Weigh-In Friday!

Well despite my skepticism another good weigh in has arrived for me.  On the first day of TOM no less.  A grand success if I so say so myself.  I am down another 1.5lbs!  

I even handle a day at my old school today without over eating a huge success.  That school is filled with the smell of food all day long and I just stuck to my packed lunch so as not to run into problems.  I have really been paying attention to the quantity of food I am eating and paying attention to when I am full.  All steps in the right direction.

I was also able to squeeze in a trip to the chiropractor where he fixed up my hip and gave me some exercise to do to keep it that way.  Lets hope that is the end of that.  

I am exhausted so I am off to relax. 

Have a good night!
Leah

Ouch!

I can't believe it myself, but I hurt myself at Yoga.  I was really enjoying the class, it was crazy challenging which I like most of the time. She had us doing down dog and then lifting up onto our toes, arching our backs and moving in to plank.  The reverse.  It was great, it was hard.  I was shaking but doing ok and then it happened.  A crack and pop and a sharp pain on the left side of my hip.  OUCH!  I left class for a minute and stretched out my hip, it felt a little better so I went back and just took the last 20 minutes of class pretty easy.  But today it still hurts like crazy.  I had to actually take some meds at work today because walking is really aggravating it.  I'll be off to the chiropractor after work tomorrow to have him look at it.  I am sure this won't derail anything for me, my hips often pop out due to an old injury.  I guess just a reminder from my body that pushing is good, pushing too hard is not.  

Night,
Leah

Anxious Steps Forward

As the weight trickles off I become more confident but lately I have found myself back at the lowest weight I've been in the last 5 years. YAY! Lower then my wedding day weight. These next 10 pounds are typically where I falter and stumble and give up.  But I say NOT THIS TIME, this time things are different I am not losing to any specific reason other then general health and happiness.  There is not target event like a wedding or a birthday.  There is a target for August for the photos over at A Nu(de) Motivation but I am not as worried about those as I once was.  Whatever size I am on the day we take those photos I know I will be beautiful.  So what the heck is all this rambling about? 

Well I guess I am a little anxious.  Anxious that the old me will resurface, take hold and push me back.  I know that I can work through this.  I truly have set myself up for success.  Never before have I had so much support from people in my real life AND all my wonderful online supporters.  The next 10 pounds are me truly reclaiming my life.  These are the pounds where people start saying, "hey are you're looking great", "hey have you lost weight?", "what are you doing to drop the pounds?" I am sure that most people welcome these comments.  But part of me has always felt that getting positive attention about how my body looks exposes me.  It means people are seeing me again.  That I am not blending into the background.  If I take a step further and am truly honest, I know that I feel really worried about getting attention from men.  The first 5 years, after I was raped I did my best to get the most attention possible thinking that if I solicited the attention at least I was in control of it.  Then next 9 years after that brought me hiding, not wanting to be seen.  Thinking and believing that if I was not seen I could not be hurt.  Crazy how one incident that occurred 14 years ago now, that's 1/2 my lifetime, has had such a profound impact on who I am.   But it's over, it hurt, it sucked but now I am moving on.  I want to be seen for who I am.  I am a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman who has tones to offer.  So although these next 10 pounds may cause some emotional anxiety, it will be so liberating when they are gone.  I will do the work necessary both physically and emotionally to get past this once and for all. 

Hope you all have a great day!
Leah

Monday Already......ugh!

Where, oh where did my weekend go?  I feel like it just got here.  Seems like I am back to the grind for the week.  I have to say though that I can't wait till next week when all my classes start up.   I went to the gym tonight but only swam in the pool nothing exciting.  I love being in the pool but when it is full of hard core swimmers I feel like I am in the way I have no room to swim,  I just wish they would put up signage or something for speed of the lanes because inevitably the 'good' swimmers get all ticked that us 'slow' swimmers are there.   I figure I pay my membership fees just like them.  They can suck it up.  

So this weekend brought with it the worse PMS symptoms I have had in months.  I was ravenous.  I was just starving.  I can't be the only one who gets like this.  I did pretty good but must admit that I took a second serving of desert on Sunday.  Oh well, hopefully that subsides soon because I would have killed for chocolate tonight and if I don't get this under control ASAP the scale is not going to have good news for me come Friday.  

I have to wonder, do any of you sometimes fee like you could eat anything in sight?  What do you do to stop yourself or do you just let it happen? 

Cheers!
Leah

Dance Classes!

