Starting Over, Take 1,847

I haven’t updated the blog in nearly four months, and I assumed it had died a natural death (Since the 3FC policy is to delete the blogs if they’ve been inactive for 2 months).

I just haven’t had time, and I was taking some of the comments too personally. 

Today though a friend asked me to recommend some good exchange plan cookbooks, and I told her “I know I have a list somewhere,” and when I got home I remembered where that list was (and the only place it was).

ON THIS BLOG.

So I logged in, thinking the odds of my being able to retrieve the list were pretty slim, but got extremely lucky.  It’s still here (with only 800 some comments awaiting moderation).

I still haven’t decided the ultimate fate of this blog, but I’m making this entry to prolong it’s life at least a little while, as I retrieve information from the blog that I might want to transfer.

And to thank everyone who participated in this endeavor with me.

I’ve often asked what made this time different than the thousands of previous attempts.  What was the “last straw.”

I think it’s a common misconception that a person must hit rock bottom to change.   I think that is one path, but I’ve also learned there are others.

For me, there was no straw “this time,” (my most successful weight loss attempt ever).   All of my other significant weight losses did begin with the proverbial “last straw,” but not this time.

I thought that the straw was necessary, and I thought my previous failures were due to a lack of will power on my part, or because I had not het hit bottom.  I think I was wrong.

I didn’t lack willpower, but I was repeatedly dashing my head against the same brick wall.

Seeing that dieting (the way I knew how to do it) only in the end resulted in weight gain, I gave up dieting forever (I thought).

And then without any effort (or even awareness, as I didn’t own a scale) I lost 20 lbs. When my pulmonologist told me this would likely happen after prescribing a cpap machine for me for sleep apnea, I thought he was nuts (I’d never lost weight accidentally in my life).

A year later at my anual checkup I discovered that I lost 20 lbs. What was especially ironic was that it was during a time in which my activity level had drastically fell because of disabling illness (fibromyalgia, insulin resistance, autoimmune disease, arthritis, and copd). I could barely walk, barely breathe, and barely stay awake.

I was so astonished at the 20 lbs, that I decided that if I could lose it without trying, I should be able to keep it off with a little effort, and maybe I could lose more, but I knew I couldn’t go back to dieting the way I was used to dieting.

I decided that I would only make changes that I was willing to commit to for life, whether or not they resulted in any weight loss at all. And for two years those changes didn’t result in any weight loss at all (but I was able to keep the 20 lbs off, which was a small miracle of it’s own. I’d spent most of my life gaining steadily or losing steadily. I had very little experience in maintaining weight loss).

Even though I didn’t lose any weight for those two years, I did gain some pretty incredible health improvements. Just being able to shower standing was a big milestone (I had to have a shower chair), and being able to sleep in a normal bed with my husband. For a year, we had to sleep in seperate bedrooms because hubby could not sleep with my snoring and with the incline I needed. We had to jack the head of my bed up a foot higher than the foot of the bed. All night it felt like I was sliding out of bed, but I needed the steep incline so gravity would help drain gunk from my lungs.

It wasn’t “hitting bottom” that made me desperate to make changes (as much as it would seem logical), it was finding out what made losing easier and less stressful. And for me, it was dieting “backwards” from the way I’d been taught to.

I’d always been taught (by the example of people around me, and the books I’d read) to diet “full-speed-ahead” with the idea that hopefully when I reached goal weight, I could back off. Start with 1,000 calorie diet (or less) and as much activity as I could handle without puking, and (eventually in theory) at goal weight I’d be able to eat more and exercise less. I only knew how to lose weight by doing almost nothing else (social life, education, career they all didn’t just take a back seat, they virtually were abandoned).

Eventually I’d always get burnt out on the intense effort and having no life, and would decide that “I’ll never be thin, so what’s the point…”

My doctor also recommended low-carb eating. It took more than a year for me to give it an honest shot, because I was so used to seeing low-carb as an unhealthy and even potentially dangerous diet. But eventually I learned that low-carb is the only way I’m able to control hunger. It was another way to make weight loss easier.

