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.....

Optifast - Day 6

I can't believe that tomorrow will be one week since I started the program, which means one week closer to being done.  So far according to my scale I have lost a few pounds which is fine by me, since I know I haven't drank the amount of water I should have, but I am confident that this program is going to work wonders for me and I am excited.

I had some challenges this last week, like the movies with friends who like me love popcorn, hot dogs and candy, but of course I couldn't have any.  Then of course there was Sunday at the Races with the group, which was fun, but again another test when everyone is nibbling and eating lunch in front of you, but again, I survived the food and alcohol temptation, which was quite an awesome feeling.  There is something to be said about a good feeling of accomplishment.

My next test will be this Saturday at a 40th birthday celebration, but then again there will be tests everywhere.  Emotional eating, birthday's, cravings, etc.  800 calories a day with the same food all the time isn't going to be easy, but we will make it work somehow.  It has to.

I am curious to see how class goes tomorrow since last week was more of just an introduction than anything else.   The instructor last week said that this week we are going to share...hmmm

Optifast - Day 3

I am finished with day three and I swear I thought I wasn't going to make it through day two, let alone today.  The hardest thing is seeing the food lying around the house, but also the smell of food, which is really what gets my taste buds going.   I am not necessarily a foodie, but I do love food and I love good food and food that tastes as delicious as it smells.  I have to admit, going from how ever many "gajillions" of calories a day that I was eating to just 800 a day has been close to insane for me and I literally mean mentally exhausting.  I feel like I am losing my mind and my cool, as my body adjusts to this new "diet", though I am reluctant to call it that, I prefer lifestyle change.  As the quote said the other day, I don't plan on finding the weight after I lose it.

I have allowed myself to get to this point by emotionally eating, not paying attention to my health,  not exercising, etc., but I know I am not at a point of no return, no one is.  I know I can do this, I know that even though these last few days have been a struggle, that the end result will be worth it.  I sometimes think of my mom who is battling Pancreatic cancer and strangely I draw strength from her, because it's not comfortable for her do so, but she pushes through and tries, since the tumor is in a position that makes it uncomfortable for her to digest.  I suspect it will also be some time before her taste buds begin cooperating with her,  since she just finished round 2 of chemo, but I also want to give her one less thing to worry about and since I am a woman, who had heart surgery as a child, I am also doing this for her, aside from myself. 

I survived today, as dramatic as that sounds, but I did.  I went to the movies with Troy and Jason and while they munched on Popcorn, soda's, candy and Hot Dogs, I ate my Optifast Peanut Bar and drank my Tazo Tea.  I am a sucker for popcorn, but I made it. I didn't think about it and I was okay.  It was hard at first, but I did it.  Tomorrow Sis Laura and I are going to Del Mar to attend the races with Dad. It'll be weird not seeing mom there, but I know she has to get better.  

I know tests will come and go and I will face them like I do everything else, with strength and courage.  It seems silly and dramatic, but this is a new feeling for me, a dawn of a new era for me. I am 41 years old and I feel like for once I am finally taking control of my life and for the better.  I want to be a part of the world again. I left it fourteen years ago when I broke up with my last boyfriend and since then I have hidden behind food and sadness and depression, holed up in an invisible room afraid to let anyone in.  I miss companionship. I miss being held by a man. I miss kissing and cuddling and dates and so on and while I know that people of many shapes and sizes can find significant others, my inability to appreciate myself has kept me from this. Not just because of my weight, that was just a factor I used to hide from the world, or more appropriately, an excuse I used.  Many things have kept me from the world, but like many who "fast" to find spiritual awareness, perhaps this journey to help my heart and myself get into a better place, will also help my mind and my soul get there too.

That's why this is a journey and it's one that I think will push me to the brink of finally having no other choice but to learn how to finally love myself for who I am and all I can be and for all I already am.

I've got this.

Day 1 - First day of Optifast

"I am not losing weight. I am getting rid of it. I have no intention of finding it again." - Anonymous. 

 

I just saw this quote on the internet and I would love to attribute it to someone, but I have no idea who to attribute it to, since there was no name attached to it.  This is all true, because I truly do not have any intention of finding it once I have lost it. I know this is lifestyle change and while it is scary as all get out, I am positive that I can do this.

 

Last night was my first class and it didn't seem as scary as I thought, though truth be told I was nervous. I am shy by nature, but also I am rather antsy. I am not one to push time, since by the end of the program it will be just under less than two months to my next birthday, but as it sits with me, I am excited that maybe, just maybe, for the first time in years, I can pick out a super cute outfit and spend the night on the town for this one. After all my midnight shot has to be taken, right?  Hmmm, let me rephrase that, not maybe....I WILL be buying a super cute outfit for my next birthday.

 

Our first class consisted mostly of learning about the program and the number one and two rules of our teacher...1) if you cheat, do not share with the class or classmates and 2) if you have to have your supplement in class, drink it or eat (the bar) slowly, don't inhale it.  Apparently that drives her nuts, but I can see her point.  I am guessing the faster you do it, the less your body will feel like it is eating.  After all these supplements that are ready made are no bigger than a juice box and the ones you make yourself are no more than a regular glass of water, so drink slow and eat slow. 

 

I did suffer through my first craving today though, but I am guessing it is because I had the tomato soup for lunch and one of my habits is salty and sweet.  I still have yet to buy some gum, so....but I had some mint tea and that seemed to cure my blues after a mini session of trying to figure out if I had anything with zero calories. I almost had some hot chocolate from a health food company, but turns out, it still has 130 calories and I decided NO, that's not my plan and I can only have zero calorie items.  800 calories a day is my plan and I promised dad I would not eat and I will do my best to stick to that promise.  I was told the first week will be the hardest, but I know I can do this! I mean heck, I thought it was 120 days, because they said 4 months, but technically the 16 weeks ends on 11/12 and that is 104 days, so see 103 left to go after today.

 

I've got this.  I just need to remember that I've got this. LOL! :D