I don't understand anymore (or, how many pieces can a mommy's heart break into?)

I was ordering some new checks this morning. I decided on Autism Awareness checks, because a portion went to support autism awareness and acceptance, and as a mother of an autistic son, it seemed the right thing to do.

My life is so busy and crazy I seldom slow down to just think, but while ordering the checks I got to thinking about all the challenges Sammy is facing as he grows older with Autism. I got to thinking about this special little boy, and all we've been through together, and my heart started breaking.

I adore and love all my children, both natural and those God blessed me with through marriage, but if I'm to be truthful, there is a little spot in the corner of my heart that my firstborn took when he was born that belongs only to him and Jesus ( I mean, Jesus gets all of it...that's just the way it is!). I can't help it. It just is.

Since the day he was born, Sammy and I have been.... sympatico. No other word for it. We understood each other in a deep way. I sensed his needs and he sensed mine. I was his home base. He was my touchstone. I knew what he was thinking, and why he was thinking it. He was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome around age 5, and in learning about Asperger's -which is part of the autistic spectrum- I learned even more about how he ticks. I could always help him. I could calm him down, bring him around, cheer him up, and make him smile. He could take the worst day and turn it around just by saying something sweet. Yes, definately he is a mama's boy, and I'm okay with that.

Lately, it's been different.

He's 11 now, and the challenges he is facing are greater than they were. The school work is harder, the social interactions are more complex. The sarcasm, jokes, and innuendos are all around him and often so subtle (and so hard for Asperger's kids to understand!). He's more aware of his own limitations brought on by the Autism, and more frustrated by them.

The worst thing of all.

I can't make it better anymore.

Take homework for example. He will freeze up. It's like he literally just can not even put the pencil to the paper. It isn't that he doesn't know the stuff, he does. He just CAN'T DO IT right then. He doesn't know why, I don't know why, and nothing I do or say can make it better (although often I can make it worse if I'm not careful!). He can't do it, but he doesn't want to put it up because he doesn't want to go to school without it done, so we will have a boy sitting infront of a text book and paper for three hours, tearing at his face and hair with his little fists that even at 11 still have little dimples in the knuckles like a baby. His face will be screwed up in anguish and I know he is suffering personal demons that I just don't understand anymore. It's the first time in my life I haven't 'got' him completely. All I can do is pray over him and hope it passes.

 I realized recently that he struggles greatly with assignments where he has to write something personal. I questioned him extensively and finally came to the conclusion that anything attached to emotions are hard for him to write about. In a way this makes sense.. he feels VERY deeply, I have no question of that. His love for me is not in question, his compassion for people is not in question. I know this because I know him, but his actions don't always match up with his feelings. Something where you or I would instinctively know called for giving someone a hug, might cause Sammy to get up and walk into another room.  Things for him are either "the best thing in the world" or "the worst thing in the world".  Everything is very black and white, good and evil. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes he doesn't. He watches others, and he mimics them. This is how he learns how to relate to people, because it isn't something natural and instinctive inside him. Talk about pressure. I feel as if I have to be the best possible role model, because I am the only thing that tells him how to act around others.

Recently he has been trying sarcasm. I've had to advise him to just stop for the time being. Sarcasm done wrong isn't funny, it's just mean. He most of the time comes out sounding mean or rude. He doesn't have a good enough grasp of 1) what sarcasm is and 2) human beings and how they work to even begin to pull it off. My 9 year old girl can pull of sarcasm with grace and make you bust up laughing when she does it. She is quick witted and has a gift with being rude in a funny enough way that you don't really mind. Also, she knows when it's appropriate (at home with our family, with her best friend) and when it's not (with your teacher or somebody who doesn't like you much, or when you are in trouble!).  For Sammy, those things are often beyond his grasp.

And now, Sammy is beyond my grasp. I can't always make him feel better. I don't always understand what is going on in his mind anymore. The disease - disorder - syndrome - whatever you want to call it - the DIFFERENCE in his brain has outdistanced my understanding. I get him therapy, and I pray for him a LOT, and I love him with everything I have. I try not to lose my patience with him when I'm losing my patience with the Aspergers. Sometimes I fail, but mostly I do okay. It can be really really frustrating. We are blessed with an understanding school, and wonderful understanding teachers he's had since day one. That helps so much. Mrs. Williams will modify homework so he can write about an imaginary person instead of himself, and the days where that pencil just won't touch that paper and after two hours I just pull the book out of his stiff hands, wipe his tears and make him sit and watch a tv show with the family so he can relax his muscles before bed - well those days I will write a note and Mrs. Williams will give him grace.

I know that the world out there doesn't give much grace. I know that one day a job won't care if his mind is freezing up. College won't care if his assignment freaks him out on 10 different levels. The world doesn't care about my Sammy. I have to prepare him for that world, and so we keep moving forward, keep him in therapy, keep helping him to grow and stretch and deal with the discomfort that is his mental world.

But my heart is breaking.

I just want to hold him, and make it all better. I just want him to not have to worry about this. There are enough worries in the world without having a brain that won't work WITH you to cope with it.  I feel so deeply for the invisible illnesses out there. For those with crippling depression, high functioning autism - where you aren't necessarily seen as handicapped - and so just end up being WEIRD. Chronic pain like Lupus - disorders where you walk around and on the outside you look normal, but on the inside you have a daily struggle just to keep on keeping on and hold it all together.

Oh Sammy, how I wish I could knock down the wall of Asperger's that is growing between us - how I wish I could live in your brain for a day so I could better understand you, and the young man you are becoming.

Mommy misses the sympatico. It's just not there like it once was. As you grow more complex and fascinating, you grow more complicated and unknowable at the same time.  Your pain is yours alone and you don't seem able to share it anymore.

My arms are always open, mommy will always be here. No matter how complicated it gets.  I love you Sammy.

Never, never, never, give up. (or, did I mention that you should not give up?)

I almost gave up there for a minute.

I think it started on my daughters 15th birthday on the 14th of August with this Perry the platypus cake I made.

Isn't it cute? Yeah, it was also really huge (it took me 3.5 sheet cakes to make it), and most devastatingly, extremely yummy. I allowed myself one small piece. Then every time I opened the fridge he was staring at me saying "eat me, I'm yummy". My willpower crumbled to pieces and I listened to the call of Perry for a good three or four days until the cake was gone, largely eaten by yours truly. Did I mention it had raspberry jam between the layers??? MMMMM.

So here's what you need to know about me and sugar. I'm truly an addict. I have this tipping point I've noticed over the years as I've tried so many times to conquer this enemy. I can eat a little pure sugar, but as soon as I hit this point of no return it is like it triggers an avalanche and I can't stop. I want to stop. I know as I eat the food, or buy the food, that I really need to stop, but I just can't seem to. I know I'm going backwards, falling off the wagon, digging myself a pit, but I can't bring myself to care when the lure of the sugary treat is in front of me. This is what happened after my cake binge... my sugar cravings came back in such force I was almost crippled by them. If it was in the house and it was sweet, I would eat it. Sometimes I would cry as I ate it, knowing it was a mistake. Wishing I could stop. My strength was gone.

Dominos.

That's what it's like. You don't feel good because you aren't eating right, so you don't want to go to the gym because you feel tired and sluggish and just bad about yourself... you don't exercise so you are even more tired and sluggish and when it's time to eat you just grab the nearest (sweet) thing. Too much thought to try to think of something healthy. Too much work to make it. Now you are getting depressed and discouraged because you've done so badly.

Dominos. Crashing down.

This is where I was Sunday at church. Depressed and crashing and out of control completely. Just a few weeks post Biggest Loser win, I was truly feeling like a real loser. Each morning I'd vow to get back on track and each morning I'd eat an oatmeal creme cake (or two) and cry. I know that sounds completely pitiful, but anyone who has ever been in the grip of any kind of addiction can attest to the fact that when it is in control, it is in control - and you are entirely out of control. Some people don't believe you can have a sugar addiction, or a food addiction, and to those people I just respectfully will have to agree to disagree. This is something that has had me in it's grip for the better part of 25 years now. I've tried repeatedly to conquer it, and I've repeatedly lost the battle. I've repeatedly given up because it was too hard, and too painful, and took just so much of my energy. I've repeatedly felt the fear of wondering if I was just going to slowly and methodically eat myself to death. I've been committing suicide the slow way for more than half of my life.

