Positive Thoughts Week of 12/15/14

I fell waaaay off the bandwagon of keeping a running list of things that were positive and/or made me happy last week. And because of my terrible short-term memory, I don't really remember much of what I did last week. ...so here's what I remember:

• Spending lots of time with Mike - we hung out Sunday - Tuesday and didn't even get on each other's nerves. It was great. (I couldn't tell you what we actually did, but we spent time together lol)
• Trivia! Trivia was super fun and awesome last week. We had a really large group, as well as some folks who came out that can't normally make it. 
• Attended a kick-ass party at an old friend's house Friday night and got to see and spend time with some folks I haven't gotten to hang out with in a really long time.

So, while I stayed up/out way too late Friday night and fell ill Saturday night (which I'm still dealing with -- boo), overall it was a pretty good week for socializing. 

Now I'm just hoping I can recover from this sickness by Christmas and enjoy my holiday weekend. 

...and panic

Okay, now that we're tracking some positive points again.... on to the other stuff!

Beginning Monday night of last week, my panic/anxiety returned almost in full-force. After feeling really pretty good about my job (those of you who know me well know that that is HUGE for me), the stress and pressure started to pile on and I had moments of feeling like I was suffocating both physically and mentally. I kept telling myself I would take a telework day just to give myself some breathing room and a little peace and quiet, but Friday arrived and I had definitely been in the office a full day (and then some) every day. Last Wednesday was especially bad and I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin most of the day. It was the first full-blown panic attack I've had in almost a year. ...then I got a call as I was preparing dinner last Friday evening from my boss (who is also my mother-in-law) telling me that I had fucked up big time. I ended up having to go back into work for about an hour, and while I didn't get yelled at (like I thought I certainly would), I did get the "I'm disappointed in you" treatment. Which is almost worse. This has continued into this week. 

On top of this weird panic and anxiety, my body image is going down the toilet. I had a lot of issues with food and portion control last week spurned by the 10 lbs gain the scale reflected on December 5th after we returned from vacation. I'm not sure if this particular flavor of self-hate is a result of the stress/pressure at work, or if it is its own entity. I'm having a helluva time motivating to exercise consistently, and instead of wanting to take care of myself I seem to be punishing myself with too much food and not enough sleep. And do I even need to mention the inner-monologue? It's bad. I'm sick with myself over the way my body composition has changed over the last year, but that disgust and self-hate isn't helping me to actually do anything about it... it's certainly just making it worse. I'm so unhappy with my body, and while I know that "being skinny" isn't likely to make me 100% happy, I also know that gaining fat and reaching the point where I can't comfortably fit in my clothes anymore will definitely not make me any percentage of happy.

I'm struggling to recenter here. While this week I'm fairing a bit better with calorie intake, I'm still nowhere near a deficit and most days am eating above TDEE - although not by nearly as much as I was before. I did manage to run Friday and this Wednesday (I went ahead and started a couch-to-5k program after realizing it was a perfect "rehab" from my piriformis syndrome), and I've ordered some cold weather compression tights and a neck/face warmer thingie and hope to keep up with the runs despite the cold temperatures. I will say I have been very pleasantly surprised to find I haven't lost nearly as much of my endurance as I thought I would, having not run since August. That's both promising and motivating.

I tried to return to some sort of strength training routine Monday night, but I was all over the place. I can't decide what to do or what not to do; to stick with a bodyweight routine or go straight for the weights; for a beginner program or intermediate; a 5x5 or a more in-depth, complex structured program.

See? All over the place.

Not only was I discombobulated, but I wasn't putting in a whole lot of effort and sort of just stopped in the middle of the whole thing to stretch/foam roll and then go grab a shower. It may be time to consider joining the gym again. This would give me access to treadmills to run when it's raining/snowing and/or just plain frigid outside, plus access to all kinds of machines as well as a massive free-weight area with proper squat-racks, etc. to sort of poke through as I please.

I'm not sure what to do. A few local gyms have free week-long trial memberships, so that may be the best place to start. I belonged to Golds Gym for years and years and always liked it there, so I will probably end up back over there. It's also only 2 miles from my house, so it's convenient. Not much of an excuse to not go.

...now let's talk about sleep and some other issues that will be very TMI (you were warned).

I stopped taking my birth control in March of this year right around the time I began my whole 100 Days of Change thing. I had been having horrible migraines regularly for months and had tried cutting out all kinds of different stuff -- stopping the pill seemed to be the trick. The first couple cycles were totally normal and on-time for me. Very similar to how my body seemed to function as a teenager before I started birth control. ...then something happened. I have no idea what. I don't know if what I'm going through now is my new "normal", or what -- but my cycle is all over the goddamn place. I will start my period anywhere from 20 to 30 days (usually earlier, though), and every month, without fail, I have what I've begun calling a "mini-period" about a week before my real period starts. This is where my period pretends to start for 3 or 4 days... and then abruptly disappears... before reappearing for real 5 or 6 days later. Sometimes I'll even have TWO mini-periods in a month.

As you can imagine, it's incredibly inconvenient, uncomfortable, and frustrating. I have an appointment with a new obgyn (my regular ob is no longer in practice) on January 5th and I'm hoping he can shed some light on what the hell is going on. I guess it's entirely possible that this is just how my body operates when it isn't pumped full of artificial hormones... but it doesn't seem particularly normal to me. Going back on hormonal birth control is not an option for me. I tried that a couple months ago and immediately started having horrible migraines again. Stopped the pills, the headaches went away completely. So.. there's that.

Now, sleep. I've known for over a year now how important sleep is to me personally and how I operate mentally and emotionally. That's not even considering the scientific fact that sleep is what helps to regulate all the most important hormones in your body. I got pretty good earlier this year about regularly getting at least 7.5 hours of sleep. Sure, there were nights here or there where I got less - but they were few and far between. Lately I seem to have decided sleep is not important. I'm averaging about 6.5 hours the last few weeks and I'm starting to notice the affects on my daily mood and general functionality. As I get back into running and attempt to find some sort of strength training I can stick with, I realize more and more how important sleep is going to be if I want to be at all successful in changing my body composition, let alone any kind of successful weight loss.

And this is where we begin to harp on priorities - which may seem to be my most favorite past-time on this blog.

I need to get my priorities straight. Either exercising regularly, recovering from that exercise properly, and getting enough sleep to have the energy for the exercise in the first place and to recover from it once it's been done is my top priority OR getting drunk, smoking cigarettes, watching television, and staying up until 2 or 3am every Friday/Saturday/sometimes Wednesday night is my top priority.

Now, I'm trying really hard not to default to my usual black-and-white thinking on this issue. Getting enough down-time and sleep in order to assist in my get-healthy efforts is important, but spending time with my family and friends is also something that is almost equally important to me. As an extrovert, I thrive on my social interaction. To cut myself off from that is generally a big red flag that my depression is swallowing me whole -- and to inadvertently get cut off from that social interaction fuels my depression and anxiety big-time. That being said, there's no reason that all of that socialization must be in the form of imbibing alcohol and/or staying up late. There most certainly is some balance that can be applied. ...I just have to tell that voice in my head that says, "You're missing out" to shut the hell up because it's time for bed, damnit. 

At this moment I'm sort of in a "I give up" place with food and calories. If I keep stressing over it it's just going to fuel binge-like behavior. Better to focus on getting enough rest/sleep, embracing to motivation to exercise when it comes, and managing my stress levels.

So, that's where I am, Dear Readers. ...now, if only I can manage to update this thing more than twice a month...

Positive Thoughts Week of 12/08/14

Wow, okay, so... I really only have a couple positive things to report for the week of 12/08/14:

• Schedule an appt with a new obgyn to talk about my crazy irregular periods and what might be causing this
• Had a real open and honest session with my counselor since I started getting deep into my body-image and self-hate issues - I'm really looking forward to my next appointment
• Finally had my doc's office fax me my full blood panel numbers showing that (in January of 2014, at least) my lipid panel looks pretty damn impressive aside from slightly elevated triglycerides, which I'm think may probably just be genetic
• Had the opportunity Saturday night to spend some time with old friends we hadn't hung out with in far too long 

Now that I read over those, I realize those are some really BIG positive things, so it's okay if there's only a few of them. 

..I know I've been saying this for weeks, but I'm working on a draft (my 9th in as many days, btw), and hope to have an at-length update posted soon. 

Positive Thoughts Week of 12/01/14

I've decided to reboot my Positive Thoughts series. I began writing things down last week. I meant to post these on Monday of this week, but the rest of 2014 continues to fly through my fingers like so many grains of sand... (poetic, eh?)

Positives week of 12/1/14:

• First things first, Thanksgiving vacation was great. We did so many fun things with the kids and with family, and I am so super thankful to have gotten to spend so much time my cousins - especially getting to bond a bit with my cousin Katy who I get to chat with or spend time with very often!
• My sister Lillie was a HUGE help on vacation with our kids. My kids and I are super lucky to have her.
• Sleeping in one's own bed is awesome.
• Even though I've been MIA a bit on the blog, I've been writing a lot. Both on my laptop and by hand. It feels good.
• Mike and I have spent lots of time together just talking about things, which we don't get to do very often.
• Wednesday of last week was the happiest I've been in years. There's was nothing special happening, just the usual stuff, but I was in a spectacular mood and that was the most amazing feeling.
• My whole weekend was spent hanging out with new friends and it was great!
• Despite the hangover, I was able to get lots of chores and errands done on Sunday and generally be a productive member of society.

