XfoundmycureX

I am right now wiping away the happy tears!  The last time I wore my ring was when I found out I was pregnant with Georgia!  That was 5 years ago!!!  I learned I was pregnant with her December 31st, 2004.  I was in shock as we were not trying nor did we think it was possible given the crazy month we had just gone through with our son who was having brain scans at the time.  I was 210 lbs.  and seriously depressed for being so overweight.  I took off my ring as I figured since it was tight already, it would only get tighter.  I gained 15 lbs for the whole pregnancy and my ring definitely didn’t fit after giving birth.  Over the following 2-3 years I ballooned up to 245.  Now I am 214.  I tried my ring on a few months ago when I was 218 and it still didn’t fit.  I cannot imagine that the 4 lbs makes a difference, so my body must have changed (fat content vs muscle) over the last few months.  I am ecstatic!  I was cleaning out my purse and thought I’d give it a try.  And it just went on!  It is somewhat snug, but not pressing in.  I can move it in a full circle with no problem.  My husband is currently at work and won’t be home til 10 am tomorrow.  :(  I CANNOT wait to show him!  He will be extremely happy!

I just have read for the hundredth or more time that white sugar (which is in nearly everything Americans eat) is MORE addictive than cocaine!  Don’t believe the research?  Try going off all products that contain white sugar (this includes corn syrup and a whole bunch of other names given to this devil) and you will experience withdrawal symptoms beyond belief.  Did you know beets and carrots are supposed to be naturally sweet?  They are, but our taste buds are so addicted to white sugar that they deny the sweetness in anything natural.  These are hard facts to swallow….especially being a mom and trying to raise my kids to eat healthy.  It is not impossible, just extremely difficult.

I really really wanted to jump start my weight loss with more exercise.  But I am exhausted with helping my mom with her business, that all I can get in are 3-5 walks a week.  I am not discouraged though as I know this busy time is temporary and will be over by December 25th!   (Until Easter time rolls around of course!  :).  I of course still plan to get my rollerblades out and working and I still plan to add some running into my walks in hopes of running all the time by spring.  I am sooooo glad though that there is another way to jump start my weight loss…..through what I eat!  I have changed so much about the way we eat that most people think we eat very healthy!  However I know that not to be entirely true as there are still negative things in our diet sabotaging my weight loss.  So I am DARING MYSELF (yes, myself) to go sugar free by January 1st.  This will be a true test of endurance!  I am not mentally prepared nor is my kitchen prepared to do this today.  This will require making my own bread (try finding even a whole wheat bread that does not contain sugar and cost an arm and a leg), making everything from scratch (no prepared foods allowed as they contain many many hidden sugars),  and absolutely no cheating!!!!  That will be the true test.  As any cheating will throw me down the wrong path to eating foods with sugar again.  It is a true addiction!  I am going to buy the book “Suicide by Sugar” this week and share more of what I learn.  I hear it is a very intense and enlightening book!

So if anyone wants to refute this….by all means go completely sugar free for 14 days and tell me what it was like!  No substitutes allowed as is no cheating nor fasting.   I would LOVE for a few other people here to try this with me (say commit to 14 or 21 days) and we all blog about it!  I will check out the forums to see if anyone else is doing anything similar!

I tend to blog often on things that weigh on my heart….not necessarily about weight issues.  Although I am coming to grips with the fact that matters of my heart COMPLETELY affect my weight (because I am an emotional eater).  Take away a lot of the emotional pain, and the ability to eat better and have the energy to exercise should improve drastically!  So in order to take away the emotional pain, I realize I often need to get feedback (often from my husband and sister), put things in perspective and move on.  It is often not that easy.  Sometimes putting things into perspective takes me a long time!  And sometimes I don’t need a lot of feedback…just the ability to vent is often enough for me to gain my own perspective.

