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Paradigm's Journal


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I posted this in the 6 week challenge and figured it'd do for the starting post for a daily log as well, since god I don't want to rewrite all of that!

 

MY STORY

 

For as long as I can remember video games, fantasy novels and all sorts of other escapist things have been a way for me to get away from my real life. When I realized that I was basically using a bandaid I set out to fix things... And it worked... for a while. About six years ago I went from overweight to the best shape of my life. I loved every second of it and ironically, a video game got me started on that. I wanted to be able to beat Afro Supernova in DDR. I'm not sure if any of you have played that, but it's ridiculously hard. So this was my goal. I NEEDED to beat it. And I did exercise, got in shape and lost about 60 lbs.

 

Sounds great, right?

 

(This is a somewhat in depth story because I feel I need to get it out, people are not forced to eread it!)

 

It was, to a point. I got so fixated on being better, losing weight, getting smaller, that I actually ended up at 100 lbs and I'm 5'8. As you can guess, that's not exactlly a healthy weight for someone of my height! At that point I ended an absuive relationship, but by getting into another (unfortunately) that was even worse. I really had a knack for choosing guys at that point in my life. The new guy slowly isolated me from all of my friends, and lied about me behind my back to HIS friends and family, making it so people were not nice to me and I was more and more cut off from everyone but him. From what I've learned since then, this is pretty common of abusive men. And he'd go through cycles of cheating on me, abusing me, and then being crazy nice and trying to "fix things" by buying my affection. It got progressively worse over the years as well.

 

I was also working in jobs I hated, sedentary, sales of IT equipment to government bodies and educational facilities throughout the country. It was well paying, but very stressful. The bosses tried to keep us making them money by providing breakfasts, lunch and snacks (not every day, but fairly consistently. At least 2-3 days a week). These lunches were always high fat, high sugar, and full of starchy carbs. Add in to the fact that to keep up the energy needed to focus on mundane tasks all day you had to super load with caffine through energy drinks and soda/pop. This lead to me gaining over 120 pounds (I'm ashamed of this fact).

 

So I went from one unhealthy extreme (underweight) to another unhealthy extreme at around 60-80 lbs overweight. And I was so depressed with absolutely no support structure, a job I hated and an abusive partner. I tried repeatedly to leave him, but he always manipulated me back to him. I did what a lot of women do and found someone else to act as a crutch to help me leave the relationship. And for the first time I took what I had always held as "private" and broadcast it to all my friends and family. At this point my now ex broke into my work computer (he had apparently been monitoring my internet history and key logging) email and sent emails to my clients at work. Handling multi-million dollar contracts and whatnot for my employer, they didn't care if it was me or not (although I was given the option to clear my name and fight it if I wanted to) and let me go. I chose not to fight it because... for the first time I was in what Tim Ferriss describes as his "worst case scenario". I left my home I owned with my ex, had relatively little support structure, had now lost my job due to his bullshit and was not happy with anything. But ironically, the losing the job left me with a very hefty severance and a commission cheque had just come in. I had about a years worth of month and could work on rebuilding my life, but this time not with abusive people or even a job I hated holding me back!

 

I ended up realizing what I had always worried about as my "worst case" wasn't so bad and there were always ways to pick things back up. I now, two years later, run my own business (graphic and web design) and do freelance art work for the video game/film indsutries. So my career is absolutely on track to where I want it to be. I have a supportive partner (not abusive this time, woot!) who has helped me so much through everything. I was getting complacent and didn't strive to change my body, just kept saying I wanted to. And then in March I had a miscarriage for an ectopic pregnancy. The doctors say it was lucky, as had it gone even a week longer I would have died and so would hte baby. But as it was, we lost the baby (we didn't even know we were pregnant, because ectopic pregnancies regularily don't present symptoms) and I almost died myself from blood loss. This... made me realize I really need to pursue what I want from life because before things were always a "some day" and when you almost lose your life you realize some day may never come. You need to live every day like it could be your last. I don't want to have regrets so I need to figure out the last piece of my puzzle so I can pursue NEW things.

