Fear of Life

Last night my friend Caitlin came by to have some wine and just visit. We were chatting about our kids, our husbands, our jobs and all that usual stuff. In discussing work, she brought up a friend who recently moved up in the company she works for – how much this friend loves her job, how often she gets to travel, etc. She said she’d love to have a job where she could travel, and I immediately said, “Oh man, no way, not me.” I kind of jokingly talked about how I’m scaredy-cat and home-body.

But it’s true. I would never enjoy traveling for work. It would make me feel incredibly alone and lonely. I’d be terrified of saying something wrong at a conference or a meeting. I’d be terrified of looking like I didn’t know what I was doing. I would hate having to be away from my friends and family, I would hate sleeping in unfamiliar environments, living in hotels. Even if it wasn’t for work!! I’ve never desired to travel extensively. I’ve never had the itch to go to Europe or Australia or Japan, etc, etc. The very thought of being on a plane over the ocean, of being somewhere I don’t fluently speak the language – of the jet-lag and the time zone adjustment. None of it is appealing to me!! I didn’t even want to go to the Bahamas or Dominican Republic or anywhere like that for my honeymoon - I was perfectly happy to drive 5 hours down the highway to the Outer Banks.

I’m kind of terrified of life outside my norm. The cliché of growing up in a small town, marrying your high school sweetheart, raising your children in that same small town, and dying in that same small town is incredibly appealing to me. I would be happy and content with that life, I think. It would make me feel safe. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe that’s just how some people are, maybe that’s okay. Maybe if I had come up in that small-town cliché, I’d feel differently. I guess I just like knowing where I’m going and what I’m doing and what’s going to happen. If I’m uncertain about my environment and/or with people who are uncertain, it makes me feel really out of control and scared.

That’s part of my issue with my job right now, I think. I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing a lot of the time. There’s no schedule or regiment to any of it other than “I run payroll on the 15^th and the 30^th” type stuff – outside of the “schedule” of those dates each month, every day-to-day interaction and work process is different dependent on what our clients want and need. It’s not as simple as, “Everyday I come in and I draft x memo or report, enter new data on spreadsheets A, B and C, I check the fax and mail and file invoices” etc, etc, etc… there are those basic things, but there are also phone calls all day long, email barrages, etc. that may require a different answer to the same question all the time. And the follow-ups… don’t even get me started. WHY SO MUCH FOLLOWING UP?!?! Not to mention the knowledge. I just pretty much feel like an idiot all the time. I have no expertise in the business I’m currently working in – and on top of that, it interests me very, very little, so trying to retain additional knowledge than what already comes from common sense and just having been in the same office/industry for 4 years (osmosis, as I like to call it), it’s near impossible.

Also, I’m not sure if you all were aware, but a major side-effect of high-stress and depression is short-term memory issues. I find this happening to me all the time, and it just keeps getting worse. I couldn’t tell you what I ate or who I spoke to 4 days ago. I consider myself lucky that I remember to put pants on in the morning, because there are days where I will stand in front of the bathroom mirror for 5-10 minutes just trying to remember what it was I was doing. Hint: it’s usually “put my contacts in” or “brush my teeth”. It’s one thing to operate in a sort of fog on a daily basis, but it’s a little scarier to realize you have no idea what you did last Christmas. You know you bought your youngest child a Fisher Price pirate ship… but what did you do?? Where did you go, who did you see? I have no idea. I know we stayed in Virginia. That’s about all I can recall other than the pirate ship thing. Fun stuff, huh? Yeah, I don’t think so… I also don’t think that’s particularly normal.

This happened on Christmas:

My dad got me this Eeyore mug as a gift -- I wanted to show it off so I snapped a photo... and immediately realized how mousy and ashy my hair looked. One's hair should not almost exactly match the color of their green eyes. I'm just sayin'. 

So then this happened on Saturday:

My hair is now auburn. And while it looks pretty (although a little darker and redder than I really wanted), I also quickly realized that if I'm dying my hair, I'm feeling out of control. 

It's just hair, it'll grow out, I can bleach it, I can cut it, whatever. I can control my hair. And it's about the only thing I can easily and somewhat effectively control. I can style it however I want. It can be whatever I want with little to moderate work/time/effort.

This is a red flag in my world. I'm honestly surprised this didn't happen before now. I also would be surprised if I didn't hate it/change it within a month. 

I also want you all to know that I'm consciously trying to maintain positive thoughts today. My god, it's exhausting. 

A Brief Moment of Positivity

Last night I went up to a local restaurant/bar to meet up with some friends for a beer. It just happened to be karaoke night (and I just happen to love me some karaoke), and it also just happened to be pretty dead in the bar area so I got to sing several songs over the couple hours I was up there.

I had a bit of a busy day yesterday and didn't really eat much for lack of time, then I took my oldest son to a birthday party at a roller rink where I got to roller skate too!! Not only was there roller skating, but also a reunion with friends I hadn't seen in over a year! So much fun!!! However, after doing that for about an hour running on almost zero food... and then eating a bunch of fried and sugary goodness from the party snacks, I honestly felt like I was maybe having a diabetic episode. I felt like I was going to just pass out at one point! The point of this is to say: I didn't drink much with my friends even though I felt much more "normal" at that point of the night. I had just a couple beers, drank a lot of water, and danced my butt off to all the awesome karaoke folks were singing. I had a BLAST! And I felt really awesome about not being a drunky-pants, allowing me to offer a couple of my friends a ride home and save them some cab money.

I felt really good when I got home, although tired. As I got ready for bed I was feeling very good about myself and pretty happy in general. I noticed I was giving myself compliments in my head while changing into my pajamas. I was thinking, "Man, Jess, look at these awesome legs you have. They not only let you walk around all day long everyday, but they also let you do super fun things like roller skate after 15 years, and dance and jump around to music like a crazy person. They are pretty badass body parts, for sure." I thought about how lucky I am to be healthy and able-bodied, and how even though I have some extra fat hanging out on my belly after two children (and less-than-stellar eating habits!), that's okay. I like my soft belly that carried my beautiful children, and my strong legs that let me run, dance, and jump. These are the parts of my body that I've probably disliked the most my entire adult life. It felt good to all of a sudden be thankful for them and recognize that they are beautiful even if they aren't "perfect".

I'm not magically "better" - but it was nice to have these few hours of fun and positivity. It was still hard to get out of bed this morning, but I'm feeling more like there is light at the end of the tunnel today. I can't say that there won't be anymore really bad days, but I'm sure thankful for yesterday being a good day.

It's Not Funny Anymore

There's kind of a running joke among my social circle about my negativity, my less-than-positive overreactions to high-stress ( and even low-stress) situations, and my somewhat gloomy and cynical outlook on life. I frequently post things on my personal Facebook along the lines of, "It's 7pm and I'm just leaving work. *dies*" (I work a regular Mon-Fri 9-5 desk job, just for some point of reference), as well as the occasional, "Traffic is so bad I want to kill myself." Let's not forget the ever-famous: "I hate children."

