The weightloss Journey revisted...

Disclaimer: Just so we're clear, I don't care what people choose for themselves. You can be thin, plump, cushiony, whatever terms are used for people on either end of the physical spectrum.  This blog is about my own personal journey and the choices I had to make and the choices I was forced to make.

A year ago I began a journey that required me to dig deep and hold fast to a belief that I could get to where I wanted to be physically.  In a healthy body, mind and spiritually aesthetic state.  No no, I am not going to preach about how being fat makes you the devil, or only thin people go to heaven. LOL!  I mean a spiritual state where everything around you makes sense, looks beautiful and requires no judgment, because I am content with myself and who I am.

As many of you know, I was born with Tetralogy of Fallot.  Due to this birth defect, I had to have what my mom would later tell me was life saving heart surgery at three years old, because waiting until five, well, I might not have made it.  Needless to say, she hovered like a trench coat on a stormy day and watched everything I did carefully while I was growing up. I even had to ask if I could have a soda or a candy bar (if she was around), up until high school.  That is when the slippery slope began.  Armed with peer pressure, judgmental peers and vending machines with anything and everything, this once skinny and insecure girl, found that every little comment mattered.

When an Aunty told me that she was happy to see me putting on weight, (it wasn't my fault, I had a fabulous metabolism) and that I wasn't rail thin anymore, I took it the wrong way and began the even slipperier slope, *music* dun dun dun.....dieting.  Yep, that's what does many people in, in my opinion. Screwing with your body for a quick fix.  Fat, tall, thin, small, I think everyone is beautiful.  I just need to be kind to my heart and that meant getting healthy.

In the tradition of many people, I began to eat horribly after a boyfriend would break-up with me.  They tell you that you are their world, you believe, then they either cheat on you, or break-up with you.  Don't fret boys, I know girls do it to, this is just my story and what has happened to me.  I have only broken up with one man and that was for a myriad of reasons that could have sent me into a downward spiral. I did okay, at first, until I found out that because I didn't tell him I was moving in with a friend and her husband, he thought I had been cheating on him.  Emotionally that wrecked me and I ate, slowly, but surely, packing on the pounds.  Why?  Because I had given that relationship everything I had, so his thought process was like a knife to my heart.  (I know, so dramatic...so Scarlett O'Hara. lol!  I was younger then.  *shrugs*). 

After while it just became harder.  Five pounds led to ten, ten to twenty.  It's a reasonable amount to lose, unless you are, as mentioned before, insecure about yourself, and I was increasingly so.  My parents always told me I was pretty, but I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 18 and out of high school. I felt like a social failure in that department and of course, once I put on even more weight, because I was depressed with my new, expanding figure, I ate more.  Emotional eating, don't do it. That should be a PSA.  Some don't believe it is real, but it is.  It's a void filler. A momentary comfort to replace or hide whatever you're dealing with in that moment.  Another slippery slope.

There are reasons behind my behavior, but they're not important, what is important is that in order for me to succeed at weightloss, I had to take the reins of my carriage and drive it myself.  Not the depression I had slipped into, or the negative things I would hear complete strangers say, when out with friends, I had to take control of my life and I decided to do so.

As mentioned in previous blogs and the main reason I started the Journey blog posts, I began the weightloss preliminaries in June at my mom's prompting.  She had been diagnosed with Cancer the month before and, I believe now, terminal from the word go.  I started it for her, but found on the way that I could be emotional and not eat.  I learned my new mantra that popped in my head one day, "feel the emotion, don't feed the emotion," and wrote it down to remind myself that it is okay to cry, or be angry, or just release whatever it is you are feeling, including happiness, because YES! I eat when I am happy too! *facepalm*  Excellent at burying my feelings, for awhile, like a shaken bottle, they do  burst out, so if you have the ickies, don't hang on to them. Even if you need to slip into the bathroom, or a quiet room, let it flow forth.  Admittedly on the day my mom died, we were right in the middle of the four month program. I caved and ate, but to my surprise, I didn't eat like I wanted to. I had a little salad, a chicken strip and a few French fries. Yes, the fries were bad, but it wasn't a full blown meal.  I was well on my way to success and taking important notes along the way.

