Place of Love or Unhappiness?

So (I tend to start a lot of my post, email, or sentences with so for some reason - I usually take it out... I wonder why that is) anyways, so I am struggling on how to start a true weight loss process.  Not what to do but what are the feelings/emotions that leads to the impetus to change.  Now I know from my dissertation about the health belief model and why that says someone changes - essentially the risk/cost of not changing are greater than the risk/cost of changing.  But I am still focused on the feelings behind it. 

When I was losing weight in my big weight loss (2010) I was very unhappy and disgusted with myself and my body.  I saw a picture and didn't recognize myself and that started the process for me.  Additionally I was starting to have high blood pressure and it was either medication or weight loss. I honestly came from a place of hating my body and my image.  My roommate (at the time) and very good friend, Rio was very loving of his image and how he looked and wanted to lose weight to better himself.  We had many discussions where I argued "If you are completely happy with the way you look, then why would you change? There has to be some displeasure there!"  Internally I was projecting my own self-loathing and uncomfortably with my body onto him and others trying to lose weight.  We both lost weight in our own ways and at different paces and levels that were right for us at the time, and I never fully understood where he was coming from (and I don't think we understood me either - but our friendship was ok with that).  

Now what astonished me looking back is that I was unhappy with my body image and self and lost my 90 pounds and that never changed for me.  I was 90 pounds lighter, very athletic, fit for most people, and was still unhappy with myself and my body.  Yes I liked the feeling of being thinner and about to exercise like a beast (which I could at one point) but only thought of what I could do more of and what work I still needed to do.  I became dependent on the scale  and numbers and others compliments.  If the changes were not see, I was more unhappy than when I started.  What was wrong with me!!!!????!!!!

I gained weight back and have been happy in my life.  I have made an amazing friend group, active in sports, and love my work.  I went on vacation this May after gaining a lot of weight back and took my shirt off and didn't feel too self conscious (I was uncomfortable at times but didn't feel judged or anything by my friends there) and that is something that I did not do when I was at my lowest weight, and actually something that I hadn't done since maybe 13 or so.  I always swam and had a shirt on.  So now I have this place of love for me, I am not happy with the weight that I gained back, but I am happy with me.  This leads to my new thoughts, how to do I enter this process in a realm of love, where I love myself and don't judge.  I want to enter happy and leave happy too.  I still want to lose weight but I don't want to hate myself or process doing it.  I visited with my good friends Mary-Kate, Jason, and Adrie (also Will is now in the reunion), at Adrie's place in Hilton Head.  I did keep my shirt on because I just didn't feel that comfortable at the time (and plus I was really white - no tanning for me recently).  Adrie and I had some amazing talks and she had some really interesting perspectives and I am going to start reading some books she recommended.  One thing she recommended was saying mantras, and I am not sure how that works and will learn more but I have been trying it every morning and several times throughout the day.  I came up with my own mantra (which I don't even know if thats legal in mantra law (lol), but it works for me) and I look at myself and say "I am adequate, confident and able to handle anything that come my way.  Weight is just a shell that I no longer need."  This mantra for me addresses my worry of self doubt about things and how I have used weight to feel safe and not have to worry about getting hurt.  I am not sure that it will work and it may seem pretty hippy or out there for some of you (and probably me in the past) but this feels right, right now.  I do believe, as my favorite TedTalk presenter, Rita Pierson says " You say it long enough, it starts to be a part of you."

Being selfish and Pain

I do not think that I am a selfish person, actually I would like to think that I am the opposite of selfish.  Now don't get me wrong there are moments when I am selfish, however I am usually willing to go out of my way for people and I try to take care of others a lot more than taking care of myself. This is usually not a big issue except when I stop taking care of myself, and recently, I have been thinking, that I have stopped caring for myself. Specifically, I have been willing to put a lot of other things before my health. I do this in several ways, by staying in my office late, eating unhealthy things because I don't plan well and I am busy, and skipping gym time for work and other things. I love my work and put everything into my work!  I will go out of my way to help residents and staff to make their experience the best it can be.  If someone needs me, I am there and helping.  This is a great quality about me and one that I am proud of.  I come for some very hard workers in my family and proud to say I am one of them as well.  However, when I don't match my commitment to work with my commitment to myself, I start to gain weight.  I was my heaviest when I never put myself first, and I came to Iowa and became a full time student and I was able to focus on myself and how to make myself healthy, and I lost 90 pounds in my year and a half.  Then I took my HD job again, and I have not lost anything since them and gained a lot of weight back.  I am still down net pound wise, but not where I want to be.  So I need to get back on track.

Now the past two to three weeks have been crazy and I am not sure when I could have gotten to the gym and I have been losing weight these weeks - which is impressive I think!  But if I could have done more workouts or physical activities I could have lost more.  Plus I have not been watching my diet at all.  But still lost weight - surprisingly.

On top of everything, I am starting to have more pain in my body.  My back is hurting (still) and I scan't get it to loosen up.  This makes everyday activities unpleasant not to mention working out and weight lifting.  I know that I have to get back on a regular chiro and massage schedule and that will help!  Also more functional exercises will help me our greatly.  My knees are starting to hurt again and I think it has to do with my weight gain and the fact that I am in a regular workout routine so it hurts when I am exercising.  I have to push through the pain while still trying to be aware of when the pain is disfunction.

