Sliding Board

I’ve been thinking a lot about my weight loss/get healthy/fitness journey getting back to where I was a year ago. You know, back before working all the time and then suffering through two ridiculous injuries. Back into the groove I used to thrive in.

Today the realization hit me that I have gained back just under 40% of my weight loss. That number hurts my heart. Not because I feel fat or hate the idea of being the weight that I currently am but because I know what it took to lose it all and how ‘easy’ it was to gain 40% of it back.

Now I should start by saying, I am still super proud of maintaining that loss for almost 5 years. And maybe had I never gotten injured I would still be kicking ass in maintenance mode. But that is not what happened. And now I am here. Fighting every day to get back to that place where I once was. Not necessarily a weight but a lifestyle. An active and healthy lifestyle that I enjoyed so much.

After three weeks of focusing my energy into making better decisions – eating more whole foods and moving my body more- I had a really rough two days where I just did not GAF. My eating wasn’t off the rails, although it could have been better, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was I just had this gloomy “I really don’t care anymore” feeling that I could not shake.

Even getting up today took a solid hour of convincing that I needed to get out of bed and get my booty to work.

My journey towards health has always been a mental battle more so than physical. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy exercising at 300 lbs and it really isn’t easy now either at 200 lbs as my fitness level is super low. BUT the physical hurdles were (are) nothing when I compare them with the mental battles.

Now whether or not this is true I am not sure, but it certainly feels to me that I can ‘lose’ any mental battle way faster than I can the physical ones.

When I think of my biggest struggles (convincing myself I am worth it and then motivating myself to have my actions reflect that belief) I picture a sliding board.

Convincing myself I deserve to be healthy and fit and talking myself into doing the ‘right’ things can some days feel like I am climbing up a sliding board. Here I am at the bottom feeling low, and trying to get back to a healthy, positive, loving, caring mindset is a series of small, challenging steps. I need strength to push forward and I need focus to stay the course. Each day am navigating myself to the top of the slide- to that place where I need to be.

But then I take a misstep, I give up on myself, and boom! I am quickly back on the bottom of the slide. Usually I stay here for a day or two (or week or month) before I turn back around and start to climb again.

It seems so easy to slide back down when you are barely strong enough to climb.

I know that I every time I fall I am not falling to the bottom. And I know that every time I start to climb it will get easier. Even when I think about my sliding board now I know it is not nearly as steep or as long as the one I set out to climb 6+ years ago. I’m a different person now, so my life challenges are different too. Maybe my sliding board is more like this one:

Side note: I grew up calling this a sliding board but apparently that is a regional term and most people call this a slide. Hopefully the title of this post was not too confusing for you :) 

I do feel like this time around it has been more challenging. I am not sure if that is because the circumstances are so different or if it is because I feel like I lost so much this past year or if it is because I cannot envision what my healthy lifestyle will look like now that I have so many activity restrictions. Probably a mixture of it all.

I think that 6 years ago it seemed easier because I had nowhere else to go but up. I was super lazy with terrible eating habits. Something, no matter how small of a change, was so much better than where I had been. Now the changes I need to make aren’t huge, I mean even at my worst during the injury, I still packed my breakfast and lunch every day. I did eat some processed foods but not a ton. I was probably closer to 60/40 than 80/20 but I still rarely drank or ate out. I was just completely inactive. And that is what led me here today.

Maybe I just have too many expectations of what my life should be based on where my life used to be. I think maybe I just need new expectations, new goals, and new dreams instead of wishing back the life I used to have.

Tomorrow I see my doctor for my semi-annual checkup and will get back the lab results from my blood work I had last week. My last check up back in the fall, even though I had already started to gain weight from the injury, my doctor was still super impressed with my lab work results. She said she was not concerned with the weight gain because I was internally the picture of health. I wonder how much they have changed after a solid 6 months of no activity….

I will let you know tomorrow.

Lastly, I really need to thank you for allowing me a place to talk about these deeply personal feelings. Trust me, although it may sound really negative I merely want to showcase the side of the battle I am fighting right now. We all have our own hurdles, and right now this is mine. It’s no different than yours. But when I talk about mine it helps me to put things in perspective and begin to really focus on the underlying struggles and issues. Because at the end of the day, I want to be healthy again. I want to be fit and full of energy. I want to treat my body, mind and spirit the way that they deserve to be treated because I only have one life. And I intend to live it fully.

xoxox,

Dacia 

I Think It's Time...

For the last two years I have lived by the motto ‘love what you do.’ I try to apply it to every aspect of my life; especially fitness.

I am of the belief that if you don’t love what you are doing you will only be able to muscle through it for so long. And for me, in the past when I had reached my breaking point it usually meant some kind of over the top reaction which caused me to not only swear of said activity but usually all activity in general.

I remember back on times when I was using workout videos to get in my activity and I would get so pissed/frustrated/discouraged by how little I could do, how much it hurt, how embarrassed they made me feel that I would just stop doing them. And pretty much anything else.

A logical person would just move on to something else.

Eventually I learned that.

I learned that just because others can do it/enjoy doing it/are successful doing it does not mean that I will be too.

I learned that trying to force myself to doing something I did not enjoy made me miserable which is pretty much not what I needed to be successful.

I needed to find something that I loved to do (even if at times it was challenging, there is a difference) because then I would be more likely to do it, happier with how I was choosing to spend my time, and life would be better overall.

And that worked for me.

For the first time I am active AND happy. I live a life that enjoy; all of it. What I eat, the activities I choose, my social life, my relationship. – it’s all good. This- what I’m doing now, and what I’ve been doing for the past 2 years, works for me. It is sustainable. If the rest of my life goes just like this I will die happy.

Not to sound like I’m bragging. I’m not. Really I’m not.

I am writing this as a reminder to myself.

See, some days I still struggle with how my body looks (re:flabby arms, jiggly belly) and wanting to lose more weight and how I should go about changing that. I definitely need to lose another 10-15 pounds.  That point isn't up for debate. However, how I get there is.

I know I could start hitting the gym twice a day, I could start taking some spin classes, adding in weight lifting, run four times a week plus do yoga and boxing. I know I could really focus on getting leaner, put in the work, and I will get the results and probably pretty quickly.

But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to spend what little free time I have in a gym. Morning and night. I just don’t.  

I like to think I am a fairly active person. I eat pretty good foods. I think I am making good choices for my body. But it’s not all about my body. My mind (spirit) has to come into consideration too when I mak these decisions.  And so it comes down to this question- do I want to muscle through a few (or more) months of doing things I don’t enjoy, missing out on time with my friends, making many personal sacrifices just for the sake of losing 10 pounds.

Or do I want to keep on doing the things I am doing and accept that any progress I make will be slow at best.

I think I have to stick with doing what I love. Not only am I in the best physical shape I have been in for quite some time but damn am I happy. I am probably in the best mental headspace of my entire life. Why would I want to change that?

Why should I change that?

I think it’s time for me to stop chasing skinny and just keep chasing happy.