2018

And we're back! Happy New Year everyone. I hope this finds you all healthy, happy and feeling no adverse effects from last night.

It has been awhile. Why? Because I have been on the journey of a lifetime and I never left my living room. I must say that 2018 was the most difficult, miraculous, painful and educational year I have ever lived through. It brought me huge sadness, joy and wisdom just to cover the basics. I learned about my world, the people in it and most of all....myself. Funny thing though, at the end of the day when the dust had cleared from it all, my journey brought me right smack dab back in the middle of.....Trim Healthy Mama. Hmmmm....you say. Curious?

Tell you all what. Go grab yourself a nice steaming cup of Bullet Proof Coffee (mine is butter toffee), wrap your blanket close around you and sit back and you and I will share the next few minutes as I tell you about my 2018 and my journey back to THM and myself. Go ahead. I'll wait!

Now that we are all comfy...... My 2018 was a roller coaster ride. There was sickness, total despair when I thought I might lose my home and great joy when my community, friends, neighbors and complete strangers rallied around my son and I and helped us to save it. I had no more than caught my breath from that when my youngest son who is special needs had to have a major spinal surgery which was touted to be his worst one so far. How can it get worse when he almost died from one of the others? This surgery however was necessary and ultimately life saving as well as quality of life saving. Blessedly, the surgery was in no way as bad as predicted and his recovery was one of the many miracles that happened in my life during the year.

In May I was given a bit of a roller coaster reprieve until July. Yep, July was when my world went into overdrive and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to see 2019. On July 2nd, (which little fun fact.... is not a great day for me to begin with as it is the anniversary of my husbands death), my older son came to me and told me that he was a meth addict. Yes, he was a full fledged, shooting up 5-7 times a day, addict. It was the beginning of a nightmare few weeks where I started to recognize things I had denied and started seeing who he, myself and a few others really were.

Those first weeks nearly killed me, literally, as I lived off diet soda, stress and no sleep. I rallied to help my addicted son, sure that I could cure him, fix him and save him. I was in 24/7 Superwoman mode constantly on the phone trying to find a place to take him, a place for him to stay and counseling. As quick as I had something in place and had him set up, he would walk back out. He preferred the streets and meth over rehab, counseling and sober living. I was devastated and still in "savior/victim" mode.....until I wasn't. Suddenly one day when all that was left of me was fumes and I nearly passed out in church, I realized that I was powerless over my sons choices, meth and addiction in general. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew what I was currently doing wasn't working and the path I was on was taking me on the fast track to ruining my health and possibly even killing me. I had a special needs son to think about and at this point in time, I needed to focus on him. That day I dropped my addicted son off at a gas station of his choosing, I drove home and went to bed. I think I slept for 14 hours straight. When I woke up though, my thinking was clearer and I went to my first Al-Anon meeting. I have never looked back.

Since that day, I have learned so much about myself and my own part in his addiction and I have learned about him. I have also learned a lot about life, my faith and who I am now vs who I was last July. My son is still an addict but in December, he decided to make some changes to his life and to begin recovery. As his mother I am happy but also leaving any expectations of the future out of it. I just pray each day he finds the strength and faith to keep taking it one day at a time on his road to recovery and I welcome any prayers you might give him, too.

So you can imagine, that it felt like I crammed several years worth of drama and an entire tele novella into one small year. When I started Al-Anon though, I was very surprised that much of what I was learning there was familiar to me. Then one day it hit me. Much of what THM teaches us walks hand in hand with Al-Anon. In both, you learn to put the focus on you while remembering that nothing we do is alone. God is always there. As someone who has always had faith, not until recently did I realize that there is a huge difference between claiming faith and actually walking the walk and talking the talk. Both Al-Anon and THM also teach us to forgive ourselves for our human weaknesses. The moment that was brought up in Al-Anon, I was immediately reminded of my first days reading about THM where they tell us that if we eat outside of plan, not to panic or condemn ourselves but to forgive our humanness and jump right back on plan in 3 hours. Finally THM also teaches us that although there is a plan set out before us, different things work for different people in the weight loss journey. Some people can eat crossovers and lose, some more S meals and some more E meals. It is up to each of us as individuals to find out what works for us on our weight loss journey. This same theme is shared throughout Al-Anon. The same thing doesn't necessarily work for everyone and it is up to each of us to find what does.

I also learned that my son is not the only addict in our family. I too am an addict and food is my drug of choice. As I learned about addiction and why people choose to continue a life of addiction even knowing the danger they cause to their health and their very lives, I realized that my drug of choice though legal, could have just as deadly of results in the end. Truthfully, I eat as a coping mechanism. I eat when I am depressed. I eat when I am stressed. I eat to hide from the world because in my "sick" way of thinking.....food is my only friend, enjoyment and escape.....and yet it is slowly destroying my health, my quality of life and if not addressed and dealt with, could eventually take away my life. Yep....it sounds like addiction to me.

I am learning to deal with facing things....even the hard stuff....instead of letting it fester and become a reason to binge. I am learning to focus on what I can handle and handling it and then turning the rest over to God. I am mostly though, realizing that my focus needs to remain on me and to understand that I am a good person who deserves a good life. Sometimes keeping the focus is difficult, but when it is, I simply focus on the moment and getting through that. Anyone can get through 60 seconds. 

