Time to dust this thing off and try again

Well as much fun as being sick, having sick children, getting through my husbands tonsilectomy and deviated septum repair, and gaining back everything I'd lost has been over the last few months I thank god its over.  Its been rough for the longest time and I finally am getting ack to taking care of myself.  Part of that is getting back on the road to recovery and working through my addiction to bad food and an unhealthy lifestyle.  Its nearly spring and I'm ready to shake off the winter blues and get back to being myself again cause I miss her, we used to be such good friends and now we hardly see each other anymore.  I've been trying to hide inside myself and keep me locked away from the world but today I finally decided that as big as my behind as gotten, hiding it is like trying to camoflauge a flamingo and about as pointless!

Last night we watched a movie with the kids and I was silly and danced around the living room because I liked the music and it was a happy moment.  It felt great!! Its something I used to do a lot of as silly as that might seem.  But I'm here to be honest and admit to myself that I like dancing around my living room and I used to do it everyday, just put some music on and let loose.  Its a great way to shake off the stress of the day and just be in my body which is something I struggle with a lot.  AS heavy as I've gotten its hard to feel comfortable in my body so I live in my head a lot of the time.  That disconnect is a huge roadblock in my recovery because I have to be physically connected with my body if I have a chance at this. 

 Its hard on me to identify myself in a physical way.  I've always been much more proud of my mind, even before I got heavy, it was my mind that received the most praise.  So over the years I kind of moved into my brain and let the rest of the space in myself fill with junk, like a hoarder I've overfilled that space to the point that its not really livable anymore. Its time to clean out the clutter, move back into that space and make it livable again.  I've stalled out in so many areas of life that I really feel that getting my self in order will bring the rest together.  It all starts with me right!

Today I am this overweight person.  I have a long road to walk to get to being a healthy weight person.  But I've stepped back on that road and taken a few steps.  This heavy woman likes to dance alone in my living room with the music turned up and from now on I don't care who can see me through the windows!!!

Has it really been two months

Has it really been two months, I guess it really has.  Well today is my 26th birthday so I thought it was as good a time as any for a post.  I've been terribly busy the last couple of months, especially since the first of November because its National Novel Writing Month and I have been busy trying to stay on track and get my number of words up when I've had a few free hours.  I'm nearly halfway to 50,000 but I need to get there before the thanksgiving because time after that flys by. 

Our niece was born early last month and it was touch and go for awhile, we were on the phone daily ready to drive up there at a moments notice if need be but she's doing much better now and will hopefully be going home soon.  We'll be heading home for thanksgiving this year and our hope if that we'll be able to spend some time with her and our cousin's baby who was also born healthy last month.  I'm just excited to see babies, its been a while since I've gotten to snuggle a baby and these little girls are so precious.

I did a full six weeks as a pretty strict vegan, an other then the initial 12 pounds or so nothing else came off and I was starting to feel sickly and weak all the time.  SO after a few days of wanting to die I slowly added some meat back into my diet.  White meat only and not everyday.  The taste of beef makes me want to be sick so I may never be able to eat that again, its been three months since any sort of cow meat has passed my lips and its hard to even cook it for my boys.  I can do dairy in small amounts but my stomach doesn't like it much and for some reason my system doesn't tolerate anything carbonated at all any more so no soda.

I think something is going on with my thyroid that my endocrinologist isn't getting, I know something is going on and I've been looking into it on my own.  A few times my levels have come back low, but he was more concerned with the possibility of me being diabetic because I am over weight.  Time and time again he's checked my blood sugar levels and they'd been great, smack dab in the middle of the normal range, never once in a place that would send off warning bells but for some reason he's treating me for insulin problems anyway.  So I stopped taking the meds and felt instantly better and then I stopped seeing him.  Now I'm at an impass because if something is wrong with my thyroid I need to see an endocrinologist and he's the one my insurance sends me too. I have to work through that I guess, we'll have to keep making appointments and try to fight this from every angle.

Today for my birthday I went to the school and had lunch with my youngest son, tomorrow I'm going to have lunch with my eldest.  We usually go out for supper but I'm trying to get around that somehow.  With the holidays coming I get really uptight about every penny spent because I want there to be money for the gifts after the bills get paid.  I even asked my husband not to get me a gift, which he them completely ignored, but he did spend a small amount which helped a little with my anxiety about the money.  I stress about everything, all the time.  I seriously need to let some of it go or I'm never going to get this weight off, I'll never get anywhere that way.

So being a vegetarian is okay I guess

So I've been living the loco vegan for almost three weeks now and its okay.  It can be kind of a pain in the butt to make things just for me while the rest of my family has something I would love that's still healthy but contains meat.  I'm tired of eating veggie burgers while they eat chicken burgers because there's very little difference nutritionally aside from the whole meat thing.  Mostly I'm just tired.  I;m not getting enough sleep or enough iron so my energy levels haven't been great and I've been sick with a cold so I'm whiny and annoying.

The problem is I've lost 10 pounds. And I know what your thinking, wheres the problem right?  The problem is this seems to be working and now I'm bummed out because the future is looking meatless and cheese less and egg less and that just makes me sad.  I happen to love meat and have no moral objections to the partaking of it.  I should right because I do love animals and the mass production of meat in this country is abominable.  But I grew up around farms and farmers, my family still puts a garden in every year and we're big believers in knowing where our food comes from.  I see no problem with responsible meat eating because quite frankly its wasteful not to make use of an animal once their gone and wastefulness was a sin in my household.

Aside from the near obsession with meat I've been trying to be more responsible.  I'm making good food choices cause its kind of hard not to, and I've been swimming nearly daily and walking up a storm with my puppy whom still hasn't quite decided that I'm going to get my way cause I'm the one in charge. And I drink water almost exclusively and as often as possible.

I;ve had some fun in the last few weeks, well tried to.  I went to our state fair and got to see Hot Chelle Rae and The Script in concert, both great but I went the day I did to see the Script which was amazing and wonderful!  I went on a boat ride with our local Frg and some other adults which was good for us all I think, I made vegan food for an international dinner and my sons class which both went over surprisingly well.  My younger son turned 6 and we surprised him with his friends and a party at what was supposed to be the family dinner.

Still haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong with the comment thing on the blogs I follow, I am reading up on you guys and I've had a thousand things to say and words of encouragement and love.  Every time I try I get a different error message so I don't even know how to fix the problem but I will say thank you for your stories and sharing your own journeys with us and I;m here in the background swearing at the computer trying figure it out!

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.