"No Excuses"

It's a phrase that Jillian Michaels is very fond of - and that lots of my friends and bloggers and folks within the health/fitness community have grabbed onto for dear life. 

"No excuses."

A lot of the time when I see people throwing this around, posting inspirational memes featuring it, or sharing their gym check-in or weekly progress photo splattered with this text, I think to myself, "Well, actually, there are ots of very real and serious excuses for why someone may not be able to workout/diet to a certain intensity." I sort of brush this mantra as a bunch of malarkey, going along my merry way doing the same things over and over that aren't particularly working for me when it comes to the realm of get-fit/get-slim. 

Mike and the kids and I just returned from our almost-annual Thanksgiving trip down to Arkansas. The weather was beautiful this year and we did lots of fun things along with spending time with friends and family. We took Nolan to his first movie (Big Hero 6), went to the zoo, hit the Museum of Discovery (super fun, we will definitely go back!), celebrated Nolan's 3rd birthday, spent a few afternoons at the playground, took walks, etc. Keeping so busy, I hit my or exceeded my 10,000 step goal everyday and slept hard almost every night. With all this keeping busy and visiting and Thanksgiving-ing, calorie tracking fell to the wayside. We ate a lot of home-cooked meals at my Granny's house and went to a few local mom-and-pop restaurants, both of which are not easy to track accurately. Tuesday-Saturday I did zero calorie tracking/counting. 

(I promise this is all going to be relevant in a minute.)

We got back home Sunday afternoon, we just wanted to get home as quickly as possible and ate a LOT of fast food for breakfast and lunch to avoid stopping to extended periods of time on the final 360 mile leg. We were also exhausted when we got home. And starving. We ordered out for dinner... and then Mike and I decided Dairy Queen was in order for catching up on The Walking Dead. Talking about some seriously poor food choices. I decided to log the calories anyway - to get back "on track"... I hit 3500 calories for the day and I'm sure I missed at least a couple food items. 

Now, while I was in Arkansas doing my thing, not counting calories, eating whatever I wanted, I had several moment of, "This calorie counting thing is a bunch of crap and I'm so much happier this way! I can totally just whatever I want forever and be fine!" But Sunday showed me that, no, I really can't. Monday was a similar experience. Back at home, back to work, and not a completely out-of-the-ordinary pizza dinner at my in-laws, which included some ice cream I ate but didn't really want. After getting home I decided to have some bread and olive oil and a little bit of fruit... aside from my morning oatmeal, the best food choices I made all day. I still went over my calorie target by a couple hundred. I couldn't motivate to do my workout, although Mike and I took a walk at lunch. I've completely fallen off the bandwagon with my #365daysofchange updates. I feel like I'm lying to myself and my followers because I'm not really working on any type of real, honest "change" right now. 

Bear with me while I shift into reverse for a moment and revisit what I said a couple paragraphs up: I'm going along doing the same things over and over that aren't working for me in my efforts to lose weight/fat. 

This realization hit me like a ton of bricks today. I've been harping on myself for months years about "commitment", "motivation", "drive", and "willpower" - but really what it boils down to is this: I'm never going to change my habits and my lifestyle by doing things I don't really enjoy and can't get excited for. I can't keep restarting the same workout programs and/or diet strategies when I'm consistently falling off within a few weeks or months. Something obviously isn't clicking for me if it's so easy for me to just drop it all and not have a single care to give about whether or not I get back "on track". 

Part of me thinks maybe I should just delete MyFitnessPal and Fitocracy and Runtastic and MapMyWalk and all the other zillions of health and fitness related apps I have living on my phone that drive me bonkers and make me feel guilty and wrong in how I live my life and the action I choose to take throughout each day. (Run-on sentence alert!)

Sometimes I wonder if I am even capable of just letting it all go. 

The other part of me think that I am just making excuses. And there should be No Excuses. Just do it. No pain, no gain. And all those other cliche fitness mantras. Just baked the four pounds of chicken every Sunday. Buy and bake ALL THE SWEET POTATOES. Prepare ALL THE FRUIT and ALL THE SALAD to snack on. Get ride of the Oreos and the Danish butter cookies and the ice cream. Say NO to the weekly ritual of eating a Blizzard while catching up on Walking Dead, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Modern Family, Gotham, or any of the other 37 television shows I "have" to watch!! ...say NO to watching so much goddamn television! Stop wasting so much time on social media! Say YES to funneling the eating out money and beer money and Dairy Queen money to a gym membership. Say YES to finding a group of gym buddies to motivate and inspire me. Say YES to earlier bedtimes and earlier wake-up times to fit in the run, the circuits, the HIIT, the heavy lifting. Say YES to taking care of and loving myself and my body so that I can be healthy and live a long time with my husband and our beautiful children. 

Why is that all so hard to say yes to?

Why is it so easy for me, as I sit here typing this up, to be putting together counter-arguments in my head? "You've gotta live life, Jess. You've gotta have fun. You've done so much better about going out and how many drinks you have each week. You love trivia and that group of friends and those 2 beers you have with that delicious brick oven pizza every Wednesday. Why should you give that up? And your tv shows... that's something you and Mike do together a couple times every week, something that guarantees you'll make time for each other. That's important, too, right? Not to mention the kids... if you're gone to the gym around your work schedule everyday, when do you spend time with them?"

Obviously some of these points are slightly exaggerated - have we all met me before? Exaggeration is my biggest talent. Obviously an hour at the gym isn't going to ruin my relationship with my kids. And giving up some television isn't going to ruin my life or my marriage. But this is a great example of the battles that rages inside my brain on a daily basis. I have this person that I think I want to be, but I can't decide if I really actually want to be that person. It seems that I if I really did want to change and become this other me, maybe it would be easier to make the right decisions to put myself on that path. Do I not because I'm I'll lose friends? Maybe. Because change is scary? Most definitely. 

I also have to ask myself if I'll regret the sacrifices later in life. ...but I can't imagine I could regret reversing a path toward heart disease or diabetes or cancer. I can't imagine I could regret living to an age as a healthy, able-bodies individual vs a sick person. 

Earlier this year, as I approached my 30th birthday, I kept having these attacks of mortality. It was what drove me to start my #100daysofchange challenge. And yet, those attacks have fled - here I am wondering to myself, why can I not grasp my mortality? Why am I feeling lately like I have all the time in the world to create good habits and get healthy? Most importantly, why do I look at my kids' crappy eating habits and, at least for James, total aversion to any type of physical activity and think to myself that it's okay because they are young and have all this time to change those bad habits? Why can I not commit the time and money to getting them involved in something active even just a couple times a week? 

It just really isn't all that hard. And, yet, I guess I'm just selfish because my own health and my family's health never seems to be at the top of my priority list. I'd say maybe it's the depression, but I wonder if that's an excuse. "No excuses." 

Here we are in December already (when did that happen???) and I don't know how I'm going to move forward into 2015. I don't how to reset my life goals and get a grip on the path I'd like to pursue. I have some serious thinking and planning to do. When I will have a few hours or days or peace and quiet to do that, who knows? 

Deciding to get back to updating this blog twice-weekly could be a great first step, so I guess we'll start there. 

Slowly Returning

Two weeks ago I decided not to be injured anymore. This week I'm deciding to return to exercise. Last week my physical therapist officially discharged me from her care. While I’m still having some tightness and soreness, it’s nothing I can’t live with and it’s not really limiting my mobility or normal daily activities anymore. She told me I could return to normal exercise, but to take it slowly.

I better heed that advice because, let’s face it, I’ve pretty much given up on being physically active in any way outside of just normal everyday stuff you are required to move around to do and PT sessions. When I first began physical therapy, I was still walking briskly and for a couple miles at a time a few times a week in an effort to make up for the fact that I couldn’t run/jog. Around the second week in October I pretty much gave up on that and decided my twice-weekly PT sessions were enough. My feelings of “I’m just going to be hurt forever” definitely fed into this and I’m not sure I really did myself any favors buying into the negative self-talk. Then again, it was right around this time that I started noticing real improvement in my injury, so I could also make the argument that the actual rest did my body good.

Regardless, I’m way out of a normal exercise routine and coming up short on motivation.

Those of you who follow my little Instagram #365daysofchange experiment have probably noticed an obvious drop-off in my activity. When I was no longer able to do the type of exercise I wanted to be able to do, it began to drop lower and lower on my priority list. I also felt incredibly self-conscious about the fact that I was mostly posting about going out for drinks or dinner or simply wallowing in my self-pity over my injury. The challenge or experiment or whatever you want to call it was supposed to be about maintaining daily exercise and activity, not only for my physical health but my mental health. A rest day was supposed to be time for me to meditate or practice some gentle yoga, to bring myself back into focus and relieve stress – maybe plan out meals or just spend some time doing something else I enjoyed. I haven’t been sticking to any of these guidelines I set for myself, I’m not longer inspiring myself and I find it impossible to believe my laziness and self-loathing is inspiring anyone else at this point either. I’ve considered just giving it up several different times, but then I feel like that’s just one more thing I can add to my list of things I’ve never completed/half-assed. So I keep chugging along, making sporadic contributions.

