A month in retrospect...

Hello friends.  I realize it has been a while since I've updated my blog.  It has been a stressful month.   

In so many ways, I look back at that "Green Mountain me" and think, where is that girl??  I'm sure she is there.  She just gets a little lost with work and the stresses of everyday life.  

There are 3 nurses in the clinic that I work in, including myself.  Julia, Katie, and Christie.  We named ourselves the "dream team."  We've worked together for the past few years in a small, cramped office.  9 hours a day, 4 days a week, I've worked with these women and gotten to know them very well.  We have shared our happy times and our sad times, supporting each other through it all.  We've taken care of our patients, celebrated together when they finish treatment and mourned together when they don't.  In the span of the past 2 weeks, both of my coworkers left the clinic to pursue new adventures.  I'm happy for them that they have these opportunities but sad for myself that I've lost these coworkers and friends.  

Now I have to look forward.  What else can you do when you have lost 2/3 of the nursing staff in a 2 week time span?  We still have patients to take care of.  We have 2 new nurses starting and both have to be trained.  That will fall mostly on my shoulders.  I'm equally excited to begin and nervous about the idea of training 2 new nurses almost simultaneously.  

The stress of the past month has definitely effected my eating and exercise habits.  I let myself fall into a lot of my old habits.  I also used a lot of what I learned at Green Mountain to get me through.  I tried very hard to be kind to myself, to be patient with myself.  I was not always successful doing that.  

Before Green Mountain, I would have seen myself as failing whatever diet I was trying to be on at the time.  I would give up completely.  But this isn't just any diet I am on now.  If I view this as a new way of life, then I have to accept there will be ups and downs.  There will be weeks or even months where I can't seem to put it all together, where I slip back into my old habits.  During those times, I have to be patient with myself and work towards getting back to where I was.  It is three steps forward and one step back.  I will count this past month as one step back.  I am not going to let that completely undo the two steps I am still forward.  I did not lose any weight this month but I also did not gain any weight this month.  I count that as a success.  I can still feel a difference in my clothes.  I felt confident in my body during social events.  I used self soothing techniques that Darla taught us at Green Mountain during some very stressful times. 

Now I will try to get back that one step I took backward.  My goal the past week was to work out 4 days during the week, Monday through Thursday.  Monday and Tuesday, I did the Jillian Michael's DVDs that incorporate cardio and strength.  Wednesday was supposed to be a cardio only day.  I came home from work and ended up putting on my pajamas.  Then I just decided I was going to do it. I put my exercise clothes on and went for a 35 minute walk.  Thursday, I took a nap instead of working out.  So I didn't meet my goal.  Or maybe I set my goal to high.  I will be proud of the 3 days I did work out instead of being overly critical about the 1 day I didn't.  

My diet is definitely not where I want it to be.  When I say diet, I don't mean "a diet," I mean my overall eating habits.  I have accepted the fact that I am not going to want to cook every night after I get home from work and exercise.  So I am going to allow myself frozen meals from Trader Joes.  These were mentioned by the nutritionist at Green Mountain as being nutritionally better than a lot of the frozen meals found at the grocery.  I will mix these in with home cooked meals so that some nights I eat a frozen meal and others I cook a quick stir fry or grilled chicken.  Easy options is the only way for me to go, otherwise, I fall into ordering out or eating out on my home.  

So my goals for this week.  I realize that last week I may have set my goal too high by wanting to work out 4 days.  So my goal next week is to match this week and work out 3 days.  This weekend promises for nice weather and I am hoping to get in some activities outside.  As for my diet goals, I am going to pack my breakfast and lunch for work and not buy food at work.  This is actually a very easy goal for me.  I am also aiming to cook dinner 2 nights and have leftovers so that I only eat a frozen meal once or twice for dinner.  

So those are my goals.  They are small goals.  If I don't meet my goals, I will be kind to myself.  I will be proud of what parts of my goals I achieved and know that, just because I did not meet my goal, I will not give up.  

