Ab-ulous

Another edition of Memory Mondays...

I remember the day I discovered my abs.  See, I stand with my hands on my hips a lot, and one day, in this typical pose, I noticed that my stomach was hard.  I immediately became concerned. 

I thought it was a tumor.  I poked around trying to see how big it was. I wondered what I should do. Did I make an appointment with my family doctor first?  In typical Jill fashion, I put it out of mind and decided to think about it later. I thought about it a lot over the next several days, but always fleetingly.

Later that week it came to me while I was in the shower.  This hardness was my ab muscles, finally worked into shape after doing 100 sit ups three days a week for countless weeks. While still hidden under a layer of flab, they were there and they were in shape!  When I realized this I was happy, and ridiculous for thinking they were a tumor.  

The Happiest Post on Earth

I am happy.  I think I have known it for awhile, but it really hit home for me at Bighouse (church youth group at which I help out) tonight.  We started our small group time by going around and saying the best part of our week.  But I couldn't identify just one good thing, because I've had a really awesome couple of weeks.  In the end, I shared two, but thought I'd share the rest here. Here are some of the assorted great things from the last two weeks (presented in a rough, chronological order):

• Abi visited!
• Ran my first 10k!
• Partied in celebration of Halloween with lots friends in crazy costumes!
• Stole lots of great Amie B. time toward the end of last week (I think I saw her three times in one week!)
• Took Zach and Julia trick or treating + exacted a tax on their candy as payment for walking the neighborhood= a satisfied Halloween candy craving and lots of fun with Cinderella and Jango Fett!
• Enjoyed two restful days off from work, caught up on my sleep and successfully fought off sickness!
• Found some perfect new jeans and corduroy pants that I love and make me feel great!
• Consumed not one, but two pieces, of the most fantastical chocolate cake with peanut butter icing ever made!
• Recruited a new lunchtime running buddy!
• Took care of business at work this week, polishing off some major projects!
• Went to a fun concert at the WU Friday night and discovered a new band!
• Welcomed my mama for a weekend visit! This was probably the number one highlight of the whole week, lots of hugs make Jill a happy girl!
• Took advantage of the downtime this weekend to do lots of reading!
• Got an extra hour of sleep last night because of the time change!
• Wound up the week with my favorite high school students, praising Jesus and being reminded that we are all objects of His affection!

To sum, up, life is good! What's been happening in your life that makes you smile or makes you want to use excessive exclamation points?  Share it with us below!

*Sorry for those of you who found my exclamation pointing excessive.

Diet Pepsi

I love Diet Pepsi.   I like it way more than I should, and I drink it way more than I should. (Diet Coke is good too and, in truth, I drink whatever is on sale, but I prefer Diet Pepsi all the way around.) I drink it so much that my dental hygienist complains about it at each visit and asks me to always drink it from a straw to minimize its effects on my teeth.

It doesn’t quite fit with the whole “new healthier Jill” thing that I’m working on.  Everyone tells me how bad it is for me (I refuse to read anything on the subject myself, as I am in denial), and I’ve heard that it makes you crave sweets more (one thing I do not need to crave more is sweets), because it’s sugary. Is it true? Does the zero cal Diet Pepsi sabotage me? I don’t know, but I feel pretty sure I would still crave sweets either way.  So, I rationalize my Diet Pepsi fix with the whole “it’s zero calories” defense and for now, that is good enough for me.  I make sure to get 8-10 glasses of water a day in addition to the Diet Pepsi, but I am not ready to abandon that security blanket yet.

I even paid tribute to it this past Halloween in costume:

Dumbbells

I once read a weight-loss book where the author recommended you put the equivalent of the amount of weight you need to lose into a book bag and carry it around for awhile. Then, when you took it off you could feel the difference and the benefit of losing those unwanted pounds.

He anticipated that I only had to lose a couple of books worth of weight, but I had so much more. I never did that little experiment, because I had no idea how I could strap the equivalent of what I needed to lose to myself.

The other day, though, I was in the weight room at the gym and just happened to be standing in front of this sucker:

This is a 90-lb dumbbell*.  This represents how much weight I've lost thus far.  I tried to pick it up and I couldn't even budge it. Losing all of this makes me think I should be light enough to fly now, but not quite.

Since I first made it to 90 pounds lost almost a month ago, I have not made much progress. Sure, one week I lose weight, but then the next week I have gained it back. Today was a weigh-day (Thursday is my official weekly weigh day), and I was right back at the 90 pound mark after gaining a few pounds last week. Honestly, I'm not too disappointed, because overall I am happy with how far I've come.  However, this is the exact same pattern I feel into this summer when it took me five months to move from the 80 pound mark to the 90 pound mark, so I don't want to let this go on too long.  I have not been great about logging my calories on sparkpeople.com lately, so I am going to try and be better about that this next week.  

*Yes, if you're wondering, I have seen dudes lift this guy and even heavier weights. They are usually grunting and then they drop it on the floor when they're done, making a huge clanging sound and leaving  as scuff mark on our lovely gym floor.

