Fat Mommy to Fit Mommy

I kind of wish I had started this a few weeks ago, but here it is.

In the last few days, I've been having a mental battle with myself. As I argued (yes, with myself) back and forth, I realized that maybe by putting my thoughts down on "paper" (read: this blog), I would a) be accountable to someone, even if it is random readers and those select few friends that I tell about this blog and b) hopefully be able to look back at it in a year and see a journey of growth and power and strength. Potentially, even c) be able to share this with other Fat Moms who are sitting on their fat asses wondering how they got this way and how the hell they can fix it.

Yes, I said fat asses. One thing I've promised myself, I'm going to be totally honest (brutally so, at times) on this blog. Reason being - when you're fat, your life is full of justifications, PC bullshit (read: "large", "plus-sized", "well-padded" etc etc) and people who tip-toe around the fact that you're fat.

I appreciate it, but it's like giving a drug addict money for "food". You're not helping. I love you for it, but mostly I've been living in denial for 10 years, because my wonderful and loving friends and family have accepted me for who I am and what I look like.

Seriously, how fantastic is that! I consider(ed) myself so lucky. Problem is, that really helped me just ignore the growing (excuse the pun) problem of my weight.

And so now, at 30, I want to start a new chapter in my life. Fuck, I want to start a new book! I'm at a definite turning point - I've just had my last child (she's 2 months old), and I'm staring at the possibility of an entirely new career once I'm done my maternity leave.

It's time. It's TIME people! Enough excuses, enough denial.

So - here's where we are so far:

I've hired a personal trainer and nutritionist - her name is J. Those of you who know me, know that I did this last year too - in Feb of 08. Her name was L (owner of the company) and she was FANASTIC. I was inspired and dedicated for 5 months, and lost 30lbs. Then, I moved. Such a little thing, but it through me completely off track (ok, I LET it throw me off track). At the same time, she got a new position at a company called Preventous, and so she was not as available as she had been. Add to that that I got pregnant, and I used that as the perfect excuse to stop excercising and eat crap again. (I was advised by my Dr to stop working out for the first 3-4 months as I was having some fainting issues... but after that, it was pure laziness).

Annnnnnd, here we are, 11 months later, and 41 lbs heavier. I gained 52 lbs with my pregnancy. I lost 11 (ok, actually I lost 15 and then gained 4) after the birth. As of July 1, I weighed 255 lbs.

People, I'm only 5'3".

Suddenly, the arthritis in my feet was back. Suddenly, I didn't want to go for walks with my kids. Suddenly, working out was such a distant memory, I couldn't even picture myself doing it.

Add to that the fact that all the hard work I'd done with L (I was working out 6 days/week) was destroyed... how hard is that to face? Mentally, I was beating myself up every day. Don't forget, I'd spent over a thousand dollars of our hard-earned money, and now it seemed that I'd flushed it down the toilet. Or down my throat, anyways.

I'm a woman of action though. I can tell you, I don't sit around on my couch all day. I barely sit down at all in a day, except for when I'm nursing. And chasing after my 3 kids (ok, I'm not chasing after Luci just yet, but I am carrying her everywhere whilst chasing the others), PLUS the 3 kids I watch full time... well, it's motherf'ing HARD to do that when you're 255 lbs and depressed.

So, once the requisite 6 weeks was up, I swallowed my pride (how proud can a 255 lb woman be, really?) and emailed Lindy for help.

She was great - and responded immediately. She, unfortunately, is far too busy to be my trainer (the woman owns two businesses and works full time at another, plus has 3 kids under the age of 7, did I mention she's my hero?) but has a staff of consultants. She promised that one of them would contact me asap.

2 minutes later, my phone rang, and I met J. We agreed to meet a few days later, and discuss my goals.

Long story short, we met and I signed up for the "Lifestyle" package again. Another serious investment. We talked about some short-term goals, and some tricks to make snacking easier. Then, we did a quick fitness test (where I injured my quad pretty quick, no warm up, silly me), and some core stuff. I was devestated to find that it took me about 30 seconds to be out of breath. Grrr. All that hard work I'd done... I was pleased to find, however, that my abs were in decent shape still. (Yay, childbirth). They were just buried under dozens of pounds of pure fat!

So, after our first session, I was excited but depressed - because I'd injured myself. I couldn't even stand up the next day, and it took me about 5 days to recover. So much for starting with a bang - I actually had to do nothing the first week. Ok, I managed to get one swim session in. (Short interuption here - there would have been 2 swim sessions, but after dragging myself reluctantly to the pool one evening, I arrived to a sign saying that the pool had cancelled Mon/Wed evening classes for the summer... which is a serious inconvenience to me, as I rely on swimming quite a bit... more on that later).