Meanwhile, I sit here and mourn my drive and motivation and wonder if I can blame the shorter daylight hours. The last two weeks have been pretty dark for me emotionally. That depression seems to be creeping back in and I’m not sure if this is just a side-effect of my lack of exercise/physical activity, the approaching holidays and the emotions surfacing over my papaw’s death, if this means I should contact my doctor about maybe increasing my antidepressant dosage, or if this could be yet another negative side-effect of my decision to go back on birth control about a month ago.

…or all of the above.

And speaking of being back on the pill: this is my first month back on and my migraines have already returned full-force, I’ve been nauseous practically all day every day (especially in the afternoon), and generally just feel pretty gross and ill. Not to mention in researching my side-effects the other night, I found that because I’m prone to ocular migraines regardless of being on or off hormonal birth control, I should not be on any type of birth control that contains estrogen as this can greatly increase my risk of blood clots and stroke regardless of age/health. Isn’t that just super? Mike and I chatted the other night and have decided those risks and the side-effects aren’t worth it and we’ll return to using non-hormonal forms of birth control for the time being.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have such an understanding partner.  

So amidst all of this emotional and hormonal turmoil, I’ve done a lot of thinking about how I want to proceed into getting back on a regular workout schedule… and what I’m going to do about my calorie intake.

For the last month I’ve been pretty steadily dropping weight. I had one week where I stalled, but I’m averaging a little more than half a pound a week – which is fine. According to my FitBit estimated burn and my MFP logs, I’m in a 500 calorie deficit right now without even intending to be. Over the last couple weeks I quit worrying about my macros because it was driving me nutty. The only thing I’m really focusing on is my fiber intake. My medication can really ‘cause problems with my gut if I don’t eat enough fiber. We’ll just leave it at that.

So, I guess you could say I’m intuitively eating. I recently joined a Facebook group called “Eat the Food” that I stumbled across through the fitness community I dabble in occasionally. I’m really enjoying being part of the community so far and it’s really making me rethink my relationship with food and weight loss. Right now I think it might benefit me most to put the focus on the exercise – which I’ve had to do a few times in the past – and not worry so much about whether or not I’m eating at a deficit.

While I’m enjoying seeing the number on the scale move again, I’m also disappointed to find that I’ve lost a lot of my strength. Doing simple things like carrying the groceries in from the car, or hauling laundry (and toddlers) up and down the stairs just aren’t as effortless as they once were. I’m trying very hard not to let this discourage me too much since the only thing that will accomplish is my putting off strength training even longer as I buy into the “what’s the point?” mantra. I’m trying very hard not to let that happen.

My goal for today is to do some kind of strength training, no matter how brief. It will also be hard to keep myself from charging right into the whole thing and causing my injury to flare up. I’ve just got to take everything slow and steady. 

Personal Essay

I miss horseback riding and playing piano. I miss falling asleep reading in the afternoon. I miss going places and learning things and being surrounded by people who liked going places and learning things. I miss knowing who I was and the certainty that I would be happy in my life.

I miss sitting at the top of the stairs and listening to my parents argue, but never being scared because I knew how much they loved each other and that it would all be okay tomorrow.

I miss softball practice with my dad on summer evenings.

I miss summer on Lake Norrell and learning how to ski. I miss how much my arms ached from grasping the tow bar.

I miss life before men. I regret trying to grow up so fast. I miss my confidence in myself. I miss the hope I held before graduating high school. I miss learning how to drive stick on a 1974 MG. I regret my infidelity. The grass was never greener and I’m sorry. I should have swallowed my fear and left for school.

I wonder how I continue to be so blind in my own decisions. I wonder if it wasn’t obvious or if I chose to ignore it.

I wonder when I lost my voice. I wonder when you stopped listening.

I wonder when it became appropriate for my spouse to be in charge of me instead of my being in charge of myself. I wonder why procreating set a rule that I would have to no longer be a person, but only a mother. I wonder if anyone I know has their priorities straight. I wonder when it will stop feeling so oppressive.

I miss being ignorant of others’ judgment of me.

I wonder when family ties went from being important to being viewed as unnecessary.

I wonder when it became inappropriate to expect someone to both love you and respect you. I wonder if love even has anything to do with it. I wonder if I bring this upon myself.

I clearly overlooked important traits and convictions when it came down to how I would live my life and who I would spent my time with.

I sacrifice happiness every day.

I miss when I thought it was just my brain that was broken.

There was a day I woke up and realized things like divorce, abuse, and tragedy didn’t just happen to “other people”.

I wish I believed in something. I wish it was possible to believe in something. I wish it were possible for you to not ruin it for me.

I miss having purpose. 

Deciding

I’ve decided to not be injured anymore.

That’s not to say that I’m magically healed. I’m not. I’m getting there, but likely still have another month or two before I’ll be back at 100%.

But what I mean is, I’ve decided to quit letting it drag me down. While I didn’t think I was really feeling so much that way anymore, some recent time to sit quietly with my thoughts and feelings has revealed otherwise. I’ve recently fallen back into some bad habits (outside of food/fitness stuff) which I’m now recognizing as a desperate grab for some kind of control over my life. For the last several months I “controlled” my exercise and food (although definitely more so the exercise), and when my back/leg started hurting I lost that. While I’ve been consistently in PT twice a week it’s been really difficult for me to look at that as “a workout”, even though that’s exactly what PT is.

Unfortunately I’ve reached a point where I can no longer afford to continue sinking money into physical therapy. I’ve struggled a lot with this over the last couple weeks – part of me felt like, “I’m on the road to recovery, they’ve done what they can do, I can’t keep spending the money”, while the other part of me said, “You’ve made such improvement in the last two weeks – surely just a couple weeks more and you’ll be almost back to normal. It would be a shame to quit now and delay your recovery!”

Well, that’s been almost two weeks ago now and while I’ve continued to improve, I’m not “almost back to normal” and my budget can’t take the strain anymore. I don’t even know what the real total will be at this point since my PT’s office hasn’t billed all my visits yet – but the few visits they’ve already billed the insurance, I’m looking at a remaining patient responsibility of over $600. I can no longer ignore the financial strain of continuing to go.

I’ve considered checking out either a chiropractor or massage therapist as an alternative, but I’m not fully decided on that factor. I hope that may be a bit cheaper (I know the massage would be, anyway), but I can’t be 100% sure until I start making some calls.

In the meantime, I have one more PT appointment scheduled for Thursday which I’ve decided to go ahead and attend, and I’ve decided to recommit myself to regular exercise. I did all right those first few weeks about continuing to walk almost daily, but then I started feeling sorry for myself and that all fell off. I guess not “all” – I’m still regularly walking on my lunch break. But my lunch break walks are quite a bit different than my more fast-paced, get-the-heart-rate-up walks I was doing in the evenings. I’m also healed to a point where I can do some strength training. I can do push-ups and even a few squats without pain. I think I may have even regained enough flexibility to do a little gentle yoga. As long as these activities remain pain-free, there’s no reason I can’t regularly start incorporating them into some sort of normal exercise regimen.

Getting back to exercise will be my main focus right now. I can’t even begin to tackle food. I’m more out of control with what I’m eating than I think I’ve ever been in my entire life. This is new territory for me, this level. I’ve considered ditching the calorie tracking (for the millionth time over the last year), but I’m also self-aware enough to know that this is me just trying to justify poor choices by not having to consistently SEE those poor choices reflected on my food diary. One thing I know about myself, though - if I’m putting the work into my body with exercise, it makes it 100 times easier to make better food choices. I’m hoping by putting my focus on the exercise, the food chaos will come around. In the meantime I’ll continue my daily tracking regardless of how often my macros are out of whack or my calories are above the goal line.

I know I’ve probably said this before… several times… but I’m hoping I can allow myself to take this as an opportunity to take things easy, start back at “beginner”, build a good foundation, and prevent future injury and burnout. While even the thought of starting from the beginning is frustrating to me (LIFT ALL THE HEAVY THINGS!! RUN ALL THE MILES!! EAT ALL THE PROTEIN!!), I need to use this whole experience as my “ah-ha” moment. It’s been hard to learn from all of this instead of just being angry and hateful toward myself. It’s been hard to not have the distraction of “the workout routine” from all these things bouncing around in my head regarding my life and my family and my goals as a human being. It’s been tough, but it’s also been good in a lot of ways.

So this is where I am, Readers. This recommitment also applies to this blog and a return to regular updates. As usual: stay tuned.

Whoops!

Oh, hi! Hey! Uh, how are you? I'm just over here plugging away and trying not to be overwhelmed with work and life and have sort of forgotten that I have a blog that I was pretty regularly updating for several months there.

It's not that I don't have things to talk about - I totally do. I just can't seem to put my thoughts together. I currently have six drafts sitting on my dashboard. SIX. I just can't seem to pull anything together and wrap it. This may mean you'll see some discombobulated psuedo-half-updates coming through over the next week or so.

Please bear with me.

I also am aware that I've completely dropped the ball on Positive Thoughts. I'm not sure how interesting you as readers found that, but I know it was helping me. This is not to say that I've been feeling particularly negative lately, I've had a much easier time staying positive about things -- which is probably why is hasn't been a priority to write those things down as often. I'm not sure if I'll continue with that installment. We'll see.

