A unique opportunity

So a unique opportunity has kind of fallen into my lap, well really its been there so a few months but I finally had the courage, or was fed up enough with my husbands nagging, to reach out for the help.  A soldier my husband works with at the hospital is training to be a nutritionist and fitness expert specializing in weight loss.  And while he's still training for this he has been helping out people for free.  I know how could I have been ignoring this for this long right.  I have a really hard time asking other people for help.

Well this kid(he's a bit younger then me so I reserve the right to call him kid) has been helping other people we know as well as members of his own family for a few years now and has been able to achieve some pretty impressive results.  And he's agreed to help me out as much as he can, he is a newlywed though so it might be limited.  This could really be an amazing chance for me so I'm trying to remain optimistic.  Who knows he may someday be a coach on biggest loser and I can be one of his success stories.

He came to talk to my husband and me yesterday about what I've been doing and what I'll be needed to do from now on.  He's said some things I've heard before but he had some new advice that has made me do a lot of thinking.  He wants me to cut out meat though and I'm kind of struggling with that.  I've given up a lot of things on the road to a healthier me.  I'm not sure I'm ready to part with meat, I know its possible, we so eat vegetarian occasionally for health reasons, but to become one full time seems daunting.  Plus I'm anemic and I worry already about my iron levels. I've got some decisions to make about how much of what he says is doable for me personally.

  IN the mean time a hurricane is coming so I hope all you fellow east coasters are in a safe place well away from the storm, we are just above any evacuation zones but there's still one hell of a storm on the way and we may be without power for a few days.  I'm a little worried about my basement flooding but I have no place to put things for safe keeping so we'll have to wait and see. Good luck to the rest of you!

What Happens when an overachiever stops being the best at everything?

I've been thinking a lot about why I seem to have hit such a long bought with depression because I know its whats been sitting in my way.  I used to be the kind of person that everything came easy to.  I made good grades and I had a lot of friends and I could charm anyone into seeing me as a happy fun person to be around.  Instead of being happy with myself I started to feel like if I couldn't keep that up no one would love me.  That if I wasn't the best at everything that I wasn't good for anything.  And then my dad took off and left me and my mother holding the bag.  At first I was able to keep at it, keep the grades and the friends and the achievements going but I started to put on weight.

Nearly 14 years later and I feel like all those things I was the best at are gone.  Every time I meet new people, instead of being that happy fun person, I'm the overweight braggart trying desperately to impress people into believing I still have some small measure of self worth.  Not surprisingly I'm the biggest I've ever been and I'm having a really hard time coming down in weight, so much trouble that I've been thinking about having surgery to correct my failure. 

So what happens to that overachiever isn't pretty.  I doubt myself in tasks I used to believe I was pretty good at, I have no love for myself because I feel like I've let everybody down by not being who they thought I'd be.  I ended up pregnant at 17 just like my mother, as she likes to point out every time I see her.  I've heard "you were such a smart girl and had the whole world ahead of you, why did you throw it all away," so many times it might as well be tattooed on my forehead. I live in a world I don't fit and I feel like I can't fit inside myself anymore. 

I'm trying to find a way to be okay with who ever I turn out to be and let go of the ridiculous expectations I had for myself a decade ago.  I want to think of it as introducing myself to who I'm going to be and see if I can get some of that spark back.  Somewhere in that charming girl who could do anything she put her mind to the real me existed.  I need to find a way to be okay if all those parts of her aren't there anymore.

Beginning again, again

My husband and I decided that since this school year both boys will be all day at school, that we should take the free time to work out.  He thinks I should be working out the whole 7 hours biggest loser style, but I've managed to talk him down to working myself up to that.  I didn't let myself get too emotional today, even while watching my youngest child put on his backpack and line up with his class to spend his first full day away from me in his entire life.  I didn't want to weigh down his excitement with my silly mommy sadness.  And I tried really hard not to ask him a million questions about how his first day went, we settled with about 20 so far I think. But he knew it was coming because his brother started second grade last week and I grilled him then too.  It still bothers me a little that they spend so much of their day with other people, I miss them terribly and spend way too much time "helping out" at school.

As for exercise, today I went swimming with my husband for about 80 mins.  The big earthquake that hit happened while we were in the pool so even though our neighbors say they felt it, we were completely unaware until we picked the boys up from school and everyone was talking about it.  I managed to get quite a few laps in even without my goggles and sharing a lane with my pool challenged husband.  We really need to find some adult swimming lessons for him if he's going to swim with me on a regular basis, he gets so discouraged watching everyone else swim and float with ease when he sinks like a stone. 

For the eating part, I've been following the principles of the Glycemic Index diet.  It has green light foods which I can have without having to think much about it and then yellow light things to avoid most of the time and red light foods to avoid all together.  Its fairly simple, common sense stuff but the recipes in the back are interesting and I think it'll be easier to keep at it because its not too hard. I"m drinking as much water as I remember to drink and trying to get in breakfast and a few snacks to keep my metabolism running more evenly throughout the day.  Having to walk a dog every 90 mins or so seems to be helping as well.  I'm trying to keep my head up this time and enjoy the journey as much as I can.

Another month without a word, sorry again

I went to my mother's for a visit at the end of July and spent two weeks wondering why we thought moving closer to home would be a good idea for our family.  I sound ungrateful right now which makes me feel guilty, but as nice as it was to see family and friends, it was a constant reminder of why we fought all the time and were unhappy and why I ended up getting over 350 pounds.  A lot of the time it was just sad how angry and selfish and out of touch my family has become. 

 Since my brother and sister had to come back home 8 months ago the anger in the house has just gotten worse.  Everyone walks around mad at everyone and it breaks my heart.  When my husband came up to get us and spend some time with his family we thought it would be a nice break from the drama at my mother's and it was even worse.  His parents were so angry and bitter the whole visit we only stayed for three hours and the kids, dog and i spent an hour of that time outside on the trampoline while his parents sat inside.  We ended up driving home a whole day earlier then planned. 

Since then we've been trying to get back into a routine because the boys go back to school in about a week.  I've also started getting back on track with eating and fitness and trying to train the dog.  The one good thing about our trip home was the puppy got to have a puppy play date with a dog his size and he was the happiest I've ever seen him. 

So here's to getting back on track and finding a bit of comfort in distance and praying for the strength to make it through.