 

The last piece - My weight and body image.

 

The only thing I feel is holding me back these days from going after my more extreme dreams of traveling the world, and a bunch of other things, is my body image. I'd be happy if my body looked good regardless of the weight. So that's what brings me here... I need help with staying on track so I can resolve my final issue and the final piece of my personal puzzle so I can really go rock the world!

 

GOAL ONE:

 

Give up drinking coca-cola. This is probably the biggest reason I'm struggling with losing the weight. It was definitely my comfort through all the problems I went through (I don't overeat, I just eat shitty, high calorie foods) and I've had a hard time giving it up. I'm almost there with this one, in that I used to drink about 6-8 cans of coke a day. Now I am down to two, and next week one. I found that if I tried to just give it up I was getting ridiculous headaches and was very lethargic so I decided no cold-turkey and just wean myself off of it. I'm hoping in the next two weeks I can give it up completely.

 

GOAL TWO:

 

Lose two inches or more off my waist in the 6 weeks. I plan on doing this through a combination of actually making sure I eat properly and working out. I recently moved from the UK back to Canada and am living literally within a 2 minutes walk from the ocean. The place I live is also very, very hilly some inclines are at 23 degree inclines and a LOT of them are around 45 degree angles as well. I have two dogs which are rescues and need a lot of walks, training and running around so I plan to use them to help me in this mission! I also got myself a jumping rope, free weights, yoga mat, pilates ball, and a pullup bar. I am currently not sure we're staying in this area long enough to get myself into a contract a gym and none of the ones in a reasonable driving distance are month to month gyms. SO I'll be doing this using body weight and at home equipment and using the great outdoors as my playground.

 

GOAL THREE:

 

Make sure to eat three meals and appropriate snacks daily. A lot of my problems with weight is due to the fact that I get so caught up in work and other things that I don't eat appropriately. Because of that I'll go for "quick" things like pop for energy because I haven't eaten enough and get sluggish, or a burger from a restaurant or something appropriately fatty. If I don't have time for food making I'll eat out and get junk food snacks as well. I don't ever overeat, but I eat things that are so bad for me and so high in calories, I might as well gorge myself. If I make food myself, it's always healthy and a well balanced meal. So I just need to make sure I put the appropriate amount of time aside for myself every day to make food so I stay on track. This needs to be a priority for me, rather than an afterthought.

 

GOAL FOUR:

 

Grow my business by 10%. My business officially started on Feb 21, 2013! Before that it was always freelance work. So since then it's been growing steadily, but due to a large transcontinental move and me having some health concerns (I almost died in March) things got put to the side for a month or two. Now I need to kick up the sales a notch and really just stay focused. Rather than watching tv for hours six hours a day, or read a book and find other distractions (facebook is a black hole of nothingness I swear) I need to set aside a solid block of time daily to keep on track.

 

 

 

Starting Stats (June 4, 2013):

 

Height: 5'8" (this is unlikely to change lol)

Sex: Female (also unlikely to change!)
Weight: 197lbs

Hips: 42 inches

Waist: 38 inches

Thighs: 25 inches

Calves: 17 inches

Chest: 42 inches

Arms: 14.5 inches

Neck: 15 inches

Forearms: 9 inches

Body Fat: 33%

 

 

MY PLAN

 

I'll have to add to this bit later, but suffice it to say. I'm going to be as bad ass as any character in my games I play (WoW, Skyrim, etc!) and take over the world, one day at a time woot. Will post pictures in a seperate post as I need to go take some "Before" pictures. I also plan to stick to this, as I've tried many times to get going again on fitness and fail. I want some accountability to myself and I'm hoping spilling my guts out on a public internet forum will help me do that!

 

TL:DR I went through a lot of shit, abusive guys and getting to the worst point in my life. I gained weight. Now I want to lose weight and fulfill all my dreams. I mean, how ELSE am I going to show off my 1up mushroom tattoo without feeling skittish? PSH

 

Lvl. 10 Half-Elf Assassin

 

My Current Challenge

 

My Daily Battle Log

 

 

 

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