Life Update: Got to go through it

I didn't mean to disappear. It kind of just happened. I've been up and down with my diet. I've been pretty good about getting my exercises in and logging my food in myfitnesspal is starting to become more habit forming. 

Slow changes, but good changes. 

I still can't figure out how a body works. I gained four pounds between Saturday morning and Sunday morning and I even RAN 3 MILES! WHAT?

How does this even happen? 

This week I've reduced my carbs. Which is funny, because yesterday I ate under 100 grams of carbs and I had a dream that I bought 10+ bags of every kind of m&m's known to man. I remember watching them beep as the ran over the conveyor belt. 

I slept a little better yesterday but that could also due to being just plain exhausted, I had a minor head cold over the weekend, and could only breath through one nostril. Today is much better. 

I will be back to a regular blogging schedule soon, but I read this blog post recently that I have to share. It's Advice on Losing Weight The Second Time written by Andie Mitchell.

The first blog post she talks about loving yourself at all stages on Losing and Gaining...and accepting myself at every weight. It then leads into Losing Weight the Second Time. Both are equally important pieces to read, as they have great points, but read them in whichever order works. I read them backwards. 

Go ahead...I'll wait...

I love the way she writes, immediately you can see where is she and what's going on in her life. We all struggle with gaining and losing, and sometimes, none of it makes any sense, but are we loving ourselves enough through the process?

I certainly am not. 

As Andie says " I’d lived for twenty formative years as the biggest girl I knew — but for having struggled at all. No, what I felt was like a fraud for not having maintained the same weight as when I lost it nearly a decade ago."

I too, at times, feel like I have failed. I've had people call me an inspiration, and say that I encourage them, yet, having gained 20 pounds back, feeling uncomfortable in my own skin again?
I feel like I have failed because I couldn't keep it off.  I feel like I have failed because I still don't love myself enough.

Andie goes onto say something that breaths life back into accepting myself .

"I spent the better of the past year and a half trying to live in denial of this weight, trying to hide it, trying to wish I hadn’t gained it in the first place, but all any of that did was add more weight and create a painful cycle. The TEDx talk, and thrusting myself out there, made it so that I had to accept my body just as it is — not ten pounds from now, not twenty. Now.

And what did that acceptance do? It made me feel better. It made me happier. Much, much happier. I’d feared that accepting the weight — acknowledging every one of the almost forty pounds I’d gained in the past year or so — would be the ultimate admission of failure, of fraud. But instead, it was a slow exhale. It allowed me to assess myself, with less judgment, to be honest with myself, without the shrill voice of criticism. It gave me a little kindness, a helping of compassion, a bit of grace."

It helped reading her words of facing fears, anxieties, and worries, and ultimately what brought most of us into this painful cycle. "I procrastinate dealing with feeling by focusing on food for the time being." It's something I'm good at. I tuck away all the painful, hurtful things, until I'm ready to deal with them and I eat to feel better. "It's procrastination by way of distraction, and at it's heart, an avoidance of the present." 

I've had a rough go of it since about end of 2016. Life got stressful, major changes, and shifts, things I would rather not look in the face. Bad boundary setting skills. It all added up to the excuse, I ran a marathon, I don't have to do ANYTHING ELSE the rest of the year. Yes the weight has been coming back on since at least 2016. 

Andie Mitchell goes on to really break it down, ask us if we think we're avoiding things, because we believe we won't be able to make it through it, but yet, we're still here. She encourages us to unpack, things we were never meant to hoard. I'm starting to do that slowly. I have better control of my diet, my exercise goals, when I'm tackling life head on, no matter how hard it may get. 

I remember when we first started our infertility journey, and I was just in the beginning of starting exercising (You know, because losing weight helps you get pregnant...at least that's what they told me. Ha!) I would be at a class practicing upper cuts, thinking, 'that's right. I'm punching infertility in the face, like a beast.' Now...I find other things. I find things, that make me feel better in the moment, instead of the long run. Chocolate? You bet!! Cookies! Even better? Forget baking them, eat the dough! 

You know that song, Going on a bear hunt? Maybe you heard it or sang it as a kid. It's been my mantra these last few weeks.

The lyrics go something like, "You can't go over it, you can't go under it, can't go around it. Got to go through it."

Wherever you on, on this journey to health, whether you're like me, having to lose weight the second, or 3rd or even 4th time. I hope you are loving yourself at every stage. If you're trying to gain weight, lose weight, maintain, build muscle, lose fat. Fighting depression. Overcoming anxiety and worry. I pray that you hear the soothing words, that you are loved. You are not alone. Remember to keep going through, and if you feel like you can't, throw a life line out to friends and family who understand you, and support you. They can also love you through it. 

Most of all, remember who loves you, who sacrificed for you, and whose comfort never flows apart from your suffering. 

Blessings,

A