Kiwi, please

So, I got a lot of response to my fruity experiment last week. Several people suggested kiwi, including my granny, so I decided to give it a try. In all honesty, I have had kiwi once or twice before, but I've never bought it and cut it up for myself so there was still some adventure to it.   They are super sweet fruits that are brown on the outside and green with lots of tiny black seeds on the inside.

I had two of these little guys tonight for dinner.  I had two recommendations from readers on how to eat them.  Meghan suggested I cut them in half and then scoop out the delish green stuff with a spoon, thus creating a bowl out of the brown hairy shell.  I tried this with the first one. It was so easy! Some fruits take a lot of effort to get at the good stuff, but this was simple. Here are a few pictures:

Here it is, mid scoop.

Here are the cute little bowls after they've been scooped clean!

There was also a recommendation that I eat the peel from Jess, and while I thought I would likely choke when the brown hairy stuff hit my throat, I have to say it was not bad.  It actually was kind of a nice complement to the super sweetness of the inside of the kiwi.  I ate it like an apple and it was definitly easier to bite through the brown hairy skin than the shiny red skin of an apple.

I ate the whole thing like an apple.

For some reason, I didn't eat the white part at the center on this one,it just tasted funny and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to eat it.   But then later I realized I did eat the white part of the other one that I had  scooped the bowl clean on.

Okay, so other suggestions I got include: okra, collard greens, avocado, and egg plant. Stay tuned for next week to see what I try next!

In other news, I decided to switch my daily snack of one banana this week.  I've just been getting really tired of them.  So after my race on Saturday and the delicious post-race snack of orange slices, that's what I decided to eat. They've been great and perfect for fighting this slight cold I have.  Only problem is the tangerines I bought are full of seeds.  Any recommendations on a seedless citrus? 

The Other Side of the Story

From a lot of comments I've gotten from blog readers of late, I get the distinct impression that you guys think I'm good at the diet thing.  After reading through some recent blog posts, I can totally see where you get that idea.  I've been full of folksy wisdom, inspirational stories and motivational encouragements for you, but the blog is not telling the whole story.

Even though I've lost 90 pounds, right now I feel like I'm flailing around like I just started this journey.  I'm struggling through each day, arguing with myself about what to eat.  Do I eat the healthy things I've cooked and the fruits from the store or do I eat what I really want: Halloween candy and food from a restaurant?

I think part of the reason it is a struggle is because I am really happy with where I am right now, size-wise.  I'm smaller than I've been since I was 14. I fit into a lot of clothes I never thought I would, and I feel good.

You might wonder why I still need to lose weight, if I feel good about myself.  Part of it is meeting the goals that I've set, part of it is that I just know I still need to lose to be healthier. I am still overweight or obese. I've come a long way, but I still have a little ways to go. I'm not trying to be a stick figure model type, but I am trying to get to become my best self, physically.

Ten pounds should only take 5-6 weeks to lose if I'm doing it right, but I'm worried because the last 10 pounds took me five months to lose.

I think the key is balance, but that is easier to say than it is to find. I wish I could just restrict myself from eating anything that is bad for me. That would be simpler, more black and white.  Unfortunately, that would eventually make me go crazy and blow up the whole town. The compromise is that I should just eat a little of the sweet stuff, and have a majority of my food be healthy fuel for my body.   It's just hard to have a little and then make yourself stop.  It's called self control and it is the fruit of the spirit that has always mystified me.  I guess I need to start praying about that.

Writing a Book

Another edition of Memory Mondays....

Last November is when a lot of people started noticing that I was losing weight.  My coworker, Matt, said something to me about it one day.  I responded casually, "Yeah, I've lost about 40 pounds."

He was appropriately astonished and impressed, so I followed it up with, "Yeah, but I want to lose 100 pounds." His response: "You lose a hundred pounds -- you should write a book."

It was said with a bit of skepticism and a bit of "that'd be really impressive," so I took it as a challenge.  I thought, "We'll just wait and see." Now it's almost 60 pounds later, and I know I'm going to do it.  I'm so close, I can almost mark the date on a calendar when I will achieve this life goal of mine.

I'm not going to write a book.  There's really nothing revolutionary about what I've done.  As author and runner John Bingham said (and I'm paraphrasing), "The book I write on weight loss could be summed up in the title 'Eat Less, Move More.'"

The revolutionary part comes through the perseverance. Sticking with it for 16 months through good days and bad days, stressful times, sickness, holidays, birthdays and summer seems almost unbelievable.  I didn't do it all on my own strength, but with the support and love of my friends, family and God.

If you're wanting to lose weight, you can do it. I know you can, because I did and I'm almost sure you don't have as much to lose as I did.  It's just the perseverance that is the tricky part.  It's hard to stick with it when you're fighting cravings or the scale or busyness or emotions or lazyness.  You just need to figure out where your difficulties lie, come up with a plan, and tell a friend or two to help you stick with it.  Don't wait to start.  Don't think about the fact that Thanksgiving is coming up and then Christmas and use that as an excuse. Throw out (or give away) the unhealthy foods from your pantry now, if you want to change. If you get thrown off track, don't let that keep you down.  Be like a buoy, always bobbing to the surface.