I affectionately say I'm going to murder people when they annoy me - rarely to their faces... my first response when something gets all snafu'd is to say I want to kill myself. On the rare occasion that I don't add a "*dies*" or "*stabstabstab*" to a typed-out vent, there are many who chime in on comments and add it for me. Today I got a picture of Eeyore. That's fine. (I love Eeyore.)

What's not fine is the very real depression that I'm suffering through right now. I realized the other day it's been over 6 months. I think I've been very for-real depressed since about May. Sure, there have been a few weeks here and there where I've felt more up. There have probably even been a few manic periods where I was very, VERY UP to the point where it almost seemed fake... because it was, but not because I was doing it on purpose - because it was false euphoria brought on by my awesome brain chemistry. I've had exactly two people express their concern to me regarding my mental state. Neither of those people were my spouse or even family members... I'll take that back, I think my dad sees it a little. Whereas for some it might be jarring or even slightly embarrassing to have someone say to you, "I don't think you're okay. I'm worried about you." - for me, I am already very aware. My only response was/is, "I'm worried about me, too."

I think I've probably been saying for about 3 months that I need to go back to counseling/therapy. I haven't done it. I haven't even looked into it. I'm honestly not sure that I can afford it. I'm sure there are other expenses that I could cut out in order to make it work and make the difference - but the stress of having to sit down with my budget and find where to make those cuts is entirely too overwhelming right now. I feel like it's just easier to drink a little more, sleep a little more, and continue to blog about how making healthier food choices and exercising regularly is "helping".

The problem is, I'm not consistently making healthier food choices nor am I consistently exercising, so it's not helping. It might be better than nothing, but it's not fixing anything and I'm fucking lying to myself and to you if I say that it is.

I'm completely guilty of this, but when someone says they're unsure how they can make it through the next x amount of days/weeks/months/whatever without a serious emotional breakdown -- please don't tell them to "be more positive" or "start with a positive base" or "you're setting yourself up to fail if you already think you're failing". Listen, I love and respect my husband very much - he is a wonderful person. He is very supportive of me in many, many ways in everything that he says and does. But he's not good at this depression thing. I know I'm hard to live with right now. I know I'm not really a lot of fun to be around and that it's probably a real pain in the ass to share a home and work environment with me, to have to deal with my doom and gloom all day long every day - but it's not a fucking picnic for me either, okay? I don't think he "gets it". I need to be able to say to him, "I think the upcoming busy season may kill me." and I need him to understand that that is a very real concern - I need him to understand that it's not funny for me anymore. It's not just a dramatized overreaction. I don't need the criticism and the speech about being more positive and making it through. I need someone to help me, because I'm not entirely sure I'm in a mental place where I can help myself right now.

Fucked up confession: I've been wishing so hard lately that I'll go to sleep and not wake up that the night before Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve Eve, as my baby sister calls it) I started freaking out that I might actually die and that, please God, don't let me die, don't believe me when I ask to not wake up, because it's almost Christmas and I want to see my kids' reactions to their gifts and get to watch Christmas movies with them, etc, etc. I was really scared, you guys.

Reading back over that makes me really sad. I get so angry with myself because it's just not that bad. I have a good life. I have a good job, a nice home, a good marriage, beautiful and healthy children, a great relationship with my family, wonderful friends, and very few financial stresses or concerns. I try so hard to count all those blessings every day. Every night in bed as I wait to fall asleep, I think about all those wonderful and important things that I have... and there are still nights that I hope I won't wake up in the morning. There's something really, incredibly wrong with that. At some point along the last few years, I forgot how to rejoice in my life. I don't know how to get it back.

Something has to change. I can't live my life like this anymore. I keep feeling like I might know what to do to make it better, but it feels like those changes are so far out of what is realistic for my life and my family right now that I just need to suck it up and get happy. I just don't know how to suck it up and get happy. I do know that I can't just keep pushing along acting like everything is going to magically be okay one day, not changing anything about my life, doing the same things day in and day out and thinking I'm going to get different emotional results.

Step 1: call a damn therapist by January 1st.

Another List

The last couple weeks I’ve had a lot bouncing around in my head. Things I want to be/do/accomplish. This isn’t the first time I’ve done a list like this. The difference with this one is that it’s more about taking care of myself, instead of putting pressure on myself to meet high standards.

These are some of those things:

• On workdays when Nolan gets up around 7, just get up at 7 instead of laying back down on the couch for 30-45 minutes. It’ll make me feel less rushed in the mornings, plus will probably make me much less groggy.
• Get back to meal planning to a) save money and b)make work-nights smoother and easier; create several weekly menus and rotate.
• Do some sort of exercise in the morning, whether that’s 15 minutes of yoga or going for a walk or run (if the weather is warm) – just get moving and do something aerobic-ish.
• Spend more time with myself; read, play music, blog, etc. – SCHEDULE IT!
• Meditate for 5 minutes every day. SCHEDULE IT!
• Work on a plan to move into the career path I really want and can be passionate about; put that plan into motion.
• Try to be more positive and count my blessings while making the best of my current situation.

The last few days I’ve had moments where I feel like I may finally be coming out of my depression a little bit, but unfortunately those usually end with an emotional crash and burn. I still am having far too many weepy times throughout the day where someone will say something or I’ll think of something that just makes me really sad. To be honest, the other night I was feeling a little manic. I was feeling very “high” – very up, very happy/giggly, I had trouble falling asleep, etc. but by the morning I was kind of down and groggy again. It’s definitely time to start hunting for a new counselor since the woman I used to see is no longer in private practice. This might help me get on track with other aspects of my life as well, help me to start working on my “career plan”.

I’ve had some random bursts of motivation and inspiration to get things done – like cleaning, organizing, etc. I’m going to continue to take advantage of those bursts as often as I can. I’ve completed 2 out of 3 workouts so far this week, and we are supposed to have some beautiful weather on Saturday during which I’m hoping I can get a run in. The exercise may be what’s been boosting my mood, too. All the more reason to do a little more of it!

If anyone is interested in the circuit training I’m doing, here’s the link: http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/express/20-minute/bob-harper-circuit-workout/

Right now I’m only doing 2 sets, instead of 4. With warm-up and cool down/stretch it takes me roughly 30 minutes. According to my Polar HRM, I burn about 335-350 calories per workout. It keeps my heart rate pretty high. Definitely falls into the HIIT category.

Slow On The Uptake

Sorry that I've still been slow with posts! I have about 6 drafts floating around all about different things and I can't seem to wrap any of them to actually publish.

I'm going to go ahead and say this is a side-effect of my depression. I think that's a pretty accurate statement.

I'm still alive and still doing things, I'm just not posting about them currently because it's chaos inside my brain right now.

Please stick around, I promise I will get something up soon!

Fighting Failure

Today has been a day of feeling like an absolute failure...

