Sick all weekend :(

Sunday, October 31, 2010

This past week has been pretty stressful. In addition to all that I told you in my blog about my family the company I work for had an enormous 3000 person event on Thursday which means all of us, no matter what we do, are expected to pitch in. Which is fine, I like to do manual labor sometimes. It feels good to work hard. Well I was feeling really off all week. Just exhausted beyond any normal level so I had a feeling I had something coming on. I was literally going home and going to sleep at 6PM every night. During a meeting with a new client on Tuesday night I broke out into cold sweets and almost passed out. It was embarrassing and it scared me. All of this lead up to Thursday afternoon, just hours before the event, my head filling up and throbbing like an overfull balloon. I knew I was in trouble. I made it through the event and most of work on Friday but by 3PM it was all I could do to sit at my desk so I went home. My fiance was home and awake, which is a rarity considering how much he works. I was happy because I thought we could watch movies and snuggle. I rented him the Thomas Crown Affair, which he loved (almost all movies in English are new to him so I can rent old movies all the time), and Sex in the City 2 for me. I felt like it was a bit too long and the Middle East portion was pretty lame. They could have cut that whole part out and it would have been better. I also think they have pretty much beat the dead horse on that series so I hope they go out gracefully. I love my fiance a lot and he is good at most things but not at taking care of me when I am sick. For some reason he always thinks I am exaggerating how bad I feel, forget that when he gets so much as sniffle he wants to be babied and curls up on the couch making his sick face for DAYS. When I asked him to make me something to eat because I was hungry he ordered chinese food. This was one of the few times I wished I actually had a can of soup in the house. I never buy canned soups. Too much sodium. I had some rice and protein and it worked out fine. He knows I don't like fried and greesy items so he made good choices.
Saturday I thought I was better in the morning, colds are good at tricking you, so we went out to run some errands and pick up groceries. By the end of groceries I was so tired I could barely keep moving. We came home. I forgot to get my soup, duh, and I was bummed when I got home. We spent the rest of the evening again curled up watching Ironman 2 and some Colombian shows on TV. I drugged myself on nyquil and slept until noon this morning. Drove him to work and then slept until 6PM. It really bites to wait all week for the weekend and then spend it in bed sick.
Our 3 year anniversary is next week! Yeah. I can't believe it has been that long already. I feel like we have always been together but that the time has flown by so fast at the same time. We decided last night to cancel our reservations at this fancy french place we had picked and to go out for sushi. I introduced him to sushi when he first moved here and he has loved it ever since. It seems like a more us kind of dinner and it should be fun. Nice way to celebrate.
Hopefully I will feel better soon. I did realize that being sick and having no appetite, a lot of my eating is boredom and stress, not physical hunger. I plan on focusing on hunger cues a lot more now. I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween weekend. I managed to escape candy free. We will see about the office tomorrow!

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Read this: "Should fatties get a room?"

Thursday, October 28, 2010

A blog with this title was published by a Marie Claire writer this week.

www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/dating-
blog/overweight-couples-on-television

Here is an article about the fury and outrage her article created. I am happy to see so many people standing up against this kind of ignorance.
www.shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/c
ontroversy-over-fatties-sparks-apology
-2404430/

If you google the subject there are lots of articles about it.

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I can't keep pretending I am ok

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

I have been doing my best to put on a happy face but I just can't anymore. My grandmother was diagnosed with colon cancer 2 years ago and she is in the final stages of hospice right now. They told us a few weeks ago that they didn't give her much longer. She can't keep food down and they have her pretty heavily medicated most of the time for the pain. Last week my mother who is very physically fit went in for an annual physical and was told she had severely high blood pressure and was diagnosed with gallstones. After all the tests they determined the blood pressure is due to the stress of what is going on with my grandmother.

On top of all this work has been a nightmare lately. My job is to go out and acquire clients. I get paid only by what the client buys. I can not tell you how many problems have occurred recently that I have no control over that have resulted in the loss of clients. If the kitchen makes a mistake I am the one who loses out, not them, and it has happened so much that I am at my wits end. I feel like I was lied to when I started this job about what this place is really like and the projections of what I would get paid. I was told integrity and honesty were the foundations of the company and I am really feeling like that is not the case at all. The other salesperson is passive aggressive and tries to poach any client of mine that calls the building so I feel like I am constantly on the defensive. This isn't how I want to feel everyday.
I also have no time for SP. I track etc but not to offer the support and friendship I want to be able to give to all the wonderful people who give it to me. I don't really know what to do. I just want to sleep all the time which I am sure is a coping mechanism. At least I am not resorting to food to destress. I just want to sit here and cry right now.
Oh and I fell down my front stairs this morning. If that wasn't like being kicked when I am down. I am ok except I twisted my foot pretty bad. Uggh

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It is necessary to acknowledge negative feelings

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

In the SP world it can be easy to get swept up in the we have to be positive at all costs mentality and while I think a huge part of this is being positive there are also a lot of negative feelings that come with the territory. It is necessary to acknowledge those feelings but what is more important is how you deal with them.