Now, as many of us know, success doesn't happen overnight. Neither does weightloss, but the journey can be a remarkable one if you let it.  Off my program since November, it dumped us right at the holidays (yikes!), I have been a little bouncy in my weight, but never the less, still succeeding with eating better and yes, exercising.  It's amazing how soul cleansing an early morning or late evening walk can be. 

Last month, one of my best friends, who was like a sister to me passed away from breast cancer.  I had now lost two very significant people in my life in less than a year to a horrid disease, but I didn't succumb to full blown emotional eating.  I allowed myself the ickies and when that didn't work, I allowed myself to fall off the wagon for a day and just let myself go.  Unfortunately, and honestly, for me, this was not a good decision, as I almost gave up the reins to my wagon. 

Reeling from yet another significant loss in my life, I was thinking a few days ago that this is it.  I have the opportunity to be healthy and to be the master of my own universe.  I want the wonderful things in life, I want my dreams to come true, a successful writing career, a family of my own, etc., but that aside, and more importantly, I am seeing who I am now.  I am a person who is passionate about my interests, willing to try new things and who wants to be happy.  If you believe, anything is possible.

Yesterday I got back on track and this morning my best friend sent the attached picture.  He had found it last week and said that when he thought I needed it the most, he would send it to me.  It was a wake-up call to how far I had come and quite the motivational tool as well.  I am still on my journey, but I realized how much my hard work and determination has paid off. 


I had bloomed, a little too well, physically, but somewhere in that haze of eating and being down on myself, I found ways to be happy and now that I am releasing all of this weight out into the far reaches of space, where it can no longer touch me, I find I am blossoming as a person.  Sissy Jo once told me years ago, "Shell, it doesn't matter how much weight you lose, you have to be happy with you on the inside, before you can be happy with you on the outside."  I have never forgotten those words. Despite the picture on the left below, my smile had become genuine, it had found a place in my life along with finding happiness in the things around me.

Everyone has a light, so let yours shine.  I wrote this blog, because for years, I felt alone and didn't think people's weightloss struggles were like mine...but they are, we just handle them differently.  No matter what got us to that point, the journey back is the hardest and having love and support from those you trust, can make a great difference.  Never judge a book by it's cover, because the story inside, could be your own.

Until the next time....be yourself. love yourself.  enjoy yourself...because this will allow others to love and enjoy you too. <3

Yes, that is my phone in my hand, but for good reason. I had to find my dad, who came to support me and my coach, after the race...oh and I thought I might take a picture or two along the route, but I didn't.  You can't take the photo taking out of the photographer, except on maybe this day. ha!

Rolling with the tide....

I have been told in recent months that I should just learn to "go with the flow", and let life spill out before me the way it is supposed to.  I know in life we can't control anything, but what we do in each moment.  We can send things out to God, or the Universe, or whatever one's beliefs might be, but even then you have to have faith and believe.  And I try.

I am sending this blog through 'The Journey' posting, as opposed to my Capricorn Tales, because I feel like the last year has been a journey and a half.  I have touched on death in my life, my weight loss journey and the steps my father has taken to make himself happy.  What I don't think I ever did was let any of it go in the process.

My cousin told me that blogging my emotions might be best for me.  Why I don't know.  I tweet the hell out of my day, but truly I can be a very private person, sending out cryptic messages to the one person that reads my tweets...me.  I think it is something of a *if you could shake some sense into yourself* move, but until this moment, I don't think I ever truly understood that.

I began this blog a year ago to document my journey through the Optifast program.  Some read it and contacted me on the side to offer encouragement, and in return needing some for themselves.  I had been thin up until my late twenties, when after another bad relationship fail/break-up, with the man I thought was the one, I began to hide myself behind the eating. 

For someone who had open heart surgery at three years old, this was the ultimate no-no.  As of my last Doctor's appointment, my heart is still fine and beating like a champion, but of course it was years of battle rounds with my doctor who finally told me, "Keep chipping away at the weight, so a doctor (surgeon) won't have to chip away at you."  I am in no way becoming a health nut, just a healthier nut (LOL), but I also steer clear of fast food for every meal.  Emotional Eating...the ultimate DON'T!  Yeah, that last sentence makes sense to me.