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Being comfortable in your body

I had a chance to spend some time this weekend with some friends for a bachelorette party. It was fun to spend a whole day with some great women!
Usually, this kind of situation causes a certain amount of stress for me. Why would spending a whole day with great women, having fun, drinking wine, shopping, and talking cause me stress?? Well, the reason really is quite dumb if you think about it but it is also one that I think many plus size women probably understand. It was because all the women I was with were thin.
Now, many of you are probably thinking in your head, really Julia?! Why would spending a whole day with thin women make you uncomfortable? But I feel that my plus size readers probably understand where I am coming from.
Let me explain. As a plus size woman, I am constantly aware that I am larger than the other women around me. I am very sure that they are probably not thinking about our size difference, but for me, that is one of the first things I think about when I get in a group of women. I try to compensate for that by being extremely selective about what I wear. I have been known to pick out my outfit weeks in advance, worrying over it, asking other people what they are wearing. I did that exact thing for this event. I knew exactly what I was going to wear for both the Friday night party and the whole day Saturday. I tried on my outfits in advance and critiqued myself on how they looked. I needed to be in outfits that I felt very comfortable in. I needed to feel good about the way I looked in my outfits in order not to be continually criticizing myself in my head. Being uncomfortable in my outfit can ruin an event for me.
While I was at Green Mountain, I rarely found myself uncomfortable around the other women. We were all different sizes and shapes. But there was an air of acceptance at Green Mountain that I have never found at any other place. I began to feel comfortable around the women to the extent that I never once fixed my hair or put on makeup for the whole 2 weeks I was there (thats a big step for me).
Since coming home from Green Mountain, I have found that I am more able to be comfortable in a group of women. I'm sure this has a little to do with the fact that I feel more confident because I have lost a little bit of weight. Mostly I think this has to do with what I learned at Green Mountain. Those women that I was with on Saturday did not care if I was larger than them. Our difference in sizes was not the first thing they saw when they looked at me.
That leads me to an interesting conversation that got me to thinking. Over the course of lunch, we played a game where we asked the bride questions that were written out on little cards. One of the questions was "would you permanently gain 30 pounds for a million dollars." Now I have to admit that I outweighed these women by way more than 30 pounds. My first instinct to this question was to say, yes, for a million dollars, I would totally gain 30 pounds. Most of the women, however, answered a very resounding NO. Now, like I said, I outweigh these women by way more than 30 pounds. I would take their weight plus 30 pounds any day of the week. And yet, most of them would not consider gaining 30 pounds for a million dollars. They would still be at a healthy weight if they were 30 pounds heavier. But society has made being overweight such a stigma that it would not even be worth a million dollars to gain 30 pounds. Not even 50 or 100 pounds, only 30 pounds.
To close, I just want to say that I was proud of myself over the weekend because I really felt comfortable among my friends. I did obsessively plan out my outfits. And I can't say that I felt comfortable 100% of the time and that I did not compare my body to theirs. But I can say that in my outfits and in my body, I finally felt comfortable enough to have a good time. That was what Green Mountain did for me.

The first thing I saw when I looked at this picture was not how much larger I am than my friends.  And that is a nugget of success.

A not so inspiring weight loss story

I read an article on CNN today about a woman that lost 170 pounds.  This article was supposed to be inspirational.  I was not really inspired.  OK, I was inspired a little bit.  I have to give the woman props for losing 170 pounds and keeping it off.  But when I was finished with the article, I thought, she really needs a trip to Green Mountain.  Or maybe even, she needed a trip to Green Mountain long before she lost the weight.  Here is the link to the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/03/health/weight-loss-fitness-studio/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

First of all, there is nothing in the article about how being 310 pounds affected Deidre's health.  It is all about how she was humiliated by the way she looked.  She wouldn't wear a bathing suit, she wouldn't ride on a plane.  From a young age, she was programmed by her mother to believe that her weight was bad.  Her mother would measure out her Cheerios when she was in the fourth grade and by the time she was in high school, she had tried "just about every diet out there."  At one point, her parents and sister tricked her into a weight intervention. 
It is obvious from reading this article that Deidre's family was not supportive of her.  She says "they did not intentionally try to hurt my feelings but they were trying to wake me up."  I felt sad for her when she said that she felt that her father, a smoker who died from coronary heart disease, was disappointed in her and felt that she had let herself go.  "He was always so proud of me for my job accomplishments, but he could never understand why I couldn't get that part right." How could she "get that part right" when she was taught that her weight was bad from a young age and the only way to be accepted by her family was to lose weight.
Deidre comments that now that she has lost the weight, her relationship with her family has flourished. 
Family support and acceptance is so important to accepting ourselves and our bodies.  I am sure that Deidre is not the only one to have an altered relationship with her family because of her weight.  I, myself, have felt judged in the past by my family because of my weight (and I'm not just talking immediate family, I'm talking extended family also).  Offhand comments, being teased by family members, helpful suggestions on new diets or ways to lose weight (which are never helpful) are just some ways that family members try to "help."  These methods are not helpful and they only help reinforce to the overweight individual that their weight is bad and there is something wrong with them because they can't seem to lose weight.  That is not to say that family members cannot be helpful to an overweight individual.  They can be supportive, not constantly surround the individual with unhealthy food choices, be available should the individual want an exercise partner.
Finally, now that Deidre has lost all this weight, her family says that "We finally got our Dee back. Her personality is back. She's her bubbly normal self.  We're definitely closer."  It took Deidre losing 170 pounds to finally find acceptance from her family.  
You might be asking yourself how you can support your overweight family member.  First and foremost, accept and love them for who they are.  They are a person, with feelings and emotions.  Fat does not insulate us from hurtful comments.  Never make your overweight family member feel that your love is conditional on their losing weight.
Accept that being overweight and being unhealthy do not go hand in hand.  There is a whole movement out there called Healthy at Every Size.  What is Health at Every Size?
1. Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes
2. Recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational. emotional, and intellectual aspects
3. Promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of sizes
4. Promoting eating in a manner which balances individual nutrition needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure
5. Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss"  (http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2013/01/what-fuck-does-no-diet-talk-mean.html)

