Exercise

So as I mentioned in my New Year's Post, one of my goals this year is finding balance. Something that I've always wanted to incorporate into my life is exercise. Not just for weight, although that would be nice, but for health. I have really bad joints, and being overweight with bad joints is a recipe for disaster in my family.
I know that a regular, sensible exercise routine would help tons with my joint pain, but I have this problem of going to extremes. If I start doing something, I want to do it 200%. Then I get overwhelmed, burnt out, and quit. Then I avoid it for 6 months or a year, then I want to start doing something again, so I dive in 200%... again. Rinse and Repeat.
I would like to find some way to incorporate exercise into my daily routine in a non-extreme, marathon-running, protein-shake-chugging way. My problem is this: if I don't see immediate results I get discouraged; I also have this mentality that results only happen if I take extreme measures. And I'm not just talking exercise- I'm talking hobbies, friendships, house-cleaning, work... I'm a very superlative person.
What this means for me with exercise is that I just don't feel like doing it if I can't drop 5-10 pounds a week. Here's the thing though; if I want to get healthy and find balance, I cannot center my life on something extreme. That's the complete opposite of balance. What I need to do is just find simple things that I can work into my daily routine of teaching, caring for my home and my family, having a social life, fulfilling my church obligations, and being healthy. This means that going to the gym is just not an option. I declare officially that I do not have time, motivation, or energy to get dressed in special clothes, drive to a gym, wait for my preferred machines to become available, exercise, drive home, shower, and change. Jeez. Just thinking about it sounds really obnoxious and time consuming. And I've tried- really tried. But my 6:00 wake-up call cannot be pushed back earlier to accommodate working out in the morning I'm just too tired when I get home to go in the afternoon, too busy at night.
What I've decided to try is Kinect. Kinect is like Wii on crack. No controllers, no mercy. There's a game that I've started doing this week that's basically a personal trainer combined with a video game. I like it because it's in my house, it actually monitors me and lets me know if I'm doing the exercises correctly, there are over 50 classes and workouts (boredom is a huge problem for me), and it tracks my progress. Plust there's the added bonus of price (We got the Kinect for free because hubs traded in his old broken X-Box 360 at Sams and all they had to replace it with was a new one with Kinect), and the lack of sweaty gym people.
 I figure if I can squeeze in 30-45 minutes a day exercising with Kinect then maybe I can get in the habit of working out daily. And once it's part of my daily routine, THEN I can try to tackle something bigger like running. For now, though, Dance, Boot Camp, Yoga, Tai Chi, Resistance Training, Cardio Boxing, and games will hopefully keep me active and interested.
What do you do to stay active?

Progress and Setbacks

Well, today was the first time I've really lost control of my eating in about a week. That's pretty good progress for me, since I've had plenty of opportunities to dive in since I last blogged about my goal.
However, today was a difficult day for no particular reason. I guess I didn't sleep well last night, which always puts me in an off mood at the start of the day. Still, not much reason to lose control and binge my way through the day. It started around lunch time when I discovered a half-eaten dark chocolate mint bar in my desk drawer. I've been very dutifully nibbling away on this beast for about two weeks now, and I still had half left. It's one of those mega-sized monstrosities that always tempt me in the snacks aisle at the grocery store. I go in looking for Wheat Thins and come out with heaven only knows what. This one, however, was given to me by Victoria, a pretty girl in fifth period. I've been savoring it, but for some reason I snapped during fifth period and snarfed down the entire remaining half. I'm pretty sure I looked like cookie monster while I was doing it, but I didn't care.
After work the situation went from bad to worse. I had to go to my district ESOL teachers' meeting, and I was now tired, stressed, annoyed, and feeling a little guilty. For me, this is an epic combination of factors that nearly always results in a thousand-calorie-plus mack fest. And, true to form, I ended up eating 9 doughnut holes, half a gingerbread bar, and about 3 ounces of cheese with crackers.
That left me in a really bad place going home. I had plans to utilize the loaf of freshly-baked bread that was given to me as a birthday treat from the lunch ladies for dinner tonight. I'm kind of off bread for the past 3 years, but I can't resist freshly baked white bread. It's like kryptonite. And I knew just what to do with it- French Onion Soup. The king of all soups. It's actually pretty healthy, considering. I put the breaks on and only had one bowl, also. I skipped the accompanying sandwich that hubby requested too, but overall today was a crap day, and now I have to start over with my one-year pledge.
I don't know how, but I just have to find SOME way to make it through the school day without feeling completely wiped out and drained. I hate coming home and feeling like the only thing that will restore my health and vitality is copious quantities of starchy, sugary, fatty treats. There has to be SOMETHING else, right? Or do I have to quit my job if I want to be healthy.
Anyway, I'm going to cut it off here. I'm in a really unpleasant place right now and I want to find something positive to end my day with. Perhaps this will cheer me up?

Update

Well, I've been doing pretty well with my resolution so far. I have been super tempted to binge and a couple of times I even started, but I read a couple of tips on these blogs that really helped:
Can You Stay For Dinner? and Runs for Cookies.
One of them (I forget which) said that if you feel tempted to binge, let yourself have one portion and then wait ten minutes. If you still feel like eating, then you can go ahead and eat more. If not, then your problem is solved. I tried that twice and it worked. I still ended up eating junk food, but not fully pigging out on it.
It's been an interesting process to say the least, but I'm starting to think I can actually do this.

