Soul Hunger

So far I am loving the Woman of Moderation study.  One of it's main premises is that we eat out of soul hunger, instead of physical hunger.  We feel a void, and try to fill it with food, instead of God.

This is definitely true in my life.  I am very good at keeping myself busy, going, going, going, never letting myself really stop and think, or reflect.  I distract myself with food, the internet, Pinterest, reading, whatever.  I don't want to see what's really inside, deep down.  Because that means I have to work.  And work hard.

There is so much garbage that I need to process/wade through/eliminate.  It's an emotional, stressful thing.  But it needs to be done.  I need to move on.  There are lots of issues that I need to deal with, way too much and too intimate to go into here, but suffice to say that those issues are a HUGE reason why I eat.

I am dedicated to working through these things, to learning to go to God instead of food, to be rooted and grounded in Him.

The Women of Moderation study has a meal plan, but I'm not following it, obviously.  I am doing HCG to get the weight off quickly, but I will be following the other advice in the book, doing the Bible study and learning to be quiet and listen to what God wants to speak to me.

For some people losing weight may be just a physical journey, but for me, personally, it's spiritual as well.

I am feeling really good, staying determined and not tempted to cheat.  I am excited for the future, excited to shed these pounds, excited to "find" myself, and excited to grow closer to God.

Day Two

Yesterday went fairly well.  It wasn't a smashing success, simply because at the end of the night I was STARVING.  I'm not sure if my drops are old or if I just didn't eat enough.  Anyway, long story short, I ate two handfuls of peanut butter filled pretzels.

I didn't weigh yesterday, because I quite simply forgot.  And I didn't weigh after my binge days because the kiddos didn't have school and were CRAZY.  I did weigh this morning and will start recording my losses tomorrow.

I have been drinking a lot of raspberry/blackberry black tea with Truvia and a splash of half and half.  I need to go to the store for milk, and then I'll use that instead.  I've also been drinking a lot of Talking Rain. For some reason I have been hardcore craving it.  I'm not pregnant ;-) but it's like I can't get enough of the fizzy water.

I am so ready to drop this weight.  I feel determined, and ready to plow through this.  Even when it's hard.  Why is it so hard???

I ordered and received the book A Woman of Moderation.

I'm going to start reading it today and hope it helps with the root of the problem; the underlying issues of why I overeat in the first place.

Have a good day!

Fat, Frustrated and Finally Ready

Hi guys.

So, I'm here.  I'm alive.  I'm fatter than ever.  Life is stressful, I comfort eat.  It's not a good combo.  It's a really bad combo, actually.

I'm the highest weight I've ever been in my entire life.  I'm heavier than when I was 9 months pregnant with any of my kiddos.  I WEIGH MORE THAN I DID NINE MONTHS PREGNANT.  Let that sink in for a bit.

I've tried to diet. I've tried to cut back. I've tried HCG. Nothing has worked.  At one point, I did HCG and lost 10 pounds in 10 days.  Then I sabotaged myself with ONE BITE OF CHOCOLATE.  I was doing great; it wasn't hard to stick to the diet.  I was rocking it.  Then I ate one bite, LITERALLY, one bite of chocolate and I lost my brains.  I started shoving food in at an alarming rate and never really stopped.

Until now.  Now, I am ready.  Yes, I'll be doing HCG again.  It works for me, when I do it correctly.  It's helped me shed 40 pounds in the past.  I now need to lose 60ish pounds.  It feels daunting.  But I can't stay where I am.  Namely, because I'm extremely unhappy and uncomfortable in my own skin. I don't even recognize myself.

Sorry if this is too graphic, but when I saw it I was dumbstruck. It describes me perfectly right now.  A thin, healthy person, fighting to get out of the fat prison she's currently enslaved in.

Don't mind the caption... It's the pic I'm interested in.

So, today is Day 1 of HCG low calorie.  I feel ready.  I'm sick of myself.  I don't want to remain the way I am, the size I am, or have the unhealthy habits I've fallen into.  So today is the first day of CHANGE.

