Right Words, Right Time

I was reading the success stories on the Nutri-System website tonight when I stumbled across a quote that really woke me up. "I had previously discarded my life in favor of ice cream, cookies, and bread... now I have it back." I want to be able to say that (subbing in french fries, fried chicken, and cheese for the sweets of course)! I want to know that experiences, self-confidence, and strength are more valuable than fries. How stupid does it sound that I would need to convince myself of that... it should be OBVIOUS! Discarding even one moment of my life in favor of fat and salt should be a ludicrous idea rather than a modus aperendi. Big changes friends, big changes.

See you in September

It's September. Nothing has changed.

Well lots of things have changed... it's just my weight, the focus of this particular blog, hasn't. Jenny Craig didn't work out. I could give you lots of reasons why (trying to change one's lifestyle while studying for the bar exam is a stupid move, already a shell of person you can't handle that much pressure) but I only want to focus on the one's that can be used productively. What I must do differently now as opposed to the reasons that I would continue to fail. I liked the idea of Jenny, please remove my options from me because when it comes to food I make BAD choices. But I couldn't make the frozen entrees (when I spent my day, morning til night at a place with a tiny fridge at best) or the required weekly meetings (hey I made it to bar class and home again and that was serious effort) work for my lifestyle. At least not at that point. Plus there is the small little matter of being broke.

I understand why claiming not to have the money to pay for Jenny when I clearly spend WAY too much money on food sounds odd. But the thing is, even I don't spend as much money on food as they cost. $150 a week, not including the grocery items (vegetables and fruits you add to complete your meals). That's crazy!! I do not have that much money. But the idea was good. And I have not stopped thinking about how important it is to lose the weight. All my health, and personal, issues continue to be real and pressing.

So almost two months post bar exam (and all my lovely excuses) I am finally getting it together to try again, and to succeed. But my concerns about Jenny remain so I have signed up for Nutri-System. I had to have everything shipped to my mom's house, since I couldn't get the packages at my place. Their food isn't frozen, I have friends who have succeed using it, and it costs less than I currently spend on food every month. So there it is. I read Valerie Bertinelli's book on her weight loss and body acceptance journey yesterday and it impacted me although my issues are not the same as hers. The point is changing your mind. It's all in your head to begin with so that's where the change of your body has to start.

My biggest concern is not that I look unpleasant in a bathing suit because who gives a crap about that when you have a fabulous beautiful man who thinks that you are stunning in anything or any kind of lighting. No my concern is that I feel bad. Always. Now I know that fibromyalgia makes me feel bad. I have had 10 years to understand that. But I have this feeling deep down in my soul that, for me at least, it shouldn't be this bad. I am carrying over 70 extra pounds on a tiny body. My driver's license says 5'3" but who are we kidding? 70 pounds is always bad but it grows increasingly worse the closer you are to the ground. My feet are constantly in pain, I have disc problems in my back (hereditary but I know they wouldn't be acting up already if I wasn't so fat since my mom and aunt didn't start experiencing them until their 50's), I am more tired than I think I should be even with this stupid disease and I am hot all the time. Now I've been an overheated little person since birth. I am like an internal combustion engine that overheats all the time but doesn't produce any usable energy. I HATE BEING HOT. It's disgusting and uncomfortable and saps what little energy I have and replaces it with bitchiness. I am unpleasant when it's too hot. But logically I have to believe that it would improve if those 70 pounds were burned off into energy put out to achieve something else in the universe. Less cooking me from the inside would be greatly appreciated. And my finace would be happier too since he doesn't appreiciate being roasted alive each night while he sleeps either. Did I mention sweating less? See, if you get me on the topic of being too hot I can really go for days cause it's a serious deal with me. So I'll leave it for now and maybe discuss it in another blog. My rant against people who complain about being too cold, blech!

In any case these are things I have to believe will improve with weight loss, not to mention my productivity as a human being. I so want to achieve... something. Everyone is always telling me to recognize the things I have already achieved, like getting a law degree. But for me I am looking for somthing else. That something that makes me feel passionate and prompts me to action everyday. I believe that when I stop hiding behind my fat, stop being limited by my physical condition, and take my life in hand I will find it. And when I find it God will show me what to do with it.

