Musings

My weight has been on my mind a lot the last month or so. I have definitely had my share of challenges in life and it feels so shallow to be obsessed about weight to the point that it is my biggest hurdle these days. It is a matter of health and not just vanity though. I know I am fortunate that this is my biggest problem in life right now, but it is still a problem. Now that I have given myself permission to be self-absorbed, here it goes.



I think that many things collaborated to put the weight on. There are genetics. I have always had hormonal issues and I really think that my endocrine system is whacked out and probably always was off. I am now taking medicine for those problems.



There was definitely an issue of abuse and control when I was younger. These caused me to rebel and eat. It also led to a food addiction. I also think that I allowed myself to get so big so that I wouldn't feel so vulnerable. Not so much from a fending off men standpoint but more from a being taken seriously side. I think that somewhere I felt that if I was thin, it would make me seem more like a pushover. I think that I have been successful in dealing with a lot of that. While I still bristle at the thought of being vulnerable, the weight has gotten to the point where it makes me more vulnerable than if I was thin and strong. I've worked a lot on what the food addiction does to me and how if I diet, I then binge.



Another reason I put on the weight was a lack of physical activity. I never liked active games when I was young. I wasn't good at them and always compared myself to others. I see this now in my daughter Jessie and am hoping I find a way to help her out of this. I am trying to teach her that being physically active does not always have to mean sports. There are many fun ways to be active. By being active, it will help her if she wants to find a sport that fits her. I love teaching water aerobics. I also try to find different ways to be active. I may not love taking walks, but if I need to get something at the mall, I can walk the whole mall first. I can also do Dance Dance Revolution or even just squats, pushups and sit ups on the exercise ball.



I have gotten scared enough lately to examine why I am not losing and try to discover what to do. My endocrinologist said that if I lose the weight, the diabetes will go away. I am terrified of the gastric bypass surgery and am hoping that it doesn't come to that for me. I convinced my doctor to put me on a weight loss medicine. It has some risks, but right now I have risks because of the weight. The medicine alone won't take off the weight but it makes it easier for me to control my food. I saw a dietician yesterday to talk about what is going on with my diet. After talking to her, she agreed that diets aren't the answer. I brought in my food diary for the last few weeks (since I've been on the medicine) and she said I wasn't eating enough. I guess I toggle between eating too much and not eating enough. We talked about what combinations of food I should be eating at what times. She also said that I am active but I take too many days off in a row. Apparently, after 36 hours of exercise, your muscles start to break down. She said that even 10-15 minutes of activity will help that from happening.



She swears that since now we have my thyroid working, if I eat reasonably and not take more than one day off from exercise, I will lose weight. At this point in my journey, I am having skeptical. I wish I had some hope back. At this point, with everything I have tried, it is just so hard to believe that I can be successful. I feel like such a failure.

Frustration

Trying to get healthy seems so unobtainable sometimes. Here is an excerpt from an email to a friend.

I have been doing only okay on food. I am PMSing so I have been ultra hungry this week, and not for veggies. I have not been going over board, though and am eating less even if I am not eating better. I am still having veggies at most meals. I have ramped up the exercise this week so that helps. I completely know what you mean by getting derailed. I think that is the number one reason I have stopped with the dieting. I get so frustrated because in the past seven years, I have extremely changed my diet for the better and have made exercise a permanent part of my life. I used to eat fast foods multiple times a week and thought that cheese, meat, fat, and sugar were the main food groups. I also rarely left the couch. Have I lost a significant amount of weight? NO!!!! Have I staved off disease? No, I know have hypothyroidism, diabetes, sleep apnea, am slightly anemic, and God only knows what else. Sometimes I wonder what it is all for. I question whether I will ever be able to achieve a healthy weight.

The time has come

Okay, it is time for me to get serious about losing this weight again. Vacation and Spring Break are over. Here are my goals for the next few weeks. I plan to do an exercise tape Mondays and Fridays. I really like yoga, but it is a pain to get to the Y those days. If I go to a class, the rest of my day is limited. If I exercise at home, I can be done and showered by 9 and still have those days to run errands or whatever else I want. I am going to do water aerobics Tuesday and Thursday. If I don't go to aerobics on Tuesday, I will do some strength work at home. Wednesdays, I have a stretching class that I teach. If I didn't do strength on Tuesday, I will do it on Wednesday. Saturdays, I will do strength at home.

I am trying to be very reasonable on the food end. It is so tempting to diet but I know that will send me into a bingeing spiral. Instead, I am going to have increase my vegetable intake. I figure if I load up on veggies and watch portion sizes on everything else, I will lose. My goal is to have the protein and carbs be more of a side dish. I am going to allow myself dessert once a week. I am going to try this for a few weeks and see what I need to tweak after that.

Vacation Blues

We are back from our Disney trip. It is always such a let down to come home from vacation. We had the meal plan at Disney so we ate a lot, but we walked it off all day. I didn't gain any weight so that is good. I actually think I lost a pound or two. It has been hard to get my eating back to where it was before vacation when I was eating a ton of vegetables and drinking all my water. On the plus side, my eating habits are pretty good now when I am not focused on weight loss. It used to be that if I wasn't dieting, I was bingeing. I am not doing that any more. I am trying to focus on what an amazing change this is. I don't desire junk food that much and I am making good choices most of the time. I know that the desire to lose weight will come back soon and then I will tweak my eating habits, but not go on an insane diet again.

