Good News, Bad News, Bachelorette Finale.

Let’s start with the good news, shall we? I FINALLY STOPPED BLEEDING!!! A few days after my last blog post, the post-op bleeding stopped completely, and I’ve been “normal” ever since. I’m not sure what the blogging equivalent of cartwheels is, but I’m doing them. I can’t even explain what a relief this is. The pathology from the biopsy hasn’t come back, but I’m praying that it’s normal and that in a month or so, my real cycle will return and I can put all this behind me.

Now for the not-so-great news… I had my first gain this past Saturday (my weigh-in day). Instead of moving closer to my goal, I gained a pound back, and am back where I was two weeks ago, at 243. I’m disappointed, but I know it’s my own doing. I used my weekend in the hospital as an excuse to eat French fries and ice cream and not count calories for several days, and it caught up with me. I kind of half-heartedly counted calories last week, and even got on the treadmill, but I guess the naughty indulgences won in the end.

The entire month of July felt a little bit like a bust. I only lost five pounds, as opposed to my 12-pound loss in June. I know that there will be ups and downs, but I can’t help thinking that medicine has something to do with it. I started taking an antidepressant again at the beginning of July, since my anxiety struggles returned, and my weight loss has slowed way down. I am very happy to have those five pounds gone, though. There are worse things than not losing enough—like gaining! I’m glad that despite some of the health challenges I’ve had this month, I still managed to lose. I guess that’s a victory.

Another victory is that I didn’t let my 1-pound weight gain derail my entire goal. Instead, this week I’m back on track with a vengeance. I’m trying to eat a lot cleaner to give my hormones the best chance of coming back into balance, and I’m getting on the treadmill more, because I’m sure exercise will help, too. I’m feeling a little more energetic now that I’m taking iron and not bleeding profusely every day, but I still feel very weak when I get on the treadmill to walk. I’m walking a pathetic 2.8 MPH and lasting only 30 minutes or so, which burns like 150 calories. I hope my energy and endurance will improve as I exercise more and more, because I’d like to restart the Couch to 5K program sometime soon. 

In other news, who watched the million-hour finale of The Bachelorette last night?! I know, I know, the show is pathetic. I usually only watch to practice rolling my eyes for two hours straight, but then, inevitably, I get hooked on the drama and can't stop. I actually really like Chris, the guy Des chose. He was my favorite for most of the season, except for all the times he wrote and/or recited poetry to Des (which was every three seconds, I think). I am just not into poetry and that is the last hobby on earth I'd want in a guy, but hey, to each their own.   

Post-Op

Well it has been a lovely few days. Allow me to fill you in.

When the doc told me to stop the birth control last week, my body responded by bleeding even more. Yeah, super fun. I started doing extensive research on what my problem could be, and I got scared. Apparently, the longer one’s body remains in an estrogen-dominant state, and the longer one bleeds, the higher the chances that “abnormal” or cancerous cells will develop. I read story after story (bad idea, I know) of women my age with my problem who had endometrial cancer and had to have hysterectomies. I should stay away from the internet, for sure, but I didn’t. I called the doctor Wednesday afternoon to tell him the bleeding was worse, and he ordered me to go to the ER the next morning. So that night I was really upset about everything, and worried about going to the hospital, and I ate emotionally. A lot. When I realized what I was doing, I stopped, but I was surprised at just how easy it is for depression/worry/anxiety to set in and trigger the desire to stuff my face with calories I don’t even want. I was mad at myself, but decided to just learn and move on.

Thursday morning I went to the ER, and they admitted me. They starved me the entire day due to my doc’s orders (he thought they might do the D&C that day), did lots of blood work and an ultrasound, and then I got to lay in my room hooked up to an IV while waiting for the gynecological consult. I guess there were lots of babies being born or something, because he didn’t get to my room until after 10 PM. We chatted for a while, and then I went through the most AWKWARD vaginal exam EVER, on my hospital bed. I’m talking, my feet were resting on the gyno’s thighs since there were no stirrups, and a herd of nurses decided they needed to watch this lovely occasion like it was a movie premiere, ‘cause I guess there was nothing more exciting going on. Not fun.

Sexy leg compression-y things

 When he finished the exam, the doctor agreed to let me eat something in my 30-minute window before midnight, since they decided to do the D&C the next morning. They brought me a sandwich and applesauce, which was heavenly after fasting all day, and I ate before going to sleep. By “sleep,” of course, I mean laying awake all night on the horrendously uncomfortable hospital bed and being poked/prodded/vital-signed until dawn.

Press "up" to be elevated to a position that will require lumbar spine surgery.
Press "down" to ensure you don't fall asleep until next Wednesday...

Friday morning they prepped me for a D&C and hysteroscopy, and I vaguely remember being wheeled into surgery before going unconscious. I was in pain when I woke up, but they put something in my IV to help with that, and I haven’t had much pain since then. After pumping my veins full of iron and feeding me a yummy hospital lunch, they released me Friday evening. I spent the rest of the weekend eating unhealthy things and laying around looking at the fugly bruise the IV and liquid iron left on my arm.

I don’t have the pathology report from the biopsy yet. I should get it in a week or so when I follow up with the doctor. I’m still bleeding a little from the procedure, but it’s supposed to stop in a week or so. In the meantime, I’m trying to eat healthy, non-estrogenic foods and exercise much as I can. I’m 3,000% convinced that the only thing that will make me better is losing weight and getting fit.

I'm not lazy, I'm anemic!

I’ve spent the last week or two feeling like a failure for mostly abandoning exercise. I have had zero energy, so it has been really easy to talk myself out of getting on the treadmill. On Friday I actually forced myself to get on it for 30 minutes, despite how blehhhh I felt, but I ended up walking only 2.5 mph for most of the half hour. I blamed it on being out of shape and not being consistent with exercise. I’ve been counting calories and staying on track with my eating, but I just can’t seem to get moving.

Friday night I went out with my friend J and her girls. We ate at Lime Fresh Mexican Grill and then walked around the mall for a while. I was miserable, and just wanted to sit down the whole time. Looking back, we were only at the mall for around an hour, but I was just deflated and void of energy. Saturday and Sunday, I literally sat around the house and did nothing. I was annoyed with myself for being “lazy,” but I felt awful. Walking to the bathroom or to another room of the house just took energy I didn’t have.

My bleeding has been getting steadily worse on the birth control, so I called the doctor and he said to stop taking it. He said that if the Provera didn’t stop the bleeding, the BC wouldn’t either. He told me I need to have a D&C, which is stressing me out since I don’t have health insurance, and those probably definitely aren’t cheap. He doesn’t think I have any other option, though. Everything I take to try and stop bleeding just makes me bleed more heavily. Unfortunately, when I stopped taking the BC, the bleeding got even heavier, and I have awful cramps every day now.

So… I FINALLY got my blood test results back from the lab on Monday. When I went to pick them up, my doctor had two prescriptions waiting for me, and my lack of energy and crummy feelings now make sense. My iron levels and blood count were extremely out of whack, and I’m definitely very anemic. The scary thing is that when I had the blood tests three weeks ago, the bleeding wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it is right now. If they did the test now, I’m sure my iron and all those blood levels would be even lower thanks to the last 3 weeks of hellishness. My vitamin D3 level was also very very low. No wonder I haven’t had any energy! I’m taking prescription strength iron and D3 supplements, so I’m hoping that helps boost my energy soon. Even with the iron, though, if I don’t stop bleeding, I’m going to keep feeling bad. UGH.

