Walking the farmers market

Today we walked ALL of Boise’s downtown farmers market (about a mile) and even backtracked a lot and I feel fine, tired and a little sore but nothing bad.
4 years ago I was over 450pounds and never even thought of walking the market, I was so crippled walking into the store from my car hurt.
3 years and 2 months ago I had my DS WLS and was about 380 by this time of year and still could not have handled it but I began to think it might be possible some day.
Last year I was down around 245 and we started going to the market but the damage being so big had done to me meant I always walked part of it or the one time I did walk it all I was so sore I was near tears and hobbling by the end.
Now I am 195 pounds and I am more active then I ever remember willingly being since I was 21.
Just short of 8 weeks ago (8wks on Tues) I lost enough finally to have my first of 2 knee replacements which has always been my main weight loss goal.
There were days while I recovered that I cried from pain and wondered how I was going to face having the other knee done, but now I know I can do it, I will do it and I hope I do as good for that one as I am for this.
WLS was one of the best choices of my life, I may never be small, I may always be baggy as I don’t intend to have plastic surgery but I am determined I will make the most of these chances I have been given, the chance to start over small enough to not destroy my joints and bones with every step and eventually pain free and strong enough to maintain that.

Sugar and pain?

I have been reading a lot about carbohydrates and pain (sugars AND grains increasing some people’s pain sensitivity) all I know is I feel so much worse after eating anything grain or sweet, my stomach hates it my guts hate it and my mood goes to hell….AND my pain spikes or at least I notice it more.
There is also the fact that I seem to have no control over myself with carbs, I can’t seem to moderate them.  I honestly thought I could eat “just a few crackers a day” but I start with a few crackers and eat a dozen or more…then I want sweets.
So for this weekend at least I am giving up carbs and seeing if there is any improvement in my pain and my mood and my cravings.
So giving mom the triscuits and Alex my debit card and there really isn’t anything else but a little vodka for him to stash (it crashes my moods anyway) and seeing if I feel better by the end of the weekend despite being off Norco even at night.

Feels like I can’t catch a break

I just can’t catch a fucking break this week.
I actually start liking exercising and I get a fucking sports injury that usually only endurance athletes get in my right leg (I mean fucking really?!?)
That stopped hurting so badly with the use of meds, ice and rest but because I was walking off balance I now have a totally different and much worse pain low under my left knee and can barely walk any distance and need my cane for fear it will give out and buckle on me.
I did this to myself by overdoing it on the bike, I was doing 20-25 miles a week and now I am not allowed to do more than 2.5 to 3 miles 3 to 4 times a week and I have to put ice (which I hate!!!!) on right afterwards
Here is the thing though…I WILL be doing 2.5 to 3 miles 3-4 times a week as soon as I can walk without falling or starting Friday whichever comes first…I am NOT giving up damn it!

Excuses and Mistakes

I had a very stressful last 24 hours, missed some of my meds, got shorted $16 and lost $20 worth of stuff I needed, then had a lot of pain issues, and had some business SNAFUs come up then banking issues and I used it all as an excuse to buy a huge cookie knowing it would mess me up, I ate a few bites and threw the damn thing out the car window then went and worked out despite my knee hating me.
The thing is I didn’t buy it Because I had a bad day, I used having a bad day as an excuse to misbehave and then I remembered EXCUSES ARE BORING AND FOR THE WEAK.
I did not have major surgery and lose this weight to keep making excuses and I don’t have to be weak anymore.
I know that I will mess up again but only I can decide how badly, how often and how I let it effect my determination to succeed. 
So it is time to forgive and move on but not forget and repeat.

No more excuses

I know I need to make changes and finally I am finding reasons to get my knees done, reasons to be healthy, reasons to try, now I am seeking the Ways to make it happen.

