Spark People
Well, I've done my first week with Spark People. I joined last Friday. The site is amazing. Not only does it keep my motivated to change to a healthier lifestyle, but also I'm losing weight in the process! I lost 3 pounds last week! The best part about all of this is that it's totally free! I can't believe it's free. There's so much stuff on there that for it to be free is hard to wrap my mind around. If anyone wants to check it out it's here.
My max calorie intake per day is 1550, but on my first two days I went over that on Friday by about 30 cals. and on Saturday, by about 20 cals. I guess that's not so bad, especially since I had a freakin' huge bowl of ice cream, which I loaded with chocolate sauce. I was watching a movie while I ate it. Badbadbadbad. Every time I eat, practically, it's in front of the tv or in front of the computer. I think the computer is better because it's interactive and isn't mind-numbing like tv is. Well, some tv is mind-numbing, but some other programs just take all my attention to where I can't or won't focus on anything else. I've just discovered that I like to watch boxing and UFC. Like I told one of my friends, I don't know what it is about watching two guys beat the shit out of each other, but I like it and get very perturbed and very put out if I'm pulled away from it. I just watched my first UFC match a couple of weeks ago and the whole time, my whole body was clenched and my adrenaline was soaring. I could feel my heart beating like it was going to jump out of my chest and I kept my hand to my mouth covering it as though I was going to cry out, but was trying not to. It was very tense. Watching Boxing is almost the same way, but not so tense. It's the little guys that are the most scrappy, though. They usually come away bloody, looking like they've had their faces ground into gravel and broken glass. I don't know. I guess somewhere in my subconscious I have a violent streak. I don't know. I wish I could channel it into my working out.
I'm a pretty laid back person. It takes a lot to make me angry, but when I do get angry, stressed or tense, I stuff it all inside and hold it there. I guess I do it because that's what I've always done since I was little. In my house growing up, any show of anger or standing up for myself was swiftly punished with a backhand, a punch or an all-out beating complete with the requisite curse words and humiliation. I need to find an appropriate outlet for the anger and such that I keep within me. It's hard to release it. Unbelievably hard. It's like I've got a brain block. Mental tapes of my mother keep replaying in my head; my father, too. Also, all the times I was made fun of in school because I was so pudgy as a child. I had skinny arms and legs with a big pot belly. I used to get poked in the belly a lot. I never retaliated.
When I got into high school, I definitely released a lot of my anger, but it was so in the wrong direction. I was so in the wrong place, but I didn't know it. I couldn't see beyond my anger and hurt. I was violent in high school. I carried my dad's big bowie knife with me wherever I went. This was before high school's had metal detectors and they checked everyone for weapons. I think I was taking out all of my anger on the people around me. I was made fun of in high school, too. Mostly because I was considered really weird; a freak.
I moved to a very small country town from a larger city when I was 14. My dad got custody of me because my mother, among the other things she did to me that I finally divulged to my dad, tried to run me over with her car. My mother was and is a very free spirit. She's very flighty and has a temper like nothing I've ever seen and it can be ignited by anything. You never know what will set her off. I'm still uncertain around her, even though our relationship is way better now than it was. Anyway, as a result of living with my mom, I was exposed to all of these alternative lifestyles from a very early age. Musicians regularly hung out, practiced and crashed at our house. Of course, that meant my being exposed to drugs at a very young age as well. It was all very non-conformist and there were very few rules, except the ones my mother changed on a daily or hourly basis.
When I moved in with my dad, I was in major culture shock. He was pretty strict compared to my mom. When I look back on it now, though, his rules were pretty normal. It was just so foreign to me at the time. I was stared at in school, because I too, am mostly a free spirit. I'm that artsy-fartsy person who's always doing or saying something that makes people uncomfortable. Sometimes I make friends, though, and that's really cool. The little town my dad lived in was just so vanilla. Not that I don't like vanilla things; like I like vanilla ice cream. It's just that I found that most people there either lacked imagination or if they had it, were afraid to expose themselves as such. Conformist is not even the word.
As I've gained weight over the years, my creativity and imagination has sort of gone underground, if you will. So has my way of dress. I'm pretty regular looking now. I still have my nose piercing, but I rarely wear the ring. I got a Monroe piercing a few years ago, but after having it a year, I had to take it out because it never healed properly and the skin on the inside of my mouth kept trying to grow over the back of the piece of jewelry I had there.
In the past year or so, I've learned new ways to express myself creatively. I didn't realize how choked and repressed I felt until I found this software program which I could make artwork with on my computer. It's totally amazing. That jump-started me into doing other creative things, like working on writing. I can't tell you how much my writing skills have evolved since I've really started to actually put myself into what I write and to really choose my words; to really think about what I'm writing instead of just listing things. This is one thing I can say that I like about myself; that I'm extremely creative. I hope in the days and weeks to come as I work with this site and hopefully lose weight, I'll be motivated to find other things about myself that I like.
