Do your best

I’m a good Christian man!

I kind of stopped listening after that because this “good Christian man” had spent the last 20 minutes yelling and swearing at me because he didn’t like the terms of the contract that he signed with my company.

And now I’m going to have to pray for forgiveness for swearing at you!

Because it’s my fault, right?

Ugh. Talking to this guy had my heart rate up at 86 BPM while sitting at my desk. I’m proud of myself, though, because I did not lash out at him, nor did I take the verbal assault personally. He asked what I was going to do and I told him that I was going to continue to service his account and do my best to help him in any way that I could. When he asked why, I told him it’s because “that’s the way my momma raised me.”

With an air of authority, he told me that he does his best every day because Colossians 3:23 says: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

*sigh*

Well, Mr. Christian… I told him that I’d made myself vulnerable by reaching out to him with the information that he needed to make an informed decision for his business and that I did so because I, too, am a good person and I’m trying to do my best. I let him know in no uncertain terms that I was not obligated to be yelled at or sworn at or criticized, but I did so because I wanted him to have the information needed, and be able to ask questions if he had them. He apologized, I forgave him, then I went for a walk.

I’m down 3.4 lbs this week and I’m not going to ruin it by going to “comfort foods,” because the adrenaline makes me feel icky. Walking for 25 minutes helped me work up a good sweat, and now I can vent here and get back to work.

 

I’m eating the damn salad.

Before I joined Weight Watchers, I made this week’s menu — breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks–all mapped out. Well, then Tuesday rolled around and suddenly my plan sucks. I was so frustrated.

First of all, Little Elfkin is eating like mad–she must be heading for a growth spurt because I was about to dig into my breakfast when her cherubic voice inquired “Mama? More egg? Please?”

“Yes, Baby, you can have more egg…”

So, I tracked one egg, one tortilla for breakfast–and it was 5 points–not bad! But by the time I got to work, I was hungry again. I stopped at the gas station and picked up what I thought was a healthy alternative–a turkey sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich and a couple of espressos. Well, no 2nd breakfast for this Hobbit! That breakfast sandwich would’ve been 11 points, which would’ve put me at 16 points, then the espressos were another 6, so just in BREAKFAST I would’ve used up 22/40 points (or 55%) of my daily budget on one meal. *fizzle*

I skipped the breakfast sandwich! Go me!

1st break rolls around and I. Am. Starving. I had 2 espressos and a cup of coffee to try to stave off the hangry but noon couldn’t come soon enough! I had a cheese stick (1 point) and that held me over until noon.

YES! I CAN EAT! HALLELUJAH!

I’d packed a yummy yummy Dole Chopped Salad kit in Sunflower Crunch flavor. It has a sweet onion dressing and a little bit of bacon, so it’s yum yum delicious.

And 22 points for the whole bag. T^T It would’ve been 27, but that number was too scary so I only counted 5 cups instead of 6 1/2 which is more likely…

SERIOUSLY, WW?! SERIOUSLY?!

I portioned out half the bag and contented myself with the 13 points that it would be. I ate slowly. I was mindful of the flavors in each bite. I drank water and tried to stay in tune with my appetite.

There’s no WAY this is going to be enough food.

And then I stopped. I freaked out a little, but I let my food settle. I let my mind stop racing ahead and just… sat here. Honestly, I started typing this entry out and that’s what really gave me time enough to say “you know what? Maybe it IS enough food.”

So, here I am, 1/3 salad on my plate and I’m full.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can finally lose weight.

I need to go for a walk. If you made it this far, I appreciate your listening to my rant. So to speak 😉

MegsFitness on Nerd Fitness – Battle Logs!

I’ve blogged in the past about how much happier and more content I feel when I am following the core strengths of health and wellness – including eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and making time for personal goals.  So, it stands to reason that now, more than ever, I need to get back into the patterns of healthy eating, getting enough (and higher quality) rest, exercising, and making time for personal goals. 

This blog has become more of a personal journal for me, which will definitely incorporate health and wellness, but it’s always been about more than that.  For me, it’s been about recognizing the fact that my journey — whether it’s to weight loss, muscle gain, social changes, or family life — is going to be completely different from someone else’s journey, even if we share many of the same characteristics.  To that end, I still have every intention of maintaining this blog and getting back into writing about things that are fun, interesting, or relative to my personal narrative.  

