Mixed Bag O’ Nuts

A post full of randomosity…

I had a fantastic interview today.  The two potential supervisors seem to have a fondness for sarcasm and teasing.  I would fit right in with either of them as my boss.   The interview was more like an easy conversation among friends.   Completely comfortable.  I didn’t feel like I was reaching for answers or trying to spin anything to make it sound slightly better.   After an hour and fifteen minutes, they ended the interview.  I will know by Friday if they want me back for a 2nd interview.  If I get hired, I would be working by October 5th.  Despite all of this, I find myself staying as low key as possible about it, downplaying it, afraid to hope, and not wanting to let myself want this too much.

After the interview, I went and weighed in.  I had started a new page last week that logged my daily calories and how much time I spent exercising, each day.  Nothing big, nothing crazy, just an additional line of accountability for myself since I knew I was starting to fade away and hide.  Whether anyone looks at it or not is not the point, the point is that each day I know I have to write it down.  Here.  On the blog.  Knowing I had this log, I knew my calorie intake last week was good.  Great actually!  Only one day I went over calories.  I didn’t work out as much as I thought I did though.  But despite that, my calorie level is such that even if I didn’t exercise, I should be losing 1 lb a week.   All this to say, I was excited for today’s weigh in.  I was actually looking forward to seeing the scale and then the jubilant text I would send to Coach and Aaron.   As I drove there from the interview, I just kept thinking I am gonna get to send a double good text (interview and a loss!)  But that was not in the cards today.  Somehow I gained 2.1 lbs this week.

I am very frustrated and discouraged and yet I know I did the work.  The scale just is not my friend this week.  It will come next week.  At least that is what I am telling myself until I believe it and until then, I keep doing the work…and trying to avoid the super size bag of Tootsie rolls mom bought!

The Biggest Loser started tonight.  In fact it is on now as I write this.  Part of me wishes I was there.  Part of me is glad I am not.   Part of me is grateful for the painstakingly slow process I am in, because the chances of regain are much less this way.  Part of me wishes I could put the process on warp speed.   I want to be there and yet I don’t.  I just saw one woman almost quit and I thought “Seriously??  You are gonna throw this opportunity away?  My opportunity?  You are gonna throw away?”  Then as I watched all the drama unfold, each of the contestants have some sort of life tragedy that has contributed to where they are today.  I thought, my story would fit right in here.  Except it won’t, because my story no longer has me, I have it! (At least most of the time anyway)  I am not saying I am better than all those contestants…I am just in a different place.  I have already begun coming to terms with my “stuff” and dealing with it and working on the weight loss.  I just wouldn’t have provided any  drama.  But I am still disappointed I am not there.  Grrrr… hate that!

I got a road bike!  I officially have all the tools I need to be able to do all three legs of a triathlon next spring/summer. I will post pictures of the bike and the ridiculous story of how I got it soon!  Remind me if I forget, it is funny!

Between Season’s Summer Challenge Wk 5 Results

Hey guys,

You are all doing awesome!  I am quite excited because Aaron used his Excel Geekery and helped me set my spreadsheet up with something called “conditional formatting”.  Basically, when someone meets a 1% loss, their % lost gets highlighted in one color.  When someone loses more than 2%, then those fields get highlighted in another color!  It is very fun as the weeks go by to see colors popping up when I plug in your new weights.  And for those of you concerned…Aaron has NOT seen your weights.  He helped me set this up BEFORE I had any starting weights and we tested it with my weight, which he already knows anyway!  So no worries!

The other thing I am excited about is that every week our Biggest Losers are different people.  So if you haven’t been named as TBL of the week yet, keep going because if this trend continues everyone can be TBL!

On to this weeks BL!  Our BL with a whopping 1.76% loss is Lina!

Followed closely by Anne W with 1.45%

Then me with 1.3% (however, I am just losing what I gained last week, so my net is a big ole’ nothing!)

The longest day of my life!

Yes friends, if you didn’t know it before, you know it now, I am back in my beloved GR this week. Yes I know, I should just move back here. After tonight I am convinced I will figure out a way! My trip this time, was 2 fold. One I had long standing symphony tickets….and since the TBL video submission deadline is fast approaching, the plan was to have my video completed tonight…after some last minute filming on Monday.

After filming on Monday, it was decided that Wednesday at 8:30, the premiere viewing of my video would take place. Outside of one small clip ABS showed me on Monday, I have seen nothing of this project. No footage or anything. I simply had to trust a man, I don’t know very well, but who is good friends with Coach and Aaron, whom I trust without question. Needless to say, I have been anxiously awaiting Wednesday at 8:30. I am not one to usually lose sleep over things, but I was sooo excited, I have not slept well the last 2 nights and well, I am not so sure I am gonna sleep tonight either!

I did not have a huge agenda for the day, but I was meeting one friend for coffee and then having a sushi dinner with a few friends prior to the Premiere, as we have taken to calling it. But I also had a couple friends who have been integral to my journey coming over to watch the video at 8:30 as well. We had a lovely dinner, but while at dinner, Adam gets a text message from ABS, “need more time” is the basic gist of the message. And ABS didn’t want me at the house until he was really ready, lest I see something before the big viewing. SO…we couldn’t go back yet. As time passed, further text messages were coming in, expounding the woes of technology and how even more time was needed. At 8:15 I said, we needed to leave the restaurant and go somewhere else. We ended up at the mall, sitting in massage chairs and visiting the Apple store and painfully killing time. While at the apple store…we get another message. “40 minutes…I am not kidding!”

