Breaking out of the 200 club

There is great security in the prisons we create for ourselves.  ~Stephen G. Scalese, The Whisper in Your Heart

Today I reached a milestone. I broke out of the 200 club. 

This is a club I never really wanted to be in. One I should have never joined in the first place. And one that did far more damage to my body and my self-esteem than it ever should have been allowed to do.

Today, when I weighed myself for my weekly weigh-in as part of my Scentsy Wellness plan, I measured in at 197. Well, it could be 198, but I'm sticking with that it was 197. Maybe 197.5, but that's the most.

A year ago, I weighed in at 230. 

Not only that, but I've down-sized my jeans and many other clothing articles. I'm fitting in shirts I've not worn since high school (six years) and looking better in them than I ever did. 

Some of the biggest perks about it all? I feel good. I've not been as sick as I used to be. Or at least when the colds rage, I can handle them better. 

I'm also moving more. And farther. I'm entering 5Ks now and enjoying them! Never running. I don't really run. I do it for the socialization and the enjoyment of being able to actually finish. 

Someday I will run one. But for now, I'm just trying to go faster each time. And not come in last.

We all say we want to change our bodies or our lives. Every New Year's Eve, people make the resolution to be different, do better. And by February, most people have fallen off the wagon. For some, they can't even see the dust from the wheels come February.

Eventually, we see the time for change has come. We either try to ignore it or we deal with it. 

For me, it was past due. It was an ignorance is bliss situation. I knew I weighed about 125 and I was okay with that. I'd been in the 120s for a while and had gotten comfortable there. I wasn't satisfied, we all want to be thinner, but I wasn't so dissatisfied that I was motivated to change. 

My entire life, I've been a "blessed" girl. I was always a bit bigger than my friends, taller and larger. It was something I mostly ignored, because I knew if I complained, well, then I'd need to do something about it. 

My first 5K number!

Because I believe if you complain and aren't willing to do something about it, then you are wasting your time and the time of those who have to hear you. 

So I remained in my blissful, ignorant state, noting that my clothes weren't fitting properly, but not realizing how badly I needed to change. Not realizing how badly I was treating my body. Not realizing any of this. 

Until I saw the photos. 

After Christmas, I was looking through family photos and, for the first time, really saw myself. I saw how I looked and, upon weighing myself, realized I had hit the big 2-3-0 on the scale. 

That was the first of January, 2012.

I realized I needed to change. The timing was impeccable. It was the season of resolutions. But I didn't want to just make a resolution. I wanted to make a life change. I wanted a promise to myself, to be better and do better. Because, honestly, my future depended on it.

Now, don't get me wrong. By most standards, I looked normal, albeit, slightly plump. But those standards are what had gotten me in this situation to start with. Because those unhealthy standards have put us all in our current state of unhealthy. And I didn't want to live my life with all that extra, unnecessary stuff on me or adding to my already hectic life.

At first, I tried exercising regularly. I've always been an on-again, off-again, exercise person. It just never was something I could keep going. So I set a goal. I wanted to complete a 5K. I gave myself plenty of time. 

Although I struggled to maintain the motivation, eventually, I did it. It was a few days before my birthday, the Apple Festival 5K. For those of you who don't know, that's 3.1 miles. It was exhausting. But awesome.

And, we finished in under an hour!

Three 5Ks later, we're still just walking, but we're doing better. Slowly. Last two times, we didn't even finish last! (That's only three 5Ks, for those of you keeping count.)

Second 5K: Making Strides Against
Breast Cancer!
Me, Debbie and Kristen.

To be honest, I've not been exercising that much. But I'm making simple changes. Stairs, instead of elevators. Parking farther away from the door, so I have to walk farther. My new duplex has stairs (as duplexes tend to do), so that's going to be fun.

Luna and I are starting to walk again and more often. 

Whenever you begin losing weight, it sometimes takes people a while to notice. But when they do, they start to ask questions. Questions of how and what: 'How'd you do it?' or 'What's your secret?'

My answer: watch what you eat.

I'm not going to tirade into some long launch about never eating fast food or chocolate. I'm not going to lecture on counting calories or avoiding sugar. Honestly, I don't do those things. In fact, I have a pack of Reese's cups waiting for the next chocolate craving I get.

But there are things I do. 

I eat when I'm hungry and I don't when I'm not. That's pretty simple. But we all fall victim to the mindless eating. Be conscious of what you are eating and how much!

I stick to things like almonds, apples, broccoli. If you want to eat sugar, then eat sugar. But don't eat the whole bag of Hershey's Kisses (which I admittedly have done) and then wonder why you aren't losing weight. Don't get a super dooper large drink (even diet!) and a massive burger and fries and try to balance it out by running a mile. 

What you put into something is what you get out of it. If you put crap into your body, well…you can figure out the rest of that. 

And I'm not trying to be gross. I simply mean, watch what you eat. Educate yourself on what is healthy and what is not. Oatmeal is a great food. Almonds are good. Avoid too much sugar, but it is in EVERYTHING, so kind of impossible. 

You have a brain, so use it. Learn to read labels and learn what's good for you or not. 

Also, learn what your body says. Drink more water. That helps gauge the hungry/not hungry debate. 

My 5K buddies! Our little
group keeps growing!

Something they stressed when I started reading the stuff from our Scentsy Wellness Group (only available to Scentsy Consultants and is something I can tell you more about separately, simply email me), is to never be fully hungry and never be too full. Another aspect, if it's been 2-3 hours, it is probably time to eat something.

That doesn't mean you have to eat a four-course meal every three hours. But a snack, like my beloved almonds, is good to have a 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. when you ate breakfast at 7:30 or 8 a.m. and lunch at 12:30 p.m. 

Eat breakfast! I've always been terrible about not doing that. But, for the last several months, I've been trying to eat something decent. Usually, it's two hard-boiled eggs and maybe a piece of fruit. I think it's helped. 

If you need more reasons and you're of the Christian faith, as I myself am, consider the following verse:

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.     -- 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NIV 

So, if your body is a temple, why are you filling it with junk? 

There's more to this than just what you eat, too. For those mantras, why fill your body with any junk? Consider what you watch or read or listen to? Is that really stuff that you should be watching, reading, or listening to? Perhaps this junk-less lifestyle could go beyond what you eat and take over your whole life.

Reminds me of something I read yesterday. It posed the question, "What would you do, if you weren't afraid?"

Maybe fear is what keeps us in our zones of bad health or otherwise. Because we know it here and we like it here. But what if we stopped being afraid of the unknown and realized how great it could be beyond? 

That's sort of how life is, right? Venturing beyond the comfort zone and into the unknown? But that's another blog post, for another day :)