How true is that???!!! I mean, wow.  It's so true.  Some people have amazing metabolisms/genes and don't spend one second thinking about food, their weight, etc... But that's not my lot in life.  Granted, once I have lost weight I do maintain it fairly easily.  At least, I have in the past.  But now I'm 35 and things are so different.  It's so much harder to lose weight.  But I'm going to do it.  I will.

I have a 10 year anniversary trip to Mexico coming up in February.  I have a trip to Europe coming up in April.  I have my whole life ahead of me, I have 4 kiddos who need a healthy/active mama, I have so many reasons to stop allowing myself to wallow in self-pity, make excuses, and live every day feeling down about myself.  It has to stop.

I don't want fitness/weight loss to take over my life.  I don't want people to look at me and immediately think how much I weigh, or what size I am, or if I'm eating on plan.  I just want to be healthy.  I know for the time being, weight loss will be a larger part of my life, I'll have to focus on it more, dedicate more of my time/energy/thoughts to it than I usually would.  And that's okay. But I will not let it rule my life.  I will simply do my diet, and make sure to take time to enjoy my life.

Life IS stressful.  My MIL is not doing well, at all.  Nobody wants her to die during the holidays, and have to be reminded of it year after year.  Yet, we also don't want her to live in a world full of confusion and frustration and chaos.  It's not easy.  It's really hard.  But no one ever said life would be easy, and there's never going to be an "easier" time to tackle this area of my life.  My weight.

This is my inspiration.  This is where I was at when I got pregnant with Nora, and this is what I want to get back to.

Not a supermodel, not a fitness model, but just me.  Healthy me.

I plan to attempt to blog regularly, mostly to keep me motivated and accountable.

Cheers to all of us who are getting our healthy selves back!

Be Nice

That is all, for now. :)

Good Bye for now

I'm closing my blog down for a bit.  Not deleting it, so it'll show up as private or whatever.  I may or may not blog privately for myself, but not sure yet.  I hope to be back once things have settled down.

I'll shut it down tomorrow.  Hope you all are healthy and happy!

Happenings

Hi Guys :)

So, here I am.  Still blogging.  Still struggling.  With life.  With my weight.  With basic hygiene.  Wait, what?

Yeah.  This just happened.

I'm in the shower (cue angels singing and God Himself applauding this decision).  I'm washing my hair.  It's crazy tangled.  I don't know why, but I open my eyes.  Soap gets in.  OUCH.  Dang, I forgot how bad that stings!! Anyhoo, moving forward.

I rinse the shampoo out, coat with conditioner and move on to scrubbing my body.  Soap flies in my eye.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I mean, come on! What are the odds??  I blindly shave my legs.  No idea if I got it all, but meh.  Good enough.

I move on to brushing my teeth.  You know what's coming, don't you? Toothpaste.  In my eye.  Don't even ask.  I couldn't make this up if I tried.  And you know what? Toothpaste in the eye hurts real, real bad.  By this time I'm questioning my own hand-eye-brain coordination.  Luckily I make it through the rest of my shower without getting anything ELSE in my eyes.

That's kind of how life feels right now.  One thing after the other, and how did this happen in the first place?!

There's my sweet, sweet mother in law.  You guys.  Seriously.  She is the best.  Ever.  Just ask any of her 16 children, or the myriads of people who have been blessed by her.  She is on steroids and is doing well at the moment, but we know it's just borrowed time.

Please pray.  Pray that if it's her time to go, that God takes her quickly, and peacefully in her sleep.  Pray she doesn't become so incapacitated that she loses her dignity.  Pray for her younger children, who are still at home.  And hug your loved ones.

I can't even put into words the underlying stress/sadness/sense of doom that I/we live with day and night.  We know she is going to Heaven, and we know she will be out of this body that is so broken.  But still.  We love her and we don't want her to go.  It's not easy, that's for sure.

