AaaaawkWARD!

Sorry if I weirded anyone out with the end of my post yesterday. I realize that it doesn't appear to have much to do with weight loss, but it has definitely been a HUGE factor in what has shaped my self confidence up to this point and as I said...it was cathartic just to get it out there as I've had to cope with it silently for several years.

I don't blame my ex-husband for my weight problem because I've had one my whole life, but someday I may do a lengthier post about how it affected my sense of self worth and overall self image to have a man I seemed to click with in every way, but one. I think I've said it before, but it really drove home the fact that there was something about me that was fundamentally "unlovable." I think I'm dealing with this now, but it is certainly something I have to overcome. I've spent the better part of my life wondering what it was about myself that wasn't "enough" for him. That leaves lots of ugly feelings you have to stash in some deep dark place. I stashed them and then camouflaged the hole with twinkie wrappers and the detritus of many many fast food meals. I think at some point I just gave up trying to figure out WHAT I could do to make him love me and just started drowning my sorrows the best way I knew how...with food.

I'm actually getting ready to go to bed and I'm exhausted because I went to the pool with Tanner today! I wore 80 proof sunscreen and I think I still managed to get a burn! Whats up with that? Craziness! We had a great time, Tanner played Marco Polo with a group of kids almost the whole time and had a blast. When it was his turn, they would splash water toward him instead of saying "polo" so that he could find them lol. He was often "it" forever, but it had nothing to do with his hearing....he's just like his momma....slow as freaking molasses! It was nice to see him enjoy himself like that. He doesn't have a lot of friends.

We ate dinner (a sandwich) before we left and we stopped by McDonalds on the way home and each got a frozen yogurt cone (100 cal. yay!). When I suggested stopping for ice cream, Tanner said "I thought we weren't eating stuff like that anymore?" so I told him that it was frozen yogurt and not ice cream. Tanner kept insisting that he didn't want frozen "yogurt" he wanted the regular ice cream so I finally said "ok, ok, I'll get you the ice cream and me the frozen yogurt!" just to shut him up! Of course I handed him the cone, let him taste it and asked him what he thought, he said "It's good, I love vanilla!" I looked at him and said "That's frozen yogurt silly!!" He replied "oh?" and kept on eating. Crazy kid! I can't believe he's almost taller than me now :( No fair!

P.S. Does everyone get the picture? hehe

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Synchronized Swimming

Thought I'd take a minute to post real quick and let you guys know that I did go swimming Tuesday. We had a lot of fun and I got sunburned everywhere I didn't have sunscreen (eyelids and scalp...wth with the scalp burn? it isn't that thin is it?). I spent almost the entire hour and a half keeping busy, whether I was swimming laps or walking or doing strength training. I felt it when I went to get out of the pool, but the next day I was fine which makes me wonder if I was really doing anything at all lol. I want to hurt, I want my muscles to ache!!

Tanner and I are a great swim team btw! He swam a few laps with me at the beginning and then went off to have some fun with the kids. Every once in a while, I would give him a choice of getting out of the pool to go up the massive slides they have there (its quite a job for him to climb) or come and swim one lap back and forth.

I'm going to get some diving sticks or something this weekend so that we can incorporate that in our workout as well. The diving sticks are great too because it gets the kids interacting with him. I was so upset Tuesday because Tanner and a few kids were playing with his water football having a great time, a kid came up and started talking to him so Tanner told him he was deaf and looked for me to interpret. I swam over and asked the kid what he wanted to say, but I could already tell that the sound of Tanner's voice had freaked him out. He just put his hands up and said "no, thats ok, nothing." I told him it was fine, tanner was just deaf and I could interpret for him, did he want to play too? Again the kid acted like he was going to catch it from Tanner or something and just swam off :( It honestly doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it makes my heart break for tanner :( He could have cared less though, he just went on playing with the other kids lol so who has the problem with it?

I've also sorted out a scam to get Tanner more motivated to exercise. It's going to sound bass ackwards, but I think it makes sense. We are going to have one night a week where we eat out and Tanner gets to pick the spot...as long as he gets 20 minutes of physical activity a day in at home. If he doesn't get the 20 minutes a day, then we don't eat out that Friday. The food isn't so much a "reward" per se, but more of a way to make it make sense to him: If you work out, then you can afford to splurge every now and then. You don't work out, you can't afford it. We'll see how well this goes over. He's gotten rather used to fast food.

