STRESS!!!

I am a very high strung person and I do not like when things don’t go as planned.  I am easily stressed and when stressed I just stop…I “shut down”.  This week was supposed to be my big come back week, and needless to say that did not go as planned.  Friday of last week was the first day I had scheduled to go back to the gym however when I woke up Friday morning my chest was so congested I could barely breath.  That lasted for about 5 days roughly and even though I truly was sick I feel like it is one excuse after another.  I have been so stressed and so annoyed with life right now.  I feel like I’m just barely going through the motions of life and nothing is going as planned it is just going and it is going fast but it seems to have forgotten me!  I still work out every day at home and eat the best I can with my busy schedule.  But I feel like all I do right now is work.  Nanny all day and work all night, even sleep seems to rarely come lately.  I have some things going on in my personal life as well right now that have me confused and feeling lost.  I need to find time…I am quickly slipping back into bad habits and that is just unacceptable.  I still want this more than anything, I know my actions may not reflect that strong desire to be a healthy person but that desire burns deep inside me.  I need to find my way back to the right track and stop letting life derail me after every curve.  The stress from work and not going to the gym mixed with not seeing my son very much right now is slowly slipping me back into the state of depression that I was in when I started this competition.  I feel like i didn’t deserve this wonderful opportunity because I have been so easily distracted.  I need to find that spark again, that spark that made me want to try.  That spark inside me that helped me see I was worth it.  I know deep down in my heart I can still do this, however I am sorry that I have not been believing in myself enough to push as much as I should have in the last couple weeks.   I just need to find Kelly again and stick with whats best for myself and stop stressing over life, because life is to be lived not just endured, and lately I”m barely even doing that.

Okay so lately I have been writing about the time I can’t seem to find to go to the gym. It feels like life is taking off in the right direction for me but I am forgetting some things still need to be on the A list of importance. This competition is definitely on that list of things I keep forgetting. When i went to wright this weeks blog I realized I had my rough draft in my email from last week but never finished it, another thing I needed to do and forgot. Every night when I lay down for bed I go over the days events and then the guilt hits me. Things I forgot to do because I was to busy, or things I said well I will do that later but later never comes. The gym is way to often on that guild list. I still workout at home but even I can’t convince myself that I push as hard as I do at the gym. I need to sit down and organize life! So tonight after I send this in I’m going to sit down and think. I bought a planner and I’m going to schedule the gym in everyday for at least 30 minutes…no “I’ll do it later”, no forgetting, no excuses just doing what needs to be done for me. I have become very busy for the last month or so and I just need to prioritize my responsibilities. I decided to go during the day and take the little boy i watch with me to the gym. I even sent a text to one of my friends from the competition saying Wednesday I was back to the gym in the morning. Then Wednesday came, surprise, my son was sick and I didn’t send him to school so I was not able to go. Okay Thursday, I will go Thursday…nope today came and went and I didn’t squeeze gym time in. Tomorrow is Friday and I will make it to the gym starting back at square one and make sure I go everyday again. It is my own fault for letting the gym fall of my A list of things that need to be done in the day. I may nanny all day and work until 11pm at night but my life depends on me making time for the gym! I realize now how easy it is to step off the path to a healthy life. All that is left to do is step back on and remember how easy it was to lose my way when life gets busy and not let it happen again.

This week I did almost every work out at home.  Time for the gym didn’t exist, which I hated to be very honest.   I miss the gym, the girls, the support in general.  Life decided to take a sharp turn into busy land.  Things should be back to normal next week, including gym time in the morning!  Basically this week was a week of missing everybody and feeling like I am getting nothing done.  Working out at home just doesn’t give you that satisfied feeling.

