Getting down to some serious business

You may have noticed lately that I haven't talked much about weight loss. No goals, no "I'm going to do this!" and no revelations as to why or how I got to where I am now. Nothing about how I'm struggling or much I want to get to my goal weight or about how much I've gained. Barely a mention of any binge eating.<br /><br />Just lots of pretty pictures and nothing serious. Light, fluffy, shallow. <br /><br />Here's the truth and what I really didn't want to talk about, but I need to face reality:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>I'm really struggling on a daily basis to barely maintain under 180.</strong> </div><br />My lowest weight in the past ten years was 154 on February 2009. I maintained pretty close to that weight until September 2009. My size 10's all fit and I worked out almost every day. I still wanted to lose another 20 pounds, but I was comfortable at that weight. <br /><br />Then life happened. My crazy job had me travel extensively. I used that as an excuse to barely exercise and eat like a the maniac food addict on an expense account. I self-medicated myself with food. I quickly gained 20 pounds which is now 23 pounds. <br /><br />The last two months I haven't made any progress on losing that weight. Every day I wake up and think, "I really need to lose this weight!". It's a repeat of what I said to myself when I weighed 240 pounds. I would say the same thing every single day, but do nothing about it. Until one day I actually did do something about it and lost 85 pounds in a year. That was February 2008 and by February 2009 I was a comfortable 154, fighting to lose another 20 pounds.<br /><br />So here I am, March 7, 2010. Sitting right at 178 pounds. I don't like this weight. My size 10's do not fit. My size 12's are getting tight, and I even bought a pair of size 14 jeans last week. I feel fat. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my body like I use to hate it. I'm strong and I like being strong.  I just prefer to weigh about 20 pounds less.<br /><br />I don't feel sexy or attractive at this weight. I want to feel pretty and sexy. As shallow as that sounds, it's just as important to me as being strong. I know some people will say that feeling sexy is a state of mind, and I agree to a certain extent. For me it's a combination of the mind and the body.<br /><br />The big questions are: How am I going to fix what seems to be broken in me? How am I seriously going to get on track with losing weight? What can I do differently that might work?<br /><br />Right now I don't have the answers. I'm trying, but my trying is half-hearted. I guess I have some soul searching to do to figure this out. I need answers and only I can come up with the answers that will work for me.<br /><br />~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />Now for the light, fluffy stuff and my annoying talk about my exercising. :)<br />I decided to bike to the gym today instead of driving my car. It's only 6 miles round trip, although it's kind of hilly. I stopped quite a few times to take pictures pictures, but still in two hours of biking and strength training my heart rate monitor said I burned 643 calories. Not too shabby for two hours of exercise and one was super fun.<br /><br />I was surprised how much more difficult the hills were for me compared the last time I biked the trail in October.. Could it be because of the 20 pounds that was weighing me down? The hills were almost more than I could do (but I did do them).<br /><br />On the way home the sky was overcast and gray. Really not much to take pictures of that was interesting.<br /><br />One thing that's kind of weird is this sign. My bike trail goes past the Federal Way Aquatic Center and they have a sign out front with the weather and time, but it also has a weird face on it that it took me a few minutes to figure out.<br /><br />Any guesses? Actually, it's suppose to be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 2007 his face became the emblem of King County (Seattle and Federal Way). Some of the lights are burned out and it sort of looks like a skeleton. Personally I think it's kind of disrespectful and they should remove his face from the sign until they get the lights fixed. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLhfReob-0SDXhDYbNPKXW4HCVPCsfCguiuvkaL4Kar70Cb-qKBQHAAwLaiHFAA9vNavGm_sBIi8ArnIN1DbFoE3oCTUyvN-gvGeu9_Mw1HYEwz7OOsAPst3jdVobajBEdSPjEGM1Fg8O/s1600-h/7mar2010+013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLhfReob-0SDXhDYbNPKXW4HCVPCsfCguiuvkaL4Kar70Cb-qKBQHAAwLaiHFAA9vNavGm_sBIi8ArnIN1DbFoE3oCTUyvN-gvGeu9_Mw1HYEwz7OOsAPst3jdVobajBEdSPjEGM1Fg8O/s640/7mar2010+013.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">You can see all the lights that are burned out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QI_1SiHvuoRcZENk06nnHL7m9_ugHX-3x9abxS9Nam12hq1DahRq0YCHrJ09AzHrHIJtjEix1Fq1B7hfcEQXMcURUDeH46nPsuw4_7xmtpVknUB0JMmHqogVSdY-hpbJGoxXViWCu_RU/s1600-h/7mar2010+007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QI_1SiHvuoRcZENk06nnHL7m9_ugHX-3x9abxS9Nam12hq1DahRq0YCHrJ09AzHrHIJtjEix1Fq1B7hfcEQXMcURUDeH46nPsuw4_7xmtpVknUB0JMmHqogVSdY-hpbJGoxXViWCu_RU/s640/7mar2010+007.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Across from the aquatic center is the hill form hell. It's so much fun to fly down it my bike, but it's torture going up it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraITIN6iMK3CtQ_fkc8oMged1ZC6GYOfAkU28YIKiBRX_3JCf7jgcc5_B7iVnKmelsil6eH10UxpVJAtbY0Oc1938YEVACqPYEIhuxl3f9Du6bXHW3AuGRR1q1tw-XbCd4cfrIC60gHrW/s1600-h/7mar2010+016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraITIN6iMK3CtQ_fkc8oMged1ZC6GYOfAkU28YIKiBRX_3JCf7jgcc5_B7iVnKmelsil6eH10UxpVJAtbY0Oc1938YEVACqPYEIhuxl3f9Du6bXHW3AuGRR1q1tw-XbCd4cfrIC60gHrW/s640/7mar2010+016.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Really not much to take pictures of today. You can see how gray the sky is and the sun is just barely visible through the overcast sky. This was at 1pm.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx25ZYfuQxNrSr1r6lf2LjHDPqcrWpJGp1wacVluc5DoWrfOLGtwHXf9nuNYzV9rTUtOn4r1Iwhj4zpuzwjt_jWiuD6_gZZvLr0X0j01WE9VScS_zP9pe3iRw2EW35qZzNpGTFC0Y3W_jl/s1600-h/7mar2010+022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx25ZYfuQxNrSr1r6lf2LjHDPqcrWpJGp1wacVluc5DoWrfOLGtwHXf9nuNYzV9rTUtOn4r1Iwhj4zpuzwjt_jWiuD6_gZZvLr0X0j01WE9VScS_zP9pe3iRw2EW35qZzNpGTFC0Y3W_jl/s640/7mar2010+022.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>

Getting down to some serious business

You may have noticed lately that I haven't talked much about weight loss. No goals, no "I'm going to do this!" and no reve...

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