So I have dealt with the feelings with my mom…if I hadn’t I would not be able to be living under her roof again!  She has changed a bit, but nothing huge and drastic.  However it is my perspective and acceptance of her that has changed and made it possible for me to move on and develop a healthy relationship with her.  But my biological father is another story.  I still cannot accept his coldness, his lack of desire to know his grandchildren, and his drive for money and notoriety.  He was in and out of my life growing up.  Sometimes we would see him every weekend for 6 months, and sometimes not a word for over a year.  I hashed it out with him in college and I forgave him then.  We developed a long distance friendship that I thought was growing.  Then I had kids.  Over the last few years he has had nothing to do with my kids or my sisters kids - AT ALL!  Then the light bulb came on and I put it all together FINALLY!  You see for years he has often spoke of his wife’s grandchild “John”.  John could play chess at an early age, John could do all sorts of things that were beyond his years as  he was extremely bright.  The thing is John has 4 other siblings that I have never heard about because my Dad only talked about John.  Well recently I saw my Dad’s dad (my grandfather) at a birthday party and he went on and on about how my Dad took John up to Green Bay on  some kind of excursion and how smart he was (he is about 14 or 15 yrs old).  This upset me to no end for the simple fact that 2 years ago my dad made a comment on how he never asked for grandchildren so why should he be expected to do anything with them.  I stopped talking to him after that.  But to hear how he dotes on this one particular grandchild has set me off in all sorts of emotional directions!  However after a few weeks it hit me that he doesn’t care to have anything to do with my kids or even myself because we are not great or spectacular at anything.  I was his favorite for years because out of his 3 kids, I was the only one with my Bachelor’s degree (this is an assumption here).  But I think I fell off that list because I no longer work as a nurse nor am I trying to attain a higher degree….I am just a plane Jane housewife and mother (happily so, but it doesn’t give him anything to brag about now does it?).  So while I am over this pain (the raw pain that is), I still struggle after these last few years on what to do about honoring him as my father.  Do I try to teach my kids about him?  I don’t care to as it will not matter as long as he remains so cold….but I feel like I struggle with what the Bible says about honoring my parents.  I do not know how to honor him.  I do not know how to bury all the pain and forgive him completely….because it is no longer about just me and his rejection of me.  It is now going to affect my kids….how do I answer their questions about why their grandfather is alive and well but we don’t see him?  I have the words all planned out, but there will still be that rejection.   Can I forgive him for that too?  I wish God had an easy answer for me.  Somehow I think He is trying to test me or teach me something in all this, but it is beyond me at this point.

Thanks for “listening”!

The 6.2 miles is a dream of mine….to run it in one full shot….no breaks, no walking, no slowing down!  There is a 6.2 mile loop from my parents house, down a nice residential street, by a few ponds, down the road that hugs the lake, and back down to their house.  I tracked it today with my truck to see how long it is.  I was guessing 5-6 miles….so I was pretty close.  The sad thing is I couldn’t even run a mile to save my life right now, let alone 6.2 miles!  So my plan is to start walking 2 miles, then 3 miles, then 4-5 miles, then the full 6.2 miles.  In between all this walking I plan to throw in short bursts of running to get my joints and ligaments and muscles used to running.  I am also getting out my 10 year old rollerblades for the first time in 8 years and going to rollerblade the 6.2 miles 2-3 times a week until it starts snowing out.  By spring I should be able to swing 1/2 the distance.  And by summer, the whole 6.2 miles!  Yeah….I might be able to do it all sooner, but I am a realist and do not want to overdo it too soon and risk injury. Of course rollerblading is a huge risk in of its self!  I will be praying I do not kill myself! 

OK, now for some truth and inspiration!  I recently started perusing Proverbs again and as you know I am a big fan of the Proverbs 31 woman.  But I am also a big fan of Proverbs altogether.  If you just start reading it front to back, you end up missing a lot as each 2 line verse is so jammed with knowledge and power, that we often miss the point by skimming from one verse to the next too quickly.  So I figured I would pick a 2 liner out each night for a few weeks here and delve into it head first! 