It is time for me to step back and take a look at my life, ask myself “what do you want most to actually achieve? What things would you like to do that you have either not done or given up on?”
One of the first steps is to list my goals:
simple goals
difficult goals
complicated goals
realistic but hard goals.
Now is the time when I must take a much harder look, dig deep and ask myself “what excuse do I use to not even try to make these goals come true? What excuses am I giving others and worse, myself, to not make it happen or to not even find a way to do the best that I can and at least keep attempting to make it happen.”
It is time to be brutal, be honest and once I have a list of excuses I need to make another list of why each of those excuse is total bunk and bullshit, then make a list of ways I can try to achieve each thing, ways I can change things in my life to accomplish my goals.
It is time to stop finding excuses and start finding ways.

Excuses that all lead back to me needing to get my knees replaced:

I can’t exercise enough because my knees hurt so much (get them fixed)
I don’t sleep well partly due to pain and it makes me cranky (time to get them done)
I eat goodies I know will make me sick because of pain, I have little control when it hurts so badly (then it is time to face the fact this pain will last forever without a replacement)
I can’t lose weight if I can’t walk without so much pain (*cough* sugar *cough cough* sweets *cough* KNEES, REPLACE, NOW)

Excuses I have used to avoid getting my knees replaced (and the answers to why it is wrong)

Pain, it will hurt (I hurt every day of my life, I am currently 44yrs old with no massive illnesses, that is not right when I could fix it.  The pain and bad knees make me walk badly, my hips, back and feet pay the cost.  Major pain for 6 months to a year or ever increasing pain for life?)
They won’t last long (actually if I am good and keep my weight down I could be looking at 15 to 20 years, I would be 60-65 before they needed redoing and by then they might even have better ways to do it)
I will need so much help for a while I will be a burden (hate to break this to you chica but you are going to end up a bigger burden in 10 years if you can’t walk, now you will heal faster than you will at 55 and now mom and Alex can actually help you, then someday maybe you can help them.)
SCARS-12 inch+ scars (fuck you, I am aging faster due to pain, I see it on my face every day and it is worse on bad days, I am covered in stretch marks, I lost half my body weight, my husband doesn’t care about all that why should scars matter?)
I need to be under 200 pounds for a while (think back, that was my plan, the surgeon was willing to do them at 250 pounds, I wanted to lose to a magic number and I don’t think it will happen without the surgery, don’t lie to yourself)

So no more excuses, in a week I will know if we can do them,I want them done in April, I have 2 major events in March, I want chances of snow and ice to be slim and if the cortisone helps I would like to build up some more muscle.  If I have to have them done sooner, oh well it will have to be.
No more excuses.

Ooooffff sore tushy

Went out while Alex was asleep and broke up some of the ice in the driveway and in the gutter that was blocked up so it would drain. I did the gutter from my place where the drain is over 2 houses where my grandma lives to get the little gutter lakes that had built up to drain.  Man could I feel it in my abbs.
A couple of years ago it would never have occurred to me to even try to get out a 6 pound ice breaker “shovel” and tear through a lot of ice and snow for 40 minutes in the cold
I decided to do it after I fell on my my ass while walking across the frozen driveway to the trash can. It wasn’t a bad fall, almost like in slow motion where you just sort of slip into a sitting position except kind of BUMP OOUUUFFFFF instead of OWE!!!!!
Well let’s say for the first time in a couple of years I miss all that junk in my trunk I use to have, my booty pillow butt would have been awfully handy for a padded landing.  One thing they don’t tell you when you lose a huge amount of weight after being really really big for so long is how much more it hurts to bump against things when you can feel your bones…lol
Oh well if a lightly bruised slightly boney ass is the worse of my problems today I guess I am doing pretty damn good.

Feeling under attack by my own body

Damn splenda, when I first ODed on it about 4 months ago I thought I was dying. I had just given up sugar and was reducing my shockingly huge caffeine intake by 70% and so I was drinking massive glasses of tea and realized that I been using 25 packs a day and getting horribly  sick. I reduced to no more than 7 a day and was doing fine but my body is never happy with what I want and sometimes I slip up and drink a few more.  The thing is now 10 is enough to trigger the reactions and splenda is actually harder to quit than sugar has been and I go through hell trying to give either of them up for long.