The program was a test of wills and I don't just say that because, as I mentioned, I am an emotional eater, but also because when I finally decided to do it, it was after my mama was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.  She told me, "babe, if you don't do it now, you will never do it", so I did it and we traveled a path together that not only made me face my emotional eating dilemma, but also gave me a small perspective on what she had to deal with.  In a nutshell, the pain caused her to lose her appetite and this was a woman who liked a good meal. Seafood, steaks, anything with flavor. As for me, it was shakes, soups and a protein bar.  There were times when we would both get a chuckle out of a commercial and all you could hear in the living room was, "That looks good".  Those were the nights I would return to my hometown and give my dad some caregiver relief on the weekends. I will never be able to stop saying what an angel he in mom's last months of life. It was true testament to their love and long marriage.

Those were tender moments with mama, moments, I will always cherish.  I had always hoped she would be around when I published my first book, but one night as we spent two hours saying everything, she willed to me her strength to get through life and to make sure everyone else did too.  I wear my heart on my sleeve on Twitter, because about 1% of my followers actually knows me.  Sometimes it's just a place to vent, so I can be strong for everyone else.  I don't see my problems as being any greater than someone else's, no matter how small it might seem to someone.  Each problem is relative and a stone to learning something new.

In September we lost my mom, after a four month, excruciatingly painful, progression of her cancer.  A cancer that is hard to diagnose, or identify from regular tests. I can say with 99% certainty that she was diagnosed at the terminal stage.  Sissy Jo constantly tried to offer encouragement.  A cancer survivor herself, she too was in the battle for her life, having been diagnosed again, 6 years earlier with stage 4 breast cancer, that she was still bravely fighting.  It is no secret that mom's passing left a void in so many more people than just dad, myself and mom's siblings. She is still greatly missed, but I suppose for dad and I, she always will be.

Several months later, my dad decided to try online dating...okay, five months later. It didn't matter to me. He was lonely and I think he was just looking for a friend.  I am not sure how this relationship will turn out, but I do think my mama had a hand in it. She told me before she passed, to make sure dad didn't stop living, that he deserved to be happy too.  While I like the woman he is dating, this too was an emotional upheaval in my life, just as I was wrapping my head around mama's passing.  It was just another reminder that she was gone, but on the other hand, it was nice to see dad happy again.  He sometimes seems like a teenage boy, even asking me for advice, which cracks me up.  I guess being single gives you a better perspective into people's lives? A less biased perspective? I don't know, but at times I feel like the advice guru. haha!

I was happy for dad from the word go.  What makes him happy, makes me happy and like I said, she is nice, so that helps immensely.  What it boils down to is this, I can't bring my mom back, so you have to move forward.  For me it also meant pushing through my own feelings about seeing him with another woman.  That was new for both of us, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Around that time Sissy Jo and I had also decided to grow our hair back together.  She had lost hers due to radiation treatment, so I cut mine to not only show support, but to show her I would do anything for her.  Like Sis Laura, she's a soul sister and even though she and I could fight a good fight, there was never any doubt we would step in front of a bus to save the other.  What I didn't know was that in less than six months, she too would be gone. Mama at 66, sissy Jo, 46. 

I will be eternally grateful that I was able to spend her last night with her, having gone over to help out, because she was still weak from a very long hospital stay.  We laughed, we giggled, we got serious when she predicted my future of a husband and a baby and a successful writing career.  It was serious, because those were her dreams for me.  I simply replied, "My dream for you, is to finally go into remission, so you can just keep having fun and be with the man of your dreams."  The next morning I hugged her goodbye, told her "I love you sissy, see you later," and found out five hours later she had passed. 
If a memory can be a prize, then that is one of my prized possessions, spending her last night on this earth with her.  That was June 29th and though it's only been three weeks, my heart still aches for her and my mama and it hurts even more when I think about all the people that feel so empty and lost without their presence.  I hope one day when it is my time to leave this earth, I have done enough good to warrant those feelings as well.  The emptiness we feel is a true testament to their souls and how they lived their lives, with love and passion put into everything they did.

