Let me tell you about a friend of mine...

Yes, my darling friend, I stole this picture from your blog. O:-)

I have a friend.  (Okay, okay. Don't be so SHOCKED! Sheesh! I DO!) And she's fantastical.  hahaha This girl cracks me right up.  She sorta' stumbled upon my family and I when she and a bunch of other nuts were hanging around with my brother (or he was hanging around with them? I don't know) playing intramural sports, and we fairly quickly fell in love with this girl. Honestly I don't think I've ever ever EVER come across someone with as much vivacity as she.

She runs marathons for fun, literally rode her bike across Canada last year for kicks and giggles - people asked her why she was doing it, and she would answer...because I want to! She embraces her spelling and grammatical, um, shortcomings with flair and blogs her heart out anyway... she works two jobs, plays ultimate frisbee, soccer.... I'm telling you, VIVACIOUS!

Steph has never really talked to me about it but I do know that a little while ago she and her family went through a pretty rough patch, as unfortunately so many families do, when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and started that horrific battle against the odds for her life.  Hers, thankfully, is one of the happy stories, and Steph's mom is still around, and I know at some point in the last couple years she's even outdone me in my running goals and run a half-marathon! YAY STEPH'S MOM! hahaha

Anyway, there's a bit of a story, and you can read it on Steph's blog, but instead of dedicating her running or her cycling or jumping rope or any of those things most of us associate with raising money for a cause, Steph is, basically, auctioning off her HAIR. hahaha HILARIOUS! I love this girl. She wants to cut at least ten inches off her hair, as that's the amount required to donate for a wig, but she's cutting her hair based on donations - for every $150 she raises she'll cut off an inch. SO she needs to raise $1500 to 'earn' her wig. But it gets better - if she can raise $2500 she's going to shave it all. Like Britney Spears but without the momentary insanity. The money is going to "Run To Live," a marathon-a-day run by Scott Cannata for cancer research.  I guess Scott's thing is to raise $2/Canadian.  So, of course Steph says, two dollars? How about two THOUSAND? And goes for it.

I love this girl.

To read about Steph's goals, why she's doing this, what she's doing, click here to read her post "Chopping it off for a good cause.........." and then, at the bottom of the post CLICK THE LINK TO DONATE! I'm not going to lie I would LOVE to bump into a bald Steph in the end of June!

Okay, and after you've done THAT...spread the link like wildfire! The more people we can get to give $2 the closer we get this girl to shaving her head. LOVE it!

Love you, Steph! Good luck!

Red

Fatter than ever and still kickin'!

Mornin'!

So we've been having a good laugh all weekend+ at just HOW much weight I've put on. A dinner out with my parents had me perusing the menu chanting onehundred-and-ninety-five-pounds-onehundred-and-ninety-five-pounds-onehundred-and-ninety-five-pounds....  Once I got over the initial SHOCK of seeing just where my destructive tendancies from the past year have gotten me....well, it's kinda' funny! I mean, REALLY! 

Anyway, the Food Addict needed to go shopping for some clothes for work and invited me to come along to give opinions. And after some serious vetting of my clothes and realizing, you know what, NONE of this stuff fits ANYway, I decided to shop, too.

So Saturday was shopping day. I haven't shopped for clothes in about a year. And ohmigoodness the SALES we stumbled upon! Huzzah! So buying myself some awesome fat clothes was a blast. I finally got some pants that are comfortable, don't make my muffin top any WORSE, and then a bunch of shirts and blouses that I'm sure are going to promt a whole new slew of ohmigoodness-are-you-pregnant queries buuuuuuuut the gelatinous belly is contained and well covered.  So I'm a little uber thrilled with my purchases. And even though I'm the heaviest non-pregnant EVER - I never ever ever ever ever ever in a million years thought I'd ever let myself get to 197.8lbs (yesterday's weigh-in - huzzah! Bring it on!) - I'm dressed well and feel a bit better. AND I can give Mr. Man some of his pants back... O:-)

And my mom has decided enough is enough! hahaha SHE'S been talking, honestly, for as long as I can remember, about losing weight and getting on top of her health. Me getting so uber chunky, maybe, was the kick in the pants she needed? So she's asked me to be her "buddy," even though we live over an hour's drive from each other, we are to check in every day and report our activities for that day. Exactly what I used to use this blog for every day, but this way my Mom gets in on it, too! Yesterday she said she wasn't feeling great, but she went to the basement and pounded out a leisurely 20-minute walk because she knew a) she could do that much and b) I would be calling to check up on her. BOOyah! YAY MOM!

And she has outlawed my weighing myself for another month. hahaha 'Cause when I weighed yesterday and had gained 2.9lbs over the weekend I kinda' flipped - WHAT the heck! And she reminded me how much I hate scales, weighing yourself, and that while I've been making some serious efforts to ONLY eat until I'm not hungry anymore (I have a hard time stopping eating....I eat until it hurts and then I keep going for a while. I've been known to collapse on my bedroom floor in agony because I couldn't make it the extra two feet to my bed... seriously. People think I'm kidding about food addiction and all the trouble I have turning down a ginormous bowl of ice cream - those stupid little 100-calorie 'perfect portion' things are a joke; that doesn't fill the enormous void inside! I have to eat 10 of them!) we did eat out Saturday night and I do sometimes REALLY retain water. And maybe I'm just on the upswing of my cycle. Whatever. I did NOT put on 3 pounds of FAT over the weekend I am CERTAIN, and so, I'm not 'allowed' to weigh myself 'till June. hahaha

Love you, Mom!