“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” (Prov. 21:9)

This really doesn’t apply a lot to the venue here at Buddy Slim, yet I kept going back to that verse over and over….so here it is.  Basically I think it means that us wives (and GF and Fiancees)  are causing great distress to our men when we quarrel with them.  That it would actually be better for the man to live on the roof in all sorts of horrible weather than to live with a woman that nitpicks and drives the house crazy.  I used to be this sort….creating distress in my house over the little “fights” I would cause.  I would start off well intentioned… trying to get my hubby to see my point of view….and it would end up with me in tears and him just shrugging his shoulders.  I learned over time that I was causing my husband a lot of grief with my nitpicking and fussing over nothing.  I was lucky that he has been so honest with me.  He would come out and tell me I was making him feel more distant because he felt he always had to watch what he said and did all the time.  It was hard to hear, let me tell you.  But it changed the way I viewed our marriage and relationship as a whole.  I realized I had some serious faults that needed changing and I made a lot of changes.  But I am no where near perfect and continue to try to change different areas of myself for the better (for both of us, not just for him).  But back to the verse….I thought long and hard and it dawned on me that a lot of my “issues” in my past had to do with my weight.  My self-esteem and feelings of worth were deeply affected when I gained weight after baby #3.  A lot of arguments on my end were solely caused by my weight.   So I had become the quarrelsome (and overweight) wife that my husband was better off living on the roof than living with me.  This makes me think of shame and embarrassment.  Did I cause my husband shame for being such a witchy wife (and overweight to boot)?  More than likely although I know he would never say so.  I see that my husband is significantly happier now that I no longer am that witchy person.  I know he is never embarrassed or ashamed of my weight.  Just my past attitude/behavior.  Yet I often feel like he has the right to be ashamed and embarrassed to have me for a wife BECAUSE of my weight.  Does that make sense?  Probably not, but in my brain it does somehow! 

Well I need to head to a few others’ blogs and do some catch up!  Hope everyone has a great night!

A lot of us who grew up in the Catholic schools and/or church are used to feeling guilty.  I do not know what it is about the Catholics in particular, but they love making people feel guilty.  Of course we should feel guilty if we do something wrong, but to be reminded of that guilt day in and day out is just too much.  Hence, I left the Catholic Church and stayed “in limbo” for many years….wondering what I believed and where I belonged.  I wanted to be around people who believed in God and Jesus, wanting to know the truth in everything, but not wanting the oppressive guilt.  I found it at a non-denominational church just recently and I truly feel like I can breathe again.  The funny thing is, the pastor of this church is so honest…and he throws in a lot of guilt!  BUT he comes full circle and says we are loved anyways.  Now THAT is what I think church should be like!

So what does this have to do with the price of tea in China or weight loss for that matter?  Wellllll…..you see I heard a long time ago that gluttony  was one of the 7 worst sins you can commit.  There’s others such as envy that fit right in here.  Aren’t a lot of us guilty of being envious of the skinnier people?  Aren’t we gluttonous to some extent?  Of course.  I am saying it out loud…..I am GUILTY!  But how do we change that?  We go on diets, we starve ourselves, we take diet pills, we exercise til there’s no tomorrow.  We do all sorts of things to NOT feel guilty.  Am I saying ALL overweight people feel guilty?  Heck no, but I think a lot of us do….and the guilt comes from many different sources and for many different reasons.  So what do we do?  We can keep feeling guilty or we can take charge.  By taking ownership of the guilt, we admit the truth to ourselves, which in turn creates a drive to change and do what is right.

I finally figured out why I always felt so ashamed and guilt ridden over my obesity….this is my truth….it does not have to be yours.  But if you see it as truth for you….take ownership of it and allow it to help you change your ways.

“When tempted, no one should say ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.” (James 1:13-14) (bolded words done by me).

So, my desire to eat food that I know is bad for me drags me down and down into the world of gluttony and shame.  Knowing that the intense desire and lust for food when I know I do not need it is truly an evil thing, makes it a bit easier for me to say no.  Tonight I was lusting after the ice cream my brother has stashed in the freezer.  Been lusting after it for days actually.  I almost gave in until I read this verse.  I was still hungry so I had a few crackers with cheese.  Not the best alternative, but it wasn’t a food I was pining over and it satisfied the hunger.  Will be heading to bed soon!