This is the easiest, lowest stress weight loss I’ve evern accomplished. Sure it’s slower, and I do want to pick up the pace, but not as badly as I want to keep the easy, low-stress pace, because I think the ease and stresslessness are the secrets to my success. I’ve never lost nearly this much weight before. 70 lbs was my previous record, and that was with amphetamine diet pills and my best (teenage) metabolism.

I think the biggest change though has been in how I view weight loss. This time I value every ounce lost. In the past, I thought only making it to goal weight counted or mattered. When I felt like I couldn’t lose any more weight, I felt “what’s the use, I’ll never make it to goal.” Now I think “Even if I can’t make it to goal, I can keep off what I’ve lost so far.”

Even if I can’t make it to goal, I can keep off what I’ve lost so far.

I think it wasn’t so much a “last straw” as a paradigm shift - that is “thinking outside the box.” I realized that there are a lot of dieting myths and “traditions” that I had learned without realizing I had learned them. One of them was giving up when the process became frustrating. I’d seen my mother do it, my grandmother do it, so many friends and strangers at WW, TOPS, and OA meetings. I realized that I had learned to do weight loss wrong, just because it’s how I saw most people doing it.

Every parent says “do what I say, not what I do,” but observational learning is an extremely powerful force. Mostly we learn what we see, even if we know it’s not the most effective strategy. It isn’t very easy to learn from other people’s mistakes (especially if the mistake is almost universal).

It’s a bit like swearing when you bang your thumb or toe. If it’s what you’ve learned, unlearning it can be more challenging than you imagine.

Unlearning. I think that’s really been the “secret” of my success this time. And some of it, I didn’t realize I had learned, which made unlearning that much larger a challenge.

Because so often overweight folks are told they’re lazy, crazy, stupid, or selfish -  it’s very hard for some of us to put ourselves first (because it feels like it just confirm all the nasty things people are saying about us).

So my “resolution” this year is to be more selfish, I’m going to make me a higher priority.   My goal won’t be to always put myself first, or to hurt others to help myself, but I am going to stop putting myself dead last.  I always want to be in my top five.  So often, I’m not even in my top fifty.

I like helping people.  I like that about me, but I have to stop letting it pressure me into choices that aren’t in my own best interest.  Generosity is wonderful, but self-interest is important, because if I give away everything I have, I have nothing to give to anyone else.

I suspect that the more I put into me, the more I’ll have to give away.  I am making an investment in myself, and I expect it to pay off exponentially. 

David Kessler’s book “The End of Overeating,” really opened my eyes. Although I already (thought that I) understood carb addiction, I didn’t realize that my attempts at moderation with trigger foods were much like trying to use heroine, crack, and crystal meth “in moderation.” If even lab rats got hooked on these foods, how can I break the addiction?

I’m trying to eliminate all of the foods that trigger overeating, but I’m having mixed success. I’m a former probration officer, and if bingeing on trigger foods were illegal and there was “food probation” my probation would be revoked (or at least I’d be mandated into treatment).

We don’t look at food issues as addictions, though. While there are treatments available for a lot eating disorders, overeating is not one of them (well, there is treatment available, but it tends to be more expensive than other eating disorder treatments, and it’s generally not covered by medical insurance).

If you stop eating, you’re ill with anorexia, but if you can’t stop eating you’re just a lazy glutton (or if you’re thin, you’re lucky, unless you barf it up then you’re ill with bulimia).

I’m not whining that there isn’t help out there for overeaters, there is and a lot of it’s even free, it’s just buried in so much misinformation it’s hard to find.

Confusing the issue even more, is the fact that not all overeaters are overweight, and not all overweight and obese are chronic or compulsive overeaters.

I’m learning that even some foods people assume to be healthy foods, are nonetheless triggers for me, and it’s so hard to look at these foods as drugs when our culture does not. Even when I know these foods are as emotionally and physically dangerous to me as street drugs would be to a drug addict, I’m still thinking it won’t be Christmas unless I have a few pieces of my mother’s homemade caramels, even though last year I had a “sugar bender” like I hadn’t had in decades after a few pieces of those caramels. In less than 7 days, I had eaten more sugar than I probably had eaten in the entire previous year (I didn’t gain much weight, because I did get right back on track, but I felt like I was hit by a bus, and the taste of those caramels was not worth walking out in front of a bus on purpose, so what the heck did I think I was doing?)