Symptoms include:
Dehydration and a miserable thirst despite drinking alot of water
all over body ache similar to the flu
Muscle weakness and horrendous joint pain,
A near migraine level headache
Itchy skin, especially my hands,
PMS type irritability,
None of which by the way is really touched by pan relievers.

I know it is evil stuff. My pain tells me that, I also know I have two different issues with my body that cause it to react badly to sugars. I am insulin reactive which makes my body treat even small amounts of simple carbohydrates (sugars) as if they were an even more highly addictive substance than they actually are.  I also have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which causes sugars to react badly with my moods causing foggy thoughts and depression as well as increasing my over all inflammation.
I know all of that but giving it up cold turkey is hell and the only way I ever have managed for even a month, giving up even 90% means the 10% triggers my insulin resistance and my cravings, and now even smaller amounts of splenda is triggering a toxic reaction.
I sort of am feeling sort under attack by … I don’t know…fate or something.
All my life sweets were my addiction, they were my crutch and security blanket and I am more than aware that they were killing me.  I ate myself up to 460+ pounds, I crippled myself and I now know that at least a good deal of my depression, chronic pain and other random illnesses I now realize were related to CFS were exacerbated by my ridiculous sugar intake.  I know I have to give it up for so many reasons but it just makes me so sad that I am someone whose body is so messed up that they can’t have even a little something sweet.
I work at giving up sugar and one of the few treats I was still able to enjoy was sweet hot tea or coffee and now it feels as if I can’t have any.
If I drink too much caffeine I either can’t sleep worth a damn or if I really drink too much I crash out for days. I can no longer drink sugars at all due to the weight loss surgery causing liquid sugar to react badly with my stomach, apspertame makes me sick as a dog eating grass and now anything more than 4 packets of splenda puts me in pain. Oh yeah and Stevia tastes like hay.
I know that I just need to stop, stop eating sugar for my health as it causes ahost of physical and mental issues with my weirdo body and now I just need to give up sweeteners all together.
And I really need to give up this feeling of being punished and stop being so lax in taking care of myself and I need to put my overall health and comfort ahead of momentary impulses for sweets and the temporary comfort it brings.

NOTE: All I can think about as I write this is whether I can justify a danish or not in the morning.  Crap I want to cry.

Resolution #1 treat myself right and learn from my mistakes

Ive been pushing myself, day after day, more and more lately.
Not because I want to prove something but because there is so much that needs doing. Things that need cooked, things that need cleaning, or need organized or created and I just don’t seem patient enough to take time, to wait for help, and I keep thinking I will be fine, that I can just do this one last thing and then one more until my body rebels.
I give myself just enough time for the pain to fade a bit (but not enough time to heal the damage I am doing to my joints, my back and my still weak muscles or messed up nerves) then I go back to pushing myself too far.
I should be the last person to be accused of a Puritan work ethic but I guess you could say that is the problem if by that you mean that I suffer a lot of guilt about weakness, real or perceived, or that somewhere deep inside I have a no pain no gain mentality, despite knowing better, and that no matter how often I see it to be otherwise I have a general conviction that if I can just push past the pain this will be the time I get blessed, get strong, get better.
The thing is while I can do more than ever before I still take a lot longer time than most people to cover and the more I push without letting myself heal the longer and worse the pain is during my recovery.
I have so much that I  want to do but I have to accept that when everything aches and I push everything begins to hurt.  I also need to accept that hurting is a sign not of personal weakness of character but instead a sign that I am harming myself and that in my case it breeds worse pain as it keeps me awake, keeps my muscles and nerves stressed and makes it harder to heal at all.
The hardest thing for me is not that I dont give assistance to others, it’s not that I fail to give understanding or sympathy or that I judge others too harshly but that I don’t give myself those things. I constantly judge myself a failure which is why I am so hard on myself and by being so rough with myself I set myself up to fail, thus making a vicious cycle of self abusive behavior and thought processes.
it is time that I learn to give myself time to heal, give myself the right to slip without it being a grand failing for which I berate myself then throw my hands up and give up trying.  Somewhere along the line I developed something of an all or nothing mentality  , either I succeed right off or I declare myself a failure and since I have already failed why try to do better?
This is one of the things I am going to resolve to do in the future, give myself time to heal physically, mentally and to learn new habits of action and thought.
  I need to allow myself to fail in small ways without declaring myself an epic failure and giving up, if I slip and have a small treat it is no excuse to berate myself as I eat more and more because I already blew my food plan, if something takes a long time to do it is no reason to hate myself and give up trying. For each small failing I need to simply start again, start over fresh and make myself succeed no matter how difficult it is without harming myself.  If one method leads to pain, to slipping where my determination is concerned then I need to look to find a better way to do things.
And so I resolve to be good to myself, to take care of myself and to find success from failures without giving up or repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Trying to get back on the wagon

