Cleansing

12 September 2011

Today, I start a 15-day fruit and vegetable cleanse called Reboot Your Life.  This will be my second go at it.  My first go at it, I made it 12 days and then was craving chicken so badly that I couldn’t get it out of my mind to the point I ended up caving and went and got some fried chicken.  I had planned to go back on the cleanse the next day and finish up my last 3 days on it.  However, that is not what happened.  What happened was that I binged on fast food for the next 5 days. 

In the 12 days that I remained faithful to the cleanse guidelines, I was able to lose 9 pounds.  My unchecked binge of fast food caused me to regain all of those pounds that i had lost.

This go-around will last for 9 days.  Why only 9 days?  Well, because on the 10^th day I will be going camping with a friend and it will be impossible to continue the cleanse while camping, so I will be putting it on hold while I’m camping and then picking it back up when I return home for the last 6 days of the month.  I’m hoping that during the next 9 days that I will lose about 5 pounds.  And I’m hoping that in the days after I get back from camping I will just lose whatever I may gain while camping and eating camp food.

I hope to come out at the end of the month at about 185 pounds.  If I manage to come out at less than that, I will be very happy.  I will have lost the majority of the weight I needed to lose in a natural way, by just changing what I eat and the way I eat it and by adding exercise.

At the beginning of next month, I’m going to start taking a supplement called HCG.  It is a hormone produced by pregnant women.  It causes your body to burn fat at a faster rate and it also helps control your appetite.  It’s a little extreme in that you can only eat 500-1000 calories a day while taking it; but I know a few people that have used it to lose weight successfully and they told me that they didn’t have a problem with feeling hungry, even eating so few calories. 

On the HCG, I should be able to lose the remainder of the weight I need to lose to reach my goal weight of 170.  And, I should lose it by the end of October!  Then, I will start the process of just maintaining that weight loss.  I will have to make sure that I continue to eat healthy and sensibly. 

I love to cook, so hopefully I can get myself in the habit of cooking just about everything I eat and making things fresh as much as possible.  Sure, I’ll still eat out occasionally, but it won’t be any more frequent than once a week.  But, like I said, I love to cook.  I love the act of creating something.  I don’t know what it is about cooking, but it just brings me so much pleasure to do it.  It’s relaxing and calming.  It focuses me like just about nothing else does.  I just really enjoy it.

I’ve never had the desire to cook my way through some cookbook, like the lady that wrote Julie and Julia did.  That’s just craziness.  But I do love to try new recipes.  And, speaking of trying new recipes, Sparkpeople.com is releasing a cookbook next month that I really want to buy.  It will have loads of healthy recipes in it and that will help me stay on track with my plan to continue to eat healthy and sensibly after I’ve finished losing the weight.  I need to look for other cookbooks that are for the more health conscious person.  If I have plenty of variety in what I’m eating, I won’t be tempted to eat what I shouldn’t be eating and end up gaining weight again.

What I allowed to happen to myself last year where I gained 60 pounds in only 7 months, I will not allow to happen ever again.  That was an extreme low point in my life and I hope to never repeat it again.  It has caused long lasting problems for me that have been nothing but a continued struggle for the last 10 months trying to get rid of the weight I gained last year.  I was not emotionally fit last year and, therefore, I turned to food to comfort me and make me happy.  Food never let me down until it did.  Until I realized just what the food had done to me and by then, it was too late to stop what I had started.  It had snowballed into a weight gain that was rapid enough to give me new stretch marks on my hips and lower stomach.  That was when I realized that I had to do something.  Something had to give, had to change.  I had to act and I had to act fast. 

Last year, I weighed more than I have ever weighed before in my life.  That changed something about me.  It changed my ability to actually lose the weight.  In the past, I’ve gotten a little chubby and was able to lose the weight in a somewhat decent time frame.  This time, it has taken me almost a year to lose just 45 pounds!  That’s insane that it’s taking this amount of time and effort to lose it.  I think it also changed something about my hormones because I am getting more facial breakouts than I have ever gotten before and they now resemble actual acne with huge, painful pimples and not just sporadic little zits like I’ve gotten in the past.