Second session with J - we worked outside.

Now, let me tell you something. Clearly, J has never been overweight a day in her life. Otherwise, there is no way that she would ask an obese woman to go outside in her workout clothes and do a full workout in plain view of all of her neighbors. Seriously. I was able to shut it out of my mind after the first 10 minutes (with much effort), but it was still rather uncomfortable. Or maybe that was just the 80 million mosquitos that were eating me alive.

Despite my discomfort, it was actually a pretty good workout. My only complaint (LOL ok, one of my many complaints) is that it used a lot of equipment that she brought, which I don't own, so it's not a workout I can do on my own.

Which she doesn't expect me to do. I'm finding her expectations of me quite low - she wants me to walk 2x, and swim 1x, plus our workout each week. That's nothing! I'm capable of so much more... but the temptation to just meet her expectations is great. Understand, to me, meeting expectations is a cop-out, most of the time. I prefer to exceed expectations. Yet another story...

Ok, I'm trying to catch up to where we are today... and WHY we're here today.

The fact is, I had a terrible week. Psychologically, I'm really struggling to be excited about all of this. I know why - because I've done it. I don't like repeating myself (no-one to blame but myself there). I'm also struggling with J herself - I'm not sure that we're a good match. She's very young, very perfect, always with perfect hair and perfect makeup... she has no kids... I just don't think she can understand how I got here. I never thought that was important... but it really is. When we're working out, I sense that she's looking through me, not at me. I'm just another fat client. And I feel that her expectations of me are very low. And this week, as a result, I let myself slack off. After all, she's expecting me to fail... I'm just another lazy, fat mom.

I'm sure that's not the case, but it's how I'm perceiving it. Because she has no kids, also, I find that her expectations are not entirely realistic. I can't just NOT take my kids out for a slurpee ever again. They are not going to switch to whole grain bread with a smile on their faces. And I don't have 4 hours a week to prep foods, sorry...

SO, I might look into asking L for someone else.

The other issue we're having is deciding on the number of calories I should consume. Before I was pregnant/nursing, with Lindy, I was aiming for about 1600 calories per day. This enabled me to lose 1-2 lbs per week. At first J wanted me to eat about 2100 calories, which I did for the first week, and lost 6 lbs (the first week is always a big loss). Then she re-calculated, and based on my weight and the fact that I'm nursing, she wants me between 2500-2900.

I can't do it! Well, I can, but the temptation to eat crappy foods to fill up those calories is huge. I just can't imagine stomaching 2900 in healthy calories every day. And I didn't - this week, I ended up eating more crap than usual, because I felt I had the calories "to spare". And of course, I felt like shit about it, even though I'm still well within the calorie range (haven't yet reached 2500 even, not even for one day).

So I don't know what to do about it. And to be totally honest, I've been weighing myself (a HUGE bad habit that I vow to rid myself of this next week), and suddenly, I'm back up 2.5 lbs.

Because of that, the evil Mary in my brain starts hinting that maybe this is not worth it. Since it's obviously not working (after 2 weeks, no less), I should just quit, and go back to living in denial. Cause THAT was working oh so well, right? I realized this morning that although I've been choosing NOT to listen to this evil-Mary voice, I haven't been replacing it with anything positive either. Just silence. Which leaves me feeling pretty empty and uninspired, to be honest.

I'm not the best at positive thinking. "The Power of Positive Thinking"... it's a hard thing for a cynic like myself to subscribe to. I've always though "just because I think/say it, does not make it so"....

But the negative thinking... that's like having termites inside of your brain, eating away at all of the confidence that you have in yourself and what you're doing, not to mention why you're doing what you're doing.

That's when I decided to start this blog. Because I'm sure that it's the termites that screw this up for most women. Maybe, just maybe, if I can find a way to conquer them, I can help someone else conquer them.

So, I share with you my journey. I have to succeed - I've invested too much not to. Not just financially - I've invested too much in my family to die of heart disease at 35 or 40. Feel free to comment however you wish. And if you (or someone you know) wants to start their own journey, wants to go from Fat Mom to Fit Mom, or Fat Wife to Fit Wife, or Fat Friend to Fit Friend... well, I'm willing to open up this blog so that they can post their journey too. Just send me a message.

Gotta run, an apple in the fridge has my name on it...