Please stayed tuned and give me a chance to get back in the groove!

Okay, okay, okay...

Goddamn, I've been all over the place lately. I've begun drafting no less than three updates over the last 10 days and haven't managed to get a single one up here.

If you read my last quick and dirty post, you know I've been under quite a bit of stress and worry lately. Adding to all those stresses and worries, which I don't think I mentioned, was this looming hard deadline at work. October 15th. For those of you not in finance/accounting, this is the final tax deadline for any business that operates on a calendar year. Work has been very, very tough for me. There has been lots of crying in the bathroom, lots of threatening murder, lots of tension, lots of short-tempers, lots of going to bed without my husband (because we work together and he has had to put in an ungodly amount of overtime - I'm a little "luckier" because I act in more of a support role for these deadlines). 

It's over now. Thank GOD.

So for the last couple weeks I've begun struggling a lot with body image again. (Shocker!) I've been doing quite a bit of stress eating, and these last few days, stress drinking. All I wanted to do last night was staying up drinking beer all night. Fortunately, I'm a responsible adult, so I didn't do that. But I did stay up until after midnight watching television.. because maybe I'm not totally an adult. 

I'm digressing... so, yes, feeling down on my bod, eating all the tiny candy bars at work because of stress, feeling very defeatist and playing a lot of the "you'll never be where you want to be with your weight/body composition" monologue in my head. The fact that I'm looking at likely another month of PT for my piriformis syndrome, helps NONE. ...but my physical therapist's office is connected to the gym I used to belong to. I spend roughly 30-40 minutes in that gym doing my various warm-ups and exercises for my PT. I realized today, man, I miss the gym. And it occurred to me: this is where I restarted my weight loss/health gain journey after Nolan was born. I also realized that I just happened to be wearing the same t-shirt I wore on that first day back at the gym. And so this happened:

Top: 01/25/2012
Bottom: 10/16/2014

The locker room has been remodeled since that first photo, but that's the same mirror at the same gym. 

I've said it once, I'll say it a million more times: PICTURES ARE SO IMPORTANT TO TRACK PROGRESS!!! To be honest, lately I've felt like that body in those top pictures. I've felt like that for a few months now. It's been a long time since I've truly been proud of my progress. I get locked up in this mindset of "It's been four years, it's been four years..." Yeah, it's been four years since I realized, "Well, damn, I got fat.", but I never cut myself a break for going through a pregnancy during those 4 years. I grew a person inside of my body beginning 5 months into this journey. So, really, January 25, 2012 was my real start date. And there has been progress. 

Yes, this injury is setting me back. Yes, the recovery will still take me weeks (maybe a month or two) more. Yes, it's been a struggle to not be completely and totally depressed over the whole thing. But the reality of my situation is that I will fully recover. I will be able to return to heavy lifting and running and doing whatever the hell I feel like doing for fitness purposes! It may not be until January, but I will get there. I will, I will. 

Now that I've essentially given myself a pep talk on my body image, we must address the food thing. 

When I first jumped back on the weight loss bandwagon after Nolan was born, I was eating roughly 1400-1800 calories a day. I was losing weight doing this. I was sometimes going to the gym, but mostly just walking. A few times a week. Inconsistently. I was at probably 40-45% body fat. This is probably why I was able to eat almost nothing on some days and still feel okay. My body had plenty of fat stores to pull from. 

After a while and after beginning some strength training, I upped my calories. My weight maintained higher than where I wanted it, but my body composition began changing pretty drastically. At some point over the summer of 2013, I was likely under 30% body fat. I could "afford" to eat more. 

Last fall when my grandfather became ill and began his battle with cancer, I sort of told diet and exercise to kiss my ass, began sinking further and further into the depression I'd already been battling for several months, and I began eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it and would occasionally do a workout or take a walk, but mostly didn't exercise at all. I told myself I was "taking the pressure off" - that I was just going to focus on Be Healthy, Be Happy, Be Active. Which, in reality, became: Lie To Yourself, Lie To Yourself Some More, Deny Deny Deny! 

Thanks to the TimeHop app, I've realized I spent nearly all of last Oct-Dec sick. Something was not right. But even with the amount of junk food and the lack of exercise - I maintained my weight. I think I maybe gained a total of 3 pounds over the entire winter. We're talking from October until March-ish... possibly April. That's nearly 6 months. I began #100daysofchange in March, starting exercising daily, and started making an effort to be a little better about my eating but was off and on about tracking. When I did track, I was hitting right about 2500/day. This may have been slightly higher than maintenance, but not by much. And certainly not since I got serious about exercising daily with my #100daysofchange challenge. 

...and then something happened. The more I increased exercise and kept my calorie intake at "maintenance", the more I gained... until September 3rd, 2014 when I stepped on the scale at my doctor's office and saw "199" staring me in the face. A little over a week later, on the 12th, my own scale at home first thing in the morning and totally nude read "199.8". 

I freaked out a bit and dropped my calories under 2000. I lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks. And haven't lost anything further since despite trying to remain as active as possible (regular walks, my PT workouts, etc.).

What I have been forgetting, though, is that my muscle mass isn't what it was, say, last summer. Or even last October. My body fat percentage is likely close to 33%, which puts me firmly in the "obese" category. Finding a calorie goal that is a realistic deficit is going to be difficult now. And it may mean just being hungry. 

I just don't do well with hungry, y'all. 

So I've been doing some research, because that's what I do when I need to know more about something and feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of contradicting information out in the world regarding diet. I've bounced around on a lot of different things. But because I like to eat plenty of things and because I also likely to eat everything from salads and salmon to french fries and Blizzards, I started looking into If It Fits Your Macros. I ran some numbers for myself using their calculators and was honest in marking myself as "overweight". This puts me right around 2,000 calories/day. TDEE minus 15%. But, more importantly, I need to be hitting my macros of roughly 50% carbs, 35% protein, and 25% fat. This will be the part that will take some getting used to, but I've stumbled across some tools to help me out. 

(As a sidebar real quick: my husband has recently started an exercise program and has finally become interested in trying to track food/make sure he's eating enough of the right things to fuel his fat loss while maintaining his muscle-mass. While I'm incredibly proud of him, I'm more proud of myself for making it very clear to him that I was struggling enough with my own food issues and could not exert the energy to meal plan for both of us outside of dinner. I pointed him in the right direction and am hopeful that he'll start taking it seriously and making better choices overall.)

So that's where I am. I am fat, I am injured, I am frustrated, I am hungry, I am confused. But I am still learning and trying. Sometimes that's all you can do. And you can't get to Success if you don't first start with Try. 

So much uuugggghhhh

Oh hey, hi. How are you? So, it’s October already… when did that happen?

I’ve been “drafting” an update for a while now, but unfortunately life has gotten really ridiculously busy and stressful and rotten over the last couple weeks.

A quick overview:

• I found out our new health insurance doesn’t actually pay for any of our health care. At all. Ever.
• I'm still having regular leg pain and recently had a return to the cramping and spasms I experienced the initial few days of this flare-up. My leg pain was worse than ever after my PT appointment last week. Strangely enough, I ended up chatting with a PT at a random party I went to last Friday night, who said my symptoms didn’t sound like piriformis syndrome at all and it was possible that I had a pinched nerve and should probably have an MRI to really be able to figure out how I need to/should proceed with treatment.
• Work has been worse than ever and is killing me. Killing. Me. Stress is out of control, I’m behind on everything all the time, we have tons of new staff that still need to be trained up, and we’re coming up on one our biggest hard deadlines of the year and people are completely unprepared. This, just before we gear up for our normal “busy season” come January.
• Both of my children, but especially the toddler, are constantly pushing their limits and making life miserable.
• My house is a disaster, but I have zero energy or desire or physical mobility/flexibility to clean it.
• My oldest child may or may not have worn nearly the exact same outfit to school every day for the last 4 or  5 school days and I just can’t be bothered to keep up with the laundry. (Which is not to say he wouldn’t just continue to wear the same outfit anyway – he can be strange in that way sometimes.)
• I’m having another period after having just had a 9 day period 2 weeks ago – I can only imagine this is due to the insane amount of stress I’m dealing with.
• Speaking of which, since our insurance is terrible, I’ll likely need to go back on the pill since our plan to proceed with a vasectomy this fall is out due to expense – while this will regulate my crazy cycle (hopefully), I can also likely look forward to a return of my migraines as well as the crazy mood swings.

Sorry if that last part was a little TMI. I have zero filter right now. I’m too caught up in trying not to kill people or throw myself out of a window.

Maybe I’ll get a few quiet minutes to myself later tonight to finish and polish my draft and get it up. Sorry to have disappeared after being pretty decent about the twice weekly updates! Please stay tuned. 

Positive Thoughts Week 8

I think after this post I'm going to stop labeling these with weeks and just have them be a given weekly installment.

Positive/Good things week of 9/22/14:

• PT starting to help a lot with my sciatica - I've seen some major improvement this week.
• I got to spend a large majority of the weekend with my friend Melinda - we have a girly sleepover and hit a local crafts festival with my littlest kiddo in tow. It was a great time!
• I spent Saturday night playing music with my buddy Derek (again!), and that was pretty awesome. I'm so glad he and I have scheduled these jam sessions pretty regularly, because it does wonders for me on a million different levels.
• I've lost 4.4 lbs since starting my medication. I'll take it!