I am not going to pretend this is easy. If changing your life was easy and all sunshine and rainbows than everybody would be thin and it wouldn't be called a diet, it would be called super happy fun time. (Although that is a rather long name lol). I know some people freak out at the word diet but it has many meanings in the dictionary. My favorite was "a regulated selection of foods". When you look at it like it doesn't seem so scary to me because that is what I am doing. To pretend it is isn't hard or to feel ashamed to admit that it is will eventually lead to failure. I read so many blogs that start with "I am sorry for being negative" or "I am sorry I am whining". It is ok to put those feelings out there but then turn them into a way to keep moving. Negativity is not okay when you use it as an excuse. "Oh well, today sucked so now I am going to have 3 cookies. Well now that I am eating crap on a daily basis and justifying it why am I not losing weight? It must be that working out is doing nothing so now I am going to stop working out and keep eating junk because I am mad". I have been there and I have made all those justifications to myself.
Now, in our new lives, we can say "today was rough and yes I stress ate a few snacks in the office break room but I learned a good lesson. I need to pack my lunch and plan ahead". At first it was hard for me to be able to get past mistakes. As soon as I wasn't perfect my fear of failure was so strong I would quit. I used the wrong sources of validation, ie the scale alone, be my guide for success. I ran up the stairs yesterday when I went to meet my new client. Wait, read that again. I RAN UP THE STAIRS IN HEELS. 8 Months ago I had to take the stairs slowly, climbing up each one with both feet because my knees couldn't support my weight as I went up to the next step. I used to make sure none of my neighbors were around so they wouldn't see me. So, the next time you are feeling down and are afraid to express those feelings remember, we have all been there. Look for the awesome things happening in your life as a result of your new good habits and find a way to see a way to turn it around. If I can do it. We all can.

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Self Diagnosis: Phantom Fat Syndrome

Monday, October 25, 2010

Sounds like it could be a real condition right hehe? Have you ever heard of how people after they experience the lose of a limb say they still feel it there even years after the loss? That is kind of how I feel sometimes. After losing 73 lbs I am quite a bit smaller but I don't feel that way.
Before I used to barely fit in a booth or worry at a restaurant if the seats were too close to another table.

Now when I go to sit down I still do the strange suck in and contort in weird angles to get into the seat and.... there is a foot of space extra. People must look at me like I am a weirdo.

Before I used to have to turn sideways to get past someone or smash myself up against the wall in fear of ridicule

Now I can comfortably walk past someone in the hall and there are no issues but I still try to squish out of the way

Before my dog or my fiancé couldn't lay next to me on the couch because there was only a few inches to the edge. This was one of the things that was the most upsetting to me.

Now when I sneak the dog onto the couch when my fiancé isn't home there is room for him and me and plenty more space beyond. Last night when he hopped up I smashed myself up against the back of the couch and sucked in and then looked down and was genuinely shocked by how much space there was.

Before when we would sit next to each other I would spill into his seat and still not be comfortable. He sweetly always pretended he just liked to be so close to me.

Now we have plenty of room and then some and my knees don't ache anymore from being stuck in the same position.

Before I automatically grabbed the largest size on the rack.

Now I still have the instinct to grab the largest size but intellectually I know I am much much smaller so I grab the most recent size I have been wearing and the next size smaller.

I still most days don't see myself as different. I went to have coffee with a girl friend of mine and she hadn't seen me since I started SP. She could not believe how different I look. I still have days where it is hard for me to see it because I still feel like the fat is there. Whenever I feel like this I put on my old pair of big pants and laugh at how big they are on me. I even am down another pants size which made me happy because I have been feeling like I am so bottom heavy. I wish fat was lost all over and not in some strange fun house random way because I really wanted little boobs and a big butt (yes, that is sarcasm). I even had to give up my trophy 7 brand jeans that I bought when I first lost the big chunk of weight. I was so emotionally attached to them but I finally had to admit as much as they meant to me they weren't flattering and someone else should get to appreciate them too. I am glad they get to continue to make someone else happy as well. It made me realize I am more than a number on a scale or a size in a pair of jeans. It also made me realize that this fight will not just be about losing the weight but fighting against my perceptions of myself.

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