I cried out to my friends on sunday at church. I begged them to pray for me. They did. They are, and one of those friends (I love you Julie) texted me and asked me look up all the scriptures I could find on strength in the bible and to pick one or two that spoke to me and to post them in my house.

This one especially spoke to me: He gives strength to the weary and increases the strength of the weak. Isaiah 40:29 

I am weary, and I am weak. He gives strength to me. It's a promise. He increases my strength. It's a promise. Oh Jesus, how I love you. I don't have to be strong, because you will be strong for me.

It was freeing somehow. I decided to face the facts and see where my three week binge had gotten me. My trainer said "no, Tanya, don't do it!" but I assured her that my head was in the right place now to deal with what I saw on the scale.  I had gotten to 199.8. This morning I was 206.2. Okay, big deal. 6.5 pounds more or less. I can take care of that in two weeks of training and eating right. It wasn't as bad a gain as I had imagined it was going to be.

All the oatmeal creme pies are gone. I ate them. I won't be getting any more and my hubby has promised not to bring any in the house either.  There are no other snacks in the house I can't resist. I'm set up for success.  I read a poster this morning, and it said "The beginning is always the hardest. If you are tired of starting over, stop giving up!" 

Yeah, I'll be putting that on the wall too.

This time, unlike all the other times, I will never give up. No matter what my setbacks I will remember that I am fighting for my life, literally. This addiction will kill me slow or kill me fast, but it will kill me if I don't take it on, and with the help of God, beat it once and for all.

Back on the wagon. Sometimes I wish I could go cold turkey on food. But obviously, THAT would not end well. I'm back at the gym. Monday to Friday. I'm committed. The food I am working on. I don't know if it will ever stop being a battle, but I'm encouraged to remember that my strength does not come from me, but from the one who never grows weary or faints. When I fall, He will pick me up, and he will never quit on me. So I'm never going to quit on him. Yep, back in the saddle girl.

Never, never, never, never, never, never quit. You'll just have to start all over again.

I'm a loser baby! (so why don't you read me)

Well, after 3 arduous months that I'm pretty sure were about 60 days each, the Biggest Loser Challenge at my gym is finally officially over!

And it's official. I am a big loser. Infact, I am the Biggest Loser. I WON!!!

My final weigh in, which happened yesterday, Friday August 10th, was.....drum roll please.

199.6 pounds!

WHAT????!!!!! unreal! I had to weigh myself twice and get the exact same weight before I would accept it, because the day before I had weighed myself and I was 4.5 pounds heavier than that! Evidently I had eaten something salty the day before. Water weight is my nemesis!

If I still weigh in at under 200 next week I will truly celebrate being in ONE-derland, but I still remain suspicious of my body and it's quirks. Meanwhile though, I can celebrate. At 199.6 or at 205, I still won the challenge. I blew my competition away! Here's the stats!

My starting weight at the beginning of this journey (March): 242 pounds
My starting weight at the beginning of this challenge(May): 224 pounds
My weight at the end of the challenge (Aug 10): 199.6 pounds

Total weight Loss to date: 42.4 pounds
Total lost during challenge: 24.4 pounds

Theres some other exciting stats:

Since March 6th I've lost:

5.5 inches around my waist
5.0 inches around my chest
6.5 inches around my hips
2.5 inches in my thigh
1 inch in my arm
1 inch in my neck.

Not only have I lost inches, but I've gained muscle. I've never felt as strong as I do now. I have never felt a bicep muscle in my arm in my life until the last month or so, and though it's still buried under some fat, you can actually feel the hard lump of muscle in there! My Abs and back are getting stronger, my endurance is getting better. My calves are downright sexy, if I do say so myself! Slowly and surely I'm building my health and strength and losing the unhealthy layers of fat.

My BMI has gone from a 42  to a 34. Still way above where it needs to be, but no longer in that imminent death by heart attack zone.

I've been on this journey for 5 months, and though I have a long long way to go, I've come a long way too!! I've learned so much about myself, and have much more I know I will learn. This is as much, or more of, a mental journey than it is a physical one. The farther I get the more I realize that my mindset is everything.

I give glory to God in the highest for helping me to transform my mind throughout this journey, and pray he will continue to help me have a deeper understanding of why it is so important on so many levels for me to follow through on this commitment and lifestyle change.

Now that I have celebrated, I want to discuss something else that's been on my mind.

FEAR.

What's fear got to do with it? For the last month of this challenge I've been fighting over about 5 pounds. Gaining, losing, gaining, losing. I keep sabatoging myself with food. When the pressure is on to finish strong, I whimper and lose momentum. I struggle mightily and berate myself and wonder why, with all eyes on me, I can't stick to a simple diet for a few weeks longer. I had this goal to get under 200 and I thought it would be a piece of cake, but I still think it was a fluke that I made it at all, and squeaked in at 199.6 yesterday. I haven't been doing what I need to do to lose that weight. I've been trying, but I've been messing up. I've been tracking religiously every day, these last few weeks, I miss more days tracking than not. I've been exercising monday to friday for 5 months. The last few weeks I've missed two or three days. I've been exercising self control with snacking and sweets. The last few weeks, not so much. I won't just have that treat, I'll have it twice. I'm telling you, it's self sabatoge, and as I eat the food I KNOW it is! However, I don't seem to be able to stop myself. I have this internal dialog AS I eat the food. I argue wih myself about the calories and if I "deserve it or not, and I make all sorts of excuses and I refute the excuses. I swear sometimes there are two people inside me, these conversations get so lively!

My trainer and friend Melissa suggested that I have been scared to hit that under 200 milestone. She said maybe part of me feels safe where I am. I've visited this thought many times in my life. I lost over 70 pounds a few years back, and right after I did, my husband left me for another woman, took me to court, and tried to take my kids from me. I gained it back and more to add to the pot (belly that is). There is sexual abuse in my past. I have often heard that victime of abuse "hide" behind their fat. I have explored these things, and I truly don't know if my subconcious is telling me, "lose the weight and Josh will leave you too! Men will be attracted to you and you won't be safe!" The subconcious is a tricky tricky thing. It doesn't matter how much your rational mind tells you what a bunch of hooey those thoughts are, your primitive reactive mind will think what it will. Sometimes I just think I love to eat, love food, and feel deprived not eating it. Maybe that's all there is to it. Maybe there is no deeper psychological thing going on, but my heart tells me its more than just that. If it was just that I didn't want to be deprived, I could work in treats on a regular schedule to my diet (and I have done that on this journey) and be perfectly happy. The reason I think there is more going in is because I get to these points where I just can't stop. I get obsessed with the thoughts of the foods I want and I will eat it to excess. I remember being this way for many years. I can eat an incredible volume of food, especially if it's bad for me. I feel completely unsatisfied with a small portion of anything. Much of my diet planning is me trying to figure out how to get the most food for the least calories. I want and crave volume.

I feel almost at an impasse, to where I am considering going for some professional counselling. I know I have these impulses and feelings, I know some of them are not natural nor healthy. I think I might be deeply afraid of succeeding. Maybe more than I am of failing. I know one thing, I want to get to the bottom of it, and I want to understand what is driving me once and for all, and I want to conquer it,whatever it may be. I don't necessarily like self discovery. It's hard, and it hurts more times than not, but I am determined not to end up back where I started yet again in my life. I'm sick of looping around and around. I want to keep moving FORWARD. I want to FACE MY FEARS. With God's help, I want to face them down and overcome them, whatever they may be.

I think what I do in the next few months will be critical to my success or failure. I think the mental work will be the hardest, but the one I really need to face straight on and tackle. I don't want to be writing a year from now how I've gained back all the weight and I'm trying to lose it again. A year from now I want to be speaking to and inspiring others in their own health journeys, proving to them that it can be done if you are honest enough to ask yourself the tough questions and strong enough to face the answers head on.

