Sitting at a table...

Honestly, I have to say that it's completely my fault I'm here. I can't blame anyone else for this, can I? *sigh* I've hit my very first plateau. My weight isn't going up, but it most definitely isn't going down. The last two weeks have been a little difficult (to say the least) with everyone getting sick, husband being gone and dealing with more depression issues than normal. The last few weeks have been really good with me seeing results almost every night. .4 pounds here, .3 there, and maybe even a whole pound in one day but this week the scale is making a mess of my sanity. Monday I was at 197.6 and then I started getting numbers like 199.0 and 201.2 and all sorts of craziness!!! This morning I was at a solid 198.8. *angry face*. I just want to be able to get going again and STOP going over 200 at night!! Seriously, is it too much to ask??

But, it's not all bad news I guess. This week the weather has been extremely bi-polar and we've gone from below freezing and snow to warm and sunny in the same week which means I can start walking to post again with my kiddo in his stroller. Is there anything better than a nice walk to calm the nerves and energize the body? I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find anything better for you! I definitely notice a HUGE difference in my moods when I get in even a small 30 minute walk. I've also started taking a Vitamin D supplement to help with my moods and see if that doesn't help. (So far, so good)

One more thing I wanted to talk about is quitting... I know it's hard for a lot of us bigger girls to look at the thin, in shape women around us and think, "Why can't I be like that?" I think our society's ideal of instint gratification has tarnished our belief that hard work WILL get us somewhere, eventually and it may not be a year or even two years from now.  I know I'll get there and it breaks my heart to see so many of the women that I started this journey with feeling like they aren't getting anywhere and quitting... I've made a commitment to myself, and my family that I won't quit. I can't quit, or I'll never know how far I can get. 

Little Moments of Cookie Sanity

After last week's epic puke-fest weight loss I did gain back some weight and got to 202.2 (oops) but I'm pleased to announce that I am now officially, ON MY OWN, under 200 at 198.4!

Since the beginning of this wonderful, painful journey I think I've found the answer to one of life's most diffucult questions... WHY CAN'T I SAY NO TO GIRL SCOuT COOKIES?!?!?!?!?! Well ladies and gentelmen, HERE is your answer-

Yeah, you see that?? They put crack in em!!! I knew it... This was thanks to my dear friend Cassandra #2. There's also something else I learned about myself in the last week and a half. You ready for this?

I'm not superwoman.

Yep. I'm just not. I can't go more than a day without sneaking into a cupboard to get a yummy cookie and I cry myself to sleep sometimes when I've had a particularly rough day (had a LOT of those last week) and I even make mistakes and forget to get babysitters. But you know what else? I am TOTALLY okay with not being superwoman. I've decided that having a cookie or even, heck, a WHOLE SERVING of cookies isn't going to kill me and it's not going to make me gain ten pounds. What it will do is give me a moment, just a smaaallll itsy, bitsy moment where I can jsut chew and enjoy. Food was meant to be enjoyed, not avoided. This doesn't mean that I should just stuff my face when I've had the worst day in recorded history. What this realization has taught me is that our lives are made up of little moments that help us keep our sanity so, enjoying that cookie is probably better for me in the long run. So, I've decided to just run a few more minutes and enjoy a few more cookies. For my mental health of course. 

In Sickness and in Health

I truly, honestly don't know how people can be bulimic. Thursday afternoon Matt came home with a nasty stomach bug and then Friday night one of my friends Cassandra came down with it and then Saturday morning Lisa and I both got it... Talk about being miserable! I threw up every three hours for a total of five times. So, fifteen hours of puking and I'm still suffering OTHER effects of the stomach flu (if you catch my drift). But, the bright light at the end of this horrible tunnel is that

I'M FINALLY UNDER 200!!!!