My kiddos.  They are, shall we say, spirited.  Times 10000.  They wake up and immediately declare war on each other.  I'm talking full on wrestling, hitting, kicking, punching, throwing to the ground of persons.  Do I allow this? NO! Have I ever allowed it? No.  I don't know why they think it's okay all of a sudden.  It's not.  It's also extremely tiring/draining/exhausting getting on their case all.day.long to stop wrestling, hitting, kicking, punching and throwing to the ground of persons.  I'm counting the days until school starts. (16 for the older two.  23 for Owen.)  Bless their teachers.

Then there's my health.  I'm headed to Dr. Ray soon.  Josh convinced me to go.  I resisted at first, because I'm dumb like that.  It'll be a short 24 hour trip, but hopefully it will help.  I'm hoping to get my hormones and the brain chemicals balanced like I did the last time I was there... 3 years ago??

My weight is just being a meanie head.  I'm the farthest from thin I've ever been.  I got the results from my adrenal stress test back.  Turns out my cortisol is low.  Low?? Does that mean my body really isn't very stressed, since it puts out cortisol as stress increases?  Nope.  Cortisol doesn't go from normal to low.  It goes from normal to extremely high and then burns out and drops to where my levels are now.  Extremely low.  So I'm getting on some supplements to help my body produce more cortisol.

My immune system is also severely depressed.  (Insert sad immune system here, hardy har har) Normal ranges from 25-60 and mine was less than 5.  Meaning it couldn't be detected at all on the test.  Sigh. So I'm starting supplements for that as well.  

And lastly my diet.  I'm supposed to eat a hypoglycemic diet.  Essentially... Atkins.  I've never done Atkins, but I know it focuses on lots of protein, and very little carbohydrates and sugar.  Just what my body needs to repair itself, apparently.  So I'll be doing some research on Atkins friendly recipes and meals.  It all feels overwhelming right now.  So much going on.

I can't exercise.  I've been forbidden by the Adrenal Stress doctor.  My body can't handle it when it's so burned out already.  But carrying around this much weight is taking it's toll.  I saw a picture of myself and wow.  Talk about spiraling into a pit of depression.  It was real and raw and horrifying.  I have to do something. I am suffocating under all this fat.  My stress is through the roof and I can't afford for it to be.  So I'm really hoping the Atkins helps the weight come off.

I know all you exercise fiends out there would probably disagree with that statement, and say that running, a good work-out, lifting weights, etc... is the best.  But I am in wholehearted agreement with Anthony Trollope.

Well, friends, it's late.  I need to get to bed.  I just wanted to check in and jot down my thoughts/plans.

If you have any good Atkins friendly recipes, send them my way!

Update

Hey there.

How are you? How's your summer?  Mine?  Hectic.  Crazy.  Emotional.

My weight-loss is a no-go.  I can not lose this *#@ weight.  It will not go.  I recently completed an adrenal stress test, which indicates... I'm in adrenal stress.  Womp womp.  My cortisol levels are super high (happens from stress) which inhibits weight loss.  I have absolutely no energy.  Each day I have to decide whether I want to shower, clean the house, do something with the kids or make dinner.  One thing.  I can't manage more, really.

I'm on a treatment plan, but it's very long term.  Stressful.

The other thing is that my mother-in-law's tumor came back.  With a vengeance.  It's diffused throughout her brain.  Surgery, chemo and radiation aren't options.  She can't travel to any of the specialists.  The doctors say she has months left.  Months.  I can't even begin to describe what it feels like to have someone you love given such a short timespan.

So yeah, life has been extremely stressful.  I'm looking forward to school and routines and schedules.  I feel like once the kids are back in school I'll have a chance to catch my breath and figure out what to do about my weight.  I absolutely can not stay this fat.  It's not an option.  HCG isn't either, because part of the treatment plan for the adrenal stress is taking cod liver oil and other supplements that are not conducive to HCG.

So that's where I'm at.  Prayers are very very much appreciated.  I'll pop in from time to time, and may get back to regular blogging once September rolls around and the kiddos are in school.  We'll see.

Hope you all are well!