21 Days Until...

Awesome, I hope. Like, REALLY FREAKIN AWESOME.

SO. Officially dieting again (starting tomorrow, per usual), but this time, guys, I MEAN it.  Although I did pretty stinking great this last week, going down from 159.4 last Monday to 155.4 today, so shut your mouth, I'm totally awesome already. That's enough out of you.

So let's bright side/dark side where I am today:

Bright Side: 

1) Very glad to see that the sudden increase in weight (::COUGH:: on and off over the last few weeks ::COUGH::) dipped back down after a solid week of running and avoiding after dinner snacking. That was a pleasant discovery.

2) I did my pre-diet grocery shopping trip tonight. It was at least 75% fresh produce. I felt like a dieting super star.

Me.
Also, if you don't know this image, you're too young to read this blog. Go away and like, hit puberty.

3) Although I haven't started the diet yet, it seems like it may have been created by an evil genius. But more on that later.

Dark Side:

1) I took my "starting" measurements today. And let me tell you. Not good, my friends. Really not good. Worst I've seen in over a year, I believe, and that was just because I was losing baby weight.

2) I took my "before" pictures today. And let me tell you. Not good, my friends. Really not ...I feel like I've been here before.

3) I decided to post those pictures here on my blog. So here you go children. This is what Fat Ash (sorry about that. I promised and everything) has become. Again.

So there I am. There is me. Hello Bellybutton! I see you! If I look happy at all it's because I have decided to DO something about it, and doing something is always happier than not doing something.

Now it's time to talk about the Something. I'm not going to advertise it a bunch, mostly because I can't figure out how to make someone pay me to advertise it, but I'm doing the 21 Day Fix through Beachbody. The gist is, 21 days of exercise (30 minutes a pop, I think even I can survive it) mixed with Shakeology, and a pretty basic portion-control based diet. Of course, there are a good amount of things that are on the "no no" list, but they try to keep it broad, try to keep your diet balanced (which I LOVE, no gorging yourself on roast beef, denying all fruits, and calling it a diet), and try to make it simple. You're using small colored tupperware containers to measure out the "size" of your servings, instead of pulling out a food scale or guessing calories. 

And this is why I think it might be genius: They say it takes 21 days to build a habit. So for 21 days, you exercise. And for 21 days, you're not forced to eat something prepared by someone else, you're trained to get in the habit of feeding yourself appropriately. THIS is what an appropriate amount of rice is for me. THIS is how many vegetables I should be eating every day. So although it's sold as a kind of quick fix solution, like, "see what you can change in 21 short days", the true goal is much more insidious. They're trying to get inside your head. They're trying to change you're freaking life. 

I don't know, man. This could be dangerous. I'll keep you posted. 

Stress- with a side of onion rings

Today, I am not running. I am getting ready for work, I am taking care of the kids, and I am drinking a cup of coffee for the first time in a few days, and it's okay, I gotta admit. But also? I kinda wish I'd gotten up early enough to run today. One week into New Life, and it already feels wrong to take a rest day. THAT IS AMAZING.

So if it's so easy to enjoy running and other such good behaviors, how come I've breached back into the "overweight" category, huh? HUH?? That, Lovelies, is a fair question.

Lately, I've had The Stress. From various places in life and work, since around April, The Stress has been cranked up to 11. I felt like I was in college again (not as good as it sounds), with my poor sleeping, racing heart, and constant sense of foreboding. It blows, honestly. So I decided, on purpose, to let this one go. I decided that I don't have "healthy lifestyle" in me right now. I'm too busy, I'm too preoccupied, I've let anxiety gain a foothold in me, and I don't need to add to my problems by getting all obsessed with the size of my flabby belly.  ... right?

No. Obviously no. Because ignoring health, using food to suppress stress (old habits die hard), and pretending I can just hold on to the weight I was at (notice the past tense), well, these things are lies and they are NOT FREAKING HELPING. I spent 3 months feeling stressed and eating junk and not getting, in any way, better. At all. Just not.

But guess what? HOPE AND CHANGE, that's what.

Now, these feet are going places.

Now, this face is drenched in sweat.

And now, this human is starting to heal.  Because here's the truth of the matter: Waiting till life gets less stressful is a darn dirty LIE. That's not how life works. Life doesn't just "get easier", you have to get better at life. Ooh, I like that one, let's say it again:

Life doesn't get easier, you have to get better at life!

That's right kids, I just Tony Robbins-ed all over your faces. Deal with it.  

Happy Thursday, Friends. Tomorrow, we shall run again. And then Saturday, we shall run again again. Because 'Murica. Because, suck it, England. This is what Freedom tastes like.

Oh wait, real quick. I just saw something on a show called My 600-Pound Life. A guy, shocked, innocent, and full of drama, tells the camera "Almost everything I eat is bad for me.  .... I had no idea." 

Really? Because you weigh over 790 pounds... and I feel like maybe there were signs. :-P

No judgement, obviously, I have zero legs to stand on here, but come now, Friend, let's try a bit of honesty.

