Tag Archives: Weight

Let’s go for two posts in 2 days

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Yesterday’s post was actually a little difficult to press publish on.  Admitting just how much weight I have gained publicly is not east.  I mean, if you look at me you can tell I have gained weight.  I am not comfortable in my own skin, the double chin is back.  My clothes don’t fit right, and since I spend a portion of my day in the warehouse at work, sweatshirts and pocket t-shirts are part of my daily attire.  (Yep Sabrina, the pocket tees are back! Oh NO! but only for work… mostly.) They are usually accompanied by a long sleeve old navy shirt underneath because it is freakin Minnesota and it is cold here!

I am trying very hard to find my inner voice, and the voice that speaks to my blog.  I am vocal in my weight watchers meeting, in fact probably too vocal.  I almost feel like I talk too much there, but I have been told time and again that what I say there is insightful and helpful and often spurs others on.

Weight Watchers just rebooted their system a little bit to include Spaces and Routines, which in great, for people who are new to trying to lose weight, but it seems like old hat for me.  I am kind of set in my ways. However I am trying to utilize it to reboot myself.  I was approached by one of their social media outreach team to do a YouTube video for their I’m human and I am doing it campaign.  I didn’t, but only because I have not yet seen much success with weight watchers, between the lack of activity and the injections I have received for my back and the less than desirable eating habits.

I am planning on sticking with Weight Watchers atleast for a while, if I do nothing more than use it as a place for support on a weekly basis and a place to get weighed in.  I have done away with weighing in at home.  The jumping on the scale every day thing is just bad for me.  I learned that when i started going overboard with the food weighing.  I still share the gone off the deep end bit about my gramming out sandwich thins to get the number of calories exactly in each one when I was tracking that way.  I had a problem.  I keep an eye on that, and I think that is part of why at times I become so afraid to track because I worry that it will spiral out of control.  When I feel like I am going to go off the deep end I photo track.  It isn’t as accurate but at least I can SEE the food.

So yeah, I am human, and I am doing it, a little at a time.  My goal for this week is after Saturdays Weight Watchers Meeting to go to the YWCA and take a tour of the facility, along with my swimsuit, and sign up (for a trial pass at the very least, but likely a full membership)

Injuries and Setbacks

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Welcome to 2013.

Here I sit, a year in this chair at work, older and wider. I have become what I feared, my old self.  While I have not made the return to the 400+ pound person that I once was, I have to face the harsh reality that the scale now reads 300 pounds.  OUCH! I share this with you, my pain.  My setback.  Not however my failure.  Failure would be giving up, and giving up is giving in.  I still wish to see change in my life.  I wish to feel the way I did when I was healthier.  However I am struggling.

I feel as though my body is failing now.  Doctors one by one look at me and are puzzled by the next step to take.  Physical therapy fails to do what it is intended to do, medications don’t have their usual, or intended effects on me, and here I sit.  In pain.  The darkness that lives inside of me creeps into the rest of my life, and I pull away.  I pull back from friends, and from family.  I cut off relationships with those who only wish to help me.  I cut ties with those who only ever want me to succeed.  The darkness has become my home.  I go to work in the dark, I get up at 3am head to work in the dark, I work all day at least I have a window, I head home make dinner and sleep.

There is no gym activity for me these days, I wish I had the energy to go, I would say I wish I had the time, but I could make the time.  The fact is when I have the time available to get the the pool at the YWCA, the swim team is there taking up the pool.  I can only blame myself for the lack of activity, but the pain I feel is real.

So what happens when you feel like crap? Well I can tell you when I feel like crap I eat like crap.  While I continue to eat “healthy” “well balanced” “good for you” foods, the quantity of them has increased.  My dinner salad became a double portion, with 2 servings of lean meats on it.  My coffee went from being a tall to a venti.  Food is love, and appreciation as I baked and baked through the holidays making so many cookies that I even dropped cookies off of my neighbors doorsteps whom I had never met before, that just moved into our building.

