On Feeling Fat:

I spent the entire weekend feeling fat.

When I came home on Friday night from a little get together with other local bloggers there were clothes in every direction. On my floor. On my bed. In my closet. Why you ask?

I felt fat. And it continued into the whole entire weekend.

I cried on the way to the blogger event wanting to turn around the entire time because I just felt fat, gross and ugly. But, there were many wonderful ladies I wanted to see, support and connect with so I carried on. The entire night I felt uncomfortable, not confident and many times I wanted to keep running out the door and to my car and home to bed.

I never know how to handle these moments. Do I let myself cry? Do I tell myself to get over it and move on? It doesn’t help that all my friends are incredibly gorgeous fit and wonderful.

I don’t even want to post this now because it seems so stupid to be upset over something like this, but it is real. And beyond it being real, it happens to women all the time. So here you have it.

My entire weekend could be summarized into to one word:

FAT.

Stress, It’s What’s for Dinner

I often find that the second I wake up in the morning, my body is shutting down before I can even put my feet on the ground and make any kind of attempt to start the day. I find myself stressed with work, my health, finances, relationships – LIFE. And since I can never pinpoint what the true problem is, I always let the stress fall onto work. Reports, terminations, birthdays, lunches, coffee dates, presentations – the list goes on. I think the problem I have been having is that since March I was doing the double-duty job. I had moved into a new role, but since my old job hadn’t been back-filled yet,  so I was struggling to not suck at both jobs. I was excited to learn my new role and wanted to only think about that and then my old job was suffering because of my new job but I wasn’t 100% in the new job so that was suffering, too. And it was in a word: A MESS. So, THEN, my co-hort in my new job goes out on maternity leave (precious baby, by the way.) and then my old boss was finally like, “Okay, I can let you go.” But my stress level is still high because my workload is huge because I am still doing two jobs.

So, where do we turn to in times of stress?

Is it this? Even though this food looks wonderful and tasty. I love fruits and veggies!

But I tend to lean towards…

I cannot get enough SWEETS when I am stressed.

I haven’t figured out how to get through stressful pinches in my life sans sweets.

• What do you do to survive stressful points in your life?
• What food do you gravitate towards when you’re stressed?

I’ve also never learned how to really address the stresses in my life.

• How do you get through stress?
• What happens if it gets to be TOO MUCH?

I’m really interested in your thoughts as stress is often directly associated with our personal health.

Marvelous Monday: What Are You Doing For Yourself This Week?

I’ve decided to start something called Marvelous Monday. I refuse to let myself get off on the wrong foot for the week. So, each Monday I am going to start my week off right and blog about something…you guessed it, marvelous! It might be something from over the weekend, the previous week or something coming up that I am excited about. But, no negative Mondays for me!

Being healthy is about more than losing the weight and exercising. I know I have said this before and my weekend is proof. I was blessed to spend most of my weekend with Kate from Girl Meets Geek. She is an amazing woman and friend and it felt so good to just hang out and be ourselves. It felt good to not filter what I was thinking, to laugh, joke and feel like I was 16 again. We got ready together at the hotel for #80sPromTweetCrawl at Brunswick Bowl in Eden Prairie. Oh, it was so much fun! My outfit was definitely complete with crimped hair, blue eyeshadow, a feather boa (Thanks Alexa) and hot pink leg warmers.

Now, obviously, we don’t just dress up like that because we think it is fashionable. Kate is a survivor of Cervical Cancer and she truly relied on the support of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition during that time. And, being the amazing woman that she is, Kate is the founder of the Minnesota Chapter. So, the 80′s Prom was to raise money for the NCCC. It was truly a fun night and lots of great companies in the twin cities donated prizes; over 600 dollars in prizes! It was fabulous.

What was the highlight of my night? Obviously it was:

It was truly a great evening and quite frankly, the fun didn’t stop with Friday night!

On Saturday, Kate and I went to Ikea for lunch. I ate the buffalo chicken wrap and some carrots and I may have eaten some of Kate’s chocolate cake, but you’ll never know because there is no photographic evidence.

Yeah, I had pretty much eaten the whole thing before I remembered to take a picture. Sorry! But you CAN enjoy my wonderful carrots.

After lunch, we wandered around Ikea for a while. There were some questionable items. For example, I think i have found the print for the next dress I would like to own.

But REALLY, what IS this? I don’t think I’d even put this in a child’s room.

We tried out some furniture, looks around some more and then headed off to ARC in Richfield and then a lovely little consignment shop. I almost bought this shirt, but Kate talked me out of it. I really think I was the one who lost out though.