My day-to-day fitness narrative is going to be captured at Nerd Fitness.  It’s a community of fitness-minded individuals and I really feel like that’s the sort of encouragement I could use at the moment.  What that means for the MegsFitness blog is that I’ll be cross-posting my weekly summaries here, so that at least part of this journal can resonate with the “-Fitness” part of the name 😀

I’m ready to get back to good.  I’m ready to lose weight, gain muscle, find my confidence, and conquer the world.  If you’re interested in joining The Rebellion, my “battle log” is found here: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/52946-amis-last-first-post/

[Begin Crosspost]:

Name: Aminarra, aka “MegsFitness”

Occupation: Corporate Fleet Management Resolution

Previous Fitness Experience: 2 years on SparkPeople, 3 years with Weight Loss Warriors, 3 attempts at Weight Watchers, 1 attempt at Herbalife; 4 years high school strength training, 1 obstacle 5k, 10+ regular 5k Races, greatest weight loss 42lbs.

Current Level of Fitness: Sedentary.  It’s been 2 years since I’ve worked out consistently due to a severe back injury after the Warrior Dash.

“End Game” Goal: Working out 4+x/week, Settling at a healthy weight, ideally ~180, but more importantly having functional strength and physical health.

Short-term Goal: Begin working out 1-3x/week, at a beginner level to become re-acclimated to the fitness world. Begin reintegrating Paleo Lifestyle into eating plan  

Plan of Action:  Use Nerd Fitness to launch new fitness goals; integrate fitness guild with gamer guild for inspiration.  Generate weekly goals in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and personal.  Update status on goals at least weekly.

Outside of NF: 
https://megsfitness.wordpress.com/
http://www.vexxgaming.com/

Emotional Roller Coaster

I think I’ve eaten about a cup of Lay’s French Onion Dip, and nearly a whole bag of Old Dutch Rip-L-Chips.  The lays dip is not NEARLY as satisfying as the Old Dutch brand would be, but apparently that doesn’t stop me.

If you haven’t read my previous post, you don’t have to.  Suffice it to say that I’m going through a pretty difficult time in my life right now and some days are worse than others.  Today wasn’t supposed to be one of those days–I woke up feeling like I had made steady progress since the surgery on Friday, that I was built for joy and that it would all be sunshine and rainbows from here.  I was able to snuggle with Jeff last night and feel like our relationship would be okay, and that went pretty far towards my waking up in a good mood today.

But I was up at 3:30, stayed up until 4, slept in until 7, then went back to bed at 8:30.  I finally got up at 9:45am and I wanted to choose to have a good day.

Then my arms started aching–my triceps felt like I’d been doing extensions all night long.  My sides ached, like I’d been doing ab exercises for hours.  The top of my abdomen pulled like there wasn’t enough to reach from my sternum to my belly button.  And I had the claws and cramps digging in to my uterus.  In short–The physical side effects of my surgery were shouting at me to pipe down and stop trying to be happy.

I hung out at home for most of the morning.  It was great, really–Jeff made pancakes, which we had with fruit for breakfast.  We watched TV with the parents until it was time to actually meet up with Gloria and Mike, again. I’m built for joy, I’m  having a good day, there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong.  So we piled into the car, we drove out to the malt shop, and we got together with Mike and Gloria.

She was radiant.  Her belly has popped and she is carrying pregnancy beautifully.  She’s happy and her little one is healthy, and she’s excited for her baby shower coming up in just a couple weeks.

And I’m happy for her, truly I am, but all I could think about was how sore I still am; how the bruise on my arm, where the IV was inserted, has blossomed into an ugly mark that reminds me right now that I’m not pregnant anymore.  I saw the back of my hand and how grey the skin is from the bruising from another needle that was necessary for my surgery, and I just pulled in on myself.