I say all of this to say, I have started planning on being a little more selfish (in a good way) and making my way back to the gym and exercise more.  Soon I will be on 2 volleyball teams (one on Tuesdays and one on Friday/Sundays) - which will help with being more active.  For 6 weeks I will be on a Thursday team.  The downfall is I will miss some Cardio Dance classes but I love volleyball and playing with my friends so it is fun and exercise.  I am planning to go to the gym more and stacked my meetings and schedule allowing me time to get to the gym.  I have said that I will not do meeting that interfere with my workouts and volleyball schedule.  This is just a first step towards putting myself first, and I will keep walking that journey while balancing my job, friends, and life!

Mindset

I have a scrolling background on my computer with pictures and motivational images.  This is one of the images and I honestly love what it is saying, however its a little painful right now.  I know how to lose weight and what works for my body - its a simple as adding and subtracting.

Add: 
 More exercise
 Veggies
 Lean Meats
 Smoothies

Subtract
 Fatty Food (esp. fried)
 Gluten
 Desserts

If I know this why is it so hard to implement?  Part of it is just time and motivation!  I was a full time student with 20 hour a week assistantship so I could go to the gym regularly (sometimes twice a day) and love it.  Now I work a full time job (40+ hours) and want some personal time and time to do social things and the gym is a lot of work and time to get in.  There are a lot of other issues but those are for other blogs.  I have picked a motivational song (saw this idea on someone's Facebook page) so play anytime that I do not want to go to the gym so it gets me pumped up!  Its worked last week so I am going to keep up this strategy and make it work.  However, the next two weeks are going to be a little crazy when it comes to getting to the gym with closing and CA training.

Pizza, Burger, and Wings! OH MY!

I love food... there I admit me. More than that though, I am a food addict!  Many people turn to alcohol, drugs, or other destructive things, but I turn to food.   I turn to food when I am happy or sad or mad or stressed or any emotion really.  I believe having and emotional tie to food is something that I learned a long time ago.  Culturally, food is used to celebrate or morn any occasion.  Growing up I really can not thing of anytime when food wasn't at a event or gathering.  Even playing baseball, a parent brought snacks and drinks after games.  So some of my issues with food was learned and reinforced by years of growing up.  I mean, try to think about a birthday party with cake, or a wedding with dinner, or a funeral without food for the family or other.  I can't think of them, maybe you can but it's hard to do.

One of my major issues that I talk with my very well intentioned, educated, talented, and fun trainer about is food and how I turn to it when I am sad, depressed, and stressed.  He always asks "How did you feel after you had the (insert bad food item here - mine are usually fried chicken, wings, ice cream, and pizza)?" And I see his honest to goodness true baffled reaction when I said "I felt good," or "It was delicious."  Yes, you see I turn to food as something that makes me feel better and the regret come when we are standing there and he is (for what I see) judging me.  Now that is my opinion and he would never say that he is judging me, and has always been open and accepting but its obvious that we view food in two different ways.  He has never been overweight in his life and/or had the addiction to food like I have.  For him he does not tie food with emotions, and I wish that I didn't either.  That is what I know I have to work on and is a goal of mine.  I honestly do feel better talking with my friend Jay about food, because she also has emotions tied to food.  She gets it and is supportive.  So I have come to the conclusion that talking about this is probably one of the ways of addressing this.

What my trainer and others don't understand (and maybe never will) is that when I feel good and turn down a dessert (like I did today in the dining hall - yay me!), I feel very proud for myself in that moment however that does not last long.  If I am sad or stressed or overwhelmed, and I turn down my craving for fried food, I have NO satisfaction from that.  All I can think of is how what I chose to eat is not as good as fried chicken. Then the thought stays with me until I have it.  Now when I was losing weight, I was able resist giving into my urge until that negative emotion stopped and then sensibly address the craving.  So going to get 1 piece of fried chicken with a salad and vegetable instead of a bucket with mac and cheese and mashed potatoes (remember those days Cynthia and Tearria).

What makes this so hard is food is needed for survival, so I will always have to partake in what I am addicted to.  I think talking about it and trying to divorce food from emotions is my next steps.

So I decided to blog...

I have been asked for a while if I was going to write about my journey in health and fitness.  For a long time I decided that what I had to say was not worthy of writing about and that personal connections would suffice.  However, as I am getting lost in the Labyrinth of fitness, I realized that blogging wasn't just about what I had to say but also what others had to say and building a community of fitness around me.  

I decided to use the analogy of the labyrinth as my blog title.  I personally find this analogy accurate.  I will steal a line from Wikipedia (hey this is not a scholarly blog!) about the difference in a maze and labyrinth:

"In colloquial English, labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze, but many contemporary scholars observe a distinction between the two: maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (unicursal) labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the center. A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth

While I think there are many ways to be healthy, weight loss in my mind is not meant designed to be difficult to navigate.  To me if you eat correctly (increase veggies and lean proteins, etc.) and work out, then the results you want will happen.  At least that has been my experience, for others it may be a maze with different branches that can lead to ends.  I think what makes the find the center of the labyrinth (or being healthy) is the person that complicates this and gets off the path that leads to the center.  Which has been true in my experiences.    

Earlier I talked about building a community of fitness and health around me.  I used to have that and I stopped and removed myself from my community.  I stopped checking in with friends about fitness, stopped going to Cardio Dance, stopped allowing my trainer to hold me accountable, and stopped encouraging my friends to support me and call me out when I don't make good decisions.  Well I am back friends and I want to ask that you join me in this fitness community and help me and I will help you as well.  Community is the way that I lost all the weight the first time, and what I believe will continue to push me this time!  

Thank you to those who haven't given up on me and continue to support me through this split up!