Out of my head and onto the page

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

So yesterday and today have been spent passing kidney stones. Fortunately only one was really bad. The others have been small and only slightly painful. I have to say, though, I'm really proud. I always go into this holier than thou rant about how life will always throw us illnesses and other curve balls, but we need to be prepared and not go off program. So yesterday I'm writhing in pain and thinking "To hell with it. I'm not going to work out today and I don't care what I eat."

But then I realized that it was totally against everything I "preach" (to use too strong a term, but it works here). So I was good, ate a reasonable lunch once I felt good enough to eat, ate a reasonable dinner, and since I was only a little tender after my Dr. appointment I did a light workout. Very cool. Today I was back on track and did my normal workouts. I'm feeling much better.

On one of the mailing lists I'm on someone posted her reasons why she hates being fat. I thought that was interesting. So I started thinking back. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't hate myself because I was fat, but there were certainly things I hated about being fat. I think an exercise such as this can really motivate you to remember just why you're doing all of this. So here goes:

Tory's Things She Hates About Being Fat

...well I suppose that should be hated.

Then...Feeling clumsy and running into things because I never had a very true sense of where my body was in space.
- Now...Feeling lithe and healthy and coordinated for the first time in my life.
Then...Feeling so uncomfortable and gross when I travelled on a plane. The tray table would dig into my belly. I would try SO hard not to inconvenience the person next to me. Feeling cramped and squished and SO self concious.
- Now...I don't know. I travel in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to feeling good on the plane.
Then...Having to do the "Yes I am a valuable person even though I am a woman and I am fat" dance. (I teach technology, so the woman thing comes into play a lot as some people seem to believe that the greatest technological tool one can have at ones disposal is a penis.)
- Now...At least I only have to do the woman dance. People take me more at face value now. Isn't that sad? It isn't like my IQ raised as my weight lowered?
Then...Having to pretend I was stopping to enjoy the view when climbing a flight of stairs, when in reality I had to stop to catch my breath because I was SO out of shape!
- Now...I run up the stairs and work out at least an hour a day.
Then...Wearing super big shirts and stretchy pants in an effort to hide my multitude of sins. I always did try to dress as stylish as I could for my size, but never would I tuck anything in or wear something form fitting. (This is probably a very good thing.)
- Now...I enjoy dressing in clothes that flatter my figure. I tuck all the time. I feel confident in my clothes.
Then...I hated having to shop in the large size department, although I realize how much more we have now in the way of choices. But I hated that horrible feeling of taking a size I thought I wore into a dressing room to discover that I needed a size larger.
- Now...I love taking in a size smaller than I've been wearing and having it FIT! I love being able to just buy right off the rack without worrying about how it's going to fit on me because things are made to flatter my kind of body.
Then...Flourescent lights in the dressing rooms! I used to always change with my back to the mirror and slowly peek at myself. Often I'd buy things that didn't look too bad on me, instead of going for something that looked good.
- Now...When I bought my Christmas suit I automatically went through the same routine. I used a lot of positive self talk, "Okay Tory, remember the lighting is horrible and you're not wearing hose, so it's not going to look very good now, so be prepared." I turned around, dreading what I was going to see and WOW! I looked GREAT! I nearly cried.

Those are just a few things. When I look at that list I realize how much better I feel now about myself, about how I look, and most importantly about how I feel. I'm so thrilled with life right now I feel like I'm going to burst!

That was today's self indulgence! Now go enjoy your life!

Tory out.

posted by Unknown # 10:34 PM

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Word to the wise...do NOT get kidney stones. They suck. That is all. Tory Out.

posted by Unknown # 7:59 PM

MsTeechur, LIVE!!!!

It's finally up! I launched msteechur.com last night. I decided to update my site at Tripod, but each time I added pictures, fewer and fewer people could view it due to the limited bandwidth. So, I moved it over to my computer and am running it from here.

If you check it out, drop me a line and let me know what you think.

I'm home sick today which means I get to go to the doctor this afternoon. Darn. I woke up with some really nasty abdominal pains. I thought I might need to go to the hospital, but instead called the doctor, rested, and am waiting for my appointment. The pain comes and goes. I'm sure it's nothing, but darn it...I missed my morning workout. I don't know if I'll get the evening one in either. It just depends on how well I can move. Maybe I can do some stretching at home or something. I hope so.

Anyhow, today's thought is about things that put obstacles in our paths like being sick. So far I've been very fortunate. I haven't had a lot of adversity since I started WW. I've had a few really bad days, and a few emotional days, but nothing too horrible.

I never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but on just one of those days I found that I wanted to chew the siding off the house for no other reason than...I just wanted to. So I guess I am. But I've tried really hard not to give into it. I just look at it as another challenge that I'll need to overcome. I believe that when we have times that cause us to overeat, or want to overeat, we need to stop and learn from them. I've always been big on evaluating situations after the fact to see what I could learn from them.

So when times like this come...like today where I'm home, I'm on my back, I feel like garbage, and I'd really like to go off program and just have a day without worrying about points, I stop and think.

What is it that is causing me to want to make poor choices?
Why do I think this is happening?
How will eating help the situation?
Am I not going to come across this situation again in my life? If so, do I intend to go hog wild and eat everything in site every time I'm faced with it?

Usually that's enough to help me get back on the straight and narrow. If not I try to occupy myself with something else or I eat popcorn. I love popcorn...a lot of bang for the proverbial buck.

After all, there will always be bad days, good days, holidays, holy days, sick days, well days, and all sorts of other days that cause us to feel justified to overindulge. I think if I tried I could probably come up with 365 reasons (aka excuses) to go off program.

So I say, No More Excuses!!

posted by Unknown # 2:08 PM

Sunday, December 08, 2002

So What ELSE does Tory do?