My max calorie intake per day is 1550, but on my first two days I went over that on Friday by about 30 cals. and on Saturday, by about 20 cals. I guess that's not so bad, especially since I had a freakin' huge bowl of ice cream, which I loaded with chocolate sauce. I was watching a movie while I ate it. Badbadbadbad. Every time I eat, practically, it's in front of the tv or in front of the computer. I think the computer is better because it's interactive and isn't mind-numbing like tv is. Well, some tv is mind-numbing, but some other programs just take all my attention to where I can't or won't focus on anything else. I've just discovered that I like to watch boxing and UFC. Like I told one of my friends, I don't know what it is about watching two guys beat the shit out of each other, but I like it and get very perturbed and very put out if I'm pulled away from it. I just watched my first UFC match a couple of weeks ago and the whole time, my whole body was clenched and my adrenaline was soaring. I could feel my heart beating like it was going to jump out of my chest and I kept my hand to my mouth covering it as though I was going to cry out, but was trying not to. It was very tense. Watching Boxing is almost the same way, but not so tense. It's the little guys that are the most scrappy, though. They usually come away bloody, looking like they've had their faces ground into gravel and broken glass. I don't know. I guess somewhere in my subconscious I have a violent streak. I don't know. I wish I could channel it into my working out.
I'm a pretty laid back person. It takes a lot to make me angry, but when I do get angry, stressed or tense, I stuff it all inside and hold it there. I guess I do it because that's what I've always done since I was little. In my house growing up, any show of anger or standing up for myself was swiftly punished with a backhand, a punch or an all-out beating complete with the requisite curse words and humiliation. I need to find an appropriate outlet for the anger and such that I keep within me. It's hard to release it. Unbelievably hard. It's like I've got a brain block. Mental tapes of my mother keep replaying in my head; my father, too. Also, all the times I was made fun of in school because I was so pudgy as a child. I had skinny arms and legs with a big pot belly. I used to get poked in the belly a lot. I never retaliated.
When I got into high school, I definitely released a lot of my anger, but it was so in the wrong direction. I was so in the wrong place, but I didn't know it. I couldn't see beyond my anger and hurt. I was violent in high school. I carried my dad's big bowie knife with me wherever I went. This was before high school's had metal detectors and they checked everyone for weapons. I think I was taking out all of my anger on the people around me. I was made fun of in high school, too. Mostly because I was considered really weird; a freak.
I moved to a very small country town from a larger city when I was 14. My dad got custody of me because my mother, among the other things she did to me that I finally divulged to my dad, tried to run me over with her car. My mother was and is a very free spirit. She's very flighty and has a temper like nothing I've ever seen and it can be ignited by anything. You never know what will set her off. I'm still uncertain around her, even though our relationship is way better now than it was. Anyway, as a result of living with my mom, I was exposed to all of these alternative lifestyles from a very early age. Musicians regularly hung out, practiced and crashed at our house. Of course, that meant my being exposed to drugs at a very young age as well. It was all very non-conformist and there were very few rules, except the ones my mother changed on a daily or hourly basis.
When I moved in with my dad, I was in major culture shock. He was pretty strict compared to my mom. When I look back on it now, though, his rules were pretty normal. It was just so foreign to me at the time. I was stared at in school, because I too, am mostly a free spirit. I'm that artsy-fartsy person who's always doing or saying something that makes people uncomfortable. Sometimes I make friends, though, and that's really cool. The little town my dad lived in was just so vanilla. Not that I don't like vanilla things; like I like vanilla ice cream. It's just that I found that most people there either lacked imagination or if they had it, were afraid to expose themselves as such. Conformist is not even the word.
As I've gained weight over the years, my creativity and imagination has sort of gone underground, if you will. So has my way of dress. I'm pretty regular looking now. I still have my nose piercing, but I rarely wear the ring. I got a Monroe piercing a few years ago, but after having it a year, I had to take it out because it never healed properly and the skin on the inside of my mouth kept trying to grow over the back of the piece of jewelry I had there.
In the past year or so, I've learned new ways to express myself creatively. I didn't realize how choked and repressed I felt until I found this software program which I could make artwork with on my computer. It's totally amazing. That jump-started me into doing other creative things, like working on writing. I can't tell you how much my writing skills have evolved since I've really started to actually put myself into what I write and to really choose my words; to really think about what I'm writing instead of just listing things. This is one thing I can say that I like about myself; that I'm extremely creative. I hope in the days and weeks to come as I work with this site and hopefully lose weight, I'll be motivated to find other things about myself that I like.
Labels: health
posted by Anais Nin at
2:51 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the link to Sparkpeople! I've been looking for something just like this!
Here via Blogexplosion.
No problem. I'm glad to share anything that is so amazingly positive and helps people to lose weight when they want to. Until I found this site everything I had been doing to lose weight had been working against my body. Now, I'm working with my body and I can't tell you how much better it feels.
I wish you all luck in your journey.
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