Great iTunes Giveaway!

Hi all :) Lindsay over at Healthy Stride is hosting a great giveaway for an iTunes gift card. Check it out! :)

Her blog is really great. She's been wildly successful with weight loss and is now training to run a half marathon. Her story is awe inspiring. Check her out!

Confession

It's confession time here at PPP. There's something that I need to put out to the universe, it's not a big huge juicy secret, just something that has been bugging me. April was my 10 year college reunion. I attended the most wonderful college in the world. It's a small women's institution where I met some of the most wonderful people. Attending was the best decision I ever made, I think I grew more in those 4 years than I ever could have imagined. When I started I was a scared, completely introverted girl with little to no self esteem. I graduated a much stronger woman thanks to my friends and professors.

The reunion was something I'd been looking forward to for a really long time. I longed to see the girls from school and catch up. There were only around 65 people in my graduating class, so we were all very close and I couldn't wait to get together. There was so much planned, two parties, a class meeting, lots of gab time. I was even going to get to see a friend from high school that also went to the same college. She moved to Alaska and I hadn't seen her since college graduation.

Here's the thing. I didn't go. There were lots of reasons in my head for not attending. We were busy, I didn't want to be away from the kids, the housework needed to be done, etc, etc, etc. The real reason? Shame. My weight ballooned since college and I didn't want to face anyone. College was the one time that I actually lost quite a bit of weight. Well, since then I found it all, plus some.

Most of that weekend I moped around because I wasn't at the reunion and I'm still really upset that I didn't go. Nobody would have cared what I looked like, it would have been a wonderful weekend.

There's a lesson in all of this, it's that I can't wait until I'm at my "goal weight" (whatever THAT is) before I start living. So, it's out there now and I feel better for sharing it.

It's ok.

Thanks for your kind words on my last post. I was really feeling down and your comments meant the world to me. Posting such a downer post is really conflicting for me. On one hand, I want to use this blog to explore my weight and food issues, to get to the bottom of this problem once and for all. On the other hand, I don't want to post things that make you all roll your eyes and think, "here she goes again."

Part of what brings on days like yesterday is that I start to look ahead at where I want to be. I want to be eating whole foods, exercising daily, running 3 miles at a time, thinner, healthier. I want to not have to obsess over food choices and be able to enjoy social gatherings without wondering if I'm going to blow it. Perfection, that's what I want. The thing is, I'll never *be* perfect, except in my imperfection.

Trying to be perfect is part of my cycle of dieting. So many times I've started new plans, and boy were they ever strict. No carbs, low fat, only this food, only that food. These plans were horrid and inflexible and not at all in tune with my daily life. When life would go haywire and I'd go "off plan." Then, if I was already off plan, I'd think that I'd blown it, so I'd convince myself that I could eat what ever I wanted, which would lead to making it impossible to get back ON plan. Then I'd gain all the weight I lost back, usually plus some, and be more miserable than I was in the first place. Miserable because I had not been perfect.

Part of this journey for me is learning that it's ok to be imperfect. Flexibility and making sure that nothing is "off limits" is helping me to avoid the feeling that I've "blown" it. If I don't HAVE to be perfect, making a less than wise food choice doesn't mean that I've failed or that I'm doomed. All it means is that I have to make up for those poor choices with better choices. I can do that.

What I want remains the same, but I realize that my choices and my habits are going to have to slowly change. It's a process, a long one, but that's ok. Here are some other things that are ok:

-It's ok that I eat frozen meals for lunch some times. These are better choices than a burger and fries.

-It's ok that I don't burn 1000 calories a day exercising. It's not all or nothing.

-It's ok that I eat processed foods in general. I can work toward incorporating more whole foods slowly, so that it's a welcomed change for myself and my family.

-It's ok that I still have to shop in the "wide" section (this is a joke in my family, as I really used to think that the "W" meant wide instead of woman). I'll make it to the other side of the store again one day.

-It's ok that I drink more than just water. I'm working toward upping the water and decreasing the diet cokes.

-It's ok that sometimes I have artificial sweetener (splenda). I eat MUCH less of it now than I used to, and I'll slowly be able to eliminate it.

Here are some things that are NOT ok:

-It's NOT ok to put myself last all the time.

-It's NOT ok to fail to exercise at all.

-It's NOT ok to beat myself up.

-It's NOT ok "speak" nasty things to myself, I certainly wouldn't say horrible things to other people.

Thanks again, blog buddies!

Random thoughts.

Hi bloggie buddies! Just checking in. I don't feel like I have a lot to say today, mostly because the weight loss journey is getting me down. There are some wonderfully inspirational stories of people who have successfully fought obesity and won. I really do want to be one of those people who wins the fight, but, sometimes it feels so hopeless. The loss is so slow. I hate the way my body looks and feels. I was success. Looking at other blogs of people who are seeing or saw fast weight loss makes me jealous, and that's a horrid way to feel.