Conversation still flowed around me and I tried to stay light, but the truth is that I felt horrible and disconnected by the time we left.  Jeff could tell, but he couldn’t understand it, because I had been saying all morning how good I’m doing and how it’s going to be such a good day.  We had to go to the store afterwards, and I was irritated about it, and couldn’t really hide it.  So, when we got home, I said that I was tired and begged off to take a nap.  I laid in bed and googled “muscle pain after D&C” and “side effects of anesthesia” and read forum posts about women who have gone through what I’m going through.  I read that it was normal that I haven’t been able to go since Friday and that I should just drink lots of water to help with the bloating and discomfort, but that it can last for weeks.  I read that the muscle pain could be from the drugs used during the surgery that may have caused my muscles to seize before relaxing, or it could be from being moved while I was under.  I read that as long as I don’t have a fever, I pretty much just need to deal with it.

I was dealing with it, I was on the edges of sleep when a friend of a friend called about the baby shower.  She’d been travelling for two weeks, and drama this, yadda that.  “I don’t care,” I interrupted.  “If you want to help plan, be there on Saturday, otherwise, I don’t care.”

That’s not me, that’s not who I am, and she at least knows me well enough to know that, so she snapped out of her reverie and asked what’s wrong.  And I confessed to her, this woman that I don’t even know, that seeing one of my friends so happy has absolutely ruined my day and I don’t know how I’m going to plan a baby shower for her, feeling the way that I do.  So I cried, and I apologized, and I asked her if she could please be there on Saturday to take some of the responsibility from me, because I can’t guarantee that I’ll be any good at celebrating someone else’s pregnancy when I’m still very much mourning the loss of my own.  And I felt so guilty for it, so terrible for feeling sorry for myself, and the negative spiral continued.  She had plans to be out of town on Saturday, but hearing what I’m going through, she promised to be there.  She said that I could still come help celebrate my friend’s baby, and that everyone would understand if I had to quietly leave if it were too much.  I still have a couple weeks to figure it out…

I hate that things can’t just magically go back to the way they were before I even found out that I was pregnant.  I wish that this could just be my normal monthly cycle and not a medically necessary discomfort that I have to confront with all of my emotions.  I hate that there are good days mixed with the bad because I want to just move on and forget that any of this has ever happened–but having a bad day or a bad moment just reminds me that it’s true.

And so with all of this baggage left over from the weekend, I’m going to head into work tomorrow.. with my ugly bruise, and my heavy heart, and I’m going to try to pretend that everything is okay and that I’m not actually going to fall apart at any minute if someone says or does the wrong thing.

By the grace of all that’s good, I really hope that I can have a good day tomorrow, and not feel the weight of guilt, and sadness, and discomfort, when I have to look my colleagues in the eye and deal with their pity.  With all that I have, I hope I can be strong enough to just not cry at work.

Feelings and Free Things

The (guided) physical therapy certainly didn’t last long, did it?  Seems like I get a “first…” post and then it pitters off like it never existed.  It’s like posting about it jinxes it.  Jody called me on Friday to let me know that apparently policies had changed and she wouldn’t be able to handle my training any more.  She said that she’s still open to talking with me about nutrition, though.  She is someone who has recovered from disordered eating, so I think she has an interest in my patterns and potentially helping me with that too.

Lately, I’ve been feeling really off.  During lunch last week, my work-friend asked how I was doing, and I said that I just didn’t feel like myself–and that was enough to make my eyes well up with tears.  So then I’m apologizing and scrubbing at my face, and explaining I didn’t know where the emotion came from, and her eyes are welling up and she’s panicking “don’t cry! You’ll make me cry!”

So I talked to her a little about some of the things that have been stressing me out, and even though it was mighty embarrassing, I’m glad I did, because her reply was priceless.

Never apologize for the feelings that you have.

That was really helpful, and it prompted me to post on my weightloss group to see if anyone had any experience with disordered eating/coping.  One of the girls, Christy, said this:

 I think it’s really important to dig in and really confront your emotions with a compassionate heart and allow yourself to feel them completely, and know that it’s okay. It’s amazing how therapeutic it can be to have a loud, messy sob fest! The key is just allowing yourself, completely free of judgement, to feel everything. Even if part of you is saying you shouldn’t feel what you’re feeling, just tell that part to shut up because whatever you feel is legitimate. It doesn’t mean you have to let that feeling dictate your actions, but you need to let yourself feel it. Are you jealous? Pissed off? Lonely? Scared? Doubting? Self-pitiful? All valid!!