I see people reaching out to me, to help me come to the light, invites to activities, but it really consumes all my energy to leave the house, and when it isn’t something my heart is into, I just, don’t want to do it.

I am looking forward to fitbloggin 2013, I have registered for a 5k, which I plan to walk in July, and I am hopeful to walk one in April as well.  I am setting small goals for myself.  I want to get back to my old self… However it is so hard when I am battling a body that feels like it is falling apart.  My back issues are failing to improve.  I now have both lower back, and upperback/cervical spine issues.  My meds have been increased.  I ended 2012 unable to look up/down left/right.  I thought to myself how can I look into my future when I can’t very well look to see if a car is coming so I can pull out into traffic.  The PF in my feet is still there, the bone spur in my heel hurts, but I have struggled against worse.

I am stronger than I give myself credit for.  I need to get back in a place in my mind where I remember that I am strong.  I am Powerful.  I need to stop being so harsh on myself, but I need to be strict with myself.  I need someone to help me be accountable for my action, and inaction.  I need a team.

I am once again in the market for a new gym.  I am thinking of a 5day pass to the YMCA here in the Twin Cities, I hear their pools have a bit more availability to meet my needs.  I just… I won’t give up.  I want my clothes to fit right.  I want to be happy.  I will not be a big fat failure.

2012 the year that the world Ended… A lookback.

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So by now we all have learned that 2012 would not bring about the end of the world, contrary to what some of my coworkers deeply believed.  It would not bring about the apocalypse despite all the snow being dumped just south of my home here in Minneapolis.  What did 2012 bring about… the death of Twinkies, which were never a food  I ate but was often accused of eating too many of… I am glad to see them go.  It was also the year my gym membership was basically “life tuition” as I developed new heath problems, from my feet to my back, hips and knees problems seemed to be the order of things.  Physical therapy replaced the gym for the later part of 2012 and even that has been replaced with no activity as I sit here in a coffee shop on a Saturday morning evaluating what is to come for 2013.

I have been in my job now for almost a year.  Each day I wake at 3am and head to work, I am on from 4am until 2pm Monday through Friday.   My job is extremely high stress and extremely critical.  This week I took my 2 vacation days and I ended up having to go into work to fix a crisis at 5pm on Tuesday.  My job allows no flexibility for me to sneak in things like a quick walk around the block for exercise.  The most working out I get in at work is running into the warehouse to grab parts off the shelves for people when we are super busy, all this while I am doing other things.  It is crazy, and it sucks a lot at times because I feel like a punching bag when things go wrong.  Generally when anything goes wrong, from anyone elses shift, because I am there during primetime it becomes my fault, and my problems and I am the punching bag.  I have not taken to eating my feelings, but I have identified (again) that I know why i never thought I ate my feelings in the past.  It was simply because I wasn’t in touch with anything.  Not the feelings themselves nor the feelings of hunger.  You cannot satisfy that which you do not know.

This year after regaining a portion of my weight, due to lack of exercise I joined WeightWatchers.  Call it denial, whatever.  I don’t like to talk about the gain, but my clothes don’t fit right, I don’t feel good, and I can see it, that “bloated look” is FAT. I LOVE my meetings.  I look forward to Saturday mornings getting to go and share with people.  My leader, Judy, who I didn’t like the first time I love now.  Her passion and enthusiasm is awesome! She is also trying to groom me so to speak to be a WW leader once I hit goal.  It will be a long road from now but she thinks I will be perfect for it.  She is always asking for my imput on the topic and what I have to share, as if I were a lifetime member.  I like the earliest meeting of the day best, it is full of lifetime members, the other meetings of the day are great too, but there is something about the first meeting of the day that is so full of energy that feels like home.

I’ve struggled a lot with the #WW program lately, having not been exercising because of my health I track some days I  don’t track others.  This week I posted a 7 pound loss after the last probably 6 weeks all being small, but steady gains.  Go figure the week full of cookies and treats at every turn I could ignore.  I guess I need the temptation everywhere in overload to be able to ignore it.

