What's it going to take?

Sitting here watching "Dr G., Medical Examiner." Good show, very interesting. But all the things people die of on a regular basis, aneurysms, heart disease, strokes, complications of diabetes, geez it's all so scary. I'm not really scared of dying I don't think, but I am scared of being disabled, having a stroke or something and not being able to take care of myself.

My dad died from a stroke. But before he had the one that killed him, he had one that disabled him. He couldn't talk. He couldn't walk, couldn't use a good portion of the left side of his body, and he was left handed. Horrible to see. I may not have gotten along with him, didn't have a great relationship, but he was a proud man, especially proud of his intellect. I do not want to be in that position.

I am pre-diabetic right now. I cannot go up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing for 5 minutes afterwards. I sit all day at work and I sit when I get home. What the hell is it going to take to get me to DO something?

Every night before I go to sleep I think about what I can do to get in shape. I picture myself forcing myself to go outside and walk every day when I get home from work. I see myself on the treadmill - watching TV. I even picture myself jogging on the treadmill trying to get in shape to do a 5K run or something.

And every day I do nothing.

Is there some reason I am not aware of that I want to stay like this? Am I proving something to myself - I mean - I don't keep people really close to me anymore, am I trying to further push more people away? I don't know.

But it really is quite clear that I will add years to my life if I start exercising and eating better. Why don't I? I should be the one to answer that but the truth is - I just don't know.

NO. What's that?

At some point I stopped telling myself no. I have totally lost control of what I allow myself and what I don't. I used to have a natural feel for whether I was letting things get away from me and needed to cut back. That doesn't exist anymore. It's like I don't know myself anymore.

After my divorce I entered into a relationship with a man that lasted a good 8, almost 9 years. It was a very destructive relationship although I did not see that at the time. There was no abuse or intentional infliction of pain, but there was turmoil and emotional conflict and uncertainty all of the time.

He was very controlling. Not in the sense that I couldn't leave the house or could not have friends or any of the things you think of when you think of control. He kept me off balance emotionally all of the time. I never knew for sure where I stood with him. It's hard to explain. I lived in his house and although it was supposed to be mine as well - I always knew it was his. I could paint a room if I wanted to but it had to be within his parameters. I could work on some landscaping projects in the yard but it had to meet his specifications as to what he wanted to see in front of his house.

When we broke up and I moved out of his house, it was like I could breathe again. I bought colorful bedding and colorful dishes, hung things on the walls and reveled in expressing who I was and making my own choices. Maybe it was then that I stopped telling myself no.

Part of celebrating ME - was allowing myself what I wanted because it was my decision. My choice. I'm not blaming him for my weight gain. That's all me. But I really think that was the time where I started to let everything go.

Now - I need to figure out how to stop it.

I moved.

I got on the treadmill tonight. For maybe 3 and a half minutes. Considering the fact that I can't remember the last time I was on it - I'll take it. As I was starting to walk, turning up the volume on the TV with the remote in my hand, I spied the tootsie roll that had been warming beneath my leg which must have tumbled to the floor when I got up from the couch.

Oops.

Okay, I said I got on the treadmill. Didn't say I had started dieting.

Sigh-h-h.

One day just like the next.

Sometimes being heavy is exhausting. At work every time I get up out of my chair before leaving my cubicle I adjust my bra while seated, stand - pull up my pants, and pull my shirt down at the sides. As I am walking away from my cube I am sucking in the whole front of my body while tugging at the back of my shirt and then the front to make sure it isn't clinging too tightly to me.

I see women who walk around with shirts that are fairly snug against their rolls and they seem to have no problem with it. I don't know if it's because they have been living with it longer than I have, if they don't see themselves as a smaller person on the inside, or if they have a better self image than I do.

Every single day I think about exercising. As I sink further down into the couch in my exhaustion. Tired because I don't get enough sleep, tired because I've worked a full day, and tired because being heavy seems to require a lot of energy. And every night after I have a full belly I think about how tomorrow I am going to eat less, eat better, and how tomorrow it will be easier. I didn't do well today, but I have the resolve now, tomorrow will be better.