So, this is proof of a much needed weekend of a lot of girl-fun. Part of being health is about who you are surrounding yourself with. Are you taking time for yourself to do something fun? Being healthy isn’t ALL about what we are eating, how much we are exercising – it is so much beyond that.

What are you going to do for yourself this week?

Self-Image

So my dad said the magic words tonight, “Want to have Chipotle for dinner?” Mexican food and chocolate are my trigger foods. If I even THINK the word chocolate or tacos, my life is pretty much downhill from there.  I struggle with trigger foods because I know I should not eat them, but they are SO GOOD. Hope did a great vlog the other day about deprivation. I did the deprivation thing once. It actually works fantastically until one day I said, “Well, one piece of chocolate won’t hurt.” And now here I am where I just think the word chocolate and I’m like a gremlin, you guys. It’s terrible. So, don’t do it. It just turns whatever you give up into your trigger foods.

This week has been good from an exercise front. I met my favorite ladies, Mary, Jen, Alexa and Meghan to walk on Monday around Lake Calhoun. Now, let me say something about these women. They are in one word: amazing. I’ve only known them for maybe a month or so and the connect I feel like I have is completely irreplaceable. Maybe it’s because they get the healthy journey and the ups and downs and how much it can suck. Maybe it’s because they push me to continue and stay on my path. And quite frankly, maybe it’s just because they are AWESOME. I feel like I have my own Ya-Ya Sisterhood. So, I full embrace how incredibly corny this paragraph was. But, I digress. I’m not deleting it.

So, some days, I have great make-up application days. Some days I have great outfit days, hair days and the list goes on. Well, today, I had amazing bang day . It was like, “Damn, Gina.” Only, my name is Cindy, and I know that. In any case, this was really quite exciting given the circumstances that most days I have a hard time looking in the mirror and saying, “You are beautiful. I don’t know what it is. Deep down I know I don’t believe that, but for the most  part I really kind of do. I grew up with this sick understanding of what “beautiful” means. I grew up in schools where what was on the outside was more than likely more important than what was going on inside.  And let me tell you, I have not always been a woman of great substance so I spent my days ogling over what was not right in the mirror. I’ve gotten to a point where I can be “okay” with my own reflection, but sometimes, I still feel like I am sixteen when it comes to my body image issues. Most days I feel good about where I’ve landed at this point in my journey, but man. There are days that before I even make out the door in the morning, every single piece of clothing is on my floor and I have shed many tears and all I want to do is go to bed. And you know what? In most social situations, I compare myself to women based on my body proportion size.

Wow. I think I just threw up on this page. I think this is where I end for now. It feels good to write these things down sometimes.

There Are No Words:

\

And now a few words:

one mile

►

For the record: I was not driving. I was parked right outside my house. Thank you.

A Full Confession: It Took Me 26 Years to Realize I am Awesome

One part of being healthy is being healthy of mind. I know that sounds incredibly corny, but think about it. There are lots of people around the world who are fit, in shape, or however you want to look at it, but are not healthy of mind.  The statistics speak for themselves:

• Eating Disorders affect up to 24 million Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide.
• At least 50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of an eating disorder.

Being on the get-healthy journey has been great for me because I’ve been able to set goals for myself, have a place to outlet my frustrations and also have a place to celebrate my successes. Now, this isn’t meant to be a post regarding eating disorders. It’s just to get you and even myself thinking. Our minds, and what we see of ourselves in the mirror is not always the true reflection of what is going on inside your head, or your heart.

Allow me to reverse a few years back. I started at my current company straight out of college on a temporary basis and then was hired on full time. While I loved the company I worked for, I was just another drop in the bag as far as they are concerned. I didn’t have any value-add from their perspective, so I came to work everyday, did what I needed to do and went home.

In late, 2009, I was asked to be part of their Inclusion journey. So, what is Inclusion?

A sense of belonging. A feeling of being respected, valued and seen for who we are as individuals; there is a level of supportive energy and commitment from leaders, colleagues and others so that we — individually and collectively — can do our best work. – As defined by the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group

Seems simple enough, right? Well, a group across the organization – 28 of us, went through this Inclusion Journey. We talked about the “tough stuff” that has happened within the organization. No company is perfect, right? So, we had three, three-day sessions of training. Or, 9 days, plus life as we liked to call it. The beauty of it was that this training made me look inwardly to think about what I could do within my current work groups to begin to be the change I wanted to see happen. (Have you seen the connection yet?) So I walk into this training, thinking I have literally NOTHING of value to add, why was I chosen to do this, etc. Turns out those who were chose to be included in this journey are those who are seen as change agents, leaders in the organization and so forth. So now I’m at this training going, “Say what?”