Maybe there will be a day I can do trigger foods in moderation, but I rather doubt it (especially after reading David Kessler’s book). I just don’t know if I’ll ever acheive true and complete abstinence with so many people, including close family and friends and even the television pressuring me to have at least “just one bite” all of the time.

Maura Kelly’s blog article Should “Fatties” Get a Room? (Even on TV?) on the Marie Claire magazine’s website in which she says:

…I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

it’s tearing me up, and I don’t really know why or how to stop it. I think I’ve read almost every one of the 2549 comments on the article (as well as the articles and comments on the “counterpoint” blog posts - and their comments too).

Even though most of the comments were critical of Maura Kelly (and many dowright hostile - more hostile than I personally feel), the supportive comments are the ones sticking with me - reminding me that there are a lot of people like her, hating me and finding me disgusting just for existing.

I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a shovel. It’s taken me years to convince myself that I do have an unconditional right to exist (not only so long as I’m trying and succeeding at being slimmer), and that I was safe to swim, bicycle, walk and even just be in public, because no one was thinking all of the horrible things I imagined they were.

Then Maury Kelly proved me wrong - some people really are thinking those things. Some people are disgusted with me simply at the sight of me walking across a room.

On one hand I feel “she’s an idiot, and why do I care what she thinks,” and on the other, I’m sitting here balling (and I usually don’t cry), and it’s not the first time since I read the article.

I was really excited about going to a Halloween party tomorrow night (decided on a Wagnerian Valkyrie costom, that I thought was pretty nifty), and now I’m afraid to go. It doesn’t sound fun anymore.

This isn’t me. At least it’s not 44 year old me. This is 12 year old me.

Why do I care what Maura Kelly thinks of me? Why am I now afraid of all the Maura Kellys in the world, when I’ve spent so many years unafraid?

Before I read the Maura Kelly blog post, I can’t remember the last time I felt like I didn’t deserve to exist. Since reading it, those feelings have been washing over me over and over and over again.

I think I’d rather be hit by a bus than feel this way.

I know I’ll get over this, because I am intelligent and emotionally strong, but I feel like I’ve been kicked in the face, over and over and over again.

I don’t feel intelligent and strong, I feel sad and tired and I feel fatter than I’ve ever felt. Twice as fat as I ever was. It’s been a really long time since I hated being me. I didn’t think I could ever feel that way again.

For all of my life, I’ve been “on a diet” far more than “off a diet”.  I used to (only half-jokingly) tell doctors that if I was lucky, I had only a one week opportunity to lose weight every month.  I gained 10-15 lbs every month during my period, which took two weeks of fierce dieting to lose, and if I was lucky I’d have a week to actually lose some weight.

Most of the weight (in theory) was water-weight.  I still put on 8 to 10 lbs every month just from water-retention.  I know it’s water weight, because if I manage to stay religiously on-plan, all of the extra weight will disappear in a few days.

Unfortunately most of my life that’s not what happened.  I’ve always found it very difficult to stay on plan during the days before and into my period.  I’d have intense and obsessive pms/tom cravings for beef and chocolate specifically, and fat and sugar generically - and seeing the huge “unfair” weight gain, combined with the constant cravings,  I’d get so discouraged that I’d give in to the cravings (making some of the “temporary” weight gain, actual permanent weight gain).

I’ve learned to stay mostly on-plan during “meat week” (as hubby calls my pms/tom), so I don’t gain any more than 8-10 lbs “that week” and all of that is gone by the next week.  I don’t often lose during that week, but at least I’ve changed my “odds” for potential weekly weight loss from 1 in 4,  to 3 of 4.  I don’t always lose 3 weeks out of 4, but at least I don’t have to spend most of the month fighting to lose what I gained during “meat week.”