So with all that I am learning, I have discovered that even through all of the negative of 2018, it brought me far more positive. In this last year I have found a new sense of who I am. I have learned that I am not in control of anyone or anything but myself! I also learned that maybe it was not others that needed to change as much as it was my own outlook that needed a change. That I can fix.

I see the world through much different eyes now and I see me much differently too. For the first time in maybe forever, I understand that I am worth the effort of a walk, a yoga workout and the wisdom of THM. I am worth the time in the kitchen and the time spent learning new recipes and loving myself.

So with this new year on us, you would think that with all my new found awareness that I have oodles and gobs of resolutions to start the year. You would be wrong. Resolutions are expectations and expectations whether it be weight loss, working out or even expectations of others, seldom work out. When they fall through, then we feel as if its a failure. There is no room for failure in my life. Instead, this year I am making decisions and my decisions go no further than the moment. Remember...we can do anything for 60 seconds and with each moment, I will give myself the love, acceptance and focus that I deserve.

Yes, it has been a year. A good year. Maybe even a great year and I am grateful for every moment because through it all, I found self-acceptance, grace and most of all....I found me!!! 

I wish each and every one of you an amazing new year and I hope that 2019 is filled with 525,600 amazing moments for all of you.

Till next time........

The Mid-Century Me

Much has happened in my world in the last year and much continues to happen on a daily basis. We all have those times I know, when we feel as if God is testing us and we are sure we are failing at a rapid pace. That is where I am. Yes, there are things going on in my life that are causing me to have to re-evaluate who I am, along with just about everything I have ever done and.....*gasp*..... having to make a few changes. And I for one....don't like to change.

When I refer to change, I am referring to changing just about everything about myself from the inside out. That is, the way I think, feel and handle life as well as things such as my health and even my spiritual well being. These have been some huge realizations in my life and it has really made me think a lot about myself and just how much I need this.

Had things not happened in these last months the way they did and had they not been so earth shattering, I likely would not have been "forced" and yes....I mean "forced" to come to this place in my life. In the here and now though, the reality is, this might not be a bad thing. I had to come to some hard truths about myself and what I need for myself in order to continue moving forward.

It occurred to me, that we all have people and possessions in our life, that we truly love. So how do we take care of the people we love? We go out of our way to give them the best. We make sure their needs are taken care of and we show them every chance we get even in the smallest ways...whether its is making sure they eat right, helping them or simply by just wrapping our arms around them and telling them that we love them. And our beloved possessions? We all have at least one thing that holds some special sentiment to us and we treat it very special. We usually put it in a place where it is taken care of and we know that it will not be touched, broken or damaged in anyway. So if this is how we, or more to the point "I" treat the people I love and even the possessions I love, why does this care not trickle down to myself?

I am 55 years old and soon to be 56. Yes, I am a bit fixated on these numbers, not because I feel particularly old, but because that is a lot of years in my pocket that I have treated those I love and care about and even possessions much better than I have treated myself. Why do I not have equal love for myself? Why is my own health not as important to me? Why do I not guard my own feelings as closely as I guard others....and why is my own emotional and spiritual health not as important to me as my family and friends? Why do I treat myself in ways that I would never allow anyone to treat those I love. Even my possessions are better taken care of than I take care of myself and when you get right down to it.....that is simply just wrong. 

At 55, I am not old, but I am at the age where every working part I have is considered mid-century. Now we all know that even mid-century items, if well taken care of, can be even more beautiful and even more desired than the new "stuff" just coming off the line. However, mistreated, a mid-century item can need a lot of work, effort and even new parts to get it back into good working order. Yeah, I am the mid-century item that needs a bit of work.

When I was young, I treated my body like it was invincible and fluctuated between all out abuse and complete pampering but never did I really give myself what I needed. As I got older, got married and had kids, well I treated my body a bit better but I started sacrificing sleep, emotional needs and spiritual health for my family, friends and those around me. I learned to martyr myself and not say "NO!" only to find myself angry and resentful at the world because I felt left out and uncared for. Now mind you.....no one else made me feel left out and uncared for, this was simply the message I was sending myself because in the process of taking care of everyone else, I was not taking care of me.

Martyrdom is not all it is cracked up to be. While we are throwing ourselves on the cross for others, perhaps we are not being quite as Christlike as we think we are. I learned that in all my "doing for others," while forgetting to do things for myself like sleep, pray and eat right  that I wasn't always being as helpful and wonderful as I thought. In fact because I was lacking in my own personal life, I was creating holes that I was trying to fill by "fixing" others. In that fixing, I was actually controlling situations that I had no business controlling and I wasn't being all that helpful, at times robbing people of life experiences they needed to fix themselves in order to figure out their own lives.

So here I sit. I am mid-century and although I have most of my original parts, there seems to be a lot of rust and I might be a little worse for the wear, especially if I don't start treating myself as a loved and prized possession. Yesterday my blood pressure was 168/108. I have a BMI of 35 which is Obese II and I can't stand to look in the mirror. Does this sound like someone who loves and appreciates herself? It's not and this is where I am.