Keep on praying for me friends. The best (and hardest) part is yet to come.

short post, but I need to get it out. (0r what the heck? where did my muscles go?)

I felt I needed to say something about what I have learned since my roller skating debacle last week. Evidently, when your body is healing itself it takes every ounce of energy you ever had and decides to use it for those purposes.

My trainer says it is just because I'm healing, and possibly mixed up with that, that my wonderful hormonal time of the month is approaching, but that I'll get my strength back soon enough. Meanwhile, however, she has dropped my weight on my exercises to next to nothing, and I can barely get through them. I had to quit my hour walk on the treadmill yesterday at 41 minutes because my legs were buckling and I was losing my balance, and this after I first had to reduce my speed from my normal speedy (ha!) 3.0 miles an hour to 2.8 then 2.5 miles an hour, and reduce the hill program from level 13, to 11, to 10.

REALLY? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

I realize I had begun to feel strong, and that I now really dislike feeling weak!

I didn't think trying to lose weight and get fit would teach me so much about myself. I thought I was a pretty self aware person to begin with, but I've learned a lot about how I tick through this journey, and what drives me to do the things I do, and make the decisions I make, for good or bad. Also, I've started thinking a lot differently about certain things, and like a pebble in a pond, you think differently about one thing and it causes ripples through other areas of your life.

Ever changing, ever growing

I think the only way you can really fail miserably in this life is to stop trying - to stop striving for the best your life has to give, and the best you have to give life, because even the rough spots - sometimes especially the rough spots - change you and grow you and teach you and stretch you on the inside to be a little better, a little stronger, a little more noble, a little more generous, a little more grace filled.

Yes, I agree. That was a hugely messed up run on sentence, but I am too tired to fix it, and have grown enough through the rough spots to realize it doesn't really matter. :) .. you will catch my run on drift and life will go on.

speaking of which (I'm referring to life going on), they have extended the deadline for the biggest loser challenge at my gym due to both coaches having been on vacation for a week or two, so I get another week or two to get to my 199 goal (thank you God for small mercies, because Aunt Flo and weight loss just don't GO together) and I have another week or two to kick butt,win this thing, and finish strong!

So I'm praying my strength and stamina come back sooner rather than later, but if they don't, I'll just keep doing what I can and let God take care of the rest. I need to stop stressing about stuff I can't do anything about. Anybody else need to do that? Just me? I thought so.

Blessings, Tanya-Marie

My Rollerskating Fantasy (or, the truth hurts, literally)

Everybody knows I start getting anxious when I know my babies are going to be going away with my ex husband. I start thinking about doing something nice for them before they go. I start thinking about a fun memory to tide us over until we see each other again. Well, being low on funds and short on ideas I was ecstatic when a half off depot deal came through my inbox. Rollerskating for 4 including skate rental for only 20 dollars! We've lived behind sparkles rollerskating rink for 3 years now and we've never once been. It's quite pricey when you start adding up all the roller skate rentals as well as admission, and I've just never had the extra money sitting around, but 20 dollars for all 4 of us (Elizabeth was at a church retreat)....... I can see it now.....

My kids and I holding hands and gliding gracefully around the roller rink, laughing and having a fabulous time. Maybe one of the little ones would fall on their little behind. There'd be a shocked look on their face and then a burst of laughter. I'd reach down and pull them to their feet and off we'd go again.

Then, I dreamed of the calorie burn. Wow... rollerskating would be great exercise. Maybe I'd really like it, and be good at it (after all I grew up ice skating and was fine with that... how much harder than ice skating could it be?) and I'd start going there for good exercise a few times a week. I looked it up. 700 calories and hour! wow! awesome. I could feel the excitement in the air. That's it.

BUY DEAL NOW! Yes, please!

So thursday morning (the morning before they are due to go off with their dad for ten days to Florida) we set out to be at the door when it opens at 10. Everybody is really excited. This is a new experience for us. Sammy and Abby have roller-skated a few times with school events, but mom has never been with them, and Mom makes everything more fun! (I will be sad when this stops being true for them)

 I  took a few pictures for posterity. Here's Abby getting on her skates.
  I stand. I wobble. Ok. This will take me a few minutes to get used to. I haven't ice skated for 10-15 years so it will take a few minutes to come back to me. My attitude is still good, but somewhere in the back of my mind warning bells are going off. I tune them out.

I do a granny shuffle on my skates over to the wall. This rink has a wall running along only one short side of the rink. That's not cool. Okay. Let's go back and forth along the wall a few times to get the feel of things. This is not so bad... the kids immediately head out around the rink with the fearlessness that accompanies childhood. Abby falls on her butt a few times but quickly gets the hang of it and starts going around fairly efficiently for a kid who has only done this a couple of times in her life.

 Jackson falls on his butt a time or two, makes a drama production of falling and waits for me to notice, and then decides to quit. Too hard. I feel a bit of disappointment because he gives up on stuff he finds hard so quickly. I wish he'd just give it ten minutes. He goes over to the indoor playground and Sammy, Abby and I are left on the rink. Turns out if we had all followed Jackson's lead, things might have ended better.

Sammy lacks grace completely, but you can tell in his mind he's a roller skating dance star. I'd love to live in his mind for a day or two to see what it's like. He's happy though, going round and round. He's kind of shuffling, but he's not falling. I'm impressed.

Meanwhile I'm on the wall. Having gone back and forth several times I'm picking up speed and holding on to the wall less. I'm starting to gain a bit of confidence. This is harder than I remember ice skating to be. I wonder if I'd do better on the roller blades. They mimic ice skates more than the roller skates do, but it's too late now. I'm just going to go with the roller skates. Then it happens.

Why is it that when you fall it happens so fast but seems to go in agonizing slow motion. My skate clad foot slips suddenly from under me and my arms whirl in circles trying to maintain my balance. Evidently I whirled the wrong way, because out goes my other foot and I land hard on my butt. All 205 pounds of me. Before I have time to think "ouch" my upper half follows my bottom half and slams backwards onto the hard maple floor. My head punctuates the fall with a resounding crack that sends shockwaves through my whole body. The mom who is intelligently sitting at the picnic table on her laptop while her kids skate jumps up and runs around the wall from 20 feet away. She's like "are you okay???? I heard your head crack the floor from all the way over there!" I'm sitting there, having struggled to a sitting position. "I don't know" I answer truthfully,"I think I need to go sit for a bit". So I carefully shuffle my way over to the nearest seat and roller skating staff come up to me with a big bag of ice, for which I am thankful. Damn, that hurt. Yes, I said Damn. That was way too painful for a dang.

My kids gather around me, questioning me and coddling me. I, not wanting to wreck their fun, pretend to be just fine. "Oh, clumsy mommy bonked her head! I'll be fine! Just go skate, I'll join you in a minute!". In my head I'm thinking "great, I'm gonna have brain damage." I had just finished a book, THAT morning, about a woman's journey with brain injury. I texted my husband and told him that if my personality was changed when he got home to take me to the ER. I sat for a few minutes with the ice on my head. No goose egg was forming, and I was feeling ok, more or less, other than my head hurting like heck.

I granny shuffled back to the wall, but something had taken hold of me. FEAR. I was scared to keep roller skating. I was in a lot of throbbing head pain, and the fall had happened so fast and unexpectedly that I really was worried about falling again. To top things off, we had the rink basically to ourselves since we got there, but now a daycare came in and there were now about 35 kids speeding around the rink showing a good bit of skill that spoke of them coming here often. I felt even more old and clumsy and uncoordinated than I had just been starting to feel after the fall, but I was also worried about these moving landmines called the daycare kids. How much control could people moving that fast have? I mean, I certainly couldn't get out of the way quickly, so could they?

Abby urged me to try going around the outside of the rink with her, so I started slowly moving around the rink, praying to God I wouldn't fall again and smash my aching head. A nice lady came up to me and gave me some "first timer" tips. Look straight ahead, not at the floor. Keep my arms still, don't swing them. It helped. Thank you kind stranger! Soon Abby was way ahead of me, and I was making my way slowly around the rink. Eventually I got to the wall again and decided to hang out there for a while. I mean, why push my luck right? And then she fell.

