Modern Psalmist Plea

Dear LORD-

Have mercy on your wayward servant.
I feel a soul crushing depression weighing heavy on my shoulders.

Have you not already conquered the grave and redeemed me?

Why am I persecuted in spirit?

You have blessed beyond measure.
People not not have power over me, not even myself.

You have saved me.

You have rescued me. Why must I feel that I need reassurance of that constantly?

Where are your walls and healing arms?

I beg forgiveness for my hard heart and lack of faith.

I need your grace today to function.

Though I am undeserving, your grace is sufficient for me.

LORD, I seek.
LORD, I ask.
LORD, I knock.

Father, I can not conquer this on my own.

I feel locked into uselessness- help me rise above this into victory.
Freedom.

I long for freedom from this oppressive depression.

I'm tired of the self-defeating monologue in my head.
Help silence the noise.

Deliver me from the depths in your name sake.

Forgive my doubting Thomas ways, and my last effort pleas.

May I put you first, my I lean on YOU first.

Help me move through this and be an example.

May your name be exalted upon the Earth.
Amen.

Didn't make it.....

I had two goals for the summer:

1. Lose 20 lbs by Sept 11 (beach vacation time)

2. Like a picture of myself by the end of the summer.


1. "Had" is the optimum word. I did EVERYTHING that anyone recommended I do in order to lose weight- I busted my BUTT working out- starting out with a 75 min a day bootcamp for 6 weeks, flowing directly into a circuit training class at 6;30 in the morning- EVERY morning... I cut my calories to 1500- I cut out anything with gluten (i.e., flour), I went low carb, and cut out potatoes as well. No chips, no nothing of the sort. I ate salads with low fat dressing on it like my life depended on it. I thought that 3 months to lose 20lbs with such a drastic life change was doable...not some far out goal that one never gets to. But no. I lost a measley 9lbs. That's "nine" pounds. I lost lost of inches, but when you have a lot of fat to go, it doesn't mean as much when the numbers don't come down. I wanted to be below 200lbs, or at least near it.... and though I am closer than when I started at this rate, it will take me a year to get down below that. I'm so frustrated.

2. I wanted to like a picture of myself by the end of summer. Granted I am going on our beach vacation next week which will still count for summer photos- but so far, nothing. ick. blech. Got a hair cut, and that didn't even help. sigh....

Can I repeat how unbelievably frustrated I am???

Finally. Answers.

About 8 weeks ago I was thinking to yet again try a diet, or some sort of lifestyle change to manage the ever encroaching bulge. The scale keeps going up. I have cut down on carbs and especially gluten since Nov. 08. Still nothing. I was on a liquid diet for 14 days because of my tonsil surgery, and I lost nothing. Infact, I saw the scale creep up after I could actually eat food again. And now here it is, at a higher set point. Enough is enough. I've gone through so much negative self- talk- I'm so lazy yadda yadda yadda. I can't stand myself in pictures etc. If only I would.......dot dot dot, fill in the blank... then I would be thinner.... A fool is someone who does the same thing over and over again expecting different results. So a couple of weeks ago, I started on a venture with my friend from home, Jess, into the realm of Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser- the 30 day Shred. After a week of it (it really got me going) I was talking to my boss and finally decided to see an endocrinologist and have things checked out (again). I had my thyroid etc looked at Spring '08, but everything came back normal. Time to recheck things. So after a 3 hour lab visit (they did a glucose tolerance test with several hour follow ups....) along with other measures. The results? I was diagnosed with Insulin Resistence Syndrome. It means that I pump out too much insulin. My glucose was fine, it means that my body is managing that, but my triglycerides were high, another result of the high insulin. My cholesterol was fine as well. Finally, a cause for my tiredness and fogginess. Finally a cause for my inability to lose weight DESPITE diet efforts.....

After this news I signed up for a Boot Camp. That's right, I"m getting up at the buttcrack of dawn (5:15) to head to the tennis courts by the HS to start a work out with 25-35 other people at 5:45am-7am where we get our butts kicked into gear 4 days a week. Ouch. I'm on week 3, the pain has ebbed, and my knees are finally feeling better. I know this is healthy for me, but I can't get over how much IT SUCKS! But this is a life long thing, something that I will always have to keep in check, meaning I'm going to have to make massive exercise part of my daily routine. Period. The general recommendation is for 30 min 5 days a week. The recommendation for me is 45-60 min 6 days a week. How the heck am I going to incorporate that into my life after boot camp? I don't know yet. At this moment, I just need to find something I like to do- or life is going to be reeeeeeeaaaaaally long and unpleasant.

Sigh. BUT, the bright side is, there is a reason I am feeling the way that I am, and its not because I'm lazy!! WHAHOO!

Time to focus on today.

Goal

I have a goal now. A chain of events has occured to propell me towards this goal. I've picked up a couple new things, or rather picked up some things again- the first one being piano lessons. After a 10 year hiatus, I started lessons again. Hopefully this will help decrease my performance anxiety. I'm currently cleaning out my old photo collection- let me just tell you that I have well over 12 rubbermaid LARGE tubs full of pictures- whether snap shots from Junior High, High School, College or beyond... but also a lot of my old photography class projects etc. I don't like to throw away photographs....or even negatives... and I have a TON of them. Anyway, I found a bunch of pictures that I actually like the look of me in... and I realize I haven't had one of those for YEARS. Perhaps our wedding was the last time? So my goal is to get in shape enough to actually LIKE a picture of me again... perhaps by the end of summer? Perhaps as long as it takes? I dunno... something just snapped.... Well, whatever snapped yesterday caused me to spend 30 min on the treadmill yesterday walking/running intervals.....don't know how long that will last, but I think I'm going to do it again today.