I have spent the last 22 days being dragged behind the sugar wagon I fell off of right before my birthday.  Before that I had spent over a month barely eating carbs other than dairy and vegetables.
At first I lost 8 pounds (I was in the 220s for quite a while) and was honestly hoping that I would break 210 and stay there for a bit. But the weight decided to yo-yo between 217 and a one time 209 no matter what I did or did not eat.
Now that I have lost control of my Carb intake I am still yo-yoing but the number is now between 214 and 219, not much of a difference so far but it wouldn’t take much to end up back over 220 on New Year’s Day.
But beyond the pounds is the fact that I feel awful, physically and mentally.  I feel as if I have failed myself and everyone who has faith in me, I hurt and I am embarrassed by the effects eating sugar has on my body.  There are times I cry even when I am alone and I am the only one who suffers the effects.
The sick part?
Every time I get upset I want more sugar.  I will be in pain, my stomach as tight as a drum and my joints aching and still if it is in the house I will eat it.
And that is the rub, it simply can Not be in the house, I am not strong enough to resist it long enough to let the physical side of my addiction (a form of insulin residence) play itself out.
As long as I can make it past the first 10 days with no sugar I am fine, I feel more in control, I can see it in stores, I can smell it and even be around it and I can resist.  IF I can take the first step, if I can break the habit.
Maybe this time I will make it longer and maybe this time if I fall off the wagon in a few months I will get back on and not be dragged behind it for days and weeks.

I should be writing about Splenda poisoning

I quit sugar 16 days ago and like a total fuck up increased my splenda intake so much that I am now very sick, for me the symptoms are like having the flu while in the middle of bad PMS.
I should be writing to tell how horrible it is and what I am doing to alleviate the symptoms but one of the symptoms is my mind is so distracted and another is my fingers are so swollen and painful it hurts to type.
So the story will be put on hold and this may have to count as my Nov blog challenge post of the day.

EXCUSES SUCK

Nov writers month blog daily challenge day 2

EXCUSES

Here were my excuses for eating the kinds of Carb laden food I have avoided for 11 days:
*I am so sad and stressed about POE’S rash
*I feel so much guilt over having hurt him trying to make it better.
*I was hungry no matter what I ate or drank
*I made the guys an epic batch of Chex Mix and wanted to taste it so bad
*Pain from shots and doing too much as always after them
*Anxiety because the house is getting messy and I am too sore and stiff right now to get on it and Alex is busy
*Can’t find anything in my garage or art room and know it will be weeks of work before it is organized
*My guts act up regardless of if I eat “good”carbs or “bad” carbs
*I was oddly more lonely than usual
* I couldn’t sleep

My answer to that plethora of excuses?

NO!
EXCUSES ARE BORING
STOP MAKING UP REASONS TO DO WHAT WILL HURT YOU
GO THE FUCK TO BED

Giving up so much but getting more back

So it seems that not eating carbs, sugars, and drinking lots of milky tea this week has finally made a difference, in 3 days I lost 5 pounds and I am now at my lowest adult weight of 217.