I cooked cupcakes with my 2 year old. He was (surprisingly) super helpful and had a blast! But this then made me get sad and feel like I have totally failed my 8 year old because I never did anything fun like this with him when he was 2... then I decided to beat myself up a little bit for being young and stupid and selfish when he was little and always doing what I wanted and never making an effort to make things fun for him. Then I realized I rarely try to do fun things with my kids now and beat myself up a little more. Then I decided that because my youngest fell down at my in-laws last night and busted his bottom lip, has a giant swollen top lip, and displaced two teeth (which my dentist informed me may discolor to a grayish color over the next few days/couple weeks and just be that way until his permanent teeth come in) that this must mean I am a horrible mother for not watching him more closely. I'm even more horrible because I waited until this afternoon to call the dentist and ask what I should do about the displaced teeth, etc.

ps - there's nothing we can do, really. Only hope they are not displaced so much that it affects his bite (which I don't think they are).

On top of this, my oldest is going on a field trip to see a local ballet company perform The Nutcracker and he asked me to be a parent volunteer... AFTER we already signed the permission slip and didn't mark the volunteer box. His Friday classroom newsletter stated they already have their parent volunteers and don't need any others. So, I told him that perhaps he and I could have a "date" together and go see The Nutcracker on a weekend soon. Except that our weekends are booked solid through Christmas. ...not to mention tickets are incredibly expensive.

I'm hoping very much that a trip to the movies to see Frozen and a cheeseburger at a local chain restaurant will suffice as replacement.

...but it's not a good replacement in my head. I want to be able to take him to see The Nutcracker. I could make the time, I could cancel some of our other plans to make it happen... unfortunately that doesn't do anything about the financial issue. And that makes me depressed and feel like a failure because it's somehow my fault that our area has a high cost of living... which, it's obviously not. I have a good job, make a decent salary, and we do as well with our money as we can... but that doesn't change the fact that we just had to spend nearly $400 on car repairs last week, just took a trip out of town, and still have Christmas shopping to do. Not mention who knows what this dental visit for the baby will cost tomorrow!! (We don't have dental insurance.)

Everything is very overwhelming. I'm in a bad, bad headspace and I just really don't know that there's anything I can do at this point to pull out of it. I'm looking forward to the holiday, but am also somewhat dreading it knowing that my busy season at work will begin just week after the start of the new year, and it may put me into a very real and true mental breakdown.

I won't even get into the emotional ups and downs of my granddad's illness and hopeful recovery.

I am very lost. Maybe I need some Jesus in my life. 'Tis the season?

My disappearance!

Wow, I didn’t quite realize how long it had been since I updated! I’ve been sort of living on a different planet for the last 3 weeks. I kept up with my workouts like a champ until we left for Arkansas the Friday before Thanksgiving. While I packed workout clothes/shoes and my heart rate monitor, with every intention of doing some bodyweight circuit training during my visit to the south – that didn’t happen.

My last post before my trip stated that my grandfather was going to begin chemo for his lung cancer and hopefully all would be well… except that he wasn’t able to begin treatment. Until today. While, this is still good news, he has become very weak over the last few weeks and there is some concern that going through treatment may not have the outcome we hope for. We have a lot of trust in his oncologist and all we can do is pray… and pray, and pray, and pray.

I am incredibly grateful that my husband took a lot of the responsibility of entertaining our children every day of our trip so that I could go and spend at least a couple hours at the hospital each day, as well as incredibly grateful that I was able to visit at all. It was a rough 10 days, though. To say that it was a “great trip”, etc. would be a lie. It was a hard trip. It was emotional. And, to be very honest, I am not happy to be home in any way. To say that my car breaking down Thanksgiving evening (MY 15 MONTH OLD HONDA ODYSSEY!! Talk about a wtf moment…) was a blessing in disguise would be an understatement. I was almost relieved while at the same time so upset I wanted to cry and punch things. After lots of engine tests and the possibility of the engine needing to be replaced, it turns out it was just bad fuel. From Exxon. THANKS, EXXON. I’ve written to their customer service department and am hoping they will see fit to reimburse me for the $400 fuel flush that was required to stop my engine from misfiring constantly. If not, well, you might see my personal Facebook blowing up with an Exxon smear campaign.  …I digress… trip was bittersweet, car broke down, not happy to be home.. there’s the basic gist.

I will say that I’m happy to get back into my workouts, though. I should have done it last night, but I don’t travel well… meaning, I get highly emotional and kind of flip out whenever we return from a long trip. Sometimes even after short trips. I’m not really sure what this says about me other than maybe I don’t love my real life so much.

Speaking of which: one of my friends posted one of those inspirational memes on Facebook about a week ago that said something to the effect of, “If everything were exactly the same as it is today a year from now, would you be happy?” …and I immediately was thinking to myself, “Oh, hell no.”

There’s something wrong with that. I have some ideas of what needs to change, but I really have no clue how to put things into motion and I’m not entirely sure what I need to motivate me to make the changes I so desperately need to see in my life. I had a panic attack the other night for the first time in probably 18 months or more, which is a HUGE sign that something’s gotta give. So, there’s that. It’s really, I guess, just more of the same, ‘I’m so depressed’ crap that I’ve been writing about for a few months now. It might be time to seek out counseling again. Yay for therapy!

Okay, so to focus on some positives: now that I’m home I can dive back into my workouts, I can get back to getting my 5 servings of fruits/veggies in every day, and I get to sleep in my own bed. The weather is warm here today, so I’ll get to enjoy a walk on my lunch break, and because of my car trouble I only have to work a 2 day week this week.

I’m looking forward to hitting the grocery store this weekend and recommitting to healthier eating. I ate a lot of junk on my trip, and a lot of it was just because of convenience and not really because I wanted to eat it. I almost immediately felt my body’s reaction to it, and it was no bueno. This aside, however, I managed to do really well on calorie intake and stayed within my limit with the exception of maybe 2 days.

I’ll be taking pictures and measurements again this weekend, but I am not expecting any positive change since I haven’t been lifting for 2 weeks.

Stay tuned. 

A little bit of decent news

First, an update on my grandfather: he’s going to begin chemo treatment for his lung cancer. His biopsy showed that while this is an aggressive type of cancer, it also responds incredibly well to certain chemo drugs, of which are mild so there’s no risk of the nausea and hair loss, etc. that most people think of when they hear “chemo”. This cancer apparently responds well enough to this treatment that his doctors believe they can put him into remission with chemo alone without any surgery or radiation, at least for his chest – they will be doing radiation treatment on his brain as a precaution since this cancer has a tendency to metastasis in the brain. We’re hoping his white blood cell count will come back up enough this week that he can begin treatment. Without treatment, the oncologist said he could only expect to live another 2 months. That is obviously very upsetting, but there is still hope as the current plan is to move forward with the chemo a soon as possible. There is another bump in the road, however, as his chemo for his MDS must be put on hold while he undergoes treatment for the lung cancer. His doctors are hopeful that they can maintain the MDS with blood and platelet transfusions until his other treatment is done.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers that his blood counts come back up and stay strong as he begins the treatment process!