The treadmill thing is more of a way to get me back into exercising at all- because I ordered this work out DVD called 30 - day shred- which my friend from home is going to help keep me honest about...but I also think M is going to do it with me as well. I figured if i started that right away with out any easing into it, I would die. Literally. So here's to hoping I can ease into it.

I hope to run a blog on the daily progression of 30-day shred... stay tuned!

Rant

Ok, so not even 7 days on a liquid diet (some of which I couldn't even hold down for the first few days) allowed me to lose even a pound of weight... That's right- I had my tonsils out, and despite it being a horrible experience, one of which I'm glad I won't have the opportunity to go through again... one of the side effects is that you can't eat solid food for days and days.... which means people report losing like 10lbs or more....sigh. Didn't work for me. I had that hope to hold on to (I mean no one actually GETS their tonsils out just to lose weight, but its a nice perk...) and that quickly faded away. So, hmmmm... nothing is wrong with my thyroid or other blood levels at least at first glance..... perhaps I just need more exercise? When? Where? What? Exercsise is a double edged sword...when you start after a long hiatus, you feel even more fat and uncomfortable....so it takes a while before it actually starts feeling good.... I've stopped and started so many times that just thinking about those first few days of realizing how fat one has gotten and how uncomfortable it is to exercise is a turn off and really kills my motivation to even WANT to start anything. And so I'm stuck completely disappointed in myself for my lack of motivation to figure out this weight thing..... I know BMI scales aren't all they are cracked up to be, but according to it, I need to lose 55lbs in order to be in the healthy weight range.... What a daunting number. I don't think I'll even see close to that number for a while....there's no way I can lose that much before we want to have kid number 2.....so looks like I"ll just have to put that off for another year or 2....so dissappointing...

Anyway just had to rant about how not even a tonsilectomy gave me a jump start on any weight loss....grrrrr..

Last straw....

Now, if you noticed that a year ago I posted something regarding how many diets and and gimmicks I've tried over my life time, you'd realize that none of them have worked. I'm still writing. And actually, I took a hiatus from dieting so to speak for a while. Stress will do that to you. So now I find myself about 50lbs over weight, reaching weights I only saw when I was pregnant. One would think that there would be many "last straws" over the last year as I've seen my weight slowly creep up. But no, losing weight is like trying to quit smoking. We know that quitting (in this case food or lazy behavior) will benefit us in the end, but for now we're fine. No real health concerns yet etc etc.... One would also think that the degredation of my self-esteem to the point where it is almost non-exsistent would have been enough to jump start my motivation...but no. Here I am. The last straw came today, well really yesterday. I hurt my foot. But I didn't stub it, sprain it or break it. I don't know what I did, it just started hurting, a lot. I've had this happen once before when I was really very pregant- the tendons in my foot get stretched out because I"m too heavy. This time it happened because I'm too heavy- no baby excuse this time. I'm lucky that it was just my foot. It could have been my pancreas or my heart. It was just my foot. But that's enough.
I really can't find any sympathizers out there- people don't say I look fat, at least to my face. When I mentioned that its really bugging me, people looked stunned that I think its a problem. Numbers don't lie. I'm 5'9" and 225lbs. According to BMI charts I should be around 140-169. I'm having a hard time buying clothes, because when I go into the woman's sizes, they are assuming that all fat people are SHORT! Things are all wide and short. The sleeves are short, the torso's are short and the legs are short.
I'm young, I can do this. I revisited my Weight Watchers material- though I'll never go back to meetings. They were so contrite, and I felt REALLY silly being there, and then I felt really guilty if I didn't lose weight, and didn't show up the next week. Sigh, but I still have the info they gave me. You know its bad when your weight is near a starting weight on the Biggest Loser. They may be shorter than I am, but still...

Tomorrow is day 1. Screw the foot, I'm going to need to do some exercising.

This is real life, I'm a real person- I don't have money to waste NOT going to a gym. I can't afford personal trainers. And diets don't work. I need to eat practically, making good choices about food. I need to find time to exercise between being a mom and working full time. I'll keep you posted on how its going!

Too fat for yoga- haha

Ok, so I can confindently say that a lot of yoga poses are not made for fat people. Why can I say that? Because, yes I am a fat person, and I can't do many of the poses, not becauase I"m not flexible enough, but because my fat rolls get in the way. Its actually quite depressing to be the fattest one in the room, and that I can't do half the poses because my arms won't hold my weight. Sigh. I think the instructor noticed that I was having trouble, for when I could actually do a pose, he made sure to compliment me, when he wasn't complimenting anyone else for other poses. I can't do the pose or ossena (sp?) where you're right knee is bent, and your left leg is back, and you're supposed to put your forhead flat on your knee....nope, doesn't work, no matter how I try and move my bulk around to do it, there's just too much fat in the way for me to bend that way. Its so depressing. I can see why people gain more weight and dont' exercise, for its just down right uncomfortable and depressing when you can't do many of the poses. Who wants to go to a gym when they are fat too? Do you know what its like going to a gym when you're the fattest person there??? Highly discouraging and highly depressing. Makes people want to go eat. I don't think I eat emotionally.... or I only eat more when I'm bored. I don't eat more when I'm angry or depressed....only when I'm bored. I think I'm going to try an appetite suppressant to see if I can cut the hungry feeling in the afternoon when I'm sitting at my desk. We'll see how that goes. And, yes, I'll continue to go to yoga, despite the difficulty... I figure if I keep up with it, it might help. I"m also going to check out a DVD for yoga for weight loss.... I took a class, and now I know at least the basic poses that one is to do, so that a DVD shouldnt' that be too far of a stretch....

Ok, I'm done venting now... I'm going to eat my lunch....