Support

One of the things I love about my fat camp is my fellow campers. We give each other a lot of support and encouragement, which is something I really need for this. Everyone's needs are different as far as what motivfates us. For some, it is a continued challenge. For others like me, it's praise. I've even been surprised at the amount of encouragement I have been getting from my co-workers who know that I'm on the program.

I got to talking to one last night and she said how her husband was really trying to undermine her weight loss. He badmouthed her new eating choices, continued to bring fattening food into the house when she asked him not to, and he would critically analyze her eating. She said that it was really undermining her self-determination and self-esteem.

Another woman in the group said how her daughter kept making comments about if she was working out so hard, how was it that she was still fat? That she must be doing something wrong.

Our coach said that oftentimes those closest to us don't want us to change because it would create a change in them or their relationship with us. Sure it's easy to get support from the fellow campers because we are all in the same boat. We are trying to change our eating habits, lose weight, and get more active. But the battle in forcing others to encourage (or at least not discourage) us was going to be one of the largest obstacles we will face.

Great work day yesterday

It's so rare that I have one of those days at work that I just want to gush about and since I had one yesterday, I figured it deserves a mention on here.

First off I had another meeting with my boss and Dr. Asshole about those damn missing funds. My boss hasn't worked on this at all, but he went to kind of cover me. I told him right before we left that I was pretty much hopefully done with this nightmare project and that I wanted to take all of the binders and spreadsheets and copies of gift transmittals over to their office and drop them off with them. He agreed.

So we went over there and I pretty much just ran the meeting. I showed him through some reports that I had created where a lot of the money got sent to incorrectly (regents versus foundation.) I gave him and his assistant all of the backup in case they want to butt heads with the regents to get their money into their foundation account. The doctor was actually praising me saying I deserved a medal and he couldn't believe how much I had found and how fantastic I was. He invited me to his gala this year (the project I had been working on was missing money from the 2005 gala) and just continued to praise my work. I walked out of there feeling like I had gotten rid of a 1,000 lbs. of extra weight. My boss and I were laughing all the way back to the office and I think I giggled twice. I won't refer to him as Dr. Asshole anymore because I feel like I am one of the few people he now respects.

Then last night I went to fat camp. We did 25 minutes of intense step aerobics and then went to the weight machines. The trainer had us each get on a machine, do a set, and then do a lap around the track. Once we came back, we would get onto the next machine and then do another lap.

Walking over to the weight machines after the step class, I thought I was going to melt into the carpet, but I didn't. I started on the weight machine, and then walked a lap. Then another weight machine and a half walk / half jogged a lap. Then I was doing the weights and jogging all the way around the track. My teammates were cheering me on. That encouraged me to take it another step. I started doing weights and running all the way around the track. I felt euphoric and I kept laughing as I would pass my friends and yelling out things like, "I'm gonna die!"

When it was over I felt so incredibly on top of the world - like I could do anything.

Martha Stewart eat your heart out

Some people have the oddest sense of creative hobbies.