Every single night as I lay in my bed and try to go to sleep I think about how tomorrow I will clip on that pedometer and add a hundred steps a day. How I won't spend all evening when I get home on the computer and how much I will accomplish. Tomorrow.

The next day always turns into the same as the day before. There is no resolve when I am hungry and no ambition when I am tired.

Maybe I DO like to whine ...

So the fat girl is miserable. I suppose it doesn't help that I think I'm PMSing. I'm irritable and crabby and having big-wigs in the office does not help. Recently we were told there is a new dress code, no jeans being the worst part for me. That's all I have worn for years! So having to go shopping at this size was a horrendous experience for me. I hated every moment of it and hated putting my daughter through it when she was nice enough to come with me.

Well, I bought summer clothes. Capris and thin pants. And suddenly it's fall here. Cool. So I am wearing my black jeans because they are more cool weather pants. Not too much of a big deal, I can stay at my desk as much as possible. But they always bring food in when the bosses are in town. They brought in something and put it in our small cubicle-like break area where there are 4 or 5 of these people sitting around the table about 8 inches from the table that has the food on it.

Number one - my ass is too big to comfortably go in there and get myself a plate of food without bumping at least one of the chairs. Plus, I would have my back to the table where they are eating and I'll be damned if they are going to watch me fill my plate.

Two cubicles behind me is this little skinny thing who eats like a horse and makes nummy noises the whole time. You would think free food was the best thing ever - and she has no qualms about going back for seconds or getting nutty about something that tastes good.

Does anyone look twice at her when she oohs and ahhhs over the food and stuffs her face and then sits there and complains about how full she is? No.

Now if I did the same thing? Somehow it's just not the same thing.

If those bosses were not in there sitting right by the table, and I was wearing something other than jeans, I might, MIGHT go in there and get some food. But as it is - I don't think so.

I really hate to whine

But why can't I get myself to do anything? I mean really, anything??? I sit here all full and disgusted with myself after eating McDonalds and having done nothing except one load of laundry ALL day. It's so easy to look at healthy recipes and think that tomorrow, yes tomorrow I will start eating well and tomorrow I will put on the pedometer and start keeping track of how much I move.

But I never do.

When I lay down to go to sleep every night I inevitably pull my knee up and feel my belly against it. My belly is not supposed to be there. When laying on my side I lay my hand on the front of my waist except the IS no waist, and the front of me is so big I could easily pass for pregnant.

My daughter was so concerned when we went shopping for clothes that I hated myself. I don't think I hate myself but I DO hate the way I look and the way I feel and even more than those things - I hate my lack of ability to do anything about it all.

I joined an online diet site called SPARK. No idea if I will be committed to it any more than anything else. Makes me feel - more of a failure to fail in front of other people. I don't know, time will tell.

I knew this would happen. When I was old!

Today my knees started to hurt. Primarily the right one wihich is the one usually tucked beneath me as I sit on the couch in front of the computer for hours at a time. Literally. I'm guessing that has something to do with it. Inactivity is apparently a bad thing for the body.

Like I didn't know that.

It's bad enough that when I get up and walk after sitting for a while, everything is stiff, my ankles, my legs, and my feet and toes snap crackle pop like adding milk to Rice Krispies.

Now it's my knees. When I get up to walk they are just sore, nothing horrible, no sharp pain, just an ache that I feel as I walk. It's not just about getting old. It's about being overweight and my joints finally deciding to protest.

I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

A likeness. More or less.

Things I do differently because I'm fat. Part 1

I don't want to see my Mother. I know, that's bad, isn't it?

Before I got pregnant with my son I was probably about 120 lbs. By the time I gave birth to him I was over 200. My Mom came to stay with me - too early, he was late, so she went back to whichever state she was living in at the time. After Andy was born she came back and helped me with him. She was invaluable to me. She came when my daughter was born too, both times she stayed for 2 weeks and was a huge help to me.

