Date: March 1, 2012
Time: 9:07 pm
Weight: 154.8 pounds. And that’s AFTER a bout of food poisoning. How depressing.
Oh wait, I am still wearing my heavy robe. Okay, let’s whip that off. Okay, now I’m 153.8 pounds. But still. I’m 5’4 on a GOOD day, so I really don’t need to be tipping the scales at almost 155 pounds. That is still 13 pounds heavier than when I first became pregnant with my little girl, and I already was no skinny Minnie, if you know what I’m saying.
153.8 pounds on March 1, 2012. Ugh. And I need a pedicure, to boot.
What I ate today:
For breakfast? Nothing. Yup, breakfast of champions. For lunch? A Hobee’s Breakfast Quesadilla. No cheese, no sour cream. ALL of the hash browns on my plate. 2 cups of Hot Cinnamon Tea, no sugar. For dinner? 6 Dr. Prager’s Chickenless Nuggets and a handful of soybeans (edamame). Did I snack? Um, does a bear go into the woods? Yes, I snacked. I ate two cupfuls of Honey Nut Chex (gluten-free) and drank a cup of hot chocolate. What can I say? It was the end of the day and I had finally finished the PowerPoint I had been working on and found myself starving. So I guess I decided to “reward” myself. Did I exercise? Nope. Not unless you count going up 3 flights of stairs, 3 times. To my desk. Where I sat. And sat. And sat some more.
Looking back on the day, I can already see the million things I did wrong. Didn’t eat breakfast. Ate a BIG lunch. Ate some sugary snacks. Didn’t exercise. Ate a salty dinner. Didn’t drink enough water. Problem is, this is a typical day in my life. And I just don’t know how to make it better. How do I carve out time to exercise, AND work my job, AND take care of my daughter, AND follow my passions, i.e., blog? Oh yes, and have time for my family and friends, and for myself?
It’s not that I lack motivation, oh no. The motivation stares at me every time I look in the mirror. Every time I look in my closet. Every time I get on the phone with my mother and she tells me a story about how I’m so fat. For example, I was on the phone with her this past Monday night, and she told me that her landlord in Shanghai, the one I met for, like, five minutes, asked her, “How/why is your daughter so fat?” My mother said, “She just had a baby!” The landlord said, “But still, wasn’t that more than a year ago? How is she still so big?”
“I know,” said my mother. “That’s why I want her to move here to China, so she can have a bit of an easier life. She can get a job here and I can help her look after her daughter, and maybe she’ll find the time to lose some weight.” Her landlord scoffed, “Good luck with that. Your daughter will NEVER get a job here in China. Here they care about image, and looking the way she does, it’s just not going to happen.”
I kept a stiff upper lip while on the phone with my mother, but later that night, when I was sure everyone was sleeping, I broke down and cried for half an hour about it in bed.
So, you see, I have PLENTY of reasons to want to be back in optimal health. I have a little girl now, and I want to be in optimal health so I can watch her grow up. I want to have a second child, and being too heavy can hinder conceiving again. I want to be able to fit into the clothes in my closet again…especially the ones I spent a buttload on from Anthropologie. Hey – in this economy, it’s important to re-use what you’ve got. And honestly, I want to be able to inspire others to live holistically and healthily, and you know what? I just don’t look the part. As my mother said, “How is anyone going to follow you when you look the way you do?” Ouch. That hurts, the way truth so often does.
So, in addition to learning to cook more healthily, I’ll also start a journey to return to my body’s best weight and to optimal health. I guess the two do go hand in hand, after all. Taking a break for a sec.
***
Okay, I’ve just confirmed that I am going to 6am Hot Yoga with one of my best friends. It’ll be my baby step towards detoxing and exercising. If I get it out of the way early in the morning, I’ll jump-start my metabolism before eating and before going to work and sitting, sitting, sitting. I’ll let everyone know how it goes this weekend!
I believe you captured the feelings that most mothers feel at some point. After my first child, I had a really hard time. I shared some of the feelings you describe in your post. Fortunately, there are convenient ways for a busy mother to have optimal health nowadays. Green tea can help and matcha green tea is even better. Up the protein too. Check out my post “Protein on the Go!” @hippyfitmom.com. This is essential to getting back to optimal health. After my first child, I used her as weights so to speak, to burn extra calories throughout the day because the lack of time throughout the day to exercise. I would hold her over my head, doing it ten times randomly throughout the day. She would squeal and giggle and it made for muscle build for me.
Thanks for the tips! Yes, I definitely should be using my little one as a barbell. She’s so wiggly though…how do you not drop yours?
Strangely enough, I went one week without soda, which used to be hard for me, and instead drank water. At the end of that week, I had lost 3 pounds…kind of weird, but it makes sense that I was maybe retaining all that water weight from the excess sodium in the soda. I should probably do that again. I will come by and check out your blog – sounds very cool!!
I feel for you, Sister. While I am not married, have no children, and have yet to be touched by a man, (or woman, for what it’s worth,) I can relate to your predicament. One day I realized that I’d spent the majority of my 53 years dumpy, pudgy, and constantly tired from hauling around a rear end as wide as a tractor. Now I’m a vegan. It’s easier to become and remain thin when you can’t eat cheese or drink dairy. Now I’m thin but way too old to even think about having a baby, which is all that I really want. Oh boy. Now I’m super depressed. I think I’ll go eat a bunch of pirogies or a plain bean tamale. Just for today, for this vegan Sagittarian, food is love.
Hi Delana, thanks so much for commenting. Well, you know what? It’s never too late! I have been feeling a bit discouraged lately because after a while of keeping off the pounds, my weight has come back up again, and surpassed what it was in this blog post that you just replied to! Yuck.
The company I now work for has a great program – Virgin HealthMiles, where they subsidize my participation. So I just got sent a pedometer that I can hook up and start using to keep track of the number of steps I take each day. Plus, I can win things…like rewards and I think, even money. Knowing me, a true Taurus, I am definitely motivated by money, and will get in shape for sure where there’s a payoff involved. LOL.
Good luck to you, and thanks for visiting!