Erik took him to tour the high school and he said that Tanner was pretty much the heaviest kid he saw there :( Again, the guilt is immense. I sometimes wonder if I'm ever going to be able to undo any of the damage we've done in regards to his ideas about food. I swear to you, the kid does not have a FULL sensation. He eats and I KNOW he has to be stuffed, but he will ask for more. I know it is partly because of some of the medication he is on, but geez...when you can out-eat me, you are consuming at the professional level.

Ok, I hear him coming in the door as I write so I have to sign off so that we can go to pool again! Not sure how to keep my scalp from burning though...any suggestions that don't involve me donning some dorky headpiece or putting sunscreen in my hair? Trust me, I have quite a look going in just the swimsuit.

Checking in hope to have pics of my new hair soon :)

Today was a busy day for me, I actually spent most of it OUTSIDE the house! Go ME! I went and got my hair cut, colored and styled and LOVE it. I haven't had a chance to get any pics. My friend shannon got a lovely one of me in foils which I may post later just to amuse the masses. Plus, it will make the final transformation all the more WOWZA! I think a lot of myself don't I? hehe. No, I really don't, but I do feel a WHOLE lot better now that I look like a human being again. Diet has been going good this week. I've had a few things here and there that probably weren't "on the diet" but at the end of the day I was still within my parameters so I"m not sweating it. I haven't weighed myself yet though. I may do that tomorrow too. Trying to prepare myself for disappointment.

I hope everyone is having a great week. We have beautiful weather here in SA and its making me look VERY forward to the pool opening up at the Y. I love taking Tanner there or heading to Shannon's neighborhood pool.

Ok, have to take Tanner to get him signed up for the Deaf Dance Troupe so this has to be brief. I'll talk more about the DDT later too if you guys are interested and I hope to catch up on all my blogs tomorrow. I'm finally getting some energy back yay!

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Conversations with God: "Get to the Gym Girl!"

Hey all, my apologies for not getting a post up yesterday, but I worked about 10 hrs straight which was actually a light day for me, but given the fact that I got up at 5:00AM to go WORK OUT (woot!), I was pooped by 5:00PM. Yes, you read that right  I actually set my alarm and when it went off at 5am, I got out of bed, shoehorned myself into my sexy black swimsuit and grabbed my keys so that I could head off to the gym.

To add insult to injury (the injury being that I had to squeeze into that sexy black swimsuit...I chose black of course for its slimming effect), God apparently saw fit to not allow my ex to see my email asking him not to park behind me so that I could take my car to the gym. This meant that after squeezing myself into the lovely black swimsuit (which has absolutely crap-o-licious support for my copious breastages), I had to squeeze myself into a tiny green Toyota Echo. At my size, it looked like the car was merely another layer to my beach ensemble (said copious breastages were in constant peril of pressing the horn I was packed in there so tightly). Knowing God as I do, I realized this was his way of saying “About darn time you got yourself back to the gym Missy and just in case you are thinking this will be the first and the last visit to the gym, you just remember that you are almost too big to fit in a damn car…got it? Good!”

Hearing the voice of God speak to you at 5am is a rather profound experience, but when he’s really laying into you like that….you listen! I offered up a silent bargain to God that if he would get me to the gym safely, and by “safely” I meant no traffic stops, accidents, flat tires, or any other incident that might mean even MORE people were going to see me in my sparkly black swimsuit (I can see the mug shot on The Smoking Gun’s website already), I would continue to go back to the gym for as long as it took. Fifteen minutes later I was pulling into the gym parking lot so he must have took me up on the offer. However, on the way over, I remembered that Erik mentioned his car had a habit of locking him in and that he had occasionally had to climb over the gear shift thingy to get out the right side of the car. Knowing that there was NO way I was going to manage that maneuver without seriously injuring myself, I sent up a quick “P.S.” to God further clarifying that “safely” now included not having to have the Jaws of life called out to get me out of the car once at the gym.