Now, to maintain my own sense of normalcy and attempt to focus on other things to avoid deep depression we return to our regularly scheduled programming… First things first, I want to say how super proud I am of my cousin Maury for taking control of her health as well as jumping back into the blogging world! I've missed her so much! If you're interested in checking out her journey, you can find her here. :)

Here is an update on measurements since beginning the Starting Strength program:

11/16/13

• Body fat estimation: 32.8% / 31.5% (Definitely more than I would have ever expected in 3 weeks! Used an average of the 3 BF% calculators on Fat2FitRadio.com)
• Weight: 189 lbs / 192.2 lbs (I weighed myself after breakfast – whoops. Although I’m pretty sure some of this is water gain from water retention in my muscles. Probably won’t have a super accurate weight until I take a rest week.)
• Neck: 13” / no change
• Bicep flexing: 12” / no change
• Forearm: 9.75” / 9.5”
• Wrist: 6.25” / 6” (thinking I may have measured incorrectly the first time around, since I have bony-ass wrists and am pretty sure there wasn’t any fat-loss there)
• Across bust: 38” / no change
• Under bust: 35” / 34.5”
• Waist: 34.5” / 33” (Major change!! Gain 3 lbs but lose an INCH AND A HALF OFF MY WAIST? I’ll take that ANY day!)
• Navel: 37” / 35.5” (This was almost more exciting than the above 1.5” change, because let’s face it – this is the area where it’s hardest to lose the belly fat.)
• Hips: 45.75” / 44.75” (WOO!)
• Thighs: 26.5” / 25.75”
• Calf: 15” / 14.75”

And some photos:

I can see the difference, can you? Nolan was helping me! …I need to get a new bicep picture up, also. I feel like my arms are a bit thinner/more defined than a few months ago, but I don’t know that I’ll really be able to tell until I snap a picture.

One of my goals during this Starting Strength program is to more consistently track my progress and take pictures regularly every 2-3 weeks. I look back on my photos and notes, and I know in February I was at about the same body fat percentage I am right now – except that I have no idea what calculator I was using for that estimation, so I really don’t have a realistic comparison. I also feel like my clothes fit better right now than they did at the beginning of the year, but that could very well just be weight shift and not necessarily fat loss overall.

I’m hoping to get up to the local university’s sports medicine center in the next couple months to get a BodPod scan – this will give me an accurate body fat percentage and overview of my body composition in general, as well as my RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) and TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) instead of just the estimations I’ve been using for all these things. So not only will I know what my body fat percentage is, but I’ll also know whether or not I’m eating the right amount of calories every day! I’m excited about it and also terrified at the same time. I’m hoping the body fat percentage will be less than what I’ve been estimating since being pear-shaped can sometimes throw these calculators for a loop, and I’m also hoping that my RMR and TDEE are close to what I’m already estimating and not less… because, well, I like food.

Speaking of food, for those who are wondering I have a daily calorie goal right now of about 2400. This is supposed to be maintenance for me right now. Some days I eat closer to 2100, some days closer to 3000, but I’m averaging right around that 2400 mark and this seems to be working for me. I’m not losing weight and I’m not gaining. We’ll see if this maintenance number continues to work for me as I progress through this lifting program (and once I get my Bod Pod scan results). I’m a-okay with staying the same weight if I can continue my fat loss, and I definitely think taking time off both from calorie tracking and exercise for those weeks was good for me both emotionally and physically. Yes, I gained some fat – but essentially doing a “re-feed” I think will assist in my fat loss moving forward. We’ll just have to see. I think one of the more important things for me right now is watching my diet. Last week my greens went bad and it took me about 5 days before I ran to the store to get a fresh mix… for some reason I also decided it wasn’t particularly important to eat any fruit during these 5 days, either.

Seriously. What.The.Hell.

I definitely need to get back into the habit of doing smoothies for myself, if for nothing more than to get my “5 a day” in. Yes, when I have fresh greens, I eat giant salads almost daily and I have been snacking more on baby carrots and the like, but fruit is definitely important too and an excellent substitute for junk when I get those sweets cravings.

…speaking of sweets, I totally baked some chocolate chip cookies last night using my whole wheat flour for the first time. While I can taste the “wheatiness” in them, they’re still pretty darn delicious – and for large cookies, not too bad calorie-wise (around 180 calories for almost 4” in diameter). 

I want to eat them all.

Ps – I may be changing some things around with the blog. Keep your eyes peeled for adjustments!

Emotional Wreck

Since most of my readers are also my real-life friends, most (if not all) of you probably already knew or at least say my Facebook post earlier today regarding my granddad... but just in case you didn't, here's the news:

My grandfather was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer this week. This comes on top of a pre-leukemia diagnosis last month, as well as the existing congestive heart failure and emphysema he's been dealing with since his heart attack in 2010.

There really isn't much else we know right now. Surgery may not really be an option since his heart function is so low, as well as having low platelets due to his MDS (pre-leukemia) and being rather underweight and weak from just generally being in poor health for the last several months. The chemo and radiation options may just make his quality of life so poor that it may not be worth it... so it's all very difficult right now. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made, none of them easy. Right now we are all just really hoping he can be released from the hospital in order to spend Thanksgiving with the family. I know he's been looking forward to seeing all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren for a while now. 

In the meantime, I'm pretty much an emotional wreck. I spent a good 6 hours yesterday/last night crying on and off, purposely and accidentally. It certainly didn't help that I had a majorly uncomfortable and disappointing meeting regarding work which just added to all the emotional stress. I'm in a very hopeless place right now. 

I am proud to say that I've stuck to my workout schedule this week (so far), though - and it's definitely given me some purpose other than "drink all the wine" or "sleep all the time". It's unfortunate that I woke up this morning feeling pretty sick, but I'm not entirely sure how much of that is a legit virus or just depression/soreness from my workout. My plan is to get about 10-12 hours of sleep tonight and hope that I feel more normal tomorrow - physically normal anyway. 

I began a long post on Tuesday morning about "feeling fat" and my food choices/exercise progress -- but the phone call from my mom regarding Pa-pa's cancer diagnosis sort of derailed the whole thing. I'll possibly rework it and get it up over the weekend or next week sometime. Then again, maybe not. I may be scarce with my blogging for a while. Just bear with me and keep my family in your thoughts and prayers, if you would. 

Regimented Chaos

About 6 weeks ago I had what can really only be described as a mental breakdown... and then I felt better. I felt somewhat normal, but I also was afraid that the normalcy was only a side-effect of kind of "getting it all out", as it were. And I was right. For a couple weeks now, I can feel it all kind of bubbling back up inside. My anxiety has been high - this isn't new news, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this in my last handful of posts. It's been high in a familiar but not at all good way. It is not the panic-attack-irrational-out-of-nowhere-for-no-good-reason anxiety... it's the kind of anxiety I've gotten my whole life that tells me "Something bad is about to happen, something big is coming". My immediate thought after the first couple days was that my maternal grandfather might be about to pass. Through a lot of testing that was prompted after his health deterioration back in August, they found out he has Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). This is a type of “pre-cancer” that can lead to Leukemia if left untreated. The treatment is  to have chemo 5 days a month for the rest of his life. The last couple weeks his fatigue has gotten much worse, he's lost a ton of weight, he's lost interest in doing the things he would normally enjoy... it's just really bad. We honestly don't know what will happen moving forward. The hope is that after the second round of chemo, he'll feel better and regain his appetite and weight and live for a very long time thereafter! But, this is cancer... or rather, pre-cancer... so things are very unpredictable right now. My mom left yesterday to go down and be with him during this first chemo round. I’ll probably call her tonight and get an update.

