On the Wagon... Off the Wagon... On the Wagon... and You Guessed it... OFF THE WAGON!

Seems like it's confession time again. Its so embarrassing to come clean with you that once again I am off the clean, healthy, fruit and veggie, hay filled wagon and instead have clamored on to a wagon containing processed easy food and anything else that makes me want to sleep. Why oh why did I promise to be honest when I started this blog. Well the good news is that I haven't gained any weight back, the bad news is that it`s coming. I know that I cant keep eating things that are not fit for human consumption and expect to maintain weight loss. I haven't noticed a difference in the scales but i certainly have noticed a difference in my over all wellness and energy level. I am just so tired all the time, and add night shifts to that and you come up with a sleepy, sleepy lady. So what makes me do it? Throw my logic out the window and say bring on the regular Pepsi!! I wonder sometimes if there is something wrong with my brain... if the part of my brain that reasons healthy choices is ill and has been replaced by a sugar craving sicko. The sad thing is that I have so much head knowledge about healthy eating and what sugar and processed foods do to the body. Seriously, I could teach a course on it. I know it, but I cant live it. That's sad. So where do I go from here? I guess I will have to wait for my surgery that will hopefully fix some of the problem, and wake up each morning with intentions to be good. I have been honest with you again, lets hope on my next posting I am exclaiming a weight loss and a surgery date. here's hoping. I also would like to be able to walk into a room without feeling like every person in it is looking at me and judging me. but i think that's another topic for another time... way too many bottled up emotions to tackle that one right now. maybe next time though!

WHAT!!???!!!

Ever have one of those moments when you hear something and you are like... WHAT??!!?? No other words seem to describe what you have heard because its so shocking. well welcome my week. I had a routine eye appointment at which I figured I would find out that my eye was fine and my lost vision would come back soon... surely my eye must be bionic by now with all the steroids I have been putting in it. Sitting across from my opthamologist waiting for him to tell me I was fine, but instead I hear him say that i have cataracts. Cataracts... seriously my grandmother just had a cataract removed. How did this happen? So now I waiting for another surgery (and id like to mention that someone told me you can smell burning while having they eye surgery done... and I don't even know what to say to that) so here i am again waiting waiting, waiting. This may not make sense to a lot of you but i blame my eating for this too. I found out a few years ago that I have an auto immune disorder which likes to attack my eye with inflammation, this has caused me to have vision problems for the past few years. The thing is when I am eating a specific diet plan a lot of my problems with inflammation goes away, but that takes sugar, and all processed food from my life. I have been doing the sugar detox for a while now have lost some weight, thirteen pounds (yo yo) but lately it seems like one step forward with my weight and two steps back. Now here I am waiting for a surgery where they will take eighty percent of my stomach and a cataract from my eye and I have no idea when either will take place. So its safe to say I feel like im in a endless tunnel of waiting. So I think I need to find something to do to encourage myself... any suggestions? oh well clean eating it is for the next little while. I would to have some company on the journey... any takers :)

Good bye sugar... ill miss you. So this is where i am right now, ill keep you updated.

Just Checking In

I have been trying very hard lately (with great difficulty) to remain below my surgery requirement weight. It has been almost a year of waiting now, and I am pretty sure I have almost that much time left to wait, or more. It can get frustrating and discouraging after a while. Summer was especially difficult to remain on tract because I had been working permanent nights and, still am. The last thing you want to do when you wake up at two pm is make a healthy meal, and at two am, you want to eat to stay awake, and of course get rid of that yucky feeling in the pit of your stomach. So the summer has been difficult. Another thing I have been dealing with is a pesky problem of inflammation. This has been plaguing me for several years. Strange red inflamed spots on my skin that leave behind ugly bruises. I have had several tests done to see what the problem is but the results are always normal. Whats not normal are the ugly disfiguring marks on my body. I have come to realize that the food i eat trigger these problems. When i eat a lot of sugar (ahem, night shifts) the problem always gets worst. A few years back i went on a processed food and sugar detox. I simply cut it from my life, and I was a new person. NO inflammation, enormous weight loss, and energy to burn. So why you ask (im sure you are all wondering) did I start eating it again... because that is my pattern. I do well then i must punish myself. I am a member of the 95 percent of people who gain back their weight and go back to bad lifestyles... I am aware of this. Some people may call it stupid or moronic or say its my own fault, i call it an addiction. So i'm back on the sugar detox again! My legs and my eye got really bad again so I knew I needed to do something. I'm a week in now and feeling FANTASTIC. No chemicals, locally grown veggies, lots of chicken and fish. I wish I could do it forever, but again, I know my pattern.

