I've realized in the last 20-30minutes there is a reason I don't not use my computer in my bedroom. I came in here intending to write this blog post after I got ready for bed and call it a night, determined to start sleeping better to help get myself back to the gym more regularly. Instead, well I've been surfing Facebook among other sites; there is a reason I blog on the couch.
Taken the last three days off from work I figured it would give me some mental clarity from some of the craziness of life as of late. With the fact with some issues that happened a month or so ago knocking my self esteem/confidence a peg or two down. (Just getting my mojo back on track there) Also I was in the mindset when I requested the time frame off that I would change my sleeping patterns and get my ass to the gym. Well staying up till 1-2am and sleeping till 11:30 (only because of my clock radio going off to warn me it was getting close to noon I'd better get up) didn't really change that. I did cross some things off my list of things to do that I have been putting off for way too long, and no matter how small they may be I feel accomplished all the same.
Whether I feel rested physically is another story, you see while I did sleep in it wasn't without struggle be it stiff sore sides from laying on them for too long. Or my sciatic making its cries for movement esp. on this last day after spending a majority of time on the couch, with little to no mobility on my part at times. Gratefully I know my next few days at work aren't crazy intensity all day jump around with school group days, gratefully to help me get back into motion and not accidently re-pinch it and make a bigger set back all together.
And as I write this, I'm afraid my topic of interest is being forgotten and I'm just babbling off the top of my head at the moment. I'm having another wish of having the ability of just having a connection to my brain that I could just say all that I'm thinking and it would come out perfectly without trying to typing it out and get it to come across correctly. Or perhaps it would be easier/better if you all could just jump inside my brain and look around. LOL!
Oh well, lets see if I can get this all out and make it have some sense to it before the fourth of a melatonin pill kicks in fully to make me sleepy enough to get some shut eye before work tomorrow. (There was no way I was gonna fall asleep before midnight without it with the sleeping schedule I've had these last 2-3 days)
Weight, my weight. Gain or loss has been an issue in my life since I can remember, from a very young age even before school started I was picked on for it. Mostly by my brother, and then his friends at times too. To my first days of school being asked as a kindergartener if I was held back because I had boobs (or tits as the boy had asked). All this had made my weight to me more apparent then most, more of an issue then most. But that really was neither here nor here as a child but I guess something could be said about it, when in 4-5th grade I asked my dad to buy my slim fast and watermelon to eat and used the 5 min abs video to try and work out with. Perhaps it was all the issues my mom had that I saw growing up with weight that left more of an impact of how weight was seen in the world. That and perhaps trying to fit in with certain people at school as well.
You grow up, or at least I did with a little understand of good foods, verse bad foods. The fruits and veggies verses the cakes and the ice creams and chips and cookies. Though you don't really get it till much later in life why knowing this and probably more about how these effect your body in the long run of life is crucial. Especially when pegging all the "bad" food with happy times, its hard to see the draw back of eating them as a kid.
I knew growing up that my choices weren't always best, and maybe my parents could have played a bigger role in making sure I didn't always eat junk, but in the end of the day sometimes the fact that your kid picks anything at all is victory you deal with I guess, and you try again another day. Especially if you yourself don't know any better.
There has been countless times, I have nit picked my body. Shamed myself or hell mentally others for their own, shocker yes I know. At the end of the day though our body is our key to life, when it goes down hill, well soon goes the time you have left. I'm not here to say your body says this or that because of its size. All I want to say generalizing bodies as a whole is, we cant tell by appearances so know your facts, know your dangers and numbers and listen to your doctors about your health, but don't preach it down other peoples throats if they choose not to do it, as I wont to you. Its merely a suggestion to help out in the long run so you can live as full of a life as possible. Besides our body is ours to live our life as we choose, and that looks different for everyone. No one's worth of that is dictated by the size of their clothes or the width of the stomach or the lack of the damn thigh gap that has annoying become such a thing. If you can take anything away from this mid post rant; be a good person to yourself and others, and live your life now to the fullest.
As of late I think of the times I lost a significant amount of weight and gained it back, I get hard on myself about it but I also realize what an accomplishment it was because each time it was 20 plus pounds.
