Letting go of Ashley the "Skinny Bride"

So are you still training for that race? 

No, I am no longer on the training plan I mentioned before. I stopped because I felt pressured to spend my fitness time in a more "productive" way. I started doing HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts, specifically Insanity. After a few weeks I stopped my Insanity workouts, and am now back on a running plan. 

If I didn't like HIIT and Insanity, why did I do it in the first place? 

This really is the tip of a much bigger iceberg in my journey of body acceptance. I felt I needed to do HIIT because these workouts are the fastest way to build muscle mass and lose body fat. If you are unaware, there is a really big day coming up in my life in which over a hundred people will all be staring at me. I felt pressured to "look my best" which pressured me to do workouts I don't like, and diet, which I don't want to do anymore. 

Well, I am officially done. Consider this a public service announcement on all issues of my body and my wedding. 

I, Ashley Thompson, am officially giving up my since childhood fantasy of being a skinny bride. Many girls have their dress, colors or flowers picked out for their wedding long before they have a ring on their finger. The only thing I dreamed about was being a skinny bride. I used to think marriage was a milestone that represented that your life was coming together. You were growing up, starting a new chapter of your life, and had a least some of your shit figured out. I thought that once I grew up, and had my shit figured out I would magically be thin, too. Now I realize that the together-ness of my life has nothing to do with the size of my body. Finally I feel ready to give up fantasizing about being something I am not, and learning to nourish and love what I am, body included. 

If this isn't what having your life together looks like, I don't know does. 

Compared to my current weight, I have weighed more, and I have weighed less. I have spent LITERALLY  spent the last decade of my short life dieting. For once in my life I am going to make a commitment to myself to nourish and take care of my body and love it, not matter what shape it may be. 

For friends and family who think commenting about my weight, or my exercise/eating habits is appropriate - stop. 

It has, and will always, negatively impact my ability to accept my body. Talking about my body does not motivate me to lose weight or improve my health. If anything it fuels self destructive behaviors. Trust me, I literally have a degree in health behavior, if there was a magically way to make people lose weight, I would have heard about it. Also weight loss is not the same as improved health. I am continuing my commitment to improve my health, I am just no longer using the amount of weight I can lose as my measure for success in this endeavor. In my attempts to lose weight I have picked up some healthy behaviors and some destructive behaviors.

All in all, I do have my shit figured out, it just looks different than I thought it would when I was younger. 

I have a job that I love, I spend my time reading about issues I care about, I have an amazing fiance that I am excited to start a family with, and I have my whole life ahead of me. I have yet to figure out the how-to-eat-without-dieting thing, but I am working on it. I do know that being obsessed with my weight has not improved my physical health and definitely has negatively impacted my mental health.


I do know trying to lose 30 pounds before my wedding will not help improve my ability to accept my body or improve my health. 

In case you are still a little confused, here is a recap: 

• No, I am not dieting for my wedding. 
• Yes, my body could change, but that is part of my current journey to find a weight I can maintain without dieting. 
• No, you are never allowed to comment on my body or my physical activity/eating habits, even if you think what you are saying is a compliment. It is not a compliment, by the way. 
• Yes, health promotion is still an important aspect of my personal and professional life. I have just learned that promoting health looks different than I originally thought and a healthy me might look different than I originally though. 
• No, I have not yet learned how to eat without dieting, and accept my body, but I do now those two goals are what will lead to improved health, and happiness in my life - not dieting/weight loss. 

Phew, that feels good to get off my chest! 

Ambiguity

I have this new goal that is all about being happy. While this goal sounds nice, it is hard to understand what it means. Essentially I decided the way I was living life was not making happy, and therefore, I should do something else. But I had no idea what to do instead. I felt (and still feel) lost, but am starting to find footing again.

As I get older, I try to find comfort and less anxiety in moments where my life is less certain. Before, when I didn’t have a clear goal and method to that goal I would freak out. Being that way actually helped me a lot in life, but still brought on more emotional baggage than I care to bare over the long haul.

On the other hand, in my pursuit for comfort in the unknown, I find myself without any guidance at all. This is how I feel at the current moment. I set myself the ambiguous goal of letting go of my preoccupation with dieting and weight loss, but didn’t really tell myself what to do instead.

It has been interesting the last couple weeks, and I have learned from my experiences.

On things I learned is that at this point in my journey, I still need boundaries or guidance. The two areas where this impacts my eating/weight habits is journaling and weighing. Really that was all weight watchers was, keeping track of how much you eat, and monitoring your weight.

For me, journaling isn’t about keeping track of food to ensure I was eating the right amount to lose weight, but instead a way to be conscious of my choices. Therefore, I still journal when I eat, but do not keep a running tally of my calorie deficit. I find that in general I know how much I can eat and maintain my weight, and some day might stop journaling. For now though, I find it still helpful. It is helping me find a normal with my eating and less eating in the extremes. In the past I would “be on plan” Monday – Thursday eating very low amounts of calories, and then “off plan” Friday – Sunday eating to the point of pain. While the amount I eat changes day to day, it has started to level out, which makes me think I am finding my natural, healthy middle point.

The other piece of guidance I still use is weighing. I still weigh myself, and am slowly trying to make it more irregular. As of now, my goal is to stick to only once a week, and then hopefully even biweekly. Because I have been dieting for so long, I gain a lot of anxiety from not knowing my weight. I hope as I start to find my more regular eating habits, I will worry less about weighing as well. I hope to someday only weigh in once a month, just to ensure everything is in check.

