cathey9338

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So last week was fairly non-eventful... No big physical challenges accomplished. "Only" lost four pounds ('only', right?!?) Nothing dramatic to share.

In the shadows, I was struggling with a less than graceful transition to the world of 'normal'. I had a hard time staying hydrated. I had a hard time finding the right foods to get my protein and nutritional content I needed. I started having trouble not getting sick - again!

The crazy thing is watching how these seemingly little things can dog pile and all of a sudden I was lost, and feeling overwhelmed by failures. Why do I have to be so difficult? Why can’t water just be water? Why do I set so many ‘rules’ for what the ‘right’ water is? Why didn’t I go back to the gym? How long was I going to ‘milk’ my 5k soreness for?!

So folks… this is a journey. It’s not something where I am transformed overnight. Most of the time I get that.

So in the interest of reframing negative self-talk, let me try again. I LOST four more pounds!! If I keep that rate up I’ll lose another 60 lbs by my six month mark!! That would be a total of 140 – now WHO can complain about that?!?! Of course that’s not necessarily a reasonable expectation but let’s go back to staying excited about the four pound loss!

Stephanie took (forced) me shopping this weekend. Thanks to her nurturing arm twisting I have some fabulous new workout clothes – for the first time in maybe six or seven years!! They fit so well and I feel so strong! How crazy is it that a new shirt and pants can make such a big difference? And can I tell you – I can’t wait to go workout tomorrow!!! I will now actually look like I belong in the gym, in the middle of all those strong military folks. So stinkin’ excited!

We went out for ice cream as a family – did you know I used to ‘choose’ to ONLY have ice cream some days – I love ice cream! But Sunday I ‘choose’ to enjoy my bottle of water and have a little sample spoon size of Jerry’s ice cream. And you know what? I only felt thrilled to be living in the moment – didn’t miss a thing I tell ya!

Some things are just me and will always be me (I really, really like a LOT of ice and I will drink more water if I have a LOT of ice…) but other things are up for reevaluation… Sure I will drink more water if it has lots of ice, but I will still practice drinking whatever kind of water I have if it’s my only option to stay hydrated.

For being non-eventful, last week sure had a fabulous, positive impact on the new me. Even (or especially) in the little things... So much to be thankful for... so much!

I'm not going to lie... it was HARD!!!  And 36 hours later I'm still sore.  I didn't train as much as many would have recommended but... I didn't care!  I just wanted to do it and I did.

I finished 586 out of 587, with a time of 1:07:42. 

Crazy part of it is that no part of the race did I enjoy.  I started crying 100 yards into it when I realized I was already at the very end, with only my best friend by my side.  Less than a mile into it I was so embarrassed that I'd subjected myself to it - and abundance of negative self talk.  None of which verbalized to my best friend for fear of her ridicule. 

But... I stay focused on doing what I had to do.  One foot in front of the other.  One step at a time.  Every race monitor we passed I thanked them for being there and jokingly told them to make sure the folks ahead of me didn't leave me.  I was thankful for the rain when it began to fall.  I was thankful for the wind - even if it was in my face and not at my back.

As I started encountering runners - who'd made the turn and were on their way back - THEY were cheering ME!!!   When I started thinking "this is so hard" & I'm all by myself, my best friend turned her iPhone music on and I was able to pick up the pace.  When I passed the two mile mark, the guys at the water table started doing a cheer for ME!  Sure they'd been doing the same cheer for the 585 that crossed their path before me but at this point... I was the only one (+ my best friend) and I absorbed their enthusiasm for all it was worth. 

In the moment, one foot in front of the other... I did not ever think "wow this is so cool, I want to be Forest Gump and run Forest run!"  But the day after, and today (36 hours later)... I'm so very thankful for the accomplishment.  Most times in life you do what you HAVE to do, so that you can then do what you want to do.  I WANT to be healthy.  I WANT to give my kids a run for their money.  To get there... I HAVE to workout.  I HAVE to exercise.  So if that's what it is... then sign me up baby!  I'm ready to begin training for my next 5k, although I think I'll do some weights today and save the treadmill for tomorrow (or Wednesday!  hehehe)

Two of my favorite pinterest pins are 1) the one about "here's what you think you look like and here's what you actually look like and 2) no matter how slow you are, you're still lapping people sitting on their couch.

(The 587th finisher was an extraordinary woman who ran the whole race despite having cerebral palsy!  She was born with her challenges and no surgery is going to bring her to "normal" in 12 months.  I pray I never forget her determination and strength.)

While training for my first 5k, I got a phone call on August 11^th that put the next ten days into a spin.  Someone special had died and I had to pack my family up and catch the next flight out of town. 

