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losing weight

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…. OR… Yes, You Probably DO Eat Too Much

January 7, 2013 by Patricia Walters Fischer

NOTE FROM MS. CHEEVIOUS:

I’d like to welcome Ms. Patricia Walters Fischer to the fold, and she’s here to tell you (and me) that Yes, you probably DO eat too much, and maybe it’s time to make some ch-ch-ch-changes. And hell, I’m right there with her, people. I’m back to my local weight loss support group myself this year, reclaiming my lifetime membership all over again. Hey – one can never be too sure the fat isn’t sneaking its way back onto one’s body, now can one? So I’m going to be lean and alcohol free for a while folks. Oh yes.  

Let’s give her a listen, shall we? Even if you are presently starving yourself.

Patricia is  a writing / author-friend of Ms. Cheevious. She’s a dynamo, hot mommy, and we love her. Enjoy. 

============

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…. 

                  OR…

         Yes, You Probably DO Eat Too Much

It’s January. That means everyone has a “goal” they plan to meet or beat this year and according to the powers that be at Entertainment Tonight, 43% of you pledge to make losing weight one of them.

Part of New Year’s appeal is the idea of starting over; of beginning anew and the thought that any and all mistakes of the past year (or decade) are put behind us.

Problem is, if you enter the New Year with the same mindset you exited the last one, will anything really change? Since the fairy godmother didn’t show up and give you those gorgeous (but look really uncomfortable) glass slippers and the prince isn’t coming to sweep you off your feet, or even sweep your floor, what will change? What will be different in your life that will allow you to reach your goals?

Last year I’d reached wits end. At 5’ 3” and weighing in at 230 pounds, I felt miserable, frustrated, and overwhelmed. I’d gotten to the point where I’d become “that mom” who sits a lot and can’t keep up with her children. Plus, I could imagine the looks on my kids’ faces as we were creeping towards their middle school years—mom had become embarrassingly unhealthy.

I didn’t want that for them, for me, for my husband, but how to change it? Or better yet, how did I even get so far into the obesity spectrum in the first place? And if I do manage to get my ever growing ass off the couch, how do I make sure I don’t go backwards?

As a wanna-be best-selling writer, my creative muse had taken a permanent holiday, and I couldn’t write anything that would be rated above crap. Really frustrating since I had some great, almost-finished works on my computer, just waiting for me to complete.

The question was, what should I change or better yet, how?

I knew last year when the clock struck twelve and the fireworks flew into the sky, it wouldn’t suddenly give me all the answers and the right path to make all my dreams come true.

No Blue Fairy or Fairy Godmother or magic lamp would appear… and even if they did, true change is one of the hardest things to do and we’ve all learned from the fairy tales, that change has to come from within. No amount of magic does it for us.

Shit. And I was so hoping for the easy road.

I’d tried all sorts of diets before, but they didn’t work. One reason for that was I’d always chosen extremist plans to get the quickest results. I found out very fast I’ll never be fond of eating tree bark or drinking some horrid concoction that includes fennel.

With three kids, I found myself running in circles and not ever having a good workout routine, especially since I’d be exhausted as soon as I got up in the morning. I had no energy to spare or even to spend, but something had to give.

Get up early? Stay up late? Hire a babysitter?

Was I depressed? I didn’t think so. I’d simply be frustrated with myself because I’d have these days of clarity and motivation and would get a few things done, then fall back into the sluggish pattern again, and think to myself Grrrrrr, this sucks! What can I do to get a grip?

First, I learned I needed my gall bladder out. Tests at the end of the year confirmed that little organ was functioning at about 11% and probably causing a lot of my fatigue, but it wasn’t the magic bullet. Removing it did help my body heal and my mind not be so foggy. Immediately, I could tell a difference and within days, I was able to more effectively wrap my mind around exactly what needed to happen: Change how I saw the world and myself. For the first time in a long time, it seemed doable.

At the encouragement of a friend, I started taking pictures of everything I ate and drank and it opened my eyes to what exactly I was fueling my body with—complete and utter garbage.

2011 RT Convention with Jeremy R., me, and Stefan Pinto
That is me in the middle with the friend who helped me, Stefan (right).

I remember Oprah talking about being mindful of what she ate, but I told myself I knew what I was eating and it wasn’t that bad. I must have something else going on because my diet was fine. After I started taking pictures of everything, and I mean everything, it helped me better understand and Holy Crap! Did I eat a whole lot of carbs, sugar, and fat. I’m amazed I only weighed 230 pounds.