HolidayStrategyMeeting

Above is an example of the Holiday strategy session we had this morning on ways to cope with all of the temptations we face around the holidays.  It is great to have a weekly support group meeting.

So really I am heading into 2012, a little wiser, a little wider, and with a lot more support behind me.  Do I grieve for the me that I was in 2011, It would be a lie if I said no, I miss the freedom that I had in my old job.  The ability to just go to the gym for hours, the ability to meet up with my friends and share support and stories and laughter at all hours of the night and day.  However the fact that I now have a routine should work to my benefit, should.  Now if we could just sort out the soft tissue damage in my back, and the issues with my feet… if only if only if only.  I am taking it a day at a time.  I am doing what I can control.  I can make the decision to have the small or medium skim latte instead of the large, I can choose to buy the cut up fresh fruit salad  to save myself a little time at home if it means I will have fruit for work instead of junk.  I used to think that our choices defined us.  I am beginning to rethink that.  I think choices REFINE us.

2013 the year of choice. I choose ME.  What will you choose?

Thanksgiving

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I used to call today Turkey day, and I still do on ocassion. But it truly is so much more than that. I just wanted to take a moment and remind everyone that today isn’t about the food. It is in the end just one meal.
Today is about reflection. Reflection about the past, reflection on what we have be it family and friends, or experiences, some are thankful for things, even challenges in our lives. Just make sure you are taking the time to reflect on all the things you have to be thankful for.
As I put my she’s on this morning I thought for a moment how
thankful I was that its easier to put my shoes on now than at 400+ pounds.  I was thankful that my back was strong enough that I can get up today, and that I can challenge myself to keep pushing for answers.
From the bottom of my heart I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and I wish for you to be present in your holiday. Put your phones, video games, and ipads away and be there.  Experience the days, because you need to be thankful for what you have at this moment because you may not get another.

*peeks head out*

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Is It Safe? Just kidding! I am still here, still following Weight Watchers.  Still going to meetings working the program.  3 weeks ago I hit the 5% mark, which means I have lost 5% of my starting weight, or something like that.  I dunno I got a big sticker, and they asked me for tips and tricks.  My reply was to just keep going.  Always weigh in, whether you ate breakfast before the meeting or not, whether you went out the night before and had sushi with soy-sauce, and not the low sodium kind.  It is not a race, it is not a sprint, it is a process, an ever evolving process.

My leader, Judy, weighed me in the week I hit my 5% and we chatted a bit before the meeting, she told me that she enjoys the things that I add to the meeting, because I am often very insightful about the topics.  I am only insightful because I have spent my whole life in this never ending battle.  I have read diet and healthy eating/living books since I was a preteen.  One of hte last ones I read is covered in post it notes and actually has a notebook full of scribbles and page number references with it because it made so many good points.

I see a lot of people in my social circle online, (I wish i could see yall more) trying the #Whole30 lifestyle plan.  It sounds really interesting, and I might look into how i can use that in my life, I mean, right now on WW with my schedule the way it is I find I am backsliding into processed food, which is something I have/had worked so hard to eliminate but because it is so much easier to just grab something packaged and know itsWXYZ is a certain # of points I worry about the actual nutrition of it.

I am also off the exercise bandwagon right now.  For those that know me I have been battling a wicked case of PF, I have been icing it down, doing the at home physical therapy, rolling on a golfball, and there has been some improvement, but a week ago something bad happened.  I wrenched my back something fierce.  I could barely move, let alone twist turn or walk without discomfort.  I used every trick in my arsenal, including my fibro pain meds and nothing was touching the pain.  Monday I made an emergency appointment with the doctors office, and they think it is a soft tissue injury.  They did a few tests and dont think there is anything pinched or herniated, and I don’t remember doing anything to injure my back so *finger crossed* we are working on treatment for that.