My baby. She fell, and unlike the other times, she didn't get up. She didn't even move. She just curled up into a ball and lay there. I couldn't hear her from across the room, with the loud music, but I knew she was crying, because a mom just knows.  Great. This is when I want to run to her and make sure she's okay. Obviously I can't run. I can barely stay on my feet. As quick as I can I skate over to her. I reach her, and then I pass her... I'm scared to try to stop using the rubber tip thing, because I can see myself flying forward onto my face, but I got up too much speed trying to get to her to actually glide nicely to a stop beside her. So I am trying to WILL my skates to slow and somehow, just the force of my will throws me off balance and I fall to the ground beside her. Onto my elbow. The most excruciating electric pain shoots from my elbow up to my fingertips and then suddenly I can't feel my arm at all. EXCEPT for my elbow, which is now throbbing in time to my head. I really want to burst into tears at this point because it hurts so so so bad, but mommy fear wins out and I kind of crawl over to my baby girl. "Abby, are you okay baby?"
"no mommy, it hurts!"
"what hurts"
"my wrist!'
I look at it. Go through the mommy check list

bones protruding through skin? no. check.
blood? no. check
swelling? no. check
I take her arm and gently flex her wrist up and down. she flinches but it moves. her fingers bend just fine. I start to breathe easier.
then I rotate her wrist back and forth a little.

She screams.

She pulls her arm away from me. "mommy, don't turn it, please don't turn it. It hurts." Tears are rolling down her face. By this time, we've attracted the attention of the sparkles people and two people approach.The DJ clears the rink of skaters and I totally don't feel conspicuous at all. yeah. They want to know if she's okay. She is just terrified they are going to turn her arm. she says "don't touch it, please, please, please!"

They take control. They start unlacing her roller skates, and I think to myself what a fabulous idea that is, and I start unlacing mine. I'm done with roller skating. By the time I have my skates off Abby is up and they are walking her off the rink. I follow and they bring her ice. They must have a good collection of baggies, because this is the second time today they've brought my family ice in a baggie.

Abby, who is a real trouper, and one of those kids who tends to wipe herself off and move on, is not moving on. She has completely lost her fabulous sense of humor, and as I hold her she just leans her head on me and looks at me with giant sad eyes. After 20 minutes she is still in pain, and though there is no discernible swelling or anything to indicate that this is more than maybe a bad sprain, my mommy instinct kicks in. I call Josh and ask him where I should go to get an x-ray. He suggests I wait a day, or a few hours. No, I have to go now. I just know. He is smart enough not to mess with mama bear instinct and directs me to Children's Healthcare. 35 dollar copay instead of 100 for ER. Smart man. I have a bad feeling, because my baby is not bouncing back, and if my baby is anything, she's bouncy. I have personally experienced the exquisite hardness of this floor twice today, and just maybe this is more than a sprain. Better safe than sorry.

I drop the boys at home and head to Childrens Healthcare in Duluth.

My trouper is not saying much. Once she says "mommy, why is it still hurting so much??"  and I say "I don't know baby. that's why we are going to the doctor. He can x-ray it and see what is going on.". My girl is healthy. I don't know that she's ever even had an x-ray except at the dentist.  I tell her that it won't hurt to get an x-ray and they won't give her a shot. I can tell she is still scared, but I also know she just doesn't want it to hurt anymore. She's willing to go to a strange doctor and get a strange xray if they will stop the hurting.

Children's was fabulous. We didn't have to wait more than about 20 minutes to see somebody, and quickly thereafter we... well...

The pictures tell it all.. ouchy Abby waiting for her x-ray. Yep, that's a broken arm. and happy Abby after a massive dose of motrin and a full arm cast.

Abby said "Mommy, I don't like roller skating anymore, and I don't want to have my next birthday party there after all".

I said "oh baby, I don't like roller skating either and I'm sorry your day was so bad. I wanted to give you a fun and memorable day before you left with daddy tomorrow, and instead your arm got broken"

She said "well, it WAS fun before I fell. and it WAS memorable. I won't forget breaking my arm!"

That's my girl. Looking on the bright side!

So my roller skating fantasy was just that. A fantasy. I am essentially a giant accident waiting to happen, and my children are not naturally athletically gifted, and what the heck was I thinking anyway.

really.

rollerskating sucks.

It is now sunday (actually monday morning, at 3:59 because my sleep has been all messed up since this happened) and I am just now starting to feel better. I have been slightly nauseous and not able to think clearly and quickly for 3 days now. Each day I feel a little better. Friday and Saturday I could barely move my body. I hurt everywhere. Today my body aches are much better. My elbow is black and purple and blue, my head aches where it hit the floor. I am struggling over spelling things and remembering things I ought to know. I believe I may have sustained a mild concussion.

I should have worn a helmet. Except I don't own one because I don't have a bike, and also, my roller skating fantasy didn't have anybody wearing helmets. Sending my baby off with her dad the day after she broke her arm just about killed me. I don't trust him with her because he is not me. I felt better that he brought a stuffy and a pillow when he picked her up. It made me feel he was worried about her comfort. I hope he spoils her some, because they are at a condo on the beach and she can't get her cast wet. How fun will that be? I pray he protects it from getting any sand in it. I pray she won't be itchy, swelling, or in any way uncomfortable. She can't even draw to pass the time, because she's right handed and broke her right wrist. Poor baby.

I don't even have an uplifting way to finish this post. No encouraging words to share.... except maybe that I encourage you to stay away from roller skating rinks :)

Tomorrow I try to get back to my workouts. I haven't done anything since last wednesday because I didn't feel well enough on friday to go workout and this weekend I have been resting and trying to get my brain working on all cylinders again. My trainer promises she will take it easy on me. As long as I have sneakers on my feet and not wheels I'll be okay I think.

I just thank God I didn't kill myself, or break something like Abby did. ugh.

Let's just call this a LEARNING EXPERIENCE. If something becomes a learning experience then it makes it better right? I learned that my baby is super tough and I'm so proud of her. I learned that I should not do exercise involving wheels. I learned that shaking up your brain, even a little, is a scary thing, and that I should avoid it at all costs. Last but not least I learned that writing a blog entry at 4 in the morning while mildly brain damaged does not make for a witty, nor even a really coherent blog.Does any of this even make sense to you all?

Live and learn, that's what this journey is all about, right? Live and learn.

Six Flags Adventure (or, wow, I'm an idiot and I have the pictures to prove it!!!)

I've lived in Georgia for 20 years and I've never been to Six Flags over Georgia. Yep, that's the sad truth. why, you may ask?

1. I don't like roller coasters. The older I get, the harder rides are for me. I get a vertigo thing that makes me very unhappy.

2. It's flippin' expensive!!! tickets are 54 dollars a person. parking is minimum 20. Food doesn't even start at under 8.00 an item. ack!

Well, this year 3 out of my 4 kids did a reading challenge thing at school and got free tickets to six flags. Since one of my kids was being homeschooled, that means I also got a free Teacher ticket! This means, only one ticket, for the oldest, had to be bought. I had a coupon to get it for 39 dollars. Okay, with a little planning I can do this..I think.

So off we go, ready to conquer the world, or at least Austell, GA. First, even though I have a GPS, I get lost in what amounts to the slums of Atlanta. My husband can't imagine how I get lost on what should be a simple three turn trip of an hour on major freeways, but I manage it. I miss an exit, and in trying to fix that I end up going in a multitude of squares through graffiti ridden neighborhoods for half an hour and finally get back on track and get to Six Flags around 11:30 (it opens at 10:30 so this isn't too bad). I pay the extra five dollars (yes, 25.00 for parking... these people are making a bloody killing!) so I can park close. I figure, after hours and hours at the park this is not the time my brood will be happy with my "park at the far end of the lot" philosophy!