I started taking pictures of everything, and I mean everything

Food Photography 1

With the new outlook on what I ate, it helped me see what I did during my day and how I could be more productive. Even simple things like making a short to-do list before getting errands done, made my time more productive and I got things done. And I stress short here—no making impossibly long to-do lists that included losing ten pounds, cleaning the entire house, knitting sweaters for all kids in the Midwest, and creating World Peace before lunch time.

It seems like a no brainer, but when you can’t think straight or you’re so used to burying yourself in obligations, you can easily get frustrated and even fail.

After three months, not only had I dropped thirty-five pounds, my mind felt clearer, and I’d completed revisions of one of my romantic comedies. By May, I’d sold it. That news came a day before my husband and I found out we’d been matched for two children we were hoping to adopt.

At the writing of this, I’ve dropped another five pounds, but the big deal is I’ve kept it off for six months. No backsies!

To prove it to myself, I cleaned out my closet, a bit of a New Year’s purge to show how far I’d come and to get rid of the fall back, fat clothes.
My health and weight are stable and I’m ready for the next half of my health journey—losing another fifty pounds by this time next year.

Life is still overwhelming at times. Factoring in time to exercise, write my next best seller, and caring for kids, a house, and husband can make the day seem normally chaotic. There are days I don’t get a shower and my legs need to be shaved more often than twice a week, but I’m an ever improving work in progress.

I still don’t make brownies like Martha Stewart, but I don’t obsess about it. I don’t eat my frustrations, but I don’t go run a marathon either. I changed the way the world looks around me. I don’t beat myself up when things aren’t perfect, I accept compliments without arguing about it, and I like myself.

That was the biggest change of all and ultimately for only me, but something interesting happened: I enjoyed my family more and mundane obligations like laundry didn’t seem too overwhelming.
Because my friend helped me, I want to help you.

 

Because my friend helped me,

      I want to help you.

 

I’ve started a 2013 Kick Ass and Get Healthy Board on Pinterest where I’m posting articles, recipes, and ways you can meet health and wellness goals. What I discovered is it’s not only about the food or the exercise, it’s about how you feel about yourself. Do you think you’re worth the challenge?

Don’t be so afraid to change how you see the world or even how you approach it, that you lose out on what you’re worth. It can be frightening, but it can be one of the best things you’ll ever do for yourself.

Good luck in 2013!

 

255550_404808602894599_1858904840_nDuring Patricia W. Fischer’s journey to be a full-time storyteller, she made several stops along the way to be a waitress, bartender, bill-collector, bank teller, clerk at Blockbuster Video, dishwasher, prep-cook, a wannabe crypto-zoologist, and finally settling in as a pediatric and adult trauma/critical care nurse for 10 years. Then she started her career as a writer.

Now, she spends her time in front of a keyboard, coming up with (hopefully) fantastic and entertaining stories to pay for her buying too many books habit and the endless cups of coffee she drinks on a daily basis.

You can find her at her website, on Facebook, Twitter, and Pintrest.

 

WeightingforMrRight_850

 

You can also find her book, “Weighting for Mr. Right” on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Love you people!!!! Mmmmmpppphhhuuuhhh!!!!

xoxo,

Ms. Cheevious

Editor in (Mis) Chief

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All Blog content copyright 2013, LISA JEY DAVIS aka Ms. Cheevious

 

Filed Under: Diet, Guest Post, Health & Wellness, Patricia Walters Fischer, Stress, Uncategorized, Weight Loss Tagged With: Entertainment Tonight, fairy godmother, glass slippers, Guest blog, Guest Post, January, Lisa Jey Davis, losing weight, Ms. Cheevious, New Years, patricia walters, Patricia Walters Fischer, Resolutions, weight loss support, weight loss support group, Weighting for Mr. Wright, weightloss

Junk Food My Arse – Really!

February 7, 2008 by MsCheevious

Ever feel like you’re just a cog in the wheel of the world, and relegated to doing things the same old way, day in and day out?  Ever think that the wheels on the bus really do just keep going round and round?

That’s how it is at times for me.  My boyfriend is one of those tall, lean, super muscular types that has always been athletic and active, and has never had to diet.  Welcome to my nightmare.  I was all set before I met him.  Well, in the health and diet department, at least.  He introduced me to the joys and delicacies of salami from around the globe (which I never would be caught dead eating before), served with fresh baked tuscan bread and olive oil.  Oh, and the incredible wines that we love to drink!

