Been a While.

It has been a while since I last posted. I have been through a lot of ups and downs. Currently I am frustrated with the whole process. It has been almost 8 months and I still have made no progress on my weight, even though I am doing everything right. I am still waiting on my doctor to get me an appointment with an endocrinologist.

Here we go again.

I gained 10 + lbs. in a little more than a week. That means I had to injest 35,000 calories to gain that much weight! Which I didn't. One week later I lost it all. What caused such a gain? Water weight. My legs looked like balloons. Yes, I did make an appointment to see my dr, but that isn't until Monday.

Yes, I am very frustrated. Yes, I did cry a bit, okay, I cried a lot. I finally pulled myself together and meditated on what happened. I *know* I didn't eat that much food. I know I have been working hard to lose weight and get healthy. SO, what can I do different? I have already eliminated soda and most sugars from my diet, except for my morning coffee I don't drink caffinated beverages. (I gotta have my morning coffee!) I made the decision to start my supplements again and start drinking a protien shake for breakfast instead of a granola bar.

So far, so good. Granted it doesn't taste fantastic, but it is drinkable. It gives me sustained energy for the morining and I can last until 12:30 or 1:00 before I have to eat again. I also have more energy to excersise. Today I was able to go for a walk up the hill and back down again. It was a simple 5 minute walk, but it was quite an accomplishment for me.

I don't reccomend this for everyone, but it seems to be working for me. We will see what the results are on Monday when I go in to be weighed.

Harder than I expected

"Thats what she said." Oh come on, you were thinking it.

Seriously, eating correctly and excersising has been much more difficult than I anticipated. Not that I thought it would be neccessarily easy, but I didn't think it would be *this* hard.

I am really struggling with hunger and pain. The last couple of days I have been hungry all the time. I have been eating good calories when I do eat, but I have had to limit how often I eat. This is something I am going to have to talk to my nurse-practioner about. We are hard wired to eat when we are hungry, and unfortunatly I am heading back to the "hungry all the time" mode.

As I said, I have been watching the calories I eat, makeing certain they are good, full of fiber, nutritional calories, which is a very good thing. It makes me stop and think *before* I put food in my mouth.

Do I have potato chips or a granola bar. They both have the same amount of calories, but which will leave me feeling fuller and is better for me nutritionally. The granola bar has nuts and fruit, not to mention fiber, which will make me feel fuller and is good for me. So the granola bar it is. When I want something salty, hmm, chips or cheese. Tricky. But one slice of swiss cheese is 100 calories and has calcium and protien. Something that my body needs anyway, so I eat the cheese.

And so it goes. Weighing each item of food for caloric and nutritional information before putting it in my mouth. Long gone are the days of just grabbing something out of the fridge and eating it. I have to maintain self-control at all times. Which is *not* easy for me. I get aggrivated and angry. I get irritable and grumpy.

I miss the freedom of food. BUT, there is a responsiblity to myself and to others who follow this blog to do the right thing. Plus, I really do want to lose the weight and get healthy again. I miss playing football with my boys.

I blew it.

I knew it would happen eventually. A day would come where I would just blow the hell out of my eating plan and eat everything in sight. Yesterday was that day.
*Sigh* I know what caused it, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Anything I say will sound like an excuse, at least to my ears. I am frustrated with myself.

Icky Things

*Warning-This post contains icky things. If you have a weak stomach or are a bit squeemish, don't read.

I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Not a fun disease. One day I am constipated, the next I have the scoots. I also have no gall bladder, which means, I cannot process fat or oils. In theory, they are supposed to just go right through me. They don't. They stick to my hips like glue. Now salad goes right through me. Doesn't even stop to digest, it comes out leaves and everything. As you might have guessed, this *HURTS*!

On a darker note, I am also bulimic. Granted I am a recovering bulimic, but I am still a bulimic. Whenever I eat I automatically want to go and throw up or take something to make me poop it out. Not doing this, is something that is *very* hard for me. Especially when I look at myself and see how much weight I have gained over the past 10 years. It saddens me. I used to be so beautiful and I know I still am, but with all this weight it is difficult to see.

I haven't been exercising like I want to. I have been in so much pain lately that it makes it impossible to do. So I need to do it on days when I can. What I really miss is walking. You can really enjoy the world when you walk. Not to mention that it keeps your body in harmony.

I seem to have lost my train of thought. That is all for this post. Take care and be well to all my followers.

Progress

I went in for my weight check yesterday and I am down to 410.8 lbs. That is quite an improvement over what I started out with. I won't lie, it has been really hard.
I suppose it isn't supposed to be easy. The easy part was putting on the weight, now I really have to work for it to get it off.

I have set small goals for myself, I want to get down to 400 lbs. by June. That is 10 lbs in 4 months. If I can't do that, then I am in real trouble. :)

So, what have I been doing to keep the weight off and continue to lose more weight? Good question. I have been drinking a lot of water and milk. Yes, 2% milk, but I *hate* skim milk. I have been counting calories. That seems to work for me very well vs. the low fat, low carb, low taste options. I use this little book called "The Calorie King Calorie, fat & carbohydrate counter". I use it to count calories for eating out. I must tell you it has helped me quite a bit. Fast food has a ton of calories in it. Understanding what is safe to eat at a fast food place has made my life so much easier. (We eat a lot of fast food for lunch at work) I have also discovered that fiber is very good. Yes, the whole grain hype isn't just hype. It really works! It cleans out your system and makes you feel really good!

Discouragement

I knew it would happen. My husband knew it would happen. He told me ahead of time it would happen. I just hoped it wouldn't.

I am discouraged. I haven't been journaled in a while, approximatly 20 days. Why? Call it a rebellious streak. Call it what you will. I just don't want to do it. It isn't that I haven't been doing my excerciese and eating right, I have. I just don't want to journal. It is like the small child that lives inside of me is stomping her foot and saying, "NO!" and she is hard enough to deal with on a regular basis, but when I am emotionally compromised, like I am now, she is a real pain.

Why am I emotionally compromised? Oh, well, my dad needs a triple bypass. Yeah. That is stressfull enough, but he is 72 and had both cartroid arteries operated on before so it makes it even worse.

Also, we brought our van in for minor repairs and discovered a nasty valve problem that is going to cost us $580.00 to fix. Ouch. So much for the tires we were going to put on the van. :(

So that is my story for right now. I am certain things will get better eventually. But for now things are not very good.