I’m happy that I don’t have to deal with the nausea from the BC any more, but my appetite is responding to the hormone change. On BC, sweets just didn’t sound good to me, but now I think about chocolate 23 ½ hours a day, at least. I’m proud of myself for staying on track despite that insatiable desire for candy bars, cookies and brownies, but it’s not easy. Pretzel M&Ms have been a life saver since a whole bag only has 150 calories, and satisfies the chocolate craving. For an hour or so, anyway. ;)

My weight loss has slowed to a crawl, and I'm blaming all the hormones I've been taking. I've only lost a pound a week for the last several weeks, but I guess that beats gaining. I am hopeful that figuring out why my body hates me, and fixing it, will help get my weight loss back on track. I am proud, though, to be officially down 30 pounds since January! I have a looooong way to go, but I'm happy with what I've done so far. 

She's ba-aaaaack...

OK, I should probably be happy that my appetite has sort of returned, rather than wishing the nausea would stick around. But… but… eating less is so much easier when the thought of food makes you want to hurl! #firstworldproblems

I’m not quite as nauseated as I was during the awful first week of birth control. Now, it seems I’m hungry during the morning and around lunchtime, and then I get nauseated in the late afternoon/evenings. Over the weekend, though, I was STARVED at lunch every day. On Friday I felt insatiable around noon, and that terrified me because I felt like I wanted to eat everything in sight. I was worried I wouldn’t have enough calories left for the evening and that I’d end up bingeing or chucking the diet. But it turns out that after I would eat a decent meal, I felt better, and then didn’t seem to get hungry for dinner. These appetite changes have been weird because I’m normally one to save a bunch of my calories for the evening, since that’s when I enjoy eating the most. I know that’s not necessarily healthy, so maybe the meds will retrain me a little. Maybe.

On Saturday we celebrated my nephew’s 4^th birthday with lunch at Fridays and an afternoon showing of Despicable Me 2. I planned my eating in advance, and did pretty well at TGIF. I had a couple bites of the soft pretzels and beer cheese appetizer, then ate a petite sirloin with mashed potatoes and veggies. I wasn’t completely satisfied after lunch, so I got some popcorn to share with the birthday boy. He was incensed that the entire bag wasn’t for him, even though he ate a ton of lunch and got a free birthday sundae to top it off. I finally convinced him to let me hold the bag between us… um, he takes after my side of the family in the eating department, can you tell? We call it “high food pressure.” ;)  His brother is 7, and takes after his dad when it comes to eating. He won’t indulge if he isn’t truly hungry, and he will pick veggies and fruit over French fries any day. I gave him a cup of popcorn and he didn’t touch it. So strange how brothers can be so different! I, on the other hand, touched WAY too much popcorn. I didn’t put butter on it, though, and then I didn’t eat anything the rest of the day, so it wasn’t too bad.

My mom texted me during church yesterday (she is the worst pastor’s wife ever…) and told me she wanted meatloaf and mashed potatoes for lunch. Comfort food sounded SO yummy, so after my church service ended I went and bought the ingredients and made a meal for my parents. We ate kind of late, and I had two helpings (oops), but I ended up not eating supper for the second day in a row because I was still full. I also had no energy yesterday, so I ended up sitting around watching like 562 episodes of Property Virgins and House Hunters on HGTV.

Did I work out this weekend, you ask? Uh… does thinking seriously about working out count?

Falling off the wagon...

OK, I didn’t actually fall off the wagon. It was more like I politely asked the wagon driver to pull over, gathered my satchel and gloves, hoisted my skirts and stepped down from the wagon to walk behind it for a spell.

After spending nearly a week riddled with anxiety, barely able to choke down 300-500 calories a day, my appetite returned on Friday. I was grateful, because my weight loss came to a screeching halt at 244 while my body held on for dear life to all of its fat cells and water, trying to compensate for what I’m sure it defined as starvation. So when I actually felt hungry again, rather than worry over how many calories I was eating, I simply made the decision to eat what I wanted while I felt like it. I’m sure I could have eaten a bit more healthfully, but I didn’t go overboard or binge.

Today, I have made the decision to get back on the wagon. My appetite is officially back, and I’m taking new medications that can contribute to weight gain, so I need some structure. I actually gained back a pound when I started taking a hormone that is supposed to get my cycle on track, but I’m not going to let that freak me out. I have to get my body back in order, and right now birth control appears to be the best option.

On that note, I am SO SICK of bleeding. It has been almost seven entire months of a non-stop period, and nothing else I’ve tried (losing 28 lbs., taking vitamins, taking pig thyroid, eating healthier) has helped. The progesterone I just took for a week was supposed to make me stop, but instead it tapered only slightly, and over the last few days has caused what looks like the zombie apocalypse, or a Jodi Arias-like crime scene when I wake up in the morning. (I’m not sure I ever mentioned that I tend to over-share… too late to warn you?) I’m pretty sure I need to go buy a box of adult diapers. Desperation is setting in.

I am hopeful that the BC will level out my hormones, and as I continue to lose weight, I can stop taking it. The doc says I should be able to in 3-6 months. In the meantime, I’ve had lots of blood tests and exams to try and narrow down the problem (which I’m pretty sure is my thyroid, but my doctor is old school, so convincing him has been difficult). I’ve heard horror stories of weight gain from birth control, so I’m going to need to keep track of my calorie intake and exercise whenever possible in order to combat the hormones.

So… it’s back to tracking in the SparkPeople app, and now that my bronchitis is gone, I’ll be jumping back on the treadmill. I’m actually very happy about it. As much as I love food and hate exercise, nothing in the world makes me feel as good as I do when I’m in control of my eating and when I’m making myself move.

Happy Monday! J

Weight Update

Today marks exactly one month that I have been living healthier, eating fewer calories, and even doing a little exercise. I lost four pounds this past week, which probably has a little to do with my bout with sickness and another bout with anxiety, but the scale is moving downward, so I'm happy.

Despite those almost two entire weeks where the scale wouldn't budge, I still lost a total of 12 pounds this month!

I have mentioned before that I suffer from anxiety. I was on medication (SSRI) for almost two years, but in January I got sick of having side effects and having trouble losing weight, so I decided to stop taking them. I enjoyed nearly six months meds-free, and had very little anxiety during that time, but this week it came back with. a. vengeance. I know that it is due in large part to some big life changes that I'm going through right now, and some big decisions that I have to make, but unfortunately my brain doesn't listen to logic when my anxiety is triggered in a big way. I have some medicine left, so I think I'm going to start taking it again, because I really can't handle what anxiety does to me, mentally and physically. I'll go see a doctor ASAP as well.

My only concern with taking meds is that I don't want to become complacent about losing weight. The medicine I take (unlike a few others I've tried) doesn't increase my appetite, so that's a plus, but I don't want to get calm and suddenly be OK with weighing 247 pounds! We'll see how it goes this time around, when I'm conscious of the possibilities of side effects and weight gain. If I keep doing what I've been doing, I should be fine.

Now I'm off to my sister's for the day. She wants me to go to IKEA with her and my two nephews. IKEA. On a Saturday. With two small children. There is not enough Prozac in the WORLD...