In the last few weeks, I have been taking baby steps in learning to do for me and take care of me. I am having to let go of just about all I have known or thought about before and open myself up to letting others do for themselves, staying in my own lane and minding my own business and focusing on my own health (both physical and emotional) and learning to not only know myself but to love myself. Trust me, it's a pretty tall order.

I started by making doctors appointments for myself. Apparently I have no problem making appointments for others or nagging them until they make their appointments themselves, so why can't I do the same for myself? I made up my mind to face the health fears I have at 55 and find out just what the realities of my health are, instead of worrying and living in fear to the point of not doing anything until it's too late. So far, the news hasn't been anything I didn't expect....lose weight, start exercising and start taking better care of myself. Big shocker! There are still a couple of appointments to go but whatever I find out....knowledge is power....right?!

Now I am working to focus on me and leave other peoples problems to them and God. That's right, you can't control someone else, so why should I make myself sick over someone elses choices. I have to keep telling myself...."It's none of my business." By not worrying about others, it does free up time for me to focus on ME! Sound a little narcissistic? It's really not. In fact, it is almost the opposite. I think I have not focused on me for so long, because I was afraid of finding out who I really was. Maybe I would find out that if I focused on myself that I would have to hop down off that cross and see people, myself and the world in general differently. Maybe.......I was scared! 

While I have a very long way to go before I am polished up and ready to put myself on the showroom floor, I am starting to take the necessary steps to take care of me. I need to start viewing myself as truly loved by me. Each step I take in bringing myself back to life needs to be a labor of love whether it is the dreaded exercise or the eating right or by simply just saying "No" with no excuses to anyone about something I really don't want to do. I need to start asking myself "What I want?" and more importantly "What I need?" Those questions are a lot tougher to answer than you think.

What I am learning from all of this, is that as I start my journey back to Trim Healthy Mama, I am viewing both it and myself differently. This time, as I make my meals I don't view it as something I am doing "to myself" but "for myself." Just this simple thinking turns a chore into a gift and it truly makes a huge difference. Also, by doing all of this for myself and giving myself time to focus on me and my needs I am finding that I am losing my urges to binge eat. For me, binge eating always happens when I feel out of control and usually, I feel out of control because of someone elses issues. I can't control them into doing, acting or being like I want, so I feel out of control and the only way to gain control is to.....apparently mistreat myself with a tub of Rocky Road. Now though, I don't feel so out of control because I am minding my own business, focusing on my own issues and finding that I have a lot better chance of controlling myself instead of trying to control others. Of course, there are always those things that even in our own lives, they are simply out of our control. What do I do then? I hand it over to God and most importantly.......leave it in His hands. 

Now as I eat, as I exercise, as I focus on the moment and even as I pray, I am doing it all with the same love for myself that I have been showing others for years. It is a gift I am giving to myself. It is my hope too, that with this new found understanding of just how worth it that I truly am, that this love affair will continue for another half a century. This means that moving forward, most of my actions from losing weight to dealing with others will be done with my best interest and love of self at the heart of it all. The best thing though is....when we love, like and accept ourselves, we are so much happier and when we are happy, we want others to be happy and this will definitely show, in all we do. 

One Second at a Time

I have learned many lessons in this last year. In fact, I have probably had more life skills training in the last 8-12 months than I have had in all the other 54 years of my life combined. You know the biggest lesson I have learned? I don't know me at all. In fact, much of what I thought I knew....I really didn't.

That is a strange statement to make with all the years I have lived. You would think by this time, I would be approaching wise...but I am not. In fact, I realize that my wisdom in this life is very limited. And all that sage advice I have given others? I am beginning to think that it was complete and utter BS. That's right. Most of that advice was unsolicited and therefore fell into the category of none of my business. That which was asked for, was me saying to them, what I would actually like to be true in my world but was not. So yeah....BS. 

And NO! I am not being self deprecating. I am being totally and 100% honest. That too is something new to me in the respect that I have spent a great deal of time lying to myself and probably lying to others based on the lies I told myself. Again....not self loathing, just a good dose of honesty.

So, we have established that my wisdom is limited and I haven't got a clue who I am or what I want to be when I grow up....and you know what? That is perfectly okay. It's not about what I don't know, but rather it is about what I know that I don't know and that I acknowledge I don't know it. Confused yet?

These last few months have put me on a journey that I had no idea I needed to go on, nor do I think I even wanted to go on, but I was left with no choice. It was either face life and the reality of all that is my world or spend the rest of my days in denial and misery.

One of the most important things I am learning is that I have spent my entire adult life doing for others so that they might see me as "good enough." What the hell? What is good enough? Who is the measurer of "enough" and why am I holding myself to a standard that I am not even sure exists? I have literally made myself miserable trying to get people to tell me I was good enough, when the only one that really mattered was the person staring back at me in my mirror. WOW! That was some deep and complex realizations.

Another thing I have learned is that I have been waiting for someone or some thing to make me happy. Again....what the hell? I have handed over complete and total control of my life to some non-existent entity. The reality is, there is no one or nothing out there that has the power to make me happy. The only one that has that kind of power and control is......wait for it......ME! And again....WOW! The control that I have been searching for all of these years has been right  here all along.