Overall my mood has been much more stable over the last 7 or 8 days. Tuesday of this week was especially stressful, but I handled it fairly well. The things that are getting to me are things they would get to anyone, so I feel like this is a very "normal" stress/sadness period - but mostly I've been able to still smile and laugh and feel okay about things in general despite the stress/sadness. My usual reaction would be to just lie in bed and cry and feel sorry for myself. The fact that I'm still functioning outside of work and looking forward to doing things outside of work is huge for me right now. 

Admissions

^ Not the school kind, but the confessional kind.

Since this out-of-nowhere piriformis syndrome thing started at the beginning of this month, I’ve had to reevaluate some things. My recent first session with a Physical Therapist afforded me TWENTY WHOLE MINUTES of peace and quiet to really, sincerely think on some stuff... and maybe doze a little bit, too.

I need to get real about my weight. I need to get real about how much I actually need to lose. I need to be realistic about what I need to do in order to make that weight loss happen. While it's great that I've wanted to "break free of the scale" and whatnot, the fact of the matter is, even if I want to be lenient with myself, I have 30 lbs to lose. If I want to be really real, that number is probably closer to 50. But small steps. I need to get to the 30 mark before I can focus on 50, and the prospect of 30 is freaking me out plenty all on it's own.

Actually, this is all pretty daunting when I consider that it may very well be another month before I can participate is any sort of exercise that isn't walking. I'm not sure if you all knew this or not, but you use your butt muscles to do pretty much everything. So this idea of, "Well, can't you still do upper-body strength training?", the answer is "no" because you have to use your butt muscles to do pretty much everything but bicep curls and tricep kickbacks. No overhead presses, no rows, no chest presses, etc. Leg work is pretty much out of the question aside from my leg-lifts that are part of my stretching routine. I'm trying really hard to not be completely depressed over it.

In the meantime, I started a small dose of Wellbutrin a couple weeks ago and that makes me have zero appetite. So at least the calorie restriction part will be easier for now. Calorie restriction and walking it is for the time being, and all that it is. The scale tells me I've lost 4.4 lbs since starting the medication. I'm cool with that trend.

I took some spectacularly unflattering progress photos last week (9/17/14):

The number one thing we can learn from these photos is: my top is SO MUCH MORE TAN than my bottom and it's kind of silly looking. Also that photo from the back is the best one I could manage of myself, so sorry that it's really mostly just the sun shining through the window.

Also, a check-in on my measurements as of today, 9/26/14:
Weight: 194.6
Bust: 38"
Natural waist: 34.5"
Waist at navel: 38"
Hips: 46.5"
Thigh: 26.5"

On a separate but somewhat related note, beginning around the week of September 8th I started feeling much better emotionally. There were more up days than down, and I had more energy and motivation to accomplish various tasks. By the 15th my sciatica was feeling so much better and I think this had a lot to do with my good mood/mental place. Unfortunately the improvement didn't last (mostly thanks to my trying to rush back into a workout routine), and the last week my mood has been tanking. I had an increase in tightness and pain in my leg during the same time, mostly beginning last Friday/Saturday. This probably has a lot to do with it as I can't help but feel like I'll never be a fully functional human being again.

I find myself getting increasingly angry that my depression doesn't seem to be dissipating despite my efforts to remain active, eat better, follow my cognitive behavior tools, and plan fun activities to look forward to. I'll have a few good days, a couple weeks at most, but I just can't seem to maintain it. It's as if any small stressor can send me spiraling and I can't figure out why that is. I've always thought of myself as a strong person, and this depression makes me feel weak. This injury makes me feel weak. The amount of weight I've gained in the 6 years since my marriage makes me feel weak. And feeling weak makes me angry, but I haven't quite figured out how to channel that anger into motivation and change. I'm hoping this medication can help me normalize a little bit, especially before winter officially arrives. I should start feeling some kind of difference within the next week or so.

I think a big piece of this recent sadness and anger is relation to stress at work, which sky-rocketed last week with the pressure increasing as we've moved through this week. As we approach Thanksgiving (which we normally spend in Arkansas with extended family) it becomes more and more real to me that my grandfather is gone and it's really affecting me. This piece of my general malaise is completely acceptable and understandable. I knew it would likely take me some time to fully process this loss and to really begin mourning. It's unfortunate that there are so many other stresses that are overloading me and kind of taking away from my ability to allow myself to move through the "real" (for lack of a better word) sadness, experience it, and start to let it go vs getting wrapped up in so much of the "everything is so awful for no reason" feelings that stem from the actual depression.

I feel like I had a lot more to say, but whatever that was has flown out of my head. So the big focus right now is on dropping the weight for my health. I've done well with food choices recently and hope to be able to return to some strength training by mid-October. Meanwhile, I'll keep up with my walking, follow my instructions from my PT, and hope for a speedy recover and to never relapse. 

Positive Thoughts Week 7

Alright, y'all. I jotted down a few positive thoughts last week, and then all those things I was feeling positive about deteriorated by the end of the week. This is what I was left with:

Week of September 15th:

1. Realizing I have some pretty amazing people in my life and this helps me stay away from the more toxic people in my life
2. I am very lucky to have a husband who mostly understands me and makes an effort to try to understand the pieces of me that tend to be chaotic and confusing
3. Getting to have a wonderful date night with my husband

It's a short list this week, but I'm trying hard to remember there will be bad days and bad weeks and that doesn't mean life is bad. 

A real update coming soon. I can't believe it's been a full week since I've posted anything! Work has been very busy/stressful and my personal interests have sort of fallen to the wayside. 

Stay tuned.

Observations

Sometimes I go grocery shopping hungry, and sometimes drinking a coffee and a handful of pistachios makes that hunger up and disappear. I am generally less hungry at home than I am at work and that might be how this coffee/pistachio magic works.

Sometimes I drink coffee even though I'm somewhat certain that it gives me migraines, and then sometimes I think maybe it only "gives me a migraine" because I think it's going to give me a migraine. I wonder if maybe I can be more optimistic about how I live my life and take care of my body, and by that I mean if I can just live without having to always think about it so much.

Sometimes I get stuck on this idea of "going organic" and feel like I have to spend my entire month's grocery budget on one week's worth of groceries, but I'm pretty sure as long as I just eat fresh foods that are cooked/prepared at home that that's really just fine, and maybe that just needs to be my mantra. I don't mind spending the extra money on organic milk because I can taste the difference and like it more. I also don't mind spending the extra money on grass-fed beef because, again, I can taste the difference. So then that's fine, I should tell myself. No reason to feel like I need to shell out $2.35 for one bell pepper because it's stamped "organic". And besides, I will grow my own next year and not spend money on them at all for a few months - and those will definitely be "organic".

Sometimes I'm really proud of myself for taking the walk and doing the stretches even though my sciatic pain/muscle inflammation won't yet allow for me to get back to strength training or running. And sometimes I force myself to do it even though the Inner Mean Girl tells me the walk and stretches don't matter because I'll always just be fat and weak and injured. Sometimes I am strong and tell her to shut the hell up.

Sometimes I wake up one morning and am all of a sudden totally capable of meal planning and scheduling exercise and making it all happen. Sometimes I can roast a whole chicken in the crock-pot a day in advance to use for my tetrazzini because Spaghetti Monday, damnit, and tetrazzini has spaghetti in it.

Sometimes I get these glimpses of what "normal" could be/used to be like for me. You know that place where things are funny and enjoyable? Where time spent at work is productive? That's the place where I meal plan and create exercise calendars. What I'm quickly learning is, I can take those productive normal-feeling days and I can pump out weeks and months worth of these meal plans/menus or workout routines, so 2 weeks from now when I wake up one morning and begin wondering why even bother breathing, let alone getting out of bed, because really it's all just too overwhelming, I know that Normal Me has already put together at least a couple of things to take some of the stress and pressure off of Depressed Me.

Normal Me is pretty thoughtful like that.

Sometimes I see people working really hard for the life they want to have and enjoying every moment because they can see the fruits and visualize the future, and I think someday I want to be that. Sometimes I wonder if the prescription pill will be the "magic", and then I wonder if I really want that to be the solution. Often I realize I don't. I want to be capable of doing the exercise, eating the nutrient dense foods, getting the right amount of sleep. But I also know that, right now at least, I'm not capable of doing those things consistently. And when it's inconsistent it's so hard to remember what it's like to be normal, to be able to accomplish those things.

Today I am happy. Today I was productive. Today I am proud of the decisions I've made and the tasks I've accomplished. Today is a good day. Today it is hard to remember that 10 days ago life seemed hopeless, pointless, and exhausting, and what that actually felt like.

I wish every day could be like Today.

Positive Thoughts Week 6

Good things/positive thoughts for the week of September 8th:

1. Being able to drive again (sciatic pain improving)
2. More stable mood (I think the decrease in my alcohol consumption is a big factor here)
3. An excellent doctor's appointment and clear x-ray in regard to my back/sciatic pain (just muscle inflammation putting pressure on the nerve)
4. Getting to spend time with folks I don't get to see to often and the extra bonus of enjoying live music with them
5. Praise at work

I'm drafting a new update, as well as a post about some random observations about myself that I started over the weekend. These will come soon. Stay tuned!