The first time was sophomore/junior year of high school, after years of spending summers at my dads going in with the notation of returning back home fit and skinny and shocking my friends back at school and never following through I decide to hell with it and started working out on my own with some free light weights, a list of random works I remembered from a fitness magazine and a elliptical that I had begged my mom to get (that I used for quite a bit before it came a clothes rack). I had lost probably a good 15-30 lbs. on my own before my mom decide she want to join in and added me to her gym membership, with some personal trainer sessions that came with the membership I think I got down another 15-20 lbs. in the next few months. After training sessions ended and not having a car (too young at the time) and high school coming to a close things got pushed away and without full knowledge calories in and calories out at the time (this was before the biggest loser after all) the weight came back.
It wasn't till mid 2008 when I got on a plane to go back to my dad's after getting the call that my grandma had passed and the airplane seat was tight that I realized something might need to be done. I had humorously enough started to blame the dryer and washer for the shrinking of my clothes without a second thought at the time to my weight at all. Until I got back home and realized I weighed in at just over 300lbs. You'd think that would be noticeably but when you are almost 6ft and have been on the chubby side most of your life it doesn't really sink in till the numbers arise on the scale to remind you of the weight.
I had partnered up with a friend of mine this time and from mid- 2008 till about late 2011 I had an on and off course of weight loss journey that was a little more successful because of unemployment during the economy issues of the time, I ended up losing 56-62lbs and being the lightest I had been since high school/middle school. Of course around that time I ended up finally finding a job and getting into the swing of things with that started off just fine and I kept up my workouts as much as I could for a good 6 months and only gained a little back. Though with time I let it go more and more, especially when busy working during the holidays, and slowly the weight I lost came back and with time over the last almost 4 years at same said job so has another 26 lbs. as well.
Back in November last year due to my sciatic issues pinching and re-pinching with lack of mobility on my part besides my activity at work I had to force myself back to the gym. At first it was just a matter of getting there and doing small workouts. Towards the end of the year I was really starting to enjoy it, and by the time I left for my Dad's to spend time with family in January for week I was done a good 20-25 lbs. My sciatic while a pain my side (literally) had become this life safer for my waist line, and even after getting back from my Dad's my work outs continued till beginning of April (our busy spring break time at work) and instead of changing up my sleeping patterns to match and help out I let myself slack till that time ended, and went go back at it and had lost my momentum. Slowly I stopped going all together but a time here and there (two-three times since) when I really felt low and wanted a stress relief or when I felt that darn sciatic nerve start its pain of a warning to me.
As of late, I still have my issues with comparing myself to others when I know I need to focus on my own journey and make my body and my health my priority not whether or not I'll look as good as so-so when I lose the extra weight. I need to do this for my future and well for the moment of my life I'm living in. You see its not very fun to be winded by a couple sets of 9 stairs a piece at work, nor feeling stuck in life because your not as confident in yourself as you use to be as you could be if you just got back to being healthy again.
Even when your mind starts to play that what if game of, if I do this for myself and get healthy and in turn skinnier does that mean I don't value my curves or am I showing hate to those who embrace their curves even at a heavier weight?
Then I realize something more to this, why? We are all in this together, this life is meant for all of us. Curvy, Athletic, Skinny, all body types are beautiful and its more as cliché as this sounds: what is inside that counts. And well, I'm sorry (but really not) that for me to happy in my life I feel I need to lose the weight (a good 160lbs at this point) and really its not just about being happy cause I weight less. Its about being confident in my self because I feel good and I'm healthy and well it'd also help if my leg wouldn't go numb on my right side from a slightly pinch sciatic nerve from just laying on my bed writing this for the past 45minutes. Also, to have my period (yes the dread menstrual cycle in all its glory) come back regularly like it did back a few months ago to hey at least give me a chance to have some off spring one day if I so choose to.
I have a tendency if you haven't noticed in past blogs to put a lot of weight (not talking body weight now) on one action or thing in life, and question what it means for or about me. And I also get ahead of myself and try to run before I can walk or walk when I'm still learning to crawl at something new I'm trying.
So at the end, of it all I'm trying to live my best possible life "Now" and live in the moment for the moment, with intent for the future as I see fit for this little time I have on the spinning blue marble of life on earth. And I hope you can all do the same.