I didn't start the day off well, diet wise. I did go to the gym before we left and worked out with Melissa, but we were in such a frenzy to leave that I forgot to eat breakfast and only as we were pulling out did I realize I was hungry and grabbed the only portable thing I could think of, which happened to be a ginormous apple fritter from my Abby's favorite main street market in Lilburn - fresh baked every Thursday. I had gotten some for the kids and Josh and accidentally bought 6 instead of 5. (I swear, it REALLY was an accident!) So I ate that, and it was GOOD. I figured, it's early morning and I'm going to be walking all day, so I will burn it off.

There was a 50% chance of thunderstorms, but it was really the only good day for us to go, so we went just kind of praying the weather would cooperate, and at first, it did. I found a caricature artist that had some great work out, and I always wanted some of the kids, so I splurged and got them done.

Josh said it looked like Jackson had just given Sammy a wedgie and Sammy was trying to decide if it would be too embarrassing to pull it out in public. Captured them perfectly. 
Abby's hair was captured perfectly, and her cute little chipmunk cheeks.Elizabeth was a bit upset she didn't look prettier in the picture, and thought he made her face look weird. I actually think he captured that uncertain look she often has in her eyes just perfectly, and since it is a caricature, of course he would take that megawatt smile and make it huge! I love the pictures and they are going to hang in the kids rooms. That was a good start to the day.

I wanted to try to overcome my fear of roller coasters by going on one. Sammy and Abby, who have been to six flags with their dad, were our resident experts. They assured me that Goliath was a good roller coaster, but that it did not have any loops and that I never went upside down (these were my two conditions - after all - I wanted to conquer a fear, not get crazy). Okay, I say, I'll try this Goliath. First of all, I should have realized by the name that this was not going to be a nice gentle little roller coaster. I purposely did not really LOOK at the roller coaster because I did not want to frighten myself out of it. This is very easy to do, by the way. As soon as the coaster started I knew this was a bad idea. We started going UP. Way up. Then there was this terrifying slant that seemed to me to be in excess of 90 degrees. This is where I closed my eyes and opened my mouth in a terrified girly scream. I kept my eyes closed every time we were going up a hill or down a hill until the end of this nightmarish ride that I think lasted about 49 minutes. Maybe 51. Sammy says about 1 minute and 30 seconds, but I know this can't be right. 51 minutes. I'm sure. This means, at any rate, that my eyes were closed and my mouth open for about 99.7 percent of the ride. (that's about 50 minutes and 43 seconds)

I bought the picture.

I wanted to prove I had done it, because God knows, I won't be doing it again. Note the cruel truth of the matter in the picture below.

Yes, that's my 8 year old daughter, hands raised and grin on her cute little face beside her 40 year old mother who is screaming in white knuckled terror, eyes tightly closed against the truth of her cowardice. Yes, that's my 14 year old daughter, looking calm, collected, and camera ready. 

Yes, that's my 11 year old son, and the pained look on his face is a mixture of pity for and embarrassment of his poor cowardly mother.

I did it though. So there. 

....and the kids were REALLY proud of me.

After Goliath we went to a kinder gentler roller coaster called the Dahlonega Mine Train. It was probably for 8 or 9 year olds. I really liked this roller coaster! It was fun! Just my speed. We went on it 3 times. I even raised my hands the third time. I even rode in the front! 

We did bumper cars, where my superior driving skills let me pummel all the kids. Sammy got off the ride bragging about how he had been bumping me the whole time. I said "no, I never got bumped" and he said "I was! You were in a yellow rainbow car, number 31" and I said "no, I was in a yellow rainbow car, number 16". So somewhere there is a fat woman out there who is wondering what that darn kid at Six Flags had against her.

We did a ride where we got in a log car and went up a watery hill, over, and down a watery hill. That is all there was to the ride and we got REALLY wet. It was fun.  It was called splash waterfalls.

Somewhere in there we went to see the i-luminate show, which was really cool, and stopped for lunch at Panda Express. This was an exercise in frustration. I had said to myself "there is a panda express at the park, so we can save money by going there". Ha. Okay, first of all, the Panda Express at Six Flags does not have kids meals. This is a travesty of the worst kind! It has a limited menu, and the three entree plate is over 12 dollars! The next cheapest thing on the menu is over 10 dollars. Really??? How to feed all these kids and myself for under 100 dollars? I had already spent 50 dollars (count 'em, 50!) to buy refillable drink cups for everybody. We DID make good use of those cups, though I was not relishing spending another 50 bucks on food. So this is what I did. 

I bought one 3 entree plate with two orange chickens, rice, and broccoli beef. I asked for three plates. I gave the broccoli beef to Jackson, and split the rice and orange chicken between the other three kids. I wasn't about to spend over 9 dollars on a panda bowl so I bought two veggie spring rolls for myself (3.29). So for under 15.50 I was able to feed all of us enough to get us by until 9:30 and a drive thru trip to taco bell (6 bucks, I love you Taco Bell!). 

Then came my "I'm a horrible mommy" moment. I have one of these pretty much every day, but this was a pretty big one. Ever since we got to the park Abby had been begging to go to Skull Island, which is like a little mini water park inside Six Flags. I kept saying "patience, Abby, we'll get there". We stopped at the rides along the way, got the pictures done, had lunch, watched the show...Okay.. during this whole time I kept hearing "NOW can we go to Skull Island Mommy?" and I kept saying "We'll get there!"

Finally, around 4 in the afternoon as we are approaching Skull Island, people start streaming out of Skull Island and we are informed they JUST closed it down due to thunder. Abby just stands there, staring at Skull Island, tears streaming down her face. 

Oh, I suck.

I suck.

I suck.

I felt SO horrible. 

I assured her it was probably just a small storm and would pass momentarily and they would open the park again. Well, the park never opened again. Instead, we were treated to the scariest and most horrific thunder and lightning storm I've ever had the opportunity to be stuck out in. First, it was just raining. I felt super guilty so I bought the three little ones super hero capes. Since it was raining pretty hard, but not lightning or thunder we did an impromptu super hero photo shoot.

There was some good wind for catching cape blowing drama. Abby's natural theatrical bent came out in full force for this photo shoot. She was completely the serious crime fighting superhero! Well, soon enough the rain got to be a soaking rain and the thunder rumbles came one after another so we decided to take shelter under the game pavilion. I had 10 dollars in my fanny pack so I let the three little ones play a "pick the duck" game and they all won cool prizes. See below for aforementioned cool prizes.

meet the sponge bob hammer, Scratch the nerdy pencil and Squirt, the squid.
Abby started a  trend at the park by tying the squid onto her head. Soon, there were many girls around her doing the same thing. It was a sea of squid heads. Quite funny. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't want other parents thinking I was some kind of creeper, taking pictures of their kids. The extra dollar I gave to Elizabeth and she promptly lost it trying to win a hello kitty doll.

So anyway. It is raining hard and we are hanging out in the game pavilion and I'm getting bored. I think to myself "Now would be an awesome time to take a picture of the superman ride because there is nobody in front of it." So I start walking out towards the ride (next to the pavilion) and realize too late that the water is a good three inches deep or more and my sneakers are immediately soaked through. ugh. oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound they say, so I sloshed through the water to the superman ride and lifted my camera for a picture. I took it, and a milisecond later, even before my camera reset, a huge bolt of cinema worthy lightning struck with vigor right behind the superman ride. My first thought was "crap, that would have made the most awesome picture!" and my second thought was "I'm standing in 4 inches of highly conductive water, and there is lightning and thunder crashing all around me all of a sudden. I'm an idiot". I walked extremely rapidly (okay, let's call it sprinting) back to the safety of the pavilion and stood there for a good minute getting my heart back to a decent pace. Yeah, that was stupid.  Here's the picture. It is  dark because of the heavy rain. Not a picture worth my life. If I would have fried over that picture I would have been up in heaven quite peeved with myself. duh.

Shortly after I got back to the pavilion lightning struck the big St. Louis arch looking thingy. It's a ride and I don't know what the name is because you have to pay extra money to go on it, which doesn't attract my attention. So when it hit, it was so loud I thought it had hit the pavilion we were in. The power went out and Abby jumped about six feet. She could have beat the 8 year old pole vaulting record with that jump. A few minutes later we realized Sammy was missing. He had gone to the bathroom and hadn't come back. We sent Jackson in after him, only to find out that Sammy had heard the crash and decided the prudent thing to do would be to just hang out where he was for a while. My eldest boy has always had a healthy regard for his physical safety.