Forget being able to train while we were gone.  Nights with family and friends lasted until 11pm and days were spent managing kiddos and mapping out the next steps for that evening and trying to recover from the previous evening.

We got back into town late Monday night.  I wasn’t expecting much on the scales after a week of:

1)      “trying” to make good choices

2)      living in the “real” world without the safety of my own kitchen and the time to work out meals on my own schedule,

3)      working on getting my water in and

4)      being thankful for all the walking I was doing even if it wasn’t focused one mile at a time

Sure enough yesterday morning when I weighed… I’d “only” lost four pounds in the eight days since I left town.  Bummer.  Nuts…  Honestly I was disappointed but not surprised. 

I hadn’t written anything down while I was gone.  I hadn’t done any focused exercise.  I’d eaten many things that were once my “frienemies”:

·         I had a couple of bites of a coney.  

·         I’d eaten Schlotzsky’s sandwich (VERY little bread, mostly eaten only the meat and fixings inside). 

·         I tried a couple of nibbles of a doughnut… THREE days in a row! (every time making me very sick)  

·         My rings – that I’d been contemplating getting sized down – were once again tight. 

So discouraging.  Is this just who I am?  I’d had a FABULOUS “diet” cherry limeade, only to find out after three attempts to recreate it that it hadn’t been diet at all.  (Oh no –why didn’t the sugar make me sick?!?)  Am I going to be one of “those” who lose weight only to gain it all back?  Why can’t I do things right?!? I kept thinking "Thank goodness I haven't told many people about the surgery - it will limit the embarassment when I fail."

Yesterday was the first time I’d decided I was ready for Chipotle.  I didn’t care how much it cost and how little of it I was going to eat.  I NEEDED something to comfort me – the failure of who I so desperately want to be.

Yet on the way to Chipotle something switched… (I think it was my best friend JC whispering in my ear)… I am in charge of who I am going to be.  This is a journey.  I didn’t develop bad habits overnight and silly me for (once again) thinking I was going to develop good habits overnight.  This is a journey. Which means there will be a touch of meandering and even some wrong turns along the way.  But if I reframe my week it looks something like this:

·         Someone I loved very much died and I survived without eating everything in sight.

·         I successfully faced my friends and family and possibly risk them finding out about my surgery before I was ready to tell them.

·         My daddy brought doughnuts for breakfast three stinkin’ days in a row and yet three days in a row I CHOOSE to have scrambled eggs instead.

·         When everyone was drinking wine and eating amazing hors devours, I was enthralled in the conversations – for the first time in AGES (maybe ever).

·         I lived each day for THAT day, not worrying about the next day, the next week, or the next anything.

·         Without embarrassment, I’d ordered “weird” things that weren’t on the menu because I knew they were the best choices for me.

·         I learned that more often than not I WANT the kids menu – no sacrifice or embarrassment required.

To sum it up… I’ve learned I’m still pretty cool and getting pretty cooler every day. 

So rather than go to Chipotle, I went to the grocery store and bought a pint of pre-sliced apples, a pint of pre-sliced strawberries, a bag of grapes and a container to put them in.  I figured I could justify the splurge since I’d been prepared to spend it anyway on a bad choice!

Yea me!!

OH… one more thing…

I got on the scale again this morning… I lost eight (8) pounds since yesterday morning, which means I’ve lost 12 pounds in the last ten days.  Turns out I was retaining a touch of water from the traveling?

Silly me for worrying that I wasn’t developing good habits… silly me…

Wow... so after spending six weeks "not eating"... I know feel like I'm hungry 24/7.  It's crazy - I know that some of it is real hunger.  I have so much energy now that I've started eating.  Who knew?!?!

But I can tell head hunger is drifting in too because I'm thinking about food all the time... Crazy, huh?  Some guy (significantly/painfully overweight) walked by me today with his extra large bag of peanut M&Ms.  And for more than a brief second I thought "you know... I could probably eat a handful without any issues..."

But isn't that exactly how I got to this position?  EVERYTHING some how, some way had the very real consequences justified away... Oh I won't eat the whole pizza, I'll have lunch for several days - WRONG.  I know a two liter of Mt Dew is CRAZY but the energy burst it will give me, & all that I'll accomplish, will justify the calories - WRONG.  And so on...

Truth is... I miss Mt Dew, a good pizza and M&M's.  But the better truth is... I am loving my new wardrobe and cannot wait to get to that next benchmark (100lb mark - only 35 to go!!)  Not to mention all the benchmarks to follow and the life I cannot wait to begin living!

So no Mt. Dew, no pizza and NO M&M's for me.  I haven't completely learned how to deal with head hunger yet but today - or at least in this moment - it will not own me.  I was made for much greater things!