I got there a bit early so I used this extra time, after successfully opening the car door (Yea God!), to extricate myself from the Echo; believe me, this was a workout in itself! Next came the walk up the stairs and down the long corridor to the gym, yet another workout, but I managed to get to the pool in once piece.

When I stepped in the room where they have the pool, I was a bit concerned; it was rather warm, almost as if they had the heat on. I knew the pool was heated so I was already beginning to wonder how comfortable it was going to be. When I started using the pool, the heater was broken so I was used to it being lukewarm. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but another issue I have with exercise is getting overheated. I have rosacea and not only will getting overheated cause my face to break out in the worst way, but getting overheated also tends to trigger migraines for me. I know I seem like I have an excuse for everything, but I swear...this is all medically documented. I would LOVE to be able to exercise and push myself as far as I could without worrying about stuff like this, but I know my body. At the time, I was really only worried about the rosacea because I hadn’t had a migraine in forever (ever since getting on blood pressure medication) and I can live with a breakout, but I’m not so ok with the migraines. I knew I had a full day of work ahead of me.

I took off my snazzy new short set that I’d worn over my swimsuit (Erik would call me “sporty spice” for the rest of the day when he saw me wearing it lol) and wobbled over to the edge of the pool. It was nicely heated and felt just a bit cooler than a hot tub actually and I think if the room had been a bit cooler, it would have felt great. I started the timer and got in. I started things off by doing some step work just to get my heart rate up. About 2-3 minutes of that and then I grabbed a noodle so that I could start “running” which is basically dog paddling really fast without using your hands. It does a nice job of getting my heart rate up and at this point that’s what is important. I did that for about 15 minutes and then did a breast stroke for another 10, ultimately slowing things down and finishing off with “leg lifts” to help strengthen my legs. With the resistance, this seems to be a good exercise for both my inner and outer thighs, but it also tests my core strength because I have to keep my torso balanced as I move my legs.

Honestly, outside of getting WAY overheated…I spent most of my time in the pool facing two windows that I had wished I had opened before starting…I didn’t feel like I had done much at all. I had a few moments where I could feel my knee kind of get torqued and made mental notes to myself about what NOT to do next time. It was when I went to get out of the pool that I started praying again. I could feel every single pound pulling on my poor skeleton as I hauled my body out of the water. WOW! Going from the buoyancy of the water and feeling the effects of gravity once more made the walk from the pool to the shower feel as if I had doubled my weight in the last 30 minutes. I took that as a last “P.S” from God to make sure I made my next workout appointment the following week.

As the day progressed, I really did feel the workout. It was more muscle fatigue than soreness though. I did end up with the start of a migraine, but took my migraine meds and it went away. I will just have to open up those windows next time. Right now, I think they will offer enough cool air to counteract the sauna feeling of the heater and heated pool together.

Later in the day, I stepped on the scale. I know, I know….it was depressing as it showed I gained. I won’t say how much because I’m doing that competition, but it was depressing to see a gain. Honestly though, I had the burger incident and a few other incidents where I ate out and ate clean, but unless I’m cooking the food myself, I don’t trust the calorie counts. I just don’t see any other way I could have gained. I'm also suspect of those sparkpeople goals. I don't know, if anything I had more days where I was UNDER their totals so maybe that is the problem? Next week, I’m going to make sure that I eat nothing I don’t actually cook for myself, log EVERYTHING and post it here. If I don’t lose weight next week, maybe you guys can help me figure out what the heck I’m doing wrong.

I’m a little nervous because the last time I really tried to lose weight, it came off SUPER slowly. In three months of watching what I ate and spending 6 days a week in the gym doing boot camp style workouts, I lost only 20 lbs. I got down to 419 and then plateaued. At the time, I really was sure it was because I was packing on the muscle. I had never worked out so hard so I chalked it up to that. Now, I’m a little worried that maybe there is something wonky going on with the PCOS. I know as you get heavier, your ability to lose weight gets harder due to the issues with insulin resistance and other related problems. If I can’t seem to lose weight next week, I think I may have to resort to a low carb diet.

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