But for tonight I am taking my mom out to a fabulous steak dinner, can you say cheese fries?!?! And tomorrow I will begin my journey. And try to focus on the journey AND the destination.

Finally Action

Well today I finally took the action I have been alluding to for months. I wish I could say that a moment within myself, some lightening bolt to my soul drove me to finally stepping into a new life but it was far less enlightening and more down and dirty painful. My graduation weekend was a lovely time for me and my family but there was the constant shadow of my weight hanging over every joyous moment. This was manifested by the fact that I had so much pain in my feet that at some points I could barely walk. I knew my family was worrying about me and hiding it.

Then today I came home to a loving but deeply painful-to-read letter from my godmother. She basically told me that she loved me and begged me to do something about my weight (she also begged me not to be angry with her for butting in). I stood in my kitchen reading and my reaction was instantaneous. I grabbed my purse, keys, and courage and headed directly to Jenny Craig. I had been thinking about joining such a program and had done some research but, as with most things in my life, I hadn't followed through with any action. (see a theme here?) But today was different I finally saw that my weight was over-taking my whole life. Even my relationships with my loved ones have issues of weight constantly woven into them.

So I am taking control by giving up control. I keep making the same choices over and over (definition of insanity anyone?) so I needed to take the choice out of it. Only this way can I start to relearn how to approach food. Learn what a portion is, how I should feel after eating, and most of all learn how I really am.

I start tomorrow. Prayers are welcome.

Long Time no Chat

Well it's been almost two months exactly since I last sat down to lay the truth of myself out before the world. It has been a very busy two months- emphasis on the "very". I finished, and graduated, from law school, started classes to study for the bar exam, and I moved to a new apartment. Now while finishing law school is a heavenly thing and can only be good for my mental health it is the new apartment that is most relevant to the content of this blog. My new apartment is on the 5th floor of a walk up building at the bottom of a very big hill (or at least it seems like a very big hill). And this, I am not proud to admit, is the greatest change towards good health that I have truly made since I so boldly made promises 60 days ago. I tried to make other changes. I purchased a bike, which I have ridden, but in the 2 weeks since I moved I have not done anything other than move to and from my apartment, which seems to be more than enough to wear me out.

But I do not consider myself beaten. I can see the difference in my lung capacity even in 2 short weeks in this apartment. And, while the very last step before reaching the 4th floor is still the point where my legs start to shake and I have to shuffle around to the last set of stairs, I do it 2- sometimes even 3 or more- times a day. One flight of stairs used to be major trauma for me. Now I can say without shame that 4 flights of stairs is minor trauma for me. Still my body is taking a battering. I can't seem to stretch enough to get the muscles in my legs loose and I have over stretched the ligament in my left foot, making any kind of moving around painful and taxing. But, aside from the terrace and 2 floor spaciousness, this was a major part of the draw of this place for me. I have no choice but to get this exercise, no choice but to move my body, and wasn't that what I said I wanted?

Not to mention that a recent study shows that climbing 3 flights of stairs a day reduces your risk of stroke and death by 20% and I am climbing way more than that! So until the next time you can be sure that I'll be climbing, sometimes dragging myself, up 4 flights of stairs a day.

Day One

Yesterday I had a revelation about my life: Maybe all is not as I have thought it to be.

11 years ago I started getting very sick. I was in constant pain and sometimes so tired I couldn't even move. 8 years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Learning I had a disease was liberating, since it meant I wasn't crazy. Learning I had a debilitating illness that had no cures and no treatments meant I also had to learn a whole new way of living my life. And 8 years ago this meant staying in bed... a lot. 8 years ago nothing made me feel better. I took medications, I went to physical therapy, I took vitamins. Nothing helped. And so I stopped trying to take care of myself. I was too overwhelmed by just living to keep trying to heal myself. I went to college, I went to law school, I made a life for myself. But it's a limited life that I justify by explaining that I am limited. You try keeping up when sometimes the pain is so bad you can't breathe and can barely hold on to a single thought!