That 's right!!! You heard it here first folks, (unless you're on BBC) Lynalice Bandy is now officially at 199.0 as of this morning! This is so NOT the way I would have preferred to do it and I'm sure that in the next few days as I get my fluid levels back to normal I'll be back up to 201 or so but just seeing that beautiful number on the scale gives me so much motivation to get back to the gym once I'm better!! I can't wait!! Give me a couple of more days to recooperate and I'll be back at it! In retrospect, if someone had given me the option of gaining five pounds back or doing the stomach bug I SO would have chosen the five pounds. It's SO bad for your body to lose weight this way! I'm hoping that my body won't decided to pack it on extra tight since it's in starvation mode now... I'm gonna keep an eye on what I eat and stick to fruit and lean protein for a few days, you know, give the ol' carbs a rest. Wish me luck!!!

Pictures of Me...

Out of all the reasons I want to lose weight I've been giving a lot of thought lately about what my number one motivation is. Do I want to be healthier? Live longer? Fit into smaller clothes? Well, all of these apply but as I was looking through pictures on Facebook this morning, it hit me. I don't want  to have to look at myself like this in a picture EVER again. The immediately depressing feeling that hits me whenever I see myself in a picture is something that I'd rather not feel. Just to see how the world sees me... It's always a harsh does of reality since, when I look in the mirror, I don't see that girl at all! I swear, if I didn't know what I looked like in pictures, I'd think I looked like a size 8!

Since his weight loss my husband, Matt, has had a hard time with his self image. He looks in the mirror and still sees himself as fat and he often asks me if I think I'll have this problem after I lose weight and I can't help but think, "Nope..." The main reason being that I don't even see myself as fat NOW when I AM but then I see a picture of myself and it all comes crashing in... Waves of depression wash over my head and I want to just sink into the couch, never to be seen again. I want to be able to look at a picture and see what I FEEL I look like! I want my weight to reflect my confidence. You often hear that bigger women tend to have a hard time with self confidence and I have to say that I don't think I'm lacking in that department. So, here it is. My reason for losing weight. I want the world to see what I see. I don't want them to see this...

I want to be able to look back at pictures with my children and not have to worry about how overweight I was... I want my confidence to shine through. 

A Slimmer Singer

So tonight was the first real practice night for Oklahoma! and we FINALLY got to actually sing! I LOVE this music and I absolutely ADORE my little group of sopranos! We had so much fun tonight giggling over our mess ups and the men trying to get thier parts down... I can see this is going to be the beginning of some really amazing friendships.

Also tonight we got measured for our costumes and here's the really awesome part, I mentioned to the director and the costume designer that I'm working on losing weight and that I've lost about 5 pounds in the last two weeks and I asked if maybe they wanted me to stop losing so that the measurements would be accurate. Well, after a small deliberation she (the designer) told me she was going to do something she's never really done before. She marked down my measurements SMALLER than they really are only by an inch or so!! I was so excited!!! This means that NOW instead of just working on losing weight I have a GOAL!!!! I have something MORE than just working on hitting a certain number! I can't tell you how excited this makes me!! So, now I've got to start working my butt off since the production is in seven weeks and fittings are in five weeks!! Ah!!! This is going to be great!

Those Little Moments of Sadness

Today we finally got emails telling us what parts we got in Oklahoma! and...

"Congratulations! We would like for you to offer you a part as a member of the ladies ensemble in the Soldiers’ Theatre’s production of “Oklahoma!”.

You had an excellent audition and we are excited about casting the show! "

 I have to admit that, while it's an honor to even be in the production, I was a little saddened when I didn't get a better role... Now, before you judge me, it wasn't because I feel like I'm an amazing singer or because I thought that my dancing impressed the director (which, it didn't). I'm sad because, as a fat girl, it took a lot of courage to go up on that stage and sing and dance and be pitted against women who are, by far, much better looking and then to be put in the back made me feel...fat. I feel like, if only I weighed thirty or forty pounds less I would have had a better chance or if maybe I had longer hair or straighter teeth. I know that I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not looking forward to seeing who was actually selected for leading roles... If there does happen to be a larger girl in one of the roles I will immediately feel better since I will then know that I really do belong where I am and it's not because of how much I weigh. I just wish I could see what the director was thinking... I'm sure it will be fun anyway and I'm going to make it fun otherwise I'll just be miserable and that's just no good!