Another thing i am struggling with is emotional eating. I recently got some devastating news. News that hit me like a sledge hammer in the stomach. Time for mcdonalds to wipe my tears. well not this time. I'm sticking to my detox plan and taking it day by day. I'm trying to find better ways to cope with my hurt, I've been talking to friends and family, singing (its been a long time), writing, and just finding other things to do. Mary Browns and Mcdonalds are taking a back seat to goji pop tea with unpasteurized honey. I have enough self awareness to know my pattern and know that I can slip back in a second, hence the need for surgery, but i thought id share with you where I am right now... always good to have some friends to talk to. Happy thanksgiving everyone, I hope today finds you as blessed as I am. I have the sweetest boys in the world...all three of them. Who could ask for anything more.

The Great Cover Up

While rifling through my closet today I noticed something strange. I have lots of shirts, some dresses, a few pairs of pants, and TONNES of cover ups! For me a cover up is a piece of clothing that covers up issues with my body.For instance, I love tank tops but I have arm issues so I will wear tank or halter tops and then to cover up my arms will put on a sweater or shrug, and in the process I cover up my pretty shirt. Also I have major stomach issues. If I have somthing on and I pass a mirror and happen to see my stomach I instantly need to find something to cover it up! In the process I end up covering up a pretty shirt or dress. I tried to pin point the time when I began wearing all these sweaters and shrugs, and I came to the conclusion that it was in university. I had a long black vest (i know that sounds hilarious) and I felt like it covered my behind so I wore it quite often, then i looked for other things to cover up issues. I was getting ready to go out with a couple of friends when my friends mother commented on my vest saying, "you look nice Amanda, that vest covers up a lot of flaws" At the time I didn't take this as an insult but thinking back on it it makes me wonder if it has added to my cover up addiction, which has become this

Im still waiting for my call for orientation for surgery. It seems like a dream at the moment. There is a long waiting list and to be honest i'm not sure where i am on it, it may be months away or a year away. I just pray that i can keep my BMI in surgery range, it has been a struggle. I have been doing ok with my wieght but not excellent. I have maintained... no thats not true, I have gained five pounds but in my world that feels like nothing. I keep looking forward to the day when i wont have to cover up anymore. To dress how i want to dress and not worry about what is hanging out. I know in my heart that i don't have to cover up now but my mind wont let me go there... so what do you think, to cover up or not to cover up. I wonder can my self esteem handle uncovering?

SABOTAGE!!

     I am really angry today. I am being constantly sabotaged in my effort to lose weight by a ruthless individual. The moment I start to feel good she comes swooping in to hinder me in my process, and believe me she is a master manipulator. In her convincing tone she assures me that one doughnut will not hurt, just add it in to your calories for the day. You have been doing so well she says in her most sympathetic voice, Believe me, You deserve it! This morning she said to me, "Amanda, just look at how differently you eat now than you did before, that has to count for something, one... or maybe two doughnuts aren't going to hurt you. And that yummy looking pastry on the counter that has cheese on it, you are doing so well that this little pastry  wont hurt you... with the doughnut of course. Ughhh, she can talk me into anything. My saboteur is myself.
     I have already said in my earlier posts that I have been struggling with weight for most of my life. This means countless diets and probably hundreds of pounds lost. One of my patterns is that when i lose a significant amount of weight, enough for other people to notice, I immediately begin to slack off. I'm not sure of the psychology behind this. I have no idea why the very thing that should give me incentive to work harder, instead gives me some sort of permission to slack off, and believe me, when I slack off I really slack off. I have this unhealthy relationship with food that dictates my whole life. If I'm avoiding food I'm unhappy, If I'm eating everything I want, I'm unhappy and disgusted with myself. This is why I have opted for surgery, I obviously need help with this. I heard an absolutely terrifying statistic the other day. People who are morbidly obese, and much to my horror I fit this category, the chance of losing one hundred or more pounds and effectively keeping that weight off is five percent. FIVE PERCENT!!! Seriously, that's basically no percent. I really don't want to do all this work to gain it all back in a few years, with more besides... i have done that too many times already.