They gave me a shot, that was supposed to work in about an hour, it didn’t work in an hour… the only thing that happened in an hour was an allergic reaction to the bandaid they put on my backside! (in big red font on my chart is allergic to adhesive, only use paper tape, and use as sparingly as possible UGH!!!) about 24 hours after the shot the pain difference is mostly night and day.  I can move again, without the tears of pain pushing on my eyes.  I am unsure if that is the shot, or the muscle relaxants they game me.  Either way the cocktail I have been downing is at least starting to work.

Friday I will have my first PT session for my back, I am not looking forward to that, I HATE physical therapy.  i need to make sure whomever I end up with understands what ehlers-danlos is, and how extra careful we need to be.  The last round of PT i had was for my knee and they didn’t understand that with my knees the hyper extension is from the disorder and is not something i can actively help and is something they need to be wary of.  *sigh* The thought of PT on my back makes me extremely nervous, and makes my anxiety level go through the roof. However I will get through this, it just means my Fridays will now be Work, PT then home to ice eat and sleep.  Sounds fun…. NOT

Have you been through PT for a back injury? Was it bad?

So how goes it?

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Its been a few weeks with no updates in Kris land and I’m pretty sure most of you have come to expect large gaps in my writing, as it’s the nature of the ebb and flow of my busy life anymore. 
I figure while I had a small bit of downtime today while I am off enjoying the holiday I would share that I have broken through the 10+ pound loss mark with Weight Watchers. Yay! I am working the program without fighting it. I’m eating the points like I am supposed to, even ocassionally dipping into my weekly ones for a special ocassion.
The working out is a major sticking point, I’ve been diagnosed with what they are calling plantar faisciatis, and likely a nasty bone spur in my left foot. Its bad, real bad… anything over about 10 mins on my feet and I’m in pain.  Not work through it pain, that’s what got me to this point ignoring it and working through in.  So I’m icing and stretching and doing home pt for it and ill go back for a reevaluation in a while.
Fibro-fog has been really bad these last few days. It has been effecting me worse than I ever recall, I missed my exit for home yesterday while driving, and several other exits over the last few days. Its bad. The wrong words are coming out, words that are close but not right.  Its horribly embarassing amd horribly frustrating.  It makes me isolate myself from people to avoid saying something wrong and embarassing myself. I know it will pass but its just hard.  I’m working on planning meals for the week, atleast one new recipie a week had been my goal, this last week I ate the same thing like 4 days in a row just because it was easy and I couldn’t mess it up.
So here I am on my day off hiding out in the dark, afraid my brain has turned to mush for good, but atleast ill be healther and mushy!
More updates from a coherant person soon I promise!

Sharing Circle

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So in going to my meetings at Weight Watchers I have been forcing myself to talk, or rather, perhaps a better way to phrase it is that I have found myself opening up to the groups I have been with.  Offering suggestions tips and tricks of what has helped me along the way so far.  In my mind I can feel the members that have been there a while rolling their eyes at me, because I am new to their program, but I have been at this a while and have seen measurable success on my own.

I have been going, on average to two meetings a week.  The leader I didn’t care for at first has grown on me, I think it was more the people at that first meeting I didn’t click with, and I think that had more to do with the weather, and the bad parking that weekend in the are around the location, and the fact that I was kind-of ignored and dismissed while I sat there.

I guess one of the things I am really enjoying about the program is actually the meetings.  I like going, and interacting with other people that are trying to do the same thing I am.  It isn’t that I feel alone, or lonely in the battle to get this weight off, I have concluded that there are very few people in the world that have never struggled with weight in one way or another, I just like hearing what others have to say.  I like that it gives me a feeling of community, it sparks my thought process for things like lunches and dinners, even if I don’t take the ideas and use them that week, I know they are planting seeds in the back of my mind for the future.  I also hope that what I have to share, in insight or past stumbling blocks for myself can help someone else there.  For example we were talking about tracking food last week, and how a “3 month tracker” which is a paper tracker shouldn’t last more than 3 months.  I use an electronic tracker now.  When I first started I used paper.  I liked paper, it was safe, I could erase things, I could reward myself on the paper with stickers if I was under my caloric goal for the day.  I had a whole system that I used, and it worked for me.  Eventually I went electronic because it was faster, and easier… and easier meant I could be lazier! Eventually I stopped tracking and I was one of those people who could have made that 3 month tracker last a year! I am bring very diligent and deliberate now with my tracking, and I know if one isn’t working I need to switch to the other.  I offered the hint/tip that I learned from a PriorFatGirl event about recording life events, special occasions, thoughts and feelings in the margins of your tracker.  It helps when you look back to identify patterns and stumbling blocks.  Everyone seemed to really like that idea, so I know that I am offering the group something not just taking.

