What the title says. Therefore, a few things:
- I have no hard answers or solutions to pretty much anything. Physically, I know what works for me but there’s a lot more to learn. Things keep changing. More on that later.
- Getting healthy in any way is in my limited experience not a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. It is intensely personal and malleable. It is also incredibly fragile. It’s one of the reasons why I started this blog and also why I think those diet industries make 60.8 billion a year.
- Mother Teresa is an inspiration. I sure as hell am not. In fact, most days, I’m a poster child for HSM (Hot Shitty Mess.) It’s a miracle my son has survived to be almost 10 with such a mother.
- These observations I have are solely my opinion. I am an expert at nothing. As I educate myself, I will share because knowledge is power. I realize that by taking on controversial subjects, I attract wrath. Take what you want and leave the rest. Take nothing at all. Or tell me to go to hell, if you want. It’s just my opinion and I am often wrong.
- My writing is not intended to prod or poke or make fun of or put down anyone else's efforts towards health. Anyone who is trying to grow healthier physically, emotionally, socially, financially or any other "–ly" should be applauded and supported. Whatever motivates them to start and persevere is an awesome thing. I am 100% behind them.
- Where weight loss is concerned, I adamantly do not believe in diet industry driven programs anymore as sustainable measures for long term physical goals. I think they are great jump-starting tools and that’s about it. This is my own personal conclusion.
- With that said, if a diet program sustainably works for you, that’s great. Again, this is fragile and personal. One size does not fit all.
- I have thought about this blog for a very long time. In doing so, I have had many conversations with many, many people in the last six months about this subject. My dissatisfaction with the media portrayal and the marketing of weight loss couple with the dissatisfaction I hear from those I encounter along with my own personal dissatisfaction with results in the past is the driving factors here.
So for any who took offense or thought I was criticizing or
who wanted to knock me down a peg, I’m knocked.
Mea culpa and true apologies offered. It is my sincere and humbled hope they might
be accepted.
******************
I considered naming this blog, “Things No One Tells You” but
settled on the more incendiary title because it’s what I tell myself about
everything most days. Still, “Things No One Tells You” struck a
chord because I’m doing the perio-menopause thing. I have
been for about two years. And you know
what? A lot of what is happening, has
happened to date, no one warns you about.
As a dear woman I love to pieces
wrote me this morning, “Who knew your giblets are the boss of everything? And I
mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!”
It scares me, this looming iceberg of uterine change that from
all telling disrupts your life from the ground up not for a month or so, but
for years. Women get through it every day, of
course. For some, it is simpler than
others. For some, there is wreckage in
its wake. Here’s a fact: menopause and its’ inevitable outcome scares
me. It seems to me that I just found a
me I’m vaguely happy with upon the brink of potentially this incarnation going
away again. I am scared I will not be able to sustain a healthy lifestyle
through menopause.
No. Strike that. I’m
terrified.
I also fret about changes other than the proverbial “change
of life.” Life change scares me for it has derailed me
in the past for long periods of time.
<navel-gazing portion of blog>
I had lost weight a number of years ago before my wedding, (which
is where the name SYHGOYA comes from as I lost twenty pounds in about three
months by exercising and eating a strange diet.
My friend, Su said she and I should write that book and had a good laugh
about it.) Then I lost my job, my husband was denied entry to the US after
going to renew his visa because he had married a U.S. citizen and had “intent
to immigrate, I got pregnant on a visit
to Canada to see him. He re-entered the
U.S. a week before our son was born.
And during that time, even with an excellent support network
in Chicago, stress took its toll. High stress job. Bills on one paycheck. Being pregnant, all on its own. It
was in my third trimester I decided Oberweiss ice cream was good for breakfast,
lunch and dinner. Therefore, I was 198 pounds when my son was born, up from 150
lbs at the start of the pregnancy. And for me, breast feeding did not take that
weight off. The truth is, I did nothing
to help it off either. Ice cream is still
good during post-partum and well into the first year, too.