That’s definitely a route I’m trying.

Tonight, Jeff was simultaneously the best and the worst.  I’m a dum dum who decided to pour marinade on my pulled pork, thinking it was bbq sauce.  He burst out laughing, “I’m Megan, and I don’t read the bottle,” meanwhile I’m staring at my plate in mourning. Once he realized I was bummed, he switched to reassurance mode “don’t worry, it’ll be good, I promise.”  Then, as if to make good on his promise, he put the marinade on his own pulled pork sandwich, too.

Today on Facebook, the Guthrie Theater announced that they were giving away free tickets to go see Othello.  I thought for sure it was an April Fool’s prank, (look at the date, after all!) but my co-worker scored a pair so I picked up the phone and called immediately.  Let’s just say I’m going to go to a play tonight for free 😉

I don’t know if I’ll actually *like* the play or not, but you can’t argue with free, can you?

Wipers up, snow down

I said this morning that wipers up means snow will be coming down.  It started early afternoon, and never really let up…

The roads were icy, visibility was reduced… And I had to go to school for class tonight.

Yeah. Good luck getting anywhere.

You know what, though? I got there, checked my voicemail, and heard a message saying class was canceled.

Some days are only good for building snowmen and going to bed early.

Tonight I’m wearing my warrior shirt to bed. Kind of need a reminder to eat better tomorrow and stop getting so frustrated with work.  I ranted at a friend* at work today about all of my frustrations and it just made me want to cry.  Then, I rushed off to school where I was scheduled for an exam…I was feeling crappy, so what did I have for dinner? A chicken taquito, a corndog, a bag of chips, a handful of dark chocolate, and about half a cup of gelato.  Did it feel good at the time? Absolutely. Does it feel good now? Nope. Can I take it back? Nope! Time to move on.

Tomorrow I’ll be well rested, and I’ll make sure to have healthy snacks with me.

Have a good night!

Sugar Wednesday

Today was a bit hectic. We stayed up super late last night (1am), so this morning was rough.  I had a sensible breakfast, then pizza, a sensible lunch, (salad and menacotti (sp?), then too much sugar.

Since things are stupid stressful at work, people keep bringing around doughnuts and treats, and I keep eating them. The scale reflects those decisions…

Weekend update

http://wp.me/p3h2ti-jY

Posted a blog that was supposed to just be a which hit, but it was longer than I thought. Check it out…

Crosspost from MegsfitnessPhotoTracker – Lunch: long day, short nutrition

Jeff’s family was visiting between Christmas and New Years Eve, so I’ve been scarce as far as this blog goes.  They’re gone, though, so I’m back 🙂

Today started out rough. My back hurt, and I was supposed to be to work at 9, but Taz has a worrisome sneeze, and he’s been ripping his fur out. A trip to the vet revealed no cause for the fur pulling, but his sneezing is probably feline herpes virus. His hypothyroid seems to be stabilized, but they’ll be checking his T4 anyway.

Lunch included a spicy chicken sandwich at 11, and a lunchable at 2.

Skittles and water mean my habits from 2013 haven’t but the dust just yet, but my fitness challenge says I’m trying:

And then there’s me: seeking fitness friendship

It may just be the exhaustion talking, but I almost feel like giving up on the Facebook page AND the photo tracker. I’d also be “giving up” on my fitness group on Facebook, and instead start thinking of it like a secret group of occasionally fitness minded friends instead. We’ve all been friends online for so long that we share all of our secrets there. Love, life, even.. You know.

The secret group has about 9 “active” members–a couple are so busy they don’t really post too often. Of those nine, 5 are growing their families, so it’s less about fitness these days than it is about life.

And then there’s me. I love these girls and they’re great to be around. I love being involved, and I’ll appreciate their support when my husband and I start our family, but that’s so far away. What do I do in the mean time? I need a fitness support group. Should I join spark people and blog there again?

Are there other online support groups (preferably on Facebook) that I could join?

I’m mulling these questions over while I get ready for work. Hopefully this will clear up by new year–especially with people getting a renewed fitness inspiration.

If you have ideas, share them in the comments below 🙂