In the interim and certainly not to be forgotten, was Aunty Patsy, a close family friend, passing two days before Thanksgiving, and cousin, AJ.  I didn't see AJ much in my adult life, but to know he had a wife and kids, made the ache that much more real. 
I think about all of these people who have lost their battles to something so horrid and damaging to everyone affected by it and those who love them and I think about how hard they fought.  My mama tried, but the pain was just too much, but she made her peace with everyone and the world and I truly believe she chose her time to go. 

I am not sure if I have much more to add, or if perhaps this is everything left inside of me that I needed to release to feel a little bit more in touch with my emotions.  I cry.  I get angry. I am sometimes sad, but I try to replace those moments with the thoughts of my mama and sissy who were often there when I felt like life would never begin for me.  Sis Laura and my cousin Marie, two people I adore and cherish as sisters, have been two of my rocks, since I don't choose to talk to many people about these things, especially my dad, since I know he misses my mom too. 
These feelings seem too private to share and I am only doing it now, because my cousin Marie believes it will help me find closure.  I don't like things being about me, good or bad (especially not bad. haha).  These are feelings that are close to my heart, but I hope perhaps, if one person reads this, they will know they are not alone and that it is okay to cry, or be sad, or wonder why? and most importantly, open up and share with someone, even if just writing to a bunch of strangers.  This is life and this is how we, as humans, deal with each passing moment that life hands us, good, bad or indifferent.

Emotions can be tricky, but if you don't hold them inside and you allow people to help you through them, I think it might allow for the healing, in any troubling situation, and the happiness will return.

As Lord Byron once said, "No wound ever healed without a scar", so true, but then at some point scars become reminders and it is up to choose whether or not we want it to be an ugly scar, or a one filled with memories of people we have loved so dearly.

Thank you for your patience with this long post and well, just thank you for "listening". 
Live, love and laugh.  It's the best medicine.
Until the next time...hang in there, you are not alone.



Saying goodbye to mama...My Eulogy...but it has meaning...

I am posting a copy of my eulogy per my cousin's request.  The picture of the pink post-it below accompanied by eulogy and has attached to it the last "Selfie" we took as a family at Disneyland.  This would be our last trip there together. 

 

Love strongly. Live with gratitude. Never go to bed angry with anyone.  Remember Love. 

 

          ‘Seasons of Love’ is the one song that really helped me through the last few months.  It spoke to me more than other songs usually do.  I have always liked the song, but it wasn’t until my mom was diagnosed with cancer that I truly understood it.  In fact, the day she told me she was stopping all treatment I Just happened to see this quote, “When you’re happy, you enjoy the music.  When you’re sad, you understand the lyrics”.  There are no truer words than those and for me, the song became an unofficial anthem for her journey that brought each one of us along for the ride, no matter how close or how far, especially dad, who took excellent care of her from the very beginning, to her last breath, while he sat by her side and held her hand.

 

I wrote down parts of the song that spoke to me the most during Mama’s journey, purposely leaving out the line about dying, because I had hope, as thinly veiled as it was.  I wanted to believe, because imagining a world without her in it, seemed truly unbearable.

Mama had a way about her as many of you know.   She had trouble with cliché’s and she always made the funniest comments and then would forget about them later.  For instance, one time while she and dad were visiting, she made an off the cuff remark about how she would not stay at this one Hilton near Disneyland, because the light was out in the “I”. This was because, she went on to say, “if they can’t keep that lit, how do I know their elevators work right?”  So for months sis Laura and I joked about not going to places with a light out and when she came back to visit, we did the same thing with her in the car, and she was like “Why? Maybe it’s just out.”  We just laughed and reminded her of what she said and then she laughed too. 

            Mama could be silly like that.  Her laugh was contagious and her smile could light up a room.  She also never said no to a prayer request, no matter how small someone thought it might be and she would remember to check back up on those people with me, even when I had long forgotten.  She was short on memory when it came to funny incidences, but she was long on memory when it came to caring about people. 

On April 14^th I took a picture I later posted on Facebook that would be the last “selfie” my parents and I took at Disneyland.  I captioned it “my eternal heart and soul” with a hashtag of “they make it better”.  That was just weeks before everything began to spiral into the reason we are here today, but I don’t need to tell you how much mama meant to me, because all of you already know this, what I am here to say is to commit the words on the pink paper to memory.  Take a picture if you want to. You tube the song if you like. 

