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).