The next eight years brought a series of crazy changes. Motherhood.
Premature hyper-tension. Moving
from Chicago to Ohio. A dream job that
became a nightmare. Separation from my
husband. Unemployment. Divorce. Single Parenting. Navigating a new dysfunctional and highly
political work environment requiring a 3+ hour commute each day. A new unhealthy relationship. Foreclosure. Lawsuits against mortgage giants. General insanity.
(Note: I look at that
list and think, “Jebus. Really? That sounds like a bad Lifetime movie of the
week.” But yeah—all of that
happened. Still, we had a lot of fun during it. My life has been pretty good to date, even all the definite crap of it withstanding. Also, 95% of the nasty situations I encountered I had a
hand in creating. If you make
questionable decisions, questionable things happen. It’s a fact. No pity there.)
There was no question that in the “healthy living department,”
I was completely derailed. Food was the
only constant. It was my offering
to myself and to those I loved. Cooking
was something I wanted to excel at as it seemed I was struggling with
everything else. So,
food was comfort. Food meant love.
I did attempt Weight Watchers a couple of times during those
eight years—lost 15, gained 20, lost 10, gained 22. I was never serious about it though and I knew
that while I did it. I wanted to lose
but knew I couldn’t sustain. I simply
did not want to give up the one thing that offered consistent pleasure. I remember thinking, "Man, I can't wait until I lose this so I can eat again." Oh and there was no exercise. Really at all. I left too early and got home too late.
Then in 2009, after attending a reunion, reading an article
and seeing a picture, when all seemed to be out of control, I started
controlling food. That’s the truth of
this. Then, a new job came, a half an
hour commute began and I started working with people who talked about going to
the gym and I realized I could do that now.
So I tried it. This time, it
stuck.
</navel-gazing>
The point of all this is I have derailed many times in my
life from health simply from the circumstances of life. My current big focus is
financial health these days. It’s a
monster in my life of my own creation and one that has to be slaughtered all on
my lonesome.
Still, I’m afraid it will happen again. The only thing constant in life is change and
I do fear something life-wise will happen and I will lose the ground I’ve
fought for over the past two years. So. Yeah. Gotta love the hard light of reality, right?
I want to know how does one keep up when the unexpected comes into play?
These circumstances happen all the time to people more disciplined and better
equipped to deal with crisis than I. Me? I
have no answers. Question of the
day: does anyone else? How do you mitigate changes? And how can you stay on track?
I believe it was the beatles who said it best.
ReplyDelete"You get by with a little help from your friends"
Unfortunately you still have to do all the work but friends will slap that piece of gino's pizza out of your hand when you need them too :) and they are always good for a reality check but mostly they are the fun inbetween the hard times :) and i think you have a pretty good group for that.
Yes, the vision of the best John Paul combo ever. And don't slap the Gino's. Besides, we won't get any anyway because we all know the neighbors steal the heck out of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes. It's a great group. I'm glad you and the fam are in it.
As usual, well said. Question: how do you navigate the childcare thing while working out?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jeannie.
ReplyDeleteA few ways. The first is to go in the morning after I drop the boy off at daycare or school. Then I try to hit the gym hard for 30 minutes. I work with my trainer in the morning one day a week and he kills me in 30 minutes. I try to do it to myself other days.
The second is my gym has a daycare for around $20 a month. The boy is becoming one of the older kids in there and has taken to helping out sometimes. It's a good facility and I like the staff a lot. The hours are limited, but it's worth the extra cost.
The third way is when I go to the most frequented of the Zumba classes I attend as the instructor doesn't mind if kids come as long as they chill out. The boy brings his handheld game or plays games on my I-Phone (a treat). If there are other kids there, he hangs out with them sometimes. And sometimes, he gets up and does Zumba with the class. Those are my favorite times, by the way. He has a couple number he rocks out on.