A New Beginning

So I was just on one of my Spark Teams on Spark People and a post got me thinking. In the post, one of the team members was talking about a health and wellness class she just attended and in the class the instructor talked about goals. The instructor asked everyone to think about why they have the goals they do. She also asked the class how much they are willing to “pay” to reach those goals. That is something I have been thinking about so much lately and honestly, I don’t know if I am willing to pay the price I need to to meet my weight loss goals anymore.

Just thinking about why I have the goals that I do, my reasons initially were many. Now, I can’t really say. I picked a goal weight of 130 because one day like a year and a half ago, my sister was over for a party and at one point we went up into the master bathroom and she weighed herself in front of me. I think I was trying to decide what a reasonable goal was for myself, actually. So, fully clothed and in the evening where we had been eating and drinking she stepped on the scale and it said 130.0. I figured, if that’s what she weighs totally dressed and after eating, then that’s a reasonable amount that I can weigh if I’m undressed and haven’t eaten anything. Reasonable enough, right? Then I picked a bunch of weights between my weight at the time and my ultimate goal that seemed significant for one reason or another… 10% loss, getting into a certain BMI category, etc.

When I first started trying to lose weight, I had so many reasons for wanting to do so. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been meaning to post for about 5 days now because last Friday, June 19th was my 1 year anniversary from when I fully dedicated myself to changing my lifestyle and losing weight. I have been waiting to post because I really wanted to find a picture of myself from last year and then have one taken of me as I am now so I could put them side by side in this post. But, I still haven’t dug up an old picture and I just don’t want to wait to post any longer, so oh well! I also meant to take measurements and new pictures last weekend but I just ended up being in a rush both mornings, it seemed. So, hopefully this Saturday I will do it, I swear, I’m gonna!!

Anyway, things have changed pretty dramatically compared to a year ago. It has been a very busy year full of lots of changes. At this time last year I was pretty depressed, but not so much so that I felt depression was taking over my life. I was 205 pounds and felt horrible about myself. I hid from cameras and avoided going out and doing things in general because I didn’t want to be seen. This probably makes me a little weird, but one way I think about how I’m feeling about myself is how I would feel if I ran into an ex-boyfriend… Would I feel empowered and proud of who I am? Or would I feel humiliated, sad, desperate, etc.? Last June, I would have been embarrassed about how I looked and, despite how much I had going for myself at that time, I wouldn’t have been proud. Today, I would love to run into an ex. I look better than I probably ever have, I’m in better shape physically, I am actually feeling happy, and I have everything I could want at this point in my life. I would love to run into one of them if for no other reason than to have a “I’m so much better off, in your face!” kind of moment. That probably make me a mean person, but I don’t care.

So, let’s see. In the past year I’ve lost almost 50 pounds (49.5 to be precise), Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve been taking those anti-depressants for a couple weeks now and I actually do feel much better.  I’m not sure if it’s the medicine or just that time has passed since the robberies and car accident or what, but I’ll take it.  Of course I had to put normal in quotes, because I know I’m never completely normal. :)  I pride myself on being just a little bit crazy.  Unfortunately, my relationship with Wellbutrin did not work out.  I got the prescription on a Tuesday and took it for the first time the next morning.  Well, I ended up getting a pretty bad migraine on Thursday at like 7:00 am, before I even got to work.  I didn’t know if it was just one of those freak things though, because I have a history of getting migraines, so I took Wellbutrin again on Thursday and then again Friday.  Well, on Friday I ended up with another migraine, which was worse than the first one.  I had to leave work again, which wasn’t cool.

I called and emailed my doctor and she said to stop with Wellbutrin right away and actually said that I should visit the ER if the headache was one of my worst.  It wasn’t, really, just a typical migraine, so I just took a nap and went on with life (well, after 5 hours, anyway).  My doctor still thought that an anti depressant could be good for me, so she prescribed Lexapro.  I started taking that last Tuesday, so it has been one full week as of today.  I feel good and haven’t noticed any side effects, so that is nice, but I am still pretty tired most of the time.  I’ve read that the tiredness can take awhile to go away though, and that in a month or whatever I may just wake up and suddenly realize “hey, I’m not tired anymore!”  I’m hoping for that, at least.  As crazy as this sounds, I felt like I could have fallen asleep while I was working out today, and I get plenty of sleep…

So, I guess that is the deal with that.  Read the rest of this entry »