When I reach my goal weight, it will be quite the accomplishment for me.  It will definitely be cause to celebrate and I hope to get a couple friends together and do just that.  Not sure what we’ll do, but I would like to celebrate me reaching my goal.  This has been an almost insurmountable undertaking for me.  I will never again let myself go like I did to get myself in this position in the first place.  It will be a day of triumph and victory the day I step on the scale and it reads 170…or less.

9-11

11 September 2011       

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of a horrendous event in our nation’s history.  I can’t help but tear up when I think of all the innocent people who lost their lives that day.  The worst memory I have was of the people jumping out of windows 80 or more stories up in the air from the towers to avoid being burned alive.  How horrible is it that jumping hundreds of feet to your death was preferable to slowly roasting alive?  Too horrible for words, that’s for sure.  I know that if it were me, even with my extreme fear of heights, I would choose to jump as well.

On this day, as with so many millions of other people, I remember.  I remember the innocent victims of the plane crashes.  I remember the first responders that responded but never returned.  I remember the lives of their family members and friends and the rest of the nation being forever and irrevocably changed.  Never were we to look at life and liberty in the same light again. 

I remember what it was like to be leaving for work on that day in September ten years ago and walking passed the television and watching as the planes crashed into the towers.  I remember not being able to tear myself away from gaping at the spectacle of it all.  I remember how empty and hollow I felt that day, but how I had to move on and go to work anyway. 

Maybe that’s something to take away from this all and to help cope with the disaster of that day…that even though something horrible happens, that life must still go on.  You must pick up the pieces and continue on.  But not like nothing happened.  Oh no, not at all like that.  You must pick up the pieces and hold them near and dear to your heart, always remembering what happened and not taking another moment of your life and liberty for granted.  It means you must make the lives of all who perished that day count for something.  Don’t let life pass you by.  Don’t let the little things trip you up.  Don’t let a quarrel keep you from the ones you love and care for.

This day finds me at work and in another state, far away from my loved ones.  I wish I could be with my family on this day and celebrate how much they all mean to me.  I wish I could tell them to their faces today just how precious they are to me, how much they matter in my life, how I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for them and their love for me.  My hope is that everyone take a moment to let their family and friends know just how much they love them and how much they mean to them today.  It doesn’t take much, just a well placed “I love you” or “you mean the world to me” and you will make their day and you will also honor the memory of those who lost their lives.

Just how it is right now

9 September 2011

Over the past few days, I came to a realization that was a little hard for me to swallow.  I am depressed.  I shouldn’t be because I’m on a good dose of antidepressant.  Of course, just because something shouldn’t be, doesn’t mean it won’t or can’t be.  So, when I see my doctor next month, I will ask him to please up my dosage. 

I know I’m depressed because, well, I’ve been depressed many, many times before.  And I know I’m seriously depressed right now because I am on the antidepressants.  I find myself sleeping for longer periods of time and dozing and napping during the day on my days off.  I find I have no motivation to do anything, including playing World of Warcraft on the computer.  I just put in a dvd and lay down on the couch and I either watch it or I close my eyes and doze through it.

I just feel like I have absolutely no purpose whatsoever, like there is no reason for me to even be alive.  Of the few friends I have here in Texas, no one ever wants to do anything with me or come hang out with me, so I feel completely worthless on top of purposeless.  And I don’t see my life changing anytime soon, so I’m also completely hopeless.  Adds up to that if I was a coward (or maybe if I were brave), I would have probably committed suicide by now.  but I’m not.  I would NEVER do that.  I could never put my family through that kind of pain and grief.  I could never put the few friends that I do have through that kind of sorrow.  So, please don’t take it to mean that I’m suicidal, because I’m not.  I’m just trying to put it in perspective as to just how serious my depression really is.  I don’t want to die, even remotely, but I see no point in my continued existence. 

I hate feeling this way.  I can’t live like this.  After I make my last payment to the payday loan people next month, I can start going out on my own and doing karaoke and not spending so much time as a shut in like I have been.  So, at least there’s an end in sight for me.  also, I have a new friend.  His name is Jeff.  We mostly just email, but we met for some tasty German food last week.  He’s a really cool guy and if we were looking to date anyone, I’d definitely be interested in dating him.  But, neither of us wants to date anyone.  And I can always use a new friend, even if we only hang out once a week or once every other week.

