2013 and beyond... and Ow! My jaw!

If I could accomplish anything in 2013 it would be ...

Man, talk about a loaded prompt. My goals and aspirations are many but if I had to pick one thing I want to accomplish in 2013 it would be getting under 200 pounds.

Yes, it's an arbitrary number but losing 70+ pounds in a year would be huge for me. I lose weight so slowly and to average 6 pounds a month would be an incredible success for me both mentally and physically. About 1.5 pounds a week. It's not a lot to ask. 

I'm trying so hard to get out of my own way, to stop psyching myself out and to own my own power and successes but I swear every time I get close to a goal - whether weight, work, financial or personal - I screw it up and set myself back. 

I would love to see 2013 be the year I stop fearing success and just enjoy the fruits of my labor. 

That said, lets talk about my doctor appoinment from yesterday.

I caught a sinus infection the Saturday after my birthday, then got worse the day after Veterans Day. Tuesday made one month of my ears hurting. I finally went to see the ENT.

The problem is not my ears this time. No redness, no fluid, nothing wrong.  My ears are dry - apparently I don't create enough ear wax and I have TMD/TMJ.

FREAKING LOCKJAW! 

Ok, so it's not a horrible thing and it makes sense now but the only thing I can do for the TMD to get better is go on a solid food diet for the next two weeks. 

Soft foods. Christ. I was just getting used to my current lower carb, no sweets diet. Now I have to stop eating things like steak and anything harder than a soft roll. 

Wahhhhh. 

Some of my Facebook friends gave me good suggestions about healthier soft food options and I'm going to have to do a lot of cooking this weekend. I still need help, though! 

What are some of your favorite soft food recipes? Hints and tips for not getting bored with the same consistency for the next 2 weeks? 

Tomorrow - a recap of the nutritional conversation with my ENT and why I now am self conscious about my ears...

Ch-ch-changes...

"I want to change THIS about healthcare..."

The focus on weight with regards to health. As a thyroid patient and a woman with PCOS I will ALWAYS have a problem with my weight.

I gain weight easily, it's hard for me to shed pounds and my weight fluctuates heavily from day to day. It's just so easy for my body to freak out and hold on to water weight, to hit a plateau, or to go against all reason and gain or lose weight when my calorie in versus calorie out equation says I should be doing the other.

You know what? My labs are freaking awesome. My blood pressure is normal, a little high when taken with an automatic cuff but even that's only slightly. My cholesterol is good. My HDL is a little low but I've made enough changes to my nutrition and started taking flaxseed and it's gone from 23 to 39 in a year. Thats genetics not bad nutrition or laziness. My glucose and A1C are perfect.  Perfect, not good, perfect.

And my cardiovascular system? Fit as a fiddle.

Quarterly I go visit a nurse for what they call Peak Health. They check my body fat, weight, blood pressure and talk to me about stress, nutrition and my overall wellness. Then they put you on a stationary bike and measure your pulse and blood pressure during moderate activity. As you reach certain benchmarks, you get higher discounts on your insurance. 

All of my labs are at level 5 levels. My readings on the bike are great, excellent fitness. But because of my weight I'm only a level 2. 

I don't expect to be a level 5 while still obese, but I would think everything I've done and the fact that all my other other health markers put me at a level 5 I should be rewarded in kind.

I get this from others places too. New doctors who think because of my weight I'm lazy and unhealthy.  

I know this is the case for other people too. Different health issues lead to varying pictures of health.

Will I ever be a size 2-4-6-8? Not likely. Aside from my health issues, I'm just good Irish breeding stock. I'm blessed with wide ribcage, shoulders and hips. I will, however keep fighting till my insides are as healthy as they can be. 

That should be the goal, not some weight related, one size fits all BMI bull hockey. Health. Inside and outside. 

Dear Body,

Dear Body, 

It's been a long crazy road but I really feel like we've reached an tough place in our relationship. I've been giving you everything I have as of late and you're not playing fair. I feel it's time to vent.

I try to control my carb intake and your mental addiction to potatoes, pasta and bread makes me angry, grumpy and sad. Our friends don't much like us when we really try to keep our carb intake to a minimum.  This is not fair to me as I'd really like to try to keep my insulin resistance in check and see if the low carb thing will work for me in terms of weight loss.  I hate when I eat one carb too many and wind up drowsy and nearly sedated. It's weird. We need to keep working on this.

I am also not okay with this whole being starving all the time no matter how much I eat or drink. I'm giving you all the fuel I can and you just want more.  I am giving you a well rounded diet and you're still hungry for crunchy, carbohydrate laden things like pretzels, toasted bagels, crackers and nuts. Those things are awesome, but I'm trying to change my diet again. This is counterproductive.