I still find it hard not to get angry and frustrated at the inevitable monthly weight gain.  I’ve tried all manner of things to prevent that monthly weight gain, and have never been able to do it.  Eating very low-carb and drinking lots of water does help get the water-weight to disappear faster, and birth control helps reduce the intensity of monthly cravings, but I still find my first reaction to seeing the “unfair” weight gain is to console myself by giving in to the comfort-food cravings.

In the scheme of things - it’s only a week.  I should be able to resist the cravings for a week, and usually I remember this, and usually it works.    Yet sometimes I feel just as helpless and hopeless as I did when I was gaining or maintaining my weight.  Being on a downward journey hasn’t made the monthly detour any easier.  In fact, sometimes it almost makes it worse, as the irrational voice inside myself says I should have learned a way to beat this by now.  I should have found a way to prevent the inevitable.

Maybe there is a way, but maybe my body just needs that 8 lbs of water every month.  It’s just for a few days, I should be able to accept it by now (after 35 years of the monthly experience).  And the truth is most months I do, but it’s a grudging acceptance.  It still feels “unfair,” and it still feels like I should be able to indulge the cravings (as a consolation prize for the weight gain?)

As “unfair” as the weight gain seems, I have to remember that giving in to the cravings is even more unfair to myself - because it results in making some of the temporary water-weight -  permanent fat weight.

I’ve tried “hating myself” thin and I’ve tried “loving myself” thin.

The latter has been a whole lot more effective.  And it’s easier and alot more fun too.

Even at nearly 400 lbs, I didn’t hate myself, not even my appearance.  There were aspects of being fat I hated, but even those I didn’t dwell on, I had too much to do.

I’ve been dieting since I was 5 years old, more unsuccessfully than successfully.  The failures didn’t decimate my self esteem because there was so much I was successful at.

Even fat I had boyfriends.  I didn’t attract the cutest guys, or the greatest number, but I did attract funny, creative, and smart guys (no doubt because those were the strongest aspects of my own personality too).

I didn’t understand (at least not for many years) why many of my smaller, cuter friends (and later sisters) had more dating trouble than I did (attracting losers who would hurt them, or having trouble attracting someone at all).

I learned early that sexy is far more between the ears than anywhere else.  Funny, creative, and smart IS sexy.  Physical beauty is a short cut to be sure, but short cuts aren’t always the best path to travel. 

You don’t have to hate yourself or your body to succeed at weight loss.  You don’t have to think you’re ugly or useless. 

From experience I can say that losing weight and getting healthy as a way to take care of and even pamper yourself is a whole lot more fun than trying to power change through self-hatred.

Hatred is not a clean-burning fuel.  It pollutes your body, your mind, and your soul - and the environment (the social environment that is, hurting your relationships with other people, and hurting the people you care about as well).

It’s also hard to run on hatred for very long.  Hatred saps energy as much or more as it gives.  When you run out of hatred, you run out of steam, unless you have something to replace it with.  Positive emotions burn cleaner - they don’t sap your energies the way hatred can. 

A lot of people tell me I’m wrong, that they (and they believe most people)  need (or at least needed at one time) self-hatred to start the fire under their butt. 

Maybe both perspectives have valid arguments.  Maybe people are motivated by different things.  Maybe some people do need self-hatred, but I’ve never found it helpful in the long-run.  And weight loss is all about the long-run.  Losing weight temporarily can be harder on your mind and body than not losing at all.  So it’s all about sustainability.  What do you want to live on hatred or love?

I choose love.

I’ve decided to go back to TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly).  I wish hubby was joining with me, but he isn’t.  He said he’ll drive me to meetings but he’s not interested in joining himself.

Fair enough. 

TOPS is a non-profit weight loss support group.  Members can follow any diet they wish.  Most groups run contests or small incentives for weight loss and small disincentives for weight gain (such as small fines.  Some groups might charge a quarter for any gain, another might choose a nickel or dime per pound).

I always do better in group weight loss.  Something about that weekly weigh-in and wanting the positive reinforcement for weekly weight loss.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a pat on the back or getting my monthly dues waived because I met the requirement (some groups will waive monthly fees if you meet a target weight loss goal.  Three consecutive weight losses in a month, or a specific weight lost during the month. 