With all this on top of the Mommy Guilt and self-hate I blogged about last week, I’m having this incredibly strong desire to regiment nearly every aspect of my life right now -- I keep coming up with "projects" and lists in my head, I keep thinking, "I should/have to do that/put that together". My somewhat reliable self-awareness has me realizing that this way of thinking is a direct result of feeling like my life is in complete chaos and I’m desperate to get things “under control”.

The best part, though: the stress is making me incredibly attention deficit… so the moment I think of one list to make to assist in my regimentation, I forget what I’m doing and move on to something else. I also keep having thoughts like, “I’m going to get up at 6am and go run tomorrow” – but that never actually happens because a) it’s cold,  and b) IT’S COLD.

Positives of being stressed, depressed, and anxiety-ridden all the time: I like to go to bed early. When I’m not drinking, that is. When you sleep (I don’t know if you guys knew this or not), you don’t have to deal with life! Because you’re unconscious! It’s great! Drinking can occasionally create a similar circumstance of not being consciously aware that life sucks.

(I will say, for those of you who may be worried, I’m sleeping a lot more than I’m drinking. In fact, I would say I’m probably drinking less now than I was a month ago. This is probably due to all my sleeping. Also, let me be very clear that when I speak of my drinking, a lot of this is hyperbole. Because being funny covers up how messed up everything feels, yes? When I say, “I DRANK SO MUCH LAST NIGHT!”, this generally means I had FOUR WHOLE BEERS, or perhaps FOUR GLASSES OF WINE… and we’re not taking, what I like to call, Holly Glasses of Wine [8oz or more], we are talking legit 4-5 oz glasses. Not even a whole normal sized bottle. It’s nothing like, “Yeah, so I drank a bottle of Jack and then chased that with a 12 pack of Budweiser and a bottle cab sav.” – I kind of hate hangovers, so I can be a little wussy about super heavy drinking. Not always, but usually.)

Another positive: I’ve considered sitting down and actually writing some music again… haven’t done that in about 7 years. Mind you, it hasn’t actually happened yet. But I’m actively considering it. This might be a good sign, as it probably means that my crazy brain is trying to figure out creative and productive ways for working through being miserable.

Now, if only I could just get this “work” thing to quit taking up all my time during the day, I could maybe actually get my chaos under control by getting some lists written down - or better yet, compose some music.

Self-Hate, Feminism, Motherhood, and Guilt

It’s November 1^st. This is normally where I do a “check-in”, but I just did one the other day… so instead I’m going to talk about some not-entirely-fitness-health-related Real Life things that are eating away at my very soul. (DRAMA!)

There’s a quote regarding feminism that has floated around the small corner of the internet I frequent, and that quote is:

We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything."Courtney Martin, from Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

Months and months before I ever came across this quote, I remember saying to a friend of mine while discussing how overwhelming it is to be a “modern woman” (wife, mother, housekeeper, personal chef, chauffeur, gym rat, nutritionist, pediatrician, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.), I said to her, “…it’s like, I think to myself, ‘I hate the feminist movement’ – fuck the feminist movement. What has it given me other than the pressure to do and be EVERYTHING and to do and be that everything PERFECTLY? It’s an impossible expectation, to be a ‘true’ feminist… but because we should be able to be and do everything, doesn’t mean we should be expected to be and do everything. But we are. And there’s the crux.”

So, really, I don’t believe “fuck feminism” – but I believe that we, as women, have it skewed in our brains what feminism means and how it is applicable in our Everyday Real Lives. I don’t think I know a single woman, young or old, who doesn’t absolutely believe that they are continually failing themselves, their careers, and/or their families. Whether single or married, executive or waitress, someone with high self-esteem or low. We feel like we are constantly failing at our lives.

…now this is the part where I start talking about myself a lot, so I hope you weren’t expecting some great essay on the feminist movement and its affect on the modern woman! Ha!

I recently took my eldest son, James, for his 8 year check-up/physical/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. He’s grown two and a half inches… and gained 14 lbs. My kid, he’s not a chubby kid – he’s a pretty scrawny kid, actually. But now he has a little belly. A little, flabby belly that flops over his pants… and a torso that has more cellulite than I think anyone wants to see on their child (which I’ve obviously been in denial over for a while now). So, naturally, my pediatrician expresses her concern, asks us to cut back on treats (which, honestly, the kids don’t eat many of to begin with), but mostly says, “Increase the exercise! In almost all instances where I see a kid who is “skinny-fat”, it’s due to lack of exercise.”

This is so, so, so very true. My kid… he is kind of a wussy kid. He doesn’t like to play sports, he’s not a big “go run around outside” person (he likes to play outside – but it’s generally not super physical play)… his passions lie in building amazing buildings and vehicles out of Legos. For hours on end. He loves to draw. He loves to read. And, like all little kids, he loves tv and video games – but tv and video games he doesn’t get much time with except on weekends thanks to how much homework we have and the times we get home from work and eat dinner and all that. He’s not very physically active. Even when we had him in martial arts last year… it just wasn’t his thing. Our youngest is sooooo different – he would live outside if we let him. He RUNS EVERYWHERE, he climbs, he jumps, he wrestles… he’s a very physical kid. James was never this way, even as a toddler/little guy. He enjoys going out and riding his scooter, he likes going to the pool in the summer – but the intensity of that play is not very high. It’s very relaxed play, if you will.

So now I have to find a way to get my kid active. And I will say, he’s forever asking to do my workouts with me… but, and this is going to sound selfish as hell… my workout time is MY time. And it’s about the ONLY “me time” I get during the week.

See? Told you it was selfish and awful.

But I need to do something to make sure he’s getting that physical activity in… and I’m not sure how to accomplish that in the measly 2 hours we have in the evenings between getting-home and going-to-bed. So I looked through our local rec center’s “magazine” that lists all the classes and programs, and I found a Kids Bootcamp fitness class for children 6-11. Great! ….except that I totally dropped the ball on enrolling him, because I had it in my head that I didn’t need to PAY for something like that, that I could do it myself. Because I need to do everything. Because I’m supposed to do everything and be perfect.

This is just one more thing that “proves” what a failure I am as a mother. And if I wasn’t such a failing wife/mother, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with – because it’s only because of my failure at cooking/preparing well-balanced, delicious, and nutritious dinners while simultaneously preparing and providing well-balanced, delicious, and nutritious breakfasts and lunches for the following day that my child is considered overweight by his medical professional and has cellulite covering his little boy torso, and has such little upper-body strength that he can’t pull himself up and out of a swimming pool, for example, without using the ladder or going to the steps in the shallow end to begin with!! (Talk about a run-on sentence…)

Obviously that statement is irrational and holds little place in the realm of “fact”, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling that way. Ever. And while I’ve done well to curb my negative inner-monologues regarding my body image/weight, I’ve not done very well on the convincing myself I’m a good person aspect. While I’m slowly learning to love the skin I live in… I don’t really love my inner-self very much most of the time. I mean, how could I, when obviously I’m such a glaring failure at everything I do? Right? (A somewhat sarcastic statement there… somewhat) Shit, I couldn’t even keep on top of life well enough to make some time to carve jack-o-lanterns for Halloween this year. Do you know how awesome that felt? To have to tell your kid, “sorry, we ran out of time for that this year”? We have 3 perfectly awesome pumpkins sitting on our front porch that, I guess, will just remain there as Thanksgiving decorations or something.

