Falling off the wagon!

I haven't written in my blog for a very long time. There are many reasons. I'm enrolled in a college English course and the writing is tough and demanding of my precious time. I've become involved with another company and I'm helping them with their books and the training of their new bookkeeper. (Heaven help them!) I'm still working for the two other business I go to at least four times and week and now I've taken on the books of my boss's son. I have about a years worth of bookkeeping to catch up on. Yikes! And of course, I'm busily working on book number five, then throw in my birthday and Tim's and a quick weekend trip to Southern Utah to visit my dad and his wife, Edna plus Tim's father passed away and we spent a lot of Saturday's visiting him in the hospital--and you've got life at it's finest.

However, those are not the only reasons--which are very good reasons--for not writing in my blog, but the simplest reason and the straight forward one is that I've fallen off the wagon.

We've all seen people who've tried to improve their lives through weight loss, quitting smoking and drinking, stopping drug abuse and so on. And then they've seen them slip off their tenuous program and indulge in he behavior that got them in trouble in the first place. Somewhere in the back of my evil twin sister's mind, we look at them and say, "I knew they couldn't stick with it. They're so weak!" Come on, I know you've all heard that nasty little voice in the back of your head say something vicious like that. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just me. It's not that we like to see people fail at something, it's just that we don't want them to best us.

Well...I now know what it's like to slide off the wagon and back into patterns of behavior that are familiar yet destructive. Before Christmas I finally reached the middle pinnacle of my weight loss journey. 104 pounds. Although far from my goal, that seemed like a great milestone. But that's where it ended.

I know first hand what it feels like when a recovering alcoholic hears the call of the bottle which reaches out, enticing them back with the alluring feel of the liquid gold sliding down a parched throat. I know what a heroin addict must feel when they walk the streets and a dealer shoves bag of the white siren's powder under their nose. I know what seduction there is in having another smoker in the same room with you when you're craving a draw on that tobacco stick. I know because I'm also an addict.

I thought I'd concurred my addition, my obsession, my passion for FOOD! But after only eight months of strict obedience, I had not learned the basic lessons of control. I also realize that with an addiction to food, you can't completely shove it out of your life. It's around you everywhere. Your life is constantly bombarded with reasons to eat: Christmas, New Year's, birthdays, anniversaries, travel, funerals--grief. And if you haven't learned what it means to control the situation, then you'll slip off the wagon just as surely as a heroin addict or a recovering alcoholic. There really is no difference.

I then heard the other little voice in my head, the one that tells you that you really can't do it. You have no business trying to quit something or restructuring your life. You're just no good at it. We all have that voice as well. I listened when it told me "just one won't hurt." So I believed and fell. Just one box of Sees, just one pound of fantasy fudge, just one pound of honey baked ham and one pound of scalloped potatoes and one pound of pumpkin pie. Just one drink or two of egg nog and vanilla ice cream, just one more, and one more and...You get the picture.

Then there's another little voice (I'm full of them) that tells you "well now you've fallen off and lost your momentum and slipped up a few pounds, so what?" That's the voice I really hate. Because that's the voice I believe the most. "Yeah, you're right. I've really messed up. I knew I couldn't lose weight all along. You told me I couldn't do it and now you're proven me right." Boy! I hate it when I agree with myself. I sound like I'm slipping into existentialism. You know what that is, right? According to Wikipedia, "a philosophy that begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Or in other words--nonsense!

I believed the nonsense that only my mind can produce. I believed a lie.

I believed the lie my existential mind (disoriented, confused, absurd) mind was telling me. So here I am. No longer at 104 pounds down. I won't bore you with the details of exactly how many pounds I added back on my bones, but enough to have me believing the lie--you've failed, you can't go on--you're a loser. (Well technically that would be NON-LOSER!)

What's great about Weight Watchers, (and this isn't a shameless plug) it that they help you see around the lies you tell yourself and help you through the barriers that keep you from taking the first step toward jumping back on the wagon. I'm still racing behind the wagon hoping it will slow down and let me catch up. No more excuses, no more rationalizations, it's my choice whether I eat low calorie filling foods or consume everything that's not nailed down. I'm still getting my feet under me. Still trying to push out the third voice and still trying. Period.

Thank goodness I didn't stop going to the gym. That's the only thing that's saved my bacon (no pork-fat jokes, please). I still go every morning, punish myself for an hour so that I don't climb into a ditch after falling off the wagon. So for the present, I'm still running behind the wagon, praying for the strength to fight another day. That's all we can ask out of life. And oh, one more thing--I need to forgive the little voices in my head and forgive myself for tripping. After all, that's all we want from life is a little forgiveness when we stumble and a hand up. That's what Weight Watchers does for me. They offer a hand and it's my choice to clasp it or not.Anywhoo, I still can see some improvement even though I'm running fast to catch up with myself. (Is that an existential statement?)

Weight -- Update!

As of September 26, 2008 - total weight loss = 101 pounds.

My Weight Watchers leader asked me what was the best part about losing 101 pounds. I told her it was "losing 101 pounds". What's sweeter than that? It took me a year to lose 31 pounds at the gym alone and seven months to lose 70 pounds with diet and exercise.

I don't know.
Can you tell a
difference?


















