Janece's Journey

It’s been 7 months since I posted to this blog. Well, there’s the thing. Life happened.

The summer before last when I was very thin and into last spring, which is when was the last time I posted, I was wearing smalls and small-mediums and size 10 jeans and at 160 pounds. I still had to 10 pounds to lose to be “a healthy weight for my height.” Woohoo, right?  Wrong. I secretly hated the way I looked. HATED IT. Thin skin hung and yes, flopped everywhere. My boobs were so deflated that they looked just like the same thin, floppy skin that hung from beneath my arms. Now this from a gal that has spend years being a DD cup at least! I undressed and dressed in the dark. I didn’t want to have sex for fear that my husband would realize that I looked like a terribly old, wrinkly, saggy skinned woman. I’d lost 150 pounds. WHEN DID I GET TO BE PRETTY? I was frail. I started having uncontrollable anxiety attacks. My depression became worse.

Everyone applauded me. I was an inspiration. Every time someone would say that I would think, “Don’t make me your inspiration!! No, No, please don’t! I’m not inspiring! I’m a FRAUD!! I don’t want to be Sporty Girl at the gym all the time! I don’t want to eat salad every day! I’m a FRAUD!” But I would smile, and thank them, and say my mantra, “Everything in moderation.” Because I truly hoped that someday I would feel like I could eat the things I wanted and loved in moderation, but not then. I felt denied. I lied about it, because I kept thinking that if I just sucked it up and accepted that this is how I need to eat now, that eventually I WOULD accept it and it WOULD feel “normal”. 3 years later I still didn’t feel that way.

But all I felt like was that I’d lied to everyone who was inspired by my weight loss, and in return, they were encouraged and accepting of my becoming this thin and “healthy” to the point that society was happy but I…was not. I literally hated my new, thin body. THIS is what I get for all of my sacrifice? My children would beg us to stay home with them from the gym, just one night. “Please, Mama? We miss you. You are gone every night and lots of days. Please?” This is what I hurt my kids for? To look like this and make society and my doctor happy? Actually, nope. I still had 10 more pounds to lose. I thought that healthy equalled happy?? It felt like I was trying to be perfect. No light at the end of the tunnel.

So now that you know what my mental state was , I can share what happened to my overall health. The illnesses started. In the past 7 months, I have been sick with one thing after another almost continuously. I had/have stomach lining inflammation. It was bad enough that every time I would bend or kick, or squat, or lift a weight, I’d get acid reflux so badly I thought I would throw up. A couple of times I did. I had every test done on ones stomach that is possible, and got on some medication. It’s similar to an ulcer in a way, but it’s my entire stomach lining. During this time, I was unable to exercise, and ate pretty much crackers and soup. Apparently it’s caused by stress. They weren’t very clear on it, because it isn’t very common.

Along the mid to tail end of that crisis I began to also have daily, all day migraines. Pain bad enough to make me cry when exposed to sunlight. I had migraines constantly with no end to the pain for 38 days. During this time they tried every migraine medicine available, and finally went for a daily migraine medication.

As I was getting comfortable with the daily migraine medication, we went on a trip and stayed with people who smoked. I’d been ill for about 3-4 months at this point, had not managed to go to the gym more than once or twice and those experiences were painful. I was miserable. I was depressed. I wasn’t healthy or eating right and I had started to regain weight. So my previous thoughts, issues and problems, grew. Finally my husband and family, and close friends started saying, “Get well. You can worry about re-losing the weight after you are well.) Who knew that would be such long a time period? But at least it took some of the pressure to be perfect off. Yet, now every time I stepped on a scale, I started counting backwards. Now I have 20 more pounds, 30…

At any rate, by the time we returned home I had a sinus infection. My asthma had flared horrifically and I was just ILL. Since my head was full of all of these thoughts about my weight, and my health, I wasn’t really talking to anyone about it. Also, my regular doctor became ill herself, so I wasn’t dealing with the same physician that I’d had through my weight loss. By the time I went to the doctor, I had a sinus infection, ear infections and bronchitis.