Since I have been unable to make it to the gym I have been doing cardio by using the steps in my house. (Even at the gym I hate steps!)  Let me tell you how much i miss the air conditioning at the gym,  I never even knew it was possible for me to sweat that much!  No matter how uncomfortable I feel I keep pushing myself.  Life can drive down busy street all day long I’m not giving up, I can always find time to at least do something.
So until i get back to the gym on a regular schedule I just have to remember:

No one ever drowned in sweat.
~Ann Landers

If I had to pick one word to explain my time in this competition so far “change” seems to fit.  Looking back to day 1 of thin it to win it I never thought I would change this much.  Not just physically but mentally as well.  Small yet significant changes have and continue to happen.  I no longer run out of breath going up and down the stairs.  My confidence has grown, and I really feel like I can become a better healthier person.  I find it crazy that in such a short time that so many important changes have happened.  This competition has made me realize I have been selling myself short for quite some time now.

I remember when this all started I said that thin it to win it was a life savor.  I mean that today more than I ever could have then.  I understand just how bad things really were.  All those extra pounds don’t just weigh a lot on the scale, they weigh down a persons self worth.  They make you doubt who you are and who you can be.  So today I am making myself a promise, I will never let the pounds win.  I will continue to lose each and every unwanted pound and after that I will continue to fight to keep them off.  I can only lose if I stop. I’m not in this for a prize, I don’t care if I lose the most or the least.  I’m in this to lose the weight and live a long healthy life, a life where I will be around to help my son grow into an amazing man, a life where I can accomplish anything.  All it takes is a little effort and accepting the change.

Consider the postage stamp:  its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.  ~Josh Billings

I have found sticking with it really hard this past week.  Not because I don’t want to go to the gym, but finding the time as of late has been a challenging task.  Funny thing is I find following my diet harder when I don’t start my day with a trip to the gym. In all honesty I miss working out with the other girls a lot as well.   I have a lot on my plate right now as far as time consuming responsibilities.   The idea of working out in the morning is completely shot as well as afternoon.  I have found that the only time I can make for the gym is right around 5 p.m.  The problem with that is by the time 5 rolls around I have zero want to be at the gym.  The days activities have exhausted me and for the most part I am just ready for some alone time.   So I have been trying to look at gym time as my time.  I have also started a “healthy me” journal.  I write down an exercise and meal plan for the week every Sunday and my goal is to follow it as closely as possible.  I write down how I feel everyday after the gym and any changes in me that I notice.

This week my goal is to again make it to the gym everyday.  I have every intention of being just like the postage stamp and sticking to it until I get there!

I’m allergic to food.  Every time I eat it breaks out into fat.  ~Jennifer Greene Duncan

That would make things so much easier.  “Oh your allergic to food… here is a prescription take twice a day and the fat will be gone in 3 to 4 weeks!”  If only, right?  No losing weight is not something some pill can solve.  It doesn’t matter how hard you wish or even pray the weight will never magically vanish.  Believe me if it was that easy I would have done it years ago.

I think  a lot of people do not realize how hard it really is, not only to lose the weight but to deal with some of the negative comments and looks from some very “ugly on the inside” people.  I was at the mall to buy some school clothes for my son today when 2 people brushed against my arm while passing me in the aisle.   They glanced back at me in disgust and jabbed at me with some very hurtful words, “Fat people are nasty.”  If that was all that was said I wouldn’t even be giving it a second thought, but no they had to go a step farther.  They then directed a comment at my son, “Watch out or your whale of a mom will eat you too.”  I want to teach my son that people like that are not worth getting upset over so I just kept walking.  However I can’t begin to understand how people can be so numb to other people’s feelings.  I don’t hate people like this, I just feel bad that their heart is so cold and empty.

This week was also measure week and good news I have continued to lose inches!  It still hurts like crazy when I work out but I figure I have a long road ahead of me before it hurts less.  I’m ok with that though because I know hurting now means less pain in the future, more stamina, and a longer more enjoyable life.

In the end I’m addicted to feeling healthy, and allergic to the “ugly on the inside” people!