In her heart, mama still had 525,600 journeys to make with my dad, or with her golden girls, or even with me.  I know that while I have measured moments in cups of coffee or in midnights, Mama had lived them.  She had laughter, she had sadness, she had happiness, she anger.  She was human, but she loved and that is why you all are here.  So never let her story end.  Let’s celebrate her.  Let’s take her journeys even if they are our own.  If she pops into your mind, take a picture, because maybe it means for that moment, she has chosen to peek in to see what adventure you are on and has decided to share it with you.

Mama measured her life in love and though I will miss her every day, I choose to remember her in love.  She asked me before she made her journey, “please don’t be sad, be happy for me, because I will be in a good place and I will feel better.”  My response was to cry, because she was being taken away from us to soon, but she just held my hand, told me she loved me and she said she would miss me too, but that she would always be with dad and I.  

Ellen Lucas was dad’s Love and my mama.  She was Puddy and she was Ellen and though in many ways, life will never be the same for us, let us all remember her by measuring our life in love and moments lived, because I feel that is what she would want us to do.  So as she asked, and in time I will be able to do, Do Not be sad, but be happy for her, because I know she is smiling down at the love being shown to her today and at how much her moments counted and all I ask, is that you do what she did and Measure your life in Love.

-Shellymarie

Optifast - Day 36

Well, it has been a quite an emotional eight days since I last wrote, but you know, as my father says to me, "you have to keep living your life because, life continues on."  My mom is still in the clutches of her illness, but she is perking up not being on her cancer meds/chemo anymore, so if nothing else we are seeing a little bit of her spunkiness and fire for the time that we have with her.  We have our moments of scary times, like when she coughs so hard she can't breathe, but then hospice is anything but normal.  What is especially hard is being almost two hours away from my wonderful parents.

I suppose you wonder why I share that, well it's because again, it ties into emotional eating and eating of any sort.  When you have someone who is sick, you have visitors. Friends and family come by and when they come by they bring food.  You also have family that comes to town to visit and stay the night, or two, or three if it is a holiday weekend, which of course means even MORE food.  That said, I was the weight loss beast this weekend and I even impressed myself.  Having been given the task of food runner, since my dad had gone to opening day for our beloved Aztecs with the guys, (a much needed break for my care giving papa). I stayed home with mama, the aunties, the cousin and the baby cousins, who needed to be fed.  Forty-Five minutes later and stops at Subway, McDonalds, KFC, Machos Tacos and the grocery store with the Starbucks staring at me, I survived. I prevailed. I looked food in the eyes and said "ha! not today!".  The smell was hard to not succumb to, but I did it and reminded myself that the journey is just another part of this adventure I am on and that this too shall pass.  Of course when we got home, dad had stopped at the donut shop and Wienerschnitzel.  Sigh...No, I did not eat that either.  Weight loss beast I tell ya, weight loss beast.

Anyway, that has managed to get me through the last few days, because I tell you, while I have beaten one battle on the emotional eating, it still does come and go and there are times when I am so upset, I do want to reach for food, but then I begin to deal with my emotions, as my saying goes (feeling the emotions, not feeding the emotions) and suddenly I have no appetite, so it is just a matter of reminding myself to not ignore how I am feeling and just face the fact that bad things happen to good people and sometimes it affects the entire family.  I still cry, I still don't sleep well, but that is my life right now.  However, I enjoy my time with my special mama, because what I do take comfort in now is seeing what a beacon of light she has been for everyone who knows her and loves her.  Dad too...I see how much they worry about him as well and that is just a testament to how wonderful my mom and dad are...and now you can see why for me, it is so hard to know that one day I will have to move on without one of them.