I'm also displeased with how all of a sudden my hormones have changed and I feel like I'm going brought puberty all over again. Acne at 30? Really? 

Then there's the weird things you're doing like the bleeding from my belly button every Time I should be having a menstrual cycle, the weird injuries, cuts and bruises that take forever to heal and the lack of making sense so the doctors can fix me.

I'm not saying we should go our separate ways, it's not really practical, but you need to get in line. I've fought 6 long hard years to get you to where you are. We've lost 200 pounds together. We've changed our life and helped others change theirs. Let's get on the same page. Please?

Thanks. 

Love, 

me.

I'm just weird...

The weirdest thing about my health... well everything.

Let's start with my propensity for winning the weirdest injury competition.  I swear, I get injured doing even the slightest of things.  I really blame my doctors for not diagnosing and treating my thyroid disorder earlier in life.  I was deficient in calcium, postassium, B vitamins, you name it when my TSH was at it's worst and I am sure that my ability to break bones getting in to a car are directly related to that.

High on my list of weird injuries:
1. Broke my nose in my sleep.  Hit my face on the rod iron day bed post.  Genius.
2. Torn cartilage in the AC joint of my right shoulder lifting a small light bed side table my sophomore year of college.
3. Broke my ankle getting in to my car.
4. Pinched my sciatic nerve picking up my shoes.
5. Tore tendons in my left foot slipping while changing shoes in a parking lot.

I also think it's weird that I didn't have any major allergies until about 4 years ago.  I've had an allergy to mint, bee stings and a sensitivity to latex since I was young but in the last few years I've added shellfish, melon, strawberry, Penicillin and medrol to my list of allergies.  Craziness.

Plus there's the whole Hashimoto's thing.  Hooray for autoimmune disorders.

Why I blog about my health...

As anyone who knows me for any length of time can tell you, I am not shy about sharing my story.

I blog about my health because I am a strong believer in being an informed consumer of health care and I want people to know that finding your voice can impact your quality of life.

When I was 16 and took myself off my thyroid medication because I felt so horrible and worn out that brushing my hair was a cardio workout but I didn't have a voice.  I didn't have a choice in what doctors I saw, I didn't have options and I wasn't in charge of my own health care decisions.

That all changed when I was 22.  Fresh out of college and on my own for the first time, I landed my first job and got health insurance that I was in charge of.  I found a good general practitioner and began researching what I needed to do to finally get my thyroid in order.

My first appointment and lab draws happened and I got a frantic call from the doctor.  A second set of labs were drawn and only confirmed what the first set of labs saw - my TSH was 35.  Not three point five but THIRTY FIVE.  That's 7 times the highest level of the widest acceptable lab range.  When I realized just how bad that was I really dug in to the research and found options.

My GP worked with me for about a year, my labs got close to normal and I started to have problems with my hair falling out again and I was exhausted, I asked about cytomel or armour thyroid.  He didn't want to do it.  I asked for a referral to an endocrinologist.

She was not keen on letting my try cytomel or Armour but relented when faced with my history and a lot of pleading.  Added cytomel and BAM 60 pounds fell off my body.

Since then I've been a huge proponent of pushing your doctors and doing research on any health issue I don't know about.  I want to understand my body and what it does and how it works.  I'm the expert on me, not some jerk in a white jacket.

If I had known then what I know now, I know I wouldn't have spent my high school and college years morbidly obese.  I know I would have asked questions and would have made the doctors listen to me about my symptoms.

I also would have said SCREW YOU to the doctor I accused me of being a closet eater and lying to him about everything and looking for an easy way out of being fat.

So that's why I blog about my health.  I don't want anyone to have to deal with what I did as a kid or as an adult, either.

Find your voice.  Ask questions.  Research.  Find a community.  Be your own advocate. Keep your chin up, AND NEVER GIVE UP.

Today I learned...

Today I learned ... that I am too hard on myself; that people have more faith in me than I do; and that we can all agree that I don't dress for the job I have.

I took a class today on managing interpersonal relationships and it was kind of common sense and kind of eye opening.

The big revelations? My overall social style is an amiable style. Ok. I buy that. The biggest struggle for me as an amiable person? Confrontation and conflict. No shit! The action I need to take? Initiate, initiate, initiate. Not too shocking. My focus is on personal security? Duh!!

What was shocking was the difference between how I see myself and how others see me. My nine respondents all graded me higher on my skills, competencies and feedback skills than I did. I was pleasantly surprised to see that because the age difference and my relatively low time at the bank make me feel like I have so much more to prove.

I'm going to work to apply those lessons to my life as a whole. I need to trust myself more and not be afraid to rock the boat. I need to be willing to ask for what I deserve and I need to stand up for myself more.

I'm still fighting to get back on track after all my birthday eating and sweets devouring. It's so much easier to abstain when time has passed. Tomorrow is another full day of training and my goal is to not snack between meals and eat exactly what I have planned.  

Being in training and not loving the fridge in the facility I am going to walk down to the local restaurant and get me a lunch box - pimento cheese sandwich, pretzels, dessert square - and a salad of some kind. Breakfast is fruit and a bagel with cream cheese and a latte, because coffee. Dinner is up in the air because I need to go grocery shopping and so we will likely go out to dinner. 

I'm trying to plan the crap out of next week. Breakfasts will be simple fruit, granola and coffee. Lunch is so hard for me because I just can't do sandwiches. I have chicken sausages and will likely do a few days of a sausage with peppers and onions and I may make a stew or siup for the other days this week. Dinner will be a standard meat, carb, protein combination of some kind.

I'm also very seriously considering another round of no bread at all. I've gotten back in to the habit of mindless nomming on bread, rolls, biscuits at meals. I think it's time for a break from my loves... And maybe a sad goodbye to white potatoes as well.

I'm getting more in to sweet potatoes and butternut squash in place of my love the white potato but I'm scared to say goodbye to both.  I did that once before and the fiancée wanted to tie me down and force a biscuit down my throat. I was not a nice person sans bread and potatoes. Not nice at all. I still apologize for that month and a half. 

I'm at a plateau right now, and given that I ate cheesecake, fried cheesecake, brownie sundaes and all the potatoes and martinis I wanted over the last week I'm ok with that.

So ... My goals for year 30 - post a total of 150 blog posts before October 20, 2013. So you'll be hearing from me a lot starting with the NHBPM event starting November 1st. I'm excited about it looking at the prompts. I hope you'll come around and share in the health chat with me! 

Can I stop getting sick now? Please?

As is common this time of year, my upper respiratory tract, sinuses and throat all want to kill me.  And I mean that quite literally.

I've had horrible allergy issues since autumn came for a visit. Then I got a sinus infection the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Now?  Now I have strep throat.

At work on Friday my throat was really hurting, it burned to eat or drink anything and my voice was hoarse.  I figured if I still felt bad on Tuesday I'd go back to the doctor since that would be one week after the antibiotics finished their course. 

Yesterday morning I woke up and my mouth felt horrible.  Dry, coated in something and it hurt to breathe because my throat was so raw.  I figured I was dehydrated and the coat of ick was from sinus drainage.  I put on my big girl panties and headed to Zumba.  After class I was wincing every time I breathed in and so I looked in the mirror and opened my mouth wide.  White patches.  CRAP!

I called Marshall, told him I was cashing my YMCA check and heading to Immediate Care. 

The PA on duty was the one I saw the week before and she looked in my ears, throat and nose and said "Well, the good news is... your nose and ears look great.  That throat?  That is not a happy throat." 

A quick strep test later and I'm given antibiotics for my shiny case of strep and was sent on my way. 

Given that I wasn't running a fever and that I felt fine aside from the soreness in my throat I kept on about my previously planned Saturday.  That included lunch with Marsh and Matt, going to the Wilson Christmas parade, and heading to a birthday party for my friend Jennifer. 

Lunch was Olive Garden.  Soup... heavenly soup. 

The parade was a ton of fun! I was walking with the dance studio where I teach Zumba and since we had such a small turn out of Zumba folks I just walked with the dancers and even did their little dance routine with them.  This means there is not video of me dancing with a large group of tiny high school age and younger girls on the local TV station.  I didn't think that through. 

Oh well. It was a good 2 miles of walking, one of those while dancing.  yay extra cardio?

After coming home and getting changed we headed out to Jennifer's house.  Her birthday party was a really muted even but it was SOOO fun! We ate pizza and snacks and talked and played games on the Kinect. 

I learned that I'm pretty awesome at Dance Central. I got a 5 star rating on my first attempt at Push It.  I want this game so bad it hurts.  Seriously... too much fun!

The only down part of the night was that the antibiotics I'm on started to make me feel really sick.  I had forgotten how bad sulfa medications made me feel.  My stomach started cramping towards the end of the evening and by the time I got home I felt like I was going to spend the evening calling Ralph on the porcelain phone.