Don’t get me going! I’ll gain weight just typing this. But if I even think the words “diet” or “cut back,” or “slim down,” I may as well just say “fuh-get-abou-dit!” around our house and just eat the stinkin’ salami.  Heck, if he doesn’t mind the rotund little sub-human species that appears before him after a few years of eating like he does, why should I even try?

If you’re new to this blog, welcome.  Enter with caution.  You will get the hard cold truth, the facts about things in life and the world – as discovered and submitted by my crack team of research experts (yeah, right), and hopefully you’ll laugh a little.  Cuz my life is just one big joke. HA!

But you see I’ve been on this quest to get from this:

lt hip 013108

That’s my left hip / waist up there.

Stretch marks and all.  I have no secrets, I know.

To this:

Dance - 03-small
That’s me on the right. But it doesn’t
really matter.  The red leather pants
are mine as well, and I use to fit in
them just as nicely!

The truth is, I stay fit for ME.  And this is the start of week 2 of my “thin thinking, lean, mean machine” approach to fitting back into my suit.  I started last week as documented on the post I’m a Thin, Light, Lean, Mean Machine – Don’tcha Know?.

I also want to clarify exactly why I am trying to lose weight.  But I won’t do that here. To find out, you’ll have to read this whole thing.  It’s near the end.

Last week I left you with the notion that I have GOT to lose 11 lbs.  I have a business trip coming up and have to fit into my suit!  It’s a brand new, gorgeous suit.  Now comes the good stuff.  HOW I am doing it? I’ll give you a hint:  I am a lifer with that weightloss group you thought was only for old, fat, frumpy women.  Well, guess what?  It’s not, and I’m not.  It’s just smart.  Hello Weight Watchers.  Yep. They’ve saved my life – or at least saved me from having to buy entirely new wardrobes – more than once.  It’s true.  I even go to meetings when I can.  If anyone wants to get details on how I do it, you can go here to see everything I ate, as well as the “before” pictures of both hips, and that suit.  Ich.

I have to say, there is this whole mental thing that happens when I try to eat healthy.

Take the Super Bowl, for instance.  My boyfriend and I were spending time at our house in Moab, Utah. We don’t really know people in Moab.  We planned to watch the game on our own.  My boyfriend knew this was weird for me.  I like people, and I like to be social – especially when there is a big event that everyone gathers together to watch.

So, in the morning of the big game he took me out to breakfast.  Remember – I am watching everything that goes into my body.  So, when our choices were limited to Denny’s or the Steakhouse that serves breakfast, I knew I’d be in trouble.  In L.A. I could go to any number of restaurants – even Mel’s Diner on Sunset – where ordering something like steamed vegetables scrambled with two egg whites would seem commonplace to them.  As a matter of fact, they’d have it on the menu.  I held my breath and thought to myself, “We are not in Kansas any more Dorothy.”  Besides, I knew it might be my only chance to see beyond the walls of our house on Super Bowl Sunday.  So, off we went.

As I looked at the menu, I mentioned how I couldn’t decide if I should eat the amount of food I would normally reserve for lunch, and then have my yummy egg whites and grilled vegetables at lunch. Then it happened: Peer pressure.  Holiday pressure.  Non-dieter pressure.  Pressure from someone who has never dieted in his life.  “Why don’t you just enjoy the day? It’s Super Bowl Sunday! We can grill some great stuff and make some really good Super Bowl style food (translation: junk), and you can start again tomorrow.”  I knew he meant well.  He is so sweet.

I was forced to explain how it really works.

“Realize this,” I began, knowing full-well he knew he was in for a lecture of sorts. “If I live my life like that: eating junk food, or the holiday food of choice, or whatever – every single time there is a holiday, just because there is a holiday, I may as well forget about ever eating healthy, staying thin or living a healthy existence.  Think about it.  There is some occasion every single month, usually several times a month.  Birthdays, client meetings, Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, business lunches, weddings, you name it. I have to decide I am a healthy eater – no matter what the occasion – and only allow myself to eat that stuff, like nachos, when  IIII really want it (emphasis on I).  Sure, it always tastes good, but I have learned that I will never succeed if I live that way.”

He quickly agreed.  Poor guy.