My weekend from the hot place...

What started out as a really fun weekend ended badly on Saturday night. I had managed to avoid the whooping cough that plagued all of my coworkers for the last few weeks, but as I sat watching a movie with my sister, I felt that gross tickle in the back of my throat. Then came the coughing. Then came the upper respiratory infection and the worst two days of my life (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration.)

I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday night, and spent all day Sunday about as miserable as I can remember being since I got swine flu four years ago. Disgusting chest congestion made it hard to breath, and I had a fever off and on for 24 hours. Fever is a big deal to me, because it happens so rarely—I once went 10 years without getting one. True story. I think. Anyway, I spent Sunday and Monday in bed watching episode after episode of House Hunters and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, but forced myself to go in to work today, against my better judgment. (And based on the death glares from the now healthy people in the office, it was against their better judgment, too.)

I’m still not feeling great, but I feel sooo much better than I did Sunday, and I’m definitely headed in the right direction.

Out of nowhere this weekend I dropped a couple more pounds, and surpassed my “10 lbs down” goal for the month. I’m at 10.5 lbs lost since May 29^th, and I’m hoping for a little more by Saturdays weigh-in. Weight loss is so funny (well, not funny when I’m frustrated and ready to smash the scale with an axe)—one day I’m furious that the numbers haven’t moved in two weeks, and the next, I’m giggling with glee at an overnight loss of 3 pounds. This last month of living healthfully has at least reinforced that I can truly “trust the process.” It’s so easy to get discouraged and think that I just physically can’t lose weight, but after seeing how the scale has been weird over the last 4 weeks, and seeing that the results are there, just not as uniformly as I like, I’m encouraged that I really can trust the process. Eating fewer calories and moving more really does work! Who would’ve thought?

Speaking of weight loss... My mom is a nurse, and she stopped in to see how I was doing on Sunday night. While she was listening to my lungs, she kept commenting about how my heart was racing. Since I'd been sitting motionless for a full 24 hours, that was odd. We finally realized it was the Maximum Strength Mucinex liquid I'd been taking every four hours. It had my heart rate way up... no wonder I lost a few pounds! Disclaimer: Do NOT go to Wal Mart and buy a case of Mucinex to try and speed up your weight loss. Go to Costco. Much cheaper. ;)

I hope your week got off to a much better start than mine! J

Mmmm, Pizza...

Since I don't have to work on Fridays (best thing in the WORLD, I'm not gonna lie), I wanted to have something fun and figure-friendly for dinner to celebrate the start of my weekend, and to serve as game food for game seven of the NBA finals (Go Heat!). I decided to make some quesadilla pizzas, and was pretty happy with how they turned out.

I bought whole wheat, low carb tortillas because 1) they only have 81 calories each, and most large tortillas have at least 120, 2) I figure the more calories I cut, the more pizza I can eat, and 3) the higher fiber is also nice and filling.

Classico has a new fire-roasted pizza sauce that I decided to try, and I chose store brand 6-cheese Italian shredded cheese since it was BOGO. Aside from being cheap, it also had only 80 calories per 1/3 cup, which is lighter than most shredded cheese. And obviously, the more cheese the better. ;)

I sprayed a half-size baking sheet (one of the perks of owning a dessert company is access to these big, luscious baking sheets) with cooking spray and assembled the pizza/quesadillas. I could have been more creative with the toppings, but olives and baby portabellos sounded good tonight, and I was really hungry, therefore didn't want to take extra time to chop more veggies.

Popped them into the oven at 400 degrees for about 12 minutes and...

It was a very yummy dinner. The pizzas were a little easier to eat folded in half, because of how thin the tortillas were, and that gave it a thicker, more-like-real-pizza bite.

Each quesadilla pizza had just 200 calories--yum!

_______________________________________________________________

Any fun plans for the weekend?

Treadmill!

After my Friday Fail in the run department, I took the rest of the weekend off from exercise (which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of what you’re supposed to do after you don’t succeed at something). I just got it in my head—after nearly dying of heat stroke after my last run—that I really need a treadmill in order to stay consistent with exercise. I scoured Craigslist for listings, and even went to see one that someone was selling for $200, but it was cheaper and smaller than the treadmill I used to have, and walking on it felt like a chore because of the cheap belt. I decided not to buy it.

On Sunday I got together with my parents and my sister and I was talking about treadmills with my mom, and she said she wanted to get one too… so we decided to go halfsies and share one. On a whim, about half hour before closing, we went to Sports Authority to look at their selection, and we found one we loved. It was on sale for $599 but it was one I had read great reviews about and it was more expensive everywhere I’d seen it online. We paid, then prayed it wouldn’t fall out of her little Nissan crossover, and drove it home. I haven’t had a chance to finish putting it together, but I will, and then I’m excited to pick back up on day 3 of the C25K program. Woo!

I know, I know… as my boyfriend told me, most exercise equipment ends up being used as a clothing rack. BUT. I’ve had a treadmill before, and before I started taking medicine, I actually used it and liked it. I even ran on it some. I remember being so proud of myself once that I had run for 15 minutes straight without stopping. The incline on it broke when it was about 5 years old, and then I entered my meds-induced vegetative state, where I had only enough energy to sit on the couch, so I gave it away. I’m pretty confident that this investment is going to be a BIG help in getting off this 95 pounds I need to lose.

In other news, Popeyes fried chicken is not the easiest thing to fit into a healthy lifestyle. My dad wanted it yesterday, and it was Father’s Day, so he got it, but it really messed up my calorie intake for the day. I’m pretty sure I went about 500 calories over what I’m supposed to have to lose weight, but the scale was still down this morning, probably thanks to me taking yesterday off from exercise. Oh, the mind games. Overeat + don’t exercise = lose a pound. Too bad that doesn’t last. ;)

Failure is most definitely an option.

Well, I had my first official Couch-to-5K FAIL today when I attempted day three of the training. As I mentioned yesterday, Fridays are days off for me, so getting up at 4:50 or 5:00 to go run was just probably never going to happen. Especially since the Heat/Spurs game went so late, and my brother is visiting with his girlfriend and I just didn't want to go to bed and miss out on everything.

I look so cute after exercise.

This morning I woke up (or was woken up by my brother pounding on my door and yelling at me to get up) at 8:15, and around 9:15, I decided to just go do it, regardless of how hot and humid it was outside. So I drove to the hospital to do my training around the pretty trail.

It was only 85 degrees when I started, and I made it through all the walk/run intervals until 55 seconds into running spurt number 7. And then my will to keep pushing myself just disintegrated. I felt like I was going to throw up, it was miserably hot, the sun was beating right down on me, and I just quit. I started walking, and walked through the final running spurt as well. At the time, I felt like I just could NOT keep going, and I resigned myself to it. I had pushed myself through running spurts 3 through 6 even though I wanted to quit then, too, but by the 7th 60-second run, I lost all motivation. I quit with 65 second of running remaining. Really, Me? Really???

Sigh. On the drive home, I decided to get my elliptical trainer back from one of my other brothers (I sold it to him a year ago, but he never uses it), because I am obviously a failure at running. Now that I've cooled off and the nausea his dissipated, I know I shouldn't just throw in the towel so easily, but I do think that having the elliptical would be nice. I can exercise more often, and from the comfort of my air conditioned home.