The weight gain fines work too, even though I’m not ashamed of admitting gains, and I’m certainly not concerned about the money (even on my budget a dime a pound isn’t going to break the bank) but there’s just a sense of pride in being able to avoid the fine basket, and a source of frustration when having to admit defeat (even a tiny defeat).

Whenever I’ve been a TOPS member in the past, I’ve always had more fun with weight loss.  Even on my own, I try to make weight loss fun, so there’s one less reason to give it up.  I shop ethnic markets for exotic fruits, I make little challenges with myself - but involving others “raises the stakes.”  My competitive spirit is awakened (and mostly in a positive way).

I have a bad habit though of abandoning the group when I decide that I’ve learned enough to do it on my own.  It’s a habit I don’t fully understand in myself.  I think largely it’s just habit - a habit I learned from my mother. 

I joined Weight Watchers for the first time when I was eight years old (the youngest you could join with a parent and a doctor’s permission slip).   Over the years, I would join and quit Weight Watchers many times witht my mother (and later as an adult on my own).   Whenever the weight loss would be going well, my mom would pull us from the club, saying we could do it on our own now (and of course we wouldn’t, not for very long anyway). 

Mom wasn’t intentionally sabotaging us.  Money was tight and Weight Watcher’s was pretty expensive.  When we were doing well, I think she really did think we had mastered the skills and could do it on our own.

I’ve proven that I can do it on my own, but I don’t do it “as well.”  The group dynamic is helpful.  It’s part of the secret to success for me.  I may be able to do it on my own, but it’s a lot easier to do it with a group.

So now that I know that about myself, failing to take advantage of it doesn’t make any sense.  Especially when it can be done as cheaply as through TOPS.  For about $26 I can join for the year (which includes a monthly newsletter/magazine).  A spounse or parent/child living in the same household can join for an additional $13 (which is why I wish hubby would join, maybe he will later).

Each group charges monthly dues (usually under $5 a month.  In our area $2 to $3 is about average).  The local groups in our area waive monthly dues for meeting the weight loss quota (in one group it’s 3 consecutive losses, in another it’s 1 lb per month, and there’s a third group I haven’t attended yet).

Before joining, this time, I decided to check out all three of the local groups.  I still have one group to try before I decide which I’m going to join.

The biggest barrier is me.  I still have that voice that says I can do it on my own, that I SHOULD do it on my own. 

On an entirely different topic (my health issues) my hubby and I recently had a large argument over my refusal to ask for help when I need it, or even when help isn’t needed but would be damned convenient.

I value my independence, I’ll give you that.  It’s hard for me to ask for help when I feel I can do it by myself.  I sometimes forget that getting help from others isn’t always about needing it, but about many hands making light work of difficult tasks.  Doing it alone sometimes does make sense, but turning down help just in order to do it alone, doesn’t always.

It just dawned on me, that I’m not trying to lose weight.

I don’t know why this is a revelation to me, since it’s really what I’ve planned all along.  When I started this journey, I vowed that weight loss was not going to be my goal, just a likely side effect of my goal.

No wonder, I get so snippy when people give me suggestions on ways to improve/hasten my weight loss, or when they comment upon or question the rate of my weight loss.

I’ve been arguing that the speed of weight loss isn’t the issue, but I’ve forgotten to argue that weight loss isn’t the issue.  Weight loss isn’t important.  Weight loss can even be unhealthy.  It matters HOW a person loses weight, because the weight loss isn’t the important part - the eating, thinking, and moving healthier is (and sometimes you can make progress in all three, and not lose any weight.  Sometimes progress in oine area can even result in temporary weight gain (many people avoid or postpone, adding in exercise for that very reason, because it can interfere with weight loss - at least temporarily.  The short-term becomes more important than the long-term).

If you’re eating healthy and moving healthy, you will eventually end up at a healthy weight.  Weight is one indicator of health, but not the only one -  but all our society cares about is the weight loss.

