The LBDDiaries.com Blog

it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.  Or one should take the electronic scale and throw it up against the wall, pick it up, throw it on the ground, then stomp on it several times to make sure it is never going to be in working order again.

Why it is that sometimes you can do everything right and still gain a pound or two?  Or lose the pound then gain it back then lose it… ?  I think it is moments like this that I see why I always gave up before.  It is so disheartening.  But I go back to my previous blog knowing this time I will:  NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!

Oh don’t think I don’t want to just blow it off.  Writing down every bite, drinking water, measuring food, taking supplements, walking, getting on the scales then screaming, eating right portion sizes, craving something salty then craving something sweet, being unhappy when you look in the mirror, being a contortionist when wiping certain body parts (ewww, I know TMI), aching because of the excess weight, being unable to get up and down easily, wondering if your butt will fit in a chair with arms, wondering if you can get in a booth in a restaurant, constantly thinking about eating right and every bite that goes into your mouth, gazing longingly at your skinny clothes that used to be your fat clothes, looking with great longing at the pictures when you were at a better weight, and on and on and on.

OK, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit, I will not quit.  I will not. 

In the book I’m reading by Crystal Phillips, “The Me I Knew I Could Be” she talks about friends who started the diet and exercise program with her.  They began dropping like flies when life got in the way – or it was too cold to walk – or it was raining – or whatever reason came up that they stopped.  She had to keep going even when everyone around her quit on her.

One minister I know made this statement, “If you always need a cheerleader to prop you up, you are not really committed and won’t make it.”  He wasn’t saying that we don’t need encouragement.  He was saying that if you can’t go on without someone holding your hand and prompting you every step of the way, you will fail when they stop being there for you. 

I was thinking about all the people who were excited about this journal and declared, “We’re with you! We know we need to lose weight and we are going to join you.”  Dropped like flies.

You have to know why you are doing what you are doing and it has to be a good enough reason to keep you going when the going gets rough.  In diligence lies the reward.  Without it, this will just be another failure I chalk up down the line. 

I don’t want to be in pain, I don’t want to be sick, I don’t want to be fat, and I sure don’t want to die young.  Those are my second reasons.  Third reason but always in the back of my mind is that I want to look good for my husband.  The #1 reason is that I want to honor God by taking care of the “temple” or body that He gave me.  I will not quit even if no one goes with me.  Qitting is no longer an option.

I think both Caro and I have learned a valuable tidbit when it comes to this journey back into our Little Black Dresses – there are days when we are up and days when we are less up.  I won’t call them down days because I want to keep my focus on POSITIVE and not anything negative.  We have had enough negative in our lives – how do you think we got to the point where we need to lose 100 pounds?

It helps a lot to look at this as a long-haul, permanent, lifetime commitment.  I refuse to quit, fail or stop what we are doing.  It is NOT an option.  I do not want to live a diminished lifestyle due to sickness and disease that can come about by being overweight and unhealthy.  She does not want to die young for the same reason.  We will not fail.

Anyone who joins us on this journey has to take the same viewpoint.  Sure, there will be days when we are less up.  Instead of focusing on those less up days, we will focus on the next up choice we can make.  OK, maybe I didn’t walk on the treadmill like I should have but I can start afresh, correct?

As long as we don’t quit, WE WIN.  That old saying, “It isn’t how many times you get knocked down that counts, it’s HOW MANY TIMES YOU GET BACK UP.”  It only takes one more time getting up than getting knocked down, and WE WIN!

I have a sunroom full of everything I need to exercise.  I have cardio and resistance training items available.  Treadmill, elliptical, weights, and weight benches.  Electronic gadgets (Wii Fit) and DVDs and videos.

I have no excuses not to find some form of exercise that I can do, faithfully. 

I only have to believe that the reason we have trouble staying faithful to something like exercise is that we have trained ourselves to hate it.  We say, “Oh man, I hate to exercise.”  Or “I hate getting up a little early just to exercise.”  Or “I just don’t have time” (which is a crock).  It is like we think taking 30-45 minutes to walk on a treadmill or eliptical is going to be the hardest thing on earth – or most boring.

Here’s the thing.  Thirty to 45 minutes is going to pass no matter what you do to fill that time.  You can make a decision to do something constructive in that time or you can sit on the couch eating bon-bons and reading movie magazines… or to be it in more modern vernacular – watch another episode of American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.

I have my elliptical set up in front of the big TV. I can watch television or DVDs while cranking out that 30-45 minutes that I will work up to in 5 minute increments.  The treadmill faces my small TV with a built-in VCR player.  My “Dancing to the Oldies” are in video format.  I have a stereo in there so I could blast out oldies to dance to or walk by.  So it isn’t that I can’t be entertained while I’m working out!

The problem is the mind game we play with ourselves.  We think, “I am going to exercise!”  Automatically, our mind begins to run the program, “we hate exercise” just a video playback machine.  We will want to head to the treadmill or outside to walk but our mind will be having this running commentary:

“That’s going to make you sweat and you already had a shower today.  You know that makes your knees a little sore.  Oh, that is JUST TOO HARD and for sure you don’t have the time ’cause look! Look over there – a magazine you haven’t read yet!  Don’t you need to get dressed for work?  Don’t you have to go check your emails?  Don’t you… ______” anything opposite of heading into that sunroom and getting on that treadmill.

To overcome the mind games, we are going to have to learn to speak out loud, “I love to exercise.  I will get on that elliptical and do ___ minutes today.  I will not be sidetracked.  I will not fail.  I will exercise today.”  The only way to shut off the inner mind commentary is an outer vocal confession of success and victory.  You can’t listen to two voices at once. 