Ending words: don’t allow truth to make you feel guilty day in and day out.  Realize and accept the truth and it will truly set you free.

Ok, actually today I did VERY well…took all 3 kids for a walk and had a blast.  Only lasted about 15-20 minutes, but there was 3 short bursts of running involved!  My kids make me laugh so hard!  They love to “race” me from one point to another and I never let them win!  They get mad, but I told them that they should stay determined to beat me someday….meaning they need to keep running and playing so that some day they will be faster.  Mind you they are only ages 7, 6, and 4!  But my 7 year old son is getting faster it seems everyday!  I barely beat him today in our last “race”.  I told him I was going to work harder to be faster and he says so is he!  Nothing like good ole competition to get a flame lit! 

Anyway….reminder of the day - “She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” (Prov. 31:27).  As a stay at home mom and wife, I watch over my household pretty well.  I make sure all meals are prepared, laundry is done, husband’s paperwork for his company is up to date, bills are paid, budget is on target, and etc. etc.   BUT I do become idle a lot (I was going to say sometimes, but I am trying to be very honest with myself).  I am lazy in the mornings…takes me a long time to have coffee and eat breakfast while reading the whole newspaper.  I sit here in the evenings after the kids go to sleep (on the computer) reading and typing (emails, blogging, etc).  And there are times I just like to sit down in the middle of the day and do NOTHING!  Again…I am REALLY seeing now that this Proverbs 31 woman was by no way overweight!  She worked too hard and had no time to sit down and eat many meals.  And if she did eat a lot, she burned off the extra calories with all her running around and working she did!  So….on to bed I go to get adequate rest so I am prepared to not be idle in the morning!  If I run around all day, I will feel good about sitting at the computer for a 1/2 hour each evening.  Good night all!

The Proverbs 31 Woman is my Hero, my inspiration….who I want to be when I “grow up”.  Ok, so I’m a grown woman, but everyday I feel like I still have a lot of growing to do, and just when I think I got life “just right”, God throws me a reminder (or two) that I still have a long way to go to being “A wife of noble character”.  So how does this fit into my weight loss journey?  It fits in EVERYWHERE!  I somehow do not think this woman was overweight.  She was definitely not prone to self-pity or feelings of worthlessness.  She worked hard, knew she did a good job, but was also not prideful.  She did not boast or gossip.  She strove to be a woman whom her husband would be proud of….for that matter, a woman that God would be proud of.  I like her…I even envy her work ethic and family values.  She is someone worth taking a look at….someone worth looking up to.

For a more specific reference to her possible weight….”She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.” (Prov. 31:17). I can tell you that my arms are definitely not strong.  Push ups and weight lifting will change that, but I may change my approach…trying to get them strong by working vigorously around my house….making bread by hand, shoveling snow, weeding gardens, etc, etc.  Just a thought to ponder…….

That is with my sanity!  Of course it could be worse, but living with my family again is causing me occasional stress.  Working with my Mom with her business is also stressful given my mom has OCD.  All in all things are good, but the additional stress is causing me to fall on old habits…eat and eat some more!  There is a lot of junk food here at my parent’s house and it is in never ending supply!  It is frustrating that I have little to no will power to say no.  Eating worse now will only set my health back and I cannot afford to have that happen!  I have worked so hard to get to where I am today health-wise that going backwards will be disasterous!  I have finally found the exercise that will work for our current situation.  Going to Bally’s was supposed to be the plan, but having my kids around so many other kids with the flu season is just not advisable and it is a bit of a drive.  So instead I plan to walk outside 6 days a week and do body weight resistance exercises (like push-ups and squats).  On the days where the weather is horrible I have some good Billy Banks DVD’s.  During the winter, the snow gets pretty high around here, so walking in the snow is going to be GREAT exercise!  Plus it will prepare me for the long winters in Montana when we finally move there! 

