231.2lbs and the Struggle with Stress Eating

I work from home as a freelancer and, man, it's pretty great.  It's allowed me to be home with my son.  It's allowed me to create my own hours.  And it allows me to work from my living room sofa while still in my pajamas.  So, yeah, pretty lucky.  However, what freelancing does not allow is a sense of stability.  There are times when I am flush with clients, working 10 hours a day and pulling my hair out, but great money was coming in and we were actually able to (oh my god what?!!?) SAVE!!  Then there are times, like now, that clients are nowhere to be found and money is getting tight.  My husband has a great job working as a district manager of a retail company, and he actually loves what he does, and I'm super happy for him and us.  But we also live in Southern California and unless 1 spouse makes into the six figures, you won't be able to live comfortably here.  We have goals and dreams and a kid with very expensive hobbies.  This was 98% of the reason we only had 1 child.  Money is a constant struggle for us.  And we make GOOD MONEY.  It's crazy but it's the world we live in.  So I have to work and help bring in the skrilla and i'm really not bringing in the skrilla we need right now.  

And what a time to not be bringing in the skrilla.  Sheesh.  My mother in law, sweet thing, gifted us a weekend in a very nice hotel in San Francisco as a Christmas present.  It was a really sweet present and very thoughtful and lovely.  What she didnt know is that we are struggling financially at the moment so booking us a hotel in San Francisco 4 weeks after Christmas was not ideal for us.  On top of worrying about paying our bills, we had to worry about scraping together a little chunk of money to get to San Francisco, eat, show our kid around the city, etc.  We ended up having a great time and, what the heck, I even allowed a family picture or two to be taken.  WITH ME IN IT.  God bless FaceTune.

Now we are worrying about my son's birthday, coming up in early March.  He'll be 7 and wants a party with friends at a local indoor playground.  I looked up party prices and it's actually pretty doable if we keep the size of the party small.  And they will allow me to bring in outside food for a fee of $10, so I might be able to save some $$ that way.  

Anyway, oy, yes blah blah money struggles forever.  I know most people reading this can relate.  And if you can't, dang, well count yourself blessed.  I stress alot about money.  We both do, my husband and I.  My husband is the king of all stressers.  If stressing were an Olympic sport, my husband would yadda yadda yadda.  You know how it goes.  But you know what is so funny about my husband?  He stresses so much, but then sleeps like a baby at night.  Like, OUT.  Me?  If i'm stressed I don't sleep.  AT MOST 4 hours a night, if I'm lucky.  Than I wake up all groggy and feeling just BLEH and my only comfort is food.  Lots of food.  Sweets.  Bread.  Bowls of cereal.  Binge binge binge.  I don't even think about it.  There comes a point when I am just so sick of the anxiety and lack of sleep and I can see my husband is struggling too and I just simply start eating and I don't stop until I am physically ill.  

This time around, however, i've been able to keep the binge eating at bay.  Ive been eating a bit more than I should be, portion-wise.  But I am sticking to healthy, low carb foods.  No sugar.  No bread.  No bowls of cereal.  My husband and I have gone through bags of string cheese and mixed nuts and salami on our late-night TV binges.  

I jumped on the scale this morning and am down again, 231.  Super happy although I'm trying not to jump on the scale. I'm trying to just keep going and work and be with my kid and hang out with my husband and not obsess about my weight 24/7.  But then, ya know, I dont know...I think it's okay to kinda obsess with my weight and my health and what I look like.  I've spent so much of my life hiding from myself and I'm kinda done with that now.  

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda.  Hope you guys are all okay :)

232.6lbs

After I hit publish on my post yesterday, I decided to punish myself and read my posts from last year.  Oy.  Man, I came off...very angry.  And I was at that time.  Just after the holidays.  Exhausted.  Fat.  Broke. And just super super unhappy and looking to blame anyone but myself.  Thank GOD I began seeing a therapist.

Things now are going better for me.  I'm coming to terms with who I am and not letting anyone intimidate me into being or wanting something I'm not.  I'm being honest with myself.  Yes, sometimes I would love to be a hyper-social SuperMom with a ton of kids who bakes homemade zucchini chocolate brownies for playdates and shit, goes to the gym 5 times a week, and always looks amazing.  But that's not who I am and, at the end of the day, thats not what I want.  Its okay not to want those things.  Its okay not to be a people person, and not want a ton of kids, and not know how to bake for shit, and not be perfect. I am so so far from perfect it's laughable and I feel like I spend so much time trying to figure out how to get to that perfect image.  And why? It's not even what I want.  And all it's done is make me hate myself.  I am trying to be honest with myself everyday in everything that I do.  I am trying to come to terms with who I really am as a wife, and a mom, and a daughter.  I am trying to come to terms with what I really want out of life, what would REALLY make me happy.  And some of these things arent following the narrative that I had always written for myself.  So I am trying to get rid of that fucking narrative but, man, sometimes its so hard to accept.  Sometimes I fight myself on it.

Now things are going better for me because I can recognize when I am fighting myself.  And I also recognize that it is me fighting myself, not anybody else.  It's never been about anyone else and I am sorry that I spent so much time angry at other people and blaming them for all my failures.  Yes, people have hurt me and betrayed me and wronged me but in the end I hurt myself by waiting so long to come to terms with it and move on.  I'm the one that kept it all in and fed it, fed it, fed it.  