Courage in the Line of Dancing

Line of fire? Not so much... As part of my weightloss journey I've decided that it's time to start doing things I've always been afraid of doing because of my weight. No more being a wall flower, an observer to life. No, now it's time to put myself in the limelight and shine for all I'm worth and so tonight I auditioned for Oklahoma! I was terrified and I was going to chicken out but my friend Belinda gave me a good pep-talk and she did it with me! The singing part was okay I think... I did get cut off by the director and he did warn us that it might happen but I felt like everyone else got a chance to sing a lot longer than I did. All well. The BIG challenge came with the DANCING! I am NOT a dancer!! Grace and I? Well, we never really met... On the one part that the coreographer said we literally couldn't mess up because there was only one way to go, guess who found another way to go? Yep, this girl. It didn't help that I had a huge headache and my legs were still shaking from singing in front of a whole room of people... I'm gonna practice tonight and go back tomorrow and show them I can dance if given a chance to practice. Maybe. Hehehe...
Also, a few more of today's successes? I hit 202.2 AND I think I've talked two of my friends here into doing a 5K with mt on Saturday!!! Couldn't believe it! The weight of course was AFTER I worked out and AFTER I drank about 20 oz of water but I'll take it! I'm SOOOOOO close to being under 200 pounds I can taste it! (Tastes like tater tots in case anyone is wondering) I felt like Jillian Michaels today as I pushed my friend a little harder in her workout. It's an awesome feeling, helping others. Ladies, (and gentlemen) this is a time for us to shine and let the world know that we ARE worth something and that we DO believe that we can be amazing even if we have a few extra pounds hiding all of our awesomeness! Just remember:

Weekend Warrior? Maybe Next Time...

As this is my first weekend officially trying to lose weight may I just say,

WEEKENDS SUCK!

Oh my gosh! I know that it can be hard during the weekdays to stay away from bad foods and to not scrounge around in the kitchen looking for things to snack on but sakes alive! it is HARD on the weekends! I'd say almost impossible! Thankfully the only remotely snacky thing I could find was a box of Wheat Thins and that is defnitely a lot thinner now that I've had a go at it...

Saturday morning started off with DH making himself a scrumptious breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon and toast and I got to wake up to the mouthwatering smell of it all... Thanks to my selfless husband I was spared the temptation of bacon since he ate it all :-P (lol) and decided to workout instead of pigging out. I knew that if I ate before I worked out then it just wouldn't get done. So, I grudgingly pulled myself away from the computer and the couch and Matt and I headed over to the school soccer fields and did about ten minutes of sprints. Wow, I was dead on my feet. Then I made a delicious unhealthy lunch and we walked to post (about 35 minutes at a brisk walk) and got a few essentials (new high-top converse all-stars for Luke) and walked home. Then I made crockpot orange chicken for dinner and went over to a friends house to watch some nerdy shows that I haven't seen in a while. So, all in all, not a bad day.

Sunday, however, was torture. If you didn't already know, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and we believe in dedicating Sundays to family time and staying in the home and not working. Well, this proved to be quite the challenge since I chose not to exercise on Sundays and I had a kitchen full of food. We watched a few movies (The RM and Cars 2) and I made spaghetti for dinner and I tried to drink and drnk and drink but the urge to snack was too great and I broke down around 7:00 and together Matt and I along with Luke ate almost an entire box of Wheat Thins. 8-O Yeah, I'm already planning on tomorrow being MUCH better. I'm going to the gym with Latasha and I'm gonna run my bum off! Hopefully through the course of the week I can figure out a way to make weekends go a little more smoothly. Wish me luck!

Inspiring Winners to Lose

So last night as I was making cupcakes for a party I couldn't help but dip my finger in the homemade frosting quite a few times and I was so sure that this morning I was going to regret it but I guess today was a day for miracles because when I woke up and got on the scale guess what I saw!