But back to the eating:  How do I turn down the apple pie, the cookies, the cakes, etc?  I have a horrible craving for sugar 24/7 that is hard to ignore.  It gets worse the more sugar I eat.  If I deprive myself completely, I get very agitated.  If I try to have just a little, I end up eating more!  The thing is I cannot talk to my family about this.  I have tried in the past for many years without success.  Their eating habits have not changed, so I know asking them not to buy or bake anything with loads of sugar in it is not going to work.  Plus with my sweet tooth getting worse, I have been buying and baking the stuff too!   UGH!  The only thing keeping me sane right now is I stepped on the scale today and it has not gone up!!! I was expecting at least a 2-5 lb weight gain, but the walking must be helping me maintain right now.  But I do not want to maintain!  I want to drop this extra weight once and for all!  And I know that this is the time to do it….to overcome my bad habits and to succeed when everyone else is status quo.

Well that’s it for now….just a little venting.  If anyone has any good ideas on how to combat the “sabotaging”, please let me know! 

Greetings all from NY!  We made it back safely last month, but not without A LOT of problems.  Too much going on to get into it all, but suffice to say everyone is fine, the truck is probably on its last leg, and my mom’s business is definitely in full swing.  The whole reason of coming back to NY (our hometown) instead of continuing to travel around the country was to help my mom with her pierogi business (we are 100% Polish).  She started it around a year ago selling at markets and festivals and did very well.  But she is not computer savvy and needed an extra set of hands and another brainstormer.  I have spent the last few weeks getting a website up and running for her, finding different ways to ship across the country so the pierogi stay fresh, and helping to make them for the upcoming holiday season.  So my exercise and eating habits fell to the wayside this past month.  To top it off, my kids had a hard time coming back and needed more TLC than normal.  Plus I had to really get to the bottom of how I wanted to homeschool them with being so busy.

Phew!  Today I took a breather and had to evaluate ME.  I have been sporadically exercising (even making it to Bally’s a few times) and have tried to stay on track with having at least 50-75% of our diet organic food.  I unpacked the scale today (unpacking is so overrated…my motto is just to live out of boxes for now!:), and I actually maintained (actually down a pound).  Not bad, but of course I know I have not been focused and on track.  Now while I cannot devote so much time here and to me as I would like, I am still going to keep it on my short list of priorities.

So upon returning to Buddyslim, I started catching up on A LOT of reading!  Have had no time to post comments yet, but I will soon!  Let me just say I was a bit shocked at all the drama over the past month….mostly about the people who were criticizing those choosing medications to help in their weight loss journey.  First I am not here to add to the drama…however I do like to play devil’s advocate when I feel it is necessary.  And seeing this whole drama played out over MANY MANY blogs just made me think I was back in high school all over again.  My opinion is simple….do not judge!  Just because diet pills and prescription medication is not MY choice and I do not believe in it, does not mean I have the right to judge someone else’s choice.  Telling them you do not agree out of kindness and concern is the only way to go about it morally.  But placing judgment is wrong and all it does is make the other person feel horrible or left out or condemmed.  Again, I have never taken a diet pill in my life, but I think I know where some people  are coming from….they might be thinking, “If only I can lose 5, 10, 15, etc pounds with this supplement (or medication) then maybe I will be able to exercise because I won’t have as much pain from so much weight”.  Let me tell you….when I was 245 lbs…my right knee killed me on a daily basis.  Stairs were a true burden!  But when I started walking and had to rest for a week because my knee was in so much pain, I became pro-active.  I started walking only 2-3 times a week and always pre-medicated with Motrin.  6 hours later I would take it again.  This worked well for me.  When I hit exactly 228 I realized the pain was no longer there!  And it has been gone since.  All I can sum it up to is the added weight as I did nothing else to “cure” it.