Finally, I have lived in fear for the last 18 years. Tis' true. From 2000 to 2002, just about every fear I had at the time was realized. I had a premature, special needs child that hung between life and death, I lost my husband and I lost my mother. Since that moment, I have spent all of these years waiting for the other shoe to drop and often living with self-fulfilling prophecies. Yep.....what the hell yet again?!

Fear has become my way of life and integrated itself into just about every breath I take and every decision I make. There is nothing fearless about my life or me as a person. It is all fear-based and even just saying that makes me feel sad. What a waste of 18 years that I can never get back.

The good news is, you can teach an old dog new tricks and this old dog is learning. Yes, acknowledgment of my past behavior and the acceptance to know that I can't go back and change a thing but I can learn from it and move forward are amazing realizations. That is why these last few weeks I have done my best to take only learning moments from the past and leave the rest behind. I forgive myself for every moment wasted in fear, for every time I allowed myself to feel less than or not good enough and for every time I turned my power over to someone else or even nothing at all. It has been somewhat freeing, as if I have been climbing out of quick sand that all but devoured me.

I have also realized that along with having no control over the past, I also have no control over the future. It is very easy to fall into fearful thinking when you try to control that which hasn't even happened yet. I have given myself way too much "imagined" power over things that I know nothing of. I cannot predict the future and therefore giving it too much thought puts me into a power struggle where I truly have no power. In that battle....I will always lose. 

What I can control is the here and now. The moment. So I am taking my life back, one second at a time. For one second I can focus on the present. For one second I can put fear in my rear view mirror and be grateful for what I have instead of worrying about what I don't. For one second, I can look in the mirror and ask myself what "I" need right now.....and for this second....that is exactly what I am doing.

These are all pretty hefty realizations and they have come fairly fast. Granted, they may have been a bit forced as I was out of other options, but it seems that they are steering me on a whole new path I have yet to go down. They are changing how I think and how I focus my time and effort. They are making me take stock of what I have and not worry about what I don't and they are making me live in the moment, leaving the past and present to take care of themselves.

So why I am writing all of this on this particular blog? Because this blog is/was designed to help me to help myself not just be a healthier me, but to be a better me body, mind and spirit. That is what I am doing.

Today, I decided to let go of a fear and go on a walk. Now this may sound funny to you, being afraid of going on a walk, but it wasn't to me. It had been since 2016 the last time I went on a walk. At that time I was going 5 miles 3-5 times per week. Since that time though, I had let myself go. I wasn't eating right and I had gotten next to no exercise. I was literally terrified that I would get 10 feet down the street and that I wouldn't be able to catch my breath or that my legs, heart and body in general just wouldn't be up for.....exercise. This morning though, I knew that the only way to find out if my fear was real or exaggerated was to simply....do it. I gave myself the goal of 1 mile and I took off. Guess what? My breathing was fine. My legs, heart and body were fine and not only did I go a mile, but I managed 1.71 miles and I felt fine. The added benefit was that being out lifted my spirits and gave me some much needed time with nature and the present. 

As I walked, I was able to open my mind to what was going on in the moment. I did not allow myself thoughts of anything that happened before the walk or anything that "might" happen after. I stayed strictly in the moment and enjoyed the early fall morning. The air was humid and not a leaf moved. The ground was dotted with moisture from an early morning shower and everything felt clean. The trees were still in full green splendor and the grass was luxurious and soft with all of the recent rains.  I enjoyed seeing the fall flowers that were feeling safe enough to start blooming in the absence of the heat and the cloud cover and grayness gave my soul just a twitch of fall longing.

While enjoying the moment, I was also able to ponder the many reasons I have to be grateful in the here and now and as I listed them in my head, I realized that regardless of anything else, I am blessed. I also realized that what I have is enough and who I am is enough. It was a pretty good feeling for an early onset of fall morning.

Where is this all going to go? That is a question that I have no answer for. Anything past this moment is unwritten and therefore subject to surprise, change and the twisty turns that make life so interesting and unpredictable. The future is also not my business. My business resides in the moment and how I can make those moments count to learn about who I am, what I want and how I am going to get there. And I will take this journey.....one second at a time. 

My Truth and the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Soooooo.......let's just pretend that almost 18 months hasn't gone by since my last blog post here. *Poof* forgotten.

Lies! I've talked about them before and likely, I will talk about them again.

Usually the biggest lies we tell ourselves are about ourselves. With our own body image it is really hard to be honest sometimes, especially as we get older and our bodies change. Truthfully though, I have always had a warped image of my body and therefore been a damn good self deceiver when it came to.....me!

Now bare with me as I start pointing fingers. I am fully aware as an adult where the fault lies with my diet, exercise and health in general. However, I didn't just frivolously jump on the bandwagon that led me here. No, I was shamed and in some ways, forced into it.

