Oh. Em. Gee.

WHO, ME?

I am so excited to share with you, if you already haven't heard ... which would be surprising because I'm pretty sure all of North America heard me scream yesterday afternoon, that I WON Rita's giveaway from Fitblogger.

I could not be happier right now! I was just thinking to myself the other day: how can I make this blog more impactful, more inspiring, more ME? How can I create a mission statement for the goals that I really want to attain with this? With out giving a lot of the details away, I had a mini-epiphany of why I'm here in the Fit Blog world. I really truly believe in this community. I really truly believe that each and every one of us have the opportunity to not only change our lives, but to inspire and cheer on others.

Which is why this giveaway came at a perfect time. I am already feverishly working on a new format (I'll be moving to wordpress!) and pinning down a new domain name. I am so thankful for all of your support and readership - so I hope you continue to follow me here until the switch - and afterwards at my new home!

I would appreciate any honest feedback or suggestions you might have to help my new site become fabulous..

What kind of things inspire YOU to read and subscribe to blogs?

What kind of things turn YOU away from blogs?

In other news, life is moving along splendidly. I'm .2lbs away from hitting my 50lbs loss mark! Whoot! I also got the chance to talk with my dad last night, who is seriously my hero. He just finished his 25th marathon at 56 years old, at 4hours and 32minutes. WOW. I told him about this blog, (something I've never shared with family/friends) the amount of weight I'd like to lose, and my goal to run a marathon before I'm 30.

Knowing me, my laziness, my never-following-through-on-anything attitude, I was worried he would laugh in my face at these seemingly insane goals. Do you know what he said?

You can do it.

For some reason, that was all I needed to hear.

Much Love,

Emily



33 Day Challenge : Are You IN ?

 Happy Saturday everyone :)

This last week has been pretty exciting for me! I thank you all so much for your words of encouragement on my post about binging and finding time for me. You all have helped me so much. Through the course of talking about those topics on Twitter, I met some new tweeties! Brittany and Sam and I chatted on ooVoo and really hit off an awesome virtual friendship. Then the next night I video chatted with Rita and Brittany. These women are amazing!

If you haven't ever reached out to some of the amazing people out there in the Fitblogger world, DO IT. Everyone is so supportive and friendly! I need my ass kicked every now and then - and I can count on them to do just that.

In the spirit of Connectober and jump starting our fitness before the holidays come around, Sam posted her 33 Day Challenge. The first day is TODAY! Don't worry, if you'd like to join in, you're more than welcome! Come chat with us on Twitter as well under #33DC.

So Sam proposes this : We should make goals for ourselves over the next 33 days. We're focusing on Clean Eats, Resistance Training, Carido Training, Personal Goals and Weight Loss. Here are my goals and thoughts on each topic ...
______________________________________

Clean Eats
To me, this means eating foods that make me feel healthy. I will be focusing on lots of veggies, fruits, whole grains, and protein. The more natural and organic, the better! No naughty foods here. I've done so well not ordering pizza or going to any fast foods this last month. I'd like to keep it that way.
My goal : 60 Clean Eats / 66 Possible Days (2 per day)

Resistance Training
I have weights, shake weights (shut UP they are awesome!) and resistance bands. I need to actually use them. Hmmm, first maybe some dusting off.
My goal : 15 Sessions / 33 Possible Days

Cardio Training
This will be a little tough for me, since I am an enormous wimp. If I'm really serious about a marathon someday, I need to start moving again. This can be anything from power walking around the neighborhood on the nice days, or step in my living room. As long as my heart rate is up, it counts!
My goal : 15 sessions / 33 Possible Days

Personal Goals
- Blog 20 times / 33 Possible Days (eeeeek!)
- Read 4 Self Wellness books
- Stretch or do Yoga DVD 20 times/33 possible days
_____________________________________

So there you have it!

and, because I'm a nerd, I made the badges below if you'd like to post them on your site! Just grab the codes inside the boxes. They all link back to Sam's Challenge.  Are you in?? :)

 

<a href="http://neversaynever27.blogspot.com/2010/10/33-day-challenge.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/2ajyvpe.jpg" /></a>

<a href="http://neversaynever27.blogspot.com/2010/10/33-day-challenge.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/not1rd.jpg" /></a>

A Mommy First ..

... and "Emily" second.

Is this how it should be? Don't get me wrong, I love my daughter. Like to the end of the earth, buckets of puppies, cheesecake with cherries on top, LUUUUUV my daughter. How could I not? Seriously, look at this pictures. How can YOU not love her?

I've been struggling for the past week or so dealing with the fact that Emily, at least the version of me for the past 26 years or so, is on the back burner. All those things that are distinctly "me," my singing, writing, blogging, reading poetry, painting, even running (never thought I would miss that!) have somehow fallen away. I am now MOM, and I'm a damn good one. 