But he ordered the “lumberjack” which consisted of two sausage links, two strips of bacon, a slice of ham, two eggs, hashbrowns (the processed kind), two pancakes with butter, and an order of white toast with butter (and jelly, of course).  Talk about will power.  Mine, I mean.  Come to think of it, I didn’t even flinch. I didn’t even realize I’d taken an inventory of his meal until just this moment.

I ate oatmeal with splenda.  Yum.

I didn’t really crave anything on his plate.  I wasn’t jealous or wishing I could have pancakes.  I’ve also learned that all of those decadent, yummy, fattening foods are always around.  They will find me, believe you me, no matter where I go or how much weight I lose.  But I tried to remember the last time I ate and ordered whatever I wanted from the breakfast menu at Denny’s.  If I tried to remember that two or three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to recall.  I would have laughed and thought with a distant memory of that greasy taste in my mouth, how it must have been in high school or something. But the sad thing is, as I looked at my boyfriend’s entire table of food, I realized I’d just ordered the lumberjack myself about two months ago. This is why I am here now, trying to lose 11 lbs.

How easy it is to slip into the land of “I can eat whatever I want and still look fabulous” mentality.  I decided a few years back, and I am quickly regaining that resolve, that I will always have to work at being thin and fit, and that’s just it.  If I decide I have earned the option of looking frumpy after reaching seventy, then I will cross that bridge, as they say.  But even that thinking gets you in trouble.  I can just see it.  With that mentality, I’ll reach my seventieth birthday and head straight for the market to buy myself all the favorite foods I’ve kept myself from eating: pizza, manicotti, filet mignon with real butter, giant baked potatoes with real butter and real sour cream, nachos with beans and ground beef and cheese smothered all over them, enchiladas, with cheese and sour cream, and oh so much more.  I’ll decide that my three-times-a-week yoga class can now be replaced with baking days. I’ll bake my delicious Russian Tea Cakes (all butter), my chocolate chip pecan cookies that have Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate in them, and my fudge and peanut brittles, and every other kind of decadent sweet I can think of.  I’ll say it’s because I’m older now, and I’ve earned the right to bake food for my kids and grandkids (if I ever have them).  But in reality, I’ll be eating most of it myself, because hey – I earned it.

So, I’ve decided to plan to go out like Audrey or Katherine Hepburn.  Slender, lovely, and full of style.  That’s my plan anyhow, morbid and narcissistic as it sounds to speak of how I want to look when I die.  It’s more about how I want to live.  When I get older, I don’t want to lose my breath trying to lift my sausage thighs up the stairs, or to bend down and pick something up.  But I’m so young and so far from being that age, you say? Well, now is the time to set patterns and lay the ground-work for how it with be then.

So NOW is the time – okay, last week was my NOW – but I have begun. 

Here are my results after week 1:
Start Date:  Thursday January 31, 2007
Height: 5′ 5″
Goal: 125 lbs
Beginning weight:  136 lbs
Weight after week 1:  132.5 lbs
(02.07.08)
Net Loss or other:  – 3.5  WOO HOO!!!

Now as to the reason I am on a quest to lose weight, and even more important, why I feel compelled to explain it again?  Well, some of you out there are wondering (I know this, because I am clairvoyant) what in the world I am doing trying to lose weight.  You think I’m as thin as I need to be, and I thank you for the good thoughts toward me.

My response? Only I know where I need to be.  I am not, nor have I ever been anorexic.  You will see this when you take a look at what I eat in a week!  I vowed long ago to never let my weight get to the point where others decide it’s time for me to lose it.  By then, it’s so far gone, it’s extremely difficult.  I know.  It happened to me after I gave birth to my youngest son.  Oh – about six years after.  It was way past my time then, and took several weeks and months of hard work and dedication to get to where I wanted to be.  I will not let that happen again.  I know the signs.  It happens slowly.  Five pounds in a year, or so.  But it doesn’t stop until you get tough on yourself and reign things in.  So, I’m doing it.  End of story.  But again, thanks for caring!

I’m on my way to a renewed me.  What about you?  What are you doing to get healthy this year?

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Blog content copyright 2008, LISA JEY DAVIS a.k.a. Ms. Cheevious.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Girls Gone Wild, Girls Night Out, Hip Chicks, MILF, Single Moms, Single Women Tagged With: Diet, dieting, lose weight, losing weight, staying fit, staying thin, weight watchers

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