Sense of Self

I am lost.  I feel hopeless and my self esteem is rock bottom.  I know that having self esteem is important.  I believe that part of gaining self esteem includes working for others, because being entirely selfish is not what our Heavenly Father wants for us.  At this point in my life I am only preventing myself from being fully engaged in my endeavors to serve others though.  Right now I wake up in the morning completely aware of my weight.  I know that sounds weird but it's true.  I usually sleep on my side or my belly, so when I wake in the morning I can feel my body take up extra space.  When I walk to the bathroom to do my morning commode visit, I feel my heart immediately start beating like it's doing something hard, and my feet and back ache instantly. 

At this point in my life, I am the heaviest that I believe I have ever been, without carrying a child in my uterus.  Even taking that into consideration I am just a few pounds shy of my child bearing weight peak.  What is this weight doing to me?  I am turning into a hermit.  I do not like to go into public.  In fact it's completely preventing me from going on any type of vacation to see friends, relatives or people that I am familiar with.  I am even having a hard time going to church.  You see, I don't fit into any of my dresses.  I had to buy two new skirts and shirts this last week so that I could go to church dressed appropriately.  I have only one pair of jeans that fit me and I don't like wearing any of my blouses because they all reveal rolls and back fat that I am ashamed of.  My best friend told me once, that it's always worse than we see it.......well I see it pretty bad, so I am completely disgusted with myself at this point. 

Recently my obese father has had a batch of bad health, and my aunt (his sister) was diagnosed with colon cancer.  Now I understand that colon cancer is not a byproduct of obesity but cancer in general can be a result of not taking care of yourself.  I am not going to play stupid and say that this is not a result of just pure laziness.  Because that is exactly what this is.

I over ate and I didn't exercise.  As a result I weigh 180 pounds.

Now here is the thing, I want to be around a while.  My husband and I have plans.  We want to grow old together, travel, and have fun.  I don't want to end up locked in my bedroom day in and day out because I feel bad and I am too unhealthy to take a walk up a mountainside.

I didn't write this blog for anyone to tell me that they feel sorry for me, that it's not that bad, or to have any external pats on my back.  In fact I don't have any subscribers to this blog.  I personally prefer it that way.  But the aspect that anyone could read this, and the fact that I have "out loud" said the things that have been haunting my thoughts, has brought to the forefront this ongoing problem.  This situation, that is continually staring me in the face and for some unknown reason I can not motivate myself to get out of. 

So here is what I am going to do about this.

• I plan to blog weekly my progress. This seems to help me become self aware and also helps me hold myself accountable to myself above all others.  It's a way for me to vocalize what I am so good at hiding and denying. 
• Next, I am going back to Weight Watchers.  It's a program that I know works.  It's not a fad diet.  It's a training program to help motivate you make correct choices in your food.  The new program scares me, because after two weeks of trying it before I noticed a lack of weight loss.  I am hoping that by going to the meetings rather than trying the program alone and online that I will understand the program better and feel more suppport.  One of the problems with trying to do a weight loss program on your own, is you lack the "buddy system".  That peer pressure that comes from sitting in a room full of people trying to accomplish the same thing as you.  I knew this concept to be true before but I seem to have shoved that in the back corners of my mind along with my self control.

• I plan to walk every day.  Because currently my weight is the highest it's ever been, I need to take it slow.  My knee does not handle excess weight well.  So I plan to do just a 30 min walk for a week to start.  Next week I will bump the time up 15 minutes, than another 15 minutes, until I am walking for 60 minutes.  Than I plan to add a running lap and then two and so on.  Eventually leading up to running 5K every day or 60 minutes whichever works.

• I plan to start a yoga workout.  I have such high anxiety that I need to center my self and breathe.  Having a workout that will remind me to do that will be nice.  I do need to add some resistance training into my workout regime as well.  I am not getting any younger, and strengthening my muscles and my bones will only benefit my health as I get older.  So I hope to find some beginner's dvd's sometime very soon, like today. 

• I have taken some current pictures of myself and plan to use them to track my progress visually.  I hope that this ads an additional push.  Maybe one day I will feel confident enough to share them but as for now they are for my eyes only.

So here is my soft spot, my vulnerability, my weakness, my insecurity right here on the world wide web.  I am not looking to anyone but myself for strength, although I do see strength in others and draw from it.   I do know that I have what it takes to make my goal a reality.  I do know that I have the strength within to be happy and to make a change.  I must make this goal a reality so that I can move forward in my life with zeal and not be embarrassed and shamed into staying indoors and away from people.  This is my moment to show what I can do.