Now live in clothes that have been puked on way too many times to count. My ears are now super-human in their capability to withstand hours .. and I do mean hours .. of a screaming infant. My hands are now used to wash endless amount of bottles, diapers, and binks. My mind now relishes the 10 minutes I get in the shower, because let's face it - that's about the extent of "alone time" I get these days.

I've even missed the Fitblog chat for the last month. (I swear this child just knows when the first question gets thrown out.)

I know those of you with out children might relate to this busy-bee schedule as well. I also work all day and my fiance works at night. Where do we find time for ourselves? I definitely don't have any answers. I know that I would like to find time for me. Even if it's just an hour a day. So I'm asking your help ... WHAT DO YOU DO??

Do you set the alarm early and drag your exhausted body out of bed? Do you have a friend come by and watch your kiddo for awhile every week? Do you use your lunch break at work to blog?

Help a sista out! :)

Confession : I Stumbled

More like took a swan dive into a pit of destruction last night. I'm very embarrassed and ashamed that it happened, and even more that I'm sharing it here. I need to fess up to these pitfalls, though. It will help me understand why I keep giving in to Mr F.

Yesterday started just perfectly! I jumped for joy (and then tweeted with my friends!) about hitting the 45lb loss mark. Whoo hoo - on top of the world!!

Cue the tray of Cupcakes that fell into my lap within 5minutes of arriving to work. The totally amazing work of my fellow coworker and my rumbling stomach made for a deadly combo. It's okay, I told myself. It's just one cupcake.

Lunch was good. I ate my beautiful shrimp salad, delighted in my apple, and sipped my perfectly planned Vanilla Red Tea. Then, for whatever reason I'm still trying to grasp, all hell broke loose when I got home. It went something like this:

Walk in door. Kiss fiance off to work. Baby crying. Baby sleeping again. Nothing to eat in the fridge. Didn't weight out my food last night. Why did I eat that cupcake this morning? Crap I forgot my medication at work. Well this day is totally shot out the window! Maybe I'll just have one package of Ramen. Screw that, if I'm gonna go all out, let's go all out.

I knew it wasn't right. I knew I would hate myself in the morning. Actually, I knew I would hate myself WHILE binging. I just .. didn't .. care.

Over the course of two hours (hangs head in shame) this is what I ate
-Two packages of Ramen
-Two Pumpkin Saffron Cupcakes
-Package of Popcorn
-Cheese Sandwich
(then I got crazy)
-TWO JIMMY JOHN SANDWICHES
-Grape Koolaid

I don't even know what to say from here. Of course I got on the scale this morning. I was up 5 lbs. Not a surprise at all, but I still felt like crying. Why do I do this to myself? I've been working so hard. I just threw away at least a weeks worth of work. Now, my biggest issue is trying to feel motivated to KEEP GOING. I'm now back at 170lbs - and feel like a total fraud.

Time to focus on moving forward, but I'm also trying to figure out .. what went wrong?!

What do you do when you have major set backs?

What triggers your stumbles?

Seeking Professional Help : A Dietitian's Plan

Buckle in, friends ... it's gonna be a long one!

Last time I posted about my "Bad Romance" with food. Although I've been working very hard, like many of you, for the past few years, I recently decided I needed to seek out more professional help. SO...I asked my regular doctor what I should do. Enter : The Dietitian. For the sake of my horrible spelling and being way too repetitive with the word "dietitian," I'll call her by her first name, Jane.

I'm not gonna lie, I was nervous (read: super insecure) about seeing Jane. What if she thought I was hopeless? What if she was secretly judging me as lazy? WHAT IF SHE WAS PRETTY? I can't handle someone super pretty and fit telling me how to eat. How silly is that? Anyway, she comes into the office and is pretty. Very. Immediately I'm thrust back into high school survival mode of being the funny fat chick. She can see right through me.

"You don't have to feel uncomfortable. I know this has been a long battle for you, and I'm simply here to help you try some different approaches to food. I'm not here to lecture you," she says with a smile and a warm hand on my knee. And so the appointment started. I won't bore you with every word said, but I'll recap below. For any of you considering seeing a dietitian, I really recommend it. I felt so much more confident with my choices just by having a professional steer me in the right direction. Here's what we talked about ...

• What I'm Working With: a basically non-functioning metabolism. I've had test after test after test on anything and everything. My past weight loss experience goes something like this : Emily eats 1,000 cals a day and works out in a variety of methods 5x a week for at least an hour each time. Emily loses .2 lbs that week. See what I mean? Non-functioning. Past doctors and health professionals have backed me up on this one. I need to be on some kind of regulated medication to help my body function normally, or I would literally kill myself trying to lose weight.
• Past Medication: Over a year ago, I was taking a drug called Phentermine, which is basically a glorified amphetamine. I was desperate, and it's what my doctor told me to do. It helped me lose weight (about a normal 2lbs a week) and have more energy. Little did I know that it was screwing with my hormones and rendering my IUD less effective. I became pregnant as a result (well, that and sex helped too ;) and went off medication.