So where is the devil advocate part?  It has to do with Nancy a little bit, but it is truly nothing personal against her.  But she is the prime person here on BS who is a gung-ho champion in exercise.  My thinking is what if I attacked her by saying that exercising too much is NOT good for her?  I can bet you I would be attacked right back by hundreds of buddyslimmers.  But again, this is not an attack, just an example and something for everyone to think about before they judge someone else’s decision.  In my opinion eating 3000 calories (even though it is meant to be burned off) is NOT good for the body….it stresses the body’s digestive system to the max!  We have all heard that stress is not good for us (especially long-term)….well exercising for long periods of time is stressful to the body.  It’s true about everything that too much is NEVER good for you.  Too much water can kill you.  Too many apples eaten in one day can harm you.  And the list can go on forever.  Here are just a few websites to back up my research and opinion:

http://www.scientificblogging.com/erin039s_spin/too_much_exercise_bad_you

http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/How_much_exercise_is_too_much__a498_f0.html

Now if I was truly serious about putting Nancy (and others) down, I would be a heartless and cruel person.  I am providing them with FACTS and my OPINION, but it still comes across as an attack doesn’t it?  Even posting here on my blog with a catchy (and purposely done) title  is cruel instead of going straight to the person of concern and writing them a private message expressing my concern.  All I am doing here is making a point that we should all be adults here and realize that the words we say (even in our personal blogs) has profound effects.  Stating that it is your blog and you can say whatever you want is truly a cop-out for making more drama and attracting attention to yourself.  Yes you have that RIGHT, but try to at least have compassion for others and watch what you say.  As for those who are dieting using pills or Rx drugs….all I can say is I wish you all the best!  I would love to be friends with each and every Buddyslimmer here, regardless of your choice of how to lose the weight!

Now that I am done with attracting attention to myself (humor - even though it is dry- is intended here), I am now going to focus on my journey….no matter how slow it may be! 

WARNING:  This post is focused on God…so if that offends you, please skip to the next blog

OK, last night I had a GREAT talk with my wonderful sister.  She gave me an analogy that she got from a friend who got it from her pastor (so I take NO credit for this….but it needs to be shared!).  You see lately I have been really down and feeling “lost” from God.  I have my ups and downs with my walk with the Lord, and this is definitely a big downslope I have been on!  We have been hit with a lot of problems all at once (who hasn’t right?) and whenever that happens, I for some reason get too preoccupied to pray as much as I should.  It comes down to the fact that I feel guilty for sending out “crisis prayers” when I have been slacking in the praying area, so I stop altogether (bad idea I know).  So I was telling my sister that I know God is testing us and we just have to keep praying…but for some reason I am not trusting God to come through this time (another bad thing as He has proven over and over that He comes through for us - all in good time).  So my sister proceeds with this analogy:

“Let’s say you have a garbage can filled to the top in your kitchen and it really starts to smell…really bad.  You sit down and pray to God to take away the smell.  But the smell does not go away.  Instead God gives you the energy and the strength to take it out of the house…but YOU have to get up and use that energy to remove the garbage from the house.”

Lesson:  First, God answers our prayers often in a different direction than you intended or wanted, but the prayer is always answered.  And second, we have to do the work to meet God halfway….without doing any work, we would think that God is just not there.  So for me the bottom line is I need to get myself moving more….not in the exercise area literally, but in all areas of my life….if I want a better relationship with my parents, I need to pray about it, but also get WORKING on making it better….if I want to get healthier, I need to start looking at different herbs, food, and alternative healing that God has provided us from the beginning of time and pray for discernment of what I need…..if I need emotional support, I need to ask for it in order to receive it….and if I need the energy to get through the day, I need to pray for it and start my body moving and trust that God will provide it.  The other day I got only 5 hours of sleep because I just couldn’t fall asleep until after 2 am.  I prayed before I went to sleep for the energy to get through the next day.  I normally cannot function with 5 hours of sleep, but I woke up, got ready for the day and did not feel any differently than any other day.  Did I have bounds and bounds of energy?  No…but it so much more than I would have had normally and I more than just functioned that day. 

So…..did YOU take out the trash today?