Friends are something that are in short supply for me lately.  I haven’t had a good friend since Greg.  He was one of the best friends I had ever had…or so I thought.  We were so in sync with each other, each having the same sense of humor, each having the same interests.  But then he turned on me.  He was vicious in his turning.  His actions could have gotten me fired from my job because I didn’t have a vehicle at that time and he just decided to leave me without a ride to work, without any kind of notice for me to find someone else to help me out.  I was able to scramble a back up plan into action and soon after I received my settlement check from my rollover accident a year prior and was able to buy a reliable vehicle. 

But the damage was done.  I was so heartbroken over losing what I saw as an extremely close friendship with Greg that when I met Jon-Pierre, I was so desperate for companionship that I fell for everything he said, for every line he fed me, for every lie he whispered in my ear.  And then, I was so desperate to hold onto that companionship that I held onto the scraps of that dead relationship with Jon-Pierre for so long after it was shredded and gone that it did even more damage to my psyche.  So much more emotional damage than I was mentally able to cope with.  I practically shut down.  I could barely function enough to make it to work every day.  I was constantly anxious and petrified of what was going to happen to me, how I was going to go on without him by my side.

It has been a little over a year since Jon-Pierre left me defeated.  I am still not over him.  It doesn’t help that him and his new girlfriend (I say “new” but he started talking to her and seeing her before he had actually left me) live within 20 feet of my front door.  That’s right, not only do they live in the same apartment complex, the same building, but I have to walk past their front door to get to mine every single day.  I had held onto hope that when his lease was up this month that they would move, but they haven’t.  So I am stuck with them as neighbors.  I am stuck seeing his motorcycle and her PT Cruiser in the parking lot everyday.  I’m stuck occasionally running into them in the parking lot or on the stairs.  

I will just have to deal with it.  Just like I have to deal with waiting until my move back home to Oregon can happen, just shy of a year and a half from now.  I eagerly and impatiently await this move.  It will mean so much to me.  I will be with my family again.  I will be with my friends again.  The friends that have been with me since high school, junior high, and even some since elementary.  The friends that have never let me down.  The friends who, the only reason they weren’t there for me, was because I had moved away from them. 

I know that once I’m back in Oregon and near all my friends and my family again, that I will be a lot better.  I will be truly happy.  I will have people who care about me and me about them and that I get to do things with all the time.  I’ll have a reason and a purpose again.  I won’t be hopeless anymore.  I’ll have a support system, unlike here in Texas where I’ve left myself to fend for myself…and I’ve left myself ill prepared at best to truly deal with how my life has become.

I long for the happiness I once had.  I long for my life to feel fulfilled again.  I long for the day when I am surrounded by people who care about me and want to be around me and actually take the time out to hang out with me or go sing karaoke with me.  I long for the day that I can accompany my dad and brothers on camping and hiking trips.  I long for the day that I can babysit my niece so my brother and his wife can go out for the evening.  I long to go on Saturday shopping trips with my mom.  I long to get to know my brother’s wife and my other brother’s fiancée.  I long to have a relationship with my niece.  I long to reconnect with my best friend of near 18 years, Patricia.  I have missed her so very much all these years.  But she has always remained important to me and to my life, even if I couldn’t be around her as I wished.  My time in Texas draws near to a close.  Finally.  I have just been gone for far, far too long now. 

 Even if I hadn’t already made my plans to leave Texas and return to Oregon, I would have still made that decision after this horrendous summer of extreme heat, extreme drought and terrible wildfires that have been occurring all around central Texas, I would have made the decision that it was time for me to leave and go back home.  I have been miserable in Texas for quite some time now.  It just doesn’t make any sense for me to continue to stay somewhere that makes me so miserable.

Changing My Body

Changing my body is one of the hardest things I have ever done.  It is by far not a simple task.  Well, actually, it IS a simple task.  It is a simple task that takes utter devotion…day in and day out.  I have to be devoted utterly and completely to it if I am to succeed.  When I get discouraged, I have to remind myself that it doesn’t happen overnight and that I have done it before so I can do it again.  It is frustrating this time around because it is taking so long.  This is mostly due to my physical…I hesitate to say handicap, but I can’t think of a better term.  I have 2 herniated discs in my lower back that limit what kind of activity I can participate in.  It does not limit my activity to the extreme, but I can’t get do things that require lots of changes of direction, like Zumba classes.  Even though, I may give that a second try, the first and only time I’ve done that class at the gym so far, it irritated a nerve in my lower back that is affected by the herniations there.  I'm still able to do a great many other things, like spin class and weight lifting and the elliptical machine.  I'm going to give the pilates class at the gym a test run this week, so we’ll see if I can add that to my routine. 

