Episode 88: Cred

So, I went to a conference this weekend. It was pretty awesome. I learned a lot of educating stuff, and I got to hang out with and strengthen my relationship with some of the teachers around my district.  I would like to see my district, a quite large one, learn to use the information that we were given at the conference.  I would like to see deeper collaboration, time spent on learning, getting to know each other and having a good time doing it.  I think that is what a lot of my district has a problem with. There are so many bitter teachers that sit around and complain about how awful the district is and how we have no choice in the matter without actually wanting to do anything.  They need to change that attitude... and I guess, so do I.

Mostly I need to change my attitude about weight loss and getting healthier.  I admit, my attitude isn't the greatest.  I could be a lot better.  I complain that I hurt; I complain that I'm tired; I complain that I'm just not in the mood.  But when it comes down to it, I think there is a little bit of fear there as well.  While I'm not entirely comfortable in my body.. ok.. I'm not comfortable at all in my body, I have found that I'm sort of scared of the expectations of other people.  I think I had a blog post about this about a month or two ago. I haven't really been blogging and I'm tired of saying "oh, I'll get back to it" and then not, so I'm just going to do it. I was losing weight and being healthier when I blogged, and so I just need to do it.

I am finding that I blog more about what I think people should hear, or do things that people think that people expect me to do or say. I have great ideas, but I'm awful at enforcing them on myself, I guess.

So anyway, to today's topic.  (I did mention I ramble, didn't I?)

At my conference this weekend, they gave out these Google Badges, one for each level of learning.  If you went to certain sessions, you got the badges and you had a certain amount of.. well.. teacher cred.   I got all three badges from the conference, and I was able to brag to one of the administrators who had joined us.  And then AM and I were discussing weight loss and Weight Watchers and points and such. We use an app called Fooducate sometimes to tell us how healthy certain foods are.  These foods come with a certain point system.  Point systems just work sometimes, you know.  And badges. Which is why Weight Watchers sort of worked for me.  It was a definitive, easy to count amount of points, and you could earn little trinkets and badges and such.  You got weight loss cred.

Unfortunately, I have lost all of my cred. Excepting the 4 pounds I seem to keep losing and gaining back (and 4 pounds really isn't that much to me) I am at the heaviest weight I can remember being ever.  I need to get my cred back. Maybe the way I can do that is with stickers, or badges that I create. I could have a smallish one that is for each pound that I have lost. A bigger one for when I lose 5% of my body weight, a bigger one and a non-food item that I want when I've lost 10%... and keep going from there. I would often lose 10% of my body weight with Weight Watchers, but because that was the last bit that you could lose before they expected you to get your "lifetime" goal of whatever the BMI recommendations are (which for me are between 110 and 130), I would quit because I didn't have that reward system anymore.  I would have to lose half of myself and then half of that again almost to get down to that place, and that is intimidating.  Lost 30 pounds! Yay.. 10% of my weight, but then.. what after that. It is nearly 200 pounds without any sort of reward, just a massive slog and a lot of plateaus.

No, I won't go back on Weight Watchers, but I do need to start giving myself, or making myself badges.  If I could figure out how, I would post them to my blog, somewhere visible.  A whole stream of little stickery badges down the side, 230 of them for each pound I will lose. Give me some Cred.

Episode 87: Fear or No Fear

I promised AM that when school was over, I would work on getting healthier again. Well, I have 3 more school days, and so here I am, considering and thinking about what I want to do to get healthy again.  I have taken almost a year off - a year since my wedding last June - from thinking about my health. I have reveled in the convenience of fast food and eating out, quick meals from Trader Joe's that weren't  always the healthiest choices and I haven't tracked or done much exercise since I got my Fitbit, figuring it would do all of my tracking for me.  But now that the date for me getting healthier is less than a week away...I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous, or to put it more precisely, I'm scared.

I am scared that I will try to start something and my body will just give up or not let me do that something.  I am scared that the pain will be so overwhelming that not want to move at all.  I am afraid that I won't be able to eat carbs anymore and that all of my food will become bland and tasteless.  I am scared I won't find healthy recipes that I like and be forced to eat foods that are boring. I am scared that when I become healthier, people will expect more of me and I won't be able to give it to them.

On the other hand, I am scared that I won't be able to walk around Disneyland when AM and I go there for our humungous Anniversary bash in a few years once alimony is over.  I am scared that I will keep gaining weight instead of losing it and become one of those people who has to be cut out of her house and put into a truck in order to go to the hospital.  I am scared every night that I will go to bed and not wake up the next morning and then I would be without AM, without my life, that I will leave the people I love the most behind me.

Fear plays a big role in my life.  I know that I have to get over some of these fears in order to be healthy again.  When I was in high school, there were all of these T-shirts that said "No Fear" and I didn't really get it back then.  I still don't honestly get the idea now, except that it was a brand name, but you know, fear is healthy. Fear is something that, while not entirely tangible, we can feel.  In a genetic, predispositioned, evolutionary way, we are programmed to feel fear and to react to it. Fight or flight.  Well, I guess it is time to stop flying and time to start fighting...and that scares me even more.

I start at the end of this week.  More moving, more fruits and veggies, more posting here about how I'm feeling.  I need to get back into the habit of this again too.  It is good for me, and I miss the feedback from people who support and love me.  I can do it this time.  Time for the next round.  Fight the fear!

Episode 85: To be continued...

My part of California hasn't had much rain lately, but this last weekend, I got to snuggle down into my warm little apartment and experience something I have needed for a long, long while: a weekend of rain and relaxation and lots and lots of grading.  I have today off too, and I have a lot of grading to do, since my grades for the progress reports are due on Wedensday, but I got a big chunk of grading done that I had been avoiding for a while. So, Yay me!  

What I haven't been so good at, dear reader, is actually spending any of that time cooking. I have not created anything healthy in my kitchen for.. a few weeks at least. Not for lack of fresh and good ingredients.  My wonderful AM has started his skills based class at San Joaquin Delta College, and he is doing amazing.  So, in his spare time, when he's not doing homework or being awesome, he is spending time practicing his knife skills by cutting up vegetables, or clarifying butter for a sauce or just a lot of things. He is amazing.  But, now I have a refrigerator full of diced, sliced, chopped vegetables, and I haven't been using them.  Bad Tory!

So, today's goal is to pull out the slow cooker and start to make a good stock that we can add some noodly bits to and make a great vegetable soup.  It is getting to be soup weather around here, and it is something I can take to school for lunches and savor.  I hope to get this started before I have a busy busy day off.  Why do I have to schedule all the stuff on my day's off and not actually have a day off? Because I'm a teacher.  So, today's to-do list includes: Start stock, my annual physical (yes, I'm nervous!) and buy clothes for my trip to Arizona next week (and even more nervous!)

I don't really know why I am writing today except that I want to write.  I want to start writing again, and I am tired of saying "Oh, I'm refreshing, or oh.. it's a new me" because it's not. This is the same old me. I am not starting anything new, I am not trying to be anything that I am not.  I am just trying to get healthier. I am trying to be better at being human, but that is all I am doing.  Just becoming a better human.  Coming out of my chrysalis, I suppose.  It has been a long, slow journey and I have a lot more struggling to do.  

I think I'll start writing every day, even if it is just for me.

This is my chronicle.  This is the page that reads: And the story continues...

Love and Lollipops,

ToryLynn