The sinus infection, and bronchitis pairing has repeated itself twice since September. I’m sick with it again now. I’ve been diagnosed with chronic infections. I’m on super penicillin and steroids. The super antibiotic has plenty of side effects on it’s on. It hasn’t been fun. Hopefully this will finally kick it this time. So I have actually been sick and unable to go to the gym since basically July. I stopped eating right about that time too.

Something inside of me burst during those months and the honesty kept floating to the surface of my thoughts. I was SICK of eating like a bird. I was SICK of sitting by while the people around me indulged (and yes, I know it IS an indulgence) in scones or cookies at the coffee shop. I was sick of smiling when someone offered me a piece of cake at a party and saying, “Oh no, not me, thank you. I have xx many more pounds to lose.” My WHOLE LIFE had become about how many pounds I was supposed to lose, about how many time or hours I could spend at the gym. It never did. I cannot BE that girl who focus on pounds and inches and races, races to reach some goal on some board for the doctor.

It made me miserable. So sick for months and unable to work on being healthy at all and trying desperately to cope with this depression and figure who… who I was and what I wanted for myself, I have regained a good 50-60 pounds.

I feel like a failure. I feel like I let people down who thought I should look like I did in high school. I’m 46 years old. I’d rather read a book, or walk in the park or play a fantasy game than a sports game and any of you who knew me then should remember that is *exactly* what I was like, even if it’s not what I LOOK like anymore.

Gareth and I are supposed to go to a club/bar and see friends play in a band. Friend we haven’t seen since I was thin. I am too humiliated by how much weight I have regained to go. I want to cry, because thin or fat, I feel like a failure.

My plan, my hope is  to get back to the gym when I am well. Not every day. I’m already working on eating better again. I’m going to lose some of the weight I’ve regained. But not all of it. I deserve to have the curves that I think are sexy, and I deserve to be able to get undressed with the light on and not feel bad about that after as many years as my sweet husband and I have been together. Not only that, he let me in on his secret that he finds me more attractive more curvy than I was in a size 10. So there, society. Kiss my now fat, but (hopefully in the next year to be fitter and curvy) arse.

I realized before that I pushed so hard and so fast that I really did NOT lose weight in a very healthy manner. That’s okay. What I lose this time will be based more on strength training, more PiYo, more Yoga, Zumba for cardio because I love it not because I feel like if there’s a class I have to go. That’s crap.

I have to try be happy. That has to be the goal. Right?

So if you saw me 2 years ago and I was very thin, and you see me soon, and I’ve regained weight, I hope you aren’t disappointed in me. I’d like to think that if you are my friend, that you’d understand that sometimes life happens.

Tonight I wanted to do a “dry run” as it were on a dish that I thought would be perfect for a gym night. Gym nights are difficult at our house since we don’t usually get home until 8 or 8:30 p.m. and if dinner is at all time con suing or complicated we aren’t eating until 10p.m.! No one wants that. So on gym nights, dinner has to be fast. This is one that you wouldn’t necessarily want to to use too often, as the precooked turkey sausage IS fairly high in sodium. But once a paycheck, oh yeah. This was a big hit, and the sauce cooks in the same amount of time that it takes for the pasta to cook.

Here are the basic ingredients. One can of diced tomatoes (of course you could use fresh!), one can of tomato sauce, 1 box of whole wheat/high fiber pasta, 1.5 packages of turkey sausage crumbles (I've made this with the vegetarian fake sausage crumbles too), 2 TBPS crushed garlic, or 2-3 fresh chopped cloves, 1 bell pepper, 1 onion, some fresh basil, freshly grated park and seasonings to taste.

First, get your pasta water boiling. Add your pasta, and preheat your nonstick skillet. Here is my skillet. It’s worn out. more on that later.

My pan is WORN OUT! That's why I am participating in Kenlie's Calphalon Challenge at www.alltheweigh.com

Chop your peppers and onions and add them to the hot pan. Let them cook for a few minutes. You can add a pinch of salt here if you like to help the vegetables cook down. If you wanted to add any other veggies...mushrooms, cauliflower, etc, do it after letting your peppers and onions cook and get a teeny bit of carmalization (aka gently brown edges).