I've written exclusively about weight loss, but surely there is more to my life than weight loss, right? Well of course there is!

So let's start with what I do. I'm a teacher. I teach Networking I and II (Microsoft mainly), preparing kids to pursue a career in Network Administration. I also teach A+ Computer Technician and I run the Tommie Tech Team. My class website is at teechur.com. I love teaching. I don't mean that most of the time I kinda like it okay. I mean even with my professional certifications, and the fact that I don't make a whole lot of money, I wouldn't do anything else. I love my kids. I love the social aspect of getting to work with really awesome people. I love the challenge of taking rather difficult and deep curriculum and making it accessible to high school students.

I also am adviser to two really really busy clubs. Future Business Leaders of America and Future Information Technology Professionals. We do all sorts of cool things! Why just last week FITP went to Gameworks in Seattle and spent the evening playing video games as a thank you to the kids who helped teach our Community Education Classes. FBLA has been around since 1942. FITP was founded in 1999 right here in Marysville, when I won a grant from the American Association of University Women. My goal with FITP is to attract more women to IT classes and to kids who are interested in careers in the IT world a chance to explore their options. We tour colleges, go to businesses, have speakers, and put on a technology conference for students, by students every year. We also have LAN parties, go on field trips, and teach basic computer classes to members of the community.

Outside of school I enjoy spending time with my husband, who is the best man in the world. We see a lot of movies, go to plays, enjoy concerts, and work out together. During the summer we camp and hike, and will be doing a lot more of that in years to come. We both LOVE Disneyland and go at least once a year, but often more like two or three.

The last play we saw was "The Full Monty"...which was hilarious. I'd highly recommend it. The last movie was Harry Potter 2 (for the second time).

I also love computers. I have a small network set up at home. Roy and I play games against each other many evenings. I also use the computer to chat with my students and friends, do some photomanipulation, write curriculum, write web pages, and am teaching myself Flash and Java. I also, of course, study for certification tests. That's not really a hobby, though. It's a fact of life.

I also have a lot of pets. We have two dogs (seen in picture below). Maddie is the rough sable collie. What a beauty this spoiled girl is! Murphy is a cocker cross and is ornery and goofy and keeps Maddie in line. Our two cats are Einstein and Baby. Baby is cranky and loves to torture the dogs. Einstein is a dweeb of a cat who seems to have no more sense than a carrot. Our iguana is named Hal. Hal came to us when someone could no longer care for him. We took him in just long enough to get him well (he was very sick) and find him a new home. That was five years ago.

Hal was our first real herp. We also have two baby bearded dragons, Gingko and Sequoia. Sequioa has health problems right now, but we're trying to bring her through them with lots of love, hand feeding, and physical therapy. The snakes are Nyoka (adult female corn), Lace, (yearling ?? corn), Lestat and Emil (baby corns). We also have two rats: Ada and Grace and gosh, I think that's it! They sure do keep us busy, but we love them.

I also enjoy scrapbooking, although I don't do it often enough, and other creative pursuits.

So that's me in a nutshell!

posted by Unknown # 8:38 PM

Oh what a great weekend, but hard to stay on program! I did, though. I dug into the bank...but I normally do on the weekend. I bank all week just for that purpose. The worst part was going to Benihana for lunch on Friday and watching the guy just pour oil and butter on EVERYTHING!

I made up for it with low point soup and salad for dinner. I actually passed up a couple of REALLY difficult things to pass up. Starbucks was giving out samples of peppermint cocoa. I had only one and counted it. WARM 106.9 was giving away Tobelerone bars. I just passed it up! (Yay for me!) Nordstroms had samples of penauche (yum) and I just kept walking. Another place had chocolate biscotti. I looked. I longed. I walked away.

We were spending the weekend in Seattle to see the play "The Full Monty" and meet my sister, Kim...who is very VERY cool. Fortunately it all worked out. I journaled it all when I got home, went over my bank allotment by 1.5 points on Saturday so today ate very lightly.

I still managed to lose a pound this week, bringing me just one pound from goal. I was thrilled with that.

So let's talk about goal today. How do you know what the right goal is for you? Yeah, WW gives you some guidelines. I think my weight range is 113-135 pounds. On another site a more reasonable range is 104 (well that's not very reasonable) to 141.

When I started I set my goal at a size 8, with my "realistic" goal a size 14. I just could not picture myself at a size 8. It didn't seem possible. That put me at about 145-150 pounds to hit a size 8, so I set my initial goal at 144.

But when I hit 160 I did not feel like I only had 15 pounds to lose, so I changed my goal to 140.

Then I hit 145 and thought, "I can do this!"

So I reset my goal again to 130. I figured once I got there I could re-evaluate again and maybe go as low as 125.

So I'm one pound from 130 and I'm not sure if I'm done, but it's still my goal. Part of the reason it is my goal still is because my face has REALLY thinned out and I don't want to look gaunt. I'd rather have a little ab pudge and a nice looking face, than look like one of those sharp, pointy women who have that hard "angular" look going for them.

I also figure the abdominal area will respond to my daily workouts.

Then there are times when I'm downtown shopping and I see these tiny cute little things with their belly shirts and low rider jeans and I think, "Why can't I look that way?"

Of course this is when my inner child pipes up and says, "Because you're 37 years old, dear. Get over yourself! You look great the way you are! There aren't a lot of 37 year olds who are looking as hot as you are!"

(I've been paying off my inner child to say nice things to me. It's working.)

My sisters are both under 120 pounds. Should I try for that? Would it be too thin? I do have a different body type. I just want to look the best I can look!

So as you can see, I'm still undecided about just exactly where to stop. How's that for a Blog that goes absolutely nowhere?

posted by Unknown # 7:58 PM