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. 
~Buddhist Saying

Well this week i feel like I am facing in the best direction possible, I’m eating healthier, I’m at the gym everyday,  and the workouts are getting easier.  I have more energy and I feel good after I go to the gym.   Nothing, but a better life as far as the eye can see!  Those small steps I mentioned last week are still hard for me but I am getting better acquainted with positive thoughts.   What brought on this change?  Well…  a T-shirt!  No really for me it was that simple,  A T-shirt just an ordinary T-shirt.   My sister recently went on vacation and brought me back a shirt, when I put the shirt on it hugged all the wrong places and was to say the least “snug”.   I told her I loved it and wore it to the movies that night with her, when I got home it was washed and tossed in to a dresser drawer filed under “never-to-be-worn-again”.  Thing is I really did love the shirt,  I just didn’t love how uncomfortable wearing it made me feel.  For some reason I pulled that exact shirt out of my dresser today and figured I might as well try it on.  To my surprise, it fit!

This week was also our second weigh in.  I will be honest at first I wasn’t happy with how much I had lost.  I was pretty upset… I felt like it wasn’t enough,  I cried as soon as I got in the car.  I looked at my sister (who has faithfully been at the gym with me everyday… <3 )  and said, “I try so hard…I’m here everyday giving my everything,  and this just makes me feel like I have failed.”   She was supportive and gave me all kinds of reasons why what I lost was a good number, a healthy number.  We got back to my house and by then she had convinced me into at least a heart felt smile and helped me renew my determination a bit.  My mom called right as I sat down to help my son take off his shoes,  “Well how much?”  she asked.  I was slow to reply but when I did I told her I was slightly depressed about it, not discouraged just a bit sad.  After having to “pull a few teeth” I finally  gave her the number, she was so proud of me, I could hear her smile.  I thought how can they be so proud and positive and I just feel doubt.  Doubt that I can do this, or that what I have done matters.  Once I hung up it hit me… the  T-shirt,  how fitting into that shirt was a very small step, however it was the first small step that didn’t make me feel overwhelmed.   That shirt may look like an ordinary shit to everyone else, but to me that shirt is the first day of my new life!  A life where small steps are not that bad and positive thoughts kick the negative thoughts to the curb.

That extra person I have been carrying around for the last couple years,  with all her negative thoughts better watch out.  I found my direction and I’m going to keep on walking… make that Running, and I already know she can’t keep up!

To all the girls in the competition:

I am so proud of you!!!  This is a long journey and I’m thrilled to be on this amazing adventure with you.  You are extraordinary women who I am honored to call my friends.

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.  ~Vincent Van Gogh

As of late my hardest challenge has been silencing that voice.  However, that voice does not tell me I cannot paint, that voice tells me me to give up…that I can’t do this.   “Small” has never been my thing,  basically large tasks are hard for me because they take small steps.  My weight is the perfect example of this… My ideal weight seems forever away, 5 pounds is progress but very small step in a series of hundreds of small steps.  It is hard for me to accept that I need to take things one step at a time, especially when the reward seems so far away.

When I am uncomfortable I make jokes…humor is my comfort mask.  Sometimes that mask causes a lot of self-doubt, I make a joke and then I think about how true what I said was and how truly unfunny my joke was.  This experience has been very hard for me so far but looking at me all you will see is the smile I put on.  I never want people around to see just how unhappy I have been, so I hide behind the humor.   The other day I was asked what my goal weight was and i thought about it and came up with a rough number, but in coming up with that number I realized I want…no I need to lose 220 pounds.   This thought made me very uncomfortable so I cracked the joke that not only do I need to lose a persons,  I need to lose an obese person.   Everyone laughed, even me…but inside I wanted to cry because that made being thin seem even farther away.

So my small step for this week is to shut out that negative voice, to prove myself wrong, to lose that extra person and with her all the negative and self-doubting thoughts.  I CAN DO THIS AND I WILL!