Next add your meat. Mine was defrosted, so I just added it in and it immediately began to brown (caramelize). You WANT to let this happen. It ads a ton of flavor!

Once your meat has browned, add your garlic. I used a GENEROUS 2-3 tablespoons. Stir. Let it cook for a minute or two until you can smell the garlic.

Next add your tomatoes and sauce. You will probably need to add between half a can and a can of water or vegetable broth as well. It depends on how chunky your family like their sauce. Mine want theirs fair loose, and I had opted for a penne pasta, so I added about 2/3 of a can of homemade broth. Stir well, then go ahead and add your spices. I added garlic pepper, paprika, salt free italian seasoning, and dried garlic. Yes, we LOVE garlic. Mix in. By this time your sauce should be gently simmering. You don't need or want a boil.

See this basil bloom (and leaves) that my daughter found on our basil plant this morning? Pretty, right?! She asked me what to do once she spotted it, and since we are using our basil plant for culinary purposes, we don't want it blooming right away. We pinch off the blooms and some leaves, rinse them and add them to dinner. Don't be afraid to eat those lovely blossoms, too!

Here is the sauce, finished with a little freshly grated parmesan and half of the basil. THe other half I gently mixed into the sauce after I turned the heat off. When you add fresh herbs you want to do so right after removing the dish from heat. You don't want to actually "cook" them and risk losing any of their gentle flavor and fresh nutrients!

Lastly, I want to tell you about Kenlie’s “Cook at Home with Calphalon” Challenge over on her website, All The Weigh. Kenlie is a HUGE inspiration to me (and hey, she’s met Richard Simmons so I am impressed by that alone, lol!). I strongly suggest that you check out her website overall. You won’t be unhappy that you did! The challenge being that over the next four weeks, participants are trying to cook and eat at home 5 nights out of the week! Fortunately for me, we cook and eat at home more often than we don’t, so this just  give she an opportunity to share dinner pictures with YOU. Hooray!

Check out her blog and challenge here:

http://www.alltheweigh.com/kenlies-cooking-at-home-with-calphalon-challenge/

Kenz, this pic is for you! My daughter's prepared plate!

My husband being in Australia was difficult for our entire family. Him, mostly, I think. The kids and I had each other, at least, while he was working very long hours in a completely foreign environment. His eating and exercise habits were totally off and he had to sleep a strange bed, alone. Sadly, I managed to alienate a person or two with my laments of our difficult (and painful) situation. That is done now, he is home and we are moving onward.

I have been struggling with my food and my exercise. I realize that part of it is mental. Part of it is our imminent journey out of state so soon after my husband’s month long absence. My life feels quite out of control and I think that is being reflected in my food choices.

I am craving sweets like a madwoman. Some of it is a reoccurrence of an issue that I struggled with earlier this year. I am so so so tired of documenting everything. Watching and counting every calorie and carb, adding protein and fiber and…and…and. Isn’t it exhausting? How do you keep from being exhausted from worrying about every bite and drink? I have to figure this out.

I am weighing in at 160 currently. 160 lbs. Less than I can ever remember weighing as an adult. Yes, I am still “overweight”. I am FAT. The Wii Fit said so just this morning. I have lost about 140 pounds. Yes, this means that I have lost very nearly half of my body weight. Half of me. A whole entire person, basically. We measured ourselves yesterday and I measured in at 5’5″. For YEARS I have believed that I was 5’6″. Now that I think about it, I am not sure why. I think I just miss remembered and that I was 5’4″-5’5″. Why on earth does an inch even matter?? Because ONE inch means that I have to lose yet another 10lbs on top of the 5lbs I still need to lose in order to get “to a healthy weight for my height”. I just wanted to cry with defeat. Not ANOTHER 10 lbs?!

So, here I am. Sick and tired of losing weight. Sick of having the continual never-ending goal. Sick of feeling like I simply cannot reach that goal because every time I get close some mysterious ‘something’ happens. Now, I am suddenly shorter than I have believed myself to be for years (all of my adult life? I don’t honestly remember anymore!) Shorter equals fatter. How can that be when I am healthier than I have ever been as an adult?

I guess the big issue here is when do I get to just rejoice? When do I get to stop looking at the never-ending goal and just BE HEALTHY?