The return of Fat Ashley

So here's a funny thing.

It's the end of June and I have reached a new milestone: my heaviest official weight (excepting for pregnancy and the first couple months AFTER pregnancy) in 4 and a half years.

Wooooooo!!!!!!...plbpt.

It seems I've surrounded myself with beautiful, kindhearted, liar-faced-liars who swear on the lives of their children that "oh you look amazing, I would NEVER have guessed that you've been putting on weight!" while in their heads I'm quite certain they're thinking something more along the lines of

Liar-faced-liars try real hard to be nice, and that's sweet and all, but a few things in my life have chosen a more direct, objective approach. Things like:

1) My Wedding Ring. The symbol of my eternal love and commitment has been rethinking its commitment to my left hand. Or, I suppose, it's deciding whether it wants to avoid joining the hand completely, or fuse itself to myself forever and ever Amen.

2) My Pants. This morning, I was afraid of all of my pants. To be fair, I'm pretty sure they were equally afraid of me.  My pants were purchased for a skinnier person, and they glared judgingly at me from my closet. "NO FAT ASHLEYS ALLOWED", they proclaimed. But you know what? I don't like being told what to do, so I shoved my oversized backside into those jeans anyway. I squiggled and squirmed and gasped and twisted and tried hard not to think about This Recent Incident wherein a woman was hospitalized for wearing overly tight pants. Take that, judgy pants. You are ON me now. HA.

3) Wait what was this list about again? Oh yeah. Things telling me that I am fat.

4) Lastly I think, The Scale. Now, I know that The Scale is a deep fried jerk covered in jerk sauce, and that he's on a constant mission to destroy my mood, but... sometimes he makes some points. Today's point, for example was 159.4.  And it made me sad. THANKS A LOT SCALE. YOU WIN AGAIN.

But hey, forget all that. It doesn't matter, because guess what? Guess what? It's that, YOU'RE WELCOME, THE INTERNET.

You see, Skinny Ashley thought that blogging was a time-luxury she could no longer afford. Skinny Ashley spurned your love and affection because her jeans fit her just fine, and everyone knows that people who can fit into their own jeans are SELFISH BRAIN DEAD JERKS. But Fat Ashley, well, Fat Ashley has all of the muffin tops. And now, oh, Fat Ashley needs you so hard, Internet. Fat Ashley can't live another day without you. Fat Ashley is so sorry she went away and is begging, pleading, for your mercy and forgiveness.

Also, Fat Ashley thinks you're looking very nice these days, by the way. And... she wonders if you did something different with your hair?

Asking for a friend: how many times can a person call herself Fat before she hurts her own feelings? Let's call it an even 37 and move right along.

So there we are. There I am. Fat Ashley is back with her too high BMI score and her too tight pants and her too desperate need for approval. Hope you still like me, Internet. Please, please still like me.

The End.

...

Real quick, I expect a few people out there to respect the fact that I've only ever used the name Fat Ashley in those post, and never once, NEVER ONCE called myself a Fat Ash. Because that would not be classy, and classy is the name of the game here, folks. Classy.

Failed it! Next?

Hey guys, hey guys, remember that time where it was almost the end of December and I was like, "Hey, I'm totally going to start my diet a little BEFORE the new year and lose some weight so my 'starting weight' for the year is lower!" Do you remember that? Do ya do ya??

Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH no.

Guess I ended up making different life choices, because New Year's Day started with another 155 weigh in, and the day after New Year's Day was even a teensy bit higher.  But IT IS ALL OKAY because it's time for me to lose like 30 pounds again and heck, you gotta start somewhere.

Even though it's a new year, I've decided to do an old thing. Last February I spent a month being super committed to the Pinterest-discovered Guns Buns and Abs work out challenge. In that month I lost 6 pounds and multiple inches from all the places where I would like to lose multiple inches, so I have decided to do said challenge again.

It hurts, my friends. It hurts so, so mucho.

I’m on day 2 of the challenge, so 5 pushups, 55 squats, and 30 leg lifts. And I’m still adding in the crunches (starting at 50 a day) because of how flabby my belly looks in the mirror. Dang uncouth, no manners mirrors. Jerks, all of them, I assure you.

Along with this, I’ve had some bonus cardioone Start The Year Off Right run of about 7.4 miles, at a breakneck speed of 4.6 miles an hour which makes it technically… a brisk walk? A leisurely stroll? An annoying nap? Ah, forget you, Haters. Leave Fatty alone, SHE’S TRYING HERE.

This was the before picture.
There is no after picture, because about 1/4 mile from my house, both myself and my phone dropped down dead.

So that’s where I am now. Stomach muscles screaming in pain, with no weight loss yet to speak of.

But on the bright side, I'm so hungry I could eat my own shoe.

"EVERY time I try to get out..."

No, that's a lie. Nobody pulled me back in. But I missed you, Internet. I missed you so hard it hurt a little bit, and I gotta say, I did not care for it.

So I started thinking: new year, new commitment to talking about things on the internet. Seems like an easier resolution than say, losing 30 pounds, so why the heck not.