     I really don't know what the answer is for me. I'm still trying to lose and be more aware of what I am putting in my body, and trying to exercise but I feel like I'm constantly fighting. One thing that I am doing is being honest. I have pretended my weight problem wasn't real for a long time. I didn't discuss it,  hid in the background, tried my best to avoid the subject at all cost... well this blog has certainly put a stop to that. I have been toying with the idea of putting my before and after weight on the blog as I go along. Can't be much more accountable than that. I don't think I'm ready for that yet though.
     So for today I will try and ignore the little voice that tries to sabotage me when I am doing good. Ill try and forget my missteps this morning and travel on in a more productive eating pattern for the rest of the day. This really has a lot of power over me... I think its time to take that power back!


oh and by the way that strawberry pastry in the picture was made by my husband!!

Four Month Progress

  A little update for you all who are interested.  I got referred for surgery in December of this year, however, I didn't try to lose weight until after Christmas because lets face it...it was Christmas. So I began trying to lose weight but it was really hard for me this time. I had done so many diets in the past that I really didn't feel I could start the process again, and when I did it  seemed like I didn't have the steam to follow through. So I contacted a trainer who put me on a diet and exercise plan, my metabolism was shot and she is helping me get back on track. Since January of this year i have lost thirty four pounds!! feels like a drop in the ocean right at the moment but that's where I'm at.

Horizontal Stripes

 I have been sitting next to my dresser for the last thirty minutes looking for something to wear, getting frustrated because there was no magical new shirt appearing each time I riffle through. I hate clothes. I hate buying clothes, I hate trying on clothes, I hate how clothes fit me and but most of all, I hate not having enough. Getting ready to go anywhere is horrible for me. I can lay out clothes for my boys and Bill and they will pick it up put it on with no hesitation... with me there is a ritual. I try it on, a shirt that I may have loved when I tried it on the first time, but on the way out the door I have to pass by a mirror in my hallway, then all of a sudden I hate what Im wearing and I have to change it. This may happen several times. I avoid looking in mirrors or reflective windows. It makes shopping terrible. There was a point in my life that I looked in every mirror I saw, but now I don't... because it gives me a horrible, uncomfortable feeling.
     As I said I hate  getting ready to go places, the main thing I feel is angry. I'm angry at myself for being the way I am and Im angry that there is no where I can shop without spending fifty dollars for a t shirt, I'm angry that I don't look the way I would like to look in my clothes, and I'm angry that there is never anything I want to wear.
      I have developed a bit of an online shopping addiction recently, actually I dont shop as much as i look. If  I think it wont look good on me I just scroll on past. The trouble is that I usually scroll on past everything. I  was just looking at a site with a pretty tank top with black horizontal stripes and I really liked it. Then I had a memory, I was in junior high sitting next to a girl in my class, not a girl who was a good friend but someone I sat next too who was also slightly over weight. We were for some reason looking at catalogues (probably some down time) and for some reason my teacher said in front of the entire class Amanda and (lets just call her Brenda) Brenda, why is it that you two shouldn't wear horizontal stripes? This was horrifying enough but she made each of us answer her and say exactly why we shouldn't wear them. Because it makes you look wider. Yes I really needed to announce to the class that I couldn't wear them because i was fat.  Even after "Brenda" had announced her reason I remained quiet, this was not good enough she looked at me and said Amanda why is it that you shouldn't wear horizontal stripes? the quicker I answered the sooner everyone would stop looking at me.

     Makes you wonder if this may have something to do with the reason I hate clothes. I think we need to be more aware of how powerful our words are on younger people... it can alter perception. I think I may buy that shirt!