“It’s good to have goals!”

It’s exhausting to have this goal. It’s also my own fault. Every time I have come close to a goal, I have mentally extended that goal so that while I celebrated I was already striving for the next step. There haven’t been any stopping to dance time on this journey. I want to just *dance*. I want to live my life as a healthy person, not live my life as a person who can’t achieve her goal.

I am routinely frustrating the people who love me with my complaints about how fat I am. Truthfully I FEEL fat many days. I think though, when I ponder it, that I don’t know if I “feel fat”, I just don’t feel like I am capable of not being a fat person. Is that a physical issue, or a mental issue? IS that truly me feeling like I look overweight or is that me feeling like I don’t have control (of myself, of my life, of my food, of my routine) and I equivocate that now with “being fat”?

Why do I feel fat? Why am I embarrassed to weight 160lbs? A few weeks ago I was down to 158. So part of my problem is that I am both mad at myself for the 2 lb gain and mad at my body/life/the world that I clearly cannot relax my eating habits AT ALL without a gain. I honestly have been thinking “Maintenance soon, hooray!” I’d love to be able to have a cookie with my coffee some days or even a cappuccino instead of a plain coffee some days. Maybe a piece of pumpkin bread AND an egg for breakfast rather than looking at the bread longingly and thinking, “No, you will get fat.”

Far too often I feel like instead of “eating healthy” or making healthy choices that I am denying myself. That mentality is designed to set me up to fail, so I need to get it straight. I really, really do.

I recently started a new weight lifting/strength training routine. The New Rules of Lifting for Women: How to Lift like a Man and Look Like a Goddess. I think in some ways this is a part of my problem. I HATE TO SWEAT. Always have. Yet I have learn and accepted that I need aerobics for my heart health, my lung health (to control my asthma), I need the activity to help control my diabetes and to keep my weight down. I love Zumba. L.O.V.E. it. I love Turbokick. I enjoy Hip Hop Hustle. I enjoy walking. Running hurts (and is boring…sorry my runner friends!) Biking is boring. So, I have been doing what I love. More and more I keep hearing, “You need to built lean muscle to look good and help keep the weight off.”

Seriously? Cause weight lifting is REALLY boring. Blech. The new routine goes quickly, partially because I am timing my rests, etc, which helps me not hate it quite so much. It’s also kicking my ass (literally, my glutes hate me today!) So now I have the challenge of weight training PLUS cardio to fit into my schedule. I also have to change how I eat to include more protein…and somehow lose another 15 stupid pounds. <insert frustrated scream here>

I have enough skin hanging now that some things don’t fit the way I’d like. I am pretty sure that I could wear size 8 pants easily enough…but I have skin that hangs like a “muffin top”. Yuck. I am wearing medium shirts…I have even put on a small or two BUT, my upper arms are still too large from the excess skin so they don’t work.

My husband (bless him, he truly is my rock and my strength and my sanity) told me last night, when I was upset about only being 5’5″ after all, that he routinely has to really look for me in stores when we get separated, and that when he finds me his thought processes are as follows, “No, that’s not my wife…there she, wait no…..she’s over, no, that’s not her. Oh! There she is, the skinny chick.” I laughed out loud when he said this and didn’t believe him. He said, “Seriously, darlin’, don’t you realize that you are routinely the skinniest person in an aisle when we shop?”

No. No I didn’t. I guess I only take note of the women who are skinnier than me, and I see them EVERYWHERE.

So, I know it’s time to set some new goals, ones that don’t involve weight since I am clearly still stuck on the numbers. Last night at the gym, my  goal was to hold a full on plank (NOT on my knees), for 40 seconds instead of the 30 seconds that I was only able to do the week before. I did it, but barely. Woo-freaking-hoo, huh?

I think I am just overwhelmed and tired, and dreading potential family politics and having to sleep in a strange bed with my (our) routine messed up while being excited about visiting with people that I miss terribly and love very much.

I think I have a blue. =(

So onward, forward, searching for the positive. Suggestions on non numerical goals? How about a perm? I really want curly hair. Silly, isn’t it? Well, I am a silly person sometimes. Onward….