My body feels like jelly, and it's worse than how I felt on days one and two. Even my wrists and fingers hurt. Does the heat and humidity really make that much of a difference? Then again, I only did like two half-hearted stretches before I left the house.

The jury is out on what I'm gonna do. I guess I should just attempt day three again on Sunday, but this time do it before the sun comes up and conspires to kill me. Do I sound whiny enough? Cause I can try harder if I need to...

Good Stuff:
There are a few teeny victories to report today. First, I lost one of the three pounds that I gained when I started exercising! I was surprised to see that, too, because I felt like yesterday sucked eating-wise. My coworkers begged me to go out to lunch with them to this new, overpriced restaurant, and even though I was careful and ordered a salad, I ate too much. I had a few chips with guacamole before the salad came, ate almost my entire salad and half the dressing, and then I had four bites of a skillet cookie with ice cream that someone ordered because they hate me. Oh my word, it was delicious. After those four bites, I covered my dessert spoon with salt so I wouldn't take any more.

Another good thing is that I've been tracking the workouts I've been doing in my SparkPeople app, and today I saw that I've burned 1,103 calories exercising this week. For some reason, that made me so excited! I think it would be fun to challenge myself with a weekly calories burned total. It seems a lot more motivational than just tracking how many workouts I do.

I'm off to do something inspirational now, like watch episodes of Extreme Weight Loss... I need a little pick-me-up in the motivation department right now.

Couch to 5K - Day 2

I completed day 2 of the Couch to 5K program yesterday morning (yay!), and it was a lot harder than day 1 (boo!). After the initial 60-second run, I had to force myself not to quit every time the voice prompt told me it was time to run again. By the last few running spurts, I was pretty much ready to die. I was constantly checking the timer to see how many seconds of the minute were left, because I didn’t think I could keep going. I also felt as though I was breathing a lot heavier than I did on Monday, and everything just felt harder. Arg.

The important thing, I guess, is that I didn’t quit and start walking even though I really wanted to. The whole time, though, I was second-guessing myself. Do you really expect to start running at your size? You hate this. Running will never be something you enjoy, so why waste your time? I pushed through the negative self-talk, but I’ll admit that it is very hard to imagine myself running for longer than 60 seconds, much less a bloody 5K. While huffing and puffing, I tried to picture going for even a mile, and I about gave up and went back to be right then and there.

I think I just need to be patient with myself. I just started exercising after a two year hiatus (and I wasn’t exercising very much before that), so I’m super out of shape, and everything is going to be challenging. If I need to repeat week one of Cto5K for a while, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. For now, I do feel proud that I’m actually running (a grand total of 8 minutes every other day, but still!).

I get up at 4:50 AM to exercise, so it’s very dark outside when I head out. (I do it that early so I can get to work on time, but that’s really the best time of day to go anyway, because it is SO hot here, and running in the sunlight is utter misery. I also hate people watching me when I walk or run. I know I need to get over that, but right now I don’t want my neighbors all up in my weight loss business.) I only run in my little mostly-gated neighborhood, but it can feel a little scary if I let myself think about it too much. Today, two black cats ran right across my path while I ran, and while I don’t believe in that stuff, and know my protection comes from Someone much more powerful than cats, it still creeped me out a little.

My next scheduled day of the program is Friday, and I’m really not sure what I’ll do because I don’t work on Fridays, so it would be awesome to sleep in. But if I wait until it’s hot, I know I’ll be miserable. Maybe I’ll just get up early to get it over with, then go back to sleep... Yeah, maybe not.

The end is nowhere in sight.

So you may be wondering why I felt the need to write a blog yesterday about the fact that I’ll be blogging the bad with the good. Welllll, it might have had a teeny bit to do with the way that I felt all day yesterday. Or everything to do with it.

I GAINED 3 POUNDS IN 48 HOURS. 

If I had binged or over-eaten, I’d probably be dealing better with it. But it happened despite staying within my calorie allotment, and despite working out twice. I gained three freaking pounds!!! Now, I know that this has everything to do with starting to exercise, that it is likely just my muscles holding on to water, and that I’ll probably lose it again soon… but. I’m at the beginning of my long road to fitness, so a sudden gain of all the weight I just spent ten days losing is SUPER discouraging. And in the past, it has taken my body a good two weeks to begin losing weight again after I start exercising. In the words of Sweet Brown: Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!

While I was feeling discouraged, I started watching a show called “Ruby” on Netflix. It’s about a sweet, bubbly woman who weighed 478 lbs (but was 700+ lbs at her highest) and was trying to lose the weight once and for all. I thought it would be motivational, but after a few episodes, I made the mistake of googling her. Apparently, she started cheating on her diet a few seasons in, and they ended up cancelling the show because she was putting on a lot of weight. Presently, I think she is under 400 lbs, but the never-ending struggle is still going.

I’m not sure why the show hit me so hard, but I was emotionally devastated. I just felt so much compassion for Ruby, and wanted so badly for her to succeed. And I felt like if she could do it, I could do it, too. In the end, though, it put a glaring light on the reality that weight loss—especially permanent weight loss—is SO HARD. That’s a tough pill to swallow, knowing that I’m trying to achieve what so few people seem to be able to.

I have given myself several pep talks over the last few days, because the weight gain and reality of how LONG this process is put me in a foul disposition. The good news is that I’m not giving up, and I haven’t purchased any pints of Blue Bell Banana Pudding ice cream to ease my troubled mind. This is the reality, after all. This is the part of weight loss that SUCKS, that doesn’t make the highlight reel on Extreme Weight Loss, and that gets condensed into a one-sentence blurb in People Mag’s “Half Their Size” articles.

When I started college, everyone told me that sophomore year would be the hardest, because the newness and excitement of starting college would have worn off, but I wouldn’t be anywhere near the end. That’s kind of how I’m feeling right about now. I’m in the bloody middle. I’ve already taken that first dramatic step of deciding to lose the weight, but the excitement of that has worn off, I’m still huge, and I’ve hit the daily grind of eating right, exercising, and staying on track so that SOME DAY (in what right now feels like a million years) I’ll be at the end of the weight loss process.

This is the point at which I usually turn to food for comfort and end up piling back on the weight I just lost. I’m not doing that this time, though. Because if I stop now, I’m 100% guaranteed to stay fat. If I keep going, however, and keep at it day after day after day, no matter how I “feel,” the weight WILL come off. 365 days are going to go by this year, regardless of what I do. But if I do what I know is right for my body, at the end of that 365 days there will be significant, amazing transformation. Waiting for that is the hard part, but I know I can do it. I just have to keep going.

My blog is not Tony Robbins

I feel like I need to issue a warning. 

Let me start by saying that this blog, no matter what else it is, will always be REAL. If you’ve never struggled with the raw emotions, discouragement, despair, ______ (insert fat girl feeling of choice here), etc. that is associated with being significantly overweight and/or trying to lose a significant amount of weight, this blog may not be your favorite.

I’ve been very tempted to stop posting anything negative about the weight loss process, because I don’t want to be a discouragement to anyone, and I don’t want to sound whiny. However. When I read various tales of women who have lost weight, if everything they say about the WL process is all rainbows and sunshine and joy and half marathons, I’m left feeling as though it’s something I could never do. Because in my experience, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine and endless joy, and I have trouble imagining myself running 13.1 miles without dying of a stroke 1/1000^th of the way through. While there are many “ups,” to the whole process of losing a lot of weight, it is hard work, it takes a long freaking time, and there are minutes, hours, days and for some people even weeks or months of feeling down and discouraged over the whole thing.