We can be beautiful and healthy at any size.

A Pain in My Side

Have you ever read the story about the Princess and the Pea? You know, a princess is tested by a prince and his mother to see if she is actually "royal" by placing a pea under 20 mattresses. After a horrible night, the princess tells the prince and his mother that she was kept awake all night because of something hard in the bed that she is sure bruised her. The prince rejoices because only a real princess would be able to feel the pea through such a quantity of bedding.
Well, I can sympathize with the princess. About a week and half ago, on a Saturday night, as I lay in bed trying to go to sleep, I thought for sure there must be something in my bed. I adjusted the blankets but nothing at all seemed to help. I am no princess (well, it depends on who you ask) and I'm sure there was no pea under my mattress but I had such a hard time sleeping that night. When I woke up on Sunday, I had such a pain in my left side.
Fast forward to today, 2 doctors appointments and a trip to the ER, and I still have a pain in my side. Maybe I should lift up my mattress and check for a pea.
It is something of a humbling experience for a nurse to be a patient. I want reasons and answers for my pain. My first trip to the doctor, I couldn't get in to see my doctor and had to see a resident. I am not a fan of seeing residents and I was definitely not a fan of this resident. I believe that by the time I left the exam room, he could tell that. My clinical diagnosis was "it's probably nothing" and if the pain continued, come back to the doctor in a week. This did not make me happy. Maybe because as a nurse, I know you should not tell a patient "It's probably nothing" even if you think it is nothing. Telling a patient their pain is nothing is not acknowledging their concerns.
As the week progressed, I continued to have the pain. Being the nurse that I am, I wanted answers, so I took to googling my symptoms. (I do not recommend this, by the way. Do as I say not as I do). The pain did not restrict my movements, I continued to work and exercise. But it was a constant ache that did not respond to Tylenol, Ibuprofen, heat, etc. I could tell that I was limiting my exercising because of a fear of making the pain worse. The weekend passed and on Monday, I had had enough. After a frustrating 30 minutes on hold with the triage nurse line at my doctor's office, the doctor that I was working with that day recommended that I go to the ER.
I hate being in the ER ( OK, who doesn't). I hate being on the other side of the bed. I was subjected to an IV, Xrays, and a CT scan (try being wheeled to Xray in that cute little hospital gown all the while trying to hide and hope you don't see anyone you work with). My nurse was great and got my IV in one try, she even let me pick the vein for her. 5 hours in the ER and still there were no answers. All the tests and labs and scans were normal. The doctor apologized profusely for not giving me an answer for my pain and sent me home.
Finally this morning I got to see my doctor. He was great about it and had already looked at my ER records. He was similarly puzzled by my symptoms but gave me some possible reasons for my pain. A strained muscle (seriously, I went to the ER for a strained muscle??), a kidney stone (probably not), an ovarian cyst (which will require another trip to another doctor). But he was kind and reassuring. He even suggested that I back off on weight lifting and exercises that might work my side (no ab workouts!!) for about a week to see if that helps. I should stick to walking or low impact exercises because, in his words, he would never recommend that I not exercise when I want to.
My friend Beth blogged recently about roadblocks. I feel like, right now, this stupid pain in my side is a roadblock. I cannot let it stop me in my tracks. I do not have the patience for random side pains that cannot be fixed or even diagnosed. But I have to get off my path, take a lighter path for a week or so, and hope that it meets up eventually with the path that I was on.