And that's that for now, I guess.  Yesterday I did my current favourite workout, the Biggest Loser's Last Chance Workout aaaaaaaand this morning I ran for about 20 minutes on my treadmill before breakfast. I'm working through a great article in an old Women's Health magazine on how to get my scrawny little arms able to do pullups so I can finally really take advantage of my pullup bar, so have to hang from that for a while later today - I'll have to see if I can find the article online to post it, but I have laundry and groceries screaming my name today! Oh yes, and yesterday was serious-yard-work-day so I was outside working all day, too. So I moved, huzzah. ;)

I've been thinking in addition to getting back to Thankful Thursdays I may want to add another one or two weekly 'specials' .....I'm just working on corny alliteration and coming up with what I want to do.

And that, I think, is all the disjointed blah blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaaah I have for you lovely folks today. hahaha Gotta' hang my laundry on the line, make the meal plan, get the groceries, have lunch, and then take the kid to the park with her friend.

Loving this insanely beautiful weather.

Cheers!

Wait, What?

Holy cow! I only posted twice in April! Geeze, did THAT get away from me.

April had the last-minute rehearsals leading up to performances of the lovely lovely play, which took me more or less totally out of comission for two weeks, and of COURSE with that lovely stress level I succumbed to yet another illness (it's passed - let's put it behind us and move on!) which accounted for the better part of another week..... aaaaaaaaaaand believe it or not the CLEANING HAS BEGUN!  I've had two, um, "crews" come so far to help, and WHOA what a difference. And you know what? The areas we've done ARE STILL CLEAN AND ORGANIZED! I'm thrilled about this - usually when I clean a space, the next day, you'd never know I'd cleaned it. But Mr. Man and I are making extra special effort (read: nagging the bageezies out of each other) to put things away, hang up coats, throw it out if we're not using it, etc. It's AH-MAZE-ING.  And has been taking a bit of priority, not going to lie.

STILL TONNES AND TONNES OF WORK TO DO, but... five rooms done.  Huzzah!  (Will post pictures....later. hahaha)

No, today, besides being shocked when I saw how little I'd written in April - wait, what? - I needed to confess. I'm in SHOCK. I'm horrified and SO embarassed and just, disgusted with myself. AAaaaaand this is where I come to blab that kinda' stuff to the entire universe (what the heck is WRONG with we people who blog? I don't even know.... oy).

The last few months, in my sporadic posts, I've lamented about how horrendously I've let myself go this year and how sick of feeling fat and blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaaah blah blllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh whatever. I think I'm sicker of writing about it than I am feeling about it, honestly.  I mean, what? Every other post I get around to is about my expandabutt lately? Geeze. Say it with me now: "Get a GRIP, lady, and get it the freak together already!!"

NOTHING fits. Even the pair of Mr. Man's jeans I've been wearing....almost every day for the last few months? O:-) Even THOSE are starting to get tight - they're uncomfortable right out of the wash. What the HECK.

So today, I FINALLY did it. I FINALLY powed up my wii fit balance board - had to change the batteries and everything - and WEIGHED myself.

I've been talking, inwardly, about needing to do this for months. Like, okay, seriously, WHAT is the damage. I know nothing fits, HOW MUCH WEIGHT have I really put on??

But finding out has TERRIFIED me, I think.  'Cause I'm not going to lie, after I weighed myself today and got SLAPPED in the face with THAT reality, I had to sit down on the couch and get my mojo back together to keep the tears back.

What the HELL have I done to myself? And WHY??

Today I weigh 194.9lbs and have a BMI of 31.32.

Wait. WHAT?!?!

Now, you may recall how I feel about the validity of BMI and what garbage it is as a measure of fatness. But.....to the best of my knowledge if I were to go into the doctor's office today with that information she would go by her BMI chart.

And tell me that yes, I am in fact, 100% very well, full on OBESE.

I mean, that is how obesity it defined, by a calculation of height & weight. And while I may not agree with the practice it's how things are done.

I am, currently, textbook obese.

That's a tought one to swallow, not going to lie.

So, I don't know if that's the kick in the pants I need to turn myself around so I can stop feeling humiliated every time I walk out of my house - true story - or if the ridiculous, constant-binge state I've been in for the last year is going to just continue - is it called a binge if it never ends?

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I know I am not this person. I am not obese. I'm active, fun, silly, and run around with all the kids at parties. I don't live off of chocolate or pick movies over workouts. I don't hate running.

I am lost inside a ginormous layer of bubbly, dented, flabby lard and can't get out.

TODAY:
did the Biggest Loser "Last Chance Workout" which I LOVE and highly recommend - constantly changing interval workout. It's HARD by the end, holy crow.  I think it's about 35 minutes.
Next: giving up waiting and getting rid of my clothes that don't fit. If I ever lose the weight again I'll just get to go shopping. I think I'm ready to live with that.