203.6!!!!!!

I know!!!! I couldn't believe it either! That's a number I haven't seen since maybe six years ago! I think that I MAY have weighed this when I moved to Boise in 2006. I'm so elated! So, full of fresh motivation I got Luke up, made him breakfast, did my light crossfit and ate my own healthy breakfast. Then I got the best present ever. I opened up BabyCenter to find that I had this wonderful message waiting for me:

"Just wanted to let you know I've really enjoyed your presence on the board lately. You've got a lot of dedication to accomplishing your goals and that rubs off!"

I LOVE my weightloss board!! What an amazing group of ladies who are a shining example of lifting each other up and helping to better each other as daughters of our Heavenly Father. I honestly started blushing when I read that and it gave me such a giddy feeling! To think that I was helping to motivate and inspire other people half a world away! The miracle of technology... So, just want to give a big shout out to all my girls on BBC, couldn't do it without you! :-D

Today's battle included trying to only eat ONE Nutella cupcake...(Also named "poop"cakes)

 It was an epic fail. I had THREE and not only that but a (tiny) slice of home made apple pie, lots of veggies with a bit of dip and and two little sandwhiches with cream cheese made from the Hawaiian sweet rolls (yum!). I felt really bad about it... But then I got home and added up all of my calories and added in what I was going to have for dinner and believe it or not I was actually under my goal for the day! I couldn't believe it! I woke up this morning so determined to be good and I felt like such a failure until I saw it in numbers. It really wasn't that bad and all the exercise I got in today really did me some good. Now for tomorrow, whatever the world wants to throw at me, I'm ready for it!

Talk Me Into Being Crazy

I don't know why but I seem to have the hardest time NOT letting people talk me into things... Like buying girl scout cookies or starting P90X. Last year I let Sassy talk me into training for a 5K and it became one of the best things I've ever been talked into. As she put it "you can keep making excuses or just admit that you don't want to do it". And as I stood there dumbfounded I realized that all I was doing was making excuses. There wasn't any reason why I couldn't run and at that moment I realized that I DID want to! I WANTED a change! So, with the excuses out of the way I finished my very first 5K on May 1st 2011! And a runner was born... Albeit, an overweight runner.

My biggest problem is the food. As an emotional eater I find that when trying to watch my weight I'm actually afraid of food and the power it seems to have to tempt me. I know it's not really the food and it's all what's going on in my head but I just don't understand how I can be afraid of an inanimate object?? I'm so afraid of failing. I know that the simplest solution wuld be to get rid of all temptations but I just want to be able to MASTER food and exert some semblance of self control! Why should I have to put something out of sight to get it out of mind?? I really hop this journey helps me overcome this. I want to find the strength inside of me. I want to be able to put a box of cookies on the counter and be able to leave it be. I want to be able to eat just one. I WANT to NOT want them! (although let's be honest, they ARE girl scout cookies) I want to someday be able to look at a box of cookies and not feel the need to fill myself and fill the void with food. If someone asked me what I would attempt to do if I knew I could not fail, this would be it. I wouldn't want to master an impossible human feat, I wouldn't think about truning lead into gold or stone to water or parting the Red Sea. If I KNEW I couldn't fail I'd want to master food and be able to say "I don't need this" and actually mean it! So I'm just waiting for the day when my heart tells me I can't fail.

As For the P90X... Well, I might fail at that. Hehe. My friend Latasha wants to start doing it because her husband won't work out with her and she needs someone to keep her accountable. I've heard good things about it and I'm ready to try something new. I'm going to continue to do my easy basic cross fit and some running. Wish me luck and remember,

YOU CAN'T FAIL!!

Day one complete...