I got it in my head somehow recently that it is my blog’s job to motivate, challenge and encourage all (three people) who read it, and that I must deal with my struggles privately, hide all of my self-doubt, and only post my thoughts when I have a “win” to share. Well. I’m not going to do that. I started this blog as an outlet for my feelings and emotions as I struggle to lose 100 pounds and learn to treat my body right in the process. That means there are going to be a LOT of struggles to share, and I intend to share them, because that’s the whole point of me writing all of this out.

This blog is for me first and foremost, to muddle through the millions of feelings I experience that I’m pretty sure have made and kept me fat since I was seven years old. But it’s also hopefully relatable to anyone who has ever bawled in a department store dressing room, been called “Moby Dick” by a grade school friend’s older brother, had to buy kids jeans in size “Extra Special,” been forced to eat a popsicle while the rest of her siblings had ice cream cones, been referred to as an “elephant” by those same siblings, preferred giving birth to quadruplets without anesthesia over going to a pool party, or any of the plethora of negative experiences overweight people go through in a lifetime.

There will be plenty of “wins,” big and small, to blog about along the way, but my main goal in blogging is simply to write out the entire emotional and physical experience, good, bad or binge, of dropping 100 lbs. And who knows? When I’m all done, maybe someone else who is struggling, wondering how they’ll ever get to their “After” shot, will read it and find some inspiration to start their own weight loss story.

Bottom line: I might sound like a Negative Nancy at times. I might not be a prime candidate for Motivational Speaker of the Year. I might be seemingly riddled with self-doubt. But gosh darnit, I’m going to be REAL. If you’re not an overweight, emotionally unbalanced nut-case, you may want to run for the hills. (And if you’re a thin woman trying to go from a size small string bikini to a size extra-small string bikini, Google was just trying to be funny.) 

Victory is mine.

My alarm went off at 4:50 AM yesterday and I bounced jubilantly (read: hit snooze, then crawled in slow motion while scowling) out of bed with the energy of Jillian Michaels on crack a dead snail. Once up, I threw on the new workout clothes and warmed up by dancing idiotically to Kanye West in front of my mirror (until I caught a glimpse of myself and how ridiculous I looked, at which point I turned around to face the wall). After the brief warm-up, I did all most of the stretches recommended on the Couch-to-5K website, but not as many reps as they recommended. Still, since I’ve never bothered to stretch before exercise, ever, I was happy with what I did.

I headed outside with my Couch-to-5K app strapped to my arm, and did the entire stinking day one workout. It was pretty simple. First, you warm up with a brisk walk for five minutes. Then the real work begins and you run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds and repeat for 20 minutes before winding down with another 5-minute walk. The app was great because you never have to look at your phone to check the time. There is a little jingly noise and a voice prompt telling you to run, walk, run, walk at the proper times.

I did great for the first interval, but after that, I was tempted to chuck it all and just walk. I mean, seriously, I’m super out of shape and fat, so maybe I’m diving into this running thing a bit early, I reasoned with myself. But then I told myself to shut it, and kept running. I didn’t wanna, I didn’t like it, and I questioned the sanity of my desire to be a runner a few thousand times, but I kept going. I didn’t stop. I pushed through the pain, the breathlessness and the giant blisters forming on the back of my right ankle, and I did  it. Woo!

To an outsider watching, I may have looked like I was hobbling at the pace of an elderly person with hip fractures, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I finished. Sure, people who are used to exercise would probably scoff at a “simple” walk/run like the one I did, but to someone who hasn’t run in a minimum of two-and-a-half years, it was tough.

According to C25K, I’m only supposed to run every other day, so I’ll probably walk on my days off. I actually enjoy walking (probably because it’s not running!).

The only thing that suuuuucks about starting to exercise (other than it hurts and it’s not as fun as sleeping in or almost anything else that exists) is the inevitable weight gain. On Sunday morning when I got on the scale, I had lost another pound. Then, after walking Sunday night and running Monday morning, I gained 2. UGH. I know that it is just my muscles holding on to water, and that it doesn’t represent a “real” gain, but this has been one of the reasons over the years that I have chucked exercise—I just seem to lose faster when I’m not doing it. BUT. I know that overall, exercise will speed up the weight loss process and make me look and feel much better than eating right alone, so I’m going to ignore the scale for now (or only weigh in once a week, which is what I should be doing anyway).

One other minor thing that sucks is how nauseated I was after I finished the run. That always seems to happen when I work out my legs, and I've heard it's because the blood flow is concentrated in the legs and less in the head. I took a cold shower to cool off, then laid down on my bed with my legs up the wall to get some blood flow back to my brain, and I felt better after 10 minutes or so. 

So, another small victory is in the bag! Now to repeat this on a regular basis (gulp)… Someone remind me to wear a snugger sports bra.

Just Do It. No, really. Just do it.

Yesterday after lamenting (and blogging about) my long cultivated desire to sit on my posterior for 23.87 hours a day, I got over it. Sometimes all it takes to overcome a mental hurdle is to stop obsessing over it for a few minutes. So, instead of freaking out that I had negative desire to be active and therefore would always be overweight and duct taped to my couch until someone removed me with a crane, I chilled out and watched a Lifetime movie to take my mind off of things for a bit.

Halfway through Not Without My Adopted Daughter's Cousin or The Sinister Man She Met Online or whatever, I got excited about exercising again, and called up my mom to see if she wanted to go for a walk. She did, and we headed to the local hospital to walk the path that winds around a scenic little pond out front.

I have no idea how long the path is, but we walked around it three times, and I was all breathless and itchy and sweaty and sore when we were finished, so I will count it a success. I'm sure my mom felt like she was walking in slow motion, or maybe sleeping, since she's super tiny and has always been a speed walker without trying (and I was moving at a pace that after two years of no exercise probably resembled a statue of a person walking), but she was nice about it and didn't complain.

I felt so good after walking, and the high stayed with me for the remainder of the evening. I need to bottle up that feeling! Or, I guess I just need to keep exercising...

When I was shopping for workout clothes yesterday, I kept looking at a display of Nike t-shirts with the super famous "Just Do It" slogans. I'm not sure what I thought it meant in the past, or if I've ever really thought about it at all, but as I was battling the desire to ditch exercise for a few more months, the only thing that really snapped me out of it was Just Do(ing) It.

That's the bottom line, isn't it? I may never feel warm and fuzzy and giddy with excitement over exercise. I may always prefer sleeping in or watching tv or undergoing major surgery or removing my own fingernails with pliers over going for a run. I may have to battle through this mental block that tells me fitness is something to fear every day for the rest of my bloody life. But how I feel isn't what is going to get me results. I need to just do it.

The first step is the hardest, right?

The Couch to Kohl's Program

I've been watching episodes of Extreme Weight Loss over the last few days, and I have been so inspired by how people with 150+ pounds to lose have started running. I've always wanted to be a person who loved to run.

