). Everywhere you turn during this time of year someone is offering you a sweet treat or left some out in the office lounge. 90% of the time I’m great at saying ‘no thank you’ or just walking away. But lately, I’ve been helping myself to half a cookie or a bite of this several times throughout the day. Those small bites have turned into a lot of bites by the end of the day. Also, I’m left thinking about the food I just walked away from. I used to be able to walk away from it and not think twice about it. Now I walk away day dreaming about what it would have been like and this is NOT GOOD.

I’m ok with allowing myself small treats here and there. I had a piece of cake on my birthday even. BUT it’s the craving feelings that scare me. When my body is clean and healthy, I crave naturally sweet things like green apples and fruit juice. I ALWAYS have Trader Joes pineapple juice in the fridge. But now I’m craving candy and sweets all over again. That is something I’m not comfortable with. When my body is clean, I don’t really even enjoy sweets. I can taste how sweet it is and the sugar swimming in my body. I used to not finish things because they were too sweet. Now, I just want it all.

So how do I reset my system? How do I make those cravings go away? I’m going to make the food go away. I lay down a “NO CHOCOLATE” mandate in the house about twice a year, for a two week period, when I feel my control slipping. But, this year it just felt like one event after another, meet this friend for lunch, celebrate this holiday here…….so I felt like I couldn’t do it in the middle of the holidays. So I’m going to do……drum roll please…….No Sweets January!

For the whole month I will not be partaking in candy, cookies, muffins, ice cream or anything of the sort. I’m hoping by doing this that by February, I can enjoy my candy hearts and then through the rest of the box away and that I won’t be consumed by thoughts of chocolate. As I was talking to a friend about the ‘post Christmas yuck” he agreed to jump on board!

If you are considering making your first small steps or just looking to gain more control of your cravings, consider a No _______ January. Let those around you know to help keep you honest. Also, they won’t be offering you the things they know you are avoiding. Someone might even do it with you! If there’s a food or group of foods you are trying to cut down on, consider giving them up for a whole month. You’d be surprised to see how much your body recalibrates your cravings! If you haven’t already done it…..I’d recommend soda! Just look at all these benefits and tell me it isn’t a good idea!

Bye Bye Sugary Drinks: What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Drinking Soda

December 29, 2015July 12, 2017

Out of Control

The holidays are so hard. I’ve been feeling out of control with my eating for a little while now and the holidays totally derailed me.

When you exercise as much as a I do, it’s really easy to ‘forgive’ little treats throughout the day. After hitting my goal weight, (and then my fight weight) I did really well for a long time. I stayed balanced with my fitness and calorie intake. I still stayed away from high sugar foods and kept my system pretty clean. However, when October hit, I started to struggle. In mid-October I ran the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. Leading up to the race, I had been running and boxing so much that I could almost eat whatever I wanted. So I started to. I still avoided multiple high calorie/high sodium meals in the same day. I still would have one or two pieces of pizza and not seven. I still followed all my ‘rules’ but didn’t at the same time. I found myself excusing little snacks throughout the day. Sure I can have a few pieces of candy from the dish. Sure I’d like to try that snack you’re offering. Sure I want that birthday cupcake. I deserve it right?

Recently, I haven’t been running at all, except at the gym. There are no races coming up and I can’t risk the injury of running in bad weather. I’m totally focused on boxing right now. But when I stopped running, my weight started to creep up little by little. I’ve never eaten my exercise calories back. I don’t consider exercise as ‘negative’ to my calorie bank. But, I would excuse a treat because I exercised that day. A treat would be one cookie, a small scoop of ice cream, or fruit juice. But then it turned into candy. And then a brownie. And then several little bites all day. As the holidays go closer, I didn’t do any better. While my weight stayed consistent-ish, I could feel my system getting mucky. I like this feeling because it reminds me how clean my body likes to eat. But then the feeling goes away because it’s your new norm.

Now here it is two months later and I’m 4 pounds heavier. I know to a lot of people 4 pounds is a drop in the bucket. I too would have laughed at that sentence a year or two ago. However, I’m trying to keep my weight as consistent as possible for boxing. I need to get back on track. I need to hold myself more accountable and not give a list of reasons why it’s ok. Here’s my list of excuses over the last two months:

It’s Halloween
It’s Thanksgiving
It’s Christmas
It’s My Birthday
It’s New Years
I exercised today

But seriously, I’m just being lazy. I haven’t held myself to the same standards as I have been and I can feel a huge difference. My insides feel gross. My energy has been lower and I crave food all the time. My focus isn’t as strong and my weight has gone up.

Check back throughout the week to see what I’m going to do about it!

December 3, 2015December 3, 2015

I’m in a video ?!

Wow I really need to update that picture! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Recently my trainer and gym have been expanding their marketing and were shooting a short ‘promo’ video.

So this is basically totally bizarre for me in a way that might be hard to understand. When I look at this video, I can see that it’s me and I recognize myself, but it’s hard for me to believe that’s actually me. Who would put me in this cool video? Why aren’t I cut out?

When you spend the majority of your life in the shadows of society, it’s really weird when you aren’t anymore. When I was overweight, I wasn’t a wallflower by any means. What I mean by “shadow of society” is that no one really notices you. Men don’t look at you twice. Women dismiss you immediately. Even though everyone can see you, it’s like they never notice you. Now people see me all the time. I get the “Skinny Bitch” face all the time. ( you know what I’m talking about) Men look at me. Sometimes it’s the man with a woman ON HIS ARM that’s looking at me. (which I really freaking hate by the way).

I’ve been struggling with my identity in society for a while now (Read Here) but regardless of what ‘box’ I’m in now, it’s still weird to ME, which I think it most important. I can agree that the girl in this video looks good and fit. I agree that she doesn’t look like she has loose skin or literally lost half of her body. I can even ALMOST agree that that girl looks hot. But it still just doesn’t quite feel like me. I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.

I’m the girl that gets cut out. I’m the girl that doesn’t have hardly any photos of her whole body for almost a decade. I’m the girl that stands in the back to hide her body from the camera. I’m the girl that would NEVER be filmed in a video. Right? Well. Apparently not. Do I have to spend equal amount of years in this body that I did in that body before it will fell like mine? That means I’ll feel normal in this body when……I’m…..50?! Let’s hope that’s not true.