I'm not going to write every day but this was my first day so, I figure it warrants a post. Today I put a paper of a small workout schedule on the wall in our living room. It is as follows:

50 bicycles

25 squats

15 sumo squats

50 calf raises

100 arm circles

(50 left, 50 right)

15 push-ups

50 jumping jacks

1 min plank

I'm committing to doing this EVERY day except Sunday. As time goes on I might even start doing more sets but for right now I'm only doing one set in the morning. I'm also going to to try and run every day or at least every other day. Today I ran for about 24 mintues although, I'm not sure how far I went...
 I've joined myfitnesspal.com to help me track EVERYTHING I'm eating and make me more aware and accountable for what goes in my mouth. I'd suggest this site to those who have a hard time with binge eating... I put in my food before I eat it so I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. Also, skinnytaste.com has some really amazing recipes for low-fat, low-calorie meals. Like this one:

Along with trying to make myself leaner I'm working on making my home cleaner. I find that when my home is clean I have more energy in the morning and more motivation to workout. So every morning I'm going to make my bed, do a load of laundry and make sure everything is generally picked up. Then before bed I'll make sure the kitchen and living room are clean. This is my commitment to ME! I'm already feeling great about this year!

Making ME Accountable!

Never thought I'd ever start a blog... I find it intresting to think that some people might have nothing better to do than read other people's thoughts or that anything I write could ever been interesting to anyone else but, here I am.

As of today I am officially starting the process of finding myself, if that's what you want to call it. I'm tired of going through these bouts of depression brought on by the ever growing knowledge that I'm not the person I could be, physically, mentally or spiritually. I want to transform myself but I can't do that unless I know what it is I'm changing. So here we go. I am now no longer worrying about trying to concieve baby #2 since it has thus far only lead to heartache and I'm going to focus on bettering myself and loving the little guy that I've already been blessed with.

I guess I'll start with a little back story. After my mother's divorce from my previous stepfather in 2003 my family moved to Anchorage, Alaska and my mom remarried a wonderful man who I now like to call my dad. After moving from Texas to the cold of Alaska I gained about 40 pounds in the first year and it just didn't stop. I went from being a size twelve to being an eighteen in a little under two years and as a teenager this was pretty traumatic. I didn't have any control over what I ate since I had grown up with an unhealthy habit of emotional binge eating and still have yet to control those urges very well. So, now I'm 25 years old, 5'1" and I weigh 204.8 pounds. Scary. On top of this I have a family history of heart disease and diabetes. Double trouble. I remember going in for my glucose test when pregnant with our first baby and being SO scared that I was going to have gestational diabetes. I was only 21 at the time. No 21 year old should be afraid of having diabetes and I knew that my weight was out of control but I had no idea how to stop it. Thankfully I threw up from 7 weeks until the day I gave birth so I only gained 15 pounds and all of that was baby weight. I think that my Heavenly Father was watching out for me.
Even with this stunning revelation of unhealthiness I still did nothing the entire year after our son was born to change that... I tried to eat better and I never actually gained any weight but I got to watch my husband shed ONE HUNDRED POUNDS over the course of ten months. That killed me. So, in May of 2011 I had a friend convince me to start training with her for a 5K. I thought she was NUTS but she told me to stop making excuses. So I did. I didn't know it but I LOVE running. Even though it's really hard on my knees since I'm so overweight that feeling of achievement, that runners high, was SO addicting! I was so sure that the fat would just melt off since I was still breastfeeding. 10 pounds and 3 months later I realized that it was NOT going to just melt off. After a vacation to visit my in-laws before our trans-atlantic move to Italy I gained back all the weight I had lost and then only lost 6 more pounds until I moved away from my motivator Sassy and my home. Now, here I sit in Italy gaining weight and having no one to keep me accountable. Even my husband Matt has gained ten pounds in the last few months... We need to make some healthy changes and make them NOW so I'm going to start keeping MYSELF accountable.

Tomorrow morning, regardless of rain or sun I am going to do 30 mintues of exercise at home then run for at least 30 minutes. I'll report back tomorrow evening!! Goodnight world and welcome to 2012, my weight loss year.