No one cares or asks about my blood pressure, my cholesterol, and all of the other indicators of health.  It’s so culturally ingrained- that while I initially knew weight loss wouldn’t be my only sign of progress, I’ve gradually lost sight of that.  Just like everyone else, I started forgetting, ignoring or discounting the other signs of progress, focusing only on the scale (Bad, Colleen).

Years ago, I vowed never to diet again (because diets have only ever ultimately resulted in weight gain for me), and I only began trying again after losing 20 lbs without trying (long story).  I wanted to capture and duplicate that experience of unintentional weight loss.  I vowed that I would commit to healthy changes in my life, regardless of whether or not they resulted in weight loss.

It’s not about losing faster, because it’s really not about losing weight at all. 

I’ve gotten alot of feedback, some of it constructive and some of it, not-so-much on the rate of my weight loss (mostly advice on how I could speed up the weight loss).  It’s all irritated me, but I just realized why.  I don’t need this advice, because I already know how to lose weight faster, and I’ve determined that is not the route for me.  Because when weight loss ismy only goal, or even my primary goal, I do unhealthy things to reach that goal.  Since my goal isn’t weight loss (at least not weight loss by any means), it’s important for me to work towards my true goal - Health, strength, and stamina.   I forget, when that sometimes my signs of progress for the month - aren’t weight related at all. 

So if weight loss isn’t my goal, why am I writing a weight loss blog, and visiting a weight loss site?

Good question (that I asked myself)……. and the answer is that maybe I shouldn’t be.  The weight loss isn’t my goal, it’s not even really the reward, it’s just a side effect (a happy side effect, but still only a side effect).   And yet, whenever I’ve tried to discuss my “real goals” it always comes back to weight loss (because I think it’s all we’re taught to care about).

When I started this journey about four to four and a half years ago, I vowed not to “diet,” or to focus on my weight.  I was going to make healthy changes that I could commit to whether or not they resulted in weight loss.   Changes that would improve my health, with or without weight loss.  For the first two years, there was no weight loss.  Even I tend to see those years as empty years.  Result-free years.  Years that at best, prepared me for success, not years I acheived it.

Ooh Boy was I wrong.  Not only did those years lay the groundwork, they were very effective in their own right.  I didn’t lose weight during those two years, but I was very successful in making healthy changes.  They were just changes that didn’t result in weight loss (but I didn’t regain any of the 20 I’d lost “accidentally” after my apnea treatment).

Even though my plan was not to focus on weight loss, I couldn’t help but do so when the weight started coming off.  I had too much practice in thinking that only the weight mattered.  I FORGOT that weight loss wasn’t the goal.  It was a forgetting that was gradual.  At first I said “weight loss isn’t my goal,” then “weight loss isn’t my primary goal…”  until I was talking less and less about anything but the weight loss.

My life is so different than when I’ve started, and some of my most dramatic health improvements have come at the expense, or at least with the absence of weight loss.     Losing weight to get health benefits, rarely worked very well for me, so I turned the focus on the health benefits not the weight.  Gaining health benefits was working so well, that it inevitably resultedg in weight loss.  I was so excited that I was losing weight “without really trying to” that I forgot that the aim was the health benefits, not the weight loss.

For most people, weight loss is the main point, some times the whole point.  At the very least, the weight loss is seen as the main indicator of the health improvements (whether or not any actually are occuring).

The fact is, most of us couldn’t care less about the health aspects of weight loss.  Or we want to believe it’s about health, but don’t pay attention to our health - only to our weight loss.

I’ve fallen into that trap, a trap I was consciously trying to avoid.

I feel like someone who builds a career upon what they love.  Initially it’s “not about the money,” but when the money starts rolling in, it becomes “about the money” and the person’s love for their career is lost.  Sometimes to the point that the abandon the money AND the career.

I don’t want to fall out of love with my new “career.”  The career of taking care of myself. 

I know I can lose faster, but I’d have to sacrifice some of my other goals to do it.  And all of those other goals were carefully chosen.  Deciding to lose faster, would require giving up other healthy goals.  I’d be moving away from my goal of health - to only one aspect of it.