I spent the following Saturday morning remodeling some of my clothes. My good friend Monika gave me some fabulous blouses and dresses. One was a size 14/16. IT FIT!!! I also found a skirt that my tiny mother wore, and IT FIT!!! But all in all, having clothes that are much, much smaller and fit is only a side benefit of losing weight. My doctor just dropped my high blood pressure and my cholesterol and heart medications. I'm only on 1/2 of a blood sugar pills. (Refer back to one of my previous posts about the benefits of losing weight.)

People ask me all the time, where did you get your motivation. Like I've written before, there wasn't one single situation, event or idea that sparked my motivation. It was many things. It was mostly a matter of control. For the majority of my life, food was in control of me. It was my Lord and master. Now I'm the master, and I can eat what I want, when I want and stop when I'm satisfied. And that--is something I never thought I'd be able to do.

Weight -- Update!

I'm down 90 pounds on 8/28/08!!!--that's right--read em and weep--90 big ones. That's 1,440 ounces. 315,000 Calories, and 40.8233133 Kilos. But I like it better in pounds. Sounds more dramatic and I like drama!

Here's my progress chart:

Began an exercise regiment at Contours Women gym - February 2007

February 2007 to May 2007 gained 15 pounds

May 2007 to September 2007 lost 13.8 pounds

From September 2007 to January 2008 lost 6.2 pounds

From January 2008 to March 8, 2008 lost 8 pounds

From March 8, 2008 when I joined Weight Watchers to August 28, 2008 I lost another 62 pounds

Total weight loss 8/28/08 = 90 pounds

I decided not to include a photo on this post. Losing another 10 pounds doesn't really that much difference from the 80 pounds lost. So maybe when I hit 100 pound weight loss, I'll include another picture. It's just too bad I don't get younger with every pound I lose. That would be worth a few bucks wouldn't it?

Welcome to my insanity

Here I am, it’s me, this is my blog. Welcome to my insanity. My name is Carol Anne ‘Olsen’ Malone (Olsen for those of my family that just like hearing the sound of their last name.) Married to Timothy D. Malone, mother of Michael Allen Malone, daughter of Paul and Helen Olsen, Sister of Scott, Reed, Dale and David Olsen. Boy I could go on and on and on. But this is a short blog so I’ll keep it that short.

Here’s me in a nut shell: (Crack at your own discretion.):

Well I finally gave in to the idea of becoming a blogger. It was not something I came naturally to, but when you want to write to be read, sometimes these things are necessary.

My husband is a blogger. He writes daily on one of several blogs. I was not interested in the things her writes about. He’s above me in respects to religion, technology and such. My concerns are family, relationships and love. As any good woman should be. Most women’s blogs that I’ve visiting are about family: children, marriage and relationships. Mine will probably become a vessel for much the same writing.

But then I wanted to do something more. I wanted to inspire. Well how do you inspire people unless you’ve accomplished something great. As I looked back over my life, which was a very short look, I couldn’t find something worth mentioning. An average, mundane person with an average life, doing average, mediocre things. That was me. There was nothing in my life that I could shout about. Nothing to propel me to the top of Mt. Baldy, (that is a famous mountain in the San Gabriel Mountain range), and shout at the top of my lugs, “Hey look at me, I’ve done something spectacular. I’m important, look at me!”

Nothing until I took a writing class with my darling husband, Tim at the beginning of 2008 at Moorpark College in Moorpark, where else? But I digress. In my next post you’ll find one of my last essay’s in the class. It is basically a description of my success, my triumph. Something to crow about. I hope you’ll find it entertain at least. Helpful at best and inspiration, of course. But if not. Have a nice day!

Before getting to that, I thought I might take some space here and let you see why, in general terms, I have had nothing to crow about for the last 53 years of my life. Now this is going to be a shocking photo, you may want to send the children and the small pets to another part of the house. This is going to make your head spin. Get ready, set, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay here I am in February of 2008.

Didn’t I warn you? No there’s no trick photography. I didn’t make the picture wider on MicroSoft Picture Manager. It’s me! Oooh! Ick! Gross! Incredible! Inconceivable! (I personally love inconceivable; it’s from my favorite movie of all time, “The Princess Bride”.) Yes, folks, that’s me. No that’s the way I looked in February of 2008 when we went on a fabulous home tour in St. George, Utah. I know, you think I’m wearing one of those fat suits that you can rent for a faux Sumo wrestling event. No, no, no. It’s all me. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart problems, back problems, knees problems, foot problems, just plain problems!

But take heart folks. Remove 60 pounds and this is what you get. Still not perfect, but an ‘extreme makeover, Carol edition'.

Well, can you tell a difference? I know it’s hard, but there is a slight difference. Come on, look closer. In the first picture I’m wearing a size 4X shirt and it barely fits. The Laker shirt I’m wearing, GO LAKERS!!! Is a 2X purchased from a regular store and a regular 2X not Lane Bryant’s or Roaman’s version. This is first time in nearly 23 years I’ve purchased a regular sized shirt that didn’t come from Ali Babba’s the Tent Makers. You laugh, but you just don’t know the embarrassment of purchasing a 6 man tent to cover up your hideousness.

Anyway, here is my journey in a capsulated form. See if you can catch the motivation that has spurred on my success to date. I can’t put my finger on the trigger of the gun that shot me in the butt to get up, get moving and then add in a sensible eating program. You decide where my motivation came from and let me know. Comment please!!! My story is in the next post.