I got changed and in to bed and held on as the room spun until I passed out.

Today I am feeling gross still but not nearly as bad as I was yesterday.  My throat is still hurting and I'm trying really hard to speak as little as possible.  (Those of you who know me in real life know how hard that is! The rest of you can guess by my blog!) I also skipped Zumba this afternoon and took a 3 hour nap after sleeping for 13 hours last night. 

For dinner I made a giant pot of chicken soup with brown rice and veggies.  It was perfect, exactly what I needed today.

All I can hope for at this point is that I get through tomorrow with minimal side effects.  I have to drive to Winston Salem for a meeting.  I have to present information about a number of things during the meeting and I hope my voice holds out and that I'm not trying to hold back vomit the entire time. 

The Plus Size Stigma

I'm a big girl.  I've got curves. I've got extra padding.  I'm fluffy.  Most of all - I'm a fitness instructor.

It's a fight every day to remind myself, and everyone else, of that fact.

I loathe the look on a new student's face when they look at me and I know they're thinking "THAT'S the instructor."

But you know what I love even more than I loathe that moment?

The look on their face after 60 minutes of heart pumping, sweat slinging Zumba.  The look of "oh..damn... that woman... my body... ow!"  After a class where I turn those judgmental people in to believers I could walk on air.  I changed their perspective.  I broke down a bias.  I changed the way that person is going to view people... even if only for a short amount of time.

Tonight S and I did two ridiculous hours of Zumba.  We played instructor ping pong so we both could teach all out during the two hours and still have some recovery time in there.  New folks who had never been to our class got to see the best of what both of us are capable of.  That always makes me happy.

S is closer to what people expect to see when they walk in to a fitness class.  She is far more in line with the stereotypes of what an instructor should look like.  Together we are an unstoppable force and it feels amazing to feed off each others energy to get through 120 minutes of cardio.

The down side to all of that is being so hyped up from 2 hours of high intensity, music pumping, Zumba is that it's damn near impossible to get to sleep afterwards. 

The other thing that's got me up and thinking is the impending Hip Hop Hustle/Zumba Toning double feature I've got on my schedule for this weekend. It was hard enough being the fattest person in the room for my Basic 1 licensure but to be the largest person in the room for two days of 8 hours training sessions?

It's going to be a test of wills to not need to grab my bottle of xanax to deal with the fat girl stigma surrounded by those fitness professionals.  Those OTHER fitness professionals, I should say because I, too am a fitness professional. Regardless of what the fat stigma says... the two are not mutually exclusive.

Goal - Simplifying Nutrition

Trying to get a handle on nutrition is no fun.  No fun at all. Everyone tells you weight loss is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out.  Maybe that's generally true but my body is guilty of fuzzy math.

I have Hashimotos Thyroiditis and PCOS and I swear no matter what I do my diet is never "right" for progressive weight loss. I'm on synthroid, cytomel and metformin to control the three issues but it's only helped minimally

I've done it all.  Not so much guilty of yo-yo dieting as much as being nutritionally schizophrenic.

I was vegetarian. I tried Atkins. I tried South Beach. I've tried gluten free, dairy free, sugar free (and all three at the same time!) diets.  I've looked high and low for a dietary strategy that will work for me.  Nothing works.

I faithfully use sparkpeople.com and myfitnesspal.com to log my food and exercise.  I try to limit my intake of pastas, potatoes and even bread to a large extent so that I can stay lower carb.  However....I can't, mentally, deal with any diet that makes a food or group of foods off limit.

So what am I doing to simplify my diet? I'm trying to be moderate in everything... even moderation.

The big thing I'm having to learn is to forgive myself for being normal.  I go through periods of time where I don't want fruit but I eat a ton of vegetables.  I go through Atkins like spells where all I want is meat.  I even have carb binges where I crave pasta and potatoes in dishes like we had when I was growing up.

My current nutrition goals are to continue broadening the fruits and vegetables that are my go to foods.  I love my carrots, cucumbers, celery, and spinach.  I adore raspberries, strawberries, bananas, pineapple and mango. I know there's a whole world of other fruits and veggies out there for me to try.  I've become a zucchini and squash addict in the last few months.  Now to keep exploring!

That goes doubly for the meats I bring in to the house.  I've never cooked duck and I rarely bring fish in to the house because I hated it in the past and I'm scared to spend the money on something I wind up hating. I need to stop being so scared and expand my horizons.

So to those of you out there in blog land - What "new to you" foods have really gotten your cooking juices flowing?  What about fruits and veggies you love that are off the beaten track?