Lets just hope I can stick with it and lose 13 more pounds by Dec 7th (my birthday) to reach my goal of half of what I weighed the day of my weight loss Surgery when I was 411 pounds.
Personally if at all possible I would love to lose 20 pounds by new years day so I could strt the year under 200 pounds.

I just wish it was easier for me and not such a constant struggle.  I really wish that I had more self control but the fact is I have major impulse control issues, right now I am having to give up so much for my health and to reduce my pain on top of all the stuff I have had to give up due to my altered anatomy (but much of which I wasn’t giving up enough which explains why I have been stalled)

Just to give you an idea here is the stuff I can NOT have:
*Simple carbs/sugar, including alcohol,
*Large amounts of gluten,
*Pasta, bread, actually regardless of if it is gluten free my body can handle almost no grains/rice of any type, except very small amounts of Quinoa
*Almost every raw vegetables (only a small amount of well cooked ones)
*And almost all fruit due to the fiber,
*Anything at all with MSG or most nitrates
*Anything deep fried regardless of how little breading is on it
*Fibrous, dry or under cooked cuts of meat

*Too much Splenda sweetener

*Any sugar-free candy

*And I have had about an 85% reduction in caffeine from what I was drinking 2 weeks ago

Here on the other hand the kind of stuff I can eat:
Milk (lots of it…especially in tea)
Lite (low sugar) yogurt
Cheese
Very tender Chicken, fish, non fatty Beef and Pork (this gets old fast BTW..and it is expensive even when you eat small amounts)
Scrambled eggs in small amounts but not Boiled as they can make me sick
Small amounts of Quinoa
White or black beans super well cooked
Tomatoes and cucumbers (if peeled)
Well cooked peppers in small amounts, same with onions

Nuts like Almonds (though too many hurt my guts)

Peanuts and Adams Peanut butter

Split pea soup if I cream it
Decaf coffee and tea
A small amount of regular tea

When I stick with eating only what I can then I feel better eventually but the first week or so is hell, last week I tried to let myself have about an oz of dark chocolate but I think it was making it harder.

By the way when I list what I can and cant eat, or the meds/ vitamins/ supplements I take I am not looking for Pity not even from myself.
I knew most of what I was giving up with my surgery before it happened in late April 2010 (30 months ago) but I have cheated A LOT.  I realized recently that beyond slowing my weight loss I was having issues with sugar and carbs exacerbating my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and causing many symptoms to flair up and because it was getting so bd I can not eat Sugars (carbs) very much at all with out exhaustion and increased pain sensitivity and a serious increase in inflammation which leads to lower mobility and even more pain.

All of this is my choice, my choice to give up those things just as it is my choice when I eat things I shouldn’t, yes Insulin Deficiency makes it more difficult to resist sugar but it does not make it impossible nor does it force feed me against my will.  No, I am the only one who puts the food in my mouth and I can choose even if it is difficult to the point of tears not to eat something.

Everyday for years I had to make the choice to walk despite horrible pain (there are still days like that even nearly 250 pounds smaller) I could of chosen to give up and never walk anywhere but I kept moving s much as I could.

I make my own choices…I could have kept going as I was, not having surgery, not changing anything and simply continued to get bigger and by now I would be in a wheel chair and compulsively eating to deal with stress and pain and making everything worse and I would be in so much more pain than now and so exhausted (as I have been most of my adult life) that I would not of been able to help myself get better.

For that matter I could have kept going the way I have been for the last year or more since surgery, eating the foods I knew upset my stomach and guts and having no energy and stalling weight wise for months on end, and just hating myself for failing to behave.
So no I am not asking for pity, I made my choices and now I am trying to live up to the decisions I made.

sadly I realize that this means I get to change things like how I socialize since food is a huge part of that, there may be times when I shall simply have to avoid certain social situations until I can feel more in control of myself.