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. 

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

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. ;)

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.