PUSH!!! Everyday I am saying, “push…just 10 more minutes… push now 5 more… push 1 minute left…push you can do it come on!”  Everyday is a new experience for me, a new challenge, how far can i push myself?  Well the answer is already clear, each day I just push a little bit more.  I did 10 minutes yesterday well today I’m doing 15!  Each time I walk into the gym it feels like a breath of fresh air…I know that everyday I workout is one step closer to being healthy and a more active person…one step closer to running at the park with my son…one step closer to a whole new lifestyle a whole new Kelly!   I did not realize before I started the full effect this would have on every aspect of my life.  Not only do I physically feel better when I workout I have already started to feel better about myself,  I’m happier, I just feel good inside.  I’m not saying by any means it has been easy, because it has not.  Everything we do hurts, but it is worth it and I just have to keep telling myself that.  Sometimes I can’t do what everyone else is doing, but Lisa and all the staff at Flab to Fab understand that, and when I can’t do something they show me a variation that I can do.

We had measurements done week one, this week we stepped onto the scale.  This was the hardest part for me so far, I weighed in quite a bit higher than I thought I would.  I guess the severity of my obesity never really hit me until this competition.   I did not expect this to be as hard as it is…I definitely feel it was an eyeopener to how unhealthy I really am.  I just don’t know how I got to this point, everyone always assumes if you are fat you must eat all the time, for me that’s not the case. I have never had the problem of eating to much,  my problem with food has always been not eating enough, eating more than once a day as well as making sure I eat a variety of foods so that my body gets everything it needs.  I have been eating every 3 hours since we started and I’m trying to eat the foods I need.  I have more energy already, which is amazing.

I can’t wait to see how all of us do!  Every girl in this understands what the other girls are going though and are so supportive,  we stick together we push each other and I’m thankful that these wonderful women are here for this roller coaster to a healthier life with me,  We can all do it and we all will!

I drive into my driveway and start to unpack my groceries, my phone rings twice and i miss both calls … I call the number back and on the other end is Lisa.  “Would you like to be on of the final 6?” she askes.  I reply “I would love to!” then I hang up and start to tear up.  You see my weight scares me…terrifies me is a better word.  I am tired all the time and most activites have become very difficult.  I have a four year old son and I can’t even sit on the floor with him and play without it being very uncomfortable.  So being chosen was a life saver and I thank all of Flab to Fab for the oppertunity.

Yesterday July 13th was day one, I woke up and my stomach did circles all morning.  What will it be like? Can I really do this? Both questions that kept running through my mind.  Getting to 10:30 seemed to take forever, when I finally got there it was amazing Lisa and the staff were great.  The other consestants are all amazing women and I know we will all work our hardest to become healthier women. At the end of day one I was tired but I realied I can do this!  I felt better than I have in months!

I have a place, there is nothing special about the way it looks, four walls, a ceiling and a floor.  What makes my place special is what goes on inside those walls.  Women’s lives are changed!  They meet new friends, feel better about themselves, and mold the outside to match what’s on the inside.

I had an idea to help some very special people, people with the desire for a healthier lifestyle.  The idea was my version of the “Biggest Loser.” My version because no one gets kicked out.  One hundred and seventy four women wrote and stated their case as to why they should be among the chosen six. Thirty four were asked to come for a meet and greet … the plan was to pick the six to participate.  After meeting them all, the six became seven, seven more were given a free 3 month membership, and the remaining 160 women are being given the option to join the gym at half price.  All the women are special and have a different story.  After reading all the submissions I knew I couldn’t walk away from any of them.

My place is Flab to Fab, nothing special about the building or what it looks like, all the magic is on the inside. It’s a judgment free zone.  Women from 17 to 70 are there to better themselves physically, the magical part happens when they look in the mirror and like what they see.  With hard work and determination you can mold the body, the mind and the heart on the other hand it takes time and encouragement.  To all those women who submitted entries I say: “That was the first step, now take the second and use the half price membership.”  Make a new friend, feel better about yourself, get healthier, and be there for yourself and the ones you love.

– Lisa Desko, Owner, Flab to Fab

Thin It to Win It Participants: