Don't Eat That

I’m in pain.  My jaw hurts and that has been part of the reason I’ve lost some weight, but I have been truly trying, however, in a moment of extreme weakness….I have found this….and it was almost half full…it won’t be long now and I will have officially finished it off..

Ok, so if anyone ever needed the assistance of something like the 30 day challenge by EASports it was me.  I am bound to a chair and have been since January 22.  That is not a typo, January 22nd. 

I got my EASports game and had every intention of going forward with mostly upper body exercises and rehabbing my ankle.  But, as it was, after 3 days, I was tensing my broken foot up so much doing the exercises, even though I was sitting down, I was getting horrible cramps.  Ok, so I’ll wait and do that next month.

But, for now, I have a cast, I have vitamin deficiencies and when this sucker comes off of my foot, I am putting my hard earned Physical Education degree to the test.  I am going to put forth what I know and lose some weight, after all, if I get to 225, I will really get serious, won’t I?

Now, let’s talk about food.  I am a picky eater.  No beans, no peas, nothing green but lettuce.  I don’t like meat but eat it 2 or 3 times a week.  I grew up on Burger King and Diary Queen – the King and Queen Diet, that’s what I call it.

My husband and I (which I know is not a good measurement because he is a man) measured calorie for calorie, bite for bite.  I eat about half what he does.  But, he goes to work everyday and he is active.  Me?  I sit on the sofa and thus far have been confined here for a total of 5 months in a day or two.

I won some awesome flip-flops online and then had a coupon for some crocs from Crocs and let me tell you, the one shoe of every shoe I own is going to be fully worn out by the time I get to wear the other one. 

My goal was to go to Blogher in 2 shoes.  It doesn’t appear that this will be the case.  It appears I will go to Blogher wearing a gray boot.  The airlines just love to see me coming…..whatever *rolling eyes*

And, so, you can add obesity to that list of ailments…..and no kidding, my 84 year old Grammy that weighs 98 pounds watches every bite of food that goes in my mouth at Christmas and believe me, it’s not much, more than her, but still not much. 

But that 2 dozen disappearing donuts?  I have no clue.  I plead the 5th.  The joke in our house is, “have I been to sleep since this happened”  If the answer is yes, then I am not responsible for remembering it.  I can’t.  Not and sleep too. 

My phone had to be reset a month or so ago, when it came back up, it said January 1st, 2007.  I thought about it a minute….hum….2009 is not looking too perky, I might just as soon go back to January of 2007.  Is that even possible?  Never mind *rolling eyes*.

Ok, so that grand round of Mono lasted until after Thanksgiving.  I was given the clear to workout again.  But, who can work-out when we had a birthday, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and then my mom’s birthday, then my son’s birthday and heck, it’s not even mid-January?

But, for a week, I got it back in gear.  Hitting the treadmill, ready to go.  And, I had managed to feel confident enough that I booked hotel a mile away from a convention center that I was attending in Miami Beach.  And, on the first day, about a half of a mile in to the walk, I fell off the curb.  Broken leg.  (If you’ve been following this story, it was diagnosed as a broken ankle at first).

Great, I walk on it til I can get back home and I see Dr. Ortho that fixed my thumb previously (Yes, I broke my thumb in late 2007 and had to have a tendon repaired in Feb. of 08).  He puts me in a walking boot, calls it a six week healing injury and oh you want to go to the circus, take off, a conference, sure, it will be fine.

At 6 weeks, he said…well, you do have diabetes so let’s wait 2 more weeks.  Ok, Dr. Ortho.  Go back, hummmm still not healing….just to be safe, let’s give it 2 more weeks.  Ok, sure Dr. Ortho.

Two more weeks pass and no healing.  Dr. Ortho refers me to Dr. Foot and he says, let’s put you in a cast, stay completely off of it and some back in 2 weeks.  Two weeks later, no healing, here, go back to the boot.  And, Dr. Female Wonderful calls and says, “oh and by the way, you have a Vit. C, D and B12 deficiency”.  Gee, that’s great.  They call in Vit. D, have me get over the counter C and B12.  Dr. Ortho says, yea that might be why, let’s give it a couple more weeks with no walking on it.

Fine.  Just Fine.  I know this was suppose to be about my weight.  But, at this point, I”m just gaining weight and anti-up the pounds “when I get to 200 I am getting serious, 210 and I am not going any higher, 220 and no way, back down to 210, whew, up to 220, ack, down, up, down, up”

Go back to Dr. Foot and he says, let’s do and MRI.  Ok, sure Dr. Foot, I’ve had this damned thing on here for er…..4 months now?  Oh now, MRI says it’s a break in the leg, not just the ankle and oh let’s do a bone graft and put in there and make you all well.

Oh and by the way, try not to walk on it anymore than you have to.  I go to a conference, I walk on it, I have to get around.  I have surgery.  Now, when your medical history reads like a bad hypochondriacs, it’s not small feat to be put to sleep. 

Let’s review, then we will move on. 

I have Hashi’s Thyroid problems and I am being treated for that.

I have diabetes which I am attempting to control with diet.  I had gone back to regular soda’s because Dr. endocrin said one was as bad as the other.  Gee thanks.

I have high blood pressure and control it with meds.

I have sleep apnea, helped with a cpap machine.

I have hyperactive somethingabobanother that messes with my sleep.  So, naturally putting me under is no easy task.  Honestly, I’ve gone to the dentist before and had 17 shots.  I am a horse to knock out.  So, even on a regular basis, I am taking monster meds for that.

I have a Vit. C, D and B12 deficiency

I’ve had low back surgery for 3 herniated disks. 

I’ve had 2 c-sections

I’ve had gall bladder surgery.

I’ve had appendix removed.

I’ve had 2 nose surgeries.

I’ve had a hysterectomy –oh hey, that should help me lose weight, ahahah that’s a really bad joke.

I’ve had my thumb operated on.

I’ve had my tonsils removed.

I’ve had 9 laps for endometriosis and 3 D & C’s for who knows what…miscarriages, not a good topic, skipping over it.

So, time to have foot surgery.  Beautiful.  I had the surgery, I went back after one week, Dr. Foot says x-rays look good, change her cast, she’s good to go. 

go back 3 weeks later, change the cast, Dr. Foot had to go to surgery, come back next week. 

So, now what?

So, now, where were we….?

Oh, yea, we just got back from a party…no that’s not right….we just had a baby….oh yea and hey, this kid, he sleeps alot, I am sleeping well, 6 to 8 hours not 12 to 14 hours and hey, this is great.  But, I feel like muddy water still.

Fall of 2007, Dr. Duck says, you are diabetic.  You need to do this and this and this and this.  I cut soda’s out or drank diets and I gained 10 pounds.  No kidding.  I owned a daycare and I thought I was starving to death.  No kidding, I didn’t realize how many calories I was taking in with the soda’s.  About 8 a day in a can, usually a large one from a restaurant at lunch and dinner.  Oh that’s wonderful, eh?

So, I complain to Dr. Duck.  He says, walk, I tell him, I walk all day, I owned a freakin’ daycare that was laid out in a circle, I walked that freakin’ circle all day long.  NO, said Dr. Duck. Not like that.

Now, fast forward, it’s later into the winter of 2007 and Dr. Pysch says, “let’s check your thyroid”.  I tell him that Dr. Endocrin. said I had Hashi’s and he was so confused as to why Dr. Duck hadn’t been treating me for it.  And, so I left Dr. Duck for Dr. Female Wonderful.  Yerp, low thyroid, fix that with medication, diabetes, control that with diet, high blood pressure, take this medicine and oh, get some more exercise. 

By July 2008, I had gained and lost the same 10 pounds about ….5 times.  I don’t’ know, it’s all documented because I wanted to have lapband surgery and needed it.  Dr. Female Wonderful starts to work on me….and try to get me to a half-way decent state of health. 

The daycare is not doing well, I feel like rotten egg and it was getting worse.  Exercise, you gotta get more exercise.  My husband shows up with a treadmill that was given to him but needed a new belt.  Got it.

Start walking on treadmill, getting serious and start feeling worse.  Guess what?  I had mono.  I ended up in the hospital with it and was told “no strenuous exercise or even treadmill until further notice”.  Basically they had to wait on spleen to go down before I could exercise again.  Oh and by the way, you have fatty pockets on your liver, you have to lose some weight.

Gee?  How to you propose that a rotten egg that can’t exercise lose weight?

Coming up next…..how does a rotten egg do that?

So, now I have a newborn and a 2 year old.  I need to sleep, hours and hours I need sleep.  Dr. Psych Wonderful sent me to a sleep clinic.

Sleep clinic and sleep trials and I am diagnosed with sleep apnea and another disorder that I can’t spell, it’s hyperactive somethinganotherjigabob.

Basically, I could go for days and not sleep and not feel the affects of it for…. at least 3 days and sometimes 4.  By day 4, I’d be in a fog.  I made a great party mate.  Get up on Friday morning, go to work leave from work, go to beach, party all weekend, come home Sunday night, just in time to go to work on Monday morning and then sleep Monday night.

Yea, great if you like losing track of days, not knowing what day it is and the events that have occurred during that time…yea, whatever.  So, Dr. Psych Wonderful and Sleep Dr got me all fixed up.  Now, basically I sleep every night, I sleep well and I sleep about 6 to 8 hours instead of 12 to 14 hours.  I have to take this monster medication to knock me out and in most cases, anything that happened within 3 hours of taking the pill through about…12 hours after taking it….washed away.  No memory of it really.  I mean, I remember things after people remind me of them…….like, “hello, who ate 2 dozen donuts during the night?”  Oh, I guess that was me.

And, so, things are all glorious.

More Photos of Chubby Cheeks and the swollen eyes, thanks Hashi’s for that….photos at the bottom

I just referred to having a newborn as being afflicted but here’s the tail.  Basically, I had gained 50 pounds back after a severe puking pregnancy and I had this horrible sleeping disorder that had gone undiagnosed for years.

Insomnia, you have insomnia, here take a pill.

Over-weight, you are obese, here get some exercise.

A newborn?  Can’t help you, get your husband to help more.

So, basically, I have sleep apnea which is not terribly uncommon in obese people, it’s really not uncommon in any size person but obesity magnifies the problem.

I had met Dr. Psych. Wonderful and he discovered the sleeping disorder.  I know this is about weight, but this plays a huge part in my weight.  The adage that the more people sleep the thinner they will be is a crock full of lies.  I was sleeping (or in the bed) for 14 hours a day.  I weighed 200 pounds.  Bah humbug.

So, here we go, if I get to 200 pounds, I am going on a real diet, complete with an exercise plan that was awesome.  But, I still felt like rotten egg.  So, I saw Dr. endocrinologist and he did a diabetes test and a thyroid test.  Humpf, he says, you are borderline diabetic and you have Hashimoto’s Disease.  UH?  Oh, it means your thyroid is whacked.

Whacked Thyroid?  Humm this is not good.  I explain that the diabetes test (the 6 hour one by the way) made me sick as a dog and that I had felt worse in those 2 weeks than I had prior to even taking that test.

Ok, well he said, your thyroid will do that plus the diabetes but…one more thing…..hey, you are pregnant.  Did your previous OB treat you for thyroid disorder?  Hummm no why?  Well, you are lucky you even carried a child with your thyroid like this.  And, he continued that any OB that thought losing 30 to 50 pounds while pregnant was normal, even on someone my size was nuts.  I had to concur.  My OB was a great guy and he loved my Mickey Mouse socks but….that’s about it.

Next OB says, nope, no thyroid disorder, no high blood pressure medication (even though I had high blood pressure) and the next one and the next one and finally the last one said the same so I just figured I was out of option.  I had problems with pre-term labor, I needed specialist and these were the only ones with 3 hours of my house and they were 90 miles one way.  And, Dr. endocrinologist wouldn’t treat the diabetes or the thyroid while I was pregnant.

And, so, with that I was pregnant.  I started puking during that 6 hour diabetes test and the last time I puked, just like with my first pregnancy was when they wheeled me to the OR for a C-section.  Beautiful.

I checked out of the hospital weight 20 more pounds down from the pre-pregnancy weight.  And, guess where I was on the second born’s first birthday?  Sitting on the sofa eating cupcakes whining because I had gained every pound of it back.  The whole 50 pounds.

Guess what else disappeared that night – about half of a birthday cake…no kidding.

UGH!  Self-esteem sinks…sinks…sinks some more…

Ok, so where was I?

Oh yea, I had like 900 paragraphs written and my computer froze up.  I don’t know if I will ever get it all told again, possible that’s a good thing.

So, here goes.

I came off the thyroid medication because Dr. Quack said my levels were normal without it.  (Don’t ask me how he knew my levels were ok without when i was still on it, but whatever).

So, here we go again, if my weight got to 200 pounds, I was going to do something about it.  But, instead, I fell in love.  My dad used to tell me, in his daily houndings, that I always gained weight when I was dating and had a boyfriend and lost when I didn’t.  Well, duh, is that not normal?  Apparently not.

One would think that our daily Burger King, Dairy Queen and other burger joint dinners every night would have struck a chord.  But, no, he just thought I was going to be like my mom’s family.  Not that my mom is overweight or ever has been.  Her max was 140, so puhleeze.  Now, my dad’s entire family were 120 or less and most of them still are for that matter.  Including the feistiest 98 pound 84 year old woman you’ve ever seen.

I was still depressed.  I was taking medication but Dr. Quack was handling and well…need I say more?

I married, it was horrible but I gained weight.  I finally gave Jenny Craig a try long enough to lose enough weight to build my confidence so I could leave an abusive crack addict husband.  Yea, so, down to like 170’ish.

Again, if I got to 200………

And I fell in love again.  This time it was to the charming Prince I have now and the weight just kept coming and coming and then, I got pregnant.

Great, now I am pregnant, I can eat anything I want because, hey I am pregnant….except I had hyperemesis (which is probably spelled wrong but the most important part is……I puked, and I puked and I puked some more.  When I finished, I went and puked again.)  I was 3 months along, pushing 190 pounds and my 78 year old grammy insisted that I needed to lose some weight before I had a baby.  Hahaha, I was pregnant, I could go eat anything I wanted…hold on while I go puke, be right back.

From the first positive pregnancy test, the first puking and all the way to the puking as they were rolling me down the hall to the OR for a C-section, I had lost 30 pounds I had a c-section and left the hospital down 20 more pounds.  Whooo hoooo ack.

Guess what I was doing on the day of my first born child’s first birthday?  I was sitting on the sofa stuffing my face with a cupcake and crying because….I had gained the entire 50 pounds back.

No, kidding……….what else?  Next Post

Age 40

Age 30

And, Dear Me,

Lose Weight – or find a picture from when you were 20 and keep pretending.

I am an emotional eater and I am also one who eats when I don’t even know it.  It is absolutely not a big deal if entire packs of cookies or boxes of donuts disappear during the night and I have no recollection what-so-ever of eating them.

I’ll be honest with you.  I have NEVER been on a true diet.  I did Jenny Craig once for a few months, I did lose enough weight to build my confidence to leave and abusive crack addict husband but as soon as I found Wayne (my present Prince), the weight started piling back on.

This is where the folks from Beth’s blog can pick up.  That’s Plus Size Mommy for those of you who don’t know who Beth is.

I remember I weighed about 140 in high school and my 5′7" 125 pound father rode me like an ol’ wet dog about my weight.  I played volleyball and was in the band in the fall, then I played softball from April til August.  I would drop down to about 120 some time mid summer from all the activity, but in the winter, between seasons, I’d pile the weight back on and my dad would hound the heck out of me.

I remember thinking, ok I must do something about this after my father died.  I went into a deep deep depression.  Anyone who has lost a parent can understand what I mean and I don’t mean to imply that it was worse for me than anyone else, but my dad and I had been the only 2 members of our house since I was 13 years old.  I was 19 when he died. 

And, the weight started to just jump on me.  So, when I tell you I was in a deep depression, I mean the kind where they put you in a room, remove all the appliances, you can’t have a razor unsupervised and every move I made was monitored. 

I carried that depression for 10 years.  So, again, I certainly don’t mean to imply it was worse for me than anyone else, but my body reacted worse than most. 

I remember thinking, if I get to 180 pounds, I am going to do something drastic.  But, 180 pounds came and went.  I then promised myself if I got to 200, something would have to be done.  I was diagnosed with thyroid disorder.  And, synthroid with a half way decent eating pattern and dropping soda’s from my vocabulary ended when I went down to 150 or so.  I am only 5′4", 150 is too much weight, but I do have an athletic  frame and could have easily carried 130 or even 135.  I was still wearing a bikini at 140 so that’s an estimate. 

And, then, my thyroid went whacko and I came off the meds.  My thyroid was functioning fine and I didn’t need medication.  Or so said Dr. Quack.  With that, here comes more weight.

Ok, so day one of me teaming with EASports to “get healthy” has gone surprisingly well.  First of all, there’s this nutty cast to work around.  So, basically, I have to use a lot of upper body cardio to get in a decent work-out and I can do many static upper body exercises while sitting as well.

Today as I hobbled over to the TV where the Wii is hooked up, I carried, a bottle of water, my box including the game and it’s accessories and my camera.  Immediately upon making the first photo, the camera went dead…

So…I hobbled across the room to retrieve my camera that does video, to make 2 short videos and guess what? Dead Batteries….

So, I hobbled to the other side of the room to retrieve camera number 3 and guess what? No, honestly, I am not making this up, dead batteries.  So, as it was, I got no usable video.  Honestly,. it was all crappy and so….tomorrow is another day.

Today I went through the set up process, picked out some clothing and shoes for my little lady and a body size along with a female trainer.  I did the boxing which holy cow, I was not very good at that, but I will be soon, then I did some static exercises, filled out my journal and calendar (which would only allow me to start on July 1st, not June 1st, but at least I know what it going on) and then I really had broken a sweat…that boxing is really hard, no kidding…..

Don’t let me catch you trying to read those stats ok?

Onward…tomorrow….Day 2.

It all started innocently enough.  I was at a conference in Houston, minding my own business when I won the next to biggest prize being give away.  A Nintendo Wii Yea, no kidding,  I quickly put out the word that I would trade it for the big prize which was 2 full paid scholarships to Blogher.  Alas, one person agreed that if she won, she would trade.  And, then, she won.  And she changed her mind.  I then tried to trade her the Wii for 1 of the full paid scholarships and she didn’t answer me.

And, off I went.  She emailed or tweeted a couple of days later asking if I still wanted to trade.  I told her no that now that it was in my house, even my husband would kill me if I got rid of it.

sidenote: you have to know I have never been a gamer.  I hated going to game rooms and hanging out as a teenager and I never had any of the personal games at home because it just didn’t attract my interest.

Then, my family got involved.  We were playing Wii every night almost and I was bowling and batting from my chair (that silly broken bone.)

And, then……more of the innocently I just fell into this….

….I saw where the first group of EASport challengers were showing off their skills and I asked to be a part of it.  I explained my situation with my foot and that by starting June 1st, I would basically be doing most rehab for my foot until I could do more.

I don’t have to tell you how excited my doctor was when he found out.  It’s a 90 mile drive one way to his office so he knew that I wouldn’t be going to therapy much – and this…this is perfect.

I start tomorrow.  Day One, June One and we are

EASports Interactive 30 Day Challenge

I am going to do a lot of videos, some that I will be submitting to EASports and you can see them there, others will only make it on this site and others will quickly be run through the trash.

At my post-op appointment on Friday I was given the go ahead to do light rehab, nothing major but for the most part, what  I will be doing will be upper body.

Either way, it’s here for you to witness – live and in person..