Inner Mean Girl

Today was a complete and utter failure in diet and exercise. The morning started off promising (as always) with plain greek yogurt, fresh fruit, and a bit of granola for crunch. I had a snack of a KIND bar (dark chocolate nut & sea salt, in case you were wondering).

...then I had a doctor's appointment over my normal lunch-hour time. No big deal, I thought. My doctor's office is great about being on-time and I didn't see any reason the appointment should last longer than 30-40 minutes. I would just grab some Subway or stop by home and make a quick sandwich on my way back to the office. No big thing.

As predicted, my doc's office was running on-time, my appointment took just over 30 minutes... however, due to this weird back/leg/possibly-sciatica issue (she actually diagnosed as piriformis syndrome, which I self-diagnosed via the internet a couple days ago - so that made me feel like a smarty-pants!), she went ahead and asked me to pop over to radiology and get an x-ray. Just so we could be sure I didn't have any spinal issues causing the sciatica flare. Radiology actually went really quickly. I was there for all of 30 minutes. But at this point I was right up against the time I needed to be back in the office. Subway/home was not as close to the radiology office as my doc's office was, plus running short on time... so, Taco Bell it was. For the second time this week. It was not what I wanted and was not satisfying.

I've fallen completely off the bandwagon with my meal planning as of late, and while I normally keep some pre-marinated frozen salmon filets stocked in my freezer that I can just throw in the oven and have cooked and ready to eat in 30 minutes, this sciatica prevented me from getting to the grocery store over the weekend and we cooked the last of the salmon Tuesday night. I had picked up some frozen white fish (swai) on my last grocery trip and decided to give that a try even though we'd never had it before.

It was disgusting. I don't know if it the was fish itself, or just the way I seasoned it or what, but it was terrible. I couldn't even finish my small filet.

So, I ordered pizza. Not even good pizza. Cheap, nasty Domino's pizza.

Not 30 seconds after I submitted the order I remembered I had leftover pizza from trivia night in my fridge... way more delicious than Domino's, I promise you. So I heated that up and figured Mike would eat some of the Domino's and the kids would enjoy the leftovers tomorrow.

Except that I ended up eating a slice of that on top of my leftover Thai chicken pizza from last night... and then some Oreos... and now I hate myself. A lot. I feel disgusting and fat and stupid. Why didn't I just thaw some ground beef and do tacos? Why didn't I just remember to thaw the chicken breasts last night? Why didn't I just tell everyone to have some goddamn cereal for dinner?! Or make an omelette?! Or repeat my yogurt breakfast for my dinner!

Any of these would have been the better and cheaper option, but I was lazy. I was lazy and my leg hurts damnit. I just wanted dinner to be done and over so I could put my kids to bed and watch the season finale of HBO's The Leftovers.

I really hope my x-rays come back normal and this piriformis syndrome will clear up FAST. I've made an effort to keep up with exercise as best I can, which is mainly just in the form of walking and stretches. I didn't get a walk in today due to the doc appointment and following x-ray, and because I can't really do anything with any kind of "intensity", skipping that littlest bit of exercise is killing me mood-wise. While I've noticed some improvement in my general moods since I've been getting more sleep, I've also noticed that I'm much more insecure/down on myself about my body since I can't exercise "for real" right now. The idea that it may be a month or more before I've fully recovered from this injury, inflammation, whatever-the-fuck-it-is, is terrifying me. I finally, finally, finally rediscovered my do-some-exercise-everyday motivation, as well as my get-out-there-and-run-run-run motivation, only for it all to be destroyed by random nerve pain FOR NO REASON just as we come into our last few weeks of mild weather and extended daylight hours.

I was hoping by this weekend to at least be able to start doing some yoga. That is a no-go, Dear Readers. I can still barely sit some days, let alone do anything close to a Sun Salutation flow.

Meanwhile, and I know this is totally irrational, I feel like I'm gaining a pound every minute; fat is just magically appearing all over my body and I'm helpless to stop it or change it. And then I think, what if this is chronic pain? What if this is what my body feels like for the rest of my life?! And I very dramatically think, I would jump off a bridge.

Which, of course, I wouldn't, and let's face it - there are thousands of folks out there who live with chronic pain that's probably 100 times worse than this sciatica thing every single day of their lives who continue to be productive members of society and are happy and live quality lives. And I guess maybe this whole experience has made me realize just how important exercise is to me and just how much it's come to define who I am now that I no longer define myself as Ms. Smoke-all-the-cigarettes-and-drink-all-the-beer-and-always-party-party-party Lady. And that's good. I'd much rather be the "fitnessy friend" than that other chick. But right now I can't be fitnessy and my relationship with food is crap.

I did take some time today to figure out what I would need to eat on a regular basis in order to hit 150 grams of protein a day. It's a pretty delicious and simple menu, too. And, honestly, I've been so mad at myself for this whole pizza debacle tonight that I had completely forgotten all about this until now. Part of me is angry because I feel like I can't fully start doing it until I can get back over to the grocery store, which feels like forever away, but really is only 2 days. I need to try to maintain some level of rationality and not sabotage myself. I've already thawed something for dinner tomorrow night, so I'm covered there. (Plus: leftover cheap pizza.) There's no reason I can't cook a decent egg breakfast in the morning. As I write all this out I'm realizing tomorrow is another day and another chance to make better decisions. And one Taco Bell, pizza filled day isn't going to put me back at 230 pounds. Sometimes it may feel that way, but it isn't physically possible. Other than this I've done very well with my week. I just miss exercise so damn much. I had a plan, man! I had a calendar put together! I factored in the rest of this week/weekend for walks and leg rehab, and then Monday I was going to start back up with regular strength training interspersed with walks/runs and plenty of yoga to prevent this muscle inflammation nonsense. But it looks like we may be well into October before I can actually do that... and then come the holidays and trips and that's bound to get me thrown off-schedule. But maybe I shouldn't think that way, maybe I need to just be positive and tell myself it's delayed but not over. Life will go on.

I guess I've just been so mean to myself this last week and that's set me back quite a bit in my emotional growth and body acceptance and all that jazz. And it all started with noticing this fat roll... a braver me would post a picture, but it's truly disgusting to me at this time and I would be mortified to share with anyone. It's like this isn't even my body anymore because my body doesn't look like that. In my head I'm still 17 and 142 pounds. ...I digress. So, this fat roll... it's what I've affectionately called in the past my Mommy Roll. It's between my belly button and my pubic area -- basically where my skin got all stretched out during my pregnancies and then happily filled itself in with fat after those pregnancies. It had diminished quite a bit last year, came back a little bit over the winter, and then shrank back down a little in the spring as I powered through my #100daysofchange challenge. Well, it's back in full-force right now. In all it's disgusting glory. And it... it, like, hangs over the waistband of my underwear. Which screams to me that I should probably no longer wear bikini-cut underwear, except that anything other than bikini-cut would come above my pants waistband and nobody wants to see that, nor do I think that would be very comfortable. As I was getting undressed for the shower earlier this week, I bent over to take my socks off and noticed it... and then after I got totally nude I stood, bent-over in front of the mirror just staring at this utter betrayal from my body. How could my body do this to me?! After all my hard work?! After all the toil and stress and obsession I put into being "fit" and "healthy"!! HOW DARE MY BODY DO THIS TO ME!

I wanted to cry.

This, of course, led me to start scrutinizing every other part of my body... which led to an inner-monologue much like this:
Jesus Christ, Jess. Look at your arms. What the fuck, man. What the hell. All that arm definition you had, gone. And your waist! I mean, aside from that disgusting Mommy Roll, look at the rest of your belly! How can you let yourself go like this? You're so fat and disgusting, I'm not even sure how you're managing to still fit in all your same clothes. ...well, I guess you're not still fitting in all of them. Those high-waist skinny jeans aren't looking so flattering anymore, are they? They make your belly look like the fricken Michelin Man. And those saddle-bags are getting larger, aren't they? Cottage cheese butt, check. Your breasts aren't holding up so well either there, babe. You lost all that fat and they shrank way down, now you're fattening back up everywhere except there and you've got zebra stripes all over. Guess it's a good thing nobody sees those but you, eh? 

Everything kind of came to a head when I found myself saying out loud the other night, "And I'm just so fat. And, like, not the more solid "chubby girl who hasn't had kids yet" fat, like just the disgusting I've-had-a-couple-babies-and-my-skin-just-never-quite-recovered FAT. It's all loose and mushy and jiggly and gross. It's a good thing I'm married, because I promise you no man other than my husband would want to have sex with this flabby body."

Dude, if somebody else said that about me, I'd never speak to them again... maybe... and here I am saying these things about myself. TO OTHER PEOPLE. Just freely admitting what low self-esteem I have and how little I value myself simply based on what my body looks like!

Maybe some of you are sitting there getting ready to compose some words of kindness and encouragement for me, and that's great and nice of you, but I can tell you right now - they don't help. Because you can't shut down the Mean Girl inside my head. Only I can do that, and I've done forgotten how at this point in time.

See, I believe these things about myself. You may say they aren't true -- I may even, in a moment of clarity, proclaim them to be untrue. But I believe them. And I could stand in front of a mirror for the rest of the night tonight reciting positive affirmations to myself and telling myself how beautiful and deserving of self-love and happiness I am, but I can't because I don't believe those things right now. And that is what has to change. I have to start believing (as I used to) that this body is worth my love, because I can't change my body with hate. And while I don't hate who I am as a person as much or as often as I once did, the positivity and love I found for myself as a human being pushed all that hate onto my body image. At least it feels that way right now.