Last night I added our monthly WLS class (officially it’s a support group but I prefer to call them classes – less hokey sounding).  I’ve made several friends and really enjoy the info I get from the class.  Afterward we were all standing around admiring two gorgeous women who’d each lost 120+ lbs since their surgeries in late Jan/Feb.  120 lbs already?!?!  WOW!  I want to do that!!!

In the course of our amazement, I “bragged” that the day before I’d only eaten 110 calories and I burned 208 calories on the treadmill.  I thought it was pretty cool.  Turns out I could not have been more wrong.

I spent the next 30 minutes listening to a dozen people explain to me why I had to eat more and why my non-eating was directly related to my persistent (now routine) throwing up, not to mention muscle loss and future hair loss.  It was very loving but very brutal (honesty sometimes is).  Turns out my stomach is forgetting how to eat because it’s been six weeks since surgery and I’ve truly eaten very little since then. 

I’m really good at throwing up now.  I’ve had lots of practice – I can even do it driving down the highway!  Of course there isn’t anything in my stomach so it’s mostly just going through the motions.  Initially I was throwing up because I was dehydrated but now I’m hydrated and still throwing up because my stomach doesn’t know what to do with this foreign substance called food.  In two weeks I go for my nutritionist to approve all foods – bye bye mushie stage!!  But they said last night if I don’t learn how to eat between now and then she won’t approve me moving into the next stage!

So here I sit today @ 11:32am… I’ve had an egg and that’s it.  I’m wondering how to get back on track.  I was a superstar after surgery.  Then I got a kidney infection (directly related to surgery).  It’s been three weeks since I was diagnosed with my kidney infection and I still haven’t regained my superstar status.  I always get in my 64oz of water but that’s the only thing I can guarantee I do right (well that and the treadmill).  I did order some protein snacks (finally).

I’m going to see my PCP about my kidney infection.  Hopefully the antibiotic she gives me won’t be another horse pill. 

I do not want to be a repeat offender.  I do not want to lose all this weight only to regain it.  I do not want to fail.

I want to change who I am – or at least how I cope and what motivates me.  The rest of me is pretty awesome.  I have plans to run the Marine Corps Marathon 2013.  I’ve backtracked the steps I need to take to do it successfully and I believe I am on track.  I want the new me to be healthy – healthy eating, healthy exercise, healthy living AND healthy thinking.

But it is so hard… Not too hard I can’t achieve it.  The Navy SEALs say “the only easy day was yesterday” and the Marines say “pain is just weakness leaving the body” so I guess I better get with it! 

(Now if I can just turn these words (talk) into action!)

I attended a women's retreat many years ago based on the book Captivating by John and Stasi Elderidge.  I don't remember all the different types of "women" they featured but I've never forgotten the discussion about the woman who craves excess (while searching for something much more).

I am the definition of excess in so many ways!  Before kids, I worked a million hours to ensure my career was flawlessly on the fast track.  I have so many speeding tickets, it should be a line item in my budget!  I'm not a shopper, not a hoarder either, but I love "stuff".  I always find lots of things that I "need" at Target (doesn't everyone?!).  I love baskets and boxes to store my organized “stuff”.  I love to buy in bulk - love Sam's, love Amazon's subscription service.  Love having a refrigerator in the garage stocked with EVERY type of beverage a guest might desire.  Why buy six rolls of toilet paper at the grocery when you can save SO MUCH by subscribing to Amazon and getting 48 delivered to your door?

I've always known this applied to food as well but never spent much time thinking about it.  Sure my husband and I would rather buy the monster size cut of meat because it “saves us money”… never thinking really about how many mouths that monster cut could feed if we all ate an appropriate portion size.

So here I am… six weeks post-op and the “excess” continues!  First I bought a pound of chicken salad from my favorite deli Ukrops.  Sure it was ten dollars  – but at a ¼ cup a meal, it would have lasted for a month.  Too bad the “use until” date was three days after purchase.  My husband is an amazing cook, but even he is still cooking for an army.  We were never an army – we just ate like one and have the tummies to prove it.

Now I look in my drawer at work… I have a huge assortment of sugar free, proportioned size food ready to go.  I’ve lost 63 lbs and no longer eat the volumes I once did.  If my whole office was on the WLS diet I could easily feed them more than one meal!  Why do I still feel the need to buy in volume?

One could reason that eventually I will switch my need for excess to the excess of exercise or heaven forbid, the excess of margaritas.  Clearly, I need to reread Captivating.  Clearly, my maker and I need to have lots more discussions regarding what I worship and where I invest my time and treasure.  But for now, for today, I’m just going to sit back and study my desk drawer filled with more food (albeit healthier & “approved”) than I truly need and ponder what gap in my soul the desk drawer is trying to fill.