As a very young kid, I was a picky eater and very skinny. I was tiny from my head to my toes. I even had a dentist tell me once that I had the tiniest teeth he had ever worked on. I remember still wearing a size 6 little girls long after my friends were in size 8's and 10's. I was not a food lover and spent many an hour sitting at the table long after everyone else was through eating, because I wouldn't eat my food. Then, my mother who was also very thin and who had always had the metabolism of a hummingbird, got a divorce. That divorce did us all in I think.

My mother began to turn to food as comfort during this time and her once active lifestyle was replaced with what I now believe was depression. She began preparing large fattening meals and supplementing with fast food. After she put on about 20 pounds and started feeling physically like crap (mom had Lupus and a good diet is crucial to Lupus survival) she joined Weight Watchers and took it all off in 6 weeks. As far as I went, I had taken a liking to homemade bread, cinnamon rolls, scalloped potatoes, pizza and hamburgers and yes....I put on some weight but mostly my metabolism was still pretty good and my weight was more puberty related.

Looking back, had my mother just changed all of our diets over to more of a Weight Watchers mind set and not focused so heavily on weight, scales and body image, I might not ever have gone down the road I did. The icing on the cake for me though(no pun intended), was my mom taking me to the doctor for a physical and the doctor telling "me" not her, that I had put on 5 pounds in the last year but that I hadn't grown any taller, therefore if I didn't go on a "diet" right now, I was going to be "fat!" Yep! My self image was pretty much in the toilet at 11 years old.

From that moment on, I was on a lifelong journey of self-love vs. self-loathing, binge eating, diet pills, laxatives, anorexia and obesity. I judged myself the way I felt the world judged me and that was by how I looked. This was validated by peoples attitudes toward me based on my weight.

During my high school years, I was not skinny by any stretch, but I was not fat either. At that time in society though, the world worshiped "skinny" to the point of no butt and no boobs. Now you could get by with the bigger boobs if you had a tiny waist and butt, but if you had a voluptuous figure at all, you were "fat!" Since I was only 5'1", I had no waist, but I did have boobs and a butt and because I wasn't bikini body, waif thin.....I was viewed as and talked about as fat. Then, my senior year in high school, right at Thanksgiving I got sick. I couldn't eat for about a week and being young and having a decent metabolism, I dropped about 10 pounds, which was a lot for my tiny body. Then my mother got sick and we thought she had heart issues. The worry and stress over that caused me to drop another 5 pounds. Then I got a crush on a guy at school. My obsession with him caused another 5 to come off. By the time I went back to school after Christmas break, I was 20 pounds down and it seemed that everyone noticed it. Guys who had never given me the time of day suddenly found me "interesting" and girls suddenly either got friendlier or meaner depending on whether they found my new weight loss a threat or not. Even my parents were noticing. Suddenly my dad was "proud" of the way I looked and was taking me out to buy brand new clothes, something he never did before.

There was a problem with all of this though. I was still me and I still liked scalloped potatoes and hamburgers and once I was no longer sick, worried and infatuated, my appetite was back and I was hungry. When I started gaining back the first 5 pounds, I panicked. I liked thin me and I wasn't going to give it up. That is when I took out stock in laxatives. The fact that I have any colon left today is a miracle as I would down literally boxes of laxatives after I ate. It worked but one of the nasty side effects (aside from the obvious) was that taking that many laxatives dehydrates you and dehydration caused me horrific migraines. At the time I didn't realize the correlation, but now I know why I spent the last half of my senior year literally in agony all the time with migraines. Apparently though, the number on the scales was worth ALL the side effects of the laxatives.

It wasn't long before I found myself completely addicted to my scales. I would literally weigh myself 8-10 times a day. I had no understanding at the time that your body weight fluctuates throughout the day and therefore I would panic if I weighed half a pound more in the evening than I did in the morning. By this time, laxatives were not enough for me and so I began not eating at all or eating very minimally. The pounds were dropping and people were telling me how great I looked by I was literally starving. I wanted to eat so badly, but each morsel that went into my mouth I felt guilty about. Peoples admiration for how great I looked was worth everything to me.....including my health, so the starvation continued.

I was never a true bulimic simply because I hate throwing up. I could never force myself to throw up no matter how much I tried. What I could do though, was drink until I puked, which I got very good at. My friends and I would go out to the bars and clubs and we would drink. I drank a lot....at least for my size....and every time I would end up puking sick and hungover. The weird thing was, I never liked alcohol. To this day I am still not a fan, but back then, drinking was a means to an end and each morning after a night out of drinking and then throwing up, no matter how bad the hangover, I was on the scales checking to see how much weight I had lost.

Eventually I couldn't stand the drinking anymore or the laxatives and I started to gain a few pounds back. Panic again began to set in and then I learned of a doctor who was an osteopath, who practiced over the state line. He was pricey as you had to pay out of pocket (can't imagine why he turned none of this into insurance). You would go in and get blood work done and then he would give you diet pills. Phendometrazine and something else, along with a vitamin. Yeah....that vitamin helped a lot. Looking back, the doctor was criminal for giving me, a 5'1" girl who weighed 100 pounds soaking wet, diet pills....but he did. 