Thank you so much for your responses to yesterdays post.  I really just felt like I needed to get that out there as it's been on my mind frequently this week.  It's a huge reason for my weight gain and something I have been actively working through.  

Now on to much happier things!  I got up today and headed to the YMCA to sign up for a few dance classes.  I use to take dance classes as a teenager to help with my skating.  I absolutely loved them.  So this fall I will be taking Zumba on Monday nights and Belly Dancing on the Tuesdays before my Aqua Bootcamp class.  I cannot believe I actually went and signed up.  This is something that I have been putting off until I am thin.  Over the course of this summer, I started thinking, why not now?  What a great way to get some exercise, have fun and shed some inches.  So I took the plunge today.  I honestly cannot wait to get started.  It does mean that I have a class or two Mon-Thurs but I am totally ok with that.  Honestly, I've had to cut back my tv and internet habits which is just fine by me.  I finally feel like I am an active participant in my life again rather then a spectator.  Well I am having a quick lunch and then it's back out there to keep going on the renovations. 

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

Cheers!
Leah

A Weigh In and Some Emotional Relief

It's another happy weigh in for me!  I have lost another 1.1lbs this week.  I am thrilled with the progress I am seeing lately.  Slow and steady wins the race is what I've been thinking.

I have to say that over the last few weeks I have done a tone of reflecting and the other day I read this quote that seems to sum up all kinds of things for me.

"I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." — Maya Angelou. 

What a powerful quote that is for me.  For years, I did just what I knew how to do to survive.  After being raped at 14, I learned to do anything so that I didn't feel anymore hurt.  I learned to lie to friends, guys I would date, my family, anyone really so that my story always came across like I chose to engage in sexual behaviour.  Looking back even my diary plays it out that way.  I was lying to myself; and again "I did then what I knew how to do". 

I can go back in a instant to that day.  The fighting, the pulling, the protesting, the kicking all of it comes back to me in an instant.  I flash back to his mother walking in on it and yelling at me that I was a whore, a tramp, a slut, not realizing what her son was doing to me.  She stopped the trauma with her arrival but then cut me deeply with her ignorant words.  I remember gathering my shorts and throwing them over my swimsuit and running like I have never run before to a friends house.  I had a choice to make in that moment when I got there, tell her the truth about what he was doing or tell her only the second half of the story.  I really felt I wouldn't be believed;  I told her only the parts about his mother walking in.  Never indicating that I was forced, that he had taken something from me that would take years to get back.   

As I look back now, so many of my choices can be traced back to protecting myself from reliving that moment.  It took me so long to realize that the incident was over, the pain was real but didn't have to take over my life.  Recently, I reconnected with an old high school friend, we dated seriously through high school, he was always there for me, truly a good guy.  Distance from going away to University and many complicated events lead to our inevitable end. But the most important thing he did for me was teach me that I was worth more then I was giving myself.  He taught me that I could do better, be better.  When he met me, I was on a bizarre downward spiral.  My grades were dropping and I was withdrawing from my friends and family.  I had put on a considerable amount of weight from my inactivity.  And yet with all the good he was doing for me, I still deep inside felt I didn't deserve to be happy, that I wasn't whole.  I told him often that I had issues, but would never ever tell him what they where.  I thought he would think less of me, even though he had always been supportive.  I often sabotaged our relationship.  He could never understand why I was doing these things.  I could never explain, explaining would have required telling him what happened.  So last week, we were chatting on line, and we got to talking and he asked me what all my stuff was that I was never willing to tell him.  And I told him. And I felt such relief.  Relief because he finally knew why.  Relief because he was the one person I felt needed to know.  Relief because I had made enough progress mentally to tell him.  And he said, what I should have known he was going to say all along, I am sorry that happened to you.  Such a simple sentence, such a powerful impact.  

And so yes for years, I have been doing what I knew how to do, but now I know better and I do better.   

Thanks for reading, 

Leah  

Convenience Food :(

So with school starting and me heading back to work, even just part time, I can already see that convenience food creeping it's way back into my diet.  Oh dear.  I must must must take the time this weekend to pre-cook some really healthy meals so that we don't have this issue.  I believe the crock pot may make a return in my home.  I have one but we rarely use it despite how friggin awesome it is!  

I have done really well keeping up with the exercise though, I have not missed a class, thanks to my husband.  That in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.  Friday is a day of rest as always and then it will be back to renovation for the weekend.  I am really hoping that the weather clears up so that I can ride my bike a little tomorrow even though it's a no gym day. 

Any ideas for quick and easy healthy foods I can make?