The lightning and thunder eventually passed.

The rain never really stopped completely and the rides never reopened, so at 8:30 we went and collected our souvenir pictures and toys and headed out.  Remember that extra 5 dollars we paid for parking way back at the beginning of the day? All the kids were loving me a lot when we exited the park and like a beacon of rest our van was sitting there, essentially all alone, beckoning us to it's comfy (and nearby) seats. I drove home with bare feet. The kids all rode home with bare feet. There's a line of drying shoes out in the sun today. 

wow. 

fun day. 

even the lightning storm and the wet feet. 

and the three way sharing of the Panda Express

and the getting lost in the slums

(okay, maybe not that part)

sometimes you remember those things the most.

As for the fitness and diet. I walked 12900 steps yesterday. Over 5 miles. walked

14 flights of stairs (my fitbit tells me that is the equivalent of climbing that statue of Christ on top of the mountain in Brazil). That's a lot of walking and climbing. while waiting in line for the superman ride to reopen I walked in circles beside the line, just adding steps and exercise to my day. I ate the apple fritter, yes, but I'm pretty sure I burned it off, and though it was really carb heavy, I did eat it in the morning. I chose the inexpensive and fairly healthy spring vegetable rolls for lunch, and drank diet coke all day in my refillable cup. I went through Taco Bell drive through on the way home and got the kids supper, but I abstained and had a bowl of blueberries and light cool whip when I got home. So I feel I did good! There was even cotton candy there, and for anybody who has known me a while, you should know that cotton candy is very hard for me to resist. I'm a sugar addict and cotton candy is just flavored fluffy sugar!

I walked right past it. 

I am making strides-  

on my lifestyle plan.

not in my directional sense. I got lost on the way home too. blessings, Tanya

 
 Extra Pics: Here's Bugs Bunny and the gang, Elizabeth in her new glasses and necklace (also glasses!)

Sammy and Elizabeth, early in the day when it was sunny and hot and everybody was happy :)

 On the way out of the park Sammy pointed out that this was PART of Goliath, the roller coaster I rode. I'm glad I didn't look at it before hand. I would have chickened out. I took two more pictures of various parts of this mammoth coaster. It covers half the darn park it seems!

Jackson and Abby looking happy and sweet. In line for the monster mansion.

 

 

 

Gym Floor Meltdown (or, crap, the truth sucks!)

So today I had a meltdown at the gym. Yep - sitting there on the press machine I just started bawling like a baby.  So... the story goes like this:

Yesterday was Sammy's birthday and I was feeling proud of myself for a number of reasons. He had requested perogies and cheesecake for his birthday meal. Not a problem. Mom can do this. I wanted to be a part of it (ie: I wanted to eat it too!) so I planned ahead. This is the first thing I was proud of, because historically I would just say "oh to heck with it" and eat whatever I wanted. I entered the perogies and the cheesecake into 'my fitness pal' before I even had breakfast. I wanted to see what I had left for the day. The plan was to then eat the rest of the day according to what I planned to have for supper.

Then, as a last minute decision in the middle of the afternoon, we decided to go to the movies. We go to the dollar theater and we grab some movie snacks at quicktrip before we go. I ALWAYS have sugar babies. the THEATER size box. I don't care. I just love them, and a movie isn't a movie without them. Even as I've been losing all this weight I have done this. It's just something I decided to work into my system. Granted, that's kind of hard. A box of sugar babies is about one full days worth of calories. Yep, you read it right. 1500 calories, give or take. I enjoy them and I don't feel guilty. However, as we perused the choices at quicktrip I saw this sugar free tube of gooey sour candy stuff. Only 30 calories! I decided to try that instead and save myself 1470 calories. Well, that stuff was really bad, but I was still proud of myself for making an alternate movie food choice. 

Then, when I went to make supper, I cooked my perogies seperately with no oil. Just a bit of PAM to stop sticking.  I was proud for making a healthier cooking choice.

Last, but not least, I went to the gym the morning of his birthday and walked on the treadmill on level 15 hill program (not easy!) for a half hour, and level 10 for a half hour. I did this solely to burn the calories I expected to be eating that night at dinner. So I was proud of exercising off my calories in advance.

I had weighed myself that morning and it seemed like the gain from last friday of 3.4 pounds was just water weight caused by the wrong time of the month, because I was all of a sudden down that weight and then some. So I was proud that I had watched my sodium, increased my water intake and got rid of that water weight.

So, as I mentioned, I was feeling pretty good on several fronts. Then I went to the gym. I warmed up on the treadmill for five minutes and then turned to meet my trainer who was doing the "tsk, tsk" motion with her fingers. You know the motion, the one that says "you've been very naughty!". I was all "what did I do?" and she was all "perogies and cheesecake? all those carbs at night? It's going to turn into fat if you eat all those carbs at night time."


POP.


That's the sound of my balloon bursting. My first instinct was to get mad. "Well, it was my son's birthday! If I can't celebrate I don't even want to do this!"  She was all " have a big salad and one perogie" . I was all "they are mini perogies." One perogie would just be enough to piss me off! Seriously people! I told her "I don't want to just eat one perogie! I don't want the kids to think that eating healthy and being fit is about deprivation and not getting to join in the fun!"  Melissa remained calm and said "I'm just saying, it's these little choices that make the difference. I know you want to get this weight off fast, and I'm telling you, if you'll restrict those carbs after 2 or 3 you will just see it melt off!" 


Well, right about then was when my tears started flowing. Can I just say, and excuse my language, but damn my tears. I cry when I'm super happy. I cry when I'm sad. I cry when I'm mad. I just cry, but by golly, I've never cried at the gym before, and I kept thinking of Tom Hanks in a league of their own. "There's no crying in baseball!!!".  There are a lot of big muscular men at my gym and I felt like there was a spotlight on me and that they were all thinking "there's no crying in working out!" 


Truthfully, I'm sure hardly anyone noticed. After all, tears and sweat look very similar, and it isn't like I was weeping and wailing. I was just leaking tears from my eyes and angrily rubbing them away... repeatedly. 


Then Melissa did the mom thing and comforted me, even though I probably am 10-15 years older than her. She told me how she's proud of how far I've come and she's just trying to point out the little things that could be holding me back. Then she did the trainer thing, and told me to get mad at her and work hard. I did work hard, but not because I was mad.  Just like ever, I was determined, but darn that was rough. You know why? 


The truth sucks. 


Yep. Hurts, Sucks, Stinks, and rots. Sometimes you just don't want to hear it. I've made so many changes that for ME are huge. Maybe easy things for somebody else, I don't know, but for me.... EPIC changes. I've completely turned my lifestyle upside down. I'm learning to think a different way about food, about exercise, and about my health.  I realized today just how much I've changed when Elizabeth asked me as we stopped at Sam's club "Mommy, why did you park here? There are a million spaces up there!" I said "It's exercise, and good for us!" and she spent a good minute arguing that my blueberries would melt on the way to the car if I parked ALL the way back there. Then I said "get out of the car you lazy butt, and walk!" LOL. Seriously, I used to be the one who would drive around for five minutes looking for the closest spot, and now I don't even pay attention to how far away a parking spot is, except maybe to purposely pick a further one! Working out is non-negotiable. At least 5 days a week I need to be at the gym or out doing a loop or two at the park. Weekends are my lazy time, and I'm even feeling the need on the weekends to get moving. Yes, I've changed. 


Then there is Melissa. She's smiling at me. There she is with her perky little blond cute head telling me to change some more. Really? Can you not SEE how much I've changed? Yeah, she sees it. She's my biggest supporter in many ways. She wants me to succeed though. She'll walk through fire to make sure it happens! That includes giving me hell for what I eat. In many ways, the choices I made yesterday were good ones, but they weren't the BEST ones I could have made, and I think THAT is what Melissa was getting at. 