I have always said my parents were the universal parents for everyone who didn't have one close by or in their life...but in honor of mama who is still cheering me on...I got this. <3

Optifast - Day 28

Well hello again!  Sorry it has been so long between posts, a lot has happened since I last wrote.  Life can sometimes be like one big catch 22 can't it?  I think I might have finally broken the cycle of emotional eating, but sadly the discovery came at the expense of some extremely emotionally, heart ripping news.  In my last post I wrote about my mom's Pancreatic cancer.  I do apologize for being so candid about that, since this is a blog about my weight loss journey, but somehow I think for me, it all ties in together...my emotions and eating that is.  Well, long story short, last Wednesday on my way to class my mom called me and told me that she had made the decision to discontinue all forms of treatment for her cancer.  She's just too tired and too weak.

 

My father and I disagreed with her decision, but then again, she's my mom and like dad, I don't want to let her go, but I know we can't force her to live in a body that is not cooperating with her, so short of a miracle, it's just a waiting game now for my wonderful parents and myself.

 

So where did that breakthrough come in, you ask?  Well, all of my life I have fed my emotions, usually to the point of a 'food coma' and then falling asleep.  While I was driving and listening to my mom tell me what she had decided, I passed three or four fast food places and even though I am on my diet, I thought, nope, don't want it.  I know I could have cheated, who would have known, but it's not because I was on my diet that I didn't cheat, it's because for the first time in all of my life, I allowed myself to "feel the emotion, not feed the emotion", as my new saying I coined two weeks ago says and for the first time in my life and like many people do, I lost my appetite for anything, for about two days...literally needing to force my five supplements on me...and  I cried.  I told her I understood and while I didn't like it, I accepted her decision because she needs to do what is best for her, but it doesn't mean I didn't feel the heartbreak, because I did.  I still do...she's my mom.   

 

I have to tell you, it's an interesting feeling, this feeling.  I thought I knew what it was like, but it is different when you're not feeding the anger, or the sadness, or the happiness.  There is so much more power to that emotion than I ever thought and yet, when it is finally released for that moment, there also seems to be that much more completion in that moment.  These are my own steps and feelings of course, since I don't know how everyone else feels about it, but it's how I feel and of course, this is my journey, but if one person reads this that has my same exact problem, then I hope it helps that one person, because, feeding my problems and masking them behind food, is what got me to the weight I was at before I began this weight loss program and this journey.  It's been an interesting one and not always easy, but it's been an eye opener and a soul searching one as well. 

 

I'm not sure what the next entry will bring, but for now, I've still got this...

Optifast - Day 18

I think I am beginning to narrow down my struggles, though I admit, the timing of this process was not the greatest on my part, but also done on purpose to help me overcome the greatest of my obstacles, emotional eating.  I have always been one to emotionally eat when a crisis has arose and since I began this process I have faced my first challenge, my family.  As a single woman, I live about 110 miles away from my parents in the next county to the north.  Sure, that isn't far, but I don't get down to see them every weekend due to my own commitments.  On May 19 of this year, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer, which had spread to the liver and has also moved a bit into her lungs.  This alone helped me pack on about fifteen to twenty pounds, sending me to a starting point of 240.3, but not my highest weight, which I believe was about 255 sometime in my late thirties.

I am an emotional eater.  Yes, I am sure people say this is an excuse, but to be honest, I believe it to be a true affliction.  It's a void filler, a comfort choice and sadly it's only one of my many options.  I abuse food...not healthy food, but comfort food...anything that tastes good and is readily available, like fast food.  It's my choice and my choice alone and I am sure if I found more constructive ways of dealing with my "emotional pain", I wouldn't be emotionally eating, but this is how I learned to incorrectly cope.  That said, I am doing what I can to make amends, because, to make matters worse, I am a survivor of a pediatric heart surgery.  Born with Tetralogy of Fallot, I should be an advocate of heart health, well okay, I am, but what I should actually be, is an advocate of heart health, who lives a healthy lifestyle...and now this is what I am trying to achieve.  

I am not without my dark moments in my life, many of us have them, many of us just emotionally eat.  My eating was driven by past pain.  Now it is being driven by watching my mom who admits to not being much of a fighter, during the fight of her life.  She was the spunky one.  The one who prayed for everyone. The one who took care of everyone and now here she is, fighting for her own life and sitting in a chair not saying much to anyone anymore.  When I see her, it's like seeing a shell of person I once knew and now being on this diet, I am learning to "Feel the emotion, not feed the emotion".  A saying I came up with last week in order to deal with not being able to reach for the nearest comfort food.  