I had tried to have running be part of my routine, but that proved to be more than my body could handle.  I was able to go ¼ mile before the fact that I don’t breathe properly affected me to the point where I had to stop and walk to regain my breath.  The problem with running for me is that I got stress fractures when I was 18 and still in training for the Army.  I now get pretty bad shin splints at the exact points where my shins fractured so many years ago.

With the weight training, I had originally planned to take it easy and just tone the muscles.  I had wanted a leaner appearance more than a bulky muscled appearance.  However, when it comes down to it, I'm not comfortable with that kind of weight training.  It feels as though I'm slacking, like I'm not trying hard enough.  I am and have always been a “power lifter.”  This is pretty much one step removed from bodybuilding…which I have attempted to do in the past.  I wasn’t able to stick to the extremely strict and limited and rather bland diet that was necessary to drop the body fat.  I am able to stick with a very routine diet, I just can’t discipline myself to the extreme with my diet.  I am fine with having a bulky muscular appearance.

My main goal with changing my body is to get rid of the jiggle, of the softness.  I am so beyond unhappy with how I look in the mirror.  Everything is based on my perception of myself.  I don’t care what others think of how I look.  Sure, it’s nice when I receive a compliment on my progress, but I find it somewhat offensive when people insist that I already look great.  No, I don’t.  How do I know?  Because how I perceive myself is more important to me than someone else’s perception of me and how I look.  In their eyes, sure, I may look great.  But, in my eyes, I am still a long way off.

I have already lost 23 pounds this year.  I have another 29 pounds to go until I reach my goal weight of 170.  Medically, that will still be some 35 pounds overweight.  But, for the fact that I will have a bulky, muscular build, that is a good weight for me.  I'm even okay with weighing more than that, so long as it is due to muscularity. 

Last year was a very bad year for me in so many ways.  I dated a man that controlled me through my emotions and tormented me every day, playing on my anxieties.  The herniation of those two discs in my lower back occurred.  I was already overweight, weighing 210 pounds, when I injured my back.  I gained another 20 pounds after the herniation.  When I met him, I weighed about 185.  I gained 25 pounds in the first 6 months of my relationship with him.  Why?  Because all we did was eat junk and he never wanted to do any physical activity.  Hell, he barely wanted to have sex with me.  We did things based on his whims and what he wanted or didn’t want.  He would ask me what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, but he never liked my ideas and we always ended up doing what he wanted to do anyway.  I eventually gave up trying to make any decisions, becoming completely dependent on him.

This year, I received the surgery that provided me with a spinal cord stimulator that I could use to block the nerve pain that had been causing me so many problems.  I never use it.  It seems like such a waste now.  My pain level is greatly improved and my nerve pain is rarely perceptible.  I wish I could have it removed, but I don’t think that insurance would pay for that, especially since I just had it implanted.  Maybe next year, before I relocate back to Oregon, I will make an appointment and see if it is possible to have it removed.  I can only hope and can only ask the questions.  If the answer is yes, then I will have it removed.  If the answer is no, insurance will not cover it, then I guess I am stuck with it…at least until some point at which I am in need of a fusion procedure to fuse the vertebrae that are affected by the herniation.

I wish to be a better version of who I already am.  I am physically disabled, even if it is only in a minor way and in a way that does not prevent me from performing my duties as a corrections officer in full.  I will still push myself as far as I can go without further injuring myself.  I will lift the heavier weight.  I will go the extra mile on the elliptical machine.  I will do what needs to be done to achieve the results I not only desire, but require of myself.  I have an ideal of how I should be, of how I should look and appear.  If I cannot get at least close to that ideal, then I am a failure in my eyes.  But I will not be a failure because I will not stop trying and pushing myself to do the best that I can do.  I will not give up on this need until I have achieved it.  I will change my body.  I will be comfortable in my own skin again.