Life sure would be a lot easier if I could ever feel like the constant pressure to “do it all” was gone. Even for just a day. Maybe a week, actually. A week might be a better, healthier break. But I don’t know how to do that… to stop trying to do everything would mean I don’t care. But I do care. I care all the time about everything and every night that I don’t cook a “real” dinner and let that load of laundry sit in the dryer for one more day and don’t clean the bathroom and don’t vacuum the bedrooms and don’t make James actively exercise, that is another bit of guilt that is added to the pile. A pile that already looks like this:

Sometimes I’m really good at it. Sometimes I keep it all together, I keep on top of it. Those are the times when things outside of my home life are generally quiet. Work is slow or at least manageable, everyone in my family is happy and healthy, my depression and anxiety are in a lull. Oddly enough these times tend to come when my husband is overwhelmed and stressed and working extra hours all over the place – perhaps it’s because I’m sort of forced into the position of making it all work, as well as put in this place of, “Well, you’re a stressed out mess, so it doesn’t do me any good to be a stressed out mess with you.” …except the last time it didn’t really go down that way. I just drank and slept a lot instead. (SOOO HEALTHY RIGHT?!)

I don’t really know how to wrap this up… I don’t know what else there is to say. I’m finally getting myself back on track with better eating habits and regular exercise, but I can’t seem to motivate to provide the same for my son. And I feel in my very being that this makes me a terrible person and a worse mother and, yet, that just makes me more depressed and less likely to just charge forward and MAKE.IT.HAPPEN. It would also be helpful if every goddamn thing wasn’t an argument or another “reminder” that I have to be on top of… the kid is 8 years old and I have to remind him about 10 times every night to wash his hair while he’s in the shower… and even then, at least twice a week he gets out of the shower with DRY, UNWASHED HAIR. It’s INFURIATING. Mike and I are constantly “reminding”, and it never gets better. The older he gets, there’s more to remind him of… and just writing this right now is making me cry because it is so overwhelming. Just another joy of having a special needs child, who mostly just seems normal, but you have to constantly remind yourself (more reminding!!) that his brain operates on a completely different wavelength that anything you could possibly understand and how could he possibly be bothered to wash his hair when he’s telling a story to himself about an imaginary Lego world filled with all sorts of crazy characters?? Or even just retelling Star Wars to himself for the ONE THOUSANDTH TIME?! What is the washing of HAIR compared to these things??

…it makes me want to die a little bit. It makes me worry for him. How will we make it through high school? College? ADULTHOOD?!

Now I’m kind of going off on another tangent that really won’t lead anywhere, so I’m going to end this here. I’m stressed, I’m pretty angry a majority of the time, I’m losing all hope in people more or less, I have a grandparent who may not live through the rest of the year, I kind of hate my job – but only about 70% of the time so I stay in it, I’m trying to come to terms with being a terrible human being, and I’m trying to be a good parent and a good example on top of all of it.

I guess we could surmise that I’m neck-deep in a quarter-life crisis. Maybe?

Rebuilding!

I began to write a couple weeks ago about my 180 degree turn on my feelings about my 3 pound gain over September which I spoke about in a my October 7^th update. I had 4 or 5 paragraphs together exploring my terror of regaining The Weight – all 27 pounds of it - and how this small gain could very possibly be a stepping stone to continuing to make excuses until I ended up right back at square one.

Then I made a decision as I came up on the following Friday (for those of you who don’t know, or may not remember – Fridays were always my normal weigh-in day). An odd decision for me in the head space I’d been in regarding my weight... I stepped on the scale before I got dressed for work. Just to see.

It said: 189. Even. My exact “starting” weight at the beginning of September when I began my maintenance “break” period.

When I originally talked about the gain I had said very clearly it could have easily been water retention; I was right. I guess I know my body better than I give myself credit for.

That being said, the panic mode I put myself into got me thinking: I have to stop giving myself permission to eat junk food all the time.

This maintenance cycle was never supposed to be a junk food free-for-all, but I’ve very much treated it that way. All moderation flew out the window and I became terrible at even getting one serving of fruits/vegetables in every day, let alone anything close to FIVE. I was beginning to feel the physical side-effects from my crappy eating habits and was getting sick of feeling like a pile of poo all the time. I decided to commit myself to having healthier meals and snacks immediately. And I’m happy to report that my eating habits over the last 2 weeks or so have improved exponentially. I’m eating what I call “big salads” daily filled with many different types of lettuces as well as baby spinach and an assortment of other veggies. I’m choosing fruits and greek yogurt for snacks, etc. I’m by no means perfect, and there is still some junk food and fast food sprinkled in my diet, but that’s totally okay. I’m getting my fruits and veggies in along with plenty of protein and I can already feel a big difference.

Speaking of commitments; I wrote out a commitment letter to myself regarding exercise/fitness the other day – and even though it is totally dorky, I’m going to share it here:

“Today I renew my commitment to regular, purposeful exercise. I promise to progress, but take things slowly in order to give my body the proper time to recover and readjust to my workouts. I will not push myself so hard or so quickly that I am too sore to complete my next workout and therefore provide myself with an excuse to be sedentary.
 Every little bit counts. 10 push-ups is not “nothing”, nor is 8 squats or 12 sit-ups, etc. Doing one set of exercise will benefit my body more than sitting in front of the television eating ice cream I’m not entirely hungry for.
 I promise not to put pressure on myself to change all my bad habits at one time. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. I promise to remind myself that it will make me feel better both physically and emotionally to do some sort of physical exercise, no matter for how long or at what intensity.”

It’s a little disjointed and all over the place, but you get the basic gist. I think I really screwed myself at the end of September when I pulled the whole “go hard or go home” mentality on myself and pushed myself so hard that I could barely walk for 3 days from the soreness. I could not muster the motivation to get another workout in for that entire week, so I thought it appropriate to promise myself to respect my body’s limits right now, to take things slow with steady progression, and give myself the time to rebuild that base strength before doling out major punishment on my muscles.

So! Here’s what I started on Monday: Starting Strength

It’s basic barbell training at its finest. 5 basic lifts, very similar to Stronglifts 5x5, but with a little more advice on proper form, proper warm-up, and 3x5 working sets vs 5x5. We’ll see how this goes. It’s very simple, very basic, which probably means I’ll get bored pretty fast – but hopefully I can build up some good base strength before that happens. Lord knows how I have a million strength training books, so maybe what I’ll end up doing is just sort of cycling through them every couple months. Nothing wrong with that as long as I get the lifting in, I figure.

