Body Image + NFR 6WC Challenge 7/27-9/7

!— STOP—!
If you’re seeing this on facebook, you’re not getting the full story.  Click the link to read more.

End of a Chapter

I burned a bridge last night. This morning, I’m not happy about it, but I’m also not going to ever be the one to start rebuilding it. Because of the interconnectivity of the bridge I burnt with other friendship bridges, another one collapsed, and a couple more are smoldering.

This metaphor isn’t going to last the whole way through this blog entry. Basically, there are a few things that have been, and probably always will be true about me:

1. As a water sign, I’m ruled by emotion.
2. I will drop even good friends like a hot coal if I’m burned. I’d rather have a select few true friends than a plethora of fair weather friends.
3. I call it like I see it.

These three added up yesterday and it ended up spelling the end of an era. Before I was “MegsFitness” on WordPress, I was MegsFitness on SparkPeople.

Through Spark, I really got started in caring about my health, wellness, and fitness. I met a great group of like minded people there and we banded together as the Weight Loss Warriors.

With this group of inspiring women, I ran my first 5k. I completed the warrior dash. I started addressing my hang ups about food. And I realized that I didn’t have to wait until I was skinny to be happy.

There are a few success stories that sprang from that group. Women who set their mind and their money towards achieving their fitness goals and making it their sole mission in life. There are others who made family more of a priority. Others who focused on career first. It was a safe zone where we could, and did, talk about all of these facets of our lives.

And then there’s me.

One of the success stories posted her own personal opinion to her own personal timeline yesterday. But it was so far from the ideals that we had held as warriors that I was appalled. With open eyes today, I see that it’s possible that she just may not have explained herself clearly. The fact of the matter, though, is that she had friends trying to explain on her behalf and not only did she not disagree, but she voted her agreement with the handy dandy ‘like’ button. The message that I was getting loud and clear was that if you’re still fat, it’s your own fault, and you should be ashamed of yourself.  There were caveats and qualifications–she’s not talking about people with a medical condition, or people who are currently in progress of losing weight–she’s only talking about people who are unhappy with their weight and refuse to do anything about it. Well, okay, but how can you tell whether someone has given up by LOOKING at them? That was the question that went unanswered the whole night. The article that was shared in order to illustrate this woman’s disgust was a blog on HuffPo about a woman’s realization that it’s more important for her to be making memories with her son than to constantly be ashamed of her body. Perhaps the unintended message on the WLWs part is that motherhood is no excuse for being fat. This was CERTAINLY the message this woman’s friends were touting.

Here’s the offending paragraph from Huffington Post:

“I vowed to myself, there in that kitschy water park, that I won’t ever sit on the sidelines again. I won’t deny a pool date because I don’t want to wear my bathing suit. I won’t skip the ice cream with my son when he begs me to eat one with him. I won’t enter calories on my phone. I will wear my bathing suit. And I will do it and remember you, the mom at the water park today — and the role model I must be for all my girls.”

And here is just some of the vitriolic response from someone who was supposed to understand:

I went off on her. I called her out for being judgemental of a person based on looks. For not understanding that developing healthy relationships with family are more important than weight loss–but what I should’ve said is that they’re more important than burdening the next generation with the same self consciousness and shame that we had to overcome. Having one ice cream sandwich with your child on a hot summer day does not mean you’ve given up on fitness. I daresay it means you have a healthier relationship with food than someone who is constantly scrutinizing every morsel and tracking every calorie. That’s disordered eating, and it’s not healthy in the long run.

But this blog isn’t about that discussion again. It’s about burning bridges. Of course the natural action from me was to unfriend this person and stop following their fitness page. The angry part of me also called her friends a  douche-canoe and a bitch, respectively.

Then I took it to the Weight Loss Warriors. I asked if we could have a vote on kicking her out. After all, this group was always saying how it’s safe to go to the gym because no one is judging you–and here this member of our ranks was obviously judging everyone who didn’t drop the weight like she did. I expected discussion, even agreement! But I was wrong, and that’s why a second bridge collapsed and even more are smoldering.

Some agreed with me and actually booted the member in question outright. Some completely disagreed with me. One even left the group in a rush of wtf. They wanted to keep the group whole and invite everyone back to talk, but the damage was already done for me.  I’m not going to associate with someone who says that motherhood is an excuse and deems that you’ve given up soley based on the fact that you don’t say no to a summer treat and you’re still overweight.

I’m sad, this morning, about how it played out, and that I felt compelled to leave the group myself. They were such a huge part of my fitness journey and really making it into a lifestyle change. The good news is that I have the like-minded folks as friends on my page, and I still have the Nerd Fitness Academy behind me. I’ll be alright.

Summer TV and Exercise

Per my previous post, I am taking a break from Facebook.  Did you also know that I’m taking a break from gaming?  The two are not related.  I sort of quit my guid took a hiatus from my guild when I decided to focus on fitness instead.  It’s been a couple months, now, and I’ve only logged in a time or two.

I *have* spent more time working out, but it’s not nearly the amount of time that I anticipated.  I’ve gotten a lot more walking in, some mild strength training, and a whole lot of excuse-making.  Oh what? Excuses??  Pssh.

I like to think of it less as excuses and more like some quality TV watching time.  I completely blitzed through Orange Is The New Black  and now I’m watching How I Met Your Mother, Bones, and Baby Daddy.

