Today I start! (and some updates)

I can't believe it's Monday already and the weekend is gone! Fortunately for me we a State holiday on Friday so I had another long weekend!  Plenty of activity went on and I'm glad to say eating is getting under control and I've decided to get bugged again... Bodybugg that is.  Today was my first day wearing it and I'm looking at a 600 calorie deficit... YAY!

Regarding my last post about cutting my addiction to food, I've learned that not only do you need a really good reason to do it but you also need to keep busy.  Not necessarily in the physical sense but busy in the sense that you need to keep your mind busy and not always on the thing you're trying to get over.

In other words find another "addiction"!

I've noticed that the times I mindlessly eat is when I'm home... alone... sitting in front of the TV. Surprise, right?  The boyfriend and I have opposite schedules so he works nights while I work days so I have so much free time in the evenings!  Well I've decided that I need to invest my time a little more wisely so I'm looking into a few different things:

• Guinea Piggie Pies - I used to run a small (but successful) website that specialize in custom guinea pigs made out of polymer clay and if I can get back into it, it would make good side money as well.  I had to shut down the site because I was getting too many orders and had no time to work on them. 

• Go back to school - Yup... never thought the day would come where I'd wanna go back to school but I think I do!  Plus I work for a university so the classes would be free.  HELLO!!!

• Work from home - This is something I really would like to do so if you know of any legit work-from-home programs, send the recommendations my way!

UPDATES

Remember how excited I was to hit up Bed, Bath and Beyond the other weekend? Well, lets just say I don't think I'll be going back any time soon.  WAY too crowded and it really isn't anything that great.  Everything in Hawaii is more expensive than the Mainland so we don't get the cheap prices like up there... in fact our Target is more expensive than our K-Mart/Walmart. WTH?  Good news is I bought my shoe organizer and look...

Before: Shoes in a box and shoe boxes everywhere

 After: So neat and organized!

This was mid-fill... the rack is actually completely filled and I need more space!

Yay! The shoe organizer is actually an over-the-door kind of rack but our only door that this would fit on is like 9 feet tall so wouldn't make sense to hang it... I'm short and wouldn't be able to reach it.

AND another huge update I didn't even realize I missed was the new addition to our family!

This is Beans, Poki's second best friend!

We adopted Beans back in June from the local Humane Society and she has just been such an awesome dog.  Super mellow and such a cuddler.  And the best part is she likes the ocean! Poki hates the water and never goes in but Beans loves it!  So now I have one more reason to get up off the couch and move outside!

All talk...

... and no walk.

So sorry I fell short on my promise of an update over this last weekend - since I know you were all waiting on the edge of your seat for it - but this is the first chance I've had to get on the computer (and I'm at work... go figure). 

I had a good L-O-N-G five-day weekend this past week and kept pretty busy but not as active as I wished.  Food is still kicking my ass and it's so hard for other people to understand how imprisoning food can be.  Someone left me a comment the other day that really hit it on the head for me:

LRS said...
Annie - I came to your site to read as much as I could about an honest review regarding Shakeology. I'm leaving your site even more convinced that food is more addictive than cigarettes. I quit smoking 1 year and 10 months ago and have no desire to ever start again (I’d hate to have to go through the quitting a second time ; ). I smoked for nearly 10 years and it was absolutely my favorite pastime. I used to say it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but that was until a year after I quit that I decided I needed to get my binge eating under control. I'm still working on it and sometimes during moments of weakness I worry that I will never have a healthy relationship with food. That being said, I refuse to quit my efforts. Even though we aren’t there yet, we are still closer than we were yesterday. To quote Jimmy Dugan, “If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.”

The point in me sharing this with you is to help you to feel you are not alone. Every single person out there can say there have been times in their life where after many steps forward they have unfortunately taken a few steps back. Therefore; Honey, you fell off the wagon. Dust yourself off, hop back on and don't look back! I’m rooting for you :)

Food being more addictive than cigarettes?  Wild claim but I think there's some truth to that.  Food has some powerful associations with it and it differs with each person but in the end food is addicting... at least to me.  I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say a certain food makes me feel good or it can take me back to my childhood or it can remind of grandma's house.  With happy associations like that, who wouldn't want to food around?