However I can’t help but feel like I am playing teachers pet when I talk.  I am certainly not trying to be, but I want to be helpful to others where I can be.  So I hush myself, until I know that I have something that is truly helpful and applicable to everyone in the room, or a goodly majority and then I go from there.

Do you go to meetings? Do you talk?  Do you feel like you talk too much? How do you strike a balance with it? I would love to know what you think!

Can’t Fight the Program

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So I haven’t been on the Weight Watchers program long, but when I signed up I pledged that I would give myself over to the program and follow it without question.  Basically I have to let myself put trust into their formulas, follow what they say, and let the system do the work for me.  I am not allowing myself to try and play games with the system.  This may confuse some of you, but I am sure most of you understand where I am coming from.

When I was tracking calories I was always trying to find that magic number, that special balance of calories that golden ratio.  I did crazy things like weigh my fruits and veggies to calculate the exact caloric content of them.  I didn’t track nutrients, i didn’t much account for where my calories came from just that I ate them.

So part of what Weight Watchers has already done for me has made me, or rather forced me to chill out.  When I say things like, I am giving myself over to the program, it is okay to eat this, it is a reminder to myself.  I have had people tell me it sounds like I am part of a cult.  The funny part about it is, I am okay with that.  I ask those around me if I seem more normal, or more relaxed, and the answer has been an undeniable yes.

I am doing my best to not stress about the program, I constantly need reminders that nothing happens without work,  but that the work doesn’t have to be as hard as I made it before. There is a balance to be found, and I am working to find it.

So here we go for another week.

For those counting I am down approx 7lbs down since I started

If Only

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For the last year I lived here in a world of “if only”.  If only I got a different job, if only I could have weekends off, if only a million different things.  Well guess what, something changed Kris.  You are in a full time job now, you work hard, you have a VERY busy life, and you have had to sacrifice things that you truly had passion for, you no longer get to go to the gym at your leisure for hours at a time, or do water aerobics 4 days a week, or go to trivia, it isn’t conducive to your new life.  Things did not go according to plan, and once again the list of If Only’s becomes pages long.  You are learning that sometimes as much as it pains you sometimes you have to say no.  You have to miss out of things that you love.  Weekdays become a time where you work, workout, cook and sleep.  There is no time for much else right now because of your goals.  If only there were more hours in the day, if only if only.

I have to continually remind myself of what I want out of my life right now… and what my goals are because I seem to have lost focus.  I WANT to be healthy, I WANT to be happy.  Yes I want to be with my friends, but there are other pieces of the puzzle that need to fit in too.

I have to think back to the story from many years ago about the jar of pebbles and sand.  If you want to fill a jar with both pebbles and sand, you can’t put the sand in first then add the rocks, you must build the foundation in the jar with the rocks then add the sand to fill the jar making the most of the space.  there is no other way to make it work and fit everything in.  So like the jar I must put the building blocks into my schedule.  These things are my job (obviously) and my workouts, and my meetings.  They are also things like prepping for meals, so that my battle plans for eating stay on track.  It seems silly but if I start letting one area slide I know it will only be a matter of time before others slide.  I will take help where I can, for example, chopped up fruit, some of it, but not all of it because it just doesn’t hold long enough, or it isn’t worth the price of convenience.

So I am here, taking a personal inventory of my list of if onlys and trying to do away with them one at a time because truly excuses are not going to help me along the way.