I would probably actually get more home-gym workouts done if Netflix had commercials, but as it stands, I try to do calisthenics while watching the episodes 🙂

The plan seems to be working, though, I’ve lost 8 pounds so far 🙂

The paleo plan is still at about 60% and going strong.  I crave more veggies these days and I don’t miss bread much at all.  Some days I just want a slice of buttery toast, but I think that might just be because I like butter 😉

So how are you spending your summer?  What are your favorite shows to watch?

 

 

Team Doge Wow Such Weight loss! Please Vote

I have joined a team challenge at work, and it’s off to such a fun start.  I’m on a team with a group of four women at work and we have dubbed ourselves “Team Doge Wow Such Weight Loss!”  The twelve week challenge kicks off with a mini-challenge to come up with the best team name (check!) and best team “before” photo (check!)

I would love it if you could check out our submission (below) and vote for us on the HealthyWage website (http://www.healthywage.com/leaderboards/team_standings/?team_challenge=80&secondary_filter=1).  This site is just like Diet Bet and Biggest Loser, except you cannot lose more than 1.5% of your weight/week and no more than 16.75% of your weight over the course of the challenge.  I’m really excited to have a team of co-workers to tackle this with.  They’ve been instrumental in my motivation this week 🙂

[EDIT: added directions –  access the link, and then select “GE HealthAhead’s Lose Weight, Win Big 2014” and “Mini Challenge #1: Best Team Name and Before Photo”]

Live-Blogging while reading a blog: Gretchen Powell’s “Body Love vs. The Desire to be Thin”

As many of you might know, Gretchen Powell is one of my favorite bloggers. She’s down to earth, approachable, totally non-judgmental, and a great writer as well (true story: her first book was published last year and her next one is upcoming).  She writes about a variety of subjects, much like this blog, but she’s getting back to the basics about weight loss, gain, loss, and what she wants to gain.  I thought I’d try something different this time around and rather than leaving my commentary in a bubble where only a select few can see it, I wanted to “live blog” my reaction to her blog.  With the author’s permission, I present to you a reaction story to “Body Love vs. The Desire to be Thin.”

Hard truths: a brief on why I need to lose weight

Reason one: Because this view is distracting when I’m trying to study:

Now with problem area highlighted in blue.

Solutions currently in progress:
-iaido
-fitness 19 membership
-conscious eating
-weight loss support group (online)

I just need to keep working on my solutions and the problems will solve themselves.

What the what, Weight Watchers?

Is it just me, or does eating clean really not jive with Weight Watchers Points Plus?

Most of the recommendations and recipes that I’ve come across call for low fat, reduced fat, low calorie…. chemically processed crap.  Their “cheese slices” melt in the refrigerator.  Or maybe I got a bad batch, I dunno, but I like to eat real food, in lesser quantities.

In other news… I’m still addicted to high fat, high sugar foods.  

Confession: I went to Arby’s the other day… the speaker to take the order was completely pummeled.  That was flag 1 that I didn’t need to be there, but I ordered Mozzarella sticks anyway.  I pulled up to the window and it was 3x more expensive than anticipated–flag 2.  He passed me the cheese sticks and they fell all over… onto the floor boards of my car and everything…. 

The reason I use ‘addicted’ is because that didn’t stop me… I figured I had recently cleaned my car and so the five second rule applied.  

the five second rule applied.

Lowest of the low.  So, I’m staying on Weight Watchers just to make sure that I stay aware of my choices.  Eat real food, just eat less of it. 

 

Veda 22: I AM FAT! (reblogged from The Daily Spark)

This video came to my attention via my news feed on Facebook.  It was pointed out by Denise Tausig in her blog post on The Daily Spark.  The truth is that Meghan Tonje is completely awesome.  Forget what I have to say on this subject, see for yourself:

So what do you think?  Can you be Fat and Fit?  Does being called “Fat” hurt your feelings, or do you feel the way that Meghan does?

Orange Chicken! Oh wait.. that’s pizza (a reset button entry)

Have you ever had those math questions that talk about how one train leaves the station going 60mph and the other leaves a different station going the opposite direction going at 40mph and where do they meet?

It’s a question that always seemed to make me panic–they don’t meet they freaking CRASH! zomg! Someone press the big red button!

Yeah, I always got that question wrong on the test.. hm. I guess my math teacher didn’t appreciate good old fashioned hysterics (define hysteria: unmanageable emotional excesses).

Those trains are like my life at the moment.  Stress is the 60 mph train and Health is the 40 mph train and it seems like whenever health gets off to a good start, stress comes right along and knocks it off track.  For me, and probably a lot of people, stress is toxic.  I am currently stressing out about:

So, the way that I see it… That stress train is coming on fast and threatening to derail my healthy train.  Instead of making orange chicken last night, we ordered pizza.  Again.  And I was all for it, not a care in the world.  I haven’t actually worked out since I moved.  I am supposed to be on my way to the fitness center right now but I couldn’t drag myself out the door yet–this baggage was too heavy:

Weight: 225

BMI: unknown. unhealthy.

Bicep: 15.75″

Ribs: 39″

Belly: 42.5″

Hip (at the joint): 48″

Hip (widest point): 50″

Thigh: 29″

 

The plan is simple–I’m leaving the baggage at the station to get lost 🙂  Today my goal is to get back to the gym.  At least an hour working out. I will drink 64 or more  ounces of water.  I will eat spinach with dinner and have fruits and veggies as snacks.  This little 40mph healthy train may be going slower than the chaotic stress train, but you know what?  It’s more sturdy, and health will conquer stress and push it out of the way.