It's My Name That's On That Jag

Whatever the glass ceiling is for weight loss, I shattered it.

Finally.   And it means a another big milestone. This is the smallest I have been since I have been married. Happy Belated Anniversary to me!   You may have wondered where "Elley" came from, this is a nickname that only one person in the whole world calls me - my husband. I definitely drew the long straw here, my nickname for him is Sparky. Poor guy.  When I set out to start this blog I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a clever domain name - well blogger ruined that pipe dream for me because there are only something like one bazillion people thinking that blogging is like totally for me and most of my clever ideas were already taken. So I settled for something a little more simple. Elley Exposed. It cuts through a lot of garbage and just says... here I am. Here I am - vulnerable, unsealed and bare. It also sounds racy and I like that.  I think many of us could use a little more raciness in our life, like in the bad-ass, I wear an apron in the kitchen only to hide my holster kind of way.  Some of my most potent workout songs in the gym are angry girl anthems. I used to listen to Beyonce's Irreplaceable endlessly during workouts. Then it was Pink's So What. Then Fighter by Christina Aguilera. These are all effectively SCREW YOU songs. And they are so awesome, especially for someone like me who, even when given the opportunity, would never be able to say screw you.   It isn't that I really want to say those words its just that I want the power and confidence that rides on the coat tails of those words, or at least the power and confidence that I perceive them to carry. Power and confidence are so sexy, aren't they?  
When my husband and I first fell in love I was a confident girl with a lot of ambition - I mean, hello, I was seventeen years old! The world was my oyster or something to that effect. I think this both intimidated and enticed him. It was something I never really understood when he tried to explain it.

Until it changed. 
I've tried numerous ways to recapture the mysterious confidence I carted around with me in the courtship days of my relationship to my husband to no avail. Because my attempts were never authentic. I wasn't addressing the real problem. And that problem, for me, was always the fact that I was struggling with my weight and it held me back in so many ways. I let it hold me back. It dictated what I wore and at which angle I preferred for pictures to be taken. The most surprising thing about losing weight is what I have been able to recapture.   I feel like I've finally got my sexy back.   And so, Happy Belated Anniversary to you too, my dear Sparky.  

Diffusing the False Crisis

I think I'm having a false crisis. I'm calling it a False Crisis because it is ridiculous and silly and the only thing that would actually make it interesting is if all of the key players in my life appeared and disappeared exactly on cue, driving around in sports cars with the top down and running around in shoes meant only for walking down the aisle. You know, like in romantic comedies.

I've been thinking about what drives people, well, at least one person – me. My hubby is out of town, so I've been alone the last few nights as my toddler-aged companions are in bed by 7:30pm, so I've had the time and I've pondered this quite a bit. When I committed to this journey last April I had so much drive. I had laser focus. I let nothing get in my way.

What changed?

I still want the same things – in fact I have a list of things that I want that hangs on the mirror in my bathroom and resides in whatever book I'm currently reading. I read it everyday and I still want everything on that list.

I want a purpose driven life.
I want my girls to hear the Taylor Swift song, “The Best Day” and think of me.
I want to fit into any pair of knee high boots I think are cute.
I want to wear a size six.
I want to run a marathon.
I want to write a children's book.
I want to volunteer in my children's classrooms.
I want to own a house.
I want to stop thinking that my dad is disappointed in me.
I want to live to 100.
I want to go on family vacation at least once a year.
I want to step on the scale at a doctor's office and not blush.
I want my children to have no memory of me being overweight.
I want to model healthy eating to my girls.
I want to show my girls how fun it is to exercise and move.
I want my husband to want me.
I want to be one of those people who says, “gosh, this is so rich, I couldn't possibly have another bite.”
I want people to read my blog.
I want people to share my blog with others.
I want to workout with a trainer once a week.
I want to inspire faith.
I want to minimize how much I yell and maximize how much I pray.
I want to take the stairs.
I want to wear a bikini.
I want to wear my wedding ring, without injury.
I want to teach Sunday school, regularly.
I want to feel good naked.
I want to work from home.
I want to have a deep meaningful friendship in Los Angeles.
I want to weigh less than 140 lbs.
I want to be an “after” story.

So, again, what changed? Why is it that I'm stalled out? And after a lot of dramatics and deep exposure of myself I think I finally have the answer...

Crisis.

I am no longer in crisis. When I started this journey nine months ago I was in real crisis. I was desperate, I was depressed, I was lonely and sad and disgusted and completely fed up being fed by the wrong things.