Week1 at Weight Watchers

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So for those that follow me on “The Twitters” You saw something fun on Saturday morning.  Or rather, something that started out unusual.  I was not apprehensive about going for my weigh-in.  See I have kind-of taken this whole new adventure into the Weight Watchers 2012 Points Plus program as a, low pressure experiment.  Seeing as my calorie counting has become such a failure with the added stresses of my job This was logical.  So Saturday morning I tweeted as I headed out to my meeting.  Arrived, hopped up on my scale and collected my very first 5 pound loss sticker.

 

Now those of you that know me, or have known me for any period of time know I am a freaking sticker junkie.  I am absolutely obsessed with all things cute, cuddly and adorable, and also with stickers.  So the simple fact that WW uses stickers as part of the reinforcement for this program is just AWESOME!

 
Changes that have occurred in my household in the last week are things like, planning and packing my breakfast and lunch, instead of ordering Jimmy John’s (mmm vegetarian, add onions and hot peppers).  I have also gone out searching for new recipes again, instead of relying on old standbys.  I made breakfast for dinner twice, once was bacon egg and cheese biscuit cups, and once was hash-brown sausage egg cups.  Both are made in Cupcake tins! Yumm Cupcakes for dinner.

 

I have now attended three meetings, trying to find a group/leader that I mesh with.  I really liked the leader that I met on Saturday, sadly she was a substitute, and her meetings are on Thursday mornings at like 10Am which wont work.  The Sunday morning leader and group that I met yesterday seemed really fun, plus it would put me in the perfect spot to go do my grocery shopping at Target right after.  Nothing like getting inspired, and heading right to the store so I don’t fill the cart with junk right?

 

My fridge is pretty full of good things, I have been eating the same thing for breakfast everyday.  Cottage Cheese with fruit (a combo of pineapple, kiwi, plums, peaches, cherries) and some cucumber slices.  I like adding the cucumber to it because it lightens the flavors and makes it taste even fresher.  You will also find in my fridge tons of mushrooms and zucchini, some salad mixes, grape tomatoes (which aldi had for $.79 a pint!) Seaweed salad.  Then theres the typical base items to build meals from, eggs, chicken sausages, chicken breasts, lean ground beef, steaks.  I want to stop at Coastal Seafood this week and get some shrimp or fish.

 

Of the 5 new meals I cooked last week there was only one miss-fire, which isn’t too bad when you think about it… it called for 4 cups of cheese… I cut it in half… and it was still far too much.  Anything that isn’t a miss goes in my cute little book of dinners along with the point value per serving that should make meal planning a snap!

 
Confession time… I am still not in love with the gym.  Big surprise right? I am trying to keep my modalities mixed, and I am shooting for five days of activity.  I get so utterly bored when I am in the gym, I get in there and I just don’t want to be there.  I know I need to think outside of the box about activity, perhaps a class or something, and maybe shift one of my activity days to the weekend, and maybe try Zumba or something different but I don’t know.  Last week I did 2 days of walking 2 days of elliptical and 1 day on the bike.  I didn’t do any of those things on consecutive days.  I want to keep my body guessing a bit.  I may also spring for a personal training session or two in the next month to familiarize myself with the way the weights in the gym work, because that should become a part of my routine as well.

 

 

 

—–Closing thoughts—–

 

This week did have a rough spot in it.  My friend Mark passed away early Wednesday morning.  I have been grieving, in my own way, trying to feel my feelings, but not let them interfere with my life.  I appreciate my friends that have all reached out to me during this time, and I also appreciate the understanding when I haven’t returned calls because I just needed some space.  This is my first Monday morning without Mark, I mean he hasn’t been in the office in a long time on a Monday, but there was usually a phone call or some laughter.  This is the second coworker I have lost since I started here in 2005, but I was really close to Mark.

 

Mark paid me some of the highest compliments of my life in his last few weeks of life.  Speaking to his daughter and I together telling her how strong I was, and how much of a fighter I am, and how she needs to be sure to get to know me and stay involved in my life because that is important to him.  I am glad that I could provide him some awesome company during his life as well as some laughter and comfort at the end of his life.