I've Fallen & I Can't My Pants Up

Ugh nothing like the change of the seasons to let you know just how much muffin top you have hanging out of your jeans, eh?

I was so sick for awhile that everything just went out the window. I have run one time in over a month. Next weekend I'm doing a half marathon and I'm surely going to die! It will definitely be a run walk run walk walk walk walk type of race. I feel like at this point there is no reason to even attempt to "train" and I might as well go in with the only expectation being to have fun.

I am just now starting to feel a bit stir crazy and lost so I guess that means I need to get myself back into focus. I do best with schedules to keep me on track and not just winging things all the time. I keep telling myself  "next week" and then something happens and then it's "next week" again and nothing has happened.

I did actually use Lose It most of last week but fell off towards the end of the week. I need to really just get my focus on! Maybe if I keep telling myself that and write it down here it will actually happen lol.

A few weeks ago I went through a little reading binge and finally read It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell. I have read her blog for years and had kept meaning to read her book. I really enjoyed reading it.

From Goodreads 

A young food blogger shares her inspiring story of incredible weight loss-a journey from nearly 300 pounds to losing more than half her size-and establishing a healthy and confident relationship with food.

On her twentieth birthday, Andie Mitchell stepped on the scale and discovered that she weighed nearly 300 pounds. At 5' 9"-even knowing that she was big and hating herself for it-she was stunned. How had she gotten there? Without following wild diet trends, she lost 135 pounds over thirteen months and has kept it off for six years. It Was Me All Along shares the at times heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting and motivating, story of how Andie kicked her habit of binge eating, which she developed during a traumatic childhood, and developed a healthy relationship with food, which she still loves to cook and enjoy. Her story is at once familiar and inspiring to millions who have struggled with weight and self-image issues. Andie is a powerful motivator who bravely bares all to help others.

Then that lead me to read another book from another blogger, Jennette Fulda that I used to read all the time when she was on her weight loss streak. She wrote a book called Half-Assed and then she kind of stopped blogging about weight loss. Her newer book Chocolate & Vicodin explains what happened. She got this horrible headache that just NEVER WENT AWAY! Can you even imagine? No I can't either. Just from being sick the way I was this summer I totally understand how not feeling well can totally derail your healthy life style.

From Goodreads

Jennette Fulda was riding high on the success of her first book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir, until one fateful day in February 2008, when she developed a headache—and it never went away. So she dealt with it the best way she knows how: by writing about it. And eating lots of chocolate. 

In Chocolate and Vicodin, Jennette explores her change of identity from “the girl who lost hundreds of pounds” to “the girl who lives with constant pain,” and all she’s had to endure to try and make the pain stop—from a bevy of expensive, time-consuming tests, which have taught her interesting facts (for example, that an MRI does indeed cost more than a European vacation—and doesn’t last nearly as long), to tons of medications prescribed by her doctors to hilarious, sometimes insane advice she’s received from her blog readers. While nothing’s been able to grant her relief, she has gained a new perspective. Instead of dwelling on the “invisible tiara of nails” she may very well wear for the rest of her life, she’s instead learned how to live with the pain, sharing with readers not only how she’s managed to get by, but to laugh—and thrive—in spite of it

After reading that one I was looking for something else to read and ended up picking this random book called Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. If you've ever wondered how someone becomes severely obese this book will show you how. It gets you inside the mind of the emotionally hungry. I actually think this is a great read for people that are struggling with binge eating.

From Goodreads

Allen Zadoff spent years reasoning that a big, healthy man should have a big, healthy appetite and that his rapidly increasing girth was no more than a regular guy thing. At 350 pounds, however, it became clear that what had started as a little weight problem was destroying his life. Desperate to find a new way of living that would carry him into thin and beyond, Zadoff began to focus less on what he ate, and more on the physical and emotional underpinnings of what he came to understand as a disease. The pounds melted away, and so began the adventure of a lifetime. Following Zadoff’s incredible journey both up and down the scale, Hungry blends his personal story with surprising strategies for weight loss success; it is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is inspirational.

So after all that reading you'd think I'd get my act together eh? Maybe this week...