I explained all this to Jane, as she reviewed my files. We chatted for a long time about the stem of my eating problems, and what I thought did and did not work about my last try with Phentermine. I told her I didn't like putting that strong of a chemical into my body, I didn't like the way it messed with my emotions, but I did like what it did for my health. This time around, I want to focus on my relationship with food, not just losing weight. This is where Jane gets super excited. We chat about weighing food, protein, sugars, glycemic index, lotsofbigwordsican'tpronounce. After a long list of routes, this is officially my PLAN for the next 30 days. At that point, we'll re-group and see what is working.

• Medication: Jane and I decided to go the natural route with my medication. I'm taking a natural occurring (in the human body) hormone "booster" of sorts that helps regulate your Hypothalamus. Medical mumbo-jumbo aside, the bottom line is that it helps my body do what it should be doing already. My body processes foods more accurately (as in storing vs burning fat) and my appetite is regulated. This has been a tremendous help already. Since the purpose of this medication is to help bring my body back to center permanently after a few rounds, obviously I will stop losing weight with just this alone. Which is why the next component is so important
• Food: I am now an official FOOD WEIGHER! I never thought I would get excited about weighing out my food, but I love it. I can't stress enough how important this aspect of my life is now. I never realized how much I was simply overeating! This really warrants a blog post of it's own. At any rate, I have a prescribed amount of protein (3.5 oz) per meal, two fruit servings per day, and basically unlimited amounts of certain veggies. Jane's main goal is to help my body get rid of processed foods (goodbye cheese!), most sugars, and starchy foods.

The result? I've lost 14lbs since I started this plan. Jane informed me that the weight may come off fast for the first week or so because I'm drastically cutting my calories and levels of everything. I'm sure some of you can relate to that ... the first time you make big change to your food/exercise the weight seems to melt off! Then comes the hard part : every week after that.

It's all very technical, and I will be posting more in depth on each of these as questions from you come in. I'm very excited about this new journey I'm on! It really makes me wish I had majored in Nutrition Science in college. Our bodies work in amazing ways that I never even considered! Thanks for working through this entry with me, I know it's a bit boring ;)

Much Love,
Emily

Current Stats
Highest Weight : 310
Weight b4 Plan: 285.0
Current Weight: 271.8

*everything in this post should not substitute any doctor's advice for you. Please consult with your own medical professional before starting any plan or diet. Thank you!*

Food + Me = A Bad Romance

What a week! Seriously. Did anyone else feel like they ran a mental marathon these past five days? I sure do. With all the drama from The Article and The Responses to the absolutely amazing results of Rosey Rebecca's "Bake and Make Sale." My cupcakes alone raised over $150!! How amazing is our Fitblog community?! I'm totally blown away by everyeone's commitment to each other as well as their own path. Totally.Blown.Away.

Things are looking up this week! I'm down a considerable amount of weight, thanks to my new diet plan (I swear to GOD I'll post about it this weekend. Getting lots of questions!) and I'm feeling ... well ... like the old me. The me that thought everything was possible.
Adam (my fiance) and I were chatting about my overall history of overeating. Mid-way through our talk I said "I've never really had a great relationship with food." To which he responded .. "so, for now you have to have a non-relationship?" This got me thinking. Food and I, well, we've had a rough road. It's been quite romantical at times and deadly in others. I just keep coming back to this bad romance.

*i apologize for said Lady Gaga reference. As my friend Danielle quite eloquently put it : "That chick is the McDonald's of the music world." ha!*

It's true, isn't it? Food, Mr F, is like a passionate lover we just don't want to give up. Sure, he makes us feel uneasy, we become unhealthy, he runs our lives and makes us believe we'll never find anything better than him. But, for any of us who has lusted after, made-out with, and perhaps wrestled around the bedroom with the bad boy we know that no amount of chapped thighs and bruised self-esteem can sway us. Because when it's good, it's guuuuuuuhd.

Let me illustrate this downward-spiraling relationship:

Phase One : Falling in Love
Mr F and you are casually seeing each other. Life is grand! Sure, you might consume a bit more of him than is necessary, but you're in love dammit! He makes you feel comfortable and at ease with all imperfections in your life.

For me : This is my entire childhood. While I wasn't a heavy over eater, food made me feel good about myself. My mother died when I was 12, and I was constantly looking for something to calm me. Something to center me and put me at ease. Pasta, pizza, burgers, anything that numbed me into the ever sought after food coma. I loved food. I lurrrrved it. Totally unaware that he was tricking me into .....