Recognize the "b" word there? Much like my desire to "be" an After Shot of myself, I just want to be a person who loves to run. I don't want to feel like actually putting in the time, effort, energy, sweat, tears and inconvenience, I just want to BE a runner. Magically! Or by osmosis. I'm pretty sure that if I watch enough episodes of Extreme Weight Loss and get super amped up seeing morbidly obese people turn into athletes, that should be enough transform me into a fit, muscular size 6 who adores running with all of her being. And who looks hot in spandex.

Is there any question why I'm 85 pounds overweight and 3,000% out of shape? I have a problem with turning my desires into action, and the reason is every. bit. mental. Because action requires me to ditch comfort and change my behavior, and that is something that my brain rebels against like crazy. Right now, I am literally having severe emotional anxiety over the thought of spending 30 minutes exercising, and I know that the only way to make the anxiety stop is to decide not to exercise, thus returning to my comfort zone of immobility.

This isn't about the exercise itself--I've done plenty of that in my life, and I can get through it--it's about getting past my ginormous mental block that is terrified of change. And becoming a person who exercises regularly instead of sitting on her ample behind 24/7 is a big change.

Honestly, I wish that I had something wise or inspiring to say that would be the key to unlocking the motivation to tell my emo brain to shove it and get off the couch and move my rear end, but I'm not there yet. I'm at the beginning of this whole weight loss/get fit process, and I'm still trying to figure out how to push myself through these stupid mental blocks and become the person I want to be, or  at least figure out why I am so afraid of becoming that person.

Since there's no trumpet blasting in the sky or voice from heaven explaining what the problem is, I'm going to do the only thing I know how: I'm going to put one foot in front of the other, and start.

Today, I decided to take the first very teeny steps toward removing the mental blocks. I went shopping, of course! I had a $10 off coupon for Kohl's, so I went there and bought some comfy socks, a nice pair of spandex capris and several t-shirts that will be perfect for exercise. I also came home and found my old iPhone armband and earbuds, made an awesome workout playlist, downloaded a Couch to 5K app to my phone and even bookmarked a page of pre-run stretches on my laptop.

I've officially got all the tools I need to succeed. All that's left is to do it.

Progress!

It has been 10 days since I plunged into my new, healthier lifestyle, and already I’ve seen some very encouraging progress. I’m pretty sure this calls for bullet points!

·         I have lost 5 lbs so far (woo!), and am 20 lbs below my highest weight on 1/1/2013.

·         I’m no longer 100 lbs from my goal—"just" 95 to go.

·         I haven’t felt hungry or deprived at all—I feel good about what I’m eating.

·         The ever-present swelling in my feet has gone waaay down (it’s totally gone on the right ankle, and is only slightly swollen on the left).

·         My face is less puffy, and I feel prettier.

·         I can fit into a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn since last September-ish!

·         I actually made it an entire week-and-a-half without giving up and bingeing, which hasn’t happened in a LONG time.

·         I’m down 10 lbs from the last time I saw my manfriend, with 10 weeks left to lose even more.

It’s very easy to get impatient with the pounds when you have a lot to lose, but I feel like I’m doing pretty well taking one day at a time. In the past, if I dieted for more than a week and still didn’t look like Giselle Bundchen, I’d want to give up. Right now, though, I’m enjoying the progress—little things, like the lines below my cheekbones being slightly deeper—and not getting discouraged with the number of pounds left to lose.

I can do this. I am doing this, and I’m enjoying the small victories along the way.

The Weightness Protection Program

Yesterday while at work, I received a panicked call from my best friend. She wanted me to go on facebook and check to see if a picture of her had been posted (she doesn’t do facebook). One of her relatives had taken a picture of her and posted it to their page, and my friend received a text message about it, and was horrified (seriously, close to hyperventilating). Like me, she doesn’t let people post pictures of her on social media sites, because she has gained a significant amount of weight over the last few years, and doesn’t want certain people to know, or to judge her.

I did my best to calm her, assured her she looked fine in the pic (she really did), then proceeded to do what any true friend would—I attempted to hack into the facebook account of the person who posted it, so I could delete it for her. Unfortunately, my attempts were unsuccessful (and I don’t have Kim Kardashian’s number), so now anyone who has seen the photo knows that my friend isn’t a size 4 anymore. She’s emotionally devastated.

This story probably seems a tad melodramatic to anyone who has never struggled with their weight, but to someone who has, I’m betting it’s pretty relatable. Similar scenarios have played out in my own life more times than I care to admit. I went into my Dad’s facebook over Christmas—hey, he left his iPad lying around—to delete several horribly unflattering photos he posted of me without make-up, in mismatched pajamas and at my highest weight EVER, so I completely understand the oh-my-gosh-someone-posted-a-fat-pic-of-me-I-am-going-to-DIE-OF-HUMILIATION feeling.

Since I’ve gained 80 pounds in the last two years, the last thing on earth that I want is for my out-of-state friends, relatives or old boyfriends to see that I have let myself get to my present state of hugeness. I only want to be seen by friends and acquaintances when I look gorgeous and trim, so I’ve avoided events and gatherings of all kinds. I’ve even been scared of my boyfriend proposing (!) because I can’t imagine having engagement or wedding photos of me at this size.

SERIOUSLY?

Why am I living like this? Why am I in constant fear whenever I go out of my house, terrified that a few extremely shallow former guy friends of mine might see me? Why do I refuse to go to events where I might run into someone I haven’t seen in two years? Why am I skipping vacations to visit cousins and aunts I adore, simply because I can’t bear for them to see what I’ve let my body become?

Those questions are a big part of the reason that I decided enough was enough, and made the decision to lose this weight once and for all. I got to the point where my weight was totally controlling my life, and I was serving a self-inflicted prison sentence that only made me rely even more on food for solace and comfort.  

Well. I’m tired of living in my own personal Weightness Protection Program. I’m tired of being afraid of events and people and gossip and Instagram posts. I'm tired of being miserable. I deserve to live a full, happy, healthy life, and this debilitating cycle of overeating, shame and fear is not going to be what drives every decision I make.

I’m officially coming out of hiding. Join me?

You can’t spell celebrate without e-a-t…

My boyfriend took me to Indomania for my birthday a few months ago, and after my rave reviews, my mom and sister decided to go there to celebrate their birthdays as well. (They share a birthday, isn’t that fun?) We spent about five years living in Indonesia when I was a kid, so any chance we get to have Indonesian food—especially that I don’t have to cook myself—we jump at. Or at least, I used to jump at it, before I started eating more consciously. This time, I kind of wanted to run away from it.

Over the last few days I’ve found myself trying to come up with excuses not to go with them. I offered to watch my nephews, I mentioned that the restaurant probably isn’t in my budget this month, etc., but they insisted they didn’t want to celebrate without me. It didn’t help that my sister already had a sitter for the boys, or that the second I mentioned Indomania to my boyfriend, he PayPal-ed me enough money to pay for everyone’s dinner (because he said I’ve been working really hard and I deserve it and he didn’t want me to miss out. Isn’t he sweet?? Swoon...)