The other success with my vacation is that I confirmed that it really is diet and exercise together. I was able to eat what I wanted on vacation because I was so active. Before vacation I was trying to do water aerobics 3 times a week and yoga twice a week. I haven't gotten back to that yet. The last week or so, I was subbing a few arthritis classes so that helped. I taught 6 classes last week so I didn't bother with taking extra classes. We are also putting in an above ground pool so we have been doing hard labor in the back yard. Again, I know the time will come that I want to tweak my exercise as well. Until then, I am content with where I am which I think is a major breakthrough. I am not content with my weight, but I am content with my eating and exercise habits for now. I know that weight loss will come when I slightly modify my habits. I am done with the all or nothing approach. All is did for me was make the off times much worse.

Endo report/new word

It is funny to see how much of a 180 I have down in the past 2 years. Two years ago, I was becoming very anti-medicine. Today I feel like a walking pharmacy. The biggest thing for me was to accept that the medicine is really making a difference in my quality of life where the naturopathic way did not. I still believe in naturopathy for many conditions. For myself, my allergies were never relieved with Western medicine. I even had sinus surgery. It wasn't until I did accupuncture, Chinese herbs, and had better nutrition that I saw a difference. It is an entirely different story with my endocrine system.

I think now that I know the symptoms of diabetes and hypothyroidism, I always had them on some level. I really did try naturopathy for them and went as far as a raw foods diet for a while. I never found the amazing health benefits of a raw food diet that a lot of people do. Since going on medicine, I feel tons better. I have so much more energy and I have the desire to eat healthier. My food obsession has left me and I am exercising more.

I went to the endoconoligist this week and things look pretty good. My sugar levels are almost normal but still slightly high. She wanted me to slightly increase my dosage. I told her that I have been tired lately so she added another thyroid medicine. This is supposed to give me increased energy (and possibly weight loss). The main down side is that it makes some people jittery. I haven't experienced that yet but I kind of like that feeling anyway.

I also changed my word this week to "achieve". I am hoping this will help with procrastination.

Word of the year

Someone sent me a link to a great article talking about resolutions. It was interesting because it said that when we make a resolution, we are only addressing the problem and not the root cause. They had a list of words to choose from. Instead of making a resolution, you choose your word and use it to help you stay focused. For example, instead of saying you want to get more organized or lose weight, the word release may apply. If you focus on that word, you may be able to get rid of your clutter or figure out why you over eat. Here is a link to the website, http://christinekane.com/blog/resolution-revolution-a-better-way-to-start-your-year/. I am still trying out my word, but I think it will be "effortlessness". All my life, I've taken the hard way or at least imagined I did. Maybe some of this can be easy.

I have been doing well with eating what I want, but in smaller portions and adding more veggies. It was amazing because I had such a great feeling going into the weekend. There was none of the turmoil of transistioning from a dieting week to a fun weekend. I didn't have to feel guilty about anything I ate and therefore I made better choices when I was out instead of splurging. It was really pretty cool.

New Year Resolution - to NOT diet

First off to my friend Wendy, Oh my God! I am so excited to hear from you. How did you find my blog? I have thought of you so much over the years. I don't think I have many readers so I am going to post my email so you can contact me at charela@msn.com.

Nutrisystem worked great for me for about 3 weeks. It really did give me a basis for an eating plan. I lost almost 10 pounds on it. I gained about 4 pounds over the holidays but that was with weighing on New Year's day after eating and drinking all night. I feel confident that I can take that off with going back to exercise (nearly 3 weeks off) and drinking my water. I've been thinking a lot about dieting lately and sent this email to a friend today. I wanted to copy it here so I can remember my moment of wisdom.

Thanks for sharing this link with me. I am excited to see the show. It goes well with my resolution to NOT diet this year. I think that all the work I have done the last year with food addiction and dieting has finally sunk in. I am going to have a goal of drinking some water before I eat, eating a fruit or vegetable and some protein (to even blood sugar) every time I eat, eat 5 times a day and other than that, just try to make better choices and watch portion sizes. There will be times when my choice isn’t the best possible and that is okay. I recognize that for me, sometimes eating isn’t just fuel. As long as I make good choices when I don’t really WANT the highest calorie option, it is okay to choose the burger or cake sometimes. I am hoping that this approach along with exercising will help me be healthier. Maybe if I am healthy, I can accept my weight one day.

I watched a show on BBC last night that had two girls that were about a size 10 trying to get down to a size 00 In 5 weeks. The study was to see the effects of dieting of healthy people. The results were interesting. They talked about how horrible they felt while dieting and how they ate everything in sight afterwards. One girl said that she would never diet and wouldn’t ever care about being thin again. She said that it became an obsession. She knows that she could stay that thin if she chooses to have diet be her focus. She said that she missed her life too much when she was dieting. The other woman had to stop the study because it threw her into an eating disorder. At the end, the doctor said it was amazing because here were two intelligent, healthy women who recognized the damage dieting did to them and yet they were both still disappointed because they hadn’t lost more weight. It is really scary what we do to ourselves emotionally.

I hope you are well.

Elaina


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