But over the last couple of months I have grown tired of my complacency. So I have pledged to make changes I haven't truly made because deep down I don't think I am capable of making them. I have learned not to try. 8 years ago not trying made sense. 8 years ago every time I tried I got worse. Walking too far one day could mean 2 days of crippling pain. Not enough sleep one night could mean the next 3 days in bed. What did it matter what I ate since whether it was good for me or bad for me it was painful to digest? Might as well eat what I felt like eating. Learning not to try was rather unavoidable. Yet, as I finally acknowledged to myself yesterday, maybe what I couldn't avoid 8 years ago is not right for me now. And what's more, and this is the true kicker, maybe those lessons I taught myself are keeping me sick.

Yesterday I admitted to myself the most painful possibility I could have ever admitted: That perhaps my illness has gotten better and, because I let myself get so unhealthy in the normal sense of the word, I missed it. I am massively overweight, I don't eat right, I haven't done real exercise in (you guessed it) 11 years, so who's shocked to hear that I'm always exhausted and can't keep up with other 25 year olds? Hell, can't keep up with some 50 year olds. When I was diagnosed they told me that, since I got sick so young, there was a good chance I would get better in my early 20s. At my sickest, I wasn't able to go more than 4 hours without sleeping and spent a month in bed unable to do anything. But around 21/22 I started showing dramatic improvement; more functionality, fewer days in bed at a stretch, better recovery time, sometimes I might even be able to go for a whole day without a nap. Yet I was still in constant pain, still experiencing fatigue and loss of cognitive ability, still going through the myriad of fibromyalgia symptoms. So yesterday I asked myself the tough question: Could these continuing symptoms, at least in part, be related to the fact that I have allowed myself to get so unhealthy? Could I have missed getting better? This is not to say that I don't have fibromyalgia, because I do. I know that I will have to work harder to accomplish what other people do and will experience more, and constant, pain than others. But (and isn't this a novelty?!) perhaps a debilitating illness should not be a reason not to take care of myself, but should instead be a motivator to take care of myself the best I can. 8 years ago was then... this is NOW.

So I am going to run an experiment and this blog will be my chart. I am going to start trying to take care of myself. My focus will be all about feeling better. For many years I have complained about being fat and not liking how I look but this will not be a diary of weight loss (though that may be a side-effect), it will be a diary of health and change. I am not even going to think about my weight. I am going to exercise because I want to breathe better and be stronger. People who get enough oxygen and are strong can do more. Maybe stronger arms will mean less pain, maybe they won't. But stronger arms will mean I can lift something in spite of the pain if I need to. A stronger heart and lungs will mean better endurance and better sleep. This is not about my pant size

I am going to start with moving because I long for it. I long for a body that functions like it should and can do all the things God designed it for. I want to hike to the top of a mountain and someday ride bikes with my kids. I want to be strong enough for a regular life, instead of just for a limited one. I am not going to start with eating because it is a harder struggle for me and I don't want to get discouraged at this stage when it is all so new, and yes, scary. Daring to believe your life can be something else is always scary in the exhilarating sense of the word. I will attempt to be conscious of putting nutrients in my body by consuming fruits and vegetables, but otherwise I will not limit the kinds of foods I eat. This is about addition not restriction, my life is limited enough. I am adding movement to my life. I pray I will also be adding strength and energy. I'll be praying a lot because this will not happen without God's help just like this revelation would not have come without long hours of prayer and introspection.

When you are as unhealthy as I most doctors and fitness specialists recommend you start out just by adding walking to your day. But since I moved to NYC 3 years ago I have done that, and it hasn't been enough. Now granted, in college I lived on campus and still drove my car to class since I couldn't make it all the way to class and back with a backpack on, so the fact that I now walk pretty much everywhere is a drastic improvement. But I want more. So today I jumped right into the deep end. I went to the gym! I did the stationary bike for 5 mins, did some stretching, then walked and RAN (that's right people it says ran!!!) on the treadmill for 20 mins. I did short spurts of running, just a minute at a time, but I am damn proud of it since I haven't run in year and years and years. Then I stretched out my legs, did some push-ups, stretched out my upper body and walked home. 20 minutes towards the rest of my life. Not too shabby!