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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Food and Me

I just spent the last 30 minutes explaining my eating issues, and the blog site didn’t save it. So here we go again..you probably will be getting a much less detailed version.

I attribute the main reason I am fat to my relationship with food. In the past when I have ventured down the weight loss road I have always been dedicated to exercise, walking, running, biking, swimming, workout DVD’s all of it. I have an inner athlete that just LOVES these things. Imagine if you will an animal maybe a monkey in a cage clinging to the bars and shaking them violently trying to get out…that is what my inner athlete does. So I know my fatness is not related to my lack of wanting or doing exercise. I have lost weight many times while doing an exercise program but my eating was still terrible. My first goal in this journey is to change my eating habits and then add in exercise again. I will do exercise here and there but not beat myself up if I miss a day.

I have issues with food. That much is obvious I have this bad habit of thinking wow that sounds yummy I need to eat it. These food issues are why I am fat.
I feel like I should just let out all my issues from my past it might show some insight into my problems.

Let me take you back to second grade..yet that is right I started early. I was not a fat kid at all, not even a little bit over weight. I was tall for my age, in fact I was the tallest kid in the class. It just so happens that my best friend was the smallest kid in the class. Of course being in 2nd grade I didn’t see that was the difference I just knew I was bigger and she was smaller so that must mean I was fat. I knew we couldn’t share clothes and that must be because I was fat. So I always had that in the back of my head and of course no one knew.

I was/am a funny person and a jokester. So people never thought to ask me if I was okay, hell I didn’t even know I wasn’t okay.

In junior high I got braces and I didn’t want to ever be laughed at for having food in my teeth, my solution was to not eat lunch at school. I would miss breakfast and not have much lunch and I was on the basketball team so I worked out really hard core. On days that I didn’t work out with basketball I was riding my bike sometimes for 6 miles at a time. I lived in a small town in Montana of 300 people so it was completely safe to go on these bike rides. I ate dinner normally which usually consisted of game meat (elk, deer) veggies and potatoes. I was super model skinny back then and it was not healthy at all. I was size 1. Looking at pictures of me I was pale and just looked sick.

Freshman year of high school I gained weight and filled out, I was eating lunch again because I got my braces off. I found out I was moving this year. That I thought was the worst moment of my life…obviously now I know there were worse moments. But for a teenager to have to leave the only home I ever knew that was tough. I never thought I would be the person that people wondered “what ever happen to her” but I was.

We moved to Washington, to what I thought was a huge town. Compared to my previous town it was but compared to where I have been since then it was a tiny town. I stopped exercising and playing sports it was unsafe to ride my bike because of traffic and I was shy so I didn’t want to play sports since I was the new kid. So I stayed at home. Something that still sort of shocks me is recently my sister and I were talking and she goes “do you remember how you use to cook food in the middle of the night” and I was like yeah I did that in Montana a few times just like egg and toast or something. She was like NO you use to do that all the time in Washington. I HONESTLY DIDN’T REMEMBER THIS!!! I still can’t remember doing this but at the same time I know I did. Food was my comfort at that time I guess. I soon met my still best friend. We use to go out and eat all the time. My home diet changed to we were eating no game meat, we ate take out a LOT because that wasn’t a luxury we had in Montana so we ate out a lot. During my high school years I went from weighing 120 in Montana to weighing 170 by the time I graduated in Washington.

Somewhere in that time period my parents got divorced I started college a few times and I ended up weighing 220lbs. I knew my life was out of control at that point so I went to my doctor and asked her help. She said exercise and eat right and come back here in a month and lets see how you did. So I started a walking program and eating right...I lost 10lbs. But then my car got hit by a drunk driver while it was parked in front of my house. My car and my mom’s car was the only thing that kept the driver from crashing into my mom’s bedroom while she slept. (We normally did NOT park the cars in the street it was luck that night). So after that I was so mad that I had to walk everywhere not by choice but because someone ruined my car that I stopped exercising and never went back to the doctor. I also dropped out of school because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I gained that weight back.
I got a job working at Curves because I wanted to lose weight. I loved that job but didn’t lose weight. I couldn’t get my eating habits under control. At this point I knew what I needed to do but I just couldn’t do it. Eventually I found a job working at a health insurance company. I gained the remainder of the 20 lbs I have on my body from my desk job.

I lost enough weight to be down to 218 two years ago, but I stopped exercising because I was going to start water aerobics at school. I was so excited. But I ended up gaining weight doing that. Why? Because my eating habits never changed, my exercise level dropped a bit and here I am. I am 5-10 lbs lighter then my highest weight on any given day.

My first goal is to break into the 215 area. This goal is a reasonable one I think. My long term goal is to lose about 60-70 lbs. To do this I need to get a good grasp on my eating habits and be aware of why I am eating. Eating needs to be solely for energy for my body and nothing more. I have tried the whole food journal thing it makes me feel guilty but doesn’t stop me from eating terrible things or large portion sizes….if that little book could reach out and slap the things out of my hand then it might help.

I am slowly changing the foods I like that are bad with foods I like that are good. I made a list of food I like that is good for me. Keep in mind I don’t eat things like potato chips and candy or ice cream or any or that…oh those aren’t my downfall. My downfall is FAST FOOD and portion sizes. When I eat at home I eat to much food and when I go out I am so tempted by those nasty food joints it is unreal. So I have stopped eating fried food when I go out…Step 1. Next step is to stop eating out at all.

Wow sound like such a blabber mouth but that really really helped me get it out and feel better. I would like to be healthy and fit when I graduate College.

1 comment:

  1. Issues with food are the worst, aren't they? I find myself spending almost all day long thinking about what I want to eat and how I shouldn't go eat it. It's terrible. Ugh...and fast food is the devil. I've managed to cut down fast food almost completely, but I'm guilty of loving Dunkin Donuts veggie flatbreads. If Burger King still had those darn Cheesy Tots...it'd be another story and I'd be another 15-30 lbs heavier. LOL!

    Eating out is also hard to tackle. It's still my downfall because my husband looooves to eat in restaurants (even though he loves my cooking too). It blows! Even last night we had Sbarro at the mall (it was photos with Santa time) and I don't even like Sbarro...but I ate it. Ugh! Restaurants and fast food in today's society just make life so much easier, but staying thing so much harder. :( I completely understand your issues where that is concerned.

    You're very lucky that you have that inner athlete. That'll help you a lot to get to where you want to be physically. That's just wonderful. I'm super happy for you to have that cage-shaking monkey inside of you. Seriously! Focus on that while you're readjusting your eating habits and use it, use it, use it! (I'm a lazy, indoor gal...so...trust me...you're lucky!)

    *hugs to you!*

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