My face fell. All of the anticipation that had been building just deflated. I knew there would be people at the house, waiting. And of course I was awaiting this, but what can one do when technology won’t cooperate! Shortly after that Scottie gets a phone call, that basically says that we can come, even though it isn’t quite ready, my friends would rather watch me squirm there. But I overheard something that led me to believe that the stalling had all been intentional. SO I began to suspect trickery. But I had no idea!!!

As we pull up, there is a “no parking” sign in the driveway and as I look up, there are people standing in the driveway…I thought, that crazy ABS is making them wait in the cold? As I got out, a floodlight came on and I noticed a “red carpet” covering the entire length of the driveway. (They have a long driveway) There were “paparazzi”present all along the carpet taking photos as I walked up. And music was playing….”I’m too sexy”! Yep, of course I had to strut my stuff on the “cat walk”As I walked, I had a feather boa put on me, flowers placed in my hand, and eventually a tiara got placed on my head. It was hilarious fun! My friends LOVE me! This I know! For their actions tell me so!

When we finally made it into the house, we had a champagne toast! You seriously would have thought that a “big deal” celebrity had just arrived. I was overwhelmed. It was then I began to realize and connect the dots to conversations I had with Aaron and Carol and began to see…they were ALL in on this. This was not the work of just one person! But about a dozen, all working to surprise me! It worked guys! I don’t think I have ever been so surprised in my life!

We finally moved into the viewing room to watch the video, where ABS and RD introduced the film and their experience working on it. I was touched and overwhelmed by their words. We watched the video and while I cannot post it or tell you much about it, I can say ABS and RD are geniuses at taking me and my story and telling it in such a beautiful way without taking away from who I am. The whole thing reflected who I am at my core. It was funny, vulnerable, honest and real. It was me! I was stunned into silence. Even now I have no adequate words to express what I think and feel. I feel like I have just reported the excitement of the day. But what else can I add?

I am loved. If I ever doubted or questioned it before….there is nothing of that remaining. And while the waiting was frustrating…in the end it was well worth it!

I am wordless when it comes to what I feel, not because I am not feeling anything, but there are no words to describe it all, that exist in the English language!

When I get some of the pictures of all of the trickery that went down…I will post them for you all to see!

Much harder than I ever Expected

About 3 years ago I seriously started my weight loss journey after attending a Discovery Seminar and coming to understand what I now know to be the very beginnings of what my weight is for me. My weight started as a direct result of childhood sexual abuse. It has become so much more over the years. But as you will read, knowing doesn’t make it any easier to change it.

I did a Dr. monitored 800 calorie diet and lost 60 lbs rather quickly. It was exciting and even thrilling to have lost so much weight so fast! But 800 calories! Seriously! I don’t recommend this method, even if a doctor is monitoring it. It just is not healthy or sustainable. At some point you will have to increase your calories and unless you are doing serious exercise to counter the additional calories (which I was not)you will gain it all back…as I did.

Then I decided to gather a team of close people in my life, who were willing to take a stand with me and support me in this. I had a 1 year commitment with this small group of people. I told them how I hide and even lie when necessary to make excuses for my failures. I lost some weight. I don’t remember how much, but at some point in that year I had one too many weeks of gain or no loss, got discouraged and slowly faded away from my team.

Last year I decided that I would try out for the Biggest Loser. Over the last couple years I had learned some things about myself. Serious things that hold me back from losing weight even though to be healthy is what I really want. But hey, I am committed now and maybe doing this on TV in front of the world will make it easier. After all I usually do well in competition. It is a great motivator for me. I didn’t make the show, but I put my application video on You Tube then told all my friends about it, who told their friends, and of course any random person who did a search for Biggest Loser on you tube watched that video. In 2 months time, over 1500 people saw that video. I spent much of the last year discouraged that my energy and commitment didn’t last or wasn’t enough to make significant weight loss happen. And it didn’t help that I was getting questioned about it all the time.

I thought that if I were committed enough, dedicated enough, had enough support around, was honest enough, and vulnerable enough that somehow all of that would be enough to motivate me to go to the gym and to eat healthy. But my reality is this. My weight has served me well for 27 years. It has done the job that I set it up to do and now that I don’t want that job to be filled anymore I have 27 years of habit and beliefs and fears built up around this. I don’t know what thin would look like for me. And I don’t know what else will come up along this journey to stop me. What I do know is that this is more than a physical issue, but a heart issue. It has as much to do with my relationship with God as it does my relationship with food. Often I have put food first, trusting it to make me feel safe and comforted instead of trusting God to be that for me.

Where I am at today. I am not making the weight loss a big deal. Yes, I am doing this blog which might seem like a big deal…but in reality, not many people know about this yet. Yes I text/email my new weights each week to about 3-4 people, but not so much for accountability as much as for me to acknowledge what I have or have not done. I try to make good choices each day, but to be honest I don’t count every calorie that goes in my body nor do I shame myself for having that cookie. When the urge to eat for some reason other than hunger overwhelms me, and I want to eat a whole box of cookies, I am working at letting a few into that struggle with me. It feels like I am less alone in it that way and it becomes easier to manage.

What IS a big deal is learning to trust God more and more with my heart. Food has been my idol and it rears its ugly head all the time and this time I want God first. This has been much harder than I ever expected. I have yo yo’d the last couple weeks. This would normally be frustrating for me. But I know that the last couple weeks have been really hard to trust God. I know that although most of the time I made good choices about food, I had a really hard time getting to the gym. I also recognize that while I have gotten better about letting people into the food struggle, I have not been so good about letting people in to the exercise struggle. I have many thoughts on that, but that will have to be another blog…this one is already long enough.

There is much to be learned on this journey of trust, healing and health but I refuse to give up. I am a pretty stubborn person and I refuse to give up just because it is hard! But it is much harder than I ever expected.