All Things Gwen

Cupcakes from Ben's First Birthday!

My life, WAS a bunch of oxymorons — mixed up and confused. See, I love to work out, teach group exercise classes … and eat my face off. I’ve never been disciplined with eating healthy or followed an exercise plan. (I’m Filipino and all we do is gather around food.) I’d run a 10K without training, sign up for all kinds of races and just do them. I never felt strong while doing them though, and always chalked it up to — I don’t have time to do my own workout since I’m teaching so many classes. Regardless, no matter what I knew was right to do — for diet and nutrition with all that activity — I never did it. I’d answer everyone’s questions and be encouraging for them, but I was always a “fraud” so to speak. I always felt like it.

Bad Scene
In fact, I’ll never forget the time I drank one Diet Coke the day before a 5K. One Diet Coke and that’s it. No water. In the summer. On the way to the race, I barely drank any water for fear I’d have to pee (stupid excuse!) . The race was brutal. It was insanely hot and I felt horrible. I barely drank water after because it was a long ride home. I ended up getting crazy dizzy and barely being able to drive during a major storm. Yes, I made myself sick for days because I was dehydrated. Could barely get out of bed. Stupid.

Emotional Eating
I realize now that life is always going to be hard, there are always going to be challenges and I need to stop the emotional eating. During 2008 – 2010, I gained about 25 pounds from my stressful job from which I’d later get laid off from. I’d start at 7 am after an hour commute, be falling asleep all day, and when I came home just wanted to eat everything in sight and decompress. And, I did. My excuse then was — I work so hard, I deserve to eat this! I know now that that job sucked the life out of me and eating gave me joy. Life didn’t give me joy. Thank goodness the door closed there for me, because it was emotionally unhealthy for me and the other people in the department that were let go/left as well.

More Excuses
Here I am now, married. Before the wedding, I was watching what I ate (sorta) and lost about ten pounds simply by not eating late at night. I still look back and wish I tried a little harder … but again, I had an excuse. At that point, it was — I’m stressed! We have so many expenses! I got laid off months before and was bugging out about what to do with my life. I had a flood of emotions associated with losing my job.

More Unhealthy Habits and The Turning Point
Recently, we’ve been going to a lot of family parties. My hubs and I have tons of cousins, and we have a lot of close friends. That means first birthdays, showers, weddings … all that. Last weekend, we went to a first birthday and they had an insane amount of desserts — vanilla ice cream with caramel and toffee, ice cream cake, a candy bar and gigantic sugar cookie favor. I ate all of it. These aren’t even my favorite sweets! It was there and I ate it. Did the same thing at a baptism the day before. GROSS. I was really feeling like I was eating sugary stuff I didn’t need and felt like crap about it.
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