Phase 2 : Sex Me Up
Mr F is now MR F. You devour his every move. You want him all the time. Anywhere. Fast. Now. NOW DAMMIT. Several times in a row. You can't stop yourself. You crave him. He's starting you kind of make you sick, a little like a crack-addict. But who the hell cares?! He is ecstasy.

For me : I have spent from ages 16-25, sexing the crap out of MR F. Drive through orders with two meals, not just one. Two foot long sub sandwiches. An entire pizza in 10 minutes. 1 pound of pasta in a sitting. I loved loved loved my delicious life. . . . right? Although I was massively in love with food, I was never in love with me.


Then there's that moment. You know the one. Where you were sick of Mr F telling you how worthless you are. How you don't deserve to be healthy; to be loved by anyone else. But you're sick of being fat, being sad, being fun. You miss the old you, or in some cases - you miss the person you know you could be.

Phase 3 : The Break-Up

It's just not worth it anymore. You deserve something better than Mr F, and you know it. It's going to be a hard road. You might be lovers again someday, but in a much different setting. You will be in control. YOU will be the one to choose.

For me: Currently in break-up mode. I look at other people's food blogs and feel a twinge in my heart. They can love Mr F and be okay. Right now, I'm in recovery mode. I need to have a "non-relationship" view of him, and analyze my true need for him in my life. Take the parts of him I like and throw away the rest ;)

This doesn't mean that Mr F and I will never be together. I depend on him too much. He's too much a part of my life. This is about forming a healthy relationship and moving forward for the future me that I so desperately want to meet.

Let's just say for now, we're in couples consoling.

Much love,

Emily

Quickie Update!

WOW – it’s October already. I can not believe it! I’m seriously trying very hard to get into a blogging “schedule” of sorts. Working a full time job and then coming home and taking care of the little one tends to zap all my brain power these days. Not to mention stealing all my time away. I’ve been meaning to blog about a handful of things, so here’s a “short list” of some updates!

1. In one year I will be married. EEEK! *insert irrational fears about fitting into a dress* I’m not one of those people that will starve themselves just to look stunning. *although I wish I could be one of those people sometimes* I just want to be 40lbs lighter… okay, maybe 50 … er … 80. FINE We’ll just round up to 100. and 40.

2. I’m craving focus. I always feel very inspired by the fall season; needing everything to be working like a well-oiled machine. I’ll suddenly wake up in the night thinking “could I make an excel chart that tracks my wasted time so I can schedule that time more efficiently?” Yes, I know how bonkers that sounds. Believe me – I’m all bark and no bite. If you saw my bedroom floor (picture MOUNDS of clothes that are clean? dirty? do they even fit?) you would see that I spend much more time planning on being organized than actually doing it.

3. Which is why I LOVE making lists.

4. I must make an effort to participate in Fitblog this week! I MUST!

5. I won my very first blog award! I’m so excited, and a little ashamed that it took me so long to find out about it. I was reading through my 150 GReader updates and came across Brittany’s blog. I love her writing – very honest and down-to-earth. I love blogs where you really feel like a REAL person is on the other end. At any rate, she was kind enough to pass along this award to me! 

1. Thank the person who gave it to you.

Thank you SO much, Brittany! You made my whole month with this award! Hopefully it will push me to keep blogging on a regular basis. I’m so thankful for the readers I have, especially you!

2. Sum up your blog philosophy in five words.

Being Honest About My Struggles 

3. Pay it forward by nominating ten more awesome bloggers.

ONLY 10?

Jessie @ http://www.bitesnpieces.com/

Jen @ http://agirlwholovescupcakes.com/

Jess @ http://www.halfofjess.com/

Maggie @ http://maggieslosingit.blogspot.com/

Kendra @ http://www.kendrathroughthelookingglass.com/

Rebecca @ http://www.roseyrebecca.com/

Em @ http://unearthingem.blogspot.com/

Kristina @ http://spabettie.com/

Camille @ http://embraceyourskin.wordpress.com/about/

How do I not know her name? @ http://mercade.wordpress.com/

6. Today I officially started my dietitian’s plan. I cooked all my meals for the week last night, which was way easier than I thought. I’m very excited and nervous to be starting this venture, and I’m praying that it pays off. Stay tuned for a full-plan disclosure soon!  Today’s lunch and dinner menu? Cajun shrimp and spinach salad, baked apples w/cinnamon, grilled lemon pepper chicken, roasted asparagus, and a strawberry breeze smoothie. Doesn’t sound too bad, eh?

Peace and Love <3

PS - I'm fiddling around with the layout of this site, too. Eventually I'll get this whole thing figured out!!