Unfortunately most of those foods are what we would consider "comfort foods"... fatty, sugary, holiday-treaty types of food.  For me it's ice cream.  Growing up my parents never really kept sweets around in the house.  We were more of beef-jerkey, chips and crackers kind of snackers but the one sweet that we always had around: ICE CREAM!

Yup, even to this day I only eat salty/savory snacks and pretty much stay away from the sweets.  No candy, pastries, baked goods or even soda but there is a permanent space reserved for ICE CREAM in my freezer.  Ice cream just takes me back to everything good!  Not the best thing to be "addicted" to when you're trying to get healthy.

So how do I get over this?

Pretty much the same any addict would get over their drug of choice: rehab.  I've tried the cold-turkey way but that only makes me go crazy and binge like a starving person.  So I'm approaching this addictive habit as if I were a true addict*.  Will do some light reading on the topic and see if I can come up with a substituted method or plan for getting me off the ice (cream)! (Oh come on, it's a joke!)

*I do not mean to offend anyone with a true addiction problem but I seriously need to find something that works for me.  If food is addicting (and many professionals will say it is) I think treating it like an actual addiction may help me.

So how's it going?

So much for regular posting, huh?

Well I've been back at it, slowly, with lots of walks and a rare elliptical workout, but nothing too strenous cause I seriously feel like my fitness level is below a zero now!  Gonna go through all my workout dvd's this weekend and pull out some of the ones that I first started out with.  Think Jillian, The Firm, even the Wii Fit! Anything to just get me back to my P90X-status!

Food has still been a real struggle for me but I've noticed I've cut down on the amount of food of been eating.  Meaning it's still crappy food but at least I'm eating less of it.  Right now I'm aiming to get in no more than 1300 calories (which is actually maintenance level for me) plus an extra 100 - 200 calories depending on my physical activity level for that day.

Next week I took off on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for an extended weekend - which I need - so hoping to keep busy everyday! Already have several hikes planned out with the boyfriend, a beach day, and a shoping day.  As sad as it sounds, I'm super thrilled to be hitting up Bed, Bath and Beyond this weekend! Hawaii just got our first store that opened the other week so can't wait to check it out. I need a shoe rack cause right now all my shoes are just thrown into a big moving box... no kidding! It can take me a minute to find two matching pairs.

Will be back later this weekend with updates and pictures to help keep my accountable!

It's the thought that counts, right?

Hey Blooggies,

Long time no talk, err... is it read?

Anyway, this is my attempt at a meaningful blog post.  I have been MIA for the last month or two not because I wanted to, but because I didn't feel like I had anything to say. I have gained about 15 pounds from my lowest of 128ish back in May so I'm sitting at a not-so-comfortable 145sih... and the number is just getting higher.

My blog title, The Amazing Shrinking Girl, would make a mockery of me every time I logged on and I felt like it should be changed to The Not-So-Amazing Expanding Girl.  For the last month I've avoided my personal trainer's phone calls because he wants me to come in and get my stats taken (as a refresher, since May, I put a freeze on my gym membership for 4 months so I haven't seen my trainer since April).  I just cannot face him right now and I'm almost too embarrassed to be seen at the gym.  The extra 15+ lbs. has made a HUGE difference in my self-confidence and self-esteem and what makes it worse is that I keep gaining even though I feel like shit.

All intense exercise has come to a stop... haven't done any type of strength training/weight resistance since May and I'm scared to even attempt one push-up in fear that I cannot do it. 

I've still been walking and hiking kinda regularly but even that cannot stop the weight gain when you're eating 2500+ calories a day!

But I've finally had enough!

I don't want to become one of those statistics... you know, the one that says this-much-percentage-of-people-who-lose-weight-gain-it-back.  That's so not me and I'm making sure I don't break into another decade of weight-gain.  I have one more month before my gym membership starts up again and I have to face my trainer, so I need to pull in everything tight: nutrition and exercise.  So here's to my new beginning... getting back to basics of tracking food, exercising, and bogging!  The three things that helped me so much in the past!