 I’m wondering if I should get away from the weight loss boards for a while, and maybe even my 3FC blog - if it’s focused on a general state of well-being, and not weight loss does it really belong on 3FC? 

 Yesterday, I was so happy to be a whale.  Today, I feel beached (and someone ran over me with a truck in my sleep).

This does not bode well.  At least not for the next few days.

I overdid it at the pool yesterday.  Not just a little overdid it like last week.  The first time I’d been in the pool in a while, I was very careful in budgeting my time (last week that is) - 5 minutes of warm up, 20 minutes of moderate exertion, and 5 minutes of cool down.  I was sore the next day, and even more sore the following (with exercise, it always seems to hurt worst on the “day after the day after,”)

it’s only the day after, so I dread what tomorrow will bring.  You see, matching last week’s time wasn’t good enough.  Oh no, I had to beat last weeks time - by 15 minuts.  SO I spent 45 minutes in the water, most of it working as hard as I could.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I hurt all-over.  And not just in the places (muscles), I would expect to the day after my pool workout yesterday.

My ears hurting isn’t so unusual, as I could have gotten water in them, but it doesn’t explain why even my hair hurts (ok, I know hair can’t hurt, but my scalp does).

This screams fibro-flare to me.   I have fibromylgia.  Fibromyalgia is a pain disorder (more precisely a pain and fatigue disorder).  The source of the pain, for many years has been a mystery, though today doctor’s believe, and there’s strong research support for the condition being a neurotransmitter disorder.  Brain chemicals - too many, the wrong proportion…. in essence the brain is perceiving benign sensations as pain, because the pain receptors are firing when they shouldn’t (not that simple, but simple enough for my purposes in this post).  Because the brain controls every bodily process, fibro can manifest in an almost infinte set of symptoms.  Some people have even experience vision problems, including sporadic or temporary blindness, even colorblindness.  Glad to say that’s never happened to me (well I am colorblind, but I’ve always been - that’s not fibro, that’s genetics).

I know a good part of the muscle aches are legitimately from the physical workout.  I spent 45 minutes in the water.  30 of it, at an intense pace.  I felt strong, and I felt confident (I had escaped a serious flare last week, so obviously that meant a 50% increase in exertion was wise - ok, sometimes I’m not so smart).

Now, I feel crushed, flattened.  That truck didn’t just hit me, it ran over me and backed up to do it again - and again - and again.

The only reason I’m here at my computer monitor, and not still in bed is that I hurt too much to stay in bed.  I tried.  I took my pain medication, and waited for it to kick in.  Five minutes, seemed like an hour.  When I hurt like that, there’s only a few things that can distract me long enough to make the wait for pain relief bearable.  One of those is writing, so here I am.    

A few months ago, in April, when I had to have my referral to the warm water therapy pool, renewed I was telling my doctor how much I loved swimming, because it’s so hard to “overdo it” in the water…  He warned me to remember that it WAS possible.

His words came back to haunt me today (and I dread tomorrow).  It hurts so bad, it’s upsetting my stomach (which hasn’t happened in a very long time, maybe two years or more).

I suspect that only a narcotic like vicodin would offer full relief.  I don’t need to be pain-free, I just need to be functional.  That’s not likely to happen today.

I’m not really whining, as much as laughing at myself, especially my foolish pride.  This is embarassing, and yet I’m secretly also a little proud.  I haven’t had the opportunity to “overdo” a strenuous activity in a long time.  I did well yesterday in my workout, and last week today.  It made me cocky, I’m just going to pay for that cockiness for a few days.

I just noticed that it feels like someone sucked all the moisture from the surface of my eyeballs.  What’s up with that?!   They feel dry and sticky…. blinking hurts.  That’s how I know this is a fibro-flare, it seems very unlikely that I strained my eyeballs during water exercise, especially since I didn’t put my face in the water at all.  The water I got in my ears, was from the showers before and after, not from the pool.  

Hubby’s 90 year old grandfather (who has had severe back pain since he was a young man) says he thanks God every morning for the pain, it lets him know he’s alive.  He says the day he wakes up without pain, is the day God has called him home. 