A Confession and a Resolution

So last week I blogged about my New Year's Resolutions. I didn't, however, blog about my secret resolution that I have decided to make un-secret. I have decided to address and attempt to stop binge eating for 365 days.
I am a binge-eater. I have been for most of my life. It started after my parents got divorced. It may have started before. I'm not sure. I was only 7 when my parents split up and I don't remember food being an issue before then. I do remember, however, that after the divorce my weight became a non-stop topic of discussion in my house, and that I was put on a diet, which 23 years later I am still on. I also started hoarding food and eating it in secret. HUGE quantities of food.  I've hinted at this before, but usually I skirt around the issue because I am in a constant state of denial that my eating is under control, but it's really not.
Binge eating is scary. I know that it will kill me if I don't get it under control either through chronic disease or through mental illness and its consequences. I used to purge after binging. I was bulimic throughout most of my teen years and early 20's. I stopped purging about 6 years ago, although I occasionally have a relapse. The problem is that once I stopped purging the weight started piling on, and I've pretty much been on a non-stop diet since then. Dieting constantly has made me very sick.
That's where the juice fast comes in. That's the real reason I started the juice fast- to try and heal myself. And I'm doing a lot better. My chronic migraines are gone. My skin disorder is clearing up. My digestive problems are starting to improve. I have more energy, and I've broken my caffeine addiction. I realize, however, that this process is entirely in vain if I don't stop the problem that started everything in the first place. What's the use in healing myself if I'm going to just go back and start hurting myself all over again when I'm done? It's like cutting, only on the inside, and I have to stop picking up the razor.
Because of this, I've decided that this year I'm going to do it. I'm going to stop binging. This will be a very frustrating and sometimes discouraging process, and it will involve bringing up a lot of the negative stuff in my life that I usually try to gloss over. If you don't want to read about it, I understand. There is so much negativity on the net these days that I'm sure you can find more uplifting stuff to read.
Part of conquering an addiction, however, is accountability. There are groups like Over-Eaters Anonymous that are dedicated to this sort of thing, but for some reason sitting in a dingy church basement talking about food doesn't seem like the best first step for me. Part of the reason I binge is because I suffer from crippling social anxiety, and going out in public and talking to strangers seems like it would cause more stress (and thus more binging). So I'm using my own little blog as a platform for accountability. I hope that by June I'll be able to work up the courage to go to some meetings. Until then, I will be reporting my binges and successes on this blog. I appreciate your support and patience with me while I attempt to figure this out. And maybe along the way I can help somebody out there that is secretly fighting the same battle. 
Also, I'd like to mention that if you feel like you are suffering from something similar, you really should consider discussing this with a qualified medical professional. Unfortunately for me, hubby's health insurance was canceled this year, and I can't sign up for insurance at my work until August. We make too much to qualify for financial assistance, and too little to be able to afford that sort of thing out-of-pocket. Otherwise, I'd probably also be trying to work this out with a therapist. 
So here I am; trying to paddle up-creek in a leaky canoe all by myself. I always say there's no time like the present, however, and I'm no longer okay with waiting until "later" to do what I know I should be doing today. So in the sake of honesty and fairness, I will start with yesterday.
When I got home from work yesterday, I was exhausted. I woke up at 6, made juice for myself and Luis, then went to my emotionally and physically draining job. I didn't eat lunch. I rarely have time for lunch. I am usually making copies or running errands. Instead, I snacked on sunflower seeds and banana chips all day. School got out at 3:00, but I had to stay later to work on a project that isn't even really my job, for an audit that shouldn't be my responsibility, which will happen tomorrow. I was angry, tired, hungry, and frustrated by the time I got home at 4:30. I was also lonely. I come home to an empty house every day. I hate it. So instead of calling someone (social anxiety), or doing something productive, I ate a box of nerds, a handful of gummy bears, 2 marzipan candy clusters, some sauteed mushrooms, a big bowl of beans and cheese. Afterward I felt full. And a little better. But still so, so tired and lonely. I watched tv for an hour until Luis came home. I was feeling better when he got home, but then he left to go do his church calling, and while he was gone I had a big bowl of chocolate ice cream instead of eating any sort of real dinner. I didn't feel like I deserved dinner since I'd eaten so much junk food during the day, but then my blood sugar got low and I had to eat something carby fast, and the only thing I could find was the ice cream. 
Today my goal today is to find some time at work to eat something filling, and to do something that makes me happy when I get home from work today. What that is, I don't know. I do know, however, that it feels good to try.

Resolved

I love New Year's Resolutions. Maybe it's because I'm a January baby, but it seems like such a fresh new start for me every year. I think the Romans got it right when they named the month after their god Janus who sees both past and future.
I am not, however, a big fan of making the same resolutions year after year. I think it's silly and useless to resolve to get organized, lose weight, etc., if you've ever resolved to do it before. And since I spent the majority of my 20's resolving to do just those things and then failing, this year I'm starting my 30's by breaking out of that rut and focusing on things that are much more important to me in the long run.

Here are my resolutions:

1. Watch tv less and play games with my family more.
2. Get rid of things I don't need anymore; clothes, bad habits, negative attitudes, and more.
3. Make something handmade every week, and give it away.
4. Watch more sunsets.
5. Raise my voice less often.
6. Think before I speak and act.
7. Say "Thank You" and "I'm sorry" more often.
8. Go some place I've never been before.
9. Use a good moisturizer, daily.
10. Keep fresh flowers in my house.

So here's to a fantastic 2012.  What are your resolutions?