At the same time, if I'm honest, I'm not putting in the effort that the fast losers are putting in. I have to find the motivation to exercise. I have to MAKE the time to exercise. All weekend I kept saying that I was going to go for a run, but I also had work that needed to be done and I felt guilty that my kids didn't get quality mommy time. All the pulling from other directions meant I didn't pull back for any time for myself. No excuses, I should have. Tomorrow's weigh-in won't be pretty.

Giveaway winner!!

***DRUMROLL***

This is so exciting! My first giveaway winner! My official selection committee (which was my 5 year old who pulled a name from a hat) has informed me that the winner is:

TIFF from Project 365!! Congrats, Tiff! Email me at Clee0805@gmail.com with your address and I'll mail you the book!

For those of you that didn't win this time, no worries! I have more giveaways planned in the future!

Congrats, again, Tiff!

Giveaway reminder, making a 'Bucks run, and is it too good to be true?

Good morning bloggie buddies! Just wanted to remind you all that the giveaway ends tomorrow at midnight! If you don't mind, please post about it on your blog, I'd appreciate it and it gets you an additional entry for the book. This giveaway idea is fun. I'm trying to come up with more fun ideas for giveaways, any suggestions?

Also, I have to report a minor victory. This morning I woke up completely famished. It being the end of the week, our grocery stock pile is low. We literally had no bread or english muffins, I was out of clif bars, and I had no time to scramble an egg (not to mention the fact that I hate eggs). So, I decided I'd stop for breakfast on my way to work, I needed coffee anyway. Remembering that I had a Starbuck's giftcard, I decided to make a run for the 'Bucks. In the olden days (ha!) I'd have ordered a latte and a scone, which would have totalled in over 600 cals, if the latte was skinny. That's what I REALLY wanted this morning. Instead, I ordered oatmeal and a skinny iced coffee, which totalled at 329. Still much more than I budget for breakfast, usually, but not bad! Yay!!!

Finally, does anyone else ever eat at Genghis Grill? Here in the armpit of Florida, we just got a Genghis. I LOVE it. Keeping in mind that it's fast stir-fry food, it's a great option. You control what and exactly how much of everything goes in your stir fry. Plus, their website has a "build your bowl" option where you can total up the number of calories in your dish. When I build my bowl, I end up getting a meal with relatively low calories for the amount you get. Which leads me to question if it's too good to be true? Does anyone else eat there? Any thoughts?

Hope all is well in bloggy world! Still no exercise for me, I'm not sure why, other than I'm just lazy.

Giveaway!!

It's my first blog giveaway :) As I mentioned before, I'm really enjoying reading "Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth. It's been very eye-opening for me as a woman who has struggled with my relationship with food all my life. Many of the things that Roth discusses in the book really hit home. So, I'm going to give away a copy of the book! Here's the product description and picture from amazon.com:



"No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all.

If you suffer about your relationship with food -- you eat too much or too little, think about what you will eat constantly or try not to think about it at all -- you can be free. Just look down at your plate. The answers are there. Don't run. Look. Because when we welcome what we most want to avoid, we contact the part of ourselves that is fresh and alive. We touch the life we truly want and evoke divinity itself.

Since adolescence, Geneen Roth has gained and lost more than a thousand pounds. She has been dangerously overweight and dangerously underweight. She has been plagued by feelings of shame and self-hatred and she has felt euphoric after losing a quick few pounds on a fad diet. Then one day, on the verge of suicide, she did something radical: She dropped the struggle, ended the war, stopped trying to fix, deprive and shame herself. She began trusting her body and questioning her beliefs.

It worked. And losing weight was only the beginning.

She wrote about her discoveries in When Food Is Love, her first New York Times bestseller. She gave huge numbers of women their first insights into compulsive eating and she changed huge numbers of lives for the better.

Now, after more than three decades of studying, teaching and writing about what drives our compul-sions with food, Geneen adds a profound new dimension to her work in Women, Food and God. She begins with her most basic concept: The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God. But it doesn't stop there. Geneen shows how going beyond both the food and feelings takes you deeper into realms of spirit and soul to the bright center of your own life.

With penetrating insight and irreverent humor, Roth traces food compulsions from subtle beginnings to unexpected ends. She teaches personal examination, showing readers how to use their relationship with food to discover the fulfillment they long for.

Your relationship with food, no matter how conflicted, is the doorway to freedom, says Roth. What you most want to get rid of is itself the doorway to what you want most: the demystification of weight loss and the luminous presence that so many of us call "God."

Packed with revelations on every page, this book is a knock-your-socks-off ride to a deeply fulfilling relationship with food, your body...and almost everything else. Women, Food and God is, quite simply, a guide for life. "


Here's the skinny, to enter, just leave a comment on this post, one comment entry per person. For an extra entry, post about this giveaway on your blog and then leave me a comment with a link back to your blog post. The contest will run until Saturday at midnight and then I'll randomly select a winner.

This should be fun! I'm excited!