I thank God that I no longer get that kind of reminder every morning.  It’s taken a while to get here.  There were days, at my highest weight, when a bullet to the brain, seemed like the only reasonable pain remedy.  I was never ready to relieve my pain so permanently, but the thought did occur to me.

At least I no longer have to sleep on an incline, and hubby and I can sleep in the same bed (actually two twins pushed together, so we can each have our preferred firmness).   Five years ago, I had such severe lung and sinus issues, that I had to jack up the head of my bed, about six to eight inches above the foot.  Literally, we used two car jacks (probably only needed one, but we weren’t taking any chances).  Hubby had to have a seperate bedroom, because he couldn’t sleep on the incline (feeling like he was falling out of bed kept him awake).  I didn’t really like it any better, but it was the only way to keep my lungs clear. 

The sensation of slipping out of bed was hard to get used to.  We had to “tuck” myself in very tightly, and even then by morning my covers would inevitably be on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Yeah, fun times (sigh).

It reminds me how lucky I am to be in this kind of pain, this morning.   As bad as it is in comparision to my normal, there was a time when much worse was normal.

Every time I get discouraged about the weight loss, and how slow I’ve progressed (in terms of the number on the scale), I remind myself of the wonderful changes I’ve experienced.   While my weight loss has been slow, my health improvements have not.  For most of my life, the reverse was true.  No matter how fast I lost the weight, the benefits of the weight loss was often lost on me.  I didn’t notice any dramatic improvements in appearance or health.  If I could walk further, it wasn’t so noticeable that I felt a surge of accomplishment.  The scale was my only accomplishment - and it never felt like enough.  Even when I lost 5 lbs in a week, I’d be disappointed that it wasn’t 7.  Two pounds felt like a slap in the face, and a stall or gain felt like a crushing blow.  I’d think “I’m never going to get this weight off.”

Now I’m losing a pound a month, and I’m usually happy as a clam about it (are clams really all that happy, do you think?  What makes a clam happy, what do they have to be so happy about, I’ve always wondered).

The weight hasn’t mattered all that much, because in the scheme of things my health improvements have been so dramatically noticeable, that I seem to have something to celebrate almost every week.   To the point that I’m starting to really think I will be able to get back to work (I’m on disability) before I reach retirement age.  I could lose all the weight, and still be disabled, but at least there’s hope (hubby’s health issues are degenerative.  Weight loss and the right exercise will slow progression of his joint degeneration, but at 17, when he was thin and athletic he was told he’d be on disability and probably in a wheel chair by age 30.  By pure stubborness, he made it to 35 before having to go on disability, and now at 40, he’s still wheelchair-free (but does need the electric cart at Walmart, if we’re going to be shopping for more than 20 minutes).

A couple years ago, I thought I was ready to go back to work (at least a little), and tested the theory by bartering a few hours in an artists’ co-op for the rental space for my crafts.  That didn’t work out so well.  I didn’t know that the shop had been a gas-station, and a dog and cat grooming shop (I’m allergic to cats, some cats more than others).  The owner of the shop also sold vintage clothes and furs, and the basement had mold.  The owner also used the small space as her studio, and she used a lot of strong solvents.  

I’ve never “huffed” inhalants before, but working in the shop wasn’t so much like breathing the toxic fumes from a bag, as much as being forced to sit inside the bag.

Long story, short - in only a few weeks, I had a major relapse of my autoimmune disease, asthma, and copd.  In hindsight, it was the worst possible choice of part-time jobs.  What was I thinking?  (When I wondered that aloud, dear hubby said he had been thinking it all along, but had kept quiet, wanting to support me.  Dear sweet, man I gave him permission to speak up, or smack me upside the head if there was a next time - figuratively of course on the smacking).

The pain meds are starting to kick in.  It’s only been a little under 90 minutes since I took them.  That’s a good sign.  During a really severe flare, it’s usually almost time to take the second dose before I start to feel better.  Any relief in less than two hours, usually means the flare is going to be pretty mild.

Looks like I don’t need the plate number on that truck, after all.