What it all boils down to is this: I am disappointed in myself.

I made some good progress, I came to terms with my diet, I fought hard to stay in a balanced emotional place - and then I lost all of that. Or maybe I gave it all away. Life got stressful and overwhelming and I gave all those positive things away to let myself drown in the stress and sadness and worry. I started telling myself that I didn't deserve those healthy positive things because... why? I don't even know. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just sad. I guess because I made bad decisions in the past I deserved to fuck up my body? Who knows? There's no real logic behind it. But it happened. And I've struggled all year to get back to a place of motivation and I feel like that's all been destroyed by this sciatica. Being angry is too hard right now because that feels stupid - how can you be angry at something that can't be helped? But for some reason it makes sense for me to just hate my body.

Because that'll help it heal... /sarcasm\

I just need to push through these next few weeks and see how things go.

Some positive things about today: my doc gave me a referral to a physical therapist, so that may speed my recovery. She didn't seem to think the nerve inflammation was caused by any bigger spinal/disc issue. And she genuinely seemed concerned for my depression and how things may worsen as we come into the fall/winter with my lovely Seasonal Affective Disorder. She prescribed me a low dose of Wellbutrin and we'll see how that goes.

With the medication, I am both excited and terrified to begin taking it. I'm hopeful that it will help me not only in my personal life but also to focus and be more productive in my professional life. But the worrier in me is anxious about possible side-effects, and the hippie in me is disappointed that I couldn't "fix" myself with diet and exercise. ...but if you're too depressed to really reign in your diet and consistently exercise, how is that gonna work, hm? Exactly.

Sorry that this became so much negative brain vomit, but I'm feeling quite a bit better now that I've gotten it all out there. I will try to organize a little bit and post the high-protein plan I've put together for myself, as well as get a snapshot of my workout calendar up here - even if most of it just says "Walk/stretch" for the next couple weeks.

So much in my brain! Positive Thoughts Week 5

I can't believe it's been five weeks of this already. I've had moments of motivation to write a big, long update, but can't seem to get my thoughts together yet. Soon!

Good things/positive thoughts for the week of September 1st:

1. Having my dad nearby to hang out with and take walks with when our tennis date gets rained out
2. Having better health insurance so that I can go see my doctor when I'm seriously injured without worrying about a $500 bill coming in the mail two weeks later.
3. My job allowing me to telework while I'm laid up with a bum leg/back/butt
4. Netflix and all the glory that is binge watching Californication
5. Being able to get lots of sleep this last week

I've been regularly getting over 8 hours of sleep a night since this whole muscle inflammation thing started. This is, in part, due to the muscle relaxer I've been having to take - but I'm thankful nonetheless as I've noticed marked improvement in my mood the last 3 or 4 days. Perhaps my next step in this whole "get healthy and take care of my depression" thing is making sure I sleep enough. And I may just be one of those people that needs 8.5 hours vs 7. It's unfortunate that this may put a huge damper on my social life which may mean it'll never regularly be something I can stick with... we'll see. 

Positive Thoughts Week 4

Sorry this is late!!

Good/positive things for the week of August 25th:

• Got to play tennis with my friend Jason since my dad was out of town
• I baked a super delicious pie
• I got to take several extra-long walks at lunch
• I've managed to get on an early sleep schedule, making mornings much less stressful
• I got to go to the beach with my family on Sunday and watch Nolan splash and play and generally have an awesome time

What's up with me right now

Well, I started drafting a substantial update last Wednesday, but never could focus long enough to finish it or polish it and getting it posted.

Good thing I started writing it, though, because if I didn’t have that discombobulated draft I couldn’t even begin to tell you anything that I was thinking/feeling/doing last week.

Wednesday was a major roller-coaster of emotion. I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night which led to a grumpy mood Wednesday morning, which led to me griping at my kids, which led to my kids being in a bad mood. Coming in to work added to my irritation when my usual 30 minutes of peace and quiet in the mornings was interrupted by everyone deciding to come in early. My brain was all over the place, I had a rough time focusing. I kept thinking of all the chores and errands I needed to accomplish/could have been accomplishing in place of being stuck at work. Oddly enough I managed to get tons accomplished work-wise. I have no idea how. Even though I was unable to take my lunch hour, I was still able to take a walk in the afternoon and that definitely helped. Unfortunately the chaos just continued in the afternoon and after I returned home at the end of the day.

I got really down on myself and was incredibly stressed out. I wanted to emotional eat like it was my job. It was a bizarre reaction and a feeling I didn’t really know how to deal with. Normally when I’m stressed or depressed food becomes my last priority and I just don’t have much of an appetite; I was feeling this way earlier this month. But this day the desire to binge came on strong. I don’t know how to explain it. It was all I could do not to eat the 4 cupcakes on the top of my fridge and then move on to the 2200 calories worth of pie I had baked earlier in the week. (More on the pie later.) I ended up having one cupcake, a few oreos, and then some fruit and kettlecorn – but I went to bed that night “hungry”. I use quotes there because it wasn’t stomach hunger, it was emotional hunger. I’m 100% sure this was all me trying to punish myself for one thing or another. Punishment seems to be a trend of mine lately. The negative self-talk came on full-force the next day, with the usual mantra of, “Well I guess I’ll just be fat forever since [enter ridiculous illogical reason here].”

It’s funny how the pie began as a stress reliever; the process of the prepping and mixing, the quiet of the house as the kids slept and Mike was out for the night, listening to some quiet music while doing it all, only for the end result to become a bane on my existence.

I made the mistake of entering the recipe into MyFitnessPal to calculate the nutritional information, which came out to 450 calories a slice. Steep, huh? I think I subconsciously told myself I couldn’t eat any pie. Period. Look at the calories, look at the carb count, look at the sugar. I couldn’t possibly eat any of that pie. So, of course, I immediately wanted to eat the whole thing. I briefly debated at 3am one morning going down to the kitchen and eating it straight from the pie plate in the light of the fridge. The pie just perpetuated my negative inner monologue. I even wrote on Facebook a couple days later, “I don’t want to be a big fatso, but I also want to be able to eat all the delicious things whenever I want them.” It amazed/amazes me how I could go from “There’s no reason I can’t stick to a caloric deficit and good food choices for 6 weeks. 6 weeks isn’t long at all.” And then proceeded to stay within my deficit only 50% of the time – if that. That’s not a real spectacular track record, and this is what leads me to feeling like I better learn to love this body that I’m in because I sure as shit can’t seem to change what it looks like or how healthy it is. I don’t want the stress of tracking all my food, but I also feel like I’m not capable of eating intuitively and healthy and at a deficit right now. Not that I’m eating particularly healthy right now, but at least I’m aware of how poorly I’m eating… if that makes sense…?

I also told myself last week that I would get back to strength training no matter how beginner the program needed to be. That hasn’t happened. Not even come CLOSE to happening. I did plenty of walking and a little bit of running, but shin splints derailed me pretty hard core with any real running action. Then I woke to a little back pain Saturday morning, which quickly morphed into major back pain Sunday morning. Tuesday I did all right and since my normal tennis date got rained out, I took about a 30 minute walk with my dad instead. Apparently that wasn't smart, even though it felt good. I woke up this morning (Weds) in lots of pain. The longer I was awake and moving around, the worse it got. I couldn't sit or lie down. The only thing that felt okay was standing or walking, and even those options weren't great. I could get in my car to drive into work. I had shooting pain going down my right leg and my muscles and tendons felt so tight they might snap. I started flipping out and crying and my husband took me to the doctor. I have a round of steroids to take now and was giving some muscle relaxers. I haven't actually taken the muscle relaxers yet.. I'm a little scared of them. Tonight at bedtime I'll likely have to, though, in order to be able to get any relief or rest. This is just adding to my less-than-stellar mental place and I'm struggling with keeping a positive outlook and have found myself getting caught up in the thought process of "I'm going to have to deal with this pain forever" several times today. My doctor seemed to think this was kind of a freak occurrence, and I'm hoping for the same. 

I’ve been so angry and frustrated by my body’s absolute refusal to cooperate with the normal calories in/calories out adage. As I said above, I haven’t been super compliant, but even with my “cheating” I should have still seen a pound or two of weight loss over the last month – but there’s been nothing. At the doc this morning I weighed in at 200 pounds. Now, I understand I’d already eaten breakfast and I was wearing all my clothes, jewelry, had my phone in my pocket, etc. But it really hit me hard to see that number. And I guess I need to get over that feeling because it isn’t going to change without the hard work and sacrifice that I’m obviously not committed to making at this time. The fact of the matter is, my hormones and general body chemistry are working against me right now. I’m not helping myself by continually over-indulging in sweets and alcohol and other simple carbs. I’m not helping myself by avoiding strength training and over-doing cardio to the point of injury. This round of prednisone certainly isn't going to help anything and I'm hoping it won't affect my appetite like I've seen it do to friends and family who have had to have short rounds. But, honestly, if I gain 5 pounds and never have to experience muscle pain like this again, it might be worth it. 