Now, fast forward. I have now completed my nine days of training and I had the opportunity to present on my journey with two others at the Global HR Staff Meeting. This was an excellent opportunity for two reasons:

• This journey was important to me and I wanted to be able to share my learnings.
• I hate speaking in groups of people, so why not the GLOBAL staff meeting?

So, the night before, I am in bed, cold sweats and all thinking about this. I’d had a conversation with the SVP of HR that day and I knew I had his support, but holy bananas was I ever scared! So, the next day, my three coworkers who were all involved in this training, two of us in person, one person on the phone gave this presentation. We arrived to the part of the presentation of “Inclusion is important to me because…”

And when it was my turn, I said, “When I started on this journey, I truly believed I did not bring any value to the organization. And now, I realize the importance of Inclusion, because it made me realize that, actually, I’m pretty awesome.” and I paused, and the room filled with applause. I did everything I could to hold back my tears at that point and continued on through the end of the presentation. And I felt good. Still, this week, two weeks later, as I am running into people, I am having conversations with folks who were blown away at my ability to speak in front of people and be open, honest and touch people’s hearts. It was brought to my attention that my story pulled at heart strings and caused tears.

So here’s the deal. Being healthy: Outwards appearance, obviously important. We need to be healthy and in shape because we want to live long, full lives and not cut ourselves short. But also important: being healthy of mind. Don’t sell yourself short because I almost did.

Thanks to The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness for the statistics on eating disorders.

Healthy Hair = Happy Hair

Well, yesterday I did fantastically with tracking my food! I was so excited. Yeah, I know, only one day. I am usually pretty diligent about tracking…when I want to track.

I started my day off with a wonderful bowl of Raisin Bran CRUNCH with skim milk. Not the best of breakfasts, but better than nothing. And yes, I am very well aware of how un-sustainable I am by using paper bowls. So, save the lecture.

My picture-taking usually goes downhill after breakfast, so that is all I got. I tend to get very wrapped up in my work, so there isn’t much to talk about after that.

I have a fun story, then onto my hair. Tonight at dinner, my dad (yes, I still live at home. What of it?) made BLTs, french fries and a fresh fruit salad. When I sat down to eat, I said, “I won’t have any fries.” Then of course as the meal goes on and I am eating my fruit, the fries just look SO MUCH MORE APPEALING. In any case, I turned to my dad and said, “Pass me the fries, please.” He grabbed the bowl, then looked at me and he said, “You know what? No. Have more fruit.” I think I was almost stunned, but was thankful all the same. Because honestly, I LOVE fruit. So it was a win-win.

Onto my hair. So, I’ve been battling with what to do with my hair for a while. I have always had shoulder length or shorter hair, but am growing it out for upcoming weddings. I am so nice, I know. I have had my hair foiled, dyed and fried and when I finally got it back to my original color, I was done. WELL. A little devil sitting on my shoulder (my brain, so I guess sitting in my head) told me I must add some UMPH to my hair. So.

Waiting while my stylist mixed colors.

Waiting while the color set.

And VOILA.

I know it doesn’t look much different, but my hair was just blah blah brown, and now it’s blah blah brown with some UMPH. Also, no I was not driving in the last photo. My keys were not even in the ignition. #JustSayin.

Also, today, I am SO PROUD of Jen for accepting and beating down her challenge from Tony. Did you do your 60 minutes of working out, too? I did strength training for 30 minutes this morning and then walked for 30 minutes this evening. It really feels good to split it up that way, too. I must say.

Well, my beautiful readers, that is all I have today. Time to drink some water and get some shut eye!

Controlling Emotions

I really think this photo kind of puts today in perspective, minus my eating habits. Which, is actually pretty impressive. I felt like I was riding a roller coaster today from an emotional point of view. The day started off fine (minus having to wake up early after a long weekend) and at some point during the day, I just got frustrated and aggravated with life. This somewhat worked to my benefit when I was working out this evening. I was focused and felt fantastic after I left the gym. A lot of times I just feel defeated when I know I should do three more reps of any lift – leg, arm, you name it and my body just physically can’t do it. Tonight I was working on my legs and I loved walking around the gym with my jelloid legs. It feels funny, but I also know it is a good feeling because I gave my legs a fantastic workout.

The eating did not go so hot today. I didn’t eat a thing until lunch and at that point I was absolutely starving. I NEED to start eating breakfast or this is all going to explode quickly right in front of me.

I am hoping for a better day tomorrow. This was just a very bad day emotionally and yikes – let’s not do that again.