With journaling and weighing, I am not sure what role they will play in my life in the future, but for now this routine seems pretty good. I really take it each day at a time. I look at my behaviors, reflect, and then take a next step forward.

A big accomplishment for me lately has been my cooking! I have made quite a few good meals that were mainly whole foods and vegan. It make me happy to not only increase my skills in the kitchen, but also learn to enjoy more whole and healthy foods. They taste wonderful too!

None of this is perfect. None of this I suggest to anyone else. The point of these blogs are to show my journey to a healthier lifestyle. In my life I seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. I went form inactive and mindless eating to over active, and obsessive eating. Maybe these challenges seem silly, but for me they are real.

I made a choice, I could keep living in diet culture, or I could do something else. With that choice I also accept that the damage that diet culture has brought to me will not go away over night. I hope to each day with each choice get closer to a more balanced lifestyle.

Last Day

What a day! I woke up around 6am to start my LAST day of work! I spent most of the day in basically Kentucky/West Virginia Southeastern Ohio checking posters. It was long, cold and terrible, as usual. I just felt so tired by midday.

Then, when I got back to the office at 4:30 I realized, oh my god, this is my LAST DAY! From then on it was all adrenaline baby! I got my last bit of paper work completed and I was outta there!

Good bye work! You were an interesting learning experience, thank you and good bye!

While I have been working my little heart out, Kevin has been doing a great job packing/cleaning. Just look at the cleaning job he did on this bathroom. It is amazing, I didn’t know he had such mad Mr. Clean skills.

 

Kevin v. Mr. Clean

 

(Mr. Clean source)

Yup, I’ll still take the fluffy one. On an unrelated note, the picture above is form the most disappointing Costco trips ever. What a retail FAIL on their part.

All in all, packing has been coming along smoothly. Things are getting done.

And other things haven’t gotten done.

Our plan is to get the truck tomorrow and start packing up. As of now we aren’t sure if we are driving up Saturday or Sunday. I am taking it one step at a time, and taking the night easy/resting.

All I know is, I am done! For the first time since school ended I finally feel DONE. I have completed my job, am starting a new one Monday, and am 75% ready to move! This is how I feel:

Now you might ask yourself, Ashley what is that hairy growth coming out of your head? Well, when one is truly relaxing, one puts their bangs in a pointy tail, making it appear as if your head is sprouting a small hairy tree, or a tail. Either would be interesting.

Weird pony tails is how I let loose. I eat Mexican food too, and maybe have a beer, or two. Don’t worry I still think most beer taste like socks, but this is blueberry flavored! Doe that even count as beer anymore?

Alright, bed time for me, and early to rise for these things tomorrow:

• Truck
• Packing
• 4 mile run (wait, what?)

Oh my, what a day!

Breakfast of champs

You are jealous of my breakfast, just admit it.

I tried to bake an apple today, and just suggestions from here.
After I baked the apple, I put them on top of the pancakes from yesterday with some raisins and agave on top.  All I have to say is nom nom nom .…

Long time, no blog

It feels like forever since my last blog! Well here is a little recap of my life.

These past few months of life has been school, election, and driving back and forth to Cleveland. I found myself phone banking, organizing my first phone bank in Bowling Green, and helping with the One Bowling Green campaign. We lost, we won, but I found myself in some funny places along the way.

I had a second home with some friends at BGSU. They like puzzles. There is a very important dance that happens when a piece is found. I also found myself wandering near Kevin’s old apartment. Ah yes, fond memories!

This fall had a lot of car disasters as well. First, someone decided to randomly back up into my car then drive off, not cool. Second, I was harmlessly driving back to Columbus from Cleveland and the rubber on my tire just fell off. I was driving along, heard a weird sound, looked back, and saw the remains of my tire roll down a hill. What is my life? I missed class, and had to turn in my paper late. I got an A still, so take that karma!

  

Speaking of school, I spent a lot of time doing this.

This is me studying environmental health at the law library. I think when people saw me making millions billions of note cards about asbestos they were confused. I am not officially done with ALL my classes and practicum for graduate school! Now all I have left is my culminating project. For that I am working with a research at Kent State to write a funding proposal for a survey project. I am really excited about the project and will write more about it later.

Also, I got a new job as a School Health Educator with Planned Parenthood Northeast Ohio! I am so excited to be educating and working with young people. I love young people, check it out here.

With school done and a new job starting in a few weeks, I am working on getting my hours finished at my current job. Therefore, I am on the road again checking posters. Sometimes I run into posters that are NOT public health, such as the one on the left.

  

I haven’t had much time for cooking these days but I have learned a few things. Below is my ode to squash. I love squash and can’t wait to learn how to do more with it. On the left we got acorn squash, and on the right spaghetti squash with a little tomato sauce mixed it. It is WONDERFUL.

 

Here is some other nom noms I have been digging. Grilled pepper and hummus on toast and rice, tomato and chickpea bowl. YUM!

    

I have been doing some more research on vegan lifestyles and marathon running.

 

Marathon training has been going great so far. This is the first week I really feel like a runner again! I ran 2 miles yesterday with a 9.52 min/mi pace, with is basically LIGHTINING SPEED for me. I was way impressed.
That is my update so far! The next month will be CRAZY and can’t wait to fill you in on all the fun. Here are just a few of the up coming events …

• New job
• Moving
• Xmas
• Wedding!
• FRIENDS from across the states and world reunited!

Yeah, I am really excited for December! Before the fun starts I got to get through this move and finish my Columbus. This is my mantra … YOU CAN DO IT!