Yesterday, I realized that my reservations about going to Indomania have nothing to do with any of the excuses I’ve given. It’s about one thing: my overwhelming fear of blowing it. The diet, that is. I know, I know. This isn’t a diet; it’s a lifestyle. BUT. Let’s be real and say that when a person with an all-or-nothing mentality messes up by even a few calories, there is a tendency to abandon rational thought, overdramatize the situation and view it as the Weight-Loss Apocalypse, and as thus, a decree from the heavens to just go ahead and eat enough for eleven people. (amIright?) When you couple that with the fact that I’ll be in Celebration Mode (a.k.b.f.p.a. [also known by fat people as] An Excuse to Eat Lots of Food Mode), my hesitation is not completely unfounded.

Once I identified the reason for my irrational fear of the birthday dinner, though, I actually felt better about going. It’s not super easy to find the calorie content of Indonesian food, but it’s possible to come pretty close using comparable Thai and Chinese dishes. And there are some lighter selections that I’d be pretty happy to order as well. The bottom line: I can do this. I can choose healthier options, I can take a bite or two of the “evil” foods I want to try without derailing all my efforts to lose weight, and I can learn to celebrate occasions, not food.

Since I am going to be dealing with events, holidays and celebrations of all kinds for the rest of my life, rather than running away when they pop up, I need to start facing them head-on, and learn to fit them seamlessly into a healthy lifestyle. Tonight, I’ll start by celebrating two of my most favorite people on earth, without using their birthday as an excuse to harm my body with more food than it needs.  

____________________________________________________________ 

So… am I the only one who is terrified by events that center around food? Any tips for staying on track in when in celebration mode?

Fat People Math: Me + Family = Food

I come from a family of food lovers, so it would stand to reason that our get-togethers often always center around stuffing our faces. Challenge #2 for the weekend was surviving Sunday lunch with my family.

After church I joined my sister, her two little boys and my parents to eat lunch and hang out for the afternoon. There was no way to plan in advance what I was going to eat because we almost never know what we’re going to be eating until someone gets annoyed enough to make an executive decision, which usually happens about an hour after normal people have finished eating lunch.

My mom took the reins on this one, and picked up lunch on her way home. Since my sister is having gall bladder issues, I’m trying to eat healthfully and my dad is supposed to be on a strict diet due to diabetes, heart disease and a plethora of other health problems, she thought it would be a good idea to go to KFC and get several buckets of fried chicken. (My mom weighs roughly 3 ½ pounds, so she cannot be relied upon to know the ins and outs of “trigger foods,” but fried chicken?!)

Honestly, I’d love to tell a riveting tale of my brave battle against extra crispy thighs and biscuits with butter and honey, but there really wasn’t a battle to speak of. I had an original recipe breast (370 calories vs. 470 in extra crispy) and some mashed potatoes and gravy. I decided against a biscuit, because I felt like 180 calories was too much for one of those little things.

And that was that.

I would like to give my superhuman will power all the glory for this one, but I really just didn’t have a big appetite yesterday. I’m not sure why, but I’d LOVE to bottle up that magic and use it on future Sunday lunches. I know myself pretty well, and there’s no way this will be happening on a regular basis. ;)

Happy Monday!

Girls night out, honey there ain't no doubt...

...I'm going eat lots of cals until the boys go ho-ome.

The weekend is coming to an end, and I am mostly proud to say that I navigated my first post-weight-loss-commitment "Girls Night" with little trouble. I'm sure you noticed the words "mostly" and "little." The night was not without its challenges.

The girls chose pizza for dinner, and I considered bringing my own food, but then decided to just eat it and stay within my calorie allotment. I looked up Domino's nutrition facts with my SparkPeople app, and decided in advance how much I would eat. (We ordered thin crust, which is really helpful in shaving off the calories. You still get to enjoy the taste of pizza, but without the bulky bread that adds tons of calories per slice.)

I stopped to grab a bottle of Jose Cuervo Light Mixed Berry Margarita (95 calories per 4-ounce serving), and the night got off to a great start. After pizza and one 8-ounce margarita, I was satisfied and felt very good about myself. I even had calories left over for dessert.

And then came The Great Brownie Battle of 2013.

Someone had made a pan of perfectly chewy, chocolatey brownies, and after fighting the temptation for a while, I decided to have a very small one, because they looked reaaaally good. Of course, every sweets-addicted person knows that eating part of one brownie only leads to an insatiable lust for an entire pan of brownies, so that was a terrible decision on my part. I battled valiantly (for 2 seconds-ish), but in the end, I chose to eat another, full-sized brownie, which pushed me a few hundred calories over my allotment for the day.

Yes, it was a poor choice. But I did get a few positives out of Girls Night.

1. Planning in advance what I was going to eat was really helpful to me. (Thanks, SparkPeople!)
2. I didn't let one unhealthy choice derail my entire commitment to lose weight. Normally after I screw up an eating plan even slightly, I chuck it all and gorge on everything I can find. (I am the definition of "all or nothing.") I didn't do that, even though there was Blue Bell red velvet ice cream in the freezer! 
3. After that brownie, I didn't have anything else the rest of the night. Instead, we burned calories laughing hysterically at a marathon of Impractical Jokers on truTV. Yeah, we know how to party.
4. Despite the hiccup, I still finished the day well under the number of calories my body needs to maintain its weight.
5. I lost another pound the morning after the evil brownie, which I'm pretty sure means that I need to eat those every day. ;)

Pizza, margaritas, brownies, and lessons learned. I think I can call Girls Night #1 a success.

If you've got any tips for healthfully navigating get-togethers like Girls Night, I'd love to hear them!

Losing weight to look hot at my wedding (and other bad ideas)

I once read in a fitness magazine that it’s not a good idea to set a weight-loss goal for an “event” of some kind (wedding, reunion, vacation…).  A single night apparently isn’t enough of a reason to implement serious life changes, and once the event is over, it would stand to reason that your motivation to change will be over as well.

I don't believe everything I read in fitness mags, but I do tend to agree that if an event of some kind is your only motivation to lose weight, you're probably not going to follow through with serious life changes. If you have 10 lbs to lose, maybe. But I've always had a lot more than that to lose, and my reasons need to be a lot bigger than a bridesmaids dress in order to motivate me off of the couch. 

This little nugget of advice from Self or Shape or whatever has stuck with me for a lot of years. As a result, I’ve always tried to at least pretend that my reason for wanting to lose weight is deeper than wowing a boy I had a crush on in high school, or sticking it in the face of someone who insulted me about my size 10 years ago.

I’m definitely not in a fight to lose 100 pounds because I need to fit into a dress. However. I will admit that there is something extremely motivational about a short-term event to work toward; a mini-goal to break up the monotony of the endless striving toward health and wellness. I figure that the motivation of an upcoming event can’t hurt as long as it’s happening within the bounds of my real goal—getting healthy for life.

So, obviously, something is coming up that I'm excited about, and motivated by in the short term, that has that old article rolling around in my brain. I'm going to see my man friend in 11 weeks, and I'm super excited to lose some more weight and be 20 lbs or so smaller than the last time I saw him!

Yes, I'm in a long distance relationship. I didn’t plan on falling for someone who lives 1,500 miles from me, but I did (cute story for another time), so until he can get a job near me and make the big move, we have to settle for seeing each other every three months or so. (I know, booo.)

Knowing that I will see my sweetie soon has definitely added a little excitement—and short-term goal—to this looooong process of dropping 100 lbs. At the very least, it’s created some adrenaline which could very well be that extra prompt I need to say no to those fries, or engage in a little exercise this week.