Okay, so here are some beginning stats:

10/28/13

• Body fat estimation: 32.8% (nearly a 3% increase in the last couple months – this is not surprising to me at all)
• Weight: 189 lbs
• Neck: 13”
• Bicep flexing: 12”
• Forearm: 9 ¾”
• Wrist: 6 ¼”
• Across bust: 38”
• Under bust: 35”
• Waist: 34.5”
• Navel: 37” (definitely increased in the last couple months – boo!!)
• Hips: 45 ¾” (another increase)
• Thighs: 26.5” (yet another)
• Calf: 15” (…aaaaaaand another)

And here are some pictures (with a SUPER flattering shot I had my husband take of my back-fat this time):

10/28/2013 - 189lbs / 32.8% estimated body fat

There are also a few other progress pictures from last month on my "progress page" that I don't think I ever mentioned in previous posts, if you want to check those out. I used one of my them for my recent #transformationtuesday post on my Facebook page.

So there you have it. Laying it all out there. As I said, my body fat increase was not surprising since I can totally SEE it on me right now. I’m hoping this will burn off quickly with better eating and regular lifting. This estimate is from an online calculator (actually the average of 3 different calculators), but I am planning to go do a Bod Pod test either sometime in December or January. I’m pretty excited about that!! It’ll be interesting to see where I’m really at with my body composition… here’s hoping it’s better than I think it is and not worse! Ha!

As of right now I will keep my calories at maintenance levels of about 2400/day and perhaps do a cut in the Spring depending on how things go. As of right now I’m pretty much full-blown tracking calories again, but it’s not stressing me out like it was before. I’ll continue with that as long as my stress level with it stays low. If I start getting obsessive again, that’ll be the first thing to go.

Wish me luck!!

Sweats

Edit: I feel like I always do this - I start writing a blog that pertains to one day and one thing... and then I don't end up finishing it by the time that day is over and then it doesn't make sense anymore. Well, I'm not re-writing this time... so here is YESTERDAY'S post that never quite made it:

I jumped back on the exercise/lifting heavy things bandwagon Monday night... and you know what happened to me? I woke up during the night drenched in sweat a LOT - 29 different times last night according to my fitbit sleep chart. Behold:

...you're reading that correctly. I missed out on nearly an hour and twenty minutes of sleep thanks to restlessness and wakefulness brought on by my night sweats... which, I can only assume, were caused by the metabolic spike from my SUPER AWESOME WORKOUT that I did the night before.

Despite my obvious restless sleep, I feel pretty darn good today. I guess exercise will do that for you. It's like a drug, man. A super happy, healthy drug. If only I could remember that when I'm in my exercise slumps and subsequent depressions.

More later on my workout routine and beginning stats!

Disturbing Trends or WINTER IS COMING!

Well, I never did get my post finished. I kind of lost where I was going with it the longer it took me to wrap it up. Oh well. :-\

The last week or so I've been feeling pretty depressed and dealing with some anxiety. I know that probably 75% of that is because of my absolute laziness the last couple months. Exercise is so important in being able to manage my depression and anxiety; I think sometimes I forget this and think I can just be sedentary, that I'll be just fine. I obviously am not "just fine".

On top of this I started feeling sick again Monday. This would make the second time in about 2-3 weeks. Although, I'm really wondering if I ever really got "well" from my chest cold to begin with. I've been existing on junk food, alcohol and cigarettes while getting very little sleep - that's certainly no way to recover from being sick. I made the decision Monday afternoon to treat myself with healthy, nutrient-rich foods instead of medicine. Monday and Tuesday I ate lots of fruits and veggies - especially leafy greens. I had some chicken soup, too. I slept about 12-14 hours Monday night  into Tuesday morning. I went to bed early last night, as well. I'm sure it also helps that I haven't smoked since Sunday night. I've been saying for about 2 years that I'm going to quit smoking, and I just haven't really wanted to. I'd still like to quit... but I can't say that I entirely want to quit. I'm going to see if I can give myself 2 weeks. If after those 2 weeks I want to start again - I will. But I need to give my lungs a rest and get this cold gunk out of me, and I think the only way to do that is to quit smoking for a little while. We're having a Halloween party this weekend, that will be the hardest night to get through without a cigarette. Stupid social habits!!

I've been thinking a lot about priorities lately and how skewed mine have become. Television and socializing have definitely been at the top of my list, taking precedent over exercise, sleep, as well as cooking dinners for my family. My kids have been eating a lot (A LOT) of chicken nuggets and mac'n'cheese lately. An exorbitant amount. It's bringing on that Mommy Guilty pretty hardcore. As if I need that on top of my not-so-stable mental health right now! I just read back through some of my blog posts over the last year... and I'm noticing a trend. A rather disturbing trend. It goes a little something like this:

"I'm so happy! I love my body! Everything is wonderful! I'm a wonderful, beautiful person with lots of wonderful, beautiful people in my life and I am so grateful and so blessed!"

Some months later:

"I'm so depressed and anxiety ridden! I need to quit my job! I drink too much, I smoke too much! WHY AM I SO FAT?! I can sleep when I die, right?! ALL THE ALCOHOL/CIGARETTES! ALL THE LATE NIGHTS!! I hate myself! I hate my life! I want to die!!"

Rinse and repeat.

But I've noticed another trend that follows the above trend: the majority of my happiness occurs in the last couple months of summer. Basically if you look at all my blog posts, the only time I am really super happy and okay with myself is about 2-3 months out of the ENTIRE YEAR...usually peaking in August.

WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?! And also: HOW IS THAT FAIR?!

This may be somewhat deceiving, as obvious to people who know me and regularly interact with me, I'm not a total depressed, anxiety-ridden mess 75% of the time. ...am I?

Well, I don't feel like I am. I guess it's just that whole things of this blog kind of being a place for my brain to vomit and my brain is full of lots of stressful things a lot of the time - even though the reality is those stressful things don't regularly "get" to me. Probably because I vent about them here! ...yes? ...maybe?

So basically I notice that about this time every year I find myself feeling like my priorities are out of whack, when the reality is they're pretty much out of whack all the time. I guess it's just that October seems like a good time of year to realize it. Then I usually do pretty well with getting things under control through the dead of winter... probably because it's the dead of winter and who wants to sit outside smoking and drinking in cold weather? Also, it's dark all the time - so why wouldn't I want to sleep more?

See?! It's definitely easier to prioritize sleep and nix my smoking habit when it's no "fun" to stay up late and smoke all the time anymore!

I'm sorry, I totally forgot where I was going with all this, other than: I need to get my goddamn priorities straight and not just for the winter, but for the ALWAYS! The problem is taking some time alone with no distractions to put down exactly how I want to do that and what steps I need to take to get me there. It all kind of comes back around to: I see myself as a totally different person in my head. I would like to BE the person in my head, and the way I currently live my life and prioritize my time isn't going to get me there.

More later. Maybe. If I can get my brain under control for longer than 30 seconds. *sigh*

Bad Blogger Extraordinaire!