But at some point, and I don't remember if it was after Andy was born, or after Dani was born or when she said it mind you, but in looking at how she felt when she saw me that last month pregnant with Andy my Mom said "Oh I was just sick."

She was referring to how heavy I was and was most likely saying it to me after I had lost a lot of weight. "Oh I was just sick."

I have never gotten that out of my head. Or maybe I should say my heart. When I questioned her about it later, told her how hurt I was by her saying that, she explained that she had only meant she was sick at heart because she knew how hard it would be for me to lose the weight. Uh huh.

My Mom is 80 years old. She has had 2 facelifts, a nose job, and a chin implant. She has been known, at about 110 lbs now, to eat less than she should because she has a "tummy". Forget that she's 80 years old, forget that she had 4 kids, she has a "tummy".

Do I believe she only felt bad about how hard it would be for me to lose that weight? No, I don't. And now, I am heavier than she has ever seen me, and I don't want her to see me. I know I would be self conscious the whole time because I would think she was looking at me, disgusted, and "just sick."

I don't want to deal with it.

Today

This weekend is a 3 day weekend with Monday being labor day. My plans were/are to work at getting my daughter's room cleaned up. She is away at school and she left her room looking like a tornado went through it. So, I plan on getting it cleaned up and organized, vacuumed and the like.

What did I do? I sat right where I am sitting now, and I worked on this blog. Had to make a header. Wanted to get everything just right. Unfortunately with this type of thing I tend to get obsessed and compulsive about it and I couldn't let it go.

Halfway through the day I realized I forgot to take my meds this morning, interrupting the cumulative benefit of my new higher thyroid med dosage. I ate - french toast and sausage. Had my tea as usual and later 2 skinny cow ice cream sandwiches. My diet is incredibly bad.

Last week I cooked almost every day. Something I haven't done in so long I can't remember the last time I did it. I went online and got all these recipes and had all these plans to keep cooking. Then I made a dinner one night that my son chose not to eat. Probably because it contained vegetables. He's 24 years old. But that was enough to throw me off - why cook if no one except me is eating it? Not a good excuse, but an excuse none the less.

Last night I thought well, I really need to let that set-back go and started to think about a grocery list. I decided to check my bank account to see what I had to work with and saw I really couldn't spend much at all. Certainly not as much as I spent the last time I went shopping. I need to figure out how to get my stuff together - I am completely out of control.

Andy left the house a little while ago and I asked if he was going to be stopping at the store, something I haven't done in a while. He wasn't sure, he said, but why? Cause I want sherbet. I have a taste for sherbet.

Eight Months

I have 8 months. 8 months to lose .. oh .. almost 70 pounds. Because you see, in 8 months I turn 50 years old and I am not willing to enter into the 2nd half of my life like this.

My story is the same as many people's. I can throw my hands up and say - I don't know what happened - it just spiraled out of control and next thing I knew - I looked like THIS! I can disavow responsibility with the best of them. But no matter.

It's time to do something about it - the question is - what? I don't want to do anything drastic - hello - weight loss surgery? No money for that. Besides, I would probably end up malnourished because I would be eating an ounce of chocolate when I should be eating an ounce of protein. I know me. Hmmm, my stomach only holds this much (see fingers maybe an inch apart) so if I eat the piece of chicken I won't be able to eat that chunk of dark chocolate Toblerone. Toblerone wins! I mean really, have you ever had Toblerone?

Anyway. Yes, I must find a way because at this point the weight has really started (who am I kidding - HAS been) affecting all parts of my life. How I see myself, how others see me, how I walk, how I carry myself, how I bend down to pick things up, how I sit, how I have sex, IF I have sex, breathing, all the way to the way I feel about myself deep down inside. The important place where my deepest feelings are so buried that even I don't shine much light on them - and certainly not recently. Can't face it.

And maybe when I feel like I am actually on my way, on a roll so to speak - I will click the radio button that gives permission for other people to view this blog. But right now - I can't.

This is my journey.

My journey from fat - to fifty.