I started this program at this time on purpose, because I wanted to, pardon the expression, "kill two birds with one stone".  I need to lose weight and I need to finally learn how to face pain and not just shove it deep inside.  I don't know how chemo is going to turn out for my mom, but I do know that I have to trust that no matter what happens, that my dad has been the best caregiver any spouse could ever ask for and that I have done what I could as their only child to give him the breaks he needs when I visit, as well as be a good daughter to my mom for whatever time she has left on this earth, whether it be months or years.  I want her to stay with us, I want her to live for years. Heck, I keep praying, wishing and putting out to the universe for that miracle and that she will be better, but the one thing I am learning from this program is that the only thing I can control is me, not the world and everyone in it.

I can only control what I do and the choices I make and being in this program is one of the choices I have made.  I need to get healthy and I need to be in a place so my heart has a chance and I have a chance.  It's a possibility that type 2 diabetes lead to my mom's condition, though not proven, but since I am also on the brink of that, I need to make sure that I detour my path and get back on the highway to healthy. This is how I start.

This has been a hard week.  I have craved again, I have wanted to eat and once again I succeeded at not succumbing to my desires for "real" food.  Two months and 5 days until we transition back onto real food.  On the bright side, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party will be that Friday and despite being an Annual Passholder, I am going with friends and will be able to test my ability to make good choices.   Then two weeks following, I will be able off to the Magic Castle for a wonderful night with a few of the same friends for a night of fun and actual eating and choosing well again and I believe I will be able to do it this time and maintain my weight.

So these are my thoughts for today.  These are my words for another blog.

Until the next time.  I can still say, I got this...

Optifast - Day 10

I had hoped to write after my second class, but in hindsight, I am glad that I didn't.  The first week didn't go without it's cravings and temptations, but turns out I faced my hardest day yet.  Day 9.  I don't know what happened, but yesterday was a rough one for me.  I had an eye appointment in the morning, which put me a wee behind schedule on drinking my drink.  I thought perhaps I could just drink it in the car on my way to work, which was working out fine until I forgot half of the supplement in the car and decided not to go back for it...big mistake.  I don't know it if was my mind or my body, but I truly believe this threw me off for the rest of the day.  I didn't think there was much left in it, but when I got back to the car at the end of the day, there was still half a box left.

When I got into the office, I had some tea, like I have been doing, then some water, but not enough to sustain me.  If I want this program to work, I need to start sticking to the details and making them work for me, like finishing my entire supplement "juice box", as I call them, since that is exactly what the ready mades look like.  I had spare supplements in my cubby hole that we received in our trial week before class started, but I thought I would be okay...another big mistake.  I have to stop worrying about how much weight I want to lose and start focusing on the weight I am losing each week. I was afraid to put on a few calories, so I did not want to make a whole new supplement which I should have, because the rest of the day I was craving food. Nothing in particular, but something as simple as a saltine cracker...I thought, what if I ate just one, but no. no no.  Food is not an option for me.  Other people can cheat, but I don't want to, I want to stick to the book with this program... and fortunately I stuck with my evening plan, I made my tomato soup, added some garlic powder and in the meantime also made my optifast chocolate "pudding", which seemed to cure my foodie blues.

I am fully aware that the end result for this process is going to be a good thing, but getting there can be one of two ways, fun, but not so easy, or hard and hard and I am determined to make it fun and not so easy. I am determined to find different ways to make this process interesting and exciting for me.  I have just under 14 weeks to go, or something like that and just over 10 weeks until we transition back to food, but for as busy as I am and for as many things as I have coming up, this can come quickly and I look forward to what is in store in those 10-14 weeks.  I know anything will be better than being 240.3 pounds (Kp's scale) which is where I started.  This morning I weighed myself and I was 230.0 (my scale) pounds exactly. In a week and a half I have lost 7 pounds, without this program, I would be at 2 pounds a week, so I have to remember the strides I am taking and keep shooting for that.

This program isn't necessarily for everyone, but it is for me and I know I can do this and I know I will stick to this....it's time for a change and to not just talking about it.  For once I am going to finish what I start and I going to show myself that I can.

Until the next time.

I got this.....