I'm still angry at those that hurt me in the past.  But I am learning, slowly learning, how to deal with it, be honest about what it is, forgive forgive forgive, and move on.  

My gosh, life is a funny funny journey.

Still Alive and at 231lbs

Yes, believe it or not, I ghosted a blog for the 2,124th time.  What's new, right?  

Okay, so here come the excuses.  Brace yourselves.  This will be slightly boring.

My last post was last March, after my son's 6th birthday party fiasco.  I had been on a roll, seeing my therapist, following the Gundry Diet and pounds were begrudgingly falling off.  Then in April, I lost a client (I work from home as virtual assistant/content writer), and then another, and before I knew it I was back mainlining Oreo cookies straight into my veins.  In May, I picked up two new clients with huge projects and was working about 40-50 hours a week.  June, school is out and I have the 50 hour a week workload but with a 6 year old kid at home now whining every 3 minutes about how bored he is.  Up went my blood pressure and my weight.  I knew I was getting to major heifer status again but dieting and blogging were the last things on my mind.  The only thing I wanted to do when I finally had any alone time was carbs and a Tylenol PM.  By early August, my son had returned to school, my workload had slowed down a bit, and I was at 251 pounds.  My husband was also very overweight and ready for a change, so we decided to just do low carb.  That's it.  No frilly stuff.  No fancy names.  No mission statements.  

We simply cut out bread, pasta, rice, and tortilla related items and things.  And sugar.  We cut out all sugar.  By November, I had lost 20 pounds (see pic on my Instagram account.  should I post it here?  No, its old.  Maybe my next transformation pic, right?)

And you know what was so funny?  I believe we started the diet on August 13th and, man, that was such a busy time for us.  My son had just started 1st grade, which is a total big deal, right?  And his soccer season had just started.  My husband's the coach, I'm the Team Mom, so that kept us super busy.  Then my husband left for a work conference for a week, which is always a super big bummer. And I was dealing with all of that you know, plus work, and keeping the house clean, keeping my kid alive and fed, remembering to shave my legs, spending time with family and friends, Halloween, my birthday, yadda yadda, and through all of that we stuck to our list of foods to eat and just...kinda did it.  It was hard and there were times where we cheated and ate things we shouldnt have, but we always just kinda wiped it clean and kept going. Before I knew it, it was November and I noticed that my clothes were fitting a bit loose and everybody kept saying how much weight I was losing and I was like, "Yeah, thanks, i've only lost 10, 13, 15, 17, etc...'  But then one day I was getting dressed and I remembered the picture I took back in August when I was at my highest weight, 251.  I wanted to see if I would be able to see the difference and OH MY GOSH what a difference. I immediately sent it to just about everybody I know.  20 pounds doesnt seem like a lot until you see a before and after and are like, Holy.  

Anyways, I was fucking pumped.  Excuse my language, but I was fucking PUMPED.  I haven't lost more than 10 pounds since before I was married.  Man, I got married and steadily GREW.  So losing 20 pounds was a HUGE deal for me.  

And then the holidays hit.  But no no no, I did really good. I did.  My first post-holiday season weigh in was on January 2nd and I was at 235.6.  

Today is January 15th and I am at 231.2 and on it.  On it. The thing is, for me, not overthinking about how to lose weight and just DOING it worked.  I am a meat and veggie lover, so therefore, the low carb diet kinda just made sense for me.  But I didnt want to over-complicate it in part, because, I didnt want to scare my husband away.  I wanted to simplify it so it was doable and we didnt have to think about it.  

For breakfast we have protein shakes, protein bars, coffee, cream, eggs, avocado, cheese, and meats.  For lunch we have simple tuna salads, egg salad, salami/cheese/veggie plates, eggs and bacon, veggie omelettes. For dinner, we grill steaks, chicken thighs, chicken sausages, salmon, mahi mahi, any meat I find on sale.  We eat sauteed/steamed veggies every night. Tons of them.  Snacks are dark chocolate and almonds, beef jerky, nuts, cheese, and the occasional pint of Halo Top (honestly though when it comes to ice cream, i'd rather just hold out until a cheat day and have the real thing).  I've kept it super simple for us and it works and its working and, my gosh, finally.  

But no no, I always say that.  OH FINALLY I FOUND THE WAY!  And then I come on here and write and write about how this is it, THIS IS IT!  And then, blam, my fish dies or something and I'm back browsing Taco Bell's menu online.  

And, really, that was why I stayed away from the blog.  I always write.  I love to write.  This blog, writing here, always brings me so much happiness even when the subject I'm writing about has given me so much pain.  But I didn't want to come on here and make another public promise to myself and my life, and have all you be the witness to it, only to ghost it again when my stupid plans don't work out.  

Anyway.  So, yes, I am here.  Doing good, but still trying.  Still a wife.  Still a mom.  Still a silly girl.  Still a heifer.  And still on instagram and MyFitnessPal so follow me there too!

And to the wonderful people that still follow this little blog, and to the new ones I see, and to Anna- thank you for reading.  Thank you for listening.  

(oh and by the way, my husband has lost 45 pounds since August.  What an asshole, right?!)