Make up your mind which voice you are going to listen to.  I have to go now… my outer voice just commanded me to get on the eliptical!!  I’m going – yes I really am.

p.s. -   Nope, I didn’t.  Isn’t that something.  Still kidding myself and obeying that wrong voice!

There are days you just thinking, “why why why am I doing this to myself” then you catch a look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Oh yeah, THAT’S why.”  What do I mean by that?  Not what you think.

I had an LBD friend email me who said, “I’m not doing very good on my diet.  I haven’t gotten into the diet mode yet.  I just keep gaining weight.  It’s a state of mind and I just have so much on my mind right now that I can’t do anything else right now.  May sound funny but I miss ‘ME’!

When I read that, I realized that THIS is why Caro and I started journaling our journey to getting back into our Little Black Dresses.  We both have tried and failed at so many diets, diet plans, diet programs, diet doctors, diet pills, diet gurus, and on and on.  We decided to focus on getting back into our LBD’s and NOT on the scale and just how many pounds we both have to lose.

When your focus is on working toward getting into that LBD, you begin to realize that this is NOT a destination.  This is a lifestyle and a constant journey.  We will never be able to stop paying attention to what we eat and what goes in our mouth.  THAT is what got us in trouble in the first place – NOT paying attention.  But that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

My friend I quoted said many things that have caused her to feel like a failure.  She stated she is “not doing very good on my diet” so that automatically makes her feel bad and puts her under pressure to perform.  She said, “I haven’t gotten into diet mode yet” which means if she does get into it, she can also get out of it.  The mindset here should be “lifestyle change” – something you will always do, not something you and start and stop. 

Lifestyle change is learning every day something that will help you reach your goal – getting into that LBD!  Like my friend said, she misses herself – as we all do when we are not satisfied with how we look and feel.  When you look in the mirror, you should see a whole and happy person, not body parts that need changing.

By feeling you are too swamped to put yourself and your health first, you set yourself up to become stressed, sick, tired, and in worse health than ever.  Someday you are going to have to make the decision that you will take care of yourself because you are very important.  Thing is, if you don’t take care of yourself, all those things you think are more important will get cheated when you are always sick, tired and depressed.  You can’t do your best for others if you don’t take care of you.

If you are joining us on our LBD journey, you know we are giving you all sorts of information you need.  We do the work, you reap the reward.  Take advantage of what we’ve learned over the past several years!

when your stomach rules your life.  Sometimes it is just hard to eat right.  Sometimes it just seems impossible to get up and exercise one more second.  Sometimes you just want to GIVE UP.

Sometimes I think it would just be easier to give it all up – except I want to be happy with myself again.  I want to be proud of how I look.  I want my husband to be proud of me.  Oh, I know he loves me unconditionally, completely.  But I also know he is a very visual person and I can’t stand being overweight.  He’s never one time said anything – I say plenty for us both. 

I don’t change this lifestyle for him, though.  That wouldn’t work.  The first time I got mad at him, I would probably say, “OK, that’s it! I quit this stinkin’ diet and I’m going to go eat some pizza right now!”  So I can’t change my lifestyle for him.

No, I want to be happy inside with who I am inside and outside.  I don’t want to gain one more pound.  I don’t want to have trouble walking, wiping my butt (sorry folks but reality is reality).  And I sure want to be able to sit anywhere I like without wondering if I’ll fit.  I just am not happy living like this so I need to quit living like this.

I just had to face the mullygrubs today.  Just a sort of “*sigh* am I ever going to get it right” attack.

I have a love-hate relationship with cheese.  I like it but it hates me when it comes to fat grams.  I reaallllly like cheese.  So when it comes to giving it up or going to nasty low fat**, I just don’t think it is going to happen.

So imagine my joy to discover that the nutritionist I’ve been studying under, Isabel De Los Rios of www.TheDietSolutionProgram.com recommends you have a small amout of cheese with your meal.  In a quote from her newsletter she said:

“So… is the fat in cheese of the good kind or bad kind? As you can see, that greatly depends on the source of your cheese.  Conventional, non-organic cheese can be quite high in bad fat and laden with antibiotics and hormones and really should NOT be included in our meal plans whereas grass fed, organic cheese can be a wonderful and tasty addition to your healthy meal plans.”

She offers the following website for healthy raw cheese:  http://www.grasslandbeef.com.  They offer real butter (which is far better for you than ANY fake stuff), goat cheese and regular cheeses like cheddar, montery jack and colby.  I am going to try some.  We’ll see.  She recommends only 1-2 ounces but at least she lets me keep cheese in my diet. (Update: I discovered and love a wonderful local source of raw cheese right here near my home; she ships, Daley Dairy, Home of Honeysuckle Lane Cheese.  Call the number & leave your name & number)

The trick to healthy eating is to go out and find the freshest foods possible.  I will be working on an article for www.littleblackdressdiaries.com website about hubby’s and my journey to eating more healthy – cutting out chemicals, white flour & sugar, and excess sugar in our lives.  It’s been a loooong road.  Lots of research, trial and error.

**I’ll let you in on a little secret.  They add sugar to low fat cheese in an attempt to make it taste better.  I kid you not!  As soon as I find that article, I’ll let you know who said it.

We will be posting recipes we know, just discovered or have heard about on our website, www.littleblackdressdiaries.com!  Check the site out for all sorts of great information to help you on your journey back into your little black dress!