I've been drafting/editing/redrafting/scrapping/writing/re-writing a new post for the last 6 days. Hopefully soon I'll be able to pull my sh*t together and actually put it up.

In the meantime, here's a quick overview: I'm renewing my commitment to exercise/fitness, I'm logging all food just for this week to see where I am with calorie intake, and work has been drowning me but should be a little calmer for the next couple days... just in time for me to panic about having very vague and chaotic plans for my son's 8th birthday which is Friday... I've only bought him one present so far. I'm a terrible mother.

Stay tuned!

October Check-in!

“I've got to step back and reevaluate what I'm trying to accomplish. I need to start now. So, beginning today, I'm going to move forward through the remainder of the year trying my best to stick with my goals to Be Happy, Be Healthy, and Be Active. Regardless of whether or not any of what I move forward doing is part of my current plan/diet/routine.” - This was how I ended my first September post. I decided to quit logging food religiously throughout the day and to quit putting so much pressure on myself about purposeful exercise.

So far I think this has been really excellent for my mental health. I feel like I may have actually recently lost more body fat, but I can’t be entirely sure. I’m feeling much more comfortable in my clothing. I’m feeling much more comfortable in my body. I have gained a little less than 3 pounds since my last weigh-in (a month ago), but to be fair I have eaten a LOT of sodium the days leading up to weighing myself and this could all be water weight. This is how I’m currently feeling about my weight gain:

The first couple weeks of September I did pretty well with keeping up with my runs, but the last 2-3 weeks I’ve really tapered off on almost all purposeful exercise, with the exception of a couple Mondays ago when I did The Beginner Circuit Workout From Hell that made me sore for nearly FIVE DAYS. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this. According to my FitBit reports, though, my light activity (general walking around, housecleaning, etc.) has increased quite a bit – and I am taking 20-30 minutes walks nearly every day during the work week. Something tells me this is just as good, if not better, than 30-40 minute runs 2-3 times a week.

I don’t have a very solid idea about how much I’m eating really, but there have been a few days here and there where I’ve logged everything just to see, and from that I appear to regularly be eating around maintenance. I’ve also been able to focus a little more on how stress/sleep/life-in-general affects the type of foods I’m choosing to eat. Not much sleep? It’s going to be a majorly carb-heavy kind of day. Stressed out? Not gonna eat much of anything, but will probably drink a lot of my calories in the evening. On normal days I feel like I’m keeping a pretty good balance… though I have let my fast food intake get a little out of control. I even bought some really delicious fresh bread at the grocery last weekend to encourage myself to go home and make amazing sandwiches with it – unfortunately things at work got a little out of control, and I ended up not having the chance to go home and prepare lunch for myself at all last week. I've been thinking about just taking my lunch to work with me in the mornings and not giving life a chance to screw up my opportunity to eat something fresh/homemade vs fast food... but that means preparation and motivation and I'm a little low on both of those right now! 

I will say I'm feeling a little guilty and depressed over falling out of my normal workout routine (yes. still.), and as I was gearing myself up to start fresh this week -- well, the germs got me. I've been battling a head/chest cold for 5 days and it ain't lookin' like it's going to clear up enough for any kind of exercise anytime soon. Yay congestion! I spent the weekend getting lots of sleep and just trying to recover. It's looking like most of my week will be spent doing the same. On the plus side, I usually only get for-real sick like once or twice a year, so hopefully this is it for me for the fall/winter! And if I can flow out of this sickness back into a normal workout routine, all the better for my immune system.

I have lots more I want to talk about, but I'm having a hard time focusing right now. Hoping to have another post up in a couple days!

October update coming soon!

Hey all!!

I am currently working on my end-of-September/beginning-of-October update - it's just not coming along as quickly as I'd like it to. It certainly doesn't help that I'm feeling under the weather right now! No motivation to do anything other than lounge in front of the television when I get home from work.

Please stay tuned!!

Mental Illness Weirdness

Hello, Bloggy-Blog Land!

..that was a strange way to open this, but is a tell that I am doing slightly better. Slightly. I’m proud to report that I’ve been able to successfully attend my job during all working hours like a fully functioning adult. I haven’t even had to lock myself in the bathroom to cry at any point.

AREN’T YOU PROUD OF ME?!?!

Seriously. I don’t know what my damage is/was… I feel like last week was a bad dream – which is not to say I’m magically content with my life, love my job, and feel like my quality of life has drastically improved. I’m wondering if I’m just sort of in shock right now that I acted like such a lunatic, but am still actually a lunatic underneath all my supposed “betterness” and “over-it-ness”.

Who knows?! Guess we’ll find out in another couple weeks if I have another mental breakdown. Joy!

In other news, on the health/fitness front: Monday I put together a little beginner circuit training workout for myself to attempt to push through this strength training rut. It sort of worked… I did the workout Monday night, felt really good about it, felt really good afterward. I even refrained from smoking and/or drinking and went to bed at a decent time!! …then I woke up Tuesday morning very, very sore in my legs and glutes. It got worse as the day progressed. Wednesday was EVEN WORSE. I could barely walk. My upper-body was totally fine. I obviously didn’t really push myself like I could have/should have with upper-body for some reason. I had every intention of just doing the upper-body/ab portion of the workout last night while giving my legs and butt another day of rest, but potato skins and beer sounded much better. I’m getting there.

The weather has been perfect lately for running, but unfortunately the utter lack of daylight post-workday is ruining my secret life as a runner. And what’s worse: even if I could get myself out of bed to go in the mornings – it’s dark in the morning too!!! When my almost-2-year-old wakes up at 6:30am, it is still pitch-black in the house.  …okay, maybe not pitch black… but it ain’t dawn-lit or sun-lit by any means, either!! I also like sleep. So there’s that. It may be fast approaching the time of year where outdoor runs (or runs in general since I don’t have a treadmill!) just won’t be happening unless I randomly get some motivation in the middle of the day on a Saturday or Sunday. Ha! Yeah, right. I’m planning to keep up with my lunch break walks as long as the pleasant temperatures hold up.

I had this master plan a couple months ago to do a bulk over the winter this year. I’m still playing around with that idea in my head. The only problem is: I have to actually commit to regular heavy lifting. We’ll see if I can get there. Part of me is feeling if I can just go ahead and maintain my weight/body composition, I’m okay with that. I don’t know how long I’ll be okay with that, but it’s something to consider. I think I’ve definitely been a little bit happier on some levels not worrying so much about how many calories/what macro splits I’m eating this month (even though I still have days where I’ve logged everything throughout the day – it’s like an addiction, cripes), but I also worry sometimes that I’m going to let myself go and get super lazy and just end up having to start all over. …doesn’t it seem like there are just worse things to be afraid of? Especially when there is no recent behavior that is making me think I WOULD just give up and gain back all the weight/fat! Shouldn’t I worry more about things like zombies?! Or World War! …which are also two very good reasons to stay in somewhat decent shape.

I’m sorry, I’m getting completely off-track… this is probably part of my on-going Mental Illness Weirdness right now. Stay tuned, more updates soon!