The diet pills in my mind were the answer to all my prayers. By taking the pills, I was never hungry. I could literally go without food for days without the pesky side effect of hunger. I would eat something unhealthy like a bag of chips, a candy bar or a burger every couple of days just to keep from keeling over, but other than that....nothing. I was literally starving myself to death. I don't think I cared though because the world was giving me "positive" feedback. I say positive loosely as in my warped brain, my mom being worried about my weight loss and people telling me that I was getting "too thin," were positive. Even my dad told me I needed to eat more, where as before when I was heavier and healthy, he told me I looked like a "hog." No one had ever told me I was "too thin" before and I loved it.

It wasn't until after I met my husband and he convinced me that he found me beautiful regardless of how I looked, that I started to get a handle on my eating. By handle, I mean I began to eat regularly and not worry about the scales. Then after I had my middle son, the weight grabbed a hold and didn't want to let go. I did get back down to a healthy weight after he was born and then I found out I was pregnant again. During this pregnancy though, my body had changed so much and I put on a lot of weight. Following my youngest son's birth, the bottom fell out of my world and then the next three years I dealt with the NICU, losing my husband, a hysterectomy, a special needs child, a teenager grieving and going wild, losing my mom and full on depression caused by anti-depressants. (Yes....I said caused by anti-depressants and that is another story for another day).

My weight kept climbing and my energy was declining. I felt horrible all of the time and my doctor just kept wanting to put me on more anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. I was in a limbo of exhaustion, hunger and frustration. Then as I was sitting in his office one day, I read an article about hypothyroidism. Everything in the article spoke to me. I knew this was my issue and when I finally got called back I told the doctor what I thought. I literally had to argue with him to get him to test me, but low and behold, my thyroid was so out of whack and so slow, it was helping to contribute to everything else that was out of whack in my life. Once I started Synthroid and weaned myself off of all the other unnecessary crap, I started feeling like a human again. That being said though, by this point my metabolism was so slow and my eating habits were so bad, that for the next few years, food was my friend and my weight climbed.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine talked me into starting a food program called Trim Healthy Mama. She had actually started trying to get me to do it two years prior, but I am a hard sell. I really believed that I would always be overweight and that fat and unhealthy were how I would spend the rest of my days. Doing THM though, I learned I was wrong. In three months I lost about 30 lbs and I felt amazing. I was healthy and I was actually happy and never hungry. I did well for quite sometime and then..............

This is where I would normally throw in a multitude of excuses as to why I quit taking care of me such as......a child on drugs, another child's impending surgery, almost losing my house, almost losing a grand child and the list goes on and on, but the TRUTH is......I just gave up and let life overwhelm me. It was my fault, my choice and although I might be able to blame my start on this unhealthy path on others, my current issues are my own fault. I obviously know how to live healthy, I just made the choice not to.

So the other day I had to go to the doctor for a tick bite(another fun story for another day). My blood pressure was a scary 154/114 and my weight was....well let's just say......not pretty. What the heck was I doing to myself? Why was I doing it? Was I not worth better?

Body image and the lies we tell ourselves about our body, our health and our eating habits can literally kill us, especially the older we get. So here's my truth. I am not perfect, but I am definitely a worthwhile person. In the big scheme of things, I still have some good years ahead....if I stay healthy. I have health problems that would be made so much better if I lost weight. I don't feel good about me, the way I look or how I feel. I want to lose weight. I know how to lose weight, eat, not be hungry and be healthy......and most importantly.....I am worth everything it takes to do it. I deserve to be the very best version of me I can be! And that folks is the truth!

The "Real" in Mama Junes Reality TV

You know...I was never a fan of Honey Boo Boo and her mother....Mama June. I like a little class with my tv and try as I might, I could never find any in that show. Now they are back or Mama June primarily is in a show called From Not to Hot. For those of you who have never viewed this new reality show endeavor, Mama June is on a journey to lose weight and look amazing for her ex, Sugar Bears wedding.

Now please don't judge me for watching this low brow reality show, but I simply can't help myself. I am somewhat addicted to any show that talks about and shows true weight loss in individuals. Yes, I know you are saying to yourself...."But Lisa, this is 'reality' tv. How true can this be?" Well, you are right. For some of this show, the non-reality of it is glaringly obvious such as when June starts losing a lot of weight a little too quickly and has to wear an obvious fat suit to film some sections of the show. That being said though, the weight loss is real and even more so......her struggle with weight loss is very real.

Mama June tipped the scales at somewhere around 350 lbs when filming started. The premise of the story goes that June found out her ex was getting remarried in 10 months and he had invited her to the wedding, so she decided she wanted to show the bride up and go to the wedding with a whole new look. Of course reality tv saw $$$$$ and made it their mission to make as much money off June, her weight loss and her dysfunctional brood as they could.

Without giving away all the stimulating drama and plot points of the series, I will give you the condensed version. June had gastric sleeve surgery. The series gave her a personal trainer and her daughters bought her a size 4 dress so that she had a goal to achieve in 40 weeks. Again.....reality tv heaven. For me, it was like a train wreck. I knew I shouldn't watch, but darned if I didn't get sucked in. To my credit though, I DVR the show so that I can fast forward through some of the more ridiculousness of the show.... and some weeks that is a good portion of it, however.....the show is a pretty accurate portrayal of the difficulty involved with losing a large amount of weight and this is why I guess it holds my interest.