While suffering through the worst shin splints I’ve ever had and now this back pain, I’m slowly coming around to the realization that I need to slow down and take it easy. I need to be better to my body. Yes, there was a time where I was in decent shape. That time is not now. I’m not doing myself any favors by rushing into things and causing myself injury. I’m not benefitting from this sort of behavior in any way. I think it’s just its own form of self-sabotage. Until I’m 100% healthy (including this never-ending cold-that-is-now-a-sinus-infection), I need to focus on walking instead of running, making sure I’m doing some gentle stretching/yoga daily if possible, and a beginner strength routine starting with body weight and working up from there once my back can handle it. I put a calendar together for myself last night, but I'm afraid today's back issue may derail a lot of that. I'm not sure I can do even the basic yoga poses I had planned for myself for today, but that's okay. It has to be okay, because I have to let this muscle inflammation heal before I can attempt to do any kind of regular exercise other than walking (although maybe even that, since walking seemed to be what irritated this flare-up further).

Positive Thoughts Week 3

I was just thinking to myself, "I probably should post an update soon but I don't really feel inspired to write about anything that's going on right now." And then I remembered that I haven't done Positive Thoughts this week!

Okay, I struggled this last week. A lot. I had a lot of I-want-to-cry-for-no-reason moments and a lot of I'm-crying-for-no-reason moments. Sunday was terrible. The sadness/depression was crushing. I'm really shocked that I accomplished as much as I did, actually. I'm not sure who was making all those errands and things happen, but I sure am grateful to her because I was definitely just existing in an emotional limbo.

So, here's what I got, guys. It isn't spectacular, but it's something.

Week of August 18th:

1. I got 3 runs in.
2. I played music for the first time in months, and played with Derek for the first time in years.
3. My husband got me an awesome new t-shirt - it fits really well and the message suits me:
   
4. I went to bed around 10:30pm every night last week. It was phenomenal. 

7 runs in two weeks is pretty darn amazing for me. However, my constant cardio enemy has come back to call on me: shin splints. My left leg specifically. Today I'm even having some hip/knee pain which is super weird and unusual. This week may be more walks than anything else. I'm dog-sitting for a friend of mine, so I'm sure the pup will appreciate some walk-time as well. I'm trying really, really hard to remain positive on this and keep in mind that walking steps are still steps and walking calories are still calories burned. In other words, I'm trying to keep my mental health as much as possible.

I need to get back to strength training. 3 sets of bodyweight circuits once a month isn't going to cut it if I want to work back up to where I was last summer.

I may write a more substantial update later tonight if I can get my thoughts together, but for now this is it!

All or nothing?

So, I’ve been sitting here wondering to myself why I just can’t seem to make the scale move, and basically what that comes down to is this: I’m an idiot.

Here I’ve been feeling like I’ve been doing “pretty well” with my calorie/macro tracking, deciding that one (or two or three) high-cal days aren’t “hurting anything” because in my head it somehow magically balances out… but as I said, I’m an idiot.

My ass has essentially been eating at maintenance the last few weeks. Which is great in the sense that that means I’m no longer eating ABOVE maintenance and therefore no longer continuing to slowly gain weight – but it does mean that the scale and tape-measure are going to continue showing me the same results each month because I’m not putting myself in a deficit except maybe 3 days a week.

Now this is where it all gets a little tricky. A couple weeks ago I dove back into regular exercise pretty hardcore. I went from running once or twice a week and playing tennis once a week to running 3 or 4 times a week, playing tennis, and now this week reincorporating strength training. This may be TMI, but I’ll tell you my menstrual cycle is a wreck and doesn’t know what to do with itself, which is a pretty tell-tale sign that my hormones are going nuts. So while I’m regularly eating anywhere from 2500-3000 calories a day when my deficit goal is to eat between 2100-2300, the reason I’m eating that higher range is because I am all of a sudden starving all the time.

Now, I know I recently wrote that my appetite had been crappy and it was making it easier to eat less and eat better – but clearly my appetite has come back with a vengeance. I wish I could say it’s because my emotional health is doing better, but it’s not. In fact, some days I wonder if I’m worse than just a week or so ago. So the only thing I can figure is that increase in physical activity = spike in hunger and appetite. This is kind of a “duh”, but I just can’t believe with the amount of fat I packed on over the summer that my metabolism has somehow magically sky-rocketed into the 3,000’s TDEE level requiring me to be able to maintain a deficit while eating roughly 2500 calories a day. I mean, that would be nice and all – but it just doesn’t seem very realistic.

As most of you know, I recently started using the FitBit Flex again. According to that, with my increased activity levels over the last 2 weeks, I’m rocking about a 2800 calorie TDEE. Fine and dandy, but even so, I should not be “starving” at a 2100-2300 goal range. That’s ridiculous.

I’m incredibly frustrated right now. I struggle with consistency – in fact, it’s the one thing I’m consistent with – but I feel like during the times that I am consistent I should see some sort of progress. Sometimes I am consistent for months at a time! And still, nothing. Consults with my doctors over the last 8 months don’t show any type of hormonal imbalance, thyroid issues, pre-diabetes, etc. – any and all of which would be a reason that I find it so difficult to lose weight/fat. It makes me feel like I’m a just a lazy fatso with no self-control. I get caught up in this feeling of “it’s so easy for everyone else”, except I know that it isn’t. Everyone has their struggles. Everyone has to decide which sacrifices they’re willing to make. Then I think maybe I’m just not willing to make the necessary sacrifices. That is both true and untrue.

I wonder if my self-sabotage comes from a punishment place. I also wonder if my recent increase in exercise comes from a punishment place, as well. Part of it is definitely coming from a fear place. I’m terrified if I stop regularly running (at the very least) I’ll slip into an even deeper depression. About the only time I feel “good” these days is the 2 hours after a run or tennis - I honestly don’t remember if I got the same endorphin high after doing my strength circuits the other night. This is probably another reason why the impending winter is terrifying me. What will happen if I can’t get that regular cardio in? On top of my normal S.A.D.? That just seems like an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

So back to the food thing for a moment… I’ve decided effective immediately, I’m going to start following the Eat More 2 Weigh Less philosophy. I’m going to stick to my 2300 calories, unless I have an extremely high burn day. If at the end of 6 weeks I’ve seen zero change in either weight or measurements, then it’s time to adjust a little bit. There’s no reason I can’t do this for 6 weeks. It’s just really not that much time. I’m also thinking about getting back to either New Rules of Lifting or Female Body Breakthrough for weight training, since EM2WL strongly recommends heavy lifting.

Speaking of lifting… as I mentioned a couple paragraphs up, I did some strength circuits the other night. For those of you that follow my Instagram account, you know this nearly killed me. I’m back at square-one strength-wise and it’s got me feeling really dismayed. I am still sore from that workout and almost everything was simply bodyweight… the weighted exercises I found myself having to resort to my 8lbs dumbbells. This is what happens when you quit completely for a couple months and then ramp up the cardio. In Bro Speak: you kill gains. My gains are so dead right now. What’s even more upsetting is that I know I won’t be making very many new gains eating at a deficit… but, honestly, right now I’m in a real “run it off then bulk it up” mentality. That I can most certainly tell you comes from a punishment place. I love the running, don’t get me wrong. I already talked about how it helps keep my already-low mood somewhat stable. But I am feeling very “fuck it” right now with strength training. I want faster results, man. I couldn’t tell you if running with actually do this for me, since when I was training for my 5K I was holding fat like nobody’s business, but I’m really wanting to see some change on the scale.

I know, I know. Scale isn’t everything. I feel like I practically invented that mantra within my social circle. But right now the scale is everything to me and I want to see it move, damnit. And if that means I’m “skinny fat” at 170lbs, then so be it. If that means the scale bumps up to 180 when I start working toward strength gains and muscle hypertrophy, I’m okay with that. But right now I am so sick of flirting with 200lbs. 195 is too damn close. I’m over it. I can’t see that number anymore. It’s driving me insane. I can’t get right with it.

I wish I could say this talk is coming from my Deep Dark Depression Place, but really I think I was just lying to myself when I wrote that I could be “okay” with this weight and body aesthetic for the rest of my life. Who knows anymore?! Maybe I’ll start an anti-depressant, find a therapist that works better with me and offers me the tools I’m looking for, and get right with myself emotionally and all of a sudden love the hell out of this body I’m in. Part of me hopes that happens. But right now, punishment or not, something’s gotta give. And it sure as hell isn’t my mental state, so it may as well be my physical.

I’m not trying to say that being skinny or “cut” or whatever is going to magically make me happy or lower my stress levels or make me love my job more or make my kids behave better or make me more money, but at least I won’t have to feel so guilty about being fat anymore. At least that will be one thing I can cross OFF of my List of Failures.

…I’m sorry. This got kind of real dark real fast, and I didn’t intend that to happen. It ain’t all about skinny, it’s mostly about healthy. But it’s some about skinny, too. Just like the smoking and the drinking if driving, this needs to be a non-negotiable for me. I can’t give up on myself just because it’s easier to eat mini candy bars at work all day and follow that up with some Oreos or maybe Dairy Queen at night. Talk about punishment. Fuck. I deserve better than that. I deserve to eat those things sometimes because I really want to eat them, not because “I may as well”.

I deserve to be healthy and happy. And if I can’t be happy, I can at least make my best effort at healthy.