For a blog that dealt so significantly with weight loss, it's probably the assumption of most readers that, when I stopped blogging, I started eating. But that's absolutely, totally and completely not true. I waited an additional three months to start eating, thank you very much.

After August and my last post here, I lost a few more pounds to hit a 2014 low of 144.2. I maintained an average weight of 145-148 throughout the fall, usually by exercising once or twice a week, dieting one or two days a week, and besides that, enjoying the fall and enjoying the holidays. It was glorious. It was terrifyingly busy. 

And then it was Christmas and somehow this morning I weighed 155.

But that's okay, because at some point this past year, if you don't count the last week or so, I lost about 32 pounds in 2014. And yeah sure, shut up, I gained 10 of that back (wow, that hurts my feelings to say), but what the heck would I even DO with my life if I didn't have 20 or 30 pounds to lose at any given moment?!?

I don't know.

My job.

Raise the kids.

Be a better human.

Blah blah blah.

Forget about all those crazy hypotheticals, because dang it, January is PRACTICALLY HERE, and it's time to lose 20 or 30 pounds again!!

Woohoo! Time to refocus my life on the things that really matter, like, for example, whether or not I have a muffin top. And world peace. Probably.

So today, 155.0. I did 100 jumping jacks this morning and very nearly died, and I’m back on the Slim Fast because I’m hoping my January 1 starting weight will be closer to 150 than 160, because at the rate I’ve been gaining this past week, there’s a fair chance I could see 170 before that ball drops.

And then I would have to cry, and no one wants to see that.

So anyway, happy fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, winter, Christmas, and last couple days of 2014, folks. Hope you’ve had a great year, but if not, no worries. In 3 days, we all get hover boards.

Well that was a really dumb goal.

Jumped out of the shower today and started digging through my closet for some clean clothes to wear to work. Meaning of course, t-shirts and yoga pants need not apply. Found a shirt I haven't touched in forever, and low and behold, it fit. Woot! Bully for me! But I just couldn't for the life of me find a clean pair of jeans smaller than 14s but bigger than 4s. Harrumph. And that's when my eyes wandered up to the jeans I've had hanging over the bedroom mirror all week.

You remember those:

Should I? 

Just to try?

Well, this is probably going to make me cry, but whatever. I'm desperate. 

And it turns out that this:

So that was a really stupid goal. I mean, I'm 4 days into this new 30 day challenge, and doing well. But not that well. Not smaller jeans well. But there are two important factors at hand.

1) These jeans are stretchy. Like, almost one-size-fits-all kind of stretchy. I assume these jeans were built specifically to be Happy Good Mood Day Jeans. 

And

2) I'm afraid of my clothes and the feelings they make me have. I've got a good sized section of my own closet labeled "Don't Touch It, It'll Make You Cry". I have actually been afraid to try on clothes before, only to find that by the time I did, they were a little on the big side.

Needless to say, when I made these my goal, I had no real idea whether or not these pants would fit. All I knew was that last time I wore them, I was 5-10 pounds lighter than I am now. Which I assume means I'm getting super extra toned and sexy. You should see how hard I'm flexing right now. IT'S AMAZING. 

So although I'm glad I have clean pants on today, (dear heavens I hope I'm not compromising the structural integrity of these pants), this doesn't change anything. I still look pretty much exactly like I did in the last post, and I still have 26 more days of lunges and planks and crunches and tears and blood to go.

And I guess maybe I've learned it's time to  clean out my closet, try things on, and stop guessing what portion of my wardrobe is still "goal", and what portion is "work appropriate for today".

 No matter how much it's going to make me cry. 

Day 1 Again!!!! WOOOOOooooo... Boo.

I've been sitting around watching my husband lose 6 pounds off his already stupid stupid slim physique, while I sabatoged my own sad little attempts at weight loss by gorging myself on ice cream. (I earned it. Don't ask me how. I'm sure, SURE that I earned it.)

So today is, once again, Day One. I took some pictures for accountability sake. Or motivation sake. Or something sake.

Yikes. 

Yikes. 

Double yikes. Yikes.

OH. And I also took a picture of one of my bigger motivators right now. Something straight out of my memories:

The size 4 Express jeans I got in the fall of 2012, 6 months after Kid 2 was born and I had gotten 

down to 136 pounds. Dang I was good back then. 

The thing is that I'm getting really tired of remembering the good. I'm sick of fantasizing back on how good I felt, how comfortable I once was in my own skin. I want to stop remembering it and to start LIVING it again. I WANNA WEAR MY SUPER HOT BRAND NAME JEANS AGAIN, dang it!

So to go along with my diet and fit-it-in-when-I-can cardio, I thought I'd also do this:

I like the challenge thing because, well, last time I tried it, I did it, and then I was skinnier. And that's all I'm really looking for right now. Some kind of results, instead of none results.

So there you have it, there's my plan for late- August/ early-September.  Here's hoping for a fan-frick-TASTIC month and a super duper skinny fall, because, my friends, there will be pie. Oh yes, there WILL be pie.