Some days I want to defriend Melissa from 'my fitness pal' so she can't see my food diary, but it's good to be accountable to someone. It's good to have someone who can say "did you check the sodium on that fake crab?"(I had NO idea, it's HIGH!!!). So yeah. My feelings were hurt, my balloon was deflated, but when I went to Sam's club this afternoon I picked up a huge bag of lettuce and spinach knowing that I was going to have more salads for dinner and less carbs. Melissa is good for me. She tells me the truth, even when it hurts, and she points out the things that I might not notice since she is just weeks away from her masters in exercise science and has a lot more knowledge than I do about the human body and how it works. I trust that she has my best interest at heart, and though I don't agree with her on every little thing about food (no, I will NOT give up my miracle whip light. So you can stop asking me to.. it adds a low fat zest to my sandwich I am not willing to give up!) if I can get my emotions out of the way there is usually a lot of wisdom there for me to glean. 


I think everyone needs a Melissa. A person who constantly pushes you to be your best, but understands when you can't be. The perfect mix between slave driver and friend. I found out that for me, that person can't be my husband. I don't want him to talk to me about what I eat. I want him to just support me and tell me how great I am doing and how much he loves me no matter what I weigh. I want him to make up silly songs about how skinny I'm getting. That makes me happy. A Melissa is the perfect compromise. I hope you all have a Melissa in your life, even if sometimes she does make you cry. 

1/3rd of the way there, but this is so hard (or, I've lost that loving feeling! now it's gone, gone, gone.whoawhoaoooo)

Today is a good day. I've obliterated 33 pounds and I'm amazed to find I'm 1/3rd of the way to my goal  of losing 100 pounds! In honor of the occasion I am posting my progress picture below. Can you tell a difference?

I look at the pictures and I can see a few small things. I can see that my second chin is much smaller, that the dip where my waist should be is more pronounced, but the things I can't see in the picture are the things that really make a difference. I fit in REAL jeans, not old lady fat jeans. Jeans I haven't been able to wear for 3 years or so. My legs are hard and muscular. My butt is more muscle than jiggle now. My stomach is smaller. My strength and balance have increased tenfold. My endurance is greater. I've seen and felt a lot of benefits from following this path I'm on. This is the difference a few months and 33 pounds makes.

I would love to say it's been easy, and that I'm feeling pumped up and ready to tackle the last 67 pounds with gusto and grace, but I wouldn't be telling the entire truth. The last four weeks I've been struggling mightily. First, my two babies were gone to California with their dad. Divorce just sucks, and the worst thing about it is having to let your babies go far away with someone you don't particularly like or trust and his family that you like and trust even less. It just never gets easier when they are gone, because I never feel 100 percent confident that they are safe. Don't get me wrong. I know they are taken care of physically, but emotionally and spiritually I don't feel confident of their safety, and that is just hard on me. I try hard to leave it in God's hands, but inevitably I fall into a depression during the two or three weeks of the summer they are gone. I just had a lot of trouble being motivated to do what I had to do, and the emotional eating I try so hard to deal with comes back full force. With that emotional baggage comes fatigue and malaise. I just don't want to DO anything. I don't want to GO anywhere. So going to the gym was hard, eating right was hard, and I gained a week, lost a week, gained a week, lost a week, for the last month. That slow progress served to get me down even more, especially because I don't want to let myself or my trainer down during this biggest loser challenge at my gym. The prize is a free year of dues at the gym! That's awesome. that will save me almost 150 dollars in the coming year. I want to win!! When I gain I feel like I'm letting us both down.

Then there is the FITBIT. After joining a free online site called MY FITNESS PAL, which I highly recommend by the way, I purchased something called a FITBIT. This is a fitbit.  I have the pink one.

 
This handy and tiny little device clips on to your waistband, or in my case, my bra. I pop it on in the morning and it tracks all the steps I take, all the miles I walk, and all the floors of stairs I climb. It syncs up with the information I put in My Fitness Pal and Voila, I have a great picture of all the activity I do each day. I was super excited to get this, and I wear it every day. It is absolutely fabulous. It also, when worn to bed on a wrist strap, will tell you how well you slept! Seriously. It's awesome.

I hate it.

I was feeling so good about all the positive healthy changes I've been making in my life. The fitbit neatly and succinctly tells me that I suck. That I'm essentially a slug, and that even though I go to the gym almost every day, I barely move the rest of the time. It tells me I have to totally step it up, and right now I feel about stepped up to my limit. The idea of having to constantly be exercising for the rest of my life just to keep up to the minimum healthy goals is highly depressing and demotivating. It almost makes me want to give up.

Except it doesn't.

Because it makes me mad. 

I feel in turns despairing (how can I up my activity level by that much every day???),angry (why in hell does this have to be SO hard?) ,fatalistic (why do I even try, I should just give up!) and hopeful (It's little things... maybe I can find ways to do this). It has done what I had hoped it would do when I bought it - it gives me a real picture of how much I move. I just expected that real picture to be better than it is. So now here I am.

I think about my life. The fact is, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer by necessity. I do the budget, and this takes hours for me. I do the bills, and I am currently trying to register Elizabeth for online public school, get Jackson registered for school after a year of homeschooling, and dealing with a lot of medical paperwork for Jackson. This means some days I am sitting there, copying, filling out, scanning, sending, I spend a lot of time driving Jackson back and forth to therapy. I spend a lot of time driving the kids to school when it isn't summer. It just seems my schedule demands a lot of sitting. So the question is, how do I up those steps each day? how do I get 5000 to 10000 steps every day instead of 2500? I do my cardio at the gym, and those days help a lot. Last week I took the kids to the park and did the loop of the walking trail. That helped. I can't do that every day though. Especially not this week when it's 105 degrees out! I can't spend two hours in the gym every day. My schedule just doesn't allow it, and I don't WANT to spend that long in the gym either. I want to have a lifestyle I can maintain long term, and I just know I can't do that long term. So I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out, what can I do every day? I'm trying to think of little things.

1. parking at the far end of the parking lot when I'm on errands.
2. getting my own drink out of the fridge instead of asking the kids to get me one (hey, 20 steps there and 20 steps back... that's 40 extra steps)
3. doing household chores the hard way. make it into more trips, take things one by one.
4. take groceries in two bags at a time, instead of holding as many bags as I can. All those trips back and forth to the car could add a lot of steps.
5. quickly run up and down the church steps a couple of times when I go to church. I go twice a week, and it's the only place I can think of that I encounter stairs since I live in a ranch house. That will give me a couple of flights of stairs and 50 more steps.

I don't know how much these things will add up, but I'm going to give it a try. If you can think of anything else I can work into my normal life please comment! I want my fitbit to become a friend that gives me good news!

So, the bottom line. I'm proud of how far I've come. I'm depressed that the pictures look essentially the same. I'm happy that I'm a third of the way to my goal. I'm depressed that my daily activity is so much less than I felt it was. I'm proud that I refuse to give up. I'm depressed that I'm feeling depressed about where I am. I don't like being in a slump. My mental attitude is everything! If that is not where it belongs, I struggle so hard. I need to write this on my bathroom mirror:

let us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that so readily entangles our feet. And let us run with patient endurance the race that lies before us, (Hebrews 12:1)

I need patient endurance to keep at this journey of life and health and faith. I need to remember that I can do nothing without the Lord, and that this isn't about me, but about Him.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and let it be through Him that you give thanks to God the Father.(Col 3:17)

I told myself that I would finish this journey for the Glory of the Lord, and if I lose that focus all is lost. I give it all to you Lord - my attitude, my motivation, my food choices, my exercise, my thought life, and as always, my heart.

Let me run the race to the end, and make you proud.

I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates... (or, Hallelujah, I can feel my toes!)

Here they are:

Aren't they beautiful????

If you will remember back to my blog about my 5k, you will remember that almost immediately my ankles started to feel like they were breaking, and around the 20 minute mark I could literally no longer feel my toes. My 5k angel informed me that it was not normal foot behavior and that I really needed new shoes.