That's what's changed. I am now content and happy and I feel surrounded by love and support and I'm proud of myself and I feel full. Filled up with the right things. Of course, I don't feel like that all of the time. Sometimes I don't handle things very well and I tend to retreat and walk around aimlessly in calming places, like Target. Enter False Crisis, otherwise known as yesterday, wherein I sobbed like a baby to both my husband and my sister about the fact that over the week of my birthday I gained a pound and before that I hadn't lost weight in two months.

And you know what they said? “Boo freaking hoo.” So, OK, neither one of them said that but both of them should have. 

My birthday was amazing. It was everything a 30th birthday should be... it was indulgent and lavish and I felt like a pampered princess. I ate Sprinkles cupcakes and Cadberry Eggs and full fat cheese and drank regular Coke. It was glorious. But, the glory didn't come from food. It came from people. People who celebrated me and love me. The same people who have pulled me out of my real crisis and helped me stop letting fear run my life. The same people who celebrated and loved me when I couldn't celebrate and love myself. You know who you are and I want to thank you for for my false crisis. 

What I have to learn now is drive, drive without crisis. I'm not really sure how to do this, I think I've been operating this way my whole life. It's how I turned a mid-term C into an A by the end of a semester. It's how I learned to parallel park. It's why I got a dog and learned to cook and to plunge toilets. It's how I've always called myself to action, like in one of those romantic comedy endings where false crisis and false hope and real crisis and real hope alternate like a clockwork mechanism.

I don't have the answer. I'm just sending this out there... hoping I'll get one.

Pocket Full of Sunshine

Yesterday at this time, I was drenched in fat tears when I walked a little delirious but still victorious out of my hot yoga class. My first workout of 2012. 


I'm a big believer in resolutions. I think there is something very cleansing and renewing about entering a new year. I love dreaming about all the promises that a new year brings and I love reflecting back on the year that has just past and all the precious memories and accomplishments that I can pull out of my pocket to treasure any time I wish. 


I believe with full confidence that I will finish losing weight this year and begin the task of maintaining it for the rest of my life. And I think the time has come to document the physical transformation I made last year. 

 

 

 

 

 

Last December, on Maya's 1st Birthday.

In April 2011, on Lucy's 3rd Birthday.

These two photos were taken last January, just one year ago.

This was me in October 2011.

And this is me, last week, at Maya's 2nd Birthday Party. 

Sifting through pictures to produce this post was so revealing to me. Daily changes happen in such small increments that it can be so frustratingly difficult to see the transformation. Well, I see it now. And if you are super crafty, and look carefully you might just notice what I'm sporting on my left ring finger. 

It's going to be a Happy, happy, happy New Year.

There is No Such Thing As a Free Lemonade

I'm pretty wiped out after a long day at work but just wanted to document a moment from my day.

I picked up take-out at this cute little vegan restaurant near the hospital that I am newly obsessed with - don't judge, it is really, really tasty. They are currently offering free homemade beverages with every entree as a customer service thing because they are in the middle of a construction project. They have Wild Berry Iced Tea sweetened with Agave, Lavender Lemonade and a Watermelon Aqua Fresca. Whoa, yum. I have tried all of them and they are delectable. But tonight I hesitated before reaching into the cooler for my drink of choice, it wouldn't really be free would it? I had consciously chosen a healthy restaurant, consciously chosen a healthy entree and I consciously decided to pass up the empty calorie drink. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

Super Elley

I went to our new gym for the first time today. We joined the legion of gym rats that flock to the Wal-Mart of gyms that is 24 Hour Fitness. It is funny what dictates which gym we belong to now versus what used to dictate to which gym we belonged. Here is a little breakdown of how we have chosen gyms over the years.

Evansville, IN Years : Plain and simple, we had one requirement - minuscule payments. We joined what was the dirt cheapest gym in the tri-state area, the Evansville YMCA. It was dirt cheap and possibly constructed from dirt. It was so crusty and cave like - it made me depressed just to enter the door. The thing I remember most about that gym was the ramp which descended towards the weight room, it had a paint-chipped blue hand rail. I tried purposely never to touch it. I attempted to do Body For Life there, the first of my many yo-yo dieting tries after getting married. I hated that freaking gym.

Carmel, IN Years : We upgraded to having three requirements - cheap, clean and windows to the outside world. Cardinal Fitness won our golden ticket. I remember my biggest beef with that gym was the lack of towels (they didn't supply them at all) and this weird lady who, and I swear I'm not exaggerating, was there all of the time. She had an over processed, over hair-sprayed eighties style do and she monopolized the 5 pound weights. She and my sister actually got into a car accident - she was not a nice lady. It's OK that I snap-judged her and her bad weightlifting technique.