A gastric sleeve is one of the more extreme ways that someone who is unhealthily over weight can turn to for weight loss. Because it is a surgery it holds some degree of danger from anesthetic to the possibility of infection, blood clots and all the other potentially dangerous side effects of anyone post surgery. Once the surgery is over, there is of course the recovery from the surgery and because your stomach has basically been shrunk, there is a period of time where you are only allowed liquids and then you work yourself up to small portions of food.

A gastric sleeve can help a person literally drop 100-200 lbs in a relatively short period of time, but it is not a miracle worker in itself. The person undergoing the surgery has to be dedicated to losing the weight and keeping it off and also has to be resigned to the fact that for the rest of their lives they will never be able to eat as they did before the surgery without risk of damaging the sleeve or themselves. In other words, if you are going into something as drastic as gastric sleeve surgery, you better be all in on this being a permanent lifestyle change and you better also be losing for the right reasons. Needless to say, showing the bride up at your exes wedding is not in my opinion, a good reason.

June of course drops the weight initially quite quickly and with this large amount of weight loss come some of the less pleasant side effects of losing this much weight quickly. Everything sags and bags and flapping arms, excess stomach skin and sagging thighs are not only uncomfortable, but they can also get in the way of exercise and day to day living. They also have an affect on self image. It's great to be a size 4 but if the skin on your arms make you look like you have wings instead of arms.....that becomes a self image problem. Surgery then again becomes a necessity. The thing about skin removal surgery though, is that you basically have to be pretty near your goal weight before having it or else the surgery does no good.  So Junes story does not have an automatic happy ending. In fact, at times the story gets quite "real" and becomes something that most of us can easily identify with.

June does not like exercise and yet exercise is as important to her weight loss and overall health as eating right is. It is a real struggle for her to get with the exercise program....even with a very animated and professional trainer. The struggle is even more difficult when it becomes obvious that June went into the whole weight loss, surgery, etc. thinking that her weight would come off much more easily and with a lot less work on her part, than is actually required. Eventually though, even June figures out that exercise is a key factor in her new lifestyle and gets on board to some degree.

Another glaringly evident theme in the show is that Junes two daughters who live with her are anything but supportive. Alonna (Honey Boo Boo) and Lauryn (Pumpkin) are used to a diet of sugar, fast food and comfort food and obviously supporting their moms weight loss by cutting out the unhealthy foods or even cutting back is not in their game plan as they eat cheeseburgers and ice cream in front of June. This is something that many of us can relate to as often our families are only supportive if it doesn't affect them.

Weight loss is challenging for the toughest of people as it is overcoming an addiction. A food addiction. Anyone knows you wouldn't smoke meth in front of a drug addict or drink alcohol in front of an alcoholic but people don't think twice about eating a piece of cake or downing a cheeseburger with everything on it in front someone trying to lose weight. Junes daughters not only eat all the things she can't have in front of her, but it is quite obvious at times that the two girls who seem to have weight issues of their own, aren't truly accepting of their moms new size or attempt at a healthier lifestyle. In fact there are definitely times that the two seem to be almost sabotaging their mom's efforts. Again....a lot of us can relate. If those around us see us changing for the better and they aren't, it somehow becomes a threat to them and their way of life, so they load on the sabotage. I think this is when reality tv crosses over into real life for some of us.

So I am not sure how far into the season we are with Mama June. I know in the last episode she had given into her old habits and she has become quite proficient at hiding cookies, candies and other forms of unhealthy and fattening contraband much to her trainers shock and dismay. This "bad" behavior had been instrumental in causing her to gain some of her weight back. Fortunately her gain wasn't enough to keep her from getting the first of her two skin surgeries (a skin removal and tummy tuck on her stomach and a breast lift/enhancement). Her excitement over her knew boobs and flat stomach was somewhat squelched though at the realization that beauty sometimes hurts and these surgeries were starting to be much more painful and life restricting than she had originally signed on for.

Will Mama June get her arms and neck done or will she give up the whole surgery idea? Will she continue  to hide food and sneak eat and allow her family to continue sabotaging her? Or..... will she start to realize that her weight loss is more than just a moment of revenge at her exes wedding?

Bottom line is that many of us who carry extra pounds, whether it is 20 lbs or 200 lbs have all kinds of reasons for wanting to lose weight. The fact is though, that if we don't lose for the right reasons and learn a little about ourselves as we go, the weight will never stay off and we will fail ourselves over and over again. Losing for the right reasons (love of ourselves, our health and our desire to live a full healthy and happy life) is the only thing that will get us through those moments when our family and friends aren't as supportive as they should be or when we are contemplating doing our own self-sabotage.

So yeah, I am still not a fan of Mama June or reality tv as a whole but what can I say.....I'm invested! 

Losing It....The Hard Way

So I have lost 2.6 pounds my first week back on THM and quite honestly, I haven't done a full day on THM yet. Oh no....I have lost all of this on another kind of diet called.....The Stomach Flu or as I like to call it,  Losing It....the Hard Way, and no.....I do NOT recommend it. Quite frankly I am surprised that after being as sick as I was this week, that I didn't lose all my weight and hit my goal in one fell swoop. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but there is definitely no food left inside me after the week I have had...(sorry for the TMI). 