Problem being, new shoes are very expensive - at least good ones are. I had resigned myself to saving up for a few months and eventually getting them when I received a message from the Carolinas that threw me for a loop! It was my cousin (by marriage) miss Debbie Cockrell Brewer and she was offering to buy me a new pair of shoes!! At first I deferred. It was odd, being offered shoes out of the blue by somebody I had only actually met in person once! Yes, we talk a fair bit back and forth on facebook, but still, it seemed awkward. Pride, also, reared it's ugly head for a few brief moments... I can't accept that..surely we can afford a pair of shoes without having to resort to kind offers from relatives in far flung states....

Then a day or two passed and I, still wearing my foot murdering shoes, came to my senses. Here I was, suffering, and on the table was a pefectly good offer of Debbie Brewer's favorite running shoe! I told my husband he needed to make Miss Debbie a really nice bowl on his lathe, because I was about to get some new shoes!

A few days later my shoes arrived in the mail.When I opened the box, that song started going through my head... "I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates!" They were silver and gray and pretty darn sleek looking. I put them on my feet and...OH! it was cushy! There were little gel pad things in the soles somehow. They felt like heaven! I wore them around about 20 minutes in the house and then... ouch. They hurt. Bad. On the side. Turns out my feet were too wide for the regular Asics Gel shoes. I had a blister. BOO!

However, in the wonderful tradition of Amazon.com,  they were super easy to return and also came in wide size. Debbie had made sure of it before ordering them. I got my wider replacement shoes back two days ago. Today I walked 1.5 miles uphill (treadmill hill setting) in these shoes and at the end, I could still feel my toes. My feet don't ache. Normally after a treadmill workout my feet hurt all day, top and bottom. Not today. They feel like happy feet!

Debbie and Graham Brewer, oh how I love you two! What an encouraging and long lasting gift of love and support you have given me. With all this love and support around me (and my ankles!), how can I fail?

I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates, and that's gonna be the key! 200 miles by the new year. That's my goal. I'm gonna give these shoes a workout!

In other news, lookie, lookie, lookie what I made!!!

There's 100 rocks all together, each one represents a pound. From my starting weight of 242, 100 pounds lost will be 142, which is smack dab in the middle of where I'm supposed to be, according to Weight Watchers. I've already got to move 28 rocks from the "to be" jar to the "I have" jar. 28 ugly rocks. Almost a third of the way there. I'm hoping by next year this time my first jar will be near empty, or empty, and the second jar will be full to the brim. I have such a LONG LONG way to go, but I've also come pretty far.

You may have noticed that my long list of adjectives describing what I want to do to the weight does not include the word LOSE. Losing something implies you want to find it again. I don't ever want to find this weight again. I can destroy it, obliterate it, shed it,defeat it, even transform it (to muscle), but to hell with ever finding it again! I'm through with losing pounds and then finding them again. Not only do I usually find the ones I lost, but I pick up a few extra homeless pounds found camping in a van down by the river. Lost pounds usually find friends while they are lost!!! Then they want to bring everybody over for a party. yeah, my pounds are not going to be lost. They are going to be gone, moved on, and passed over. finis.

I see you smiling at me, holding out those chubby little dimpled hands in supplication. Sorry, pounds. I have no pity for you. You have pretended all these years to be my friend, protecting me and comforting me, but you aren't. So wipe that smile off your face, and make tracks.  Call your friends a cab. You don't have to go home, but you all can't stay here. That's my final word.

fish are friends not food... (or exercise is NOT my enemy!)

Have you ever felt like something you wanted to do, knew you needed to do, was just against your very nature? I am reminded of the movie "Finding Nemo". Dory and Marlin meet up with some sharks who are in a 12 step program not to eat fish. Their mantra is "Fish are friends, not food!" Of course, one little drop of fishy blood in the water and all the shark's good intentions are out the window and Dory and Marlin are swimming for their lives!

Historically, this is how I feel about exercise. I know I need to do it. I know it's good for me, but the only exercise I truly want is that of my thumb clicking the "next page" button on my kindle as I read a good novel. It just takes a little whiff of anything MORE fun than exercise in the air for me to want to just drop the idea of working out like a hot potato.

It is not so much that I'm lazy -it's more that I don't like sweating. I don't like being hot. I don't like hurting. In my experience, all those things are involved with exercise.

Also, I am a creature of habit. It's about the laws of physics really. The law of inertia. Things in motion tend to stay in motion, things at rest tend to stay at rest. Well... I've been at rest for a good 5 years at least. That's the last time I was involved in any kind of regimented exercise routine.

If you've been following this blog you know that this time around I STARTED with exercise before the diet. It has worked well for me. In the past I wouldn't even really consider exercise until I had already lost 20 pounds or more. This time I've got exercise built in from the start. I'm about on my third month now of going to the gym across the street from my house and exercising. Currently I am weight training three times a week and working on the couch to 5k program two or three times a week. 

 Now, this goes against everything I thought was in my very nature. I'm starting to get a glimmer here heading into month three though, that maybe my nature is not as prone to rest as I first assumed. I've been getting this feeling a few minutes after doing my couch to 5k every day the last few weeks. It's a feeling of well being, of happiness. Even as I drip sweat into my workout towel and suck back on my water bottle. I mean, I feel great! My friends who run tell me this is called "runner's high". I have heard about this, and assumed it was something people got from inhaling the body odor of all the sweaty people around them at the gym, but no...evidently it is all about endorphins being released into your body! I am loving endorphins. Since I work out around 9 o'clock in the morning I get this great boost to my day. By 10, I already feel like I accomplished a lot!

Last time I worked out with the great and terrible Melissa I went into the workout feeling funky because of the pollen and just overtired from some lack of sleep the last few days. I came out of it dripping sweat and feeling BETTER than when I went in. Seems almost counter intuitive to kick my butt on a workout and come out feeling better, but I do. 

This is one of those things that makes me go Hmmmm. I actually purposely don't exercise on the weekend. Monday this week I was feeling this urge to get to the gym, to do something physical. It was almost like my body... *gasp* missed exercise!

If you haven't started some exercise I encourage you to try to work whatever you can do in, whether that's a 10 minute walk or a full fledged zumba class (I don't DO classes myself, I like to be humiliated by my lack of grace and ill fitting work out gear in a less public setting, thank you very much). I started this journey out of desperation because I was having so much trouble controlling my eating, but I'm continuing because it makes me FEEL good, and I'm already seeing results after only these very few weeks. My hubby actually says my butt feels firmer. That's enough motivation to exercise for another month right there! I'm stronger too... last time I fell behind on laundry and had to take a few baskets to the laundromat to catch up I thought I was about to die from all the lifting and carrying. I did it again a few days ago for the first time since I started exercising and I didn't struggle at all with the baskets. I didn't even get winded, and it was really hot out! It was AMAZING. I felt like superwoman! 

Now I am thinking all sorts of odd things... like.. am I going to become one of those exercise fanatics? surely not. Also, I started wondering... I've lost weight before, I've exercised some (though not the amount I am doing now!), but I've never done them TOGETHER. I wonder how my body will change this time with the toning, muscle building, and fat burning cardio going on at the same time as the calorie reduction and healthy eating? Will it make a big difference. I feel in my heart that it really will, and I am SO excited about it. I can't wait to see where this is going to take me. I have a vision of myself, healthier, stronger, more fit than I've ever been. I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me, so why not this? I have such an incredible amount of weight to lose (from my starting weight of 242 I need to lose at least 100 to be at what is considered an acceptable weight for my height) that it is very hard for me to look in the mirror and see that girl that might be there some day. I really have nothing to go on. I've been skinnier, but I've never been fit. What will MY best body look like? I don't know. It will be a delicious surprise to find out!! I like to think that I'm slowly slowly unwrapping a present of a thinner, fit me. I can only see a little at  a time..... as I peel off the fat wrappings I catch a glimpse (oh, what's that, a curve at my waistline?) or feel a corner (oh, what's that, a rock hard calf muscle?) ... how many months will it be until I can see the me inside the wrappings?  Not too many I hope. 

Join me in some exercise today. It may not be against your nature after all...