Los Angeles, CA (B.C. - before children) : Sports Club LA won our hearts and our wallets. We affectionately referred to this mecca as Globo-Gym. It had everything we could ever want, a pleasant spa-like smell, cardio equipment with personal televisions, unlimited towels, amazing group classes, delicious protein shakes, eye candy, famous clientele, enormous locker rooms with free razors and luscious bathroom products. We actually cut back on our shampoo budget while we were there because sometimes I would go there just to sit in the jacuzzi and shower. It really is an amazing place, where I can honestly say I never once felt inspired. Alas, I got pregnant with Lucy and it was the first area we chose to save money. It was the easiest decision we ever made.

Los Angeles, CA (A.C. - after children) : Number one requirement, good childcare. I think my husband could workout in back lit alley if he had a fully charged ipod and some free weights. He's not so picky but, especially after being spoiled by the decadence of Globo-Gym, I wanted something better than an alley way. I didn't want to go back to the Evansville days of minimum payment, maximum torture. We settled on something middle of the road at Meridian Bodies in Motion. I loved this place and I have never, NEVER loved a gym. But I'm coming to realize that I may not have loved the gym itself. I love what I was able to accomplish there. It was the birthplace of my love to spin, it was where I poured sweat and tears successfully losing weight and being proud of my body - for the first time as an adult. Sadly, it was bought out by some disgustingly wealthy Persian guy who is tearing out the boxing ring and replacing it was 24 karat gold dumb-bells. We might have even stayed but they are closing their childcare service and we are no longer welcome. No kids allowed.

I must say, I was really nervous to switch gyms, but after today I just feel excited. This evening I had the best workout I've had in months. I kicked my own butt and it felt amazing. I still need something fancier than a back lit alley but I have finally come to realize that has never been about the bricks and mortar of the structure - it's about the bricks and mortar that I'm made of - and today... I felt like a woman of steel.

How Now Ex-Cow

I've been hiding.

I'm super bummed... with myself.

I have lost zero pounds in the last 7 weeks.

Boo.


There is something that I feel compelled to share and I'm not sure why. I think the not sharing of it is holding me back. You may have noticed that I have never stated what my actual weight is - I hide behind how much weight I have lost or not lost. I'm embarrassed, it is a big number. But the truth is I don't weigh that much anymore and I plan never to weigh that much again. But sometimes I think that the old number is somehow stamped on me - a 200 pound branded cow.

"Don't step on it, it makes you cry."

When I first saw this little comic I thought it was so funny, I even showed my husband. But tonight, staring at it while I write this, it just makes me so sad because it wasn't that long ago that, for me, it was not funny. It was true.

I know it sounds warped and disrespectful to compare myself to a cow. But that is exactly what I felt like at 200 pounds — like a big, fat cow.

I don't cry on the scale anymore. I don't talk to myself in that degrading nasty way anymore. I've done too much, I've come too far. Sometimes, I just wish that I could talk to myself 36 pounds ago and say - well, I'm not sure what I would say, but it would be something loving and gentle and accepting. It might even be, "I love you, and I promise, it is all going to be OK."

Facing the loss of these next 29 lbs is a huge challenge, I really need to buckle down and do a little bit more. For me to lose weight it takes an extreme amount of discipline. For the next week, I am going to blog every day - it might be a bit boring and food journal-ish, so in attempts to bother you less I am not going to send out email blasts. But, if you would check in on me that would be great. This is one of those times, I could really really use your help.

Up the Wazoos

My six best friends from high school and I came up with a name for our little group, one crisp autumn night freshman year at a sleepover. We proudly call ourselves the WAZOOS. It was complete cheesy genius. Each one of us was assigned a letter with a perfectly correlated word.

W- Wild
A- Ambitious
Z- Zesty
O- Open
O- Out of this World
S- Sexy

We took great care to select the words and for which one of us it described most - the idea being that all words described all of us. A nickname with perfect synergistic originality.

Adam and I took the girls home to the Midwest for the last half of October. The vacation was long overdue, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single minute of our trip - all 23,040 of them. I am really homesick. I could write this entire entry about all the things that I miss about being in Indiana, but that's not really what I wanted to focus on today. What I wanted to focus on is my goal to recapture the Danielle of the Midwest. If I were more of a Facebook status update person, my status everyday while I was in the Midwest would have said something like, "I wouldn't want to be anyone or anywhere else."

It was so nice to be reminded of who I am, really am. I felt jovial and competitive, generous and content, pretty and beloved, silly and fun, nurturing and carefree, safe and sound. It was the most brilliant time so far in my journey, having a moment when I realized that I still am who I used to be, in the best, most fresh way. 

You may or may not have guessed that my assigned word and letter in the WAZOOS is A-Ambitious. It's all very appropriate, don't you think? I have some very ambitious goals for myself these next few months. And, I do believe, in the words of Elton John, that the bitch is back.