Well, it is January and usually every January I suffer through some illness that throws me off....mind, body and soul. Why should this year be any different? Actually, I think that if I had not taken my THM hiatus for several months and had stayed on plan this whole time, I might not have gotten this or at least not to the extent I did. Why? Because the entire time I was 100% on-plan I simply didn't get sick. My migraines even almost went away. I was nourishing my body and keeping healthy foods in it which was in turn giving me the energy I needed to sustain my health.

Several times when I was on-plan, I started to feel as if I might be coming down with something. Immediately I began drinking the Singing Canary twice per day and making sure that I was eating plenty of protein and my green veggies such as broccoli and spinach and I simply never got sick. Now though....I've been sick!!!!!

Today thankfully, I do feel better. I will take the 2.6 pound loss even though it was a default loss and I will not let still not feeling 100% derail me. FYI: Did you know that getting sick during a weight loss plan can derail you or even completely throw you off plan and make you quit? It's true, because as you start eating again, your on-plan foods may not sound good or even taste good, therefore you drift off into comfort food and foods that "historically" make you feel better. Before you know it, Sprite, Gatorade, pudding, Popsicles and mashed potatoes, become burgers, fries and tacos. Trust me, I know of what I speak and traditionally, cold and flu season have not been my best times to try to stay loyal to any kind of healthy eating. This year though, I hope to break that pattern.

Yes, it might be tea, sprouted bread toast and chicken broth still for a day or two, but I am determined that the moment eggs, bacon, veggies and my beloved fauxtatoes (broccoli, cauliflower mashed as potatoes) can be handled on my stomach, then I will be back on plan.

Here's hoping that the rest of you are having a healthy January. Till next time....Happy Sunday!

And I'm Baaack!

Annnnd I'm baaaaack!

Sigh..........

Life, the holidays, blah blah blah. It all left me feeling bleh bleh bleh. Since October, I could feel the pounds creeping back and all the hard work I had put into losing falling to the wayside. This year though, I did not fall into a tizzy, nor did I start self loathing. In fact, I really didn't sweat it because this year I know something that I didn't know for sure last year. This year I know that I CAN lose the weight and when I finally put my mind to it.....I WILL lose the weight.

Guess what.....I've put my mind to it and I am back!!!!

Ladies and any gentlemen reading, I have learned that through Trim Healthy Mama, absolutely anyone can lose weight and be healthy. I also know that THM is a committed life style change that is not just weight loss but also a change of body, mind and soul. Never have I felt more in tune with my body or my health than I did when I was eating right and taking care of myself and exercising. So many of the issues I had had prior to THM suddenly reversed themselves. My acid re-flux was all but gone, the pain in my feet and legs was gone and I had tons of energy, slept well and simply felt good all over. I realized that I had really turned a corner though when all the changes suddenly were no longer about how I looked, but instead had become about how I felt. I really felt good.

So why stop? Because I am human and a creature of many years of bad habits. I had some really sudden and dramatic changes in my life and as good as I thought my coping skills had become, some things only cheesecake can calm. Then it became that I was simply too tired and warn out from drama to cook, so fast food trickled back into my diet and then finally, the holidays came and I said %&*$ it and I gave in to every bad eating habit I had ever had.

Sadly, there was no joy or comfort in the nefarious "comfort" foods I succumbed to. In fact, there was much discomfort as my acid re-flux came back with a vengeance....usually about 2 a.m., causing me to wake up choking and gasping and in tremendous burning pain. Then there was the hands and feet swelling from the evil sugar that I was ingesting on a daily basis, not to mention the continuous stomach discomfort and constant lethargy that comes from eating a crap diet. I also was back to the pain in my feet and legs. Then of course there was my face rounding out again and my clothes getting tighter by the day. The real problem was....I couldn't gain too much weight, because I had thrown out all of my really large size clothes, so if I got any bigger, I was going to be down to a bathrobe and a pair of sweats with a hole in the butt. Yes....it was time. 

At Christmas, I decided that I was giving myself until New Years Eve to eat whatever, but New Years Day...the bad habits would be tamed. Funny thing was, giving myself that permission kind of turned me around. Between Christmas and NYE, I was already eating back about 60% THM. The other funny thing.....there was no worry or doubt in my mind that starting 1-1-17 that I wouldn't be 100% back on plan and stick with it. 1) I knew I had done it and could do it again and 2) My body was ready for it and food to be friends again.

Yesterday I stepped on the scales. It was the one thing I was really NOT looking forward to, but I knew that I had to be honest with myself and face up to what I had done these last few months. As expected, the number wasn't pretty, but I also wasn't having to start back from my heaviest weight either. I had gained, much more than I would have liked, but it was fixable. I was fixable.

Being back, I feel better emotionally and I know the physical is not far behind. I know that once again I am in control of my food and not the other way around.

I can't speak for anyone else and I am not here to tell anyone how to live their life or change their life. All I am doing is telling you what my truth is and my truth is.....THM works and I am baaaaack!

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!