So... what do you think about losing weight solely for an event? Good idea? Harmful? Thoughts, please!

Weight Update

I hopped (OK, gingerly stepped while holding the towel rack for dear life to delay the inevitable as long as possible) onto the scale this morning, and was delighted to see a 1.5 lb weight loss! Since I've only been committed to a healthier lifestyle for 3 days, 1.5 lbs is something to cheer about, especially since losing weight has been very, very difficult for me over the last couple of years.

I feel really good, mentally and physically. It's interesting that it feels so good to be in control of my health, and to be making healthy choices, yet all my life I have been drawn to do the complete opposite. I'll explore that in depth at a later time. For now, I need to decide how to navigate Girls Night tonight--pizza and cocktails--without breaking my SparkPeople app...

My backward before & after...

I talked about before & after photos in my last post, and then I realized that I have one. Unfortunately, it’s not the very inspiring kind...

                                           BEFORE                              AFTER

Well, that was embarrassing.

The photo on the left is of me at roughly 172 lbs, about a year before my doctor put me on anti-depressants and I spiraled into the photo you see on the right. By the time I saw a doctor about my anxiety issues, I had regained some weight and was up to 190 pounds, but I was determined to get back to my goal. That determination disintegrated with my introduction to Citalopram, then Remeron, then Prozac, and over the course of two years I have gained more than 80 pounds. At my highest I was 273 lbs, but I took myself off of anxiety medicine five months ago and I have managed to lose 15 pounds, though every ounce was a huge freaking struggle.

I don’t blame the meds entirely, because the reality of my size caused me to start eating emotionally, which exacerbated the problem, but antidepressants did play a big role in my weight gain. From the time I started taking meds I was extremely lethargic, hungry all the time, foggy, and that alarm that goes off in a non-medicated brain that says “HEY! You’re gaining tons of weight—DO SOMETHING, DUMMY!” was just switched off. It was like the weight gain was happening to someone else, and I was just observing the rapid expansion of my girth unemotionally as a third party.

My body is now a disaster. I have struggled with knee and back problems, stomach ulcers, hernias, GERD, hypothyroid, and menstrual issues (I’ve literally been on my period since Christmas). Now that I’m off of medicine, the logical thing to do is lose weight, but the reality of just how much I need to lose has been a constant excuse to not even try. I am trying, though. Because this is not me. Yes, I’ve struggled with my weight since I was a child. I’ve never been skinny. But I’ve been healthy before, as you can see from the “before” picture above, and I’m determined to get back to that place once again.

Let the hard work begin. Or a nap, and then the hard work… (See?! Constant struggle.)

"Before & After" doesn't tell the whole story...

Whenever I need a little shove in the motivation department, I grab the Mac and search online for weight loss before/after photos. Come on, you do it too... Today I searched before/after pics on Pinterest while inhaling a BK Big Fish sandwich and medium fries. (But hey—no tartar sauce, and diet soda instead of regular, which I’m pretty sure is kind of… not at all what health professionals have in mind when they talk about making “healthy choices.” Sigh.)

There’s something so gratifying about looking at split shot after split shot of the complete body transformations of people who have lost 60, 80, 100+ pounds, and to see the dramatic difference between the two sides of the photo. In a split second, before/after photos show a woman at her absolute worst—the fattest point of her life that somehow got captured in a photo that she probably wept when she looked at for the first time—and then at her absolute best: a skinny, sexy version of her, radiantly happy and proud and bikini-clad. Her weight loss story is told in less than one second.

The good thing about Before/After photos is that they inspire me to be thin (other than the occasional selfie of Spray Tan Teen Girl in her panties as a size two, and three weeks later as a size 00, which mainly inspires me to hunt her down and wring her scrawny neck). 

Yeah, stop it.

The bad thing about before/after photos is that they inspire me to “BE” thin. Not necessarily to exercise, eat right, choose a salad over a fried meal, or spend month after hellish month fighting all of my natural instincts to eat a lot and be lazy.

The truth about weight loss would be better portrayed in a before, during and after photo (Before/HELL ON EARTH/After). But the edited version is what we love because we don’t have to be bothered with all the hard work and sacrifice that made “after” possible. At least, that's my problem. I don’t want to think about the reality of “during” because I’d rather skip that part of my own weight loss story. I want to decide, mentally, to lose weight, and then a split second later become my “after” shot, without killing myself for a year or two or five minutes to get there.

This isn’t a problem with photos, obviously. It’s a problem with me. The before/after pics just put a spotlight on one of my glaring faults: the desire for immediate gratification. When I had 20 pounds to go before I reached my goal weight, my struggle with immediate gratification wasn’t as bad, but now that I need to lose 100 pounds, it’s something I have to fight constantly. I’m fighting the knowledge that if I eat a healthy meal instead of fries for lunch today, it’s a better choice but I’ll still be fat tomorrow. And I’ll be fat the next day, and next month and probably the month after that. I could lose 70 pounds and still be fat, so my inner comfort-seeker is constantly popping into my head asking why she can’t just go ahead and have ice cream when it’s not going to make me look any different to eat carrots, and it definitely won’t feel as good in the moment.

Of course, the truth is that when you string together dozens, hundreds, thousands of healthy choices, (the often painful, difficult choices that the before/after pictures don’t show you), eventually they’ll add up to an “after.” It’s a long, tough road, but I know that “after” is not impossible if I’m willing to work at it, and make those torturous carrots-rather-than-ice-cream decisions. That’s the truth that I need to focus on as I set out to lose 100 pounds. The before shot has been taken. I’m officially in the “during” phase of my photograph. It’s the phase that no one is very excited to see, but it will determine the end result: my after. 

I wouldn't read my blog, and other welcoming thoughts...

My name is Kelly. When I was a skinny kid, my dad and my brothers called me "Kelly the Jelly Belly" to annoy me. (It worked.) A few years later, when my struggle with weight began and I actually did have a jelly belly, people called me that to be mean. I'm starting this blog as an outlet for my thoughts, feelings and experiences as I attempt to lose 100 pounds and banish the jelly belly for good.

This is supposed to be where I say something amaze-balls (thank you, tweens and Giuliana Rancic) to capture your attention and superglue your eyes to my blog for the rest of eternity. 

I'm going to fail.

The truth is, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't read my blog. At least not for a year or two. I much prefer to read the blogs of women who are at the end of their long struggle with weight loss, and not just starting out with 100 pounds to lose. There are mind-blowing Before & After pictures to enjoy, pages filled with inspirational messages, and RESULTS, which you definitely won't find here just yet. But if you're different from me, and were born with even the tiniest capacity for patience, and you want to read along while I type my way to a 100-lb weight loss, well, welcome to my blog.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be writing or how often, but here are a few things you can expect from me:

1. Lots and lots of italics. Because I have to.
2. Sentences that most English teachers would encourage me to break up into smaller pieces in order to make them more palatable, but that I can't seem to bring myself to because I prefer to write the way I talk.
2. Self deprecation. (It may not be healthy, but it's what I do.)
3. After this post, a total absence of the word "journey." Unless you are on this season of the Bachelorette or were born in 1712, you are not now, nor have you ever been on a journey. This is a struggle, a road, an event, a time, a trip or a challenge, but it is not the j word. Stop it, America.

There you go. This is my blog. I'd understand if you never returned, but I'm really glad you're here.